Fic Update: Action Figures Sold Separately
Action Figures Sold Separately
Chapter 3 (on AO3 and FFNet)
Oh my God, IT IS DONE.
Normally, I try not to count how long it's been since an update. I really don't bother; because I'm invested in my writing and appreciate my readers, but I have a life to live. And I don't play high school bs games and have usually responded to peer pressure with a contrariness that drives me to do the opposite (sometimes to my own detriment). So the extremely rare comment I get that's obnoxious about updating, just pisses me off in the "no cookies for you" direction.
But enough about me. One year, five months. Approximately. Good grief.
And honestly, after I pieced the last section together (Steve's, if anyone was wondering; I had a good time about a month ago piecing together the Machine's POV and figuring out how to end the chapter) I didn't even bother to reread any of it before I posted. So if anyone wants to point out some mistakes (like, I accidentally left chunks of notes in there as if it was exposition? Or yeah, typos or something?) that would be really helpful, in fact.
I didn't bother because I've been over and over so much of it so many times to this point that I really can't even look at it any more and I need to move on. I have battled this chapter so hard, for so long.
The first section really went smoothly, all things considered. It underwent a few revisions as I tried to get the appropriate level of familiarity between John and Finch for Season 1, between Episodes 19 and 20; and as the rest of the chapter outline developed, mutated, and finally settled (somewhat uncomfortably) in its end (current) form. This was the easiest of them all to write, in retrospect.
Then, we check in with Fury and Coulson. This was not my favorite to write - it's not a secret that I find it hard to get into these men's heads, and to be honest, watching Agents of Shield doesn't really illuminate Coulson to me. Mostly because everyone's always talking about how different he is in AoS to how he was before the TAHITI protocol or whatever, so there goes any character clues I might be able to use to flesh him out. It's annoying as hell. Plus I'm only at the end of S2 of AoS, I am only just starting to not want to smack Skye every time I see her, Jemma's getting concerning, and everyone else and the bizarre romances constantly cropping up are ticking me off. Don't date your coworkers. Easy rule. So you're a spy; that means you have problem solving skills, presumably. Figure it out. UGH.
But in the scheme of things, the Fury and Coulson section was fine. I hesitate to call it filler, because I've gotten past the useless exposition stage of my writing career (please, please let me have gotten past the useless exposition stage!); there is necessary set-up here, for some stuff I'll be bringing up in, like, three more chapters. (So, 2023? Kidding. Really.) and to eventually get Clint and Tasha on board. Because it wasn't complicated enough, at this point.
The section I hated? Tony and Pepper. OH MY GOD this was miserable to write. The blueberries? I was losing the will to live, at that point. The problem with this section is that I needed to do a lot of things all at once, and the next thing I knew I was pulling in a cameo of a fandom I don't even follow just to intro what I needed to. I had to intro Tony, who I've never written. Then I had to do set-up for the (first scene of the?) Avengers, which is the whole underwater cutting laser thing. (Originally I wanted to do that weird doohickey that he clamps on to the underwater main to take Stark Tower off the grid. But I had no idea what it could possibly be, I'm not an engineer. All I really know is that there couldn't be too much build up of resistance by whatever it is, because underwater or not that would be bad. But that's it, and I couldn't figure any of it out in any way that didn't sound ridiculously made up. So I'm praying that none of the prior Iron Man suits had the laser, and am moving on.) Said underwater cutting laser actually exists, by the way, in the middle of patent prosecution by a company, you guessed it, located in Cambridge, England. At least it did when I researched and wrote that section, like six months ago? More? And it segued very nicely into the next section - but it also required that I introduce Pepper, who I've also - you guessed it - never written. At least I like Pepper, I enjoy watching but don't really like or agree with Tony Stark a bunch of the time. (Team Cap, no surprises there.)
But the dialogue in this section wrote itself really quickly, in fact. That was the problem. I had all the bouncing back-and-forth between Tony and Pepper down, I liked it, and I felt like it mirrored a lot of what was in the movies so it had the realism factor going for it (inasmuch as a man in a flying metal suit that shoots bolts of power out of his hands can ever be considered realistic). But it was several long chunks of text (the end bit about the laser, and the start section with Flynn and the art collection and the auction) that were dialogue only - you guessed it, not even a note as to who's saying what, no description, etc. And they were unconnected at one point. So I had to make it flow like a real conversation - it had to connect in some way, which was not fun. But the worst part was putting in the descriptors, exposition, whatever. They talk for so long about so much - and in the movies, Tony and Pepper talk over one another all the time, which is basically impossible to type in any readable way, and when they do this a lot of the time they're doing something else at the same time (read: Tony signing over his company to Pepper while getting a boxing lesson and putting Natasha in the ring with Happy; the actual canon discussion of the modern art collection in IM2, basically every Iron Man movie and RDJ appearance with Gwennyth Paltrow in the MCU ever). So they couldn't just be talking. They had to be doing stuff.
You can tell if you look hard at the end of the section where the description peters out a bit and there's more dialogue than anything else (like the last 5-10 lines or so) that I was just done at that point. I couldn't take it any more. I was cursing myself, and decided it was f'ing well good enough.
In comparison, the Nelson & Murdock section that followed was pretty quick and short. I did hit a snag or two where I had to go re-watch the beginning of Episode 9 (? I don't even remember anymore, but the clue is that Ben Urich is leaving Nelson & Murdock, so this is right after Fisk makes his public appearance and prevents them from dragging him into the light). The timing on this is rough because this is the morning before the night during which Elena Cardenas is killed.
WHICH is important because the Machine just got her number, in the beginning of this. And it's right before Mrs. Cardenas shows up at Nelson & Murdock and they tell her to fight - and that night she's killed. So. Timing.
Another thing I did during this insane year of non-posting? Got a fire stick for a gift and binged all Daredevil Episodes. I'm also up to date on The Defenders and Jessica Jones, but Iron Fist and Luke Cage can bite me, for various reasons. I'm not watching those and at this point have no intention of bringing in anyone but Matt, Foggy, and Karen as per Daredevil season 1.
Chronologically, the next section I wrote was the Machine's POV. That was fun, and relatively easy, though it did take delay because I had to snitch clips off YouTube where it didn't matter how many times I paused and rewound to see what the rapid-scrolling text of the Machine's workings was actually saying; or I had to wait for the house to empty and do it on the TV so I could actually see it, without the peanut gallery harping to know what I was doing or to demand I just watch the damn show already. But I did it, and it was actually a bit fun. FORMATTING this was a bitch, though - and ffnet really doesn't like the ">"s that show up in AO3, which doesn't care. That was nice. The inability to tab so I can space text on the same line? Also a pain in the ass. But overall, I was happy with how it came out on AO3 and I can live with it on ffnet. So yay.
And the second to last section in the story, but the last section written, was Steve meets Reese as Detective Stills. That... I don't know when I started it. I was actually working on this with the plan to post it Memorial Day weekend, originally. But this section wouldn't come together. Instead, I took my computer to the dealership today and wrote most of it while I waited a ridiculous amount of time for an oil and wiper change. C'est la vie - it's done! I didn't really beta read it at all; I reached the point on this chapter a helluva long time ago where I just wanted to POST IT ALREADY. I'm sure my readers were at that point a few minutes after finishing chapter 2, but I am occasionally slow on the uptake. ;) Regardless, I got it done a little bit after the car was finished, I'm proud of myself, it did convolute itself several times and yes, I needed some red shirt OC's, but there is going to be a lot of moving on in the next little while, story-chronology wise.
The other thing that happened with this chapter is actually a result of a review from the first? Second? chapter. Anyway, someone made the very justified observation that the transitions between POV's were a little rough. And they were, I knew they were when I wrote it, when I posted it. There was maybe one that was really good - but it only served to emphasize how rough the others were. I couldn't think of ways around it that got me where I needed to go, at that point, so I metaphorically threw my hands up and said, hell with it. But in this chapter I worked on it a bit more and I think I managed to improve. It's probably going to be something I continue to work on, but a little criticism, kindly put, generally goes a long way with me. So there are some transitions in this section I'm pretty proud of, all things considered.
My biggest fear with this story is that it's going to get so big, so detailed, so involved, that I'm going to either drop subplotlines entirely, or it will snowball beyond my control, and I'll get overwhelmed and just drop it because I can't deal anymore. So I'm working pretty hard to keep it at a manageable level, even though I have a lot of threads going off into the ether.
This is why that Librarians cameo? Is going to be IT. I don't know anything about The Librarians, I saw the movie once years ago with a friend, I know there's a ridiculous TV show with Rebecca Romjin and Steve Carlson, but I don't care about that and won't be incorporating more. Harsh, but I needed them to assist me with something, they did, and they're done. The thing about crossovers that I like, generally, is that I can farm fandoms for characters I need to fulfill story purposes and poach them, and to people who don't know the fandom it's just an OC, but for people who do, it's a tidbit. And I get tired of OC's when I read - it' about the characters I know. Otherwise I wouldn't bother with fanfic despite it being free; I'd just read a book.
Anyway. That's basically everything I have to say for now.
I mean, yeah, there's so much more I could say - let's talk about Steve's MSN! It's weird on purpose! No one noticed or cares (yet!)! Hahah, I'm going to be able to intro Clint and Natasha soon! Coulson has a plan and he's putting it into action - ten to one no one picks up on it until the reveal!
Buuuut.... In the interests of not spoiling anything for anyone (well, really just for bratfarrar, because she's the only one who still reads this anyway - shoutout!!) I'll quit now while I'm ahead. Maybe ahead? Yeah, I'm gonna go with that.
And last piece of info: Good news! I have the next chapter outlined, yay!