First off, I'd like to thank everyone who reads and leaves reviews for these stories. I've worked very hard on them, and it's always appreciated to know that others enjoy them. So- a little about me. I'm happily married (over thirteen years and counting!), enjoy reading AND writing comics, sci-fi, fantasy, romance, and horror, and work in fast-food. I'm a HUGE fan of TMNT, Spider-Man (actually, MOST Marvel heroes), Gargoyles, Star-Wars/Trek, Army of Darkness, and Drizzt Do'Urden of Forgotten Realms fame. Comics I love include all of the above, as well as Hellboy, Red Sonya, Zorro, Transformers, and even a quirky title called The Perhapanauts. I love The Princess Bride, Boondock Saints, anime (my faves are Full Metal Alchemist, Negima, Princess Tutu, Lodoss Wars, Wolf's Reign, and Geneshaft), Disney movies, and ANY Mel Brooks movies- I've got a very diverse taste in just about every medium, really. I listen to a lot of different kinds of music; everything from Celtic/Irish music, J-Pop (mostly anime themes), 80's Rock, Pop, and Metal, some 90's, classical, tribal and meditation, old school rap (ie- Beastie Boys, Run DMC, and the like), showtunes, and everything in between. (However, I'm NOT a fan of most country- I believe that if you've heard ONE "crying in your beer" song, you've heard them all...)
And now for a little bit on the tales here. First of all, Love Is Shell is/was my FIRST attempt at both fan-fiction and novel-writing in general, WAY back when I was in middle school. I originally wrote it after seeing the original movie when it first came out in theaters; it was the result of a VERY bizarre and inexplicable dream that demanded being put on paper. (Personally, I blame too much pizza after watching it.) When I dusted it off recently at the suggestion of a fellow writer-friend (thank you, Feral Female of Marvel/Mickey's Comic Tavern!- and because I never throw away my old stories, I keep them to learn from and hone my skills with rewrites) I decided that it would be fun to expand and finish it. Originally, it was based primarily on the OT- once I discovered it- and the original movie. But since restarting it, I made a HUGE cram-session of everything TMNT I could find! I watched or read every version I could, (Yes, that's right, even Next Mutation!) and now it is a blend of the OT, the LA movies, the 4Kids series, IDW's comics, and Mirage, as well as nods to Archie, Next Mutation, Nick, and the CGI movie. I hope it has a little something for fans of every incarnation, and that readers will catch some of the literary Easter Eggs hidden throughout the tale!
A Tale of Two Clans and Goodbye, Father are both extensions of that tale, the latter being a sequel to it, and the former a spin-off that fits into the main story's time-line in later chapters. (After Mikey FINALLY confesses his feelings...) The Gargoyles crossover came about from a conversation with my sounding-board and idea-man hubby when we were discussing how so many heroes and strange occurrences seem to center on New York. Since the Gargoyles came up, he suggested that the TMNT meeting them would be a really cool story. So, there you are. Goodbye, Father was written over Father's Day weekend as a sort of tribute to my father-in-law, who died a couple of years ago.
The other TMNT stories here are mostly one-shots or short tales that have resulted from various plot-bunnies I've had- most of which have come out of conversations with my biggest supporter and other half- my wonderful husband. He's not only my biggest source of inspiration, but my beta-reader, too! Some Other World is an attempt to recreate the OT world with a twist- Shredder and Co. are the GOOD guys, while Splinter is an evil ass-hat who raised the turtles as murderers and thieves! It's much darker than what I'm used to writing, and is intended to be somewhat tragic. The Last Stand was my take on what the fall-out might be like if the turtles were killed in battle, with the lair being discovered by outsiders, attempting to solve the mystery of who these creatures were. The Color of Your Soul came from a DeviantArt piece "New Masks" by hettybobcat. It's an adorable piece, and made me start thinking about how they might have chosen the colors they did for their bandanas- and how some of the traits they display later in life might have developed.
As for Red-Back, this one is complicated. I've been a fan of Spidey ever since reading the 9-11 tribute issue in a TPB that came out a few months after that event, along with the Revelations arc in that collection, where Aunt May finally discovers Peter's secret. Both stories were so emotional and moving that I realized just how amazing comics could be when done by a truly talented writer, which I feel that J.M. Straczynski is. I've been reading almost every Spider-Man book I could since then (up until the OMD-BND arc soured me on it), and eventually branched out to X-Men, Avengers, the FF, Daredevil, Ms. Marvel, and even Deadpool.
Red-Back came about from a story-seed in the "Happy Birthday" arc in Amazing Spider-Man (#57-#58, #500) along with the follow-up tale "You Want Pants With That?" (#502). In that arc, Peter goes into his own past and witnesses his "beginning" as Spidey at the moment he was bitten, and also sees his possible future death. He has the chance to prevent it all from ever happening simply by stopping the spider from biting his past self, but chooses to allow the past to remain unchanged. I wrote Red-Back as a "What If" of how his future could change if he simply did a few things differently, such as not naming his son Ben, or never using the costume design that Leo Zalinski made for him. I remembered seeing the 90's cartoon story-arc with the Man-Spider, and another one where Peter is attacked by Doc Ock during a party where JJJ threatens to unmask Spidey while he is unconscious, and I wondered what would happen if he had a son who not only inherits his powers, but is a mutant with VERY obvious physical attributes marking his connection to Spider-Man. Not only would Peter be outted quite permanently, but the child would have to be raised differently from normal kids, and would end up going to school at Xavier's! Thus was Hunter/Red-Back born.