Dangerous Radio Actors

I was going to actually title this post something about "Interactive". Then I thought of this song I heard a long time ago where this guys sings "I'm radioactive!" Then I thought I'd make a Darkwing Duck reference. So here we are.

I'll admit that right now I am posting just to keep my momentum going on posting. So I thought that, since I don't have a specific topic right now, I'd address my imaginary readers. For my next characterization post, what character would you like me to talk about? I've done DW, Launchpad, and Gosalyn; who is someone else you would like discussed? Bushroot? Honker?

I was going to just do a character from AAE, someone in Beth's family, but I didn't have a set character picked out and then I thought I'd offer folks a chance to make requests. Since this will fall flat in a big way given that no one regularly reads this and even more rarely do they comment, I'll add that you can comment ANY time on this post! Even if it's from like a year ago! Yep, it's all good.

And by the way, I think you can leave a comment without signing in or registering on blogger.com. I'm not for sure on it, but I think you can just enter a name. So howdy folks! Comment to me, please, because I am lonely and cold! (seriously, what the heck is up with the hyperactive air conditioning in here? I'm wrapped in a blanket, I am not kidding!)

Three posts in three days?! Has the world gone topsy-turvy??

I KNOW!

Anyway I put together some authors' notes (and babbling and random stuffage) on the prologue of "All About Eve". For those following along at FF.net (which is... everyone I think, right now anyway), the prologue is chapters 1 and 2. I'm not splitting them up here, but they will probably remain separate chapters when I post them on my site, because otherwise it's a terribly long prologue.

Though I am well aware that real prologues don't have two chapters. We'll just... overlook that.

Without further ado, except to mention that I have a sore throat and it is driving me CRAZY!, here are the notes!

Prologue:

References:

- Title: "All About Eve", classic Bette Davis movie; the title really has no relation to the content, it's just straightforward, all about Beth.
- "Back to the Future" - Candy's line about turning in her homework in Beth's handwriting.
- "Signs" - Tank swinging at everything during softball games. I had just rewatched the movie, so I snuck that in there. I did stop short of having Tank quote the film with "It felt wrong not to swing", though.

I have heard of situations where, to start with, an advanced kid was mistaken for a kid with a learning disability. But I think it might've been in "The Simpsons". I'm not sure that really happens but I thought Beth is so quiet that maybe even her parents would overlook the signs of advanced intelligence and focus in on the apparent problems she was having.

Writing Irene's accent is hard and I hate it. HATE HATE HATE it. I love hearing it in my head, but I hate actually writing it out. Incidentally, Irene is based on Pert Kelton's rendition of Mrs. Paroo, the irish mother of Marion from "The Music Man". She was essentially "born" that way, all the way back in '96 (yep and it's taken me this long to put her into a fic), but it was coincidence that I had Gosalyn refer to Beth as "Marion the Librarian", another "Music Man" reference, in my rewrite of TWC1.

Bug's name was going to be Herbert, until I realized that he is the *third* "Herb" in the Webfoot Weavings, after Herb Muddlefoot and Honker (whose real name is Herbert Jr). So I changed it to Henry, though I struggled with it, because I originally named him after my grandfather - first name Herbert, nicknamed "Bud".

Shout-out to referencing my own fanfics! I have a reference to TWC4 in here, which is the first episode that mentions Beth's fondness for tadpoles. This was something I guess I tossed in when I was punching it up back in '95 or so, and I forgot about it until I reread the early ones a few years ago. The "tadpoles" thing stuck with me and so I tossed it in here as a running gag, even though I never meant it to be an actual character point.

It's hard to write Beth being this miserable and this depressed, because gosh, she's like this through almost the *whole fic*. I'm not 100% sure that she's actually bearable in this story because she's just so depressed. It's hard to write, since it feels so repetitive (though it's repetitive for a reason, which I'll go into in a separate note), so I'd understand if it's hard to read.

This scene with Launchpad and Beth is so awkward. Good lord. It's even worse than I remembered. :D I actually really like the part when he tries to talk to her and she pulls her hand away. Oh, Launchpad. Also? Stupid I know, but the whole coffee thing is still cute. I love writing little moments between them, even when nothing at all happens.

I wanted to try to make sure that I got Beth's feelings as accurate as I can, and so here is some TMI. My husband and I were friends before we started dating (though not really close friends like in this situation), and he liked me before I liked him. He and I talked about it, and I said "just friends" and he said he was okay with that - although it only lasted about a week because I decided to give it a go pretty quickly :) - but for a few days things were SUPER-awkward, especially during the second half of the conversation when, it seemed, he just decided now that it was out there he'd go ahead and tell me everything, and I was like "OMG I have to get OUT OF HERE!" So anyway... Beth's discomfort and guilt are based on that, sort of, only magnified.

Sigh. True confessions: I am very, very uncomfortable writing intimate scenes. That goes for romance in particular. I like to write banter and flirtatious dialogue, I like to write introspection, I like to write silly comedy; now, technically, I like to write romance but I am very bad at it. That's why things move very slowly in my fics and that is why things tend to be very understated. There are moments within this Launchpad/Beth scene, when he's trying to talk to her, where I'm attempting to convey an intimacy between them - the kind of thing that, if you were watching it in a movie, would make you ache for the people involved and also be chanting for them to kiss one another. I honestly have no idea if I was successful or if it just falls flat. I for one feel underwhelmed and I would LOVE some feedback. But yeah, there's a big reason why there's not a lot of solid romance in my fics so far... after fifteen stories. *sigh*

On the flip side, the introspective Launchpad stuff I wrote... well I'm rereading it for the first time in like, two years, and I'm surprised to find that I like it. This stuff works for me.

Heh, random reference to "High, Dry, and Flooded" when LP passes the Muddlefoots' house: they're having their Tuo security system removed (and getting the house repaired while they're at it) after the finale of that fic. ^_^ I know I say a few paragraphs later that it's only 8:30 in the morning, which is a pretty early start time for home cleanup, but I wanted to get that gag in (but I cleverly played it down during such a deep emotional scene, becuz clever writer is clever :P)

Five points for the implication that everyone will think LP and Beth's "night together" was less than innocent!

The discussion between LP and Drake is, for once, more or less in-character (as I see it anyway). LP's mood has precedent since he can, on occasion, take things quite hard and get pretty bummed out (and when LP bums out he *really* bums out). DW of course is just being DW. God love 'im. *hugs DW*

For some reason it struck me as immensely funny that Drake woud misquote his "clever quip" from when he beat the Liquidator in the finale of HD&F. Since it's been a while since I read the original fic, though, now I'm like "WHO is going to notice that he misquoted it?" which makes it look like carelessness for anyone who DOES notice. It was on purpose! I'm totally anal about these details and I swear I wouldn't gloss over 'em... even if everyone else in the world does. XD

Hahaha. Drake is *not* a Beth/LP shipper. He's totally not *trying* to be insensitive though - in fact he's trying very hard to be the other thing, you know, UNinsensitive ;P - I've just found that, a lot of times, people just don't seem to get that the moment you've had your heart broken is NOT the right time to say "well now you can get on with your life!" (For the record, I almost certainly would totally say that to someone in these circumstances, because I am just that insensitive! No, but seriously, it's easy to forget how much it hurts when it's not happening to you.)

You can see, in a few moments of this discussion as well as later in the fic, that I was writing this and rewriting TWC1 at the same time, and I was in fact just redoing Beth's and Drake's first meeting and working on how she fell for Drake in the first place. This shows up in LP's reflection that maybe if Beth hadn't met DW at exactly the time she did, she never would've fallen for him... which is probably true. Or maybe not. But I stuck that in because I was in process of giving the newly specific details of their meeting, and it was suddenly relevant. Stuff like that pops up throughout - this fic, and TWC1, were very symbiotic and influenced each other quite a bit. Which is WEIRD, if you think about it. Parasitic. Incestuous, almost. ;P (No, not at all actually, but I was looking for a good word...)

And next we have my introduction of Beth's father and brother! I had never really fleshed them out much in my mind - aside from physical description I knew (and still know) pretty much nothing about the older brother Bill (aka "Beef"), and at the time of writing I didn't know much about Bug yet, either. I've since discovered that Bug is a loving, but mostly uninvolved father. He's just a bit too passive in the family situation and has never tried to take any stand against his very, very outspoken wife.

One quick addition, I had forgotten that I wrote this scene from Honker's perspective. I'm glad I did that even though it seems weird since I think this is basically his only scene in the fic. Still glad though. I love Honker.

There Will Be Information On All About Elizabeth

I am going to post some chapter notes, the way I did with TWC1 and HoAW. And then I'll probably disappear again. :D No, but it will take a little while because I hope to do it as I code the fic for my website - I mentioned before this is an exercise in futility, because I have yet to actually finish designing the place the fics will go onto so they are never going up, but so what? - and that might take a while.

But so what!

Before I do the chapter notes, here's a post that's just about the fic in general, since I'm approaching the ending and all. It's winding down.

Basically, the fanfic ended up being about people. I knew it was character-driven but it was initially going to be about Beth (hence the title, hurr hurr); in the end it became about people, the nature of people, the fact that you never really get the whole picture on anyone and there are very few "villains". Everyone in Beth's past who seems to have wronged her has their own side and their own lives. What they're really guilty of, usually, is thinking of themselves. Which is what Beth is doing, too. So this kind of came out of nowhere, but it became a stronger and stronger theme throughout, as we looked at Beth's family and the people in her past.

The final message becomes that, for all the awful experiences that Beth has been through and all the poor treatment she's had from other people, regardless, she is the one who has created her life by choosing to make the decisions she has. (You can tell I've reached a philosophy of 'owning your own life' over the past few years, huh?) As appropriate, as I go through with the chapter notes, I'll hopefully dedicate a post or two to some of the original characters in this fanfic.

By the way, one character from Beth's past will return! (Or, wait, two - Ariana will, at least I hope - but one other will too! WHICH ONE? I will not tell! Speculate!)

Other themes: I chose "Stuck In a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" as the theme for Beth's depression. As I view it, she's dwelling on this one moment and experience, unable to let it go, until in the end she realizes life goes on and everything passes. As with many things I've written, this is a realization I've had myself. I like that U2 song a lot, and I love the sort of epiphany at the end of the song. Anyway, this led to the fic being rather repetitive, intentionally so, because despite all of Beth's efforts she couldn't get past the rejection from Drake and the discussion with Launchpad. I *have* found that in depression you can't think of the future, you can only think of where you are right then and feel like it's going to go on forever, so the U2 song is a fantastic representation of that. (It helps that it was written *about* precisely that topic.)

Another theme that came out - I've mentioned this before, but I didn't go into this series thinking of Beth as having trust issues. When the idea occurred to me, I didn't resist it the way that Beth did, but I didn't realize how true it clearly was until I had really thought about it. Once I did, I went "Oh my god, of COURSE she does!" She always has. Weird, huh? I realized I'd never written her as speaking openly about herself, I've left her very private, and very, very unwilling to believe that people like her. I didn't associate that with a trust problem though until I thought about it in those terms. Then I realized it explained a huge amount, including the mystery of why she would remain blind to Launchpad for so long, and why she would *continue* to feel that way.

I think that about covers it, my dears; specifics will show up in each chapter note post.

Oh! Last thing! Beth's parents are both homages to my maternal grandparents, both of whom passed away during the writing of this monster fic. I created both of them way back in 1996, and it took me this long to get them into a fic! Anyway, Bug, Beth's father, was named for my grandfather Bud. His real name was Herbert but he was Bud pretty much his whole life. I changed Bud to Bug first, then had to come up with a reason he'd be called that; this led to his being a camera enthusiast, nicknamed "shutterbug" or "Bug" for short. I did initially name him Herbert, but then realized that made him the third Herbert in the Webfoot Weavings (after Herb Muddlefoot and Honker), so the name was changed. His personality is not largely drawn from my grandfather, who was much more of a character than Bug, but the inspiration was still there. My grandfather died on April 2nd, 2009.

Irene Webfoot was not named after my grandmother (Thelma), nor is my grandmother Irish. But she did call us "me darlin'", and although nothing solidly inspired her character, I think there's a little of my grandmother in there somewhere. I won't say where. Most everything you'd think it was, is not. :) She died April 4th, 2010. I'm not dedicating this fanfic to them, because neither of them even knew it existed, and I'm not sure what either of them would think. But I am using it to remember them, anyway.

And again a triumphant return..?

Well, I do intend to start writing in here again.

For now, I have a confession to make: I am a Wikipedia ho.

By which I mean that I use it constantly when writing; I use it as a reference tool. Only on really simple things, you know, if I have an idea for a joke or a minor point that isn't really relevant to the plot but could still help flesh out a scene, only I have no idea what I'm talking about, I just go to Wikipedia and look stuff up. Does anyone else do this? It only seems to make sense, really.

Things I've looked up in recent fics:

- Kinds of screws (like hardware)
- Scientific names of flowers
- Scientific names of frogs
- The release dates of Monty Python comedy albums
- Advertising slogans (yes, this is not THAT recent since I finished "High, Dry, and Flooded" like three years ago now, but still, I used it.)

I wish *I* were on Wikipedia.