#and one of them was for werner

[ohnoitsmysideblog]

no i'm not done--his voice cracked you guys. no everyone shut up. mike's voice literally never cracks like how am i not supposed to fixate on that for the rest of my life. he was the mike equivalent of vulnerable right after werner got out of the car and i'm just supposed to go to work i guess

[mistermistyyy]

Thought like sharing some of my OC sketches for once

[cannibalindsm]

[WIP] When your dumbass friends ordered but are too busy gazing into each others eyes to actually eat

[gummywyvern]

I'm at HR 100 now uh. I like the game :) I took 500 screenshots already. Starting to like DB as well as my main Lance. QoL changes are nice and the village quest LR story was cute n fun.

[vorakh]

my top 2 categories of characters are: 1. the wet sad trash (affectionate), which includes men like dmitri karamazov, grantaire, crni, harry du bois, andrei stamatin; 2. the bitch (homosexual), which includes kim kitsuragi, malik al-sayf, daniil dankovskij, werner stolz, guion

[tenthdocter]

I know he's young and he's not been with us long but I have to say I have not been impressed with tel one bit since he's joined us. I think he's looked like a headless chicken running around doing fuck all lol. I just don't get the hype around him at all 🤷🏽‍♂️

[telltalebatman]

once again thinking about sungwon cho's werner herzog spider-man impression

[sweet-ethereal-moon]

something about having three dogs just makes me feel so powerful. like what could anyone do against me and my vicious pack of wolves.

[random-brushstrokes]

Pierre Louis Alexandre "Petterson" (1844-1905)

(Unknown Artist, Georg Hansen, Gunnar Börjeson, Ida von Schulzenheim, Martin Aronson-Liljegral, Matilda Hanström Berendt, Nils Larsson, Ingeborg Westfelt-Eggertz, Karin Bergöö Larsson, Emerik Stenberg, John Simpson, Caleb Althin)

Pierre Louis Alexandre is mainly known as a model at the Art Academy during the latter part of the 19th century. Artists who depicted him include Anders Zorn, Karin Bergöö (Larsson), Johan Krouthén and Oscar Björck. Pierre Louis Alexandre (1844-1905) was born in French Guiana and came to Stockholm in 1863, probably as a stowaway on an American ship with pork in the cargo. Here he made a living as a stevedore worker, but has mainly become known as a model at the Art Academy. In the archive sources, he appears with the swedish surnames Petterson and Alexandersson respectively.

Some characters steal your attention right away. Like the man in the oil painting that hung in Mats Werner's childhood home in Stockholm. The portrait made a strong impression on everyone who came to visit. It was painted in Stockholm in 1879 by Karin Bergöö, later Larsson after her marriage to the famous artist Carl Larsson, and depicts a man of color sitting reclining with his hands clasped over one knee in a mild, warm light. The man radiates both a peaceful calm and a dormant strength. The gaze is fixed on the distance. The image has an enigmatic atmosphere.

Mats Werner eventually inherited the painting from his parents. When he later cleaned out a basement storage room he found a folder with drawings. One of them depicted the same man as in the oil painting. Werner got curious: Who was this man? What was his story? Were there more portraits? Mats Werner began a dedicated detective work that led him to a large number of authorities, consulates, archives, libraries and so on in different countries. The dead ends were many. But the man must have made an impression in 19th century Stockholm? Very true. Werner came across various stories about the man's background and theories about how he ended up here. Eventually, the picture began to clear. The enigmatic man was Pierre Louis Alexandre, born in 1844 in Cayenne, French Guiana. He probably arrived in Stockholm in the mid 1870´s with an American ship. He escaped from the ship and earned his living as a dock worker. As the harbor closed in the wintertime due to heavy ice, he was lucky enough to find a new income as a model at the Academy of Fine Arts between 1878 and 1903. He acknowledged his first model fees "Louis Pettersson”. Alexandre was married twice and lived at several addresses on Södermalm in Stockholm. He died of tuberculosis in April 1905.

There are 43 known portraits of Alexandre by artists such as Karin Bergöö, Anders Zorn, Oskar Björk and Emil Österman. (source)

Read more:

The Artist’s Model: Pierre Louis Alexandre

Searching for Pierre Louis Alexandre

[milkymora]

✧ mcl (hsl) flirts - voice headcanons ✧

note: receiving an ask wondering who i’d headcanon as voice for castiel, i got the idea of making hdcs what the hsl boys voices would sound like!!! obv everything is sfw, cts of the pics used to the respective owners on pinterest! enjoyy xo

𖹭 castiel.

i feel like castiel has the typical american english accent. i headcanon him to be born in a big city, like new york or los angeles, due to his parents having a well-paid job that allowed that kind of life.

for that reason, i think chris pine (jack frost’s voice actor in “rise of guardians”) would be a perfect example of what his voice would sound like;

sassy, provocative, yet kind and genuine.

𖹭 nathaniel.

as mentioned in my amber’s hdcs, i headcanon his family is german. both him and his sister can fluently speak german and they do have a little bit of an accent when talking in other languages.

someone like louis hofmann (werner pfenning’s actor in “all the light we cannot see”) would suit him good, even if his accent would be a little less marked than werner’s.

his tone is mostly quiet and low, but he does have his bursts of energy, especially when addressing castiel or others he doesn’t really like; that’s when the german kicks in the most.

𖹭 lysander.

oh, this boy is a gentle giant and his voice is definitely the deepest one, which is accentuated by the way he talks: basically whispering all the time. nobody knows whether it’s shyness or just his normal way of speaking,

all i know is that his voice would sound close to josh o’connor’s (price charles in “the crown”, season 3).

yes, he is british, with a beautiful londinese accent.

𖹭 armin.

lucas zade jumann (gilbert blythe’s actor in “ann with an e”) would be perfect for him. just a little more expressive.

listen, this guy is a walking meme, okay? he’d be dead serious for a moment and making questionable noises (yes, he’s the type of friend that would moan when you’re on call with your mom) the second later. he’s also freaking loud when talking and doesn’t even realize it.

another thing: he’s scarily good at making impressions of anime characters. beware for phone pranks.

𖹭 kentin.

even after puberty hit, his voice still remains the sweetest of them all. his french accent only makes it worse, making jessie james grell (armin arlert’s english voice actor in “attack on titan”) a pretty accurate option for him.

the voice actor isn’t french and i don’t really know if he ever played french characters, but just imagine his voice with a subtle french accent in it.

don’t get fooled though. the boy has lungs and, just like armin, can easily forget how loud he can get when upset. mostly happens when castiel’s around.

gosh i had so much fun writing these headcanons!! tbh i hope these are good, i mainly listen to italian stuff so my knowledge of english voice actors/actors is limited :,) lmk what you think, if the voices match what you think they’d actually sound like.

✧ mcl navigation. ✧

[arahir]

Hi!! Do you follow any interesting podcast or youtubers? I kind of want something to watch/listen to while on the treadmill haha and you have nice taste!!

omg okay yes but our definition of interesting might be different

PODCASTS

FALL OF CIVILIZATIONS | the most soothingly voiced british man describes the rise and fall of various civilizations around the world. meticulously researched, beautifully produced, minimal or no commercials. he has youtube video versions of each one that look like a werner herzog documentary. each one is one to three hours long. i've listened to every ep three or four times.

WHO SHAT ON THE FLOOR AT MY WEDDING? | a lesbian couple tries to get to the bottom of the titular question. it's done like a true crime podcast. they bring on all their friends and do hard hitting interviews. one half of the couple is dead fucking serious about it and the other half is trying not to lose it every single time. a true fave.

NORMAL GOSSIP | probably everyone has heard of this. basically there's a guest and then the host goes over some drama that a listener submitted. it's always the most insane story, the most in depth. like a listener's dad getting into the underground orchid market after inviting a stranger to live with them (iirc). so so much fun.

SEARCH ENGINE | we're not getting into the drama behind the creation of this podcast cough cough. they take a different listener question and deep dive on it, like: there's an exclusive club in germany that almost no one can get into and no one knows why so they go into the history of the club and go over the listeners' failed attempts to get in, etc.

YOUTUBERS

ANY AUSTIN | does deep dives on random video game shit like "where do the rivers in hyrule go" and "what's the unemployment rate in mondstadt" and stuff like that.

FUNKYFROGBAIT | they do really funny videos about current topics but with a really circumspect view.

JACOB GELLER | deep dives on cultural things like fear of the dark or loneliness but with pop culture/video game component. honestly has floored me before.

HBOMBERGUY | perennial. evergreen, even. have to rec.

CARI CAN READ | i love her. so calming to me. great reviews but i must recommend her going over the plots of the sara j maas books because she's so kind about it but so clearly cannot contain how idiotic the plot is. it's both soothing and hilarious.

ALEX AVILA | video essays in the truest form. really well produced. usually on musical artists. he did some like... past stuff about popular gay ships that i do not want to hear or think about.

[hotvintagepoll]

Cab Calloway (Stormy Weather, Hi De Ho)—TRULY THE SCRUNGLIEST. Nobody ever did it like him, your honor. The music, the dance moves, the hair, the unbridled charisma that comes across just the slightest bit unhinged. If I had to build the pillars of scrungle, they would be as follows: talent, showmanship, sportingness, and absolute commitment to the bit, all of which Cab Calloway has in SPADES. He was a great actor, a great singer, AND a great bandleader. Truly, nobody was doing it like him, before or since.

Oskar Werner (The Ship of Fools, Fahrenheit 451, Jules et Jim)—I can’t even think about Oskar Werner without having the urge to carry him around in my mouth like a mother cat with their kittens. He is beautiful in such a sad, scrungly, bedraggled way, I want to bundle him up in a warm cat bed and snuggle all his troubles away. This guy has an equally sad real-life story to match his sad, scrungly demeanor. He was born in Austria and married a half-Jewish woman, and they had to flee from Nazi persecution to save their lives. He’s told such sad tales of them starving while they hid during the war. Thankfully he was able to eventually find success as an actor, but it was short-lived as he was an alcoholic and died at the young age of sixty-one. The first thing I ever saw him in was Fahrenheit 451, but he is his scrungliest in The Ship of Fools where he plays a character achingly reminiscent of himself.

This is round 1 of the contest. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. If you're confused on what a scrungle is, or any of the rules of the contest, click here.

[additional submitted propaganda + scrungly videos under the cut]

Cab Calloway:

Oskar Werner:

[noobsomeexagerjunk]

several replays later and i'm discovering new things still--this image is from nones directly after st. john's eve, during act 2, and i had no idea you can find father thomas in this mass garment (??? i think that's what that is). this seems to be the only time you can see him like that, and if you accept the confessions quest here, he will be wearing the garment all throughout

a few others include:

werner can be consulted should one want to figure out the volvelle thing in act 1

during prime on the last day of act 1, you can find marie and bert in the shrine to st. satia and learn more about the drucker family's struggles to have children + their devotion to st. satia

during sext, also on the last day of act 1, you can actually find brigita and veronica bathing in the waterfall

i feel like something triggers this but, during the golden hand drinking quest in act 2, when you speak with werner and his italian friends, hanna will either spill the drinks she brings up or serve them to the table. she has done the former in most of my plays but did the latter in my most recent one and i suspect this has to do with andreas's conversations regarding the murder of otto, since i was nicer to her in the latest one

this game has several ways to complete a good chunk of the quests. the yellow flowers for act 2 can be best solved by consulting agnes, but many can be consulted about it (werner, agnes, gertrude)

you can play hide and seek with ulrike in the first mural section of act 3 by seeking anna, else, and the kids in the town commons

magdalene will go down the mines no matter what in act 3; help (from baltas or the gertner twins) or no help (straight up go down there unassisted), that quest can be done apparently

you can confront Father Thomas for passing to Mother Franziska his grievances about Magdalene's pursuit for the mural directly after visiting the Poor Clares during the Christian Tassing quest in act 3. good convo in that one

actually insane that asking Father Thomas to read the Historia Tassiae for the act 3 quest was an option at all, in retrospect

[mesetacadre]

Sorry if this is a bit weird question but would artistic freedom be restricted in a socialist state? If it would be, how? Wouldn't restrictions/censorships be a bad thing since it's important for people to be able to learn critical thinking skills and criticize in a constructive way a government or other aspects of society or for them to just depict with reality and imagination in a way that leads to diverse conversations?

The degree of restriction always depends on the context of the state, it's not a set answer. Like most other questions regarding the running of a state by communists, it will change depending on necessities and as it evolves. But regardless, art will always be free of the pressures imposed by salary work, and across the history of socialism, there is a good precedent for ample subsidies of the arts, even those not directly related to socialism itself.

Look at this passage about the GDR, for instance. Take into account the historical context, of a country that has just been divided and liberated from the Nazi Party, with the mass support they garnered. The FRG wasn't exactly unwelcoming to former nazis, even important members of the party, and the GDR was the frontline for the cold war, during its entire existence it faced infiltration, sabotage, and a myriad of attacks against it. [Because of indented quotes being awkward for longer texts, I'm not going to format it differently. The quote will end with the link to the book it's from]

During the forty years of its existence, a unique GDR culture developed in the country and it differed substantially from that in the West. It was characterised by a very fruitful, even if at time bruising and sometimes painful, battle between artistic freedom and creativity on the one hand and the demands the Party and state attempted to impose.

Since the early days of the Soviet Union, the Bolsheviks and later communist parties everywhere placed a great emphasis on culture and on the contribution cultural workers could make to the building of socialism. One of the first things the Soviet Army of occupation did at the end of the war, was attempt to resuscitate cultural activity in a war-ravaged and demoralised Germany. The one thing the Russians could never get their head around was how a country with such a high level of culture, a nation that had produced a Bach and a Beethoven, a Goethe and a Schiller could have carried out such barbaric crimes in other countries. The Soviet army had cultural officers attached to each battalion and the war had hardly ended before they began seeking out cultural workers and encouraging them to take up their batons, musical instruments, pens and paintbrushes again. Temporary cinemas were established, orchestras formed, theatres opened and publishing houses set up.

In contrast to West Germany, in the Soviet Zone and later in the GDR, there was also an early emphasis on making films about the Nazi period as a means of educating and informing a nation ignorant of or in denial about what had happened.

The first anti-Nazi and anti-war film to be made in the whole of Germany was Die Morder sind unter uns (Murderers among us - 1946) directed by the West Berlin-based Wolfgang Staudte with full Soviet support. Among later anti-Nazi films made in the GDR were: Rat der Gotter (Council of the Gods - 1950) about the production of poison gas by IG Farben for the concentration camps, Nackt unter Wolfen (Naked amongst Wolves - 1963), based on a true story about a small Jewish boy who was hidden in a concentration camp and thus saved. Werner Holt (1965) - about the life of young men in Hitler’s army, Gefrorene Blitze (Frozen Flashes -1967) about the development of the V2 rocket by the Nazis; Ich war Neunzehn (I was Nineteen - 1968) - the true story of a young German who returns to Germany in the uniform of a Red Army soldier with the victorious Russian troops. Almost two decades passed before West Germany attempted to confront the war and its Nazi past. And the film Das Boot (1981) is more about the heroics of German U-boat crews than about understanding Nazi ideology. Das schreckliche Maedchen (Nasty Girl -1990) was a rare exception, as was Downfall (2004), a film about Hitler.

The GDR had more theatres per capita than any other country in the world and in no other country were there more orchestras in relation to population size or territory. With 90 professional orchestras, GDR citizens had three times more opportunity of accessing live music, than those in the FRG, 7.5 times more than in the USA and 30 times more than in the UK. It also had one of the world’s highest book publishing figures. This small country with its very limited economic resources, even in the fifties was spending double the amount on cultural activities as the FRG.

Every town of 30,000 or more inhabitants in the GDR had its theatre and cinema as well as other cultural venues. It had roughly half as many theatres as the Federal Republic, despite having less than a third of the population (178 compared with 346 in the FRG). Subsidised tickets to the theatre and concerts were always priced so that everyone could afford to go. Many factories and institutions had regular block-bookings for their workers which were avidly taken up. School pupils from the age of 14 were also encouraged to go to the theatre once a month and schools were able to obtain subsidised tickets. All the theatres had permanent ensembles of actors who received a regular salary. Plays and operas were performed on a repertory basis, providing everyone in the ensemble with a variety of roles.

All towns and even many villages had their own ‘Houses of Culture’, owned by the local communities and open for all to use. These were places that offered performance venues, workshop space and facilities for celebratory gatherings, discos, drama groups etc. There was a lively culture of local music and folk-song groups, as well as classical musical performance.

Very different to the situation in West Germany, was the widespread establishment in the GDR of workers’ cultural groups - from literary circles, artists groups to ceramic and photography workshops. These were actively encouraged and financially supported by the state, local authorities or the workplace. Discussions of books and literature, often together with authors, were a regular occurrence, even in the remotest of villages.

The ‘Kulturbund’ (Cultural Association) was a national organisation of over one million members that organised a wide range of cultural events around the country, from concerts, lectures on a wide variety of subjects, to art appreciation classes.

To begin with it was set up in set up in 1945 as a movement to bring together interested intellectuals and artists, on the basis of an anti-fascist and humanist outlook, with the aim of promoting a ‘national re-birth’ and ‘of regaining the trust and respect of the world’. From 1949 onwards many smaller cultural groups joined the national Cultural Association. Soon, ‘commissions’ and ‘working groups’ for specific areas were established: educational, musical, architectural and craft groups, followed by photographic, press, philatelic, fine arts groups and others. The Association also had its own monthly journal and weekly newspaper.

The art form ‘Socialist Realism’ has always been decried and ridiculed in the West, caricatured in the constantly circulated images of monumental statues of muscle-bound male workers and buxom, peasant women in heroic poses. However, such a view ignores those many realist artists who were not necessarily ‘court-appointed’ or monumentalists but who chose a realist mode of expression freely.

We now know that the CIA was, at the height of the Cold War, instrumental in promoting abstract art in the West as a counterweight to ‘communist’ realism. The CIA was able to capitalise on the fact that abstract art was frowned upon by party leaderships throughout the communist-led world where realist art was seen as better able to represent socialist values. This led to an often artificial polarisation between realist and abstract art, the former characterised in the West as old fashioned and conservative, the latter as progressive and representing individual freedom. Not surprisingly, it meant a marginalisation of realist art in the West and a dominance of the abstract. The fact that much of the so-called ‘socialist realist’ art to which those in the West had access was state-commissioned and often second rate should not lead us to ignore the fact that there were excellent realist artists working in the Eastern bloc.

Many artists in the communist countries simply preferred to place human beings and social reality at the centre of their art, as did most muralists and many painters in the West. It should not condescendingly be dismissed out of hand. Many continued the strong realist tradition, taking it forward into new realms. It also connected with ordinary people who saw themselves, their lives and their questions and criticisms taken up by artists. While some conformed and became state-sponsored artists, churning out often mediocre art, many others ploughed their own furrow and their work aroused avid interest among the people. This could be seen not only in painting and sculpture but graphics, the theatre, music, literature and, though less so, also in the cinema.

A number of artists did reject the unnecessary ideological fetters as well as banal socialist realist platitudes, and in exhibitions of their work often shocked the party functionaries. Such artists often promoted a progressive and expressively advanced form of critical realism and an aesthetics of their own making. The national contemporary art exhibitions, which took place every five years in Dresden, drew huge numbers of visitors from all over the country and provoked heated discussions. The country could also boast a number of artists, writers and scientists of international renown: the physicist, Manfred von Ardenne, the social scientist, Jurgen Kuczynski; visual artists like Fritz Kuhn, John Heartfield, Willi Sitte, Werner Tiibke and Wolfgang Mattheuer; writers like Christa Wolf, Stefan Hermlin, Stefan Heym,

Christoph Hein, Erik Neutsch and Erwin Strittmatter were all much admired beyond the GDR’s borders.

In the theatre, Bertolt Brecht was, of course, the most famous. His influence on theatre practice was extensive in the GDR but also worldwide. The country, certainly in the early years, could also count on the expertise of actors and directors from the pre-Nazi period: Wolfgang Langhof, Wolf Kaiser, Wolfgang Heinz, Fritz Bennewitz and the brilliant Austrian opera director, Walther Felsenstein - people would come from all over the world to see his exciting productions at the Komische Oper in East Berlin. Among those who matured post-war, Heiner Muller was widely recognised as one of Germany’s most innovative and radical playwrights. There were rock and pop bands like Silly and the Puhdys and jazz groups who were certainly not ‘mouthpieces’ of state-sanctioned culture. There was also a whole range of individual classical musicians of world class, like the conductor Kurt Masur, tenor Peter Schreier and baritone Olaf Bar, the chanteuse Gisela May as well as outstanding orchestras.

The GDR provided facilities and funding for artistic and creative theory and practice. There were lay art circles in most communities and these received state support to carry out their work. Many writers, musicians and visual artists enjoyed a quite privileged existence if they belonged to the officially recognised artists’ or writers’ associations. They would be offered regular well-paid commissions by state and local authorities which provided them, as creative artists, with an income to live on.

A number of leading writers were seen in many ways as ‘people’s tribunes’, articulating grievances, criticisms and ideas that people felt had no proper airing in the public sphere. People engaged actively with these writers and vice versa. Public readings by, and discussions with, authors were a regular feature of GDR life.

Another myth constantly perpetuated is that because the GDR restricted the import of and access to literature from the West, its citizens were entirely cut off from it. A range of works from many contemporary writers from the West were published in the GDR; in fact more British authors were published there than authors from both Germanies combined were published in Britain. GDR readers could find books by British writers like Graham Greene and Alan Sillitoe to US writers like Saul Bellow, Norman Mailer and Ernest Hemingway. By 1981, the GDR was publishing 6,000 books a year, almost 17 per cent of which were translations from around 40 foreign languages. There was a wide selection of international literature available and a number of foreign films were shown in cinemas. David Childs, in his book on East Germany, exposes the myth that the GDR populace was totally ignorant and ill-informed about life in the West; most of them, after all were also able to tune in daily to West German radio and television.

Stasi State or Socialist Paradise?: The German Democratic Republic and What Became of It, by John Green and Bruni De La Motte (2015)

The GDR's relationship to art censorship wasn't as black and white as allowing and disallowing. Certain types of art were discouraged, but they also let regular exhibitions happen which contained "shocking" art, shocking for the party members. They were justifiably weary of any art coming from the west because they knew the CIA used it as a weapon, but "more British authors were published there than authors from both Germanies combined were published in Britain". The social conditioners of art also show themselves in socialist states. Just like liberal art in capitalist countries doesn't really need to be actively encouraged to exist, some artists in the GDR "simply preferred to place human beings and social reality at the centre of their art". It's a complex question which, like I said, almost entirely depends on the historical moment.

[pynkhues]

Anything particularly interesting said during the q&a?

Lots actually! It was a really good Q&A.

Michael (creator) talked quite a bit about the original premise for the show being about a lavender marriage between a nurse (Helen) and a reporter (Dale), and while their characterisations haven't changed tremendously, the show itself has, and putting Helen in the newsroom changed a lot of things.

He pitched the show to Jo Werner about 8 years ago, and Emma Freeman was immediately on board as director, so they really got to grow the show together as the creative team has been consistent since then. It means they're all really proud of it.

One of the major changes they made during development was about brining in the actual archive news footage and structuring it around those events, which was a big shift and a huge ask of their writers, but it's paid off.

Bringing in the cast though added another layer to creative collaboration, and especially in s3, all the cast, especially Anna and Sam got to do quite a bit of improvising.

Michelle Lim Davidson, who plays Noelene (and is s t u n n i n g in person, omg) was also brought into the writers room each season to help really root Noelene in her Korean-Australian heritage, and she said s3 feels like a culmination of that and will be an important part of the season. She got very emotional about it and said really beautiful things about what Noelene has meant to her and the pride she has in representing Korean-Australian women, and Asian-Australian women on TV. Also! Michael kept hyping her up as a playwright, and I googled when I got home and her writing debut is on at Griffin Theatre in June, so Sydney folks should get on that!

It seems to be a Noelene-and-Rob-figuring-stuff-out heavy season, and I am delighted by that, because I have a huge soft spot for them.

The scene where Noelene gives birth has made Jo cry every time she's seen it (which Michael estimates is about 40 times haha) and they're all really proud of it as a scene.

Stephen Peacocke had a very hilarious tangent here about Rob's arc, and talked a bit about Australian football and the VFL and stepping into that as a Sydney actor, but also enjoying playing a character who just stays out of the fray (and this season being about realising that he loves that his wife is in it and wants to support her).

Also a Helen-tackling-her-mental-health heavy season, and Anna and Michael literally went to therapy together with her in character to figure out how to start writing Helen in therapy (amazing).

There's a big confrontational scene between Helen and Dale late in the season that involves this, and the way they shot it meant Michael and Emma had to hide in a pantry together lmao. It also meant Anna and Sam got to do quite a bit of improv because none of them could see each other.

Sam said that when he started, both Michael and Emma told him the show doesn't work if Helen and Dale aren't in love with each other, even if it's a type of being in love that we're not used to, and that's basically the emotional root of their relationship and the show.

Michael reiterated a couple of times that the show is a tragedy (RIP us), which particularly came up with a question about Gerry. Emma had to convince Michael of the last shot of Gerry, but now he really loves it, because he wants to tear Dale down for betraying him, but sees him and realises Dale's a broken man.

They were asked a bit about what news stories they'd adapt if it was set in modern times, and the general consensus was that there were too many (Sam said he's not really a 'news' guy lmao), but Michael said COVID and Trump, and Sam said Dale would probably end up on Fox News which was the no. 1 most heartbreaking thing he could say, haha.

They were asked if they could play any other role on the show, who would they pick, and Stephen picked Dennis, and both Michelle and Sam picked Lindsay, which is hilarious.

(Emma interjected there with the fact that Lindsay is the character they get the most feedback on, mostly in the sense of omg, I've worked for a guy exactly like that).

Then they were asked if they took anything from set - Emma had taken Dale and Helen's business cards, and Sam didn't even realise they had business cards and seemed lowkey jealous about not getting them, haha, Stephen had a pair of trackies (sweat pants, for Americans), Michelle had nothing because Noelene loves knick-knacks and Michelle hates them, and Sam apparently has stolen or been gifted half the set - he was gifted Dale's 80s TV for his birthday, and he's kept Dale's computer, among other technology, apparently, haha, his wig, and a pair of high waisted blue jeans that were custom-made for him by the costume designer and feature in the finale, which I am now very much looking forward to seeing, haha.

That's all I can remember right now, I'm sure more will come to me in the morning!

[luna-azzurra]

Ways to hit your readers in the gut

When it comes to writing, there's a profound and mesmerizing way to touch your readers deep within their souls. It's about crafting moments that hit them in the gut, stirring up intense emotions and forging an everlasting connection. Here are some techniques to help you achieve this:

1. Unexpected Loss: Introduce a character who captures hearts, only to snatch them away suddenly. Think of J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series, where the abrupt departure of beloved characters like Sirius Black and Fred Weasley leaves readers shattered, their grief a testament to the power of storytelling.

2. Sacrifice for a Cause: Show a character willingly sacrificing their own happiness or even their life for a greater purpose. Suzanne Collins' "The Hunger Games" portrays Katniss Everdeen's selflessness, volunteering as a tribute to save her sister, evoking empathy and admiration.

3. Unrequited Love: Explore the agony of unrequited love, where hearts ache and souls yearn. Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre" delves into the bittersweet and heart-wrenching tale of Jane's unfulfilled affection for Mr. Rochester, resonating with readers who have experienced the profound depths of unrequited longing.

4. Betrayal by a Loved One: Peel back the layers of trust to reveal the sting of betrayal. George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series delivers shocking betrayals that shatter readers' expectations, leaving them stunned and heartbroken alongside the characters.

5. Overcoming Personal Demons: Illuminate the struggle against internal conflicts, be it addiction, guilt, or haunting trauma. Anthony Doerr's "All the Light We Cannot See" explores Werner's moral compass during wartime, captivating readers as they witness his battle for redemption and personal growth.

6. Injustice and Oppression: Shed light on the injustices characters endure, igniting empathy and inspiring change. Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" reveals the racial prejudice faced by Tom Robinson, awakening readers to the urgent need for justice and equality.

7. Parent-Child Relationships: Navigate the intricate tapestry of emotions between parents and children. Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner" unearths the complexities of the father-son bond, evoking a myriad of feelings, from longing and regret to hope for reconciliation.

8. Final Farewells: Craft poignant scenes where characters bid farewell, whether due to death or separation. Markus Zusak's "The Book Thief" gifts readers with heartbreaking partings amidst the backdrop of World War II, leaving an indelible mark of loss and the fragile beauty of human connections.

9. Personal Transformation: Illuminate characters' growth through adversity, offering a beacon of hope and inspiration. Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" narrates Ebenezer Scrooge's extraordinary journey from a bitter miser to a beacon of compassion, reminding readers that redemption and personal change are within reach.

10. Existential Questions: Delve into existential themes that provoke deep introspection. Albert Camus' "The Stranger" challenges readers to ponder the meaning of life through Meursault's detached and nihilistic worldview, prompting them to question their own existence.

With these techniques, you have the power to touch your readers' souls, leaving an indelible impression. Remember to weave these moments seamlessly into your narrative, allowing them to enrich your characters and themes. Let your words resonate and ignite emotions, for that is the essence of impactful storytelling.