Caution: Puppets (causes lowered boundaries and inhibitions)

I like my puppet. There's no real rhyme or reason to it, but there's something about it I really like. However, people keep telling me they like it as well, and I've been thinking about that more so.

I think everyone has a more personal connection to their own puppet than someone else's. They see a bit of themself in their own puppet, so it isn't nearly as crazed. The way I played my own puppet was radically different than how I played with others.

I also think the less realistic and "human" a puppet looks, the more psychotic and erotic they act. The less you can relate or find yourself in this physical substitute, the lower the boundaries lie. With my faceless puppet, I think people played it marginally more neurotic than I did, being someone who connected to it. Someone said that my puppet had been played sexualized with them, and that seems strange to me because it's my puppet, and when I got around to using it, that was definitely how I went about with it.

I like thinking about this stuff. How people relate to even inanimate objects and how quickly they can lose themselves in something they don't quite understand. Human nature and the like. It all matters, to a writer at least.

Eureka or a Passing Whimsy?

On Monday of last week, I realized something I found quite humorous. I have been focusing most of my attention on two plays I've been writing: Bravery and Loyalty. Loyalty is older (I started it in the midst of second quarter) and is definitely the stronger of the two. But Bravery is a nice companion piece to it, I think. I think Loyalty could stand on it's own for the time being, but I want to bring Bravery up to that level as well before I make any final decisions of which I'd rather put up, or, god dare me say this, put both up? If they complement each other, why not? I mean, it's not like my mental health is that important anyway, right?

But that is not the point, or should I say, the funny part. I realized on Monday that Bravery is more about the concept of loyalty, and Loyalty more about bravery. This startled me a bit, but in a good way? Even if it confounds me, I like that my head did this subconsciously. And I'm glad I caught it, if only because it's given me reason to laugh.

Since then I've just switched the names in my documents, even though in my head they'll still have their original names, irritatingly. Hopefully that'll change with time.


I'm going to include a description for each piece below, so if anyone wants to comment on just the ideas, they're more than welcome to. They're both unfinished.

Bravery (Previously titled "Loyalty") - the older one - currently 13 pages

It's late at night when the girl, Hannah, meets Dustin after running away from a fight with her mother. He won't let her keep secrets, but she wants to forget. Obviously, they're both very stubborn, which makes their tête-à-têtes quite amusing - at least to me.

 He's based on this boy I once knew who at times I enjoyed and others I wanted to strangle (in all honesty it was mostly the latter). She's based on two very strong female characters I greatly admire from YA fiction novels I've read (Alaska Young from "Looking for Alaska" and Sam from "The Perks of Being a Wallflower").
In one word each, Dustin is irritating and Hannah is erratic.

Loyalty - I started this 2-3 weeks ago - currently 5 pages

Lucas and Lila are twins. They're very different personalities, which makes Lila easily offend Lucas. He keeps going to leave every time she says something rude, but every time Lila asks, he stays. She tries to hold her tongue, but ultimately she's not very good at it. She needs him, but it's not mutual. He stays anyway. The characters are a bit younger than anyone in STAC, but not drastically so it wouldn't be hard.


Cumulatively, if neither of these work out, I have an unorthodox/experimental play about the end of the world that wouldn't be too hard. So there's that.