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An update to the Atalanta series that many of you asked about. My Muse finally woke up after a year hiatus and I've written more (5k words) in the last week than in the past year due to a combination of factors. I finally have an editor (thanks Ashleigh) and a you tube video on a unrelated matter that fired me up. So I hope to start posting chapters in the next month on Atalanta's further adventures at Whateley Academy. And I'm breaking my rule about not having the story finished before I start posting each chapter.
And I need your help and the reason for the title.
In one of my last entries I asked about the theater but I could never wrap my mind around Atalanta being involved in a major way with the Drama Club. But I also couldn't shake the idea of a safe assignment like a play blowing up too irresistible to ignore. Many of you may remember "Fractured Fairy Tales" from Saturday morning cartoons and its ironic skit like theme. That's what I'm aiming at.
So I decided to use a Whateley version of Red Riding Hood to the soundtrack of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," because I like the music and Clint Eastwood and its trio of characters. Atalanta with her red locks is Red and I pretty certain of "Granny" but I'm drawing a blank on the wolf as an individual or as an archetype villain. He can be someone in the universe or out of it.
Any off-the-wall ideas or images are welcomed because as I say I was inspired by an unrelated video so you never know what clicks a hot button. This scene comes near the end of this book so I have some time but I do welcome any ideas/images that comes to mind when you hear/read/say Wolf. Treacherous doesn't come to my mind but it is one synonym and just an example.
Thanks again for your help and patience.
Katie
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Comments
I can't find it
But I seem to remember, an Abbot and Costello meet the Wolf Man. May be what you're looking for.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Cast against type?
Think of Jim Carrey's character in The Mask, or if you don't want to go against type, the villain who gets the Mask to wear. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Tex
The Mask's attitude was heavily inspired by cartoons such as Tex Avery's "Red Hot Riding Hood."
Thanks for the movie references
for Abbott and Costello and the Mask. Another suggestion led me to "Into the Woods." Maybe the stereotype of the wolf says more about us than the wolf. I don't know.
Uh oh... I'm doing Little Red Riding Hood too
I've been picking at this story for a while and am going to finish it up for the October/November contest.
I hope there's not a whole lot of overlap. It's set in Storyland Forest, a place on the outskirts of the real world, just outside of Santa Barbara, where all the Fairytale characters live. It was a popular tourist attraction at one time, but over the years it's become a place full of drugs and gang activity that humans avoid. And here's my take on wolves:
Red has stopped on her way to Grandma's house, to talk to her friend Peter Cottontail. who's collecting aluminum cans for money, when all of a sudden...
“Oh shit!” cried Peter sudden, His posture went rigid and his face became weirdly blank as stared down Forest Way at something Red couldn't see.
“What's wrong?” she asked. And although her friend didn't seem able to answer, as she heard the hostile thumpa-thumping music echoing through the trees she had a good idea what it was.
.
PETER AND THE WOLVES
“Squeal little piggie, gonna blow down your house
like a bad storm troopah screamin' 'Juden Raus!'
You don't get a vote, you won't have a hope
When you feel my incisors clampin' down on your throat-”
And then from around a bend in the road crept the source of the music, a lowered blue metalflake 1964 Chevy Impala. Red looked at her rabbit friend, who had regained enough composure to start blabbering “Ohshitohfuckohshitohfuckohshitohfuck-” under his breath.
As it crawled closer Red could see the car's occupants were wolves, all of them dressed in zoot suit with matching wide brimmed hats, each in a different loud color. The driver's coat and hat were as yellow as a neon banana, the wolf sitting shotgun in electric magenta, the one in back's suit a Playskool sort of lime green. Their wide brimmed hats were black, each encircled by a band that matched the outfit beneath it. Their hard malicious stares were locked unblinkily on Red and her friend.
Red sized up the three wolves and concluded, “Well somebody's been watching too many cartoons...”
“For Pan's sake, don't stare back at them! They'll see it as a challenge. They'll stop,” gasped Pete.
“If they were gonna stop, they would have by now,” said Red.
The Chevy rolled past them, the wolf in back seat raising his paw and making a pistol firing gesture at her through the rear window, on which was stenciled LA VIDA SALVAJE in gothic capital letters.
“Yeah. Right,” she snorted as the old car thumpa-thumpa-thumpa'd off down the dirt lane, picking up speed.
“That was dumb, Red. Really dumb! They might look silly, but those wolves are dangerous.”
“Yes they're dangerous. But they're also complacent. It's been so long since anyone challenged them they're out of practice. I wish they would have stopped, I really do. They're such punks! Always going on about their 'honor' and how they have to avenge every little insult to their name or whatever, but then they go preying on the weak and defenseless. Where the hell's the honor in that? They should try that shit with somebody who isn't so defenseless...”
“I know you killed that psycho giant, and saved your mom and you and all those people he had caged up in his place. That really was amazing, especially with how young you were. But I hope you haven't let that go to your head.”
“I haven't. I got in a lucky shot, I know that...”
“Because you're not invulnerable...”
“Believe me, I know.”
That was one thing the “real” world had over this place. Out there the wolves were a whole lot classier. They might be predatory, potentially dangerous if they were hungry, but they were majestic and their behavior had a certain code. These Storyland wolves were just punks.
///////////////////////////// BUT FEEL FREE TO USE THIS GANGSTA-WOLVES THING, I pretty much stole it from Tex Avery and COOL WORLD myself, mixed in with movies about street gangs, so I'm not being terribly original here. And gang member wolves could have evolved in both our story universes. The only thing I'm worried about is my story's ending, which is kind of obvious one for TG fiction, and I'll PM you about that.
~Hugs, Veronica
And remember...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLqzLEB3E0
Loose hinges
I love the way you make the hinges of the worldview creak in your stories!
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
just outside of Santa Barbara...
Perhaps the Santa Ynez Valley? It contains, among other things, Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch, Ronald Reagan's Rancho del Cielo, and the intentionally storybook-like (and artificially Danish) Solvang. All, I think, appropriate for Storyland Forest.
Ask Generator!
Didn't she scare one of the students ( I think it was Bloodwolf) early on in her time at Whateley and write in his chest using a ring made of Mithiril. He could play your wolf after hearing that Jade was looking for him, because there was no one willing to play the wolf. The other option for this wolf could be Beltane and her skills to play the wolf. There are a few others that have arrived with Murphy that could use time in a story as well.
Good luck with it!
hmm
if I remember correctly there's also Harry Wolf a actual Werewolf type who is a gadgeteer He is friends with Jade and a really nice guy?
He was in a Cpl of stories I think 1 was Billie's 1st day when she needed to go to the rail station also I think John in Wauwatosa used him in a couple of chapters for his Time out story.
or You could go for a shifter type that slipped in to the school to spy on Atalanta for the very bad person that is going after her?
perhaps a combo of the 2 Harry for the rehersals and the shift takes his place for the actual play causing the chaos?
Matt
T.J.
was correct Jade [with the help of Jinn/Shroud] did in fact stake Bloodwolf to a tree and etch something like 'Enjoys attacking little girls' into his chest with something silver, can't remember if was mythril though.
The sequence was from JADE 5 by Babs Yerunkle
Wolf
As I recall, Harry isn't a were, he is actually a human/wolf hybrid, due to a witch's curse. He's a gadgeteer and would not be the kind to be on stage. But how about the were that fancies himself Sara's mate? Young and dumb teenager as I recall. He'd be easy to manipulate.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
This Is Off the Topic
Of bad wolves or werewolves, But I Love and Respect Wolves. I also hate the cattle and hunting interests that are decimating wolf populations that were just so recently restoring themselves. So, I'll skip the environmentalism.
I think of wolves with words like loyal, smart, wise, brave, cunning, loving, having great endurance, helping nature including vegetation, their prey species and the whole biome, awesome and beautiful. Kim and I had male and female wolf husky hybrids, about 80 to 96% wolf. They grew up; tested each others fitness as a mate, bred and Luna had 6 pups, one stillborn. Bad things including marital discord and discrimination happen and the city came and collected them. It was one of the mosts shameful things I ever participated in.
I loved them all so much then had to betray them...sob
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee
Interesting that
the wolf is portrayed negatively only in the last 500 years or so. Earlier they were viewed as more benevolent as I believe it was a she-wolf that raised Romulus and Remus who founded Rome.The Grim brothers are probably largely responsible for the shift. Since this is a "Fractured Fairy Tale," happens at Whateley, and involves Atalanta I don't have a problem turning the stereotype on its head.
.
Also, the Native American
Also, the Native American people revered the Wolf. Here's a little from Wolf Song of Alaska:
"The Navajo word for wolf, "mai-coh," also means witch, and a person could transform if he or she donned a wolf skin. So the Europeans were not the only ones with werewolf legends. However, the American tribes have an overwhelming tendency to look upon the wolf in a much more favorable light. The Navajo themselves have healing ceremonies which call upon Powers to restore peace and harmony to the ill, and the wolf is one such Power."
http://www.wolfsongalaska.org/chorus/node/179