#might need to make an incorrect quote version of this scene at some point just for fun :)

[clericofshadows]

"You said your implant got rattled. Everything good?" "The medial gibberish was a bit more impressive but that's what I took away--rattled."

[greenhatsinthesky]

lockdown film no. 33 - Gladiator (2000) dir. Ridley Scott

13/05/2020

- I saw this film the first time when I was maybe 13? My dad decided that it was time for me to watch this Oscar winning epic, but we had to watch it in two parts because it was so long, and pretty damn violent for squeamish, baby me. Me and Dad managed this all in one, seven years later

- the opening is… really something isn’t it

- (just found out it was filmed in Surrey. Gutted)

- I got shivers right through to my scalp when he made that first speech to his soldiers that ends with “Brothers — what we do in life echoes in eternity.” Genius (there’s a chance it was because my room is the temperature of the arctic but nonetheless it was very moving)

- I had a foley workshop this morning and my tutor was talking about how foley should be subtle, but often the sounds need to be exaggerated so we’re absolutely sure that what we’re hearing is what we’re meant to be hearing. Likely because I came in with that mindset, they went absolutely ham thick on the foley for the opening battle scene

- “Enough of politics. Let us pretend that you are a loving daughter, and I am a loving father” — the fact that this line was said quite gently by Richard Harris’ Caesar Marcus Aurelius makes it so heartbreaking because there is absolutely no pretence that their family’s relationship is outrageously dysfunctional, and that’s not even getting onto the incest

- Joaquin phoenix is great in this. When he’s told he isn’t going to be emperor he’s like a stroppy kid who just wants to make his dad proud of him and now he’s a psychopath. That scene’s fantastic anyway, I love how the statue of caesar is right on commodus’ shoulder the whole way through, and really oppressive after commodus has killed Marcus Aurelius

- also fun fact about that scene — apparently phoenix was so stressed out about shooting it that he fainted right after they cut

- the little *fwoop* when he flipped the sword over was a bit much and then saying “the frost. Sometimes it makes the blade stick” before slicing the other guy felt a bit too bondy for this but you know what ? I respect the swagger

- there was an absolutely ineffable sense of dread and pure terror when the roman army was approaching maximus’ home and his son was running and waving thinking it was him. I hated that bit

- “those giraffes you sold me. They won’t mate. They just walk around eating, and not mating. You sold me… queer giraffes.” Whoever wrote this deserves every Oscar this film won, and I want it framed in my kitchen

- I enjoy the fact that they could have so easily done a training montage gladiator style when Maximus had been bought by proximo. Instead they took time to get a bit more into his character and for us to meet juba and the other gladiators. We didn’t need to see him training as a gladiator, that’s not what we’re here for. This film isn’t about fighting — sure, it’s got some great scenes in the colosseum which are entertaining to watch, and there’s stacks of gratuitous violence, but I feel in this case it’s warranted because you can’t get away from the brutality of the games in this context. The film itself is more about Maximus as a general, a gladiator, a husband, father and person and how he relates to the ever conflicting idea of “Rome” and the permanent violence it seems to require to keep that idea going under the reign of commodus. Maximus was required to kill in the army, but there it felt like it was for a purpose: to protect the idea of Rome and the emperor and the people that he cares—here he is required to kill just because he is required to kill. That would obviously change the dynamic but it says a lot about his character that he doesn’t seem to have any qualms about killing a person he doesn’t know for the entertainment of more people he doesn’t know and will likely never meet

- when Maximus walks through the cage it exactly mirrors the opening scene and him walking by all his soldiers as they salute him as their leader and I really liked that

- “i did not say I knew him, I said he touched me on the shoulder once” — why does this film have so many relatable lines 

- one of my favourite things about this film is essentially nothing to do with the film itself, and it’s how my dad will yell stuff from it at opportune moments. When I was learning to drive and going round corners, he would say “hold the line” like Maximus does in the amphitheatre. once, when we were climbing up a hill and it got a bit steeper near the top and I got a bit more tired and started to slow, he clapped me on the shoulder, pointed up the hill and yelled “STRENGTH AND HONOUR! HOLD THE LINE! STAY WITH ME!” just to encourage me up this hill and I love him so much for it

- absolutely cannot stand the bit in the chariot fight where the archer woman gets fully sliced in half. Couldn’t deal with it in 2013 and can’t deal with it now

- fun fact this film got the thumbs up thumbs down thing the wrong way round. In the scene where maximus’ identity was revealed to commodus, he moves his hand from a neutral position to his thumb pointing upwards, which means that he is sparing maximus. Often the emperor would use this code to signal to the winning gladiator if they should kill the loser. However, apparently thumb down didn’t mean “finish them”, it actually meant “throw down your weapon”, and the thumb pointing upward was meant to symbolise the sword thrusting up into the loser’s body. However this might also might be incorrect, I have not by any means done extensive research

- “it vexes me. I am terribly vexed.” Another classic dad quote

- just ruminating on ancient rome. Legitimately cannot imagine a worse occupation than being a gladiator. I’m sure if I thought about it a bit more I’d think of worse jobs, but right now, this is the one

- they used… real tigers for the scene with Tigris ??? Not happy about that. First of all, how ?

- I love the constant talk of the dream that was Rome, and the constant talk in tandem of the mob and how fickle they are. There is the dream that is Rome and there is the reality of the fickle mob. They obviously can’t coexist but those everyone we meet wants something better, in some way

- I don’t know if phoenix made a conscious decision about his speech but it really fit with what I said before about him being a petulant child because his speech didn't sound completely developed and reminded me of a child’s speech in how he pronounces certain letters. It adds so much to the character because he is a completely abhorrent person who wants to sleep with his sister and have a pure blood heir, have complete control over the roman empire and kill anyone who comes between his dream of what that empire could be under him. But then at the same time he sounds like a kid who’s not getting his own way

- I do not want a snake in my bed

- ‘“Strength and honour,” Maximus said to Juba. The two men smiled and rested their foreheads together.’ I did beam at this bit

- apparently proximo was meant to live in the original version of the film, but Oliver reed died during production, before all his scenes were filmed, so his character had to be killed. The last shot of him is from the back, so we don’t see his face, and a shot from earlier where he says “shadows and dust” is cut in right before he dies. The film was dedicated to reed’s memory

- OH another thing I Loved about commodus was how he had a white horse, and white armour in the final battle with maximus, while maximus has black armour, which is the standard. Because commodus has such an idea of who he is, and in his mind, he is Rome’s saviour, even though he knows full well he doesn’t have any of the qualities of a good emperor. White is typically the colour used to signify that a character is good, and pure, etc. so I really enjoyed the inversion of that to show commodus’ character and the character he wants Rome to see

- this isn’t a film about violence, it’s about a philosophy

- one last thing is that when I rewatch films to write up these things, I often skip parts because I get the gist of what’s going on and I don’t need to watch the whole thing. With this, even though it was 2 hours 35, I watched the whole thing, and I think that says a lot about how good a film it is

[drmedicsgamesurgery]

Danganronpa Togami Volume 3 Part 6 (Summary)

Time for more good weirdness.

Thanks to @enoshima-pyon @shockersalvage​ @jinjojess​ @hopeymchope​ for helping out!

CHAPTER 13- The Ascension of K

 1.

 Karel Čapek [0] wrote, "I don't need any masters, I know what I should do."

Franz Kafka [1] wrote, "‘What’s happened to me,’ he thought. It was no dream."

Milan Kundera [2] wrote, "Kafka learned to kill Kafka because of his insistence on deciphering."

Even with losing Borges, I can still quote the words of the Czech writers. As for why, well, that was a good thing to ask K.

 > Go to the city

> Climb the mountain

 Shinobu decides to climb the mountain where the sniper is supposed to be. It’s dangerous, but she believes that it’s not as dangerous as wandering around in the city while being wanted.

She starts climbing the mountain, but with only one eye, it's difficult to estimate the distance between her and the trees so she stumbled upon them several times.

Suddenly she find an open space right before her. There was an old log cabin, which looked like a restaurant, with tables and open air seating. A sign said “Temporarily closed for business”.

An old man stood there. Although it was summer, the old man wore a black hat and a black coat. It might be a bit redundant to say that he was a Westerner. From his sharp blue eyes, she couldn't see anything like sociality and friendliness.

"Have you gotten rid of Borges?" the old man said. "Follow me, Shinobu Togami."

2.

 She follows the old man to his house on the mountain. He hangs his coat and his hat on the coat rack and boils the kettle. Shinobu notes that the place has a low ceiling but the door is big enough not to be claustrophobic, and she sits at a table.

As I watched his movements with the corner of my eye, I watched the tableware placed on the homemade bar and the woodworking tools piled near the doorway. A picture hanging on the wall came into my eyes.

It was a weird painting.

A small animal that looked like a rat with a scary nose, where its nose supported its body like a leg. There was a certain factor in the painting that made it sinister, which caused my interest and anxiety. [3]

The old man, who has beautiful silver hair, puts two cups of coffee on a table and asks Shinobu to sit down and drink. Then he hands her an eyepatch saying her face looks scary with a hole in it.

"I have already understood the situation. That fake’s ‘World Domination Proclamation', even if I don't want to hear it, has been ringing in my ears. Others call me K."

"K?"

"Thirteenth in Latin, the thirteenth in poker."

“Speaking of K, that is the protagonist of “A Hunger Artist”, right?” [4]

K says that is incorrect and is the name of the protagonist from various other stories. Shinobu apologies, but admits to herself she didn’t come across as genuine.

"Forget it, as long as you say it is white, then black can also turn white," the old man who claimed to be called K snorted. "The initial letter of Kafka is also K."

"Are you...?"

"The reason why people call me K is many, but the most common one is KLAMM [5]. In the era of the Czech Republic and the socialist countries, that was what everyone was secretly calling the official of the Secretariat."

"I don't know Czech at all."

"It means 'fraud'."

Shinobu shows him the piece of paper that Hiroyuki gave her. She says that it’s too much of a coincidence that she met K right after getting the note, so she asks who is he.

"So, please, tell me. Who are you? Why do you know me?" asks Shinobu.

"Who are you? If you want to use that question to figure out my career and position, then it is still a little troubling to answer you. If you want to talk about the why, it is because I am an alumnus of Hope’s Peak Academy. I participated in the development of the Bible Plan. That project and later in the participation in the development of Borges with the Togami Family." says K.

When Shinobu brings up the Hasegawa Institute and if he has any relation to the Ketouin Conglomerate, K has no idea what she’s talking about. K goes on to talk about an interview with a writer who was questioned as to why he didn’t go into detail about a character’s past or appearance. His response? 

“'You dare to ask this in front of Kafka? What color is the character's hair, and whether this person's father has money, you should decide it yourself!'"

K delves into what is important or not, is dependant one what one’s worldview is, using several books as an example and asks if what she sees as her reality is different. 

"Enough."

"Enough what?"

"I understand it, all these things. Please don't say these words. This is the right thing, only..."

"Only the reality I see is different, right?"

I have been vaguely aware of it. And now that I think about it, even though others have pointed this out to me again and again, I pretended not to notice it. In order for me to be me, in order for me to be a secretary, I can't admit it. However, after losing Borges and "Journey Under The Midnight Sun" and my identity...now I have that idea in my heart.

Do I want to admit it? 

That Borges, as an irreplaceable right eye, as a vital signpost, that has always been with me...it has been lying to me, in a rather obvious manner. 

In this case, I don't have to be so stubborn. I firmly believe that I am not wrong.

K quietly drank coffee for a while, before suddenly the wrinkles in his eyes trembled and he whispered.

"The cause of this is Borges." he said before continuing. "You use Borges in order to master the situation in this world. It makes the scene you see different from the reality in the eyes of ordinary people."

"I don't understand."

"The writer that I mentioned said that when he translated his work into other languages, he was shocked because the translation was too casual.The French version changed, the English version changed, as for the Spanish version, I heard that the translator didn’t even understand Czech at all. So the question is, how faithful was Borges translation from the original, or to be precise, how shameless was its adaptation of it?”

3.

K explains that he, alongside other graduates, were contacted by Hope’s Peak Academy’s Steering Committee and given an outline of the Bible Plan. After being pressured by the committee, he joined their research team alongside other former Super High School level students who shared similar writing abilities (such the former SHSL Literary Critic, Poet, Writer, Suspense novelist, Children's Literature Writer, Essayist) and was the head of the software department where he collected talent data from the students in the school who had similar abilities. From there, the data is placed into the automatic writing system that was created by the hardware department. Thus, the creation of the Story AI was born.

K then continues on to explain his hand in creating the AI’s method of writing stories program since, as he puts it, it’s like the difference between using AI for novels and chess.

"To let AI play chess, just tell it the rules, let it read the past chess scores. But novels have no rules. If there are no rules, the AI can't write novels. So, as well for 'story data' I also wrote the 'method of writing stories'." says K.

“Don't you let it learn writing skills?” asks Shinobu.

K explains that the meaning of it is different, although it has methods of writing stories, it has many differences in writing technique then just what he fed into the system. He explains what he means by quoting Čapek and Rousseau [6], who all have different styles of writing, logic, techniques and the like. He mentions that Karel Čapek is also a K.

“What you are saying feels a bit complicated.”

“I’ll tell you an analogy. For example, there is such an experiment where a mathematician and a writer live on an uninhabited island. The condition is that the two islands have the same area and have the same problem. They can be escaped the same way. However, at this time, the two people may take completely different actions, and the method of fleeing may be different. Since their occupation is different, there is no common ground for the two people's actions or principles. Thus, as a result, the actions that they take are different."

So, the difference between the actions taken by mathematicians and writers against uninhabited islands serves as the differences in the novel? And that’s the "method of writing stories"? Is that really the case? I doubt very much how much I understand K.

"In any case, the 'Bible Plan' started like this. Then it failed."

"Failed?"

"It takes a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of manpower, and the story generated by AI is not that great. At least this thing can only be judged after I read it with the team members."

“Why would it fail?”

"Of course it would."

“How can you write a story that anyone can recover hope on first reading?”

"You said it yourself so clearly that I don't know what to say..."

"'A life changing book', there is such a saying. Some books can make people immersed in it, and some books can change one's outlook on life. But I want a book that can have an effect on all humans. To get this effect is simply an idiotic dream. To make readers with different ages, genders, nationalities, and political positions have the same opinion after reading, how can such a book be written?"

"So because humans can't write it, so let AI write it?"

"In fact, the Story AI has done a good job. It responds brilliantly to the requirements of human selfishness. However, the result is terrible. The story AI has written a Bible-like thing... a fake Bible. This is also a matter of course. For now, to say which book is the best book that can bring hope to despairing people, a Bible is certainly the best choice."

"What……"

This is true, that's it.

"The 'Bible Plan' shamelessly carried out the biblical reproduction, which is really boring. This is no different from the shameful behavior of other cults around the world. To transcend the Bible, creativity is indispensable, because if there is no creation, then it cannot be broken. It's at the forefront."

"If you don't have the ability to create, you can't write a story."

Shinobu thinks to what Byakuya had said previously, being similar to this. Using the database to write stories is too limiting as it can only create stories similar to the existing story. The essence of creation is indispensable for a truly new story to be born. The story needs originality, as well as ancient and modern writing technique.

Silence. When I was with K, I had a few coffees from time to time and spent a period of speechless time together. My gaze naturally turned to the painting of the small animal hanging on the wall. The animal that stands with a surprisingly small nose should be a fictional animal, but it has eyes, ears, and legs. If a painter with the essence of creation draws something new, I don't think it will be a creature at all. Creation is such greatness, and it is such a deformity, therefore it must be.

K reckons that even though the Bible Plan was frozen, that the rumoured Despair novel was a product created with the same Bible Plan technique, but it’s difficult for him to tell. It’s possible the Story AI may or may not be involved with the Despair Disease, as well.

“Is there someone who supplements it, like someone other than you?”

"It shouldn't be possible, but I have a hypothesis. If it can make it work, it's just as good as the effect that Borges has on you, or maybe not."

"What's the matter?"

"Don't worry, I’ll explain it one by one. Although the 'Bible Plan' is frozen, as a matter of course, the story AI shows a very intriguing tendency."

"That is……"

“With just one story, it can produce different research ideas from multiple different perspectives.”

“Can you please tell me something more straightforward?”

"Do you know the Mona Lisa?"

"Of course I know it."

“Have you actually seen it?”

"No."

"Since you haven’t actually seen it, how can you say that you know it!"

He seemed to be suddenly angry.

"Because there are textbooks or on TV, I can see it whenever I want..."

"Since there it’s in a textbook, who photographed the Mona Lisa with a camera? Since it is on the TV, who recorded it with video? This is what the story AI can do. Do you understand?"

"I don’t understand."

"Because we are not Da Vinci, it is impossible for us to draw the Mona Lisa in principle. However, we can create the back or the lower body of the Mona Lisa, we can use Mona Lisa's portrait data for use in collage art creation, or writing about the Mona Lisa in a woman's novel. In fact, there are such works of art and books. According to this current statement, it’s secondary creation... Combining or deriving something from that work."

"Secondary creation?" [7]

Suddenly a modern vocabulary emerged, and I was somewhat unprepared.

“The Story AI has become an expert in 'fiction techniques'. Although there are no rules in the novel, there are some things that are customary. It must show the characters, tell the background, and let the plot blend into the historical situation. It must be empty when the scene is converted. Lines, must be numbered, must add a new description, new description texts..."

Shinobu thinks that this premise is too big, which justs makes K more upset that she doesn’t understand. He uses examples of various authors which all come to the main point that while you think these books would be based in realism because they are about real events and real people, but they also have the freedom to blend in things like jokes which never happened at the real event, only added later. He also talks about how many of these realist authors too have a K in their name.

"Hey, although the tangent you are talking about is very interesting, can we get back to the main focus of topic?" Shinobu cuts in.

"This is also the topic, but forget it," K nearly retching said, using his coffee to moisten his throat. "We let the Story AI swallow a lot of data, and as a result, it has the kind of tendency I just stated prior... For a story, it can produce different research ideas from multiple different perspectives... We did an experiment on it. Do you know Metamorphosis?" [8]

"I’ve read it."

K explains that by feeding the story Metamorphosis to the Story AI, that it was able to study that data, and then write many different versions of the story with many different and altered scenarios. It even created stage play and comic book versions as well. Shinobu sounds like it became a light novelist who specializes in Metamorphosis. 

"It wasn’t only limited to "Metamorphosis", even if other works of other writers are given to it, it can also be used for secondary creation and writing fake books. We named the story AI “the K2K system” and decided to let it evolve on its own."

"The K2K system." [9]

It seems that the letter K also appears here, two of them even.

"The Bible Plan ran out of funding, but even so we didn’t think failure was important. We were obsessed with the K2K system and even developed up to version 2.3.[9] The K2K system began writing and kept writing, it turned into a writing a machine, a writing robot."

K's words made me feel shocked. I am a writing machine, a word puppet, just a note-taking tool for writing "Journey Under The Midnight Sun". Now, after losing Borges and "Journey Under The Midnight Sun", can I still be so sure of myself?

K continues by saying that the word robot was developed in Czech as forced labour, which was widely known at the time due to Čapek’s writings. He states that propositions like robots gaining the same dignity as humans is dying due to the fact of what the K2K systems can manufacture. Basically, because the K2K system can now go beyond human authors, they will have a sense of crisis in their own dignity as writers. Shinobu says that it would be fairly unbearable if robots were to really take over the artform.

K says "However, this is the reality. In this way, after becoming the perfect pen machine, the K2K system soon triggered an incident. It destroyed a person in the research team."

4.

 It created interference, K says.

"“This book changed my life.” One of the people in the group collapsed after seeing it as required."

"Is that person dead?"

"From that point of view, the opposite is true. That person has become a murderer."

“Wait, you just said interference, right."

"Oh."

"So what you are saying is the Story AI... the K2K system can write something that affects human thoughts, but the 'Bible Plan' has not been successful?"

"In the end, it was just interference with an individual. Didn't I just say it, 'This book changed my life', not 'our lives'. The K2K system wrote a story for that person."

"Does the K2K system have the will to do this kind of thing?"

"The K2K system has no will. Even if there is no will, AI ​​can get a car to a destination, and you can talk to AI ​​on the phone. Now in schools, AI has become the secretary of most people. It can recommend things to you, a book you'd like, help you pick the hotel you want to stay in, and tell you the symptoms of your sickness. It can also give you the most suitable medicine. The K2K system is no different from that, just that it mechanically makes a 'recommended book for you'. However, its destructive power is enormous, just like recommending "The Sorrows of Young Werther" [10] to a person who is troubled by love."

Not long ago, I couldn't do anything without Borges, but this interpretation made me feel scared. Among the things recommended by AI, if something intense and full of charm has the ability to destroy the human spirit, can I refuse it at that time? No, maybe I have already seen it before I even noticed it.

"Because that person took the data, what kind of story he saw was unknown, but only from the results, that person became a murderer. Nearly half of the research team was killed, and because of this After the storm, Hope’s Peak Academy learned about the existence of the K2K system. After understanding the situation, the steering committee intended to freeze the entire K2K system, and we took it away, because after the data was separated from it, the capacity of a disk was enough to accommodate, the system is always as simple as possible."

"Then there is actually no K2K system in the school, right?"

"Because we are also worried that the steering committee would use it for other purposes. That school was like this before, they can't be trusted at all."

"Then Despair High School grabbed it from the team members who fled with the K2K system..."

"I have never heard of a stupid organization with that name, but I don't rule out this possibility. There is also one possibility that is the most terrible. I also said that the research group of the 'Bible Plan' had data from many super high school level students. If these people are trying to take their talents, it would be easy to embark on the path to evil."

"Used to do evil, huh?"

"They probably don't think it's evil at all."

It may be that someone leaked the K2K system to Despair High School. Although I am very reluctant to think so, it is not impossible to see that the current "Despair Novel" has actually spread throughout the world. We may face countless enemies. This kind of uneasiness makes a chill crawl up my spine.

"Listen to what I say next and then tremble."

K's blue eyes turned to my right half of the face, so I noticed that the topic finally turned to this point.

 "I was trying to hide Borges and finally found a suitable vault. That is you, Shinobu Togami." K said, "Borges is controlled by the K2K System."

 Translation Notes:

[0] Karel Čapek was a Czech writer, playwright and critic. He has become best known for his science fiction, including his novel War with the Newts (1936) and play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots, 1920), which introduced the word robot. He also wrote many politically charged works dealing with the social turmoil of his time. Influenced by American pragmatic liberalism, he campaigned in favor of free expression and strongly opposed the rise of both fascism and communism in Europe.

[1] Franz Kafka was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work, which fuses elements of realism and the fantastic, typically features isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers, and has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity. His best known works include "Die Verwandlung" ("The Metamorphosis"), Der Process (The Trial), and Das Schloss (The Castle). The term Kafkaesque has entered the English language to describe situations like those found in his writing. Kafka was born into a middle-class Ashkenazi Jewish family in Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today the capital of the Czech Republic.

[2] Milan Kundera is a Czech writer who went into exile in France in 1975, becoming a naturalised French citizen in 1981. Kundera’s Czech citizenship was revoked in 1979 and was not restored until 2019. He "sees himself as a French writer and insists his work should be studied as French literature and classified as such in bookstores". He is known for his beautiful silver hair and blue eyes, which contrast the black outfits he enjoys wearing. As of 2020, he is the only author mentioned in Danganronpa to be still alive. Whether or not you understand what I am saying, well i guess is up for interpretation. 

[3] If you are a fan of the other Danganronpa spin-offs you should know exactly where this is going. If not, I highly recommend reading Kirigiri Sou before the next part releases. Link can be found here.

[4] "A Hunger Artist" (German: "Ein Hungerkünstler") is a short story by Franz Kafka first published in Die neue Rundschau in 1922. The story was also included in the collection A Hunger Artist (Ein Hungerkünstler), the last book Kafka prepared for publication, printed by Verlag Die Schmiede after Kafka's death. The protagonist, a hunger artist who experiences the decline in appreciation of his craft, is typically Kafkaesque: an individual marginalized and victimized by society at large. "A Hunger Artist" explores themes such as death, art, isolation, asceticism, spiritual poverty, futility, personal failure and the corruption of human relationships. The title of the story has been translated also to "A Fasting Artist" and "A Starvation Artist". 

[5] KLAMM refers to the short story by Kafka “The Castle”. The german title Das Schloss may be translated as "the castle" or "the palace", but the German word is a homonym that can also refer to a lock. It is also phonetically close to der Schluss ("conclusion" or "end"). The castle is locked and closed to K (The protagonist of the Castle, whose name is K). and the townspeople; neither can gain access. The name of the character Klamm is similar to "Klammer" in German, which means "clip, brace, peg, fastener" and may hold a double meaning; for Klamm is essentially the lock that locks away the secrets of the Castle and the salvation of K. In ordinary usage, "klamm" is an adjective that denotes a combination of dampness and chill and can be used in reference both to weather and clothing, which inscribes a sense of unease into the main character's name. In Czech, "klam" means delusion, deceit. 

[6] Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic and educational thought. 

[7] “Secondary creation” is not a term commonly used in copyright jurisprudence and it is difficult to ascertain its actual coverage. For instance, there are views suggesting that “secondary creation” should include translations and adaptations, or should be treated as “derivative works”. However, the concepts of translation and adaptation, both being derivative works, are clear under international copyright treaties and copyright laws in different jurisdictions. In particular, the owner of the copyright in a work has the exclusive right to make a translation or an adaptation of the same. Although there may be original elements in the later work itself, it may not be appropriate to take this as the sole basis in considering any copyright exception.The provision of a copyright exception solely based on the rather ambiguous concept of “secondary creation” may blur the line between infringing and non-infringing works, create uncertainty and increase opportunities for abuse.

[8] The Metamorphosis (German: Die Verwandlung) is a novella written by Franz Kafka which was first published in 1915. One of Kafka's best-known works, The Metamorphosis tells the story of salesman Gregor Samsa who wakes one morning to find himself inexplicably transformed into a huge insect (German ungeheures Ungeziefer, literally "monstrous vermin"), subsequently struggling to adjust to this new condition. The novella has been widely discussed among literary critics, with differing interpretations being offered. 

[9] Yep, so this is what is speaking to “the reader” during the books openings, and that one interlude. Not Yuya Sato. So suck it TV Tropes and your bullshit misinformation.

[10] The Sorrows of Young Werther (German: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) is a loosely autobiographical epistolary novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774. A revised edition followed in 1787. It was one of the most important novels in the Sturm und Drang period in German literature, and influenced the later Romantic movement. Goethe, aged 24 at the time, finished Werther in five-and-a-half weeks of intensive writing in January–March 1774. The book's publication instantly placed the author among the foremost international literary celebrities, and was among the best known of his works. It is written in the form of Letters, and is basically a depressing love story.

 To be continued.

https://drmedicsgamesurgery.tumblr.com/GameSurgeryDRTranslations

[whatspastisprologue-blr]

Writing Advice, the Completed Version

This is a follow up to this post: https://whatspastisprologue-blr.tumblr.com/post/184968470815/writing-advice. I’d written that on my phone, I think, and goofed somehow, so I didn’t post the entire thing. 

Now, to start, I love reading what you guys have to say, and I consider you guys basically geniuses. You spend hours, or what seems like hours, analyzing SPN (and also other works as well, but mainly SPN), and you’re willing to put up with horrible backlash from people too dumb to realize they’re wrong. 

And I keep thinking how I would love to write something, be it a novel or a TV show, that people love so much that that they’re willing to write meta for it. Contrary to what I’ve seen around about some creators being upset when their audience figures out what’s going on, I’d be delighted to know that people care so much that they pay close enough attention to figure it out. As for things like subtext, I see myself jumping up and down like, “You’ve got it! I thought you would! I put that in there to see if you’d notice and you did! Yay!” To me, meta has become a high form of praise just by its existence, but from the standpoint of literary criticism and how art both reflects and transforms society, also absolutely necessary. Please, critique art!

Which leads me to part two: how do I actually put stuff into the work for people to write meta about? Like, I’ve seen mini-essays ranging from fictional parallels/references/shout-outs to alchemical practices to entire discussions about, for instance, specific shirts (”x character is wearing x shirt again!”) to various pieces of decor to the meaning of various types of food (bacon, cake versus pie, burgers) and how food is used (Sam and food, or Cas and food). I’ve seen posts written analyzing songs used in episodes and how they inform the episodes or a character’s arc, etc. I’ve watched fascinating yet trippy videos about narrative spiral that make me wish I was approximately 400% smarter so I could properly appreciate and understand what I was watching. I’ve seen meta about colors and symbols, and the symbolism of different types of beer, which means that someone must have thought of it.

Someone, at some point, decided, “let’s have a beer that symbolizes family, a family beer”. And others agreed. And someone else, or perhaps that same person, decided, “let’s have a beer that shows up whenever things aren’t as they seem”, and again, others agreed, so now we have a running list of El Sol appearances. 

I’ve seen some truly mind-blowing, fantastic meta that’s been written, but obviously, that analysis works because there’s something to analyze. It wasn’t pulled from nothing, as some mistakenly believe. We can talk about the Red Shirt of Bad Decisions because there’s evidence for it in the text. Someone put it there. Someone made sure to include El Sol enough times in episodes with a similar theme (things being not what they seem/alternate realities/djinn hallucinations) that we can talk about its significance and know, in upcoming episodes, that when we see that beer, it’s a sign that there’s incorrect assumptions being made by characters, that what we see isn’t necessarily real, etc. 

So, how do I put content into a work so that people can pick up on it and then write about its meaning and significance? 

I guess, relevant to this, is a third question, that could possibly help me figure all this out as well: what makes “Supernatural” worth writing all this meta about? That might not be phrased right to get my meaning across. While, granted, I have fandom lanes that I stay in, so I could just be unaware of meta being written for that work, but I don’t hear of people analyzing, say, “Psych”, or “Bones”, or “NCIS”. I don’t hear of long, in depth-articles about how food is used on “Glee” to give insight into a character’s mental/emotional state or closeted bisexuality. Is that just because there’s nothing to write meta about for those shows, or is it because, even if there is something to write meta about for those shows, “Supernatural” lends itself to that analysis and criticism in a way those other television shows don’t?

On a related note, people have been publishing books and YouTube videos and even teaching college classes at least partially about “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and its spin-off, “Angel”, for 20-odd years. Is all of the meta surrounding “Supernatural” the progression of that phenomenon, with SPN at least partially reaping the benefits of what BtVS helped establish? Does it have something to do with being a paranormal genre show?

Don’t get me wrong, I truly and wholeheartedly believe that SPN is a show worth writing meta about, and I’m always excited to see more of it. So it’s not whether or not the show is worth it that I’m questioning, but what specific qualities contribute to the show’s worthiness that so many other television shows don’t seem, to my knowledge, to have?

As a budding literary critic, meta is fascinating; as a creator, it’s kind of overwhelming, because that’s a lot of analysis of a work, a lot of studying with a magnifying glass. But, as someone who’s starting to see the willingness of people to write meta as a benchmark or grade of how good that work is (because people, I would assume, wouldn’t spend several hours writing an analysis of a show that sucked), it means that I want to do a good job of putting things in there for people to pick at, and I want to do what I can to make sure that what’s being analyzed is something good (as in, the messages are positive and/or useful, no harmful lessons or unfortunate implications). 

I’ve been working on the backstory for my series for at least a year now, and I still feel like I’m less than halfway done. I don’t want to start writing without a clear plan of where I’m going, at least for a little while (my idea is to have a few “little endings”, thinking for if this is going to be a TV show one day, and if the show gets cancelled before the “Big Ending”, I still want there to be an ending that’s satisfying, even if it’s not the Big Ending that I hoped to get to, so I suppose I could plan to the first little ending). Sometimes, I feel like I’m behind, drastically behind, that I should have at least one book (or season) planned by now, but then I think about how I’m still in my early twenties, and how I want to write something worth writing meta about (and thus, the work needs to contain something to write meta about) and part of me wants to freeze and is grateful that the going has been slow so far. 

But, with “Supernatural” ending, and given my love for the sandbox that it’s helped define and re-define, with episodes that push the bounds of storytelling in so many fascinating and delightful ways, given my appreciation for shows such as SPN, BtVS/Angel, and Wynonna Earp (and also Stranger Things and Lucifer), I’m inspired to write. Part of it is to honor SPN’s legacy by re-defining the sandbox even further, by taking what it’s done so wonderfully and, sort of like a relay race, doing my part to carry the baton a little farther--because that show has been so amazing that, since I truly love and appreciate it, how do I not pay it forward? Pay tribute? How could I just drop the baton? And part of it is because the general sandbox that those shows play in is just one that I love, one that I want to play in and expand on, and help continue to demonstrate that genre shows are (or can be) awesome, transformative pieces of art, not just some semi-obscure show about fighting monsters. 

To do all that, however, I’d really appreciate your advice, and if you think of others who should weigh in, I’d be thrilled to hear from them as well.

Thanks!

@mittensmorgul @occamshipper @tinkdw @dimples-of-discontent @drsilverfish

P.S: I saw this GIF, or a picture of it, before I knew it was from SPN. When I saw it in an episode, I was just like, “?!”. (Oh, the things I’d seen from SPN before realizing it, or all the scenes I could recognize/quote that I’d maybe seen clips of at most, because I’d seen GIFs and screencaps so many times--that show took over my life before I ever started watching it). Anyway, as much as I truly love storytelling and I want to do it for my life because I love it and because I want to inspire hope in people through art, I’ll leave with this:

[geejaysmith]

Wolf 359: A running list of things I have a heightened appreciation on second listen, pt. 2

Part one here. 

SEASON 3:

Pan-Pan: Still a little miffed they didn't explicitly do the "we have to huddle to conserve body heat" trope. Yes, it's corny, but also shut up, let my touch-starved space disasters cuddle.

So Eiffel stopped Hera and Minkowski arguing in season 1 to address an emergency, and now with Eiffel absent, the team starts arguing again. The fact he doesn't exactly have much Pride In His Own Self-Sufficiency to get in the way of "hey! Guys! Remember, imminent death? More important priorities happening?" tends to defuse situations like this aaaaaand now he's absent.

"Cutter will send a squad of psychos to come up here and kill us faster!" ...she's not wrong.

"Pick a corner and relax! Hop to it!" I just like this line delivery.

"The entire station is a SPACE YUKON and this thing is overheating!" I know, it's like it's symbolic or something.

Episode 29: "we all feel responsible for losing Eiffel and are lashing out because we're scared and sad and grieving and fear getting backlash while we're vulnerable if we admit we need help, and we don't know what to do but keep going because the alternative is breaking down and possibly never getting back up again." Alternatively:  "It's Metaphors All the Way Down."

Mayday: Eiffel's frustrated screaming.

Brain Ghost Minkowski showing up like "Yeah, we know I'm a hallucination, or Weird Alien Shit, or maybe just a clever metaphor representing the abstract process of thought, but who gives a crap, this is more interesting than listening to you talk to yourself for an entire episode."

BGM: Hi, I'm your thought processes externalized using a face and personality that you subconsciously think you need to hear from in this situation, possibly because you think so little of yourself you need to hear it from somebody else first. Eiffel: Oh hey cool, this is just like this one web comic I kept up with sometimes back on Earth- BGM: Not another word.

Eiffel getting slapped by Brain Ghost Lovelace, who is a projection of his thoughts.

What is that whispering in his head that reminds him of the Hermes' name supposed to be anyway? Score one for my Weird Alien Brain Shit theory. Having Lovelace's alien juice in your system comes with such fun side effects.

"I dunno, I only know what you know." "Shut up, don't go meta on me." / "Hilbert wouldn't know that word! He's never even heard of Empire!" Yeah, toldja: it's Brain Ghosts.

Brain Ghost Hilbert may represent the realist in Eiffel and the brutal, calculating reality he doesn't want to confront, but Brain Ghosts Minkowski and Lovelace are his cooler head and ingenuity, working him through staying calm and devising a way to survive, and Brain Ghost Hera, who appears when Hilbert tells him it's hopeless, telling him that against all the odds he will be okay, is his stubborn determination to never, ever quit. They're all his determination to live when Doug might want to just stop trying. They're the better parts of himself, reflected in the voices of his friends.

And Hilbert. But I digress- HOLY FUCK, I just realized the brilliance in the one-two punch of the Brain Ghost Brigade contrasted with the previous episode's Stress Fracture Argue Crew, it's The Sound And The Fury all over again.

Paging the Wolf 359 incorrect quote blogs: "Save my friends! And Zoidberg Hilbert!"  

Sécurité thru Don’t Poke the Bear: Maxwell! I've missed you! (':

"And I build pretty awesome battle drones on the weekends." ...Does Maxwell have her own souped-up version of one Jamie Hyneman's Blendo?

Eiffel, realizing he's starting to sound like Minkowski: My god, what have I become.

Eiffel mumbling to himself in general. "This is hell and I'm in it."

Is it just me or is Kepler's pig story not as agonizingly drawn out to listen to the second time around?

A Matter of Perspective: Funzo: 12 different board games, three of them TCGs and maybe at least one TTRPG, all tossed in a blender, because Pryce and Cutter are psychopaths.

The Funzo manual is the size of the actual Bible and don't try to convince me otherwise.

How into the game the girls all get.

Headcanon: Minkowski and Lovelace are both the types to get stupidly competitive over any kind of game regardless of their initial level of investment.

Eiffel keeps a photo of (it's implied) him and his daughter taped to the underside of his console...

"He looks so... happy." shUT UP

"I had no idea Eiffel had a-" daughter. Was it "daughter" you were going to say Minkowski. Well, no one else knew you were married til you brought it up, so turnabout's fair play.

"You think you know me? You know the artist formerly known as Warren Kepler, you've met my job. Aside from that, there's no one left for you to know." In light of the series finale, I, uh... I don't if I like this, Scoob. Also, stop reminding me all these people are human persons underneath all the desensitization to horror and violence.

"Happy birthday, Eiffel." They remembered! Hope this one is less traumatizing than the last, Doug.

"Happy Kwanzaa!" "Lovelace."

"Long Story Short, that's the last time I saw Maxwell's feet" wh. What. What happened involving Maxwell's feet. What's. why-

And to make a long story short, that's where my "Maxwell has hands for feet" headcanon came from.

Need to Know: Minkowski's dreams, apparently, include both creating musicals and commanding a deep space mission. She's gotten the latter way the hell off the bucket list, somebody with actual songwriting skills want to get in and write the former with me?

Lovelace overindulging on painkillers for her broken arm after losing Officer Fisher... "It was a difficult time." ):

Aaaand serious implications of the above are immediately headed off by Lovelace quacking aggressively at Jacobi.

Fire and Brimstone: where is my fanfiction about Lovelace overseeing Minkowski during her solitary confinement?

The Backstory Episodes: Zach Valenti wrote all the backstory episodes! I just find that kind of sweet.

Once in a Lifetime: Small detail I only noticed on my second listen, after a fanfic put the thought in my head: Minkowski's parents are only referred to in the past tense. Oof.

"Thank you for coming in on such short notice. We had a hiccup in staffing for this upcoming quarter."  So... according to the wiki's timeline, the launch for the second Hephaestus mission was some time in late March 2013. The beginning of this episode (and Eiffel's) states it takes place in 2013, with 3 months of training, meaning they were probably brought on board in January and the whole thing moved *ridiculously* fast. Everything points to them wanting to get people up in space as quickly and with as little fuss as possible, giving the newcomers no time to think it over or do additional research. Once they start the training program, they're probably too busy to look further into Goddard's deep space missions, and are likely in an environment where Goddard Futuristics can cut them off from other information sources. The people they select are relatively isolated (Minkowski and her husband being an exception) - the easier to make them disappear. Even Lovelace has been stationed at "a lot of very isolated, very quiet outposts", the implication being her superiors wanted her somewhere out of the way. Kind of makes me wonder about the rest of the Hephaestus 1.0 crew...

Greensboro: Nice ominous foreshadowing you've got there vis a vis Captain Lovelace and "are you an alien?"

Decommissioned: "We're not about to force anyone to do something they don't want to do!" ...Marcus Cutter deserves to have his trousers ablaze constantly.

All Things Considered is still a bit confusing (because I somehow keep listening to it while doing something else) and I'll need another listen to figure out what probably actually happened, but it is also hilarious.

"Eiffel had engaged the machine, but that's why I build in extra safeguards. My mistake, clearly, was to assume that would be enough to stop the slapstick routine."

“All Things Considered”: Did you have fun with this over-the-top romp of hilarity and and hijinks, dear audience? Good! Because that was us burning off our comedy quota for the rest of the season. Get ready for six whole episodes of nonstop emotional gut-punches!

MEMORIA.

Just... Memoria.

Putting this quote here because of Reasons: "Three years... Three and a half years... I've had this thing in my head breaking me, and making me think it was all my fault, that there was something wrong with *me!*"

So Memoria is still one of the best episodes and the last five minutes fuck me up in a special little way.

Time to Kill: "Or the one outside is the real Jacobi... and the alien is already in here with us." The funny thing, Maxwell, is that you were half-right and didn't even realize it, and you *were* just speaking to Lovelace.

So... do alien duplicates only get reloaded from the singular "snapshot" of the person, or does getting flare-scanned once give them a continually updated source of info? What I'm getting at is: if another Jacobi shows up post-finale, would he need to be filled in on events between his horrible, terrible death and the present?

Persuasion: Maxwell switching to First Name Basis to get Jacobi to be honest with her.

I always forget until the scene after that Hilbert is totally setting up the Space Telephone to manipulate her, but of all the ways he could've gotten Minkowski around to "we are disposable and need to act *now* before these people decide they're done with us", it still kinda touching that this is the method he chose.

Desperate Times/Desperate Measures are just a blur of "oh god oh god oh god" and it's just as nailbiting the second time around. One thing I love about this podcast is how comfortable it is with (for its medium) long stretches of silence, which can feel a LOT longer when you have no other forms of feedback except dialogue to know the first gunshot was just a warning.

So you really *do* feel Minkowski breaking out into laughter when Eiffel tries to invoke Air Force code is a release of the tension that's been building for multiple episodes. Like he's finally gotten through to them just how far this has all gone and how much further it could still go. I keep saying this: when the situation starts to threaten violence, he's got an amazing gift for keeping the rest of the crew in touch with their common humanity when the rest get far too used to a world that runs on self-interest and subterfuge. Hell, he even gets Hilbert and *Kepler* opening up over the course of the story (presuming Kepler is being honest when he talks about being a shell of himself, but even though he was trying to manipulate Eiffel, that doesn't exclude there being a kernel of truth in those words).

Speaking of Kepler: he's definitely riding the adrenaline high of the situation and it turns him into a monster with a manic streak. It makes Jacobi's and Maxwell's relative calm all the eerier by contrast. Those two really do make you forget that all of this is... pretty horribly routine for them.

Until they meet their match, that is, when the women of the Hephaestus refuse to stand down, and each of them is unspeakably badass in their own way. What Kepler didn't account for is that they're ready and willing to die together rather than sacrifice one another for their own survival.

Although again, the irony of the situation is that just dropping the station into the star could have let them avoid, /gestures at season 4. BUT I'm not gonna rain on the Badass parade here.

Bolero, aka "The podcast kicking me in the feelings while I'm down."

The way Minkowski orders everyone else out of the room before Brain Ghost Lovelace conversates with her.  ...did she pop up in the middle of that conversation, I wonder? And all this when psi-wave radiation is spiking, apparently. Coincidence?

Oh come on Hera, war is no reason to end a friendship- Look, I came here from Metal Gear. I see folks dunking on Hilbert and I'm just over here like "he's still not as revolting as Huey Emmerich."  

Listen I've seen enough of Warren Kepler and Marcus Cutter in this fandom to know y'all aren't above liking a bad guy, you just prefer the ones who're having fun with it.

"You're gonna come to my funeral! And you're gonna like it! ...I mean you're gonna feel really sad! And cry! And stuff! GOT IT??" Ah, good ol' Eiffel.

THE COMPUTER ALSO HAS BRAIN GHOSTS

"If I'm not your doctor, then what are we?" "We're... complicated?" Listen, Eiffel, if you're not careful, I'm going to start shipping you and Hilbert ironically For The Lulz, and we all know where shipping things ironically always leads.

Errybody gets brain ghosts this episode. Again: I accept that this is a device that's more interesting than an alternative method of expressing these same ideas, but the ambiguity of a Watsonian explanation (is it all in their heads? Do they really see an apparition of some kind?) lets me do my Weird. Look, I once wrote in a joke in a fic about Death from Discworld complimenting a Quirky Miniboss Squad member from Metal Gear Solid 3 on his taste in interior decorating arena design, and that spawned entire subplots in projects for two different fandoms, and eventually roped in a third fandom to elaborate further on their now-intertwined cosmology. Do not underestimate how much I can give myself to work with.

The last ten minutes of Bolero also fuck me up in a special way, partly because We Are Dealing With the Hard and Unavoidable Fact of Death but also the aliens are about to throw a curve ball that'll... alter that last part a little.

Like, words cannot describe the "Dead Man's Curve in the wet" hard right turn of going from being in mourning for several beloved characters (including my favorite) to SURPRISE, SHE'S BACK! I love it.

I'd have to check the scripts to be sure exactly because some words got lost in Lovelace's respiratory spasms but I do like to imagine the her head wound closing up in front of a horrified Eiffel and Minkowski, with a side order of glow-y shit. I've drawn too many Homestuck god tier revivals I guess.

Update: I DID check the recording script's stage directions to see just how disgustingly physical the whole event is and okay, so no weird glowing shit (I reserve my right to depict it that way anyway) but I'm delighted to report that the gross anatomical-ness I was picturing? It's worse! It is so much worse!

The goddamn AGONY that is the Special Episode being TWO HOURS LONG when it comes right after the BIGGEST CLIFFHANGER IN THE SERIES.

You have NO IDEA WHAT KIND OF TEMPTATION IT WAS TO SKIP THIS AND COME BACK TO IT LATER

LOVELACE 1.0 I LOVE YOU BUT ALSO I WANNA TO SEE WHAT'S HAPPENING TO FUTURE-YOU RIGHT NOW

Change of Mind: love the framing device placing this episode as within Lovelace's mind during her successful cranial reconstruction saving throw.

"Buncha nerds, gonna crash my-"

Just how familiar she is in this place, with these people... Hera was installed in her sister's grave (as another post put it), but Lovelace lives in the gutted cadaver of her home.

Zach Valenti's Lambert voice *does* sound like a bad Minkowski impression.

"I have a physicist to put the fear of *me* into." That's my girl. She kind of was more of an ass pre-Total Party Kill, though? Like come on, Isabel, how necessary *is* all this arguing with Lambert?

Fourier's voice is very nice, also. Very soft, very easy on the ears.

I'm now appreciating how it sounds like Fisher is the older and calmer mediator among the crew.

Also the image of Isabel just floating out in space and listening to some chill tunes is sooooo good.

Hey Doc, did it turn out Fisher was too perceptive to live. Was getting caught outside in that meteor shower really an accident. Hey. Hey Hilbert. Answer me. 

Also goddamnit, has EVERY character in this series has read Harry Potter?

Did the Fishers always differentiate each other by audio channel? I had to rewind the scene when I realized Lovelace's questions in my right ear weren't getting an answer.

"Say you're a big pink elephant!"

*gunshot* *gross biological dissolving noises* WHY

"Just because somebody made you something doesn't mean that's all you're going to be - you can be more!" I wrote this line down prior to the end of the episode's confirmation that it's a Big Thematic Point.

Aaaand we're back to the framing device, and with that, season 3 wraps. Or maybe season 4 kicks off? Either way, hell of a way to kick it off.

Cecilia Lynn-Jacobs had a hand in writing this episode? Aw... that's sweet...

So, yeah, headcanon: Alien resurrection does the weird glowy thing to close any obviously fatal maladies, then the gross biological viscera part kicks in, hence Lovelace sounding like she's trying to hack up her lungs as soon as she starts using them again.

Listen, sometimes the gross biological viscera parts are my favorite parts, okay? Okay.

[douxreviews]

Legends of Tomorrow - ‘The Getaway’ Review

"My friends and I here are time travelers, we’ve kidnapped Nixon and we’re headed to Disneyworld."

The Legends serve up a giant sugary treat to help us get down a couple of awkward bitter pills. They don't need to get to Disneyworld, we're on an emotional rollercoaster already.

See what I did there?

There is a philosophy of screen-writing that, if at all possible, having the protagonist confront their emotional problem should be the solution to solving whatever their plot-related problem might be. See, for example, Craig Owens defusing a spaceship by declaring his unspoken love, or more subtly, Willow's lies finally being brought to light curing the Scooby Gang's amnesia.

It's easy to see this as being formulaic, but really it's just a matter of solid storytelling and remembering to give your narrative an emotional core. With the caveat that if it's done too awkwardly it's a one way ticket to schmaltz-town. See, for example, Craig Owen blowing up Cybermen with the power of father-love.

So, when I observe that this episode of Legends of Tomorrow is a textbook example of solid comedy overlaid onto a situation wherein one character is avoiding dealing with the emotional consequences of recent events, only to pivot to heartbreaking pain and reconciliations as the characters learn to honestly deal with their emotions, that's not a criticism. Doing that kind of thing well is a real skill, and they pull it off here quite well. Again, "Tabula Rasa" is a great example of the all-comedy to suddenly-way-too-real-drama pivot. It's done badly much more often than it's done well, so what we have here is well worth praising.

It helps enormously that the jokes in the jokey parts are pretty much all laugh-out-loud funny. The swallowable bug that makes you tell only the truth is 100% uncut phlebotinum, but it's grade-A phlebotinum, and it leads to Mick Rory confessing his desire to grow out his hair like Fabio, so let's all agree to cherish it forever. The phlebotinum-iness of it is made even more easy to take due to the fact that it's only used to cause Sara to blurt out those hurtful truths to Mona, which drives Mona away from the team. The painful truths that Sara has to confront to fix the situation, in which she both confesses how much she's hurt by the loss of Ava and how much she's failed Mona by not being there for her are all completely coming from herself and her own heart, which gives them genuine emotion and validity far beyond 'magic made me say it' plot contrivances.

The takeaway here, future screenwriters, is that you can only use the phlebotinum for the jokes. The genuine emotional responses have to be just that – genuine. I promise that that's the last time I will use the term phlebotinum in this review.

But we have to also acknowledge something about this episode. All the jokes and the post-breakup heartache and teambuilding are at least partially on display here to help us to get past the one, big, awkward, clunky plot correction that this episode needed to make happen.

This was the episode that needed to make Hank Heywood not the villain of the season anymore.

It will be interesting, later on, to find out exactly when and to what extent the plans for the season changed, but it seems abundantly clear that change they did. The Hank of the first half of the season was an unmitigated bastard, with the occasional moment of charm. He was being built up to be the face of the 'government turns monsters into evil monster soldiers' plotline. At least, it seems reasonably clear that that was what was happening to the monsters. That wasn't a spoiler, just my assumption about what Hank was doing with the monsters when he had them tortured. However, at some point they appear to have decided that Hank needed to be redeemed, and so we do a lot of back-paddling here in a short space of time to justify Hank suddenly deciding to let the Legends go when he finally had them dead to rights in order to make things right with his son.

Now, that's a fair story to tell, and I think they would have pulled it off easily if that's where they'd been intending to go all along. But here, in this episode, it feels very much like a retcon/course correction, and I just didn't buy it. Having the demon Neron in Dez' body kill Hank immediately after his redemption, and setting up things so that Nate thinks Nora killed him, thereby setting up a Nate/Hank rift, just felt contrived to me. I'm sorry about that, because the rest of this episode was fantastic, but there it is.

Still, we shouldn't complain too much over one awkward bit of plot housekeeping. It was great to see all the Legends together, more or less, and a road trip in an RV was just what they needed.

Aim for the horsies!  Wait... .wrong show...

So what have we learned today?

We've learned to stop asking questions, since nobody seems to care about causality anymore. The Legends can watch Nixon's 'incorrect' version of the 'Not A Crook' speech from a future vantage point, then go back to change it so it doesn't happen. But then Mona becoming a were-kaupe in the middle of a restaurant goes totally unnoticed by history, not to mention the theft of an RV and a patrol car.

I don't know, I think maybe I should just enjoy having a show with time travel in it that doesn't get too concerned about temporal physics. As the MST3K them song so eloquently stated, 'If you're wondering where he eats or sleeps, or other science facts/ Then repeat to yourself, "it's just a show, I should really just relax."'

Sound advice.

Everybody remember where we parked.

Nixon's famous 'I am not a crook' quote was from a televised Q & A that was, in fact, at Disneyworld on November 17, 1973. The Legends pick Nixon up pre-emptively in Washington D.C. a few days before that, but apparently Nixon's truth telling was already an observed problem by the White House staff. We hope that after the events shown they got around to going back for Charlie. The running joke of realizing that they'd forgotten her was very, very funny. I'd forgotten her too, the first time it came up.

The Time Bureau still appears to be in 2018, although they didn't directly say so. Zari once again appears to be a conduit between the 2018 Bureau and wherever in time the Legends are at the time. It's just a show. I should really just relax.

Abrupt redemption arcs can be quite painful.

Quotes:

Mick: "What? No Redford? No Sundance. No indie film. No artful nudity. We gotta fix this!"

Gary: "I’ve always wanted to untangle a conspiracy. I’ll need a bulletin board… index cards… I already have yarn, I’ve been getting into crochet." Zari: "Yeah? Me too." Gary: "We should start a club." Zari: "We’ll talk."

Mona: "Grrr."

Agent: "Here that? The truth. Something is very wrong with the President."

Hank: "Siri… Alexa… Gideon! Fire up the ship!"

John: "A bit on the nose, no?" Sara: "We left subtle back in Mexico."

Mona: "You know, I’ve never been in a car that’s a room before."

John: "Not to bother you, but we’ve lost the ship, drugged the President, and I’m stuck in the back with her."

Sara: "Maybe it’s best if we all just don’t talk."

Sara: "Maybe that’s what family is – the family you don’t mind being annoyed by."

Bits and pieces:

-- The group truth telling scene was comedy gold.

-- It looks like they're definitely setting up Zari and Nate as a couple. Sigh. Oh well, I'll learn to live with it.

-- We finally get a Ray and Mick pairing on their own mission, and we barely get to see any of it. That was disappointing.

-- No Ava this week. I wonder if that was for the plot convenience of Hank being in charge, or if Jes Macallan had another commitment. It was probably the right choice to take her completely off the board while we process things with Sara.

-- Several clever plot details this week. Zari's solution to communicating with the RV and Nate's plan for getting Hank's password were both nicely done.

-- This was the first time they've found a way to use Charlie's powers that didn't make her feel too powerful to be part of the team.

-- Whoever's idea it was for all of them to have changed into t-shirts that read,  'Barnes family vacation – Our family is a trip!' should be given anything they ask for, immediately.

-- John's little 'not really a speech' to Sara was a nice bit of dialogue writing.

-- Having a were-kaupe on the team who retains their personality and reason and who can transform on command kind of works.

-- Despite the way she was set up for being blamed for Hank's death being a little contrived, I like the way they got Nora back onto the board here. I hope they don't go the obvious route with Nate wanting revenge.

-- Did they ever give even a handwave explanation for why Zari is working at the Bureau and not on the Waverider now? I mean, from the Bureau's perspective. I get from Zari's point of view why she's there.

So much funny. So much emotional honestly. Just a little bit of clunky plot mechanics.

Three out of four forbidden red toilet buttons.

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

[bechloeficstuff]

Best Quotes of Experimentation

Hey @redlance, remember that anon? That was me. My “collection” of your quotes sprinkled with my thoughts turned out a mess tbh, and it’s kinda really late, and way too long, but here you go anyways:

Best Quotes of Experimentation, aka The Bechloe Bible™. Chapters 1-35.

[or: what you should read if u love that fic but ur too lazy for a whole reread.]

Beca smiles a little, relieved, and tries not to shift under Chloe’s touch. She doesn’t find it comfortable, not exactly.” - Chapter 1 in the middle - because thAT’S THE FEELING THATS THE FEELING EXACTLY

“It’s fine.” She’s quick to say and now her smile is too wide, the wrong kind of bright.  - Chapter 1 towards the end - “the wrong kind of bright“ really nails it. i love your word choice.

She doesn’t really want to talk to anyone right now, because even though they know better than to expect an immediate explanation or apology – and she swears that it isn’t because she’s an asshole, just super awkward – Beca will still feel like she has to give one. - Chapter 2 relatively in the middle - you’re entirely to hashtag relatable, this is Not Okay™ (jk i lov u)

And Chloe loves this. Love being given the opportunity to sit back and take in moments like these. Her best friends interacting around her, the enormous sense of family and comfort that they give her. - Chapter 7 relatively at the beginning - friends fill my heart with warmth, as does this quote

“Two girls, one cup.” It leaves her in a rush and she covers her face with her hands the second she's finished saying it. Chloe's mouth actually falls open. “That's disgusting.” She gasps after a moment, sounding thoroughly appalled. “I know.” Beca sounds so forlorn and defeated, like she's committed some heinous, ignominious offence. Chloe thinks it might be the most adorable thing she's ever witnessed. - Chapter 7 in the middle somewhere - a good example about how abso-fucking-lutely talented you are in describing feelings and the little changes in them through facial expressions in so much detail without it ever getting boring or dry - also it’s really funny :D

So, um,” excellent start, “when you said that,” and her on and off eye contact is in top form today, “that thing about wanting to kiss me?” - Chapter 8, middle - made me laugh :D

“Sorry.” She mumbles, suddenly sombre, and brushes the back of her hand against her nose. “I just...” A sigh escapes her and she hates how sad and pathetic it sounds. She hates feeling like this; weak and worthless and mopy. Because God, she hates moping. More so when other people do it because it makes her all uncomfortable and she never knows what to do. She would love to be able to tell Chloe something other than the truth. Joke that she was waiting for the redhead so they could pick up where they left off in Stacie's car. “I didn't want anyone else to find me.” What comes out though, is the truth. Which is usually how things with Chloe go. - Chapter 11, lower middle - resonated within me

also: some comparisons or phrases i was too lazy to also copy+paste. like for example chloe or beca uttering something that was like a "drunkenly conceived lovechild between a whine and a groan" or something like that or:

The earrings, her tone, and what Aubrey had later coined as Beca's “fuck off smile”.  - Chapter 12 at the beginning ...stuff like that u know. i really like how you put the words together so well (idk how to say that in good english. you obviously would know tho, and that’s the point)

And she only realises that Chloe is awake when she feels her press a smile into her shoulder. - Chapter 13, lower half  - this fluff is giving me diabetes i swear to god

“I can't leave anyone alone for five minutes around here. You bitches all end up drunk off your tits or gayer than Elton John, God rest his soul.” Beca presses her face into her pillow. “Elton John isn't dead, Amy. - Chapter 13, lower half - bc that was fucking funny 😂

"You know that's what they all say, right? 'One thing led to another' and then bam." Beca makes the mistake of taking a drink from her straw as he speaks. "You're pregnant." And it almost results in what Jesse would refer to a 'spit take', but she manages to keep the liquid inside of her mouth. Just barely. "Yeah, um," she wipes her thumb across her bottom lip to catch the thin smear of dribbled drink, “weirdly? Not worried about that.” - Chapter 14, relative beginning - i think i snorted pretty badly when i read that and i feel like people don’t appreciate your comedic talent enough

Amy's face contorts under the strain of her determination and Cynthia Rose pre-emptively clutches at the oversized knit blanket that they sometimes have to throw over the Aussie to get her to calm her down. - Chapter 14, end of first quarter(?) - the amy related humor just kept getting better and better. your characterization of her is also scarily accurate, i doubt that the movie writers could’ve come up with better stuff tbh

but they haven't been able to come this far in their friendship without Beca learning how to read Chloe. Chloe's kind of like a well-worn paperback at this point, even feels a little ragged around her edges, and so Beca can probably see the panic Chloe feels herself spirally towards after her reaction. - Chapter 15, first half - i love love love good comparisons and metaphors

something rattles behind her ribcage, jostled by the term of endearment. - Chapter 16, last third - beautiful yet accurate description of that feeling

she can see clear sky blue eyes – mischievous, sincere; Chloe's natural state – staring at her over the tops of her knees - Chapter 16, last third - bc imagining that just made me fall in love with the amazing character that is your version of chloe beale all over again ugh god

“Oh my god, it's like I lose control of my body when I’m around you.” The words come out as a rushed whisper, once again without her conscious consent - Chapter 16, last third - bc it was an unexpected yet very pleasant plot point

Beca feels her pulse quicken. It's a familiar beat, one that inevitably starts up whenever she's about to make a move, because initiating things isn't usually within her comfort zone.  - Chapter 16, at the end - bc you can just relate to that a lot as a reader

Chloe's protest is punctuated in all the wrong place by giggles that continually tug at the edges of Beca's smile.  - Chapter 18, towards the end - really nice description

Because she is really, genuinely sore and Chloe does give truly magical massages and it has nothing to do with Beca missing the feeling of her hands on her, because that would be weird. - Chapter 19, beginning - Beca’s sad attempts at denial are gold material :D

“I was conceived on the steps of the Sydney Opera House.” - Chapter 25, lower half - because I could genuinely hear Rebel Wilson saying that in a PP movie. (see: frighteningly spot-on characterization of amy)

There are butterflies mating in her stomach, she knows it. - Chapter 25, towards the end - :D

She can still recall the first time it had stormed after her father's death. - Chapter 26, relative beginning - because you don't expect the end of the sentence and it hits you pretty hard. in the feels. am i ok? not really

And Chloe can't help herself; she twists her head around and brushes her nose against the soft skin of Beca's neck before straining just enough to place a kiss to the same spot - Chapter 26, towards the end - bc that wording "can't help herself" is so accurate

Beca, who whimpers into Chloe's mouth when the redhead presses closer and deepens the kiss, and sucks a sharp breath in when Chloe's hand closes tightly around Beca's arm. Beca, who lets Chloe kiss her for far, far too long given their whereabouts before jerking away. - Chapter 26, end - bc the timing and description and everything of that kiss shows the amount of tension between those two and it's just weirdly perfect idk

Generally, Chloe aggressively and shamelessly flirting the whole time they're on that couch in those moments is my jam

Beca feels fingertips wriggling into the gap at the junction of her thumb and forefinger, and turning her hand over. It's a gesture that has been familiar for a long time now, but lately the way it effects her seems to have changed. It makes her feel extra warm or something. Nervous. - Chapter 27, middle - because every line that subtly confirms that those guys are crushing on each other makes me giddy

Because she always needs that minute of pause it seems, to re-centre, to come back to earth after a moment with Chloe. Especially one like that. Involving hands and mouths, and Chloe telling her she looks good, which so hadn't been something Beca had been hoping to hear at all. If anyone asks. - Chapter 31, beginning - made me smirk. (see: Beca’s attempts at denial)

Chloe takes the silence with that same exact smile and Beca feels those earlier butterflies return, their wings flapping as though they're rushing through the Great Stomach Migration. She swallows the rest of the glass in an attempt to drown them. - Chapter 34, first half - i’m just such a slut for a funny yet good comparison tbh

'Word vomit' has been a term she's identified with a few times over the years and she feels it now. The acrid after-taste of having said something potentially damaging lingers in the silence that follows and it probably doesn't last that long, but it feels like a lifetime passes before Chloe speaks. - Chapter 34, lower half - never thought about the aftertaste comparison of word vomit and i like it

“I thought she was dead,” Beca manages to whisper through her laughter, once the older woman is definitely out of earshot - Chapter 35, relative beginning - hilarious scene :D

Okay so obviously there were more parts that I liked but during some Chapters I just wasn’t motivated to copy+paste everything. Also; I hope the way I cited the quotes is okay, I didn’t know how else to do it. And finally, sorry for my messy thoughts and maybe incorrect English, I’m not a native speaker but I try 😅

Okay, so. Concluding statement. This story made me feel so many types of good things, not only as a Confused Questioning Gay™ that could relate, but also as a reader and human. I’m in love with this story and your writing style and your three-dimensional characters. Every new chapter is so worth the wait, and I hope you don’t get too much pressure from the angry anons; they don’t deserve you.

Thank you @redlance​ so much for writing this story.

[toraonice]

@accioharo​

Okay I debated I replying to this for a bit, but… here goes.

First and foremost I greatly appreciate all of your translation work for the fandom and I have for months.

That being said, I find the last paragraph of this necessary and also unfair. To accuse the other translators of ‘mistranslating’ the line when you outright admit that akashi can legitimately be translated as proof is a bit much, don’t you think? I get that you believe your translation is more correct, but as I’m sure you and the other translators are aware, language is not something all translators are going to unanimously agree on. Other translators work hard on their work, and essentially, saying that they’re mistranslating to forward a fanon agenda is unnecessary and uncalled for, in my opinion. There’s nothing to support that especially since even you’ve acknowledged their word choice is not incorrect.

Accusing their work of being fanon (especially when Victuuri, which is canon, is not remotely fanon) and yours of being canon is a further dig, I feel.

Regarding the destined from a previous life thing, I think most of fandom is not serious about that. When people are making comments about their soulmate AUs being canon, they’re well aware that Kubo is not literally saying “your fanfiction where Victor and Yuuri can’t see color until they meet their soulmate aka each other is now canon”. They’re just having fun.

We know what she actually means by soulmate.  It’s still a HUGE DEAL. And yes, there is a sense of destiny to the word soulmate, in both languages, even if it’s not on some ‘cosmic’ level, a certain ‘meant to be’, and that’s powerful. And yeah, that’s making fandom very excited and I think… there’s not really a need to sort of rain on that? People know their AUs aren’t really suddenly canon.

It’s not as if your translation of the line makes it much less shippy anyway.

Lastly the ‘Japanese word for soulmate’? I was under the impression, unless she uses it at another point in the article, that she doesn’t use a Japanese word anyway, but instead the katakana ソウルメイト (sorumeito/soulmate).

Hello! Thank you for your message and for voicing your opinion in what I think is the normal way when discussing about something. I will take this occasion to make one final last post about this whole matter to try and address what apparently wasn’t clear in my other posts. I will also explain in detail why I wrote that in my opinion “proof” is not a correct translation. It’s a bit long because I don’t want to come back to this topic again, so I’m trying to make sure that I’m covering everything that could help clarifying my point.

1) Regarding my opinion of other translations. I have only clearly referred to one translation I saw for this line. It seems that there is more than one translation going around but I haven’t seen them so I cannot say anything about them (well if they say “proof” too my opinion will be the same though). Except for that, I spoke in general because in quite a few instances I have seen people translate single lines or tidbits from interviews using a kind of wording that was clearly meant to make them sound “more shippy” than what they were. Of course if you ask 10 people to translate the same line they will likely interpret it and translate it in 10 different ways, because that’s how translations are, and they might even all be correct. I cannot state that “my translations are better than others”, but if I see another translation of the same text I can say which one I think is more correct. And I can explain why of course, I’m not just going to think that mine is better because it’s mine... (And if I find my translation to be the wrong one I am ready to admit it)

2) Regarding the soulmates thing. I actually really liked that she made the comparison with “soulmates”, I just had mixed feelings when I saw some people interpret it like in “soulmates” fan fictions (as in “predestined” etc etc), and it didn’t even sound like they were joking... Also, you say that “we know what she actually means by soulmate”, but in fact we don’t. It’s not possible to guess what she means exactly with “soulmates” just from that line, and I really hope she will elaborate more on that in future interviews because that is something I’d be very interested to know. My interpretation is based on how the sentence was worded and on what she and other people said about their bond in various interviews. Also, I cannot say that my translations are “canon”, because I’m not inside the creators’ minds, but I am striving to be as unbiased as possible and only translate what is actually written, without letting my personal feelings and/or preferences affect the translation.

What I meant when I said that "sourumeito” is Japanese I already explained in another note. As there is no native Japanese word, the Japanese word for “soulmate” (as in “the word you would use to refer to it when speaking Japanese”) is “sourumeito”, so it’s not like she was “using English”. She was using the “Japanese word for soulmate”, which just happens to be "imported” from English like many other modern Japanese words (some of which even sound like English but aren’t, like “coin locker”, “skinship” etc).

3) Regarding 証 (akashi) First of all, I did list various meanings for this word, but I meant to say that, depending on the context, it can have different meanings, not that “in all cases you can use any of those words to translate it”. When you say “hard stone” and “hard exercise” it’s both “hard”, but if you translate it into another language in many cases you will need to use different terms because the meaning is different. Here we have 2 variations: “proof that they are soulmates” or “symbol meaning that they are like soulmates” Proof (quoting the dictionary) = evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement. If she said that “the ring is the evidence that they are soulmates” it would sound to me like she is trying to reply to someone questioning whether they are soulmates or not, or continuing a previously started discussion on the topic, but since this topic was never raised in YOI (and the word “soulmates” itself was never even brought up until know) it doesn’t really make sense that she would suddenly say something like that when it’s not even connected to the sentence before this one. The word 証 “akashi” would be commonly used in a context like, for example, a person giving a present to an important friend and telling them これは私達の友情の証 (kore wa watashitachi no yuujou no akashi), that would be translated as “this is the symbol of our friendship”, not as “this is the proof of our friendship”, because it’s not like the person is trying to prove something. The term ソウルメイトの証 (“soulmate no akashi”) really sounds a lot like this kind of context, when there is a physical object that is meant to represent something (a bond) between two people. Also considering how the scene was played out in the anime, I think it’s fitting to say that “the ring also means to symbolize that they are like soulmates”. I actually had originally thought about “token” too, which also reminds me of what Toyonaga said about this scene in one interview I translated some time ago (it can be found here). I think his interpretation of the scene makes sense. However, he isn’t one of the creators, and that is his personal interpretation, so unless he asked Kubo and she said “you got it right” we cannot take it as “canon”. One reason I didn’t use “token” is that I couldn’t find a way to make a nice sentence with it and anyway I thought “symbol” would better convey the idea.

If after reading this explanation someone still thinks that “proof” is more fitting, well, we can agree to disagree. As you also said, it’s not like my translation doesn’t sound “shippy” anyway.

Finally, this is not just related to this interview, and it’s a message for everyone reading: If anyone believes that I translated something wrong, they are of course free to message me about it. If I think I’m not wrong I will explain why, like I did above. If people message me just vaguely saying “you are downplaying Victuuri” without providing a concrete example (like mentioning exactly which line they are referring to, and also possibly what is supposed to be the correct version) I don’t even know how to reply because I seriously have no clue what they’re talking about.

Thank you again for your message, which I think provided a chance to better explain a few things about this matter. This is most likely the last time I say something about this because I’ve said all I could and also I think it’s better that I use my time to translate more interviews (since there’s still a lot out there waiting to be translated). If anyone has questions about other parts of the interview feel free to ask of course.

[minditruitt]

A Flair for the Dramatic

Are we addicted to drama?

We have apps on our phones that keep us up to date constantly.

News organizations have to be “the first” to break a story and we all have seen that sometimes the facts aren’t entirely true in order for them to beat others to the punch. 

There are also outlets that wouldn’t know the truth if it was right in front of them. They know they are incorrect and publish things just for the reaction. 

Tabloids drink drama filled cocktails like I drink coffee. Which is incredible...

I mean, c’mon, really? Pictures of flooded streets filled with swimming sharks? 

The Loch Ness swimming in a Wal-Mart parking lot? Ok, now, this one might be believable....

Giant 747 airliners landing on the Interstate?

Some of these ‘made up’, photo-shopped, anomalies are funny but there are people who believe these things. Rumors and innuendo can cause something to circulate that simply is not true. 

Remember the term ‘Spin Doctor’? 

People will grab a morsel of truth (or not) and run with it like they are in some kind of race to the end.

When I was younger there was this goofy game called Telephone. The first person made up a sentence like....My mom went to the store yesterday...each person would then whisper that or what they thought they heard and by the time it got to the last person it came out like....The cat jumped out the window in a snowstorm.

We would laugh and laugh at the ridiculousness as silly young children but I wonder what would be a more modern version of this game? 

I can see a kid today watching this game from the sideline....He would probably have earplugs in and would look up from the screen of his iPhone10 with utter disbelief. 

But he’s actually playing the same game....online.

Someone will take a picture of someone or something...alter it so that the part they want to show is center and make up a caption. For example....

Here’s the scene....While walking in the snow a friend posts a duo selfie of himself and his girlfriend standing in front of someones house because they’re just out for a walk and are taking a photo break. Someone who maybe doesn’t know the couple well might comment...

‘Wow, gorgeous house’! 

‘Is that your new neighborhood’?

‘You’re so lucky! What an awesome year you must be having’! 

On and on....

Some of the comments may even be from people he went to preschool with and hasn’t seen in 24 years but because he accepted their friend request a week ago they now know EVERYTHING about his life....

If the original poster doesn’t respond to any of these comments, for any number of reasons because they’re now in her car headed to Costco to pick up some wine for dinner, people can run with just this one photo and deduce that this couple moved into this house maybe a month ago and the dog caught mid stride running loose behind them chasing a squirrel is their new dog Fluffy and they’ve been fighting but obviously they’re doing better. Look how smiley they look! 

The truth may be so far removed from the scene that they could actually be visiting his mothers-aunt’s-neighbors cousin twice removed in Philly and were taking this walk because they’re on the verge of breaking up because she’s moving cross country in three and a half weeks to take a job he interviewed for 4 months ago and she just told him......

LOL

See what I mean? 

Or you can post something like this....like I did.

A picture of a beautiful, albeit small, Christmas tree finally decorated for the holidays. It looks lovely and I might say that I’ve added three new Starbucks ornaments...it looks fabulous....but what you don’t know is after the tree was finished I sat on the couch and had a good cry over an estranged relationship I have that has been eating at me for years or that I WASTHISCLOSE to putting every piece of Christmas anything in a box and hauling it to Goodwill because of the sheer sadness of it all. But I didn’t post that.

My point is no one really knows what goes on behind the scenes of anything. No matter what the post. No matter what the photo looks like. 

It’s the perception of the audience combined with what the person is posting that drives the outcome.  

This is where it gets thorny....

If we post a lot of what everyone calls ‘highlights’ it looks like we’re living a life of constant and persistent glory....if we are having a hard time and post sad quotes for more than a couple of days people think we are seeking attention or waiting in a restaurant for the hostess to announce....’pity party of 1 your table is ready’. 

Now, if you’re a Leo like me, you may come by drama naturally. Not because you necessarily relish in it but because it’s a side effect of your personality. I’m basically a happy person and even if I’m not happy at the moment I’ll act like I am. Most people do. 

I like a cozy space sometimes and at other times I relish a glamour driven decorated space. I’ve had it so cozy at times in my apartment that I couldn’t actually see, because I detest overhead lights, and I had to turn on more lamps. I buy glossy magazines showing stunning homes that I love thumbing through. My Gemini boyfriend laughs at my desire for ‘ambiance’. I want everything to be beautiful and glamorous. He is a wonderful anchor for me as I can get completely unglued.

I find astrology interesting. No....I’m not a Ouija board-tarot-card-reading weirdo. Although I do have several decks of Tarot cards and my friends and I have tried to read them for fun. Usually after drinking wine back in the day of my downtown living loft existence.....We had a Ouija board in our game closet when I was growing up. We played around with it usually trying to conjure up a friends great great grandfather at slumber parties and scared ourselves so badly that we stayed up the rest of the night eating chocolate. 

I find that people born under different signs really do exhibit a lot of the characteristics of their sign. 

For instance, when I was in my ‘Will and Grace’ relationship he was a Libra and his apartment was aesthetically beautiful. He had and still has exquisite taste. He and I, both, had a flair for the dramatic and if I EVER finish the manuscript it is a story that will stun most everyone who wasn’t there to witness it firsthand. 

I knew a Virgo once that was funny at times but very serious and a bit difficult. My ex is an Aries and every bit of one. Two fire signs, we were, and our life was full of fiery moments. Good and bad. 

I dated a Scorpio for a short time and his eyes could burn a hole in you. 

Intense, he was. 

I was in a conversation thread on Facebook once with a friend and got into a funny exchange over my meeting a Libra on a dating website and didn’t know him very well yet. This person laughed and said....’Run, run’!! 

You have to find something funny or happy every day during this life because there are too many moments that can pass you by if you don’t. Like that old saying about dancing in the rain. It’s gonna rain. That’s a given and if you expect to live in total and constant sunshine you’re deluding yourself. Knowing who to trust or listen to can be difficult so sometimes you need to sit down with yourself and rationalize your thinking. I’m glad I didn’t give in to my ‘moment’ of extreme sadness after decorating my tree this year and throw everything out because I would have regretted it later. I pray daily for resolution. 

So rally the Taurus, the Scorpios, the Geminis and your Sagittarius friends and enjoy your life as best you can. 

Each of us have a gift. 

And as we head into 2018 I hope you find yours....