#best narrative 2022

[cosmoludica]

#Immortality #immortality 2022 #immortality game #sam barlow #best narrative 2022 #gaming #gameplay ita

[judesstfrancis]

rewatching nope (2022) today bc it's my day off and god everything about this movie is sooooooooooo. it's so good. truly can't remember the last time I was in a theater kicking my feet giggling bc a film was so well put together like truly every other minute I was staring at the screen in awe like holy shit they did that!! how did they do that that is so cool!! the sound design, the set design, the characters, the THEMES and the NARRATIVE, the blocking in certain scenes. THAT FUCKING ALIEN girl I'm sorry I'll never be normal about this movie

#the way the plot sorta spirals in on itself. u have this thing which relates to this thing which made this happen #and it all just keeps spiraling inward bc even tho they're all different scenarios they are all actually exactly the same #the cinematography choice....... blank hallways and first person pov and the SOUNDSCAPING #the dead silence with just one ambient noise in the background to make it feel off enough that you're like uhh what's happening I'm scared #the HERO of this movie and the way he only won bc he understood animals and knew how to treat them fairly #and yet he and his family still contribute to the spiraling narrative of in the way they try to capture jean jacket on film #2023 best picture winner TO ME #text post #nope 2022 #horror tag

[compacflt]

i'm so curious: what's your favorite thing you've written? something that makes you nod and go, "yeah, that's it right there. i did that." just the best combination of words you've ever churned out in your personal opinion. it makes you proud just Thinking about it. could be a sentence, a paragraph, etc.

very cute ask anon, thank you. im going to assume for your benefit that you mean specifically my icemav writing—obviously I write outside of top gun and am very proud of that stuff but it wouldn’t make sense out of context.

There’s a lot of more recent stuff that I’m extremely extremely proud of on a technical level, but I’m prouder of this paragraph below on a deeper more existential level.

This paragraph was one of the first parts of WWGATTAI i ever wrote—august 12, i think, well before I had fully realized the characters’ voices or their attitudes towards life/each other; I only had about 5k written of what is now a 300k+ project (at the time of writing this paragraph i wanted it to be 10k max) and had no real outline, didn’t know who or what I was dealing with, hadnt seen TGM in two months, had done no research (so it’s not at all politically/militarily accurate or anything, why the FUCK is ice going to fucking GUAM)—and STILL this wound up being my favorite paragraph in the entire fucking series. not to suck my own dick or anything. I’m STILL so proud of this paragraph, 9 months and 275k+ words later, even though i Absolutely Would Not write it this way now.

#narrative distance both incredibly close and incredibly far #he’s trying to rationalize this whole situation and by extent the whole plot of his life #we’re inside his head as he tries to convince both Pete and himself of this huge huge lie #which is that leaving (right after he fucked their relationship and their best friend just died) is worth it for the navy’s sake #and it will make him a good man #in the masculine strong man leadership sense #and Pete (first name instead of last name; über vulnerable in the worst way because he’s crying yet doesn’t want to be seen crying) #counters all of this lie with—does it? does it really mean you’re a good man? it means you’re the weakest most subservient man i know #bending over backwards for the navy instead of your FAMILY #yeah i would absolutely not write this paragraph this way NOW but i am still so proud of what it represents in the story #& the very experimental 2nd person without quotation marks is i think done very well #at least for august 2022 me #some wording/phrasing/detail issues but other than that—a great paragraph! #again not to suck my own dick but you asked! #pete maverick mitchell #tom iceman kazansky #icemav #top gun #top gun maverick #top gun fanfiction #edts notes #asks #this is a terrible chapter in aggregate but it has some of the best diamond-in-the-rough moments in the whole series #ughhh the Pete this has nothing to do with Afghanistan; pete this has nothing to do with iraq etc line…. SOO good omg i love it sorry

[mytrainline]

they legit just skimmed over Best Art Direction oh my god geoff

dont you think an acceptance speech that shows appreciation for fuckin artists and the process of making art would have been impactful in a time where fucking AI art and art theft runs rampant?????????????????????

#i cannot believe #just fucking lumped it with the others like #and after the amazing acceptance speech of the best narrative winner too! #fucking hell #the game awards #the game awards 2022

[aroaessidhe]

2022 reads // twitter thread

The [Un]Popular Vote

YA contemporary about a trans boy who decides to run for student president after witnessing homophobic bullying at his new school

while keeping the fact that he's trans hidden, because of his politician father

#The [Un]Popular Vote #aroaessidhe 2022 reads #now I think this is pretty good actually! #i 100% read this for ace and aro side characters also #which i think is done pretty well? definitely a minor thing but it's the MCs best friends and it's brought up more than once for both of the #*them #the stupid lie about his dad being dead is like. this is clearly for plot conflict reasons it would have been easy to come up with a less sh #shitty lie lmao??? you can just say 'my dad is shit and my parents are divorced' #also i feel like so many YAs with shitty political parents they're always republican and it always feels like it's handled badly #and they're too forgiven by the narrative. so it's nice(?) to have one who's a democrat bc like. all rich american politicians r like that #AND he's still not forgiven by the narrative bc hes shit #it does definitely try to be about realising politics is all empty promises and change doesn't come from the top and community is the most #important. which i think is better than most political ya i feel #also there's something funny about the white feminist girl nicknaming herself after clary shadowhunters sdjhgkjfdg #I would not have read it if not for checking aspec characters tho god american politics....american high school.......

[capitalismwasamistake]

Chapter twenty-two of Welcome the Dawn of Day is now up! A canon-compliant, post-canon story for The Batman (2022), a Dick Grayson Robin origin story, and a brand new take on Poison Ivy as an antihero.

In this chapter Gordon delivers news to the Wayne household, Fish and Oswald are not having a good time, and Julia gets two bat-visitors. Also featuring the satisfying conclusion to the circus/mob storyline.

With a wordcount of a little under 9.3k, this chapter brings the story up to 234.6k words total, and I kinda wish I'd managed to land 234.5k, but oh well.

#the batman 2022 fic #okay I'll admit this chapter isn't the best in the fic #I'm sort of disappointed in it but I'm trying to let go of perfectionism #it is good enough - it serves its narrative purpose and damn this is fanfiction I'm posting it for free it absolutely is good enough #I'd say it's a nice mix of angst with some hope and elation but not much fluff per se #the ending scene tho. the ending scene is fluffy #short and sweet #something dark and sinister has reared its ugly head onto this heinous earth

[joesalw]

Taylor Swift has an unhealthy obsession with changing her personality according to the men she dates from time to time. It’s funny how she talks about how she's never gonna get back the six years of her life being wasted for being private. But this is the same person who released interviews saying she craves privacy and it has made her life manageable and feel real instead of being the objective of tabloid stories by the media.

It's like she doesn’t have her own perspective of life, she always sees the world the way her partners see them. When she first started dating Joe and started talking about him, she made it look like he is the best thing that has ever happened to her, even in her songs she wrote so highly of him. All the things that she's rejecting now are the things that she admired back in 2016-2022. With all the privacy cravings back then, her fans were dragging Tom hiddleston and Calvin Harris for being so public with her, they dragged these guys saying they only used her for fame and never seen the real Taylor. Back then the narrative was, only Joe was a real guy who loves Taylor for being herself and not the Taylor Swift tm. But since the relationship didn’t work out, she switched the whole narrative again.

This time Joe is the villain for not being public with her. She is so proud of Kelce, she loves to enjoy his shows and apparently she doesn’t care about how many people are pissed of seeing her face everyday, she made a quote on that. But how long since she will switch this narrative too? Again swifties will villainize Travis Kelce and not TS. It's funny how they totally erased the existence of Matty Healy from the interview as well, since it was bad for her image. But we didn’t forget it Taylor that you were proudly hanging out with a racist, xenophobic, islamophobic, zionist guy and publishing articles on how your relationship is NOT platonic.

Her whole activism era started because Joe was an activist. He didn’t stop it after the breakup because it's a part of his personality, he still signed the ceasefire letter. But Taylor didn’t utter a single word about genocide, she's busy learning football and crying about how oppressed she is in her billionaire lifestyle. And somehow she is the Person of the Year in Times magazine.

And talking about her new boyfriend so publicly is something she never did even with Calvin Harris, which was (in comparison) her third most public relationship. But somehow all of this is directed towards Joe as if he was the one in fault for keeping her silent for so long. She is a grown ass woman who can take her own decisions. If she wanted an out from being locked for so long in her own mansions, she could've done that anyway. But to make it look like someone else fault is something she never gets tired of. It's always her exes' faults and not hers. When will you take accountability for your own decisions Taylor Swift?

Like this woman is pushing 40 and is still acting like a high school bully. She is proud of having a boyfriend from football team which is fulfilling her dreams from high school. She loves the attention, loves to play a cheerleader role as a gf. She got a platform like Times magazine’s person of the year where she could talk about serious issues in the world but she'd rather talk about how independent she feels being in a public relationship like this.

Btw it will take no longer than two years for this to turn into a victim trap again, she will then release another article about how she hates so much attention from public and how she craves privacy again, (based on whatever her then boyfriend would want lol) and her fandom will again forget everything she's said in this interview and make an ultimate villain out of Travis Kelce. Literally the same way they did with Jake Gyllenhaal, Calvin Harris, Tom Hiddleston, Harry Styles and Joe Alwyn. It is a never ending cycle and it will go on forever until she decides to seek some therapy for herself.

#anti taylor swift #swifties dni #anti swifties #joe alwyn #calvin harris

[thenightisland]

“Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling...The story is not all mine, nor told by me alone. Indeed I am not sure whose story it is; you can judge better. But it is all one, and if at moments the facts seem to alter with an altered voice, why then you can choose the fact you like best; yet none of them is false, and it is all one story.”

-Ursula K Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

#ursula k. le guin #the left hand of darkness #booklr #narrative #YES i'm still Tormented by this NO i will not shut up about it #and if i can choose the fact that i like best then i have some Thoughts about ch 18 On the Ice #karen liveblogs books #quote blogging 2022

[cosettepontmercys]

“In light of everything that’s happened in the past three months alone, here’s some incredibly valid reasons to be pissed off at Taylor Swift, or simply not like her — as someone who loved her, and loved her music. First and foremost, Taylor Swift is personally burning a hole through the ozone with the amount of CO2 she uses. That’s not even the main point of this video; but this is a graph from 2022 of how much CO2 she produced of her 170 private jet flights, versus the average person. She has spent 70 grand on jet fuel alone. Taylor Swift, alone has used 170 tons of CO2 in the past 3 months. The average person only burns like, 16 tons. That’s not even the main part of this video. The main point of the video is the fact that she has not spoken up about Palestine. And the reason that is so fundamentally frustrating is that Taylor Swift has influence. Quote Brittany Broski, when she also didn’t speak up about Palestine — “if you have a platform, and you have people listening, you have to use it.” It’s criminal to not use it, and Taylor Swift uses it. This is from September 2023. Record-breaking registration numbers from one Instagram post. Literally stating, saying “I’ve been so lucky to see so many of you guys at my US shows recently. I’ve heard you raise your voices, and I know how powerful they are. Make sure you’re ready to use them in our elections this year!” They had a 72(%) increase in 18-year-old registrations. When it comes to Palestine, she’s completely silent. And now that it’s somewhat more socially acceptable to attend Pro-Palestine events, she’s been quietly going with Selena Gomez, but I for one, think that your Instagram is perhaps the best asset you have. If not, money. And I’m sure in a couple months, we’ll learn about how Taylor Swift was quietly setting up foundations for pro-Palestine, and that she was always for the cause and she’s always supported them, but all it takes is one fucking Instagram post. Especially when Israel Palestine is fundamentally a war of narratives. It’s whose story do you believe, despite the mounting evidence that proves that Israel has continuously been doing ethnic cleansing and genocide. They are still maintaining this narrative that they are not doing that. And all Taylor Swift has to do is say “hey, 22 thousand deaths in 3 months? The most in any modern war? This doesn’t seem right.” I don’t even want her to be that leftist or radical, but literally just to ask the question to her largely American audience, when US has bypassed Congress twice to sell millions in arms aid to Israel.  Just for her to be like “Should that many kids be dying, perhaps?” The bar is on the floor, but she still refuses to do it. And the reason why Taylor Swift in particular, not because of the influence that she has and not because of the platform that she has, but why her in particular, is because the IDF continues to use her songs. I know it was a public trend, but the fact that so many occupation forces felt comfortable and confident  to make like, dance edits to Taylor Swift’s music. I think it’s so important how an artist’s music is used because when the republicans wanted to use Eminem’s 8 mile track, he was like “absolutely fucking not, I do not give you consent to do that, and I do not associate with your politics. Don’t do that.” I feel like she should know that her music is being used as the anthem of the occupation forces as they go and bomb civilians. Her, and other artists like her, like Beyonce, who showed her film in Israel, and they’re all like dancing and singing, and saying “you’re not going to break my soul”, whilst they continue to bomb the shit out of civilians have said nothing. And I hope, as I’ve demonstrated in the video, for the people who are going to be like “What’s Taylor swift going to do? She’s not a politician.” Be serious. Be serious. She has a fucking chokehold on at least a billion people. She could’ve said and done way more than what she’s done, and also the CO2 levels." (from: this tiktok*)

* i tried to transcribe the tiktok since tiktok wasn't showing the captions for me but if i misheard anything please let me know!

#post: music #m: taylor swift #( i'm pretty sure i misheard a word or two but i listened like three times and tried to get this as accurate as i could ) #( also her going to a pro-palestine event with selena gomez after selena's ... stuff ... to support a mutual friend ... was interesting ... #ts critical #taylor swift critical #ts criticism #anti taylor swift #(??????)

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

SFX Magazine Issue 368, August 2023

THEY’RE BACK – AND THIS TIME THEY’RE IN ALL-NEW TERRITORY. NEIL GAIMAN TALKS RETURNING FOR SEASON TWO OF GOOD OMENS

THE RASCALLY DEMON Crowley (David Tennant) and the neurotic angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) put aside their differences to pull off one doozy of a Hail Mary and prevent an impending Apocalypse in Good Omens’ first season. The task cemented the pair’s unconventional friendship. So what are divine beings, who have fallen out of grace with both Heaven and Hell, to do for an encore?

The answer lies with archangel Gabriel (Jon Hamm), who shows up unannounced on the doorstep of Aziraphale’s London bookshop. Suddenly, Aziraphale and Crowley are caught up in a caper of biblical proportions – but also a more intimate tale.

“It’s a mystery,” showrunner Neil Gaiman tells SFX. “It kicks off a story that doesn’t have giant consequences for the universe, even if it does have consequences for Aziraphale and Crowley. We have a lot of the marvellous Jon Hamm, who is the angel Gabriel and turns up at the beginning stark naked, carrying a cardboard box with no memory of who he is. In the same way, it is about Aziraphale and Crowley having to get involved with humanity in a way that they haven’t before.

“They get dragged in slightly against their will to try to sort out the love life of Aziraphale’s tenant,” he continues. “Her name is Maggie [Maggie Service] and she runs the record shop next to the bookshop. You’ll see the coffee shop over the road, which is Nina’s [Nina Sosanya]. The relationship between Maggie and Nina is one that Crowley and Aziraphale try to fix, and mess up, because they are not good at human relationships, even if they can do miracles.”

Truth be told, Gaiman never originally intended this arc to serve as Good Omens’ second instalment. The TV series was based on Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s 1990 novel. The two collaborators had partially hashed out the details for a sequel to the fantasy comedy, late one night in a hotel room. This, however, is not it. Gaiman instead plotted a new narrative that could provide the connective tissue between the first season and a theoretical season three, if it happens.

“Because the hypothetical season three exists, there is a story that is there, and I didn’t feel that we could drive straight from season one into that,” Gaiman explains. “I knew what the stakes were. I knew what the parameters were. I also knew that I had David and Michael. I had the angels from plot number one.

I had demons from plot number one. And with anybody that I wanted to bring back, but didn’t have room for right now, I did not have to bring them back as themselves. “I had absolutely nothing for Madame Tracy to do in this plot, but I would be damned if Miranda Richardson wasn’t going to be in this. She is one of my favourite people in the world. She is hilarious and is so good. And I knew I was going to have a new demon replacing Crowley as Hell’s representative in London/ the UK. Miranda’s demon Shax is the best demon you could want.”

It’s late February 2022 and SFX is in Edinburgh for a set visit. A soundstage in Pyramids Studios has been transformed into a street in Soho. The visible local stores include the aforementioned book, coffee and record shops, as well as a magic establishment. In the middle of them all stand Aziraphale and Crowley, the latter in close proximity to his classic Bentley. It’s close to the end of the six-episode season, so exactly what the duo is discussing constitutes a spoiler. We can say, however, that Aziraphale has picked up the pace. Time is of the essence as Shax marshals her forces to descend on Aziraphale’s store and retrieve Gabriel.

“This is really Shax’s first time out on Earth,” Gaiman explains. “She is working very diligently and very hard in Hell for a long time. Now she is on Earth, trying to figure it all out. She’s just discovering what Crowley has known for 6,000 years, which is that if you’re a demon and come up with a brilliant plan to screw up the lives of humanity, people will get there first and do worse than anything you could have imagined! She’s coming to terms with that.

“She is having to deal with the first crisis on her watch, as well, which is the disappearance of the archangel Gabriel from Heaven. It would be fair to say that by the end of the story, she is leading as much as she can get from Hell’s requisition department – a legion of Hell – in an attack on a Soho bookshop.”

When audiences catch up with Aziraphale again, he’s enjoying his time among humans. He owns most of the block in a Soho neighbourhood, and he’s meddling in Nina’s love life. Meanwhile, Crowley has been living in his car, with his plants sitting on the back seat. He’s grumpy about his current status quo, but frequently hangs out at Aziraphale’s. The duo began as antagonists, but their history and blossoming relationship will be fleshed out in flashbacks.

“One of the enormously fun things I came up with is the idea of minisodes,” Gaiman explains. “They are 25-minute-long episodes within the episode. We have three of them over our six episodes. Each of them is like one of those chunks of episode three [in season one]. Whereas the longest one of those was four or five minutes, if that, these are full stories.

“You get to have the story of [put-upon Biblical figure] Job, and you learn Aziraphale and Crowley’s part in the story. Then writer Cat Clarke takes us to Edinburgh in the 1820s for a tale of body-snatching and attempted murder that the boys get involved in,” he adds.

“Finally, Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman reunite the League Of Gentlemen in a Nazi-period story that takes place very shortly after the episode in the church. That one was the only one I said had to be there, because I fell in love with our Nazi spies in the church. I kept thinking, ‘What would happen if they essentially came back as zombies, with a mission from Hell to try and investigate whether or not Crowley and Aziraphale were actually fraternising?’”

Gaiman admits that one of the greatest challenges has been filming Good Omens simultaneously with his upcoming show Anansi Boys. The two shoot within throwing distance of each other, but are both timeconsuming endeavours.

“If I could go back in time, I would go back to 16 September 2020, when Douglas Mackinnon [co-producer] and I got the phone call from the Amazon bigwigs to say, ‘We have good news for you and interesting news for you,’” Gaiman recalls. “‘The good news is we are greenlighting both Good Omens and Anansi Boys. The interesting news is you are going to have to do them both at the same time.’

“I would go back to then and I would throw myself on the call and say, ‘Neil, don’t! This is unwise.’ That we are doing them both together is great. The amount of sleep I am not getting is monumental and monstrous.

“It’s a little bit like childbirth, in that I managed to forget all the things that drove me nuts about the first one. Having said that, I managed to fix all the things that really drove me nuts making season one, which is great. We just have a whole new set of problems making season two…”

The Odd Couple - David Tennant and Michael Sheen talk character and sets for season two

Crowley and Aziraphale come off as the best of frenemies at times. Where do they stand with one other now?

DT: They are indeed. What’s different in season two is because of what happened at the end of season one, they no longer have head offices that they have to report to. They are in a very different position. Whereas before they were trying to get away with things, now they are kind of free agents.

MS: Although sort of fugitives as well. They are sort of in-between. But this amazing life they have created over a millennia, they are now able to enjoy in a slightly different way. They are not having to put on a front for their respective teams. There is a different kind of freedom.

DT: While at the same time being cut off, so they are also strangers in a strange land.

MS: That kind of connects them in a slightly different way. They have always been the only two beings who could understand each other’s position. Now they are pushed even closer together.

Now that they have the run of the place with no obligations, does that bring its own set of problems, being cut off?

DT: They have this sort of uneasy relationship. They are not entirely cut off from their head offices. Indeed, their head offices are quite keen to exploit that sort of adjacent connection, as we will see as the story unfolds. They exist in this grey area, neither the supernatural nor of the Earth.

MS: By the time we pick up their story in this series, they have appeared in time where they were kind of let alone a bit more. When we pick the story up, they are being bothered again.

The depth and the richness and the detail of what we are seeing on set here in Edinburgh is mind-blowing. How is it for you having it all in one place now, rather than having filming scattered around the UK?

MS: It’s completely changed the experience of doing it. Just being indoors… The Soho set on the first season was freezing cold.

DT: I was in a car park. Even inside the bookshop I was exposed to the elements! There’s a greater percentage of the show set here. There was a practical imperative to making it a manageable environment. If we had been in a car park, the elements might have impinged our ability to film.

Hellraiser - David Tennant is Crowley

You and Michael know these characters inside out. Do you have a shorthand?

It’s a hard thing to be objective about. Although I didn’t know Michael that well before we shot season one, it was always easy and exciting working together. It’s well-oiled now, for sure. It’s certainly fun to come to work. We enjoy bouncing off each other.

How comfortable are they about becoming involved with Gabriel?

I suppose Aziraphale is a much more enthusiastic detective. We are very much voting for the spin-off called The Azirafiles, which will follow this! As with most things, Crowley is reluctant to get involved or to exhibit any kind of energy or enthusiasm about very much. He is dragged kicking and screaming into this. Necessity forces him to get involved, whereas Aziraphale rather likes it.

Where does Crowley hang out these days?

He spends a lot of time in the book shop. He only has one friend. He can only have one friend. That is the great liberation, and also the great prison, that they find themselves in. They have no one else. They have come to rely on each other more than they ever did. And more than they care to admit.

Crowley is a rock star, in a way. Were there any particular musicians that inspired you?

Not consciously, no. The look was assembled accidentally during the first costume sessions. The Crowley of the book is of the mode when the book was written. He is more kind of Wall Street, the way he is described. We just decided that Crowley should always be of the moment he’s in. We were just trying to find a look that we felt fitted.

Divine Being - Michael Sheen is Aziraphale

How has knowing your characters better informed this series?

The first series was the first time we really properly worked together. It feels like we haven’t stopped working together since. Everything that has happened in-between plays into coming back to these characters. I am sure it is all feeding into it. It’s very difficult for us to know how that is informing the characters and their relationships.

With the flashbacks to various points in Earth’s history, is there a period of time Aziraphale enjoys the most?

One of the most enjoyable things for the audience and us is moving through different historical periods. It’s a great source of joy, and people thoroughly enjoyed that episode in the first series, so that has been expanded on in season two. But in terms of which Aziraphale enjoys the most, I think it’s not actually a period of time that we’ve seen him in on this series.

He would have been happiest at the end of the 19th century, in the Victorian era, which is considered the golden age of magic. He would have loved being with the greats like Harry Houdini. He loved the Victorian period. It was a great period of time for philanthropy and doing good works in a municipal way.

How has it been going from something dark like The Prodigal Son to a more whimsical show?

That’s the nature of an actor’s job. You go from one thing to another. In some ways, it’s even more useful to have big differences between the characters. What tends to happen, and I think most actors feel this way, is if you are playing one character for a long time, part of you yearns to play the bits the character doesn’t have. There’s a naivety and an innocence about Aziraphale. But at the same time, underneath that, there is eons of knowledge and experience.

#good omens #gos2 #season 2 #photos #bts #bts photos #interview #sfx magazine #magazines #hq photos #neil gaiman #terry pratchett #michael sheen #david tennant #david interview #neil interview #michael interview #soho #aziraphale's bookshop #fun fact #sfx 368 magazine #promo photos #show promo photos #shax #s2 interview #transcripts

[she-who-fights-and-writes]

how do i get my character out of the corner i wrote myself in without a dues ex machina😭

How to Not Write Yourself Into a Corner (and How to Write Yourself Out of a Corner if You’re Already In One)

One of a writer’s WORST fears is writing themself into a corner.

It’s easy to write your characters into death-defying situations…but it’s not as easy to write the actual “defying death” part.

Some writers, in their desperation to get their characters out of a bind, employ the use of a Deus Ex Machina, as mentioned by anon:

Deus Ex Machina: (Translates to "god from the machine") A plot device where a seemingly unsolvable situation is fixed by an out-of-the-blue occurrence. The term “deus ex machina” is a reference to Greek plays, when actors playing a god would literally be lowered into the scene via a machine to magically solve any situation.

Unfortunately, this plot device is often ridiculed by readers, cited as a hack-job solution for a writer out of ideas.

How do we avoid this situation, then? Here are some tips and tricks on how to not write yourself into a corner, and how to write yourself out of a corner if you’re already in one!

Note that these tips may not work for everyone, so make sure to use your own intuition as a writer— you know your story best.

1. NIP IT IN THE BUD— OUTLINES ARE KEY!

I’m sorry to all of you pantsers out there, but the key to prevent writing yourself into a corner is to already have an idea of how each scene is going to turn out; don't make a problem without making a solution! If you keep on top of your outline, you should have no worries about writing your characters into a situation they can't get out of it.

It may be easiest to jot down ideas about a couple of scenarios and then select the one that works best, especially when it comes to dire climax scenes that have a lot of moving parts. 

Check out my posts below for more in-depth advice about outlining!

How to Outline

Plotting for Pansters and Pantsing for Plotters

This advice, although essential, does require a ton of foresight and time to plan…and if you’ve sought out this post, it may mean that it’s too late for preventative measures. The subsequent tips in this post are going to be for people who are already in the thick of it and need a way to save all of their writing progress. 

2. FORESHADOWING IS YOUR FRIEND (AKA “CHEKHOV’S GUN YOUR WAY OUT OF THAT SHIT”)

Foreshadowing: A narrative device wherein a writer gives an advance hint of what is to come later in the story. It helps maintain believability while subverting expectations and making plot twists.

Chekhov’s Gun: A narrative device wherein a seemingly insignificant element or object in the story becomes useful later on. Sometimes used synonymously with foreshadowing, but usually refers to a specific object.

Examples of Foreshadowing/Chekhov’s guns in media:

The 1981 Quarter (Or Extra Life Quarter) in Ready Player One

“Don’t Cross the Streams” in Ghostbusters (1984)

Winchester Rifle Hanging over the Bar in Shaun of the Dead (2004)

The Rita Hayworth Poster in The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

The Water Bottle in Bullet Train (2022)

In my opinion, a Chekhov’s Gun is the more refined twin of the deus ex machina; although it may seem like it comes out of nowhere, observant readers or those who go back into the story will realize that this event was set up from the beginning.

Foreshadowing is the key to turning a deus ex machina into a Chekhov’s Gun. It’s spreading breadcrumbs to maintain believability even when unbelievable things happen.

My advice: plant a line here and there referring to the object/element that will get you out of the corner.

These lines can be about a healing potion that a character carries around to save them when they’re at the brink of death, the fact that the city they’re fighting in often suffers from sinkholes, or that a character has a seemingly useless skill. 

However, haphazardly inserting foreshadowing into your story may come across as heavy-handed; make sure it aligns with the narrative beats. Particularly big Chekhov’s Guns, especially ones that “save the day," may require multiple foreshadowing elements.

It can take a lot of work to incorporate the foreshadowing smoothly, so make sure it actually saves you time in comparison to rewriting the whole scenario/plot point.

3. TAKE A BREAK

Sometimes, the solution to your problem may not come to mind because you’re too immersed into the writing process and not thinking of the bigger picture. Or maybe it might just be good old-fashioned writer’s block. Take a step back, reassess, and return with the scene properly re-evaluated. Maybe start a new book or TV show to get some inspiration, or check out one of my posts below!

How to Overcome Writer’s Block

How to Get Inspired to Write and Regain Creativity

4. ASK FOR HELP

Sometimes, it might be best to have another set of eyes on your story! A situation that may seem unsolvable to you may have an obvious solution to a writing buddy.

5. KNOW THAT SOMETIMES RE-WRITING IS NECESSARY

I know this sounds horrible. It’s something that I wouldn’t wish upon any writer.

Sometimes, however, no amount of foreshadowing can get your characters out of the debacle they’ve put themselves in. Either that, or the work that it would take to insert the foreshadowing would be more than it’d take to rewrite the scene or the plot point.

My suggestion would be to search for the last place that you didn't feel lost, and then cut out everything after that.

(NEVER DELETE MAJOR CHUNKS OF YOUR WRITING! ALWAYS CUT IT AND SAVE IT IN A SCRAP DOC—IT COULD COME IN HANDY LATER!)

Then, take the time to outline the scenario and figure out the solution to your problem beforehand. It will suck, but trust me, it'll be worth it in the end.

HOPE THIS HELPED, AND HAPPY WRITING!

#writing #writing tips #writing advice #writing help #writeblr #writing prompts #writing tools #booklr #creative writing #writers

[amyjsoba]

NO BECAUSE IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE FROM A NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE LISTEN.

In 2005 RTD takes over Doctor Who after 16 years off the air. But rather than bringing back the character with the same characterization, RTD gives the Doctor PTSD a la the Time War. This fundamentally changes how the character is written. The Doctor is not the same. Even after Moffat undoes the Time War he continues writing the Doctor in a similar manner.

Fast forward to 2022 when RTD takes over the show again. The Doctor has been running. The character continually ignores their feelings and never talks about their past or the people they traveled with. Companions have been asking the same questions about the Doctor’s behavior. For 17 years.

Rather than continue on with that same characterization, RTD decides to shift the character in a monumental way.

15 has had time to heal. The bi-regeneration is confusing but 15 says he is the way he is because 14 stopped and healed.

15 isn’t just a new incarnation, he’s a new expression of the Doctor. And the best part is, RTD already said that in so many words! He called Ncuti the new new Doctor. THIS IS WHAT HE MEANT.

#russell I love you #dw spoilers #russell t davies #rtd #rtd2 #doctor who #fourteenth doctor #fifteenth doctor #david tennant #14th doctor #15th doctor #ncuti gatwa #dw

[absolutebl]

BLs with Strong Historical Elements

Costume dramas, historical BLs, and BLs with time travel or flashbacks to historical locations & times.

These are in order of my personal preference, best at the top.

I Feel You Linger in the Air

2023 Thailand

IFYLITA is an exquisite BL, from filming techniques to narrative framework (much like Until We Meet Again). It's about a gay man from our time who falls into the past, becomes a servant to a noble house, and falls in love with the heir. It turns out this has all happened several times before. Steeped in history and family drama it edges into lakorn (but not as much as To Sir With Love and with way less scenery chewing). This is an elegant and classy soulmates BL... from Thailand which normally doesn't even try for classy. The main couple (both as a pair and as individuals) were excellent, particularly Bright (Yai) whose eye-work acting style is a personal favorite of mine. Pity about the ending. Oh it wasn’t that sad but it wasn’t good either. This show could easily have earned a 10/10 from me except that it fumbled the… erm… balls in the final quarter. Argh. Whatever.

Nobleman Ryu's Wedding

2021 Korea - WeTV

A boy cross-dresses to take his runaway sister's place as a bride to a shy scholar, turns out they like being married. A historical setting allowed this BL to use some seriously old fashioned romance tropes (arranged marriage, evil step-sisters, Cinderfella) but also modern BL stylings like fake relationship & secret identity (drag) plus some cute gay panic. It reminded me of 12th Night more than anything else which just happens to be my favorite Shakespeare play. For all these reasons, I adored it.

(the ghat kiss!)

Tinted With You

2022 Korea - Viki

Fun stylish time travel meets portal fantasy with a likable cast, historical setting, and two actual kisses that mitigate the rough plot and issues around anachronisms.

Word of Honor

2021 China (censored) - Viki/YouTube?

I don’t rec Chinese stuff often, because I believe in censoring the censors, but this show is one of my favorites of the post 2016 censored bromances. It’s two murder-gay assassins (pining sunshine/tsundere), and they are so insanely gay for two boys who will never be allowed to kiss. Tropes include: wuxia, soulmates, paranormal, historical, and fantasy elements.

To Sir, With Love AKA Khun Chai

2022 Thailand - YouTube?

This is a true lakorn (basically Thai tellenovella or soap opera) with scenery chewing performances, especially from the mother characters. Gone With the Wind + Days of Our Lives but gay. That said? I loved it: A glorious central brother relationship (the best, made me cry), het romances, class divide + gay *gasp* main romance - oh my word, the campy drama of it all! Arranged marriage, rebellion, cut sleeves, over-the-top death with curses and regrets, beautiful if inaccurate costumes, secrets unraveling, cover ups, sparkle murder, sex herbs, coils within coils including snakes and murderous green metallic sequins (is anything gayer on this earth?). It’s a WILD ride but it does end happy for our gay boys. A man cries when he finds DEATH GLITTER. Come on! You haffa watch it. That said, like Manner of Death I struggle to rate something on a BL scale when it patently isn’t a BL. So I ended up giving this exactly what I gave that show, 7/10 I enjoyed it a whole lot, but not as a BL.

The Untamed (Special BL Edition)

2020 China (censored) - YouTube

Censored wuxia bromance, amorphous ending. Probubly the best known BL of its kind out of China and responsible for bring many fans to the BL side.

Our Skyy 2: Never Let Me Go

2023 Thailand - YouTube

I was nervous to watch this PondPhuwin vehicle but I liked it a lot! Doomed soulmates + paranormal time travel to fix the past. I’m happy for the outfits and the dancing (if not the singing). It’s not a bad premise and it’s nice to see GMMTV lean into its high production values for a change. I'd adore a full historical starring these two and this was definitely the best of the second series of Our Skyy. I don't think you have to have watched the original Never Let Me Go to enjoy this.

Legend of Long Yang: Rebirth

2017 China

Gaga

Whipping boy trope... literally, servant character takes the strap for the prince, who then makes him his bodyguard and lover when he becomes king. Low budget historical, comes off as kind of cosplay wuxia version of Irresistible Love, but we get (in the credits) an actual kiss, and they both live. So yay for small mercies.

The Director Who Buys Me Dinner

2023 Korea (historical flash backs)

iQIYI

A new employee at a film company encounters a director who claims to have lived 300 years and insists that they have to date (eat, hug & kiss) if baby doesn't want to die. It has a lot of Japanese elements, not the least of which are: an office setting, the fact that every character in this show is unhinged, and a killing of the gays. Featuring a gorgeous & stellar cast, TDWBMD should have utilized them less for melodrama and more for chemistry. This BL surprised me by going there with a lipstick mark AND an actually gay idol. But (you knew there was a but) while it's a unique twist on an office romance it is NOT a unique twist on the doomed red thread trope, resulting in it feeling less than the sum of its parts and ultimately unsatisfying. This might have also had to do with the fact that this was one of those KBLs where I felt how very short it was the whole time I was watching, like I was missing something constantly, in every episode. Worth watching for some but seriously flawed.

First Love Again

2022 Korea (historical flash backs) - Viki

A popular novelist who remembers his past lives meets his soulmate for the third time, only to find she has been reincarnated into the body of a man. This one started out a touch mean-spirited, but we eventually got a good kiss. The confession/rejection scene was justified and the reconciliation and ending was... fine. All in all, the pacing felt rushed and the romantic arc was underdeveloped. They go from like to love to boyfriends in a red hot minute. But that’s par for the course with Korea’s short form. If you don’t mind a heavy does of melodrama in your BL this one has a solid story with a strong concept that’s well acted and produced, making it a classic KBL with better than average chemistry but ultimately a touch forgettable.

Love in Spring AKA Spring of Crush

2022 Korea

This show was all over the place with uneven acting, narrative, and focus (sometimes it wanted to be a slapstick comedy, sometimes a depressing melodrama) which meant no one, actors or viewers, took anyone or anything seriously.... AND it’s a bromance. I was left wondering if SalHyung is now code for “they were roommates” in Kdrama historicals but otherwise largely apathetic and unimpressed. Korea, I now know you can do better. Do better.

Mermaid's Jade

2019 China (censored-esk) - Gaga

Kills the gay.

The Male Queen: Han Zi Gao

2016 China - Gaga

Kills the gay. Schrodinger's BL, both a BL and entirely not one at the same time.

Diary of Heong Yeong Dang

2014 Korea

Kills the Gay

I was gonna do a top 10 list, but there aren't enough by my metrics, so many end sadly.

This post at the behest of @verymuchof thank you for the idea!

Dated April 2023, includes only BLs that had finished their run by that date. Not responsible for cool costume flix that come after that. But you should check the comments to see if any have been added by others!

I might have missed a few that only have time historical elements since I don't always track those.

Also I would like to point out a decided lack of Japan on this list. My ninja yaoi consuming tiny past self is VERY upset about this void.

WHERE ARE MY GAY NINJAS??!!!

(source)

#historical bls #time travel bls #bls with historical elements #korean bl #chinese bl #thai bl #I Feel You Linger in the Air #Nobleman Ryu's Wedding #Scholar Ryu's Wedding #Tinted With You #Word of Honor #Khun Chai #to sir with love #The Untamed #Never let me go #Legend of Long Yang #The Director Who Buys Me Dinner #First Love Again #Love in Spring #Spring of Crush

[palipunk]

Hello

For my Public Speaking class I have to do a speech about an aspect of another culture and I have decided to do it over Palestine because I want these white mofos to realize that these are people that Israel are murdering, people with a vibrant and wonderful culture that they want to erase from the earth.

I have decided to do it over Palestinian Cinema since they have a movie industry of their own.

Would you be willing to help me bring this cinema culture to light for a bunch of white missourians?

Thank you for wanting to share Palestinian culture with your class, I really hope the best for your speech and everything goes well. If you would like some recommendations or websites to browse and learn more about, I can do that.

Farha (2021) - Description: As violence breaks out in 1948 Palestine, a father hides his 14-year-old daughter inside a locked pantry and promises to return.

Mediterranean fever (2022) - Description: Forty-year-old Walid, a Palestinian living in Haifa with his wife and two children, is a struggling writer with depression. When he meets his new neighbor Jalal, a small-time crook, the two men form an unexpected friendship and become inseparable.

The Present (2020) - Description: Yusef and his young daughter set out in the West Bank to buy his wife a gift on their wedding anniversary.

Tale of Three Jewels (1995) - Description: First-ever feature film shot entirely in Gaza. A sweet adventure that uses the grim backdrop of Israeli occupation in Gaza as 12-year-old Youssef sets out on a quest to win the heart of young Aida.

The Time That Remains (2009) - Description: Suleiman Suleiman's masterpiece. A semi-biographic film, in four historic episodes, about a family - from 1948, until recent times.

Gaza Ghetto: Portrait of a Family (1948 – 1984) - Description: The film follows a refugee family from the Gaza Strip who visit the site of their former village, now a Jewish town in Israel.

Two websites to learn more and browse:

Palestine Cinema

Palestine Film Institute

Additionally, If you or anyone reading this is interested in watching, Palestine Film Institute is holding an event called Unprovoked Narratives and they have a few Palestinian films you can watch for free up until Oct 25th (they extended the date by a few days).

#palestine #free palestine #ask #godofdystopia

[sunny-day-jack-official]

So! The demo is finally out! Or, a bit of it is. What’s next?

Let’s run over a few questions, so hopefully everyone is in the loop!

Q: Why is it only a little bit after so long?

A: Development has been all over the place and a big reason is just how difficult it can be to mediate between artists, programmers, writers, etc.. Mental and physical health, personal emergencies, etc.. are also a big part of this— and it wasn’t anticipated that this would eat up so much time.

The original game was planned to have Sauce (presently speaking!) handling a large majority of tasks all at once. So— when health stalled, production stalled.

Of course, healing took a bit of time to. And even now, that’s why so much of the demo is left unfinished. Overall— it wasn’t possible to complete the demo in the same amount of time the original demo was completed because realistically speaking— that was extremely unhealthy and rushed.

Because of that tight deadline, 48 hours to a week, many significant errors or retconned elements made their way into the game. A huge toll was taken that resulted in extreme burnout after. Quality (as can be seen in the CGs) suffered. An emphasis on quality is currently being prioritized, but I can safely say that I am no longer able to work at my original 2021-2022 pace.

—

Q: Why are you (Sauce) working alone?

A: At this point in time— we had spent a while working on the GUI and design/function of the game. It is, after all, set to have some pretty hefty features.

Translation and dub settings

Censorship and Softcore modes

A VERY LARGE story map with several endings

An additional “one-shot” story mode wherein every ending you unlock, you then unlock additional content

That takes a lot more planning than we’d anticipated.

How do we make this efficiently run on most systems?

Are we able to make sure that the size of this game is compatible with older devices?

Are the assets optimized? ( A lot of time has gone into re-drawing and working out sprite systems )

What settings are accessibility necessary for impaired players? How do we implement those options?

How do we design a stylish and efficient system?

That was something we had figured originally would be pretty easy to work out! But multiple people here are wearing multiple hats.

The rest of the team is actively working on those portions. But at the moment— we’ve decided to shelve literal art development and scripting (which was where we were hovering for a while) until we got the programming bits truly sorted out.

That leaves little old me! While they worked on this, I’ve been spending time making sure we could serve you a sample of what’s to come. My job is doling out a taste of the narrative, style, etc.. That way, once they’re finished, we can consider any feedback in the implementation of these portions of the game in the final, official build.

Hopefully that makes sense! TL;DR - Everyone’s busy making the important program my bits and designing the menus. So I’ve stepped away to work on this so you all have something to see in the meantime!

—

Q: Why are you REBUILDING THE DEMO?

A: The old demo— you’d think it would be easy to patch up. But it’s literally the very first build, sized up and fixed and stitched over. Unfortunately it was an unoptimized mess, even for what it was.

Hopefully a cleaner, more organized build will allow for better gameplay. But the key factor is just a desire for better quality!

—

Q: How often will you be uploading new additions?

A: Until all the bugs are fixed and the whole demo is rebuilt. This should be every week or so until then. Once it’s all done, the demo will see a re-release publicly!

In the meantime, please keep in mind bugs may be aplenty— and I personally apologize for this. Demos released are intended to show proof of work— but they may not be the best, most fun experience for narrative-seeking players. It’s advised immersion-prioritizing players wait until the build is fully finished and christened on our steam page!

—

Q: Will there be Mac support?

A: I will absolutely try!

—

Hopefully that helps give a bit more insight. Unfortunately it’s difficult to articulate everything that’s going on, but we’ll do our best! We’d like to have someone more verbally gifted helping us to write these posts, but until we decide how to go about that, you’re stuck with me.

We’ll do the best we can to answer any questions as clearly as possible. And again— we thank you all for your patience.

Making SDJ was clearly a messier experience than we had considered. It’s been a rollercoaster— and as Sauce speaking, I can actually attribute most of the delays to my own personal health and absence.

That— I am sorry for.

The rest of the team is working very hard to put something together that’s quality. I can promise with my whole heart that they’re doing their best. We’re all just people passionate about this project, and no matter the weather I don’t think it’s ever not on our minds.

I look forwards to putting out a large Kickstarter update soon, detailing our work and more! And I’m excited to open the airways for more and more communication.

But for now— we’ll see you next bug-fixing update.

- Sauce

#somethings wrong with sunny day jack #swwsdj #sunny day jack #sdj #snaccpop studios #snaccpop #game development #vndev #visual novel #indie games #minors dni

[rhysdarbinizedarby]

How ‘Our Flag Means Death’ Became the Funniest Show on TV

Creator and showrunner David Jenkins breaks down the new season of TV’s most adorable star-crossed pirates.

Our Flag Means Death debuted in March 2022 to respectable viewership numbers that grew. And grew. And grew some more. With each week of its 10-episode run, viewership increased, eventually tripling its original audience. The little gay pirate workplace and romantic comedy-cum-historical fantasy that could is back for a second season on Max, and fans will be glad to know that piracy power couple Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) and Ed Teach, aka Blackbeard (Academy Award winner Taika Waititi) won’t be parted for long.

The first season of Our Flag Means Death introduced viewers to fictional versions of the real historical figures Stede Bonnet (aka The Gentleman Pirate) and Blackbeard, as well as their respective crews. The two captains instantly forged an unlikely connection. Stede, who decided to exorcize his midlife crisis by abandoning his family and taking to the seas, despite being at best a piracy novice, hero-worships Blackbeard and is thrilled to make his acquaintance. The fearsome Blackbeard, who among friends goes by his real first name, Ed, is taken with Stede’s commitment to enjoying the finer and frillier things in life, marveling at his new friend’s on-ship library and massive, beautiful wardrobe.

While the two captains are an odd couple, each of their crews regards the other as an entirely different species. Aboard the Revenge, Stede reads bedtime stories to his crew and encourages them to use their words when conflicts emerge, while on Blackbeard’s ship, Ed’s first mate Izzy Hands (a deliciously scowling, jealous Con O’Neill) rants that his captain is now a shell of the terrifying legend he used to be. Over time, Blackbeard’s crew begin to appreciate the healthier work-life culture on the Revenge, where there’s room for romantic and collegial dyads to form and pair off.

Of course, the path of true love never runs smooth even for a couple as invested in each other as Stede and Ed. At the end of the first season, the crews are split between ships and land, and Ed believes Stede has permanently abandoned their relationship for his original family, causing a heartbroken Ed to revert to his fearsome Kraken persona. As the second season opens, Stede is frantically trying to get back to Ed and explain that he’s all in on their relationship. Ed’s behavior has been swinging erratically from depressed to murderous, even toward Izzy, and when the two captains and crews meet again, there’s an extra twist: Stede and company have been co-opted by the far more capable and successful Chinese Pirate Queen, Zheng Yi Sao (Ruibo Qian).

On the eve of the second season’s three-episode premiere, creator and showrunner David Jenkins reflected on the series’ approach to workplace dynamics, male friendships and romance, and the character arcs he’s most excited for fans to see.

The first three episodes of the season premiere feature a bunch of breakups and reshuffling of romantic and work relationships—not just Stede and Ed. Were you chasing anything in particular, narratively, by splitting up so many dyads?

Definitely. To watch the effects of Stede and Blackbeard’s relationship reverberate through everybody's lives is so interesting. Their separation doesn’t just happen to the two of them, it’s happening to all of them, because they’re a family. Just as the breakup reverberated throughout both crews, getting back together is going to do the same thing.

That makes sense.

The goal was just being true to the character beats and finding ways to make them ring true. Oluwande (Samson Kayo) and Jim (Vico Ortiz, they/them) are friends who got romantic. It rang true to me that they’d watch each others’ lives move forward, and then come back together to find that they still care about each other, and each of them is also happy for the other person. I've seen that happen in real life a bunch of times, but I don't see that dramatized a lot. I think there should be a lot of different flavors of relationships in this show. And there's so many different pairings that you get a lot of chances to be like, “Oh, how are these two different from Stede and Ed?”

How does that relate to your interest in exploring tenderness and vulnerability in male characters? In previous interviews, you’ve referred to Our Flag Means Death as examining the burlesque of masculinity. What does it bring to your work to be exploring it over the course of many hours of storytelling?

That’s an area where Taika’s and my interests overlap a lot. There’s something so understated about his sensibility—I think some of it derives from his New Zealand accent, actually—that suits asking questions about masculinity. And it's fun to look at pirate stories, to play against that genre’s whitewashed, heteronormative conventions. Growing up as a guy, you get a lot of pressure to be just one type of a guy, the guy who refuses to feel things. Men are in terrible trouble in that way. We’re getting better about talking about feelings, but there’s so much more to cover—body dysmorphia, vulnerability, not just talking about feelings, but understanding them and having this whole range of emotions—those are always the things I want to watch.

Do you have favorites among on-screen stories that make room for a broader emotional palette?

Heat and Midnight Run are two really lovely Robert De Niro movies where characters have these very big emotional lives. It’s a similar thing with Robert Redford and Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I like extending that. We can push it further, because there's so many different ways to be a man! Not everything has to be a shoot ’em up action thing where people don’t have feelings. A lot of men feel like they need permission to just be their weird selves, to be funny, to dress differently. Try some different things! Maybe wear a color! Put some product in your hair! Don't worry about it, it's gonna be fine. You're gonna be fine.

Our Flag Means Death is not a casual show. It’s very funny and playful! But there is not one single frame of the show that plays it cool. As an artist, what’s the significance of qualities like sincerity and earnestness?

I hate coolness, it’s so ungenerous. And I like that you said that it’s not casual. I’m not a casual guy. This is a deeply uncool show. There’s something so special about seeing comedic actors like Rhys or Taika, who are so used to coming into a scene, being incredibly funny and destroying, and then leaving, having to use their earnestness, and not using their weapon of immediately diffusing it by going for a laugh. When I see that, it makes my heart leap. There’s something particularly special about seeing a comedic actor do it.

It’s really fun to watch comedic actors dispel the notion that dramatic acting is 180 degrees away from comedic acting.

Characters that call for that type of performance are a lot of what I love about Robert Altman, Christopher Guest, and Harold Ashby movies. They’re comedies, but those characters really grow and they experience pain, and the pain they feel is real. And then the funny shit that they do is even funnier because of it. Those are the things that bring me the most joy.

Tell me about Zheng Yi Sao, the Pirate Queen. She’s such a good foil for Ed and Stede—her ambition, competence, and leadership style are all so distinct from theirs.

Zheng Yi Sao is the most competent pirate captain on our show, and was the most successful pirate captain in history. She lived about 100 years apart from these fellas, and she was so successful that China had to cut her in and do a treaty with her so she would move on to some other field. She wound up making another fortune in gambling!

One thing that jumped out at me in these first three episodes of the season is how much therapy-literate dialogue is used—where did that come from?

I just think it's funny. The thing about a workplace is that they all see everything that’s going on with others, because they're all on top of each other all the time. I don't want to go l too far with it, but it’s fun that some of these characters can see that one of their friends is in a weird relationship with his boss, and then say “hey, you might want to look at that.”

Where do you think that comes from for the characters themselves?

There’s a level of care on that ship that Stede almost infected them with in the first season, and now those ideas are more alive because of how Stede built the Revenge’s culture. You can see that that spirit is still kind of alive when Jim tells the story of the wooden boy to Bang to calm him down. That’s a little bit of Stede’s kindness being alive in the world still, and of Jim needing and being able to call on it now that everything’s so dark. For them to go from an “every person for themselves” ethos to thinking “there was a time when life meant something on this ship, it doesn’t have to be this way” is interesting growth for the character, and is true to Vico as a person. There's a real kindness to how they carry themselves—they’re one of those people that just makes everybody feel safe. It’s nice to see some of those character traits bleed through to Jim.

Without getting too spoilery, what’s coming up over the rest of this season that you can’t wait for viewers to see?

I’m really excited for Izzy’s journey. Con O’Neill did such beautiful work, and getting to see where that character goes and how he grows, I think is one of the most exciting things of the season. To see where Ed and Stede’s relationship goes is gratifying—to see how they navigate each other and find, hopefully, a more mature way of being together.

Jim's relationships with Archie (Madeleine Sami) and Olu develop, too, and more broadly, the crew coming together as a new kind of family, now that Mom and Dad are getting back together. I also like that Lucius (Nathan Foad) is back, and has an angry young man thing going on that he has to process. For Lucius to go through something really harrowing and have to grow up with it is so interesting, because he had all the answers in the first season.

We can’t not talk about the mermaid sequence at the end of the second episode. How did that come about?

We really have to pick our shots on the show, so that was very storyboarded out. I knew I wanted Kate Bush’s “This Woman’s Work” for the scene, so that was incorporated in it. Unfortunately, Rhys had had a really bad near-drowning experience shooting in a tank before, but I didn’t know that until we were working on the stunts! But when Rhys saw the gorgeous tail, and it looked so cool and beautiful, he decided to go for it. He knew the scene was going to look awesome. So he navigated that costume, which is basically a big flipper that he needed to move his entire core to make it work, and Taika’s there with all this glue to keep his wig on underwater all day. When it’s humming and all the departments are working, everyone feels safe. It gives everyone a feeling of “let’s do it—let’s jump in!”

Speaking of jumping in, what degree of pressure did you all feel coming into the second season, knowing how high the expectations were from the show’s incredibly passionate fan base?

I don’t feel pressure from the fans, I just feel unconditional love and acceptance, and I think that the writers room feels that too. We all want it to be good, and we want the storylines to be cool. But it’s less pressure, and more just the level of freedom that it gave us, knowing somebody’s watching. It makes doing all the hard work a joy, because you know it’s going to be appreciated. Some people will have critiques, and that’s fine.

I just know that this—the fan reaction to this show—will be the honor of my career. The fan community is so kind and nice and talented—it's just a good vibe, and it’s been safe and affirming for everyone.

We’re all basking in the glow of the adoration of the show from our fanbase. It’s infectious—when we all get together, it saturates every element of the show, and it's a very special thing for all of us.

Source: The Daily Beast

#rhys darby #ofmd #our flag means death #taika waititi #david jenkins #ofmd s2 spoilers