Or William Williamson? (I don't know if William has a canonical last name.)

I'm pretty sure he does, but that we didn't get told it until Season 7.

For my part I found the William flashback sequence in FFL just cringe-inducing. I mean, I found Marsters' portrayal very disarming, with the floppy hair and the glasses and I was fond enough of the whole idea of him being a romantic poet and general buttmonkey. It was a nice twist on Spike, and I think it was a good call. But the execution made me cringe. "William the Bloody" on the basis of his "Bloody Awful Poetry"????

• There is absolutely no way on earth that the word 'Bloody' would have been employed in that context. Any more than the word 'Fucking' would have been employed in that context. No. Way. At. All.

• Even if it were employed (which, I cannot emphasize enough, it would not have been), the word 'Bloody' in the phrase 'Bloody Awful Poet' means 'Really'. Or 'Very'. Or 'Thoroughly'. That kind of thing. So it would be like calling him "William the Very".

• I did mention about the not using the word 'bloody' in that context, yes?

Also:

• Cecily behaved in a manner highly inappropriate to her station.

• William's clothes. (Although there are pieces of fic which retcon this nicely.)

Ahem. Sorry 'bout that - where was I?

Thanks for that link, PMM. I was going to say `thankyou ma'am' but then realised I didn't know whether you were one and didn't want to put my foot in it.

She most definitely isn't a bloke. She can drag up surprisingly well, but Plei is most emphatically not a bloke. For which we may all thank our lucky stars - the girl is foamy.

It's interesting coming into this board only very recently that some of you seem to know each other really well. Being new, you pick up little clues about others....but sometimes it's hard to remember them, and if the name doesn't obviously say male or female, even that can be a mystery.

It's a bugger, isn't it? And there's so damned many names to remember, I know. It helps that there have been various Face to Face meetup type things, and so even if one couldn't attend, one could see the pics (oh, I remember the pics from last year's F2F vividly. There were many corsets, and pink bunny ears, and leather pants. It was very bunkworthy). Plus there's the fact that before we moved to the Phoenix we were at World Crossing, where your posts are accompanied by wee pictures. So that was helpful. Hie thee to the Buffista gallery, though, for a glimpse of Buffista folk incarnate.

Unclear Canon: If that's just to another magic user or if she tastes like strawberries in general.

I suppose she could just have stolen Scully's shampoo...

(Sorry. Carry on.)

Fay, the "bloody" bothered me a lot, too. My English grandmother is very much of the working class, and she tends to use "ruddy" when she wants to swear. People tend to forget that "lousy" and "rotten" were considered words too strong for feminine ears only a few decades ago.

Also, William's brown suit bugged me, and Cecily was far too outspoken. She should have said something like, "You have done me the greatest honour a man can offer a woman, but I'm afraid that it simply cannot be."

Also, just because Plei looks like a beautiful young woman in her picture doesn't mean she is. It could all be a big fakeout. And just because my "name" is Penny doesn't mean I'm not a big hairy guy in a stained undershirt.

No, no! I take it back. I'm a still-beautiful middle-aged woman with a streak of silver in my long raven hair. I'm posting in a velvet wrapper while sipping mint tea.

tosses luxuriant mane

or

adjusts greying underpants

Also, just because Plei looks like a beautiful young woman in her picture doesn't mean she is. It could all be a big fakeout. And just because my "name" is Penny doesn't mean I'm not a big hairy guy in a stained undershirt

grins

Penny, doll, I can't speak for you. But I can say with absolute confidence that Plei really is a beautiful young woman. There is nothing remotely fake about her ample bosom. Trust me on this. I had plenty of ogling opportunity.

Also, she's a very good kisser.

and Cecily was far too outspoken. She should have said something like, "You have done me the greatest honour a man can offer a woman, but I'm afraid that it simply cannot be."

Well, she was a demon.

Trust me on this.

And you can trust me that Fay had ample opportunity to examine said bosom and kissage.

t cough

(where the hell was my train of thought?)

I think Fiona is pretty much on the money, though

No, no. Because, you see, had it been any *other* character, the assumption of middle class would have been just fine. No one assumes Dru was the daughter of royalty or at least minor gentry. Very few fics assume high and mighty origins for Giles and Wesley.

It's just that the Spikefen found places other than B.org can be... peculiar. And given to a complete lack of logic and rational behaviour. Their Spoike is a shiny, misunderstood hero of noble birth who has been hiding his light under a bushel for all these years, and doesn't deserve the cruel, cruel treatment he's received at the hands of his beloved Buffy (that horrible bitch!).

Heh.

I should perhaps avoid my general fandom surfing before I've had my coffee. I get... cranky.

What Angus Said. William was fringe at that party (you could tell because the idiot was wearing country tweeds, not evening dress. Or maybe that could have been a costuming glitch. Naaah.). He was lower status than everybody else. A baronet would by definition be comfortably midstream unless there was actual nobility present.

Cecily couldn't say "You're beneath me" to a baronet unless Cecily was nobility herself. It seemed crystal clear to me that Cecily and so on were upper middle-class, while William was clinging to middle class by his fingernails. And NOBODY is more keenly aware of social status than the middle classes. The upper classes know they win. The lower classes don't really care. It's the people in the middle who worry about it.

Actually, I was listening to some random British professor the other night on NPR and thinking how much I love *any* kind of British accent, and the pauses, and the wry understated self-deprecating humor.

In my mind, you are all intelligent, funny, and literate. You'll just have to bear up under the burden.

reminding self to never, never, let Betsy meet British family members.

I was thinking that Cecily might have been from a family that made a lot of money in trade, but didn't really have a history of great manners, so as far as she knew, her behavior was all right. In fact, my fanwank was that William was of an upper middle class background, but of teacher or ministers, so there wasn't much money, so he was sort of a buttmonkey leech - he got invited to the parties because of his name, and because there might have been a title in the family, but because he was poor and dependent on whatever those wealthy "friends" gave him (like maybe his clothes were always wrong because he was wearing cast-offs, and it didn't include the right evening suit) so they felt free to dump on him.