Cesperanza
You can also find me at cesperanza.dreamwidth.org, on Fanlore (user=Speranza) and on twitter (@CesSperanza)
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Winter has arrived on Poob.
Start your 7 day free trial of Poob today, and watch smash hit Martin Scorcese’s Goncharov.
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One of the highlights of the description of younger Kirk as a bookish and severe Academy instructor is that Gary Mitchell, the friend describing him that way, seems to have been his student back in the day and was trying to pass his notoriously difficult “think or sink” class at the Academy.
Present-day Mitchell mentions reading “that longhair stuff you like” to Kirk (now that he’s acquired godly powers that include being able to read Spinoza) and there’s this random lore drop about how Mitchell helped a lab technician with a crush on Kirk orchestrate her dating campaign, in hopes that it’d distract Kirk enough for Mitchell to survive his class.
It seems pretty widely accepted that Kirk had a romance with Mitchell himself at the time, which is not my take at all, BUT honestly it’s hilarious to me that there’s this whole Clueless-style “student matchmaking plot to get a strict teacher a girlfriend so he’ll chill enough that you can pass the class” history established almost immediately about Kirk. Comedy gold, especially since Kirk and the lab technician ended up in a long-term relationship and he nearly married her.
Bonus: Kirk and Mitchell became close friends but Kirk is still incredulous at the idea of Mitchell voluntarily reading Spinoza in the episode. And when Mitchell flips into obnoxious god mode and describes Spinoza as simple and childish, Kirk is pretty evidently affronted and alarmed. It’s not surprising that Kirk has big philosophy opinions given that futuristic humanism is half his personality, but the idea of him as a former philosophy instructor with Spinoza feelings who goes to space and still can’t escape Bad Philosophy Takes is incredible. Even by Season 3, it’s just like:
KIRK: Dr. McCoy saved your life.
PARMEN: I am losing patience, captain.
KIRK: And you consider yourself a disciple of Plato?! -
“Some years ago, I was stuck on a crosstown bus in New York City during rush hour. Traffic was barely moving. The bus was filled with cold, tired people who were deeply irritated—with one another; with the rainy, sleety weather; with the world itself. Two men barked at each other about a shove that might or might not have been intentional. A pregnant woman got on, and nobody offered her a seat. Rage was in the air; no mercy would be found here.
But as the bus approached Seventh Avenue, the driver got on the intercom. “Folks,” he said, “I know you’ve had a rough day and you’re frustrated. I can’t do anything about the weather or traffic, but here’s what I can do. As each one of you gets off the bus, I will reach out my hand to you. As you walk by, drop your troubles into the palm of my hand, okay? Don’t take your problems home to your families tonight—just leave ‘em with me. My route goes right by the Hudson River, and when I drive by there later, I’ll open the window and throw your troubles in the water. Sound good?”
It was as if a spell had lifted. Everyone burst out laughing. Faces gleamed with surprised delight. People who’d been pretending for the past hour not to notice each other’s existence were suddenly grinning at each other like, is this guy serious?
Oh, he was serious.
At the next stop—just as promised—the driver reached out his hand, palm up, and waited. One by one, all the exiting commuters placed their hand just above his and mimed the gesture of dropping something into his palm. Some people laughed as they did this, some teared up—but everyone did it. The driver repeated the same lovely ritual at the next stop, too. And the next. All the way to the river.
We live in a hard world, my friends. Sometimes it’s extra difficult to be a human being. Sometimes you have a bad day. Sometimes you have a bad day that lasts for several years. You struggle and fail. You lose jobs, money, friends, faith, and love. You witness horrible events unfolding in the news, and you become fearful and withdrawn. There are times when everything seems cloaked in darkness. You long for the light but don’t know where to find it.
But what if you are the light? What if you’re the very agent of illumination that a dark situation begs for?
That’s what this bus driver taught me—that anyone can be the light, at any moment. This guy wasn’t some big power player. He wasn’t a spiritual leader. He wasn’t some media-savvy “influencer.” He was a bus driver—one of society’s most invisible workers. But he possessed real power, and he used it beautifully for our benefit.
When life feels especially grim, or when I feel particularly powerless in the face of the world’s troubles, I think of this man and ask myself, What can I do, right now, to be the light? Of course, I can’t personally end all wars, or solve global warming, or transform vexing people into entirely different creatures. I definitely can’t control traffic. But I do have some influence on everyone I brush up against, even if we never speak or learn each other’s name. How we behave matters because within human society everything is contagious—sadness and anger, yes, but also patience and generosity. Which means we all have more influence than we realize.
No matter who you are, or where you are, or how mundane or tough your situation may seem, I believe you can illuminate your world. In fact, I believe this is the only way the world will ever be illuminated—one bright act of grace at a time, all the way to the river.“
–Elizabeth Gilbert
I think it’s time this got another airing.
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NJ Democrat senator Cory Booker takes the floor in protest of Trump/Musk, “saying that he will keep going “'as long as I am physically able’.”
“I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able,” Booker said at the outset of his remarks. “I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis.”
“In just 71 days, the president of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety; financial stability; the core foundations of our democracy. “These are not normal times in America. And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate.” -source
I am posting this at 2:30am EST. He has been speaking since 7PM EST. This link (at this moment) is to a live stream.
FUCK YEAH, JERSEY!
So very proud of my state at the moment.
Reblogging and adding the livestream link from Senator Booker’s YouTube (the other one was glitching) . It is almost 4am. He is still going STRONG. If you are watching and plan to go to sleep, turn the volume down and leave it up so that the "watching” number reflects the involvement of people supporting him.
If he can LITERALLY stand and protest as a single voice, we can keep it playing and symbolically stand with him.
Senator Booker is on Hour 13 and going STRONG
Yeah! That’s what I’m talking about. No business as usual! Slow the Fascists down! He should get some Democrat colleagues to join him so they can periodically cede to each other and spell each other off to keep it up longer!
STILL GOING! If you can open up the livestream to show support.
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Literally any show can be improved by adding more older women. Not many know this, but it’s true.
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Jonathan Stalling’s Yingelishi is a book of poetry that is read in two ways: in Chinese and in English. He offers a line of English poetry, then rewrites it phonetically in the Chinese language, so that the new line in Chinese has its own unique and coherent meaning, which is then translated back into English. The end result is a poem existing in multiple languages and in no languages at all, with multiple meanings that can be read many ways.
[Image ID: A line that reads, “早上好” which is Simplified Chinese for “good morning.” Then a line of English text that reads, “good morning,” followed by a line of pinyin or possibly a different method of transliterated Chinese that reads, “gũ dé mào níng.” Then a line of Chinese characters which reads, “孤德貌宁,” phonically the same as the above pinyin, followed by a line of English text which is the translation of the above Chinese, reading, “Even alone, the moral one / appears peaceful.” End image ID.]
From the book ad copy:
When read aloud, YÍNGĒLÌSHI (pronounced yeen guh lee shr) sounds like an accented pronunciation of the word “English,” while the Chinese reader sees the Chinese characters for “chanted songs, beautiful poetry.” Stalling coined this term (and “Sinophonic English”) to give a positive name to an increasingly widespread variation of English created by combining the two dominant languages of globalization (Mandarin Chinese and English). With over 350 million English speakers in China (more than there are Americans alive) many of whom speak English by recombining existing Chinese sounds into English words and sentences, this new hybrid language is already overwhelmingly present, yet its aesthetic potential has not yet been explored. Stalling’s book complicates any easy dismissal of so-called Chinglish by creating a genuinely uncanny poetry written entirely in Sinophonic English. Stalling rewrites a common English phrasebook into hauntingly beautiful Chinese poetry (which is all translated into English) that when sung, becomes an uncannily accented libretto, a story of a Chinese tourist’s one-way journey into this interstitial language and its sonorous, if disastrous, consequences.
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We need at least Knives Out 3 and 4. Knives Out 3 for another movie centered on a working class woman standing up to rich assholes and her and Benoit as a duo solving a mystery. Knives Out 4 for Benoit getting accused of a murder and Marta, Helen and the woman from KO3 working together to solve the mystery and get him free.
If neither of them are one a train then we also need a Knives Out 5.
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1x02 Diefenbaker’s Day Off // 2x08 One Good Man // 2x13 White Men Can’t Jump to Conclusions // 3x01 Burning Down the House | Normalized
due South does a main character re-casting better than any other show on TV, and they do it by playing with television’s own accepted meta-narrative.
Recasting a character has a long tradition in television, creating a viewership that knows and understands the storytelling short form at play. As viewers, we realize that sometimes actors aren’t available to reprise a role (or simply aren’t interested in it anymore); but, for the sake of the story, sometimes the show needs that character to come back. So we lean hard into suspended disbelief and just go with it. After all, the characters in the show accept the parareality of it—why shouldn’t we?
Of course, the most famous example of a character recast would be the Dick/Darren disaster on 1960s sitcom Bewitched, when Dick York was unceremoniously replaced by Dick Sargent in the role of Darrin Stephens. (“The Dick Wars” would have gone absolutely insane).
it was… not successful
But they weren’t the only ones to do it. Aunt Viv from Fresh Prince, Becky from Roseanne, Daario Naharis from Game of Thrones, Greg Serrano from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (pain, agony)—recasting characters but maintaining the fiction is a storied tradition in TV. New actor, same character; totally normalized.
And shows continue to do it, even today, with a—uh—similar dedication to
fucking it updoing it poorly.
why must we be punished like this
due South even engages in this trope itself in season 2, when hard-hitting investigative journalist Mackenzie King is recast and they don’t even try to find an actress who looks similar. In 1x02 Diefenbaker’s Day Off, she’s played by brunette Madolyn Smith-Osborne; in 2x08 One Good Man, she’s been replaced by blonde Maria Bello, and nobody talks about it.
yeah i’m absolutely the same person, obviously
Everyone diegetically (within the world of the show) is just like, oh yeah, that’s hard-hitting investigative journalist Mackenzie King. Totally. Only non-diegetically (outside of the world of the show) does the viewer go “No, that’s not the same person.” Internally, the fiction proceeds as usual.
So what would happen if, say, Samantha Stephens turned to Dick Sargent and said “You’re not Darrin,” when everyone else in the show continued to treat him as though he was? Or if Jaskier told Geralt that he knows he’s not actually Geralt, and everyone treated him like he was delusional?
Or if Fraser, even, had recognized Mackenzie King as someone entirely different, and everyone treated him like he had a hole in his bag of marbles because of it? Of course that’s Mackenzie King; even her boss knows it. No, she’s never been a brunette. What are you talking about?
And that’s exactly what happens in Burning Down the House.
the rays vecchio
Diagetically, everyone else treats Callum Keith Rennie’s character as though he is Ray Vecchio. “Oh, good, you found him,” says Det. Huey. Elaine, Franchesca, literally everyone else both at the station and outside of it treat Callum Keith Rennie Ray Vecchio as though he is David Marciano Ray Vecchio. They’re acting exactly as any other TV character would in the face of a recasting: as though absolutely nothing had happened.
Except for Fraser.
Fraser’s specific brand of parareal Canadian plot magic means that he’s immune to the recasting blindness; he’s acting as an agent of the viewer, voicing our non-diegetic concerns. Fraser is (as he so often is) a character with one foot outside of the narrative. He’s just always been like this and he doesn’t know why.
oh this man is infuriating and hot, fuck. shit.
And for a character who already thinks he is likely insane (he sees the ghost of his dead father! He communicates with his deaf half-wolf! He is instantly committed to a mental institution upon voicing the actual true story of his life!), this is very extremely distressing. Fraser thinks he’s actually lost it this time, because everyone else in due South is acting like a TV character, and Benton Fraser is acting like a viewer.
This is so brilliant on so many levels. They just fully lampshade the damn thing. It allows our protagonist to speak for disgruntled or confused viewers. It engages at a postmodern level with television as a medium with a storied history (and due South is incredibly postmodern; nearly every episode is or contains a reference to another piece of media). It’s written from the perspective of someone who loves and is knowledgeable about TV tropes.
And it gives us an entirely new Ray while still maintaining respect and loyalty to the original, something no other straight (lol) recast could ever do.
Genuinely one of the most clever, witty, well-crafted hours of television ever made. I could write essays about so many different parts of it. And I guess I will!!!!!!
It’s Burning Down the House week in our dS Stacked Rewatch!
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Till tender is far too fierce for us, winter is almost here for us.
Or: two boys from Brooklyn and how they gave up their personhood. But before they were tools belonging to sprawling superpowers, they belonged to eachother.
Happy 10 years to CA:TWS
ao3 (includes vidding notes) | youtube |
song by astronautalis and p.o.s.Oh my god!! A new fabulous Stucky vid in the year of our lord 2024!!!!
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NOTICE FROM THE OTW PAC
The Policy and Abuse Committee (PAC) has gotten several tickets where folks have lost access to their AO3 account because someone else has logged in and changed the email/password.
This was possible because folks were reusing the same email/password combo across multiple sites, and one of the other sites was compromised.
From PAC
Due to recent data breaches of other websites, many email/password combinations stolen from those sites are now circulating the internet. If you’ve ever used your AO3 password on another website, we recommend that you immediately change your password: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/your-account#changepassword
Security reminder: You should never reuse the same email/password combination on multiple websites. Please keep your AO3 account email up to date, so that we can contact you if there are any issues with your account. To change your AO3 email: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/your-account#changeemail
AO3 accounts are always free to create and use. You can request an invitation here: https://archiveofourown.org/invite_requestsDon’t let this be you - make sure your AO3 password is unique to your AO3 account!
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Started using phone time to read library ebooks instead of scrolling and it’s made me back into the crazy voracious reader I was at age 12. i’ve been averaging a book a day this week. everyone delete your social media and get your ass on libby
swooping in to let ppl know if they ask their public library alot of them have ebook apps associated with their library and all you need is to register for a library card you can also use it as a way to check for books you want or reserve/request books for pickup at your local public library
i fucking love libraries
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The OTW is Recruiting for PAC, Translation, TWC Copyeditor and Strategic Planning Volunteers
ALTWould you like to assist AO3 users by resolving complaints? Are you fluent in a language other than English and passionate about making OTW more accessible? Do you have experience copyediting or proofreading academic journals? Or do you have experience with research methods, problem solving or nonprofit governance? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting! Read more at: https://otw-news.org/8p6fjmwj
