#then i rewatched EEAAO and got emotional

[medic88itup]

How wonderful, beautiful, to allow yourself to see something from someone else's perspective. To let yourself like. Everything. To allow yourself to appreciate something simply for the value that someone else finds in it. There is no meaning but that which we assign. If nothing means anything, then it can mean EVERYTHING. Perhaps life is simply a wonderful accident. Okay. Now allow yourself to stand in awe at the outlandish probability that you are conscious and sentient in this moment to experience life. The odds are beyond calculation. Stand witness to the wonder of your own existence, improbable as it is. And allow yourself to know joy in anything and everything.

Here is a purpose: If, like me, you need a way to be useful, if only to justify your own existence, then let your reason for living be to appreciate your good fortune. Let yourself enjoy and accept good things, like kindness, and peace. Not cuz you deserve it, not cuz it was a gift or whatever and you wanna be gracious, nah...just cuz it's there and you're there. Might as well.

[ghostysword]

Why Everything Everywhere All At Once’s Worldbuilding Hits So Hard

I love this movie for so many reasons, but rewatching it last night, I realized that the masterful worldbuilding does a *lot* to make it hit home. Some of the tricks I noticed, and that I’m going to think about in my own writing:

Our POV character is clueless- and for an understandable reason. Because Evelyn doesn’t know how the multiverse works, we learn with her- and we aren’t questioning why she doesn’t know already.

There’s stakes related to learning how the world works. Evelyn’s life literally depends on how fast she can figure out how to navigate the multiverse. That makes the info dumps exciting, never tedious.

Every piece of worldbuilding is multipurpose. A good movie might have invented Hotdog World as a throwaway gag and left it at that. EEAAO makes it the site of a heartbreak-filled, unexpected romance too, and that turns it into a truly memorable piece of the film.

The jargon is minimal, and often uses common words. The only invented term that I noticed was “verse jumping,” which describes the central conceit of the movie. They’re not calling the Everything Bagel the “Infinity Torus,” or calling what happened to Joy “multisplintering,” or otherwise giving us complicated new terms that would take some of our mental capacity to absorb. We just get to let it all wash over us, in very accessible terms.

Similarly, they only give us worldbuilding details that have a purpose. Do we know how Jobu Tupaki got control of the IRS agent? No. Do we know where the temple with the bagel is located, or how the cult works? Also no, and we don’t need to! The film anticipates which questions are absolutely needed to “sell” the worldbuilding, and makes those answers easier to remember by not telling us much else.

After a certain point, they stop giving us new details and just let the world play out. In the last third of the movie, we learn nothing new about verse jumping and see very few new worlds. This keeps my attention on the devastating emotional arcs and brilliant action sequences, and the conclusion feels like a satisfying, well-earned payoff of everything we learned about the world in the first 2/3s of the movie.

[a-spell-a-rebel-yell]

June

oh my god, i think this month's monthly update is the most delayed one i've ever posted here... i'm so sorry huhu but anyways to make it up to you guys: hello friends, wherever you are i hope you guys are happy and safe.

(also a bit TMI: this is my second time writing this post. for unknown cause, while i was already 90% done with my post, Tumblr decided to crash and i lost all of the words i've written. sighs. from this second, i will always remember to do 'save as drafts' now and then)

so the reason of me going behind schedule is really just the classic excuse of me being super busy. so many things happened and it just kept me away from this website and update you guys, literally until i can only write these down 2 days into July! 🥺

June started just like any month this year. work wise, the clinic ran just like how it does normally. nothing worth noting happened. life went on as mundane as it is, just the way i like it: staying in comfort zone.

but then, at the end of first week, i received a terrible news: the passing of a second father figure, an uncle. it was so abrupt, happened at night, but that's how heart attack is. this post also serves as a public service announcement to please please learn how to do the CPR! it might save lives and prevents further serious damages. the steps leading to and during cardio-pulmonary resuscitation aren't hard to memorize and trust me when i say it will make a huge difference. there are just a few steps, simple yet effective and important that i'm sure you'll thank yourself for studying it beforehand and keeping it in mind. especially if you have family members or friends with cardiovascular disease, please take a CPR course.

what's worse was having to deliver the news to his daughter, my closest cousin, who was at Brisbane at that time. dealing with the loss will never be easy, no matter how many times we've gone through this. it doesn't even lessen the pain in the slightest, it just acts like a warning sign to brace ourselves for the surely harsh waves. it crushed and still left an irreparable dent on my heart.

my mum also got the worst impact. my uncle and her were close, they were like comrades and always trusted each other. she said it feels even depressing to realize there are only three siblings left, where originally there were seven. it brought back the topic of death, and of course my parents got me into another drill of instructions to do should their time come. i honestly can't imagine a world without my mum and dad, i've always thought them and my grandma are immortal and inseparable part of my life i will never lose. but i guess, death and losses are just like the shadow, we can never outrun it. we just learn how to live with it.

now the main and only focus is to spend as much time as i can with my loved ones. cherish everything i have with them while they're still here, and give them the best while they can still witness it. i don't care how much we have left, even if it's just a speck of time, that is ours to preserve in the best state.

on another note, i watched Broker 브로커 and Everything Everywhere All At Once at the cinema! these two movies are just awesome, pure masterpieces. i recommend you to watch it!!! i can't even really describe what i feel while watching them, i genuinely think no word can break down the emotions you get during and after watching. they just get your thinking gears move and force you to step on their shoes for a couple of hours... i think i will rewatch them from time to time. not to mention the scores oh my god!!! Jung Jaeil did Broker and Son Lux did EEAAO, and i kid you not my favorite score that i listened before watching is actually played also on my favorite scenes! Broker also got listed into Festival de Cannes competition and won Best Actor... so i think i've said enough to convince you guys to watch it 😁

on the same weekend when i watch Broker, i met my Twitter friend K! she was at Jakarta to watch her favorite athletes at the Indonesia Masters, so between her badminton matches watch party we managed to sneak in some time to watch Broker together and sit to eat, talking from A to Z! it's fascinating really, how even though when i meet my internet friends it's our first encounter ever, we interacted like lifelong best friends finally reunited 😂 she brought a friend along, so naturally i became friends with her too haha

i forgot to mention, but i bought yet another Dufan annual pass! if you guys know me, yes i go to Dufan just like i go to malls, so having this pass is like one of my most treasured lol. going back to Ancol complex and finally getting on my favorite rides, it was... cathartic. even if it was a me-time, alone Dufan date with myself, i feel so liberated, so free. my only mistake was going on a Sunday, which means a packed crowd wherever i went, it took an hour queueing for every ride 😭 but i just let it all out, scream and shout, emptying my lungs every time the ride sent me soaring high into the sky. i put my arms up, complete surrender. i even heard someone saying i was so brave to do that in Kora-Kora, because i sat aaaaall the way back so as the big boat swing i will get to the highest point in an angle where even though i'm actually seated, it forced me to go into standing position. almost like i'm flying! the adrenaline rush and all the fond memories are the reasons why i keep coming back to Dufan 😊

work wise: i'm starting to get interesting cases this month! the most memorable one is again from another pediatric tooth extraction case like last time haha. but for this one, it's not about me having to handle crying kid, but it's what happened during the extraction: the deciduous teeth i extracted has a long, perfectly fine root just like a permanent teeth!!! i swear i already did intraoral examinations before the procedure so i'm sure it is a deciduous teeth, but i have never seen a root that intact it sent me into a panic fit 😭😂 apparently it is normal, it just doesn't happen often. the next case is a mysterious diagnosis of an upper molar, it took me many discussions with my head dentists and professors to determine what to do next. last week i just had the patient in for radiograph analysis and next Tuesday i'll be starting the procedure. prayers i can deliver the best treatment for my patients 🤲🏻

also another thing to add into the pile of things i'm working on: i was writing another fiction, yes!!!! after so long not writing a fiction, i admit i become a bit rusty and have to check Thesaurus a lot, but it's fun designing the mind map, doing world building, and characterization! had to dig deep to find the right emotions and words to portray them, but i finished it. it's just a short 6.8k words, but i'm very satisfied with it hehe.

that's all, the monster update for what June has been to me. i hope anyone reading this will have a superb July!!! stay safe and healthy, see you in the next post 🥂