Elizabeth Culmer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
edenfalling) wrote2014-04-05 12:46 pm
edenfalling) wrote2014-04-05 12:46 pm
Entry tags:
[Fic] "Giant Robot Mayhem Doesn't Happen in a Day" (and two others) -- Homestuck
Today is Jadefest reveal day! I wrote three stories, all for ![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
ratherrumpus, all in response to the same prompt. I am going to talk about them all in one post, since they are all heavily interconnected.
---------------
First, here is the prompt from which I was working: After their session is complete, the game's resident robot experts, Jade Harley and Dirk Strider, team up to rebuild Skaia Labs. Is this merely a shallow excuse for them to build giant robots together, pilot said robots, and annoy all their team members who dislike wanton giant-robot destruction? Perhaps. Is it going to be awesome regardless? Absolutely.
Ratherrumpus made two other prompts. The first was about Jade as a boxer, possibly with Vriska as a rival, and, well, let's just say that on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being watching linoleum peel and 10 being Homestuck itself, boxing is a very firm 0.5 on my scale of "Things I Find Interesting." Even if it might involve humans and aliens living together. So I didn't even try to work with that one. (I am quite happy that other people enjoy boxing. To each their own! But it is so far from being my thing that boxing and I ought to live in separate galaxies.)
The second prompt I didn't use was about Jade going grimdark instead of Rose, which I kept as a backup idea in case I couldn't get the giant robots to work. I can do grimdark, I can do desperation and angst, and I figured it wouldn't be too difficult to find a split point where it made sense for Jade to bargain with the horrorterrors... but when given a choice between horrorterrors and giant robots, I'm sorry, but I had to try the giant robots first. :-)
It turns out writing giant robots is harder than it looks.
Or at least it is for me. Which is probably because I have a curse known as world-building, which meant I couldn't just say, "Okay, giant robot time!" I had to figure out why Jade and Dirk would be building giant robots, and apparently "Because they're awesome!" doesn't cut any ice with whatever part of my brain deals with plots and character motivations. :-/ I spent nearly a week spinning various ideas that died horribly within the first two sentences, assuming they even made it that far.
The first attempt that clicked enough to be worth trying to write was the third fic I posted.
-----
Linnaeus Never Had a Robot: When attempting to classify monstrous megafauna, it's helpful to mechanize the specimen collection process. (850 words)
The rationale here is that the kids (and presumably the trolls as well, given the brief reference to Aradia) ended up on a brand new world in a brand new universe, which, although biochemically compatible with their type of life, has no real connection or similarity to either Earth or Alternia. And many of the native animals are megafauna of strange and -- to Earth sensibilities -- monstrous taxonomy. They tend to be inconvenient.
The problem is, even aside from the way this misses the minimum word count, it is not really a Jade fic. It's a Dirk fic. We're firmly in his POV, we're listening in on his personal issues, and while Jade is far from a passive supporting character, she's not the lead. Which is awkward for a fest aimed at Jade-centric stories. I tried to mitigate that by switching to her POV and adding a scene about their first attempt to build the robots, but that flatly refused to go anywhere. Whoops.
-----
If Kaiju, Therefore Mecha: If your life isn't already enough like a shonen anime, just add kaiju and mecha. (525 words)
So then I tried again, in Jade's POV from the start. And in second person, because it's Homestuck. The opening scenario is recognizably similar -- strange new world, Jade and Dirk out in the middle of nowhere tracking down a troublesome giant creature -- but then it takes a sharp left away from "That's just the ecology of this new planet," into "Nope, there's actual supernatural malice creating monsters and aiming them at you." This time Dirk gets to suggest the giant robots, and we also segue through a discussion of kaiju and mecha tropes because why not.
As with the previous attempt, I failed to reach the minimum word count in a single scene and was unable to add another one addressing the actual building of the mecha, let alone the fight against the kaiju. Which annoys me, because I like the implications of this world. I would like to know more about what the other players are doing, not to mention the origin of the kaiju.
-----
Giant Robot Mayhem Doesn't Happen in a Day: In which Jade Harley approaches Dirk Strider with a proposal for a secret mecha construction project, because giant robots are awesome, good science and engineering partners are hard to find, and they need to do SOMETHING with their lives after the game. (5,250 words)
And here at last I was successful! Well. For certain values of success, anyway. This may be the first giant robot story in which you never actually get to see a giant robot. They exist entirely offscreen and without any solid description, though hopefully I tossed in just enough small concrete details and references to let people fill in the rest from genre expectations. *wry*
This fic involves a third potential reason for giant robots: namely, the kids ended up on a reconstructed Earth (just as the trolls ended up on a reconstructed Alternia), but they brought the lusus naturae on Hellmurder Island with them as a little farewell 'gift' from the game. And they need to get them off Earth and back to Alternia before they cause trouble and attract unwelcome attention. (Side note: I am not sure what became of Calliope in this scenario. In the first two, she's probably chilling with all the other survivors. Here, her fate may be sadder and/or stranger.)
The first scene I wrote was Jane's memo wherein the rest of the kids find out about the secret mecha project. That alone was about 1,600 words long, and was what I posted to make the deadline, along with a very rough draft of Jake's apology for shooting the robot as a humorous stinger. But that memo is an ensemble piece, not a Jade-centric piece. (If it's centered on anyone, it's probably Jane and Roxy, weirdly enough.) So I tacked on Jade's first conversation with Dirk, wherein she proposes the giant robot project and the dog subplot first occurs, and also Dave's conversation with Jade, which led me to reconfigure the Jake incident to implicitly close the time loop involving the accidental destruction of Dave's house.
But that still felt kind of unbalanced, so I added Dirk's conversation with Roxy (to clarify some of the transportalizer modifications, and continue the dog subplot), and then Jade's second conversation with Dirk (about underwater weapons), which originally came after her conversation with Dave. I swapped those scenes because I wanted Jade and Dirk to have already embarked on construction before Dave discovered the secret project. And then, of course, I added two more Jade-and-Dirk conversations: one about spaceflight and gyroscopes, since I needed a better lead-in for the gyroscope part of the memo, and one at the end to finish the dog subplot. I thought I was done.
Until the next day I realized I really did need to include some actual giant robot mayhem -- or at least the implication of imminent mayhem -- and quickly scribbled the mission memo, which turned out to be a lot of fun because I got to name the never-seen giant robots. (That was also when I went back and gave Dirk one of Heero Yuy's catchphrases, because my sense of humor is often questionable and I couldn't resist.)
---------------
I was unsuccessful in my quest to install Microsoft Office until just a couple days ago, so I wrote all these fics in Google Drive... which was a challenge since my internet connection had been breaking sporadically over the past two weeks. (It was definitely a router issue, which means it was either my upstairs neighbors' problem or the cable company's problem, neither of which I could do much about.) But I got the story done and posted, and people have enjoyed it, which is all one can really ask for.
(I think from some perspectives I may have 'won' Jadefest? At least in terms of hits and kudos and bookmarks? That is a very strange experience for me. Also, seriously, there are a LOT of awesome words and art in the collection. They deserve love too!)
I was surprised that I was the only person to write and post anything in the Jadefest Treats collection! This was frustrating, since I couldn't point people toward that collection without raising the question of, "Oh, and why haven't you left kudos or comments on these stories you want me to read, eh? Eh???" I am pretty sure a couple other people were making noises about trying to fill more than one of their giftee's prompts, but the full prompt list didn't get publicized until Friday so I suppose that restricted opportunities for extra creative efforts. Ah well. So it goes.
---------------
Lastly, ratherrumpus drew an illustration for "Linnaeus Never Had a Robot," which you should go see and praise: they were cool even before the robots.
I could not effectively advertise this before, since I was the only other person with works in the Treats archive, but now I can, and I assure you it is awesome. :-D
---------------
First, here is the prompt from which I was working: After their session is complete, the game's resident robot experts, Jade Harley and Dirk Strider, team up to rebuild Skaia Labs. Is this merely a shallow excuse for them to build giant robots together, pilot said robots, and annoy all their team members who dislike wanton giant-robot destruction? Perhaps. Is it going to be awesome regardless? Absolutely.
Ratherrumpus made two other prompts. The first was about Jade as a boxer, possibly with Vriska as a rival, and, well, let's just say that on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being watching linoleum peel and 10 being Homestuck itself, boxing is a very firm 0.5 on my scale of "Things I Find Interesting." Even if it might involve humans and aliens living together. So I didn't even try to work with that one. (I am quite happy that other people enjoy boxing. To each their own! But it is so far from being my thing that boxing and I ought to live in separate galaxies.)
The second prompt I didn't use was about Jade going grimdark instead of Rose, which I kept as a backup idea in case I couldn't get the giant robots to work. I can do grimdark, I can do desperation and angst, and I figured it wouldn't be too difficult to find a split point where it made sense for Jade to bargain with the horrorterrors... but when given a choice between horrorterrors and giant robots, I'm sorry, but I had to try the giant robots first. :-)
It turns out writing giant robots is harder than it looks.
Or at least it is for me. Which is probably because I have a curse known as world-building, which meant I couldn't just say, "Okay, giant robot time!" I had to figure out why Jade and Dirk would be building giant robots, and apparently "Because they're awesome!" doesn't cut any ice with whatever part of my brain deals with plots and character motivations. :-/ I spent nearly a week spinning various ideas that died horribly within the first two sentences, assuming they even made it that far.
The first attempt that clicked enough to be worth trying to write was the third fic I posted.
-----
Linnaeus Never Had a Robot: When attempting to classify monstrous megafauna, it's helpful to mechanize the specimen collection process. (850 words)
The rationale here is that the kids (and presumably the trolls as well, given the brief reference to Aradia) ended up on a brand new world in a brand new universe, which, although biochemically compatible with their type of life, has no real connection or similarity to either Earth or Alternia. And many of the native animals are megafauna of strange and -- to Earth sensibilities -- monstrous taxonomy. They tend to be inconvenient.
The problem is, even aside from the way this misses the minimum word count, it is not really a Jade fic. It's a Dirk fic. We're firmly in his POV, we're listening in on his personal issues, and while Jade is far from a passive supporting character, she's not the lead. Which is awkward for a fest aimed at Jade-centric stories. I tried to mitigate that by switching to her POV and adding a scene about their first attempt to build the robots, but that flatly refused to go anywhere. Whoops.
-----
If Kaiju, Therefore Mecha: If your life isn't already enough like a shonen anime, just add kaiju and mecha. (525 words)
So then I tried again, in Jade's POV from the start. And in second person, because it's Homestuck. The opening scenario is recognizably similar -- strange new world, Jade and Dirk out in the middle of nowhere tracking down a troublesome giant creature -- but then it takes a sharp left away from "That's just the ecology of this new planet," into "Nope, there's actual supernatural malice creating monsters and aiming them at you." This time Dirk gets to suggest the giant robots, and we also segue through a discussion of kaiju and mecha tropes because why not.
As with the previous attempt, I failed to reach the minimum word count in a single scene and was unable to add another one addressing the actual building of the mecha, let alone the fight against the kaiju. Which annoys me, because I like the implications of this world. I would like to know more about what the other players are doing, not to mention the origin of the kaiju.
-----
Giant Robot Mayhem Doesn't Happen in a Day: In which Jade Harley approaches Dirk Strider with a proposal for a secret mecha construction project, because giant robots are awesome, good science and engineering partners are hard to find, and they need to do SOMETHING with their lives after the game. (5,250 words)
And here at last I was successful! Well. For certain values of success, anyway. This may be the first giant robot story in which you never actually get to see a giant robot. They exist entirely offscreen and without any solid description, though hopefully I tossed in just enough small concrete details and references to let people fill in the rest from genre expectations. *wry*
This fic involves a third potential reason for giant robots: namely, the kids ended up on a reconstructed Earth (just as the trolls ended up on a reconstructed Alternia), but they brought the lusus naturae on Hellmurder Island with them as a little farewell 'gift' from the game. And they need to get them off Earth and back to Alternia before they cause trouble and attract unwelcome attention. (Side note: I am not sure what became of Calliope in this scenario. In the first two, she's probably chilling with all the other survivors. Here, her fate may be sadder and/or stranger.)
The first scene I wrote was Jane's memo wherein the rest of the kids find out about the secret mecha project. That alone was about 1,600 words long, and was what I posted to make the deadline, along with a very rough draft of Jake's apology for shooting the robot as a humorous stinger. But that memo is an ensemble piece, not a Jade-centric piece. (If it's centered on anyone, it's probably Jane and Roxy, weirdly enough.) So I tacked on Jade's first conversation with Dirk, wherein she proposes the giant robot project and the dog subplot first occurs, and also Dave's conversation with Jade, which led me to reconfigure the Jake incident to implicitly close the time loop involving the accidental destruction of Dave's house.
But that still felt kind of unbalanced, so I added Dirk's conversation with Roxy (to clarify some of the transportalizer modifications, and continue the dog subplot), and then Jade's second conversation with Dirk (about underwater weapons), which originally came after her conversation with Dave. I swapped those scenes because I wanted Jade and Dirk to have already embarked on construction before Dave discovered the secret project. And then, of course, I added two more Jade-and-Dirk conversations: one about spaceflight and gyroscopes, since I needed a better lead-in for the gyroscope part of the memo, and one at the end to finish the dog subplot. I thought I was done.
Until the next day I realized I really did need to include some actual giant robot mayhem -- or at least the implication of imminent mayhem -- and quickly scribbled the mission memo, which turned out to be a lot of fun because I got to name the never-seen giant robots. (That was also when I went back and gave Dirk one of Heero Yuy's catchphrases, because my sense of humor is often questionable and I couldn't resist.)
---------------
I was unsuccessful in my quest to install Microsoft Office until just a couple days ago, so I wrote all these fics in Google Drive... which was a challenge since my internet connection had been breaking sporadically over the past two weeks. (It was definitely a router issue, which means it was either my upstairs neighbors' problem or the cable company's problem, neither of which I could do much about.) But I got the story done and posted, and people have enjoyed it, which is all one can really ask for.
(I think from some perspectives I may have 'won' Jadefest? At least in terms of hits and kudos and bookmarks? That is a very strange experience for me. Also, seriously, there are a LOT of awesome words and art in the collection. They deserve love too!)
I was surprised that I was the only person to write and post anything in the Jadefest Treats collection! This was frustrating, since I couldn't point people toward that collection without raising the question of, "Oh, and why haven't you left kudos or comments on these stories you want me to read, eh? Eh???" I am pretty sure a couple other people were making noises about trying to fill more than one of their giftee's prompts, but the full prompt list didn't get publicized until Friday so I suppose that restricted opportunities for extra creative efforts. Ah well. So it goes.
---------------
Lastly, ratherrumpus drew an illustration for "Linnaeus Never Had a Robot," which you should go see and praise: they were cool even before the robots.
I could not effectively advertise this before, since I was the only other person with works in the Treats archive, but now I can, and I assure you it is awesome. :-D