AU Sketches: DuckTales Beth?

HUGE file ahoy! And a huge description too - though I will try to keep this as concise as possible, and just link you for more info. Here's a write-up I did last night that goes more into the character and less, explicitly, into these pictures: [link]

The origins of this AU come from my fic "All About Elizabeth" where there is a brief scene where she interacts with Scrooge McDuck, and for a quick moment she decides she's going to talk him into letting her come along on an adventure, totally recreate her life and make herself uber interesting and exciting and

This does not happen. But I kept the idea to return to sometimes, even though I cannot write DuckTales fic because a) I am really not that familiar with the show anymore, and b) I can do Darkwing-style action/humour plots (with some difficulty), but I cannot do DuckTales-style adventure plots - I just don't have the pacing or the ideas in me. *FrothingLizard ran with the idea BRILLIANTLY with her "Legend of the Sierra Mist" AU. My take on the situation was rather different and that's the one I'm exploring here.

The top half of the sheet is Beth circa "DuckTales" if she were to join Scrooge's crew. (Oh yes - and this all centres on Beth/LP, in part b/c I can't draw any of the other characters except - just BARELY - Scrooge) First we have Beth at age 18 - who is, essentially, a mess. She works as a librarian at the University of Duckburg. She's a bit too short in this picture, but the gist is, she's even more self-conscious at this age than she is at age 25 (when she meets Drake). She's also far more naive (and again, that's saying something; she has a few growing experiences between 18 and 22). Anyway, first pic is just Beth at age 18, poor thing. She makes me want to hug her.

She manages to convince Scrooge that he can benefit from her (free!) help if he brings her along to find the Treasure of the Sierra Mist. Everything is very rushed and they're in mid-flight before she's introduced to anyone else; introductions to Launchpad come last, and from the second he half-turns in his seat to say hello, she's smitten. (Even after the inevitable crash that follows.) Beth proceeds to have to undertake a crash course in the Sierra Mist, the jungle, the local area, everything Scrooge expects her to know. (This is basically her role in the group afterwards - walking reference section. She doesn't mind b/c she's a compulsive reader and will read reference manuals if there is nothing else at hand.)

Launchpad is friendly, charming, and very very handsome. He also takes no notice of her whatsoever in any capacity that could be construed as romantic. It's kind of her own fault - after all, her entire look is designed to keep herself under everyone's radar. But he's a flirt - and he does toss compliments her way - which makes it all the harder when she watches him chasing after pretty much every other girl who comes into their range, with an interest he clearly never displays to her. On the other hand, as time goes by, they work really well together and relate well on a platonic level. LP also is probably the only reason she can handle working for Scrooge; he sticks up for her a lot and helps her handle most of the criticism. (There is a lot of "OH MY GOD HE'S GOING TO FIRE ME ;-;")

Anyway, Beth and LP work together for about 3 years before LP leaves for St. Canard, which leaves Beth feeling somewhat irrationally betrayed.

Second half of the page! ...I told you this was long. And there's actually MORE of this in the works...

Side note: this is where this AU starts "growing up". The original idea was just to have a DuckTales AU in the same vein as my Darkwing one, which is to say, some stories that would fit into the show's universe. Anything that takes place in the timeline of the show would be that. Once Beth starts growing up, though, somehow this worked its way out of any form of canon and became just... more mature and serious. Not SERIOUS serious, just a lot less cartoony in my head. Hm.

Beth finishes school around age 22, and after working for Scrooge for this long she's developed a much thicker skin than she has in my "official" canon, so she decides to just keep working for him.

By the time she reaches 25 (first picture here) she's more image-conscious, more confident, and used to fast-paced business. She travels a ton for McDuck, usually to Europe. After however many years she has some meetings in St. Canard for the first time EVER so she, naturally, gets LP's address from Fenton and stops in to see him. She's got meetings piled on but they make a date for dinner in about three nights' time.

Aaaaand this is where I stop for now; I've got about half the sketches done that I want to do for the next part, so I'll keep working on this over the weekend. Hope you like. I think her redesign is adorable and I'm not ruling out using it for "canon" Beth's actual future as her job/personal life improves.

For the record, this Beth is still essentially the same character at heart - she doesn't take a lot of cues from Scrooge personality-wise, which annoys him a bit, because there have been times when he's convinced she could have gotten a better deal by haggling instead of listening to a company's sob story about bankruptcy and lifelong dreams and wah wah wah. Beth's job with McDuck is perpetually "hanging by a thread" which, of course, is a meaningless threat. She's outwardly more confident and sophisticated, but at heart she's still a neurotic and still, deep down, thinks of herself as unexciting and easily overlooked. This is part of why she's still single, despite one or two unsuccessful relationships under her belt.

Whew. Beth Webfoot, both this version and my original, are entirely my creation. Scrooge McDuck is (c) Disney and the creation of Carl Barks, Launchpad McQuack is (c) Disney and I don't know who specifically created him, and Drake Mallard is (c) Disney and created by Tad Stones.