Ever heard of the After film series smartypants?

I assume Thirsty Thursday isn’t a thing the young people say anymore.  I’m not entire sure what thirsty means in young person now, but it either means desperate or sexy or somehow both.  In my day Thirsty Thursday was a reference to college kids getting wasted on Thursdays.  It was a joke you see because they do that every night.  Not me of course because I wasn’t gussied up, duded out, getting down or where it’s at when I was at university.

When I was whining about my Grace story the other day I forgot to include the best/most humiliating part!  A couple weeks ago I was on the website of an author I like and she had a page that said “I’m poor pay me money and I’ll read your crappy fanfic and tell you why it sucks”.  She didn’t say it like that but you know.

I thought “Am I that desperate for anyone else in the world to read my story?”  And after some reflection I concluded that I was.  So I sent her a message saying I wanted to take her up on her pity read for money offer and her response was “nah bro”.  Brutal!

She didn’t say why but I bet it’s because I told her it’s on Wattpad.  I forgot that the few people that have actually heard of Wattpad laugh right at it because it’s 90% werewolf BDSM erotica written by teenagers.  Well the joke’s on you because some of those werewolf erotica stories get turned into movies and shows on streaming platforms that you’ve never heard of!  So who’s laughing now?  Still you!

You’re probably thinking “Jeremy, you sure do worry a lot about something you’re just doing for fun”.  And that used to be true, but now everything has changed.  When I started the Grace blog I thought to myself “Stephen Amell will probably buy this to spin off from his popular and soon to be cancelled streaming show Heels and I’ll be rich, but it’s just for fun”.  Now though, it’s super serious.

You see WWE makes terrible movies and sometimes by accident they make an okay one.  One of the okay ones starred actual actor Halle Berry.  Probably because she was dating a wrestler at the time.  The other okay one is called Fighting with My Family, which is a biopic about a lady wrestler who almost committed suicide after someone hacked her phone and released all her sex tapes and then suffered a career ending neck injury.  The movie’s not about that though, it’s happy. 

What I didn’t know is that the lead in that movie was little Florence Pugh!  She’s a real actress too!  And I guarantee you that she’s been thinking for years “I loved being in that wrestling movie, I want to do another wrestling project but I just haven’t found the right one, I think I’d like something with a supernatural component, like that movie I did called Midsommar.  But no one writes anything like that.”

Boom!  Hollar at your boy little Florence Pugh, I’ve got your hook up.  You’re too little and pretty to play Grace as I imagine her but I’ll change whatever you want!  I have no integrity.  None.  Unless you want me to have some.  Then I have all of it. 

So how do you pitch something?  I read a book about it once.  I never thought I’d actually want to pitch something but now I’m glad I know how.  The mistake people make is trying to be original.  No one in the entertainment BIZ wants to be anywhere near an original idea. 

Your pitch shouldn’t be about how cool and unique your idea is and no one has ever done it before, that’s a risk!  Your pitch should be “Okay, it’s basically Speed plus Con Air, and I see the main character as a Sebastian Stan type”.  You mentioned two movies that made money and a bankable (and bangable) actor.  KABOOM+BOOM that’s a pitch!

So who is Grace like?  Serendipity!  I was just struck by this the other day.  I started re-watched Deadwood for the 4^th or 5^th time because what am I going to do, what something I don’t know already?  And I realized that Grace is Charlie Utter.  Or at least she is in my head, I don’t know if it comes across. 

Stolen description of Charlie – He is an honest and uncomfortable person with a kind and generous nature. Incredibly noble, he is also tough and fearless in the face of adversity and not afraid to speak his mind clearly.

Or, to put it another stolen way “Charlie is a good-hearted man, but he will kick a cock-sucker’s ass up and down Dakota if need be.”

“So I – I don’t know what the fuck to do! But you know I’ll— I’ll keep tryin’.”  – Charlie Utter

If that’s not Grace I don’t know who is. 

If we say that Deadwood = magic as a concept, it makes even more sense.  Aside from Sol Charlie is one of the only non-horrible people in Deadwood.  Some are more horrible than others, and some do their best to target only people that deserve it, but most of the “good” ones are still pretty bad.  That lines up with Grace and most magic people she meets being awful or kind of neutral at best. 

I mean sure, saying that your female lead is like an ugly old dude from a show with notoriously low ratings may not be the best way to go. 

Sidenote, in a similar vein a while ago I was watching Bob’s Burgers for the 4^th or 5^th time through because what am I going to do, watch a new show I don’t know, and I realized that Ela is basically Louise.