Cheer Up
| Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Cheer Up |
| Author(s): | CourierNew |
| Date(s): | 20 February 2017 - 5 May 2017 |
| Length: | 35055 words, 7 chapters |
| Genre(s): | Gen, Tragedy, Darkfic |
| Fandom(s): | LISA |
| Relationship(s): | |
| External Links: | Archive of Our Own, via Wayback Machine |
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Cheer Up is an ironically titled novella-length LISA fanfic written by CourierNew. The story is set after the events of LISA: The Joyful.
It is rated M, with warnings for Major Character Death(s) and Graphic Depictions of Violence.
Story
- Buddy
- Buddy's unnamed infant son
- Joy mutant Brad Armstrong
- Joy mutants
Original characters
- Lisa
- Ada
Genre, tropes, tags
Background, development, themes, narrative choices and inspiration
[CourierNew on Chapter 2, 1 Mar 2017]
Considering the style I'm aping for this story you might as well call me Courmac McCarthy.[note 1]
[Viddaric, 21 Jul 2017]
As much as I like this story and as fitting as it may be for everyone to die in the horrible world that is Lisa's post apocalypse, I can't help but think that killing everyone was kind of an easy way to avoid giving them any kind of satisfying conclusion.
[CourierNew, 21 Jul 2017]
It's fair that you'd think that, since KILL 'EM ALL is usually derided as a cheap excuse for a denouement and rightly so, but I did my best to lay the groundwork for it in this story. The whole plot is basically an extension of Roddy and Buddy's encounter in the first chapter - Roddy begins a senseless act of violence without thinking about the consequences ("What happens next?") and winds up dying for it because he's not able to stop himself from following through. That general theme gets brought up in different ways for the next few chapters ("They can't help themselves," Buddy's thoughts on the "wheel," etc) - the immutability of cycles.
That gets carried over to Buddy and Lisa, as well. Just as she feared, Buddy in this story isn't any different from Brad in the end, too badly marked by her childhood trauma to serve as a positive example for anyone, and unable to do anything other than hurt people. Like Brad, she also doesn't fully realize this about herself until it's too late, only finally accepting the child as hers after it's long dead. Lisa herself is basically a redux of Brad's sister (like Ada said, "there used to be Lisas everywhere"), someone who suffered cruelty in her childhood and turned vindictive and cruel as a result, and indirectly destroys the world as part of her vengeance against those who wronged her. Her actions drive Buddy to fall back into doing what she does best on the remaining women, basically inflicting euthanasia on a human race that's totally unfit to save itself; that's partly why one of the two works epigraphed for this piece is a poem called "Let the People Die." The "restoration" mentioned in the quoted line and by Ada herself isn't the salvation of humanity, but the world itself healing after humanity itself is finally and inevitably undone. The only person who might have actually been capable of helping Olathe was Dusty Armstrong, and like the Joyful soundtrack goes, Dusty's dead.
Anyway, all of the meticulous "well ACTUALLYYYYYY" pontification in the world can't make the ending feel like any less of a copout if you think it feels that way (and again, you'd be justified to think so). It's just to say that I at least had thematic and symbolic aims in mind when writing something so god damned depressing, and didn't just smash the Murder button because I ran out of ideas. My first image when I started plotting this out was Buddy finishing the song that killed all the mutants, followed by her child being shot and effectively damning the human race for good - there's a reason the title comes from a song that features a lengthy trumpet breakdown at the end! After my Undertale fics, which were either bittersweet or unambiguously optimistic, I wanted to ram down the Bleakness lever as far as it could go, and Lisa was a decent testing ground for that sort of tone.
[Schnozzbun on Chapter 7, 7 Oct 2020]
That was great. I am left so much more satisfied with this ending compared to how I felt playing Joyful.
For a while I’ve thought that the only way to create a satisfying ending for Joyful was to tear it down and replot everything from the ground up. But I’m deeply impressed at how you were able to work with what the player’s given and make a continuation that carried the same tone for LISA while adding depth to the ideas that weren’t explored enough in Joyful.
As many have said, the ending was tragic, but inevitable. Ada’s offer for Buddy to stay with them and not blaming Buddy for what happened had me so relieved at first, I was so worried Ada would be furious at Buddy, and we get that feeling of hope again. But it isn’t to be, cause it’s all shattered when Buddy asks just the right question, and we realise that Ada wanted Buddy out of the way from the start. Ada is just scarily good at playing the diplomat. (And despite technically being an antagonist I really enjoyed her as a character. Her motivations were always deeply sympathetic).
But yeah, despite the tragedy, I think this was one of the best endings for Buddy. Cause despite it all, Buddy had her agency. The critical moment is when Buddy is contemplating the three pills in her hand, of numbing the pain and being able to cope with all of this. But then this thought penetrates her brain:
Brad also took them in threes.
This is when she makes the critical decision to break the cycle and not fall into her dad’s footsteps. While I wouldn’t say that that I condone what Buddy ends up doing - killing everyone in the camp and overdosing Lisa on joy in a cruel death (which I took as you implying that Buddy is breaking the ‘curse’ of Lisa Armstrong’s spirit in the land of Olathe) - the ending is immensely satisfying cause it’s all done on Buddy’s own terms. Humanity is likely dead, but at least it ended with Buddy having the final say.
Anyway, goddamn, I hope you’re trying to or are already published. You’ve clearly got skill and more people should be able to see it. If you have published or do publish any original work I for one will be super keen to see it. Awesome stuff!
[CourierNew, 7 Oct 2020]
Thanks for reading. Your interpretation of the ending is valid, though my aim with it was more pessimistic - Buddy doesn't break the cycle but instead is helplessly caught within it, the wheel that "contains all actions and intentions," where even attempts to better oneself just lead to one's own final destruction. "It's too late" is a recurring phrase throughout the story for that reason, and was intended to mirror what happened to Brad and Marty in the Painful, where their own attempts at self-improvement came too late to overcome the consequences of their past actions, or even facilitated them - the same as Ada, whose guilt over her manipulation of Buddy motivated her to invite her back into the women's settlement and spark off the massacre that followed. And of course that repetition is also embodied in Lisa herself, who, just like Lisa Armstrong, suffered senseless abuse and dooms the human race in an act of retaliatory cruelty.
Buddy's pause with the pills was recognition of Brad's old habit, as you said, but it's also when she realized that Brad was nowhere to be seen, which had her venture outside to confirm her suspicions of what the women had done to him. With everything else in her life cut away, Buddy falls back into her own personal cycle of violence, resuming her role as an agent of vengeance for humanity's sins. The Big Girl cometh, and after that, the flood - though I only really noticed the obvious Biblical allegory way after writing the ending. The main line running through my head during that final chapter, other than the poem quoted in the story's epigraph, was another song quote from Modest Mouse: "If this world doesn't like us, it'll shake us just like we were a cold."
Reviews and Comments
Chapter 1
[Schnozzbun, 2 Oct 2020]
Oh man, so. I finished Joyful yesterday and was a bit disappointed by the ending and turned to ao3 finding closure, and I'm only on the first chapter of this but I'm SO hooked already.
You have such a mastery over imagery, you've effectively captured the atmosphere of the LISA games into prose. The way you describe things makes it feel like it isn't just the people of Olathe that are sick and mutated, but also the landscape itself, and that's really really cool. You strike this wonderful balance of weaving incredible sentences of grotesque imagery with well constructed prose, contrasted with sentences like "The gunbarrel chafed on the crack of his ass." The contrast of beauty and base-ness is what makes me feel like you've captured the spirit of LISA really well, and it's inspiring to read.
Favourite lines include:
- The sun lay half-exposed on the horizon like a discolored eggyolk, and its sweltering light pooling in the cracked dirt to make the lakebed look fleshy, filled with pulsating capillaries.
- The liquid had the sheen and aroma of kerosene.
- This woman had killed more people than he would ever see.
- These geometries of warped flesh and elongated bone. [...] Men with bodies broken like tents or collapsed into pillars or bent double on spines telescoped to twice their length so their backs broke backward and left their scalps trailing on the dirt.And too many more to list! You use sensory imagery so well I am TAKING NOTES.
The tension in these scene was also so damn cool. The stand-off between Buddy and Roddy had me on the edge of my seat. Buddy being called the Big Girl is very fitting. It's so vindicating seeing her in such control with this army of mutants she controls with Yado's old trumpet. The image of Brad still following her around and being used as a pack mule was tragically funny.
Anyway hh I am VERY INTRIGUED about what's gonna happen next and can't wait to read the rest of this thing
[wildewriter99, 26 Feb 2017]
I’m honestly speechless? This story was so good??? The descriptions of the world are unlike anything I’ve seen in any other fan fiction for these games. So vivid! I’m trying to imagine the patchwork skies from the view of the mountain tops and the ‘multiple suns’… It went the rather gritty route but it achieved grittiness with grace. Roddy is delightfully disgusting… The lore was fantastic. I love how the mythos around Buddy and how everyone started calling her the Big Girl. ALSO, you can just TELL how angry Buddy is just from her lore and persona and what Roddy knows about her, but how CALM she is when he’s threatening her child and asking him all these questions… that’s a side to her that we didn’t see in LtJ. That was very cool to see. Everyone sees her and writes her as very biting and cold and abrasive, but that balance of intellect and strategy that you show here is something I haven’t seen anybody tackle before in writing about her post-canon. I love this SO MUCH. I want to give this story a medal because it does everything right. FANTASTIC.
Edit: I just realized this is supposed to have multiple chapters. Color me stoked!!!
Chapter 2
[Schnozzbun, 3 Oct 2020]
It’s neat seeing you revisit these parts of Olathe through Buddy’s eyes and seeing how old party members have tried to cope or go about their lives after their stint in Brad’s gang, with little success it seems. Again, your language is on point. The description of the murals of women were especially creepy. The idea that in this world the female body is idolised but in this warped idea that it’s only something to be consumed by men, and this being Buddy’s only understanding of women’s role in human culture is so tragic and disconcerting and something i wish joyful went into a bit more detail and I’m glad to see explored a bit more here.
I legit gasped when Jack got his head chomped. The irony that even as a joy mutant Brad still screws things up for Buddy, rip.
Also THAT LAST PART OOO
Chapter 3
[Schnozzbun 3 Oct 2020]
YESSSS I WAS HOPING THE STORY WOULD GO IN THIS DIRECTION!!
I LOVE Lisa’s introduction. What a spectacular way to introduce a character with a single action, I automatically know what her whole deal is. I just love odd-ball/feral female characters. I don’t think there’s enough of them!
I also REALLY dig the vibes with Ada and the rest of the women. They’re hardened but have a good sense of humour about it, and it feels right at home with the tone of LISA.
The description of Buddy and Lisa crossing the desert plains was really well done too. You’re really good at giving the landscape a sense of scale and it’s unforgiving nature to those who are unprepared.
}}
Chapter 7
Notes
- ^ Cormac McCarthy is an American author known for his violent, bleak novels, notably No Country for Old Men, Blood Meridian, and post-apocalyptic novel The Road.