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!
Showing posts with label darkwing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label darkwing. Show all posts
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Friday, July 29, 2011
On-Schedule
So! I actually managed to update TWC3 a second time this month! If I can get the last two chapters done on-schedule then we'll be done around the end of August/beginning of September :)
It's not up yet on AO3, but here's the FF.net link.
Since this is winding down, and I haven't done any chapter notes or much talking about the fic itself, I thought I'd make a post about... well, about the fic itself. :) I've whined a lot about how no one really seems to like this one - which is inaccurate, as I have had multiple people contact me via DA and so forth to say that they've started reading with this one, and they find it quite enjoyable. So what I'm really whining about is the lack of reviews on FF.net, when I think about it. Aaaand, whatever. I'll keep whining about that ON FF.net, because I can see how many hits the story gets so I know people are looking at it and I'm just choosing to be all guilt-pushy there, but I'll skip the whining elsewhere. I know you guys. We cool. :D
Oh, wow, that was a digression!
So to get back to what I was talking about, I haven't really posted much about this particular fic and what's gone into the rewrite. With TWC2 I did at least some partial listings of the things I'd changed from the original version, and now that TWC3 is winding down some, I thought it'd be fun to do the same with this one. I can be almost complete, too, since it's nearly over!
In a lot of ways this one is actually very similar to its progenitor: more than either of the others, I really used the original as an outline and just filled the details in more strongly. With TWC2, for instance, I had to change a number of the plot details to make them less hokey, or the order of the events to make them more understandable, etc. With this one, it's largely the same: the outline for both is:
I: Beth gets yelled at/humiliated by Drake and LP comes to her defense, and then she finds out about Drake being Darkwing;
II: Darkwing encounters Quackerjack, who uses his ray gun to minimize him (haha, I like that term), at which point DW gets away but LP and Gosalyn are struck by the change being more than just cosmetic;
III: Darkwing and Gos ditch Launchpad to fight Quackerjack, which they do and they win, and then at the end Beth... Well I can't say yet 'cause it's a spoiler. DUN-DUN-DUN!!! Okay, okay, you got me, I'll spill. She runs away with Negaduck and has his nega-babies. YEAH YOU HEARD ME!
Okay, so, aside from that minor point at the end which may possibly not be true, that's pretty straightforward. I ended up just doing each as 3-chapter acts instead of one chapter each. And I STILL could barely fit all the Beth stuff into the first act, man, even with three chapters :P I do go on and on! So now for the differences:
1. There NEEDED to be a lot more detail in the Beth section at the beginning, because initially Drake just was fed up with her babbling and snapped at her. I mean, it's simple and not fully OOC, but it did make him look like a gigantic jerk. And while Drake can be a gigantic jerk, there's a right way and a wrong way; and he needed to have a reason within his head that made him certain he was NOT being a gigantic jerk. At least not for no reason at all. :D I actually came up with the idea for the whole "nobody can be that BORING" etc while walking to work one day, about a year ago - it just clicked. I'd been sweating over rewriting the scene for MONTHS, not sure if I could make it actually work IC, and then it just fell together. This was also when I decided to really go and just *run* with the idea that DW would think Beth was a superhero, and this was his (flimsy, I admit) reason for letting her stick around and babysit when it wasn't really strictly necessary. So, all this actually took a lot of thought and in the original was way quicker and weaker.
2. In the same vein, I had to *really* punch up the confrontation between Drake and LP. I won't go into the details on it since that's not needed, but I did struggle to make it something that made sense for LP at this point, and it was a challenge. I'm still worried as to whether I pulled it off, though no one to date has told me I didn't. And, again, the discussion between Beth and LP afterwards was very much extended past the original. The idea of LP trying to "talk Beth up" to Drake started as my idea of a way to get him thinking of her more often and - since he ultimately falls for her himself - this might be the impetus to get him to look at her that way or that might just be the excuse he gives himself when he realizes he's doing that.
3. Beth's discovery of DW's secret identity was largely the same but I had to change some details, including why Gosalyn wasn't present (and it's an excuse to bring Honker into the series earlier! I wish I'd had a part for him in the rest of the fic) and just precisely how Beth stumbles onto it. I absolutely wanted her to stumble onto it, too, because as smart as she is, she doesn't think of unexpected things very often so although she probably would put two and two together EVENTUALLY, it wouldn't happen for quite some time. :)
4. I needed more for Launchpad to do in this fic (this is a theme in nearly all my rewrites; he needs more REAL screen time) and thus came the "Harv" sequence. In the original, Quackerjack dealt largely with just DW, though Launchpad did ultimately still rescue Darkwing after getting zapped by the ray. One thing missing in the rewrites: I have to admit that I loved all the Quackerjack and Mr. Banana Brain interactions that were in the original. I can't shoehorn them in unless they feel right, so there arent' nearly as many, and I kinda miss them. :)
5. Almost everything after Darkwing gets child-ized is pretty close to the original, just fleshed out; the phone conversation with Beth ended up a little longer than I intended it, but I think it was needed, because I wanted to show the ease that Beth and Launchpad have between themselves even if she's kind of resistant to it/doesn't realize it's there. I needed some kind of positive interaction between them that didn't involve angsting over Drake. ;) I also had to stick in some mounting tension with Henny, and LP really ought to encourage her to get a backbone, don't you think? In the nice, non-accusatory Launchpad style.
6. Played up the loneliness Launchpad feels when Gos and Darkwing only want to hang out with each other. I hadn't intended it to dovetail like that when I started out having him thinking about how he was kind of lonely in general (back in Act I), but it fit like a glove and was actually already in the original fic. Like I said, I just played it up.
7. The Darkwing and Gos caper is at once directly following the original fic (I'm even referencing it as I go, for the general structure and for content ideas to flesh out) and also incredibly different. Action is NOT MY THING. I'm not good at it. If this reads well, I'm lucky, because I really struggle with it. Things I want to address in the next chapter or two include why DW is acting like such a complete brat (there's a reason, it's not JUST that he actually is one :D), and of course how Gos is going to get free/how the good guys will win.
Finally, upcoming in the last chapter: How will Darkwing return to his normal age? Will Beth find out that Drake thinks she's a supervillain? Will she BECOME one??? What will Launchpad think when Darkwing gives his latest opinion on Beth? Will all of this actually be addressed? NO. :D Some of it will. There's a plot climax coming in Act III chapter 2, and then in the "aftermath" of chapter 3, we'll see the Beth and the Launchpad stuff come to a point. (Not the Beth/Launchpad stuff. Beth stuff and Launchpad stuff, and in some ways the two will meet.)
So in a sense I've always felt like it's not fair to have so much Beth in a story that doesn't really involve her, but in another sense, this is one of the most important stories in the first five so a lot HAS to happen. I hope you'll read on, good friends. :)
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. :)
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Thanksgiving
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... :)
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... :)
Thursday, September 23, 2010
The Ever-Vivacious Head of Kitty Carlisle Says:
"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. ^_^)
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. ^_^)
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
TWC 1 Chapter notes... chapter 1
If I can catch up on stuff like this, I'll be able to make notes with each chapter I post! So lemme see.
This doesn't correspond with the chapter 1 that's posted on ff.net, because I'm actually separating them a little bit differently for formatting on the website. You'll hopefully manage to figure it out, though, b/c I doubt very much people are going to go run off and open a copy of the fic to play along at home. ^_~
Anyway! I tend to put a buttload of notes at the end of my completed fics; I save 'em up for the finale, so to speak. That's good but what about stuff you wonder on when you're reading? You may not care as much as I do (I love author notes), so if you don't, skip alla this. *G* If I go a chapter at a time I'll have far less overwhelming notes though... that's a plus! Oh yes - this is also how I hope to list my inspirations and if there are any actual lines I've borrowed from a specific source (Cassie Claire made me nervous, even though in my adult life I've never "borrowed" on that level... still though... best to document, yes?)
So, chapter 1 of the Beginning :)
References/etc:
- Kids in the Hall: "Joe"'s reference to Mac & Cheese is loosely inspired by KITH. I no longer remember how, I just know that it was. If you get it, revel in it! Yay for KITH!
- Batman: Darkwing's best "I am the night" expression
- Firesign Theatre: Megavolt's line about "powerful gasoline and a shoeshine" etc is from Firesign's album "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers". *pimp, pimp* Firesign is, for anyone not familiar with them (which is probably a good chunk of my audience), a strange and extremely smart and literate comedy troupe. They will likely show up in more of my fics. ^_~
- Richard Feynman and Albert Einstein: have worked their way into Megavolt's discussion/argument with the large flashlight. I don't know that they had any theories that contradicted one another, though. I really just picked those two names at random.
General notes:
- I started writing the beginning of this rewrite in 2000. I made it a few paragraphs and found the action hard to write. I skipped forward a bit to try and pick up some momentum, got a few more paragraphs done, and completely lost it. It languished for years until I picked it up again recently and found it a tad bit easier. You can see the two different writing styles (my writing style changes, for better or for worse, rather noticeably every couple of years depending on how much writing I actually *do*. Since there were a good six years in between most of the sections, the change is major in spots). I am a lazy editor and just left it unless it really stank.
- Who is Joe? Nobody. I named him because, in my original (1995) version, my pre-reader got confused and thought it was Megavolt in the opening scene. That was due to my lousy writing, and I fixed it in that version, but was left with a need to really make this guy an individual, just to avoid confusion. I don't know much about Joe, except that he's kinda dumb, on the young side, and ultimately rather unlucky. *G*
- I generally treated the Original Version (henceforth referred to as OV) of the fic as an extended outline so far. Take the same basic format and general happenings and just add to it. Flesh out with better characterizations, a few more gags, and a slightly slower pace. It's funny to look at the OV next to this chapter especially because it really does read like a summary or something of the new version.
- Since this is a rewrite I think I have a problem with one of the major things this story is supposed to be about: introducing Beth as a new character. I have been writing her for so long, and so many people have already read other fics (if not this one) with her, that it's almost taken for granted for me that people know who she is. Her first scene (which is another one I started in 2000 and made it about three paragraphs into) is intended to introduce her in a slightly more personal, less rushed way than in the OV. I'm too close to the material to have any idea if it introduces her for the first time or if it just brings her into the story as if we're supposed to know her already. I think it's the latter. I've come back to try to rewrite it again and worried that I'm overdoing it instead, so I've opted to leave it the sort of subtle way it is now, and just go ahead and look lazy. I did realize that I didn't give her last name at all in the version on FF.net, so that's fixed. I need to work a good description of her in there somewhere too. Oy.
- Oh yes! And now we get treated to Beth's crazy relationship with her mother right off the bat, which probably confuses the reader about her personality if they don't already know Beth! Heh ^_^;; Also I hate writing accents. Especially Irish accents.
- I'm not going to pretend I'm utterly comfortable writing for Megavolt. But I enjoyed it in the OV - I still think he's one of the highlights - and although I'm probably sort of overthinking it now, I'm enjoying it here. I have come up with a few lines I've really liked, and the "giant Employee of the Month plaque" is one of them. :D
- Beth's morning experience with the shipment at Bindler's is based heavily on my own years of experience receiving shipment in various retail positions. Yeah it was all exciting at the first job when I was 19. It got less and less so afterwards. (Though there's still something to be said for opening boxes and finding out what's inside... It's like Christmas twice a week! Um but I digress) I never tried desperately to make conversation with the deliverymen, though, and they were all quite friendly for the most part. :) This scene is a plus though because it finally introduces us a bit more to the "real" Beth, the babble-fest who wants to like everyone (and wants even more to *be* liked).
- For anyone who has only read the FF.Net version of this, I suggest checking it on my website. I added a brief description of Beth (in terms of why she avoids mirrors) and I find it rather amusing, especially the part about the size of her head. XD
- The Feynmann/Einstein stuff came about because last year I read Richard Feynmann's memoirs (well, one of them) and really enjoyed it. When I was trying to think of a version of a deep and philosophical discussion that Megavolt might have, I thought something perhaps with Einstein and then picked Feynmann to counter him, even though I haven't seen any evidence that they were ever at odds. But they worked together so maybe they contradicted each other at some point...? Eh, it was just an excuse to toss Richard Feynmann into my fic. ;D Note how I am so lazy I cannot bother to make "duck" versions of either name.
- I found it very easy to write a cranky Drake. (Hmm wonder why. maybe because I always write him that way. 9_9) Contrarily I found it very hard to write LP in this scene. I had about three or four discarded tries of a POV from him before DW gets up, over-explaining his friendship with Beth; finally I decided to just let it go for a while longer, not in the interest of making it a surprise but just to try not to overexplain it. Which I proceed to do later, but some of it NEEDS explaining... kind of... damn I'm just wordy. :P One thing I did decide to do as I was developing the chapter was play down the relationship between LP and Beth. Originally it was going to be a little stronger, still without him quite realizing he had a crush on her, but definitely with him having a crush. I ultimately came to decide on a different track for that part of this story; it's really funny the way these things get away from you, huh? :)
- You and I both know that I have nothing in this story that is more Darkwing-esque than "Sidekick Ruins Photo Opportunity". ^_^
So you know how I said the notes would be less overwhelming if I did them on a chapter-by-chapter basis? That only works if I don't add a bunch of notes as I go because I have the extra space to do so. CRIPES. :P
This doesn't correspond with the chapter 1 that's posted on ff.net, because I'm actually separating them a little bit differently for formatting on the website. You'll hopefully manage to figure it out, though, b/c I doubt very much people are going to go run off and open a copy of the fic to play along at home. ^_~
Anyway! I tend to put a buttload of notes at the end of my completed fics; I save 'em up for the finale, so to speak. That's good but what about stuff you wonder on when you're reading? You may not care as much as I do (I love author notes), so if you don't, skip alla this. *G* If I go a chapter at a time I'll have far less overwhelming notes though... that's a plus! Oh yes - this is also how I hope to list my inspirations and if there are any actual lines I've borrowed from a specific source (Cassie Claire made me nervous, even though in my adult life I've never "borrowed" on that level... still though... best to document, yes?)
So, chapter 1 of the Beginning :)
References/etc:
- Kids in the Hall: "Joe"'s reference to Mac & Cheese is loosely inspired by KITH. I no longer remember how, I just know that it was. If you get it, revel in it! Yay for KITH!
- Batman: Darkwing's best "I am the night" expression
- Firesign Theatre: Megavolt's line about "powerful gasoline and a shoeshine" etc is from Firesign's album "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers". *pimp, pimp* Firesign is, for anyone not familiar with them (which is probably a good chunk of my audience), a strange and extremely smart and literate comedy troupe. They will likely show up in more of my fics. ^_~
- Richard Feynman and Albert Einstein: have worked their way into Megavolt's discussion/argument with the large flashlight. I don't know that they had any theories that contradicted one another, though. I really just picked those two names at random.
General notes:
- I started writing the beginning of this rewrite in 2000. I made it a few paragraphs and found the action hard to write. I skipped forward a bit to try and pick up some momentum, got a few more paragraphs done, and completely lost it. It languished for years until I picked it up again recently and found it a tad bit easier. You can see the two different writing styles (my writing style changes, for better or for worse, rather noticeably every couple of years depending on how much writing I actually *do*. Since there were a good six years in between most of the sections, the change is major in spots). I am a lazy editor and just left it unless it really stank.
- Who is Joe? Nobody. I named him because, in my original (1995) version, my pre-reader got confused and thought it was Megavolt in the opening scene. That was due to my lousy writing, and I fixed it in that version, but was left with a need to really make this guy an individual, just to avoid confusion. I don't know much about Joe, except that he's kinda dumb, on the young side, and ultimately rather unlucky. *G*
- I generally treated the Original Version (henceforth referred to as OV) of the fic as an extended outline so far. Take the same basic format and general happenings and just add to it. Flesh out with better characterizations, a few more gags, and a slightly slower pace. It's funny to look at the OV next to this chapter especially because it really does read like a summary or something of the new version.
- Since this is a rewrite I think I have a problem with one of the major things this story is supposed to be about: introducing Beth as a new character. I have been writing her for so long, and so many people have already read other fics (if not this one) with her, that it's almost taken for granted for me that people know who she is. Her first scene (which is another one I started in 2000 and made it about three paragraphs into) is intended to introduce her in a slightly more personal, less rushed way than in the OV. I'm too close to the material to have any idea if it introduces her for the first time or if it just brings her into the story as if we're supposed to know her already. I think it's the latter. I've come back to try to rewrite it again and worried that I'm overdoing it instead, so I've opted to leave it the sort of subtle way it is now, and just go ahead and look lazy. I did realize that I didn't give her last name at all in the version on FF.net, so that's fixed. I need to work a good description of her in there somewhere too. Oy.
- Oh yes! And now we get treated to Beth's crazy relationship with her mother right off the bat, which probably confuses the reader about her personality if they don't already know Beth! Heh ^_^;; Also I hate writing accents. Especially Irish accents.
- I'm not going to pretend I'm utterly comfortable writing for Megavolt. But I enjoyed it in the OV - I still think he's one of the highlights - and although I'm probably sort of overthinking it now, I'm enjoying it here. I have come up with a few lines I've really liked, and the "giant Employee of the Month plaque" is one of them. :D
- Beth's morning experience with the shipment at Bindler's is based heavily on my own years of experience receiving shipment in various retail positions. Yeah it was all exciting at the first job when I was 19. It got less and less so afterwards. (Though there's still something to be said for opening boxes and finding out what's inside... It's like Christmas twice a week! Um but I digress) I never tried desperately to make conversation with the deliverymen, though, and they were all quite friendly for the most part. :) This scene is a plus though because it finally introduces us a bit more to the "real" Beth, the babble-fest who wants to like everyone (and wants even more to *be* liked).
- For anyone who has only read the FF.Net version of this, I suggest checking it on my website. I added a brief description of Beth (in terms of why she avoids mirrors) and I find it rather amusing, especially the part about the size of her head. XD
- The Feynmann/Einstein stuff came about because last year I read Richard Feynmann's memoirs (well, one of them) and really enjoyed it. When I was trying to think of a version of a deep and philosophical discussion that Megavolt might have, I thought something perhaps with Einstein and then picked Feynmann to counter him, even though I haven't seen any evidence that they were ever at odds. But they worked together so maybe they contradicted each other at some point...? Eh, it was just an excuse to toss Richard Feynmann into my fic. ;D Note how I am so lazy I cannot bother to make "duck" versions of either name.
- I found it very easy to write a cranky Drake. (Hmm wonder why. maybe because I always write him that way. 9_9) Contrarily I found it very hard to write LP in this scene. I had about three or four discarded tries of a POV from him before DW gets up, over-explaining his friendship with Beth; finally I decided to just let it go for a while longer, not in the interest of making it a surprise but just to try not to overexplain it. Which I proceed to do later, but some of it NEEDS explaining... kind of... damn I'm just wordy. :P One thing I did decide to do as I was developing the chapter was play down the relationship between LP and Beth. Originally it was going to be a little stronger, still without him quite realizing he had a crush on her, but definitely with him having a crush. I ultimately came to decide on a different track for that part of this story; it's really funny the way these things get away from you, huh? :)
- You and I both know that I have nothing in this story that is more Darkwing-esque than "Sidekick Ruins Photo Opportunity". ^_^
So you know how I said the notes would be less overwhelming if I did them on a chapter-by-chapter basis? That only works if I don't add a bunch of notes as I go because I have the extra space to do so. CRIPES. :P
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Begin at the Beginning, part two
Well, now... I don't think I've written anything since my last entry, but since I'm still sort of focusing on TWC1's rewrite, I think it's a good time to write about it some more.
So. Characters. To start with I'll say that my style of writing is very character-based; I like to write about why characters do things, feel a certain way, behave or act in a particular style. I like to explain actions. The end result of this is that when I write fanfic for most shows (or whatever I'm writing for), nothing much happens; you might get an insight but you're not going to get a lot of development.*lol*
I'm going to digress for a moment and share my theory on fanfiction: I think most people - not all, but most - write fanfic when there is something they want to see in a series that they aren't getting from the series itself. That might be a particular pairing, a particular mood, a use of a specific character, etc. Some people like to write darker versions of DWD, some really like a character and create a character to pair them with (...ahem. *looks guilty*). There ARE writers who just like a series and want to write their own episodes or whatever and I always admire those people. I discovered that I am more likely to write fic when there's something I want to change and/or see; if I'm enjoying what I'm being given, most of the time I won't even *read* fic, let alone write it. When I do, it's the speculative "nothing happens" fic I spoke of. SO! There's my digression. :)
Anyway, what I guess I wanted to "change" with TWC was not so much a change as an addition, ie the obvious one, Beth. And yeah, you can tell that this was mostly just a matter of liking the series and kind of wanting to be "in" it more, and Beth was a character I could sort of slide right on in there, have the characters react to her, and become invested in the series. I went through this already, but I swear, I *never* thought of her as a representation of myself. I already explained all that in an earlier post, though, so I won't go into it again. ^_^ To tie this back into the second paragraph: I will make the admission that the ideal fic for me is one where almost nothing happens, except maybe some people have a lot of deep conversations about things in their life. And at the end maybe they kiss (or, if that's inappropriate for the characters in question, they don't). *G* That's an oversimplification and a poke at me, all in one! But because I focus on characters, focussing on *plot* is very, very hard for me at times.
Having said that... I thought I'd talk a little bit about my take on the characters, as they are in the beginning of the series.
To start with, there aren't really any major characters on DWD that I don't like. Ironically, I adore Honker; he's one of my favourites. And I almost never use him, probably because Beth usually fills the role he usually filled (the brainy awkward one... the one "nerding it up" to quote the Simpsons, as I so often do). But I don't have any characters who have been in more than three episodes that I don't really like, and pretty much NO characters who were in more than one episode that I actually *dislike*. I like 'em all as they are, more or less, which again is par for the course for me: if I like a character I usually am faithful to their portrayal on the series, because I figure if I wanted something about them changed then I wouldn't be such a fan of the character. Doesn't mean I don't want them to grow, I just want to acknowledge who they are and what I *like* about them that way. (Um... in this case I'm actually thinking specifically of "Xena", not DWD, when it comes to growth and changes. For the record.)
But I have a little trouble writing the characters for Darkwing, because they are *not* deep characters, they are cartoons, and were always written as such. To add a lot of depth makes them more serious and erases some of the fundamental simplicity of their characters. They're two-dimensional because that's how characters usually are on kids' programs, and it doesn't mean they're badly done or not realistic, but it does make it hard to write a fanfic that is terrifically character-driven because... well, because you just can't write a fic about a character and only show one or two personality traits, as the series often did, and have that character be relatable.
The end result of this was that, in the original version of TWC1 (and subsequent fics), Drake is... um... not terribly likeable. I love Drake; I love that he can be an arrogant jerk, and I stand by my belief that he makes snap judgements of people, those judgements are usually (8 times out of 10) more negative than they should be, and he definitely thinks he is smarter than most people. He also has the patience of a gnat. But if that's all you present of someone in a fic written from their POV, how do you justify it? If you don't, if you can't, you're not writing a character who is believeable and you're not writing a character who is likeable.
I had the fundamental problem in the first version of this fic that I was certain Drake should NOT like Beth. I've tweaked my portrayal of Beth to give a few good reasons why he would not (reasons I tried to sort of portray early on, but wasn't really strong enough in my characterizations to get it out there) - mainly that she is awkward and, unwittingly, a hindrance to him. But those reasons aren't really strong enough to carry him out-and-out DISliking her and still not make him look like a creep.
The thing about Drake is that he's pretty certain he's always right - or, at least, in many situations and at many times he's certain of that. There are exceptions; he'll acknowledge when he has no idea what's going on, he admits that people know more than he does about certain things, and of course there's the old ego-shattering that happens fairly frequently when DW goes from puffed-up ego to punctured-balloon ego. *G* But in general, he's the kind of guy who makes a habit out of taking in his surroundings, interpreting them, and refusing to listen to anyone else's take on it. When he thinks he is an expert at something, he's totally confident in that expertise.
(Sidenote: general cartoon inconsistencies taken into account, I'm mainly talking about how *I* prefer to write DW. YMMV and I believe any given episode can provide evidence to contradict my interpretation; but then as I've said, I'm looking for chances to write a fully-rounded version of the character and this is how I'm piecing him together.)
I like writing DW as fairly competent, more than half of the time. The episodes go back and forth with this, sometimes he really knows what he's doing and sometimes he's bumbling through a case. I definitely like a good gag about DW making a dumb mistake - particularly if it's actually funny, heh - but some episodes go waaaay beyond what I'm comfortable with and it makes you wonder why he still has all his limbs intact. I like to see a vigilante who mostly knows what he's doing, within limits. DW limits himself, of course, but I also enjoy the idea that some of his ego comes from a well-deserved confidence in his ability. DW believes his own press -he has to, since he's the one writing it - and a majority of the time he lives up to it. So I like to show him succeeding, having moments of greatness, perhaps tripping himself up in the process but ultimately not only coming out on top but figuring out how to come out on top. I'm not going to necessarily be consistent in it; I think part of DW's appeal is that he's not perfect, after all. But I would rather see him know what he's doing than luck into something and I don't think I'm alone there.
These two things align into Drake's initial reaction to Beth. He is competent enough to recognize what he interprets as incompetence in Beth; he is irritated with anything that does not provide him quickly with something he wants; he is impatient. He also believes in his own *right* to be annoyed with anything that's sort of... standing in his way, I guess; the fact that he's in a bad mood the morning/afternoon that he meets her doesn't change anything. To Drake, it is not a bad thing to judge someone quickly, it's perhaps a necessity since you have to trust your instincts on people if you're going to fight crime. Nor does it occur to him that someone's feelings could be hurt by his being snide; I think that often he's used to most of his comments going over peoples' heads. But this is a tricky balance to write properly, because you have to set up that the character doesn't think it's a bad thing to dislike this other character, you have to give the character's totally (within their own mind) reasonable explanations, and you have to also just cross your fingers and hope that the audience will not AGREE with the character's assessment of the other character.
Last note for this entry: I've developed, over the years, a tendency to write Drake as a sort of cynical crank. This has moved away from the TV series. It started because I was trying to find a middle ground with him for Beth, and that became something where he would be cranky around her but like her underneath it, and it's sort of gotten to a point where if something isn't the kind of thing he's directly interested in, he won't even fake an interest. Not that he will tune it out completely, just that he'll view it with a kind of resigned indifference, even get annoyed if he's asked to pay too much attention to it. Drake lives with a certain element of expectations - one of which is that HE will always be the center of attention - and he will not alter those expectations. So I don't mean to imply that I think the way I write DW is dead-on canon, though I do *try* to make him as close as I can to the Drake of the TV series. Because I love that Drake. But my writing for him has evolved over the past decade and I'm in a pattern now that I don't think I can really escape. Oh well. :) I like my Drake, too. ^_~
So. Characters. To start with I'll say that my style of writing is very character-based; I like to write about why characters do things, feel a certain way, behave or act in a particular style. I like to explain actions. The end result of this is that when I write fanfic for most shows (or whatever I'm writing for), nothing much happens; you might get an insight but you're not going to get a lot of development.*lol*
I'm going to digress for a moment and share my theory on fanfiction: I think most people - not all, but most - write fanfic when there is something they want to see in a series that they aren't getting from the series itself. That might be a particular pairing, a particular mood, a use of a specific character, etc. Some people like to write darker versions of DWD, some really like a character and create a character to pair them with (...ahem. *looks guilty*). There ARE writers who just like a series and want to write their own episodes or whatever and I always admire those people. I discovered that I am more likely to write fic when there's something I want to change and/or see; if I'm enjoying what I'm being given, most of the time I won't even *read* fic, let alone write it. When I do, it's the speculative "nothing happens" fic I spoke of. SO! There's my digression. :)
Anyway, what I guess I wanted to "change" with TWC was not so much a change as an addition, ie the obvious one, Beth. And yeah, you can tell that this was mostly just a matter of liking the series and kind of wanting to be "in" it more, and Beth was a character I could sort of slide right on in there, have the characters react to her, and become invested in the series. I went through this already, but I swear, I *never* thought of her as a representation of myself. I already explained all that in an earlier post, though, so I won't go into it again. ^_^ To tie this back into the second paragraph: I will make the admission that the ideal fic for me is one where almost nothing happens, except maybe some people have a lot of deep conversations about things in their life. And at the end maybe they kiss (or, if that's inappropriate for the characters in question, they don't). *G* That's an oversimplification and a poke at me, all in one! But because I focus on characters, focussing on *plot* is very, very hard for me at times.
Having said that... I thought I'd talk a little bit about my take on the characters, as they are in the beginning of the series.
To start with, there aren't really any major characters on DWD that I don't like. Ironically, I adore Honker; he's one of my favourites. And I almost never use him, probably because Beth usually fills the role he usually filled (the brainy awkward one... the one "nerding it up" to quote the Simpsons, as I so often do). But I don't have any characters who have been in more than three episodes that I don't really like, and pretty much NO characters who were in more than one episode that I actually *dislike*. I like 'em all as they are, more or less, which again is par for the course for me: if I like a character I usually am faithful to their portrayal on the series, because I figure if I wanted something about them changed then I wouldn't be such a fan of the character. Doesn't mean I don't want them to grow, I just want to acknowledge who they are and what I *like* about them that way. (Um... in this case I'm actually thinking specifically of "Xena", not DWD, when it comes to growth and changes. For the record.)
But I have a little trouble writing the characters for Darkwing, because they are *not* deep characters, they are cartoons, and were always written as such. To add a lot of depth makes them more serious and erases some of the fundamental simplicity of their characters. They're two-dimensional because that's how characters usually are on kids' programs, and it doesn't mean they're badly done or not realistic, but it does make it hard to write a fanfic that is terrifically character-driven because... well, because you just can't write a fic about a character and only show one or two personality traits, as the series often did, and have that character be relatable.
The end result of this was that, in the original version of TWC1 (and subsequent fics), Drake is... um... not terribly likeable. I love Drake; I love that he can be an arrogant jerk, and I stand by my belief that he makes snap judgements of people, those judgements are usually (8 times out of 10) more negative than they should be, and he definitely thinks he is smarter than most people. He also has the patience of a gnat. But if that's all you present of someone in a fic written from their POV, how do you justify it? If you don't, if you can't, you're not writing a character who is believeable and you're not writing a character who is likeable.
I had the fundamental problem in the first version of this fic that I was certain Drake should NOT like Beth. I've tweaked my portrayal of Beth to give a few good reasons why he would not (reasons I tried to sort of portray early on, but wasn't really strong enough in my characterizations to get it out there) - mainly that she is awkward and, unwittingly, a hindrance to him. But those reasons aren't really strong enough to carry him out-and-out DISliking her and still not make him look like a creep.
The thing about Drake is that he's pretty certain he's always right - or, at least, in many situations and at many times he's certain of that. There are exceptions; he'll acknowledge when he has no idea what's going on, he admits that people know more than he does about certain things, and of course there's the old ego-shattering that happens fairly frequently when DW goes from puffed-up ego to punctured-balloon ego. *G* But in general, he's the kind of guy who makes a habit out of taking in his surroundings, interpreting them, and refusing to listen to anyone else's take on it. When he thinks he is an expert at something, he's totally confident in that expertise.
(Sidenote: general cartoon inconsistencies taken into account, I'm mainly talking about how *I* prefer to write DW. YMMV and I believe any given episode can provide evidence to contradict my interpretation; but then as I've said, I'm looking for chances to write a fully-rounded version of the character and this is how I'm piecing him together.)
I like writing DW as fairly competent, more than half of the time. The episodes go back and forth with this, sometimes he really knows what he's doing and sometimes he's bumbling through a case. I definitely like a good gag about DW making a dumb mistake - particularly if it's actually funny, heh - but some episodes go waaaay beyond what I'm comfortable with and it makes you wonder why he still has all his limbs intact. I like to see a vigilante who mostly knows what he's doing, within limits. DW limits himself, of course, but I also enjoy the idea that some of his ego comes from a well-deserved confidence in his ability. DW believes his own press -he has to, since he's the one writing it - and a majority of the time he lives up to it. So I like to show him succeeding, having moments of greatness, perhaps tripping himself up in the process but ultimately not only coming out on top but figuring out how to come out on top. I'm not going to necessarily be consistent in it; I think part of DW's appeal is that he's not perfect, after all. But I would rather see him know what he's doing than luck into something and I don't think I'm alone there.
These two things align into Drake's initial reaction to Beth. He is competent enough to recognize what he interprets as incompetence in Beth; he is irritated with anything that does not provide him quickly with something he wants; he is impatient. He also believes in his own *right* to be annoyed with anything that's sort of... standing in his way, I guess; the fact that he's in a bad mood the morning/afternoon that he meets her doesn't change anything. To Drake, it is not a bad thing to judge someone quickly, it's perhaps a necessity since you have to trust your instincts on people if you're going to fight crime. Nor does it occur to him that someone's feelings could be hurt by his being snide; I think that often he's used to most of his comments going over peoples' heads. But this is a tricky balance to write properly, because you have to set up that the character doesn't think it's a bad thing to dislike this other character, you have to give the character's totally (within their own mind) reasonable explanations, and you have to also just cross your fingers and hope that the audience will not AGREE with the character's assessment of the other character.
Last note for this entry: I've developed, over the years, a tendency to write Drake as a sort of cynical crank. This has moved away from the TV series. It started because I was trying to find a middle ground with him for Beth, and that became something where he would be cranky around her but like her underneath it, and it's sort of gotten to a point where if something isn't the kind of thing he's directly interested in, he won't even fake an interest. Not that he will tune it out completely, just that he'll view it with a kind of resigned indifference, even get annoyed if he's asked to pay too much attention to it. Drake lives with a certain element of expectations - one of which is that HE will always be the center of attention - and he will not alter those expectations. So I don't mean to imply that I think the way I write DW is dead-on canon, though I do *try* to make him as close as I can to the Drake of the TV series. Because I love that Drake. But my writing for him has evolved over the past decade and I'm in a pattern now that I don't think I can really escape. Oh well. :) I like my Drake, too. ^_~
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)