“Glass Ceiling”, End notes

[aadler]

[ Endnotes posted 20 Dec 2015 ]

Where did the idea for the story come from?

Probably the earliest germ of the idea came from a Buffyfic I saw on the now-defunct Slayer’s Fanfic Archive, wherein Buffy escaped from an Initiative prison, only to discover she was actually an unpowered clone of the real Slayer. That intersected with some other, fuzzy notions I had about someone being prepared, by harsh training, for some vital mission, with the training unexpectedly changing not only the capabilities but the character of the unwilling recipient. What I can state with certainty is that, when I first did “In Ev’ry Angle Greet”, in March 2001, I had already foreseen the general shape of this fic, and laid the groundwork accordingly.

(Also, though I was utterly unaware of it on a conscious level at the time, I’ve since come to realize that the basic background of this fic was strongly influenced by my memory of the Ms. Marvel/Marcus Immortus storyline in Avengers issues # 197-200. Seriously, even my description of Roxeim accords with the one shown for Marcus, as any Google image search will quickly show. In my defense, that story was 25 years old when I wrote “Glass Ceiling”, but it still feels weird to recognize a truth of which I was oblivious at the time.)

Is there any particular significance to the title?

Only in the sense that everyone already understands the term ‘glass ceiling’. I wasn’t attempting any grand statement about female empowerment against a tyrannical patriarchy, I just thought that someone like Roxeim — with total power over the domain he occupied — would be only too likely to surround himself with attractive women whose obedience he could command, and that particular male dominance being the main obstacle my captive Cordelia would have to overcome.

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

Cordelia is always fun to write, but also tricky, especially in a situation like this that called for her to grow during the course of the story. I think I caught her speech patterns and general attitudes relatively well, and I feel comfortable with her response to the expansion of her physical and psychological capabilities. I enjoyed the action sequences (of course), and I enjoyed couching her discovery of her previously unsuspected power in terms that gave the impression of something else (unsuspected attraction to other women, except not).

What I like least … well, the story as I told it made sense to me, but re-reading after a gap of some years I get the sense of a certain choppiness in the narrative. That might be because I was writing it between shifts in Afghanistan, or perhaps from some other cause, but it does seem (to me) to be there.

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

I brought in the other-universe women — Mandy from 24, and Kari from the DC universe (mostly the Green Lantern back-history) — to provide some variety. In retrospect, I can see that there might have been some advantage in replacing either Sam or Lynn (or both) with otherfandom females, just to broaden the brush a bit.

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

As with previous stories, there are some links already. I noted that this Cordelia is the one who vanished from the ’verse of “In Ev’ry Angle Greet”, which disappearance was also mentioned in “Phase Shift”; additionally, Kari’s mention of other-universe versions of Cordelia gaining power from a kiss references not only original-verse Cordelia’s acquiring prophecy from Doyle but also how Cordelia-the-Slayer became one in “God Save the Queen” (if you accept the old label of CPR as ‘the kiss of life’); and, finally, the ‘Kuruse demon’ mentioned in this story appears as a composite group in “X-Factorial” (though that story wouldn’t be written for a few more years).

As for further use … oh, yes. I’ve had that story in mind for years, and absolutely WILL write it eventually. (Maybe 2016; I keep swearing that it’ll definitely be this year, and I keep meaning it, so I’ll truly aim for 2016.) There are also other stories planned — at least two of them — as sort of side-spins from this one, so the end is not yet in sight.

Any observations to add at the end?

“Glass Ceiling” was one of my ‘big stories’. I don’t actually give them that label, but I can feel them sometimes: big ideas that I want to get solid in my imagination before I finally start setting them down on paper. “In Ev’ry Angle Greet” was the first of those; “Whisper of a Moment” was another, and “Queen’s Gambit”, and “Into the Abyss”, and (even though it turned out not to be particularly long in itself) so was “Oaxaca Nights”. I’m almost done with my ‘big stories’; I know of only one that still remains to be done. Will there ever be another after that? I honestly can’t say.