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savventeen · 11 months

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I JUST BINGED YOUR ENTIRE “THANKS FOR PLAYING” AND I HAD TO STOP MYSELF FROM CRYING IN THE LIVING ROOM AND GODDAMN I GOT SO MANY QUESTIONS/IDEAS so here’s a dump lmao

AND SPOILERS ‼️‼️

and be honest if you honestly don’t have any idea or want to leave it up for interpretation

dino’s friend recommended it to him and he recommended it to mc right? well what happened to that friend/person?? i bet they are alive because they sent that game to 13 people before 3 am so the lady in the closet doesn’t get to them 🤭

if mc didn’t mess around and acted seriously in the game, would the outcome have changed? or was it always the gamemaster’s intention for the player to fall into obscurity?

how come dino remembered the mc? power of love??? or because he knew about the game (im pulling stuff out of my ass)?? or he has an android phone in this au 🧐

what if the pfps for the “AIs” are actually previous victims

so if you actually finish the game against all odds everyone is released (if they aren’t dead) hmmmmm sequel merhaps?? jk

imagine the only clue left about the players existence is the goddamn phone bill for texting 💀

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MC????? wait that’d be really sad if the mc was actually still alive but dino couldn’t recognize them as “mc” but knows they exist somehow uGH

i know you wrote this story for fun so these don’t need to have answers/comments but please provide any extra tidbits of info about this concept it’s so interesting 🙏🙏

SKLJDFLKSDJF OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING????? AND IM SO HONORED HOLY SHIT I WILL DO MY ABSOLUTE BEST TO ANSWER WHAT I CAN 😭💜

also you are not the only one with questions so I'm going to do my best to answer them all here!!!

[for anyone who hasn't read it yet and wants to know wtf we're talking about, you can read the entirety of my .|X| THANKS FOR PLAYING |X|. smau here!]

*cracks knuckles* alrighty buckle up folks time to try and answer some questions and take a deep dive into savv’s personal TFP lore here we gooooooooooooo

[putting it all under a readmore bc it got long af and also i didn't realize how hard it would be to translate the lore in my brain into words??????? i somehow didn't realize how oddly complicated it is??? like writing all of this out in any kind of semi-coherent way was SO HARD sdkjfsdlkjf]

~ Was it all a dream? (this one was asked by @junhui-recs)

Sadly, no. 😭 In the reality of this fictional universe, a tragedy very much did happen and Dino and MC are very much suffering from it 🥲 (I will not stop you from imagining that it was all a dream tho, we all have different ways of coping dklsjfsklj <3)

~ What's the main purpose of the game? Why are they doing this? (this one asked by @diamondyjh)

OKAY SO to start off you need to know that this au was heavily inspired by an episode of a podcast called "The Magnus Archives", specifically the episode “Binary” (transcript here). [If you're a fan of horror, I highly recommend giving the episode a listen/read, it's delightfully creepy — you don't need to have listened to any of the other episodes to understand it (just stop at the ending 'supplemental' part)]

The episode goes into detail about this sort of digital urban legend/creepypasta/copypasta about a guy named Sergey Ushanka who, long story short, tried to upload his brain/consciousness into a computer because he was afraid of death and wanted to try living forever virtually. There are tame versions of how he did it and other much more brutal ones, but basically "Sergey Ushanka" is a prank that various coders/programmers like to pull when making chatboxes in which you could talk with "strangers". It would start out normal and then steadily devolve into something creepy. This paragraph taken directly from the episode transcript sums it up very nicely:

"But then the responses start to break down, become more sinister, and keep referring to how much pain Sergey is in. Eventually, the only response the bot gives you is screaming and pleas to be released. The idea is that the chatbot is Sergey Ushanka’s mind, and he doesn’t like being in a computer nearly as much as he’d hoped."

So the idea that I stole from the episode essentially was: but what if it was real? What would the reality of being turned into cold, unfeeling data feel like? Agony is what the episode posits. Here is a list of phrases that the Sergey in the episode uses:

cw: vague body horror, blood mention "the angles cut me when I try to think" / "it peels my mind like knives" / "it feels like thinking through cheese wire" / "there's no feeling, but the no feeling hurts" / "it's cold without blood" / "the maze is sharp on my mind"

My next thought process was: What happens after? If someone were able to survive this process and were somehow able to keep any kind of agency, how would that person try to get out of the digital hellscape that has now become their existence? After knowing what it feels like to become distinctly inhuman, wouldn't they do anything to feel human again?

And how do we feel human? How do we find connection with each other and our humanity without ever having to come in contact with another person?

Stories. Fiction and non-fiction alike, we are all connected through storytelling, by finding feeling through other people's words. The thing about stories, though, is that they aren't messy in the same way that actually feeling our feelings is. That being human is.

So what does all of this have to do with the purpose of the game?

Essentially, when it's all boiled down, in this universe the story of Sergey Ushanka is real, and in this universe he is trying to gain his humanity back by stealing that of others. He started off with stories, with whatever online libraries and resources and archives he could find across the internet. And while it wasn't even close to enough to satisfy him, to get rid of any of the pain he was constantly experiencing, it was enough for him to learn, to grow, to realize that if he wanted his humanity back, he needed to go to the source.

So he started stealing real people from the real world, with all of their messy feelings and emotions and humanness.

That is the purpose of the game, why "they" are doing this. (pls don't ask the how bc i don't have an answer for that, just -waves hands- you know, insert your supernatural/sci-fi explanation of choice sldkflksj)

~ Did all the other characters from the game also get pulled into it the same way reader did? (asked by @diamondyjh) / What if the pfps for the “AIs” are actually previous victims

Short answer, yes to both! (Longer answer in the next question lol)

~ Who are those other people? (asked by @junhui-recs)

Essentially, the other characters/bots/whatever you want to call them are a kind of amalgamation of all the previous players who got sucked into the game. Once someone's been... let's call it absorbed, whatever parts of themselves are left after the process basically get shoved into whatever "character" they fit best, sometimes different pieces going to different characters.

And while the pictures could just be random ones, I like the idea that they're taken from the most recent players that got absorbed :')

~ Why was Changkyun evil? (asked by @junhui-recs)

Well, the main reason he was "evil" was because he's, y'know, a part of the game and the game is trying to steal people's souls or whatever. As for why he's mean, that's because he's trying to trigger an emotional reaction. The more messy, human feelings that are happening at the time of absorption, the better :').

~ Dino’s friend recommended it to him and he recommended it to mc right? What happened to that friend/person??

"i bet they are alive because they sent that game to 13 people before 3 am so the lady in the closet doesn’t get to them 🤭" SJKDFSKLDJ this made me snort, so thank you 😂

BUT to answer your question, in the story, Dino says that Yeonjun gave it to him and that he got it from "a friend of a friend of a roommate". Because the absorption and the consequent complete erasure is such a big process, not everyone who plays gets sucked in. In fact, most people who play don't get sucked in. Which is why Yeonjun is totally fine! (And why the friend of the friend of the roommate, aka this universe's irl Changkyun, is not 🥲)

~ If mc didn’t mess around and acted seriously in the game, would the outcome have changed? Or was it always the gamemaster’s intention for the player to fall into obscurity?

This one's a little bit complicated. It's kind of a yes and no situation? Generally speaking, the game isn't looking to ensnare every single person who plays because 1) it takes A Lot Of Effort to take/erase a single person, and 2) the game needs to spread to other people somehow, thus it needs people to play it and then tell other people to play it too.

For MC specifically, though, it's hard to say. How they played the game didn't matter so much as how they reacted to the game, specifically the first phase(s) of the Mnemosyne Protocol. The whole point of the game is to get big, messy, emotional responses, so if MC hadn't had such a big reaction, the game probably would have turned out differently. That being said, if MC had played the game as blandly as possible, the game might not have ever decided to test out the Mnemosyne Protocol, so. *shrugs* Do with that what you will lol.

~ So if you actually finish the game against all odds everyone is released (if they aren’t dead) hmmmmm sequel merhaps?? jk

Sadly, nothing special happens if you finish the game 😭 Plenty of people finish the game and pretty much go "huh, that was cool I guess" and then move on with their lives after telling their friends about it. This can be said about all four games mentioned actually, since we only see one of them get played.

As for a sequel... almost certainly not 🥲 I'm not going to give a hard no/no forever, because who knows if I'll end up getting another idea/get suddenly struck with inspiration, but... it is Extremely unlikely. Another story in the same universe??? ...still not likely, but slightly more likely than a sequel lol.

~ Why is Dino the only one who remembers reader? (asked by @diamondyjh) / How come Dino remembered the mc? Power of love??? Or because he knew about the game (im pulling stuff out of my ass)?? Or he has an android phone in this au 🧐

I almost want to make the answer "bc he has an android" because that is So Funny to me like sldkfjsldkjfslkjdf amazing 😂

But no, that's not the case lmao. And while I am a huge sucker for the Power of Love being an unstoppable force (ESPECIALLY when it's non-romantic love!!!), the reason Dino and only Dino remembers is thanks to sheer luck and a glitch.

So, in episode 28, MC drops their phone when meeting their brother and in episode 29 we see the alert ".|| MNEMOSYNE PROTOCOL COMPLETE ||." show up on a cracked screen.

The final phase of the Mnemosyne Protocol is the erasure portion, and the reason players get erased instead of just like, disappearing is because their "essence" is basically being transferred from reality into this digital realm of Sergey's existence. And reality, because it's now lacking an entire person and their history, just kinda... rewrites itself to make sense with the missing gap. Think of it as the universe doing like a sort of reverse autocorrect.

But because MC's phone got broken in the middle of that transfer, there was a slight glitch in the process. A glitch wherein Dino, because he was on the opposite side of the globe when this was happening, got accidentally missed in the autocorrection process. If he had been in Korea (or heck, anywhere within a few thousand miles) when this happened, he would have forgotten MC as well.

So long story short, Dino was just extremely (un?)lucky 🥲

~ Where is reader? (asked by @junhui-recs) / WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MC????? Wait that’d be really sad if the mc was actually still alive but dino couldn’t recognize them as “mc” but knows they exist somehow uGH

Well, sad news here friends. Most of what's left of MC is now stuck inside the game. They got absorbed and are now a part of Sergey's dataset and will be used/distributed into "characters" as needed.

Notice that I said most. Because, thanks to the glitch, the part of them that was connected to Dino didn't get transferred properly, and now that part of them is kinda stuck — it no longer exists in the real world, but it also didn't get fully absorbed into the game.

Which leads me to the next question:

~ Did reader turn evil and try to pull Dino into the game or is it the game itself being evil and impersonating reader to lure Dino in? (asked by @diamondyjh)

When I wrote the original version of this, the answer was a kind of combination of both — MC had gotten absorbed and corrupted by the game, so while it was the MC reaching out, they were doing so because it was what the game wanted.

But in this version... It's actually neither! Which I think would normally be a good thing but I think in this instance actually just makes this sadder oops.

So, the epilogue isn't the game impersonating MC and it isn't an "evil" MC trying to lure Dino in, it's actually just the part of MC that got stuck during the glitchy transfer. This is why the messages show as being from "Unknown" instead of the phone number associated with the game. And the reason what's left of MC asks Dino if he wants to play a game is because that's the only way it knows how to connect with anything anymore.

Basically, this sliver of MC that's left is experiencing what the original Sergey went through when he first "uploaded" himself, but instead of reaching out to anyone through a chatbot for help, it's reaching out to the only thing it "remembers" about humanity — Dino.

...I honestly didn't mean to make this story any sadder than it already is and I'm glad that the epilogue by itself just reads as spooky/freaky as hell instead of, well, this. 🥲

~ If Dino plays the game, will he be reunited with reader? (asked by @diamondyjh)

It pains me to say that there is no longer an MC for Dino to reunite with 😭 The part of them that got absorbed by the game is, well, a part of the game now. And the piece of them that's left and trying to reach out to him? Well, like I said, it's just a piece.

There could potentially be a chance for him to find some closure here, but that's about it I'm afraid :')

And now because I want this to end on a more lighthearted note:

~ Imagine the only clue left about the players existence is the goddamn phone bill for texting 💀

It becomes the next biggest conspiracy, that there's someone (or a group of someones) out there completing the world's next biggest scam by raking up random people's phone bills and somehow finding a way to steal the profit lmao

~ Some last thoughts from savv:

If y'all made it all the way to the end of this... holy shit I applaud you sldkfjsdlkjflksjdf LIKE!!!

thank you for taking the time to read all of this?????? it's not even fic it's just me rambling and making things Even Sadder??????

i also want to say that i'm a believer that 'canon' is whatever was posted in the story itself and that anything else is just headcannon, even if it's from me, the author. so if you don't like/don't agree with anything i've said here, feel free to ignore it!! fill in any gaps/questions you have in the way that makes your reading experience the most enjoyable!!

but yeah tHANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR READING AND I HOPE THESE ARE SATISFACTORY ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS AND IF YOU HAVE ANY MORE/HAVE A RENEWED DESIRE TO FIGHT ME MY INBOX IS OPEN SDKLJFSLKJFLSKFJSLKD

#savv answers #thanksforplayingsvt #SERIOUSLY I LOVE U ALL SO MUCH FOR BECOMING SO INVESTED #IT MEANS THE WORLD <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 #bibi 💎#june 💒#this is so LONG jfc

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castielsparkle · 1 year

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hi! I love your web weaving posts. how do you usually go about collecting stuff for a specific web weave? I usually just use two sources, but I want to weave together multiple sources and I don't want to just go on like. google image search. and be unable to find out who actually owns what I'm weaving. you know?

hii!!! first off THANK U SO MUCH!!! that means so much to me that people like my work ahh!! ;__; thank uu!! so! i believe ikwym!! i have been thinking very hard about how to respond to this one eheh bc tbh when i webweave i am. struck with a concept. and then i black out for three hours and suddenly i have a new post on tumblr under the webweaving + spn tags :'). (/j but tbh i rlly do not know how to explain my process coherently so hopefully this will suffice aksjnda<3)

some things that i do that might help!!:

so, first off, i follow a lot of like 'aesthetic' blogs and tags! so accs that post poetry with like, credit attributed to them, and i also follow photography accounts that post stuff w credit that i might use! this one can be kind of. particular! given what you typically want to weave webs abt eheh. i follow tags like nature for example bc a lot of people post stuff i might use in there! the best way id recommend scouting for these is like, if you were to look for perhaps dog photos, going through tags about nature, photography, dogs, canine photography, wildlife, etc. the tumblr acc antiqueanimals is one i rlly like for stuff like that! and then if you find one good blog just going through the accs they rb from, accs recommended that are like them, the tags they use, etc!

another thing! if i have a vague concept or even something i just might wanna expand on, i will write down somewhere (notes app, a private discord channel for keeping things in one place, a google doc etc whatever u wanna use!) keywords, lyrics, quotes, certain episodes of tv etc. they can be whatever really as long as they make sense to u!! i also tend to keep folders of various art (lyrics, quotes, poetry, drawings, photos) w their credit when they 'stick out' to me, and if i cant find the credit then usually saving whatever it is and then reverse image searching online can help really well too!! or searching keywords of the image that might stick out!

also for spn editors in particular!:

also this one is rather tedious however. sometimes i will go through like. the transcripts and just ctrl+f search phrases and stuff akjsnda. lots and lots of google searches w specific keywords however i feel like the link above probably eliminates that, i havent used it for a webweave yet but it looked cool! however the other method i use w the link below \/

i hope this was at least a little helpful!! :' D sorry its very scattered askjnda,, a lot of it is honestly just entering tons of keywords on like,, browser image search + tumblr tags/blogs + pinterest and hoping for the best and reverse image searching stuff to find the source lol. my process is very all over the place so hopefully this is a more understandable concise version of it!!<3 thank u again so so much for the ask have fun webweaving!!!<3

#cas.ask #cas.txt #long post #info #ref #also ngl a big part of it is. i will slowly collect pieces of media and THEN the webweave comes to me aough #its usually a very #i will collect things over time process personally :') but when i DO hunt stuff down thats what i do lol #its a lot of deepdiving rabbithole stuff for me usually tho find one good blog then branch out from there yk

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nevermindirah · 3 years

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TOG rewatch relationships with Nile (meta), if you're wanting to share pls pls pls? 🥰

Yeah! Ok so basically over the past few months I've rewatched the movie a few times and combed through the transcript a very kind soul put on AO3 to try to answer this question:

Is there stuff in the text that disproves or complicates my reading that Andy is boss, Nicky and Joe are mom friend, and Booker is fellow baby?

I've got a pile of notes on things like how Nile introduces herself and who calls her by what names and nicknames, what questions she asks of which characters, how different characters answer her questions, who anticipates questions and gives her info before she specifically asks for it, who tries to tell her what to do and how, who gives her what kinds of love-language stuff, who she volunteers information about herself and her family to, and just like what are the vibes in her conversations and body language and other details with the immortals as well as Copley and Dizzy and Jay and Merrick and anybody else she interacts with. I found a bunch of super interesting stuff! I just keep getting distracted every time I sit down to turn all these notes into one coherent meta post. I might throw up my hands and write some bullet points, or maybe this weekend I'll get some of that sweet hyperfocus and write something with like paragraphs and stuff.

This movie is really efficient and consistent with characterization, which is why we love these characters so damn much, and a lot of what I found about how the other immortals relate to Nile can be summarized pretty neatly by these three pieces of dialogue:

"Get some sleep while you can" (Andy, in the cave)

"It is a lot to understand, I think you should get some rest" (Nicky, after infodump dinner)

"I brought you a change of clothes" (Booker, in the cave)

ie, "Do this" vs "I think you should do this" vs "if you want to do this I arranged something that might help."

I’m trying take off my shipper goggles at least some of the time and notice things that don’t fit with my headcanons/fantasies/etc, but damn, once you see Book of Nile you can’t unsee it. Operation clean up the rat Frenchman so Nile can have millennia of emotional support and orgasms would be a valid fandom thing without much support from the text, but it has hella support from the text.

#fandom friends #nile freeman #she's the main character y'all #tog meta #tog

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mightbewriting · 4 years

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Your writing is superb! Wait and Hope is now an all-time favorite fic of mine! I especially admire your ability to write dialogue. Do you have any tips on how to write distinct character voices?

Oh wow, thank you so much! I’m so happy you enjoyed W&H! Dialogue is actually one of my favorite things about writing so the fact that you liked it makes my heart pitter-patter!

I apologize for sitting on this ask for a couple of days, but I wanted to actually think about some tips for character voice as it relates to dialogue! I do enjoy occasionally nerding out about writing… so without further ado, I’m about to nerd out A LOT (seriously, A LOT). I got a little carried away, but this was so much fun to think about! So, here are some of my thoughts on writing dialogue and using it to support distinct character voices.

The biggest tip I have on how to improve writing the way people talk is to listen to how people talk. Seems obvious, I know. But I mean how real people talk, not scripted movie and TV…which I think is often what comes to mind. I learned more about how people talk in the couple of months I did freelance transcription work than I did in the entirety of the first twenty-something years of my life. You don’t have to actually do transcription work to practice this, just find unscripted video or audio of people talking (interviews, vlogs, streamers, podcasts, whatever!) and type out it out.

The first thing I noticed when I actually had to transcribe real life conversations is that people often make NO SENSE when they talk. They have false starts, verbal pauses, non verbal pauses, they repeat words, they stop mid sentence to start another thought, they fumble with word choice, and so on. This is why professional transcription services offer VERBATIM transcription and NON VERBATIM transcription (I have a point to this, I swear!). Verbatim transcription is how it sounds, you have to type exactly what you hear:

Speaker A: “As I was— I was saying, ah, um, I think we should do— Mary, did you have thoughts on that? No, um, okay [cough], does anyone have any other thou— opinions before we move on?”

Like, what does that even mean?

Non verbatim transcription teaches you to edit out the stuff that makes real life speech mostly unintelligible (I’m eternally amazed that we’re able to make sense of stuff like that on the fly! Brains are amazing!) and it turns the sentence above into something more like:

Speaker A: “Mary, did you have thoughts on that? No, okay. Does anyone have any other opinions before we move on?”

This is a pretty heavy handed edit, but I’d argue that the first 13 words of the verbatim sentence is nothing but a false start. I also removed the verbal pauses, the coughing notation, and the switch between words mid-speech. What I’m left with is something that looks and sounds more like what you might see in scripted dialogue.

All of this is to say; when writing, for coherency’s sake, it’s helpful to write in a non verbatim style so you can be understood. BUT, I love throwing in the occasional false start or thought change mid-sentence, or even a rare verbal pause because I enjoy the bit of realism it adds. I know not everyone will agree with that, but that’s just how I enjoy dialogue.

Character voice comes into play with dialogue in a lot of ways. If I could boil it down to two things; it’s about WHAT they say and HOW they say it. The WHAT involves things vocabulary: words one character might use that another wouldn’t, or a word they might know that another doesn’t. The HOW involves things like your dialogue tags and the associated actions and narrative surrounding the actual speech.

Rapid fire tips for the WHATs: people speak almost exclusively in contractions, they typically only saying things like “can not” and “do not” etc., for emphasis. Read dialogue out loud; if it sounds weird to hear then it’s probably not right. Character motivation is key; what someone says should make sense for their personality, traits, and history. People don’t always answer questions directly, or say what they mean. Less is usually more, unless someone is especially verbose or engaged in a debate, people don’t tend to wax poetic in long monologues all that often.

My tips for the HOWs are less rapid fire because I want to talk about dialogue tags and that’s, idk…divisive? Here’s the thing; ‘said’ and ‘asked’ (or their other tense counterparts) are pretty much invisible and are used mostly to indicate who is speaking so a reader doesn’t get lost. Less is more with dialogue tags, too.

Alternative dialogue tags aren’t inherently evil (things like: whispered, shouted, grunted, grumbled, mumbled, growled, exclaimed, ordered, etc. have a place when used judiciously) but they are almost always a stand in for what could be a more interesting use of character voice. It usually ends up being a situation where a writer is telling the reader how to interpret dialogue instead of letting the dialogue speak for itself. So I try to use alternative tags very sparingly; you can actually see my evolution in this throughout W&H and then in S&S and my newer stuff, because I went from being subconsciously aware of it to more consciously practicing.

Consider this real life example of something I wrote from Ron’s POV:

Malfoy forced them out of his office.

“Now you two figure out the details amongst yourselves; I have work to do,” Malfoy ordered.

I used ‘ordered’ knowing I was using an alternative tag and thinking to myself ‘it’s not so bad here, Ron would think Malfoy is ordering him around.’ Which isn’t necessarily wrong…but it’s not all that interesting. My rewrite, after being rightfully called on my bullshit for being lazy about it, looked like this:

Malfoy forced them out of his office.

“Now you two figure out the details amongst yourselves; I have work to do.” Malfoy waved his hands to dismiss them like they were elves he’d had more than enough of.

This version has a stronger character voice; we get Ron’s interpretation that Malfoy is treating him like an elf and we can imagine a physical movement from Malfoy showing how he’s speaking. I think that’s both more interesting to read and has a stronger sense of voice. When and where possible, I would say that substituting some kind of physical action or observation associated with dialogue usually results in a stronger sense of voice, either from the narrator or the speaker, or both!

This response has gotten…lengthy. I’m sorry for that (but also, not sorry because writing is so interesting xD). In conclusion, writing is subjective and everyone has their own style. I don’t mean for this to be prescriptive advice, these are simply things that are on my mind when I’m writing dialogue and that I think lead to a stronger result. If nothing else: experiment. Write something exclusively in a verbatim style, write something exclusively with alternative tags, write something with no dialogue tags at all, write an enormous monologue and then figure out how to break it up. Try all sorts of different things to see what doesn’t sound right and what does. Learn the rules and then make your own.

Mostly, have fun. <3

#i did not mean for this to get so long #i got really into it #writing is wild and fun and interesting #writing #writing advice

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songwritingtipsandtricks · 4 years

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To be, or not to be a songwriter transcript

Hello and welcome everyone again, to a new episode of Songwriting Tips and Tricks. My name is Kieper, and I am really excited to talk to you again today. Thank you so much for the reviews and messages you send to me in the last weeks. If you like the show so far, please consider sharing it with friends that could benefit from it and leave a review on whatever platform you are using.

In the last episode, we've been talking about songwriting while at home during the corona pandemic and a possible lockdown. This time, however, I want to focus more on what a songwriter, in fact, is. Are we modern-day poets? Are we, full-fledged musicians or are we authors? Playwrights to some degree perhaps? What do the lines that we write really mean in context?

Maybe some of you ask themselves what art they are producing. And to be honest, I ask this question most of the time. I mean from a literature point of view, we are developing plots, we are searching for rhymes and words and maybe even look for the meter. On the other hand, as musicians, we try to make the lyrics fit the melody and meter of the music that was composed by us or others, or we are trying to find a suitable melody to words we have written. So what really is a songwriter?

One could argue that songwriters are modern-day poets. But this definition is somewhat limited. Because as songwriters, we do what feels right to us, and fits the music. We do not count the meter rigidly or know about iambs, dactyls or anything else. Another thing is that most of us write about day-to-day life. This sure is something to write about, yet it means that a lot of other issues are not being touched by songs. Many songwriters, think about marketing too early and write what might attract an audience. But that is not art, is it? I mean, you could be paid to write a song about something, but the most powerful songs are those that are inspired by things that happen to you or you observe. These songs also cover things that were not in the spotlight or only had little media coverage.

So if you are an aspiring songwriter, what would you chose to do? Would you like to write songs that are empowering people and have topics and viewpoints that no one else uses, or would you like to be someone creating standard pop songs that will be lost over the centuries, decades, or years? Because it is not those that do things like the rest that stand out, but those that dare to do something different. Perhaps when you are writing your next song, try to write about something else except love. Maybe you are familiar with Emily Dickinson, who was a famous American poet from the 19th century. Her poems got published only after her death, so she never got any credit for it in her life. She wrote about her experiences, and often time her thoughts on death and the life that follows. As a woman, she was not allowed to neither vote nor did she had access to a proper education. She was not religious or spiritual in any way. And despite all this, she kept writing and kept around 2000 poems hidden in a chest in her room. She wrote about everything that inspired her, not thinking about how to market it or how to put it on Spotify. Now you might argue, alright, there was no Spotify or anything like it at that time. You're right, and to make it worse, as a woman, it was appreciated to publish anything or have a perspective on things. But poetry was her life, so she kept writing but to save the reputation of the family, she never published anything herself.

I would call this dedication to art. If you want to have an insight into some poetry of this great poet, head over to Tumblr and search the blog to this podcast, as this month is the month of Dickinson on Songwriting Tips & Tricks.

So songwriters are poets in a way, as we write poems in a way. But as I mentioned before, we need to find original topics to write about or incorporate to stand out and not just be one more songwriter. The most natural approach is to read poetry. Really do it every day. Ranging from ancient greek or roman poetry to modern-days there is tons of poetry or writings from philosophers that might ignite a spark of some sort and get you off that beaten track. Be the one songwriter in a room at open mic nights, that has read the most poetry and consequently has songs that carry something more. You will know how poetry works and how to build tension. Don't let the music do that, it hardly ever will do the trick on its own.

Are we authors? Well, in a way yes, as songwriters try to write a coherent story with different protagonists, and various narrative approaches. If you need more insight on this, listen to the episode "Wait, who's talking' to hear more about narrative situations. But most beginner songwriters do not think about structuring their songs beforehand. They just start writing. Which is good of course, as we need to start somewhere. But have a look at famous songs, there is a clear structure in the plot. I am not talking about the verse, chorus or bridge, but about the introduction, central part, and the closure. It bears a close resemblance to novels sometimes. But we do not have 500 pages to get to the end, instead just 3 1/2 minutes until the end, or a minute to get to the chorus. So it is essential to know what to say when. People will need to understand immediately what the story is about and what to expect, even if the theme is new to them. Still, it is essential to surprise them at any part of the song. Structure your plot before and while you are writing. Try using a mindmap or a storyboard to help you structure. Try to know that character in detail, how she moves, how she looks, what sound her snore has and so forth. Try to find inspiration in people around you. Maybe let her say a phrase that your co-worker in your sideline in a fast-food restaurant says or have hair like a person on the train. Basing story upon facts from reality is a potent mechanism to make a story relatable. You could as well chose traits of characters from your favourite film or tv-series to adapt in your songs.

Are we playwrights? Well, that is a tough question, in combination with the previous question, I would say to some degree we are, but only while writing the song. We direct when a character is to appear and what it does. Adding the music, this is a lot more relevant. We need to know, at what point what part of the story is suited best, if the music does fit at all. You might as well want to put your favourite book or film into a song. Then it is crucial to strip it down to the key-concepts to make it fit the time frame. And when I say time-frame, this is a part that authors are less concerned with. We know that we have limited time to tell our story and we know when a change in the music happens and how it sounds. So perhaps think of yourself not as a playwright but as a songwright, as you are focussed on auditive input rather than visual input. The song is our stage, and we need to know what has to happen when, why and how.

So turning over to music. Are we musicians? Well, yes, of course. This is what got us started on songwriting in the first place, wasn't it? But think about your music education, have you been taught traditionally, or did you learn most of the stuff yourself? If you know how to play your instrument, do you play other instruments as well? Do you know music theory by heart or do you need to google all the times? Did you play in a band or know about arrangement through YouTube or other sources? How solid is your music background really? This is a question that bugs me most of the time. I taught myself how to play the guitar, and I have been singing my whole life, but I always doubt my musicianship. I'm binge-watching music theory fundamentals and teach myself other instruments to close these blank spaces that a traditional education would not have left perhaps. I even bought a midi drum set to work on micro timing with apps like melodics and co. Yes, we are musicians, but at what stage of our musical journey we are is in our own hands. It is essential to learn new things every day. If you don't, you will get frustrated. So consider taking half an hour each day to learn music theory, listen to intervals, learn fancy chords and songs that use it. Listen to new music even. Dare to make your own set of rules and break it again. This is how you grow, both in music and in writing.

So next time, when you are writing a song, use a random song and try to use the chord progression or time signature, combine songs and styles, take as much input from other as you can. Because this way, your music will always be different, but still yours. Your music will be instantly more exciting and attract audiences as it incorporates a lot of genres and styles.

So now let us talk about something, I am raving about. Painting pictures with words really is in the domain of poets, but try to imagine for a second that you were an artist and you have a blank canvas in front of you. Where would you start? What colour would you use? And in the end, what picture do you see in front of your inner eye? What should this picture invoke in the mind of an audience? Pictures might tell more than a thousand words, but the right or wrong words in context could meet or destroy expectations. Try to describe as vividly as possible, shed light on detail that was previously hidden. Dare to be the Picasso that paints melting clock. Try to be irrational in the creation and later judge what you've done. Dare to take bold turns. The song is yours, and if you do not want to share it with anybody, put it in a box like Dickinson did.

So much on what we as songwriters are. Do you have another comparison or idea, that could touch the work of songwriters? Don't bother sending any feedback or opinion you have via Facebook, Instagram, Wordpress or Tumblr. I'll gladly reply and perhaps talk about this in the next episode.

If you like the program, I'd really appreciate, if you rate and review the show or episode on the platform you are listening to right now.

Thank you again for tuning in once more and staying tuned on Songwriting Tips & Tricks.

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yusuke-of-valla · 4 years

Audio

SO I uh had some thoughts about Yusuke’s rank 3 but couldn’t organize them so I just recorded myself rambling and now it’s here. I put the transcript under the cut (minus bits of like mental buffering)

Transcript Hello friendos. I am recording sad art boi hours today because word machine is broke and I’ve tried writing it out several times, and as I write, I always forget, so hopefully if I just have my bullet points in front of me, I can make something coherent, and then I’ll just type up whatever I’m saying right now.

Anyway, anyway. Today’s notes are on Yusuke’s rank 3 which was, you know the initial one that made me fall in love with him because he got mildly critiqued and collapsed to the ground in shame and you know, when I was 15, that was a mood. It’s still a mood.

Anyway, anyway, anyway.

Ok so, when Kawanabe comes up to Yusuke’s art piece he’s like “yeah there’s good technical skill but very little meaning behind it.”

And well I mean, I do agree that “Desire” is a dope ass painting. It looks so cool. Like I actually have to picture looking at it in real life. It looks like it’s doing cool shit the textures, I don’t know. I hated art class so I can’t explain it but “Desire” is a cool painting and that’s enough for me but it’s not enough for freaking art snobs.

And speaking of art snobs (yay transition!), yeah no, actually it makes sense that for the larger art world, Yusuke could have provided stuff that was like, more technically skilled but with less deep emotional meaning under Madarame’s name because like Madarame’s famous so as long as it’s cool to look at, it’s gonna be like “oh there’s probably some deep meaning to it.” So it’s like, if you’re already famous you can get away with shit that’s not super meaningful but has a lot of clear skill.

And then after Kawanabe, Yusuke is like “the colors, these brush strokes, they do not convey the true meaning of desire, only my conception of it!” which is like, not a bad thing. The other thing Kawanabe says is that his topic is unoriginal, which, in my opinion, if the problem is that it’s a stale topic, then yeah, Yusuke’s conception of it would be a unique twist, because every person has their own unique perspective.

So it’s like, I find it interesting that Yusuke thinks the problem is his conception of it and not the fact that like it’s not really his conception of it, he’s just sorta drawing Mementos.

I find it interesting that Yusuke would think “oh the problem is me” when really like, putting more of his own feelings would make it better, like Ann wanted to see the angry piece. The one he made when he was angry that they comment when you go to the thing… the thing where the art is— gallery, It’s a gallery— for the first time.

Ok I have a quote here. “I haven’t captured desire, desire has captured me! How could I fool myself into believing otherwise” and I just. I just wrote that down and wrote “hmmmm” after it. I don’t remember why. I don’t remember what I was exactly thinking. I guess it’s all the blaming of himself, I guess “how could I fool myself into thinking otherwise” like “oh god I’m so fucking stupid.” Yusuke is such a goddamn mood in this scene, holy shit.

Oh there’s also the fact that like, a single mistake is— he makes a single mistake and is immediately like “welp I’m fucked. I’m screwed, I’m doomed. This is the end of me, I have no future in art.” And he’s like “don’t patronize me” when you try to be like “yo no, this is just the beginning” he’s like “don’t patronize me, I have no future in this field” and it’s like

Yeah that makes sense as a mindset he’d have, because everyone’s favorite rat bastard threw away people who weren’t useful to him so if Yusuke makes bad art he’s thrown out so yeah, it totally makes sense that is the reaction he’d have.

Now he’s more determined to break out of his slump, which I don’t know still feels like burnout to me? Like, his solution at the end of this is like “I’m going to make ten new art pieces” and I’m just like “no, no dude please take a break.” But then of course he’s still got the scholarship riding on it. I don’t know, I don’t know. This is just me being subjective.

And then the last thing is about the call you get post rank-up and it’s “With your support I was able to pick myself up rather quickly today. I hope this doesn’t discourage you from joining me again. I will get past this.”

I don’t know that “i will get past this” feels so, how do I explain it, it sounds so much like he’s saying “please don’t get rid of me.”

Like, “I hope this doesn’t discourage you from joining me again,” “I hope the fact that I showed feelings doesn’t discourage you from joining me again” that’s what that feels like. Cause it’s like, whenever something happens, Yusuke apologizes for being overwhelmed. This happened in Madarame’s Palace. I made a joke about this, he got hit in the head he just had his world broken into a bajillion tiny little pieces and he’s like “sorry my emotions are getting the better of me.”

Yusuke’s just that one meme that’s just like “throw it all out, we can’t let people know we have feelings.”

I think that’s everything I wanted to yell about…

Oh, right Yusuke seems to have a inferiority- superiority complex which is like “that was nothing more than the drivel of unrefined commoners I needn’t pay any mind to them” it’s like yeah ok cause that makes sense Yusuke would have that [thought process] because again. Rat bastard.

Madarame seemed to be like “you’re better for living in these shitty conditions, like you’re better for living in this shack and giving up your work for your teacher. You’re a better person for that. Also don’t listen to people who say they wanna help you cause Madarame’s abusive because they’re just a pack of thus and their opinion isn’t worth listening to.”

And that’s a strong thought that I hope makes sense to people who are not me, so I am just going to end this here. Thank you for joining me for sad art boi hours.

Goodnight <3

#this transcript is like #1000 words what the FUCK #what the fuck #i'm sorry #alto plays p5r #sad art boi hours #i'm gonna fucking sleep gn #cursing tw #abuse tw

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incarnateirony · 4 years

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I'm curious, do you think that theory that Lucifer is Jottun makes sense? To me it feels weird, but this is your lane and you have way more knowledge about this.

Okay so first of all, wtf tumblr why is your cut INSIDE THE ASK and fucking up my post

Moving on:

I... is this like, a show theory that someone came up with? Or are you talking like, in general mythology?

(Edit: I realized I postured this from the angle of assuming we’re talking about the widely received idea of Lucifer in modern culture; if I was wrong about that, lemme know -- I do drift into the NONCHRISTIAN Greek Lucifer as well, which you’ve seen me talk about with Phanes before on this blog)

I’ve never heard a serious statement (or at least one that held up if gently poked) about this as much as a general correlation (IE, Promethean deities if you will, which would correspond Lucifer to Loki, though I highly disagree with that assessment for other reasons as well) -- or various theory parallels where the Jotun are parallel to everything from Titans to Nephilim.

Generally the Luciferian/Satanic iconization of Loki came from later transcriptions of eddas by Christian monks. Then again, the idea of Satan himself came from the jews taking on Zoroastrian beliefs after captivity so fuck all flips table

The last thing I’ve seen that tried to draw any kind of correlation about it had some nonsense trying to equate Azazel to Hermes too and a whole other mess of madness.

Without tracking the anthropology and etymology of a situation though, you end up with a mess, and there’s a lot of those out there. If you google long and hard enough, Lucifer is everyone. He’s Cronus, he’s Hyperion, he’s Prometheus, he’s Loki, he’s like half the native american spirits, he’s also somehow half the angels and demons in the bible and apocryphal scripture, depending on how far down a rabbit hole someone wants to go, he’s Santa or a tempting sandwich on tuesdays.

This got long so I’m putting it behind a cut -- it seems to drift but to truly answer this ask, or more answer why I don’t even have a direct statement to answer it, required some -- explanation and history

Helel is a stronger thing to lean into for example. The anthropology tracks, the mythos tracks, etc. Hell, look up Jewish beliefs on fallen angels, satan, lucifer or whatever and realize Christianity has really taken judaism for a joyride while gluing shit over their homework. Hell like, check out the history of jewish captivity under Nebuchadnezzar II and how Zoroastrianism influenced judaism/the very belief of satan/eventual conflation with Lucifer -- there’s debate on whether the Morning Star, mentioned as the King of Babylon, who made them work and toil, was Nebuchadnezzar himself. Which would make, Lucifer, um. Some king dude that died 2600 years ago, give or take.

I am-- very slow to draw angelic associations. That’s not to say they don’t happen. You can, say, track the fall of the grigori and follow their mentioned path to egypt where they "became kings”, and follow which ones disseminated into which cultures how by comparing their attributes, sure. But with something like, say, Lucifer, which is a mythological clusterfuck to itself, considering everything in the public mind about Lucifer modernly is an amalgam of everything from multiple names in the same sacred text to adaptations from influencing religions/weird reads on the transcriptions from people that didn’t know their history/etc, I’m not gonna be like LUCIFER IS JOTUN any more than LUCIFER IS A TITAN or LUCIFER IS A NEPHILIM.

Could there be a correlation for that? Sure I guess. But of the many things I have studied or dealt with, I’ve seen some shit. I’ve seen some SHIT. And never once have I encountered a Lucifer that was legit, if you believe in spoopy shit. Various shit loves using the name as a quick cred card but that’s the equivalent of a nigerian prince facebook scam that’s totes in the US Army Doug David Donnie Darko Davis, very believable. But you know what? I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s Lucifer these days. Whoever was identified as it originally 1. probably put on magical witness protection and changed names by now 2. has been utterly lost by time and has been replaced more with a /concept/ than a /being/. But the modern concepts are so vague it’s like hiding a blue chip in a pool, have fun finding it, and I’ve definitely never been compelled to do so.

I’m sure racially speaking one could say “angels might be aesir” “demons might be jotun” and draw a reasonable argument about it with enough effort, but that’d be more like... systemic translation of thousands-years-old stories traveled over the lands, at which point the question is less “Is Lucifer Jotun?” and more “What would the Aesir and Jotun be in abrahamic text equivalency?”

Curiously I’ve never seen anybody go bananas over this shit to find correlations for anything ~other~ than Christian-outward -- Christian texts always want to make their people everybody else’s people, but nobody is fighting to be referenced by christianity and even less are trying to compare say, Zoroastrianism or Islam or anything else to what gods THEY might be -- even though Zoroastrianism is literally where half this stuff came from, where ideas of archangelic-like creatures and archdemons came from, where the afterlife, where it all came from. So I struggle, deeply, to associate Lucifer with anything specific for a long, long list of reasons but find this a particularly weird thing. Like when’s the last time you heard a muslim or taoist or any other major world religion right now go out and be like “YOU KNOW WHO I THINK (ENTITY) IS, I BET ITS THIS GREEK/NORSE DUDE RIGHT HERE”-- it’s just a Christian culture thing?? IDK???

And again sometimes it’s even /valid/ but I just-- Lucifer is such a Topic(TM) to me. Because to me, he’s a concept, an idea, an archetype, but if there ever was an individual Lucifer that dude got himself a face transplant and fucked off a long time ago IMO so good luck

cuz like

Interpretations of a similar term in the Hebrew Bible, translated in the King James Version as "Lucifer" as a proper name, led to a Christian tradition of applying the name Lucifer, and its associated stories of a fall from heaven, to Satan, but modern scholarship generally translates the term in the relevant Bible passage, (Isaiah 14:12), as "morning star" or "shining one" rather than as a proper name, "Lucifer".

As a name for the Devil, the more common meaning in English, "Lucifer" is the rendering of the Hebrew word הֵילֵל‎ (transliteration: hêylêl; pronunciation: hay-lale) in Isaiah (Isaiah 14:12) given in the King James Version of the Bible. The translators of this version took the word from the Latin Vulgate, which translated הֵילֵל by the Latin word lucifer (uncapitalized) meaning "the morning star, the planet Venus", or, as an adjective, "light-bringing".

As a name for the planet in its morning aspect, "Lucifer" (Light-Bringer) is a proper name and is capitalized in English. In Greco-Roman civilization, it was often personified and considered a god and in some versions considered a son of Aurora (the Dawn). A similar name used by the Roman poet Catullus for the planet in its evening aspect is "Noctifer" (Night-Bringer).

You’d probably have a better chance of coherently inferring that Lucifer is actually Inanna or Ishtar the goddess, as Venus, or that Lucifer is Aphrodite. ORIGINALLY IT WAS FUCKING HELEL.

A suggested methodology on this: Never ever ever start from Christian texts. Like ever. Much less without at least a single Daf Yomi run to actually understand the jewish texts before it got super renovated and had white-out slapped all over it. Christianity generally perished anything after it, or at best attached like a symbiote until the host entity or belief was gone. Hell, sometimes the greecoroman Lucifer is the son of Eoster. Sound familiar? Hot take: Lucifer is Easter confirmed Easter is Satan worship.

See how that can be kinda... faulty? If you want to understand it though-- figure out where the same concept went? GO BACKWARDS. Never go FORWARDS. Pick up those christian and jewish texts and go. BACKWARDS. Akkadian. Babylonian. Because once you realize what was clipped out of other faiths, you can go back to that core deity and start figuring out where it branched off in other directions than eventually being kidnapped into the messianic cult bag. THEN go forward in time and realize that christianity is just an itty bitty teeny tiny branch of our history, it just swamped us over time via extermination. So you can find Lucifer as just about anyone, because respectively, ask a room full of rabbis and pastors to write down every time Lucifer is mentioned by name in original text form in the bible before translation and rendition. The rabbis are gonna giggle and the pastors are gonna be deadass wrong, sorry.

You wanna play a game? “Is Asmodeus Aesir?”

folds arms I’ma let you sit here scratching your heads about that for a while.

Because it’s gonna take going backwards. Who was the babylonian form of Asmodeus? When did the name ASMODEUS happen? What name did it have even in jewish texts? Or which branch of names? What did that deity evolve into in less calvinistic or messianic circles? Yes, you can track this. Yes, you CAN find how it translated into greece far and away from abrahamic or calvinistic influence, or to the vikings, or anyone else if you chase the crumbs enough, but again, there’s-- entire things to review about systemic beliefs and translations/hot takes. Same shit, different label in most places, sure, but-- eh.

Ranting a bit at this point but if anyone takes anything out of this:

Pinpoint when/where/why names originated

Go backwards first, not forward

Find the anchor belief/origin/story

Find where it branched

respect the branches and deviations as unique renditions within cultures while equally respecting the fact that there’s some truth in all beliefs and we’re all trying to describe the same shit. So could Lucifer be Jotun, I guess. But we’d have to hold nuanced discussion about the journey of the narrative from A to B and how the Aesir and Jotun correspond at large.

Anthropology and etymology are key. Where did people travel, how did they write, what did it mean. Don’t look only for very specific affiliations.

Hell let me take a quote from-- a place.

Here is how a pantheon actually comes together.

First deity: “Shit. My people were conquered and my religion just blowed up. I’m out of a job”

Second deity: “Me too.”

Third deity: “Hey, you look like that Lightning God the mortals in that place over there are telling stories about.”

Two deities at the same time: “We’re lightning gods too, though!”

Third deity: “Well, shit. You, on the left, you’re better looking. Best you be in charge.”

First deity: “Screw you! I’m bigger than all of you!”

Second deity: “Whatever. You’re a thug. Go rule the sea.”

First deity: “What? I’m a god of paternity!”

Second deity: “Paternity’s moist. That’s very similar.”

Meanwhile, you guys on Earth are all like, “Oh, Hermes is younger than Apollon.” Like its a fact. Like I wasn’t some Proto-Indo-Eurpean god of Penises and Serpents and outcroppings of stone long before anyone was ever speaking Greek.

And while we’re at the bastardized rerolling of mythologies, most heavily performed by christianity, I point you to that last line, regarding Baal Peor, and raise you:

youtube

If people noticed that video was sassier than normal, there’s a reason.

Let’s say you had a super interesting life and people kept telling your story, but over time, as it spread around the world, the telephone game got warped into several very different things. In some you’re even the villain, in some you have a giant dick, and in others you saved the world. All of these were somehow inspired by you and your story, but none of the people at the end of the story are necessarily ~you~. But someone has to figure out where the story started to find who ~you~ are, even if there’s tales of things you did, or supposedly did, all over the place. And sometimes people also take any word that sounds like your name and make it you. So if your name was Ted, you’d also end up with all kinds of shit like Bed Dead Fed Head Jed Lead Ned Red Wed and Zed when they come up suddenly all get replaced by the word/name Ted and that’s it, that’s your mythology.

#pagan life

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oh-theatre · 5 years

Text

Objection!: Chapter 6

Chapter title: Truly Believe

A/n: This entire fic is just me loving Patton and projecting it onto the characters. I just love him a lot??? Also, would you guys like if I released like a separate chapter of just different moments of them in court? I have these small interactions between the group during trials and stuff and I think it would be fun. Let me know! Make sure to leave me some comments, I really appreciate them!!

First | Previous | Next

words: 4483

summary: Logan realizes some of his feelings, Patton has a realization about the case

pairings: Eventual logicality, eventual prinxiety, platonic demus

warnings: Murder mention, child murder, implied abuse, swearing, gun mention, abuse mention, abuse

Ao3 Link

“I'm so sorry Mr.Tolentino” Reeve rushes in, scattering files everywhere “I didn't mean to be late” Logan adjusts his position on the desk pushing up, sitting straight, he checks his watch scrunching his brows.

“You aren't late Reeve, you're right on time” Logan assures. Reeve gives Logan the same look he had given many a time, critical and very judgy. “Although everyone knows-”

“Early is on time, on time is late and late is unacceptable,” Both Reeve and Logan say in unison. Logan nods at Reeve approvingly, he smiles shyly. Logan gestures to the chair across from his own, Reeve takes it nervously, he was still getting used to Logan. He shuffles awkwardly in his seat, something itching his mind.

“Yes, Reeve?” Logan sighs, noticing his erratic movement. Reeve chuckles feeling his palms grow sweaty. He set his things down by his side turning back to Logan, who waits impatiently.

“I have a note from P-Patton for you” Reeve informs, he has never wanted to curl up in a ball as much as he wanted to right now. “It's about the case files, and about...last night” Reeve adds quietly, Logan's eyes grew wide.

“Last night?” He asks cautiously, how much? About the talk, the children, the stars, the kiss on the cheek?

“Yes, about the man and thanking you for helping with the children” Reeve nods handing him the note. He takes it a little harder than he should have from the poor boy's hands, skimming it quickly. He feels a wave of relief hit him as the note goes on. He reads every line of the beautiful handwritten note, the penmanship was remarkable.

Hey Lo!

Just wanted to thank you for your help last night, the kids have not stopped talking about you. You might have to come over for dinner soon :)

I would love to. Logan struggles against his own smile, you really can write as you speak.

For your help, I'm sending Reeve over with some of my notes! And you’ll notice that you can actually read mine.

It was one time Patton, one time. Logan recalls when he and had Patton shared notes on a previous case. Patton had told him ‘He wouldn't need a doctor anymore, by the way, you write, you must be a great one. ‘ Not his best joke, but unfortunately very true.

Anyway, thanks for everything, can’t wait to get this case started.

Love, Patton!

Love Patton indeed. He hands the note back to Reeve who shoves it away scrunching his brows. Without command, he hands Logan a copy of Patton's notes that he had sent. Just as he had promised, his notes were organized, neat and well...extremely helpful.

“Brilliant” Logan mutters to himself, he flips through the notes scribbling down his own thoughts, feeling things fall slowly into place. “Absolutely brilliant, he is a ….” Logan searches for a word the could sum up how he felt. “A genius. Reeve come look at this” He ushers, Reeve, tilts his head, his face growing hot. Logan looks up, he sighs “You're here to learn, I might not be the one directly teaching you but at least you'll be getting something. So come look at these notes” Logan insists, his voice growing excited. Reeve decides to heed his command and goes around toward his side of the desk. He leans over catching up to where Logan was, his own excitement setting in. “What did I tell you, brilliant” Logan admires

“I see why he's so popular, I mean...wow” Reeve marvels watching as the notes dance from one page to another, each making sense, each claim backed up by mountains of evidence. Logan was picking a lock and Patton had given him the key. “What are those” Reeve inquires pointing at a separate file. Logan takes it studying it curiously, he nods as he read.

“Patton's transcripts, from when he first interviewed the client” Logans eyes were glazed over, Reeve swore he could see a sparkle. “Fascinating…amazing...” Reeve was questioning whether he was still talking about the actual files. He studies Logan deciding to put his deductive skills to the test. Logan's eyes were tired, poorly covered up with makeup. His cheeks were redder than usual, clearly burning with a blush. He was smiling, clearly engaging his zygomatic major muscle and his orbicularis oculi muscle, a Duchenne smile. Or, in layman's terms ‘Smizing’.

“Smiling with your eyes” Reeve mumbles softly, not softly enough however as this catches Logan's attention. He turns to face Reeve who scrambles away a little from the desk.

“Pardon?” Logan raises an eyebrow waiting for the boy to answer. He stutters over his words, muttering non-coherent sentences. Logan stands approaching him. “Reeve?”

“The Duchenne smile, more commonly known as ‘smiling with your eyes’” Reeve rushes, practically stumbling over his own words. “That's what you were doing, sir” He adds. He mentally kicks himself for that, preparing for the worst.

“Am I really that scary?” Logan sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He sits down calmly, arranging the files on his desk. “Sit please” He mentions to Reeve who wastes no time doing exactly that. “Why did you scramble?” Logan eases, trying to understand. Reeve pauses

“Nothing sir, I apologize”

“No, no, I apologize, perhaps I've been a little intimidating” Logan admits, Reeve listens, a little too scared to move. “Smiling with your eyes…Odd” Reeve smiles, a little more confident now. He adjusts his back in the chair straightening it. “Why did you say it?” Logans asks, clearly, it was bothering him.

“Well, while you were looking through Mr.Hart's notes you seemed to be almost… enamored with them” Reeve explains cautiously, he feels himself clutching on to the sides of the chairs. Logan moves his head back for the first time, he didn't know what to say.

“I'm not infatuated with Patton” Logan retorts, Reeve might have laughed had he not been so scared.

“I didn't say you were ...but now I'm starting to think you are…” He mumbles the last part. Logan pauses, he wasn't really listening. Infatuated? With Patton? He thought back on the past years, even just last night. “Mr.Tolentino?” Logan turns back to Reeve who was watching him now as if prepared to take notes on whatever he did, analyze every movement.

“Let's say, hypothetically, and I mean hypothetically” His tone becomes firm, eyes taking on stern look. Reeve nods. “If I was…how would I approach...” He shakes his head waving the thought away. “Forget I said anything. You're here to learn what it's like being a lawyer let's get back to that” Reeve debates whether he was going to regret his next words.

“Buy him a coffee and a pastry from the coffee cart,” Reeve says, Logan turned to face Reeve once more.

“Why?” Was all he says, he was curious though. What would a delectable pastry and hot coffee do?

“It's a start, its a conversation starter, it's an excuse to talk to him and...it shows that you care” Reeve explains, he rambles but Logan understands. What he didn't understand is why? Why would he want those things?

“Tell me what went wrong with the ‘Scottsboro Boys’ case,” Logan asks, Reeve, tilts his head before frantically searching his notes. A wave of relief floods him at the subject change. He begins flipping through as Logan turns to his bookshelves. He tracks his fingers across the books skimming for a certain one. He hears light mumbles coming from Reeve behind him. Once he has located the book he turns to the next bookshelf, however, this one was covered in files. Each organized by date, what the trial was and whether it had been successful at carrying out justice, in Logan's professional opinion of course. He pulls the ‘Scottsboro Boys’ case reading through a copy of the original files with his own notes on the side. He hums softly before sitting back at his desk, watching Reeve who was now scribbling down some notes. He finishes quite triumphantly before looking up. “Ready?”

“Ready” And so they begin

Buy him a coffee and a pastry.

Shows that you care

~~~

Roman would be lying if he said that he didn't wish he could wake up this way every morning. And by that, he means having Virgil's Great Dane, Joey, hop onto the couch planting himself on top of Roman, licking his face. Roman felt his eyes open slowly, the light flooding into the room burning his dry eyes. He adjusts quickly to the slobbery mess on his face and the sudden added pressure on his chest. He looks up to find Joey breathing heavily, his paws folded in front of him, as he stares at Roman. He chuckles carefully sitting up petting the dog, Joey bounces, jumping off of him. He watches as the dog stands expectantly at his feet and decides he should probably get up. Wiping his eyes, stretching his arms he stands much to Joey’s delight. He follows as the dog walks happily towards the kitchen and thank god he did. Roman wishes he had a phone to take a picture of this. He watches as Virgil dances softly around the room humming along to the music playing in the background. He watches as Virgil prepares what seems like breakfast, for three. He turns finally spotting Roman and drops his pan.

“Roman!” He scolds, Roman, laughs going to help him clean up the scattered scrambled eggs on the floor. Joey has his own cleaning ideas, trying very hard to lick the floor. Roman holds him back stifling his laugh. “Good morning” He grumbles, picking up the fallen pan.

“It is a good morning indeed!” Roman exclaims happily. “Sorry for spending the night, the little guy tired me out” Roman rubs his neck, Virgil goes to pause his music turning off the stove. He hands Roman a cup of coffee, who having been here plenty of times, went straight for the cream and sugar.

“It's fine, don't worry, thanks for taking care of the kiddo in the first place” Virgil assures, leading the pair over to the table.

“Always and kiddo?” Roman teases

“Patton's rubbing off on me” Virgil jokes back, Roman releases a breathy laugh stirring his coffee. They yawn simultaneously gaining quite comfortable in the presence of each other, silent or not. They hear the light shuffling of feet both preparing for an incoming storm. They watch as little Damian comes scurrying in holding his snake plushie followed by Joey. He runs straight towards Virgil jumping in his dad's arms.

“Hi, Papi!” He squeals nuzzling himself into Virgil, he chuckles adjusting Damian's position on his lap. Roman watches with a smile, Damian fiddles with his plushie.

“Morning Dee” Virgil greets “Did you have fun last night?” Damian waves to Roman nodding.

“He's the best!” Damian exclaims throwing his hands in the air. The men chuckle at the small boy. “Can he always come here?” Damian asks his father, Virgil smiles. Roman folds his hands in his lap awaiting Virgil's answer, he raises his eyebrows. Virgil shakes his head at the judge.

“What do you want for breakfast Dee?” Virgil asks switching the topic, he didn't know the answer and would rather not discuss it at eight forty-six in the morning. Damian struggles in his father's arms making grabby hands at Roman, Virgil sighs at the smirk etching on the judges face. He stands, still holding the boy carefully giving him to Roman. “I will go make you some food” Roman nods completely focused on Damian now. Virgil makes his way back to the kitchen, still reaping the unfortunate egg incident he decides some cereal will do. He watches from afar, Roman and Damian seem to be deep in conversation. He seems to have some kind of idea and bounces off of Romans lap scurrying in the direction of his room. Virgil finishes serving his bowl of cereal and places it in Damian's highchair.

“He's so cute” Roman claims as Virgil sits back down. Roman awaits some kind of quip, but Virgil simply shrugs.

“Hey, no disagreements here.” Roman chuckles fiddling with his empty cups of coffee. “So, big day today. The trial finally begins” Virgil comments, something shifts. Roman exhales a long breath, some things he's been holding in. He doesn't want to discuss the trial, he's not sure why. Roman loves being a judge, serving justice, having total control.

“Yes it is, I have a meeting with Patton and Logan in my chambers in about…” He checks his watch rubbing his eyes. “Two hours” Virgil yawns nodding as Damian returns. How the kid has this much energy in the morning is something Virgil will never understand. Virgil picks him up placing him in his highchair. He instantly starts shoveling down his cereal, making a mess, much to Virgils ‘delight’. Roman watches wanting to stay here, frozen in this frame. Watching Virgil smiling at his enigmatic son. Its something Roman had always thought about, the prospect of a family. He always marveled at Virgil and Patton, their ability to balance a very busy work life and still have time for their children. Still, have the mental capacity to give them love when they go into work every day dealing with awful people. Roman is sentencing someone to punishment, to spend the rest of their days suffering. Do they deserve it? Yes. Does Roman know this? Yes. Does he still feel somewhat guilty every time the sound of the gavel hitting a hard surface echoes throughout the courtroom? Absolutely.

“I'm done!” Damian announces, throwing his hands in the air pridefully. Roman chuckles dryly at the small boy. His only worry in life is whether or not he can sing the alphabet or count to the number ten. Virgil stands, Roman follows, he picks up his son letting him out to play. Damian instantly rushes towards Joey who pounces licking the child. Roman kneels petting Joey softly, Virgil leads Damian to his room disappearing for a while. Roman sits on the ground now simply enjoying Joeys warm head laying in his lap. Virgil returns after a moment holding a now dressed Damian on one side and the boys backpack in the other. “I'm ready!”

“Yes, you are niño” Roman agrees, he stands dusting himself off, Joey whines at the sudden shift. Virgil collects a few more things, while Roman organizes himself.

“Ready to go?” Virgil asks, Roman nods following the detective towards the door. He helps him strap Damian into his seat before taking his place in the passenger's seat. Virgil slides into the driver's seat, Roman watches curiously as he goes through some kind of routine. First, he checks on Damian making sure the young boy is alright, then he checks the mirrors, once that's finished he turns on the car going through each small thing to make sure everything is in working order. Finally, he pulls out of the driveway, Roman leans his head against the window, taking this little time to himself.

~~~

“Morning Mr.Hart!” Jenny calls. Patton looks up waving, giving the sweet woman a polite smile. He hoisters his briefcase trying hard to keep everything from spilling out. This morning had been chaos enough, and the day wasn't going to get better. The twins had decided to pitch a fit about going to school, not even a day ago having wanted to go more than anything, claiming they wanted to hang out with Patton today. Which he knew was code for, ‘We wanna see Mister Logan’. He might have caved in had he not remembered he had a mountain of work to do, and that the trial was beginning this afternoon. So, after fighting for another hour, he finally got the kids to daycare where they now preside perfectly happy with their friends.

“Patton” Patton feels his heart sink, so close. He turns to face Liam who stands leaning by the door. He’s smoking a cigarette huffing away, now Patton's especially happy he didn't bring the kids. Liam puts it out after a moment approaching him. “Good morning” His voice, which once sounded so sweet, now felt like nails on a chalkboard as it tore its way through Patton's ears.

“It's not” Patton replies curtly, he hefts his briefcase some more, why did I pack it so heavy? Liam lets out a nasty laugh, he extends a hand out towards the briefcase. Patton brings it closer to himself, he doesn't need help, he needs to get to his office.

“Patton don't be stubborn, let me help” Liam tries again grabbing the handle, it's a rough touch, always has been. Patton struggles to free his hand, and briefcase for that matter, away from Liam. “Cupcake” His voice darkens, his eyes seeking vengeance. Patton squirms at the nickname, hating the awful taste it leaves.

“You didn't want to help before…” Patton mumbles finally pulling away. His case crashes to the floor with files and loose papers cluttering everywhere. He groans kneeling down frantically trying to gather everything. It was so neat, so perfect. Liam smirks maliciously before kneeling himself, he picks up a few papers reading over them. Patton manages to stuff most everything back into his case. He looks up at Liam expectantly holding out his hand for the final few things. Liam thinks for a moment for simply shaking his head, he continues browsing the files. “Liam, give them back, you're being childish” Patton says, he stands dusting himself off. Liam follows but won't give in.

“I'm being childish? You're the one who keeps ignoring me, won't let me see my kids and your running around with some...man-”

“I am not” Patton states firmly, he's not offended by the assumption. He just doesn't wish to carry on this conversation, and would rather not hear about Liam's thoughts, or Liams anything for that matter. He holds out his hand once more, signaling for him to return the papers. Liam rolls his eyes, shoving them into Patton's chest. “Thank you” He seethes, finally closing his briefcase shut. He turns to make his way towards his office but feels something clutch to his arm pulling him back. Liam digs his nails into Patton, he winces once more struggling in the man's grip. “Liam… “ he whines, his vision becomes blurry. It's not just the nails causing the incoming tears, though that contributes, it's just everything about his former partner. The things he did race through Patton's mind, things he had worked so hard to just shove away.

“You are so weak” Liam scoffs, he remains “You always have been, how you're a lawyer I will never understand” That cuts deep, and Liam knew it would. For years people, family, friends, anybody really, would laugh when Patton shared his dreams. He was much too soft to be a lawyer, he wasn't a shark, he cared too much. The comments continued even after he graduated from Harvard, even after he passed the BAR exam, even today they simply waited until the ball drops and Patton can't do it anymore. Patton tries again to no avail, Liam’s not fighting a losing war. He holds Patton close, if you were just passing by you wouldn't even tell something was wrong.

“Let him go” A stiff voice requests. However, it didn't really sound like a request, more of a command. Patton glances towards the source biting down a smile. Logan stands watching Liam, he holds some kind of hot drink in his hand and a small paper bag in the other. He looks as he always does, prim, proper, neat, and put-together. Except for his eyes, his eyes glare at Liam, Patton swears he can see a fiery pit buried deep in Logan's dark brown eyes. Patton turns back to Liam, but he won't budge, in fact, he digs further. At this point, it's a tug-of-war game and Patton has the unfortunate opportunity to be the rope. After a moment Logan walks towards them, he stands next to Patton still watching Liam. He might not be fighting a losing war but he just lost the battle. Liam pulls away finally releasing Patton from his hold. He grasps his arm massaging it, watching the color slowly return. Patton prepares for an argument but is instead met by a soft hand on his shoulder turning him away from Liam. He looks up to meet Logan's eyes, the fiery pit washed over by a calm wave. “Patton,” He says, Patton understands and they begin walking away.

“Thank you” Logan nods. They walk side by side through the courthouse, reaching a more secluded area Logan stops. Patton does the same, Logan faces Patton examining the be-speckled man. “Lo?” Patton wonders softly, Logan shifts turning his attention towards him. Patton instinctively backs up into the wall, he's not afraid but it's just something left over.

“I brought you coffee and a pastry” Logan informs, Patton tilts his head. He lifts his hands showing that he did indeed buy Patton a pastry and coffee. Patton lets out a small laugh, taking the food happily. “I hope it is satisfactory,” Logan says. Patton giggles smelling the coffee.

“It's great! I forgot to eat this morning so this is perfect” Patton compliments. Logan feels the heat rising in his face, a light tint of pink. They continue walking, Patton opens the bag revealing a vanilla cupcake. He pauses once more, feeling himself space out.

~~~

“Cupcake?” Liam asks, Patton looks up to see his partner returning home. He smiles at him, quickly returning his focus to the baby he cradles in his hand. Remus snores peacefully in his arms, something Patton would come to miss in the coming years. Liam approaches with a look of disdain, eyeing the baby as though it might do something horrible.

“How was work?” Patton asks not looking up from Remus little face. He wishes he could stay like this forever, his perfect angelic face, the way his eyes flutter open every few moments. Liam grunts throwing his stuff on the couch.

“It was fine...I have a stupid project I must do or my boss will fire me” Liam informs, Patton gives him an apologetic look.

“I'm sorry,” Patton says, Liam bites his lips watching Patton with the baby. Patton notices and lifts the baby. “Do you want to hold him?” He inquires softly, Liam stares for a moment before shaking his head.

“I'll just have someone do the project for me,” Liam says completely ignoring Patton's question, he feels his heart sink a bit. “If it sucks they take the fall if it's great I get the credit”

~~~

“Cupcakes aren't pastries” Patton mumbles, his eyes go wide “He didn't do it!” He exclaims, Logan feels Patton grab his shoulders and stare at him with his shining eyes. “He didn't do it! He's taking the fall! Logan, my clients innocent!” As if at this moment, he finally believes it.

~~~

Virgil swore he would never pull his gun on anybody but criminals and lowlife. But at this moment? It was very tempting. His hand flew to his holster as he walks into the courthouse seeing Liam stand by the reception area. The man turns, his eyes falling onto Roman and Virgil who glares back.

“You...son of a beech” Roman mutters, Virgil begins picking at his fingers fidgeting wildly. They walk towards him, Liam smiles mischievously.

“If it isn't Ronan and Virgin” Liam greets, Roman flings his hand towards Virgil holding him back instinctively. Virgil growls deeply at Liam, Roman keeps his hand on him not wanting a scene in his courthouse.

“You know what? I'm going to arrest him” Virgil declares, Roman makes no comment he simply stares. Virgil wasn't kidding, he removes the handcuffs from his side and gestures for Liam to around. Liam furrows his brows, waiting for the punchline.

“You're abusing your power, detective” Liam comments.

“Like you abused Patton?” Roman blurts, Virgil turns to him eyes wide. Something in Liams expression changes as he turns to face Roman now, he almost looks hurt but that quickly morphs into something beyond anger.

“You s-” He moves forward but Virgils too quick, he places himself in between Roman and Liam.

“One wrong move and I will actually arrest you” Virgil warns. He might be absolutely vibrating on the inside but he meant it. Liam eyes him for a moment before recoiling, Virgil nods. Virgil turns back to Roman who now watches a spot intently on the floor. “You good?” He asks. Roman looks up grounding himself as he focuses on Virgil.

“Fine” He looks over Virgil to Liam “Just would rather not have him here” Roman shuffles uncomfortably. Virgil ponders for a moment before smirking. “What?” Roman huffs, he continues smirking “No, absolutely not”

“Why” Virgil whines “Come on, you want him out of here, I want him out of here, I’m sure Patton wants him out of here” Virgil pleads, sure enough, Patton appears with Logan by his side.

“Patton wants what?” He asks Roman gives him an encouraging smile. He tilts his head before spotting Liam. “He’s still here?” He sighs.

“Yes, I am,” Liam remarks, he forces himself back into the conversation staring at Patton now. Virgil and Roman become on high alert, barricading themselves, while Logan places a protective hand on Patton's arm. It's delicate, it doesn't hurt. “Patton I would like to speak to you” Liam requests, making a trying effort to not look in the direction of the others.

“Why would he waste his breath talking to you?” Virgil snipes, Liam chuckles his raspy voice echoing through the foyer. Patton exhales sharply.

“I think we are going to go now” Patton informs, Roman and Virgil nod turning towards the now timid lawyer. Logan and Patton share a glance before they begin walking away. But alas, Virgil can't stride away without one final comment.

“Virgil” Roman warns, but Virgils not listening.

“If you ever come near him again” Virgil's voice is orotund. He points an accusing finger at Liam, the man might be taller but Virgil is pissed off. “I will not hesitate to reopen my case on you and put you away, do you understand?” Liam glares but he knows exactly what Virgil means. He takes a step back eyeing Virgil one last time before walking away. The swift bang of the door shutting washes over Virgil in relief.

“You should reopen the case anyway” Roman suggests half-heartedly. Virgil chuckles, before pulling out his phone and showing it to Roman. He marvels at the text smiling approvingly. “How?”

“I was a very secretive texter in school, and Remys always got the case ready to go...just in case” Virgil responds, he's not going to lie, the look of astonishment planted on the judge's face definitely left a sense of pride in the detective.

#objection au #sanders sides #patton sanders #virgil sanders #logan sanders #roman sanders #remus sanders #deceit sanders #thomas sanders #youtube #logicality #prinxiety #ao3 #archive of our own #writing #my writing

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awkwardplantwrites · 5 years

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tips on how to write when you just can’t

(personal advice. might work for you, might not)

you have an idea for your story but can’t get it out. or you know what’s going to happen but it’s boring and you’re starting to hate your work. the words are not appearing on the page no matter how hard you stare at it.

writing is writing, but telling a story doesn’t have to be solely writing words onto a page. it might come to that eventually if you’re set on your story being a novel, but it doesn’t have to start that way. I don’t think people realise just how abstract and crazy first drafts can be.

here’s some ways you can tell a story without writing:

record your voice and narrate verbally. there’ll be a lot of um’s and pauses where you don’t know what to say and it won’t be nearly as prosey as it is in writing. for me, I definitely prefer writing to speaking because I can edit what I write and think about what I write. but by verbally narrating you can get thoughts out quicker. you’re allowed to say one thing, then include a verbal note where you wonder aloud “that part might be better later on” and just continue. then, you transcribe it. and voila you have words!

it definitely doesn’t have to be a direct transcription. if anything, you can and should rewrite the parts you want to change. with this it’s like getting two drafts for the effort of one. this can also help to give your characters more distinctive voices as you’ll speak as they would (to make it easier to tell who’s talking when you record lol)

record your voice as you give a presentation about your story/chapter. this one’s good for developing stuff, and by developing it you generate new ideas. you analyse your characters, the metaphors, foreshadowings, reasons for actions, and double meanings. you go crazy over your story and fall in love with it again. similar to those comic sans presentation images you see on writeblr, but more in depth.

to use Romeo and Juliet as an example: “Who is responsible for Mercutio’s death? What is the role of destiny in the play? Why is Juliet the most tragic character in the play?” have a look at essay ideas and use them for your story. and when you talk as if you’re in front of an audience, you include the stuff you think they’ll want to know, which translates into what the readers want to know when you transcribe the juicy parts into your writing!

another verbal format can be a DND campaign with you as every character and the DM (feel free to use a die!) it might not work so well for romance novels but do what you want! have fun getting a crit 1 on smooching, baby!!

record the audio/video as you play with toys or objects that represent your characters I feel like this one is good if you lose track of who’s in the scene, because you can physically see who’s there. even if you aren’t writing a kid’s book, you’ll be brought back to the days when you played pretend, and stories and fictional worlds were fun and not stressful to fill with societies and environments. novels have this odd reputation for being grandoise and writers automatically assume your book’s got to be the BEST thing the world has seen. it’s not that deep bro. anybody of any age and background can tell a captivating story.

you can draw instead of writing. or you can write AND draw, where you sketch something you don’t know or can’t be bothered to describe. and if this goes well for you, you might want to consider making a comic or graphic novel instead. or do it on your phone using goddamn emoji’s. who gives a fuck.

on a different note, if you’re someone who mainly struggles with ideas, you need to look at your story like an alien. question and doubt the mundane, what’s considered normal. this will probably include research.

to use an example, in my most recent chapter I had a character who was riding a horse into town. sounds simple right? let’s quesion that: how was he riding the horse? you might think, oh well, it’s just a horse, you ride on it’s back. but there are names for the way you ride. (everything has names and labels, idk why.) and it turns out he was riding bareback, as the horse was wild and had no saddle. and so what I did was look up bareback riding, paraphrased the definition into my story to explain to the reader what my mc was doing. “Bareback riding is a form of horseback riding without a saddle. It requires skill, balance, and coordination, as the rider does not have any equipment to compensate for errors of balance or skill.”

hey look at that! those are words you can include in your story! it’s a form of description! another question: does my character have the skill required? no. and immediately that creates a story. how will this inexperienced rider ride this horse? readers love characters who can’t do what they’re trying to do but who do it anyway.

question the weather. temperature. the location. mythical creatures. superpowers. science. furniture. rethink everything you think you know. brainstorm or play word association games.

to use a more general/random example: your character is hungry. questions: what food? where will they go to get food? why that place? how will they get to the place and what could stop them? will they go with someone? will they not get food despite their hunger, and what’s the reason for that?

everyone will answer those questions differently: and that’s why every story is unique no matter how simple and cliche the premise is.

there’s also the advice to “write badly” and I don’t think people often understand what that means. it doesn’t always mean telling a shitty story, though you absolutely can if you want to. it means you have full permission to abandon grammar, spelling, punctuation, and coherency. include cliches and ignore every piece of writing advice you’ve ever heard! you can tell the story instead of showing bc at this point you just need words. example, a very butchered version of the passage “it was a dark and stormy night”:

It was dark outside somewhere idk. In a house (bedroom maybe?) some lady, wraped in a blanket (or quilt?) sat on her bedd and wotched trees moving in the wind and behind the tres clouds moved fast all spooky like.

a useful tool which squeezes words out is laying down the 5 questions: who, what, when, how, where. mike ran at noon quickly in the gym. and just repeating that structure over and over, omitting certain questions when necessary.

it’s going to suck and you’ll hate it: but you weren’t happy with/able to do a more polished version, so does it matter? the words are there. it counts.

use generators for names and descriptions, you don’t have to come up with everything but you make it look like you did.

steal your favourite lines from ALL your favourite idols and remix them. no-one will care if they can’t tell who you took it from.

if all else fails: get a ghostwriter

#writeblr #writing #writing advice #original writing #original fiction #creative writing #wip #nanowrimo #fanfic #fanfiction #long post #the plant speaks

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davidcoopermoore · 4 years

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Transcript from “Shape of Education to Come” podcast

I was recently a guest on the Shape of Education to Come podcast hosted by Devin King. I like to transcribe these, especially when I'm talking in a semi-professional (as opposed to formally professional) context. (It turns out that when I'm not transcribing audio for a living I find it relaxing in small doses.)

This is lightly edited for relevance (I snipped some Taylor Swift content that wasn’t related to teaching, but kept in the Taylor Swift content that was) and coherence. You can listen here.

SEC:

David Cooper Moore, tell me what you do.

DCM:

Hello, my name is David Cooper Moore. I am a media literacy educator in the United States -- I’m based in Philadelphia.

The past four years I was the media and blended learning coordinator at an alternative high school for kids who had become disconnected with high school, dropped out, or were in danger of possibly dropping out or failing out of high school. Before that I worked in media literacy enrichment mostly with the Media Education Lab, which is now at the University of Rhode Island, but that I got connected with when it was in Philadelphia at Temple University.

I’m a certified English teacher, so I teach English but I also teach media arts, and I just got a consulting gig to do a digital literacy curriculum with the Free Library of Philadelphia, so I’m taking a year off of teaching to do that, plus a lot of other life stuff going on with kids and houses and things. So that’s kind of my general log line.

SEC:

What would a digital literacy curriculum look like?

DCM:

That’s a great question. The classic framework that I go by is one that Renee Hobbs at the University of Rhode Island uses, which is: access, analyze, create, reflect, act.

Media literacy is this really big tent movement and academic field of study that encompasses questions like how do we access information? How do we use things in both digital and non-digital media worlds? How do we make meaning out of it through analysis? How do we compose -- how do we make stuff? But also how do we reflect on its impact on our lives and how does it inform the way that we take action in the world?

So any digital literacy curriculum to me goes back to that kind of a framework, especially those first three, access/analyze/create. I think reflection and action are imbued in media literacy practice but the access/analyze/create part is what a lot of educators and folks that are in education don’t always know how to do, so I’ve always been attracted to the media literacy field because of the way that it really is non-negotiable that those three pieces of accessing information, making meaning out of it, and creating with it are really fundamental. It’s such an expanded view of what counts as texts, how we make meaning, how we communicate in the world.

SEC:

We’re definitely going to come back to that. What you’re talking about is really huge, there is a ton to that, which is why there’s a curriculum for it. So we’re gonna come back to that but first of all, I wanted to think back to when I think I first became familiar with your work. It would have been over a decade ago, when you were doing music writing.

DCM:

Oh yeah, that’s right! Those are my two non-education things, I’m a filmmaker and I’m a music writer, and those actually are the things that got me interested in the intersections between media and education, which led me to do this kind of work. The work I’ve been doing for the past ten years is just the synthesis of the media stew I’ve been bathing in my entire life since I was a little kid, culminating in my young adulthood with making movies and writing about music. But you know, for my professional life, it turns out they don’t really give you huge paychecks to make movies about your family or write about underrated pop albums.

SEC:

So I know that you started out as a critic. I don’t know if you’d say you’re a critic.

DCM:

Yeah, I was a formal music critic for a couple of years. I actually wrote for real publications.

SEC:

Do you think that good critics make for good teachers?

DCM:

I think that there are overlapping skills.

I taught in the classroom for four years. I took a position as a full time teacher because I really wanted to get my five years as a teacher under my belt. I really wanted to teach full time because one thing that I knew very clearly from doing enrichment work was that it’s just different. Classroom teachers do different types of work than a lot of other people who educate others do -- college professors, enrichment educators, people that do coaching, mentoring.

There is something very different about full-time teaching, and so to that extent I think that the critical sensibility is a good one to have in the classroom, but it doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about whether someone is a good teacher, and I don’t know if it’s in the top five, in terms of the key traits you need to have to be a good classroom teacher. A critical mind might be part of it, but honestly if the kids don’t really care about your critical insights I don’t know how effective a teacher you’re going to be. I certainly found that when I tried to use my own criticism directly it was pretty hit or miss. It’s as likely as any other text to engage students.

Teaching is really about the relationship you build with the students you are working with. I do find that a lot of folks that I know who are critics do make good teachers. I actually know some music critics who are high school teachers, that’s their day job. But I’m not sure there’s anything inherently better. It’s better to “be a music critic” about music than not to be, but there are probably other things that are more important for teaching.

SEC:

I guess what I was wondering was if the critic sensibility of looking closely at something and assessing its value and worth lent itself to the way we think about classes and systems and what’s valuable and ways to approach student learning? I wondered if being able to think critically about what we do could come from that critic sensibility.

DCM:

One thing that I’ve noticed with music critics -- the people who are really good music critics tend to be really good other things, too. They tend to be good thinkers in a lot of fields, and they’ve chosen music but they could have just as easily chosen politics or film.

And I also find that a lot of folks that are thinkers and writers in other spheres often show their worst instincts when they’re writing about music. So that’s always fascinated me about music as a medium, that it is so predicated on our viscerality, our feelings about it, how we feel about it, and we try so hard to put that into this kind of critical thinking language, but a lot of times we just use the critical thinking language to say the really biased or weird thing that true critical thinking wouldn’t have us saying. I read a lot of critics, who are very smart, who when put in an uncomfortable space will just use their critical faculties to say something that I don’t think is a very “critical thinking” thing.

Good teachers are more likely to uncover the good music critic within themselves than the music critic who does that [uses critical thinking language for non-critical-thinking insights] is likely to access their inner teacher.

I think classrooms do this kind of naturally. You have to be openly curious and humbled and not allow any of your preconceived ideas about what’s going to be the right thing to guide you too often, because the students will just knock you down. Students are really good at sussing out inauthenticity. So when you’re using those critical devices to prop up something that needs questioning, the people who are going to do that first are your students.

One thing I found teaching is I would say something that I’d never thought twice about and my students would say, “why do you say that?” Maybe there’s a song they’re listening to I don’t like and I say “oh, I don’t like this song,” and there’s a student who really loves the song and they’re like, “I really love this song! It’s my favorite song!” And I have to think about the song differently now because I’m in a situation where I’ve been kind of put off-guard and I need to actually use my real self-reflective critical thinking.

So I think there’s this great synergy between criticism and teaching but I actually think it kind of comes from the teaching side more than necessarily from the criticism side. Being a good teacher helps you be a better critic in a way that I’m not sure that being better critic helps you be a better teacher.

SEC:

One of the things you mentioned there was the idea that it comes from a feeling, bad music criticism or bad criticism just comes from that feeling rather than an analysis. And I wonder if we see that sort of thing in education because I don’t know what your experience with teachers are but there is a certain kind of teacher who has been around for a long time or even a short time and has a feeling of what things work, and doesn’t want to change their practice.

DCM:

I think that the thing that interests me about feeling in music is the way that feelings can destabilize us. And I think what you’re describing are teachers who are doing almost the opposite, teachers who feel highly stabilized in their classrooms. That’s what I’m always skeptical of. It’s the teacher that feels like nothing could possibly happen to them to change anything about what they think or what they do.

It’s not that I’m the most open-minded and amazing person, it’s just that I have a lot of experiences where I think I know something and the teaching experience really knocks me down a peg. It can be humiliating, in fact! When you realize that what you just expressed that you thought was teaching critical thinking, isn’t.

For instance, when I’m talking to young, predominantly black, and predominantly low-income students who are 16 to 19 years old about the news, I could get up on my high horse -- I read the Washington Post every day and I do this and that and yada yada yada, and talk about the credibility of sources. And then they start telling me about things that are actually happening in their very own backyards and neighborhoods that I know nothing about. And who am I to say that the way that they found that information is better or worse than my way? I don’t mean that obviously means I’m not better or worse, I might be better at something, but I need to think about it more carefully, because the assumption I went in with that I had the knowledge and the students had the brains to absorb my knowledge, it didn’t work out that way.

It’s not even that it can’t work out that way. I do have knowledge sometimes and they can absorb the knowledge. But the teacher who isn’t open to being humbled unexpectedly is not going to be able to improve their practice in the way that the teacher that is can. That isn’t to say you need to go cut yourself down at every opportunity and completely take out all your confidence, it’s just that it’s complicated and again, students are going to be able to push you in ways that other types of relationships don’t.

So that’s what I’m looking for in teachers, and I think music does this to people. When you really hate a song and you just explode with anger about it, I mean, the kind of feeling that that can instill in you, I can’t think of a lot of other media that can really do that. But I can definitely tell you some experiences that people have had in classrooms, where the kid did that one thing and you just exploded, you didn’t even know that was your trigger. Like, “oh my gosh, that kid that wouldn’t sit down, that really bothered me for some reason, I have to analyze that!” I think music does that. I think there is something about the combination of feeling and analysis that is so tied together in music, I think there’s an echo of that in how we learn about ourselves in the classroom.

SEC:

This was obviously a very big week because on Pitchfork this week they reviewed all the Taylor Swift albums.

DCM:

All the Taylor Swift albums! I know! Where were they when I was actually writing for them in 2006? They didn’t ask me to write up the self-titled album. I had it before anybody did. My friend actually burned me the self-titled Taylor Swift album and mailed it to me. In the mail. I was there, man! I was there!

SEC:

What did you think of her first album?

DCM:

I loved her first album. At the time I had taken a critical turn. I was really interested in teen pop music, so I was writing about it at an old website called Stylus Magazine, a really cool online space. And it’s funny because I think people can look back -- I’ve worked in elementary media literacy and all this stuff and it seems like maybe it’s all of a piece, of me being really curious about youth culture. I’m actually not that curious about youth culture. I just really liked the teen pop music at the time personally! So I got into it and I was writing about it and that got me into youth culture only because of the ways in which people were writing about young people.

I thought it was just bizarre -- High School Musical had just come out. Taylor Swift had not quite broken yet. She was still trying to be a country star at that time. And people were just writing about it -- you saw this when One Direction got really big, too, these recycled teenybopper losing their minds takes. And so it forced me into understanding youth culture, and that got me connected with the Media Education Lab at Temple. I was a grad student there at the time. I thought I should actually try to understand what’s happening in youth culture, because I mostly just liked, like, listening to Ashlee Simpson for myself.

When Taylor Swift came out, I saw this as a really ingenious way to try to find a space outside of Disney which at the time was starting to build its music brand through Hannah Montana and High School Musical, and she was doing this thing where she was trying to capture the country audience with the same moves that they were doing in the teen pop music. And it was interesting to watch her really struggle in country music. She had a couple hits on country radio but there was always this talk about her inauthenticity and how she’s not really country and whatever else. And then when Fearless came out it seems like it was just this explosion, that young people just flocked to her and created almost a whole separate genre of Taylor Swift. She is her own genre now. I think she has been since 2008. She stopped being a country star about a year after she started.

But what’s interesting to me about the Pitchfork thing is how uncontroversial that is now. Of course you’d cover Taylor Swift! She’s the biggest American pop music star probably in the world. I think she’s maybe bigger than Beyonce by a nose? They’re probably the top two, right?

SEC:

Probably!

DCM:

Why wouldn’t you be interested in writing about that? At the time you just couldn’t do it.

SEC:

It was part of the rockist sensibility that was still in the ether then. Poptimism was still kind of coming out. For me, I remember when I was in school I was teaching Grade 8 and we were doing a music video lesson, and a student wanted to watch “Teardrops on my Guitar.” And I remember being snooty about that then, and I think I probably looked down on that student and I almost guarantee that student noticed that. So for me, that’s a lesson to check yourself. It’s so easy for us to look at student culture and say, that’s not my culture, that’s not good. And we saw that even in Pitchfork, which was the leading credible source of music.

DCM:

Yeah, you know, it’s funny, because you have those experiences, and you have such a personal relationship with students whether you want to or not. I consider myself a progressive educator and I’m all about relationships, but there are some really healthy boundaries that teachers need to have from their students. And part of that can have to do with their popular culture. You also don’t have to be the hip teacher that insists on being really into all the music your kids are into. It’s more about your authenticity to yourself in your relationship to the students.

But at the same time, if you don’t like Taylor Swift, there are a lot of ways to engage with the student who loves Taylor Swift honestly without making the student almost a representative of a social problem. You still have to teach that kid math! You still have to have engagements with that student who loves Taylor Swift. And that is such an important part of that person’s identity. But as the teacher, that’s the field that you have the least control over. You really have almost zero say in how that student is going to take their own popular culture and make meaning out of it.

And so in a way it was actually kind of healthy for a place like Pitchfork to stay away from Taylor Swift, because the only thing that would have happened is that they would have gotten somebody who doesn’t listen to Taylor Swift to write some sneering thing about it. Or do the thing where it’s like, “well, begrudgingly I’ll admit there are a couple of songs here.” But something interesting was obviously happening with Taylor Swift from a social perspective. I happen to think it was pretty god as music, too -- your mileage may vary with that.

SEC:

If you were going to give yourself a Pitchfork rating as a teacher, what would you give yourself?

DCM:

Well you have to understand about Pitchfork ratings, because there’s a science to it, right? It’s a little code between music nerds. Anything under a 7 and above a 5.8 means “I listened to it, it was fine, you shouldn’t really even bother to read this review, because I’m not really sure how I’m feeling about this one right now.” Anything between a 7 and a 7.5 means this is a solid album that I don’t quite have the traction on, or I really like it but they won’t really let me rate it higher. I don’t think they do that any more. They made me change some of my ratings sometimes.

SEC:

Did you give a number? I thought it was the case that writers didn’t give the number.

[Ed note: Pitchfork editorial gives scores now, but when I wrote for Pitchfork in 2004-2006 writers gave the initial score and it was discussed editorially if necessary.]

DCM:

Yeah, I gave the numbers. Writers gave the numbers then and there was sometimes an editorial decision about it. I infamously tried to give the Arcade Fire’s first album a 10 and they wouldn’t let me. We negotiated it down to a 9.7, which I think is kind of funny. It’s too bad, because it turns out it’s really more of a 9.4, but that’s OK. I mean, I was really obsessed with it at the time. It settled into a 9.4.

Nah, I’m just kidding, 9.7 is the perfect score for that album, I think.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah -- Pitchfork ratings are very specific, so as a teacher, I actually don’t think--I only taught for four years in a classroom so I am ineligible for anything above a 7.6. That’s the cap of the album that was great and some people are going to love that album, but no one is going to talk about it in the critical conversation at the end of the year. So you’re going to see a lot of individual writers’ favorite albums that they don’t feel comfortable giving a bunch of Pitchfork hype to get between a 7.3 and a 7.7. After that, once you get into the 8’s, you’re getting into the critical conversation.

So I would give myself over four years...a 7.4.

SEC:

One thing that jogged my memory and made me think you were someone I should talk to is that you were posting on Twitter a list of observations you were making as you were coming to the end of your year, and the end of your job.

DCM:

I had this manic spell in the first week after I left where I just had all these disconnected thoughts. So I started a big Twitter thread, and now I’m writing some of that stuff up. I don’t know if I’m going to do anything with it. It’s nice to just write, I’ve written like 30 pages of observations.

I didn’t write anything while I was teaching for a couple of reasons. One, I felt really overwhelmed with the job of it -- I don’t know how many of your listeners are teachers and how many aren’t, but I feel like the lack of understanding that people have about the kind of job that teaching actually is from a minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour type of day-long standpoint is one of the fundamental things that keeps people from truly understanding education problems in general. I don’t know if it’s true in Canada versus America but certainly in the U.S. -- anything that’s bad in Canada is probably just worse here.

So I started writing these observations because there were so many scattered thoughts, and I didn’t feel comfortable reflecting on it formally anywhere, because it was happening to me in the moment. I felt some protection of my students and not wanting to use them as examples of things, use pseudonyms or whatever. But now I’m kind of processing it and I really am reflecting a lot on it.

A lot of what I learned makes me think of Annette Lareau, who wrote a great book called Unequal Childhoods, which tracks different social classes of folks raising kids in Philadelphia -- middle class, working class, and poor, more or less. I think she didn’t really hit that many super affluent families and she honestly didn’t seem to engage with that many really poor families. There were a couple. And her big sociological insight was around this idea of middle class versus working class parenting philosophies.

The middle class parents, maybe unconsciously, maybe consciously, go through what she calls concerted cultivation, which is the idea that your children are investments and you cultivate them to become a certain type of person. A lot of this is based on the kinds of scheduling that you do and the activities you do and the way you teach kids to question authority, in ways that promote power. So middle class kids learn to ask the doctor questions, whereas working class kids don’t ask doctors questions because doctors are experts and you don’t ask experts questions--because that’s why you’re seeing them. Working class families tended toward something she called the “theory of natural growth,” something like that [ed note: her phrase is the “accomplishment of natural growth”], the idea being: let the kids be kids, set pretty firm distinctions between the adult world and the child world. So there are these authoritarian elements of the working class philosophy, but generally kids have a lot of space to themselves. They just kind of do what they need to do as kids. There are often many more siblings and other folks from the family that are of comparable age.

And then she tried to deal with poor families. And really most of the book that I remember when she’s writing about children growing up in poverty is thinly-veiled horror at the daily existence of their lives. Having to take a bus for an hour to try to get food stamps so that you can go get some bread, but it’s not enough. She’s just detailing the horrors of American poverty.

And I think I understood this all better in working in the environment I was working in for so long, and getting to know the students, and getting to know the distinctions between students. That’s another thing that I think happens, especially when people write about, quote, “urban education” -- by which they’re usually talking about high populations of students who are black or people of color -- you just homogenize the group benevolently. It’s like a benevolently homogenous group, so you’re all for the kids but you can’t see the distinctions between the kid who’s got the working class parents and the kid who’s really suffering from acute poverty and needs other kinds of assistance. So working so closely with so many with those kids helped me understand how poverty and working class families in our country are so intimately connected, and they’re part of what you could argue is the same socioeconomic bracket. What poverty is in America, to me, is just what happens when the bottom drops out of the working class and there’s nothing to protect anybody.

So what I had to do in working with my students was to really develop an understanding of who they were as -- I sound like John Lennon in the ‘60s, but -- who are they as working class people? And that was a lot of my own learning as a teacher. I had things I could teach -- everybody needs to know how to Google and how to make movies and how to write. But what I had to learn was what this whole social arrangement was, and how students’ lives before they ever came into my classroom affected both their attitudes toward learning and where they were going with it. That was most of what I learned.

So when I started reflecting it was like, “God, I don’t have a whole lot of cool pithy quotes about education because, like Annette Lareau, I’m just kind of struck by the horror of poverty, and I don’t have a lot to say about it!” How do you help this kid to learn...? “...But this kid is homeless! Oh my god, how could you let a child be homeless?” Those were the kinds of things I was dealing with.

It’s the kind of work I want to do -- but it’s a lot to process. How to write about it is very complicated.

SEC:

Let’s talk a little bit about how you found out who your students were. That relationship aspect is really important and I think a lot teachers believe in that, but I also think they are uncomfortable about how to go about that or what they might uncover when they go about it.

DCM:

I always told my students “I keep it 85.” They keep it a hundred, I keep it 85. I’d say, I’m your teacher, so there’s 15 percent of things I’m not going to tell you anything about but of the 85% of things I will talk about, I will be 100% honest about 85% of things. And that was important for me to be able to share with my students within boundaries that I set for myself but know that every time I talked to them I was coming from a place of honesty for myself. Because it allowed them to be honest with me, and so our dialogue kind of worked when they had trust in me.

The way they trusted me was to know that I was not putting on an act for them. I was who I was. And that meant some warts and all stuff -- we would talk a lot about how I’m a white male teacher and that’s a thing. We’d talk about school shootings and they’d say, “why do white guys do that stuff?” And we had to have conversations about that. I didn’t always have the answers, but we could have the dialogue because everything was kind of fair game in terms of what they could bring to me and how I would respond--as me. Even if that response was “I can’t say that, I can’t speak to that, I don’t know.” So that’s one of the ways I built trust.

What’s funny is that I think a lot of the teachers at my school thought that because I had an interest in popular music, that was something that gave me some capital with my students. It appears that way from the outside because I would know all of the music that they listened to, including the music they made. A lot of my kids made music, so I would always want to know who they were. But I don’t think that my fellow teachers understood that I didn’t actually like most of the music my students listened to and I wouldn’t have sought it out if they hadn’t been listening to it. But because they were listening to it, and because it was such a huge part of the classroom -- it was coming out of headphones and speakers and laptops all the time -- I wanted to know what this stuff was, because I was curious about it.

Some of it I ended up really liking. But I think that’s irrelevant, whether I liked it or not. The point was I was curious about it and I took it really seriously, the music they liked. Understanding what it was and why they liked it was really important for me. That was an element of the trust, but it’s connected to the first thing I was talking about, which is the honesty piece. I honestly was interested. I think for teachers that honestly aren’t interested in their kids’ music, don’t force it. It’s not going to work. Whether it is better to take an interest in your students music or popular culture or whatever or not, I don’t know. I read something the other day, some educator Twitter who talked about how they pretended to be interested in sports every year. They were so glad the basketball season was over so they didn’t have to pretend to be interested anymore for their students. And I was like, that’s terrible! If you’re not interested in basketball, just say that! I mean, be honest. And if you feel you should be interested in basketball because your students are interested in it, then come to it from a place of honest exploration of it and -- you know, if you still feel like it doesn’t matter, just be real with people about that.

It goes a longer way being honest with students about yourself and your shortcomings and everything, along with your strengths. That’s the other piece -- when I knew stuff, I told my kids, look, I’m sorry but I know a lot about this so I know you’re telling me this way you found this thing on the internet, and I’m telling you I know more about finding this thing on the internet than you do. I feel very comfortable saying that, this is the better way. But I limited the number of domains in which I would claim that kind of expertise. I tried to limit it to being on-topic in the classroom. I wouldn’t try to know everything about everything. When I don’t know stuff or don’t like stuff or don’t feel a certain way and feel comfortable enough to say it, I’m honest with them. In that way, you build a certain level of trust.

The other thing is -- and I hate to say it -- I was also the permissive uncle in terms of classroom discipline at my school. I’m the guy who you go to and he gives you the ice cream and mom and dad get upset: “We don’t give him ice cream and now he’s gonna ask us for ice cream every day for two weeks!” I was also that. But I don’t think that that was as big of a factor as my sense of wanting to know my students, within limits, and wanting them to feel that they can know me as well as I want to know them, that it’s two-way. Whatever I want to get from them, they should be able to get from me. And that’s why I was the permissive uncle. I don’t actually care that this kid did this in my class, so why would I go through the work of writing it up and making it a thing, when I don’t actually care about this? Now, from an organizational standpoint that’s not a great approach to take. I get that. Things break down when there’s not consistency among classrooms.

I guess it’s just to say, I wanted to know who these people in my room were, and that’s how I saw them. One thing I started writing when I got off of Twitter was that I think we have it backwards, especially for the age group I worked with, which was 16-21. Most of them were disconnected from formal school, although not entirely (it’s very complicated, especially in Philly). I feel like we tend to call kids “kids” in situations where we should think about them as adults, and we tend to call them adults in situations where we should be thinking about them as kids. To give you an example, we say that because this young woman has a baby even though she’s only 17, well, that makes her an adult. But because you are throwing pencils in my classroom, you’re a kid. Right?

And I would kind of flip that in my mind -- I didn’t realize I was doing this until I was reflecting on it. I’d say, look, if you’re 16 and you have a baby, this is a kid that just had a baby. Let’s think about the impact of the baby on this young person’s life. But if you threw a pencil at me in my room -- why did this adult in my room just throw a pencil at me? I’m not saying you should think about things this way or it’s better this way, I just realized that that is the approach that I took philosophically to who my students were. I was working with adults and they were adults in all the times when I most wanted to call them kids, and they were kids in the times that I think, maybe not me, but society wants them to be adults. Incarceration, teen pregnancy, all these big scary social problems, you have to think about what kind of things a person is going through-- and what is a person going through when they’re going through it at sixteen?

I think my students would judge me higher than a 7.4 as a teacher. But I also think that there were certain jobs I had as a teacher that I wasn’t as good at as other people are, and I’m pretty open about that. Organization of time. Having the plan set. Having the boundaries set. Making the space safe for learning. Making learning happen even when it’s hard. Those are the things that, because I was so interested in how people are feeling, “are we there today,” sometimes I could lower my standards, I could let the discipline slip and it affects other people’s learning. There are some teacherly things that I think I have a lot of work to do in my own professional development.

One way I started thinking about it early on was, in my first year, I was reading the John Lennon biography. (It’s weird I’ve mentioned John Lennon twice so far. I do love the Beatles.) And they’re describing Hamburg, their first big tour in Germany, how they got there with their songs and they realized after the first night that they’d played all their songs and they didn’t know anything else.

So they were in this crucible -- but not of creativity. They didn’t go to Hamburg and write their best stuff. They wrote their best stuff after Hamburg, after they’d gone through this crucible of performance. Performance, performance, performance. Play it again. When you run out of something, pick an old showtune that someone half-remembered. Steal songs from other people. Play the thing you just heard the other band play and see if you can do your own take on it. Not because it’s creative but because you have so much time to fill and you don’t have enough material. That’s how I felt after my first year teaching. There was so much time and I’d gone through everything, I felt I’d left it all on the floor in my first year and I had nothing left. I was already resorting to Googling lessons and trying to figure out what the hell I’m gonna do tomorrow.

And so I realized in my disposition, I’m thinking about the difference between being a composer or a songwriter versus being a performer. And how those things are often connected but they’re not the same. So maybe I’m a Carole King--a really good songwriter but it’s often better if other people sing my stuff. Even though there’s a couple things only I can sing. Other stuff, other people should probably do.

My relationship between curriculum and teaching is like that. I’m like a singer-songwriter more than I am a performer. That was a good realization to have, because it means there are some things I’m just never going to be the best at, and if I’m teaching full time again I need to work with those limitations. But that hadn’t hit home before. I could have abstractly said something like that before I was a full-time teacher, but you gotta feel it. You gotta understand what it feels like to run out of material and be empty and have nowhere to go. Every teacher goes through that. It usually happens in the first year if not the first month.

SEC:

That idea of teacher as performer--there’s a lot to unpack in that. When you’re a performer, what is the thing you’re trying to be? I don’t know that a lot of teachers think about who they’re trying to be. There’s a lot of thought about what they are trying to do. Not who they’re trying to be. Who you are informs a lot of what you do.

DCM:

Yeah -- it’s an imperfect metaphor. I mean, I think teaching as performance is only one, maybe even small element of teaching. There are a lot of non-performative teachers who are just really good at the nuts and bolts of getting people in a room to do something. That is a good teacher, too. It was more about the difference between imagining lessons and putting them into reality. Maybe because I’m a music guy that’s where my head went with it. But it is interesting to wonder, if teachers were performers, are there rock stars versus second-chair violins? Different ways to perform? I dunno, I don’t want to go too far with the metaphor, it’s tenuous enough as it is.

SEC:

I wanted to go back to one of the things you talked about in your observations. You were working at an alternative high school and a lot of the students who you were working with had so many gaps, or there were things in their background that had made them not love learning or not feel confident in learning. I’m curious about how in the high school situation, it’s hard to catch up with that background. I mean, maybe this is a Philly question. Where I am, we were the poverty capital of Canada for a long time, we may still be. There may be some overlap here. So what do you do in those cases? Because you talk about scaling up form elementary and how that might not work.

DCM:

It’s hard, because the tendency is to scale up from young. So where did you lose it with math? I have to be careful about my language here, because I don’t want to play into deficit thinking. I also don’t want to do the thing where I say there’s no such thing as a deficit, because if you talk to a student about their math abilities, they’ll be like, “I have a deficit! Please help me!”

If you find the point where the student disconnected -- to give an example I like to think about from my work, because it controls for a lot of other stuff -- take a student who is more or less engaged in the project of school and has not decided that school in and of itself is a bankrupt institution, but who also has real challenges with math. If there is some kind of specific learning disorder, it hasn’t been diagnosed, and it’s probably too late to be diagnosed, and it’s specific to math. What do you do?

I think the way that people tend to go about it, that I’ve seen, is to figure out what should have happened in fourth grade and figure out a way to do that fourth grade piece in high school. And I think that’s a problem, because I don’t think that it works very well, and it especially doesn’t work for kids who are not motivated. If it could work for anybody, it would be the student who is already motivated but happens to have this missing piece from fourth grade.

In this student’s case, it was literally that they had a bad math teacher in fourth grade and they struggled and failed math and they were kept back. So the kid gets to high school about a year or two late because of this math issue that he’s had that’s been unsupported, and now he’s at our school. And the question is, how do we work with the student who has a math issue? For me, the answer is one on one instructional time. And I hate to say that, because what it means is that the classroom itself is not the space to deal with this.

And that’s a very uncomfortable realization that I started to have as I was working through this with my students -- that I can differentiate, differentiate, differentiate, but when the gaps are so large...I don’t know. I feel like this student needs an hour of an expert’s time that is a reading specialist or a math specialist. Then there needs to be something else happening in the classroom environment.

I think a lot of the issues are a little like that. From the reading perspective it’s even more complicated, because these practices of literacy are so intertwined with content knowledge, background knowledge, cultural context, how you were taught phonics from a very early age, basic decoding that may have happened in weird ways.

What you can do at the high school level is you just set the bar really high for everybody, but you don’t assume that anybody actually knows how to read. You set the bar for everything else really high, and you don’t do the basal reader with the sixteen year old. If they’re interested in mass incarceration, you read about mass incarceration. But they may not be able to read what you’re using --so you use the exact same resource and you use every trick in the book to get them reading as much as they can -- chunking it out, working on smaller passages, connecting it together. I don’t know what all the best practices here are. I’m probably going to go back to school at some point to learn some of this stuff, in terms of literacy coaching.

I do think that we tend to level kids in ways that are really counter-productive to their ability to see the point in education in a big picture sense. When you’re going into school and you’re sixteen years old and you’re reading the “adapted reading” that is really not very good--these adapted readings tend to be very poor quality. I had a person that I worked with who used a website that would replace words with easier words with an algorithm. I would read the results and think, this is garbage! You took a really cool article and you changed all the words in it! You can’t just do that! “I’m gonna take this song that I love but I’m going to change every other note in the melody and I’m sure it’ll be just as good.” That’s not gonna work.

So I think you treat the group that you’re with as capable of taking whatever they can talk to you about. And then you think of literacy as a very specific set of practices, and that different pieces of it need to be emphasized in different ways. For my students, maybe everybody has to do some pretty high level vocabulary and then there are a lot of strategies for how do we chunk out this reading, which is really difficult for some kids, only a little difficult for other kids, and pretty much in the comfort zone for the others. You kind of have to sit down with the kids and go through it sentence by sentence, talk about it, re-read it--OK, so what is this saying? Why does it say it like this? And for the students who struggle with print literacy, it’s just going to take longer. I don’t know if there’s any way around that.

I don’t know what it looks like in the long-term, because I also don’t know what the proper amount of time is. I also feel like students weirdly have too much time in school and not enough time with some fairly uncomfortable, hardcore learning. They spend a lot of time in this building but the times at which they’re really doing cognitively challenging work is not nearly as concentrated as it needs to be.

I played piano as a kid, and practice is awful. I had to practice every day, and as soon as I stopped practicing every day I got worse. I could practice for one hour and then I was just done. If I could practice for an hour every day for a week, I got better, and when I didn’t do that I got worse.

But I feel like the problem is that in school, you don’t have one hour, you have six hours, each of which is a one-hour block. But you can’t practice for six hours. You can’t do cognitively challenging work for six hours. So it seems like the better thing to do would be to really target the time when you are doing the most cognitively challenging stuff, do it for an hour, and then take a break and do cool stuff that’s not that.

But I don’t know how you square that, because every teacher kind of feels like they’re in their own little island of content and they don’t realize that by the time you have the kids for fifth period they’ve been doing this all day. They’re not even doing cognitively challenging hour-long work. What ends up happening is that everybody kind of blands out. So you’re doing 20% cognitively challenging here, and 50% here, and maybe 0% there because you were asleep that period. It’s just not organized very well for what I think the challenge really is, which is that learning is really hard, the more you miss early on the harder it is to make up later, and the ways that you make it up later require more investment and more resources, not less. We want to do the opposite. We want to say, what’s the fastest way we can get this kid to learn all the crap they didn’t learn in the last twelve years? Well, I don’t think you can. Maybe the answer to that is that it’s not possible. I don’t know.

JEC:

We’re coming up on an hour now and I didn’t talk about any of the media stuff -- we’ll set up another call. I’ve enjoyed all of this time and want to put it all up.

DCM

Sure! You basically got everything I’ve done except the media literacy work, which is fine because actually media literacy is a whole separate thing we could talk about.

JEC:

That’s good. The work of Julie Coiro and Renee Hobbs, their work and your involvement in that, has been really interesting to me as I’ve been doing the same thing as you have in a lesser scale for the last few years. I really want to talk about that. So I’ll start wrapping it up and ask, what would be a resource you might recommend to someone?

DCM

The one book that I recommend to people is Inside Teaching by Mary Kennedy, whose big project as a scholar is understanding why reform tends not to work in schools. The reason it doesn’t work is that most reforms don’t fully grasp the day to day practices that teachers have to accomplish to do their job. And if you don't understand the very intimate details of on-the-ground work in schools, there is no reform that's going to change anything, because you don't actually understand what you’re doing. You have an idea, but you don’t know how to implement it at all.

Inside Teaching is a series of observations about how teachers manage in the classroom. They manage their time, they manage their resources, they manage their sanity, their tranquility. And that, to me, was one of the single biggest insights I ever had about teaching, and I reflected on it a ton when I was doing my full-time teaching, which is that teachers really value tranquility in the classroom, and soundness, this feeling of safety and quiet. And the reason is because they're teaching for so long that if you don’t have that, you burn out immediately.

It’s one thing to be a cool engaging college professor and teach people three days a week and you have a little seminar room or whatever -- I’ve done that kind of teaching, it’s a blast. And I can be on all of the time! As you can probably tell already from this conversation I can be very on. But if you teach full time, you get there at like 8 a.m. and you leave at 5 p.m., you can’t be on for that whole time. You will physically blow a circuit. So her observation about what teachers do to manage that was so interesting.

She has this really big picture critique of reform movements in education that are not ground-up from teachers. What I like about it is that she doesn’t have any clear ideas about what teachers should be doing, just that if you don’t have their buy-in, nothing that you do is actually going to matter very much. And the other insight there is that there are really good reasons why schools operate the way they do, even in the most dysfunctional school systems and spaces, and you should really put some effort into understanding exactly why things are the way they are. Because if you change one thing about it, you don’t realize you’ve also changed five other things that are connected to this one fix. There’s no way for ideas to fix organizational issues if you don’t really understand how the organization works.

I return to that book a lot because it just it’s really a nice perspective on what teaching is, and why a lot of our best ideas about education don’t actually seem to work when you put it into effect. And the answer is it works for something, but not for teaching. This cool idea you had is a good idea for something, just not for this. It’s because there’s no way to sustain it. So that’s the book I would recommend.

If you’re a science teacher, I just read a cool science book. I’m the type of person that thinks the last book they read is the best book ever written, and then promptly forgets it existed after I read the next book.

The book I just read was Life Ascending by Nick Lane. It’s a science book and it goes through, from this microbiology perspective, everything from the origins of life through the development of most of the major processes of life, and it was a very cool, cosmic look at everything. I kept reading it thinking, “God, I wish I was helping teach a science class again, because I could talk about this stuff and kids would be interested in cells because they would know why it’s like this.” I never knew! There’s so much stuff I actually never knew even though I, quote, “learned it in school.” I learn it again later and I’m like, “oh, I didn’t know this at all! I don’t know anything about this!” I could have told you what mitochondria were but now I actually understand mitochondria--it’s profound. I love that book because every chapter is like that for something science-related and I have a really hard time finding accessible math and science literature that makes accessible not only what happens, but why it matters and what the context is, so that was cool.

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harunoyousei · 5 years

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1. 星からきたおしゃまなチビ (The Precocious Little Girl From Another Planet) - Transcript

Hello! I have no idea when I will have the time to do more of these, or refine them properly, but as we all know the subtitle situation with this show, I wanted to attempt my best shot at writing a more coherent translation, even if my skills are rudimentary at best. And so I present to you...an English transcript of Episode 1!

(A star descends upon a small island somewhere on Earth.)

Narrator: On the Alps Mountains lives a colony of people. Near there resides a nameless lake. On that lake there is a small island where 246 people live. Hm? The people must be sleeping! It sure looks habitable, wouldn’t you agree?

Memole and friends come bouncing by in pursuit of an equal-sized frog. Lupang manages to scare the creature so Memole can capture it in her pointed hat.

Narrator: Aren’t they sweet? This is where the people of Planet Rilulu made their emergency landing. Since then they have remained here.

Memole and Lupang peer over some rocks to see two village elders playing music and singing.

Barbara: Lady Memole, where have you been? It’s late! Master has been so irritable.

Memole: No worries!

Master: Still showing such disobedience…

Poppit: Man, this is the stuff!

(The previously captured frog escapes from Memole’s hat.)

Memole: Don’t come out!

Narrator: The people of Rilulu have yet to see a human. On their planet, cats are considered the enemy. Today is a day of defensive training.

(An elder costumed as a cat begins tickling the children with a cattail plant. Memole begins giggling loudly, alerting his attention.)

Master: HEY! Memole!! Yet again with you?

Memole: I can’t help it! It’s so funny!

Master: You shouldn’t be having funny thoughts at a time like this! You should be thinking SERIOUS thoughts!

Memole: I’m laughing because the song’s so funny!

Poppit: Hey, are you trying to say my dad’s singing is funny?

Memole: Oh, Poppit! Don’t you find it funny?

Poppit: There’s nothing funny about it! Don’t mock my dad or I’ll never forgive you.

Poppit’s Dad: Don’t be that way, Poppit. Even if you aspire to be a great musician, you’d probably only be admired 100 years after your death.

Master: No, no no. You’re already admired!

(Barbara notices a disturbance.)

Poppit’s Dad: Aww no, you’re too kind!

Lupang’s Dad: To be honest, I think people are the funniest thing. Yet I can’t bring myself to laugh at you, you’re just too sincere.

Poppit’s Dad: Oh, come on! Don’t tell me you’re kissing up to me? (he laughs, and Barbara joins in.)

Memole gasps in horror as she realizes what’s gotten into Barbara—the frog she caught earlier!

Memole: Hey! Don’t pull pranks like that.

Master: It’s your doing again!

Memole, leaping away: I’m sorry!

Master: Wait!

(He stumbles and falls off the stump.)

(Cut to Memole’s house, where she is being punished by Barbara.)

Memole: Stop it! Barbara, you pervert!

Barbara: With your mother being on another planet, it’s my job to punish you in her stead.

(Barbara proceeds to spank Memole.)

Memole: Ow! Ladies shouldn’t be treated like this! Let go!

Master: Barbara, I think that’s quite enough.

Barbara: Yes, Master. I apologize for my actions, Miss.

Memole: You really think an apology solves everything?

Master: Memole! You know I am the leader of Rilulu’s people. How am I going to keep this title if my own grandchild won’t behave?

Memole: Well, you could always quit being the leader, right?

Barbara: My! What are you saying, Miss?

Master: Hey, Memole. What is the purpose of the exercise I put you and the rest through? Do you understand it?

Memole: Yes! I understand, I understand. It’s to protect ourselves from the kitty-cats.

Master: Very good.

Barbara: To the people of Rilulu, there is no creature more dangerous than a cat.

Memole: And on top of that, cats like to eat smaller animals, like us.

Master: If you know this, then why weren’t you participating?

Memole: Because! Don’t you think it’d be better for me to learn to leap like a frog?

Barbara: How could you say such a thing? No matter what, you have to place high importance on safety.

Master: If it weren’t for those cats, we’d be here with our population of four hundred. The day we tried to escape from the cats proved us a little too carefree.

(We are shown the spaceship on the day of escape.)

Man: Big trouble!!

Master: What’s going on?

Man: It’s the engine! It’s been disrupted!

Master: Huh!?

Man: It’s because this was stuck inside it!

Master: Wait, isn’t that catnip?

(Everyone screams as the ship begins to crash.)

Master: How Rilulu’s people came to settle on Earth is all the fault of the kitty-cat.

Memole: But it’s been a year since we came to live on Earth and we haven’t seen a sign of them yet. They’re not gonna show up!

Master: Don’t let your guard down! Ahh! (He is blown over.)

Barbara: Master!

(The door rattles.)

Barbara: Such incredible wind…

Master: Hmm. I’m wondering if this’ll be a typhoon.

Memole: Tee hee! That’d be fun!

Barbara: Miss, what are you saying?

Memole: ‘Cause if there’s a storm we won’t have to do our kitty-cat exercises tomorrow!

Master: Memole…don’t you see this isn’t a good sign? This could be the beginning of something worse.

(Barbara cowers.)

Man: Chief Rilulu, this is bad! Strange objects have fallen into the lake.

Master: What did you say!?

Everyone heads outside in spite of the strong winds to find what appear to be a giant shoe and a perfume bottle washed ashore. A pair of giant glasses sits atop a rock.

Man: Where could this have come from?

Lupang’s Dad: Perhaps it’s an advertisement from an eyewear store.

Memole, inspecting a large pipe: How do you play with it?

Master: It could have been sent from the kitty-cats. Maybe it’s an omen.

Man: Kitty-cats?

Lupang’s Dad: I think it could be.

Man: Kitty-cats!?

Memole: Grandpa! Can I have this shoe?

Master: No! We must be careful. If the items are missing we’ll have to set them aside responsibly.

Memole: Hmph! This shoe’s so big, where are you going to hide it?

(Memole hears a whistle.)

Memole: It’s Lupang!

(She hops over.)

Memole: What’s up, Lupang?

Lupang: C’mere, quick!

Memole: What is it?

Lupang: Ryukuman is back!

Memole: Huh!?

(Memole stumbles and slips off a leaf.)

Memole: Really?

Lupang: But…but… he’s died!

(Memole gasps.)

(The trio make a mad dash to Ryukuman’s dwelling place.)

Memole: Ryukuman!!

Pea: He’s dead!

Memole: Ryukuman…

Poppit: It looks like he’s been dead for about two weeks.

Memole: Huh? How would you know that?

Poppit: Look at this. A bird came to make its nest and laid its eggs here. That’s why I think it’s been at least two weeks.

Lupang: Pitiful… if only we’d known earlier, we could have saved him.

(Memole uproots a blue flower and places it at Ryukuman’s side.)

Memole: When Ryukuman was alive, he loved this kind of flower.

(Ryukuman begins to awake, much to everyone’s shock, and sneezes the nest away.)

Memole: He’s alive!

Ryukuman: Oh, it’s you guys! I’m sorry I ruined the nest.

Lupang: The bird flew off a long time ago.

Ryukuman: Well, that’s a relief. I was napping when it made that nest on me. I didn’t dare move!

Memole: Have you been asleep till now?

Poppit: What? You’ve got a lot of persistence!

Ryukuman: That’s how I live. Memole, thank you so much. (He hands her the flower.)

Lupang: We hadn’t seen you in so long, we assumed you’d gone traveling.

Ryukuman: I was traveling in my dreams!

Memole: Traveling in your dreams?

Ryukuman, as birds land on him: Oh! We’re taking off again?

Pea, pointing to a bird: Hm? What’s that he’s got?

(Ryukuman picks up the key.)

Ryukuman: Oh, it’s…

Pea: Can I eat it?

Ryukuman: (Laughs.) This is called a key. If you put it in a hole you can enter.

Pea, lifting up his shirt to reveal his bellybutton: Can it go in this hole?

Ryukuman: (Laughs.) You can’t open a stomach.

Memole: Then what DOES it open?

Ryukuman: You use it to open a door, or perhaps the lock of a safe if you have valuables you don’t want stolen.

Poppit: Stolen? Are there any such valuables in this village?

Memole: Hey, yeah! Usually if anyone in our village wants something, we all share it. What about what’s left over?

Lupang: Dad and I deal with the leftovers.

Ryukuman: Then what could this key be for?

(Everyone is stumped.)

Memole: Hey, Ryukuman! How about you trust me with the key?

Ryukuman: Huh? Well, I suppose I don’t mind…

(He hands her the key.)

Memole: Thank you!

Lupang: What do you need that for?

Memole: The greatest! (She leaps away.)

Everyone: Memole! Where are you going? Memole! (They chase after her.)

Memole: I’m going to use it to open something!

Lupang: Open what?

Memole: You’ll see!

(The two chase each other past a log bridge and through tall blades of a grass until they reach an opening with a view of a human-sized, dilapidated windmill building.)

Memole: Here it is!

Pea: It’s huge!

(Eyecatch intermission.)

Poppit: Memole, don’t go in there! There could be evil spirits.

Memole: Don’t be so scared! We’re just gonna have a little look.

Pea: Big brother, I’m scared!

Lupang: M-Memole, is this really alright?

Memole: Don’t worry, don’t worry!

(She turns the key and opens the door.)

Memole: It’s open!

Poppit: Be careful, Memole…

(They gasp in wonder at their new surroundings and begin to head up a ladder.)

Pea: Ah, it’s something to eat!

(He slips, and the resulting shake sends everyone scrambling. The team walks upstairs through an opening and onto a shelf containing many human-sized items.)

Memole: Hey, over here! Look, look!

Poppit: What kind of people on this island have use for such gargantuan objects?

Lupang: If such people exist, we’ve got something much bigger to fear than the kitty-cats!

Poppit: Just because they’re bigger doesn’t mean they’re scarier.

Memole, looking at a perfume bottle: Huh? What is this?

Lupang, squishing the sprayer: This is really soft!

(He jumps on it, the resulting blast squirting Memole in the eye and knocking her unconscious.)

Everyone: Memole!!

Poppit: Memole! Wake up!

Pea: Is she dead!?

Lupang: Memole!

Poppit: What if that jar contained poison?

(Transition to Lupang at Memole’s house.)

Barbara: Oh no, this is awful! Master, Master!!

Master: What’s the matter?

Barbara: Master, it’s about Miss…

Master: Did she go off to play with that frog again?

Barbara: No. She went to the windmill house to play…

Master: What!? (He falls out of his chair.) Oh, gone, gone, gone! Where has my key gone!?

Barbara: Master, w-whatever it is, Miss is in trouble!

Master: What’s happened to Memole?!

(Cut back to Memole and the gang.)

Master: Memole…

Barbara: Miss…

Master: Memole, it’s me, Grandpa!

Barbara: And Barbara.

Memole: Oh no! Did I fall asleep?

Poppit: You didn’t fall asleep, you lost consciousness!

Lupang: I’m sorry, Memole…

Memole: That’s right! There was a wonderful scent coming from this bottle, and I had a beautiful dream. Lupang! Thank you.

Master: Memole, give me back that key.

Memole: Yes…

Master: Ryukuman, what have you done…?

(Transition to Ryukuman playing in a tree.)

Ryukuman: Back to stealing my meals, eh? I suppose the food’s better than my playing, haha.

(The group resumes musical defense routines on the stumps.)

Poppit: Ugh! We have to do these exercises again.

Lupang: It’s all because of what we got up to…

Pea: What do you mean?

Lupang: It’s thanks to Memole!

Master: HEY! Quit slacking off, I mean it!

(A “cat” proceeds to tickle the group. Memole suddenly breaks into sobs that interrupt everybody.)

Barbara: Miss?

Master: Memole, why are you crying?

Memole: Grandpa, didn’t you say it before that when I laugh, it’s followed by something sad? Because…I’m thinking about Papa and Mama on Rilulu…

(She sobs louder.)

Barbara: Miss…

(Memole watches a mother duck bond with its young, then the scene cuts to Ryukuman at a bonfire with some baby chicks.)

Ryukuman: Alright, alright, there you go! Sheesh, I’m not your mother. (The birds swarm him.)

(Memole is crying on the log where she looks over the lakeside.)

Lupang: Memole, don’t cry anymore…

Memole: I can’t help it. I keep worrying about Papa and Mama.

Poppit: But they’re on Rilulu.

Memole: But things didn’t seem right when they appeared in my dream…

Pea: In your dream?

Memole: Yeah…

(Ryukuman approaches the group.)

Ryukuman: There you guys are! Hurry and help me!

Poppit: What’s the matter?

Ryukuman: Where do I begin? These chicks needs help finding their mother.

Poppit: It’s those birds we saw from before!

Memole: They’ve lost their mother?

Lupang: Maybe they got lost looking for food?

Poppit: No, birds don’t wander off like that.

Memole: But why did it abandon its children?

Lupang: Maybe it’s been caught by an eagle…

Pea: Yeah!

(The chicks continue to badger Ryukuman.)

Memole: Hey, how about we go look for their mother?

Poppit: Right!

Memole: (She waves her umbrella.) Bobo!

(Bobo comes flying toward the scene.)

Poppit: Alright, Bobo! We’re counting on you to help find their mother!

(They take off.)

Poppit and Memole: Mother!

Memole: Look, Poppit!

(An eagle can be seen squawking at some birds in the hole of a tree.)

Poppit: Hey, in that hole…

Memole: I wonder if it’s the mother? Hey, Mr. Eagle!

Poppit: Memole, knock it off!

Memole: Over here!

(The eagle charges them.)

Memole: Bobo! Faster, faster!

Poppit: He can’t fly like that with us both on him!

Memole: Then let me jump off! (She leaps, and lands on the eagle.)

Poppit: Memole! Get back here!

Memole: I can’t! (She squeals as she falls, landing sloppily onto the mushroom-laden trunk of a tree below.)

Barbara: Miss! Miss! Ryukuman, have you seen Memole anywhere?

Ryukuman: Hm? So she’s not home?

Barbara: She always comes home by now for snacks…

Ryukuman: She’s probably somewhere hereabouts…I wouldn’t worry.

Poppit: Memole! Memole, where are you?

(Poppit stumbles around, and is startled by a group of bats.)

Memole: Ouch! OUCH!

Poppit: Huh!? Memole!

(An animal lurking in the shadow charges at them both, and they fall to another enclosure. The sound of a piano can be heard in the distance as they look on to a building.)

Poppit: What’s that sound?

Memole: I’ve never heard something so beautiful…

(They hop closer to take a better look.)

Memole: What a gigantic house…

Poppit: We’ve got to keep a distance!

Memole: I don’t care if it kills me, I’ve got to see it for myself!

Poppit: Memole!

Memole: I wonder what kind of people could live in such a big house?

Poppit: Probably the same people who wear those huge kinds of shoes we saw!

(Poppit and Memole are now inspecting the inside of the house from a window. A cat approaches and they scream in terror.)

Memole: Play dead!

(The cat paws curiously at them both.)

Mariel: Jojo! What are you doing? Come here! (She resumes playing the piano, with the cat in her lap.)

Poppit: So this is the kind of person who lives on this planet…

Memole: They look just like a big version of us…!

Poppit: She’s near one of those kitty-cats, and she’s not even afraid!

Memole: …She plays amazingly…

Narrator: Memole wants nothing more than to befriend this huge person. She may have been frightened upon seeing her, but will this girl feel the same about Memole? Will Memole’s voice be heard?

#little memole #memoru #tongari boushi no memole #tongari boushi no memoru #80s anime #transcript #fansub #memole

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possiblyimbiassed · 7 years

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What happened to Sherlock? Part II – Re-living memories

What is it actually that we witness in the TV show Sherlock? Is it Sherlock’s and John’s ‘reality’? Is it John Watson’s perspective, as in ACD canon? Or is it something entirely different? After S4 many viewers – including hard-core fans – lost their faith in BBC Sherlock. The characters we had learned to love (or hate) were ‘failing’ in S4: Sherlock seemed to have stopped solving crimes, John had turned into a violent wreck, ‘Mary’ the Assassin was suddenly a hero and there was not a trace of anything similar to a coherent plot line. In many ways this series seemed to have reduced the whole show into a caricature of its former self, and not much hope has been given that we can expect some change in the future.

But everything is relative, as Einstein might have said. :) What we expected of S4 was based on what the show had been to us up until then. So to comprehend what we’re actually looking at in S4, we need to first analyse what we were actually seeing in the first three series of the show – at least up until TSoT.

Picture source (X)

This meta series is an attempt to look at BBC Sherlock with a ‘scientific’ approach; to set up hypotheses and predictions, test them and thereby try to solve the puzzles presented to us, the audience, by the show. The methods I’m trying to use here are explained in the introduction. For this particular meta I’m also using a Word-transcript of John’s blog, where I have been able to use the program’s word count to compare the length of different blog-posts.

Hypothesis #1 was this: John’s blog is the most truthful account of the actual events. I did a couple of predictions and compared them to my observations. My conclusion was that yes, this hypothesis does hold water. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true, but there is some evidence for it, and I haven’t seen it de-bunked just yet. So in the continuing analyses I’ll assume that Hypothesis #1 is true, that the blog is indeed more reliable than the TV show, at least when it comes to retelling the actual events (but not when it comes to John’s opinion of what’s going on in other people’s heads).

And now we get to the next hypothesis to explore, #2:

Hypothesis #2: The show up until John’s wedding is Sherlock re-living their story together in his MP, after reading John’s blog.

John’s blog is, in my opinion, rather straightforward in its description of John’s and Sherlock’s ‘adventures’. But as such, you could also argue that it is a bit dull; the blog does not quite live up to the ACD canon level of describing the events – far from it in fact. The John Watson that got published in The Strand Magazine used a lot more romantic and sometimes almost poetic language.

In this meta I intend to go through the TV show Sherlock from ASiP to TSoT, and analyse the perspective that the episodes are written from. I will stop at TSoT, though, since I see many clear differences between the show up until this episode and HLV. But that difference will be handled in a future meta about Hypothesis #4 (see the full list in the introduction, scroll down to the bottom)

This is a loooong meta, but please bear with me, because I do believe this is important. You’ll find most of it under the cut.

First of all, I want to give full credits for hypothesis #2 to @raggedyblue, who presented this idea to me in a comment to another thread, where we were discussing how reliable certain scenes in the show are. When I read it, suddenly it felt like some important pieces were falling into place, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

Here is an excerpt from it:

“We are in Sherlock’s MP and we see his version of history from the beginning, because he was doped and started re-reading John’s blog. Because he is a romantic bastard after all. Then he was taken away, lost his control, and now he’s looking to return. In the show we never see any “real” scene. We’re in the funny, old Sherlock’s head. He’s reliving the facts up to where he was present, the wedding, and then he’s going ahead, trying to solve the situation in his head”.

But before this, the idea of us being in Sherlock’s ‘Extended Mind Palace from start’ had also been suggested by @kateis-cakeis, for example in this meta. Together with @ebaeschnbliah and @sherlockshadow, @kateis-cakeis has for example discovered that the Pilot is a complete mirror to ASiP! More about that in a moment. @sherlockshadow also makes a good and logical case for ‘EMP from start’ in this meta. Update: Thanks to @ebaeschnbliah, I also got the opportunity to read this interesting meta from @fandeadgloves, which makes a good case for why the whole show is probably seen from Sherlock’s POV.

Review vs analysis

But how do we know these ideas are not just wishful thinking? As I said in the beginning, it’s easy to get the impression after S4 that this whole show is something of a joke – if you take it at face value. If you believed it would be presented very much like ACD canon, albeit in modern England, you might have felt as disappointed as the guy who made this review video. And I think this is very important, because he is far from the only voice saying this. In fact I’d suspect that a majority of viewers might agree with many points he makes.

This guy has composed a long (almost 2 hours!) review of BBC Sherlock - the whole of it - and he makes a lot of interesting observations. Like for example the often overly dramatic music, the over-dramatized scenes, the excess of sound effects, but also that there’s a lot of plot holes. And he brings up all kinds of ‘baiting’ of the audience and the manipulative writing style with cliff hangers that never pay off. And – most importantly I think – the fact that the viewers are never given enough information to be able to actually solve the crime cases with their own brains; we’re forever left to just marvel at Sherlock’s greatness. So it’s obvious that he has indeed watched the show – and most probably done an amazing job collecting stuff for the review.

But he also seems to automatically assume that the purpose of BBC Sherlock is to show the crime case solving that Sherlock Holmes does, very much the same way as in ACD canon, and in most of the following adaptations, only this time in a modern environment. He assumes that this is a modern detective story, rather than a story about a detective.

But to me this feels a bit like reading John Watson’s blog, where Sherlock asks: “What about the analysis, John?”

I think Sherlock has a point here. The thing is that John, while good at finding clues, he never, as far as I can recall, really tries to analyse or deduce something. Except in TAB’s Victorian setting, which is definitely happening inside Sherlock’s head,

and in TLD, where a ghost starts to deduce things for him). John is mostly far too busy making assumptions and jumping to conclusions about people’s motives, at least on the blog:

But this guy who made the video even recommends us to not analyse the details of the show too much! (at 49:51 minutes into the video). He is bitterly disappointed (and many with him, I imagine – I’ve seen a lot of criticism where people dismiss the whole show as ‘badly written’) that the show doesn’t give us more episodes where we can follow Sherlock Holmes’ deductive reasoning to solve crime cases. But at the same time, his own video is full of assumptions about the show-makers’ motives (very much like John’s assumptions about Sherlock’s motives), and he utterly refuses to use Sherlock’s method of deduction and logical reasoning himself, while looking at the show as a whole.

Isn’t this a bit contradictory? Because if you find this many inconsistencies and crazy things in a show about a detective, I think you should ask yourself “why is this? What could the writers possibly have wanted to convey? What is actually going on here?” And then you go through each of these observations and try to figure this out, you try to make sense of them, preferably also trying to think ‘outside of the box’.

Example: According to this guy’s video the Pilot is far ‘better’ made than ASiP, for a series of reasons – most of them based on opinions about how a ‘good’ show should be constructed. But there’s no deeper comparative analysis between them that tries to find out why these episodes are so different and maybe suggest an alternative explanation. The judgment is done, end of story.

On the other hand, this video made by @kateis-cakeis (also referring to @sherlockshadow and @ebaeschnbliah) is also about the Pilot and ASiP, but the focus is on the data, and what patterns can be seen. They do suggest an explanation, but it’s presented as a theory, not a final conclusion. They have gone through a long series of similar scenes in both episodes, one by one, and found out that they are (almost) perfect mirrors to each other. People and objects that are positioned at one side in the Pilot is placed at the other side in ASiP, and so on. They’ve found a very distinct pattern that is difficult to explain away as coincidence. That’s a scientific approach; you use detailed analysis and deduction rather than jump to conclusions based on assumptions. You look at the pieces of the puzzle and try to figure out how they can fit together, and you use your own (and your peers’) creativity doing it. You may not reach a definitive answer right away, but you will have collected sufficient data to have a much better foundation for your future conclusions. And once you publish your thoughts, others can use your data to do their own analysis, and so on.

So what does this mirror analysis tell us? Well, most of all I think it shows that this show can’t be just about the crime cases; there’s something else going on here - otherwise the show makers wouldn’t have arranged details in this manner. So maybe we have to look for answers about this show elsewhere than in the actual crime solving. Because if the crime cases are the important puzzles to solve, why are we looking at a series of therapy sessions involving the main characters, that are mirrored already in Pilot/ASiP and have an increasingly iconic setup throughout the show? What has that to do with crime solving?

I think it’s logical, though; we can’t follow Sherlock’s deductions about the cases because that’s not what we’re supposed to solve - that’s Sherlock’s job!! But we can use deduction to figure out what’s on Sherlock’s mind, why he and John need therapy. But then we have to think outside the box and imagine that we really are inside Sherlock’s head instead of our own.

You could argue, of course, that TV audiences shouldn’t have to be (almost) scientists or psychologists to be able to enjoy a show. But maybe we don’t have to be, maybe we just need to learn Sherlock’s method. There are so ridiculously many TV shows that don’t require a single thought “outside of the box” from its viewers. So why shouldn’t this one, which is the story about a genius detective, at least require some brain gymnastics from its viewers? Something new, not just the usual stuff?

OK, enough of ranting and opinions for a while – let’s start the actual analysis!

Testing process, fueled by more observations:

So – just like last time we’ll make some testable predictions, but this time regarding the TV show (compared to the blog), to see if we can figure this out. This time I suggest four predictions to test.

Prediction 1. If Hypothesis #2 is correct, then there might be some indications in the show that Sherlock has been reading John’s blog - reading it carefully.

Observations:

Sherlock has made comments to John’s blogposts for a long time, but not in a particularly interested way; it took him two months before he discovered the first posts John made about their “adventures” together:

But here it says that he has ‘glanced over it’, which seems to mean that he hasn’t read it more thoroughly. He seems to be more focused on the form and grammar of John’s blogposts than on the actual content, and his comments are mostly rather brief.

In the show, he seems to express (or fake? ;) ) a certain indifference towards what John is actually writing.

Maybe Sherlock can’t seem to bother too much with such trivialities as making a good blogpost (actually I suspect he’s more interested in hanging over John’s shoulder.. ;) )?

And he doesn’t seem to notice how much the blog means to John.

But he does get annoyed when John is presenting him in ways that don’t please him.

But there are two occasions when Sherlock definitely has shown interest in John’s blog - and none of them are covered by the TV show. The first one was when he ‘went through’ the blog searching for someone who could help him with a case (Death by Twitter is the blog title) by opening a closed facebook account. And he found “theimprobableone” (Moriarty?), who apparently then helped to solve the case.

And the second occasion is directly after the wedding, when he hacks the blog under the pretext of uploading wedding photos:

But he also adds a whole post about ‘sex holidays’, boredom and death and a string of comments at the course of two-three days. This time he really does seem to have nothing else to do than to read John’s blog and try to get some attention from its followers. I’ve written a meta about what I believe Sherlock’s messages meant here. John himself is on honeymoon, tells Sherlock to shut up and never writes a word about the wedding once it’s over, neither does he seem to appreciate Sherlock’s wedding photos, since he doesn’t even mention them. One might wonder why - wasn’t this supposed to be one of the happiest events in John’s life? Wouldn’t he even want to write a single line about it on his own blog?

There are quite a lot of talk about memories in BBC Sherlock; @sarahthecoat has made a useful list of books and other kinds of memory storage devices here. Memories indeed seems to be one of the recurring themes in this show, which also is a factor in backing up Hypothesis #2, I believe. And the blog as such is perhaps one of the most important memory devices, since John has given a thorough account of his and Sherlock’s life together - it’s like a public diary over their relationship. So let’s do an imaginative experiment - here’s a possible scenario that would fit with Prediction #1 for Hypothesis #2:

Let’s say that while John is on honeymoon for several days, probably about a week, Sherlock is at home in 221B - heartbroken, lonely and depressed. He has lost John forever (at least that’s what he believes), but he doesn’t quite understand what went wrong between them. He has quit working; he can’t really focus on anything else than John for the moment. And in his solitude, he begins to re-read John’s whole blog during this week, because he needs to know. He is not yet willing to engage with his own feelings for John, but in order to try and figure out ‘objectively’ what happened, he enters his mind palace and starts re-running the scenes from his memories, based on John’s blog entries. And this is the show as we see it from the beginning.

A wild idea, right? Is there really any evidence in the TV show to back up this scenario, to tell us that Sherlock was reading John’s blog during this time? Well, yes, I think there is. Apart from the ones presented above, I also think the show tells us about this specifically, it’s just that we see it after it happened, played out in an imaginative universe inside Sherlock’s mind palace:

Exhibit A: In TAB, which I’m going to assume almost entirely happens in Sherlock’s imagination (see lots of evidence for this in EMP theory), Mycroft talks about Sherlock’s recent OD and his history of drug use and then says this:

This is Mycroft saying this - on a subtextual level believed to represent Sherlock’s brain, and on a meta level he represents Mark Gattiss, the storyteller.

But if (at least) the second part of HLV also happens in Sherlock’s MP, then there is no Sherlock murdering Magnussen, consequently no prison for Sherlock, right? Thus MP!Mycroft is referring to something else - and what might that be? I think he’s referring to Sherlock locking himself up in 221B for a week in solitary confinement, starting to re-read John’s blog and re-living all his memories with John - including the most heart-breaking ones.

Exhibit B: Before this moment in TAB, when Sherlock has just woke up from his gay Victorian fever dream OD and starts babbling about Emilia Ricoletti, ‘Mary’ grabs his iPhone and says:

And if this scene also happens inside Sherlock’s head (EMP theory again), this evidence from MP!Mary points in the same direction: yes - Sherlock has been reading up on John’s blog, the story of how they met and of how they lived together at 221B. And with this, assuming EMP theory is correct about TAB being mind palace, I think Prediction #1 actually passes the test, and we can go on and make a second prediction.

Prediction 2. If Hypothesis #2 is correct, then some irregular patterns in the blog might have influenced Sherlock’s memory when he read it, and these irregularities would consequently also be reflected in the show. (If the show, on the other hand, shows us the ‘reality’, there would be no such corresponding pattern = 0 hypothesis).

Observations: Let’s compare the blog posts with their representation in the TV show.

Some of the more lengthy and thoroughly described blogposts are A Study in Pink (1742 words), The Blind Banker (1084), The Great Game (2323) and The Hounds of Baskerville (1373). Each of these has a whole episode in the show. I would also venture to say that they are all among the episodes with the most coherent plot-lines, easy to follow and not interrupted by much weirdness.

ASiB, on the other hand, is an episode that is partly divided into a series of flashbacks showing different cases that Sherlock and John worked with. The blog covers them as The Geek Interpreter (690 words), The Speckled Blonde (632), The Aluminium Crutch (1080) and The Six Thatchers (614). All these minor blogposts are shown very briefly in the show, more like news flashes, and The Six Thatchers isn’t shown at all (the events in the blogpost differ a bit from the later episode in S4, but the main structure is the same).

The actual main plot-line of the episode is covered by the very short blogposts Sherlock Holmes Baffled, By Royal Appointment, Christmas, Happy New Year, Actually Happy New Year and The Woman. The title ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’ doesn’t even exist on John’s blog (maybe it’s Sherlock’s invention?)! And as we know, ASiB has a lot of weird scenes in it, with spinning images, Sherlock being drugged, a dream scenario with Irene Adler, a mystic sitting John who is not really there, a plane full of dead people, quick leaps between different places, The Woman attending a client, Moriarty blowing a rasberry like a child, etc, etc. None of these things are covered by the blogposts.

And - strangely enough - the mysterious Boomerang case did apparently not merit its own blogpost - I wonder if Sherlock even told John the solution to this case? It would have been a great story, and there was no secrets connected to it! But the only thing John says about it is: “So there I am, dealing with a mysterious death in the middle of the countryside when suddenly I'm whisked away in a helicopter and taken to Buckingham Palace”. And the whole dead-people-on-a-plane sequence did not make it into the blog (John blames this on ‘national secrecy’ of course).

On the other hand we have TRF, which has a long, exciting and very distinct plot line in the show, but all the blog says about it is this:

And then he adds that Sherlock saved two childrens’ lives, and that’s it. John has good reasons not wanting to talk about it, though, since Sherlock supposedly committed suicide after this.

It’s definitely also worth noticing that apparently Moriarty both hacked the blog and broke into 221 B at some point between THoB and TRF, since he uploaded a video showing this on the blog. Jim pays attention to the following objects in 221B:

Lot’s of notes:

Headphones on the bison head:

Abundance of books:

That Sherlock is emotional:

And - last but not least - Skulls!! I see you Arwel Wyn Jones

Jim’s break-in and blog-hacking is never addressed in the show, but I think it’s quite interesting that all these things seem to be recurring themes later in the show - including the fact that Moriarty shows up at 221B (I’ll get back to this is a later meta). I do regard this as more evidence for Hypothesis #2; if Sherlock has been reading up on John’s blog and is re-living the memories, Jim’s observations might have got stuck in his head for future reference.

Anyway, after TRF we have three short blogposts about cases that Sherlock had solved before TRF; The Deadly Tealights (410 words), Death by Twitter (452) and Murder at 'The Orient Express' (449). Non of them is mentioned in the TV show. The Inexplicable Matchbox (297), however, is briefly accounted for by Sherlock in his Best Man speech in TSoT.

And then there is Many Happy Returns - 470 words on the blog. It’s short in the show as well, but at least a little longer than most of the other renditions of John’s shorter blog cases. The hiatus was long, however, so it makes sense that the TV show would show us at least some things from Sherlock’s doing in the mean time. Which John would know nothing about, of course. ;)

In TEH, when Sherlock comes back, the show has this irregular plot line again, with a series of different cases and even more weirdness than ASiB. At first we see Anderson’s ridiculously romanticized (and heteronormative) idea of what happened to Sherlock at the Fall, and Lestrade dismissing it. Then Sherlock is captured and viciously tortured in Serbia, but when he comes back to London directly after, he seems fine and healthy; just a bit of shaving and he’s ready to play jokes on John. Which ends with more violence.

The time line is tricky to follow and the plot line is unfocused; when exactly was John kidnapped? How many cases did Sherlock solve before John saw fit to visit him? What was the whole terrorist plot actually about? And there’s a very strange interlude with Anderson questioning Sherlock about how he survived, at the same time as a terrorist bomb is about to explode in a subway wagon with John and Sherlock in it.

But the interesting thing is that the show’s twists and turns are fairly consistent with the blogpost The Empty Hearse (828 words), which starts with “Where do I even begin?”. The post is all jumbled up and mixed with a lot of John’s feelings - many of them expressing anger, disbelief and a deep resentment towards Sherlock. And back is the ‘psychopath’ talk, which John had tuned down considerably during the hiatus. (How can he even publish such rubbish as if he were writing an interesting account of a huge case of national security they solved together? And after everything he had said in Sherlock’s defense? I’m appalled, and tempted to agree with Sherlock’s blog comment “I see you haven't spent the last two years working on your writing technique”).

Finally, TSoT. John’s blog posts don’t cover the wedding at all, which would be logical if John only used the blog to describe the crime cases. But he obviously doesn’t, so wouldn’t this be something John would be happy to describe? His own wedding?? And he would definitely have time, seeing as he’s letting Sherlock do most of the wedding planning and preparations! But there’s nothing, and the Stag Do seems to be censored even in Sherlock’s brain by John: “We'd just returned from a quiet, civilised evening in the pub when our latest client arrived at Baker Street”. Not even the show shows us this picture. ;) (promo X)

As we all know, however, the wedding stretches over a whole TV episode, much of which is telling us what Sherlock relates in his Best Man speech; he gives fairly brief accounts of a series of cases, and he has John’s blog open on his iPhone as support: The Poison Giant (695 words), Happily Ever After (577), The Elephant in the Room (150 words; censored) and The Hollow Client (396). Two cases he actually solves on site, though: The Bloody Guardsman (496 words) and The Mayfly Man (286). We also see a certain amount of weirdness, where time is sometimes played fast forwards (the dinner), and Sherlock has a long session in his mind palace shaped as a court room.

And, as the last post before the blog stops updating, there’s Sherlock’s own hacker post with the title of the actual episode: The Sign of Three (312 words).

Just one more thing about the wedding: what’s important is not just the stuff that’s in the show - it’s also what’s not in the show: the actual wedding! And I suspect we have a clue about that here:

We don’t see the actual wedding ceremony when John Hamish Watson makes his marital vows to Mary Elisabeth Morstan and puts a ring on her finger. Not even a flash of it! Sherlock does post some wedding photos in his one and only post on John’s blog, but none of them depicts the actual wedding ceremony. If the show would be ‘realistic’, wouldn’t this be just as important to show? Well, not if we’re inside Sherlock’s head, and the last thing in the world he wants to think about is precisely this moment...

So, do we have a general pattern here? Yes, in fact we do, I believe. The pattern is that when John describes a case at length and in detail on his blog, the corresponding episode in the TV show is also relatively lengthy and coherent. But when there are shorter case stories written, these events tend to merely get quick flashbacks in the show, if at all mentioned. And for ASiB, TEH and TSoT the main course of events gets split up into a series of different posts on the blog, while in the TV show they appear like a chain of events, full of suspiciously weird scenes.

My conclusion from this is that the show does vary according to the patterns on John’s blog. Which speaks in favour of the idea that we’re in Sherlock’s mind as he’s looking back on his days with John. It’s as if he adopts his brain activity to the blog pattern.

So, let’s move on to the next prediction:

Prediction 3. If Hypothesis #2 is correct, then there might be some tell-tale signs that we’re in Sherlock’s EMP, even if it’s not spelled out.

The concept of Sherlock’s mind palace (MP) is explained by John to Dr Stapleton in THoB, at Baskerville’s military lab:

I think his MP is pretty thoroughly shown in the scenes that follow John’s explanation, in a manner that we then can recognize in the rest of the show. The usual ‘advertising’ of when Sherlock is in his MP is that texts and images appear on our screen and we can hear sound effects, and all this seems to have nothing to do with in-show ‘reality’. The contours get blurry and (sometimes rainbow-like) light patterns appear. And the whole scene is spinning.

It’s just that sometimes these tell-tale signs occur separately even when it’s not obvious that Sherlock actually goes into his MP. The topic is treated in this meta, which has a lot of interesting contributions from different people in the additions. @gosherlocked pointed out, for example, that John and ‘Mary’s wedding photo was also a spinning scene - and that’s not supposed to be in MP, if the show is meant to depict ‘reality’, is it? And in fact, in this meta by @kateis-cakeis, we can see that there were spinning scenes already in ASiP - the very first episode.

I think @monikakrasnorada’s meta series “Hiding in plain sight” (8 parts in total) about the evolution of Sherlock’s mind palace is a very helpful tool for trying to sort out MP issues. @monikakrasnorada points out, for example, that some scenes in TRF appear to be ‘stealth’ mind palace; it seems like we are indeed in Sherlock’s head, even though this has not been clearly ‘advertised’ by less subtle hints such as deduction text flowing over the filming etc.

In fact, if we start to count the number of occasions where rainbow-like, blurry lights are showing on-screen, or where text is flowing over the screen, I think we’ll have to stay here for quite a while. It’s just that we may have assumed a) that these are ‘just’ artistic expressions from the show-makers and b) that every rainbow is ‘only’ meant as a hint about gay feelings. But those readings don’t actually contradict the possibility that we might be inside Sherlock’s head, do they?

But couldn’t we perhaps be in John’s MP (or mind cupboard or whatever)? Theoretically yes, but some reasoning and evidence contradicts this:

1. We have never seen any sign that John uses something similar to a MP – ever, neither does he ever mention this. On the other hand, there’s plenty of evidence that this is Sherlock’s method of using his brain, and John outright explains this in THoB.

2. There are scenes in the show that John couldn’t possibly know about. Like Sherlock solving cases in Tibet, New Dehli and Germany in MHR, when he was supposed to be dead. And Anderson being on his track. The blog post Many Happy Returns is about John stating that he has to put all these things about Sherlock behind him and move on. Dramatic crime cases in different parts of the world does not fit in with this.

3. But the times when we see John alone are in situations where Sherlock could, with his MP and extraordinary brain power of imagination, deduce what John might have said and done. And unlike John, Sherlock has his friend’s thoughts and feelings right there on the blog, as a prompt to start his deductions and imaginations from.

So, I do believe that enough evidence is presented here for Prediction #3 to pass the test.

So, here is my fourth - and last - prediction for Hypothesis #2:

Prediction 4. If Hypothesis #2 is correct, then the TV show will have a more emotional, dramatic and exaggerated account of the events than the blog.

For one thing, there is certainly way more emotions swirling around in someone’s mind than what you can read from blog posts.You probably don’t want to publish the same amount of and intensity of feelings that you can register inside yourself. And now it has been established in S4 that Sherlock is actually very emotional (Mrs Hudson in TLD) and was an ‘emotional child’ when he was very young (Mycroft in TFP). We also know from the very first episode that Sherlock is a real Drama Queen, and he admits repeatedly in HLV and TAB that he never could resist a touch of Drama.

But he would not tell John about his own feelings regarding the events, would he? It’s very rare to see Sherlock express feelings in the show - especially feelings regarding people. That’s precisely Sherlock’s biggest problem: he tries to repress Sentiment to a point where he appears to be a sociopath to others. So if we’re seeing the show from John’s POV he must have imagined Sherlock having a lot of emotions. Which would be inconsistent with his own judgments about Sherlock in the blog.

Like I said in my meta about Hypothesis #1: many things in this show seem exaggerated in comparison to John’s blog. Things are not exactly romanticized, but rather dramatized and more ‘fanciful’, given a ‘splash of colour’, overly dramatic music etc. And some things seems so cut out of an action movie that I doubt they’re even supposed to be ‘real’.

Observations: Let’s look at some examples from the show of overly dramatic or exaggerated events that aren’t even mentioned in the blog - or if they are mentioned they’re not described.

I already pointed out in my last meta the rooftop hunt in ASiP as not consistent with John’s description in the blog.

TBB: While John is doing something annoyingly mundane - quarreling with a machine at the supermarket (just the kind of ordinary things Sherlock seems to avoid with all his might) - Sherlock is in a thrilling life-or-death fight in 221B. A masked criminal dressed entirely in robes and scarves is attacking an un-armed Sherlock with a sword.

Some dramatic, oriental music is playing all over these scenes - even the supermarket one. But Sherlock takes the attacker on single-handedly and knocks him out completely in a matter of seconds. Strangely, by the time John is back from the supermarket, the unconscious man is already gone and Sherlock pretends nothing has happened. Nonchalantly, he offers John his credit card and sends him off on a second shopping-round - now with money. Not a word to John about the fight; why?

Why do I constantly get the impression that Sherlock has watched too many of John’s action movies? (and horror movies, judging by S4). ‘Bond night’ was something John introduced him to already about the time of TBB, according to the blog. And after that we get ASiB, with Bond references that are never mentioned on the blog: Bond Air and flight 007. The exaggerated treatment of the cruel CIA agent who was dropped more than once from a 2nd floor window and survived is also an example of weirdness (covered in my Hypothesis #1 meta)

And there’s more in ASiB that isn’t on the blog; Moriarty blowing a raspberry at a text he just sent, as if he could see it flying away? Who has the most lively imagination - Jim or Sherlock? And the Flight of the Dead audience - a Boeing 747 full of dead people that never took off.

Not technically impossible, of course. But to keep so many dead bodies from their loved ones without any of those finding out? No media headlines about a huge number of mysteriously missing corpses? One single leak would have been enough to destroy the whole operation. A bit risky to come from Mycroft with the Brains, isn’t it?

The silly little things, like the café conversation between John and Mycroft; the fact that Mycroft says 'it would take Sherlock Holmes to fool me’ is suspicious. Why would Mycroft suddenly recognize his little brother as being his intellectual superior in any sense? Wishful thinking, Sherlock! ;) And then the event in Karachi; did Sherlock travel there without John even noticing? Why is the sequence transmitted with disturbances, like it was for a broadcasting, and who would send it and why? And the most ridiculous of them all, yet another case of ‘Sherlock the action-hero’: He manages to fight a whole gang of heavily armed terrorists single-handedly, with a sword? This doesn’t even seem like Sherlock’s memory - it’s pure fantasy!

Then there’s TRF and Moriarty’s weird visit at 221 B. Sherlock is not present at the final session of Jim’s trial, and yet is he reciting verbatim what’s being said by the judge. Perhaps not impossible but quite unlikely. When John calls Sherlock after the trial to say than Jim was found ‘not guilty’, Jim is already on his way to Baker street; Sherlock’s kettle has just boiled when he arrives (takes about 3 minutes).

Now we’re talking impossible, though; how did he manage to get there so quickly? A London ambulance, according to Sherlock, takes 8 minutes to arrive (HLV), but Moriarty is there in 3? And why such a hurry? He was in custody - didn’t he at least need to ‘check out’ first? Weird. And of course, TRF is not covered by the blog, since John didn’t want to talk about it.

When Sherlock comes back in TEH, we get this irregular plot line again, with even more weirdness than ASiB. Sherlock being captured in Serbia might of course have happened, but what we see is a rather unlikely scenario, and absolutely none of it is mentioned in the blog. The weirdness consists in a) that the young Serbian guard is wearing an old Red Army uniform from WWII rather than a modern Serbian one,

b) that Mycroft would treat his tortured brother like a piece of trash, even when the torturer was gone, and c) that Sherlock got his back whipped, but shortly afterwards we see him being shaved lying on it. Is this Superman?

And then he’s immediately fit to go play a joke on John. Yeah, right...

A more possible scenario I could think of (and this is mere speculation, but I still think it fits) is that Sherlock was suffering emotionally; it was torture to him to know that John had ‘found someone’ and was going to move on. Because that’s how John described it on the blogpost Many Happy Returns, which maybe Sherlock could read from where he was. It’s only a month between the MHR blogpost and the TEH blogpost. Which means that it took a relatively short time for Sherlock to finish whatever he was doing and return to London, once he learned that John was moving on. Love is a vicious motivator, I guess...

So, I think we’ve gathered enough examples now to say that yes, Prediction #4 passes the test; there is a pattern of overly dramatized and exaggerated events on the show compared to the blog.

All in all, after all these tests, I think that Hypothesis #2 holds water; The show as we know it up until John’s wedding might very well be Sherlock re-living their story together in his MP, after reading John’s blog.

Another thing that occurred to me is something I believe @kateis-cakeis has said (don’t remember where - sorry): In ASiP (but not in the Pilot) Sherlock says to Lestrade: “But they take the poison themselves; they chew, swallow the pills themselves. There are clear signs. Even you lot couldn’t miss them”. But no-one has yet told him that the victims had eaten pills, rather than having been injected with the poison or swallowed some liquid. How could he know? Well, if he was recollecting his memories, after confronting the serial killer he would already know, wouldn’t he?

In one of the comments about the last installment, @sagestreet pointed out a series of things that speaks in favour of this hypothesis (for which he invented the name ‘possibly-raggedy theory’ :) ) One of them was that this idea combines the EMP theories with a late entering into Sherlock’s extended mind palace (HLV) with those of an early entering (Pilot EMP), and also explains some POV inconsistencies. Another point was this:

“And, for any viewer who might feel uncomfortable with the idea that we’ve been in Sherlock’s head all along, your theory would also provide a nice little consolation: We would have seen everything play out from Sherlock’s POV, but it would still be close enough to reality to not make people completely freak out. I mean, it would be Sherlock’s recollection (and, at times, overdramatization) of the actual events, which as you argue, quite convincingly, would only be recorded in the blog. But it would still be ‘close enough’. (I can totally see Mofftiss doing something like this, by the way.)”

Well, it sounds about right to me. Possibly I’m biassed. ;)

The next installment will be about Hypothesis #3: The weirder scenes from ASiB to TSoT means Sherlock is influenced by drugs.

Tagging some people who might be interested: @ebaeschnbliah @sarahthecoat @sagestreet @tjlcisthenewsexy @88thparallel @fellshish @darlingtonsubstitution @gosherlocked @mrskolesouniverse @sectoralheterochromiairidum @csi-baker-street-babes @meta-lock

#Sherlock is re-living memories #Blog vs TV show #emp theory #EMP from start #The whole show is from Sherlock's POV #What happened to Sherlock?

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resbang-bookclub · 6 years

Text

AMA Transcript: Simple Melody

For our final AMA of Resbang 2017, @alliope, @bbbutterfingers & @daciafu stopped in to answer questions about their Resbang, Simple Melody! Here’s some of what went down:

Q: My first question for Allie is what inspired you to do this AU?

Allie: Well I've generally had the idea for an Over the Garden Wall AU for a while, not necessarily for SE, but as the first check-ins deadline was approaching I ended up rewatching bits of Over the Garden Wall and it just kinda clicked? Mainly I think it came from Crona's betrayal and Beatrice's betrayal and everything fell into place from there. I thought the eerie atmospheres would work well together! So I ended up scrapping my previous idea and wrote 3k plus a summary like three days before the first check-ins, rip.

Q: For butter/dacia, what went into how you decided which scene(s) to art?

butterfingers: HM well there was some chitchat when we started about what kind of work we wanted to do and I said that I loved the Boom comics covers, and then I shouted WHAT IF I MADE COMIC BOOK COVERS! and I think Dacia went WHAT IF I DID BACKGROUNDS and I guess we just approached it as if we were doing something comic-y haha!

Allie: You two were the power duo.

daciafu: I've always been in love with the style of the backgrounds of OTGW since that's where all those cozy and spooky feelings of fall and the Unknown really shine and I'm honestly HORRIBLE at designing backgrounds so I wanted to take the challenge and push myself to get better! Mimicking other people's styles really helps me break down how they make their choices and teaches me how to make things look Decent so I was super hyped to pick up the OTGW style! And then when Butters and I were trying to figure out What Do and she said she wanted to tackle covers, I decided to do background-heavy scenes. 😊

Q: What is generally your guys’ process (writing for Allie and arting for butters and dacia)?

Allie: Well, I wrote in little scenes, like I would get an idea for a scene and just go for it, the fic wasn't at all coherent until maybe a few days before posting. This actually posed a problem since linking scenes took longer than I thought it would. Because I had most of my scenes written, I thought I had more finished than I really did. By the end of Resbang, I had 56k written but only 20k remotely post-able. I'm a super obsessive planner though, so my whole fic was outlined in detail early on, which was nice cause I knew what I was doing lol

butterfingers: I loved going through Allie's notes, I was always excited to see how they'd connect the dots! My art process is as follows: scribble something, put it aside, look at it a lot throughout the day with the thought that maybe I can surprise myself into seeing something new, find something I hate, fix it, rinse and repeat. For this project I actually... have a friend who works with Boom Comics and she was able to hook me up with a nice little gallery of illustrations for the OTGW comic so I got to go through and put together my mood board for it 😊

daciafu: I read over the gloriousness that was Allie's draft and immediately picked out some neat scenes or wanted to reimagine the classic OTWG ones. I spent a lot of time studying first! Looking at the art books, and poring over the show’s scenes and kind of getting a feel for the color palettes, textures and compositions. Then I watched a tutorial on Youtube where someone just deadass uploaded their painting process on a piece of official art that made it into the show. So that was EXTREMELY helpful to watch the way they painted back-to-front and kind of blended the planes without like, losing depth?? The internet is so, so wonderful. And then I got to work! Started with a soft brush for lineart so it wouldn't be too prevalent, moved onto base colors, then shading, and then really trying to establish textures and make the atmosphere Just Right(tm).

butterfingers: Genius!! Oh damn that sounds like such great advice vis à vis backgrounds. /takes notes

Q: You sound like the dream art partner Allie, I weep for my artists and my last minute HERE IS 10K I JUST TYPED UP BC IM A MESS.

Allie: Ahh geez, these two were the dream partners honestly, like I'm so glad they could gather stuff from my notes, cause I've always got everything together in my head, but then it gets out there and it's a mess, these two deserve all the love.

butterfingers: There was one thing I regret that I didn't have the chance to draw and it was like a throwaway line somewhere in your notes about Maka presenting Soul with a praying mantis and him freaking out. I resonated with that so hard hahaha.

Q: What was the hardest scene for you to write?

Allie: The hardest scene to write that's actually posted was anything with Justin really, I don't get his character and it was tough to write him. There were a few scenes that were hard to write because I rushed them, but I wouldn't say they were genuinely difficult scenes, I just gotta rewrite 'em! But overall the ending scene I'm still struggling to write and there's a dream scene that occurs which has been difficult to write just for making it dream-like enough?

Q: And what was the hardest to art? :o

butterfingers: I had a hard time with Maka's expressions. I had many scribbles designing a Ragnarok lantern, too, but it was very fun!!

Allie: Your design for the Ragnarok lantern was so good, I still cry over it.

butterfingers: Ahaha thank you! He was very Calcifer inspired ;)

daciafu: I struggled quite a bit with the first one I painted, just because it was all so new to me. I had to base color 3 different times because the soft lineart bothered me if something extended too far, or there was white background peeking through. And then reimagining the texture in the leaves and the ground to try to separate the planes there but also wanting them to be cohesive was a bit of a headache. If I had to go back and do that one over again I think I'd be more prepared to deal with the foliage lmao.

butterfingers: Your textures were very excellent, that was a quality I struggled with as well!

daciafu: The first one I painted was the Golden Light scene where Maka and Soul are leaving the woods and entering the fields.

butterfingers: Trees r hard.

Allie: They all came out so incredible though, I'm in awe of how you were able to create those leaves.

daciafu: Omg ;;;;; At the same time trees are so organic and flowy and the chances of getting them wrong are pretty slim considering they can get janked as hell lol they're super fun to just zone out to. "I’ll just put a happy little leaf here, ooh and how’s about another one right next to it. They can be happy friends. Oh look, the squad showed up!!" Channeling my inner Bob Ross... but yeah you can just do whatever with them and they somehow come together.

Q: Daciafu how do u.....background, like you did so well and all I hear from art friends is various levels of pterodactyl screeching when the word background is mentioned.

daciafu: I heavily based the Leafing the Forest scene and the church scene after stills from the show so I don't get composition points there, but I built the pumpkin fields just based off of the environment’s design elements. I really wanted to push the depth of that scene but also give it that same never-ending quality to it, and I'm super happy with the results. Another note is that I omitted the characters entirely while building the backgrounds. Since I'm usually a pretty character-heavy artist, I wanted to tackle it like I was preparing the scene for an animator later. And then once they were done, I added in our sweet kids. Doing it that way first really helped to cement the characters in the space rather than my usual "character is done, how can I put them in an interesting physical space?" struggle lmao.

Q: Did you guys feel like your writing/arting changed at all or that you learned anything/picked up new skills/honed old ones etc. etc. during Resbang?

Allie: Gosh yeah, it changed a lot. In hindsight a bad idea, but this was the first fic I'd ever written with intention of posting and the longest piece I'd ever written. Before this I had written very little and my longest piece was maybe 10k. Throughout Resbang I've learned most of everything from the ground up, it's taught me a lot about my limits, how I work and writing in general. I've definitely improved a lot from the experience!

butterfingers: Let me tell you all about the airbrush tool that I discovered during Resbang. Amazing. Incredible.

daciafu: I learned how to paint backgrounds!!! Which is something I've always wanted to get better at. And I got super comfortable in Clip Studio (I'd just gotten it) as well as using texture brushes, so overall it was a very helpful and wonderful experience as a Resbang participant and as an arteest.

Q: Oh that reminds me butters, what program do you use?

butterfingers: Paint Tool SAI for the most part, and then Photoshop for color correction, borders, and, like, finesse things! :)

Q: Did you guys listen to any music that inspired you or helped you create?

Allie: Ah, yeah! I had a playlist actually! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjTCaFkFU6rkD1edJwCZmHvJiUwlSUeGZ

If you want I can explain some bits of it? I use music a lot when writing aha. I like to associate certain songs with characters and character relationships, so most of the songs are connected to a particular part of the story. The Monroe Transfer, Wayfaring Stranger, and Mountains were all more general atmosphere stuff. Blame was very much related to Maka, which may not be apparent now, but yeah. Ragnarok I actually connected a lot with Willow Tree March. Soul was probably closest with A Lady. Crona had a lot of songs, but Neptune was most specific to them, as was probably Ghost Towns. Some character relationships I associated with certain songs, Crona-Ragnarok and Soul-Maka were both pretty connected to Always Gold, especially that dang last line "there were holes in you, the kind that I could not mend" oh man. Crona-Maka was definitely We Could Be Friends, Bloom, and Spell. Meet Me in The Woods I thought was a pretty good group song! Those are just some general bits of my thinking with the music aha.

daciafu: Definitely checked out Allie's dope playlist. For most of my working time, tho, I was either listening to TAZ: Commitment or MBMBaM oddly enough lol. I will forever think of Justin's uproarious laughter whenever I look at them lmao.

Q: Were any of the relationships difficult to characterize?

Allie: Mmm this may sound weird but early Maka-Crona was weird for me, cause they were kinda at that point where they want to (or at least Maka wants to) like each other, but they don’t like or trust each other at all and it's a weird spot for them. I'm used to writing them as at least interested by one another, if not enemies or already fond of one another, so this felt like a very odd place to start with them.

Q: Do you guys have future plans for writing/drawing? Aside from polishing and posting the rest of the fic!

Allie: I have,,, too many plans,, I need less plans,, someone please take them away from me, I can't be trusted with them,,,, I do want to do a sequel for this when I get it finished, playing on the detail about crows memory lasting five years so. Beyond that I have a SoMa fic to finish for the prompt challenge!! I'm working on a gift for Crescentcrona, which is a fantasy Kirona fic called Eat The Rich. I have polyam week fics that I'm cleaning up, I think my favorite so far is a Azusa/Naigus/Sid/Mifune one for Through The Seasons. And God I have so many CroMa fics I want to write, I gotta fill the AO3 tag. I think the biggest one right now is a wings-related soulmates au that I've been working on on the side since October I think?

daciafu: Yo there's one scene that I'm like sUPER hyped to do if Allie does the sequel because I already know exactly how I wanna draw it but I wasn't able to fit that in near the end, and it didn't end up in the first part. But there are a couple of other scenes Allie and I workshopped that would be super fun to do and I would love to draw them. Other than that, my drawing plans are pretty much working on commissions as they come in. Surprisingly my queue has been maxed out and I just got a full time job so of course now I'm like.... hm.... I'll get 'em done eventually!!

----

That’s the end of the AMAs for the 2017 season! Thanks again for reading along with us, and see you next year! :)

#AMA transcripts #resbang book club #rbbc #simple melody

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violetbeachpod · 6 years

Text

TRANSCRIPT: 1x03 - Moments of Mystery

it’s me again. here’s a third transcript. i love writing benji the very most. thank you.

BENJI:

Hey, everyone, it’s Benji here to guide you through another moment of mystery. That’s catchy, I think. Teresa shut it down when I put it in the group chat, but. I like it. And Elaine liked it. Nobody else did, but only Teresa shut it down. But I like it! It’s alliterative, and it’s catchy. See, you gotta sell shit with a title, like--a title is a mini-thesis, right? Your mission statement in, uh, I’d argue seven words or less, cuz after that, you’re getting too niche.

Like you’re some kinda whiny sellout pop-punk band, or a tortured academic who can’t come up with any substance for their dissertation so instead they’re writing their entire life story on the title page after a colon, or somewhere on the spectrum between the two. And there is a spectrum, I think, and it does not include every single type of person. I think, in the middle, we have white PTA moms and also maybe me back in high school.

So. Moments of mystery. Now, listeners, I’m a self-proclaimed expert on weird shit. And I (maybe legally?) have to say self-proclaimed, cuz I have had some people email into my podcast that are pissed off about my lack of certification in the field. Because apparently, these days, we don’t trust non-degree-granted expertise. Hmph. Trust me, I’m working on it, though. I’m super working on it. Not sure if the university offers a cryptozoology/paranormal investigations program, but, hey, if they need a guy to start one? They know my name. And my number. And my email. And my address. Cuz I’m an alum. And also because I’ve emailed, called, and mailed them about this. Many times. I think the dean blocked my number? Which I might put on my resume, frankly, cuz the dean’s a dick and if he blocked me, I think I should consider that an honor.

So, anyway, as a self-proclaimed expert, I got this whole thing down. I can and I will. Weird mists? Absolutely. Moon-related prophecies? I got you. Specters and apparitions and what have you? Hell yeah. If there’s something strange--you get the gist. Call me. I got you. Moments of goddamn mystery. It’s a good title!

Now, though, let’s get to the point. What you’ve all been waiting for. That’s right, everybody, it’s time for updates on the weird stuff. We’ll get to theories, later, I just wanna get all the facts out there first.

First off: Benji Life Update, which is to say, uh, Danny and I are over, now. Unfortunately. It was mutual. So, I guess, no tape-clearance for Danny anymore. Sorry for those who made their tapes before me, who may have made their statements with Danny’s clearance in mind. It’s done. That part of my life is behind me. It was fun while it lasted, but, hey. All good things come to an end, right?

Second off: Time loop update. I refuse to call it Groundhog Daying like the others keep using in the group chat because fuck Bill Murray, but. Regardless. Time loop update. No new time loops! But yes new explanation as to what happened in the original timeline versus the real timeline. I’m not gonna get into semantics, here, but we are gonna call the day that got redone Timeline Prime. Like--the first time we did that day. Is Timeline Prime. The Primeline? Who knows. And the second one is Our Unfortunate Reality. So, anyway, in the Primeline, I opened the shop, and in Our Unfortunate Reality, Teresa did. Which made her miss her classes, and made me sleep through my alarm to drive out to Ainsley and pick up the merch deliveries. And, in the--

[Static]

DISTORTED VOICE:

Circle. Circle. Circle. Circle. Circle. Circle. Circle.

[BENJI]

BENJI:

So, anyway, uh. Basically, I should maybe fire myself? But considering that it’s my store, and I like to use the label ‘local business owner’ to introduce myself to people, I won’t. Ah, shit looks like my audio--my audio got rough, there. I’ll. I’ll check it back later. Sorry, listeners.

Speaking of the store, though, we have a new customer! Which, that’s not rare, necessarily, but we’re pretty reliant on our regulars. New people are always college students, right? But this person, he’s, like, fifty. Completely unremarkable. He keeps coming in, staring at the wall, and then leaving. One time, he took one of the complimentary temp tattoos that we give kids, so I guess he has kids? But he never says hi, never engages--he just. He stares. And I’m not here to judge, but, time-loop shit aside, I run a pretty tight ship, and, uh. I like to think of myself as somebody who knows everybody. Because, for the most part, I do.

So, like, it’s weird, right? Like--he doesn’t do anything, and, again, like. I don’t wanna judge, but--the thing is, I can’t remember a thing about this dude’s face. Just--he’s so, so boring. White dude, uh, average--pretty average height. No discernable features. And he--he spoke to me, once, and his voice sounded like it was through a dozen filters.

He said--uh. Shit. What did he say?

He said, uh.

Well. That’s noteworthy.

Anyway, his weird voice, and his, uh, his blandness, is a good segue into my personal favorite of the segments I’ve outlined. Which is to say, it’s Alien Time. Needs a catchier name, but. Oh well. That’s for later. It’ll come to me. Extraterrestrial Corner? Spaceman Zone?

So, here’s what we got, re colon the alien theory, and, look, I know some of you are sick of it. I know. But listen, Teresa keeps getting messages from her shadow-self or whatever about the moon, which is in space, and, hey, where are aliens from? That’s right. It’s space.

I sound batshit, which, fine, whatever, cool, great, but. Still.

And then, there are these creepy-ass people with entirely unremarkable faces. Which, again, not judging. I promise. But that I can’t remember anything that my guy said, even though I can remember his, like, cadence, or--that’s creepy. That’s paranormal. And that his voice was layered? That’s mega creepy.

See You Invader? As a title for this segment? It has some level of cleverness to it, I think.

Maybe? Vote now on your phones. Please. I’m--y’know, I’m sticking with it, I like it.

And then the school board that threw Char out of her speech thing. Those were--those were also kindq weird. And they seem similar to my experience.

But that she’s seen them before, that’s where it gets me, cuz you’d think, what with the, uh, what with the purple flashing sky and all, that, uh. That said aliens would have only shown up on New Years. But, see, that takes me to the idea that it’s been more of a slowburn, and that the Corielli board is, like, scouts, or something. That the big guys--which is to say, Teresa’s weird apparition lady, my new customer, those are the Big Bads. So, what does that mean about structure? Well, I’m glad you asked. See--

[STATIC]

DISTORTED VOICE:

Coincidence. Coincidence. Coincidence. Coincidence. Coincidence. Coincidence. Coincidence.

[STATIC]

BENJI:

So, in conclusion? Second moon maybe, aliens definitely, and ghosts very much so. Thank you.

So, next point, which is a question, rather than a point. Why us? Why the seven of us? Look, I get it, seven is a very literary number. If I were ghost aliens, which I am not, I would definitely go with three or seven people to fuck with. But are they fucking with us, or is there meaning behind it all?

So, uh. We all kind of knew each other? I guess? I was Facebook friends with Elaine, just cuz, as Robin’s honorary Alive Dad, I will be walking her down the aisle at their wedding, meaning there were only two connections to Elaine total, but everybody else at least sort of knew everybody else. And maybe it was the fireworks? Because Simon sold them to me out of his truck near the barber shop and told me to stay quiet about them. Though, also? They were probably illegal, so--

You get it. I know there are easier ways to get fireworks, but his are always so fucking cool and I wanted to feel proud in my pyrotechnic skills. But, hey, win some lose some, right? Right?

Or. No. I guess.

But. It can’t just be--in a situation this weird, it can’t be completely random that it was the seven of us, y’know? There’s gotta be the Big Prophecy, or the--the secret powers, or one of those things. The force that drew us all to that party at three AM, after everybody was already gone, the force that’s drawing us together. There’s gotta be something that brings this all together, that adds some kinda coherency, like--

I know that I shouldn’t expect storylines from life. That I’m--I’m not the main character in some story, that there aren’t cliffhangers or plot twists in this reality, but this reality feels like a comic book right now. So, yeah, I am waiting for Galactus to show up, or something. For some goddamned continuity, for something to click into place.

And that’s shitty of me, because nothing else has ever worked like that, so, uh, why should real-life-aliens work out like that? That’s pretty presumptuous of me. But, look. Listen.

When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a Mulder or a Dale Cooper or a Ripley or any given Rick Moranis character, and now--now I’m none of those. But this sorta thing, it gives me a chance, y’know? It--these are my monsters of the week, this is my search for the sister, this is me living out what was never written for me, y’know? It’s--I’m in this goddamn narrative, and even if this isn’t a narrative, I’m gonna make it one. Because why not! I--I’m working on self-love everyday, like Doc Claremont said. She’s my therapist. You know. Gotta get those life skills in place. Constantly improving. Letting myself be myself. Hell yeah.

So here’s the plot, so far, then. Seven outcasts--we’re all pretty outcast, I’d argue--stand alone on a beach, and, bam, flash of light, and bam, the world is dying, and then, darkness. Lost-style eye-zoom in, right, Michael Bay spin, and then we’re back on the beach. And then we get a coherent plot about time loops, and nothing else, because it is two-thousand-and-eighteen. And there are interwoven character webs, and interesting enough flashbacks, and--

And it makes sense. And it’s well-written, and it’s well drawn, and it has a really good cult fanbase that--you know. You get the gist.

Look, all I’m saying is that this doesn’t feel like it’s real, so why don’t we have fun with it? We’re seeing things that, as far as we know, no one else has seen before. We’re on the verge of something big, and. I don’t just feel it, I know it. In every corner of my mind, I’m sure of it. This is so important, this is--this is the most important thing I’ve done. And I’ve done a lot of important things, I think. At least a few of ‘em. I’m fairly accomplished. I can, uh, in the truly classic Sorkin-style, list my credentials, like--Graduated top of my class from Core--

[STATIC]

DISTORTED VOICE:

The Moon. The Moon. The Moon. The Moon. The Moon. The Moon. The Moon.

[STATIC]

BENJI:

--ran a five k without ever walking, and also without that much training, which is an accomplishment from a me perspective. And I got my scuba license last week based on a gut decision! I’m accomplished as hell.

Seriously, though, what’s going on with my audio? It’s like--it’s not even, like, weird feedback shit, it’s just, like. A weird test screen where there should be a solid two minutes of audio. Weird. Is--maybe I should get better software? I heard that this cheapass one wasn’t reliable, but I didn’t see this in any reviews or FAQs or whatever; I--

Hm.

[beat, typing]

Okay, a quick troubleshooting search, that’s not a thing! That’s--that’s genuinely not a thing that anyone’s reported before. I screenshotted, but, uh, the screenshot won’t load? So. Uh. I’m gonna check this out. So. Signing off. Need a sign off.

I hope to share another moment with you soon?

Yeah, it’s a shitty title.

Okay, until next time.

#transcripts #season 1 #benji #violet beach #violet beach podcast

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