take it down, extras

*warning: this is ridiculously long! No joke! *

Extras, outtakes, and misfits from the "take it down" season...

(I think I'll call them seasons now, rather than chapters. Does that make more sense? I mean, each entry is big enough to be its own chapter, right? Why didn't anyone ever tell me that made no freaking sense? lol! So since the collection usually spans about a season, it seems only logical. Season?)

Anyway, whatever we call it, this collection of stories was the longest EVER, and gave us a crapload of extras!!! These stories took me 8 months to write, covered five major story progressions and many independent pieces and mini-updates, and added up to a whopping 50,881 words!

(If I ever want to know why my novel isn't finished yet, I think I have my answer!)

Let us begin? ;)

the brick, four vignettes

November 2083 - James Porter is 26, April Hutchins is 20 // Mariah Buchanan is 25 // Berjes Monif is 38, Jodie Larson is 28 // Beau Jackson is 20.

*soundtrack: "Brick" by Ben Folds Five *

11:13 a.m.
This is only the second time James has been back on campus since he left it, and it's bringing back memories both good and bad. These apartments weren't here when he was, and neither was the sculpture park and coffee bar on the corner. They've still got the student pub though. And that building at the end of the street, that old stuffy Academy Hall, was where he spent his senior year with Mariah.

This is only the second time he's been back on campus, and the first time was for her, the girl with the warm dark skin and bright blue eyes, the first girl he ever loved. He loved her and she spun him for one hell of a loop. He doesn't do drama. He doesn't do games, and Mariah is the reason why.

Maybe if he'd have met April a few years earlier, he might be up for it, but not now. Not after Mariah. She broke him good and clean. It's a shame she never seemed to do the same for herself.

LCU, landslide, part 4

November 2083 - LCU, fall semester (part 4 of 4) - Vicky Garth and Summer Phoenix are 19, April Hutchins and Beau Jackson are 20.

* warnings: difficult conversations, and maybe a tissue or two? Soundtrack for all parts, "Landslide," by Fleetwood Mac *

Close your eyes, she tells herself, don't look yet. It's what she tends to do, pretend things aren't really happening. Close your eyes and remember a time when things were simple.

The first thing she remembers is a fall day, seven years ago, playing basketball at the Lake City Community Center with Beau and Tyler, running through the crunchy fallen leaves, a crisp chill in the air. It was soon after she started working at their family's arcade, and their parents brought them all out from the suburbs to hear a concert across the street at the Sound Stage. Instead, Beau and Tyler chased her around the back of the concession stands. They were too old for tag, but those boys, silly as they are, took their sweet time growing up. She liked Beau better, even from the start, with that army-print fisher's hat, and an unspoken gentleness that he never wanted to admit. She always wondered, why should he be so ashamed of it? It was her favorite thing about him. Tyler gave her a bunch of noogies that day, but Beau gave her a kiss.

Of course that isn't the first memory she has of her life, but it's the earliest she can recall when anything ever made sense. It's the most beautiful, the one she wants to stay in, to let linger in permanence. She didn't feel like a child the way they were that day, but they made her feel childlike again. So that day, she began her life, as if she could press a reset button and start over from there, as if all the rest could be lost like an unsaved video game. She really thought that could work. She was barely thirteen years old.

LCU, landslide, part 3

November 2083 - LCU, fall semester (part 3 of 4) - Vicky Garth is 19, April Hutchins and Beau Jackson are 20. (Heather Huffington is 37.)

* soundtrack for all parts, "Landslide," by Fleetwood Mac *

April doesn't think she's ever had a friend, male or female, who she didn't want to sleep with. And Vicky? No, April doesn't want to get in bed with Vicky. Not in the least. The girl has a stick up her butt the size of an oak tree! But there's something in this poor, friendless girl, that April feels drawn to. She can't help but reach out to her. And honestly, she doesn't see why nobody wants to help the girl. She's in college, not a freaking nunnery! She needs to be saved!

So she digs her new friend out of her biology books and brings her to work with her one night. "So, you're not drinking because you're allergic, or because you're studying to become a nun?"

"Drink?" Vicky says. "I don't know, I've never had one before."

"Oh, geeze, you've probably never had sex before either."

"Sex? Well, if you mean, all the way-"

"Oh my God, I was right!" April says. "We gotta get that taken care of!"

LCU, landslide, part 1

October 2083 - LCU, fall semester (part 1 of 4) - Beau Jackson and April Hutchins are 20, Summer Phoenix and Vicky Garth are 19. (Lucy Harris is 17.)

* soundtrack for all parts, "Landslide," by Fleetwood Mac *

Summer doesn't know much about college yet, but she does know that Lucy is going to love it! They've somehow convinced her mom to let her stay for the weekend. Lucy's mom teaches computer science at LCU, so she knows the campus is largely safe, but she's still worried about the co-ed dorms.

"Don't worry Mrs. Harris," Summer says. "I'll bring her back safe and sound." Then she adds, with a wink, "And not pregnant."

"What?" Lucy's mom says.

"Kidding," Summer says. "I mean, my floor is all girls. We've got an RA - she's a girl. Keypad access and everything."

Lucy's mother is paralyzed.

"Rape alarms?"

"Bye mom," Lucy says, tugging Summer by the arm, pulling them out of the house before Summer can convince her mother to change her mind.

silly red sheet, part 3

September 2083 - Aurora Miguel and Adrian Jackson are 51. (Beau and Tyler Jackson and Evie Bachman are 20, Summer Phoenix is 19.)

* soundtrack: "Superman," by Five for Fighting. *

There have been plenty of girls in and out of this house, and in any family, it's an easy enough mistake to make, the question of what to call your boyfriend's mother?

She prefers Aurora, for the record, as Summer always called her. Or even "mom," as April has boldly called her for the past seven years, is just fine. But anything else gets tricky, as Evie quickly discovers.

"Thanks for having me over for dinner, Mrs. Jackson," Evie says.

It's certainly not the first time she's been mistaken for the actual wife of her longtime live-in lover. But tonight, maybe the word hits Aurora harder than it should.

"Oh, no, it's just Ms. Miguel," Aurora says. "And you can thank Adrian for dinner, he does all the cooking around here."

silly red sheet, part 2

September 2083 - Aurora Miguel and Adrian Jackson are 51. (Beau Jackson and April Hutchins are 20, Summer Phoenix is 19.)

* soundtrack: "Superman," by Five for Fighting. *

Summer is visiting over at Beau and April's apartment, one afternoon in September. She sits in the corner armchair, slumped deep and sulking. Like the rest of them, she also just heard that Tyler is shipping out. Unlike the rest of them, she learned this information second-hand through Beau.

"You could have been there," Beau says.

"No, I don't think your mom wanted me there," Summer says.

"She's not really mad at you."

Summer shrugs her shoulders. "How long did he say he was going for?"

"About four months."

"That's a long time."

"He'll probably call you," Beau says. "He said he'd try."

"He'd better," she says.

silly red sheet, part 1

September 2083 - Aurora Miguel and Adrian Jackson are 51. (Beau and Tyler Jackson are 20, Carly Cook is 28.)

* soundtrack: "Superman," by Five for Fighting. *

After a lovely weekend with Adrian, Aurora was quickly dropped hard back into her real life. She's afraid of this man, the same man who called her employees customer service lazy and entitled just a couple years ago. So when she sees him in her boutique again, she feels herself inclined to run and hide. But this time he says, "No, don't worry! Everything looks great!"

graduation, extras

*** graduation extras ***

I think I like posting the outtakes separately when they're as plentiful as this. I wish I'd been doing it all along, so I could have my concise and well-planned story posts, and then my long-winded and rambling gameplay posts... but you know, I didn't. Ah, well ;)

LCU, life in present tense, part 2

LCU, spring semester, 2083 (part 2 of 3). Last semester, fall 2082.

*soundtrack (for all three parts), "Lifeboats," by Snow Patrol*

They find themselves in a new bar one Thursday night - or new to them, rather. Lucky's Card Bar in the Old West End has been around for decades, longer than the three of them put together. There was a help wanted sign on the door for bartenders. April needs a job, seriously, she doesn't have rich entrepreneur parents funding her education like her friends.

April says, "I'm broke as a joke, guys. Which one of you are buying my drinks tonight?"

Beau says, "Eh, maybe, if you don't tell Evie."

April says, "Tyler? I'll put out."

Tyler says, "Eww."

LCU, life in present tense, part 1

LCU, spring semester, 2083 (part 1 of 3). Last semester, fall 2082.*soundtrack (for all three parts), "Lifeboats," by Snow Patrol*

Her mother said she wasn't cut out for this, that she was spoiled rotten, that being in the military would hit her like a brick wall. Keri knows that she's been spoiled, and she just couldn't resist throwing back, "Well whose fault is it if I am spoiled!?!"

Her mother didn't speak to her after that.

They had one terrible spat about it, and then her mother went silent. Keri knows this silence doesn't mean acceptance, and it certainly isn't approval, but instead it is coldness and waiting. Waiting to see what will happen, what will she choose to do? After all, Keri Riley-Kim is a full grown woman now, and entitled to make her own decisions, among everything else she's entitled to.

But she only gets her father on the phone these past couple of months, and surely her mother, when she is home, is seeing a name on the caller ID and handing it straight over to Bryson each time. Keri wants what she wants, but it doesn't stop her from feeling icky inside. Keri says, "Maybe you might send mom this time, if she's home?"

"You know she's busy," Bryson says. But she needs him to come watch Lillian so she can go to her yoga class, and then real class, and could he pick up some diapers on the way?

"Daddy, please," she adds, and Bryson comes running.

LCU, just one key (part 2)

LCU, fall semester, 2082 (part 2 of 2). *optional soundtrack, "Get Together, by the Youngbloods*

*** I had a blast playing these three, so this is MEGA-LONG! I couldn't find a logical place to break it though, and it's mostly picture/dialogue-heavy, so it shouldn't feel too bad ;) ***

It's a lovely night in October, the air is crisp, but not very cold yet. The soccer field smells like cut grass and young men sweating. They're watching Tyler's soccer practice, or not exactly watching, but discussing the wonders of life. Which brings April Hutchins to a very important question.

She turns to her best friend, Beau, and says, "So I'm not saying I'm going to try or anything, but I just want to know, would you hate me forever if I hooked up with Summer?"

2082, we don't need no education

Whoa! Who the heck are all these kids??? Let's see who all is growing up this year.

prequel stories #3: young loves

So I've gotten kind of carried away with these, lol! Looking back through two years worth of pictures, and I've found so many stories I'd like to tell! Most of those stories will have to wait for another time, but I've come up with three more, for now, and then I promise we'll start round 2082! And I want to start round 2082, because I have some good stuff planned, but I figure we'll get these out of the way first.

The "young loves" theme ended up being really huge, so I've broken it in half, loosely divided between the couples who worked out, and the couples who didn't. So part 2 will be prequel story #4: the cutest couples never meant to be. Which in turn inspired prequel story #5: what ever happened to Samantha Bradshaw?

But first, prequel story #3: young loves :)

happy mother's day!

I know there are a lot of mommies who read this blog, so in honor of Mother's Day...

in the middle of your picture

May 2082 (prom) - Dallas Deppiesse is 17, Lucy Harris is 15. (Tyler and Beau Jackson are 18, April Hutchins is 18, Summer Phoenix is 17.)

*** notes: you'll probably want to have read Lucy's recent update first. Optional soundtrack, "All I Need," by Radiohead ***

She was just Lucy. She was just some funny little girl he met on the internet, even though they've gone to the same school since childhood. She dragged him out of his shell and became his first real friend. And then they became more than friends. They grew up together, they got older, and somehow he'd missed the point where she had morphed into something of a goddess.

tethered

April 2082 - Toby and April Harris are 42, Lucy is 15, Sarah is 13, Sam is 10. (Dallas Deppiesse is 17.) Last update, September 2078.

Lucy is still not allowed to date Dallas Deppiesse, but it has proven to be a lost cause trying to keep them apart. So her parents reason that she is allowed to have friends, and indeed, a friend he is. A friend that she watches movies with, holds hands with, and kisses goodnight at the door. A friend who drives her home from work, invites her over to dinner with his family, and stays until ten almost every night to "study." And the touching, always touching, her fingertips graze his ankle, or his hand comes to rest on her knee, as if they might die if they weren't constantly tethered by some kind of vital but invisible life force.

And nobody wants to mention - you know silly kids and their fragile egos - but do they even realize that they've started to dress color-coordinated?

But both of their grades remain consistently excellent, so who can complain? Call it what you will.

one day, at the love shack...

February 2082 (mini-update) - Maxwell Shaw is 35. Beau Jackson is 18.

One day, at the Love Shack, Maxwell Shaw becomes an ambassador for safe sex.

He says, "Safety first, people! What happens at the love shack, stays at the love shack... except for your STDs and oops babies! Yup, those will come home to haunt you!"

too hot for words

May 2081 - (2080/81 school year update)

The Lakeside Heights school district is bursting at the seams this year, as it usually is. But with the Lake City Building nearing completion and scheduled to open on time for the 81/82 school year, that should help thin things out a bit. Not so much for these families, but for the incoming crowd, a large group of young families in Lake City who have chosen not to send their children to Lakeside Heights schools. But this is a good thing, because there isn't really room for many more here.

coming of age

April 2081 - Adrian Jackson and Aurora Miguel are 48, Beau and Tyler Jackson are 17. (Summer Phoenix is 16.) Last Update, January 2079.

Beau Jackson has finally grown himself a beard, and it's a fine beard, a proud beard, a manly beard. He's been working on it for quite some time now.