I'm just saying.
I wrote Darla, Human for the 'You're Doing it All Wrong!' improv on one of the last days before it closed. I had so many ideas for that, and I just thought about them until they died.
But this fic was based on a pretty simple little plot bunny: Angel has wondered what his sire's real name was since he found out it's not Darla. I wanted her name to be Prudence. Basically, I had this idea that the last line of the fic would be, "Her name... was Prudence." Or something melodramatic like that.
I had fun killing Darla here; it made me like her a lot more, but I don't like the ending to this fic. I think the name should have been revealed in the last line. I think tacking on Thatcher as her last name diluted the power of Prudence. I think that if I hadn't been working towards a deadline, I'd have fixed the end.
Don't get me wrong; I want everything I write to be as good as it can be, but I think the thing that had me most excited about this was revealing her name, and I don't think this was really the fic for that.
Also, I wrote this right around the time Connor showed up, and I love him. I could take or leave Darla and her whole storyline, didn't care for baby!Connor at all, but I'm crazy about the teenager. Since killing Darla at the end of season one would destroy all possibility of Connor existing (unless Druscilla was his mom... hmmmm), I think my heart really wasn't in it so much. Writing the flashbacks to when Darla was first turned was interesting though. She's so strong and mean and old that it's hard to imagine her when she was new. I liked doing that.
One last note on Darla, Human: When my beta finished this, he said to me, "So, you like the commas in the titles, huh?" Yes. Yes, I do.