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Jolly Holiday Weekend
The weekend started with the 26th Birthday of my darling firstborn daughter and the Lunar New Year. Both are very good reasons to enjoy some potstickers and Oolong tea. Certainly, we can’t forget 💕 Valentine’s 💝 Day 💕 tomorrow. I know I haven’t…
Sleep Late
If you’re going to do something tonight that you’ll be sorry for tomorrow morning, sleep late. ~Henny Youngman
Yes, the weekend is great for sleeping late no matter how far behind you are on a zillion projects that you’ve got queued up.
The weekend is also great for engaging in basically zero of those projects, no matter how guilty you feel about being behind on them because as much of a burden as feeling guilty about having too much to do, feeling exhausted because you’ve been burning the midnight oil to get caught up or finished with a very few of them is exponentially worse.
Sometimes, you’ve just got to get some sleep.
Sometimes you’ve just got to relax and zone the heck out so you can be refreshed for the next batch of to-do items.
Honestly, I’ve got some things that would take a couple of minutes to knock out but even that seems overwhelming because it’s like to-do Jenga. Even though it’s a tiny thing, you’ve got the sensation that the entire tower of larger tasks will come crashing down around you.
I basically just need to go to bed.
Gung Hay Fat Choy
王彩樺 – 保庇 BOBEE 官方完整版MV [HQ]
Apparently, it’s the Year of the Ox. This might explain the never-ending stream of BS we’re being subjected to from DC and the Left in general.
A couple of years ago, a Taiwanese musician named Lotus Wang did a remix of a catchy K-Pop song. Bobee refers to Taiwan. It translates as “Blessed by the Gods“. She wanted to do her version of the song to celebrate the spirit and culture of Taiwan. Apparently, she felt the Korean version was a bit too racy but the tune was catchy enough to justify putting her own spin on it.
It’s surprising that she got away with lifting the tune. Maybe she had to pay royalties. Who knows?
In any case, it just goes to show how much mileage you can get out of a given tune or any other bit of creative expression.
[HD/HQ Music Video] T-ara – Bo Peep Bo Peep
Limitation
Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame. ~Gilbert K. Chesterton
Brandon Sanderson mentioned that even though the magic/tech system of any good sci-fi/fantasy milieu seems to lay in the magic powers or futuristic tech, the real magic is in how the characters deal with the limitations.
Compelling fiction is based on struggle. Struggle requires limitations.
Even Superman, who is ridiculously powerful, is most compelling when he has to deal with the few limitations the comic book’s writers put on him. The very title of the movie Batman v Superman makes people scratch their heads because Superman is, well, super and Batman is just a dude in a bat suit.
The thing that makes the story work at all is that Batman has no superpowers. He is a normal human operating at peak capacity. He’s a skilled detective, master martial artist and strategist. He always thinks several steps ahead because he needs to take all contingencies into consideration in order to survive any encounter.
Superman, on the other hand, has no particular struggle other than the internal struggle to decide what kind of man he wants to be. Nothing hurts him. He is generally immune to everything but emotional anguish. He can typically bash through all obstacles and overpower every foe. Of course, there’s always kryptonite and other Kryptonians. Because he never needed finesse to resolve a problem, he doesn’t really have any kind of serious fighting skills once Zod and his cadre show up. Because he never faced a foe capable of kicking his ass, he could basically swat any and all comers like bugs.
Facing someone who is actually at or above his level was outside of his experience. Batman, being a clever and careful individual, brought Superman down beneath his level. Once the invulnerability and super strength are stripped from him by a cloud of kryptonite gas, he’s just a dude in blue tights. Batman is more than capable of beating the ever-lovin’ crap out of an average guy in tights who has no actual skill in fighting.
Limitations lead to struggle. Struggle leads to tension. Tension fuels good storytelling.
Eye beams, super breath, flying, smashing through everything in sight as if it was a sheet of paper is cool. It’s seriously cool. Figuring out how to make the guy who can do all that completely helpless so you can beat him like a red-headed stepchild is next-level cool.
On the surface, everyone knows Batman is no match for Superman. By the end of the story, you know that Superman is absolutely no match for Batman because he takes his Kryptonian powers for granted. Batman takes nothing for granted. He’s always got contingencies.
Well, almost always. Lex Luthor’s evil genius is at least twice as far down the path as Batman’s, mainly because he’s being remote-controlled by Darkseid in the DC Cinematic Universe. I don’t really go for that. It’s a pretty big disservice to the character to write it all off as “the devil made me do it“.
So, even with a major comics house behind you and a massive cinematic budget at your disposal, you can still drop the ball. The important thing is to ground your characters so you don’t have to resort to deus ex machina or devil made me do it cop-outs. Hopefully, I won’t make the same mistake.
That’s all I’ve got today. The Oolong tea is helping me stay awake to write this. I hope you get several heart-shaped boxes of chocolates (as long as you’re not diabetic or allergic to chocolate) this Valentine’s weekend. I’ll be sleeping late and ducking my responsibilities for a while…