“Time & Tied” PARTS 23 & 24
- Original Date Of Completion: JUNE 7, 2001
- What I Was Doing: Looking For Work
- Hard Date Change: Was Thurs. Oct 11, 2001
- Other changes of note:
-Some changes to Carrie’s inner thoughts on friendship.
-Carrie originally cried twice, which now seems silly, hence why she couldn’t cry the first time.
-Inserted Corry’s mention of self harm & the Shady guy list scene. To foreshadow darkness.
ABOUT BOOK ONE: AWARENESS
“Awareness” has been a slow building of the universe, and it’s rules. If you’re thinking that it’s been 24 parts, and not a lot has happened, maybe you’re correct. EXCEPT THE FOLLOWING:
-All 10 major players are now on the board. I wanted to introduce them gradually.
-Carrie herself has undergone a fairly large character arc, with full backstory.
-The rival temporal theories have been presented (unchangeable past vs. multi-worlds) and associated paradoxes have been explored and “lampshaded".
-While their world is similar to ours, Chartreuse offered a window into mystical forces within their universe too.
-I snuck a fun BTTF/QL tribute episode in there.
I hope you find this journey has been worth it so far. If you watched the early Season One episodes for “Agents of SHIELD” - well, it’s a bit like that. There may have been some episodes in “AWARENESS” you could skip, but it’s all part of the broader canvas. Something massive IS incoming… and we’re about to get darker, psychologically. Take where Carrie was at mentally in Part 23, dial it up another notch, and you’re getting closer.
Given all that - this website is going to immediately push through into Book 2: ESCALATION. (My other option was to insert another “Epsilon Project”.) There’s two good reasons for this decision. The first is that I’m also working on a Personified Math Webcomic in my now non-abundant spare time. That involves drawing, and with this pre-written (and now mostly pre-edited after Summer 2015), that’s also the case here. Related: I’ll be cutting back these Commentaries to only remark on a full arc of six parts. In part because I’m not sure I have as much to say about the history at this point, but also because they take time and don’t seem to be helping much for traffic.
The second reason to push on is the fact that Books 1 & 2 were originally envisioned as a single season anyway. Which brings up it’s own obvious question of, why even jump to a new book? Why not continue “Book 1”? Well… because there’s about to be a time jump of a couple weeks, along with a shift away from Carrie’s character. It’s also (I believe) a natural break, being halfway through the intended narrative. And most of all, some won’t read a serial unless a “set” is completed, and I’m hoping that I can snare some other people at the start of Book 2.
Wattpad fizzled out (it didn’t help that their editor began to remove all carriage returns). I may try Tumblr this time. Book 2 is, I emphasize, a perfectly good time to start reading. Granted, knowing “Book 1” means you’ll get more out “Book 2” context-wise (for instance, when there’s mention of Julie’s history with Phil, you’ll have actually seen it). But it can also mark a fresh start for the broader audience… or am I deluding myself there? Time will tell. Speaking of which…
ABOUT PARTS 23 & 24
Spoilers (through to part 24) follow.
Character-wise, Carrie’s arc is complete. (Plot-wise, it’s barely begun, but even there, a lot of the setup is finished.) She’s now with Frank and Luci, and on slightly better terms with her father. Julie’s arc, and it’s connection to Corry and Clarke, is about to fully launch. All the other main characters had episodes more than arcs to this point, with Lee and Tim in particular having relatively minor roles. Their roles will expand.
Plot-wise, we have Chartreuse’s vision as an unresolved event (though maybe her interceding with the locker changed things?), as well as Corry’s song choice (but that was all in the background), and Julie’s meeting with Hunt (although she implied it had been semi-resolved). Everything else has dissolved into a waiting game. Until the time machine returns, as Frank indicated - to this point, it’s been a catalyst, speeding up people’s reactions. You’ll see where that leads things next book.
Had you pegged Julie as the one to set up the drugs, over Corry? Did you at all foresee Corry bringing Carrie over to his side? Basically, am I still surprising you? I’m doing my best here. My “Web Fiction Guide” review also haunts me - are the characters weak? I’ve decided that even if they are, they’re real to me. Plus John Golden tweeted at me once about enjoying Carrie’s arc, so yay.
Episode 12 was originally called “Understandings”. Because many pairs of characters reach understandings: Chartreuse and Corry, Carrie and Frank, Carrie and Corry. I called the first part “Rock Bottom” for lack of anything really witty. It described Carrie’s situation though, and a little bit my own feelings about this story sometimes. I have to stop looking at the page statistics. (Only one page was viewed once, between Monday and Thursday last week.)
Up next, Book 2. Even as the story shifts to Julie, we’ll learn about Carrie’s destiny, so “Time & Tied” will start making sense as a title. Watch their world get a lot darker and messier with: ESCALATION.
Coming This Friday: ARC 2.1 and the episode “Missing Piece”
