On-Schedule

So! I actually managed to update TWC3 a second time this month! If I can get the last two chapters done on-schedule then we'll be done around the end of August/beginning of September :)

It's not up yet on AO3, but here's the FF.net link.

Since this is winding down, and I haven't done any chapter notes or much talking about the fic itself, I thought I'd make a post about... well, about the fic itself. :) I've whined a lot about how no one really seems to like this one - which is inaccurate, as I have had multiple people contact me via DA and so forth to say that they've started reading with this one, and they find it quite enjoyable. So what I'm really whining about is the lack of reviews on FF.net, when I think about it. Aaaand, whatever. I'll keep whining about that ON FF.net, because I can see how many hits the story gets so I know people are looking at it and I'm just choosing to be all guilt-pushy there, but I'll skip the whining elsewhere. I know you guys. We cool. :D

Oh, wow, that was a digression!

So to get back to what I was talking about, I haven't really posted much about this particular fic and what's gone into the rewrite. With TWC2 I did at least some partial listings of the things I'd changed from the original version, and now that TWC3 is winding down some, I thought it'd be fun to do the same with this one. I can be almost complete, too, since it's nearly over!

In a lot of ways this one is actually very similar to its progenitor: more than either of the others, I really used the original as an outline and just filled the details in more strongly. With TWC2, for instance, I had to change a number of the plot details to make them less hokey, or the order of the events to make them more understandable, etc. With this one, it's largely the same: the outline for both is:
I: Beth gets yelled at/humiliated by Drake and LP comes to her defense, and then she finds out about Drake being Darkwing;
II: Darkwing encounters Quackerjack, who uses his ray gun to minimize him (haha, I like that term), at which point DW gets away but LP and Gosalyn are struck by the change being more than just cosmetic;
III: Darkwing and Gos ditch Launchpad to fight Quackerjack, which they do and they win, and then at the end Beth... Well I can't say yet 'cause it's a spoiler. DUN-DUN-DUN!!! Okay, okay, you got me, I'll spill. She runs away with Negaduck and has his nega-babies. YEAH YOU HEARD ME!

Okay, so, aside from that minor point at the end which may possibly not be true, that's pretty straightforward. I ended up just doing each as 3-chapter acts instead of one chapter each. And I STILL could barely fit all the Beth stuff into the first act, man, even with three chapters :P I do go on and on! So now for the differences:

1. There NEEDED to be a lot more detail in the Beth section at the beginning, because initially Drake just was fed up with her babbling and snapped at her. I mean, it's simple and not fully OOC, but it did make him look like a gigantic jerk. And while Drake can be a gigantic jerk, there's a right way and a wrong way; and he needed to have a reason within his head that made him certain he was NOT being a gigantic jerk. At least not for no reason at all. :D I actually came up with the idea for the whole "nobody can be that BORING" etc while walking to work one day, about a year ago - it just clicked. I'd been sweating over rewriting the scene for MONTHS, not sure if I could make it actually work IC, and then it just fell together. This was also when I decided to really go and just *run* with the idea that DW would think Beth was a superhero, and this was his (flimsy, I admit) reason for letting her stick around and babysit when it wasn't really strictly necessary. So, all this actually took a lot of thought and in the original was way quicker and weaker.

2. In the same vein, I had to *really* punch up the confrontation between Drake and LP. I won't go into the details on it since that's not needed, but I did struggle to make it something that made sense for LP at this point, and it was a challenge. I'm still worried as to whether I pulled it off, though no one to date has told me I didn't. And, again, the discussion between Beth and LP afterwards was very much extended past the original. The idea of LP trying to "talk Beth up" to Drake started as my idea of a way to get him thinking of her more often and - since he ultimately falls for her himself - this might be the impetus to get him to look at her that way or that might just be the excuse he gives himself when he realizes he's doing that.

3. Beth's discovery of DW's secret identity was largely the same but I had to change some details, including why Gosalyn wasn't present (and it's an excuse to bring Honker into the series earlier! I wish I'd had a part for him in the rest of the fic) and just precisely how Beth stumbles onto it. I absolutely wanted her to stumble onto it, too, because as smart as she is, she doesn't think of unexpected things very often so although she probably would put two and two together EVENTUALLY, it wouldn't happen for quite some time. :)

4. I needed more for Launchpad to do in this fic (this is a theme in nearly all my rewrites; he needs more REAL screen time) and thus came the "Harv" sequence. In the original, Quackerjack dealt largely with just DW, though Launchpad did ultimately still rescue Darkwing after getting zapped by the ray. One thing missing in the rewrites: I have to admit that I loved all the Quackerjack and Mr. Banana Brain interactions that were in the original. I can't shoehorn them in unless they feel right, so there arent' nearly as many, and I kinda miss them. :)

5. Almost everything after Darkwing gets child-ized is pretty close to the original, just fleshed out; the phone conversation with Beth ended up a little longer than I intended it, but I think it was needed, because I wanted to show the ease that Beth and Launchpad have between themselves even if she's kind of resistant to it/doesn't realize it's there. I needed some kind of positive interaction between them that didn't involve angsting over Drake. ;) I also had to stick in some mounting tension with Henny, and LP really ought to encourage her to get a backbone, don't you think? In the nice, non-accusatory Launchpad style.

6. Played up the loneliness Launchpad feels when Gos and Darkwing only want to hang out with each other. I hadn't intended it to dovetail like that when I started out having him thinking about how he was kind of lonely in general (back in Act I), but it fit like a glove and was actually already in the original fic. Like I said, I just played it up.

7. The Darkwing and Gos caper is at once directly following the original fic (I'm even referencing it as I go, for the general structure and for content ideas to flesh out) and also incredibly different. Action is NOT MY THING. I'm not good at it. If this reads well, I'm lucky, because I really struggle with it. Things I want to address in the next chapter or two include why DW is acting like such a complete brat (there's a reason, it's not JUST that he actually is one :D), and of course how Gos is going to get free/how the good guys will win.

Finally, upcoming in the last chapter: How will Darkwing return to his normal age? Will Beth find out that Drake thinks she's a supervillain? Will she BECOME one??? What will Launchpad think when Darkwing gives his latest opinion on Beth? Will all of this actually be addressed? NO. :D Some of it will. There's a plot climax coming in Act III chapter 2, and then in the "aftermath" of chapter 3, we'll see the Beth and the Launchpad stuff come to a point. (Not the Beth/Launchpad stuff. Beth stuff and Launchpad stuff, and in some ways the two will meet.)

So in a sense I've always felt like it's not fair to have so much Beth in a story that doesn't really involve her, but in another sense, this is one of the most important stories in the first five so a lot HAS to happen. I hope you'll read on, good friends. :)

News and Updates

1: I am sticky and gross. Our air conditioning is broken and appears to have been for most of the day but we did not notice until bedtime when we realized it was hotter than usual and tried turning the thermostat down to no avail. The fan is blowing outside but no cold air inside. STICKY AND GROSS!

2: Updated TWC3 yesterday; trying to make a schedule of finishing a chapter every two weeks here on out so I can be done at the start of September. (I'd hoped to be done in July but whatever) So I have three more chapters. So I thought I'd start tonight and didn't.

3: Good news though: I DID get the rough outline of the act done so at least I know what'll have to happen in each chapter. As usual I'm cramming way too much in at the end. Necessary for the pacing of the chapter breaks, maddening for the readers. :P Especially because, spoiler alert, the climax of the actual PLOT happens in the penultimate chapter. BOOOOOO! BAD STORYTELLING! *hides*

And that is all! Good night everyone!

Allow me a strange interlude

Okay, I need to take just one second to whine.

NOBODY likes TWC3. Man alive. Nobody's commenting, nobody's *reading*, I guess my best bet is to get this one over and done with and move on, and hope I can do a better job on TWC4. I wish someone would at least mention what I'm doing *wrong*, but... well, I guess if they're not reading it, there's not much they can say. ^_^;

I'd be lying if I said it didn't bother me a bit, but you know, I'd also be untruthful if I said it was making me consider not writing anymore or anything. I just do wish I knew what was stinking up the room about it. Maybe the fact that it's a Quackerjack story with barely any Quackerjack? I dunno. :P

In a broken stone age dawn

Just to prove that I was slightly productive this evening:

***

By the time Launchpad had made it home and put the kids to bed, it was after nine pm. He slumped onto the couch, feeling more exhausted than he normally did after a much longer night out on patrol with DW. Why would this be so much more tiring than crimefighting?!

...Then again, crimefighting didn't involve trying to keep up with the mood swings of two high-energy kids with sugar buzzes. Although Megavolt sometimes - nah, even *he* wasn't as taxing as *two* of 'em.

He sighed and leaned his head onto the back cushions of the couch, then rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. The day had been more stressful than he'd thought; he'd been really good at keeping up with the kids back in Duckburg, so what had changed? Was he just getting old? Although the fact that Gosalyn alone had more energy and stubbornness than all three of Mr. McDee's nephews might have been a factor too...

But mostly, it was just the dynamic. The whole feel of them all together was just ... weird. Gos, he could handle; once you got to know her, you could tell when to push and when to just give in and go along with her 'cause you just weren't going to win no matter what you tried. But DW, that was a different matter. It wasn't just that Launchpad didn't know what kind of kid he was, it was that he didn't know how to treat Darkwing Duck like a kid. Darkwing was his friend, his boss, and his idol; you just didn't take on a parenting role with your idol.

And then there was the part that he didn't really want to own up to having noticed, because if it was true, it meant he really was an outsider in the Mallard family no matter what he did. But it sure seemed like... well, like Gos and DW had been avoiding him. Like they'd rather hang out with each other than him.

Maybe it was just because he wasn't really comfortable shifting entirely into the "adult" role, and it was hard for him to accept that both the kids saw hiim as the grown up and were responding to him that way. But, well, why should they think of him that way? They *knew* him! They were all friends, he wasn't ANYone's dad, so...

He sighed again; the whole thing was kind of knotting up in his head, and he wasn't sure anymore if he'd imagined it, or if DW and Gos really had been trying on purpose to keep him out of their business. He was *probably* imagining it, since it had been such a long day and he was really stressed out... he still didn't even know how he was going to get them in to beat Quackerjack and get DW back to being a grown up... He didn't even know how he was going to get Gos to school the next morning. Heck, he hadn't even *realized* she was supposed to be at school that day until about 2 pm when she'd mentioned that it would've been even better if Honker was there too.

Just the thought made him even more tired. And lurking at the back of his mind, another thought popped in: And lonely, too. Gos and DW were best friends now, and neither one seemed much interested in talking to him; and all at once he realized he really wanted nothing more at that moment than another adult to talk to. Even for five minutes, that would do. He thought about Beth; she'd be perfect.

He lifted his head and looked at the easy chairs, picturing her sitting there, and smiled sleepily. Normally she probably would be here, babysitting Gos; it would be neat if he could take a night off one time and help her, and once Gos went to sleep, they could just stay up and talk. Not have to worry about how much time she spent on the phone, or whether a customer came in, or DW accusing her of being a supervillain... just take a couple of hours to hang out. That'd be nice.

Of course, he realized as he rubbed his eyes, if he *was* there then she'd have no reason to come in to babysit. She'd probably think it was pretty weird. Oh well... maybe he could come up with a reason anyway... He stretched out on the couch to give it more thought, and fell asleep within thirty seconds of going prone.

***

It's OK. Really.

I need someone to tell me that it's OK for me to not reply to everything in my inbox, and just concentrate on my fanfic for a night. Seriously.

I also need someone to openly point out the irony that I *only* start to think about replying to emails or DA comments when I have decided that I need to spend a night working on my fanfic.

And as a third point, I will now take bets as to whether or not I will actually get any fic writing done before I call it a night, or if I'll just procrastinate it out. Bah!

Ever notice I'm much more likely to update here when I am procrastinating, too? Double-bah!