Stuff...

[shadowkat]

Well, I set up an interview with another staffing company for
Thursday. So my week is just about complete. Hesistant to call more. Have two staffing companies at the moment. And two I've sent resumes too. Maybe I'll call two more next week? (Should
confess and state how much I despise interviewing with staffing companies...all promise, no deliverance, and they have a nasty habit of blaming the applicant for that.) Feeling edgy at the moment, afraid to hope, afraid not to. Trying to figure out what else I should do to prepare for this interview tomorrow. I need to go in with attitude. Apparently that's how Marsters got the job as Spike - he went in with the view it was his role. Attitude! It's all about attitude! (Except she thinks, I did go in with attitude on other jobs and still didn't get hired...)

Some tid-bits on Moonlight Rising Con have shown up on whedonesque. These support my gut reactions to GiTR which was that JM was doing GiTR for pretty much the same reasons we write fanfic. It's his hobby. He has no delusions that he can *really* sing or have a career as a musician. He states clearly at the con that after two years of voice lessons he still can't cut it and he can barely play guitare. He doesn't feel the same level of confidence singing in a band that he does performing as an actor. I got that watching him on stage.
Also? Apparently he's gotten funding to film Macbeth, and may do a Spike TV movie in the near future.

Feeling a little leery of the S6 ATS fanfic initiatives out there - particularly regarding the character of Spike. I admit, Spike is tough. I haven't tried to write the character since my Fanged Four outing. Not sure I trust myself to write for either Spike or Angel. You have to make sure you keep up the duality - self-loathing/bravada/swagger/poet. And you have to be careful not to make him a "bad" poet, Spike doesn't consider himself a bad poet necessarily and no one is necessarily bad. Don't let your own issues get in the way of character. If you want a *really* good fanfic character sketch on Spike - try the "Lydia's Thesis" that a group of academic writers wrote a year ago. Another writer who has done a good job with showing the duality of good and bad in William is Peasant and herselfnyc - on the Buggered website. (Yes, there's lots of NC-17 content, but if you check out AllAboutSpike.com you can find stuff that isn't. Lydia's Thesis has no NC-17 content that I am aware of.) In their fics - there's that obsessiveness in his character - Spike obsesses over things. He isn't a planner. He goes with his gut. Emotion, raw. He is impulsive. That's why he can't be the leader - he doesn't strategize, he just does. Unlike Angel, Spike likes people, likes to be around them socializing. He has no problems with women - Spike isn't William who couldn't get a girl. This guy gets girl's just by winking at them. Unlike Angel, Spike loves food, is a sensationalist. HE enjoys feeling things. He likes to let it all hang out. He will and does put his foot in his mouth. And he likes women with power.

The danger many people make is thinking Spike was like Andrew or Warren as William. Do not make the mistake of drawing too close a line between other characters. Also don't write for a character that you are biased against, the reader will sense it. Ugh. Enuf of this crap, I got work to do. I'm sure no one cares what I think about all of this. Besides I said I was moving away from it...Damn! All edgy regarding other things going on this week. Damn - I wish someone would just hire me already, being at home hunting work and worrying about it is driving me crazy!


Okay off to hunt more stuff on Liberty Mutual and check job want ads...much fun.

Comments

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

Our ideas on Spike are very similar, and I'm mindful of everything you said. I've very interested in your views on Spike and was going to ask for your input anyway. I like Spike, I like how he enjoys life, how he accepts his faults, how he is able to change and grow. He's not William, that was over one hundred years ago. And he's not souless Spike, or love's bitch, anymore either.

Good luck on the job hunt.

Thanks...

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Been busy today - preparing for interview, setting up another one, etc, so sorry didn't get back to you. ;-)

I like Spike, I like how he enjoys life, how he accepts his faults, how he is able to change and grow. He's not William, that was over one hundred years ago. And he's not souless Spike, or love's bitch, anymore either.

I agree.

What's interesting about Spike and Angel is how they are now mirror reflections of what they once were. And ensouled how each incorporated that prior being.

William was insecure with women and people, at a loss for words, stuttering, shied away from violence, found the whole idea of a fight reprehensible and hateful, preferred books and love poems, spoke in an upper-crust accent, only secure with a powerful female mother figure who stroked him made him feel safe - Spike is the opposite, Spike is secure with women and people, loves a good brawl, prefers to study fighting techniques, when he write poetry it can be bawdy, has a North London working man's accent, loves bars, loves to drink, loves violence - gets off on it actually, and when confronted with a strong/powerful female mother figure feels conflicted and gets a little obsessive - he wants to challenge them, maybe even slay them.
Mirror image, not opposites really just reflections.

With a soul some of William has seeped back in, he no longer wishes to kill that strong female figure - worked out that demon, but he still is drawn to her. He also goes out and does poetry in public.
He pulls his punches. The violence while still enjoyable isn't as enjoyable as it was. It's tainted.

Re: Thanks...

[hankat.livejournal.com]

I think this is where the happenings in Lies My Parents Told Me are so important. William loved his mother and that part of William never died in the vampire but was perverted. He never thought past the gut need to have his mother around him always. Instead of allowing her to die because it was her time he attempted to cheat death and bring her back. Instead of his mother he got back a monster that was intolerable. His vision of his mother was ruined and he did the right thing by dusting her. It also moulded him into the type of monster he became. Not good enough were the incidental deaths he participated in for "food", he needed to destroy a strong female. This leads him to Slayers who he kills for the thrill and attention. Slayers are first his damnation and ultimately his salvation when he meets Buffy and everything he does next is for her. In Lies, Spike is able to work out what was real and what was the perversion in the mother he created out of love. Without the soul love becomes perverted and selfish. But as he was capable of loving at all, Spike finally finds his way to a soul and the beginning of the end of his journey. Losing the jacket/second skin in The Girl in Question is the last stripping away of what he thought he should be to becoming who he is.

Rufus

Re: Thanks...

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I'd agree with that assessment. Yes, I think that's exactly what the writers intended.