Thoughts from the author
In the decade-plus that this site has been up (in all of its various locations), I've gotten quite a bit of feedback. In fact, one of the first things people tend to ask after finishing my stories was how other people responded to them. And since I've got a case of insomnia tonight, I figured I'd ramble a bit... just in case anyone should wish to read my musings.
To answer what most people mean by the above question... yes, I've had some nasty emails. There was the fellow who DEMANDED that I rewrite all my stories IMMEDIATELY so that Chip and Gadget wound up a couple. The sheer chutzpah of expecting someone to rework their brain children on the whim of one very rude person made me laugh until my stomach ached. I also had someone tell me that everything I'd written should be burned on religious and ethical grounds. I felt sorry for that person and the tiny little box he apparently lived in. Perhaps he's happy there... but a person's right to swing their fist ends at my nose, you know?
I have also been informed that there's even a term coined for the romance Gadget enters in my later stories.... "The Gadget Problem". Again, this made me giggle, as the problem seemed to rest with the people who coined the term. They think I should've left well enough alone and not put Pagan or GLBT overtones on a show that never displayed them. Guess what? Gadget never had a relationship with Chip and Dale, and Christianity was never mentioned as their religion, so ANYONE who puts romantic or religious content into their stories is adding something that wasn't there. Do I think it's bad? Not at all! I love to see all flavors of imagination! The point of fanfic is to carry a wonderful show even further. I just think people should check to see if their walls are made of glass before they start chucking stones around.
Some reactions have honestly puzzled me. The most blatant is also the reason I gave up on the Acorn Cafe: apparently "lesbian" and "gay" are dirty words. There could be endless threads about whether Chip or Dale should get the girl... but a girl getting a girl was evidently not okay. Being of the not-straight persuasion myself, and not seeing a reason to hang around with people who considered what I am to be a dirty word, I left. Were people just that narrow-minded? Wouldn't be the first time I ran into it. Were they just confused and thought that, as one of my friends so eloquently put it, "all lesbians do all day is swing from chandaliers and have wild sex"? (Another concept that makes me laugh until my sides hurt.) But kids don't come from under cabbage leaves, folks, and there were lots of discussions on the possible progeny of various male/female pairings, so.... *shrug* Draw your own conclusions.
Overall, though, the stuff I talked about above had been the minority. Most folks seem to realize that love is love no matter its form. Since nay-sayers always seem to be louder than yea-sayers, it amazed me the number of people who wrote to show support and encouragement. If I had to hazard a guess as to the ratio, I'd say twenty-five good emails to every one iffy or negative. It's said you can't please everyone, but if only one in twenty-six (or so) people were either pissed enough or had poor enough manners to yell at a bard... well, it's not a bad ratio, all told.
And now to answer one last persistant question... no, Caprice is not self-insertion. At least, no more than any other rodent (or fly) I write, since I try to put myself into every character's head as I pen them. I modeled Caprice after someone I had a crush on at the time I wrote the stories. Her physical characteristics are a bit like me, but that was mostly because said young lady was reading the fic and, as she knew I was quite fond of Gadget, I didn't want to give myself away. (Yes, strange logic. I was a teenager. Tell me you never did anything weird or dumb when you were that age.) If I've grown into her over the years... well, we mold ourselves after our idols, I guess. There are worse people I could've grown up to be.
Writing for the Rangers taught me a lot. Through them (and their fans) I learned that people really would read my stuff. And even write spinoffs and draw fan art on occasion! Apparently Gadget having a sun crystal in her window is now cannon, which flatters me more than I can say. Through the Rangers I've made a couple friends I might not have met otherwise, and their humor and sense of perspective makes me grin each time I open an email from one of them.
Will I ever write for the Rangers again? I don't know. I have enough ideas, and I hate to think of unwritten stories forever languishing in the back of my head. Perhaps someday one of them will come pound on my mental door and demand my attention. Until then, my muse is pulling my leash in other directions, and I need to see where those adventures take me. There are so many more people to carry the torch now than there were when I started writing. The Rangers are in good hands. They will not be forgotten.
And I will always hold a place for them in my heart.
~ Meghan Brunner
August 25, 2004
far too early in the morning