I'm glad that it reads true to people who had less-than-perfect childhoods (lord knows mine wasn't...but thankfully my homelife was usually not my issue...I was just socially inept, weird kid). I spent a lot of time going, "Is this necessary to put in here?" and "Should I tone this down?" quite a bit. I really wanted to avoid anything that was over the top or strained belief.

Jessica was hard to deal with because I wasn't entirely sure what to do with her. A lot of it was because Tony is such a blasted unreliable narrator to begin with, that the characterization of even Xander, who has solid canon behind him, took a lot of going over with a fine-tooth comb so he'd at least be recognizable to the reader while still looking like a complete stranger. Then you've got Jessica, who we know nothing about...arrrrggghhhhh...I pulled my hair out over her. I had to go with "cipher" out of self-defense because I started chasing myself in mental circles.