REGRETS IN JADE TONE
Book 2 The Color of Love Series
Reality Check
In February 2002, the dead baby lie was still hanging over Todd and Blair on One Life To Live but my fan fiction version of the couple had moved on. This story is a sequel to Consequences in Blue Notes and picks up a few months after that story ended. In reality, Gary Tomlin, the executive producer of OLTL, announced around the time I wrote this story that OLTL would broadcast live for one week in mid-May and the baby lie would be revealed then. In the meanwhile on the show, T&B faced and continue to face a number of less than satisfying challenges including, Gabrielle blackmailing them for a job at The Sun, Sam getting drunk and coming on to Blair, Social Services threatening to take Starr and Jack away from them, Jack being diagnosed with aplastic anemia....and so on as the dead baby lie continued and continues to cast a dark cloud over their relationship.
As a final aspect of the reality check, it should be noted that the character of Liz Reynolds, Keri's mother, has been mentioned but never appeared on OLTL nor has her history been presented other than that she was young when she got pregnant with Keri and that for years Hank sent child support payments but did not tell RJ about the existence of his daughter. The character in Regrets then is my version of Liz Reynolds and I invented her history and Jason. Regrets In Jade Tones was originally posted between February 17 and March 11, 2002.
Addendum: In the last few months, Liz Reynolds, played by the wonderful Barbara Nevin, has been introduced to the canvas of OLTL and she is almost the polar opposite of how I envisioned her in this story. At the moment, Liz is involved in a horrible "sleep with daughter's boyfriend, get pregnant, lie to the daughter about the baby's paternity but have daughter serve as a surrogate for the baby because you have a heart condition..." storyline that gives me hives just thinking about. I can't watch it. I am alternately bored and appalled with the characters and the storyline, which for me is a bad combination and results in my fingers moving to the "off" button as fast as I can reach the remote.
I guess it is obvious that I hate that storyline and have come to dislike OLTL's version of Liz intensely. I feel compelled therefore to emphasize that the Liz Reynolds in The Color of Love Series is not at all like the Liz currently on OLTL. Not the least of the differences is that my Liz Reynolds is African American! And despite her prickly ways and self-centeredness, my Liz would never exploit her daughter's love and damnable innocence the way OLTL's Liz has done. It is a strange situation to hate the version of a character as portrayed on the show and love the version you created. Such are the joys and perils of fan fiction. --Tessarae87 (11.02.02)
Addendum 2: Given the fact that Liz Reynolds has been killed off on OLTL, the differences between my version of Liz Reynolds and the OLTL's version has reached a point of critical mass. I have decided to change the name of my character and clearly identify her as a fan fiction character that has no real counterpart on the show. So in my fan fiction the character is now called "Toni" instead of Liz and surprisingly enough looks somewhat like Evangeline Williamson. Go figure. LOL I haven't changed anything else about the story. Toni is still Keri's mother and did keep Keri away from RJ but beyond those characteristics the similarities end. I've tried to edit all of the chapters in this story to reflect the name change. I apologize if any some Liz references slip through. I am double checking but it may take a third or fourth pass to produce a complete "Liz" purge. --Tessarae87(7.11.03)