#rewrite part 7c

[stardancerluv]

Brother’s Keeper

Rewrite Part 7c

Summary: Visiting the past.

Your keys jangled in the door as you opened it. “Here we are.” You smiled up at Branden.

“I’ve been trying to imagine what kind of place you lived in.” You could see as Branden glanced around.

“Well, make yourself comfortable and I will be ready in a moment.”

Once in your room you pulled off your dress. You were a little nervous about taking Branden to see mom, it made a lump form in your throat. But it would be good for her. Perhaps, she would finally come back to the world of the living.

You discarded your old panties and bra, then slipped into a fresh pair. you spritzed on some perfume and were looking over what to wear when a warm arm wrapped around your middle. “I got you.” Branden purred in your ear.

Turning your head, you smiled up at him. “You do.”

You turned in his arm, your heart thudding hard. “Would you like a cold beer?”

His grin spread wider. “I’d love one.”

“Get comfy, I’ll grab you one.”

*****

You smiled when you found the perfect outfit. You grabbed a few more outfits. Later that night, you and Branden were going to have to go to the club to show Sam that you were keeping his investment happy.

You put your bag by the sofa and happily went over to your kitchen.

Looking him over, your stomach tightened delightfully. You had always imagined him being here. You smiled, twisted off the cap and went over to him. “Here you go.”

His brow furrowed as he looked up at you. “Come 'ere, baby.” He patted his lap. “This is not usually me or well,” He sighed and took a swig of the beer. “I was better at this when we were writing letters, but what’s the matter?”

“Just nervous about seeing mom. I am hoping bringing you will be good for her.”

He rose an eyebrow. “And...”

“Do you think we can pull it off at the bar tonight?”

He nodded. “Yes, I’ll channel how I used to treat my girls. I was quite the dog.” He smirked before taking a swig from his beer.

You giggled. “A dog that created quite the daydreams in this girl.”

“I would have never guessed. You were so cute.”

“I suppose I was better at hiding my crush than I thought.” You shrugged.

******

He swallowed, it hurt driving back to the house. In the back of his mind, he half expected Michael to be there, possibly wanting to take a swing at him since he was sleeping with his sister.

Then again, Michael had wanted him to keep an eye on you. To take care of you even. Now he finally could do just that. Though, he’d never tell you that. He didn’t want to you to think he had been pushed into looking after you. He cared for you, desired you because he wanted to.

*****

Branden let Michael’s mother take him out in the backyard. He sat with her, letting her do the talking, letting her ask the questions. He slid you a look towards the house; seeing you in the window was comforting.

He could remember that last night. He had been over there barbecuing. Remembering you he realized just how damn cute you were. Life had been rough on you. But you were still a sweet girl, he could see that.

“It had been an accident?” She finally asked, her voice was rough.

“Yes, the officer was scared and reacted. I could hear his instant regret that he voiced to another officer."

Despite looking right at him, her eyes were far away. “And you stayed.”

“Yes when they finally got into the bank, they drew their guns. I would not let him go, till he passed.” He pressed his lips together. “I wish I had been shot.” He admitted, maybe the shot would not have killed him.

When she looked at him then, it was as if she woke up. “And miss out on the happiness my daughter gives you?”

“Excuse me?” He raked his fingers through his hair.

“Look, I saw the effect of the letters and just now, before coming into the house. You finally found someone to give your heart to.”

“But... Umm... Yes but-”

Her claw-like hand settled over his, it was softer than he expected. “I knew you never gave your heart to those girls you’d bring here from time to time.”

“But my daughter,” A weak smile spread, a refreshing change to the frown. It was almost unnerving in its appearance since it was so rare. “The two of you have been dancing around each other for years.”

“Well to be honest she was-”

“Cut it. She is not anymore.” She squeezed his hand and sighed. “Let the past finally rest. How about dinner?”

He smiled. “I’d like that.”

“Good.”

@thebeckyjolene @brookisbi @johallzy @mrskenobi19 @shantellorraine @sithonis @blondekel77

[truthbeetoldmedia]

Heroes, Villains, and Humans on Season 5 of ‘The 100’

In many ways, Season 5 of The 100 feels like it’s taken a step back.

After the Season 4 finale launched us six years into the future, there was much excitement and speculation about the avenues this opened up for the show moving forward: There were new antagonists, returning from a deep space mining mission; an Earth ravaged by fire and radiation, aside from one small patch of green; and our main characters scattered, orbiting above the planet in what remained of the Ark, surviving above ground in the last remaining valley, or buried underground in a bunker that’s sealed shut by thousands of tons of rubble.

The time jump seemed the perfect place to kick off a new story, one about rebirth and unity instead of one about a tired war and tribalization. And yet, nearing the end of Season 5, we find ourselves in an achingly familiar place: entrenched in a war over a piece of land which has been claimed by two different peoples, and of which the only outcome seems to be total annihilation of one group.

The lesson for the audience, in this case, is the same one the characters have to learn: Expectations exceed reality. It is easier to dream of a better future than actually create it, especially when all forces are pushing against you. (This is especially evident with Bellamy, who finds himself marching to war despite every desperate action he took to stop it.) And the people who you have dreamed up to be heroes are only human after all.

Or worse, they’ve become the villain.

Alone on Earth with only a child for company, Clarke tells her found daughter of the heroic exploits of her friends in space and buried underground. She weaves fairytales out of the trials and tribulations they suffered through over their first months on the ground, and Madi’s introduction to Clarke’s friends is through these stories: she comes to see them as bigger than life. And, as time goes on, so does Clarke.

Bellamy left his sister in charge of 1,200 people and, in their last conversation with each other in Season 4, likened her to Prometheus, the Greek Titan who stole fire from the gods and became a champion of humanity. Bellamy’s faith in his sister is such that he has no doubt she’ll execute her role as leader of the largest remaining chunk of humanity admirably, and over the course of six years his memory of Octavia softens until he remembers her as something different than what she was.

Clarke herself becomes mythicized by the seven people trapped in space, the people she gave her life up to save; none more clearly than with Bellamy who, six years later, is still using Clarke’s last words to him and the memory of her sacrifice to drive his leadership decisions.

Time, separation, and nostalgia has a way of doing this to memories of people and places: the good is magnified and the bad is ignored. And one longs to return to a place or a person that no longer exists — or never did.

This idea is at the heart of all the character arcs in Season 5 of The 100; it drives the conflict and leaves audience members feeling off-balance and unfulfilled as characters struggle to learn each other again, to rewrite who that person had become in their memory with who they are now.

Let’s start with Clarke.

When Bellamy returns to Earth just in time to save her, it’s certainly as heroic as Clarke could have imagined, as he steps into the blinding light of the rover and deftly bargains for her survival and the rescue of their loved ones from the bunker. It’s not until she witnesses his reunion with Echo that Clarke begins to realize that the Bellamy she reunited with is not the same one she left six years ago: he’s developed relationships and histories that she will never be privy to.

(Interestingly, this is paralleled almost exactly with Bellamy’s reunion with his sister, where he descends into the bunker through the blinding sunlight to rescue Octavia and the others from the bunker, and it’s witnessing his reunion with Echo — whom Octavia has every reason to hate — that makes her realize Bellamy has changed.)

But Clarke still trusts him, despite the fact that he’s no longer the “old Bellamy”; she trusts him to take care of Madi and keep her safe despite the fact that he now has another family to take care of. It’s not until he betrays this trust, and actively (in Clarke’s mind) puts Madi in danger that things take a sharp turn for the worse.

Because this isn’t the Bellamy she remembers, this isn’t the Bellamy she spent six years sending radio calls to, this isn’t the Bellamy she told Madi was a hero; this is someone else. Someone unrecognizable.

It’s been over six years since she last felt like she couldn’t trust Bellamy Blake.

Clarke leaves him in Polis because she feels like, despite the planet once again being populated by people she knows, Madi is the only person she actually has. Madi is the only person that matters. Six years ago, Clarke wouldn’t have left Bellamy behind to die — in fact, she often put everything on the line to ensure he would survive — but that’s not the same Bellamy she’s leaving behind now. And she’s not the same Clarke.

It’s this same mindset that leads Clarke to betray Wonkru and Spacekru, team up with the enemy in McCreary, and, on a more personal level, fight with Echo and allow Raven to be imprisoned: everyone she’d once known has changed beyond recognition and Madi is all she has left.

For Spacekru — especially those who don’t reunite with Clarke until several weeks after landing on the ground — Clarke is certainly not the person they remember, the person whose sacrifice hovered over their heads for six years. How could the person who had sacrificed everything to keep them alive be so willing to sacrifice them in turn now?

Bellamy alone has the best understanding of who Clarke is now, because he sees in her fierce protection of Madi a reflection of his own protection of Octavia. Perhaps he even understands why she left him, and forgives her. But that doesn’t change the fact that during their time together in Polis, he and Clarke were unable to reconnect, unable to understand each other the way they once had.

Simple misunderstanding is at the root of most of the problems between Bellamy and Clarke this season. Where Bellamy assumes that Clarke is part of his family unit and that they’re working together as they always have, Clarke feels left out and separately plans her escape with Madi. When Bellamy emphasizes his desire to save his family, Clarke assumes that she and Madi are sacrifices he’d be willing to make to reach that end. And when he goes through with making Madi commander, Clarke is certain that assumption is right, even though Bellamy is just doing everything he can to make peace a reality — and keep Clarke safe.

But while Bellamy may still understand Clarke, he no longer recognizes his sister. The girl he had compared to Prometheus is gone, replaced by a devil dressed in blood — a tyrannical leader who sentences people to death in a fighting pit, who marches ceaselessly towards a war she cannot win, who takes away all of her people’s choices but one: follow her, or die. Bellamy spends much of the season struggling to find the sister he knew beneath the rubble from which the mask of Blodreina is forged, only to eventually come to terms with the fact that that Octavia is gone — dead, in the Red Queen’s own words.

The message The 100 delivers is a consistent one: there are no heroes, there are only flawed and fallible humans doing their best to keep their loved ones safe, sometimes at cost to the world around them. This season, that message is a particularly hard one to learn, as the six year time jump instilled hope in viewers and characters alike that this time around, things would be different; history would not be doomed to repeat; people would be the heroes we had made them out to be.

Madi is the one who verbalizes this disparity, as she consistently has to temper the heroes she’s built up in her mind through Clarke’s stories with the living people she’s introduced to over the course of the season. Being a child, Madi still believes in heroes and good guys, and she still thinks these real people can live up to their mythic potential. The others, more careworn and war-torn, are no longer as optimistic.

The question, heading into tonight’s season finale and looking forward to Season 6, is this: will our characters be able to accept and welcome each other for who they are now, not who they were? Will they be able to let go of old bonds and forge new ones?

Will they be able to, finally, move beyond the ghosts of all that has come before, and instead look ahead to the rebirth of a new world?

The Season 5 Finale of The 100 airs Tuesday, August 7 at 8/7c on The CW.

[everyweekforayear]

BttF: SD Cont.

STATUS SO FAR:

Day 1: Since it's been a while, I gathered my latest script and notes and spent time reviewing the last direction and plans I was working on. Not time for much else with the busy family weekend. Creative Time: 20mins in the late evening.

Day 2: I tried to build on those plans from yesterday. I managed to work a little during a short lunch window.  My focus was going through the step by step outline for building a script that I created for myself. I finally check a few steps off. I finished the notes section and step 0, but I previously kept hitting a wall during the end of step 1. I got through that today, which I think will help me get through this wall I've been hitting.

Creative Time: 25mins, during lunch

Day 3: Now that I've finally found my go-to work spaces during lunch near my new day job, I feel like I can focus on script. I wrote a big chunk of notes and checked off the boxes for steps 2 and 3. I need to finish about 47 steps before I will be done the script draft but I'll keep noting where I am. The outline forces me to constantly reevaluate what the most important elements of the script and to test a few different avenues of outlines. Right now, I've divided the script into 8 sequences and then once I get through a few different iterations of that process, I will break those each into at least 8 new scenes. This will get me to roughly 64 scenes by the end of this project, with a speed draft done. By doing things like this, I realized that certain sequences didn't have enough conflict or I added conflict to areas where I hadn't thought of it. And overall, this script building outline is always through the lense of the original story. I also think that once I get to the point of having a speed draft, I'm pretty good at the editing and reorganizing part of the writing process.  

Creative Time: 50mins, during lunch

Day 4: I've been having fun diving into this script segments. I've spend so much time in the past writing out full sections and abandoning them, so I can appreciate the benefits of revisions in very short outline form before diving too far into any one thing. I know I will make changes later too but I think this helps me see which scenes make the most sense in advance. I once again recommend the coffee break screenwriter by Pilar Alessandro. I've taken her revision and reworking ideas and put most of them as well as some of my own goals to create the checklist I mentioned in the last post. Its been helpful. I completed steps 4, 5, and 6 today. Each early step is a a rewrite with a specific concept or purpose in mind. My favorite revelation(s) from these steps was a unforeseen conflict in which a plate of food because the enemy and the object of desire at the same time.

Creative Time: 45mins, during lunch break; 30mins, late at night

Day 5: I zoomed through step 7. Step 7 was the first step where you go through the story outline from the perspective of the antagonist or supporting character. I found it hard to focus on all those characters at once, so I broke out step 7 in a few parts, 71, 7b, 7c, etc. for the main antagonist as well as supporting characters and even season characters that may not have a huge presence now but will come into play later. My favorite revelation(s) from this step was that I found a physical moment in the story for Simo and his son Cal to have a conversation about Cals mother, who is not in the picture. I knew I wanted that seen but it felt out of place in many places I was trying to put it.  I realized that Simo and Cal have a scene in DC and that the car ride there would be a solid uninterrupted moment for a personal, if not a bit awkward, conversation

Creative Time: 20mins, before work; 50mins, during my lunch break, 20mins, after work

Day 6: Got through steps 8-11. I enjoyed most of these steps but realized that I had a hard time with the structural rewrite step. I feel like the genera order of events is pretty good the way I'm imagining and moving things around doesn't feel right. This is one of those steps that is hard to understand in outline form. I think its one of those steps that will be easier when I at least have the scene outlines, because I will have more material and it will be easier to mix things up and move them around.

Creative Time: 45mins, during lunch

Day 7: I made it to the scene outline. This is not the speed draft writing, but it is the outline of the 8 or more scenes I envision that need to happen in each sequence. This is where I am going back to my original notes as well as my rewrite notes and trying to find the right scenes for each sequence, starting with Act 1a. I found that while I thought I had an idea that was big enough to fill the first half of act 1, I'm struggling to fill in some gaps. I've been making this notes all over a printout and I may need to take the time to transfer them back to my computer because I have some things I need to see more cleanly and other formatting things that are easier to do on a computer.

Creative Time: 30mins, during nap time.

CONCEPT UPDATES/CHANGES: I feel good about where things are headed. Still not so sure about how long this will take but I'm pushing now. I haven't had a week at or above 7 hours, so I would really like to step that up and I think I need to if I want to actually finish this thing.

PICTURES/NOTES: Pics of script notes TBD.

THIS WEEK RUNNING TIME: 5.58 hours

TOTAL RUNNING TIME(SO FAR): 16.83 hours

[archivingspn]

TVLine: “Supernatural EP: Series Finale Storyline Is 'Unchanged' Despite COVID Tweaks”

(...) In August, star Jensen Ackles shared during a Zoom conversation that the show’s last two episodes underwent some tweaks, given that they were now being filmed during unprecedented times. “There have been some adjustments made from the scripts that we were going to shoot in March to the scripts that we’re shooting now,” Ackles said. “We’ve had to accommodate a pandemic.”

While COVID-19-related restrictions did result in some changes to the game plan, in the end, they “didn’t affect the core parts” of the final installments, co-showrunner Andrew Dabb recently told TVLine. “We’re still doing everything we wanted to do from a character, plot [and] mythology standpoint.”

“In some cases, we had to simplify the [pathways] to get there,” Dabb continued. “For example, for the finale, we had a big, super extravagant thing planned for that episode, and it wasn’t feasible. But we found an alternative to get to the same place, plot-wise and, more importantly, emotionally, that worked great. So it’s about being adaptable. We had to do some rewriting, but nothing that changed fundamentally what the show is or where it was going.”

So whether Dean and Sam live to hunt another day or wind up reuniting with their loved ones in Heaven or what have you, “the storyline [for the series finale] is unchanged,” Dabb reiterated. “Like I said, some of the scene work is different. There aren’t as many bad guys in a scene as we would normally have because of COVID restrictions. But in terms of plot, in terms of character, nothing is fundamentally different.”

Supernatural‘s delayed final seven episodes begin airing on Thursday, Oct. 8 at 8/7c on The CW. The series finale is slated for Thursday, Nov. 19 at 9 pm, following a retrospective special at 8 pm. The show’s leading men reflected on the emotional final day of filming last Thursday, with Jensen Ackles sharing some photos from set and Jared Padalecki writing, “My head is spinning and my emotions are stratospheric.” (...)

[source]