Not much interesting about me. My stories usually fall somewhere between fanfiction and original, mostly remakes of fairy tales that spin off on their own. The majority of these are posted on fictionpress.com under the penname SamoaPhoenix. Feel free to enjoy those as well if you are so inclined! I've also written an original story on fictionpress called Chronicles of an Evil Overlord with my college roommate, Cywyllog. It's finished, and only the first chapter is posted because we hope to get it published for real. Our penname is Storyteller Phoenix.

Novel-length Stories:

Beauty and the Beast:

Beauty and the Beast has been my favorite Disney movie for like, ever (after I got over wanting to be a mermaid). There's so much to admire about it. The addition of Gaston I think was a brilliant move, as well as adding the perspective of the servants to the mix. I love that it's a Disney movie that's not based on love at first sight, and that both main characters change and learn from each other in the process of falling in love, which is more what it's really like.

--The Other Times and Places AUs:

Nightingale, Whisper Plantation, Holding Out For a Hero, and Echoes of the Heart

For each of these, I took the Disney Beauty and the Beast storyline and transported them to a different place and time period. Nightingale is in Tokugawa Japan and Whisper Plantation is in the American South during the Civil War. Both of these earlier two follow the Disney plot relatively closely. The Belle in Nightingale is Disney's Belle, both in appearance and for the most part personality. Whisper Plantation has a completely new cast of characters and the incarnation of the Beast is different--he's not in animal form.

Holding Out for a Hero branches out a bit more; it's set in modern-day Washington, D.C. and the main characters are all superheroes. It still has the original Disney storyline intact, but there is a secondary plot that requires some deviations. Echoes of the Heart was an ambitious project that attempted to bring together Beauty and the Beast, Pirates of the Caribbean (post movie 3), and Assassin's Creed (a video game). Jack Sparrow makes several guest appearances! You guys are probably thinking "Four weird AUs! Doesn't this girl get sick of this?!" I figure at this point I've written at least one story that will appeal to your personal taste. There's no law that says everyone has to read all of them.

--Kissed By a Rose

Kissed By a Rose is in the Disney Beauty and the Beast universe, complete with the entire cast. However, the circumstances are quite different. It's darker in content than my other four, which is why I've rated it M, though I could probably knock it down to T without too much trouble. It's my most popular story to date, however, which was unexpected. Go into it prepared--I've been told it's hard to stop reading once you get started. There are also now three separate one-shots set in the same universe.

About rape: The storyline of Kissed By a Rose contains rape, though it is not the main focus. Even after having written this story, I am still no supporter of any piece of writing that has rape as anything other than the ugly, humiliating thing that it is. My background research in the process of creating Kissed By a Rose has only confirmed this. Being forced to have intimate relations with someone against your will is not romantic or desirable and should not be portrayed as such. Good things can come out of horrible events, as I've tried to show in the story, but it's still not a path someone would choose for themselves (my thanks to LunaMoth116 for helping me sort out my thoughts on this topic).

--Eistier

After years of being unable to come up with another Beauty and the Beast plot that even had a shot at matching Kissed By a Rose (at least in my own mind), I was finally inspired by, of all things, a visit to Busch Gardens Williamsburg. The result was a blending of Beauty and the Beast and the storyline of the 3D ride "Curse of DarKastle". I have also set the story firmly in historical context rather than a fantasy version of France or Germany that never existed. I will probably have more to say about it once it's complete.

Other Fandoms

--The Eternal Enemy

Surprise! A novel-length project from me that is not Beauty and the Beast! Eternal Enemy is actually the first in a two-part storyline that has been wafting around in my head for a long time, pretty much since I saw the Danny Phantom episode Ultimate Enemy. Whether the second part, which proposes to be much longer than Eternal Enemy, will get written remains to be seen (it's not even titled currently). The story arc started with a simple question: might it be possible to redeem the evil future version of Danny Phantom? Trying to answer this question led me first to outline, and then to sit down and write, what became Eternal Enemy.

--Q, Continued

A novella that, like Eternal Enemy, kicked around in my head for a long time before being put into words. Unlike Eternal Enemy, it was fully written for awhile before I put it up. I kept tweaking and adding things for years. I have this thing for "fallen" characters who clearly aren't all bad and get to realize their mistakes, grow, and change for the better. Thus my fascination with characters like the Beast, Naveen from the Princess and the Frog, Edmund and Eustace from The Chronicles of Narnia, Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Q Junior from Star Trek Voyager.

Songs:

I often have a specific song or songs that to me embodies a particular couple that I write. Listening to them might help you get their "flavor:"

--Belle and Katsuro: "Reprise," by Joe Hisaishi, from Spirited Away.

--Lizzie and Colman: "Unchained Melody," by the Righteous Brothers.

--Erika and Jack: "The Power of Love," by Celine Dion, and "Holding Out for a Hero" from Footloose.

--Robin and Kyle: "A Moment Like This," by Kelly Clarkson, and "It Is You (I Have Loved)" by Dana Glover, from Shrek.

--Vanessa and Adam: "So Close" by Jon McLaughlin, from Enchanted.

--Belle and the Beast (Kissed by a Rose): "Kiss from a Rose" by Seal, and "Hoppipolla" by Sigur Ros.

Random Oneshots/Twoshot:

Most of the reason I wrote "All Along" was to answer a lot of questions the movie leaves wide open. Things like what Belle expected to find in the West Wing and why she ran away (she doesn't seem like the kind of person to wantonly break promises without good reason), what she thought about falling in love with a monster, and why she was so quick to accept the transformed Prince as her Beast.

"The Resignation" was particularly annoying because the idea for it came to me at 1AM. So I had to turn my computer back on and start writing. One of my guilty pleasures is cartoons of the Saturday morning variety (the good ones with actual plot and characters), and the Zeta Project is one of my all-time favorites. I adore the main characters, Zeta and Ro, and I think the bond they have is very special and unique.

Speaking of Saturday morning cartoons: "Scar or No Scar" is an Avatar: the Last Airbender fic. Another result of my "fallen" characters thing. Zuko's whole journey from villain to hero is a fascinating one, and I wanted to write my own little take on it as he discusses the scar on his face with the main female character in the series, Katara. "Marked" is also a "fallen" character oneshot--this one about Eustace once back in England after his time on the Dawn Treader.

As you've probably deduced, I enjoy superheroes. People choosing what to do with extraordinary power makes for a lot of interesting character threads. "The Basketball" and "Becoming Captain America" are two such looks at personal moments their respective movies don't show. I am so excited for 2014's The Winter Soldier because I want to see how the filmmakers handle a relationship between 21st-century Cap and 21st-century Bucky. If they have Bucky pull a Raimi Harry Osborn I will be seriously displeased. I want Bucky in Avengers 2.

Anyway, enjoy my humble offerings to you all!

Couples:

Most couples I ship are canon. Belle/Beast, Danny/Sam, Tiana/Naveen, Ned/Chuck (Pushing Daisies) etc... The notable exceptions are Zuko/Katara from Avatar: Last Airbender, Eric/(X) from Phantom of the Opera, and Link/Midna from the Legend of Zelda. Katara and Zuko have way more chemistry than Katara and Aang, in my opinion. Zuko might be a whiny, irritable brat in the beginning of the series, but he matures into a man worthy of someone as proud and idealistic as Katara by the end. I am a fan of Eric getting a happy ending with someone, be it a well-written Christine, Meg, or OC. I'm not picky. Link and Midna are sort of a canon couple, though I put them in because I can't see any incarnation of Link being with any of his other female companions through the game series. And because Link and Midna are permanently separated at the end of Twilight Princess.

Favorites:

As you can see, my fandom is Beauty and the Beast and I spend most of my time there, but I dabble in a variety of other fandoms as well. The stories I add to my limited favorites list are always complete because I re-read these stories frequently and it breaks my heart every time I see a story I love unfinished. They are well-written (in my opinion, anyway) and generally error-free, though if a story is intriguing enough I may forgive some unorthodox spelling, grammar and punctuation. I will never be one of those people with hundreds of stories on their list; I am very stingy with what I add. I hope you will check these stories out because they deserve your time. Truly.

Subset of favorites: Best of Beauty and the Beast Fanfiction In my opinion, these stand out as by far the best of their category. In other categories of the fandom, for example Pre-Transformation, there isn't one that stands out to me as the definitive work of that category. Either the best of the best doesn't exist, or there are lots of good ones to choose from. Listed below are the works anyone else writing in that category should strive to equal or surpass.

--Modern Retelling: The Beautiful and the Beastly by shortstef

--Gaston-Centric: A Man of Stature by TrudiRose (or any of her other Gaston stories)

--Gender Switch: Learning to Love by Damian

Community:

One of my pet peeves about Beauty and the Beast fanfiction is how authors tend to portray the Prince. They make him sweet and nice all the time, which is totally out of character. He might have learned his lesson, but hey, he's still the same guy! That's the whole point, isn't it? So I created a community of post-transformation stories that showcases stories where the authors have made it clear that Beast and Prince are one and the same. They do this in different ways and the stories are very different, but they all have that common element. Not all of these stories are finished, but that is not a prerequisite for this community. Send me recommendations and your reasoning for the rec if you know about a story I missed. Enjoy!

Cheers for now,

SamoaPhoenix9