#somebodylostchan

[victorluvsalice]

I'm gonna ask a question I asked before, but modified: is it possible to have Victor's parents be happy or not have a severed relationship with their son while having Victor happily married solely, non-poly, to Alice? Kinda mouthful lol.

It is! Sort of, anyway. In the Forgotten Vows Verse, when I was writing that chapter in “Remembering You” where the Van Dorts, the Whites, and Nanny all showed up at Houndsditch and ended up having lunch with Victor and Alice and the children, Nell surprised me by being willing to at least somewhat accept Alice thanks to a) her son openly saying he ran into a burning building for her and b) Alice having known a few famous people thanks to her father being a Dean at a prestigious university. It’s not a perfect relationship -- Nell makes no secret of the fact she still would have preferred the titled Victoria or Adelaide Kingsleigh, and she likes to hound Alice about establishing friendships with all those rich and important undergraduates she barely remembers (you’ll see some of this in “Fixing You”) -- but Victor and Alice figure it’s better than Nell being outright cruel. Things are a bit strained, and likely always will be (Victor never quite forgives his parents for Bumby), but they can talk civilly and exchange letters and things like that.

In other universes. . .well, in most I think eventually the elder Van Dorts will just become resigned to the fact that their son is going to marry someone not of their choosing and make the best of it (though Nell is likely to complain loudly to William for a while). I think there needs to be another complicating factor to truly smash the relationship, like William and Nell’s hatred of Touched in Secundus. Bottom line, while I don’t know if the Van Dorts will ever be truly happy about Victor marrying Alice, they can tolerate her and the relationship can continue, if on more distant terms.

[victorluvsalice]

Why name their kid "Chester"? Why a son? What if it was a girl?

1) “Chester” is as close as they can get to “Cheshire” -- Alice’s relationship with the Cat may be built on snark and insults, but they are friends. In the Forgotten Vows Verse, he’s also one of the Wonderlanders who never turned on her, and gave her some good advice on getting Victor’s memories back. Victor likes the moggy too, and thought it was a good name, so -- yeah. Cheshire is rendered genuinely speechless for a moment when he finds out. XD His full name is Chester Arthur Van Dort -- Arthur after Alice’s father, natch.

2) Because, at least at the time, everyone in Corpse Bride fanfiction was giving Victor daughters. (A few more boys have popped up in more recent years, but the trend still favors girls.) I decided I wanted to be different with my Victor pairing, and so started off with a boy. I actually picture them with FOUR children in the end -- two boys and two girls. Which leads into your next question. . .

3) A girl would have been (and will be in the future) Emma Elizabeth. I’m probably going to do a short on this eventually, but Victor figured Alice would want to name a daughter after her sister, while Alice figured he’d want to name her after Emily. Alice decided the baggage around her sister’s name probably makes it more suited for a middle -- Victor thinks “Emily’ has a bit of baggage around it for him too, and decides something that sounds similar while still being different would work better. (This is also why their daughter in Sim-land is called “Emma.”)

3a) In case you’re curious, the other two children are, in order, Vincent Lewis (both just names they liked, with the first a nod to Victor looking a bit like Vincent from the short of the same name and the second an obvious nod to Lewis Carroll) and Matilda Lorina (Matilda was the other option for Alice’s name in the backstory, and refers out-of-universe to the nickname of the historical Alice’s sister Edith, while Lorina is Alice’s mother’s name).

[victorluvsalice]

Have you ever tried making a non-bitch Nellie or a repentant Nellie? Seems like a challenge! :O

You know, funnily enough, “Absence of Hate” was my attempt at humanizing her a bit -- getting into her head to understand her better. I’m not sure how well it worked. I mean, yeah, you have to feel bad for her about the loss of her daughter, but given that she basically makes almost no attempt to relate to her son (and Victor rightly suspects, once he finds out about Anna, that he’s been compared to a child who never really was all his life). . . I admit, I probably overexaggerate her attitudes toward Victor, but I adore him so much it’s hard for me not to dislike her for how she treats him. Writing her as not a bitch WOULD be a challenge for me, yeah.

[victorluvsalice]

So what's your writing process? Like how do you pull off them awesome plot and story telling flow and stuff? How'd you come up with all them beats?

Uh. . .

-->Randomly inspired by something in my environment (often another movie or video game)

-->Think about it for days on end, randomly coming up with bits and pieces here and there

-->Verse may eventually progress to the point where I have a specific LibreOffice document where I store all these snippets

-->If I decide to go ahead and write a “real” fic, I’ll make a list of what I think needs to happen in the fic in roughly chronological order

-->After that, it’s basically just -- sit down every day and write. Start at the beginning, and when you get to the end, stop (unless you have a really good idea or a really clear scene in your head, then move over to the storage document, write the snippet, then move it back into place when you reach the right spot). I generally aim for about a page a day

-->Edit regularly and don’t be afraid to toss an entire chapter if it isn’t working (like the Witless chapter in “Remembering You” I had to rewrite at the last minute), or add something that you realize later needs to be there (the Dr. Wilson chapter in “Losing You”)

I don’t think I can explain it any better than that. If I’m quite good at this, it’s because I’ve been doing some variation on all of this for different fandoms for YEARS. I have had a good couple DECADES’ worth of practice. All there is to it.

[victorluvsalice]

Whoo-hoo! Thanks for the latest chapter! Dr. Fixxler seems familiar though. Is he the guy Victor saw as a kid in one of your one shots, doing some electrical things before Nell condemns that and drags Vic away?

*is absolutely baffled for a second before realizing* Uh -- that one-shot is from SECUNDUS. Entirely different universe. And no, it wasn’t Fixxler there either (though I do imagine he’s in Secundus -- I just haven’t pinned down what kind of Touched he’d be yet).

Fixxler might be familiar for a different reason -- my visual inspiration for the character is Dr. Faciler from Disney’s The Princess And The Frog. I’d seen the movie recently while coming up with the character, and Faciler’s look stuck in my mind. Fixxler has a much better attitude, however -- and doesn’t play around with spirits he doesn’t understand.

I’m glad you liked the chapter! It seems to be a hit!

[victorluvsalice]

I was wondering about Twilight vamps because of another fandom, but of course I immediately thought of you when I came across Alice Cullen. Not sure if you're familiar with the Twilight lore, but you think you can blend AMA with Twilight? Of course, we need to throw Victor there as well. :) (I'm not requesting a fic though I won't complain; I'm just picking at your brain for fun since you're the AMA/CB expert)

I have absolutely no knowledge of the Twilight series except through people making fun of it and/or pointing out the creepiest, most problematic elements of it. I also have no interest in ever engaging with it beyond that. Twilight is not something I'm into and thus I'm not interested in making any AUs for it, so -- sorry, no.

[victorluvsalice]

What is it about AMA that really drew you in? To the point that you still make fanfics for it years later? Have you ever heard of someone complaining that AMA ruined the original Caroll classic?

Well,when I first stumbled across it, I was mostly into it for all thecool character and level designs. Hatter in particular spoke to myslowly-growing love of steampunk, and I just thought Alice lookedawesome with her blood-spattered apron and her knife. And the twistedtake on toys really appealed to me. It was all for the aesthetic --that and the chance to wail on some monsters when I finally got myhands on the game.

Whatkept me around and writing fanfics for it, though, was the fact thatI quickly grew to love Alice herself -- not just her looks. I'vegained an appreciation for what a complex character she is: someonewho's had to struggle against intense loss and trauma from a veryyoung age, who's incredibly imaginative and snarky, who doesn'talways relate to people well but who has a good heart underneath itall. I can relate to her -- growing up, I had tons of imaginaryfriends, and liked to make worlds based on all my favorite movies andTV shows and books. And I've often wished I could solve my problemsby going into my head and stabbing them repeatedly. Her Wonderlandself sometimes acts as an inspiration -- making me want to be asconfident and assured, to do better in my own life.

And,frankly, there's an element of "I want to fixherlife" in there too. Canon didn't exactly leave her in the bestspot, even if she did get the chance to avenge her family and takeout Bumby. My fanfics -- particularly my Valice crossovers -- allowme to give her that happy ending I think she's richly earned. (Imean, I often put her through the wringer a bit more first, but I'veplayed both games and watched the Otherland shorts. I know she cantake it.) Basically, the more time I've spent with her and her world,the more I love her as a character, and the more I want to give hernew challenges to conquer and some happiness to balance out all theshit she's gone through.

Andyes, of course I've heard people complaining of that. I think themain issue there is most of those people see just the "edgy,Alice-with-a-knife" side of the canon. Their impression is of abeloved childhood hero suddenly becoming a murderer, and it's reallynot like that at all. I know there's no pleasing everybody, and somepeople are just not going to like it, but I hope anyone who dismissedas just an "edgy" take on the books will take another lookat it. It's really a lot more than that.

[victorluvsalice]

Have you ever written a reverse AU of the Forgotten verse? Basically Alice was the one who got done in by Bumby? Or if that's too extreme, Alice simply (simply?!) forgets Victor. Wah, poor Alice! D:

Not really -- the closest would be an AU I came up with where both Alice and Victor fell to Bumby’s predations -- “Home Is Where The Heart Is.” In that world, Alice got as far as the asylum hallucination, but never made it to the Dollhouse as she freaked out at the possibility of being recommitted, allowing Bumby to recapture her and wipe her memory before she could successfully get herself to fight back. Bumby eventually killed Alice by accident (some minor act of defiance set him off), and for some reason he thought it would be a good idea to have Victor dispose of the body. Seeing Alice dead snapped Victor out of his Thirteen state enough to stab Bumby to death with a letter opener the next chance he got and flee onto the streets. And then a magical accident sent him from his universe into a canon one (aka Alice went through A:MR alone and Victor married Victoria), where he ended up starting over again with the native Alice. I chatted about it for a while on here, but it never really went anywhere. I preferred universes where Alice could still kick butt and taken names.

So no, never truly entertained the idea of a Reverse Forgotten Vows Verse. The idea of Bumby triumphing over Alice, after everything he’s already done to her, even temporarily, just ends up making me too sad to do anything more than just a brief one-shot. :(