Fic autopsy - Ghost Town
There are a bunch of things about this fic I haven't had time to swear about/articulate during the writing process, because it was so piecemeal for this one, and over the last week or so, so goddamn bloody frantic. I just clicked on the filters on AO3 for a whim and it turns out that I've written the longest OT3 fic in the archive in 4-6 weeks for a challenge.
There are things in this one I've wanted to do for ages, and I don't know if it does them justice -- there certainly hasn't been time to edit and fine-tune them the way I'd normally do. Normal process would be leave to stew for at least a week, better a month, then edit again with new eyes. I usually edit the draft 4-5 times. This fic got... two? I think even the Troublesfest pinch hits got more than that (on account they were shorter). Squared was very cursorily edited, but then Squared was 9k, just over a quarter of the length of this and the whole thing from draft to type to edit to beta to edit was done in around 36 hours. (I don't think I ever talked about that on here. That was an adventure. Extreme ficcing!)
So, Max. Basically, Max, Max, Max, Max, Max. OMG. I kind of understand why almost no-one in fandom wants to touch this character with a bargepole, but at the same time, he's so incredibly fascinating. An articulate thug, and we can see all the places where those genetics carry through to Nathan. Of course Nathan's father couldn't be an ordinary thug. He strolls into Spiral as a self-aware philosopher, exuding threat and his goal is, so far as I can see, nothing more crucially than Nathan himself. And then he's killed off in the same episode and I cry, because I wanted more, dammit. It's kind of a shame that this seems to have ended up being my Max fic, since it's been rushed. I thought for a while that the AU (written for last year's NaNo, still unfinished) would be, but in the end there's no room in that fic.
My headcanon is that Nathan's worst fear from Fear and Loathing is a reference to the canonical physical childhood abuse mentioned in Spiral by Garland, and that got in here. I also remembered and inserted this note into part 2 of the story on AO3 last night:
[So there's a scene from a fic which is not mine that seems to have cemented itself as part of my headcanon, where a very young Nathan holds a gun on Max to protect his mother. A paragraph in this chapter references that scene. I will try to track down the fic it came from and properly name and link to it here, but if you recognise it, do let me know.]
I don't know if I've done justice to this character and the Nathan--Max thread in Ghost Town. My problem with writing horror is that I'm not scared of ghosts, or of the paranormal: I am really interested in this stuff, I have a bazillion books on the subject, I'm kind of halfway to Seth from the Darkside Seekers. Ghosts are not scary. People are scary. Max is Nathan's worst nightmare (and given the set-up in the backstory, Evi ain't great for his peace of mind, either) whether he's alve, dead or undead. I was incredibly pleased when the idea for the ending came to me (on the day before I freakin' posted it) and I got to end the fic on that note. Max is haunting Nathan and it's nothing to do with the fact he's a ghost. And the whole siphoning of energy thread and Nathan being an object to Max, I really hope this works as a way to represent that old, unremembered abuse. The question is where do you go in how to address this thread when the memory isn't there, and hasn't been there for 30 years. The subconscious impact still may be... I didn't want to hit the angst too hard on this. I'm not always convinced that excess angst=respect for the subject matter, and I'm not comfortable treating childhood abuse as h/c material.
Aside from the Max issue, writing this, a thread jumped out that this is a different Nathan, established in Comfortably Numb that he's at peace with his Trouble because it saved his sanity, grounded by his relationship with Audrey and Duke, and we're in season 3 now, for this AU timeline, but things aren't going to go the way canon went. And he's taking his job as Chief far more seriously rather than it being a means to an end with the power to save Audrey, and there's the whole public figure issue and his acute awareness of being judged by the public for his relationships. That's an interesting thread. I'm tempted to dive back into this AU to do more with it.
Evi is in this fic so prominently because when I gave Comfortably Numb to Katta to beta-read the biggest thing she said was "where is Evi?", and I was kind of, I guess she's not around yet in this AU... I like that character so this is making up for writing her out of the first one.
It's hinted/suggested at that the movie the ghosts are based on is The Frighteners, but idk if it's strong enough that people will actually get that, and anyway, the interaction of the real ghosts(?) and the ghosts from the Trouble kind of muddies the waters because it suggests that movie got it right, which is perhaps... not so much.
This idea existed for ages. I think it was floating around before season 5 got confirmed. Horror Trouble: Nathan's a ghost and Duke's a vampire: perfect sense! considering their respective Troubles. So it's got nothing to do with the spoilers for Nowhere Man, even if the timing was kind of close on it.
Anyway, I got to write vampire Duke, which was a trick the show missed, and this plot thread was by far the most fun part of the fic, considering Audrey's vampire fetish. There's no point doing vampires without some blood getting sucked, so yeah. :) And no point unless there's grossly unsurvivable injuries that would kill a human, either... ;) Actually, the Audrey/Duke thread was a struggle at times. That relationship isn't my strongest area to write in, so having an incredibly long fic that's at least half devoted to exploring it was kind of a DUMB decision on my part. Since they spend by far the biggest part of the fic alone together and separate from Nathan, I labelled the fic Audrey/Duke as well as OT3.
Anyway, sum-up: this fic was an uncooperative beast to write, I wish I'd had more time on it, it has plot threads that deserved a lot more attention, but I hope people like it anyway. And I apologise for writing these tedious fic-examination posts, of which this is an even more rambling and borish example than normal.
There are things in this one I've wanted to do for ages, and I don't know if it does them justice -- there certainly hasn't been time to edit and fine-tune them the way I'd normally do. Normal process would be leave to stew for at least a week, better a month, then edit again with new eyes. I usually edit the draft 4-5 times. This fic got... two? I think even the Troublesfest pinch hits got more than that (on account they were shorter). Squared was very cursorily edited, but then Squared was 9k, just over a quarter of the length of this and the whole thing from draft to type to edit to beta to edit was done in around 36 hours. (I don't think I ever talked about that on here. That was an adventure. Extreme ficcing!)
So, Max. Basically, Max, Max, Max, Max, Max. OMG. I kind of understand why almost no-one in fandom wants to touch this character with a bargepole, but at the same time, he's so incredibly fascinating. An articulate thug, and we can see all the places where those genetics carry through to Nathan. Of course Nathan's father couldn't be an ordinary thug. He strolls into Spiral as a self-aware philosopher, exuding threat and his goal is, so far as I can see, nothing more crucially than Nathan himself. And then he's killed off in the same episode and I cry, because I wanted more, dammit. It's kind of a shame that this seems to have ended up being my Max fic, since it's been rushed. I thought for a while that the AU (written for last year's NaNo, still unfinished) would be, but in the end there's no room in that fic.
My headcanon is that Nathan's worst fear from Fear and Loathing is a reference to the canonical physical childhood abuse mentioned in Spiral by Garland, and that got in here. I also remembered and inserted this note into part 2 of the story on AO3 last night:
[So there's a scene from a fic which is not mine that seems to have cemented itself as part of my headcanon, where a very young Nathan holds a gun on Max to protect his mother. A paragraph in this chapter references that scene. I will try to track down the fic it came from and properly name and link to it here, but if you recognise it, do let me know.]
I don't know if I've done justice to this character and the Nathan--Max thread in Ghost Town. My problem with writing horror is that I'm not scared of ghosts, or of the paranormal: I am really interested in this stuff, I have a bazillion books on the subject, I'm kind of halfway to Seth from the Darkside Seekers. Ghosts are not scary. People are scary. Max is Nathan's worst nightmare (and given the set-up in the backstory, Evi ain't great for his peace of mind, either) whether he's alve, dead or undead. I was incredibly pleased when the idea for the ending came to me (on the day before I freakin' posted it) and I got to end the fic on that note. Max is haunting Nathan and it's nothing to do with the fact he's a ghost. And the whole siphoning of energy thread and Nathan being an object to Max, I really hope this works as a way to represent that old, unremembered abuse. The question is where do you go in how to address this thread when the memory isn't there, and hasn't been there for 30 years. The subconscious impact still may be... I didn't want to hit the angst too hard on this. I'm not always convinced that excess angst=respect for the subject matter, and I'm not comfortable treating childhood abuse as h/c material.
Aside from the Max issue, writing this, a thread jumped out that this is a different Nathan, established in Comfortably Numb that he's at peace with his Trouble because it saved his sanity, grounded by his relationship with Audrey and Duke, and we're in season 3 now, for this AU timeline, but things aren't going to go the way canon went. And he's taking his job as Chief far more seriously rather than it being a means to an end with the power to save Audrey, and there's the whole public figure issue and his acute awareness of being judged by the public for his relationships. That's an interesting thread. I'm tempted to dive back into this AU to do more with it.
Evi is in this fic so prominently because when I gave Comfortably Numb to Katta to beta-read the biggest thing she said was "where is Evi?", and I was kind of, I guess she's not around yet in this AU... I like that character so this is making up for writing her out of the first one.
It's hinted/suggested at that the movie the ghosts are based on is The Frighteners, but idk if it's strong enough that people will actually get that, and anyway, the interaction of the real ghosts(?) and the ghosts from the Trouble kind of muddies the waters because it suggests that movie got it right, which is perhaps... not so much.
This idea existed for ages. I think it was floating around before season 5 got confirmed. Horror Trouble: Nathan's a ghost and Duke's a vampire: perfect sense! considering their respective Troubles. So it's got nothing to do with the spoilers for Nowhere Man, even if the timing was kind of close on it.
Anyway, I got to write vampire Duke, which was a trick the show missed, and this plot thread was by far the most fun part of the fic, considering Audrey's vampire fetish. There's no point doing vampires without some blood getting sucked, so yeah. :) And no point unless there's grossly unsurvivable injuries that would kill a human, either... ;) Actually, the Audrey/Duke thread was a struggle at times. That relationship isn't my strongest area to write in, so having an incredibly long fic that's at least half devoted to exploring it was kind of a DUMB decision on my part. Since they spend by far the biggest part of the fic alone together and separate from Nathan, I labelled the fic Audrey/Duke as well as OT3.
Anyway, sum-up: this fic was an uncooperative beast to write, I wish I'd had more time on it, it has plot threads that deserved a lot more attention, but I hope people like it anyway. And I apologise for writing these tedious fic-examination posts, of which this is an even more rambling and borish example than normal.