Untitled AU
So this is what I’ve been working on for fun: the idea I’ve had for a really long time which was an experiment to see what the story/characters of THE CROWS would be like if there was no eldritch horror.
It would be a contemporary working class slice-of-life fic with a central intimate friendship developing due to accidental/forced proximity, so might be classed as a “romance” but it’s more like a queerplatonic relationship with some elements that mirror a romantic relationship, in this case. Everybody’s qpr is different so this isn’t meant to be representational or universal, it’s literally an exploration of what Ricky/Carrie would look like if he was actually socialised, had a strong support system with a few very close, very loving friends, had been to a therapist at some point in his life, and was on ADHD medication when he remembered to take it. This is possibly the best version of this character that I could create given the constraints, without him being a totally different person. As it is, he’s pretty far removed.
You can also see where his arc could go in Canon, but he’ll never make it this far across because those avenues of growth are not possible for him as he is now… but there are glimpses of the man he could have been, and that’s what I’m working on to construct this version of him.
Carrie, meanwhile, gets a different kind of arc, where her fundamental trait of needing to fit in and her trauma from her betrayed friendships and abusive relationship play out in a similar way to make her stand up for herself in a more satisfying way (I think) because she isn’t getting any supernatural support.
This version might count as a corruption arc? Because Ricky is much more charismatic (to Carrie, anyway, and we know she has questionable taste), and he’s still totally fine with throwing his weight around and doing really dramatic shit, he doesn’t so much rub off on her as draw out that side of her where she’s happy to go along with it. They see the world in very similar ways and it’s their similarities that draw them together, and the fact that Carrie is NOT “not like other girls” – she’s very similar to his existing close friends, and reminds him of them, so that makes them recognise those similarities in each other and bond more quickly. If Carrie was too “special”, it wouldn’t work at all.
[Case in point: Ricky and Raven are too different, and that’s why it doesn’t work between them. Raven brings Carrie and Ricky together, while remaining friends with Ricky, so there are strong Fairwood House parallels there.]
This is the first section and I’ll post the rest over the course of Aug/Sept, but it’s essentially a full novel around 70-80K when complete, and these posts are the draft of me telling the story to myself not writing it as a “product”, which will look very different.
A volatile {pan-orientated aro-spec-asexual} builder/handyman, RICKY PORTER, trying to get out of his malaise following a bad breakup, starts an escalating feud with a rival dodgy tradesman, and an unexpected intimate friendship with his ex-partner’s housemate, CARRIE RICKARD, a traumatised woman due to receive a modest inheritance, who’s being stalked by her abusive, debt-riddled ex-boyfriend.
First attempt at a blurb, telling myself the story and how to condense it
When Carrie’s ex breaks into the house she shares with Ricky’s ex and leaves her flowers and a drugged bottle of wine, Carrie moves in with Ricky instead, but his attempts to keep her safe are jeopardised by his angry rival, who robs Ricky’s cousin’s garage and promptly burns through £20K of their gangster uncle’s cash.
Now also forced to lean on Carrie to recoup the loss, Ricky realises he’s put her in more danger, and unless he comes up with something fast, he could lose everything he’s worked for, including their deepening relationship.
I’ll be posting the pieces of the draft with annotations to show where I’ll be making changes and what things I want to expand on, and the different options I think I have for its direction. So this isn’t just me posting snippets of the draft, it’s also a private demo of my writing process.
Ko-Fi isn’t the best for annotation format, so the bits I wanted to keep the same are in bold and I’ll work out how to show not tell / rewrite these bits into the story somewhere else so they sound more natural.
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CWs: psychologically and emotionally abusive stalker ex; home invasion; ingestion of a rohypnol dose with emesis as side-effect, but no sexual assault takes place; binge-drinking; disordered eating; some mention of recreational drug use; messy pan-orientated arospec/acespec character discussing and navigating his orientation/(lack of)desires /boundaries; physical violence; strong language.
Nothing bad happens to the dog.
You can support me on Ko-Fi and read the first section of it here.
C. M. Rosens 