Sides Shmides...that's fanfic!

[rabid1st]

So, a connected buddy of mine is telling me about the latest Angel sides and suddenly the conversation looks like this...(paraphrased for the most part)...

ME: You are kidding?

Her: Uhmm...no, that's what it says?

ME: But...BUT that's a book...

Her: Excuse me?

ME: Seriously (and here I mention all the major plot points again)...that's a book...Spike and Dru...or rather...WAIT...no...NO...it's fanfic.

Her: It's a fanfic? What part?

ME: All of it...okay...part of it is from the novel Spike and Dru...and the rest of it is...wait...mind...WORK mind...yes! It is from an older fanfic...and a really good one, too.




Thinking I MUST be misunderstanding...I attempt to recap what I have learned so far...
rabid1st: There is a sub...and Spike flashback to evil...and for some reason Spike takes 2 gay vamps with him to rescue some people for the INITITIVE...and Angel acts all mopey?
Her: lol
Her: Nooooooooooo
Her: this guy, Mr. something or other, comes to visit Angel
Her: Angel sees him
Her: there is a flashback
Her: to 1942
Her: or 43
Her (paraphrased): and Spike is on a submarine...killing people. And there are nazi vampires. Or the nazis are trying to make vampires so they can use them as weapons.

ME (turns out I did read that right the first time): That's Mustang Sally...hang on...let me make sure...

I go to ask CAIA (she knows everything...if I was on Who Wants To Marry A Millionaire...she would be my "phone a friend" lifeline...the one that OBJECTS TO THE UNION...she never "holds her piece")...and she confirms my suspicions...

JW and COMPANY are using a big chunk of a fic called The Heart's Filthy Lesson by Mustang Sally and Rivkat in an upcoming Angel episode.

Not that I blame them. It happens to be one of the few fics I wish I had written.

Still...it has come to this...they are officially out of ideas of their own...and also...Fury and Petrie are doing a Mary Sue, if rumor is to be believed. There are characters of both of them. Sheesh! Maybe this is just a bad joke to tide us all over the hiatus?



Rae

Comments

[thisficklemob.livejournal.com]

Dude, you should not call me. I have a very limited repertoire of exceedingly random knowledge. If they ask about Spuffy fanfic, then you can call me. ;)

I...the one that OBJECTS TO THE UNION...she never "holds her piece")...

I have NO idea what any of that means.

Here's what I remember from
The Heart's Filthy Lesson that sounds similar... Spike busts into a Nazi experimentation lab to rescue Dru, who they wanted for her her visions. It's pretty damn dark, and includes a vamped baby, too young to have teeth to turn to fangs.

The other part is that Spike's flashback is incited by running into a demon who'd been a prisoner in the camps and was hunting the last of them the demons and vampires who were/worked with the Nazis.

This is a stunning fic. Just wrenching. And it takes the Nazis as human evil seriously, not just as a "hey, human's do evil too," example. Some of it is still lodged in my heart. Like Spike's understated, appalling horror that while he was unconscious, the Scoobies took the body of the dead demon to the incinerator at the recycling center. "He was a Holocaust survivor, you git! You think you finished the Nazis work for them?"

That's a paraphrase, as I haven't read this fic in a long time. But I still remember.

I don't blame ME too much for visiting the time period – what the vampires did during the World Wars and other major events is a perfectly reasonable avenue to explore. But if you want to read THE definitive work about it, read this fic. And the sequels, as well, because Mustang Sally and RivkaT are simply maestros.

caia

[darkwoods.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I noticed the plot similarity too.

I'm a big fan of the brilliant series of fics by Mustang Sally and RivkaT called the Bowiehabarata. You'll recognize the titles are David Bowie song titles.

The first two fics in this series borrow from the Indiana Jones adventure mythos. The second in the series, Serious Moonlight, is set largely in 1920s Egypt featuring(my personal favorite)living Spike.

The Heart's Filthy Lesson does flashback to the Nazis' attempt to control vampires and force them to do the bidding of the Nazi regime. As was mentioned earlier, Spike rescues Drusilla and ships her to Angel in Moscow for safety before kicking the ass of a vampire who then resurfaces in present day Sunnydale.

In the Heart's Filthy Lesson, Spike is rewarded with a soul by a Keshonte demon for fighting against the Nazis. The Keshonte demon, in this fic, is "the Simon Wiesenthal of the demon world. who spends his life..."hunting down demons and vampires who worked with the Nazis."

What appears to me to be shaping up on AtS 5 is the whole issue of who is controlling Angel, and by extension Spike. It seems like everybody wants to. It looks like the game of Go which we saw being enacted in season 7 Buffy is still being played. Are The Powers that Be and W&H the only Players? I don't know, but Angel and Spike are definitely pieces on the board.

That having been said, I think it is understandable that ME would search for other times when powerful entities would try to harness vampire power. If Fury et al ripped off Mustang Sally and RivkaT, they also ripped off a lot of fiction that features Nazis as reliable stand-ins for ultimate evil. Perhaps too, they reckoned that flashbacks are an amusing device to feed us backstory on Angel and Spike's relationship. Pre-Buffy pre-souled evil Spike - always a crowd pleaser.

Well...yes...true...

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

...to both of you! When it was my fic being pillaged I was always on the side of THIS could be a coincidence. It is hardly a stretch. Fanfic writers study the show and try to emulate it. We are bound to cross swords in the marketplace of ideas. And even here I am ultimately willing to give the benefit of the doubt because of the very reason you and ficklemob mention...Nazis are a pretty standard villian.

However, the synopsis: Mysterious man from the past triggers flashback to 1943 and the submarine with Spike on board (this is really one of the MAIN things I remember from S&D) and the Nazis using vampires as weapons.

Formed a direct link in my mind to the fanfic. I don't read a lot of fic actually and, unlike you, I barely recall the details for this story. But this synopsis brought it instantly to mind. I would have had the same reaction if I heard the following synopsis of a story:

Buffy is blinded by a demon and Spike sets aside their differences to undergo a trial to recover her eyesight.

It is open-ended enough to be coincidence and yet...that IS Love is Blind by Avalon. Just as S7 Faith and Buffy are up against Ethan Rayne, the First and a dimension hopping demon so they need Willow to assist with magic...is Ichnobate.

Thanks for all the great info on the Bowiehabarata series though...because it is indeed very good writing. And sure...an Indiana Jones tribute...which again, since JW and Co. love Indy...could be how the synergy happens in this case.

Rae

Well..yes..true

[darkwoods.livejournal.com]

Hey Rae, just thought I'd mention that I went into my little file of actually printed out hard copy fanfic to find more details about The Heart's Filthy Lesson. I was tempted to do that when I first read the spoilers for the Angel ep. Drat, I was being all good and unspoiled but I got bored and you know the rest. Definite similarities between the two plots for sure.

I know that Joss and company swear that they don't read fanfic...but who really knows, right? I just read a short interview with Mercedes McNab where she admits to letting her curiosity get the better of her and reading the boards.

Speaking of my hard copy fanfic archive. Many of your works are included there. I was just re-reading Father Christmas last week. God how I love that one. Was struck by the resemblance of ME's story about William and his mum to yours. Your William didn't turn his sick mum, theirs did.

Now if ME makes swallowing Spike's ejaculate enthralling then we've got 'em cold. I've never encountered that bloody brilliant bit of fanon anywhere else but in your bloody brilliant fiction.

Awww! Rabid is blushing!

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

Glad you enjoyed FC on the re-read. And yeppers! That is a very good example of the coincidence I was talking about earlier. I have her die of the white plague because it was rather common in 1880 and I didn't want Spike to kill her. I saw the same tender feelings in him that ME did. And I also saw the rejection of the demon. But ME had him develop the shadow of rejection of the vampire AFTER the fact. I can see that. It makes sense. I can see Spike buying into the "Becoming a Vampire made me feel alive for the first time" while carrying that nagging guilt about his beloved mother disappearing into the demon.

It is a different interpretation of the basic facts in canon. There are things, I think, that are subtext in Canon and we ALL can pick up on them if we watch carefully enough. Like the Spike love for Buffy from the very beginning. I reference that in a few fics (like Still-Life with Melon and Honey) and now JW has admitted he worked with that in mind from S4. And JM, I understand, kept it viable from the beginning in the way he approached the character.

Spike's attachment to his mother was something I felt could be inferred from his character. White plague was a good way to kill her. They decided he would turn her to save her. And that probably is more realistic. So yeah...no semen as thrall agent...and no Larry or Darryl either. ;-D I got the semen as thrall from Buffy vs. Dracula...the flash of psychodelia Buffy experiences when she tastes Drac's blood made me go "hmmmm!"

Basically, I try to write from what's on the show. And...Okay...yeah...with more sex!

And speaking of...a really creepy coincidence is that the fight scene in Cuore Della Notte that leads to B/S having sex for the first time...was, in the rough draft, in an abandoned house that they pretty well demolished. I moved it to the construction work at Stafford Dorm so I could keep all the action close together. Otherwise, it presented logistic problems later in the story. But there is no way that JW and Co. could have known about the house because I never published that part. It was just in canon really that they would FIGHT to the sex...abandoned buildings are good visually for that kind of thing...and they allow vampires not to burst into flames the next morning. ;-D

Rae

Blame the collective unconscious.

[darkwoods.livejournal.com]

Wow, abandoned house metaphor. Great minds think alike. I still say it means the walls between them were crumbling no matter how Marti and Joss tried to spin it.

I really love how fanfic writers elaborate and extend what we see on the show. So does Joss, I think. Keeps the myth alive.

Don't worry about Angel. No matter what happens there will, hopefully, be movies to come. Movies with Buffy and Spike and Angel.