Hey, Hey, I wanna be a rock star

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

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

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 :(

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

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

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

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. ^^;