Fraggle Rock: Elder Clan Adventures

[RedPiggy]

Well, it's not supposed to be a surprise, unless you never saw that episode. Unlike some unnamed cameos of Labyrinth characters (and Heck, I even mentioned Hanna of RTL specifically ... I promise after I get done with this I'll fwd you more RTL descriptions), this is an FR character. Villains are hard to come up with in FR, as you might imagine. This story was going to be a bit more violent and stuff ... but after thinking on it for awhile, I realized I can do Fraggle Wars more in the spirit of FR itself. There will be real drama and danger ... but it will be more in the spirit of the show than I originally intended. After all, I'm not writing on Comeback, where I could justify real violence depending on which franchise I was mentioning at the moment. This is 95% FR, so I have to keep that in mind.

This particular arc, unlike the first one, delves more deeply into the real rationale behind the Fraggle Wars.

 

[The Count]

Like I said, I have my suspicions but will gladly wait for Elder Clan's update to reveal it, in whatever way you choose. BTW: FWD RTL when you can, no worries if it takes a while. And you're doing nifty with this story... *Hugs Kelly.

 

[Redsonga]

You're more than welcome to play around with the Fraggle Wars all you like, it isn't really for me . My Elder Clan idea is turning into a series of 'epic' poems that aren't really poems in storyteller style, halfway between the tone of the OZ and Winnie The Pooh books and the King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table...
So hopefully it will be as readable as yours .

 

[RedPiggy]

You're more than welcome to play around with the Fraggle Wars all you like, it isn't really for me . My Elder Clan idea is turning into a series of 'epic' poems that aren't really poems in storyteller style, halfway between the tone of the OZ and Winnie The Pooh books and the King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table...
So hopefully it will be as readable as yours .

Well, partly I had you in mind, but part of me also realized I couldn't really justify a lot of what I originally thought. Other properties had more violence. While it's not like FR is devoid of it, it's still treated in such a way that maintains the spirit of the thing. I feel like that one guy on the commentary who said it was hard writing that episode where Red accuses others of stealing since Fraggles weren't allowed to do bad things (on purpose, anyway). If you notice, when the crystals are showing Fraggles doing "bad" things, those events can also be interpreted differently. It depends on how you spin it and on the nature of the listener's personality. Re- I mean, Princess Gwenalot, is already psyched up to believe that others don't like her, so it didn't take a lot of pushing. I'm trying to write this so that if you wanted to, you could envision this as our Fraggle Five doing a play of what happened, hence why Blundig is still very Mokey-ish, Roughchin is still Boober-ish, and No-neck looks like Wembley. Crooner's relationship to the Princess is very much (IMO) Gobo's with Red's, while his personality though is more of a cross between Cantus and Convincing John. The Princess is so Red that sometimes I have to watch for times I accidentally type "Red" instead of "Princess Gwenalot".

Edit: It's not like the Fraggle wars are going to be like 20 chapters or something. It will only be one arc, so roughly 4-6 chapters.

More edit: Arc 1: Introduction and such. Arc 2: This one. Arc 3: Mud explosion arc. Arc 4: Blue Dragon arc. Arc 5: Fraggle War arc. Arc 6: Great Freeze arc. Arc 7: Blue Rock arc and epilogue.

 

[RedPiggy]

Chapter 10

As if on cue, Crooner ran into the Great Hall, his guitar slung on his back, wearing a much thicker white robe with golden sparkles that rustled as he ran. “What are you doing?” he yelled at the strange creature.

“My job,” puffed the creature. “I’m a genie – I get to do whatevah I want. Got it?” He pointed at the Minstrel. “I granted your wishes, Fraggle. You ain’t gotta be so ungrateful, you know.”

Everyone in one motion stopped panicking to stare at the Minstrel. Crooner slicked his hair back and pumped his fist. “I’ll stop you – you won’t harm another Fraggle for as long as you live!”

“Tch – that’ll be the day,” the genie replied casually. He spied the Princess and the knight. “Hey, what’s dis? I thought I got rid of you two troublemakers already.”

“You did what?” Crooner barked in alarm.

The genie cleared his throat and brought out a small piece of paper from a pocket hidden in the folds of his robes. “An’ I quote: ‘I wish da Princess would see life da way it really is’.” He put the paper back and shrugged pompously. “It’s not my fault dere’s not a lot of life to like nowadays.”

Crooner was pale. His voice shook slightly. “That’s – that’s not what I wanted,” he whispered. He turned and dashed away as the genie chortled and guffawed.

The genie lowered himself to just above the heads of the Fraggles.

“Get it for me!” bellowed a thunderous female voice from above.

The genie looked up and frowned in confusion. “Yeah, dat was weird. Anyway,” he continued, looking around at all the Fraggles, “which ones o’ you am I gonna knock off first, huh?”

“You know good knock-knock jokes?” asked Sir Blunderbrain, shield at the ready.

The genie scoffed, “Yeah, but dis ain’t no joke, got it? I gotta hear nuttin’ but singin’ and dancin’ day in an’ day out. I can’t ever get a wink o’ sleep. An’ you guys laugh like it’s goin’ outta style or somethin’. One more laugh outta any o’ you, an’ I’m bringin’ this whole cave down, squashin’ you like a bunch of bugs.” He doubled over in laughter.

Inspiration struck Princess Gwenalot. “Come on, everybody! Let’s use our tails and tickle him into submission!” She saw the crowd of Fraggles look at her as though she had grown another head. She growled, “What are you waiting for? I’m not the only Fraggle here, am I? If we gang up on him, he can’t stop us!”

The genie grabbed Princess Gwenalot by her throat and lifted her up into the air above the frozen Fraggle Pond. “You really are a piece o’ work, you know dat?” he grumbled. His voice boomed. “I can get rid o’ all you Fraggles in one spell if I wanna! An’ don’t you forget it!” He leaned closer in on the Princess. “Why, you don’t seem to be enjoyin’ yourself at all, ‘Your Highness’!”

Crooner reappeared in the Great Hall and jumped up on a large boulder bordering the pond. “Let her go!”

“Make me, loser,” retorted the genie without even looking.

Crooner whipped out a long pipe, made of two separate intertwining tubes, one green and one copper-looking. He inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and blew as hard as he could. A shrill note resounded through the air. The genie dropped Princess Gwenalot and clenched the sides of his head, as did most of the Fraggles below him.

A piercing shriek from above harmonized briefly with Crooner’s distraction, and a small bottle dropped from the sky. “My pain tonic!” screeched a female voice.

Sir Blunderbrain caught the small bottle in his hands after it bumped him on his head. He glanced up at the genie. “Hey, I got some magic juice here that will stop you certainly!” he boasted confidently.

The genie took his hands off his ears and smirked. “Is dat so?” he asked.

Sir Blunderbrain opened the bottle and poured out the dark purple liquid onto the cave floor. He stood there, stunned, as the genie began to snicker. “Oh yeah,” continued the genie, “I’m in for it now!”

“But it should have worked,” mumbled Sir Blunderbrain.

Fishface dragged Princess Gwenalot from the frozen Fraggle Pond and smiled at her for the first time since they met. He tugged at the genie’s robes and pointed at him. “Real magic covered in muck and goo of bottle,” he informed the genie. “It magic spell written to take away genie powers.” He turned his back on the genie and smiled broadly, shrugging. “Of course, when we clean bottle, we will see spell and cast it on genie and he will disappear forever.”

The genie’s face fell, frowning for the first time. His voice had a deadly tone. “Is dat so?”

“Is so,” Fishface replied, crossing his arms in indignation.

“I t’ink I’ll just get rid of that stupid spell – as if it could bother me anyways,” the genie decided. He shrunk himself in a cloud of mist and entered the bottle to prevent the Fraggles from seeing it.

Sir Blunderbrain quickly and almost instinctively popped the cork back onto the bottle, trapping the genie for all time, amid a crowd of cheering Fraggles.

 

[The Count]

Amid a crowd of cheering readers too. Heh, thought it'd be Richard's Mean Genie. Good work Kelly. Good work indeed. And did I hear a Gorg female shouting from above the Fraggles' heads? *Shrugs. Thanks for posting.

 

[RedPiggy]

You did. There is a reason for that, but it's a minor subplot. For dating the story, if anything.

I sat in front of my laptop for a LONG time before I wrote ch 10. I didn't want him to be tricked in the very same way Wembley did, and I wanted to add some depth to Fishface as well. Fishface has the typical caveman-like speech patterns, but I detected some intelligence in there somewhere when I watched it. He may not be as verbose or as sophisticated as Blundig, but he's not an idiot either.

 

[Redsonga]

Well, partly I had you in mind, but part of me also realized I couldn't really justify a lot of what I originally thought. Other properties had more violence. While it's not like FR is devoid of it, it's still treated in such a way that maintains the spirit of the thing. I feel like that one guy on the commentary who said it was hard writing that episode where Red accuses others of stealing since Fraggles weren't allowed to do bad things (on purpose, anyway). If you notice, when the crystals are showing Fraggles doing "bad" things, those events can also be interpreted differently. It depends on how you spin it and on the nature of the listener's personality. Re- I mean, Princess Gwenalot, is already psyched up to believe that others don't like her, so it didn't take a lot of pushing. I'm trying to write this so that if you wanted to, you could envision this as our Fraggle Five doing a play of what happened, hence why Blundig is still very Mokey-ish, Roughchin is still Boober-ish, and No-neck looks like Wembley. Crooner's relationship to the Princess is very much (IMO) Gobo's with Red's, while his personality though is more of a cross between Cantus and Convincing John. The Princess is so Red that sometimes I have to watch for times I accidentally type "Red" instead of "Princess Gwenalot".

Edit: It's not like the Fraggle wars are going to be like 20 chapters or something. It will only be one arc, so roughly 4-6 chapters.

More edit: Arc 1: Introduction and such. Arc 2: This one. Arc 3: Mud explosion arc. Arc 4: Blue Dragon arc. Arc 5: Fraggle War arc. Arc 6: Great Freeze arc. Arc 7: Blue Rock arc and epilogue.

The way I see it, it's not so much that there is no violence in FR in something like the middle ages (like my Elder Clan stories are set in) as it is that the violence often comes from outside the fraggles themselves rather than from within..and even if it is from within they did not learn it from their own natures so much as outside forces and creatures..A lot can be done with that kind of mindset IMHO. My Gwenalot is a lot like Red to..I think in a way, she was always meant to be anyway...I am not much for making up many side characters, but we will see how that goes....

 

[RedPiggy]

I wasn't much for making up characters either. I really couldn't avoid it with Crooner, though I think I like this rebellious lazy Minstrel. The whole "violence comes from outside" partly explains the Labyrinth references in this fic. I've toyed with the idea that Fraggles either discovered goblin weapons or built their own weapons based on goblin designs for a few years now. I just don't see Fraggles developing this stuff on their own. And even the Gorgs, with all their Middle Ages accessories, can't be the source if it's true that Matt "discovered" them. That almost leaves goblins, since Wembley sang a line about them I think in the episode Scared Silly or something.

 

[Redsonga]

I don't mix worlds so much as just explain on the FR one from the little details. To me, the main muppets and SS are in the same world as FR because they met at the Christmas party, but not any of the others . I like having fun with those limits and making up all sorts of FR version monsters...
As for making up other characters, the whole fraggle version of King Arthur idea will give me more than enough I think...Writing a pretend children's series is so fun .