Behind the Episode
Episode 1: Carter… Nick Carter
Rose:
When I think about 00Carter, I smile. Because this idea was one that pretty much came out of nowhere. And while I’m somewhat infamous for having these lightbulb moments inspired by seemingly nothing? 00Carter is by far my most random one. I mean it started as a joke. All because the Mission: Impossible theme came up during an attempt to try and get this horribly stubborn forum to remove some plagiarized stories from Absolute Chaos. Next thing I heard in my off the wall brain was Nick’s voice going “Carter… Nick Carter” and that was the beginning of it. I don’t know why I immediately dubbed it 00Carter. I think just because it had the same flow as when you say 007 out loud. And I used to be a hard core collaboration whore, I thrived bouncing off of other people. Partly because I’ve always been my own worst critic so I felt if I wrote with others, I could be a better writer. I wasn’t exactly the most confident back then despite posting what I wanted when I wanted.
And this project was huge in my brain. I knew I wanted it in the “style” of a TV show, similar to a collaboration I’d previously joined in on with Julie – Code Blue. I knew there were going to be loads of characters which meant plenty of room to let anyone who wanted in to “create” their own, along with plenty of celebrities to throw in and parody. I felt like I couldn’t do this alone. And I’m pretty happy I didn’t have to, to be honest.
To sum it up, despite the long hiatus and the breaks in between episodes, and my own long breaks from writing fic? 00Carter has a pretty special place in my fanfic writing heart that keeps me from ever letting it go and I’m happy that in a year that’s had some highs and lows, this is the story that has me slowly dipping my toes back into the fanfic world.
What were your initial thoughts when you saw Rose’s idea to write a story about Nick as a secret agent?
Dee: I was 90% certain that it was something like, “Why hot cocoa?” for his signature beverage, so I looked it up and that was fairly accurate. Preceded by: “That’s an awesome idea,” and followed shortly by: “Can I be a Carter girl in your story?” As we all know, “can I be” very quickly turned into us writing it together and the rest (as they say) is history. I’m really glad, though, because 00Carter was really how I became friends with Rose and Julie; I think together we have a brand of creativity that feeds off each other for something great. So I’m very happy that we’re reviving this a decade after it went on hiatus.
Rose: Literally the “shaken, not stirred” hot cocoa was my one sticking point and we’ve only used it once in the damn story so far lmao. What a fail on my end.
Julie: Yeah, I can’t believe it took us until Episode 9 to even get that line in once!
Dee: It’s not Nick’s fault that drinking hot cocoa in Nevada would be silly and he’s usually really busy the other places he goes.
Rose: Hey I live in Nevada and I love drinking hot cocoa!
Julie: Me too! The cocoa part, not the Nevada part. But like both of you, I’m so happy we’re finally working on this story again! It’s been so much fun to write and definitely brought the three of us closer together. To think I almost didn’t do it…
My initial reaction to Rose’s idea was, in the infamous words of Nick’s ex-girlfriend, “That’s hot.” Nick as a secret agent? Sexy. When Rose referred to him as “00Carter” (a name that stuck, although I don’t think she originally intended it to be the actual title of the story), I joked, “Can I be a Carter Girl?” At that point, no one was talking about it being a collaboration yet. I thought it was a cute idea for Rose to write, but not something I personally was interested in writing with her. I had only seen one James Bond movie, The World is Not Enough, which I didn’t even like, and hadn’t watched any Mission: Impossible movies or episodes either. Espionage was not my thing. But as the conversation continued, I had fun contributing ideas, like Howie as the villain. I even photoshopped the first picture of Nick as Bond. As more people came on board, some of whom were Bond fans, I offered to beta read, run the 00Carter website, and make a Flash video — anything but actually write. But of course, I eventually got sucked into doing that, too, and I ended up loving it! I’m still not a Bond fan, although I have watched several more 007 movies for inspiration since we started this story. If anything, 00Carter is more like Get Smart or Austin Powers than Bond anyway.
Dee: Remember how Rose bribed you, Julie, to try and get you to do it? That was my favorite, lol. I’m glad you eventually caved.
Julie: LOL I believe she tried bribing me with “a young unmarried Brian who’s showing his fit tummy.” This was years before the “Show ‘Em (What You’re Made Of)” video, when shirtless Brian was like a rare unicorn, so she knew that would get my attention. I don’t think that was what convinced me, but I’m glad I eventually caved, too! By the way, we should really have The Rok take off his shirt more often in this story. 😉
Rose: I knew if I wanted you, Brian was the way to go!
Dee: I think there’s some future storylines that could support a shirtless Rok, lol!
Rose: Hell none of them show enough skin in this story yet!
Dee: Except for Nick in Canada! LMFAO
We each created a female character to be one of Nick’s “Carter Girls.” Tell us about yours.
Julie: As I mentioned before, the whole Carter Girl thing started out as a joke. But, like all our best collab ideas, the more we joked about it, the more it became a real part of the story. During our initial conversation, Rose came up with the name Red Jewel for “my” character as a reference to Julie, and the name stuck. She was our original Carter Girl. Her real name, Julianne Llewellyn, is obviously a play off my pen name. I don’t have red hair like her, but her personality is similar to mine. She is more reserved than the other Carter Girls, but her calm demeanor comes in handy in a crisis. We made her the resident doctor of Himitsu Takana because of my love of medical drama. I don’t think we’ve ever really delved deeply into Red’s backstory, but I imagine she trained in emergency medicine before HimTak recruited her. This would give her experience in handling a wide variety of injuries and ailments, which she would need when working with secret agents who are sent on all kinds of dangerous missions.
Dee: I loved how we called them all “I” in the beginning. So narcissistic of us, lol. I think Red was the perfect addition to the team! It makes sense that not everyone in the story is a secret agent and a Secret Agency (?) would have lots of different employees. You really need to delve into her backstory more; it’s fun.
Rose: Don’t forget that all the gem names came because I liked the idea of Red Jewel too much to deviate LOL.
Julie: That’s also how we came up with the name Himitsu Takana for the agency, remember? It means “Hidden Gem” in Japanese.
Rose: So many of the basic things in this story came from building off of something small.
Dee: It’s true! And so many of the small things we had planned in the beginning ended up in the story eventually. The attention to detail in 00Carter is crazy. I’m glad we went with gemstones and not sex puns. That’s the kind of wholesome at the root of 00Carter, really. Speaking of sex puns…
So my contribution to the Carter Girl lineup probably stemmed from the “Nick has a rival agent that’s a girl” idea we had at one point, except I’m pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to know that agent was a girl until a big reveal at some point… That’s not my favorite trope by any means. Why can’t the girl actively kick ass as a girl? I digress, anyway we scrapped that particular idea, but Diamond stayed on as a Carter Girl and an agent. I think it was Rose who initially suggested she have a “D” code name, for me (Dee) and chose “Diamond.” (Though I may have been leaning that way as well?)
Julie: Diamond is tied with Emerald Ecstasy for my favorite Carter Girl! I love that she’s a badass agent like Emerald who also happens to be super girly — it’s a nice contrast.
Rose: Agreed. And it’s funny because she’s definitely an “anti-Rose” character. I’m not remotely girly, or flirty LOL. But she’s so fun and breaks the blonde stereotype while embracing it at the same time. So thanks for creating her Dee!
Dee: Happy to help contribute to something, lol. I like all the main HimTak female characters. I think they all compliment each other. The character interactions are the real fun!
I don’t how much else y’all want to know about Diamond (I’ve always had a lot of ideas, but we can probably talk more in the next episode since it’s Nick and Diamond as the main agents on the mission), but I think the original bare bones vision was that she was a flirt, good with a gun, and a social butterfly (constantly texting on her phone and whatnot… I think at one point, I mentioned she needed a QWERTY phone to save her poor thumbs from T9 — like a sidekick, lol… our tech is so outdated for a revival).
Here’s a fun fact, I came up with her last name before her first name. It’s a funny story (assuming I’m allowed to tell a story with swearing in your sanctuary, Julie). So I took French in high school and my third/fourth year teacher would always help us edit our writing projects if we came to office hours (a godsend, really). I’d written the verb “to kiss” in one of my papers for some reason (I can’t remember why, that was almost twenty years ago) and had stumbled upon “baiser” instead of “embrasser” in my verb translation book (because this was the early ‘00s and google translate wasn’t really a thing). Come to find out “baiser” was an archaic version of “to kiss,” but had become slang for “fucking,” lmao!
Julie: LMAO! I don’t think I’ve ever heard this whole story before. That’s hilarious!
Rose: You HAVE been holding out. I hadn’t heard this either but I love it!
Dee: You hadn’t?! I apologize for withholding this all these years. Technically, my French teacher did say “slang for ‘sexual intercourse’,” don’t worry, but I knew what that meant, lol. I turned twelve hundred shades of red with my teacher, but clearly squirreled that knowledge away to use for Diamond later, apparently. As a lover of puns, I thought “DuBaiser” was a clever joke (“fucks anyone,” basically). And with a clearly French last name, she needed a French first name, so I lazily chose the name I’d picked personally in French class (in high school, they made you choose pretend names from the language, a stark contrast from when I took Japanese in college and was just “my last name”-san), which was Desirée… I think we all got lazy at some point (or it was an AC formatting nightmare), because I know I never include the accent over the “e” and I don’t think anyone else does either.
Rose: So it’s funny because Pearl was always my girl, yet in many ways has the least connections to me? Kitana is the name of one of my favorite Mortal Kombat characters and I always liked the name. In real life, I have a very Mary Sue-esque name. (My last name is pronounced “Smiley” yes as in smiley face though it’s not spelled that way. Combine that with Rose and boom an instant Mary Sue.) And her last name Pierson I tacked on because once it was figured out that Pearl would be the brains, it sounded like the name of a scientist. She’s definitely got some of my quirks, (Nick does too) like musing on songs, a love of bright colors, and a snarky sense of humor. She chooses her friends carefully, more carefully than I do. And I’m no genius!
There’s more to her backstory that I’ve known for awhile and recently even started evolving even more though I haven’t really shown it in the story beyond the occasional hint. It might be eventually but really I like having it so it explains her actions even if we never delve into it. I’m definitely an introvert though not on her level. But hey, we both have blonde hair and blue eyes? LOL.
Dee: I didn’t realize “Kitana” came from Mortal Kombat! Fatality! lol I also enjoy that a scientist got added to the group. Overall, I think the initial Carter girls were very well rounded, whereas later additions got too hung up on the “Carter” part of that.
Rose: It’s funny but it was your idea Dee, that the then unnamed Pearl became the scientist. Originally I’d been thinking about another agent but I’m really glad we didn’t go that route. I mean, coming up with her gadgets and ways they can be used plot wise, and to poke fun at Nick? I love it. And yeah I’d have to agree on that, even though the original three were…sort of self inserts, they’re not Mary Sues. At least not in the terrible sense. It’s funny to me that the geek of the group is named after a video game character. How fitting!
Dee: It was me? You’re welcome everyone. There’s probably one of two reasons I suggested that, either the selfish “but Diamond is already the agent, can’t let Rose harp in on that” or the funny “but you’re the brains of this operation, Rose, she should be the scientist,” lol. I’m willing to bet I thought the former, but reasoned it away with the latter. Sorry I was an asshole in my youth.
Rose: Either way it worked out for the best! LOL
Julie: I love that our agency’s head scientist is a woman! Great example of what STEAM education can produce, LOL.
Dee: Same with Red being head of the medical department! You know, despite being a Backstreet Boys fanfic, 00Carter is pretty decent at passing the Bechdel test, representation, etcetera.
What’s something you love about this story that you didn’t expect to back when we first started it?
Dee: Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think we all thought (maybe not Rose) it would be this semi-serious Bond homage rather than what it is.
Julie: Yeah, that was part of my initial hesitation to join in. I don’t think I would have enjoyed writing it much if it was all serious or if we had stuck to just emulating James Bond. That may have been our starting point, but I love that we branched out and made it our own.
Rose: I think I knew that wasn’t going to be the case once we did the first episode about finding a pizza LMAO.
Dee: No, obviously your main character’s first mission can’t be about finding a pizza if it’s a semi-serious homage. Especially if he’s running around calling it a “Precious,” lol. That’s my favorite thing about 00Carter though, the idea that “most entertaining idea wins” and we just find a way to make it work.
Rose: That tends to be my motto for writing 00Carter, “the idea that makes me laugh the most wins”. It fits my terrifying brain perfectly because you guys know I just spit out random shit expecting you guys to make it work.
Dee: I’m pretty sure writing a 00Carter outline for an episode goes something like this:
1. Rose or Dee makes a stupid joke.
2. The other one says “No that’s genius because… [reason].”
3. Julie laughs hysterically, then makes us figure out the logic for it in the context of the rest of the story.
I realize explaining it this way makes Julie sound like the least fun and this is not the case. Her funny ideas just usually come out coherent.
Rose: LMAO She’s usually the one making it work or…yeah her random as hell ideas already have logic behind them because she thinks it through.
Dee: That’s our problem, we just say the first funny thing we think of to get everyone else to laugh. The drawings I did for “Mr. Body Beautiful” are probably up there in my favorites of these moments, lol.
Julie: I like to credit South Park for my sense of humor. I appreciate a good parody and a certain degree of randomness, but it still has to work together and make sense. We don’t want it to look like our story was written by manatees pushing around idea balls. I think we’ve all honed our ability to piece together seemingly random jokes and events into coherent plots. That’s what I love most about 00Carter. Plotting it together is as much fun as actually writing it!
Dee: LMAO! Manatees pushing idea balls around (I love that episode). Didn’t we used to joke that we came up with our ideas like that, except that they were idea ferrets and penguins? lol I think other than a few times, we’ve had a fairly easy time making the most entertaining or weirdest idea work, but I honestly can’t think of the hard ones right now. Also the single-episode parody homages are great. They’ve given us so many inside jokes.
Julie: That’s where it helps to have other people to bounce around ideas (or, yes, “plot ferrets” LOL). I don’t think any one of us would have been able to write this story by ourselves (definitely not me), but together, we make it work!