Young ladies? I ROCK ya!

I thought I'd do a music post!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MUPPETS

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

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

IS 100th POST, IS GOOD

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

PARTY!

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

So instead have a playlist! :D

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

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

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

Take a Chance On Me, ABBA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I listen to the Bee Gees while I write.

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

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

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

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

Love Comes Quickly

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

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

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



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



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

Music Post!

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

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

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

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

And it's you I need to show

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There Will Be Information On All About Elizabeth

I am going to post some chapter notes, the way I did with TWC1 and HoAW. And then I'll probably disappear again. :D No, but it will take a little while because I hope to do it as I code the fic for my website - I mentioned before this is an exercise in futility, because I have yet to actually finish designing the place the fics will go onto so they are never going up, but so what? - and that might take a while.

But so what!

Before I do the chapter notes, here's a post that's just about the fic in general, since I'm approaching the ending and all. It's winding down.

Basically, the fanfic ended up being about people. I knew it was character-driven but it was initially going to be about Beth (hence the title, hurr hurr); in the end it became about people, the nature of people, the fact that you never really get the whole picture on anyone and there are very few "villains". Everyone in Beth's past who seems to have wronged her has their own side and their own lives. What they're really guilty of, usually, is thinking of themselves. Which is what Beth is doing, too. So this kind of came out of nowhere, but it became a stronger and stronger theme throughout, as we looked at Beth's family and the people in her past.

The final message becomes that, for all the awful experiences that Beth has been through and all the poor treatment she's had from other people, regardless, she is the one who has created her life by choosing to make the decisions she has. (You can tell I've reached a philosophy of 'owning your own life' over the past few years, huh?) As appropriate, as I go through with the chapter notes, I'll hopefully dedicate a post or two to some of the original characters in this fanfic.

By the way, one character from Beth's past will return! (Or, wait, two - Ariana will, at least I hope - but one other will too! WHICH ONE? I will not tell! Speculate!)

Other themes: I chose "Stuck In a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" as the theme for Beth's depression. As I view it, she's dwelling on this one moment and experience, unable to let it go, until in the end she realizes life goes on and everything passes. As with many things I've written, this is a realization I've had myself. I like that U2 song a lot, and I love the sort of epiphany at the end of the song. Anyway, this led to the fic being rather repetitive, intentionally so, because despite all of Beth's efforts she couldn't get past the rejection from Drake and the discussion with Launchpad. I *have* found that in depression you can't think of the future, you can only think of where you are right then and feel like it's going to go on forever, so the U2 song is a fantastic representation of that. (It helps that it was written *about* precisely that topic.)

Another theme that came out - I've mentioned this before, but I didn't go into this series thinking of Beth as having trust issues. When the idea occurred to me, I didn't resist it the way that Beth did, but I didn't realize how true it clearly was until I had really thought about it. Once I did, I went "Oh my god, of COURSE she does!" She always has. Weird, huh? I realized I'd never written her as speaking openly about herself, I've left her very private, and very, very unwilling to believe that people like her. I didn't associate that with a trust problem though until I thought about it in those terms. Then I realized it explained a huge amount, including the mystery of why she would remain blind to Launchpad for so long, and why she would *continue* to feel that way.

I think that about covers it, my dears; specifics will show up in each chapter note post.

Oh! Last thing! Beth's parents are both homages to my maternal grandparents, both of whom passed away during the writing of this monster fic. I created both of them way back in 1996, and it took me this long to get them into a fic! Anyway, Bug, Beth's father, was named for my grandfather Bud. His real name was Herbert but he was Bud pretty much his whole life. I changed Bud to Bug first, then had to come up with a reason he'd be called that; this led to his being a camera enthusiast, nicknamed "shutterbug" or "Bug" for short. I did initially name him Herbert, but then realized that made him the third Herbert in the Webfoot Weavings (after Herb Muddlefoot and Honker), so the name was changed. His personality is not largely drawn from my grandfather, who was much more of a character than Bug, but the inspiration was still there. My grandfather died on April 2nd, 2009.

Irene Webfoot was not named after my grandmother (Thelma), nor is my grandmother Irish. But she did call us "me darlin'", and although nothing solidly inspired her character, I think there's a little of my grandmother in there somewhere. I won't say where. Most everything you'd think it was, is not. :) She died April 4th, 2010. I'm not dedicating this fanfic to them, because neither of them even knew it existed, and I'm not sure what either of them would think. But I am using it to remember them, anyway.

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living

Chapters 8 and 9 of HOAW; this will be followed by the remaining chapters tomorrow, probably in the morning. I also have a picture to post! Not by me! Which makes it even cooler :D

Chapter 8

References:

- "Calvin and Hobbes", which long ago inspired the "lobotomy" gag of carving pumpkins. It just seemed SO Gosalyn...
- The Wizard of Oz, in multiple ways, most prominently "I do believe in spooks".
- BIG reference to Beetlejuice in Morgana's spell, which is as close to word-for-word from the movie's exorcism scene as I could get it. I actually did not get it right going by ear when I wrote this... I have since checked the closed-captioning and corrected it. Mostly. *sigh*
- And another reference, this one kind of more subtle: Gosalyn is actually describing Beetlejuice when she asks Stella if she can make herself look scary "like in that movie".
- The other movie Gos eagerly mentions is, of course, The Exorcist. That movie scared my sister so much it made her CRY. :D
- Third reference to Beetlejuice in this chapter: The phrase "Death for the dead" in reference to exorcism comes from there.
- "This is my 'resolved face'" is from "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" (it's a Willow line, from season 2 I believe). Cute and, I think, quite Beth-ish.

I don't know but there is something about the sentence "I'll let you carve part of the face" which, as innocently as Gosalyn may mean it, is just sadistic and wrong. :D

I had initially intended Beth's repeated versions of "my house is haunted" to be a reference to "The Real Ghostbusters", where in one episode Winston just disbelievingly repeats "I have sold my soul to the devil" until someone - I think Ray? - points out that it's just a minor demon. (That sure helps, huh? The chant then becomes "I have sold my soul to a minor demon.") ANYway - I felt like it turned out flat on paper, so I just kept the very basic idea.

Beth is too upset and freaked out to be polite or bother to hide the fact that she doesn't like Morgana, here. Naturally no one actually picks up on it. *snerk*

To the best of my knowledge, it really IS dangerous to break a circle during a seance, since the circle is the protection or something. I've never been in a seance. At least not a real one. ;P

So I hope that it doesn't seem out of character for Beth to be so gung-ho all of a sudden about helping Stella. I feel that it's in her character a lot to want to help people, and that she decided that the ghost was just unhappy and needed help, so she'd do it. I know that's kind of a 180-degree turn from her skepticism earlier, but now that the whole thing has a "human face" on it, so to speak, she's much more sympathetic.

One could wonder why, precisely, they're going to let Gos go out Trick-or-Treating when they've got this whole thing planned. The real-life answer is because I needed Gos to be doing something in the climactic scene; the within-the-fic answer is that, if you've heard of fury and a woman scorned, that's nothing compared to the fury of a woman who has missed out on Tricks-or-Treats. (Thank you, "Great Pumpkin"!)

Chapter 9:

References:

- One more Beetlejuice ref for the win, as Richie dusts himself off when he re-enters the story... This is done in the manner of Michael Keaton in the movie, when he says "It's showtime."

OOoooh spooky spooky house! I feel like this opening scene to this chapter is a little overwritten, because it's very much a visual scene in my head and that, naturally, can't be conveyed well into text. Ah well. I do like Gosalyn going back to her window in the hopes that NOW she'll be able to see some ghosts, though.

Drake and Beth's chess game is a lot like the ones I used to play with my husband. For the record, in this game, Drake is me. *G*

"What could happen to her in the hour that she'll be out?" Dun-dun-dunnnnn! Watch me make use of my very subtle foreshadowing! Gape in amazement! ;D

With Beth running around her house calling for Stella, don't you just want to make a "Streetcar Named Desire" reference?

By the time it's turning to dusk and Beth realizes she's been running around her house for three hours, at this point I wanted to imply that the whole reason she went over there (and the whole reason Drake let her) was because the house was sort of working on them both, warping their judgment. I think that's probably clear from how Beth wonders why she lost track of time, etc, but since I spell things out in these notes, consider this one spelled.

The entrance of the ghosts is another sequence written to a track on the Beetlejuice soundtrack - at the moment I couldn't tell you the name of it, though I think it's "The Exorcism" or something, but it's track number 13. Stella's entrance is approximately 52 seconds into the track, which I know because I am listening to it now. *lol*

Okay... what do readers think of Richie's return? Did people know he'd be back? Was it super-obvious that he was a ghost, and was the presence in the wall? I wanted to leave that a mystery until this point and have a little tiny fakeout, implying that the other presence was Malachai trapped in the house. Instead, what Morgana mistakes for two presences is actually three: the woman, the one trapped in the house - Richie - and the "angry" one, which is Malachai. So did it work as a mystery or was it obvious? I genuinely want to know, so please leave a comment if you have one! Even if it's "it was obvious", I still wanna know.

There is no intention of implying a romance between Stella and Richie, btw. Though if anyone wanted to read it that way I wouldn't stop them. But I didn't craft one.

While I'm rereading this now, I am pretty confident I did a decent job of maintaining the surprise with the spell that gets set on Beth. I don't see any major giveaway on that, but if I'm wrong, please do let me know. Sometimes subtleties are not my real strength. ;)

So don't try to figure out a plan

Okay, so I missed Monday for chapter notes. Therefore I will be making two posts tonight (Tuesday). Chapters 2 and 3 in this one...

***

Chapter two:

References:

- Bernie Wrightson, the previous owner of the house, is named for the acclaimed comic book artist of the same name. I named him that as a gag in TWC4, but it really fits here; he has a strong background in horror comics. :D
-Friends: Beth's attempts to be "breezy" are a direct reference to an ep of this series when Monica leaves a message on her ex-boyfriend's machine. She tells the others that she was "breezy", but it turns out that she ended the message by awkwardly saying "I'm breezy!"
- A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday The 13th, two giants of the slasher genre, got blended together for Nightmare on 13th Street. Obvious, but a fun nod anyway.

Beth's fear of spiders was established in "The Bride Wore Black". Of course it's just one of many creepy-crawlies she has a problem with...

Additions to this chapter from the original version mainly include details about the shrink Beth is seeing in St. Canard - naming her and linking her to the previous story (referral from Dr. Mortimer). Dr. Mortimer's office is about two hours away; too much of a commute. *G*

Beth's awkwardness about hugging LP is actually more a holdover from the first version of the fic, when she was clueless about how he felt about her. I probably should rewrite it now but I'm not sure how to, and it's not all that important anyway.

Re: Beth's inability to find anything on TV that is not horror... Back in the early 90s, when this fic takes place, it seemed like all through the second half of October you would only find slasher movies on TV, especially on "local" stations like the now-defunct UPN and on cable movie channels. Nowadays no one really cares, but I distinctly remember the old days when if you wanted to watch a slasher flick in late October, you could just pick a channel at random.

The Casablanca bit is another reference to something with Kim McFarland, this one an RP series in a forum waaay back in, like, 1994 or something. I have injokes no one gets anymore! It's okay, though, because Beth likes old movies and LP is a Bogart fan, so it works. ^_~

For the record, Drake insisted on coming over because he felt bad about how his conversation with Beth went and he's too awkward about it to just apologize. This is his effort at making it up to her by showing her that he still likes her; Beth totally does not pick up on this.

I'm never sure it's appropriate to have LP come off so cowardly when it comes to supernatural stuff. I get the impression from DWD episodes that he doesn't really like gorey movies, he was pretty uneasy in "The Haunting of Mr. Banana Brain", and Morgana and her family seem to make him nervous; I may be playing it up a bit much though. I can't decide. I think there's a precedent in the series that I'm following... I hope so anyway.

One may wonder why Darkwing is put off when Beth asks him to come over and catch burglars... The answer is because it's not something he's likely to get a TV special out of, essentially. ;) He does think she's probably overreacting to a noise or a shadow, but even if it turned out to be a burglar, it's a small fry and Darkwing is more interested in catching someone really big and getting national media coverage for it.

On a personal note, in every ghost movie I've ever seen, unseen running footsteps scare the living bejesus out of me like almost nothing else. There was this part in The Grudge where - um.... that's neither here nor there, forget about it. (I spent half of that movie with my hands over my eyes. LITERALLY. HALF.)

Chapter three

References:

- Stella D'Oro cookies - the inspiration for Stella's last name. I named Stella and Richie in the prologue well before I realized I needed last names for them. D'Oro was a cute gag and also the first name that came into my head.
- Toronto Sun - where I got the name for the St. Canard Sun. The Toronto Sun is, heh, a bit of a rag publication (IMHO). Consider the St. Canard edition to be much the same.
- Stephen King's "IT"; Casper the Friendly Ghost - the two inspirations for Richie's last name. Kaspar/Casper is obvious; it's also similar to Kasprak, the last name of a second character in "IT".
-Quackenbos - I will continue to take any opportunity I can find to work this name into one of my fics.

I just realized that I've got two consecutive chapters in which Beth wanders into the Mallard household and convinces someone there to hang out with her. Heh.

Yay for Beth-Is-A-Geek jokes! I wrote the stuff about Beth at the library loooong before I thought up her childhood love affair with libraries (detailed in AAE), but it only makes sense,don't you think? Incidentally, Gosalyn shares my study habits.

I am pretty certain I stole the gag about Beth's delight over periodicals from The Simpsons. You know, since I steal everything else from that show. ;D

Who remembers card catalogs anymore?

If you cue it right around the point where Beth says "This is a Halloween edition from 1971", more or less anyway, track 6 on the Beetlejuice soundtrack ("Lydia Discovers?") goes right around here.

Incidentally, I shouldn't even point this out on the chance that people might not notice it if I don't, but I'm aware there's a plot hole here: how could anyone know that Stella disappeared from her home that day exactly? Well, we could always assume that she had family or something coming over the next day and she wasn't there... But even THEN how would they know about Richie? Let's just assume there's some unlikely but possible explanation and go with that, huh?

Notes for next two chapters follow immediately! To the point where you will actually see this particular entry after them, because yay for loading backwards. ^_~

Soundtracks, and A Question

First the question. Amanda asked how to subscribe to the posts here... I have noooo idea. *lol* I'm sure there's a way to set up a feed so people could get it sent to their LJ friends' lists or something... which would be way convenient. As it stands I don't know what to do to do that, and I'm too lazy to look into it right now. Part of the reason I'm lazy is because what I want to do is ultimately have this blog housed on my website, specifically in the same spot I'll be housing my fics, in which case you can just pop in to the main site there and catch up on any updates I've made. However right now I don't even know how to get email notifications when people comment on my posts. *lol* I know housing it on my webpage is totally possible and involves something to do with FTP, but right now I don't have any info on FTP so it's something I'll have to research at least slightly, and I don't want to do that right now. Haha. XD

Well, moving on. I don't have any kind of segue at all for this so I'm just gonna bounce right on in!... From the number of "songfics" out there I assume most people have a kind of soundtrack, at least in a minor form, for their fics and/or characters and/or "universes". Naturally I do, for nearly every series I've ever written for. In fact I have an EXTENSIVE one, in two parts, for my Darlingverse series... but I digress. :) My Webfoot soundtrack, in terms of a solid thing, is still growing - rather slowly at that - but I had been thinking about it recently as I wrote and I came to the conclusion that the soundtrack to Beth's life, just in terms of the general sound of it, is mainly comprised of 80s music. There's some 70s music in there too, and perhaps a bit of very early 90s (and of COURSE, if I find contemporary songs that fit, I'll go anachronistic and use them for inspiration), but mostly Beth follows a particular time period for the sound of her life. I wish I had good examples... LOL, I don't really, it would just be a lot of the stuff you might hear on the radio at any given time. "Walkin' On Sunshine" is as much a good choice as Blondie or Hall and Oates. It's not necessarily stuff I like (though I do love Blondie) as it is just the time period, because I figure most of Beth's formative years were in the 80s.

I've never really actually out-and-out specified the timeline I work with, I realized. I'm kind of doing that in AAE, but for the record to explicitly state it: Beth was born in 1967. The first story in the Webfoot Chronicles takes place in late summer of 1992, and Beth has just turned 25 (her birthday is in July).

Going back to the subject of soundtracks, I do have some specific songs for specific scenes and I've been playing with the idea of getting an account with, um, what's that set-up called? "Jigg It" or something? Anyway I've thought of getting an account with them so I can put up streaming versions of these songs here. :) I'll post about them more in later days!

Now we get to the point where I HOPE I'll be able to keep up on this blog. My work is about to get heavy-time crazy since a coworker just left, another is having surgery next week and will be out for 6 weeks, and in another two weeks a third coworker is going on vacation (it was planned and paid for way in advance or else she'd reschedule, but she can't). So... KABOOM. ;D