Thicker Than Water Tales
When I fell into the Mystery Skulls Animated (MSA) fandom, I fell hard. It was a fandom nobody expected to spring up because it was based on an independently animated music video for a song made by a relatively small band. The story seemed like a simple tale of betrayal and revenge on the surface, but slow it down and analyze all the little details and suddenly you have a beautiful tragedy based on misunderstandings. A tale where every main character is a victim in a different way.
The story it told was just that good. That full of potential. There had to be more to this tale, one way or another.
In roughly one month I banged out a 37k word fanfiction called Best Served Cold, tracing my favorite character's potential path after the music video. His name is Arthur and, understandably, he's a wreck.
Toward the end of the story, when I was trying to get all the characters to communicate information to each other, one of them was infuriatingly stubborn and insisted on remaining silent. Suddenly the villain of the story resurfaced with a whole lot of juicy details to spill, including the fact that our Arthur was actually the descendant of King Arthur. And just like that, Best Served Cold could no longer be a stand-alone story, so Thicker Than Water Tales was born. Best Served Cold was followed by Worse Than Death, Louder Than Words, and finished with What Doesn't Kill Us.
I chose titles based off of idioms sliced in half, ones that most people could infer the complete sentence from. Thicker Than Water was chosen as the overarching series title in large part because of the original nature of the idiom.
The origin of the phrase “blood is thicker than water” has references in literature in 1412 and 1670. Interestingly, the original expression is, “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.”
Therefore, the original phrase has an opposite meaning to how we use it today. In the original expression, you say that the bond you make with friends and people like your partner is more important than family relationships.
This is one of the main threads tying the stories together.
This was the first story I crafted while immersing myself neck-deep in the world of fandom. Though I wrote many stories for Invader Zim, I didn't really connect with what one would call the "fandom" as a whole. I spoke with a couple of people regularly, but I wasn't part of the community. For MSA, I was on Tumblr talking to people, circulating ideas, and getting ideas tossed back all the time. I would livestream writing the chapters and, to my surprise, people joined in and often pitched thoughts and suggestions that made the story better. I still remember usernames that were there almost every time, and that was my favorite part of writing this saga. The memory is bittersweet now, but at the time it was a beautiful time of give-and-take creativity.
It was also something of a rush to receive unprompted fan-art. Sometimes I would commission a piece, but by and large the art that exists for this series was spontaneous. Every time I received one, I came close to tears. It is a real trip to feel you have sparked creativity in someone else's craft.
There was feedback and art and conversation and community around the entirety of this story's creation. I even made a playlist of music that reflected the characters and parts of the plot, listening to it as I wrote chapters. I accepted many music recommendations from the community for songs that were good matches to the story.
It's been almost 8 years since I wrote Best Served Cold and I have written many stories for MSA since then. As I looked back over the series, I kept thinking to myself, I could do better now. Therefore, one of my goals for this year has been a full edit of this series, culminating with a professionally bound copy in my hands.
At one point, I hoped to contact the creators and work out a deal where I could sell the fanfiction as a physical book in exchange for remitting a portion to them. The creators are, after all, independent of any major company and it could conceivably work. However, they drew a political line in 2021 that convinced me there was more to be lost than gained in such a relationship. Therefore, whatever copies I print will be for personal use and free gifts to a few friends. The edited version will be digitally available, as I complete each chapter, on Archive of Our Own.
At the time of this blog, I have edited chapters 1-9 of Best Served cold and expanded it by over 4k words. I delight at the way some of the chapters have evolved to solve plot-holes and eliminate commonsense issues. When I first write a story, I am groping my way forward, getting blindsided by secret reveals and unveiled motivations every few chapters. With the foreknowledge of exactly how the whole series goes, I can solidify sections where I wasn't sure why someone was behaving a certain way or sprinkle in proper foreshadowing. I can look at a scene and say, "That looks cool, but doesn't make enough sense," and change it. I can spend more words where it's needed, and in many areas of this story, it is needed.
This was my first MSA saga, and though the first draft had plenty of flaws, it still holds up well. I don't think I can edit the entire saga this year, but I will likely be able to finish Best Served Cold. I can't wait to hold the final product--the full saga in print--in my hands.