Day 4 Of My Snarky Sarcastic Side Speaking Quotes From My Page-a-day Calendar!

Day 2 of my sarcastic snarky side personified speaking the quotes from my page-a-day calendar!!

"The stars at night have been dead for years. You're smiling at their frozen corpses."

Once again, the calendar is taking quotes from the @ unspirational Instagram account by Elan Gale.

I was on the road all day coming home from a family vacation so here I am posting this late at night again xD

I think at some point I might change to posting these doodles every week, if I run out of things to say for each individual day. We’ll see as the year progresses.

Me: *listening to Love In Paradise in the car*

Calypso: “Oh handsome, you may try~ but last I checked, goddesses can’t die!”

Me: *turns car off* “Are you sure about that Calypso” >:3

NOOO YOU’RE GONNA MAKE ME CRY

Are Penelope, Telemachus and Laertes in the band AU

yeah of course they are!

So uhh. If you feel like talking about it. As someone who lives in the US, how are you being kind to yourself on this upsetting morning <3

Checked in with my loved ones first and foremost.

It's interesting. The vibe I've been getting from my circle is very different from 2016. Much less… dread and horror at a realignment of the understanding of what can and can't happen here, now, in this place and day and age. More "fuck, guys. again? whatever. enjoy your consequences, maybe you'll manage to learn something this time."

Frustration and anger is not the most positive feeling, or even the most fair one to express, but it is a protective one. It hurts a lot less than most alternatives.

And it's quite a shift. It was earthshattering back then. How could this have been allowed to happen? Why couldn't it be stopped? Why couldn't we stop it? Why couldn't I stop it? Why couldn't everyone see what this meant? Why couldn't I make them understand? Did they really not care? What did that mean about humanity as a whole? Were we so thoughtless? How could anyone be trusted?

It seems… much less earthshattering to see it happen twice. Disappointing, sure. Frustrating. But nowhere near as devastating as the first time I saw it unfold. We already knew it could happen. I've already had time to digest the implications. Now I'm just freshly disappointed.

It also feels less indicative of Crushing Truths Of Reality this time. We've seen shit get bad. We've also seen shit get better from here! We know both outcomes are possible, even inevitable. We know hoping for a better future is always worthwhile. This isn't the apocalypse. It's an unremarkably bad turn of events brought on by unremarkably self-centered well-documented human impulses. It's utterly mundane in its unpleasantness. It doesn't need to be dignified with despair.

A democratic election, no matter the outcome or the side we're on, makes us all acutely aware of how outnumbered we are by people whose worldviews and priorities are demonstrably incomprehensible to us. And the first time you get outnumbered, it's a shock. Defeat is haunting. It didn't matter how badly you wanted it; by the very function of democracy, you do not have the power to override greater numbers. (insert electoral college caveat here)

The second time through, I find myself focusing on a different facet that has dramatically reduced the amount of spiralling I'm doing. I don't expect this to work for everyone, but for me specifically, it helped to crystallize a few thoughts:

You don't have the power to control anyone else. You don't. You can't share your worldview and your revelations with them. You can't make them think or understand anything. You can lay it all out for them, but you can't make them listen, and you can't make it click. A mentor can't make their student learn a lesson; that's why teaching is so complicated and hard. An active choice must be made by the person to enable themselves to understand, and they must put the pieces together in their own mind before it makes sense to them, and the pieces must have been presented in a way that makes sense to them in the first place. Lead a horse to water, can't make them drink.

These elections highlight a disconnect in what different groups of people care about; and no matter how clearly you explain yourself or how passionately you perform, caring cannot be forced on someone. Understanding and connection cannot be forced. You cannot make anything or anyone matter to someone. They have to choose to see how it matters in order to internalize it. If they choose not to, that is not your failing. You couldn't have made them do it by just Explaining Better. They are not your responsibility. They make their own choices. You can't reach inside their head and connect the dots for them.

I'm a storyteller. I make stories and put them out into the world. I hope people get something good out of them, but I have no control over what that something is. I want people to be thoughtful and kind and compassionate and hopeful and see themselves reflected in stranges, no matter their differences. I can craft stories that I hope encourage this. But that is the extent of my ability and the extent of my responsibility. I control no-one's actions but my own, and so while I am not having the best day, I am at least content that I am doing what I can, and I am not shattering myself against impossibilities trying to control the things I can't.

Sometimes, people make decisions that I think are really bad. I can't make that not happen. All I can do is try to make decisions that will result in things I think are good. Today, that means checking in on people, and not assigning too much dramatic narrative weight to an ultimately mundane set of unremarkable bad decisions outside of my control. We'll take life as it comes and help each other out when and how we can. Everything else is out of our hands.

AAAAAA IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL

I’ve been waiting for this song to be released for so long! And now, my take on it is finally here!

No no, I think it *is*, the notes might be a little different but it’s *definitely* there. I didn’t know about the Circe turning Scylla before this post (this is definitely making me want to brush up on my Greek mythology) but OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS HOW IS THIS MAN SO GOOD AT FITTING MOTIFS LIKE THIS INTO EVERY CORNER OF EVERY SONG— there’s just so many wonderful Easter eggs to find in this musical and I am LOVING IT

WAIT HOLD ON is that Circe’s motif at around 1:48 of suffering? When “Penelope” is talking about Scylla?

I can’t really tell, but if it is, oh my gosh!! That would be amazing and add yet another layer to the song! After all, in several versions of myth Circe was the one to transform Scylla into what she is now!! That would be a really neat Easter egg if it was-

The people have spoken

This is beautiful

I feel like there's something there. like I'm onto something. please fill this in

If you set your EPIC playlist in homeric order:

1-4 of the Wisdom Saga

↓

Horse and Infant - Thunderbringer

↓

God Games

Guys, it does things.

It emphasizes the Problem and not the Man, creates new tensions and makes every crack in Odysseus's sanity since the Infant, feel heavier. It introduces the videogame vibes earlier and also how Athena's time stopping works.

On the con side, it's a little less thrilling when everything is a flashback.

Yes I'm aware I'm saying something very obvious, changing the order in a narrative changes the narrative. But, what a fun exercise. 10/10 will do again.

...........

EDIT

I’m so happy there are so many people on board! I hope you enjoy the experiment. So, just in case you get lost,  I guess I’ll expand on my vision (you’ll probably have more ideas, though):

We start on Ithaca, Telemachus, and the suitors. We meet Athena, we’re introduced to the time stop and the video game fights. We learn she regrets breaking her friendship to someone. Then, we learn this someone is Odysseus and we get BIG EPIC INTRO TIME through Athena’s mind travel (if you've seen the Phantom of the Opera, kind of like the chandelier intro moment). And now Odysseus is suicidal and we have all these voices that will make sense further in the musical. So, what’s the tea?

Ok, now we’d need to imagine some kind of transition, but. Off to The Horse and The Infant we go. And now there’s a noticeable difference between the enthusiastic Odysseus that was back then and what he is now. And how cold Athena was. And it’s kind of a punch to the gut. And then things get worse and worse. And then God Games.

And then we would be free to go forward with the story. Ta-da!   

EDIT 2

Telemachus introducing the Monster theme in the conventional, fantastic way, and then the Actual Monster development of Odysseus? Arghh

Day 3 of my snarky sarcastic side speaking quotes from my page-a-day calendar!

“If you find a taco on the ground, eat it.

This is a gift from nature.”

The calendar is taking quotes from the @ unspirational Instagram account by Elan Gale.

Now, my snarky sarcastic side personified also happens to be the one who cares about my physical health so she also had to make this public service announcement-

“… please do not eat a taco you found on the ground.”

I figured at some point the quotes would turn to something she wouldn’t actually say, but I did not expect it to be a quote like this that started it out 😆

Hope you’re all enjoying your 2024 so far. I finished this sketch earlier today but once again didn’t post until the night. Ah well. Maybe one day I’ll post earlier.