#this scene rewrote my entire base code

[carlaconnors]

CORONATION STREET | July 18, 2025

[doloresdisparue]

In some of your recent posts, you mentioned a Lolita musical? I didn't know there was a musical! Is there a place to listen to it/watch it??

- Someone who finds the book interesting, and deeply loves music

HELLO YOU HAVE COME TO THE RIGHT PLACE. If the Lolita musical has a million fans, then I am one of them. If the Lolita musical has ten fans, then I am one of them. If the Lolita musical has only one fan then that is me. If the Lolita musical has no fans, then that means I am no longer on earth. If the world is against the Lolita musical, then I am against the world etc etc. Here's my tag in case my elaboration makes you curious

It's called "Lolita, My Love" written by Alan Jay Lerner with music by John Barry. It premiered in 1971 and promptly flopped so hard that they canned it during tryouts before it even had a Broadway premiere though it has been critically praised since.

(Not since Carrie: forty years of Broadway musical flops by Ken Mandelbaum)

Lerner rewrote the script six times with significant changes in the different versions and you can look at most of them only through the LIbrary of Congress where his papers are preserved. In essence there are three versions. Philadelphia (very little information available), Boston (this version has a soundboard recording of the audio for the entire show on youtube from a preview show) and post-closing (this is where he cracked the code). The post-closing version was obviously never staged by Lerner BUT it was the main basis for the 2019 revival showing put on by the York Theatre and directed by Emily Maltby (one of the few women to direct an adaptation and while I don't think that is at all necessary for a good one she did a phenomenal job). It was a special event that only ran for a week and had no costume, no stage design and everyone with scripts in hand but it's the closest to a real production that has ever been done. Unlike the original 71 production it also did not cast any children and did not require them (or anyone) to be semi-nude. Dolores was played by an actress in her early 20s (Caitlin Cohn) who proved you could put on the show without endangering kids perfectly well.

The significant change between the Boston script and the Revival version (which takes small things from all scripts but is largely based on his final draft) is the (re-)addition of Dr. Ray as a framing device. To adapt the novel format to the stage Humbert is continuously telling his story to Dr. Ray who is interviewing him for his case. She (they cast a female black actress for the role in the revival) questions, interjects and overall holds the audiences hand a little when it comes to working out just how unreliable Humbert is. I like the Boston version where he talks directly to the audience but I fear we as a society have proven that we need a Lolita adaptation that holds peoples hands at least a little. Another delightful aspect is that, just like in the book, Humbert is actively using his medium against the reader/audience. Dr. Ray is always on stage as Humbert essentially directs the rest of the show to present his version of the story to her. At certain points light and music cues tell the audience that he is clearly making things up, Dolly starts moving like a marionette and talking as if she is hypnotised. Meanwhile he switches seamlessly between the interview and participating in the action, directing the ensemble, setting the scene so to speak

but sometimes the action freezes or the lights abruptly come on when she interrupts him, immediately jarring the audience to attention in case they got a little too carried away in his catchy songs.

It's also a production that has a profound love for Dolly and, to my knowledge, the only adaptation that made the conscious choice to let her survive. Erik Haagensen, who put together the script, talked about how her death was never in any of Lerner's drafts and he wouldnt have included it if it was because it was so important to him to spotlight that she was a survivor and she still had a life after her abuse and honor the pehmomenal strength it would have taken her to get to that place at all because she is NOT broken and her life ISN'T over and that was important to him. I do understand and respect Nabokov's choice to go full tragedy but it's another reason the musical is close to my heart. I also cannot talk about this show without noting its distinction of featuring perhaps the worst line in musical history ever sung by a human being (saying this affectionately since it does its job of making you scream):

I could talk forever about other choices and the individual songs but this has gotten long enough I think. But feel free to hit me up (and this goes for anyone else too) if you want to talk more about it!

TL;DR: There is currently no way to watch "Lolita, My Love" as there is only an audio recording of a preview for the 1971 show, not a video and the archive recording of the revival (which exists!) is not publicly available (presumably for legal reasons). At least 2 songs are on Spotify re-recorded by commercial artists (Going, going, gone and In The Broken Promise Land of 15) as well as a purely instrumental version of the title theme (Lolita by John Barry) which i adore. The scripts are in the Library of Congress and potentially buried in other places but I have not found them anywhere online, though you can look at all the lyrics and small summaries of the action of each song in "The complete lyrics of Alan Jay Lerner" by Dominic McHugh and Amy Asch, which is widely available.

[theonevoice]

Rumination n. 1 - Why we don’t need the coffee theory (or any other theory)

Disclaimer: this is, of course, my personal reading of Good Omens season 2; it’s mostly a way for me to cope with the heartbreak, and does not intend to deny the validity of any other interpretation that you may prefer.

As we all collectively trudge through the five stages of grief after Good Omens season 2 finale, many theories are coming to life to make sense of the protagonists’ breakup. One of the most shared is the so called “coffee theory”, which formulates the hypothesis that the Metatron could have spiked the infamous coffee with a brainwashing miracle in order to convince Aziraphale to follow him back to Heaven. An interesting variant of the same theory speculates instead that the coffee itself could be not spiked per se, but metaphorically spiked, so to speak, in that it functions as a “coded message" based on the name of Nina’s shop, Give me coffee or give me death. According to this variant theory, the Metatron (who was conveniently commenting on the name of the establishment just before the scene in question) has not put any miracle on the coffee, but is using the gesture of offering the coffee as a way to implicitly threaten Aziraphale: so when he offers the cup and asks him “Are you going to take it?”, the underlying message would be “I can give you this coffee or I can give you death” (death potentially meaning not just his death, but also – or rather – Crowley’s death, or Crowley’s existence removed from the Book of Life). Other theories propose that the two didn’t actually fight, but that either Aziraphale was lying to Crowley or both of them were staging a false fight because they have guessed that the Metatron is up to no good and they intend to thwart his plans. The one that I personally find the wildest even goes as far as imagining that the Metatron rewrote entire parts of the protagonists’ past, messing with the Book of Life (even if we are never told if this is how the Book works – meaning if it is a precise record of all history from which one could erase or modify individual bits, or rather it’s just an index that lists the existence of every living being) in order to bring them to the final point.

Now, I am all for fan theories, and I strongly believe that the capacity to inspire such intellectual and emotional involvement in a story is the ultimate demonstration of how amazingly well made (and how deeply loved) this show is, so I am not trying to bring down the effort of any fan who is proposing or supporting these theories. On the contrary, I wholeheartedly admire the unbelievable eye for details, the analytical skills, the time, and the genuine creativity that many fans are showing in formulating such theories. I just don’t think that we necessarily need them.

First, I find that putting a factor of external pressure on that ending would undermine the agency of both characters and the deep emotional construction of the scene. But mainly, I don’t think that the story, analysed from a strictly “narrative balance” point of view, needs a theory to explain how we get to the finale, which is, in my opinion, perfectly understandable as the resolution of a totally psychological and emotional struggle. That masterful confrontation in the bookshop is the surprising but inevitable culmination of a minor, yet lethal, misalignment of Crowley’s and Aziraphale’s positions. A misalignment that they never made the effort to correct, because they were too caught up in their respective fears. I believe that the Job minisode, especially the final dialogue, is already more than enough to set up the "cracks" that, centuries later, will bring about the ep 6 breakup. What does this dialogue show us?

On one side, the minisode shows us that Crowley is afraid of being alone in his “independent agent” chosen path: his very attempt to initially deny it, in the cellar scene, sounds to me as evidence that he is not comfortable with that scenario of complete loneliness (he’s not saying “yes, it is lonely, but who cares”). So, as soon as he spots Aziraphale’s hesitation, he immediately convinces himself (and tries to convince him) that he has found a companion that would share his “third party” option, and begins to refer to Aziraphale – sometimes indirectly, but always clearly, in my opinion – as a sort of twin figure: “That’s how it started for me” (reading as “after all, we are the same”), and “You are just an angel who goes along with Heaven as far as he can” (which is the exact label that he has previously used to describe himself). His deepest fear is to be alone and his deepest need is to find someone “like him” who would turn his lonely “my own side” into a shared “our side”, as we’ve seen him long for since season 1. This led him to ignore the main struggle that consumes Aziraphale for the entire length of their relationship, which is his fear of facing his feelings, and by refusing to acknowledge this fear (which would undermine his need to convince himself that they are just the same in every respect) he opens a first subtle crack in their relationship.

On the other side, the minisode shows us also that Aziraphale is scared to death of loosing his angelic identity and not knowing what he is anymore. He is afraid that stepping away from Heaven would leave him without a well-defined moral framework and he would be overwhelmed by the uncertainty of the world, falling into a radical, utter existential crisis (in that respect, I personally find his characterization deeply human and as close to a universal feeling as a piece of fiction can go). This means that, as he realizes his affection for Crowley, he panics, because what would it mean for an angel to love someone who is “not good”? It would force him to question not just his allegiance to Heaven but his very identity, or at least the specific kind of clear and unambiguous identity that he needs to hold on to. A need confirmed by the many occasions in which, despite his fleeting conversion to "shades of grey", we see him consistently tied to his black-and-white mentality (from the very initial "We are hereditary enemies" to the last "Obviously you said no to Hell, you're the bad guys!"). So, in order to protect his heavenly self, he resorts to just denying Crowley’s identity instead: repeatedly telling him (almost as if he's trying to talk his wish into existence) that he is “a good person”, that he is still an angel who has only temporarily strolled away from the “right path”, waiting to be brought back to Heaven with the help of an undisputed angelic influence. This led him to take Crowley for granted (notice the "I knew you would come through for me, you always do", and the even more telling “Rescuing me makes him so happy”), and opens a parallel and equally dangerous crack in their relationship. His feelings for Crowley are a point of absolute internal conflict for him, and he reacts with fear and withdrawal every time that he feels their pull getting stronger, like during the conversation on the bandstand (by the way, known spot for proposal in Battersea Park, which means that Crowley unusually calling him there and asking him to “go off together” was quite literally a “will you marry me” moment). His “You go too fast for me, Crowley” perfectly represents this struggle, but further proofs of it are everywhere in his lines, in both seasons: think of “There is no our side. […] I don’t even like you!”, or “That’s what friends do”, or the reaction to Gabriel’s allusion of being comforted by the presence of someone special (“I have no idea what that feels like”), which, being pronounced in a scene where Crowley is not present, sounds to me as evidence that Aziraphale is not just acting shy specifically in front of him, but is in fact in full denial of their relationship.

This selective blindness of each other’s deepest needs and fears is, to me, perfectly sufficient to set up the finale without the need to have the Metatron pulling some unfathomable trick on them. Especially if we consider that season 2 is full of moments that bring up the pressure on this dangerously weak point of their situation.

The apparently minor and funny detail that Crowley has lost his flat to Shax and is living in the Bentley, for example, as much of a gag as it is, is also a throwback to the moment in season 1 where he had offered Aziraphale to stay at his place after the bookshop burned down, and Aziraphale had refused on the account of “his side not liking it very much”. I was surprised, at first, that Aziraphale would let him live in a car for – as I understand – a few years (!), but thinking back on that season 1 moment, the fact that they both let this happen is actually totally in line with what has been established: whether they didn’t talk about it and pretended that it wasn’t happening, or they joked about it in their classic not-serious way and then just left the conversation hanging, it’s a manifestation of the underlying tension that stops Aziraphale from committing and pushes Crowley in a place of sadness and grumpy uncertainty (where we find him in the first episode of season 2). On top of this, we have plenty of exacerbating factors building up. Nina making Crowley realize that his connection to Aziraphale is in fact love, and then her and Maggie’s final advice in the bookshop, push him to go even “faster” than ever before and ignoring how scary that would make Aziraphale. Aziraphale setting up the ball and then basically falling into his own emotional trap, and then witnessing the bravery (from his point of view) of Gabriel’s and Beelzebub's choice to leave everything behind and go off together, brings him on the verge of finally admitting his feelings, which is great but is also a point of extreme psychological exertion for him, that makes him vulnerable to the first “win-win option” who appears to literally drop from the sky and save him from this impasse.

In fact, I am inclined to believe that the timely appearance of the Metatron proves that Aziraphale was about to reach a conclusion that Heaven would not have liked, and that the Metatron himself was spying on the situation and decided to step in at the worst possible moment to take maximum advantage of his state of emotional confusion. Let’s add to all of this the fact that neither of the two has any “emotional education”, to quote Flaubert, and knows how to express feelings: they rely on popular romantic fiction to articulate their love, and the writing of the Nina-Maggie storyline is a very clear message about how unreliable these oversimplified scenarios are in real life.

(I feel the moral and academic obligation to note that Jane Austen’s plots are not oversimplified in any possible way, but, considering how he summarises them, I am under the impression that Aziraphale doesn’t really get the subtleties of her writing.)

That’s why, all considered, I don’t think that we need the coffee theory, or any other theory, to explain what happened. Because what happened is fully explained by what we have seen Crowley and Aziraphale do over the centuries, and by what season 2 explicitly tells us about how complicated love is.

Crowley and Aziraphale undoubtedly love each other very much, painfully even, but that is not enough to establish a mature relationship if you never make the effort to check both your and the other person’s deepest issues, to grow and learn how to process them, and to “say what you are really thinking”.

[elleryfiction]

500 Followers! + Progress Update

I don't know when I passed this milestone, but it is truly humbling (´⌣`ʃƪ) ♥ especially given my inactiveness. Thank you. Thank you for hitting that follower button despite the lack of activity here. Thank you for showing an interest in my project. Thank you for sending me asks, leaving a like, or reblog, or for just reading this too. And as thanks for all your support, I'll share a little snippet from the interlude:

The stable hand's eyes snap up. Wide and fully on alert, his eyes track the open meadows and the white picket fence. Based on sight alone, nothing appears out of the ordinary. The night is silent; the air as hot as ever and the trees still in the lack of breeze. And yet, something feels… odd. Out of place.

Wrong.

----

And under the cut because it got a little long: an update on what I've been doing since the past update, and what else to expect:

Things I've done since the past update

coding/grammar/spelling edits for the prologue

rewrote the 'rabbit snare' scene (it shall feature a different scene entirely in the next update)

wrote a rough draft of your farewell with Tremaine (this will be added to the end of the prologue!)

completed the first interlude

wrote the very first part of chapter 1

What will come next

Writing the main branches of Chapter 1. This chapter will feature three main branches. Right now, I'm in the midst of dialogue branches that lead up to the splitting point. Writing has not been as smooth-sailing as I'd like it to be, unfortunately, but I'll update again when I've made more progress!

About future updates

If the next one is to include the entirety of Chapter 1, it will likely take another month or more (˃̣̣̥^˂̣̣̥`) I do want to release this chapter when it is entirely complete, but I don't really fancy the idea of leaving The Sun Chasers in limbo for that long.

As such, I'm considering releasing a 'mini update' first. This will include (1) the revamped rabbit snare scene, (2) a scene with Tremaine before you and T leave, and (3) the interlude. I'll likely be able to get this done by the second week of June.

Do let me know what you think!

[justaflipfloppingpotato]

The M3thh34d visual novel, process thread

Monday, September 23, 2019

So, yesterday I decided that I'm going to be changing tmh into a visual novel instead of a comic. I'm not that sure how I feel about this decision but i KNOW I'm gonna have a lot more done quickly and efficiently, I'll be able to tell my story completely without cancelling anything. And since renpy coding is the simplest thing in the galaxy I have a feeling this will be super fun too.

Oke, just some clarifications for myself.

I'm going to write all of the stories code first.

Then I'm going to draw the sprites and backgrounds as needed

Then I'm going to work on major art pieces for it like title pages and large stuff etc

Now for mobile users who won't be able to play, don't worry. I'm planning on posting a play through on my yt channel and I'm going to post the script here with all of the photos and visuals for those who would rather read on their own turn.

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

OK, so since school is kind of keeping me busy I wasn't able to do much besides figure out how basic GUI and options editing worked.

Added some about information

Fixed transitions

Added a default text speed of 18 characters per second

I also taught myself how to turn the game into files to download, also figured out a system of how people will be able to download the files without actually having to install it from itch.io, gamejolt, etc.

As far as scripts are concerned I have essentially added dialogue for the entire prologue (though I may edit it because I feel it may go by too fast)

And up to the whisper scene in part 1 (which is around a bit into part one,)

I'm also deciding that I'm going to be posting this thread on Friday/saturday and adding more to it as we go.

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Alright! Things I got done:

Added LOTS of dialogue, pretty much around halfway done with chapter 1

Completely rewrote to prologue, its a bit clunky so im gonna need to edit it later to make the dialogue flow better, but for this medium of storytelling its kind of necessary to change it how I did

Brainstormed son sprite pose ideas, I realize I'm probably gonna need some tweek-twitching sprites so that's something I'm going to get on once I start the drawing process

Also found out that typing these things: [] make the code wonky so I can't type [REDACTED] kind of a shame but that's fine

May or may not be using to much of the pause function, but Its not bothering me so I guess when I get someone to test it (yes u heard me, I'm gonna let people test it once everythings,,, y know,,,, playable) and I get some thoughts I'll know how it is

Through this whole process I realized how easy making a simpl e visual novel truly is, and now I finally know how to tell my stories in a way that's both fun and easy!

I've been thinking about making h&h, a never-before-seen card deck au I made like a year ago and never posted, the mythical creek au and a monster au all into visual novels! This is a perfect way for me to stay focused and make stuff!! I'm v excited and happy!! (Let's hope this stays this way because u all know me by now!!)

I may add some complex choice decisions after I get the base game script finished but I have no idea how the story would play out to an alternate ending? Idk I'll have to think about it maybe :p

Anyway I've also been thinking about voice acting in it butttt if I had that they're probably just gonna be mini sound bites like "hmm" or "gah!?" Just stuff from the show probably.

Thursday, September 26, 2019

Life is cray and I'm in pain! Here's the shit I got done today!!

Added slightly over 50 lines worth of dialogue

Slight edits here and there about other things

Also im trying to build tweeks character and persona for chapter 1 and I'm finally getting that done

Y know, a really fun thing about visual novels is that I can add as much dialogue as I want without worrying about how crowded it looks

Like, text boxes on comics are NIGHTMARES to add, like u don't want to have a full paragraph of words for one panel! Because no one will want to read it.

But with vn's all you have to do is write dialouge now and then worry about expressions later

No clunk, only funk B)

Also thinking about his ark, now that I'm fully working on scripts and and the story I can finally focus on how to add the hashtag foreshadowing for the uuuuhhhh twist :^)

Anyway I'm having fun and I'm pretty much half way done with chapter one. After I get it done I'm going to reread it and jot down changes until I'm happy with it then I'm going to move on to chapter 2 :DD

Friday, September 27, 2019

Ok!!! Finally done for the week, here's what I did today:

Added an additional 70 lines of dialogue, I now have just over 300 lines

Finished chapter 1

Added a scene where tweek doesn't know how to pronounce hypothermia, that's not important just want you all to know that was a thing

Its been so fun working on this so far, I'm planning on testing it over the weekend to see what dialogue tweaks and grammar/spelling stuff I need to fix. Once that's done I will be continuing onto the chapter 2 script!

I will update this thread on Fridays, I might add some mini weekend updates whenever the time calls for it.

I hope you all are excited as I am for this! Its the first time in a long time that I've felt this sure about a project before!! :DD

[infiniteglitterfall]

ZOMFG. I found a mix tape that @rivergst​ recorded off the radio in the summer of 1997. We’re listening to it, and suddenly they bust out with this song, which I think we had both forgotten even existed.

So many thoughts.

1. Johnny could be bi (based on her examples) and still be queer, but she very clearly means “are you gay.” Bi erasure!

2. Which just reminds me of my smol lesbian feminist friend at the time -- who turned out to be a bi trans guy -- who was against the word “queer” because word on the lesfem streets, at the time, was that gay men had taken over the term, especially in “queer studies” and stuff, and so it wasn’t inclusive like it was supposed to be

3. feel like everyone’s more or less moved on from THAT at least, which is great. although now i wonder if the terf/radfem push against “queer” for its inclusivity just went from “it’s bad for us bc gay men” to their current “it’s bad for us bc it prioritizes everyone except lesbians”

4. apparently this song was not only played on the radio all the time (which I do remember), but was playing in the prom scene of the movie Valley Girl?!?!

5. one of the comments is like “imagine if this song was played at a prom today???” and one of the replies is basically that gay people would not allow it because of the backlash against the term

6. don’t read the comments, they reek of ableism, mostly aimed at the autistic-coded guy in the video.

7. (i think they wanted to do something like “the reason she wouldn’t know for sure is if he was super awkward and COULD be ace” and this was how they demonstrated that without knowing the terms they were looking for)

8. which is another example of when people are queer-coded, and you can’t tell which type of queer, and it explicitly is drawn to include the possibility that they’re “not into that” with anybody... like jughead... and then people are like “no the only possibility is that they’re gay or straight, and they’re clearly not straight so they’re being gay-coded”

9. how the fuck did we get from “Johnny Are You Queer?” on the radio, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy on TV and putting out their own books, etc., to LGBT people treating it like this is a super-offensive fringe term that the community has never embraced and used casually?

10. Apparently this was first released in 1982, became a hit single, and also, to be fair, pissed a lot of people even in the gay community off. The Advocate and the Village Voice and the religious right all hated it at the time, although a lot of LGBTQIPA+ people loved it. (Not only did it become a hit single, but apparently it made it to #2 on the CANADIAN charts?!)

11. But alternative rock stations like Live 105, and I think college stations and the like, were playing it really heavily in the 90s. I used to hear it all the time. And she played Pride parades in the 2000s, in LA and San Francisco.

12. Josie Cotton re-released it on a new album in 2010, and said,

“Originally it was half of a punk-rock song that was written and performed by a band called Fear, who was really hardcore. You really were frightened when you saw that band. They had a song—it was basically just that line, but it was screamed really angrily over and over.

“My [ subsequent ] producers reworked it into a pop kind of medium and pretty much rewrote the entire song except for that one line, which seemed to have a huge reaction in the crowd it was circulating [ through ] in Los Angeles.

“I was offered record deals if I dropped the song. At the time, IRS Records was a really great label to be on; the Police were on there and the Go-Go's. They knew about the song. They knew I'd recorded it. They just insisted I not do it and that was a turning point in my career. Of course, you always wonder about those things—about roads not taken. I just thought it was a really lousy way to start my career—compromising something that I thought was really funny shit.”

When asked, “It seems like half the gay community loved you for the song and the other half hated you for it. Why do you think there were such diverse reactions?” she said,

“I've thought about this at length and the best that I can come up with is that this song; it combined a tremendous amount of elements that, until that point, had not been put together.

“One of the elements was comedy and it took people off-guard to hear that word, which was pretty much an obscene word at the time except in the gay community. [emphasis mine]

“It's a very brutally honest question in pretty much a story of unrequited love. So, it's pretty much all of those elements together, people were taken back.

“They really didn't know what had hit them. Most people I knew laughed, including the gay people I knew and truck drivers and every walk of life; they didn't know how to react and laughter happened.

“It was a very liberating kind of feeling. You didn't know what had hit you. I think that some people didn't understand the intent of the song or just the pure, innocence of this character singing it. It was fascinating to observe.“

13. omg she did another interview that told more of the story behind this song. The whole thing is amazing: the right wing decided she was a trans woman, which in their eyes meant “actually a gay man trying to convert unsuspecting straight men to my homosexual lifestyle.”

14. Holy shit. Not only did Fear have their song with the line “You’re a fuckin’ queer boy” in that same sing-song (they didn’t have any “Johnny” in the song), but then apparently these straight guys, the Paine brothers, who ”were freakily dead-on when it came to predicting musical trends,” discovered the Go-Go’s... rewrote the song into “Johnny, Are You Queer?”... had the FUCKING GO-GO’s perform it, as a punk band at the time, at a live show... It became their big song....

....the Paines had a fight with the Go-Go’s over them touring with a band called Madness.... they parted ways and the Paines took their song back and forbade the Go-Go’s from performing it anymore.... Josie Cotton heard it, loved it, happened to meet Larson Paine in a bank line in Hollywood around when the brothers were looking for a new voice for the song.... and the rest is history? what the fuck am i reading

14. somebody who is better at pop culture studies than I am could probably do a whole dissertation on how, maybe, the internet simultaneously made community more accessibly to queer youth, and divided up mainstream media so much, that a lot of people became isolated from things like Autostraddle and the Advocate and everyone else who casually uses “queer”??

anyway

rb if you remember or love this song

like if you are baffled by its very existence :D