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knickynoo · 2 years

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Hey! So, I'm working on an fic in which in the Lone Pines timeline, Marty has a little sister who's about six or seven (she was a bit of a surprise). I know a lot of people might have a similar idea, but I just love this idea of Marty seeing this little girl at the breakfast table and he has no idea who she is, but she utterly adores him. Since you seem to be the the headcanons expert, do you have any for this idea? Oh, by the way, her name is Leah, by the way.

Hi, so first of all: I love this idea. Please direct me to this fic when it's posted, please and thank you.

Second of all: I wish "headcanons expert" was a valid credential I could use in my actual life. (also, thanks!)

Don't know what you've already come up with in terms of this idea, so obviously my own headcanons may not work for you. Gonna include just whatever comes to my mind and run with the idea in general (not so much focusing on headcanons that fit into a specific fic or plot). Feel free to use what you like and ignore whatever you don't in shaping your fic and their relationship :)

I shall put it under a cut due to the unavoidable rambling I must partake in.

Anon (and whoever else is interested), here are some headcanons on big brother Marty:

Marty is understandably baffled at such a major change. I mean, his altered family is a major change already, but a whole other person is a little hard to digest. Dave and Linda may be different, but there are still many things about them that are familiar to Marty. With Leah, he's starting completely from scratch.

He probably goes through a whole range of emotions. Confusion. Maybe some anger. Sadness at not being the "baby" anymore.

Also, when he happens to first meet her is probably an important detail. If she's sitting at the breakfast table (like you mentioned) during that scene towards the end of Pt I, he at least has the benefit of being able to ask Doc questions about her over the course of their other adventures. Maybe during any "down time"/scenes we don't see in the movies, Marty picks Doc's brain about this new family member and is able to get a crash course before arriving back to 1985. BUT if she's like...in her bedroom during the breakfast scene and doesn't emerge until the family is leaving for brunch at the end of III, Marty is pretty much out of luck, lol.

Regardless, Marty has to pull himself together, get to know this little girl, and be thrown headfirst into being a big brother. He'd always wanted a younger sibling, though, so he tries to see the bright side.

Idk what you envision her personality as, but my headcanon instinct is that she's a lot like Marty: headstrong, energetic, and kind-hearted. Maybe the running joke in the McFly house is that they had Marty and then years later got surprised with another mini-version of him.

Anyway, it's abundantly clear right away who Leah's favorite sibling is. She absolutely thinks Marty is THE COOLEST guy ever and follows him like a shadow, which is weird at first because she feels so much like a stranger to him. But she's just so sweet and earnest in her love for him that he feels that innate pull to love her back. So despite not remembering anything about their relationship or about her in general, he does know one thing. He loves this kid.

At the same time, though, he's pretty sure she's also going to be the reason he either loses his mind or goes gray before he's 20. She's every bit as spirited and impulsive as he is, but being so young, she doesn't always have the ability to tell when something is dangerous. Sometimes Marty feels like he is personally responsible for keeping that girl from breaking a bone or setting the house on fire. It gives him a deeper appreciation for his own parents who had to deal with him when he was little.

Marty discovers that Jennifer and Leah have a special bond of their own. Leah looks up to Jen as well and is always excited to see her. Marty is bewildered to find out that, occasionally, the two of them bring Leah along when they go out. They'll plan a "date night" of sorts, but it isn't really a date because they've got a six-year-old with them. So, they usually end up at the arcade or go out to get ice cream.

If your personal headcanons include the Brown family moving back to 1985, you can bring Doc in on all of this! Given that Marty doesn't have the memories, Doc actually knows more about Leah than he does (which is strange & very jarring to Marty). But Leah loves Doc. He's her bizarre, eccentric, mad-scientist uncle-type figure. And once the fam comes back to the present, she becomes fast friends with Jules and Verne.

OOH! Having a little sister could also be a fantastic avenue to explore some of that "time travel aftermath" stuff Marty has to deal with. You know, after having to witness countless horrific, PTSD-inducing events? Well, Leah is super in tune with Marty, and being so young, she's very open about saying what's on her mind and expressing her feelings. So whenever Marty seems off or upset, she immediately stops whatever she's doing and focuses on helping him. Of course, she does this in a way typical of a six-year-old. Sometimes that means loudly asking, "Marty what's wrong??" or "Why are you sad?" in front of the rest of the family. But other times, she takes a gentler approach to comforting her big brother. Giving him a hug, sharing a favorite snack, or making up a silly joke to get him to laugh. She actually may be the family member who is most aware that Something Is Wrong with Marty, though she's unsure as to what it could be. Her top two theories include: a bigger kid is being mean to him at school, or there is a monster under his bed that is keeping him awake and making him cranky and upset.

As time goes on, Marty finds that having such a young sibling is a fantastic way to start working through the whole time-travel fiasco without raising suspicion. He starts getting into the habit of telling Leah bedtime stories, and at first, he really is just reading to her from a book. But soon he starts "making up" his own stories. One about a kid who is the youngest sibling in an unhappy family. A kid whose best friend builds a time machine that he gets to test out (Marty decides to leave out the whole "terrorists show up and violently murder the scientist" part, as well as some of the other questionable content). But night after night, Marty continues to weave together as much of his adventures as possible, all under the guise of just making up a story for his little sister. He tells her about the kid getting his parents back together and how the dad saves the mom from the bully. About how the kid and his friend go into the future, and there are hoverboards and holograms, and shoes that lace themselves. But the kid does something wrong and messes everything up, so they have to fix it. Except it's scary and dangerous and everything is upside down, but he has to make it right. Then, just when things seem better, his best friend disappears into the Old West. And on and on Marty goes, while Leah is on the edge of her seat every night begging for Marty to tell her just a little bit more. Eventually, he reaches the end: where the kid finally goes back home and has to get used to everything that's new and different in his life. Maybe Marty even gets a little choked up at this point, because sometimes he still misses the way things used to be and hates that he can't remember the details of his current life. And the two of them are just sort of sitting there silently--Marty because he's made himself all emotional, and Leah because she's confused as to why Marty seems so sad after telling such a fantastic, exciting story. But she just snuggles up close to him and tells him that maybe the boy in the story will love his new family and life. Maybe he'll be happy. And Marty wraps an arm around her and is quiet a while before adding on to the story and telling Leah that she's right. The boy does end up happy and loves his family, even though they're different.

Aaaand...I'm gonna go ahead and wrap it up there. Maybe you can use some of these as inspiration, and if not, I hope you at least enjoyed reading them. Keep me updated on the fic, because I definitely want to check it out. I don't think I've ever read a BTTF fic with this concept before.

Thanks for the ask!

#back to the future #bttf #marty mcfly #asks #wow this was ridiculously fun to come up with #I LOVE the idea of Marty being a big brother #and now these headcanons have got me all invested in the concept

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jennydreadfulofficial · 4 years

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Time for a Reboot?

SOOOOO.... first, thank you to everybody who responded to my last post! I'm still sorting through things at the moment, on that front, but your input has definitely been helpful!

As for the photo with this post, this is just me out walking the dog last night... no particular reason for the selfie... just was thinking about making this post and figured I should have some kind of recent picture for it. :-p

Anyway, I’m posting today because, I have an idea that's been brewing for a while now, which has kinda come together for me since my last post, that I'd like to share. And yes, this is related to my last post... just kind of expanding on the idea.

First, a little history: After "jen-dave," It took me awhile to really organize the direction I wanted to go. However, I finally settled on splitting myself in two... not unlike when I got pregnant with the twins. :-p

On one side, we have Jen PM, which is just me... unashamedly-all-of-me. It's where I can kind of strip-bare... metaphorically speaking, at least. :-p

Whether it's sharing things from my childhood, my jen-dave career, my children... things I think are funny, things I think are important (I try to keep the politics to a minimum but things slip out here and there :-p)... this is just my plain old personal corner of the web.

On the other side, though, is Jenny Dreadful. This is my fantasy self. I like horror movies, haunted houses... all manner of spooky, dark things. I've never identified as a "goth" per se; I just like what I like. :)

Even with the photo shoots I did back in the day, my favorites tended to be those that had a “dark” theme.

So, that's what Jenny Dreadful is all about... just having fun in the dark. ;-) I've always intended it to be more than me just dressing up (or down), but I'd be lying if I didn't say that was a big part of it. :-p And, if I’m going to do anything of that nature again, that’s the direction/theme I’d like to go with.

So, on that note, I'd like to talk about Patreon! :) The very first time I ever charged for anything was back in 1996, and the only thing available back then was a company called "First Virtual." (So very futuristic-techno-cool. :-p) Now, there are so many more choices, when it comes to funding projects like mine.

I've chosen Patreon this time around because they do seem to have a really good system that has worked out well for me the last couple years... even with not really having my act together. :-p

Now, Patreon doesn't stop you from having more than one account, but they do tend to suggest you just make one for all your work. However, I’ve just finally decided that it would be best if I had two.

It’s not unlike when we first started charging for the jen-dave site. We actually had two options back then: $5 for 6-months worth of access to our weekly updates and $10 for 3-months worth of access to our archive, for those that needed to catch up.

My plan now is for Jen PM’s Patreon to be dedicated mostly to the past. I plan to start telling stories from my past, with of course photo accompaniment.... the uncensored of which I'll keep for Patreon subscribers. No particular theme... just all of me and my past.

Jenny Dreadful’s Patreon on the other hand, will be a bit different. I may start off with a few things I've done in the past that fit the theme, but I really would like to get back into doing some pictures, at least here in there. It's something I just enjoy, and I might as well do it while I can still pull it off. ;-p Again, I plan to share a lot of this just for free on my blog and social media accounts and all that but, I'll be keeping the uncensored stuff for Patreon subscribers. I’m not planning to go quite as far as I did way back when but, I’m still OK with the occasional nudity... when the mood strikes, anyway. ;-p

So, please feel free to subscribe to one or both! I’m still making the minimum donations pretty low ($1/month for JenPM and $5/month for Jenny Dreadful), but I appreciate anything you’re willing to donate! The fact is, ventures like this do take a least a little funding, so the better I can do on the financial side, the more I’ll be able to do on the fun side. :-D

Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me through my ups and downs. I’m hoping things will continue looking up for awhile, now. :) Jen PM’s Patreon: http://patreon.com/jenpm Jenny Dreadful’s Patreon: http://patreon.com/jennydreadful

P.S. If everything is not quite together at the moment when you click on things, just know that I’m working on it. This post was just my first step to getting all this going. :)

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oldschoolgaming · 5 years

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Gary Con XI

Last year’s trip to Gary Con was supposed to be a one off, a ‘Trip of Lifetime’ but as you might have read in last year’s blog post it was an experience I was keen to repeat. I worked hard, I saved my pennies and with the support of my ever amazing (& non gaming) wife I planned a return trip to Lake Geneva.

Sadly my good friend and travel buddy Isa couldn’t join me on this year’s trip so I traveled to Chicago on my own, this time on a direct flight from London.

I’d planned to arrive a day early to allow my body clock time to adjust. Asking around about sharing transport from O’Hare to Lake Geneva I got a message from a friend I’d met at last year’s convention. Jason Hobbs was kind enough to bring his trip forward a day, picking me up from the airport and driving up to our B&B in Lake Geneva. We made plans to head over to Madison and meet Alex Kammer, another acquaintance from last year’s event. Alex runs Gamehole Con, another Wisconsin gaming convention held in the autumn. He is also a big collector of old school D&D books and memorabilia We were able to check out his amazing collection, housed in a custom gaming space he calls ‘The Gamehole’

The Gamehole

This is a 1st printing of the 1st Edition AD&D Monster Manual, signed by Gary Gygax.

As well as books Alex also has some unique artifacts. This is the original map of the Forgotten Realms, used to define what is now the default setting for Dungeons and Dragons today.

The exceptionally rare English module ST1 ‘Up The Garden Path’

Me, with a rare first printing of Chainmail, the ruleset written by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren. Chainmail preceded Dungeons and Dragons and was intended to be used in the original edition of D&D to resolve combat. The system we use today for D&D combat has evolved from what was originally intended to be the ‘alternate’ rules for folk who didn’t own a copy of Chainmail!

We got back to our B&B around 10pm, but my body clock wasn’t fooled, it knew it should be 4am and I’m sure I entertained Hobbs with some pretty hard core snoring on the drive back!

Now I’m a believer that if you do something twice it becomes a tradition so on Wednesday we met up with Bruce Heard for our now traditional pre Gary Con lunch, at the ‘Next Door Pub’ Bruce is always good company and it was great to catch up with him. I was pleased to hear his latest ‘Calidar’ product is taking shape, I’m excited to receive my copy from the Kickstarter later this year.

After lunch we headed off to the Geneva Grand Resort, home of the convention to pick up our badges and get settled in.

We arrived a little early so I had a short wait before my room was ready. It was while I waited in the bar watching people arrive that I started to realise that this trip really was going to be at least as magical as the previous year. You see, the magic of Gary Con, for me at least, is the people. Having just picked up my badge and not even rolled a single dice I was happy so see more friends arrive. Much hugging and laughing ensued, setting the standard for the days to come.

On Wednesday evening I ticked off ‘Dawn Patrol’ from my ‘want to play’ bucket list. Michael Bolam facilitated an awesome intro game for a bunch of newbies and despite rolling badly (winning initiative is a bad start in this game!) I survived my first game and even got my first ‘kill’

After the game I had time for a couple of beers in the bar, catching up with friends old and new before getting an early night (well, midnight?) ready to start the gaming the next day.

On Thursday morning I ran my first game of Dungeon Crawl Classics (The 13th Skull) for a great table of players, most of whom had some experience of the system. I felt like it took me a couple of hours to hit my GMing stride but the pace accelerated pretty quickly. The party making good progress until my dice suddenly ran hot and we finished with a TPK!

My afternoon game was the session I was most anxious about. I was running my own adventure for ‘The Umerican Survival Guide’ and I whilst the table was full of familiar faces I was nervous running for so many creative folk! I think it went down ok, we certainly laughed a lot and I’ve got some ideas to tweak the adventure before I run it next at the UK Games Expo.

Thursday evening was another great social night, both in the hotel bar and at the party I was invited to by my roommate.

It was great to have a few minutes with Luke Gygax. Luke is the driving force behind the convention and Gary Con is a fantastic tribute to his dad. I’m sure Gary would be happy to see thousands of people gathering to play games in his memory.

“I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else.”

Gary Gygax

I also got to chat and hang out with bunch of other well know D&D faces.

Satine Phoenix

Stefan Pokorny, aka ‘The Dwarvenaught’

with Jon Peterson (”Art & Arcana” & “Playing At The World”) and Mike Carr (”Dawn Patrol” and “In Search Of The Unknown” for D&D, amongst others!)

Whilst it’s great to see the new wave of D&D ‘Rock Stars’ promoting the hobby I think chatting with Mike Carr and him shaking my hand to congratulate me on my first ‘Dawn Patrol’ kill the previous night was a highlight of the convention!

Back in the bar I met up with more of the tribe, including Tom Tullis of Fat Dragon Games who produces the amazing 3D printable minis and scenery I use in a lot of my games at home.

Friday was my Birthday. I started an epic day of gaming running Operation Whitebox, a World War 2 RPG by Pete Spahn. It was really good to finally meet Pete and once again he had generously donated copies of the rulebook to all my players. He stopped by during the game to sign books and hang out. I had a great table of friends new and old who worked well together to complete their dangerous mission behind enemy lines with only two casualties!

I ran straight from my own game to sit at Stephen Newton’s table for his DCC adventure. Stephen’s a great judge and I was pleased to be back at his table this year. This was a completely new adventure to me and I was playing with a great bunch of players with a wide age range, kids through to adult. I’ve had some really great experiences playing at mixed tables with kids recently and this game was no exception!

After this game Stephen and I headed off to the next game, we were both playing in ‘Blacklisted in Lankhmar’ run by Jen Brinkman.

This was my first time playing with Jen and I was excited to grab a spot in this game at almost the last minute. Normally coming to the end of 12 hours of gaming my mind and attention would be wandering but Jen is a captivating judge, and DCC Lankhmar is a lot of fun - a great game perfectly reworked to fit this classic setting from the works of Fritz Leiber

I was planning a couple of quiet birthday beers before another early(ish) night - but it was not to be! I certainly wasn’t expecting to have the a couple of hundred people in the bar singing happy birthday before I was presented with this amazing cake by friends Dave and Kathy. I may have been a little drunk and emotional that night!

Saturday Morning’s game was my Dark Trails funnel adventure.

I squeezed a couple of extra players around the table for this and although I’ve added to it since it’s first outing at the UK Games Expo it’s clear I still have some work to do, but I think everyone had fun.

One of the extra players was a fellow twitch mini painter, Ali, it so good to meet her and take delivery of the minis she had painted for me!

Saturday afternoon I found Carl Heyl’s drop in/drop out Basic D&D game. Carl is the current host of long time Classic D&D podcast Save Or Die and I loved sitting in on his game for a little while.

I had to keep my time in Carl’s game short because I’d signed up to play at 5pm in a ‘Super Secret Playtest’ with Michael Curtis.

By the time I sat down the secret was ‘out’ and I was excited to find I’d be taking part in the first public play test of Goodman Games 5th Edition conversion of the classic module ‘Expedition to the Barrier Peaks’ This game was a lot of fun on so many levels. I was out of my comfort zone playing a Bard and in 5th Edition D&D too! However we had an absolute blast playing through some fun encounters and it ticked several things off my bucket list.

Playing with Michael Curtis had been a long standing ambition - he didn’t disappoint, even when he teased me with “Do you want to burn any luck? Oh, sorry, wrong system!” It was also cool to play a classic Gygax module at Gary Con!

Saturday night was another party night. After my game I met some more friends in the bar. Alex, Zach and Greg seemed to have been gaming non stop all weekend but we made time to hang out and enjoy a couple of ‘Old Fashioned’s before the unofficial ‘Cultural Exchange’ social night.

With Jen and my roommate Jobe Bitmann

with Jim and Hayley Skatch

I did it! Last year I failed to get all the Spellburn podcast folk together in a picture but here’s proof it can happen without incurring a Phlogiston disturbance!

The cultural exchange ran on and I enjoyed sampling and sharing local beer and food with friends, although the handful of Wisconsin cheese with Ghost peppers that I inadvertently almost inhaled nearly choked me!

As the unofficial event wound down in the early hours I noticed the bar filling up and managed to grab a couple more photos with the celebs.

Joe Manganiello - my wife is a big fan, clearly she’s just into guys who like D&D, right?

Matt Mercer came across as a really nice guy, clearly really passionate about the hobby.

Sunday arrived with even less sleep than previous days but I was able to grab a quick breakfast bite and a chat with my buddy Victor as we walked down to our morning game.

I ran my Red Box D&D adventure ‘Return To Lion Castle’ which is a tribute to the first D&D adventure I ever played. I only had three players - I’m assuming the other three who signed up were more hungover than me, which is quite an achievment! We still had a lot of fun and I hope to run this one again soon.

In the afternoon I sat down with Jen, Bob, Nick and Marlene for lunch. This is the second year Jen and I have had lunch on the Sunday so I’m calling this a new tradition too!

Speaking of traditions another one that I’m pleased to be part of was my last game of the convention. Bob Brinkman’s ‘Dead Dogs’ game ran past midnight. Bob once again did a fantastic job guiding a very full table of twenty (!) players through an amazing improv pirate themed DCC adventure! I laughed so much I almost cried. When I eventually had to hug everyone goodbye and walk back to my room I might actually have done so...

I checked out of the hotel on Monday and had good company for the day having been offered a ride back to Chicago with Doug, Stefan and co, the DCC art contingent. We had a great pub lunch and checked out the Chicago Art Institute before I took the obligatory selfies at ‘The Bean’

I caught my late flight home and Gary Con was over for another year

The memories live on and with a little bit of luck (and some hard work!) I hope to be back next year.

#garycon #garyconxi #gaming #rpg #tabletop #dnd #dungeonsanddragons #osr

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