“Hungry Like the Wolf”, End notes

[aadler]

[ Endnotes posted 22 Aug 2018 ]

Since this is a remix, what prompted the direction this story took in differing from the original?

I don’t actually remember. My best guess would be that I just looked at the original story and thought, Hey, here’s a canonical supernatural woman that Xander hasn’t met yet! And, of course, we all know what happens when he actually meets them …

Is there any particular significance to the title?

It was serviceable, no more. Song title (as I generally try to do with remixes), reference to Nina’s nature, it didn’t really seem to need to go any further than that.

What is the thing I like most about this story? the thing I like least, or about which I feel most doubtful?

Liked most overall, the matter-of-factness with which Xander and Nina dealt with each other while she was in the cage. This was not a normal situation … but for the two of them, by now, it wasn’t that much outside normal, and they addressed it straight-on without unnecessary drama.

Liked most as in single incident? Xander’s lecture to the Watcher trainees. In a way it was a substantial digression from the main story, and I genuinely considered excising it … but it served to show something of where he was in his personal development at that time, and I decided that did indeed serve the story, so it stayed. (If I had cut it, I would have found a way to use it elsewhere, even if I’d had to build an entire story around it.)

Liked least … I’ve generally left the Season 8+ comic series out of things; despite Joss’s having declared them canon, it simply never felt that way to me. Setting Part 3 in Orvieto (to which I also referred in “An’ Foolish Notion”, but that was an Independent story) was simultaneously a sly nudge toward insider knowledge and a potentially uncomfortable element. It wound up working, I believe, but there still remains just the least trace of uneasiness.

Is there anything I think I could have done better, or might do differently if I had it to do over?

I was actually conscious of a number of weaknesses in this story when I first produced it, and so spent considerable time in polishing and reinforcement and reassessment and more polishing. The only thing that even occurs to me … I hadn’t really thought of it before now, but the general context of Nina’s appearances in A:tS indicates the possibility that she might have been a couple of years older than Xander. I could have made use of that if I had thought of it, but I didn’t and so I didn’t.

Do I have any plans to follow up on this story, or to use the character(s) or situation in a subsequent fic?

No real follow-up plans, and this story doesn’t have as many internal links to other stories as I’ve seen elsewhere. Kraken wraiths (mentioned in this fic) had been previously referenced clear back in “Morning’s Echo”, and would be again in “the Other Night I Dreamt of Knives”; Kinue, here mentioned, had been briefly profiled in “Precious Cargo” and referenced in passing in “Zero-Sum Game”; and, Xander’s time in the shepherd’s hut and his use of a prosthetic eye (in Part 3) had already been covered in “Learning Curve”. That’s about as far as it’s ever likely to go.

Any observations to add at the end?

Nothing in particular. This was a fun little story with some good moments. It brought me pleasure and continues to do so. Doesn’t get much better than that.