Author's Notes & Acknowledgments
Okay. So, this is the longest thing I've ever actually finished, and it ended up being about twice as long as the story I was originally planning to write. First of all, I want to thank my betas: writing_racoon for her encouragement, naatz for smacking down my fits of melodrama and pointing out my characterization and continuity fail. Any remaining mistakes are my own.
I also want to thank ginzai for her gorgeous illustrations, and everybody on my flist for cheerleading me this whole time.
And to all the nonymice on spnpermanon : thank you for scaring me into giving this a second (and third) look-over before posting.
A couple of notes on the story itself:
1. Canfield is a fictional town. It is located tentatively on the inland tip of North Carolina, not far from Asheville; I invented it mostly to avoid the pitfalls of writing about an actual town or city I've never visited. While I have spent my entire life in a rural area and I've visited North Carolina, I have no direct experience with small Southern towns. I hope that I haven't made too many significant errors in my portrayal of the people and culture.
2. I'm aware that in this story Dean never fully comes to terms with his sexual orientation. While I'm not fond of the WNGWJLEO trope and that isn't how I intend the relationship to come across, I realize that it probably will come across that way for at least some people.
As far as I'm concerned, the Dean in this story is bisexual. He has had some negative early experiences that combine with his unexamined attitudes about sex, gender, and his own identity to make casual sex with other men problematic for him, but he is not a straight man in a one-off relationship with another dude.
3. I realize that not everyone will agree with my concept of the timeline here; I wrote it with the assumption that the series starts with Sam in the first semester of his senior year at Stanford, and that his freshman year would have started in the fall of 2001. There are still some discrepancies with this interpretation, but it's what worked best in terms of the story.
4. Feedback is love. If you read this, please take a minute to let me know what you think. Constructive criticism is welcome, even if it makes me want to go hide in a hole somewhere. XD
Hope y'all enjoyed--
Tassia
I also want to thank ginzai for her gorgeous illustrations, and everybody on my flist for cheerleading me this whole time.
And to all the nonymice on spnpermanon : thank you for scaring me into giving this a second (and third) look-over before posting.
A couple of notes on the story itself:
1. Canfield is a fictional town. It is located tentatively on the inland tip of North Carolina, not far from Asheville; I invented it mostly to avoid the pitfalls of writing about an actual town or city I've never visited. While I have spent my entire life in a rural area and I've visited North Carolina, I have no direct experience with small Southern towns. I hope that I haven't made too many significant errors in my portrayal of the people and culture.
2. I'm aware that in this story Dean never fully comes to terms with his sexual orientation. While I'm not fond of the WNGWJLEO trope and that isn't how I intend the relationship to come across, I realize that it probably will come across that way for at least some people.
As far as I'm concerned, the Dean in this story is bisexual. He has had some negative early experiences that combine with his unexamined attitudes about sex, gender, and his own identity to make casual sex with other men problematic for him, but he is not a straight man in a one-off relationship with another dude.
3. I realize that not everyone will agree with my concept of the timeline here; I wrote it with the assumption that the series starts with Sam in the first semester of his senior year at Stanford, and that his freshman year would have started in the fall of 2001. There are still some discrepancies with this interpretation, but it's what worked best in terms of the story.
4. Feedback is love. If you read this, please take a minute to let me know what you think. Constructive criticism is welcome, even if it makes me want to go hide in a hole somewhere. XD
Hope y'all enjoyed--
Tassia