I've said it before and I'll just restate it up front: I keep the Webfoot Chronicles firmly PG. I'm not above a few minor hints and innuendos here and there but my rule isnt' even that all hanky-panky happens offscreen; my rule is, there is no hanky-panky. This was a conscious choice I made for myself many years ago, in part because it makes *me* more comfortable in general; *I* have an issue with thinking of the characters in the show in sexual situations.
However, I also decided some years ago that in order to really get to understand Beth - which was important to me - I needed to think out almost every aspect of her life, even the things that would not ever come up. To that end I've pondered a lot of her reactions to various situations - not everything by any means, that's not what I'm saying, only that sometimes I take the time to work out a hypothetical that occurs to me even though I know it won't be an issue in my fics, like religion (she's an atheist/agnostic), politics (conservative moderate but holds few strong opinions), and sex.
I've gone back and forth on posting about this subject, and if you read here regularly you may remember back in the summer when I went through a bit of playing with themes in a non-canon fic... The thing that keeps me from bringing it up, though, is my intention to keep TWC on approximately the same maturity level as the cartoon and not alienate people who feel the same way. It's weird to read stuff that, in terms of writing style is admittedly aimed at older readers (above middle school I'd say) but in terms of content is meant to be "family friendly", then go to a blog talking about the characters in adult-oriented situations. So I've avoided it.
However, I ended up doing that AU I posted about a few days ago, and as I mentioned in there, I crossed over into adult territory. There haven't been a lot of comments on it yet (and likely won't be) but I keep starting to explain the background, the differences, etc, why THIS Beth would make this choice and the other wouldn't, and it gets very long, too long for DeviantART. So I guess I'm finally going to make this post.
But, i'm going to be kind of weird and do the real content in the comments. Since there's no option, from what I can see, to do a text cut like you have in LiveJournal, this is sort of my best option both to save on the length of this post (too late) and to allow any readers who really don't want to know this stuff to just avoid it. For those of you guys, you can just rest assured, this subject matter really, truly will NEVER come up in TWC. I promise. :) ...That doesn't mean I will never again write another AU though. 9_9
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First and foremost, here is the story in full:
I already summarized Beth in the "DuckTales AU" that never was. There's a full gap of 4 years after LP leaves when I don't know precisely what she's up to. The biggest thing is that she spends the first few months mooning over LP, the next several months trying to move on, and the rest of the first year finally getting over him. By the time she's been working for McDuck for a year, she's totally thrown herself into her job and honestly barely thinks about Launchpad at all anymore.
However upon having dinner with him in St. Canard, they fall immediately into familiarity and comfort, and Beth finds that she's falling into the familiar role of just watching him in awe. When he kisses her at the end of the evening she's taken by complete surprise but after a moment's hesitation returns it; whether she's over him or not, there is *years'* worth of both affection and also need *for* affection from him built up in her.
This is where, again, things get complicated. See, as I've said all over the place, initially this was supposed to end with the kiss. They kiss each other on the sidewalk outside of her hotel; the scene ends; the next morning they meet up for breakfast. Instead she asked him up to her room and he stayed the night. WHUT. Beth isn't supposed to do that.
And I mean that. This AU Beth has had different life experiences, sure, but she's still fundamentally Beth and Beth is a character I have a very specific sexual belief system for. It's not something that would just be thrown away because Launchpad kisses her.
I wrote some of this out in a reply to Seikou on DA, so I'll copy and paste it a little here:
"I don't think having had a number of partners makes a character slutty, for the record. It's more how it's established with Beth; well - see I can't point to any of my other characters as "this is how SHE views sex and this is her sexual history" because other than Beth I've never put any thought into it. I mean, I've hinted that Henny has a richly varying lovelife, but she's not a good example of what I'm talking about.
But a lot of it comes down as much to a sense of "morals" as to a sense of intimacy and trust; Beth *has* to have that before she can share that much of herself with someone else. And she also has trust and intimacy issues. So part of it is that, while it might seem to someone like her sister that Beth just lacks confidence and is a prude, it's actually more that Beth does has the self-value to hold out for someone she can trust enough to basically expose her soul to. And the fear that others (including her potential partner) might not see it the same way is a factor, too - he might not realize what a huge thing it is for her. Not everyone views sex that way, which is not something I'm intending to criticize (again, Beth's sister Candy doesn't have the same outlook, and in many ways I relate more to Candy than to Beth) but I don't want to compromise Beth's character any more than I want to look like I'm calling anyone who has premarital sex a slut. So I feel I'm treading a bit of a thin line."
So - this isn't a morality call on my part. I mean, Beth is a "good girl", certainly, and that's part of it. But I'm also not trying to pass a judgment call on people for whom sex is more recreational. Instead, I'm making the point I made before: Based on Beth's outlook of the world and herself, sex is for her something very, very private and also very, very intimate. The ONLY way she'd enjoy it is if she trusts the person she's with - that's the only way she'd open up enough to *let* herself like it, is by being certain that her partner wants her to enjoy herself and will not laugh at her for not knowing what she's doing or for looking ridiculous or for liking something weird.
Arguably, Beth trusts Launchpad, but that's also a comparitive situation. She trusts him more than anyone else, but regardless of that, she's also very worried that eventually something *will* come up and he'll laugh, and her trust will be betrayed. She doesn't think this way consciously, but it still would express itself in the manner that she takes a very long time to be ready for - well, a lot. Ready for a relationship, ready for physical romance, ready for a serious commitment, and ready eventually for sex. Also, to her, she intends to only share this with one person. Because SO MUCH of herself goes into it, the idea that she could share it with someone and then lose them is just terrifying. So she fully intends to wait until marriage, because that's the point by which she'd know for sure that this is The One. (Side note: she may or may not literally wait until the date of the marriage, but it would be pretty close either way - she would have to know not only that SHE is ready to marry this person but that he is definitely going to stay with her, too.)
Of course there are morals involved in this also - her own personal ones - though Seikou made a good insight in her reply to this where she mentioned that Beth doesn't seem like the type to judge others for being more promiscuous, and she's not. It's not her cup of tea and she wouldn't be comfortable discussing it, but she wouldn't look down on anyone who is, either.
So how can I say all this and then have AU Beth jump in the sack with Launchpad? LOL... Well, some of it is due to different experiences, for sure. The easiest way to explain it would be that AU Beth, being more confident, is more at ease with her sexuality. But that's actually not true. I mean, she is more confident, but confidence isn't the issue involved here. Actually I think canon-Beth's decision to wait shows *more* confidence on her part, because she's putting her opinion of herself above what another person may ask of her. She's asking her partner to respect her decision instead of backing down to please him. AU-Beth ... didn't do that, and she regrets it.
She mentions this the next day (and Launchpad instantly asks who the guy was, heh... for the record, he's nobody); she dated a guy for about six months, and towards the end of the relationship she gave in and slept with him. That was probably in the first year after LP left, since she was kind of rebounding and looking for anyone she could find to cling to. They had sex several times but the relationship fell apart anyway, and now she REALLY regrets the choice. She didn't precisely think he was The One anyway, but he was really persuasive, and he was *there*, and he was going to leave if she kept saying no. Then he left anyway. It was after that that she learned to find herself in her work, and gain more confidence in herself as a person.
On the other hand, in spite of regretting the experience, once you've had sex it's kind of easier to have it again - it's like your body knows what you're going to do and it goes onto autopilot. So it's not like there was no conscious decision involved, but it was much less of a conscious decision than it was with her ex-boyfriend; instead it's a bottle of wine, a nice dinner with an old crush who makes it clear he finds her attractive in a way she always wanted him to, and hormones screaming at her, "THIS IS YOUR CHANCE!" She has several chances to change her mind; it is definitely a conscious choice, but still one heavily influenced by other factors as well.
So... yeah. I mentioned this was *incredibly* psychological, and I don't honestly feel like I've compromised her character in doing this. I mean, there aren't easy decisions in real life. It's really easy to say "I'm going to wait until I'm married to have sex" and really really mean it, but life throws all these complicated circumstances at you, and you have to struggle to make sure you're following the path best for you. So what's easy for Beth in TWC, where I'm never going to throw a conflicting situation at her, is less easy for her in an AU where she's lost the love of her life without even telling him how she felt, is lonely and feels unattractive, and does something she regrets, then reencounters the man she lost and finds him validating her sexuality and womanhood.
There's also a "rest of the story" which I probably won't manage to illustrate, so I'll detail it here instead.
The actual experience is *incredibly* fulfilling for her. She spent years wishing she could be one of the women that LP was always watching and chasing after, and now he's finally interested, and for the first time she feels like she must be beautiful after all. It's not until she wakes up the next morning and realizes what she's done, and how incompatible they are (after all, he wasn't interested in her when they were working together, it was the wine, she's prettier but she's the same person, if he didn't want her before then he won't want her now) so she completely rejects ANY idea of them being together and decides it was a one-night stand. She just assumes he sees it that way too and the first bit after they wake up and go out for breakfast is one big communication FAIL, as she keeps saying things like "I really never do this" and he says stuff like "On the first date? Yeah, me neither, but this didn't feel like a first date". It's not until she's telling him how she has to file a few more reports and then get back to Duckburg, and he says "So how do you want to do this?" and she says "Do what?" that they realize they're talking about two different things.
"You're saying goodbye," he says. "Aren't you?" she asks.
And this is the first point where she discovers that he actually IS interested in trying to keep a relationship going, and she finds herself trying to talk him out of it, because she's convinced herself that he's not interested so she figures he just hasn't realized that he's not interested, yet. She basically tells him that it was wonderful, she'll never forget it, but what he thinks he's feeling is actually just nostalgia - all the memories, good times, etc, he's confusing that with romance. (There's also some argument in here about how could *she* think that *he* would sleep with her for no reason - he's NEVER been that kind of guy, sure he chased a lot of women when they were younger but he didn't just sleep around) So they leave on a bit of a sore note and promise to keep in touch, but she avoids answering the phone, he never leaves a message, and a month goes by before they talk to each other again.
At which point, she finds out from Scrooge and Fenton that he's going to be in town one day and he hasn't contacted her at all. She hangs around trying to get to see him, but their paths never cross until about 3 pm when she's in the middle of a meeting and he shows up tapping on the window to the conference room. She has to awkwardly put the meeting on hold for a moment to speak to him, and she's already annoyed; then when he asks when they can talk she says the meeting might go another 2 hours or more, and he says he has to catch a bus back to St. Canard before that, and she snaps that he had *all day* to see her. "Next time," she says, "call and let me know you'll be around and I'll pencil you in for one of my openings!" Slight pause. "Well, I - I mean I'll make, um, make some time for us." Sigh. "Why is everything coming out sounding wrong?"
Since she's clearly aggravated, he apologizes and leaves, and after the meeting she looks around for him but he's apparently gone. Then he shows up at her place around 9pm that night and does the RomCom confession, because even though there are a million really shitty romantic comedies out there that follow the formula of doom, for every million shitty ones I still find one or two that I love, cliches and all. :D Anyway, I'll avoid the mushiness, but the conversation just goes with him saying that he thought about what she said - confusing nostalgia with love - and so he went to see Fenton and Scrooge and everyone else, and even though it was great to see them, he doesn't feel like he needs to see them every day but he hasn't stopped thinking about her once since she stepped into his house last month; and he asks her to just try it, they can see each other on weekends, just give it a try. She finally relents and agrees to it (and, actually, puts a moratorium on sex for the first few months at least until they see how things go) and they start taking turns commuting between Duckburg and St. Canard every weekend.
Whew. There is a bit more than that, but it's good enough to stop there. I mean, duh, it has a happy ending. :) Almost all of this, btw, is exactly the same as it was when they just kissed, except for the stuff about one-night stands and things. I didn't have to change much. ;D
THE END!
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