When I was in the fifth grade, I had what I like to call my "glorious dream." Most of my dreams are short, ambiguous, or depressing; but in this dream I was the hero, I defeated all the villains, and I saved the world from utter annihilation all by myself. I'll always cherish this dream, for in my mind it forms the last bit of unadulterated happiness in my life, the last pure "whiteness" before everything became so "gray". I have no idea if I am the only person out there who can end their childhood with a dream, but I wondered what such a dream would be like for Gosalyn, so here it is.
The story was different from my other stories in two ways. First of all, it is supposed to be light in tone, in contrast to my other stories where I always try to push at least one character to the verge of a nervous breakdown. And secondly, in this story the forces of Order (which I consider myself a part of) are the villains instead of the heroes.
The primary goal of this story is for Gosalyn to have a great time. I already had her fly a dragon, so anyone tackling this story would have to top that a few times. Most importantly for Gosalyn, in this dream she is treated as an adult by everyone: she leads the team and she comes up with all the good plans (which work, unlike the series, which seems to side with the forces of Authoritarianism).
Secondary to this is the fun concept of all the characters being "looking-glass" versions of themselves, while at the same time avoiding the "nega" versions from "Life, the Negaverse, and Everything". So far in the story, we have: Darkwing Duck as a self-assuming archeologist, Launchpad McQuack as a calculating bureaucratic Beloq to Darkwing's Indiana Jones, Honker Muddlefoot as an explosive-tempered wizard ("short-person's syndrome", to refer to the stereotypical characterization so often seen in movies and cartoons), Steggy/Cecil as an overtalkative dragon (OK, so I left the character intact, but then I wasn't so sure that everyone would connect the two together in the first place), Bushroot as an uneducated but brave barbarian, and Megavolt as the logical ranger. Gosalyn herself was quite a nasty character before being replaced, as you've seen already. My Noel Waddlemeyer is original, since I needed him to be that way to move the plot along. The goal would be to get as many other characters into the act as possible. It doesn't matter what side they're on, just so long as they are interesting. I only had two other characters planned out that are not yet introduced: Quackerjack as The Enforcer's lawyer, and Sara Bellum as The Enforcer herself, since like all mad scientists she ultimately wants to make the world over in her own image (what, am I the only one that sees that side to her?). I had anticipated Honker changing sides eventually, but I never got around to finding a reason why (other than the fact that it would make the plot more interesting).
Third priority to these two is to teach Gosalyn a few lessons. Now in most cartoons, "teaching a lesson" means that the character does it wrong and is horribly punished (and psychically scarred for life). I already said this is supposed to be light--the lessons are not emphasized very much, and it is entirely possible that Gosalyn did not notice them until she started writing the dream down. The first lesson is about responsibility. Gosalyn is very responsible in this dream--she doesn't consciously decide to be responsible, she just is. So Gosalyn the author might notice that Gosalyn the character is not flying off the handle all the time, but Gosalyn the character doesn't even think about it (have I lost anyone yet?). Part of this is the reaction against the "mirror-Gosalyn", who was so irresponsible it was criminal. The second lesson is trust. Gosalyn said that her dream was inspired by "Twitching Channels", but she is unwilling to admit that it actually was "Life, the Negaverse, and Everything". In the fanfic "The Hole at the End of the Universe" (by Wendy Lee and Jim Phillips), Gosalyn learns from Negaduck that Darkwing preferred Nega-Gosalyn to herself as a more ideal stepdaughter. In that story, Gosalyn pretends to believe this to trick Negaduck, then tells Darkwing she never believed it. I'll go along with that, but I do think there would be some lingering doubts. Disney never really handled the father-stepdaughter relationship in the series (in a lot of the episodes I was convinced that the writers thought Gosalyn was Darkwing's natural daughter), but I think that the question of trust is at the center of their relationship--each wants the other to trust more, yet is unwilling to extend their own trust. Like I said, this is a light piece, so the closest I planned for this story to approach the issue is for "Mr. Mallard" to become more and more caring for Gosalyn as she reveals her vulnerability to him and for her to reciprocate, until at one point Gosalyn near the end catches herself preferring him to Darkwing--in this way she can sympathize with Darkwing's plight in "Life, the Negaverse, and Everything"--a quiet realization, no yelling, and for heaven's sake no bursting into tears--she goes home at the end of the dream with a cleaner conscience than she had when she went to sleep that night.
Finally, what I wanted with this story is a chance to get into Gosalyn's mind. This is her dream, after all, so it should be filled with the sorts of things Gosalyn has fun doing. Parts of it should be in the form of symbols that neither Gosalyn the character nor Gosalyn the author could figure out. For example, the painting on the inside of the dome refers to her last memory of her parents when she was a baby and her deep-seated belief that they are watching over her. The dome complex itself resembles a brain and represents memory. These symbols are all throwaways, since I didn't plan to explain them to the reader (Honker the reader is not allowed to say anything to us that might shed some light on the matter--I rejected the alternative story structure of Gosalyn telling her dream to Honker and him asking questions as they go along). A large part of Gosalyn is watching movies, so I threw that in: I figured she would have memorized Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark (or whatever the animal version of that would be), so I based the beginning of the dream on that. The middle of the dream (starting where I left off) would be some fantasy epic like Dragonslayer or The Lord of the Rings, while the ending would lean more towards horror (Evil Dead 3 or that great Dungeons & Dragons game "Tomb of Horrors" by Gary Gygax, where I got the Skull in the first place).
The primary flaw in the story as I wrote it is that it is supposed to be by Gosalyn, yet what I've written is most definitely not in her voice. She'd pay much more attention to action and gore and whiz by the complicated explanations I found myself sticking in. It is for this reason that I gave up trying to work this story out. If anyone out there can sound more like Gosalyn, then this story is yours.