Because clearly everyone wants to know my thoughts on everything!

[jecca_mehlota]

AUGH NOVEMBER.

I take miniscule consolation in the fact that I have absolutely no intention of hitting a 50k word count (watch, watch, I suddenly accomplish exactly that within two weeks).

I have to admit, I'm a little worried about it. Mirage is going to feature in "WST-Live!," though not nearly as prominently as in "GT." It starts about the time he returns, so I'm not sure how well he's going to be interacting with the other Autobots. (Jeremy Clarkson has already managed to be mentioned a few times, and he's not supposed to be in it at all!) He's been gone a while, though.

And with that totally awesome and not at all forced segue, I go on to ramble some of my many, many thoughts about "GT."

Does it make me a bit egotistical to do this?

Probably. I need to get it out of my system, though.


This is actually kind of a new experience for me. Not just the 'writing a story featuring Transformers' and not just the 'writing Real Person Fic,' parts, either. No, the one that really gets me is, I actually am a bit proud of "GT." I actually like the majority of it.

There are parts I don't like, for various reasons. I look at some sections and say to myself, "Yeah, I was watching Life on Mars that day," because Clarkson comes out sounding a bit like Gene to me. No, I'm not pointing to specific places. (Though I'm curious if other people notice any of those places. If they don't jump out at you, though, I don't want to make you aware of them.)

I definitely don't like the parts with the Decepticons attacking. Not because I think they're poorly written (though it's true that I don't believe I can write action scenes very well), but because it's just really... weird to me to consider that Jeremy Clarkson is A Real Person. There is something very, very strange about writing stories featuring Real People, apparently. (If he'd been a non-Real Person, I might've had Ravage knock him around a bit more. I'm not sure, though.)


I'm actually a bit sad to see this end. (And no, not just because now I have to go on to write something even more ridiculous.) End of an era! I've been typing at that thing since March. ...Looking back at where I was thinking of taking the plot, I am rather glad it took me that long, since the original idea is kind of awful. I'm not just saying that because I dislike most of my work this time. It's really true.

(I came home from classes this afternoon and checked my email. After replying to the new comments on "GT" - and eee I flail in joy at everyone who has left me nice comments! - I opened my writing folder, opened "GT," and managed to scroll down to page 21 before remembering that I wasn't going to find a place that needed to be worked on because it was finished.

Then I was both a bit embarrassed at myself and sad. I cannot believe I am missing working on this so soon. Last night/this morning I was all-caps raging at Aniko over AIM that I couldn't bear to look at it any longer because I was so sick of it. In my defense, this was at 2 am and I was very tired and also fed up with adding in italics-tags.)

Anyway. Enough of that.


JECCA'S FAVORITE PARTS (in order of occurrence) with ramblings:

"No, no," Clarkson dismissed, and opened the door fully. He hesitated again, though, and finally, after running a hand along the steering wheel, added, "Did you know, I always wanted to own a Ford GT."

This one took me completely by surprise, but apparently he wanted a moment of angst. This little bit makes me really very sad. O HEARTBREAK! I don't even know what it is, as it is a very simple line. Maybe because it is very simple. Or possibly I just spent too much time looking up accounts of the GT's mishaps and ran across Clarkson's little report of selling it back a few too many times.

I mean, it certainly makes sense having it in there, I just hadn't planned on it. But I hadn't planned on it reaching 32 pages, either, so, er, obviously I was just surprised all around.


Despite having heard what could only have been some sort of vehicle moving around outside in the night and feeling as though something was watching him all morning, Jeremy Clarkson wasn't really expecting anything strange to happen that day, so it took him rather by surprise when he stumbled into nothing, fell over, and found himself halfway sprawled over the top of that same nothing shortly after leaving the house.

That's ONE SENTENCE. Whoops. To contrast the first one, this one makes me very happy, because, hooray! Mirage has come back! And though Jeremy doesn't actually say as much, you know he's thrilled, not annoyed like he pretends to be.


"You're a car with delusions and you accuse me of acting self-important." Clarkson hit the edge of the steering wheel. "Shut up and turn the camera back on. Wouldn't want someone noticing, after all."

I like this line. I just do. (I have a lot of running conversation themes. They're all intentional on my part, and this is one of the examples where the speaker is aware that it's a line that's already been said several times, as well.) Actually, I had a lot of fun writing all of their bickering.


Clarkson was silent for several minutes. Mirage was just beginning to think he'd slipped away when the man unexpectedly leaned over and rested one forearm on Mirage's roof. "You're not... hurt or whatever, are you?"

Mirage shifted. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "Nothing too major, at least, as I was able to revert to vehicle form and return here. I should be able to take care of everything, but it may take a few days."

"Good!" Clarkson said loudly before slapping Mirage's roof once and walking off. Mirage tried to puzzle over the man's actions for a moment, but quickly gave up in favor of resting.

I keep saying it surprises me that people are proclaiming Clarkson/Mirage OTP, but then I go back and read what I've written and can see where it's coming from, so I don't even know what that says. There are several other places where this happens, but I happen to like this scene a whole lot, because it's really the first time we see Clarkson and Mirage interacting in a way that isn't just arguing, even if only for a brief moment. It's kind of a turning point, I guess.


"James," Richard finally managed as the car disappeared down the road, "James, why does he refer to the car he is unnaturally obsessed with in the masculine?"

Obviously. I think everyone likes this line. I actually really hated this scene at first, until I got into it. This line was in the middle of the scene initially, and it was actually James with a variation on it. I ended up changing that, obviously. That whole scene underwent heavy revision. Mostly at work while I was bored, actually. The almost-final copy was written about five days ago when there was literally nothing to do and I was hit by inspiration. (I am completely amazed at how much work I did on this in the last week and a half.)

The scene was actually a lot longer at first, too. I had Mirage playing around a bit and turning his field on and off a few times. That seemed a bit stupid and redundant, though, and made Mirage's disappearing to wander over to Jeremy a bit less surprising. At that point, I think I was mostly writing it in because I wasn't sure what else to do in the middle of that scene. Thank you, Boredom At Work, for making that scene NOT BE AWFUL.


No lines that I'm particularly fond of from it, but the "Jeremy is caught talking to a Porsche" bit was actually an idea I had initially and ended up throwing out for some reason or another. It came back in at the last minute (Tuesday afternoon). (The bits regarding the drive to the Millau Viaduct were also added at the last minute, actually.) I always liked the idea of it, but I couldn't work it out in my head how it'd happen.


The entire Decepticon line-up is probably the part that's changed the most. Originally, I had Swindle as my potential "bad guy" (he gets a reference in the end, you may remember), but that never really seemed right to me. I kind of liked the idea of a combiner group being present, but I couldn't make it work.

I actually have to thank Hasbro for the final casting, because they released Ravage and Rumble during the summer, and they kind of jumped out at me. I wasn't sure about Rumble, actually, but Ravage was a definite in, and, I'll admit, it was partially because of his plates. I'd originally planned it to be Ravage and Battle Ravage (Battle Ravage was always just a remote drone), but Clarkson being sneak attacked by Ravage wouldn't make much sense if Mirage actually knew about him. Rumble'd been drifting in and out of the plot, so I just swapped him in for the first part. (Yes, it had to be Ravage who attacked him directly. I don't know why, it just seemed to fit best.)


While we're on the subject of "things Jecca has changed drastically," originally this story was going to focus a whole lot more in Mirage's head - there weren't going to be any scenes where the focus was more on Clarkson (and I wish I would just pick one, Jeremy or Clarkson or even both, but this toggling back and forth between the two I've done all entry is annoying me. There are reasons for the toggling in the story, but I have no excuses here).

It was also going to feature more of Mirage Chasing Decepticons. Because that would be totally interesting, even though I'm never comfortable writing action scenes. There was a serious logic failure there, I think, but obviously I caught it.

Possibly Clarkson is just loud and demanded more time in the foreground, I don't know.


Something I wanted to add into the story but just couldn't was a bit of an explanation for why Mirage remained so long without any of the Autobots coming for him. The idea I had was that the communications-interference was originating from something Ravage and crew had set up, and that Mirage was undercover. The Autobots weren't expecting to hear from him right away - they wouldn't have been able to reach him or he, them, until something had been done about the Decepticons. Obviously the other 'Bots knew something was up, considering how long Mirage was away, but they had no means of finding him short of going and looking for him and, blah blah blah. Complicated. Time consuming. Resource wasting and possibly causing him a problem.


But back to the things I really liked, for the finale.


"I'm not going to miss you," Jeremy stated suddenly, leaning over to rest his elbow on Mirage's roof.

"I wasn't worried," Mirage informed him.

- and -

Not even a month later, he sold it and ordered a Gallardo Spyder.

These first two lines are entirely responsible for this story being finished. I don't really know what it was, or even where they came from. Those three lines - the whole scene, really - just popped into my head one day, followed closely by the rest of the ending, and within a week, the entire rest of the story had mapped itself out in my head. Now, why it couldn't have done that in March, or April, or, you know, any point besides the middle of September (yes, I made almost no progress for half a year) is completely beyond me, but I actually like the results, so I refuse to complain too much.

But these were the goal. These lines and the real message in them, not the face value. This was what I had to reach - both story-wise and development-wise. (I was perfectly willing to - and, in fact, largely did - rewrite the entire story to reach those lines.) I only hope I made it with the latter. Obviously Jeremy and Mirage aren't doing nothing but fighting with each other by the end (I am a bit fond of how in the beginning they're "that man," "you," or "car" to each other and by the end they're using each other's actual names), but it's not like... I don't know, I just like to think those lines sum up their relationship somehow.

... I am still so ridiculously fond of that ending line. I have not disliked any of the ending for one instance since writing it. (This is a very strange experience for me.)


(Just because I feel like mentioning it, I always intended it to be Jazz and Hound who came for Mirage in the end, but I hadn't known that they'd actually had a Mazda RX8 on Top Gear and that Jeremy had reviewed it. I nearly laughed myself sick when I found out, and of course had to toss a reference in. ... I imagine Jazz would've quite liked the descriptions, though I also imagine he's got no problems with wet roads.)



...You know, the thing is, I'm not sure I'm really done here. "GT" itself is finished. Anything I do to it now will be nothing more than minor editing (I've already corrected a few spelling errors).

But Clarkson owned his GT for quite a while, so I am not going to be surprised in the least if I find myself writing little side stories at some point.



And because I really feel I should mention it.

Thank you, Aniko (ineptmagicuser), for putting up with me ranting and raving and assaulting you with various pieces from this the way I have for the last month or two. Seriously. You may say you didn't help much, but me having someone to throw things at is help in and of itself. And also you don't let me go on and on about how awful I am at writing, which I appreciate, even if I don't agree with you. =P

And also thank you, rionaleonhart for both introducing me to Top Gear in the first place and for encouraging me! And also for the car-theft idea, which I really enjoyed writing (despite my complaints above). It was fun and also the perfect way to include May and Hammond.

I honestly think part of the reason I actually like this story is because I've had people cheering me on, and I really like actually liking my own work. It's kind of a neat feeling.


Okay. I feel... not better, since that might imply I was feeling bad about it, but, I don't know. I have wanted to talk about this story for the last month but have refrained, because I didn't want to reveal the ending anywhere on my journal (I was going to just leave it at anywhere, but the truth is, I threw the last three-or-so pages as Aniko almost as soon as I finished typing them up, because I was so ridiculously proud of it) before I posted the final product. Because I love the ending and still think it is perfect.

BUT NOW IT IS TIME TO TACKLE SOMETHING ELSE. And hopefully now I can actually do that, now that I've got my ramblings about "GT" out of the way.