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.

- - -

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.)

-

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.

-

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.

11th Annual Kim Possible Fannies Nominations are April 29th through May 27th!

Ok, so you know how I've taken to writing Kim Possible fan stuff?  Well it turns out that they have a yearly awards thing.  The 11th annual awards will cover 2015.  As such, all Kim Possible stuff I wrote in 2015 is eligible for nomination.

I remember when the 10th annual ones came around I greatly perturbed that Being more than Simulacrum Part 5 was published two days into the new year and thus not eligible because it had “I know I said--she said, 'Mad Scientist,' when I--she first met him, but I've always felt he was more of an upset engineer,” and, “Evil scientists just have a hard time getting their work published in traditional peer reviewed journals and evil peer reviewed journals never work because everyone ends up afraid that the peer reviewers will steal their work,” in rapid succession and either would seem to be a great entry for the Best Single Line category.  Of course this year they're eligible.

Anyway, here's what qualifies:

• Being more than a Simulacrum: Parts 5 through 13
• Forgotten Seeds: Parts 4 through 6
• Bent, not Broken: Parts 1 through 3
• Life After: All of the pre-revision bits; scattered bits and pieces was post-revision so it was written too late to count
• Breaking up can be easy, Graduation 1.5, Gradusation 1.5 Larry makes contact
  (though if you think you found a best single line in Graduation 1.5, check here to make sure it isn't one of the lines that's actually from the canon show.)

So, now, here's the deal:

Once you have nominations in mind for as many categories as you think you're like to to have nominations in mind for, you copy the form that I'm going to paste at the bottom of this post into an email, fill our your nominations for each category (as many as few, as few as zero) and send the resulting email to kimmunityfannies (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Ok, so now lets talk about me.  Breaking up can be easy, Graduation 1.5, and Larry makes contact, aren't actually at fanfic dot net nor is the completely eligible Life After Chapter 3 (or the likewise eligible four, for that matter) if you nominate anything from any of those, be nice to the awards committee and provide a link.  Actually, links would be a good idea in general because it's just polite.

So, stuff for I can be nominated:

Myself:

28) Best Writer:

All my stories:

14) Best Action/Adventure Story:
15) Best Drama Story:
28) Best Story Overall:

(Action adventure drama is kind of what I do in this fandom.)

Being more than a Simulacrum:

13) Best Friendship Story:

The story is composed of solid "Place makes friends".  An argument could be make for say Horatio-Surge in Forgotten Seeds or Shin-Jacob in Life After, but I think it would be an exceedingly weak argument.

Life After:

6) Best AU Story:
16) Best Unlikely/Unique Story:

It's an AU (alternate universe) because the time changing sends things spiraling off into a different direction, as for unlikely and/or unique, how many stories have you read where the dead are unleashed upon the living because a teleportation attempt bounced off of a fax machine causing an interdimentional rift between the living world and the seediest districts of Helheim?

Back to things that qualify:

1) Best KP Style Name:

Chi Mira (Chimera) from Bent, not Broken:

2) Best Original Character:

Leela Place Possible from Being More than a Simulacrum
Jacob from Life After Horatio from Forgotten Seeds
Darcy the Deliverator, Bent, not Broken Chapter 1
Drake and Amanda (firefighters) Bent, not Broken Chapter 3.
Chi (Mira) from Bent, not Broken in general.

I'm not sure where Surge, Blok, Hawk, and Henry from Forgotten Seeds along with Shin from Life After fall.  They're original characters, but they're my portrayal of other people's original characters.

3) Best Minor Character:

Tara, Josh Manky, Bonnie Rockweller from Life After

24) Best Single Line:

anything from any of the qualifying things that you think is good enough to stand above the other lines.  Well, all but one of the other lines since, do recall, you can nominate two things in each category.

So here's the form I said I'd copy and paste.  Then you copy it into an email, add zero, one, or two (but under no circumstances 3) nominations per category, and send it kimmunityfannies (at) yahoo (dot) com.

It's nominations don't close until the 27th so don't feel too rushed, but I really would like to win something which first requires being nominated, so pleas do actually nominate me for something somewhere if you feel the thing is worthy of nomination.

1) Best KP Style Name:

2) Best Original Character:

3) Best Minor Character:

4) Best Villain:

5) Best Songfic:

6) Best AU Story:

7) Best Crossover/Fusion:

8) Best Alternate Pairing:

9) Best KiGo Story:

10) Best Kim/Ron Story:

11) Best Comedy Story:

12) Best Romance Story:

13) Best Friendship Story:

14) Best Action/Adventure Story:

15) Best Drama Story:

16) Best Unlikely/Unique Story:

17) Best One-Shot Overall:

18) Best Novel-Sized Story:

19) Best Short Story:

20) Best Series Overall:

21) Best Writing Team:

22) Best Young Author:

23) Best New Author:

24) Best Single Line:

25) Best Reviewer:

26) CPNeb Kimmunity Award:

27) Kimmunity Achievement Award:

28) Best Story Overall:

29) Best Writer:

Kim Possible series bible

A series bible is used for two purposes.

Before the series exists it's used as part of the pitch.  "Here's what the show is going to be, give me money and a timeslot."

Once the show does exist it's used to keep the writers on the same page.  It has the basic facts that you do not want to fuck up, it has overviews of the characters so that they're in character, so forth.  The writers read it before they write and as a result (hopefully) the TV show has cohesion.

On April 18th one of the creators of Kim Possible, Bob Schooley, came across the pitch-era bible for the show while unpacking stuff into his new office (the two Kim Possible creators are going to be the ones doing the Big Hero 6 TV series at Disney.)

And thus began the tweeting of pages from said bible.  The bible was used to pitch the show in 2000.  The show hit the air in 2002.  As always with early production material it's interesting to see what changed and what remained the same.

Twelve pages of the bible have been released.  At some point I'll talk about what's to be gleaned from them, for now I'm in "I shouldn't even be doing this much this close to a screen" mode because concussion.

Speaking of, apparently I didn't forget about "brain rest", it's something that's relatively recent so it wouldn't have been mentioned last time I had a concussion.  But fuck are they right about it.  Screens and florescent lights are kryptonite to me right now and if I hadn't been told to stay away from them I'd have no clue because I'd be around them too often to notice the difference.  I'd just think the suffering was unavoidable.

So, until I do say something about the series bible, let me link you to what there is so you can look at it for yourself if you want to (these are all links to tweets, three of them links to the same tweet):

• Cover page
• One page description of Kim and thus the show
• Character bios for Kim and Ron
• Character bios for Rufus, Wade, and Ken (Ken got a name change and reduced to one episode)
• Not released: Kim in her own words
• Ron in his own words
• Not released: Ken in his own words
• Description of what's to be found in a usual episode
• Enemies : Drakken, Steel Toe, Shego, Bs (Steel Toe, as described, never appears)
• Enemies: Dr. Botox, Duff Killigan, Monkey Fist, Seniors (Dr. Botox definitely never appears)
• Family: Mom, Dad, twins (Jim and Tim)
• High School: Zita, Bonnie, Josh, Rick (changed to Brick in the show)
• Not Released: One more high school character on the next page, probably Mr. Barkin
• Slang guide (only the front page is legible)

And that's it.

You can make out a bit of the text on the following page in most of the pictures which is how I know that there's one more "high school" character bio.

Oh, and if you have anything to say on any of that stuff, please do share it in the comments here.

The forklifts are coming! (An adventure I wasn't there for)

So brain rest means minimizing screen time and avoiding fluorescent lights.

It was near the computer/tablet/smartphone section of Costco that the problem inherent in accompanying Lonespark to Costco really made itself known.  Bear in mind that this is a giant warehouse whose ceiling is composed of 73% fluorescent lights, 6% security cameras, and 21% ceiling material which can only be entered by passing through a gauntlet of TV screens I'll never be able to afford showcasing the latest in screen technology.

(As I've mentioned once or twice, 4k is fucking amazing.  I don't think there's that much space left to go because while the technology will doubtless improve the human eye itself can only pick up so much detail.)

So I retreated and stayed in a mini-van while Lonespark was forced to face the warehouse boss all on her own.  She may be an impressive rogue, but I'm the party's fucking magical girl so without me there for support things could go sideways.

And go sideways they did.  They slid all the way into a spy thriller/heist movie.

Lonespark will give the details when she's good an ready, but the general is apparently that after the humans are kicked out the machines take over and you have to run from cover to cover for fear of becoming forklift prey.

She survived this adventure via the help of a native Costco guide, and thus she was able to return to me (well after all the other cars had fled the parking lot and the sun had shifted significantly in the sky) with meat.

Wondrous dead animal that we proceeded to eat yesterday night.

-

On a random meta/programming note, one thing that I'm doing during this, "Stay away from the screens or your brain will die, " time is working on Life After.  I've got a notebook, and a specific pen, devoted to it.

I've made significant progress toward finishing the revision of chapter 3 (so read chapters 1 and 2 to be ready) and a lot of more theoretical work on the overarching structure of the story.  The original plan was slapped together in a way that was random and arbitrary.  The new plan is nothing of the sort.

Even after I figured it out it took me a while to figure out why it was the way it is, but now that I do: Sierpinski triangles.

I need to stop screen time now, or maybe five minutes ago would be better, but before I flee I wanted to get to the point.  There's a decent chance that my next three posts will all be Life After related.  Those being the revised Chapter 3, an overhauled index, and a post on the structure of the story and Sierpinski triangles.

Please give me money, and why I need it, and all of that related stuff I write on the 15th of each month

Monthly money begging post time.

Short version:

I need money.  I don't have money.  If you have money that you don't need, and consider helping me a worthwhile way to spend that money, here's how to get that money to me:

• If you have a Paypal account you can send me money by using my email address: cpw (at) maine (dot) rr (dot) com.  This is good and nice and stuff.  It's free, you see, meaning that every cent you send gets to me.
• If you don't have a Paypal account then you can use the donate button in the upper righthand corner to get money to me (paypal takes a percentage.)  That said, don't try the recurring payments thing.  I don't know why, but every time someone has tried to be nice and schedule automatic monthly donations to me it has utterly failed.  Which is a shame because it's a nice thing for a person to do.

Long version:

Things are bad.  I have some hope that things will get better when I send in my SSI review paperwork and they realize that they were wrong and I don't have the eight fucking thousand dollars a year (and significant change) in income that they think I have and that really was just to pay for two semesters of school and not magic money I can conjure on command when I don't have school.

But until then my monthly income is lower than my monthly bills which means without help I get deeper and deeper in debt and that's before one considers the non-monthly bills ($267.50 three times a year, $657.72 four times a year, oil that's entirely unpredictable.)

My mother paid for the property insurance (the $267.50 one) and isn't expecting me to pay her back in the immediate future, though I should if I can, but she can't cover everything for me so the property taxes (the $657.72 one) that are due May 5th are very scary.

And my oil tank is really close to empty, minimum order of 100 gallons, current heating oil price in the area is $1.499 a gallon (it's good but going up) so I need $149.90 for that.

Do I have any of the $1075.12 I just described?  Of course not.

So, yeah.  That's where things stand at the moment.

Also, fucking concussion does not mix with computer screen.  Part of why I've had a general lack of output of late.  (The other part being the concussion in general which does not mix well with thinky pursuits.)

[Added:]

Oh, also:

No food or food money right now.  I failed to complete an annual review (because I didn't notice I'd gotten it) on time.  I can do that now that I know about that.

So the problem will be solved, but it takes time and thus right now no food or food money.

Apparently "Brain Rest" is a thing

You know what happens when you think you have a concussion?

They shine a light in your eyes, tell you "Squeeze this, push that, look over there," and so forth and finally say, "Yup, looks like a concussion.  Not a damned thing we can do about that.  You just need time and brain rest."

"Brain rest" is new on on me.  Stay away from screens, fluorescent lights, stuff like that, sleep and hydrate.  "Woo!" I say flatly and with no enthusiasm.

I've got a sprained ankle (but it's improved a lot; no crutches today and I didn't die) and apparently a bashed head.  You know what I can do if I have no screens?  Not a damned thing.  If not for the sprained ankle maybe I could make one last ditch effort to fix the washing machine or something, but with it ... not a lot of stuff that I can do here that doesn't involve me connecting to the wider world via things with screens.

So . . . yeah.

I may be somewhat concussed

When I went to get my ankle checked they asked if I'd hit my head.  I said no.  True, things happened quickly and I didn't have all the details of how I ended up on the ground, but I definitely knew that the order of events was: collapse onto/because of right ankle, land on my left knee dissipating downward momentum, end up on ground after most of the force of the fall had been killed.

I've got the scar on my left knee to show that that's how it happened and it reminds me of it every time I kneel (kneeling on my right side not a good idea because the ankle isn't up for the position.

This is the sixth day.  As I adapt to the ankle and thus have fewer shots of "Oh my fucking God, that hurts!" something becomes undeniable.  I have a permaheadache without apparent explanation.

It's hard to exactly describe.  It feels a bit like dehydration, but it doesn't go away when I know I'm hydrated; it feels a bit like starvation, but it doesn't go away when I'm fed.  It feels a bit like sleep deprivation, and when I first wake up is the only time I'm free of it (though that could just be grogginess masking the pain), but it doesn't go away in spite of me having adequate sleep.

It feels a bit like many things.  But you know what it really feels like?  A fucking concussion.

I didn't feel any pain from hitting my head.  I didn't feel any impact to my head at all.  But with the state my ankle was in I wouldn't notice much of anything.

I may be somewhat concussed.