Dear Beloved:
It's been several weeks since we brought down Tim Scam... I guess that's a good thing, but honestly things haven't been much like the "happily ever after" I used to hear about in storybooks. People are bickering over every little resource, fighting over land and property rights. All of the old hatreds and biases are starting to come back, people segmenting based on race, religion, whatever. I knew it would happen... but I just thought maybe... maybe they could give it a damn rest for a while. I guess not.
How have you been? Have you seen that harem of eager virgin angels yet? I hope you're okay... I hear heaven is a nice place, but it seems a bit boring to me. Hell, everything seems boring to me these days. I really miss you... you made everything so exciting. You made me WANT to do this, to be a spy and a secret agent and do dangerous things. I could've kept doing those forever with you beside me...
But I'm getting tired, Brittany. I'm tired of doing this; I don't want to do it anymore. Let the world take care of itself, they don't want our help anyway. Yes, I joined what's left of WOOHP. Sam is the head if you can believe that... she's a decent leader I suppose. She's a lot smarter than I ever gave her credit for back in school. God, everything seems different now. I'm even getting along with Clover, and that's something I once swore would never ever happen.
Alex is still with WOOHP fighting the good fight to keep the world safe and secure. She said a few days ago she wanted to spend more time with her mother, but there's still way too much to do before we can settle down into new lives. There are still assholes trying to screw over everyone around them. It'll never end, will it Brittany? Hey, as long as you're up there, ask God to teach these people some damned decency. It would certainly make our jobs a lot easier.
I don't know what happened to Arnold. Last I heard he made it to a settlement in Egypt, and then he never contacted us again. Like I care, he was always a little nerd I never wanted anything to do with, and that hasn't changed. Pathetic little rodent...
We kept Lady Luna's body in a freezer for a while to try to preserve it. Then once we got one working again, we took a shuttle and sent her flying into the stars where she would want to be. She deserves it, from what they tell me. And I guess I'm glad she could go back home... at least she still had a home to return to...
... I guess what this letter's really about, Brittany, is to tell you that I think I did it. I became what you believed I could be... I've become a hero. That's what you wanted, isn't it? You're the only one who's ever believed I could be anything other than a snotty stuck-up teenage brat. You inspired me... Hell, it's because of you that I am what I am today. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
Now it's time for me to go to bed. I think we're going on another mission tomorrow. France is acting up again... God what is it with the French? Everything we say they say the exact opposite. We could say baby killing is wrong and they'd argue with us. Oh well... I'll see you later, Brittany. Remember, I love you and I promise that no matter what it takes, I will be the best hero I can be so that someday when I die I'll meet you again in Heaven.
Your Beloved:
Mandy
Mandy sat back and pushed the cover to her journal closed, looking around the small room she kept in WOOHP Headquarters. The power generators had failed a few days ago, so there was no electricity, though they were working on getting it back up and running. In the meantime, a lone candle on the nightstand beside her bed was all she had to see by as the stars shone in the night sky outside her window.
She picked up her journal and walked over to the nightstand, pulling open one of the drawers and slipping it carefully inside before pushing it closed again. She climbed into bed slowly; moving up to the head and sliding under the silken covers she'd been given by the grateful settlers around here. She reached over to grabbed the candle, holding it in one hand as she looked around a moment at the cold steel room.
Such a change. Sixteen years she spent with everything handed to her... a spoiled brat who simply got her way with everything. Now look at her. Alone, independent, working to help the world. A good person, who could get along with others, and work alongside them in order to accomplish great good. What a change a few short weeks made in her life. But in the end, she knew there was just one reason for all of this.
"All for you, Brittany." Mandy raised the candle toward the roof in a solemn salute to the person who had changed her life, then blew out the candle with a quick burst of breath.
THE END
FIC COMMENTARIES AND THOUGHTS
One of the challenging things about fanfiction is coming up with stories that fit the parameters of the universe, so to speak. Something that could happen within the context of the fandom (not something that WOULD happen necessarily, but COULD). I've usually tried to keep my TS fics with a more realistic vibe, but with this one I loosened that up a bit to allow for a bit more color and excitement. The laws of physics got bent, the laws of logic got stretched a bit (especially time and distance, they moved FAR faster than they should. Clover makes it from Nevada to Egypt and back again in under 12 hours in a helicopter), but I think the fic was better for it. Especially with the parameters I set for myself right from the beginning. What parameters? I had several ideals I wanted to stick to throughout the course of this fic. And for you reading at home (which is probably all of you), if you want to make your fic-writing more challenging and a bit more diverse, set yourself a set of limits and parameters. You'll strain your brain thinking of ways to get around these limitations, and I think the fic will likely be better off for it. And it's great training for authors.
1- Gadgets Are Good Parameter: I wanted to use as many gadgets as humanly possible. Cram them into every nook and cranny. Because TS is a show that features a lot of kooky gadgets, and I rarely ever get much usage out of them in my fanfics. So I made myself use them, and I think it made things a bit more interesting, wondering what would pop up where.
2- Established Gadgets Only Parameter: Despite my insistence on using gadgets, I forced myself to only use gadgets lifted straight from show cannon (though a few were altered in usage, particularly the Nanotechnology Eyeshadow). To this end I even went so far as to compile a nearly complete list of gadgets from the entire series, episode by episode. Ultimately, I wound up using 54 of them.
3- No Staleness Parameter: The spies rarely ever use the same gadget more than once per episode. And thus I set that limit for myself. I never used the same gadget in two separate sections of the fic (Okay, that's actually a lie I caught while I was posting the story. The Expandable Cable Bungee Belt was used twice, in Parts 07 and 15). This presented the most interesting challenge really, because some of the standards are so generally useful, like the Jetpack Backpack and the Laser Lipstick. The Bruit Suit was one that would have probably gotten a lot of mileage too if I hadn't restrained myself from using it more than once. This rule prevented, as the "name" implies, the staleness that would've come from seeing repeated uses of gadgets like the Bruit Suit, and also prompted what I think are some of my more interesting ideas, such as Jerry's twin Buzzsaw Wristwatches.
Below I've compiled a list of every gadget used in this fanfic, in order of appearance and with one show episode it appeared in so you can see it in action for yourself.
UPWATI (Zooney World)
CATS (Animatrons)
Sonic Disintegrator Boombox (Freaky Circus Much)
KIRTT (Game Girls)
RASH (Wild Style)
Tornado Windblast Hairdryer (Alex Quits)
Mighty-Fine Expandable Mascara Brush (Stuck In The Middle Ages With You)
Cyberjacker Sunglasses (Wild Style)
Stuntan Lotion (The New Jerry)
RATVAT (Queen For A Day)
Catfight Claws (Stuck In The Middle Ages With You)
Padded Shoulder Parasails (First Brat)
Nuclear Powered Jetboots (Brain Drain)
Aqua Lips Waterproof Lipstick (Wild Style)
Laser Lipstick (Evil Hair Salon)
Titanium Drill Heel Boots (S.P.I)
High-Sensitivity Electromagnetic Bracelet (Queen For A Day)
Mini-Nuke Moodring (Forward to the Past)
Retractable Razor Faux Nails (Toying Around)
Boomerang Buzzsaw Barrettes (Nature Nightmare)
Lip-Balm Smoke Bombs (Spy Gladiators)
Expandable Cable Bungee Belt (Soul Collector)
Butterfly Barrette Bomb (Mommies Dearest)
Head-For-Cover Hoverboard (Stuck In The Middle Ages With You)
Perfume Atomizer Stunspray (Passion Patties)
Bruit Suit (Planet Of The Hunks)
Ice-Queen Perfume (Zooney World)
Phase Changer Phaser (Evil Boyfriend)
Nanotechnology Eyeshadow (Fugitives)
Magnetron Haircurler (Computer Creep Much)
Super-Range Biodegradable Spitball Tracker (Physics 101 Much)
VEGs (Totally Switched)
Pocket-Sized Retractable Lip Spear (Animatrons)
Jetpack Backpack (Freaky Circus Much)
Mini Smoke Bomb (Brain Drain)
Laserheat Hairdryer (Here Comes The Sun)
Lip-Stalk (Spies VS Spies)
Binocular Shades (The Getaway)
Buzzsaw Wristwatch (Spy Gladiators)
M-Ray Contact Lenses (Model Citizens)
Ultra Sensitive Earring Microphone (Ski Trip)
Telescopic Optic Sunglasses (Incredible Shrinking World)
Bubble Blaster Invisibility Shield (Evil GLADIS Much)
Boring Amethyst Charm (Evil GLADIS Much)
Magno Gogo Boots (Space Much)
Compact Parasol Laser Source (Malled)
Earring Communicator (Soul Collector)
Compressed Water Capsule (Queen For A Day)
Tornado In A Can Of Hairspray (Starstruck)
All-Weather Umbrella (Stuck In The Middle Ages With You)
Laser Nailfile (Dental? More Like Mental)
Electroshock Powderpuff (The Incredible Bulk)
Parachute (Nature Nightmare)
Electro Magnetron (Superagent Much?)
The entire underlying structure of the story changed as I wrote. This fic has been in production for at least three months, and I've had a lot of time to stew over it. In the beginning, the concept was basically to create what might actually be a TS movie, then when I got through the moon-crashing story arc in very quick order (which was another parameter I'll get to in a minute), I needed more to do. So I thought about making it a series of TS episodes, a bunch of missions the girls get sent on each more dire than the last. But I already drowned the bloody world... you can't get missions much more dire than that. So I turned my attention to the aftermath of that story arc, but wanted to avoid the usual "aftermath of the apocalypse" kind of story. At first, I thought to have Jerry die of natural causes and let Sam, Alex and Clover take his place as the heads of WOOHP, and have to deal with the cleanup. But the idea of killing Jerry so fast in such an inane manner didn't appeal to me, so I scrapped that idea.
Making Jerry a pseudo-bad guy of the story came after looking through a TS Episode list, and spotting the episode "Forward to the Past". And it was an idea I liked, so I ran with it. It provided I think probably the most powerful mental struggle I've ever produced in a piece of writing. Even I don't really know if Jerry was good or evil, right or wrong. I just don't know. So I never gave a definitive answer on that, instead choosing to let you the reader form your own opinions on that philosophical question. One person I showed the confrontation scene to commented that Jerry was the perfect leader. Regardless, the rest of the story panned out the way it did basically off-the-cuff from moment to moment, though Tim Scam's offhanded inclusion in the beginning obviously helped shape the entire climax.
One thing I think turned out really well about this fic that I've always tried to do was that the entire underlying TONE of the fic evolved as it went on. In the beginning it was basically just another mission for the girls. Sam, Alex and Clover just shrugged their shoulders and went to their job. After all, they've faced situations like this before, from Dr. Gelee's attempt to freeze the world or Tim Scam's attempt to... uh... dehydrate the world (It actually is more of a threat than it sounds). But as the fic wears on and they mentally take stock of what all was lost, the tone changes, and then when Sam discovers the truth everything changes, and from there it just keeps changing as characters make new discoveries, realizations, and decisions. And in the end, I wanted one of my fics to have a happy ending for a change. "Happy" being a relative term meaning nobody loses limbs, dies in a gruesome manner (except Brittany I guess, but it technically wasn't her, more like if she was a zombie), or abandons their friends, and there's still life on Earth.
There were a few more parameters I set myself that also helped shape the story...
4- Speed Good: I wanted to keep the pace fast. There are times in my previous fics where I think the fic slows to a crawl unnecessarily. Such as the space flights in "Beyond the Future" or the Lyrobia scenes in "Upheaval". I wanted this fic to move pretty fast, with the story moving or evolving in some form in every single chapter, but still have time to present conflicts and character development. But that development wouldn't really be its own subplot, it would be interwoven throughout the main plot. I don't know if I succeeded, but that was my intention.
5- Action Good: I've never been satisfied with any of the so-called "action scenes" in my other fics. So in this one I wanted to put real kinetic energy and choreography into the action scenes. In fact I went in intentionally wanting to create more of an action/adventure than ever before. Because I usually have some kind of adventure, but the action part is always downplayed or missing entirely. I wanted to create spectacular Hollywood style action sequences along the lines of a Jet Li or Jackie Chan movie. A lofty goal for a first attempt, but I've never really seen that kind of heart-pumping action in writing, and it must be possible somehow. One thing that helped with that in this fic is that I write from a Third-Person Focused perspective. The reader is seeing it through the eyes of one particular person. So I didn't have to keep tabs on every fighter at all times. Like in the Alex VS WOOHP fight, while Alex was busy dealing with Pam, the other four would be moving around looking for opportunities in on the action (or recovering from Alex's previous strikes), but Alex wouldn't necessarily note that when they're not an immediate threat. So I didn't have to note it in the narrative. This kept the pace blistering and prevented a backlog of having to say "Alex is here, Pam is here, Crimson is here, Alice is here, Yuki is here, and Megan is here." I'm particularly proud of Sam's escape from WOOHP, Alex's fight with WOOHP, and I thought the helicopter battle with Scamlar-Brittany turned out pretty good.
6- PG-13 Good: I made a conscious effort to keep the rating of the fic down to a PG-13 level for a change, and I think it's noticeable throughout the fic. There's very little blood or swearing for most of it (and I even edited out Mandy and Brittany's sex scene on the plane), but I will admit I dropped the ball toward the end. Then in Part 25 I buried the Goddamn thing. And honestly, I think this shift in content makes the ending that much more powerful. If you see that kind of dark imagery through the entire story, you get used to it and expect it. But this fic was fairly tame up until that point, and then Brittany's transformation comes up and it's just this completely evil shift that makes you want to know what the Hell happens there. It gets your blood pumping and, I think, gives the fic a real feeling of "This is getting intense" instead of my fics' usual "Oh, it's over?" feeling.
A good story is built on the backs of its cast, and with almost 20 characters in this fic, I had a lot of backs to lean on. Too many, in fact. A good portion of them got sadly shafted in order to fulfill Parameter #4, but I couldn't really remove them because they were already too important to the fic. Well... I could've removed Yuki and Megan, but they didn't interfere with anything really and I would've had to completely rewrite the 5-on-1 fights into 3-on-1 fights, and I didn't know if I could recreate the excitement I think I managed to get into those sequences. Here's the entire cast, one by one in order of appearance, and my thoughts on each of them.
Arnold Jackson: Arnold was probably one of the biggest victims of time/plot restraints. Obviously I intended for him to be Sam's love interest (A heterosexual couple in one of MY fics? Surely not!), but he sort of fell by the wayside as the story picked up steam. I might have given an incomplete feeling about him toward the end when he never really had any more romance with Sam, but the way I see it, they'd only liked each other for about 12 hours. It wasn't anything serious between them, a bit of flirting and possible attraction, but it wasn't "true love", so I didn't feel that bad about letting the love die during the course of the fic, and turning Arnold into Jerry's icy-hearted protégé toward the end. They never blatantly interacted with each other when they met up again, but Sam did make her feelings about the "New Arnold" known, crushing any hope of love between them. Failed love... perhaps one of the most sadly realistic things in this fic. As for his ultimate fate, I really didn't have anything for him to do in the final confrontation, so having Clover ditch him in the desert was a bit arbitrary. But it seemed a fitting end for the guy who simply vanished for a majority of the fic. This part probably bugs me most of all my unused plots in this story. He's the STAR of the first chapter, and then he completely vanishes for the rest of the fic. I suppose I could've re-written the first chapter from Sam's perspective, but I'd already been working on it for 3 or 4 grueling months. If I was more of a perfectionist I would have done that AND inserted Brittany's real teammates, but sometimes little things like that don't seem worth the effort. You all probably completely forgot the specifics of how the events of Part 01 unfolded by now, so I'm just pointing out this flaw for no real reason.
Samantha "Sam" Simpson: Honestly, I didn't do a whole lot of character development with Sam over the course of the fic. She has a few flashes into her cool logical character every now and again, but ultimately she doesn't change a lot except where she has to choose between Jerry and what she feels is "righteousness". Her half of the story was basically a mission-type adventure, and the same goes for Alex and Clover. Very early on I sort of decided that the fictional circumstances determined that that was the best way to go, and I think it worked fairly well, the contrast between the drama (Of which the Mandy/Brittany scenes were made) and the adventure. Two halves of the coin spinning around each other for about the first half of the fic before it picks up steam and it all gets a bit muddy (hopefully in a good way).
Alex: Once again, Alex didn't change, but I did manage to get some insight into her personality in there, particularly in the stars conversation with Lady Luna, and the segment where she's trying to nurse Sam back to health. Aside from that, she mostly shared in the "Mission-Type Adventure".
Clover Ewing: Clover got the least character development of all. I don't know why, I didn't plan it out that way, it just sort of happened. The most insight we get into her is when she's pissed off and storming WOOHP Headquarters. I wish I could've given every character deep development and psychological insight, but it's extremely difficult to juggle that many characters. So mostly Clover (and Alex) wound up revolving around Sam and the primary mission.
Jerry Lewis: I didn't intend to make Jerry the "bad guy" at first, as I said earlier, but after I did it I had to decide how bad I wanted him. Was he going to desperately try to rule with a gentle fist, or do whatever it takes to maintain peace, even if it means crushing people in his grip? Ultimately he fell in the middle somewhere, beginning to lean toward the darker side before he proved that he was as willing to sacrifice himself for humanity as readily as he was willing to sacrifice the lives of others. He changed a lot over the course of the fic, but I still kept one key attribute in place. He did it all for what he thought was the good of the world. Was he right? That's up to you.
Mandy Myers: Ah Mandy. Seriously, I didn't plan it, but Mandy easily received the lion's share of the character development. Not because I favor her, but because she was the odd-man-out in this fic. Everyone else was used to fighting for their lives in harsh conditions as seasoned government agents, criminals, or something like that. And then you have this normal stuck-up teenage girl who suddenly had her entire life ripped right out from under her. Her evolution wasn't something I plotted out from the beginning, but something that just happened organically as time went on. She took stock of the situation, mourned her old life, and began to settle into this new one. Maybe it happened a little too fast to be entirely realistic, but I'm pretty pleased with the gradual changes to her character over the course of the fic. Some may say she just went OOC, but if you can tell me you can watch someone shoot your mother and burn down your home, and then go out laughing with your drinking buddies... you're an inhuman monster and you need to die.
Pheobe Myers: Pheobe wasn't a main character, but I felt I had to clarify a few things about her. When I wrote Part 14 was after "Forward to the Past" aired (and before she appeared again) and we got a glimpse of her. Obviously almost all of the impressions about her I got in that episode proved to be dead wrong, but I didn't really want to go back and rewrite every part of Mandy's back story. So I consider this just a little bit of AU writing, my personal interpretation of possibilities, not really an interpretation of cannon.
Brittany: She didn't get as much development as Mandy, but personally I was pleased with how her relationship with Mandy evolved. She became basically Mandy's teacher, a guide to lead her through her new life, in addition to ultimately becoming her lover. Mandy grew to depend on her, and then in the end of course, Mandy was forced to fight what was basically Brittany's animated corpse. Honestly, I didn't plan this up until I wrote Chapter 25. I simply had Brittany be captured, and was going to continue on including a probable rescue, but the word count was already reaching the low 90,000's and I decided it was a perfect opportunity to make a climax, with all of the various characters and elements already coming together as they were, and I even had the capacity to create a spectacular final battle with Scamlar-Brittany (something I don't think I've ever been able to pull off with complete success before). So that's what I did.
Lady Luna: One of my original parameters that I quickly abandoned was to use Totally Spies villains as much as possible. They get very little fanfic press, and there are some really good villains in my opinion. Lady Luna is my absolute top favorite, so she made the cut before I decided not to go through with the gaggle of villains thing. She didn't evolve too much, I just liked using her. She's so bubbly and full of personality, yet there's still room for a bit of fan-interpretation. Expect to see her in future fanfiction of mine.
Tim Scam: Originally, Tim Scam was just there to be a wild card. In the very first draft of Part 6 he wasn't even the captain of the boat, and those weren't Scamlar sailors. He was just a passenger who managed to weasel his way on board to avoid the flood. Then I wrote the next chapter, thought about things, and went back and added the Scamlar, and made him the captain of the boat as if he used his Scamlar to take it over for himself. I was still thinking of killing Jerry off early at that point, so I thought maybe I could pit Scam's Scamlar army against Spy-lead WOOHP in a full on war. Obviously, it didn't pan out that way, and they didn't even really appear again for a long time before Scam swept through like a hurricane. Of all the characters in the fic, I will confess to going the most blatantly OOC with Scam. He became downright evil in the final chapters, I mean Satanic evil, and it was somewhat unprovoked. Simply an irrational hatred of the girls that made him pull out all the stops to make them suffer.
Scamlar: There was no one "Main Scamlar" character, but a few comments about the Scamlar in general. These are a perfect example of how you can use pure show cannon to develop plot points. The Scamlar in this story are ripped straight from the episode "Morphing Is Soooo 1987", right down to their limitation of only morphing into someone they've touched. The only modifications are an immunity to salt (it would be too easy to beat them the same way twice) and improved A.I. programs so that they have some limited acting ability. Other than that, the Scamlar didn't change from their original appearance, at all.
Professor Rasputin Zero: Another character I had great plans for, but got shafted thanks to the overabundance of characters. He barely had any character, let alone any character development, as much as I hate to admit it. He became a plot device in the end, one I could only think to resolve by simply having him killed off in a sudden and inconspicuous manner. One fun fact though is that originally I was going to pair him up with Dr. Gelee since his goals in this fic almost mirror Gelee's in the series (as far as his "act" in the pyramid anyway), but I thought "A pair of villains presenting a great threat? Cliché much?" and scrapped the idea, which was definitely a good move since I ultimately decided to make him Jerry's pawn and spark the core conflicts of the story. I suppose I could've replaced him with Dr. Gelee, now that I think about it, but I think Zero is more likely to cooperate with Jerry in the manner he did. He's a reasonable guy, not really insane or evil at all. He didn't care about humanity one way or another as long as his forest was safe, while Gelee wanted humanity to die.
Gabriella "Gabby" Simpson, Carmen, Stella Ewing: The girls' mothers I decided to bring in simply because I've never used them before. I had a bit of trouble though, because right after they arrived the girls took off, and there was nothing to do with them. They just hung around WOOHP randomly for a while until I found a way to make them important again. Sometimes leaving a plot thread loose for a while during the writing process is a good thing, because you can weave it back into the story again later when you don't have any other ideas for plot threads. Just don't forget about it entirely. One thing I did think about as a complication was having one of them begin a romantic relationship with Jerry, but I never found a place to squeeze it in. Possible plot for a future fic though, which is nice.
GLADIS: I liked the idea of using GLADIS, but I didn't have much opportunity to do so, because she's mostly confined to Jerry's office and a vast majority of the fic took place away from WOOHP HQ. I did get to kill her though, which was pretty fun.
Yuki Mia, Megan Carter: One thing to bear in mind is, Part 15 was written long before "Escape From WOOHP Island" aired. I knew when I wrote it that they might introduce Brittany's real teammates in that episode, but then they might not. So I went ahead and made some of my own, and continued with them throughout the fic, and damnit of course in Brittany's return episode they introduced her two teammates. And they even made them male just to make the editing process of this fic that much harder on me (I would have to change all the pronouns as well as all the nouns). So I just said "screw it" and convinced myself that her male teammates never existed. I like Yuki and Megan better anyway, don't you?
Pam, Alice, Crimson: When I introduced them, I was going to have segments that actually showed them hunting Sam, Alex, and Clover, (As well as training/consoling Yuki and Megan) but I dropped that idea thanks to Parameter #4 (It would just be a pure sub-plot that only padded out the primary story) and as a result they were basically just there to take the girls in to Area 51. It might not even be clear what exactly happened to them or Yuki and Megan in the end, so I'll say now that yes, they did die. That's why Scam was able to have Scamlar that looked like them (because Scamlar has to touch someone before it can take their shape if you recall from "Morphing Is Soooo 1987"). Sam suggested this to be the case for a reason, because yes, it is the case.
I don't know how many people will actually read this much of just my thoughts and commentary, but if you're reading this, thank you. I struggled more with this fic than with any of the others, but I'm also more pleased with the results. There are still a few moments that I think are a bit contrived, but I think it shines brighter than the others, and for once I'm fairly pleased with how it ended. I do regret that there's still so much unused material... maybe I'll write companion pieces about Arnold's WOOHP training, or Pam/Alice/Crimson's mission. Or write a super long extended complete edition with development and story for every single character. Who knows?
I hope you enjoyed reading this massive experiment into the action genre as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you for reading.