Reading Update

The Red Badge of Courage, by Crane

I think this is the most musing book I've ever read. Most of it happened in the protagonist's head. And most of it was lengthy discourses with himself about the nature of bravery. I think I'd need to read it again to get a better opinion.

 

Shaper, by Haas

This one was fascinating. It's the story of a boy who blames his family for the death of his dog. The new neighbors that move in are animal trainers. The good kind, who really know their stuff. I was impressed with how well the book worked that into the story, and it was a good story too.

Black Horses for the King, by McCaffrey

A different sort of King Arthur story. Because no one thinks about needing special horses to carry knights in their heavy, shining armor.

The Bald Eagle, by Davis

An amazing history of the US's national bird. 

 

The Last Monster, by Garrett

A story of a girl who becomes the guardian of the world's monsters. She has a sad history, but learns to be a good guardian. 

Trail to Heaven, by Ridington

The author spent a long time with the Dunne-za people (from an area known today as Canada). This book does a great job teaching about their culture, and special people like the Dreamers.

 

Ishi: Last of his Tribe, by Kroeber

The story of the last Yahi man, after the rest of his people were wiped out. Some of them managed to live in hiding for a while, but when Ishi was the last, he came down out of the mountains and ended up as more or less a living museum exhibit. I've heard some mixed things about how he was really treated by the museum. It was a good book though.

 

My Neighbor Totoro, by Kubo

I was amazed to discover that there was a novelization of the movie. Apparently it was only translated into English somewhat recently. Some of the book was quite different than the movie. Even the finale of finding Mei. It was cool to have some more pieces to the story. Like I never considered that the guy that helps them move in at the beginning is the uncle! And the girls go back to visit their family for a little while.

The Return of the Wolf, by Grooms

A great book about the history of wolves in the US. 

 

The Odyssey, by Homer

I read (at least most of) this book in school. But it was so long ago that I only remembered bits and pieces. I completely forgot that the actual journey is a small section of the book. Odysseus is telling people what happened to him during the ten years he was lost at sea. Much more of the book is about getting revenge on the suitors.

 

In Europe, I bought a bunch of books about the sites I visited. When I got home, I had plenty of time to read up on the locations and art I'd seen. I'll lump all of these together. And all of them are about as bland as you can get. It's like the authors were trying to take all of the excitement out of some amazing places and history. For example, for the museum books they'll have little blurbs about some of the artwork. And it will say the year it was made, who made it, what's it's made of, and the fact that it has an amazing use of light or color, etc. But it doesn't give the art any life. 

Exposition Overload

A little while ago, I had a random thought about Evva's story. Near the beginning, she and her teacher help solve a problem in a town that they're passing through. At one point, I wondered what would happen if someone from the town made a mistake, and the problem resurfaced. So I've been writing a short story about that. I've nearly finished.

It's more sad than I expected, but it has a nice ending. 

As usual, I don't often know much of what will happen when I start a story. I know I have to redo the whole beginning. And two pages in, there is suddenly an entire page of exposition. That will need to be streamlined and mixed in, of course. But that page of exposition really helped me figure out what I was actually doing XD

 

Red ruffed lemur

Marvel Assembled

I've been finally catching up on the Marvel (MCU) films. I'm mostly there. But I stumbled across a show that explains how some of the movies are made. It's called Assembled. It looks like there are more episodes that I haven't found yet, so I'll need to track them down. But for now, here are some highlights. 

Watch me be annoying, and refer to actors by their character names instead of their real names.

I liked Eternals, but after watching the Assembled episode about it, I like it even more. My favorite part was Phastos telling the story of how he got his suit. He wasn't impressed when he saw the finished product. But he tried it on, and then looked at himself in the mirror. That was all it took to trigger the excitement of, "look at me! I'm a superhero!" 

Man, I hope he got to keep the suit. 

 

Then shortly after, I stumbled across an interview of an actor who appears in both Marvel and Star Wars. In Star Wars, you would know him as Master Windu. He had wanted to be in a Star Wars movie, so for Episode 1 they brought him in and gave him a costume. As he's putting it on, he starts to realize, "I'm a freaking Jedi!" And they let him pick out a lightsaber, and he was so excited. 

Then he said that just because Master Windu was blasted out of a window doesn't mean that he died (After all, Luke fell down a shaft). But even better, he said that his character in Jurassic Park wasn't dead either. Just because a velociraptor took off his arm doesn't mean that it got the rest of him. He says that his character is still out there in Jurassic Park, taming the velociraptors. Hell yeah, I want to see that. 

 

In Thor Love and Thunder, it turns out that the director also plays the big, tall rock guy. While he's acting, he has motion capture dots all over his face to capture speech and expressions. But there's also a mask hanging from a pole above his head, so that the actors know where the characters face would be. This meant that he would have to switch back and forth between acting and directing, and his directing was done with strange stuff all over his face. 

They got kids to draw things that frightened them. And then they turned those drawings into monsters for the movie. What a great idea.

In Dr. Strange, I find it far too fun that two of the main actors are named Benedict. What are the odds?

In the scene where Dr. Strange goes to visit Wanda, they were supposed to be in an apple orchard. But a late frost delayed the blooming of the trees. So they wired flowers onto the trees. Holy crud, that's dedication right there. 

There's also a person on set who's the "magic choreographer." What an awesome job title. I want a magic choreographer. 

 

I knew ahead of time that Guardians of the Galaxy 3 would be rough to watch. I'd accidentally watched a Youtube video (Cinema Therapy) with major spoilers about Rocket's past. That was probably a good thing, because I was prepared going in (I was not prepared with Isle of Dogs). But being prepared didn't stop me from crying a lot. And that poor, nice bat family. I guess they got wiped out too. They made tons of masks for all the animal people. Very impressive. But the poor animal people TT^TT

I stumbled across a newer Marvel movie called Werewolf by Night. I don't think I would have even noticed it, except that the main character is played by none other than Hector Rivera (my favorite character ever). So I watched that and had some good laughs. One of the characters is named Elsa. And at one point, she lets the monster escape, pretending as though it was an accident. One of the other characters shouts, "Elsa, you let it go!" 

I started laughing and going, "oh no! They went there!" Because of course every time someone hears the name Elsa now, they think of "Let it Go." 

I didn't realize at first that Werewolf by Night was directed by Michael Giacchino. Yes, the composer for my favorite movie, and many others. There was also a great documentary about him making Werewolf by Night. It talked about all the movies he made as a kid. So cool that he finally got to direct an actual movie.

I love how the MCU films all link together. Though the multiverse thing kinda annoys me. Don't they already have a whole universe to work with? (yeah yeah, I know I'm a hypocrite. I always throw Fern around the multiverse, but don't like when anyone else does it). 

 

Now switching to some pre-MCU Marvel films. 

As I was watching the bonus stuff for Spiderman 2, Stan Lee (one of the main Marvel comic writers) said that he really wanted to play the nasty newspaper owner. He really loved the character. But then he admitted that the actor that played him was better. I thought it was hilarious that the news guy is who Stan Lee wanted to play.

Spiderman saves Aunt May in this movie. They were going to have a stunt double swing around in the harness with Spiderman. But she wanted to do it herself. So there she was, 80 years old, swinging around and having a blast. You go, lady! (Also, I love that she got a good hit on Doc. Poor MJ doesn't even get that. I wish MJ weren't such a damsel in distress all the time). 

Doc's mechanical arms apparently weigh 100 pounds. Jeez, and I thought Gimli's 70 pounds of armor was impressive. I wonder if the puppet strings took any of that weight off his back. I love watching the puppeteers move the tentacles though. They're like some combination of snakes and velociraptors.

Marvel makes a lot of use of CG. It can be so amazing when it's used to build alien worlds. I tend to like things that are made for real, but that doesn't mean I don't fall in love with some CG stuff. Marvel does both CG and real. As I've said, Doc's tentacles are real in much of Spiderman 2. But in Spiderman No Way Home, I think they're all CG. Wait, that's a bad example... Spiderman 2 is an older movie before effects had developed so far. 

I'd love to make a pair of wings that move similar to the tentacles. I know it's not feasible, but it's cool to think of. I already have plans to make wings.

I also ran across an interview of the actor that does Nightcrawler in X-Men 2. I love Nightcrawler, and I was sad that he didn't come back in X-Men 3. It took hours to get his makeup done, and he said it was too miserable for him to want to do it again. Which I get. But it looks sooo good! XD 

He also played Floop in Spy Kids. He said he got to keep the strange couch, and he still has it. Yeah!

Ok, The Sorcerer's Apprentice isn't a Marvel movie, but too bad. Dave's actor says he falls over all the time, so he might as well get paid for it. And indeed, there was plenty of footage of him getting electrocuted and then falling over (his teacher is kinda of a jerk). 

Yeah, this movie could do better with pacing and exposition. And the villains could have more depth (though the stage magician guy is definitely entertaining). But I still love The Sorcerer's Apprentice. I always love a good nerd character. In fact, I think his role as Hiccup helped make nerds cool (they weren't cool when I was a kid. Where were you in my youth, Hiccup?) 

I love that they used so many real effects in the movie. Like multi-colored flames. One of the effects people said, "We had Alfred come in early so we could set his finger on fire." And indeed, they coated his fingers on something, which I guess meant they could safely light his hand on fire. He's watching his flaming hand with great interest (I've actually done something a little like that, though not quite as cool looking. But my palm was on fire, and I didn't get burnt). 

And there were plenty of people swinging around in harnesses for this movie too. Like the bad guy shooting up to the ceiling, and hanging there grinning. I imagine it's like a roller coaster ride. They go fast in those harnesses! I want to try.

Everyone is Secretly a Prince or Princess

I've probably said this many times, but I'm bad at trying to explain my stories. Last week, someone asked me what I was working on, and I did my best to explain Arith's story in a way they might find interesting. She said it was the best story idea I'd had. She was trying to be helpful, but I'm not sure how to take that since I gave her a rather poor explanation. Did she think the others were really that bad?

When I saw her this week, she said, "I thought how you could fix the ending of your story!"  I wasn't sure why she thought it was bad - I had said that it wasn't really the ending, but that it lead into more stories.

She continued, "Arith should be a prince that was secretly switched at birth. Then he could get married to the princess." 

 

I just started laughing. It was such a cliché idea, and so against everything I want my story to be about. Arith doesn't have to be a secret prince to be important. In fact, making him royalty would take away the power that he has. And whether or not he's a prince, he wouldn't get married to the princess. He may have started with a crush on her, but they end up as very good friends (even best friends after this story).

I guess my laughter didn't deter her. Because she continued explaining her idea for how the babies could have been switched, like how the nursemaid stepped outside for a moment, giving someone else the opportunity to swap them. 

Even after I explained that I know all of the members of the royal families because they all appear in other stories, she was still convinced of her idea. I kinda feel bad for how much I hate the idea, because she was so excited about it.

Making Middle-Earth

I've been watching more bonus features from my movies. I had already watched them for Lord of the Rings, but that was probably over 10 years ago. I thought I might as well watch them again. And I'm glad I did. I'm much more fascinated now about how things are made.

Like how the armor and weapons were made without modern techniques such as welding. And they had to make so much of it!

I do remember a few things. Like how poor Sam cut his foot open on a piece of glass. And how Aragorn almost drowned in the river. Oh, man.

It's always fun hearing the actors' stories too. Like how Gimli saw a team of people hauling all this heavy stuff to him, which turned out to be 70 pounds of armor. Which he then had to put on before running around on hills. Or how Gandalf, at age 61, was running up and down mountains. And how Eowyn said how easy it was going to be to fall in love with Aragorn. 

 

Filming the battle of Helm's Deep was a nightmare. Everyone was drenched and exhausted all the time. The people playing the orcs were trying to encourage each other, so you'd see the orcs in full costume patting each other on the back, or napping in corners. 

They built Treebeard's hands, so they could film Merry and Pippin being carried around. It was so tricky to get them in there that they'd just leave the two of them in the hands while they had snack breaks (elevensies, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner, and supper). I also had no idea that Treebeard and Gimli are the same person.

They built Hobbiton a year early, so they could grow all the beautiful Hobbit gardens. I'd love to visit Hobbiton (and New Zealand in general). 

But I think my favorite new thing I learned was about the great battle in front of Minas Tirith. They filmmakers sent out a call across New Zealand for all available riders to come with their horses. When you see Rohan's troops charging, you're seeing 500 horsemen. Wooow, no wonder that charge looks so amazing!

You're going to be getting more posts like this. It's so fun to learn about XD

More Fern Rambling

I've made some progress in Fern's timeline, and feel like talking about it. Even though I know full-well that I'm the only one who finds Fern's timeline of interest. (Which is why I'm talking about here, instead of with an actual person XD )

I keep going back to tweak Fern's timeline. Mostly because a lot of events need to be spaced out more. The order of her missions is loosely based on when I saw the movie or read the book that she visits. Certain stories have gotten mushed together, and they have to be broken into pieces and stretched over more time. They alternate with other stories too. And some things may get pushed back even farther as I find more stories for Fern to interfere with. There's one movie in particular that I think will shift farther into her future, for example.

I also went and made a separate timeline for when her team members joined. In my head, it was all muddled into an undefined span of time. But now I can actually see how the team builds. After Fern and Ben start living part-time at Avalon, the first other "person" they rescue isn't a human, but a monster from Star Wars. Which is fitting, since Fern loves animals and monsters. 

As a rule, Fern only brings animals and people to join her team if they have nowhere else to go, or if they would have died, etc. For a while, I kind of cheated on that and had her adopt some random monsters from other worlds, just because I loved their designs. But I've mostly cut those out. Fern doesn't need to "catch em all." She has plenty of creatures that she's responsible for as it is.

The reason I went on the long aside about Dr. Octavius is because I realized that he's the first human Fern recruits. Which is important! She has to figure out how to introduce someone to a new world. He's pretty much a stranger to her as well. And despite how strange and varied the rest of Fern's team grows to be, Dr. Octavius is possibly the outlier. Only because most of Fern's team revolves around magic, while Dr. Octavius is a nuclear physicist. That's an area that Fern doesn't know how to relate with, but they do find other things in common. Ben is a tech guy, so he'd get along well with Doc, especially because they're the only two people in town that know about technology. Fern's village is a pretty accepting place, luckily. Someone with mechanical arms would stick out in a high-tech world, let alone in a world that doesn't even have machines. Poor Dr. Octavius would get corralled into helping with a lot of mundane tasks. Ironic, considering those mechanical arms were meant to oversee a powerful source of energy, but then they end up doing stuff like shaking acorns out of trees. 

(People that look much stranger than Doc will eventually arrive, but it takes a while).

Up until now, I didn't actually have many ideas about Doc after Fern saved him from drowning. There were only a few characters on Fern's team that I ever really put on missions with her. Most of Fern's missions are solo, or with Fang (her wolf). I think her team goes on their own missions most of the time. Though some just stay in town - they only needed a safe new home. Sometimes I completely forget about certain members of Fern's team.  I didn't forget about Doc, but I also didn't quite know what to do with him until now.

I think long ago, when I first introduced Ben, I wrote that his parents had died. Assuming I keep that most predictable trope, Ben and Doc would end up kind of adopting each other. I already mentioned in that earlier post that Ben and Doc would be lab partners. And I think that Doc wouldn't end up doing many missions. He's a scientist. He may fight a lot in Spiderman 2, but that's not him. That's the AI that's taken control. I cringe watching those fights. Peter has super powers. Doc doesn't. So he must be taking a real beating whenever his mechanical arms don't block a hit. Anyway, Doc values intelligence. Peter manages to bring him back to his senses by appealing to his intelligence. So Doc would be helping build and invent things. Ben doesn't do too many missions with Fern, because she often goes to places without any technology. His power wouldn't be any use there. 

And there's another point that I realized. When Doc meets Peter, within the day he's telling Peter not to keep love a secret. How do I keep Doc from doing that to Fern and Ben? Because it won't be quite a while until anything goes in that direction. 

After Doc joins the team, there's about a year until anyone else joins. Discovering that surprised the heck out of me. Actually, two people do join in that time, but they don't help with missions since they're just kids. Maybe when they're older. One of those kids didn't have a name in the book she came from. I gave her the name Rose. But Doc's dead wife is named Rosie, and it would be kinda rough for the next person who comes to Fern's village to be named Rose. I could make it work, I guess. But I may just change her name.

And then, somehow, there are eventually three "doctors" of varying types that join Fern's team. (Including one doctor that happens to be a goat-he's a history professor, but he'd have to relearn the history of Fern's home. Actually, he may or may not stay on Avalon - it depends on what happens to him in the second movie. But for now, Fern's getting him out of Oz).

So, calling Dr. Octavius "Doc" would be redundant. Which Doc are you talking to? I muddled around with that for a while before settling on the most obvious solution. His name is Otto. Plenty of people call him that in the movie. He should just be Otto. The only problem with that is that I've always called him "Doc" in my head, and I always confuse myself to no end when I start calling a character something different.

On the occasion that I do actually write one of Fern's stories, it's usually when she's away on a mission. I'm not sure that I ever wrote anything about her hometown, Avalon.

Thinking of introducing someone to Avalon makes me look at the most basic things about the place. Fern's parents' house and if she lives with them. Where she keeps her "pet monster" from Star Wars. Ben's house, and the rest of the town. I also realized that I had never really felt that Fern was in Magic-Earth, even though the town is supposed to be in Magic-Earth. So, I had to make the town fit the world. And what about the people that live in town? Fern's family is a different race than the majority of the inhabitants. I always imagined that the town would be mostly mages, but I'm rethinking that. I think it will be a little more mixed, but with a higher number of mages than usual. Like a Reshii community mixed in with a bunch of non-magic people. Along with some people with roots from other countries, like Fern's family. 

I kinda hope that no one bothered to read this. It's just me putting thoughts in order for a Fanfic that is mostly unwritten. Writing it out helps me get things straight. So I might as well stick it here.

Inevitable Writing Delays

I was all ready to start a new short story tonight. And when I finally had the document opened in front of me, I realized that none of the character had names. So, I had to pull out my name notes and pick out some names. I may end up changing some. But if I don't have something feasible to call the characters, then I won't be able to get into the feel of the story. 

So I didn't get too much of the actual story done. But I did get a start, at least. 

(Man, I have so many sloppy first drafts sitting around. I've been postponing editing most of them for... a long time).