First things first,
[Scroll down if you wanna skip more fictional brainstorming to get to my Fooly Cooly discussion]
this project has blossomed quite a bit over the past couple months. I thought of it as a series of stages. In musical terms, "acts" and "scenes".
Because my iPod didn't have Britney Spears' "Circus" album or any relevant Daughtry tracks, I mostly stuck with Nelly Furtado, threw in a little Green Day and sprinkled in some Gaga, Karmin, Maroon 5 and Carrie Underwood.
- Afraid
- Maneater
- Promiscuous (still not entirely sure how Talia and J.P. come to do a karaoke duet, but she gives everyone a great show- problem is he doesn't know that's all it is)
- Glow (the 4th track from "Loose" I'd previously omitted but I needed something fresh at that point)
- No Hay Iqual
- Extraordinary Girl- Green Day
at this point, I'm going blank about what I did next, but I know I didn't go back to Nelly Furtado for a while. I started to brainstorm more about Amber and how it made no sense for her to meddle in Talia's relationship with J.P.
all she wants is Alejandro... what puts revenge back on the menu is when she shows him a routine and he thinks she's coming on too strong... the next couple songs were from Gaga's first album "The Fame"...
Money Honey, Starstruck, Poker Face and Love Game... one of the first two, I see her getting into, showing it to him as a brand new routine she'd been working on, and she's put off by the fact he didn't like it.
"I'm just sayin'" comes in right after this incident.
"Paper Gangsta" then comes about as the backdrop for Vanessa having dinner with J.P. as her way of "checking him out" for Talia at her specific request.
"Wait for you," I recently figured to be a good way to convince Talia to fully give into her suspicions because the lyrics sound like words J.P. could have said to her, saying how he'd wait for her forever.
"Say it right" is when she comes by his place and completely gives into him. In other words, more than just the act or a simple lap dance.
I played another track in between... might have been "Just Dance" but I'm not positive... then "Paparazzi" which would be Amber's fantasy number, kinda like a mirror image of "Say it right" because I thought the two songs sounded kinda similar.
The worst part is that I can't help but feel this relationship will be short-lived. One little instance of dissention and Talia ends things... the key is finding sense in the right song.
"All good things come to an end" is her saying goodbye to him... then "whatshername" by Green Day is his version.
Amber has the last laugh with "Told you so"... though I'm not sure if she's the reason the two of them break up.
The songs start to pile on, several just to describe one scene.
Maroon 5 has "Ladykiller" and "Tickets" as words people around Amber are saying about her. Yet while I listen, I picture her being in charge of her own brothel with the UV lighting and such... which is weird because she's totally against having this lifestyle as her first so-called "career" choice.
The important thing to note is her degree of intensity as to how she handles her business.
this progresses to their night... from the "Born this way" album...
Govt hooker, Bad Kids (which Amber hopes to use to convince Alejandro to give her a second chance... but she loses it when Ruby tops it off with "Heavy Metal Lover"... after which she doesn't think Alejandro will give her a second glance. So she throws Emilia under the bus.
what happens happens. Back to "The Fame Monster" for Monster, Bad Romance (which I'd been contemplating whether or not to include) and Alejandro...
the confrontation scene happens, the truth comes out, and the idea comes about for everyone to do a number showcasing their past.
Amber gets "Comin' up strong" by Karmin
Scarlet & Ruby get "two black cadillacs"... Ruby insists on a solo with "Blown Away" where she reveals the extent of her journey through hell...
Vanessa, I played "Bloody Mary" and "Electric Chapel" (heck, the latter could refer to her running away from an arranged marriage, I'm still figuring her out)
Talia gets "Princess of China" by Coldplay & Rihanna (impressing why she hates being called 'princess')
she and J.P. make up with a couple tracks. The most notable is the title track... which has me thinking there'll be a scene early in the story where Vanessa (who's her roommate) hears her crying at night, unhappy about the life she's chosen, but too set in her way to change.
then to add on a positive note, "Hello" by Karmin for a big ol' dance number with the whole cast.
So the project has extended to even more stages:
- Introductions
- Trusting in love
- the relationship
- Falling out of love
- Revenge
- Redemption
- Revelations
so the biggest questions remain:
A) how the hell does Vanessa fit into all this?
B) what are the rest of the dots I need to connect with Amber?
- lots of foreshadowing will be involved, most likely
- her true intentions aren't made known until Alejandro rejects her the first time
-yes, later on, he does get his chance to tell her how he liked the second performance
C) who is responsible for Talia breaking up with J.P.?
***
Maybe it's because I'd seen the pilot episode way too many times... but this time around confirmed how much episode 3 of Fooly Cooly is by far my favorite :-P
All kinds of insanity goes on, as usual, but it doesn't escalate to the nth degree of insanity until the final 3-5 minutes. When the latest Medical Mechanica robot appears and there's a huge battle scene.
I meant to do an entry after each week's installment, but not much new has occurred to me so I didn't bother.
Heck, I didn't really enjoy the pilot as much as I had in the past. Maybe cuz I'd seen my favorite scenes a few too many times.
We're introduced to the main characters.
Haruko runs Naota over with her Vespa and hits him with her bass guitar. The result is a bump jutting from his forehead. She also ends up becoming her family's live-in housekeeper... only in Japanese animé do we have random strangers insinuating themselves into a family without explanation. Reminds a bit of "Sailor Moon" where Rini hypnotized Serena's family into believing she's a cousin just so she can stay there... what an annoying little brat.
I'm still seething over that... obviously.
While Naota attempts to figure out who Haruko is, he also spends the majority of the show with Mamimi, his older brother's girlfriend.
She's flirting with Naota this whole time in an almost perverted sort of way... makes no sense to me and still kinda doesn't. Then she finds out that the brother has an American girlfriend and she has a mental breakdown.
Then a giant robot comes out of Naota's head, Haruko takes it down and it goes from red to blue... also becomes a supporting character named Conti
It bothered me for a while about how the robots came out of the kid's head... makes no sense and even worse, there was ZERO explanation. You just had to take it as fact that it happened. But nobody really talks about the how and why until episode 4 or 5.
Episode 2: "Firestarter" involves Mamimi's relationship with Conti. She calls him that, believing he's a character in her favorite video game.
I still don't get what the point of "Firestarter" is... something about it being the goal to burn down a city to get the blessing of the God, Conti. There's an explanation of the game, but the voiceover is obscured by previous quotes from the show... so it's hard to follow.
There's also the mention of a school that burned down, a fires Mamimi was in and Naota's brother rescued her. She kinda sets up a ritual at the site of the ashes to call on Conti.
Then another robot comes out of Naota's head. Conti actually swallows him to turn red and destroys the enemy robot.
Naota is then "discarded" in a pretty gross way... I guess the right word might be "deprecated"...
There aren't many moments like that in the series, but I wasn't crazy about it for that reason.
Wikipedia states that Mamimi burned down the school herself because she hated it there... it's also hinted that she's bullied at school, which would explain why Naota usually sees her playing hokey.
Mainly cuz I don't pronounce, I call "Marquis de Carabas" either episode 3 or the one where Naota wears a hat to hide car ears that grew out of his head.
The focus is more on his friend, Ninamori, whose father is the mayor of the town. He's having an affair with his secretary, which is causing friction in her house. She handles it very nonchalantly, but you learn that down deep, it does bother her.
The school is doing a play where she has the lead role and Naota has been cast as "puss in boots"... very apropos, given his latest predicament.
Funny enough, Mamimi only makes one appearance in this show. She and Naota are hanging out by the river with her new cat, Ta-kun (she actually adopted him the previous show, but I forgot to bring it up, lol).
This episode probably has the best story of the whole series and it's also the funniest. I think. If you're into the messed-up sort of funny.
I mean, most of the series looks like it came from the head of someone high on drugs. This one, there are a bunch of moments that tickle my funnybone because I see them as really messed up. Heck, you feel like you're tripping on acid while you're watching it.
Little moments are made all the more hilarious cuz of it. And I'm also remembering how much people in my animé club laughed at certain moments where things looked out of place.
One of those moments is where they're in Naota's house and there's this dog... it's just sitting there in the background while dialogue going on, but it just looks so messed up.
They also spotted towards the beginning that Ninamori was a secret communist cuz she was wearing a red sweatshirt that said "USSR" on it.
Hilarity really ensues when Naota sees her after school and she finds out about his cat ears. Haruko tells her not to touch them... for whatever reason. It makes her sick to her stomach, which really doesn't get explained. It just is.
Great dialogue too.
"Don't touch it! A young girl like you shouldn't touch it with your bare hands!... yeah, I think it's an ear... cat, I think... kitty, kitty, meow."
then after she touches them and doubles over
"I told you not to touch it... is that my fault?"
Haruko says all this using a megaphone... that she randomly has with her.
Naota ends up inviting Ninamori to stay with him and his family. They have some hot curry, so hot that it looks like it kills Naota's granpa... he breathes "water" and suddenly collapses into the bowl, but he's okay.
They're talking about the scene at Ninamori's house, but she dismisses each comment with the same quote: "I don't think it's any big deal"... either that or the animators got lazy, lol
Another weirded out moment from earlier is where they're in class, Naota's friends are looking at a red magazine, which I thought was maybe a tabloid thing about Ninamori's family. But the scale of her freak-out (the series of whacked out facial expressions) has me thinking maybe it's pornographic in nature.
Meanwhile back at the house, Ninamori is staying in Naota's room. He finds out she has glasses and she asks about his cat ears. While Haruko listens in and adds her two cents.
tee-hee, always entertaining.
It's also revealed that Ninamori rigged the vote to play the lead and for Naota to be the cat. Apparently she has a bit of a crush on him.
Naota had more or less boycotted the play until this point... where he walks up and finds himself in rehearsal and everyone in costume. The secrets come spilling out, and for a MAJOR twist, the ears transfer to Ninamori's head and a gigantic robot erupts out of it...
all kinds of craziness goes on, as usual. mostly from Naota's classmates freaking out. The teacher flipping out until she gets run over by the Vespa. ("It's a hit & run!") and when the robot is destroyed by Haruko, Naota and Conti, it falls on her car ("She's still paying off the loan")...
Ninamori is released from it (before it's destroyed obviously) in a way that could be interpreted as gross... this robot must have been female...
the episode ends with them doing the play and Ninamori is wearing glasses on stage
the plot progresses in episode 4, "Full Swing" where we're introduced to more characters and hopefully more is explained.
A couple years after I finished "Jonas," I had an idea for a potential sequel.
The main plot involved him trying to find his twin sister, whom he just found out he had through reoccurring dreams/nightmares.
It took place maybe 1-2 years after the original story. I think Jonas and Nina were juniors in high school, whereas they were freshmen in the original work.
At first, it was about following up with these characters, seeing where they'd gotten since the previous story.
The only huge change was that Jonas was a little more open and involved in school,
...and I ended up giving Eric a new personality, making him a better person than he was in the previous story.
Ultimately, he became the boyfriend of Cecelia, a girl Jonas met in his community service at a homeless shelter... who he later finds out to be his twin sister.
My logic in the story isn't exactly tight. Neither is the writing for that matter :-P
Long story short, it got to a point where I needed something else to return momentum to my story.
Based it was a huge thing to me at that given time, I thought of incorporating "The Phantom of the Opera"...
It just seemed poetically fitting that Jonas would play the title character in the show. Despite the lengths he'd come in participating with his peers, he didn't want the extra attention that came with his notably remarkable singing voice (like Josh Groban-quality)...
trying out for the musical was his guardian's idea, encouraging him to show his friends his special talent...
sure, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense... doing this while keeping his identity a secret...
although the trick is getting the confidence to show it off so he'll be more at ease with revealing said identity.
...considering how things turned out, I don't know how Jonas would have gone about it if it didn't go the way it did.
In other words, everyone found out accidentally during the second night of the show.
I'm going into this entry after covering the 2004 film adaptation in my movie blog:
http://moviegoerconfessions.blogspot.com/2013/11/53-phantom-of-opera-2004.html
I figured I'd go into the details here about how I covered it in one of my stories.
Obviously, because I was so in love with the movie, the musical followed some of the same routes. But I added my bit of poetic license at the end, which I think might have been the original ending in the novel... that the Phantom died of a broken heart when he sent Christine and Raoul away.
Hmm... I wonder how this would have panned out in other circumstances.... if the musical took place in the original story, that Nina played Christine and Jonas was the Phantom, and they hadn't officially met yet...
That'd be an interesting side-project... and somehow I get the feeling Jonas's extraordinary circumstances might not have a place... all of the stuff that eventually unfolds might make things a little too convoluted... perhaps one day I'll take this even further and see what works in the story and what doesn't.
Things probably would end up a lot differently... or at least play out differently.
They might have gotten to know each other a tiny bit throughout this time, but when he's unmasked, she'll make a comment like "I think I always knew"...
didn't Princess Leia say that in "Return of the Jedi?" lol
A million possibilities.
As for the version I wrote, the cast was as follows:
The Phantom (EVERY night)- Jonas
Christine- (3 nights) Cecelia, (2 nights) Erin (a girlfriend of a member of Corey & Eric's band)
Raoul- (3 nights) Eric, (2 nights) Corey
Meg- (3 nights) Nina, (2 nights) Raquel (a new character I introduced in that story with whom Jonas developed a good relationship with)
Carlotta- Mai (gave no mention to who had the other nights)
lol...
because I'm so totally lame, I sought to it that all of my main characters got parts in the show.
Jonas went through great lengths to stay in character the entire time, even "made" the costume himself...
technically, he misused his "ancient' form... he ages and his clothes change... a pseudo-tuxedo and a cape... I'm not entirely sure what age Jonaseriah would be if he were human... I'd imagine he'd be in his 20's or 30's...
He encouraged the other cast members to be the best they could be, gave them pointers, but maintained a façade as if he really was the Opera Ghost.
He also went out of his way to make sure Cecelia was comfortable in her big role as Christine. Unfortunately, she misconstrued that as him having feelings for her.
The quality of writing, admittedly, isn't great, but all of my storylines did fit together...
either way, I'm not ready for anyone to see it unless I make some vast improvements.
I don't have all of the detail necessarily worked out for the story I plan on gearing for future publication.
BUT...
I have made enough progress in the character sketches and the previous storylines that I want to take inventory with this next entry.
Between my two notebooks dedicated to the Rasumusen twins (Scarlet & Ruby) and Amber, I probably only have enough material for 10 typed pages :-P
That being said, I've established several key points.
Scarlet and Ruby's backstory is pretty clear. Scarlet more than Ruby, who I likely will only develop a couple more pages for before she stages her own escape from their Hell.
One where she finds the reason to "stage" the escape, and the escape itself.
If I were to get really adventurous, I could do a couple chapters of her working at strip clubs pole-dancing before reuniting with her sister.
Said reunion likely isn't too far away either.
I haven't gotten a handle on what accent I want her to have, but I've officially introduced Talia into my world.
She came to the restaurant afterhours to discuss her business proposition with the Montiels (whenever any of the girls refer to them in their narration, they call them "the brothers").
It might be something I tweak later on, but when she met Scarlet, she ended up telling her what happened. That her stepfather embezzled the money in her family's savings account and how she couldn't believe she didn't see him for who he was. Even went as far to say that he told her she was the only person he'd sleep with.
She thinks its crazy and unconventional, but Scarlet ends up telling her all about herself.
This degree of openness is what starts to put a wedge between Scarlet and Amber (still Carmen at this point).
Scarlet and Talia find themselves to be kindred spirits, bonding over the fact they want to overcome difficulties they've experienced in their pasts. And talking about it will help them heal and move forward.
Carmen, on the other hand, has refused to come forth with what happened in her past. Her method of copying is avoidance and pretending none of it happened, therefore denying it in the first place. Scarlet is the kind of person who needs to heal by talking about it.
..I'm still kinda worried that Talia's backstory won't be convincing/believable enough :(
It wasn't as if she was forced to do anything against her will and physically harmed...
it might come to the point that I really won't allude to it in my main body of work.
What will be clear is that Talia doesn't trust men enough to allow herself to fall in love... even though that's something she desperately craves. And everyone else around her believes she's not allowing herself to experience love, afraid to break out of this pattern she has herself in... believing deep down, she's unhappy with her life.
Meanwhile, Carmen's 17th birthday is drawing near and she wants to take that opportunity to tell Alejandro how she feels about him as well as introduce the idea of dancing to bring extra business to the restaurant (which is getting closer to being a bar with this change-over/renovation).
I also added her making a comment about her window of opportunity closing and freaking about the possibility of someone "swooping in at the last minute" to steal him away... I might do away with that sentence because the fact it's exactly what happens... that's a little too coincidental to be believable.
It's also mildly pushing it that, up until this point, she'd been sick in bed... explaining how this is the first time she'd seen Talia.
I haven't explained why/how that was Alejandro's first experience with Talia... what's his damn excuse? :-P
Vanessa's also there, but I haven't made any steps to explain her backstory. Still kinda figuring how I want to play that. All I have done so far, for sure, is "she's strapped for cash" so Talia wanted to give her a hand.
Scarlet meets with Carmen, who's visibly upset... with the dialogue, I wanted to get across that Carmen's upset they "stole" her idea to dance for their business... not that she's upset that he's more interested in Talia than her. Because he told her that he'd take her out after she got over her illness... if it'd been 2-3 weeks, it has to be something like mono (don't know who she would have kissed and gotten it from) or pneumonia.
Her thoughts on the dancing were pretty judgmental. Quoting Nelly Furtado's "Maneater" (which is the song that they did the number to), "she was moving her body around like a nympho"... that's how she put it to Scarlet. In the narration, she called her a "slut" and "bitch"... one quote was pretty relentless, went kinda far so I scratched some of it out...
"at least when I dance, I don't make a spectacular of myself like a piece of ass primed for fucking"...
I'm not usually one for cursing, but that's not why I took that back... it seemed a little too harsh and would push her friendship with Scarlet onto the rocks faster than I would like
I'm not exactly sure how the two manners of dance are any different... maybe it's because Talia has zero inhibitions when she dances, so that comes off to Carmen as slutty... maybe it reminds her a little much of stuff in her own past.
She also isn't jazzed about the idea of them moving like that because it would have men believe they're only there for titillation... her experiences have her believe in that fashion.
I also left Talia talking to Alejandro, her starting to smile, leaving Carmen feeling all the more threatened.
Even after where I ended the my last page of the write-up, I realized that I might have jumped the gun a little bit.
Talia only just found out the truth about her stepfather a short time ago, so jumping right into a date with Alejandro would be too soon.
The following are the scenes I have left to write before the story can officially begin (not necessarily in this order):
- "Showtime"- Talia getting ready to meet Alejandro for their date, only to find him messing around with another girl (my latest idea is that this is an anecdote Scarlet tells Emilia to explain why Talia and Alejandro aren't together)
- Ruby (1)- a scene where she realizes she needs to put an end to her father's terror
- "Blown Away"- Ruby calling the cops and staging her father's death with her getting away on self-defense
- (montage)- Talia finding girls who dance who can contribute to their escort service and them quitting after Carmen (now Amber) pulling the strings
- (possibly)- a few chapters of Ruby working as a pole-dancer and stripper before the reunion
- "Love Game"- Carmen plans to come to an audition, but the entry before her is Ruby... who clearly steals the show
- "Just Dance"- Carmen's defunct audition... Alejandro suggests she come back, but realizing she's out of her league, she has to change her name and come back under her new persona "Amber"
So, really, I don't have much left to cover in the prequel portion of this project.
I have lots of space left in my composition notebooks, but they could be used for further characterization studies as well as choreography notes :shrug: I'm sure I'll find plenty of use for them.
Other aliases of this animé series include: FLCL and Furi Kuri.
Seeing as I spend a good deal of time on this blog discussing Japanimation or just plain animé, this is a good place for me to go into this series.
OMG, where to begin?
I decided to dedicate an entry to this series because it's making its annual (or bi-annual) return to Adult Swim.
I cannot remember the last time I saw it, but it has been a while. Possibly a year, possibly two years. I don't believe I saw the entire series the last time it aired. More often than not, I always manage to catch episodes one and four, sometimes five and sometimes six. Sometimes three, but last time, I probably missed it.
Episode 2, "Firestarter" is often the one I miss out on, with "Brittle Bullet" (episode 5) close behind.
What is it, exactly?
It's a six episode animé series, I believe, from the early 2000's.
When we premiered it at my animé club, it went down as the most nonsensical thing I'd seen so far at that place.
And for the record, my threshold of insanity is pretty substantial, so for me to bug out as much as I did over episode one "Fooly Cooly". I came back to my dorm with such a headache.
As far as the nonsensical factor of what we watched at the club, the only things crazier than Fooly Cooly were the series, Abenobashi (where I believe the main character transformed into machines), "Gantz" (we got thru two episodes before everyone else launched a protest...) and this movie "Ninja Scroll" (it had graphic nudity and a couple rape scenes, but what turned the most people off was a scene where snakes came from between a woman's legs)...
That isn't to say that Fooly Cooly handles its content "tastefully" by comparison... episode three has a sex scene, but it's brief and you hear more than you see... or should I say the main character sees very little of it because the door was only open a crack.
In general, though, the gross-out factor throughout the series is minimal compared to the others above.
As to what the series is about, Wikipedia has an AMAZING synopsis that hits on all the key points as well as how the grand scheme of things can be interpreted. (One of those things being that it's a "coming-of-age" story).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fooly_Cooly
But in my own way, I'll attempt to explain it.
First of all,
They really don't explain ANYTHING about the series until episode five and six. Even then, you kinda have to put the pieces together on your own and keep an open mind.
Beforehand, my advice is just to take everything you see as it is because it isn't meant to make perfect sense :-P
The series stars a boy named Naota. He likes to think he's mature for his age (his biggest turn-off is adults who don't know how to act their age), but details like the fact he hates sour drinks let you know he's still very much a kid.
I had to double-check his age... he's 12 (my choices were either 8 or 10, lol).
After school, he likes to hang out with Mamimi, a high school girl who is dating Naota's older brother. He's away in America playing baseball, but during this time, she calls Naota "Ta-kun," the nickname she has for his brother... seemingly unable to differentiate between the two.
When they're hanging out one day, a 19-year old girl runs Naota over with her Vespa and hits him in the head with her bass guitar. After this quick exchange, she runs off...
all of these actions seem rather random and come out of nowhere.
Naota comes away from it with a bump on the forehead. When he turns home, he finds out that this girl, Haruko is their new housekeeper.
The main plot in each show is all kinds of insanity ensues in Naota's otherwise ordinary life... he has something jutting from his head and when it comes out, it's an alien or robot that needs to be destroyed. Sometimes Haruko smashes it with her bass guitar. Or Naota gets swallowed up by Kanti (the robot that came from his head and he defeated in episode one) and this merge gives Kanti the power to defeat the enemy.
That's the short, concise version :-P
Any attempt for me to go behind will result in my head exploding...
Aside from the scene where Kanti emerges from Naota's forehead (the first of SEVERAL WTF movements this series is known for)...
what kinda turned me off at first was the degree of language in this series. I was only a college freshman at this point and it's not as if they were dropped f-bombs left and right. It irked me that Naota's father was talking to him about whether or not he's messing around with Mamimi... who talks to their kid like that, he's not at the appropriate age to discuss sex... and he was being very perverted about it.
I don't know when I turned a corner, but the next time I saw the series, I could not get enough of it. In fact, I believe we stayed out all night watching the entire series... the meetings start at 8pm and usually end at 10.
I guess you could say it represents that old part of me that used to stay up late watching Adult Swim at college, sleeping in until noon on Sundays...
Once I made sense of it for myself, I don't know, I love the insanity it. There are too many hilarious quotes to go into, but the funniest episodes are the first and third one. The third is also my second favorite of the series because cat ears are coming out of Naota's head... somewhat appropriate considering he was cast in the play as Puss in Boots. The storyline also involves a possible relationship between him and the "Noveau Rich Princess" in his class, Ninamori. She's the most popular girl in his class, but for whatever reason, she has a crush on him and actually rigged the votes so he would be cast as Puss in Boots with her as his "master"
I may or may not come back with an entry a week after getting back to the series...
I'll have to see if I can even stay up late to watch it at 2:30am :-P I haven't stayed up that late to watch animé in years.
Then again, I remember there being two distinct occasions where I stayed up to watch some InuYasha feature films... those were the days 8-)
It's been a while since my last entry about this project.
When I last stopped, I:
- resolved Scarlet's first major storyline... getting away from her abusive father (thanks to her twin sister Ruby's efforts)... and putting that part of her life behind her with encouragement from Carmen.
- Carmen has been settling in at Casa Del Montiel with her new friends/roommates Misha and Michel. She aspires to be with Alejandro, but isn't ready to divulge to him her true feelings.
- Ruby, meanwhile, takes the brunt of her father's abuse. And someday she will make her own getaway, but not before getting her revenge.
The next logical step is to introduce Talia.
The question is how.
I've played around with a few ideas for the past couples hours.
One of them is that there will be individual reactions. Rumors will float around within the "camp" about Talia. Scarlet will be the first one to actually meet her. Alejandro will see her for the first time when she's performing "Maneater" in a rehearsal. Scarlet and Vanessa will be her back-up. Then Carmen will walk in during this performance, looking for Alejandro (who didn't show up for what would be their first date) and will be devastated when she sees how much he's paying attention to Talia and not her.
Another idea is that Talia and Vanessa will come in together as a package deal.
Vanessa just might be the only example of prostitution in the way most people think of it... girls who are under contract, sometimes kept on a tight leash because they're hooked on drugs...
I'm trying to figure out how much I want to push it, but either way, Talia saves Vanessa from the streets and finds a more suitable venue for her. It's also possible that Talia's stepfather was the person behind Vanessa walking the streets, but again, it makes it less plausible for Talia to think of starting an escort service because this would turn her off to the idea entirely.
How Talia saves Vanessa from the streets is the big question here.
Scarlet develops an amazing report with Vanessa and Talia right away, as if they were sisters that'd been separated their whole lives.
I haven't decided how heavy Talia's exotic accent is yet. But her image is becoming clearer.
She has rich brown hair. It's short, but not nearly as short as Scarlet & Ruby.
Her entire body is in proportion with none of her features being especially pronounced, with the exception of her height, which is around 5'9" (same as Stana Katic, who plays Kate Beckett on "Castle" and is one of my inspirational sources... ironically, Portuguese is not among the accents she can do :-P but that's okay)
The quality isn't very good, but I imagine something like this:
Roughly that length and possibly that color, but I'm not positive what specific shade of brown that is.
The biggest selling point about Talia is her charisma. Something about her makes all those around her fall in love with her... at least that's how it is when she first arrives.
*Years pass and she becomes less sure of herself as things become more routine for her. *Emilia's arrival reenergizes her, seeing as it's the first audition she'd personally sat at since Ruby.
*Two years pass. J.P. arrives and for all those around her (except for Amber and Alejandro, who have their own agendas), they see how this changes things for her. How JP presents to her something she'd been secretly wanting in her life for years and the way she carries herself changes dramatically. The tiniest cracks start to appear in her tough persona and as much as she tries to hide that, they're visible to those who know her best.
"Te Busque" officially begins around the time JP arrives. There are a few introductory scenes featuring the girls and Alejandro (as well as his complicated relationship with Talia).
One final note:
Just as Talia doesn't know the full extent of Amber's past until the 3rd act of "Te Busque," Amber knows very little about Talia's past... namely because she was too busy stewing about Alejandro to take the time to get to know her the way Scarlet and Vanessa have.
For now, I'll end things here.
I first started writing thanks to fan-fiction. It's always interesting to look at the scope of things... how far I'd come in my writing since then.
Heck, even my fan-fiction has changed.
I originally started on it so I can insert myself into worlds that already existed in their own right.
Namely, I loved a particular character, rumors were flying around that another character I could not stand was in love with him... so I interceded so I could have him all to myself.
Granted, it wasn't thought-out extremely well. But I lived in the fantasy that I could control my own destiny.... plus my own world wasn't particularly exciting or inviting.
Then I made friends and had trouble leaving it behind :-P
wrote that fan-fiction series for a long time... I think I stopped when I got to college and inspiration brought me elsewhere.
Given how much the series has changed since then, I'm not sure if my feelings for him are still there... but even though I've matured in most respects, I refuse to let go of my hatred of that other character...
some things never change.
Then my fan-fiction was about my favorite band. Either together or separately, I painted myself into their lives and ended up with one of them.
I'm not positive on this, but I heard years later that what I was writing wasn't technically fan-fiction... not that it stopped me.
InuYasha became another source of inspiration... only this time, as much as I liked the title character, my character's goal wasn't to be with him in a romantic sense and it certainly wasn't to meddle with him and his relationship with Kagome.
Most recently, it was all about Robert Downey Jr... although technically, I wrote about characters he played.
Julian and his "Ally McBeal" character, Larry Paul... the latter, I wrote about using another name, but he was the inspiration. Either way, I wrote about him to give myself some peace of my mind. Bouncing worries I had about myself and my life off him and he'd be there to tell me everything was going to be okay.
...
The past two nights, I've had really vivid dreams, the most vivid I'd had in quite a while.
Last night, I distinctly saw Leonard, Penny, Bernadette and (I'm assuming) Priya... and I was there too, rather than just watching the show through the TV.
Last year was when I really got into "The Big Bang Theory," checked it out in syndication to see what all the hype was about... it was exactly my kind of show. Between the great original characters and the pop culture references, particularly comic books and sci-fi series.
Leonard is my favorite character because as a guy, he would have been my type. Earlier in the series, before he and Penny got together, he felt he could never get a girl interested in him, especially not one as pretty as Penny. Personally, I think he's perfect as he is. Heck, I don't even get why Sheldon and the others joke about him being short.... he and I would be the same freaking height!
:sigh: anyway, in the dream, I believe I saw why he and Priya broke up... although I don't really remember what happened in the dream. I don't think that's how it happened in the show. They broke up because she had to go back to India and the long distance relationship just fell apart.
So after they break up, I'm thinking that he's up for grabs, but he's still in love with Penny. I ask around, trying to get Bernadette alone to ask her advice, but she ends up leaving and I get in a conversation with another girl. I don't know if she's even a character on the series...
I ask aloud hypothetically if he'd be interested in a girl as nerdy as him who likes things like "Lord of the Rings"... I don't know if he caught the hint, that I was talking about myself.
When I woke up, I thought about it and decided that it'd be better not to pursue it. He and Penny are a cute couple. Even if she doesn't completely get him and his interests, occasionally asserting her dominance over him, I don't wanna mess with that. Their relationship is part of what makes the show so good... the other characters make up the other part. ;)
The only downside to the whole thing is that Johnny Galecki isn't visually impaired in real life :-P I only have that degree of attraction to him when he's wearing glasses. It's part of that whole look that makes Leonard who he is. It also kinda sucks how he's let his hair grow out in recent seasons... not quite as attractive with longer looks...
geesh, that makes me sound so superficial.
Come to think of it, I did see Sheldon somewhere in the dream, but I think it was one scene where I dropped that hint and he was totally oblivious to what I was implying.
...
Bleach started a new season last night... it's interesting cuz the past several seasons, I've seen them as separate story arcs taking us away from the main plot of the series... now that Aizen has been dealt with, it's going to be about something else...
from what I gather, the new villain is a random dude in the department of Research & Development that I've never seen before (funny how it's always the characters we're being introduced to for the first time)...
There's an issue with the pathway between the Soul Society to the World of the Living... two of the lieutentants went through and disappeared for a couple days before returning. Several of the captains and lieuetants have looked into the pathway to see what the problem is.
Then Rukia and Ichigo are summoned to the Soul Society... and after arriving, he gets arrested... with only the credits to go back, my theory is that the soul reapers going through the pathway are either being replaced by doppelgangers or they're possessed by some evil force... Considering one of the stills shows Byakuya looked at a copy of himself, I'm going with my first theory.
And if my math is right, it looks like a year from now, maybe a little before... I'll see the end of the series :( as much as I've wanted it to end (particularly the main plot with Aizen as the villain)... I'm going to really miss it and it's gone. Assuming that they'll stop showing the series, I won't have a reason to keep watching Adult Swim... that's something I've been doing since 2005... so yeah, I'm goinna miss that A LOT.
Yesterday, we were going into Home Depot and they already had pumpkins out front.
I was thinking about how I had no idea what I wanted to carve into my jack-o-lantern this year.
A couple hours later, not only was I starting into an idea, but started brainstorming about a potential short story with all kinds of Halloween-themed imagery.
I drafted a list of key words last year with the intention of writing this story.
Only now I have a protagonist.
In some way, my pumpkin is gonna have the image of a witch (possibly "witches") brewing a potion in a cauldron... perhaps with the silhouette of a cap on the edge of said cauldron.
I'm not the best artist in the world unless they happen to be animé characters.
But I'd love to have the chance to carve a pumpkin from my own sketch.
...
Some ideas I have so far.
The witch is brewing something in her cauldron that'll be important later in the story.
In the long run, I'm thinking it has to do with a vampire bat. That maybe a friend of hers or her vampire boyfriend was turned into a bat by a jealous warlock.
When I think Halloween, I think about bats. Cats are familiars to witches... now I'm thinking about "Kiki's Delivery Service", how her best friend was a black cat named Gigi, voiced by Phil Hartman in his final movie appearance.
Should probably add that to my list of Halloween movies alongside:
Young Frankenstein
Sweeny Todd
Sleepy Hollow
Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video
I kinda came to realize the other week that because of Halloween, October is a month that belongs to Tim Burton and Johnny Depp... but Captain Jack Sparrow is good for any time of the year (although a pirate was what I did on my pumpkin last year).
I really ought to take to my movie blog to go into that kind of stuff :-P
http://moviegoerconfessions.blogspot.com
...
Black & Orange are the official colors of Halloween, so there should be plenty of that.
There has to be at least a black and she has a vampire bat as a frequent visitor.
A couple of birds I associate with witchcraft and this time of year are owls and crows. I saw a couple of washcloths in Target featuring ravens and "Nevermore"... I ought to reread The Raven within the next month.
Autumn leaves go without saying. Imagery with the phases of the moon might be cool and perhaps integral to the storyline.
All of the typical "horror movie monsters" come to mind. A lot of them are featured in the Mortal Instruments series (I'm not quite halfway through "City of Ashes" right now). Vampires, Werewolves, Warlocks and Fairies.
Not sure if I have room for a werewolf in addition to a witch, vampire bat and [potentially] a warlock, but I'll see what happens.
