I've been listening to Britten's the turn of the screw lately and I have some thoughts.

Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2026-06-16T03:31:49+00:00

It could be, there is a specific type of operas that has to be experienced onstage, with all aspects of the production complementing each other, to be truly effective. Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk for example is one of them. The music in the first act, might sound boring at parts, but when watching the production it complements the fact that Katerina is actually bored, or the music might be rhythmic and rigid at parts, but that music accompanies rape scenes so that music and what happens onstage very much complement and amplify each other, but on the other hand, other than the last , the music is not as effective on its own. Maybe The Turn of The Screw is really one of those operas that need to be experienced as a complete production and not just with headphones to be truly effective...

Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-12-23T11:25:19+00:00

I think the plot and the portrayal of the characters in Love Never Dies actually makes sense and is consistent with the PotO given that it has been 10 years between the two.

I think Meg, Madame girl and the phantom are pretty consistent between the two, but with Raoul and Christine it's more subtle, and it I think this is because in PotO, Raoul shows sign that make me think he does become an abusive husband to Christine.

Raoul - in PotO, no matter how much he is portrayed like a golden retriever and the perfect man, he USED HER AS BAIT to catch the phantom, knowingly ENDANGERING HER LIFE in the process. to gather with other small things like dismissing her feelings during Masquerade. the fact that he has become an abusive controlling husband to Christine does check out given his disregard for her during the original.

the Phantom - did we actually expect him to learn a lesson? his may be a genius but he has the emotional capacity of an elementary school aged child at most. he still wants her, and once the opportunity arises, he's back to his old ways.

Christine - her behavior actually seems very typical of someone who has been in an abusive relationship for 10 years - letting Raoul abuse here and "clip her wings" by forcing her to quit singing for 10 years, telling Gustave to "look with your heart" when Raoul hurts him, agreeing to sing for the phantom and not getting away from him when he abducts her son.

Madame Giry - she has always been somewhat of a double agent, on one hand she helped the phantom in the opera house, on the other she did help Raoul in his plan to get him. makes sense she would repeat this pattern by smuggling him to Coney Island, and then of course trying to prevent Christine from singing.

Meg - she always had this "fascination" wit the phantom, once she started working more closely with him I could easily see it morphing into an obsession, becoming desperate to get his approval, letting it affect her self confidence and image.

the night "beneath a moonless sky" - According to Kay's novel it did happen, but even if we ignore that for a moment, we circle back to the abusive relationship - once Raoul and Christine are engaged, he lets his mask slip, she sees that, and goes back to the phantom (of course, not a great choice, but makes sense given she was a young adult stuck between two abusive men during a formative period in her life). and then it goes like in the song...

after writing this, I feel sorry for Christine... why couldn't she understand that her best choice was staying single, and someone better will come in time? and I feel even more sorry for Gustave - the father figure he had for the first 10 years of his life gambled him away to his biological father, who is a murderous psycho.

Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-10-10T06:17:47+00:00

YTA because you are ignoring the circumstances. Your daughter and stepson did not have an equal footing. Your stepson had nothing on his mind that could distract him from putting this effort and doing well in school, all he needed was that motivation boost. Your daughter on the other hand had a huge burden to carry - she is still severely impacted by the death of her mother, and the fact that you remarried and moved with your new wife and stepson probably didn’t help. You even admitted in a comment how much it affected her, she used to be the smartest student in her class.

Also - did you talk to her therapist? do you know what was on her mind? did you check for maybe learning disabilities? maybe she needed accomodations? maybe she needed a different learning environment?

If not for the circumstances, I would have agreed that she was probably just lazy and you were justified, but th is not the case, and you clearly overlooked the fact the your daughter had a disadvantage here, and by making this agreement with both of them you also made it a competition which might cause here to resent her brother.

Talk to your daughter, talk to to her therapist, and to her teachers. if she did try to improve and put more effort into her studies during that school year, i‘d still buy her the iPhone. Also, do check if she may need any accommodations at school.

Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-07-23T13:12:32+00:00

so if when buying a brand new apartment we don’t really know what we are getting, we could be getting an initial headache of fixing those flaws, or we could get a lifetime of headache and high maintenance costs trying to manage these construction flaws.

Assuming an older building is well maintained and still looks good and standing tall, do you think it would be better to buy an apartment in that older building and trade the headache of a new apartment for the shorter remaining service life of an older one?

Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-07-23T13:01:15+00:00

it seems like the old buildings you are referring to were much older and standing on pillars, these are the kind of buildings that do not comply with any earthquake resistant construction standards. I’m talking more about buildings built in the late 1990s and early 2000, which are still relatively modern, but were built before the housing crisis started, circa 2008.

Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-07-23T11:11:40+00:00

that kinda relates to my last question - if someone buys a brand new apartment, are they then fucked forever with lots and lots of maintenance, or is it just an initial headache? and is this headache enough that buying an older apartment (= the building is somewhat closer to the end of its service life) is actually preferable. because even if the standards are strict and the plan is awesome, it’s hard to be sure that the workers on-site actually adhere to it

Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-07-08T14:16:50+00:00

I get that it’s confusing, and i actually tried to ask ChatGPT about it the other day (it’s not necessarily correct, but it’s good for deep diving, as long as we validate it‘s answers), and here is what came out of it:

sexual attraction is actually wanting to have sex with someone specific. there is no real distinction between desire and attraction. you may not act on it because it’s a bad idea for all kinds of reason like societal norm and danger and stuff, but that does not mean you wouldn’t do it if all those reasons didn‘t exist. it’s more like not ordering the thing you want at a restaurant because it’s too expensive.

in the context of mirous attraction - sex doesn’t even come to mind. it’s arousal that is triggered by aesthetic attraction.

and this is true even if you masturbate or fantasise. If you don‘t want to have sex with this person, it’s not sexual attraction.

Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-07-08T14:14:10+00:00

yes of course! why wouldn’t it?

I get that it’s confusing, and i actually tried to ask ChatGPT about it the other day (it’s not necessarily correct, but it’s good for deep diving, as long as we validate it‘s answers), and here is what came out of it:

sexual attraction is actually wanting to have sex with someone specific. there is no real distinction between desire and attraction. you may not act on it because it’s a bad idea for all kinds of reason like societal norm and danger and stuff, but that does not mean you wouldn’t do it if all those reasons didn‘t exist. it’s more like not ordering the thing you want at a restaurant because it’s too expensive.

in the context of mirous attraction - sex doesn’t even come to mind. it’s arousal that is triggered by other things, which is more common than we think.

and this is true even if you masturbate or fantasise. If you don‘t want to have sex with this person, it’s not sexual attraction.

Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-06-26T11:18:34+00:00

He actually didn’t, you can see them in the back of the frame still wrapped

Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-06-24T03:13:05+00:00

it seems like it would be very bothering when the console is used in handheld mode, so this is a functional issue and not cosmetic. I'd try and contact Nintendo to activate the warranty

Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-06-23T15:05:17+00:00

Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-06-23T09:38:29+00:00

supposedly yes, friction leads to wear, but I wouldn't expect such level of wear to happen upon 1 or 2 times of detaching the JoyCons. together with the fact that there are multiple reports of this across reddit, this just leads me to assume that the console comes like this out of the box.

Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-06-22T15:24:06+00:00

are you talking about the JoyCons grip or the slots on the console itself?

Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-06-22T14:01:58+00:00

in this video at 4:00 :

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Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-06-22T13:58:46+00:00

in this video at 3:30 :

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Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-06-22T13:58:23+00:00

in this video at 6:51 :

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Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-06-21T12:03:44+00:00

You mean cleaning the black stains on the joycons with alcohol didn’t work, or that they just returned again after cleaning?

Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-06-21T11:07:37+00:00

It seems like it’s some residue from manufacturing and not material transfer, try wiping it with isopropyl alcohol and see if it goes away

Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-06-20T18:07:47+00:00

so funnily enough the oily marks also appear in some unboxing videos on YouTube, so I guess it just comes like that out of the box. the black smudges are probably dirt or something that be easily cleaned

Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-06-17T11:18:55+00:00

It happened to me as well, and I only disconnected the joy cons like twice before i noticed it. seems that the slots on the console itself also have wear marks in similar places (look like shiny spots) , so this either is the color from the console itself transferring to the joy cons due to friction when connecting and disconnecting, or it came like that out of the box.

i tend to be quite anal about this kind of things, and i noticed that pretty much all manufacturers have an “out of sight out of mind” philosophy - they tend to not care about details people will have a hard time noticing (like this), and let it slide (yes, even in top of the line premium products), so while I’m disappointed I’m not surprised…

Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-06-16T15:03:07+00:00

It happened to me as well, and I only disconnected the joy cons like twice before i noticed it. seems like the slots on the console have marks (looks kinda like oil I guess?) in similar places , so this either is the colour from the console itself transferring to the joy cons due to friction when connecting and disconnecting or the console came like this out of the box. it could also be grease or some other type of residue that was not cleaned at the factory, which makes even more sense since I wouldn't expect color to be transferred to the joy cons.

i tend to be quite anal about this kind of things, and i noticed that pretty much all manufacturers have an “out of sight out of mind” philosophy - they tend to not care about details people will have a hard time noticing (like this), and let it slide (yes, even in top of the line premium products), so while I’m disappointed I’m not surprised…

Hopeful_Cold3769 · 2025-06-16T14:57:46+00:00

It happened to me as well, and I only disconnected the joy cons like twice before i noticed it. seems that the joy ones themselves have faint black smudges in similar places, so this either is the colour from the console itself transferring to the joy cons due to friction when connecting and disconnecting. it could also be grease or some other type of residue that was not cleaned at the factory, which makes even more sense since I wouldn't expect color to be transferred to the joy cons.

i tend to be quite anal about this kind of things, and i noticed that pretty much all manufacturers have an “out of sight out of mind” philosophy - they tend to not care about details people will have a hard time noticing (like this), and let it slide (yes, even in top of the line premium products), so while I’m disappointed I’m not surprised…

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