I is getting a commission done

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

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

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

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

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

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

Statement of Fact

"High, Dry, and Flooded" is the best DWD fanfic I've ever written.

There's no room for debate; this is just how it is.

There will be a test later.

[PS this doesn't mean it's the best DWD fanfic ever; it's just my best. Three years already and I'm still so proud of that plot!]

Three posts in three days?! Has the world gone topsy-turvy??

I KNOW!

Anyway I put together some authors' notes (and babbling and random stuffage) on the prologue of "All About Eve". For those following along at FF.net (which is... everyone I think, right now anyway), the prologue is chapters 1 and 2. I'm not splitting them up here, but they will probably remain separate chapters when I post them on my site, because otherwise it's a terribly long prologue.

Though I am well aware that real prologues don't have two chapters. We'll just... overlook that.

Without further ado, except to mention that I have a sore throat and it is driving me CRAZY!, here are the notes!

Prologue:

References:

- Title: "All About Eve", classic Bette Davis movie; the title really has no relation to the content, it's just straightforward, all about Beth.
- "Back to the Future" - Candy's line about turning in her homework in Beth's handwriting.
- "Signs" - Tank swinging at everything during softball games. I had just rewatched the movie, so I snuck that in there. I did stop short of having Tank quote the film with "It felt wrong not to swing", though.

I have heard of situations where, to start with, an advanced kid was mistaken for a kid with a learning disability. But I think it might've been in "The Simpsons". I'm not sure that really happens but I thought Beth is so quiet that maybe even her parents would overlook the signs of advanced intelligence and focus in on the apparent problems she was having.

Writing Irene's accent is hard and I hate it. HATE HATE HATE it. I love hearing it in my head, but I hate actually writing it out. Incidentally, Irene is based on Pert Kelton's rendition of Mrs. Paroo, the irish mother of Marion from "The Music Man". She was essentially "born" that way, all the way back in '96 (yep and it's taken me this long to put her into a fic), but it was coincidence that I had Gosalyn refer to Beth as "Marion the Librarian", another "Music Man" reference, in my rewrite of TWC1.

Bug's name was going to be Herbert, until I realized that he is the *third* "Herb" in the Webfoot Weavings, after Herb Muddlefoot and Honker (whose real name is Herbert Jr). So I changed it to Henry, though I struggled with it, because I originally named him after my grandfather - first name Herbert, nicknamed "Bud".

Shout-out to referencing my own fanfics! I have a reference to TWC4 in here, which is the first episode that mentions Beth's fondness for tadpoles. This was something I guess I tossed in when I was punching it up back in '95 or so, and I forgot about it until I reread the early ones a few years ago. The "tadpoles" thing stuck with me and so I tossed it in here as a running gag, even though I never meant it to be an actual character point.

It's hard to write Beth being this miserable and this depressed, because gosh, she's like this through almost the *whole fic*. I'm not 100% sure that she's actually bearable in this story because she's just so depressed. It's hard to write, since it feels so repetitive (though it's repetitive for a reason, which I'll go into in a separate note), so I'd understand if it's hard to read.

This scene with Launchpad and Beth is so awkward. Good lord. It's even worse than I remembered. :D I actually really like the part when he tries to talk to her and she pulls her hand away. Oh, Launchpad. Also? Stupid I know, but the whole coffee thing is still cute. I love writing little moments between them, even when nothing at all happens.

I wanted to try to make sure that I got Beth's feelings as accurate as I can, and so here is some TMI. My husband and I were friends before we started dating (though not really close friends like in this situation), and he liked me before I liked him. He and I talked about it, and I said "just friends" and he said he was okay with that - although it only lasted about a week because I decided to give it a go pretty quickly :) - but for a few days things were SUPER-awkward, especially during the second half of the conversation when, it seemed, he just decided now that it was out there he'd go ahead and tell me everything, and I was like "OMG I have to get OUT OF HERE!" So anyway... Beth's discomfort and guilt are based on that, sort of, only magnified.

Sigh. True confessions: I am very, very uncomfortable writing intimate scenes. That goes for romance in particular. I like to write banter and flirtatious dialogue, I like to write introspection, I like to write silly comedy; now, technically, I like to write romance but I am very bad at it. That's why things move very slowly in my fics and that is why things tend to be very understated. There are moments within this Launchpad/Beth scene, when he's trying to talk to her, where I'm attempting to convey an intimacy between them - the kind of thing that, if you were watching it in a movie, would make you ache for the people involved and also be chanting for them to kiss one another. I honestly have no idea if I was successful or if it just falls flat. I for one feel underwhelmed and I would LOVE some feedback. But yeah, there's a big reason why there's not a lot of solid romance in my fics so far... after fifteen stories. *sigh*

On the flip side, the introspective Launchpad stuff I wrote... well I'm rereading it for the first time in like, two years, and I'm surprised to find that I like it. This stuff works for me.

Heh, random reference to "High, Dry, and Flooded" when LP passes the Muddlefoots' house: they're having their Tuo security system removed (and getting the house repaired while they're at it) after the finale of that fic. ^_^ I know I say a few paragraphs later that it's only 8:30 in the morning, which is a pretty early start time for home cleanup, but I wanted to get that gag in (but I cleverly played it down during such a deep emotional scene, becuz clever writer is clever :P)

Five points for the implication that everyone will think LP and Beth's "night together" was less than innocent!

The discussion between LP and Drake is, for once, more or less in-character (as I see it anyway). LP's mood has precedent since he can, on occasion, take things quite hard and get pretty bummed out (and when LP bums out he *really* bums out). DW of course is just being DW. God love 'im. *hugs DW*

For some reason it struck me as immensely funny that Drake woud misquote his "clever quip" from when he beat the Liquidator in the finale of HD&F. Since it's been a while since I read the original fic, though, now I'm like "WHO is going to notice that he misquoted it?" which makes it look like carelessness for anyone who DOES notice. It was on purpose! I'm totally anal about these details and I swear I wouldn't gloss over 'em... even if everyone else in the world does. XD

Hahaha. Drake is *not* a Beth/LP shipper. He's totally not *trying* to be insensitive though - in fact he's trying very hard to be the other thing, you know, UNinsensitive ;P - I've just found that, a lot of times, people just don't seem to get that the moment you've had your heart broken is NOT the right time to say "well now you can get on with your life!" (For the record, I almost certainly would totally say that to someone in these circumstances, because I am just that insensitive! No, but seriously, it's easy to forget how much it hurts when it's not happening to you.)

You can see, in a few moments of this discussion as well as later in the fic, that I was writing this and rewriting TWC1 at the same time, and I was in fact just redoing Beth's and Drake's first meeting and working on how she fell for Drake in the first place. This shows up in LP's reflection that maybe if Beth hadn't met DW at exactly the time she did, she never would've fallen for him... which is probably true. Or maybe not. But I stuck that in because I was in process of giving the newly specific details of their meeting, and it was suddenly relevant. Stuff like that pops up throughout - this fic, and TWC1, were very symbiotic and influenced each other quite a bit. Which is WEIRD, if you think about it. Parasitic. Incestuous, almost. ;P (No, not at all actually, but I was looking for a good word...)

And next we have my introduction of Beth's father and brother! I had never really fleshed them out much in my mind - aside from physical description I knew (and still know) pretty much nothing about the older brother Bill (aka "Beef"), and at the time of writing I didn't know much about Bug yet, either. I've since discovered that Bug is a loving, but mostly uninvolved father. He's just a bit too passive in the family situation and has never tried to take any stand against his very, very outspoken wife.

One quick addition, I had forgotten that I wrote this scene from Honker's perspective. I'm glad I did that even though it seems weird since I think this is basically his only scene in the fic. Still glad though. I love Honker.

Characterization notes

Ugh, I have had writer's block the past couple of weeks. Yeah, I know, *again*. Well, in this case it's one of those things where I am not even thinking about writing as much so I can't pull myself together to DO it when I have the time. I did manage to outline my ideas for the last chapter of act II of TWC1, though.

Since the last stuff I posted (and really, practically the last stuff I worked on) was LP-heavy, this is a good time to ramble about my characterization of LP! (uh-huh, sure.) I've never made it any secret at all that I'm a big fan of LP's. Unfortunately that doesn't mean I'm able to write him or anything. *G* Out of all the characters of this show I think I've always been weakest at writing Launchpad... There are a few reasons for this, I've decided over the past few months.

A big reason is because of the disconnect between "Darkwing" Launchpad and "DuckTales" Launchpad. I mean essentially there really are two Launchpads, with the earlier one being the more active one and the later one being much more reduced in role and scope. LP was always comic relief and always kind of good-naturedly dumb, but he had a much more active role in "DuckTales". DWD's Launchpad is a more passive character, often there primarily to provide a punchline more than play an active role in the crimefighting. They definitely stepped outside of that limitation quite often - not only in eps like "Water Way to Go" when LP gets to be the main hero or stuff like that, but just in general at times LP contributed more. But ultimately the character was not the same as on "DuckTales", he was kind of domesticated.

Don't get me wrong; I don't care at all. :D But it made it harder for me to write him, especially with any real sense of personalitiy. My liking for LP didn't translate into deepening him or revitalizing him as a heroic type or anything, it kind of translated as me thinking he was a great guy and would be a great boyfriend (to be honest: I never wanted him to be MY boyfriend. I have Ryouga for that, thanks) and so I just wrote him as Mr. Great Boyfriend. Which is not really fair to LP because it just, ultimately further reduces him.

I also made the huuuuge, but understandable given the age I was in, mistake of injecting the early stories with a healthy dose of angst. Did I say "healthy"? I'm not sure that's the right word for it. ;D It's excessive. I was young. A lot of the stuff that I was writing about was the sort of thing actually going around in my social circles (at least the self-pity and emo stuff, if not the actual events) but that doesn't make it less annoying to read. *G* Somewhere after "The Bride Wore Black" even I was sick of it and I took a vow: I was not going to write ANY more angst if I could help it. Not unless it actually fit the story and character, in any case! And in the past 11 years I've pretty much stuck by that, good for me. :)

So in revisiting these early stories, I'm trying to stick to that vow again. (as we can see, I apparently have decided it's VERY necessary to the plot in AAE, as it's laid on thick and heavy.) I've wanted for a while to improve on my take on Launchpad - he deserves more than just "Beth's would-be boyfriend". I've never even given a fully satisfactory reason as to why he fell for her in the first place. Not only that, but he's barely even Darkwing's sidekick in these stories, so I want to get him at least back up to THAT status.

Which basically means reinventing how I see him, let alone how I write him. It was about six or so months ago that I started realizing I write him as a very, VERY passive character. I'm infrequently "in his head" and when I am, it's usually in response to something someone else is doing rather than him doing anything. So I gave him more action in "High, Dry, and Flooded" - more sidekick action in particular - which was a good start. This attempt at breaking out of the "passive" role also led to me surprising myself by writing his confession to Beth at the end of that story. In the five ore more years I had been planning that fic, that scene was NEVER in the outline. Then about two weeks before I wrote it, it popped into my head. Surprise! ;D And it was totally right, and I never saw it coming.

It's been similar attempts at getting "into his head" in TWC1, perhaps to varying degrees of success. This is sort of my big chance to not only give him a bit more depth, but to in fact decide just HOW I want to present him in these fics. I can essentially start over. I mean, I know it's not going to be very different from what I've been writing lately, but I can lay down a more concrete base to work with.

I want to give him a few more layers, and as with any other character I really care for (and feel for) that means I want him to have some low points too. I want him to get a little irritated, act a little thoughtlessly, generally be wrong some of the time. I do believe that Launchpad is a sweet guy who couldn't be mean if he were being paid to be so; doesn't mean he can't occasionally say or do the wrong thing without realizing it. I don't know exactly how all this will come out, but we'll see. :)

In terms of character traits... well, for one, I don't tend to go with people who say that they think LP is "smarter than he lets on". I'll agree that he seems a bit dimmer than he did on "DuckTales", but I'd rather just write somewhere in between there than speculate that maybe he plays it dumb to keep DW's ego happy. I don't see any evidence of that, I think they just tweaked the character for a show that was based more in comedy than DT had been. LP is... um... not a thinker. So what? I like 'em big and dumb. (Once again, we have Ryouga for evidence.) ^_~ Nah, but seriously, I tend to like characters the way they are - flaws and all. If a character I like has a negative trait I rarely see it as character assassination, unless I think it's too played up at that character's expense (like Joxer on "Xena: Warrior Princess", don't even get me STARTED).

The brief, cartoony, choppy feel of the early stories allowed for a certain suspension of disbelief as regards LP falling for Beth. We may never know WHY, exactly, but it happened and it's established and we'll just go with that, right? Fine... except that I don't write that way anymore. That's why in the end I need to flesh it out. I need to think of the characters as *characters* instead of shadows, and I need a reason why LP would fall for this girl, a girl who thinks of herself as invisible and does a good job of convincing the rest of the world of it, too. I've no doubt that he'd be friendly with her, start up a conversation, find her pleasant enough, but fall in love? Why?

I've got reasons, finally. I hope I'll eventually get to them. For now I'll say, in the course of TWC1, you may be wondering if he's actually falling for her yet. Nope. Not within this story. There may be a little more than he's letting on to himself... maybe... but right now they're both just forging a tenuous friendship. Look for developments in fics to come, however.... IF I ever manage to write 'em. :P