Fun but twisted

(I needed to stop thinking about my movie plot for a moment)

Dr. Eban Paulie is an expert in genetic customization. He specializes in giving couples a child with exactly the kind of traits they desire; blue eyes, athletic predisposition, etc. Being a child of this system himself he is incredibly handsome and obviously intelligent. All his life he has grown up with a constant assurance of his awesomeness, the compliments blurring into a comfortable white noise that lull him to sleep at night and keep him amused when he is bored on the way to work or listening to his assistant blather.



But something strange has happened to Dr. Paulie. Somewhere along the way to his current 32-year-old self, he fell in love with himself. Narcissism is a vice rampant in humanity, but his infatuation went beyond mere vanity and quickly snowballed into obsession. There were days when he would weep at the cold inaccessible reflection of himself, so perfect but so untouchable. Something had to be done, he must have himself.

So he took a sample of his DNA and cloned himself, creating an exact duplicate, down to the age, weight, and length of toe nails. Dr. Paulie called him Eban, and reveled in the joy of addressing himself and receiving an answer. Eban had no basis for any life comparisons and was very much a large infant, so for a while Dr. Paulie labored furiously, embedding Eban with information as well as teaching him things outright. They spent every waking moment together, and with the exception of Dr. Paulie's assistant, Binny, a mousy grad student, they had no interruptions in Eban's studies.

The clone and his original sped furiously through material that should have taken decades to comprehend, but with Dr. Paulie's technology it was only a matter of months. Paulie had to make Eban his intellectual as well as physical equal. Their progress was halted however, when the doctor was forced to attend a medical conference. He would be away for a week, and Binny would be entrusted with Eban's care...

to be continued...

So the physician set about making a clone of himself, a perfect soulmate in every way. His only equal in physical and mental capacity.

I just watched The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. I always like silent films but I especially liked this one. I identify with Cesare, I feel like a somnambulist who can tell the future sometimes.



Tentative Character List:
Tanith O Marcaigh- Protagonist
Fergus O Marcaigh- Father
Lord Virgil Thorburn- Antagonist
Conri Carey- Love Interest

A working biography of Tanith O Marcaigh

Childhood:

Tanith was born to Fergus O Marcaigh and Eileen Gerrety. Fergus is the well-respected Marshal to Lord Virgil Thorburn’s horses. Tanith was born out of wedlock, and under some strained circumstances ended up living with only her father on the Thorburn estate. Fergus did not know how to deal with the emotional side of parenthood and raised Tanith under the false impression that she was a foundling. He used this lie to retain an aloofness, to avoid the fatherly expression of love, though eventually they established a bond of relaxed affection that both were comfortable with. Life on the manor left little room for frivolities like love, anyway. The simple fact was they both had each other’s quiet company and a single unending duty; horses.
By age 10 Tanith had finished any sort of schooling she would receive at the hands of the manor’s clergyman. She could read some and write her name, recite the Lord’s Prayer, and sew. These skills seemed completely useless to Tanith, however, and as far as she was concerned their conclusion just opened up three extra hours of the day to spend on her real education in the stable yard. Fergus took on his daughter as his full-time apprentice, and her deftness with the animals was undeniable. She even established a few new training techniques that Fergus incorporated into his routine.
Lord Thorburn would never allow a woman to ascend to the rank of Marshal for his estate, but he allowed Tanith to work because as a child she did not require a salary. Throughout her adolescence she became painfully aware of the fact that when her father retired the position would go to one of the less talented stable-hands. It was a bone of contention that gave Tanith a chip on her shoulder, but she never really accepted that as her future, because her life had been so strictly adhered to order that she assumed something would shift in her favor before the time came, as things tended to do.
An indispensable aspect of Tanith was her light weight, which allowed her to start breaking in horses via riding before they reached their full size without injuring them. This boon hastened the overall training period of each mount, saving Lord Thorburn a lot of money in the long run. A poor diet and a natural inclination to wiriness kept Tanith from filling out as most young women do, so her duties never had to be abandoned.

Personality: The only perspective that Tanith has on herself is in relation to her orphan status and her horses. Fergus raised her on a faerie-tale story of his discovery of her; he was transporting some Hobbys to a horse dealer and a snake on the road spooked them. A couple took off into the woods, and he pursued them. Though it was midday inside the towering, gnarled trees the sun was blocked out and he could hardly see his hands in front of his face. The echo of the horses whinnying sounded dimly and he followed their noises to a strange clearing, flooded with misty air and huge mushrooms. In the center of the space the Hobs were nuzzling a wicker basket. Fergus recaptured them with no problem, so enthralled were they by this parcel. He opened it and gaped as he saw a babe lying there, just looking at him. She had a full head of black hair and she was big, no question, at least a half-stone. The wicker basket must have held oats before it held her for their scent was still strong within it. The Hobbys kept nuzzling her and searching for the treats but they couldn’t find any. And even though these huge creatures were nuzzling her all she did was giggle and smile. Fergus took her home with him and raised her alongside his foals n’ colts. In reality Tanith was conceived by Fergus and the wife of an often-traveling cloth dealer. She was brought to term and born without the man’s slightest knowledge, and after she was taken to live with Fergus.
As a direct result of her father’s story, Tanith sees herself as someone slightly removed from the ordinary. She does not acknowledge this in any conscious sense, but she does not see her anger or sadness as the same as other’s; to her, her feelings are somehow more deeply felt. Even so she is extremely self-contained, usually to her detriment as the build-up of emotions leads to volatile outbursts. These monumental eruptions only justify her mindset, as their caliber is considerably more powerful than the more complacent, average folk around her. Fergus punishes her strictly after these episodes, embarrassed by her abandon, but Tanith is not easily swayed by physical force. She lives very much inside herself, projecting personalities onto the horses to keep her company. Other children her age quite appropriately found her snobby and inaccessible.
The general dislike directed towards Fergus’s daughter from her peers only ripened with age, leaving Tanith with no marital prospects. This vaguely distressed Fergus, though he had never really considered the idea her getting married.



Skills: Horse-training in the areas of warfare, domestic, and hunting- Very rudimentary understanding of mounted swordsmanship-Literate- basic knowledge of farming- birthed over 2 dozen foals- shoed hundreds-

Tanith's going to leave the manor and find an abandoned village with three or four villagers left. I'm thinking of making something to do with wrangling up the horses from the surrounding estates that have escaped their pens after their owners died. I want to incorporate more with the horse skills but I don't want to make it a Hidalgo thing... the horses have to be more of a force, like the weather, except they can be harnessed.
This screenplay is going to have to skirt some lines, because the horses have to be a big presence but not in a PETA/Black Stallion way, and Tanith has to be a strong female lead but not in a Xena Warrior Princess way.

Tanith is understated, stubborn but in a passive aggressive way because she was raised under the radar, assisting her well-liked, widely-respected father quietly. The horses are familiar but she treats them with a certain superiority, they are still animals.

http://http://www.horse2buy.com/horse-breeds/irish-draft.html

The horses will be Irish Hunters, not that it will be clear, but it helps me.

Test Blog

I've never had a real blog before so this is just a sampler post.

Progress-wise I'm reworking my pitch and will hopefully have something by the end of today.