Happy Tenth, Lizzie!

A very happy double-digit birthday to my one and only niece, Lizzie! Where have the last ten years gone???

My Inktober 10 - Figaro Pinocchio

Another suggestion from a friend. This is one of those movies I have seen a thousand times (never bothered to count, really) and I very much doubt I will EVER get sick of it. 

My fan fiction with Pinocchio, The Guardian, which crosses over with Terence, continues to be my top story. No other story has been praised half so much to this day, and this is how some people got introduced to Terence. One fan even drew me some amazing illustrations that I still have in my private folder on my laptop. 

 

The old story can still be found on my Fanfiction account, but I've started a little remake, too, "started" being an operative word: The Guardian: Rewritten

 

There is a sequel, On the Wings of an Angel, which I never quite finished. I posted the last chapter not long before my dad died, and then I just lost my mojo altogether and soon got caught up in other projects.

 

But it was almost over anyway, and I will go ahead and tell you how it ends: Pinocchio finally accepts Rhiella (he knew Terence loved him; he was just afraid and jealous that Terence loved Rhiella more, as if love's supposed to be some kind of competition, and the boy didn't like things changing so suddenly and so drastically when he was still getting used to things as they already were) and he and Terence have a real talk about Pinocchio's nightmares with Fabrizio. Terence already knew about those nightmares but he and Pinocchio deal with Pinocchio's grief the correct way, much more thoroughly, and soon those nightmares go away for good. Armando and Arietta continue to visit them and teach Pinocchio, and even become a sort of adopted family.

If I ever get around to a third story, Armando and Arietta end up adopting a little orphaned girl because Arietta can't have children of her own, and this girl becomes Pinocchio's playmate and sort-of-girlfriend. In the very end, Pinocchio finally understands what true love means, that there's enough love for everybody (and more besides) and he loves Terence every bit as much as he continues to love Geppetto. No parental figure exceeds the other.

And Jiminy Cricket does serenade them all with "When You Wish Upon a Star."

 

You know, since writing that first story, I've never really looked at the movie the same way again. It may not be "canon" but it's still fun and gratifying.