Cassatt

Cassatt is a Star Trek: Voyager, Law & Order, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanwriter and an original fiction author, with a writing focus on slash fic. She began in the 1990s, posting her work to Cassatt's Fiction, as well as other websites. In 2021, Cassatt closed her personal author page and migrated her slash works to Archive of Our Own. 
During her time in the VOY fandom during the show's first run, both when she was a Janeway/Chakotay writer and then a Chakotay/Paris writer, she was honored to win awards in VOY story contests. She did get push-back from some in the fandom, usually expressed as: I can't see this pairing at all. Reason usually given: McCoy is (unknown decades) older than Green so therefore why would Green be attracted to McCoy? Reason occasionally implied: their racial difference.
Cassatt was also involved in the Law & Order slash fandom where she wrote the pairing of Jack McCoy and Ed Green. She originally paired them up as a personal challenge in what was meant to be a stand-alone: Side Bar. That short piece morphed into a mystery-romance novel with three sequels, and all of her works with Jack and Ed were ultimately well-received. The final work she wrote with Jack and Ed was Ex Post Facto, included in the zine Dyad #26 in 2013 and subsequently web-published to her website and to AO3 in 2015.
==History==
==Awards==
*Koffee Klub's Awesome Author Award - Honorable Mention 2001: 8 fics of different genres entered and readers voted on the collection.
* Voyager Blue Alert NC-17 Fanfic Contest 2 (2000) - Honorable Mention: Botanical Extracts (off internet) J/C; Existing Stories Category
*Voyager Blue Alert NC-17 Fanfic Contest 3 (2001) - Honorable Mention: The Fantasy of Tom J/C, C/P, P/T; Other Pairings Category
*Voyager Blue Alert NC-17 Fanfic Contest 3 (2001) - Honorable Mention: It's All In How You Play the Game J/C, C/P; New Stories Category
*Voyager Blue Alert NC-17 Fanfic Contest 5 (2002) - Second Place: The Shape of Shadows C/P; Other Pairings Category
* Astrogirl's Spooky Fanfic Contest - First Place: The Shape of Shadows
*Koffee Klub's Picnic Prose Prize - Divergent Pathways (off internet) J/C
*Winter Magic Fanfic Contest - Second Place: The Gift of Giving C/P
*Another Slashy Fic Rejected by Apocrypha - Side Bar: a tongue-in-cheek award of honor. Apocrypha was the L&O fic mailing list & zine.
===Chakotay/Paris===
One of the first works Cassatt shared with the C/P fandom when she initially put her toe in those waters was the stand-alone, Driftng. It is a drabble series, when "drabble" was defined as 100 words exactly. The POV changes, drabble to drabble, between Chakotay and Tom Paris. She wrote it after a conversation with Shayenne about drabble writing, and a nudge from her to write an actual story using more than one drabble. Drifting is acutely romantic. Some in the C/P fandom (via two mailing lists) responded with critical comments that the two men were not romantic, at least not with each other. The term "Enemy Slash" was not used, but the comments were meant to explain that that was how the characters were slashed. Off-list, Cassatt received emails from others in the fandom who encouraged her to continue to write Chakotay and Tom Paris as able to fall in love with each other, within the characterizations given in canon. Soon, others posted more romantic stories about the two characters, and at the time (ca 2001-2003) it seemed to be an approximate ratio of 50/50 - romantic fics / darker fics. Cassatt was surprised to see the pairing defined, here, as = "Enemy Slash." 
===Het vs Slash Skirmishes in VOY=== 
Cassatt joined the Voyager fandom writing Janeway/Chakotay. She wrote J/C fics for ~2 years. Frustrated by the way TPTB were characterizing Chakotay (dumping his Maquis edge and experience), she began reading Chakotay/Paris fics. She found that many of them wrote Janeway in a negative light - some extreme - which did not comport with her view of the character. In a number of J/C stories Cassatt wrote unleashed Chakotay, who expressed his anger and frustration in re: his role on the ship and continually being pushed away by Janeway. These writing experiences were temporarily satisfying, but ultimately, because of the command structure on Voyager, Janeway was always going to be the one in control of any relationship dynamic between her and Chakotay. She set the rules, always. So, Cassatt decided to try writing some Chakotay/Paris to see how it went - and started with The Fantasy of Tom. It's a story in which both J/C and P/T are in committed relationships, but Chakotay and Tom begin a sexual relationship for various reasons, which causes some unpleasant complications. Around about chapter 7, Cassatt realized the two men were falling in love with each other (for various reasons), and so added that to the story, etc.. She posted Fantasy of Tom to her J/C mailing lists and to her website. Her friends in the J/C fandom expressed some dismay (there was much rending of garments) at the subplot of the men falling in love. Some wrote her offlist to "confess" they read C/P, too, and liked it. 
It was after this experience that Cassatt began to actively drift away from the J/C part of the fandom and joined C/P mailing lists, putting her efforts toward C/P fics. It was there that she received push back about her characterization of Janeway as a friend to Chakotay and to Tom Paris, and not an evil, crazy woman. Cassatt continued to straddle the two parts of the fandom for a while until she caused more consternation among the J/Cers by writing It's All In How You Play the Game for Blue Alert. It was written specifically to enter in the contest, so unread by the fandom before Blue Alert. A fellow J/C writer offered the plot bunny - in the episodes Killing Game, Janeway has her memories restored the day before Chakotay does, and makes love with Chakotay (as Miller) so she can have the experience and he'd be none the wiser. Cassatt thought Chakotay would be ultimately upset to find this out and wrote it that way. She added a Chakotay/Paris subplot (as Miller/Davis) which is the story's ending - when the two men regain some memory of the sex they had in Hirogen Hell, they ask each other, "Now what?" Though she did win an H.M. for Game in Blue Alert, she was made aware that her J/C story arc did not please - apparently this situation was supposed to be seen as (somehow) romantic. In the sequel, The Rules of the Game, Chakotay's experience with Janeway is considered by some characters as a form of sexual abuse, since it was non-con. 
Cassatt would tell you that in having a foot in each part of the fandom she saw first hand the hostility some in each group felt for the other. Ultimately, she stayed with Chakotay and Tom as her pairing of choice, even reworking old J/C stories on occasion to improve the writing, and recreate them as C/P stories. 
===Co-writers===
In the Law & Order fandom Cassatt participated in a Round Robin - Plain Sight Exception - with Cirocco, Tobias Charity, and LindaK. 
After the final season of Voyager, Cassatt and Shayenne and other J/C writers (AKA The Finale Fixit Group) wrote a novel entitled Tying The Threads, published September 2001.
 
Cassatt also participated in a Voyager fandom-wide project entitled Voyager Virtual Season 8.
==Bibliography==
Title 	Published	Fandom
Home 	2000-2001	Star Trek: Voyager
21st Century Fun and Games 	2000 	Star Trek: Voyager
Avalanche 	2000 	Star Trek: Voyager
A Break in the Action 	2000 	Star Trek: Voyager
Change of Seasons (orig J/C version) 	2000 	Star Trek: Voyager
Christmas in Indiana 	2000 	Star Trek: Voyager
The Disease 	2000 	Star Trek: Voyager
The Fight 	2000 	Star Trek: Voyager
The Furiously Yours Trilogy +1 	2000 	Star Trek: Voyager
Firewalk 	2000 	Star Trek: Voyager
Fun With Chuckles and Kathy 	2000 	Star Trek: Voyager
Galley Raid 	2000 	Star Trek: Voyager
To A Logical Conclusion (orig J/C version) 	2000 	Star Trek: Voyager
Long Nights 	2000 	Star Trek: Voyager
Night Vision 	2000 	Star Trek: Voyager
No One Knows But You (orig J/C version) 	2000 	Star Trek: Voyager
Parenthood 	2000 	Star Trek: Voyager
What A Pip 	2000 	Star Trek: Voyager
The Thief (orig J/C version) 	2000 	Star Trek: Voyager
Working in Bed 	2000 	Star Trek: Voyager
Botanical Extracts 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
Cupid's Phaser 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
The Dance 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
Divergent Pathways 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
Double Dare 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
The Other Dynamic Duo 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
The Experiment 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
To Force the Truth 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
Out Hunting, Late One Night (orig J/C version) 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
Hollow Intaglio (orig J/C version) 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
In the End 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
Life Lessons 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
A Big Human Mistake 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
Season Seven Chakotay 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
Season Seven Chakotay II; No Longer Working 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
Once More, With Feeling 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
Chakotay's Revenge 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
The Fantasy of Tom (J/C, C/P, P/T) 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
Drifting 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
A Kiss Is Just A Kiss 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
The Gift of Giving 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
Off Shift Concerns 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
Il Pleur Dans Mon Coeur 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
The Seduction 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
John Wayne vs. James Bond 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
The Shape of Shadows 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
The Wild Stallion 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
It's All In How You Play The Game (J/C, C/P) 	2001 	Star Trek: Voyager
The Rules of the Game(C/P) 	2002 	Star Trek: Voyager
Completely His (w/Shayenne) 	2002 	Star Trek: Voyager
Redux (3 chapts w/Shayenne) 	2002 	Star Trek: Voyager
A Sporting Chance 	2002 	Star Trek: Voyager
Unbeknownst 	2002 	Star Trek: Voyager
Undone 	2002 	Star Trek: Voyager
Unmailed, Unwritten Logs 	2002 	Star Trek: Voyager
The Gordian Knot (w/Shayenne) 	2003 	Star Trek: Voyager
Off Shift Concerns, Rev. Edition 	2021 	Star Trek: Voyager
The Seduction, Rev. Edition 	2021 	Star Trek: Voyager
The Shape of Shadows, Rev. Edition 	2021 	Star Trek: Voyager
A Sporting Chance, Rev. Edition 	2021 	Star Trek: Voyager
Undone, Rev. Edition 	2021 	Star Trek: Voyager
It's All In How You Play the Game, Rev. Edition	2021 	Star Trek: Voyager
The Rules of the Game, Rev. Edition 	2021 	Star Trek: Voyager
Morning 	2021 	Star Trek: Voyager
One In A Million 	2021 	Star Trek: Voyager
Unless and Until 	2021 	Star Trek: Voyager
Carl Jung Walks Into A Bar 	2021 	Star Trek: Voyager
Redux, Rev. Edition 	2022 	Star Trek: Voyager
The Wild Stallion, Rev. Edition 	2022 	Star Trek: Voyager
Secrets and Lies 	2022 	Star Trek: Voyager
When Cut Below the Surface 	2022 	Star Trek: Voyager
Incandescence; An Alpha/Delta Diptych 	2022 	Star Trek: Voyager
Dream A Little Dream 	2022 	Star Trek: Voyager
All Things Seen As They Are 	2022 	Star Trek: Voyager
The Moon Has Beams 	2023 	Star Trek: Voyager
No One Knows But You (C/P version) 	2023 	Star Trek: Voyager
Coming to Terms, Late One Night 	2023 	Star Trek: Voyager
Breathing Space 	2023 	Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Picard - No Man's Land
He, Him or It 	2002 	Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Playing Favorites 	2003 	Star Trek: Voyager, Law & Order
Choices Made 	2002-2004	Law & Order
Uberpout 	2002 	Law & Order
Plain Sight Exception 	2003 	Law & Order
A Question of Romance 	2003 	Law & Order
In A Stranger's Guise 	2003 	Law & Order
Lost In The Woods 	2004 	Law & Order
Doors, Unlocked 	2004 	Law & Order
Burning 	2004 	Law & Order
Elan Vital 	2004 	Law & Order
Electrical Impulses 	2004 	Law & Order
Pre-Nuptial Agreement 	2004 	Law & Order
Inevitability 	2004 	Law & Order
The Investigation (SVU Remix) 	2004 	Law & Order SVU
Tag, You're It! 	2005 	Law & Order
In the Pink 	2005 	Law & Order
Insurmountable 	2005 	Law & Order
Incurable 	2005 	Law & Order
In Media Res 	2005 	Law & Order
Snowed In 	2005 	Law & Order
Ancient Airs & Dances 	2005 	Law & Order
Inevitability Redux 	2005 	Law & Order
A Persistence of Vision 	2006 	Law & Order
Falling Down on the Job 	2006 	Law & Order
Plausible Deniability 	2011 	Law & Order
No Choice In The Matter 	2011 	Law & Order
Ex Post Facto 	2013 	Law & Order
==References==
Category:Fanwriters