greyias | How to Survive When Stuck on an Opening Drawbridge (aka, a Monday)

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fanart,
meme

How to Survive When Stuck on an Opening Drawbridge (aka, a Monday)

Or maybe this post should be titled Hey, You Survived the Weekend (which Survived the Work Week)... but that would be long, cumbersome, and probably a little confusing. Sadly, Saturday night one small drink with the folks turned into an all-night party. Unfortunately that led to Sunday, where I was actually contemplating my survival of dehydration because I couldn't keep water even down. Oh... I need to start partying with people my age again. It's always much more lethal with my parents. (Also, much more lethal when you combine chardonnay and vodka. I'll save everyone some time: DON'T.)

Sunday morning I woke up with a dry mouth, and that vague dread you have when you realize you're conscious, but in a completely different room than when you were last cognizant. After a leery stretch for the nearest internet enabled device, I discovered that I thankfully passed out before I could grace you all with my lovely, illogical drunken wisdom. It was close, though. I had apparently started a post, but never finished it. For your amusement, here's a snippet:

"...And for some reason, I thought that my f'list needed to see my wundermous crayon sketching I did while at Macaroni Grill. There's a possibility that burning desire came from the very well-mixed martini that accompanied my pasta. (Did I mention that it was a long week?)

Actually... I have no idea who it is. I think when I started I had grandiose plans to make a Samurai!JohnSheppard, because I can't seem to stop making SGA comparisons to whatever I watch. In this case, Gintama, in which I have become convinced that fanon!SGA would make the world's most awesome anime. (Sadly, I think I'm more or less sober when I have these particular thoughts.) About the time when I was ready to draw John's clothes (okay, just his shirt... I ran out of room), I chickened out, because I can't draw a kimono to save my life. So I decided to make him a pirate, even though he really didn't look that much like John Sheppard at this point. I think my attempt was to make table!art for maybe

jadesfire2808's pirate!John, but sadly, the shirt wasn't nearly frilly enough. His hair was too... spiky for

rhymer23's pirate!John... so he's the yet-to-be-written-AU pirate!John... with an earring. And spiky hair.

Or maybe he's just some other random pirate guy. With an earring. And spiky hair.

But a pirate he be! (I'm sure there are purpely stripey pants where the paper tablecloth ended.)"

...um, yeahhh. Thankfully, though, I did not press "Post" at the end of the (even longer) drunken ramblings. Small favors.

We just finished up with the rather large project here at work, so I have a little time to breathe this afternoon before we start on the next big project. I'm thinking, though, that I seriously need to carve out some time of day to work on my writing. I might have to become a morning person, or something, since that appears to be the only time of day where nothing (and no one) can really interfere and distract me.

And... um... meme?

Comment with a story I've written, and I will tell you one thing I knew, learned, or wondered about while writing the story that didn't make it onto the page.

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...but the table!art~~samurai~~pirate!John is adorable! So glad you shared, drunken ramblings or no! ^_- *huggles*

Hee! Well, as long as someone else thinks so ;) I'm imagining he has purple and black striped pants, ala Zoro from One Piece.

Big Bang? :o

:o

There was actually so much that never made it onto the page of that one XD I actually have several, private entries full of cut dialogue or narrative from the story that I made, but forced myself to leave out. Such as:

"I didn't want to be drunk in pubLIC. I wanted to be drunk in a bar. They threw my ass into pubLIC... arrest them!" - Rejected for a blatant Ron White rip-off

Hopefully it was a drink, because John's Czech was pretty much nonexistent, and the last thing he needed was his coworkers offering to buy him hookers. - rejected because I think I was the only one who would find it amusing that John's immediate thought is that Zelenka would buy him a hooker rather than anything else.

Oooh arrrrr \o?

Or something like that ;) I shall imagine the shirt billowing out below the ties - that'll do nicely.

I like it!

Yay! \o? I wasn't quite sure where the billowing came in, so imagination works good for me!

so he's the yet-to-be-written-AU pirate!John... with an earring. And spiky hair.

I'd read that! *puppy-dog look*

re. meme: See No Evil

I'd read that! *puppy-dog look*

Aww... but... okay, I'll think about it. *has no self control*

re. meme: See No Evil

Oh my, there's just so much... hrm...

Teal'c.

The Air Force has honestly no idea what to do with him at first. Unlike in the series, there's no hostility between the Goa'uld and Earth at this point in time, so he's not an enemy of the state, but they can't exactly let him wander the streets either. They wind up bringing in Daniel Jackson to translate, incorrectly assuming that he's speaking the same language the 'gate translations were made from. Even though he can't really understand most of what he says, Daniel is fascinated by Teal'c, and excitedly tries to make conversation with him in English, Ancient Egyptian, and everything in between, picking up some Goa'uld along the way. They wind up striking up a friendship, and Daniel eventually convinces the Air Force to let Teal'c return to Chulak in exchange for some intel on the galaxy.

This leads to the Stargate Program's first official mission, which is a mission of goodwill trying to return Teal'c home. Unfortunately, Vertrauen sort of made a mess of things, so the mission quickly goes to hell -- and Teal'c winds up siding with Daniel et all, branding himself as a traitor in the process. So, sadly he has to continue the fight like canon!Teal'c, alongside SG-1. But bonus, the SeeNoEvil!verse has its own SG-1 now.

That sounds interesting, it'd make a good story in itself! This is a really cool meme... like a DVD commentary, but even better.

It would make an awesome story... but I could never quite wrap my head around SG-1 enough to be able to write adventures for them. *sad*

This is a really cool meme... like a DVD commentary, but even better.

It really is! :D You never get quite as fun "What Happened Next" bits from the commentaries.

he's just some other random pirate guy

He looks like a cross between Arthur and Sheppard! (http://lavvyan.livejournal.com/300323.html) ('cept for the earring. I need a fic with that earring).

Meme: phew, can't think of an- Oh wait, the one where they're brothers!

He looks like a cross between Arthur and Sheppard!

He kind of does, now that you mention it. Maybe he's some kind of bizarre clone.

'cept for the earring. I need a fic with that earring

I'll keep that in mind ;)

Oh wait, the one where they're brothers!

Heh... well, after the boys eventually work their way through the angst they were left with at the end of the story, Rodney's still having a bit of an identity crisis, what with the whole paternity-in-question thing. So, in an effort to be fair, he and John trade off who their father is that week. After all, Carson can't verify one hundred percent who the father is, just that they're brothers. Unfortunately, this only serves to confuse everyone else, who can't figure out whether to call them "the Sheppard Brothers", "the McKay Brothers", or what. (Someone christens them the Wonder Twins, which leads to hilariously tragic consequences.)

I want to read your pirate fic to go with the pirate pic! And yes, you must set aside time to write more fanfic *nods head emphatically*!!

Meme: Hmm, oh, so many, so many... 'Dead or Alive', let's go with that one.

I want to read your pirate fic to go with the pirate pic!

Hrm... this is seeming to become a rather popular opinion. Uh oh, I hope this doesn't mean I have to go research sailing.

Meme: Hmm, oh, so many, so many... 'Dead or Alive', let's go with that one.

Oh man... it's been so long for that one... I'm not sure if there was anything I left out of it... Let's see...

Both Rodney and John are cooped up in the infirmary for several days after returning to Atlantis, but Rodney's still jumpy. Unfortunately, he doesn't think to hide this from John, and is shanghaied to the mainland for a camping trip full of manly bonding -- just the thing Rodney doesn't need after camping on a jungle planet with forced manly bonding. Luckily, Gall rushes in just as John's proposing this wonderful idea, and it's forced to the backburner until after they discover this WICKED COOL satellite at the edge of the solar system...

Ooh, I like that! I could imagine Rodney's reaction to the camping trip idea and his relief at Gall's interruption (and that is a nice touch, setting up for The Defiant One and all its angstyness). Thanks!

PS - Go, sail the net, write a pirate fic, make it AU to reality if you need to... After all, pirate movies don't tend to be very realisitc, do they? Or am I wrong? Was Pirates of the Caribbean based on historical accuracy?!! *vbg*

In my mind, that story was always set pre-"Defiant One"... partly because Rodney couldn't seem to remember a darn thing about his gun in the story (and in "The Storm"/"The Eye"), but he was able to nail every shot by the end of that episode.

PS - Go, sail the net, write a pirate fic, make it AU to reality if you need to... After all, pirate movies don't tend to be very realisitc, do they? Or am I wrong? Was Pirates of the Caribbean based on historical accuracy?!! *vbg*

Ahaha... if I wound up writing this particular AU, it would definitely not be a historical one. A little less fear of getting details wrong (and after all,

rhymer23 got it so perfect in her story), and a little more room to play with SGA elements ;)

"Nepenthe's Kiss"!

Baha! Oh man, I almost forgot about that one.

I always wondered, with morbid curiosity, what exactly Kavanagh took to be "sexual harrasment" from Simpson. Mostly because, I'm pretty sure, there was absolutely no love lost between them. I'm thinking it was probably some relatively harmless argument that escalated into a hand-slapping fight over the experiment they were working on, and things sort of spiraled out of control from there. Later, Elizabeth sent Bates to check up on the scientists after hearing a report of a shouting match from their lab -- and somehow earned Kavanagh's wrath as he tried to calm things down.

Kavanagh always does seem to get things wrong way round.

Pirate!John! He looks like RGB Peter Venkman (that's a good thing to my mind ^^)

Hmm - "Wit's End"!

*tilts head* Hrm... you could be right.

"Wit's End"!

Baha! There's actually quite a bit that got cut from that, or didn't directly make it to the story. So much to choose... but, hrm...

I wound up cutting about 2500 words that went in a completely different direction of the team banding together and "going Sun Tzu on Lupin's ass". It got extremely complicated, but Rodney basically wound up acting as a General and the team came up with several defense strategies that where randomized so Lupin couldn't figure out how to get past them, and so Rodney would have time to fix the machine. Sadly, the more I wrote in this direction, the more it became apparent that the team is practically unstoppable when they work together in that manner, and Rodney got all of the moral and mental support he would need to finish... and it would be nigh impossible to get him to snap like he did.

...and I really wanted him to snap.

And that was also about the time I became addicted to the idea of the "story scratchpad", so I felt far less guilty about cutting eight pages of snark and action if I could always go find it later.

Heh - I started doing the scratchpad thing years ago, because I have such a hard time deleting anything I write (I usually have 3-4 drafts of longer stories on my computer by the end, because I like to keep the original versions of scenes I rewrite, too, even though I almost never go back and look that them again...)

...Mmmm, Rodney snapping!

Too late to ask for "Wit's End" or "See No Evil" (unless you have more ^_^), so ... is "Board Games" fair game?

Sure it is! *g*

The Photoshop file for the list contains over one hundred layers -- oh wait, that's not interesting. (But Jades' did a large portion of the writing, so she might have some different insight.)

Jades and I wound up, more or less, writing the whole thing in one giant Google Document, complete with colorful comments to each other (literally, they were blinding on my overly bright screen at work). We also wound up typing out The List in the document. On the "Cranium" portion, we had originally written the conversation to look something like it does, but with "It should say it's not edible" "It does." "Where?" and Rodney was supposed to tack or tape on the mandatory portion of any product that children can get a hold of that warns you not to eat toxic things like playdough.

...but when we both checked our versions of the game at home, it turned out there wasn't one. I looked all over that box, and couldn't find a darn thing. I almost decided to make one, on principal, but then decided it would be funnier (and apparently closer to reality) to leave it off.

So, apparently there is no explicit warning that Cranium playdough isn't toxic. But like Rodney, I still wouldn't recommend eating it.

ETA: I just re-read your comment, and sadly, I have a lot more on both of them ;)

No warning? That's hysterical. Lawsuit!

I love to hear the behind-the-scenes stuff about stories, so if you want to share more about either "Wit's End" or "See No Evil", I'm all ... well, eyes. Don't know if that fits the rules of the meme, though, and I don't want to be Pester Girl, so please don't feel obligated.

From another of your comments on this page: I think I was the only one who would find it amusing that John's immediate thought is that Zelenka would buy him a hooker rather than anything else. You're so not. Because that's a hoot. :>

Is it too late to ask you about "Best Laid Plans"? I love that story so much ...

Hah! It's never too late! *waves*

(I'm going to cheat here and address all three from the meme, because I never get asked about 4B!)

I don't think I really cut anything out of that particular story mostly because I wound up including more than I thought, but let me think... I definitely learned to not start posting something, no matter how close I think I am to finishing. I was originally going to end things in the hospital, skipping a large chunk of what after Jack got shot, and explain or imply it with the final scene of Bobby giving him the toothbrush and the "tooth fairy" joke.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your point-of-view, as I was thinking that scene through (and how to finish things up in the store), I realized it was going to be very difficult to fit all of those resolutions into the story (Jack's concussion/confusion over the Jerry/Abel thing, Bobby "convincing" the ones who escaped to give themselves up). It's interesting, because it almost feels like two stories to me, because the "climax" in my mind was always the point where Jack got shot, not everything after. (That would be the longest falling action EVAH.)

One thing I wondered about, a lot, and tried to research to the best of my ability is whether or not Angel could have actually been there. His intro scene in the movie made it seem like his brothers hadn't seen him since he'd gone into the Marines (they definitely would have made him shave that "afro"... if he ever had one and that wasn't some strange in-joke.) So I kind of fudged it a little so that all of them could have been there at the same time.

I also wondered a whole lot about the timing of when each kid came into Evelyn's care, so I decided at some point to kind of guesstimate that Bobby came there somewhere between the ages of 8-11, Jerry 9-12, Angel was probably a teen, maybe 13 or 14, and Jack came in around six or seven. My reasoning for why escapes me at the moment, but I think it seemed to stem from the way they acted with their memories of Evelyn, and how they acted around each other. Also, I totally wanted Jack to have been with the Mercers long enough to have a solid bond with his brothers, as well as to have recovered somewhat mentally from whatever trauma it was that still makes him shake at the table when he's an adult.

*waves back* Thanks for the answer - and I love the ending, so I'm kind of glad the story got away from you a little bit, lol. But I know what you mean by posting a work in progress - I keep doing this with my long fics and have sadly more or less abandoned my Outsiders story. And Jack and Bobby are currently stranded in Iowa, but I'll figure that one out ... I hope,lol.

Their ages are so hard to figure out. The movie gives clues, but it also leaves so much open to interpretation - we have a thread on the Garrett board I run about their ages and I have to go double check it whenever I write a one shot so that I can refresh my memory. I made Jack eleven when he gets to Evelyn, but I also tried not to give him "the worst childhood ever!!" like so many authors do. Seriously, his poor backstory becomes such a parody sometimes.

Oh, and I totally gave Angel an awesome hairstyle and sharp suit for his prom in one of my stories, lol.

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How to Survive When Stuck on an Opening Drawbridge (aka, a Monday)

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