Jukebox Fest Reveals

Now that reveals are done for Jukebox, I thought I'd share what I wrong and what I was gifted. If you're unaware of what @jukebox_fest is, it's a fandom exchange for original works (art/fic/podfic) based on songs or music videos. This was my first time participating, so while I knew immediately the songs I wanted to request fic for, it took me so long to figure out what I could write for!

I knew I had to request Amber Run's "I Found", for either the song or the music video -- which feel like very different experiences. Ultimately I requested the music video itself, because there's a weird story being presented about a kidnapped woman and I was eager to see if someone would pick up that story and write to what's happening in that video. I was no disappointed!

lamiacalls nailed the video's story line, giving an internal monologue to one of the two men in the video. I really liked this take, his nervousness, his uncertainty and the choice he makes in regards to the woman. If you want to watch the video first, you can find it on YouTube here. (CW: kidnapping) If you'd rather hear my favorite version of the song, it's a choral version done here with London Contemporary Voices.

Further Than I Thought (1789 words) by LamiaCalls
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: I Found - Amber Run (Music Video)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Characters: Original Female Character(s), Original Male Character(s)
Additional Tags: Kidnapping, Falling In Love, Angst, Pining
Summary: Travis made it sound so simple. They get the girl, they leave a note. Hide out for a few days, get the cash. Done deal, no fuss.

So it wasn't on my original list to offer but this song, Deerhunter's "He Would've Laughed" really spoke to me. And I was so interested in the simple request for it, which suggested this very Old West kind of vibe. That idea latched into my brain and wouldn't get out. I'm pretty proud of this piece since it's been awhile since I've written anything original. You can listen to the song here.

Patiently, Patiently (1981 words) by singedsun
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: He Would Have Laughed - Deerhunter (Song)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Characters: Original Male Character(s)
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Gold Rush Era, Western
Summary: Neighboring land claims in the gold rush; the accident and the cattle dog that pushes them together.

Shirley

This is a new movie, so I'll avoid actual plot spoilers, but I want to talk about this movie.
I know I'm overdue on some of my horror movie round-ups, and let me tell you I've watched some real doozies in the past couple of weeks. But this movie is new this weekend and I want to write and think about it while it's fresh in my mind.

I've mentioned before that Shirley Jackson is one of my favorite authors. The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle are two my favorite books, ever. I wish I'd been able to read them earlier in my life, I feel I would've found some real solace in reading about the relationships between Theo & Nell, or Merricat and Constance. Alas even as an adult, I've found Jackson's prose almost soothing despite the subject matter, and the strong female relationships amid troubled times reassuring.

Tonight I watched the new movie, Shirley, available now on Hulu. It stars Elizabeth Moss as Shirley Jackson and takes place in the late 1940s. It's being touted as a Biopic Shirley, but I'm going to strongly disagree with that classification. The story itself revolves around a couple, Rose & Fred, who move in with Shirley and her husband, Stanley. Fred is trying to become a professor at the college where Stanley teaches and has come to relieve his workload a little so that he can spend more time with his wife. Shirley has just recently published, "The Lottery" and is struggling with her next work. She's what can best be described as stubborn and depressed and in lack of a narrative for her story.

In Rose, she finds a friend and confidant. And while she whiles away hours on this new story she hopes to become a novel, Rose is centered in the narrative. We see her marriage with Fred struggle, Stanley seemingly dote and rely on her almost as a housewife in his own marriage. It's strange. The novel she's writing at the time is Hangsaman, a real novel Jackson published in 1951 about the life a girl who leaves an oppressive home life to attend a college much like the one where her husband taught.

The best parts of this movie are the long, cinematic dives into Shirley's mind as she finds her muse for this novel and begins picking at the threads of the narrative about a missing girl from the college where Stanley teaches, relying on Rose's help for care and errands and friendship. We get this superimposed views of what Shirley sees as she thinks about the girl in her story, what she did, what she looked like, how she might follow her a different places in the girl's life. And distantly these stirring shots of Shirley passed out or blacked out, lost in these visions as she lays appearing lifeless and lost inside the visions.

The movie doesn't seem to bear any witness to the life of the author that I know, which makes it so strange to be referenced so often in the media and sold in the trailers like a biopic, which isn't what this is. The movie is a fictional literary fantasy based on a book by Susan Scarf Merrill, "Shirley". [Goodreads]

what's interesting, given the time frame of this movie is that we see none of Shirley and Stanley's children. Of which there should've been at least one, maybe two by 1948/9. We also get so many references to We Haved Always Lived in the Castle, which was one of her last novels published in the 60s only a few years before she died.

I don't want to spoil the story in this movie, but I do strongly dislike the narrative of it, once the ending is revealed. I felt it really didn't place Shirley at the center, despite the movie and the life of her at the heart of it. The narrative framing makes it difficult to understand everything that's happening and the idea that it's in anyway a biopic, feels disingenuous to her actual life.

It does seem, at least based on the synopsis I've read, that the movie does follow the book that was written fairly closely, which makes me less inclined to check it out either. I don't know. I feel the film was lovingly shot, slightly thrilling, the tiniest bit erotic even. And Elizabeth Moss plays a great Shirley. Everything else though, felt disappointing.

I don't know, someone else watch it and tell me what you think. Trailer below.

Watch on YouTube