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the-hittite · 1 year ago

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It's him.

The Scourge of Boston.

The Overboss of the Raiders.

The Scout from Team Fortress Two.

Gameplay notes under the cut.

Alternate start mod required if at all possible to avoid creating a nightmarish timeline in which Scout has procreated.

Strength 1. We live and die by Scouts tiny baby noodle arms. Once I got the Strength bobblehead I could start putting points into Big Leagues.

Perception can be anything. The only perk you really need is Rifleman and you can get the bobblehead basically immediately. You can maybe put points into it for things like Refractor but I never ended up doing that.

Endurance is tricky. To really drive home the fragile Scout theme you want low health, but Endurance also determines how long you can sprint. Personally I went for 7 END because lack of armor on a close range build was already a challenge and I desperately wanted Adamantium Skeleton and Rad Resistance.

Charisma 1. Self Explanatory.

Intelligence 1. Self Explanatory.

Agility 10. Self Explanatory and perks like Moving Target and Action Boy are must haves.

Luck at least 5 for Idiot Savant. You probably want it higher for Better Criticals and Critical Banker. They're incredible with a double barrel shotgun.

Clothing and hats/helmets can be worn as long as they fit the aesthetic or match an existing cosmetic (army helmet, scribe hat, etc.) Armor pieces can only be added if they apply the Sprinter's legendary effect. Damage resistance perks are acceptable since they function basically the same as MVM resistance upgrades.

Medical emergencies can be dealt with by paying a doctor or sleeping it off. In the heat of combat your only options are to either run off to find a first aid kit and immediately consume the entire contents whether you need all of them or not (preferably right before a burning Medic can get it) or by downing a Nuka Cola variant. Radiation and broken limbs are your worst enemy. It's probably a good idea to do Nuka World before the Glowing Sea since Nuka Grape is your only way to remove rads in the field.

Double Barrel Shotgun as a main. Deliverer as a secondary. Any bat as melee. For most of the game I had a pretty decent flow to combat where I'd charge up a crit with my pistol and run in close to delete things with my Force-a-Nature. Sawn Off barrel and Calibrated receiver quadruples your critical damage, and that's before perks. I literally one shot Swan just to see if I could. Deliverer ended up being my most used weapon because it's just plain good all around. The bats didn't get that much use until I finally put points into Blitz, then they got crazy fast.

With this stat spread you have access to absolutely no crafting perks, but you can still make basic upgrades or scavenge them off of other weapons. Staying in the Railroad's good graces lets you buy upgrades for Deliverer. There's a guaranteed bladed rocket bat in the Pack's area of Nuka World.

Stretch goals beyond just beating the game:

Leave Preston on read and peace out of Concord after grabbing the Perception bobblehead. Leave power armor, miniguns and settlement building to Heavy and Engineer.

Use the "sarcastic" option at every opportunity. If people don't regret initiating conversation with you, you're playing Scout wrong.

Collect every unique bat.

Complete all baseball related quests.

Capture the control point in Diamond City for the BLU team.

Buy the Home Plate.

Complete all of Nuka World and become Lord Bonk of Soda Mountain.

Institute ending just because I hate them and I can't think of a worse fate than giving Scout complete control.

#fallout 4 #team fortress 2 #tf2 #scout

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reinabeestudio · 7 months ago

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Gonna add some of my basic hcs for my top 3 mercs (engineer + soldier + scout). Not claiming these are super original, but I wanna show what I'm working with on my selfship stuff 👍

Extra notes: 1) I haven't read the comics but I have some vague knowledge about them. I'm not gonna follow them much tho. 2) game and comic take place in different times (game: 1968 / comics 1972). I'm sticking to 1972. 3) I don't really treat RED and BLU mercs as different people, so these apply to both sides

Engineer

Dell Conagher, in his 40s and 5'7"

Very nice, very polite. But don't be fooled by the southern charm, this man is more stubborn than a mule

One of the best cooks at base, only beaten by Heavy and Demo (he won't admit this)

Yes he's short. Ye's he's aware. Yes he has a complex. No he won't admit this either

Don't be fooled, this man has very good aim. Sentries are just a very effective way of keeping motherfuckers away

I like to think he can sing, might sing a ditty when he's playing guitar/banjo by himself. He's 100% fine with playing in front of others but he's actually shy about the singing!

Sore loser and sore winner, one of the few times where he's rather annoying no matter the outcome lol

He... fucking sucks at making jokes. Or puns. He's a lost cause

Hard-worker to the bone, not even 11 PhDs can hide the underlying insecurity of needing to prove the worth behind the Conagher family name

Related the last: he's very reticent to ask or accept help even when he really needs it. He's the fix-it guy, he solves problems

Because of that, he's not used to compliments. He'll brush them off ('Ah, weren't no thing'). But if you keep insisting, you'll see the rare sight of embarassed Engie

Don't ever try to sneak up on him, his first reaction will be to punch you or hit you with whatever he's holding (and you don't wanna be hit with a wrench on the face do you). Spies messing with his machines has made him rather paranoid in that sense

Speaking of Spy, these two absolutely don't get along at all. All southern charm is gone when he interacts with him

Soldier

Jane Doe, 49 years old and 6'

Official bio says he's from the midwest, so (after consulting my American Friends(tm)) now Soldier is from somewhere rural Nebraska with a vet father, where his big patriotism comes from

If you don't think he won't argue with scout or engie that nebraska is in fact midwest, you don't know soldier. He WILL literally brawl for this

Jane Doe isn't his actual name. It's an undercover alias.

Belligerent and idiotic, yet not as stupid as people tend to assume. He's smart, just in different ways. And just very chaotic

Destructive, but surprisingly friendly if he assumes you're on his side

He often carries a rocket launcher and shoots that thing near his face, so his hearing isn't as good as it used to

That helmet he always wears? Same one he's been wearing he 'became' a soldier

You'd be surprised what a good memory he has!

Insanely good poker face, don't play cards with him

Too thickheaded to be scared. Sees a ghost and he'll just be like 🗿

Not really a hc but reminder than besides a 'soldier', this man is also: a mercenary (duh), a lawyer, a park ranger, a tour guide and a priest (in Guam)

Don't trust this man with a stove EVER

Rarely you'll see him doing nothing. Tends to keep himself busy, as good soldiers do (his logic says so, at least)

Despite his mentioned patriotism he's shit at geography, including his own country. He knows states EXIST but he doesn't exactly know WHERE or HOW MANY (last time he checked there were 48)

Scout

Jeremy Mortenson, 27 years old and 5'11"

Youngest of 7 brothers, all of them have names that start with J—even his mother's name starts with a J! (June Mortenson)

Youngest at home and now youngest at the base. He gotta prove he's tough and to not be messed with—he's teased enough at home! He's a merc dammit

That said, being surrounded by lotta guys that are older than him that don't really pay attention to him most of the time... aah, just like home

He genuinely loves his family and his teammates, and admittedly he misses his famiy in Boston. But HEY don't tell anyone

All talk no walk, he's gotten himself in problems more than once because of his dumbass claims

Being half-french (he doesn't know sshh), he's more similar to Spy than both care to admit. Scout just doesn't have the charming, lady-killer façade Spy has

He does know French tho. He has problems speaking it and can barely read it, but he can pick up what peopleare saying . And his accent bleeds so much when he speaks it, it's hard to make out what he's saying (Spy just looks at him like 🗿)

Not a big fan of tiny spaces. This dislike came with his job, a tiny space makes escaping harder

Besides Tom Jones, reckon another big love of his is baseball. I like to think in different circumstances he'd have tried to become a pro. But when there are so many mouths to feed, you take what you can to help your single mom

Fast learner when it comes to arts. Drawing, playing an instrument, etc—he picks it up fast. Did you know he can sing? Oddly enough he doesn't gloat about it (Only his ma knows this fact)

Like Soldier, he's smart but in a different way. He might have difficulty reading, but guy is a speed demon when it comes to killing. He gets the job done, and FAST

If I see someone else calling him a twink, I'll start exploding people. Yeah he's not exactly muscular and rather scrawny compared to the other mercs. But he ain't weak! The thing about Scout is that he isn't built for strength, he's built for speed.

I'm late, but using my (recent) birthday as an excuse to ramble about Cee and the other mercs—mostly Cee, with hints of ship stuff :]

This is kinda long btw

The arrival of Ms. Doremi was not something unexpected, since the team had been notified a few days prior of a new hire from Spain. However, she wasn't what they imagined.

The answer depends on who you ask, but all of them more or less were expecting a tough mercenary, someone that has clearly fought and killed before. Someone that gets the job done no matter what. But before them was the damndest fanciest lady they've ever seen. Scout was the one tasked to showing her around due to being the fastest, and it was clear some doubts about this new teammate quickly started to appear after each one met her personally.

Not only that, but there was something particular about Ms. Doremi: she had a room for herself like the others, but she didn't always sleep on it. In fact, many nights she'd leave the base and come back in the morning. Spy even identified her car as an ivory Seat 600 D. Not exactly a model seen in the US.

Now, as I mentioned in past posts, I ship her with almost all of them (except Pyro)—not at the same time. So how things develop depends on the merc! Although the ones I think about the most are Engineer, Soldier, and Scout.

I'll focus only on Engineer/Cee for now. Maybe I'll explore different reactions in the future (please ask me about any of the other ships gimme an excuse to gush please please please pl--).

Surprise, he fell in love at first sight 💥

I imagine they found him on his workshop, arguing with one of the others for touching his tools or something else (probably Spy? I like to think they don't get along at all lol). So there he was, cursing up a Texan Storm(tm) until he hears stifled laughter behind him and he turns around like ???. And when he sees her, he completely freezes.

“Apologies, I didn't mean to laugh. You just have such a way with words, I coulnd't help”

And aren't you a vision of loveliness.

She would offer her hand for a handshake, while introducing herself. How proper, ain't she cute. “I'm Cee Doremi. I'm the new RED member. And what might your name be?”

“I'm mighty sorry 'bout earlier, promise I'm nicer than that!” He took her hand then, a bit too tightly. “Dell Conagher, or the Engineer. At your service.”

“It's alright, Mr. Conagher. As my mother used to say, when we argue it's because we care. Don't you think?”

“Please, call me Dell. And I can't say I fully agree with ya, Ms. Doremi, but I can see yer point!"

“Call me Cee." God, that smile of hers could resurrect an angel. The guy is practically leaking toony hearts while Spy and Scout look at them like 👁 (nosy father & nosy son lol). “It was nice meeting you. But I still have to finish my little tour, and I'd kindly like to have my hand back, yes?”

Engie's face scrunched up in confusion before he looked down at his hand and noticing that he's, in fact, still shaking her hand.

So she waved him bye and he waved back with a face warmer than an oven. Meanwhile Spy just looked at him with the most insufferable knowing smile ever.

“What a gracefully embarassing display of those 11 PhDs, pardner.”

“Shut it, you snake.”

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ⟐ ⋅.} ───── ⊰

Time passes, and Cee's presence is just one more on base. She even got her own nickname: the Lady (very original). It started as a joke, but it ended up just becoming a thing lol.

She gets along with her teammates! Some more than others, but she has a minimum level of property that she doesn't seem to like breaking, no matter how rude some people might be. Old habits, she calls it (makes you curious how she was raised).

And everyday as usual, when night comes, she drives off... somewhere. And everyday she comes back in the morning. She's been asked about this by the others many times; she has her own room here, what's the need of leaving every night? Where does she even go? But as polite as she is, that's a question she doesn't answer.

Until one day the answer comes to them.

Cee called for a meeting, which was odd. She was the only one standing up, the rest of the mercs sitting down and no doubt confused what was going on.

“As all of you know, I spend most of my nights outside of the base. First I want to clarify, I have no problem with my room. I'm thankful I was given my own space.” she started, her hands clasped in front of her. “But I did for a good reason. Something very important.”

She explains how she was told by the higher-ups it'd be best if she stopped the car trips, mostly because the enemy could follow her and learn the location of the base. How she explained her situation, and a solution would be searched.

But until then, she'd have to compromise.

“I'm only doing this because I have no other choice. Apologies in advance,” she finished explaining.

They see Cee turn around to the doorframe behind her and says something in Spanish (“Ya podéis salir”). And the 9 mercs watch with wide eyes how a young girl and a young boy come out and quickly go to Cee, the kids looking at the men while hiding behind her. They looked similar to Cee.

“Gentlemen, these are my twins: Lance and Renée.”

She looked down at them, gently patting their heads. “They will be staying on my bedroom, until a safer place for them is found. I've already told them to behave and not bother any of you unless it's a dire situation and I'm not around. Please, be patient with them while they are here.”

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ⟐ ⋅.} ───── ⊰

Yes I know, I didn't really talk about actual ships AJSDNGDS. But I thought that it'd be best to first establish some facts about Cee for better understanding ☝ If you wanna learn more, ask about it (/j /lh)

#my writing #self insert #long post #tbh i might add to these in the future?? but for now im good #ALSO!! I added that extra post about Cee to this original post as well :]#tf2 #team fortress 2 #tf2 engineer #engineer tf2 #scout tf2 #soldier tf2

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spygender · 5 years ago

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some wlw tf2 ocs

main red vs. blu cast:

louis, bi, nonbinary trans woman. my main red spy oc, if you see me talking about red spy headcanons, it probably applies to them. they met josie, blu scout's mom, in the 40s while she was a factory worker and [spoilers for fic i want to write where they get up to mystery-solving shenanigans together]. always had inklings they weren't cis, and then they joined RED and all their teammates were trans and then they were really like Hmmmm.......... they're 50 years old and trying to finally sort out the mess they've made of their life and that's valid.

josephine/josie, bi, nb woman. main scout's ma oc, see above. dry sense of humor, passionate, Tired™️. won't get too much into her backstory here because i'm writing that in another post, but had her first kid out of high school, has had 2 husbands before meeting spy, used spy's guilt-alimony money to buy a bakery/grocery after she was fired from her factory job. life didn't go exactly how she imagined it would, but she made something of it, damn it :/

paola, lesbian, nb trans woman. blu sniper. loves to tease and mess with her friends. grew up poaching to feed her family, eventually started making some money off of it, the rest is history. somehow ended up good friends with both spies.....? she's just the kind of person who’s really easy to talk even though they don't say much.

xochitl, bi, nb woman. red pyro. sorry i don't have much for them yet 😔 red engie is her honorary tío, he's too old for this shit and somebody needs to watch out for him :'(

as of yet nameless red scout, lesbean, trans woman. when her red spy came out as a trans woman she was like "🤩 you too???". uses her money from RED to move out to LA and get into animation + doing a little voice work.

then some other ocs for another fic i wanna write, oh god this got long:

amelia, lesbian, trans woman. a blu scout's mom. idealistic, daring. met her red spy when they were partnered espionage agents for a number of years. became disillusioned with the espionage life. up and disappeared one day, moved to a modest new york apartment where she hoped she could stay anonymous and start her transition. scout is her oldest kid, who is still as obnoxious and full of himself as ever, except now he thinks he can be in everybody's business because he's an ~eldest~. taught all of her kids how to protect themselves from her own years of training, afraid that someone would come after her one day. probably isn't happy about scout joining BLU, but maybe gives in a little when he swears it'll only be for a few years, and then he's set for life? she might end up getting dragged back into the spy life for Reasons.....

genevieve/camille idk yet, lesbian, trans woman. another red spy, married to amelia. chill, but distant. had talked with amelia about getting out of the game, and the conversation had ended on a sour note (because spy didn't think a domestic life could ever make her happy), but didn't think amelia would go through with it. amelia gets in contact a year or so later and they reunite. i am undecided whether things get romantic yet or if they simply Yearn. spy ends up bouncing a few months after scout's birth, feels like shit about the decision even though they'd agreed she wouldn't be tied down being a parent to the kid. things play out pretty similar to my general red spy hcs from there (may change).

#tf2 tag #oc tag #this took forever to edit because tumblr wouldn't save anything :////#anyway if you have any questions about any of em 👀 i would love to answer them

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chiseler · 6 years ago

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An Interview With Screenwriter Louisa Rose

In 1973, Brian De Palma released Sisters, his Siamese twin mystery thriller starring Margot Kidder and Charles Durning. After a string of social satires which, to be honest, haven’t aged very well, Sisters was De Palma’s breakthrough film, the one that would cement the form and style for which he’d come to be known. A year later he released the horror/comedy/glam rock opera Phantom of the Paradise starring the great Paul Williams. Hitting theaters more than a year before Rocky Horror, Phantom combined elements from Faust, Phantom of the Opera and about a dozen other sources into a bright, fast, wicked comic book satire of the music business. The film went on to become a cult favorite.

Both films were written by screenwriter Louisa Rose, though she is rarely credited for her work on Phantom. After some reputed and proverbial creative differences, De Palma removed her name from the film and rewrote the script, taking sole screenwriting credit. Although Rose disagrees with me, I think it can be argued it was her work on these two scripts, particularly Sisters, that drew attention to De Palma as a director.

After spending the first 20 years of her adult life in New York City, she and her husband relocated first to Spokane and then to Seattle about a decade back. Not long ago, I spoke with her via phone about her career as a playwright and Hollywood screenwriter.

Jim Knipfel: How did you get started in screenwriting?

Louisa Rose: {Laughs} By accident. I was one of those kids who wrote poetry in high school. I went to college thinking I wanted to be an actress. Theater was my primary interest. I found that I really enjoyed the rehearsal process, but really did not enjoy acting for an audience. That was not a recommendation for a career on stage, so part of my theater concentration (we called our majors “concentrations” at Sarah Lawrence) was writing for the theater. And that’s what I really loved. Brian De Palma was at Columbia, and though they had extra-curricular student theater, they did not have the intensive program as part of the curriculum that SLC did, and does.

At any rate, Brian and another Columbia student came to Sarah Lawrence to do theater and some film projects, because the head of the theater department, Wilford Leach, was interested in film as well. He was a mentor for Brian. The first film project, I believe, was a short piece called The Wedding Party. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that.

JK: Oh, yes, I’ve seen it.

LR: After that Brian made Murder a la Mod and Dionysus, I think it was.

JK: You mean Dionysus in ’69?

LR: Yes, Dionysus in ’69 started out as a theater piece. Scared the shit out of me when I went to see it. It was created by an interesting experimental director, Richard Schechner, as a mass quasi-orgy experience. The venue, The Performing Garage, had stadium seating, actually more like large long shelves almost to the ceiling – and you had to climb ladders to reach them. Then the actors would climb up and invite you to “join the dance.” And I saw one coming toward me… “No, I am not joining the dance. I am an observer” {laughs}.

Brian did his Masters at Sarah Lawrence, and one of his projects was to direct my senior play. That’s how I got to know him. I then went on to get my MFA in theater. So he knew me and he was looking for someone to write a script for Sisters. He felt his idea for the film would be marketable, but he needed a script. It sounded like fun, and actually became my Master’s thesis.

JK: Really?

LR: Yeah, so that’s how I got to work on Sisters.

JK: So he came to you with the story?

LR: He had kind of an outline. He had this idea that it would be twins, one evil and one good sister…You know, it’s just so long ago it’s hard for me to remember. There were certain points, certain visual things he wanted. We worked together on the story, and then I wrote the script.

As for Phantom of the Fillmore …

JK: Um, you mean Phantom of the Paradise?

LR: That’s it, Phantom of the Fillmore. It became Paradise.

{Note: After catching wind of the film’s original title, the owners of The Fillmore filed a lawsuit, forcing the change. Another lawsuit, this one filed by Led Zeppelin, forced the name of the films central record company, Swan Song, be changed to Death Records.}

LR: I took time off from working in NYC to go to LA and write scripts for Sisters and Phantom. At that point, I was a single mother, and my daughter Alissa was two and a half. I brought her with me and had her in day care. I had a contract for a total of $80,000 for the two scripts. But when it came to getting paid, Brian delayed and delayed, told me it was not a good time and that I needed to wait. As usual, actors, director, camera persons, etc. were paid. I needed the money, had to sue to be paid, and only received a quarter of the contract money. Brian had been a friend, and it felt like a betrayal.

But back to the movie, what is your take on Sisters? What are the things you notice about it?

JK: I went back just a couple days ago and watched it again. Just in terms of De Palma’s career, it was a big turning point for him. Discounting Murder A La Mod, he’d been doing all those goofy satires like Greetings and Hi Mom! And Get to Know your Rabbit. Sisters was the first of his thrillers and the first of his Hitchcock homages, the things he’d come to be known for.

LR: Right.

JK: Ignoring the Psycho model at play, one of the things that always struck me about Sisters was that in lesser hands the big Siamese twins reveal would have been saved until the last ten or fifteen pages of the script, but here we get it about forty minutes in. Even before that, they gave it away in the poster; they gave it away in the tagline. There was no secret the killer—or killers—were Siamese twins. But then of course there’s the later twist, which brings us back to Psycho.

LR: Mm-hmm.

JK: What really sticks with me, though, is the whole final sequence from Jennifer Salt’s hypnotism to that final shot of Charles Durning staring through the binoculars at the couch. It’s so good. I love that ending so much. Also, having come to know of her only later, I was amazed to see what a good actress Margot Kidder was.

LR: I thought she was very appealing and a really good choice for the part.

JK: In the end Sisters, more so than the thrillers that would follow—Dressed to Kill, Body Double, Blow Out—is the one I always go back to, because even the Hitchcock stuff is still fairly understated at that point. So I’m wondering, how much of that final script, what made it to the screen, was yours?

LR I think I have a copy of my original script here, if I could find it. It was much longer and needed to be cut. I really don’t know. It was a long time ago and I’d need to re-read it.

There is a Blu-Ray copy of Sisters put out by Arrow that has interviews of some people who worked on the film.

I’ve got it somewhere.]

My husband keeps saying I should show it to our teenage grandchildren, but it might destroy their image of me as nice old grandma. On the other hand, some years ago, our two nephews watched it as young teenagers and looked at me with new respect—or was it fear?

Now, what is funny is that Sisters is kind of a cult film, and so is Phantom. About ten years ago, shortly after we moved to Seattle, I got a call from a young woman originally from Winnipeg.

JK: The one city where Phantom was a big hit when it came out.

LR: Yes, it was a cult film there, with a festival and now possibly a documentary about the festival. We had a visit, and she mailed me – I believe it was a production copy of the script for Sisters.

JK: So what was it like for you, a young woman writing films in the Seventies?

LR: There are things funny and not funny that happened…Nothing about the movie business appealed to me, based on my very limited experience. The people were kind of awful. I have memories of someone from the studio, a married accountant. He said, “Oh, I have to go to San Francisco to scout locations, and you could come with me.” The whole approach was making me nervous, and I said, “Well, I have a two-year-old daughter with me, so, uh, no I can’t do that.” And he said, “Well, we could bring your daughter and get baby-sitting for her, and then we could have a Really Good Time.” I thought, oh, just leave me alone—I’m not a gorgeous actress, I’m a writer.

JK: Not that long ago I interviewed an actress from the late Fifties who up and left the movie business for twenty years because she wouldn’t put up with that.

LR: Women were treated horribly in Hollywood as elsewhere. When I went to look for a job in New York after college, there were separate job listings for men and women. Men could apply for management-track jobs and women could be a “Gal Fri” or a “Secy.”

I was very taken by a piece in Ms. Magazine about a woman who worked in a factory that made plutonium pellets and who became a whistle-blower. I thought it would make a good movie.

JK: You mean Karen Silkwood?

LR: That’s it. So I met a woman who worked at New Line Cinema, who got me an interview with a producer there. I came in and I was supposed to pitch my idea. It was almost like a parody of a scene in a Hollywood movie about a Hollywood movie. The guy is sitting there with his feet up on the desk and he has these three or four male cronies sitting around, and he’s cracking jokes and they’re all laughing heartily at his jokes. Eventually he said, “So you want to write a script,” and I said “Yeah.” I started telling him about it, and he kept interrupting me. He was horrified to learn that Karen Silkwood, a single mother, had left her children with their grandparents so she could take a well-paying job at the plant. “No one would ever go to see a movie about a woman who leaves her children,” he announced. Basically, the interview was over at that point. He looked at me and asked if I knew how to type. When I said yes, he said,

“Well, you could come and be a typist here.”

JK: My god.

LR: At that point, I said, “I think you’ve really got too much going on here to pay attention, so I think this isn’t working too well.” He sprang up from his desk and stalked off, bright red, furious. He came back and said, “I have never been so insulted in my life.” That was the end of that. {Laughs.}

{Note: For what it’s worth, Rose’s instincts were good. Director Mike Nichols’ take on the Silkwood story, starring Meryl Streep and written by Nora Ephron, was released in 1983.}

LR: Then, because I’d written a horror movie, I was offered other projects. One was to be a murder film involving Debbie Harry, the lead singer with Blondie, the rock group. The only requirement as far as the potential director was concerned was that it needed to have seven or eight murders. The rest was up to me. I met Debbie Harry and talked to her to get a sense of what she could do. You just get a sense of what people can do. She had no acting background.

JK: Would this have been her first picture?

LR: It would have been, I think, but it was never made. At one point, she said “Well, I just want to play the part of a housewife in the movie.” And I thought she’d be more believable as the person she actually was. So I made it about a rock group beset by a number of murders. I think it had seven murders. Then I came back for the next meeting. She’d read the script and said, “I can’t do this movie; it’s the story of my life.” And I thought, WHAT? {Laughs.}. I mean, WHAT? So that one didn’t happen.

JK: So that was, what, around 1980?

LR: I think so, late Seventies or early Eighties. Something like that.

JK: So that was after Monique was made?

LR; {pause} So you know about that.

JK: Yes.

LR: How did you find out about that?

JK: Well, it’s listed on your filmography online, and I’ve seen it.

LR: {Sighs heavily and laughs} It has very little to do with me. Believe me, I’ve seen it also. That’s the thing about screenwriting. Who knows? You sit at home and do your writing, but who knows what will emerge?

I was hired by a French would-be feature film director who had done film work for a famous French fashion house. He wanted a story about a woman who becomes psychotic when she learns her husband is gay and proceeds to murder a bunch of gay men.

I don’t recognize the script part of it and wish I didn’t have a credit on it. It’s one of the worst things I’ve ever seen, and I think you can agree with me.

JK: I was going to hold my tongue.

LR: Well, don’t.

JK: It was pretty bad. But I will tell you, it is extremely hard to find nowadays.

LR: Good.

And then there was the time an agent called and said she had a project for me, and that I didn’t have to do my best writing; I could do my second best writing.

JK: That sounds promising.

LR: Well as a writer if someone called and said they had a project but that you’d only have to do your second-best writing, what would you say?

JK: I think I’d ask how much it paid.

LR: But what would be you’re “second-best writing”? It’s like we have it in categories. It’s like, do I want Double A grade eggs? Should they be certified, “humanely raised”? Or do you just want ordinary eggs? How do you apply that to writing? Sure. I can write bad scenes, but I don’t have a special price category for them.

There was another project that I thought was extremely funny. Somebody, God, I can’t even remember who it was anymore; a producer had bought the rights to The Sensuous Woman. Have you heard of that one?

JK: Oh, sure, yes. It was a huge bestseller back then.

LR: It was written by someone only identified as “J” at the time and was supposed to be an advice book. I think one of the funniest suggestions was supposedly made by a woman who found she could have an orgasm by leaning against the dryer when it was running—or maybe it was the washing machine during the final spin cycle. {laughs}. My job was to take the book and think of some way to dramatize it and turn it into a movie. The producer, it turned out, had a history of hiring writers and refusing to pay them by claiming that they had not given him a satisfactory script. The previous writer had been a well-known playwright.

JK: So it was around that point you decided to walk away from films?

LR: I didn’t walk away in the sense that I said, “I’m not doing film-script writing anymore.” But, I wanted to do theater, and I was also trying to bring up a daughter. The head of my college theater department, Wil Leach, had gone to work as artistic director at Joe Papp’s Shakespeare Festival. Wil decided to do an all-black version of Mother Courage. It was to be set in America at the time of the Indian Wars. Post-Civil War. Everything was recast, and he didn’t use the Brecht score. He had a composer to do a new score, and he had a black lyricist, who said, “I’m not doing this, it doesn’t pay enough.” Will knew that I had done lyrics for a couple of theatre pieces I worked on in college. So he asked if I would like to do it. It was a really interesting project, taking the Brecht lyrics in German and finding an equivalent way to do them for this production. I don’t know German, so they gave me a German professor from Wesleyan, and we went over the lyrics word by word. We talked a lot about the connotations of the words. I had a Black English dictionary, and I had all kinds of materials. I just loved doing that.

JK: Now when was this, roughly?

LR: In 1980. Before that I also did a couple of plays at La MaMa, one of which went to Off Broadway. It seems when I look back at the things I’ve done, so many of them involve really painful experiences. I think I’m not well suited to keeping my eye on the ball. I keep getting sidetracked, thinking I don’t want to lose friends, don’t want to make anybody miserable and don’t want anyone to make me miserable. Some people have been able to somehow find a home, a theatrical home. I did not. My last production was in Seattle.

JK: What was the play?

LR: It was a play about Catherine the Great. I wanted to write a reflective two-character play based on Catherine’s own writing about her life before she became an Empress. She was a teenager when she went to Russia to marry the heir to the throne, an alcoholic teenage boy from Sweden. Somehow it morphed into a much bigger deal, a costume extravaganza. I had a wonderful director, Elizabeth Huddle, who was Intiman’s Artistic Director. But, I had horrible reviews in the Seattle papers, and so that was when I gave up.

I’ve written three non-fiction books with my husband, who is a physician.

JK: What were they?

LR: The first one was for consumers about how to use healthcare, how to talk to doctors, what to do when a hospital admission was necessary. The second book was called The Too-Precious Child, and it was about parents who become so involved with their own wishes and fears about their child that they are unable to experience his or her needs. They might be very loving or not but they are unable to take the child’s actual self into account. The book was published in 1989, and the problem we discussed seems to have gotten massively worse.

We wrote the third book for Consumer Reports to help people understand the basic types of health insurance, how to choose the best plan for one’s circumstance, and how to get the most out of its coverage. My husband was CEO of a health plan and understood the issues, but I could identify with consumers who were trying to figure out how things worked. It took me two weeks and tears of frustration to understand how a family benefit works. Insurance terminology was painful, but I figured if I could be made to understand it, I could explain it to people. Maybe I could turn that into a movie {laughs}. I’ll go pitch that one.

by Jim Knipfel

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sunby · 3 years ago

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Mercenary Files Team Name: Team Badlands CLASS: SUPPORT

The Medic: Name: Anaira Ahmed Schneien Age: 41 DOB: December 23, 1956 Blood Type: O- Height: 5'10 Assigned Gender at Birth: Female Gender Identity: Female Extra Information: By request all Information about her time before getting a contract with Reliable Excavation Demolition (RED) will be classified Information within another file. The Sniper: Name: Noah Lee Harrison Age: 25 DOB: September 1st, 1972 Blood Type: AB+ Height: 5'9 Assigned Gender at Birth: Male Gender Identity: Male Extra Information: None, Seriously he didn't give more Information, his home is in Australia and grew up with loving parents, they respect his profession. The Spies: Name:Alice Winston Age: 24 DOB: October 27th 1971 Blood Type: O+ Height: 5'3 Assigned Gender at Birth: Female Gender Identity: Female Extra Information: By request, Most of the information about her early life has been left out, Only information included is that she used to be a police officer but quit before becoming the Spy for this team

Name: Adam Murphy Age: 44 DOB: January 30th, 1953 Blood Type: AB- Height: 5'6 Assigned Gender at Birth: Male Gender Identity: Male Extra Information: Originally had a contract with Builders League Untied (BLU) upon Encountering the Scout for Team Badlands RED he Immediately asked to change his contract to be sided with RED, he did not give his reasoning, by Request, all information regarding his time before joining Mann co will be in another file.

(Note: The Canon Years of TF2 (1968-1972) do not Apply to this TF2 au, Lore heavy events for canonical characters still apply)

The OC Alice Winston Belongs to Tumblr user: @foxqueen10777

#tf2 #tf2 oc #tf2 spy oc #tf2 support OC's

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smoke-eyes-fic · 8 years ago

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April Fool’s Drabble

Sorry folks cucu and I are still working on the new chapter. Getting schedules and brain meats lined up in the proper times to get stuff done has been a rather insane venture. So as a sort of apology, and in observation of April Fool’s I give you an old drabble from my folders of long ago. It sadly doesn’t have an end cause I was never sure where to cut it off. Feel free to create the rest yourself. Timeline wise - this is after all the whatever-goes-down in the fic. A happy ending with a house and a dog. And hi-jinks ensue. This is based on an old joke I made ages back. Many apologies to those who don’t get the gag.

It had been an uneventful dusty summer day. The few chores around the farm had been done in the early morning before the Texas sun started beating down. There was some minor maintenance work that needed to be done on Sam's tractor. But Engineer would get to that when the sun wasn't so high. In the mean time he'd been dozing on the couch watching a Western on the television with Fleabag the hound asleep on his feet. Spy had declared he'd seen enough John Wayne in his lifetime and was in some other part of the house reading. The Spook was getting restless again, soon he'd start insisting they leave the farm and go traveling.

The doorbell rang startling the Texan awake, Fleabag bayed loudly running to greet whoever was at the door. "Better not be another salesman" he muttered darkly as he slowly rose from the couch, he had hoped they would have learned after the last time. "Just a minute" he called stomping to the door. "Dangit Flea!" he grunted grabbing the dog by the collar dragging him back so he could open the door. "Can ah hel-" he froze as he squinted at the figure through the screen door.

It was a young girl in a red dress and a beat up red sun hat that threatened to slip over her eyes. "Hullo" she said quietly pushing her hat back to peer up at him. She looked to be no older than six he guessed, too young to be out by herself. Something about her made him doubt she was here to sell cookies. Girl scouts didn't usually bring suitcases with them. He wasn't sure why, but he had a sinking suspicion he knew who to blame for this.

His suspicions were confirmed as she finally added "I'm looking for my Papa."

This was a bad dream, he tried to tell himself, closing his eyes for a moment. He would open them and he'd still be on the couch with his movie. He opened his eyes and the girl and her red hat and suitcase were still standing on the doorstep with no sign of disappearing into thin air."Spah!" he yelled into the house "Git out here!"

Unable in good conscience to leave the child on the doorstep he opened the screen door and gestured for her to come in. Quietly she stepped inside, she turned to her suit case but the Texan had already picked it up. He noticed it was battered but well made, labels from all over the world covered the scuffed leather.

"Who was at the door?" Spy asked walking into the room."Relative of yours?" he asked glancing at the girl, his eyes seemed to avoid looking at the suitcase.

"Actually-"

"Papa!" the girl cut the Texan off walking towards the Frenchman.

A choked sound emitted from Spy's mouth instead of words as he stood rigid in the doorway.

"-She says she's one of yours." Engineer finished lamely.

The child stopped in front of him oblivious to the fact the man was turning a rather unpleasant shade of gray. She placed her chubby hand into her dress pocket and pulled out a small sealed envelope and held it out to him. Quickly regaining composure Spy accepted the letter, ripping it open. His eyes darted across the papers, narrowing with every line before his hand lowered and glowered at the girl.

"What's it say?" the Texan asked but neither the girl or Frenchman offered any explanation.

Brushing past the girl he took the letter from Spy's slack grip. It was elegant stationary, the message itself was French written in neat flowery feminine hand writing.

"This is a trick." Spy insisted loudly to no one in particular. "Putain de menteur,"

"Don't use language like that with kids present." Engineer scolded him as he tried to translate the letter but was having trouble concentrating, his mind reeling through too many things at once. Who was this girl? Where was her mother? Who was her mother? How did she come to be here in the middle of Texas?

"Merde! -I'll use whatever language I feel lik-" the Frenchman found himself silenced by one of the Texan's hands over his mouth.

"Hush." he hissed, looking at the ceiling and began slowly counting to ten, trying to organize his thoughts.

He never doubted that Spy had children. From his understanding of the man and his past misadventures, he was willing to guess the snake had fathered at least three or four. Though that was a rather conservative guess he told himself. He never expected to meet any of them. Let alone for one to end up on his doorstep.

He hoped this wasn't the start of a trend.

Finally reaching ten he lowered his hand from Spy's mouth hoping the idiot would have the sense to stay quiet for the time being. Looking back down at the girl he noted the resemblance between her and Spy. The same eyes, dark hair, thankfully she seemed to have been spared the man's nose.

"Where's your Mama sweetie?" he asked kneeling down to look her in the eye.

"Dunno, she dropped me off at the gate." the girl informed him simply as if this was the most normal thing in the world ."She told me I was staying here for a while with my Papa and his friend while she worked." Well that explained the suitcase, and why he hadn't heard a car drive up. Or why the girl didn't seem confused to see him in addition to her father.

"She's not staying here!" Spy insisted to no one who was listening.

"What's your name?"

The girl's eyes darted up at Spy and back to him, "Carmen" she responded, not the least bit shy.

"Ah tell yah what, Carmen. Let's go to the kitchen, get you some cookies and milk while your Papa and I talk. Would you like that?"

The girl eagerly nodded and followed him into the small kitchen. He sat her down at the table and pulled a couple of cookies out of the cookie jar. He nervously bit into one of the cookies, hardly tasting it as he chewed into dust, before putting the entire ceramic jar in front of the girl. Glaring at Spy who had tried to palm a cookie for himself, he poured the child a large mug of milk and left the jug out where she could hopefully reach it.

"Now you stay here, while we talk in the other room. Alright?" Carmen was too occupied with her mouth full of crumbs to do much more than nod. With a wide forced smile for the girl's benefit he grabbed Spy's arm before he could slip away and dragged the protesting man out of the kitchen to the other end of the house, hopefully out of ear shot.

"That girl and her putain mère are liars!" Spy insisted to Engineer who leaned on the door that was only escape from the room.

"Who's her mother?" he asked irritably.

"It was a long time ago." the Frenchman answered defensively. "Years - before you and I-"

"-That's obvious. So who is she?"

"I was trailing her for BLU, they suspected she was courier for an exchange of Austrailium from a black market source. Then one thing led to another and-" the man shrugged pulling his cigarette case out of his pocket.

"So who is she?"

"She was an agent for Reliable Excavation. One of their spies, our paths had never crossed before. Never crossed after. It was a- one night tryst."

"Yah slept with an enemy Spy?!"

"I slept with you!" Spy pointed out. "Still do," he added.

"T-that's-" the Texan sputtered. "t-that's neither here nor there!" he insisted feeling his ears burn. "B-but an enemy spy?" He shouldn't be surprised that the man had affairs with others from RED. He'd known that the Frenchman had little regard for rules or boundaries. At least that explained how the woman had tracked Spy down here. He imagined that only another person in the same line of work could manage that. He held the letter over his face and skimmed the letter haphazardly translating the French writing in his head.

Dear [what the hell does she call him - his name - his alias? Spy? Shithead? Idiot?]

I see you and your pet cowboy have settled down for now. You do like to make yourself difficult to find don't you?

You've had your fun, now it's time to take responsibility for past mistakes. I'm sure you don't remember much of me or that night we fought in Las Vegas. Or what came after. I wouldn't have thought much of it myself, if it wasn't for the end results. Her name is Carmen by the way.

I've been called away to a job - I'll be away for an unknown amount of time and it seemed it was high time the two of you got to know each other. I'm sure you'd agree with me that a child should know their parents. If only to see what poor life choices look like.

Before you start calling me a liar I have included some lab work you should see. My Medic owed me a couple of favors-.

Curious Engineer flipped to the next page. It looked like some sort of lab chart, "She included a paternity test." he said quietly.

"What?" the chart was yanked out of Engineers hands roughly. "How did she even…" Spy trailed off muttering profanity darkly under his breath.

The Texan sighed and went back to reading the letter.

- I expect you to take good care of her since she is your own flesh and blood. I will be back to collect her. Do not think you can dump her in an orphanage for your convenience. If you do, or if anything else happens to her be assured I will hunt you and every alias you ever used down and make you suffer. The same threat applies to your pudgy companion as well.

"Pudgy?" he repeated - rubbing the back of his neck.

"This has got to be a fake!" Spy fumed on, the floorboards creaking as he paced, "Where the hell would she even get a sample?"

Engineer sighed, half an hour ago he had been dozing on the couch, planning repairs to a tractor not worrying about some kid that got dumped on his doorstep. "Spook" he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Spook" he repeated again "Could'ya- Could'ya stop pacin' for a sec?"

#Team Fortress 2 #carmen sandiego #spy #engie #spyxengie #drabble #sorry this goes nowhere #did this for the lolz #april fools

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