After a couple read throughs, this project is in the midst of edits and various cleanups. Whether it’s adding to the mythos of certain places and people in this world or ironing out details that may not make complete sense at face value.
Anyway, while doing this, I’d been rereading some of my old notes. Most of which was backstory to help establish who some of my characters are and, for better or worse, how they came to be the way they are.
This entry is dedicated to one particular character who was mentioned by name in the story a couple of times, but sadly was no longer around for the reader to meet.
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I started working on “Calypso” in 2012 and during that time, one of my favorite pastimes was competition shows like American Idol and The Voice. It makes me sad to think this is no longer the case…
Before I gave up on these shows, I got to know some interesting people through their progressions each season.
One of those people was Juliette Simms- who had the misfortune of finishing second to one of many “Voice” winners you never heard from again.
She had a great rocker voice and an undeniable badass stage presence. I could go on about how she deserved better but I only bought her “all or nothing” EP when it dropped on iTunes.
This isn’t the first time (and probably won’t be the last) where a strong female artist or character resonated with me to the point I based on a character on them. It would usually start with their aesthetic or what it was that stood out to me about them. The rest wrote itself in due time to where there was very little connection between the two other than that initial spark.
But with Juliette, this sort of happened in a roundabout way. I didn’t write Evangeline (named after one of her songs, which had a 70s rock vibe and memorable protagonist) intending for her own story.
Instead she contributed to Amber’s origin story in a big way. Particularly the part in her character arc where “Amber” is the new name she goes by.
I’d been in the process of writing about Carmen, her and Scarlet being friends and how Talia’s arrival drove a wedge between them. But then I already had the concept of Amber in my head and realized there had to be a transition from one persona to the next.
Amber’s whole shtick is being overly provocative on stage with props and such, to where Talia didn’t trust Emilia around her. When I decided Carmen left because she rejected Talia’s sexy vision for Calypso’s dancers, I needed to bridge that gap. How and why did Amber become the very thing she found so objectionable.
I ultimately decided she needed a mentor or at least someone to get her another job on the dodgy side of town. Evangeline manifested and was the perfect character for that situation.
Whenever I listen to the song, I imagine a girl in her mid 20s. White shirt off the shoulder like Flashdance but with cutoff shorts. Wavy dirty blonde hair that’s somewhat wild but never fully out of control.
I never wrote down a verbatim origin story but going off the little exposition I do have, I imagine Evangeline coming to the island as a runaway. And her new boyfriend Isaac set her up with a job and helped her get established. The job happens to be a strip bar and all the waitresses are hookers in his outfit. They also happen to have BDSM as their specialty.
Once Amber finds all this out, it’s obviously shocking and sort of like Sherrie in Rock of Ages, she’s hesitant to go from waitress to stripper even if the latter is a more lucrative gig. The way she expresses her hesitation, she essentially says “I’m not lowering myself to that.”
I didn’t occur to me until just now, but it would’ve been really easy for me to have Evangeline be dismissive of this. Scoffing “you think you’re better than everyone else, you’re not” or “wake up- we have to do this because we have no other choice. How dare you act like there’s options for us, girls with no family, education or means to do more with our lives”
I’d made comments in a chat room while I was in college how I didn’t “approve” of how the girls in my dorm were helping themselves to the free condoms being given out one day at the health center. I got responses back telling me either to grow up, I’m not their mother and it’s none of my business. Looking back, I understand where my head was at and where I might have been wrong. Being provided with protection is a very good thing and should be encouraged. But at the time I interpreted it as “you’re giving people extra freedom to sleep around with multiple people”… that might be true and might not. I never talked to my roommates about this stuff.
Anyway Evangeline talks Amber into thinking this is acceptable with the guise that “this is all an act, you can make up a new identity and that’s the person turning tricks, not you”.
Ultimately Amber does have to come around and accept the fact you have to do what you have to or you won’t achieve anything.
Then her relationship with Isaac, it was the one of the first things I wrote that was inspired by 50 shades of grey. Which I read strictly for research, not because that stuff really appeals to me. (The movies were better, although mostly in all the R rated stuff being condensed and the inner monologue eliminated entirely)
There’s a startling scene Amber stumbles across where the two of them are together in western getup and bondage and other paraphernalia is involved. She talks to her about it afterwards and said it looked to her like assault and is brushed off since it’s under the s&m umbrella.
But all that said, a lot of how Isaac conducts himself is like Christian Grey.
Fast forward, Evangeline falls in love with another woman who’d come through their side of town. How they get along together reminds Amber of how she was treated when she first came but adds in her monologuing how there’s something different going on between the two women and it doesn’t take long to confirm. There’s an episode where Evangeline comes home drunk and kisses Amber and they talk about it later on… Evangeline admitting while being bi she prefers women to men and laments not figuring that sooner… suggesting that she prefers the non s&m type sex she has with her girlfriend.
I’m honestly not sure if this is a believable comment to make or if anyone with bisexual leanings would put it like that.
Then again a lot of the conversations I have my characters have throughout the story- someone might argue it’s too American to be believe for a location that’s not in America. The island it takes place is a fictional melting pot thanks to all the tourism and people who’ve stayed to make their fortune. Ideally it would be a place like st Martaan where half the island is French and half is English.
But a lot of my characters were born in America and came over later- the only exceptions being Talia and Alejandro, who’d lived there their whole lives. And their families have rich Spanish roots going back generations which is why they have stronger accents in my head when I read their dialogue.
The end of Evangeline’s story is Isaac finds out about her girlfriend and kills them both in bed. Amber finds Evangeline dying a slow painful death, his logic being so she’ll feel the gravity of her mistake longer.
And her final words are to fight for the life she left behind. First because Isaac wants to kill her next, claiming she converted Evangeline to being a lesbian. Obviously not true but the guy’s angry and therefore makes his own narrative to justify his actions. But she essentially says “take it from me, I found out too late what I wanted and didn’t get to fight for it”.
So Amber returns to Calypso under her new identity and pays homage to her friend between her act and her bravado. How much is imitation and how is her putting on her own act, I’m not sure.
Then Isaac finds her, kidnaps her and does his bondage thing… and I revisit that one scene in the third 50 shades book where Anastasia is forced to use her safe word. It’s also partially that scene at the end of sucker punch where Oscar Isaac flips out saying “you don’t go until I say so” and the high roller already did his job with babydoll.
All that’s left of Evangeline otherwise- the venue named after her and the rumor Isaac started about Amber all the other girls hold onto to this day because no one was around to tell them different. Amber is aware of the rumors but chooses to ignore them and do her own thing- which is helping her friends and former Calypso employees to turn the place she used to work into their own business where they dance. If this story continued into a sequel I’d picture it as a magic mike type of place. But it’s in the dodgy side of town so no one else believes it’ll be profitable enough to maintain easily.
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