The Weblog Chronicles

Young ladies? I ROCK ya!

2012-01-24T19:08:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd do a music post!

I've been lately trying to sort of "score" TWC as a series and I finally put together a playlist on YouTube to help me. Now instead of just looking these songs up when I'm not a computer with my MP3s (which is most of the time), I can just go to my playlist! Yaaay!

..So it's a work in progress, but I have 15? I think? songs on there right now from varying points in the series. Most of them are around TWC3-4 though. :P At this point it's like every chapter in TWC4 has a song. GAH.

Here's the link to the playlist in general: THIS link! Right HERE! There is no actual rocking of young ladies involved. Unless you like a lot of 80s music and quite a bit of schmoopy love songs. :D And if you do, YOU'RE ME! XD Enjoy the playlist!

So I'm also thinking, since it's not necessarily clear at a glance, that I'll elaborate on a few of these picks. They are roughly in order in the series, starting with Love Stinks by the J. Geils Band!

- This is the unofficial "theme" of TWC. It's expliclitly referenced in "High, Dry, and Flooded" (twice in fact) but it's been the "theme" for the series ever since I heard it in high school when I was first writing the fics.
- It's the "Love Triangle" thing in case you didn't get it. :P
- I didn't hear it on the radio for years and then suddenly there it was in rotations again, occasionally. YAY! Finally I caved and bought the MP3.
- It's used brilliantly in "The Wedding Singer" which is among my "guilty pleasure" RomComs. That movie makes me cry to the point where I'll watch the happy ending twice in a row. But I digress.
- My father was friends with J. Geils! :D Random fun fact.

Just today I added the second song, Another Day by Paul McCartney (and Wings? I'm not clear on that). I've had a lot of trouble finding songs for the first two fics. I wanted something that would kind of sum up Beth, too.
- They play this song at my grocery store sometimes which is what brought it to my attention. :P
- When I finally looked up the words I realized it was pretty perfect for Beth at the start of the series, as it sums up a boring, lonely life lived by an ordinary woman who never has anything interesting happen to her.
- Paul McCartney's solo stuff is so LIVELY. :D
- This is the only song I have for TWC1 so far. If anyone can suggest anything else that would be great!

I'll do another post sometime soon with the next few songs. ^_^

The Writing Bug

2012-01-22T15:18:00.000-08:00

I've been writing like a fiend this past weekend :D I've actually been alternating between my two in-progress fics, TWC4 (working on Chapter 4) and "Those Daring McQuacks in their Flying Machines" (Act II chapter 2). I'm mostly done with the TWC4 chapter and perhaps half done with the other.

The unfortunate part is that I'm not really sure when I'm going to release them once they're done. Because I know I'm not going to get much, if any feedback, and I know it's going to be discouraging. And as long as I'm writing them for me and enjoying them, I'm happy. So I might just sit on this for a while, ride the wave and see how far it gets me. If I can make significant headway on "Flying Machines" this week that would be amazing. I started that one almost a year ago now and I barely have the presence of mind to work on it (this is only the 4th chapter out of, I suppose, 9 that I'm on right now), but it's nice to be in the "current" timeline sometimes instead of back in the rewrites.

It's neat, in any case. I'm not sure precisely when I started working on TWC4, I think it was the middle of last week but I can't quite remember; but I'm about 3600 words through THAT with one more scene to do so it'll probably top out around 4500 or so. And I started "Flying Machines" on Friday night, I think, and I'm a good 3,000 words into THAT by now. It'll likely get split into two chapters. There were a bunch of things I wanted to put into the first chapter of Act II that didn't fit, so I have to get them done first and THEN get to what I had planned for chapter 2... so it's definitely longer than intended. Act I had two chapters so I guess Act II will have 4. Oh well.

2012-01-22T11:26:00.000-08:00

Notes for Chapter 3 of TWC2! THIS IS HAPPENING. Because I have to get through these damn things sometime.

References:
- Harry Potter (Gillyweed). Not sure why I tossed that in there except that it's kind of cute. I'm not really much of a Pottergeek and probably wouldn't catch half the refs someone else might throw into this sort of thing.
- The Simpsons - kind of; Gos's "All of it?" in response to Beth asking her what area she needed help in is a throwback to Homer's response to being asked what safety initiatives he has spearheaded in his role as safety inspector. "...All of them?"

First scene: I've always envisioned Bushroot as basically being a vine-like structure. I think that's obviously the case with his arms, anyway. I guess his body could be considered a stem, but I like the increased flexibility that it would have from being a vine. Still, though, this refers to his arms and they are definitely vines, IMO. haha, like I'm the definitive opinion. XD

I love Spike. I love the interactions between Spike and Bushroot. I tried to write the parts where Bushy is all mad scientist and then goes into "normal guy mode" with Spike around. :D

Listen to me BS about how this compound works! I thought long and hard over this half-assed explanation! Originally the fic just had Bushroot able to just... make all the plants get big. I decided for him to do it all throughout the entire town he'd need some kind of help, but he can make formulas easily, so why not here?

Playing early on with the "secret identity" dance, and keeping Beth from figuring it out. Not sure how convincing this is... it's always going to be a big huge plot hole for me and I can't fix it. *sigh*

So here's another thing I thought long and hard on, and didn't really effectively manage, IMO. HOW would Beth manage to get Gos to do what she asks? Beth is good with kids, surprisingly, but not with telling people what to do. And Gos is really good at not doing what she's told, anyway. There's no reason that Gos wouldn't walk all over her, unless Beth can offer something. So I came up with the moderately unethical solution of Beth offering to do half of Gos's homework, and rationalizing it to herself by making Gos do the other half. XD

I tried to make Gos sound like herself, be likable but a handful.

Aaaand we return to "Beth Mallard". And LP getting as big of a kick out of it as I do. XD

By this point I had hit on the idea that perhaps DW might keep Beth around because he's suspicious of her, and that it would give him an excuse to keep disliking her. So this was how I set it into motion.

And we end with another Spike scene. So much fun to write. :D Tried to visualize this and then give some POV reactions as I thought Spike's body language might suggest them. :)

30 Days Meme day 15

2012-01-16T12:54:00.001-08:00

Day 15 – Warnings – What do you feel it most important to warn for, and what’s the strangest thing you’ve warned for in a story?

I feel it's vital to warn for sexual content. Not only for age reasons but for those of us who (as I mentioned in my last post) have issues with sexual or violent content for certain shows. I can't make people warn for it, of course, but... I prefer to be warned.

Myself, I *overwarn* for those things.

I don't like it when people insist on being "warned" about pairings, but I know some people have issues with not knowing. I'd like to know the genre up front I guess... But only if it's tightly in that genre. I don't have a particular genre I center in so I can't warn for those, so it's pointless for me to bitch about people NOT labelling them.

I don't know, though. I don't warn all that much. I guess I warn if I write anything outside the normal spectrum of the series, and I do write a notice about having an OC because some people don't want to read OC fics and I'm cool with that. I'd rather have them not read the fic than read it, find out there's an OC, and bitch at me. ;)

The weirdest thing I ever warned for was angst. A whole big, mushy pile of angst. :D

30 Days Meme day 14

2012-01-16T12:49:00.000-08:00

Day 14 – Ratings – how high are you comfortable with going? Have you ever written higher? If you’re comfortable with NC-17, have you ever been shocked by finding that the story you’re writing is G-rated instead?

Right now I'll usually only go up to R, at most. A rather mild R. And honestly, right NOW, I don't think I'd write above a PG-13 but depending on the fandom I'd be willing to go up to R.

I did used to write explicit smut though :D

What's happened now is that I guess I sort of feel less exhibitionary now that I'm older - I also feel like most of my smut is really over the top 9_9 And that's assuming I'm not writing in DWDverse.

In DWDverse, I have the same reaction I have to all programs aimed at kids: I have a very, VERY hard time putting myself outside of the "kid-friendly" mindset. I approach ALL child-friendly shows that way: even Avatar, which had some way older themes and debatably has characters who could, perhaps within a few years, have sex drives and justified smut fics - I have no interest in writing or even reading anything above a PG-13 rating. With Darkwing I have to know what I'm going to be seeing before I go to it and even then it's a stretch. I have tried, and I'm just not comfortable with explicit sexual content. Or, well, anything that's very strongly outside the original tone of the show, so I have cognitive dissonance when a character *swears* in a fic. :D I can't write it.

I *can* break outside of that - vaguely - and slowly, by getting very used to the idea first. But even then I have to label it "non-canon" in my head.

It is 60 minutes after I intended to go to bed

2012-01-14T22:28:00.000-08:00

I may keel over.

I'm jus tgoing to jump into chapter notes on TWC4. I know this is jarring b/c I haven't done any notes on Chapters 1 or 2 but... I'll get to those later. :)

References:

- The Big Bopper and Buddy Holly
- Also "Buddy Holly" by Weezer - I couldn't resist on that one.
- DWD episode "Twin Beaks"

- Okay, Chapter 3 and we FINALLY get a reference to the earthquake plot being more than just a backdrop for the fic :P And it will take even longer to see that pan out... think "next act"...

- I think this might possibly be the earliest (chronological) reference to the fact that Beth used to live in Duckburg. I'm pretty sure I hadn't mentioned this in the earlier fics anywhere.

- You know, Beth's thought that maybe she won't be seen by "too many people who matter" when she finds that Launchpad is the one who answers the door is just.. mean. She doesnt' realize it's mean but it's mean. :(

- This scene was really hard to write. I'm not sure why... well for one it went on a little too long and I couldn't cut things without making it disjointed so I kept having to just trash it and rewrite it, pushing a bit harder in a particular direction. But also, getting the right tone was SUPER tricky. You know - just making sure that it didn't come across as mean, and that there was a reason that he'd think she was fine with the conversation. The reason is because she dislikes confrontation and she's telling herself to lighten up, so she makes herself go along with it but the minute he starts implying that she might not be UNattractive she can't take it since she takes it to mean the reverse.

- Right after the Launchpad scene I had a scene with Beth speaking to Binkie and being kind of fascinated with her... from the perspective of, like, "I didn't think that mothers like her still existed today!" I kept it and I'll put it up here maybe tomorrow, I think ther'es nothing wrong with it, but it was not essential to the plot at all. Just cut for length. At this point in the fic, they have met before (the previous night in fact), but Beth just can't figure out how to respond to Binkie.

- The original version of the fic had Launchpad driving Beth and Gos to the mall, but not staying with them. He did it just because he was sweet on Beth so you could say pretty much anything like "Beth needs a drink of water" and he'd go get it. Or "Beth needs an entire new wardrobe" and he'd be like "What colour?" Which is a terrible idea, to let LP pick out your clothes. But I digress. Another difference is that instead of Honker going with them, Binkie accompanied them. I DO NOT KNOW WHY NOW. I thought about leaving that in but couldn't find any possible reason it would make sense. Instead it made more sense to have Honker along and let Beth hang out with two children vastly younger than her. :)

- So. I have to say. The stuff with Gosalyn all leaves me incredibly pleased with myself. I wish I'd heard from people who liked it but ... at least I've not heard from anyone saying they DON'T like it. Silver lining! :D Seriously though, I just had so much fun writing her and I think it's not only fun to read, I think it's in-character. I sure hope so anyway. I find GOs can be tricky to write.

- I don't think it's abnormal to have an eye exam/glasses store inside a mall. If it seems abnormal, please know that when we were in college my husband used to go to a dentist whose office was in the mall. So maybe it's just that kind of mall. Incidentally note how this puts a timestamp on the fic: there's a Halloween store mentioned, to remind you that it's October. :)

- The idea that Beth could just get not only frames and new lenses but also contact lenses, in approximately an hour, is silly. At least I think it is. I know it was when I first wrote it back in the mid-'90s... I assume it still is. But let's just go with it. It is not the only thing I will be asking you to suspend disbelief on during this fic. XD

- I discovered while RPing Beth that she doesn't let people move her outside of her comfort zone. I can't force her to do anything interesting because when I'm in her headspace she argues politely but ferociously. She nearly always wins. So it seemed logical to work that into the fic and have Gos get frustrated. Beth seems like a pushover but that's only when it's for someone else's benefit. If it's for hers she won't do it and you can't make her.

- Also I really need to write Honker more often. (I said that just the other day when I posted the preview for this chapter, I know.) He's just very... quiet. But I like having him around, and before the rewrites he didn't appear in the series until TWC5. Even if he's only been in it a little, at least he's been *present* since TWC3. Meanwhile, within this fic, I really liked having him and Beth jibe a bit on their opinions. They get along really well since in a lot of ways they're kind of um... the same character. ^^;

- Throwing in a reference to Honker's Aunt Trudy from Twin Beaks just happened but it felt natural. I like it. :)

- I think I've said this before, but I'll specify it again: Beth is actually a very good seamstress, but you can't tell it from looking at her clothes because she doesn't make them to fit her properly. She makes all her shirts at least one size too big, for reasons unknown. I don't show that properly in my pics of her. :P But it's true!

- Favourite line in this one is Gosalyn's dismissal of the candy store comparison.

Hey, Hey, I wanna be a rock star

2012-01-14T21:52:00.000-08:00

More TWC2 chapter notes! I realized I should've been doing these every time I put up a chapter. Maybe I'll start putting them up for TWC4 as I go. But I'm so behind... Anyway here's chapter 2 of TWC2, "Sea of Green".

References:

-Fic: TWC1, "My Kingdom for a Double-Plait Bolt", in the reference to Beth having given the wrong name when she introduced herself.
-The Simpsons (LP saying he'd square things before she arrived, then forgetting UNTIL she arrived, is based on Homer doing the same thing in a different situation)
- The Simpsons again - indirectly; I've always drawn a little bit of inspiration from Bart Simpson for Gosalyn, in terms of getting into trouble. So LP's overwhelming "And there's the tour of all of our fire extinguishers" and so forth really sort of starts with that.
- It doesn't really REALLY count as a reference since it's a part of nearly every episode of the show, but Beth references "Basil of Baker Street", the name of the book that became Disney's "The Great Mouse Detective". Since, of course, the statue that activates the transport chairs is Basil from GMD.

Okay, as a just sort of overview of this chapter, I found it really challenging to come up with a good reaction for Drake to have, and a reason why he'd let her stay and not just turn her down. I think it's kind of a reach, and it was a reach to keep it going afterwards, but... there had to be some reason, right? Better a slight reach than just no acknowledgement of the fact that it makes no sense for him to have a stranger babysit Gos, right? Bah. Sometimes I wish I'd come up with a different way to get Beth into the main cast. :P

Beth's mental description of Drake is me trying to put myself into her head and find him attractive. Since even though I love Drake dearly, I am completely not attracted to him in the slightest, this is always hard. XD

A return to Beth Mallard, from the last fic. Which I have to admit I thought was hilarious and have to bring up as often as I can. It's possibly my favourite throwaway gag in the whole fic.

Every so often I run into an awkward situation with Beth and Launchpad where he does something that I would almost swear should upset her or make her angry, and instead she thinks it's cute. Every time it happens I wonder if it makes sense that she'd think it was cute or if she should really be disappointed in him. I *think* it's okay, because Beth is rarely disappointed in anyone but herself, and when it comes to Launchpad she honestly thinks he hung the moon most of the time; so she lets him get away with a lot. That might not work quite right in other peoples' heads though, which... I can't really defend.

Awkward attempt at writing out a visual gag: Beth knocking over and almost breaking the framed picture. That would work SO much better if it was not a described action.

LP flirting with Beth, awwww XD Apparently, looking at this chapter... he does that a LOT. O_o

The bowling excuse was in the original fic, and I couldn't think of a better one (plus I just... really thought it was funny for some reason), so it remains. Flimsy excuses FTW!

I really enjoyed Beth's dramatic reaction to being hired as babysitter, somehow. He's all "Yeah yeah whatever" and she's all "Me so happy me want to cry D8"

Beth mentions "Basil of Baker Street" and not "The Great Mouse Detective" because I liked the idea that Basil is essentially Sherlock Holmes in this universe, and thus a well-known literary figure and known AS "Basil of Baker Street". Sure, the movie "The Great Mouse Detective" might have been made, but that's just ONE of the film adaptations of Basil. ...Or so I have decided. XD

If you were to ask me for my favourite moments of writing Drake or Darkwing I'd have to say my single fave line is the one he gives Beth about the view from OUTSIDE the house. That one, somehow, feels the most in-character; something Drake would slip in to be sarcastic and rely on whoever he's saying it to just not getting it. And in Beth's case, it works, because she just doesn't expect to be spoken to that way so it doesn't quite connect for her.

Beth's line "I would be pleased beyond belief to do that!" works best if you envision it being said very loudly and matter-of-factly. She's completely sincere, but she's also trying VERY hard to be noticed in her sincerity.

30 Days Meme day 13

2012-01-14T12:22:00.000-08:00

Time to start getting back to this...

Day 13 – Do you prefer canon or fanon when you write? Has writing fanfic for a fandom changed the way you see some or even all of the original source material?

I prefer canon. When I wrote Xena fanfic I used to incorporate a bit of fanon sometimes, but a lot of times it would end up being contradicted, and once it was I would inevitably go with the canon. One of the main ones I remember was where Joxer was born, and since it hadn't been stated, it became fanon that he came from a particular place - Corinth, I think it was? Then the series actually gave a place, in season five, and people were perplexed. "WAIT Athens? I thought he was from Corinth!" That irritated me since it was pure fanon that had spread. It's silly to get annoyed by this simple mistake, but I was anyway. ^^;

I don't get annoyed by fanon as much anymore but I do get annoyed when people believe that it's canon, and correct me for it. Like someone who told me that it was canon that Quackerjack's real name was "Jack Quackers" or something like that. No, in canon, he does not HAVE a real name. You can't control what fanon people believe comes from the show, though - they're like memes, they just spread and no one knows where they came from - so I just have to shrug it off. (I hate being corrected wrongly though, lol.)

Uhhh, this kind of doesn't really answer the question, does it... it's more of a ramble... Okay, back to the real question.

Do I prefer fanon or canon? I prefer canon. In fact, with the fics I write now, I stick to canon as close as I possibly can; if there aren't details given sometimes I'll make some up but more often I won't directly address it. Like, I don't believe DW has any siblings and I don't think his parents are around, but I don't necessarily think they're dead either. I'm never going to state one way or the other in my fics. On the other hand, I think it's fanon that Launchpad has a good relationship with his sister Loopy; in DuckTales they barely interacted. But I WANT them to be close so I came up with an explanation that they rarely see each other but they write letters *constantly*. So I'm not a nazi about it canon-only. ;)

As to whether writing fanfic for a series has changed how I see the source material? Not... really... I mean, usually I only write fic for a series if I've already examined it heavily, which is something I do with series that I like. I like to go into things knowing what I'm trying to examine. I have had opinions of the source material change but I think that has more to do with my aging and viewing it differently than with it being a result of writing for it. I honestly don't think writing for a series, and whether I use fanon or canon, has ever changed my opinion on the series.

On Being Shy in the Fandom

2012-01-12T14:32:00.000-08:00

Note: I wrote this mainly to go on my journal on deviantART but it got way too long, so I'm putting it here and linking to it from there. So if anything still pertains precisely to DA, sorry for any confusion!

Hi everyone. My name is Rebecca. I go by Zebeckras, and have used it absolutely everywhere for the past 17 years or so now, but generally speaking I like to be called Rebecca.

(If you're thinking "What about nicknames?" I'm not picky. I like "Becca" or "Bec", I'm not crazy about "Becky" - to me it's actually a different name than "Rebecca" - but some people use that automatically and frankly, I'm kind of flattered that they want to nickname me, so it's all good to me. You CAN call me Zeb, but like I said, I tend to use Zebeckras more as an identifier/screen name than a nickname, so I always feel like people who really know me call me Rebecca.)

I'm telling you this so that you can get to know me. :) Here are a few more facts:

1) I'm in my early 30s.
2) I have two kids and have been married for ten years this October to my first and only real boyfriend.
3) Although I like a lot of other things (often passionately - I take joy in the things I like), I write and draw almost exclusively for Darkwing Duck fandom unless someone requests something else, mainly because I find it hard to function in more than one fandom at a time.
4) I was part of the "first" Darkwing Duck fandom, which was actually a sort of unfocused Disney Afternoon fandom that initially sprung up around a group of friends that I was a part of. This "claim to fame" is meaningless and doesn't make me any more special or influential than anyone else, but I mention it as a point of trivia. :)
5) I've been writing DWD fanfics since 1994. Yep, really. You probably only met/heard of me in the past year though.
6) I like to talk to people and I like to make new friends. There aren't many things that turn me off of people, and about the only one that really matters is I dislike people who don't take responsibility for their own actions. That's about the only reason I'd avoid someone. I consider it a harbinger of Internet Dramaz.
7) I'm shy.

Hey! Maybe you're shy too! In that case pull up a chair and let's talk! :D Seriously, I'm not joking, leave me a comment if you'd like to get to know me better. :)

If you are shy, and you're not sure how to talk to people, and you're wondering why I say I'm shy but I have a lot of friends on here, maybe you'd like to know how I managed that. Most of the people I'm good friends with in DWD fandom are people I met in the past 18 months (or less, actually). If you don't care or this sounds like I'm talking down, hey, just ignore. It's cool. :) If you'd like some tips though... I'd like to help. Some people said recently in an anonymous forum that they feel really alone in the fandom and they have a hard time reaching out. That made me kind of sad and I'd like to help if I can.

So here we go.

First of all: as I said, I used to be in the fandom in the 90s. There are a lot of older authors and artists I can remember, but no, I didn't know all of them. (I did know Tracy Pierce if you're wondering. We don't keep in touch, but yes, she was amazing and a sweetheart. And yes she is still alive and is still drawing, but it's original stuff now, and yes it's still great :) I can reminisce if anyone wants me to. No? Not right now? Well, you're right, that's not what I'm writing this for. Where was I?

Oh yes. So I was in the fandom in the 90s. I found it hard though once my small group kind of went our separate ways. I joined a couple of forums but I've always had a hard time keeping up in forums. I did this off and on from about 1996 until about 2001; in 2002 I tried to join a DWD RP group on Yahoo and only lasted about a month before disappearing. (I did meet more people there including Amanda/Disneypsycho :D) Then I sort of just disappeared. I kept in touch with some of the fandom via Livejournal, and I just sort of ghosted around for a while until last year, when I started really feeling LONESOME. In a way I had felt off and on for some time, but only just REALLY lonesome - for other DW fans - now. Part of it was because I felt like I'd like more people to know my fics and my character, Beth, but part of it was just an urge to talk to other DW lovers.

So even though my earlier efforts at being in the fandom had failed, I decided I would have to put myself out there. There were a lot of new fans and I could get to know them personally if I tried, right? So I went to the Old Haunt, the forumm on the Negaverse.net site. Most of the fandom hangs out there in some way or another, even if it's just via lurking. I had never been even though I'd heard the name used several times. Maybe two weeks later I decided to bite the bullet and get a deviantART account, since I'd been spending more and more time stalking a few of the DWD fandom artists there. Initially i had like maybe ten people watching me and I didn't even plan on drawing, heh. ^^;

So, that's background. What does this have to do with making friends? You may ask. You might say to yourself, "I already KNOW I need to be social but it's hard for me! And when I do it, the conversation only goes on for so long!" So hey, don't worry, I'm getting there.

So this is what I learned in the months since September 2010. And it took me a long while. What I learned is, nearly EVERYONE ELSE in this fandom is shy, too. I went in to the Old Haunt and I introduced myself and everyone said "Hi! Welcome!" and in some cases "I know you!" And then it was quiet and I thought "Now what?" And I'd post an answer to something on a thread and wait to see if anyone replied and no one would. At first I thought "Oh man. Everyone hates me and I just killed the conversation." But actually, it was just that people aren't really paying attention to who is writing something. It depends on how open your comment is. If you ask a question you're more likely to get an answer - period. If you're just commenting or chiming in with your opinion in a sea of others doing the same, it probably won't turn into a conversation.

However, doing that repeatedly allowed other people to get to know me. We found shared interests. I met Cheeezey and learned she's a fellow "Real Ghostbusters" fan in addition to being a DWD fan. I met Seikou/Fies (depending on where you know her from) and we chatted about things we had in common.

The thing is, it took a long time. And it continued to take a long time. And it STILL takes a long time. Malicia? She was SO welcoming when I started posting. She sounded like she was really, genuinely happy and flattered to have me join the board. (Side note: I'm pretty sure she really was, too. Knowing her more personally now, I know that few things make her as happy as bringing people together into the fandom and having them participate.) But then she'd be really quiet. I thought she'd post more and she didn't. I'd wonder why no one wanted to talk to me. When I finally just came up and sort of awkwardly said to Mal "Okay, I want to be your friend and I hope that's OK" she said of course it was, and she'd been nervous that *I* wouldn't want to be friends with *her* and so she was lying low to keep from seeming pushy.

So it turns out that Mal is shy too. Go figure. O_o

Snark? I got to know her through DA. I watched her and then immediately took off all notifications of her artwork because as mentioned above, I have two young children and Snark is the notorious Porn Queen of the fandom (well, her and Moonie, lol). I noted her to explain it, and that I did love her art but would see most of it through groups and when I remembered to check her profile, and she was totally cool with it. Then we just started to talk more.

And on and on.

In almost every case I took the initiative. Because I had to. Because otherwise nobody knows you want to be their friend.

I still take the initiative, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. There are people I've sort of "stalked" and tried to be friendly with, been conversational with, and they've been nice and replied but only with a "thanks!" or maybe a longer, but not open-ended, reply. If I get that a lot, I must be honest, I stop trying. Even with people I really *want* to get to know, if I feel like I'm not making headway - it takes a lot of mental and emotional energy for me to be outgoing, even on the internet, and the only thing that refreshes that energy is getting the same in kind. After a while, I ahve to conserve my batteries.

Also, I will admit, I have lately stopped conversational comments after a point just because I don't have time (full-time job + two kids + trying to keep writing fanfic = Get Off of Internet Plz). But it DOESN'T mean I don't want to be friendly, meet new people, or any of that. It just might mean that you may need to make a bit more effort to get me to see that you want to engage me. I try - but just keep in mind, I'm shy. It's hard for me. Everyone I have mentioned being friends with here is shy. We all just try. :)

Oh, and in terms of making friends with comments, here is my suggestion: when you reply to someone's picture, if you want to be friendly with them, mention something about yourself. If they want to have a conversation, they'll respond to that as well as to your comment on their picture. If they don't, don't take it personally - they might just not have noticed. Try again later or move on to someone else. Whatever's easier for you. Just don't get discouraged. :) It doesn't ALWAYS work, of course, but a lot of the people I have become friends with on DA and elsewhere are my friends because I'm conversational in comments - and after a while of me coming in and chatting, rather than just "this is great!", they knew enough of me to start thinking of me as a friend.

So that's my secret. Steal it if you'd like, and good luck. And remember I'm always here to talk. :)

I so don't use Honker enough :(

2012-01-11T20:33:00.000-08:00

So first: WHAT HAPPENED TO THE 30 DAY WRITING MEME REBECCA

Shut up! I'm going to finish it. Things happened at the end of the year. :P

Second, I'm trying to finish up the 3rd chapter of TWC4, a bit at a time. Oddly enough the hardest scene to write this time was a Beth and LP one; normally those come more easily. This time however the fun easy one is Beth going out shopping with Gosalyn. Oh Gos, you are a trip. :D But I'm sad because Honker always stays quiet. I have a very hard time getting him to talk.

Anyway, just because I feel like posting something here since it's been a couple of weeks, here's a little bit from midway through the chapter. I'm hoping to have this one done by Friday or Saturday so that it can get no reviews just like the rest. ;)

****

***

The bus ride to the mall was uneventful, so Gosalyn spent it visualizing a few ideas for Beth's new look. Beth didn't seem to take to this particularly well, and as a result Gosalyn began to toss out increasingly odd ideas just to watch her babysitter squirm. Okay, so maybe it wasn't the nicest thing for her to do, but it was just so *funny* to watch the expressions that crossed Beth's face. Plus, maybe teasing her with far-out suggestions would make it easier for Beth to loosen up with a few less-crazy ideas.

When they got to the mall, they had to go to the eye exam place first so that Beth could get her exam done before getting the order for the new frames in. Honker and Gosalyn sat in the front section of the store, which was supposed to look like a waiting room; but since the front window faced out to a view with photo booths and a temporary Halloween store, it didn't quite have a doctors-office feel.

Gosalyn shifted in boredom. "You'd think they'd at least have better magazines."

"Well, these are only three months old... Doesn't your dad always say that most waiting rooms never have any magazines that are less than five years old?" Honker asked.

"Yeah, but if the magazine is 'Eye Daily', how recent it is doesn't really matter," Gosalyn answered in disgust. She turned and addressed the woman at the counter, who was arranging a shelf of designer frames. "Hey! 'Scuse me! Do you have those contact lenses that make your eyes look all white, like zombie eyes?"

The woman frowned and turned away without answering.

"Did you see that?" Gosalyn said loudly to Honker, who tried to get her to keep her voice down. "I guess I won't be buying any from HERE even if they do sell them!"

"Um, I'm pretty sure they only sell those in costume shops, Gosalyn," Honker said. "She probably thought you were making fun of her."

"I'm a potential paying customer!" Gosalyn sniped, crossing her arms. "I'm taking my hypothetical business elsewhere! ...Hey, you wanna try on some of the glasses while we wait?"

"Um, uh, well-"

Fortunately or not, Beth came back out just then. "Okay, done!"

"Yeah? Did you pick out glasses without me?" Gosalyn asked, hopping up from her chair. Honker remained seated, but looked attentively at both of his companions.

"Oh, no, not yet. Don't worry. No, actually, maybe it's a good thing I broke my glasses last night because I had to get a new prescription and it turns out that my prescription has changed a little bit since last time so it's about time I got new glasses anyway... I mean I wouldn't have chosen *now*, ideally, you know, because I don't have a lot of money but I guess it's as good a time as any - so..." She ran out of steam, stopped, and just looked blankly at Gosalyn for a moment as though she was surprised by the silence. Gosalyn waited a second longer before speaking, just to be sure Beth was really done; that ramble hadn't had any point at the end of it. When Beth stayed quiet, Gosalyn asked, "So what, then?"

"Oh! Well now we pick out frames and I have them fill the prescription, and then we can go wander around while they get everything ready. And we can pick them up on our way out of the mall when we leave." She turned to Honker and smiled. "So - are you both up for giving me some feedback?"

"You BET!" Gosalyn half-shouted, and pulled Beth's arm towards the wall of sample frames in the corner. "And while you're at it, can you check and see if they sell those contacts that turn your eyes all white, like zombie eyes...?"

"Um... I'll ask," Beth answered uncertainly.

They looked about for a good fifteen minutes, with Beth hemming and hawing and ultimately shooting down all of Gosalyn's suggestions. "But the old ones were blue! What's wrong with blue?"

"Well, no, blue is pretty - it's just - I already said no neon colours, Gos."

"This isn't neon!" Gosalyn said, sounding affronted. "This is *electric* blue!"

she refused the cat-eye shaped frames too, and Gosalyn began to wonder why she'd even been invited along. When Honker quietly suggested that Beth try a pair of large round frames much like his own - and like Beth's old ones - Gosalyn almost lost it. "Those are almost exactly like the ones you *had*!" she exclaimed.

"Well... I like these!" Beth said, shrinking away from the ten-year-old girl's fury.

Gosalyn pouted. "I can't believe we just spent all this time so that you could pick out the *same glasses you always had!*"

"They're not the same!" Beth said, and looked helplessly at Honker.

Honker nodded. "They have a flexible bridge that helps keep them intact under harsh conditions-"

"RRRRRRRGH!" The noise that Gosalyn made effectively quieted the two bespectacled shoppers. Almost timidly, Beth made her way to the cash desk and handed over her prescription and the frame sample. The cashier handed her a form and a pen, and Beth began filling the form out.

"What's that?" Gosalyn asked, though she didn't really care.

"I have to place an order," Beth explained, without looking up.

"Oh. Oh, you didn't ask about the contacts," Gosalyn reminded her, and at that Beth *did* look up just long enough to raise an eyebrow, before looking back down at the form. "OH! HEY! That's it, that's what you should do! Get contacts!"

"I am not," Beth said firmly, "going to interviews with white zombie eyes."

"Not *zombie* contacts," Gosalyn explained, "just regular ones. Right, Honker?"

"Oh... um..." Honker stammered, and couldn't quite get an answer out. Gosalyn spoke for him.

"He means yes." Beth, she noticed, looked dubious so Gosalyn said, "Oh come on. You said you wanted to stop blending in, right? If you're not going to buy flashy, easy-to-see glasses, just lose the glasses completely!"

After a moment, Beth sighed. "Okay. Fine. You did come all the way out here with me, and... why not. Maybe they will come in handy sometime." She checked off a box on the order form, and returned the completed version to the cashier.

My Daughter Wants to be Scrooge McDuck

2011-12-28T13:04:00.000-08:00

That's not just a clever title. It's the honest truth. And to be fair this bothers me not at all. XD

Anyway I thought, just as a change of pace from the 30-day-meme I've been doing about my writing, I'd start the TWC2 Chapter Notes. I haven't done any chapter notes in a LONG time. First I guess I should check and make sure I haven't already started these...

Okay, checks out. Let's go!

References:
-Title: it's a line from the Beatles song "Yellow Submarine": "Sky of blue/and sea of green/in our yellow/submarine". I was on a HUGE Beatles kick during most of high school and this was written in the height of it.
-Obligatory callback to "Night of the Living Spud" with the Lyceum Nycanthropus.

I began this first scene about a year before I actually started writing the full fic. I think I started the fanfic in the second half of 2010, but I had the opening sequence done, I think, in late 2009. If not then, then in like early 2010 or so. I was trying to get back into writing after a really long hiatus during my second pregnancy and my son's first few months.

Laelia is in fact an orchid; I went looking for plant names for things like orchids that could be rare but work as actual names.

The conversation between Beth and LP initially got away from me and they started talking about how he knew Gizmoduck personally and all this stuff and it was like "STOP FLIRTING AND STAY ON SUBJECT!" They *always* do that. I had to send it to Amanda and have her tell me exactly where to snip it. ;)

I'm not really sure of the pacing of this scene or - well, the circumstances; and I'm not sure how much sense it makes for Beth to be so into Drake. I just kind of have to go with it. I have to be honest; I don't remember what it's like to have a crush on someone. ^^;

The inventory - when I wrote this the first time, I had the same thing in here, despite not ever having had a retail job. It was just vague and mainly involved me having Beth stay late to "do the inventory" which meant counting hte stock, since that's the textbook definition. However it's now slightly augmented by real-life experiences with retail - the late night and the counting turned out to be true, I ignored the fact that no retail store would have only *one* person do the retail, but I added stuff with paperwork. The paperwork is killer.

That's about it for chapter 1...

30 Days Meme day 12

2011-12-28T12:36:00.000-08:00

Day 12 – Have you ever attempted an “adaptation” story of a favorite book or movie but set in a different fandom?

...noo... not REALLY but that doesn't mean I won't ever. And a few times I thought about doing it, I just never actually started. I cowrote half of an unfinished "Ranma 1/2" adaptation of "The Princess Bride" that broke the 4th wall a lot, and after I was in "Jesus Christ, Superstar" one summer I really wanted to do a DWD fanfic that vaguely followed the same storyline only it would be DW being sort of "discovered" and becoming verrrry popular, eventually lauded as the "Savior" of St. Canard, until the people turned on him. No, he wouldn't be crucified. XD

I actually had a badass "death/rebirth" scene in my head set to the title song, though. OMG. It's so badass. ...In my head. :P

One fic I thought for a long, long time I was going to do was a Reboot/DWD adaptation where they all get sucked into a computer wtih Megavolt as the villain. Various corresponding roles would be filled the various ways (DW as Bob, Megavolt as Megabyte, Gosalyn as Enzo, etc. I think I had Beth as Phong, lol) and they would encounter an internal virus, Hexaducksimal, hahahaha. It's too dated now though even though Reboot IS AWESOME STILL.

Two others I still might do: a story inspired by the Urusei Yatsura second movie, "Beautiful Dreamer", which I won't give any details on 'cause it would spoil the story, and a full-on series called "Quacktron Leap" which is a parody of "Quantum Leap" but instead of going through time, DW goes through dimensions with Sara Bellum as his guide and each dimension is an alternate of his own based on a fanfic. XD I still think that idea is awesome.

30 Days Meme day 11

2011-12-27T20:16:00.000-08:00

Day 11 – Genre – do you prefer certain genres of fic when you’re writing? What kind do you tend to write most?

Ummm, nearly everything I write has to have some element of humour in it. I don't think I write humour as a genre the best (I think I do best as a "blend" and I just call my stuff "gen" most of the time), but I can't really write without a certain amount of humour. That's probably because I prefer comedies for the most part, so not having any humour would be entirely out of line.

I also tend to put some element of romance into a lot of my fics, but it's nearly always unresolved romance, unrequited or just general unresolved tension. I *definitely* would not call myself a romance writer.

And finally I guess... well, I *like* to have actiony plots. I'm not especially good at them as they take a lot of planning and effort to pace on my part, but I really prefer to have them when I can. I used to just write plots in order to have an excuse to write a fic about other things, but the actual plot/stories became important to me as I got older, and I generally feel like I'm cheating if I have a plotless story now. Which is too bad, because I *definitely* have an easier time writing purely dialogue or introspection fics. (I can write drabbles without a plot and be guilt-free, but that's because they're only like a couple hundred words.)

None of these are really precisely a genre though. I think of genre as being purely, or at least *almost* purely, one thing. My fics really are mostly a bunch of stuff stuck together. ^^;

30 Days Meme day 10

2011-12-26T13:19:00.000-08:00

Day 10 – Pairings – Have you ever gone outside your comfort zone and written a pairing you liked, but found you couldn’t write, or a pairing you didn’t like, and found you could?

So, woohoo! I actually did this ten days in a row!

I've written outside my comfort zone in "Xena" before; I've actually written some minor slash in that fandom, which is out of my comfort zone mostly b/c I don't actually see most of the characters as slashable within XWP canon. (I should explain, I usually won't slash characters who aren't gay, unless there's some REALLY good chemistry between them) So, in a challenge to write slash, I picked Joxer's brother Jett and Ares. It was actually, in my opinion, a pretty good story. :) But since I don't see either character as gay it was a little hard to do easily. (However I could more easily see Jett as being gay than I could see Joxer, and I can actually believe that the gods in Xena would have sex with either gender if they felt like it, so it wasn't TOO far off the beaten path for me.)

Otherwise, well... I dun think so, honestly. I actually hate the way I write romance and so unless I have a very particular pairing I want to see (like Joxer/Gabrielle), I won't usually write any shipping fic at all.

...So I'm just gonna throw this out here, I'm starting to feel uncomfortable and pretentious for my last couple of posts, particularly the one about OCs. I think I'm just going to expand on what I said there a little and clarify one thing: the only OC of mine that I don't feel is really a Mary Sue is Beth. The others, yeah, I just have to admit they are. That's a big part though of why I don't actually write them. The "Ranma 1/2" spinoff is inside my head for my own enjoyment and won't be written out. I know I've been a little weird about that, talking about the fandom as if I do write for it or do plan on writing my wishfulfillment spinoff... I totally don't, just to clarify. ;)

(So don't hate me!! ^^;)

30 Days Meme day 9

2011-12-25T14:48:00.000-08:00

Day 9 – Pairings – For each of the fandoms from day two, what are your three favorite pairings to write?

Now I need to go back and open day 2 :D
Okay, for a lot of them I don't have any, b/c I don't write ship fic for them. (Since most of them were drabbles, that's largely why)

FMA, Inuyasha, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer I had no fave pairings to write. I wrote a couple of vaguely Buffy/Spike fics but that was just playing with the theme as canon, not actually writing the pairing.

Of the other drabbles, I kinda had pairings, but didn't explore them and there wasn't more than one:
Princess Tutu: Fakir/Ahiru (even though she was a duck - it wasn't like that XD)
Revolutionary Girl Utena: Utena/Anthy (that's what my drabble was about, in fact)
Fruits Basket: I did not write this, actually, but I hearted me some Kyo/Kagura. It's pretty much the only type of fic I read, even though I never wrote it at all.

Nothing really in TTA.

Real Ghostbusters, I didn't write any pairings, but if I had it woudl've been Egon/Janine. There were hints of that in the fic I did anyway.

Now the three main fandoms:

Ranma 1/2: Actually Ranma and Akane was the big one. If I had done my spinoff, even though it was really a sort of parody, they were intended to end up together (in a kind of subtle almost-offscreen way. And in the final episode they break up but they get back togehter in the last few minutes; it's background, but important). I LOVE Ranma/Akane. It's the only pairing in the show that I really, really feel. Other pairings would've played with Shampoo/Mousse, and I guess if I was writing in general I'd have done Ryouga/Akari since I totally ship them. But Akari didn't exist in my spinoff 'cause I cheat. ;D ...I hate Ryouga/Ukyou. Not because I'm jealous but because it's a made-up pairing. :P The anime kind of sort of pushed it, because it never got to the parts of the manga that started bringing in alternate relationship options for the rival characters. So Akari never existed and they put in hints of Ryouga/Ukyou instead and BLEAH. I don't really like Ukyou that much to be honest.

XWP: Joxer/Gabrielle and that's about it. That's really the whole purpose I had in writing the fanfics, was to write decent Joxer/Gab fic. I did write a few fics that addressed Xena/Gabrielle subtext but it always broke them up and usually paired Gab with Joxer instead. It's really because I just felt that the Xena/Gabrielle pairing was portrayed so unhealthily, it never seemed romantic to me - just obsessive. I could've handled a polyamourous relationship with Joxer included, but Xena/Gab alone was too heavy.

Darkwing Duck: Darkwing/Morgana, Beth/Launchpad (I'm sorry, I always feel bad confessing that my OC/canon ship is so close to my heart, but it's not as if I pretend otherwise), and that's about it. I don't honestly write many pairings. *shrug*

30 Days Meme day 8

2011-12-24T16:03:00.000-08:00

Day 8 – Do you write OCs? And if so, what do you do to make certain they’re not Mary Sues, and if not, explain your thoughts on OCs.

Finally a question that really really relates to me instead of me going "Not really", lol!

Ahem. Yes, yes I do. ;)

Well, I don't honestly know how successful I am in making my OCs not Mary Sues. I've had enough feedback about Beth over the years from many people who have said she's not one, so although that doesn't mean that there aren't people who DO think she is one and they're just not telling me, it at least means that there are enough people who think she's NOT and tell me so. :)

Other than Beth, my OCs are primarily either secondary characters (like Henny, Beth's family, etc) or else they're borderline Mary Sues. I never had any OCs at all for "Xena", but I mentioned that my X-Men character was a pretty blatant Sue for years and years. And even now, I've tweaked the heck out of her, but she's really still pretty borderline. (I don't actually write fic with her though so she doesn't precisely count.) The other borderline Sue is my "Ranma 1/2" persona, and she's really as I said, a persona. That's what makes her borderline - her name is Rebecca and she has a lot of my characteristics, exaggerated for comedy.

So. My methods of not making Sues is to give the characters as many reasonable flaws as I can. Then I cross my fingers and hope that I've made them into believable characters, with enough bad points to cross out the good points but not so many that they are hard to like... For instance:

-"Rebecca" the Ranma 1/2 persona is based on me, has my name, bears a physical resemblance to me, and is paired with Ryouga Hibiki. However, to counter all this I set the tone of the series (it's a "spin-off", remember) as very farcical, in the same vein as "Ranma" or even more so, as Rumiko Takahashi's earlier series "Urusei Yatsura". Rebecca is cheerful and exuberant and a lot of people like her, but that's partly because they only see the cheerful and exuberant part of her; in fact she's also very pushy, has a bad temper, and is really selfish. In a comical way, that's the thing that's hard to explain. She's very childlike; she loves other people and being with her friends, but she expects things to be a certain way, and when they are not, she can get indignant or even angry. The only person to see this most of the time is Ryouga, who consequently spends most of the series trying to get away from her. But she's in love with him, and decided after meeting him that they're going to be married, so dammit, THEY ARE GOING TO BE MARRIED. XD And becausee everyone likes Rebecca so much, he feels like he'll get the blame if he actually dumps her, so he puts up with her being around in the hopes that eventually she'll get sick of him and leave. XD

-Aquaflame, of the X-Men: she's got a lot of superpowers and initially (when I created her at age 10) she was one of those Mary Sues who I understand is somewhat rarer than the others, who gets injured a lot to get attention. (I had NO CONTACT with any other fans at the time so it amused me to find out that this is actually A Thing. XD) She's developed a lot in the past 20+ years. In efforts to make her a deeper character I gave her anger issues. XD She's very emotionally shut off and expresses a lot of her negative emotions through anger. I actually dont' think I've been successful in making her not a Sue, but I have tried. But yeah I don't use her anyway, so. ;)

With Beth - that's where I've put the most effort. In addition to making her neurotic (lovably so, I hope) and totally normal other than her intellect, I've made HUGE efforts to keep the tone of the series and the characterization of the canons as close as I could to the show. I think that's hard, because to me it involves getting inside their heads, and to do THAT you have to fill in a lot of blanks to make them more rounded as characters. But when I do that, I try to do it in a way that follows what we've seen in the show, rather than revealing secrets or making things darker or just making up stuff that seems like it would be cool. I also try to do it in a way that matches the depth I give to Beth - all the characters should feel like real people, but also like cartoon characters at the same time. I want them all to feel equally believable and equally at home in the same series, and I especially want Beth to fit the tone of "Darkwing Duck" and be someone that you could technically see being in an episode (albeit, a bit simplified).

I think that last goal is a bit lofty and I don't think I quite make it, but it's hard for ANY fanfic to accomplish that with an OC that becomes an addition to the main cast. Honestly I feel successful just if I have characters that people like to read about, whether it feels like an ep or not. :)

30 Days Meme day 7

2011-12-23T21:21:00.001-08:00

Day 7 – Have you ever had a story change your opinion of a character?

I'm going to assume this means while writing and not while reading.

Ummm, not really, no. I guess, actually, there have been a couple of times that I've written a particular character and enjoyed it so much that I've become really fond of the character, but to be honest, I can't think of any particular examples. I sort of want to say Honker but I've liked him for ages, so I don't think that's right.

The only time I can recall that really happening in the recent past is with one of my own characters (Candy, Beth's older sister) and I'm not sure that counts. What happened was just that her character developed through the writing, and she developed into something different from what I thought she was. That's all. :)

30 Days Meme day 6

2011-12-22T20:18:00.001-08:00

To be completely honest I'm shocked that I've stayed with this for so many days in a row now o_O

Day 6 – When you write, do you prefer writing male or female characters?

I don't really truly have a preference. I'll admit that I'm more confident with female characters in general, because I am one. A female character. Yes. :P No, but seriously, I do try to be in the head of the characters I write but if I'm in unexplored territory I feel a little more confident writing women if only because I can fall back on my own expectations in a situation like that.

I'll be a tiny bit less vague: sometimes when writing romance (and I don't mean just DWD stuff, this goes back to "Xena" and before), I'm not entirely sure that I'm writing a *male* perspective and not a female-as-male perspective. I try to differentiate because men and women approach romance differently, and even though of course it's going to depend on the specific character, there *are* gender differences. So I want to be sure that I'm approaching a character's feelings in a way that *makes sense* and not just a way that seems appealing to me, as a woman. It's hard; I try, I can't swear that it works but I do try.

Other than that though, no, I really have no preference between men and women. When it comes to writing I mean. *G*

30 Days Meme day 5

2011-12-21T17:51:00.000-08:00

Day 5 – If you have ever had a character try to push their way into a story, whether your “muse” or not, what did you do about it?

Welp, this will be a shorty. For real this time. :D

Basically, if it makes sense to have the character there and if I can think of a way for it to enhance the story, then I write it. If not then I do an alternate scenario in my head and don't write it out. XD

It's infrequent enough that I don't have to deal with it much anyway.

I will say that I've got something like five or six unofficial fic plots in my head - what I call "fanfic of my own fanfic" - with various badfic contrivances to get LP and Beth together. My standards for my fanfic fanfic are way lower than my actual fic canon. ;D That's basically my way of shutting Launchpad up. "OKAY LOOK I won't write this but I will make up an entire new plot so that you can get the girl. OKAY? Now LEAVE ME ALONE."

30 Days Meme day 4

2011-12-20T20:08:00.001-08:00

Day 4 – Do you have a “muse” character, that speaks to you more than others, or that tries to push their way in, even when the story isn’t about them? Who are they, and why did that character became your muse?

Well, here we go. This one should be easy: No, not really. :)

I will elaborate slightly, but not by much. If you define a "muse" character as being a favourite character to write (and thus the one I get ideas for), then Joxer might've been it. But I never felt like I was channeling him or like he was taking over. So I don't think it counts.

In terms of characters who push their way in or take over a scene, a little bit yes with DWD. Actually with Launchpad. Though, infrequently. :) It actually happens mainly with Launchpad and Beth; every time I try to write a couple of lines of dialogue between them it turns into a full conversation and a lot of the time they change topic and wander off course into something completely different. I often end up having just say the heck with it, write out a scene then once I've steered it to end where I want it to, I have to read through the whole thing and cut portions of it. (I did that a lot in the second chapter of TWC4, as mentioned in a previous post.) In the Christmas fic I did, also, there was going to be a brief scene in one chapter where Beth went shopping by herself, and as I wrote it Launchpad invited himself along and the "quick scene" took up the entire chapter. He also took over a pivotal scene in "High, Dry and Flooded" and said one single thing that changed the completely course of the remainder of the fic. And I couldn't stop him from doing it. (I mean, obviously I could have, but as I was writing I realized that it made the most sense to go that way. However I'd been planning the scene for YEARS already and never, ever planned on taking the scene - or the fic, or the series - in that direction.)

And finally in terms of character I like to talk to, I don't have one now but for quite some time it was Ryouga Hibiki. I used to use hiim to do MST3K stuff with. It was a lot of fun b/c it was all verbal sparring, and he was OOC (tremendously so - very surly and sarcastic, which I don't believe Ryouga is smart enouh to be) but OOOOH so fun. XD

30 Days Meme day 3

2011-12-19T19:33:00.000-08:00

Day 3 – For each of the fandoms from day two, what were your favorite characters to write?

Wow, three days in a row, how bout dat.

Well, let's see if I can knock this one out quickly:

Ranma 1/2: Ryouga. Even though I don't write him IC in my spinoff (which is the only "writing" I've done).
Xena: Warrior Princess: Joxer, and Aphrodite. Yeah I was and am a Joxer fan. The show was actually very, very frustrating because every time they'd start to give some development to Joxer they'd take it back later and sometimes make him even more 1-dimensional. :P Aphrodite though, she was just fun. :)

Most of the fandoms I did drabbles for that I mentioned yesterday, well, I've written so little (and mainly on-demand) that I don't have a favourite. No fave for Fruits Basket or FMA, or Buffy or Princess Tutu. I liked writing Utena in the "Revolutionary Girl Utena" fic I did and I loved writing Sesshomaru in the second (unarchived) Inuyasha drabble. But that was really just a joke fic. :D I also don't have a favourite in Tiny Toons.

I do have a favourite in the Real Ghostbusters, and that's Peter Venkman, even though I wrote him terribly. He was SO MUCH FUN. I wanted to write the fic b/c I wanted to write for Janine, and she was fun to write for, but Peter was the runaway star once I started. Not of the fic, just of every scene he was in, the egotistical scene-grabber. :D

You'll notice perhaps that I left DWD for last; that's cause it's the longest answer. :D I think at this point I've finally become comfortable with writing Launchpad, so in terms of good guys, he's probably my favourite to write. I actually get really nervous writing Drake since I'm not often very good at keeping him IC; I *love* writing Darkwing when he's being melodramatic during an action scene, but I don't have a lot of action scenes, so other than that, I find him challenging. LP has gotten somewhat easier for me since I decided to go ahead and develop his inner monologue somewhat. I think he's still more or less in character but I love writing him being just... kind of easily confused, kind of dim but really well-meaning and trying to keep up. :D

In terms of villains, thus far I'd have to say Megavolt. He's so random, it's easier for me to write his craziness than it was with Quackerjack. I really enjoyed it. I hear Megs's voice in my head more easily than I do with Quacky, too. :)

So there's your answer, fishbulb!

30 Days Meme day 2

2011-12-18T16:22:00.001-08:00

Well, two days in a row! That's promising. Or well, actually meaningless. XD

Day 2 – Name the fandoms you’ve written in, and how much you’ve written in that fandom, and if you still write in it.

Well, let's see. If we don't count the X-Men, which never officially had anything written for it, then:

Darkwing Duck
Ranma 1/2 **
Xena: Warrior Princess

And other than these, a few drabbles in "Fullmetal Alchemist", "Inuyasha", "Fruits Basket", "Revolutionary Girl Utena" and "Princess Tutu". Oh hell, I keep forgetting, I've done three drabbles for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" too.

I think that's it... oh, no, untrue. I've also written, very early on, for "The Real Ghostbusters" (one terrible, terrible fic that I think is lost to Geocities) and "Tiny Toon Adventures". Geez, I have a much longer list than I thought.

The two biggest ones are absolutely "Darkwing Duck" which obviously I still write for, and "Xena: Warrior Princess" which I guess I don't. I haven't written for it in a long time, anyway. I haven't officially quit it or anything, in fact I've always kind of wanted to go back to it, but the more time passes the less likely that is to happen. My interest in that series is in the toilet, and even though I like the sort of kind of AU I ended up writing in, I've been out of it so long that I dont' have a handle on how I wrote the characters anymore, and I wouldn't have a readership. no biggie, I'm not missing anything for writing them.

The others were mainly one-shots, I think they fall as follows:

FMA: 2 drabbles, only one posted on FF.net. (The one that wasn't posted was better but I can't find it now.)
Inuyasha: 2 drabbles, only one posted, the unposted was better.
Fruits Basket: 2 drabbles, both surprisingly popular, including the one I don't like and only wrote because a friend challenged me to do it :D
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 3 drabbles, only one on FF.net, another one is exactly 100 words and can be found via Google if I look hard enough. The third was only read by one person and was crappy.
Utena: One-shot drabble about Anthy giving Utena chocolate on Valentine's Day. Still totally popular which makes me happy :D
Tutu: One-shot drabble about Ahiru and Fakir living as man and duck, I guess. Also still popular, also makes me happy; I thought it was a pretty good fic.

RGB: Pretty awful semi-Mary Sue fic, though I swear at the time I thought I was only making up OCs in order to be able to center a fic around Janine, which was my real intent. Looking back that might've been the excuse, but it didn't hinge that way. sigh.
TTA: I wrote one stand-alone fic by myself about, of all things, Elmyra and Montana Max, and then I co-wrote two group fics. My contributions were tiny but I'm still credited on both. :D

I am not active in ANY of those fandoms now, but then again, I was never technically "active" in any of them. I just wrote the drabbles because I was challenged to while bored. :) I'd like to go back to RGB actually, if I had any ideas, which I do not.

** Ranma 1/2 was the next fandom I was interested in after DWD, and I read a ton of fanfic for it, but I never officially wrote for it. I did, however, create a sort of spinoff/parody universe based around Ryouga and me; initially based off of RPs that had Ryouga tossed in because I love him, and then the persona developed. It's never actually been fully written out and never will because it's shamelessly self-insert/wish fulfillment, but I have written out one and a half "episode" scripts and have a full "series" plotted in my head, and I stay with it because I honestly feel it's intelligent and funny, and a bit ironic. But it's absolutely 100% Mary Sue at the same time. :D Anyway, I've not only written out those scripts, I've also written two drabble-esque fanfics for it and half of a longer fanfic, and a friend of mine has also written fic for it. So it exists and people have seen it, thus I include it here. Sort of.

30 Days Meme, day 1

2011-12-17T13:45:00.001-08:00

So here's the first question. I haven't thought this out in advance (I don't even remember what the question is) so get ready for some ramblin'...

Day 1 – How did you first get into writing fanfic, and what was the first fandom you wrote for? What do you think it was about that fandom that pulled you in?

Mmkay... Well, I started doing fanfic in my head, I think, when I was about 10 years old. I didn't write any of it down, I just had a Mary Sue character for old "X-Men" issues from the late 1970s up to about 1980. :D I think some of it stemmed from being kind of lonely and unpopular; you know, as many of us are. ;) Of course I had no idea of even the concept of fanfiction, back then, I just liked telling myself stories. I eventually let a friend of mine in on it, and she thought it was cool, and between the two of us we wrote I think two and a half actual "fics" which were really just scenes. And I wrote one looooong "novel" that took up an entire spiral notebook that was pretty godawful. But that's as far as that ever went.

In terms of actual first fandom I really *wrote* for, it was Darkwing Duck, straight up. In 1991 I was 13 and in 8th grade. I wrote one fanfic (again, not having any idea it was called that, or that other people wrote it), which was in narrative form, and it was after trying and failing to write a script for an episode that would've been centered around Bushroot trying to save the rainforest and DW not believing he was on the "good" side - I guess it would've been kind of ecoterrorism if I wrote it now but at the time it was just a half-assed idea that went nowhere. :) Plus shortly after I gave up on the idea, the episode "A Star is Scorned" aired, and that included a scene with Bushroot saving the rainforest, lol. So I was like "NEVER MIND THEN D:" So since I wasn't able to do that, I wrote a single fic instead, and it sat on my hard drive for three years before I discovered the Internet.

In between that time I invented Beth (somewhere around 1992), who again existed purely in my head until summer or so of 1994. This was when I got onto AOL and discovered such a thing as Fandom, and I posted my DWD fic and wrote a really, really, really awful "DuckTales" fic that I hope does not currently still exist on the net. (It will never be rereleased. The DWD fic was actually not that bad considering, and is on my site somewhere.) Having put the DuckTales fic up and gotten some positive response I decided to forge onwards and write down the Beth stories I'd thought out, and thus began The Webfoot Chronicles. Yep - in 1994. :)

As for what it was about that fandom that drew me in: well, a combination of my love for DWD, my feeling that I could actually "get" the tone of hte series (arguable when I first started writing), and the people I met on AOL. Kim McFarland/Negaduck9 was among them and she was TREMENDOUSLY supportive. She had a lot to do with it, as did a few other people I met during that time period (Kevin, Mike, RRQuest, and others). And the Internet was a brave new world and it was exciting to be posting and getting feedback. The DWD fandom wasn't really tremendously active at the time but it was at least moderately, so I got a lot of readers and a lot of friends back then. :)

There we go, that was kinda painless!

30 Days of Rain

2011-12-17T13:42:00.000-08:00

No not really. Was thinking of "28 Days of rain, flash floods in February" - that's the opening line from a Tears for Fears song. I needed something that goes with 30 days, which is how many days this meme goes on for. What meme you ask?

The fic one that I was inspired to do by Cheezey. The one that has these questions:

Day 1 – How did you first get into writing fanfic, and what was the first fandom you wrote for? What do you think it was about that fandom that pulled you in?

Day 2 – Name the fandoms you’ve written in, and how much you’ve written in that fandom, and if you still write in it.

Day 3 – For each of the fandoms from day two, what were your favorite characters to write?

Day 4 – Do you have a “muse” character, that speaks to you more than others, or that tries to push their way in, even when the story isn’t about them? Who are they, and why did that character became your muse?

Day 5 – If you have ever had a character try to push their way into a story, whether your “muse” or not, what did you do about it?

Day 6 – When you write, do you prefer writing male or female characters?

Day 7 – Have you ever had a story change your opinion of a character?

Day 8 – Do you write OCs? And if so, what do you do to make certain they’re not Mary Sues, and if not, explain your thoughts on OCs.

Day 9 – Pairings – For each of the fandoms from day two, what are your three favorite pairings to write?

Day 10 – Pairings – Have you ever gone outside your comfort zone and written a pairing you liked, but found you couldn’t write, or a pairing you didn’t like, and found you could?

Day 11 – Genre – do you prefer certain genres of fic when you’re writing? What kind do you tend to write most?

Day 12 – Have you ever attempted an “adaptation” story of a favorite book or movie but set in a different fandom?

Day 13 – Do you prefer canon or fanon when you write? Has writing fanfic for a fandom changed the way you see some or even all of the original source material?

Day 14 – Ratings – how high are you comfortable with going? Have you ever written higher? If you’re comfortable with NC-17, have you ever been shocked by finding that the story you’re writing is G-rated instead?

Day 15 – Warnings – What do you feel it most important to warn for, and what’s the strangest thing you’ve warned for in a story?

Day 16 – Summaries – Do you like them or hate them? How do you come up with them, if you use them?

Day 17 – Titles – Are they the bane of your existence, or the easiest part of the story? Also, if you do chaptered story, do you give each chapter a title, or not?

Day 18 – Where do you get the most inspiration for your stories (aka “bunnies”) from?

Day 19 – When you have bunnies ideas, do you sit down and start writing right away, or do you write down the idea for further use?

Day 20 – Do you ever get bunnied inspired from other people’s stories or art in the same fandom?

Day 21 – Sequels – Have you ever written a sequel to a story you wrote, and if so, why, and if not, how do you feel about sequels?

Day 22 – Have you ever participated in a fest or a Big Bang? If so, write about your favorite experience in relation to one. If not, are there any you’ve thought about doing? And if not, why not?

Day 23 – When you post, where do you post to? Just your journal? Just an archive? Your own personal site?

Day 24 – Betaing – How many betas do you like to use to make sure there aren’t any major flaws in your story? Do you have a Beta horror story or dream story?

Day 25 – Music – Do you listen to music while you write? Do you make playlists to get into a certain “mood” to write your story? Do you need noise in general? Or do you need it completely quiet?

Day 26 – What is the oddest (or funnest) thing you’ve had to research for a story?

Day 27 – Where is your favorite place to write, and do you write by hand or on the computer?

Day 28 – Have you ever collaborated with anyone else, whether writing together, or having an artist work on a piece about your story?

Day 29 – What is your current project or projects?

Day 30 – Do you have a favorite story you’ve written? What makes it your favorite?

We'll see how long I can go... :D

TWC4: Update and Deleted Scenes

2011-11-12T15:31:00.000-08:00

So, earlier I wrote a post sayingg that I was nearly finished with chapter 2 of TWC4 and I would have deleted scenes to post later on, but for some reason this computer will not let me publish posts to this blog. So that post never got added to the blog. Instead I'm just gonna go ahead and make THIS message, and then hopefully be able to post it from upstairs on my OLD computer. And if I can't I have no idea what happens :P

Anyway! First of all: I finished and uploaded chapter 2 of TWC4, "Shake, Rattle, and Mole". The link is to the first chapter. It's also here on AO3.

So, as I wrote this chapter it just got longer and longer. And I'd edit it down, then write more. Finally I said screw it and wrote what I wanted, with ideas of what I could trim out later; the final edit turned out to be about 5,500 words. I got it down to just under 4,300 on FF.net by cutting rather ruthlessly and summarizing some of the dialogue I'd taken out. The stuff I cut was all just conversation, and does not keep the plot moving or anything like that - it's all really just chitchat. The thing is, though, I do feel like it's important b/c it gives a bit more of a reason as to why LP and Beth get along and why he'd start feeling the way he does for her. I feel like the version I posted at FF.net, while it is more concise, glosses over both his growing attraction to her and also the fundamentals of their friendship. So, although that's the "official" version up there and the extra stuff is probably really *better* for cutting, I still want to make it available since... well, it just might make the relationship make more *sense*, I guess. I dunno, I'm too in the characters' heads, and this probably isn't necessary - it probably overstates things way too much. But I felt I needed more transition from LP's resistance to his attraction to Beth, into his total acceptance of it at the end of the chapter.

I actually trimmed even more than I am putting up here... maybe I'll keep those parts or maybe they are genuinely expendable. But here are two snippets I thought were worth keeping, even unofficially.

****

"Traffic... OH." She put her hand to her mouth and looked thunderstruck. Then she put her hand over her eyes. "OH, of *course*. THAT'S why he's mad. Oh, I am so stupid."

"What? He's not mad. Why do you think he's mad?" Launchpad felt a need to protect her, but it came out as a sort of frantic cover-up.

"Nothing - I just... oh, sheesh, I didn't think. No, it's nothing."

"You're not stupid," he said earnestly. He looked around the room. "Is it the pictures that fell down? 'Cause that's not your fault."

"No, I know." She looked at him and smiled.

He smiled back, and realized she probably couldn't see his expression at all. He looked at the table. "So, what happened to your glasses?"

"Oh. They fell off, I stepped on them. Standard klutz stuff." She leaned forward and felt around for them, then put them on. The left lense was full of cracks, and the bridge was so broken that the glasses wouldn't sit straight on her bill, so the right lense twisted upwards. She tried twice to right them, then gave up and put them back onto the table. "Ugh."

"Can you see at all without 'em?" He looked at her carefully, without her glasses on - the first time he'd seen her without them; it made her face look younger and different, uncovered. *Naked*. He blushed a little and looked at his hands instead.

"Kind of. I mean, I can see you - just no details." She reached out and poked him in the chest, and he chuckled and rubbed the spot she'd poked. "But I have degenerative myopia, so I'm super nearsighted."

"Whoa, really? That sounds bad."

She shrugged. "It's not that bad. It's slow-acting, I mean. It mostly happened kind of quickly when I was about twelve, and all of a sudden I needed glasses, then stronger ones. But now it's slowed down and I just need to adjust my prescription every so often."

He looked at her face again, almost shyly. All this time he'd assumed that her eyes only looked big because of the thickness of her glasses, but it turned out they were just that *big*. She looked at most nineteen, and adorable. He realized he was staring and looked away, then realized she couldn't tell, so he looked at her again. "So, does it hurt your head to have everythin' blurry like this?"

"No, not if I don't try to see anything. If I have to squint it hurts eventually. But even if I squint I can only make things out if they're close enough, so I just don't bother most of the time."

"How close do you have to be?"

She leaned towards him, and beckoned him closer too. As he got nearer, she narrowed her eyes, and then stopped him. "THERE we go. Hi!"

He waved. "Hi!" She laughed, all squinty-eyed, and blushed a little. "If I get closer do you NOT have to squint?"

"Um, yeah, there's usually a point where I can see things, just before they get TOO close and I can't see them anymore." She beckoned him closer again, and he leaned in. "Okay... keep coming... keeeeep coming..."

Someone cleared their throat behind them, and Beth jumped back like she'd been stung. "OH my gosh!"

Launchpad sat back, away from her, down at the other end of the couch, and he hadn't been about to kiss her at all. "Oh. Hey!" he said as Drake came down the stairs, glowering at them both. "Heh. Gos okay?"

"She's *fine*," Drake said stiffly, and glared a direct accusation in Launchpad's direction. Launchpad suspected he was blushing.

Etc...

***

[[After this, there is one thing i took out - after reluctantly thanking Beth for staying to be sure Gos was okay, Drake gives her an extra $20 as "overtime" which she tries to give back but he won't take it. Eh, it was a nice touch but really not needed. Then the walk to Beth's, I had conversation written out that I ended up removing and summarizing:]]

"Sounds good," she said cheerfully. He had her repeat the first step, and he did his best to listen even though he was fighting a maddening urge to stroke the back of her hand with his thumb the entire time.

They walked in silence for more than a minute. Launchpad felt every second of it. It seemed as if he *needed* to say something, or else he'd just keep *thinking*, and thinking wasn't helping him in the slightest; but he had no idea what to say. Beth, meanwhile, was uncharacteristically silent; he'd never known her not to keep *some* line of conversation going. Taking a guess at what she might be thinking, he asked, "Still worried about Drake bein' mad?"

She nodded. "I feel like I'm on thin ice with him. Like there's a sword hanging over my head, and every time I do the wrong thing, the rope keeping it up gets weaker and weaker, and there's no way to strengthen it again."

"Don't worry about it," he said reassuringly, and tightened his grip on her hand without thinking of what he was doing. "He just gets, I dunno... funny about stuff. But you were right to stay with Gos, and he knows it."

Beth shook her head. "I should've thought, though... With me still being there when he came home..."

"Huh? What do you mean?" That was weird - it almost sounded like she knew about Darkwing.

"Oh - no, nothing. Sorry." She smiled sheepishly and shrugged.

"Oh, uh, okay." Launchpad scratched his cheek in puzzlement, and reached for a topic - something kind of boring and safe - and came up with, "So, uh, how's the job hunt going?"

Beth sighed dramatically, her shoulders slumping. "Still unemployed," she answered. "I don't know, Launchpad, I've applied to, like, twenty different companies this week alone and I haven't heard ANYthing. And they're all kinds of jobs, I mean, I even applied to a Hamburger Hippo and NOBODY has called me back! I was saying to Gosalyn earlier, I don't even know what I was thinking, just quitting. What a dumb thing to do. That was the ONLY real job I've ever had, and do you know how long it took me to get THAT? And then Henny just hired me on the spot when I came in to inquire... And now, I can't even use that job as a reference because of everything I said when I quit. Henny would *never* say anything good about me now so I have four years' worth of employment at ONE job, and NO references..." She shook her head and sighed again. "But you know, that's the thing about Henny, I don't think I could have gotten a good reference out of her even if I *hadn't* said anything."

Wow. Launchpad was almost sorry he'd asked, if only because she was obviously really upset. "Uh, I'm sorry. I guess it's kinda my fault you quit..."

"What? No! Oh, no it's not, really." She turned to reassure him hastily, waving her free hand all around as she did. "You just said I should look for another job, I'M the one who quit! Nobody is to blame for this but me." She looked at him, or towards him anyway, with an anguished expression. "Launchpad... What do I do? What if I never get another job?"

With that look on her face, he found that the only thing that seemed important was to help her, to find a way to make all of her problems disappear. What could he possibly say to make her feel good about herself? "Of course you'll get another job! You're a great worker an' - an' you, uh, you have attention to details!"

Beth smiled, evidently in spite of herself, at that. "Do I?"

He shrugged. "I'm not real good at this. But you're smart, you'll do fine. REALLY, trust me."

"I don't know. I said to Gos earlier - people, they just don't notice me. There's nothing on my resume that looks interesting, and it's the same thing when they meet me - just being smart isn't going to do it, it's like I'm invisibe. Nobody will ever call me because nobody will ever NOTICE me."

Etc.

***

[[And, last thing, which I won't paste here; after he asks her to have "movie night", she says that she was afraid he was avoiding her which he denies a bit too much. Again, cute but expendable. And there you go, now you know the rest of the story!

This still may not fully convey the transition I tried to write - well, to be honest, I'm afraid I failed with that even in the full version - but I mean, I just cut bits and piece throughout to take out as much as I could. I'm kinda impressed I got 1300 out of it. I wish I could've taken it down to under 4,000 since this chapter is such fluff that I feel bad having it be so long... but oh well. :P]]

MUPPETS

2011-11-03T12:57:00.000-07:00

I've totally been searching for this track for, oh, like probably a good 2-3 years now. Pretty sure since before my office space was moved which was a year and a half ago...

Ridiculously pretty instrumental version of an incredibly silly moment in "The Muppet Movie". I love the fact that this song, when sung by Miss Piggy, gives me uncontrollable giggles - but the tune itself floors me with how lovely it is.

This is not a post

2011-11-02T20:21:00.001-07:00

Fic update! I posted the first chapter of TWC4 at FF.net and AO3. Since it's a replacement of the chapter that is already there on FF.net, they won't register it as an update until I actually add a new chapter, so this is the "unofficial prerelease". :P I am, however, hoping to have chapter 2 done before the end of the month. :)

I'm so relieved to get this done. I had actually planned on working on this during October, but stress at the beginning of the month basically gave me artistic block on all fronts. I've only JUST started writing again. Hoping this is the start of something good! :)

If I can get to chapter 2 quickly enough (I don't know if that will work or not though) I'm going to work on "Those Daring McQuacks". I have the structure outlined and I tried starting act 2 a couple of months ago but i stalled on the scene. I was able to write it, it just wasn't paced particularly well and I was having trouble with what I wanted to say. I hope I can pick it up again and fix it.

Anyway, I don't think anyone checks this blog if I dont' put up links or reminders, but just in case people do, fic update message and general ramblings. ^_^ Hi!

Sex and the Single Girl

2011-10-29T09:28:00.000-07:00

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

My Uncle thought he was St. Jerome...

2011-10-27T20:33:00.000-07:00

Guess who saw "Ghostbusters" in the theatre this evening? Yeah it's me :D At first when it started I had a thought, like, "Is this going to be worth it? Am I just putting import onto something that isn't really that important?" But OH MAN was it good on the big screen. It was just fantastic. I haven't ever seen GB in the theatre -I am just SLIGHTLY too young. (I did see Back to the Future in theatres when it came out, though. AND THAT WAS AMAZING.)

Anyway, that is all. I may not get to see Shaun of the Dead, but I got to see Ghostbusters. :D

On a completely unrelated topic, I've been sketching - both artistically and bio-type - on an AU Beth recently. I'm putting up the first batch of sketches on DA and I thought I'd take the opportunity to expand on it here, since... I can. :)

So, waaaay back when I was writing "All About Elizabeth", I included a gratuitous scene that took place when Beth was 18, attending Duckburg University, and working as a librarian on campus. She has a very brief encounter with Scrooge McDuck and tells herself she'll tag along with him on adventures and change her life, but of course, she does not. Well, mentally I then proceeded to create an entire AU where she DOES, and her life is - not all that changed. :D Frothinglizard on DA used this idea somewhat, with my blessing, in a really wonderful set of pics and comics. My idea was entirely different and I'm finally kind of going to elaborate on it. With the note that nothing is ever going to come of this: I'm not going to write it out. I have NO ideas. It's basically making Beth a DuckTales OC instead of a DWD OC, and the fact is, I can't write for DuckTales. I don't do adventure plots - I'm okay with action/superhero/comedy plots, and even those I struggle with and take a long time to do. But adventure, like in old school DT... nope. Just doesn't come to me. The only part of the idea I'm actually able to develop is the stuff that relates to - yeah, you saw this coming, right? - Beth and Launchpad and how they relate to one another.

Basically, Beth at 18 is even more awkward than at 25. I established in AAE that she makes a lot of her own clothes - she actually is quite good but you wouldn't guess it to see her in what she wears at that age. She was going through a thing where she preferred very large clothing, particulary shirts - she was uncomfortable in anything that didn't hide her figure - so it looks as if she's a very shoddy seamstress when actually, she knows what she's doing. She just doesn't really get how awful the badly-fitting clothes really look on her, b/c the alternative makes her uncomfortable. The rest of her apperarance is largely the same, just... perhaps a bit more disheveled. Well, in the AU, she manages to talk her way onto Scrooge's plane as he departs for some adventure in the jungle, and immediately wishes she hadn't, since she has no idea what to do.

She meant to introduce herself as Eliza, and reinvent herself with that new identity, but she screws up and gives her name as Beth on instinct. A bit later she meets Launchpad as he is piloting the plane, and she's instantly gone on him. He's friendly and handsome and charming, and completely overlooks her. They get through the adventure, find the treasure - after nearly losing it due to Beth misreading something - but then she figures it out and all is well. Scrooge isn't too happy with her screw-up, but LP sticks up for her and says she's the one who figured everything out, so he reluctantly hires her (for next to nothing) as his researcher. For a couple of years she does this and also puts herself through school at the same time (which irritates Scrooge because every so often she either opts out of a trip due to exams, or else has to bring her books along with her to study).

Over the next few years she and LP get to be - well, not quite close, but on very good terms. She's completely devoted to him, but she also gets enough of a backbone to speak her mind sometimes. She's just about 21 when Gizmoduck shows up. She and Fenton actually get along quite well and play geeky math games. She realizes early on that Fenton is Gizmoduck, though it doesn't change much. A little while after this LP leaves for St. Canard (I haven't thought of any details as to why); she's hurt by this but doesn't tell him so.

So, part two. After finishing school, Beth starts in teh real world with a real job, which despite all her science education ends up being working for Scrooge in a higher capacity. By this point, having gotten used to dealing with him, she has a much thicker skin than she used to and her confidence in herself is a bit higher. I don't know much about what she does but it involves a lot of travel, plus I think she handles some of the stock investments. Years go by, and she figures out a lot of things for herself and grows up a lot, so that by the time she's 25 in *this* universe, she's quite a different person. Fundamentally still a chatterbox and prone to getting nervous under personal circumstances, she's better equipped to deal with people (and she looks great).

Four years after LP left for St. Canard, she travels there on a business trip - for the first time, oddly! She goes to Europe more often than to St Canard - and gets LP's address from Fenton so that she can look him up. They reunite very briefly and amicably in Drake's house but since she has to run to the first of her meetings (being held over several days), she invites LP to dinner in a few nights.

The funny thing is, when I came up with this AU (which was really just a way to occupy my time and explore a different characterization for Beth), I kept it in my usual rule of Duckverse stuff - which is to say, very close to the tone of the show, nothing "adult" or mature, and my big rule for my DWDverse is that nobody has sex. Sex doesn't even exist. (This isnt' to say I haven't put any thought into it - 'cause I have, from time to time - but it's more like as an exploration of sexual behaviour and how it stems psychologically, mainly from Beth, and next to no explorataion of sexual *themes* from any characters in this show.) Somewhere, though, over the past few days this one... got away from me. *blush* Which is probably why I've been drawing stuff for it and expanding it somewhat. I'm not sure what point I'm going to go up to, but... well, there's more to this storyline, and I'll probably share it at some point soon. But, fair warning. :P

It's October now?

2011-10-07T18:55:00.000-07:00

So I only updated once in September. Then I came on here and I was like "Oh it's stil September, that's good! Oh wait." Because I remember very little sometimes. Bah!

I thought I was going to work on "Those Daring McQuacks" before I started on TWC4, and I even thought out some scenes and had them planned, and it just will not come out. I mean, I have written a few things, but they really really need rewriting and editing. And I'm just stuck on finishing them and connecting the dialogue and stuff. Bah. Also, things in real life land the past couple of weeks have just about killed my creativity drive :P

However, this afernoon I had a few good ideas for at least completing the first scene of TWC4's first chapter (I put up about 800 words as a placeholder on FF.net; the completed scene will only be the first half of chapter one, but it's a start) and surprisingly I was able to get some of it done :) So to maybe keep my inspiration going, I'm gonna post what little I just did since I won't have the chapter finished until the end of the month at the earliest; if I can keep my momentum though I might be able to get THIS scene finished over the weekend. I'm also not posting the part that's already up at FF.net so, if you have no context, the chapter begins with a moderate earthquake. This is immediately after it's over with.

*****

Beth held the glasses up directly in front of her face and squinted at them; she still could barely make them out. She felt them gingerly and when it didn't seem as if anything was going to gouge her, she put them on. One of the lenses had a spider-webbing of cracks over it, and the bridge was bent. She sighed wearily. "Occupational hazard."

Turning to Gosalyn, she took a breath and tried to make the best of it. "So! Better clean up that glass, huh? Do you have a dustpan anywhere nearby?"

"You bet!" Gosalyn cried, and took off for the kitchen. By the time she returned, Beth was kneeling by the wall, carefully picking up shards of glass and looking out of only one eye. "Uh, does that make it easier?"

"Huh? Oh, no - just, the crack in this is really getting in my way. I thought if I just looked through one eye - but it's making my head hurt." She placed a handful of glass into the dustpan and sighed, while Gosalyn loaded her arms full of larger shards and dropped them into the pile Beth had already started. Beth jumped at the sound. "Um, could you be a bit more gentle than that?"

"Why? It's not like it's gonna matter if it breaks *more*."

Beth shook her head. "You know, I think I should handle this. I don't want you getting hurt on broken glass."

"Oh come on! I know what I'm doing!" Gosalyn protested vehemently. Beth frowned and picked up another few pieces. As she turned to slowly place them carefully in the dustpan, Gosalyn continued, "Honestly, I'm insulted! You really think just because I'm a kid, I'm going to - YAAAAAH! AAAIEEEEE!"

"OH MY GOD!" Beth yelled, her eyes widening as she turned back to Gosalyn who was holding her hand to her side and grimacing in pain.

"OHHHH NOOOO! MY JUGULAR!!!" Gosalyn screamed, and Beth stared in horror, uncertain if she should try to make a tourniquet or run to call 911 first; then she realized that Gosalyn was laughing.

"Ahahaha... Just kidding," said the girl, pulling her hand out from her shirt and wiggling it. She caught sight of Beth's expression, which was still utterly horror-stricken. "Heh heh... sorry, that was probably not nearly as funny to you as it was to me."

Beth finally found her voice, which sounded flat even to her ears as she said beseechingly, "Please let me do this?"

Gosalyn relented, and went to sit on the couch and see if the earthquake had affected her video game console.

IS 100th POST, IS GOOD

2011-09-26T18:57:00.000-07:00

SO THIS IS MY 100th POST IN THIS BLOG :D :D :D

PARTY!

Uh. I have really got almost nothing interesting to say, and almost no time to write it in.

So instead have a playlist! :D

The past few days I've been getting sucked into music that "fits" certain environments in the fics, and mainly LP/Beth ones. I sort of started getting into this a while back with this pic. The idea for THAT came from the end of "All About Elizabeth", when I casually mentioned that LP spent like, two days making a mix tape for the car ride home with Beth, and all the songs have, er, "subtle suggestions" to them - the first being "Take a Chance On Me" by ABBA, though it's not named.

The idea of an actual mix tape that he's like "Oh, here, made ya this" and gives to Beth kind of tickled me so I returned to the thought a few more times and then, after doing that picture, came up with a few others. Only five though. :P So here they are, plus a few extras that I am just sticking in for the fun of it!

These are HEAVILY 80s-oriented, for the record. I wouldn't put anything post-1991 on there anyway, due to chronology of the fics, but I kinda think that both Launchpad *and* Beth are musically stuck a few years behind everyone else. :D

Take a Chance On Me, ABBA

Do You Believe In Love, Huey Lewis and the News (He'd better HOPE she doesn't figure it out while listening to this. It's just aggressive enough to scare her off. XD) (Side note: AIN'T NOBODY BETTER DIS HUEY LEWIS, OKAY?? I LOVE HIIIIIM)

Kiss on my List, Hall and Oates (eeeheehee, I think this song is adorable and SO 80s)

You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, Leo Sayer Well... this version is by the Wiggles. :D I like this version more! It's an awesome arrangement! yes including Wags the Dog popping up and barking :P COME IN IT'S IN GREEK how can you not love it? :D ...Yeah. It is *so* obvious I have kids.

Somethin' Stupid, Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra (Pictures of Grace Kelly FTW.)

Anyway I figure that one is the last one on the tape - there are others in between, I just don't know what they are yet. :) And that's, yeah, that's the one where she finally goes "....Oh."

I think I've probably either mentioned or even linked to these before, but this song is my theme for TWC4:
Strange Magic, ELO There's a reason, it kinda goes with a scene, you can't just plug it in unfortunately. (and since the scene's pacing is in my head, I can't plug it in even after the fic is written. Sadness.)
And I know I've mentioned before, I listen to the Bee Gees for some of my inspiration... You don't have to like this stuff, I just have a liking for 70s makeout music. :D
How Deep is Your Love
More Than a Woman

How can I actually like these songs when I hate that falsetto so much? It's like nails on a chalkboard :P

Anyway... any thoughts? Did I win anyone over to 80s music who didn't like it before? Did I make any new Huey Lewis fans? If not I can throw more REALLY AWESOME songs at you. And he has great hair! VERY fluffy! :D

But ducks don't tweet...

2011-08-27T16:16:00.000-07:00

So, I don't do Twitter, and I haven't really felt a need to. HOWEVER, today I realized I could set up a nice small account for this fic series and just use it for update announcements and things. I mean, I love having this blog and I think I make pretty decent use of it (Well, I mean to use it MORE than I do, but at least I use it); but it's hard to remember to check blogs if you don't have a "friends list" feed page, which not everyone is able to have, so a Twitter account could send out announcements when I've updated a fic or the blog or something else along those lines.

Then again, though, I'm not sure if it would just be overkill. After all I only have 7 people following this blog and I'm not sure how many people actually read the fics due to how time-consuming they are. So would it be worthwhile? I guess it couldn't *hurt* anyway...

I'd love comments/thoughts if anyone has them?

Three happy chappies in snappy sarapes

2011-08-21T19:26:00.000-07:00

Every so often I get "The Three Caballeros" stuck in my head and I really mean STUCK. :P Actually I think I'm going to go watch it if I can find it on YouTube. Just 'cause. I have such a mad crush on Jose Carioca and was sort of shocked to find out that so does half of deviantART, but I digress...

So! Anyway, moving on, and getting back to the point of my single-minded blog; if you've been following TWC3 you know I've recently posted the 8th chapter out of 9. I'm working on the 9th chapter and I already have a deleted scene :P It's a scene I like, but it makes the chapter too long and it's not necessary for the fic as a whole to make sense. So I'm removing it and putting it up here, but I will note that I consider it canon (it was in ALL my earlier outlines, sigh, I hated taking it out but eh. It's genuinely expendable, just something I wanted but isn't needed).

I'm not spoiling anything when I give the context, because - assuming you've read the second-to-last chapter of the fic, you already know how the action plot wraps up. Therefore, this doesn't really give anything away. However, it's really just fluff for the sake of fluff... a bit of schmoopy LP/Beth stuff, yet again. So I guess this is the right place for it. ^_~

***

He picked up the phone, dialed, and then hung up before it rang. What was the best way to do this? Should he be straightforward and get right to it, or make small talk for a while to play it down? Small talk, he decided. That way she'd feel like it wasn't the *only* reason he was calling her. Which it wasn't, he amended to himself hastily. He'd have called her anyway - or, well, he *should* get into the habit of calling her. He'd call her tomorrow to let her know that she should come in, and then keep talking to her after telling her. Perfect.

He dialed again and let it ring.

"Bindler's Hardware, how can I help you." She picked up midway through the second ring, and he thought she sounded tired or maybe just unhappy. He remembered the five-minute rule just before he spoke.

"Uh, hey Beth, it's Launchpad." Maybe he *should* get right to the point, though he really didn't want to.

"Oh, hi!" she said, infinitely more enthusiastic, but he thought he could still detect an edge of flatness to her voice. "Everything okay?"

"Oh, sure, yeah, fine," he said; so much for getting right to the point. "How're things goin' there?"

There was a brief hesitation, and then she said, "Yeah, just fine too... Fine... Henny just got in, actually, so just a few more hours and my shift's done for the day."

"I thought you closed on Thursdays?"

"Yeah, I - I usually do," she said, then with amusement in her voice added, "and I can't believe you remember that."

"Oh yeah, well... just stuck with me, I guess," he said. He felt a little embarrassed now that she'd made a thing out of it, but it wasn't anything, really... It was just easier to know when Beth was in the store and when she wasn't, so that he didn't get stuck dealing only with Henny if he needed to drop by for something.

"Okay - well no problem, just... anyway she's had me close a few times already this week so I asked her to let me have this evening off. That way I can get over there a little earlier, have some time to unwind before I take on Gos, things like that." She laughed.

"Uh, yeah," he said, forcing a laugh as well. "So she letcha switch? Well that's good! After what you were sayin' yesterday it seemed like she might not do stuff like that... So I guess things aren't all that bad!" He wasn't stalling, he was focusing on the positive.

Unfortunately Beth gave a sigh. "Actually now that you mention it..." She lowered her voice. "You'd think I'd asked for an extra week of paid vacation or something. I mean - she has me switch shifts with her *all the time*, something like four times just this month, but heaven forbid *I* ask for something. And I'd *better* not refuse when she needs an evening or a morning free, because if I do, of *course* it's not because I have plans or it's the last minute, it's obviously because I just want to be a jerk. You know-" She cut herself off and sighed again. "I'm sorry, Launchpad, you don't want to hear this. I shouldn't even be saying these things. I just - I'm kind of stressed out right now, and -"

"Hey, you can *always* tell me stuff. I'm here to listen! Even if you just need to vent for, like, a half an hour straight."

There was a sound in the background of her end of the line then, something kind of like a foghorn. Launchpad listened closely but couldn't figure out what it was. "Uh - did somethin' just happen...?"

In a strained voice, Beth said, "That was Henny. I have two minutes left."

"Ah. Yeah, right. Sorry, well... uh... I guess I'll get to the point, then..." He went over a few options of how to lead into the statement quickly in his head, and began, "Well, see, here's the thing-"

"You don't want me to come babysit tonight, do you," she said flatly.

He felt incredibly guilty. "Uh, how'd ya guess?" he asked, hoping if he stayed cheerful he could make it seem unimportant.

She didn't buy it. "Your voice - you obviously had bad news, and you know, that's just the kind of week it's been." She caught herself. "It's not a big deal actually, I'm just being dramatic... You know how it is, one little thing just to validate feeling bad about the big things. Really, I can use another evening off to get some rest."

"Yeah! Get to bed early or - y'know, go out to a movie or somethin'!" Should he offer to take her out to a movie? Nah, she probably wouldn't know how to take that. He had another idea, and this one made more sense. "Y'know, you should come over sometime, but *not* to babysit. Just come on by an' hang out-"

"Hang on." She turned her head away from the phone or something, just enough so that she wasn't shouting directly into the receiver when she said, "Just a *minute*, okay?! I'm ALMOST DONE!"

"Uh, sorry -"

"Don't worry, it's not you... I'm sorry, I probably made you go deaf. She's been like this all *week*." Beth sounded slightly desperate at the end of the last sentence. "What were you saying?"

"Oh, you should just come over and we can hang out-"

Henny yelled in the background again, and this time Launchpad could hear her clearly. Beth yelled back almost immediately, and he was so surprised by the whole thing that he just kept on talking, which resulted in the three of them going all together at once:

"*Store rules are in place for a reason, Beth, an' five minutes means five minutes!*"

"I am NEARLY DONE, Henny, and I still have thirty-five seconds left!"

"-it's been a while, and I miss you!"

He fell silent. Beth and Henny did not, and he got to hear Henny sniping about the exact time by her watch since the phone had started ringing, and Beth started saying into the phone "So anyway *Dad*, thanks for letting me know about Mom, I hope she's out of the hospital soon! Yes, I'll call as soon as I can get home, unfortunately my *manager* feels I spend too much time on the phone!"

Wow. This was crazy.

Henny's voice faded away and Beth took a moment to recover before saying, in a shaky voice, "I am *so sorry.*"

"No, don't be. That sounds *awful*."

"You have no idea," she said; her voice sounded small.

He was at a loss; words weren't his strong suit in moments like these, but she wasn't there in the room with him, so words were all he had to offer. "Your mom's not really in the hospital, is she?"

Beth laughed sharply. "No, of course not. God, wouldn't that just be the topper? No, I just - was being stupid. I wanted her to leave me alone."

"Don't get real upset, okay? You're gettin' out soon, maybe spend the afternoon lookin' at the want ads and see if you can find another place that's hiring."

"Yeah, right." She took a long breath and let it out. "Okay, I should go now or she'll nail me for being over by 47 seconds. Thanks for calling me."

"No problemo. I'll call tomorrow too, okay?"

She paused, just for the briefest second. "Do - do you want to cancel tomorrow night too?"

"Huh? NO! No, I'll just call to check in! We'll DEFINITELy see you tomorrow night!"

"Oh good... okay. Thanks." She sounded deeply relieved. "Um, geez, I should've asked this before now, but is Drake OK?"

"Oh yeah - fine, no, he just... doctor said, to be on the safe side, y'know. Stomach bugs can spread real quick."

"Stomach..." She mused slightly, but didn't finish. Instead she said, "I - I'm not going to ask if you've had a chance to... talk to him yet, about what I was saying... I mean... if you have, well, tell me tomorrow, okay?"

"Oh yeah. You bet. Actually with him bein' sick and all-"

"Right. Well, tomorrow. Thanks again for calling."

When they'd both hung up, he wondered where exactly "I miss you" had come from.

Guess what I did all freakin' afternoon/night?

2011-08-04T21:31:00.000-07:00

I wrote that story. I wrote that GOLDARNED story.

I wrote an 11K word story guys. Why can't I do that on TWC? (I'll tell you why, becuase this had no plot, this is just romance. I can crank that out no problem, TWC fics have action plots and those screw me up.)

I initially said I was writing it just for me, but I wrote so much that I feel like I should od something with it. I'm not sure what yet. If you are interested in reading this fic, please lemme know. I think it stands on its own, and I can fill in the blanks on it in an introduction/notes at the start, and I don't think it actually spoils the Christmas fic. And now I don't actually have to write the middle story. I mean, I might anyway, but I don't have to...

I think my main reason to write it would be because Candy is in it, and though she's in the one I just did too she has a much larger role in the middle fic. And when I wrote her scene in this one I realized that I love her.

But I also love Beth/LP romance and this is freaking FULL of that s***.

WAY too much thought

2011-08-04T11:37:00.001-07:00

So I just got back from a mid-afternoon walk break and every so often when I go out on these I end up having a very productive fic idea ... thing. (I don't know, clearly all my writing ability is now gone, lol) Yesterday I tried to do some roughing out on acts 2 and 3 of "Those Daring McQuacks" and ended up playing out a few scenes (and realizing that some of the ones I've been wanting to write are going to have clunky motivation/dialogue and I'll have to do them really carefully... dangit). Today I went to move onto the fic that takes place after it, which is a Christmas fic, and which a few years ago (after I first had the idea) I created a fake "sequel" to. As in yes, I had a fanfic idea for my fanfic; non-canonical follow-up.

So in the end I started not thinking about the Christmas fic - which, btw, I have decided is going to be told in little vignettes, each titled after a Christmas song and each with a lyric from that song hidden inside it, it'll be a nice "Find the song!" game all through! :P But anyway - but instead about the sorta climactic scene in the fanfic-fanfic.

And that's when I got carried away.

First I put a bit too much thought into the ending (instead of how I was going to GET to the ending); then I thought "well, kinda too bad it's NC even in my universe, since if this DID happen, obviously THIS would..." And then I started plotting out the SECOND sequel.

And heck if it's not really goooood >_< So here I am - wanting to write that third fic in a trio that has not been started, without any context at all, on an AU of my own AU; AND, if I do it, even though it is unofficial it will still regardless pretty much take all the wind out of hte sails of what I *actually* have planned for the remainder of the series. D: But I really want to write it out ;_; If I had time and could get away with it I'd write it for ME, but I really like to show things to people so I'd prefer to use my limited free time to actually write things I intend to show to others.

Baawwwwww. Let's all cry a river for Rebecca. ^_^;; All this is really a nice sign that I've been writing this series without real resolution for TOO DARN LONG. (You know how long? 16 years, that's how long. YEAH. TOO LONG, BABY.)

If you want details and by details I mean MASSIVE SPOILERS, you can leave a comment requesting them, and I'll either reply in the comments or just send you an email, whichever you'd prefer.

On-Schedule

2011-07-29T10:58:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-17T19:46:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-04T06:24:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-02T19:02:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-07-02T17:57:00.000-07:00

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!

Fluorescent lights, they hum like angels

2011-06-21T19:05:00.000-07:00

The thing about sunburn is, once it stops hurting, it starts ITCHING. Take it from me on this one.

So! It's been HOW long now since my last entry? Funny part is on some level I thought it had been even longer. :P But still, I was surprised to see that I didn't update at all up until now for the month of June! Yeesh.

So here's my first thing to mention:

I updated TWC3 with another new chapter! Yay for me! I did mention this on DeviantArt and I am pretty sure most everyone who occasionally pops in here does follow me over there, so they probably already knew it. But ya know, I like to mention it here. :) Is it worth my putting a link up here? If you need one let me know and I'll link it.

Second thing to mention:

Apparently TWC3 is just about my least popular fic so far. Seriously, I don't remember the last time I've had this few reviews on an ongoing fic (not counting the old ones I put up all at once). For the record, I'm not saying specific people or friends of mine - I usually get more random pop-in reviews, that's all. I had a few people following the TWC1 rewrite that I didn't even know; I guess they lost interest. Then I met some new people with TWC2, and that was cool, but only one of them has reviewed a chapter of TWC3 this time and it was to say she wasn't sure about Quackerjack's motivations. (Fair enough, btw; I'm not confident writing him. I think it's totally fair criticism, I just am worried that it was enough to put her off reading the fic. :( I don't want to drive readers away!) I'm kind of hoping I'll pick up some end-of-fic reviews once I finish it, but I'm worried I won't, and that'll be a little bit depressing; I have to admit, I'm not that inspired on this one so it's not my best, but some - in fact nearly all - of hte background plot developments in this one are *pivotal* to the series. They all happen in this one. So I sorta hope that's enough that, by the end, I'll have a few more people who feel it's worth saying something. :)

I guess it couldnt' hurt if I interacted more on FF.net, which I find really difficult, because I can't sort through fanfics to find good ones. I just don't have the time. It's very easy for me to go through a ton of art on DA and leave comments, but I can't invest the time in fanfic unless I know in advance that it's worth reading. I'm sure if I read more fics and interacted with people more they'd reciprocally read mine more, or at least comment to make it look like they were reading. ;)

Oh well, the good news (depending on your perspective) is that I intend to finish this fic regardless. :D And I think TWC4 will be a fun one. I hope anyway. :)

Other weird things: All day on Formspring the number of followers has been distracting me. I don't like having it so clearly marked. It has been fluxing between 53 and 55 followers ALL DAY. It's gone up and down at least 6 times by now. Is this normal? Does anyone else have this happen and is it a bug, or do I just have a couple of people who can't make up their minds about me?

I love it when a plan comes together

2011-05-31T13:18:00.000-07:00

Okay so, every time I'm planning a fic down the road, I look at it and have no idea how the mess of ideas I have is going to actually WORK because it's just vague concepts and possibilities. Then I get panicky. Then I go on walks and I think it over and try to work it out. And usually it takes me at least ten or more walks before I get anything productive out of it, but always, always, finally, I have one of the ones that actually GETS somewhere.

And I had one today, for the rewrite of TWC4. I'm not saying it's perfectly plotted in my head now, but this one was giving me fits in terms of the plot and how Beth had to work in it and what she was going to do, and this time, it just clicked. Sigh. I LOVE that click. That click is the most amazing damned thing! All of a sudden I just had entire portions of scenes with dialogue and stuff going and I was like "Yes! It actually worked!"

The only problem is that I went on to see it through to the ending and now I want to write that scene. Not because something great happens but just because it's fresh in my head and I want to write something for the fic... well, we'll see what I have in terms of time, though it's not much. :P

Double Post

2011-05-04T20:37:00.000-07:00

Wow, I did it. I kinda didn't think I'd make it. But it's nearly midnight so #$&)$. Was it worth it, I don't know. I only got one review on the last chapter so I don't expect to get much on this one either (though what's keeping me going on this is that I want to make it at least to TWC4 since that's where things get "juicy" as it were; anyway point being reviews are gravy but I have an internal push, for now anyway, might burn out we'll see. Damn i'm tired)

Anyway, here is link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2460903/1/TWC_3_Forever_Young

I'll update AO3 tomorrow, right now too lazy/tired/screwyouguys,I'mgoinghome type stuff. BED and I mean it. (As if I won't probably waste another ten-fifteen minutes rechecking my email JUST IN CASE someone reviewed).

I'll just add that I'm at that stage of being tired/annoyed by the fact that I'm not in bed yet where everything angers me. Make a typo, and I'm like "I HATE YOU FINGERS! RAAHR! WHAT IF I THREW YOU IN THE TRASHCAN THEN WOULD YOU BE SORRY?!" ;)

I listen to the Bee Gees while I write.

2011-05-04T19:48:00.000-07:00

True confessions. I don't really like the Bee Gees but they are condusive to writing, for some reason. It's usually "How Deep Is Your Love" which actually has comparitively little falsetto - it's the falsetto that usually kills these things for me. Okay, that and the fact that all three of the Gibbs brothers are just really hard on the eyes, and yet you know they were getting more action...

Annnnnyway. Trying to finish up this chapter of TWC3 tonight. So of course I have to procrastinate and somehow I choose to procrastinate by writing about how much I wnat to finish up the chapter? Huh?

I will admit that I am frustrated by the pacing of this. I can't *quite* figure out how to end this scene (second to last in this chapter) and it's going on too long. Then I'm not fully sure where the next scene is going to go, I just know a couple of htings that will happen in it. Meanwhile it's nearly 11 pm, again, and I'm tired, and oh, RASPBERRIES. At least this evening I got to spend a little time with my hubby before cloistering myself to try to finish fanfiction. :P

There may or may not be a Bee Gees/Saturday Night Fever-inspired picture that will surface someday. I'm making no promises. It could be a thing of beauty or, perhaps, the exact opposite... time will tell.

BED

2011-05-03T20:07:00.001-07:00

I wish I went to bed earlier than 11pm most nights, instead of after it. It's just that I want to get things done! And I have no time except from about 9-11 pm!

I'm trying to finish up the first chapter of Act II of TWC3 (wow... anyway). I should have it finished by the end of the week - actually I'm hoping by tomorrow. That's pretty good considering it took me a month to get started on it! The chapter has ended up just sort of coming, since this weekend. Nice. I wish they all flowed like that. :P

I haven't mentioned this but this particular fic is about two things. One of them is obvious: Quackerjack. That's the plot. That's totally and definitely the plot.

But there is another plot that, to me, is the "real" one and I'm embarrassed to admit it but I think I probably should. But it's a spoiler so I won't say it here. I'll leave a comment. Then if you want to know, you can read the comments. *nodnod* Secret-like. Did you get the impression that we are whispering while reading this? Haha, that's what it seemed like to me.

Anyway... comments have spoilers. Avoid if you want to wait for the fic to be finished. My realistic (not optimistic but not very pessimistic either) estimate is that it'll be finished around August or September this year, if I can post two chapters per month between now and then. Since I also want to work on "Those Daring McQuacks in Their Flying Machines" i might not keep that pace, but I'll try!

Btw, should I post a preview of "Flying Machines" here? I mean, the stuff that I haven't posted yet on FF.net? Or should I just let that go?

Sheesh, well, bye-bye April

2011-04-28T18:20:00.000-07:00

Man, I didn't get a lot done fic-wise this month. :)

This evening I decided I'd try to do some writing. I have done none, and I do'nt know if I will get any done after this. :P So hard to FOCUS. I need some inspiration.

I'm sorry, I thought I had more to write about. :)

EDIT: So I did get some writing done, though nothing substantial... DURNIT. I got a small portion of the start of chapter 2 of TWC3's second act, and somewhere close to the beginning of TWC4 (the music I was listening to demanded that I work on that scene). I guess there's really only so much you can do during an hour's worth of time. But I need a kick in ze pants to get me workin' on real plot content. :P

Someone inspire me! Pweeeeeease?

Just to say...

2011-04-12T19:45:00.000-07:00

Hello, April!

I need to work on Act II of TWC3, but I've been focusing instead (when I have the time/drive to write) on my new fic, "Those Daring McQuacks In Their Flying Machines". I think I am nearly through Act I. That's nice, huh? :)

My laptop battery is about to go dead so I"ll just drop some keywords:

Air show
Spies
Love triangle
McQuacks
Explosions.

Yay!

MAN it's cold here

2011-03-31T15:06:00.000-07:00

My office is always FREEZING, especially after 5pm.

Sorry no content updates here for the past few weeks, but I have just updated "Forever Young" at Fanfiction.net and AO3! You want the links? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE LINKS! Oh okay what the heck.

AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/165643

FF.net: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2460903/1/TWC_3_Forever_Young

I just put up chapter 3, which officially closes out Act I. That's great! Except I have barely anything written for Act II. That's less great :P I like to have at least a chapter in advance written, because if I don't, I dno't have any "backup" material to post when I'm stuck. Eh well. I'll try to get two chapters done during April. :)

A quick question for anyone inclined to answer: What do you think I should focus on for now: the rewrites, or the rewrites AND new stuff? Is it worth working on new fics at the same time or should I just get the rewrites done and out there first? I'm afraid I'll lose my drive on the new stuff :(

I've asked this before but no one has really answered, so I thought I'd try again. And I'll try again in a few months, I'm sure, if no one answers this time! ;D

Love Comes Quickly

2011-03-18T19:12:00.000-07:00

First: So sorry I have not replied to any of the replies I received on my other posts. At this point they're old enough that it probably won't happen, unless I find the time to make a new post specifically to answer. :P Sorry! But moving forward I'll try to be more reactive! I appreciated the responses anyway!

Second: WILL I FIND TIME TO WORK ON FIC OR WILL I KEEP PROCRASTINATING?

Third: A beautiful (is that the right word? no) song by the Pet Shop Boys which kind of thematically works to *one* of my fics... try and guess which. :D

I love the Pet Shop Boys. I also love people who parody the Pet Shop Boys. So for that reason and having nothing at all to do with fanfic or Darkwing Duck, here is a video from Flight of the Conchords.

"Counting out coins at the 7-11 from a quarter past six to a quarter to seven. The manager, Bevan, starts to abuse me: hey man, I just want some muesli."

Music Post!

2011-03-10T12:47:00.001-08:00

I don't have much time lately since I'm usually either drawing or at work while I'm on the computer, buuuut I've been wanting to make a post with some music links.

I also need to reply to the comments I got on my last post but that'll come later. :)

Sadly this is a very limited Music Post, with only one song... Way back when I was working retail in the mall this song was on one of our store albums. I liked it and as one often does, tried to think of things to associate it to. I ended up sort of thinking that it fit for Beth, rather late in the series, as she begins to reconsider her love life. No - it's really not perfect - I'm not at a point where I'm radically changing her character.

It's just the statement "I am so different than before"; I take the song as someone contemplating if they'll fall in love again and find someone, and whether it will go well since they've changed and matured. Down the road, this applies to Beth. Ignore the visuals, I just went with the first Youtube video I found. ;D If nothing else - it's a pretty song. ^_^

Double-Post With the Most

2011-03-04T19:53:00.001-08:00

I dunno why it is but it's like, if I actually post here, a lot of times I end up DOUBLE-posting. Haha.

So who's up for some over-PG-rated talk? No? You may leave, sir!

To clarify though I'm not about to get smutty. Just some musing on the kind of fic I usually write, and the fact that I don't generally go above a PG rating... even though occasionally I am tempted. *G*

So to be honest, when it comes to sex/adult situations, my rating is kept low due to my own... squidginess with the subject matter. I have never really felt comfortable writing sexy duck stuff, or reading it, to be perfectly honest. I won't turn it down when it's a friend that has written it but I have to put myself into another mindset to do it, and I won't ever seek it out from someone I don't know. It's just not my bag (slash, het, crack pairing, whatever - it doesn't matter, I just don't go beyond PG, a little innuendo. I'll do a "fade to black" and that's about as far as I actively am interested in).

However, I'll admit that I do occasionally find that as i'm writing a scene I have to really, really struggle to keep it... well, "clean". I'm not talking about characters stripping or anything like that but just the undertones. There's a scene in TWC1, when Beth finds out that Drake and LP live in the same house, and there just was no way that I couldn't write it as if she thinks she's discovered that they're a gay couple. She's like, subtly disappointed, right? Yeah. I couldn't bring myself to *say* it but neither could I not write it. To me it was REALLY obvious she'd jump to that conclusion. :D

Likewise, in the chapter of TWC3 that I just posted this evening, LP and Beth have this super-awkward conversation about how she really wants a family but she's never even had a boyfriend; I was trying very hard as I wrote it to not make it obvious that she was really confessing to him that she was a virgin. I mean, if she's never had a boyfriend, DUH, but you know, in a cartoon universe that's not an issue. *G* But that just became the subtext of the scene, and made it about ten times more awkward. These are things that I would assume will likely be more obvious than I thought they were as I wrote them, which means ... they're probably pretty bad. ^^;

The last subject is the topic of actual sexuality, which - well, if I shy away from general innuendo, you'd have to guess that I avoid sexuality like the plague. And I do, but honestly, it's not like it never crosses my mind. One thing about Beth is that she isn't exactly physically demonstrative, but when she hugs someone, they STAY hugged if you know what I mean. You probably don't. :D She's generally never aware of how her actions or things she says come across, and especially not at first, so when Beth hugs someone she gives it her all. She like really, REALLY hugs them. Not in a crushing way but in this way where she presses her entire upper body against them and kind of nestles her head into their shoulder. Drake finds it really uncomfortable but LP finds it really intimate and it gets to him immediately.

From there I end up finding myself writing him just... thinking about touching her, wanting to be in contact with her, putting his hand on her back while he hugs her and just considering the shape of her; these are all actually very sensual and to a certain degree sexual things.

The farthest I'd ever be willing to go in terms of writing a DWD fic would be PG-13. I don't think I could ever write much more than some heavy smooching scenes and then the definite implication of the characters staying the night together... and even that... well it'll never happen in the "official" universe of my fics. (Especially 'cause I'd be selling out; I think Beth is the wait-until-marriage type for certain.)

And I have a lot of trouble writing kissing scenes and the like because I either under-describe or over-describe it; and because I'm genuinely afraid of making it too sexy, or possibly laughably too sexy. ;) Every so often I get it into my head to write one of these and I never do, but today's been one of those days where the whole idea won't stop floating around in there. So, there's the inspiration for this post. *G*

How do the people reading feel about "adult-oriented" material? I know how a couple of people following this blog feel, but offer anyone who'd like the opportunity to reply or weigh in. :)

Bonjour, Good Day, How is your family?

2011-03-04T18:22:00.000-08:00

1st: New chapter of TWC3 is up on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/165643/chapters/244215
And at FF.net: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2460903/2/

2nd: The authors notes promise a deleted scene. You might possibly even wonder about that scene before you get to the end, where the author's notes are. What happened is that I wrote the scene where Drake apologizes to Beth, and wasn't really happy with it. It wasn't bad, but I felt like the whole chapter was running long, and I needed to trim it desperately. So I tried the chapter without the scene, just alluding to it, and it worked, IMO. But the scene has been written (and y'all readers might be curious), so I'm going to post it here with my handy-dandy Deleted Scene capabilities! Don't you love Fanfic Blog Extras? ;)

With this scene, there's a bit of duplicated information that shows up at the end of what I actually posted; that's because a small handful of information was important, and so I had to add it back into the chapter another way. I didn't bother to edit it out of here. So just in case you wonder why Beth and DW are having a conversation that they sort of have later on and neither seems to remember that they already talked about it... that's why. XD

Damn, I just realized that I forgot to put the "call me Beth" conversation in the version I posted. Meh. I can fix, though. Oh well! Enjoy!

***

"Ahem. Well," he said hesitantly.

After a moment, she said roughly, "Well..."

"So, uh... I think there may have been a slight misunderstanding just now, Ms. Webfoot," he began carefully. She shifted in a way that he couldn't read. He cleared his throat and said, "I, ah, I had it pointed out to me that you - *ahem* - overheard me say something that was just *ripe* for misinterpretation. And that you may have thought, mistakenly of *course*, that I was talking about *you* just now."

Beth lifted her head in a sort of sideways move, and he saw her eyes blink up towards his. "Re-really..?"

She looked miserable, to the point where he was embarrassed *for* her; it was like she wasn’t able to hide it, and it really wasn’t flattering. And for a moment, he had an awful, gut feeling that anyone who was acting out a deliberate plan wouldn’t be able to pull off so perfect a picture of misery. For just a moment, he was sure that she wasn't a supervillain, she wasn't a criminal mastermind, she was just a regular person. A generally somewhat annoying person, sure, but still a regular one. And he was a jerk.

Drake swallowed. No, that couldn’t be right. There was too much evidence to the contrary, too many coincidences to be real. He shook himself out of it, reminded himself why he was doing this, and then lied as hard as he could. "Oh yes. See, I had a conversation with a coworker this afternoon, and well, I'll spare you the details, but I was just telling Launchpad about it and it would seem that you walked in on the end of it. And from the look of things you jumped to conclusions here..."

She lifted her head slightly. "I... I did?"

He chuckled. "Yep, yep, looks like it." In lieu of anything else to say, he added, "I guess there's a lesson here about walking in on conversations-"

"Mr. Mallard?" She cut him off, and the look she was giving him was both hopeful and desperate. Speaking quickly and stiltedly, she said, "Do - I mean - do you want me - to leave?"

He hesitated. "P-pardon?"

"Just... just tell me." She sighed and put a hand up towards her forehead, shielding herself from him. "Just tell me right now, please, and... and that'll be that."

Oh, now this was too much. This catapulted him right back into his certainty that she was more than she said she was; no one could possibly do this without intending to twist the knife. He almost read her the riot act then and there, but then remembered that Launchpad would probably come to her rescue and tie him up, or something. Without the first idea of what to say or how this should go, he took a breath and lied again. "Nooooo, no no… Whatever could make you think *that*?"

There was a pause - he still couldn't see her face - and she said in a wobbly voice, "S-so you don't want me to leave?"

*Well-played, Beth Webfoot,* he thought. She was crafty. “Who, me? *Perish* the thought,” he said through gritted teeth.

With a slight sniffle she said, "Oh... Okay..." They paused and neither of them looked at each other, and then she said more loudly, "Boy, I sure feel silly over all this. Gosh. I'm - I'm really sorry."

"Oh, no, no no. Think nothing of it." Inwardly Drake was cringing, and wondering if he was really doing the right thing. Well, he was stuck with her now, so he’d *have* to be the one to take down her criminal empire – or whatever it was she was leading up to. "I mean, things... happen. No matter how much we might wish otherwise, am I right?"

"Sure," she said, and nodded. "Oh, Mr. Mallard ... I'm really sorry, also, about - about butting into your conversation."

Unexpectedly, he felt another flash of guilt when she said that, and he squirmed a little under her gaze. "Look, Ms. Webfoot-"

"Call me Beth!" she said instantly; it almost made him think she'd been waiting all this time for a chance to say that. "Um, please."

He winced. "Okay... Beth. Look, let's not even think about it again, huh?" She nodded, looking a little peppier than she had, and he was reminded of a puppy. "Okay, great, so we're settled. Look, I've got to get ready to go, so - so I'll just see you next time, right? We're paid up for the week?"

"Oh yes!" she said, nodding, and then looked thoughtful for a moment. He tried to escape before she spoke again, but she caught him halfway out the door. "Oh! Oh Mr. Mallard!"

He wondered if he could get away with not returning the first-name favour. With a sigh, he decided he probably couldn't. "Drake," he said wearily, turning back to face her. Her entire face brightened.

"I totally forgot what it was I was coming in to say to you! See, Gosalyn had asked me if she could have a friend over tonight and I wasn't sure what you'd think about that so I said I would ask you, I mean, it's pretty much okay with *me* but I don't know YOUR policy on the matter so I figured it was better to ask and be sure so that you didn't-"

"Okay okay, I get it. Are we talking about Honker?"

She looked a little blank, but said, "Is he the next-door neighbour?"

"Yep."

"Then yes, that must be right. Is that okay with you?"

"Sure, sure. Honker comes over all the time. Just make sure Gos doesn't force him to do her homework and there won't be any problems." He started out through the door again, and again she stopped him.

"Dr-Drake? One more thing. Um... is Honker... is he very much like - well, what I mean is-"

He knew what she was trying to ask, as she searched for a tactful way of asking without possibly insulting his daughter. "He's nothing like Gos. He's quiet and studious - you'll like him."

"Oh." She smiled, appearing to relax, and gave him a little wave. He returned it half-heartedly, and did his best to make sure she didn't see him roll his eyes on the way out. The last thing he needed now was to go through the whole darn thing over again.

***

The door to the kitchen opened slowly, almost carefully, and then Drake stepped out. Launchpad watched him, and when he didn’t say anything, Launchpad prompted him a little. “So..?”

Drake turned a look on him that Launchpad couldn’t exactly identify. It was sort of accusatory and annoyed, but also underneath it seemed like it was kind of fumbling and remorseful. It was definitely a glare, though, and Launchpad felt more sheepish every second it was turned on him. After a moment, Drake said, “So I apologized.”

...etc...

Character Post: Launchpad, Take 2

2011-03-03T14:32:00.000-08:00

I'm busy workin' away on chapter 2 of TWC3 and there's been a lot of introspection on Launchpad's part. (I'd go into why but it's all spoilery and since this fic is coming out in the NEAR future, instead of the DISTANT kind, I figured I'd just let folks wait; I will say though that, y'know, I'm going somewhere with him in this fic.) Anyway, that got me thinking again about how I write him and how that's evolved. I actually have started writing him a bit differently since I wrote my last characterization post - back in 2007 now, I think that was. (GOD that's just sick and wrong. I'M OLD.)

Digression: I am seriously freezing right now and I have no idea why. Stupid office! Okay, digression over, now to the meat of the post.

In my last post I mentioned how I thought I was weakest at writing Launchpad, out of the three main characters of the show. I guess that might've changed by now; I've been putting a real effort into developing his character, some of which shows up in the rewrites and some of which in the "New" fics. (We won't talk about the stuff in between.) But the character is not a precise reflection of who he is in the show. It's not a huge departure either, it's just that - in my opinion - Launchpad on the show is not prone to introspection.

Well, ya can't write that way in fanfic, kids! Or well I guess you can, 'cause I used to, but it's not easy to read. :P

I've been trying to find a "blend" on LP... someone who is familiar and appealing to fans of the show, who doesn't seem blatantly smarter/angrier/darker/cooler/whatever than he was, but who is still deeper than DWD series often portrayed him and who is a bit more prone to action than "just the sidekick".

The action part is something i want to do within the realms of the series, actually. LP was often just in the background but not always; he had his moments. I want to do that, have him be supporting action without overtaking Darkwing, but have them more frequently.

The added depth is something I'm maybe trying to explain a little in this way: in my take on the series, Launchpad has kind of been in a bit of a holding pattern for a while without realizing it. He's been happy doing what he's doing, ie, sidekicking and helping out with Gos, etc. It's been fun, he hasn't thought much about anything else, and he's now starting to think about things and realize that he's been neglecting his own life a bit. Hence, the introspection; I thought maybe it could play as just something he was avoiding for a while.

In terms of characterization - the "blend" - I dont' want him to be more serious. I love goofy LP! I like to write him as a generally easy-to-please guy who doesn't overthink anything, often thinks about his stomach first, and likes to see people happy. He's prone to saying things that are slightly off-the-wall, and can be easily confused or overwhelmed at times. I hope it comes across as LAUNCHPAD, just maybe in a little more detail than a half-hour cartoon series, and not as me trying to beef up my fave character and make him the way *I* think he should be. Well, everyone does that, I guess (though LP's not actually my favourite character, but he used to be); like I siad though, I hope he's familiar to fans of the show and I certainly hope he's appealing. ^_^

Don't you just love it when you make a typo in your subject line?

2011-03-01T19:38:00.000-08:00

Seriously. I just noticed a major one in that last entry. ("Throw up your ahnds" I think it was.)

I blame MS Word's autocorrect features, especially the ones in Outlook. They're making me lazy as hell about my typing. :P Me - and AMERICA IN GENERAL!

So, not a lot to mention; I have been getting some lovely gift art lately ^_^ I am embarking on a quest to do more gift art myself for the month of March, and this is probably going to inevitably slow down my efforts at regular updates to my fics (I technically am working on two at the moment). I'd like to get at least one chapter done on each per month, but with the art thingie, that might not happen.

The good part is that I have a lot already written and it just needs betaing, so there will be SOME updates this month. :)

So, also got some very nice reviews on the first chapter of TWC3, thank you so much guys! :D I'm going to go back to an idea I had with TWC1, and start putting "deleted" scenes up here. I didn't have any for TWC2, since that one was shorter, but I need to do some trimming on 3. I am longwinded. :P I don't really think that's a major flaw, but I do like to keep my chapters down to 4,000 words or less - especially if they're not action-heavy. If it's just a bunch of character exposition I want them shorter. 4,000 words is actually a buttload of lot, but it's my ceiling. I hope anyway. :)

Well, this is a long entry considering I have very little or nothing to say! See you guys later, maybe later this week I hope!

I swear it's Springfield's only choice! Throw up your ahnds and raise your voice!

2011-02-24T14:29:00.001-08:00

Hiiii everyone!

In case you don't watch me on deviantART, I have put up the first chapter of "Forever Young" (third in TWC rewrites). http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2460903/1/TWC_3_Forever_Young

Please review! If you've never reviewed before this is where to start, and perhaps even end! This chapter has a scene I'm all shaky about and need some love. :)

Um, yes, I did indeed put most of this up here already if you go back far enough in the archives. So you might've read it. But it's OFFICIALLY DONE NOW! :D

Darn you, fanfiction!

2011-02-22T19:53:00.000-08:00

Why do you not write yourself?!

I swear, once I finally perfect that invention that attaches itself to my head and sucks all my fully-formed fic ideas out and then spits them onto paper, I will be just fine.

The echoes in my head

2011-02-15T11:20:00.000-08:00

So yesterday I put up a pic at deviantART that I wasn't really entirely happy with and by the end of the day I was so dissatisfied with it and the response it got that I took it down. ^_^;; I guess I just should not have put it up if I was going to do that (although honestly, if I didn't mention it here, no one would've noticed).

I've been really getting ticked off with my drawing lately... I have never really liked the overtly sketchy style of it, but it is very hard for me to properly outline and because of that I pretty much never ink anything (the width of the lines gets ruined when I ink anyway- it makes everything messier).

I'm also frustrated with my inability to properly colour anything. But for some reason I never do much in the way of shading, either. SO everything I put up is just big white space, all empty. At least, it looks that way to me... everything is unfinished, waiting to be coloured, but I almost never go back and finish it.

But you know, the thing that's bothering me the most is just that I can't seem to *draw*. I mean, just... things never look the way I want them to in my head, for one. There's that. Then also I can't draw Beth. Which is weird, I know. My problem is that I can't think of anything for her to do, ever. It's like in my head she only has three expressions and does one or two things ALL THE TIME. She's just... a boring character, it seems like.

I think some of this is telling me that I need to work on other characters. I dno't *have* that many but I should probably branch out a little and draw them. But it's so obnoxious in a way. I think I draw more for other peoples' OCs than I do for mine and the result is that I'm drawing all the time but not showing any improvement at all for Beth. But she's so resistant to my drawing her that I WANT to work on other people's stuff (no one is twisting my arm on that, so believe me, it's not what I'm whining about!).

I also know when I need to get over something and move on, but well... we all have our moments and I'm gonna vent about it here today, then hopefully feel better later. :) I feel a lot better about the picture I put up today, anyway, so at least that's somethin'!

Rules for Drawing Beth Webfoot

2011-02-09T14:05:00.001-08:00

"Actually, it's more of a guideline than a rule..." --Dr. Peter Venkman

This would probably be more appropriate for my DA account journal, but honestly, I don't want to overspam there. So it goes here instead, and then eventually, I'll put it up over there. :)

These are, I guess, "Guidelines" for a few reasons - first of all, I love seeing people draw different characters in their own styles and I hate to say "do it this way and ONLY THIS WAY". If Beth looks a certain way in your head then I encourage you to draw her that way! However, if you're looking for guidance, here we go. :)

Another reason these aren't rules is becuase half the time *I* don't/can't follow them. :P

But I needed to set some things in stone, because certain things I have just never specified even though I do actually do them on purpose instead of just by mistake. ;P

So, with that in mind... Onward!

1) General features, ie, a colour guide: Beth has brown hair and blue eyes. (I didn't choose those colours because the combination was unusual, btw, she just struck me more as a blue-eyed gal; digression) Specifically, her eyes are a *light* blue, not crazy vibrant light but not deep or dark or "midnight" or anything either. Not like Elijah Wood, but still noticably light. Her hair is not light or dark brown, not strawberry blonde or anything, it's just your average brown. I apparently decided on a whim recently that it has red highlights but I think that's only when she's standing just the right way in the setting sun - general light and sunlight don't make her hair look anything but brown. Her feathers are that cream colour, lighter than Gosalyn's, but not white.

I don't mind if you gave her white feathers, y'all. Half the gift art I've ever received of her has her with white feathers. In fact, before I started drawing when all the art I had of her was by Lar deSouza, his first pic gave her cream feathers so I did that when I started aping his design of her. Then he came back and gave her white feathers. Then he went back and forth. XD So, bottom line - I give her cream, if you want to do what I do give her cream, but honestly... pffft. This is one area where I don't give a rat's behind. ^_^

2) Hairstyle: She wears her hair in a ponytail about 80% of the time. She usually only wears it down for special events, I think. Mostly this is for simplicity's sake. It keeps her hair out of her face, etc.

If you draw her with her hair down, more power to you. :) Again, this is not a hard and fast rule, it's more just how I visualize her.

Her hair is in a low ponytail, tied back at the nape of her neck.

High ponytails look incredibly cute on her though. *shrug* Again, this is something that I get about 50-50 of over the years. I honestly think it's a lot harder to draw a low ponytail so I can totally understand why people like to do the high one.

She has bangs, they're just the tiniest bit long, not enough to be messy but enough to cover her forehead and start to drape towards her eyes. She doesn't part her bangs but lets them fall towards her eyes. Think of it as kind of a shield that lets her avoid eye contact without being obvious that she's doing so.

3) Height and body type: Beth is quite skinny. In the early fics I intend her to be underweight; she eats very badly (like, not much) and is tall for her weight. She's not anorexic by any means, she's just skinny. I do think that once she befriends the Mallards and LP, she starts putting on weight a litlte because she's happier, and she fills out some. She remains tall and thin, though.

Officially her height is supposed to be right smack in between DW and Launchpad - I'm not officially sure what the "head count" is so I can't specify it. I'd like to say a head taller than DW and a half-head shorter than LP, but that's an estimate since I know Darkwing is about 3 1/2 heads tall(?) but I don't know for LP. Therefore, I don't know for Beth, but I usually aim for around 5 heads tall.

This is where I fall into "I am totally lying" city. I have never managed to give her a consistent height, due in part to my general habit of making everyone too tall (I've managed to get Darkwing's proportions right ONCE, everybody, JUST ONCE) and also due to just a general inconsistency. But, the above is what I would like to be true, and if you draw and figure things out by this manner, then there you go. :)Another point I'd like to make: technically, if Beth is underweight, she should look it and be a lot more bony and unattractive about it. I'm not able to go there. I don't want to make her utterly unappealing, so I'll never actually manage to draw her looking underweight. :P The biggest rule to follow is that she is beanpole lean, has more on the hips than she does in the bust, and has a long body. She's got a long torso but long legs, too, so there's not a disporportion effect. She's definitely a small bust size but I suppose one could say she fills out a little in that area when she starts putting on more weight. ;)
4) Physical characteristics: She dislikes wearing clothing that shows much of her skin/feathers, so she almost always wears either long sleeves or 3/4 sleeves (you know, like - to the elbows). This is also why she wears turtlenecks. She owns a lot of loose-fitting shirts but not all of them are, some are more form-fitting. But she never wears anything that shows much of her neck, shoulders, or arms, not because there's anything wrong with them, just becuase she is self-conscious. By the same token she pretty much always wears jeans, not often shorts or even skirts; if she did wear a skirt it would be a long one.

She doesn't always wear shoes, but that's not a hard-and-fast rule (it depends more on whether I feel like I can manage duck feet when I draw her *lol*). She has thin hands and long fingers. Despite her poor eyesight and thick glasses, rather than having squinty eyes like Honker she actually has large, wide eyes which tend to make her look either surprised or worried. When drawing her eyes I usually make the lids go up from the outsides (rather than up from the insides, which is the more femme-fatale kind of look). I also give her eyelashes towards the insides, depending on the angle, since this gives her eyes a more innocent look.

She has a DWD-style bill (rather than a DuckTales one like Launchpad). Her glasses are blue, if you feel like colouring them in.

That's about all I can think of. If there's anything you were curious about that I didn't touch on here, ask away, and I'll add it!

When you can't wake up in the morning, 'cause your bed lies vacant at night

2011-02-08T18:48:00.000-08:00

So, everyone who actively follows me here is on DeviantART, but there might be some pop-ins from time to time... I dunno... just in case, I'm posting this here too. :)

Basically, there's a "10 Things About Your OC" meme that floats around and resurfaces from time to time. I did one for Beth back in October, and then everyone else did cooler ones for their OCs and I felt inadequate, so I've finally gone back and done a second one. *G* I think the only reason I felt inadequate was because I couldn't think of many things that hadn't already been mentioned in fics (mostly in All About Elizabeth, which is full to the brim of Beth's little quirks and secrets) so I felt like a lot of what I DID include was either too short to be interesting, or else just plain uninteresting.

Either way, I didn't post the original here so I'm gonna rectify that, and throw in my "Round 2" for good measure. This one is, I think, a little more engaging.

The first ten:

1. Despite constantly repeating that since her middle name, Marilynn, has two "n"s and therefore she isn't named after Marilyn Monroe, she actually is. Her parents are both film buffs and named all their children after classic movie stars; Beth is named for Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe.

2. Her birthday is in July. The date has never been specified, but it's sometime in the second half of the month.

3. She thinks math humor is hilarious.

4. She comes from a science and math background but is not at all mechanically-inclined; she gets the equation and formula parts but not the engineering stuff at all. She could probably kick some butt doing chemically-related stuff for Darkwing but he's more gadget-oriented and she is NOT.

5. She has a long, long list of things she's afraid of, many of which are animals/creepy-crawlies (spiders, bugs, monkeys, etc) and the rest of which are experiences. As a friend of mine put it, she's "afraid of everything" and hates to take risks.

6. She will forgive anyone anything if she gets a good enough explanation, no matter how many times a person has done the same thing to her over and over. There is no "last chance" with Beth.

7. She is a decent singer, a bad actress (and a pretty awful liar), and a godawful dancer.

8. She used to wear her hair short as a little girl, but grew it out after she noticed how much her mother enjoyed styling her older sister's hair.

9. She has contacts but dislikes using them, partly because of the way they feel but mostly because she uses her glasses as a kind of safety device to hide behind.

10. She got really into the idea of actually inventing time travel for a little while in the 80s.

Next ten:

11. She will read anything she can get her hands on. She doesn't really have a favourite genre, though in terms of fiction she prefers classical literature if she can get it; she doesn't like standard "Supermarket Checkout" novels but she'll read them if nothing else is around. The only things she won't read are horror, like Stephen King, Dean R. Koontz, Peter Straub, etc.

12. She actually doesn't get a lot of pop culture references, especially from the 70s/early 80s (when she was younger), because her parents didn't let her watch much television. She has since caught up on a few things, but she's still kind of ignorant of a lot of it, so sometimes references will go over her head.

13. One of the things she got into as a kid was Monty Python, although she was unaware of how ribald they sometimes got since she'd only heard their albums and not seen their TV shows. Once she did and she saw some of the racier material, she was a little put off.

14. Related to #13, she's kind of a prude. XD

15. She has really messy handwriting. This has been sort of hinted at in my fics but I've never stated it outright. Especially when she does something in a hurry, you can hardly read it. Drake finds this exasperating since it can slow him down; Launchpad likes to tease her about it.

16. She will never, never, ever be a superhero (or villain for that matter) because she doesn't like being involved in the action. On the rare occasions she has been involved, she's really not enjoyed it. However she will do whatever Darkwing or Launchpad ask her to do, so if one of them asks for her help, she'll provide it.

17. Her relationship with Drake actually gets very complicated since it's almost completely unstated. He does end up liking her, but still gets exasperated with her. However as time goes on he's increasingly fond of her and in the end sort of comes to see her as a sister. A truly exasperating sister he just wants to shake sometimes, but then again, most siblings seem to inspire that kind of thing. *G* But as is said, he never tells Beth he feels this way, so there's always a wall of misunderstanding between them.

18. She was almost entirely unaware of the Supervillains in St. Canard before she met Drake and Launchpad. She wasn't really much aware of Darkwing, either. (Oddly enough she knows all about Gizmoduck.) She knew of Bushroot, the Liquidator, and Negaduck but that was all. Mostly this is because she still doesn't watch much TV and when she reads the news she flips around to what interests her. She was interested in Bushroot's story because she almost joined the botany/biology department at St. Canard U. Liquidator couldn't be avoided after he turned all the water hard, and Negaduck... well, everyone knows Negaduck. She did NOT know much about the Fearsome Five because she was out of the city when they took over, and when she came back she only picked up the basics.

19. The OC she'd get along best with in Darkwing fandom is Ariana McCawber (DisneyPsycho's character). They did meet and hit it off but because of spoilers they don't hang out now.

20. Beth finds it very hard to believe in anything she can't see and explain. I haven't ever thought of religion for her but I suppose if I did, she might be an atheist or most likely an agnostic. As it is she can't believe in magic, ghosts, or unexplainable phenomena and she has a very hard time when confronted with these things.

PS: I've been wanting to do a "Tips for Drawing Beth" post for a while now (which is kind of a joke b/c *I* don't even draw her consistently, lol) so I might do.

Real quick then

2011-01-26T19:15:00.000-08:00

I finished "Sea of Green". :D

Blurg, links...

at Fanfiction.net

at Archive Of Our Own

Please send cookies! ^_^

I have some of TWC3, "Forever Young", finished. I'll work on it a tiny bit while I'm on vacation and see how soon I can post it when I get back. 'Til then, hope you like! :)

And it's you I need to show

2011-01-25T17:43:00.000-08:00

So, for lack of a better topic to post about tonight, I thought I would copy DeathByMarshmallows and do a music/soundtrack post.

First though I'll pimp out DBM's blog, right here, 'cause I follow it and she updates fairly often and she's cool, yo. ;D

Moving on - so what I do is, I keep a "Soundtrack" playlist in iTunes and I don't have it organized thematically or anything. Matter of fact it doesn't even contain all my soundtrack songs, but it's got a fair share... all the ones I actually own, anyway. Then there are the ones that have just popped up over the years when I've heard them on the radio, or whatever. Naturally, I don't have iTunes on the computer I'm currently on, so I don't have that playlist. But here's a selection that doesn't cover everything but gives an idea!

Fic-specific - these are nearly all later fics; unfortunately I don't have song inspiration for the earlier ones. :P
- TWC4:
"Strange Magic" by ELO, which is not a Morgana/Drake song as you might think but instead is a scene inspiration for part of this fic, hopefully to be rewritten in 2011. The scene in question doesn't exist in the original version.

- High, Dry, and Flooded:
"That Kind of Love" by Alison Krauss - this is one of my (many) songs for Beth that is perhaps not as tragic/sad/one-sided as I make it sound, but the song still carries that tone for me, so this one plugs in nicely to the scene I want it to go with.
"Love Stinks" by the J. Geils Band is a sort of thematic relation to much of the series, but it's directly referenced in this one so it goes here.

- All About Elizabeth:
This one has more than nearly any other, so naturally I have trouble remembering them all. A lot are from the 80s, since a lot of the fic takes place in flashbacks.
The main one that comes to mind is "Hey Mickey", for a crush that Beth has on a football player. ;D
A non-80s one that I associate with this fic also is "Last Dance with Mary Jane" by Tom Petty, just for this line: "Tired of screwin' up/Tired of goin' down/Tired of myself/Tired of this town". Yes, I am not kind to Beth in most of my song choices. ^_^;;
Towards the end, "I Believe" by Chris Isaak is a great, great song. Peppy, upbeat, and totally cynical about love. This is Beth putting her life back together.

- The House on Avian Way:
The entire soundtrack of "Beetlejuice" is the soundtrack of this fic. I can't go into it more than that. Well, I could - I actually have tracks that match up to specific scenes - but there's no point if you don't have the soundtrack sitting in front of you. *G*

- Untitled Christmas fic:
I have a ton of Christmas songs on my playlist for a fic I'm intending to write (started it in 2007. Maybe this year.:P) This includes "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm" by Dean Martin, "Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas" by The Eels, and more than anything, "Last Christmas" by Wham. That song, to me, is just a Beth song anyway. But I need to stop giving this girl sad heartbroken songs!

I have a Beth/LP playlist of sorts, and a few Beth songs in general, but I think I'll save them for another post. I know there are very few songs here but I kind of talked so much about them, I took up enough space! *G* Now I'm just going to listen to "I Believe" because I forgot how awesome that guitar is. Chris Isaak is so badass rockabilly. I love him so much. :D

I believe in lovers walking side by side
I believe that someday I'll be satisfied
I believe the angels listen and God hears us pray
And I believe in a beautiful day
Yeah, I believe it's gonna work out okay
But not for me...
And not for you.

I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe...

WOOT!

2011-01-24T19:12:00.000-08:00

Wow. So I'm a few more sentences away from being finished with TWC2. *sigh*

I'm going to edit it over the next couple of days and going to try to have the very earliest beginnings of TWC3 ready to post before I put up the final chapter, so that anyone who is curious about the next fic won't read the start of the old version and go "Huh? Why does this not match up at all?"

Looks like it won't make *quite* 6,000 words, but it's over 5,000 and as I said I have a few more sentences to go.

Well, no spoilers in this entry!

Meanwhile, I'm in the process of starting to put my fics up at An Archive of Our Own, because the ads at fanfic.net are killing me. Seriously, I keep having to force a shut down of my browser because these ads trying to get me to download a virus/spyware are all over.

Ew, speaking of which, i'd better run my spyware cleaner just to be safe. :( If I find anything I'm going to need to go change all my passwords. :P

Now here's what's really frustrating. I had an idea of something to post about here this evening, and now I don't knwo what it was, at all. RRGH. I hate that. I will say that I replied to the comment that was left in my last post, so that's there as a second comment...

Oh yeah, well, one other thing I was wondering about, though I don't think I'm going to get my answer here since this isn't really a discussionable forum. But I'll put it here for now anyway. *G* I am hoping, with TWC2 out of the way, to keep my momentum going and spend the next 6 or so months working on two fics at the same time (as i've mentioned before), one a rewrite of TWC3 and the other a new fic in teh continuity. But I'm starting to wonder if it would be worth my time to work on new stuff right now, or if I should focus on just getting the rewrites done first. I know my motto is to work on whatever I'm inspired on, but right now I feel like I could push myself to do either one (or try for both); the last time I tried to do a rewrite and a current fic at the same time I got writer's block for, quite literally, a year. To be fair I think the fact that I was pregnant for most of that time period had something to do with it, but still. I worry. ;)

If I'm going to only focus on one, I should focus on the rewrite, right? That'll benefit more people. I just wonder how much of an audience I have for new fics right now, which is too bad, b/c things are about to start happening in those new fics. Oh well... someone will get there eventually. ;)

I is getting a commission done

2011-01-23T18:36:00.000-08:00

I was going to write "I can has commission" and then I thought, man, that is so played. So 2008. Right?

Anyway! I'm splurging for myself because I'm having a crappy time of things and are from my stories makes me happy. So I'm commissioning a couple of scenes illustrated from my fics, by Canti550, and it's gonna be awesome.

The only problem is that I don't actually know what scenes I want done. *headdesk*

I have mostly figured out what fic I want them from, at least one of them anyway; but... I thought I had picked one out yesterday, then I went to find the chapter it was in and decided it wasn't the right one. So I decided on a different one from the same fic and all was well until today when I read over it and thought Oh, no. Too heavy. ARGH. So I'm going back to the first one and thinking maybe that is the better idea, only I'm not sure how it would be distilled.

Well I guess I can leave that up to the artist; I don't have to plan this stuff out for her, do I? ;)

For the record, the fic is "High, Dry, and Flooded" if you're among those who have read it. I guess I'll go with my original pick for the first one and then figure out my second. Does anyone have any suggestions for something they'd like to see Canti550 illustrate? I'm a little overwhelmed seeing as how I have about 15 fics in this stupid series. :P I know it's totally up to me, but I'll be happy to consider suggestions! Also since I'm looking for a Beth/LP scene for my first one, the second one doesn't need to be themed that way, so anything would be good...

This is all far from over

2011-01-21T14:10:00.000-08:00

So in about a week I am going on vacation! Woohoo for me!

Meanwhile I thought i would try to make at least one little update here in the meantime, just to keep my readership (hey both of you) entertained. ;)

Today I think I'll just do what I did in my last entry, and go through what things I've changed in this rewritten version of TWC2, now that I'm nearly finished (and hoping to post the final chapter within the next week! :D)

The original version of this fic was, I will be honest, a Mary Sue Festathon. Arama. I suppose it had some things going for it - it was pretty nice to Bushroot, and such - but bah. I don't know. The thing behind it was that I loved Bushroot (and I still do) and I just wanted to give him a chance to not be a total villain, and maybe get a little love in return. So that was the intent....

The result was a bit of an off-characterization for everyone, which in turn was a bit of a theme for the early batch of fics in the series. In this case, Bushroot was just too much of a good guy. He basically does all the same things in the current fic as he did in the original, so action-wise and motivation-wise I guess I was OK, but I think some of the overdoing it came via Beth's response to him.

See, Beth was a little scared at *first* in that version, but she quickly overcame it once she saw into Bushroot's soul in a way no one ever had before and understood that he was a good, good man. :P

Okay, that's a little... harsh, I guess. But it does end up being like that. They see each other as sort of kindred spirits, and although the same twist comes at the end, Beth doesn't let it totally ruin her appreciation of Reggie... who, meanwhile, has a raging crush on her, and she's not entirely sure HOW she feels about him.

So it didn't take too long for me to really wish that I hadn't set up this semi-romance between them, when I've already got Launchpad crushing on her for no reason, and so on... it was just too neat and perfect. I honestly *meant* it to be a one-fic thing and just be b/c Bushroot responded to positive attention and would latch on to ANYONE who was nice to him. But, it went too far, IMO.

There were other Mary Sue elements - I'll go into them in my more specific changes. But the Beth/Reggie relationship was the one that bugged me the most. I ended up altering it slightly so that there's still a sort of subtext to their interactions, but it's one-sided, and it's totally unacted on. I hope that it does come across more as I meant it in the first place, motivated by his loneliness and just being glad that someone, anyone, is talking to him. And there's also a good likelihood that it's because she keeps reminding him of Rhoda, which is a wholly superficial thing based more on wishful thinking (I even have him looking closely at her and thinking how they don't look very much alike; Rhoda is a hottie and Beth is just not. Cute and pretty but not the "hot numero" that Rhoda was. ^_~).

As for specifics, I just kept the same basic outline but changed a lot of things so that they made more sense to me:

- Beth would need permission to actually show up to babysit that evening, so I added a scene where she talks to Launchpad.

- Beth and Gosalyn's interactions needed some major TLC. Actually it took me a long while to figure out how they'd react to one another. I sort of felt like Gos wouldn't have that much of an opinion on Beth, wouldn't actually dislike her - she's a good kid and I think Beth is too mild to actually get her to rebel, so she'd feel kind of guilty disliking her. She doesn't feel guilty disobeying her, though, because Beth makes it so easy. More than anything I needed to find a reason why Gos would want Beth to stay around when I had set it up that Drake VEHEMENTLY did not want her there. I'm sort of still struggling as to why Drake would let her, but having Gos be thrilled that a grownup was basically doing her homework for her (even with Beth's halfhearted attempt at rules) was my best shot for this fic.

- Since I had added a subthread where Drake did not trust Beth, I had to stick in things where he was constantly checking on her.

- The method of Beth's escape was one of the biggies. She just *happened* to be good with plants (still a bit of a Sue-ish touch for this fic, but I have turned it into a firmly-established character trait at this point so I'm not nervous about it anymore), and in the original, she somehow managed to just... charm the plants. I guess that made sense to me when I wrote it, but why the heck would that work? Who can talk to plants unless they have a telepathic link with 'em? That didn't occur to me until some time later. So instead Beth makes a daring escape off the roof, yays. Not... perfect, but a lot more active and less fortuitous and convenient.

- A big change is that she's utterly terrified of Bushroot and they don't hit it off right away... and, as much as she does start to relax around him, she's never perfectly at ease. Just as she starts to get used to him, he goes and gets all supervillainy on her, which is pretty much a guarantee that - sadly - they'll never really be *friends*. But I felt it was important to note that Bushroot really is a villain, even if he's not evil or a bad guy. He's totally self-motivated and not 100% rational. I went into this in my other entry on the subject so I won't cover it here, but I thought it was naive and missing a big part of his character - and of Beth's - if I had Beth just be his BFF.

- The original also had Bushroot decide not to change Beth, whereas here I changed it to leave it up in the air. I think he would've been talked out of it if DW hadn't shown up exactly when he did, but I wanted to let it go either way. Who knows? Oh yes, and part of why he decided to let her go was because the *plants* didn't want him to hurt her. WTF. 9_9

- Since I haven't posted the finale yet, I can't go into a whole lot more detail, but I can say without spoilers that Beth initially got really mouthy with Darkwing. This was when I was going to have her change a bit more by the end of the first five-story arc - just get more outgoing and outspoken, so the idea was that she was more firey under the surface. I've since discovered that this is not who Beth is, and besides, the whole "ironically she loves him as Drake but not as DW!" is kind of a tired idea.

So the end result ... well, this fic is what it is. I still don't love it, to be honest. I just don't feel like it's my most inspired idea, although there are parts of it I really like. But I feel like some of it is reaching, and some of it doesn't go far enough; in all, I'll be very glad when it's done, because I'm mostly satisfied with this rewrite and I hope it'll stand up better than the original did. But I want to move on to other stuff now. :)

I'm about to get very cross

2011-01-18T18:44:00.001-08:00

Self? this is not the way to get the final chapter of TWC2 finished, self.

Browsing deviantART and Youtube is NOT going to get any writing done. Self? SELF! Stop going on Facebook! What is WRONG with you!?

Now. Sit down and write.

What do you mean, blogging about distractions on the Internet is the same thing as those distractions? No no, this is different, because *I'm* the one doing it.

Wait a minute...

...Well damn.

PS this final chapter is probably going to top out 6,000 words or over, but that's okay, you know why? Because it's the only chapter in this fic to do that, whereas about half of the ones in TWC1 were that length. :P

Keeping it Real!

2011-01-14T18:54:00.000-08:00

Thought this might be fun: in this blog entry I'm going to spell out the biggest differences between my Original Version of TWC1, "My Kingdom for a Double-Plait Bolt", and the rewrite.

The biggest difference is that the new fic is about three times as long. BUUUUUUT to get more specific:

- Okay, number one difference is the interpersonal dynamics. In the first version of the fic, Launchpad and Darkwing walked into Bindler's Hardware, Beth laid eyes on Drake and fell in love with him, and Launchpad laid eyes on Beth and fell for her. Why? I... I don't know. I wanted him to, I guess. I made a stab at explaining why Beth would fall for a guy who treated her like garbage from the start a little later, but it was never really satisfactory; I never really did fully explain what would've drawn Launchpad to Beth, whom he'd never met and who was not especially beautiful or all that interesting. She was just nice, and cute. So I wanted to give a little more depth to their relationship, therefore I set up the fact that they were kinda-sorta friends, or friendly anyway, and that LP likes flirting with her.

- Everything, and I mean everything, was just rushed. The whole thing was like an outline; stuff just happened, and then more stuff happened, and it was like I had five things I wanted to occur in this fic so that was what i wrote. I didn't make a lot of effort in the getting there. So Beth is just sort of plunked into the story; Megavolt just shows up at random; Drake just takes an instant dislike to Beth, etc etc.

- Megavolt had no real plot. I mean he was building something, that was it. I didn't ever really figure out what that thing was or what it would do, although I tried to pretend like I did. I believe (and this goes with the previous point) that at that stage I was able to write a fic in about 2-4 weeks so I guess that goes along with it.

I suppose that pretty much covers it for this one (I'm not thinking that clearly on it at the moment); for the most part I didn't change huge plot points in this, I just expanded on it and rewrote the character interactions, but it largely keeps the same structure, with a number of extra scenes. Stay tuned, though, as I will ultimately post about the differences between TWC2 OV and rewrite; that's a fun one. :)

Oh, and click the TWC1 tag if you are interested in reading any of the chapter notes for that story. The majority are spoiler-free. I haven't done any yet for TWC2 - I'm going to start them when the fic is done just in case I end up editing some of it. Doubtful but you never know...

Later!

I love it when this happens

2011-01-14T12:47:00.000-08:00

So I went out on a walk today during my afternoon break and I love nature. Even when it's freaking freezing outside if I have the time to clear my head I can make progress on my fics that surprises me.

I'm working on structuring the rewrite of TWC3, and there are a number of things that happen in the course of this fic which... well, I need a new way to get there. (I'll go into these after I start posting the fic, I guess.) I hadn't been stressing over them, precisely, but I was getting to a point where I was wondering just how i'd be dealing with them and if I would manage to pull them off a bit better than I did when I was a kid. Anyway I don't knwo if it's the fresh air or what, but I had a big breakthrough a few months ago and started rewriting chapter one (back at hte start of September), and the breakthrough came when I was walking to my office from a faroff bus stop; then today in the gawdawful cold I had *two*!

One of them I wasn't even precisely looking for! That was the fun part. It was one of those things that came out of my making up a discussion in my head between DW and Launchpad, something semi-plot related; most of the time when I do this, a lot of it doesn't make into the fic because by the time I sit down to write I end up just restarting the conversation. But even so, every so often just letting the dialogue flow in my head gives me an idea on how to do something. In this case, I wasn't sure how to fit an initial confrontation between DW and Quackerjack into the end of the act until I had Darkwing musing about doing a sting operation and using someone as bait. It was initially a throwaway line until I realized, oh WAIT, that would actually work perfectly!

And oops, I spoiled who the bad guy is in this one. Oh well, anyone can find out by reading the first scene of the fic once I post it so it's not going to be a secret. ;)

*sigh* I feel happy now, because that means I basically have the first act all smoothed out. :) This one might take me a little longer, I think, than TWC2 has been; it's funny, things are coming a little more slowly but when they do I feel like they're really *good* ideas. (We'll see about the execution but they feel right in my head.) Whereas with TWC2, the story since i started writing it has come quickly but it's felt a little bit canned and uninspired to me all along. It's not a bad story, I just don't feel like it's sparkling.

Oh my god I have ad agency descriptions going. Shoot me. :P

Werewolf Bar Mitzvah! Spooky, scary!

2011-01-07T18:00:00.000-08:00

Just for the record, nearly all of my subject lines are completely unrelated to the posts. In case there was any confusion. ;) They're also usually from movies, TV, or occasionally music.

Meanwhile! In reading the DWD comic, and in seeing a few people whose fic synopses or other fan works incorporate the new comic canon into their verse, it occurred to me that I have absolutely no way to incorporate that into my AU. I'm not even going to try. That's largely because it's an ongoing thing and it has some amount of continuity, and I don't really want to totally adapt (again!) my reality to fit into the new stuff and then have it be invalidated anyway... heck, I think there's a good chance my series *will* be invalidated which is part of why I only consider the comic canon to be semi-official.

Because I am a canon freak and I will always try my best to fit things into existing canon until I reach a point where that totally cannot happen and then I spinoff entirely. Heh. ^_^;;

SO, back on track! I can't fit my AU into the comic verse and in a way I feel like I'm missing out on that. So I just spent a little time wondering what Beth might be like in the canon of the comics, at least during the first Quackwerks arc. I don't have a whole lot of info but I bet she'd be working there quite happily, doing more than she gets paid to do but pleased that she doesn't have to interact with many people. At first I thought she'd be in accounting but then I thought "they probably have a hardware division, right?" But then on third thought I was thinking she'd be in the labs division. I think it would be cute to finally see her in a lab coat, using her degree at least a little bit.

I have no idea what would "happen" beyond this. I have an inkling that she somehow ran into Drake while they were both working there and got a crush on him, and manages to find him every so often during coffee breaks; once Darkwing Duck comes back and Drake leaves, I'm not sure if Beth would stay or if she'd move on (she'd probably stay unless something *made* her go), but she might run into Drake and Co. on the street or something. At which point, if Morgana was there, she'd be a teensy bit crushed.

...I got nothing beyond that. :P

I have been playing with the idea of doing a few little comics with this idea though. :D God knows if I could pull them off; I don't draw expressions all that well on Drake's face. I guess that means I need to practice more.

Final update of 2010!

2010-12-31T18:40:00.000-08:00

Definitely the final fic update anyway. I say that because on the surface I'm like "but maybe I'll update this blog before the year is over!"

Deep down inside though I know I won't. ;)

Anyway, I had made myself a promise that I was going to finish "Sea of Green" before the end of the year. I planned it out and was pretty sure I could finish the whole thing in 8 chapters and so I paced it and vowed to have the 8th chapter finished by this evening, if not before.

And guys, I finished the 8th chapter. :)

Unfortunately I realized with my last update that this is a 9-chapter fic. Ah, well. :P This gives me time also to polish up the first chapter of the third installment, "Forever Young". I have about maybe 2/3 or so of it written; the problem is that I don't know how long the chapter should be. I'm not sure of the pacing of the first act of that fic - or of any of it, really. I know how I want the first act to end. I'm NOT sure how much needs to get crammed into the first chapter though. Oh well, gettin' there.

I also plan on working on the next NEW, non-rewritey fic. Sadly I believe that my readership for the non-rewritey fics is down right now because everyone who was following them is in a major time crunch, especially as regards El Interneto. So I guess that's code for "I should focus on the rewrites instead." My goal for 2011 is to get at least two fics done, which I suppose means "Forever Young" (rewrite) and "Those Daring McQuacks in Their Flying Machines" (non-rewrite), but it might actually end up meaning FY and its sequel. Just focus on getting the rewrites done. I dunno.

I hope to write more in here next year. At least I've been sorta consistent this second half of the year... it's not frequent but it's steady, and that's something! But I want to get more content up. Good luck, huh? :D

I think that is all... Best wishes, happy New Year, and lalala all of that. :)

Hope Mama gets the shopping done

2010-12-26T08:59:00.000-08:00

Well, another Christmas has come and gone. Which is OK. This one was nice enough. :)

I had a kind of a Darkwing-y Christmas, with finally receiving both the second set of the Darkwing DVDs (it has been a while) and also getting the first 4-issue arc of the comic series in the paperback collection. FINALLY. You guys, this is awesome squared. ^_^ The nicest part is that I can read and enjoy it without feeling a need to view it as "canon". I was really worried that, since there is a continuity in this series, I was going to take it as canon and watch my AU be utterly obliterated (I'm a bit of a canon fiend... I find it very hard to go against canon unless there is something I REALLY dislike), but this is more just a new series I can really enjoy. I told my husband it's like really good illustrated fanfic that has an "officially approved by Tad Stones" stamp on it. Awesome without being definitive, you know? :)

Since I have a few minutes here - though probably fewer than I will need - I thought I'd do a characterization post. It's been a while since I've done one, I've been saying for eons now that I'm going to do one for Bushroot, and here it is. ^_^ I'm finishing up "Sea of Green", which is the Bushroot "episode" of TWC. I will say that i don't quite have his voice with this one. I'm not saying I feel like I'm writing him blatantly OOC, but I don't feel like his dialogue is precisely him.

I actually feel like I have a pretty good handle on Bushroot's dialogue, when I hear it. He's whiny (especially his earlier eps, Tino Insana really pushes the whine in his voice) and kind of wishy-washy, and actually very cute in those regards. The problem is I'm just not translating that properly in my head. :P Maybe that's proof that what I'm trying to write doesn't *really* fit for Bushroot... I don't know.

Anyway, in some ways I'm glad I've waited a while to do a characterization post, because the way I've been writing for Reggie has developed a bit since I started writing this fic. I've gone back and rewatched some earlier eps (as I said), read some other fanfics, and just generally refined how I thought Beth and Reggie would interact. Initially I had him a lot more sort of semi-harmless, and motivated almost entirely by loneliness. At this point in my rewrite I think his underlying motive is still loneliness but also a pervading sense of injustice and unfairness, that the world (and Darkwing) keep dumping everything on him. Some of this has to do with Cheezey (among other authors) putting into words a view I realized I'd held for quite some time, which is that Bushroot refuses to take responsibilities for the things he brings on himself. He hates that Darkwing comes and ruins everything and throws him in jail - well geez, never occurs to you to maybe STOP COMMITTING CRIMES, Reggie? Admittedly, Darkwing would likely never *believe* that he'd stopped, but so far, he's been right. ;)

Reginald Bushroot, pre-accident, strikes me as a guy who is used to being stepped on and pushed around. he's never had any way to hit back. He has this accident (sort of; that's the term I'm using but it really was more of "unintented side effects of a successful experiment", but that's long, so we'll say "accident") and he gets powers, and suddenly he can push OTHER people around. He's not the first thwarted little man to quickly go out of control once he can actually hurt back. There's so much hurt and resentment boiling inside that guy that he completely doesn't even see. Reginald Bushroot is a nurturing, pacifist, gentle, caring man who hates other people and this dichotomy gives him such a sense of cognitive dissonance that he fails to recognize the second half of it. In his own mind, he's a guy who continues to take the lumps that fate keeps giving him and who sure, has made some mistakes, but no one ever lets him make up for them without judging him first.

And he's lonely. As far as he's concerned he doesn't have a friend, he has friendly underlings (he clearly adores his plants, and as much as he sends them out to do his dirty work, he's horrified and grief-stricken when they get destroyed) and pets, like Spike. Darkwing points out that Spike would be happy to be Bushroot's equal and friend, but really, Spike is NOT that. None of the plants have the "foot-in-the-human-world" that Bushroot has, and this must be maddening to him. This is clearly why he's tried more than once to create other "mutants" to join him - Rhoda Dendron, Gosalyn, and even Posie the potato. It's not enough to try to woo Rhoda as a duck, because he is NOT a duck, so he has to make her like himself. It's not enough to have plants for friends, because he is NOT a plant, so he has to make his own bride out of a plant and other things. Etc, etc. (Oh sure, I know he didn't *set out* to make Gosalyn a mutant plant-duck but the fact that the formula worked that way indicates it was intended to do much the same thing anyway - give heightened intelligence to whatever plant life he used it on, such as Hedgey, even though it failed.)

SO. I might not be able to write in his voice, but I've been trying to incorporate all this stuff into "Sea of Green". His motivation for his actions isn't about monetary gain - and aside from when he's with the Fearsome Five I don't see him acting for money, it all seems to be stealing for other purposes (gifts for Posie, fake money so he can buy plant supplies, screwing with people at Christmas, etc) - but because once again, he's been rejected. THIS IS NOT FAIR, and in the vein of someone who is tired of being expected to be a certain way he decides to really show them just exactly HOW much "that way" he can be. Then upon meeting someone who seems sympathetic - it could be anyone really - he has a new best friend. But I wanted to keep an element of danger in there - don't reject this guy, because if you are not with him you are against him, and he will not like you if you are against him. And years and years ago a friend of mine pointed out to me that as much as everyone seems to view Reggie as the most "harmless" member of the Fearsome Five, he is to date the only one of them who has actually killed ANYONE. Even including Negaduck, I think. I mean, Dr. Gary and Dr. Larson seem pretty totally dead.

Which is amazing when you think about it. DWD as a series had some really gruesome deaths that were totally glossed over by the people around them. Like the SHUSH agents made into candy. GAH! XD

My final feeling: I love Bushroot. And I do think he could reform. But not without a lot of therapy, anger management, and general support group work. One thing he has to do is accept all of his actions - everything he's ever done no matter what the consequences. That'll be hard because since his accident he's made a lot of really bad decisions. And ya know, if it were me at the end of this story, I'd send him to jail. We'll see what happens though. ^_~

SECOND POST OMG YOU GUYS I DON'T EVEN

2010-12-21T20:11:00.000-08:00

Tonight I like the capslock!

So ... I really need to use this space to make interesting posts. Since there is a small number of people reading this blog now, even infrequently, perhaps you could suggest a topic for me to write an entry about? Anything you'd like to have ruminations on?

Potential topics I've been wanting to write about, but have been uninspired on, include characterizations posts (I need to do one for Bushroot, among others), a potential profile post on Beth, and I have been considering doing a post on OCs/Mary Sues in general based on a discussion on deviantART...

Just a thought, and if I don't get any replies I'll... well probably not write anything, still *^_^* But I'll ruminate and try to come up with something! Man, it's hard to find the time to do all the stuff I wanna do. REAL LIFE. WHAT.

FINALLY!

2010-12-21T19:59:00.000-08:00

Finally got the next chapter for "Sea of Green" up. (This announcement post is backwards, because only three people read this blog and so it would more sense for me to advertise the blog in the fanfic. Eh well.)

It took me FOREVER to get around to writing it. I had two weeks and I waited until the last two days, then had to go another two days over that deadline. Sheesh. Plus I realized that there will be a total of 9 chapters, not 8, so there's just no way I'm going to finish before January 1. But, that's okay, because even if I finish it IN January that's still only about 4 months or so to write this one; that's not that bad, all things considered. :) Seeing as how it took me about 8 years to rewrite the first fic, and all. ^_~

OH, and yes, sometimes I actually remember to link to things! http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2460894/7/TWC_2_Sea_Of_Green

Wikipedia, you've done it again!

2010-12-17T18:54:00.000-08:00

Need a very small amount of information, just enough to fudge your way through something without actually researching it? That's why God invented Wikipedia!

Thank you, Wikipedia, for giving me the names of plant hormones that can induce growth. You even tossed in a known antagonist to one of them, which neatly answers a question I was going to have to address in the *next* chapter. Bless you!

...Now, if I actually needed to research something and know what I was talking about, Wikipedia would be more like a source to suggest real research sources. But for half-assed fudging my way through it, you betcha this is the way to go! :D

Spoiler-free

2010-12-17T13:55:00.000-08:00

So, lately I've been picking up some new readership with my rewrites. Which I don't think I ever really expected would happen.

So just to be inclusive I'm going to make a new tag for this blog, either "spoiler-free" or "spoilers", and use it as appropriate to indicate what is and is not safe for new readers. Because I give stuff away all over this blog. XD

I'm just not sure yet what would be better, as in, "quicker".

Thanks to Fanarts!

2010-12-11T12:12:00.000-08:00

Hi guys, this'll finish out the shout-outs to the gift fan stuff I've gotten over the past few years. ^_^ Since there's not a lot of just art stuff, I'll just do it all in one post.

1- I can finally rave about this pic b/c it's finally online! LadyNiniane drew me this piece of fanart for "All About Elizabeth" a few years ago. I have no place to house fanart and I hadn't been able to find it online anymore so I was kind of stuck and unable to share it. When I found it in her gallery at Negaverse.net I was delighted! Yay!

I love this piece; it's moody and thematic and I love the thing with the shadows. This fic was so hard on both Beth and Launchpad, was hard on ME to write (just b/c of the time it took; it wasn't an emotional toll, lol), and so this was a great reward to have LadyNiniane enjoy it so much that she was inspired to draw from it. ^_^

2- This piece by The Illustrious Crackpot is suitably hilarious, since Crackpot is a hilarious and high-energy artist. I've been trying to go in chronological order through her entire gallery for the past month or so. I'm like, maaaaaybe 2/3 of the way through by now. :D It's well worth it and so much fun and she has a great series called "Madness In A Box" that is very worth reading and getting into.

The pic of Beth was a sort of "welcome to dA" piece she did for me. I love it because I look at it and think it's probably approximately ten seconds before Beth's head explodes from sheer embarrassment. XD

3- DeathByMarshmallows did a random drive-by sketch of Beth along with her fan character and a couple of others by other artists/writers. There is nothing so awesome as random and unexpected gift art, under any circumstances, and this one is just so darn cute. Marty is DBM's character and I love that she's braiding Beth's hair. ^_^ This whole "slumber party and they're all BFFs" vibe just gives me giggles, even though Pixi (in the front left, with the tattoos) is giving Beth a look like she's going to duct tape her mouth closed in a few more seconds. XD DBM is also doing a commission for me that I will absolutely post about when it's finished!

So - thanks to all three of you lovely ladies and keep on with the art; I'm a huge fan of everything all three of you do and I would be even if you didn't draw Beth. (But I probably wouldn't mention you here since this is a Beth-centric blog. Just sayin', is all.)

It's December. Again.

2010-12-07T18:36:00.000-08:00

Well, it's no longer Thanksgiving, but I'm going to finish this danged "thankful" thing I started anyway. It would help if I remembered I'd said I'd do it at some point when I'm actually sitting at a computer, which I did tonight, so... Here I am! :D

Okay, if you read DWD fanfiction then you should read the stuff by IcequeenKitty, who has written a series - nearly finished - sorta called "Darker DWD". And it is what its name implies, a group of epic fics that are set in an AU where things are just not quite the same. Little things, you know, like there's not comedy relief and stuff and also people are horribly murdered in grisly ways, and so on. Y'know, that.

The thing is that these fics are *amazing*. I don't usually like "dark" Darkwing fics. I like, in general, the style of the show - I don't mean I avoid serious/drama stuff, I just mean, scaryviolentdark stuff... isn't my thing. the small handful of times I've tried out darkfics I've found them overwritten, and if you've written a "dark" DW fic I very likely did NOT read yours (I've read like, two, and I don't remember by whom, but this was like ten years ago) so don't take it personally. ;) However though, I tried out Kitty's fics because I noticed a lot of the people I knew and enjoyed on Fanfiction.net had her as a favourite, and so I gave the first fic, "Roots of Revenge", a try. I was almost *startled* by how much I liked it. It, and the resulting series, is so well-crafted and the characterizations are so strong, whether they're similar to the series or not. And there's this great heart to it that resides largely with Gosalyn, who draws the characters together beautifully; Morgana deepens that when she comes into it as well.

OKAY! So that's a big build-up to say that when I issued my "Please write fic for me if you love me!" plea, Kitty actually took me up on it, and what's more, she put it in her amazing "Dark" AU. It's a work of beauty. She did not put it up on Fanfiction.net but that's okay, it's up on deviantART instead: Light at the End. I have no idea if this is canon in the series and I don't expect Beth to show up at the end of the final story (which is still in-progress), but it wouldn't kill the pleasure of this baby even if it were not canon, so it's all good. :)

Meanwhile Kitty also draws and she did a really seriously adorable pic of Beth for me a little while ago, here, which of course is obviously set in my 'verse and not hers. ;D

So there's another down; I have two more to do but I've covered all the gift-fic, and that should keep y'all busy for a while. ^_^

Thanksgiving II

2010-11-25T18:36:00.000-08:00

So, only time for one other thanks post tonight, but hey, two posts in a day? That's beating my weekly average already! ;)

So, I've already mentioned Amanda Rohrssen here, because she did a truly beautiful commission for me last year and I squeed about it in an entry. :D (And this is the commission in question in case you've forgotten or didn't read that far back! It's from "The House On Avian Way", or at least it's inspired by it.) Amanda also has created one of my favourite OCs (whom I have also mentioned here), Ariana McCawber. Ariana's fic is "The Other McCawber Girl" (that links to part one; here is part two).

Okay, bear with me. I've mentioned Ariana (she has her own tag even!) because Ari makes an appearance in "All About Elizabeth", and *that* happened because Amanda was sweet enough to use Beth in "The Other McCawber Girl". Even though that's an AU and not the same universe/canon as my series, it was clear from the start that Ariana and Beth would make very good friends since they're very similar and even though they come from very different backgrounds, they've dealt with a number of the same experiences in their lives. So Ari's presence in AAE was partly to pay Amanda back for using Beth, and just partly because it made sense. :)

ANYway! In addition to various chapters of OMG, Amanda also took up my Birthday Fic Request and wrote a really neat, fun one-shot story that takes place as a sort of "in-between" AU to both of our canons called "The Eternal Sunshine of the Thoughtless Mind" (I love that title), in which Ari and Beth are close friends and it's not quite her canon and not quite mine, but it's adorable and everyone is happy. ^_^ The story is a really fun plot involving FOWL and mistaken identity and birthdays, and Ari and Beth get kidnapped, and there's a whole big thing about skin cancer. XD It's a hoot and if you haven't read Amanda's stuff, but you like Beth, you should read this and then you get to meet Ariana and then you can go read OMG and get hooked on THAT, as you should, and then you can pick up on all her other stuff.

(And also leave her some comments, at least on "Eternal Sunshine", huh?)

All her stories are great and I can't single one out. "Sins of the Father" is about Drake's father Jacob; "Gumshoe" kind of destroys all canon, fanfic and real alike, and has a noir-style blast doing it; "A Penny Saved is a Penny Spurned" is a straight-up non-OC crossover between DWD and DuckTales that is in-progress.

Also, Amanda is a wonderful artist, as the LP/Beth commission will no doubt demonstrate; her deviantART account is at this link, and is a lot of fun to browse. Also she is still taking commissions, though her schedule is crazy so there is a backlog, but they are well worth the wait. ^_^

So thank you Amanda! Thank you for liking Beth enough to use her in your fic, for writing fic for me, for drawing for me, and thank you for creating Ariana in the first place. ^_^ Happy thanksgiving!

We'll see if I can't get to a couple more of these tomorrow! If not then maybe Sat or Sun. Everyone deserves a thanks and a shout-out!

Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T09:50:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of the holiday, and of this blog, I thought I would take a little while to do something I've been meaning to do for some time: and that is to express my gratitude for gift art and fic I've received, and also pimp out the people behind said gifts. :D I started this a few posts ago with Marci, who had written the start of a fic for me - see that post for the link - and I'm going to continue for as long as I can find the time, a precious commodity around here, believe me. :P

I'll start with Eric, who has done some really nifty pics of Beth in the past but more recently (well, 2008) wrote a fanfic in which she was the guest star!

The fic is called "Natural Madness" (and here it is), and Eric wrote it for me for my Birthday Request in '08 when I had balls enough to ask people to devote huge portions of their time and creativity to me. Because Eric rocks, he did so. :)

"Natural Madness" is a great story which is, true to Eric's style, at once nicely in-character for DW and at the same time playing in a darker setting. In this universe, Bushroot has gone crazy after an accident and is now Bushroot X, a creature who always wears a mask and (far worse) kidnaps other victims and locks them behind masks as well. In this fic he picks Beth out as his Masked Bride-to-be. The story, despite its dark premise, never goes too far into the frightening zone to the point where it would push the character into a level of unbelievability. DW has a lot of dialogue you could hear on the show, and actually, the whole fic has numerous moments of humour that I found really appealing.

Eric has two other fics up on FF.net, "The Brain Pickers" and "The Agitator". I've only had time to read "The Brain Pickers" (yep I'm that lame, I have to struggle to read fanfiction :P) but like this one, it's a good plot and good characterization, and there's a mix of original tone, humour, and also a much darker feel. "The Brain Pickers" explores what happens when FOWL puts a few elements together and takes note of who DW is commonly seen with *other* than LP and Gosalyn... so they target Honker Muddlefoot. (Poor Honker!) The main difference between this fic and the show is that DW gets to be a bit more competently heroic than he was often portrayed on the show (since it was more of a comedy-action than just straight action show), and since it's refreshing to see DW know what he's doing while still being in-character, I have no complaints. :)

Check Eric's stuff out today! He also has a deviantART account here: http://hag.deviantart.com/

I hope to make more of these posts throughout the day, or if not today, then tomorrow. Of course on a day like today my time is limited so let's just cross our fingers... :)

Wait a minute, I - Jiminy Christmas.

2010-11-20T18:58:00.000-08:00

It's actually been a month since my last update? Oh CRACKERS. D:

Well, I know I've been owing this blog several really good posts, and *those are coming*, but it's been crazy busy at work and my nights at home are usually spent either with quality time or else trying to draw (hah); so I haven't done much writing and even less blogging.

But here's some fic.

"Sea of Green" is updated! And I actually linked you to the fic this time! SO you have no excuse!

Love,
Me.

PS: I gots deviantART account now: It's a really predictable name!

And then, the other thing

2010-10-20T18:47:00.000-07:00

Just updated "Sea of Green" at Fanfiction.net... you know I don't have the energy to put up the link. FAIL. D:

(It doesn't matter though, most people who read this will either see this weeks from now or get a notification through FF.net. But I like to pretend.)

Fanfic that is not by me and is therefore OMGSOAMAZING!!!

2010-10-20T14:11:00.000-07:00

I got permission from Marci to pimp out the fic she wrote for me!

A couple of years ago I got all high and mighty and for my birthday asked people to write fic for me, specifically fic with Beth in it. I had only a few people with the time and inspiration to take me up on this, and I am amazed that that many did so, and everything that they gave me was *amazing*. I actually still intend to do a giant "OMG" post on each and every piece. But Marci only showed me what she wrote (I guess 'cause it's still incomplete, pfff, like THAT matters :D) a couple of weeks ago, and after I saw it and died, I wanted to make sure I had her permission to share it around... it being unfinished and all. I dunno, you'd think that with her having posted it that would be a sign that it's shareable, but eh, I err on the side of caution. FAR too often it turns out but ANYWAY! ;)

Here's the link to the absolutely fantastic stuff she has written so far:

http://fanfic.thebadfic.com/?p=30#more-30

Seeing as how I respect the need to work where you have the inspiration and all, I am *not* advising anyone to bug her to finish it, but if anyone wanted to send "inspirational vibes" in her direction... s'all I'm sayin'. ^_~ (though only if it doesn't throw off her work on her original fic. Priorities, man.)

*dies again*

Swear to god you guys. I'm going to have a "Guest Star Corner" thing here where I can rave about the various Webfoot-related gifts/commissions I've gotten over the years. I just need to get my s*** together is all.

P.S. Read some of her other stuff too. Marci's awesome is not limited to the times when she writes my OC.

When I wake up - in the afternoon, which it pleases me to do

2010-10-16T18:55:00.000-07:00

Don't nobody bring me no bad news.

***

So I'm working on TWC2 - "Sea of Green" - right now, and to many that would mean it would only make sense that I post my chapter notes as I go. I've considered that but have decided to hold off until the fic is complete, because that gives me the chance to revise it and tighten it up as I go back over it to put the notes together.

I will talk about it, though. I put up chapter three of Act I last weekend, and after I did I felt awkward about it. I'm not sure why - maybe because I wrote almost the entire chapter in one night - but more than that I felt weird about Beth's characterization throughout all three chapters so far.

I had to really consider it to figure out why I felt this way. I had this suspicion that the way I wrote her has changed since I finished AAE - that she's even more nervous than she used to be, and that this resulted in making her unlikeable in what I'm writing now.

I finally kind of came to terms with this a few days later because I reminded myself that I haven't changed my writing style for her because of AAE - I'm regressing it back for TWC2. After all, chronologically this fic is only her second appearance and Beth needs to be a lot more awkward and nervous at this stage. The whole point of the Webfoot Chronicles was to show a little bit of character growth for her, and the way that her meeting DW sort of catalyzes her into another stage of her life. That was the point of AAE as well (catalyzing, stages of life, etc) so I guess that's why I felt the kinship in the writing styles, but even if Beth is a little hard to take at this stage, it's not permanent. She'll get better. Promise. :)

I've had some good feedback on this one, though. So I guess she's not as much of a problem as I thought she was. ^_~

Now I just have to figure out how I want her to interact with Bushroot.

Speaking of which... I think Bushroot will be the subject of my next (non-AAE-related) post... whenever that happens.

Don't Say No to the Incredible Medicine Show

2010-10-09T18:54:00.000-07:00

More notes for AAE! Chapter 3 of Act I (or chapter 5 on ff.net)...

References:

-Dr. Camelback has some origins in a book called "Orphans of Chaos" by John C. Wright, though I have to admit that it's been so long now since I've read the book that I don't remember precisely how.
-Pattie, Violet, and Frieda are names from Charles Schulz's "Peanuts". They're all secondary characters who, I think, eventually got dropped. :P
-Nicola is slightly inspired by a character in "Fire and Hemlock" by Diana Wynne Jones (a girl named Nina).

I reference Beth as being "small for her age" in this section. She stays on the skinny side all her life, but I picture her as starting out tiny and then sprouting up like a weed in terms of height when she hits a certain age. Beth is not outrageously tall, but she's perhaps a bit taller than she should be, if that makes sense.

Poor Beth, getting taken advantage of from the first. The idea that a group of kids, the oldest of which is only 7, would be left alone to wander about for themselves was an effort to reinforce what Beth says before this flashback starts - that the people in charge forgot that high intelligence doesn't translate at all into maturity. A smart kid is still a kid.

Note the subtle statement in this scene that Beth does not wear glasses at age 7. I didn't have a good way to say that outright (it would've been weird to describe her as "not wearing glasses", after all) so it's a little bit subtle and perhaps easier to forget. I bet most readers imagine Wee Little Beth with glasses. (I almost do myself.)

Geez, Camelback is such a d***. ;D

I don't have a whole lot to say about the stuff at Pinny's; none of it is based on any real experience in my life so I can't talk about that, and it's fairly straightforward, I think. I hope it's not over the top; although I've never had these actual experiences, I've had strained relationships with adults (as I think many people have) and I've had trouble joining social circles (as I think many have, again) so I'm assuming these are somewhat familiar themes even if the events are themselves particular or perhaps a bit melodramatic.

Beth's mass-shunning in the cafeteria is a little reminiscent of a scene in Amanda Rohrssen's "The Other McCawber Girl", which was not intentional, though I will admit for full disclosure that I am pretty sure I had read that scene by the time I wrote this fic. I wasn't thinking of that, thogh, but rather of the general experience of being an outcast and being ignored. Beth's experience here, it should be noted, is not based at all on who she is but just on her being a stranger; it's not a personal reaction, it's just a mass ignoring. This almost uniformly typifies her experiences throughout this story: she's infrequently directly targeted, and much more often just overlooked, which I think is a common theme in growing up. Everyone gets targeted at some point, but being totally ignored - although less dramatic - can be painful too.

I wondered what to name Beth's three roommates for a while and then decided on the names from "Peanuts". Once I'd do that the personalities kind of dropped into place, especially Frieda's who clearly had to have naturally curly hair and also be a big of a braggart.

Beth ruminates on what she'd done to be sent away - we don't learn until later why she's so certain that this is what has happened - and she reflects that she could promise to change and be whatever her mother wanted if she could come back. This is also a recurring theme for Beth; she keeps, in her head, promising to change herself to be what other people want. I think it's noteworthy that she never ever does this.

Beth's staying at Pinny's over Thanksgiving is not a "Harry Potter" reference in case anyone was wondering, though on rereading it kind of looks that way. *shrug*

The "sad story about 2 older kids who fell in love but then died" is 'Romeo and Juliet'. I thought that this might be about what a 7-year-old would get out of it: the very bare bones of the story, with the rest being written in such apocryphal language and about such complicated things that it would basically go over her head.

As mentioned above, Nicola has roots in a girl named Nina from a Diana Wynne Jones novel. There's nothing specific that she does that mirrors this character, but Nina has a certain exuberance and a liking for imaginativeness, as well as a falling out with the main character, that were in my mind when I was thinking of characteristics for Beth's first "friend". The name, Nicola, has no significance.

Let's Take a Trip Together

2010-10-03T18:06:00.001-07:00

Hi folks, here's some chapter notes for AAE! We're up to chapter two here (that's chapter two of Act I, or the fourth chapter I posted on FF.net if you're following at home. Or um... at FF.net, rather).

References:
- "The Simpsons" for Eeeeyelloooo? Not that they made it up, exactly, that's just what I was thinking of.
- "Who is this?" is a direct reference to "Seinfeld". If you've seen any of the episodes that use that (there are several) you'll know exactly how Gosalyn says it.
- "Comic Book Capers", for the engine knocking.
-Professor Pinfeather's School for Gifted Youngsters is a reference to "The Uncanny X-Men" - Professor Xavier's School for... etc.

Ah, the start of the school year... and covering your books. I hated that and usually managed to put it off for about a month, or until I got a note sent home.

I love how obnoxious Gosalyn is on the phone here. It's like the precise counterpoint to how annoyingly neurotic Beth is being - Gos is perfectly winding her up. My favourite way to write Gosalyn is by having her not take anything seriously.

I can't remember if there are any episodes that have LP working on the ThunderQuack when he's depressed (I'm rusty on a lot of the middle-to-late eps these days), but I know I've used it a lot among my fics for this reason. So hey. Inner continuity, anyway.

The idea that Beth could be easily swayed by being asked to do homework kind of comes, I think, from "The Simpsons"... I know someone used it first, manipulating someone into doing something by calling it homework. "The Simpsons" seems most likely. Any time I know I was inspired by something indirectly but I can't remember what it was, I usually assume it was "The Simpsons". :P

This scene here with Beth trying to think of her regrets is like a big teaser of the rest of the fic. I left out a few things, such as Ariana (I did know at the time that I would be bringing her in), which was intentional because I wanted her to be a surprise. The first release left out some things I didn't know I would include, but I've added them in now that the fic is complete.

So we start the flashbacks. The hardest thing in writing the flashbacks, for me, was setting them up. Trying to figure out what should be in the flashback and what should be monologued by Beth was tricky; I also always wanted to make it clear that Beth was not *telling* Dr. Mortimer everything that we see in the flashbacks, which was hard since I didn't want to tell every story twice (her words, and her experience). So there had to be enough crossover to show the difference, but not too much, and I had to guess at what would sound better coming from her and what would be better shown through narrative. Sometimes I think Beth just goes on too long. Then again, looking at these notes, I guess we know whose fault that is. :P

I probably don't have to explain this but Beth doing everyone else's work for them is a continued theme into her adult life, at least up to when she quits Bindler's Hardware. She'd still be doing it happily for Drake, if his line of work related to her expertise in any way, too.

Beth and being nice to people in hopes they'll be nice back - this is the very first sign of how jaded she is underneath, and how much she's been hiding that from her friends, family, and self. Actually it took *me* by surprise a little.

Part of why this fic is long (not the only reason... just *part*) is because Dr. Mortimer asks questions that aren't strictly related to the plot. There's a lot of filler conversation in here. I have a bad habit in my fics of letting the characters take over the dialogue - sometimes I really have to PUSH them to get them to go where I want, and Mortimer was like that a lot. Then again, I didn't want him to seem TOO insightful and always ask just the right questions - that's a little too convenient.

Sometimes...

2010-10-01T10:04:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I wish that my primary 'ship was NOT one that I've created, using an OC of mine. I mean sure, makes it real easy to shape the direction and all, yeah. But those times when I'm feeling depressed and I think that reading some fanfic of them would be nice, all I have is my own material. :P

I need to branch out more. ;)

Forgot to mention last night

2010-09-26T11:45:00.001-07:00

That I uploaded the first couple of chapters to TWC2 at Fanfiction.net! Voici:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2460894/1/TWC_2_Sea_Of_Green

Please review! :)

Probably won't have notes for a while yet since I like to write them as I revise, at the end of a fic (or at least after revisiting them), but once I finish notes for AAE we'll see what comes out. :) Besides, since I want to get this one done quickly... well, we'll see, like I said.

If Only I Don't Suffocate

2010-09-25T20:02:00.000-07:00

Does anyone else want to write Epic Fanfic based on "Bend Or Break" by Keane? Surely not just me. (Not for DWD, though, it doesn't strike me with the right tone.)

Anyway! I have the next batch of notes for AAE here, would've had them sooner but I only unpacked and set up my home computer this week since we moved a month ago. :)P Here's the lengthy blabfest for Act I, Chapter 1!

***

References:

- "The Music Man"; as I said, Irene Webfoot is a nod to Mrs. Paroo from this musical. The line "an' yer changin' the subject" is a callback to the one song that Mrs. Paroo (kind of) sings on, an argument between her and her daughter where she is accused of changing the subject herself.
- "Donnie Darko" is the source of 'Yarn Barn', which is where Donnie's older sister works.

Man, there is stuff in here that I had forgotten I had already started by this point. Somehow that makes me feel awful. I didn't realize I was writing the therapy stuff this early... This fic just went on forever, didn't it? :P Not to mention I originally had Beth thinking how at this rate she'll need a month before she can see LP and Drake again... and then she's actually gone for nearly *two* months. Ay yi yi. The time got away from me, what can I say... I changed the line to "six months" just so it's less obvious. :P (And then I mention it here because I LIKE TO MAKE MYSELF LOOK DUMB apparently)

First scene with Beth and Irene, in which Beth immediately has no patience for her mother... Which I hope doesn't make her look unpleasant. I find it realistic. I know a number of adult women who respond this way to their mothers' well-meaning but nosy questions, and I'm NOT just referring to myself. ;) On the other hand, Beth isn't meant to be 100% in the right here, either.

And our total introduction to Candy! Candy is someone who took me a while to get to know. I had the idea for the scene between Candy and Beth towards the end quite early on, but I didn't really start to understand her as a character for a while. She remained a bit of a villain in my mind for a LONG time, which is pretty much what she is in these early scenes, though you can see a glimmer of sisterly love in there if you squint.

Actually, to be honest, Candy is a little bit based on me. I'm an older, rather than younger, sister, and I have perhaps too strong a dose of "I know best" in me. I kind of put that (on steroids, though) into Candy's personality. She goes way farther than I ever would.

I will be going somewhat more into the elements of Beth's personality that we see here; when she's around non-Webfoot people she so avoids confrontation that the idea of her arguing this much may seem completely alien. I'm going to address that in the rewrites of TWC, but I also address it (in a sort of retcon) in this fic and I hope it makes sense.

Dr. Mortimer is one of those names that I kinda picked out of nowhere because it sounded funny. Who knew I'd be writing it in nearly every chapter for the next three years. :P

I also have no idea if it's illegal or not to make an appointment for someone else to go to therapy. I think there are ethical reasons, the same way you can't have someone committed unless they're a danger to themselves or others, but it might not work that way for therapy - in fact I'm almost sure it doesn't but it made for a good way to show the extent of Irene's pushiness.

Beth not caring for waiting rooms is kind of a callback to "Something In The Air" which at the time was a throwaway gag. Deciding to turn throwaway gags into character points - yay! :P

I'm not sure where Beth's mistrust of therapists comes from, but it's a character trait I came up with in the late 90s. Personally I have high regard for the entire profession of psychology and psychiatry, and I ate up the classes I took. (Yep, armchair therapist right here.)

You can see me kind of scrambling to come up with reasons why Beth wouldn't just go in and say "okay, here's what the problem is" and would instead start talking about her life history. There were two reasons I needed the story to go that way: 1, it was intended to be Beth's life history and this was the format I chose to frame it in, and 2, I was actually just as uncomfortable writing Beth talking about DW and Launchpad as Beth was with doing the actual talking, and I took that as a sign that Beth didn't want to do it and that forcing it would be out of character.

Note the brief description of Beth's job. I have never made it clear what she does, and I thought I'd toss that in there to outline it in slightly more detail. It's still quite vague.

Not everything Beth says here to Dr. Mortimer about being happy is entirely true. You know how when you're depressed it seems like everything has always been, and will always be, as bad as it is right then? That's the problem she's having.

I think I've mentioned this before, but Dr. Mortimer's "therapy" idea of having Beth write down her big regrets so that they can discuss them... that's not really any kind of therapy idea I've heard of, and to be honest, I just picked that so that I had a way to roughly divide up the flashbacks in the fic. I wanted it to go more thematically than chronologically, even though most of the flashbacks are in order anyway, but yeah... that's the reason for the "regrets". I thought it might be useful from a discussion perspective, too.

The Ever-Vivacious Head of Kitty Carlisle Says:

2010-09-23T16:12:00.000-07:00

"HI everybody! Let's start the game!"

So I'm weak-willed, and thus I'm going to break down and post the scene I've been working on for TWC3's rewrite. It may or may not be the opening to the fic - I haven't decided yet - and it's unbeta'd, but what the heck; it's going to be at least another 3-4 months before I start posting this. :)

SPOILERS ahead if you have not read the original versions! (Why do I bother doing this?) If you haven't read them and don't want to be spoiled, or if you want to wait until after reading the rewrite of TWC2, or have some other reason you want to avoid spoilers, read no further on this entry!

As an aside, I'm wondering if I ought to transport this blog over to Dreamwidth or something, so that I can use cut-tags. I miss cut-tags on this format. ANYway!

A little context for people who aren't familiar with the original version, but want to read onward anyway. In my initial version I reached a point where LP and DW "needed" (in my mind) to come to odds over Beth. Mmm, that's good drama! Well, I actually still feel that way - for one thing, DW is just nasty to her sometimes, and someone needs to defend the poor kid. For another, it's... well, it's still good drama. If done right anyway.

For quite some time though I was worried about writing it - as much as I wanted to do it, I had no idea how to do it without just making it go overboard... How not to make Drake look like an unforgivable jerk, how to keep LP in character, how not to make Beth look like OMGPOORABUSEDBETH!... well, a few weeks ago I was walking from the bus stop to work and a little scene popped into my head and I realized it would work. I could've written it in like three days but it was RIGHT the day before we left to go on vacation to Canada. I worked on it a little while we were there but the distraction level was high. So it's taken me a while to get as far as I have... which isn't all that far... but it's something! Oh, the spoilers are pretty mild; mostly they allude to the fact that Beth gets kidnapped by Bushroot in TWC2, and this together with her being followed by Megavolt convinces Darkwing that she's actually a villainess in disguise. (new twist. *G*)

One last note: I was going to wait on this but I've been getting antsy because of the new comic. I haven't read a single panel of it, and I realized it could be a "game-changer" or something. Well, I tend to get paranoid about my canon, not because I need it to come true but because I don't want to be hugely contradicting something that is now the NEW, ACTUAL canon. Plus the general zeitgeist of DWD right now just makes me want to write a LOT and put it out there. I wish I was connecting better with the public, but at least I'm writing; that's making me happy. :)

So! No further ado; here's the scene in question. I will love any feedback I get!

***

There are many ways in which a hero can protect his city.

The most obvious way, of course, is to defeat the denizens of darkness as they come forward, deducing their diabolical intentions and nullifying the nefarious nogoodniks before they can bring their plans to fruition. After a lifetime of experience, Darkwing Duck had mastered this ability and could do it in his sleep. In fact, he had, but that was another story.

A lesser-known protection, however, is the dedication to constant vigilance. Constant vigilance is what allows the very best heroes to not only thwart the very worst plans of the very worst villains as they unfold, but to act preemptively, eliminating threats before they have a chance to strike. Constant vigilance is the way in which the very best vigilantes monitor potential subjects and catch them *before* they are able to perpetrate any wrongdoing.

Constant vigilance, and a healthy dose of intuition, are among the weapons at the disposal of the peak heroes of the world - the creme de la creme, if you will.

Darkwing Duck's intuition had led him to watch a certain newcomer into his life very closely. He was, in fact, ready to place her on the "constant vigilance" list. At first glance, Beth Webfoot was harmless: shy, bespectacled, and interested only in hardware and the occasional babysitting gig. But after a series of odd events, all of which had seemed to involve her in one way or another, Darkwing's intuition had begun to tell him that this woman needed watching.

She seemed to attract supervillains like a magnet, for one thing. There was that, which of itself was suspicious, but add to it the fact that she was worming her way into his family life... coincidence? How big of a coincidence would it have to be for an honestly harmless woman to meet him, get hired to babysit his daughter, and via totally-unrelated means bump into not one but *two* of his most dangerous arch-enemies?

That would be one big coincidence, Darkwing believed. Too big.

Plus there was something about her that just *bugged* him.

A generic background search hadn't turned up any information, and as a result Gosalyn and Launchpad were telling him he was being irrational. So, all that meant was that Beth Webfoot was very, very crafty - and probably using an alias. He'd have to probe deeper.

Some might say that it was faulty logic for Darkwing Duck to allow a suspected supervillain to babysit his daughter several nights a week, but Darkwing believed in the wise old adage, "Keep your friends close but your enemies closer." He was on guard, and so he didn't believe Gosalyn was in any genuine danger. From what he could see, Beth was sounding him out as much as he was sounding her out. He was confident that he'd be able to track her movements well enough to know before she was about to strike.

Meanwhile, he had the advantage: surprise, and foreknowledge. She clearly had no idea that he knew, and while he was being cagey, he could also play her like a fiddle and find out whatever he needed to know.
It was a Wednesday night when he decided to gather information. If the preliminary background check had failed, he would just have to get as much on her as he could, and look at it from every angle. With that in mind, in his Drake Mallard guise, he sat himself down next to her on the couch and began.

"So, Ms. Webfoot," he said, his tone confident and straightforward, "would I be correct in assuming that 'Beth' is short for 'Elizabeth'?"

She straightened up slightly and smiled at him. "Um, yes! You're exactly correct," she said. "A-although I guess, when you think about it, there aren't really many other names that Beth is short for, are there? But still you never know so I understand why you asked."

At this point, Drake was starting to suspect that the stream of ongoing mindless chatter from her was an intentional front. He narrowed his eyes slightly, but gave no other sign of suspicion. "Riiiiight. So, moving on, do you happen to have a middle name?"

Beth looked at him in surprise for a second, and he was just wondering if he'd pushed too far too fast and given himself away, when she blushed a little. "W-well, it's Marilynn, actually."

"Marilyn? Like Marilyn Monroe, huh?"

"Yes, exactly! Only it's spelled with two 'n's at the end so it's not exactly the same - b-but you're not interested in how I spell a name I never even use," she finished, chuckling nervously.

"On the contrary," he said, making a mental note of this information, "I am interested. *Very* interested."

Beth leaned forward, again looking surprised and pleased. "R-really?"

"Oh yes," Drake answered. He leaned forward as well, and propped himself up on one elbow against the couch. "Do tell me more about yourself, Ms. Webfoot... Favourite colour, favourite animal... where you grew up... any prior police records..."

She laughed, presumably at the last one, and went on to tell him everything. In great, extensive detail. Over the course of fifteen minutes he learned a whole lot about very little, mainly - despite his efforts at steering the conversation - about her background in retail. She probably *was* onto him.

After answering two or three questions and then devolving into a rambling monologue that seemed to be mostly about her boss, Beth failed to make any point that Drake could identify. He was stuck nodding, uttering the occasional "Uh-huh" and "Absolutely", and ultimately feeling his eyes glazing over. Was it just possible that she didn't actually notice the effect she was having? After all, the Muddlefoots were the much the same... But this would be such an effective form of torture that it just raised Drake's suspicions even more.

"...And Henny said that it wasn't worth chasing him down over 21 cents, and I guess she's probably right, but it was just going to stay with me all day if I hadn't given him the correct change and really, you know, what if he'd come back and been upset that I'd given him the wrong amount? I know, I know, it's less than a quarter but you never do know, but then Henny said that I'd wasted company time going after him once he'd left the store, and I just thought, it's like I can't win either way, you know? Should I give him his money, should I let him leave, do you know that song 'Should I Stay or Should I Go?' It's by the Clash, and I don't normally like that kind of music but I heard it once on the radio and I thought 'Oh my gosh, that's ME' because it basically goes -"

"What?" Drake said suddenly, as if in response to something. Beth fell silent instantly. He sat up straight, looking like he was listening to something, then called "Be right there!" and turned back to Beth. "Sorry, I think I'm needed in the kitchen. Y'know, you should probably go upstairs and check on Gos and her homework, really enjoyed the chat and I hope we can do this again next year!"

"Oh - yes, me too, we could... um...thanks!" She was just trailing off as he left the room, escaping through the door into the safe haven of his kitchen.

The only person there was Launchpad, who had definitely not called him, but Drake was reasonably sure that - despite his partiality to Beth - he could count on some backup from his sidekick in this case.

"Hey DW - hot dogs are just about done," Launchpad announced, being in charge of dinner for the evening. "You want anything on it?"

"Make me one with everything, LP," said Drake, sinking wearily into the chair at the kitchen table, "I earned it."

"Really? Whatja do?" Launchpad asked as he retrieved about five different bottles and jars from the fridge, then piled them onto the counter next to the bag of hot dog rolls.

Drake let his head rest in his hand, as though he were trying to massage his brain back to life. "Just had a full interview with you-know-who out there, to try to get some more information to go on."

Launchpad rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "DW, for the last time, she's NOT a bad guy!" He checked the hot dogs, turned down the flame underneath the burner, and then addressed Drake again. "You're wastin' a lot of energy on nothin'!"

"I beg to differ," Drake said flatly. "If *she's* harmless, then Dr. Slug should be celebrated as a philanthropist. I just spent twenty minutes listening to her go on, and I'm telling you LP, there is *evil* underneath that drab exterior. There has to be, because nobody can actually be that *boring*."

Launchpad frowned, his expression indicating a bit more displeasure than before. "That's not -" The next word, Drake was sure, would have been either "nice" or "fair"; Launchpad was a staunch defender of Beth, and he seemed to share Gizmoduck's idealistic beliefs that "fair" applied outside to life outside of the playground. But the sentence was never finished, because as he was speaking the words, Launchpad's eyes skipped from Drake to something behind him, and he bit off his comment.

Drake swallowed, and reluctantly turned in his seat; Beth was standing in the doorway, her hand clutching the frame in a manner that suggested she was keeping herself upright this way, but although there was a slight blush on her cheeks, her face was almost impassive. There was absolutely no doubt that she'd heard his last comment; the only thing uncertain was just how much she *had* heard.

An awkward moment fell among the three of them, and Drake shifted guiltily in his seat. As Beth turned her attention toward the ground, Drake returned his to the kitchen table. The tension between them was almost palpable. He had to say something - he knew that - but nothing that came into his head seemed right. In books and TV shows, a person overhearing others talking about them just left - usually without anyone even knowing they'd been there. Naturally, Beth was just *standing* there, like she was waiting for something.

Waiting - or maybe completely aware of how awkward her presence was making things. Maybe this was *intentional*. He reminded himself that Beth was no ordinary babysitter (or hardware clerk or whatever she called herself) - and, depending on how much she'd overheard, it was possibly that she knew that *he* knew.
With his mind racing this way, Drake almost didn't notice when Launchpad broke the silence that had built up around them. With a forceful cheerfulness, Launchpad said loudly, "Oh, hi Beth! Uh, so, how's it goin'?"

It was an incredibly lame attempt to pretend nothing had happened, but at the same time, Drake realized that might be the best way to go. At best she might believe it, and at worst, she might not know that they knew that she knew they knew. Wait - Drake frowned to himself. Was that right...?

Beth, meanwhile, answered in a weak voice. "Oh... um... g-good. I-I guess."

"Yeah? Great! Me too. So, uh... lookin' forward to babysittin' tonight?"

"Um..." Beth's voice shook, and grew quieter. "I-I think m-maybe I should... go home..."

Drake fought down another surge of guilt by reminding himself that he was being manipulated by a diabolical genius. If he turned to face her, he might lose his resolve; much better for him to avoid eye contact.

Launchpad reacted strongly, which did not surprise Drake. "No, don't go! Look, Beth, you didn't hear what you thought you heard. Drake didn't mean - well..." He looked beseechingly to Drake, who shook his head slightly in an effort to convey his suspicions. Launchpad's eyebrows went up in surprise for a moment, then knitted together slightly.

From the doorway, Beth said, "I-I'm sorry..."

Distracted from Drake, Launchpad looked at her swiftly. "*You* don't have to apologize!" he said, an edge of something unspoken creeping into his voice. "C'mon Drake," he said imploringly.

It figured: Launchpad *would* end up buying the act of the damsel in distress and forget to pay attention to the guy with the crimefighter's instincts. Drake grit his teeth together and tried to make eye contact so that he could get it through to Launchpad that they were being played, but it was no good; his sidekick was too distracted, and just kept looking back and forth between them. Drake was well aware that he'd have to say *something*, in any case, but without advance communication, Launchpad probably wasn't going to like it. Still, it had to be done.

Stiff-shouldered, Drake turned partially towards Beth and said, "I'm sorry you had to hear that."

"Um, okay," Beth said in a near-whisper. Drake couldn't see her well from his angle, but she appeared to be talking to the doorframe. She started to slip out of his line of vision. "Um, I'll just... um..."

There was a loud *bang* on the table in front of him, and Drake jumped in surprise and looked up to see Launchpad staring at him. No - *glaring*. Drake was taken too much aback to do any more than blink for a moment, during which time Launchpad said, "What kinda apology was *that*?"

"It was-" began Drake, who wasn't about to take this kind of situation from his own sidekick; but Beth managed to cut through his voice despite the softness of her tone.

"No, no, it's okay - he doesn't have to apologize at all!" She looked from Drake to Launchpad, both of whose attention was firmly on her, and she took a timid step back. "I'm... I'm fine," she said tremulously. "He didn't do anything... wrong."

Ignoring Drake for a moment, Launchpad stepped toward her and took her by the hand, drawing her into the room. "Wait here a sec," he said, his voice growing quiet, and then he surprised Drake again by putting a hand to her cheek, just for a moment, as she cast her eyes downwards again. "Don't go anywhere, okay?" She nodded, still looking at the floor.

Then Launchpad turned back to Drake, and said, "I gotta talk to you." There was unmistakably no room for argument in his tone, and although Drake didn't intend to let Launchpad start ordering him around, he did feel it was utterly imperative to avoid any sign of dissension in front of Beth.

Coolly, he replied, "Fine. Ms. Webfoot," he said politely as he got to his feet, "please excuse us for a moment." Launchpad had already started for the living room, so Drake stepped out after him. Once they'd cleared the door, Drake began, "Okay, listen LP-"

"What's your *problem* with her?!" Launchpad asked, spinning to face Drake and pointing a finger decisively in his direction.

Drake was taken aback, and for a moment all he could do was stare at his sidekick, blinking and frowning as his temper flared in the face of this unfair accusation. Launchpad seemed to be waiting for an actual answer, so a few moments passed before Drake recovered enough to answer. "What is *that* supposed to mean?"

"You know what it means, DW. You haven't given her a chance even once since you've met her. An' now you've really hurt her feelings, and for what? What'd she *do*?"

"Don't fall for that sweet and innocent routine, Launchpad - that woman is-"

"No she's *NOT*!" Again, Drake stopped cold, because talks with Launchpad just were not supposed to go this way. Launchpad didn't cut him off, he didn't yell, and he didn't question Darkwing Duck's instincts. All these things together were such unexplored territory with the pilot that Drake found himself getting equally angry and unnerved. Launchpad lowered his voice and continued, but the anger remained audible. "You don't have any proof about that, you just decided it an' you're stickin' with it 'cause it's easier than admittin' that you're bein' a jerk!"

"YOU don't have any proof that she's NOT a supervillain!" Drake shot back, maintaining the same high-intensity, low-volume tone as Launchpad, as he bristled over the term 'jerk'. "All *you* have is a 'gut feeling', so don't give me this baloney about believing what I want to believe! I'M the one with the hero's instincts here, *sidekick*!"

"Yeah, but if you knew her..."

"Oh, give me a break. Just because you see someone for ten minutes at a time every couple of weeks doesn't make you bosom companions. Why do you even care?"

Frowning, Launchpad pointed again, this time at the kitchen door. "Because maybe you didn't notice, or maybe you just don't care, but she *likes* you. She's a good person, but she's shy, an' she's tryin' every day to get you to notice her just a little bit but all you ever do is complain about her an' accuse her of stuff."

"And that's another thing!" Drake said angrily, refusing to quail under this list of inaccuracies, "*she* barely knows *me*. Why should she care enough to try to get me to notice her? Unless she has ulterior motives, that's why!"

"Or maybe she's just *nice!*" Launchpad shouted, and then stepped back, shutting his mouth again. He crossed his arms. "Look DW - just look at it this way. If you don't believe she's innocent, then pretend for a sec that ya do. Pretend she's just an ordinary lady, who never dealt with supervillains or any'a that stuff before. Now think about how much she's been through the past coupla weeks. She's been robbed, stalked, kidnapped, an' she's babysat for Gosalyn five times now. And she keeps comin' back."

Drake had to pause and concede that this was, indeed, a lot for your average non-superheroic citizen. "But nobody's *making* her."

"Exactly," said Launchpad emphatically.

"Sooooo, doesn't that make you *suspicious*?" Drake let the statement hang in the air for a moment, certain that the implications would finally sink in.

Instead Launchpad shook his head. "No. It makes me think she's lonely."

And then *that* statement hung in the air, and sank in.

But... *no*. Just because she'd won over Launchpad - and really, who had doubted that she'd win over Launchpad? She'd had her hooks in him for weeks now - didn't mean that Drake would let this faulty logic win him over as well. His family, and perhaps the entire city, were at stake.... They *had* to be.

Seeing he wasn't going to win Launchpad over with any grandscale arguments (and unable to think of any more at this point anyway), he averted his eyes and grumbled, "Look, she wasn't even supposed to hear that anyway."

"Well, she did," Launchpad said. "An' you're just makin' excuses now 'cause you feel bad."

He was *not*. Frowning, Drake said, "I am *not*. She needs to learn not to come bursting into someone else's kitchen. Maybe she can use this as an object lesson."

***
(Not the end of the scene, just the end of what I have written. ^_^)

2010-09-17T19:02:00.000-07:00

Yo yo folks, what up.

I had to delete the extra "u" after both of those "yo"s, btw. Creature of habit when I type.

Anyway, earlier I'd thought I could make a nice long blog post but THAT didn't happen. Right now I have developed a cold, and although so far it's just a runny nose, this nose happens to be running like a faucet and it just doesn't stop. But my nose isn't stuffed at all, it's just runny. UGH. Oh well, I'd be just as uncomfortable if it were not runny, but stuffed. What can I ask for here? If I'm sick, I'm sick, I guess.

So here's the schedule I want to set myself for the next little while, on what I want to work on:

1) Rewriting TWC2. Deadline: end of the year. This is heavily reliant on my actually managing to set up my personal computer in my bedroom since we moved at the end of last month; we don't have a chair for the desk up there yet. I will also need to finish at least the first two, if not all three, chapters of the first act by the end of this month. On the plus side, I have a good deal of chapter 1 done, perhaps half of chapter 2, and an idea for how chapter 3 is going to go. Plus! I think I have Act II more or less mapped in my head. So yay!

2) Once that's done, I'm going to start the next fic to follow after "House on Avian Way", which is tentatively called "Those Daring McQuacks In Their Flying Machines". Yep, and that will be fun to type out a million times, huh? So you can get a pretty decent idea of the vague premise of this one out of hte title. I'm going to have to research it (which should give you a confirmation of what at least some of it is about). ^_^ It should be short - shortish anyway - lordie, I hope... I don't have it all plotted in my head but there's enough to give me a start and some momentum.

3) At the same time I think I'm going to try to work on rewriting TWC3, "Forever Young". That one had a decent plot for Quackerjack but needs some reworking in terms of specifics. If you've read my first fics, have you noticed how nebulous I always left the villain's plots? It wasn't until I was well into my twenties that I started thinking actual solid plans were important. Yeah well. At least I care now. ;) Funnily enough I've started the opening scene for this one, since I had an idea on something I had been worrying over and thinking would require a lot of work to rewrite. And then it just came to me! I'm still a bit concerned it's not quite right but... yknow, it's going to be like six months at least until anyone else sees it, so...

Then again I could always preview it here...

Which would mean it would still be six months until anyone else sees it. XD (No, hi, I know there are like... two or three people who read this occasionally! I should make badges for you so you can recognize each other on the streets.)

4) It's not likely to happen but I would love to be able to work on my second Christmas fic, which I've been kidding myself since 2007 that I would finish up each and every year. Here it is nearing year 4!

All this and I'm going to keep putting up notes for AAE, too... eventually. Once again, contingent on my personal computer (right now I'm on my work laptop). But for now, it's past 10 pm, so I think it's perhaps time for bed for this girl and her drippy nasal passages. Please, please tell me I have SOME kind of cold medicine lurking in my bathroom cabinets... Otherwise I foresee an uncomfortably sniffly night ahead.:P Night, all!

Statement of Fact

2010-09-03T09:16:00.000-07:00

"High, Dry, and Flooded" is the best DWD fanfic I've ever written.

There's no room for debate; this is just how it is.

There will be a test later.

[PS this doesn't mean it's the best DWD fanfic ever; it's just my best. Three years already and I'm still so proud of that plot!]

Dangerous Radio Actors

2010-08-24T09:58:00.000-07:00

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??

2010-08-21T19:27:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-20T18:47:00.000-07:00

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..?

2010-08-19T13:33:00.000-07:00

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.

Ho Ho Ho

2009-12-17T13:54:00.000-08:00

LOL, well, so much for "there will be updates in November"!

Though I can't remember where I actually said that, so if you can't find it in this blog, no one can prove anything. ;P

How's about just a quickie update right now? Here's a preview of a fic that won't be released for at least another year, probably longer! I'm only just starting it, for one thing, and for another it's got a story between it and HOAW and I learned my lesson about releasing stuff out of order! But it's a Christmas fic, so I just can't resist writing some of it now.

NO SPOILERS for much of anything, this time around - cool, huh? It's just fluff so far, and fluff it shall remain for quite some time. Enjoy I hope!

****

Tentatively titled: Simply Having A Wonderful Christmastime

The snow was snowing. The wind was blowing, and icicles were forming. Launchpad cared nothing about any of that, however; his mind was otherwise occupied.

After a few moments of staring at the display case, he made a jab in the centre of the glass. "That one. I think," he added uncertainly, as the sales girl started to pull the selection out of the case. She stopped, looking at him inquisitively, and he hedged for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, that one."

"The emerald?" she asked.

"Yep, I think that's the right one." She removed the ring carefully and set it on a little black, fuzzy pillow. He wondered if they threw one of those in for free, or if it cost extra. It was cute. Still, though, it was the ring that was the actual gift, so he focused on that. It was a thin gold band with an emerald set in the centre; the band thinned out even more and wound itself around the stone on either side. It reminded him of a plant, so therefore it reminded him of Beth; even better, he knew she liked green. "Boy, that's really pretty," he said admiringly.

"It's one of my favourite designs," said the salesgirl cheerfully. "It's custom-made, but it's totally worth it. What size did you need? I can put in the order today and it'll be ready to pick up by Christmas Eve."

"Oh. Size?" He hadn't realized rings came in numeric sizes. "Uh, well, lemme see." He looked at the sales girl's fingers and tried to picture Beth's in comparison with hers. "What size do you wear? She's probably got fingers a little skinnier than yours."

"Okay, well, I'm a seven." She slipped the ring onto the second finger of her left hand, modeling it a little bit. "So a six? Would that be a good guess?"

"You're the expert," said Launchpad, grinning.

The girl returned the grin and took out a little pad of paper. She circled the number six, then at the top of the page she poised her pen to write. "So let me just get a few pieces of information here..."

"What're you doing?" asked a voice at his elbow. Launchpad turned to see Drake, staring in puzzlement at the ring on the girl's hand. Looking slightly flustered, the girl slipped the ring off quickly and put it back under the counter.

"Gettin' Beth a Christmas present," Launchpad answered.

Drake waited a moment, then asked, "You're getting her an engagement ring? Launchpad, for the tenth time, you're not even dating her."

"Aw, no! It's nothin' like that! It's just a present."

"Launchpad. That," Drake pointed at the ring under the glass counter, "is an engagement ring. ALL of these are engagement rings. If you're trying to send a girl the message that you're not desperate, you don't buy her an engagement ring for Christmas."

Launchpad was puzzled. "It's not an engagement ring! It's a... a friendship ring kinda... thing!" The sales girl coughed slightly and looked to the side, scratching her cheek. He felt bad for ignoring her. "What was it ya needed to know?"

"How much does that thing cost, anyway?" Drake asked the girl, pointing into the case.

She cleared her throat again. "It's three thousand," she said awkwardly.

Launchpad's eyebrows went up. "...Oh."

"Shall we go?" Drake asked. He sounded unmistakably smug, though he was trying to hide it.

After a quick apology to the sales girl, Launchpad left the jewelry store empty-handed.

Better Not Be Stingy or Your Nightmares Will Come Truuuue

2009-10-31T11:27:00.000-07:00

Well, here they are - the final set of chapter notes for HOAW. For better or worse!

Happy Halloween!

Chapter 10:

References:

- The Real Ghostbusters - "Roben's Spirit Guide", Morgana's reference material, is a take on "Toben's Spirit Guide" from RGB.
- Morgana's backwards-spell to open the door ("Nepo rood") is a reference to Zatanna from DC Comics.

Somehow Morgana watching calmly as candy flies through the air strikes me as funny. I guess because it seems to imply that this is an everyday occurence for her, or at least something she's used to.

I had a real problem in writing this chapter, because I honestly really wanted to have the rain pouring down (SO spooky, you know) but I also needed Gos to be trick-or-treating the whole time. Well, I was always more than willing to go out in the rain on Halloween, but I think I might be pushing it in this one. ;)

Another track from the Beetlejuice soundtrack inspired the tone of this chapter once DW and co. go into Beth's house. All the funhouse stuff is there specifically because the track has funhouse-style music in it. Is that cheating?

Richie was hard to write because he was more or less unsympathetic. Even giving his reasons for doing what he did failed to make him sympathetic. More scenes are written from his POV mostly so that I could try and figure him out a bit. Stella was more straightforward - she made a decision rashly and then regretted it when her spell started to claim Beth, so she decided to cancel it. Richie was harder because he didn't have the regret that Stella had, nor was he inclined to give up his chance at freedom the way she was. Not that I think it was a mistake for me to write him that way, only that it made it harder to find a way to *like* him.

Anyone wondering how, exactly, zombies could burst through the floor of the house's *second story* to attack DW can consider that he's also being attacked by staircases and banisters. *G*

Chapter 11:

References:

- None for this chapter!

Some of the transitions here are jarring; I'd had some constructive criticism when I wrote these scenes that jumping from POV to POV within a scene was poor writing (although the person who told me that was much much kinder in their phrasing *G*) because it implied omniscience. So I was trying very hard to have only one POV per scene, or at least not a whole lot of hyper bounce-arounds. Over time I found that this method of writing didn't work for me, and tried to adapt it so that if I switched POVs in a scene I could at least have a clearer transition to it (which may have been what the commenter actually meant), but at this point it's just choppy little scene changes but with how they're structured I don't want to take the time to reorder them.

Always feel kind of good about myself when I reach the point in a fic where DW gets to be heroic. Since I am at that point in this fic (after 11 chapters!), I now feel good. Also, I liked writing him fighting Malachai, since I feel like it's the most in-character I have DW in this entire fic.

Y'know, rereading this now, I find something very moving about LP's statement that he would never give up trying to save Beth, even when he could no longer see her... I guess that's lame, being enamored with my own writing, but honestly, when it comes to the Beth/LP stuff I am oddly hard to please with my own writing so I thought it was worth noting that I actually *liked* something. (A lot of the other parts in here either leave me cold or even make me cringe a little... I *so* overwrite these things, or else I underwrite them.)

My hope is that Richie's sudden change of heart is a) believable, and b) kind of endearing. I would like it to be one of those moments where you kind of grin a little while reading it. If readers didn't like him up to now, I hope maybe they forgive him a bit at this part.

On the other hand, in retrospect I do wonder if perhaps Richie ends up becoming a bit of Marty Stu, joining Darkwing in fighting Malachai. I had intended it just to give him a purpose for being there, but it does feel to me like it takes away some of DW's thunder, now. Oh well, once again - what's done is done.

Oh yes. I think I failed to mention before now that, rather than sounding the slightest bit like Michael Keaton OR Beetlejuice (lol), the voice in my head for Richie is Steve Buscemi. Very weasely. (I am allowed to say that because, believe it or not, I have the hots for Steve Buscemi, and have for abooooouuuut... five years now? When did I see "Ghost World"? That long, anyway.)

The old "house pulling itself apart" idea came ultimately from The Haunting but I do believe that it's been in a lot of haunted house films.

The brief, quiet conversation between Morgana and Darkwing at the end here is meant to feel very intimate - I sort of wanted to acknowledge a bond between them.

Epilogue

References:
- The Last Unicorn, for Stella's "remembering" tea; the influence here was the laughing skeleton who "remembers" wine enough to get drunk off of it when it's not really there.
- The "going into the light" idea is not specific or unique to one source, but I was thinking explicitly of The Frighteners in this one. Which is kind of odd given how I use it, but oh well. *G*

Although Stella is definitely at peace in the end, I also found something a little chilling about her and Richie simply... *disappearing* like that, and ended up reflecting that in Beth; this is why, despite her sympathy to Stella, Beth is left more unsettled by this ending than anything else.

You may be left wondering if this is for certain the end, or if there are still any ghosts in Beth's house. Well, short answer "yes" with an "if", long answer "no" with a "but..." No, that's a Simpsons quote. The answer is, there are not *currently* any ghosts in Beth's house. If you can call that an answer...

I Done Commissioned Me Up Some Artwork!

2009-10-31T10:17:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, I decided to treat myself and so I contacted Amanda Rohrssen, aka DarkwingPsycho, and asked her for an art commission. I had no real ideas so I threw a bunch of non-specifics at her: definitely Beth, maybe with Launchpad, something lightly romantic but not major... We agreed on a moment from HOAW, and Amanda produced a really sweet picture that is not actually *in* the fic, but is entirely in keeping with the LP/Beth relationship, and I went "EEEEE!" about fifty times over. ^_^

http://disneypsycho.deviantart.com/art/Launchpad-and-Beth-141804083

Amanda's main devART page has information on commissions. I paid $30 for this - it's $25 for a traditional media piece, plus an extra $5 for a second character. Totally worth every penny, and I think sometime in the future I'm gonna get another one. I am entirely out of the art game myself these days, it seems, but having beautiful artwork produced in this caliber more than makes up for it. :D

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living

2009-10-30T19:17:00.000-07:00

Chapters 8 and 9 of HOAW; this will be followed by the remaining chapters tomorrow, probably in the morning. I also have a picture to post! Not by me! Which makes it even cooler :D

Chapter 8

References:

- "Calvin and Hobbes", which long ago inspired the "lobotomy" gag of carving pumpkins. It just seemed SO Gosalyn...
- The Wizard of Oz, in multiple ways, most prominently "I do believe in spooks".
- BIG reference to Beetlejuice in Morgana's spell, which is as close to word-for-word from the movie's exorcism scene as I could get it. I actually did not get it right going by ear when I wrote this... I have since checked the closed-captioning and corrected it. Mostly. *sigh*
- And another reference, this one kind of more subtle: Gosalyn is actually describing Beetlejuice when she asks Stella if she can make herself look scary "like in that movie".
- The other movie Gos eagerly mentions is, of course, The Exorcist. That movie scared my sister so much it made her CRY. :D
- Third reference to Beetlejuice in this chapter: The phrase "Death for the dead" in reference to exorcism comes from there.
- "This is my 'resolved face'" is from "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" (it's a Willow line, from season 2 I believe). Cute and, I think, quite Beth-ish.

I don't know but there is something about the sentence "I'll let you carve part of the face" which, as innocently as Gosalyn may mean it, is just sadistic and wrong. :D

I had initially intended Beth's repeated versions of "my house is haunted" to be a reference to "The Real Ghostbusters", where in one episode Winston just disbelievingly repeats "I have sold my soul to the devil" until someone - I think Ray? - points out that it's just a minor demon. (That sure helps, huh? The chant then becomes "I have sold my soul to a minor demon.") ANYway - I felt like it turned out flat on paper, so I just kept the very basic idea.

Beth is too upset and freaked out to be polite or bother to hide the fact that she doesn't like Morgana, here. Naturally no one actually picks up on it. *snerk*

To the best of my knowledge, it really IS dangerous to break a circle during a seance, since the circle is the protection or something. I've never been in a seance. At least not a real one. ;P

So I hope that it doesn't seem out of character for Beth to be so gung-ho all of a sudden about helping Stella. I feel that it's in her character a lot to want to help people, and that she decided that the ghost was just unhappy and needed help, so she'd do it. I know that's kind of a 180-degree turn from her skepticism earlier, but now that the whole thing has a "human face" on it, so to speak, she's much more sympathetic.

One could wonder why, precisely, they're going to let Gos go out Trick-or-Treating when they've got this whole thing planned. The real-life answer is because I needed Gos to be doing something in the climactic scene; the within-the-fic answer is that, if you've heard of fury and a woman scorned, that's nothing compared to the fury of a woman who has missed out on Tricks-or-Treats. (Thank you, "Great Pumpkin"!)

Chapter 9:

References:

- One more Beetlejuice ref for the win, as Richie dusts himself off when he re-enters the story... This is done in the manner of Michael Keaton in the movie, when he says "It's showtime."

OOoooh spooky spooky house! I feel like this opening scene to this chapter is a little overwritten, because it's very much a visual scene in my head and that, naturally, can't be conveyed well into text. Ah well. I do like Gosalyn going back to her window in the hopes that NOW she'll be able to see some ghosts, though.

Drake and Beth's chess game is a lot like the ones I used to play with my husband. For the record, in this game, Drake is me. *G*

"What could happen to her in the hour that she'll be out?" Dun-dun-dunnnnn! Watch me make use of my very subtle foreshadowing! Gape in amazement! ;D

With Beth running around her house calling for Stella, don't you just want to make a "Streetcar Named Desire" reference?

By the time it's turning to dusk and Beth realizes she's been running around her house for three hours, at this point I wanted to imply that the whole reason she went over there (and the whole reason Drake let her) was because the house was sort of working on them both, warping their judgment. I think that's probably clear from how Beth wonders why she lost track of time, etc, but since I spell things out in these notes, consider this one spelled.

The entrance of the ghosts is another sequence written to a track on the Beetlejuice soundtrack - at the moment I couldn't tell you the name of it, though I think it's "The Exorcism" or something, but it's track number 13. Stella's entrance is approximately 52 seconds into the track, which I know because I am listening to it now. *lol*

Okay... what do readers think of Richie's return? Did people know he'd be back? Was it super-obvious that he was a ghost, and was the presence in the wall? I wanted to leave that a mystery until this point and have a little tiny fakeout, implying that the other presence was Malachai trapped in the house. Instead, what Morgana mistakes for two presences is actually three: the woman, the one trapped in the house - Richie - and the "angry" one, which is Malachai. So did it work as a mystery or was it obvious? I genuinely want to know, so please leave a comment if you have one! Even if it's "it was obvious", I still wanna know.

There is no intention of implying a romance between Stella and Richie, btw. Though if anyone wanted to read it that way I wouldn't stop them. But I didn't craft one.

While I'm rereading this now, I am pretty confident I did a decent job of maintaining the surprise with the spell that gets set on Beth. I don't see any major giveaway on that, but if I'm wrong, please do let me know. Sometimes subtleties are not my real strength. ;)

NEWS FLASH!

2009-10-28T19:24:00.000-07:00

OMG you guys. I finished the rewrite of TWC1. And I posted it to FF.net.

FINALLY. *weeps*

I hope it doesn't take me another 9 1/2 years to finish rewriting TWC2. I'll settle for 5 years. I'll call that short. :P

But for the time being I'm going to focus on trying to finish AAE... or at least get a big chunk of it done. I am starting to hate that fic, honestly....

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2451889/1/TWC_1_My_Kingdom_For_a_DoublePlait_Bolt