This may or may not be signficant

[snick_backup]

gabrielleabelle's post about fans of early BtVS vs. fans of late BtVS got me thinking about how I think fannishly about early and late BtvS. As I told Gabs, I'm in fandom because of Spike, specifically Spike from FFL on. If it weren't for the Spike redemption arc, I'd have watched the show, said, "That was fun," and moved on with my life. (As I seem to have done with Ats, for the most part.) Instead, here I am, and as a result I've become a lot more invested in parts of the show I didn't care much about the first time through.

And yet, I still view the parts differently. The parts I love best, what grabbed hold of my brain and won't let go, are still Spike, his character arc, and his interaction with other folks on the show. When I write about Spike and other elements of later BtVS, I tend to write "from the ground," so to speak; I'm emotionally invested in the fictional reality of the story I'm telling. I'm interested in the characters as people - just, yanno, fictional ones.

Whereas when I'm writing about early BtVS - basically just S2 at this point - I seem to worry a lot more about themes and symbolism and all that literary junk. This was especially true of Abandon Hope, which was practically nothing but meta. I tend to think things through more abstractly, and am much less emotionally engaged. I'm analyzing, not role-playing. It's not that I don't find the early seasons interesting; I like S2 more every time I watch it. It's just that I don't seem to interact with it the way I do with, say, S5.

Of course, I don't have much of a sample set yet. In particular, my two S2 pieces were both written for other people, and they both have a more formal structure than the rest of my stuff. So maybe this is just coincidence? Or maybe it's simply that I've never been as emotionally engaged by S2 (or S3, or most of S4) as I am by events later in the series.

Comments

[rahirah]

I wouldn't be fannish without Spike, but I also wouldn't be fannish if Spike didn't inhabit a universe which has just enough rough edges and holes in it as to invite patching them, and interact with characters I find fascinating. So while I haven't written much pre-Gift fic, I think a lot about how the first five seasons lead into my 'verse, and I'd like to try writing some some day.

[snickfic]

I also wouldn't be fannish if Spike didn't inhabit a universe which has just enough rough edges and holes in it as to invite patching them, and interact with characters I find fascinating.

Yeah. He doesn't exist in a vacuum - he needs all that context for him to make sense.