A writing Whinge (because I haven't done one of those for, oh, at least a week and a half)

[shapinglight]

to misquote Joyce from School Hard, and with further mention of various thoughts I've had during my BtVS rewatch.

And I would've put all of that in the title of my post, but LJ wouldn't let me.

Anyway, yes. I'm supposed to be writing something for seasonal_spuffy at the beginning of May, but have no ideas whatsoever. I suppose I should ask for prompts. Prompts, anyone?



I'm wondering when it was I became primarily a Spuffy writer (which has sort of happened by default, must admit, because even before the Buffy comics stomped all over the very idea, I didn't think Buffy meant the ILY in Chosen - not that she has to have meant it for people to be able to write Spuffy, but still...).

I think it must be down to sb_fag_ends as much as anything. I try (though I failed miserably last year) to produce at least one drabble or ficlet for the comm every month, and my fic ideas are so thin on the ground now that I don't have any left over for seasonal_spuffy.

:Gloom:

It's not just something for seasonal_spuffy I'm struggling with writing either. I had every intention of getting on with my abandoned Spangel story while S was away last weekend, but ended up writing a measly 1500 words that didn't advance the plot much at all.

I started the story in 2007 (I think). The part I'd already written had some bits and pieces of slashy stuff in it. I think I'm probably going to have to remove them wholesale.

This is because I'm finding it very difficult to even entertain the idea of Spangel these days, thanks to the comics showing the relationship between Spike and Angel as nine parts raging hatred and one part gay panic (on both their parts, but especially Spike's), not to mention when re-watching the Spike/Angel interaction in BtVS season 2 I couldn't for the life of me see where the dynamic between them, as so often written in old slash fics, ever came from in the first place.

There aren't many of the old slash writers around these days, and the ones that are're probably not on my flist, but if anyone has an opinion on the subject I would be quite interested to know what they think that dynamic was based on back in the day (you know, the sire/childe stuff, which I freely admit to enjoying a lot at one time, not to mention writing it myself). Was it based solely on the fact that Spike originally said Angel was his sire and people just took that and ran with it, and then people read their stories and a huge body of fanon developed which lots of people confused with canon, or what?

Returning to the subject of me not being able to write anything, sadly, much though I'd like to put it down to disillusionment with fanon tropes, I'm afraid it's far more down to me just being out of ideas. I can't work out how the plot of this Spangel fic should go forward to the end I envisaged for it (at least I do have an end envisaged), and generally writing is just all hard and stuff and makes my brain hurt. :(

:More gloom:

Comments

[rahirah]

Actually there was a magazine 'interview' with Spike and Drusilla published in late S2 where Spike said Drusilla was his sire, and what little he decribes of it doesn't contradict FFL. So that part seems to have been retconned pretty early, even if it never made it onto the show. (Spike being roughly 150 in that article also fits with the FFL turning date, which makes it really weird when he claims to be 126 in S4.) Interestingly, when asked about his human past in that interview, Spike refused to answer and just said it was "embarrassing."

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Weird, I remember him saying that he envisioned the character as a street punk and how Joss threw him with the script to Fool for Love.

Those articles often contradicted themselves. Although maybe I'm just misremembering? It's possible. I read so many interviews. I don't have the links to any of them though.

The show was fun to argue in part because people contradicted themselves constantly in interviews, etc. Marsters was notorious for it. He'd say something in one interview and the complete opposite in the next. Although he has been consistent about
OMWF, and to an extent on Spike's relationship with Dru. (I'm guessing that the writer's changed who sired Spike after What's My Line, when they decided to change the story arc. He may have initially been sired by Angel, but they changed their mind?
Or the comment was always meant in the "Yoda/mentor" sense of the word and not literally "my sire". No way of knowing for certain.
I just remember the fights over it - which were still going on in 2002.)

[rahirah]

I don't think Marsters wrote the replies in that one -- I saw a scan of the original magazine pages once, and I =think= the Spike & Dru content was credited to Joss. Entirely possible that Marsters never saw that article at all. Certainly a lot of the fans never seem to have heard of it. Besides that one, I don't ever remember seeing anything from the writers that was a definitive statement about Spike's past until FFL aired, but that doesn't mean there's nothing out there.

[shapinglight]

I remember that 'interview', and yes, I think Joss did write it. Some of the answers sound very Jossian.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Oh that's really interesting!

The numbers never do really add up, even when you try it with and without his human years. *sigh* Continuity buffs despair!

[shapinglight]

I think it had been retconned by the time of Lie To Me only a few episodes later. Angel tells Buffy all about how he sired Drusilla but he never mentions Spike at all. If he had, you'd think he would have said so, given that Spike and Dru came as a set, as it were.