Re: The Glorious Championship! [S3G5] [Round 4: GBN2
06-29-2012, 08:31 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.
Television is a lie.
This might seem an obvious statement, but the nurse knew it to be true on a number of levels. People enjoy watching a story play out on camera because the camera directs the eye. Through the camera, events play out logically, systematically, with a polished visual precision. It’s a welcome change from real life, which is pressing, three-hundred-sixty degrees, a series of impressions; life, which doesn’t give you any hints about what to think or what to feel about it; life, which doesn’t provide convenient pauses for you to get a snack.
The nurse considered pitching a show to the network. The first episode of the show is about a happy little girl living in a world that generally made sense, at least to her. The inciting incident comes when the girl becomes a sacrifice to the gods. The pilot episode ends on a cliffhanger with the girl jumping down into a hole to die. The second episode, instead of following up on this, gives the girl uncontrollable god-powers and places her in a battle to the death where she is tortured and harassed. A love triangle flares up involving the appendage of a living disease and an evangelical warrior mad scientist. The third episode is similar except that the girl is a fish of some sort. In the fourth episode, all that seems to have been forgotten and the girl is a struggling child-actress-going-on-actress, confronting issues of faith, womanhood and identity in a world of cameras where fame is the only currency and truth was debt.
It wouldn’t be a very good show, because it would be real, and reality didn’t sell here. Here’s a better show: close-up on a young nurse’s high heels as she clack-clack-clacks her way down a corridor. Then show her from the front; she’s holding a tray; on the tray is a napkin, upon which are laid three syringes. In real life, see, there are better ways to transport syringes, but the tray symbolizes subservience. It’s one of many subtle cues being given to the audience. The nurse’s almost-red hair and basically-white skin match her uniform and set her apart as a member of the medical profession; her pretty face and the vaguely fetishistic nature of her candy-striper outfit mark her as someone worth paying attention to. The lingering sequence of her march down the hallway, rhythmic and precise, no emotion on her face, suggest a practiced routine, a long-term engagement with the three needles and the blue door at the end of the hall, while also serving to build tension. The blue door, the camera shows us, has the words “Lord Reginald Quickington Coma Room” written on it—and then, at the nurse’s push, swings open. I’m heading to the Lord Reginald Quickington Coma Room, the viewer is thinking. This must be where Lord Reginald Quickington has his comas. The viewer is correct. In the next shot a lordly, monocle-and-hat-wearing gent lies half-naked and comatose atop a gaudy hospital bed.
The nurse stops and smells the roses (fresh) on the end table. Then she shifts her tray to one hand and picks up a syringe with the other. She leans over the patient with the needle and is startled when--and of course appropriately dramatic music strikes up at the same moment--his eyes open and he sits up. The nurse puts her hands to her cheeks and screams. The tray falls, in slow motion, and crashes. The crashing tray cues to the viewer that this event represents order making way to chaos.
“What decade is it?” grunts Lord Reginald Quickington shirtlessly.
The nurse trembles. “It’s—it’s the 1890s, Lord Quickington.”
“Tell them I’m back,” says Quickington. “Tell Reccxer... that Quickington’s coming... for revenge!”
“That’s a wrap!” announced the director. “H.M., that was beautiful. Just like we talked about. There’s the man in the coma and the man out of the coma... and they’re the same... but different.”
”Nothing to it, Felix old sport,” said Hatman, crawling out of the hospital bed. ”I only hope you’ve held up your end.”
”What, the hat full of cocaine? Why don’t you walk right on into your dressing room and see how Felix Atrum takes care of his people, okay?” Felix winked through his monocle. Dorin wheezed through her corset, some horrible apparatus that took two inches off her waist and three years off her life and Aphrodite smiles approvingly from the corner before withering at a reproachful glare of Hestia who suggests Dorin head home for the night and stole a rose from the set 'five petals one for each of My wounds,' demonstrates Christ gruesomely, 'and watch the thorns' and ran back to her dressing room, avoiding eye contact or monocle contact with anybody.
”You were great back there,” reassured Shik’skara, who was patiently by the door. Dorin shuddered a bit at the presence of the shard, as she tended to do nowadays, confusing his own voice with the voice he employs in his role as telepathic interpreter to the gods Jehovah kindly volunteers a Metatron to take the Shard’s place if she wants and Saraswati points out that he was the one who confused the languages of the Earth to begin with at Babel so maybe he shouldn’t get a say
”I screamed and dropped a tray,” dismissed Dorin, loudly, a hint to the higher powers that maybe they should leave her a moment of peace DID SOMEONE SAY PEACE yells Wohpe wife of the south wind. “And now I’m out of a job as Coma Nurse until someone else slips into a coma. Turn around.”
Shik didn’t really have a front side and had no concern for human modesty one way or another, but understood that Dorin appreciated the illusion of privacy, what with the cameras and the gods everywhere and here’s a sympathetic pat on the shoulder from JackieMarilyn, the two-faced perfect-woman goddess of the American pantheon. She put on a simple green dress and had a glass of water which flowed from Vishuddha to Manipura and waited for the Gods to settle down for a bit.
”Well, I thought you stole the scene,” reassured Shik. ”Think of this as a gateway to new opportunities. You know you’d never be happy at Reccxer Diaries so maybe it’s best that you got out now before they tried to put a monocle on you, too.”
Dorin sighed and looked in the mirror. “I guess—“
There was a knock on the door. ”One of your adoring fans,” guessed Shik.
He was wrong. ”Dorin, it’s Felix. Could you swing by my office for a bit? Any time you’re ready.”
Dorin wilted. “Just a second,” she replied weakly.
* * * * *
Reccxer Diaries is going big,” the Director was explaining two minutes later, monocle leering at Dorin from the other side of an immaculately carved mahogany desk. ”We’ve arranged a deal with the studio to have the next season premiere right after the Rollo show under the new name ‘the Armidillo Diaries’—trick the kids into tuning in thinking they’re getting more Rollo and then Bam! they find themselves engrossed in the ongoing saga of Professor Armidillo Reccxer’s solitary quest for love and justice. Glass of wine?”
Dorin waved the bottle away. “I’m only fifteen,” she said.
”Exactly!” exclaimed Felix, pouring a glass. ”Couldn’t have put it better yourself. You’re. Only. Fifteen. Everyone loves a fifteen year old. A fifteen year old is like a friendly babysitter to your average Rollo audience. An authority figure, a role model, but not a grown-up... not one of them. And adult audiences, well, they’re more patient. They’ll sit down every weekday and watch you grow into a beautiful and immensely talented young woman, and then when you finally turn eighteen, well, that’s a conversation we’ll save for later.”
Dorin considered the wine glass in her hand and at the behest of Dionysus who produces any number of studies showing that moderate alcohol consumption between the ages of fourteen and sixteen reduces the risk of substance abuse problems developing in adulthood took a tentative sip. “So you’re keeping me on?” she asked. She took a glance at the door, knowing that Shik, who hadn’t been allowed into the meeting, was waiting just beyond.
”More than that, my dear. I’m going to make you a star.”
”So... is someone else going into a coma next season?”
”Think bigger, Dorin darling. Reccxer has the Cane of Materialistic Probability—it changes mass, it changes composition, but most importantly, it changes lives. Coma Nurse and Quickington share a special bond—the bond shared only between a coma patient and his nurse, that no one else can understand. He draws her into his game of cat-and-mouse with Professor Reccxer, eventually letting slip the secret that only he knows—Coma Nurse’s birthname is Capylara Reccxer, the professor’s own daughter. Which reminds me, we'll need to get you fitted for a monocle. Now, Capylara must make a fateful choice between the two father figures who—“
”Enough of this.” Dorin—or the entity that was currently inhabiting Dorin’s body—stood and walked up to the desk. ”I’ve known plenty of people like you, Mr. Atrum,” she said, sitting on the desk. ”You have every intention of ruining this girl’s life. Innocence doesn’t sell, isn’t that right?”
Felix’s nose twitched. ”Ah, yes,” he said. ”When I took on the girl’s contract, I was warned that she sometimes had these... episodes... May I ask, to which God am I supposedly speaking right now?”
”I’m not a God. I’m just this week’s guest star. Call me whatever you like.” The thing inside Dorin leaned over and tapped on Felix’s monocle with one fingernail. ”Now,” it said, ”You and I aren’t leaving this room until we seriously renegotiate the terms of Dorin’s contract.”
Felix quivered. He had a few tricks of his own, but wasn’t sure that he wanted to press his luck right now. ”Gladly,” he replied, forcing a smile. ”More wine?”
Television is a lie.
This might seem an obvious statement, but the nurse knew it to be true on a number of levels. People enjoy watching a story play out on camera because the camera directs the eye. Through the camera, events play out logically, systematically, with a polished visual precision. It’s a welcome change from real life, which is pressing, three-hundred-sixty degrees, a series of impressions; life, which doesn’t give you any hints about what to think or what to feel about it; life, which doesn’t provide convenient pauses for you to get a snack.
The nurse considered pitching a show to the network. The first episode of the show is about a happy little girl living in a world that generally made sense, at least to her. The inciting incident comes when the girl becomes a sacrifice to the gods. The pilot episode ends on a cliffhanger with the girl jumping down into a hole to die. The second episode, instead of following up on this, gives the girl uncontrollable god-powers and places her in a battle to the death where she is tortured and harassed. A love triangle flares up involving the appendage of a living disease and an evangelical warrior mad scientist. The third episode is similar except that the girl is a fish of some sort. In the fourth episode, all that seems to have been forgotten and the girl is a struggling child-actress-going-on-actress, confronting issues of faith, womanhood and identity in a world of cameras where fame is the only currency and truth was debt.
It wouldn’t be a very good show, because it would be real, and reality didn’t sell here. Here’s a better show: close-up on a young nurse’s high heels as she clack-clack-clacks her way down a corridor. Then show her from the front; she’s holding a tray; on the tray is a napkin, upon which are laid three syringes. In real life, see, there are better ways to transport syringes, but the tray symbolizes subservience. It’s one of many subtle cues being given to the audience. The nurse’s almost-red hair and basically-white skin match her uniform and set her apart as a member of the medical profession; her pretty face and the vaguely fetishistic nature of her candy-striper outfit mark her as someone worth paying attention to. The lingering sequence of her march down the hallway, rhythmic and precise, no emotion on her face, suggest a practiced routine, a long-term engagement with the three needles and the blue door at the end of the hall, while also serving to build tension. The blue door, the camera shows us, has the words “Lord Reginald Quickington Coma Room” written on it—and then, at the nurse’s push, swings open. I’m heading to the Lord Reginald Quickington Coma Room, the viewer is thinking. This must be where Lord Reginald Quickington has his comas. The viewer is correct. In the next shot a lordly, monocle-and-hat-wearing gent lies half-naked and comatose atop a gaudy hospital bed.
The nurse stops and smells the roses (fresh) on the end table. Then she shifts her tray to one hand and picks up a syringe with the other. She leans over the patient with the needle and is startled when--and of course appropriately dramatic music strikes up at the same moment--his eyes open and he sits up. The nurse puts her hands to her cheeks and screams. The tray falls, in slow motion, and crashes. The crashing tray cues to the viewer that this event represents order making way to chaos.
“What decade is it?” grunts Lord Reginald Quickington shirtlessly.
The nurse trembles. “It’s—it’s the 1890s, Lord Quickington.”
“Tell them I’m back,” says Quickington. “Tell Reccxer... that Quickington’s coming... for revenge!”
“That’s a wrap!” announced the director. “H.M., that was beautiful. Just like we talked about. There’s the man in the coma and the man out of the coma... and they’re the same... but different.”
”Nothing to it, Felix old sport,” said Hatman, crawling out of the hospital bed. ”I only hope you’ve held up your end.”
”What, the hat full of cocaine? Why don’t you walk right on into your dressing room and see how Felix Atrum takes care of his people, okay?” Felix winked through his monocle. Dorin wheezed through her corset, some horrible apparatus that took two inches off her waist and three years off her life and Aphrodite smiles approvingly from the corner before withering at a reproachful glare of Hestia who suggests Dorin head home for the night and stole a rose from the set 'five petals one for each of My wounds,' demonstrates Christ gruesomely, 'and watch the thorns' and ran back to her dressing room, avoiding eye contact or monocle contact with anybody.
”You were great back there,” reassured Shik’skara, who was patiently by the door. Dorin shuddered a bit at the presence of the shard, as she tended to do nowadays, confusing his own voice with the voice he employs in his role as telepathic interpreter to the gods Jehovah kindly volunteers a Metatron to take the Shard’s place if she wants and Saraswati points out that he was the one who confused the languages of the Earth to begin with at Babel so maybe he shouldn’t get a say
”I screamed and dropped a tray,” dismissed Dorin, loudly, a hint to the higher powers that maybe they should leave her a moment of peace DID SOMEONE SAY PEACE yells Wohpe wife of the south wind. “And now I’m out of a job as Coma Nurse until someone else slips into a coma. Turn around.”
Shik didn’t really have a front side and had no concern for human modesty one way or another, but understood that Dorin appreciated the illusion of privacy, what with the cameras and the gods everywhere and here’s a sympathetic pat on the shoulder from JackieMarilyn, the two-faced perfect-woman goddess of the American pantheon. She put on a simple green dress and had a glass of water which flowed from Vishuddha to Manipura and waited for the Gods to settle down for a bit.
”Well, I thought you stole the scene,” reassured Shik. ”Think of this as a gateway to new opportunities. You know you’d never be happy at Reccxer Diaries so maybe it’s best that you got out now before they tried to put a monocle on you, too.”
Dorin sighed and looked in the mirror. “I guess—“
There was a knock on the door. ”One of your adoring fans,” guessed Shik.
He was wrong. ”Dorin, it’s Felix. Could you swing by my office for a bit? Any time you’re ready.”
Dorin wilted. “Just a second,” she replied weakly.
* * * * *
Reccxer Diaries is going big,” the Director was explaining two minutes later, monocle leering at Dorin from the other side of an immaculately carved mahogany desk. ”We’ve arranged a deal with the studio to have the next season premiere right after the Rollo show under the new name ‘the Armidillo Diaries’—trick the kids into tuning in thinking they’re getting more Rollo and then Bam! they find themselves engrossed in the ongoing saga of Professor Armidillo Reccxer’s solitary quest for love and justice. Glass of wine?”
Dorin waved the bottle away. “I’m only fifteen,” she said.
”Exactly!” exclaimed Felix, pouring a glass. ”Couldn’t have put it better yourself. You’re. Only. Fifteen. Everyone loves a fifteen year old. A fifteen year old is like a friendly babysitter to your average Rollo audience. An authority figure, a role model, but not a grown-up... not one of them. And adult audiences, well, they’re more patient. They’ll sit down every weekday and watch you grow into a beautiful and immensely talented young woman, and then when you finally turn eighteen, well, that’s a conversation we’ll save for later.”
Dorin considered the wine glass in her hand and at the behest of Dionysus who produces any number of studies showing that moderate alcohol consumption between the ages of fourteen and sixteen reduces the risk of substance abuse problems developing in adulthood took a tentative sip. “So you’re keeping me on?” she asked. She took a glance at the door, knowing that Shik, who hadn’t been allowed into the meeting, was waiting just beyond.
”More than that, my dear. I’m going to make you a star.”
”So... is someone else going into a coma next season?”
”Think bigger, Dorin darling. Reccxer has the Cane of Materialistic Probability—it changes mass, it changes composition, but most importantly, it changes lives. Coma Nurse and Quickington share a special bond—the bond shared only between a coma patient and his nurse, that no one else can understand. He draws her into his game of cat-and-mouse with Professor Reccxer, eventually letting slip the secret that only he knows—Coma Nurse’s birthname is Capylara Reccxer, the professor’s own daughter. Which reminds me, we'll need to get you fitted for a monocle. Now, Capylara must make a fateful choice between the two father figures who—“
”Enough of this.” Dorin—or the entity that was currently inhabiting Dorin’s body—stood and walked up to the desk. ”I’ve known plenty of people like you, Mr. Atrum,” she said, sitting on the desk. ”You have every intention of ruining this girl’s life. Innocence doesn’t sell, isn’t that right?”
Felix’s nose twitched. ”Ah, yes,” he said. ”When I took on the girl’s contract, I was warned that she sometimes had these... episodes... May I ask, to which God am I supposedly speaking right now?”
”I’m not a God. I’m just this week’s guest star. Call me whatever you like.” The thing inside Dorin leaned over and tapped on Felix’s monocle with one fingernail. ”Now,” it said, ”You and I aren’t leaving this room until we seriously renegotiate the terms of Dorin’s contract.”
Felix quivered. He had a few tricks of his own, but wasn’t sure that he wanted to press his luck right now. ”Gladly,” he replied, forcing a smile. ”More wine?”