26 Things About Spike

Here, it's about time. I'm late for the meme but things happen when they happen.

The first 13 items describe canon-Spike; the last 13 are Milliways-Spike. Everything in the first half of the meme applies in Milliways. Some of the things in the last half don't apply in canon.

1. Spike's gun is an Israel Military Industries (IMI) Jericho 941, 9mm semi-automatic, 16 rounds to a clip. It's a locked-breech, recoil operated firearm with slide-mounted safety and decocker. It weighs 1290 grams (2.84 pounds) fully loaded.
2. Of all the men he's known, Jet Black is the only one he's really called 'friend' since his falling out with Vicious. For women, he likes and respects V.T. but Annie is really his only true female friend.
3. Spike was never in love with Faye or her breasts.
4. Though he professes to hate kids, pets, and women with attitude, he's consistently surrounded by them and shows them grudging affection.
5. Julia was a woman with attitude and also one who was perhaps not so very noble. Her actions were redeemed, but only at the cost of her life three years after she left Spike without explanation. Their story parallels Rick and Ilse's story in Casablanca in so many ways.
6. Spike's an ambidextrous shooter, equally accurate with both left and right hands. He also carries a short throwing knife tucked into a sheath in the back of his belt.
7. Mao Yenrai was the closest thing he had to a real father. He won't tell Jet the reasons for the bounty on Mao because he wants to protect Mao, not because Jet might find out details about his past.
8. Spike was being groomed to take over the Red Dragon Crime Syndicate after Mao retired.
9. Sleep and food are two of his greatest pleasures.
10. He's smart about current technology but a lot less so about past technology, which routinely baffles him.
11. All his martial arts moves are patterned after Bruce Lee and he practices Jeet Kune Do, Lee's form of Kung Fu.
12. Spike's owned the Swordfish II for 10 years, since he was 17. It's a modified asteroid-racing jet, single occupant, with folding wings.
13. Spike didn't fight in the war on Titan.
    


14. Spike never intended to fall in love with Beth or with anybody. He already loved Julia a hell of a lot more than she loved him, and he wasn't eager to have his heart twisted around like that again.
15. Spike's had very little in the way of tenderness in his life. Beth's simplest acts of touching him in a kind manner melt his heart.
16. Outside the bar, he's in a coma. This is why Jet still has all of Spike's things on the Bebop. It's also why no one is there: out there it's still just after his fight with Vicious and Jet and Faye are picking up the pieces. Jet is with Spike at the doctor's, seeing if his life can be saved.
17. If anyone ever lays a hand on Beth, he'll kill them.
18. He's picky about the people he'll talk to at Milliways. He'll talk with anyone who approaches him, but he has to have a good compelling reason to go talk with a stranger.
19. He wears the suit as a dig to Vicious, who dressed that way when he was an up-and-coming hopeful to run the Dragons.
20. If Vicious ever showed up at Milliways, Spike would kill him without hesitation; they wouldn't get to sit around and drink and have a friendly little chat.
21. The nanobots Spike inherited in the vaccine from Vincent keep his lungs free of the cancer he should have from smoking so much. Those coupled with the antibodies he inherited from Beth kept him alive in Cooksfield.
22. He hates teaching Jeet Kune Do because of what happened with Roco Bonnaro, who was the closest thing to an annoying little brother Spike ever had. If anyone ever calls him master he'll put a quick end to that.
23. His relationship with Julia only lasted three months: less than half as long as the one he's had with Beth. He realizes that he was more in love with the idea of Julia than with the way Julia actually was. When they met up again after three years, he didn't really love her any more. The shields were already up.
24. When he told Beth he was in love with her, he didn't mean to. But it was honest and he's glad he said it. She's the first woman he feels really loves him for himself, not just as a plaything or curiosity.
25. Spike has had a lot of dalliances with a lot of women, but he's only cared about two: Julia and Beth.
26. Spike ran away from home, where he was an only child, when he was fifteen. The only thing he brought with him was his dog, Dragon, and Dragon was hit by a car and killed hours later... just before Spike was taken in by the Red Dragon Crime Syndicate.

I could probably keep going, but then no one would read the stories. 26 things wasn't so hard after all.

For those who don't know his canon, there are 26 episodes or sessions. I thought one in honor of each was appropriate.

One more quiz, but with a reason behind it.

( Birth Month Quiz )