An Unexpected Meeting with Miguel

Today I went to a small convention that I'd never been to before. A spring version of Sacanime, but in Roseville, about half an hour away. I was going to be up there anyway, and thought it would be fun to check out. 

It was smaller than I expected, but luckily not nearly as crowded as Fanime. I headed to the back, and spotted the tables of guest visitors. I walked along the aisle, looking at the posters of the guests. And I froze in utter astonishment. Anthony Gonzales was there. He plays Miguel, the main hero from Coco. 

Unable to believe this remarkable turn of events, I got in line. The lines weren't nearly as insane as Sacanime, so it wasn't long before I made it to the front and shook Anthony's hand. I told him that Coco was my favorite movie, and teased that my friends and family got sick of me talking about it when it came out. He signed a poster for me. This time I decided to pay for a selfie. The hero from my favorite movie! 

He asked if I was excited for Coco 2. I had only learned about it a few days ago (which is also remarkable timing). I admitted I was nervous, because you never know about sequels. But I said I was really excited, so now I'll have to be excited for Coco 2. Even as I hold my breath and pray for a beautiful sequel XD 

Then my classy goodbye was to say, "I love you guys." I don't even know who "you guys" are. Could mean anything. 

It's silly how we hope to make in impression on some people. Considering Anthony probably sat there for hours talking to all kinds of strangers, it's unlikely that he'll remember me. 

But I still can't believe my insane luck. 

The Poetry Duel

I've been hinting recently about one of my harebrained schemes. I just finished! Once I had a list of poems I thought would work, it was a lot easier than I thought to stitch it together.

It's kind of based off of Sokka's haiku battle in Avatar: The Last Airbender. 

I wanted to do a poetry duel between Fern and one of her friends. Which is why I pulled out my small poetry collection. I occasionally print out a poem I like, so I flipped through those first. I was astonished to find a pile of poems I'd hand-written back in middle school, or possibly high school. I guess I've been collecting poems for a long time. Even if I didn't always write the name of the poet.

There was one poet in particular that I was hoping to use at least once: TS Eliot (Fern's friend mentions him by name). I looked up a few of his works online, before I went to my own bookshelf. I only have a few books of poetry, so I was stunned to find that I had a book of TS Eliot poems. 

~Heavenly choir sings~

Okay, it's silly cat poems. But still! These are the kinds of poems Fern would know anyway. I didn't actually use any of the cat poems in my project, sadly. But I did manage to fit one TS Eliot poem in there. 

Well, this will unexpectedly become another embarrassing post about Fern and her friends.

I guess I'll explain the whole stupid thing. When I was writing the Fern stories with Spiderman, I was wondering about ways they could honor Rosie. She studied poetry. And since Rosie was so supportive of Otto's work, I'll bet that he read a lot of poetry with her. After he joins Fern's team, Fern starts reading more poetry. She doesn't understand anything about nuclear physics, so poems would be something they could bond over. 

Otto would be pretty well versed in the classics. Fern would know more of the animal and nature poems. They start having these silly duels, where Otto says a line of poetry, and Fern has to say one in response. They'll pick a theme or word from the first poem, and have to answer with a poem that has the same theme or word. It goes on until one of them gets stumped (except it's always Fern who loses). Ben narrates it, like it's a soccer match. When Fern starts to run out of ideas, she uses song lyrics. And even movie quotes when she's really desperate. That's when Ben says that she's starting to slip. When she loses yet again, she complains that Otto is classier than her.

This will end up being a comic (though those take me forever to draw, so it might be a while). I want to draw Fern as she struggles to come up with responses. It will be fun to come up with her tortured expressions. XD

Since TS Eliot is the only poet Otto mentions by name in the movie, I thought it would be fitting to include at least one poem of his. Hence my reaction at finding my book of TS Eliot cat poems. Another poem I chose by accident is from my book of Japanese poetry, and the author is Oto. Not to be confused with Otto. And I ended up using two Tennyson poems. Only to realize that Tennyson's first name is Alfred. Because of course Alfred Molina is the actor that plays Otto. There were so many crazy coincidences in this ridiculous project. And I had far too much fun working on it.

Is this my attempt to be classy and quote poetry? Or is it just another waste of time on a silly Fern comic? Good question.

How to Appear Classy

I love how some people can throw around lines of poetry. It just seems so cool and refined. One example is John Green, who quotes poems in his videos and books. Lately I've been thinking about that, because I'd like to do it too. Which might be part of the reason I got this silly poetry project in my head.

Then because I just saw Spiderman 2, I noticed Dr. Octavius's line, "if you want to get a woman to fall in love with you, feed her poetry." Crap, is he right? Peter certainly gives it a try - he just needs to work on his timing.

In one of the Three Musketeers movies, Aramis is trying to show D'Artagnan how poetry can impress a girl. D'Artagnan makes a good effort.

"As morning hues of sun-swept fire caress your poisoned face." 

I mean, my initial reaction to hearing people use poetry in a conversation is that I'm jealous. I wish I knew enough poetry to throw out quotes from it. I do that with lines from movies and songs, but that's not quite as classy. Maybe after I finish my poetry project, I'll have a few more poems I can quote. 

But now I'm wondering if Dr. Octavius has a point. If the right guy read me the right lines of poetry, who's to say it wouldn't work?

Oz has 9 Million Tulips

I found some awesome videos about how they made Wicked.  

For that opening scene in Munchkinland, they planted 9 million tulips. That is so freaking amazing. They could have faked it all on the computer, but they grew those tulips for real. Mind-blowing. 

And in Dancing Through Life? They actually built that rotating bookshelf. And those people were dancing through it as it spun, leaping over cameras and sliding along the walls. 

 

For the scene where Glinda and Elphaba start dancing at the ball, it wasn't scripted that Elphaba cry. She just did, and Glinda responded by wiping the tear away. I don't think I cried the first time I saw that scene, but I certainly have cried the following times I saw it.

 

And during Defying Gravity, Elphaba was swinging all around in a harness, singing in the process. That's so cool. I hope she had fun doing that - I've heard that some of those harnesses can be pretty uncomfortable. 

This is such a good movie. They were completely robbed during the Oscars. But the Wizard of Oz medley that the two ladies performed was gorgeous.

Everything is Tuberculosis - Book Tour

John Green's newest book came out last month. His book tour made a stop near my house. Luckily I managed to get a ticket early, because apparently they sold out in about 30 hours.

It's awesome how he's bringing so much attention to problems like tuberculosis, which is the world's most deadly infectious disease, even though it's curable. 

Back in college, I figured that one of the characters had tuberculosis as a child. So this book is also great research material for me. 

I left for the event very early, because I planned to run a couple errands on the way. But that fell through, so I got to the event very early and was about 8th in line at the door. Ahead of me, some of the people started getting very excited because they saw John Green inside. I didn't think I would be that excited - I have already seen him and Hank at the TFIOS book tour. But I found that it was really great to see him in person, after watching so many of his videos. 

He wouldn't be doing an in-person signing, but he had pre-signed a bunch of books that were for sale. The lady was impressed at how fast he signed them, and a bunch of us chuckled at that comment because we know how much autograph experience he has. 

I bought a signed copy of The Anthropocene Reviewed. I read the book a while ago, and enjoyed it. I left a letter and a poem for John.

At that point, I'd read most of Everything is Tuberculosis. As I waited in the audience, I finished it. It was great. I wish there were more books that are both educational, and interesting to read.

At one point during the talk, a baby in the audience started crying and the dad (I assume) started carrying them out. John said, "oh no, the baby is leaving." It was like what happened during the talk at Fanime, with the producer from Studio Ghibli. John went on to apologize to the baby for the state of the world.

Indeed, Everything is Tuberculosis was released at a hell of a time. The wannabe president halted spending that was needed to stop countless people from dying. Tuberculosis drugs that had already been paid for ended up sitting in warehouses, where they went bad and couldn't be used. Many people that relied on those drugs will end up with drug-resistant tuberculosis, and many of them will die from it. 

And things have gotten even crazier since then. But we've gotta keep fighting.

Henry's story gave the book so much life. He wasn't able to do a video call with our audience, because he was studying for exams. He and his friends go camping before exams, so they can cram with fewer distractions. That sounds like a fun way to study! 

Poetry Gets in Your Head

I'm working on a silly poetry project, which I'll post about later. But I was reading through a bunch of poems. Then I switched to reading a short story. But my brain was convinced that it was still reading poetry, and it gave the words rhyme and rhythm that didn't actually exist. 

Strange.

How to turn one small page into a lot of big pages

I don't often write out Fern stories. I only have a handful of them that can even be called proper stories. I really only write them when I have a very clear idea of what happens, because I know that the details will fade over time. But that also makes them very easy to write, since I don't have to figure much out as I go (I've said all of this before). 

Most of Fern's stuff is just notes in a notebook. And it's not a very big notebook. About half the size of a sheet of paper. And only the front of one page was written about Spider-man 2. Most of it was how Fern meets and gets to know Peter and MJ (which I realized doesn't actually work, because MJ doesn't want anything to do with Peter at that point in the movie. Fern will have to meet MJ later). 

I feel like sharing some of the process of how I turned that one small page of notes into a "proper" story. 

It all started when I saw Spider-man No Way Home. It showed Peter (all three Peters) saving a cast of villains. It made me figure out how Fern would do that, but for a single character (Fern also interferes with Spider-man No Way Home. She knows what it's like for someone to get "erased," and she's not about to let that happen here, especially to someone who worked so hard to help her friends). It was only after re-watching the original two Spider-man movies that I really got into it though. I think because I was so impressed with the character development in the few minutes we get with Otto before he's taken over (I'm trying to get used to calling him Otto instead of Doc, since I need to do that in the story). And on top of that, watching these movies corresponded, I think coincidentally, with me fixing Fern's timeline and realizing that Otto is the first person... that Fern recruits for her superhero team. I'd never really thought of it that way, but that's kinda what it ends up as. 

On that short page of Fern notes, I had squeezed in a single sentence onto the last line: "She also saves the doctor from drowning." I told you I hadn't really thought about how he fit in. Which is why it was so interesting writing that out as a story last month (as I posted about, twice).  That single line became many pages, though a lot of that was introducing Fern's town. 

From there, I realized that those mechanical arms couldn't stay on Doc forever. They would end up doing real damage. Fern may not be a particularly talented healer (she can heal some nasty stuff, though it backfires badly onto her), but luckily she knows some master healers. And with Ben's mechanical expertise, they could end up getting the metal arms off. It would be a slow process, step by step so no nerves or anything important would get damaged. But then they could repair the arms, and Otto could use them again. (In the movie, when the doctors are about to try to remove the arms, they joke about it. What jerks. As far as they know, taking those arms off would leave him crippled for life).

Most of my page of notes was about Fern meeting and helping Peter. I wasted two nights last week by writing out that part of the story (I seem to see Fern stories as mostly a waste of time XD). Thinking of what Fern and Spider-man would talk about. They don't get the chance yet, but later on they're going to brainstorm about webs and stuff. Peter mentions some strange guy with mechanical arms that robbed a bank. That person had lost control of himself to those robotic arms. Peter tells Fern that he might need help fighting that guy.

When MJ is kidnapped, Fern dashes in to help. It's only when she's on her way that she realizes that she has no way to fight robotic arms. If she turns into something big, like a bear, she'll just be a big target. If Doc can throw cars around, he could do the same to an angry bear. She doesn't even have any of her good weapons yet. Even if she did have something, it would have been of limited use. It's a trouble she runs into later as well - "I could kill this person with my weapon, but I can't kill someone just like that." I had some sense of Fern being outmatched back when I wrote the notes (probably 15 + years ago), because Fern loses the fight on top of the train. She does the best she can by turning into a hawk and dodging in to use her talons. But all that can do is distract. Both she and Peter get knocked out one after the other. 

She wakes, somewhat battered, and goes to help Peter stop the machine. She's learned that she can't do much to fight Doc, so she keeps MJ safe as the artificial sun turns into a black hole. The two girls do what they can to distract Doc until Peter incapacitates him. 

I always wondered why Peter didn't try to reason with Otto before. But I guess there wasn't an opportunity - the guy was kinda hard to pin down. I just realized that moment should have a big effect on Fern. She had once been controlled by something herself. She knows what it's like. Peter had even mentioned to her that Doc wasn't in control of himself, but Fern charged in fighting. A fight that she was completely outmatched for. She didn't even consider that the person she was facing might need help too. She might have ended up letting someone die who turned out to be a good friend (If she had called Ben in, he could have fixed the problem in a heartbeat).

I just rewatched Spiderman No Way Home yesterday. I still don't like the idea of the multiverse stuff. But it is really fun seeing all the Spider-mans being buds (I love when Ned promises not to become a super villain, and the second Spider-man gives him a "good-on-ya" pat on the back). Though I almost feel like I'm missing something? Tobey Maguire's Peter seems to recognize Ned and MJ? And seems to initially mistrust the second Peter? Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

I never cared for the second set of Spider-man movies, though now I may go back and watch them again. I want to know more about Max. But I get the sense that they didn't give him a particularly good role in that movie. All I remember is the poor guy getting electrocuted. I didn't even want to watch that movie, since I hadn't liked the first one. But I was on a group trip, and I was outvoted. Now I'm glad I saw it, if purely for the sake of understanding No Way Home (I don't actually remember the lizard guy at all, but I assume he was in the first movie of that set. And the fact that I don't remember an animal-themed person says a lot. I'm crazy about animal-themed characters).

Watching the Cinema Therapy movies has lead to me blundering into spoilers. I'll click on a video about Spider-man for example, not considering that it will discuss Spider-man films that I had not yet seen. Which is why I knew that old characters would be appearing in No Way Home. Man, if I didn't know ahead of time, I would have lost it to see so many familiar faces reappear. Then again, maybe it's good that I knew to expect multiverse stuff, or I would have been irritated (In the case of Guardians of the Galaxy 3, I was really grateful for the spoilers about Rocket's history. I was able to brace myself). 

It turns out that I had missed quite a lot in Spider-man No Way Home. I'll bet that during the first half, I was actually watching the movie while I drank tea and ate lunch. And then during the second half I probably started some project (drawing or sewing maybe). I completely missed that the magic box that held the spell broke, and was confused to see that the sky was cracking open. I missed how when Otto is still under the control of the machine, he refers to himself as "we." Because it's not him in control, but the four robotic arms. And he doesn't realize it, because when Peter starts controlling the arms, he says, "don't listen to him, listen to ME!" Even though the arms don't listen to him - it's the other way around. The moment Otto does come back to his senses, he offers to help. Peter chose the perfect person to cure first. None of the others would have been able to help the way Otto did. I'm still a confused why he ran away - I guess they needed him out of the picture purely for plot purposes. But during the end, he comes back to fight, outsmarting a foe so he can get in close enough to cure him, even stopping a couple freaking bombs. When everything is falling apart, he's one of the last people with any powers. He helps get some of the others to safety. I knew he'd make a good superhero! (Seriously, why doesn't this guy get more roles like this? Almost every character I've seen him play is mean. But if this video is anything to judge by, he seems to be the funniest guy on set). On top of all that, I missed that he got one of the mechanical arms chopped off. Damn. I'm still confused what happens to him when he's sent back home. It sounds like he was pulled out of his world about a minute before he died. Is he going to use that little power reactor to safely deactivate the machine? And also, there's still the problem of the mechanical arms being melted to his spine. They can't stay there forever. 

So, there you have it. Another long, frivolous post about stories that I've never shared (when I should be writing more important things). @_@

Bestiary

I occasionally get harebrained schemes.  I had one a couple years ago that was very time-consuming. I bought a dictionary of mythical creatures long ago. It's pretty hefty too. Though it does neglect some parts of the world (and the book itself was badly made - a bunch of the pages started falling out of the binding. I tried to glue a few back in, but that went badly). 

Anyway, I went through this dictionary of magic beasts and started taking notes of anything that might appear in my worlds. I kept wondering if I was completely wasting my time. And I was so relieved to finish and put that huge book away. Though I do add to that list when I find a good source of information. And I definitely need to fill out some parts of the list - I have very few from Africa, for example. And I definitely need more from North America, since that's where many of my stories are set.

And my crazy list has actually been helpful. I have used my "bestiary" a few times to look of creatures from certain parts of the world. The recent post about the monster that's like the Nowhere King was a result of that search. It's helped give more depth to the lands, and even add some plot.

I have written a couple guide books - one for each of my worlds. These are where I took notes of the mythical creatures and spirits. I often update the guide books. But most of it was written long ago. I really need to reread them, because I've forgotten a lot of the details. Especially since I sometimes change things. 

The Characters Will Tell You

I recently wrote a short story that takes place directly after Evva's story (In fact, almost all of my short stories are about side characters, or take place before or after events of main stories).

Darien Jaiyer AKA Master Jaiyer is one of my oldest characters. It was so fun bringing him back to use in Evva's story. He doesn't actually have too much presence in this short story. But he introduces Evva to Terrick, a "magical therapist." Which is like a physical therapist, but they help with damaged magic. 

Master Jaiyer is one of the best spirit magic mages in the region. And Terrick is a great magical therapist. Their specialties overlap, so they would know each other. I don't think Darien and Terrick actually interact (at least not much) in the short story. Though that may change. But I started thinking about their relationship, even as I tried to develop Terrick as a character. But for some reason, when I tried to picture the two of them as friends, nothing clicked.

Than I went, "oooooh, I see. Not just friends." 

Sometimes I'm amazed at how much my stories surprise me as they unfold. 

(And sometimes I realize that they can't unfold in that direction. In a short story I wrote before this one, I almost hooked up two characters before I realized that one already had a boyfriend. Which isn't the dynamic I wanted in that case.)

How to Admire Heroes

As I've been trying to catch up with the Marvel movies, there was a moment in Spider-man Far From Home that caught my attention. The bully says he admires Spider-man, and sees him as an inspiration to be a better person. Then he immediately turns around and starts bullying Peter. 

It made me think of someone I used to work with at the Zoo. He was a HUGE Marvel fan. But then he'd bully people too. Not as directly, but he'd spread malicious gossip about people - me included. He'd tell things out of context, and leave out details to try to make people sound as bad as possible. 

I wonder. I guess people look up to super-heroes, knowing they can never quite be like that. So do some people look up to nice people, but never bother trying to be a better person? 

 

So... it's the Nowhere King?

I'm researching Celestial stags for the short story about the plum trees. "Celestial stag" seems to be a poor translation, as they are found in underground mines. And there doesn't seem to be much solid history for where this creature came from. It may just belong to a class of undead demons in Chinese folklore. But they're dangerous - they will do anything to escape the mines and get above ground. And bad things will happen if they do.

So, undead beasts named for stags, and trapped in a place they try to escape imprisonment..

It's the freaking Nowhere King!