First, I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who read "Beauty and the Chimera". I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you.

Second order of business: A BIG BIG thank you to Akane no Hime for her excellent poster, which is prominently displayed on the "Beauty and the Chimera" intro page. Another big thank you to my beta readers: Xanthic, Akane no Hime, Danny, and all the rest. I couldn't have gotten this to make sense without your input.

This is among my first completed fanfics (not that there aren't PLENTY more half-written, or just rattling around in my brain), and I'm pretty happy with the way it came out. I got the idea to write it when discussing our favorite Disney movies with my roommate at school--hers is "Peter Pan", and mine is, of course, "Beauty and the Beast". That night, I found the script of the movie online and started changing it around a little, so that Ameria was "Beauty" and Zel was "the Beast". I tried to keep it as close to the original Disney script as possible. This project sat on my hard drive for the better part of six months, with about 8 pages written but otherwise untouched, until I decided it was worth continuing. After much revision, first by me, and then by my beta readers, I finally finished it and decided it would be the first completed fic displayed on my new website.

Like I said, I'm pretty happy with the way it came out. It's not perfect when it comes to characterization, but I finally got so sick of messing with it that I just let the parts that aren't quite so well-characterized slip by. For example, I'm not particularly fond of how I wrote Xelloss--he seems a bit out of character to me, and to Xanthic as well. But, I figure Xelloss is not the main character in the story--he's more of an aside, an excuse, if you will, for setting up a Z/A romance fic based on my favorite Disney movie. As for the romance in the story...well, I'm not much into especially sappy, mushy stuff, and I get really uncomfortable writing it. I tried, really really TRIED to keep this as subtle as possible, given the storyline. But, finally, the original script wouldn't let me keep things subtle. I had no choice but to make it sappy in the end. Please, try not to throw up on your keyboards. ^_^

Thanks again for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! Please send all comments, constructive criticism, compliments, etc. to Esther Nairn.