TTC: Commentary 18

“Time & Tied” PARTS 51-52

1. Original Date Of Completion: JULY 14, 2002
2. What I Was Doing: Summer before Teachers’ College
3. Changes of note: -Jean Chretien changed to being a communications filter instead of BEING PM. Originally Azure commented on past politics, Chartreuse the future, and Amber the present. -Carrie’s thoughts at the end, including taking the trip back into Part 48.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 53-54

1. Original Date Of Completion: AUGUST 24, 2002
2. What I Was Doing: Summer before Teachers’ College
3. Changes of note: -Placeholder psychologist name Sara Bellum (Darkwing Duck ref) changed; see below -Producing more coins was a bigger issue, because February instead of September. -Checking for Julie’s tracks in the snow became checking security footage.

[caption id=“attachment_1093” align=“aligncenter” width=“222”] CHARTREUSE VERMILION
SD Commission from Neil Buday[/caption]

MINOR TWEAKS

Part of the reason for having a commentary now is because this is the last of “Season Two” that I was able to complete in the summer of 2002 - as of September, I was in Teachers College, and had to cut back on my writing time for this story yet again. But another thing I completed that summer was a new “Opening Sequence” for “Season Two”… in fact I finished it on July 3, 2002, before the first episode itself had been finalized.

That’s below - first some quick notes about Chartreuse and Julie. I think whenever one creates characters, there’s a piece of them in the writer themselves. For Chartreuse, I feel the link to me is the weird and random thought processes. Which is not that hard to write. For Julie, it’s more the self questioning, and her becoming withdrawn.

While I don’t have first hand knowledge of Julie’s situation in terms of her family (mine is very supportive), I did go through a stage in university when I cut myself and sought psychological counselling. I’m also very hesitant about making friends. That’s what I’m drawing on for her scenes; I hope it’s realistic enough without hitting any triggers or massive implausibilities.

The name of Julie’s psychiatrist, “Doc Golden” is a shoutout to John Golden, once the only person to have commented on the 50+ individual T&T story posts thus far. (To my delight, there have been two others in the last 8 days.) I okayed it with him; he’s also been supportive with my personified math, we did a comic co-venture recently. Originally, I had a placeholder name (Sara Bellum) but I wanted to honour John here in the same way principal “Dell Hunt” comes from Scott Delahunt, my main beta reader.

I suppose the other link we could make between the characters and me is how both Chartreuse and Julie have a desire to please others, going about it in different ways. As does most of the cast, for that matter. Or so I think - feel free to correct my perceptions in the comments.

OPENING SEQUENCE NO. 2

Guess what? There was a spinoff sequel, “Tick! Tack!” in 2005. Guess what? THAT audio and video works surprisingly well with this “Season Two” opening. (“The sequel, but diverged from the destiny.") It’s like someone’s pranking me, given how I wrote these first. Here’s a link, if you want to watch it with/before reading below. Which is again a direct cut-and-paste from 2002, apologies in advance for any typos or terminology. (Realism!)

<OP2: Fade in on a close up of Carrie Waterson’s face. Pull back to reveal she is sitting in the frozen homeroom picture from OP1, with the caption “Homeroom 3; Class of 2001”. As we pull back, we hear Carrie’s voiceover, over music:

“What if you had the power within you to control time? To see all of history laid out before your eyes… to know what’s happening anywhere in the world at this very moment… to foretell future events with alarming accuracy. Well, I have this power. But it has come with a price."

The caption suddenly ticks over to read “Class of 2002”. The image comes to life, with Carrie jumping up and running forward. Screen pauses on a waist-up shot as the caption CARRIE WATERSON flashes across the screen. Screen unpauses, and she moves offscreen to the right, revealing a guy with short brown hair, wearing glasses, who is trailing after her while looking down at a handful of notes. He looks up as the screen pauses, caption: FRANK DIJORA.

Frank continues offscreen to the right as two more people move in behind him, heading left. They are a girl with medium length brown hair and a tall blonde male who appears fairly athletic. He is smiling down at her, her expression is somewhat distant. A pocketwatch drops down between them to split the screen as the scene pauses, caption: JULIE LAMILLE. PHIL CLARKE.

Pocketwatch rises back up and Phil guides Juile off to the left as a boy with shoulder-length red hair runs in after them from the right, shouting at them. He is followed by his fraternal sister who has identically styled hair. Pocketwatch split screen with caption: CORRY VENITI. LAURIE VENITI.

They continue out as a girl with pink hair containing colourful bows enters, also following the others. A male with short red hair comes in too, going in the opposite direction (the same direction as Carrie and Frank did). He attracts the attention of the girl as they pass. She turns to look at him just before the pocketwatch splits the screen with caption: CHARTREUSE VERMILION. GLEN OAKS.

Chartreuse frowns slightly as both of them proceed out of the picture. Camera shot now moves in slightly to show two people still standing where the original homeroom shot was taken, one is a shorter, depressed looking boy, the other a guy who his combing his somewhat unruly hair. Pocketwatch split screen with caption: TIM WHITBY. LEE KING.

Pocketwatch withdraws and camera turns to reveal that someone has actually been holding the pocketwatch. It’s a fairly short oriental girl with dark hair brought back into two small ponytails. She half smiles as she tucks the pocketwatch away in her jeans. Screen pauses with the caption: LUCI PRIMROSE.

Luci turns and walks away as a small square appears in the middle of the screen, flashing a montage of images. The square continuously grows in size as the pictures continue, the sequence including: -A black box with a lever on its side, sitting in a ravine. -Carrie propped back up against the trunk of a tree, looking up at another girl with long, blonde hair. -A 21 year old oriental girl writing in a diary. -Frank peering out of the bushes at Glen, who is walking down the street. -Corry standing at a microphone during a school dance. -An older man with a concerned look watching Carrie, who is lying on a hospital bed. -A waitress in a cafe handing some papers over to Lee. -Julie sitting on a couch with Phil, her head on his shoulder. -Laurie and Carrie next to each other in cheerleading outfits, shaking pompoms. -Luci holding a candle and reaching for a file folder. -Tim and Chartreuse waiting in the sitting room of someone’s house. -Frank in a basement lab, peering down into the black box with the lever.

The last picture fills the screen, it’s Carrie staring out at you with golden eyes, her hair flowing out in waves behind her. She does not look pleased. Final chord for music. >

A number of those pictures were illustrations I drew for previous parts. There was a “commercial bumper” for this series too - you may recall the first (in season one) was Carrie and Frank on a clock. This time: “Carrie and Frank attempt to raft down a swiftly flowing river.” I never tried to draw it.

SPOILER SECTION

Let’s start with character. I don’t think I’ve ever matched the comedy stylings of Chartreuse’s story in my later writing. (I do try later in this very book; you can decide then if I in any way succeed.) In a sense, Chartreuse has presented the most bizarre backstory for a valley girl accent ever.

One of the things I had to be careful of was to not have any “like” or “you know” remarks in Chartreuse’s past dialogue. Did you notice the foreshadowing? The slight paradox is, if she’s telling the story, wouldn’t they be there? Well, it’s kind of through Carrie’s eyes, so if you squint, it works. And we now have an explanation for why Chartreuse speaks that way when her sister doesn’t, not to mention having that inflection in a small Canadian town. Assuming you believe the tale!

In the midst of that, Chartreuse surprised me with her bisexual nature. Theoretically, Tope could have been a guy, and while I admit I seem to have a thing for girl-girl love, that added complication between Chartreuse and Carrie felt somehow realistic. (Perhaps the interest is a fault of anime; in my personified math, ParaB and QT - the parabola and quartic - are in the same romance boat.) I don’t know if it puts a different spin on Chartreuse coming to Carrie’s aid back in Book 1. I do know it will influence things coming up.

On the Julie side of things, the main reason I made her rich way back in character design was so that there wouldn’t be a shortage of coins, what with the “date checking idea” presented in the recent part. Of course, with Julie being the antagonist (somewhat) in the first two books, I also knew that wouldn’t come into play until this point. Side bonus, it was handy having a teenager who could fund research or the like, if that was a route I wanted.

The other main character piece of late was the discussion between Frank and Luci, which I’d been somewhat foreshadowing in prior parts. No relationship is perfect, and there are some personality differences there. Recall also that neither of them are great about talking, between Luci dropping the romance bombshell only after she got aged up, and Frank’s need to wait before responding.

I’m hoping their conversation, sparked by the movie “Carrie”, worked well. (No idea if said movie was the original or the remake.) The dialogue gives me some feels, at the least, and tends to be tweaked less whenever I go back over it now. It also implies conversations between characters (like Luci and Chartreuse) outside of the main narrative, because you might have noticed, I’m doing weekly time skips. Which brings us to plot.

Yes, the time group is back together, but no, they’re not time travelling right away, and the characters will be into October before you know it. As I said in the last commentary, I go for the slow burn. The pieces are still being set up for a larger altercation - pieces including Linquist’s old lab - and all I can say is, I hope you agree that the eventual payoff will be worth it.

Coming up next, we’ll get to see a bit more of Glen, who got shunted to the side this past month, along with the trio who played much larger roles in the prior books: Lee, Tim and Laurie. Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” - and much like the former TV show starring Frank Parker, the votes expire after seven days. (Here, have a link to my 7 Days AMV.)

Parts 51/52 were originally “The Visionaries”, thus the addition of “Tope Springs Eternal”, a play on how Tope’s accent is now “eternally” with Chartreuse. Parts 53/54 were originally “The Mansion”, so “Mental Strain” was the new title to harken at both Julie and Carrie’s mental issues.

Coming This Friday: Things go awry at another School Dance.