WRFA - Author Interviews [FyrDrakken]

Question: Is there anything you'd like to share about yourself? (i.e where you live, interests, hobbies, etc.) (submitted by Sez)

Answer: Oh, let's see. Spent my entire life in the Dallas area (aside from a couple of years at uni in Austin and half a year in London), the product of a family of eccentrics and schoolteachers who started throwing artists and scientists over the last couple of generations. My father started hitting me over the head with his bible a few nights back in an attempt to drive the demons of profanity out of me. It didn't work, as my coworkers could attest -- when they stop laughing at the incongruity of a young woman who looks like a straitlaced spinster schoolteacher in-the-making (nosering aside) displaying the vocabulary built up by watching Kevin Smith and Trey Parker/Matt Stone movies and reading Warren Ellis' adult-oriented comics.

Question: How did you begin writing fan fic? (submitted by Terri)

Answer: My roommate my freshman year in college was the one who led me to online fandom, which is where I first learned that not only do other people feel compelled to play with their favorite characters from books, TV and the movies but will actually write down and share the behind-the-scenes or after-the-action events that they've imagined.

For a certain period of my adolescence I thought I wanted to be a writer. This was actually a push from my relatives (largely my mother) who connected my love of books and occasional tendency to verbosity with a potential career. Turns out I have more of an editorial or even non-fiction mindset -- but damn if I can't run off at the mouth (or the keyboard) when I get a good topic.

Writing fanfic happens because A) I have these ideas and some of them are just too much fun *not* to share (and when I simply *tell* people about them I get presented with demands to *write* them properly), and B) occasionally it becomes necessary just to get these scenes and characters out of my head! An act of auto-exorcism, performed with pen and notebook or clankety little laptop computer...

Question: Do you have any writing experience in other fandoms or outside of fanfic? (submitted by various)

Answer: In other fandoms, Star Trek: DS9 was my first fandom and Kira/Odo my first ship -- I have a very few stories in it. (One was even published in a zine -- _Love and Justice III,_ as I recall.) If anyone still has any of my stories posted, they shouldn't have, because I tried to yank them all off the web years ago.

Outside of fanfic, I write sometimes-voluminous letters and e-mails, and of course there were the inevitable school papers. (Including scientific papers, no less -- fun! Taught me to view it as "research" rather than "plagiarism," so long as I footnote it and give credit for exactly where I stole it from! ;-))

Question: What was your first fanfic story, when did you write it, and what was it like to post your first story? (submitted by Anne)

Answer: Well, possibly the *very* first was actually a co-written effort with my freshman roomie -- a somewhat horrendous DS9/TNG crossover called, regrettably, "When the Pants Fell" -- but I think my first solo story was the one called "Comm Channel" that played with the idea of the overheard conversation. It got me at least one feedback message claiming that the neighbors must have been going nuts flipping channels looking for the Robin Williams special because the reader was laughing so hard, which gave me quite a buzz let me tell you! It was written my freshman year in college, probably in late 1995 or early 1996.

Question: Do you find any part of writing difficult? Do you do anything special to get inspired? (submitted by various)

Answer: The most difficult part of writing for me is simply getting my arse in front of the computer or notebook and getting things actually typed or written out. Ideas are easy. Many are sparked by other things I've read or seen -- those "muses" that ride around in the back of my head tend to watch what's going on and inevitably spark the question, "What would Logan (or more recently, Kurt) do?" The dip$#!+ usher at the Tori Amos concert I was at last weekend led to an idea about Logan picking a fight with an usher and/or security at some event Marie had dragged him to, deliberately trying to get himself thrown out. I was just startled to realize that a segment of "Summer's End" (the part where the Massachusetts Academy students were picking Marie's brains about the Xavier kids) may have been subconsciously inspired by the Hogwarts crew meeting students from a couple of other magical schools in the fourth Harry Potter book. (That whole, "Wow, there are *other* schools out there for kids with powers like ours?" sense of discovery.)

If ideas are planted by everyday life, boredom is the fertilizer. Driving, showering, jogging, doing mindless stuff at my job, waiting for various things -- I let my mind wander, and what it wanders to sometimes makes it to the laptop and appears as fanfic. (Why my last job was so "inspirational" -- I spent all day in front of a computer typing things I no longer had to think about, listening to a CD diskman and letting my mind *play*...)

Question: What is it about Logan/Rogue that drew you to writing about them? (submitted by Terri)

Answer: Logan. Definitely Logan. Hugh Jackman was a beautiful onscreen incarnation of the character -- and it's interesting to speculate on whether I'd be in the fandom at all if Dougray Scott had gotten out of _MI2_ in time to make the filming for _X-Men_ -- but it was the character, not the actor. (Which is why I'm only a few issues away from owning the complete run of WOLVERINE in the comics, but have never actually seen _Paperback Hero_ all the way through, and didn't bother to catch _Swordfish_ for a second time in the theater even when it hit the dollar matinee.) As for Marie, I don't know how much of it may have been me finding her character more appealing than Jean, and how much was the chemistry -- she wasn't that big a factor in my joining the fandom.

The really freaky thing is that Logan isn't like either of the previous characters that sucked me into a fandom. Odo of DS9 and Giles of Buffy were both older, refined, intelligent, and competent, with hidden darker depths, surprising pasts, and startling physical ability when it came to a fight. Eh, come to think of it, they're similar after all -- Logan just has the dark past and violent tendencies right on the surface, with gentleness and intelligence underneath, and the surprises coming even to those who have known him for years. (Plus I've always sympathized with the werewolf -- *so* underrepresented in the field of horror, compared to the weary flood of vampires! -- and Logan is a mutant avatar of the archetypical werewolf. He's actually more feral than the mutant werewolf Rahne "Wolfsbane" Sinclair, which is saying a *lot* about his character.)

Question: Who is your favorite character to write? Least favorite? Why? (submitted by Jamie)

Answer: I really identify with Logan to a psychologically frightening degree, and of late Kurt has begun dancing (and also bamfing, backflipping, and tail-swishing) through my psyche until I think I can handle him nearly as well as Wolvie. I don't think I have any *least* favorites, so much as characters I just never got a real handle on. Like, I haven't put that much time and effort into getting into Jean and Scott's heads, so they don't really feel like characters so much as like vague outlines of stereotyped traits... :-(

Question: How many times did you see "X-Men" the movie or watch it on video? :) (submitted by Tara)

Answer: Seven times in the theater, and then I bought the movie the day after it came out on video (because I couldn't find the display when I went looking for it on the day it came out). Lost count after I had the video and then when it hit cable -- I started catching just pieces of the movie flipping channels.

Question: How does the characterization in your stories compare with what we see in the movie? Or is it closer to the comics/cartoon? (submitted by Amy)

Answer: My initial introduction to these characters was through the movie, so my first impressions came from there. Problem is, there just wasn't enough background for the characters to satisfy my needs, so first I started hunting for character info from online, and then started borrowing and buying comics, and now I even watch the Evolution cartoon. (Though I don't let the cartoon influence my fic characterizations -- it's once-removed from the original comics, just like the movie is, but in a different direction. Fun to watch, but I don't write cartoon fic.)

Question: "Drunken Musings" and "Settling In" seem to hit the proverbial Logan right on the head. The movie vocalizations seem to jump right to life through your depiction. When you set up your scenes to write, do you physically act them out by utilizing "voluntary" actors or work out every detail in your *imaginative* mind? (submitted by Toto)

Answer: First off, I gotta say, thanks for the compliment to my characterization! Getting to the actual question, it all takes place in what Stephen King refers to as the Skull Cinema. (I had a *really* mindless job when I wrote these things, with hours and hours all day to think about these things over and over again... Ideas can get *vivid* when they've been examined from every possible angle.)

Question: Do you read the comics? What do you feel about including comic/cartoon canon elements in a Logan/Rogue movieverse story? (submitted by Diane)

Answer: Yes, I managed to get myself hooked on the comics, looking for further background on the characters (as mentioned in my answer to question 9). Since I'm supposedly writing movie-verse, I try to filter whatever ideas and info I glean from the comics through the movie -- or rather, through the assumptions of reality given or hinted at in the movie. Some comics stuff conflicts directly with what we saw onscreen -- and some things from the comics are just things I'm not happy with including, though those tend to be more along the lines of events or relationships or characters that I'd prefer leaving out of my fic, rather than character traits. (Since a lot of these are the types of things that I doubt would appear in future movies anyway, I think I can get away with chopping them. ;-) )

I have at the back of my mind the realization that comics fans are going to be reading my fic and comparing it to what they recall from the comics (and are going to notice it if I pull something completely out of left field), while movie fans may know nothing about the comics beyond what they learn from reading my and others' fanfic. So I'm treating the comics sort of the same way the ULTIMATE X-MEN writers are treating the "established" comic background -- as source material for ideas I like and want to include, but by no means as canon, and by no means expecting all of my readers to recognize these things without an appropriate introduction.

Question: How do you write sex (smut) scenes? Is it difficult to get them on paper? (submitted by Melanie)

Answer: Oh, lord, yes! Nothing like a sex scene to put a big old roadblock in my creative process -- got a major segment of "Practice" still on hold because Logan and Marie are about to start making out, in fact. I generally have an idea exactly what's going to be happening in terms of who does what to whom -- the problem comes in actually *writing* it out, so that it reads the way I want it to feel.

I've read bad love scenes, you see. Some that made me actually nauseous. I'm a lot more comfortable writing NC17 now than I was with the first smutty story I ever wrote (which was typed with a towel draped over the monitor, to save me the embarrassment of reading my own filth, at least until I had to proof it), but I still handle it with the wariness of a small animal that may turn unpredictably vicious.

I once tried to write a *deliberately* horrendous PWP as a sort of snarky writing exercise. Managed to squick myself and never touched the story again...

Question: What do you think would be a great evening out for Logan and Rogue? :) (submitted by Diane)

Answer: Oh, Christ. No idea. Shooting pool and drinking beer somewhere. Maybe a concert, if the whole drunken/stoned crowd of humanity and deafening volume weren't too much for Logan to take. (Though that gets into the whole question of what Logan's musical preferences would be, which is a problem because authorial preferences will almost *always* come into play.) Thing is, I can see them doing more Logan-type activities than Marie-type activities because she'll have absorbed some of his likes but he never picked up hers (at least, not via instant personality-transfer). It's not that he *wouldn't* be willing to tolerate "chick stuff" for Marie's benefit -- just that he'd probably be suffering, whereas she'd be more likely to enjoy some of the things he'd consider fun. So most of their dates would tend to run more along the lines of dinner, a bar, maybe some pool and/or dancing, and maybe pulling the car (or motorcycle) over on some deserted stretch of road afterwards because they just couldn't *wait* to get home afterwards...

Question: You've written both het and slash fic. As a writer, what would you say is the difference between writing het and slash when it comes to relationships? (submitted by Traci)

Answer: I'm not a guy. (Some people have been fooled by my username, actually. ;-) ) So in a het relationship both parties are used to communication across the gender divide. And at least I've got one gender *down*. Writing slash gets me into that whole worry of overly "feminizing" the guys. I've heard it discussed elsewhere -- a lot of the "talking about feelings" and the like isn't going to come at all naturally to men (at least, in this culture). Ooh, and crying -- listening to a discussion about slash in another fandom, hearing about the fanon having shifted one guy's characterization into someone who cries at the drop of a hat, when he hasn't shed a tear in a single episode of the TV series. That kind of thing. (Not to mention that whole new problem that comes into play with the sex scenes -- to steal a line from my beta, "I don't have a penis, see." And that removes a whole field of experience that would have been extremely relevant in that particular context. Thank you, Minotaur, for your website for slash writers!)

Question: In "A Resonable Compromise" and "Rumors" you give us Logan/Remy. What is so interesting about this pairing, as opposed to Logan and Scott or Bobby or St. John, etc.? (submitted by Traci)

Answer: I actually wouldn't have had much of an answer to this question, had not someone else expressed the opinion to me recently that Logan/Remy is like Logan/Logan Lite. And she got me to thinking about it, and recalling some ideas I'd had along those lines -- because Logan and Remy *are* both smoking Harley-riding anti-authority lone wolves with eyes for the ladies and a willingness to kill if circumstances seem to warrant it, and with the Logan/Marie/Remy love triangle so prevalent in this fandom the two men definitely are going to come into frequent comparison. There *are* similarities between the two -- but also there *have* to be differences, not least because if there aren't then it really makes no difference which of the two Marie winds up with, does it? So the challenge in writing Logan/Remy (or to really examining a L/M/R triangle, for that matter) is putting one's finger on the differences underlying their superficial resemblances. It takes some heavy thought on the characterization of each, and some real work -- but then again, so do Logan/Scott or Bobby/St John, if you're putting the effort into it.

Really, I think what grabs one ship more than another for a particular reader has to do with character identification -- a lot of us would prefer that our favorite characters be together, if at all possible. (Which is why crossovers happen! ;-D ) I mean, why waste time reading about a character (or multiple characters) that you *don't* care about?

Question: "Choices" has a prominent original character in Cissy. How did you go about creating a character from scratch? What are your thoughts on how to balance original characters with the canon characters? (submitted by Diane)

Answer: Creating from scratch? Well, yeah, sort of -- though I cheated slightly with the implication that she's Victor Creed's daughter. (In retrospect, I wish I hadn't -- feral mutants, even those with healing factors, are common enough in the X-verse that I could have gotten away with making her one without making her a relative of a known mutant to "explain" her powers, and making her the daughter of a baddie sort of shorthands her characterization with the assumption that "evil begets evil." That isn't an implication I was trying to make.)

The biggest worry in fanfic is not letting one's original characters overshadow the canon characters. "Mary Sue" hangs like a specter over every OC. This is an irony, since original characterization is mandatory for "original fiction" -- but fanfic is an exercise in playing in another's sandbox, and the toys in that sandbox are why you wanted to play there in the first place. If at all possible I try to use existing characters to serve my purposes, if I can find one that would do what I want done without mangling characterization. (But then, I tend to generational epics, and the children are of necessity OCs, so...)

Original characters in the X-verse frankly bother me because I just can't think of the right characteristics and powers to match the canonical types. My biology training kicks in and goes, "But that's *impossible*!" So I cheat. Telepathy and feral mutations are both common beyond words in the comics, as are energy blasts of various types. I just don't try to make up anything exotic. (It really sucks for me that powers don't transmit with much predictability through mutant families, because I want to just give the kids various combinations of parental abilities and it doesn't really fit the X-verse. When a shapeshifting mother has a son with fur, a tail, missing digits, and the ability to teleport -- or when a brother who's a human rocket has a shapeshifting sister -- well, see where the problems arise? There's no sense or logic to it!)

Question: If you were asked to create a new character for the X-Men sequel, what would they be like and how would they affect the Logan/Rogue dynamic? (submitted by Diane)

Answer: Gahh. Erg. "New character" as in OC or as in bringing in another character from the comics for the sequels? Because (as noted above), I don't like using OCs in my fic and definitely would *not* want any in the movie -- not when there are so many wonderful comic characters that we didn't have room for in the first movie and that I'm hoping for in the sequel. (Nightcrawler, Gambit, and Beast in order of personal preference.) I fear that any new characters appearing would include either one of Logan's kill-'em-off girlfriends (Mariko, Silver Fox, etc.), or Gambit coming in to be Rogue's new love interest, and that would kind of complicate the L/M dynamic that hooked me in the first movie. What I want to see in the sequels is of course not necessarily what Hollywood will feel compelled to give us. :-/

Question: Where did the inspiration for "Summer's End" come from? (submitted by Autumn)

Answer: Oh, wow. I was talking this over in a response to feedback a few days ago. Part of it was the same process that begins *any* of my stories, asking myself, "What would Logan and/or Marie do if this happened?" In this particular case, the question was inspired by a plotline in the comics that made its way into one of the ESSENTIAL X-MEN collections (either the second or the third one, I forget which). Kitty joins the X-Men, but Emma Frost tries to get her in the Massachusetts Academy instead, and manipulates the Prydes to transfer their daughter to Emma's school. The comic storyline wasn't very much like "Summer's End," quite aside from me writing it as Marie rather than as Kitty and me treating it as a sort of quasi-sequel to "Practice." (Emma switched bodies with Ororo, and was taking Kitty as a sideline to her real goal of infiltrating the X-Men.) And in the comics Emma hasn't ever made a play for Logan -- more or less telling him to get his hand off her ass in a recent issue of NEW X-MEN, in fact. (But comics Logan ain't nearly as pretty as Hugh -- and Emma *is* sexually aggressive when a man catches her eye.) Plus there were new questions that arose as I played with the idea, such as what might happen if Emma learned more about Logan and Marie's secret relationship than Xavier ever had.

And rereading the above, I just remembered. The one thing that *really* started me off, the initial spark, was that section where Emma was pondering Logan's psyche. That little internal monologue of hers was the very first part of the story I wrote, before I scrolled up to the top of the file and started filling in the preceding events chronologically. Because that little monologue summarized some thoughts *I* had been having about Logan's inner workings, and I needed a character to voice them who would be able to get a good look inside Logan's head. Marie wouldn't phrase things in such cold analytical terms, and Xavier wouldn't have gone delving into Logan's mind sans cause or permission -- but Emma sure as hell would... Connect the need for Emma to go probing Logan (thereby enabling her to narrate my own thoughts on Logan's head) with that Kitty-napping idea from the comics, and...

Question: You've tackled some tough issues in a couple of stories--spousal abuse in "Choices" and pedophilia in "Daddy's Little Girl". Why did you decide to write stories centered around these topics? Is there anything you would consider taboo as a topic? (submitted by various)

Answer: Two questions, and I'll answer them in order.

First off, why these topics? "Choices" happened because I was playing with the idea of Logan and Marie winding up with the "wrong people" --originally, Marie with Remy and Logan with Ororo. Problem was, as I played with the idea I realized that I saw Logan and Ro as settling into a nice, comfortable, friendly -- albeit passionless -- relationship, until realization set in and the two couples basically swapped partners. No good -- not angsty enough! Change it to an *un*friendly marriage, but Ro didn't fit into the abusive role so I needed a new wife for Logan. Enter Cissy... (Gah. I think I may have even played with using *Jubes* as the abusive wife at one point. Glad I didn't!) As for "Daddy's," the subject matter was a challenge from my beta, pure and simple. (I even pointed that out in the author's notes, I think.)

Now, regarding the question of "taboo topics": Taboo topics basically meaning things that you shouldn't talk about, and in this day and age in American society you can find people somewhere who *will* talk about *anything* -- in public and before an audience, even. It's simply a question of whether it's in good taste or not.

I'm personally all in favor of bad taste. There is something to be said for shock value -- it can make audiences squirm, but possibly at least some will be introspective enough to consider *why* the subject matter makes them so uncomfortable. If nothing else, the sheer disbelief -- "I can't *believe* he just said that!" -- adds a kick to comedy (as any longtime fan of _South Park_ can attest).

So. I would not personally consider a topic "taboo," as such.

However. There are a lot of topics that I would not personally care to tackle. Not because I think it's something that "shouldn't be discussed" -- but because I don't feel qualified to handle them properly. (At least, not without further research.) Catholicism. Yak herding. Motorcycles. Hockey. The Dewey decimal system. Doesn't mean I don't think these subjects are worthy of discussion in a public setting -- just that I know jack about them...

Question: Until you brought up the potency of Marie's touch disipating in the movie in "Practice Makes Perfect", I never realized this was happening. How did you come up with this idea? It does make a unique and intriguing story. I love it! Oh, by the way, please finish "Practice Makes Perfect." :) (submitted by Toto)

Answer: The shift from David being in a coma for weeks to Logan being out for hours after the stabbing scene was easy to dismiss because of Logan's healing factor -- and easy to forget because Logan seemingly spent days or even weeks unconscious after the Statue. But that part when Magneto was transferring his power to Rogue -- no coma, enough of his own power left afterwards to try to force Logan away from the machine, yet he touched Marie for *much* longer than her kiss with David lasted. And the look on Marie's face when Erik was touching her -- like she was fighting *not* to take what he was giving her. So that was either a plot hole (Magneto not dropping into a coma immediately after touching her) for added drama (Logan having to fight Magneto's power to get at the machine), or the inference is that Marie was actually able to at least slow her absorption somewhat... (Thanks for the compliment on the idea and I am indeed trying to finish "Practice"!)

Question: You've written most of your stories by posting them in parts. Do you find it more challenging to post in parts? (submitted by Anne)

Answer: No, actually the challenge is to *finish* these stories, instead of dropping them as the initial impetus of the idea fades and turning to another fic. And having all these messages from people going, "Yes, I read what you have and loved it, now where's the rest?" creates a certain pressure to continue until it's completed.

Aside from the occasional urge to go back and rewrite an earlier scene to make it fit a little better with later ideas as to what to do with a story, and those are mostly just for little details. (Such as, wishing I hadn't named a particular character when mentioning a few students already at the school, because I needed a student new to the X-Crew in a later scene and she could have served my purposes.) Revising already-posted fic is unsatisfactory -- I can fiddle with it all I want on my own website, but in the list archives or on others' sites it's pretty much stuck as it was received. So I do like to release my fics in little chunks, so that at least the most recent installments of the scene I'm currently writing are still free to be played with before I release that bit to the public.

Question: How do you create a structured story with only a roughed out idea? (submitted by Toto)

Answer: I don't. By the time I get around to actually writing the story down, I've played with it in my head for so long that -- although I'm missing the details, like actual dialogue or individual scenes -- I know exactly how the plot is going to go. And the plot comes from the same old, "What would Logan/Marie do if this happened?" -- or sometimes, "What set of circumstances might lead Logan and/or Marie to this particular situation?"

Question: How much has feedback affected the stories you've written? (submitted by Stacy)

Answer: Well, at the most basic level it's encouraged me to write, and to keep working on particular stories, by reassuring me that my efforts are being welcomed and that people *do* want to read what I have to write. On a more specific level, I can think of one instance in particular in which feedback shaped later stories. In "Drunken Musings," more than one person expressed appreciation of the dichotomy I was showing between Logan and the Wolverine. It encouraged me to treat the distinction between Logan's rational, human side and the more bestial Wolverine nature as a near-schizophrenic personality split, and shaped my treatment of him in all the fics I've written since.

On another level, there are the feedback requests to do such-and-such with my story-in-progress, or to do this or that in a sequel. In at least one instance ("Rumors") I did let the requests for a sequel encourage me to actually write down some of the scenes I had in mind for the aftermath of the first story. I wasn't actually *planning* a sequel when I finished "Reasonable," though -- it was just a few ideas that became too vivid and *had* to be written down.

But I don't let feedback affect my plotting. I've generally already figured out exactly how I want the story to go before I start actually writing any of it (let alone posting it), and I'm not going to change tracks in midstream because one (or several) of the readers is dying to see Marie smack the crap out of Cissy. (I tell you now, that ain't gonna happen.) I'm amused by the suggestions sometimes, and generally pleased that the readers feel caught up enough by the story to tell me what they want to see next -- but I'll keep on writing the story as I see fit to write it.

Question: Which of your stories are you most proud of and why? (submitted by various)

Answer: Oh, crap. I hate favorites questions -- my preferences tend to shift in random directions and vary from one month to the next. Umm -- I was really happy when I finished "Reasonable Compromise" because it was the closest I had ever gotten (up to that point, anyway) to actually getting a story down onto paper (or into pixels) in a form that really matched the version that had been playing out in the Skull Cinema. "Daddy's Little Girl" had some lyrical passages in the opening scenes that I was happy with. "Choices" plays with fun ideas and also has some passages I kind of like. "Ensuing Complications" is proving to be a blast to write -- now if I can just finish "Practice" already so I can start *posting* "Ensuing"! Oh yeah, and then there's a nifty little incest fic that absolutely cracked me up and that hasn't been posted yet (which is why it wasn't mentioned in the question about taboo topics). And there was a little scene or two (a fight with Scott that *almost* jarred some memories loose for Logan) that had me sniffling helplessly while reading and rereading it -- I'm strongly tempted to include it somewhere in "Practice" or "Ensuing," since I want to share it with readers, except that it has absolutely nothing to do with the main plot of either story and would set up what appeared to be foreshadowing that would in fact go absolutely nowhere because it's only there for characterization.

Question: Do you have any advice for new Logan/Rogue and/or X-Men fan fiction writers? (submitted by various)

Answer: Oh, well. Geeze. There are two kinds of fanfic writers. The first type are writing sort of as a form of dialogue (as I once heard it described) between reader and writer: "This is what I think would be neat to see happen to these characters." The second type are the ones who stress and agonize over nitpicky grammatical errors and characterization and dialogue -- some of these are even treating their fanfic as practice for eventual professional writing (or may in fact *be* pros). Realize which type you are, and recall that the readers and other writers in the fandom may be from either type. Understand that an author who ends a story post with a query to her readers as to what they think she should do next is not aiming for a Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and that an author who has spent months creating a plot and fussing over details of her fic-in-progress is not going to be willing to discard her careful planning because there are scenes you particularly want to see her writing.

But above all else, keep in mind: We wouldn't be writing fanfic if we didn't share the impulse to step in and *make* things happen to the characters we care about. And if you want to see it, then you're better off writing it yourself than you are nagging others trying to get them to write it for you.

And now, I leave you all with a few words from everybody's favorite Brazilian transvestite shaman:

"The words 'strategic withdrawal' are beginning to hold a special magic for me." -- Lord Fanny, THE INVISIBLES, Volume 1 #9, by Grant Morrison