Title: Signs of Character, or...The Ruby Yacht of
Omar Khayyam

Setting: The Hive
Time: Monday, July 16th, early afternoon
By: Kathy, Nancy, Les, Julia, Roz

Follows:"The Truth Lies in Our Stories...",
"Or Good Red Herring" and "Who Do You Think I Am,or..."

All participants used with permission.

Kathy popped through the front door of the Constantine
mansion.  It had taken awhile for her to get used to being
in TO for a War and not having access to The Loft, but
now that she'd been here for almost two weeks, she'd
come to find the place growing on her.

At least it had been until the skunks. And the
party She looked around.They really must do
something about hiring some cleaning people.
What was the use of having full access
to the Constantine millions if they couldn't hire
Merry Maids?

Four figures sat stooped around the spacious living
area. Seeing Les, Julia, and Nancy made sense, but it was
a surprise to see Roz there as well. A Nick-less
loft was somehow not quite so appealing.

"Hi all!" Kathy exclaimed in a voice far too perky for the
room and its' occupants. She did have a frightening tendency
towards cheerfulness--usually at all the wrong times.

"What do you want?" Julia mumbled. Turning fifty had been
bad enough, but why did people persist in *talking
cheerfully* around her?

"Oh, Julia." Kathy scrunched her face up sympathetically.
The List Cobra was sporting a real shiner around her
right eye. "The bar fight?"

Julia nodded morosely, then she brightened. "But you should
see the other guy." No matter the thousands of dollars
of dental work that may now lie in her future, it had
been worth it.

"What have you been up to?" Nancy inquired. She was
suffering from a bad case of War lag and was desperate
to get caught up before the whole thing was over.

"I've been putting some more time in on my character-switching
theory," Kathy replied. "And I managed to come up with
some interesting information."

"What have you found?" Roz asked. She had some theories
of her own about the switching. It did seem to relate to
fanfic, but she thought there was far more to this Mary Sue
character than they had been led to believe. Her emergence
from the underground research station at the same time the
switches began had to be more than coincidence.

"I'm still convinced that characterization is the key to
all of this," Kathy stated. "But I had managed to overlook
a vital piece of information while I was doing my research."

"What's that?" Les asked. Les always appreciated research.

"Did you know that on July 5th at approximately 10:05 EST,
there was a dramatic shift in the balance of the fanfic
world?"

"What *is* she talking about?" Nancy asked. All these shifts
were giving her a massive headache. She was sure
it had nothing to do with her alcohol consumption since she'd
been in TO.

"On that day and time," Kathy went on, "the total number of
posts to factional FK lists exceeded the the number posted
to the main fiction lists."

"No," Julia stated, "that can't be." She knew that the UF
list had been way too quiet lately. What could those other
factions be up to? Even JADFE had been slow.

"The numbers don't lie," Kathy replied. "And I've checked and
doubled checked them. It's true--people are posting more
factional fiction than anything else."

"So how does that relate to the character switches?" Nancy
asked, her headache temporarily forgotten.

"Everyone knows that there are far more cases of extreme
characterization on the factional fiction lists than
anywhere else. That's where Nick and Nat have all their babies,
Tracy out-detects Nick, and Nick and Lacroix..."

Les' eyes brightened for the first time since Kathy entered
the room. "Did someone say Nick and Lacroix?" he babbled.

"Never mind him," Julia informed the room. "He's suffering
from TWDS--Total War Distress Syndrome. It's caused by
having to write far too many War posts in a short period
of time."

"Well, I'd be the first to admit that factions, including
the UF, do help, unintentionally, to encourage some pretty
outrageous non-canonic characterizations," Julia said abruptly.
"But I don't see how you could ask people to give up their
factional fiction." No matter how egregious." She shivered
at some painful fanfic memories.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Kathy responded. She liked her
factional fiction as much as anyone--well, some of it,
at any rate. "I think that what we need to do is to create
some...factional slippage."

"Factional slippage!!!" Nancy exclaimed. "It sounds like
some problem with undergarments."

<Precisely how I came up with the idea> thought Kathy, the jaded
obstetrical nurse, to herself. But that information
was best left in the hands of trained professionals. "Not
at all," she said. "It has to do with loosening the bounds
of our character perceptions and allowing ourselves the
freedom to write those characters we might not ordinarily
write."

"Well, I, being the high-minded sort, thought of tetonic
plates," smirked Julia.

Wisely ignoring Julia, Roz (who had actually been thinking
transmissions, but then, she drives a vintage car)asked Kathy,
"What do you mean?" There was a note of concern in her voice.

"We need to create a groundswell of 'other character' fanfic to
counteract the problem of the characters switching. I think that
only then will they stay were they belong and it *must* be posted
to the main fiction lists--none of this factional stuff--at
least for the time being."

"When do we get started?" asked Nancy.

"Right now," Kathy replied. "I've taken the liberty of assigning
you each a character or couple to work on--ones you would
usually have nothing to do with. And," Kathy warned, shooting
Nancy a sharp glance, "it has to be *nice*"

"No parodies?" Nancy asked mournfully. She looked down at the
paper Kathy had handed her. Oh no. Vachon. The slacker. She
couldn't think of a nice thing to write about him if she tried.
Words like 'vacuous' and 'useless' sprang unbidden to her mind.
"Oh, well," she sighed. "Maybe I can channel Apache." She
stared off into the distance, desperately trying to think of
a plot that could conceivably involve the-er, Spaniard.

"Les, since you've written some of the finest erotica the fandom
has ever seen, I've given you Nick and Nat."

"I can't," he mumbled, "I can't."

"I know it's a stretch for you Les, but you can do it."

"I-mean-can't-write-another-word-about-anything," he uttered
tonelessly.

"I told you." Julia shook her head. "It's TWDS. I don't hold
out much hope." Without Les, the UF would have posted, oh,
maybe all of...one-and-a-half posts this War.

"Okaaaay then, moving on to Julia," said Kathy. She cautiously
moved away from her leader. "It's Tracy for you."

"Tracy!" she hissed. "She's...she's...*young,* doggamit!
I'm warning you, this better work."

"It will, it will," Kathy assured the hostile-looking, even
surly people sitting in front of her.

Roz clenched her teeth. She knew what was coming. She couldn't.
There was no way she could write anything good about Lacroix.
There *was* nothing good about Lacroix. Maybe she could trade.
That misguided Nancy Kaminski liked him a lot and she could
do something with Vachon if she tried hard enough.

Kathy eyed the Knightie suspiciously. "I think we all need
to be on the honor system here. They'll be *no* switching for
a character who you actually like."

Roz looked back at her with a slightly puzzled innocence
that was surprisingly convincing, considering. But then she
had spent a lot of time observing a master of the art.
"Nobody writes Nick?" the Knightie asked.

"We_all_like Nick," Kathy pointed out.

Roz closed her eyes in resignation and nodded, switching
from Nick mode to Sidney Carlton.

"What about you?" Nancy pressed. "You've done little enough
writing this War. I hope you don't think *you're* getting off
scot-free."

"No," Kathy answered. "I have an assignment as well. I have
to do a...Lacroix and Natalie piece," she gulped at the
improbability of the pairing. Hopefully, there was someone
at the Hive with a copy of "Ardor" handy.

"I do," said Julia, almost happily. "Great stuff."

"So," Kathy said. "We'll each get to work on our pieces
and meet back here around dinner time."

As Les trudged away, Julia patted him on the shoulder.
"At least it will be a change from War posts, commrade."

"Pass me the hand grenades," answered Les.

end