No More King Kong's or Titanic's

The first time I saw X-Men Days of Future Past was aboard my plane from Vancouver Canada to Sydney Australia. (There were of course layovers in there) That was last October. I actually have a picture somewhere of my airplane TV screen twisted to face me, my fold down table in front of me with dinner and surprisingly good red wine, (all included) and across the TV screen is Erik/Magneto's face. I can still remember sitting down to the ten hour flight, (I think that's right) and deciding which movies to see. I chose the new Planet of the Apes and Edge of Tomorrow, saving the new X-Men for last.

I remember being disappointed by Days of Future Past. In retrospect, it's probably because I went in with the wrong expectations. When I sat down to see First Class, (admittedly only because my brother insisted) I began not wanting to see it because it was a set of heroes I'd never been interested in. Once I was hooked, (which was by the ocean rescue scene) I then braced myself for the inevitable ending. There's a blog post on here called Magneto Meets King Kong. It was to demonstrate that in certain movies, you know where you're heading. You don't sit down to Titanic hoping for a happily ever after. You don't watch King Kong and root for him getting down off that tower. You don't sit down to X-Men First Class and cross your fingers the central friendship survives. You can't. You know better.

Which was why for the sequel, I kind of "did" have my fingers crossed. I was disappointed to find that at the end of the film, Charles and Erik were as far apart as ever. More than that, I was frustrated with Erik. I felt that his character seemed inconsistent. I couldn't understand him. I knew that his cause came first, before loved ones, before having a home, before what he himself wanted. What I didn't get was how he could sit across from Charles on an airplane and apologize for everything, accuse his old friend of abandoning him as much as he'd abandoned Charles, going to such an extreme as to jeopardize the entire plane....only to then switch back to his own side, thus shooting Raven, abandoning their team again and going so far as to shoot on his own race by the end.

I wanted Erik to give it up. I wanted him to realize that what he's doing is endangering mutants as much as he's inspiring and protecting them. For gods sake, he was firing on his own people! He tortured Logan. He dropped a stadium on Beast and Charles. (Although he didn't actually know Charles was there)

I got to see the movie for the second time yesterday. Originally, I'd just wanted Coryn to see it since we'd been discussing X-Men. Then, mom wanted to see it because it had Tate from American Horror Story as Quick-Silver. After that, Caspian wanted in and dad followed. It turned into an Orr event. Dad made popcorn. There was pizza and some alcohol. And of course, there was razzing.

During the trailers, when only she and I were there, mom asked me why this was one of my favorite movies. (I hadn't realized until getting everybody to see it that it was) "I like the two relationships that play out opposite each other. You have the young Charles and Erik who have done nothing but betray and abandon each other. You also have the older Charles and Erik who have forgiven everything and want nothing but to stand side by side." (Which was, of course, what they wanted as young adults too) I thought it was a good answer to a question I hadn't even really considered before.

Mom commented on how much Jennifer Lawrence hated being painted blue for the role of Raven. (Mom wrote a book on her) Everybody noticed how Charles still has his hair and how healthy Beast looked now that the actor wasn't playing a zombie. (Nicolas Holt played the guy in Warm Zombies) We all went through the confusion of Erik's decisions. We all shouted and threw popcorn when Erik insisted on carrying an entire stadium over to the White House. (Erik can be a bit overkill, carrying a bridge when he's older, carrying a stadium as a young adult...) At the end, we all noticed how Logan was saved, not by Stryker, but by Mystique.  (I had not noticed this before) We wondered how that changed Logan's life? When we were done, we watched the gag reel. It was hysterical! It was as good as the Supernatural ones. Hugh Jackman is a doofus. Michael Fassbender still sounds weird to me with his Irish accent. Michael and James are adorable together, but not as much as Ian Mckellen and Patrick Stewart.

My favorite two moments from the gag reel?
(1) Charles awkwardness navigating his new wheelchair on the catwalk to Cerebro. (I read online he knocked Logan off the walkway a few times)
(2) Erik getting the helmet stuck on his head.

My favorite moments over all?
(1) Charles hitting Erik when he first sees him in the Pentagon elevator, only to then grip tight to his shirt front when Erik is about to make a very bad decision. (Have you ever noticed that Charles doesn't need to read his friends mind to know what he's going to do or even wants to do?)
(2) There being a chessboard in Charles' study.
(3) Erik looking at Charles at the end, in the stadium. Erik is frozen because of Charles. "If you let them take me, you know I'm as good as dead Charles." "I know." But Charles lets him go anyway. Like Miles letting Monroe live in Revolution, there's betrayal and then there's letting the person who betrayed you die. That's the impossible.
(4) Old Erik is wounded and dying. He reaches out to clasp arms with old Charles. "All those years on different sides, so angry-to have just a few of them back...."
(3) The entire scene on the airplane. Erik apologizing and of anything in the whole movie, I think he means it when he says  "I'm sorry Charles." I also think his betrayal is just as agonizing when he nearly downs the entire plane with the accusation of:

"Angel. Azazel. Emma. Banshee. Mutant brothers and sisters - all dead! Countless others have been experimented on, butchered! Where were you, Charles?! We were supposed to protect them! Where were you when your own people needed you?! Hiding?! You and Hank - pretending to be something you're not! You abandoned us all! We were supposed to protect them Charles!" ("We." They both always wanted it to be "we.")

But the best part of the whole airplane thing?

Charles: You took the things that mean the most to me.
Erik: Maybe you should've fought harder for them.

Erik wanted Charles to fight for their friendship. He wanted him to fight to stay by his side, not give up and let him go. He wanted to see Charles, who he believes to be the most powerful mutant alive, to show how powerful he was in the name of the mutant cause. Charles refusing to step into the worlds limelight and protect mutants was nearly as much of a betrayal to Erik as Charles not fighting to keep Erik from walking away on that beach in Cuba.

Erik: I've lost things too Charles.
Charles: You know nothing about loss.

Except that on that day in Cuba, Erik lost his best friend. He lost the family they'd built in the CIA base. He lost what up until that day had been his all-consuming purpose...killing Shaw. He gained his cause of protecting mutants from humans, but he lost everything else.

Erik: I didn't kill the president.
Charles: The bullet curved Erik.
Erik: I was trying to save him.
Charles: Why?
Erik: He was one of us.

Erik, even then, didn't want Charles thinking he'd outright kill the president. That scene of apology, of Erik bringing over the chessboard, even his loss of control and tipping the plane-they were all signs of somebody hurt and angry and betrayed, of still caring.

When I was in Australia, this movie started me down a path very similar to how Supernatural did. I learned all the actors names. I looked up all the movies they'd been in. I watched all the interviews. I changed the background image on my computer to Erik and Charles playing chess the night before Cuba, before Charles loses his legs and his hope. And it also drove me back into the world of fanfiction, a place I haven't been since Dragon Knights. I read some amazing pieces, such that Erik and Charles have become inspirations interwoven into my stories. I can still remember staying up too late reading about them and going to Starbucks or the kids café sleepy, but it still feeling worth it because my mind a whirlwind of ideas on friendship and how far it can be bent before it breaks.

Reading those online stories also inspired me with a thought. I think that if you took Erik away from the city, if he was somehow stranded away from guns and politics, he'd be a good guy. Strand him with humans or strand him with mutants, but I think if he was far enough away from the reality of his "cause," of his "inevitable war," he'd turn back into that man who helped Charles hunt down alienated mutants in First Class. Put him back in the Westchester Mansion, but fast forward 20 years to when it's full of teachers and students and I think he could live there. He could teach languages or history. He could drink brandy and play chess and that could be enough for him. In 1973, he has no choice but to be what he is, just as Charles has no choice. They cannot be friends in the age and location they live in. It will take their older selves to bridge the gap again. (Or being stranded on an island)

X-Men Apocalypse doesn't come out until next year, but I'm reading all the news. Oh, and guess what? I'm being a fool again and crossing my fingers for a friendship mended. No more King Kong's or Titanic's, but games of chess over brandy, where peace is the only option.

Don't Meet Your Heroes

I would never dream of telling another writer what to do. I would never dream of sitting them down and telling them what their characters can and can't do, limiting them as people and limiting them as authors. Critique groups have made this mistake with me, going so far as to say that my main characters should be cut, should be another gender, shouldn't be the main perspective at all. I know what it is for the world to not want me to write what I write. I know what it is to be the victim of gender bias and as a result, be driven towards using a male pen name. It is a good thing then that I write first and foremost for myself. It isn't for money. It isn't for fame. It isn't for the enjoyment of others. All these things would be bonuses, pleasant surprises, but come or go, my writing will never find itself in entombed in a cold grave. I am a writer in the same way that I am a woman, a daughter, a friend and traveler. I must be these things. I am these things. I am the sum of these parts.

I would never dare to tell my role model RT that she shouldn't stop writing. I also wouldn't sit down with her and say she shouldn't be frustrated by not being paid enough or getting enough attention. I don't have that right over her, but I do wish I could remind her of what she has seemingly forgotten. Writers write for the sake of writing. Our characters need us to, not our friends, our parents, our publishers or our wallets. If you stop putting out work, you won't see me planting myself in your path, but you'll see me confused and disappointed.

Then again, you should know, I'm already confused and disappointed.

You've been my writing role model ever since that day in Alaska. Yes, I was led to your books because of the Supernatural reference on the reviews page, but from then on, I was a fan of yours and not what TV show your stories resembled. From that second, you fueled my work. You were the proof that I could write on the topic I loved and get attention for it. You were the proof that I wasn't the only one driven to write these tales, the only person who thought her stories were believable and accurate and perfect just the way they were. I know, I admit, I put you on a pedestal. You couldn't live up to that. You couldn't possibly deliver on the image I'd painted of you, but oh RT, couldn't you have let me down a bit easier? Couldn't you have repainted the inaccurate image I'd made of you instead of ripping it to pieces as if you were a human shredder?

I was so excited when you responded to my email, when you talked about inspiration and muses and writing on the sort of relationships so few understand. I was thrown. I was delighted. I wrote blog entries about it and I told my mom and my brothers about it. You couldn't have made me happier. So what if it ended at one email? So what if I responded, but didn't hear back? Because within a month, I saw you had your own FB and by gods, you accepted my friend request.

I should have known better. I should have stuck by my own rules. Don't ever meet your heroes. Jared, Jensen and Misha, if they disappointed me as you did, it could ruin the show for me. I don't want that, especially now that they're my only proof that these stories of ours can be loved. You're so bitter RT. You're so angry at the world, at publishers and you don't even realize that you're taking that out on us readers. We'd do a lot for you. I'd do a lot. I'd write letters to your publisher. I'd advertise. Hell! Through me, there are three people out there that have read your work that wouldn't have if not for me! (Mom, Coryn, Jenna) I buy everything you write. I have a box under my bed dedicated to your works and own more than 6 copies of your first novel. I write entries about you, about how I admire you. I get inspired by your characters snark and inject that into my own characters and am thrilled at the result.

I could have gotten past your bitterness. I could have gotten past your seeming hate for children. What I can't get past is how you treat your fans and though it makes me sound young and petty, how you've treated me. I broke my own rules to talk to you. I continue to break those rules each time I post to your FB, but you ignore my praise, my support, my encouragement. You get worse and worse, until you made a post that essentially said that you can't pay for pet food because of how little money your fans pay and that you were done. You weren't writing anymore. No sequels. No prequels. No short stories. No tying up trailing story lines. You'd finish your main series since nobody gave your other works any attention and then you were cutting the apron strings.

I posted in response to that, making it my final one. (I blocked your notifications, because they upset me) I told you how important your works had been, how they helped me get through my first away from home trip (Alaska) how they helped me through my first major breakup, how they continue to comfort me if I'm stressed or alone or sick or anxious. I told you how I buy everything you write without even seeing what it was about. Just click, boom, mine. I told you how it was going to break my heart if you stopped based on popularity. What did you say back?

Nothing. You responded to the posts before and after mine asking questions about why you were bitter, why you were done, why you were so fucking angry.

Sigh.

I don't know what this is going to do to my inspiration, to my identity as a writer. As I said, you were what I aimed for, evidence that this kind of story can be published, can be liked and that I wasn't alone. Yeah, sure, all that's still sort of true, but you're quitting. You get that? You're quitting and you're quitting for entirely the wrong reasons. I'd eat pet food if that meant having enough money to keep my laptop charged. I'd give away my clothes and let my pets keep me warm if that meant my fingers being free enough to type.

I haven't written a word yet since I saw your post, but that was only two days ago. I'm hoping the universe will send me something to help, another series, you changing your mind, a movie, my own stories wrapping me up in a hug and saying "we can do that, not just her, we can." I don't know. I just know I can't go where I'd usually go and that's to your stories.

I also know this.

Don't ever meet your heroes.

Saying Yes to Immortality

Because I was beginning a new job, I've spent the past month rereading Cal Leandros, Doubletake. I finished it last week and was at a loss for where to go next. New jobs can be stressful and these days at the fencing and decking place can be long.

I got lucky. Mom knew how much of a fan I was of Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. She knew, also, that I adored the movie and was intent on owning a copy. Thus, I was delighted when she brought home from the library a sequel to the first book I hadn't even been aware of existed! (Also, Henry Sturges being the young gorgeous guy from Mama Mia kind of blew both our brains) I am now rereading the first one in preparation of enjoying the second. While doing so on my lunch break, I came across a scene that was completely removed from the movie. In fact, the entire plotline was.

Abraham Lincoln loved someone before he loved Mary Todd. He met a girl named Ann Rutledge. He described her in his journal and described her to his friends excessively. The two bonded over a love of language and of academics. Below is a piece of conversation from the movie Lincoln in Illinois.

Abraham Lincoln: You taught me how to love.
Ann Rutledge: Have I taught you to like it?
[both laugh] 

When she died, Lincoln turned suicidal. (This is per the Vampire Hunter version) His friends were forced to strip him of his weapons, sharp utensils, even his belt. Alas, his friends missed the pistol beneath his pillow. He put it to his head and he wondered if he'd have the time to hear the BANG? If he'd see the blood or the gore spatter the wall, or if darkness would swallow him first? Two things stopped him from doing the deed. The first was the memory of his mother who had, with her dying breath, asked him to live.

The other was Henry.

The second Abe's undead friend heard the news, he hopped a horse and galloped for New Salem. He made Abe's friends leave. Inside the small room Abe was renting, Henry sat with him as he cried. He talked about lost loves and how time does make it easier. (A vampire would know) He talked about how lovely Ann must have been per Abe's regular letters. (Abe was excessive in his descriptions to all) And Henry talked of options. He told Abe he could bring Ann back. I think (personally) that Abe deciding consciously not to do that to her is what got him through. It had to be his decision and he had to make it with somebody he trusted and who understood him.

This entire plotline-Ann Rutledge/Abraham Lincoln-wasn't in the movie. I get it. It would have been a step aside from the vampires storyline. People would have thought it stole from Mary Todd's character. I do think it was a loss, however. (Mom sent me an article on Ann, since I wondered whether she'd been made up for the sake of the novel. I discovered via doing so that there's actually much controversy over just how close Abe and Ann were)

Opinion is varied on the ending of the movie vs. the book. The biggest difference is, of course, Abe's decision whether or not to become a vampire. In the movie, he says no to Henry. "There are more ways to be immortal than living forever." He tells his friend. In the book, he agrees. It is my hope that in the sequel, he and Henry are hunting vampires together. I'll get back to you on the results of this.

Mourning in Television

Everybody in my family has a type of scene in television that drives us nuts. It’s the kind that has throwing popcorn and booing if done wrong and pumping fists in the air like the sports fans we aren’t when they get it right. Unfortunately, we do a lot more booing and popcorn throwing than we do fists to the air.

My mom has had four kids. She knows when a birthing scene is inaccurate. Movies have pregnant moms going into labor at the height of trouble, of trauma, at the most stressful and crazy moment available. In real life, a mother's body knows when it is dangerous and it waits. When it does happen, it isn’t short. It isn’t a few screams and three cheers, there’s the baby! Though my mother has not been through a zombie apocalypse or a natural disaster or an alien invasion, she has had children. She knows that a mother's body is built to protect a child as much as it is to feed and create. What she wonders is how the entire film industry can be ignorant on the very topic that begat every one of them in the first place.

My dad is an atheist, a man of science and evolution and believing that if you had utmost control and discipline, you could literally convince two of your fingers they were glued together when they weren’t. Of a mind that you could make yourself forget your own name if you wanted, when my father watches a Sci-Fi movie, he can’t help nitpicking. A space ship exploding in space, causing a tempest of noise? The captain going with the away team on a dangerous mission that borders either on suicide or just plain old stupid? Then there’s the action-packed movies. The bad guy has a hostage. He puts a gun to her head and tells the cops to put down their firearms or she gets a bullet in the noggin. “Don’t put them down!” My dad shouts. “Just shoot him!” In a high-tension car chase, he’s yelling. “slam on the breaks! Take out their carburetor!” When the good guys are running on foot from helicopters, through a cornfield maybe, he’s throwing up his hands with a “Run sideways! Run sideways!” Practical, logical, honest, if it wasn’t for how much love he’s got in him and the lack of pointed ears, he has much in common with the Vulcans.

I was trained by a Sheriff’s Department Search and Rescue Unit. I was a babysitter for six years. I staffed at homeschool summer camps. What do these three things have in common? They all taught me CPR and Basic First Aid. In movies, if the heroes best friend get into a car accident and the car flips over, the first thing that hero does is pull him from the wreckage. Hello! If there’s a spinal injury, you just killed him! His neck is twisted to the side and it hurts to turn it back, so you carefully and tenderly make it do so? Guess what? You just killed him again! And CPR, don’t get me started on CPR scenes. The worst ones are the victims of drowning. You do not push air INTO a drowned person’s mouth, as you are pushing water INTO their lungs. And by the way, giving CPR to someone on a bed, on a platform higher than you or on anything with even the slightest amount of give is worthless. You might as well be doing it in water. Also, if you as the hero pull your best friend from an overturned vehicle and start giving him CPR, only to give up and get upset and start screaming, can I just remind you that only 3% percent of humans are revived by CPR alone? It isn’t MEANT for revival. It is meant to circulate blood and stave off brain damage just long enough for the paramedics. So stop your less than heroic wailing and keep giving compressions.

Do I have a point to all this? Indeed I do. While my parents and I all have different things that drive us nuts and make us want to chuck slippers at the TV, (we don’t eat popcorn very often) there is one particular thing we all lean forward to scrutinize.

MOURNING.

When a character is told that a loved one is dead, missing, was a murderer or on the flip side, has been returned to them, the reaction is very rarely done appropriately. If you don’t believe me, take a job over to Criminal Minds, Bones, Law and Order, NCIS or any of those out police procedurals that haunt in every channel of every day. People get teary eyed or maybe they even break down, but once the commercial break has come and gone, they’re sitting in the interrogation room, giving a full report of whether their loved one had any enemies, debts or when they’d last seen them.

This is not how love works.

Here’s another example and one my mother graduates from slippers to socks when throwing things at the TV. When parents are reunited with their children who have been missing or kidnapped. You as the parent do not love in relief. You as the parent do not smile or sigh. You do not say, “oh, I missed you so much.” You do not hug them a moment and then turn to the cops and say “thank you.” What do you do? You do exactly what you should have done when they went missing in the first place.

You scream.

You hit your knees and you scream.

When they’re returned, you still hit your knees and you still scream.

But you hold on as if they were torn out of you and if you let go now, let go again, you’ll bleed out.

When shows or movies or even books do a mourning scene or a reunion scene correctly, we applaud them. There are certain ones that come instantly to mind whenever we discuss this.

1. In the movie Crash, when the mother believes for a split second that her young daughter has just been shot. There is screaming and running and a rending of world’s.
2. In the TV show the Walking Dead, Rick is told that his wife died. A flash of anger turns into ranting turns into hitting his knees turns into lying on the ground screaming at the sky.
3. In the TV show Angel, when Wesley held his lover Fred as she slowly, very consciously died. There is talking with emotions hiding for the sake of both of them, but once she’s passed, there’s heartbreak, but only the loneliness and quiet of an empty room to see it.

I have since discovered a few others that need recording. They gave me pause, had me sitting further forward, had the gears and cogs of my writers brain turning loud enough that I nearly needed subtitles.

1. In the TV show Supernatural, Dean arrives just in time to see that his possessed brother has killed one of their only remaining friends and he did not do it kindly. Little geeky Asian Kevin is lying on the floor with his eyes burned out of his head and when Dean sees him, he backs up against the nearest wall. Then all the sound vanishes. There’s no words, no noises, no crashes, even as Dean destroys the room. He’s screaming and tearing things apart and the audience hears none of it. We only see the man who does not crack shattering all at once.
2. In the Pilot of the TV show Alias, Sydney finds her apartment ransacked and her boyfriend dead in the bathtub. Sydney can’t scream. She can’t cry. Her mouth won’t work. She’s at the edge of the tub, reaching in, arms shaking and white and her throat is making weird catching noises as if her brain says scream, but her shredded heart is in the way.
3. In the book series Cal Leandros, a creature called a Boggle comes back to her pit made of mud to find her children dead. Boggle can speak and looks like a worm with legs and clotted mud on her sides. She is ugly and she isn’t a good guy or a bad guy, but usually an informant to the main characters. She finds her kids cut in half and tries to put them back together. She puts the heads atop the bodies, but they fall off. She brings mud in close to them to hold them up. It is messy and it is heartbreaking, even from something the world would call a monster.

Mourning scenes can have many applications. They can be the initial scene when a character is informed of the loss. They can be the funeral scene or when they’re identifying the body. They can be the hospital bed before or after the official passing. They can be right there in the very instant, body in their arms, bullets in fatal places, blood warming their knees and hands. Mourning scenes should be moving or gut wrenching or tender. What they should never be is brief, skipped or worst of all, insubstantial. Mourning scenes are a tool for deepening character, for building them up or rendering them incomplete. These scenes should be used to intensify police cases and endear post-kidnapping reunions. As a writer myself, I continue to strive to make sure that these experiences are haunting for the reader and character both. I want them both to feel it and if I’ve done my job, to get mad at me for making them feel it so much.

Feeling it like a knife in the ribs, I know it’s a cliche, but that’s what a loss feels like to a human being and likewise, that’s what it should LOOK LIKE to a viewer.

Cal Leandros Backlash

I’ve talked about this in the past. There are some facets of friendships that most writers just never delve into. When you’re with someone long enough, you know their habits. I don’t just mean you know their allergies. I mean they know that a day being social tires you out more than a day at work. They know that when you need to rest, it doesn’t mean they want to sleep, but to flop on the couch and eat pizza and make permanent ass impressions on the cushions. You get to know a person and you yourself develop habits you don’t realize, ones you only really exhibit when THAT friend is around.

Maybe when you call that friend, you listen to their hello, already knowing you’ll know what their day has been like by their tone. If it’s been a shitty one, you know it’s going to call for drinks and you know what kind of drinks. When you call your other friends, you don’t even bother listening to their hello. You know you won’t be able to read it the same.

Maybe when you split a cookie, you always take the bigger piece, not because you’re a sugary glutton. You take it because you know your friend guilts themselves way more than you do and you want to spare them by appearing the glutton.

Maybe you both get milkshakes and your friends milkshake sucks. You want to offer yours, but you know your friend will say no, so you pretend to like yours less or theirs more, just to make sure they end up as happy as you.

Maybe your friend is reading a book. They think a line is funny and snicker. You know they want you to ask about it so that they can share it. With other friends, you wouldn’t bother, not because you care less, but because you don’t know whether they get a kick out of reading aloud, if it’s too much pressure.

Maybe you’re stressed. Maybe your day has sucked. Maybe you’ve been slamming doors all the way home, the front door of your workplace, the car door, the front door of the house and when you hit the couch, you’re angry at the world. Then you feel that gentle hand grasp your shoulder once and there’s a “knowing” in that touch. They knew, without the slamming of doors, what huff you were coming in with. You find a comfort in knowing that they’re totally aware of your sucky day and that they know what mindset you’re in and you appreciate even more that they know you need space just as much as you still need them in the room.

Friends are big things, but what they do is all little things. Writers miss these when they’re creating deep friendships. They focus so much on the words, on the hugs between the girls, the beers between the guys and these little subtleties get lost in the middle.

This is why whenever I do see a friendship justified I have to preserve it.

I stopped in a Cleveland Park today. I sat on a bench and with a breeze just barely reminiscent of the nearby sea, I read from my Kindle. I listened to Shiny Toy Guns, Of Monsters and Men, Mumford and Sons and I read aloud. I know it makes me wacky. I know it doesn’t make it any less weird that I did my own voices or that I laughed aloud at hysterically lecherous lines. The only justification I have (and it is the only one my family would need) is that it was a Cal Leandros book and most of the lecherous lines were, of course, Robin.

There’s a moment I wanted to share though. It’s the one that inspired this post. This book (Slashback) has been 50/50 current day and flashbacks. In one particular flash to the past, an eleven year old Cal is rocking back and forth on his stool. Back and forth, back and forth, over and over again as he and his brother Niko are discussing homework and disagreeing on its importance. He continues to rock until eventually he rocks too far. Does he fall? No. Niko’s leg was already there to catch it and haul the chair legs back onto the floor. Cal has done this a million times. Niko has caught him a million times. It’s never discussed. It just goes on, a fact of their lives.

We all have these routines, with family and with friends, that we don’t even realize we follow. Habits we exhibit only for them, things we go out of our way to do to make them happy, sometimes at the expense of ours or even just the mere lessening. Writers should use this. It’s a tool that in a single scene like the one above, paints a picture of a relationship and its depth.

I have another example, though bear with me. It is slightly older. It is from Cassandra Clare’s book Clockwork Princess. It is also not entirely accurate, as I am changing it to make more sense out of context.

Jem receives a letter that is extremely distressing. He stares at it, angry, pained, and all at once, he doesn’t want another moment with it. He throws it into the nearby fire. Will, his friend and might-as-well-be brother, knows how important that letter will be to Jem later. He knows that Jem will hate himself for burning it, for losing it. Will knows this and so he does what he does without thought. He buries both his hands in the fire to get the letter back. Afterwards, hands well-bandaged and the good drugs administered, Will apologizes for causing such a ruckus. Jem says it should be him who should apologize, for he knew Will and should have known that throwing the letter would have but one outcome.

In the past year, as I have reread Robin Thurman’s books, I have endeavored to use more of these types of details. I think they add power, even if most of them slide under readers radars. The people that do notice them, who do what I did and thumb back the page to absorb the paragraph a second time, those are the people who going to go “wow, that’s how to put the depth of a bond on paper.” Others might look at that and say, “it’s a hell of a lucky person who actually has that, that kind of person in their lives.”

I’m lucky. Not only do I read of these moments and write of these moments. I live of these moments with my mom.  

King Kong Meets Magneto (X-Men First Class)

X-Men First Class Review: King Kong Meets Magneto

I had the chance to see this movie in the theaters when I was in Alaska. I was living in my apartment in downtown and the guy who found it for me was supposed to meet me for dinner. He was a black guy that I’d met at the Backpackers Inn. I think his name might have been Cody and he had a major crush on me. We had dinner planned and then a movie at the theater over by Fireweed Ave. He never showed. I can still remember him then showing up late at night, asking to go and how utterly awkward it was.

When I went into this movie last night, I kept thinking about King Kong. (No, wait, it will make sense) When people sit down to watch King Kong, they don’t wonder if Kong will be released into the wild or if the girl will get to visit him in a zoo. Every audience knows the ending. It is inevitable. Going into X-Men First Class, I already knew that Magneto would end up the villain. How could he not? Even people who don’t like superheroes know that Magneto is evil, irredeemable, lost. That actually made the movie better, more painful.

The relationship between Erik and Charles, (Magneto and Professor X) was done phenomenally. Their friendship had to be built up in order to be torn down, right? I think this process was perfect. Charles saved Erik beneath the water and then gave Erik his single good memory of his mother back. Both of them were intellects, a match in powers, but entirely different in temperament. Charles was, from the very first, the only thing that kept Erik in check, the only thing that could bring him back when he started to slip.

In the very end, Charles was still the only thing that could influence Erik when he was at the height of his power, of his anger….but it’d be the last time he did it.

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE ENDING OF THE MOVIE:

I have one very big complaint about this movie and one very big favorite.

Complaint:

While any viewer could see the changes in Erik throughout the movie, his abrupt shift in position at the end was WAY too abrupt. It was obvious that he felt apart from humanity due to what Kevin Bacon had inflicted on him in the camps. It was also incredibly obvious, at least to me, that his philosophy regarding mutant and human relations leaned far closer to that of Shaw (Kevin Bacon’s character) than they did that of Charles. Once again, if not for Charles influence on him and his hunger for vengeance, it was clear that Erik would have become Magneto far earlier.

When Erik walked into the submarine, per Charles’ plan, he was still mostly on their side. He went in INTENDING to come back out to the jet. People might differ with me on this, but he’d just been hanging outside of the jet over the ocean. He’d JUST grabbed hold of Charles’ hand to avoid ripping free of the landing gear and finally, he’d just used his powers to keep Charles from being bashed to death within the rolling jet. In my eyes, this shows that he did NOT walk into the submarine intending to come out an enemy.

This is my complaint: He switched too fast. He came out angry, but Erik was always angry. He’d just killed Shaw, but I would think that would have given him a seconds peace. (While Charles DID tell him that vengeance would not bring him peace, it can bring a fleeting moment of it) I need more, a CRUX or a DECISION or hell, even a TWIST on Shaw’s last words, which would then spiral Erik into doing what he did on the beach.

My Favorite Scene:

While I may not agree with how they got to this point, I do agree that the entire scene on the beach was fantastic. It was a perfect depiction of Erik losing control, which we as the audience knew was coming and Charles as his friend (and who had been trusted into Erik’s mind) must have known. Erik believed the humans would want to kill them and was proven right when they were fired upon. He held off the missiles, turned them around and every person in every theater everywhere knew where he was going to send them, just as we knew there was only person who could stop him.

When I watched this scene, with Erik trying to concentrate and Charles yelling at him, I kept yelling, “Distract him! Distract him! Break his concentration!”

Charles did, but not in the way I was expecting.

He bowled Erik over and they exchanged their first set of blows. When the woman comes forward, gun firing, Erik defends himself, just as Charles would have defended himself, as ANY mutant or human would have. He deflected the bullets, one to the right, one to the left, BANG, BANG, BANG…..and BANG into Charles’ back.

And the highlight of the movie is Charles hitting the sand and Erik forgetting everything for just one instant as he rushes to his side. The missiles do not hit their targets, as Erik has finally been distracted. Erik, only minutes away from truly becoming Magneto, is full of panic as he draws the bullet of Charles. I really do believe that when he attempted to strangle the girl who’d fired the shot; it was out of an enraged desire to protect his friend.

“Stop Erik! She didn’t do this. You did.”

That sentence was an accusation, a truth and it hurt both of them. It drove them into the last conversation they’d have as friends. As Erik implored Charles to join him, that they were brothers, their friendship was ending and they both knew it.

“We want the same thing Charles.”

Laughing hoarsely, painfully. “No, my friend, we do not.”

I knew this was where the story would end up, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Unfortunately, I can’t turn off X-Men First Class when they hit the beach the same as I turn off King Kong when he begins to climb the building, not when my favorite scene is the final one.

This is a ruby, a painful one I won’t be watching very often, but a ruby indeed. 

The Cal Leandro's series (Death wish)

Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover….or its review:

Once upon a time, I spent six months in Alaska. My job on the railroad made me miserable. I was beaten down by bullying. I was lying daily for the sake of my own survival. I walked around in a disguise built out of lies, telling people my phone calls home weren’t to my mother, but to friends, that my being all natural and homeschooled weren’t damaging choices, but destiny deciding ones. I faced each day as if they were battles to be won and each night as a brief reprieve.

I did, however, have a few saving graces.

(1)   My mother’s care packages

(2)   My phone calls home

(3)   Reruns of Supernatural on the hostel television

(4)   The C and M used bookshop

I discovered the bookstore upon pure accident. I was riding by on my blue bike, my main mode of transportation and noticed it. It was located between my hostel and downtown. It was a tiny, hole in the wall place. There was nowhere to lock up my bike and nothing else nearby…..and yet I became a regular. I stopped in several times a week. It was almost impossible for me to ride past without stopping in. I only ever met two of the employee’s, an older woman with jokes about birds and young boy, (not a man) who rarely spoke and did restocking out of sight. I don’t remember either of their names and by now, they probably wouldn’t know mine. They’d recognize me on sight though. I’d come in, go to the same aisle and plop down on the floor.

I’d look for the same author, same series of books every time. Rob Thurman, the writer of a random book on a random shelf in a random shop…..her book Death-wish was one of my saving graces. I’d found it on my first visit to C and M. It looked good, had two guys on the front, but probably would’ve ended up back on the shelf if not for the review. I never read reviews, but thank goodness I read this one:

"Fans of Supernatural's Winchester brothers will instantly love Niko and Cal!"

It was the fourth in a series and they didn’t have any of the others. It was an impulse buy, very unlike me.

I’ve been home two years now (how did the time fly like that?) and just finished reading Death-wish a second time, but in order. The twists hit me just as hard as they did the first time around, although I noticed the signs earlier. (There are advantages to my faulty novel memory….twists can hit me again and again!)

I wanted to share my favorite moments: (Do not read if you’re going to read the Cal Leandro’s series)

MOMENT ONE: Monster hunting brothers Cal and Niko are just driving along…when the bad guys stab through the ceiling of the car. In a matter of paragraphs, we (the reader) go from reading a snippy snappy conversation….to seeing the car rolled, the characters thrown clear and the bad guy attempting to end their lives. This moment is a perfect example of why I love Robin Thurman. She can throw action at you without the slightest bit of notice….and she doesn’t save it for the stories climax. She sprinkles them throughout and you won’t know they’re coming, until they’re slapping you in the face!

The car crash and the following hospital visit for Niko brought a new issue to mind. The “Token Human.” In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xander was the token human. In Supernatural, (for awhile, at least) it was Dean. In Dark Angel, it was Logan. In the Cal Leandro’s series, it’s Niko. (Cal is half demon) In the hospital, with Niko’s ribs bound and his forehead covered in stitches, Cal averts his eyes and says, “We can’t leave yet Niko. Right now, you look….you look too human.” Be it in Buffy, Supernatural, Dark Angel or Cal Leandro’s, the Token Human is almost always a character that the viewers forget is human….forget until they’re landed in the hospital with their paranormal comrades looking on.

MOMENT TWO:

Having just narrowly escaped death once again, the brothers were laying on a field of grass, having just “transported” themselves away from a battle they’d have lost otherwise. Niko, the elder brother that has forever been known to never give up, finally reaches over and takes Cal’s beloved gun, “If it comes down to those demons taking you….I’ll shoot you first, okay? You’ll go first.” The inference that Niko would be right behind him is silent, but very much there.

MOMENT THREE:

I try not to draw too many similarities between the Cal Leandro’s brothers and the Winchester brothers, but this is to make an interesting point. After the climax is over and the big baddie is dead, younger brother Cal tells older brother Niko that he doesn’t need protecting anymore. Cal says that Niko has done enough. If something happens someday and Cal dies, Niko has to move on, let it go, let HIM go. After all those words, more than Cal ever uses, Niko just looks at him…..and Cal sighs, bows his head. “We’re screwed, aren’t we?” He says and you know what he’s saying, that no matter what both of them say about moving on and letting go, neither one ever will, but they still have to say it.

In Supernatural the television series, brothers Sam and Dean go through the same thing. Just before Dean goes to hell because of his deal, he tells Sam to go live his life….but Sam nearly gets himself killed doing the opposite. Just before Sam jumps into the pit, he tells Dean to go live with Lisa and Ben….and he does, but it nearly destroys him. They both keep telling each other to MOVE ON, but neither does it and in all honesty? I don’t think either of them believe it or want it when they say it. THEN, then Dean goes to purgatory and Sam doesn't search for him, doesn't fight to get him back. In his last conversation with him, Sam tells their dead father figure Bobby that no, he didn’t really search for Dean, as Dean told him not to. “Sam!” Bobby exclaims. “You two always say that to each other. You never mean it! It’s a fake deal!”

Ah, the things we say but we don’t mean, but we still need to say them just to prove our loved ones will hear it and know what we REALLY mean. 

Throughout the book, I had small flashes of reading Death-wish in Alaska. I saw myself reading on my stomach on my hostel bunk bed. I saw myself cross legged at the Regency hotel, in one of the many, many beds I stayed in. I saw myself on the train when it was dead, distracting myself from Jerry and Courtney by reading instead of masking my napping by turning towards the window. There were just flashes though….until I read the part where a little demon named Xolo looked right at Niko.

BAM!

I remembered not only everything that would happen after that, (the brainwashing, the fake death, the suicidal loss) but I remembered exactly where I’d been sitting the last time I’d read it.

On the second story of the Anchorage Backpackers Inn, at the very end of the long hallway, I sat on the couch next to the wooden desk. I don’t remember if I was eating yet another of my salads, (always sitting on the coffee table) but I remember that when I realized what Xolo had done to Niko, I dropped the book. I paused, my eyes darted up from the page, I lay the book on the armrest to my right…and I just went, “whoa.” Reading that scene again, I felt that same whoa and I felt myself zapped right back to that hostel.

It was amazing.

One last thing and I know I keep getting off topic…..getting obsessed with the Cal Leandro’s books was the same as my getting obsessed with Supernatural. I did it because to get absorbed by another set of characters passions, loneliness and lives was to distract from my own. Whenever I’ve foolishly fantasized about what I’d say to Jensen, Jared, Misha, Jim, any of them, it’s this I’d like to say: Your show and your acting is a HUGE part of what got me through that summer. Thank you.

I want to give that same thanks, now, to Robin Thurman.