The First Noel In Depth

There's not much to say other than I enjoyed writing a little bit of Christmas fluff. :)

Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays (And have a fantastic New Year.)

-EDR

Exaltation / The Tower of Trials Part II In Depth

I had a little more trouble with Exaltation than I did with Descension. I felt like I couldn't pace it right, and the version that I have now is probably the third or fourth edit that I did to it.

A LOT of stuff in this part is setting up for stuff later, so I can't go into very many details about anything particularly, and there isn't much to say that I haven't already said in Descension. 

The chapter for Chloe Kneal might be the only Chloe chapter, I can't be entirely sure, but I really liked writing it an it's pretty important, considering that it'll be one of the only chapters done from a villain's perspective. I can give vague information about Chloe, like she doesn't share a last name with either of her sisters, (Atarah, who was the assassin who appeared in The Harbinger of War, doesn't even have one). She also doesn't share a last name with her mother, and her father is currently deceased.

One thing that I have revealed that's pretty major is that these villains are using time travel, which means that we're going to be seeing them for awhile, even after they've died, as their timeline is much different than normal.

-EDR

Homecoming In Depth

There's quite a few references I made in here that I quite enjoyed, and I absolutely enjoyed writing this part. It's been a long time coming, I always knew, even in the prologue, that Martha would return to her Earth some day.

It's also one of the few parts that didn't need any major rewrites to it. It did change in the ideas I had for it, before I'd written it down, but ideas grow and change, just like people do.

Sandy Hawkins was my favorite character, and has a lengthy backstory that I may get into in another post, or maybe in her own story. But when I first put her in the Space Between, my editor/husband didn't like her. I told him to go suck a lemon. (He did, after re-reading the part a few times, say that she was 'the coolest character')

A lot of it is pretty straightforward, though I have a few notes. Like why Sandy has a glass house when she's an albino (She's also a scientist, if you hadn't figured that out by the fact that she made a time gun and a portal gun. The glass filters ultraviolet light, allowing her to remain unharmed.) 

She also gets all her information about the League from Iris West-Allen, who was the protege to Jay Garrick. They are acquainted.

(The bit about coming out the other end of a portal inside-out is a reference to Galaxy Quest :P)

('Broken Arrow' is a reference to Young Justice :P)

-EDR

Descension / Tower of Trials Part I In Depth

Part Fourteen was probably the worst part to write, because the one that I posted is the fourth rewrite of the entire thing. It is so far the one that's had the most re-writes to it. The original part that was going to take the place of Descension was going to be called Winter's End, which was originally going to take place after a part called The North Wind,

The reason it wasn't Winter's End was because it was a part that was basically made up of short stories that didn't really lead anywhere. It was about the group as a whole coming to terms and trying to recover after the disappearance of Martha. It was scrapped for being too disjointed and too needlessly hopeless. (As my husband/editor put it, 'With how everyone reacts, it's like Martha died')

After scrapping Winter's End I rewrote part fourteen and called it Crossroads. This made up two of the versions of this part, each one quite different from the other, but accomplishing the same thing. It was a little more cohesive than Winter's End, but had just too much going on. In it I introduced two new characters (I've mentioned in a previous blog post that there were going to be two more characters, but didn't reveal who they were.) and a new area that was connected to the Space Between, called The Crossroads.

It was a universe with thousands of walkways and doorways that didn't really lead anywhere, and the group figures out that they had come through here when they were sucked in the basement of the Sanctum, but just didn't remember it. This made it so that everyone that was seen in the Crossroads (Which I named quite a few in the two versions that I had written) could have potentially been in the basement of the Sanctum instead of any of them who had appeared there.

With two new characters, the cast seemed crowded, and I couldn't do a good job of introducing them smoothly, which were some of the reasons that it was scrapped. I really didn't want the group to begin to feel too big.

I began writing Descension in early October, which if you're keeping track, is the same month that it was published. It's the only one that has been written and published in the same month, and I was so worried that I wouldn't even get it out in October. I've been trying very hard to keep a one part a month schedule, and without part fourteen written up, I was really worried that I would have to do another hiatus like I did in June, where I updated with two smaller interludes.

Descension also takes the place of The North Wind, which would make it the sixth rewrite when it comes to that particular part. The North Wind was a part that introduced Boreas, but no matter how much I tried, I couldn't get it to be well written, and every version of Boreas, my husband/editor hated him that whenever he saw a new rewrite to 'the Boreas chapters', he'd sigh and roll his eyes.

After quite some time contemplating it (Too long, really), I decided that it was better to introduce Boreas in a part that wasn't about him. The North Wind was always about him, and as my husband/editor puts it made him out to be 'fucking garbage' and 'an MMORPG quest giver'. (Also dubbed him as 'North "my middle name is Exposition" Wind'.)

And now to Descension itself. I don't know where I got the idea for it, but I just started writing it and that was that. Usually whenever I write something it has a basis elsewhere, but with the Tower of Trials, if I did base it off of anything, I don't remember what it was.

It could have partially been my love for D&D, as you've already seen in Sorcery and Specters, but this one is a little closer to source. More like descending into a dungeon filled with traps, mazes, and monsters that you have to fight through. (Perhaps a little bit of influence from Fallout 4's Nuka-World expansion as well, but I really don't remember if that was a contributing part when I was first writing it up.)

As I've mentioned before, this is the part where I introduce Boreas, and he's not just a passerby in the story, he will appear later on and have a much larger role. As in the chapters he appears in, he has information about the assassin that came to kill J'onn and Martha in part eight (The Harbinger of War), and informs them that there is at least one other assassin. I won't say much here, because I don't want to spoil the surprise. :P

Other than Boreas and the Assassin (Named Chloe Kneal, who we will also see in the future with a larger role), the only other major event to happen was the reappearance of Martha. (And J'onn and Martha are finally together!)

-EDR

Princesses & Purglewumps

Selectable Princesses
Elf Princess         [+Charisma] [-Weight]
Gnome Princess  [+Stealth] [-Weight]
Dwarf Princess    [+Weight] [-Charisma]

Starting Items
Mirror         [+2 Charisma]
Necklace     [+2 Appeal]
Fake beard  [-2 Appeal]

The Different Types of Wumpus Fruit
*Note, all Wumpus fruit is always golden. The colors indicated below are the colors of the leaves that grow on Wumpus trees.* *When thrown, Wumpus fruit explode and the sweet nectar inside will attract beasts.*

Blue      [Attracts Hippogriffs]
Green    [Attracts Giant Carnivorous Moles]
Orange  [Attracts Hungry Ghosts]


Abilities
Boon of the Feyfolk    [Decreases all monsters by one size category]
Seal of the Ancestors  [Turns one enemy to stone. One use per battle]
Song of Glory              [Used as a free action. All characters take two turns this round]


Purglewumps
Size Category: M
CR: [Party's combined level / 4]
HP: 3d6
Description: Medium sized winged creatures, Purglewumps often carry off Princesses to their caves to eat them. They are instantly killed by: Water, having things dropped on top of them, lasers, and confusing situations. If a player has any amount of honey, the Purglewump will always go for that first and can be easily distracted by it.

Player Sheet [Version 1.1]


-EDR

Bleh Post

I've been having trouble with the next part of The Space Between that (Should) come out in about eleven days now (In eleven days it will be the first anniversary of posting it). But so far I've rewritten it twice, both versions being drastically different from each other. I thought what I had was good, so I moved on to December's part (November's part is already written up and ready to roll out as is, and even if I change October's part around, it won't need any modifying). When I did move on though, I realized that I had made it a goddamn clusterfuck.

I introduced two new characters, who were supposed to be the last two of the entire group, but writing December's part made me realize that with the addition of these two, especially so soon after adding Franklin, makes it so that there are just too many people in the group to properly write about them. And although I hate to admit it, it is becoming increasingly more apparent that the story would function much better without them.

Without them though, there's no real direction to go towards with that chapter. In the first draft of it, they weren't there, but there was nothing to do. Quite a few things happened, even important things that needed to be written up, but it didn't feel like anyone was doing anything. And I'm not sure how to go from that to what it needs to be. Right now I know where my destination is, but all the bridges I've come to are fucking broken.

I really would like to have something important or at least interesting for the first anniversary, but I'm not sure how to achieve it. And I want to write so much that it feels like bees buzzing inside my fingers, itching to write, but I have nothing to write. I can only hope that this somehow gets resolved soon (And possibly after finishing this post? Just vomiting words onto this blog usually helps).

It feels really strange, but it's like I can't completely clear my head, or get into the right frame of mind, or something. Who knows what will help me at this point.

-EDR

RIP Irvine (Feb. 3, 2009 - Sept. 28, 2016)

He was the best dog to ever dog.

(And a grumpy little troublemaker too.)

Sorcery and Specters In Depth

I wanted to do something a little different with Sorcery and Specters, and decided to split it between two very different and also very strange worlds. But primarily, I wrote this part as an early birthday present for my husband, who has been hounding me since I started posting this online to make a chapter/short side story where "They step into a universe and see people riding on giant spiders instead of driving cars, and Martha tries to fight one."

And as obvious from how the part starts, that happens when Stephen, Diana, Martha, and Franklin step into a world called Mok'thua. Most of what happens there is just whatever nonsense that came into my head while I was writing for it (Even with the P&P part), and it felt really good not to have to plan or take notes of what I was doing, I could just continue on.

Princesses and Purglewumps was also incredibly fun to write, mostly because I'm a D&D player myself, (and also a DM on occassion), so I already knew the basics of what would go into a game like what P&P would be. Though in P&P there's much more room for random chance, and as my husband put it, "It plays out like a point and click adventure."

As for things that happened during this, we find out a little bit more of Gull Island, and though it's been officially shut down on Earth-10061, we may hear more about it in the future. I haven't really decided yet.

(I'll also be posting another blog post later about P&P, so I'll link it from the chapter when it's up.) :P

-EDR

Alone In Depth

It wasn't easy to sort of bridge the gap after Round Table to where the Christmas chapter was going to take place, and because I wanted to have the Christmas chapter be updated in December, I had to make a sacrifice and post the Thanksgiving chapter in August. (Sorry)

Alone was one of those straightforward parts where there wasn't a whole lot of planning that needed to be done. I gave my husband the choice to add a character to the Sanctum at his discretion, and he chose Franklin Richards.

I absolutely hate Reed Richards. He's a boring character, and some (maybe all?) of his fans just make me hate him instead of being bored by him. His fans are so insistent about how he's the 'smartest man on Earth' when there's clearly quite a few who are smarter than him. Franklin for example. (I also have a huge love for Amadeus Cho, who once hacked the friggin' Baxter Building Security Network, then called up Reed Richards to call him out on betraying Bruce Banner.)

Alone, as a part, went very well, and had probably the least amount of rewritten content out of all of the parts I've written so far. And it has cranky overprotective Dad-J'onn. :)

-EDR

Overdue update

So, I know this is kind of late, but I wanted to talk about why things about The Space Between have changed recently. I consolidated all of my chapters so that each chapter on AO3 is one part in the story.

When I first started posting The Space Between I had estimated (through number crunching of what I had already written and what I had planned out) that there was going to be 18 Parts with around 181 Chapters. I recently posted Part Eleven (And I'll be linking this with Part Twelve) but I've completed writing Part Fifteen. All added together I have 121 Chapters already, and I still have a lot more to write. Right now I have up to 19 planned, with at least up to 25, and probably some more than even that.

If it was going to be ending soon, then I would have kept the chapters unconsolidated, but with the lengthening of the story, I decided that it would be better to have each part put together so there isn't a huge list for everyone to go through.

And when I started consolidating the chapters, I didn't realize that I'd be deleting the comments either (Which I still have in my inbox, because I'm a comment hoarder). I had already consolidated two or three parts by the time I realized it, and by that time it was already too late to stop.

I do appreciate everyone who reads and everyone who's left comments, and it makes me feel so happy that people actually enjoy it, because I enjoy it. I started to write it only as a means to get better at writing and at first didn't have any intention to actually publish it, but I'm really glad that I did, not just because I want people to read it, but because it's really helped my confidence by just having it out there.

I haven't written much since I was a teenager, but I really hope to change that, and I really want to both improve my writing and to write consistently. 

In sort of miscellaneous updates:

-There will be three more members coming to the Space Between (two if you're reading this after Part Twelve).

-I recently (8/3/16) hit 250 pages! (Whoo!)

(Let's hope for another 250 pages)

-Upcoming Parts:

Part Twelve: Alone (August)

Part Thirteen: Sorcery and Specters (September)

Part Fourteen: Winter's End (October)

Part Fifteen: Homecoming (November)

(Winter's End & Homecoming may be subject to swtich)

-Wars or Trek?

-EDR

Round Table In Depth

Part Eleven (Round Table) was pretty fun to write. I'm a big fan of medieval history and fantasy, so writing it came more naturally than some of the other parts. I put more time and effort into research for this part just to make sure, but I also wanted to keep it a little more comic-book-y (Which you can definitely see with how the the fight at the end of the part goes).

What isn't exactly mentioned with exception of King Arthur, Merlin, and Lancelot is that everyone of the Knights are all actual characters. (They weren't mentioned entirely because if I did, the part would just be bogged down with too much unnecessary information.) But here's the list of who is who:

King Arthur - Steve Rogers

Queen Guinevere - Gwen Stacy

Merlin - Stephen Strange

Sir Galahad - James Barnes (Bucky)

Sir Gawain - Sam Wilson

Sir Lancelot - Tony Stark

Sir Percivale - James Rhodes (Rhodey)

Sir Tristan - Clint Barton

Sir Kay - Thor

Sir Gareth - Peter Parker

Sir Bors de Ganis - T'challa

Sir Geraint - Scott Lang

Sir Bedivere - Bruce Banner

Sir Gaheris - Pietro Maximoff

Sir Lamorak - Peter Quill

Other characters that weren't mentioned (parallel wise) were Nimue (Clea), Morgan Le Fay (Natasha), and Mordred (James Rogers).

Another thing to note is that both King Arthur and Merlin have run into time-travelers before (And kind of often) and like to fuck with them, which is why it took awhile before Merlin came out and said that they knew that the Betweeners weren't who they claimed they were.

-EDR

Lost In Depth

When I first started writing about The Space Between, I had started in it's future, where the world had already been established. With a different set of characters, the characters I have now were a little bit like their predecessors, mentors, and profession superiors. Even then when it was only five of them (Kitty and Diana hadn't been added to that list until I started writing what it is now), Tony wasn't crazy.

And I also knew that even though he had started crazy and broken in the story, he, at some point, would get better. And with a telepath on the team, it would just be an eventuality that he would help repair Tony's mind.

It was always going to happen, so this part was more of a necessity than most other things I write about.

There isn't really much else to say about Lost, because the other half of lost (That doesn't deal with J'onn and Tony) is more of a continuation of Harbinger of War and Nocturna. I really do wish there was more to talk about particularly, but there isn't. :(

-EDR

Nocturna In Depth

Hopefully a quick one because I'm writing this up one the same day the last chapter of Nocturna is being uploaded.

I was actually a little less than halfway through a different part (The North Wind, which will occur later in the story and will have a substantially different direction and feel to it) when my Husband/Editor told me he didn't like the direction it was taking. I had to scrap six chapters and start over, even having to rewrite the last chapter of The Harbinger of War.

It took me awhile to think of what to do instead of the part that had been there previously, and at first considered to push up another planned part called Hex, where they ended up in the past to meet Jonah Hex. (This part may still happen later on, depending on certain things as the story continues.)

I liked the idea, but at that point the group had already gone to three DC worlds, and I wanted to wait on having them go to anymore for awhile. At least until Marvel caught up with them a little more. So I thought about it a little more and decided that maybe instead of going to the past, the past would go to them (Or something like that) and then began writing.

I wrote it all fairly quickly, with my Husband/Editor reading it chapter by chapter instead of in clumps like he usually does, to make sure that I didn't have to do anymore major rewrites or if I had to scrap the part altogether, then I'd be able to do it nearer to the beginning than with The North Wind.

I am personally a fan of Regency/Victorian era romances, so visualizing it was fun, and I didn't try to make strictly historical speech because it would have slowed down the writing and just been a huge pain to do. I did try to make it a tiny bit historically accurate, but I wanted to keep the conversations as smooth as possible.

There is also the fact that this Superman is the Red Son Superman. I did already mention that he was the Red Son Superman in my First Post here on Blogger, but this is the first time that anything relating to him actually being Red Son Superman is in the story.

Not much else can be said about this part. (Other than, look at that cool brain in a jar, I wonder where that's from.)

-EDR

The Harbinger of War In Depth

The Harbinger of War is so far the part with the most unrevealed details to it, which means I can't really talk about it too much. A few things that I can talk about:

Pepper coming back was always planned, and when my husband/editor got to it he was excited to see a little bit of continuity with an Earth that had been previously visited. At this point I'm not too sure how big of a role Sorcerer Supreme Pepper will have on the rest of the story (Other than what she's already done), and [her role] is still a little up in the air. It was nice to see a familiar face, and having them interact with someone on a long term for a change.

I had a huge change in The Harbinger of War, because for awhile it was The Harbingers of War. The original plan was for three different assassins to hit them simultaneously, one against J'onn and Martha, one against Stephen and Pepper, and one against Kal, Diana, Tony, and Kitty. My husband/editor, didn't really like it for a few reasons including that there was too much going on and there wasn't really anywhere to place emphasis. I kept only one assassin, while the two other assassins will make their debut later.

And also J'onn and Martha having their first kiss, which is sort of what I've been trying to build up for, and when I started I just couldn't wait to get there. When I first started The Space Between, it was set in the future, and even then I always knew that J'onn and Martha were going to be paired together, so it was always going to happen.

The last thing is something that doesn't even appear in this part, which is the changed last chapter. In the original, another unknown character ended up in the Sanctum, but was changed halfway through Part Nine. The character will still make an appearance, but not until at least Part Twelve (Subject to change)

Some details that will be revealed/expanded upon later:
The Eye of Ages will come into play in a larger way later on
The identity of the assassin (And the other two assassins that have yet to debut)
The identity of the previous owner of the Eye of Ages
Other things you probably wonder about

-EDR

Ghosts In Depth

Ghosts (Part Seven of The Space Between) was one of those parts that I always knew I was going to do. I may not have had it planned out step by step with all of the little details planned ahead of time, but I always sort of knew something like it was going to happen.

The basis for this Earth was the inversion of heroes and villains, not unlike Earth-3, even though it isn't outwardly obvious (Mostly due to the fact that events that happen in Ghosts is before the time of the Justice League/Crime Syndicate).

And a lot of Ghosts sets up for later things, so I will not be giving away all of my secrets relating to Part Seven.

The first thing is the original location that they appear in, Crime Alley. It serves both to shock Martha and to make her believe that this may be her Earth. As J'onn is the only one who knows her backstory (Through deductive reasoning by simply knowing Batman's origin) it was easy for her to convince him to help her.

After being discovered, Martha makes a split second decision to stay on this Earth, despite it not being her real Earth. J'onn also makes a decision to make sure that Martha comes back to the Sanctum, but would not allow himself to remove her by force, instead he turns to trying to reason with her by finding the real Martha Wayne.

Originally, Thomas had killed Martha, as she had been asking too many questions about his business partners, but my Editor (/Husband) had high objections to that, so I rewrote it to better suit Thomas's anger at Martha's return.

The emotional distress that Martha experiences at the end of Ghosts sets up for the events of Part Eight (The Harbinger of War).

At the same time, two other important things happen: Kitty gets a pug puppy she names Pompey (Named after William the Silent's pug) and a conversation between Stephen and Diana that hints that they may be a couple in the future (Which this is the case unless it is changed at the very last minute. Which sometimes things do, and it really isn't anyone's fault.) (Kal and Kitty seeing Stephen and Diana also supports this claim, as it is the two from the future, who came to the Earth, although accidentally in the same time period that they had come the first time, to fulfill that promise they made under the mistletoe. And the reason Stephen allows Kitty to have a puppy is because he is from the future and already knows that she has a puppy.)

There's not a lot of other stuff to say about Ghosts. :/

-EDR

Honor and Prophecy In Depth

Honor and Prophecy was a really fun part to write. It has Hellboy, Abe, Liz, a Griffin, a witch coven resurrecting their Witch Queen, and a whole lot of witch puns.

I originally wanted to write this because, well, why not? And that's what I really sort of want out of writing the Space Between, is that I can put whatever and I want and have them do or fight whatever I want them to. This specifically was great because I was able to sort of move away (temporarily) from superheroes into something more supernatural, which there's not going to be a lot of.

At the beginning I knew that I wanted to explain in my own way why John Myers got reassigned to Antartica in between the first and second Hellboy movies. And no reassignment can go without a going away party, and no going away party can go without beer and cake.

I also had a whole backstory about the Witches, the Griffin, the Book of Merlin, and Merlin's last descendant planned out. (Which is as follows)

Some hundreds of years after Merlin and Arthur, the last of Merlin's bloodline, Branwen, inherited the Llyfr Myrddin o Hud (The Book of Merlin) and began to travel around the countryside, befriending all manner of mythological creatures, including the Griffin, and filling in what few blanks Merlin's book had.

The Griffin became her travelling companion, and they eventually fell in love.

Unfortunately, while travelling through Wales, Branwen was attacked by a coven being led by Queen Esyllt. The Book of Merlin was stolen and Branwen was sacrificed to give Queen Esyllt more power. The Griffin ultimately killed the Witch Queen, and as punishment for his inability to protect Branwen, hid the Book of Merlin in the woods near Tintern and now roams the same woods to protect it.

In early 1967, the Griffin received word of a special meeting of his race, which mainly concerned the hunting and near extinction their species was being faced with at the time.

At the same time, a young woman named Mary who regularly went into the woods to pick wild food, took another path than she usually had and accidentally found the Book of Merlin. She took it back to her house and read a little bit of it before she went to sleep last night. During her sleep she had horrific nightmares that tormented her and led her to believe that the object was cursed. 

Mary first asked a Priest to exorcise it, but he didn't really believe that the book was cursed. She tried to burn it, but then it wouldn't burn. She took it to the ruins of Tintern Abbey, which was a common place in her nightmares and Mary believed that if she took it there and 'gave it back' that she'd be able to get rid of the curse.

By doing so she instead gave power back to the witches, who in turn sacrificed her, and several other young women in Tintern, to resurrect Queen Esyllt.

When women began to disappear, the Priest that Mary had sought out contacted a group of Witch Hunters, who were in turn acquainted with Doctor Bruttenholm and a Professor Sterling. (OMC - A minor Wizard who specialized in Occultism and often helped Witch Hunters. His daughter, also Professor Sterling, has a little bit of magical sensitivity. She can feel magic, but she has no real knack at casting.)

The group tracked the kidnappings to the ruins of Tintern Abbey, and slew Queen Esyllt. Doctor Bruttenholm took the book with him for safe keeping.

The Griffin had arrived in time to see the end of what had happened, and knew that Bruttenholm would keep the book safe for many years. He continued to live in the woods around Tintern up to the beginning of the part.

There are a few minor things that happen during the part that are important to note:

- Earth-1617105 was not just picked out of a hat or grabbed from a random number generator, it's actually the date that Hellboy was conceived, October 5, 1617.

- The line 'A cold wind, is blowing from the North.', that the Griffin says to Kitty isn't just gibberish, it's a prophecy. I can't really say much more than that without spoiling something that's coming up, but it's not just something dumb and out of place.

-EDF

'Unity' In Depth

I wrote 'Unity' specifically on request by my husband/editor, who said that everything had been going too fast in the previous parts and it needed to slow down a little. And a change of pace was welcomed for me, since there were a few other reasons I wanted to write something like this.

This is only one of two parts that has a chapter for every single 'main' character (The other is 'The Wastes'), but is the only part where each character has only one chapter. This allowed me a little wiggle room as I could focus more on each character individually and not have to worry about the overarching plot of that part.

Without them jumping to another Earth or anything happening (Like in part 'The Harbinger of War' and 'Nocturna' [Which hasn't been uploaded as of writing this]) I was also able to write more of how they interact with each other and how they think of the others that they live with, and even get an insight into Diana's feelings and thoughts fresh after arriving.

I know all this isn't really that groundbreaking, but it's a pretty straightforward part. I just liked being able to write them in their living situation and what they do when they aren't looking for food or tech or fighting off monsters and witches.

-EDR

'The Wastes' In Depth

I've been thinking about writing something else up for the blog, but I keep thinking, what else is there for me to write about? And besides, I made this for the sole purpose of talking about my fanfiction. Even if no one reads this ever, it's still helpful to actually write through some things and just let my mind wander and my fingers type whatever they want.

So, anyways, Part Four of The Space Between, aka 'The Wastes'. It's actually two stories told side by side, one of the Betweeners (Stephen, Kal, Kitty, J'onn, Martha, and Tony) trying to not only scavenge, but survive a post-apocalyptic Earth, and the other following Diana/Wonder Woman as she lives through the events that lead up to it becoming a post-apocalyptic Earth. (This was originally conceived as an Earth that takes place in the Fallout universe, but I thought against it, since I wanted to add Diana and didn't have any other good storylines to introduce her, so I combined it a little)

Unfortunately for Diana, I think I left out a few important bits of information, or maybe it's not so obvious as I'd like it to be, so I'll retell the events here, but very plainly.

The first thing that happens is Bruce Wayne's assassination, which was carried out by Deadshot (Floyd Lawton), under the instruction of Amanda Waller (Who in turn had been provided false information that Bruce Wayne was laundering money that was being used to fund the various escapes at Arkham over the years, and this information had been brought to her by Hugo Strange).

After his death, Martian Manhunter stepped in to be Batman (Dick Grayson, who would've stepped into the role himself, but was doing deep undercover reconnaissance in Russia.) Simultaneously to this, Superman put Gotham in lockdown in everything but name, and set the entire League in search of Deadshot.

Soon disagreements between Martian Manhunter and Superman broke out, over how criminals were to be dealt with from then on, and separated the League into nearly half. Most stayed with the League, and others joined Martian Manhunter, disguised as Batman, in his new group called The Outsiders, who went about their own investigation into Bruce Wayne's death. The group found that everyone involved in his death had 'coincidentally' died themselves, most from hemorrhaging in the brain. This, along with Superman's death grip on the country and his erratic behavior, led Martian Manhunter, the Question, and Lex Luthor to believe that Superman had been the one to tip off Hugo Strange to Batman's true identity, thus starting the catalyst that would end in the Dark Knights' death.

Simultaneously to their investigation was reports from several countries of Superman stealing nuclear bombs, though none of these countries could actually prove it with any video evidence. Raised tensions in Russia lead to a thorough sweep of all facilities and thorough background checks of all high-leveled personnel. This led to the death of Dick Grayson, and to Superman becoming even more erratic in his behavior.

The eyewitnesses had actually seen Superman, but it wasn't the real Superman, but Ares in disguise. This didn't cross anyone's mind, as the real Superman assumed that it was Martian Manhunter trying to discredit him, and Martian Manhunter thinking it was Superman preparing for some sort of end game.

At some point in time, Circe, Ares' most current lover, had killed Hawkgirl and taken her place in the League without anyone the wiser, pretending to be scared of Superman, when in actuality she was pulling the strings that had led Superman to believe some of the other Leaguers were traitors, which is how Hawkman had ended up on the suicide mission that had ended his life.

The rest is pretty plain in the chapters themselves, Diana meets up with the Outsiders, Ares goads the rest of the world into war and lures Diana to Themyscira (And likewise luring both Leaguers and Outsiders to vastly different locations where they would be no help to anyone, and wouldn't be able to stop the launching of the worlds' nuclear weapons) where her mother, Hippolyta, uses a Medusa Amulet to turn Diana into a statue to save her life.

Everything else is pretty much self explanatory, yes?

-EDR

Interlude

I know I've begun to detail more things about the different parts I thought I'd interlude with something else for a little bit. Most of this is probably just babble to just help me work things out, because things always get worked out better when you're able to express your thoughts physically instead of trying to sort them all in your brain.

Currently I'm having trouble keeping up with how much I post. I really hope that I'll be able to update three times a week, but the buffer that I was able to create before I actually posted the first chapter and throughout November and December have been waning quickly. So far posting three times a week means that I've been publishing twelve to fourteen chapters per month, but in January I only wrote five chapters, and only seven in February. (I had actually written eleven chapters in February, but four of them had to be scrapped for re-writes that I have had to do this month.)

But really all this post is dealing with is trying to convince myself that I either need to spend more time writing (Which I'd rather not do because I don't want to burn myself out on it) or decrease the number of chapters I publish down to two a week, or even one a week. I don't really want to do this either, but it seems I may have no choice considering that I only have about a fourteen chapter buffer currently.

If I am unable to finish more chapter this month to at least meet how many chapters I've published, I will decrease it down to two a week during the month of April, posting every Tuesday and Friday instead of Sundays as well. The current part (Part Nine) that I am rewriting the last two chapters of is called 'Nocturna' and after it will be (Part Ten) that will be 'Lost', and then a short story to serve as The Space Between's first Interlude.

If I am unable to write as many chapters as I publish during April, then the Interlude with be the beginning of a hiatus, in which I will use a month's time to not only rebuild my buffer, but to take a short break in order to keep the story from becoming stale. If all goes according to this plan, the Interlude will be published in mid-June and I'll probably restart publishing in mid to late July. 

Even if I am able to write an equal number of chapters to what I publish, I may go with this plan anyways, I personally feel that I've been relying too much on DC and Marvel properties, as I have yet to write anything outside of it besides the Hellboy chapters. The original intent was not for it to be exclusively DC or Marvel, but for whatever Sci-fi stories I wanted. I haven't really been able to do that so far, and I'd like to take some time off to be able to work some of these things out. Currently, Nocturna, Lost, and the Interlude are all inwardly set, so we won't be seeing any new worlds or characters for the time being.

After the Interlude I have basically no options other than parts that only drive forward the story of the villain (Who has yet to be revealed so I won't spoil anything) or other important elements of the story, with nothing in between as a 'cool-down period' or anything to add to the group itself.

Currently I have one other core member that has yet to be added, but he may not make it because he's a DC/Marvel character and I'd like to have some differences in the core group. (The core group, including any that will be added in later chapters of this first 'book' will become something different in the 'books' to come.)

I do have a few ideas of new members that are not DC/Marvel characters, but I have yet to narrow them down or come up with an interesting/logical way to incorporate them.

TL:DR Things might change.

-EDR

'Hero' In Depth

The third part, 'Hero', of The Space Between is really a straight-forward of what I wanted it to be. It's set on an Earth that takes place roughly twenty years after the events of 'All-Star Superman' or something similar.

I really wanted to use it to focus a little more on Kal-L and Tony, since Part Two was about Stephen, J'onn, Martha, and Kitty.

There's not really much to say, at least as far as background goes, and I will admit that I'm not overly proud of the part as a whole. But it was a necessary part, in the fact that it shows the group acting as a group in their first outing together. It also introduces the nanites (which, even though they have yet to be mentioned again, will return in much later chapters), and has my Husband/Editors' favorite part, the 'Parallel Bat-Fight'.

It may be revamped in the future, and if/when I do, I'll make another post about it that (hopefully) goes into greater length and detail.

-EDR

'The First Jump' In Depth

In my first post I introduced myself and talked a little bit about The Space Between and about the characters within it and how they became involved in the story. Since I wanted to talk in depth about each part, and the introductory post covered most (if not all) of the Prologue, I thought that I'd skip to Part Two: 'The First Jump'.

After the original five characters meet, they decide on what they will be doing; surviving in the Between, which isn't easy because they have no renewable sources. Or any sources at all for that matter. Which means that they need to jump to other worlds just to even do their shopping.

The First Jump, as you may have guessed, is their first outing to another universe. Like most of their jumps, they gather as much food, water, technology, clothing, books, etc. Whatever they need, they need to travel through the dimensions to get it. And with Martha's want of finding her own universe, they decide to try to visit as many different Earths as possible.

The prompt I got for this world (From my husband) was 'Magic and Technology are switched'. So I thought of it more of, what if Tony Stark were a sorcerer and Stephen Strange were a wealthy man who made Iron Man suits? And from that thought, the story unfolded before me.

Not much of the plot was rewritten, it (for the most part) stayed intact to what I wanted it to be. The biggest change from initially writing it to rewriting that chapter was the Kitty Pryde chapter. When I had written it, it was about J'onn and Martha going to the Xavier Mansion, and asking the X-Men for help to save Stephen. Kitty was already a grown woman, and a member of the X-Men, who went with Wolverine and Jean Grey to stop the clearly mad Sorcerer Supreme Tony Stark.

This iteration of her would have eventually joined the group of the Space Between, but not until much, much later (At that point it had been planned for Book Two). But my Husband (/Editor) was unsatisfied with that, so I wrote what is now J'onns' chapter, where he and Martha end up in Mt. Vernon, NY for a short amount of time.

Then the idea struck me to make her a young orphan that was sort of a reluctant thief, being chased by mutant-hunters. This made it so that she would have a better reason to join them than I could have probably come up with later, and the group would have had more reason to accept her.

In the end, the Sorcerer Supreme Tony dies, and the mirror Pepper Potts (Who is just Pepper on this Earth, and takes the place of Clea as a Faltine Princess), becomes Sorcerer Supreme after him, and the first real ally of the 'Betweeners'. I hadn't really fully planned for all of that, but as soon as it was written down I knew that it was the right thing to happen. This version of Pepper will appear again in the story, although to what extent I can't be sure of yet.

-EDR

First Post Introduction

This blog is mostly a place where I talk about my fan fiction The Space Between, which is up on my AO3 along with a few other things. I may also talk about what I'm currently watching or reading at the time. (I'm currently making my way through The Far Kingdoms by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch)

First to introduce myself: I'm a 25-year-old married woman, who currently lives out of a closet, and is impatiently awaiting the day that the Automatron dlc for Fallout 4 drops. My husband is my editor, and has so far facilitated the re-write of just less than half of what has been written so far.

The story is about both DC and Marvel characters who have ended up in a place that they eventually dub The Space Between, because it is sort of like a pocket dimension that exists between already existing universes. As they travel to other dimensions they will meet up with both alternate universes of DC and Marvel comics, movies, shows, etc. and even other comic characters, like Dark Horses' Hellboy (Albeit based on the Hellboy movies rather than the comics) or other SciFi stories like Star Wars, Star Trek, Men in Black, Stargate, Halo, Fallout, Ender's Game, Ghost in the Shell, Niven's Ringworld, etc. Basically just a huge dump of whatever I want into a story of parallel-universe jumping. (And suggestions are always welcome, I already have a long list of things I want to watch that may or may not make it into the story itself.)

The story that is up now will eventually be re-titled as Book One, once it's finished, of course, and Book Two is already in the pre-planning stages.

The main characters of Book One are Martha Wayne, Tony Stark, J'onn J'onzz, Doctor Stephen Strange, Kal-L, Kitty Pryde, and Diana of Themyscira. (Other main characters have yet to join the crew, but there will be at least one more to join the 'Betweeners')

Martha Wayne is the Batwoman of her Earth, on an Earth similar to both Earth-11 (Where the Justice League has been gender flipped) and Flashpoint's alternate Earth. In this timeline Bruce was killed in Crime Alley instead of his parents, like what had happened during the events of Flaspoint. Instead of Thomas becoming Batman and Martha going insane, it's flipped, where Martha becomes Batwoman and Thomas becomes beyond help and is remanded to Arkham Asylum, and eventually dies.

Other notable differences include Kara Zor-El and Kal-El arriving on Earth at the same time (In the same ship, where Kara held her baby cousin) and were both found by the Kents. This difference in age makes it so that Kara becomes Superwoman and Clark becomes Superboy.

Tony Stark comes from an Earth that is directly parallel to the first Avengers Movie (Earth-199999), but during the climax of the film, when Tony goes through the portal to stop the chitauri, it changes time, so time on Earth continues, which allows the chitauri to ravage the planet to human extinction even though the mother ship has been destroyed just a few seconds earlier. When Tony falls back through the portal he's in fact in the future, and has to come to terms with the fact that he is the last of his planet.

He then pours his time into creating a portal to another dimension, after remembering a theory (By Reed Richards) he had heard during his college years that there were Earths parallel to them. It takes him more than twenty years (Plus a few robotic replacements for lost limbs/extremities) before he is able to make any sort of trip with his machine. When the rest of the group meets him, he is not the same man that everyone knows him as.

J'onn comes from an Earth that is set far into the future. He lives in isolation from the rest of the world, though not for lack of trying. He no longer knows any of his friends from the Justice League days, the only one who has lived as long as he has is Superman, who lives off-world with his children and grandchildren. J'onn, during the re-settlement of the Earth, is still vying to be a hero, but is brushed off by the newer generation of heroes and humans.

Doctor Stephen Strange lives on an Earth that is closely related to Earth-2772 (The universe of Doctor Strange: The Sorcerer Supreme animated movie of 2007). He meets and befriends a Doctor Strange of a parallel universe, who teaches him to jump through the universes to gain his trust, then destroys Stephen's Earth. He is only able to escape by expending all of his magic (While also being fed magic by the Sanctum Sanctorum itself) and transporting the whole Sanctum into the Space Between, where all of our heroes meet.

Kal-L is the last of the main group, who comes from Earth-30 (Red Son). There isn't that much to explain about him if you've already read it, but it is a parallel Earth where instead of landing in Kansas, he ends up landing in the Ukraine. (SPOILERS) At the end of the story, Kal-L disappears in an explosion during a fight with Brainiac, but returns later, disguised, and never comes back as Superman to the public again. In my version of it, Kal ends up teleporting to the Sanctum Sanctorum, like the rest of the group, but his suit is badly damaged, so no one knows that he isn't actually American. (END SPOILERS)

These five, through one way or another, find themselves in the 'Space Between', and even further, they find themselves in the Sanctum Sanctorum, and must work together to jump from parallel world to parallel world to sustain themselves. The only one who has a clear and decisive motive is Martha, who wants to find her way back to her own Earth.

Kitty Pryde and Diana of Themyscira, who join the others later (In part two and part four respectively) couldn't be more opposite. Diana is a very traditional sort of take on Wonder Woman, with a combination of both comic book and tv series (Justice League / Unlimited, and Young Justice) personalities. Kitty could not be further away from her counterparts, where she is orphaned, hunted, and turns to thievery just to survive. What I believe to be her core character is intact: She is a young genius with an incredible sense of curiosity (That hopefully won't kill this cat ;P).

And after relating all of that, I must confess that I only began to write for this project/universe because I hoped that by doing so I'll become a better writer. I was originally inspired by AuraChannelerChris, who began and still writes The Subspace Emissary's Worlds Conquest, the longest piece of fiction to date with now over 4 million words.

I haven't personally read The Subspace Emissary's Worlds Conquest, but only because I'm not really a player/fan/follower of Super Smash Brothers. I have, however, read an interview with AuraChannelerChris, where he says that he first began to write for it to learn English. He really inspired me to actually begin writing down the dreams I had that eventually became The Space Between. It may never reach 4 million words, but hopefully it will help me become a better writer.

The original version of the story wasn't going to start off the way it is, it was going to begin in these characters' futures, and would follow their children (Or, in particular, one of their children) as he worked his way through the world that The Space Between will eventually become. I wrote the first five chapters (Part One: 'Prologue') to gain a better understanding of the origins of that universe, but decided that their story was too good to just skip over.

So, to conclude this post before it gets too long, I've got a fan fiction, and I'm going to talk about it here.

-EDR