“Echoes from the Battleground”, End notes

[aadler]

[ Endnotes posted 23 Apr 2019 ]

Where did the idea for the story come from?

Easy enough: as already stated at the title page, this story was done for cya_ficathon (Round 7) from a request by tiny_white_hats. Maybe a few of the general notions had already been simmering in the back of my brain, but this was the prompt that pulled them all together. (Having said that, I’d guess that honorh’s “Graduation Day” may have influenced it to some extent, even though it had been some years since I’d read that one.)

Is there any particular significance to the title?

Not especially. In a way this harked back to my beginnings in Buffyfic, ‘background’ stories that interwove with canon (and, in this case, with other stories in my own body of Backstage work). This one was about, not the battle itself, but the persons and issues surrounding it.

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

Given that it was essentially 100% character study/exploration, I’m fairly well satisfied with the characterization. That’s the ‘like’ part. Doubtful? well, there really wasn’t a whole heck of a lot of ‘there’ there; a decent enough tale in itself, it didn’t set out to break any new ground, and was quite a bit more self-referential than most of my stories.

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

Not really, no. The general nature and structure of this story was almost literally dictated to me, and within that overall structure there wasn’t a lot of variation I could have attempted. The vignettes I posted were the ones that came naturally to me, and it’s unlikely I would have done much different under any circumstances.

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

I have no direct plans for follow-up (though Xander’s Gremlin was later referenced in “Rough Trade”, and Father Nolan appeared in “Maxima Culpa”) … but there are many, many links to other stories I’ve done. (I did mention ‘self-referential’, right?) Some of them:

My version of Sheila had already appeared in “Come to My Window”, “Shadow and Substance”, and “… Than Meets the Eye” (and done a cameo in “Queen’s Gambit”).

‘The spirit of Gabriela de Santos’ had first been mentioned in my very first Buffyfic, “Point of Focus”.

Tana Guiette (the ‘Asian Cordette’ from the Season 3 episode “the Wish”, but I named her as far back as 1999), likewise had appeared in “Come to My Window” and “Queen’s Gambit”, with her drama scholarship mentioned in “… Than Meets the Eye”.

The ‘pale woman’ clearly is ‘my’ character Nika (the transfigured Jenny Calendar), who first appeared in “Shadow and Substance” and played a minor part in “Whisper of a Moment”, having been also mentioned in “In Ev’ry Angle Greet”, “the Still, Small Voice”, and “Queen’s Gambit”.

Single mother Melody Kendall was mentioned (and already intended to be identified as Harmony’s mother) back in “Twilight’s Last Gleaming”.

Cruitl larvae and the demon Gluuphthri were both mentioned in “Morning’s Echo”, and cruitl larvae were also referenced in “Learning Curve”.

Plague limpets had previously been referenced in “In Ev’ry Angle Greet” (which also mentioned Roger Pollard as the new high school principal, albeit in a parallel timeline).

Father Nolan first appeared in “the Still, Small Voice”, and Willow’s insertion of “DNR” in Faith’s hospital orders was glancingly mentioned there (as well as described, though not attributed to her, in “Whisper of a Moment”). Father Nolan had also been mentioned in “Queen’s Gambit”.

… and there’s no guarantee I didn’t forget some other links.

Any observations to add at the end?

For all that I considered it a relatively minor effort, I got considerable pleasure out of this story, and actually wound up putting a lot into it … including, if you squint a bit, some suggestive foreshadowing of the, er, ‘alternative’ version of Joyce Summers who would figure signally in “Deepest, Darkest, Blackest Night, Without a Single Spark of Light”. What can I say? I’m a giver.