Monday, May 2, 2016

The Lynnverse: Conception

It's not that I have a problem with the whole, "Nominate me for everything," post being out front.  Because seriously, send in an email to nominate me for stuff by May 27th.  Hell, if not for the fact that I'm still limiting screen  time I'd be going through all of the qualifying stories looking for potentials for Best Single Line, so I could dump them all here in hopes that at least one or two get nominated.

However, it is that this whole "Limit screen time" thing makes me feel that there's been a dearth of things that were even fiction-ish, and I'd like to change that.

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The title Lynnverse begs for it to be the inverse of something.  If I should come up with such a something I'll be sure to mention it.  Until then the title comes from Lynn being the starting point and expanding outward from there.

So the notebook I've been working on Life After in took a sharp (36 page long) left turn when the Kim Possible pitch era bible was released.

Lynn was originally going to be Lynn Possible who would be a random original character who could show up in the Here's how it is verse as a decedent of Mim Possible, identical great aunt of Kim who disappeared after being accused of committing the crime of the century.  (She went off to prove her innocence, but never managed to do so.)

And Lynn basically just was an excuse to use the early production art of Kim and Ron for characters that could exist alongside Kim and Ron in the same universe.  I had nothing else for Lynn except for thinking that it might be interesting to have Lynn, progeny of the disgraced and forgotten side of the family, to not be in the same rich/famous/popular pigeon hole as Kim.

So when the early info for Kim Possible came out, a lot of which didn't get used yet was awesome, it sort of made sense to use it for Lynn's background.

Two things went together to really create my vision of the Lynnverse.

One was working out her friends.  While I have nothing against Zita Flores from the show (though I do object to the fact that she only appears in three episodes, in one of which she doesn't even speak, and she's always there as an object of some boy's affection) Zita Flores from the production material is a character it would have been nice to see.

Acerbic fighter for lost causes who is naturally a bit on the gloomy side (when you're always losing it can be hard to keep a sunny disposition.)  Everything about that is gold.  Lost causes means that the story can address things that can't be solved by a superhero (poverty, bigotry, civil rights in general, inequality, colonialism) because no longer needing to be able to win every fight allows for introducing things that one person, even a superhero, can't solve.

The always-up Kim is hard to relate to, as is "I can do anything," where someone who doesn't always have the expected cheery disposition and has to get by on, "I can't fix the problem, but I can at least work to make things less bad," is ... generally the kind of person you need to be if you want to make a positive difference.

You're probably not going to solve hunger, but you can try to make sure the soup kitchen gets some food when most people aren't giving.  (As it's been explained to me, most people give around Christmas and only then, and then you just have to attempt to stretch it, all the while knowing that it'll never last, because people can starve at any time of year.)

So Lynn, not-Ron, and not-Zita would form the core group but I wanted a larger ensemble and the more I did to work out the other six members of my nine main high school characters the more clear it became that I was, basically, creating an original thing that, provided I didn't call Lynn, "Lynn Possible" would be wholly my own.

The other was the description of Ubel Drakken.  If you take a look at "Ubel"s description he's a ruthless corporate overlord.  He's in charge of an evil company called Deviotix and beyond his lust for power, he only has one other driving force: keep the shareholders happy.  Especially important in the fourth quarter because that's when Wall Street is paying attention.

So I've got Lynn who I've already decided is going to be in a low income bracket, and on the other side is Ubel who would be all, "The law doesn't apply to me, I'm a CEO," and also be the embodiment of Wall Street interests being evil.

This suggests pure, unabashed, unashamed, open class warfare.

That's not to say it would all be Lynn vs. monied interests, one of the cut villains was a cosmetic surgeon who wanted to make everyone look "perfect" and I definitely want Lynn to face off against such a person.  In fact I know the mission that will first cause them to cross paths.  A child will report the crime as, "Somebody stole my freckles!" (Yes, the kid will get the freckles back.)

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There's also a question of timing.  Kim Possible started being broadcast in June 2002, it ended the first time in April 2005 . . . sort of.  But there was a massive outcry because "What the actual Fuck, Disney!?" and so a fourth season was ordered.

It ended the second time in 2007 with Kim and Ron's graduation.  September 2007.  Because that's easy to work with.  (Note sarcasm in previous sentence.)

Some people think that the show should be dated by having the school year with the first episodes be one of the 2002 school years.  Others think that Kim should have graduated in the year when the graduation episode aired thus 2007.

For my part... I looked at things like when the year of the monkey is, when October 31st falls on a Friday, dates of harvest moons, and so forth and came up with:
2002-2003 Kim is a Freshman -- there is, at most one episode (Tick Tick Tick)
2003-2004 Kim is a Sophmore -- Season 1 is fall semester, Season 2 pre-movie is spring
2004-2005 Kim is a Junior -- Season 2 post-movie is fall, Season 3 is spring
2005-2006 Kim is a Senior -- Season 4 covers the whole school year.
If Lynn is Kim's contemporary... there's one story definitely want to set against the backdrop of the 2004 election.

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So, basically, that's where it started from.  I'm kind of torn because the entire universe I'm creating can stand on its own and isn't really fan fiction and so forth.  I don't even need to change anything to make it a wholly original thing owned by me and no Disney you can't fuck with it.  All it would take is not mentioning Lynn or her sidekick's last names.  That's it.  Because that's the only thing that really connects it to things I don't own.

On the other hand, I conceived all of this as part of a larger universe and I feel weird cutting ties.

But, in the end, I think the Lynnverse will be a stand alone thing.

And I'll have more to say about it as time moves on.

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