Interlude:
Dang! Whoever said writing was easy must be a nutcase! Hey guys, sorry to spoil and dash your hopes for a fresh chapter (well…assuming you were expecting one) but I decided to take a short break from the keyboard in order to set my affairs straight and maybe even rethink the branching of my story (its going somewhere…just not sure where). But being a fan of comics and riding on the elation of having 7 reviews which is 7 more than I'd ever expect for my first fanfic, I decided to cool down a little and talk about the story, what drove to write it and my influences…
Where to begin? Maybe in 2000 when I got my first game console, my beloved Dreamcast. Yes, fate dealt a cruel…cruel hand to my loving game machine when Sega decided to pull the plug on its console, but not before it gave us DC owners a taste of the pleasures of the Gaming world. Code Veronica was my first RE and I was hooked and fell in love with Claire. It took me awhile but I managed to get the DC versions of RE2 and 3. The story of a city infested with zombies was a chilling thought though I felt 3 had dampened the scare factor slightly with the whole mercenaries' angle and fearless gun-toting girl Jill. But it was more than enough to hook me for good and official I became an RE fan. It took me nearly 3 years but I managed to get myself a PS2, and just in time as well as years later, I'd be treated to another dose of survival horror the likes I'd never experienced before!...Or so I thought.
RE4 was albeit disappointing to me for two reasons: I felt the gameplay and storyline were designed to compete with Kojima's masterpiece Metal Gear Solid (Leon's horrible one-liners, the pointless radio conversations, the religious terrorist angle, the president's daughter etc.). It felt out of place, killed the horror aspect of the game and damn near killed all respect I had for Leon. In fact, I think it did kill all my respect for Leon. Graphically speaking, the game was breathtaking and the new combat system though it took me some time to get used to, was indeed a stroke of genius. I've replayed the game 4 times on several different difficulties and the combat is still exhilarating. My only gripe: It wasn't survival horror. It was a spy movie. Feel free to disagree, this is just my opinion. The second reason the game disappointed me is stupid even by my standards: It didn't have Claire. What can I say? I'm a sucker for tomboyish redheads.
The ending for RE4 left a bad taste in my mouth and I thought what every fanfic writer thinks when he sees something he doesn't agree with: I can do better than that. It took me weeks to summon the fortitude to actually pitch this up to my best friend, a fellow RE and comic book fan much like me, notorious for being a skeptic and a brutal…brutal critic. Who else can you go to when you want an honest opinion? The bluntest guy you know. You might not like him but you know he'll never lie to you. Anyway, the original premise was pretty crappy: "Tim (the original name for my main character) is an ex-cop who returns home to his old town in the mid-west only to find out that thing have changed since he's been gone. Umbrella's set up a new factory there and people have been mysteriously dying. Overnight, the town turns to bedlam and Tim must find a way out!" Crappy you think? My best pal (we'll call him Saitou from here on) thought so too. So my original premise got shot down and around the same time, I managed to save up enough cash to get myself the full collection of Steven Niles' 30 Days of Night. And there it was: Brilliance. Of course. The premise was excellent: In a secluded town in Alaska (sound familiar?) called Barrow, the sun doesn't rise in 30 days leaving the town at the mercy of Vampires who go about slaughtering the townsfolk. I had my new setting: Alaska. I went to Saitou with my idea and he shot it down again with just one phrase: "Rip-off". He was right, and the one thing I didn't want to do was to rip anyone off. But hey, I thought if I shifted things around a little, talk about stuff Niles didn't in his work. Instead of the night as the secondary setting, I thought about another possible threat to a man: Snowstorm. So now I had both my primary and secondary settings: A secluded Alaskan town in the middle of a Snowstorm, infested with zombies. Of course, I needed the approval of his most Wisest, Saitou, who didn't shoot it down but did warn me that it was going to be very difficult to pull off.
"Ever been in a snowstorm?" he asked. "Forget that. Ever been to Alaska?" Sadly, I didn't. So I grudgingly decided to refer to Niles' work a little more. After a little tinkering, I thought about characters. My mind and heart screamed for me to write a story about Claire. Thankfully I was still logical enough to ask myself one very important question: "Why the hell would Claire go to Alaska? In fact, why the hell would Claire go anywhere now that she's been reunited with her brother? I immediately cut Claire out of the story. I love her too much to put her in the frozen hellhole I'm writing. For characters I really needed to seek inspiration from the best set of characters ever written in my humble opinion: the cast of Batman the Animated series. I'll admit here and now, before I was ever an RE fan, I was a Batman worshipper and definitely tailored some of these characters with Batman villains and heroes in mind:
Drake Hartmann:
Originally I named him Tim, after Batman's current Robin, Tim Drake. For some reason, Tim seemed a little too soft to me and I decided to go with Drake because of its European roots to the name Draco. I based his character and appearance loosely off another favorite character of mine, Terry McGinnis, from Batman Beyond. Of course he lacks Terry's attitude but I like to think he makes up for it in terms of guts and courage. The name Hartmann I chose because it sounded Germanic which was something I really wanted to make clear. That Drake had Germanic roots. Eventually you'll see why.
Daniel Hartmann:
Daniel's character was based slightly off Bruce Wayne's character in Batman Beyond, as an old but still tough and capable man. I wanted to give him the old soldier kind of character with something of a cowboy charm. Daniel should be around 70 or 80 but he's as spry as a 50 year old (well…as spry as a fifty year old can be). In terms of looks I'd say he resembles an older (much older) version of Aquaman, with the beard and the short hair and such. Some of you who read the story might have noticed that Daniel's father, Klaus, fought for the Germans in WW1 while Daniel fought against them in WW2. I was worried that most of you would find this ridiculous, which Saitou does, but let me assure you that all will be explained.
Wilson Blake:
Blake plays the role of the snobbish self-important genius who I based on another snobbish and self-important character called the Ultra Humanite in the DCU. Alas, unlike the Humanite, Blake isn't that smart, but he likes to think so. I'd imagine he treats everyone other than Smythe and his crew like dirt. Well, if I were as smart as him, I probably would too.
Weasel:
Well now, Weasel I got a little creative. I always assumed that there would eventually be an Armani clad character in RE (considering how the Japanese are writing it, we'll see one soon enough) so I decided to beat the rest to the punch. Weasel's more or less Smythe's left hand. The one who does the dirty work and likes it. He especially likes it when women are involved. Fancies himself a lady-killer which can be read in several ways. He was augmented by Umbrella upon joining up with Smythe, increasing his already excellent capabilities as a Hunter-Killer and torturer. Real piece of work this one.
Hammer:
Well…Hammer's mainly my answer to Jack Krauser with a pinch of Stallone-Schwarzenegger humor. Like Weasel, he has been augmented by Umbrella allowing him abilities beyond human comprehension. He seems dull-witted only because I haven't gone far with his character. Fiercely loyal to Smythe to the point of blind devotion, Hammer is charged primarily with the care of Smythe's young companion, Scarlett.
Scarlett:
Not sure where I got this idea from. Probably some anime I got angry at. Scarlett is a 15-16 year old girl who accompanies Smythe wherever he goes. Smythe sort of treats her as his surrogate daughter, keeping her close by and often indulging her every want and desire…which isn't a whole lot. Silent and mysterious, she's meant to be the enigma of the story which I must say; I'm doing a pretty good job at. Like Hammer, she is devoted to Smythe, but their connection is on a completely different level. And before you ask: No, it is NOT sexual.
The Kodiak:
Umm…Big ass bear with bigger assed claws? Okay, I'll be frank with you, the idea of a zombie bear seemed lame to me until I watched a special on National Geographic on the American Sun Bears. Now those bastards were real killing machines despite they're lumbering, oft loveable appearance. I remember reading somewhere that in Siberia, bears are known to maul tigers, which to me, sounds pretty damned vicious. And besides, the idea of a Nemesis-like hunter stalking behind the storm seemed too irresistible to me. What can I say, I'm a sadistic perfectionist. Well, most of the time anyway.
Jeremiah Smythe:
The biggest joy for me is to write this character. Jeremiah Smythe is my answer to Osmund Saddler, Alexia Ashford, Birkin and every other RE villain to grace the screen. I was going for class with Smythe, so I went to the classiest Bat-villain I know: Ra's Al Ghul. Polite. Humorous. Calm. Tactful. English. Evil. Yes, I believe in the old adage: Nothing says evil like an English accent. Smythe plays the role of the mysterious antagonist who comes to Stonefeather to retrieve the weapon he commissioned Blake to create. His loyalty to Umbrella is questionable but he has proven too valuable an asset to simply dispose of. Smythe's agenda is unknown and he controls a sizeable amount of Umbrella since the demise of Marcus and Ashford. He has the nominal trust of Ozwell Spencer, but not enough that he would leave his company solely in Smythe's hands, hence the animosity between Wesker and Smythe (in this story anyway). For the benefit of the story, Smythe's origins are hidden but I can say that he has been around for awhile and is probably older than Spencer, Wesker and the other Umbrella big wigs. Probably even older than Umbrella proper. He has two passions: Theatre and science, the latter winning out for his attention. He also tends to take things a little too easy and admits to having too much fun even for him. Smythe hand-picked Hammer and Weasel from the numerous Umbrella mercenaries available to join his faction of Umbrella. The have served him well, hence he gives them a certain amount of freedom, though he tends to be at ends with Weasel's treatment of women. Despite his calm and rather pleasant appearance, Smythe commands respect and fear from all around him. His presence even unnerves Albert Wesker who has seen his share of mutants, zombies and other creatures. The name Jeremiah, I took from the Bible in reference to the Hebrew Prophet Jeremiah who was in effect, angry at everyone. I found this rather humorous when I decided on the name. Smythe was just a name I remembered from my old Spider-Man comics. I figured one more Smythe in the world couldn't hurt right? Appearance-wise, I'd say Smythe's a cross between Morpheus "Transvestite Mutant" Duvall and another DC villain I'm fond of: The Shade. Maybe this is cross-referencing too much to comics, but hey like I said, I'm a Bat-worshipper long before I am a Bat-fan.
I realized half-way that there was no way I was going to pull off this story and still get readers to give me some positives reviews without at least one connection to the current RE. Most writers on do very well without existing characters, but since this was my first fanfic and I wasn't really looking forward to getting bad if not no reviews at all( I'm a bit of a stickler for this. Ego needs to be stroked from time to time I suppose). I fought the urge to put Claire in my story. As much as she is my sweetheart, she didn't fit in Stonefeather, so I decided on another prominent female character. Ada Wong carried herself with much poise and mystery in RE2. She did pretty much the same in RE4 though I guess she was going for sultry too. The Bond girl feel in RE4 didn't leave much of an impression on me, but I felt that if I could peg her character right (which I hope I've done so, so far…) I could get used to her. Just for the record, the combat suit I mention in the story is more or less what she wears in Assignment Ada. Red dress in Sub-Zero temperatures? I don't think even the talented Ms.Wong would go so far simply to be all sultry. Let me admit to you now: I'm not very good at writing females. Having few experiences with women, fewer still pleasant ones (boy, those are stories to tell), I felt I had little experience writing a female character, especially a strong one like Ada. And a feminist backlash was truly something I sought to avoid. I thought of what Jack Nicholson said in As Good As It Gets when he was asked how he wrote women so well. His answer was classic: "I think of a man and take away reason and accountability." Of course, this approach sounded promising, but rather than risk the female fans tearing me a new one, I went with the smart, strong-willed, sexy female professional with ulterior motives. You'll probably notice the number of times I relate "Strong" to "Ada". That's bad writing on my part, cautious writing on part of my cowardly side. Why not Jill you might ask? Personally speaking? I don't know her that well. I never played RE 1, nor the Remake and 3 portrayed as a pretty shallow gal. I've never read a single RE novel and the Wildstorm comics do little to no justice to any of the characters. So rather than risk the wrath of the Jill fans, I decided to write a character of which I was nominally familiar with. Sorry guys. Another problem came about: What can I write about Ada? She'd never fall for Drake; after all, she has eyes for Leon! (?) Plus the readers would fart on it. Word of advice: Never write a fictitious relationship between an existing character and your own. Unless you're a pretty damn good writer. Even so, I'd advise against it. So, my dilemma was this: Interaction between Drake and Ada. The scene in the pharmacy was re-written three times before I could decide what I wanted them to talk about. Ada mentioned a boyfriend back in RE2, so I thought I could talk about that. After three sentences, scrap. Maybe Ada could talk about a guy like Drake, maybe mention Leon. This one went a little further, I wrote six sentences before tearing up my paper. Then after listening to my mom nag at me to take out the trash, I got the answer: Moms. I mean, I talked about Drake's dad, Drake's dad's dad, his dad and so on. But I never mentioned anything about his mother. I ventured as far as to write a little background on Ada's past. I thought: "What kind of background would Ada have come from?" Well, she is an established cultured character, has quite the fashion sense and is sociable. Artist seemed most fitting to me. Some readers might disagree. I implore you to understand that little to nothing is written about neither Ada's past nor her family, so I guess I used my…creative license a little. Apologies all around to those who disagree.
On a final note, I'd like to thank the following for their support: Dav Strife and Lady-Ithil. Dav's been very nice to me and has supported the story strongly, while the good Lady, though she hasn't been around in quite awhile, has been a source of great advice and support. Thanks guys. Glad to know someone likes my work. Ass-kissing you say? Hells yeah, but at least I do it in good taste. Cheers and stayed tuned for more of Cold Grave! (Original title was meant to be Sub-Zero. Bad huh?)