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.

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

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.

Ho Ho Ho

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.

Penultimate Authors Notes

Bum-bum-bummmmmm!

There will be only one chapter after this one. I actually have a deleted scene that would have gone in the previous chapter and I was going to post it and forgot, I also forgot to reference it in the notes. I can go back and edit them though, I guess, can't I? Shall do. Perhaps post the scene in question next week. Meanwhile: TWC1, Act 3, Scene 1!

***

References, etc:

- "Yoink." "Yoink?!" comes directly from "The Simpsons", which I find I cannot keep from quoting constantly in my day-to-day life, so it's not only in my fics that it pops up all the time.
- It's not clear, but if you have seen "Reboot", the way DW says "Megavolt." at the beginning of this chapter should be read in exactly the same way that Bob says "Megabyte." in that show. I have been wanting to make that reference for YEARS.
- Obviously this chapter refers heavily to "Clash Reunion" for all the reunion stuff.

I made up my mind that I wanted to write Megavolt mostly congenial in this scene. It seemed really funny to me. In particular once I got on the idea that he would be all "OMG DRAKE HIIII!" the idea cracked me up completely.

"You remember that guy Hamm? I've been wanting to catch up with *him* for a while now." For some reason I love this. ;D

The "where've you been all night?" "Um, at home asleep?" exchange between Megs and Beth was suggested during prereading of the very first draft of this fic, waaaaay back in 1995 I think it was, by Kim McFarland. She made a huge lot of other suggestions too and was very very kind to me over what was really, fundamentally, a pretty mediocre fic. I probably would have given up fanfic writing if not for her encouragement, so I owe her a LOT.

It's not exactly a reference, since it's not a direct line, but Megavolt's list of all the places he tried to track Beth down is inspired by a very similar bit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, recited by Roger after he tried to find Eddie Valiant. Of course in that one it was "But the liquor store guy... *he* knew." Heh.

In a crisis, I tend to go back and forth between having Gosalyn be very brave and proactive, and having her back off nervously. I think that's what she tends to do on the show, too, but I may overdo it (I like to have DW be the one who actually does the heroics, so Gos often just gets rescued); I interpret it as Gos getting all fired-up and going off without thinking, then realizing just how much danger she's in and not being able to think of a way out, so kind of fizzling a bit. If she WERE left to her own devices, for long enough, she'd probably get spitfirey again.

I had a lot of comments about how Drake is really, really hard on Beth here and perhaps too hard. ...I think I stand by how he speaks to her. Keep in mind that not only did she bring Megavolt there - even by accident - it was also due to her presence that he couldn't save Gosalyn right away. He needs a scapegoat and she's it. And yeah, he is mean, but I've seen him get pretty PO'd, even with people he DOES like. (He's said some pretty awful things to Gos and LP, not to mention Morgana.)

Sloggin' through the chapter notes...

Here's chapter two of act II, still on TWC1. I'm at least catching up to as much of it as I have written, now... :)

References etc:

-"The Simpsons" - "Boy, would my face have been red!" That's one of Homer's lines, see, so there's a Dan Castellaneta reference too! *G* I believe it's from "Homer's Enemy".
-Ummm... this chapter is essentially a continuation of the previous one, so... there's not really much else. :P

Oh, I really do love that grappling hook gag ^_^

Heh. I kind of like the way I play the Beth/LP stuff here. It's like one big sleight of hand trick, where first LP is focused on Beth... why? Because he wuvs her? Oh, uh, no, it's because she keeps asking about DW and LP isn't sure how to divert her attention. Then there's the entire rationalization about how he's NOT interested in her. I think I have sort of discovered a small handful of new readership with this rewrite, and they may actually NOT realize that the tide turns to LP/Beth. It's just been so taken for granted for so long that I'm enjoying it a little this way, not in a "mwahaha, I'm messing with heads!" way, but I quite like the idea that I can maybe have new fans who will enjoy the new, more gradual set-up I have planned, without knowing what's coming. :) Boy, that note got away from me! This was supposed to just say, simply, I just realized I'm kinda faking people out but perhaps with too much protestation. *G*

Not really sure how, precisely, this whole "social work" idea as an excuse for Drake's "actual" work came about. Nor am I sure how convincing it is, but it doesn't have to last much longer. ;)

I came up with the taxi stuff one day while walking from my car to my office (I park about a block away). I liked it, and rereading what I wrote now, I still like it. How much of it is because LP is a gentleman, and how much of it is because it's Beth, I'm not sure. We'll just have the lines blurred, I suppose.

Another similarity between myself and Beth: I cannot bear to let people give me money for something spontaneously. It makes me VERY uncomfortable.

"That's enough outta you, you big bully!" is *almost* a reference, since I'm kind of going back to Dead Duck in terms of Launchpad's inability to improvise dramatic dialogue on an appropriate scale. ("You'll never work in this town again!") The "big bully" part is probably proof he should've stopped. ;)

I always liked Megs stepping over the side of the roof in the original. I like how I rewrote it even more, though. "An interesting, yet brief, sound". Heh. The best part is, Dan Castellaneta has such a great repertoire of interesting sounds, I can dream he'd do that description justice. ^_^

The "recovery" of Darkwing is one of those moments that just fits better into a cartoon - I tried to shy away from "physical gags" and such in fanfic, since they don't translate well, but it's the kind of show Darkwing is so I can't quite avoid 'em completely. On the other hand, this is mild enough that it can be described reasonably well. It's just so hard to get cartoony visual gags into words - I'm sure most authors know just what I'm talking about, and most avoid them for the very same reason.

I don't think Darkwing's "Not awake?" line works. Sigh. I had trouble thinking of something and that doesn't quite fit as well as I'd hoped.

How obvious is it that Beth calls Drake by his full name, all the time, even in her head? It's like Jordan Catalano!

Poke at myself, for sticking Megs on a bunch of rooftops this time around for some reason. I think he spends like half the fic on a rooftop somewhere or other, and there are about three or four of them. I realized this was excessive, but had no better ideas (and I DID think - figuring out the timing and placement of, for instance, Beth's trip home and Megavolt's decision to try to follow her, took a while) so I just made fun of myself a bit. *G*

There's another joke that I felt was kinda nicely subtle as Megs counts the bolts again: his certainty that the bolts have multiplied, as if the number is in flux, and he might now have not only one extra but several.

The end!

Read Along With Zebbie!

I need to create a new tag, now that I have that nifty title. Yeesh, just... I am lame. :P Anyway though.

Act II begins with my second big Megavolt scene. This is actually sorta proof of how clueless I am when writing Megavolt. I get very, very lost because I don't have an internal Megs "voice" - I think I actually had more of one in high school, believe it or not - so I tend to just write in silliness and do a slightly stream-of-consciousness kind of bit. Stream-of-consciousness usually works for Megs. I also do enjoy throwing in really ridiculous phrases, like "extremely beautiful lady pigeons".

So that's our starting point. References for this chapter:
- "Not once; not twice; but thrice" - the Simpsons, an early episode with the Nuclear Plant softball ringers. Ahhh, Burns.

- "All he could do was stare at them, the bolts, his albatross" - Rime of the Ancient Mariner, in a really stupid I've-Never-Actually-Read-It kind of way. The reference is that the bolts are the albatross around his neck... and... verrrrry few people probably needed that explained. SIGH.

- Brief and totally not-clever reference to "Clash Reunion" since Beth thinks Megs's name is "Megawatt". SHE is not the one referencing the ep. I am because I stuck it in there for fans so they would think I was clever.

Nothin' much else. Unless you count referencing my earlier draft of this fic as a reference; I brought back the pigeon bit. Kind of. :) I don't know where the pigeon bit came from in the OV; I just thought it was funny. I made so much out of it, though, that when I was rewriting I felt it had to show up again. It's like an homage. ;P I actually didn't know quite how to fit it in there, either.

By the way, as of the writing of that scene I still am not at all sure what Megavolt is DOING. (I know now. Honest, I do.) Shhhh! Don't tell anyone! It's such sloppy writing!

"Poor pigeon" - as you can see, I couldn't bring myself to actually kill the dumb bird. Though, I leave it up to the reader to guess if the pigeon DW and LP see fly away is actually the same one Megs refers to in his POV scene. If so, it's not a pigeon that learns very quickly.

The "stealth" stuff is not a reference to anything. But I thought it was very, very funny... inside my head. Not sure it works quite as well if you're not me. But that's your loss. ^_^ Oh, and I couldn't resist an opportunity to take a potshot at one of my least favourite words of all time: "healthful". GUESS WHAT, THE WORD YOU WANT TO USE IS "HEALTHY" SO :P :P :P (Yes. I am in 8th grade.)

Please, please, please don't let me be the only person who thinks it's funny that Megavolt would mistake a grappling hook for a robotic spider, and take a liking to it. PLEASE.

And here we get to Beth's narrative, explaining - at least in part - why she fell for him. I kind of did that in my notes last time, but here's a version within the fic that I like a li'l bit better. Yay, good for me! Of course it's me being in love with words again. ;D Anyway, this topic will show up again in later fics, naturally, because Beth ruminates. But this gives us the gist. Also, right now she's really only sort of taken with him and intrigued by him; the real crush part will come a tiny bit later (though really, by the end of the fic, she's pretty gone).

The Launchpad and Beth sequence - the one that is within this chapter - was hard for me to write. Often when I write them they kind of ramble and have trouble getting to the point (probably because Beth has that trouble, and unlike my lack of a Megavolt voice, the Beth voice in my head is very very strong and likes to take over conversations), and this was no exception. I had a direction I wanted the conversation to go in, and moreover I had a direction I wanted the POV to go in; getting it there was hard. There seem to be a lot of things Beth doesn't want to directly address. :P

That's all for now! Lala! I thought I might get to chapter 2 tonight, but it's late and me want sleep. More later though - honest this time!