"Te Busque" playlist/outline [work in progress]

I think I'm still a LONG time away from this story coming together... never mind getting started or typing the words "chapter one" at the top of a page... 
but I think I am on the verge of something.

Okay, not so much that, but while listening to my iPod on the trip to and from our shorehouse this weekend, the gears started turning.
It blew my mind, but I was actually piecing together a storyline with the songs.

What kinda started as a Nelly Furtado album fic has blossomed into something a lot bigger. However much of the songs I played will make it into the final cut, I can't really say right now. Technically speaking, the only songs that are guranteed come from the album that started it all.

After a while, I started to think of this as something of an opus, a tribute to female empowerment by putting a lot of strong female artists together in a really long playlist... and there are definitely stories in there.
I got as far as the first act and some of the 2nd act.

What I haven't completely figured out yet are the songs that connect the most crucial scenes in the story...
the reason why, ultimately, Talia takes a chance on this new guy in her life and ends up falling in love with him... however much that Talia can, with the circumstances she grew up in and such.

"Say it Right" and the track that immediately follows "Do it" are the declarations of love and the start of a short period of the story where she's completely happy... there isn't a lot of true happiness to be had. I wanted to stretch it out as much as I ended up stretching out the first act.

Britney Spears' Circus album helped with that quite a bit.

I'll go right into it then.

I started with back to back Gaga.
I've played "Dance in the Dark" from The Fame Monster and "I like it rough" from The Fame back to back because they felt like they went hand in hand.
Initially, I was going to put this song maybe 5th or 6th in the overall line-up. With everyone around Talia questioning her choice to live her life this way, giving her body to others when she feels she has no other choice, her past experiences have her believing she's not suited for any other type of work. 
In that, Part one would be people singing about her, observing her in this montage of "clients" she sees over that series of nights, the girls knowing that sometimes she even feels that she knows she's better than this.
Part two, of course, is the contradiction, her rebuff, that this is how she prefers it and doesn't mind things the way they are.

But when I turned them on back to back this time, I saw it almost as a prologue or interlude or overture to this whole thing.
The pretense of part one is the owners of this special club/venue, after Talia helped resurrect their business with her idea, they know she should move on and pursue better things.
Interestingly, part two wasn't just her story anymore, but I could see all the girls singing those lyrics... almost as if it's their version of "He had it coming" from Chicago.

"Sex Shooter" came into the picture next. Taking the other songs into account, it felt like a teaser trailer... where the first track of the Nelly Furtado album would be the main picture...
so it was something of a preview that the earliest of customers.

I've seen Track 1 in a few ways... I wrote a short character sketch of Emilia De La Rosa, the newest of the girls to join the business where it was the first time she saw Talia and had since aspired to dance like that and look that beautiful doing it. 

Times like this, I'm thinking that maybe I'll write this in mulitple POV's... and most likely all of them will be female... 

I love moments where I listen to songs and they're completely picturesque like I'm seeing a movie.
In fact, this time around, I saw it with actual credits rolling.

cue voice-over: 
"Everyone, please welcome to the stage... Talia Montez and her fellow sirens"
(something to that effect)

cue music and spotlight moving over the closed curtain
"[insert studio name] presents"
"A [insert director/producer] production" 

open curtains- "Te Busque"

four girls on stage, diamond formation

(audience)

(front center stage)

Talia

                                                   Emilia                                 Scarlet

Vanessa

They sing a dance a few lines, go through the first verse

Then into the chorus when each of them has their solo, cha-cha steps but each brings their unique twists/moves, the name of the actress playing them appears above their head

These credits are spaced out for the most part. After the first chorus, lists running four actors long will appear sporadically, but obviously taking up the side of the stage unoccupied so it takes over anyone up.

This is going to be Emilia's first night taking the stage. She'd been a waitress for a year or so. After asking for the chance to audition to be a dancer, she went through a rigorous set of tests (although nowhere near as rigorous as it was for the girls who went through the extra stages to earn a spot on a "VIP" night) and was finally deemed ready by Talia (who watched her carefully throughout the audition process, run by her cohorts Scarlet and Vanessa, but this was the first time in a long time where she'd taken this much interest in a newcomer... after a couple years of running these trails by herself proved to be too difficult, seeing most of the girls she tried fail or quit after their first night)

Everything comes full circle in that Emilia was drafted to participate in this particular routine that  convinced her to try out.

I can see a voiceover happening here on her end, talking about it being her first night, how long she'd been there, etc. etc. but maybe open up to a contrast in that she goes on certain nights and on others, she's heard rumors that its when the most artistic dancing takes place, but she'd never seen it.

"Love Game" plays for one of these such VIP nights. 

It could be a brief aside or might not make it into the storyline at all... but it felt like an interesting bit of progression.

After the opening song & dance sequence, Talia picks the next song on the playlist and it's "Womanizer"...

Scarlet says to Emilia: "Oh boy, it looks like Talia had another fight with Alejandro. She only brings this song out when she's really pissed at him."

Not sure what it is about Britney's singles off that album, but they make me think of the flicks and kicks that come in Jive choreography

The way that their relationship came off to me... is your typical on-off-again relationship... once or twice I considered the pimp/prostitute relationship where he kinda wants to be in charge and doesn't want to lose her to another man... wants to have that "control"... but I don't want to bring it down to that level, especially when that's yet another thing I'd have to fake my way through

sometimes I think this story isn't suited for South America, but rather, a slumy part of some big city like New York or the girls work at a NYC night club... especially when I think about the spotlights and light show and such that comes with some of these performances

for some reason I forgot to add "Maneater"... but I know that comes next... 

not the Hall & Oates track... track 2 from the Nelly Furtado album

Emilia could continue the voiceover in saying "Scarlet told me once that Alejandro fell hard for Talia the first time he saw her dance to one song in particular. It was in its final stages of dress rehearsal. Supposedly he never stopped wanting her all to himself after that."

this is her "song of 1,000 veils"... she's dancing in layers of them while Scarlet and Vanessa spend the song talking her up. We get to a bridge where the lights lay low. The two girls surround her to "hide" her from the audience while the veils are coming off one by one until all that's left is a red bellydancer outfit and light reflects off the diamonds or rhinestones in the fabric.

There's a lyric in the song that repeats over and over in the last segment.
"Been around the world, I ain't never seen a girl like this"

after that, Alejandro had wanted her... but according to my playlist, he wasn't the most exclusive person... maybe my playlist was playing up that angle a little too much... him not being up for the committment, meanwhile he teases Talia that he wants her all to himself... not that he'd ever want her to quit the business just for him since she brings in a lot of business for the family, which happens to be his.

Double-edged sword, really... she does her business in this way and he says this and that about it... meanwhile he isn't always faithful to her... 

I'd also considered the idea of boosting up Amber as a potential antagonist... 

she and Ruby originally started as a couple of extra names to add to the bill, the workforce, etc. 

but Amber's purpose had grown more as this storyline has progressed.

Today I listened to one of the songs from Karmin's album... and it seemed to fit her perfectly...

lyrics go something like this:

"oh if I want it, I'm gonna get it and I'm just sayin', I'm just sayin'... I know know know, let it go go go, oh oh oh, oh oh oh, oh oh oh..."

sometimes I think she has a little too much in common with Regina George, feeling she's entitled to things that she might not deserve... rumors are always floating around about the possbilitiy of a successor, I guess, and Amber wants to be the one that takes over for Talia because she gets the most clients

some of my ideas for the 3rd act have me thinking that she secretly wants to have Alejandro to herself, but Talia's the only girl he's super interested in... the 2nd half of those lyrics refer to other voices, other girls or other friends she has telling her to let this whole thing go... or maybe its just her consciouness... its hard to be sure sometimes

"Maneater" is another flashback so that could be why its not in this sequence of songs... or I just plain forgot.

we go to another night and the title track "Circus" is something of a summary of how Talia runs her show on this stage... 

"Showtime" is the closing "number" for the night... but it plays while the girls are packing up for the night and Talia's preparing herself mentally to forgive Alejandro

then "Promiscious" introduces her to Juan Paulo (J.P.) and so it offically begins... 

I really should organized this a little better... so afterwards, I think I'll copy and paste this to Word and kinda do bullet points of suggestions for scenes and such under each song title...

but this is on a Friday night... I think... I could switch some of these things around, I'm not really set in the pattern they're in...

My only requirement is that "Promiscious" doesn't happen for a couple pages... I'd like there to be some character building first... and for the love of God, I do not want it to be the case where Alejandro doesn't even get seen until after this number... that'd be really awkward, not to mention it'd place biases in the works... Alejandro being the no-good cheating "boyfriend"... rather... when actually he's a little more than that... he and Talia are equal partners in this business once she kinda taught him the ropes of how she likes to run it... because of this/that/other thing, his family lets her take the reigns... because it was her idea, she ended up saving their business by adding the naughtyness to it (that's where the real money comes in, even though the rest is about them having this reputation of being these gorgeous, amazing dancers)

It might seem a tad predictable, cliche, whatever... for Talia (sometimes I even considering adding a "h" to her name... Thalia... although I think that's a name of a Percy Jackson character... who happens to be a daughter of Zeus, putting her equal in strength with Percy Jackson, who is son of Posiden and technically, the two of them are "cousins" in that regard...

anyway, for Talia to do this to show up Alejandro or use J.P. to make him jealous... I want it to be deeper than that... because she's a deep character with a lot of layers, seeing as she spent so many years putting walls around herself...
she's flirtatous with J.P. for this number, which is, in effect, a duet between Nelly Furtado and Timbaland (whatever happened to that guy anyway?) the genius producer that gave her album this really cool sound to set it apart from her earlier stuff... she does this to do something a little different, to cut loose... or maybe it's a dare... who knows, really?
J.P. might have done this on a dare as well, it's hard to be sure...
"High School Musical" started with a karaoke duet... which introduced Troy and Gabriella... don't knock it, I love that movie :-P 

Whatever is behind her motives for joining him for this number, I still haven't quite figured yet...
but everytime I listen to it, I know the scene from start to finish... she brings all her mad dance skills (PG) to this and the crowd goes wild for her, of course... he's unable to get over the fact this beautiful girl came up to dance with him and has a great time, thinking that she's really into him.
the song ends and before he could ask anything of her, she disappears...
I'm sure someone in the club tips him off, tells him to check out the club and the next day she's going to perform

even now, I don't really know what I want her chemistry with Alejandro to really be like... it's a fun idea to consider him the cheating "boyfriend" and all that, but he has a little more going on than that... she's self-assured and really doesn't need him, but enjoys whatever companionship she can get from him...
I've considered the "friends with benefits" thing before, not so much that they're "friends" as much as colleagues and partners in this business

her friends kinda know that he gets under her skin sometimes with the things he does... not sure what things these are... but they can tell by the playlist when she's unhappy with him, even though she's not the type who likes to "talk" about it

"No Hay Iqual"- I consider a "tribal" dance with the choreography...
J.P. wanders into the club the night they're performing this... he's taken with her of course...
one of the other girls who happens to be waitressing that night (they switch off between waitressing [which is more on the side of bartending really, they dont have food there] and dancing, etc.) hears him talking about the song he did with Talia and he naively says that he thinks she's into him... 
It's a fitting bit of news for Vanessa to give Talia... she's a little more business up front, more logical, whereas Scarlet thinks with her heart despite the business they're all in... 

I already know certain key numbers where Scarlet and Vanessa are flanking Talia... and the numbers just wouldn't be the same without the three of them together...

She gets wind of this from Vanessa, rolls her eyes and to kinda bring her feelings to life, she goes into "Mannequin", also from Circus... there's a Katy Perry song by the same name and while it gets the message across a little more clearly, the music for the Britney Spears track fits the club setting better... 
she has a lot of songs that she keeps like tricks in her back pocket and she brings them out for certain occasions... this one, she uses to repel potential suitors, saying she doesn't have patience and time for a real relationship with another man because there's posturing involved and in general, she knows them to be two-faced with their actions not matching up with their words, stuff like that... they're "phony" to her... 
Vanessa gets word to Talia... this could be a night where Scarlet and her twin sister, Ruby are flanking her... or it could be Scarlet and Emilia, who often gets used (by me) as the eyes and ears of this, the reader's connection to the story and Talia's inner monologue. Vanessa says to Emilia "Tell Talia to watch for the mannequin 12 rows back... she'll know what it means"

I haven't figured out just yet... or maybe I have... I think that Emilia, Scarlet and Vanessa go to the karaoke bar with Talia... I know Emilia will see who it is and be disappointed in Talia that she's performing these lyrics for his benefit...
especially when it isn't just about the fact she has this other relationship with Alejandro, which isn't your typical boyfriend/girlfriend thing... she doesn't know him well enough to really make a judgement like "I think this guy is a better man than Alejandro"... she'd only been with the so-called "company" for a year or so so she doesn't know the ins and outs as well as everyone else

J.P. isn't going to get the message from "Mannequin"... although it is somewhat confusing, he tries to get back stage to ask what's going on and why she flirted with him if she wasn't interested in him... 
Vanessa might be the last line of defense for this, but Talia has to tell him something that'll deter him for the moment. not sure what just yet

in leaving, because the opening sequence has the same number of beats as the chorus of "No Hay Iqual" [plays thru 3 times before the song clicks on], I always picture him singing "Extraordinary Girl" by Green Day...
but it seems a tad strange that that he's thinking in these terms when he doesn't yet know the FULL extent of what she does for a living...

the next song I played is "Lace & Leather" from Circus... 
"your one and only pleasure, I'll take to lace and leather"

I see this as the last song of Act one... which introduces all the core characters... J.P. as the new guy in this town in hot pursuit of Talia even though she'll want nothing to do with him...
almost like the relationship between Anthony and Johanna in "Sweeny Todd" where he spends the movie pining for her, wanting to steal her away... 

don't know how, but at some point, J.P. will learn the extent of what she does and he spends a lot of time trying to talk her out of it... that she's better than doing lap dances and selling her body for money... 
something of a transformation takes place, I guess... he goes from being this naive suitor who still doesn't get that Talia is off-limits when it comes to the logical boyfriend/girlfriend relationship to being someone who wants to save her from this way of life, take her away from it because he sees more than that... 

which more than suggests that he comes from a good family... a proper one... certainly one that's rich enough to put him through medical school... something like that... 
there's still a disconnect there for me... how can he be in hot pursuit, yet be proper, gentlemanly and all that stuff... 

still have a lot to figure out...

Act two is the falling in and out of love... Talia to J.P. ...him gaining her trust and something inevitably destroys it... I have yet to figure out what that is...
how she eventually trusts him to consider spending her life with him and all that... and how this break up happens... I went thru my iPod and realized that I didn't have any songs to cover this... just yet

I went thru a few more Circus tracks... "Shattered Glass" insuinates that Alejandro cheated again and she breaks up with him... a bit strange considering they were never officially together... 
"If you seek Amy" I saw as the song playing when J.P. forces his way into the club, which has a lot of people out front trying to get in... it's one of those busy nights, I guess... in essence, he's the one who's "seeking Amy"... 

to further this break-up or getting over Alejandro, Scarlet and Vanessa have her back and they go Gaga for two numbers... this is on a Wednesday night, which is the special night that Talia offers herself as the only VIP, but sometimes she just doesn't feel like it... she tells them this and the two of them decide that they'll have fun anyway...
they launch into "Telephone"... which has a lot of great cha-cha moves, as they did for a team dance on "Dancing with the Stars"... 
after having a good number, she tells the two of them how they're "the best friends any girl could have"... which seems a tad sentimental for Talia... not sure how much of this will even make it into the storyline... I highly doubt it'll make sense in the overall scheme of things... because Alejandro can't just be the cheating boyfriend character... 
maybe she's just not feeling particularly happy that night for whatever reason... not quite sure what and maybe we really don't have to know why... 
after this really cheesy quote I just wrote, she launches into "So Happy I Could Die"... which I picture all kinds of choreography for... mainly the chorus where she's prancing up the stage like its a catwalk... in the 2nd quatrain of it, Scarlet and Vanessa go up to join her, repeating the same choreography she did, but they're all in unison

by this point, Talia will have said no to J.P. at least two more times...
but after this number, she's feeling a lot better and doesn't mind going back for an encore performance for any takers in the house...

J.P. catches up with the girls, who are on their way out, around the point Talia decides to go back because of the line still out the door...
he begs her to go out with him just once... and finally she caves... but instead she sends Vanessa and/or Scarlet to check him out for her... 
Vanessa seems to be the more hardened of the two, not really wanting to give an inch... so it could be a double-date with the both of them filling him in some details... Scarlet does most of this...

and I'm getting more convinced that this is when he learns the truth of the nature of their business... and that Talia really doesn't trust men enough to consider being in a relationship with anyone, not in the conventional sense anyway... he asks about the song they did and Vanessa says its to ward off potential suitors and impresses further that she believes that man are generally phony, only think about themselves and if she ever settles down, she has to know the guy so well... that there's no room for phonyness
[the song she performs to to coincide with this... in the movie version that's playing in my head while this is going on... "Paper Gangsta" from The Fame]

maybe the "breaking" point is when she finds out that his only intent was to "whisk her away" from this business... she kinda keeps everything secret from him (Emilia really doesn't know much about these special VIP nights either and is kept in the dark until this particular part in the story)

the girls okay him for Talia... they find out that he's going to be a doctor and may only be here to studying abroad or something (still haven't figured that out either)

after so many of these other songs, I finally got back to the core inspiration, Nelly Furtado...
sometimes I see Talia as a cross between her and Stana Katic, who plays Kate Beckett in "Castle"... albeit, Nelly Furtado is a little more exotic looking, but both feels right to me because they're around the age of 33, which is how old Talia is. (She'd been in this business for quite some time... from the age of 18, which makes it 15 years)...

"Wait for you" has duality to it... where Talia's POV is in the verses and the chorus is from J.P's where he's saying he'll wait as long as it takes for her to come around and accept his feelings for her... etc, etc.

When he gets patient with her, after getting the truth from Scarlet and Vanessa, this is where he gets to start trusting him... only problem I have is that there is/are no song(s) on my iPod or even in my collection that really exemplifies this...

sometimes I'm not sure about the order... but the two songs "Say it right" and "Do it" have to be back to back... the first is where she gives herself to him, finally feeling ready to take him on as a boyfriend... and the song after that is when you see this whole other side to her, she's happy for once in her life... ready to let go...
I've played with the idea of her doing the happy dance before telling him that she's ready and all that... not sure about this, at least not at the moment

"Just Dance" I played afterwards just because it felt pretty good... another "happy dance" type song... 

but there's another gap here... I want a good amount of pages where she's in this relationship with him and where she's happy... otherwise it seems superficial for her to be uninhibited for only this short time...

by this point, of course, Alejandro has all but disappeared from my consciousness... I don't even know where I left him... or even what he thinks about this new guy... I can't completely forget about him in this story because that seems superficial to the reader... I'd like both guys to be viable choices for her, although not everyone can be "Team Edward and Team Jacob"
J.P. might have more in common with Peeta and Alejandro with Gale, given their history (or lack thereof) with Talia... Peeta is all about doing the right thing and Gale, it's hard to really say, because in the books, they don't really get to know him quite as well...
in the Hunger Games, he's completely out of the picture by chapter 3 or 5, whenever Katniss and Peeta get whisked away to the Capitol... 

Gale seems to have a hidden agenda in "Mockingjay" which has Katniss questioning his actions and motives...  I wanted her to end up with Gale because it's hard to say no to a Hemsworth, those guys have great genes :-P
it's kinda like "Pretty in Pink" all over again where I wanted Andy to end up with Ducky, but she ends up with this new guy, Blaine, who comes into her life throughout the movie... even though he inexplicibly dumps her before prom... both sides of that argument were viable
whereas in "Some Kind of Wonderful" John Hughes kinda wrote it so Lea Thompson's character seemed a little shallow and predictable compared to Mary Stuart Masterson... making it the more obvious choice that Eric Stolz chooses his tomboy bestie over the hottest girl in school... 

I could go on about that debate forever and my movie blog will definitely feature something with love triangles and such

I guess Gale and Alejandro have that in common... the hidden agendas and such... but I confess to not really remembering him too well in the books... 
I just remember reading "Mockingjay" and getting overally annoyed with Peeta because he had become a POW and the Capitol turned him against Katniss and everyone else... even after rescuing him, he'd become something of a traitor in their midst because of the brain-washing and such... there were a couple of times where I was screaming at the book for Katniss to forget about him... or even later on, where he was asking them to kill him because he was a liability that could be like a cancer on the inside of their cause, I was seconding that... 

but she ended up with Peeta at the end of it all... I don't care how much Gale might have been responsibile for a significant death towards the end of the series, I just couldn't believe that after all that, she still chose Peeta

here's hoping the movies make him more sympathetic so I'd at least care...
I'll admit in the movie that it took a little while for him to grow on me, but once he did, it was hard to really say no :-P 

This is how little I know about the next step, I'm sidetracking myself like crazy...

at some point, Talia does break up with J.P. and the song that plays afterwards is what ought to be the last track of the album, "All goods things come to an end"... which ends Act 2...

once the dust settles, it's hard to know where to go next...
then I remember that Emilia has to have her moment where she gives Talia a piece of her mind... saying that J.P. was a decent guy... she finds out about the VIP nights, what goes on... and even though it takes a while (maybe Amber comes in and starts to pull some strings of her own), she wants to become part of it... Talia repeatedly tells her no because it's something that changes people... and the other girls do it because they'd already had something in their lives that changed them... she won't say it like this but basically "we're already damaged goods" and she doesn't want Emilia to lose that innocence and naivety

Alejandro thinks that Talia is being a little over protective and arranges for her to learn the ropes from Amber and Ruby... who only come together for one night (don't get along very well) and give her pointers and such...

I'm feeling a bit of disconnect already... like where the hell did he come from and how is all of this coming into play?

(just thought that maybe she breaks up with J.P. because he tells Emilia about his motive to get Talia out of the business and why... she overhears them talking and she's pissed at him for telling Emilia the details... she wanted to protect her and keep her in the dark... and she therefore refuses to talk to Talia, which is why she turns to Amber and by extension, Alejandro... who ovehears what happens, tries to convince her that she might be ready for this... but she of course says no again)

No songs are coming to mind here... but... I do have my set of songs for Emilia's debut on the VIP stage...

going into the Born this Way album...
Emilia does "Govermental Hooker"
Amber does "Bad Kids" 
Scarlet steals the show (as always) with "Heavy Metal Lover"

Amber tells her to go for the highest bidder... Emilia gets selected by a man who is among the few that gets banned from the club because the girls have reported... the kind of guy who tends to take charge and doesn't listen to the girl, who has done for a living longer than he's paid for company... stuff like that... 
seeing as this is a bad neighorhood, there are a few that slip through the cracks and are real criminals that takes advantage of women... 

I have this part of the story worked out pretty well... 
J.P. saves Emilia's life... takes her to Talia's place because he wants her to be comfortable while he's making sure everything's okay...
a few short minutes later, Alejandro stops by and realizes what he'd done in encouraging her

hmm... maybe it'd be a little much for them to have this conversation beforehand, trying to change her mind about it... because this sequence has to happen...
I guess maybe he told Amber to wait on this until after he talks to Talia, but she decided to go ahead anyway... 

J.P. leaves, saying she should still see a doctor because he didn't have his medical license yet, but based on the training he'd already had, he thinks she's going to be fine...
seeing this exchange, Alejandro says the key quote I wasn't sure I'd ever get him to say "You really like him, huh?"
She understands, even though she'd stressed that she can take care of herself, why J.P. had worried about her... she isn't ready to stop doing what she's doing, but plans to forgive him, so on and so on...

she wants to exact revenge on Amber, to send her a message... 
so she uses Alejandro as the scapegoat in her next set of performances

when Emilia is well enough to return to dancing, she performs "Monster"
followed by Talia doing "Alejandro" 
per that character's namesake...

even after all that, she confronts Amber and says she knows that she was behind this whole thing... she admits to her jealous and unloads a lot of about her past, something she hadn't told anyone... 

I've pretty much got that all worked out... the different pasts these girls have... except for maybe Vanessa... I'm not quite sure how she came to get mixed up in all this

I don't know the outcome of this argument/discussion between Talia and Amber... at least not yet...

but the inevitable happy ending is where Talia forgives J.P., says that she wants him back... 
a number of years pass when she's finally ready to appoint a successor: Vanessa...
J.P. waits for her in America or wherever he lives for a couple of years, they keep in correspondance, he lets her know when he gets his medical license... 
but instead of settling down with him, she decides to open up a dance studio, whose cliental includes underprivileged children and she also does time at shelters for women who have escaped abusive situations and such...
by extension, I can see Emilia showing up as the first student at this studio and Talia instead takes her on as an apprentice and later, another teacher because there's one particular chance she's very skilled with... not quite sure what that is yet...

I've got a few things up in the air about it... sometimes I consider setting the story in slums in America rather than South America... sometimes I consider taking the explicit content out of it, the prostitution and brothel connotations... I don't know if the story would work quite the same way without it...

Talia  needs to have that motivation for the story to really work.. she has to have these walls up to repel men like J.P. 
the list goes on and on... but I think I'll go to my Word.Doc and get this stuff done... because I have myself a bit of an outline now 8-) 

Reinvigorating Writing while Avoiding Self-Parody

The more time that transpires, the more I start to believe that it's impossible to make a living as a writer.
Kind of a depressing notion when it's the only thing you're truly good at, enjoy and it seems a chore to try any more schooling... I mean it seems ridiculous to me to invest in all different kinds of courses and stuff, expand my horizons, when at the end of it, it still doesn't gurantee employment.

These are trying times... even more so for someone who doesn't know what they're meant to contribute to society that has self-esteem issues.
It's almost gotten to the point where my personality has transformed around other people. I'm lethargic (although it might just be that time of year) even with my coffee in the morning until maybe 11 (I get up around 9 and thats even hard)... my voice drops out, I cover eye contact entirely, I keep my sentences super short...
How can I put this... I like to do long winded yarns when I'm coming up to a point I'm really excited about and now its to the point where I just blabber a few things and thats it. I really should get to the points faster.... like this entry for instance.

I'm hoping that my movie blog helps get my words out there where it can reach a good number of people... help me reconnect with my friends and family a bit because who doesn't love movies?
(:-? one person comes to mind and its not that my friend Kirby doesnt like movies... his conversations are just all in reality, talking about sea life and all that, which he's about as avid about as I've become about pop culture and different actors & directors and stuff... he'll be hard to reach thru my blog... like I don't see him checking it all the time to see what the latest thing with me is... living for years with the belief you'll end up marrying your best friend sinks relationships... but its my fault really... whenever I did contact him, he'd try to give me advice about getting hired and stuff... almost like I'm allergic to news print or something)

I don't know what I'll do if that doesn't work. But I got to thinking the other day that for the sake of film franchises like Twilight (which is over now and all that... good times), I should strive to be the first major female film critic... cuz none of the men that reviewed these movies really respected the material... I don't care if its not the best writing in the world, slamming something because you didn't bother to do the research and all that... I can't abide, I'm sorry

And this was gonna be an entry about Jonas, believe it or not (right now I can't)...

On the radio I heard "All you Wanted" by Michelle Branch come on and I started to daydream... I started to sketch out a music video for it that had clips from my story accompanying it...

I'd fallen into the pitfall (we're going on months now) where I started rewrites because I got 10+ rejections... all from people that weren't interested in what I had to offer... SUCKSS...
honestly, guys... what part is so hard to get into?
The prologue that goes on for a couple pages?
The reincarnation backstory?
The fact my protagonist is a very reserved young man hiding the fact he has telekinetic powers and it takes a new girl to bring confidence out of him?

I know how I've said how his story deserves to see the light of day... but I honestly dont know what else I can do to make people understand that... I'm starting to not believe myself that my own writing is strong enough... I suppose I could send some old queries to a few new names that have come up, but I doubt that'll make a difference

It's insane, I know, I have my livelihood hell bent on getting one story published... as if that'd take care of everything instantly...
I really haven't felt any sort of REAL success since I got hired after my first interview... 2 years after getting fired for being a really shy introvert that has trouble asking for help and keeping pace... it sucks... it really does...
it's just hard sometimes to see any sort of light at the other end of the tunnel.

Jonas was my first ticket to a small fortune... right now I don't see a career happening as a YA romantasy writer... because nobody seems keen on getting even the first pages to read...

now I've got 2 other things I'm somewhat counting on... one's a work in progress that I'm at least a year away from finishing... and after that, supposing Prince doesn't sue me for wanting to write my interpretation of his work so non-fans can see that he's not nearly as taboo as they thought he was...

and then there's my movie blog... which I'm at least a couple weeks away from premiering (lol... I doubt this will make a difference to anyone but one person... but [sarcasm] circle December 8th on your calenders)

Hopefully either one of those will get something to happen for me as a writer...
too bad that romantasy thing hasn't worked out the way I wanted it to...
it won't stop me from going over my work and doing rewrites, but it's half-hearted at this point

I guess what I kinda wanted to try with Jonas is to do something different with the rewrites... keep it short and sweet this time, don't go too far into certain details... keep to the main points and see where that goes...

go thru my personal soundtrack and write the scenes that come to mind when I listen to them...

"All you wanted" is probably the most brilliant one I'll get out of this... I see it as the final epic battle between Jonas and his enemy from this past life... a duel... and flashbacks from the story will come to mind and I'll see where it goes from there...

maybe writing some musings from the eyes of the minor characters... don't worry about anything but dialogue... stuff that takes the pressure off that might help in the long run...
heck, write Jonas as a novella rather than making it this long story just so I fill out pages and pages...
that's sure to be interesting... assuming that I have my narrative or dialogue in the right direction

I'll see what I come up with and I might post the results... for now, I've got a dog to let outside and a movie to watch...

speaking of movies, I should go in length about why my inspirations came into my characters the way they did... that'll be cool, especially with "Spirited Away"... the final puzzle piece of something I'd been conceptualizing for a while

"Rescue Me" because I'm "Losing my Mind"

Both quotations are Daughtry song titles.

How I feel about certain things comes down to two parts: how good they are functionally, like they are solid in their design.... and the other part is, obviously, made of my personal biases and how much I just melt into something that I enjoy.

Maroon 5 and Daughtry are on different sides of the spectrum if we're talking musically...
or maybe they're the same...
but I melt into how much I love both of their musical catalogs for different reasons...

with Maroon 5, its mostly Adam Levine's vocals that do it for me... I knew even before I declared myself a fan that it was something special and certainly different than what I was used to... not a lot of strong falsettos and high tenors in music these days...
and occasionally I go crazy for something musically or melodically... how certain notes sound

with Daughtry, while I find Chris Daughtry's voice carthatic to the point where I feel comfortable singing to it and sometimes go beyond it (I stick by Adam Levine's range best I can)... what really wins me over is all in the solidness of his songs... not just the beginning/middle/end, but also because of chord changes... the rhythm of the drums and the vocal delivery... all of it feels so good to me... they say sound is produced by vibration, but I feel like my inner tempo vibrates to Daughtry when it comes to my favorites...

I'm sad to say none of them are singles... well, except for "Over You" which I believe to be a perfect speciman of a song with the simplicity of the design, but also because the chorus is catchy as hell... rhythmically... I can't really explain it better than that

it's either when he's shouting at the top of his register to proclaim something or even the higher range by itself without raising the volume... that's a common ingredient in my favorites aside from the core melody... to which I say he hasn't led me wrong yet, every album has that somewhere in it...
I'm golden as long as somewhere between 3-5 songs have that where I usually dont need the rest of the album ;)

I guess the word for what I tried to describe above is "Passion"... when he make those passionate proclaimations... you kinda wanna wish more guys felt so strongly that you believe them without a second thought

I am thinking... that I have a short story that I kinda want to write...
in conjunction with two things, although I'm not sure how they are going to fit together...

the Daughtry compenent are those two songs, which I love to tie together... kinda like they are two parts of one story... one being the B-side of the other and the bridge going into the final chorus of "Rescue me"... screams to me that this is the end of the album...
it has 2 songs after that and on the bonus edition, it has 4 after that... but I usually stop after 10 songs because... don't really need much more than that... the songs afterwards are good, but they don't stimulate me quite the same way

Some songs I listen to, in general, beg to have a story behind them... something that I can personally work with...
I feel that way about a couple songs by Taylor Swift, but I'm having trouble putting together pieces for "Sparks Fly" and "Enchanted"... the latter is beyond picturesque but so far my feelings and my mind haven't coincided to put something together... I think it'll take the right experience to hash that out

Strangely enough, I have had it happen a couple times... where I either have played a song on repeat so I could actually listen to it (too much background noise) or I have it on my iPod but when it gets uploaded the first time, the glitch happens where 30 seconds in, the next song downloaded begins and I hear nothing from the other song again...
those strangely become favorites without me really knowing why

"Heavy Metal Lover" was one... once on repeat, never turned back ;)

"Losing my mind" was a song I couldn't wrap my mind around for a while. I would listen to it, hear a humming of something in my head, but the connection wasn't made for a while. I got it on my iPod... felt compelled to get it reloaded on there... and after that, it just became what it has been

It comes across as very short, but its nothing short of passionate... I get overwhelmed listening to it sometimes... at the peak of emotion, especially at the end, its like... WOW... knocks the wind out of me and I can't breathe almost to the point where I can't breathe [without tearing up a bit]

The emotionality is overwhelming, but I love Chris Daughtry's pitch at that peak... and also how he ends his notes... as in, I cannot imagine it being done any other way

in conjuction with a dream I had last night, which I already see taking on a different shape than originally shown to me...

I saw the beginning, middle and end of this song... kinda like three parts of a love story...

The first verse where he says "never thought a train going any place could have changed my life"... talks about meeting this girl on a train, its love at first sight for him and the whole time he's in the city that day, she's on his mind...

I see time passing going over the chorus...
kinda like this was a chanced meeting that he doesn't want to get away from him, or he'd seen her around but hasn't had the courage to talk to her... I'm not sure...
I see one of those cheesy montages where he's walking through an old town, kinda like the old west, but without the cowboys and period costumes... kinda modernized... but obviously its deserted like some of those sets on "Glee" where there's a song playing...  time transpires so when the last night is hit, you see its nighttime

Then I had the clever idea to make it into kind of a duet, obviously putting myself in the other role, with female vocals this time around... doing the 2nd verse and doing the chorus at night heading to a park bench thats an old conventional bus stop... doing the impassioned plea seated
Which suggests that I'm the one who's seen him around, kinda where this connects to the dream I had... whoever my counterpart is, he's one of those guys I've crushed on over the years and always feel miles away from because we're from different social circles...

The bridge features a split screen... he fades in from the left... I fade in on the right... we trade off lines... we're at our different locations, at night...

we trade off impassioned pleas at the final chorus... sing "I'm losing my mind"... where I'm getting on the bus at my stop and he's running to catch the bus that's just come through his deserted town... neither is singing "I'm losing my mind" the final time... but at the height of it, he gets on the bus, we see each other and rush into a warm embrace

about as romantic as a motion picture :-P

I can see this song playing out as how me and this guy I'm into meet... and/or possibly how we get back together in the end

It's not often where I have lividly vivid dreams... so vivid where my mind is a ready participant or I can actually feel things from a multitude of angles...

my desire to see "Perks of Being a Wallflower" have rubbed off here, obviously... because in spots, I saw myself in Charlie's (Logan Lerman) shoes... where being lonely terrifies me to the point of pertification... and Sam (Emma Watson) and Patrick (Ezra Miller) are my closest friends...
I can't really distinguish who my BFF was... whether she looked like Emma Watson or not, I'm not sure... but what was clear was him...
my mind said Phillip Phillips, although I couldn't quite imagine why
my eyes said he kinda like Aaron Fisher, "Hero#1" who recently did a piece on 20/20 and released a book
my heart said it was the last guy I had a crush, that I thought be the "best friend" I would fall in love with and marry

Until I realized there was a giant plothole in my dream, the title woulda been "Baby Daddy"...
based all around the fact that, based on the relationship I have with this guy, there is no way that statement can be true... and I really don't see it coming about any other way...
The whole dream alluded to harboring this secret and finding the courage to tell him the truth...  never mind the fact I have trouble stringing a sentence together around him...

The dream kinda felt like being in a movie that was currently running... the beginning was gone so I don't know how I got "knocked up" in the dream...
there was a bit of a middle that worked on establishing the relationship between me and these two people

Alluding to this was one scene where we went out to dinner, there was a glass of red wine at my seat, that I proceeded to pour on the table in a steady stream... and I mopped up with a napkin. The looks penetrated my skull but I didn't watch their expressions... meanwhile my mind outside of the dream is asking me from the POV of reality "why didn't I just ask for a soda or something instead?"
appearances change quite a bit in another scene where my mind (outside the dream) knows I have the appearance here of Mae Whitman as she appears in "Parenthood" (which I never saw, only previews of it), but blonde... and I tell my mom when I run into her about what's going on and I think the dream ends with me finally telling him the truth... and its all good...
obviously we weren't together or it wouldn't have been this whole dilemma

Despite where my mind has been for some previous story ideas, I don't see sex being a part of this story any place... plus the obvious relationship between me and him doesn't indicate that to be a believable possibility (and I don't think I want to bring immaculate conception into a college setting... fiction is about making stuff up but you gotta at least stay within bounds of reality)

So the "Knocked up"/Baby Daddy storyline will become that combination of Daughtry song titles... in that its one of those stories about what you would do if you knew you only had a short time to live...

I don't know what kind yet, but my character's condition will be terminal illness...
the setting is a college campus somewhere in NYC. I live in the dorms while he shares an apartment with his sister, who is my BFF...

It's one of those cases I know too well... I've harbored feelings for this guy for a long time and I'm always finding reasons not to tell him... all while not knowing that he feels the same way about me... that's what the scenes I saw in the dream kinda told me where he wasn't just generous, but he was warm, kind and just about everything you could ask for in another person.

Two scenes stand out where he kinda reads my mind and what I want is compassion from him and to either feel important or included in his plans

I'm meeting up with the two of them. I'm catching up with my BFF, while aware that he's in the vicinity. A couple of times, while drowning out the conversation a bit, I'm thinking about saying something to him. I have this picture in my head of him hanging me from behind.
Then out of the blue, he approaches me, opens up his arms and I rush into them. There was such an unbelievable warmth there I couldn't believe it transcended the actual dream... that's only happened maybe a couple of times in my life...

we're talking about later, apparently the plan is to go back to his place. I ask where it is and he says its D4 on some street like Sussex or something random, but I get that its a street in the city, not on campus... and I can't put the words together that I can't get there because I don't have a car or way of getting there. But I also don't want to be without either of them for the whole night so I find myself on the verge of a meltdown, not unlike one Charlie had in the "Wallflower" book when Sam and Patrick were away for a holiday or something and he hit the bottom of his loneliness, couldn't contain it...
like in the previous scene, my ankles are buckling, but here I fall to them just into a deserted street... He then offers that I come to dinner with them

I thought about not including it, but the wine scene seemed too significant in the dream, how it was kind of a slow-motion thing, the wine pouring out...
maybe my character is dying of terminal liver or pancreatic cancer... therefore I can't drink

Things like that...

so the whole short story is agonizing over the idea of telling him that I love him before I die and its too late to do so... but of course the nervouness was unfounded cuz I felt the same way...
I'll see if I can string that together within the next couple days.
In the meantime, I'm about done working out my numbers system for ranking my top 101 movies

Overcoming a Pitfall with Rewrites

When I started writing for my warrior's tale, it was a random occurence. An idea popped into my head that I wanted to explore for myself. Plus it had been a while since I wrote that type of story. About a protagonist overcoming a foe and I'm betting there's something extraordinary brewing. In other words, this is something that would only occur in fiction.

After getting down my prologue, I got a few lines of dialogue. I established that my protagonist, Cassandra, was injured in this battle so badly that she almost died. If that wasn't enough, her persistence to righ the wrong is getting in the way of that. So I decided that she needed to be placed in a medically-induced coma.
When I was writing from her POV, I didn't worry too much about creating a whole story. That's kind of what this exercise has been about. I'd added a few sharp images that came to mind in a steady stream of consciousness. Perhaps in the long run, what I wrote in that perspective might work, given her lethargic, ailing state.

A couple of long weeks passed. I wrote a couple of bits here and there, all in the same place. I take my neighbor's dog outside in the middle of her workday and I spend about an hour with him in the house. I've used that time to read, but also write if something on my iPod generated some great imagery.

I figure that if I keep writing in the same place and it's routine enough, I can get somewhere with this.

I thought that maybe I could use this coma as a time to do a little background. All of it was from her perspective, this time in complete, complex sentences.
I realized today that there was so much coming out of my head, in so many directions, that this is merely going to be a draft.
Revision is my greatest enemy and one pitfall I've happened into frequently as of late is I start writing things from that stream of consciousness. And it is rarely focused. What I started doing after a while is adding more to the persona. Starting to give something of a backstory for her. I'd been thinking that she's sounding more like Soi Fon in her relationship with the princess. But there are some tiny differences here and there. I haven't fully fleshed out what they are.

What I have done is that I think I might have a name for my princess.
"Snow" was her codename, going from the wheelhouse of Sode No Shirayuki, who I could describe as a snow princess. I'm sure a few might think it's too similiar to Snow White, who has gotten a helluva makeover recently... between Ginnifer Goodwin in "Once upon a time," Lily Collins in "Mirror Mirror" and Kristen Stewart in "Snow White & The Huntsman"...

But I started to think about the name "Kaname." It's another name from Bleach and it is actually the first name of one of three defected Soul Reaper captains. Kaname Tosen embodies the strong silent type persona, although I find myself irked in a few occasions when I look at the guy. Is he blind or something? What's with the eye cover he always has on?

Whenever I see the opening credits (per this recent season, which has probably been going on for 3-4 months now), I think in terms of his first name rather than last... almost forgetting his full name :shrug:

Anyway, I just looked it up to see if it'd be okay for a girl's name. Someone on Yahoo answers apparently was thinking the same thing because she asked if it'd work as her name for her Japanese class. She got the name from the series "Full Metal Panic"... which I haven't seen, but I heard its good

Supposedly for a girl, "Kaname" means gorgeous bud or blossom. I think it could work.
(Yeah, it's pretty evident in some of my work how crazy I am for Japanese names... it sucks my college didn't offer Japanese, I would have been interested in learning some, if only to impress the socks off a lot of people)

Yuki is "snow" in Japanese... and apparently the full name Sode No Shirayuki means sleeved white snow or falling white snow
It doesn't give me that same fuzzy feeling, so I think I will keep "Snow" in there as is.

I wrote an instance where Cassandra says how Kaname has tried to talk her into dropping the formalities, but she can't bring it in herself to do so. Her explanation was something pretty vague and somewhat ridiculous... like nobody really talks like this in real life. She said that proper conduct is what separates people from animals and goes on to refer to the people in her neighbor as animals.

Some more borrowing going on... Rukia and Renji grew up in the Rukan District, which is like the Soul Society slums, the worst neighborhood.

Today, I went into the bit about formalities and I started writing a few things about coming from this rough neighborhood where she suffered through a lot of abuse... most I believe was physical, maybe because something about her separates her and makes her out to be different than everyone else. She's trained herself to be stronger and stealthier so she can avoid those circumstances.
Then I started to add a little bit about how Princess Kaname sent out a decree that she wanted warriors to do her bidding in different areas of the region, dealing with conflicts and disputes and carrying out her orders. I'm not quite sure yet why this sudden change of heart when she already has some 250 bodyguards, who Cassandra notes for their brawn rather than their intelligence (noting that whenever "Rasputian" comes for a social call, he gets by them and automatically knows where they are despite the palace being so large... in the altercation she figures that magic "a forbidden dark art" is the reason behind his strength).

She and Ren (who not only looked out for her on a few occasions but they are the only other ones they have in their neighborhood) trained for months to even be considered for this program where you get trained in a series of combat as well as recognizing poisons and antidotes... which suggests that there have been assassination attempts or suggestions that they are not too far away... with unrest in the region and such).
Somehow, I see her as being the one that Princess Kaname specifically picks to be her personal protector... and there's a reason for that that I haven't quite figured out yet.

Anyway, I got through all this, realized I was getting out of order and decided... I could explain all of this from Cassandra's side of things as something of an outline to work with, but when I do this for real, I'll use the backstory and turn it into a different piece of material.

I've gotten a few emails already mentioning workshops and tips for the annual event of NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month... which translates to writing 50,000 words in 30 days and the trick is finishing.
I wonder if it would be cheating if I worked on this story for it specifically even though I already have material kinda started.

One of these years, I think I'd like to try it out. Right now, I think I have too many ideas going on that I can't drop everything to do a brand new one... but I'm too far alone everywhere else where I'm not quite ready yet.
I figured that I'd do this entry to kinda remind myself where I am with this at the moment.

Animé Inspirations/Influences

Since the very beginning of my writing "career," if you wanna call it that... I wouldn't define it as such until I've either secured an agent that will stick with my work no matter or I've published something on Amazon... both of which are currently in progress

When I was 13 and recouping from back surgery, writing helped me get away from things. By this point, there wasn't pain to speak of, by December, I was over most of it. But I had a dream, filled in the blanks and started a series of Pokémon fanfiction as my own way of wish-fulfillment.
If something was on my mind, good or bad, I put it in there and dealt with it. Of course I was living in my own little fantasy world, so there weren't a lot of real-life implications. It did help me blow off some steam... I'll leave it like that.

A lot of things I've written came from the genre or developed from it or otherwise influenced.
Sailor Moon worked its way into my early work with its talk of reincarnation and spell-casting.
Miyazaki's "Spirited Away," as I must have said a million times on this blog already... was the final puzzle piece that turned into Jonas's story. Part of me will always secretly know that it was something of a fanfiction of the movie that had a lot of different sources mixed together. Fanfiction in that Nina was a newcomer, like the beginning of the movie before the spirit world comes into place, I derived from that for my starting point. And the rest was answering the question: if Chihiro and Haku met again in her new life, how would it go down?

Of course Jonas blossomed into his own character that was the combination of a dozen things. Haku was one. There was a little of myself there, maybe a lot more than most characters I wrote about early on. A little Harry Potter, I guess, with the backstory that Jonas grew up without his parents... who died under mysterious circumstances. Although I still don't entirely buy that. And there was a little of Darien from Sailor Moon... when I tried to come up with a sketch of what he would look like, we have that. Jonas has more going for him than just being a prince that came from Earth, paired with Princess Serena of the Moon Kingdom.

One story I recently took back from someone who tried to make profit off it on Amazon... started as an InuYasha fanfiction, but I liked my character too much to let her stay in that capacity.
Ironic that I wanted her to move into her own element, her own world so I didn't completely lose her... but at the same time, she dies at the end of the story.

Bleach, I love... and still do, even though it has gotten so convoluted and side-tracked by different story arcs and such... you get the feeling that it's never going to end. Luckily, word is that it has ended in Japan somewhere around 340+ ep's. I think in America, we're up to 270+... so still have a ways to go yet.
I really do hope that the series ends with Aizen getting defeated once and for all. I am so sick of this guy sending all his minions to do his dirty work for him (not quite as bad as Naraku from InuYasha, mind you... I'm really hoping that the animé gets picked up again and the rest of the manga can be translated for us fans to see)... but Aizen has aspirations of universal domination. Not just world domination, universal... like the Earth and the Soul Society realm and beyond

The most recent side-tracking arc... soul reapers' swords are called Zanpakto and they work together in this symbiotic unit. Each Zanpakto has a spirit living in it with its own name and set of powers.
A character Muramasa emerged and cast a spell to free all Zanpakto spirits from their swords and brainwash them to act out against their soul reapers. I started into it, wishing it was a really quick thing that came and went... it lasted for at least 5-6 MONTHS... geesh, I was thinking we'd never get back to the main story arc... and we're still kinda there... hopefully we'll stick it out until Aizen is defeated... then the rest can be filler for all I care :-P

It got a little easier to take on when the Zanpakto were waking up and once again allied with their soul reaper partners... then I really started to like a bunch of the characters...
it was the same with a bunch of the soul reapers. When you first meet them, you kinda see them as enemies because they're trying to keep Ichigo and his friends from achieving their objective... saving Rukia from her execution... after they started to kinda accept Ichigo and the others as allies, I felt freer to get to know them a bit more.

So taking all these Zanpakto into account.. the main ones as well as the ones that defected and became evil spirits (as their soul reapers were killed in action)...
the total cast of characters for Bleach has to be around 110-120.

That's a lot of characters to keep track of.

Thanks to anyone still with me at this point... not that I usually write these with an audience in mind...

I've been thinking about influences from Bleach in particular... that might work their way into my "Warrior's Tale"... the unofficial name... Cassandra has a few more dimensions than that, but she does have the heart and soul of a warrior. Make no mistake.

I've been playing around with a few influences... characters in animé I want to channel into my work, between how they look to one aspect of their personality that I love...

For my I.F... invincible foe, there are a few things I'd been putting together as far as his desire goes, his goal... why is he so bad, how did he get that way... etc, etc.

I had this vision of Rasputian in the historically inaccurate Don Bluth version of Anastasia. At one time, one of my favorite movies.
In the beginning of the film, the Romonov family is having a celebration of some kind. Rasputian arrives in midst of the action and curses the entire family. Don't remember exactly why... I think it was because he was banished or something like that... there's more to it than Maleficient in "Sleeping Beauty"... she was pissed because she didn't get invited to this big royal ball... I'm sure there's more to her character than simply that motivation.

After looking it up, he was banished for treason and sold his soul to the devil to get revenge.

It's a few more little, but I think for the moment, I.F. will be given the code-name "Rasputian"... not entirely sure if that's the name I'm going to sign off on, but here's the scenario I have in mind.

Cassandra is enlisted as part of the princess's royal guard. While she's learning about what life is like at the palace, getting to know the princess on a personal life... they develop something of a special bond... there are a number of years where "Rasputian" makes "house-calls"... he shows up at the palace... either asking for something that can't be granted or he's vowing revenge.

Not sure over what just yet... I'm thinking it's because her family trumped his, which used to be in power and now he could be the only member left of his bloodline... he only becomes into power when he goes into black magic or some sort of magic with which he only brings ruin.
The scenario I have in mind, or rather just came into it... the princess is run out of the kingdom by his magic and Cassandra comes with her as her primary source of protection

Something happens along the way that's connected to Cassandra's childhood friend Ren... the princess is kidnapped and/or presumed dead. Cassandra nearly dies avowing her revenge on "Rasputian"

Because I don't see a lot happening with Cassandra now being put into a long-term herbally induced coma... each time I think about waking her up some undetermined amount of time later... she's the way she was in the first part I wrote after the prologue... fuming with anger and hatred, two things that are counterproductive to her healing process... hence the long-term coma...

I was talking to a friend about how they use flashbacks in some movies to tell stories. Like Slumdog Millionaire was a good example of this...
you have the main storyline with our hero getting interrogated by the people running the game show because "You're poor, you can't possibly know all these answers so you must be cheating"... he tells his life's story through flashbacks, each of which references a question he knew the answer to.
It was a very good 50/50 exchange...

In the past, I've worked with reincarnation and lengthy prologues. Both don't go off quite that well.

This time, I might do something a little different. My plan with Cassandra is, while she's in this coma, the next couple scenes are flashbacks from what her duty was serving the princess, helping to give exposition to the overall plot... but I want to make it so neither part becomes more interesting than the other... so that one is plain boring and you forget all about it, or you want to leave one to experience the other

That's where a lot of movies find fault, telling stories via flashbacks... you forget all about the present or better yet, one aspect bores you to death where you can't wait to get away from it

When I was starting this entry, I had another idea, but I'm not entirely sure if I want to follow through with it.
Of course the princess is gorgeous... she's a true lady, delicate, beautiful, very pleasant and gentle, but she does know when to be serious... not that she's a complete flake either.

Back to Bleach, there are a bunch of characters I'm thinking of bringing into it in whatever capacity that needs to be filled.

Rukia's Zanpakto, Sode No Shirayuki, is said to be the most beautiful of the Zanpakto. She's something of an ice goddess.

Also not to be underestimated... although I still find myself questioning Rukia's strength as a Soul Reaper.
It always seems like she's matched up against difficult foes that she is unable to overcome on her own.

I had this idea that a) the princess, despite popular belief, isn't dead and b) she has a lot of power and could handle herself just fine... so a lot of what Cassandra has done seems to be all for a rouse...
that, plus the fact she's been feigning her death this whole time... that's something unforgivable to Cassandra

The bond between them, I'm deriving a little bit from a series of flashbacks on Bleach.
In the story arc with the rescue mission for Rukia, there's a battle between Captain of squad 2, and leader of the stealth force (they have the speed and capabilities of ninjas), Soi Fon and Yoruichi

From what I gathered from the flashbacks, Yoruichi held the position Soi Fon does now. Soi Fon was her personal guard. She was all serious and Yoruichi told her not to take things so seriously. At one point, Yoruichi disappeared and never came back... she went somewhere and Soi Fon was angry because she couldn't come along.

Based on what else has transpired throughout the series, I might have an idea as to why Yoruichi left. Had something to with Keisuke Urahara (a former captain) getting banished from the Soul Society and defected to Earth...
another long story...

oh wow... I guess I kinda forget the fact Yoruichi was a princess of one of the royal families, but she chose another route aside from just the royal succession.
Soi Fon became a bodyguard as well as an apprentice.

It'd be a really wicked twist, wouldn't it? The princess being alive and as able-bodied as Yoruichi and Sode No Shirayuki




I definitely see the elegence of Sode No Shirayuki, with the purity of her white kimono. But something of a kindness in Yoruichi.

As for Cassandra, here are the sources I'll be deriving from to inspire me:
















While I was doing my search, I knew there was someone else I had to add to the list. I had mentioned in passing that there was a character from the Avatar series, whose appearance came to mind when I was conceptualizing Cassandra. They're not going to be exactly the same. I don't know enough about Mai (for some odd reason its pronounced "May" in the series... when it's "My" in every other animé I know) to go beyond appearances. I just know that she and Zuko were an item until he left town without telling her. Not the best way to break up with someone, lol... especially when she can kick this much butt while any "bending"



Soi Fon

She takes her position extremely seriously, very disciplined. Doesn't have a lot of patience for things that get in her way (one of these things happens to be her lieutenant, who can somtimes be a bit of a coward).

Cassandra has her drive, for sure, but I don't think she's nearly as hardcore about what she does. And that's saying a lot. There's a lot to be said about how strongly you want to play/write certain characters. How far is too far in any given direction?
It's really tricky, but I'm sure I'll figure out a balance at some point.

 
 Rukia

The majority of the influence here is going to be focused on her relationship with childhood friend, Ren.
She has a similiar no-BS attitude, but not nearly as hardcore as Soi Fon.
I'm sure I'll channel a little of both characters, taking the best out of both for this particular storyline.

and just for a little fun and because I'm kinda on a role. Although I won't be making any connections from a physical standpoint (rather his relationship with Rukia), I'll add a picture of Renji, whose personality will serve to bring further inspiration to the character of Ren... hence, the similiar names




I see Ren being on the other side of the coin opposed to Cassandra. He is about not taking things quite so seriously all the time, but when the chips are down, he knows when it isn't a good time for being laid back.

That's all I have to go on at the moment, really... a few key relationships... but I need to figure out my backstory, the relationship between Cassandra and the princess... I need a name for her, if only in theory...like "Rasputian" for my villian

"Heavy Metal Lover" makes for a vivid imaginary

Sometimes it's best not to question where inspiration comes from... but this is one of those cases where I'm overly grateful.

Amidst Nelly Furtado's "Loose" album, there've been a handful of others tracks I'd been listening to help me put some things together for "Te Busque."



[awesome picture, the only thing this post was missing ;) ]

Considering the female empowerment theme that the story has, or at least I'm trying to make it about that, rather than the other way around... Lady Gaga's been a huge part of this playlist I'd been working through to inspire different scenes.
I'd tried to make it a fine line, that everything Furtado is Talia's main storyline... or vice versa... but there have been a few tracks from Gaga (aka Mother Monster) that have been creeping in.

Alejandro is an easy choice because the song felt like a great send-off for one of the characters and for the hell of it, I'll give him the same name.
But I'd been considering over and over about how "dark" I want Alejandro to be... I'm almost to the point where I really don't want to make him a villain at all... that he's just a friend that "benefits" from Talia's line of work. Of course he encourages it and they work together with this business that she kinda started with the Montiel Brothers

I'm starting to think that maybe Alejandro came into the business because one of the brothers died and his dying wish was that he teach him the ropes of what he now calls "the family business"... even though they'd only been in it for a short time, I'm thinking a couple years.
There is something of a "mobster" mentality there and I kinda see Italian New Yorker/"Soprano" types playing these guys
and to be fair, I got the name Montiel from Dito Montiel, whose life was brought to life in the film "A Guide to Recognizing your Saints" based on his autobiography/memoir... I wouldn't count it among my favorite Downey films because it's a little dramatic, he doesn't have a huge presence in it and when he is in it, most of the acting is non-verbal. Really great non-verbal acting for sure, but it was like his work in "The Soloist"... it was hard to think of it as him playing a role rather an reinactment of something that really happened... you see less of him in it...

That's my Downey side-track for the day...

Based on the themes of a lot of Gaga's work, the gears in my head started turning with a bunch of them. Right now, I have a bunch of the songs in pairs and sometimes these pairs include songs by multiple artists

One example is this one song from the Furtado album that's all in Spanish, No Hay Iqual... Choreography came to mind the first time I heard it for the opening part of the song. Then there's a Green Day track that has me thinking the same choreography because it has the same count and amount of measures in the opening of their song and the title fit right into the piece.

"No Hay Iqual" is all about sensuality, sexuality and desire... so I can easily see it being your run of the mill performance with Talia front and center with her girls Scarlet and Vanessa backing her up. Something of a tribal dance is what I'm thinking.
I imagine this as her 2nd encounter with the new guy in town, Juan Paulo, or for the ease of my typing, J.P. ...he sees her on stage, once again enamoured by her beauty. She sees that he came and she ducks out on him.
Maybe this is the point where she tells him what she really does for a living, or he at least finds out about it. "Extraordinary Girl" is about a girl who can't seem to escape her fate and he wants to help her do so.

I've started to pair Karmin's track "Hello" with "Heavy Metal Lover" for similar reasons... the choreography... like I see some of the same movements going on during the chorus of both tracks...
although they don't have much in common thematically.

Now for the Gaga-inspired combinations:

in the 3rd act, Emilia goes on to dance during a VIP night despite Talia's wishes. She gets picked by one particular nasty customer to where the encounter escalates to attempted rape. J.P. saves her life and he takes her to Talia, despite the fact she and him aren't speaking at this point. Alejandro stops by and is horrified that he encouraged Emilia to dance that night. His words to her were that Talia was being overprotective and she can't always be so. She admits that she was wrong to hold her back and that she should have been there to at least support her.
Somewhere along the way, its revealed that Amber was the one behind everything... to fracture ties between Talia and Alejandro because she secretly wants him all to herself.

so as a show for Amber's benefit:
Emilia performs "Monster" to bring to life what happened her that night, but as a way of stepping away from it and becoming stronger.
Then Talia performs "Alejandro" to make it seem like the two of them have "broken up" despite the fact they were never officially a couple

That's a huge part of the final part of the story.

I'd played around with "Dancing in the Dark" and "I like it rough"
earlier, I was wondering if I want to move that combination from the first act to the final act... that it wasn't about Talia, but about Amber

"baby likes to dance in the dark, but when he's looking she falls apart."
the song is about being uncomfortable in the bedroom unless its in total darkness... and perhaps a fear of sex itself because it brings out a lot of vulnerability in people...
images have come to mind before about a montage of Talia bedding her clients, but when nobody's around, she torn up about how she makes a living... most of the time she's strong and comfortable about it, but deep down, she wishes she had a better path to pursue.

"I like it rough" kinda speaks for itself... the other side of the coin... kinda says "don't pity me, this is the way I like to do things and that's that"

It's funny how I've written previously that Scarlet and Vanessa are Talia's besties and closest cohorts and quote "Amber and Scarlet are mentioned in passing, but only in a couple of scenes"...
they really get to spread their wings in the 3rd act, which may be the first time I really write about the shows they do.

Which brings up my final Gaga-inspired combination:

Everyone has their own specific number that they do on their VIP nights. This is where my affection for the film "Sucker Punch" comes in.
According to Ruby, their numbers are personally tailored to bring to life past experiences... and they either show things as they are, personificiation or they show how things change and move on from that....

[all three tracks are from the "Born this way" album]

Emilia opens "Government Hooker"... which I can see having similiar choreography to group number "Love Game"... except its a little more erotic and provocative... it's a little rusty and unrefined compared to the other two, but they'd been doing their numbers for at least 3 years

Amber, who I can see being portrayed by someone like Jamie Chung (who played "Amber" in "Sucker Punch") or Naya Rivera (Santana from "Glee")...
does "Bad Kids"

she's obviously playing the bad girl here, channeling Santana for sure... wanting to be the center of attention... somewhat ironic considering Gaga wrote it for her little monsters as her way of saying that its okay for them not to be normal, brace your weirdness and all that...
but Amber comes off as a princess to be revered... a showman that dismisses the intensity of her subject matter, makes it less than what it is...

I swear I must have a list of 20+ songs I'd played on heavy rotation since I'd been putting this together... a bunch from "Born this way" obviously... at least 5 tracks from the Nelly Furtado album... Love Game, I like it rough ("The Fame"), Alejandro, Monster, Dance in the Dark ("The Fame Monster"), G-Spot & Sex Shooter (both written by Prince)...

I didn't know what to make of "Heavy Metal Lover" the first time I heard it... there was a lot of autotone in it, so I didn't know if I took it seriously at first... I think my unexplainable love for it came from one time where I couldn't hear it too well so I put it on repeat... from there, always been a huge fan

if you listen to the lyrics, they're extremely provocative and strongly suggest that an orgy is about to happen...
listening to it today, it was like everything in my head lit up and images started to come in attention to the choreography I have set for the chorus...
I see exotic red lights that flash in time with the beat and after a certain point, they stop flashing and just grow and diminish in intensity... if it was a more upscale place, there'd be lasers... but I see those red lights. I see Ruby wearing the "hooker" uniform Rocket (Jena Malone) wore in "Sucker Punch"... some red, but mainly the top has some black leather and she's wearing these black stockings...

Her performance is extremely sexy, hot and sensual... as time in the song passes, the girls start to band together on stage where there's a lot of physical contact almost to the point they're in a lip-lock... oddly, the racist thing I've come up with to date with any of these performance numbers and Talia isn't even at the helm of it.

My imagination went on overdrive as I drew on the similarities and differences between Ruby and Amber... they're similar in their backgrounds, but took on different sides of it... and the two can't stand each other, which is why they only perform one night together...

I see Ruby and Scarlet (twin sisters, btw) having a similiar relationship as Sweet Pea and Rocket do in "Sucker Punch"... sisters that are super close... Rocket ran away from home and ended up at the asylum... Sweet Pea followed to keep an eye on her, but unlike Rocket, she got along with their parents, so she really didn't need to leave

I also see a little bit of "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" being thrown in there too... in a very minimal way...
Harmony Faith Lane and her sister Jenna were living in unpleasant circumstances somewhat glossed over in its introduction... Jenna was repeatedly molested by their father, Harmony got her into foster care before she left for Hollywood to become an actress...
part of the storyline comes in that Jenna ended up dead and Harmony wanted to prove it was a homicide rather than a suicide...
but unfortunately it was a suicide...

a little of that is figuring into my head a bit with this... Harmony made a comment after finding her sister dead was that she never forgave her for leaving her...
Ruby & Scarlet lived in similiar circumstances, both were abused by their father. So they planned to run away. When they try, Scarlet gets away and promises Ruby that she'll come back for her... 
she never did... but a couple years later, Ruby turns up at the venue where all the girls work and perform...

Ruby insists that Scarlet doesn't need to blame herself for not coming back and that she's okay with how things turned out.
Yes, that is demented, that she was okay with the abuse and molestation and all that... but she takes strength from the fact she survived it while bringing her past to life on stage...

Amber, meanwhile, was in a group home where "you name it" happened on a frequent basis... and in fact, what she went through is even worse than what Talia went through... but what's worse, really... the actual abuse or being taken advantage of and ultimately being made a fool... from a psychological standpoint, what Talia went through was pretty F'd up too...

I wrote that Amber left the group home when she was 18, took a job as a waitress at the venue... Sirens' Cove or whatever I wanna call, still haven't figured that out... and after a couple years of watching Talia getting all that attention on stage, she wanted a piece of the action. Even though she spent a couple years denouncing her past and trying to make a clean break from it... old habits die hard, I guess, especially when there was a point her teen years where she felt like she was heralded as a princess... a term that Talia absolutely hates and will royally flip out on anyone who dares to call her that

Amber is sadistic in that she glosses over a few things in her dances, but very deep down, she's hiding some heavy stuff darkness

also noted that Ruby is the most candid of all the girls... she told Emilia about her past and how she chooses to view it in her dancing...
the case often is that the girls don't ask about each other's pasts and volunteering information is the only way they learn anything.

Ultimately I think that Talia doesn't want Emilia involved in the business because she doesn't have a past that haunts her like everyone else. There's no need to subject herself to that if she hadn't already lived through it... when things like that happen, it changes you and there's no going back to how things were before.

And the more I talk about this story, the more demented it sounds... girls choosing to sell their bodies for sex because it's all they'd been taught how to do things... not all hookers and prostitutes come from that nor do they use it for these particular reasons...

I know next to nothing about all the above, but it doesn't stop me from having huge bursts of imagination when I listen to music... that had to be one of the coolest things I've ever experienced...
Makes me kinda wonder if I'll ever get around to writing the actual story rather than going into all these impromptu brainstorming sessions