I thought about this after I commented on your story. What I love about your vignettes is the "realness" of their lives. They don't just achieve baby and "live happily ever after". You are showing the messy, hectic stuff that goes with having children and a family. I like knowing that little Bill is a terror at the market. I like seeing how Spike deals and how Buffy reacts.
Getting there may be half the fun, but you are showing the rest of the story.
One of the things I like best is dealing with the intersection of the weird and the mundane - instead of going "Woe! I am a creature of the night!" looking at it as a logistical problem: supposing half the members of your family are flammable in sunlight; how would you deal with it? It's oddly satisfying to work this stuff out...
I have a scenelet in my head which I've never found a place for, about Buffy finding something of her mother and being forcibly struck by the fact that she never really knew who Joyce Summers was. Sometimes I look at old photos of my own mom, and am just stunned by the concept of her being a person and having a life above and beyond being My Mother...
What a fascinating post. I never thought about how you were using the kids as symbols. And it is a very legitimate motif to explore (kids as a new arena of adult metaphors
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I do find it interesting that kids remain effective symbols of pair-bonding in fiction (at least, fanfiction...I don't know if it holds true in regular fiction), I think that's a phenomenon mostly limited to fan fiction. It's not really necessary in mainstream fiction, because there's not that air of...competition?...between rival pairings. Although I think the whole 'lifebond' business in some fantasy series may be related
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I think that's a phenomenon mostly limited to fan fiction. It's not really necessary in mainstream fiction, because there's not that air of...competition?...between rival pairings.Baby=Destiny is a huge soap opera plot contrivance as well. Within the world of soaps, characters are always going on and on about the fact they are having a child proves they were meant to be together. A variation is a character being confused why if she is having P's baby, and clearly having someone's baby is TPTB's way of saying you are meant to be together, does she has feelings for S. The answer is that unbeknownst to her, it's actually S's baby, so then it makes perfect sense why she's engaging in whatever socially wrong behavior in order to be with S, because of the destiny baby
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Wow, that soap-motif stuff is head-spinning for somebody like me. I only ever watched one soap, and only for about 1.5 years, and I don't remember ANY pregnancy storylines in it at all.
That soap-motif idea you describe actually makes my skin crawl with revulsion. Yes, I know these are MY issues. :shakes head:
I am a solidly childfree person, yet it bothers me not one whit that you write a Buffy and Spike who are parents, because, as you point out, most women do become mothers ... my little sister has two boys and as a loving indulgent aunt I can identify with your Buffy's motherhood even if I would (and do) choose to be childfree myself.
I do believe canon Buffy *wanted* to have children, and mourned the role she was forced into that she perhaps felt would prevent her being a mother.
It is utterly fascinating to read of your domestic Spike and Buffy who continue about the slaying business pragmatically while simultaneously rearing children. It's not only fascinating, it's emotionally satisfying. No cliches or easy labeled slots for them ... they create their own version of an unapologetically healthy, functional family ... on their own terms.
I tend to think Buffy in canon was just getting to a point where she was thinking that maybe she might want to have children someday when the show ended. I don't think it was a major concern for her, or something she was pining after. And quite possibly she would have decided against it in the end. But she did look awfully interested when Wood told her that his mother was a Slayer. Perhaps having the possibility open was important to her, even if she never took advantage of it.
(I wonder if Joss is going to deal with the fact that out of fifteen hundred horny teenage superheroes, or however many it was, at least a few of them are going to get knocked up...)
I wonder if Joss is going to deal with the fact that out of fifteen hundred horny teenage superheroes, or however many it was, at least a few of them are going to get knocked up...
Given the Slayer sex drive, it's practically a given.
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Getting there may be half the fun, but you are showing the rest of the story.
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That soap-motif idea you describe actually makes my skin crawl with revulsion. Yes, I know these are MY issues. :shakes head:
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I do believe canon Buffy *wanted* to have children, and mourned the role she was forced into that she perhaps felt would prevent her being a mother.
It is utterly fascinating to read of your domestic Spike and Buffy who continue about the slaying business pragmatically while simultaneously rearing children. It's not only fascinating, it's emotionally satisfying. No cliches or easy labeled slots for them ... they create their own version of an unapologetically healthy, functional family ... on their own terms.
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(I wonder if Joss is going to deal with the fact that out of fifteen hundred horny teenage superheroes, or however many it was, at least a few of them are going to get knocked up...)
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Given the Slayer sex drive, it's practically a given.
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