The Contractually Obligated FAQ

As you may know if you've read any of my older long fanworks, I am in the habit of sometimes crafting FAQ chapters at the end, where I answer questions which were posed to me in reviews, private messages, or other forms of communication. So that's what this is. And yes, I really did get asked all of these!

To clarify one thing first - "Contractually Obligated Chaos" is the name I have given to the series. So that's the name of the FAQ too. After all, it all started with the Fairy Godfather's contract.

What inspired you to write a Beetlejuice story in the first place?

Well, I did explain this way back at the start, but I'll recap. To put it simply, this silly cartoon was my favorite show when it was on. I was a young teenager (yes, I am old) and it appealed to my imagination and my funny bone and everything. In January of 2016, I was looking for the DVDs on Amazon one afternoon when I was nursing a cold, and while I did find them, I also found a website where I could watch them all for free instead. Best sick day I've had in years. Anyway, after that binge marathon I had ideas chasing themselves around in my head, so I gave up and started writing a story. Then I made Andrea (the self-appointed bodyguard) watch the show and she asked how long until there was fanfic, and I had to admit there already was some. She poked me until I posted it, and here we are.

Is there a reason why you chose to use the cartoon instead of the movie version?

Don't get me wrong, I'm very fond of the movie. It was actually one of my favorite movies when I was a teenager; I'd still class it in my top 25 or so. But I always had much greater affection for the cartoon, partly because it kept me scratching my head about exactly what the relationship between Beetlejuice and Lydia was supposed to be. You could say I was shipping it before I knew what shipping was. (And thanks to TV Tropes, I know now that this was deliberate on the part of the writers and animators; they were all shipping it too.) It should also be noted that the cartoon had a heavy impact on my sense of humor; while rewatching it all these years later, I was amazed to find that a lot of the things I have a tendency to say actually came from the cartoon, and I had forgotten.

How did you come up with the idea of Lydia getting a portion of Beetlejuice's power?

I'm trying to remember, to be honest. Initially, the Fairy Godfather was going to be a very shady character who was just yanking on BJ's chain and making his afterlife difficult because he could. But I couldn't work out what was going on with the juice if that was the case. So I rewrote it to make him more of a rules stickler, but then that brought up the question of why BJ couldn't give him all the juice. Where would it be? I sent them off on the run in the hopes that I'd eventually figure it out, and I could buy myself some time by giving them some wacky adventures on the road. Then it crossed my mind that even when he put on the shoes and depowered himself, Lydia still had the means to summon and banish him. Having her in possession of part of his magic was the only thing that made any sense to me.

In the interest of fairness, I also should point out that in one of her reviews, Bookworm Gal theorized that this was possibly the case. I can't honestly remember if she made that guess before or after I decided that was the answer, so either she gave me the idea or we were on the same wavelength. Either is equally possible.

Why did you write a sequel to Cinderjuice?

I finished the first story and decided that was it, I was done, time to get back to Fullmetal Alchemist. And then I had a single line of dialogue pop into my head, and I liked it too much not to use it and give it to the character to whom it so obviously belonged. So then I had to construct a story for it. The line was all I had to start; I didn't know why he would say it or to whom he would be speaking or anything else. That all got hashed out with help from the beta readers.

Quite literally, The Bug Princess exists because in my mind, I could hear BJ saying the first line he says to Hugo: "Bub, you got about five seconds to get your hand off my wife or we're gonna have a problem."

I have written stories for worse reasons, I admit.

Why did you decide on doing The Princess and the Frog? Did you like the fairy tale or did you just want to write about New Orleans?

Both of those were a factor. To be honest, it was a toss-up between that and Tangled, but while the idea of sticking Lydia in a tower and making her hair grow to ridiculous lengths amused me, it didn't make a whole lot of sense. I had a chat with Lais, one of my beta readers, and she helped me make the tough choice. Though I like ClockworkAnnie's later suggestion that BJ would lock them both in the Tangled tower because "the plot will never find us here, Babes!"

Where did you get Erebos, Hugo, and Lady Delphine?

Much of the credit here must be extended to Bookworm Gal, who volunteered to help me with research while I was having technical difficulties. She sent me several names in a variety of languages which had significance of some kind to the situation, and I picked three and fashioned the characters from there. (She also did a lot of the research about New Orleans. I genuinely can't thank her enough for her help.)

Hugo is based, in part, on Milo from Atlantis: The Lost Empire and also my beloved Shad from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. However, he has less sense than Shad in some ways, as you might have noticed.

Erebos is, naturally, somewhat inspired by the Shadow Man from The Princess and the Frog. But he also contains shades of Pitch Black, from Rise of the Guardians, as well as the villain from a very obscure (and frankly awful) anti-drug cartoon I remember with considerable amusement from my youth.

As for "the lady in blue," Lady Delphine is filling the role of Mama Odie, of course. But her personality is partly modeled on my own. I'm not much into talking to spirits, but I do have a tendency to take in strays.

Why didn't you do all the classic voodoo stuff? It was the right place for it, right?

It was, but I really wanted to leave it fairly vague. I didn't want to run the risk of insulting anyone's religious beliefs or spreading erroneous information.

Is Erebos truly gone for good?

As far as I'm concerned, yes. I have no plans to bring him back. He may, as Delphine said, have escaped to another plane of existence, but he won't be bothering our heroes again.

Did Hugo learn a valuable lesson from all this about randomly trying to drag pretty young ladies away from graveyards or is he likely to dive head first into a mess again?

Hugo learned quite a bit from this experience. More than anything, he's learned that he still has a lot to learn, especially when it comes to partially dead young women and their considerably more dead overprotective husbands. I'm going to miss him, actually, I grew rather fond of both him and Lady Delphine.

Did you originally plan for Prince Vince and Lydia to end up as adopted siblings or did that idea come later?

Much later. I had fixed on the idea of kissing a princess to break the spell, of course, and I wanted to try to find a way to make the title fit, but not much was developing that made any sort of logical sense. And then out of nowhere, it fell into place and I wondered how I didn't see it sooner. Not only did it fill in the gaping plot hole I had dug, but I think it fits their relationship extremely well.

Does Lydia becoming a princess mean that Beetlejuice is now a prince or does he just count as a consort?

"Princess of Beetles" is just a courtesy title - Lydia has absolutely no authority whatsoever, in terms of governance, although if Vince were somehow incapacitated she could fill in for a bit... *puts that plot bunny away for consideration* Save that guy for later. Anyway, no, BJ gains no title through marriage. But like she told him, "Ghost With the Most" is hard to top.

How in the world does Lady Delphine know the Fairy Godfather?

I don't know, to be honest. She refuses to tell me. But if I ever find out, I'll let you know.

Is there going to be a sequel? And if so, when and is it based on a Disney movie/fairy tale too?

Yeah, I'm going to have to do one more, I think. (I'm going to try to stop at three; we'll see what happens. I don't trust my brain as far as I can throw it.) You can expect Sleeping Beetle, which is of course a take on Sleeping Beauty, to start appearing in April 2016; I'm taking a break until after I attend Zenkaikon over April Fool's Day weekend.

Credits, Thanks, and All That Jazz

I am incredibly indebted to my little staff of beta readers.

~ Erin and Kourie were usually rather quiet, but when they did have something to say, it was always helpful and encouraging.

~ Ada not only beta read for me but also did the beautiful artwork for Cinderjuice, which can be found on the TV Tropes page for these stories. She's going to do more for me when her schedule permits, too. She is the artist and writer on the marvelous webcomic Cobweb & Stripes, to which I'm addicted; it's a beautiful thing, extending the story of the Beetlejuice film and merging details from the cartoon into the plot. You will get hooked, but you should totally go for it; find it on deviantArt, Facebook, or Tumblr.

~ Lais is a Lydia cosplayer, and she and her adorable boyfriend are the cutest Beetlejuice and Lydia on the planet. Look for them on Facebook under "Harley Quinn Brazilian Cosplay."

~ Bookworm Gal, as I mentioned, has been a simply invaluable asset in terms of research, spitballing, and support. I'm currently making my way through her excellent story Say It Thrice, which is a crossover of the Beetlejuice film and the cartoon Danny Phantom. It's very rich and detailed and dark and yikes. Super good. Do yourself a favor and read it.

Also, thanks to Numbervania for telling me about the bug museum's cafe, and to ClockworkAnnie for her excited reviews.

Thanks to the Kisscartoon website for hosting the cartoon and making it possible for me to revisit my youth.

Obviously, I do not own anything related to the Beetlejuice franchise, nor The Godfather, nor any of the Disney films turned upside down in these stories. Credit to the original creators of these things.

All hail the Burton.

Thanks to all the reviewers, all the new friends I made through this fandom, and everyone else reading this!

Until the next time I venture someplace scary, I remain

Lady Norbert