I Have The Trilogy Finished.

I was looking at D&D spells today and I realized how much of a menace I'd be if I get isekai'd and returned. Fireball has limited uses in the Real World. Otto's Irresistible Dance? The possibilities are endless.

He reinforces the theme when Sarah nearly kills Miles Dyson. She's methodical and cold and ready to kill him without a thought. It's when she realizes what she's doing - murdering an as-yet innocent man - that she pulls back in horror and needs to be comforted by her son.

Although as a side note, the first time I ever saw this movie was on TBS and I missed the first 30 minutes (and the first movie). I legitimately thought that John was lying about Kyle Reese's existence. I thought John Connor had been the one to travel back in time and save his mother and he'd simply given a pseudonym. I totally got these incest vibes from how overly concerned John seems about his mother.

"During the writing process, he was in his living room excitedly explaining the T-1000 to his friend and collaborator Stan Winston when Winston raised a concern. "I don't know who the bad guy is," Winston said. "I need a specific character, a specific image." To Winston, what Cameron was describing sounded like a blob of goo, not an iconic evildoer. "From a story standpoint, I thought it was a problem," Winston later recalled in an interview for the picture-book history of his story, "The Winston Effect." Cameron respected Winston's instincts for creating memorable characters, and he started reconsidering how he would shape this one. Later that same night, the effects artist got a phone call from his friend. "I've got it!" Cameron said. "He's a cop!" The form the T-1000 would take for most of the movie was a Los Angeles police officer. This solved the storytelling dilemma Winston had raised and also gave Cameron an opportunity to underline a central theme in both of the Terminator movies - how people, especially those in violent jobs, like soldiers and cops, can become barbarized. "The Terminator films are not really about the human race getting killed of by future machines. They're about us losing touch with our own humanity and becoming machines, which allows us to kill and brutalize each other," he says. "Cops think all non-cops as less than they are, stupid, weak, and evil. They dehumanize the people they are sworn to protect and desensitize themselves in order to do that job.""

Source: https://www.amazon.com/Futurist-Life-Films-James-Cameron-ebook/dp/B0034184U0

People are sleeping on The Fare (2019). I stumbled upon it when researching time travel movies and it has an interesting take on Persephone and the Underworld. Her costume design is subtle and I love it!

It's strange re-watching Dead Like Me after 20 years. There were so many lessons about life and growing up that I remember learning, but now I realize they never really sunk in. Bryan Fuller gives great life advice through Rube, who is a great father figure for George. Rube takes an interest in George's afterlife and actively involves himself in contrast to George's father, who divorces himself from his family life and eventually actually divorces George's mom.

Roxy's also a great mom stand-in/contrast for Joy. They're both aloof and seemingly hostile with their constant criticism to George, but Roxy takes the time to help and advise her when necessary. Roxy knows when to get involved and support George whereas Joy is seemingly afraid to do the same. Fortunately, Joy seems to learn from her mistakes with George and tries harder to connect with Reggie.

Betty, Mason, and Daisy are all siblings without being a surrogate for George's relationship with Reggie. Betty was instrumental in demonstrating to George that she had to take an active part in her own life. Betty was a role model who encouraged her to try new things.

Mason is a loveable screwup who grows throughout the show. At first he demonstrates how not to live the afterlife and makes poor decisions. In this way, he's allowing George to learn without having to make the mistakes herself. He's also very protective of George (and Daisy) and supports her even when the other reapers give her a hard time (often because she needs to learn a lesson).

Daisy is terrible when she's first introduced, but she later calms down and seems to become genuinely concerned about George after they move into a house together. Their relationship mirrors George and Reggie's with Daisy acting as George in this relationship, and had George lived, I think the sisters would have eventually acted the same way. Regardless, Daisy-as-an-older-sister demonstrates a different kind of self-confidence that I'm glad George doesn't adopt.

Sometimes, you just have to sit down and make yourself write!

But not yet, though.

I've begun singing lately as a way to try to rediscover joy (and learn how to unmask). Unfortunately, my shiba inu tends to be the target of such serenades. She often slowly backs away and hides, all the while looking at me with the same expression I'd expect on a peasant mother who's just discovered that her child is possessed.

Putting on shows for this unwilling audience has become the highlight of my day.

It me.

Me to myself: no, you can't write something new, you're supposed to be working on WIP! *gestures to sad WIP in the corner*

Also me: okay, fine, I won't write something new. *starts scrolling on social media* Happy?

For all the writer's tips and tricks I've read advising not to head hop, it's very irritating to read a bestseller novelist do it. Here I was thinking that I'd imagined it or misunderstood as a child, but here it is!

Clearly, the lesson here is to do what you want!

Every time I have an idea for a fic, I overthink it and talk myself out of it. I don't know the characters well enough. This doesn't fit the setting/canon. Which is why in all the years I've been writing, I only ever wrote one Pokémon fanfic when I was like 14 and a fictionalization of a Slayers RPG I ran. OCs are easier because I make the canon!