Arkham III

I am working on this HaleyMaxwell serial and it somehow got to be 28,000 words of Breaking the Cutie with a dash of Deus Angst Machina but I have this grand vision for it and Jacket serial, so in some ways it's like I'm writing another serial.

Okay, let's do a few more picspirations

Eden Collins, 14

I didn't really have one for her but Joey King, who is most known for the Romana and Beezus movie, has the exact haircut and look I was thinking about for Eden. Also, Eden's wandered out of the serial a few times:

Summer, 15

 You all don't know much about her, but her character inspired this entire serial back when it was "blob thing". Her picspitation is Julia Winter who played Veruca Salt in the Charlie and The Chocolate Factory remake. She hasn't been in much but her hair is exactly how I see Summer's

Let's Talk The Technology
As I've been writing HaleyMaxwell's story I've been forced to think more about how Syndicates's work and how I haven't done a great job explaining them. In my head Synicates are ubiquitous like cell phones, they're wearable tech that does everything from make calls to unlock cars and they have a projection ability so you can share what you are seeing.

Now, let's talk about the patch. Most people have a permanent patch installed as a baby (when your brain is softer) that allows them to use their Syndicate without their hands. They can control it using the small computer in their brains. They also use the patch as an identifier to pick people for the draft, which is why people pay Sera to remove their patch.

Those without the patch (Jean , Sara, Luce) can use syndicates but they have to use their hands or eyes which in their world is seen as kind of a clunky way to use a Syndicate.

Of course all of this is null in Arkham Academy because they don't have Syndicates, they are only allowed to have what they call tablets, which are like really thin iPads that can fold up

Arkham III
Luce is back for his second year at Arkham Academy and during his first week he gets pushed into the lake by the new girl. Now that he's noticed the new girl, Summer, Luce can't stop thinking about all the special treatment she seems to get and then he puts it together...

Arkham III
Playlist

-1- Find A Place by Iko
-2- The Moment I Said It  by Imogen Heap
-3- How Will We Know by The Sea The Sea

Arkham II

 

There were a lot of wonderful comments last time but all I can focus on is Lile giving up a tidbit about what I guess we are calling PLT2. If Rose is at a boarding school does that mean we are getting her POV or are we getting third person ? And how does Clarence fit into that ?

Luce Grace, 15
When I rebooted Veritas, Luce was the character with the biggest makeover. I wanted him older and I wanted him to challenge Sara. Luce's main thing is he wants to join the cartel but Sara doesn't want him to, she wants him to be like his Dad who was a white hat hacker--who  just got a little carried away.

In my head Luce's closest picspiration is Asa Butterfield and his facial expressions will only include this:

and this:

Hotako Washington, 34
So, when I did the math on Hotako and Rayne I realized Hotako would be much younger than I imagined so in my head when I wrote him in Compulsion. So my headcanon is that he bought Arkham from someone else and that's how he become headmaster at such a young age.

Also his family is rich.

His picspiraton could maybe be Lewis Tan (who is biracial like Hotako and Rayne are) with facial his hair

But I think Lewis Tan is a little too...good looking and smoldery

 Yeah...

Arkham Academy Part II

Luce tries to help the new girl at school by fishing her bracelet out of the lake , but she pushes him back in the water which isn't good for him since his cybernetic system was turned on...

Arkham Academy II
Playlist

-1- Red Dust by James Vincent McMorrow

-2- Lights and Motion by Anomaly 

Welcome To Arkham Academy

I think I've said is pretty much everything I wanted to say about the United Light Verse at this point. We're going to say goodbye to it for now and go back into the Vice World....well, kind of.

The Serial Formally Known As Blob Thing

 Arkham Academy is a story that has been in my head since I wrote Vice.  In fact I mention it's potential in the Vice FAQ. This story is basically going to be the story behind this particular scene in the 1st chapter of Compulsion:

“I totally called you getting kicked out of boarding school,” Minnow yells after Luce. I know she’s been waiting to give him a hard time since we heard the news.

“Suspended.” Sara scoffs. “Not expelled. Not yet.”

“It’s barely a suspension,” Luce adds. “Break starts tomorrow anyway—“

“Did you really hit a kid ?,” Minnow asks, her eyebrows raised.

Luce mumbles something that sounds like a yes.

“Holy shit, what did he do?,” Minnow continues.

“She was a total bitch.” He snaps “She hit me first--,”

“Luce. Go.” Sara orders and  turns back to the baby. “I’ll be right back, love.”

She kisses them both on the forehead before walking out.

Let's Recap (This is a long one)
Yes, Yes, I had to re-read Vice to write this and I also read the blog posts and you guys I was SO flaky about posting that serial. I'm so glad I've learned the art of the outline. Arkham Academy takes place in the time after Vice but before Compulsion so I'll catch us up and hit the high points of Vice.

Sara Grace's husband Derek Grace becomes obsessed with a secret project his company,Tempus, worked on called the Promethues Project. Derek learns too much and Tempus tortures him until he goes crazy, kills himself and puts 12 bullets in his 7-year-old son, Luce.

Luce barely survives the bullets and Sara asks for help from her friend Ivy, who is part of a Irish crime family. Ivy's family is broke but she connects Sara to Shy Cartel heir Rayne Washington, the man she is being married to to form an alliance. The doctors heal Luce by making him a cyborg. He's 57% computer and has a cyberntic leg.To pay for the surgery Sara hacks for Rayne, but soon he makes her kill too. 

Also, when Luce comes out of his surgeries 18 months later he doesn't remember that his father shot him and Sara keeps it that way. She just tells him Tempus did it.

Fast forward 7 years. Sara is a fugitive assassin and still working for Rayne and still  trying to figure out what exactly the Prometheus Project was that it got her husband killed. She wants to to go to the East to the Tempus headquarters and when Rayne gives her the resources to go he also tells her to ransom Allison Kyto, the Tempus CEO daughter while she is there to recoup some of the cost.

While trying to kidnap Allison at a party, a 19-year-old she knows as Alan Gray sees her face and scratches her, taking some of her DNA She should kill him, but he reminds her so much of her dead husband. She takes him with them instead and he eventually has to join the cartel because he ODs on chrome and gets some operations that Rayne paid for. Also, Alan is the android created by The Promtheus Project

Luce is upset at Alan's presence because he knows Alan is associated with Tempus, the company that killed his Dad.

*deep breath*

Also,

The Western Republic starts a border patrol that gets nuked by the  Eastern State. Upset, the Western Republic builds an army, the Republic Liberation Army and starts drafting.

Before they can go into full on war mode the leaders of the East and West meet for a peace summit. Rayne doesn't want this peace summit because he can make money using Sara to hack people out of the draft--he orders Sara to kill Julian Walker, The Republican leader, so the war and the draft will continue.

Sara decides not to do that. She's not risking killing a world leader. Instead she hacks all the government files and discovers that the Eastern leader, Cyril Porter, knew the bombs would kill people on the border patrol and that both Porter and Walker were paid by private coroporations , who had it in their business interests for the East to keep using the West's people as resources. (Re-reading this bit was...yeah)

Sara makes this information public, both leaders are stripped of their powers and peace talks end. The RLA is building up momentum and taking over the government and Alan is a part of the team.

*deep breath*

Also, right after this Sara finds out she is pregnant and Rayne is the father.  She keeps the baby because Rayne needs an heir and in 7 years with Ivy they've never been able to concieve. Rayne and Sara have kind of always had a physical attractions but couldn't act on it publically because Rayne was arrange married to Ivy, Sara's best friend. 

This story picks up a few months after Sara has her baby.

Arkham Academy Part 1 
Much like OLT, we are going to start with a small toe dip

Arkham Academy Part 1
Arkham  Academy Playlist
-1- Hollow Drum by Laura Welsh

OLT Part III

I forgot to comment with this  image during the QC finale. This is one of my favorite QC lines

The quote maker I used automatically censors fuck

OLT II
So, originally OLT stopped at the line where Juliana tells Mason she knows how to hurt Rhett if she wanted to. In that version Mason was an only child and I wanted to leave the story with the implication that they were running away together, but then I decided to expand a little bit more. In fact, I wrote the commune scene in OLT before the scene in UL3 where Juliana and Mason visit the commune after she drops Rhett of to work hurricane Katrina.

But the more I wrote UL3 the more I saw Juliana takes her marriage very seriously and she'd only leave Rhett is he got physical with her--which in my head, he hasn't. I'll talk more abourt Rhett later, but earlier in Liberation when I said Rhett Clark is An Asshole I meant it. 

OLT III
Recap
We find out that when Rhett is drunk he can still be pretty mean to his family and when he finds out Mason got in-school suspension for not doing his homework Rhett takes away his car keys.

While Rhett goes to career day at their daughter's school, Juliana  picks Mason up early from school and they visit the abandoned commune and have lunch.  It's a tradition for them that is suddenly interrupted by a phone call from Rhett that his mother might be dead.

OLT III
Playlist
- 1 -Weightless by Courtney Jones
- 2 - Open The Eyes Of My Heart by Shane &Shane
- 3-  Coal Wars by Joshua James

OLT Picspirations / Return to Actor Corner

This picture is of Australian actor Kodi Smit Mcphee from some indie film he did a while ago. He is my Mason picspiration. He most recently Nightcrawler in X-men, but I originally found him because I was going to share this picture of him with Lile as what I think would happen if Sera/Paris ever had a kid:

Also, when he was younger he kind of has an Arrow vibe

Oh, also Kodi is in the 2009 movie version of Cormac McCarthy's The Road movie and so there are just countless images of him and Viggo Mortenson posing that made me lol because from what I understand this movie is depressing AF.

IDK why, this one is my fave

Juliana Reese Clark, 37

I see her as a mix of Ana Chulmsky, with hair similar to Anna Paquin

Rhett Clark, 38

I've been holding on to this specific pic of James Marsden for a year, I'm not even sure what movie this is from but  when Westworld premiered I kept looking at James Marsden and blonde Evan Rachel Wood (who of course is 13 years younger than him) and thinking they reminded me of Rhett and Juliana.

Savannah Clark, 29

She doesn't show up much in the short story, but I kept seeing 50 Shades Darker ads and she reminded me so much of how I imagined Savannah. Even her voice...although I guess Savannah has an accent.

 

Noah Presley, 15

This actor basically inspired Noah Presley's entire character...more on this later.

One Last Thing Part 1

So, the first thing I wrote was just this scene at a children's birthday party ( I wasn't sure whose birthday) where teenage Mason was there out of obligation and drinking while none of the adults were looking, just kind of watching and he was with someone.

At first I had a female character who was literally called BF, who was going to be Mason's best friend but she had no personality or purpose. I couldn't figure out who this friend was or how they met--I figured I'd put it in later.

Then I wanted this other person he was with to be Spencer, but I realized she'd be a little bit younger than I wanted.

Then I saw this picture of Boyce Cameron and I was like...you belong in a story. I can't remember the exact order of events, but at some point I realized he'd be a perfect grown up Noah ( Boyce is biracial) and I found him much easier to write for.  As I've said, I wrote this while writing UL3, so some of UL3 is informed by OLT. It's why I brought Noah up a lot in UL3. Working on Noah in OLT is literally the only reason  these two scenes exist:

I went to Aubrey and Wil’s because it was Sam’s birthday today too, Mason was helping to teach Noah Presley  to walk. It was cute and I think he'll do good with the baby. I sent some pictures.

and

For once I’m not the youngest person in the group and get to give West a hard time. We find some lawn chairs and talk shit for a while. I get distracted watching Mason roll an old rubber ball to Noah Presley, who half crawls/ half walks to catch the ball.

Clark Family Tree
So, we also have some new Clark children and I want to give you all a quick guide:

Mason Clark, 16-years-old
Spencer Cecilia Clark, 14-years-old
Peyton Clark, 6-years-old
Carter Clark,  4-years-old
Anabelle Grace Clark, 13-months-old

We also have:
Tennessee Grady, 6-years-old
Noah Presley Giroux, 15-years-old

I never explain it in the serial (I couldn't fit it in), but the reason Mason calls Cody's daughter Grady is because she didn't have a name for the first few weeks she was born because her Mom had a traumatic birth and didn't have the chance to name her, so Rhett referred to her as Grady and the other kids picked it up.

One Last Thing Part II
13 years after the end of Liberation, it's Tennessee Grady, Cody's daughter's, 6th  birthday party and as she goes for the big gift ( a refurbished bike) Mason and Noah Presley sneak out the party...but where are they going ?

One Last Thing II
Playlist

-1-We Belong by  Today Kid
-2-Audiotree by Cereus Bright
-3- Receiver by Petra Brown 
-4- Next in Line by Dean Fields

And The Title of Pink Frosting Is...

But first, to LiLe 

I've been pre-writing my blog posts so I haven't had space to fully squee over QC and Nocits. I could read about Seraphina Grigoi all day and I am really sad to have QC updates missing from my life. Sera is everything I wanted Sara Grace to be, but could never could quite get there.  I look forward to all the Lile novellas coming soon and seriously Lile, if there is more to Noctis you can totally have Maxwell forever. I just love the idea of these worlds colliding, I only wish I could get my head around how you created the QC world.

Speaking of Maxwell, for some reason he and Haley's story is like, the thing I can't stop exploring and writing about. The Haley/Maxwell short story is currently sitting at 23,707 words...is that still a short story ? I think I'm going to start referring to the longer ones as novellas and the shorter ones as short story.

Okay, let's move on to our first short story, set in the United Light - verse:

We are going to do a toe dip into the world of One Last Thing.

 I think I said it would be posted in 4 parts but it's actually going to be posted in 3 including this one. I'm going to start with about 1,000 words and go from there. One Last Thing takes place 14 years after the end of UL3 and is told form the point of view of 16-year-old Mason Clark.

Oh, also this was originally called Hugs and Kisses up until the last minute so the URL at the top is HAK.

One Last Thing Part I
Playlist
-1-  Let It Go (Not that Let It Go) (Piano Arrangement)

UL3 Wrap Up / Let's Get Meta

Wrap Up Post
I am both happy and terrified to be done with UL3, happy because it was a long serial but terrified because I'm not working on a new serial. I mean...I have as an outline for FZAFSOAAWA but I haven't been able to write anything.

I have roughly 50,000 words in novellas so I'm just going to roll with that for a while and see where I land at the end. Pink Frosting will be the shortest novella at about 9,000 words.

Loose Ends
There is a lot of open endedness in the ending of United Light 3. The character ending I struggled with the most was Elisa's. When I first started thinking about UL3 I had toyed with the idea of Elisa and Rosa being a couple. A lot of you had commented on their closeness and it kind of made sense but as I started writing I realized I also maybe wanted to rekindle Sawyer and Elisa.

Subtextually I kind of went with Sawyer/Elisa as more of the potential couple. I just think Rosa would want to be with someone who isn't part of the UL situation.

Name Game
The only other thing I really want to share is that when coming up for names for Baby Clark II. I knew I wanted something like Jocelyn's names so I put her name into Nameberry's Name Generator as an inspiration names and it spat out  the names of 4 of my female characters. I just thought this was funny

• Julianna
• Macy
• Savannah
• Elise (which is kinda like Elisa)

Speaking of names, I wrote Pink Frostings well before I wrote in Juliana's second pregnancy. So, I knew Mason had a sibling and I'd just arbitrarily named her Spencer thinking I'd change it later but I got attached to it.

Also, Mason's name was Connor up until the last minute, but I didn't like the hard R sound.

Moving On
Okay, so I'm not ready to debut the new novella but I do want to share this super silly little meta thing I wrote:

 Tempest Cast

Tempest Cast Playlist

Oh, Thank Heaven Thirty Six +Thirty Seven

 (Please don't fool me)

Chapter 35
As Corriander predicted in the last comment section I did kind of go down a homebirth rabbit hole and Juliana's home birth is  a mash up of several "homebirth journey" blogs I read. Home birth is really, really controversial but one thing I found that I just love is this picture (which is not graphic but I'm linking to because it feels weird to post someone's personal pictures): http://threemanycooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/POST1.jpg

The midwife is wearing shorts in case she has to jump into the water and IDK...it's kind of gross to think about but it's also kind of badass. These midwives are ride or die for their clients and the mothers really put it all out there when writing about it.

I don't talk much about my daughter, but I had all of the drugs and reading about the experiences of others  is so interesting and seems kind of awesome. I mean, giving birth in a hospital is really a new-ish thing. Okay moving on...

Chapter 36 + Chapter 37
These chapters are going to be shorties, but you guys I've made a decision....I'm going to pump it out and finish UL3 in April. That is my goal.

Recap
Juliana is with Rocket in Florida interviewing the South Florida gang and other ex-UL members for Rocket's oral history. Juliana confronts her past by seeing Brad and Caine and she realizes they don't own her or her emotions anymore. She's a few days from her due date and Rhett flies down to drive her back to Louisiana but her water breaks and in the irony of ironies Juliana finds herself giving birth in the same house she first moved into with Sawyer. As she spends 8 hours in labor she finally understands for the first time, that maybe she was never alone as she thought and gives birth to baby Clark #2.


Chapter 36 (with link to 37)
Playlist

Chapter 36
-1- Crazy in Love by Daniela Andrade
-2- Oh My Love by Layla

Chapter 37
- 1- Tune Down by Chris Joss 
-2- Moving On by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis
-3- Window by Album Leaf
-4-  Claps by Adam Dost