Author: KA Byrnes

Appa’s Lost Days

This is a long episode. Appa doesn’t speak, so the entire story must be show rather than tell. No shortcuts with language.

LEFTOVER NINE

Four Weeks Ago. It’s a flashback to the dunes and the sinking library. Appa fights against the sandbenders tying him up. Toph, holding the turret, can’t properly defend him. When the benders anchor themselves in the sand, Appa isn’t strong enough to fly free of their ropes. They ride away on their sandsailers, towing Appa behind.

ONE

Dissolve from Appa’s eye to the sun in the sky. Time has passed. The benders, sending little dust devils into the sails, pause. The leader, the self-important son, tells his gang to raid Appa’s saddlebags for treasure. When they jump on him, sand swirls up into Appa’s nose. He sneezes, blowing one of the boats into a sand dune. Leader Boy doesn’t care, though, because it’s a boat they stole.

THREE

Goods from the saddlebags are tossed onto the sand, including Sokka’s club. The gang considers it all garbage and leaves it behind. 

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Tales of Ba Sing Se

Each tale, amazingly, has a mini-Enneagram. How charming!

The Tale of Toph and Katara

ONE

Aang shaves his head, Sokka shaves his meager mustache, and Katara arranges her hair loops. 

TWO

Cut to Toph in bed, her hair like a wild animal pelt. 

THREE

Katara suggests a girl’s day out.

FOUR

At the Fancy Lady’s Day Spa, the girls are pampered. (A pedicure for Toph, whose feet are her connection to seeing the world, does not go well.) 

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Tribe of Liars: Gage and Wrigley

I started dipping into my writing archives last week, and now look where I ended up! Tribe of Liars is an extensive world created by our family. It’s a gaming IP with detailed character backgrounds, all unrealized or in process.

The following is the opening to one of my unfinished short stories or novellas detailing two of the characters. It’s fiction, which is a strange writing beast to me. I prefer the leanness of screenwriting. However, I’m in a weird blogging lull, burned out on generating content. And I genuinely believe that creative work needs to breathe in the world rather than stay locked in a folder. So, here goes.

Gage and Wrigley (Chapter One, Part One)

Gage is generally considered good-looking. You really can’t get around that; people treat him with the preference the beautiful generate. Your definition of handsome will define how his beauty manifests, though, so create him as you will. What you can’t get around is his mechanical ability. This guy likes to engineer stuff.

Right now coffee and sausage cook over a campfire. Look closer. What’s the contraption next to the breakfast? A boiler uses steam to power an experimental crossbow that you now hold in your hands and are prompted to shoot.

In case you couldn’t tell, you’re in a tutorial.

You’ve got a steam-power meter for a beginner’s weapon. When you press the x-button you ratchet a clumsy mechanism into place. Right trigger to release the valve that sends steam to the piston, and away your arrow flies toward your target.

Try hitting an acorn in that oak tree over there.

Checking that the tubing was hot and the steam ready, Gage angled the crossbow to point into the branches of a nearby oak. A magazine of arrows, each with a piston behind it, tilted into position. Aiming at an acorn in the tree, Gage prepared to release the valve to the first firing pin.

A gray squirrel hopped along the branch and grabbed the exact acorn Gage had sighted. As the squirrel ran back along the branch, it looked directly at Gage.

Okay.

Blinking, Gage hiked up his goggles and gave the squirrel a dirty look. He rotated the crossbow on its base and found another acorn. The squirrel dropped from a higher branch, plucked the acorn out from under Gage’s nose, and jumped into the foliage.

“Look, you little . . . This better not be what I think it is.”

Again he lined up a shot. No hesitation this time. Gage released the valve, steam pushed into the piston, and it smacked the arrow. The arrow flew true, headed right for an acorn, when the squirrel dove past and stripped the acorn out of the arrow’s path.

“What!” Gage shouted. “You crazy damn squirrel, what are you doing?”

The squirrel sat on a branch and looked at Gage. “What do you think you’re doing?” it said. “I’m trying to gather my breakfast.”

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GHOSTBUSTERS

This review was originally written for my second book, but I didn’t consider the piece good enough to include. I still think about it, though. The franchise has continued to add more content, and I can see myself diving into the extended stories and characters. In honor of Halloween, I post this rejected child.

This is my first time watching Ghostbusters (2016), and it is an astonishingly bad film. I thought maybe people were hating on it because it remade a beloved franchise, but no, it’s genuinely not good. I’ll go over its Enneagram, and then I’ll tell you where it really went off the rails.

ONE

First caveat: I’ve seen Ghostbusters (1984) many times, but I couldn’t recite the specifics of its Enneagram to you without watching it again. I suspect, though, that this movie hits the same highlights as the original. Certainly, its One is similar.

A museum, the Aldridge Mansion, has a ghost appear to the tour guide. We all remember that the original movie begins at the library with an apparition. Introduce the supernatural: check. 

Then we go to campus and meet Erin (Kristen Wiig). She links up with Abby (Melissa McCarthy), with whom she’s been estranged for years, and Abby’s associate Jillian (Kate McKinnon). The three of them go into the Aldridge to investigate the apparition. In the original we meet Bill Murray scamming psychology students; Dan Aykroyd reels him in for the library investigation. Again, we have the character we’re supposed to like best (Wiig/Murray) who’s the voice of skepticism and the long-time friend (McCarthy/Aykroyd) who is the enthusiast. They team up and away we go.

It’s strange. Murray’s Venkman practically begs you to find him repulsive, and yet we’re captured. Wiig’s Erin is much nicer and more sympathetic, but the whole opening is flat.

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City of Walls and Secrets

ONE

Our group rides the train from the outer wall into Ba Sing Se. Sokka jokes about their bad luck, and Katara reassures Aang that they’ll find Appa. As the train passes through the inner wall, the city stretches before them for miles in each direction. Even a giant bison might be hard to find in such a dense metropolis.

They disembark at the train depot. Aang blows his bison whistle with no result.

TWO

An overly-smiling woman approaches. It’s Joo Dee, come to show the Avatar the city. She knows all their names. When Sokka interrupts, insisting they tell the Earth King about the coming invasion, Joo Dee ignores him. He tries again. The camera goes close on Joo Dee’s smiling face: the city is perfectly safe.

THREE

They tour the city in a carriage. Joo Dee explains that the city has many walls to help maintain order. Katara asks why all the poor people are blocked off into this part of the city? 

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MABEL MORA, NINE

If you’ve read my other two reviews of the Only Murders in the Building Enneagrams, you’ll know that I’m dissatisfied with the character details. Too much of the continuity of the show relies on great acting to paste over awkward writing. 

However, Mabel is the most clear cut. She’s a Nine. We don’t see Mabel perform great physical feats or generally exhibit Body Type traits. We do see her sense of justice, of sticking to the murder mystery and her podcast partners because it’s the right thing to do.

Meanwhile, she also has the Nine’s emotional disconnect. Oliver can carry all the feelings for the group, and Charles can hold down the curmudgeon corner, and that leaves Mabel free to drift. In some ways she’s a blank. She’s a Nine who only engages on the margins.

Selena Gomez plays a solid part of the trio, yet she can’t match the generational experience of Martin and Short. Those two will upstage every scene. I can’t say how much of Mabel’s blandness is due to the writing or to Gomez. However, it’s a perfect fit for a certain kind of Nine.

OLIVER PUTNAM, TWO

The second character in Only Murders in the Building’s mystery-solving podcast trio is Martin Short’s Oliver, who is most definitely a Heart Type. He wants to connect so desperately with everyone he meets, from apartment residents to his theatrical partners. He thrives and shines when he’s around others.

Interestingly, he’s kind of a successful failure. At this point he’s broke and with no job. He’s been a movie mogul in the past, seemingly. Can someone this disjointed be a Three? He makes their silly podcast flourish somehow, which is something a Three would accomplish. Like Charles, Oliver’s not quite his Enneagram number. He bleeds over into a Four’s emotional turmoil and a Two’s vulnerability. Again, the actor makes us want to watch a character that may not mesh on paper.

He’s a romantic mess with Loretta. He bungles his connection to Teddy Dimas. A Three is much more sure-footed. His character design is slippery, and I’m leaning closer to Two than Three. And if he’s a Two, what is his collection? Movie memorabilia? 

I’m tempted to call this a Null. I won’t, though, because Martin Short is too good to play multiple seasons of a Null. I do think his Two-ness could’ve been sharper in the writing. I don’t like that this show seems to put too much weight on the casting, which is brilliant, and less weight on the character details that underpin the actors. However, Oliver’s tender heart overcomes these missteps.

CHARLES-HADEN SAVAGE, FIVE

I’m considering whether I should look at the Character Enneagrams of the three leads in Only Murders In The Building. They’re each very strong personalities who are the backbone of the series. The plots are a MacGuffin. We watch because of the characters, and the cast is dynamic. (Also, the opening credits and theme music are unskippable.)

However, I’m reluctant. None of their Enneagrams pop out at me. Steve Martin’s Charles seems like he’d probably be a Head Type and a Six. He has that worry and reluctance to engage socially. Every Hollywood actor has a stunt double for action work, yet Sazz is almost Charles’ physical alter ego, as if he has no body presence. The other two sides of the trio drag Charles along at times. All of these traits reinforce the notion of a Head Type.

He doesn’t have the dry wit of a Six, though. He doesn’t have the facial hair and questionable sartorial sense, either, lol. He does have a Five’s romantic sense with Jan. (Her unpredictability and danger help open up a Five’s emotional reserves; a Six would avoid these qualities.) His cluelessness about his own feelings is also very Five-ish. And he’s kind of a boring fellow. Only Steve Martin keeps him watchable.

I don’t blend Enneagram numbers, especially for fictional characters. You either act a Six or you act a Five.

I think he’s closer to Five. I only lean toward a Six because of his relationship with Sazz and their “tap in”. Ah. Like the murder plots, Sazz is a MacGuffin. She isn’t changing Charles’ Character Enneagram. She’s a feint. Jane Lynch is so magnificent that she prepares you to see a real person, but she’s a plot device.

Earrings

This is the last batch of store-bought wooden discs that I painted with wax. Elizabeth, who had the idea for earrings, finished each piece with hardware. These two pair have contrasting backs and fronts.

Modelling the different sides.

This last earring is more conventional. I learned, finally, that if I wanted to stamp an image it’s best to do it first. Once the wax is applied, the surface, no matter how beautifully fused, has imperfections that keep the ink from printing consistently.

Elizabeth improved a rather simple design by adding the perfect hardware. Thanks.