Things that make you go hmm...
Jan. 9th, 2008 11:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxWhen writing fanfic, do you ever have a character moment stuck in your head that you simply cannot resolve, and you're not sure why it's there in the first place? What's particularly strange about this detail is that it's part of a backstory which will quite probably never find its way into the actual fic (at least not in written form), it's just... it's in my head and I can't figure it out. And, what I did figure out isn't what I had initially intended.
I'm talking in circles aren't I?
Basically, while working on my current WIP (yeah, I am still working on it) I developed a backstory for Spike (and one for Buffy as well) spanning the years post-NFA to the point where this fic takes place (which happens to be 17 years after Chosen.) Part of Spike's backstory is that he fell in love with someone. I find it difficult to believe that a romantic like Spike wouldn't fall for someone in 17 years, and my initial intention was that he had found a bit of happiness with this someone.
Yeah, it didn't work out that way.
For whatever reason that the mind works the way that it does, the backstory went in its own direction and in my head the woman turned out to be a suicidal empath. I don't know why. And that's the thing I've been trying to work out. Why does Spike fall for women with a few screws loose?
I'm not talking about my vague backstory idea, I'm thinking about his canon love affairs. Dru's screws were falling out all over the floor, and then there's Buffy. I realize that her screws weren't completely out when he began falling for her, but by the time the two of them connected, Buffy had lost several screws and was in the process of losing more. In fact, that's probably one of the few areas of common ground between Dru and Buffy (that and neither of them treated Spike particularly well even if on some level they both loved him). What is it in Spike that leads him to loving women who are spectacularly messed up? Both women were at sea when they came together with Spike. Speeding past Dru's tortured backstory, in the scene immediately preceding her choice to vamp William, she was complaining of being lonely and lost, searching for a knight for her bats in the belfry princess. And we all know that Buffy was drowning in a sea of confusion when she began using Spike for comfort. And, like many drowning victims, she latched onto her lifeline, nearly pushing under the person swimming to help her. I think that's why my imaginary backstory took the unintentional turn that it did. Subconsciously, I hooked into that common ground between Dru and Buffy, even though this isn't really about Dru and Buffy. It's about Spike. What do these loves say about Spike? I don't have a grip on this idea or what it means. But it must mean something in my Spike characterization as it's apparently bubbling away somewhere in my subconscious.
Any ideas? What was Spike's affinity with screwed-up women?
Bueller?
I'm talking in circles aren't I?
Basically, while working on my current WIP (yeah, I am still working on it) I developed a backstory for Spike (and one for Buffy as well) spanning the years post-NFA to the point where this fic takes place (which happens to be 17 years after Chosen.) Part of Spike's backstory is that he fell in love with someone. I find it difficult to believe that a romantic like Spike wouldn't fall for someone in 17 years, and my initial intention was that he had found a bit of happiness with this someone.
Yeah, it didn't work out that way.
For whatever reason that the mind works the way that it does, the backstory went in its own direction and in my head the woman turned out to be a suicidal empath. I don't know why. And that's the thing I've been trying to work out. Why does Spike fall for women with a few screws loose?
I'm not talking about my vague backstory idea, I'm thinking about his canon love affairs. Dru's screws were falling out all over the floor, and then there's Buffy. I realize that her screws weren't completely out when he began falling for her, but by the time the two of them connected, Buffy had lost several screws and was in the process of losing more. In fact, that's probably one of the few areas of common ground between Dru and Buffy (that and neither of them treated Spike particularly well even if on some level they both loved him). What is it in Spike that leads him to loving women who are spectacularly messed up? Both women were at sea when they came together with Spike. Speeding past Dru's tortured backstory, in the scene immediately preceding her choice to vamp William, she was complaining of being lonely and lost, searching for a knight for her bats in the belfry princess. And we all know that Buffy was drowning in a sea of confusion when she began using Spike for comfort. And, like many drowning victims, she latched onto her lifeline, nearly pushing under the person swimming to help her. I think that's why my imaginary backstory took the unintentional turn that it did. Subconsciously, I hooked into that common ground between Dru and Buffy, even though this isn't really about Dru and Buffy. It's about Spike. What do these loves say about Spike? I don't have a grip on this idea or what it means. But it must mean something in my Spike characterization as it's apparently bubbling away somewhere in my subconscious.
Any ideas? What was Spike's affinity with screwed-up women?
Bueller?
