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onenerdroaming · 7 months

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My first media review in ages! I know I said last year I'd get to Legends and Lattes as soon as I was in a headspace to write about the stories I listen to when hiking, but I'm not going to lie, saying I would review it and then forgetting about it entirely basically is my review of that book. All set up and no pay off.

Today's review is the new audible original audio drama: Slayers: A Buffyverse Story by Christopher Golden and Amber Benson.

Before anything else we have to talk about the frankly confusing discourse I've seen around Slayers. I have been following all of the new comics coming out connected to BTVS so I've honestly been shocked by this "Buffy is being disrespected and erased" discourse? There is one current long term ongoing series. This series is called The Last Vampire Slayer, and is about a world where all of the Scoobies as well as all of the Slayers save for Buffy were brutally killed years ago. Now an older jaded Buffy has to deal with a young Slayer (the only one she knows of who was not killed upon being called) who has tracked her down to beg to be trained by Buffy. Before it became an ongoing series, it was a miniseries about the young slayer talking Buffy into training her (the fact she is Willow and Tara's orphaned daughter got Buffy to decide to keep the kid from dying), which I will admit is all I read because that was all I needed to know that series really wasn't for me. I'm not a fan of that level of dark and gritty.

Honestly, the whole "Buffy is being erased" thing feels like a game of telephone being played with second hand information.

People of course tend to point to the short miniseries that recently came out where Faith arrives in Sunnydale in a position of power. The Scoobies look to her as the person in charge, because just before she arrived in an effort to try and help Buffy with her magic Willow accidentally took away Buffy's powers. This leads Willow down the path of becoming Dark Willow, and once the comic establishes Faith in her confident established position, the powerless Buffy saves the day from Dark Willow and gets her powers back in the process - reinforcing for the millionth time that Buffy doesn't need her powers to be the best at this (as in she figures out what is happening, tracks Willow down, gets Faith to act as her backup, and then saves the day). Oh, also that comic ends with canonical Buffy/Faith, Xander/Spike and Willow/Tara so color me confused about why the fandom hated it so much.

Before that we had a few other comics all of which were, of course, centered around Buffy, including a long running ongoing (the main Boom! Buffy comic) essentially about how Buffy was the best Vampire Slayer across the multiverse, where there is a massive battle across the multiverse with many different Buffys (complete with musing about how one writes Buffy in plural so truly all spellings including Buffi are valid here) and multiple multiverse traversing characters make it clear that Buffy is special because she is so important in so many worlds.

Ok, so all of that said - and here is the key thing that confuses me - this is an audio where the main draw is the original BTVS cast are reprising their roles.

Buffy fans know that neither Sarah Michelle Geller nor Allison Hannigan have ever, ever, in the history of BTVS supplementary materials, played their roles. Not for the PS2 game Chaos Bleeds (where literally every other member of the cast played their character), not for the never actually picked up or aired animated series, not for the Season 8 motion comics. This is something Amber Benson (who was in Chaos Bleeds) and Chistopher Golden (who wrote Chaos Bleeds) would most assuredly know from the start of the plotting process. It is also possible they were asked and said no - all of that said, truly the chances of either of those actresses appearing was less than zero.

That means there were two options - recast them the way those prior projects did (which dragged alllllll of them down and would muddy the whole ORIGINAL CAST RETURNS appeal) or write a story that makes sense without them (or Xander, but truly fuck him and I am glad to report he's only name checked like one time in the entire story). So of course Buffy does not appear in the story (although a wild drinking game would be to take a shot every time anyone talks about how amazing she is. In the story itself Cordelia demands that Spike, Clem, Giles and Indira stop talking about how great Buffy is all the time because it was getting old). This also means that as amazing as the cliffhanger at the end was, it felt more like a massive bone being thrown to the fans for the purpose of fanfiction rather than setting up any future story, since obviously they will NOT be able to continue with the set up plot due to casting concerns.

Ok - so now to review the audio itself. I will confess, I was not a fan of Spike's narration at the start of each episode. But my irritation with him evened out as the story went on and the cast moved past Spike and Clem. I loved the fact that our new character Indira is a massive fangirl, there to endlessly exclaim over how cool Buffy is as she tags along. I loved the way the alternate universe was used to explore different versions of the characters we know and love. Cordelia as a jaded Slayer with PTSD was fascinating, as was Anya as the lone witch left on the side of good freaking out over having to face down her best friend. Evil Tara and her relationship with Dru was of course an absolute delight. But of course the role that most impressed me - and the only actor in the audios who sounded 100000% exactly the same as she did back when the show was airing - was Drusilla. Wow, talk about an incredible performance from Juliet Landau. I also really loved the role Clem played in the audio, it was so great to have him fleshed out more and playing such a key role in the cast.

Actually ok, I lied a bit, another actor's voice was fairly unchanged and immediately recognizable. That of course was someone I was not excepting to hear and I actually shouted when that character popped up because well... with the amount of success that actor has achieved I didn't think they'd be here. But through the power of their personal friendship with Amber Benson, there they were! That was a really fun surprise cameo and I am not going to spoil who (although if you are curious this actor's inclusion in the cast is listed on the internet).

There were a few such cameos - the audio did a great job folding in those fun little reward moments for Buffy nerds. Also it gave us Anyanka as a yappy dog? I did not know I needed to hear Emma Caulfield Ford play a vengeance daemon as a tiny dog, but I am so glad this audio gave it to me.

I don't want to spoil too much of the story, but I very much had a blast listening to this, and would highly rec. it. As much as I really really really loved the ending and would love to read a million fics exploring what happens next in that universe, I am pretty sad that it is unlikely we will be getting the story the cliffhanger implies.

Truthfully I really hope this audio is not a one off and we can look forward to more Buffyverse audios in the future. Plus, who knows, maybe if they are successful enough even SMG may one day get involved (although I feel that really is a long shot).

#slayers a buffyverse story #I wrote this having just got home from a hike so I am sure it is terribly written but I'd rather just post it then fret over it

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queen-tashie · 8 months

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Writing Whispers

Tagged by @mrbexwrites (go check out her post!)

Rules: find a few paragraphs of writing from as long ago as you can. Re-write them how you would now.

Leaving this one as an open tag today! :)

I actually have a good comparison project from my very first attempt at writing (and finishing) a novel!) It's from an old high fantasy project that I never did quite get round to finishing, but did attempt to re-write one NaNo a few years back.

2008 - from the first novel I ever tried to write, so early on before I really understood what writing meant to me that I didn't even have a placeholder name for this story, the file is literally called "Second Draft Novel." It's also not a second draft haha, just a second attempt at it with a different starting angle. (bonus points if you can manage to understand what the characters are from this excerpt)

Valdore flew up into the air. Arian jumped up after him. Failias followed Valdore, trying to block whatever Arian might do to harm his brother. Arian spun around and did a swift kick, knocking Failias to the ground. He jumped up after recovering and head butted him in the stomach. Arian winced, but wasn’t shaken by it . He flew towards Failias, and grabbed him by the neck with both hands. Arian hurled him into some rocks on the river, making a loud cracking noise. Failias went limp. Valdore, who had been flying up very high, dove straight at Arian. He dodged it with amazing speed. Valdore almost hit the ground, then turned around to find his brother right behind him. Valdore was pinned to the ground, unable to move. His head begun hurting terribly again. The scab had come off and he was bleeding.

2023 - how I'd write it now (if I decided it was a good idea to try to resurrect this horrible idea XD)

Before Failias could stop him, Arian threw his weight at him with a kick, knocking Failias to the ground. Arian wasn't letting his brother escape this time. Failias kicked off the ground after Arian, gaining on him quicker than Arian had expected. With thick horns, Failias headbutted Arian in the gut, stopping him dead in the air and knocking the wind from his lungs. Arian gasped for breath as he grappled with the bastard, the father that abandoned him. No, he was his father no longer, just an obstacle between him and Valdore, his brother. When he caught his breath, he spun in them the air, still connected to Failias but his grip was faltering. He gained momentum enough to throw Failias from his grasp, sending his back into the cliffside below. He impacted the cliff with a crack and went limp as he fell to the river below. Suddenly Valdore was on top of Arian, clawing at his eyes and neck. Arian tried to shake him, but Valdore pressed on, driving the two of them towards the ground. Just before impact, Arian rolled in the air, placing his brother between him and the earth. The impact still hurt. A lot. But Valdore took the brunt of it, and judging by the massive wound in his skull, Arian had finally succeeded.

#excerpts #my writing #writeblr #writing #tag game #this is a very very very old story lol i don't even think my re-write shows i've improved much. it's just such a bad idea of a story haha

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lulullia · 1 year

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Lyphuriaa Progress Report #1

Well, it's been a long while since my last post, because since then I've been in input – or learning – mode and spent my days absorbing information on my favorite topic: storytelling.

Before that, I was really creatively blocked, unable to do anything but stare at the screen trying to get my body to f-ing move and start drawing, writing, or coding – with little success. And so, in the process of searching for stuff to consume and kill time with, I remembered a favorite, huge resource I had already started reading but needed to finish, and that's how I ended up switching to input mode.

Lesson learnt: sometimes, if you're blocked and taking breaks doesn't help, it may just be because you're trying to output when you're really in need of input. That can take the form of inspiration (like browsing Pinterest or going back to a favorite book/movie/game…) but also actual education (like an online course or book, articles and videos on the topic, etc).

And sure enough, as I was expanding my knowledge on storytelling, I couldn't help but go and apply that to my current projects. I'll summarize the progress made on Lyphuriaa (or more like massive problem-fixing), and also share the two amazing resources I've been binging at the end, if you're making stories too!

Bird's eye view on the plot

For the longest time, Lyphuriaa was mostly in my head, and the plot was nothing more than "Lulu's life". That's because I started imagining it when I was a kid, and so it was never properly structured the way a story ought to be. Almost exactly a year ago, I realized the problem and started fixing it, cutting the boring parts, beginning the story at a more exciting point, changing up variables…

The result was already something that felt way more like I'd enjoy reading it myself, more mature and cohesive, but it still very broken structurally. It's only these past few weeks/months that I really started digging deeper and fix the core.

The core being, of course, the three basic components of a story – the Story Goal, the Protagonist (person pursuing the goal), and the Antagonist (person in opposition to the goal being achieved). Yeah, Lyphuriaa was that broken. Let's see how exactly, and then show the current fix.

The problems

The story goal was super fuzzy. I knew it was something along the lines of "taking back Lyphuriaa to rebuild it" but NONE of the characters, or events actually worked towards it. I also had no idea on the actual steps to fulfill it. Something fuzzy like "board airship or ship, fly/sail to the place, remove any stupid goons tryna stop you, plant flag, done! then epilogue showing the place rebuilt!" Plus, I didn't have enough details on the situation on Lyphuriaa (the place), like Why did it get abandoned if its people were literally genocided to take over the land? What's the situation outside Lyphuriaa – do the winners still have their eyes on it, don't care about it anymore, still claim ownership of the land? What about other countries? etc, etc.

The protagonists – Lulu and Vlad – are completely fleshed out as characters, but the problem was within their personal goals and motivations. If I just let them do whatever they wanted, they'd go live on a boat and sail the world, not "take back Lyphuriaa to rebuild it". I just struggled immensely to tie them to the "goal" somehow. That's part of the reason why none of the plot points worked towards the goal – the main characters don't even care about it. At some point I even considered the fact that maybe, they're not meant to tell this story, and that I should change either the goal or the protagonists.

That antagonists, well, they were almost non-existent. They're the least developed element. I just knew there was one group trying to get Lulu to use her unique power to open portals so that they could invade (a plotline that's now scrapped, because I figured a threat coming from inside the world is more interesting than one coming from outside, plus, I want Lulu to be special because of what she does, not what she's born with). And another group, the ones instigating the Lyphurian war, who don't want Lyphuriaa to be rebuilt again. And that's all I knew about the people who are supposed to bring as much conflict to the story as possible. Needless to say, they really did nothing throughout the story, it's as if they only woke up at the end when the cast finally set foot on Lyphuriaa, or something.

The glaring, glaring problem that took me a lot of time to spot, is the absolute lack of conflict. I had a 2k words outline of the story, but it was just about Lulu, Vlad and a few others going on about their life, smoothly. Then there were a few events that really had nothing to do with that, aka the "main plot".

Nothing is connected

I literally have a line saying, "somehow they find her father". Like, is it something that happens randomly (in which case it's lazy), or is it unimportant enough that we don't even need to show how it happens (in which case why keep it at all?), or it's supposed to be part of the plot (in which case why have the protagonists never even show a sign of wanting to do that)…?

"Somehow" is a red flag practically all of the time in storytelling, as it breaks consistency and believability. I know that in the outline, I wrote "somehow" as a shorthand for "this needs to happen and I have no idea how to connect it so I'm leaving it to you, future self :D" but even so it's a symptom of a larger problem underneath.

Literally the last bullet point of the whole outline: "I almost forgot that the story isn't Vladleen but Lyphuriaa. So I guess here be adventures to take back Lyphuriaa! yay!"

Random fluff adding dead weight

Another easier to fix problem was scenes or entire plotlines that were completely unnecessary to the story. As I said Lyphuriaa exists since my childhood and so, there were a lot of random stuff I added because I thought it was cool and I had no idea how to make a properly structured story, but that I never questioned when overhauling it. It's only when I realized that nothing is set in stone until I say so, and that I'm not bound by these boundaries just because they've been here a long time, sometimes even since the very beginning, that I started cutting stuff and, most importantly, change key parts to make them infinitely more interesting.

The scrapped plotline. The stuff about a virus, and Lyphurians having a special purpose, is scrapped too. Cutting such a huge part of the story led to literally no consequences, and felt so relieving.

Playing around with key variables

For example, I was under the assumption that Vlad can only come in later in the story and not the beginning, and that the Liance between him and Lulu can only happen waaay later when they start having feelings for each other. But one day I had this idea: what if we start the story at the point of their meeting, and have them be lianced right then and there, maybe even against their will?

And that's how one of the key moments in Lyphuriaa was born, bringing a ton of conflict and interesting situations and characterization with it to the table that could never have happened otherwise. Now both protagonists are on-screen right away (especially since Vlad is the most interesting out of the two at first), the Liance functions like a character arc for both of them because it's a problem they have to overcome, that results in a much more interesting relationship than just lovers, and is also an interesting concept to explore right off the bat that can play a part in hooking the reader, and on and on. All of that just from changing two variables.

Yeah, I write a lot in my notes. It's helpful to order my thoughts in the present, and leave a trace of the past for when I find it again in the future.

The fixes

This is getting very long, I wonder if you'd prefer if I split posts like these in parts…

The story goal – thanks to some adjustments and lots of inspirations from the resources below, I could finally find a goal that is similar to what I had in mind, but also agrees with the protagonists and antagonists. Even though I'm presenting this as three bullet points, the truth is, it's all interconnected and should be worked on as a whole, not just one at a time. So, now the main goal of Lyphuriaa is, "to (re)build a place where all Lyphurians can call home". It's not only clearer, but also more personal, and ties in perfectly with the theme of the story (finding the people you belong with – whose side you can call home).

The protagonists now have proper motivations and goals that align with the story goal! They became tied to it way more naturally, plus it connects with the theme again and provides conflict: Lulu is a Lyphurian, and because of her species' defining traits simply cannot feel like she belongs amongst Vampires and other people. Even better, she doesn't feel safe. Lyphurian blood is a luxury for Vampires, their horns valued products, and their glowing skin scare people away (especially since most people aren't aware of the existence of Lyphurians; they may be ghosts for all they know). And thus, coupled to something else that is spoilers, she sees Vlad as the perfect opportunity to stand up for her people and make a place where they can feel at home, together (Vlad has money and means). And what better place for this if not their original homeland? (The only issue still left is to tie Vlad into this as well, I already have an idea for this that also ties into the theme of finding home that needs tweaking, but it's spoilers too so I'll leave it at that.)

The antagonists… are still the least developed, but at least now I'm clear on who are the antagonizing groups, and what's their goal so I can build what they'll do on top of that. I still need to go closer and build them as individuals and give them a personal stake. What's certain is that I want them to be smart and unpredictable, playing an intense game of "who is actually one step ahead the other?" with the protagonists. They are active, just as active as their enemy. There are also a couple other surprise major characters that don't fit in either category, but will stir trouble in trying to achieve their own personal goals – aka pushing the story forward.

You can see the difference, now the story is packed with conflict and potential for conflict everywhere. It's starting to take the shape of one intense ride! There are a ton of little tweaks that improve the story overall, here's a few…

Everything is interconnected

Sharp contrast to how it was before, now every event serves a purpose in either the main plot or in major subplots (I took the time to clearly lay out the different plotlines, that's what the very first image is about; each "row" is one plotline). Not only that, but each character has a link to the main plot, or at least thematic relevance.

The side-character I'm most excited about is Ava, Lulu's bestie. It's through her that a lot of Vladleen's relationship is brought out, because these two mostly don't need to actually talk, they can just send brain signals. Ava is the kind of person who has no filter, can't read the room, but can easily spot subtle differences around her. Kinda hard to explain, but she does a good job of getting Vladleen to show themselves to the reader. Plus, she's gonna be the center of a very big choice (aka conflict) both Vlad and Lulu will have to make, you could say the ultimate choice that will show who they truly are, what they care about more than anything else (and thus ties into the theme as well).

Little preview of this energetic and fun character~

More playing around with variables

As I was reading up on the resources mentioned before, key points of the story kept getting challenged. Long-lost heir to a throne as a plot twist? Check. Heir characterized only by their blood? Check. Mentor who comes take said heir and push them forward themselves instead of letting her walk by herself? Check. Protagonists only acting after antagonist strikes, and never before? Check. Mentor keeping key info secret for no reason? Check.

That's a lot of hidden clichés I was aware of but thought I had added enough uniqueness to them, and I'm glad the articles made me see them in their true form and their bad consequences. So I took all of those and more and switched variables around.

The most important change was a set of tweaks to Lulu and her "heritage". She not only isn't a good fit to be a ruler, but also doesn't want to rule (remember when I said the MCs didn't care about the goal?). I didn't have any specific reason as to why her bloodline was special and why it had to be the ruling one. All of this made her into something I really didn't like: a person defined by what she was born with, not by her actions. She would have never been on this path if she didn't have this blood and powers. I don't know if you can see it but, it all feels like her actions are determined by her blood; she would have always made the same choices even if circumstances were different; she doesn't have free will. And when you know that protagonists' most important role is to make choices… Well.

So the first thing I did was dig into the bloodline's origin, which made me realize that if that's how it originated, then there should be more than one family with the same special characteristics, not just one. Just this change implies so much: the bloodline alone doesn't give you a right to the throne anymore, and Lulu can just rally her people and lead them to the goal, and step down then; Lulu is no longer the only one who can unseal Lyphuriaa, if there are other families, and thus her decision to do so anyway comes from inside her and not outside; imagine the amount of exciting stuff (aka conflict) that can happen with having other bloodline members around!!! and so much more.

Lulu getting back her agency to do what she wants is the highlight, though. I remember reading/watching a pretty long manga/anime (won't say the name to not spoil) where at the end it's revealed that everything that happened, only happened because a higher entity kept resetting time until they got the course of events that they wanted to see. It truly made the whole thing meaningless, just like "it was all a dream!" endings, it means the characters never earned anything by themselves, they're just puppets; I want to avoid that at all cost.

As much as I'd like to keep writing, I think I've covered the most important parts; this is long enough as it is.

Zeroth draft

Alright, I'm done talking about the plot changes, here's something more concrete: I think I'll participate in Camp NaNo this july to get a "zeroth draft" started.

Basically, that's a draft before the first draft. It's not meant to be the first stage of the final product, but something more meta before it. I have no pressure to make it make sense; I just write with what I currently have and improvise to fill in the gaps. What I actually write can range from detailed description of the action, to one-line scenes such as "here they fight". A barebones text that I can then use to make the actual first draft, later.

This is all because, for the longest time I thought I was a planner, but it turns out I may actually be a pantser, discovering the story as I write it. So I want to put that theory to the test and write like a pantser during Camp NaNo. I really, really want to write this story.

Here's a link to my NaNoWriMo profile, where I set myself a goal of 20k words for this month. I have no idea whether it's big or small, we'll see. (feel free to add me if you write too.)

This post took me a whole day to write, but I had fun summarizing these past months' progress. I also really want to try out animating a scene, and coding a prototype with it, but I'll make a post about that when I have something to show.

If you made it this far, I thank you sincerely. I know that people who enjoy long-form content aren't extinct, but it's getting harder to find them. Reblogging and sharing helps, but a simple like can let me know it's reaching some people at least c:

Storytelling resources

Two big resources that pack a ton of valuable advice and storytelling principles.

Limyaael literary rants – about 400 individual essays, mostly geared towards fantasy. Helped me improve my story in so many ways, and I'm still halfway through it. Start from the beginning, everything is useful.

Filmento – an absolutely incredible channel, each of his videos feel like a university-level lecture on storytelling and sometimes cinematography. The video is separated into clear points, always taking example from a movie, so you can see it in action, and it's super engaging and funny to boot. Most of the stuff applies to stories in general, don't let the word "movie" scare you! See his "Film Perfection" and "Anatomy of a Failure" playlists especially.

Taking notes is a must, if I had read/watched through all of these without taking notes it'd have been a monumental waste of time since I'd have forgotten all of it. Also, it's not enough to take them, if you can't find them later, be it tomorrow or in a year (looking at you, people who take notes in Youtube comments).

My Obsidian vault has close to 1,000 individual notes, and in 99% of the time I can find any note I need in less than 5s, even if I don't remember the note's title, because I have so many different ways to search for it. So find yourself a tool that helps you use your notes, not just create and forget them.

After only a few days of reading/watching, when I came back to my story's beginning that I previously thought was perfectly fine, I could 1) immediately spot problems and 2) immediately know how to fix them. Literally, I'm tempted to say that's all you need to learn storytelling in-depth.

Enjoy!

#lulullia #progress report #lyphuriaa #storytelling #storytelling techniques #writing resources #camp nano 2023 #camp nano july 2023 #writing

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rhosinthorn · 1 year

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What happened to your FT fics?

I got an ask about Chained Dragon recently that made me realize that while I may be bad at keeping everyone updated in general, I’m really bad about talking about my FT fics.

TLDR: They’re not dead, they’re just difficult and it’s because of me. More detail below the cut.

Okay, so this is going to get a smidge personal but writing is (somewhat) personal to me and it ties in with what’s going on with my FT fics.

Sometime between 2008 and 2011, I was introduced to manga by a few different people. I read a couple of different things, but by 2012 I was following Naruto, Skip Beat, and Fairy Tail (plus a few other smaller ones). My entry to fanfiction as a genre didn’t start until 2013-2014ish, but writing fanfic wasn’t on my radar at all.

And then, in January 2015, Fairy Tail 416 came out.

My brain would not shut up. I had several different theories for what Lucy was up to after Tartaros. So I started writing, by hand first and then on my computer. I had a notebook that I carried with me that I used to draft scenes when I was away from my computer. (Fun fact, that still exists and I found it a while ago!) These theories turned into Strength of Spirit and Still Standing.

Eventually, I worked up the courage to start posting, starting with Strength of Spirit. Then, when that finished, Still Standing. The epilogue to Strength of Spirit, Raise Your Glass. A few side bits. Ship Weeks. Dabbled a bit in RWBY because I was having feelings about Season 3.

And all the while, I was still reading Fairy Tail. And if I’m honest, I was losing a lot of my love for it.

Personally, the Alverez Arc/anything after 416 is...really not my taste. And I think (though I can’t confirm) that it felt that way to a lot of people. I don’t want to get into debates over whether it was good or bad, but it was starting to really rub me the wrong way.

Which was a problem, because I had committed to a sequel to Still Standing, titled Frontlines, that would cover the Alverez conflict.

Every chapter, I looked for something that would spark an idea. I knew I wasn’t going to be drawing from canon, but I needed to work at least a little with what was happening. Why put myself through adding OC villain characters when Mashima was handing them to me? But nothing was working, nothing was clicking, and to top it off, things were very chaotic in Real Life that a) limited my writing time and b) sapped my energy overall.

So I just...stopped working on Frontlines. Updates slowed and ceased because I was in a massive block and didn’t have a backlog. Chained Dragon got hit with the same issue, because even though it wasn’t covering the Alverez arc, it was just...Fairy Tail. There was a CoLu I wanted to write, covering the “gap year”, but that never made it out of the notebook in any cohesive form. We Always Find Our Way Back Home was my last ditch effort to do something in the fandom, a crossover (different enough to hopefully break the block) and a NaNoWriMo project (to keep me honest).

It wasn’t enough (as the last 6 years show).

Now, I honestly haven’t touched Frontlines in those six years, until maybe three months ago. I found my old notebooks, and in them some notes about potential ways I could wrap up the Alverez conflict. My brain started scheming again, and I kicked around (word vomited) some ideas with my partner in crime. There’s a fresh document with words in it. Not many, not enough, but it’s more than I’ve managed in 6 years. Chained Dragon has had some work done from time to time, and Lucy and Acnologia are just being stubborn about figuring out where we go from there. But I did pick it up and work on it in the last three months or so.

They’re not dead. They’re just...really dormant. But I want to finish them. I don’t want to just label them as abandoned because I know people used to read and enjoy them. I used to enjoy writing them, until I didn’t. But I want to.

So yeah, for anyone who’s still around, I’m really sorry. When I started posting, I didn’t expect the Alverez arc to have such an effect on my creativity. But I’ve taken a break, dabbled in a few other fandoms, and hopefully I’ll get those two out of hibernation and finished.

I’ve started watching Fairy Tail again, from the beginning. I’m hoping that will help.

Thank you, for your comments, for your rereads, for checking in every so often, because that just...when I think that you guys have written it off, I consider just giving up and abandoning them. To know that you still remember, still are patiently (or impatiently) waiting for the rest of it? That helps me stay resolved to finish them.

#rhosinthorn's soapbox #my writing #fairy tail #frontlines #chained dragon #seriously though #you guys are saints #they will be finished #it may just take time

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weaselandfriends · 2 years

Note

you have mentioned before on here some abandoned story ideas of yours (for example, that one you said was like stranger than fiction which ended up warping into modern cannibals/cleveland quixotic). any other interesting abandoned story ideas you've left behind over the years? special reasons for not doing them? any you might go back to?

I don't have too many abandoned ideas. I'm not someone who gets a lot of story ideas in general, and usually I have to really work with them to bring them to a level of coherency necessary to write. I often nurture my ideas for 4-5 years before I start writing them, and it's rare after thinking about one for that long that I throw it out.

I had an idea to write a sports story about professional League of Legends, since I'm a long-time fan of that scene, but the recent mockumentary Players came out that does exactly that, so I dunno if that's an idea I'm particularly interested in pursuing anymore. A few years ago, after finishing Modern Cannibals, I tweeted about an original urban fantasy story set in Rhode Island, indicating it would be my next story, which it wasn't, but the story isn't abandoned and after significant changes, including a change in genre from urban fantasy to horror, it's in a state where I can more confidently say that it will probably be my next project after Cleveland Quixotic.

Other than that... I once had an idea for a story in which an unnamed main character (referred to in the second person) washed up on a tropical island and had to go on a series of quests loosely based around the story of Legend of Zelda Link's Awakening to get into a tower in the center of the island. Meanwhile, the main character's story would be commented on by a series of characters seemingly watching or reading the story as it unfolded, except the commenting characters were temporally displaced and it would be a puzzle to sort out who said what when, with the story itself also being written by one of the commenting characters. The island story would end with the You character reaching the tower and causing the island to disappear (again like Link's Awakening), at which point the second half of the story would start, with the commenting characters becoming the main characters as they participated in a battle royale of sorts in the empty, post-apocalyptic waterworld that remained. This was a very cutesy, very meta idea obviously inspired by stuff I was reading at the time like Homestuck and House of Leaves.

Story ideas are strange. The vogue right now seems to be big, easily-describable elevator pitch type ideas that suggest the entire structure and trajectory of the story in just the premise; the actual execution of the idea, then, is rarely any more exciting than the elevator pitch itself. This isn't just what's popular on, say, RoyalRoad, but also in the mainstream; Stephen King is like this, a lot of the big teen dystopia/paranormal stuff is like this, and so on. (It's a byproduct of how agents screen book proposals.) I never really get elevator pitch ideas, ideas I can encapsulate in a sentence. Usually I'll build my entire story around some massive upheaval that happens in the middle of the story, or an unusual character progression, or even completely backward out of an idea I had for a climax. Basically the entire idea of Chicago, for instance, developed out of the idea I had for DuPage's return and Hegewisch and Clownmuffle becoming essentially the villains; everything else was designed around getting to that point.

Of course, this makes it difficult for me to articulate my ideas in the summaries that precede the work, summaries that are usually the main thing drawing someone to read, which has probably played a part in my continued obscurity.

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trulyinspiringmovies · 2 years

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Thor: Love And Thunder

“Thor: Love And Thunder” feels aimless and runs itself into the ground with a flurry of unfunny jokes.

Thor has been hanging out with the Guardians Of The Galaxy. He’s pulled away from them when he’s told that a god-butcher named Gorr is coming to New Asgard. There, he meets his ex-girlfriend, Jane Foster, who is now wielding Mjolnir. The two of them together aren’t enough to stop Gorr from stealing the children of New Asgard. They must now amass an army to stop Gorr before he kills all gods.

A lot of people are frustrated with this movie and I feel like they’re having a hard time pinning down why. To be completely honest, I’m feeling the same way too. There’s a lot wrong with this film, but it’s hard to attribute what’s exactly causing this frustration. The first thing people are talking about is superhero fatigue. Like many people, I think I’m starting to experience superhero fatigue. But at the same time, I’m not 100% convinced that I am. I thoroughly enjoyed “Moon Knight” and “The Batman” and there are some superhero projects that I’m excited about. Maybe then it’s not really superhero fatigue and more so mediocre superhero movie fatigue. It’s no secret that the superhero genre is oversaturated now and it seems like a lot of these projects either exist to cash in on all the hype or exist out of obligation rather than inspiration. The Marvel television shows are also contributing to this oversaturation. Although “Loki” and “WandaVision” felt important to the MCU, they haven’t really been. Wanda was used poorly in “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness” and the ending of “Loki” hasn’t come into play in over a year. Every MCU project also feels like they exist just to set up the Young Avengers without attempting to make them interesting. Kate Bishop, America Chavez, Billy, Tommy, and Cassie Lang just don’t really seem exciting because the movies or shows they were set up in don’t do a good job at giving them equal spotlight attention as their predecessors. All of this has nothing to do with the actual “Thor: Love And Thunder” movie itself. In my opinion, the mediocrity of this film opened an opportunity for fans to finally vent their frustrations about Phase Four they were already having. The Guardians Of The Galaxy interacting with Thor was teased in “Avengers: Endgame” and I was excited to see what that would be like. Too bad the idea gets abandoned in the first few minutes. There could’ve been massive potential with pairing the group with Thor. Peter Quill could’ve met Jane and talked about her cancer with her since he had his mother taken away by cancer. That could’ve been a powerful moment that we’ll never get. Thor and Star-Lord could’ve shared a moment since they both lost the love of their lives. Mantis could’ve helped Thor reconcile all the trauma he’s been through. Thor and Drax would’ve been a powerhouse comedy duo. Groot has a special connection to Stormbreaker, so the movie could’ve teased something about that. Instead, the Guardians are thrown away so Thor could goof off. The movie thinks it’s being funny when it just hurt to watch. It sucks too since I’ve heard a lot of people think the screaming goats were hilarious. It wasn’t funny a decade ago. It isn’t funny in an out-of-touch blockbuster now. Jane’s cancer was the only thing taken seriously, but it never opened the opportunity for Thor to grow as a character. I mean, come on. Jane is selfless enough to sacrifice her own health for the greater good and uses that to fuel her purpose. You’re telling me Thor didn’t take any notes from that? Christian Bale’s Gorr was probably the best part of the movie and he’s only used sparingly. I would’ve loved to see more of him because he genuinely felt like a threat to the MCU as a whole, but he dies so that Thor could have a daughter. I hate that this movie makes you sit through insufferable jokes to set up for a future movie that doesn’t seem interesting at all. It feels like a waste of time for both the audience and the people making this uninspired movie.

★★

Watched on July 27th, 2022

#Thor: Love And Thunder #July #2022 #Action #Comedy #Superhero #Adventure #Science Fiction #Fantasy #PG-13 #Taika Waititi #July 2022 #2 stars

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burningthetree · 2 years

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1, safe and warm for 5, 10, 34 (or really your favorite thing about your style), and 45 for the fic questions!!

much love 💖

Evie!! I'm booping your nose right back <3

1. What fic of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read any of your work?

I think either one of my Sakuatsu one-shots or my longer Sakuatsu fic. I wouldn't recommend the Bokuaka one because it's MCD and also incredibly long. If you like MCD, then by all means, go ahead with the Bokuaka one. Otherwise safe and warm.

5. What do you wish someone would ask you about safe and warm?

I put a lot of thought into the character constellations. I struggled a lot at first choosing which characters to write about – I had the idea for the plot, I knew I wanted to write the story, but I had like…I think nine or ten different character constellations for it and I couldn't decide, until I ultimately settled on Sakuatsu + Kuroo (with Iwaizumi and Ushijima as the side characters/antagonists (more or less)). For our main trio, I mainly connected them to their school banners (Atsumu -> we don’t need the memories, nasty of me considering he has amnesia lol, Kuroo -> connect, Sakusa -> effort; and this all neatly connects with their motives and actions in the story), as well as some canon elements (like Sakusa thinking that Kuroo looks like a con-man, so I made him a con-man because it fits his character best). For Iwaoi, I thought that love would be a great motivation, and for Ushijima, he just has a vendetta against Oikawa which is a fun play with canon. There’s going to be more characters but I’m not going to spoil it, but I spent at least two weeks on constructing the characters like this until I was satisfied with it lol

10. How do you decide what to write?

It’s always very much dependent on my mood. Like I need to be in the mood for a certain story in order to actually make progress on it, otherwise it’ll just be extremely frustrating (hence why I often have multiple stories ongoing at the same time). I also never write out of order for a story, so I go pretty much chronologically safe for a few dialogues that might come up at a later point, but never a fully fleshed-out scene. So if I’m in the mood for the next scene in a fic, I’ll write that. If not, I’ll write something else, and if need be, start a one-shot that I may or may not end up posting

34. What aspects of your writing are inspired by/taken from your real life?

I draw a lot of emotion from real life because it makes it much easier to write certain scenes. Like, if there’s a highly emotional scene (there were plenty in forget me not), I will connect it to something I had to go through irl and relate it to how I felt in that situation to make the writing process of describing those intricate and delicate emotions as best and relatable, and realistic most of all, as possible. That also leads to me massively projecting sometimes and trauma dumping in my writing but no one will ever really know for sure what is fiction and what isn’t lol

As for my favourite thing about my style, I use alliteration a lot because it makes me ridiculously happy, or any other literary devices like metaphors or similes or asyndetons/polysyndetons, all these kinds of things to convey subtle meaning through language use that I am absolutely obsessed with because of studying linguistics. So maybe that’s my favourite thing.

45. What's something you've improved on since you started writing fic?

I started writing fic when I was ten, so…almost 13 years ago so there’s a LOT that I’ve improved on because obviously age makes a huge difference. I got better at understanding the characters and their ideals and I also got a better grasp on canon, which (I think so at least) gives me the ability to write the different relationships better and draw out the scenes/story a lot more than I was able a couple of years back. I also used to write on a very irregular basis, and I am now actively trying to write every day or at least take notes on my stories each day so I don’t distance myself from it too much if life gets busy. Something I also learned is to properly draft and outline my ideas to assure that massive writer’s block doesn’t happen (it still does, sometimes, but not as bad as before).

#if you know me irl and you see this no you didnt I never talk about fic writing shhhhhhh #asks #evie #big big love you!!!#thank you for making me talk about these <3 #julie is writing #julie is rambling #I ramble a lot and I didn’t proofread either so rip if there’s typos or any other errors lol

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hikaruklaus · 1 year

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Heya, my name is Klaus. I'm a hentai artist and professional game developer. This post acts as an introduction, as well as a semi-incoherent rant.

... Enjoy?

I'm in a bit of a rut at the moment, I haven't been happy for a while now and I feel like I need some sort of space to write about my thoughts and stuff. I know very little about tumblr and how it works, which is part of the reason I picked it as my little "vent space". I've never been fully active on social media, but I know that I really hate Twitter, Facebook is frustrating to use, TikTok is overwhelming and irritating, and Reddit has a lot of unnecessary negativity floating around constantly. Hopefully this place is a little bit better. I'm not expecting people to follow or even see the stuff I post, but I hope the environment is less hostile and irritating than its competition.

I'm in my early 20s, and I'm a real goddamn nerd (you know, in case the whole "game developer and hentai artist" introduction didn't make that obvious). I love Nintendo games, heavy metal, cats, and vtubers. I have an off-beat sense of humour, don't know how else to describe it. Earthbound and Monkey Island kind of stuff.

I'm definitely on the weirder side (again, in case that wasn't obvious), at least partially because I'm autistic. I doodle ahegao faces while waiting for meetings to start, I have a compilation of various Hololive vtubers screaming as my alarm in the morning, and I have a Spotify playlist that jumps from Metallica's recent "Screaming Suicide" to the full version of that "Japanese Goblin" song that went viral like a year ago.

I'm a massive degenerate (in case that wasn't obvious [3× COMBO]). I have the whole starter package, a daki, an oppai mousepad, and like a dozen physical doujinshi.

They say tattoo artists shouldn't be tattoo artists unless they themselves have been tattoo'd, because they should know what the experience is like.

...Let's just say I'm glad the same doesn't go for hentai artists.

I speak a variety of languages, but I'll primarily be posting in English. Might throw in some Japanese dialogue into a drawing or something if I'm in the mood, it happens.

I've studied both art and game design. I'm a character artist/animator, and a generalist game designer. Don't feel like I'm particularly good at either one of them to be honest with you. : P

I use Clip Studio Paint EX to draw, and I'm slowly getting used to its animation tools as well. (I've mainly used OpenToonz, Krita, and FireAlpaca in the past, but I love the CSP brushes and layout so much that I'm trying to switch over entirely.)

I have experience with a lot of game engines, ranging from the Unreal Engine (aka my mortal enemy) to the much more simple and comfortable GameMaker Studio. I've worked on a variety of projects, some solo, others with different groups of people. Very unlikely anything you've played though.

I'm probably going to be posting a hentai drawing or three here. I tend to draw lewd shit when I'm sad, dunno why. Never had a place to post them before. I might just post a quick 5-minute sketch, or maybe a rough animation. I don't really know yet. Might do it daily, might do it once every few months.

Like I said, I haven't been happy for a good while now. I jump in and out of depressive episodes pretty often but this one's managed to last for a little longer than they usually do. I would love to tell my friends about it, but I just feel like I'd be a massive nuisance to them.

There's a lot that's bothering me, and I feel like I have to express it somehow. I'm not really a fan of "venting" on the internet, maybe because it reminds me of my teenage years, I don't know for sure- but posting it here feels "safe", it's in some random blog post no one will read, not an alarming message on discord or whatsapp, so I won't have to worry about bothering anyone, and I'll still get to write about how I feel.

Nothing I do feels right. My drawings look bad. My conversations are stale. My sleep schedule is fucked. My code is messy. I know things will get better eventually, I've been through this before, but it's hard to convince myself that that's actually the case and not just something I'm making up.

I've been feeling extremely lonely lately. As you can probably imagine if you've read all the stuff written above, I'm not exactly what you'd call a "chick magnet". I haven't been in a relationship since I was in my mid-teens, and the one I was in back then was long-distance. I haven't held a girl's hand since I was five or so and we were practically forced to do so in kindergarten. I've never kissed anyone in my life. I'm awful at nonverbal communication, and I get really jumpy whenever someone touches me, neither of which are great in a relationship. Finding someone with the same interests as me is practically impossible. I googled a whole bunch of statistics a few months back and came to the conclusion that every time I meet someone in the country I'm currently in, there is a 0.000773% chance that we have some interests in common, are both attracted to each other, and that they are single. (Oh yeah, I like numbers. Forgot to mention that.) That 0.000773% is obviously just an estimate, but I tried to be as "fair" as possible with the calculation. I very rarely leave my house, my eyesight is really rough so driving is out of the question, which means meeting new people is a rare occurance. At this point I feel like the best move might just be to give up and accept that I'll be alone forever, but that just makes me even sadder.

My real name isn't Klaus. It's an alias I came up with a few years ago that I only ended up using once to post a drawing. The drawing in question was on the lewder side of things, and I didn't want it to be associated with my other alias because no one knew about my "un-seiso" drawings. I've improved a lot as an artist since posting that old drawing and decided to pick the alias back up.

My reason for this isn't that my drawings are some kind of "DEEP DARK SECRET" that I have to keep from anyone- to be completely honest with you, I don't really care if anyone finds out what my main alias is. I just want to keep my hentai drawings separate from my more, ahem, "family friendly brand", that's all.

Sorry for rambling so much. It's very, very late, and I should be asleep by now. Bless your heart if you actually read all that crap. Cheers.

PS. Unless I decide to change it in the future, I realised right before posting this that I never set a profile picture, so I doodled an ahegao face as fast as I could, and for some reason I actually kind of like it. Really wish it weren't off-center though, might fix that tomorrow.

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lokiondisneyplus · 3 years

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Loki director Kate Herron’s heart was beating fast. She’d already had some surreal experiences during her short time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so a simple phone call shouldn’t make her nervous. But on the other end of the line was Owen Wilson, an actor and writer she admired and hoped would join her on a time-jumping journey through the MCU.

“It was the most detailed pitch I’ve ever done, to an actor, ever. I pretty much spoke through the entire first episode with him,” Herron recalls of wooing Wilson, who wasn’t too familiar with Marvel before being cast as Mobius, an agent for the mysterious Time Variance Authority central to the series.

Wilson instantly put Herron at ease with his laid-back charm as she walked the actor through 10 years of onscreen lore for Loki, the god of mischief played by Tom Hiddleston. She answered his questions about Avengers: Endgame, about time travel, about how this version of Loki was not the one fans knew from films like Thor: Ragnarok, but rather one plucked from an alternate timeline from 2012’s The Avengers.

It was all part of a whirlwind few years for Herron, who not that long ago was temping at a fire extinguisher company and struggling to land directing work even though she’d already helmed a BBC project with Idris Elba. Then Herron finally achieved breakthrough success directing episodes of the Netflix hit Sex Education and soon was hounding her agents for a Marvel meeting.

When Herron finally landed one, the Loki superfan cleared her schedule and spent two weeks putting together a 60-page document, even though her agents tempered her expectations by noting it was just a meet-and-greet.

“I knew I’d be up against some really big directors, and I knew I wouldn’t be the most experienced in the room, so I [said], ‘OK. I’ll just be the most passionate,'” recalls Herron.

Just a few days after officially landing the job, Herron found herself on a five-hour walk through New York with Hiddleston discussing Loki and flying to D23 in Anaheim to be greeted by thousands of screaming fans alongside Loki head writer Michael Waldron.

Herron is now working long days finishing up Loki in Marvel’s production hub in Atlanta, where the British filmmaker has largely lived since getting the job in 2019. Over Zoom from her freezing Atlanta apartment (she still hasn’t figured out the quirks of the air conditioner), Herron dives into Loki ahead of its June 9 debut on Disney+.

What was your process of sitting down with Marvel for this?

I was just so overexcited. [My agents] were like, “Look, it’s just a casual conversation, they just want to get a sense of you,” and basically I was like, “OK, I’m just going to pitch them.” Because I thought, they might not meet me again. So I got as much information as I could, and they sent me a little bit about the show. And I just prepared a massive pitch for it. I canceled everything for two weeks. I made a 60-page document full of references, story ideas, music. I knew I’d be up against some really big directors, and I knew I wouldn’t be the most experienced in the room, so I [said], “OK. I’ll just be the most passionate.”

Was that first meeting in Burbank?

That was in England, in southeast London on Zoom. I had a few stages where I did that. Then after a few interviews with Kevin Wright and Stephen Broussard, two of the Marvel executives who got me ready for the big match, I went in to pitch to Kevin Feige, Victoria [Alonso], Lou [Louis D’Esposito], the whole team there. That was very surreal because they flew me to Burbank and I pitched at Marvel Studios. I didn’t have the job, but I found out they were interested and then I remember Kevin Feige called me, and when he was in London, we had coffee. He was like, “Look, we want you to direct it.” Oh my God. They flew me to D23 and that was crazy because I think I found out I got the job 48 hours before, and then I was onstage. The Lady and the Tramp dogs were in front of me and Michael [Waldron] on the red carpet. “What is going on?” (Laughs.) I met Tom that week as well, so it was a bit of a whirlwind kind of thing.

📷Herron, Waldron and Feige at D23 in 2019.

Where did you first meet Tom?

I had a two-stop trip. I flew first to New York to meet Tom. He was in Betrayal at the time, on Broadway, so we basically went on this amazing walk around New York. I’d never met him before. We just spoke about Loki and what was really important to us about the character and where we thought it would be fun to take him, as well. It was this intense, five-hour conversation with him basically. I met him and then flew straight from meeting him to D23. So it was a lot. (Laughs.)

When did you finally get the scripts? How did that change your thoughts on what you want to do?

They sent me the outline, so I knew the overall story. I also was pitching stuff. “Oh, we could do this with this character.” The pilot was really well written by Michael and I really liked what they were doing with the character and the story. Then it was building upon that and throwing in ideas for where he could go later in the show. It reminded me a bit of improv where you’re always building, always trying to push the story to the best place. So we were always adapting and shifting the story. Our lockdown, during COVID, was a chance for us to go back in. I was cutting what we’d done, so I was like, “OK, this is tonally what is really working for the story.” Then we went back into what we hadn’t filmed and started adapting that stuff to fit more where we were heading.

The Marvel movies have a writer on set to help tweak things. Was that the case with Loki?

Michael [Waldron] was with us at the start, and then he went on to Doctor Strange [in the Multiverse of Madness]. We had a really wonderful writer called Eric Martin from our writers room, and he was our production writer on set. It was between me, him and my creative producer Kevin Wright. We would kind of brainstorm and adapt. I’ve always loved talking to the cast. We had such a smart cast. Owen is a writer as well. If you have that amazing resource, why not talk to them? We were always adapting. Obviously paying respect to the story we wanted to tell from the start, but always trying to make it better.

📷Herron on the set of ‘Loki’ with Hiddleston and Wilson.

Kevin Feige has said Owen Wilson, like his character, is nonplussed by the MCU. Since Owen isn’t necessarily dazzled by Marvel, does that make him all the more perfect for this role?

He is playing a Loki expert, so at the beginning of production, Tom and I were talking. He devised this thing called Loki School. He did a big lecture to the cast and crew. I love the character. This is a decade of fans loving this character and where that character has been. It was talking everyone through that, but through Tom and his own experiences. Stunts that Tom liked or costumes. He ended up doing that same Loki school for Owen. Owen absolutely loved it. Owen has such a writer’s brain. I remember I had to pitch him down the phone. My heart rate [was up].

Was this the pitch to get him to get Owen on board?

Yeah. I love his work. “Oh my God, I’m going to talk to Owen Wilson.” He’s so laid back and nice, it immediately puts you at ease. It was the most detailed pitch I’ve ever done, to an actor, ever. I think I pretty much spoke through the entire first episode with him. You can tell he’s a writer, just by the way he attacks story. His questions about the world and the structure and the arc of the character. It was really fun to work with him.

Was it the most detailed pitch you’ve ever done because you really wanted Owen, or because you knew you needed to woo him a bit to get him to sign on?

It was the questions he asked, and the way he attacked story, in that sense. And also probably because he was newer to the Marvel world, he was like, “OK, how does this work?” I also pitched him Loki’s arc over the past 10 years, where that character has gone, but also explaining our Loki and what happened in Endgame and time travel. There’s a lot to unpack in that conversation.

Sometimes Marvel will give writers or directors a supercut of all the scenes of a specific character. Did you get one of those?

They didn’t actually give me a supercut, but I’m a big Loki nerd. I think his is one of the best [arcs] in the MCU. I really wanted to make sure we were paying respect to that. At the same time, something Tom spoke about a lot was you have to go back for a reason. Let’s be united on what that reason is and feel that it’s worth it.

The reason can’t be, “Well that’s what happened in Endgame,” so the question becomes, “What is the point of revisiting him at this era of his life?”

Yeah. He’s only had — I don’t want to get this wrong — I think 112 minutes of screen time in total if you cut all his scenes together. And he steals the show. We have six hours to really delve into this character and talk about him and go on this completely new story with him. For me, it was making sure that [we’re] paying respect to what has come before — I know as a fan if there is a character I really loved and I found out they are making a show about him, I obviously would be so excited and so happy. I felt lucky to have the responsibility, and I took it very seriously.

Those who have worked with Kevin Feige say he’s someone who can stress test an idea and push things in new directions. What have you found working with him?

Something I always found was we would sometimes pitch something, and it would be at a good place, but he’d always be like, “OK, that’s great, but push it further.” Sometimes I’d pitch stuff and be like, “This is too weird,” and he’d say, “No, go weirder.” He wants to tell the best story and I found it really helpful having his eye across everything and the fact that he does challenge everything. Tom as well, on set. He brings this amazing energy and this great A-game that causes everyone to rise to the occasion.

How do you know when you’ve got the perfect Hiddleston take? Is he asking you for one more, are you pushing him to do one more take?

By the end, it was almost telepathic. We would kind of know. We would look at each other. “We could go again,” or, “We’ve got it.” It’s different with every actor. There are some actors who will come in firing and they just want to go for it. But they don’t want to do a million takes. There are other actors I work with who are very meticulous and they want quite a few to warm up and get into it. It’s actor-dependent. The way me and Tom are similar is we are both very perfectionist. We are both very studious. (Laughs.) We definitely connected in that sense. He’s a very generous actor. I remember one day, we had quite a few of our actors coming in as day players. It was really important for him to be there for them, to read lines offscreen. He would have to be 50 places at once, because he is the lead actor. The most amazing thing about him was his generosity. Not just to the other actors, but also to the crew, to be filming in a time like COVID.

When you make an Avengers movie, you get a big board with every character that’s available, and whether the actor’s deals will allow them to appear or if that would need to be renegotiated. Loki is smaller, but was there any equivalent for you? Was everything on the table? Was only some stuff on the table? I imagine if Chris Hemsworth has his own new Thor movie coming up, he’s not going to be on the table, necessarily.

I felt like everything was on the table if it meant it was good for story, and Marvel would be like, “We’ll work it out.” Me and the writers, we never felt restrained in that sense. Honestly, it always comes back to story.

What is your relationship with your editor as you finish this up?

We have three editors, Paul Zucker, Emma McCleave and Calum Ross. My relationship with all three of them is very different. Emma and me are very close because she was also in Atlanta away from home. I got to know her very well. I love working with the editors because it’s a fresh pair of eyes. You get so deep into something when you are filming, it’s almost like writing it again when you are in the edit. Stuff does change. Even some episodes, we’ve reordered the structure. Or we moved scenes from one episode to another episode. I’ve always loved the editing process. The best thing is someone honest who can be like, “Hey, this doesn’t quite make sense to me,” or, “This isn’t working.”

What are you going to do on premiere day? Will you be on the internet at all to see the reaction?

I’m actually working. I’m still finishing the show. My last day is the day the second episode airs. I’m going to be working that day. Sadly, I’ll probably check in on the internet a little bit, but I’ll probably go to bed when I finish because I think I’ll do a 12- or 13-hour day or something. I can’t remember. I’m really excited for people to see it and just to bring it out in the world, really.

Everyone wants to know about spoilers, but what’s something you wish you were asked about more when it comes to Loki?

Kevin Feige said, “We make movies. We want to run it like a movie.” So unlike a lot of television shows that are showrunner-led, this was run like a six-hour film. As a director, you don’t often get to do that in a television-structure show. I really enjoyed it, having a hand in story and just how collaborative it was. Also, just beyond that, directing the equivalent of a six-hour Marvel movie was incredible for me. That’s something I found interesting about it. Making something the Marvel way.

In terms of the themes, I love gray areas. The show is really about what makes someone truly good or what makes someone truly bad, and are we either of those things? Loki is in that gray area. It’s exciting to be able to tell a story like that. As a director and a writer, you don’t necessarily understand why you are making these stories. Something I keep getting drawn back into is identity. Sex Education, we spoke a lot about identity and feeling like an outsider but actually finding your people. I feel the same with Loki. It’s a show about identity and self-acceptance and for me, that’s also what drew me in.

Gray is a good way to describe Loki. Your version of Loki just tried to take over the Earth not long ago.

Exactly. This isn’t the Loki we’ve seen. How do we take a character that people love, but from a lot earlier, and send him on a different path? That for me was interesting, getting to unpack that. Alongside that, getting to set up a whole new corner of the MCU with TVA. That to me was so exciting.

What about the Teletubbies? You referenced that recently and it made quite a splash. Are you going to leave people in suspense on that?

I referenced the Teletubbies once and people were like, “What, Teletubbies? What does this mean?” Maybe I should leave people in the air with it. One thing I would say is the show for me, stylistically — I wanted it to be a love letter to sci-fi because I love sci-fi. Brazil, Metropolis, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Alien. If people love sci-fi, they will definitely see the little nods we’ve got across the show. People will know what it was a reference for when they see the show. It was a visual reference to something in the show.

Interview has been edited for length and clarity. Loki debuts on Disney+ on June 9.

#Kate Herron #Loki #interview #loki series

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nutty1005 · 3 years

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Exclusive Visit of 72 Hours! Full Record of “A Dream Like A Dream” Behind the Scenes

Original Article: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/yI4arm9P9nJwE3RMSUW-5Q Original Author: 杨晋亚 Translator’s note: The original author is part of Yuli Studio, this article is published in Yuli Studio’s Weixin Official Account on 23 Apr 2021 as a part of “Behind the Screens” Volume 640.

On 22 Apr, “A Dream Like A Dream” Wuhan Charity show was still in the midst, countless related topics were already on Weibo Hot Search.

This is probably the hottest play on the internet till date.

A big intellectual property that lasted for 21 years, and now with the addition of the hottest celebrity, debuted for the first time as a Charity Show in honor of the heroes of the pandemic last year, “A Dream Like A Dream” contained stories on stage and backstage.

Before the official start of the play, Yuli Studio walked into the backstage of “A Dream Like A Dream”, and entered the dream in advance.

“A Dream Like A Dream”

Celebrity Cast

On 19 Apr noon, 15 minutes before the first full dress rehearsal for “A Dream Like A Dream”, there were not much audiences, they were all in the lotus pond seats.

Overall producer Wang Keran was suddenly notified that there was someone recording secretly, he immediately called the executive producer Da Shan to check, who had already expressed multiple times that audiences were not the take pictures. Wang Keran face turned gloomy, loudly accused Da Shan of incompetency, stood up, “Trusted friends who are currently seated, I hope that everyone would protect the actors, stop filming.”

Afterwards Wang Keran told us, his anger then was actually “for show”, that situation needed him to make a stand, scold Da Shan so as to alert everyone else, “I needed to kill two birds with one stone, control the scene, protect the actors.”

Xu Qing, Xiao Zhan, Zhang Liang, Huang Lu… the addition of many celebrity actors, caused the interest in “A Dream Like A Dream” to increase.

Protecting his actors, was something that Wang Keran always did ever since he built this group.

Yanghua Theatre and Baoli Theatrical Center collaborated and did some massive and intricate work, in order to ensure that protection project was as per usual, “The theaters put in a lot, the meager profits that this project is giving them, can’t completely cover their massive investment.”

Wang Keran also helped to block countless signature and photograph requests for Xiao Zhan, his good friend had came from afar to Wuhan just for a photograph with Xiao Zhan, but Wang Keran did not agree, “I promised a clean creative environment for my actors.”

The “A Dream Like A Dream” group tried their best to give all the actors an equal, harmonious creative environment, and in here, there is no celebrity actor Xiao Zhan, only Patient No. 5 B.

In the backstage of the Wuhan Qintai Theatre, the plaque on the door of Xiao Zhan’s resting room was not labelled “Xiao Zhan”, but “No. 5”.

Director Chen Limei and Zhang Rui said that the group did not treat Xiao Zhan specially as a celebrity; Actress Huang Lu, who portrayed the role Jiang Hong, had the most scenes with Xiao Zhan, she said that everyone was just actors.

Privately, Xiao Zhan would treat Huang Lu fruits, as well as recommend good motives to her, Huang Lu said, working with Xiao Zhan was not much different from working with other partners, the only difference was that there were suddenly a lot of Xiao Zhan fans leaving messages on her Weibo, most of them were messages of encouragement and support.

“A Dream Like A Dream” , Xiao Zhan, Huang Lu

During the very initial rehearsals, the director closed Huang Lu and Xiao Zhan into a small practice room, in order to cultivate tacit understanding.

“When we were rehearsing the French portion of the play, I knew he was from Chongqing, I would suddenly use French translated to Wuhan dialect to talk to him, what d’ya wanna eat what d’ya wanna eat, and then he would suddenly reply me in Chongqing dialect.”

Huang Lu remembered, when Xiao Zhan entered the group, he had already memorized all of his lines, the tacit understanding between them were built up within 3 or 4 days, and on the details of the performance, they would also inspire each other.

For example, the biggest reaction from the audience in the Wuhan show was the scene in the Parisian apartment, actually contained Xiao Zhan’s designs, when they spoke the lines “Monday Wednesday Friday Tuesday Thursday Saturday and Sunday”, Xiao Zhan suggested that the two of them would lean their heads on each other, so as to give a better effect.

When the two of them were conversing in comedic Japanese scene, there were traces of the old version of the play, but there were new creativity as well, “Pikachu” was from the old version, whereas “sleeping” was an idea that Xiao Zhan came up with.

“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xiao Zhan, Huang Lu

The duration for “A Dream Like A Dream” was long, the lines voluminous, there was once during rehearsal, one of the actors had a sudden breakage and his lines became more and more scattered, voice lower and lower, that day Director Chen Limei gave him a stern talking to, but in the director’s memory, this problem never occurred to Xiao Zhan.

“Xiao Zhan was very serious, we could all feel that, every night after he went back, he definitely thought through his scenes once more, so that he would not make this kind of mistake.”

Xiao Zhan expressed that his familiarity with the lines had gone to the state that he could say it “whenever”, he was more focused on the “current feeling and the chemistry with his partners.”

Xiao Zhan was very strict with his own expectations, on the 19th after the first full dress rehearsal, there were many audiences who gave his performance good reviews, but he said, “I’m not quite satisfied with today, it wasn’t as good as yesterday.” Although the audiences did not spot any problems with the lines from the scene ”Monday Wednesday Friday Tuesday Thursday Saturday and Sunday”, but after the performance ended, Xiao Zhan himself felt that there were some slight flaws.

“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xiao Zhan

The lotus pond seats in “A Dream Like A Dream” to Xiao Zhan was a challenge, it made it easy for him to lose concentration, and once you had lost it, it would be easy for the scene to scatter, he described, “the feeling in concerts is that you need to interact simultaneously, plays to me meant that I need to make myself lonely”, so he needed to make sure he could ignore the audiences.

Wang Keran invited theater critics to view the play for the 19th’s full dress rehearsal, after the upper half ended, they were exclaiming in praise of Xiao Zhan’s acting, Wang Keran also proudly recommended this newly found actor to people around him: “He had a different layer of creativity process, the first day we’ve finished the script, he surprised me onstage the second day, it was green but came with a lot of accurate instincts. He constructed the character to be intricate and abundant, but yet layered, not just emotional scenes, everyone could burst into emotions, but he was intricate, lively and entertaining, he conveyed the soul of the character, his sense of pace was this good.”

“A Dream Like A Dream” Performance Stage

The story of “A Dream Like A Dream” and Xiao Zhan had to begin with the Cao Yu 110 Anniversary Special Event last year.

In 2019, Wang Keran heard of Xiao Zhan’s name, but he quickly forgot about it. “Then I was in Wuxi, there was a large excited crowd of people, said that the hottest actor, Xiao Zhan, was in there.”

Until 2020, a psychiatrist friend told Wang Keran, to take note of this actor Xiao Zhan.

“Before then I was an older person, I’ve always picked actors above 35, but after the psychiatrist finished talking, I started subconsciously noticing this person, and then I found out that this person was really interesting.

How interesting? There were a lot of people attacking him, I thought I’d understand what these attacks were, I found out that these people were a contradiction of the most realistic things and most hypocritical things, this era’s idols were different from 5 years ago, they are now placed on a pedestal as a symbol, as something to be fought over or stepped upon. Via Xiao Zhan I noticed the new pulse in the development of society, understood this movement, art should be something that is most compatible with the times, my personal view on plays is just like this, plays should be the current drama action of this moment, and the emotional relationship of the people here and now.”

“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xiao Zhan

The commemoration event for Cao Yu, Wang Keran needed to find a young guest who could have a conversation with Wan Fang, a colleague suggested Xiao Zhan, Wang Keran suddenly realized, this was perfect, “The complexity on Xiao Zhan would fully represent the complexity of plays.”

The first time he met Xiao Zhan, Wang Keran captured the mysterious sense of fate behind his back, but yet he also gave a sense of youthful obtrusiveness, gentle and warm. Wang Keran gave Xiao Zhan a list of books and asked him to go back and read, after which Xiao Zhan finished the books in a few days, even wrote some 10 over questions to Wan Fang, the questions were simple but deep, and moved Wang Keran.

On the Cao Yu Commemoration Event, Wang Keran studied Xiao Zhan, and found that his sense of stage was fantastic, and immediately invited him to join “A Dream Like A Dream”.

To Wang Keran, the similarity between Xiao Zhan and Patient No. 5 was that they were both trapped in the uncertainties of fate.

Xiao Zhan’s portrayal of Patient No. 5 gave Wang Keran a pleasant surprise, as to whether he would continue as Patient No. 5 after this year’s shows, they had not spoken about it, but Wang Keran felt that “A Dream Like A Dream” already gave Xiao Zhan some rewards, “I feel that via this play, he can prove that he is a good actor, I feel that ‘A Dream Like A Dream’ gave him a power.”

“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xiao Zhan

Entering the Dream Again

Not only Xiao Zhan was a new addition, the Yanghua version of “A Dream Like A Dream” had almost a brand new cast.

Zhang Liang and Yanghua had collaborated for 2 plays, they were old friends; Huang Lu was recommended by Xu Qing, she was also the only actress that was confirmed without meeting Wang Keran.

Director Zhang Rui was in-charged of arranging actors, but because of the pandemic, the Taiwanese actress who was supposed to play the role of the wife could not arrive, another actress had to take on this role. “A Dream Like A Dream” had a total of 31 actors and actresses, many times one would take on multiple roles, any adjustment of actors would have big ramifications.

Zhang Rui created many versions of the casting chart, “This casting chart was an intricate process, move an actor, we might need to reallocate every scene, whether they could make the scene in time, whether they were suitable, reasonable, I’m so frustrated my hair’s dropping.”

Starting from 2013 when “A Dream Like A Dream” premiered in Mainland China, Director Chen Limei and Zhang Rui grew with this play for 9 years. Chen Lipai previously also handled the role of Stage Executive, Zhang Rui was with the crew everyday, there were the two who were most familiar with “A Dream Like A Dream”.

In their memory, the first rehearsal for 2013 lasted 3+ months, after which if there were not much changes with the actors, repeat rehearsals would last 1 week. Some years they had to change an actor, but yet they did not give sufficient rehearsal time and almost drove the actor insane, “Because the crowd actor had to act as multiple roles, the management of every role was complex, he needed to remember his position, his clothes, and he had to depend on himself, there would be no one backstage to inform him, he had to take care of himself.”

“A Dream Like A Dream”

This year, more than half of the cast was changed, theoretically they needed one and a half months, but to gather 31 actors to rehearse at the same time was not easy, the group merely squeezed out 17 days for practice time.

Practice time started officially from 9 Mar, the group settled in Hebei Tangshan, the time was tight, the mission was heavy.

Lai Shengchuan, who was faraway in Taiwan, gave instructions via video conferencing to the actors, to help answer their questions. Wang Keran, Chen Limei and Zhang Rui handled the task of direction.

Wang Keran mainly handled the mini classes to the new actors to the group, every actor had different classes to attend.

Huang Lu was a movie actress, her method for lines was to say to herself, but “A Dream Like A Dream” was to say them to 1200 audiences, Wang Keran gave her a training method, “He made me rehearse only with Xiao Zhan, each of us would stand at the furthest corner, but we must be able to hear each other’s lines, that is we needed to get used to speaking loudly, I felt that this method was actually quite crucial.”

“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xiao Zhan and Huang Lu during practice

When he first entered the group, Zhang Liang was tortured by the role of the Baron for 3 days, he totally could not find the sensation, Wang Keran gave him 3 days of progressive classes. The first class was to control the micro expressions and movements, “For example, the first day I reached Tianxian Court, he requested that when I did gestures, my hands could not be higher than my chest, when we normally spoke my palm would face up, but he said that the Baron could not have a moment where his palm was facing up, his palm would forever be facing down.”

The second class was culture class, discussing European culture, politics and artistic background, so as to understand the motives behind Baron’s actions. “Baron would not let Xianglan draw abstract art, made her start from still life, it actually had political connotations. Classical realism represented calm and control, whereas abstraction and symbolism, etc, developed from the lowest of the masses, represented the destruction to order, Baron hoped from the bottom of his heart that Xianglan would live with him, if you liked something he didn’t like, that represented betrayal to Baron, that’s where the cracks in their relationship started.”

Chen Limei and Zhang Rui understood every detail of “A Dream Like A Dream”, when the actors gave any small questions, they would immediately solve them.

For example, how to swiftly get into positions, what to wear after changing out, both directors could immediately give the correct answer, “We found that this time round that one of the new actors was slow in moving, he would say he could not make it, I would say you definitely could make it, you tell me why you couldn’t make it, I would know where you did wrong. He said it was very dark and he couldn’t find his bag, and he needed to take the gun from 2nd floor to the 1st floor, I said there’s another prop gun downstairs, you don’t have to carry it down, he said he didn’t know. We actually spoke to him after observing him for a few days, because we knew that the 2nd floor was very dark, we definitely had to ensure the safety of our actors first.”

“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xu Qing, Xiao Zhan, Zhang Liang, Huang Lu, Lan Nan, etc.

The time left for the directors was not much, rehearsal, costume, positions, etc, all had to be done simultaneously, the volume of “A Dream Like A Dream” was supposed to be large, there were pressures on progress, the experience for the whole group was basically demonic scheduling.

For example, for 22 Apr Charity Show, the schedule for the actors that day was like this —

10:30 to 11:30 Actors and actresses would set of from their hotels to the theater for make up and costume; 12:30 Lunch; 12:30 Microphone testing; 13:10 Warm up; 13:30 Audience entry; 14:00 Start of Charity Show.

After nearly 8 hours of performance, when the actors were having their media session it was already 30 minutes past midnight.

Everyday they worked for around 12 hours, that would be the normal hours for the group for the month, during practice they did not wear their make up and costume, but they still had to set out by 12:00, practice starts 13:00, 17:00 was dinner, 18:00 was practice again, and they end at 22:00.

“This time round we really went for it, we didn’t work this hard previously, because we changed very few people then, we could probably get to the practice at 2pm,” Chen Limei said.

“A Dream Like A Dream”, actors practicing

The tight rehearsal schedule was a challenge physically to the actors, as they practiced day and night everyday, even Huang Lu felt lost once.

“Because we would be acting the same thing everyday, everyday when you went in, it was day, but when you left, it was night, that period of time I really craved a normal life. There was once we were video conferencing with Teacher Lai, I just said that after this play, I suddenly feel that plays, movies weren’t that important, what’s important was our real life, I especially wanted to experience communicating with people, the feeling of being with family, friends and loved ones.

When you filmed dramas, you would still be outside, after you knock off you could be in touch with a more realistic life. When I was in the same play group as Zhang Ruoyun, we practiced in Beijing, everyday we practiced for around 3 hours, we could still meet friends in the afternoon and night, but this play was concentrated practice, when we left it would already be midnight.”

“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xu Qing and Huang Lu during practice

Wang Keran could foresee, that actors would experience this type of lethargy, so the arrangement from the very beginning was that after the 17 days of practice, the group would briefly rest for a period of time, until a week before the Wuhan Show, where he would recall them.

This method of working was not easily seen in plays, but to actors, this was a good time to rest and digest.

“The first day we returned, Keran said that was the best time I’ve acted with Xiao Zhan,” Huang Lu said. “Perhaps in-between I had time to digest, get in touch with real life, and had a new understanding.”

In comparison with “A Dream Like A Dream” from 8 years ago, besides the changes in actors, this year’s Yanghua version also shortened the script by around 15 minutes or so, without affecting the foundation of the script.

The adjustment was mainly on the pace of the actors. For example, at the end of the upper half, the housekeeper of the castle would talk about the past of Baron and Gu Xianglan, it used to use a slow and narrative tone, Wang Keran felt that it was not right, “This type of expression seemed to cause Grandpa, who just arrived at Shanghai, to seem unfamiliar with his surroundings, but in fact, Grandpa was very familiar with the castle, he could have returned frequently, like the feeling of a tour guide,” so he adjusted the tone and pace, and made the play richer and more layered.

“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xu Qing, Zhang Liang, Lan Nan

Every improvement in detail, came from written notes from everyday.

When rehearsing, both directors would sit in the middle of the lotus pond, with a small table, and a faint table lamp, the actors would be acting while the directors discover problems and mark it in the script, or write furiously on white paper, after the end of a day’s rehearsal, the paper would be littered with over 200 to 300 notes.

After the rehearsal ends, actors would sit together in the lotus pond and listen to the directors reading the notes one by one, every actor would record down their respective portions.

Xiao Zhan’s phone memo was full of everyday’s notes, for example there were around 10 notes for 19 Apr, Xiao Zhan’s note taking method was simple and concise, note down the scene, or a point, with the remarks of watch out for emotion or pace.

In Zhang Liang’s memory, with regards to his notes, there were up to 20 notes a day, but later on as the problems lessened, the notes also reduced.

Director Chen Limei said, some actors would be confused, why were there always 200 to 300 new notes everyday during the note session, did that mean that they had not improved, but actually everyone was getting better on the basis that they were already getting better.

“A Dream Like A Dream”, the directors at the rehearsal

There was a process in practicing, at the start you might not have memorized all the lines, that note would be about lines, when the lines passed, it could have been about wrong position or movement, at the last part when the acting was getting better, I might notice intricate details such as costume, hairstyle, which you needed to notice carefully. Every stage had its own set of problems discovered, only when you walked from Step 1 to Step 2 that I can see the problems of the current step, otherwise my focus would not be that.”

For example, on the last day before the official show, the note for Xiao Zhan became “the singing before the curtain call, stand slightly westwards” this type of small details.

After experiencing the full dress rehearsal of 18, 19 and 20 Apr, the last day of rehearsal became “note rehearsal”, that is to repeatedly rehearse based on the problems in the notes so as to affirm the scenes that could easily cause issues, including the group scene at Tianxian Court, the scenes between Baron and Young Xianglan, etc. For Xiao Zhan and Huang Lu, the scene they rehearsed was the propless scene around the staircase, which needed to take note of the eye contact as they two of them went up and down the stairs, entering by pushing the door.

After the premiere on 22nd ended, the notes continued, so as to have new improvements for the consecutive shows.

“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xu Qing, Zhang Liang, etc.

Idealism

After the full dress rehearsal ended on 19 Apr, all of the actors gathered backstage, surrounding the directors, quietly standing, it seemed like a special ceremony.

For the new actors who joined this year, this was their first time witnessing this ceremony, but to the actors who had been with “A Dream Like A Dream” before, this had already became a habit.

Director Chen Limei introduced that this ending ceremony was called “Echo”, it was a habit from Lai Shengchuan — a habit that existed since the first premiere in 2013, “When we finish a show, and gain the applause from our audiences, as well as new empathy for our roles, we must return this feelings out, give them to more people, you can imagine that there was a large crowd of people, we would send out these blessings and share them.”

After “A Dream Like A Dream” came to Mainland China, it had always been well acclaimed, it used to show in Beijing and another specific city. Starting the 9 Cities Tour, especially adding the Wuhan Charity Show, was also a form of “Echo”, to share this play with even more audiences.

“A Dream Like A Dream”, Wuhan Charity Show inside view

2 years ago, in Chongqing Theatre, Wang Keran came up with the idea to get more people to understand theater, experience theater. He started conceptualizing the 9th Anniversary 9 Cities Tour for “A Dream Like A Dream”.

When they heard of this plan, Chen Limei and Zhang Rui thought it was an impossible wish.

“Because ‘A Dream Like A Dream’ was such a large play, we would actually lose money by doing a tour. Such a big group, there’s about 130 people in the group, so many people’s living expenditures, including putting up the set for each location, it takes a week to put it up, only for a few shows.

Until the start of last year, Keran told us that we would still do it, I said we really had to do it? How could we do this in the pandemic? Last year he said that we could definitely do it the next year. This might had to do with his view of life, he would do what he set out to do, just like then when he did his first play, he sold 4 houses.”

In comparison with previous “A Dream Like A Dream”, the investment of this tour was obviously bigger. More touring cities meant that there was more costs with transfer of set, when they rehearsed in Tangshan it was not as good as Beijing, all the actors had to be in Tangshan with their living expenditures.

On the other hand, the seats in the theaters were fixed, there’s a ceiling to the ticket prices, in the face that it was not profitable, Wang Keran included a not-for-sale charity show, “The cost is too high, after completing the charity show, we basically have no profits for this stop,” Wang Keran said.

“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xu Qing and Xiao Zhan during rehearsal

Early last year during the pandemic period, Wang Keran already thought of doing a charity show in Wuhan.

Then, he spoke on the phone with the person in-charge of the theater, and asked about the situation in Wuhan, “He had always stuck to Wuhan, and told me that if you really cared about us, then you should bring your best show over, I asked which one did you mean? He said ‘A Dream Like A Dream’. I just felt that if ‘A Dream Like A Dream’ did not come, it would not fully express our special respect for Wuhan, and we would do a charity show, free.”

The actors had the same idealism.

Wang Keran said, theater would definitely be tough, the rehearsal time was long, and while they would perform for 3 days in every stop, they had to allocate 1 week for practice, a popular artist’s time would be calculated in days, but they were willing to allocate their schedule for the play.

Sun Zhongyi, who played roles such as the old housekeeper and professor, was one of the core actors for Yanghua Theatre, he was given the rare opportunity for a lead role in a movie, it was very important to him, but the schedule collided with one of the shows for “A Dream Like A Dream”, and for the play, he gave up this rare opportunity.

“A Dream Like A Dream”, actors rehearsing.

Plays do not earn as much as dramas and movies, no matter how popular the celebrity is, the profits from plays will never match up with the value of the drama, an actor’s rehearsal fee for “A Dream Like A Dream” is 100RMB a day, but all of the actors cooperated seriously.

Huang Lu said, sometimes we would joke that we “missed money making opportunities”, but everyone felt that this was especially fine, it was rare that we had a whole year to focus on doing one thing, the period where we practiced in Tangshan was very much like return to school.

“Everyone basically didn’t come here for money,” Huang Lu said, she viewed “A Dream Like A Dream” as a rare opportunity, it was a training for acting, also like a chance for self improvement.

After the “A Dream Like A Dream” Wuhan Charity Show ended, Huang Lu came to the front lobby for a photo.

Every actor gave their best performance.

Newly added actress for Young Gu Xianglan, Ge Xinyi, worked hard to match her senior; seasoned actress Feng Xianzhen controlled her character with grace and power, all 3 Gu Xianglan had an overall soul; Zhang Liang performed a Baron who was different from Jin Shijie’s version, but it was still accurate and layered; Fu Xing as the representative of the original group, became the foundation, their steady and down-to-earth performance assisted every new actor in building up their steady and accurate system of performance.

After performing for 9 years, Xu Qing had already embodied the blood and soul of Gu Xianglan, she also followed the progress of the group, and participated in all of the practices. Wang Keran expressed his thanks to Xu Qing once in Tangshan, “I say I really thank you for appearing in the practice, because your every practice would always accurately complete every detail, even if it was the most basic practice, you always put your heart to it, never held back, completely constructing the character.”

Xu Qing constantly improved her performance, frequently discussing how to handle every word with Wang Keran, for example after Baron had his car accident, Gu Xianglan would run up hurriedly to the police to say “I saw your incompetence” that kind of transition scenes, she would repeatedly try different expressions, after 9 years of “A Dream Like A Dream”, she is still pondering over it repeatedly, searching for the best method to handle every detail.

“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xu Qing and Zhang Liang during rehearsal.

During the rehearsal in Wuhan, Yuli Studio also witnessed how Xu Qing gave all of her emotions in every rehearsal, especially the important scene where Gu Xianglan took off her Cheongsam and walked through the lotus pond in sleeping garments, everytime Xu Qing finished that performance, her eyes would be filled with tears.

Xu Qing told Wang Keran one sentence later, and hoped that he would share that with the new actors, “Just tell them this point, 1 minute onstage, 9 years of effort offstage.”

Theater people always had this persistence in idealism and passion for the stage, with so much interest in “A Dream Like A Dream” this time round, Wang Keran hoped that with this play, more audiences would understand plays and love plays.

He especially prepared a live broadcast after the charity show ended, so that people beyond that 1200 audiences could see “A Dream Like A Dream”, hear the words from the actors’ hearts, he hoped that the other actors besides Xu Qing and Xiao Zhan would also be noticed.

“I know that the rules of news broadcast, if it wasn’t live broadcast, you would definitely cut away the people who weren’t important, right, but I hoped that everybody could see everyone’s effort. Xu Qing, Xiao Zhan, they were also very happy to have this method, I think that this is also a faith in collaboration equality built upon plays for them.”

“A Dream Like A Dream” would continue to tour 9 cities, Wang Keran hoped that through this play, it would encourage more youths to enter theaters, “I had this thought a long time ago, I just needed to find the right opportunity. For all of our lives we had hoped that plays would have more influence, could have more people entering theaters, if this worked out, then actors and actresses such as Xu Qing, Xiao Zhan, Zhang Liang etc, would have great contribution.”

#xiao zhan #sean xiao #xiaozhan #肖战

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