cracked ice ch1; annotated
doing this again but this time its incredibly stupid because this is a fandom I know damn well consists of me & just me. but it was so fun!!!
The first thing I've learned this semester is that everyone in the city is dying looking for something. I'm here for something too, but I'd be just as fine if I wasn't. Yeah, I'd be just as fine. I don't need to be here with my whole heart and soul.
iiiiiiii felt pretty proud of starting the fic with this paragraph. to me, this is a banger. it is veryyyyyy inspired by the way Jupiter rising starts: throwing you into the exposition in a very stream of consciousness way.
But even though the world won't end if the businessman who stops by every morning looking harried doesn't get his morning coffee, I guess the thing about the city is that it always keeps you searching.
This section + the paragraph before it are especially cool to me because it almost didn't read like this at all. I mention this in the notes of the fic, but i'd actually rewritten what had been 3 sections before posting. in the original, this part went like this:
The thing I hate most about the city is that everyone is looking for something. I'm here for something too, of course. But I'd be just as fine if I wasn't. Yeah, I'd be just as fine. I don't need to be here, not like everyone else seems to need to do everything with the same intensity. The world won't end if you don't get your morning coffee, I want to say sometimes, but they're getting coffee to get to work to get their money to pay their bills to keep on living, and it's very pressing and very important that you get everything done right the moment you can. Sometimes, I think city people are drowning. I never knew how settled I felt at the farm until I saw how unsettled everyone in the city behaves.
to me, the difference in writing style is extremely obnoxious, but I get that the contents probably seem pretty much the same lol. Something i've enjoyed while working with the osemanverse & this series is that it challenges my writing style in first person perspectives, which I am beginning to realize I am predisposed to, or at least better in. I feel like my writing conveys what it tries to better when its 1st POV, idk!! its fun though
The businessman is getting coffee to wake up after staying up last night to work for the same company he's going to clock in at this morning, and he has to work that job to get his money and pay his bills to keep on living, and its very pressing and very important that he gets everything done as soon and as efficiently as he can.
the businessman in this section is of the hallmark variety. perhaps he will get his eccentric creative girlfriend that convinced him to throw his work phone in the lake, who knows!!
in all seriousness though, I feel like this section almost works against itself? even though I love it & couldn't be convinced to cut it, it reads like a run-on because it's meant to be read out loud I guess. which is how most of my writing is, to be honest, but it stands out to me here
Sometimes, I think city people are drowning. I never knew how settled I was at home until I saw how unsettled everyone in the city behaves.
one of the things I noticed about OJ/JR is that jack is EXTREMELY chill. like he feels emotions but in comparison to just about any other character i've written, they feel unhinged and overcharged. I really struggled to tone down the bursting at the seams emotion of it all.
In this fic, i'm attributing his chill-ness to his very grounded upbringing in the maine farmlands (?) and all that. Is this out of touch? ..... I really don't know. I hope not. it probably shows that i've never been close to someone that's a true blue farmer/rancher/whatever you want to call
I used to try to talk to customers, because I wanted to know why everyone was running around like a headless chicken. I still do want to know. But they never respond with more than a few words, and eventually Lucas, my manager, eventually told me that people didn't like chatting in the gas station, so I stopped.
listen. LISTEN. if the headless chicken thing is actually too much farm life stereotyping i'm willing to edit it out. but it's very funny to me right now and I find it very endearing.
anyways, there's a certain thing to GDS's writing style that I tried to emulate here. the "so I stopped" bit feels abrupt to me because I like to over explain everything in my FICS as a stylistic choice (most of the characters I write try to prove themselves to themselves/the audience/etc).
but in the OJ/JR style that's just the way things work. it is what it is & all that. and this is a section where it felt pertinent for me to showcase that
I knew that hair. I knew something was wrong. No, that's not true. My brain first registered it as Jay, because he's really the only person I know here other than Lucas, and Jay loves to bother me at work. But then I realize that really, this looks nothing like Jays hair, but instead Mr. Brooks. Joseph's father.
God, I hate this transition. It makes me absurdly angry. I had a setting the scene moment before this, then we get a omnipotent hinting-at-knowing-the-future POV for a sec, then jack is back to being a normal person thinking on the metaphorical paper. and its so messy!! but I don't know how to fix it, so it stays
but also jay bothering jack at work..... they're so domestic
He's supposed to be dead. But he rounds up to the register like my chest hasn't stopped working a gun in his hand. It's him. It's really him. How is he not dead?
i like this section. I'm not gonna lie. I'm very proud of it. that's all I have to say
Here's what happens: “What are you doing here," I ask him, standing very, very still. “How are you here. How are you here. H-”
ohhhhhh the "here's what happens". It was a last minute addition I kind of agonized over mentally. its very much in the style of OJ/JR. but in this context I just didn't like it!!
My hatred of it did feel motivated by the fact that I don't write like this regularly at the time, so I did add it anyways. But looking at it now I feel like it just breaks the flow in a way that's completely unwarranted. maybe i'll edit it out another day?
however. that line of dialogue is very very special to me. if anyone here has ever read a dustorange fic, you may notice that I do that same intoned punctuation rather than what's grammatically correct. if you haven't, go do that now!! are they DC/Batman FICS... yes. but they're so GOOD!!
this phenomenon is especially obvious in declensions, which is one bomber fic that should probably be taught in a university course of some sort because oh my GOD!!! but anyways. this fic, being my introduction to the DOU (dustorange universe, as nicknamed by me right now) was such a while ride. and something that stuck out to me was the technically grammatically incorrect replacement of question marks for commas, but boy oh boy did it make the intonation read 10x better!! so I might have borrowed that. my flowers to dustorange!!
“Give me everything in the register, kid,” says Mr. Brooks, looking exactly how I remember him. Oh, God, he looks the same. He looks the same. He looks the same.
ohhh, Mr Brooks pt 2. the little hint of human compassion that made it thought he gunwielding is actually so important to me. to me, he's the younger brother of joseph's dad who, while still being a raging bastard, is a raging bastard in a larger-than-life way, where as joseph's dad is a down-to-the-nitty-gritty-earth kind of personal ball of spite. and I thought it was especially cruel of me (towards jack, which is the point, because this fic is me torturing him in all dimensions) to have him call Jack a "kid", especially later.
I remember Quintus Sertorius breathing really really hard right before we had to put him down. He knew he was dying then, and I think I understand how it felt. His breath came so fast, so fast, just like Joseph in the barn milking Rosie for the first time, just like Joseph, and I can't believe that Joseph died trying to protect me from his father but he's still here!
still surprised this made it through my weird neurotic editing. Quintus Sertorius was the horse jack's dad had to put down in jr, and the Rosie scene was possibly THE introducing joseph's character scene in oj, and I liked them both so they got their mentions.
do I think these mentions flow well?..... well, no. if I could muster up the energy to make Official Edits to the fic, I would put a bit more mental space between Quintus Sertorius & Rosie. however, I don't wanna. so
but also that exclamation is another situation where I'm upset because that's not my writing style. at all. and it kinda comes out of nowhere in most writing conventions. but I also remember being surprised by it in oj and I thought that since I want jack to feel incredibly sad and small and young in this scene, she could make a comeback!! can you see how odd I was about this story yet?
“We buried you,” I said, standing just like Joseph, hands up and back against the wall, panting, panting, and there's not enough air in the whole world.
"not enough air in the whole world" is probably a direct pulled quote from oj, but I did it entirely off memory because that's how that whole scene goes (I think?) and it was, as I said, a defining moment of the book to me.
For a moment, I think Mr. Brooks is about to pull the trigger like I'm twelve. And then I get mad, so mad that I punch up and move my head as fast as I can without thinking about it, and Mr. Brooks falls back where my fist hits his jaw, and I feel so angry that I could kill him right then. I really could do it.
jack hurd should get to kill mr. brooks with 0 legal/social/mental repercussions. both of them.
but also return of the feeling-young-and-afraid-ness!!
“You killed him!” I shout and I punch him. His head knocks back against the floor with a small crack. “You killed him! You killed Joseph! You should be dead!” “Fuck you,” Mr. Brooks spits, nose bloody. “Fuck you, you psycho, what the fuck is wrong with you?” He doesn't know who I am.
see this section is where I feel that trying to replicate the writing style and feel of GDS's writing is entirely stupid because this boy almost killed himself to punch his foster brother's father. this is kind of hard to it-is-what-it-is. but I do appreciate the mental stream of counciousness it resembles, so i'm willing to let it live
Everything blurs out, and I'm so mad, so mad, and I punch his stupid fucking face so hard that my knuckles hurt, and the gun is somewhere off to the side and Mr. Brooks is on the floor and and I’m on top of him still punching, and I think words come out of my mouth but I'm not sure that I'm not just screeching, and my knuckles hurt and I'm so so mad, and he’s spitting out under me, “Fucking- its not me, it's not me, you're talking about my asshole brother, Josephs my nephew, what the fuck,” and then Lucas comes out and shouts “What is going on here!” and suddenly the world is clear again.
tunnel vision, baby!! incandescent rage will do that to you <3
the knuckles hurting detail is actually so important to me tho. I think Jack underestimated how cold it would me 80% of the time, and he's actually stealth mode-ing being In The Pits mental health-wise right now so his knuckles are already dry as hell. then he beats a man with them. this is why his knuckles split later.
the "asshole brother" there's the big reveal!! surprise, it actually wasn't the OG Mr. brooks. he was not very nice to his brother either <3 the vaguest strokes of their father being an alcoholic & beating the brooks & their mom to the point of both of them manifesting different forms of power craving floated through my head while playing my pre-sleep motion pictures, but I don't really care enough to invest that amount of emotional energy into them. they just suck. not much to it
but also "Joseph's my nephew" they definitely have met!! but in the "i'm couch surfing between jobs because my contract just finished in whatever & I got evicted" way where it was only really for 2 weeks or so, long enough that Joseph decided brooks2 was better than his father but not by much, but also not long enough to form a meaningful connection besides "the toast ran out, can you grab some?"
Lucasssss Lucas my guy. he's a recurring name because i'm unoriginal, so he will be making a cameo in a different fic of mine (jimmy's graduation vlog for my IWBFT katseye/archangel au). rest assured. this Lucas is awesome, but the other one is a loser. they also look nothing alike.
“Aren't you fucking listening?” Mr. Brooks says, pushing himself up to lean against the chips shelf, "I'm not Joseph's dad. That's my fucking brother. Jesus fuck, kid, when did he die?”
if anyone was worried about brooks2, please don't be. he deserved it. this is not a "make ends meet" robbery. however, this line is meant to kinda bring him some dimension other than "monster on the hill". he did care a bit about Joseph. he should have at least ONE bio fam member half in his corner. for me
“You better get the fuck out of my store,” Lucas says, looking right at Mr. Brooks. “I don't know who you are, but if you come back here, you'll find out how good I can shoot.” Mr. Brooks stands up, still looking at me. “Seriously, man,” he says, “When did he d-” “Not a word!” Lucas shouts. “ You have a five seconds to fuck off!”
lucas strikes again. I wanted a very mexican standoff vibes moment but fortunately brooks2 isn't armed anymore. so instead lucas gets to wave around a gun menacingly. which is good for him!!
“Next time,” Lucas says to me when he finally puts down the gun on the counter, “Just give ‘em the money, alright?”
lord oh lord. this division. I kept going back and forth between whether or not I should signal this as the end of a section or not, even after I posted it. currently, it's not, but that might change. I just like the way it sounds punchy!! I want it to be the end of a section so it has that final pizazz. but its just too short of a passage for me to justify
“Im not gonna delete the security footage in case the guy calls the cops, but I won't tell anyone unless he does,” Lucas says, breaking the static silence. “You can't be fighting in my store though, Jack. I do not condone gang violence.”
the gang violence line kinda came out of nowhere, but I guess you can never be surprised considering it's me; every few months a fic of mine has to be a warning against gang violence. it just happens
“Im not in a gang,” I say, voice hoarse, moving through molasses. "He was… my foster brother. Joseph. His dad drove him off the bridge. Are you firing me?” “Ah, shit kid,” Lucas softens, crouching down. He sounds shocked. Wasn't it obvious? There's really no one else I would lose my mind over like this. “I'm sorry. I'm not firing you. Just don't do that again, alright? You could've died. Rule number one of working with me is that you do whatever the man with the gun says.”
if you remove all the context, this like is objectively funny. like this interaction basically went like
lucas: stop the violence. world peace jack: my foster brother died
my traumadumping king <3
good on lucas for reacting the way he did, though. I love writing him because he's so good to jack even though they don't know much about each other. there is love in the world!!!!!!
“Get home safe, alright? I'll get someone to cover your next shift,” Lucas says after a long pause. He puts a hand on my shoulder and asks, “ Can you look at me?”
"why would Lucas want to send jack home if he's so grea-" shut UP he's trying to give jack space!! he thinks that Jack is a hot tempered person who has done this song and dance before, even if that's not still related to a gang, because he, again, knows nothing about jack.
he's letting jack tuck his tail between his legs & lick his wounds. however, my beautiful dog motif boy is traumatized. Jay Must Be Called
“Jack, hey, c'mon," Lucas says. He's being very gentle, even after I just beat up Mr. Brooks. What would my mother think? “Kid. I need to know if you can make it home on your own.” And that's what does me in, I guess. I want to go home. I really want to go home. I really want to go back to mom and dad and Jupiter. I really want to go back. What am I doing here? I hate the city, I hate the people, I hate the way they don't smile back, I hate the fact that everyone is so unsettled here, I hate the fact that there's no routine and always chaos, I hate the smog, I hate the stink, I hate all of it. And most of all, I hate that knowing that somewhere out there, someone shares Joseph's father's face, down to the same angry sneer. I hate it. I hate it.
godddddddd I love this section too. this might actually be my top favorite (published) fanfic of all time, which is kinda devastating considering that it's for the nichest fandom imaginable. but its okay because people have actually been commenting on this fic when they do read it!! a miracle in todays comment economy and i'm forever grateful <3
“Is there someone I can call?” Lucas asks. I almost want to tell him my parents landline number, but then I remember that they knew Joseph, they know, and that was the stupidest move I've pulled since the locker room with him, and I can't think about Jupiter seeing me right now, with blood under my fingernails somehow and my head and body acting separate and behaving just like her father that she never met, maybe even worse, because Joseph knew the danger his dad posed, even when he finally got settled with us he knew, and he was always so smart, I don't think I'll ever feel smarter than him even though I'm now five years older than he was, because every thought left my head when it happened, and I acted all angry like I was insane.
to the contrast, I'm pretty ambivalent to this section. a bit of a negative bent actually. yes, jack's world is crashing down, and yes, this is just how i write crashout, but I wish I could make this into more than like 2 sentences without losing that spiraling vibe. but hey! not the worst
He never would have put anyone in danger like that. What if there had been customers? What if Lucas had come out earlier? What if the bullet had hit me? God, Jupiter would have lost another brother. My parents would have lost another son.
again. contrast of a million degrees. but this line makes me FERAL it makes me ILL it makes me SICK TO MY STOMACH!!!! "Jupiter would have lost another brother" her relationship with Joseph is so weird and undescribable!! her parents were his foster parents and yet he's her dad and her brother is his brother and its so weird!!
I like to think they kinda just refer to Joseph as whatever fits in the moment. I think Jack clings to the "your dad" when she's young, but when she's old enough to question everything he kinda lays it to rest in its most rigid form like his parents. mostly, Joseph is just joseph. occasionally her brother. rarely her dad because she calls mr. hurd dad.
and as to "my parents would have lost another son" have you READ the beginning of JR. its so so obvious that they'd finally broken thru to Joseph towards the end of his life and started building that relationship and then he DIED!!! they make me ill
He's probably on his way home from his economics class right now. He can swing by. He's probably the only other person in the world that I can look at right now. He never liked Joseph, but he still has to care about him some way or another. He still has to understand.
forever thinking about how jay probably still hates joseph a little for inadvertently leading to madeline's death, but also dually being the only peer jack has that can Understand. on one hand, jay of course has the respect for the tragedy that is Joseph & Maddie, but also he had such a deep-rooted anger for joseph. its insane
Joseph's uncle can never know about Jupiter. And I can't tell him anything about Joseph, either, because if he sees me and he follows me and he sees Jupiter and he fights the foster system again and he takes her away from us for real this time, I'll never let it go. I'll never trust them again. Mrs. Stroud is kind, but I don't know if I can ever stop seeing her trying to warn us off Joseph. She's sweet with Jupiter. I know she's nice. But she can be mean too, especially when the legal system is concerned.
its little idiosyncrasies like these that make me believe GDS wrote JR without rereading OJ, because in OJ she was pretty skeptical about placing joseph with the Hurds, but in JR she's kinda gung-ho for jupiter's placement and less skeptical?? obviously Joseph dying changed everyone in the narrative drastically but idk. I gave jack some good ole trust issues about her
“Sorry, dude, he's completely out of it.” Lucas says into my phone. “He said it was his foster brother's… Dad? Uncle? something like that. Completely beat the fuck out of him.” “Ah,” Jay's voice is small and tinny over the line. “Shit.”
once again, this was another division. I actually don't remember turning this entire chapter into one section. oh well. the 3rd section was added a bit later because I realized quickly that I had a lot of thoughts I was trying to put together and they weren't meshing well in the supposed 3 chapters, so I edited it back in.
although I like the dramatacism of the "ah shit" ending a section, its just not logical. unforch 😒
“...Okay,” Jay says, folding his legs underneath him as he sits on the floor. “Did he imply he was gonna take her?” He doesn't believe me.
jack does know that jay isn't as on-his-side about this situation as he would like. or even as impartial as he would like. but he's still clinging to jay because he's the only one who Understands
“No,” I want to say, “But why wouldn't he? Why would things ever go right?” Except I don't say that. I just shake my head no again and watch an unreadable expression cross Jay's face. “There has to be a reason Joseph wasn't placed with him before your family,” He says. “A criminal record, probably. He can’t fight for custody that well with a record. And even if he could, you could make the argument of how you met him. He can't get custody if he's on the run.” He could always kidnap her. He could always hold me gun to the head and make her get in the car. He could always drive her off the bridge.
this section is also objectively kinda funny without context. it basically just goes
Jack: he's gonna Get Her Jay: be so fr right now. how. he tried to kill you?? Jack: and he could do it to her to..........
my mistrusting freak <3
Lucas narrows his eyes at Jay. “And who are you, exactly?” “We're… cousins. sort of.”
the familial relationship explanation gets to long they're basically cousins okay. i'm not having poor jay spew that nonsese at 18 years of age. let him live
but again. its kinda funny how jack is having a crisis while jay is having hospital waiting room family relationship explanation flashbacks
“He’s gonna be mad,” I say. “Mr. Brooks. If he isn't sent to jail, he's gonna be mad. He's gonna look for Jupiter.” “He won't find her,” Jay says instantly. “We can figure something out. Either send her to Maddie's parents with me, or she comes with us for a few days, or my dad if he’s really going at it, or-”
my boys went into trying to mitigate disaster RIGHT AWAY because that's what they feel they have to do to keep jupiter....... ough they make me sick. and iM THE ONE WHO WROTE THEM
“Hey, hey,” Lucas frowns. “I really doubt that the courts will rule against us. We have the security tapes on hand. I took a look at them already. Everything's intact, it's a pretty safe risk. No need to jump the gun.” Jay cringes.
jay, basically: can you not remind me that my friend almost got shot. I'm trying to be calm cool & collected rn. please
“You seem pretty good at this, Lucas,” Jay says with his eyes narrowed.“Is there a reason you're so used to police work?”
what is jay suspicious of? readers choice babe idk. some kind of past or current life of crime, or perhaps an undercover cop trying to catch them in something. I really don't know
Once the door closes, Jay pats my knee. “We'll keep her safe,” he whispers, and I close my eyes. We sure will. We sure will.
mind you, jay is trying to convince himself here too. but jack is kinda past tone reading. he just wants Jupiter SAFE
ANYWAYS. things i've learned while doing this
these kids all have j-names for some reason and its confusing
i had a lot more thoughts going on here than I expected
i love messing with tumblr formatting its like my bread and butter
i am apparently the only person to be invested in these guys to this depth ever??? hashtag special snowflake or something idk
i am insane
thank you for coming to my ted talk!!