Vows

When I wrote my body-swap story I Was a Teenage Ballerina last night, my plan was to resolve the body swap at the end.  But when I got there it turned out to be more funny to go a different direction.  Thus, the body-swap remained unresolved.  I finished the story and went to bed, unsure if I was going to leave it at that or write anything to explain how things were later resolved.  I figured I might work on Vows or A Glitch in Time the next day, if nothing else occurred to me.

In the morning I woke up knowing exactly how Vows should start.  I wrote part of it before heading to work, and finished it off on my break (by which point I'd figured out an ending.)

My idea was to make Vows a follow-up story to I Was a Teenage Ballerina.  Vows is a story about two weddings, but I realized I could have fun if Grandpa was still stuck in the young body of Nina.

Given her current incarnation as a young girl, Paulina had been chosen as one of the flower girls, along with her own current sidekick, Spirit Summoner Shaman Sally.  Paulina wasn't very happy with this.  For weeks she'd avoided wearing anything resembling a dress.  The flower girl dress was uncomfortable and itchy.  But as with everything she tried to take it in stride.  She knew things would be sorted out eventually, she just hadn't expected it to take several weeks.

She looked over the crowd.  She noted where all the cameramen were.  She studied the ceiling.  She stared at the large stained glass window high above the alter.

"What are you looking for?" asked Sally.

"Dunno," said Paulina.  "Something.  You can't have a high-profile double wedding of superheroes without something interrupting it.  I don't know what it will be, but some villain is going to attack, someone's going to get kidnapped, some assassin's going to try and shoot one of the brides -- something."

I think it works fairly well.  The story is about the wedding, not specifically about Grandpa's predicament, but I still get to have fun with that too.

Given the way this story ends, I was again wondering if any sort of sequel is needed or would work, and/or if I need to have the resolution to the body swap on-screen (most likely I don't).  But I was thinking about what else I could write, and a different story came to mind that would happen in between I Was A Teenage Ballerina and Vows.

A young girl with olive skin in a flowing white dress was tied to a rocket that belched thick black smoke.  An old man in a gray suit and fedora fought with a man dressed in World War I flight leathers and thick goggles.  Nearby, a Japanese girl in shamanistic face paint and an outfit that was part Japanese folk costume and part magical girl fought invisible smog monsters with the aid of ghostly creatures.

Baron Climate Change was the villain.  The magical girl was Spirit Summoner Shaman Sally, Grandpa Anarchy's current sidekick.  As for the identities of the other two....

"Uncle Nina, hurry up and save me already!" the girl in white called out.

The old man dodged a punch.  "I'm working on it, Darling."  The Baron pulled out a weapon that looked part brass pesticide sprayer and part blunderbuss.  He sprayed hot, oily soot at the old man.

"How can you safe your precious Paulina Ballerina," said the Baron, "when you haff me und mine smog monsters to deal vit?"

"Don't call me Darling," the girl complained, struggling in vain against the ropes.  "It's humiliating."

"Sure thing, Princess.  Just hang on a sec...."

Grandpa Anarchy had swapped bodies with the teenage Nina Ballerina a week ago.  But as Grandpa was fond of saying, crime marched on.  There were evil plots to foil and villains to fight, and the two fought under the names Paulina Ballerina and Uncle Nina, respectively.

"May I remind you," said the girl, "if this rocket blasts off I'm going to be street pizza in downtown Ontario?  We wouldn't want that, would we?"

Baron Climate Change slashed at Uncle Nina with a rusty knife.  Nina grabbed the villain's arm.  The knife hovered inches from his face.  "One... thing... at a time," he said.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" the girl exclaimed.  "Being the damsel in distress sucks!  This is humiliating."

"We've all been there, princess," said Uncle Nina.  He twisted the villain's arm.  The knife clattered on the ground.  "Funny you're only finding that out now..."

I like how this story ends too.  I titled this one Damsel in Distress.  I considered calling it The Perils of Paulina, but apparently that's a XXX movie (according to Google).

Anyway this story doesn't resolve anything, it's just a bit of fun at Grandpa Anarchy's expense based on the situation he finds himself in.

This puts me just 3 stories away from my yearly goal, and  gives me 26 stories for the month of August, with two days left to go.  I've actually written 10 stories in the last 6 days.  Some of them, at least, are good, I think....

Goal 1 - Write a Grandpa Anarchy Story a Week:

January 2013

Jan 19:  DarkFireDragonNinja  (begun several years ago)
Jan 24:  OmniGen Again  (begun Jan 23)
Jan 25:  Veteran of the Bone Wars  (begun Dec 30)
Jan 29:  Nemesis  (begun Dec 10)

February 2013

Jan 31:  Turncoats (begun Dec 8)
Feb 3:  There Ain't No Justice  (begun Nov 29)
Feb 5:  City of the Monkey God  (begun Nov 26)
Feb 7:  Future Me  (begun Jan 31)

March 2013

Feb 10:  Roll of the Die  (begun Feb 10)
Feb 11:  Trouble Focusing  (begun, Nov 21, in theory)
Feb 19:  Dead Again  (begun Feb 18)
Apr 24:  Most Dangerous  (begun Feb 09)

April 2013

Apr 27:  The Thing in the Suitcase  (begun Feb 16)
June 24:  An Inconvenient Airship
June 25:  Continuity Error
June 27:  The Devil in the Details

May 2013

June 30:  Dark Anarchy
July 1:  Ruse
July 1:  The R Word
Aug 3:  Space Kraken

June 2013

Aug 3:  Triple Aaar!
Aug 4:  Take Me Back to Constantinople
Aug 4:  The Chef that Time Forgot
Aug 5:  The Time of Your Life

July 2013

Aug 6:  Endangered Species
Aug 7:  Anarchy Is Forever
Aug 8:  Brothers and Sisters
Aug 12:  Self-Made Man

Aug 2013

Aug 13:  Hackernaut
Aug 15:  Gutbucket Magic
Aug 17:  Questionable Judgment
Aug 17:  Zero Hour

Sept 2013

Aug 18:  Your Stupid, Stupid Minds
Aug 20:  The Statue Got Me High
Aug 22:  Black Moon Rising
Aug 24:  Pick of the Litter

Oct 2013

Aug 24:  Pandora's Closet
Aug 25:  Magic is a Bitch
Aug 26:  Transformation Station
Aug 26:  Youth is Wasted on the Young

Nov 2013

Aug 27:  Historically Accurate
Aug 28:  Teenage Curse
Aug 28:  I Was a Teenage Ballerina
Aug 29:  Vows

Dec 2013

Aug 29:  Damsel in Distress