The Cheese Grates It:
The Brother Dynamic of Team Netherworld's Serial, Fetch
This post was primarily created for Team Netherworld's currently somewhat neglected Wincest fan fic and general brotherly love blog,
Dream About Me Sweet Brother.
My Wincest Tumblr is active, but it's primarily serving up reblogs rather than fresh fan fics created by myself and the other members of the Team at this time.
Let me detail for you the reasons why.
We are participating in OctPoWriMo on Team Netherworld's poetry blog,
Dark Hearts Love Too. This is a month-long, daily poetry creation marathon, similar to
NaNoWriMo but far less odious.
I'm not trying to dis NaNoWriMo, I fully support what they do and I'm happy to be a cheerleader for any participant who needs one. I just don't like feeling forced to write a certain amount, because fairly quickly in the process, what's coming up is nothing but bile, verbally speaking. I don't end up with a product that I can even begin to work with, so I ain't gonna do it no more!
The VILE Awards are in full swing over at the
Rattling Bones Undead Musician Magazine blog! This is RBUMM'S big annual blog-a-thon. While we do post every day during the month of October, the format is loose. Regardless of what else happens, the event culminates in the choosing of a truly vile music video to win the VILE Award. The contest is run by the Vogon empire.
Last year's winner was "Booty" by J-Lo and Iggy Azelea. You can see the caliber of entertainment we're dealing with here. It's a wild and crazy ride.
I'm working five nights a week. I'm finally doing work that I really feel good about as a pediatric home health nurse. However, I'm working five nights a week. Five night weeks tend to catch up with me and run me over. Currently I've got a nasty cold, which I caught from the baby I'm currently working with. I tend to be pretty prone to every infection that comes down the pike when I work five night weeks. However, overall the job is a positive one. You do what you've gotta do.
Next, the project I came here to talk to you about before I went off the rails.
Team Netherworld is involved in working on a serial which we hope to eventually turn into a series of published novels. The story is called Fetch, and we are very proud of it.
So...what does this have to do with the Brother Dynamic?
The main protagonist in Fetch is a middle-aged musician named Gerry Clifford, who is losing his cognitive abilities. Gerry finds that he is being targeted by a malevolent non-corporeal hive mind whose goal is to enslave him, forcing him to use his psychic abilities for evil. Because his physical mind no longer works correctly, Gerry essentially functions as a spirit even though his body is still alive.
During his out of body wanderings, Gerry finds help and comfort with an empathic psychic medium named Pepper Baiij, and a romantic relationship develops between them.
One might think on the surface that the romantic connection between Gerry and Pepper is the primary focus of the story. However, without the profound bond between Gerry and his protective younger brother Paul, the story becomes Gerry and Pepper rescuing each other from various threats and finding excuses to make out.
The bond between Gerry and Pepper is powerful, and their love is genuine. The bond between Gerry and his children is warm and gentle, and is integral to establishing his personality. He is a very devoted father. However, the key relationship is expressed in the bond between Gerry and Paul.
Gerry and Pepper need each other. Their bond was established many lifetimes ago and is essential to their happiness. However, Gerry and Paul are essentially two parts of the same soul.
There is a bit of Yin and Yang to the dynamic between the brothers. Gerry is quiet, introspective, and his life is complicated by his depressive, addictive, and obsessive tendencies. Paul is outgoing, somewhat manic, and overall tends to present as optimistic, countering and balancing the personality of his understated and sometimes melancholy elder brother.
Because of the strong bond between Gerry and Paul, we have to work to insure that Pepper doesn't become an auxiliary character, eventually seeming more annoying than useful. Originally, Pepper was the main protagonist, but Gerry fairly quickly trumped her. This is simply the way the story evolved. It made sense for the focus to be on Gerry, he being the target of the major antagonist and the key figure in a struggle that dates back before the Earth was formed. Paul has always been at Gerry's side, during their various incarnations, often sacrificing himself to save his brother.
As evidenced by the chosen picture, the story was inspired by Malcolm Young and his battle with dementia, and, concurrently, by the close emotional and psychic bond that Malcolm shares with his younger brother, Angus. Malcolm and Angus are a package deal, so Paul was created to reflect the most important relationship in Malcolm's life.
Both Malcolm and Angus Young have expressed having metaphysical beliefs during interviews over the years. In fact, I found their belief that they continued to have a bond with Bon Scott after his passing beyond the veil heartwarming and inspiring, and it is because of this belief that I continued my own esoteric explorations rather than forcing myself into a belief system which I felt was both fraudulent and destructive to my soul.
Although the creation of the Gerry and Paul Clifford characters was inspired by Malcolm and Angus Young and the dynamic between them, Gerry and Paul are not clones of Malcolm and Angus. There are similarities in both personality and physical appearance, but Gerry and Paul are interpretive sketches rather than photographic duplicates. The characters are a tribute to the people who inspired their creation rather than being exact copies of those people.
If Fetch seems like the kind of story you might enjoy, either because of the dynamic between the characters or because of the metaphysical flavor, feel free to check it out
here. Note that the project is in its formative stages. The chapters are not in cohesive order at this time.
I am now going to find a psychic hammer and whack myself over the head. I really need to get more sleep before I go to work tonight.
The Cheese Hath Grated It
