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This story is very late, because it was about a third complete, maybe even half, before a data error resulted in all my work being irretrievably lost. For that reason I released each chapter as it was finished. Some of them I didn't even spell-check before throwing up onto the Internet. A huge big thank-you to fellow ASSTR author and native French speaker Alienor for saving Monday's dialogue; I tried AltaVista Babelfish originally and was assured that it produces total gibberish. Ali was kind enough to provide more appropriate translations. Also, the Dr. Moreau reference was pointed out to me by a fan, and I've decided to use it. It wasn't intentional, I just named the character that because I liked it; but that's how it turned out. A big IOU to Nick Scipio, who allowed me to, ah, borrow the name "Faith Bennett" for my character. "Good writers borrow, great writers steal," is how he put it. (Amusing how his Faith Bennett is so different from mine.) Finally, a huge thank-you to my friend VWL for setting up Arie's conflict with Trina, which I could never have done since I sort of have testicles, which precludes me from being able to think quite the same way girls do. Things you can quote me on: Derek isn't joking about the Transformers thing. The dimension is generally known as Hammerspace because anime heroines frequently produce Cadillac-sized mallets from a similar source. (This is probably why the robots were re-designed so thoroughly for the movie: they needed to integrate energy weapons into the design, which is totally not how the cartoons worked.) And there is a Male Pill in development, and it would work as described in this story&mash;though previous versions were flunked by the FDA for causing amusing side effects such as permanent sterility. Do not quote me on my daily sperm production figures; those are pure conjecture. The listed failure rate of the Female Pill (1 in 10,000) is purely fictional and exaggerated to account for the Naked In School universe's advanced medicine; the Pill we have today fails quite a bit more frequently, though it is still the most reliable form of contraception aside from vasectomy or ligation. And some of the material brought into the Wednesday debate is my own speculation, though a lot of the rest of it is relatively-trustworthy scientific theory. The Reference game continues. Bonus points to those who know the following things: the significance of the name Brandon's parents accidentally apply to Meredith; who Meredith's parents are named after; who Brandon's housekeeper is named after; who originally confused "Brandon" and "Bronson"; who originally gave off Faith's "green tree" exclamation; where Derek's garbled explosion of consonants on Thursday comes from; who invented the fictional play he's studying; who can guess who's going to star in my next two stories; and what noise a giraffe actually makes!. An enormous thank-you to readers guns97 and Rick in Eureka MO, who each provided a comprehensive list of spelling & grammar errors and suggested corrections. I can write well enough to get by, but seriously, sometimes it's the readers who make the difference between "well enough" and "good". A thank you to you all, but to these two especially. Finally, a dedication. These stories are a labor of love for me, a gift that I give freely; and many of you have been kind enough to return some of the effort to me, in the form of feedback and praise. Recently, though, these stories have brought me a new friend, a woman with whom I share a lot of traits and interests. We've unfortunately gone our separate ways, but for a short time I had hope and joy, as Meredith gives to Brandon. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I'm sorry for disappointing you. Steer clear of the polar bears. On 31 August 2008, the official version 2.0 of this story was posted, featuring more consistent characterization, a character's-name retcon, and a final decision on what jobs Brandon's parents have (did anyone notice that they changed from story to story? If they hadn't, why did I just point it out?). |