Below you'll find some of my hopefully not so scattered thoughts on why I have written the particular stories that I have. Currently the main focus here is my Xena stories with a little about Buffy. But as time goes on I hope to expand and include more about the other fandom's I am now writing in too. I have laid out the page as a FAQ covering the most commonly asked questions fans ask me. If you have a burning question that is not covered here, please feel free to write and ask me personally. Dark Angel 2003. Why is this the only page on your site in black and white? Would you believe because I thought it looked better, and made everything easier to read? Who Is Dark Angel? Dark Angel is a factious character created in mid 1999 as part of an online role-play game. The character 'Dark Angel' is a gender ambiguous guardian Angel who was cast down from Mount Olympus for conduct unbecoming some two thousand years ago . You can still find DA lurking around the hallowed halls of various Xena related role-play lists. Why the name Dark Angel? Long before James Cameron came up with the television show I wrote a story (The Offering) that was initially titled "Dark Angel". At the time I didn't have a 'pen name' and because of the particular subject matter, one of my beta readers suggested I get one. I chose Dark Angel as my name for both online publishing and role-play based on the original draft of what eventually became "The Offering." Who is Dark Angel really? So nice of you to ask. I have been writing fan fiction since I was ten years old. If you are now sitting there trying to work out how old I am, the number one selling hit of that year was "Billy Don't Be A Hero", I'm sure you can figure it out. I have written stories in the following fandom's; Star Trek - all incarnations other than Enterprise, but never say die, it may happen, Babylon 5, Star Gate SG1, Xena, and most recently Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I also write poetry and prose which you can find in print. In the past I have also published in the areas of adolescent behaviors, homophobia and domestic violence . I have been active in both the queer and women's communities for over twenty years. I have taught widely on the topic of homophobia and its impact on ourselves as lesbians and gay men and participated in the development and introduction of state and national legislation affecting lesbians and gays, young people and women and children experiencing domestic violence. I currently work from home freelancing in the area of community sector management. I am also trying to finish some original fiction that you'll hopefully get to read when its done. More personally it feels like I have been married to the same beautiful woman forever. We were blessed almost three years ago with the birth of our son. Were you always a Xena fan? I started watching Xena around episode six of season one. If I am totally honest I didn't watch the first episode when it aired thinking the whole concept seemed a bit silly. Sexy brunette running around in a short leather skirt fighting warlords in ancient Greece, go figure such a concept would catch on? I did watch it however after a lot of prompting from friends, and was instantly drawn to the high camp value and subtext between Xena and Gabrielle. What is your favorite Xena episode and why? Without a doubt my favorite episode is "When Fates Collide" penned beautifully by Katherine Fugate near the end of Season six. To me it was the most powerful, the best acted the masterfully scripted story they did. After nearly six seasons we got to see the love that 'dare not speak its name'. I truly believe a decision should have been made to end the series there, with Xena and Gabrielle riding off into the sunset to live out the rest of their days sans head chopping and 40,000 souls burned to death. Other episodes I am quite fond of are: Adventures in the Sintrade I & II. Fallen Angel and Bitter Suite. Why Xena Fan Fiction? A couple years after the show started I began reading Xena fan fiction. I liked a lot of the stories because unlike so many of the other fandom's I was reading on line, they were clearly written by women for a female audience. They were also predominately Alt or femslash (depending on what term you prefer). I loved all the talented bards but swore because even then there was just so many well written stories I wouldn't be able to come up with a idea that hadn't been done Perhaps looking back it was my subconscious dislike that those fabulous stories also focused almost exclusively on the redeemed Xena. Even though I was/am fond of the redeemed Xena, I always had the niggling sense that we were (as an audience) ignoring a large chunk of who she was and potentially could still be. A little more time passed and then the series returned for its forth season. Adventures in the Sintrade part one and two were the opening episodes. Finally I found a side of Xena I thought I could portray. At the time I was also part of wonderful list that has now gone by the by called Xenabondage. A very cool adult list indeed where other bards were testing the waters with less light fan fiction. I remain eternally grateful for their forthright approach and sheer guts in creating a piece of history in the telling the other side of Xena. In the company of like minded souls, I set about to write my first Xena fic in mid 1999. It was The Offering... Why are all your Xena stories NC17 rated? I won't lie, reading and writing about women interacting on an intimate level together, dark or light appeals to me. Call me twisted it may have something to do with knowing what I like and not being smart enough to keep my mouth shut. I do put disclaimers on all my stories which I think spell out what you can expect. Anyone who reads my Xena fan fic and then gets offended either didn't read the disclaimers or if they did and still chose to read on perhaps needs to ask some harder questions of themselves. But I digress. Basically, I write Xena and Gabrielle in intimate settings because that's how their characters speak to me. If one day the voices (no not those kind of voices) say; write a nice sweet tale about going fishing where X and G sing songs around the camp fire rather than get down and horizontal in the dust, then the disclaimer will probably read; PG. Until that time, I see no reason to alter my preference or desire to fill a gap I think is more than welcome to many readers. Aren't you concerned some of your stories may be viewed as condoning sexual violence towards Women? No. I don't believe any of the stories I have written condone sexual violence. The subject matter is presented to the reader as a component not a whole, and though it's interwoven with a whole range of human emotions, I don't believe any of them scream or even whisper approval. The stories are about women and emotions and ultimately about action and inaction. But just so we're clear: I do not condone violence towards women under any circumstances. And I do not believe the stories that I have written contribute to its continuation or increase anymore than I believe a woman who chooses to wear a short skirt is 'asking for it'. So now you're writing Buffy & Stargate? That's right. I have followed Buffy and SG1 for almost as long as Xena and just love the complexity and tightly woven plots that exist in both shows. I am particularly interested in the character of Willow, and lets face it, there is just so much potential for Janet and Sam. I have written a couple of stories so far and have another one three quarters finished in the Buffy section of the site, and a rather large adventure type (reasonably dark) Stargate story heavily in the works. What's so great about Willow? Personally I think she is the most evolved of all the core characters on BtVS. I have watched her go from nerdy computer asexual girl to kick ass 'I am capable of ending the world and may just do it if you piss me off' lesbian Wicca in a handful of years. Who wouldn't want to play with a mind like that? Will any of your newer fanfic be as dark as the Xena stories? Yep some but not all. You'll be able to tell which ones by reading the disclaimer on each story. Please read them, they are not there just to fill up space. Are you getting that I am really fond of disclaimers yet? Do you intend to write more Xena stories? Yep. I think I will always have something on the back burner involving Xena, she remains a rich vehicle of discovery. The Conqueror and her slave, in particular have much much more to say. In fact the two original stories I am working on right now are actually Uber fiction. So don't forget to check them out as they arrive.
XWP Fiction The OfferingCompleteThis was the first piece of Xena fan fiction I ever attempted. I started playing with writing something different (I'd previously only written angsty Star Trek f/f (under another name) for several months. When I saw Adventures in The Sin Trade I and II I'd got stuck on the level of brutality that hung about Xena the Warlord. I think it also dawned on me at the time that if Xena had been male, then the producers would have probably have already at least hinted at her being sexually violent as well as physically and emotional abusive. I have to tell you, I had at that time, read hundreds of Xena and Gabrielle first time stories that were quite beautiful, well written and totally unbelievable. I don't know why, but I just can't picture Xena as being sexually unaware or passive. (Ugh!!!) Then came Sin Trade and I thought - I want to do a first time story in keeping with how I had started to see this old (though newly revealed) Xena. It was supposed to be a PWP - something I wasn't even certain I would post. Some 200 k's later it twisted itself around my spine so tight that I had to go real slow in its application and call upon various Gods and Goddess' to help me finish it. In total it took almost five months to finish it. I found sections one and two exhausting and took quite large breaks, writing other things while I sorted through my own emotions about what I was saying. I remember submersing myself in the warlord head space night after night after work to just get a pinch of how I thought she would make any victim feel, how she would look, stand, walk and talk. By the end I could smell her and smell Gabrielle on her. But it did take it out of me. Part three was written after about a month and half break away from the whole topic. After the drain the first two parts had on me I felt I had to just let it sit and rot at the back my hard drive for a couple of reasons. One was as I mentioned, it wore me out, but the second was I'd known from the beginning that Xena and Gabrielle would be able to resolve what had happened and still be able to remain together, but I wasn't sure to what degree that it would be purely by talking it through - or some huge intervention. There are entire reams of paper still cluttering up corners of my office with what would have been a 'heart to heart' between warrior and bard. I pulled it because I thought it was reverting to the sappy "I just can't forgive myself" kind of lines that had already been done to death with Xena constantly repenting for all her dark deeds in other stories. My professional experience tells me, people capable of the actions Xena was do not make speeches. But back to part thee - I was laying around feeling very sorry for myself in the dead of winter, and hey presto I thought I kind of liked the idea of Xena having a brush with death. A brush with her darker self and some words from the wise. I figured the only person that could convince Xena at least in part, that she couldn't run was herself (I threw in Gabrielle's most worshipped Goddess as a tool to work the dialogue). Part three came out very easy after that. Part four is basically the end I suppose we were all expecting with how I ended part three. Still hopefully I was able to allow some imagination to triumph and readers still got a ride for their money. Para rape scenes aren't everyone's cup of tea, but then again neither is fan fiction. I got to a point with this where I realised I had to write for myself and trust that my reader read the disclaimers first. A lot of the mail I got about The Offering was from women openly stating they had been raped by other women. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, but I remember reading Catharine Wilson's "Wedding Night" a couple years prior and the huge disclaimer she did basically back tracking and justifying something that at the time was a really important piece. Needless to say, I opened each and everyone email with a certain amount of trepidation. None of them were critical of me, not one. In fact they all said things like: "God's that was so real. You had me sweating, you got me wet, you made me feel like my heart was being ripped out. That happened to me and I don't know why but your story left me feeling ok about myself." One reader even wrote that she had printed the story out to show to her therapist because it all made such sense. Needless to say, I LOVED that kind of feedback, because it was exactly what I was trying to do. I wasn't attempting to glorify what took place, especially in parts one or two. But I didn't want to just wash over it either. A couple of other stories I have read have Gabrielle being raped off in the background with Xena and her doing all this 'you're going to be all right' dance thing that is understandable enough, but predictable. But with The Offering, the rape though it doesn't happen off screen so to speak, it did happen almost five years prior. The affects for Gabrielle have wound themselves inside of her and become a part of her. She understands herself in a way that time permitted. She is scared of the Warlord but in a way, the warlord freed her. She loves Xena, and as much as she was hurt and brutalized by her, there is a huge part that believes by not revisiting that aspect of their intimate relationship, Xena is denying her. Right or wrong, people took "The Offering" and made it what they wanted. Some found it hot, some found it healing. Some thought it was the darkest most disgusting thing they'd read, but interestingly read it all. (?) The story itself has never been my personal favorite, but I have no regrets about writing it. The biggest tool we have in maintaining the status quo is our silence. That's just not my way baby...
final note: A lot of part one got written to Areosmith's: "I don't want to miss a thing" That may appear a bit incongruent, but by the time you get to part four should make more sense. part two: Over and over was assisted in mood by a piece called "Bonni Portmore" sung by Loreena McKennet a modern recording of a 16 century Celtic dirge. part three: Heaps of things, but mainly; "War is Over" and "Shriner's Park" from Melissa Etheridge's 'My Little Secret' album. part four: also got a big dose of Areosmith with "What kind of love are you on."
The Price Of SilenceCompleteThis kind of just jumped out on to the key board all by itself. I was taking a breather between part two and three of "The Offering" and had been going back and forth with a couple of pieces of poetry and a like. (Ruling Hands & Last Sight) Then out of nowhere I had this flash of Xena doing it hard and heavy with a prostitute in some dingy back room, while Gabrielle was off some place else totally oblivious to her friends whereabouts or dark desires. Over the course of an evening I put down a few lines that a day or two later was pretty much what you now see as "Price". If you remember, there is a brief mention in part two of "The Offering - Disclosure", where Gabrielle reflects back to a time when she knew Xena had left her and gone out for the night, seemingly to be with another woman. In "Disclosure" it rates no more than a line or two, but the thought of Xena hard at it with a pay for play girl, especially one who looked liked a certain bard, didn't want to leave my subconscious. Price ended up being the first of five stories I have affectionately dubbed the 'Pay for Play Chronicles'...trash really, there is no real purpose for this or the following four stories beyond exercises in how many different sex scenes I could write. I do quite like it though, to me its snappy, there is a kind of rhythm as Xena moves through what must be done.. It was enjoyable to write a less confident warrior princess, more human and flawed but still different from the Xena I portrayed in The Offering.
As The Candle BurnsCompleteCandle was written more in response to the proportion of letters I received after posting "Price" than anything else. People wrote saying they wanted to know what happened after the curtain came down in the first one and how could I have left them hanging when it (Price) ended - and shame on me. Phew, well I wouldn't want to do that now would I? Actually when people write and say things like that to me, I have this catch phrase of "Why use me imagination when you've got a perfectly good one of your own?" But I wrote "Candle" anyway. lol. The story is basically four segments. Each reliving the time Xena paid so dearly for as she, with the assistance of one insightful young prostitute, explored her feelings for Gabrielle. It took a little longer to put together than Price, because I had to think rather than just let it happen. But still, the writing time was relatively brief. Stepping away from the whole "Offering" scenario I tried to imagine what Xena would do with two hours and pretty much carte blanc in a whore house. As the Candle Burns is the answer.
Deliberate StrangersCompleteDS wasn't actually ever suppose to exist. When I discovered I had more to say after The Price, I figured maybe two more pieces. Candle was mainly for the readers who felt ripped off at the end of Price, and then I got more, saying things like "Where's Gabrielle?" "Is she watching from behind the curtain?" "Aren't you going to get her to find out about all the missing money?" Blah Blah Blah!!!! So I thought about Xena's Girl (the original working title for Surrender), with the focus being on who actually is Xena's Girl? Gab or Arnise? Anyhow with XG (Surrender) almost done, I realized there was this huge gap of how Gabrielle would come to be such a willing participant. And I needed an opportunity for her to work through the range of emotions attached to her discovery. Da Dar!!! DS came to life. It actually took a long time to put together because of the on going to debate I had with my inner circle as to how much Arnise would or wouldn't tell. As a prostitute she had a certain amount of responsibility to protect her clients privacy - on the other hand, she'd grown to know and genuinely like Gabrielle. She understands Xena better I think than Xena would like and as a third party to their relationship, she has the ability to look at it for all its faults and potential without actually steering it to her own advantage.
ChattelCompleteI am not even sure I should take credit for this story. It kind of popped out of my subconscious and wrote itself. I recall the first draft took just twenty minutes and when I tell people that they usually get this really weird look on their faces of either disbelief or horror - lol. But that actually was what happened. I sat down at my partners laptop and just started to type. Most of what you read is what came out the first go around. I say it wrote itself because I truly believe it did. I was simply there pushing the keys. I have never seen Armageddon
II (did get a glimpse of the screen grabs) so for a long time I had
no idea what the fuss was about with some of the earlier fan fiction
that appeared related to Xena the Conqueror. But through reading the likes of Pam Lord and Gin and a
couple of others I got a bit of a sense of her or at least how some viewers had seen her. If I am off in
anyway with my characterization, what can I say - oops! As I said, it wrote itself, so I take little responsibility or hold any particular revealing insight about its reasons for existing. I will tell you I am not very well versed
in writing from the 1st POV, nor frankly from the position of a passive
sexual recipient. Sue me. You may however like a thought that popped into my head sometime after I wrote Chattel (and Thrall). Have you ever wondered who actually wrote all of those colorful, exciting funny, loving and break your heart angsty scripts for the show? Here's a thought. Maybe just maybe, they were written by a young woman, a slave who lived long ago and who was locked away and whose only purpose was to gratify the inexhaustible sexual drive of her Master. Maybe over time, through all the brutality and abuse, she had grown to love her Master and spent her free time wishing they lived a very different life together. Kind of like the story behind the story - but not. Updated: 2nd November 1999: You know this story has been up less than a month and already its spurned enough angst for someone else to pick up the kind of tempo generated in Chattel. I have been absolutely flooded with mail about this piece, something slightly reminiscent from The Offering's birth, but still different. Either love it or hate it, Chattel now has graced the screens with yet another slant on Xena and been accepted for its creative worth. I guess that means I'm happy, even though the piece is anything but. Click on the link to see the
beautiful Book Cover done by Calli
I wrote Thrall a few weeks
after I wrote Chattel. On the surface it should have been an easy
exercise in retelling a tale that had so kindly told itself to me
in the first place. But when I actually sat down to write it, I felt
pressured and stuck. Gabrielle had shouted her words to me, syllable
by syllable. Each strike each assault, the feelings were there at my
finger tips. Yet Xena, tall dark silent ruler of all stood silent,
pan faced and belligerent, not helping a bit.
The very easy thing about Chattel looking back was
that the words simply got said, there was no explanation needed other
than what they described took place. It was left for the reader to
form their own response and decide on the emotion. Here Xena (or I
as the story teller) was responsible for the actions, right or wrong.
And basically lets face it, most of them were terribly wrong and cruel,
they deserved explaining if it was at all possible. So I let myself consider the possible reasons, circumstances and if you like, justifications for someone, a woman, to behave so bereft of compassion for an extended period of time. In the end it became something as rudimentary as; absolute power corrupts absolutely – with a minor twist. Sure Xena owned everything and everybody around her, but what she had never believed possible was that someone, especially a slave, could come to own her. Thrall is about the struggle, the bargaining and the settling that took place between one woman who once believed she was the absolute conqueror of Greece and the woman who conquered her heart. Updated: 7th December
1999 This story was completed and uploaded on the 1st of December.
I don't know right now if you can expect more from this premise in
the future, but it is more than likely. - Stay Tuned.
This concluding piece
took forever to write. It was supposed to only be a one off, a kiss
in the dark, but five stories later - well I guess I don't know how
to write pwp's very well. Or maybe I do and just won't admit it to
myself. All in all I am happy enough with how it all turned out, but
I am pretty certain I won't be visiting this theme again feeling I
have exhausted my muse entirely on girls who do it for dinars. Updated: 30th December
1999: I have worked some more on this piece in the last few
days, but I must apologize for the huge gap in offerings lately. My
mother in law suffered a massive stroke a couple of weeks back and
all my energy has been devoted to family type matters. I do hope to
have this up mid way through March 2000 so look out for it then.
Finished and uploaded
on the 17th April 2000 Finally finally, phew. I felt like
I had this one sitting around for months, probably because I did.
This story was my tribute
to The Crusader, a season four episode that introduced Najara, an
butt kicking blonde zealot who was a 'real match' in more ways than
one for Xena. I loved her, she not only could wipe the floor with
our brunet wonder. But she gathered Gabby's favor in a blink.
I wanted a story that
not only showcased her threat to the Warrior Princess, but also just
how far she was willing to go. Oh and of course how far Xena would
go if she ever got her hands on her under that premise.
The story has quite a
lot more violence in it than anything since "The Offering" and I suppose
I wanted to return to that a little too, just to keep my hand in and
to remind people that I see Xena more and more as a potential powder
keg wanting to explode. The whole pregnant warrior just doesn't sit
well with me and I hate some of the images TPTB have come up with
to deal with LL's pregnancy on the show.
Anyways it's a done deal.
I have a mild flutter about revisiting this perhaps with an outscene
from 'The Convert', but who knows.
The other story that I
had to write? Well perhaps not, but certainly something that I found
necessary while trying to tie some loose ends of the saga before I
ended it. Secrets and Lies is basically a vehicle to get me from Deliberate
Strangers to Surrender.
Hopefully now my mind
is clear of all interference and I can totally concentrate on matters
relating to Surrender. One of things I did enjoy writing about this
was putting Xena in a drunken stupor and having her be beaten at her
own game by someone much smaller in body weight and considerably less
worldly.
As a side note, I don't
think I write sex half as well as many writers on line. I am always
looking at ways of improving the images my head holds while transposing
them on screen. Consider the sex in this an exercise in enhancing
my talents. And feel free to let me know if I'm getting better.
Natalie Merchant and Loreena
McKennitt kept me company throughout the writing of this piece. In
particular their renditions of "She Moved Through The Fair"
{LM} and original "My Beloved Wife"{NM} (both can be found
on Elemental and TigerLily respectively) In fact they did more than
keep me company, they were the inspirational sources and if you ever
chance to listen to them, you'll know why.
I churned EA out pretty
easily, just like its predecessors and felt totally intoxicated by
the images and sadness of the characters while they were in my care.
Picture one very wet winter's weekend to aid in atmosphere. And like
Chattel, though I tinkered with it a little and of course it had the
"moon shadow clean sweep" to tidy things like grammar and
typos it appears very close to the original story written in about
eight hours.
My partner, who never
ever gets involved got very taken by EA and for a time wanted to have
her own ten cents about gender expectations slotted in there somehow.
If you are wondering, the heir is female, though I know for a lot
of reasons and conditionings we all have to deal with, some will feel
much more comfortable reading HER as HE. If you were one of these
people who was convinced she had to be a male, ask yourself why, and
if you have the inclination, write and let me know. I would be happy
to give you my perspective on it.
I received some absolutely
flooring reviews of this story and will be loading a couple of things
here in the near future. For one reason or another people do tend
to tie the three (Chattel, Thrall and Ever After together) and the
reviews seem to reflect that.
Without a doubt, ER remains
solid in my heart long after it's completion. I say its the last of
the series, but I may just find someway, somehow to pull another from
this baby. Who knows?
Click on the link to read a review of The Chattel Trilogy that originally appeared on BLURB
In a way, I wrapped up
Xena and Gabrielle's painfully sad and dogmatically restricted existence
in Ever After. There really shouldn't have been anything left to say.
I mean they were dead and buried before the story started, you can't
get much neater than that.
But I had intentionally
left the door open at the end, incase I, or anyone else wanted to
revisit the lives the three previous stories had created. A couple
of people actually did. And at the time of me writing Emergence, I
think there were four other writers who had adopted the particular
Conqueror world Chattel started and begun telling their own tales.
I've already spoken how I feel about that earlier so I won't bour
you with it again, on to say the material was certainly there, no
matter how neat Ever After had been.
A year on and some pretty
major changes on the home front, (we had welcomed our son home from
the hospital in late 2000) and I found myself wanting to start writing
again.
I reread Ever After and
decided that the three previous stories really skimned their life times.
The first two told individual perspectives of approximately fifteen
years. The final story EA, spoke of the twenty odd more years that
followed on from that with a little creative license to allow it to
play out at all. With babies close to my heart I decided that besides
welcoming Xena's heir into the world, one other event would have no doubt
been earth shifting for them both. I mean what did two women
do in those days if they wanted a child? There was no IVF or syringes
even. And yes I know it was common for a ruler to claim concubine's
offspring as their own in those days, but that too assumed the ruler
was male and had actually sired the child. Add to that that my belief
of Xena's deep love for the blonde slave girl beyond a sense of ownership
and I thought there was something more I could say.
For me, Emergence is ultimately about acknowledgements, at least in the silent language of Xena and Gabrielle. The first acknowledgement is that Xena owns Gabrielle one hundred percent. The second acknowledgement is that Gabrielle accepts that. She has long ceased to imagine a world away from her life, and in a way has found an existence that provides her with a level of happiness. She may be no more than Xena's bed servant, but she is Her bed servant. She acknowledges that she would do anything for her, including lay with another for the purposes of carry a baby for her. To think not to is without question or consequence. However what develops is a sense that even though (her being with another) is inevitable, neither is prepared for the impact is has on the sacredness they share.
This
companion piece to "Emergence" has been sitting around half finished
for months. After I wrote Emergence and hinted on a shift in how the
two character were learning to relate to one another in light of changes
to their world, I felt like I had a heap of open doors. Hopefully
Deliverance gives a clearer picture to several readers questions regarding
just how much love there was between X and g. None of the "Chattel"
stories are typical love stories, on the surface they avoid any such
suggestion. Even when you scratch, there are still layers and layers
of tradition and sense of position that have to be clawed away. I
think for that reason they challenge the reader, as much as they challenged
me in putting them together. But skipping ahead, Deliverance being the companion piece was actually written before I started typing the title, meaning the beginning middle and end of what was being told had already been told, just through a different set of eyes. But with Chattel and Thrall for some reason writing from the Conqueror's perspective always seems to take much longer. I am not sure why. I can churn Gabrielle out so easily and yet can sit for hours debating a single response from X. I have debated it a little and come up with several possibilities. I decided in the end that Gabrielle will always be much easier to write because she is so open about her emotions, in any universe, the character remains visibly sensitive. Xena however is the complete polar opposite. Her actions are her feelings, and often her actions speak at first appearance only about rage. How she will control someone or a situation. I don’t want to call it a masculine response, yet typically its behaviour men are usually much more likely to get away with than women. I know I could debate the power aspect for hours, either on a global (xenaverse level) or purely emotional one. For me in relationships its not always that easy to decide who has the power, nor should it be. It should shift and change like the tides. And in many ways, Xena is like the tides, on the surface she is the powerful figure. She owns Greece, she owns Gabrielle. Yet Gabrielle owns her, at least a big part of her and she doesn’t like it. They’re both prisoners. But I am raving.
Of the five "Conqueror" tales its definitely taken the longest to get out. Kind of painful for me too, I guess being the subject of babies etc is so close to home.
Of course, if you have an idea for a story using the characterizations, let me know and I would be happy to give it some thought...
BTVS Fiction Complete
Raise your hand those of us who didn't much care for Kennedy? Yep as I expected, its kind of a two way split. My thoughts on the instant new girl friend routine for Willow lean very heavily to the side of not. It just felt so forced from the beginning and even though we knew where it would head because the show was winding up and JW thought he owed the fans, it still came across as token value. I was such a huge Tara/Willow fan I can't tell you how big. It's crazy I know to be my age and be so captivated by women half my age loving one another. But I was, and still am even though Tara's gone and Willow's moved on. Which is probably a good place to start with why I wrote "Moving On". In simple terms, this piece is about process - the process of letting go, the process of acceptance and the process to a lesser degree of growing up. Moving On was the first Buffy story I wrote. It came about while I was in the planning stage of another story I wanted to do involving Willow and Tara. But try as I might reality just kept pulling me back to the fact that Tara (on the show) had been dead for close to a year. In fact Willow was starting to show interest or at least someone else was starting to show interest in her. A bratty girl no more than nineteen named Kennedy - no not the airport, but who knows we don't know her last name so maybe it is... Moving On is considered a Willow/Kennedy story, but frankly I think the content really says more about Willow and Buffy's friendship and what they've both been through since Tara came into their lives and left. I am sure I am not the only one who feels that TPTB kind of lost the plot with their friendship since Buffy returned (the second time) from the grave. Moving On allowed me to deal with a number of themes under the guise of a Willow/Kennedy fic. Number one it allowed me to speak of Tara's passing in a way I felt the show neglected. Number two, I got to build a little on the two dimensional character that sadly Kennedy remained even by the end of the show. Number three as mentioned I was able to write a scene where Buffy and Willow reconnected as friends while accepting someone very special had gone. It's a sad piece but not one that I believe wallows in self pity. In the end I think it was my way of moving on too. I had to start somewhere, so I started by saying my own goodbye. I've had a very favorable response since it was uploaded (elsewhere) in June 2003. I still intend to write a Willow and Tara story, I just don't know when. Desperate Remedies Complete I loved Anya, loved her with a vengeance - no pun intended. I also thought she was a very neglected character for the most. And that she was a great deal more complex than just being a rude and inappropriate thousand year old demon trapped in a teenagers body. In writing Desperate Remedies I wanted to do a couple of different things, firstly to showcase how more human than human I believe the Anya character could be. And secondly to pair her in an intimate setting with Willow. In keeping with her general nature I also wanted Anya to be light and funny and to shine even when she was 'stepping in it' all over the place. I know it wasn't the wisest of ideas because then I was stuck with coming up with a believable scenario to have all this take place and most essentially remain true to who I believe both Willow and Anya to be. I thought about several possibilities and decided that though I had seen some nice work done in season seven involving the two, it didn't really allow for the other element I wanted Willow to experience throughout. I wanted her to be doing all this behind Tara's back. Obviously season seven wasn't going to work. I needed to go back and find a point where it would or could have happened and Tara was still very much alive. The most likely and most obvious time was at Glory's brain drain on Tara in season five. It should have been simple then right? I had opportunity but I still lacked motive. What reason could I have to beyond a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do? Tell me whether you think I came up with a believable solution or not. Detour In Progress Looks like I am working my way through all the Buffy girl's with Willow doesn't it? Well fact is, I am. I have set myself a bit of a goal to do a Willow/ - insert female characters name, for each one of the main and secondary female characters. Detour is coming along nicely but probably will end up being no more than a PWP with some nice interaction between the girls when its done. It's not dark, at least not so far, but it will no doubt touch on the dark things they have both done. Should be done by the end of October 2003. Stargate SG1 Fiction In progress
This is a complex study into the mind of Sam Carter. Why?
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