"What You Leave Behind" Line-by-Line

KIRA: It better be.

 

(Kira leaves. Quark goes back to Morn.)
QUARK: It's like I said. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[Promenade - upper level]

(Kira sees Jake staring out of a window and goes up to join him. The wormhole goes WHOOSH. Then we pull back and back, until DS9 is just a dot in space as we leave them behind.)

 

Well done, everyone!

 

I'm exhausted.

 

Yeah, that was a long one, 54 pages!

 

and 25 days!

 

Is it me or has this game descended to a cut and paste job from Chrissie's Transcripts and other such sites? How many people are taking the time to actually look up the episode, pull out their DVD's, or look to see if they can find the episodes online somewhere?

Hell, some people don't check the accuracy of what the transcripts say, or that the stage notes made are correct. I really noticed how people are just copying what they see at Chrissie's Transcripts when we did The High Ground. When the Ansata went to Engineering the staging in the transcript did not match the staging in the episode.

So I'm asking, has this become a game, or merely a cut and paste job?

I, for one, took the time to find the episodes and write out my own transcript. It wasn't perfect and some times I was only a few lines ahead of the pace of the posting, but I did keep writing my own transcripts. I don't have all the episodes or DVD's for all the series, but I did my best to find the episodes. If I couldn't find the full episode online I'd find a piece of the episode on Youtube and hope I get the line in at the right time. In other words I worked for my posts.

For me this is no longer a game, just a cut and paste job.

Any thoughts on this? Am I right? Am I wrong?

 

I'm glad you have brought this up, Vanyel..

I use the transcripts but only to confirm the lines, and I almost always type out the lines, (I can count the times I've cut and pasted with the fingers on one hand) it's why so much of the time my non dialogue material is more intricate and specific. I'll admit that it's bugged me when I've written up that and been outpaced by someone who cut and pasted.

I'm okay with cut and paste as long as it's not what someone does all the time. The fun of this for me has been typing in the lines and writing the non dialogue material.

Other thoughts?

 

I would say it depends on the series and episode. I am a lot more familiar with TOS and TNG, followed by (in order) DS9, Ent and Voyager. I do make corrections to clarify where I think something is lacking, or if there is something I find personally compelling that I want to emphasize. I do see that in other posts as well. Most of the time it's pretty straightforward CxV.

I think the compelling thing in a line by line is to appreciate the purity of the story as it exists as words on a page, you have to have good words to begin with. I enjoy reading and posting the line by line as it makes me appreciate the writers seminal contribution to the episode. Obviously some episodes (and series) are better than others in that regard.

 

In terms of this episode, it's a pretty good one, though it does have an overall tying-up-loose-ends feel to it. There are some good words in there though, Bashir, Ezri, and Quark in particular seem to have the best lines. There is quite a lot of battleish one word responses to orders which bloat it on the page.

 

I look for episodes from Voyager and Enterprise on the net because I don't have those series on DVD. I use those for the words. I do admit that i use the transcripts to get names of characters whose name's I don't hear during the show or are only listed in the credits.

The compelling thing in a line by line, for me, was the thrill of competition.

If it is

then just read the transcripts.

 

It's more than *just* reading it. I like the participatory aspect, such as it is. I'll never be an actor on any incarnation of ST, so posting lines is about as close as I'll get. I do sometimes have a rather odd sensation that I'm a bit like a Talosian, reliving the lives of others stored in the memory records.

I think maybe having some sort of extended discussion after a LxL would help alleviate that sort of copy-paste, roll the randomizer and move on to the next sort of feeling. Does reading the words change your opinion of the episode as opposed to watching it? I've got mixed feelings about this one. I like it well enough, but I'm not quite convinced about Sisko's fate/purpose. It was to tackle Dukat and fall into an abyss?! And to have some moldy book be so critical to the fate of the Prophets and Pah Wraiths? But I do find myself missing Quark, Odo and the regular goings on of the station.

In this case the words are perhaps less effective as it's a pretty action heavy episode so the on screen experience is probably better.

 

Reading or watching I get the same feeling, I've seen the episodes so many times that I still feel the pace as I write out the line. Even in these heavy action oriented episodes.

I know what you mean about Sisko's destiny, it's so linear.

But this is a game, and using the work of someone else just doesn't seem to fit the idea of a game..

 

Well I've only taken part in the last 2.

Day of the Dove i'm VERY familiar with. I started out going from memory, using the transcript as a check.

I've never watched What You Leave Behind. Thats why I joined this thread so late. So I had to use the transcript. But I feel I have experienced the episode in a totally new way.
Its almost like reading a story, but not really.

If it's not how the game is played then I'll refrain from taking part in episodes I have not watched.

But I can say I think its good, clean fun!

 

There is no rule against using the transcripts I'm just asking if it's really a game if all most people are doing is cut and paste.

As I said I do take time to find the episodes online and use those to write my own transcripts. Why don't others put work into this game?

 

Why don't people put more into the game? I don't have the time. 70-80% of the time, I'm posting lines in between doing other things. Which means the transcript or nothing.

We have done a lot of the episodes that I know backwards and forwards. Thinking back to when you and I did"The Best of Both Worlds" Vanyel, I referred to the transcript maybe 5-10 times to double check something. Everything else, I knew already. That kind of knowledge just doesn't exist on all episodes for me.

 

^ Seconded.

Not all of us know every episode by heart. Do the math - 29 seasons across all the series (including TAS) x average 24 episodes per season = 696 episodes...plus 11 movies.

At best, I know specific lines from favorite episodes by heart. The rest I couldn't do without the transcripts.

 

I don't know every episode either. I never claimed to. In fact I admitted as much by saying I looked up episodes to get lines. Not transcripts, but the episodes, some at Startrek.com other at hulu some at personal sites or old MySpace accounts. Basically I scoured the web looking. If I had the episode on DVD (which would be TNG and DS9 and now season 1 of Enterprise) I'd take time to write out the transcripts. I also had, I stopped once I noticed this was going by transcripts, written out episodes I wanted to do while other line by lines were being done, I posted once or twice or just enough to be on the list AND to keep ahead of the primary whiner of not being able to post because the line by lines were going to fast for him to post (Oh, Boo-Hoo!) and then the whiner rarely gets into the double digits in posting so I have no idea why he bitched anyway. I stopped doing that too, because he is just a whiner.

If I don't have or can't find an episode or missed the part where I could put in a line because I was busy, I was not in that line by line. Never bothered me that I couldn't get in on my own ability.

 

The only series I have on DVD is TOS, all the other shows were on VHS that I recorded each week for all those years. I got rid of them when my VCR went kaput and I realized it'd been over a year since I had one. Plus, some of those tapes were wearing out. I use transcripts and don't think it a problem on episodes I don't know well enough to do from memory. I try to change around some of the descriptive action in the parentheses or make up my own, but as far as doing the actual looking up of the episode in question? Like LeadHead, I ain't got that kinda time! lol! Those lovely transcripts let me participate and I don't think anything of it, personally. I enjoy these threads, no matter how I get the line.

 

I used to enjoy these threads, but to have people copy and paste while I actually work makes me feel like I wasted time in preparing for a game.

Games should be fun. What fun is it to use the work of someone else? What do you actually accomplish by using their work?