insaneladybug (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
insaneladybug) wrote2017-12-31 05:29 pm
insaneladybug) wrote2017-12-31 05:29 pm
The ballad of Bonnie and Clyde
So I finally started writing that story I talked of where Jessie is hurt and James is initially blamed. I wrote the entire first draft before I started posting it, because I was stumped at one point and I didn't want to risk stalling on it after it was already going up. I've been adding scenes to some chapters after some of them turned out way shorter than others and I still need to flesh them out more.
It's interesting, because Team Rocket is ending up going through the same sort of thing that happened with the fictional Rockapella in their stories. There are like three different ways to have one's true self taken away: possession, mind-control, and corruption (a la One Ring style), and the different members each went through one of those (with the fourth also undergoing possession). It wasn't even part of the original story plan for this Team Rocket story to involve mind-control, especially since canon already used that one, but everything just started falling into place like that while I was writing it. Which means that each Team Rocket member is also going to have to deal with one of those ways of losing their true self in the fics.
James: Possession
Meowth: Mind-control
Jessie: Corruption
But then there's the sticky problem of both James and Meowth aware to varying extents what's happening to them and struggling to fight it, while Jessie is not aware of what's happening to her. I'm thinking of showing scenes from her POV, with the mask talking to her and other creepy things, to try to explain better why she is unable to fight against this. Or maybe I'll show that at the beginning she does object and fight, but the mask manages to silence her every time. Because I can see her arguing with the mask in her mind, at least at first, and then it gets a stronger hold, silences her will, and its will creeps over her. Very disturbing. There's a fine line between possession by an evil spirit and corruption by a sentient object, and I think this situation will probably blur the line at times.
After doing a role-play version of the storyline, I'm also planning to move the setting to New York City instead of keeping it in the abandoned village. I really liked the idea of Jessie running loose in a big city corrupted by the mask and taking control of Pokemon left and right. So intense! I'll have it, probably, that the staff was dug up in what was New Amsterdam or an even older settlement in New York and that thus, New York City is the boundaries of its power. I'm also considering that Meowth wakes up in time to see the final outcome of the confrontation between Jessie and James, because in the role-play he saw it and it was very chilling and heartbreaking. I don't think it will be one of the Turtles crossover fics, though. I think this one will work better just as a Pokemon fic.
Then I'm also role-playing the human catboy Meowth situation and realized there could be another reason why he stays human for a while: since this mutation is different from any other the characters have seen, Baxter might worry that the retro-mutagen ray gun won't change him back completely. So he wants to run some tests to try to figure out if it will even work right if they use it. So I've edited that into the story and also written some more scenes. If I can figure out how to start dividing it up, maybe I can start posting it. I'm worried about people getting confused over it being a Turtles crossover, though, especially since this will be the first of those posted in the Pokemon category. I already had one reader get flummoxed by a throwaway line in a fic referencing an earlier Pokemon fic, even though it wasn't relevant to the overall plot. What will a sudden crossover do to those readers? I really didn't want to post it in the Crossover category, since less people will see it then. And since Pokemon is really the dominant fandom, with the Turtles characters as guests, instead of both having equal screentime.
Back to the one I'm doing with Jessie hurt, Bonnie and Clyde are back as the antagonists. After I'm able to draw a giftpic for someone for Christmas, I think I might try drawing them, just as a reference to myself. Bonnie has shoulder-length blonde curls and wears a beret instead of the usual newsboy hat. Clyde has brown hair, but I'm having trouble picturing him as more than a recolor of Butch. The truth is that they're both stand-ins for Butch and Cassidy, really, as part of me had wanted to use them in Dead and Alive Redux, but I didn't think they'd spend a whole story trying to kill Jessie, James, and Meowth any more than Giovanni would, so I figured creating OCs was the safest way to go.
I also feel slightly guilty regarding the real Bonnie and Clyde that their fictional namesakes are such screw-ups, LOL. Not that I particularly care for the real people. I never understood how bank robbers and murderers could become folk heroes in the 1930s. Okay, maybe the people were happy that the greedy banks were being shown up, but wasn't their money some of what was being stolen from the banks? Why would they want greedy crooks to have it any more than the greedy banks? And when bodies started dropping, that's a whole other ballgame. Why, why did they still admire the crooks after that?! I guess it's similar in some ways to how people find fictional antagonists fascinating (me included, depending on the character), but it seems so much different when it's real-life.
Also, I am ecstatic that I finally found one of my favorite Christmas songs ever, a rare one that I think is by a local artist that played on a wonderfully eclectic Christmas station we used to have. I miss that station so much. They played many religious songs and some cute secular ones too. Some were more common, but many were rare, both oldies and more recent ones. I also found several other songs by that artist that used to play on that station. I turned them up over a week ago on YouTube, where they were posted by the website CD Baby, apparently, and have been playing the heck out of them.
It's interesting, because Team Rocket is ending up going through the same sort of thing that happened with the fictional Rockapella in their stories. There are like three different ways to have one's true self taken away: possession, mind-control, and corruption (a la One Ring style), and the different members each went through one of those (with the fourth also undergoing possession). It wasn't even part of the original story plan for this Team Rocket story to involve mind-control, especially since canon already used that one, but everything just started falling into place like that while I was writing it. Which means that each Team Rocket member is also going to have to deal with one of those ways of losing their true self in the fics.
James: Possession
Meowth: Mind-control
Jessie: Corruption
But then there's the sticky problem of both James and Meowth aware to varying extents what's happening to them and struggling to fight it, while Jessie is not aware of what's happening to her. I'm thinking of showing scenes from her POV, with the mask talking to her and other creepy things, to try to explain better why she is unable to fight against this. Or maybe I'll show that at the beginning she does object and fight, but the mask manages to silence her every time. Because I can see her arguing with the mask in her mind, at least at first, and then it gets a stronger hold, silences her will, and its will creeps over her. Very disturbing. There's a fine line between possession by an evil spirit and corruption by a sentient object, and I think this situation will probably blur the line at times.
After doing a role-play version of the storyline, I'm also planning to move the setting to New York City instead of keeping it in the abandoned village. I really liked the idea of Jessie running loose in a big city corrupted by the mask and taking control of Pokemon left and right. So intense! I'll have it, probably, that the staff was dug up in what was New Amsterdam or an even older settlement in New York and that thus, New York City is the boundaries of its power. I'm also considering that Meowth wakes up in time to see the final outcome of the confrontation between Jessie and James, because in the role-play he saw it and it was very chilling and heartbreaking. I don't think it will be one of the Turtles crossover fics, though. I think this one will work better just as a Pokemon fic.
Then I'm also role-playing the human catboy Meowth situation and realized there could be another reason why he stays human for a while: since this mutation is different from any other the characters have seen, Baxter might worry that the retro-mutagen ray gun won't change him back completely. So he wants to run some tests to try to figure out if it will even work right if they use it. So I've edited that into the story and also written some more scenes. If I can figure out how to start dividing it up, maybe I can start posting it. I'm worried about people getting confused over it being a Turtles crossover, though, especially since this will be the first of those posted in the Pokemon category. I already had one reader get flummoxed by a throwaway line in a fic referencing an earlier Pokemon fic, even though it wasn't relevant to the overall plot. What will a sudden crossover do to those readers? I really didn't want to post it in the Crossover category, since less people will see it then. And since Pokemon is really the dominant fandom, with the Turtles characters as guests, instead of both having equal screentime.
Back to the one I'm doing with Jessie hurt, Bonnie and Clyde are back as the antagonists. After I'm able to draw a giftpic for someone for Christmas, I think I might try drawing them, just as a reference to myself. Bonnie has shoulder-length blonde curls and wears a beret instead of the usual newsboy hat. Clyde has brown hair, but I'm having trouble picturing him as more than a recolor of Butch. The truth is that they're both stand-ins for Butch and Cassidy, really, as part of me had wanted to use them in Dead and Alive Redux, but I didn't think they'd spend a whole story trying to kill Jessie, James, and Meowth any more than Giovanni would, so I figured creating OCs was the safest way to go.
I also feel slightly guilty regarding the real Bonnie and Clyde that their fictional namesakes are such screw-ups, LOL. Not that I particularly care for the real people. I never understood how bank robbers and murderers could become folk heroes in the 1930s. Okay, maybe the people were happy that the greedy banks were being shown up, but wasn't their money some of what was being stolen from the banks? Why would they want greedy crooks to have it any more than the greedy banks? And when bodies started dropping, that's a whole other ballgame. Why, why did they still admire the crooks after that?! I guess it's similar in some ways to how people find fictional antagonists fascinating (me included, depending on the character), but it seems so much different when it's real-life.
Also, I am ecstatic that I finally found one of my favorite Christmas songs ever, a rare one that I think is by a local artist that played on a wonderfully eclectic Christmas station we used to have. I miss that station so much. They played many religious songs and some cute secular ones too. Some were more common, but many were rare, both oldies and more recent ones. I also found several other songs by that artist that used to play on that station. I turned them up over a week ago on YouTube, where they were posted by the website CD Baby, apparently, and have been playing the heck out of them.