zodion application
✖ CHARACTER:
Name: Spike (né William Pratt)
Canon: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel
PB/Image: James Marsters
Info links: BtVS wiki
Canon Point: 7x22, post-Chosen; Spike has just sacrificed himself to save Buffy and the Slayers. Which isn’t actually a rock band, sadly.
Gender: Male
Age: Was 28 when turned, and maintains that appearance, though in reality he is over 120 years old.
Birthdate/Sign: 8/20. As far as I can determine, Spike/William has no canon birthday. 8/20 is James Marsters', but Leo fits his character very well. It incorporates his playfulness and his arrogance, his romantic side as well as his need to take risks and garner attention. It being a fire sign is appropriately contradictory--as a vampire, Spike is/was susceptible to fire but attracted to it at the same time.
Tattoo: Leo sign, low on left hip
Suitability: N/A
Power: As a vampire, Spike possesses advanced senses such as hearing, smell and night vision. I am given to understand that these are *not* considered powers, and do not count towards this category. I am also told he would be able to walk in sunlight, not require blood, etc--I may require clarification on these points, however.
The power I would like him to retain is his physical strength. Vampires are much stronger than humans (without added weight or muscle mass) and it is tied to their age. A vampire as old as Spike would be roughly equivalent to a Slayer.
As back-up, I would also accept the Calling Flame power from the fire category.
Personality: Vampires are, typically, soulless, immoral creatures, hidebound to tradition and the time in which they're "born." Spike is a notable exception to the rule: while he is just as violent and amoral, he embraces a spectrum of human experience atypical for his kind. The inherent contradiction of his nature is the conflict between violence and love: he's selfish, impulsive, and irrational, but when he loves he loves entirely and that love can dictate his character. He is a romantic (small r and big R) as well as a villain, an opportunist and a slave to passion. He's a bad boy who would do anything for his girl. He's got ADHD as well as unshakable determination. His passion for life is, if anything, augmented by his "death." And in the final analysis, Spike is unique in being the only vampire to voluntarily reclaim his soul.
Reacting against his staid upbringing and his own bookishness, Spike felt a freedom in his vampiredom that he fully embraced. He became a rebel, motivated by thrills and his love for Drusilla. These forces drove him for over a hundred years, during which he was not plagued by conscience or remorse. While it might appear as though he learned little, he did become a prodigious fighter and a decent tactician, though he's rarely patient enough to see his plans through and prefers to wade in fighting. He is a student of language and literature as well as popular culture, staying well in touch with the human world.
Several things happened after his arrival in Sunnydale which altered his personality, or at least how he related to the world, for good. First, Angelus' return upset the balance between himself and Drusilla, causing him to take sides with Buffy in order to "save the world"--which, after all, he enjoys living in. Second, his actions in doing so caused Drusilla to leave him, citing his "softness" and humanity as the reason. Eventually returning to Sunnydale, he was captured and a microchip was implanted in his brain which caused him pain whenever he attempted to hurt humans, leading him to seek asylum with Buffy and her friends. His adaptive nature in concert with his obsessiveness and thrill-seeking led to his falling in love with Buffy, his natural and actual enemy.
This obsession/love, while grounded in physical lust, engendered more behavioral changes. In essence, he turned from being Drusilla's monster to take the maxim "What Would Buffy Do?" as his moral guide, and even if he was doing it for selfish reasons, began to act in an unselfish and even noble manner. He withstood torture rather than give up Buffy's sister, Dawn. He fought at Buffy's side, and even after her death continued to protect Dawn and do Buffy's work, without the slightest hope of reward. This apparent inconsistency actually speaks of a deeper continuity of character: Spike is highly motivated by relationships, loyalty, and feeling, having little use for good or evil as concepts in and of themselves. The change in influence, and hence loyalty, prompted a shift in his moral compass.
Notably, little of this alters once he acquires a soul. Spike’s personality remains largely intact, albeit with a firmer grasp of right and wrong no longer measured by its effect on loved ones. Considering Spike’s many human traits, and the motivation for his immoral behavior, it is perhaps not all that surprising. And the fact that he voluntarily sought out his soul indicates an unusual degree of “humanity” for a vampire, a hint that even without a conscience, his ability to understand that he had done wrong was much more pronounced than might be expected.
Though violent, restless, and passionate, Spike is also snarky and observant, especially when it comes to relationships and human nature. This does not include his own, however, which is an enormous blind spot for him. In a group, he is the one most likely to be standing aside and commenting on the action. In his interactions with others, Spike tends to use words as often as violence, especially once he's "neutered" by the chip. He can be very manipulative as well as politically astute, which isn't to say he refines his speech at all and is a terrible liar. He responds better to women than men when it comes to companionship. And while he is capable of taking charge, it is not a strong motivation for him if he can get what he wants otherwise. Just as causing pain was never a motivation for his violence--he acts for his own pleasure and the thrill. Both an opportunist and a romantic, Spike follows his impulses. That and his sensitivity and need for attention leaves him open to addiction and abuse, though he tends to bounce back and does not actually enjoy being used.
Spike is highly sexual, but also highly driven by love. When he loves, he is faithful, passionate, and loyal, and he's capable of tailoring his sex drive to that situation. When given the opportunity however, whether in a relationship or not in one, he enjoys sex a lot and enjoys variety. Canonically heterosexual, the hint of Angel/Spike as well as the general sense of fluid sexuality in the Buffyverse, added with his pursuit of novelty and thrill, convinces me he's functionally bisexual with a strong leaning towards women where relationships are concerned. Prone to obsessive love, he does not enter into it easily, though he leaves it even less so.
✖ SAMPLES:
"Zodion" First-Person Network Entry:
[Video: A bleached-blond man who appears to be in his late 20s cocks his head in view of the camera. His manner is jaunty; anyone who knows him, however, will see a strain in his eyes that is unusual.]
So this is that network I heard about. Right. Gonna need a few things.
First off, notice when the other shoe drops, ‘cause this isn’t any version of Hell I ever heard of.
Second, there's a fine art to dive bars and I want the names of the best ones.
Third… some news I’m sort of waitin’ for back home so anyone can tell me what went down in Sunnydale will have my... well, you won't get anything out of it but that nice warm fuzzy feeling, and who doesn't love that?
"Zodionlogs" Third-Person Prose Entry:
I love you.
No you don’t. But thanks for saying it.
He was supposed to be dead. That, those words and the sunlight spilling around him, were as close to Heaven as Spike ever thought he’d get. Not that he’d ever thought too much about it-point of being a vampire was your soul was already damned, and you were still here, and if you were lucky you’d live forever. He’d never had much interest in Hell, either, because for him Earth had never lost its luster, and it was way too much fun breaking things to think of putting his toys away.
Who knew he’d end up saving it. Twice.
At least, he hoped he had. All he remembered was Buffy’s hand and his own going up in flames, burning but not hot, like his soul was grown too big for his body to contain it and had to come out somewhere. But he wasn’t supposed to remember anything at all. It was supposed to be over. He didn’t deserve Buffy’s Heaven and he hoped he didn’t deserve Angel’s Hell and as much as Spike had always sought the very opposite of self-negation it was worth it, to save them all. To close the thing he’d come here to find. Somehow he’d come full circle and done a 180 at the same time, but Spike had never been all that good at self-reflection.
It took him a moment to realize he was standing in the sun and try to cover his head with his jacket-another moment to realize he was no longer burning and the light surrounding him was soft and bright and… well, like sunlight, as opposed to magical flaming vampire. Frowning, he shrugged his duster back down onto his shoulders and looked around. Not Sunnydale. Not anyplace he’d ever been, though it was a bit like one of those crappy landscapes you saw in pretentious seaside tourist towns. Like that “painter of light” ponce.
Just his luck, to make it upstairs and discover he was in a bloody Thomas Kinkade painting. Or maybe, he thought with a sudden stab of panic, it was the opposite. Hell as described had always seemed just a tad too much fun to serve the purpose it was supposed to.
Turning in a circle, he caught sight of the altar, and the box on it, and sighed. Another bloody ritual, another quest with no end point in sight. Reluctantly, feet dragging, he stalked over the weird little ring of water and-
Some said the world would end in fire, and some in ice, but this was just stupid. All Spike wanted to know what whether it had worked, whether Buffy was alive, and glowing boxes and little stabby pains on his hip seemed even less important than usual.
“Bugger this,” Spike muttered and turned-only to be confronted with his own nude reflection. Which was unusual enough in and of itself, though of course he’d made liberal use of the Polaroid when it first came out, and-was that a tattoo? He prodded at his hipbone, recognizing the symbol from the sort of texts you only read because whatever you were dealing with believed that mumbo-jumbo. Leo. The mark was only slightly darker than his own pale skin, and Spike thought it was a pretty awful waste of a good pick-up line.
Spike had had enough.
“All right,” he yelled up into the sky, or at least the round patch of it visible within the circle of water. “Where am I an’ what the bloody hell d’you want, you wankers?”