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Fanfic musings
Nov. 28th, 2012 03:51 amI'm kind of trying to set up Coley and Pinto as mortal enemies. They may end up locked in conflict during The Night of the Time Travel's climax.
I had to eliminate the idea that Coley has been in the present day for several months by the time Jim and Arte arrive, for this reason: Ray needed as much time as possible in the sanitarium to recover from Portman's torture, and because of the other fic involved with his rescue, he's only been away from Portman since January of this year. That date is fixed; I can't change it without eliminating the connection to the other fic, which I didn't want to do. And Coley is only supposed to meet Ray after he's out of the sanitarium.
Therefore, now there's only a two-week gap between Coley's arrival and Jim and Arte's. They arrive on the night Coley finds Ray after being tortured himself.
I also changed it so that Coley is tortured by Pinto and not some random plot-device scientist. That makes more sense to me, since Pinto already expressed an interest in getting hold of Coley in The Night of the Lazarus fic. Pinto may or may not torture Coley again later, when Ray is around to be furious and he and Jim and Arte try to stop it. I really liked that scene when I made a blurb of it, so I don't like eliminating it from the official story just because now Pinto is the one who gets hold of Coley first and not a random dude.
Anyway, though, with all this shifting around, I haven't had the incident where Coley tries to save Ray's life from a former blackmail victim yet. I'm trying to figure out how to work that in along with the climatic events. I've run through scenario after scenario and have finally come down to what I think I may want.
I say either the blackmail victim strikes around the same time as the climax, or else Pinto is the one trying to shoot Ray.
Either way, it would happen out by the portal, which is in the canyons near a small cliff. If I did the former way, the blackmail victim would show up, having stalked Ray out there, and try to shoot him. Coley would shoot him and be shot in the process, but instead of collapsing as in the blurb I wrote, Pinto would suddenly attack him at that point.
A tentative idea is that Pinto and Lucrece have decided they want to stay in the present day and are fighting against Jim and Arte, who want to take them back. Coley wants to stay, but he doesn't want Posey's gang to stay, so he's been trying to help Jim and Arte.
Pinto pounces during the climax and they struggle on the cliff near the portal, sort of a la Reichenbach Falls. Pinto has either set up explosives to try to damage the portal or the portal gets overcharged from all the commotion. Or Snakes set the explosives, since he wants to stay too. Maybe he wants to kill off everyone else, since he's no longer welcome in Posey's gang and he wants to ensure his survival.
Well, in any case, there's an explosion. Pinto and Coley go flying in opposite directions and both are thought dead. If Lucrece really does care for Pinto, she may start to show it then. I have a dialogue snippet where she has a prick of worry and fear over the possibility of him being dead. I might change that and make it more pronounced by that point in the fic. In any case, she finds him a bit battered, but not too badly hurt.
Coley would fall off the cliff, but it wouldn't be too far to the bottom. He took the worst of the explosion, though, and he's still wounded from the blackmail victim too. (Although if he's hurt these other ways, I'm thinking the shot in itself isn't as bad.) Ray would drop down beside him in horror, trying to convince himself and Coley that the injuries aren't fatal. Coley would tell him otherwise, say that Ray will have to go on without him, and apologize for that as he dies/seems to die.
I'm also unsure if he should really die, as if he does, I didn't want to use supernatural means to revive him. I've been trying to stick to science with these stories. Perhaps he would just sink into unconsciousness and Ray would be terrified that he was dead but quickly find he wasn't. On the other hand, though, I kind of wanted to use the heartbreaking image of Ray trying to revive him, failing, and then seeming to check out of reality, cradling the body as he stares blankly at nothing.
I suppose I could figure it that Ray's struggles to revive Coley would work, but on a bit of a delay, so he would seem dead for a bit.
I might have to just figure that one out when I write up to that point, which won't be for a long time yet.
On the other hand, since there have been so many scientific revivals from the dead in this series, I wonder if it would really be a good thing to counter that with Coley reviving in a slightly mysterious way, sort of as a "You haven't solved all the mysteries of life and death yet/you aren't the only means whereby the dead can be restored" type of thing. And perhaps leave it so everyone is uncertain whether Coley really wasn't dead and just came to or whether he was dead and revived through divine means.
Hmm. Something to think about. I do love writing those slightly mysterious revivals. And if it might actually be a good thing to have that angle, I might just do that.
I had to eliminate the idea that Coley has been in the present day for several months by the time Jim and Arte arrive, for this reason: Ray needed as much time as possible in the sanitarium to recover from Portman's torture, and because of the other fic involved with his rescue, he's only been away from Portman since January of this year. That date is fixed; I can't change it without eliminating the connection to the other fic, which I didn't want to do. And Coley is only supposed to meet Ray after he's out of the sanitarium.
Therefore, now there's only a two-week gap between Coley's arrival and Jim and Arte's. They arrive on the night Coley finds Ray after being tortured himself.
I also changed it so that Coley is tortured by Pinto and not some random plot-device scientist. That makes more sense to me, since Pinto already expressed an interest in getting hold of Coley in The Night of the Lazarus fic. Pinto may or may not torture Coley again later, when Ray is around to be furious and he and Jim and Arte try to stop it. I really liked that scene when I made a blurb of it, so I don't like eliminating it from the official story just because now Pinto is the one who gets hold of Coley first and not a random dude.
Anyway, though, with all this shifting around, I haven't had the incident where Coley tries to save Ray's life from a former blackmail victim yet. I'm trying to figure out how to work that in along with the climatic events. I've run through scenario after scenario and have finally come down to what I think I may want.
I say either the blackmail victim strikes around the same time as the climax, or else Pinto is the one trying to shoot Ray.
Either way, it would happen out by the portal, which is in the canyons near a small cliff. If I did the former way, the blackmail victim would show up, having stalked Ray out there, and try to shoot him. Coley would shoot him and be shot in the process, but instead of collapsing as in the blurb I wrote, Pinto would suddenly attack him at that point.
A tentative idea is that Pinto and Lucrece have decided they want to stay in the present day and are fighting against Jim and Arte, who want to take them back. Coley wants to stay, but he doesn't want Posey's gang to stay, so he's been trying to help Jim and Arte.
Pinto pounces during the climax and they struggle on the cliff near the portal, sort of a la Reichenbach Falls. Pinto has either set up explosives to try to damage the portal or the portal gets overcharged from all the commotion. Or Snakes set the explosives, since he wants to stay too. Maybe he wants to kill off everyone else, since he's no longer welcome in Posey's gang and he wants to ensure his survival.
Well, in any case, there's an explosion. Pinto and Coley go flying in opposite directions and both are thought dead. If Lucrece really does care for Pinto, she may start to show it then. I have a dialogue snippet where she has a prick of worry and fear over the possibility of him being dead. I might change that and make it more pronounced by that point in the fic. In any case, she finds him a bit battered, but not too badly hurt.
Coley would fall off the cliff, but it wouldn't be too far to the bottom. He took the worst of the explosion, though, and he's still wounded from the blackmail victim too. (Although if he's hurt these other ways, I'm thinking the shot in itself isn't as bad.) Ray would drop down beside him in horror, trying to convince himself and Coley that the injuries aren't fatal. Coley would tell him otherwise, say that Ray will have to go on without him, and apologize for that as he dies/seems to die.
I'm also unsure if he should really die, as if he does, I didn't want to use supernatural means to revive him. I've been trying to stick to science with these stories. Perhaps he would just sink into unconsciousness and Ray would be terrified that he was dead but quickly find he wasn't. On the other hand, though, I kind of wanted to use the heartbreaking image of Ray trying to revive him, failing, and then seeming to check out of reality, cradling the body as he stares blankly at nothing.
I suppose I could figure it that Ray's struggles to revive Coley would work, but on a bit of a delay, so he would seem dead for a bit.
I might have to just figure that one out when I write up to that point, which won't be for a long time yet.
On the other hand, since there have been so many scientific revivals from the dead in this series, I wonder if it would really be a good thing to counter that with Coley reviving in a slightly mysterious way, sort of as a "You haven't solved all the mysteries of life and death yet/you aren't the only means whereby the dead can be restored" type of thing. And perhaps leave it so everyone is uncertain whether Coley really wasn't dead and just came to or whether he was dead and revived through divine means.
Hmm. Something to think about. I do love writing those slightly mysterious revivals. And if it might actually be a good thing to have that angle, I might just do that.
