Acknowledgments and Afterthoughts:
Afterthoughts:
Tom, if you're reading this, I'd like thank you one last time for asking me to do a project with you. Even though it was my first collaboration, and it took me forever to get my act together since I didn't know what I was doing (having a writing partner is a totally different experience than writing solo), this actually turned out to be one of my deepest stories since "Salvation, Part 1".
I mentioned once that I try to give all my stories a purpose (with the exception of a few one-shots, which sole purpose is to try something different and hopefully get a few other readers hooked on the pairing. Who's to say a super soft, plush-cuddly panda can't fall in love with the big bad wolf?). I try to give every one of my stories a certain thought, ideal, or moral that drives the plot. The underlying lesson of "Salvation, Part 1" and "Salvation, Part 2" is that life is too short not to take a chance at love. Balto's near death experience during the serum run is what prompts him to ask Jenna the biggest question of his life, and the risk that he takes in that story opens a whole new world of possibilities for the two of them. The moral of "Erdan 2", though it might be a bit sappy and done a lot in movies, was that your ties to your family are created by your love for them, and not just by blood.
However, "The Revenge and Redemption of Steele" was the complete opposite of anything I've done so far, and not just because it contains male/male pairings (the fact that there happen to be gay dogs in this story actually doesn't matter that much to the plot. And it certainly doesn't matter to the characters. The fact that Kaltag, Steele and a few of Steele's teammates prefer men over women is just an incidental thing, nothing major, and I'd like to think the lesson of this story would have remained the same even if Steele wasn't a bisexual character).
The moral here is similar to that of "Salvation, Part 1"'s, it reminds you that life is too short, and that you should make the best of what time you have by being with the ones you love. But what makes it different than "Salvation, Part 1" is the underlying theme that if you spend you entire life pursuing someone who'll never love you back (essentially waiting for them to 'come to their senses' so the perfect life can fall in your lap) then you'll create a future for yourself with no love in it at all. If any of you, gay or straight, have ever had a crush on someone who didn't love you back (like Jacob's devotion to Bella), then you know what I'm talking about.
There are a lot of subplots in this story. Kodi and Dusty's marital problems, along with the bun in Dusty's oven. Balto and Jenna's heartbreak over their daughter. Steele's grudge against Balto. Roger's desire to keep his promise to his friend (Blake and Griff were the only guys who didn't a subplot in this fic. All their issues were resolved in chapter 2, so by the time Kodi and Dusty meet them their lives are already as great as they hoped it could be). But all those things were just that, subplots. Steele and Kaltag's decisions to let go of the past was what this story was really all about.
The real plot of the story is revealed by the name of the first chapter ("One Door Closes, Another One Opens"). Even though Steele left Nome in chapter 1, he didn't really let Jenna go, since he still hoped she would 'come around' and fall in love with him the next time she saw him. It wasn't until Kodi came along and showed him how foolish he had been that that he was really able to say good-bye to Jenna Jones, and find love in the most unlikely of people, Kaltag. And just like how Steele's journey to redemption would never have happened if it weren't for Kodi's help, this fic would never have been written if it hadn't been for Kodiwolf321 (I'd already toyed with the idea of Kodi meeting Steele a few times in my head, but it never seemed interesting enough for me to make a whole story out of it. You literally wouldn't be reading this author's note right now if Tom hadn't insisted it was a good idea).
But even though all four of my stories so far have been different and unique in their own way, they do have one thing in common, they all explore different kinds of love. The soon-to-be-completed "Salvation" trilogy is about growing up with someone and wishing you could be their boyfriend for years before you finally work up the nerve to tell her how you feel (it's kinda like the classic 'girl next door' story, but with dogs and wolves in it instead of people. Not to mention a few canine rapists).
"Erdan 2" to me was a lot like one of my favorite childhood movies, "Bambi II". It explores the bond between a father and son, and the undying love a family has for each other, the glue that hold every wolf pack together and makes them as strong as they are. In truth, the hardest chapters for me to write in "Erdan 2" were the early ones when Erdan hates Zhong. Since I knew just how much the boy and his adoptive father actually cared for each other, it was incredibly difficult for me to write scenes where they were both in pain. The full extent of Erdan's love was tested at the end of that fic, when he (a regular fourteen year old with hardly any kung fu training and only a bow and arrow as a weapon) prepared to risk his own life to bring his family home and keep them safe.
Like I mentioned before, "The Revenge and Redemption of Steele" explores unrequited love and the effect it can have on someone's future. But I'd have to insane not to mention this part too (no doubt the reason that at least a few you guys were interested in reading this fic). While writing for Balto and Jenna, Kodi and Dusty, and Zhong and Shu were fun, some of my favorite parts of this story was exploring the love a man can have for another man, along with the differences and similarities between heterosexual and homosexual relationships. To be truthful, despite what a lot of people think, there aren't that many differences. There isn't as much 'holding hands', and men a bit rougher with each other than they are with women, but we can gentle and passionate when we want to (hence the scene where Griff hugs Blake and keeps him warm while they sleep).
I was lucky, I was so, so lucky, that out of the chaos that was my summer break this year, Kodiwolf and I managed to come up with a story that combined such a colorful cast of characters. While some only appeared in and out as supporting characters, I liked every one of these guys. They each had their own unique backstory, and you could write an entire fic with just a few of the supporting guys as main characters (Blake and Griff especially, my favorite OCs from this fic).
Even though this is still a Balto story, this fic was mostly about the next generation of sled dogs helping the previous generation, so Balto, Jenna, and their friends only had minor roles in this fic. I had to admit, it felt a bit weird at first. I loved "Balto", it was such a sad and moving tale, but to tell you the truth, I never quite liked the sequels as much as the first one. It's not that they were boring or anything (Aleu having to say good-bye to her father was actually a very touching scene), but I was never really that interested in Balto and Jenna's kids since we hardly know anything Balto and Jenna in the first place. Which is why my first Balto fic was about how Balto and Jenna met, something I've always been the most curious about in the entire trilogy.
I've got nothing against Kodi and Aleu, they both turn out to be awesome heroes in their own ways, just like their parents. But because we never really find out anything about them, or about what happened to them and their siblings between their childhood and their adult life (bar a few flashbacks in "Wings of Change" and their parents' expositional conversations), they're still kinda two-dimensional instead of being three-dimensional. And we know even less about Kodi's friends and Aleu's new wolf pack (curse the lack of character development in the sequels! So much stuff is left open for fan assumption). So when Kodiwolf321 asked me if I wanted to help him write a story about Kodi and Dusty, I had to admit I was nervous about stepping out of my element.
I know that part of the reason critics disliked "Back to the Future, Part II" was Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale having to include Marty's girlfriend, Jennifer, in the sequel, when they really didn't care about her character, so they just knocked her out in the first five minutes and dumped her off somewhere for the rest of the movie. Personally, I love "Back to the Future, Part II" even better than the original (sure the future was a bit hokey, but they had flying cars people! Super cool flying cars and hoverboards!), and I know that getting Jennifer out the picture was supposed to help the plot, but it was still a cruel thing to do (Elisabeth Shue had just got the part, and her only role in the two sequels was to be the sleeping beauty). So I was determined to find a part for Dusty to play in this story. I wasn't gonna let her become the Jennifer Jane Parker-McFly of "Balto".
After talking with Tom about what Kodi and Dusty's relationship would be like, we decided that Dusty would be pregnant with Kodi's pups in this story, which raised the stakes for both Kodi and his future family when they ran into Steele. When we decided that Dusty and Kodi would be married too, I remembered that the first year of marriage is always the hardest for a new couple, and I realized that was what we could do with Kodi and Dusty throughout the fic, present them with challenges to overcome in order to save both their lives and their marriage.
While I struggled with Dusty a lot in the beginning, writing for Kodi was easier, since we learned more about Balto's son through flashbacks, and the values that he and his father share at the end of "Wings of Change". Kodi is the second main character in this story after Steele, and his purpose in this fic is to basically give the malamute a reality check. He's there to show Steele how he's ruined his own life, and how he'll keep on ruining it if he doesn't change his ways. Because Kodi is living proof that Balto and Jenna have moved on, while he's just stayed the same since the serum run, which is why he's miserable.
You may have noticed that Kodi never seemed that bothered by Blake and Griff being a couple (though his friends Kirby and Ralph were a little alarmed), or even his uncle having a thing for Steele. I've always pictured Balto as being an open-minded guy. After all, being half-wolf he knows the damage that a town's prejudices can cause, so I speculated that he probably raised his children to be open-minded too. Which is why Kodi is actually something of a matchmaker in the final chapters, persuading Kaltag to come clean with Steele about how he loves him, and even arranging a date for Blake and Griff when they return to Nome.
Speaking of Steele, like I mentioned before, I've always wanted to play with Steele's character, but I've never had a chance to until now. But instead of having him try to hide his shame, I thought it would be more interesting if Steele had no shame so to speak, and liked to go around getting stuff started by hooking up with his teammates (I thought it added an extra layer of hypocrisy to his character, that he doesn't mind kissing guys, but he hates wolf-dogs).
Since Balto and his friends had only minor roles in this fic, I was worried that Kaltag's relationship with Steele might seem a bit rushed towards the end, but I found a way around that by hinting at their past together early on (Steele's tongue-in-cheek remark about how Kaltag really became his right-hand man), having Kaltag confess to Kodi in chapter 4, and then explaining their entire history in chapter 13. Hopefully people will read this story, will be inspired to write more fics with Kaltag/Steele fics in them the future (I certainly wouldn't mind reading a good story about Steele and his second-in-command. Surely I'm not the only one who thinks that pairing deserves a least a few fics too, just like Balto/Steele?).
Another unlikely couple in this fic is Blake and Griff. Even though they're only supporting characters here, they were the first gay couple I ever wrote for, and I think I love these guys now. I've already explained their fire and ice relationship, with Griff being the hotheaded one and Blake being the more rational-thinker. But like Kodi, they had another purpose in this fic besides providing exposition. Just like how Kodi helps Steele turn his life around, Blake and Griff help Kodi and Dusty to stay strong during a catastrophe and help them get past the worries and doubts that have been eating away at them since they left Nome. Just like Kodi and Steele, their characters evolve throughout the fic.
When you first meet Griff in 1926, he's a complete asshole, and that's putting it nicely. He's a homophobic jerk who insists on picking on dogs who are way smaller than his own size. In a way, Steele really did do him a favor by outing him to his teammates, and sending him right into the arms of his future lover. By the time Kodi and Dusty meet Griff three years later, the former bully is a much kinder dog. Sure, he still has that short-temper from his days as a brawler, but he also shows real compassion for Steele and Kodi later on, along with a determination to find his mate that matches Kodi's.
If you notice, when we get to the year 1929 Griff doesn't swear nearly as much as he used to (though he occasionally says 'fag' and 'queer' out of habit). You can assume that Blake helped him to clean up his language over the years, and that Griff doesn't curse that much anymore because he doesn't feel the need to (he's a much happier, carefree guy now). Though his old sense of humor hasn't changed that much. Griff's a big guy. He knows he's intimidating to people, and that him being gay makes some people uncomfortable too (a double whammy of fear. You don't know whether to worry about him hitting you or hitting on you. Of course, if you know him well enough, you'll know he won't do either), so sometimes he can't resist using that for a good laugh (ah Kirby. He was so close to having a stroke that day).
Blake changed too. He went from being this outspoken rookie, who was terrified to stand up for himself, to a strong hero in his own right, whose' faith in his lover convinces Dusty to keep her hope alive. I wasn't lying earlier when I said you could write a whole fic with these two as main characters, there's a lot of their history that was left unexplained since I had to skip three years into the future, maybe I'll return to that someday (but not anytime soon. I have enough projects lined up already).
And finally, there was that Aleu stuff. I'm not even sure if that was in the original draft of the script. But I felt it was a problem I needed to address in this fic. I always found it weird that Balto and Jenna lost their daughter (and Jenna never even got to say good-bye to her), and a few months later they seemed just as happy and cheerful as ever, like Aleu's departure had no effect on them at all. Of course, that was because the filmmakers didn't want the third movie to be all sad and depressing, but when you watch it for the first time, it does make you feel like Balto and Jenna don't care that they'll never see their daughter again. So I felt that if I was gonna do a fic about Balto's children, I needed to take care of that problem (not just to make the fic believable to my readers, but to myself as well), even if it was just a few paragraphs. Which led to me introducing another OC, a wolf named Bane. Bane and his pack were actually inspired by some of Cyberwulfe's (a 90s fanfic author) old stories. Bane is reminiscent of Balto's cousin/pack brother, Kemo, who appears throughout Cyberwulfe's fics from "Reunion" onwards. Kemo was one of my favorite characters in Cyberwulfe's stories (he was wise, brooding, and had a sour attitude, my kind of OC), so it only felt right to pay homage to him here.
Well, that pretty much covers everything I wanted to tell you about how "The Revenge and Redemption of Steele" was written. I know I tend to babble on a lot about stuff that you guys probably don't care about, but that's because there's a lot stuff on my mind that I feel needs to be said. Like my rant on chapter 9 about how people should be free to express their own stories and ideas. For those of you who actually agreed with some of my opinions about certain things, be you gay yourself or straight (but really open-minded), I've written down a few of my thoughts on my userpage. It's just some basic stuff. Like who my friends are here, what my favorite movies are, my favorite TV shows, my favorite music, my thoughts on homosexuality and masculinity, their effect on human society, the increasing number of slash fics on this site, and how "SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron" singlehandedly convinced me that cartoon characters can be just as hot as real people. My profile is often where I go on days I'm feeling introspective, to write down stuff I don't want to forget, in hopes that someone like me will read it someday and it'll help them somehow.
Anyway, written below are my acknowledgments, a collection of thank you notes to the people who supported me and Thomas throughout this project.
Acknowledgments:
* Kodiwolf321 - Tom, you and I have been friends ever since I first started posting my stories on this site a year ago. When you reviewed my first story last year, it was an enormous honor, and I told you that someday I would return the favor. Working on this project with you, even though it was chaotic sometimes (especially during the summer months), has been my pleasure. Taking into account another writer's opinions and mixing their ideas with your own is a whole world away from working alone, and I liked it more than I thought I would. Sometimes it's good to have a writing partner to tell you when you're doing too much or too little with an idea. My friend, I wish you the best of luck with all your other fics and collaborations, and if you ever want me to review a story of yours, don't be afraid to ask.
* Animation Universe 2005 - This is the fourth fic of mine you've read and reviewed, and this was the one that was the polar opposite of all the others. I have to admit, when you told me you were interested in some of my other slash fics (below M-rating of course), I was surprised. After all, there are only three reasons a straight guy would read a fanfic with gay and straight pairings in it. One, they're really curious about what the story is about. Two, they're really open-minded and aren't that bothered by guys kissing (luckily, this fic doesn't describe anyone going any further than second base, haha). Or three, they're a really good friend. My guess is that you're all three. Either way, I have the utmost thanks for you too. I know I've kept you and a bunch of other people waiting for those KFP fics (it's been months now, and Zhong still hasn't got that slash fic with Po yet), but I only have "Salvation, Part 3" left to go before I can turn my attention to the KFP category again. So don't worry, I'm getting there.
* That Nerd Next Door - When I first started posting this fic, you said it was cool to meet another openly gay author, and I can say the same about you TND (and it was even cooler meeting someone who liked "Back to the Future"). After all, I joined this site for a number of reasons, sharing my stories with others was one of them, and meeting new friends was the other (and I've met some really cool people in the past year, AniUniverse and Kodiwolf included). So from one self-proclaimed nerd to another, I hope someday you'll find another one of my stories that you'll be interested in (I'm gonna be writing for all different kinds of categories next year, including the one I'm most excited about, "The Adventures of Tintin"), and I'll see your name on my list of reviews again.
* Unshippedcorpse - This has been one crazy story. Some chapters were short and some were incredibly long. Some involved Kodi and Dusty talking about their relationship, while others were about Blake and Griff trying to help out their friends. One of those chapters even dropped a hotel on our leading dogs. So bro, it means a lot to me that you've taken time out of your day (and apparently night) for the past two months to keep reading. I know what you mean about there not being a lot of collaboration fics in the Balto category. Come to think of it, there aren't that many fics in general in the Balto category (only 300 or so). A small number of stories for a movie that had a small number of fans. Hopefully all that will change someday. P.S. I just might use that FUBAR phrase you taught me in the future. So thanks in advance for that.
* EthanXPeaches - Like I told you in my PM, this story couldn't feature any kind of sex without running the risk of it overshadowing the rest of the story (if there was sex here, what would this fic be remembered for? The story where Steele helped Balto's son, or the story where Steele got it on with his old right-hand man?). And Tom and I loved this story way too much to take that risk. But someday (sooner than you might think), I will start writing M-rated fics as well as T-rated ones. One-shots for categories such as "Balto", "Kung Fu Panda", "SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron", "The Twilight Saga", and "The Adventures of Tintin". And maybe someday I will revisit this fic and describe Kaltag and Steele's first time in detail, along with some other scenes that were too long or too distracting to be included in the final draft. It would be a collection of one-shots centering around Steele & Kaltag, and Blake & Griff, and each one would be a prequel/midquel to this story. But those stories won't be written anytime soon (most likely not until summer next year). So I hope you'll still be on this site by then (people here just keep disappearing for some reason).
* Brasta Septim - So Brasta, how did you like this story? I'm curious about your opinion. Steele's gone through quite a journey in this story (from malicious bad guy, to bitter anti-hero, to lonely good guy), but is he a likeable guy now, or still a jerk? Do the gay and straight pairings still work well together? (you're one of the few people who've commented on that). And I hope I wasn't too cruel with all the cliffhangers throughout this story.
* Miskey67 - I'm curious about your opinion too. And I'm sure Thomas is as well. Like I've mentioned before, it's always nice to have another writer's support. So thanks for commenting on and following this long, crazy ride. But I can't help but wonder, what were some of your likes and dislikes about this story? Anything in particular stand out? I don't mean to pry or anything, but hearing about someone's favorite parts of a story is what I love most about a review.
Before I go, I'd also like to thank all my friends and family (who were, as always, supportive of my pastime), as well as the guys who followed and/or favorited this fic. Oh, and thanks to all the people who reviewed chapters 1 and 2 (like 1Past and Present1). I know this story wasn't the kind for you, but I hope you all did find one that you liked (I didn't really mind the constructive criticism, there were a few things that needed fix). And as for you people who read this fic from beginning to end, hopefully this story will not only get you interested in different kinds of Balto fics, but in some of mine and Thomas' other tales as well.
I'm off to work some more on "Salvation, Part 3" now (by the time you read this message, I'll have already posted the first few chapters, finally!), and I'm sure Tom is cooking up some mad idea for a story or song too. So until next time, this is the Cool Kat, signing off.