#at this point i should write meta about the movie someday. i should
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Kiryuu Touga and the cyclical narrative
TW : Discussions of misogyny, emotional manipulation and abuse, sexual abuse and (sexual) child abuse. (Very vague) mention of incest.
First of all, not really as a disclaimer but more as a recommendation, a lot of my thoughts about Touga are shaped by this essay, which is definitely easily one of my favorite pieces of Utena meta. I think I'm going to implicitly or more explicitly reference it sometimes, but you don't need to read it to understand this post.
I have a complex relationship with Touga. He is despicable, yet the more I watch the series, the more I find myself... fascinated by him. This post is a pretty much a synthesis of all these thoughts.
On a purely narrative level, Touga's role is a bit special. He's the antagonist of the first arc. The three duels involving him are all turning points in the series. He's a core character in the development of several other characters (Saionji, Nanami, Utena and Miki on a different level).
Yet, turns out he's only a puppet, just as everyone else is. How surprising. And when it comes down to it, what do we know about Touga ?
He's the Student Council's president. He seemingly can't have a relationship with anyone without manipulating them to his advantage. He sleeps with any girl (and maybe not only girls) who breathe around him in a 1 ft radius. His way of coping with depression is to seal himself in a wide and totally empty room to listen to his own voice on repeat to ponder heavily on his broken hopes and ideals. (Hmm. Hardcore.)
And more importantly, he wants power. A power that would be absolute. But why so ?
And this is the point where it gets complicated.
Touga is barely the main topic of episodes focused on him. He is the center of many obsessions and interests, but it seems we never touch upon him as a person. He can be seen being vaguely vulnerable in eps 11 and 12 and then there's the whole Black Rose arc thing. But where does all this mess steam from ?
Victim status
Eps 35 and 36 are the one going deeper into Touga’s character and yet... we’re barely sure of what’s actually going on in his brain. These episodes always give me a weird feeling because we don’t really get to see Touga express his feelings very clearly or freely... We barely get to hear his thoughts.
Just like Anthy.
Don’t make me say what I didn’t say, though. Touga gets to have way more agency than ever does Anthy, and he certainly doesn't endure the same dehumanization as she does. Anthy does have agency in a way. But she expresses it in hidden, implicit ways : playing tricks, hitting people in their sore spots, sarcasm, empty eyes and fake smiles. She’s manipulative and Touga is, too. These two share many similarities, though they can’t completely blend with each other, of course.
We don’t know much about Touga’s childhood. We know he and Nanami were adopted (or “sold”) to the Kiryuu family at a young age. That’s basically it in the canon of the series. Though, Touga’s backstory in the movie, showing him being sexually abused by his adoptive father, was apparently meant to be included in the series as well :
Although the TV series touched upon Touga’s younger days, the film goes into more details – the wound of Touga that was never directly depicted. In his younger days, Touga was a normal kid who enjoyed happy times with his friend Saionji Kyouichi and his younger sister Nanami. However, he came to know his unfortunate fate from the time he was ordered by his parents to wear his hair long. His parents sold him to the Kiryuu family. Although he was an adopted son on the surface, the instinctive Touga knew what that meant. And in order to protect his younger sister, he accepted his lot. Being sold. We did not go into depicting what Touga’s parents obtained by going as far as selling their son. We would like you to think of it as a kind of metaphor.
And Touga accepted in silence the sexual abuse from his new parents. His personality changed while he made a magnanimous show of enjoying the abuses in order to prevent his personality from splitting. The change took place in a spot so deep in his mind, that even those closest to him did not notice. Saionji and Nanami never noticed out of their innocence. And Touga never told his secret to anyone. It is said that a human being gains whatever he lost in exchange. So what did Touga gain in exchange at that point in time? It was the sense of alienation from being abused every night and seeing his innocent friend and sister during the day. The alienated self.
(Extract of a comment Enokido, one of the writers who worked on Utena, wrote about Touga’s role in the Utena movie.)
Of course, you could argue whether or not the sexual abuse is canon or not in the series. After all, the series and the movie don’t seem to take place in the same canon (even though it is hard to completely disconnect the two). Whatever you choose to believe, I personally think it all makes so much sense.
It makes sense regarding Touga’s general behavior in the series (but this is more touched upon in the essay I linked above) and it makes his goal and his narrative role much clearer.
Being sold like a mere object, knowing a much harsher truth about life Saionji and Nanami don’t know about, showing everyone a stronger facade in order to not completely lose your mind and keep protecting your friend and your sister from this reality and eventually... letting them know in a painfully gendered way, perpetuating everything this system has forced on you.
It has all become part of you.
Keeping the cycle of violence going became part of your blood and flesh. Making clear who is supposed to inflict pain and who is supposed to receive it. Who is supposed to protect and who is supposed to be protected. Who is supposed to act and who is supposed to wait.
And you ? No, you’re never supposed to hurt anymore. You want a way out of this. For you, the easiest way is to simply reclaim the place that was always prepared for you to take.
When Touga and Saionji found Utena in her coffin, it feels like Touga knew something Saionji didn’t. Saionji felt it too, but he wasn’t able to recognize what it was. After all, he was still a child. Touga knew about the same thing Utena learned with her parents’ death : they both had a glimpse of what the “adult world” (Akio’s world) actually looks like, shattering their juvenile knowledge of the world.
A world where people die. A world where the weak lose. A world where the prince should protect the princess.
Touga already had a coffin. Utena just found hers and was about to find a new one. Saionji was just finding his.
It all makes sense regarding how obedient Touga is to Akio and why he seeks his validation, his desire to go up in the hierarchy aside. It makes sense because he is “alienated”. Touga got deprived of everything, he knows the burden of being alive and he’s learned, from his early childhood, to be compliant.
He seems independent during the Student Council arc and a majority of the series, but eps 35 and 36 show he is not the mastermind of it all. He has a privileged position but unlike some other characters, Touga never uses his agency to try to break out of the system ─ he follows its rules and tries to reinforce his dominance.
Why would you break out from a system serving you so well ?
“I want to become like him. I want power like his.”
Touga is alienated to the system and his only goal is to become what it expects of him. After all, why wouldn’t he ? Being a prince is the best position offered by the system. Being a prince means acquiring an absolute power. With such power, one doesn’t die and is forever out of reach and harm and pain. Who wouldn’t want such a thing ?
The prince never saves the princess out of selflessness. He saves her because it gives him a reward in exchange. He saves her because it gives him power and control over her and ultimately, everyone else. And so, the princess becomes a "toy" wannabe princes has to win, to conquer.
Does Touga, even during what seems to be his most “sincere” moment in ep 36, ever wish to protect Utena for something else than possessing her ? When could have he learned to know and appreciate her as a person, rather than a princess ? A reward to conquer ?
When did he stop wishing he could’ve saved Utena just like Akio did ? I believe he might be genuine, yet he acts toward Utena exactly like she acts toward Anthy. He wants to save her for his own sake, regardless of her personal hopes and desires.
It’s truly sad, though. Because all of it is nothing but a childish dream. There was never once a prince in this world. Only boring and abusive adults.
“Are you really happy with that?”
Well, when it comes down to it, probably not. But was it ever about happiness ? Probably not either. The pursuit of power only ever leads to isolation, to a complete lack of meaning ─ after all, friendship is a fool’s thing. No one can reach what’s behind the facade.
Saionji was able to confront Touga with his own lies and paradoxes, get as close to his real self anyone probably could. But it wasn’t enough. Saionji himself didn’t go as far as leaving the system entirely, even when it seemed he had cracked it all. Touga sort of did, too.
As far as I’m concerned, we only heard his own, deep thoughts once.
“Kiryuu Touga, the playboy Student Council President... Is it? "Playboy" sounds old-fashioned.”
Touga weaponized himself. He weaponized his body (sex is only a tool to aim for power). He weaponized his heart (relationships only matter if you use them to your advantage. Those who believe in love and friendship are fools and will be ultimately be used to someone else’s advantage). And for what ?
I really like the symbolism of the poppy flower in ep 35. I feel like it symbolizes Akio’s power, in a way. I’m incredibly bad when it comes to the language of flowers (so everyone is free to correct me) but please bear with me. In the East, red poppy flowers apparently symbolize romantic love and success (what it probably means for the girl confessing to Touga, as well as Akio when he “eats” it in this scene, since Touga and him are talking about Utena) but it can also symbolize “luxurious pleasures and fantastic extravagance”. In the Japanese language of flowers, red poppies can also symbolize someone “fun-loving”. I feel like both of these work with Akio and I believe that for Touga, they are a symbol of luxury and extravagance.
Yet another girl confessed to him. Without even thinking about it, he kissed her. He will never read her confession letter, he probably didn’t even notice it. He will probably simply leave it on the floor, without a care. This pursuit of power isn’t even fulfilling to him, there’s absolutely no thought behind it. Only automatic actions, behaviors working in favor of someone else’s greater scheme. He won’t even get to actually possess Utena.
He will never get what he truly wants. Is there even anything that he truly wants ? Saionji, maybe. In the meantime, he’s just a tool for a system. A system made up by boring adults, based on lies, illusions and unachievable dreams.
Touga is condemned to go in cycles. He’s given everything to overcome what keeps him stuck and trapped, but it doesn’t do anything. He can only revolve around his own coffin, completing the same circle, again and again.
He doesn’t know how to do anything else.
It will never make anything he’s done forgivable. But at least, maybe one day, he’ll realize. Or maybe never.
We can always create new roads, leading to worlds completely unknown to us, where everything needs to be built. Anthy and Utena are here to show the way, who deserves to follow these new roads is only up to you.
On a purely personal standpoint... I was never really able to answer this question.
“No. It's not over until we see it through the very end.”
#this took an eternity (lol) to get done. welp.#i started this in *checks notes* february 2022#the original ramble post that gave birth to this post is way older than this#i felt like this was. too obvious or whatever. but i wanted to finish it for myself ig#posting mediocre meta in order to cope !#does this post make me a touga enjoyer ?? idk. i kinda hate him still#hate him so much i wrote an entire post about him. ahah. im a fool#ive just seen the 'it's because i'm a feminist' screenshot and i genuinely felt like deleting this entire post. he is a clown. i am CLOWN#at this point i should write meta about the movie someday. i should#this post is just a long explanation of the 'touga ; anthy and utena function as a triangle. the triforce of abuse if you will' idea#utena meta#shoujo kakumei utena#revolutionary girl utena#sku#rgu#touga kiryuu#kiryuu touga#er.txt
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hello join me in thinking about some books and authors that are, or might be, part of s5′s intertextuality
5.10 in particular offered specific shout outs, and also u know i’m always wondering what might be ahead so i have some ideas on that:
- first, as mentioned in a previous ask post, i know i wasn’t alone in keeping an eye out for 5.10 parallels to the lost weekend (1945) the film that gave episode 1.10 its name and several themes - or to the 1944 book by charles r jackson which the film is based on
- s5 has not been shy about revisiting earlier seasons, especially s1. altho i feel that 1.10′s parallels to the lost weekend centered characters other than jughead (mostly betty), a 1.10-5.10 connection involving jughead and themes from jackson’s story (addiction, writers block, self reflection) seemed v possible if not inevitable
- but like,, , for a hot minute after the ep, i was really stumped on understanding how anything from the book or film could apply, even tho the pieces were almost all there
- jackson’s protagonist don birnam goes thru and comes out the other side of a harrowing days-long drinking binge that could be compared to jughead’s one-night hallucinogenic writing retreat
- but jughead is struggling primarily with traumatic memories, not addiction and self control like birnam. and tho drinking activates birnam’s creativity, it paralyzes his writing as he gets lost in fantasies; he’s never published anything. jughead’s drug trip recreates circumstances that already helped him write one successful book. even the rat that startles him mid-high doesn’t line up with birnam’s withdrawal vision of a dying mouse, symbolic of his horror at his own self-destruction thru alcohol
- and maybe the most visible discordance: in the film there’s a romantic motif around a typewriter. first it’s an object of shame; birnam’s failure to write, tied up with his drinking, makes him flee his relationship. he tries to pawn the typewriter for booze money and finally a gun when shooting himself feels easier than getting sober. but with the help of relentless encouragement from girlfriend helen, he quits drinking, commits to her, and focuses on typing out the story he’s dreamt of writing. rd goes so far to avoid setting any comparable scenario that jughead has brought a wholeass printer into the bunker so there can still be a physical manuscript to cover in blood by the end, even without his own typewriter. the subtle detail of his laptop bg image is a little less noticeable than his avoidance of betty’s gift
- tabitha might be closer to a parallel than jughead is, but she’s still no helen. both refuse to take advantage of the inebriated men in their care, but birnam takes advantage of helen, financially and emotionally. jughead refused a loan from the tate family and now has resolved to deal with his shit before he considers a relationship with tabitha. instead of helen’s relentless and unwelcomed attempts to get birnam sober, tabitha reluctantly agrees to help jughead trip safely bondage escape notwithstanding. she even helps him get the drugs.
- whatever potentials exist for parallels to jackson’s story, they were not explored for this episode. ok so why tf am i even talking about this? what was there instead?
- i have arrived at the point
- s5 has been revisiting s1, not directly but with a twist. and jughead’s agent samm pansky is back. u may recall, pansky is named for sam lansky
- jughead’s trip-thru-trauma is a story device tapped straight from lansky’s book ‘broken people’
- lansky is like if a millenial john rechy wrote extremely LA-flavored meta but just about himself no jk very like a modern successor to charles r jackson. both play with the boundary between memoir and fiction. lansky is gay; jackson wrote his lost weekend counterpart as closeted and remained closeted himself until only a few years before his death. both write with emotional clarity and self-scrutiny on the experiences of addiction, sobriety, and the surrounding issues of shame and self worth
- i feel like a fool bc after this ep i had been thinking about de quincey and his early writings on addiction (c.1800s), but i failed to carry the thought in the other direction, to contemporary writers in the genre, to make this connection sooner
- lansky’s second book, broken people, follows narrator ‘sam’, mid-20s, super depressed, hastled by his agent to write a decent follow-up to his first book, but too busy struggling with his self-worth and baggage from several past relationships. desperate, he takes up an offer to visit a new age shaman who promises to fix everything wrong with him in a matter of days. not to over simplify it but he literally spends a weekend doing psychedelics and hallucinating about his exes. jughead took note
- unless u want me to hurl myself into yet another dissertation about queer jughead, i think his parallel to sam - who, unlike jughead, has considerable financial privilege and whose anxieties center on body dysmorphia, hiv scares, and his own self-centeredness - pretty much ends there
- But,, the gist of the book could not be more harmonius with a major theme shared by the 2 films that inform the actual hallucination part of jughead’s bunker scene: mentally reframing past relationships to get closure + confronting trauma head-on in order to move forward
- so that’s neat. what other book and author stuff was in 5.10?
- stephen king and raymond carver get name dropped. i’m passingly familiar with them both but u bet i just skimmed their wiki bios in case anything relevant jumped out
- like jughead, carver was a student (later a lecturer) at the iowa writers workshop. also the son of an alcoholic and one himself
- i recall carver’s ‘what we talk about when we talk about love’ is what jughead was reading in 2.14 ‘the hills have eyes’ after he finds out about the first time betty kissed archie (at that time he does not respond as would any of carver’s characters)
- this collection of carver stories deals especially with infidelity, failings of communication, and the complexities and destructiveness of love. to unashamedly quote the resource that is course hero, ‘carver renders love as an experience that is inherently violent bc it produces psychic and emotional wounds.’ very fun to wonder about the significance of this collection within the s2 episode and in jughead’s thoughts. and maybe now in the context of the s5 state of relationships. or, at least, the state of jughead’s writing as seen by his agent
- anyway pansky doesn’t want carver, he wants stephen king
- i have too much to say about gerald’s game in 5.10, that’s getting its own post someday soon
- lol wait king’s wife is named tabitha uhhh king’s wiki reminded me of his childhood experience that possibly inspired his short story ‘the body’ (+1986 movie ‘stand by me’) when he ‘apparently witnessed one of his friends being struck and killed by a train tho he has no memory of the event’
- no mention of that in this rd episode but memories of a train could be interesting to consider with the imagery that intrudes on jughead’s hallucination. i still feel like it was a truck but the lights and sounds he experiences may be a train
- ok now we’re in the speculation part of today’s segment
- if jughead’s traumatic memory involves trains, then it’s possible this plot will take influence from la bête humaine <- this 1938 movie is based on the 1890 novel by french writer émile zola. this story deals with alcoholism and possessive jealousy in relationships, sometimes leading to murder. huh, kind of like carver. zola def comes down on the nature side of the nature-vs-nuture bad seed question (tho i should say he approaches this with great or maybe just v french compassion). also i can’t tell if this is me reaching but, something about la bête humaine reminds me of king’s ‘secret window’ which we’ve observed to be at least a style influence on jughead post time jump
- but wow a late-19th century french writer would be a random thing to drop into this season, right? then again zola also wrote about miners, which we’ve learned are an important part of this town’s history + whatever hiram is up to this time. and most notably, zola wrote ‘j’accuse...!’ an open letter in defense of a soldier falsely accused and unlawfully jailed for treason: alfred dreyfus. archie’s recent army trouble comes to mind.
- since the introduction of old man dreyfuss (plausibly Just a nod to close encounters actor richard dreyfuss, but also when is anything in this show Just one thing) i’ve been wondering if these little things could add up to a season-long reference to zola’s writings. but i had doubts and didn’t want to speak on it too soon bc, u know, it’s weird but is it weird enough for riverdale??
- however,,,
- (come on, u knew where i was going with this)
- a24′s film zola just came out. absolutely no relation to the french writer, it’s not based on a book but an insane and explicit twitter thread by aziah ‘zola’ wells about stripping and? human trafficking?? this feels ripe for rd even outside the potentials here for the lonely highway/missing girls plot.
- that would add up to a combination of homage that feels natural to this show
- anyway pls understand i’m just having fun speculating, most of this is based on nothing more concrete than the torturous mental tendril ras has hooked into my skull pls let go ras pls let go
#accompanying image has no meaningful organization it's just there to make me look insane. enjoy#riverdale speculation#filmref#but books#adhd has me like. this is Not the post i've been trying to write for weeks but my brain gave me no choice
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The Daydreamer (1966)
By the 1960s, Christmas television specials were in vogue in the United States. Yet this recent phenomenon had yet to yield a true cultural touchstone. On December 6, 1964, the first Christmas special mainstay aired on NBC. Produced by a fledgling animation studio, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer put Rankin/Bass, named after co-founders Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass, into the public consciousness. Rankin/Bass’ brand of stop-motion animation (“Animagic”) was mostly outsourced to Japanese studio MOM Productions in Tokyo, under the direction of Tadahito Mochinaga. With the windfall of Rudolph, Rankin/Bass and MOM Productions delved into the realm of feature theatrical films. This review concerns their second feature film, The Daydreamer – a stop motion animation/live-action hybrid based on Hans Christian Andersen’s stories. The Daydreamer has starpower in its cast that no Rankin/Bass production had yet matched. But as one might expect from a Rankin/Bass film, there are narrative flaws abound. The Daydreamer, episodic in nature and alternating between live-action and animation scenes, suffers due to the inconsistent quality of the handful of Hans Christian Andersen adaptations it has and the kitschy live-action acting.
The young Hans Christian Andersen (“Chris”; Paul O’Keefe) is the son of a cobbler (Jack Gilford). Papa Andersen often has to face the verbal tirades of frequent customer Mrs. Klopplebobbler (Margaret Hamilton; it is difficult not to think of Hamilton’s portrayal of the Wicked Witch here). His struggling business often means he cannot pay the gangling Pie Man (Ray Bolger; yet another Wizard of Oz star). To take him away from these troubles, Chris will let his imagine run wild while napping. If he can only just find the mythical Garden of Paradise, all these troubles might vanish. One evening, the Sandman (voiced by Cyril Ritchard) promises him to guide him there. Along the way, Chris is subject to dreams that may seem familiar to the viewer. These dreams shift away from live-action into the signature Rankin/Bass animation – adapting “The Little Mermaid”, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”*, “Thumbelina”, and “The Garden of Paradise”. Elements of “The Ugly Duckling” and “Little Claus and Big Claus” also appear.
Among the many voice actors during these animation sequences are Hayley Mills (The Little Mermaid); Burl Ives (Neptune – I have never heard Ives’ voice so devoid of jaunt before); Tallulah Bankhead (the sea witch); Terry-Thomas (the first tailor); Victor Borge (the second tailor); Ed Wynn (the Emperor); Patty Duke (Thumbelina); and Boris Karloff (the Rat).
The film’s adaptations of Andersen’s tales differ in that Andersen himself becomes a character in each of the stories. The Daydreamer approaches the stories as if the ideas are only just forming in the young Chris’ head, to be written and published when he is an adult. Within these dreams-someday-to-be-stories, Chris is largely a passive character. He takes instruction from the central figures of his future tales, never really asserting himself or asking basic questions about the misadventures he goes through. Chris acts as if lost in his own imagination – which fits the conceit of the film. So when he awakens into the real world, the film’s pacing slams the brakes. In the real world, everyone except Chris is a caricature, somehow less realistic than the individuals appearing in the daydreams. The transitions between animation and live-action will take the viewer out of the film because of the unceasing manic acting in the latter, as opposed to the charming puppetry of the former. As such, The Daydreamer’s weaknesses lie almost entirely with the live-action scenes – too consciously playing to the audience and over-the-top in their absurdity.
In an era of American animation defined by Disney on the screen and Hanna-Barbera on television, Rankin/Bass carves out its own niche in how it tells its stories. The meta humor and fourth wall breaking of Hanna-Barbera’s works (a legacy of the duo’s work at MGM) makes no appearances here. Disney’s clean-cut fairytale endings also do not apply. The Daydreamer’s adaptation of “The Little Mermaid” does not have the gruesome premise as Andersen’s original fairytale, but it retains the ending’s heartbreak. There appears to be no alterations to “The Emperor’s New Clothes” – which includes Chris, but he just feels superfluous to the plot and to the tale’s keen comedy. Each of the film’s segments bring Chris closer to the final animated sequence, “The Garden of Paradise”. The adaptation of that tale sanitizes its deathly overtures for a devil-like creature, but keeps the ambiguous, open-ended conclusion. By maintaining the original conclusion, “The Garden of Paradise” is a curious coda for The Daydreamer – a film that ends as abruptly as its several transitions, like a daydream.
The Daydreamer’s live-action sets benefit, however, due to the fact many of its scenes were shot at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The World’s Fair pavilions used in this film mimic a feel of small-town, nineteenth century Europe more realistically than a Hollywood soundstage might. The production design for the animated dream sequences, too, are mesmerizing. Perhaps this is best exemplified in “The Little Mermaid”. There, the special effects work make it appear as if the whole sequence was shot underwater, rather than a room that contained blue lights streaming into Neptune’s palace. Where are the strings and wires suspending the puppets in mid-air while they “swim”? To the animators’ credit, there are none to be found. Neptune’s palace is one of the grander sets constructed for a Rankin/Bass production; its imposing walls and generous empty spaces reflect a sense of regal grandeur. That royal otherworldliness does not extend to “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, but many of the same production design decisions carry over. Rankin/Bass and MOM Productions are obviously working with more money and manpower for these animated scenes than in the likes of Rudolph or their many holiday television specials. The sense of scale and grandiosity seen here in The Daydreamer and Mad Monster Party? (1967) would rarely, if ever, be replicated for television. And it is also obvious that the filmmakers put the money into the animation and for paying headline-worthy actors, rather than for any writers able to string the animated and live-action halves together.
Seven songs comprise The Daydreamer’s musical soundtrack. Composed by Maury Laws and Jules Bass, most of the songs are forgettable once your viewing is done (including Robert Goulet singing the title song over the opening credits, despite the fact I admire Goulet’s voice). But there are notable exceptions. Sung by Hayley Mills at the end of “The Little Mermaid”, “Wishes and Teardrops” brings the segment to a worthy close. Her loved ignored, the Little Mermaid sings this lament – backed with percussion straight from a ‘60s love ballad and timeless swelling strings – for herself:
Wishes and teardrops
Won’t make him love me.
He’s gone and he’ll never return.
Does he know how teardrops can burn,
When they fall for a wish
That can never come true?
In the film’s final third, “Luck to Sell” injects a jolt of energy sorely missing from many of the other live-action scenes. The song itself is simple and the singing just avoids being flat, but when paired with the energetic choreography from Paul O’Keefe and company, it elevates itself from the rest of the soundtrack (save “Wishes and Teardrops”).
Not often will a viewer encounter a film with two sets of opening credits. I’m not writing about films that have an overture that transition to opening credits (an entirely different approach that modern filmmakers should utilize more), but two sets of opening credits that list the names of the actors involved. For the first set of credits, caricaturist Al Hirschfeld (uncredited) was hired to draw caricatures of the various actors and actresses appearing in, or lending their voices to, The Daydreamer. The Daydreamer is the second of three films that Hirschfeld was involved in. The first, appearing as himself uncredited, was in Main Street to Broadway (1953); his third and final film was as an artistic consultant on the “Rhapsody in Blue” segment (which was influenced by his caricatures) in Fantasia 2000.
Rankin/Bass’ ventures into feature film animation peaked several months later with Mad Monster Party? After that and the unfortunate production of The Wacky World of Mother Goose (1967; a traditionally animated eyesore), Rankin/Bass almost completely dedicated itself to its animated television specials. The Daydreamer, distributed by the now-defunct Embassy Pictures and currently owned by Sony Pictures Television (the ownership of the rights to Rankin/Bass’ features are exasperatingly scattered), has not been widely seen when compared to Mad Monster Party?, let alone Rankin/Bass’ television specials. If one can find a serviceable print of The Daydreamer, the viewing experience will be a valuable glimpse into the studio’s collaboration with MOM Productions. A Rankin/Bass fan that has only known the studio through its television specials will see their work operating with higher production values; Rankin/Bass novices can experience a dimension of animated filmmaking too often considered an afterthought.
My rating: 6/10
^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).
For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.
* “The Emperor’s New Clothes” was adapted twice by Rankin/Bass. The second adaptation is the heart of the television special The Enchanted World of Danny Kaye (1972), starring Danny Kaye. That adaptation of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is distinct from the one that appears in The Daydreamer. The Danny Kaye special’s adaptation has a more developed storyline, completely different voice cast, and completely different soundtrack.
#The Daydreamer#Rankin Bass#Jules Bass#Arthur Rankin Jr.#Paul O'Keefe#Jack Gilford#Margaret Hamilton#Sessue Hayakawa#Patty Duke#Boris Karloff#Hayley Mills#Burl Ives#Tallulah Bankhead#Victor Borge#Ed Wynn#Ray Bolger#Maury Laws#stop motion#TCM#My Movie Odyssey
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For 700 Followers!
Hi babe.
That is terribly angsty and now I’m intrigued.
(Just a note for babe not familiar with No Home for Dead Birds or Fracture: I write a scene in which Tim literally has a gun to head. This is not lighthearted angst, please be warned if you read this.)
**
At one time, his colors had been red, gold, and green.
At one time, he’d been part of something bigger, something important. A legacy.
At one time, he’d been able to fly without being afraid of falling.
Being Robin had been the epitome. Even with all the terrible things he’d endured, all the injuries, all the catastrophes, all the insane megalomaniacal baddies breathing down his neck, he wouldn’t have traded the tunic for anything in the world.
(Dick had known it, had known how painful it was for Tim give it up once his Dad found out.)
He would have died with the R on his chest and never had a single regret.
Realistically, he couldn’t have been Robin forever, and he’d known that someday he would have to give it up and either move on with his life as a regular person, or take on another name, another mask, to keep fighting the good fight.
He hadn’t expected Dick would take it without a thank-you or fuck you to mark the end. That hadn’t been in the plan.
But it’s fine because Dick was the first and Robin had been his anyway, right?
Right.
Wrong.
Staring down the .45 in hand, the gun his father hadn’t had the chance to use to save his own life, Tim Drake wonders how it all came down to this.
(Last one left standing. Of fucking course.)
How it had all come out so badly, how he could barely step foot back in Gotham, how he had to avoid the Manor, the Carriage House, his own family home. How he couldn’t pick up the phone or answer texts coming from his former team. How he could barely keep himself the fuck together now that Bruce was back. How his hands would start to shake when the Manor phone number popped up (Alfred). How his mind’s eye would go back to Dick at the Big Computer in the Batsuit, telling him they were still equals. How he would imagine what would happen if he hadn’t caught himself when that zip line was cut. How he would sit in his safe house, off the Bat radar, and mourn the times when he was actually–
(happy)
–part of a family.
The pictures from an old Vans shoebox, the ones he’d taken back when he’d had the run of Gotham, following Batman and Robin (Jason), are burning in the kitchen sink. He watches Nightwing’s blurry face melt away and pretends there aren’t tears in his eyes.
The old memorabilia from Haley’s Circus is in a storage unit outside the city, along with a box that has his last Robin suit.
The lawyer has strict instructions to deliver the key and a letter to his former adopted father, Bruce Wayne, upon news of his death so anything incriminating can be properly disposed.
(They wouldn’t need any of it anyway. They could just shred all of it and wash their hands of him. The Robin that never should have been.)
A map with all his safe houses would be send to Conner Kent, along with a letter of apology.
His favorite nerd shirts would go to Ives.
The sundries in his Perch would be for Steph, and the penthouse itself would go to Babs in case things in the theatre went sideways.
Bart would get a zip drive with all their old shenanigans on video, the only copies left once his systems uploaded relevant data to Titan’s Tower and his electronic footprint would be–
gone.
The box with the Red Robin costume he wore was already sealed and addressed to Jason Todd. The note on top was short and sweet: You were right. It never should have been me after all.
He’d already arranged for his share in Wayne Enterprises to be returned to Bruce Wayne immediately, handing him his family’s company back without any strings attached.
Months ago, he’d returned The Red Bird to the Cave when he was sure no one would be around to catch him. The implication that Robin would need the car one day right there in the fact he’d brought it back because honestly, it was never really his in the first place.
Alfred would get his pick of antiques from Drake Manor, and the house itself would be given to the city to be used as a halfway home for runaway teens. He’d made sure the funding would be there to run it for a few years. The donation was made in his mother’s name.
The hilt molds to his palm, the barrel glinting bright in the night. To his credit, his hands aren’t shaky when he slides the clip home and pulls the slide back to put one in the chamber.
(The team had been working fine without him for a while now. Even if they did need someone, there was another Robin to join the roster and keep them moving forward.)
An abrupt light in the darkness, his phone screen lighting up with a missed call notification.
Missed call: Dick the OG
Ironic since the last time he’d come this far, it had been him calling out to the last person he thought could pull him back.
(Not this time. He has a new little brother, a new Robin.)
Slowly, without putting down the .45, he presses the ignore when the phone starts buzzing against with another incoming call. He thumbs the button on the side to turn the phone completely off without listening to the voicemail.
The clip makes a difference, but the absurdity of it, of the last time he did this, was when his future self was a murdering, gun-toting Batman, and the only way he could see to stop it was to stop himself.
The press of the barrel is familiar, and not in that soothing kind of way.
He blinks, just blinks, and his face is wet, which is really stupid because no one is going to miss him any damn way.
His chest gets tight when he fingers the trigger guard, giving himself the time he needs to do it right. In the final moments, he inanely thinks about the time he was huddled against Dick, right after he'd almost tried cloning his dead best friends in an insane attempt to bring them back. It's really the last time he remembers being held, being warm, feeling like he still fucking mattered. It was Dick holding him tight with restraining, breathing against the top of his head, fingers buried in his hair.
It's when he could be weak while still in the mask, babbling to Dick about how he can't do this, he can't lose them all. He was crying then, too, when he told Dick about his mom and dad leaving, leaving, always fucking leaving. About how he got used to seeing their backs more than their faces. How he was left standing on his own for too damn long to just let it keep happening. He couldn't keep losing them, couldn't keep seeing people walk away, how it fucking breaks him.
And in the here and now, his chest hitches, eyes fluttering, hand tightening down because he'd said...and Dick had...
"But I'm here, Timmy. I'm always going to be your big brother!"
It had been the last time he'd been surrounded by the famed octopus hold.
(It was the last time for a lot of things.)
He laughed, smothered in Dick shoulder, something further away from a sob. "Then I guess you'll at least never leave me, right?"
"You will never be able to get rid of me. C'mon. We're going the hell home and having a movie day. Screw the Lazarus Pit, Robin. It's time for some R and R."
Dick had half-carried him to the waiting Batplane and talked him down out of trying to use the Pit for his own gain ever again.
The first knuckle rests on the smooth curve, a six-pound trigger.
(In the end, they all leave.)
(Not again.)
Conner's terrible mohawk and leather jacket.
Bart racing Wally at a hotdog eating competition.
Cassie running full tilt to throw herself at him when he'd come to Titan's Tower to ask them for help when Ra's was going to kill everyone Batman ever loved.
Raven nuzzling Gar out of plain sight so no one would think she was totally gone for him.
Jason coming to the Tower, alive good God, and the Robin he used to be super-imposed to be his hero and enemy in the same ghostly figure.
Bruce putting a hand on his shoulder on a ride back to the Cave, chasing the dawn, the Good work, tonight tired but sincere, and his whole body lights up.
His mother looking at peace in her coffin, a lily in her folded hands.
His eyes close on the out-of-the-way safe house, the plain beige walls, stripped and soulless. He keeps the team in his mind, the times he was happy.
Now.
Instead of a resounding boom followed by his grey matter splattering his personality, intelligence, imagination, him all over–
the wall to the safe house caves in under a super punch.
Conner is white as a sheet on the other side, brick and mortar crumbling under his hands. "No! Tim. Tim. Put. The. Gun. Down."
His mouth is dry and his brain pan full of nothing but pain and disappointment.
(But you brought it all on yourself, didn't you? The Robin nobody wanted. The son nobody asked for.)
He isn't numb enough to be calm, cool, and collected. "All...all you have to do–" a hitch in his breathing "–is walk away."
The meta floats in a little closer, hovering over the flooring instead of outside. His hands stretch out, gaze focused and intense.
"Can't do that, buddy. Looks like I should have been more of an asshole after all the League of Assassins shenanigans. Sorry, my bad."
Kon knows he's in trouble when Tim Drake doesn't laugh.
"Tim," he goes to serious in about two point five seconds because the hand holding that shiny automatic tightens enough for him to hear the screws in the hilt strain, "Tim. It's me here, okay? It's just you and me, just like it's always been. We’re besties, whether you're Robin or Red Robin or Tim fucking Drake because that guy is so damn cool." He inches closer, wondering if he's fast enough, wondering if he can really get to Tim in time–
Like the former Robin can read his mind, those violet-blue eye give him a blink.
"I’ve always wondered if you really are faster than a speeding bullet."
“No!”
(...as it turns out, he isn’t.)
#so there's that#winter answers#700 followers#loves to you babe#warnings for possible triggers#you will probably cry#tim drake#kon-el#i cried so yeah#comment if i should continue#my fic#my writing
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In My Head
(Soulmate AU: You hear your soulmates thoughts but can’t tell them your name or what you look like.)
(Gender Neutral Reader X Cisco Ramon)
You’d heard him since your twelfth birthday, your soulmate. People could begin to hear them at any point in their lives as long as both soulmates where over the age of five. No one really understood how it worked or why some people started hearing soulmates on their fifth birthday and some didn’t hear them until they were in their nineties. The only thing anyone knew for sure outside the age requirements is if one could hear their soulmate, their soulmate could hear them. Oh and of course there where the rules.
Soulmates rules where considered to be as real and unbreakable as the laws of physics, or as unbreakable as they had been before Meta Humans had started running around. Rule One: One could not tell their soulmates their name. Rule Two: One could not tell their soulmate their age. Rule Three: One could not describe themselves to their soulmate. Rule Four: One could not tell their soulmate their location (Discussing future locations could work but no dates or times). Rule Five: One could not block out their soulmate.
The rules where not the only things making finding ones soulmate hard; people could of course fall in love with people who weren’t their soulmate whether they could hear them or not. It wasn’t uncommon for people to wake up one day able to hear their soulmates only to find their soulmates where happily married and soulmate or not they were not willing to leave their marriage or their kids. Many people who ended on the unhappy side of these situations would end up taking their own lives within the year. This had prompted the invention of a device that could severe a soulmate connection; this severance could end very badly and had been banned in most countries, but some desperate people still found a way when needed.
You had begun hearing your soulmate at twelve; you’d nicknamed him Westley after learning his obsession with the movie Princess Bride. In response he’d tried to nickname you Buttercup, that hadn’t ended well. After a few weeks of arguing he’d come up with the nickname Starlight, he would never tell you why.
Westley was an interesting guy, way too smart for his own good sometimes, hilarious, obsessed with pop culture, sassy as all hell, and very good at reading people, even when they were simply a voice in his head. His favorite color is purple although that does tend to change weekly, his favorite Pokémon is Bulbasaur, and he really likes superheroes.
You had decided not long after meeting him in your head the first time that you would find him someday. Of course the particle accelerator blowing up had put a damper on that for a while. When ones soulmate died the other wouldn’t know it, they would simply stop responding to them.
When the particle accelerator had blown up, you had been thrown through a window by the dark matter blast, your injuries resulting in a yearlong coma. When you had woken up it had taken a few weeks for the connection to reactivate and Westley had flipped out. He’d thought you had died. You hadn’t told him why you had been in a coma for so long not wanting him to know you were a Meta human, scared of what he’d think.
You’d woken up a Meta human nearly five years ago now, and had yet to meet Westley in person. He’d dated on and off during that time, hesitantly but excitedly telling you about his current relationship as he always had in high school. You had also dated of course but not as recently. At nearly thirty you just wanted to meet Westley in real life, you had fallen in love with him years ago, although you’d never tell him that. He was your closest friend, for obvious reasons.
‘Morning, Starlight, what are you up too today?’ You smile shaking your head as you slip a strand of (H/C) hair behind your ear.
‘Coffee at the shop, while I work on my book.’ You respond sipping your medium flash with vanilla bean creamer.
‘I’m getting coffee right now, maybe this is the day we’ll meet?’ Westley responds excitedly.
‘Of course, you’ll trip and spill coffee on me like in all the cliché fanfictions your always telling me to read on Tumblr.’ You snicker.
‘What makes you think I’ll be the one spilling the coffee? Who says it wouldn’t be the other way around?”
‘Because for one, I’m sitting down, and two even if I was walking I’m more coordinated then you.’
‘Are not! You trip over everything!’
‘Exactly and your still a bigger klutz, that’s my point.’
‘Well I never.’ He huffs mockingly laughing lightly. You snicker smiling at the laugh. The day passed as usual you spent your morning at Jitters working on your book interrupted every twenty minutes or so by Westley making a joke or asking you something. Your afternoon was spent working on tech for your company, (Y/L/N) Technologies.
‘I just looked at the sky and thought of you, my Starlight.’ You let out a small snort at the pickup line you’d heard a million times before.
‘I like the line and all Westley, but you need new ones.’
‘As you wish.’ You let out another laugh causing people to glance at your; you bow your head with a blush.
‘Shut up, you’re making people stare at me.’
‘Oh am I?’ That mischievous tone is one you know well, and it spells trouble. ‘Hmm maybe I should just look up something to read to you then?’
‘Don’t you…’
‘Here we go, the five times Luke walked in on Han and Leia and he one time they walked in on him, this will be a most interesting read wouldn’t you say, Starlight?’
‘Westley, I swear to god!’ You groan your face a bright red as you wish for the line to move faster or for your obnoxious soulmate to shut the fuck up.
‘Luke was bored, he wanted to go for a ride in the Falcon, but Han was not where to be found. Oh well he would just go for his ride and Han would never need to know… as he entered the Falcon he found something a strange, a random black boot sat in the doorway as if thrown there. Shrugging he steps inside more clothing were spread down the hall leading to the cockpit… oh double meaning!’ Westley reads dramatically clearly getting a huge kick out of your annoyance and protests.
“A large flash to go with vanilla bean creamer please.” You order doing your best to keep a straight face.”
‘Luke’s eyes widened as he froze in place, in the captain’s chair was his twin sister, in far less clothing then he’d ever seen before, on top of her was his best friend in a similar state of dress. “Oh, Han, yes!” Luke quickly turned on his heel running for his life wishing he hadn’t seen that!’
‘Westley that’s gross, knock it off!’
‘It is pretty badly written, I’m sure you could write it better!’ Westley laughs.
‘Would you shut up, you damn idi…’ Your train of thought is derailed as a dagger spins past your face lodging in the counter in front of you. It glowed with a golden orange. You spin around in time to see a person in a black coat with a hood and mask standing in the doorway as people start screaming around you. The person holds out a black clad hand the dagger spinning from the counter into it.
You take a step back; dropping your coffee clenching your fist silver sparks crackle around it for half a second before suddenly failing. Why weren’t your powers working?
‘Starlight?’ Before you can answer the dagger is spinning towards you, just before it can hit you’re tackled to the ground by a dark skinned woman with long black hair.
“Are you okay?” The woman asks quickly.
“Y… yeah, I think so.” You nod moving to your feet, pulling your gun from your ankle holder as you do, the dagger spins back across the coffee shop into the monstrous Meta’s hand.
“It’s time for you to die.” The Meta says stalking towards them. You drag the woman who saved you to the side as the dagger spins towards them again. You raise your gun.
“Back off.” The Meta throws the dagger again, you open fire, one bullet bounces off the dagger sending it off course, the Meta quickly dodges the other.
“Are you a Meta human?” The woman from before asks you. “She’s after Meta’s that’s the new Cicada.” You blink at her looking back at the woman firing two more rounds that miss, embedding in the now empty of patrons shop walls.
“Yes, I am.” You admit.
“Leave them alone.” A vibrating voice joins the madness as a red steak appears in front of them, less than a foot away stood the Flash. Westley would be having a field day right now if he where there, he loved Meta Heroes.
“Good, I can kill you too.” A purple blur suddenly shows and the next thing you know you are being set down in what looks like a lab of some type. Computer monitors surround you. The woman from the shop quickly rushes over to a computer talking to the Flash through a headpiece. Moments later XS and the Flash are standing in front of you.
“Are you okay?” Flash asks gently taking your gun from your hands. You blink still processing where you are.
“Um… I… uh,” You run a hand through the back of your (H/L) hair nervously, when did your hands start shaking? “I think so… where am I?”
“This is Star Labs; we brought you here to get away from Cicada.” The woman speaks up. You slowly nod.
“Okay… why the hell is this Cicada after me in the first place?”
“She wants all Meta humans dead.” XS explains.
“How would she even know I’m a Meta? No one and I mean literally no one knew but me before tonight.” You protest crossing your arms.
“The dagger she was using has the power to block powers, it glows when near a Meta human, you probably were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Flash explains. You nod frowning.
“Then what the hell am I supposed to do?”
“We’ve gotten most of the Meta’s out of the city and into hiding?” A woman with long brown hair says entering the room followed by a man who you were pretty positive was Harrison Wells, which made no sense as he’d been dead for four years, a tall dark skinned man, the DA, Elongated Man, and Vibe… who was another person you thought was dead.
“I can’t just up and disappear.” You protest looking around at the super heroes in front of you.
“Protective custody is your best shot.” The man suggests stepping forwards and showing you his badge, Detective Joseph West, the DA’s husband and the head of the Meta task force at the CCPD, you’d met him once after the particle accelerator had blown up.
“If this lady is after Meta’s then why haven’t all of you left?” You challenge motioning to the Meta heroes.
“Because we’re trying to stop Cicada and this is our home.” Elongated Man says.
“Exactly, this is your home. Central City is my home; I’m not going to run away because some new psycho with a thing for leather and hypocrisy wants me dead.”
“If you don’t go you’ll die. We can’t protect you all the time.” Flash argues.
“I can protect myself.” You shake your head.
“Your powers won’t work around Cicada.” The DA speaks up.
“I wasn’t referring to my powers, and if powers don’t work against them, then I’m on an even playing field as all of you.”
“We’re not going to be able to convince you are we?” Flash sighs shoulders slumping a bit.
“Nope.” Flash shares a look with the woman from Jitters and XS two blurs disappearing down the hall, followed by everyone but Detective West. The two of you stand there awkwardly for a few minutes before the group enters again.
“I’m Iris, this is Caitlin and Sherloque.” The woman from Jitters introduces herself motioning to the brown haired lady and the Harrison Wells look alike. “That’s Cecille,” She motions to the DA. “And I’m sure you know who the different heroes are?”
“I do.”
“What’s your name?” Flash asks.
“(Y/F/N) (Y/L/N), most people call me (Y/N/N).” You introduce yourself smirking when she sees the Flash’s eyes widen.
“The CEO and founder of (Y/L/N) Tech?” You nod with a snort.
“Yup.”
“Oh…” XS says eyes wide, looking surprised. A few people look at her questioningly; she shakes her head at them with the universal gesture for later.
“What are your powers?” Detective West asks.
“Do I have immunity for anything I say here?” You ask narrowing your eyes at him. “I’m not a criminal but I’d rather not regret this little meeting later?”
“Of course.” Cecille speaks up, smiling at you.
“Any of you heard of the vigilante people are calling Starlight?”
“Yeah.” Iris nods.
“You’re looking at them.” You gesture to yourself.
“But you look nothing like them?” Elongated Man says shocked. You snort. You push a few buttons on your watch; thin strands of metal quickly cover your body from your watch, your belt and your glasses. A simple black suit covers you, silver specks shimmering throughout. Metal wraps around your glasses turning them more into a mask. You clench your fists then open them, shimmering silver sparks quickly spread over the suit making the effect look like a shimmering night sky full of stars, your hair floats up a bit turning a shimmering silver, your (Y/E/C) eyes quickly turning a soft silver. “Whoa…”
“That’s amazing.” Flash laughs. XS is grinning now looking beyond excited.
“Okay, that’s cool.” Detective West says pointing at you.
“That’s wicked.” Vibe laughs grinning; he’d been silent so far looking at you as if trying to figure something out. Your eyes snap to him. You knew why he’d been staring at you now… his voice you recognized it… you’d heard it every day since you were twelve.
“Well since we know your identity it’s only fair.” Flash shrugs looking at the others who nod. He removes his mask, and holds a hand out to you, his brown hair now free from the rubber. “Barry Allen.” You look at his hand having to drag your eyes away from Vibe. You shake his hand.
“Nice to meet you.”
“This is Nora, Ralph, and Cisco.” Barry motions in order to XS, Elongated Man, and Vibe. You look Vibe over without his glasses, he was cute, Hispanic, with flowing black hair, a kind smile. You deactivate your suit, letting your powers subside, your hair and eyes quickly changing back to normal.
“Well, (Y/N/N) if you won’t leave we’ll have to figure something out.” Barry says smiling at you.
“You could join team Flash?” Nora speaks up stepping forward smiling hopefully at Barry. “You’d make a great addition!” You raise an eyebrow.
“Nora, a word please?” Iris speaks up. The two step out Barry following.
“So, Starlight? I see where you get the name.” Cisco approaches you as the rest of the group follow Nora seemingly to join the conversation you can hear getting heated in the hallway.
“I had the nickname long before I became a Meta.” You eye him up and down. “But I think you figured that out… Westley?” Cisco breaks into a grin.
“I thought I recognized your voice.”
“I recognized yours as soon as you spoke.” You laugh. “But to be sure.” You hold your hand out to him. Cisco takes your hand hesitantly. A slight jolt shots up your arm.
‘So Westley, my name is (Y/F/N)… holy shit, it is you!’ You think to him slowly grinning as you realize the rules were gone. When a person first made physical contact with their soulmate after their connection was made the rules would break allowing them to talk more freely from then on.
‘I can’t believe it’s really you…’ Cisco thinks back grinning just as widely. “It’s wonderful to finally meet you, Starlight. I’m Francisco Ramon, I’m your soulmate.” Cisco says out load.
“It’s wonderful to meet you too, Cisco.”
~~~
AN: And that’s the end of Part One? I may do a few more parts?
#cisco ramon#cisco ramon x reader#reader x cisco ramon#reader insert#The Flash#Soulmate#soulmate au#gender neutral reader
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@yfere tagged me in this! :D thaaanks. ive never done one of these. so! should be interesting.
Rules - Tag 11 people that you want to know better and answer the questions. Repost, don’t reblog.
Relationship - naaaaaaaah. unless we count me + the “aw... shit” emotion that happens when you realize you’ve fucked up. The two of us are inseparable. (help)
Colors - that particular blue color thats so deep it almost looks black? that. also a fan of black, electric green, blue light enough its almost white. and maroon?
Favorite ships - To be entirely honest, I’m like.... not big on romantic relationships, which I assume this is asking about. I might write about it someday if there’s interest for it, but a lot of it boils down to characters getting lost once they’re put into a relationship. That said, I think I started shipping Beaujester by accident. Just a little. They just have such specific views on romance and it would be such an interesting thing for both of their characters, and its also sweet.
HOWEVER, platonic ships??? Absolutely ride or die for: Any of the M9 talking to each other at any point, but special mentions to: Caleb/Beau, Nott/Jester, Fjord/Beau, Caleb/Nott, Cad/Yasha, Caleb/Yasha, Jester/Yasha, Caleb/Jester- wow this is still turning into a full list of the M9. BUT I MEAN IT. I could write a meta on any of them at any moment.
Last song - Cold War- Foreign Figures (i might send this song in for like, Beau)
Last movie - ...Endgame? I think? I tend to mostly see movies when dragged by friends. Attention span isn’t usually good enough... (i squint at the 4 hour episodes of CR) ah, usually.
Last book - GOOD TIMING ON THIS QUESTION. The book I am currently reading is Beanstalk, the first of a trilogy by @ink-splotch. I’ve read the entire trilogy multiple times, actually, and I absolutely fucking love it, so I FULLY RECOMMEND everyone read it if they want a well developed world, wonderful writing, and absolutely fucking fantastic characters. Seriously, everyone I know should give it a shot. And then yell about it with me. its available for free online! so. if you’re looking for something to read. pls. the characters, I love them so much.
Tagging 11 people -
Ah, I uh, am REAL new to this fandom. And fandom-ing in general, actually. So I’m unsure what the... etiquette is here? So, I’m gonna tag the people whose posts initially got me into the CR fandom + some people I see regularly in my notes. (i see you, the ones who interact with my posts regularly! i appreciate you! if you’re not on here im sorry its not personal this is just off the top of my head) but feel absolutely no obligation to do this. Also anyone else who sees this can do this too! i have no idea how to do this :D
@kimabutch @luckthebard @nottsbuttons @disasterhumans @celestialily @mind-blaze @aplatonicjacuzzi @vicious-molly-maukery @pinkninjas
edit: i...apparently forgot to actually /tag/ like 80% of the people. so. belatedly. here u go.
again, feel free to not do this if you like :P
#aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa sorry if im not supposed to tag people who aren't following me#im unsure how this works#tumblr is a funny thing#how did i manage to make this longer than expected too#curses#spar speaks#tagging posts
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the hitchhiker’s guide to getting shit done
so, when i’m lounging about and then my laptop screen blacks out to reveal my shame-filled reflection in an inky black pool of you-sat-down-to-write-and-now-you-haven’t-moved-for-twenty-minutes, my expression looks to itself and seems to mutter, “put up or shut up.” and... sometimes that works. other times I have to leave and pour a water bottle over my head and turn on Fall Out Boy really loud to try and motivate myself. sometimes that doesn’t even work and then i’m cold and tired for no reason.
i see these posts all the time about “calling yourself a writer when u ain’t touched a pen in ya life” or “man i love being a writer... should would like to write someday” and stuff. they’re all so fucking relatable i’m making a sticker out of one to put on my laptop. it’s all so true.
sometimes (an unfortunate amount of the time), writing can be like putting a space shuttle on your shoulders. so... as someone with a backpack full of executive dysfunction and 8 other textbooks, here’s how i get writing done -- even on the worst days.
okay firstly always have something to write with. notepad on your phone? cool. handy journal? trendy. legal pad in your front pocket? very Daniel Handler. i dig it. just as long as you have something to be able to scribble on whenever those finite, golden moments of inspiration/motivation hit you like Valentine’s goddamn arrow. the second you notice the motivation is there, it’ll be gone, so don’t be afraid to get shit done (no matter how small, no matter if it’s one thought or one sentence, just a thought or an idea) while you can. i deadass stopped a meeting with a financial aid officer because something he said hit me like a tonne of bricks, and all i could think was “oh jesus, i have to write that down.” and then i couldn’t stop. i knew if i didn’t get everything down right then, i wouldn’t be able to maybe ever, which wasn’t a fate I particularly wanted for myself.
he was kind about it, thankfully. i didn’t even end up going to that school.
what you can do with your notes is separate them by any category you like -- i keep my notes separate by POV, for example. also, title the note. don’t forget that part. it’s the only way you’ll know what the fuck’s going on. i keep one note for all my story ideas (it’s about 11 miles long, but at least they’re all in one place!), one note for character names/traits/tropes/ideas... and then drafts are separated by POV. it literally doesn’t matter when or where I get the inspiration, as long as I’m able to get something, anything, down... you’ve done something. you’ve put your foot on the next stair step, and while lifting your weight’s the hardest part, you’ve still made progress.
you don’t need to have it so fleshed out you can fork it like a steak. you can take time to develop it. the more you practice and absorb the world around you as things you can output into your own universes, the better a writer you become. this leads me to my next point.
secondly, and this is so fucking important, absorb content like a writer. as you watch something for the first time, critically analyze it. why is the story being told this way, why from this POV, why these details and not others, where could this be going? what would you have done as a writer here, why do you think the creator/s made these decisions (differently than you would, if at all)? authors don’t do anything without purpose, so how can what i’ve seen and learned thus far tell me about the future of this story? what tropes am I familiar with that can be applied here, and what do I know about these characters?
Why are these characters this way? Are they fleshed out, can I hold mental conversations with them? What makes them so 3-D? What can I take from this depth (or lack thereof) and apply it to my own creations?
I’ve been doing that shit for so long. The reason it helps me actually sit down and write, though, is because... okay, like, you know when you leave a pitch-black movie theatre after seeing a production that poked and prodded at your guts a little to hard? you know how blinding and unnerving it is to return to this reality? that feeling. poke and prod at it harder. why are you feeling like that? what about what you just saw/read/whatever is making you feel so skinless? because that’s material.
i’m not telling you to, like, exploit yourself for content. that’s not what it’s about. i’m saying that if you take realistic depth from your own life, from things that are impactful, you need to understand what happened to make it so impactful and genuine. every grain of rice. that way you can take it and apply that very same authenticity to whatever you’re creating. give yourself familiar language to write down when you have those experiences, and then return to them when you’re lost in the sticky pitch of writer’s apathy. relive those words and moments, and use them for your gain.
my roommate planted me on the sofa to watch Coco for the first time a few months ago, and I sat there and told myself, “I’m going to dissect this as it happens.” and do it with everything. everything. commercials, even. it doesn’t matter without that tactic, i would have never 1) come up with the ideas for my first two novels and 2) had something to work with from the beginning. world-building is fucking hard, okay, don’t be afraid to draw inspiration from other places. it was also particularly fun to watch their face as I guessed plot twists.
that’s another thing -- you can start to see why/how creators implement their ideas and what it means for the future of their story. it doesn’t mean they’re being shallow or predictable, it just means they’re developing an arc in a way that allows readers and viewers to be able to inject themselves into the universe. You’re no longer sitting in a living room and just... watching a separate life play out before you. You like... become Miguel’s meta-conscience. And with those new experiences in someone else’s reality/ies, you can pull it like a blood sample for your own. there’s no shame in being inspired.
as a side note... there’s no shame in struggling to pull ideas/inspiration from content. for me, barely anything gets me worked up to the point of “i want to remember this/use this/etc.” it’s not the content’s fault and it’s not my fault, it just happens. if you’re really struggling, return to something you know evokes something out of you. i’ve watched the same television series eleven or twelve times to pull ideas, because it gets me every time. every time, i find something new to hang on to. content can be analyzed endlessly, so don’t be afraid!
thirdly, don’t pay attention to progress that others make. can’t stress that enough. this day and age treats everything like a competition, where if you’re not the best then why try at all, where the success of others is somehow inherently your failure. it’s such bullshit i can’t even begin. having a multitude of societal deterrents in your head isn’t helping you.
sure, habits don’t go quietly into that good night, but here’s how it can help you... well, as my brain is helpfully supplying, “keep the stork flying.” it’s like a blinking neon sign. anyway.
one, return to your notes and your ideas. they’re all your own. no one can take them from you. you’re the only one who can develop them the way that you intend, with the way you want to tell the story, with the meaning that you’ve given them and want to portray. you’re the only one who can do that. even if your friends or family or peers are writers and they’re making the progress that you feel like you’re lacking, then just remember: you’re the only one who can write your story. it’s yours. it’s yours. if you’re not ready to write it, that’s okay. that’s okay. but if you are, if you want to sit down and write it more than anything else, then you can return to your notes. always look back at them. and build on what you have.
if you’ve juiced them to pulp, reflect on what happens before and after what you’ve written. nothing has to be linear, it doesn’t have to be directly before and after. if you intend for a moment you’ve created to have a specific impact at any other given point, then elaborate on what impact it’ll have and maybe draft that. fill in the gaps when you want to, not when you’re forcing yourself to. if you do that, you won’t produce anything you’re proud of, and you’ll inevitably start over anyway. if you’re not ready to give it everything, then maybe come back to it later. if you’re determined to write right now even if your brain feels like it’s just crawled out of a swamp wearing a wet blanket, see if you can turn that feeling into something that can be reflected/have influence on your story. is there any situation that could reflect the mood you’re in?
two, it... man, saying this makes me hurt, but use your own experience with being discouraged and put off as inspiration for something a character faces. who cares if it’s self projection. if you’re going through it, someone else is going through it, and maybe they’ll read what was originally a chicken-scratch in the back of your notebook one day, about how shitty you feel for not being able to make progress. maybe they’ll read it and be so fucking relieved they’re not alone in this... void, really, that it alleviates their discomfort. isn’t that kinda worth it?
fourthly, when you feel like shit, write it down. when you feel it, write it down. i know i kind of chipped off layers of this in previous points, but I wasn’t done.
people like relatable characters. people like seeing themselves in external works. not because we’re shallow, or... anything. it’s because we like to feel like we belong, like we’re not alone. you see it all the time -- headcanons! you see it everywhere. you’ve probably made up your own. you’re doing it for a damn reason. pull from it.
exhibit a: i have OCD something foul. a facet of that is that i ruminate like a motherfucker. my brain never gets anything done. you know who else experiences that? a startling amount of other people. when I write characters who ruminate, who check endlessly, who find themselves scrabbling over contamination, who... are completely aware how exhaustive their habits are on them, but they fucking have to, because otherwise, x/y/z horrible, horrible thing is going to happen... it’s because i’ve dealt with those things. it’s because i know people who deal with those things, and find relief in seeing fictional characters experience it. because they’re not alone. because someone else gets it. because it helps them feel better. because it’s so immeasurably impactful to see it.
so when... i have a thought spiral, i start ruminating, i start shaking because i try to only lock my car door three times instead of four, i write it down. and let myself deal with it in the notepad of my phone. and... use it.
exhibit b: some of the greatest and brightest people in my life are transgender and/or gay. i can list so many characters they’ve since penned on those spectrums in the time I’ve known each of them. it’s the same thing i mentioned before. if you’re... like, struggling with something specific to those identities, to something specific with your mental illness or financial situation, to your race or religion, write it down. use it in your stories. only you can provide those insights, and when others see them, they’ll be able to take them in for benefit.
self-projection unto your own characters/favorite characters isn’t always a bad thing. i refuse to accept that self-projection is a negative thing. it’s good for you and for your readers. my only recommendation here is that you don’t intentionally continue to carve out those negative feelings when you’re drained, because you can end up hurting yourself. take care of yourself first. your work can wait. just take this:
standing closer to the fire doesn’t mean you should be burned.
fifth, writing is just a slow ass process. asking to speed it up is like asking the earth to spin faster. Stephen King said some bullshit on Colbert about how he writes a shit tonne of words every day, and I don’t believe it for a second. it always takes a horrid amount of time to make progress, and getting yourself to make that process in the first place is... fucking drawing blood from a stone. like some Excalibur-level shit.
so, if you can’t make it go faster, make it go for longer.
i wish i was talking about just having Google Docs open in a tab while you idly scroll social media sites all night. if writing happened that way... i don’t even want to dream it.
i used to do this thing where everyday was 500 words. it didn’t matter what kind of words (rough drafting, planning, or actually revising... sometimes literally just “i know i want to use this word later, so i’m putting it at the bottom of the document”), but as long as there was 500 more to count, i could count that as definable and measurable progress. if i did that every single day, every week was a new 3500 words for me to work with. that made at least 14,000 words a month minimum. it was progress.
it doesn’t have to be rushed or done all in one sitting, either. i almost recommend that none of those 500 words be your final draft. leave it rough. revision is worth taking your time.
if you’re like me though and that sweet, sweet executive function bakes you like a cake on a regular basis, sometimes forcing that 500 out of yourself is hard (read: “fucking impossible, why do i even call myself a writer, jesus christ”).
so here’s my remedy for that: address your audience as you write. not for a final draft or anything, but if you make yourself as a writer or a character break the fourth wall, it’s suddenly... kind of hilarious and easier to move on with. nothing has to be beautiful, either -- write one sentence about what you’re planning to do, beginning with something ridiculous like “all right motherfuckers, buckle up. no, buckle your fucking seat belt, i’m about to tell you how [x]’s car gets totaled on a Tennessee highway.” and write it like you’re ripping someone a new one. then make it pretty. maybe not in the same day, but you’ll make it pretty.
that not working? make your character tell the future. how would they react if they knew what was about to happen to them? make them tell the story like it happened 20 years ago, or something. and then take out all the insights to make it present.
that not working, either? act like you’re being interviewed. like, let’s say your content is soon to be released to the public, you’re at a convention to promote it, and people are asking you about it as you stand at your booth. suddenly, you’re pulling a Tom Holland and accidentally giving something away that... maybe wasn’t supposed to be out yet. only write your part of the dialogue/situation, though. you’ll have a scene scribbled before you. even if you don’t particularly like it right then, you can fix it later. it’s okay.
you can always fix it down the road. that’s the thing, too -- if there’s something you’re unhappy with in it’s current form, make it a problem for yourself. if you’re able to attach some urgency to it, maybe that’ll help too. you don’t have to have the one perfect solution immediately, either. just brainstorm solutions in your notes, and something will fall into place one of these days. trust me.
on a side note but equally important: i say used to do this because sometimes you need to take breaks. sometimes those 500 words everyday was overdoing it and wringing the dry sponge of my mental capacity for the day. it’s still a practice i hold dear to my heart -- but right now i’m in a place where 50 words a day is miraculous. sometimes life’s that way, and there’s no shame in that. take care of yourself first, and push yourself when you’re ready.
also, be your own devil’s advocate and your own greatest cheerleader.
don’t let yourself think poorly about what you’re creating, that’s not what I mean. you have great ideas and they’re worthwhile, they’re important. they are. i promise. what i mean is that... like. if being talked to in an aggressive way gets you hyped, then that’s how you get hyped to write. if you like being given generous validation, then that’s how you get hyped to write.
me, i like it when people validate what i work on. it makes me feel excited and good enough to write and produce content when people tell me they like it. some people have to be told they “can’t do something” to find the drive to do it -- that’s the “devil’s advocate” part. sometimes you’re the kind of person who can give yourself those messages but have to receive the positive kind from others.
i always imagine my ideal self on the other side of a boxing ring taunting me, my current self, that i’ll never get to my ideal-self’s level. they tell me to “put up or shut up,” otherwise i’ll never get there. so that’s what i have to do. i can’t have anyone else do that, though. that’s just an example.
there’s a billion rearrangements of this idea to make it work for you. maybe giving yourself encouragement -- or, like, imagining it coming from someone you deeply admire -- could help. maybe it’s the reverse situation, with the reproach. once you find it... fucking squeeze it until it’s not helpful anymore. if it’s not helpful in the first place, then you haven’t found the right language yet. if words don’t help you at all, work on your bite instead of the bark. what actions get you going instead of words?
and maybe this tip is completely meaningless for you. that’s okay too. i just figured i would include it because it helps me, so maybe... it’ll help someone else, too.
maybe lastly... do you know how many creators quit working on their content and made unbidden returns to it? Jordan Peele wasn’t sure Get Out would ever be finished because he quit working on it 20 times, and now he’s got an Oscar for it. James Patterson is a worldwide bestselling author, and he dropped out of Vanderbilt’s writing program. JK Rowling was famously rejected by a dozen-or-so agencies before someone gave Sorcerer’s Stone a chance. you can fucking do this. i believe in you, even if you don’t. it’s gonna take time and maybe it’s gonna suck, but you can do this.
like, maybe this guide wasn’t helpful in the slightest. that’s fine. it happens! if that’s the case and you need encouragement or anything, you can always hit me up, too. i’ll listen and offer what i can, because sometimes having a shoulder is what you need, too.
take it from someone who ended up backing out of a book deal at Harper Collins. you can do this.
#writing tip#tips for writers#writer's block#writing help#writing inspiration#inspiration#ideas#help for writers#writing tips
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To Love is Not to Possess (to own or imprison)
Reaction fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiic! Of course I had to write something like this after the cliffhanger in 4x17. Thanks to @hedgiwithapen for coming through the absolute perfect title when I was whining to her on messenger. It’s from the poem of the same name by James Kavanaugh and basically everyone needs to read it at least once.
To Love is Not to Possess (to own or imprison)
Caitlin was rooting around in her hall closet for a fresh box of tissues when her phone went off. She grabbed a tiny purse pack and went to the living room, blowing her nose. Ugh. Spring allergies were hitting with a vengeance, and somebody had given her entire bottle of extra-strength antihistamines to an aging bounty hunter from another dimension.
(Not for the first time, Caitlin reflected that her life was weird.)
She picked up her phone from the charging station to see a text from Cisco. Can I come over?
Sure, she answered, and stepped back.
A split second later, a breach opened up in her tiny foyer and Cisco jumped through. "Hey," he said.
"Hey," she said back, and sneezed mightily.
He scooted backwards. "Spring cold?"
"Hay fever," she said, blowing her nose and wiping her streaming eyes.
"This might make you feel better," he said, and held out a plastic bag marked with the logo of a drugstore. She raised her brow at him and opened it to find a big bottle of antihistamines.
"Oh, Cisco," she said, clutching it to her heart and fluttering her lashes at him. "Just what I always wanted. How did you know?"
"Well, you know." He tapped his temple. "Psychic."
She twisted it open and shook one into her palm. "Thanks," she said, going to the kitchen for a bottle of water. "They're bad this year."
"I can tell."
She came back, swallowing the pill. "So what's up?"
"Why should something be up?" he asked, flopping into his favorite chair in her living room and sprawling back against the cushions, extra-super-casual. "I was just bringing my best pal some allergy meds."
She eyed him. "You could have bought these and left them on my desk tomorrow morning. You didn't have to bring them over tonight."
"Well, like you said." He reached out and grabbed the empty box of Kleenex from the coffee table, tossing it at the trash can. "They're bad this year."
He clearly had something on his mind. She settled onto the couch, curling her legs up under her. "Is it Breacher?"
He gave her a quick glance and looked away.
She'd thought so. "Look, he's definitely very intimidating." She'd thought Cisco was exaggerating about that, until she'd spent the day with a frustrated and angry Breacher in the speed lab. "But Cynthia isn't some teenager that he can confine to the house. She's a grown woman, with breaching powers of her own. Her father can't stop her from seeing you, no matter how upset he is that we couldn't help."
"Yeah," he said sourly. "She could see me if she wanted."
Caitlin bit her lip. "She loves you," she said.
"I know," he said. "And I love her. But it's been a month since I kissed my girlfriend. I've got the worst case of - I mean - it's frustrating, okay?"
She winced in sympathy. "Of course it is. But you know, it's not like you have a nine to five job either. When was the last time any of us got a day off?" God, that was a depressing thought.
"That's kind of the thing," Cisco said slowly.
"Oh? What are you planning?" A vacation, maybe? Of course, they were in the middle of all this DeVoe business, and trying to find the last two bus metas - but when weren't they in the middle of some drama? They really all needed to start carving out personal time. "If you need help telling Barry that you're taking time off - "
"Not exactly." He leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. "Look, Breacher came back after you left for the night."
She looked him over quickly. "Well, you're in one piece, so that’s good. Was he still angry?” Cisco had lied to him, given him useless medicine, and deceived him to make him think it had worked. He’d treated him like a child - or a gullible old man. She hadn’t been one bit surprised that at the old viber’s fury.
"Yeah, no, he’d cooled off." He shook his head, looking baffled. "He’s decided to retire."
"Retire? Really? Breacher?" He'd struck her as more of a workaholic than her mother, and that was quite a bar to clear. She blew her nose, which had started running again.
"Yeah, I know. But I think he already had. He was all in the, like, old-dude retirement community uniform. Socks with sandals and everything."
She blinked a few times. "I . . . I can't picture that."
"Hey, I saw it with these two eyes, and I'm not sure I can picture it."
She leaned over to toss her crumpled, snot-filled tissue into the trash can. That antihistamine could start kicking in whenever it liked. "Well, that'll change things,” she said, digging another tissue out of the purse pack. “Cynthia's going to take over running the agency, I assume?" That could go two ways. With more control over her own schedule, she could see Cisco more often - but being the boss, her time might be even less her own.
"He didn't actually mention that," Cisco said. "But he did say that him retiring meant there was a job opening. And uh." He grinned nervously. "He offered it to me."
Caitlin stared at him.
After a good thirty seconds had ticked by, he tilted his head. "Did you hear me?"
Her stomach twisted around itself.
"Caitlin?"
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.
"Hello . . . "
"Yes!" she gasped. "Yes. I'm sorry. Yes. I heard you. I - wow. A job. With the collection agency."
"Yeah."
"Wh-what did you say?"
"I didn't know what to say. And then he was like, 'ah, it's a big decision, think it over. Let Cynthia know.' And then he just whistled off to his Earth-47 dragon farm."
"Dragon . . . farm?"
"Long story." He hauled himself out of the chair and started pacing her living room. "But can you believe that? He goes from choking me out as a hello, to offering me a job as his replacement?"
She reached down slowly and picked up the tissues, which had fallen off her lap as she sat frozen. "Maybe it's his way of showing approval," she ventured. "Both of you and the relationship."
"He said something like that," Cisco said, rubbing his hands over his hair. "But I - oh my god, this is huge. And I don't know what to do. Caitlin, I need some help here."
She reared back. "I can't make that kind of decision for you."
"No, I know you can't, but you can help me think it through, right?"
"Of course, always. Look." She got up. "I'm going to get a pad of paper and a pen and we're going to make a list."
"Yay." But he smiled at her, and she returned it before going off to the tiny second bedroom that acted as her home office.
She rifled through her desk drawers, hunting for the pad of paper and one of her good pens. She pulled both out, set them on her desk, and then braced her hands against the smooth wood and breathed carefully.
Cisco needed her to be his friend. To listen to his concerns, to give good, thoughtful advice.
He didn't need her to beg him not to leave Earth-1. He didn't need her to burst into tears at the thought of not seeing him every day. He definitely didn't need her to tell him how much she already missed their movie nights or going out for drinks, which had fizzled to nothing since he'd gotten serious about Cynthia, and Caitlin had stepped back behind the boundaries of that relationship.
Cisco needed her to think about his happiness, not hers. So that's what she would do.
She grabbed the box of Kleenex off her desk, blew her nose, dabbed carefully at her eyes, and took it with her back to the living room, along with the paper and pen. "Okay," she said brightly. "Ready?"
"Yep."
She wrote Taking the job at the top of the paper, then drew a line down the center. “First pro,” she said, pointing the pen at him.
“Cynthia,” he said immediately.
She wrote the name down, concentrating on forming each letter careful and round.
“Like, that would be amazing. I just miss her so much, all the time. But this way, we’d get to work together, we’d go home together - it’s the dream, you know?”
She opened her mouth to say, Actually, it’s very hard to spend so much time with one person, Ronnie and I had the worst fights when we first moved in together, and remember how Barry and Iris went to counseling - but then she shut her mouth again. She didn't trust her own motives for saying that.
“I mean," he went on, "we’d probably still have to be doing different things a lot. But still. More us-time than we’re getting now.”
“Way more,” she said.
“Yeah. So that’s a biggie.” He paced up her living room, then down it again. “Okay, here’s another one. It would be a hell of an adventure. New places, new people - there’s this great big multiverse out there and it’d be my job to explore it. Dope, right?”
“Super-dope,” she said.
“And, hey, there’s the money thing.”
“It pays well?”
“It can. They get paid by the job, and I’ve seen some of those bounty announcements. Like, you’re talking serious coinage there. Depending on who I bring in, I could be rolling in it."
“Wow.” Barry paid them the same generous salary that Wells had. But Caitlin was well aware that Star Labs was not just expensive, it wasn't bringing any money in, and Barry’s inheritance from Wells would dry up someday. She had investments, but she wasn’t sure Cisco had any outside income besides the occasional consulting fee from CCPD.
“Yep. Always nice.” He leaned over and read her list upside down. “That’s everything for the pro side that I can think of off the top of my head.”
“Some big pros here,” she said.
“Major pros.” His face fell into serious lines. “Major cons too.”
“Let’s lay them out.”
He picked at his thumbnail for a second or two. “I’d have to leave,” he said quietly. “Star Labs, Earth-1, all you guys.”
“I - we’d miss you,” she managed.
“I’d miss you too,” he said. “Although, you know what. Maybe I could convince Cynthia to make Earth-1 her home base. Operate the agency from 19, but come back here every night.”
"That's quite a commute."
“Hey, it’s like stepping from one room to another. And this Earth has coffee.”
Caitlin drew careful diamonds down the line she’d drawn in the center of the paper. “Serious temptation.”
“Oh yeah. So if that works out, I’d basically still be around. We’d hang out all the time, I’d lend a hand if you guys needed it - it’d be like I never left.”
Except for the empty lab, she thought. And Cynthia was so busy all the time, even with Breacher working too. As Cisco had complained, she never seemed to get a day off. Was there any reason to think it would be different with Cisco? “Sure,” she said softly.
He looked at her for a moment, then picked at his thumbnail again. “Next on the list,” he said. "Uh. The job itself."
"That's a con?"
"Well, I wouldn't exactly be teaching preschool, you know? I've heard the stories. They throw down with some serious baddies. The sitch I pulled Josh out of, earlier? Guy was freaky scary. The teeth on him!"
She went cold to her scalp for a moment. "You got him out of it, though."
"By running away," he pointed out. "Not workable when I need to be bringing them in."
"You've thrown down with baddies before."
"With all you guys backing me up. I'd be alone."
"Or with Cynthia."
"Yeah, maybe. But I'd be doing that all the time. Hunting for them, fighting them - I don't know if my skills are up to that."
She set her pen down. "Cisco, look at me, okay?"
He did.
"In the past few years, you've been faced with any number of situations you never could have imagined, and you've risen to each occasion faster and farther than anyone had a right to expect. You're smart, you learn fast, you have amazing powers, and it's my belief that you could do anything you put your mind to. So maybe a steep learning curve would be on the con side here." She tapped the paper. "But you not being able to do the job? I'm not writing that down."
He took that in, then smiled a little. "Okay," he said. "Steep learning curve. Let's put that."
She nodded firmly and wrote it down.
"And thanks."
"I don't hear that kind of talk from you much anymore," she said.
"No, not much," he acknowledged. "But every so often the brain weasels wake up and run around in there and need someone to tell them to shut up."
"Happy to be of service." She looked at the list. "So. Is that everything?"
"One last thing." He perched on the arm of the couch, looking serious. "I don't know if I want to do the job." He held up a hand when she started to say something. "This isn't about whether I can or not. It's whether I'd actually like to spend that many hours of my day doing it. Like I said, I've heard Cynthia's stories, and I've never once gone, 'aw damn, wish that was me.'"
"The adventure," she said. "The paycheck."
"The boredom. The assholes. The beat-downs. The lean times." He grimaced. "The paperwork."
She colored in one of the diamonds she'd drawn and said, "Doing all of that - good and bad - alongside the woman you love."
A long silence, and then he sighed out, "Yeah."
They were both quiet then. She colored in three more diamonds.
He stirred. "So, three pros, three cons. Pretty evenly balanced there."
"In terms of strictly numbers, yes," she said. "But you're going to have to decide for yourself how much weight to put on each thing."
"So it's back to me."
"It never left you."
He twitched his mouth a little and held out his hand. "Can I take that home with me? I'm gonna stick it to the wall and stare at it all night."
"Sure." She ripped the sheet off the pad and held it out to him. "Maybe catch some sleep in there."
He folded it into a tight square and shoved it in his pocket. "Yeah, maybe." He sighed hugely. "I'm gonna get going, okay? Thanks for listening."
"Thanks for coming to me."
"Well, Barry would be pissed that I was even thinking about leaving before we’ve got DeVoe locked up. Iris would give good advice, but she'd probably also tell Barry. And Harry - " He dropped his voice, imitating Harry's gravelly tones. "Nobody gives a shit about your piddling problems, Ramon, I have to think up the cure for cancer by midnight." He grinned at her, his voice returning to its normal register. "You were clearly my best choice."
"Clearly," she said.
He started for the door, and she said, "Taking the long way?"
"I want to grab some dinner from that pizza place on the corner. Hey, have you eaten?"
"Oh, yes, I'm fine." She walked him to the door. "Hey, Cisco?"
He turned, halfway in the hall already. "Hmm?"
"Don't, um." She fiddled with the latch, pushing it in and letting it go. "Don't worry about anybody else, okay?”
He cocked his head slightly, frowning.
“For once, put yourself first. Think about what'll make you happy. And do that."
He took the folded list out of his pocket and flipped it over in his fingers a few times. "Yeah, okay." He tucked the list away. "Thanks. Again."
"You're welcome. Always."
He turned and walked down the hall. She leaned against the jamb, watching him go. He paused in front of the elevators and looked back at her. She smiled brightly and waved, then shut the door and went back to her couch.
After a moment, she picked up the remote and aimed it at her TV. Netflix popped up, and she picked something at random. A peppy theme song blared from the speakers, and she sat and watched the stupid, laugh-tracky show in silence.
Every so often, she wiped away the tears trickling down her face and dripping off her chin.
God, that antihistamine was just taking forever to work.
FINIS
#Caitlin Snow#Cisco Ramon#Killervibe#fanfiction#mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name#angst#I hope they actually get into some of this on the show#the flash#search your feelings you know it to be queue
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I gotta tell you, as a kid, I would have been stoked after learning the title of Supernatural Season 14′s premiere.
Stranger in a Strange Land is, yes, a sci-fi book by Robert A. Heinlein that maybe someday I’ll get around to reading, however. Heinlein’s title references the Book of Exodus. Specifically he references Moses, who says at one point: “I am a stranger in a strange land.” (Exodus 2:22)
(My Archaeology Study Bible, which is a NIV translation, actually translates the line to “alien in a foreign land” but that doesn’t sound as good and obviously hasn’t inspired other works of art and literature like the more well-known translation.)
Anyway, nine-year-old Iz was a huge fan of ancient Egypt and especially the Exodus story. And looking at Supernatural in the context of what recently happened in the show and this quote “stranger in a strange land” actually says some pretty interesting -- and slightly worrying -- stuff about Michael in the upcoming season.
So to put the original quote in context, Moses has fucked up. He has killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew slave. Worse, he’s gotten caught, so he has to run away from Egypt, the only home he’s ever known. It should be noted that at this point, he’s already learned he’s a Hebrew. (Movies like The Prince of Egypt or The Ten Commandments always make that a Huge Reveal scene, but there’s nothing in the Bible to suggest one of his moms didn’t just sit him down one day and tell him.)
Moses runs into the desert where he finds these women being harassed by a group of douche bags and he, not being a dick, scares the douche bags off. The women invite him home, and it turns out their father’s a Midianite priest who lets him stay with them. Moses basically moves in and ends up marrying one of the priest’s daughters, a woman named Tzipporah. (Again, my NIV Bible spells it Zipporah, but I learned it as Tzipporah. Idk which is correct, though I guess the most correct would be the version spelled with ancient Hebrew letters.)
Anyway, Tzipporah has a baby, and Moses names him Gershom, which roughly translates to “an alien there.” That’s when he says, “I am a stranger in a strange land.”
Which is an interesting place to say that, quite frankly. He’s already run away from Egypt, but he didn’t say it when he ran away. He doesn’t say it when he finds himself among the Midianites, doesn’t say it when he's invited to dinner or invited to stay permanently, or even when he gets married. He says it when he has a child with a Midianite woman, which is about as strong a root as a refugee can put down in a new land. It’s also a pretty bold statement of identity -- not only are you identifying yourself as being ‘not from around these here parts,’ but you’re placing that identity on your child, who in this case is literally the grandson of a Midianite priest. Midianite priests were basically administrators -- it was his father-in-law who advised Moses in how to split the Israelites into groups to more efficiently govern them after they all left Egypt. This would be like if the daughter of a senator or judge married a refugee and the refugee named their child “Not American.”
If you wanted to get meta, you could interpret it as a larger metaphor for the Israelite people, who by this time have been in bondage in Egypt -- not their ancestral homeland -- for multiple generations by that point. And they are very much “strangers in a strange land” who don’t worship the Egyptian gods and who are separated from Egyptians by The Worst Class Barrier Ever, a.k.a. slavery, similar to African Americans in the antebellum United States. When the Israelites in Egypt have babies, they have to throw said babies into the river by order of the pharaoh. Everything about the way the Egyptians treat them says, “This is not your place, you are not in charge here.” So whenever Israelites have children -- children who they know may never see their ancestral homeland that God promised Abraham, children who they know will spend their lives enslaved by another group of people, children who may not even be allowed to live -- they’re probably thinking roughly the same thing Moses said when he had his child.
And of course almost anyone reading Exodus knows that Moses will, within a few years, go back to Egypt to lead the Israelites out of slavery and eventually to Israel. The Israelites don’t actually make it to their ancestral homeland until after Moses dies, on account of the Hebrews disobeying God a bunch of times in the desert, so neither Moses nor anyone from his generation ever actually live in the land of Abraham. So there’s a permanent sense of ‘being out-of-place’ to this whole story.
This is a long way of coming to my point about Supernatural, but who would be the character feeling most out-of-place at the beginning of Season 14? It’s Michael.
Michael, who after fucking up and destroying his home universe, finds himself in a totally different, not-yet-destroyed universe with his true vessel and possibly a group of angels who need leading back to the Heaven of days gone by. Remember, in Season 13 we left Heaven in a ... not good state. There are nine angels left, and they can’t hold Heaven together much longer. Michael’s goal is to create Paradise -- on earth, on heaven, I have a feeling he’ll be down for either.
So Michael comes from a place (AltUniverse) that is not his end goal (Paradise) to an entirely new place (In-universe Earth) with the goal of attaining Paradise, which kind of follows the path Moses took. On the one hand, this is good because it suggests a). Michael will fix Heaven and b). Michael will die before having much to do with it. However, it also suggests some problematic stuff for Dean, who in this metaphor, is Gershom.
If Moses uses the phrase, “stranger in a strange land” when he’s putting down roots, staking his claim in this strange land by having a son with a native woman, then Michael’s staking his claim on earth by ... well, possessing the man who, in the show, represents humanity and using him to try and bring about Paradise on Earth instead of Heaven, where it’s supposed to stay be. Which also makes me think Dean’s not getting un-possessed, at least not this episode, and maybe not in the next. Michael’s putting down some roots, just like Moses did, and it took a while -- and a literal argument with and miracle from God -- to get Moses to do what he was supposed to and go back to Egypt.
Even if Sam and Jack and Cas DO manage to save Dean in the season premiere, I think there will be a lot of lingering effects of the possession throughout the first half of the season. Our Dean’s not going to come out of this unchanged, that’s for sure.
As a side note, I’m not crazy about the anti-refugee stance this suggests, and I only hope we also get a parallel between Michael and Cas, the other out-of-place angel, but one we like. In general, this theory paints angels as bad refugees, and I don’t know how the show is going to satisfy both the ethical need to not paint refugees as bad and the practical in-show need for the angels to gtfo already. (Also, to be fair, I’ve been reading refugee themes in almost every piece of pop culture I’ve consumed in the last two years, so maybe I’m just hyper-sensitized to it by now.) (Also to be fair, they have good refugees with the, you know, ACTUAL human refugees that Michael displaced, so.)
I don’t really tend to write meta, especially not this in-depth, but the ancient-Egypt-loving hot mess of a nine-year-old in me is super excited about the Exodus reference! Also, rereading the first two chapters of Exodus has armed me with a Biblical argument to take to the next anti-immigrant or anti-black bullshit that comes up in conversation with my extended family. God disagrees with you and wants you to be harassed by locusts, Uncle Ed!
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INTERVIEW - HANNALEENA HAURU
By Iisa Arvelin (pics © Fucking with Nobody / Jan-Niclas Jansson, Lasse Poser)
What I have learned here at the Venice Film Festival is that – as well as cinema – it is full of opportunities! Opportunities to be part of 27 Times Cinema project as a juror and ambassador, or to get funding and support for your first or second feature film through Biennale College Cinema, or to have an interview with a film director who has been part of Biennale College Cinema and whose film premieres in Venice!
I was more than happy to have the opportunity to interview Finnish director Hannaleena Hauru, as well as her producer Emilia Haukka and one of the main actors Samuel Kujala. As part of the Biennale College Cinema project, Hauru has made her second feature film, Fucking with Nobody, which premiered on Monday 7th of September here at the Venice Film Festival.
The film’s “essential idea was in the themes of love, the borders of love – what is preventing me to love somebody or to receive love” as Hauru describes it. The exploring of these borders of love starts when filmmaker Hanna (Hannaleena Hauru herself) is spending an evening with her friends and they get an idea to make a film about creating an illusion of romantic love relationship in the world of social media. At some point, the building of this romantic illusion between the project’s director Hanna and her actor friend Ekku (Samuel Kujala) starts to challenge the real relationships among the filmmaking crew, revealing the tensions, especially between Hanna and the cameraman Lasse (Lasse Poser). By following the filmmaking process, which uses the creation of the relationship as its material, Fucking with Nobody surprises the audience with its many layers varying from meta-fiction to social media and filmmaking, still retaining a humorous approach on its relatable events and characters.
Together with Hannaleena, Emilia and Samuel, we had a warm and friendly discussion with which I wanted to shed a light on the process of the Biennale College Cinema, as well as the making of such a multidimensional film, from the perspective of the makers. I was fascinated by Hannaleena’s ability to direct the cast through the many layers while simultaneously playing the main character, and I was curious to know how Samuel as an actor found the film and how was working with Hannaleena, who was his director as well as the counterpart in the romance.
How did the process with the Biennale College Cinema start? How did you find out about it?
HANNALEENA: This was the 8th edition of the Biennale College Cinema. When it started 8 years ago, I already spotted this new initiative and thought that maybe someday, if I make a feature film I could apply – because back then I was still making short films. But last year, in the springtime, I had a theme for a new film, and I noticed that the Biennale College Cinema was once again opening their application period.”
What did you need for the application?
HANNALEENA: For the application, you need to have already a director’s vision, visual ideas and an audience engagement plan. In the application, they were asking about the connection to a producer. You can sense that they are not only looking for directors, but they are looking for director and producer tandems. For this kind of project, you really need to have a good connection, director and producer working as a team, so that you are able pull it off in a year.
As ambassadors of the new LUX Award – the European Audience Film Award we have had many panels and workshop about audience engagement. Therefore, I am curious to know, what did your engagement plan entail, did you have certain engagement tricks to convince the Biennale College Cinema team?
HANNALEENA: Everything comes from the content. I am really reassured that this film is dealing with our times – with intimate relationships in the 2020s, so I think that’s the key for reaching people. But the film premieres here now, and its selling to the audience is only starting after this, especially as a social media campaign.
EMILIA: From the producer’s point of view, it is wonderful that the Biennale College Cinema asks you to think about how to reach your audience from the very beginning – and essentially, what they are asking is “do you know your film?”, “do you know this film you’re starting to develop?”. Because, as Hannaleena said, it’s about the content. Then it’s all about how you frame it to the audience, in an honest but entreating way. It is so wonderful that for Biennale College Cinema, creating a marketing and distributing strategy goes in parallel with the development of the actual film and the content, so then it actually gives its strength. And I feel that it has helped us – this being a very particular kind of film mixing social media, our current issues, intimacy – to find those audience engagement keys and points very well.
What were the next steps in the Biennale College Cinema process after the application?
HANNALEENA: I really wanted to build the script so that the actors were involved from the beginning and that’s why I already knew the film’s cast and crew before starting the application period. With 11 other film projects, we were chosen for the first – very intense – workshop which was held in San Sèrvolo, an island near Venice, for two weeks last September. It’s the best workshop I have ever been to – it’s very well structured, but the tutors also study where you are as a filmmaker. I was really impressed. After that, we had one month to deliver a full script and out of them, they selected the four films they gave the grant to. That entailed two more workshops, one week per each, in San Sèrvolo. For all the workshops I went with Emilia and Lasse Poser (actor, cinematographer and co-writer of the film). The second workshop started the preproduction, and then we slid into filming in February and continued it after the lockdown, in May and June. Actually, we finished the film 10 days before the premiere, so the editing process was quite intense [laughs].
What kind of impact did the lockdown period have on the film?
HANNALEENA: Actually, it was really good in the sense that we had made a raw cut with some material before the lockdown, we had shot 40% of the film – and we sent it to all the actors so they were able to see what they had been doing, but also what their colleagues had been doing. I really think that it helped the second part, the actors playing more together and understanding the essence.
SAMUEL: For me, the lockdown was a turning point. I realised something about the rhythm of the movie, how it will be edited, and I was able to ditch some of the presumptions I had told myself as an actor, like that I have to be somehow coherent with my character. But then I realised that we are producing material for the editing and that was really important. And also, it was a really nice treat to see a glimpse of the universe we were creating there. A punch of motivation.
From the beginning, the film is made through the interaction with the actors. How was it to work with dual roles – Hannaleena as an actor and a director at the same time, and Samuel as an actor collaborating with the script?
HANNALEENA: I realised that at this point of my artistic development I sort of needed to have a dual role in order to explore the theme more – it has something to do with the human body as an artistic exploration. I knew that I had to throw myself there. It’s a bit like an installation or a performance. We had to do some arrangements to make this possible, but I had previous experience in acting and directing simultaneously, so I knew it was possible.
SAMUEL: “It was an interesting challenge. I hadn’t written a script before, but I knew that Hannaleena would go through the writings. Sometimes it was hard to distinguish between Hannaleena’s multiple roles because while we were improvising a scene, we were, of course, scripting it, but we were also acting. I was sort of trying to listen carefully what Hannaleena was proposing for the scene, what possible turns it could take, and then just trying to give some of my own input. I felt I started to take more of a role of a screenwriter even while shooting, and that was crucial for me – that I realised I have multiple roles. Sometimes I even got the camera and started shooting. That was amazing.
Speaking of the multiple roles, how was it to work with the multiple layers of the film at the same time?
HANNALEENA: The hardest part was during the scriptwriting; to explain the idea to the tutors. The actors were digesting all the levels quite well – they are dramaturgically brilliant! And in my brain, it was always really clear. But also, because this isn’t the first film I do like this. Let’s say that for the last 10 years I have been working with this kind of mockumentary, autofiction and meta-film, so there’s a bit of practice there. For creating the layers, there were three or four cameras present in some scenes, and all together, there were five camera formats – plus the German spy glasses. I was really happy that in the premiere some people from the audience said that it was interesting that they were able to follow all the layers – because that was also my concern when editing; is it clear for the audience? It’s clear for me because even in my own life there are different levels of presentation of me, different social realities.
SAMUEL: The layers were a challenge at first. I was trying to figure out which camera I should be giving my face or my emotion or whatever I was trying to act out in the scene. But then somehow liberating in the end; I just took some key pieces of the character I had built, and I stuck to them really really tightly. The cameras could have been wherever.
The multidimensional aspect of the film is also presented as the characters’ more or less strange fantasies, how did these become part of the story?
HANNALEENA: The theme of the fantasies and nightmares was one of the topics we were constantly talking about with Lasse on the film. In this level of two filmmakers creating a film, which is also the film itself, it is a fantasy as well. If you take all the layers out, it is the characters, Hanna and Lasse, and their fantasies and nightmares. And for me, it was something to explore, how the human mind operates. If I think of intimacy and intimate relationship, it’s only with my really closest friends or family members I can reach this level; I can share the most ridiculous sides of me, which are the nightmares and fantasies, the fears and dreams. That’s why it’s there. And I can also really relate to the reaction of this being so ridiculous, because I think that’s what intimacy is. It’s sometimes ridiculous things.
***
Fucking with Nobody is a very brave film, trusting the audience with even the most intimate moments, fantasies and nightmares. Simultaneously, it pictures our current conventions about presenting love in social media in a satiric and insightful way. Thank you Hannaleena, Emilia and Samuel for the interview, and once more, congratulations on Fucking with Nobody!
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No, it was one you didn't answer, so maybe tumblr ate it? I was basically asking if you think it's okay to consider the movies "more" canon than the shows, or to write fic without even having seen the shows. Also if you think it's okay for some headcanons (about orientation, for example) to ignore non-movie canon. Like, I always imagined Obi-Wan as gay, but then learned he has a female love interest in TCW. I like other characters as bi, but I was pretty attached to gay Obi-Wan. Is that bad?
Part of it is me being paranoid and embarrassed about being a “bad fan” or something if I’m not familiar with all of what’s considered canon or if I decide to pick and choose a little outside of the movies (or even maybe someday IN them, god forbid) for the sake of some LGBTQ+ headcanons. I’m just super afraid of making an ass of myself, lol
At the very end of the line, I think anyone who comes from a place of affection and good faith for the character they’re writing a headcanon about is a “good fan”, that there is no one way to be a fan of something in the first place. If you still feel funny about it, just say that you’re setting aside show events because you’re attached to this headcanon of yours and generally even nitpicky people will go, “Well, that’s just how they’re going to roll then.”!It’s absolutely not bad to come at the canon (whatever you do/don’t consider as part of canon) however you want, each person has to decide it for themselves, and just not be a dick about it to other people. That includes people who do follow the “rules” (as much as they can be called that) of Star Wars “canon”–don’t be a dick to people who disagree. Just because you can say, “This is what Star Wars officially tells us is part of canon!” that’s no reason to be a jerk, that would make someone a bad fan, imo. Fandom is fandom, there are very few rules about how to be a fan and that’s one of the fundamental things about it!Personally, I do think meta and fic/headcanons are a different thing–like I wrote a fic with Earth-style cats in it, despite that I don’t think they exist in the GFFA as far as I can tell. \:D/ But I wouldn’t write meta about the effect of Earth-style cats in the GFFA, because the point of meta is to discuss what’s actually there and being presented with narrative authority (at least in my mind–others may approach meta from a different angle, for example if they’re critiquing the writers, rather than the characters), rather than fanfic, which the whole point is to write something that means something to you. Headcanon posts can sort of blur the lines a bit, but I think they’re absolutely fine so long as you’re kind to others who approach things differently. Maybe you’re going against what’s official, but that hardly makes you a bad fan! You’ve been super sweet in this exchange, I would absolutely call you a “good fan”. (Not that anyone needs my approval, of course, but you were kind enough to ask how I felt and so I wanted to explain! ♥)Star Wars canon is massive and it has the further complication of how Legends material was officially put out, so we can say “AT ONE TIME this was canon!” but also say “yeah, but it was always fundamentally unreliable” and also say “there’s a reason they wiped the slate clean the way they did”, so it’s a big giant mess, especially if you don’t have the time/resources to read everything (and, god, most people don’t!). If everyone had to read every piece of supplementary canon just to be a “good fan” then there’d only be, like, three people total who are “good fans”!Picking and choosing what you want to accept, especially on a personal level, has always been fine and will continue to be fine. *hugs* Absolutely you should continue with seeing Obi-Wan as gay if it means something important to you (or you just want to see him that way!), and if that means that you see the movies as “more canon” than the tv shows, then you should do that, too! You can absolutely write fic without taking things into consideration. Hell, I will absolutely support someone who saw something in the movies and went, “That was ridiculous, I’m not counting that.” because that’s what fandom is.I think one of the biggest differences here is the aim–are you trying to convince me/others of the narrative validity of your case? That’s probably going to be a tough road to hoe, because Immovable Objects of Star Wars History does include the TV show that George was deeply involved with. But are you just doing your own thing, because it’s important to you? Are you aware that you’re setting aside the events of the TV show/comics/etc., because that’s not how you yourself see them? You’re 100% fine!It’s hard to put this into words–I do think that meta should be rooted in the rules of the Star Wars franchise, because it’s their sandbox, we’re just playing in it. But I think meta vs headcanons/fic are separate discussions, as well as what makes someone a “good fan” has never been measured by how much or how little you’ve seen of the wider canon. And “good fan” vs “what’s reliable in a meta discussion” are two entirely separate elements of fandom, to my mind as well! (I suspect one of the things that blurs the lines is that “meta” vs “personal reaction post” can often overlap, but can also be completely different things, which further complicates things.)I keep focusing on the meta vs fic aspect, because that’s what my earlier post was about (the rules of engagement of meta, as ridiculous as that sounds XD), but it sounds like you’re just a fan wanting to do your thing, which sometimes means not taking into account non-movie canon, and ABSOLUTELY that is fine and you are not a bad fan for doing so. Just as I would never say someone who’s only seen The Force Awakens but never touched the other movies is absolutely not an inherently bad fan, because fandom doesn’t work that way. Being a fan works however you want it to work for you, whatever parts of it you want to be a fan of/not be a fan of, that’s entirely okay and just fine. ♥And Tumblr must have eaten it because I definitely didn’t get it! (I know it at least used to be true that it would eat any messages that had urls or ellipses in them, iirc as part of an attempt to get rid of spam, so perhaps that was it?)
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Hydrangea and Lavender
Hydrangea: What inspired you to begin writing in the first place?
Hah, well, there were three stages to this!
The first story I ever wrote, as embarrassing as it may be to admit this, was Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog fanfiction when I was in first grade. We had an assignment to write a story about anything we wanted, and, well, that’s what I wrote. I was super jazzed when we were first given the assignment because I loved reading and making up stories, and I enjoyed every second of writing it. I even drew some really bad illustrations to go with it. I mean, the story itself was bad too, I’m sure, but I was also about six or seven years old, so … I can be excused, I think. Either way, I knew at that point that I loved creating stories, although since I was so young it hadn’t really clicked in my head yet that I, too, could write books of my very own.
Fast forward to fifth grade. Stages two and three took place in that year. The first stage was when I was still attending my first elementary school, before I moved, and I was once again given a creative writing assignment. At my first elementary school, the fifth graders would write a short book every year that would be hard-bound and put in the school library. I was super mega psyched about this, because I had recently beaten The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask and I wanted to write a sequel to it. (Note: My sequel idea was horrendous, good god, self. But again, I was ten, so I think I can cut myself some slack.) My teacher vetoed this idea, saying that it was plagiarism to write a Zelda story, which I was very offended by because, hey, I was making the plot and the words all by myself, that’s not plagiarism! Either way, I moved out of state before the project ever came to fruition anyway, but my first fifth grade teacher and I both clearly had very different ideas on the legitimacy of fanfiction.
Either way, I moved out of state for the spring semester, and at my new elementary school I met a boy who … you know those kids who would always brag about having super famous relatives or whatever to seem cool? He was one of those. He found out that I really liked video games, and although I was a huge outcast nerd that no one actually liked (trust me, I was very unpopular, I’m not exaggerating), he made up this whole story to me about how his uncle worked at Nintendo and was looking for new game ideas and that, if I gave him one, he’d pass it along to his uncle and it would get made.
And I, dumbass ten-year-old that I was, fell for it.
So I spent ages writing in a notebook, coming up with this game that was basically a Zelda rip-off, except the protagonist was a girl, had a dragon that she rode around on, there was no princess (although there were four female oracles to represent each season who were basically like royalty / demigoddesses), and there were fifty temples. No, really, I had conceived something like fifty temples because I was sad that my games ended and wanted one that would last FOREVER. Anyway, when I finally had all of these (terrible) ideas written down I took them to the boy, who then told me that, oops, the deadline had passed. I got upset because he had never told me there was a deadline, but it had passed and there was nothing that could be done. I spent some time being bummed about this (I put in all that work) before I realized … wait a second … I could turn this into a book … I could write this …
And that, my friend, is when it finally clicked in my thick head that I could write my very own books and when The Dream™ to become a published and beloved author was born. My original plan, when I was an idiot child, was to have a book published right away. I am now twenty-seven and feel I am not even close to that, but I also feel that I’ve improved a lot, and I do have my original fiction project that I’m working on, so … maybe someday. I hope. I dream. Please let it happen, universe. (In truth the universe can’t let anything happen. This power lies within me. I just have to utilize it. I must.)
Anyway, I know it might seem like all I write is fanfic, but I do have that original project as well. Fanfiction just helps keep me in practice … when I actually write it, anyway. I have got to get back in the groove.
Lavender: What is the most important thing to you as a writer?
HMMMM, I don’t know if there really one “most important thing”. I mean, when it comes to actually constructing the narrative, I feel like there are two main things:
The sentences — These are the framework of the story. They have to have the right amount of snap to keep the reader engaged. It doesn’t matter how creative your ideas are; if your sentences are garbage, your reader will not be able to get through the story. You have to have the mechanics down in order to get the story told, and so the sentence quality is massively important.
The characters — Your story is nothing without fantastic characters. You can have a myriad of plot twists and beautiful themes, but if your characters are boring, flat, or exist purely to be tropes or devices, your story is going to be tossed aside in no time at all. Further, your characters are what carry your plot; if they’re not strong enough to carry the plot, the plot will not be strong enough to support the reader for the entire ride. Really allow your characters to shine; they are what make the plot in the first place.
The second one also contains things like character development, relationships, dialogue, overall characterization, et cetera. All of those things are incredibly important.
Don’t get me wrong, the plot is important, too—you have to make sure it makes sense, that there aren’t gaping plot holes, et cetera. But your sentences and your characters are what make or break your story, at least in terms of whether or not the reader is going to toss it aside on the next page. I mean, for instance, I cannot read Tolkien’s work because, in my opinion, his prose is godawful. I understand that he set the stage for many of the high fantasy works that followed, that he gave birth to a lot of the tropes that we still see in use today, that his works were incredibly important for the genre. However, the man spends two pages describing goddamn trees. I cannot get through his prose. Even when it comes to The Hobbit, which is supposed to be for kids, I found myself so bored I wondered if I was reading an encyclopedia instead. Similarly, Neil Gaiman’s writing isn’t necessarily terrible, but I ended up disliking American Gods by the time I was halfway through the book because he was using similes or metaphors every other sentence, and so it felt like he was trying oh so very hard to seem impressive, which had the exact opposite effect. I distinctly remember rolling my eyes during the sex scene with Bastet because of yet another simile (or maybe it was a metaphor, can’t recall). I felt so annoyed at how smart he was trying to sound, and so his writing style is simply not for me. (Terry Pratchett, on the other hand? That man could write. His writing style is what made Good Omens one of my favorite books. Thank god he tempered Gaiman on that one. Thank god.)
So your sentences are incredibly important, but so are your characters. Your characters are everything. I don’t care how brilliant you believe your theme is, or how many plot twists you have; if your characters are garbage, that plot is not going anywhere. You will either get stuck when trying to write it, or your readers are not going to care about it. Readers like interesting plots, yes, but readers prefer fascinating characters. I mean, look at fandom. Sure, people talk about the plots of their favorite narratives, but what do they draw fanart of? What do they spend countless hours writing meta for? What inspires them to write fanfiction? The characters do. We don’t care about the Harry Potter series because of the plot. We don’t watch Star Wars because of the plot. We don’t really care about the plot of the superhero movies that we see and gush over. Again, aspects of the plot can be interesting, but the reason why we care is because we care about and connect to the characters. If your story does not have well-written, lovable characters (at least some of them have to be lovable, unless you’re explicitly trying to write a story in which everyone is loathsome and that is what causes the fascination), then it isn’t going anywhere, no matter how intelligent or witty your plot may be.
(And note: This is not to say that your plot isn’t important, because it is, of course it is. You need to put care into maintaining your plot as well. But it is to say that your characters must come first. Your characters are why your reader sticks with your story. And it’s worth pointing out that there are plenty of television shows that have great cultural longevity despite not having much in the way of a plot (e.g. Seinfeld, or The Office, or Parks and Recreation, et cetera), whereas it’s much harder to think of one that has lasted and been thought of as wonderful because it had a deep and intricate plot, but absolutely boring and dreadful characters. So your plot still is important, no doubt about that, but you must tend to your characters first.)
With all of that said, aside from that, originality is also important. Everyone should write a story that is theirs. And I don’t mean that cop-out I often see going around, about how, “just take someone else’s plot, because if you’re writing it’s automatically unique!” because that’s not true. Idea theft / idea plagiarism does exist, and I’ve seen it far too often in fandom (often done to my own works; I’ve been plagiarized in at least three different fandoms and it hurts like hell every time) to feel comfortable. However, although there are certain stories which are told time and again in different ways, they’re told in unique ways. You can see the narrative similarities between Harry Potter and Star Wars, for instance, but they’re both so incredibly different that you’d never feel that one was a direct copy of the other. The same goes if you throw Lord of the Rings into the mix. And although the His Dark Materials trilogy was written as a Take That at C.S. Lewis because of The Chronicles of Narnia, the two are still so different that if you didn’t already know that beforehand, you wouldn’t see how Lyra has elements of both Susan and Lucy in her. So I do think that originality is very important, and that everyone should strive to come up with something that is very much theirs, rather than just taking another’s idea and copying it wholesale. Don’t plagiarize. It never ends well and it’s incredibly hurtful to the person you do it to.
So yeah, those three things: Sentences, characters, originality. I think they’re all pretty important!
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Loved* (could not fix it replying on your post, lol)... La La Land is so beautiful... 3 days and its still all over my head
Same! lol. Oh god. Same. It makes me so happy to hear I’m not alone in this misery. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but at the same time I sort of want to shout from the rooftops every last single fucking thing about it. I wasn’t expecting anything other than a sweet and romantic musical (where the music was okayyyyy). Instead I got sucker punched (and I think you did too). lol. The agony!
@splitian: tumblr won’t let me reply to your comment on the original post. And I’m dying to. It’s spoilery, so I’m hiding it under the cut.
Mia’s daughter looked to be 2ish, so that means she would have met her husband at least 3 year prior to the last couple scenes. We know she was in Paris for 7 months and that Sebastian didn’t go with her. So at some point in their two years apart she met her husband and got pregnant… and if she never stopped loving Sebastian, I can see why she’d never sought him out (express train to Infidelity City). He didn’t want to hamper her dreams, and she didn’t want to hamper his. They just wanted to support each other’s, even if that meant losing each other. There’s something so innocent and pure and selfless in that.
As I see it, the song Sebastian plays for her in the end- their song- is about all his regrets. He regrets not kissing her that first night she came into the restaurant. He regrets not going with her to Paris. It was on him to go to her, and he didn’t do that before it was too late. So all he can do is let her go in the end with that devastating smile they share… there’s no words needed. The smile says it all. It’s so wistful and sad and proud and affectionate and fond… it’s a goodbye and I love you and ‘here’s looking at you, kid.’
@pinksnailsaver: I can’t reply to you on my other post! So I’m going a little renegade here and tacking on my reply to this ask. I have to vehemently disagree about the ending... it’s all a matter of taste, of course. But if I were to write a movie (har!), in my dreams this is exactly what it would be like. In fact, I wrote a one shot in May that touches on the same themes (life in Hollywood, chasing after dreams and the associated costs), and Everlark doesn’t get much more of a conclusion than this. And as much as I’d like to give them an HEA, I very much can see a dark-haired girl sitting on the couch that isn’t Everlark’s and a blond-haired boy that never existed.
As far as the ending being random... the clues were there all along that we were getting a Casablanca ending. From the guy who’s gonna open his own nightclub to the girl who started acting because of Casablanca and has a massive Ingrid Bergman poster across her bedroom wall. It’s just the ugly truth we didn’t want to see.
The heart and soul of the story is about how art is, most fundamentally, born of passion, and that you can reach others through art in a way you can’t in any other way. So when Seb plays their song and pours all his love and regret into it, it works so much better than words ever could. Music connects in a more profound way than “I wish...” And just as a matter of personal aesthetics, I err toward less-is-more re: exposition. I don’t care why they didn’t reconnect in those five years. The particulars don’t matter to the premise that they chased their individual dreams and got everything they wanted- except each other- and that sometimes life demands those costs. That feels very true-to-life for me, when people, especially artists, don’t always do the rational thing.
And as for them getting an HEA.... or any other ending... that would have been a saccharine, false note imo. It had to end the way it did because, in order to chase your passions, sacrifices have to be made. I think that’s especially the case in LA, in that world. And I love how the movie didn’t punish Mia for following her dreams like so many movies do for women, where it’s expected they will give them up to chase after the guy. The regret is all Seb’s... she’s the one who got away for him. He should have kissed her. He should have gone to her in Paris. But he’s not a selfish dick, so he let her go then, and he let her go one last time.
It’s a story in my wildest dreams I wish I could have written... that in a very, extremely mediocre way I flirted with... it feels cohesive and self-aware, meta-referential, but not in the cynical way that’s in fashion now. It’s sentimental and nostalgic- in a painful way, like all nostalgia should be. It believes in love but accepts that love does not always triumph over all.
If a movie is gonna kill me, it’s gotta be like this! Maybe someday I’ll write something 1/1000000000th as good.
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In My Head
(Soulmate AU: You hear your soulmates thoughts but can’t tell them your name or what you look like.)
(OFC X Cisco Ramon)
I’d heard him since my twelfth birthday, my soulmate. People could begin to hear them at any point in their lives as long as both soulmates where over the age of five. No one really understood how it worked or why some people started hearing soulmates on their fifth birthday and some didn’t hear them until they were in their nineties. The only thing anyone knew for sure outside the age requirements is if one could hear their soulmate, their soulmate could hear them. Oh and of course there where the rules.
Soulmates rules where considered to be as real and unbreakable as the laws of physics, or as unbreakable as they had been before Meta Humans had started running around. Rule One: One could not tell their soulmates their name. Rule Two: One could not tell their soulmate their age. Rule Three: One could not describe themselves to their soulmate. Rule Four: One could not tell their soulmate their location (Discussing future locations could work but no dates or times). Rule Five: One could not block out their soulmate.
The rules where not the only things making finding ones soulmate hard; people could of course fall in love with people who weren’t their soulmate whether they could hear them or not. It wasn’t uncommon for people to wake up one day able to hear their soulmates only to find their soulmates where happily married and soulmate or not they were not willing to leave their marriage or their kids. Many people who ended on the unhappy side of these situations would end up taking their own lives within the year. This had prompted the invention of a device that could severe a soulmate connection; this severance could end very badly and had been banned in most countries, but some desperate people still found a way when needed.
Kat had begun hearing her soulmate at twelve; she’d nicknamed him Westley after learning his obsession with the movie Princess Bride. In response he’d tried to nickname her Buttercup, that hadn’t ended well. After a few weeks of arguing he’d come up with the nickname Starlight, he would never tell her why.
Westley was an interesting guy, way too smart for his own good sometimes, hilarious, obsessed with pop culture, sassy as all hell, and very good at reading people, even when they were simply a voice in his head. His favorite color is purple although that does tend to change weekly, his favorite Pokémon is Bulbasaur, and he really likes superheroes.
Kat had decided not long after meeting him in her head the first time that she would find him someday. Of course the particle accelerator blowing up had put a damper on that for a while. When ones soulmate died the other wouldn’t know it, they would simply stop responding to you.
When the particle accelerator had blown up, Kat had been thrown through a window by the dark matter blast, her injuries resulting in a yearlong coma. When she had woken up it had taken a few weeks for the connection to reactivate and Westley had flipped out. He’d thought she had died. Kat hadn’t told him why she had been in a coma for so long not wanting him to know she was a Meta human, scared of what he’d think.
She’d woken up a Meta human nearly five years ago now, and had yet to meet Westley in person. He’d dated on and off during that time, hesitantly but excitedly telling her about his current relationship as he always had in high school. Kat had also dated of course but not as recently. At nearly thirty she just wanted to meet Westley in real life, she had fallen in love with him years ago, although she’d never tell him that. He was her closest friend, for obvious reasons.
‘Morning, Starlight, what are you up too today?’ Kat smiles shaking her head as she slips a strand of brown hair behind her ear.
‘Coffee at the shop, while I work on my book.’ She responds sipping her medium flash with vanilla bean creamer.
‘I’m getting coffee right now, maybe this is the day we’ll meet?’ Westley responds excitedly.
‘Of course, you’ll trip and spill coffee on me like in all the cliché fanfictions your always telling me to read on Tumblr.’ Kat snickers.
‘What makes you think I’ll be the one spilling the coffee? Who says it wouldn’t be the other way around?”
‘Because for one, I’m sitting down, and two even if I was walking I’m more coordinated then you.’
‘Are not! You trip over everything!’
‘Exactly and your still a bigger klutz, that’s my point.’
‘Well I never.’ He huffs mockingly laughing lightly. Kat snickers smiling at the laugh. The day passed as usual she spent her morning at Jitters working on her book interrupted every twenty minutes or so by Westley making a joke or asking her something. Her afternoon was spent working on tech for her company, Sparrow Technologies.
‘I just looked at the sky and thought of you, my Starlight.’ Kat lets out a small snort at the pickup line she’d heard a million times before.
‘I like the line and all Westley, but you need new ones.’
‘As you wish.’ Kat lets out another laugh causing people to glance at her; she bows her head with a blush.
‘Shut up, you’re making people stare at me.’
‘Oh am I?’ That mischievous tone is one Kat knows well, and it spells trouble. ‘Hmm maybe I should just look up something to read to you then?’
‘Don’t you…’
‘Here we go, the five times Luke walked in on Han and Leia and he one time they walked in on him, this will be a most interesting read wouldn’t you say, Starlight?’
‘Westley, I swear to god!’ Kat groans her face a bright red as she wishes for the line to move faster or for her obnoxious soulmate to shut the fuck up.
‘Luke was bored, he wanted to go for a ride in the Falcon, but Han was not where to be found. Oh well he would just go for his ride and Han would never need to know… as he entered the Falcon he found something a strange, a random black boot sat in the doorway as if thrown there. Shrugging he steps inside more clothing where spread down the hall leading to the cockpit… oh double meaning!’ Westley reads dramatically clearly getting a huge kick out of her annoyance and protests.
“A large flash to go with vanilla bean creamer please.” Kat orders doing her best to keep a straight face.”
‘Luke’s eyes widened as he froze in place, in the captain’s chair was his twin sister, in far less clothing then he’d ever seen before, on top of her was his best friend in a similar state of dress. “Oh, Han, yes!” Luke quickly turned on his heel running for his life wishing he hadn’t seen that!’
‘Westley that’s gross, knock it off!’
‘It is pretty badly written, I’m sure you could write it better!’ Westley laughs.
‘Would you shut up, you damn idi…’ Kat’s train of thought is derailed as a dagger spins past her face lodging in the counter in front of her. It glowed with a golden orange. Kat spins around in time to see a person in a black coat with a hood and mask standing in the doorway as people start screaming around her. The person holds out a black clad hand the dagger spinning from the counter into it.
Kat takes a step back; she drops her coffee clenching her fist silver sparks crackle around it for half a second before suddenly failing. Why weren’t her powers working?
‘Starlight?’ Before she can answer the dagger is spinning towards her, just before it can hit she is tackled to the ground by a dark skinned woman with long black hair.
“Are you okay?” The woman asks quickly.
“Y… yeah, I think so.” Kat nods moving to her feet, pulling her gun from her ankle holder as she does, the dagger spins back across the coffee shop into the monstrous Meta’s hand.
“It’s time for you to die.” The Meta says stalking towards them. Kat drags the woman who saved her to the side as the dagger spins towards them again. She raises her gun.
“Back off.” The Meta throws the dagger again, Kat opens fire, one bullet bounces off the dagger sending it off course, the Meta quickly dodges the other.
“Are you a Meta human?” The woman from before asks Kat. “She’s after Meta’s that’s the new Cicada.” Kat blinks at her looking back at the woman firing two more rounds that miss, embedding in the now empty of patrons shop walls.
“Yes, I am.” Kat admits.
“Leave them alone.” A vibrating voice joins the madness as a red steak appears in front of them, less than a foot away stood the Flash. Westley would be having a field day right now if he where there, he loved Meta Heroes.
“Good, I can kill you too.” A purple blur suddenly shows and the next thing Kat knows she is being set down in what looks like a lab of some type. Computer monitors surround her. The woman from the shop quickly rushes over to a computer talking to the Flash through a headpiece. Moments later XS and the Flash are standing in front of her.
“Are you okay?” Flash asks gently taking her gun from her hands. Kat blinks still processing where she is.
“Um… I… uh,” Kat runs a hand through the back of her short hair nervously, when did her hands start shaking? “I think so… where am I?”
“This is Star Labs; we brought you here to get away from Cicada.” The woman speaks up. Kat slowly nods.
“Okay… why the hell is this Cicada after me in the first place?”
“She wants all Meta humans dead.” XS explains.
“How would she even know I’m a Meta? No one and I mean literally no one knew but me before tonight.” Kat protests crossing her arms.
“The dagger she was using has the power to block powers, it glows when near a Meta human, you probably where just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Flash explains. Kat nods frowning.
“Then what the hell am I supposed to do?”
“We’ve gotten most of the Meta’s out of the city and into hiding?” A woman with long brown hair says entering the room followed by a man who Kat was pretty positive was Harrison Wells, which made no sense as he’d been dead for four years, a tall dark skinned man, the DA, Elongated Man, and Vibe… who was another person Kat thought was dead.
“I can’t just up and disappear.” Kat protests looking around at the super heroes in front of her.
“Protective custody is your best shot.” The man suggests stepping forwards and showing her his badge, Detective Joseph West, the DA’s husband and the head of the Meta task force at the CCPD, she’d met him once after the particle accelerator had blown up.
“If this lady is after Meta’s then why haven’t all of you left?” Kat challenges motioning to the Meta heroes.
“Because we’re trying to stop Cicada and this is out home.” Elongated Man says.
“Exactly, this is your home. Central City is my home; I’m not going to run away because some new psycho with a thing for leather and hypocrisy wants me dead.”
“If you don’t go you’ll die. We can’t protect you all the time.” Flash argues.
“I can protect myself.” Kat shakes her head.
“Your powers won’t work around Cicada.” The DA speaks up.
“I wasn’t referring to my powers, and if powers don’t work against them, then I’m on an even playing field as all of you.”
“We’re not going to be able to convince you are we?” Flash sighs shoulders slumping a bit.
“Nope.” Flash shares a look with the woman from Jitters and XS two blurs disappearing down the hall, followed by everyone but Detective West. The two stand there awkwardly for a few minutes before the group enters again.
“I’m Iris, this is Caitlin and Sherloque.” The woman from Jitters introduces herself motioning to the brown haired lady and the Harrison Wells look alike. “That’s Cecille,” She motions to the DA. “And I’m sure you know who the different heroes are?”
“I do.”
“What’s your name?” Flash asks.
“Katrina Sparrow, most people call me Kat.” Kat introduces herself smirking when she sees the Flash’s eyes widen.
“The CEO and founder of Sparrow Tech?” She nods with a snort.
“Yup.”
“Oh…” XS says eyes wide, looking surprised. A few people look at her questioningly; she shakes her head at them with the universal gesture for later.
“What are your powers?” Detective West asks.
“Do I have immunity for anything I say here?” Kat clarifies narrowing her eyes at him. “I’m not a criminal but I’d rather not regret this little meeting later?”
“Of course.” Cecille speaks up, smiling at her.
“Any of you heard of the vigilante people are calling Starlight?”
“Yeah.” Iris nods.
“You’re looking at her.” Kat gestures to herself.
“But you look nothing like her?” Elongated Man says shocked. Kat snorts. She pushes a few buttons on her watch; thin strands of metal quickly cover her body from her watch, her belt and her glasses. A simple black suit covers her, silver specks shimmering throughout. Metal wraps around her glasses turning them more into a mask. She clenches her fists then opens them, shimmering silver sparks quickly spread over the suit making the effect look like a shimmering night sky full of stars, her hair floats up a bit turning shimmering silver, her brown eyes quickly turning a soft silver. “Whoa…”
“That’s amazing.” Flash laughs. XS is grinning now looking beyond excited.
“Okay, that’s cool.” Detective West says pointing at her.
“That’s wicked.” Vibe laughs grinning; he’d been silent so far looking at her as if trying to figure something out. Kat’s eyes snap to him. She knew why he’d been staring at her now… his voice she recognized it… she’d heard it every day since she was twelve.
“Well since we know your identity it’s only fair.” Flash shrugs looking at the others who nod. He removes his mask, and holds a hand out to her, his brown hair now free from the rubber. “Barry Allen.” Kat looks at his hand having to drag her eyes away from Vibe. She shakes his hand.
“Nice to meet you.”
“This is Nora, Ralph, and Cisco.” Barry motions in order to XS, Elongated Man, and Vibe. Kat looks Vibe over without his glasses, he was cute, Hispanic, with flowing black hair, a kind smile. Kat deactivates her suit, letting her powers subside her hair and eyes quickly changing back to normal.
“Well, Kat if you won’t leave we’ll have to figure something out.” Barry says smiling at her.
“You could join team Flash?” Nora speaks up stepping forward smiling hopefully at Barry. “You’d make a great addition!” Kat raises an eyebrow.
“Nora, a word please?” Iris speaks up. The two step out Barry following.
“So, Starlight? I see where you get the name.” Cisco approaches Kat as the rest of the group follow Nora seemingly to join the conversation Kat can hear getting heated in the hallway.
“I had the nickname long before I became a Meta.” Kat eyes him up and down. “But I think you’d figured that out… Westley?” Cisco breaks into a grin.
“I thought I recognized your voice.”
“I recognized yours as soon as you spoke.” Kat laughs. “But to be sure.” She holds her hand out to him. Cisco takes her hand hesitantly. A slight jolt shots up Kat’s arm.
‘So Westley, my name is Kat… holy shit, it is you!’ Kat thinks to him slowly grinning as she realizes the rules were gone. When a person first made physical contact with their soulmate after their connection was made the rules would break allowing them to talk more freely from then on.
‘I can’t believe it’s really you…’ Cisco thinks back grinning just as widely. “It’s wonderful to finally meet you, Starlight. I’m Francisco Ramon, I’m your soulmate.” Cisco says out load.
“It’s wonderful to meet you too, Cisco.”
~~~
AN: And that’s the end of Part One? I may do a few more parts?
#cisco ramon#cisco#Cisco Ramon x OC#flash fanfiction#The Flash#Soulmate#soulmate au#Original Character#Francisco Ramon#flash imagine
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Web Promotion – SEO Strategy
Web Promotion – SEO Strategy is republished from: Chicago Website Design SEO Co.
Web Promotion - SEO Strategy
What’s it like to work for a world class SEO? What secrets could you glean on website promotion? The SEO business is sexy, exciting and challenging. While most people want to improve and promote their site, web promo companies often deal with such diverse clients, it sharpens their instincts for what works and what don’t work in the SEO game. This article presents a few tricks, tips and myths about how to SEO your website into GOOGLE heaven.
Content + SEO = Top GOOGLE Positions
If you have great content and decent SEO techniques, you’re webs site should do pretty well in the search engines. If you have SEO stuffed pages full of garbage keyword phrases, sooner or later, you’re gonna pay the price. There are too many billions of dollars at stake for cheap tricks to raise search engine rankings for long. Combine great content with great SEO instincts and bang… you’re website traffic will skyrocket. Here are some common tips, you may have heard, but are worth repeating.
Website Design - SEO Strategy
If you can’t highlight and grab the text off of your website - look out! If you can’t grab it and paste it into a document, how do you think a search engine is gonna read it put it in their search engine. Sure, people will tell you, don’t worry, the search engines index it not problem. Maybe they are right, my gut say Watch Out! Keep it simple!
Keyword Selection - SEO Strategy
You can spend hours researching your keywords, try lots of combo’s and still get zero results in the search engines. What the problem? CONTENT! The key words and the content have to flow together. For example, if you write about dog grooming and switch to a few cat grooming examples, you may defeat your SEO efforts. If you write for the search engine like you were talking to a ten year old, you’ll probably get much higher SEO results.
Meta Tag Mania - SEO Strategy
There are tons of meta tag how to’s to read and confuse you. Here’s a tip for writing better meta tags - pretend you’re asking them out on a date and just say what you have to say without all the bull corn. For example, “I’m ah, going to be in the area this evening, and wonder if you would ahh. oh yeah and I just rebreed something… ah, what was I trying to say is ahh, there’s a nice film tonight if you would like to ah… Now compare that speech that never got to the point with, "Look girl, I think you’re beautiful, would you like to see a movie with me?” And shut up!!!
Copy Writing - SEO Strategy
Ditto for the copy writing - less is more. Pretend you’re writing for NPR. What do they do? They tell you what they are going to tell you, tell you what the have to say and then tell you what the told you. NPR are no dummies, if that’s what they do, it must be good so jump on the band wagon and blow your trumpet.
Image Tags Copy - SEO Strategy
By the time you’re concerned with adding image tags to SEO your website, you either have a great site way, way up their in the search engines or you’re a SEO junky that needs help. No body can assure you #1 rankings on Google so don’t set your sails for impossible goals. Someday, we’ll all wake up in the 1980’s again and discover the sense of freedom people back in pre-internet era.
Web Promotion – SEO Strategy read: SEO Company Reviews
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Hi guys, it’s me again, and for our last post of April 2018, I’ve decided that writing about books is canceled. We’re writing about my favorite music now: 80s music. If you know me in real life, you know that I love everything 80s–the music, the fashion, the movies….
In fact, let me treat you to two of my favorite 80s outfits…sorry that you can’t see my awesome 80s makeup, but trust me. It was great. In the first one, it was a spirit day at school, and the other one is Halloween–I was Diane Court from my favorite movie, “Say Anything” (and yes. It was released in 1989. I’m a monster.)
However, we’re not here today to talk about any of the dubious fashion decisions I’ve made in my life. Instead, we’re here to talk about my music obsession. Now, I’ll listen to nearly anything, but my two favorite genres are punk and 80s (I’m counting it as a whole genre). Let’s go into some of my favorites. (I limited myself to 15 for the sake of space, but it was a pretty tough call)
Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springsteen (1984)
This song is one of my favorites. It’s on my “If My Life Were a Movie” playlist, and I just feel it, man. The lyrics rock. I can just imagine it playing during the opening credits as I’m like, getting dressed or something meta.
St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion) by John Parr (1984)
This. Song. I can dance and belt along to this song any day. I feel like, in my life movie, this would be the “Transformation Song”–like a friend and I would power ballad it for a talent show in ridiculous outfits and the whole school would rally behind it. Okay, I’m getting weird.
Kiss by Prince (1986)
Yeah, the subject matter of this song isn’t exactly PG. But the beat is hype, and it’s a Prince song, so what’s not to love? If you know me in real life, you may have seen me dance to it ridiculously at some point. Oh well.
Always On My Mind by Pet Shop Boys (1987)
This is actually a cover of a song originally from 1972. It’s actually been covered by Elvis Presley and Willie Nelson, too. In case you wondered, looking up current pictures and old pictures of Pet Shop Boys is hilarious. Nothing has changed except for the hair color of the men (it’s white now).
How Will I Know by Whitney Houston (1985)
The ultimate ballad of girls wondering if their guy is for real. Yes, I know her awesome song “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” didn’t make the list, but both have a similar vibe. They’re very “classic 80s” as opposed to “cheesy 80s”, and they get to be timeless like “Careless Whisper” (and “Never Gonna Give You Up”, except it got majorly memed).
Mad World by Tears for Fears (1983)
This song has been covered so many times. Like, it’s ridiculous. And all the covers are always really slow and melodramatic–I honestly super prefer this version, the original. I feel like the 80s quirk helps the message get across better. You can dance and also feel like the world is ending. Fun!
Karma Chameleon by Culture Club (1983)
Let’s be real, Culture Club exhibits all things quintessentially 80s, from Boy George to their wacky videos to their songs that, in the ears of today, would sound absolutely ridiculous (because they are). The video for this one, which is great to dance to, by the way, is really weird.
We Built This City by Starship (1985)
What. A. Bop. My favorite part of the song is the radio report part. Just listen to it, you’ll get it. I just feel like that part totally “gets” the message of this song.
Let’s Dance by David Bowie (1983)
What’s an 80s playlist without some David Bowie? I love this song. It, for some reason, makes me think of Queen (if you judge me, I will be unimpressed). This song had to grow on me, but I love the beats in it. A master made this.
I’m Alright by Kenny Loggins (1980)
If you know me in real life, then you know that one of my things is, when people say they’re alright, asking if they’re “really alright” or “Caddyshack alright”. Yep, this song is from Caddyshack. And I love it. To be fair, I love Kenny Loggins.
Sunglasses at Night by Corey Hart (1984)
The epitome of 80s cheesy angst! If you listen to nothing else on this list, you gotta listen to this. It’s absolutely ridiculous and I love it. Really wanna do karaoke to this in something bejeweled someday. I feel like it could be awesome.
Broken Wings by Mr. Mister (1985)
Another very “80s cheese” song. My mom loves this song. Also, I love belting along to it. And with a band name like Mr. Mister……This is also a song that, in my opinion, should have been on the “Say Anything” soundtrack. But maybe it’s too cheesy for that movie. Who knows?
You Want It by Cheap Trick (1989)
This song is, surprise, from “Say Anything”, and I love it. It’s the only song on here that I feel could span other decades besides the 80s (of course, it came out in ’89, which is a bit late in the decade). What an absolute bop.
Take My Breath Away by Berlin (1986)
AKA the love theme from “Top Gun”. I love this song with all of my heart, oh my gosh. It’s just so luscious and beautifully made. It’s almost dreamlike. An absolute must-listen.
In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel (1986)
That’s it, this is the song that makes my heart melt. It is one of the signature songs from “Say Anything”–if you don’t know, that’s the movie with the scene where the guy holds up the boombox in front of the girl’s window–and this is the song playing when Lloyd holds up the boombox for Diane. You have to watch the movie to know why this song is significant. And so you can cry your eyes out. It doesn’t matter where I am when I heart this song, I just melt.
Tell me, everyone, would you like to see more posts about things like movies and music, not just books? What’s your favorite music? And what books should I review next?
Peace out,
Short Girl
Top 80s Music Hi guys, it's me again, and for our last post of April 2018, I've decided that writing about books is canceled.
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