Musings on writing The Relationship (Part 1)
Oh my God... I think it took a year (possibly 2), but The Relationship is finished! Well, it took far less time to finish this than it did Love's Sorrow. Ah well... No time for reflection for my first magnum opus. This particular Author's Notes is going to be pretty lengthy, so let's get started. Oh, later on in the entry, I'll start referring to the stories as WC (Wesker's Conquest) and TR (The Relationship), just a heads up for ya.
Edit: Apparently I've been talking about rewriting Wesker's Conquest since June of 2013! Well damn!
Edit 2: Yeah it’s late and I still have to post the finished product to fanfiction.net… So this is going to be a musing done in 2 parts.
Ideas for this story: Well... This is a reimaging of Wesker's Conquest. Now don't get me wrong, I am still pretty proud of the work I did on Wesker's Conquest, it's just in the years since I wrote it, I felt I could do better and despite telling myself (and everyone else for that matter) I wouldn't rewrite Wesker's Conquest, I ended up not just rewriting it, but completely reimagining it. In all honesty, I love this version of events so much better. No disrespect to Past Aa-chan. She did good work in all, it's just that Present Aa-chan is a bit of a better storyteller.
Oh if you were curious about why I decided to rewrite this story, it all started because I really wanted to write another story that featured a sex scene with Wesker. So yeah, nothing super earth shattering. I just wanted to write smut and trash with Wesker. The sex scenes were written before anything else was. It probably went 1st sex scene, the first three chapters, the second sex scene, parts where Annika was in Edonia, then the rest got filled in along the way. As mentioned of fanfiction.net, I never write stories that way, but for whatever reason this story worked out that way. It was an interesting way of writing, but I don't want to do that again.
Title: Yeah I really hate the title of this story and I'm still trying to come up with something really good. I'll keep thinking about it. But why I settled on The Relationship is because Wesker and Annika are pretending to have a romantic relationship in the beginning, but we all know Wesker isn't the type of man to be in a "committed" "serious" relationship with anyone.
The Relationship vs. Wesker's Conquest: As I stated on ff.net, there were parts that I lazed out and just directly cut and pasted from the original story (Wesker's Conquest). The card scene was ripped off from the first story, I just changed it from Annika's family (WC) to the members of the Warlords (TR). The train ride to the capital of Edonia was semi ripped off, I just changed it from Annika leaving all by herself (WC) to having Kazia go with her (TR). Jake's birth is very almost 100% verbatim with some minor variations.
Of course there are some very evident things I leave in from the original story, like Annika's name, birthday, and hometown. I leave her grandmother, Ekaterina in the story, as well as her father Misha, and her uncle Alexei. I also snuck in one of Annika's other uncle's from the original story and his wife, believe it or not was actually Alexei's wife in Wesker's Conquest. However in this I wanted Alexei to be single and not because he was a priest (In my research for this story I learned Eastern Orthodox priests are allowed to be married, but only if they are married before they enter seminary school). Uncle Alexei was single because he loved Annika's mother and she would not leave Misha for him, so he chose to remain unmarried.
Speaking of Uncle Alexei... I really didn't want to kill him, but it was the only way to have Wesker go to Edonia. Originally, I had Uncle Alexei visit Wesker at work and he tells him about Annika being pregnant and Wesker tells him he doesn't want anything to do with Annika or their child. However, as the story progressed I realized that wasn't going to work out very well and I needed a reason to break the canon of "she never told Wesker about Jake". We all know I hate that back-peddling nonsense! So sadly I had to kill the only compassionate member of Annika's family to do it. The real tragedy of his death is, in addition to Annika losing her biggest emotional support system, is the family link is irreparably broken once he dies. It was Uncle Alexei who was still communicating about Annika and her child to her grandmother. Once he dies, that link is permanently broken. So sad... For the record I hated not only writing that part, but I don't like reading it either (hence why it will more than likely always have spelling and grammatical errors in that section). I liked Uncle Alexei a lot and his death is one of the saddest in the story.
Another character that was in Wesker's Conquest that was also in this was Olga Bukov. She was Annika's pregnant roommate at St. Gabriel's. Her part in this was greatly expanded. Here's something you didn't know. In Wesker's Conquest, I was going to have her as a pregnant prostitute, but I just didn't have time to shoehorn it in. In this you get a much broader view of Olga and she is really likeable overall. Her pregnancy in The Relationship was a spur of the moment decision. As I was writing the question Wesker asks her, "If you knew the consequences, why did you do it?" Her answer of being pregnant and not wanting to be shuned was when I decided to make her pregnant with Dragan's child. However, it would make sense she would be willing to give away her password even though it's illegal and dangerous, especially if the father of her child was threatening to not take responsibility for her or his child. Her death was pretty tragic too, but unlike with Uncle Alexei's death, I knew from the beginning she was going to die.
Misha and Ekaterina's characters make a return in this too. I liked Ekaterina in this a bit better. Grant it, she does still side with Misha, but she does still love and care about Annika from afar, which is more than I can say for her in Wesker's Conquest. In that once she learns Annika is pregnant, she passively takes Misha side and abandons Annika. As for Misha... Yikes, he is a heartless bastard in this story! In Wesker's Conquest, you kinda sympathize, because we all know Wesker is a sleaze in that story and Misha knows it too. But in this he has no interactions with Wesker and he's just a bitter awful man. In addition to being abusive to Annika since she was born, he traffics Annika back to Edonia, destroys her passport, steals her money, and is going to force her to marry someone she doesn't love, so she can give him a grandson and raise him. Oh and let's not forget he was going to kill Annika once he finds out she is pregnant and she stands up for herself. I really can't stand Misha in this version of events. He really has no redeeming qualities this time around.
Kazia, Dr. Nikola Vasnev, and Ksenija Vasnev: They were all in Wesker's Conquest, but had a limited role. Ksenija, who I didn't realize I never gave a first name to in WC, really flourished here. I think in this version of events she was an excellent substitute mother figure for Annika. Also, I took it out for time sake, but there was an entire section where Annika/ the reader learns about Ksenija's background. She and the father of her twin sons were deeply in love but because she came from a realitvely affluent family and he was a poor orphan, they weren't allowed to marry. They were going to runaway together, but he was murdered and Ksenija was pregnant at the time. So she was forced to leave town and she ends up in the captial, the rest of that story is in The Relationship. But what's not in there is she knows and has a relationship with the twins she had to give up. They were never adopted, but remained together, managed to become educated and maintain a relationship with Ksenija. I may do something with that in a future fanfiction, I'm not sure. Then there is Kazia, who is Annika's best friend. In this you can really see how close the two young ladies are and you get a real sense that they are like the two sisters in the story Snow White and Rose Red. Dr. Vasnev, while still with a limited part, was great in this story. He does save the day when Misha is on his rampage to kill Annika.
Annika Teresa Muller: I do very much love her in this story. She such a one dimensional character in Wesker's Conquest, but in this you see her really blossom from a timid shy girl to a fearless mother who loves her child dearly, hence why her chapters are titled The Girl, The Woman, and The Mother. Even though she isn't as smart as Wesker, she is pretty intelligent. She knows there's something deeply flawed with Wesker, but can't understand what that flaw is or how to fix it (That would be the antisocial personality disorder you're picking up Annika Dear). I also love that she is the one to say goodbye to Wesker when he "officially abandons" her and Jake. You don't expect that she would handle that kind of rejection well, but she does. Even Wesker is astonished and impressed by that. And when she stands up to Misha at the end of that chapters... Oh it is amazing! I love Annika in this version so very much. I think her character really blossoms and shines.
Oh in Wesker's Conquest, when Wesker sleeps with her that last time, that is what sends her into labor, but in this it is the stress of loosing both her uncle and Wesker that sends her over the edge and makes her go into labor early. And yes, I am aware that Jake was full term according to Capcom's canon, but I like Jake not only being born literally ass backwards (a breech birth), but also being a month early. Also, I shoehorned in Annika's illness and this time it would make sense why she was so sickly all of Jake's life. The type of anemia I said Annika has is life-threatening if left untreated; though never named specifically I eluded to her having Aplastic anemia. It would also leave her chronically ill and weak, so yeah, I think I did a good job of explaining what was wrong with her. I just had to shoehorn the whole anemia deal in, but I think it worked.
Jake: Yes, I added that whole epilogue section because I wanted to do a little tiny bit more with baby Jake than I did in Wesker's Conquest. I do like that his baptismal name is Jake Alexei Albert Muller. I wanted Annika to honor both the men she loved and lost in Jake, so that's why his name is the way it is.
And last, but certainly not least Albert Wesker: Ok, I don't think I will be accused of taking Wesker off character this time around. I had him very much straight-laced in this. Apparently, when people write about Jake's mother and Wesker, they have Wesker all lovey-dovey. I don't think Wesker would be that way, at least not in any serious capacity. Wesker always has an angle especially when it comes to other people, so unless the woman had something to offer other than just a temporary bed mate, I sincerely doubt he would be "lovey-dovey" on a sincere level with anyone. That being said, I do like how I characterized Wesker in this, especially during those super long sex scenes.
Well, I'm going to stop here for now. I still have to post the end of the story up on ff.net. I wanted to get this up before bedtime. I'll try to get the rest up tomorrow after I've rested for a bit. I've actually have been gone all weekend, but I never once stopped thinking about this story. I was determined to get it completed before I left for NYC and it appears that I have done that very thing!
Edit: Apparently I've been talking about rewriting Wesker's Conquest since June of 2013! Well damn!
Edit 2: Yeah it’s late and I still have to post the finished product to fanfiction.net… So this is going to be a musing done in 2 parts.
Ideas for this story: Well... This is a reimaging of Wesker's Conquest. Now don't get me wrong, I am still pretty proud of the work I did on Wesker's Conquest, it's just in the years since I wrote it, I felt I could do better and despite telling myself (and everyone else for that matter) I wouldn't rewrite Wesker's Conquest, I ended up not just rewriting it, but completely reimagining it. In all honesty, I love this version of events so much better. No disrespect to Past Aa-chan. She did good work in all, it's just that Present Aa-chan is a bit of a better storyteller.
Oh if you were curious about why I decided to rewrite this story, it all started because I really wanted to write another story that featured a sex scene with Wesker. So yeah, nothing super earth shattering. I just wanted to write smut and trash with Wesker. The sex scenes were written before anything else was. It probably went 1st sex scene, the first three chapters, the second sex scene, parts where Annika was in Edonia, then the rest got filled in along the way. As mentioned of fanfiction.net, I never write stories that way, but for whatever reason this story worked out that way. It was an interesting way of writing, but I don't want to do that again.
Title: Yeah I really hate the title of this story and I'm still trying to come up with something really good. I'll keep thinking about it. But why I settled on The Relationship is because Wesker and Annika are pretending to have a romantic relationship in the beginning, but we all know Wesker isn't the type of man to be in a "committed" "serious" relationship with anyone.
The Relationship vs. Wesker's Conquest: As I stated on ff.net, there were parts that I lazed out and just directly cut and pasted from the original story (Wesker's Conquest). The card scene was ripped off from the first story, I just changed it from Annika's family (WC) to the members of the Warlords (TR). The train ride to the capital of Edonia was semi ripped off, I just changed it from Annika leaving all by herself (WC) to having Kazia go with her (TR). Jake's birth is very almost 100% verbatim with some minor variations.
Of course there are some very evident things I leave in from the original story, like Annika's name, birthday, and hometown. I leave her grandmother, Ekaterina in the story, as well as her father Misha, and her uncle Alexei. I also snuck in one of Annika's other uncle's from the original story and his wife, believe it or not was actually Alexei's wife in Wesker's Conquest. However in this I wanted Alexei to be single and not because he was a priest (In my research for this story I learned Eastern Orthodox priests are allowed to be married, but only if they are married before they enter seminary school). Uncle Alexei was single because he loved Annika's mother and she would not leave Misha for him, so he chose to remain unmarried.
Speaking of Uncle Alexei... I really didn't want to kill him, but it was the only way to have Wesker go to Edonia. Originally, I had Uncle Alexei visit Wesker at work and he tells him about Annika being pregnant and Wesker tells him he doesn't want anything to do with Annika or their child. However, as the story progressed I realized that wasn't going to work out very well and I needed a reason to break the canon of "she never told Wesker about Jake". We all know I hate that back-peddling nonsense! So sadly I had to kill the only compassionate member of Annika's family to do it. The real tragedy of his death is, in addition to Annika losing her biggest emotional support system, is the family link is irreparably broken once he dies. It was Uncle Alexei who was still communicating about Annika and her child to her grandmother. Once he dies, that link is permanently broken. So sad... For the record I hated not only writing that part, but I don't like reading it either (hence why it will more than likely always have spelling and grammatical errors in that section). I liked Uncle Alexei a lot and his death is one of the saddest in the story.
Another character that was in Wesker's Conquest that was also in this was Olga Bukov. She was Annika's pregnant roommate at St. Gabriel's. Her part in this was greatly expanded. Here's something you didn't know. In Wesker's Conquest, I was going to have her as a pregnant prostitute, but I just didn't have time to shoehorn it in. In this you get a much broader view of Olga and she is really likeable overall. Her pregnancy in The Relationship was a spur of the moment decision. As I was writing the question Wesker asks her, "If you knew the consequences, why did you do it?" Her answer of being pregnant and not wanting to be shuned was when I decided to make her pregnant with Dragan's child. However, it would make sense she would be willing to give away her password even though it's illegal and dangerous, especially if the father of her child was threatening to not take responsibility for her or his child. Her death was pretty tragic too, but unlike with Uncle Alexei's death, I knew from the beginning she was going to die.
Misha and Ekaterina's characters make a return in this too. I liked Ekaterina in this a bit better. Grant it, she does still side with Misha, but she does still love and care about Annika from afar, which is more than I can say for her in Wesker's Conquest. In that once she learns Annika is pregnant, she passively takes Misha side and abandons Annika. As for Misha... Yikes, he is a heartless bastard in this story! In Wesker's Conquest, you kinda sympathize, because we all know Wesker is a sleaze in that story and Misha knows it too. But in this he has no interactions with Wesker and he's just a bitter awful man. In addition to being abusive to Annika since she was born, he traffics Annika back to Edonia, destroys her passport, steals her money, and is going to force her to marry someone she doesn't love, so she can give him a grandson and raise him. Oh and let's not forget he was going to kill Annika once he finds out she is pregnant and she stands up for herself. I really can't stand Misha in this version of events. He really has no redeeming qualities this time around.
Kazia, Dr. Nikola Vasnev, and Ksenija Vasnev: They were all in Wesker's Conquest, but had a limited role. Ksenija, who I didn't realize I never gave a first name to in WC, really flourished here. I think in this version of events she was an excellent substitute mother figure for Annika. Also, I took it out for time sake, but there was an entire section where Annika/ the reader learns about Ksenija's background. She and the father of her twin sons were deeply in love but because she came from a realitvely affluent family and he was a poor orphan, they weren't allowed to marry. They were going to runaway together, but he was murdered and Ksenija was pregnant at the time. So she was forced to leave town and she ends up in the captial, the rest of that story is in The Relationship. But what's not in there is she knows and has a relationship with the twins she had to give up. They were never adopted, but remained together, managed to become educated and maintain a relationship with Ksenija. I may do something with that in a future fanfiction, I'm not sure. Then there is Kazia, who is Annika's best friend. In this you can really see how close the two young ladies are and you get a real sense that they are like the two sisters in the story Snow White and Rose Red. Dr. Vasnev, while still with a limited part, was great in this story. He does save the day when Misha is on his rampage to kill Annika.
Annika Teresa Muller: I do very much love her in this story. She such a one dimensional character in Wesker's Conquest, but in this you see her really blossom from a timid shy girl to a fearless mother who loves her child dearly, hence why her chapters are titled The Girl, The Woman, and The Mother. Even though she isn't as smart as Wesker, she is pretty intelligent. She knows there's something deeply flawed with Wesker, but can't understand what that flaw is or how to fix it (That would be the antisocial personality disorder you're picking up Annika Dear). I also love that she is the one to say goodbye to Wesker when he "officially abandons" her and Jake. You don't expect that she would handle that kind of rejection well, but she does. Even Wesker is astonished and impressed by that. And when she stands up to Misha at the end of that chapters... Oh it is amazing! I love Annika in this version so very much. I think her character really blossoms and shines.
Oh in Wesker's Conquest, when Wesker sleeps with her that last time, that is what sends her into labor, but in this it is the stress of loosing both her uncle and Wesker that sends her over the edge and makes her go into labor early. And yes, I am aware that Jake was full term according to Capcom's canon, but I like Jake not only being born literally ass backwards (a breech birth), but also being a month early. Also, I shoehorned in Annika's illness and this time it would make sense why she was so sickly all of Jake's life. The type of anemia I said Annika has is life-threatening if left untreated; though never named specifically I eluded to her having Aplastic anemia. It would also leave her chronically ill and weak, so yeah, I think I did a good job of explaining what was wrong with her. I just had to shoehorn the whole anemia deal in, but I think it worked.
Jake: Yes, I added that whole epilogue section because I wanted to do a little tiny bit more with baby Jake than I did in Wesker's Conquest. I do like that his baptismal name is Jake Alexei Albert Muller. I wanted Annika to honor both the men she loved and lost in Jake, so that's why his name is the way it is.
And last, but certainly not least Albert Wesker: Ok, I don't think I will be accused of taking Wesker off character this time around. I had him very much straight-laced in this. Apparently, when people write about Jake's mother and Wesker, they have Wesker all lovey-dovey. I don't think Wesker would be that way, at least not in any serious capacity. Wesker always has an angle especially when it comes to other people, so unless the woman had something to offer other than just a temporary bed mate, I sincerely doubt he would be "lovey-dovey" on a sincere level with anyone. That being said, I do like how I characterized Wesker in this, especially during those super long sex scenes.
Well, I'm going to stop here for now. I still have to post the end of the story up on ff.net. I wanted to get this up before bedtime. I'll try to get the rest up tomorrow after I've rested for a bit. I've actually have been gone all weekend, but I never once stopped thinking about this story. I was determined to get it completed before I left for NYC and it appears that I have done that very thing!