Catching Up On Fates

Believe it or not, that diagram above actually makes sense outside of a D&D campaign. What is it? A very important scene in chapter 31 of What Fates Impose. Anybody care to guess what piece of geekery on the bed represents whom?

In other news, if you were impressed by the songs picked for the 2010 Awesome Awards, you can head over to I Am Not Amused's blog to listen to the whole thing, beginning to end. I may or may not have Outkast's B.O.B. playing on a loop (I used it for Bryce, and it was kind of perfect, not gonna lie). Check that link here.


And there will be another chapter of Fates tonight, maybe tomorrow morning at the latest. Since I shared a little bit, I'll share a little bit more right now.

15 (well, 17) Reasons Why Fates Will Be Late

Bad news everybody.

Chapter 30 isn't ready for air. I wish I had a really good excuse, like I got caught up in something in real life and it ate up great gobs of time, and I didn't really eat or sleep for two days because I was just so wrapped up in working on it and I completely forgot Fates existed and--wait, what? I DO have that excuse? Since when?

Oh, right, since I cut the Awesomes.

No, seriously.

I did.

'Mused Put It Best

This review exactly sums up how Chapters 29 and 30 of What Fates Impose are, in reality:

So, there's a theme park outside of Chicago called Six Flags Great America. At this particular Six Flags there is a roller coaster called Raging Bull. Of all of the coasters at Great America, it's the one with the highest drop.

Being on a roller coaster with a high first drop, of course, means that there is an almost interminably long bit where you're sitting in your car, and CLUNK, the car attaches to that long chain that CLANK CLANK CLANKs your car upwards towards your impending doom.

This chapter? This chapter was like hearing those individual clanks. Chuck grabs something from this dude? Clank. Dude comes back into the elevator? Clank. Chuck completely forgets to deliver the letter? Clank. Radio Shack? Clank. Sarah finding out? Clank.

Basically I read this chapter and kept thinking "Oh God why did I sit in the front row oh crap oh crap I'm gonna die I'm gonna fly out of this thing and splatter on the pavement oh crap oh no."

Enjoy the ride, folks!

Just random

So what does Frea do when bored?

Argue with mxpw, of course. They even get into political smear campaigns, trying to draw people to either What Fates Impose or Chuck vs. the Double Agent.

Here's a sample of what they get up to when the fanficcers are away:

Outtake Scene

So this one doesn't fit after everything I've written in Fates and the plotlines coming up, but it's such a fun scene that it needs to be shared with the world, so it's being relegated to the blog. I picture this scene happening between 17 (The Halloween Chapter) and 18 (the Depressing Chapter).

Hella Prepared

A Scenelet from 29

Since I didn't post a preview with 28, I've decided to post just a little bit of 29, which is still in the process of being named. This is a fun scene. Chuck and Sarah are running in the park on the day after Thanksgiving, and they're chatting about life, the universe, and everything.

Without further ado, your preview:


Beside him, Sarah cleared her throat. He glanced over. “What was up with Ellie yesterday?”

“Oh.” Had it been that obvious? “Um, right. She was displeased with me because I didn’t deliver the letter.”

“You wrote it?”

“Yeah, a couple nights ago. While playing ‘Call of Duty’ with Casey.”

Sarah’s stride slowed just for a second. “You got Casey to play a video game? Willingly? You didn’t have to break his thumbs or anything?”

“One, that would defeat the purpose, and two, yes. He had a good time once he figured out how to use the controller, too.” The memory made him grin.

Sarah seemed to take a minute to absorb that, staring at the ground as they ran along, switching from sidewalk to cedar-chipped path to cut across the park toward Chuck’s apartment. They would do another round of the park before their run was complete. “So that’s where you went yesterday? To deliver the letter?”

“What, you weren’t sitting at your computer, tracking my every movement?” Chuck smiled to remove the sting from his words.

“Ha.” Sarah let the silence fall again before she flicked a glance at him. “Why didn’t you deliver the letter?”


We'll find out probably Wednesday or Thursday of next week.

- Frea

The Original Pickpocket Scene

Fun fact: I didn't write this. No, this was written by the lovely and talented Crystal.Elements, who is just so freaking awesome, you have no idea. She showed me around Stanford and we talked about Fates and fanfiction (seriously, she's got a doozy in the works) for hours, so I offered her this scene and she more than rose to the task. Unfortunately, I had to change some things about it to fit it to the Fatesverse, but the original is so cute and so funny, I wanted to share it here in its full glory.

Pickpocket Your Battles

What Fates Impose, the Playlist (Pt 1)

So music is something that's always going on in the background whilst going through the writing process, and Fates has some pretty fun tunes attached to its creative process. Thought I'd be vain and share some of the inspirations here.

And these songs do apply to the different characters and their varying perspectives, sometimes. Other times they're just what I was listening to while the chapter was being written.

Here we go, in no particular order:

Preview for Chapter 28

I didn't put one up on the end of What Fates Impose, so here's just a little snippet of the upcoming chapter, for those of you that follow my blog faithfully. :)

Chapter 28: Drafting (Name Subject to Change)

“Any luck?”

Chuck didn’t look up from the computer monitors in front of him, though his shoulders tensed a bit. “I’m sorry,” he said, crankiness flavoring every syllable so deliciously that he enunciated more than usual, “did you happen to hear me shout ‘Eureka’ or something? Because I must have missed it myself.”

In the doorway, Casey’s smirk grew so loud that Chuck had to look up from his desk. “So…no, then?” Casey asked.

Chuck scowled. “Yes, no. Don’t you have guns to clean?”

“Always. This is more fun.” Casey crossed his arms over his chest, his smile broadening. He wore the G-man suit today, but since Chuck hadn’t flashed on any immediate threats in the LA area, he’d been stuck in the office all day. Which made it only too understandable that he would be haunting Chuck’s office right now. Outside of stakeouts, Casey didn’t handle boredom well—or at all, really. And he’d learned early on that a frustrated Chuck was a source of hours of entertainment. He grunted now. “Maybe we should give this to the boys down at the home office at the DNI. Seems you’re not nerd enough for the situation, Bartowski.”

“I’ll have you know, I worked three years in a row on the winning solar car that my fraternity brothers and I built,” Chuck said before he realized that he was essentially walking into a trap.

Indeed, Casey’s smirk broadened. “Nerd,” he snorted, and walked away whistling, mission accomplished.

Truth, Lies, and the CIA 2

They're the scariest roommates on the planet. Don't believe me?

Truth, Lies, and the CIA Pt 2

This was ridiculous. She should’ve felt nervous. After all, she was quite probably entering some secret government undercover base—or maybe she was just going to some computer office. She had no idea, really. Chuck and Sarah had never made it clear where they worked, but she figured that Chuck’s new office, which had always seemed suspiciously and easily set up, was probably the headquarters for Operation Prometheus.

Operation Prometheus. Top secret, NSA-CIA black ops joint operation. Level six clearance, whatever the hell that meant.

Frea and Her Fates Journey

So I'm in California right now. Usually, I'm a Midwestern girl, cornfed (well, usually just corn cereal that's coated with lots of sugar) and awesome because of it, but I've been in the Golden State for a little over a week. In that time, I've done a lot of things, but this trip is slowly morphing into a What Fates Impose journey. Think I'm kidding?

BAM, Scary Stacks!

Rooming with the CIA: ALT POV from Fates

So the deal is, my grandfather passed away this week, but I had a lot of time on my hands, so this scene was born. It's a little rawer than my normal Fates writing, but when I'm in a mood, I can't really work on anything with a set tone. So I wrote this and I'm probably going to abandon it, hence the posting of it here.

- Frea

Outtake #3 - From "Tap-Dancing Through a Mine Field"

"I highly doubt that you're a drag, Chuck." Ellie turned away to close up the dumpsite.

“Really? Ask Sarah about the time I hit her with a tranq dart sometime, then.”

Ellie whirled, her eyes widening. “Why on earth would you ever have a tranquilizer gun?”

“Uh…training.” What made the lie worse was the fact that he had a tranq gun stuffed in his waistband that very moment. But he held up both hands, which did absolutely nothing to mollify his sister. “I’m just an analyst, but Washington wants us to keep up to date with, uh, basic self-defense, and Sarah was teaching me about how to use a tranquilizer gun, just in case, and I accidentally shot her. But I bought her flowers after!”

“Flowers?” Ellie frowned.

“Well, yeah, I wasn’t sure exactly what to get a girl after you knock her out with a tranq dart. I mean, I know I’ve had some dating disasters in my past, but even that’s a bit beyond the reach of ‘Duck, It’s Bartowski!’ So I figured flowers were safe.”

“Uh-huh.”


This was cut in the final draft because even though it's funny, it was a little bit off topic, also it's stepping just a little too close to one of those mines that the chapter title references.

Hope you enjoyed!

- Frea

So recently I learned how to make things look like a comic book. As in, my own pictures look like something out of an old-style comic book. Take, for instance, this picture I took in Edinburgh last year:


See? Isn't that pretty?

Then, I had a thought. Wouldn't this be fun to do to Chuck icons, as well? So this happened:


And then these happened:






And finally, I made an icon for Daydreamer:



Yeah, it's possible that I may have been having too much fun with this one.

But hey, they're all up for grabs, but I should warn everybody that the Shut up and let me drink my coffee (aka the AP icon) is going to be on a LOT of profiles.

- Frea

Outtake #2 - From "Morgan and the Ninja"

Another outtake, this one more of an original draft of a scene that got changed for the better. Still, I had to cut some of my favorite lines to make it work.

18 OCTOBER 2007
THE BACHELOR PAD
13:22 PDT

Though he expected that both Sarah and Casey would be using his absence to get some quiet office-time in, Chuck found Sarah sitting on the front steps of the Bachelor Pad, as she had coined his new apartment with Casey. Though she was staring out into the courtyard, completely relaxed, he knew better. She could probably rattle off a detailed and terse description of every person that had walked by, as well as any exit point to the courtyard, the temperature, a few facts about the weather, and fourteen ways to kill somebody with the potted plant next to her.

He approached warily, remembering her warning from the night before. “Hey, Sarah.”

“Hey yourself.” She took her time rising to her feet. Flip-flops today, he noted. She was really taking the Southern California thing seriously. “What on earth is that?”

“My new computer.” Chuck set the huge box on the front step and leaned against the post, grateful for a reprieve before he had to carry it upstairs. His body had spent the last two hours reminding him why people generally didn’t get into car accidents for the fun of it.

“Chuck, you already have a computer.”

“With thirteen different ways for the government to track my activities already pre-installed. Pass.”

“You found them already? You were supposed to be resting.”

Chuck moved a shoulder. “I was resting. Computer work is relaxing to me.”

“Nerd.” She smiled.

“Undeniably.” Chuck nudged his new computer box with the toe of one beloved chuck. “I purchased this one with my own money, for my own personal use. I’ll view any attempt to hack it, put a tracking program in it, or alter it in any way an invasion of my privacy.”

“You do know they’ll just order me to do it anyway.”

“Yes. Which is why I’m compromising. You and Casey will have access where you’ll be able to view my activity and make reports, but all files will be read-only.”

Sarah lifted an eyebrow. “Wow. You’ve given this some thought.”

It hurt his maligned body to sit, but he did so anyway. Sarah sat next to him, but she watched the courtyard rather than him. “You, me, Casey, we’re all three of us in a bad situation. I’m doing my best not to make it work. I’m not used to having to deal with other people anymore, so you’ll have to let me know when I overstep. But we’re all here for the same reason, so we might as well get along.”

“Is it so bad here?”

“For me, no.” Chuck shrugged. “I’ve got Ellie back, and Morgan, too. And his Wall of Chuck—”

“Wall of Chuck?”

“I’d describe it for you, but I don’t think you’d believe me. You’ll just have to see it sometime.” Chuck smiled. “We’ll make a day of it. You can visit all of my embarrassments from the third grade on.”

“And who says they’re not already in your file?” Sarah asked. She twisted just enough to pick up a takeout bag, which she set on his lap. “I brought you lunch because all you guys have here is microwaveable, and you really shouldn’t be putting that junk in your body.”

“Hey, they’ve started making Spaghetti-Os with real vegetables now, you know. It says so right on the label.”

“I bet you believe in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, too.”

“Don’t forget about the Easter Bunny. Everybody always forgets him. Give the bunny a break.”

Chuck pulled a white-wrapped bundle out of the bag, but didn’t unwrap it. “C’mon, we can eat at the table inside.”

“I say we should just eat this out here.”

Out here? Chuck’s eyes roved over the courtyard—everything seemed so open and far away, and who knew what sort of danger could come from that distance? He’d much rather be in the safety of the great indoors...

review - 3.10 - chuck vs. the tic tac

Tonight's episode rocked. We got Chuck kicking butt (even if it was a little contrived that he would have to take a pill to do so when the Intersect has handled six armed guys with no problems before), we got Casey kicked butt (I still say Robert Patrick looked like Brian Kraus during the fight), we got Sarah kicking butt, but best of all, we got teamwork again. I have missed the teamwork so much, and it only seems to happen whenever Shaw's not around. Don't believe me?

Best Casey/Chuck teamwork of the season, post-Shaw? Chuck Vs. the Mask, when they rig up the dupe mask with a smoker. Shaw's still in Castle at this point.

Best Casey advice of the season? When Chuck goes off-mission and calls Casey from the plane in Chuck Vs. First Class, Casey tells him to get taken.

Best Chuck/Sarah teamwork of the season, post-Shaw? Working together to break into the subterranean (the arrow? BRILLIANT) CIA holding facility to break Casey out. Second place is when Shaw gets benched in "Mask" and the two have a snippy conversation about Hannah while attempting to steal the mask. Dangling in midair? Beating guys up? Tension? Heck yeah.

I really hope that now that Casey's a civilian, he comes out with the fact that he loathes Shaw just as much as the rest of us. Since Shaw came along, the only explosion Casey's been around wasn't caused by him.

Bah to that, I say.

Sarah is currently getting massacred at the Google Groups forum and while I see their point, YS is playing the role of Sarah so well that I actually feel a great deal of sympathy for her. Chuck broke her trust at the beginning of the season and she's not the most emotionally balanced person, so I get that it's going to take time to get our heroes and heroine on the same foot. But if Devon can put his faith in Chuck again, Sarah can, too. She should out-awesome Awesome. Talk about fun.

All right, now is the time for my insane theory of the week--Sarah's playing Shaw. That's what she and Beckman talked about on the plane back to DC. It's suspected that the guy is actually tied in with the Ring (how else is he suddenly the CIA's number one expert on an organization they'd never heard of until the season finale?), and Sarah's being super-spy Sarah to get in close with him.

It's purely wishful thinking at this point, but there HAS to be a twist. There HAS to be.

And Chuck accidentally burning Casey in the beginning of the episode? Made me laugh until my sides split. Then Sarah's taking his gun away nearly made me cry. Casey/Sarah -- One True Partnership.

- Frea

Outtake #1 - Back in the Bunker

The following is an outtake from "What Fates Impose," the fanfic I have going on up at ff.net. This is from the second chapter, titled Go Fish. The chapter already contains one flashback in the form of Chuck and Sarah have drinks and play cards in the bunker, and I had included this scene just to kind of show the Chuck of then just how hardcore the life of the spy was. It ended up dragging down the chapter, and even though I love this characterization of Chuck and Bryce being friends, the other flashback was much, much more important.

17 NOVEMBER 2005
BUNKER 77142135
16:42 OMST

Sarah didn’t emerge from the bunk room at all the afternoon she and Bryce arrived. Chuck really couldn’t say that he was surprised. It didn’t matter that Bryce had good tactical reasons for wanting his partner to meet their new tech support—promising a girl Cabo and delivering Siberia was just something even the incomparable Bryce Larkin couldn’t pull off.

“Give her time,” Bryce said at one point while he and Chuck faced off in Mortal Kombat, a game Chuck had rewired for his system. “She got winged on this last mission and—”

“She got shot?! Why isn’t she in the hospital?” Chuck half-rose as if to go drag her there himself.

Bryce, however, waved his hands in a frantic plea that Chuck shut up before he bodily hauled Chuck back into his seat. “Shh, for Pete’s sake—geez. She’ll hear.”

“What the hell is she doing here? Geez, Bryce, she should be in an ER or something.”

“I said she got winged. It grazed her. She’s been shot worse.”

“Either way.” This time Chuck did rise.

“Where are you going?”

“To go put the medical kit in an even more obvious position, just in case, duh.”

When Chuck returned from leaving the medkit in the middle of the table, Bryce hadn’t moved from the desk chair. He’d somehow even managed to prop his feet up on the desk, something Chuck’s height wouldn’t allow him to do in the confined space.

“Still the same old Chuck, huh?”

Chuck tucked a leg under himself as he returned to his own seat—and to Sub-Zero, his waiting fighter. “Don’t know what you mean.”

“Sure you do. Make me a promise—tell me they’ll never take that away from you.”

“This chair?” Chuck said, deliberately doing his best Eastwood. “Sure. They want this chair, they have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers.”

Bryce laughed, and Chuck sensed an underlying edge of tension he didn’t trust.



But yeah, I also cut this because Sarah probably shouldn't be drinking with a gunshot wound, even a minor one.

Still Alive

I've had six reviews already today and not a single one has threatened to kill me. I have dual feelings of relief and disappointment. On the one hand, it's nice to not have somebody out for my blood. On the other hand, c'mon, screaming reviews are always funny!

Ah well.

Here's a little bit of music to really get into how I feel today:



Now back to writing. Spoiler alert, Fernando makes an appearance.

:)

Frea

The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

So I have to thank my beta reader, ohtheconspiracy. I sent this poor person 50+ pages last night and asked if I could have the 13-page chapter beta'd by Thursday. Not only did Con beta the chapter, but also returned it to me a full 24 hours before I expected it!!

Tomorrow marks a massive change in the story, and this is what Con says about it:

"I'm going to be honest, though--
Your readers are going to kill you.
No joke."

Oh man, I can't wait. I'm going to annoy a lot of people tomorrow, but there's so much going on in the story right now that they don't know, so all I can do is clap my hands in glee and dance.

-Frea

review - chuck vs. the fake name (01 mar 2010)

To clarify: my issues with episode 8 of the third season has nothing to do whatsoever with the acting of Yvonne Strahovski, Zac Levi, Adam Baldwin, Sarah Lancaster, or even Ryan McPartlin. Notice that I left Brandon Routh off that list. There's a reason for that. Kristin Kreuk? Meh. Take her or leave her, I don't really care one way or the other. I'm not a fan of Smallville, so there's no pre-conceived notions about her. I mean, I did take siblings to see Street Fighter last year. I didn't like it (Chris Klein channeling a terrible John Wayne? Yeah. I wish I'd made that sentence up), but Kristin overall was okay.

But the aforementioned actors knocked the episode out of the park. Were any of them to get nominated for an Emmy, this would be an episode to submit.

So what were my issues?

1. The reveal of Sarah's real name. This is a moment fans have been waiting for since "Chuck Vs. the Wookie," and due to NBC being completely unwilling to promote Chuck during the overlong Olympics, there was absolutely NOTHING promoted about it. Fail Award #1 goes to the NBC promo department for that one.

And then two and a half years of Chuck scrambling to find out some tiny scrap of Sarah's past, taking whatever she'll give him, and Sarah just blurts it out to Shaw.

And oh crap, now that I'm thinking about it, it makes perfect sense. I hate it when my brain plays devil's advocate.

The rule of Season Three so far seems to be "All Roads Lead to Prague," where Chuck left Sarah in the lurch and instead of finding a diner, sitting down, and discussing it like rational adults, they left everybody (including each other) hanging and with resentful feelings. So far Prague has managed to make Chuck go into hibernation mode, break the Intersect, screw up the Carina mission, send Sarah into an emotional tailspin, give Shaw reason to be suspicious of Sarah... And now it's breaking Sarah little by little, combined with seeing Chuck go down a dark path. Again, the sensible adults go right out the window--Sarah's hiding from the reality by using Shaw instead of confronting Chuck about it. On the one hand, it IS mature (Chuck is, after all, an adult), but it's also a little cowardly not to face up to Chuck about it. You see your friend going down a dark path, the best thing you can do is let them know and be there for them even if they do blow up at you.

From an objective standpoint, I can even admire this plotline. It's in the mechanics that it breaks down. Strahovski could make reading a phone book dramatic. Routh, on the other hand, can make the dramatic look like reading a phone book. I know he's a major "geek get" for a lowish cost, but I'd much rather have an unknown who can act than a well-known that can't.

So to have her completely and totally sell the "my name is Sam" scene and to have Shaw just stand there like a lump...

A little disheartening, really.

I'm not 100% sold on the actual name itself, but I'm working myself around to it. Right now in my head, she's "Samsarah" or "Sarahsam," depending on how much I want her to sound like a hobbit. I do find it neat that they let Strahovski pick her name and that she's known since the pilot.

My personal bet? Samantha Lisa Ryder. Though I would take Watson, too. A little wink-wink-nudge-nudge to Sarah being Chuck's MJ (I'll cover those parallels in another post).

2. Shaw Stealing Sarah's Dessert

Seriously, do NOT take somebody else's chocolate. This is a cardinal rule in dealing with women, Shaw.

Wait, does Shaw have a first name? Oh, right. Daniel. Another common name for a spy vs. the irregular names for the non-spies (even when he goes into spy mode, Chuck becomes Charles).

3. Hannah

So far, kudos on not making her connected to the spy world. But wow, that girl is like two steps away from exhuming the dead Peaches II and boiling it on Chuck's stove. She meets this guy on a plane, moves to a new city to work a job with him, and spends her time stalking him. There's "moving quickly" and then there's "ludicrous speed." I appreciate her arc being wrapped up rapidly (or so it seems right now), but dang, that was fast.

4. The Assassin

He was so pretty, and so underused.

5. Shaw's "Nobility"

For the record, it's chivalrous to defend the girl you like, I get that. Sucker-punching a guy who can't hit back? Douche move, dude. Sarah's stunt with the ankle-cuffs was funnier and much more tasteful.

And now on to things I liked!

1. Zachary Levi

YOWZA, he sold every single scene he was in. Gruff assassin with just enough Chuck to make it funny, the heartbreaking scenes with Hannah, the start of the realization at the toast that although Hannah feels like she's exactly where she's supposed to be, he doesn't at all. And his reaction to Sarah just blurting out her real name to Shaw made my stomach hurt, it was so well done.

2. They broke the rule.

There's an unspoken rule in the Chuck universe--threatening Sarah automatically triggers the hero switch in Chuck. Point a screw driver at her head, tell Chuck you're going to kill her after you're done with him, try to abduct her outside the Buy More, and Chuck will set your guys against each other, pull off the biggest bluff of the century, or perform a flawless Tarzan to save the day. That's just the way it is.

But this episode? Sarah had a gun to her head and Chuck couldn't flash. Granted, he couldn't flash before that but he still tried to punch the assassin anyway! It was up to Casey to save the day.

My personal take on this? Perfect setup for next week's game-changing episode.

3. Return of Big Sister Ellie!

Title says it all. I adore Ellie. I'm so glad Lancaster got a better show and character than Everwood to be on.

4. Jeff

Should've known he was a Charah shipper. Welcome to the fold, buddy. We stocked the fridge up with your best friend Beer and the Juke Box has every Styx, Queen, and Supertramp hit all ready to go.

One final grievance to air and then I'm done.

Simply put, I miss the color. I don't know if it's just the sets they've been choosing or if it's Brandon Routh, but it feels like every time Shaw is on set, the color is just sucked out of everything. One of my favorite things about Season Two was the bright, vibrant colors in every scene--the reunion, the castle, the fair in "Gravitron," Awesome and Ellie's beach wedding. But every episode with Shaw in it seems to me to be predominantly brown/gray. Maybe I'm just reacting to his clothing, but the shots in his hotel room (shut your curtains, dude, you're wanted by a massive spy organization and you were in a room with somebody who could ID you last week) and of the hotel were just...blah. And the shot of the hotel looked like something post-apocalyptic, though that could just be LA.

Shaw even makes the castle seem colorless. What's up with that?

So I'll be back with more thoughts on next week's episode. I really, really hope it's the awesome game-changer they've been promising because these last two were good, but depressing.

- Frea