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ravenadottir · 11 months

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writing as a producer, not as a writer

to explain that title i need to talk about writing as a writer first. i promise everything will make sense in a bit.

as a writer you have a few steps to follow when writing fiction, whatever genre that might be. one of those steps is characterization. building a solid foundation over a trope so you have a well constructed person. it's called a person because there must be a personality attached to them, and not all writers follow this step... which can result in all those main characters syndromes known as "everybody loves her but she has the charisma of a bag of flour".

now, writing drama requires you to understand people and motivation. if you don't comprehend those concepts, all you have is isolated events and no connections or links to your characters.

let me give you an example using season 2 of litg.

if you trade hannah and chelsea's lines after day 24, will the characters make sense? would you say they're exchangeable? exactly, NO! because both of them have very defined personalities and individual traits. they might share an interest, sure, but they're not the same person.

now that we got these steps out of the way, let's write as a producer, which is what writers of seasons 1 and 2 were doing.

i've always hated seasons 3 and 4, but for one of them i couldn't quite put my finger on why.

season 3 is honestly a rainbow festival where kitties lick your face and shit bombons, i hate it. nothing exciting happens, and when something slightly more filled with energy comes along it's accompanied by your li forgetting your name... it's a laughable attempt on drama, and to me personally, no. it's a fuck off from me dog.

season 4, however, seemed to be coming strong for the drama because so many players asked for it. we badgered them asking for something, and um... the delivery was absolutely, for lack of better word, shit. and now that i've replayed a few episodes i understood why: producing.

seasons 1 and 2 were written from producers' perspective. once you have defined traits and characteristics, you have real people. now, if you want to instigate drama, how do you push those people's buttons?

by introducing raunchy challenges that make sense, bombshells that are irresistible to them, intriguing games that will plant a seed of doubt in their minds about certain people... contests, casa amor, more bombshells right after a brutal dumping, returning islanders.

for the most part the drama in those first two seasons was pretty realistic, and that is the reason! mason and levi getting angry, squaring up because the other is hitting on mc, mc not taking shit from anyone, lucy trying to sabotage her ex's current relationship mostly because she wasn't over them, erikah being mad and jealous and acting out of impulse... and that's to mention only a few of the feuds on season 1.

season 2 had so many classics: roccogate, lottie's explosions, every single fight about loyalty but the one instigating was also a flawed person (sitting on their own ass and talking about someone else). clandestine kisses, clandestine plans, doubt about loyalty through producers' doing, such as the tweet challenge. this season was built so well because the writers were thinking as producers!

it was a powerful combination of producing-writing and realistic characterization.

and after you introduce things or people that will cause the drama, one thing you need to do is to give your characters some development, whether positive or negative, BECAUSE PEOPLE REACT TO THINGS, and depending on who that person is, they'll react DIFFERENTLY.

did we have that on season 4? 3? ex-in-the-villa? did we have anything remotely human such as emotions or people? yeah, didn't think so.

the reason why i was put off from replaying season 3 is because they act like a bunch of pixels, and not like people. the writing is so weak and so convoluted, tired and lazy, i can't bring myself to play those seasons repeatedly. it takes me out of the story because there's nothing serious or entertaining happening.

individually, the characters might be hot, or cute, or both. together, as a group, MOST BORING SHIT I'VE EVER READ.

take the rahim-jo kiss as an example of how to pull your reader in. elisa told chelsea about the kiss because she knew the girl would blab, since she'd done it before (lottie and gary's event). that single piece of gossip goes to show almost everyone's expectations and reactions, consequentially showing us, the players, new things about the ones involved and it worked so well from a writing perspective. this is what it caused:

elisa blaming chelsea even though she was the one who gossiped. we get a pretty good idea of how elisa deals when in crisis, specifically when she's trying to get rid of the guilt.

shannon being sexist and aggressive towards jo instead of bringing rahim to the ordeal, which also reinforces the fact that she didn't want to let rahim go because he was her safe bet to the finale.

chelsea crying out about not wanting to hurt anyone, and dealing with her problems by drinking and trying to pretend nothing is happening, or that it's not that serious (even though she yells about gary in a challenge right after face-sucking elijah).

jo lying about the whole thing, clearly scared of shannon's reaction, and throwing insults around because she doesn't know how to deal with being caught.

ibrahim hiding because he can be such a pussy, and honestly doesn't really care for shannon.

the boys walking out because they don't think this is worth the drama

lottie provoking people by ignoring the questions about the kiss and asking about the towel.

hope trying to minimize the damage, always the mother.

and mc can do pretty much nothing about anything, it's our choice.

finally, the pool dialogue we have with bobby, and how emotionally drained he is despite this not being about him. it shows that he cares about the group.

just by introducing someone that rahim would surely like, the "producers" hit jackpot. they brought a girl that is an athlete, awkward, tattooed, and sent that girl on a date along with the guy that has a taste for girls like that, to a fucking spa. GUESS WHAT? they didn't have to push their lips together, they just knew rahim, and they knew he was frustrated with shannon.

by the way, introducing a strong-minded girl who knows what she wants, and doesn't fiddle in casa amor, is how they managed to make rahim choose her, because at that point, priya was history due to her pass at noah.

there you go, two dramatic events just by introducing people that would turn his head. drama that can last for days, and generate so many meme's, so many gif's, so many quotable pearls and classics to push the show on social media further more.

season 4's drama was like elisa telling chelsea the secret, and then chelsea blabbing about it but never once hinting she was dramatic as hell. on season 2 we have multiple instances of chelsea doing that, and not just with other characters, with us too, so it makes sense elisa would seek her to get the word out.

so when lexi pulled and threatened mc, i was like "yesss, finally, some drama!!" but then the next day she was like "ah yes, i was the little bobeep of the fucking i don't care tv show-shire" and i was so... confused ???? because why would the girl that was so passive-aggressive with me yesterday join me in the kitchen and tell me an anecdote??? one that is not relevant to anything and doesn't tell me how she was affected by my presence there ???

it was SO FUCKING RANDOM.

did we have random chats in the villa on seasons 1 and 2? ABSOLUTELY. but who started those? the crackheads! tim, gary, bobby. it was never hope or lottie who tried to diffuse drama by talking about random things, no! that was always the boys, mostly because they were either bored or uncomfortable, which falls into place with their personalities!

i sincerely can't bring myself to play season 4 because all the drama was apparently fabricated for shock value, and wasn't rooted in a true concise storyline or plot.

again, i'll use lexi and "YOU WILL NOT TAKE MY MAN" ordeal. what did she do after we picked kobi? ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY NOTHING. i was ready for her to pull a butterfly knife and start swinging, mortal kombat style... maybe even try to pull our mc's spine right out of our noses, but instead... she was just there, not saying or doing anything.

the repercussion of our choice doesn't match the promise, or the characterization that was given before. if lexi had drowned my mc i would be like, "ok, work, that makes sense." but she didn't do anything about it.

bobby had to hold lottie back when we chose gary on day 10, and she's incredibly creepy and cryptic the next morning. even takes a few jabs at pissing mc off until the very end, because she doesn't give up on gary and thinks she's entitled to have him. her actions match her personality, and lottie walked so lexi would trip, fall and crack her skull.

the producing worked in so many instances, more than times that didn't, so explain to me, WHY DIDN'T THEY REPEAT THIS FORMULA IN UPCOMING SEASONS.

for instance, boat party. instead of having an episode or two with your li, and building up for them to leave after a serious fallout, and that being the climax in your storyline, NO! that was the setup for the boat fucking party. it happened in 50 taps or less. WHAT WAS THE REASON?

i hate everything fusebox produced after season 2 but like... for different reasons.

everything feels like riverdale, it's a bunch of absurd and over-the-top shit happening, cringe dialogue, only to have zero any impact on the people involved, no consequences, not even vestigial feelings. it's for the shock value and shock value alone.

it seems the writers and writing directors are thinking episode by episode, instead of making an outline for the season, so we're left with a lot of isolated incidents that overall don't make any sense, and don't foreshadow or create any repercussions.

you cannot draw a timeline with any season beyond season 2. and i hate that lazy shit. i truly do.

i was going through the litg s5, the ex-in-the villa tag here, and... so many complaints about the toxicity of the characters! it's giving after saga. no real motivation behind the drama, no real repercussions, over-the-top scenes for no reason, obnoxious and unlikable people. it's a slap on the face of the players, it truly is.

but still, i was pushing myself to persevere and try to play season 5, and then i saw the design.

YOU CAN'T BE BAD AT THE WRITING AND THE DESIGN, PICK A STRUGGLE.

so... to sum it all up, writers were successful on early seasons because characterization and situations walked hand-in-hand. one caused the other and we were able to witness the consequences, and whether positive or negative, they EXISTED. they PRODUCED the show after coming up with characters that felt human, then just wrote the consequences for whatever it was.

anyway, just wanted to talk about this because it had been a while since i last touched an litg season, and when i realized why i hate recent ones, i had to write about it.

#litg #love island the game #litg s1 #litg s2 #litg s3 #litg bombshell #litg ex in the villa #litg s4 #litg s5 #queue

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majaloveschris · 3 months

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I see no point in talking, reading, or writing about someone you dislike so much.//

THANK YOU!! 🙏. I just don't get it either Maja, but if you call them out on it, they want to get in their feelings and soap boxes about somehow being above this and can do as they like, especially a few blogs in particular! I will never understand it, except to think that there are some awful people who just take pleasure in being cruel to others, especially celebs and want to use them as some virtual punching bag. Some of these people have even been outed for the lies they’ve spewed but still continue to spread those lies and be hating.

I can’t imagine coming here everyday to call someone a p…. or other names. Wouldn’t you much rather spend that time on something better or beneficial? It’s like they don’t understand that just because “he may not see” or whatever doesn’t give them a right to be nasty to him or that they won’t somehow get the same energy they’ve been putting out about him returned to them in some way.

They have made the fandom toxic, blogs and anons a like but want to completely through the blame on him for some things that just went to far. Also, if it wasn’t this PR thing they would still be saying horrible things about his hair or the rumors of him sleeping around or whatever else they see to “drag” him for. They act as if he committed some crime or done some heinous thing and it’s ridiculous. I have always said that this whole thing has shown/been a mirror to how some people really are on here and off it to others in their daily lives. The way they’ve behaved on here is exactly how they would treat someone else but wouldn’t want anyone else to say/do the things they’ve done during this.

I know for a fact a lot of people that have been hating are going to reap exactly what they’ve sown whether they want to believe it or not and I wouldn’t be surprised if some additional things happened, but I won’t say what. Freedom of speech, gossip, entertainment give anyone the right to assassinate someone’s character or slander them, especially over a silly PR. But as I’ve said, what goes around comes around, so good luck to them!

Look. I get that people are mad at him. I get it. The person he presented himself as wouldn't date someone like her. And everybody is disappointed, no matter what they believe in. He is being associated with them, and that's enough. Obviously, this being PR would make the situation slightly better, but still. It's okay to call him out, but there is a limit to doing so.

I get what you mean, but if this isn't PR and turns out to be real, then he's been also assassinating his own character. I simply don't believe it and find it a stretch to think he's been acting as a whole different person for 20+ years. It's impossible to do so. And I agree that believing every single rumor about him that's ever been shared because of whatever this is also a reach. No-name, no-face people can say whatever they want, and it's always crazy to me to see how quickly people jump to believing everything.

Holding him accountable for this whole shitshow and body-shaming him or calling him names are two different things. Call him out for things he's said or done, but if you dislike him so much, then don't care about him, because coming here and talking and writing about him is caring. I get that there are people out there who are interested in whether this turns out to be real or PR, because that would change things or decide forever if they are willing to support him or not. But some people are just here to hate on him, which is so unnecessary. That's only going to have an effect on their own peace, which should be protected, especially if they dislike him this much.

Some people always get mad when the whole "toxic fandom" thing comes, but bullying him because of his hairline, teeth, or clothing choices is toxic. As I said before, I agree when people call out the hypocrisy of everything that's been going on and how everything he's ever said and done doesn't match this situation, but what does his physical appearance have to do with that? The hairline and teeth things aren't news; he's been like that for years, and nobody seemed to care about it until this shitshow started. Now people left and right bully him for something he can't control.

I think people should focus on what really matters and not on things that have nothing to do with the situation. And if someone hates him so much that every single thing he does or says is wrong, makes them mad, or rubs them in the wrong, then maybe they actually shouldn't care about him. This whole situation just doesn't worth it if you really don't like him anymore.

#majaloveschris #chris and alba pr #chris and alba relationship #chris's fans #cevans-love

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agent-cakeshroom · 2 months

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Trolls Universe TMNT

There's at least 4 of you out there interested in my thoughts on tmnt being in the Trolls universe. SO HERE IS THOUGHTS

To start with, their species! I figured it would be similar to trolls with there being different subspecies of turtle-people(no idea on name yet). Maybe not all the turtles that exist, but some popular ones. We gotta have the obvious: Alligator Snapping Turtle, Softshell Turtle, Red-eared Slider, and Ornate Box Turtle. I'm debating on whether the turtles all live together, or in smaller groups based on their real life habitats.

Generally, they'd be about a head taller than your average troll. However, turtles like the Alligator Snapping Turtle are twice the size of a normal turtle. When designing any of them, I try to keep in mind they have sharper edges. More square vs Trolls who are more round. They only have three fingers, much like in the TMNT cartoons, although if we include Sea Turtles maybe they'd have webbed fingers?? They all have TAILS!

They're born from eggs of course, but it's more of a community thing than with Trolls. The eggs are kept safe in a pond dug specifically to house the eggs, and there's a rotation of turtles on protection duty. Parents will come and bond with their egg by simply holding them in the water, talking to them, and just being close.

Now onto TMNT specific thoughts! I wanna keep the species to the ones from ROTTMNT since they make sense. Raph is an Alligator Snapping turtle. His skin is tougher than his brothers', his shell is thicker with large spikes, and all of his teeth are sharp. His tail is nearly as long as a troll is tall, and he can control it about as much as a cat. With his size and sharp edges, Raph is incredibly careful and gentle around others. To the point his brothers are entirely unafraid and will climb all over him like a jungle gym. Mostly Mikey. Speaking of, Mikey is an Ornate Box Turtle with yellow spots across his skin, maybe like large freckles? And yellow stripes on his carapace. He's definitely the roundest of the bunch, but still more square than a troll. He's about the size of an average troll, being the runt. Leo is a red-eared slider of course, but unlike the ROTTMNT design the red stripes run under his eyes almost like eyeliner and then down back towards where ears would be. And he has two light yellow stripes on each arm from shoulder to wrist, as well as one on each side of his face from under his chin to his collar bone. Donnie, as a soft shell, is more lanky than his 'twin' but has similar stripes down his arms. However, rather than light yellow they're a dark brown, and he has a faint yellow spot on the outer corner of each eye.

The brothers aren't going to wear masks, but they'll all have an article of clothing with their colors instead. Raph has a large bandana neckerchief/scarf that he likes to hide his face in when he's embarrassed, along with dark red wraps on his wrists and ankles. Mikey wears a bright orange short sleeve cropped hoodie, and he has brightly colored stickers across the front of his plastron. He's also got burnt orange leg warmers, and a few brightly colored bracelets. Donnie has a sort of battle shell, still bright purple, but with a lot less features. He also has his goggles, a tool belt, and dark purple leather gloves. Leo I'm unsure about, so if anyone has some ideas lemme know lol. Been sat here for 20 minutes trying to parse out his design. I'm trying to avoid giving them pants because the shells, almost rethinking Mikey's top too, but I keep wanting to give Leo stirrup socks of some kind.

Ok, I'm getting sleepy so I'll stop here. Feel free to share thoughts, suggestions, criticisms, etc.

#trolls #dreamworks trolls #tmnt #rottmnt #trolls au #rottmnt au

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thewertsearch · 1 year

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?CG: WE'RE ALL SORT OF COOKING UP A PLAN RIGHT NOW. ?CG: MY RIGHT NOW. ?CG: WHICH IF SUCCESSFUL, MAY, AND I DO STRESS MAY, END UP WITH ALL OF US MEETING FACE TO FACE.

I'm interested in where, exactly, their rendezvous is going to be. I had a bit of a think, and came up with four plans that could bring these teams together.

The trolls could join the human session, to escape the Demon.

The humans could join the troll session, to help them defeat the Demon.

Both parties could rendezvous in some tertiary location, such as the Furthest Ring.

Both parties could connect to each other, and establish a tertiary, sixteen-player session.

There's a problem with three of these options, though. Namely, if the two teams were planning to share a session, then Karkat would have no reason to be uncertain about whether they would meet.

A plan involving the Furthest Ring, however, requires the cooperation of the Horrorterrors. Who knows how that could end?

?CG: AND WHAT I'D LIKE TO AVOID IF AT ALL POSSIBLE ?CG: IS TO HAVE THIS RENDEZVOUS INSTANTLY DETERIORATE INTO A LOT OF REVOLTING TROLL/HUMAN SLOPPY MAKEOUTS.

There is literally nothing under any sun, Green or otherwise, that could prevent this from happening.

?CG: GOD DAMMIT, IT'S NOT EVEN LIKE YOU DON'T HAVE ACTUAL HUMAN FEMALES NEARBY FOR ACTUAL BIOLOGICALLY VIABLE MATESPRITSHIPS! [...] CEB: rose and jade? [...] CEB: you want us to like, date them?

Jade/Dave has potential, but I don't see Rose/John working out - and not just because of Kanaya. Romantic tension in Homestuck is usually pretty obvious, and I haven't observed any between those two.

?CG: WOULD IT REALLY FUCKING KILL YOU TO CONSIDER IT?????? ?CG: I MEAN GOD. WHAT DO YOU EVEN THINK YOU'RE DOING HERE IN THIS GAME? ?CG: YOU'RE CREATING YOUR OWN UNIVERSE TO GO LIVE IN. ?CG: AND JUST HOW DO YOU THINK YOUR SPECIES IS SUPPOSED TO REPOPULATE ITSELF??????????? IDIOTS.

Four humans can't seed a population, even if they weren't two pairs of siblings. Ectobiology wouldn't help, either - the gene pool is just too small.

This isn't the real reason that Karkat wants the kids to avoid dating trolls - but I also think he'd have trouble understanding why it's not a viable plan. Trolls don't work like that.

CTG: ok youre by far the worst artist out of any of us CTG: and thats saying something ?CG: SHUT UP I DREW IT FAST

ha!

?CG: AS YOU CAN CLEARLY SEE, THERE ARE ONLY TWO SETS OF COMPATIBLE QUADRANTS HERE FOR LEGITIMATE CONCUPISCENT PAIRINGS.

I wouldn't have expected Karkat of all people to go full hetero - especially since the ecto-machines could almost certainly merge John/Dave or Rose/Jade. Methinks he's applying 'not a homosexual' a little too broadly.

CEB: wow, i have to marry rose? CEB: uh… CEB: wow.

Just like with Vriska, this is all new to John.

I don't get the sense he's ever thought about romance with Rose - she's just his friend. Up until now, he hasn't seen her as anything else.

CTG: it was so much cooler when you were asleep and i basically never had to listen to you ever ?CG: I CAN'T GO TO SLEEP CEB: why not? ?CG: BECAUSE I'M TOO TIRED TO EXPLAIN WHY IS WHY. ?CG: YOU'LL FIGURE IT OUT LATER.

What's the problem, Karkat?

No recuprecoon? No dream self? Both, in tandem?

Guess we're about to find out!

#homestuck liveblog #full liveblog #act 5.2 #2790 #s70

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good-beanswrites · 1 month

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Okay, kyanako said that I can ask for a director's commentary on the fic you wrote for me.

Is there anything you’d like to share about writing this fic? Any thoughts during the writing? Maybe any questions for me?

Not you too 😭😭😭 Haha, but thank you for the option to ask you questions, because I actually do have a few! My normal commentary is in pink, but I put questions in blue :) Some of them are specifics about your characters, but I also just want to hear your takes on writing Es 👀 I don't write them super often, so I'm curious how you characterize them...

Es clutched at their head. Their fingers tore through their hair. It was the middle of the night, so they resisted the urge to shout. They didn’t want to draw any attention to themself. If they remained completely silent, though, they wouldn’t need to refrain from crying.

And so they cried.

I wanted to start off right away by setting the theme of Es experiencing the typical pain of a child in their position, but refusing to be treated like the are.

You see, there is only one sensation worse than waking up from an awful dream: waking up from a very, very, good one.

I'm kind of relying on readers understanding this feeling already, I didn't really know how to put it into words 😅 (Is this common for people?) It's happened to me several times, and it genuinely can hit harder than a nightmare.

Es had grown accustomed to the nightmares that Milgram produced. In these dreams, Es might take the place of the prisoners. Their stomach would twist with horror at the blood on their hands. Other times, they found themselves in the victim’s shoes. They’d wake in a cold sweat, feeling hands closing around their throat, or weapons swung at their temple.

I feel like a lot of fics (rightfully) focus on all the messed up things Es experiences on a daily basis, like this. I'm usually more upset by their canon lack of interest in their past and future. Their refusal to miss/hope for anything better is really what hurts me, and it took a while to figure out what may push them to the point of finally acknowledging it. I thought a dream was a good start. When you picture them, are they wondering about their identity a lot? Would certain things be enough to jog their memory, or do only extreme situations get through to them?

But they weren’t prepared for a dream of absolute peace. They were happy. They were laughing. There were people nearby, smiling. It was all emotion and no detail – not a single face, place, or voice, was clear – but they knew for sure what the dream had consisted of.

Es was with their family.

I debated so long on naming specifics about what they saw, whether it was glimpses of your characters or small lines of dialogue... I still hadn't decided if I wanted the dream to be a real memory or just their imagination, though, so I kept it up to interpretation. (Also, I was so afraid of getting something wrong about who they'd be close to or how they'd react in your mind 😭 "he wouldn't fucking say that" fr). In an early draft of this, Es had fallen asleep while cataloguing the prisoners' family members, and dreamed that they were a part of some of those families. It wasn't as effective as I'd hoped, so I got right to the point and made it their own family here.

So uh, I guess, what would they dream about if it were 100% accurate to their real family? I also thought about making the dream a vision sent from them to communicate a message -- is this something that a family member could/would do? And which relative is Es closest to? I've heard you talk more about their father, but I wasn't sure if that necessarily meant they were the closest. (I wanted to make a more specific parallel with one of the prisoners. I'd pair them with Amane if they were close with their father, Haruka if it was their mother, Mikoto if it was a sibling. Since I wasn't sure, I thought Haruka was a safe bet.)

They choked out another sob.

For the longest time, they wondered if they even had a past to remember. But that was all foolishness – Milgram was in the business of judging humans, not creating them out of thin air. They’d tried asking Jackalope, once. He turned out just as cryptic as some of the prisoners in their interrogations. Another time, they had considered using the prison’s mysterious machine on themself. There was no way to operate it alone, though. And when it came down to it, they were always alone.

Yeah. So. I made myself upset realizing the isolation Es feels :((( They're at Jackalope's mercy as much as the prisoners are, but they can never truly bond with the others over it. They're different from the prisoners, but they don't even have that much power over them (only responsibility). I thought about including an actual attempt to use the machine without someone watching over them, and what a risk that would be. It ended up taking the story way off-focus, but I wonder what could actually drive them to the point of doing something dangerous in the name of getting memories back, or would they always be accepting of the situation, given their personality?

They curled themself tight, dragging the bedsheets with them. Usually when they wondered about their past, mere curiosity washed over them. Now, they were flooded with an entirely new type of longing. It filled their chest. No, that wasn't it. Rather, the feeling left a wide hole through them.

I'm glad you thought the curling up was cute ;--; I just wanted the reader to remember how young and small they are ;----; I was sad writing this and needed everyone to remember along with me 😭

If they did have a family, had Es been stolen away? Could there be someone else out there right now, crying in the middle of the night, just as hard as Es was crying for them? The thought was not comforting.

Or, like Es, had they forgotten all traces of their connection? That possibility also did more harm than good.

Es tried to reassure themself – if this family hadn’t come looking for them, maybe it meant they weren't wanted in the first place. Maybe Es had been willingly turned over to Milgram, their parents glad to be rid of them.

That thought didn't help at all.

I had a lot of fun evilly choosing the most painful possibilities for Es to consider >:3 (<- SHE'S LYING SHE MADE HERSELF CRY). The uncertainty would hurt any any reader, but as my target, I hoped to pinpoint some exact things you'd mentioned in the past. I was picturing the art of Es' father hunting Milgram down, and some of your comments about them remembering and missing Es.

Something clattered out in the corridor. That must have been what woke them. They rose from bed, ready to raise hell. How dare one of the prisoners rip them from such a dream. Es could never return. The offender would pay for this.

It took only a moment to put on their uniform and wipe the tears from their cheeks. They swung the door open to find Haruka stumbling down the hall.

I'm always a sucker for the uniform being a symbol of Es' obsession with their role -- putting it on is the same as them putting up an act, even if they don't quite realize it.

“Prisoner number one, what the –” they grabbed his arm. Only then did they notice the dazed look in his eyes. His body flinched, waking from what must have been sleepwalking.

“Ah! W-warden!” He blinked, his mind still stuck somewhere else. “I’m s-sorry! What, ah… I was dreaming... She was – she was right here…”

After this part I tried ending the drabble with Haruka saying, "I was dreaming," and Es replying bitterly, "me too." Haruka then says, "it was about my family," and much quieter, Es repeats "me too." As much as I loved the exchange, I wanted the gut-wrenching pain of Es rejecting their family rather than missing them at the very end 😎👍

Es took a measured breath. They steeled their expression. There would be no unleashing hell tonight. They had lost sight of their role. They had gotten distracted with childish emotions and silly dreams. They were Milgram’s warden, not some kid like Haruka who wandered around the prison late at night looking for his mama.

Es adjusted the hat over their hair. It was good, they told themself, that they couldn't remember a thing from the dream. They didn't need any of those people. They were perfectly fine on their own. Such a distraction would not happen again.

I had to mention the uniform hat again because I'm just too obsessed with the symbolism asdfsdfs. And yeah, like you said, all of this was an attempt to convince themself. They don't really believe it, but they have to make themself believe it, or else they'll be in even more pain...

“Let’s get you back to bed.”

“But, my p-parents, they were–”

“They’re not here. Nobody is. Back to your cell, prisoner.”

Of course "they're not here" is reflecting Es and Haruka both missing their parents, but I hoped the last line would also continue the parallels between them -- at the end of the night, Es is a prisoner here too :(

#THERE I HOPE YOU ALL ARE HAPPY MAKING ME RELIVE ALL THIS PAIN -- YOU ALL MUST RELIVE IT TOO 😭#but yes!!! i felt bad i didnt add too many specifics despite it being a specific drabble for you #but if i asked you questions beforehand it would have ruined the surprise 😭#so id love to hear literally all your thoughts on es' family #appearances - personalities - relationship dynamics #absolutely no pressure if you dont want to lol 😅#just know that im very interested!!#thank you for the ask!!#commentary

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josefavomjaaga · 9 months

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Larrey and his family

A while ago I came across a discussion about Dominique Larrey’s family life, in particular, about him treating his two children (daughter Isaure and son Hippolyte) rather badly. I hope people are still interested in the topic, as now we’ve rediscovered the book this bit of information came from. It’s a 1902 biography by one Paul Triaire, "Dominique Larrey et les campagnes de la Révolution et de l’Empire (1768-1842)". Just as a disclaimer, while I will cite some not so nice passages about Larrey, the overall tone of the book is very positive, if not outright adoring. As a matter of fact, I’ve come across a book review from 1902 that vehemently reproached the author of being too uncritical of his hero and of not – as we would say today – fact-checking his sources (often letters and texts by Larrey himself that the author took at face-value).

All credit for this goes to @northernmariette who found the book on Gallica first, I’m merely the translator (or rather, DeepL is, and I’m typing it down).

I had the impression on browsing the pages that Larrey was, as far as family matters are concerned, an extremely conservative man, and had probably always been. For example, he seems to have been very disappointed in Cairo on learning (from the one and only letter from his wife that made it to Egypt) that Madame Larrey had given birth to "only" a girl:

[…] This single letter filled him with a joy that was not unmixed. It informed him of the birth of a girl, instead of the boy, already named Hippolyte in advance, that he had been expecting. […] We shall see later that this daughter, whose arrival Larrey greeted so coldly, was, on the contrary - as is often the case - the delight and consolation of his life.

Unfortunately, we cannot ask daughter Isaure if this was also true the other way around.

And just to show the other extreme: When in 1809 he learned in Spain that Madame Larrey finally had given birth to the long awaited little Hippolyte, Larrey claims to have been so beside himself with joy that he ran from door to door and even tried to disturb King Joseph during his siesta in order to share the news.

At this time, in 1809, young Isaure (who must have been around ten) had already become her father’s preferred correspondent - apparently regardless of whether the topic was suitable or comprehensible for a child. Among other things, Larrey instructed his daughter about how to treat her mother during and after the pregnancy.

[...] One has to look at the letters he wrote, not to his wife, whom he did not want to worry, but to his nine-year-old daughter Isaure, who became his confidante. It was an extraordinary peculiarity of Larrey's character that he had such a way with this child. He obviously lacked the faculty of discerning the ages, and his recommendations were of the kind that are usually addressed only to a grown-up. By the same mental transposition, he was later to send his son, a young schoolboy of six or seven, his "Mémoires et campagnes" (Memoirs and Campaigns), instead of the short stories we are accustomed to having children read. However, these strange methods of early education did not prevent his daughter from becoming an accomplished woman, and his son from one day becoming one of the most distinguished men of his time. He sent Isaure detailed instructions on her mother's hygiene, bed rest, diet and finally the baptism. The child, who was to be a boy - Larrey did not even intend to consider the possibility to the contrary - was to be called Félix-Hippolyte. [...]

This sounds all a little weird, but surely not extraordinary for the time. Apparently, the real problems only started after the Empire, with Larrey now staying home, with his family. Over whom he dominated rather severely. Severly enough, in fact, for the author to use the word "tyrannique", tyrannical.

It seems at first sight, from what we know of his character and the tenderness he showed towards his wife and children, that he must have been completely happy to live among them. He had always hated the extended separations that had kept him away from his family for so long and so often, and he had long wished for peace. In all his letters to his wife from the farthest corners of the world, from the banks of the Sprée, the Danube, the Elbe and the Niemen, he expressed his ardent desire to be reunited with her and to live peacefully as a family. [...] However, it does not appear that he enjoyed this longed-for reunion with his wife and children, as one might think. [...] He had difficulty adjusting to the demands of family life, which was so new to him, where a woman's wishes and desires had to be taken into account, as well as the many delicate conditions of raising children, and, without realising it, he brought the authoritarian aspects of camp life into his home. With his wife, the sweet and charming Laville, whom he had adored and whom he still loved, - but in his own way, - with Isaure, a charming child who had been his correspondent during the last campaign and who had become a beautiful and charming young girl, he was imperious and domineering. He was no less tyrannical and authoritarian with his son, this Hippolyte whose birth he had so ardently wished for, who was to become the joy and pride of his old age and who bore so proudly the heavy heritage of his father's name. [...] His daughter Isaure suffered the most from this despotic yoke. In 1815, she was at the peak of her youth and beauty. [...] Many suitors sought her hand in marriage. This went on for a long time, because Larrey, jealous of his daughter's affection, could find no suitor worthy of her and eliminated them all one by one.

Followed by a longer story about one of her suitors, Antoine Clot aka Clot-Bey, a French physician who would become important for the modernisation and the development of a medical service in Egypt during to 1830s and 1840s. Larrey seems to have originally estimated this man greatly, but immediately dismissed him on realizing that he and Isaure had taken a liking to each other. This story must have caused a bit of a stir as it is also eluded to in an eloge after Hippolyte Larrey’s death.

If Larrey's hand was too forceful for his daughter, it fell no less heavily on his son. But this was a man's education, and its rigour had fewer drawbacks. It is even probable that Hippolyte Larrey owed to this inflexible and authoritarian education, but imbued with the lofty ideas which had governed the entire life of the surgeon of the Grande Armée, a large part of his solid qualities and, in particular, the uprightness and elevation of character, the delicacy of conscience, the spirit of justice, the unalterable feelings of honour and loyalty, which like his father he possessed to a high degree and which made him one of the most remarkable men of his generation. However, this restrictive upbringing had its drawbacks, and it must have robbed him of some of his individuality. It is remarkable that it was by abusing the prodigious originality of his temperament that Larrey attenuated that of his son. This was perhaps not a misfortune; the times were indeed very different, and the dominating energy, the absolute will, the tenacity and the almost superhuman fortitude that Larrey had first shown during the wars of the Revolution and the Empire, could not have been used under the peaceful regimes of the Restoration and the July government.

This lack of individuality in Hippolyte Larrey also is hinted at in the same eloge.

So, that’s the story. I am still of the opinion that of all those men whose entire lives were spent in war, not a single one returned without harm.

But hey, Larrey for once seems to have been the opposite of a henpecked husband, quite contrary to all the marshals 😁.

#napoleonic era #dominique larrey #hippolyte larrey #isaure larrey #laville larrey #i also can see why larrey with this attitude would clash with soult #who had the same attitude

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dwellordream · 2 months

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“At least in retrospect, the most striking thing women appeared to have in common in the 1960s was a sense of relative happiness. In 1962 the George Gallup polling organization asked a cross section of American women whether they were content with their lot. Two out of three women said yes. When the question was posed whether women as a group were victims of inequality or discrimination, only one in three women said yes. From one perspective, of course, that level of discontent was very high, suggesting profound problems. On the other hand, the overall level of satisfaction seemed very high, especially in light of other polls in which most women said the greatest fulfillment of their lives was when they gave birth to their children, and a strong majority expressed satisfaction with their roles as homemakers.

One way to read such evidence is to conclude that some, and perhaps many, women did have problems in their lives but that they saw these problems as peculiar to themselves or their own circumstances, not as part of a shared phenomenon based on their being women. Thus they might reflect on their individual family situation, even talk about it with their women friends, and still not see their dilemma as a “woman” problem. In the early 1960s there was not yet even a label for such concerns. As feminist author Betty Friedan would later describe it, it was “a problem that had no name.” Moreover, there was more than one problem--or at least the problem seemed different depending on who you were, how old you were, where you lived, and what you wanted. It was hard to discern unity in the face of such diversity.

…Mothers gathered to keep an eye on the young children, to share gossip, and to have fun. In these backyard get-togethers there was always news to share--whose husband was getting what promotion, the latest addition to the neighborhood, emotional or physical problems among the children. It was also a place where you could talk about your private hopes and dreams or the difficulties you were having in your marriage. Sometimes the conversation would even touch on such topics as sex and divorce. The women formed a close-knit community, solidified each day by shared rituals of coffee, conversation, and child supervision. They were dedicated on one level simply to helping each other get through the day but, in an even larger sense, to building and maintaining the family as a unit and the community as a group enterprise.

It became fashionable in the late 1950s and early 1960s to denounce suburbs. For example, the suburbs, architectural critic Lewis Mumford declared, consisted of a “multitude of uniform, unidentifiable houses, lined up inflexibly, at uniform distances, in a treeless communal wasteland, inhabited by people of the same class, the same income, the same age group.” But such indictments all too frequently ignored the human dramas of creativity and tragedy that were occurring daily. Weekly neighborhood barbecues or church “family” nights might seem to intellectual skeptics to be artificial substitutes for community, but too many of the participants they provided the space within which important bonds could be forged, friendships nurtured, and a sense of identity created.

…Often [women] also shared their feelings of anger and alienation about this way of life. Like the college graduates whom Betty Freidan wrote about in The Feminine Mystique (1963), they felt that their education and talents had been put on the shelf before even being tried out in the real world. Their days took on a uniformity that discouraged the flowering of individual interest and skills. A person trained in design, literature, or political science would well feel that she had entered a time warp upon getting married and moving to suburbs--shut off totally from the life and excitement she had once known.

There were also the problems that came with compartmentalized sex roles--husbands in work situations full of managerial crises, occasional flirtations, and at least the appearance of worldly sophistication; wives frustrated by their inability to have shared experiences to discuss at dinnertime. Where was the partnership everyone talked about in this age of “companionate” marriage? How did people share a life when their existence was so separate and different? And what about the expectations of her? Why did she always change the diapers and do the laundry? What was her goals, her objective to reach? He had his career and the next big law case to spur him on. What did she have, especially when, at the occasional business dinner, she was expected to discuss babies and recipes with the other wives and not to challenge the pomposity of her husband’s colleagues on subjects she knew far more about than he?”

- William Chafe, “Different Audiences.” in The Road to Equality: American Women Since 1962

#william chafe #1960s #gender #history #20th century #marriage

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m0r1bund · 2 months

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hey, I was wondering if you have any tips or good resources on writing eco-fiction?

This is a GREAT question that I don’t feel qualified to answer. I have read a lot more environmental nonfiction than fiction, and I'm not really cued in to what other eco-fiction writers are doing. I’m also playing in the margins because creative writing feels like my second language (vs. visual arts, worldbuilding, etc.) So… I can only share what's worked for me. Take the best and leave the rest, chief o7

I think everything circles back to becoming freakishly obsessed with your home environment. This is just the way I was built LOL, if I want to make anything I have to be a little bit obsessed with it. I also just like to read fiction from people who aren’t career artists, who have some kind of niche interest or lived experience that colors their work (whether they want it to or not.)

studying ecology, the natural world, working with your hands in the dirt, whatever-- you can also appreciate how inseparable everything is from place. pick any moment in history and you can make a rich environmental reading of it. We construct stories that obfuscate this, but almost everything we do as humans is motivated by land and water and access to land and water. This really informs how I write. Everything is connected to The Desert even when it isn’t immediately obvious to me.

Which brings me to another thought. Most of my writing is playful daydreaming that asks “Wouldn’t it be fucked up if ______?” AND YET! The natural world is always doing it weirder and cooler. You just get to set up the dominoes in ways that highlight this, I think.

Like, 90% of what happens in Asthaom is motivated by water and access to water, the big limiting resource in a desert. So a false god marches on Scaiuq looking for mythical water. An ex-cactus rustler makes counterfeit versions of a rare cactus dye in order to flood the market and drive down demand for the real thing. your ancestors manufactured a climate crisis and now, 1000s of years later, the desert is fundamentally changed but still worth loving and fighting for. These are hyperbolic lies about real things that, I think, are very poetic and worth mythologizing. Fiction is daydreaming but it’s also about tricking you guys into caring about the boring stuff that I care about, hahaha

In that vein, being part of an eco-art community has also catalyzed a lot of things for me. In 2018 I joined Those Who Went Missing, an art therapy game about nature spirits who are created from lost and missing individuals. you tell stories about your characters and have them interact with others in a setting that's based on the real world. Suddenly I was spending a lot of time reading what others think of their home environment… (And now I’m realizing “I haven’t read a lot of eco-fiction” is a lie)… and suddenly I had this shared space to spew desert propaganda create stories in.

Something I like about TWWM is it doesn’t exclusively attract earth science people, so there are a lot of people who are using this game to learn and write about the natural world for the first time. Through them, I get to put names and faces to places that were once distant and abstract to me, and I also get to relive the thrill of learning what sky islands are, how to identify a mockingbird, etc. I also encounter a lot of dominant narratives about deserts, deserts as wastelands / empty spaces / inhospitable crucibles, the relationship between humans and land, that we’re separate from nature, that we only harm and extract, etc. This is not knocking those stories, they're valuable, it just motivates me to write my personal blasphemies so that I can gently push back.

It makes me think of something I was taught in my oral storytelling class, that storytelling is made by place, time, and audience. You will never tell the same story twice because you’re never going to be the same person in the same space at the same time with the same people, you have to be sensitive to yourself and the needs of those around you. Maybe this is just typical “knowing your audience” LOL but it really is a different process writing for TWWM as a group. leaving the jargon behind, being loud about deserts, insisting on depicting reciprocal human-land relationships even more than I otherwise would, while also grappling with the hurt and frustration of being thrust into an extractive relationship with the natural world. maybe 2 people will actually read/see it, but if it leaves an impression then it’s all worth it baybeeeeee

I don't really have a denouement here, but I hope you found something useful, thank you for giving me something to chew on. Anyone reading this, please share resources that come to mind. I feel poorly-read, haha

#good luck enjoy the journey 😎

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merakiui · 1 year

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I just realized that we still don't have headcannons about general Yandere! Rollo. What do you think he will be like? Soft or completely sadistic and controlling?

-💫 anon

Omg you're right! Allow me to share my thoughts!! I also recently found this absolute blessing with Rollo in Guchiry's Orthodoxia. I think it's very fitting!

(cw: yandere, nsfw, unhealthy behaviors/relationship, kidnapping/captivity, gaslighting/manipulation, obsession, mentions of abuse of power)

Rollo is the type of man who has a cold exterior and an equally frigid interior, though once he meets someone who manages to charm him his heart gradually defrosts. His standards are rather strict for both those around him and himself, and he has a penchant for orderly conduct. You'll occupy Rollo's thoughts if you cause mischief within Noble Bell's sacred walls, if you are a constant presence in his life, whether helpful and mannerly or not, or if you're a magic user. Though he's hypocritical, Rollo detests magic; it doesn't matter how secretly fond of you he may be. If you use magic, a large part of him will want to permanently snuff it. Only he is permitted to wield magic, as he is responsible and correct in his judgments.

He clings to pleasant things, yet it is negativity that usually pursues him, especially pleasant things that are fleeting. You are not a permanent fixture in his life. Rather, there isn't much connection between the two of you and for that reason you're more of an unobtainable prize he has yet to claim. Despite living in a city renowned for its romance, Rollo has never thought much of love (though it chews through him when he thinks of you). He was content with all that he had as a child; romance was never an inherent need. Though after the tragic loss of his brother, he's felt empty and incomplete, alone and regretful. Slowly consumed by his own grief and abhorrence. He is a shell of himself, a hollowed, inconsolable man who lives off of spite but also, ever since he met you, the brightness you bring into his gloomy life.

He cannot stand others, especially mages, and when he occasionally displays a more disgusted expression instead of his usual stony-faced look his hatred of the masses only becomes that much more visually apparent. And yet he can't bring himself to truly loathe you in the way he loathes others. When he finds himself conversing with you, he does not scowl or grumble under his breath. At first he simply thought it was because he fancied you because you were new or different or unique or interesting. Now he lives off of you like a parasite. He needs to see you. He needs to know you still exist. He needs to know you won't leave him or fall victim to the foolish whims of childish mages. And if you really did wish to leave, he certainly wouldn't make it easy. Gates are meant to keep people in, you see, and Rollo will gladly cage you if it means he can have you for himself.

A part of him is repulsed by his mounting obsession; he realizes this cannot possibly classify as the sugared love that most inhabitants within the City of Flowers dream of experiencing. But what is obsession if not another synonym for fond devotion? Surely this is justified; surely his feelings for you are understandable. He's in love! Love isn't a bad thing; he is not a bad thing. Rollo will make you see this, even if he must carve this ideal into your very being so that you'll know.

With this newfound "love" of his, thoughts spiral and snowball. Most are intrusive and unwanted reflections of the most impure sins. He looks at you like a starved man seeing a buffet for the first time in weeks. He thinks of you like you are the only one he ought to believe in. And your name tastes sweet in his mouth when he breathes it in like it's the oxygen he needs to survive. He'll chant it over and over when he works himself towards the edge of ecstasy. Sometimes, through the clearing haze of the orgasmic aftermath, he considers seeking you out to have the real thing instead of just a fleeting fantasy. There is the angel on his shoulder who tells him he ought to respect you more, who reminds him that you are not a thing but rather a human being with your own autonomy and that it wouldn't be right to strip that from you. But then there's the devil on his other shoulder who whispers filth, who is giddy at the idea of all that he could do if he just used his position as student council president to do away with the concept of choice.

Of course Rollo never listens to either. He's satisfied with the version of you he's constructed in his mind—the you who diligently waits for him in bed, the you who is so willing to spread your legs for him, the you who utters his name in gasps and sighs as it's the only thing he'll allow you to say. Rollo thinks this might just be madness or a particularly nasty curse because when you plague his thoughts—which is nearly 24/7 now—the slightest thing has him teetering on the precipice. He wants to ruin you so that no one else will be able to repair you, but he also wants to lay himself at your feet and have you card your fingers through his hair, to hear you say "there, there" and banish all that ails him. To judge him fairly and virtuously in a way that the Bell of Salvation cannot. If you could just take his hands in yours and relieve him of all the agony that has burdened him... If you could just look at him and echo his sentiments—insist upon his good nature and reward him for being a saint even though deep down he knows he is far from it—he might feel whole again.

Even devilish fiends are worthy of love, though their love is the hatred that is cast upon them by those who cannot understand or sympathize with their circumstances. Rollo toes the line between friend and fiend. He is fair, as expected of the student council president. He is forgiving, as expected of one who is held in high regard. He puts on a polite and welcoming façade. But he is arrogant and hateful and cruel. He is every bit the fiend and the friend, all wrapped into one, and since he's the only one worthy of utilizing magic he has nothing to lose when the Crimson Lotuses blossom in full. And a man who has nothing to lose is the most dangerous fiend of all.

Rollo has little room in his heart for others. No one is worthy of making a home out of his cold, barren heart. But he will warm it for you; he will create a hearth so that you may be swathed in sweetness when he brings the gavel down upon all mages and subjects them to flowery hell. And you will be there to witness the spectacle. Whoever said he didn't like the festivities of a good tradition? Ah, but taking from others is not very festive, nor is it considered good. But this is what's right. It doesn't have to be good so long as it's correct. You can cry, you can scream, you can object. But he will remain firm in his assessment. Though he fancies you, you cannot sway him on this matter. If he must chain you to him so that you can finally see his perspective from high up in the tower, then he will. And he hopes the fiery sight will scorch itself into your retinas so that you may never forget that this very magic—the magic you seem so fond of—is not as whimsical or cute as you may have initially thought.

Sometimes Rollo thinks he ought to split himself open and place you within his ribs so that you may exist as his heart, fluttery and fluffy like a little canary. Sometimes he thinks he ought to keep you within the bell tower. As its keeper, he's free to do as he pleases. No one would dare question his authority on the matter. Until he makes a suitable space for you within his room or one of the secret, shadowed passages scattered throughout Noble Bell, you will remain trapped in the tower, only permitted to see and speak with him. He frames it amiably—he's saving you, can't you see? Magic is such a potent thing, and he can't possibly lose you like he lost his little brother. He'd much sooner shatter the skeleton that supports him than let you perish.

Rollo does not force your obedience through intimidation or violence. Rather, he twists your perception with eerily skillful persuasion. Every bad thing will be framed in a positive light. This is not captivity; this is protection. This is not hell; this is heaven—or the closest you'll ever be to the skies above at this height. This is not infatuation; this is salvation. Rollo never raises his voice, nor does he raise a hand to you. He speaks softly and patiently, offering very rare smiles that are not hidden behind his celestial-patterned handkerchief. He kneels before you, holds his hands out so that you might place yours in his, and tells you that he is only doing what's best for you. Surely you must understand this. The world is dangerous. The world is unfair. The world is scary. The world devours powerless people like you and him. He knows this because he's seen it. He's lived it. He wouldn't do anything to hurt you, but keeping you here with him must be done because it's the only way he can ensure your safety. The only way he can save you.

Your confinement is what you make of it. If you wish to be difficult and disobedient, your situation and your outlook will never improve. If you wish to keep an open mind and accept the sanctuary Rollo has so generously provided for you, you will feel happier. And when he echoes this lie enough times, it will eventually become the truth. He brings you homemade meals, he brings you pastries from town, and he brings you entertainments like books and board games. He'll sit up there for hours when his schedule is cleared and play cards with you, allowing you to win so that you may feel like you've triumphed over him in some way.

And when all of Noble Bell is consumed in Crimson Lotuses, he extends his hand towards you for a waltz, his pale, sleepless features accentuated in horrible hues of orange and red. Dance with him to the sounds of suffering. Sway with him to the tolls of the Bell of Salvation as the hour of reckoning draws near. Feast your beautiful eyes on the terrors of magic and let it be a cruel reminder that there is no good to be found in malice.

Take his hand and accept him for all that he is, as he is the only mage worthy of safeguarding you with his love.

#twisted chit chat #yandere twst #n/sfw #💫 anon #rollo i could be the watergirl to your fireboy if you would let me <3

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silverfoxstole · 10 months

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I came across some old interviews and things I'd typed up yonks ago the other day, so I thought you lot might be interested in reading them. 😁

THE JENNIFER SELWAY INTERVIEW

DAILY EXPRESS 11TH OCTOBER 2001

“IT’S NICE TO HAVE BROTHERS. WE STAND IN FOR EACH OTHER ON ACTING JOBS AND IN THE PAST WE HAVE EVEN SWAPPED GIRLFRIENDS”

Paul McGann was burgled a couple of weeks ago.

“Oh, no,” I coo, like you do. “It was just stuff,” he says casually, sounding like an old hippy, which is not unfeasible. After all, he’s 41 now, which surprises me when I think about it. 41! I had assumed he was younger, something to do with those boyish, studenty looks – something to do with being immortalised in Withnail and I.

The really bad thing about the raid on his home in Bristol was that the thieves made off with his wife Annie’s computer, and she (a writer) lost several weeks worth of work.

“There are some scumbags in the world,” says Paul mildly. “They came through the front door at night. The kids and I were in the house asleep. Though apparently – I asked the policeman about this – the real rush hour for burglaries is two o’clock in the afternoon. It makes sense when you think about it. You wouldn’t look twice at someone hanging about the house at that time. There are always people round our house.”

“Like who?”

“Mates, musicians…you know.”

No, I don’t know really. It sounds lovely. Mates and musicians chilling out at your house all afternoon, the twang of an acoustic guitar, probably joss sticks and instant coffee.

The funny thing about Paul McGann is that it’s difficult to tell whether he is really very intense and energetic or as laid back and ordinary blokey as he makes out. Take his face, which can look somewhat grey and severe one moment and then all young and smiley the next. He can switch from headmaster to naughtiest boy in the class by just lifting the corners of his mouth.

He is the second oldest of the McGann brothers, the Liverpudlian acting family. No one (I’ve enquired round the office about this) can ever remember how many there are though most people seem to throw in a few names like Mike [eh?], Joe and Steve.

Paul – he ought to be reliable on this one – says there are five McGann siblings including one sister. Mike [She means Joe] is the eldest by just 16 months. Amazingly, there don’t seem to have been any rifts or feuds over the years. Paul thinks that being part of a clan can be a positive advantage to an actor. “It’s true that if people don’t see you on screen for a while they forget about you. But if you’re a McGann you get four times the opportunity of being seen. We are pretty interchangeable.”

He pauses for a moment and studies my face for a reaction. “You think I’m joking, don’t you? But it’s true. We’ve stood in for each other on acting jobs. The last time was a couple of years ago and no one was any the wiser.” He says he can’t remember what TV show it was. But I have the suspicion that this may be a diplomatic memory lapse.

Boys will be boys. And being so close in age the McGanns have also shared, not only jobs, but girlfriends. “I don’t remember us exactly passing girls around. It was more a case of the girls taking themselves around under their own steam,” explains Paul.

Quite so. “Women love the McGanns,” said Richard E Grant, Paul’s co-star in Withnail and I, adding, “while my admirers are mostly old men in trenchcoats.”

Withnail and I, directed by Bruce Robinson in 1987, is one of those films that brings a smile to people’s faces at the mere mention of the title. A low-budget surprise hit, McGann and Grant played a couple of out-of-work actors living in majestic squalor who spend the entire film veering from one bender to the next.

“It’s one of those films which just cheers people up. It’s always a laugh if someone comes up to me and talks about it. I’m always glad to meet Withnail fans. The funny thing about Richard is that you can’t think of a better drunk act than him but in fact he is allergic to alcohol and never drinks. He can’t metabolise it. But you know almost everyone has had their Withnail era, lived in a terrible flat, endured the squalor, we’ve all met that drug dealer, we all stayed up too late. It’s great to have been in something that has got into folklore in the way that Withnail has.”

Not all of McGann’s projects have been so happy. In fact he has been dogged by the most awful bad luck. In the mid-eighties he was very much the bright young hope of British TV, starring on BBC1 as First World War soldier Percy Toplis in Alan Bleasdale’s controversial Monocled Mutineer. A move to Hollywood seemed on the cards and off he went in 1987 to appear in Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun, though most of his screen time disappeared on the cutting room floor. A similar fate awaited his role in Alien 3.

And there was more bad luck to come, including a car crash in Spain in 1991. Three years later he was in the Ukraine filming Sharpe for ITV. “We had a day off and were out on the beach playing football when I ruptured my knee. It was horrible, it swelled up like a balloon and I just wanted my mum. I tried to soldier on but in the end I had to be flown back to London.”

Sean Bean took over the coveted role of the dashing Sharpe and McGann found himself embroiled in a protracted court case concerning his contractual obligations. “Let’s just say that none of us was aware how badly injured I was. It was tough because I needed the dough at the time – and there would have been a lot of it – and that would have got us out of a domestic hole. It sent me into a bit of a spin, to be honest.�� McGann’s next doomed project was as Doctor Who in the Hollywood-produced version which became the centre of another lawsuit between the BBC and a consortium of backers. The film, made in 1996, was a flop.

“I can’t regret it. It was a laugh. If it had gone ahead I would have been committed to five or six years in the US and I’d have had to move the family there. I didn’t want to be Dr Who at first – it’s a bit like taking over the responsibility of becoming the Pope – and I thought it was a silly idea. After all, I’m a po-faced dramatic actor.”

Last year McGann starred in Fish, BBC’s off-beat legal drama which was pulled because of dismal audiences. Recently he filmed The Biographer, playing Andrew Morton at the time when he was writing his celebrated book about Princess Diana. The film has yet to be released.

“I’m glad I did it. The scripts might have been salacious and awful but they weren’t. You don’t see Diana at all – just a fleeting glance from a distance with her back to us.”

Now, finger crossed, he’s back in another new BBC drama, Sweet Revenge, playing Patrick Vine, an “expert” in revenge whose clients want more than the old tried-and-tested methods involving “cutting up clothes and dead fish”.

McGann himself has toyed with the idea of revenge in the past. In 1996 [Actually 1994] he was spotted kissing Catherine Zeta Jones and became the subject of intense media interest. That Catherine was an old friend and the kiss no more than a mwah-mwah peck did not prevent the McGanns’ lives being made a misery. “It caused my wife Annie and I – and Catherine – huge distress. It’s very upsetting to be at the centre of that kind of attention. And did I want revenge? Too right I did. I wanted to get out there and throttle someone. Rightly or wrongly, I chose to do nothing. I didn’t want to dignify it by making any kind of statement. In the end the whole thing petered out because it was a non-story.”

Together for 20 years, Paul and Annie have two sons – Joe, 12, and Jake, 10. Annie studied acting at the Bristol Old Vic and their move from London happened over a long period of time. “We were in our own Withnail phase and felt we had to rejuvenate and get out of London, so we used to go to Bristol for weekends. We created a kind of bolt hole and eventually just forgot to leave. Then, when Annie was first pregnant we had to be grown up and buy a house. It was at that time in the late eighties when houses were a ridiculous price. That’s the real reason we stayed on in Bristol – we just couldn’t afford to live in London.”

He lives in Bristol almost by accident and he is an actor almost by accident.

“I never wanted to be an actor. I never went to Stratford-upon-Avon, or kept scrapbooks or had pictures of – I don’t know – Alan Howard on my bedroom walls. I would have liked to have been a musician. It was almost obligatory growing up in Liverpool – you kick a ball around and play in a band. But what I really wanted was to be a track and field athlete. I would have been perfectly satisfied with that – an athletic career or even teaching sport. But I didn’t make the Olympics which I wanted to do. It just didn’t happen. It was something to do with being 16 and highly sexed like all 16-year-olds and discovering the inside of the bar. So in the end I just slipped into the acting.”

McGann may have the ability to go with the flow but it’s clear he is not always so easy going. “I’m mellowing a bit. But there are times when I’ve wound myself up in knots, and in egotistical terms I think I was a bit of a bastard. I have thought about revenge in childish moments and temperamentally if I was going to get back at anyone I’d do it long after the event. That’s not nice, is it? I don’t forget but I’m reaching the stage where I can forgive. I’ve been a very jealous person as well. I’ve been jealous of my wife, jealous of my brothers and I’ve been jealous of people I’ve never met. Anyone who says they haven’t felt the same is a liar.

“I’ve reached the slow realisation that no one is really looking at me. You know how when you’re a kid you think you’re the centre of everyone’s attention? Discovering you’re not is refreshing, especially for an actor.”

McGann’s mellowing process is the result of hard experience. And he seems remarkably sanguine about his woeful luck. And old (well, middle-aged) hippy that he is, he quotes Sanskrit at me.

“You find what you should be doing through your mistakes. I really believe that. And so much depends on luck. There’s a Sanskrit saying: ‘Where you stumble, there your treasure is’. Do you like that? It’s good, isn’t it?”

#paul mcgann #interviews #how did this woman manage to write this without checking some simple facts?#poor mark whose name is apparently difficult to get right #headdesks #mcgann monday

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RBC-Ukraine: Olena Zelenska: We will feel the consequences of the war for another 5-7 years after the victory

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[Note: The following translation is a translation of the transcript of the interview, not the interview video itself. The transcript is an almost 1:1 transcript of the interview, just missing some interjections, unimportant additions, ... .]

Kyiv, Wednesday 28 June 2023

Author: Uliana Bezpalko

In an interview with RBC-Ukraine, First Lady Olena Zelenska spoke about her projects, the consequences of the war for Ukrainians' health, how she sees victory in the war, whether she believes in the Russian uprising, and her role in political processes.

Since the outbreak of full-scale war, Olena Zelenska has faced challenges that are atypical for a First Lady of any country in the world. During her visits abroad, she negotiates military aid and air defence systems instead of focusing exclusively on cultural and humanitarian projects.

Interlocutors in political circles say that few people are aware of Zelenska's real influence. They say that she somehow keeps her finger on the pulse of all domestic political events. The First Lady herself considers this more of a compliment and an exaggeration. She explains that she does not give any advice to Volodymyr Zelenskyy on state processes.

In a long interview with RBC-Ukraine, the First Lady told us what projects she is involved in, whether she sees her future in politics, and what she thinks about Ukraine's victory and a possible revolt in Russia.

- In addition to humanitarian issues, during your meetings in the international arena, you also raise the issue of supplying Ukraine with military equipment and weapons, which is not very typical for First Ladies and Gentlemen. Tell us, how do world leaders react to this? And perhaps you have some interesting cases that you can share in terms of arms negotiations?

- I'll start from the very beginning because it's really an atypical situation for any President's wife, any First Lady in the world, to be inside a country at war and continue to carry out her humanitarian work. Of course, you can't act as if it doesn't concern you.

Because I never talk about offensive weapons. I always talk about weapons only in the context of protecting Ukrainian civilians, protecting our children, mothers. Everyone I speak to is touched by this because it is sincere - I am not making anything up. And, of course, I always consult with our large diplomatic corps and the Presidential Office about what I can say, what I can ask for, and I carry out the tasks that Ukraine gives me. I can only speak on my own behalf.

In fact, all meetings are planned and expected. And there is almost never a topic that your interlocutor does not expect you to talk about. After I spoke in the US Congress and asked for air and missile defence equipment, I think that any of my interlocutors understood that I could address this topic and could talk about it. And I continue to do so.

In fact, I still have more contacts with Presidential wives and other First Ladies. But during every trip abroad, I have certain missions that I have to fulfil, and I meet a lot of people, including heads of state and government, foreign ministers, defence ministers, etc.

I remember my last trip to South Korea. I had a meeting with the President, and yes, there was a really long list of equipment, including military equipment, that we needed. I could not just list the names of weapons, military equipment, etc. So I handed the entire list, translated into Korean, to the President and described in words what I would like them to consider.

Interestingly, during his meeting with the President (of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy - ed.), he also referred to that list, checked it against the one provided by the President, and was satisfied that the lists matched. It turns out that we did such preparatory work with our delegation for the main talks between our Presidents.

But, in fact, there can almost never be any spontaneous things or surprises. Diplomacy, even soft power diplomacy, of which I am a part, perhaps in certain non-humanitarian areas, is a rigorously thought-out process that basically does not give many options for something to go wrong.

- During the large-scale war, Ukraine has become known around the world. Unfortunately, foreigners often associate Ukraine with devastation, with the war caused by Russian aggression. You have launched a cultural diplomacy project that opens Ukrainian bookshelves around the world. Could you tell us if this project is scalable? And perhaps you have data, do you observe whether the popularity of Ukrainian literature has been growing since 24 February?

- It seems to me that it is growing. And this is a growing interest not only in Ukrainian literature but in Ukraine as a whole, in our art and in our history. Because the world is getting to know Ukraine anew. Perhaps it is too late. Unfortunately, perhaps it is indeed too late. But we have to do everything now to give the world the opportunity to know more about us.

Literature is one of the ways. Because books tell everything about us: who we are, what we are, how we live, what we think, our history, culture, art - everything. Indeed, the project is expanding. We have managed to open 39 countries for ourselves for our bookshelves. There are 170 shelves in different libraries. And these are 44,000 books in Ukrainian, as well as in the language of the country where the shelf is located. This is exactly the kind of literature we want to be distributed there.

The bookshelves are not only for foreigners, they are also for Ukrainians who are now living abroad in large numbers. This is a way of coming home in a way, a way of returning, at least in their minds, to their homeland. I see a lot of interest in Ukraine. I can give you an example: recently, there was a large delegation of journalists from South America, including Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, and they really know very little about us. They were amazed by a lot of things they hadn't heard about us. And it opens up people's understanding of us.

So we will continue. I hope that the number of shelves will grow and more world libraries will join us, such as the London Library, which is one of our latest examples. I saw the eyes of the staff of this library when we showed them Ukrainian publications. It's really beautiful, it's interesting, they are impressed by the quality of Ukrainian publishing, the quality of our publishers, the quality of our writers, what great achievements we have in this area. It was a great pleasure to represent Ukraine from this side.

- Another initiative of yours within the framework of cultural diplomacy is the introduction of Ukrainian-language audio guides in museums and historical monuments around the world. Could you tell us how this idea came about? And do you have any data on how popular this service is?

- I remember exactly how the idea came to me. It was in Berlin. And it was on one of the bus routes that our embassy had introduced a Ukrainian-language audio guide. I thought to myself: how many examples of this have I seen around the world? Almost everywhere I went as a tourist, there were various options, and there was a lot of Russian, but almost nowhere was there Ukrainian.

I began to study this issue and found only a few examples. For example, the Ukrainian Institute has introduced only two, I think, audio guides in Poland. I came across this in Berlin. And I found almost nothing else. I realised that this is a really great opportunity for activity. Firstly, it is the promotion of Ukraine. Where there is the Ukrainian language, there is Ukraine. Where there is our flag in the list of language options, there is Ukraine.

You know, it's just like in the days of the gold rush in the United States: wherever you went, you put your flag, that's your land. We don't want to find land for ourselves - we have our own beautiful land, but we have to put a marker that Ukraine and Ukrainians are here. That's why, as we develop this project, I think it's a success. We already have 65 audio guides, 40 countries (at the time of publication, the project has 67 audio tours in 42 countries - ed.), leading museums, palaces, tourist routes - everything that is interesting to people in each country, we have to open to Ukrainians and those who speak Ukrainian.

Since the full-scale invasion, this has acquired another meaning besides tourism. This is really a helping hand from Ukraine to our displaced people who are now abroad. We have heard from diplomatic missions from different countries that our people want to get involved in art and the history of the countries they are in. And yes, it is better to do this in their native language. That's why it's in demand, and I hope there will be more of it in the future. In general, it seems to me that this is more about positioning Ukraine, that we need to expand our cultural influence, our presence in the world.

Note: As part of the project, Ukrainian-language audio guides are already available in the Colosseum (Italy), Versailles (France), Albertina Gallery and Schönbrunn Palace (Austria), Dolmabahçe Palace (Turkey), the Tower of London, and Charlottenburg Palace (Berlin), The Vasa Museum (Sweden), the National Museum of the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania (Lithuania), the Uluwatu Temple in Bali (Indonesia), the Qatar National Museum, on Hop-on Hop-off bus tours to Oslo (Norway), Athens and Piraeus, and in the cities of Vilnius, Lisbon, Porto, Sintra, etc.

- You also pay a lot of attention to the deportation of Ukrainian children and generally keep this issue under control. Do we have a chance to return Ukrainian children? And do we have any mechanisms for this at all?

- I am sure that we should not lose hope and do everything to make it happen. Because this is a really big tragedy for us, these are our children, and we have to get them back. According to our social services, Russia has taken 19,500 children. The Russians say the number is higher. For me, it's really a mystery why they are so focused on increasing what they have done wrong to us.

But in reality, it is very difficult to return (children - ed.). At the moment, Ukrainian ombudsmen and human rights activists have managed to return only 371 children. We understand that this is so little and how much work remains to be done. But this is such a delicate moment. These are not even territories or funds - these are small people who cannot make their own decisions. Therefore, the mechanisms must be very flexible and humane.

At the moment, these mechanisms have yet to be found because all that is happening now around this topic is the recording of offences by Russia. And there are many such records and mechanisms in this regard. For example, the OSCE special commission created the so-called "Moscow mechanism". They recorded all the crimes of taking our children. The UN Special Commission has also recorded numerous violations of children's rights during the war waged by Russia. At the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, which took place in May, they also recognised Russia's actions in Ukraine as genocide, which is a big step.

We all know that the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Putin and Lvova-Belova. But, again, this is only a fixation and only a reaction. But the mechanisms are very complex, and we all have to create or find them together with our international partners. Because if the aggressor does not enter into any negotiations, if we cannot even get reliable information from them, then we cannot expect them to cooperate and give us our children back - unfortunately, we may not get that opportunity. I am sure that so many adults are working to get the children back that I think we must all work together to find such mechanisms. But, unfortunately, this path will not be easy and will not be quick.

- As far as I know, your daughter is a student.

- Yes, she is.

- What speciality has she chosen? Why, and was it her own choice?

- She chose law. To be honest, we had been talking about her future speciality for maybe five years, constantly returning to this topic. There were various options from her, some suggestions from us, we discussed all this, and we had such long discussions.

In fact, when the time came to choose, of course, we offered her something, she rejected something, but then she accepted something. This was one of the options we offered her. But she applied to several specialities, then had to choose one of them and chose law.

It seems to me that she chose well because I look at her - she likes it, and it "works" for her, as they say. She does it gently, without tension, and she's good at it. So I hope she will continue on this path. But we didn't put any pressure on her. Because I remember how I had almost no choice when I entered the university. And we wanted her to have the opportunity to spread her wings and make her own choice.

- Nowadays, many educational institutions and schools are forced to provide online education. How do you assess the quality of such education in Ukraine?

- There are many factors at play here. I would like to note that the quality of education in Ukraine is still high. We have something to compare it with. Nowadays, I hear a lot from my colleagues abroad, where our mothers and children have gone, about the quality of education of our children, how capable they are, how quickly they adapt and how great they learn.

Let us recall our experience of "Covid". Compared to other countries, we have also gone through this process with dignity. Our teachers have a high level of skills to teach online. So it's great that we have this experience, and we can use it now. Of course, this is a tool that we use when a child cannot physically go to school.

Of course, it is better when children go (to educational institutions - ed.), when children are socialised, when they see their teachers, their friends, when they can communicate. They lose a lot because of the lack of communication with their peers. We understand that there is digitalisation, and the number of hours that children spend at laptop and smartphone screens is also increasing due to their studies.

So there are a lot of negative influences. But we hope that we will gradually reduce the number of children studying exclusively online. We are currently working with the Ministry of Education and other NGOs on proposals to equip schools with the storage facilities that are necessary for children to return to them. I think that this summer, the Olena Zelenska Foundation will implement a project of shelters for schools as one of its projects.

- Your Foundation works in three areas: education, medicine and humanitarian aid. What else is in the focus of your Foundation now besides the shelter?

- Shelter is something we are really interested in. We are also trying to provide an opportunity to continue online learning in cases where it is impossible to go to school. Now the Foundation has found an opportunity to distribute more than 38,000 laptops for our teachers to continue working.

The project lasted several months, during which we received and delivered laptops to Ukrainian regions in batches. The project is now complete, and the Foundation has already started a series of new negotiations with several countries for new batches of gadgets. We hope that by the beginning of the new school year, we will be able to provide thousands more Ukrainian students and teachers with online learning tools.

Speaking about the healthcare sector, we have an ambitious project and are working to create an opportunity to rebuild the Izyum City Hospital. This is really a huge problem for the region. We know that Izyum was under occupation. And the hospital we are talking about served 150,000 local people before the full-scale invasion. There are still doctors there, but the hospital is dilapidated, with almost no medical equipment, in a terrible state.

In order to implement this project, we need a really large subsidy package. That is why the Foundation is now raising funds from foreign donors, philanthropists and organisations to rebuild this hospital. I hope that this year we will be able to start implementing this project.

As for the rest, we have always been interested in children, and in particular foster families and large foster families - the so-called family-type orphanages. We try to help them with various humanitarian aid and everything they need. And now, we are also working on an ambitious project of the Foundation - we are building the first ten houses for such families in different regions of Ukraine. This project has already been funded by our friends from the United Arab Emirates. The first ten houses will be built by the end of this year. We hope that these families will celebrate the New Year in their new homes.

The complexity of this project is that the house is really big because a family can raise up to ten children. The house has to be barrier-free, one-level, so that children with disabilities, who are also many in these families, can move freely. It must be energy-supplied, meaning that it is completely independent of external circumstances. There must be a shelter. That is why the project is really expensive, but we managed to find the funds for it, and the construction of the first houses will begin in July. We hope that everything goes well and we will continue to expand this project.

And by the way, other partners are interested in it. Our colleagues from Estonia have already come to us and want to join the project. We encourage other foundations, funds, and organisations to join us, with our help, and to help this movement, which should enable children to be brought up in families, in families, and not in boarding schools.

- I have also heard about another initiative of yours, which concerns family-type orphanages. Your Foundation organises holidays for these children's homes. How many family-type orphanages will you be able to send on holiday this year, and where are you planning to go?

- We have chosen the Carpathians. We have children from different regions. It is clear that we want to give the children peace of mind first and foremost. The first shift has already been completed, and our children from Kharkiv region have had a rest there.

We have arranged it in such a way that children come to the camp and communicate with their peers, have fun, etc. And their parents also have the opportunity to relax because foster parents don't really have an official holiday as such. And just imagine that when you are raising five, six, seven, ten children, you have to have a break at some point. That's why we made sure that our parents could also have a rest near the camp and with the younger children.

The next shift is about to start (at the time of the interview, the shift had already started - ed.) It mostly included children from the Kherson region. Unfortunately, the tragedy of the dam (Kakhovka hydroelectric power station - ed.) has caused a lot of disaster. We are also planning to send children from Dnipropetrovska and Zaporizka oblasts to this holiday. We are currently planning to send 1,200 children who are being brought up in family-type orphanages. This means about 150 such families.

- What do you think will be the long-term impact of a full-scale war on the mental health of Ukrainians? Sirens, constant shelling at night - how will this affect the mental health of Ukrainians who stay here and, in particular, the health of our children?

- You yourself have outlined the situation we are in. The whole world is now talking about how resilient Ukrainians are. But unfortunately, endurance also has its limits. According to the World Health Organization's research, for example, one in five Ukrainians will be at risk of developing mental health-related diseases in the coming years.

Indeed, we have to think about what will happen to us in the future. We will definitely survive everything, but unfortunately, the human psyche is designed in such a way that everyone experiences what happens to them differently. And our endurance is different. Therefore, the consequences can be too severe for our economy and for our healthcare sector.

Also, according to the World Health Organisation and many other studies, if there is an increase in mental health problems, it can affect the overall level of the economy and reduce GDP by three to five per cent per year. We know that we have to recover. And such losses for the economy will be very difficult. Among other things, we have to think about how we care about each other, how we take care of each other. And resilience is also about how we stay together. That is why the All-Ukrainian Mental Health Programme, which I initiated last year, is designed to help us anticipate and reduce the risks that we may face in the future.

Children are one of the categories of Ukrainians who also feel, and sometimes even more so, what is happening to us. Fortunately, experts say that children and children's psyche can recover faster than adults. But this does not mean that we should not pay more attention to them than we do to adults now.

That is why we are developing pilot projects to rehabilitate children who have suffered psychological trauma from the actions of the aggressor. Among other things, we have to catch up with what our children did not receive in previous periods in various ways. For example, this is knowledge about their own states, their emotions, and how to manage them. Accordingly, the Ministry of Education has a programme that they will implement. I hope that in September, they will be able to start implementing it in schools. We need to review the system of school psychologists, which is currently ineffective, and there are not enough of them. Psychologists must fulfil their function, not just be a school employee.

It is generally said that we will feel the effects of the war for another 5-7 years after the victory. Of course, during this time, some children will grow up and become adults, who ideally should not carry trauma with them all their lives. I believe in post-traumatic growth, and we are putting a lot of effort into this as well. But for this growth to take place, we need to take the necessary steps at all levels now - not only at the state level but, very importantly, at the community level. And to do this, we must also strengthen and improve the knowledge of Ukrainians about health.

There is a stigma attached to this topic in Ukrainian society. And the communication campaign of the All-Ukrainian Mental Health Programme, called "How are you?" is aimed at overcoming this stigma, overcoming ignorance about yourself and your psyche. I would like to note right away that we, Ukrainians, are not unique in this. Most countries that have been paying attention to mental health and the diversity of mental health services in recent years have faced this problem.

People don't admit to themselves that they need to take care of it, they need to think about it, and they don't know that mental health is just a part of overall health, without it, there will be no physical health. I don't want to scare people with the consequences of "not doing anything", as they say, but we hope that the fact that we are already starting to move so actively will give us the opportunity to get less consequences than they could have.

- Talking to people here in Ukraine, many of them are facing depression, apathy, stress. It seems to me that we have been living in a state of constant stress for over a year now.

- It is true.

- And I see that there really is a problem - the further we go, the more people become pessimistic and give up. Tell me, where do you find the strength to keep going?

- I can't say for sure, I guess. But I know for sure that work helps to keep me going. Because when you get up in the morning and know that you have a lot to do, it stimulates you. The fact that I have the opportunity to talk about Ukraine and Ukrainians outside helps me to keep going. I think it's important, and I try to speak to anyone who can hear. I really hope that my voice adds value. I am really inspired by those around me. I've already mentioned the endurance and resilience of Ukrainians - it's inspiring. When you see such examples around you, you can't keep up. You have to somehow be on a par with our people.

- Is there anything that helps you switch?

- I understand that I need to do something sometimes - I won't say sports, but at least some kind of physical training - it helps me to really switch to some other activity for an hour and keep my focus. Recently, I have found a new activity for myself - I went back to study.

- Why?

- This is a field that touches every person. I won't go into details now. But it's interesting to me that it's a different kind of socialisation, it's other people I meet and spend some time with. It's a huge amount of information that is new to me and work that I haven't done in this way for a long time. And that's why it also helps me. I've always been a fan of the theory that the best rest is a change of activity. That's why I try to change my activities from time to time in order not to stand still.

- Now, since the beginning of the full-scale war, the issue of barrier-free accessibility is becoming even more important. Tell us more about your initiative to create a barrier-free space.

- Barrier-free is a broader issue than such spaces. I believe that this is really a philosophy of barrier-free access. But now this topic is becoming more relevant than ever because we understand that even if we take physical barrier-free access, unfortunately, there are more and more people who will need it.

That is why I think that one of the main issues now is to keep barrier-free accessibility in focus during our recovery and reconstruction. We should not rebuild the way it was. We have to rebuild in a way that is useful and universal for all people, including those who have been affected by this war.

We will have more people in wheelchairs. We will have more people with amputations and prostheses. We will have more people with visual and hearing impairments. Therefore, we need to lay the foundation for the future now, we have to think about it. And it is really important if we can convey these messages to the regional authorities. After all, decisions are made at the state level, but they are implemented at the community level. Every community has to take care of its people. They are different. That is why we cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that someone cannot move around the city, someone cannot get into the city council building, or in the village, a person with a disability cannot leave the house at all. If we want to recover, we have to recover in the right way.

On the other hand, there are many initiatives within the Programme in different areas, all aimed at making us feel less dependent on our circumstances. And there are a lot of such point projects. I hope that they will all be implemented so that we can change gradually, but we cannot go backwards in terms of taking care of all people, regardless of their capabilities.

- After the war is over, when hundreds of thousands of our military return from the front, we will need to work with them, not only in terms of physical recovery but also in terms of mental recovery and employment. Will the state pay due attention to our military after the war is over? And do you have any initiatives in this area under development?

- I can tell you about what I know is already in development. Just recently, we met with representatives of the Ministry of Veterans Affairs, including Yulia Laputina, the Minister. I know that they have projects that will take care of our demobilised soldiers - this is their area of responsibility. Indeed, everyone should have opportunities to resume socialisation. They have projects on rehabilitation, including psychological rehabilitation.

They work with work teams to accept members of these teams who have been at war and returned, perhaps injured or disabled - how to accept them, how to arrange their jobs, how to prepare the team to communicate properly with their employees.

I know that the Ministry of Economy has a project on business for the military and veterans. The Ministry of Youth and Sports also has its own projects on physical activity and physical education for veterans. Each of the departments has priority and pilot projects in development, and let's hope that they will all be implemented. I am sure, as you are, that our soldiers who are now defending our lives deserve to return to peaceful life and to be waited for, to be respected and to have the proper conditions to continue this peaceful life.

- As far as I understand, you receive proposals and requests from international business from foreign philanthropists who would like to help Ukraine in the humanitarian sphere. One example of such cooperation is the creation of a kitchen factory in Bucha with the support of Howard Buffett. Was it his initiative, or was it your idea and he was approached? What was his motivation for participating in this project?

- I'll probably start by telling you who Howard Buffett is. I don't know how it happened, but he is in love with Ukraine. And we are lucky to have such a person as a true supporter of ours, and he just has a fierce desire to help. When we met in Kyiv last year, he had already met with the President and had several humanitarian projects in development. As far as I know, his focus is on humanitarian demining and so on. And he wanted to meet with me because he knew that we had many different ideas. It was his idea to meet. Then we encouraged him to consider our ideas.

We brought him the factory kitchen as an idea, as a project. This is a really interesting option for organising catering for schoolchildren and not only - perhaps for kindergartens and public institutions in general. One factory kitchen, for example, the one in Bucha, will produce 10,000 hot meals a day and can satisfy three surrounding communities.

We presented this project to him. He said that he hadn't thought about it yet, but would think about it. We managed to persuade him, and he is now a very passionate supporter of this project. This project is developing. We already have an agreement with him to build a similar kitchen factory in Lozova, Kharkiv region. This is where we already have his agreement to finance this project. Subsequently, the design stage begins.

I hope that when we have a ready-made, working kitchen factory in Bucha, it will be easier to distribute, and we will have something to show to other investors and our regions. I know that there is a desire to build such enterprises in Lviv, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Ternopil regions and Volyn. We are now looking for investors - perhaps not only Mr Howard, perhaps someone else - to finance these projects. Because it is clear that communities will not always be able to implement this on their own.

But it's a great idea, and I think it will work. It saves resources, it saves time, it means trained employees, it means really good standards, which are also much easier to control. Hopefully, the idea will spread. And with Mr Howard, we also have a collaboration on the Superhumans clinic in the Lviv region. This is a rehabilitation and prosthetics clinic for Ukrainians. He has also made a great contribution to making this project a reality. I hope there are more projects ahead - with him and others.

- Are there any other businessmen and philanthropists who are keen to help?

- I can say that, for example, the activities of the Olena Zelenska Foundation are focused on foreign aid for Ukrainians. We cooperate only with foreign patrons, businesses, foundations, etc. We have a great friend of Ukraine, Mr Temerty from Canada, who has already made a fairly large contribution. But he had a specific purpose - he wanted purely humanitarian aid and for one region only. We fulfilled his request, and the humanitarian aid was delivered. It was at a time when there were massive power cuts when people needed generators, everything that provides heat, light, etc. That's why this aid package from him consisted of just such things.

Another example is Mr Andrew Forrest from Australia. I met him in Davos during the World Economic Forum. I shared the Foundation's projects, and now the Foundation is at the stage of agreeing on the details of potential cooperation with his The Minderoo Foundation.

We have contacts among French businesses. There are also people there who are particularly interested in the Izyum hospital. But we will look for more. Because the Izyum Hospital requires large investments. These people are not enough for us. We have made friends, so to speak, with the United Arab Emirates. After all, as I said, ten houses is a large amount of money. They gave it to us in one tranche. It was a really powerful help. But I can say that during each visit, I try to include this component and look for opportunities to meet or continue to meet people who are interested in helping Ukraine.

- Earlier, you initiated the First Ladies and Gentlemen Summit. Can you tell us whether it will be held this year? And if so, will it be held in Ukraine or abroad, and what will be the topic?

- Yes, this year, we are planning to hold the third First Ladies and Gentlemen Summit, and we definitely want to hold it in Ukraine. We have already secured this leadership and do not want to lose it. We hope that it will be held in autumn. We are already inviting experts, First Ladies, Gentlemen, and everyone who can participate.

The theme of the summit will be mental health. This is a topic that concerns not only Ukraine but the whole world. It is a common issue for everyone. But Ukraine really needs to become a leader in this aspect as well because we are now a testing ground for new solutions. No other country has such experience as we do. And I think we will have separate panels on the mental health of adolescents and young people. These are the people who will make decisions in 2-3 years. And this is a really interesting audience that should have the opportunity to speak out, and we should give them that opportunity.

- How do you see Ukraine's victory in this war because it would seem that the answer is very obvious? But looking through the pages of foreign media, statements by foreign leaders, we can see that some in the West interpret the word "victory" to mean not letting Russia win. Some hint that it could be a return to the borders of 23 February. What is victory for you?

- I have to say that this is my opinion: I am sure that it is, first of all, the return of all our territories from '91. Secondly, it is the return of all our people: prisoners, prisoners of war, our children, people who left. We really want our internally displaced people to return, those who want to return, and we really want more of them. We need people in Ukraine.

And the third component is justice. Without the establishment of the International Tribunal, without the work of the International Criminal Court, so that everyone who gave orders and who carried them out receives not only a sentence but also punishment, I will not feel victorious. But I am confident that we will be able to do all this.

- Why do you think Russians do not protest, do not rebel against the war, against their regime? Because there are also many losses and deaths there. There are Russian mothers, Russian women losing their sons and husbands, and we see nothing - zero reaction.

- We don't see anything because, apparently, very little is happening. But I think that there is really fear and powerlessness there. We were also talking about this the other day with my colleagues why this is so. We live in an open society, it's not the 17th year of the last century when you can't get information. Yes, their television is biased, but they have the Internet. Why aren't people interested? Most of them are probably afraid to find out the terrible truth about themselves. Because then you have to tell yourself that you are also a monster, you supported it. But all this is still no excuse for fear and powerlessness. I hear a lot of talk about how soon they will rise up, something will happen soon. I would not hope for that.

- This is just my guess. Probably, if someone does rise up, it will not be ordinary people, but only some elite who will be dissatisfied and only because of some material motives, not because of the loss of people and so on.

- I agree with you.

- Since Volodymyr Zelenskyy became President, your field of activity has also changed. Are you satisfied with your status and role? And if you were given a chance to go back in time to your previous activities, what would you choose?

- Yes, I really did not choose my current status and role. But I can say that I have accepted it, I am following this path and trying to be useful and effective. I don't think about what could have happened if this hadn't happened. I try not to look at the past - it's useless, it distracts from the future. I haven't thought about it.

- From people who know you, I have heard this assessment, this opinion that your influence on state processes is much bigger than that of a First Lady in Ukraine or in any other country in the world and that you are almost the main adviser to your husband. How often do you advise Volodymyr Zelenskyy? What issues do you advise him on, or does he seek your advice?

- I think this is an exaggeration. Someone really wanted to pay me a compliment, I guess. But I definitely do not influence state processes - one hundred per cent. I can initiate some things, I can support them, but this applies only to the humanitarian and social spheres, etc. As President Volodymyr Zelenskyy does not consult me. And I think it's right. Firstly, I could not give him expert advice, there is a huge gap between us in the knowledge that he has now and that I could add to him. And it would be unethical.

I think he has such a big responsibility. A wife cannot advise her husband in matters of public administration. It's not right. We don't even talk to him about such topics. Yes, we discuss something. As part of the discussion, we can discuss issues that concern all Ukrainians, we have many controversial issues in society that we can argue about, we can agree on. But this does not mean that what we say to each other will then become a decision or influence his opinion when making decisions.

- Do you envisage your participation in politics in the future in a capacity other than First Lady?

- No, I don't want to. This is not my area. For some reason, I have been asked this question a lot lately. Someone came up with this idea - I don't know who. But I don't want it, I don't aspire to it. So it will never happen.

- Share your most exciting event, event meeting from 24 February 2022.

- I remember that I didn't know what to expect, and I was worried before meeting my husband, after the first period when we were separated for a month or a month and a half when I had to leave Kyiv, and he stayed here. When I came back, to be honest, I was worried. I had only seen on TV how he was growing a beard and what had happened to him, what he had become, and I was a little worried. Fortunately, nothing extreme happened, but at first, I had a feeling that there was a possibility that we might not meet at all. This is always a possibility during a war. And finally, we met. There was a moment - I won't say it was too emotional. We don't have emotional scenes, tears or anything like that in our family. But I did feel excited.

A very emotional event was the speech in the US Congress when I spoke about weapons for the first time. It was really so responsible that I was very nervous. This is not typical for me, not typical for the role of the First Lady in general. I understood that if I was invited to the Congress, they were giving me carte blanche. But I had to get into the hearts of these people. And I really hope that I did. I was lucky that I spoke (and I always do) from the heart, what I really think, and tried to find the right words for it.

But it was really emotionally difficult because I was also talking about things that were difficult for me. And I gave examples that touched me personally. In particular, the girl Lisa from Vinnytsia who died, whom I personally knew. And this emotional intensity really brought tears to my eyes at some point. I calmed down my state, but it was sensitive, it was difficult.

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