rhodrymavelyne

Most of my life I’ve taken flights of fanciful fandom.

I’ve lost track of the times I’ve gone to Oz or Wonderland as a child. I’m not sure if I was aware of the concept of fanfic until I was an adult. I imagined, talked, and roleplayed it, driving many people crazy as I dragged them into it with the enthusiasm of an obsessive. I played out crazy crossovers with a mixture of Star Wars figures, Smurfs, and Strawberry Shortcake miniatures.

I enjoyed reading fanfics and visualized my own, not quite daring to write any; not until Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game.

One of the ways to get extra character points was to write a journal for my character. Rowan, daughter of Deirdre (none of the male players got the Anne Rice reference, although they smirked whenever my character was around Martin) was fleshed out exquisitely.

I’ve returned to The Chronicles of Amber while keeping a promise I made to myself during lockdown; to return to the books I loved and write reviews for them. I was one of the few people who enjoyed the Merlin books as much as the Corwin books, although I needed the Corwin books to enjoy them. I needed to get to know Corwin and Brand first to appreciate the hungry holes of need they left in Merlin and Rinaldo’s lives, holes which would be a shared bond between the two young Amberites. I needed to encounter Dara with Corwin; appreciating her with, strength, and ambition to see what Merlin was grappling with, to catch a glimpse of what a forbidden passion as well as a power project the Silver Rose of Amber might be.

I’ve found myself writing fanfic about Dara along with some of the other women of Amber. Flora and Llewella have discovered voices which surprised me. I wonder about Nayda; once a more ambiguous life form being shaped into something more definite as Gail, finding herself trapped in a body. I consider the more sinister impression she must have of Mandor than Merlin does, not to mention Dara. I think of how much she impressed the Pattern, how interesting it would be if the ultimate entity of Order continued a more friendly relationship with this Chaos demon.

I find new characters popping into my head as I chortle over the stoned boys at the Wonderland bar; singing, watching the man paint while the Cheshire Cat grins. I imagine a non-binary bartender named Alys with the blood of Amber and Chaos, yet no knowledge of either Pattern or Logrus. All Alys knows is the mural, reflecting a shifting reality which they’re helping the man create. Sometimes Alys arm-wrestles visitors and borrows the Vorpal Sword to fight bandersnatches. They sport a bandersnatch tattoo, pouring drinks for Merle and Luke when they come to visit. They listen as the two kings get drunk and sing.

I find myself hanging onto Mandor’s every word as he wines and dines Merlin with such charm, courts Fiona, and entertains Jasra; all the while noting his casual mention of the hells he’s personally designed.

There’s so much potential in Amber and Chaos. It’s a creative cauldron of a vast array of worlds overlapping each other, sometimes shifting and changing along with their denizens.

How could I resist?

I love having Good Omens on DVD. Being able to plunge into the commentary, watch the episodes, pausing at my own pace without being pushed into the flow of the stream. Streaming is very nice for watching things for the first and only time, but being a fangirl who likes to return to favorite series and moments again and again, it’s a delight to own these discs.

I found myself able to pause and study God’s card game with the babies; noticing for the first time that Baby A was the Ace of Spades, Baby B was the Jack of Clubs, and Baby C was the King of Hearts, appreciating the detail and the fact that God doesn’t allow the viewer to see all her moves. :)

I speculated about Baby B’s adventures after being wheeled away. Yes, it could have been Baby A, Arthur and Deirdre’s son, but I like to imagine it was the ambassador’s actual son, paralleling events of The Omen. A horrible fate of the child’s fat being harvested for a warlock’s spells was averted by Crowley running down the warlock when said villain set the baby’s basket down for a moment. A goth child hanging out in the graveyard found the baby and took him home. The goth child (who would later be in bed with the owner of the power plant) wanted to call the baby Damian, but their parents called the foundling Brian. Thus Brian ended up close to the Antichrist, even if he wasn’t the Antichrist himself, and was actually the son of the American ambassador, not Warlock.

The moment Adam acknowledged Arthur Young as his real dad may very well have erased the third baby or erased the Antichrist. This means there was only two babies in the reformed universe; the Youngs’s and the ambassador’s.

This erases the other idea I had of young Warlock having a genetic test, only to discover his parents aren’t his parents. He might come looking for Deirdre and Arthur, his biological parents, only to find Adam, this interloper living with them. Or he might try to kill Adam, thinking he’s the actual son of the ambassador and legally entitled to his inheritance. After all, Warlock was raised with Crowley and Aziraphale both influencing him, having the potential for either good or evil.

Warlock might miss his nanny and his gardener. He might try to find them, only to cross Adam’s path.

What Neil Gaiman came up with for Good Omens 2 was much better than anything I speculated. I had a feeling there’d be more flashbacks with Crowley and Aziraphale. Wow, did we ever begin with a beauty, following the theme of Crowley and Aziraphale questioning Heaven and Hell’s plans, bonding as they did. Much of what happened was a delightful surprise. It was great seeing certain actors return as different characters. The speculative, suspicious part of my brain wonders if they’re truly different people or just altered by the Apocalypse, hellish, or heavenly design.

It’s been a delight to watch. I look forward to seeing more!

Searching for information on Victoria Winters, I glimpse articles which suggest Dark Shadows has outgrown her.

Seeing this makes me sad. I wonder if they wouldn’t make Dan Curtis, Dark Shadows’s creator sad as well. A dream about her was what shaped the very idea of Dark Shadows.

The series began with Victoria Winters’s journey. I’ve always felt like that journey was incomplete. That she left before she could finish it. Or gets derailed by Barnabas Collins.

What if she continued that journey? How could she after returning from 1895? Disillusioned from being immersed in a past which felt short of her dreams, nearly hanged for a crime she didn’t commit? She even killed a man in the original series in order to save a life, giving her something in common with Will Graham from the Hannibal TV series. She fell in love with a man in the past who might or might not be part of the present.

All of this strikes me as fertile ground for conflict, change, and growth. The mistake is having Victoria Winters return and not experience these things. Even the actress who played her felt this. My heart went out to Alexandra Moltke, the frustration she felt. The lack of Victoria Winters’s growth was unfair to both the character and the actress.

Yes, Barnabas Collins and Julia Hoffman were and are extremely popular characters on Dark Shadows. I love them, too. There are ways to give Victoria Winters a more dynamic role at the heart of things while providing plenty of drama for Barnabas and Julia.

Easy for me to say years later, not fighting deadlines, studio expectations, and all of the practical concerns you have to cope with or you’re running, writing, or directing a TV series.

Maybe there are things I can do because I’m none of those things. Maybe there are things only I can do because I’m a fanfic writer.

Maybe I can let Victoria Winters finish her journey in a series of steps, stand alone stories which are interconnected.

Maybe in these stories she can discover her heritage, whom she really is. By tweaking a few details in the canon, here and there, her past and her future can be connected, allowing her to play a part in storylines she never got a chance to be involved with in the canon versions.

Maybe I can merge elements of the original Dark Shadows with the 1990s remake, the Innovation comic, and my own ideas to create a robust environment with rainbow flourishes to offer a taste of the Dark Shadows I always dreamed of. A Dark Shadows where Victoria Winters comes into her own as a woman and a witch after nearby being hanged for these things. Maybe she finds the strength to confront problems which others more devious cannot.

I’m still developing these ideas as I write them. I’ve been thinking about them for a long time.

I’d like for Victoria Winters to continue her journey. As a creative, imaginative girl with a hunger for the past, her own past in particular, but any past she can find herself within, she has a lot to offer viewers and readers as a protagonist. She got some of what she wanted in a nightmarish way during the 1795 flashback, but that doesn’t have to be the end. There’s more to learn, more to confront.

There’s something compelling about Victoria Winters’s softly-spoke narrative. Something distinctive and unique. It deserves another chance to speak and be heard.

I hope it will get more opportunities to do so. In the meantime, it speaks to my imagination, compelling me to tell her story where and when I can.

Perhaps it will do so for others as well.

Memories of fanfics unfinished come flooding back. Two things brought this on.

One was watching Interview with the Vampire and seeing Rae Dong Chong’s name in the credits. I remember her appearances on Highlander and Poltergeist the Legacy, but I also remember her sister, Robbie Chong. I remember how she played Alex on Poltergeist the Legacy, a character I was always hoping would get a more active part.

I had all these fanfic ideas for Alex and Kristen. I imagined the two of them in the Legacy library, talking and flirting about various varieties of vampires, contrasting them to the vampire Alex almost became. I imagined Kristen shooting herself up with a compound which was the reverse of what Giles used on Buffy to take away her powers, pretending to be a Slayer. I imagined a huge crossover where Alex drew on her vampire powers and went to ‘Salem’s Lot, pulling rank on the local vampires, pretending to be a representative of the Authority (a True Blood reference). I imagined Alex finding out that Kristen had died in other places, only she’d had a different name. One of those was Hallie Stokes and she’d be Faith’s former Watcher. (This references Dark Shadows and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.) The whole mystery would involve the cloning conspiracy from The X-Files and Colonel Grace from First Wave.

I wrote huge fragments for this overall story, but I never posted them. Nor did I turn them into a coherent whole.

Why am I remembering this now? What is the second thing which brought back these memories?

My fifty-first birthday. It’s fast approaching. It’s a remind of how much I haven’t done, how much I have left to do, and how little time I have to do it.

I haven’t even thought of this fanfic in years. It’s not one of the ongoing stories in progress I’m posting on Archive of Our Own. There’s a whole bunch of fanfics I’ve written parts of, but I’ve never posted. Considering that More Than a Jinrou and Sisterhood of the Witchblade are unfinished, I wasn’t sure if I should post anything else unfinished.

I’m just talking about the fanfics. This doesn’t count the many original stories I’m juggling, trying to finish.

So little time. So much to write.

Better get back to work.

Recently I watched the movie A Series of Unfortunate Events. I read the entire book series years ago. Jim Carey makes Count Olaf fun in a way Lemony Snicket does not approve of (at least not in the commentary :)). Just as Timothy Spall brings a touch of charm to Mr. Poe which I’m sure I felt from the page.

As unpleasant as the events were, there was something about the misadventures of the Baudelaires that was fun. Not to mention I loved the elaborate sets created that became the landcapes from the books, reinvisioned in a style that was both Dickensian and modern. I particularly loved the end credits in all their lovely Victorian-Gothic glory.

Those animated credits brought back memories of a TV series from my childhood, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. Like the Baudelaires, Penelope found herself stalked by a relentless villain wanting her fortune. Like the Baudelaires, she had to use her wits to escape the many perils this villain laid in her way. Even if Penelope had more help in the Anthill Mob than the Baudelaires did from Mr. Poe. (He did have his moment/s? in the movie. Possibly two of them.)

A Series of Unfortunate Events was a more Gothic-feeling show than The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, bringing to mind another old favorite from television where unfortunate events happened at a particular old manor called Collinwood, Dark Shadows.

Thinking of these series caused another flight of fanciful fandom.

What if Lemony Snicket, narrator of A Series of Unfortunate Events, often in as much peril as the Baudelaires from the casual comments he dropped in the books were to find himself at Collinwood? At Collinwood, being questioned by the various children who’d lived there about the particular misfortunes they’d had to deal with? Mr. Snicket does not believe in the supernatural, but he has seen many a strange thing. He might have his own curious explainations for the ghosts, werewolves, witches, and vampires that lurk about Collinwood. They might even close to the truth.

Stranger things may have happened to both Mr. Snicket and the children. Stranger things may happen still.

It’s worth a thought.

In these times of trouble, I find myself gravitating back to Peter Jackson’s extended version of The Fellowship of the Ring. Drinking in the beauty of the costumes, craftmanship, bigatures, acting, landscape, music, and story; how all of it comes together.

I find myself sneaking peeks at the book by J.R.R. Tolkien, even though I’m busy with othr things, even though I’m in the middle of a lot of other books. I find myself looking for certain scenes. Frodo, Pippin, and Sam meeting elves while finding themselves pursued by Black Riders in the Shire. Frodo wondering if he should take any of his friends with him on his journey, only to run against Sam’s stubborn loyalty and determination not to leave him. Sam and Farmer Maggoty standing between Frodo and a mysterious rider, who turns out to be Merry Brandybuck on a pony. Frodo coming to the house at Crickhollow where the conspiracy of his friends is revealed. The confrontation of Old Man Willow in the Old Forest. The hobbits getting lost and trapped in the Barrow-Downs.

I find myself wondering if maybe Belladona Took and her sisters might have visited the Old Forest, met Tom Bombadil and Goldberry. Maybe Belladona found the gold which helped her husband to build Bag End in one of the barrows.

I found the Barrow-Downs fascinating. How different is a wraith from a wight in Middle-Earth? One seems to be much mor powerful. Both are bound to the corporeal world by treasure. The things that bind beings that are untangible, making them more tangible is something I’m exploring in my own worlds. Just how much did Tolkien influence me? He’s one of the great literary loves of my life. I’ve struggled not to copy him. To break out of the box confining me to high fantasy, yet I love many of the contents of that box.

It’s only too easy to let Tolkien’s world comfort me when my own reality is terrifying. To know it took him fourteen years to create his masterpiece. To be reminded that masterpieces take time. To realize I haven’t abandoned the ambition to create masterpieces of my own, even if it takes my entire life to do so.

Wish me luck. I’m going to need it! :)

Every time I watch the anime Shiki, I discover something new. Questions and ideas pop up in my mind in response.

Why was the western-style house built on Kanemasa property? Was there a link between that house at the church?

What went on between Ozaki Toshio and Yuuki Natsuno that we didn’t see?

What would happen if Ozaki Toshio and Muroi Seishin met again after the series?

What if Tatsumi and Yuuki Natsuno survived the explosion?

Why does Natsuno look so much like older brother in Seishin’s story? What if there was something special about Natsuno? Something triggered by touch which affected not only Megumi and Tohru, but Tatsumi, Akira, and Ozaki Toshio as well?

What if there was more to Natsuno’s father moving out to the country than he revealed to his family?

Why do shiki return to the same victims again and again? Why do they have to kill their victim instead of taking a little drink and moving on to another?

Who was the vampire who showed up at Sunako’s house and killed her?

What happened to Aoi, Tamotsu, and their parents?

What if there was more to Muroi Seishin’s story than even he realized?

Some of these questions I’m exploring in my fanfic. They play into my ongoing story More Than a Jinrou.

Some of them are occuring to me as I write the next chapters. I’ve starting watching Shiki again, to check the details, figure out when and where the characters were at a particular time for a major flashback.

Mutou Takeshi, his wife, and surviving children seem to disappear after the showdown at the shrine. I need to double-check, make certain they’re not somewhere in the background before I move forward

Wish me luck in this.

I just wrote/posted at cauldronkeeper.livejournal.com about how overwhelmed I get as a writer.

I get overwhelmed as a reader, too. And as viewer.

Sometimes I feel like I’m being bomboarded on all sides by advertisements, waving at me, flashing at me, screaming for my attention.

“Buy me!”

“No, me!”

“You want me, you know you do!”

“Spend money on me, me, me!”

“No, me, me, me!”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad there’s a plethora of interesting things to choose from when I wish to shop.

As a writer I understand the desperation to get your product out there, to get noticed. Believe me, I’m feeling that desperation myself.

Only I sometimes feel like Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back, being bombarded by more flying objects than he can possibly concentrate on.

It’s particularly bad when the advertisments aggressively pop up when I’m trying to read or watch something else, forcing me to look at them.

The last thing I want to do is look at them. The first thing I do is close the window, fighting the urge to run away. I feel like I’ve just been flashed. I’m scared and repelled by whatever is in the window.

No way am I going to be buying that product. Considering how shy and insecure a lot of people feel lurking online, I wonder how many other potential customers have been frightened off by aggressive advertising?

How many other people feel overwhelmed?

It’s food for thought.

One of the biggest sources of inspiration for my multi-part Shiki fanfiction (other than Shiki itself) was Lost Girl.

Bo was a succubus, a woman who fed, survived, and thrived on sex. At the same time, she shied from using sex for her own personal gain. She was in many ways a girl scout, the voice of morality in the world of the fae. She was an independent, innocent, and rookie individual in a new culture of customs and tradition. I started seeing a parallel between Bo and Yuuki Natsuno of Shiki in their independence. Both Bo and Natsuno stuck out in their particular communities, often arousing interest and desire, yet never quite fitting in. (I was also watching both series at the same time.) I thought about the reaction Shimizu Megumi had to Natsuno, the way she lurked outside his window, never leaving Natsuno alone or any he got close to. Megumi's behavior reminded of Ryan Lambert and others ‘touched’ by Bo, how they’d be filled with a stalker-like madness. I considered the possibility of Natsuno having such a power lying dormant within him even before he changed into a jinrou. This power would make him more than a jinrou. I was enchanted by the idea of skittish incubus. I knew Natsuno would be wary of his power until he saw a pragmatic purpose for it, a way to use it to help others. The other thing he was skittish about was his own need to help people, the people whom got behind his defenses and got close to him. I found myself discovering this about Natsuno as I wrote More Than a Jinrou…his coldness is an act. His standoffishness is a defense to keep people away so they can’t get close to them. Once they do, his loyalty is frightening. I thought it was interesting that one of the first people to notice this quality was Tatsumi, his enemy.

Intrigued though I was, I’m not sure if I would have noticed the possibilities between Tatsumi and Natsuno if not for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Spuffy, the pairing of Spike the Vampire with Buffy Summers. I was never much of a Buffy/Spike fan. I wasn’t a Buffy/Angel fan either at first. I’d seen far too many heterosexual relationships on television, often slapped together with overused tropes during the 1990s. Buffy and Angel had to do something different to win my heart, fighting each other to the death with swords, looking spectacular while they did it. They reminded me of Kamui/Fuuma from X 1999, a powerful pairing in its tragic adversity. (Buffy/Angel’s was brought on by a moment of perfect happiness, Kamui/Fuuma was brought on by a wish.) Besides Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanz are amazing actors. It was hard not to get drawn in by their performance for all my burnt-out grumpiness. Once Buffy/Angel hooked me, I felt a measure of loyalty to them. Even though Buffy/Faith was my favorite pairing and I loved the idea of Angel paired with Xander, Doyle, Spike, Wesley, Penn, Lindsey; I respected the bond with Buffy.

James Marsters can be amazing, too. I wasn’t a fan of Spuffy, but it was hard not to be drawn into the evolution of Spike’s character. At first I was grumpy about yet another male and female character being hooked up when incredible chemistry between many a pair of male actors or female actresses was ignored. At the same time I couldn’t forget Buffy and Spike. I’d find myself recalling many of their scenes, admiring the raw honesty in them, even in their dysfuction. Later I’d see an echo of Spuffy in the Battlestar Galactica remake between Leobwin and Kara. I didn’t like that pairing either, yet once again the raw intensity of the characters’s emotions drew me in. I found the scenes where Leobwin kept Kara prisoner in that “dollhouse” on New Caprica, to use Kara’s own words disturbing, yet they kept playing in my mind. I found myself thinking about Tatsumi keeping Natsuno prisoner in such a room, having saved Natsuno from the explosion meant to kill them both. This blossomed into my Shiki fanfic After the Explosion. The way Tatsumi and Natsuno reacted to each other when they first met on Shiki made me think of when Buffy and Spike’s encounter in the high school halls in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 2: School Hard. If Buffy and Spike could get from that point to the one they ended on in Season 7, it was possible for Tatsumi and Natsuno to undergo an equally revolutionary journey in their relationship. There was a certain measure of respect and chemistry between them as they taunted each other. The final look on Tatsumi’s face in his last scene with Natsuno in the anime gave weight to the idea of going somewhere completely different together emotionally. This idea which became my fanfic. Plus I loved Natsuno too much to let him go. Yes, I respected the tragic finish he’d chosen to go out in, but not enough to let him rest in peace.

Along with After the Explosion, I wrote Reunion which tied in with After the Explosion. Natsuno was still alive and grumpy about it, ready to make those forcing him to live live through hell.

I hadn’t intended to write anything more. Readers kept asking me to write more. I wasn’t sure if there was any more story to tell. This was when I was watching Lost Girl, finding myself comparing Bo to Natsuno in certain ways. I also found myself wondering about Natsuno’s relationship with Ozaki Toshio, a relationship which remained mysterious in the Shiki anime to keep certain elements a surprise. If I continued, I’d have a chance to explore it. I felt that Ozaki Toshio and Muroi Seishin still had unfinished drama between them. I adored the character of Sunako, who’d been the villain, yet less villainous in many ways than Shimizu Megumi or Masao. Her cruelty had a point, a purpose. This might be a chance to show a softer or more complex side to her while she’d get a chance to interact in a more civilized fashion with her former enemies. I adore the idea that Kaori and Kanami are living together, trying to heal each other after the traumatic experiences in Sotoba with former loved ones, seeing the monstrous behavior of both shiki and humans. The way Kaori smiled and Kanami smiled back at her spoke of possibilities too.

A story is truly satisfying when it surprises me in its twists and turns yet heads where it feels like it’s supposed to go. More Than a Jinrou has surprised me often but I feel like it’s heading where it’s supposed to go. Here’s hoping the conclusion it arrives at is just as satisfying.

A major part of my daily routine are Morning Pages. If you’ve read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, you know what Morning Pages are. You take the time to write 3-4 pages in long hand of anything that comes to mind. It can be as mundane as “I just broke my pencil lead” or Cinnamon is walking to the litter box”. It can be as random as “Moon loves raisins. Hannibal for President!” Anything which is on your mind, anything that comes to mind, you write down.

I shamelessly take advantage of this freedom to mix venting, mundane observations, and surreal brain flashes. I’ve jotted down a lot of fanfic ideas and fannish fantasies.

Lately I’ve started doing something new. I’m transcribing my Morning Pages, typing them up on the off-chance someone may be interested in my ramblings, even if it’s just me. No, that’s not the new part. I’ve been doing that for a while. What’s new is I’ve been pausing at the fannish tangents, stopping to ask myself, “Do I want to write a fanfic about this? Do I want to start writing one, even if it’s just a fragment of a fanfic?”

If the answer is yes, I seize the moment and start writing it. I’ve made a point of going back to these fragments later and finishing them.

The result is the number of my Hannibal fanfics have swelled at Archive of Our Own. Nor have all the ideas I’ve jotted down and decided to flesh out been Hannibal stories or even fanfic ideas.

Transcribing past Morning Pages have become a bit like an Easter Egg hunt where I’m never sure what I’ll find in past records of random thoughts. Is there a story buried in all this? Do I want to dig one out?

Have I mentioned how addicted I’ve gotten to Morning Pages?