Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope you had a nice one.

Still working on the next arc by the way. I got in contact with the great Elrod W regarding a liberty I'll be taking with the MAU itself. All of the emails will be posted around the time of the story as a sort of extra like on DVDs.

Fictionmania is down

I don't know why or when it will be back up. Although I can guess what caused it, but I won't get into that.

So I'm going to go over the older stories, correct a few errors and then post them here. I'll try and get it done over the weekend.

Also I've done a good bit of progress on the next story. If Fictionmania isn't online by the time I'm ready, I'll just publish it here first.

Dropped Ideas

Over the course of writing the series, I've come up with some elements that I didn't use or just dropped. I guess it is part of the natural evolution of a story. But anyway, here is some ideas I didn't use.

Arc 1

• The Beatles song "Here Comes The Sun" originally played a large part in the story. Faith would have heard the song during her dream. Then later it would have been the thing that lead her to seeing that Spike had a MAU. I dropped it after realizing it was too close to elements of Allen W's Slayer series.
• There was originally a sex scene between Faith and Agent R, where R's real name would have been revealed. I dropped it mainly because I didn't want it to look like R was taking advantage of her. R's real name will be revealed soon.
• I had originally planned to show off some of Agent S' past, possibly explaining his latching onto Buffy and Faith. This may show up again later though.
• Originally Angel would have already used the MAU and become immune to the sun. He would have still died though. I dropped it because I imagined that people would mention that he should have used it the device to become immortal.
• Spike was originally going to escape. I killed him because I thought that Dennis would be a more compelling villain.

Arc 2

• Some of the stuff with Faith and Dennis was a bit more detailed. I censored myself because I found it to be too dark.
• Faith originally killed Dennis. I saved him because I felt it would take Faith down a dark path and because he was too good of a villain to go out so quickly.
• There was a story set at a mall, but the tone was wrong given the rest of the arc. It would have been like a musical number in Empire Strikes Back.
• I considered letting Dennis survive again, but killing him was needed to keep Faith from sinking into depression again. Although I still have something up my sleeve regarding Dennis.
• There was originally an epilogue set sometime in the future that set up some of Faith's future. I may use this actually because I like it.

Also I should note that I'll do some slight editing on the old stories and post them here. I'm a little worried about Fictionmania right now. I'm staying out of the whole thing, but if the place gets overrun by stories like the one that caused all of that, I really don't want to stick around. Fictionmania will still be the home of the stories, but I want a back up, just in case.

Writing in the MAU universe

So I've been writing in the MAU universe for a while now, so this is a little bit of what it is like. The MAU universe was created by Elrod W a few years ago. Sadly it isn't as popular as it used to be, but I hoping there is a resurgence in the future.

The best thing about it is the freedom of it. There are a few rules, but the MAU allows amazing freedom in what you can do with your characters.

Now since it is something of a shared universe, there is a little bit of crossover between stories. Largely coming from the Agents C & D, who pop into several stories. They even show up in one of mine, the 100th MAU story on Fictionmania. Although I only included them as a cameo for that reason. The characters from the MAU - Trekkies stories have gotten a slight mention. I believe that Elrod W wants them off limits to other writers, so I only vaguely referenced them. I would think that the Agency is still very interested in them and their working MAU, but have given up on trying. The largest crossover for me has been with Allen W's The Slayer series. It is pretty much the inspiration for my series, so I only felt it was right to include his Faith on some level.

Plus since this is in the same universe, the original Faith is going to have some ramifications on my Faith. Both have worked for the Agency, so some older Agents are aware of what happened. Although I like to think that it was covered up and the newer Agents do not know about it. Agent R being one of them, he has no knowledge at all about the other Faith. He hasn't even been told by his girlfriend, who is my Faith. For Faith, she has some trouble dealing with it. Imagine learning that there is someone who looked just like you, pretty much acted like you, and worked at the same place. Now imagine that something very bad happened to this person, it would probably be a little weird to say the least.

The original Faith has driven a little bit of the plot, way more than I originally wanted. But I looked at it from a logical point, she would have had a major impact on how the Agency operates. So the "man in the suit" main plan was to wipe out both slayers because he knew how strong the original was. Plus the chip mentioned in the last story is an updated version implanted into the original Faith. I try to avoid it, but sometimes it just comes up.

Now will there ever be a meeting of the Faiths?

Maybe.

As for the future, the next arc is going to be a little different. Buffy and Faith are now on the run. Along the way they encounter other MAU users and begin learning what the "man in the suit" has planned. I have something planned with an experiment on a MAU. Something that it isn't supposed to do, but is meant to be an one in a million type event. There may be some different alien technology showing up. Not Fwirthian technology, but something else and much rarer. There may be a large time jump sometime in the future. So far I've only jumped a few weeks and series is more or less set in present day. The next arc will probably wrap up the "man in the suit" storyline. The seeds for the next villain have already been planted. In case anyone is wondering, the dream sequences are very important. Especially the ones in "I Close My Eyes and Then Drift Away" and "Into The Great Unknown".

Hello?

If anyone actually reads this, please post a comment.

Latest Story

MAU - Slayers - Into The Great Unknown

The last story of the current arc. It explains a few things, but brings up even bigger questions. I'm hoping people enjoy this one, it was probably the quickest to write. Most of it just came to me and as I've gotten to understand the characters they almost write themselves. Since this was the last story of the arc I wanted to do a few things. The biggest was Faith confronting Dennis after all this time. She will still be dealing with it for a while, but not as bad anymore. As for the reveal at the end, it is connected to someone you met in the first story of the arc. The reveal is something I've been debating over for a while. I first came up with the idea very early into the first arc, I have an alternate scene written which I consider canon and may show up.

I will go ahead and say that the next arc will be a little different. Buffy and Faith are on the run now, but they will still encounter other MAU users.

New Story

MAU - Slayers - Walking Blindly...

I hope that some of you remember the last two vampires caught by Buffy and Faith a few stories ago. Well this is why they weren't killed. There is some info coming up in the next story, but it is only addressing why this happened.

I was happy to work with Agent S again. He is one of my favorite characters in the series. He's just an old Agent who has seen too much during his job.

The next story is the last part of the current arc. It is one story short of the original plan, but I'm pushing that story back to the next arc.