I just love your wicked energy


After watching First Date, I griped that the removal of the chip seemed to have turned Spike rather stoic. Somewhat prosaic. Sure, he had a certain keen-ness to interupt Buffy's date but he was just so lacking in vibrancy, in that wicked energy that Buffy seems finally to have accepted is one of her favourite things in men. Spike has been many different moral shades: the Big Bad, the cuckold, the drunken heartbroken, the angry victim, someone who fights with the good side simply so he can have a "spot of violence before bed", the too-ardent lover. Whatever he's been though, he's been passionate about it. He threw himself into things, body and demon. He was a dancing, seductively smiling, bundle of wicked energy. Tightly coiled and always ready to explode.

I privately remarked that the unbelievably placid, house-broken Spike had better be the calm before the storm.

Oh yes. Tonight I got Get It Done. When he loses the muted shirts and pulls on that coat...when he leans back and howls with laughter...when he lights the cigarette...when he realises that killing is part of him...his definition...oh yes. The coat is obviously going to end up being ripped away again but it's not really about the coat. It's that swagger, that confidence, that wicked energy.

It's Spike, and he's wearing the coat.

spoilers, and the art of avoiding them

I've been doing really well this year. Not reading any sites which contain spoilers for future, as yet unseen, episodes. It's cut into my options for discussing the series somewhat but if you're spoilerphobic, you know that's one of the side-effects of the affliction. I never read any livejournals for a start, as even assuming the journaler you're reading doesn't mention any spoilers there's no way of being sure someone answering them will be so considerate. I don't visit the usenet groups or the ezboards either. I'm cautious on general sites, making sure not to click on anything I'm not sure about and having my spoiler-defenses up and ready to deflect my eyes if I see something suspicious. Obviously, on mailing lists it's easy to avoid any emails which contain a spoiler warning in the subject line, or an episode title for something I've not seen yet. Like all good spoilerphobics, I do pretty much everything, short of unplugging the modem, to avoid being spoiled.

So I've been good this year: pretty much all I know is a casting detail for the final few episodes of Buffy.

Today, I though I'd spend the afternoon checking the fanfiction WIPs I've been following. My first port of call was Annie Sewell Jenning's Waking the Dead which, sadly, has not been updated. So next I headed over to Barb C's site, to check on the progress of Necessary Evils. It's a great story, continuing the alternate season 6 started in A Raising in the Sun. It's got good characterisation, including a wonderful Dark Willow, a enjoyable plot and, did I mention, hot sex. It's one of the few WIPs that I follow.

Now maybe you could say it's my own fault for having the shortcut pointing to the main page instead of directly to the index page of the story but, when scrolling down to see if new chapters have been added, I didn't expect to find a bloody great big spoiler for episode 7.17. No warning, no flagging that a spoiler was there, just the spoiler. Thanks. Thanks a bunch.

OK, I appreciate Barb C is hacked off because she may have been Jossed by the series but I'm pretty damn mad that all my spoilerphobic habits have been wrecked when all I wanted to do was read an alternate season 6 story.