So I've been jossed

[indri]

and over some pathetic small detail that nevertheless completely destroys my almost-finished fic. I spent some time thinking about possible re-writes this morning, but they would all involve me starting almost from scratch, beginning with my background research. Any half-hearted edit would lose the pacing and tension of the current version.

Besides, the point on which I've been jossed seems quite unbelievable to me. Why, during ten decades of powered flight, would Spike never have been on an aeroplane? I can understand Angel not having flown before, as he occasionally suffers from a mild form of technophobia and he was just a little preoccupied for most of the twentieth century, but Spike? He likes his modern conveniences and he's always out for a thrill. He has great physical courage, no known fear of heights (please don't tell me that's why he fell from the tower), nor any other reason why he wouldn't get on a plane.

Oh, I understand why an intercontinental flight might pose a vampire a bit of a problem, even to one willing to hide under blankets and snarl at anyone pulling up a blind, but can anyone not imagine 1930s Spike, with goggles on and a little leather Biggles hat, scamming his way into a night flight and a near-death experience or two? Like fast cars -- but in the air!

So I think Spike was lying. Of course he's been on a plane, just as he's been on a submarine and a zeppelin and a motorcycle. He was just saying that so be kind to Angel.

[And for my next rant: Spike and languages. An explanation as to why he can speak Fyarl but doesn't know Latin, German or Chinese, despite a nineteenth century education and a century of travel.]

Comments

[irfikos.livejournal.com]

okay....

re-wank: spike really *does* know german, he was just playing dumb to throw off the others. umm... that works... right? and as for chinese, they'd only just arrived in china for the first time so he hadn't had a chance to learn it yet and then afterward, he avoided learning on general principle (cuz maybe, deep down, he was afraid to know what the chinese slayer had said to him) or it created a mental block. or he was bluffing about not knowing it later in l.a.

um... yeah. that's it!

Yeah, but it seems to me to be on par with driving drunk in daylight or taking morning jogs under a blanket.

shush now. don't nitpick! :-)

i know what you mean. i tried to stick really close to canon on my first fic but i ended up having a heck of a time writing the ending cuz i had to give spike a soul for it to work and still be canon. i still feel as though i handled it rather sloppily. but i also still feel that my way of giving him a soul was a hell of a lot better than they did it in canon.

so what can ya do? ::shrug::

[indri]

Hee. No, I have no real belief that Spike ought to speak Chinese. I have many Chinese-speaking friends (both native speakers and non-native speakers) and all I can say in Mandarin is "I don't know" and "How are you doing, First Emperor of China?". I was just surprised by his complete lack of German.

i tried to stick really close to canon on my first fic

For some reason I thought "Chain" was your first fic. I may have to look for your others then.

[irfikos.livejournal.com]

spike knows all the good german curse words, obviously.

i mean... that's the first think i like to learn in any language. i know how to curse in several languages and to say "i love you" in several languages. cuz it doesn't hurt to be prepared.

i know absolutely nothing in chinese. but then, i've never met anyone from china, either. i think it would be interesting to learn, though.

"chain" actually was my first fic. that's the one i was referring to, in fact. the latter sections of part 4? very sloppy. ugh. i love section 4.1 though. ::shrugh:: go fig.

[indri]

"chain" actually was my first fic. that's the one i was referring to, in fact.

Argh. See, I couldn't remember anything about Spike's soul in that. My cursed memory. Or maybe I got confused. I will have to go back and look.