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Queen live at Capital Centre in Landover, MD, USA - November 29, 1977

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A fan filmed the first couple minutes of the show on a silent Super 8 camera, but he was caught by a security guard and the film was confiscated.

Another fan recalls the band took a 30 minute break in the middle of the show, and started the second half of the show with Tie Your Mother Down. He also says they performed both Spread Your Wings and It's Late.

Here is a review of the show from the next day's Washington Post. It reveals that the band have swapped Keep Yourself Alive with Now I'm Here. The former now follows Bohemian Rhapsody in the setlist, as it had earlier in the year.

There is a great story on Brian May's website by Tracy Chevalier, who attended the show as a youngster:

It started with a champagne toast and ended with a limo pulling away into the night. In between these two gestures symbolising glamour and sophistication, I lost my virginity. Not in the technical sense (that would take another few years), but in other ways. At my first ever rock concert — going with four friends to see Queen at the Capital Centre in November 1977 — I got an eye-opening peek at elements of the adult world, with its power and its limitations, its glittering artifice and dirty reality, and it demonstrated how little I knew and how much I had yet to learn about life.

I was ripe for it; overdue, really. I had turned 15 the month before the concert, and though people thought I looked older than I was, I was remarkably naive and unworldly at that age. Despite a few character-building events in my childhood — the death of my mother when I was almost 8, the experience of being a minority in DC public schools — I was so unsophisticated, so unaware of the world, that I didn’t even realise Queen was an English band until the lead singer Freddie Mercury appeared in a tight white catsuit on stage at the Capital Centre, raised a glass of champagne at 18,000 screaming fans, and toasted us with “Good evening, Washington” in a fruity English accent. I was stunned. Then I started screaming.

I had been a Queen fan for a couple of years by then. A Night at the Opera was the first LP I bought, and I could sing every word of every song. I don’t remember how I was introduced to Queen — though I do remember hearing their biggest hit, Bohemian Rhapsody, on the radio and being impressed by its audacity. It sure beat the hell out of the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, which had been my older sister’s staple music diet. By 14, I was writing Queen lyrics on the desk where I sat for algebra class, swapping them back and forth with a boy I had a crush on, and daydreaming of guitarist Brian May kissing me.

The concert was part of Queen’s News of the World tour. While not a great album, especially after the double whammy of A Night at the Opera and its follow-up, A Day at the Races, it did produce two of their best-known songs, We Will Rock You and We are the Champions, which drop-kicked them firmly into stadium anthem territory. Appropriately, the concert began with the lights going down and the primitive, effective, impossible-not-to-join-in-with BOOM- BOOM-CHI, BOOM-BOOM-CHI, BOOM-BOOM-CHI intro to We Will Rock You rolling over the audience. Everyone immediately jumped up out of their seats and began to stomp and clap along. I, too, stood and stomped and clapped, watching in awe as people began flicking their Bic lighters, a gesture I had never seen before. What, were they going to set light to something? I had tried not to act surprised earlier when people nearby started smoking grass in public, but now was there going to be a riot? What other illegal things would go on that night? Then a spotlight picked out Freddie Mercury, who began to sing, “Buddy you’re a boy, make a big noise, playin’ in the street, gonna be a big man someday . . .” and I thought, “Jesus H. Christ, that is the loudest noise I’ve ever heard! Is that legal?” The wall of sound terrified me, and I wanted to cover my ears, but I didn’t dare, as it would have been a very uncool thing to do. I think I looked around for the exit, wondering how many people I would have to climb over to escape the sound. It was just so goddamned loud — exhilarating, yes, but painful, too, dangerous and overwhelming. I wavered between loving it and hating it, but knew it would be uncool to hate it, so I’d better try to love it.

Towards the end of the song the single note of an electric guitar began to hum louder and louder under the chorus we were all singing and shouting, and Brian May stepped into the light to add his distinctive sound, ending We Will Rock You with low, long-sustain, three-part harmony chords, overlaid with a high melody he made fuzzy and metallic by using a coin as a guitar pick. I adored Brian May. He was the reserved, straight guy (literally) to Freddie Mercury’s camp high jinks — tall, dark, good-looking, with long curly hair and a melancholy pensiveness that made every teenage girl want to comfort him. At this concert he was wearing a silvery white jacket with long, pleated wing sleeves; that combined with his mop of curls should have made him look effeminate, but instead he was deeply sexy.

I loved Freddie, too, for his outrageous antics, his riskiness, his joy at performing and glorious indifference to how ridiculous he looked wearing glittery leotard jumpsuits, eyeliner and a mullet, prancing and strutting and posing, twitching his hips, smacking his lips and otherwise hamming it up. But even without being conscious of Freddie’s sexual preference — I hadn’t yet met anyone who was openly gay — I instinctively sensed he was not to be lusted after. For all his extrovert, welcoming stage presence, he was clearly playing a part, which served to hold us at arm’s length; whereas Brian May’s taciturn moodiness was clearly himself served up raw.

Thank God for Freddie, though. Without him, no one would have moved on stage: Brian May was not a dancer, John Deacon, in time-honoured bassist tradition, stood solidly in one place throughout, and Roger Taylor was trapped by his drum kit.

To set us at our ease, after We Will Rock You Freddie toasted us with a glass of champagne — “Moët et Chandon, of course,” after the reference in the hit Killer Queen. My friends and I heard this and screamed and clutched one another. He mentioned Moët et Chandon! That was our champagne! He was acknowledging us! I swear he made eye contact with me, 200 yards away and over the heads of thousands.

For we had done what we thought was the most original and extravagant gesture (for 15-year-olds) a fan could make: we had sent a bottle of champagne backstage. We’d pooled our money and gotten an older sister to buy it for us — the same sister who had been obliged to drive us all the way to the Capital Centre, smirking at our overexcited fandom. We’d even made our way to the stage door down a loading dock at the back of the arena and reluctantly handed over the precious bottle to a bored roadie, who said he would take it to the band. We’d had our doubts about his reliability, and his jadedness had dampened our enthusiasm a bit: had we really blown all that money — $20, which in those days meant 20 hours of babysitting — to have some unshaven jerk with a beer belly swill the precious liquid? But clearly the roadie had pulled through for us, for there was our champagne in Freddie Mercury’s hand, and he was referring to Moët et Chandon in his pretty cabinet, the lyrics we had so cleverly quoted in the note we sent along with the bottle. We were sure we — among the many thousands — had managed to get through to the band.

If we had bothered to look around rather than feast our eyes on Brian and Freddie (I’m afraid John Deacon and Roger Taylor never got a look-in from me), we probably would have seen other clusters of fans also screaming and clutching one another during Freddie’s toast. But we didn’t look around or harbour doubts, or we ignored them. It was only much later that I allowed myself to consider the veritable champagne lake that must have existed backstage at every Queen concert. Tip to rock stars: want a free truckload of champagne wherever you go? Sing a song that mentions some — preferably name-checking a more expensive brand to ensure better quality — and watch it pour in backstage every night from adoring fans. There must have been a hundred bottles from fans back there, not counting the stash the band may well have brought with them in case Portland or Houston or Detroit weren’t so generous. No wonder that roadie looked so bored — he’d probably been put on champagne duty that night.

Freddie’s toast worked its magic, though, giving me the connection I needed to negotiate a place within the strangeness of the concertgoing experience itself: the weird, scary power of a crowd; the mixture of exhilaration and embarrassment at collective participation; the physical discomfort of standing for two hours when there’s a perfectly comfortable seat behind you. It is one of those tricky, unresolved tensions at concerts: are we there to listen to the music or actively respond to it, participate as a group or answer our needs as individuals? It’s an issue I’ve never entirely resolved — from Queen onwards I have spent concerts going in and out of myself, losing myself to the music and spectacle one minute, the next minute overly conscious of myself clapping or singing or screaming, and wondering why concerts have to be such an uncomfortable physical ordeal.

I was taken aback by the sound of Queen’s music live: not just the volume, but the familiarity and also the strange rawness of the songs. Studio albums have all the mistakes airbrushed out, the layers added in, the balance between players carefully calibrated, like clever dialogue in a play without the awkward pauses and unfinished conversations you get in real life. Queen albums were highly produced, multi-layered affairs. Live, the music was necessarily stripped of a lot of the choral mixing, more raucous, simpler and much messier.

The band wisely didn’t dare attempt to reproduce in its entirety the long, baroque confection that is Bohemian Rhapsody. For the infamous operatic middle section, the band members left the stage as the studio recording played. Freddie and Brian then changed costume, and, at the word “Beelzebub”, all four men popped out of a door in the stage floor and joined live again for the heavy metal section, fireworks going off, dry ice pouring out, everyone going berserk, me in tears of excitement. It was one of the best live moments I’ve ever witnessed. Indeed, I was spoiled by seeing Queen play live before anyone else; for sheer exuberant theatricality, no one else has come close.

The concert ended with an instrumental version of God Save the Queen and once more the flicking of the Bics, which, no longer the virgin concertgoer, I understood now as a gesture of tribute. My friends and I weren’t finished, though. Emboldened by Freddie’s toast, we decided to go to the stage entrance again and say hello. I still choke with embarrassment when I think of it. When we got there, a black limousine was pulling away, our heroes and their entourage inside, and we were left with the detritus: older, dolled-up, hard-bitten groupies who had followed the band around and not made this night’s cut. I stared at one, at her long, bleach-blond hair, her miniskirt, her bright red lipstick. She glared at me briefly; then her face went slack as she dismissed the idea of me being any sort of competition. In fact, I had not really taken in that there was a competition, that the girls (and I?) were here to spread our wares and catch the attention of one of the men, and then . . . And then? I hadn’t thought it through at all. I wouldn’t have known what to do with such a man as Brian May if he even so much as looked at me. All I knew was that I was way, way out of my depth, that even if I had eluded the roadie minding the door, there was no way I was ever going to get past a woman like this.

The contrast between the sparkling theatricality of the concert and the gritty reality of the backstage, with its dirty concrete, anonymous faces and unfulfilled dreams turned my stomach, and almost ruined the night. I wished I hadn’t seen it, because it reminded me that the show was a fantasy, while it was my aching feet and the roadies’ boredom and the groupies’ hard desperation that constituted real life. As I stood watching the limo pull away and the unsexy women stand about, licking their wounds, looking for a ride to the next city and another chance, I felt as if a door had been kicked open a crack on to a world I knew nothing about: the seamy underbelly of the concertgoing experience, a mix of sex and power and exploitation, of cigarettes and poorly applied make-up and long, cold nights waiting to be noticed and defining yourself by someone else’s attention. If that was grown-up life, I didn’t want to know about it. I wanted the champagne toast, but not the limo. Not yet.

Fan Stories

“I had just turned 16 a few weeks earlier. I was absolutely 100% in love with Queen (since age 13 when first hearing Killer Queen on the radio) and therefore could hardly believe my sister's friend, who worked with her at the Roy Rogers restaurant at the mall, who said she knew Freddie Mercury's girlfriend, Mary, and that she was going to get a backstage pass and would try to get one for us as well. Well, just before the concert she met my sister at a pre-arranged point (inside the venue) and said that she was unable to get us the backstage passes. You can imagine my disappointment and my thinking at this point that this girl was not telling the truth about knowing Freddie's girlfriend (it seemed too good to be true to me to begin with). Then after the concert, which was great of course, we were depressed (my sister and I - but especially me) at not getting to meet them, so we decided to wait for their limo to come out of the underground parking area at the Capital Centre. When it emerged we got so excited we decided to sprint to our big blue station wagon and follow them. With my learner's permit only, I followed them at probably over 80 miles per hour - I remember it being the fastest I had ever driven but I was determined not to lose them - to a restaurant somewhere in DC. At that age, I didn't have my bearings around the city. We didn't want to freak them out so I think we just watched them go inside from our car. Then we ended up waiting outside in the cold air for I think around 2 hours - anyway - enough to turn my nose red and make my lips and toes numb. We weren't allowed in the restaurant - and there was a bouncer from Liverpool out front that prevented us from even going in the lobby to warm up. At one point Roger came down the stairs into the lobby and I smiled at him and he smiled back and started over to the door - but was stopped by another man who grabbed his arm. So then he just continued downstairs to the bathroom, and ignored us when he went back up the stairs. When they finally emerged from the restaurant, I was frozen in more ways than just the temp. Brian said, "It's a bit cold out here". One of them (I don't know who because I think I was in shock) said, "So, were you at the concert?" And we said yes. My friend who was hardly a Queen fan grabbed the attention for herself by shouting "That was the best concert I've ever seen!" or some such thing. I was so embarrassed not being able to think of anything to say in my stunned condition. Freddie looked at me briefly then looked over at my sister. He nodded at my sister but he never stopped walking to the limo. Brian walked over to me and said something like, "Did you enjoy the concert?" and I think I mumbled something like, "Yes. It was fantastic." Then all I could think to say was "Can I have your autograph?" He said "Sure" and ended up giving me the autograph and his pen. So I had to tap him on the arm to get his attention to give him his pen back. "Here's your pen." Can you imagine - here I am meeting my idols and all I can say is this? This all happened within about 20 or 30 seconds it seemed, and they all got into the limo quickly - they seemed pretty tired. I can't remember if they had one or two limos. All four of the members were there and I think a couple of other men - probably manager and driver(s). Freddie didn't say anything, just acknowledged us without a smile and got into the limo. John did the same. I remember thinking Brian was pretty tall. I stood very close to him. I am almost 5 foot 9 and he towered above me it seemed. Of course the hair probably added several inches! The best part of the story I guess is that my sister's friend, the one who knew Mary, said that when the band got back to the hotel they said there were some "nice working girls" waiting outside the restaurant. I guess they thought we were older - we were only 16 and 17 and still in high school of course. We were dressed very conservatively and with long coats.

My sister's co-worker said that she was good friends with Mary, because their families had been neighbors, and so was happy to get to visit with her. Also she said she thought that Freddie was the nicest member of the group, but very shy.” - Donna13

Hey, are you participating in NaNoWriMo? Have you ever? And what was your experience like? I'm considering it but I feel so intimidated because I know I won't be able to commit to it wholeheartedly. Lowering my expectations and pacing myself would seem like the perfect solution but work kills my creative brain cells by the seconds. I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of November I've only written half of page of alien language. Any advice? Also does Nano have to be a new project?

Oh man, Nano. I’m well familiar with Nano, and I’ve participated a few times (to varying degrees of success). This got very long, so I’m putting a cut.

The first time I attempted Nano was in 2006 for my novel Seerking. I had heard about it from a friend who was in an LJRP I was in, and she encouraged me to try it. I was still in high school at the time, and very frankly I did not have the dedication necessary to complete it. I got a lot of worldbuilding complete, but very little writing. I got about two pages of prose, and three notebooks of character and setting history, as well as a fairly detailed outline. I still have all of this.

The second time I attempted was in 2009, for a story that is based heavily on the Iron&Wine song ‘Boy With a Coin’. I got a little bit further, but I got stuck in a few places. I think it’s because my idea was bigger than my life experience, and I also got stuck in a lot of small details. Additionally, my first Word document (where I got about two chapters in?) was destroyed when my laptop’s hard drive just straight gave up on life - I did buck up and rewrite quite a bit, though it didn’t sing quite the same notes, and I have this handwritten copy still. (It’s possible I tried again with this same project the year after? I don’t remember tbvh)

My third attempt was in 2011, about a goverment operative and a faun. This one I got the furthest, and I still have the original handwritten draft and the typed copy. I pantsed this one, 100%. To this day, I still don’t know how this story ends, but I’d love to attempt a rewrite someday.

Then, unfortunately, from around 2012 until Fall of last year, I stopped writing period. I was in a real bad situation, and just didn’t have the energy for anything, let alone a novel. My most recent experience with Nano as an organization was Camp Nano, which is a much looser structure, and it is in May and July. Rather than the hard and fast 50k, you set your own goal when you announce your project.

I can understand your hesitance to participate, honestly. Nano is a beast of a project – to reach the minimum goal of 50k in the 30 allotted days, you have to produce 1667 words of new content every single day. This is approximately 3 pages, maybe a little more – which is a lot when you’re already stressed! And if you miss a day you have to adjust your daily totals for every following day, and the pressure starts to mount! It’s a lot, even if it is only meant to be a neat little challenge (mostly, I’ll cover benefits a bit later).

Now, my recommendations are going to follow two paths: planning, and pantsing. If you are naturally a planner – that is, you like having rough outlines, refined outlines, you like having character data, history, etc – then I recommend you have as much of your novel planned ahead of time before November 1st hits. Whatever notes or files you need to have set aside before you begin writing those first words, have them ready – read over them, refine them, and have them memorized front to back so that you know what your story is meant to be. If you are a natural planner, and you have not done this by today’s date (it’s 30 October where I am), then I do not recommend participating this year because it will stress you the fuck out and you might even make yourself sick.

The other popular option is called pantsing – essentially, you have a rough idea, and you’re flying by the seat of your pants. (This is literally what it is called on the Nano website, by the by – there are badges for it and everything.) If you are a pantser, then I still recommend a little preparation, but of a wildly different degree and type: find your story’s ambiance. If you are a pantser, think about what sparked the idea for your story? Try to put yourself back in the place (emotionally or physically) where you had the most intense version of the idea, and hang onto that feeling with both hands. This is incredibly important, because it will allow you to harken back to that feeling without chasing the high of first being hit by that feeling. If you are a pantser, focus heavily on the feelings you want to evoke with your story, and let your heart guide you.

Now the third option (I know what I said, I lied all right) is if you are a combination planner-pantser; you don’t want to have the rigidity of the outline, but you also like having a little bit of structure, or at least a direction to go in. If you are a combination planner-pantser, I recommend doing very soft preparation for yourself in the week leading up to Nano. So things like building yourself a playlist, maybe doodle what your main looks like in your head, or small details like character names and short dossiers. If you’re able, I recommend coming up with an ending, so you know what the end-goal looks like and you are able to track your story’s completion in your head.

For all three, I would recommend deciding ahead of time how you want to write your novel – are you going to type it up in a word processor (please make so many backups, do not live the heartache that I had to)? Are you going old school and hand writing it? Are you feeling like a boss that day and maybe want to dictate it into an app on your phone? Pick one, and make a dedicated space for your novel. You can mix them up, certainly, but make sure that you are able to consolidate effectively or you’re going to stress yourself out.

Now, you asked whether or not it has to be a “new” project. There are actually a few answers to this, depending on what you mean. Now, if we are to assume that “new” strictly means a brand new, fresh idea that you have just come up with specifically for National Novel Writer’s Month 2020, then the answer is no; it does not. Back in the day, there were a few purists that insisted you had to have a designated project every year, but like most purists, they’re just being assholes about it.

As a matter of fact, it does not even have to be a brand new project that you have not written any words for at all – however, if you do have an idea that you have already written for, you are not permitted to use any of your previous word count toward your goal. This is definitely a no-no. Personally, I’ve tried this, and I found it rough – I liked having the designated project, and I liked the buildup to it.

If you have, though, an idea that you’ve worked over and you are simply ready to start putting words on a page, this, I think, is Nano’s sweet spot.

Now, I know most of this 1000+ answer has been cautioning and reminders that Nano is tough – because, well, it is. It is a huge undertaking, and I feel like every participant has their horror stories to tell about their experience. But I want to reassure you that it isn’t 100% a hard slog to a dreary end; there are so many tools that Nano themselves provide you, as well as user-run communities and workshops, and even some benefits after the fact. These are the things I want to wrap this post up with.

Firstly, no matter how tired or stressed you are, if you register for nanowrimo.org, you’ll begin receiving daily emails from published authors and past participants. These range from silly and tedious, to incredibly comforting. My favorite one, which I cannot remember a lot of specifics from, was from a man who detailed his experience and reassured everyone that the work doesn’t have to be good – it just has to be 50k words. That’s it. You can have typos and errors all over the place, plot holes of all shapes and sizes, and a main character who doesn’t make any sense at all; it doesn’t matter, because the point of the event is simply to finish. Neil Gaiman has also said a time or two that your first draft’s only purpose is to exist. Just get the words out; you can fix them later.

Additionally, when you are completing your profile, you can enter in your location and there are designated forums for participants in your area. In the past, there have been meetups for group-writes and workshops as well, though I imagine they will be more along the lines of Discord calls this year. If you are a social person who needs a pair of eyes to help you work through a scene, Nano’s got your back. They will also send you statistics for your area for the average word count, daily word count, past winners, etcetera. It can sometimes feel like you are very alone during this difficult project, but a lot of these things bring a very human element to the event.

Finally, what comes after you have completed. A lot of these benefits are newer than my time, but I browsed through them when I did my Camp Project. When you complete the goal in the allotted time, you get a neat little badge for your webpage and a printable certificate for the immediate boost of dopamine. But you will also get discounts to some neat shit, like different word processing applications (I got 50% off of Scrivener when I finished Camp), as well as things like The Great Courses, discounts in the swag store, etc. But more than that, there are partnering websites who want to help you on the road to being published. Wattpad is in this group, but I believe also big name publishers (I might have seen Penguin on there at one point) are willing to work with winners to get their works distributed.

All that said, I recommend every writer attempt Nano at least once in their writing career. Even if I personally have not done so stellar in the past, it is a fantastic learning experience for all of the work that goes into producing a novel from start to finish – it forces you to know your limits, and sometimes to overcome them. I don’t think I will be participating this year – I have so many side projects that I want to get done, but I will very likely drop everything to do it next year. I have two novels that are real roughly built up that I could do for this, though, and I would love the dedicated time to spend on them.

Writer’s Block.

Shirley director Josephine Decker talks to Ella Kemp about novelist Shirley Jackson’s aspirational qualities, Elisabeth Moss’s voice, and the Pixar film that changed everything for her.

Actor, director, writer and editor Josephine Decker has done for American cinema what Alice did for Wonderland. She burst onto the landscape and turned everything inside out, tunneling further into new worlds and disrupting the rules of everyone living there.

With four features to her name so far, Decker has fast become a leading voice in independent American cinema. There was the psychological thriller Butter on the Latch (2013), the erotic fever dream Thou Wast Mild And Lovely (2014), and the hurricane of a coming-of-ager, Madeline’s Madeline (2018). Now with Shirley, Decker turns to the biopic—but this is no paint-by-numbers adaptation of someone’s Wikipedia page. The script, written by Sarah Gubbins (I Love Dick) is adapted from the novel by Susan Scarf Merrell. Some of Shirley is true, some not.

Shirley casts Elisabeth Moss as the eponymous horror author, Shirley Jackson, whose famously disturbing 1948 short story The Lottery caused a sensation when it was first published in the New Yorker. Michael Stuhlbarg appears alongside Moss as Jackson’s professor husband Stanley Edgar Hyman, with Odessa Young and Logan Lerman as Rose and Fred Nemser, academic newlyweds who come to stay in Shirley and Stanley’s gothic home for a spell, while Shirley is wrestling with how to write her (very real) second novel, Hangsaman.

These actors matter, as the first couple—the Hollywood household names—welcome the second pair—fresh-faced rising stars—into their dangerous orbit of wordy brilliance and ruthless scrutiny. The results, knotty, seductive and disorienting, are electric.

Produced by Christine Vachon and Martin Scorsese, Shirley carries hints of Decker’s background in performance art, particularly in Moss’s highly physical performance. Film nuts are still getting to grips with Decker’s singular style, but once you’re in, there’s no way of climbing back out. “Decker finds a way to embody the strange, insoluble, unnerving energy of Jackson’s prose in a film that fittingly always seems to be building to a catastrophic rupture,” writes Jake Cole.

“I am ready to declare her one of the best modern filmmakers,” writes Letterboxd member Brian Formo, while Vshefali praises how “Josephine Decker is able to paint a picture of the inside of a woman’s brain so beautifully”. It’s true: Decker is concerned with what makes us tick, but also how the mechanics of that ticking work when nobody’s looking, when everything else has moved on and all that you’re left with are your own loud thoughts.

If you’re based in the US, you can watch Shirley via our virtual screening room—we’re donating 100 percent of our proceeds to Firelight Media.

Elisabeth Moss as Shirley Jackson in ‘Shirley’.

In the adaptation from the novel, what key elements did you and Sarah Gubbins want to remain true in terms of Shirley Jackson’s story? Josephine Decker: We were just really interested in making sure these characters felt like full, rounded individuals. For Shirley and Rose, it was about how they met and entwined. We wanted to really feel their separateness and their togetherness. We spent the most time on how to allow you to really feel each of them deeply, because it’s a hard thing to have a dual-protagonist movie.

What was it about Shirley Jackson that attracted you to her? I came on after it was already scripted. The character is just so witty, and kind of cruel, and complicated and messy. I had loved Sarah’s work on I Love Dick, I thought that Kathryn Hahn’s performance was one of the great female performances of the last twenty years. She just writes such great characters, so it was exciting to be able to dive into the Shirley that she had created. Also, the real Shirley Jackson is such a complicated and fascinating person—I was and am obsessed with her writing. She does in writing a thing that I’m trying to do in cinema, so it was exciting to get to know her work that well.

What things in her work would you like to emulate? You fall from a real place into an imaginary place without really realising it. She’s very good at sliding you into the character’s mind. It’s a witchy thing that makes her writing feel really exciting, that I haven’t seen that much on screen. I feel like in American cinema there’s this clear line between reality and what’s in your mind, but I think with Shirley that line is very unclear. That’s something I love, that I really pursue in my work and get excited by.

I definitely felt that with Madeline’s Madeline as well, it all feels very slippery. Totally.

Shirley is the first feature you’ve directed from another person’s script. How was that experience? It took me a minute to get inside of the world. I’m generally pretty process-oriented, but this film was different. There’s usually a thing that happens as you’re writing, I find I’m writing as an excuse to get the words that are in my head out. So to come from words and try to see the images was a very different experience, but also really exciting. With Sarah’s writing, it was interesting how the space was so important, this house was such a major character in the film. Because it’s such a dialogue-driven script, I worked a lot with the actors in rehearsals. I guess maybe some directors would tell you what to do, and you would start, and you would do that, but I didn’t even realise that would have been an option, so I was like, “Well, we have to make the blocking together” because I was also really adamant that I didn’t want the dialogue to be static.

It was important to me to sculpt some of the dialogue scenes into movement scenes. It was fun to find the dance of the film and allow the actors to choose their own way through the dialogue. They’re all such geniuses. When we would do rehearsals with Lizzie and Michael, it was so fast, they’re so good at working things out themselves. It was just exciting to let them find their own space and then obviously weigh in when I felt like an outside eye was helpful. I feel like a lot of what I’m realising as a director is if you choose the right collaborators, it’s just about getting out of the way!

How would you describe the relationship between Shirley and Rose? It feels thorny—it reminded me of Phantom Thread in terms of the toxicity. Generally, Shirley’s own work is about these two female characters who are really different—one is a dark, misanthropic genius, but angry, and the other one is a very light-hearted open spirit who is generous and good at baking and making men happy. I think in her biography there was this idea that these two kinds of women were different aspects of Shirley’s own mind, that she was like both of them. So it was about how different Shirley and Rose are at the beginning, and then that their coming together is such a collision, but then they discover they have a lot to learn from each other and they’re more similar than they realized.

It was about making sure we could understand their motivations. Especially Rose—she could have been a lighter, less-complex character, but I think I felt really committed, and Odessa did an incredible job, to make her a really full human with her own aspirations. And in the novel too, she has her own world going on. So it’s about making sure her goals are still clear, and then that by the end of the film maybe she has new goals, or maybe she realizes that everything she’d been tidying up her life to get in order—get a husband, have a baby—are maybe a little bit at odds with the deeper thing she’s searching for. But they are really slippery characters.

Josephine Decker on the set used for the Jackson-Hyman house in ‘Shirley’.

You mentioned the importance of the house. I spoke to Kitty Green recently about The Assistant and you share the same composer, Tamar-kali, and sound designer, Leslie Shatz, on your films. Both scores are amazing; on Shirley I’m thinking of the cellos and the violins but then also the creaky floorboards in the sound design. How do you think music and sound help build this world? They’re huge tools. I always think sound design can really bring a new element, especially to a film like this where there’s a slide into a surreal realm, into the mind sometimes. So finding a sound that hints that the things you’re witnessing are a little unreal is exciting. Leslie did a lot of playing. He jokes that when we first met I told him to go to town, and then he just went to town and was like, “I hope I went to the right town!” We had a lot of fun. We tried to really use sounds that weren’t too electronic, stuff that felt like it could have been made with the sound effects that would have been available then. Sound is a huge storyteller, I think it’s more impactful than film. I also think Lizzie’s voice is a train that pushes you through the film, in that you understand where she is with the writing by how confident or how confused that voice is.

What was the first film that made you want to be a filmmaker? Monsters Inc., that one’s easy. I had a real revelation in college while watching it. I’d seen it before, it was my second time, but I just laughed like a little baby. I just have so much fun in these Pixar movies, my best friend in college was watching with me and I was giggling and sitting four feet from the television, and she was just like, “You really like this and I think you should do this and this would be a combination of everything you’ve been doing.” It was helpful to have a friend there to tell me that. I haven’t started making movies like that yet, but maybe someday. My next movie [The Sky Is Everywhere] is a YA film, so if I just keep going younger and younger…

Related content

A list of Shirley Jackson-related titles on Letterboxd.

Eve’s lists of films Written by Women and Directed by Women.

‘Shirley’ is available on Hulu and other streaming services now. With thanks to NEON.

1-4. For the asks

Thank you so much for sending these! <3 

Once I started to answer them, I realized there were comparatively few recent television shows appearing on the list. I seemed to keep gravitating toward older ones I remembered from years ago. I took a handful of days to mull it over in case I was forgetting something, but nothing else comes to mind. Maybe my ongoing list of Shows to Watch During Quarantine will turn up some fresh results but, for now, it looks like I’ll be taking a little trip down memory lane. :) 

This turned out to be a pretty long and rambly post, so I’ll stow it under the cut!

Top 5 TV Shows 

1. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - I can’t imagine this surprises anyone who has been following this blog for the past two years or so. It brought fellow fans into my life, got me back into writing fic, and prompted countless tags of meta. It’s the show my mind drifts to on a weekly basis (if not daily) even a full year after the finale. Just when it seemed I’d reached an age where that level of intense fandom involvement and character attachment might be fading, it proved that quite the opposite was true. I’m very thankful to the series for that, and for the people whose paths have crossed mine as a result.   

2. Schitt’s Creek - This is my #1 Feel Good show and, though I’ve been dodging spoilers for the final season until it gets uploaded to Netflix, I get the impression that it will remain in that top spot. The world feels softer and more hopeful there. It’s healing for my soul. I’m going to have a dreadfully difficult time saying goodbye, but I’m glad there are six season to revisit whenever I want. 

3. Stranger Things - The theme song alone sends such a rush of excitement through me. I love the aesthetic and the atmosphere. I sometimes have mixed feelings about the romances but the FRIENDSHIPS sure do have a direct line to my heartstrings. I think the way they’ve combined media influences into their own story is really neat. You get something that’s new and engaging, but you can also go back and enjoy the sources of inspiration with fresh appreciation. 

4. Joan of Arcadia - I can’t help it. The snark, the jackets, the early 2000s songs, the performances -- the nostalgia for this show is so strong. It’s not without its problems, but it did have some really good things to offer as well. I remember an episode that was one of my earliest introductions to the concept of a trigger, and the effect it could have on a person if exposed to one of theirs. The series dealt a lot with grief and the many forms it can take (I STILL can’t hear Fiona Apple’s cover of “Across the Universe” without getting misty-eyed). I’m also surprised, looking back, at the somewhat positive way I recall them discussing homosexuality on the several occasions that it came up in the show. Not to give too much credit since I don’t think there were recurring canonically LGBTQIA+ characters but, for a kid who spent most days around closed-minded people of a certain religious leaning, it was meaningful along my individual journey. I’d like to provide the several examples that are most vivid in my memory:

A. A girl with short hair, short nails, little to no makeup, and a bulky leather jacket is generally assumed to be a lesbian by the bullies at school. The show directly confronts the fact that “gay” should not be used an insult, that identity should not be assumed without the person telling you so, AND makes sure that the character in question never pushes back by saying harmful things about lesbians despite not actually being one herself. 

B. A boy who is questioning is able to confide in his big brother and have a fairly calm conversation about it; the awkwardness mostly comes from neither of them being accustomed to openly discussing emotions, not from the possibility of a negative response regarding the subject matter. 

C. Another character is accidentally discovered to be gay (he only appears in the one episode, if my memory serves), and some of the leads have the opportunity to share that for personal gain. However, even though he is a popular jock who is a bit of a jerk in the hallways, the show makes it clear that the right choice is still to leave the telling of that information up to him and him alone. 

Like I mentioned, it can’t be said that representation was in abundance here - for instance, I don’t believe anything other than straight or gay was presented as a possibility - but any accepting acknowledgement in a faith-centric series was something for me to hold on to in my still-deeply-closeted days. As a final Very Important personal side note, this show brought Judith Montgomery into my life (pictured below on the left), and that feels like it merits a shoutout for being what I consider a rather significant marker in my awakening. 

THE OVERWHELMING CRUSH I HAD - and still have - is one for the books. 

5. Pushing Daisies - This is another show with an aesthetic I adore. The series has such a fun, whimsical energy. The crime-solving! The clothes! The cast! There's a lot to love. It’s the kind of world I wish I could visit... well, minus the evidently rampant murder rate. 

Top 5 Overrated TV Shows

1. Once Upon A Time - *deep sigh* I tried to stick with it for so long. I think I’ve seen five out of the seven seasons in their entirety. It just felt like everything got mired down by excessive (and increasingly convoluted) subplots, often for the purpose of tossing in as many fairytale and/or Disney characters as possible. Plus, quite honestly, there was too much emphasis on romantic love. For a show whose first season involved a curse being broken by [potential spoiler, I suppose] a mother kissing her son’s forehead, I ultimately found myself up to my ears in romantic ships. It reached such a stifling extent that, if you were not particularly attached to those pairings, there wasn’t a whole lot else to entice further viewing. 

2. Under the Dome - I don’t know for certain what the general public opinion of this series was, but it felt like the commercials always featured alleged rave reviews, so I figured I could include it here. I was vaguely interested in Season 1, mainly as a fan of Rachelle Lefevre’s work. Season 2 pulled me in with the introduction of a new townsperson and I threw WAY too much of my heart into that attachment, which backfired when that character was killed. I made quite the spectacle of my heartbreak, so much so that my family doesn’t let me mention this show around them anymore. :P Season 3 was, to phrase it delicately, not a great time. The series did introduce me to a few new-to-me actors, though, so that was cool. 

3. Bates Motel - Even the incentive of learning that the two characters I liked most share a lot of screen time later in the series hasn’t been enough to call me back to this one. I don’t know if it was the pacing that put me off or what, but the prospect of finishing the remaining seasons feels so daunting. There are evidently five seasons in total and I believe I’ve only seen two of them thus far. I will probably muddle through it someday just to see how it goes, but the fact that I am so disinclined to prioritize it made this feel like a fair addition to the list. 

4. Lost - My interest in this series unfortunately waned right before fervent fandom spiked. I don’t have any specific complaints that come to mind about what I saw; I just sort of drifted and then stayed away. Teachers I liked and peers I spent time with were starting to latch on to the show and I couldn’t find even the slightest inclination to give it a second try. However, did I still dutifully read all the latest installments in my friend’s Sawyer Ford and Kate Austen fanfiction when she passed me handwritten copies at lunch? Sure. I was glad it made her happy, even if I was no longer a viewer. 

5. Hemlock Grove - I say this as someone who still mourns the fates of some characters in this show, so I wouldn’t go so far as to claim that the series stopped being able to make me feel anything. I’m just of the opinion that, in some ways, it might’ve been better off stopping at one season. That’s where the book it was based on ends, and things just didn’t feel as cohesive after that. Season 3 especially was - borrowing from my above review of Under the Dome - not a great time. That being said, there are also certain elements from the book that I could’ve done without in the Season 1 adaptation but... well... here we are. 

Top 5 Underrated TV Shows

1. Picnic at Hanging Rock - Another one that won’t surprise followers of this blog. I have rhapsodized about it quite frequently since I found it a little over a month ago. It’s a period piece mystery miniseries with LGBTQIA+ representation, gorgeous costumes, and Samara Weaving. This felt specifically designed to wedge its way into my heart, and I’m quite content with the space it now occupies.

2. Dark - I’m so intrigued by the overlapping timelines with all of the morally gray characters. It’s possible to like one of these people in the timeline where they’re young but dislike them as adults, or vice versa. It also makes me think of Rant by Chuck Palahniuk a little tiny bit with the idea that time travel, specifically tampering with your own timeline, might make you physically and behaviorally unrecognizable to yourself. And the SONG CHOICES! I have gotten some solid new music selections from this series. 

3. Sense8 - I still need to watch the finale. I really do. But I knew it would make me sad so I’ve avoided it for... two years now? Pretty close, I think. The concept is fascinating and the cast is so strong. Plus the cinematography! They came up with some of the coolest ways to depict the link these characters share and what it’s like when they connect over distance. The planning and careful editing it all must’ve taken... I remain in awe. 

4. Penny Dreadful - There were definitely some story/writing choices I didn’t particularly like along the way, but I did get engrossed in the creepy goodness and the performances -- Eva Green’s Vanessa Ives most of all. It left me wishing for more period piece “monster mash” stories, because having all those classic characters in one place was a blast. It also helped me understand why Helen McCrory was once slated to play Bellatrix Lestrange because she can be terrifying. Oh and Sarah Greene in her Wild West outfits? Perdita Weeks with short red hair in fencing garb, and later in all leather with boots and a long jacket? I WAS NOT PREPARED AND I HAVE STILL NOT RECOVERED. I NEVER WILL.

5. Wonderfalls - There’s some cringe-inducing handling of certain representation in the series, but I have such a weak spot for quippy outcasts who become reluctant chosen ones (Joan Girardi in Joan of Arcadia, Wynonna Earp, Jaye Tyler in this series, et cetera). I also really love the sibling dynamics here. They bicker, tease one another, help each other out of trouble, and have rare but genuine heart-to-hearts. Caroline, Lee, and Katie all did such a great job blending their characters’ adult personalities with certain childhood attributes that rise to the surface in the presence of family.  

Top 5 Movies

1. Addams Family Values - I’ve rewatched this movie at least once annually since I found it in Media Play at age 13. Usually, I’ll play it around Halloween or, at the latest, Thanksgiving. It’s mouth-along-with-every-line level ingrained in my memory. I find myself leaning forward in my seat before favorite parts because I’m still that excited to relive them. Why this movie, and why this devotion to such a degree? It’s hard to explain, even to myself. I can tell you, however, that I hold up every other portrayal of the Addams characters to the versions found in this. Everybody in the cast just feels that perfect for their part. 

2. Clue - I was already pretty fond of this movie to begin with, but then my sister got older and claimed it as a favorite of her own, so now she just supplies me with further excuses to watch it repeatedly. It’s also been a bonding piece of media with a couple of close friends and such through the years. It’s incredible to think not everyone in it was the first choice for their roles; what everybody brings to the table is so top-notch that I wouldn’t have it any other way. I also LOVE knowing that it originally went to theaters with different endings depending on which showing you attended. I gather people weren’t terribly thrilled with the stunt back then, but I kinda think some moviegoers would be into that approach these days? Then again, one hit that tried something different tends to start a fad, so maybe I’d end up regretting the suggestion after a while. :P

3. The Craft - This. Movie. Yes, Act III is a major bummer even though I know it’s coming, and I’ll always wish it ended differently. Even so. This. Movie. I tend to headcanon mostly for shows and sometimes books, but The Craft is a beloved exception. I love so much about it: the magic, the music, the clothes, the settings, the dynamics within the friend group, the performances. I had no idea when I first got the DVD at 17 that it would become such a part of my life, but I’m so glad it found its way to me. 

4. Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion - The soundtrack is a glorious ’80s and ’90s treat for my ears. The colorful costumes are perfectly suited to the main characters’ version of the world. There are so many great lines and it feels like everyone is having a lot of fun in their roles. I LOVE HEATHER MOONEY SO MUCH. She’s my awful, scathingly sarcastic, little grungy grump and she fills my heart with joy. 

5. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - I was pretty sure at least one of the three had to appear on here. I think, if I were to tally them all up, The Return of the King features most of my favorite moments, so it wins the spot. “I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you!”, ‘Edge of Night,’ Éowyn in battle, The Army of the Dead, ‘Into the West’... I end up crying during the end credits every time. So, yeah, ultimately, I would choose the third part of the trilogy if I could only watch one. 

Phew, that’s it! All the questions answered, all the shows and movies listed! Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read it all, and thanks again to @monaiargancoconutsoy for sending in the prompts! <3

Queen Fans Share Their Stories

Queen in Landover, MD, USA on 29.11.1977 (written by Tracy Chevalier)

In a new book, writers recall the best gigs they have seen. Here the novelist Tracy Chevalier describes her memorable night with Queen.

It started with a champagne toast and ended with a limo pulling away into the night. In between these two gestures symbolising glamour and sophistication, I lost my virginity. Not in the technical sense (that would take another few years), but in other ways. At my first ever rock concert — going with four friends to see Queen at the Capital Centre in November 1977 — I got an eye-opening peek at elements of the adult world, with its power and its limitations, its glittering artifice and dirty reality, and it demonstrated how little I knew and how much I had yet to learn about life.

I was ripe for it; overdue, really. I had turned 15 the month before the concert, and though people thought I looked older than I was, I was remarkably naive and unworldly at that age. Despite a few character-building events in my childhood — the death of my mother when I was almost 8, the experience of being a minority in DC public schools — I was so unsophisticated, so unaware of the world, that I didn't even realise Queen was an English band until the lead singer Freddie Mercury appeared in a tight white catsuit on stage at the Capital Centre, raised a glass of champagne at 18,000 screaming fans, and toasted us with "Good evening, Washington" in a fruity English accent. I was stunned. Then I started screaming.

I had been a Queen fan for a couple of years by then. A Night at the Opera was the first LP I bought, and I could sing every word of every song. I don't remember how I was introduced to Queen — though I do remember hearing their biggest hit, Bohemian Rhapsody, on the radio and being impressed by its audacity. It sure beat the hell out of the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, which had been my older sister's staple music diet. By 14, I was writing Queen lyrics on the desk where I sat for algebra class, swapping them back and forth with a boy I had a crush on, and daydreaming of guitarist Brian May kissing me.

The concert was part of Queen's News of the World tour. While not a great album, especially after the double whammy of A Night at the Opera and its follow-up, A Day at the Races, it did produce two of their best-known songs, We Will Rock You and We are the Champions, which drop-kicked them firmly into stadium anthem territory. Appropriately, the concert began with the lights going down and the primitive, effective, impossible-not-to-join-in-with BOOM-BOOM-CHI, BOOM-BOOM-CHI, BOOM-BOOM-CHI intro to We Will Rock You rolling over the audience. Everyone immediately jumped up out of their seats and began to stomp and clap along. I, too, stood and stomped and clapped, watching in awe as people began flicking their Bic lighters, a gesture I had never seen before. What, were they going to set light to something? I had tried not to act surprised earlier when people nearby started smoking grass in public, but now was there going to be a riot? What other illegal things would go on that night? Then a spotlight picked out Freddie Mercury, who began to sing, "Buddy you're a boy, make a big noise, playin' in the street, gonna be a big man someday..." and I thought, "Jesus H. Christ, that is the loudest noise I've ever heard! Is that legal?" The wall of sound terrified me, and I wanted to cover my ears, but I didn't dare, as it would have been a very uncool thing to do. I think I looked around for the exit, wondering how many people I would have to climb over to escape the sound. It was just so goddamned loud — exhilarating, yes, but painful, too, dangerous and overwhelming. I wavered between loving it and hating it, but knew it would be uncool to hate it, so I'd better try to love it.

Towards the end of the song the single note of an electric guitar began to hum louder and louder under the chorus we were all singing and shouting, and Brian May stepped into the light to add his distinctive sound, ending We Will Rock You with low, long-sustain, three-part harmony chords, overlaid with a high melody he made fuzzy and metallic by using a coin as a guitar pick. I adored Brian May. He was the reserved, straight guy (literally) to Freddie Mercury's camp high jinks — tall, dark, good-looking, with long curly hair and a melancholy pensiveness that made every teenage girl want to comfort him. At this concert he was wearing a silvery white jacket with long, pleated wing sleeves; that combined with his mop of curls should have made him look effeminate, but instead he was deeply sexy.

I loved Freddie, too, for his outrageous antics, his riskiness, his joy at performing and glorious indifference to how ridiculous he looked wearing glittery leotard jumpsuits, eyeliner and a mullet, prancing and strutting and posing, twitching his hips, smacking his lips and otherwise hamming it up. But even without being conscious of Freddie's sexual preference — I hadn't yet met anyone who was openly gay — I instinctively sensed he was not to be lusted after. For all his extrovert, welcoming stage presence, he was clearly playing a part, which served to hold us at arm's length; whereas Brian May's taciturn moodiness was clearly himself served up raw.

Thank God for Freddie, though. Without him, no one would have moved on stage: Brian May was not a dancer, John Deacon, in time-honoured bassist tradition, stood solidly in one place throughout, and Roger Taylor was trapped by his drum kit.

To set us at our ease, after We Will Rock You Freddie toasted us with a glass of champagne — "Moet et Chandon, of course," after the reference in the hit Killer Queen. My friends and I heard this and screamed and clutched one another. He mentioned Moet et Chandon! That was our champagne! He was acknowledging us! I swear he made eye contact with me, 200 yards away and over the heads of thousands.

For we had done what we thought was the most original and extravagant gesture (for 15-year-olds) a fan could make: we had sent a bottle of champagne backstage. We'd pooled our money and gotten an older sister to buy it for us — the same sister who had been obliged to drive us all the way to the Capital Centre, smirking at our overexcited fandom. We'd even made our way to the stage door down a loading dock at the back of the arena and reluctantly handed over the precious bottle to a bored roadie, who said he would take it to the band. We'd had our doubts about his reliability, and his jadedness had dampened our enthusiasm a bit: had we really blown all that money — $20, which in those days meant 20 hours of babysitting — to have some unshaven jerk with a beer belly swill the precious liquid? But clearly the roadie had pulled through for us, for there was our champagne in Freddie Mercury's hand, and he was referring to Moet et Chandon in his pretty cabinet, the lyrics we had so cleverly quoted in the note we sent along with the bottle. We were sure we — among the many thousands — had managed to get through to the band.

If we had bothered to look around rather than feast our eyes on Brian and Freddie (I'm afraid John Deacon and Roger Taylor never got a look-in from me), we probably would have seen other clusters of fans also screaming and clutching one another during Freddie's toast. But we didn't look around or harbour doubts, or we ignored them. It was only much later that I allowed myself to consider the veritable champagne lake that must have existed backstage at every Queen concert. Tip to rock stars: want a free truckload of champagne wherever you go? Sing a song that mentions some — preferably name-checking a more expensive brand to ensure better quality — and watch it pour in backstage every night from adoring fans. There must have been a hundred bottles from fans back there, not counting the stash the band may well have brought with them in case Portland or Houston or Detroit weren't so generous. No wonder that roadie looked so bored — he'd probably been put on champagne duty that night.

Freddie's toast worked its magic, though, giving me the connection I needed to negotiate a place within the strangeness of the concertgoing experience itself: the weird, scary power of a crowd; the mixture of exhilaration and embarrassment at collective participation; the physical discomfort of standing for two hours when there's a perfectly comfortable seat behind you. It is one of those tricky, unresolved tensions at concerts: are we there to listen to the music or actively respond to it, participate as a group or answer our needs as individuals? It's an issue I've never entirely resolved — from Queen onwards I have spent concerts going in and out of myself, losing myself to the music and spectacle one minute, the next minute overly conscious of myself clapping or singing or screaming, and wondering why concerts have to be such an uncomfortable physical ordeal.

I was taken aback by the sound of Queen's music live: not just the volume, but the familiarity and also the strange rawness of the songs. Studio albums have all the mistakes airbrushed out, the layers added in, the balance between players carefully calibrated, like clever dialogue in a play without the awkward pauses and unfinished conversations you get in real life. Queen albums were highly produced, multi-layered affairs. Live, the music was necessarily stripped of a lot of the choral mixing, more raucous, simpler and much messier.

The band wisely didn't dare attempt to reproduce in its entirety the long, baroque confection that is Bohemian Rhapsody. For the infamous operatic middle section, the band members left the stage as the studio recording played. Freddie and Brian then changed costume, and, at the word "Beelzebub", all four men popped out of a door in the stage floor and joined live again for the heavy metal section, fireworks going off, dry ice pouring out, everyone going berserk, me in tears of excitement. It was one of the best live moments I've ever witnessed. Indeed, I was spoiled by seeing Queen play live before anyone else; for sheer exuberant theatricality, no one else has come close.

The concert ended with an instrumental version of God Save the Queen and once more the flicking of the Bics, which, no longer the virgin concertgoer, I understood now as a gesture of tribute. My friends and I weren't finished, though. Emboldened by Freddie's toast, we decided to go to the stage entrance again and say hello. I still choke with embarrassment when I think of it. When we got there, a black limousine was pulling away, our heroes and their entourage inside, and we were left with the detritus: older, dolled-up, hard-bitten groupies who had followed the band around and not made this night's cut. I stared at one, at her long, bleach-blond hair, her miniskirt, her bright red lipstick. She glared at me briefly; then her face went slack as she dismissed the idea of me being any sort of competition. In fact, I had not really taken in that there was a competition, that the girls (and I?) were here to spread our wares and catch the attention of one of the men, and then . . . And then? I hadn't thought it through at all. I wouldn't have known what to do with such a man as Brian May if he even so much as looked at me. All I knew was that I was way, way out of my depth, that even if I had eluded the roadie minding the door, there was no way I was ever going to get past a woman like this.

It’s been a good year.

We’re coming up on KipQuest’s first year anniversary and it is with a heavy heart and a conflicted soul that I announce that I am going to be closing this blog.

What happened? D:

Nothing happened in the traditional sense. I came out here for a good time and I had a good time and then I stopped having a good time. So I decided that drastic measures needed to be taken. I don’t have the desire to quit pokeask blogging, or blogging in general, or art, or storytelling, or any of that.

I just want to quit this particular blog and all the other blogs attached to this primary blog outside of my artblog (which I made a sideblog for this exact reason) and Maat’s blog. The disconnect has been months in the making and it is not at all related to my mental health or my motivation for art, or even my lack of physical energy. I’d just rather be doing literally anything else and that’s a really really bad thing for a long term project.

I tried everything I could think of to get myself going again. Memes, interactions, hiatus, total disconnect from Tumblr, a different, less stressful blog. I tried a lot. And it didn’t work. Ideas just fall flat and die sometimes so I am taking my own advice and just doing what I want to do.

Where are you going?

I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to write a blog from start to end. I’m going to have a plan. I’m going to reevaluate myself and my life choices. I’m going to do something self-indulgent and something that I will be passionate about, even if I’m just a cliched and tropey mess. I don’t know what the blog will be or the format, or the style, or even the name. I don’t know anything right now.

I don’t even know if I’ll have an answer for that question anytime soon. I will, however, be on my artblog, drawing art and dumping it there every once in a while. I’ll still be drawing pokemon like a damn nerd and I will still love it. I will probably take all the art prompts I have stockpiled and go through them as I figure out what the fresh hell I am going to do.

I’ll still be on this primary blog while I work on my other things. All the memes will be posted on my artblog as I finish them. (Though I run mostly on a queue.)

How can we reach you?

Please for the love of god, follow me on Twitter. Interact with me on Twitter because 1v1 convos are not happening and that’s because I’m busy all the time with other things. Twitter is where you can see my hilariously awful jokes and updates that get pruned out so my art is the main attraction and I can still have my fun.

My discord is not open because it’s going to be the same deal. 1v1 convos are just not on my agenda unless you’re alright with me never speaking or just saying the same tired things all the time. (i’m tired/busy/sleepy/busy) Maybe someday I’ll be in a group discord where I can talk to a lot of lovely people at the same time. (I’m already mod in one, but it has been capped for now.)

Will you tell us what your new blog is when it’s made?

Maybe. I won’t try to use this blog to promote my new one because I feel that it is disingenuous to use this thing I didn’t finish to promote something I hopefully will. Pride? It’s more like guilt. I’d hate to be a disappointment again. I’d hate to disappoint you again.

What about this story?

I can give you the very short version of what I had originally intended for Kippy’s KipQuest under the cut if you want to know the story at the most surface level. There, you will see my incredible lack of planning. I will not elaborate much more than this in the interest of not writing a novel. I apologize that all the nuance is gone. Rip all the worldbuilding.

Just in case, you decide to not read under the cut (it’s all story stuff anyway) I wanted to say thank you for all the good times. I learned a lot about art, myself, and commitment. I asked a lot of questions to a lot of people and learned so much about others. It was fun while it lasted. This is not the last you will see of me. But this will likely be the last update post I make on this blog.

You know what they say, right? Better luck next time.

Kippy would have made their internal struggle known to their mother that they didn’t know whether to pick a boy name (Skipper after Amelia’s father) or a girl name (Pankaja which is a name related to soil though the language of origin escapes me). Kippy’s mother, Amelia, assured them that no matter what they ultimately decided, it was their choice to make and that she would be proud of her little kipper.

Kippy, who was born male, chose Pankaja as her official name but still likes Kippy as a nickname. She then takes on female pronouns and begins to make her way into the world at large. During this time, Jalon, a Honchkrow leader of the village Kippy lives in, has her put on a team prematurely because Jalon does not like that Baaba challenges his authority.

Baaba confronts the Grand Psion - a sort of gauge for an individual’s potential - and demands that he tell the truth about Kippy’s potential. The Grand Psion, who was most certainly lying about Kippy’s abilities at the request of Amelia, claims ignorance and Baaba doesn’t buy it, so he storms off with renewed vigor to get Kippy trained in the only way he knew how.

Amelia has the Grand Psion lie about Kippy’s potential because Kippy was born a Bad Egg because Amelia had a lot of trouble with having children. Amelia had a number of previous attempts with her mate, Armament - who was a Garchomp that died in the line of duty - but they all either miscarried or just did not hatch when they were supposed to. She begged the Grand Psion to lie about Kippy so Kippy wouldn’t get herself killed in a military life. Kippy never finds this out.

Kippy is paired with Pepin, a Buneary who failed to live up to his family’s astronomical expectations, and Pax, a Swablu who hates being a Priest and fulfilling the role of a “healer” despite having the ability to use Heal Pulse. The three of them are sent off on a mission that was not meant for them to complete, due to a mix up between assignments.

They end up delving into a cavern and finding evidence of humans existing as well as the Red and Blue Orbs and the Meteorite, which were placed in this deep cavern to keep Columbia, a radically violent and nihilistic Origin Jirachi, from continuing to hunt down and slaughter other Jirachi to gain their power.

Kippy releases Columbia, who very nearly kills the three of them on sight and disappears into the Realm of the Fairies, who have begun preparations to make an attempt at truce.

Bellatrix, who had saved Kippy and Arimus from the approaching Fairies in the beginning, ended up returning to face those approaching intruders head on with her partner, Ronnie. Ronnie is a Gardevoir who did not gain the Fairy typing when the original Blight swept the land. Nobody knows why this was, but that is the only reason she is accepted in the Valley of Darkness.

That Fairy party was a party sent by the highest order of fairy nobles to attempt a truce with the smaller neighboring land before a hopeful collaboration to unify with the Land of Dragons. The Prince of the Fairies was sent as a means of instilling an element of trust, but Bellatrix doesn’t believe that the instigators of this divisive conflict have any positive intentions in mind. She mega evolves, kills most of those present on both sides, and flees into the forest, where she succumbs to the dangerous power that mega evolution entails and falls into madness fueled only by fury and rage. Ronnie survives only because the Fairy Prince, Adelaide, stabilized her.

When Kippy and company return to the village, Jalon panics because he assumed they were going to do something simple, and instead came back with items that belong to the Land of Dragons. In order to maintain control of his people, he accuses Kippy and company of being insiders and mounts an attack using only his Murkrow flock. Pax’s trainer was an Eevee and she jumps in to protect her trainee, evolving into a Sylveon to have a better chance of fending Jalon’s lackeys off, though this solidifies the accusation that Kippy and co (and by extension, their families) are spies for the enemy.

Amelia immediately and instinctually uses her combined strength with Pax’s trainer, and Baaba, to give Kippy and co a chance to escape alive. It is never determined whether their families survived this attack because Kippy never ends up going back.

Baaba finds them in the hills outside of the village. Kippy is panicking, but Pax and Pepin are able to calm her down well enough for the four of them to figure out where they need to go. Baaba says that the Land of Dragons would be their best bet because he knows someone who has clout.

They are discovered by an adventuring party of Fairies, are captured, and taken back to the main hub where all the decisions are made. They are granted amnesty because the Fairies are attempting to make peace with the surrounding areas.

The Fairies are under the control of Xerneas, who is a fragmented and corrupted being that was created by The Bastard Palkia. Xerneas itself is an instinctual being, who has complete and total mind control over all Fairies on this world when it is awake. It only ever seeks to destroy anything that would oppose it, as well as anything that it deems a danger to it. Xerneas had been asleep for a while, but the damage already done had to be slowly undone, which proved to be almost impossible considering that the sight of a Fairy usually meant a fight was going to break out, so peace talks were rare and were hardly ever successful.

Kippy wants to help, naturally, but has no idea how to do so. She thinks that the Jirachi she released would be able to help, so she goes looking for it. Baaba stays close by for the longest time until he is attacked during another encounter with Columbia and is revealed to be a Zoroark. Kippy takes this rather well in the moment, but later confronts Baaba about it.

Baaba explains that pokemon in the area all live on a massive island created by the same Mewtwo who gave Bellatrix the ability to mega evolve. This area used to be a secluded safe haven in Kalos, so many pokemon who were harmed by experimentation make up the population, which is why there is a rather tumultuous civilization in the works. Columbia offers to spare this world if they can convince the slumbering native Jirachi to appear so Columbia can take it. It is assumed that Columbia’s attempts at seeking the native Jirachi failed, and he claimed that he was “helping” the mortals because he is a god.

Columbia is an elder god, but he is also a creation of The Bastard and is therefore, fundamentally broken on every single level of his existence. This doesn’t really matter, but Columbia spins it in a way to make himself look better, and to get Kippy and Baaba to call the native Jirachi. This works later on and that Jirachi is shredded and consumed by Columbia, who then departs to find more Jirachi to consume after flipping all his middle fingers up at the preps.

Baaba does not accept Columbia’s offer, but Kippy comes up with a plan to trick Columbia into a false sense of security. This plan fails miserably. Columbia kills the native Jirachi, and in retaliation for mortals even attempting to lie to him, wakes Xerneas up from its deep slumber. He naturally has a big villain speech explaining how Fairies are indeed evil by design because The Bastard doesn’t care about what it makes and leaves things to fester. Even humans have harnessed Fairy energy to create devastating weapons and this is no exception.

Xerneas arises and takes control of all the Fairies. At the same time, in human civilization, Magearna and the Ultimate Weapon designs are finished and deployed. The rise in harmful energy leads to a chain reaction where Xerneas’s instability directly contributes to the creation of a second, more unstable Yveltal constructed of corrupted energy.

Yveltal flees, spreading devastation and destruction everywhere. The world begins to end and there is a bright light in the sky.

Kippy and co try their best to help, but they are divided on what to do. Xerneas needs to be stopped, but there is chaos unfolding around them as they try to escape the Realm of Fairies and make their way to the Land of Dragons. Baaba has stayed with them, and no longer assumes the form of a Rattata. When they make it to the Land of Dragons, Baaba seeks out and finds the oldest dragon there, a Charizard named Basil.

Basil is upset at how these events have unfolded, but when the gods are involved, it never ends well. He promises that his attacks will be swift, but he is not optimistic. Kippy is worried, though by this time, she has evolved from a Mudkip/Gible into a Garchomp. There was a lot of tears shed and fear throughout this transitionary period, but she is determined.

Columbia has disappeared, but his presence alerted Marty, a Celebi who immediately arrives to survey the damage. It’s too much to bear. The end of the world is coming naturally, so he begins his job to tie up the loose ends and let the world collapse in itself. Despite Baaba begging that Marty not do this, Marty does not listen. Baaba lashes out because he wants Kippy to be okay. That’s his partner. His most trusted companion. And he is too smart to let her go so easily.

Marty explains that it’s better for all of existence if this world dies naturally instead of being ripped apart for no reason. Xerneas must be contained. Baaba asks Marty if Xerneas could be contained, would that allow the world to be left alone. Marty makes no promises, but does hint that their time would be extended, as everything dies eventually.

Baaba and Kippy convince Pepin and Pax to go back to the village to reiterate the information that they learned. They also convince Marty to go with them to confirm their story. Baaba and Kippy then go to Xerneas, who is deep within the forests, wandering and screaming.

Baaba has a special tool that he plans to use in order to get Xerneas under control. They fight, they win, Kippy mega evolves, and Baaba uses a Master Ball to seal Xerneas away.

It, at one point, would have been made known that Baaba is from human settlements in Kalos, where he was born before his mother made a deal with Mewtwo to create this supposed sanctuary. Humans had done a lot of fucked up shit prior to this and his mother was the result of experiments in testing pokemon’s potential. He carried with him a couple of tools from the human settlements because he inherited that human level of intelligence and planning.

Once Xerneas is sealed away in the Master Ball, Baaba explains to Kippy that there is a whole other world out there to explore and he remembers fondly traveling through Kalos a little bit before his mother whisked him away from humans as a whole. He says he wants Kippy to see the world for what it is, a wonderful place, but humans are also not to be messed with. Baaba explains that humans treat pokemon differently and sometimes badly and he wants to change that, but the only way he knows how is to show them. He offers Kippy the opportunity to go with him to Kalos. Kippy accepts.

Baaba also offer this opportunity to Pepin and Pax, both of whom have evolved fully. Pepin accepts. Pax does not.

It ends with Kippy and Pepin willingly being put into customized pokeballs and Baaba assuming the form of a human before it’s assumed that they go to Kalos and change the human world as well.

That’s all ey wrote. Hopefully the next time I do this, I do a better job.