#sec-verse

[victorluvsalice]

Secundus Sunday: Mother & Father? Not Sure I Have Those Now

Butterfly Boy usually has things better than his counterpart in the Forgotten Vows Verse, but when it comes to parental relations, he's got things worse. While Forgotten Vows and his parents are on strained terms, Butterfly Boy's have completely disowned him. Reason? Well, for both RP and fanfic universes, they disapproved of him staying in Secundus and screwing up his potential arranged marriage with Victoria Everglot. For the RP-verse, that was enough after the Everglots refused to help them corral their wayward son; in the fanfic-verse, where they stayed around longer, him becoming a Touched himself was the final straw. They don't even exchange letters.

Of course, Butterfly Boy does not see this as a particularly bad turn of events, given that his friends in Secundus are more family to him than his parents ever were. He felt guilty about it at first, of course, but over time he's come to accept things. And he need never fear their interference in his life ever again.

. . .Maybe he does have things better than Forgotten Vows.

[victorluvsalice]

Secundus Sunday: Claws Sheathed, But Still There

On Friday I discussed Forgotten Vows and his new propensity to violence under the right conditions. Basically, FV's become "the violent one" among my Victors. Butterfly Boy, by contrast of their typical sibling ying-yang, is a much gentler person. He's accepting of almost everybody, and so far the most he's done violence-wise outside of stabbing himself during his initial Creative breakthrough and turning evil in an AU thread is threaten. Most people would consider him all bark, no bite.

To those, I say: in the fanfic, he kills the tentacle-monster queen by injecting her with fast-growing flesh-shredding spiders that basically consume her from the inside-out.

And even in the RP, he's given a zombie-fighting friend acid butterflies. Which tend to attack in groups and, even if not fatal, can give some pretty nasty burns.

Basically, while he's a "nicer" Victor than Forgotten Vows, this is largely because he has yet to be pushed to the absolute brink. Mad scientists are never totally safe.

[victorluvsalice]

Secundus Sunday: Holidays In Secundus

Since today is Easter Sunday (happy Easter!), why don't we talk about how Secundus tends to celebrate some of the major holidays:

Halloween: This is the big one around the city, simply because said city happens to play host to this universe's version of Jack Skellington. Everyone goes all out with their various spooky decorations, Wonka sells tons of candy, and on the night itself there's a big parade for everyone, headed up by Jack, with people wearing costumes. It's basically a huge all-night celebration with plenty of feasting, games, and fun.

Christmas: More low-key than Halloween, being a bit more family than community oriented, but there's still decorations galore (most with a bit of a twist on the usual -- for example, Doc's wreath is made up of gears, screws, and other metal bits and bobs), with Wonderland Park yielding to snow and usually growing a big old tree for everyone to enjoy. The highlight, however, are Flint Lockwood's ice cream snowfalls, his annual "gift" to the town.

New Year's: Somebody sets off fireworks. About half the time this is intentional.

St. Patrick's: Those of an Irish persuasion wear green and celebrate their heritage, and at least once someone made leprechauns and released them into the city. They proved to be real nuisances what with stealing anything shiny.

Easter: Wonka comes out with special new chocolates, and there's egg hunts and picnics in the grassy areas of the city. Lewis generally has eggs that can move around if necessary, and more than one scientist makes a bunch that can change color and patterns. Also a special service at the First Church of Steam.

May Day: The city's florists compete in a flower show, and there's generally a maypole somewhere for people to dance around. Also more picnicking.

Fourth of July: Not an official holiday celebrated by the city, but Doc and Marty are Americans, and they usually mark the occasion with a special meal and some fireworks.

End of Summer Social: This one's not an official holiday on the calendar, but near the end of August/beginning of September the First Church of Steam and the Roofless cohost an ice cream social to see out summer.

[victorluvsalice]

Secundus Sunday: Pregnancy Headcanons

Again, since I did this for the Forgotten Vows Friday last week. . .

The same love of mustard applies to this Alice as to the last -- in fact, Secundus Alice is the one who started the trend, I believe. :P

Victor has regular panic attacks about whether or not he'll be a good father. It ends up a minor plot point in that eventual sequel to Secundus I keep talking about.

Although she retires from active monster slaying and all that, Alice is still perfectly capable of kicking ass while pregnant. This also comes up in Secundus 2.

Unlike his FVV counterpart, Victor does stay out of the room while Alice is giving birth. However, this doesn't stop his protective side from being triggered -- and during Chester's birth, a cry of pain from her is answered by him slamming open the door and demanding to know what's going on. . . .And then he actually sees and faints dead away. XD He does better when it comes to the twins, largely because he does have Chester to distract him then.

[victorluvsalice]

Secundus Sunday: Get To Work

Well, I did Forgotten Vows's Victor and Alice's jobs last week -- I should probably mention what the Secundus Victor and Alice do with their lives work-wise after the end of the story!

The thing is, with them, the occupations they had in "Secundus" -- Alice being the countergirl at Richard's hat shop while slaying monsters part-time and Victor working as Doc's assistant at his repair shop -- don't really change. Alice keeps her two careers all her life, only retiring when she's racked up quite a few decades on the life clock. Victor, meanwhile, remains at Dr. E. L. Brown's 24-Hour Scientific Services even after he goes mad -- he just transitions into a part-time position to work on his own experiments and look after his and Alice's kids. He does occasionally have Victorian-male guilt about not being the main breadwinner -- I have a drabble focused around him trying to sell honey after feeling like he's not really pulling his weight -- but most of the time he's actually rather content in the "househusband" role. (Not something you'd expect out of a Victorian world, but then again, this is Secundus. . .)

[victorluvsalice]

Secundus Sunday: Better Than Canon

More good ends for Secundus Sunday! You guys like universes where things are better than canon, right?

The Everglots are convinced a lot earlier to accept Christopher as a husband for Victoria, meaning Barkis never gets his shot and the Van Dorts leave early. This gets rid of a couple of thorns in the gang's side and a helper for the Queen, at least, and gives all the couples some time without being harassed by idiots.

Lewis manages to successfully kill the Queen. Wonderland Park is never destroyed, and he survives to see Victor and Alice be very happy together and to find his own happiness with another. Victor still goes Creative, but this time it's from the stress of his mother refusing to see the light as opposed to his friends being in mortal danger.

Ultimate happy universe: The above two happening in tandem! No Nell to bother Victor, and no Queen to nearly wreck the place! In this case, Victor's going Creative would be triggered by an annoying customer, much like it was for Butterfly Boy in his tumblr. (Of course, the one bad thing about this is Barkis not dying, but perhaps he tries to confront Victoria at the hat shop one day and Emily recognizes him, leading to him getting caught by the police?)

[victorluvsalice]

Secundus Sunday: Bad Ends

Since we're on a theme here of "how can I make this as horrible for my characters as possible," let's talk about potential bad ends for the Secundus-Verse. Allow me to present the ones I've considered the most:

Everybody dies, Queen wins. This is our "standard" bad end. It may or may not come with the Queen making herself a King from Victor's dead body.

Victor comes in just a pinch too late during the final confrontation and gets to see the Queen kill Alice. Stunned, he doesn't use his syringe on her, instead grabbing Alice's knife in a blind rage to hack apart the monarch. Marty and Doc manage to escape her grasp long enough to get him out, sacrificing their lives in the process. Victor makes it back to Richard's hat shop and starts eking out a living there as the Queen takes over the city, struggling to hold onto his failing mind in the process. This ending was actually the result of an RP prompt over on the LJ community charloft, and I've considered revisiting in fanfic once or twice. Haven't done so yet, though.

Victor either manages to successfully escape from the train or says "no" to Doc's proposal and is taken back to Burtonsville, thus never moving to Secundus at all and instead marrying Victoria like he's supposed to -- without even any corpse brides to boot (remember, Emily in this verse has been dug up long before the events that would have led to the movie). "Boring end," you say, "not bad end?" Ah, but you forget something -- in this world, Victor's a latent Touched. And the Queen is NOT the only thing that can cause enough stress to set him off. And in Burtonsville, while he may get access to some of the materials he wants, he doesn't have a proper lab to work with. . . Bottom line, there's an explosion, and one of the younger Van Dorts die -- I haven't decided which. Though if it's Victoria, Victor kills himself shortly after out of guilt. So yeah -- what looked like merely the least-interesting ending is actually the WORST.

Well, I think that's enough gloom and doom for now, don't you? This upcoming Friday and Sunday I'll present a couple of alternate GOOD end scenarios I've come up with for Forgotten Vows and Secundus.

[victorluvsalice]

Secundus Sunday: Website Expansion!

No new information for today, sadly, but I can tell you that I've updated The Secundus Verse section of my website! Now in addition to the story, we have pages for the information on:

The City

ASND

The Lexicon

So now you have a second convenient place to look stuff up! I've been meaning to do this for a while, so it's an accomplishment to me at least.