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✹One speaker, a conversation with the self
✹Ego prepares himself to talk with Adam
✹Portrays a moment of self-reflection, a moment for the speaker to hear only their own thoughts
✹The chair represents a moment of confrontation, this might be a situation that allows you to voice any kind of thought but you have to look at yourself whilst doing so.
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✹The mirror has also the option to flip it around, but by doing so the user is confronted by a caricature of eyes, a drawing that is stoic and unmovable, a proof thet even thought you cannot face yourself, you will have to face agraphic representation of seriousness (the eyes of T. J. Eckleburg)

The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are a pair of fading, bespectacled eyes painted on an old advertising billboard over the valley of ashes. They may represent God staring down upon and judging American society as a moral wasteland, though the novel never makes this point explicitly. Instead, throughout the novel, Fitzgerald suggests that symbols only have meaning because characters instill them with meaning.

✹In this act, we get to know the inner struggle of Ego confronting Adam to have this conversation. This is the first insight that we get at their conflict but is through the inner thoughts of Ego, thus an unreliable narrator.
✹We also learn that the conflict that Ego and Adam have is one where both are at fault since Ego states so from the beginning. Even so, we are to be inclined to think that Ego is in the right since he implies to the audience that even though both of them have harmed their relationship, it is in Ego's intent to start the conversation towards solving it, and not Adam's.
✹The intention with the first visual is to put the audience in the situation, a person pondering on a past relationship that started as a sweet dream but has turned sour.
✹For Ego this is not something that he wants to do, but is needed. He wants to go back, but there is no other way. He also states several times a cpuple of awful thoughts that imply that he has no clean slate in this conflict. This also serves the purpose of understanding the first chair for the audience, is a moment for them to see all the sides of his self as well as all the perceptions he has of Adam.

PART 0: THE PEP-TALK (A QUESTION)

PART 2: THE LEAP (A MISUNDERSTANDING)

✹Two speakers, but develops into something one-sided.
✹Adam listens to Ego but is cut short, there is a wall of self-centeredness that filters everything Ego says.
✹This chair is meant to represent a bold, rash decision that usually leads to misfortune, there is no way that the jump taken from the chair is thought out and calculated.
✹The person that takes the leap comes crash-landing on the words of the other person.
✹The user on the chair is represented standing, which means that not only they don't listen to the other speaker, but that they are looking down on them, disregarding what can be said.
✹It positions the listener in a position of an idol, above the speaker and with a disregard to the other.
✹The card of the tower in tarot.

The Tower is commonly interpreted as meaning danger, crisis, destruction, and liberation. It is associated with sudden unforseen change.

✹The second act represents a radical change in tone in the conversation.
✹Adam is the one that initiates the change, switching the moment that Ego refuses to make eye contact to put Ego in the compromising position of listening to Adam ask questions that have no regard to what ego has to say. There is a trigger here.
✹The initial route that Ego wants to go to does not exist anymore, leaving the neatly decided path of the Pep-talk forgotten.
✹The intention of this visual is for the audience to see the way Adam reacts and is receptive to what Ego has to say. It is also meant to create a slight annoyance of the audience towards Adam, even though there is factual reasoning for the way that he reacts to Ego's words, something that we learn in the Pep Talk.

PART 3: THE ESCAPE (A RACE)

✹Two speakers, but develops into something one-sided (a continuation).
✹This is the development of the conversation that is cut short in the Leap, the aftermath of this lack of understanding.
✹In this case, the listener uses the chair to escape an overwhelming situation, which is a tool of escapism for when you cannot take the atmosphere of a social situation anymore.
✹The downside of this tool is that is to be misinterpreted by the speaker since for them it looks as if the listener does not care about the speaker in any form.
✹Is not really a chair that positions anybody in the right, depending on the point of view of the conversation, it can be seen as a tool to escape a harmful conversation or a tool to portray cowardice.
✹A subjective object.

✹The third act is a direct reaction to the Leap, which can even be overlapped with it.
✹Ego is the one creating the great escape, using the chair to get away from the situation that Adam has created by jumping the gun.
✹Ego chooses to escape the situation, choosing the path of cowardice, rather than asserting dominance over his feelings and reaffirming the points he made during the Pep-talk
✹This is a moment to show how insecure Ego is with his own emotions, how for him is even better to evade the situation than facing the music.
✹The viewer here also gets to know a little of the usual dynamics of communication between Adam and Ego: Adam is passionate and extroverted, taking sometimes too much space, meanwhile, Ego is more closed inwards, he projects emotions towards himself, without really letting the other person know how does he feel, creating a dissonance in the relationship that they both have, creating dissonance in the way they choose to resolve conflicts, creating dissonance in their communication
✹This should be the first stage that the audience realizes that they are not to side with either Ego or Adam. Although this is already hinted at in the Pep-talk, here is explicitly shown, in the way Adam takes over the conversation and Ego decides to escape rather than to voice his own concerns.

✹To jump the gun.
✹Dive head first.

✹The great escape
✹Deflection rather than rejection.

PART 4: THE CHASE (A RESIGNATION)

✹Two speakers, one of them forced into joining the conversation rather than this being a voluntary act of communication.
✹The chase that develops after the Escape.
✹Here the speaker has to force the listener into the chair, which is an object to make one of them sit down and listen to the other, so its an object that creates in some degree a power dynamic where someone has the upper hand even though it places both users at the same position.
✹Might be an object born from violence, since it forces the listener to actually face the speaker, not like the chair from the Discomfort, which allows both participants to avoid the other.
✹It represents a moment of climax, a moment that you cannot escape from, one that is bound to happen and has to happen for the sake of both participants: the speaker has to vomit their words, the listener has to watch the visceral act.
✹After this conversation, there is only room for descent of tension

Every conversation just ends with you screaming
Not even words, just ahh-ahh-ahh

✹The fourth act is the final of the three fast-paced situations of the conversations, the final chase of Adam after Ego.
✹Here Adam is forcing Ego to sit down and talk with him, to actually communicate with him, breaking the cycle of escapes that the both of them have experimented with in the past.
✹It is also a plea from Adam for Ego to sit down and listen to him for a change, not like in the past.
✹Here we are supposed to get that even though in the past Adam has been harsh with Ego, he is trying his best for the both of them to have a proper conversation, even if it is born from a violent careless intent there is a want for them to close this chapter.
✹Also to be noted, Adam is not comfortable in this conversation either, but he knows that for the sake of both them, a conversation is needed.

PART 5: THE EFFORT (FACE TO FACE)

✹Two speakers, both of them equally involved in the conversation, both of them making an effort for the conversation to happen
✹The resolution after the Chase
✹Both speakers find themselves in a position unique after a whole development of action: here they have the choice to speak face to face, but only through a joint effort. Both of them have to choose to climb the ladders.
✹It's an object that invites resolution, understanding, acknowledgment of the dirty mess of the process of the past.
✹Its a moment for both speakers finally see themselves face to face, and not to be confronted by that, eye contact is no longer a common enemy.

12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain:

(1 Corinthians 13:12-13)

✹The fifth act comes as a release, but not a resolution.
✹With a silent agreement, Adam and Ego make an effort to see eye to eye, to talk face to face, to finally confront the eye contact that scared them in the Discomfort.
✹Also, this is a moment for both Adam and Ego to realize that via the communication they so much dread, they can finally reach an agreement, the effort is something that pays off in the end.
✹It is also bittersweet thought. There is no going back in some of the actions that have happened. They are acting right now but the timing is a bit off.

PART 6: THE ENDING (A CHOICE)

✹Two speakers, but only one of them finds themselves on the chair, since is one for the listener to use
✹The continuation of the Effort
✹Here the listener must make a choice, there is no way they can stay forever in the part of the chair that faces the other person, they must go one way or the other
✹It's bittersweet but is needed, and while it stills allows the listener to see the speaker, there is no full eye contact, only partial: the direct communication has come to an end but that does not mean that there is a denial of the other person.
✹The card the chariot

A choice that must be taken, to take control over the choices one makes, a choice that is not avoidable.

✹The sixth and final act.
✹Ego and Adam come to the realization that one of them (or maybe both of them?) has to make a decision.
✹This is a chance for both of them to reconsider all the actions of the past and to see how they and advance as individuals after all the discussion.
✹There is nowhere else to go, there is nowhere else to find themselves.
✹It is also a realization for the both of them that this is not a happy ending, but it is an ending, something that maybe was more desired than anything else.
✹An object that brings them closure.

✹All cards on the table

PART 1: THE DISCOMFORT (MIRROR TO MIRROR)

✹Two speakers, silent.
✹A chair that allows you to exist in the same space as the other person but with no eye contact, ergo no personal attachment to the other individual.
✹Eye contact is a dangerous territory wehn sitting in this chair, it represents an emotional tension between the two individuals using it
✹It represents just the right amount of eye contact that the people involved can bear at the moment
✹ Its a conversation with a bypass, no direct contact but a direct physical presence

✹The first act represents the beginning of the conversation
✹Even though Ego has rehearsed what he wants to discuss with Adam, he finds it difficult for him to reach a point of closeness with him, an awkward distance (not literal) between them
✹Ego also here confronts his own inner monologue because he no longer speaks with himself in the mirror, but he speaks with Adam through the mirror, he now relies on Adam's facial reactions to see how to proceed with the discussion of their feelings.
✹Here we learn how Ego doesn't know how to properly channel his emotions to Adam, being intimidated by the projection of Adam's version of Ego on him.
✹There is only emotional stiffness, calm before the storm

✹Cut the tension with a knife
✹Thoughts that serpent
✹La pescadilla que se muerde la cola
✹Ouroboros

THE PEP-TALK
(A QUESTION)

1. Your love was so warm and inviting that it made me forget how much I hate sweating. To stand next to your heat was worth the rashes.

2. Maybe we will kill each other in the end. Maybe all of this diplomacy will be for nothing, fake kindness instead of the prophesized violence. Maybe we were doomed from the beginning.

3. I want to collect all this pain. Maybe down the road, I will look into these vases and the bile will have turned into rose water.

4. Words falter me when I precise them, but I have to tell you at some point. This inner monologue drives me insane. I just keep brewing storms with my own thoughts.

5. I hate myself for despising you so much. It's a nasty feeling, hate. It slithers in my mind, bicephalous snakes forcing me to choose, Janus reincarnated. The eggs hatched after you left. This should be shared custody. Do you hate me too?

6. I'm trying to make my sentences proper, but one part of me only wants to burn you at the stake. The other wants to forgive you. I don't know which thought I hate the most.

1. I know we don't talk like we used to, but I am fully convinced we can thread all the little off-hand comments we've said to each other to create some coherence off stray stars. They're nonsensical but they're all we've got.

2. This wall has been a joint effort, and maybe we should be proud to create such a beast out of misshaped bricks. Babel's tower, doomed to be unfinished, yet still looms tall between us. Keeps pilling brick on brick on brick on brick on brick...

3. Our conversations have false intricacies now, are you aware? Did you forget the routine? The comfortable silences? The subtle gestures? Have you forgotten our language?

4. Honestly, this indiference will consume us

5. Aren't you sore from all this stoicism. Can you show me a face?

6. I'm tired of trickin you into looking at me. I want to break the mirrors. No more intricate rituals, incantations, or prayers. I'm so tired, Adam, so tired...

THE DISCOMFORT
(MIRROR TO MIRROR)

E. I see the cogs of your mind turning quicker than my mouth can conjure up words.

E. You always loved the dramatics and I loved that about you. You hate sitting still and I still hate that about you, thought that by now you would've picked on the cues.

E. So this is the blissful peace before the storm everyone keeps talking about.

A. Oh so you're TIRED Ego? You're EXHASUTED? You're DEFEATED?