Take the fall.

[hannah]

A while back, in the early stages of planning out my current Buffy WIP, I was talking through its plot points with someone and commented, "It'd be terrible to have Spike as a parent."

"Because he's so much cooler than you'll ever be," they said.

"No, because he killed people," I told them.

A while later, not so long ago, I was chatting with someone else and came across a few pictures of Anthony Stewart Head in a stage role that were also the clearest pictures I'd ever seen of his right hand, and idly wondered if there was ever a fic where Giles' right hand looked the same way Head's does in real life.

"Some consequence of his years of dark magic, perhaps," they said.

"Not as consequence of anything. Just a thing," I said.

Thinking back on these two exchanges, I realize that it's very good to be able to point to specific incidents that help me understand how fundamentally different my approach is to the same material that we've all watched.

(Also, if there is such a fic, I'd be delighted to know it exists.)

Comments

[petra]

Just checking in to say I am glad your brain works the way it does, and that your efforts to socialize the Spuffy fans are nigh heroic.

[hannah]

Yeah, the thing with his hand, I was genuinely flabbergasted. I didn't know how to ask them, "Sweet Jesus, what just came out of your head?"

[thenewbuzwuzz]

"and idly wondered if there was ever a fic where Giles' right hand looked the same way Head's does in real life"
Ooh, that's a good idea.

[hannah]

It wouldn't even have to be the focus of the fic. Just a thing that exists as part of the narrative.

[scripsi]

"Because he's so much cooler than you'll ever be," they said.

"No, because he killed people," I told them.

I'm with you there.

I have never heard about Anthony Stewart Head's hand- and never noticed either. But then I had known a friend for several years when she casually mentioned something about her damaged hand. I asked f she had hurt herself, and it turned out she had lost one of he little fingers in an accident when she was 10. And I had never noticed....

[hannah]

Thank you. It was a moment of bafflement, when they said that.

When finding out your parents are people includes finding out your parents were very bad people - it's a more interesting conversation when you don't stop loving them.

Someone pointed his hand out to me, and now I can't not pay attention.