Disclaimer: This is fanfiction based on the characters and universe of Gundam Wing.

Author's Notes/Commentary for Another Version of Events

AVOE is written exclusively for a particular mailing list membership in that it is not posted on any other lists and is archived on my own site and authorized external archives after first appearing on the mailing list. When I post to the list, I use a header that contains particular warnings and ratings as well as including credits for any quotes, lyrics and characters I have borrowed. I did not previously include these headers in this archive, because I had assumed (isn't that foolish) that most of the readers would know of the fic through that list and have already read the headers. Now it seems that I get visitors wandering in from this site and from elsewhere in the ether, bypassing the list I send the credits to. So, here's my file to give credit where credit is due.

If you are reading this sentence, then the notes have not been completed for every chapter. Beware that this commentary does not follow any sort of essay or outline structure. It is... a running commentary.

ALSO: SPOILERS. Don't read this until you've tried reading the fic without the notes one time. There are lots of spoilers.

Prologue Notes

Heero Yuy, obviously a GW character. I used this spelling of his name because it is all over merchandise. There really was a hotel like that when I lived in NYC, before Guiliani and Bloomberg disney-fied the place. I don't know, maybe it's still there. I have no idea who the mayor of NYC would be in AC 198. 'Ichiro' being a past Alias is made up. Adin Lowe is a GW character, from Episode Zero. His name is 'Odin' but I used 'Adin' for consistency's sake because I was using a phonetic method of transliterating Russian in this fic, rather than strict letter to letter (or letter combination) conversion. (more on transliterating details in future notes.) Officially, in the series they do not use names of countries and nations we have today, as the boundaries were redrawn by the Alliance circa AC 130. They say crap like 'JAP point' and use a lot of alphanumeric designations. However, 'they' in the series are usually military. I thought that civilians would use more traditional place names at least in general geographical applications. Thus, I wrote the bit about Japan vs. Nihon. Even if the Sphere was all one nation, you would still need a term to refer to a chain of islands or a continent. Also, I have never found an official map showing what the post AC 130 boundaries and designations on earth might be. I spent a lot of money on books and DVDs, you would think they would include this information, but they do not. I also use terms like 'America' in the fic. Heero is using contractions in his internal monologue in this chapter. When I first started the fic I had not yet developed the distinct speech patterns of the various characters. (patterns which readers seem to love or hate.) I have gone back and edited these files occasionally so that the versions in my archive are the most correct and updated, but so far the contractions remain here. The whole concept of Heero going to Sakhalin occurred to me after seeing 8th MS Team. The female lead in that is named Aina Sakhalin. (yeah, there's no 'k' sound in it.) I am American and cursed with not understanding metric measurements without conversion. I had to do math to figure out I wanted Heero to be 170 centimeters tall. I completely estimated on the weight. I have no idea what average weight is for guys and don't know what having dense muscle as result of high gravity training would do to weight. I tried to get this as close as I could without totally blowing everyone's suspension of disbelief. I am referring to Lisa Gerrard when I write about Heero listening to lyrics in Gaelic or Hebrew. I think she is mentioned by name later on. I was listening to the Gladiator soundtrack back in the day and also her solo work and thought it sounded like something Heero would like. I wrote 'blue and OD' and then later in the fic go on about the 'navy and sage.' I looked at a lot of pics but was not sure what exact colors were official for the Preventer uniform. The field jacket seems to be like royal blue and olive drab. I think Lady Une also wore a jacket that was cut differently from the others. the characters are usually shown with many different shirts beneath the jackets, so I was not sure if one type of shirt was official. I decided a sage green shirt and navy blue tie would be official. The pants are usually something like navy blue. SO, the names given here: Relena, Duo, Lady Une, Sally, Hilde, Wufei, and then further down: Quatre, Trowa, Catherine, Dr. J and Mrs. Darlian are of course all GW characters and their names are usually spelled this way in official merchandise. Ah, this part about the Colony Z00001 being the colonial Capitol and being in quarters is my idea. Also, I should not that in official GW works, the colonies themselves are torus-shaped and not cylindrical. Each cluster consists of some number of unattached colonies in orbit around the same LaGrange point. I have the clusters actually being large mega-structures consisting of attached torus and cylinder shaped colonies. I did this because I just like the idea of huge clockwork mechanisms in space. I belive they would still function the same, only this way, you can take a train between colonies in the same cluster instead of a shuttle. Main spaceports would be in the stationary point of a torus-shaped hub-colony to make docking easier. When Heero is looking through the yearbook it is correct that Duo is considered a senior, but he played basketball the year before and does not in his senior year. This might have been slightly unclear as written in the fic, though easily deduced from context. Another transliteration note: when writing Japanese I have not written out the long vowel sounds as two letters, even though this would be more correct. The reason is that when I started the fic I was working with Word docs that allowed characters that plain text does not. after I started posting I eventually switched to txt files and the particular over-lined characters were lost. Instead of going back and respelling all the words I just continued to give them the same appearance. Eventually I may deleted this sentence and actually go change all the spelling. Some people adore that my version of Duo wears skirts or has piercings or wears makeup. Some people dislike any or all of those traits in him. I have to say that my writing Duo this way started at least a few years ago when I was reading these fics by much younger writers who were making Duo psuedo Goth and characterizing him in away that grated on my last nerve. When I started writing GW fiction I was determined to make Duo gothic, but in a way that seemed more realistic to me. In the other fics he even had streaks of red or violet dye in his hair from time to time. Also, I wanted to show that many people in AC 198 would be more open regarding gender issues and restrictions. The reason Heero growls a lot is complicated, but if you read this entire fic it should all make sense to you. Part of it is that I was trying to find a meaning for the name Lowe and came up with a connection to 'lowell' in English which meant 'wolf cub.' I thought: 'raised by wolves, how fitting.' Heero seems lupine to me. There's someone who does a furry of Heero as a wolf, and the fic writer Lone Wolf wrote a fic in which Heero turned into a wolf, so I am not the only one. There will be more about this in future chapter notes. I write Heero being able to view the colony as a twinkle against the moon. In the show, when Duo looks at the moon, there's nothing visible. I think there would be. Especially using my clockwork in space method of colony construction, the S4 cluster should be visible if the moon is brightly visible. Perhaps you would need sharp eyes, but Heero has these. Also, I should mention that officially the AC universe does not refer to colonies as being in sides. This is something I borrowed from previous Gundam series along with cylindrical colonies. As for so many characters living in one cluster, it is explained fairly well in the fic that they all have motives. Perhaps it does seem plot convenience as Une has also been show in EW to have an office on Earth. I just thought the story would be better this way and that I would have opportunity to include more characters. I guess that does qualify as plot convenience. I first used 'Lowe Security' in my previous GW fic-arc. The company ends up much the same in this fic.

[ read chapter 1 of another version of events ]

Chapter One Notes

The rail lines are of course real. Millard is of course a GW character as is Lucretia, however, I have seen the man's name spelled in various ways. I just picked one. I believe that most official stuff gives 'Lucretia' as 'Lucrezia', but way back before I had seen that official stuff I had been thinking it would be like the Sister's song. (Lucretia, My reflection.) I had them be married. I figured that being several years older than the boys and having decided to go to Mars together they would just do it. About Heero being Russian:it's that Odin = One in Russian and if Heero's 'Dad' was using a Russian sort of name, maybe he was Russian. It is a stretch. In other fics I think I just wrote that Heero had been raised with Russian culture but was ethnically Japanese (he's always officially described as Japanese.) Here I decided to make him identify as Russian, even though at this point in the story Heero does not know his true parentage. (I suppose the boys could have all gone to a geneticist and had their mitochondria traced and had their DNA read and what not to find out their ancestry, but they never actually do things like that officially. It really is more important who you become than what you are.) So, Heero considers he 'died' when he blew up Wing. I wrote it as if he had been dead and resuscitated. It was not clear to me from watching what happened. You just see Heavyarms holding him on the truck and then a months later he's bandaged and sleeping in the trailer. (And way to go, Trowa! You couldn't just bring him into the cab of the truck?) Aa, the green hair. I adore Heero with green hair. You know this goes back to those official bios that describe his hair as 'moss green.' It's just the name of an artist's color that is a greenish brown. Anyway, a few doujinka seem to give him *bright* green hair. I just thought I'd write him with green hair. I first did this in my fic Determination. Although in this scene it sounds very dark, I actually imagine it being like a sod color most of the time. This part of the chapter is a lot of flashback or recollection on Heero's part, establishing Heero's past for those who are not familiar with the series. Oh, there are people who read or write fanfics without having seen the series. Was that the first mention of Treize? Treize of course is a GW character. New Edwards. There is also a 'New Edwards' in Macross Plus, but I think it is on another planet. There is an actual Edwards in California. I understand it is between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Someone told me it was closer to LA, but in the series when they show it on a map it looked more like Northern CA to me. I could be wrong. Also, Quatre makes reservations in San Francisco on his way to the base, so it should be close to that city. Or, it is not that close and this is why Quatre and Trowa showed up later than Heero and Duo. Mention of General Septem. He's a GW character. I do not recall if I heard 'death hole' somewhere or made it up. I mean, I think I made it up, but it sounds like the kind of thing I could have heard once without remembering its context. There is a Lake Baikal, but I really don't know if a station there would have a particular name. I like the way Heero keeps trying to decide what color Duo's eyes are in these early chapters. You know that in the fandom they are sometimes given as violet or even amethyst. Though the artists alter the color of his eyes with lighting I believe they are meant to be cobalt. And I am not absolutely certain about this concept of the various Sides getting different amounts of sun. Rather, I believe they might be positioned so that some are more often in the shadow of another body, but I am not a scientist. I did my best in trying to make it sound believable. It is true that Duo often wears the cap or glasses, but he seemed to only wear the glasses after he was a fugitive from OZ prison. (like they weren't going to notice the teenager with a long braid wearing clerical garb?) Here we are, Trant Clark. I love using this guy as a villian. I'll spoil the plot of Trinity for those who haven't read it: It's TRANT! He was just had such completed disregard for everyone, he was so evil, but apparently intelligent. That makes for a good villian. And they did not show his body. In anime that is like an assurance that he is going to return. Yeah, GW character. I wrote this for the 1x2 mailing list, so you knew there was going to be some involvement between Heero and Duo. In these early chapters Heero is on his own, but notice how often he thinks about Duo. Instructor H, a GW character of course. So are G, S and O. in the year 196...there are a lot of manga that try to explain what happened in that year, before EW. They do not agree with each other. Sure there would be a few remnant terrorist groups to deal with and I suppose that getting rid of all mobile suits would seem a good idea at the time, (like that worked) but I really think they should address the political stuff. Just how are all nations assimilated into the ESUN? Were there trials for war crimes? Did anyone pay reparations? I like to address those kinds of issues in my GW fics. I kinda would have liked to see Quatre's war trial. He did blow up a colony. This bit about Duo being so very loyal to the Colonies: I really believe that. I think that Duo is one of the best characters. He is very virtuous. Wufei decides he is a coward and declines to fight for a time. Quatre goes insane. Heero and Trowa take more devious paths to achieve their goals and cooperate with OZ for a time. Duo is just for the colonies all the time. He gets depressed for awhile, but he does not stop fighting, yet he knows that certain means of fighting are not going to help the colonies and he turns down offers to join the White Fang. I just adore him, so I suppose Heero would, because Duo is adorable. Notice he's furious when he thinks of Trant hurting Duo. I did not comment on the Preventer ranks yet. They seem to be investigative as well as paramilitary. I thought they should have ranks. I went with American Army type ranks, just because they were familiar. I did research ranks in various countries' military before I decided to go with the most familiar. "My Boy, if you act in accordance with your own feelings then you will not be wrong." That is not an actual quote from any GW work, but it is in concept the same thing Adin told Heero the day he died. So, Heero is sitting at his computer thinking about the virtues of his friends. The characters make some mistakes, but they all do have good points. Heero finds that Trant is using the alias James Clark. I wrote this because I was thinking about James Clerk Maxwell. He's the scientist who thought up the 'demon' G asks Duo about when they meet. At one time I was going to write into a fic that Trant was Duo's biological brother and that Duo's real name had been James...but then I just did not do that. Sometimes I change my mind while writing. Trinity would have been even more disturbing if they had been brothers. Heero has just found Midii's alias. I previously used this GW Episode Zero character in Trinity and later fics in that arc. I believe that in those fics her shuttle was the Vestiaz. I had seen Enemy at the Gates (is that the name of the movie?) while writing those fics. Here Midii uses the nameas an alias. I should mention that in English translations of Episode Zero her name is spelled Middie. If the word were written in romaji it probably would be Midii. the manga she appears in is black and white art, so I am not sure of her official coloring. The scenes in Episode Zero were first written to be included in the series but I do not think they fully developed all the characters. She was a supporting character, pivotal as her role was in Trowa's life. Magdalene Noinori was the name Trowa and Heero gave her in Trinity. It is meant to reference Mary Magdelene who is a saint who was known as being a sinner before she was redeemed and 'inori' which means 'prayer' in Japanese. This is where the whole 'organized crime' plot comes in. I thought that it would be within the realm of belief that after Lowe left OZ/Alliance and continued to work as an assassin that he would have some kind of organized crime connections. This becomes more relevant in later chapters. Heero's still got that 'girl and dog' thing. I thought I'd go with a new Earth Sphere monetary unit, as there had become one nation. The reluctance of people to switch over is not unlike the recent experiences with the Euro. I decided the Esdees would have blue ink. And legal age is seventeen here. No offense to Canadians, but I always have this idea that Trant is Canadian. I do not know why. Heero ran sims in his mind. 'Carmensnalla?' WWDD: What would Duo do. Heero should get that on a keychain. Witness Heero's great improvisational acting ability! 'Get your cat out of here!' I thought this Colonial Geisha idea interesting, that people in space would reinvent them in their need for culture, once their science provided something more than just bare survival. at first they would just be scientists and technicians but eventually culture would developed independant from Earth, but sharing its same cultural history. 'What the gaijin always think': that they are equivalent to whores. I rather like this underground intrigue that goes on here. I think that Heero would relate on some level to people who consider themselves above, or at least ouside the law. They are outlaws, who maintain civil and professional fronts. They do have honor and civility, but if you crossed them, they would not hesitate to go outside the law toruin your life. Sobieski: original character. I needed more Preventer agents. I also used this character in the other GW fics I wrote. I have given him the invented background with the Sank Imperial Guard and OZ. There were surviving characters like this, but they were not officially named. I thought it believable that one such former soldier would join Preventers. now we are witnessing Heero's awkwardness with girls. Well, it is not awkwardness in the sense traditionally associated with boys. In the series Heero was able to converse on equal level with people like Sally and Lucretia. He was standoffish with Dorothy, but that was because it was Dorothy. He seemed confused by Relena, to me. It is as if he senses that she is drawn to him, (keeps showing up and saying she wants to be near him a littl elonger. wants to sit with him, etc.) but he does not know how to respond to that. He often gives her short answers. Yet, there is that moment when he is going off to fight Zechs one last time that he seems able to describe his intentions more fully and clearly. His belief seemed to be that he was a lesser person than she was. I think Heero learned that he wanted to or deserved to live sometime after that conversation. I think that in the beginning, with Midii, Heero does not know her motivations and is more awkward and suspicious. If he is convinced that she is not attracted to him personally he will likely treat her in the same manner he would Sally or Lucretia. Nanashi, the name of Midii's cat is of course evidence that she still thinks of Trowa, as he was 'No name.' I believe this chapter is the first Quatre is described in this fic. In the series Quatre is probably the most boyish and young in appearance. Of course, boys do change a lot in their teen years and the reversal in having Quatre appear older and perhaps more masculine than the other Gundam pilots interest me. Anything post EW is going to be somewhat AU and speculative by nature, but I think this version of Quatre is within the realm of belief. Did I mention Ursula by name before? Anyway, she is an original character as well. In the previous fics I wrote Colonial culture had developed differently and Ursula was first a prostitute (high class it would seem) and secondly somethign like a geisha. I like this version of Ursula better. In the other fic she used the name Ursula Hishaku. Both names are loosely linked to the constellation of the little dipper/ ursa minor (little bear.) Ursula is Greek for little bear and I believe that in Japanese hishaku is a sort of water dipper. In this fic her family name is given as Yemon. In both cases she is not a blood relative of the Yemon family. Here it is her adopted name. 'Ursula' is her geisha name but it is most likely her legal name. It might even have been assigned to her when she was placed with the Yemon family as a girl. I think that Heero and Midii would be able to work well together because they both have a basic a understanding of what it means to carry out difficult missions and also to have regret for past mistakes and Midii's apparent ability to manipulate socially would compliment Heero's ability to work with machines. In my previous fics Heero and Midii also quickly became friendly toward each other, though there Trowa was with them as well. I mentioned Heero's dreams in this chapter but I do not recall describing them in detail. That comes later. Here Heero looks at the moon (like Duo wondered) and then dreams of a god in black robes. This is meant to be some incarnation of Shinigami. As I understand 'shinigami' to be more a generic term than the given name of any ancient diety I do not know what he would look like. In fandom Duo is often portrayed as Shinigami with black bat-like wings and a scythe and sometimes various black robes or clothing. I do not think that Heero would think of the wings, because subconsciously he is thinking of Duo only, not Duo and his Gundam as one. So I believe that Heero would imagine Shinigami as wearing some manner of ancient and elaborate robes befitting a diety and having even longer more intricately styled hair that Duo. Iamnot sure if black would be the color Heero would most associate with Death, but as he really is thinking of Duo, whether he realizes it or not, the robes are black. In the previous fics I wrote Heero had similar dreams and he visualized Duo as Shinigami very clearly with the black robes and long hair.

[ read chapter 2 of another version of events ]

Chapter Two Notes

I said that Danjel Sobieski was an original character, he's actually a main character I wrote about some of my original fiction, though he's rather OOC here. I figured that Heero might react to threats while unconscious if he had trained enough, thus waking up with a knife held to someone's throat. Ah, and here we have Heero with a hangover. There's tape on the water bottles and the first aid kit is locked. I've discussed little details like these with some readers. It is interesting that throughout the fic Heero shows signs of various psychological conditions, but he only tells the reader of his self-diagnosis, and is not himself trained in psychology, so we do not really know what type of mental illness Heero really has. Some level of Post Traumatic Stress would be belevable, as would an Obsessive-Compulsive type disorder, General Anxiety, some type of paranoia or depression. He may very well have some form of personality disorder. In any case, we can see from the way he keeps his belonging while traveling that he does not trust easily. So, I think this is the first appearance of Gibson. Johnny gibson is an original character, I invented him for my earlier GW fics when I needed more Preventers. He's more integral to the plot of this fic, as you will see if you continue. He's loosely based on the actor Johnny Lee Miller. 'Hack the Gibson.' Loosely, mind you. 'The lieutenants' does refer to Duo and Hilde collectively. It's kind of an annoying thing when you give characters pets. You want them there for certain scenes, but once you write them in, you can't just write that they stay at home alone all the time, because it would be cruel, so you have to remember to describe what they are doing eveery once in a while. I think this is like when you watch a Star Wars movie: Artoo is so pivitol to certain scenes because it repairs the ship or splices (apparently SW universe does not have 'hacking' but 'splicing.') an Imperial system, but the rest of the time you'll have these shots where the other characters run by and then you see Artoo in the background for a second, pretending to be able to navigate stairs. It's totally unbelievable that the droid naviagtes stairs and the scene is not very interesting, but if he just showed up suddenly to save everyone later without that scene then you'd have a plot hole. I am writing this after reading the short description of Nanashi, but later this will all apply very well to Koi. Code name Lightening: Sobieski's mobile suit is named Zeus and is equipped with an electric type 'defensive implement' so it is not only Sobi's use of the handheld stun gun that inspired Sally to comment, though, he is good with it. Heero and Sally are friendly with each other. I think they would be from the way they were in the series. I mentioned her in an earlier chapter but this is the first time Heero encounters her in the fic. I did not know of any In Character reason for Wufei to keep his hair short and other members o fthe Long Clan were show to have long hair in briads, so I decided Wufei would have grown his hair out. His braid, unlike Duo's would start at the top of his ponytail and be more slender. Sally does wear a braid in this scene because she knows Wufei wears his hair this way. Midii is saying she has no relation to Lady Une, though in my mind one would pronounce their name 'uhn' and the other 'oo-neh.' It could be confusing in text, so that's why I wrote that part. I decided that Trant suffered facial injuries and scarring in his last encounter with ZERO. In the series they show his helmet's facemask cracking, but they do not positively show that he dies or that a body is recovered. I think that it's canon that Relena's birthday is not the 7th but probably the 8th or 9th. When I wrote this, the research I had done suggested that Heero Yuy was assassinated on the 7th and so Operation Meteor was planned for the 7th, *but* that the Gundam pilots had disregarded the plan and left *early*, meaning that they went down to earth *before* the 7th. However, reading Episode Zero, it says that the 7th is the day the pilots went down to Earth. This would be when Heero first met Zechs and ended up on the beach where Relena found him, not a day or so later when he skipped her birthday party and Relena found him with the stolen torpedoes and Duo shot Heero. Anyway, I'm not sure where I got the part about the Gundams beig launched ahead of schedule, maybe it was a bad translation somewhere. I thought it was in Endless Waltz. So, for the record, in the universe of this fic, Relena was born on the 7th, which was an anniversary of the Yuy Assassination, and the Gundams launched *before* the 7th of April, so that the 7th was also the day Heero met Duo. And Heero's right arm was the one shot by Duo. I picked January 5th as Heero's fake birthday because historicaly kamikaze pilots were first used in combat during WWII on January 5th. (I think 1945, but I'd have to go check. Whatever the year was, it's also the address of Romeo's/Cafe Endless on J Street in the other fics I wrote.) I know Heero did not actually use himself and his Gundam as a weapon in traditional kamikaze style, but he did have a willingness to self-detonate and he had the appropriate dedication to the cause. I can't even remember if I mentioned Mariemaia before in the notes. Anyway, if not, of course she is a GW character. Une beign her guardian may be canon. There is certainly nothing that contradicts this, though, I think Dorothy would actually be a blood relative. (One day I'll put up my attempt at the Dermail/Khushrenada/Catalonia family tree. These families were apparently all related either by marriage or blood. The Bartons were rather like usurpers to this aristocracy, using Treize's illegitimate daughter to gain political power. What bugs me is that at the time Operation Meteor was planned, Treize was only a Colonel in the Specials who happened to have personal connections to powerful aristocratic families and he was nothign like Sovereign of the World. Why then would Trowa tell Nanashi that his neice was going to be the ruler if Mariemaia's relation to Treize was of no political value until he became leader of the World Nation? What color crack was Dekim smokin'? This just goes to show that if you write a story that you have to think things out,becuase somewhere there is a geek who will read your work and nitpick about the inconsitancies. I know I have people that bug me if I forget to say who fixed Heero's dishwasher and stuff like that!) This Christmas Tree line of questioning is probably the first foreshadowing of the whole Newtype subplot. I actually had someone do a critique o fthis fic andsay somethign about not understanding why I gave the boys special powers and then didn't explain why or really do anything with it.(whether more is done with the powers was to be seen, as the fic was not written) but I thought the Newtype thing was understood. I guess, if you just saw GW without being very familiar with previous Gundam series or you missed where I have the characters slyly say stuff like '...new type...' then it could be confusing. Or, maybe my personal interpretation of what Newtypes can do deviates too much from the previous works the phenomenon is described in. Anyway, to add another spoiler: Wufei had a vision of Heero with evergreens and the thing that Heero might not have heard about is the theory regarding a new type of human being. I do not recall why I decided that Heero disliked titles and honorifics. Maybe he's been instilled with some working class dislike for aristocracy or some Colonial Revolutionary retoric about equality andthe injustice of class systems. (I think later in the fic there is some discussion of class systems) or maybe he isjust modest and at the same time loathe to show respect to those who have not earned it in his opinion. Or, he could just be a nice guy who believes in treating all people equally. (He does not later have a problem with using '-chan' affectionately, though.) I just decided it one day. He does the same thing in my other fics. I really like the phrase 'Nuclear Sunday.' It is very Eighties. It of course means that things are very dead, not just Sunday afternoon in america Dead and not just Nuclear Holocaust dead, but both put together. So, yeah, I just like that phrase. Kinda reminiscent of the Morrissey song, 'Every Day is Like Sunday.' Go listen to it, it'll really cheer you up! Anyway, I think it is good that Midii has this speech about how Heero saved a lot of people that day, because, Heero deserves to be reminded of the good deeds he did, because it is the nature of bad deeds to be remembered by good people and regretted. Yeah, I find that males do feel a need to fix things, including the emotions of others. This has soured a fewof my relationships with male humans. (That is, because I have problems.) When you are writing about any city, a good place to look is the promotional web sites of large hotels and chains. They will often tell you all their services, include pictures of the rooms and buildings and even list popular attractions and landmarks in the area. Everyone now probably thinks me lame, but it is easy to do and a few details will make the story more believable. I said liter. people who are not American probably have no idea how challenging this is, but every time I mention a measurement of any kind I have to remind myself to use Metric and do my best to get it right. I forget why I specified Browning as the make of the gun. There is such a manufacturer, but that is all I know. I do not know if the guns drawn in the anime correspond to any real firearms. Some weapons manufacturers have web sites. I learned about Glocks this way once day. Throughout this fic Heero has trouble with the paparazzi. I figured that if he did not put effort into remaining in hiding that he would be a celebrity, because it certainly would have been discovered who the boy who saved the world was. I thought it was a real sort of issue that a Gundam pilot would have to deal with. Ah, Gonin Team. This is the fictional anime I invented for my fics. all anime that we have, they would have, I supposed, except Gundam series, because their universe is a Gundam series. So, instead, they have this anime (with manga and merchandise and such) called Gonin Team, which is sort of a blend of Gundam Wing with other five person team type anime and other giant robot type anime. (Not quite as primite or amusing as Genkigengar (sp?) from Nadesico.) So, Akairo is the Heero-like character in Gonin Team. Gonin means 'five people' in Japanese. I generally use the fake anime to make jokes about GW fandom within the fics. All in good fun Like, the scene where Akairo and Blaec are huddled behind broken glass is inspired by that shattered glass pic of Heero and Duo that everyone has seen. Their series even has yaoi hints. Yeah, so Akairo wears the red suit and his name basically means 'red' in Japanese. Blaec is pretty much and archaeic spelling of Black and Blaec does wear the black flightsuit. He's Duo-like. Verdan wears green and in romance languages something like vert or verde will be the word for Green. Clearly, this is the Trowa-like character. I think that Trowa should be Latino, if he is not actually. Canonically his ethnic background is unknown. There is nothing to say he couldn't be Latino, so in the fics, I write him this way. This being accepted as true within the story, it would be likely have heard the sounds of Spanish when he was young and be able to pick up this language, even if he did not have a family that spoke it to him for many years. As a young soldier in mercenary forces, he probably traveled to many parts of Earth and worked with many different people, so Trowa could know a little bit of many different languages. More about this will come up in future notes. Koi is the Quatre-like character and he's not specifically named for a color, because he's half alien. (This is described well enough in the fic, I think.) I never named the fifth pilot, because I don't know how to say 'white' in Chinese. laughter. (Or maybe it should be 'grey,' since grey is the balance between white and black, like justice is a balance between right and wrong. wink.) Here's Heero's first encounter with Trowa in the fic. Over the phone, but it's their scene together. I think Trowa's characterization is actually the one most people complain about. Perhaps in future chapters I will go into my theories of Trowa. It is enough to say that I like Trowa very much and I do not purposely aim to bastardize him. I do not even think that he is really a bastard in this fic. I just noticed I had written 'inches.' I am changing that, so by the time you see these notes Heero will be centimeters away fromdorwining in the tub. But, it would be true that earlier copies of this fic would show inches, which is a mistake. Ah, the bathing servants. I think I first got this idea from watching Spartacus or episodes of Xena. (A lot of bathing went on in that show.) I do not recall why I first assigned this fantasy to Heero. It is part of Heero's characterization in this fic that he has the ability/potential to recall past lives. These dreams and fantasies are part of that. At this point in the story, Heero does not recognize the visions as past lives. I think that this was touched on in my other fics, but not so strongly linked with past lives. This part of the story describes how Heero views sexuality and fantasies and himself and others in regards to these issues. It is actually quite important to the story and plot, as Heero's feelings regarding these subjects evolve and change throughout the story. Heero changes. In his own interna lmonologue he may admit that he wandered for a year to find himself, but the truth is that throughout this fic Heero is still finding out who he is. So, at this point, Heero has the hang up which drives him to conculde that he needs a lover to please. Heero sees Midii undressed again and decides he is not attracted to her. This is relevant to the whole Heero discovering his sexuality plot. at this point he does not know if it is just Midii he is not attracted to, or girls, or girls of her shape. I have some ideas for how this Ivanov character lost his arm, but I have not decided on a really good one, and that's why it has not yet been revealed. Oh, and Ivanov is an original character, but he's not really that deep a character, he's just necessary to further the plot in various ways.

[ read chapter 3 of another version of events ]

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