I have a fairly high tolerance for violence, even when the victim is either Xena or Gabrielle, as can be found in B.L. Miller and Phopas. I also found stories where Xena or Gabrielle got together relationally or sexually with an outsider to be unsatisfying as well. Those stories, and there are not many, seemed to defeat the purpose of reading, which implies that there is an essential purpose for reading alt-fanfic. I will return to this subject below. After I grew bored with the slow load and idiosyncratic, non-alphabetic listing at Jane's site, I once again figured I had tapped the well dry.
Real life intrudes from time to time anyway.
Then in May 1997, real life took a downturn and I entered the Xenaverse completely and wholeheartedly, never looking back. I have heard others report this total immersion as well, and many describe how Xena and the online Xenaverse literally saved their lives during health crises or other extreme circumstances. Even Lucy Lawless turned to the Xenaverse for comfort during her hospital stay following her accident on the Jay Leno Show . In my less extreme case, the Xenaverse community and fan fiction threw me a lifeline during a time when I was feeling very low. It was at this time that I dove into epic-length novels being posted online by Missy Good, M. Parnell, Puckster, DJWP, and baermer, as well as shorter, serialized novellas by Bat Morda and WordWarior.