"SCATTERED"

Author's Notes & Commentary

If you're a first-time reader, I hope you've enjoyed this. If you're a returning reader, welcome back!

Recently, I've been going back to my older work to revisit, revise, and maybe even add to my old works. This story, first published in the year 2000 and last updated in February of '01, was only my 2nd foray into the world of fanfiction. I've written six in all, and this is one of the more popular ones. Not bad for a sophomore effort!

Inspiration

At the same time that I was working on my first fanfic, "Resurrection" (another Digimon story), I was also working on a novel. I did eventually complete that book, but there's a reason you've never heard of it: it was a huge piece of crap.

However, its importance as far as fanfiction was concerned was that I recognized my own lack of skills in writing. I had difficulties with shifts in tone, with dialogue, and working with a given genre, and so I thought I would practice those skills in fanfiction before bringing it to my "real" work. The result was a piece of experimental writing that tried to blend several different ideas into one cohesive whole: "SCATTERED."

I began by taking the characters from Digimon, all wholly developed, and tried to imagine how they would react if placed into situations that were wildly different from their original universe. The main advantage of fanfiction, after all, is that you're working with other people's characters and your audience has an idea of what to expect. In other words, give the reader something old, but with a fresh spin. The easiest way to do that was to use crossovers. With that in mind, I established two overarching principles for the story:

1. The characters from "Digimon" will act in character to their new environments

2. The new universes will maintain their original characteristics.

I mostly held to these ideas, though the "Oz" chapter, in retrospect, doesn't really strike me as very "Oz-y." L. Frank Baum would be pissed, but I'll get to that part of the story later.

Choosing the right universes was another step. I needed to choose ones that would be recognizable, but also ones that felt like they presented genuine obstacles to kids with magical transforming monsters. The obvious crossover that everyone back in the day was doing was with "Pokemon," but let's be honest: the shows share the suffix "-mon" in their names, and that's pretty much where the similarities end. Every Digimon/Pokemon crossover I've ever seen is horribly unbalanced: digimon are just plain stronger than pokemon. I also considered doing Dragonball, but the same problem came up: super saiyans are way stronger than digimon.

In addition to balancing the challenges the worlds would present with the strength of the digimon, I realized that I needed to choose worlds that had distinct tones. To make the story work, I needed to write each world in a way that felt true. This allowed me to explore different genres and tones in a way that seemed natural. By simply letting the world be itself and the characters be themselves, the story could evolve naturally.

A common critique of the story is that it has a weak frame story. It's a fair criticism and I'll address that, but for now, I'll explain each of the main sections of the story.

Izzy's Tale: "Angst"

The 'net is lousy with fanfiction that is nothing but the characters being emo. What made the original "Digimon" series (and a few of the later seasons) good was the ability to explore the characters' emotions through very difficult situations and having their emotional well-being tie in to their success in battle. By embracing their true natures and becoming better people, they triumph. It was angsty, even corny, but it was done right.

Originally, I thought about having Izzy do a crossover, but it seemed better to just let him act in the role he always does: moving the plot along with technobabble. His story needed to be short and serve as a useful transition between the frame story and the crossovers, which meant that it needed to tie in to the others. Still, the idea was to experiment with different writing styles, and that meant there still needed to be some sort of conflict, some kind of story worth telling. I had already settled on the worlds for the others, and felt that they would be fun and interesting, but they lacked drama and emotional depth. So, I decided poor Izzy would need to suffer, and the most painful part of his backstory is the death of his biological family.

After settling on that, the story came together without much trouble. Reviewers seemed to genuinely sympathize with Izzy's terrible dilemma, and while in retrospect I now find it a bit cloying, it is still a fairly emotional and dark part of the story that helped me learn to write such scenes better in the future. The main problem is that, when you break it down, the story is a lot of emotion and not much substance. Though it was relevant to the plot in the end, the story can be summed up as "Izzy can't change his past, and then later he figures out how to get everyone back." These two events aren't very well connected, so ultimately it falls into the same category of a lot of angsty fanfiction: there is angst, and there is plot, but they are almost incidental.

In short, I failed to follow the same model as the original series. Oops.

Still, I decided not to try and mess with the story and leave that disconnection alone while revising the chapter. I added some formatting, changed some words and punctuation, but it's pretty much the same as it was a decade ago. It's a good reminder of what NOT to do in the future, and, since the idea was to learn something from writing the story, I can still technically call it a success.

Matt & TK's Tale: "Satire"

And here we come to one of the two favorite chapters. Everyone seems to like this one, and I have to admit it was a lot of fun writing it.

The idea for doing a Digimon/South Park crossover came from offhandedly noticing that the kids in South Park were 8 years old, and so was TK. I chuckled to myself thinking how ridiculous it would be to have TK hanging around with Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman and the story more or less went from there.

There's not really a lot to say about this chapter. "New Kids in Town" is basically the idea that the South Park universe is crude and really messed up and there are really only two ways to react to it: by butting your head against it, like Matt does; or just shrugging your shoulders and going along with it, which is what happens to TK. This is why everyone besides TK is eager to leave while TK is slowly "corrupted" by his new friends. This was meant to be something of a satirical comment on the idea that TV corrupts fragile minds (an idea that would get explored ad nauseum in the South Park movie). It was also meant to satirize how serious Digimon sometimes takes itself as a show, which is why Matt, Gabumon, and Patamon suffer one indignity after another as they try to play by their old rules in a universe that just doesn't give a damn.

There's a general rule in comedy that the more serious the butt of a joke takes himself, the funnier the punchline is. That's probably why people like this chapter the best and why I have yet to top myself for a joke funnier than "And this is what Gabumon would look like with four asses."

I have to admit, I was afraid the foul language and adult situations thrown in with a kid's cartoon would get a bad response. Then again, nobody commented on the joke about Gatomon never liking to be petted, which tells me people either didn't get it or didn't think it was funny. Either way, I'm surprised nobody ever commented on it, considering it's the dirtiest joke in there. Still, I'm glad people mostly got the jokes and got what I was going for in this chapter. It allowed me to try to be a bit more adult in some of my later work as I tried to do crude humor without it becoming totally unsavory, although the running gag of one of the Penthouse models looking like Mimi got me a bit of flack at the end. But what the heck, I still think it's pretty funny.

For revisions, I actually stopped censoring myself and "unbleeped" a few swear words and even added a few more jokes. I also felt I wrote Butters' cameo appearance a bit out of character, so I updated that as well. Other than those changes and a few grammar changes, it's mostly the same.

Joe's Tale: "Fantasy/Mystery"

The "Myst" games are some of my absolute favorite games of all time. I fondly recall playing the original Myst and Riven games with my father and I really wanted to do something based in that world. The problem was that it wasn't one of those things that I thought most people would know about, and unlike the other stories, it drew a lot from the expanded universe found in the novels and other lore, not the original games. Joe was the perfect guy for a Myst crossover, since he's a bit of a bookworm and typically not the action hero type, so it made sense for him to be in a more cerebral environment.

The thing about the Myst series is that it's about minute details and puzzles, and I tried to incorporate both concepts into this chapter. It required a lot more description and world building and that left Joe in a position to do some sleuthing to undo the mistakes he made as a stranger to the world. It's in his character to take responsibility for things, especially things he feels he's done wrong.

The tricky thing was to balance the amount of world building and explanation with actual story, because while this chapter follows a slower pace, I wanted it to still move quickly enough and be interesting enough to hold the reader's attention. Not everyone likes Myst and I wanted there to be a worthwhile story for those who chose to read this chapter nonetheless.

Still, this chapter required a lot of cleanup. The big problem was that the original chapter took place in Tomahna, but that's the name of Atrus's private residence, while his people, the D'ni, reside in the age of Releeshahn. This was a mistake I made from reading The Book of D'ni, a novel based on the Myst series, but later Myst games made things much more clear and gave me a better idea of how to depict the age. It also contains a now outdated device: the Trap Book. Myst IV would rewrite that part of the story, but it means whole parts of the original series don't make sense without them, so I generally ignore that. Still, it's really something to think that 3 more Myst sequels and an MMO have come out since I wrote this story and there were only two games in the series. (For the record, the Myst MMO is free to play and open source. Look up Uru: Myst Online and you should be able to find it. Bring a friend to join you, it's got a bit of a learning curve, but a real experience to play nonetheless with some challenging puzzles and gorgeous music.)

Another problem was with the original climax where Joe battles Gehn in his machine. Originally, I described it as having eight hydraulic legs and looking like a spider. One reviewer commented that I must have seen the movie "Wild Wild West" before writing the chapter. In truth, I hadn't, but after seeing the movie and seeing how widely mocked the idea was (Kevin Smith sheds some light on its origin in his speech/movie "An Evening With Kevin Smith," for the record), I realized it was impossible not to draw that conclusion and it had to be revised.

So, there you go: no more giant robot spider. It has four legs. Think one of the Weapons from Final Fantasy if you must draw a comparison.

Mimi & Kari's Tale: "Crack Fic"

As I said, originally the plan was to preserve the feel of each world and have the characters from "Digimon" react to their environments.

This is the chapter where I pretty much said "Screw it!" and tried to write as many dumb gags as I could. In the revision process, I actually took time to throw in a few more gags where I felt one was lacking. So, yeah, I made this dumb chapter even dumber.

I initially chose "The Wizard of Oz" because I thought it would be a neat "girly" chapter that would let Mimi and Kari, y'know, be… girls. The problem with having a chapter set in a movie musical universe was that it wouldn't feel the same without songs, and text just sort of fails when it comes to adding music. To make up for it, I made Mimi's drug-induced fantasy an Aerosmith song and made fun of the Yellow Brick Road song. Doesn't really cut the mustard, I know, but it did the trick and I thought it was funny.

That brings me to the common criticism of the chapter: it's stupid.

It's pretty much pointless, yes, but after realizing that I wasn't going to get a very "Oz" type of story out of it, I just settled on being as goofy as I could and that worked out fine.

Still, I did actually think of adding parody songs, so here's some bonus content: I initially thought of adding songs like "If I Only Had a Brain," and of course it would be at Mimi's expense. While I never added one, here's what I had in mind in the planning stage:

(To the tune of "If I Only Had a Brain")

MIMI

Life is sad, believe me, Kari

When you have to say you're sorry

For causing others pain.

If I knew much more than fashion

I'd avoid some good tongue-lashings

If I only had a brain!

I would rid myself of vices

And stop breaking devices

That drive Izzy insane.

KARI

You could wear the thickest glasses

Not be a huge pain in our asses

If you only had a brain!

And so on. I also came up with one for Kari, but I tried to think of what she was lacking and, well since she's 8…

KARI

Life is rough, believe me, Mimi

Whenever others see me

And think that I'm a n00b.

Disrespect I'd get from no man,

Not a girl, I'd be a woman

If I only had some boobs!

But yeah, after one verse I figured that was just one shade of wrong too much. I also felt it was a bit too cruel: Mimi isn't exactly bright, but she often gets pigeonholed into being the token dumb character. She's pretty dense in this story too, but I could only go so far for a gag. Likewise for Kari; she's 8, and that's probably too young to care if you have tatas. Neither song made it into the final chapter and if you don't think these samples are that funny, well, neither do I. Consider this a peek at the kind of thing that ends up on the cutting room floor, so to speak.

One final thing I did change was I let the Irritable Witch of the South live. Originally, Rosemon killed her, but after everything I put her through, each indignity and stupid joke, not to mention she's fighting two of the least violence-inclined characters in the show, it seemed too harsh to kill her off. So, instead, she calls it quits and lets the girls keep the shoes.

Who says I'm not a nice guy? :)

Tai and Sora's Tale: "Adventure/Romance"

I knew from the start I wanted to have Tai and Sora in the same universe. I just like the two of them together. They're fun to watch when they get along well or when they bicker, so I thought I'd put them in an extreme situation to let them react off of each other. Since I knew it would be the last crossover in the story, I wanted it to be a big one that would be recognizable by just about everyone, and Jurassic Park was not only one of my favorite movies, it was a well-known blockbuster that pretty much everyone I knew had seen.

After I chose the universe, though, I had second thoughts. "Wait a minute," I said, "why would I put them in a universe where dinosaurs are trying to kill them? How is that much different from their regular universe? Hell, Agumon and his forms pretty much are dinosaurs!"

Then I realized that, with the exception of the very early episodes, Digimon was mostly a superhero show whereas Jurassic Park was about survival. The dinosaurs on the island weren't interested in banter or conquest, they were interested in lunch. Eventually, this was reflected in the dialogue. As Sora says:

"I keep thinking that these dinosaurs are almost worse than the evil digimon we've fought before," she said. "I mean, I know they're not evil, they're just trying to survive, like we are, but that makes them even more dangerous in some ways. With enemies like the Dark Masters, it was always a presented battle. They usually came around bragging or challenging us, or tried to toy with us first. That usually gave us time to think, time to strategize, to put up a decent fight. These creatures aren't giving us any warning or taunts or playing any games. They're just trying to eat us."

By keeping the digimon hungry and the humans on constant alert in an abandoned and broken Jurassic Park, I think I managed to create an environment that was genuinely threatening and qualitatively different from the original show. No society, no games, just chaos, looking for food, and surviving. A return to base instincts and stripping away the thin veneer of society.

That's when I realized that this would probably result in our two young protagonists' hormones going into overdrive and their inhibitions not being quite up to their usual levels. In other words, there was an ideal chance to practice writing some romance.

This was the first time I ever tried to write it, so I had to decide how far I wanted to go with it. I've talked about writing romance in other works, like my popular Tai/Sora romance story "Behind Your Eyes," so I'll be brief here about my feelings on the subject. When it comes to young characters, I find myself taken out of a story if things are overly gushy or emotional or, even worse, physical. Tai and Sora are eleven. I wanted it to be sweet, inexperienced and endearing, but still make it more serious than a simple case of puppy love. I threw both characters in harm's way, having both Tai and Sora come very close to dying and letting them deal with their mortality by tossing their caution to the wind and being honest about their feelings. Additionally, I figured the adrenaline rushes would make them… er, friskier.

So, there's some perviness on Tai's part as he gets Agumon to sneak a peek at Sora's underthings, but there is also admittance of their worry about each other and expressing their desires to stick by each other in a strange world should they be unable to return home.

I'm really proud of the chapter. It has some of the best raw emotion, sex, innocence, violence, and some really great hero moments from every character. It was very important to me that nobody was completely helpless. Too many action/romance stories make a character a hapless damsel (or male equivalent, occasionally) that needs to be rescued. But Tai and Sora are both very smart, very brave, and fairly athletic, so it would have felt artificial to, for example, have Sora needing constant protection from Tai when she is perfectly capable of handling herself. People seem to appreciate that, so I can be happy that I achieved my overall goals for this story. It feels balanced and I think the pacing turned out well. Feedback on this chapter made it a favorite after the South Park chapter and I'm very grateful to all the reviewers who gave such positive feedback. I felt really bolstered by its success and decided later on to give a shot at writing a full-length romantic story. The result was "Behind Your Eyes," and if you enjoy Tai/Sora shipping, you'd probably enjoy it.

For changes in the revised edition, I added formatting to the story, tightened a small portion of some of the dialogue, cut out some of the cheesiness (more from the narrative voice than from the original dialogue that mostly turned out well), and I added some extra romance to the scene with Sora and Tai in the tree. Nothing extreme, but the original scene went by a little too quickly, so I slowed down the pace, added some more description, and I think the updated scene is a more realistic and touching moment. I hope you find it enjoyable.

The End: Why it Kinda Sucks

Like I said initially, "SCATTERED" was meant as an experiment. The main point was to practice writing different elements, tones, etc. The frame story is primarily there to put the characters into wacky crossovers.

The problem is that while the introduction could be silly and serve as an excuse to the story, after all the things the characters went through, the finale was pretty anticlimactic. It's the most common criticism of the story, and I knew it was true when I was writing it. That's why Joe makes wisecracks about the flimsiness of the plot and how easily MiniApocalymon is defeated. Once all the crossovers were finished, I was pretty much out of steam and just wanted to end the story. Instead of putting a lot of effort into it, I just tried to wrap it up and go with a good old-fashioned status quo reset.

So, for those of you who hate the ending… I'm sorry, but it still sucks. I just wanted to end on a laugh and that was good enough for me at the time.

However, while doing this update, I did think about how I might improve the ending. While I think changing the ending as it stands would be too big of a change over the original (and I told myself I'd let the basic plots of the story stay the same because I want to remember why I made those decisions), I have been considering adding a new bonus chapter to this story as an "alternate" ending. If you'd like to see that sort of thing, leave a review asking for one, and if I get at least a few, I'll oblige.

Well, this concludes these author's notes. I hope it was insightful and you enjoyed my story as much as I enjoyed re-reading and revising it. Don't forget to leave a review, and feel free to subscribe or add me to author alerts for future updates!

-Thinker, January 2012