Kelandris: It's all ren's fault. No, wait, that's always my answer.
Mercury: What attracts you to the idea of a dealer and his muscle getting
it on?
Kelandris: Okay, I often give the impression that I was virginal and untouched
before I fell headlong into Jersey. I wasn't, but it was waaaay limited on the
exposure side. I'd read K/S, even had a K/S 'zine that I surreptitiously bought
at a con (along with the other 200 surreptitious customers they had, and this
in the middle of the room, so imagine how amusing we all must have been). At
that point--we're talking, like, 1986 or so here, long after K/S was established
territory, but long before the advent of the Web--it was a shocking revelation
to read even badly-written fiction about two males getting it on. My little
bi self was, quite frankly, all aquiver, and I spent the next several years
writing really, really, REALLY bad fanfic about Tanith Lee's god-characters,
and Vincent from Beauty and the Beast, and dabbled in some Star Trek of my own...and
then, the revelation
came that if I was going to be a Serious Artist, I had to put away such childish
things, and work on my Art. To which I now say, phhhht, but that was then.
So here's the thing. We fast-forward to the miserable months some few years
back spent in Kirkland, when I had nothing else to do but drink and surf the
Web, primarily. And one night I was very, very bored. And desperate for *anything*
Jay/Bob, because it had been a while since the release of Dogma. And the third
link I hit was Charles's archive site. And my brain fell out.
At that point, I thought they were cute together, but I hadn't actually leapt
to the 'they're-so-doing-it' mentality. I just inhaled
story after story and spun out more and more. And then, I took heart in hand,
and wrote the ren, and the rest really is history. In that sense, she did talk
me into it, but the archive planted the big seed of what-if.
Mercury: What about the dynamics of their relationship makes us so interested
in them?
Kelandris: I think first, though this is a cheesy reason, it's that Smith is
not a small man. And, therefore, neither is Silent Bob. I
like that a skinny little guy who--were he to keep his mouth closed, and even
at that, some girls dig being beat down verbally--could get muff any time he
wanted, is digging on the fat dude. I *love* that. Because that much is obvious
through all the films--he gets frustrated, he runs him down, but let anyone
else touch him and he springs to the defense.
Mercury: Who is Jay?
Kelandris: Unfortunately, it's come to my attention that my Jay is very much
close to Jason Mewes in real life, so it's become rather creepy. But my version
of Jay is a child born addicted, with the lifelong problems with learning, attention
deficit disorder, drug use, and intoxication that can cause. The only thing
that keeps him alive at this point, in my various universes, is Bob. He can't
stand still, and, if he ever found the one calming agent that worked for him,
his brain might actually start working. I don't think he's beyond all redemption,
I think he's just too scattered to think straight. I have noticed that when
he has a non-sex or non-drug point to make, though, he's usually on-target.
But Bob gets the credit, even though Jay said it first.
Mercury: Who is Silent Bob?
Bob I've had even more fun with--in most of my stories he's the youngest son
of a powerful Russian mafia boss, who's bent on taking over much of the drug
trade through New Jersey. Bob takes in some of the fallout from that war, lives
on the rep, and otherwise keeps strongly to himself. He doesn't have the thick
accent his cousin does, but I get the definite impression of someone a little
socially awkward, too smart for his own good, someone who grew up with a radically
different ethics set than most of the folks around him. All of it has combined
to make him incredibly, frighteningly loyal to Jay...usually without saying
a word.
Mercury: Where does Justice fit in, or does she?
Kelandris: In my envisioning of the story, she really doesn't. I sort of view
her as an amalgam of all of Jay's more and less successful dates, sort of the
UberCreature that Jay inevitably falls for, and Bob must suffer through until
Jay's wandering attention span returns to him. I mean, think about it--Jay's
not so much invested in her as anything other than Shiny New Toy status, and
you notice Bob doesn't seem too bothered by this. I think, if Justice manages
to get out of prison before 2025, and looks Jay up, she'll be stunningly surprised
at how quick Jay gets bored with her.