#answered asks; olivier's writer

[mrofontaine]

You’re too immature to make decisions for your own future

[jeanmoreaux]

OH MY GOD DID YOU ALSO NOT LIKE THE ATLAS COMPLEX

no i really REALLY did not djfjgjghfb i had many issues with it; some of them structural and others personal. it just didn’t do what i wanted it or even expected it to do. and reaching the end felt like “what was that?!?!”. when the only emotions a book evokes are frustration and annoyance there is something majorly wrong with it in my opinion. and don’t even get me started on how bored i was. that’s probably the biggest crime of them all.

how about you??? i would love to hear your thoughts!!

[javiddenkins]

Javid Denkins is not interested in answering questions. 

It's 9:30 in the morning and I'm sitting across from Denkins in a conference room at the AMC Studios offices. Denkins declined to meet anywhere more personal than this beige and glass room, impersonal Muzak buzzing through the speakers, windows overlooking an empty studio lot. There are posters on the wall but none, strangely, for Blow the Man Down, the runaway hit Denkins conceived, writes, and now showruns. 

Blow the Man Down, or BTMD as it's frequently referred to by fans and journalists alike, is a workplace comedy set in the Golden Age of Piracy. This unusual premise would be interesting enough even without the top-tier leads brought on by AMC to play opposing pirate captains Sam Bellamy and Olivier Levasseur—Oscar Issac and John Boyega light up the screen and bring surprising comedy chops to the pirate-filled stage they share with such talents as Michelle Yeoh ("Zheng Yi Sao") and Sam Neill ("Captain Benjamin Hornigold"). 

But beyond that, BTMD seems to be that rare thing in mainstream media: a slow romance between two middle-aged men finding love for the first time. The first—and so far, only—season ends on a cliffhanger, our heroes separated by an ocean but determined to reach one another, and their love story—if it is one—stays unresolved. 

Usually an interview like this—between seasons, after renewal and filming but before advertising—would be the perfect opportunity to delve into the mind behind the magic and attempt to tease out hints about what's to come. 

But Denkins seems determined to ignore Hollywood's traditional playbook. 

Whether this is the standard conference room used for interviewing reluctant showrunners, or if Denkins picked it especially for the purpose, I'll never find out. I've already been waiting half an hour, uncertain if Denkins intends to join me at all. When he does finally arrive, he makes his position clear. 

"I'm only doing this because you agreed to my terms," he says. 

I'd describe what he looked like, if he had a coffee or a snack or a smoker's twitching nerves, if he sounded tired or amused or angry—but I can't. If you see a description here, it's because Denkins decided, for whatever reason, to approve it. Otherwise, sharing my impression of Denkins is off the table, one of many terms and conditions my editorial team and I had to agree to before Denkins would accept this meeting. 

Denkins doesn't want to make my job easy. Photos of him do exist from the few red carpets he's attended; enthusiastic interviews with the cast, writers, and production team of BTMD definitely paint a picture that belies Denkins's apparent efforts to avoid perception. But here and now, in the oppressive air conditioning of the AMC offices, I am contractually obligated to interview a cipher.

If he can be all business, though, then so can I. I hit a button on my phone's recording app, set it down between us, and ask what made him decide to tell the story of an obscure pair of pirates like Sam Bellamy and Olivier Levasseur.

He shrugs. "Why does anyone write anything? This is my job." 

It's not the kind of answer I was expecting. Something must show on my face, because he follows with, "That's unsatisfying, isn't it. No definitive answer."

"It's not what I expected," I hedge.

"What did you want to hear?"

I try to gather my thoughts, but I'm definitely stalling, uncertain that this is what Denkins intends. "I did a little research," I say. "Not as much as I imagine you did, but I found some of Bellamy and Levasseur's history together and, later, apart. Bellamy's ship is the only fully authenticated Golden Age shipwreck in the world, so it makes sense that the wrecking of the Whydah is an important turning point in season one. Levasseur, on the other hand, is best known for the mystery of his encoded treasure map, flung into the crowd at his hanging and only ever partially solved, which you seem to have used as a foundation for the coding and decoding motifs throughout. But for a show that seems determined to discuss the consequences of fame and reputation, it's fascinating that you've chosen two men most casual viewers have never heard of."

"Outside the narrative they built for themselves," Denkins corrects. "Is there a question in there?"

I remember again that Denkins isn't here to make this easy for me. "Why not choose one of the more well-known pirates of the era? Henry Morgan, Captain Kidd, and Blackbeard are all arguably more famous both now and when they were alive. What made you choose Bellamy and Levasseur for this story?"

"I think," Denkins says, "I just answered that. There's a difference between how you perceive yourself, and how the world perceives you. Those famous pirates retained their notoriety even after death. Sam and Ollie did have reputations when they were alive, but if people today know them at all, it's typically for reasons completely unrelated to whatever little fame they achieved in life."

"And that fascinates you?"

Denkins looks irritated. "It doesn't matter what fascinates me. That's the story, that's—look, I don't know how to write a puff piece like this," Denkins says. "I don't know if it would really sound like this, if anyone would bother caring enough about what I want to get this far."

"Excuse me?" I say.

"Do you honestly think," Denkins says, "there's a single journalist out there that would actually agree to these interview conditions? This is a fantasy, a what-if, and it still doesn't work."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," says Denkins, "I didn't even give you a name."

And that's true, I realize. I don't have a name. 

"Right," says Denkins, as if hearing my thoughts—and I suppose, in a way, he does. "And you don't know how you got here, and you don't know where you'll go after. I made you up. I made all this up."

I look at my recorder, which isn't a recorder. I look at the room, which isn't a room. 

"Okay," I say. "So what did you want to happen?"

Denkins taps my phone's screen to stop the recording. Denkins imagines me noticing that he taps the screen, and so this must have meaning. There is no room for junk words and actions in prose, and even less in television. Whatever's on the page has to have meaning, or it's wasted space, wasted time, a moment that could have been useful now gone and never coming back.

Denkins shoves my phone back to the center of the table and says, "I wanted to see if I could just talk about the story without making it about me."

"But you're part of it," I point out. "You have to be. It came from you. It was something you thought was important, and then you put the effort in to create it. The story exists because of you, in relation to you. That's why people, why fans, want to know more about you. They love the story, and you made it, so they want to love you, too."

"I don't like that," says Denkins. "Rephrase it."

"They love the story," I say, parroting back at my creator, "and you made it. They want to know about you so they can know more about what the story means."

Denkins's chair creaks as he pushes it back, puts his head in his hands. I wonder if he's doing that in the real world, too, in the place where he's imagining this interview that will never exist. 

(Except I'm not the one wondering. He is. He's wondering what an interviewer would think of him if he allowed himself to show this weakness. Rephrase. Show this ache. Rephrase. Show this.)

"I'm not a story," Denkins says, face still hidden. The Muzak piped into the room seems too loud, too discordant now. Maybe that's what the world sounds like to him. "I'm not imaginary. I'm not a specimen to study under a microscope until every part of me is uncovered and connected one by one to every part of the show." He drags his hands back down and I think I can say that he looks very, very tired. 

"Yes, maybe I put some of myself in Blow the Man Down," he continues. "Maybe I did in season two as well. Maybe I put something in The Gang, and maybe I'll put something into whatever else I make for the next fifty years. And what I put there is—will be—has to be—my choice. All things I chose to share. But this?" He waves a hand at the nonexistent conference room, at nonexistent me. "This isn't a choice. It's a demand. I'm being held hostage for answers, as if me keeping my boundaries somehow ruins the show, ruins the story."

"Because you're not a story," I repeat back, watching for confirmation. "Because what you choose to reveal is the only story the audience should need."

"Yes," says Denkins. "That's it."

That's not it, though. I know this, because I'm him, talking to himself. Thinking all this through. 

"So you cut yourself off," I say. "No one can know anything about you, because they're already clawing for what you're not willing to share—so how much worse would it get if you gave them a chance to come closer, right?" 

"To take, and get it wrong anyway," he says. "Or get it right, but not like it. Not like me. How I'm perceived might change how the story is perceived. And even skipping over the whole art of it all—this is a business. How the story is perceived affects dozens, if not hundreds of people and careers. And all of it can get destroyed in an instant if there's some aspect of me that the audience decides is wrong."

Denkins pushes back from the table, stands up as if to leave. I'm not done yet, though. He's not done yet.

"Sounds lonely," I say.

"Sounds like something a fan would say," he shoots back, and I shrug.

"Blame yourself for thinking it and making me say it, then. It sounds lonely. It is lonely. It's lonely to think there's no way that you could open yourself up, talk about who you are and what your art means to you, without feeling like someone, everyone, will take advantage of that vulnerability."

I pause, and in that pause I find something to latch onto. "You've imagined me," I say. "You've imagined this scenario, where you stay cut off and oblique and hidden." I pick up my phone from where it's placed between us, and I shut it down completely—not because it exists, but because it's a symbol he understands. "What would happen if you imagined being part of the story?" I ask. Rephrase. "What would happen if you imagined being free?"

We look at each other. The tinny music of this artificial space comes to a sudden halt.

Denkins leaves the room. 

I am—

Denkins comes back. He sits down. He looks at me.

Time doesn't exist in the beige and glass room. But behind him, now, there is a poster of Sam Bellamy and Olivier Levasseur, a drilled coin on a cord stretched taut between them. And the Muzak hasn't restarted.

Denkins looks different. Or maybe he just feels different. Those things are functionally the same, here.

"You know the old movie trailers?" Denkins starts, not really a question. "The ones that start with 'in a world…'"

I nod. 

He smiles a little. "Okay. In a world where Blow the Man Down doesn't exist. Let's say there's something else instead. Let's say it's called Our Flag Means Death. It's a workplace comedy, it's the Golden Age of Piracy, the works. They even manage to kiss in the first season, though the cliffhanger is worse. And in that world, there's a different guy who runs it, a guy named David Jenkins, who seems nicer and more outgoing and shares a lot more of himself than I do. And I think it goes mostly okay for him, except he has to scrub his social media, delete most of his Instagram, and never gets to name his wife anywhere in case a fan might notice and start following her around."

"Sounds grim," I say.

He shrugs. "It's another way of handling it. David, in that world, has made a choice to draw the enemy fire toward himself, instead of hiding away and letting it scatter at random. It seems to work okay for him, and maybe it would for me too, but, you know. Maybe that's a little of myself I gave Ollie. Because I also like the idea of testing something first, all the way to destruction."

A little of myself. This—this is personal information. Something that, in the negotiations that never happened, he said he'd never give me.

My phone, with its blackened screen, is right there. I keep my hands still, folded together, decidedly not reaching for the phone. Denkins watches, sees. His shoulders loosen; neither of us, I think, realized how tense he'd been.

"In that world," he says, "there's a second season coming that no one knows anything about and there's a fandom going feral. Echo chambers that feed off their own theories because there's nothing new to add to the pot. Just like our world, right? In the absence of good data, overwrought ideology works just as well.

"And in the middle of this, to provide a distraction, maybe, or to draw that enemy fire like he so often does, David Jenkins says he'll get a Tumblr—you know, one of those not-really-social-media internet places. And maybe he does. He doesn't tell anyone his username, so it's a mystery whether he really did it or not. But someone opens an account. And someone says they're definitely not David Jenkins."

Javid Denkins is holding a cup of coffee. So am I, now. We take sips, mirrors of each other. The coffee tastes like it has seven sugars in it.

Denkins swirls his cup gently, not looking up at me. "When you're trying to figure out something that's terrifying," he says, slow and careful, "and enraging, and so big and so much that it feels like you'll collapse under the weight of it…sometimes you need to find a way to conceptualize it more abstractly. Make it manageable. Put it in bite-sized chunks. 

"So instead of me, dealing with all this fame, and these expectations, and these pulls to turn me from a person into a plot point…maybe there's this other guy. In this other universe, with this other pirate show. Another writer, who says he's definitely not David Jenkins. But—he could be. He could be. And either way, there's enough uncertainty that the fandom can't tell right away."

"Schrödinger's showrunner," I say. 

Denkins tips his mug at me. "Yeah, that gets pointed out, too. Because either it's really him and the fandom will eat at him—death by a thousand needy bites of demand, and something that feels like connection but by its nature can't be—or it's not him, just a fan pretending to be him, attention-seeking, scamming, stealing unearned laurels to crown a meaningless triumph: successfully mimicking the concept of David Jenkins."

"Pretty binary."

Denkins shrugs. "You saw the first season. I'm a sucker for duality." 

He hums and looks out the conference room's window. The AMC lot is gone. More accurately, it was never there. Outside the window is an ocean. The water is green-screen perfect, and there are two tall-masted ships in the distance: Bellamy's Whydah Gally and Levasseur's La Louise. They float angled toward one another, counterpart to their captains on the poster behind Jenkins, missing only the drilled coin between them.

"Except," says Denkins, slow and musing as he watches the distant ships, "in the vast multiverse of imaginable possible outcomes, it turns out that there is the very slimmest possible chance of a third thing happening."

There is another ship floating now between the Whydah and La Louise. It's freshly painted, poorly rigged, and its figurehead is a unicorn. Instead of one flag, it has half a dozen. And I know, because Denkins knows, that instead of gunpowder in its hold, it carries jars and jars of harmless marmalade.

"So," I say, "David Jenkins—"

"Oh, definitely not David Jenkins," says Javid Denkins, amusement lighting up his face. He keeps his eyes on that third ship.

"So the person who is definitely not David Jenkins," I say. "He comes and starts a social media account. He answers questions."

"Sort of. Nothing specific, really. Just…narrative likelihoods. Enough to dangle hope. But the fandom wants more. There's a Richard Siken line he sees, that if he'd chosen to stay anonymous maybe he could've actually posted: 'but monsters are always hungry, darling.' It's like that. So he backs up a little, and considers how to hold off the inevitable. The season two hints are vague? Make them vaguer. Add some smoke and mirrors to hide how little substance they have. There are only so many general pirate tropes around? Stretch out how long it takes to get the ones he has. Add steps. Add puzzles. Make the fandom work for it, and maybe they won't notice how little there is to find. Give them an interesting enough box to open, and they'll ignore the fact that there isn't an answer on the inside, just another, smaller box." He tilts his head and looks at me. The light outside is now luminous pink and yellow, flashing off the water and highlighting his face like a duotone painting. "Then he…" Denkins sighs. Puts down his mug. "Then I sit back and see what happens. I see if it's as bad as I think it would be if I did it here, in the real world."

"And is it?"

Denkins reaches out with one hand, tugging my phone over to his side of the table. He starts fiddling with the buttons, attention on it instead of me. "To start with? Yes. And no. It didn't matter that the one thing I promised was that I wasn't David Jenkins. They—the fandom—found me anyway. They assumed I was him. And I was right, of course I was right, they asked me questions. Hundreds of them. Like that was the only reason I existed, like I couldn't just be a regular person like the rest of them, just on Tumblr to read about the Carpathia and get taken out by the color of the sky."

"For better or for worse, you're a public person," I say. "They think they know what it means when a public person breaks down the barrier between themselves and the fans. Even well-meaning people make assumptions."

The recorder is no longer a phone and app; it's an old cassette player with thick plastic buttons like I, or more accurately Denkins, had as a child. It matches the ones his elementary school classrooms had, which in turn looked like the device Mr. Spock carried at his hip to record and interpret data from strange new worlds. 

Denkins, in the here and now, half-presses the play and record buttons, which would trigger the record function if pushed down completely. He holds back. Riding the edge of commitment. Over and over. 

"Yeah," he says. "Yes. That's true. And I could've been completely anonymous if I wanted to be left alone entirely. I suppose I wanted to prove that everything I believe—everything I'm afraid of—is true, and that I'm justified in hiding away, refusing to be 'known' by anyone I haven't specifically agreed to. Hence the thought exercise. And when I was done, and I had my proof," he says, leaving off the recorder buttons to raise a pointed finger at me, "I wouldn't have to see you again either."

We look at each other. "But here you are," I say.

He laughs. It's rusty, but sure. "Here I am," he agrees.

"So what happened?"

"Turns out," he says, "that in that infinite universe of possibilities a writer can dream up, there's a world where, yes, all my worst fears are confirmed…but that's not all that happens."

He stops, and we are both silent for a long, long moment. His fingertips brush over the recorder buttons, repetitive and soothing, like he's calming something feral and unused to human touch.

"Would you believe," he says at last, hushed and small in this glass and beige room floating on a digital sea, "that there is a world where fans—people—don't ask for more than I want to give? Who see the box I'm in, and instead of ripping it open to grasp for whatever good thing they think they can find inside…they give something back. 

"I played it all out, you see." He waves his hand over the recorder. Now there are two of them, sitting side by side, each with a row of thick black plastic buttons along the edge: one to play, one to rewind, one to record, and one to pop open its lid so that the cassette can be changed. One of the recorders is a little bigger than the other. "If I can imagine it," he says, "it has to be possible."

He looks at the two recorders; he's quiet now, talking to himself rather than me. I don't think I'm as necessary as I was before. I think maybe this is just him. Just Denkins in this lonely little room. He moves the smaller recorder so that it's lined up with the larger one, like he's lining up Matryoshka dolls as he reveals them.

"It started small," he says. "There were people who saw my puzzles, and made puzzles back for me, just to play along. People who saw my puzzles, and shared what they knew about them, just to help others play too. Small things. Little things. Possible things. I liked it. I didn't expect it. I…wanted to give back, too. Not just in the story, I mean. It was me who wanted it. Wanted to add to a world, to a community, where that sort of giving could happen. So I went further. I didn't just try to hint at common story beats this other show might hit—I started listening, following, asking what would be most welcome, and then gave that instead. And it grew. It grew until it wasn't really just an experiment anymore. It stopped being an adversarial proof. It started being…something else."

Denkins reaches out, and now there are three recorders on the table. The newest one is the smallest. He lines it up with the others.

"I'd already made David Jenkins," he says, "and in turn he'd made his own Javid Denkins. So why not do it again? This other Javid Denkins, this me who's me but not me, goes deeper. He uses the tools at his disposal. Our Flag Means Death has pirates named Edward Teach and Stede Bonnet. OFMD has a fandom like BTMD does, where people write stories about the characters, for themselves and—for others. Fan fiction. A thing that can be a gift, if you want it to be. So I started to write one."

One by one, Denkins hits the 'play' button on each of the recorders. The cassettes whir, a steady background hum. Each starts playing a part of some orchestral piece. Not the individual instruments, but something stranger. It's as if each cassette contains the whole work, but with fragments missing that the others complete. There are still some gaps in the playback.

Denkins waves his hand over the collection again, and a fourth recorder, smallest of all, appears. He presses play on it too, and the music fills in. It's a pretty little melody. Simple, if you know how to hear it.

Denkins hums a little of it before looking up, seeing me again. "That was it, really. That's what finally made all this small enough for me to understand. Made it small enough, far enough away from my actual world that I could finally let myself feel it. In this story that I'm telling, here is Edward Teach." Denkins touches the smallest recorder very, very gently. "Teach lives in a world where he's not the main character; he's just a fan of a gay pirate romcom called Blow the Man Down. He's tired, and he's angry, and he doesn't know how to deal with the world the way it is, with the fandom as he perceives it. He makes a Twitter account, anonymously, to prove that what he fears is real."

Denkins covers the recorder with both hands, only muffling the music a little. "Here's Edward Teach, made up of all my fears and saying them out loud."

He raises his hands, and now there are two little recorders, the same size, both playing the same parts together. He touches the new recorder with his fingertip, as if it's a bubble that could too easily break. "Here's Stede Bonnet," he says, "made up of all my fears coming true. And then having to live through it anyway." He stares down at this new recorder; the same as the Edward Teach one, but evidently special in some way to Denkins. He says, to me, to it, to the room: "It's a hell of a thing, to need to go so far away just to see what you've been carrying on your back the whole time."

After a moment, he looks back up at me. "In my story," he says, "Stede survives the disaster. My disaster. He survives it, because he has Ed—a love interest, yes, but not just that. He's someone he opened up to. And more than that, I saw—because I could imagine it, and so it must be possible, it has to actually be possible—I saw the fandom become…people."

With both hands, Denkins presses a button on each of these two small recorders.

Their lids pop open.

And from the walls, from the ceiling, from the glass windows and the limitless sea, there comes a multiverse of music.

"These people," says Denkins, tilting his head to listen as the swells of unseen instruments add to the gentle overture of his pocket worlds and turn the piece into something greater than the sum of its parts. "They're not some nameless collective made up of their worst impulses. They're just people. People are complicated. You can never know them completely; they can never know you. All you really get is what they—we—choose to do. 

"And I saw people try to help Stede. People, strangers, who didn't know who he was, not really. And they felt compassion anyway."

After a long moment, just taking in the music, Denkins sighs and carefully closes the lids on the two small recorders. The singing universe becomes just a recorded orchestral piece once again—though no less beautiful for it. He gently pushes the two recorders together until they're touching, side by side, and covers them with his hand. He says, "Ed got to see this. He got to know that even if his worst fear happens, he'll be okay on the other side of it. And he won't be alone." 

He lifts his hand; the two are now one, still playing its little melody.

Denkins picks up this amalgamated recorder and sets it on top of the next largest. He puts his hand over the stack he's just made. "Move it up a level," Denkins says. "David Jenkins, or someone who is definitely not David Jenkins, runs a Tumblr with games and puzzles and digital tools that stretch the boundaries of the narrative. He sees the reactions to his story. Sees fans who know it isn't real, who know that Stede and Ed are characters in a narrative—and nevertheless, these fans, these people, see that these characters are hurting. They try to help. They don't know who's behind the masks labeled 'Stede' and 'Ed,' not really. But they feel compassion anyway."

He lifts his hand. The little recorder atop the larger is gone. The music is different. Not lessened, but changed. It's come closer. 

Once more, Denkins moves the smaller combined recorder onto the last one—or, I suppose, the first of all of them. "So move it up one more time," he says. The music isn't audible in the room now; but I hear it anyway. It's in me. Us. The last little notes coming from the final recorders just a reminder of what the world could sound like.

He covers the top recorder with both hands. His touch is aching and very, very soft. "Here's me. Javid Denkins. I don't know if there's a world where I could open myself up and not have everything burn down in flames. I don't know if it could ever be possible for me to leave this room, open my laptop, and start something, somewhere, called 'definitely not Javid Denkins,' and have it be as beautiful and awe-inspiring as it was in my thought experiment.

"But God," he says, "I want it."

He lifts his hands, and all that's left is the final recorder, the one that was my phone to begin with. The music dissipates completely. But the feeling of it remains. Denkins rests his hands on either side of this solitary recorder. He says, "I don't know if all of that—all of them, my fans, my friends, all of what we made together…I don't know if it already exists for me in the real world. Just waiting for me to be brave enough to look. I don't know. But I think I have to believe that it does. That they do. I have to believe that it's possible not just to imagine that kind of grace, but to live it." 

Denkins brushes his thumb over the last recorder's play button. "I think that's what it means to be human," he says. "To try anyway. To unlock yourself despite your fears, and find hope there waiting for you."

He closes his eyes. I close my eyes. We take a deep breath together.

We open our eyes.

After a moment, I smile at Denkins, a little crooked. I've got one last question to ask, and it's one he might even answer. 

"Who are you, really?" I ask. 

It's something we all have to answer about ourselves eventually, and it seems particularly relevant now.

Denkins shrugs, and his smile mirrors mine. "Does it matter?"

"It feels like it does."

"How about this," he says. "Who are you, really?"

And knowing what I know now…if I'm anyone at all, then I suppose I'm Javid Denkins. An aspect. A reflection. A dream.

And so, in these universes he's imagined, is everyone.

"So," Denkins says. "You think I can start over?"

I smile wider. It feels good. "I'd love that."

He pushes the recorder back to me, and in my heart I hear his laughing request for one last rephrase—

Javid Denkins has been waiting for me.

It's 9:30 in the morning and I'm sitting across the table from a cheerful enigma. Denkins was already in the room when I arrived, a hot coffee by my seat and a box filled with fresh breakfast pastries and marmalade open and ready to be enjoyed. An advertising standup emblazoned with the unreleased (at time of writing) air date for season two of Denkins's Blow the Man Down takes pride of place at the head of the table. Through the windows opposite, bright sunlight bounces off the buzzing AMC studio lot, and I think I hear a certain pirate romcom's theme music playing quietly over the room's speakers.

Denkins grins at me, and it's easy to see why his actors and writers speak so highly of the experience of working with him. Because I can tell already: this is going to be fun. 

It starts when he leans forward, eyes bright, and presses the record button on my phone for me.

"Let's play," he says, and—we do.

[ingravinoveritas]

Hi!! Neil Gaiman just answered my question if Anna and Georgia are in GO and the answer is NO. Anna was pregnant and Georgia was offered a part but turned it down for….. reasons? Unknown to us other than that she believed the part should go to someone older and more experienced? Wonder what part she’s been offered and what her character could’ve been. Also, if there was a hypothetical season 3 we have to be worried if they’ll be cast in it now. Cause he said that they’ll definitely get a part somewhere in the show

Wow, okay...my inbox has been blowing up since Neil's post earlier. Well, for those who haven't gotten to see it, @yami-no-kokoro helpfully posted a screencap above, and it seems that Georgia and Anna will not be appearing in GO season 2...but I'm not entirely sure I buy the explanations as to why.

The first thing that struck me was that Neil actually answered this question at all, instead of "wait and see"-ing it as he has done with seemingly every other GO 2-related question. I also noticed that Neil specifically mentioned that Georgia was offered a part, but AL was not. I'm sure there was a reason for it being phrased that way, but had AL been offered a part, it would've been very easy and made sense to say that there.

As for the explanation of her being pregnant and avoiding people because of Covid, we know and have evidence that this is not really true, as AL was in Scotland during filming with Lyra, and was photographed in a restaurant in Glasgow eating with Michael and Jon Hamm. Also, Michael was on set every day with countless people and then with her, so anything he would've been exposed to, she would have been as well. Logically, then, it seems like she was not taking stringent precautions against Covid, because had that been the case, she would have stayed in Wales instead of following Michael to Scotland for six months for a film shoot while pregnant during a pandemic. So to me, that makes Neil's response seem like a PR one, for the sake of glossing over the fact that AL was not offered a part.

In terms of Georgia...again, the explanation given is a curious one. My feeling is that Neil was softening up the truth, which I am guessing is that Georgia was offered the part, looked it up online, found out the person she was asked to play was older than her, got pissed off, and declined the offer. As you said, Anon #1, there don't seem to be many reasons that Georgia would turn down a role or any opportunity to further her career, so had the part been a more glamorous or attention-grabbing one, she probably would have accepted it without hesitation. I do not at all buy for a second that this had anything to do with Georgia pushing for "age appropriate" casting, except in the sense of "I'm too young to play this part and how dare you even ask, go cast some old hag instead." But again, that translated into another PR response (and a nicely finessed one, which is not at all surprising since Neil is a talented writer) that does indeed reflect well on Georgia.

I know tonight was the BAFTAs, so I'll just touch on that briefly, but Anon #2, it seems that Georgia was there at the event, but just not on the red carpet:

Right away, I have to say I'm confused by "I find it all too much" and am not even sure what that means. Earlier in the day, Georgia posted a picture of herself breastfeeding Birdie and hashtagged it #mybaftalook, but it didn't seem to get a lot of traction, as all I saw on Twitter and elsewhere was pictures of David (and Catherine, and Billie) at the BAFTAs. So I don't really know what was going on here, but her entire vibe today just seemed so weird overall. Why would she not want a picture with David on the red carpet? Was she not invited to walk the red carpet? I don't think we'll ever know for sure, but putting out the narrative of "I find it all too much" just seems disingenuous, especially since she was on the red carpet with David only recently at the Olivier Awards. (EDIT: What I wrote here was based on a misinterpretation of Georgia's post that was very different to how other people read it. I have attempted to clarify my thoughts here.)

Going back to GO 2, though, I did see some of the comments that you mentioned, Anon #3, and I find it interesting that people want to categorize specific blogs as "haters" or "anti-Georgia/Anna" when a) More often than not, it seems like I end up saying out loud what others are thinking, but by no means am I the only one thinking it--especially if the results of the recent poll about GT/AL being in season 2 are any indication; and b) I do not categorize myself as anti-Georgia/Anna, but rather anti-the mentality that they are somehow above reproach or criticism simply because of who their partners are.

I have never and will never tell anyone that they shouldn't like Georgia or Anna. If you are a fan of theirs, then by all means, be a fan. Nobody is all bad (or all good, for that matter), and if you like them, that is completely your prerogative, and go ahead and have a gay old time. But I will not be quiet about the things I've seen from Georgia and AL that discomfit me, nor put up with a narrative that I feel is phony. And I think that right there is the nuance that seems to be getting missed--that what I have a problem with and dislike is Georgia and AL's actions/things they've said, rather than just them as people. I think if folks looked at it that way, it might also help them view Georgia and AL as their own person instead of "David's wife"/"Michael's girlfriend" and would enable us to better have these discussions.

If what Neil said is, in fact, true, I do feel relieved to know that Georgia and AL are not in GO 2. To me, GO is something incredibly special, and Georgia and AL just do not "fit" in that world, and them being in the show would have had a detrimental effect on the illusion/magic of the GO universe. I think the analogy that best explains this is Mary Martin as Peter Pan on TV in the 1950s. In the scene where Peter flies, the actor is put in a harness/on wires to give the appearance of flight. It's the illusion that enthralls us, that immerses us in that sense of magic, and in that moment--even just briefly--you don't see the wires and start to believe that human beings can fly. Season 1 of GO and the incredible chemistry between Michael and David created that same sense of magic and wonder in so many of us....but having Georgia and AL in it would be like seeing the wires.

As for a possible season 3, there's about a thousand different factors that will determine if there even is a season 3, let alone if Neil will cast them or even have parts for them to play. We saw how long it took between seasons 1 and 2 of GO (though Covid was obviously a large part of that), but if that is any indication of how long it could be until season 3, a lot of things can change in a few years' time, so who knows what will happen.

So, those are my thoughts on today's developments (and of course this had to happen on Mother's Day, of all days). Hopefully we'll have more GO 2 stuff to talk about in the coming weeks...

[stringandsoot]

Well, seeing as you've already found the book, here I am. I am known as the writer, I created the magical book you ask your questions to, the characters inside of it. Should their original files be tampered with, so will their character. So I suggest we don't go snooping around in my office now, yes? Right. Anyhow. There are 5 characters, and myself. Albeit, I am not inside the book. I can still answer your questions.

~CHARACTER LIST~

Olivier - He/Him - The Jester

Morwen - She/Her - The Fighter

Alistair - He/Him - The Gardener

Naomi - She/Her - The Healer

Lucian - He/Him - The Spirit

And myself. - They/Them - The Author

(Keep in mind that author isn't actually me, they're another character in the story C: The real writer and artist, myself, uses she/her pronouns :D)

[carchariascarcharodon]

digging through the archives again & i've found another little press interview with robert shaw that i quite like. sticking it here for ease of access in the future :> from an article published in the los angeles times in february 1971, as transcribed below:

Most public people get terribly lofty about seeing their names in print (“Of course it used to matter . . .”). Robert Shaw, the English actor-author, is, bless his heart, honest enough to say it matters terribly. “My hand shakes when I pick up the Daily Express. And I will be comforted by reading someone else’s bad notices, I admit it. It gets worse all the time. Old Harold Pinter says my great vice is other people’s opinions.” Robert Shaw is subject to more reviews than most since he is both a writer (novels, plays, screenplays) and an actor English enough to play Henry VIII (in the film “A Man for All Seasons”), international enough to play Gen. Custer (in a movie) and Elmer Gantry (in a Broadway musical that lasted one night), and intelligent enough to play Pinter (“The Caretaker,” “The Birthday Party”). “I’ve been asked so often which I prefer, writing or acting, that I’ve started to answer seriously. I obviously prefer acting because the rewards are much more immediate. Writing is so lonely, such an agony. I’m an extroverted, confident person and I’m thrown into this pain . . .” Then why write? “I do wish for immortality—I don’t know why—but I do wish to be remembered.” Robert Shaw studied acting at RADA, a bleak and hateful experience, during which he was advised to give up. He spent his first eight years as a professional playing Shakespeare and had a rough time. “As a young man I had no charm, I was all agression [sic]. Richard Burton had enormous charm, he could get on with people. What an extraordinary life! When he went off to Hollywood, we all said, there goes the golden boy.” The turning point came with his first novel, “The Hiding Place” (1960). “From having been treated as a stupid actor—‘I find it hard to believe you wrote that,’ they’d say—I began to be treated as intelligent. Directors wanted me for television. And that’s where I became a working class actor. I’m not, I’m English middle class really, but I got into all these new plays. It was marvelous.” At present, Shaw has two plays coming up, neither of which will earn him a penny, he cheerfully notes: One is set in an American prison. The other, to be performed in London by the National Theater Company this spring, is called “Cato Street.” Shaw has based it on an actual attempt in the early 19th century to murder the entire British government. The plotters are betrayed and executed. “I hang them all on stage,” Shaw said with relish. “All eight or nine of them.” He hopes “Cato Street” will feature Laurence Olivier who, he feels, droops under some of his duties as head of the National Theater. “He asked me how many acts my play had. ‘Three,’ I said. “‘Couldn’t you make it two?’ he asked me. I said why? “‘Because,’ he said; ‘then I’d only have to have one drink with the governors.’”

[unbindingkerberos]

Preparation

Warning(s): Blood

Author's Note: IM BACK BABY!! Sorry haven't been posting as much was busy with writer's block and personal matters. Nevertheless, I hope you guys enjoy!

Words: 831

Tags: @onehornedbeast @shegetsburned @chadillacboseman @illmetbymoonlight @children-of-epiales @linoleum-ice @scentedcandleibex

------

Marius has never felt pressured to pull a trigger before.

He has done the action countless times that it has integrated into his body. But under the hard gaze of Amarice Locke, all muscle memory vanishes instantaneously. The German shudders tensely and his finger moves to the trigger–

And it hits the target. 

Marius lets out a shaky sigh but sucks the air back in once Amarice spoke. “15 seconds…” 

“What?”

“It took you at least 15 seconds for you to shoot the target.”

The older woman tuts and crosses her arms. “I would have shot you under five.” Grace and Masaru did not exaggerate when they said Amarice was… well they said a lot about her. Marius didn’t believe it at first but then he saw what they went through. He was just passing by that day when he saw Grace, Masaru, Dominic, Olivier and Mark doing bench presses outside in the middle of a thunderstorm with Amarice on the sidelines holding out an umbrella for Gustave who looked like all the blood had been drained from him. 

So when Amarice had offered some shooting practice earlier, Marius was visibly nervous.

“Oh sorry…” Was all Marius managed to muster out. The older woman huffs and gestures for Marius to retry. Marius gulps and does it–

“Again

Again

Again

Again

Again

Again

Again…”

By the last round, Marius’s body is slick with sweat and his grip trembles. Amarice moves to inspect the target, her finger traces the outline of each individual bullet hole with keen inspection. “Not bad..” The look she gives Marius is enough for him to start internally panicking and deciphering the strange emotion behind that look. 

But unfortunately, he didn’t decipher the punch that sent him to the floor. Marius groans in pain, muttering curses in his native tongue as he tries to lift himself up. He tastes iron in his mouth and realizes the blood trickling down his nose.

“You should be more alert.” Amarice cracks some knuckles. She offers a hand for Marius to which he hesitantly takes. The older woman pulls him up only to sweep him off his feet. “What did I say?” 

“That I should…. Be… more..” Marius pants. “Alert…?” Amarice sighs and spares him a stern glance. “Get up.” Marius does not want to get up and at the same time he wants to. His legs feel like a stack of cards as he stands. Amarice moves to jab her knee in his stomach, but the German anticipates the attack and blocks her knee. He swings his fist forward only for the older woman to headbutt him in his already leaking nose. 

The pain was electrifying and Marius could feel tears welling up in his eyes. He staggers back, droplets of blood make small spots on the floor. Marius notices Amarice too reeling away, a noticeable bruise in her right cheek.

“Why?”

Amarice’s eyes flicker to Marius. “Why are you doing this? Why did you ask me to come here?” The older woman feels her throat run dry when she answers, “So that when you see Henry again, you’ll know how to kick his ass.”

–

An infectious dread makes Marius’s stomach sink to the bottom. The news spreads like wildfire throughout the base: Deimos has been captured and is being brought back to HQ from Emerald Plains. 

Had it not been for Julien’s quick reaction, from what he heard, Fisher would have died and Deimos would have gotten away. He should be feeling happy that the man who killed Harry, who lit the fuze to the fire was in chains.

But…

He wondered among the Keres in Deimos’s squad, was he part of the dead?

Marius closes his eyes and buries the thought. He glances down at the shuffling in his pocket and silences with a tap. If you are still here, then he might be too.

–

It’s done. Proceed to the second phase.

He snaps the phone shut and turns to the Keres behind him. They stand tall and firm, ready to obey their commander. He clasps their hands together. 

“Listen up–”

His footsteps echo as he strides towards them. “Keres-01 Actual has been detained by RAINBOW as according to plan.” The screen flickers alive with Deimos’s picture and his coordinates. “It is expected that in a few days he will be taken to a black site where all RAINBOW operators will gather.” Pictures of various operators pop up in the screen. “We go in silently, then when the moment comes–” he snaps and the Leeches around the room glow in an ominous red– “shoot as many ducks as you’ll like.”

The Keres pump their fists in the air and yell, before they spread out and prepare themselves for the upcoming battle. His eyes wander back to the screen just in time for Marius’s picture to come up.

He fights that primal urge in his body to reach out. He balls his fists to the side.

And Henry wears his mask.

[chainsawfam]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks....

Oh this is so fun to answer! Since this is my anime blog I’ll stick to anime/manga.

10. Kageyama “Mob” Shigeo

Mob Psycho 100 is not only weird and fun, but emotional with highs and lows. As goofy as Reigen is, Mob is the heart of this show and his growth is wonderful to watch. He struggles with his powers and emotions but the fix isn’t changing himself as much as it is accepting himself and the relationships in his life. At his core, Mob is incredibly caring—that’s what makes him so special. He’s not a self-sacrificing hero of the prophecy, he’s just Mob. He’s kind just because he is.

9. Olivier Mira Armstrong

I love badass female characters and Major General Armstrong does not disappoint. She’s calculating, cold, and incredibly good at her job. Sometimes, I feel that when writers introduce “strong women” in their stories, they either take a masculine character type and slap it on (the brutish tank, lone gunslinger, etc) but don’t shape their personality outside of “being the tough guy—but a woman!” Or they let a strong woman be feminine but have to emphasize that’s she’s not like the other girls, she can keep up with the guys. Major General Armstrong doesn’t suffer this mistreatment. She is strong, she is fierce. She is a woman. These things don’t affect each other. She is her own character with a personality developed outside of just being a role subversion. Also she’s pretty and has a sword (on one hand I don’t like using a saber, on the other hand saber looks so cool).

8. Roy Mustang

Another Fullmetal Alchemist character…this will be a theme. I think FMAB has some of the best written characters of all time, including Roy Mustang. He could’ve just been a goofy-but-badass charismatic boss and I would like him, but he’s so complex. Mustang is a product of his environment who realized it too late. But instead of escaping his sins, he trusts in his support network to help him rise to the top and ensure that what he did never happens again. Mustang spends the series hiking back from hell up a pathway of good intentions and not without stumbling. He has blood on his hands and he risks the lives of his team and children under his command (Ed and Al)—is that worth it? Mustang’s ideal society would execute him for his crimes. And yet, that’s what he wants. Oh I could talk about him so much more. What a good character.

7. Alphonse Elric

Despite spending most of the series as a suit of metal, Al is incredibly expressive. He balances Ed, but they still bicker like brothers and have their disagreements. He cares and it shows in the little things—the cats he hides in his armor, the support for his friends and respect for Mustang’s team, the willingness to hear out an enemy with a reason. He’s also a traumatized kid who encounters alchemical horrors—the scene with Martel’s death holy shit. What a scene!! He’s not always sunshine, he has trauma and he reacts in sometimes unhealthy ways. Like all FMAB characters, he’s written really well.

6. Alluka Zoldyck

Alluka! Am not gonna lie, a lot of it is that I think she’s just so cute. And despite being hidden away for most of her life and focusing on more childish things like games and hugs, she’s not completely naive. She navigates living with another being sharing her body and mind, an abusive family, and violent lifestyles. Unlike characters like Neon Nostrade or Zushi, she’s not gullible or oblivious, and doesn’t accidentally sabotage her brother’s efforts like child characters sometimes do. Also she’s so sweet when she loves Killua and Nanika! She’s also a canon trans girl who isn’t sexualized. Go Alluka!

5. Denji

As mainly a Chainsaw Man blog, Denji has to be on here. He’s grown on me so much since I first read the manga. I don’t think I can explain why I like him in such a short paragraph. He’s a dumb, broke, horny teenage boy with magical chainsaw powers from his dog. He’s been manipulated all his life. He got a good life and a family that he was made to kill and revealed to be set up so he would suffer their loss. And yet, he adopts Nayuta, he follows his promise to Pochita, he acknowledges how much his platonic relationships mean to him. He can be an asshole but at the core he’s a good person and doesn’t push boundaries to get what he wants.

4. Riza Hawkeye

Roy Mustang can’t be on this list without his queen. The reason I like them both is pretty similar. They both are fighting to atone for what they’ve done. Hawkeye is special in the way she supports Mustang’s every step. She doesn’t have to act the same as him, she’s definitely her own person with her own struggles, but the reasons I like her are just like Mustang’s. She’s also a badass. But when I think about why they are my favorites, I think of them together. Their relationship, whether you see it as romantic or not, is what makes them such incredible characters. They are the true ride or dies.

3. Power

My reasons for Powy being one of my favorites is not as deep as others. Yes she has great character growth as well in learning to care for others, but she’s feral. She has demon horns and blood weapons as is feral. She cackles when she laughs and she speaks like a 12 year old trying to write a medieval novel and doesn’t eat her veggies. She bites to show affection and her brothers style her hair for her. Her cat is named “Meowy”. She’s a mess and I love her.

2. Edward Elric

How can I talk about Fullmetal Alchemist without the Fullmetal Alchemist himself? I love this short king for his character design (badass coat, auto mail, braid with the anime hair vents). FMAB would not be a cohesive story without Ed, not just because he’s the main character, but because of how curious, smart, reckless, and loyal he is. Ed brings the cast together. His character growth is great for a child soldier. He’s powerful but still learning that the world is more than black and white. He’s insanely talented at alchemy but not for being born with it, but his passion for and experimentation even when it fails (and boy does he fail!). He has moments where he struggles with his disability and prosthetics but it does not hold him back. And he loves his friends and family so much and shows it in ways that matter to them! The Winry gun scene…. Anyways I love Edward Elric.

1. Killua Zoldyck

Hunter X Hunter is the one of the earlier anime I watched and it holds a special place in my heart. Killua is great throughout. You meet him and you’re like “sick! 12-year-old white-haired anime boy on a skateboard” and then he rips a serial killer’s heart out. He alternates between being tortured (literally) by his past and being a goofy kid who spent 1.5 million dollars on chocolate during the 4 years his dad made him fight MMA matches for a living. And then you find out he’s desperately fighting for free will to stay by the side of the only person he’s ever loved who is another self-sacrificing preteen boy who he has a suicide pact with. And then when said boy almost dies from overusing his magic rock paper scissors power, Killua breaks his sister free of their assassin family to heal him.

His magic shounen power is using electricity because he was electrocuted so much as a kid he’s immune to it. He makes (*ⓛ ω ⓛ *) cat faces. If that doesn’t tell you why I love him idk what does. He’s everything. And he’s extra special to me because he’s a tragically sad gay kid with a crush on his best friend. Hits a little close to home. The “Gon you are light” speech makes me cry. I don’t think I can actually put into words what he makes me feel. He’s just like his theme song. Listen to “The Silver Haired Boy” and you’ll know exactly what I mean.

[tuxibirdie]

I'm like only a bit sure nobody has sent this to you yet if someone has feel free to ignore this but here you go

1. who's your favorite oc?

2. who was your first oc?

3. how many ocs do you have?

4. have you kept all of your

ocs since the beginning?

5. are any of your ocs based

off of a show/book you like?

if so, who?

6. what is the species of the

majority of your ocs?

7. are any of your ocs an

original species? if so,

what's the species and who?

8. if you can, draw (oc name)!

9. write a few sentences as

(oc name)!

10. are any of your ocs part

of a story? if so, what is it

about and who's in it?

11. do you have any twin ocs?

12. are any of your ocs

siblings?

13. what is the gender of the

majority of your ocs?

14. make up a new oc right now

based on (concept/show/color/

etc.)!

15. would you ever give up any

of your ocs?

16. who is your oldest oc

(age-wise)?

17. have you ever roleplayed

as your ocs?

18. how many of your ocs were

adopted from someone else?

19. who is your least favorite

oc?

20. which oc do you think has

changed the most since you

made them?

21. who is your newest oc?

22. have you ever cosplayed

your own ocs? if so, who?

23. which oc do you think has

affected you the most as youve

grown with them?

24. have you gotten cosplayers

of your ocs? if so, of whom?

25. do you have any ocs that

you havent drawn/written as/

talked about in a long time?

if so, who?

OH MY STARS THANK YOU WAHAHAHA

OMG OK

ok. ok.o k

it's brainrot time :)

I've answered like 3 of these already so I'll just be copy-pasting the answers for those ones ^^

answers under the cut bc this is gonna be looooong hehe ☆*: .｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆

1. who’s your favorite oc?

Haruto: "Well obviously it's me. They haven't stopped thinking about me for like a month now~"

Raiden: "No, it's clearly me. Despite all the changes, I'm their longest lasting OC in terms of interest."

Haru and Den: *arguing* Olivier: "...?"

Olivier: "...What are they doing??"

Olivier's my favorite :)

2. who was your first oc?

uhhhh I think it was either Moonlight or Jasmine(??? I think that was her name)

3. how many ocs do you have?

182 and counting!

edit: more if you count the Undersociation cast, as well as the aus (yes, I've made aus of my ocs lol)

4. have you kept all of your ocs since the beginning?

[copied fr prev ask]

yep :)

every. single. one.

(I dont,,, use them anymore,,, but like they're still here lol)

addition from present me: there's actually a small group of ocs I had in elementary school that I had to let go bc I've pretty much completely forgotten about them, so I can't bring them back 😔

5. are any of your ocs based off of a show/book you like? if so, who?

[copied fr prev ask]

yep! Alice in Wonderland! I have ocs for the queen, the white rabbit, mad hatter, blue caterpillar, cheshire cat, and some in the same universe that aren't directly based on Alice in Wonderland characters.

I've only actually drawn two of them but here!

Haruto (Blue Caterpillar) and Chess (Cheshire Cat)

there's a bit more lore to it than them just. being the same characters from the story (bc,,, they're not,,,,,) (they're the descendants of the og cast) but yk lol

6. what is the species of the majority of your ocs?

Human, according to my spreadsheet. 57/182 are human. The rest are various other species lol.

7. are any of your ocs an original species? if so, what’s the species and who?

yes! a lot of them are original species just because,,, idk what species they are lmao,,,, for example: butterfly thing, fog thing, ghost??? monster????? thing??????

but do have a few original species ocs that I actually know what they are lol

these ones are the aureses ocudau! (these specific ones are named Tie and Zip!)

8. if you can, draw (oc name)!

random number generator go!

Florian!

he has my favorite name tbh ~Florian~ so fun

9. write a few sentences as (oc name)!

random number generator go! again!

Vesper! how thematic! Vesper is Florian's best friend, ehe

(I,,, am not a writer,,, oh no,,, here we go,,,,)

"Florian, are you kidding me?" "Ehehe, oops?" Vesper grabs Florian by the shoulders. "Florian. Florian. F L O R I A N. Did you seriously fall into a fountain chasing a cat???" "Haha. Perhaps..." Vesper gives Florian the Look™️. Florian flounders a little. "Listen..." "I'm listening." "In my defense... it was reaaaally cute." Vesper deadpans. "Seriously?"

10. are any of your ocs part of a story? if so, what is it about and who’s in it?

[copied from prev ask]

yesn't

they're all in one connected multiverse, and I like thinking of silly little scenarios, so technically they're all in a slice of life

with one exception!!

Undersocation!

which is a work in progress but the basic plot synopsis is that it starts as a slice of life and shenanigans with the association employees

but then the Catalyst happens and what's basically the apocalypse happens

our main characters are Sans (Spade) and Kyrian, and their main goal is to find their respective brothers, Papyrus (Clover) and Evelin

they don't know if Pap and Eve are okay or even alive, because they were out of town on a mission--but they were due to come back on the day the catalyst happened, so their status is unconfirmed

11. do you have any twin ocs?

yep! two pairs (that I remember lol) Moonlight and Midnight, and Yuuto and Yuki! (don't. question my naming conventions lmao. the first two are from when I was in elementary school and the second two have the Yu- "prefix" so to speak running through the whole family lol)

12. are any of your ocs siblings?

yes! many of them here are a few ^^ in a (slightly outdated) chart

these two (Keiran and Evelin) specifically have a new younger brother (Kyrian):

13. what is the gender of the majority of your ocs?

male, probably

14. make up a new oc right now based on (concept/show/color/etc.)!

her name is sabie :)

15. would you ever give up any of your ocs?

unless I specifically made them for that purpose (ex. adoptable, a gift) no <3

16. who is your oldest oc (age-wise)?

my oldest named oc is Haruto at a whopping 737 years old

but my actual oldest oc is his dad lol

17. have you ever roleplayed as your ocs?

yeah, kind of. I semi-roleplay as Olivier in a minecraft server I'm in

18. how many of your ocs were adopted from someone else?

none that I remember

19. who is your least favorite oc?

uhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I like all of them tho :(

20. which oc do you think has changed the most since you made them?

Raiden, hands down.

My guy got a complete design and backstory overhaul

before and after

(fuckin hell that lighting is trash lmao)

21. who is your newest oc? optional- doodle them to show!

sabie is lol

but besides her, them!

Siren!

they're Felix's older sibling (❁´◡`❁)

22. have you ever cosplayed your own ocs? if so, who?

yep! Nikolai (I only have videos of this cosplay lol, hence the blurry screenshot)

23. which oc do you think has affected you the most as youve grown with them?

[copied fr prev ask]

THIS FUCKING TWINK

his name is Raiden and he's my oldest oc that I still actually use and I am so very attached to him he's my bbg through and through

he's also the oc with one of the most batshit insane backstories lol (hint: all of those funeral pictures in the second one are *all* him)

24. have you gotten cosplayers of your ocs? if so, of whom?

nah, just me

25. do you have any ocs that you havent drawn/written as/talked about in a long time? if so, who?

[copied from prev ask]

yeah, almost everyone on my old deviantart

[z-rayed]

Sweet Elite: important update

Heya, long time no see! This update might be interesting to you.

So, some time ago two questions were asked which are about illus/rewards and key system, chapter prices and making money or so. Today, Olivier gave interesting answers and addressed the chapters topic further:

To be short:

DG have new writers and illustrators, so yes to illus. And there will be a context for the side stories, which is actually interesting;

As I understood, the key system and prices would be pretty much as usual, nothing to worry;

There’ll be 11 chapters total in S2 and they’re all fully outlined. Also there’ll be consistent updates beginning in summer. And, according to schedule, ch 24 should be written by August 13.

So yay, now we have lots of info, pretty concrete date (I actually think DG will begin to publish chaps a bit earlier than August 13) and outline of SE. Considering all days without aby info, this is (for me) pretty decent, so I’m ready to wait a bit longer for schedule with 1 chapter in 2 weeks.

Update: it can be monthly, not bi-weekly, but it’s gonna be stable still.

Thank you for your attention!

For those who are interested in me continuing to record SE chaps: yep, I’m gonna do it when they’ll be out! Buuut I think with this schedule I’m going to be poor lmao

[kudosmyhero]

The Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 3) #9: Spider-Verse, part 1: The Gathering

Read Date: May 22, 2023 Cover Date: January 2015 ● Writer: Dan Slott ● Penciler: Olivier Coipel ● Inker: Olivier Coipel ● Colorist: Justin Ponsor ● Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos ● Editor: Nick Lowe ◦ Ellie Pyle ●

**HERE BE SPOILERS: Skip ahead to the fan art/podcast to avoid spoilers

Reactions As I Read: ● I don't have anything specific against Dan Slott, but I'd like to see a different writer at some point here. Slott has some decent ideas, but he stays very surface-level with what he could do with them. ● whew what a rude awakening ● why does he keep speaking in rhyme? ● I’m kind of over seeing Spider-Men die ● Downton Webby. heh. ● Spider-Gwen’s costume is cute

● 👏👏 👏

Synopsis: The story opens with Spider-Man waking up to a phone call. When he answers, J. Jonah Jameson yells at him to get over to "Armstrong Park" to get pictures of a super villain. This is unusual, since Peter no longer works for J. Jonah Jameson. When he arrives at the park, Morlun is waiting for him, and kills him, saying "Why do I even bother explaining, when all you ever do is DIE?" It is then revealed that this is an alternate universe where Humans live on the moon.

Later, on Earth-001, Morlun's family, the Inheritors, wait for him to return from his hunt. When he comes back, Daemos asks him what world's Spidey he killed this time, and Morlun responds by saying it doesn't matter. Verna says to keep telling himself that. She then decides to go on a hunt, and her servants fetch 3 of her hounds: Sable, Fireheart and Kravinoff (all resembling characters from Spider-Man's life), and tells the Master Weaver to bring her to a world with young Totems. After she leaves, Morlun asks his brother what she meant, and Daemos tells him that the whole family knows that Morlun has been avoiding a specific thread of the Great Web. Morlun says he has been saving it for last, and when Daemos considers hunting there himself Morlun tells him to stay away from it, and Daemos remembers it is Earth-616.

Our Spider-Man from Earth-616 wakes up to see Cindy Moon, aka Silk, hanging before him. She says she has a solution to their problem, which is that whenever they get close, they feel the need to mate because of their connection, having been bitten by the same spider. She says he should move to another city, jokingly suggesting the moon, and that she could handle New York.

They go outside and swing around the city. They then run into Looter, who has stolen a Spider-Tank and Spiderling outfits from Spider-Island II, Superior Spidey's base. After dealing with him, one of the henchmen flees from the scene. Suddenly, Spider-Woman, Spider-Girl, and Spider-Man 2099 arrive. Miguel tells Peter that they need to talk.

The last remaining henchman is very confused, and is confronted by Spider-UK, MC2 Spider-Girl, and Spider-Ham, who knocks him out. Peter becomes becomes very confused, and Spider-Uk says that they are the Spiders of other dimensions and that all the strands of the Great Web are converging on him. Peter is shocked, but Mayday Parker, aka Spider-Girl, reminds him of the time they met before to calm him down and says that they need his help to stop the Inheritors. Spider-UK tells him Daemos, Morlun's elder brother, is coming to Earth-616, and all of them, including Silk, head into a portal to another dimension.

Meanwhile, in Mountain Wundagore, Eastern Europe, at the home of the New Warriors, Kaine Parker, aka Scarlet Spider, is beaten down by Daemos, who defeated the New Warriors members Justice, Water Snake, Sun Girl, and Nova. Kaine then stabs him through his shoulders with spikes coming from his arm and Daemos realized that unlike other spiders, he actually make him feel pain. He realizes that he is the current receptacle of the Other, and says he will savor him for days.

Suddenly, Old Man Spider-Man, Bruce Banner Spider-Man and a mysterious Spider-Character appear through a portal to save him. The third Spider turns out to be Gwen Stacy, the Spider-Woman of Earth-65. This shocks Kaine, and he thinks she is a clone and that the Jackal was behind it. Suddenly, Ben Reilly, the original Scarlet Spider, appears to help out. This surprises Kaine, because Ben Reilly was killed by the Green Goblin. Daemos then breaks Bruce Banner Spidey's spine and the others all escape through a portal.

Meanwhile, on Earth-13, a large group of Spider-Men are gathered. The group that saved Scarlet Spider arrive, and Peter can't process how Ben Reilly and Gwen Stacy are here. He then asks what was so special about this Earth. Suddenly, Cosmic Spider-Man arrives, and hands Mayday Parker her baby brother. Cosmic Spidey tells Peter that this is a world where he never lost the Enigma Force, and the Inheritors would be foolish to come there. However, he cannot leave his world or the Enigma Force would stay behind, but in the coming battle, he would go with them. Peter asks him what he means, and Spider-UK says there is a war coming, and they tell him he is the greatest of them all.

In the Ultimate Universe, Miles Morales is seen mourning the loss of his mother, and how he could have saved her. Ultimate Jessica Drew arrives and tells him that he shouldn't quit being Spider-Man. Miles says he isn't, but being Spider-Man cost him his family. Jessica says that he can make a new one, and that the Spiders need to stick together. Suddenly, Verna arrives from a portal to kill them, and says it's better for them to split up, because it's much better when they RUN!

(https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Amazing_Spider-Man_Vol_3_9)

Fan Art: Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse by Hammling

Accompanying Podcast: ● Amazing Spider Talk - episode 09

[mrofontaine]

He can only save one: Elena or Theo

Olivier pursed his lips, sitting back in his chair with that look in his eyes; he knew the answer. ''Elaina.'' He admitted, instantly casting his azure orbs to the floor, gnawing on his bottom lip. He loved Théo. They'd been mending that broken friendship, and now he finally thought they might potentially one day get back what they'd lost. But Elaina was everything to Olivier. ''Always her.''

[clemjolichose]

Hello!! Can I ask 2, 6, 12, 16, 35 and 41 for the writer ask game? Thank you 😊

2 - Where do you get your fic ideas?

I mostly get them from songs, words and ambiances, that give me ideas in form of images and more words. I write about these images after. My ideas also revolve around my interests and background: I am religious, I want to write about religions. I love architecture, I write about it. I am passionate about the fight against AIDS and HIV, I develop my longest story ever around that. Just as simple as that! I usually doon’t actively search for ideas.

6 - What’s the last line you wrote?

Oooh, interesting question. It’s the last line of the fanfiction that I’ll publish around Christmas!

Tant qu’il ne rentrait pas à son appartement, auprès d’Olivier, ça lui allait.

Who is that Olivier? I wonder...

12 - Do you outline your fics?  If yes, how detailed are your outlines?  How far do you stray from them?

I barely outline them. The most I do is writing down ideas in a list and then find out in what order I’ll write them, that’s all. And I don’t do that all the time, because I mostly write without that (yes, even the 30-35k words fanfictions).

16 - Do you write by hand, on your phone, or on your laptop?

90% of the time, it’s on my laptop. Sometimes on my phone and sometimes I just start fic ideas on paper while in class or in a meeting, to write later on my laptop.

35 - What’s your favorite fic you’ve posted?

Very good question. My heart is split between Amour Lavande and comme des hommes bien élevés, though I also really love “Il faudrait ne jamais devenir grand.”... Ah, it’s hard but I’d say comme des hommes bien élevés because that one is my longest ever, a real accomplishment though it’s not finished yet. And it was such a rollercoaster to write those two parts and such!! I love it.

41. Who’s your favorite character you’ve written?

I’d say Pierre in comme des hommes bien élevés. I love what I’ve done with him and how his story goes and the backstory I’ve built around my idea. If we’re talking about characters I’ve entirely created, it’s a tight fight between Sara, Maxime, Sofiane and Mélissa. Sara is fierce, Maxime is carefree, Sofiane too but not in the same way and Mélissa, sweet Mélissa is just a baby but I know how I’ll write her after and that melts my heart. She’ll be amazing. But I’d say Sara. I had so much fun writing her!! (all of them tho, and Annaëlle too, and Charlie that I love so dearly, and such).

Hope it answers your questions!!!

[ask-elland-n-will]

Hello, boys! I just want to send in an owl to say hello and to see how you both are doing. Oh! And i’m Magnolia. Seeing as my name is long, nicknames are most welcomed.

Much love

-Magnolia

[The beginning of a letter is written in very neat, meticulous handwriting with periodic flourishes as if the writer was trying to show off his calligraphy skills.]

Magnolia, so wonderful to receive an owl from you!

We are doing well, thank you for asking, and we hope you are doing great as well! I got some errands to run today: a group of five-year students is trying to organize a poetry declaration event in a couple of days and they were very late with their event submission, so I'm helping them put it all together on such a short notice. But I always have the time to answer an owl or two!

As for the nicknames, I will have to get back to you with that one~ Maybe you can tell me what you like? Sweets? Animals? Flowers? And I can go from there, picking something nice out! If I work with just your name, then Magi? Noli? Or even Oli? Oli sounds nice! Oh wait, that's Olivier... Lia then?

— William ☀️

[A less neat but still rather intelligible handwriting joins in. It does not have any distinct flourishes to it but you can tell that whoever wrote it has a very stable hand, each stroke — confident and clear.]

Will is a busy bee today, I don't know how he does it. I've been stuck on an essay for the past hour and, oh boy, am I glad for this little break, replying to you. I believe your name is rather beautiful the way it is! I really do not mind saying or writing longer names. Magnolia.

*Elland actually says it out loud a few times as he's writing the letter, as if savouring it. Will looks at his friend, giggling, knowing exactly what is about to happen.*

Magnolia. Magnolia… Your name rolls off my lips Like poetry and compliments that permeate my scripts. It's long, it's sweet, it's beautiful, and I do not believe That any nickname that Will picks same beauty would achieve.

— Elland 🌙

P. S. [The calligraphy you recognize as Will's now is back again] Don't listen to him, Lia! I'm sure I can think of something beautiful, too! Alas, I am not sure how I can compete with Els' poetry :')

[devitalise]

HI IMO I SEE UR ONLINE + PLANNING 2 SEND THE BOOK ASK THEREFORE I MUST TRY AND BEAT U TO THE PUNCH HI <3 how did your June reads go!! I see you gave ur Bear thoughts already (haven't watched yet but will return 2 it once I do), but other than that, do you have anything else on your Summer Watch radar?

beating you to the punch does make me giggle i'm sorry babe! june was an interesting reading month! answering early as i'm busy the next couple days and i love sitting down to give my full attention to the

june book wrap up

bonjour tristesse & a certain smile by francois sagan

french coquette-like teenage girls in ""relationships"" with older men, hurting the people around them? snooze! just really disinterested in the story here, and not blown away by the writing sorry

(abandoning the music links i did well to last 5 months but. yeah :))

the atlas six by olivie blake

lol. fanfic writers entering the traditional publishing space would be fine if they remembered that they have to develop characters from scratch. so much telling! not half enough showing to pay off. too large of a cast to be introduced at once and some of it felt so juvenile. i think this is YA though so like. quirky indie romance lead, brooding angry guy 1, nonemphathetic guy 2, egomaniac 3, sad distrustful person. the magic system was so boring to me it was grounded in way too much science for me to find it interesting. do readers really need to know the metaphysics behind being able to see time? no! actually i'd have liked to know something about someone that wasn't "x is like this". yeah a lot to say here.

the country life by rachel cusk

i had to return to a control point of a good book. lovely. Cusk can do it all for me and i think the woman escapes from her city life to fumble around in the country is the perfect subject matter for her. full of so much whimsy, a lot of heart and interesting characters! made me laugh and feel and reading this is in similar weather conditions just added to the sense of delirium towards the end of the book

diary of a film by niven govinden

my kind of book! film maestro travels to italy for a film festival, meets a woman and a story that sticks in his head and is overcome with the desire to commit this to screen. related to this so much, that kind of being swept up in an idea and the urge to put your all into it. had a real slowness to it, too, made a lot of the conversations feel so tender and from a real place of love. great read :)

my father's diet by adrian nathan west

so glad i saw this in a bookshop i wouldn't have come across this otherwise! so cool! if music was a book. i listened to air's moon safari that really contributed to the middle america shopping mall in the 80s vibe. sleepy town kind of feeling. anyways, i tore through this book what it had to say on turning to a physical extreme to make sense of feeling inferior internally. fraught, disjointed parental relationships. bodybuilding! i'd recommend in a heartbeat

i'm currently reading the thief's journal by jean genet and have been for about a week or so. after finishing my father's diet and my general uptick in reading i thought i'd increase my reading goal, but this is going to take me a while to read. it's hard but it's worthwhile.

i haven't really considered much summer watching tbh i'm trying to be outside and doing stuff and going places as much as i possibly can this summer and if i'm ever at home long enough to put a show on it's been reality tv lately. just a girl out in the world this summer!

next read will be #3 in the neapolitan quartet because i remember reading the first this time last year and they're such summer books to me. this feels very long! love the opportunity to wax lyrical <3

[olivieblake]

Hi there! A young fan of your work, still reading The Atlas Six! I read your FAQ and I know there’s a section on writing, which I will delve into now—-may I just ask ahead if it also touches on publishing?

I’m always curious to know the process on how self-publishing works, and then what to do when an actual publishing company contacts you and chooses to publish your work! I am a noob when it comes to these things, but very eager to learn! And the whole deal with agents and everything. How do all the papers get sorted out ☔️ please endure this from an absolute noob who still dreams of writing

I would also really like to ask how (it’s super cool and I’ve always had the same idea if I ever get to publish)——-you have multiple pseudonyms for different kinds of works/genres, like a) how do you choose, b) can your 1 agent handle all diff pseudonyms for you, c) security and privacy of your real name (most importantly!)

Ahhh it’s gotten too long already, but I just wanna say thank you Olivie Blake!! I look up to you and professionally, am very happy for you and all your works being out there and published and appreciated. I hope you might find the time to reply to this if you can, thank you so much!

hi my young writer friend, all of these questions are indeed answered in previous places! find my publishing advice for querying/agents here and also a ton of videos on the subject here. if there’s anything more specific that hasn’t been addressed before feel free to let me know!