Intermission Part 2
Hey, all! Crasherfly here. We’re still on a break this week so I thought I’d check in with you guys to tell you a bit about how life is going and talk a little Alice.
I don’t have a ton to share with you guys about my personal life. I think I got a little ranty in my last intermission post and you probably don’t need to hear all that again, so instead I’ll try and tell you more about what I’ve been playing and watching.
In my freetime, I mostly play video games and read. Lately, I’ve been playing Fire Emblem: 3 Houses, where I just hit my 200th hour. I’ve also been playing Phoenix Wright quite a bit, doing about one chapter a day. I’ve really enjoyed discovering that series, it’s made me laugh and smile several times now. I did the Back 4 Blood beta this weekend which was fine, and I got some Mario Golf: Super Rush games in with pals. Always fun to get a game of golf in.
For manga I’ve been reading Fist of the North Star, Blade of the Immortal, and Berserk. So, yeah, lots of swords and slashing and tragedy. Manly tears. That sort of thing. I eat that sort of thing up. I have more One Piece on deck, as well as Fairy Tail and Gleipnir, with more Fruits Basket and Sailor Moon on the way.
I haven’t watched much anime this season. I’ve watched a few episodes of Captain Harlock: Space Pirate, which I’ve really enjoyed despite its dated qualities. But I’ve stalled out on pretty much everything else. It’s funny, you can look at a lineup and be like “OH WOW THIS IS GONNA BE A GREAT YEAR FOR ANIME”, and in many ways, it has been, but at the same time it’s felt easier to stall out. I have a few long term projects like Dragonball, Katekyo Hitman: Reborn!, and Gintama that I’ve made zero progress on. Like, the will just hasn’t been there. It’s a shame when I consider how hard last year’s highs hit me- discovering titles like Tower of God, Re:ZERO and Gleipnir felt so huge. So far I haven’t had any similar mountaintop experiences.
As far as other experiences go, I’ve been listening to a ton of baseball- mostly the Dodgers and Angels. I actually don’t know that much about baseball, but it is calming to listen to and helps bring me out of my own world and into another one. I picked up the habit of listening to ballgames back when I suffered my first serious heart illness and I’ve held onto the habit since- it especially serves me well during times of high anxiety.
Physically, I’m in a weird place. I’m still working through some tricky body stuff that keeps me from feeling my best. And that’s in turn really messed with my emotional health. I’ve put most of my creative projects on hold- writing, Dungeon and Dragons, etc, as I try to get myself right. I won’t get into much more detail except just to say that’s primarily the reason I’ve stepped back for a bit.
A Little About Alice and Me
This past week I spent a lot of time cleaning up my old writing files. I’ve been out of college for almost a decade now and since then I’ve had a lot of time to write. Almost nothing I’ve written outside of a festival has been produced, but it’s all still here. Some scripts have over ten drafts done, countless hours poured in, only to gather dust.
Reading my past work has always been complicated. I know I’m a good writer. I have struggles- especially with clarity and organization- but I hav the words- years of labor- proving I can do the thing and do it well. And yet, I’m still largely unseen. I’ve only had one film win any consequential awards. I have a hard time convincing anyone to read literally anything I come up with. My blogs don’t generally do great numbers. It’s possible that I don’t do a great job marketing myself, but over the years I’ve really unified my “brand” under the Crasherfly name and that still hasn’t done much to draw others in.
Pouring over my old scripts, I can see my trends in real time. My theatre work was breathtakingly detailed and heady. Intricate stage directions and literary triple entendres betray the attitude of a kid who was convinced he’d be the next Eugene O’Neill. Fast forward a few years to piles of science fiction shlock scripts and domestic dark comedies from a guy who had rejected the academia that had failed him in favor of being a gutterpunk mix of Wes Anderson and Tim Burton. Fast even further forward to where we are now- Alice and the Pale Horse, which reads like a guy who has spent all his free time ignoring literally anything literary in favor of baselining anime and video games.
My biggest take away from a writing career that has mostly existed for my-eyes-only is how Alice and the Pale Horse is the first script I’ve ever written that seems to exist purely for itself. The story, the action, the commentary is almost purely centered on Alice’s sense of self. Older stories I’ve written usually had a central relationship or tried to be about something. Alice is just about Alice. The reasons and relationships that make Alice what she is are secondary to Alice simply being Alice. Yes, the Pale Horse is there as well, but he’s doing his own thing. This story is about Alice and her own internal work, and less about how the relationships around her define her.
I wrote a little bit last week about how Alice is also about the trauma of silence, and that’s still true. Alice, as a character, strives for silence despite being its antithesis. How fitting for a script with such a small audience! In that sense, Alice really is the perfect meta-hero for me- someone who can’t shut the hell up even as they do everything in their power to silence themselves. It’s a classic contradiction- I’ve never enjoyed attention, myself, and yet I always seem to stumble backwards into it.
Anyway, a lot of folks who don’t know me personally may not be aware of some of the projects I’ve worked on over the years, so I thought it might be fun to list a few of my favorite projects below that I’m particularly proud of. Consider this a shorthand list of projects I’m still kinda proud of, whether they went unseen or not.
One Up- A play in one act about a couple who shares a birthday on the same day. When the celebrations go awry, the frightening truth of their relationship’s origin is revealed.
As I Lay Dying- A play in one act, an adaptation of William Faulkner’s book of the same night, the story follows the events immediately following the burning of a barn and a family where every member is a potential suspect of arson.
License- A play in one act, an existential nightmare confined within the walls of an otherworldly waiting room where mysterious beings await their “number” being called. Whether torture or paradise awaits them remains to be seen.
Sam vs the Giant House Centipede- A short film, second runner up for best in festival, a story about a couple in a new apartment who find they have a bigger bug problem than they were expecting.
Death Tolls for the Vegetable Man- A short film yet unproduced, the story of an escaped science experiment, military ambitions and a town’s division over the very definition of the word “monster”.
Steel Spiders- A short film, unproduced, a man in an apocalypse retreats into an ideal virtual world to help him forget about the horrors of the real. Everything changes when he meets a synthetic being who offers him a more permanent escape than he bargained for.
The Guest- The world’s most oblivious couple endures the end of their relationship as a slasher film story unfolds around them.
Nothing in Particular- A short film, fully produced, following the story of a teenage girl’s emergence as a vampire in a conservative small town.
Snowglobe- A short film, unproduced, about a couple who becomes divided over a discovered time portal that lets its user revisit old memories.
Hit By Pitch- A short film, unproduced, about an android who is befriended by a girl with anger management issues, and their struggle to have their friendship accepted by their peers.
A Rocket Story- A short film, fully produced, about a woman who loses her job as an airline stewardess and struggles to find new work as a “rocket attendant” on one of Earth’s new rocket ship transports.
Daughter of Frankenstein- A short film, fully produced, about the daughter of Victor Frankenstein as she continues the work of her father.
And that’s just the stuff I’m proud-ish of. There’s so, so much more that I wrote that I’ll never let see the light of day, and other stuff I did produce but wasn’t happy with or shared credit on. It’s funny how much you forget or how unproductive you can feel until you take a moment to look back.
Maybe some of this stuff outlives me, though I tend to doubt that. But it does encourage me- to date, Alice and the Pale Horse feels like the most ambitious project I’ve done, and the one that is the most visible and permanent. I hope that proves out to be true.
