Fool Me Twice

Inspiration & Workshop Status

I’ve been struggling watching General Hospital since late 2015. I had enjoyed Elizabeth’s storylines for a few years — I really loved how they handled her relationship with Nikolas and AJ in 2013-14, but I wasn’t wild that they were revisiting Elizabeth and Ric. After Elizabeth lied about Jake’s identity, I still kept watching because I had hopes they were going to do this storyline justice. I never had a problem with the lie. The lie was completely in character. What bothered me is that Elizabeth became the villain. That she didn’t get to tell the truth on her own terms.

So I stopped watching every day. I did not watch almost at all in 2016 or most of 2017, I’ll be honest about that. I caught some episodes here and there, tried to watch again when they revisited Tom Baker and her rape storyline, but her interaction with Franco turned me off. I wanted nothing to do with Elizabeth and Franco as a romantic couple, and I still don’t.

But alas, Steve Burton returned. And I couldn’t help myself. He’s like catnip. I started watching again, and I was dismayed to see what had happened to my favorite character. Elizabeth is never on. When she is, she’s a glorified day player who only serves to prop up the rotting carcass that is Franco Baldwin. Their relationship is so unbelievably toxic that I struggled to keep finding reasons to like Elizabeth. This story is kind of my way of coming to terms with Elizabeth in the last two years.

I started playing with how the end of their relationship could happen, but I didn’t feel confident in my ability to write versions of the characters that exist in 2017-18. Other than Damaged, I haven’t written a lot of GH set after 2008. The writing was seriously bad for a few years there — even by today’s standards.

Why is this story in the workshop and not one of my usual releases? Because, again, I don’t know if I can write these characters. While I like what I’ve written so far, I don’t feel like I’ve nailed any of the characters, particularly Jason. I also don’t know if my idea for the overall plot will really work.

This means that Fool Me Twice is messy. There will be continuity errors. I will say something about a character and then change it later if it suits my needs. Scenes may end up out of order, or characters will disappear, then return. I don’t know how to write Drew yet. I don’t know who he’s supposed to be. Elizabeth is a cipher on the show–she has no POV, no agency, so I kind of have to fly with it.

So when you read, read critically. Tell me what doesn’t work. Don’t pay a lot of attention to chronology, the scenes are only sort of in the order I imagine they will be at the end. I may even go back and write extra scenes to fit in between the ones already written. Eventually, it will be edited and released as a normal novel.

Also note: I write these scenes in a timed fashion (30, 60, or 90 minutes) to force me to finish the scenes and then I post. There are a ton of spelling errors and missed words, and just general nonsense. So…go with it. 😛

Timeline

This story picks up just after Valentin sent Ava to the clinic back in September. That’s right. We’re going back to the beginning and fixing this entire clusterfuck of a story that has meandered off the fucking reservation. Or at least, I’m going to try.

I have not made graphics for all characters yet — so I’ve put their name as a placeholder to indicate that. As you can see, it’s mostly newer characters I’ve never written for. These all are all the characters I plan to show up at some point.