If it's any help, it's stories like "Thrall" or the series by rahirah that feed into my old and cherished love of the characters and series. You've both taken characters and storylines that I loved and continued them in logical but very different ways that I think are even more consistent with the first five seasons of the series than what we got on the show.

So, love your versions of the characters, and don't let the shriveled up shells some of them became on the show deter you.