#reading all of it—it was really fun & sort of like a challenge to reimagine these categories as books

[sinterblackwell]

oscars 2022 (book ver.)

there were a lot of books i read this year, a majority of them ones i really enjoyed. even so, it wasn’t that difficult to put together my top ten favorite reads, but i felt very uncomfortable with not getting to talk about books outside that range that still affected me a great deal. so!! this list helps me with that!!

a booktuber (@/Tori Morrow; highly recommend watching their videos, especially if you’re a big fan of sci-fi/fantasy since that’s majorly what they read and talk about) introduced me to this end-of-year activity where i could talk about these books that still stood out to me, even if they didn’t make it to the top 10. i think having trouble wrangling a certain # of stories into a list when you’ve read up to 135 is pretty valid but yeah!!

let the 2022 oscars (book ver.) commence!!

warning: this post is really long :’)

best supporting actress:

- martha wolf from “self-made boys” by anna-marie mclemore

“People always find something wrong with how much or how little women are doing,” Martha said. “We don’t do as much as they think we should, we’re boring or frigid. If we do more than they think we should, we’re easy or fast. There’s no winning. So I kiss exactly as many or as few girls as i want.”

aka my gay awakening. while she’s not the most major side character in this great gatsby retelling, she still has her lines, and she still has a big effect on the story that jumps the gun at times. as sparse as her scenes were with nicolás and gatsby, when she did show up, she always threw me for a loop because i was crushing on her hard lol (still am). also her voice added to the overall message of the novel set during a time where living loud & lavish was the big move but if you were too loud or too honest, you were a pariah. all the rules & expectations are so muddled in their idiocy that even gatsby complains about it, and he’s the one who appears to live the most lavishly of them all!!

but yeah, martha’s character really stood out to me, and the conversations she had with nicolás specifically were phenomenal so i don’t care if she’s seen as more minor compared to daisy or jordan, she’s my supporting character.

best supporting actor:

- alim from “you made a fool of death with your beauty” by akwaeki emezi

“Imagine that, Feyi. We’re alive, and I love you.”

alim will forever go down in literary history as one of the best romantic heroes to date, and it’s all just in how sincere and beautiful his presence in this story is. the moment feyi first lays her eyes on him, there’s this immediate attraction, which just stirs up a lot of trouble and believe me, there is a big storm coming for sure. but alim’s presence in this story is like a steady hand through those rocky waves and he doesn’t just make feyi feel that rush of feeling alive, he makes her feel comfortable in just getting to be in the quiet of the storm, because she knows he’ll always be right there with her if she lets him.

the connection that he & feyi have together when it came to both of them experiencing grief over a lost partner is incredibly profound, and i just loved so much how in a story that was solely in feyi’s pov, we still got to learn so much about alim and see so much of him. the way his love language isn’t just cooking the most heavenly meals, but through his incredible way with words, and how natural and peaceful it feels having him by your side, he’s such a force to be reckoned with.

i wish i could see more of him & feyi, and i wish their romance could’ve gotten the attention it deserved by making it to the finals in the 2022 goodreads choice awards. it was a big big snub to me, but hopefully to heal some of the wounds, their story being mentioned on my part here gives some attention.

best cinematography:

- “city of speed” by alex london

Drakopolis was like one of those dolls that you opened to find a smaller doll inside, and then a smaller doll inside that one, and on and on. You could live your whole life in the city and still discover strange and terrifying new things inside it every day. It was unsettling, Abel thought, but also a little exciting. It was hard to be bored in Drakopolis.

my reading journey with the battle dragons series is one that feels so epic, and yet it also feels so lonely, because no one ever really talks about this middle grade series, and that breaks my heart.

this cyperpunk fantasy with racing dragons and powerful gangs and such immersive storytelling isn’t on a lot of people’s radar and that feels so wrong to me.

one of the best things about it, and especially with this second book here, is how vivid this world feels, how bright & gritty & expansive it is. this story only takes place in this single city called Drakopolis, but it has such a wide impact that it feels like you’re seeing so much of what the author has to offer. the underground races that are considered illegal, the glittering signs of the city and the black markets that sell a vast range of items—all of it so descriptive in this book here that i could see it so clearly in my head, and i loved it a lot.

i loved how cinematic the story felt, and so sweet, and so for that, that’s why i feel it best deserves the winning praise for this category here. hopefully in the future, more readers can see that as well.

best original screenplay:

- “dark room etiquette” by robin roe

If he’s alive, I’ll read his thoughts. If he’s dead, I’ll summon his ghost. Tell me, Daniel, what present do you want?

The big one.

this category speaks to a story that was crafted in a way that makes it stand out, its structure manipulated so as to mimic the story itself. for this book, the start of it felt so monotonous and as if the main character was living in a bubble that was fit to burst. it felt very reminscent of jake from “the taking of jake livingston” by ryan douglass, which garnered some mixed reviews because of how flat the main character read at the beginning. both ya, one horror & one thriller—what both roe & douglass did with these stories was they wrote their characters like that on purpose so that when the tone of the story did shift, when the characters were forced to react to what was happening to them and to those around them, you as the reader were confronted with their break in reality.

it was astonishing to witness how the authors crafted these characters’ surroundings as a nod to how it may have felt for both of them living in a society that acts so completely fake at times and demands conformity but then when there’s a shift, it’s as if the walls fall all around them.

“dark room etiquette” was such a phenomenal read that deserves so much more praise for its writing and the character work as we observe the three different stages of sader’s life that changes him fundamentally. the way he molds itself when the situation calls for it and is left misshapen because he doesn’t have any real sense of his own identity was just…something else, and it made the last quarter of the book so meaningful once he learned how to try & fit back inside himself. but first, he has to reckon with all the trauma he’s endured as other characters and their traumas are also given a spotlight.

best new author (debut or new to me):

- freydís moon

“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” - “with a vengeance”

for this category, i’m cheating just a tad because one of this author’s works is present in my top 10, but i think when your new favorite authors from this year all have a place in your top 10 list, it goes to show how much they deserve to be considered for this category. the reason why i chose this one as the winner here is because i feel i don’t talk about this author nearly enough.

moon’s social media presence (freydísmoon on insta, freydis_moon on twitter) means the world to me as i watch them promote their writing and also open my eyes to a new genre of literature where erotica meets a holiness like no other, and their descriptions of worship as their characters reclaim their bodies for themselves completely takes your breath away. i feel an immense sentimentality for the fact that the characters of exodus 20:3 and with a vengeance are latine, and so the representation is even more powerful because the latine community have our own kind of relationships to the Catholic faith and how our identities can be disconnected from family.

each of moon’s books have such different tones but share similar threads that as a reader, is so completely beautiful because it’s such a versatile experience. with with a vengeance being the one with the most anger & violence, it’s amazing seeing moon release three kings a couple months after, a cozy fantasy set in a small seaside town that has its own power with the forces of magic and exploration of fertility. their writing is like complete chaos but it’s a welcome one that i’m so thankful to have found, and i’m really excited for their new release set to come in early february as i know it’ll be absolutely everything.

best ensemble cast:

- the characters of “fragile remedy” by maria ingrande mora

Keep going, Pixel. Keep going.

i have a very soft spot for this small group who are forced to live out in the Withers, a ravaged wasteland left abandoned after an illness swept through society and tore these characters down into drug-ridden spaces as those with much more power built their own utopia.

while the narrative of the story is mainly told through the eyes of nate, his little found family and the other characters he attaches himself to are bigger than life and make their own home in this dystopian society where it’s every life for themselves. the difference though, is that this group stick together, and in this broken society that leaves others high & dry, sticking together in a group is probably the smartest choice so as to not simply fade away.

there’s one character, specifically, in this ensemble, whose relationship with nate i absolutely adore, and it was such a heartbreaking dynamic that is so unconventional but is a product of how broken this society has gotten. alden & nate’s connection is very significant to me, and is one i’ll never forget; it pains me that not more readers know about these characters at all, but i’m just glad for now i discovered this story the way i did, which was completely by chance.

best book i haven’t read yet:

- “the midnight girls” by alicia jaskinska

i love this category because the pressure i feel to read this book is so strong with how quickly i knew it deserves this spot here.

i really really have to read this book soon. i had the perfect opportunity to read this story of monsters back in october for the halloween season, and if not then, then just reading it during the fall would’ve been fine. but no, now we’re in winter where currently the temperatures are below freezing in my area, and i am barely holding on. i’m certain that with zosia’s comfort in the cold and ice of winter, reading this book in january would be another good opportunity.

whenever i do read this story, i know it’ll be so fun, and so interesting as well because the writing i could already tell is beautiful as hell, and it’s so wicked these characters. i can already feel the anticipation for something guaranteed to be five stars by how good its premise is, so i just need to hop on quick.

best director:

- ryan la sala for “the honeys”

what i like about this category is that “best director” isn’t simply dedicated to an author who had the best writing or whatever. there were a lot of authors i met this year whose stories went in all different directions that took me to some extreme highs & lows, it was mind-numbing as hell. but what this category is really spoken for is when it comes to a certain type of writer who just really took the story to a whole new level that left you completely boggled.

originally, this category felt best directed towards tal bauer with “stars”, whose direction of the story was books in the making and because of that, it felt so much more epic than ever. but since i wanted to exclusively highlight some books that weren’t included in my top 10 favorite reads list, ryan la sala’s debut horror novel was the best contender for this position.

the writing in this ya is so surreal and deadly in its descriptions of an atmospheric setting glowing with light but that is rooted in strange visions and manipulative strings. it’s a compliment i don’t shut up about and never will because the fact that it was so surreal made the direction it went towards in its ending absolutely bonkers, and i still can’t quite wrap my head around it after the two months i’ve read it since.

what i can say is that i very much look forward to more of what this author has planned next in their writing career because it’s clear they have their own visions that on paper will blow readers’ minds, and i’m totally here for it.

best actress:

- mina rahman from “a show for two” by tashie bhuiyan (runner up: cherry neita from “the princess trap” by talia hibbert)

I wish for happiness in whatever form it might be.

tashie bhuiyan has quickly solidified herself to be one of my utmost favorite ya authors because of how much i absolutely adore her main characters. with only two books under her belt, bhuiyan has swept me away with not just some of the sweetest ya romances i’ve ever read, but also some of the most wonderful & hard-hitting narrators that i’ve met. karina from counting down with you meant so much to me when i was reading her story last year in 2021, and now this year i got to read mina’s, and it made me cry just as much as i did last year, if not a little more.

karina’s story filled me with a lot of anxiety because of how much pressure was building on her shoulders due to her desperate need to please her parents who have such high & unattainable expectations for her—and i say unattainable because it means it would cut away at karina’s happiness, and she would have to lose parts of herself in order to make them happy. for mina, she’s much more defiant with her parents, much more poised when it came to holding her head up high against her parents’ disgust of her attitude and just her presence in general. her defiance isn’t one that stems from acting like your usual stubborn & rebellious teenager, but rather one who’s had to grow up way too fast on her own and has had to fight to get what she wants no matter what. her parents have shamed her so much for her dreams and have tried to make her feel stupid for wanting to make it big in film and believing that she does have that chance. to see such a strong character try to beat back against those low expectations but then have moments where they still get so tired, it was incredibly difficult.

i think one of the hardest things about tashie bhuiyan’s stories up to this point is the very very toxic relationship that the main characters have with their parents. the pure shame & disappointment these adult figures hassle on their eldest daughters, even if it’s portrayed in different ways, it is such a heavy & emotional experience to read about. i’ve been made aware how it’s this portrayal that mixes up a lot of readers because of the stigma that it reinforces of how Muslim families interact. i can’t speak on the Muslim representation, i just really connected a lot to karina & mina, and i wished so much for their happiness because i believed so much in them as other characters believed in them, too—what was most important was seeing them get to believe in themselves and their aspirations, and it was a hard journey to get there. i feel very very protective of these characters, and this is one of those instances where i won’t stand for any backlash against them, especially mina, because i’m of the strong belief that they deserve none of it, and that is that on that.

the reason why i added cherry here from the princess trap as like the “runner up” is because she was just such a fun & sweet character that is partly what made my first talia hibbert book such a memorable experience. the way that she’s so confident in herself and her style is what draws the eye of other characters, especially ruben, and i was absolutely obsessed with how obsessed they were with her because she really is that character. her presence in the story was so mystifying but she wasn’t some mirage, this was all her, she was real & she was stunning as hell. she’s very relatable and she’s one of those fictional characters i wish i could have in my life because her voice was absolutely everything, and she’s someone i could genuinely look up to.

it was very important to me to include her in this category because of that.

best actor:

- amastan from “the perfect assassin” by k.a. doore (runner up: reid giordano from “fire season” by k.d. casey)

I choose to believe that your strong sense of justice will prevail among your kind and that you will emerge as their natural leader, even if I cannot believe in what you do.

the funny thing with this one is that at first, reid was immediately my first choice because he was everything!! he was such a brilliant main character who went through such a tough and honest character journey that was so well-developed and he’s still growing!!

but then i thought about amastan from the chronicles of ghadid series, and how my immense love for his voice in the story was enough for me to rate the first book a little higher than i would’ve if he wasn’t the main character. and you want to know something that still blows my mind?? amastan apparently didn’t even exist as a main character in the original draft of this series!!

so yeah, he’s someone that’s stuck with me a lot: and it’s partly because of how he was our first glimpse into this family of cousins who assassinate their targets for the better of their city. i loved his love for history & the way he challenges the idea of what a good assassin is supposed to emulate, and his character in general just hit a sweet spot in my brain that has now had me latch myself to him, and to this world he lives in that made my entire chronicles of ghadid experience such an immersive read.

he has his morals and he wants to believe in the better of others, but he’s still really strict when it comes to crossing that line, and that makes him an absolutely wonderful mentor, as we see in book two. i was really happy to see his pov again in the final book, even if it was pretty brief, but he still had a larger than life role in my heart and in this series. i am very thrilled that it took a random bookstagram post to have given me the opportunity to meet him in the first place.

.

.

.

and that is a wrap!!

[yuliares]

2023 Year-end Recap

Total number of completed stories: 5

Total word count: 21,049

Fandoms written in: Zelda (1), The Old Guard (1), and Marvel/Hawkeye Comics (3)

2023 was rough! Just… awful start, and then things started to get better for a while, and then it turned into a gauntlet of just… more stuff. I’m tired. Hats off to everyone who slogged through—I don’t care if you did well or handled it with grace, we all deserve a nice nap and our favorite cookie fresh from the oven. But I did manage to get a few stories in:

Most popular: Turn Up The Heat (Marvel/Hawkeye) with 149 kudos! It’s a silly meet-cute AU with Bucky panicking and sneaking into a fitness class to avoid someone… only to belatedly realize his hiding spot is a hot yoga class! Misery ensues, but the instructor is all kinds of attractive… heck, I love meet-cutes. They’re just so silly and fun and optimistic.

Personal favorite: I wrote Lambent at Dawn (Zelda) after many evenings with Tears of the Kingdom and then reading this absolutely fantastic fic reimagining the triforce trio. The idea of Zelda, Link, and Gandorf actually getting a chance to have a happy ending really stuck with me, and I drew a soft snuggly picture about it, and then wrote the short story to accompany it. It was probably the creative highlight of this year for me, I felt really inspired and motivated while making both.

Most challenging: Mission: Christmas (Marvel/Hawkeye, E). I signed up for the Winterhawk Wonderland Gift Exchange feeling cautiously optimistic. Gift events are such a cool way to bring a creative community together, and I wanted to be a part of that! But it turned out to be a real struggle. I managed to drag out a 10k story shortly before deadline, decided I hated it, started a new document using my first story as a rough reference, gave up, started drawing an image instead, remembered that drawing is hard, went back to the new document, then back to drawing… just a rollercoaster of insecurity and doubt! And even though I struggle with writing explicit scenes, and I could have skipped it, I insisted on including that too. Looking back, why? Stubbornness, maybe? But I got it done, and a generous beta helped me out despite the last-minute timing during the holidays. Now that I have some space from it, and after reading some of the really kind comments, I can say I am happy I saw it through to the end.

Looking forward: 

I don’t want to jinx 2024, so I’ll just say I’m looking forward to the new year. I want to start writing more, and get back to drawing. If I’m really ambitious, I’d like to watch Our Flag Means Death Season 2 and find the energy to get back into The Old Guard fandom (so creative, but often with darker themes that I have not been emotionally prepared to handle this year).

I Don’t Sail These Seas, But…

You ever stumble into fandoms you don’t actually know? I found a lot of sad characters getting happily ever afters with Untamed (where the tragic backstory that tears two fated lovers apart - before they inevitably reunite - is just so ridiculous, but like, in a chocolate sundae with extra toppings sort of way), along with Batfam (the most generous heaping of found family comfort that I have been soaking up like a sponge). 

[cacoetheswriting]

library hours

Pairing: Spencer Reid x gn!Reader Warnings: maybe a swear word or two, really just FLUFF ft. baby spence Word Count: 1.3k Summary: A late night at a university library leads to reader meeting a tall brunette genius. [fyi i wrote a reimagined version with professor reid x reader. you can read it here]

A/N: dedicated to the amazing @ellesgreenaway​ for inspiring this little fic & giving it a title!!  ❣️❣️❣️❣️❣️

-

There was something you always enjoyed about the going to the library.

Perhaps it was the way every single person that walked through the threshold had a purpose. A mission to complete. Perhaps it was the quiet. The solace you felt sitting alone in a corner researching various topics, for class and for recreational purposes.

The university library had quickly become your second home. A location you frequented more than your own dorm room. It wasn’t always to study, no. You people watched. Doodled. Even napped there from time to time. The place brought you peace, and by the time you senior year rolled around, you saw the librarians more than your college friends.

The university library was also the place where you first met a certain young brunette genius - which in time became the main reason why you liked it so much.

Lights were slowly being turned off section by section. A vacuum came to life in one of the aisles. People started to scramble from their seats - shoving their things into their backpacks, throwing out empty coffee cups into the overflowing bins, checking out books they might still use that evening.

All signs indicating it was time to go.

Dolly, one of the librarians, ushered towards you. Her jacket draped over her shoulders, her bag in hand. She gave you the usual spiel of how you can stay until the janitor is finished cleaning, to which you politely nodded along. She wished you a pleasant night, and with a “see you tomorrow” she hurried out the door.

Once she was out of sight, you groaned under your breath and ran your fingers through your hair. You had an assignment due tomorrow, one you started hours ago and only managed to formulate three total sentences. Your gut was telling you there was no way you were going to finish now, especially since you had about thirty minutes until you would have to leave.

Leaning back in your chair, you fluttered your eyes closed in an attempt to collect your thoughts. The tranquil feeling didn't last long as you were abruptly brought back to reality by a loud bang. You quickly sat back up and scanned the space for the source of the noise.

A tall brunette man, not much older than you, stood a few tables away, a heavy looking book at his feet and a shameful look spread across his features.

“The library is closed for the night.” You stated. The brunette scrunched his nose briefly. “B-but you’re here.” He remarked before leaning down to pick up the book he dropped.

“I have permission to be here.”

“What if I do too?” He challenged, taking a step towards you although still keeping a safe distance.

You folded your arms across your chest and arched a brow. “Well, do you?”

The brunette didn't respond. Instead, you noticed how his cheeks flushed a shade of red, how he clutched the book to his chest, and how his fingers tightened around the strap of his bag.

You couldn't help but smirk as you let your arms fall back down to your side.

“I’m just kidding. Come on, join me.” You said, pointing to to the chair across the table from you. “We have about twenty-five minutes before we get kicked out, might as well make the most of it.”

He hesitated for a split second, hovering in his spot. It wasn't until you turned your attention completely away from him, and back to the book in front of you, that he made his move.

“You’re not some sort of killer, are you? You’re not here to murder me?” You asked, looking up as he sat down. His eyes widened and he quickly shook his head in response. “Ehm... N-no.”

“That wasn't a very reassuring no, but I guess I’ll take it.” You nudged in response, and proceeded to work away on your assignment. As you worked, you could feel his eyes burning into you.

In any other situation, with any other stranger, the feeling would have made you uncomfortable. But there was something about the timid stranger that was quite welcoming.

“I-I actually, uhm, I profile serial killers. I help catch them.” He said after a moment of silence. Once again, you glanced up from your notes to look at him. Intrigue greeting your facial features. “I just started with the FBI.” He stated.

It wasn't a brag. No. It was a statement to make you feel more safe, and you couldn't help but smile at him. “So, mister FBI, what are you doing in a university library on a Thursday night?”

“Doctor.” He corrected.

“What?”

“Doctor FBI.” He said, corners of his lips twitching upwards. “I have PhDs in Mathematics, Chemistry, and Engineering.” Now, that was a brag.

You chuckled softly. “You don't happen to have a PhD in History under your belt, do you? Because that would be very helpful right about now.”

“No, but I do have an eidetic memory and can read twenty-thousand words per minute.” He declared. You stared at him in disbelief, your mouth parting ever so slightly in shock.

“Did they make you in a lab or something?” You teased, although you could tell he didn't find it amusing. He furrowed his brows, lips pursed into thin line. You chewed down on your bottom lip, feeling slightly ashamed for poking fun at the guy who was nothing but be nice to you. “I’m sorry.” You mumbled faintly. “That was rude.”

“It’s okay.” He quickly reassured, and shot you a timid smile. The two of you stared silently at one another. There was something amicable about the seconds that passed as you looked into his hazel eyes. Something harmonious. Friendly. Strong.

You cleared your throat. “There uhm, there’s this dinner not far from here. It’s twenty-four hours so they won't kick us out. Would you like to come with me? We can share a pie. I mean, if you’re into that. Or, or we can just have coffee-”

“Y-yes, I would love to.” The young doctor answered all too quickly causing you to grin at him.

Soon enough you were both packed up and up on your feet, heading towards the library exit.

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky making the million stars shine all that brighter. They looked like perfect sugar granules spilled on a dark surface, accompanied by the glowing moonlight. Breathtaking.

Street lamps glittered ahead, illuminating the streets. The two of you walked side by side, almost in sync.

“Does that big brain of yours possess information on Roman gods?” You asked while nonchalantly hopping up on the curb. You spread out your arms like a tightrope walker, and with one foot carefully placed in front of the other you continued your journey.

The wind blew lightly through your hair, your brunette companion observing quietly. A smile creeping up on his lips. “Because if you do, I might ask for your help with an assignment.” You glanced at him briefly.

“I-I do actually, ehm. The... The Ancient Romans were extremely religious, and believed their success was due to their strong beliefs. They believed that if you maintained a good relationship with the gods, they would be kind to you.” He briskly cleared his throat. “There were twelve Olympian Gods in total. Jupiter, Juno, Mars, Mercury, Neptune, Venus, Apollo, Diana, Minerva, Ceres, Vulcan, and Vesta...”

You let out a soft kindhearted laugh. “Okay doctor FBI, slow down. Wait until we get to the diner so I can really appreciate your genius.”

He blushed, feeling thankful that the darkness around prevented you from seeing. “It’s Spencer. My name, uhm, my name is Spencer.”

You stopped in your tracks and elegantly hopped off the curb. Spencer turned in his spot so that he was now facing you completely, only an arms reach away.

“Spencer...” You tested the name on your tongue, a smile embellishing your features. “It suits you.” You retorted before proceeding to introduce yourself, “I’m Y/N. It’s nice to meet you, Spencer.”

-

masterlist

spencer reid taglist: @no-honey-no​, @calm-and-doctor​, @idroppedmygourd​​, @averyhotchner, @wowitsel, @elldell1204, @hey-there-angels, @reidabookforonce, @ellesgreenaway

[taylorswifthongkong]

Taylor Swift broke all her rules with Folklore — and gave herself a much-needed escape The pop star, one of EW's 2020 Entertainers of the Year, delves deep into her surprise eighth album, Rebekah Harkness, and a Joe Biden presidency. By Alex Suskind

“He is my co-writer on ‛Betty’ and ‛Exile,’” replies Taylor Swift with deadpan precision. The question Who is William Bowery? was, at the time we spoke, one of 2020’s great mysteries, right up there with the existence of Joe Exotic and the sudden arrival of murder hornets. An unknown writer credited on the year’s biggest album? It must be an alias.

Is he your brother?

“He’s William Bowery,” says Swift with a smile.

It's early November, after Election Day but before Swift eventually revealed Bowery's true identity to the world (the leading theory, that he was boyfriend Joe Alwyn, proved prescient). But, like all Swiftian riddles, it was fun to puzzle over for months, particularly in this hot mess of a year, when brief distractions are as comforting as a well-worn cardigan. Thankfully, the Bowery... erhm, Alwyn-assisted Folklore — a Swift project filled with muted pianos and whisper-quiet snares, recorded in secret with Jack Antonoff and the National’s Aaron Dessner — delivered.

“The only people who knew were the people I was making it with, my boyfriend, my family, and a small management team,” Swift, 30, tells EW of the album's hush-hush recording sessions. That gave the intimate Folklore a mystique all its own: the first surprise Taylor Swift album, one that prioritized fantastical tales over personal confessions.

“Early in quarantine, I started watching lots of films,” she explains. “Consuming other people’s storytelling opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, Why have I never created characters and intersecting storylines?” That’s how she ended up with three songs about an imagined love triangle (“Cardigan,” “Betty,” “August”), one about a clandestine romance (“Illicit Affairs”), and another chronicling a doomed relationship (“Exile”). Others tell of sumptuous real-life figures like Rebekah Harkness, a divorcee who married the heir to Standard Oil — and whose home Swift purchased 31 years after her death. The result, “The Last Great American Dynasty,” hones in on Harkness’ story, until Swift cleverly injects herself.

And yet, it wouldn’t be a Swift album without a few barbed postmortems over her own history. Notably, “My Tears Ricochet” and “Mad Woman," which touch on her former label head Scott Borchetta selling the masters to Swift’s catalog to her known nemesis Scooter Braun. Mere hours after our interview, the lyrics’ real-life origins took a surprising twist, when news broke that Swift’s music had once again been sold, to another private equity firm, for a reported $300 million. Though Swift ignored repeated requests for comment on the transaction, she did tweet a statement, hitting back at Braun while noting that she had begun re-recording her old albums — something she first promised in 2019 as a way of retaining agency over her creative legacy. (Later, she would tease a snippet of that reimagined work, with a new version of her hit 2008 single "Love Story.")

Like surprise-dropping Folklore, like pissing off the president by endorsing his opponents, like shooing away haters, Swift does what suits her. “I don’t think we often hear about women who did whatever the hell they wanted,” she says of Harkness — something Swift is clearly intent on changing. For her, that means basking in the world of, and favorable response to, Folklore. As she says in our interview, “I have this weird thing where, in order to create the next thing, I attack the previous thing. I don’t love that I do that, but it is the thing that has kept me pivoting to another world every time I make an album. But with this one, I still love it.”

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: We’ve spent the year quarantined in our houses, trying to stay healthy and avoiding friends and family. Were you surprised by your ability to create and release a full album in the middle of a pandemic?

TAYLOR SWIFT: I was. I wasn't expecting to make an album. Early on in quarantine, I started watching lots of films. We would watch a different movie every night. I'm ashamed to say I hadn't seen Pan's Labyrinth before. One night I'd watch that, then I'd watch L.A. Confidential, then we'd watch Rear Window, then we'd watch Jane Eyre. I feel like consuming other people's art and storytelling sort of opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, "Well, why have I never done this before? Why have I never created characters and intersecting storylines? And why haven't I ever sort of freed myself up to do that from a narrative standpoint?" There is something a little heavy about knowing when you put out an album, people are going to take it so literally that everything you say could be clickbait. It was really, really freeing to be able to just be inspired by worlds created by the films you watch or books you've read or places you've dreamed of or people that you've wondered about, not just being inspired by your own experience.

In that vain, what's it like to sit down and write something like “Betty,” which is told from the perspective of a 17-year-old boy?

That was huge for me. And I think it came from the fact that my co-writer, William Bowery [Joe Alwyn], is male — and he was the one who originally thought of the chorus melody. And hearing him sing it, I thought, "That sounds really cool." Obviously, I don't have a male voice, but I thought, "I could have a male perspective." Patty Griffin wrote this song, “Top of the World.” It's one of my favorite songs of all time, and it's from the perspective of this older man who has lived a life full of regret, and he's kind of taking stock of that regret. So, I thought, "This is something that people I am a huge fan of have done. This would be fun to kind of take this for a spin."

What are your favorite William Bowery conspiracies?

I love them all individually and equally. I love all the conspiracy theories around this album. [With] "Betty," Jack Antonoff would text me these articles and think pieces and in-depth Tumblr posts on what this love triangle meant to the person who had listened to it. And that's exactly what I was hoping would happen with this album. I wrote these stories for a specific reason and from a specific place about specific people that I imagined, but I wanted that to all change given who was listening to it. And I wanted it to start out as mine and become other people's. It's been really fun to watch.

One of the other unique things about Folklore — the parameters around it were completely different from anything you'd done. There was no long roll out, no stadium-sized pop anthems, no aiming for the radio-friendly single. How fearful were you in avoiding what had worked in the past?

I didn't think about any of that for the very first time. And a lot of this album was kind of distilled down to the purest version of what the story is. Songwriting on this album is exactly the way that I would write if I considered nothing else other than, "What words do I want to write? What stories do I want to tell? What melodies do I want to sing? What production is essential to tell those stories?" It was a very do-it-yourself experience. My management team, we created absolutely everything in advance — every lyric video, every individual album package. And then we called our label a week in advance and said, "Here's what we have.” The photo shoot was me and the photographer walking out into a field. I'd done my hair and makeup and brought some nightgowns. These experiences I was used to having with 100 people on set, commanding alongside other people in a very committee fashion — all of a sudden it was me and a photographer, or me and my DP. It was a new challenge, because I love collaboration. But there's something really fun about knowing what you can do if it's just you doing it.

Did you find it freeing?

I did. Every project involves different levels of collaboration, because on other albums there are things that my stylist will think of that I never would've thought of. But if I had all those people on the photo shoot, I would've had to have them quarantine away from their families for weeks on end, and I would've had to ask things of them that I didn't think were fair if I could figure out a way to do it [myself]. I had this idea for the [Folklore album cover] that it would be this girl sleepwalking through the forest in a nightgown in 1830 [laughs]. Very specific. A pioneer woman sleepwalking at night. I made a moodboard and sent it to Beth [Garrabrant], who I had never worked with before, who shoots only on film. We were just carrying bags across a field and putting the bags of film down, and then taking pictures. It was a blast.

Folklore includes plenty of intimate acoustic echoes to what you've done in the past. But there are also a lot of new sonics here, too — these quiet, powerful, intricately layered harmonics. What was it like to receive the music from Aaron and try to write lyrics on top of it? 

Well, Aaron is one of the most effortlessly prolific creators I've ever worked with. It's really mind-blowing. And every time I've spoken to an artist since this whole process [began], I said, "You need to work with him. It'll change the way you create." He would send me these — he calls them sketches, but it's basically an instrumental track. the second day — the day after I texted him and said, "Hey, would you ever want to work together?" — he sent me this file of probably 30 of these instrumentals and every single one of them was one of the most interesting, exciting things I had ever heard. Music can be beautiful, but it can be lacking that evocative nature. There was something about everything he created that is an immediate image in my head or melody that I came up with. So much so that I'd start writing as soon as I heard a new one. And oftentimes what I would send back would inspire him to make more instrumentals and then send me that one. And then I wrote the song and it started to shape the project, form-fitted and customized to what we wanted to do.

It was weird because I had never made an album and not played it for my girlfriends or told my friends. The only people who knew were the people that I was making it with, my boyfriend, my family, and then my management team. So that's the smallest number of people I've ever had know about something. I'm usually playing it for everyone that I'm friends with. So I had a lot of friends texting me things like, "Why didn't you say on our everyday FaceTimes you were making a record?"

Was it nice to be able to keep it a secret?

Well, it felt like it was only my thing. It felt like such an inner world I was escaping to every day that it almost didn't feel like an album. Because I wasn't making a song and finishing it and going, "Oh my God, that is catchy.” I wasn't making these things with any purpose in mind. And so it was almost like having it just be mine was this really sweet, nice, pure part of the world as everything else in the world was burning and crashing and feeling this sickness and sadness. I almost didn't process it as an album. This was just my daydream space.

Does it still feel like that?

Yeah, because I love it so much. I have this weird thing that I do when I create something where in order to create the next thing I kind of, in my head, attack the previous thing. I don't love that I do that but it is the thing that has kept me pivoting to another world every time I make an album. But with this one, I just still love it. I'm so proud of it. And so that feels very foreign to me. That doesn't feel like a normal experience that I've had with releasing albums.

When did you first learn about Rebekah Harkness?

Oh, I learned about her as soon as I was being walked through [her former Rhode Island] home. I got the house when I was in my early twenties as a place for my family to congregate and be together. I was told about her, I think, by the real estate agent who was walking us through the property. And as soon as I found out about her, I wanted to know everything I could. So I started reading. I found her so interesting. And then as more parallels began to develop between our two lives — being the lady that lives in that house on the hill that everybody gets to gossip about — I was always looking for an opportunity to write about her. And I finally found it.

I love that you break the fourth wall in the song. Did you go in thinking you’d include yourself in the story?

I think that in my head, I always wanted to do a country music, standard narrative device, which is: the first verse you sing about someone else, the second verse you sing about someone else who's even closer to you, and then in the third verse, you go, "Surprise! It was me.” You bring it personal for the last verse. And I'd always thought that if I were to tell that story, I would want to include the similarities — our lives or our reputations or our scandals.

How often did you regale friends about the history of Rebekah and Holiday House while hanging out at Holiday House? 

Anyone who's been there before knows that I do “The Tour,” in quotes, where I show everyone through the house. And I tell them different anecdotes about each room, because I've done that much research on this house and this woman. So in every single room, there's a different anecdote about Rebekah Harkness. If you have a mixed group of people who've been there before and people who haven't, [the people who’ve been there] are like, "Oh, she's going to do the tour. She's got to tell you the story about how the ballerinas used to practice on the lawn.” And they'll go get a drink and skip it because it's the same every time. But for me, I'm telling the story with the same electric enthusiasm, because it's just endlessly entertaining to me that this fabulous woman lived there. She just did whatever she wanted.

There are a handful of songs on Folklore that feel like pretty clear nods to your personal life over the last year, including your relationships with Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun. How long did it take to crystallize the feelings you had around both of them into “My Tears Ricochet” or “Mad Woman”?

I found myself being very triggered by any stories, movies, or narratives revolving around divorce, which felt weird because I haven't experienced it directly. There’s no reason it should cause me so much pain, but all of a sudden it felt like something I had been through. I think that happens any time you've been in a 15-year relationship and it ends in a messy, upsetting way. So I wrote “My Tears Ricochet” and I was using a lot of imagery that I had conjured up while comparing a relationship ending to when people end an actual marriage. All of a sudden this person that you trusted more than anyone in the world is the person that can hurt you the worst. Then all of a sudden the things that you have been through together, hurt. All of a sudden, the person who was your best friend is now your biggest nemesis, etc. etc. etc. I think I wrote some of the first lyrics to that song after watching Marriage Story and hearing about when marriages go wrong and end in such a catastrophic way. So these songs are in some ways imaginary, in some ways not, and in some ways both.

How did it feel to drop an F-bomb on "Mad Woman"?

F---ing fantastic.

And that’s the first time you ever recorded one on a record, right?

Yeah. Every rule book was thrown out. I always had these rules in my head and one of them was, You haven't done this before, so you can't ever do this. “Well, you've never had an explicit sticker, so you can't ever have an explicit sticker.” But that was one of the times where I felt like you need to follow the language and you need to follow the storyline. And if the storyline and the language match up and you end up saying the F-word, just go for it. I wasn't adhering to any of the guidelines that I had placed on myself. I decided to just make what I wanted to make. And I'm really happy that the fans were stoked about that because I think they could feel that. I'm not blaming anyone else for me restricting myself in the past. That was all, I guess, making what I want to make. I think my fans could feel that I opened the gate and ran out of the pasture for the first time, which I'm glad they picked up on because they're very intuitive.

Let’s talk about “Epiphany.” The first verse is a nod to your grandfather, Dean, who fought in World War II. What does his story mean to you personally? 

I wanted to write about him for awhile. He died when I was very young, but my dad would always tell this story that the only thing that his dad would ever say about the war was when somebody would ask him, "Why do you have such a positive outlook on life?" My grandfather would reply, "Well, I'm not supposed to be here. I shouldn't be here." My dad and his brothers always kind of imagined that what he had experienced was really awful and traumatic and that he'd seen a lot of terrible things. So when they did research, they learned that he had fought at the Battles of Guadalcanal, at Cape Gloucester, at Talasea, at Okinawa. He had seen a lot of heavy fire and casualties — all of the things that nightmares are made of. He was one of the first people to sign up for the war. But you know, these are things that you can only imagine that a lot of people in that generation didn't speak about because, a) they didn't want people that they came home to to worry about them, and b) it just was so bad that it was the actual definition of unspeakable.

That theme continues in the next verse, which is a pretty overt nod to what’s been happening during COVID. As someone who lives in Nashville, how difficult has it been to see folks on Lower Broadway crowding the bars without masks?

I mean, you just immediately think of the health workers who are putting their lives on the line — and oftentimes losing their lives. If they make it out of this, if they see the other side of it, there's going to be a lot of trauma that comes with that; there's going to be things that they witnessed that they will never be able to un-see. And that was the connection that I drew. I did a lot of research on my grandfather in the beginning of quarantine, and it hit me very quickly that we've got a version of that trauma happening right now in our hospitals. God, you hope people would respect it and would understand that going out for a night isn't worth the ripple effect that it causes. But obviously we're seeing that a lot of people don't seem to have their eyes open to that — or if they do, a lot of people don't care, which is upsetting.

You had the Lover Fest East and West scheduled this year. How hard has it been to both not perform for your fans this year, and see the music industry at large go through such a brutal change?

It's confusing. It's hard to watch. I think that maybe me wanting to make as much music as possible during this time was a way for me to feel like I could reach out my hand and touch my fans, even if I couldn't physically reach out or take a picture with them. We've had a lot of different, amazing, fun, sort of underground traditions we've built over the years that involve a lot of human interaction, and so I have no idea what's going to happen with touring; none of us do. And that's a scary thing. You can't look to somebody in the music industry who's been around a long time, or an expert touring manager or promoter and [ask] what's going to happen and have them give you an answer. I think we're all just trying to keep our eyes on the horizon and see what it looks like. So we're just kind of sitting tight and trying to take care of whatever creative spark might exist and trying to figure out how to reach our fans in other ways, because we just can't do that right now.

When you are able to perform again, do you have plans on resurfacing a Lover Fest-type event?

I don't know what incarnation it'll take and I really would need to sit down and think about it for a good solid couple of months before I figured out the answer. Because whatever we do, I want it to be something that is thoughtful and will make the fans happy and I hope I can achieve that. I'm going to try really hard to.

In addition to recording an album, you spent this year supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the election. Where were you when it was called in their favor? 

Well, when the results were coming in, I was actually at the property where we shot the Entertainment Weekly cover. I was hanging out with my photographer friend, Beth, and the wonderful couple that owned the farm where we [were]. And we realized really early into the night that we weren't going to get an accurate picture of the results. Then, a couple of days later, I was on a video shoot, but I was directing, and I was standing there with my face shield and mask on next to my director of photography, Rodrigo Prieto. And I just remember a news alert coming up on my phone that said, "Biden is our next president. He's won the election." And I showed it to Rodrigo and he said, "I'm always going to remember the moment that we learned this." And I looked around, and people's face shields were starting to fog up because a lot of people were really misty-eyed and emotional, and it was not loud. It wasn't popping bottles of champagne. It was this moment of quiet, cautious elation and relief.

Do you ever think about what Folklore would have sounded like if you, Aaron, and Jack had been in the same room?

I think about it all the time. I think that a lot of what has happened with the album has to do with us all being in a collective emotional place. Obviously everybody's lives have different complexities and whatnot, but I think most of us were feeling really shaken up and really out of place and confused and in need of something comforting all at the same time. And for me, that thing that was comforting was making music that felt sort of like I was trying to hug my fans through the speakers. That was truly my intent. Just trying to hug them when I can't hug them.

I wanted to talk about some of the lyrics on Folklore. One of my favorite pieces of wordplay is in “August”: that flip of "sipped away like a bottle of wine/slipped away like a moment in time.” Was there an "aha moment" for you while writing that?

I was really excited about "August slipped away into a moment of time/August sipped away like a bottle of wine." That was a song where Jack sent me the instrumental and I wrote the song pretty much on the spot; it just was an intuitive thing. And that was actually the first song that I wrote of the "Betty" triangle. So the Betty songs are "August," "Cardigan," and "Betty." "August" was actually the first one, which is strange because it's the song from the other girl's perspective.

Yeah, I assumed you wrote "Cardigan" first.

It would be safe to assume that "Cardigan" would be first, but it wasn't. It was very strange how it happened, but it kind of pieced together one song at a time, starting with "August," where I kind of wanted to explore the element of This is from the perspective of a girl who was having her first brush with love. And then all of a sudden she's treated like she's the other girl, because there was another situation that had already been in place, but "August" girl thought she was really falling in love. It kind of explores the idea of the undefined relationship. As humans, we're all encouraged to just be cool and just let it happen, and don't ask what the relationship is — Are we exclusive? But if you are chill about it, especially when you're young, you learn the very hard lesson that if you don't define something, oftentimes they can gaslight you into thinking it was nothing at all, and that it never happened. And how do you mourn the loss of something once it ends, if you're being made to believe that it never happened at all?

"I almost didn't process it as an album," says Taylor Swift of making Folklore. "And it's still hard for me to process as an entity or a commodity, because [it] was just my daydream space."

On the flip side, "Peace" is bit more defined in terms of how one approaches a relationship. There's this really striking line, "The devil's in the details, but you got a friend in me/Would it be enough if I can never give you peace?" How did that line come to you?

I'm really proud of that one too. I heard the track immediately. Aaron sent it to me, and it had this immediate sense of serenity running through it. The first word that popped into my head was peace, but I thought that it would be too on-the-nose to sing about being calm, or to sing about serenity, or to sing about finding peace with someone. Because you have this very conflicted, very dramatic conflict-written lyric paired with this very, very calming sound of the instrumental. But, "The devil's in the details," is one of those phrases that I've written down over the years. That's a common phrase that is used in the English language every day. And I just thought it sounded really cool because of the D, D sound. And I thought, "I'll hang onto those in a list, and then, I'll finally find the right place for them in a story." I think that's how a lot of people feel where it's like, "Yeah, the devil's in the details. Everybody's complex when you look under the hood of the car." But basically saying, "I'm there for you if you want that, if this complexity is what you want."

There's another clever turn-of-phrase on "This is Me Trying." "I didn't know if you'd care if I came back/I have a lot of regrets about that." That feels like a nod toward your fans, and some of the feelings you had about retreating from the public sphere.

Absolutely. I think I was writing from three different characters' perspectives, one who's going through that; I was channeling the emotions I was feeling in 2016, 2017, where I just felt like I was worth absolutely nothing. And then, the second verse is about dealing with addiction and issues with struggling every day. And every second of the day, you're trying not to fall into old patterns, and nobody around you can see that, and no one gives you credit for it. And then, the third verse, I was thinking, what would the National do? What lyric would Matt Berninger write? What chords would the National play? And it's funny because I've since played this song for Aaron, and he's like, "That's not what we would've done at all." He's like, "I love that song, but that's totally different than what we would've done with it."

When we last spoke, in April 2019, we were talking about albums we were listening to at the time and you professed your love for the National and I Am Easy to Find. Two months later, you met up with Aaron at their concert, and now, we're here talking about the National again.

Yeah, I was at the show where they were playing through I Am Easy to Find. What I loved about [that album] was they had female vocalists singing from female perspectives, and that triggered and fired something in me where I thought, "I've got to play with different perspectives because that is so intriguing when you hear a female perspective come in from a band where you're used to only hearing a male perspective." It just sparked something in me. And obviously, you mentioning the National is the reason why Folklore came to be. So, thank you for that, Alex.

I'm here for all of your songwriting muse needs in the future.

I can't wait to see what comes out of this interview.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

For more on our Entertainers of the Year and Best & Worst of 2020, order the January issue of Entertainment Weekly or find it on newsstands beginning Dec. 18. (You can also pick up the full set of six covers here.) Don’t forget to subscribe for more exclusive interviews and photos, only in EW.

[path-of-my-childhood]

Taylor Swift Broke All Her Rules With Folklore - And Gave Herself A Much-Needed Escape

By: Alex Suskind for Entertainment Weekly Date: December 8th 2020 (EW's 2020 Entertainers of the Year cover)

The pop star, one of EW's 2020 Entertainers of the Year, delves deep into her surprise eighth album, Rebekah Harkness, and a Joe Biden presidency.

“He is my co-writer on ‛Betty’ and ‛Exile,’” replies Taylor Swift with deadpan precision. The question Who is William Bowery? was, at the time we spoke, one of 2020’s great mysteries, right up there with the existence of Joe Exotic and the sudden arrival of murder hornets. An unknown writer credited on the year’s biggest album? It must be an alias.

Is he your brother?

“He’s William Bowery,” says Swift with a smile.

It's early November, after Election Day but before Swift eventually revealed Bowery's true identity to the world (the leading theory, that he was boyfriend Joe Alwyn, proved prescient). But, like all Swiftian riddles, it was fun to puzzle over for months, particularly in this hot mess of a year, when brief distractions are as comforting as a well-worn cardigan. Thankfully, the Bowery... erhm, Alwyn-assisted Folklore - a Swift project filled with muted pianos and whisper-quiet snares, recorded in secret with Jack Antonoff and the National’s Aaron Dessner - delivered.

“The only people who knew were the people I was making it with, my boyfriend, my family, and a small management team,” Swift, 30, tells EW of the album's hush-hush recording sessions. That gave the intimate Folklore a mystique all its own: the first surprise Taylor Swift album, one that prioritized fantastical tales over personal confessions.

“Early in quarantine, I started watching lots of films,” she explains. “Consuming other people’s storytelling opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, Why have I never created characters and intersecting storylines?” That’s how she ended up with three songs about an imagined love triangle (“Cardigan,” “Betty,” “August”), one about a clandestine romance (“Illicit Affairs”), and another chronicling a doomed relationship (“Exile”). Others tell of sumptuous real-life figures like Rebekah Harkness, a divorcee who married the heir to Standard Oil - and whose home Swift purchased 31 years after her death. The result, “The Last Great American Dynasty,” hones in on Harkness’ story, until Swift cleverly injects herself.

And yet, it wouldn’t be a Swift album without a few barbed postmortems over her own history. Notably, “My Tears Ricochet” and “Mad Woman," which touch on her former label head Scott Borchetta selling the masters to Swift’s catalog to her known nemesis Scooter Braun. Mere hours after our interview, the lyrics’ real-life origins took a surprising twist, when news broke that Swift’s music had once again been sold, to another private equity firm, for a reported $300 million. Though Swift ignored repeated requests for comment on the transaction, she did tweet a statement, hitting back at Braun while noting that she had begun re-recording her old albums - something she first promised in 2019 as a way of retaining agency over her creative legacy. (Later, she would tease a snippet of that reimagined work, with a new version of her hit 2008 single "Love Story.")

Like surprise-dropping Folklore, like pissing off the president by endorsing his opponents, like shooing away haters, Swift does what suits her. “I don’t think we often hear about women who did whatever the hell they wanted,” she says of Harkness - something Swift is clearly intent on changing. For her, that means basking in the world of, and favorable response to, Folklore. As she says in our interview, “I have this weird thing where, in order to create the next thing, I attack the previous thing. I don’t love that I do that, but it is the thing that has kept me pivoting to another world every time I make an album. But with this one, I still love it.”

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: We’ve spent the year quarantined in our houses, trying to stay healthy and avoiding friends and family. Were you surprised by your ability to create and release a full album in the middle of a pandemic? TAYLOR SWIFT: I was. I wasn't expecting to make an album. Early on in quarantine, I started watching lots of films. We would watch a different movie every night. I'm ashamed to say I hadn't seen Pan's Labyrinth before. One night I'd watch that, then I'd watch L.A. Confidential, then we'd watch Rear Window, then we'd watch Jane Eyre. I feel like consuming other people's art and storytelling sort of opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, "Well, why have I never done this before? Why have I never created characters and intersecting storylines? And why haven't I ever sort of freed myself up to do that from a narrative standpoint?" There is something a little heavy about knowing when you put out an album, people are going to take it so literally that everything you say could be clickbait. It was really, really freeing to be able to just be inspired by worlds created by the films you watch or books you've read or places you've dreamed of or people that you've wondered about, not just being inspired by your own experience.

In that vein, what's it like to sit down and write something like “Betty,” which is told from the perspective of a 17-year-old boy? That was huge for me. And I think it came from the fact that my co-writer, William Bowery [Joe Alwyn], is male — and he was the one who originally thought of the chorus melody. And hearing him sing it, I thought, "That sounds really cool." Obviously, I don't have a male voice, but I thought, "I could have a male perspective." Patty Griffin wrote this song, “Top of the World.” It's one of my favorite songs of all time, and it's from the perspective of this older man who has lived a life full of regret, and he's kind of taking stock of that regret. So, I thought, "This is something that people I am a huge fan of have done. This would be fun to kind of take this for a spin."

What are your favorite William Bowery conspiracies? I love them all individually and equally. I love all the conspiracy theories around this album. [With] "Betty," Jack Antonoff would text me these articles and think pieces and in-depth Tumblr posts on what this love triangle meant to the person who had listened to it. And that's exactly what I was hoping would happen with this album. I wrote these stories for a specific reason and from a specific place about specific people that I imagined, but I wanted that to all change given who was listening to it. And I wanted it to start out as mine and become other people's. It's been really fun to watch.

One of the other unique things about Folklore — the parameters around it were completely different from anything you'd done. There was no long roll out, no stadium-sized pop anthems, no aiming for the radio-friendly single. How fearful were you in avoiding what had worked in the past? I didn't think about any of that for the very first time. And a lot of this album was kind of distilled down to the purest version of what the story is. Songwriting on this album is exactly the way that I would write if I considered nothing else other than, "What words do I want to write? What stories do I want to tell? What melodies do I want to sing? What production is essential to tell those stories?" It was a very do-it-yourself experience. My management team, we created absolutely everything in advance — every lyric video, every individual album package. And then we called our label a week in advance and said, "Here's what we have.” The photo shoot was me and the photographer walking out into a field. I'd done my hair and makeup and brought some nightgowns. These experiences I was used to having with 100 people on set, commanding alongside other people in a very committee fashion — all of a sudden it was me and a photographer, or me and my DP. It was a new challenge, because I love collaboration. But there's something really fun about knowing what you can do if it's just you doing it.

Did you find it freeing? I did. Every project involves different levels of collaboration, because on other albums there are things that my stylist will think of that I never would've thought of. But if I had all those people on the photo shoot, I would've had to have them quarantine away from their families for weeks on end, and I would've had to ask things of them that I didn't think were fair if I could figure out a way to do it [myself]. I had this idea for the [Folklore album cover] that it would be this girl sleepwalking through the forest in a nightgown in 1830 [laughs]. Very specific. A pioneer woman sleepwalking at night. I made a moodboard and sent it to Beth [Garrabrant], who I had never worked with before, who shoots only on film. We were just carrying bags across a field and putting the bags of film down, and then taking pictures. It was a blast.

Folklore includes plenty of intimate acoustic echoes to what you've done in the past. But there are also a lot of new sonics here, too — these quiet, powerful, intricately layered harmonics. What was it like to receive the music from Aaron and try to write lyrics on top of it? Well, Aaron is one of the most effortlessly prolific creators I've ever worked with. It's really mind-blowing. And every time I've spoken to an artist since this whole process [began], I said, "You need to work with him. It'll change the way you create." He would send me these — he calls them sketches, but it's basically an instrumental track. the second day — the day after I texted him and said, "Hey, would you ever want to work together?" — he sent me this file of probably 30 of these instrumentals and every single one of them was one of the most interesting, exciting things I had ever heard. Music can be beautiful, but it can be lacking that evocative nature. There was something about everything he created that is an immediate image in my head or melody that I came up with. So much so that I'd start writing as soon as I heard a new one. And oftentimes what I would send back would inspire him to make more instrumentals and then send me that one. And then I wrote the song and it started to shape the project, form-fitted and customized to what we wanted to do.

It was weird because I had never made an album and not played it for my girlfriends or told my friends. The only people who knew were the people that I was making it with, my boyfriend, my family, and then my management team. So that's the smallest number of people I've ever had know about something. I'm usually playing it for everyone that I'm friends with. So I had a lot of friends texting me things like, "Why didn't you say on our everyday FaceTimes you were making a record?"

Was it nice to be able to keep it a secret? Well, it felt like it was only my thing. It felt like such an inner world I was escaping to every day that it almost didn't feel like an album. Because I wasn't making a song and finishing it and going, "Oh my God, that is catchy.” I wasn't making these things with any purpose in mind. And so it was almost like having it just be mine was this really sweet, nice, pure part of the world as everything else in the world was burning and crashing and feeling this sickness and sadness. I almost didn't process it as an album. This was just my daydream space.

Does it still feel like that? Yeah, because I love it so much. I have this weird thing that I do when I create something where in order to create the next thing I kind of, in my head, attack the previous thing. I don't love that I do that but it is the thing that has kept me pivoting to another world every time I make an album. But with this one, I just still love it. I'm so proud of it. And so that feels very foreign to me. That doesn't feel like a normal experience that I've had with releasing albums.

When did you first learn about Rebekah Harkness? Oh, I learned about her as soon as I was being walked through [her former Rhode Island] home. I got the house when I was in my early twenties as a place for my family to congregate and be together. I was told about her, I think, by the real estate agent who was walking us through the property. And as soon as I found out about her, I wanted to know everything I could. So I started reading. I found her so interesting. And then as more parallels began to develop between our two lives — being the lady that lives in that house on the hill that everybody gets to gossip about — I was always looking for an opportunity to write about her. And I finally found it.

I love that you break the fourth wall in the song. Did you go in thinking you’d include yourself in the story? I think that in my head, I always wanted to do a country music, standard narrative device, which is: the first verse you sing about someone else, the second verse you sing about someone else who's even closer to you, and then in the third verse, you go, "Surprise! It was me.” You bring it personal for the last verse. And I'd always thought that if I were to tell that story, I would want to include the similarities — our lives or our reputations or our scandals.

How often did you regale friends about the history of Rebekah and Holiday House while hanging out at Holiday House? Anyone who's been there before knows that I do “The Tour,” in quotes, where I show everyone through the house. And I tell them different anecdotes about each room, because I've done that much research on this house and this woman. So in every single room, there's a different anecdote about Rebekah Harkness. If you have a mixed group of people who've been there before and people who haven't, [the people who’ve been there] are like, "Oh, she's going to do the tour. She's got to tell you the story about how the ballerinas used to practice on the lawn.” And they'll go get a drink and skip it because it's the same every time. But for me, I'm telling the story with the same electric enthusiasm, because it's just endlessly entertaining to me that this fabulous woman lived there. She just did whatever she wanted.

There are a handful of songs on Folklore that feel like pretty clear nods to your personal life over the last year, including your relationships with Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun. How long did it take to crystallize the feelings you had around both of them into “My Tears Ricochet” or “Mad Woman”? I found myself being very triggered by any stories, movies, or narratives revolving around divorce, which felt weird because I haven't experienced it directly. There’s no reason it should cause me so much pain, but all of a sudden it felt like something I had been through. I think that happens any time you've been in a 15-year relationship and it ends in a messy, upsetting way. So I wrote “My Tears Ricochet” and I was using a lot of imagery that I had conjured up while comparing a relationship ending to when people end an actual marriage. All of a sudden this person that you trusted more than anyone in the world is the person that can hurt you the worst. Then all of a sudden the things that you have been through together, hurt. All of a sudden, the person who was your best friend is now your biggest nemesis, etc. etc. etc. I think I wrote some of the first lyrics to that song after watching Marriage Story and hearing about when marriages go wrong and end in such a catastrophic way. So these songs are in some ways imaginary, in some ways not, and in some ways both.

How did it feel to drop an F-bomb on "Mad Woman"? F---ing fantastic.

And that’s the first time you ever recorded one on a record, right? Yeah. Every rule book was thrown out. I always had these rules in my head and one of them was, You haven't done this before, so you can't ever do this. “Well, you've never had an explicit sticker, so you can't ever have an explicit sticker.” But that was one of the times where I felt like you need to follow the language and you need to follow the storyline. And if the storyline and the language match up and you end up saying the F-word, just go for it. I wasn't adhering to any of the guidelines that I had placed on myself. I decided to just make what I wanted to make. And I'm really happy that the fans were stoked about that because I think they could feel that. I'm not blaming anyone else for me restricting myself in the past. That was all, I guess, making what I want to make. I think my fans could feel that I opened the gate and ran out of the pasture for the first time, which I'm glad they picked up on because they're very intuitive.

Let’s talk about “Epiphany.” The first verse is a nod to your grandfather, Dean, who fought in World War II. What does his story mean to you personally? I wanted to write about him for awhile. He died when I was very young, but my dad would always tell this story that the only thing that his dad would ever say about the war was when somebody would ask him, "Why do you have such a positive outlook on life?" My grandfather would reply, "Well, I'm not supposed to be here. I shouldn't be here." My dad and his brothers always kind of imagined that what he had experienced was really awful and traumatic and that he'd seen a lot of terrible things. So when they did research, they learned that he had fought at the Battles of Guadalcanal, at Cape Gloucester, at Talasea, at Okinawa. He had seen a lot of heavy fire and casualties — all of the things that nightmares are made of. He was one of the first people to sign up for the war. But you know, these are things that you can only imagine that a lot of people in that generation didn't speak about because, a) they didn't want people that they came home to to worry about them, and b) it just was so bad that it was the actual definition of unspeakable.

That theme continues in the next verse, which is a pretty overt nod to what’s been happening during COVID. As someone who lives in Nashville, how difficult has it been to see folks on Lower Broadway crowding the bars without masks? I mean, you just immediately think of the health workers who are putting their lives on the line — and oftentimes losing their lives. If they make it out of this, if they see the other side of it, there's going to be a lot of trauma that comes with that; there's going to be things that they witnessed that they will never be able to un-see. And that was the connection that I drew. I did a lot of research on my grandfather in the beginning of quarantine, and it hit me very quickly that we've got a version of that trauma happening right now in our hospitals. God, you hope people would respect it and would understand that going out for a night isn't worth the ripple effect that it causes. But obviously we're seeing that a lot of people don't seem to have their eyes open to that — or if they do, a lot of people don't care, which is upsetting.

You had the Lover Fest East and West scheduled this year. How hard has it been to both not perform for your fans this year, and see the music industry at large go through such a brutal change? It's confusing. It's hard to watch. I think that maybe me wanting to make as much music as possible during this time was a way for me to feel like I could reach out my hand and touch my fans, even if I couldn't physically reach out or take a picture with them. We've had a lot of different, amazing, fun, sort of underground traditions we've built over the years that involve a lot of human interaction, and so I have no idea what's going to happen with touring; none of us do. And that's a scary thing. You can't look to somebody in the music industry who's been around a long time, or an expert touring manager or promoter and [ask] what's going to happen and have them give you an answer. I think we're all just trying to keep our eyes on the horizon and see what it looks like. So we're just kind of sitting tight and trying to take care of whatever creative spark might exist and trying to figure out how to reach our fans in other ways, because we just can't do that right now.

When you are able to perform again, do you have plans on resurfacing a Lover Fest-type event? I don't know what incarnation it'll take and I really would need to sit down and think about it for a good solid couple of months before I figured out the answer. Because whatever we do, I want it to be something that is thoughtful and will make the fans happy and I hope I can achieve that. I'm going to try really hard to.

In addition to recording an album, you spent this year supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the election. Where were you when it was called in their favor? Well, when the results were coming in, I was actually at the property where we shot the Entertainment Weekly cover. I was hanging out with my photographer friend, Beth, and the wonderful couple that owned the farm where we [were]. And we realized really early into the night that we weren't going to get an accurate picture of the results. Then, a couple of days later, I was on a video shoot, but I was directing, and I was standing there with my face shield and mask on next to my director of photography, Rodrigo Prieto. And I just remember a news alert coming up on my phone that said, "Biden is our next president. He's won the election." And I showed it to Rodrigo and he said, "I'm always going to remember the moment that we learned this." And I looked around, and people's face shields were starting to fog up because a lot of people were really misty-eyed and emotional, and it was not loud. It wasn't popping bottles of champagne. It was this moment of quiet, cautious elation and relief.

Do you ever think about what Folklore would have sounded like if you, Aaron, and Jack had been in the same room? I think about it all the time. I think that a lot of what has happened with the album has to do with us all being in a collective emotional place. Obviously everybody's lives have different complexities and whatnot, but I think most of us were feeling really shaken up and really out of place and confused and in need of something comforting all at the same time. And for me, that thing that was comforting was making music that felt sort of like I was trying to hug my fans through the speakers. That was truly my intent. Just trying to hug them when I can't hug them.

I wanted to talk about some of the lyrics on Folklore. One of my favorite pieces of wordplay is in “August”: that flip of "sipped away like a bottle of wine/slipped away like a moment in time.” Was there an "aha moment" for you while writing that? I was really excited about "August slipped away into a moment of time/August sipped away like a bottle of wine." That was a song where Jack sent me the instrumental and I wrote the song pretty much on the spot; it just was an intuitive thing. And that was actually the first song that I wrote of the "Betty" triangle. So the Betty songs are "August," "Cardigan," and "Betty." "August" was actually the first one, which is strange because it's the song from the other girl's perspective.

Yeah, I assumed you wrote "Cardigan" first. It would be safe to assume that "Cardigan" would be first, but it wasn't. It was very strange how it happened, but it kind of pieced together one song at a time, starting with "August," where I kind of wanted to explore the element of This is from the perspective of a girl who was having her first brush with love. And then all of a sudden she's treated like she's the other girl, because there was another situation that had already been in place, but "August" girl thought she was really falling in love. It kind of explores the idea of the undefined relationship. As humans, we're all encouraged to just be cool and just let it happen, and don't ask what the relationship is — Are we exclusive? But if you are chill about it, especially when you're young, you learn the very hard lesson that if you don't define something, oftentimes they can gaslight you into thinking it was nothing at all, and that it never happened. And how do you mourn the loss of something once it ends, if you're being made to believe that it never happened at all?

On the flip side, "Peace" is bit more defined in terms of how one approaches a relationship. There's this really striking line, "The devil's in the details, but you got a friend in me/Would it be enough if I can never give you peace?" How did that line come to you? I'm really proud of that one too. I heard the track immediately. Aaron sent it to me, and it had this immediate sense of serenity running through it. The first word that popped into my head was peace, but I thought that it would be too on-the-nose to sing about being calm, or to sing about serenity, or to sing about finding peace with someone. Because you have this very conflicted, very dramatic conflict-written lyric paired with this very, very calming sound of the instrumental. But, "The devil's in the details," is one of those phrases that I've written down over the years. That's a common phrase that is used in the English language every day. And I just thought it sounded really cool because of the D, D sound. And I thought, "I'll hang onto those in a list, and then, I'll finally find the right place for them in a story." I think that's how a lot of people feel where it's like, "Yeah, the devil's in the details. Everybody's complex when you look under the hood of the car." But basically saying, "I'm there for you if you want that, if this complexity is what you want."

There's another clever turn of phrase on "This is Me Trying." "I didn't know if you'd care if I came back/I have a lot of regrets about that." That feels like a nod toward your fans, and some of the feelings you had about retreating from the public sphere. Absolutely. I think I was writing from three different characters' perspectives, one who's going through that; I was channeling the emotions I was feeling in 2016, 2017, where I just felt like I was worth absolutely nothing. And then, the second verse is about dealing with addiction and issues with struggling every day. And every second of the day, you're trying not to fall into old patterns, and nobody around you can see that, and no one gives you credit for it. And then, the third verse, I was thinking, what would the National do? What lyric would Matt Berninger write? What chords would the National play? And it's funny because I've since played this song for Aaron, and he's like, "That's not what we would've done at all." He's like, "I love that song, but that's totally different than what we would've done with it."

When we last spoke, in April 2019, we were talking about albums we were listening to at the time and you professed your love for the National and I Am Easy to Find. Two months later, you met up with Aaron at their concert, and now, we're here talking about the National again. Yeah, I was at the show where they were playing through I Am Easy to Find. What I loved about [that album] was they had female vocalists singing from female perspectives, and that triggered and fired something in me where I thought, "I've got to play with different perspectives because that is so intriguing when you hear a female perspective come in from a band where you're used to only hearing a male perspective." It just sparked something in me. And obviously, you mentioning the National is the reason why Folklore came to be. So, thank you for that, Alex.

I'm here for all of your songwriting muse needs in the future. I can't wait to see what comes out of this interview.

*** For more on our Entertainers of the Year and Best & Worst of 2020, order the January issue of Entertainment Weekly or find it on newsstands beginning Dec. 18. (You can also pick up the full set of six covers here.) Don’t forget to subscribe for more exclusive interviews and photos, only in EW.

[novelconcepts]

5 Works Tag Game

Rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

I was tagged by @piratekane and while I don’t usually do tag games, this seemed kind of fun after the last couple of months, especially since I’m currently at a wall with today’s WIP.

walking with the lady - Dani Clayton/Jamie, The Haunting of Bly Manor

This wasn’t the first piece I wrote up when this show and these characters began living rent-free in my brain, but it’s absolutely the silliest--and, even so, I’m proud of how honest the emotion behind the silly managed to be. I wasn’t sure it would be possible, to take a bittersweet ending and turn it so lighthearted without losing the core of the original story, but I’m really glad it still seems to resonate with people. And I’m delighted with how much it seems to make people laugh. Ghosts need to be taught about NASA, too.

the thing about gravity - Dani Clayton/Jamie, The Haunting of Bly Manor

I am, primarily, the kind of writer to comes to fanfiction for fix-it and for character inspection. The idea of Jamie having lived the rest of her life without the love of her life there is brutal, but it’s also how marriage usually goes--and I wanted the kind of fix-it that didn’t negate the original ending (though I did play with that a few times over as well) so much as...give a bit more back to Jamie, in the end. As sort of reward for having been strong enough, brave enough, to keep going even without Dani’s face in the mirror. 

been so good at wasting time (thank god for july) - Dani Clayton/Jamie, The Haunting of Bly Manor

I actually don’t like writing cheating into my stories--it’s one of my least favorite tropes--but I was given a very simple prompt (Dani offering lemonade to an entirely-too-hot Jamie in a tank top), and I wanted to challenge myself to spin it into something big and genuine and understandable. I wanted to create something that is at heart a Dani character piece, an introspection of how expectation can be a cage, and how someone can still slip free and find what they actually need to be happy, even if it looks like that cage is already locked. This was also the first time I let myself go full-tilt into an AU, and I really had a great time reimagining familiar characters and sequences in a more mundane reality.

the shape of it - Dani Clayton/Jamie, The Haunting of Bly Manor

I try to balance the sad with the cheerful when writing for these two--much as canon does--but this was easily the hardest one to work on. When it was first pitched to me as one of @karatam‘s prompts, I genuinely thought it would be too dark. But the text of the show is so layered around the idea of losing people while they’re still present, the insidious nature of being washed away over time by loss of memory or by a disorder of the mind, and it just fit really well to want to inspect what that would look like. This is, largely, a Jamie piece, with me wanting to take a respectful look at how Jamie’s ability to act as a grounding force would be impacted by Dani being taken from her a little bit at a time in a fashion that does not feel supernatural. It was hard to write, it’s incredibly hard to reread, but I think I really needed it for personal reasons as well as reasons of canon, and I’m glad it came out the way it did.

the key to any problem - Dani Clayton/Jamie, The Haunting of Bly Manor

All of my favorite pieces have been challenges--and this one was mostly just a challenge of utter scope. I wanted to craft something fun and lovely, something to weave in all the tropes I like best (bed sharing! fake dating! mutual pining! comfort in situations of panic! really, it has them all) that would still read as right for a show about ghosts and loss. Bly is not the sort of show that naturally lends itself to a rom-com--and I wanted to see if I’d be able to make it work without losing the heart of the characters I love so much. That it happened to be my longest work to-date, and that I foolishly didn’t feel the need to break it into chapters, was just an added surprise. But I really, really like how this one turned out. 

I don’t know about tagging folks, but anyone who’d like to is absolutely welcome to follow suit. 

[carmenxjulia]

I put together a transcript of the 2 hour Q&A Interview the Carmen Sandiego Discord did with Showrunner Duane Capizzi. All of the questions were submitted by server members. You can read everything below the break!

Duane Capizzi:

Hi there!

Am I in? Is this thing on?

PizzaHorse:

Hi, welcome!

Yep, you're in the right place!

Duane Capizzi:

Sorry I'm late, I was wandering around some empty Discord hallways looking for the right room haha

PizzaHorse:

No worries. Let's get started!

Who is your favorite character?

Duane Capizzi:

Moose Boy!

KIDDING!

Alright, how to NOT get myself in trouble if my answer isn't "Carmen" haha.

But really, they are ALL my babies.

So I know it's going to sound like a cop out to some that I can't pick just one. But hmm, some for instances...

I love that she's so morally evolved at such a young age; her ability to always take the high road and never lower herself; her drive and conviction and dedication. Her ability to kick serious booty and look good while doing it. Her progressive values, her fashion sense. I could go on and on. But then there's Shadowsan and his arc; Chase and his. Julia, who's every bit as strong as Carmen but shows it in different ways. The Cleaners don't get enough love.

I'll close that question with an anecdote about The Cleaners ...

I love that all our characters are embraced and that everyone seems to have favorites. Our sound engineer Marcel is a pretty serious guy: he has a serious job that takes high levels of focus and attention. He's always deeply focused and not prone to small talk. Anyway, we were in the middle of our first or second sound mix, and he suddenly stops in the middle and turns around to face us. I'm thinking, "uh oh, we're giving too many notes." That's when I notice he's freeze framed the Cleaners. He says "I really like these guys." Then he turns around, hits play and gets back to work.

PizzaHorse:

What was the biggest challenge for coming up with new stories and plot for the reboot?

Duane Capizzi:

THE biggest? Sigh. I'm not sure I could come up with just one. Plotting is always challenging and we had the brain trust of the room, our trusty white board, and writer assistant to keep the threads of the ongoing storyline together. I think the single biggest ONGOING challenge was tracking which character knew what at any given time.

The caper part was challenging - coming up with new capers and keeping them interesting and fresh. But, it was the characters and their interactions that kept things fresh and interesting. Another museum heist? That's okay - Chase is on the case and he gets to interact with "X" this time (for instance).

There were also some episodes - Duke of Vermeer and Crackle Goes Kiwi come to mind - where there was SO MUCH SET UP needed to get the payoffs to work. I was really worried about too much talk/too much detail. Very "Swiss watch!" It took a lot of work to make sure it all clicked and was clear - hopefully it seems effortless on screen but I can't say there wasn't some sweat and the occasional tear (mostly from me - I'm a big cry baby

But really, what made it fun was that we had so many buckets to draw from: sometimes a story germ initially began with a character idea; sometimes it was inspired by global location; sometimes it was a clever way to update or reimagine an idea from old Carmen lore. Usually, it was some combination of all of the above!

PizzaHorse:

What was your favorite scene to write?

Duane Capizzi:

I think we have a theme here! "How can I pick just one ...?"

As a film buff, I got to indulge in some serious fan nerdery on this show: I got to write spy movies, yakuza movies, spaghetti neo-westerns (though turning it on its head: spaghetti westerns usually involve REVENGE and because of Carmen's character make up, this was sort of anti-revenge).

Is writing coming up with the idea or typing it? Haha. An "if a tree falls in the forest" question. The writing team and I had so many cathartic "that's how it goes" in the room. But on my own, writing the Pilot, was a very inspiring time for me: I remember laughing out loud the moment I thought of Chase falling on his own car (in part because of doing my spin on "that trope" that we've seen in so many hard boiled movies recently). But also how emotional I got when I imagined the simple but potent image of Black Sheep deciding to take her destiny into her own hands and walk that long corridor to the Faculty who we were about to meet for the first time.

I think I've cited this in another interview, but there was a period where I was completely immersed in Chase's arc and the scene where he would crack the location of VILE island ... by listening to Julia in a dream ... was a big one for me. It revealed he was finally open to admitting he needed Julia more than he would ever admit - yet, it was his own subconscious speaking.

The next morning, after cracking that scene, I bumped into Raf Petardi (voice of Chase) ... at the supermarket! It was very strange and hilarious

PizzaHorse:

Did you scrap any lengthy or funny scenes that you would be able to share?

Duane Capizzi:

With few exceptions, most scene cuts are done at the script stage so that the story board team doesn't waste effort over boarding. A variety of trims to any script are common, but they are usually for the better

The easier question to answer might be scenes were part of our "wish list" at writer room stage, but never made it to story or script. I hesitate to go too deep here (in the event that we might ever do more Carmen episodes in this canon - I'm not giving up hope). And there were cases where things we wanted to do earlier in the series wound up getting nixed or not fitting for whatever reason, but we got them in later - USUALLY FOR THE BETTER. So there's sort of a reverse Murphy's Law/rule of good fortune somehow in these things. But some fun things that didn't make it into the show, that leap to mind were: a Bollywood dance sequence (!). A Vegas caper involving Brunt wanting to steal an Elvis jumpsuit against the backdrop of an Elvis impersonator convention. We also thought it would be neat to get Maelstrom imprisoned so that Julia could interrogate him and he would play mind games with her - very Lector/Clarice!

PizzaHorse:

Were there any different treatments of Carmen you pitched before settling on the one we ended up with?

Duane Capizzi:

I was one of several "pitches" that I'm sure HMH heard before running with my version. But I can honestly say I've never pitched anything as fully formed: the take on Carmen felt so right to me, and clearly HMH and by extension Netflix agreed

I'll answer your question with an anecdote: I had the entire Pilot pretty well worked out, and pitched it in the first meeting. But one key thing that changed (much for the better!), simply because it wouldn't have fit without slogging things down ...

In my Pilot pitch, Black Sheep's escape on the boat was off screen: we see Shadowsan corner her, then we cut away. The rest of the Faculty show up to find SS's broken sword on the rocks, and are led to believe BS killed him (!). In the present, Crackle points his weapon at Carmen and prepares to pull the trigger. We know that Chase is on the way and may rescue her. The compartment door opens to reveal - not Chase - but Shadowsan! Big surprise! Then we cut back to BS's escape and find out what really transpired etc etc.

Crazy, right? SS would have been hanging out with the gang in season 1; we might not have gotten to 203 with his back story, since his sword was broken and he couldn't return it. Just one of those magical things where "things work out" the way they are supposed to. THAT SAID, it made for a heckuva pitch

PizzaHorse:

Are there any characters that ended up taking a direction you didn't initially anticipate?

Duane Capizzi:

GRAY.

I didn't know we'd make him amnesiac when I wrote the Pilot, that was something we came up with in our first week Writer Room.

And even then, when it became clear he'd be a key piece of the bigger puzzle, we didn't know how exactly (mostly the Season 4 stuff).

We did get very deep with a version where 404 ended with his protective streak for Carmen kicking into high gear, and they would be fighting off Vile Guards back to back in perfect tandem. Then, having chosen Carmen over VILE, it was Carmen who actually orchestrates Gray going "off grid" so that VILE can never find him again. Funny, I know that is arguably the version of Gray's arc that many fans might have preferred seeing. But in the tradition of spy thrillers and film noir, and for a lone wolf character like Carmen who is focused on her life mission and not romance, we stand behind where we went with him. We felt it was so much more compelling ... and truly more emotional that he totally has a get out of jail free card when he sacrifices everything (including his life, potentially) to save Carmen.

when she needs him most!

I know I made some controversial comments about Gray "not being good enough for Carmen" and I'd like to clarify that I meant, until that final episode. What he did was so selfless and heroic. Is there hope for them in the future? Who knows?! But I do hope we get to explore that one day

I'm sure Gray is living off the grid somewhere now, inspired by Carmen's selfless good and thinking of her from time to time.

PizzaHorse:

You mentioned in the interview with Alicyn that Carmen is a love story, but you were cut off before you could finish discussing. Could you elaborate on your answer now?

Duane Capizzi:

Ugh, yes! Sorry about that. I actually answered that privately for someone so will cut and paste that response here. Let's see if it works.

Something we never said in the show, but something I imparted to the creative team was: Carmen Sandiego is (among other things) a LOVE STORY, where every character in our ensemble is in love with Carmen in one way or another. Even if they don't know it! That love can take different forms: we see how spurned by Carmen Coach Brunt feels and why she retaliates so excessively. Chase eventually comes to realize that he too loves Carmen, even if he wasn't initially aware of it haha. One of the most moving things to me about the series is how all of the different factions come to Carmen's rescue at the end when she's not "in her right mind," without knowing the others are there too. It's a massive group effort to bring back the Carmen they love. But we weren't looking for a fairy tale ending for Carmen with ANYone - Carmen's a classic lone wolf anti-hero, that goes with the territory. At least at this stage in her journey.

PizzaHorse:

Were there other locations that you wanted to feature in the show that didn't make it?

Duane Capizzi:

I think we managed to cover a lot of ground and "cadence" between different countries/cultures/continents was important to us. Many "iconic" locations of course, and it would have been nice to explore some lesser known locations if we had more episodes.

One that we almost did was Niagara Falls, Canada - actually literally going to the Falls and doing a big hydro-electric caper, where Player could actually get into the field with Carmen and the team.

But ultimately, we wound up bringing Player into the fold the way we did and wound up stronger as a result. It made his "first face to face" with Carmen even more impactful, IMO.

PizzaHorse:

Were there any changes in production between the first half and the second half of the series?

Duane Capizzi:

Well, there was that Covid thing

But while it was no doubt a colossal undertaking to get the entire staff transitioned to work from home (animators! and their equipment!), we managed to make up for lost time WITHOUT a dip in animation quality. My fedora's off to our amazing team at Wildbrain for pulling it off!

We did lose some staff between orders, but that is a natural part of production unfortunately. Namely, one of our episodic directors Kenny Park, our first storyboard artist Dennis Crawford, and our story editor May Chan were among those who moved on to other shows during the break. But, as hard as their shoes were to fill, fill them we did!

PizzaHorse:

What is your favorite season?

Duane Capizzi:

Easy. Hands down, Season 3.

(crickets)

KIDDING!

Again, another "they're all my babies" answer (and yes, I love Season 3 equally

It's hard, because really when you step back I'm sure you'll agree it's a series, with stand alone capers; but it's really all ONE BIG MOVIE.

Season 3 is like the scherzo of a symphony: the shortest movement of four, and the one that tees up the big finale.

That's my hoity toity answer but I'm going to put to rest all of the various theories on what happened with season 3. It was a combination of two things: Netflix's desire to experiment with different ways of "dropping" seasons, and their desire to do a holiday themed drop (in this case Halloween, naturally). It became our challenge to come up with a theme (easy enough: masks), and the bigger challenge to serve their need while not interrupting our ongoing narrative. A challenge to be sure, but a challenge met. I think the biggest bump was perception: it was a short season and I know that was disappointing to many. But, by design.

So, Season 3 = an essential part of the whole. I don't think there's a wasted episode, and it gets everyone into position for the big finish. I can't pick a favorite season - you can't make me

PizzaHorse:

Were there any characters you had wanted to give more time to but couldn't due to time/plot restraints?

Duane Capizzi:

Well, there's the "what was on the white board" answer but hopefully some of those ideas will see the light of day in some way, shape or form some day. I think if we had more episodes, we would have shaken up the internal dynamic of VILE a bit more (as hinted at Brunt's displeasure with Maelstrom for leaving her hanging out to dry at end of 405 - a seed we planted "just in case," as some have noted). And we had more scenes in mind with Chase's partnering with Carmen for the first time that we had to cut to the bone because of what little room we had in that otherwise packed episode (worry not: it's mostly more gags, more embellishment, more twists and turns - but the important stuff is there). Mostly, and I don't think it would have been right for Season 4 but I hope to tell in the future, I think there's an interesting history between Shadowsan and Lady Dokuso - possibly tragic - that I would love to explore one day. (She was a cameo in Duke of Vermeer at the dinner party BTW, I'm not sure if anyone noticed. And we built a bigger role for her out of that)

PizzaHorse:

What are some pre-2000/nostalgic Carmen references you snuck into the show? Do you have a favorite reference that was included?

Duane Capizzi:

Doing that was so much fun! I'd say roughly 60% of the characters were from previous iterations of Carmen, though often in name only. We had fun reimagining most everyone to make them more relevant or updated or giving them a more colorful personality for starters.

"Suhara" was Carmen's Japanese mentor when she worked at the ACME Agency in a flashback episode in the 90's series, for instance. I don't think I need to spell out how we turned that one inside out

And Tigress was also one episode only: she was a "rival thief" to Carmen, but revealed to be an ACME agent in disguise - a persona created solely to bait Carmen. It was really cool of course, but it seemed like untapped potential so we made her an ACTUAL Vile Thief.

My own internal rule was to make sure the references/easter eggs wouldn't confuse anyone - they were there for those who were in the loop and window dressing. The one and only time i broke that rule was Dark Carmen's line from 407: "I do it for the mental gymnastics." It was one of the most absurd lines from the 90's series (IMO) and i was determined to have it come out of Dark Carmen's mouth. I'm sure it left some 7 year olds scratching their heads

aside from that, the key references were the music: I still tingle at how we worked the Rockapella theme into the Interactive Special; and the 90's main title theme (composed by Mozart!), in our Vienna episode ("They're playing my song"). If you wanted Rockapella or Carmen as a bad guy, well ... be careful what you wish for!

PizzaHorse:

Was there any improvised content from recording sessions that made it into any episodes?

Duane Capizzi:

Yes! Not much, because a lot of it would have pushed us into TV-MA haha

Mostly Mary Elizabeth - Coach Brunt has a POTTY MOUTH!

Mikey and Abby usually riffed their banter WAY beyond what was on the written page and had us in stitches. Some bits definitely made it in! But mostly there was too much or it would get off point (hmmm, much like my interview answers maybe? haha)

Sharon Muthu did rise to Pun Goddess status with "Mask and you shall receive." And Raf pitched me "Chasse means hunt in French" after one session and I said: "I'm going to write that in." I don't think he believed me. You can't say I'm not a straight shooter.

PizzaHorse:

If you could get more season, would you do it, and what type of story would you tell?

Duane Capizzi:

Well if that hasn't been clear so far, ABSOLUTELY

There have been discussions of course. It's up to the powers that be at this point. I will say this: the beauty and tradition so far has been that every iteration has been its own thing. I definitely think there are more "different canon" versions of Carmen that can be had and be a part of this wonderful tradition. After all, there were many naysayers for our version when it was first announced.

I will also say that if we don't get to tell any more stories in this canon with these characters, we've left a perfect gem that will stand the test of time. I would rather go out on a high note than overstay our welcome.

All that said, we worked within the allotted episodes given, ended it as we wished, but left the door open for other stories. I'd love to do an expansion and a deepening: pick up where we left off; find out what happened in those two years; and proceed to do the equivalent of Godfather II or Better Call Saul as related to the amazing originals they followed.

Let's hope! Keep putting good vibes out there!

PizzaHorse:

If you could pick a character on Carmen Sandiego who'd you switch places with for a day (you get to control their life and they get to control yours) who would you pick, and why?

Duane Capizzi:

Okay, THIS is difficult. So you're going Freaky Friday on me?

on a Sunday?

Hmmm, I know Ivy would get along with my cat ... but then I'd have to hang out with Zack!

That's the trick: I can't pick my favorites cuz I couldn't hang out with them!

(not that I have favorites - they're all my babies haha)

Okay, I have one: ROUNDABOUT. I could fill Shadowsan's seat - how cool is that? Then, I could enact all my evil fantasies - but still have a get out of jail free card cuz he'd be sitting at my desk!

(cut to Duane being brain wiped - D'oh!)

PizzaHorse:

Who are two characters who don't really interact in the show that you think could be good friends or work really well together?

Duane Capizzi:

Hmmmm. Okay, now I'm going to give you quick and sassy answers. Gray and Julia! They'd be so cute banding together to rescue captive Carmen (for instance). And they could also duke it out and maybe settle things between themselves re: shipping controversies instead of dragging me into it

PizzaHorse:

The FINAL QUESTION. Have you learned anything super impactful while working on the show?

Duane Capizzi:

Aside from Iceland's terrifically low crime rate?

I think I have learned to never underestimate how meaningful characters can be to fans. Social media has obviously brought us a lot closer to our fan base in more immediate ways: it's been really gratifying to hear/see/read feedback and not be writing things in a vacuum. It's been gratifying to see that ideas that were meaningful to myself and the creative team on Carmen that were crafted with care, have also resonated with our fan base. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE who has traveled on this journey with us - for embracing Carmen's world view, and her friends and foes alike. Take care everyone! Stay safe! This has been fun, thanks for having me!

PizzaHorse:

HUGE thank you to Duane Capizzi: for being here today.

Thank you everyone for watching and reacting!

Duane Capizzi:

Okay, gotta run - just gotta find the door

Anyway, really: THIS HAS BEEN AMAZING. I speak for everyone involved in the creation and production of Carmen: it has been an amazing and inspiring series and we're elated to see it connect with such a CREATIVE, TALENTED and INTELLIGENT fan base. Take care everyone! Until next crime...

[etcorsolus]

Bready’s Spotlight Challenge Part Three!

Back again with part three, numbers eleven through fifteen!

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four

#11. The rarest pair you’ve ever written: The Other Wolf and Cat (Gaetan/Gweld, Rated: M) Summary: In which, Gaetan stalks a wolf and Gweld catches a cat. This was the first piece I wrote for Gaetan/Gweld. I am still the sole owner of that tag, to the best of my knowledge. I actually started it because I wanted to write something with Gweld for a reader of A Settled Debt that really loved him. I’m a romantic at heart so I tend towards paired fics over gen and I was trying to come up with someone to pair with Gweld, but the fic is also set in verse so I couldn’t use Geralt or Eskel or Lambert, they were already paired off in that verse and then Gaetan popped in my head. I figured we already ship one cat with a wolf, might as well ship another! And Gweld/Gaetan was born. I fell in love with these two together. I write Gweld as a very laid back guy, he’s easy going and generally happy and adaptable, and it’s a fun dynamic to write him with Gaetan, who I always picture as very mercurial, diving from one mood to the next in a blink. 

#12. A fic that has special meaning for you: The Question of Trust (Lambert/Jaskier, Rated: M) Summary: In which, Jaskier learns what trust looks like from his witcher. This is my personal favorite. I loved everything about this fic, from writing it to editing and how it came together. It’s one I’m very proud of. It’s also special to me because I was able to explore the building of trust between these characters and trust has always been something I struggled to give. Lambert is absolutely one of my favorite characters. I love his bite and prickly attitude and I love the heart he hides beneath it all. At first, I didn’t really like Lambert at all. I thought he was an asshole and he seemed like a very shallow character because of it but the more I learned about him and the things he’s been through the more I understood him. Lambert strikes me as a man that’s been hurt, over and over again, he’s had life and destiny and people who were supposed to care for him turn their backs and screw him over. And yeah, it’s made him bitter and rough around the edges but I can’t blame the man. He was dealt a pretty shitty hand, over and over again, but he survives. And he still looks for his happiness, in his own way, refuses to let that be stolen from him when he can keep it for a while. I love Lambert for his tenacity, his unwillingness to surrender even though it would be far less painful for him to do so, and for his devotion to those he cares about. 

#13. A fic that got unexpectedly popular: A Settled Debt (Lambert/Aiden, Rated: M) Summary: Aiden has just taken to the Path as a Witcher when he meets a surly young boy who offers him a contract. This fic started as a one shot and it grew into a chaptered fic and then a series. I explored the idea of Lambert and Aiden meeting much earlier in Lambert’s life. It’s been a lot of fun to reimagine canon events and really explore the characters as I interpret them. This was also the first time I really tried to keep up with multiple characters, outside the main pairing. Writing an ensemble of characters has been a really fun challenge throughout the entire Lead Me Home series.

#14. A fic that you wish had gotten more love: A Dance (Lambert/Aiden, Rated: M) Summary: In which, Aiden is very convincing and Lambert can’t deny him. This fic sparked from a video that a mutual sent me (@ainawgsd, I’m lookin’ at you) that they said gave them Lambden vibes. And look, this fucking video is the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen, it’s absolutely precious and I watch it ten times a day. And I had this prompt, right, for a mob AU and I love reading mob AUs but I’m sort of shit at writing them (believe me, I’ve tried) so I knew I was gonna go kinda vague on the mob content. Then I got this mental image of prickly, will absolutely kill you and dump your body in a river for looking at him funny, Lambert dancing with Aiden just to make him smile and then my hand slipped! I swear it was the craziest thing, a whole fic just popped up, practically on it’s own. And then my hand slipped again and I posted it. You’re welcome.

#15. A fic you’d re-write if you had the time: This Once and Always (Geralt/Eskel, Rated: M) Summary: In which, Eskel meets Geralt and they have almost certainly met before. “You are my fate, this once and always.” - Atticus. I love soulmate AUs and this was the first one I tried to write. It’s sort of awkward to read though, I can’t quite place my finger on exactly why. I keep coming back to the pacing, I think if I rewrote this it would be longer and a little less rushed. I loved this idea but it was also one of the first few fics I wrote and I’ve come a long way in the last few months as far as taking the time on a story. I’d almost definitely take more time on the dreaming aspect, probably do quite a bit more world building and I’d probably change their second meeting as well as Eskel’s job. I just feel like I should have thought this one out a little more before I wrote it.

As always if you have questions or a prompt request, send me an ask!

[twistedtummies2]

Gotham’s 31 Most Wanted - Number 28

Welcome back to Gotham’s 31 Most Wanted! Each day of January, I’m counting down my Top 31 Favorite Batman Villains of all time! Today’s group of rogues proves that, when it comes to crime, Three is a Magic Number. Number 28 is…The Terrible Trio.

The Terrible Trio is a group of somewhat obscure Batman Villains; in fact, while they don’t quite have the “loser villain” status that Killer Moth has, they ARE often seen as poster-children for “forgotten” villains. Products of the Golden Age, the Terrible Trio was originally conceived as a group of business associates who grew bored of their average lives, and decided to turn to crime essentially to seek new intellectual challenges and alleviate their boredom. The three adopted absurd animal masks, and dubbed themselves The Fox, The Shark, and The Vulture – collectively, the Terrible Trio. Their masks represented their areas of expertise: they worked in a sort of elemental way, as the Fox committed crimes that focused on land, the Shark on the sea, and the Vulture on air. Over the years, the trio have evolved and changed with the times; in the “Doctor Mid-Nite” series, they were a trio of drug lords who used their bizarre costumes in equally bizarre cult rituals. In the DC Rebirth, the Vulture was replaced by “The Raven,” and the three were reimagined as young members of a secret society stationed at Gotham Academy. In a oneshot story called “DC Retroactive: Batman: The 1970s,” the three were reimagined as a gang of young hoodlums who somehow got high-tech costumes modeled after the classic trio; one of them turned out to be the son of Lucius Fox, which added a personal touch to this interpretation. Most recently, my personal favorite take in the comics were depicted as archenemies of Batgirl. (They’re the ones shown here.) In this version, the Trio are reimagined once more: the Fox is depicted as the brains of the operation, the Shark is the brawn, and the Vulture (now a female character) is “where the money’s at” – she’s the one providing funding for the team’s campaigns. These three were depicted as mysterious ne’er do wells who ran a secret underground base called “The Den,” which catered itself to the “evil elite” – a group of high-standing social people who legitimately ENJOYED doing terrible things. They seemed to believe that humanity was naturally horrible, and because they were so wealthy and powerful, they could do anything they wanted, and SHOULD do anything they wanted, no matter how nasty and vile. They were equal parts deplorable and entertaining, and their chemistry with each other was a lot of fun to read. Outside of comics, the Trio have so far been adapted, fittingly, three times. In “Batman: The Animated Series,” the Trio was reimagined not as inventors and businessmen, but rather a group of wealthy playboys, not unlike Bruce Wayne, who turned to crime for kicks. In “The Batman,” they were more drastically reimagined: in this version, they were three outcast teenagers, who stole some of the Man-Bat serum and modified it, transforming themselves into half-human, half-animal monsters to try and get back at those who wronged them. My favorite interpretation in other media was in “Batman: The Brave and the Bold.” In this version, the Trio were actually given some personal ties to Batman, as it was revealed the three men who became the Trio studied martial arts with the same mentor as both Batman and the Bronze Tiger. Their masks were initially symbols of their animal totems. However, darkness brewed in their hearts, and the three banded together, using their genius intellects and martial arts abilities to murder the man who trained them (and trained Batman), before going on a quest to seek ultimate power and – you guessed it – take over the world. I liked this one best because I felt it mixed some of the best elements of the two earlier interpretations in animation, and because I like how it added that personal touch to things with the Trio being the ones who killed Batman and Bronze Tiger’s former mentor. In terms of the comics: the Trio’s stories tend to just be “okay,” but I do like the concepts of the characters. Even just visually, they are very unique. There’s just something inherently interesting and sort of mysterious about three men (and occasionally one woman) in classy suits who have animal heads, and they’ve been toyed with in a lot of cool ways. They may not be the most well-known Batman Villains, but you can have a lot of fun with them if you know how. Again, much like Dr. Death and King Shark, the main problem with the Trio is that they CONSTANTLY change, so there’s very little consistency from rendition to rendition. All the same, they’re among those characters I name as “Villains I Really Need to Write For,” and for good reason. The countdown continues tomorrow, where I’ll be covering my 27th Favorite Batman Villain. HINT: This Little Piggy Has a Heart as Black as Coal.

[sometimes-love-is-enough]

hihi um i've been seeing a lot of stuff about remixes, including yours, and it sounds super cool so I was wondering where I could go to find out more? or if you could explain it? no pressure if not ofc!! also your fics are incredible!! i love eucatastrophe so much!

ah, of course!

Remixes are reimagined versions of fanworks. There’s a Fanlore page on it here if you want to read more about it, but essentially - you take someone else’s fic, art, video, etc, and you redo it! You put your own spin on it, you change the sort of AU it’s set in, you write it in Your Style, you change the POV or the ending or the tone - there’s a lot of variety!! and no real wrong way to do it. I’ve seen remixes that are only tangentially based on the source works. 

For example, if someone wrote a fic about, uh, Thomas dying and going to an inexplicably bee-infested hell that the Sides then have to drag him out of (but that would be wild! who would write that), someone could come along and remix that and write about the hell in question being infested with tigers instead. Or maybe turning it into a more classical hell instead, or writing it exclusively from the perspective of a particular character, or reframing it as an actual Sanders Sides episode. Or whatever. Like I said, no wrong way to do it. 

The whole remixing thing has fallen out of style in recent years, which I think is a shame because it’s super fun. And tbh I think more people should do it! This is me nudging you. Go remix stuff! 

Some stuff about remixes:

It used to be a Thing way back when to have [Main Title Of The Remix] (the [something] remix) as the name of the remixed fic, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. I’m just attached to the old format.

It’s generally good etiquette to ask for permission before you do/post a remix (in the same way that you’d ask before doing a podfic or writing any other recursive fanfic).

There’s some challenges where you can sign up specifically to Remix Other People’s Stuff - the one I did about a month ago is the reason why there’s a bunch of recent Sanders Sides remixes, I let a bunch of people in the writing server I’m on know about it and we all went wild. I don’t know if there’s any running now/soon, unfortunately. Remix Revival was the one in question, and it’s yearly (along with its accompanying free-for-all Remix Madness)

anyway, yes - remixing is a good fun time! I really should do some more at some point.

[ohthewhomanity]

Hey I’ve been reading your fics for a while now, and I think they’re really good! If you don’t mind me asking, what was the inspiration for Kassidy?

Hi! Sorry for the delayed reply - I usually use Tumblr mobile for this blog, and I never remember to check my inbox.

Than you so much; I’m glad you enjoy my fics! I’ve had a lot of fun with that Ducktales series, and I hope to add something to it soon... I have things planned. It’s just a matter of finding the time.

My inspiration for Kassidy... Hm, I had to think about this for a bit, because it wasn’t just one simple thing. I didn’t look at one specific person in my life and reimagine her as an anthropomorphic peacock, or anything like that. Kassidy showed up as the answer to a lot of needs I had, different things I wanted to explore in the AU.

As kids, Webby and Lena’s life is very insular, well-contained. They have each other, they have their shared family, they have the mansion. It struck me as very easy for all of that to go unquestioned - they could potentially go their whole lives not questioning anything about themselves and their relationship. But that isn’t growth, and this series is about these two girls growing up.

I wanted the outside world to come knocking and force them to start asking questions. I wanted Lena to find a standard of “normal” to compare herself and her bizarre new life to. This was before Violet showed up in canon, and I wanted Webby and Lena to have a female friend, just so they wouldn’t be the ONLY girl in each other’s lives. I wanted the Ducks’ world to be a little more queer and a little more racially diverse. On a related note, I’d started thinking about Dewey questioning his gender in the future, so I wanted an elder queer role model around to help with that. I wanted to challenge myself, an arospec/acespec writer, to write an alloromantic plotline. I wanted to explore the problems that can turn up when allos and aros/aces date, problems that I’ve faced (Webby’s "pedestal” monologue at the climax of “Kassidy Peacock” is something I wish I could have said to one of my exes), and I wanted to resolve those problems in a happy way. Further down the line, I also wanted a biological father for Webby and Lena’s daughter, Tempest.

Kassidy appeared in my head as the answer to all of that. My brain just sort of did that “Why not both?” gif about everything. She developed as I wrote her, of course, but she was always a peacock - I’ve been enamored with the idea of a trans woman peacock character for a long time, since she’d have the beautiful feathers (peahens are mostly grey). I don’t have any deep thoughts about what inspired the motorcycle; I just wanted her to be cool and a little bit intimidating, and motorcycles strike me as cool and a little bit intimidating. And I have to give my queer community, both online and in-person, credit for inspiring the way she talks about gender and coming out. It’s a combination of a lot of different people’s experiences with my own.

Thank you for giving me an excuse to ramble about my writing! If you have any more questions - or if anyone reading this has a question - feel free to ask me here or at @sophieakatz. Ask the right question and you might even get a spoiler out of me, as a treat. (You kinda got one here! Unless y’all already guessed about Tempest, you sharp cookies.)

[eddtober]

EDDTOBER MASTERPOST 2019!

ABOUT:

Eddtober is a list of prompts made in an effort to encourage the Eddsworld Fandom to spread their wings of creativity beyond the norms that they are used to, during the month of October.

It is all without harming others or causing drama, a neutral ground for all fans of Eddsworld to come and have fun, no matter what side of a discourse they’re in. 

It hopes to promote inspiration beyond the usual over-dramatised content, to revive a spirit in Eddsworld that hasn’t been seen in many years, and to stretch the invitation to all who can create.

Eddtober calls not only the artists who have a talent for drawing and painting and so forth, but also: the authors (fanfics, journalists, essayists, diarists, poets, ramblers), the cosplayers, the video-makers (animators, video essays, memers, youtubers), the gamers (game devs, let’s plays) and more. Eddtober calls for all those who want to be inspired with unconventional creativity. 

So Eddheads: come forth, be inspired and make something new! 

With that out the way, steel yourselves - this post is gonna be a long one under the cut!

RULES:

Base Rules need to be set so everyone can participate in Eddtober safely and in a fun way. Please read them carefully!

Always tag it with #eddtober and tag appropriately! Of course, the first part is easy. In regards to the second part, there’s three categories. All they have in common is that they must be tagged with their own tag and NOT in the main eddtober tag. These specific tags musn’t be shortened or reimagined either, just to make sure. Side Note: If you don’t want to see ANY of these things mentioned in the categories, it’s recommended that you get some form of a blacklist extention, either Tumblr Savior, xKit, or even tumblr itself to hide those things from you. Though do beware - be careful when looking through the blog since… Yeah, it’s hard to blacklist stuff through there. a) Gore. Gore and related NSFW is allowed in the challenge, but please tag it as #Eddtober gore, alongside the appropriate trigger warnings of the subject as #tw -trigger here- . The creative piece should also be posted with a ‘keep reading’ redirection so it isn’t immediately seen by those who are repulsed by it. b) Shipping. As of 2019, shipping is now officially allowed and acceptable in the challenge! If you have any ships implied or shown in a prompt response, always use #eddtober shipping and what ship it is in a seperate tag. c) (In)Famous Fan Projects. As of 2019, a lot of dividing opinions have been flying around the community and splitting people apart. In an event of unity and neutrality, these opinions are still welcomed, but still have to be done carefully. If you’re in favour of a fan-project, go ahead and tag them alongside ’#eddtober fan project’. But if you’re not, then you don’t have to tag them - just use ’#eddtober fan project salt’. And yes, those are the exact tags. No need to alter them here.

Be Sensitive and Respectful to Others. I know many of us here in this fandom can take easy offence to certain creations, so please consider and think on your creative piece before you make and post it. If it’s intentionally insulting and offensive, don’t post or even create it at all.  

Credit Where Due. This should be blatantly obvious right now, but please, please don’t steal other’s creative fanwork or post it without credit. Always have permission from the creator to post something of their’s, regardless of the social media, and always have their username when you post it, not just ‘credit to the artist/original person’. If you do not follow this, actions will be taken for your consequences. This also goes for spreading Eddtober - always place a link to this blog if you spread the list to other social medias!

Keep your situation and life chill. You can do one prompt for Eddtober, some of the prompts or all of them - up to you! It’s understandable if life gets in the way. The goal of Eddtober is not to do every prompt, but to be inspired to create fan-content in a way you usually wouldn’t have.

Spread the word. This is less of a rule and more of a personal request from Admin Chris, but since she doesn’t have many social media accounts you’d expect, spreading word of Eddtober (with appropriate credit back to this blog) would mean a LOT, so they can join in the fun too!

Sharing is caring. Reblogging and sharing from your fellow creators doing Eddtober would be great to give them a motivation and confidence boost! (Keep in mind that reposting is not the same as reblogging, unless proper credit is given with the original artists’ permission.)

Go Beyond the Boundaries of Your Imagination. The whole purpose of Eddtober is to promote new, fresh things to come up in the Eddsworld fandom and break a cycle of the same old that’s been there for a while. Take a leap, spread your wings, do your best, and go have fun.

BOUNDARIES:

Most of this list will be related to Rule Two of Eddtober:

Be Sensitive and Respectful to Others.

Quote:

‘I know many of us here in this fandom can take easy offence to certain creations, so please consider and think on your creative piece before you post.‘

Whilst Eddtober is a fun, neutral place to spread our creative wings, there are boundaries that need to be taken in order to keep everyone safe. Which means certain parts that are usually seen as ‘common’ within the Eddsworld Fandom will not be acceptable in the challenge. This list is just to make sure that we as the Eddtober community can set a good standard for the fandom and for ourselves.

Edd Gould’s death. Admin Chris wishes to make it clear that creative pieces that draws clear lines to Edd’s passing IS NOT okay. This includes Edd (IRL and the character) in hospital for cancer, Angel Edd or any AU that depicts him as a divine being of any sort (including Blessworld), in Heaven or Hell (as an actual denizen there, not a tourist like in Hello Hellhole. There’s a strong difference).   Here at Eddtober, Edd's life is something to be celebrated, not his death. It’s uncomfortable to see this thing happen and should be steered clear of.

Fetishisation/Sexualisation of Religions and Faiths. This is another reason why AUs such as Blessworld aren’t okay. In regards to that AU, the sexualisation and the horrendous acts done within the Catholic church is a highly sensitive topic that’s still debated over even in real life. So things such as ‘sexy’ nuns and priests and so forth are a strong insult to them. This is only one example though, and I’m not saying you can’t explore faiths and combine them with Eddsworld, but I HIGHLY recommend doing your research on the faith or religion and its history before creating for Eddtober.

Edd’s old IRL Friends. This is regarding Prompts 27 and 28 for the most part. Whilst Edd Gould did draw his pals into comics and Eddisodes, making them their own characters (quite clearly), many of them might not want to be associated with Eddsworld or Edd after his passing or after the legacy season. So out of respect for their wishes, please do not involve Edd’s actual old IRL friends in your creative pieces unless they say they’re okay with it. This will vary from person to person, so do not also take one answer from one person and apply that as an umbrella motive. If you get no response from the person regarding this if you ask them yourself, then take it as a NO and don’t involve them in the creative piece. This doesn’t mean that you cannot use the Eddsworld character based off of them (unless they straight-up say so). You’re perfectly able to, but to avoid future confusion, a person’s Eddsworld character IS NOT the same as the real-life person. For example, using Tom from Eddsworld in a piece is okay, but using Thomas ‘TomSka’ Ridgewell himself for the same Eddsworld piece isn’t. (Disclaimer: Said example may not be 100% accurate unless there’s further information about this. This is a fictional example, after all.)

The real guys’ last names/surnames. I really didn’t want to say this in here and it hasn’t happened in Eddtober yet, but when Legacy ended, one of Tom’s last says was that the fans shouldn’t use the IRL last names of Eddsworld crewmembers (specifically actors and animators) for the characters. It’s an effort to seperate the characters from the real-life people. This means when creating your pieces, you don’t use: -Edd Gould -Tom Ridgewell -Matt Hargreaves -Tord Larsson And so forth. You’re welcome to come up with your own last names for the characters, but please don’t use the old IRL ones. Unfortunately since this habit is starting to pop back up in bits of the fandom, I want to make it clear that isn’t cool or tolerated, and action will be taken if I see it happen in here.

Sinsworld. Believe it or not, the sinsworld tag was specifically made back in the day to keep the porn out of the main. But due to a certain in-fandom event, this intended action has been long-lost. Because of all of these events, any sinsworld (porn, lewds and related sexual NSFW) that’s Sinspired by the Eddtober prompts WILL NOT be accepted into the blog or any other official Eddtober accounts by any means.   This is because many in this fandom are minors/underage and more who are 18+ are repulsed to porn and such (Admin Chris is part of the latter group). It is fine to be sexually inspired by the prompts and create stuff for them, but PLEASE don’t tag that Sinsworld content with Eddtober.

Abusive/Self-Harm Creative Content, Gorey or not. No. Just. No. I don’t wish to deny vent or darker creations. It is good to release your frustrations and express personal issues in what you create, but there are safe and appropriate ways to do so in the challenge. Death wishing, abuse, suicide/suicide idealisation, self-harm and/or similar are NOT allowed to be depicted in the challenge and should NEVER be romanticised or supported. Eddtober aims to be a safe and uplifting place for all creative people, no matter what their space is at the moment.

Shipping. On a similar note - whilst shipping is allowed, there are of course some things we don’t allow out of respect for everyone: -Shipping of the IRL people. -Sexual or abusive ship dynamics and tropes. -Ship-bashing or insulting ships. I’m sure there will be more to add to the list as I continue getting asks regarding this, but in the meantime, please don’t let yourself fall into creating for this.

Gore beyond Eddsworld’s levels. Gore has been a staple of Eddsworld since the early episodes, and it won’t be refused in the challenge. However, there are limits to how far this gore will go as of 2019, and it will be made clear here. -Guts This was allowed in Eddtober 2018, but as of now this is no longer the case. A lot of Eddheads expressed discomfort at the idea of guts hanging out of bodies as of the 2019 preparation survey, and I agree with them. This will also be extended to zombification/zombies. -Romanticised/‘Fashionable’ Gore. Absolutely not. Using the creative properties of gore to make someone look more ‘attractive’ in a sexualised manner is against the earlier boundaries. -Gore of Edd Gould, or his old IRL friends. This hasn’t happened, but it is good to make this clear in case some people are really naive about this: DO NOT DO THIS. That’s just straight-up offensive. -Gore of Prompts 27 to 30 (and potentially 31).   Obviously. Since these last few prompts are about expressing your love and appreciation to the fandom, it doesn’t make sense on why you’d make something gutsy-gorey about some wholesome times. Especially in regards to Prompts Twenty-Seven and Twenty-Eight (Which was also just technically mentioned above, but the point has been made).

(In)Famous fan-projects. In the past year or so, certain fan projects have gathered a strong following - both for love and hate. Unfortunately, due to this hate being especially loud in 2019, action had to be taken for this. It’s not to say that you can’t express your opinions of a project, but there’s a safe way for all in doing so. For the others around you, and for yourself too. So if you’re going to create things that relate to either side of the argument you’re on, I will NOT allow straight-up insulting stuff to either side. Be it horrendous caricatures of the creators, vaguing about others through a story, plain old bashing or other means, I will NOT let it be shared around. More so, if this is kept up, I’ll most likely disregard your creations entirely since I don’t wish to endorse hurtful people. Especially through this event.

With all that said and done, let’s get to the ACTUAL prompts!

Quick reminder: when this list says ‘create something for’, it’s not just referring to fanart. It refers to any medium - digital, traditional or unconventional - that can be used. The challenge here is to be creative as possible, not to stay conventional.

The List features Admin Chris’s Commentary. Some useless, some useful.

Create something for Edd. (Not his real-life counterpart, but the character. That needed some clearing up based on 2017’s results.)

Create something for Tom.

Create something for Matt

Create something for any pre-legacy season episode, except WTFuture. (You can do WTFuture if you want, but seeing that much of this fandom is currently made of people who came in after The End… It’d be worth having a crack at other pre-legacy episodes.)

Create something for or with the crew’s symbols. (An example of symbols being a cola can for Edd, something blue for Tom, a mirror for Matt, etc.)

Create something for Superhero Alter Egos! (It doesn’t have to stop at PowerEdd’s canon either! Go nuts! Give Edd and his friends new superhero alibis and outfits!)

Create something for Supervillain Alter Egos! (Reminder that it doesn’t have to stop at the ‘Green/Blue/Purple/Red Leader scenario! Again, go nuts! Get wacky if you must!)

Create something for Minor characters of the show. (Except the Neighbours - they already have their own prompt.)

Create something for descendants of the main four guys. (Sure, you can make it about the love children of your favourite ships, but the point of this prompt specifically is to not be ship-related. See if you can come up with descendant characters from the bloodlines of the main four. If not, shipping is fine.)

Create something for Tord. (He’s late in this list for a reason. Trust me.)

Create something for the neighbours of 29 Dirdum Lane. Are Kim and Katya still there, or are there newbies in the street?

Create something for the neighbours of 25 Dirdum Lane.

Create something for unlucky things happening to the guys, or one of them. Feel free to go as dark or as humourous as you like!

Create something for genderbends of the guys, maybe as if the Ellsworld we know never existed. Or you can stick to canon, up to you.

This prompt is a wild card. Do with it as you wish. (In 2017 everyone was told to quote: ‘go whole hog on this’. The next thing we all knew, everybody literally drew pigs with the guys. That wasn’t supposed to be literally taken, but by god it was hilarious.)

Create something for your crew. Whether you’re the main character with your friends or have OCs taking that place or a mix of both is up to you.

Create something for an AU of Eddsworld. You can make one up on the spot, or even fan content for an AU that already exists is cool too. (As of rule number two of Eddtober, the Blessworld AU will not be accepted for this prompt. I know it is popular, but if you have any issues with this, please contact me in the blog asks myself.)

Create something for Eddsworld as a video game. Whether it’s concepts and covers for your own ideas or fanart for games in the making such as Eddsworld Armageddon, up to you. Heck, why not make a demo?

Create something for Todd, or whoever the ‘Tord’ figure is of 25 Dirdum Lane.

Create something for a Saloonatics-WTFuture Crossover. (What? Shenanigans could be made here, guys. Just take it!)

Create something for the future selves of the guys. Or if you want to take it up a notch, make your own versions of them! Have them all be hobos (#HoBrosforlife), or have cola not be banned in the future… up to you!

The End who? Create something for and/or elaborate on how you would finish off the Eddsworld Legacy season. (For the purposes of this prompt, I can accept an angsty end for this, but I personally do not recommend it.)

Create something for Zanta. (I guess you could call him a Nightmare Before Christmas, then.)

Create something for an Eddsworld movie. Whether it’s stuff for the Eddsworld Fan Movie or your own ideas, up to you!

Create something for the deal with Tom’s eyes. If you want to call them that.

Pick a song, any song, and put that on repeat. Use it as inspiration to create something in relation to Eddsworld.

Create something for Edd Gould himself. Not his character in Eddsworld, the real-life person.

An obligatory prompt without Eddtober in the beginning: create something for Edd’s birthday. (This was made into a prompt and will permanently remain as one as Edd’s birthday shouldn’t be taken away from today.)

Create something for someone/multiple someones in the fandom who inspire you - even the small artists and writers and such who are just starting out!

Create something for who or what got you into EW. What's your story? How did you get here? (Do you have 90 minutes?)

Create something for you being inserted into Eddsworld in any way. (Because here in Eddtober, cringe culture is dead and we don’t hesitate to self-insert.) Be it you hanging with the guys or going on an eddventure, the context and situation is up to you!

VETERANS! Have you already done a prompt and don’t want to repeat yourself? Then check out the list of Eddstra Prompts here!

Phew! Alright, that’s everything. If you have any suggestions or questions about the challenge, please feel free to shoot an ask through the blog. Thanks for reading and have a safe and awesome Eddtober!

[edelgoth]

Hi may I request a DA matchup? I’ll apologize in advance as this might be lengthy;;; I’m NB, pan preferring men. 4w5 INFP-T. I’m patient, empathetic, & it takes a lot to get me mad, I can be pretty blunt tho. I have difficulty trusting others/making friends but when I do, my loyalty is unwavering. I’m reserved, quiet, listen more than talk, but enjoys being around people who are more outgoing/encouraging/supportive w/o being pushy! (1/3🐛)

Some of my worst flaws is that I’m prone to catastrophizing and can be terribly avoidant. Working on doing better lately. As a book illustrator, I love when people are happy seeing their stories come to life! I enjoy curating playlists for my friends, musical theatre, logic puzzles, outdoor activities like hiking, swimming, bug watching. (2/3🐛)

Not entirely sure what I want in a partner but maybe someone who isn’t afraid to tell things to me straight bc I can be dense as heck(or at least in my experience in the matters of love, I can’t pick up on the fact that someone might have feelings so just please tell me). Idk if it helps but my main love languages are acts of service and words of affirmation. Thank you so much for this and again I apologize for the length;; Hope you have a good day!;;)/💖 (3/3🐛)

i honestly get so excited when i see dragon age requests in my ask box aaa 

and don’t apologize about length!! gives me more to work with 

so, from the dragon age universe, i match you with…

zevran!!

you were pretty easy to pick someone for!! the more i read your profile, the more i just kept nodding and going “yep. zevran’s The One.” 

zevran is a well of concealed compassion, and i think you’re the sort of person who’d be able to bring it out of him (every time i think of him standing up for the mages in the circle i get Emotional). being with someone empathetic, who allows themselves to be kind, would really challenge the worldview he cultivated while with the crows 

he also values your loyalty; it’s something he’s never expected from people, and it touches him more deeply than he could’ve anticipated. it helps him feel more comfortable with you, and to slowly start taking down his walls 

on a lighter note, zevran would appreciate the fact that it takes a lot to make you mad; he’s playful, and he enjoys pressing people’s buttons (all of his conversations with other members of the campfire crew are gold because of this). his partner would have to be pretty patient, you know?? just be prepared for a lot of teasing

in terms of your personalities, you seem to have a fun contrast; where you’re reserved and quiet, zevran is outgoing and talkative. he strikes me as the sort who’d just decide you friends and that’s it (you know that thing about the extrovert adopting the introvert?? that, basically) 

he’s got a lot of stories to tell, and he seems to genuinely enjoy talking. so, the fact that you’re more of the listening type works out!! all he’d ask for would be some gasps every now and then 

you said you enjoy being around people who are outgoing, encouraging, and supportive without being pushy. well, zevran ticks all those boxes, in my opinion!! he’s surprisingly observant and attentive, and he genuinely wants to help you live the best life you can as the best version of yourself. anything he can do to help, he will  

zevran is quite cool-headed and logical (more so than his general temperament lets on), and i think that means he’d be good to have around whenever you began to catastrophize. he’d be able to talk you down, to work through each of your anxieties calmly, and to console you as best he could

it’d be a similar case with your avoidance; zevran is observant and smart enough to know the right approach and what’s actually going to help 

he finds your illustrations adorable (and being a book illustrator honestly sounds like such a cool job hhh). he’s always pestering you to illustrate his past adventures -- if you refuse, you can bet that he’d be bartering with you to earn it 

finally, zevran is definitely the partner who isn’t afraid to tell you things straight, because he’s very forward and he’s not afraid to call things as he sees them (i remember when i took him to orzammar and he just went off about harrowmont dklfdsjdflj) but in terms of romance, zevran isn’t afraid to make his intentions clear -- so you don’t have to worry about that!! 

overall, i think you’d have a wonderful connection, and a good balance of personalities that make for a great match!!

alternate matchups

isabela: i would die for my pirate wife without hesitation. neway, my reasons for choosing her are fairly similar to the ones i listed with zevran. she’s got a lot of empathy that she hides away, and i think she’d flourish with a person who’d help bring that out of her. otherwise, you two also have a good contrast in personalities; she’s outgoing, confident and bold, while you’re more reserved and patient. you can learn a lot from each other, and that’s always a good thing in a relationship!! and like zevran, she’s very forward, when it comes to her intentions, so no need to worry about being dense. i don’t think she’s as good of a match as zevran, but she’s still a great choice!! 

iron bull: for a moment i thought that bull was different from zevran and isabela, but then i realised that i’ve really just given you a Type TM. like zevran and isabela, he’s forward, confident and outgoing, and he’d balance your personality out quite well. bull would match your interests best, since i think he’d really enjoy hiking and swimming, and he also fits the bill for being a partner who’d tell you things straight. like zevran, i feel like he’d have a lot of stories to tell you that he’d love to see reimagined in your illustrations. i didn’t choose him as your main match because he’s just a bit,,, gruffer than zevran?? if that makes sense?? it probably doesn’t hhh

[rebelsofshield]

Star Wars Thrawn: Treason-Review

Timothy Zahn closes out the newest Thrawn trilogy with a mixed tale of intrigue and divided loyalties.

(Review Contains Minor Spoilers)

Grand Admiral Thrawn has been called away from Lothal. Just as the campaign against the local rebels begins to heat up, the future of the Chiss admiral’s pet project, the TIE Defender is called into question. Director Orson Krennic is jockeying for some of the Defender’s funding for his own mysterious project, Stardust, and Imperial higher ups such as Grand Moff Tarking and even the Emperor himself are all too willing to pit these men against each other. However, when a series of accidents begin to set Stardust behind schedule, Tarkin proposes a wager. If Thrawn is able to solve the cause of these incidents within an allotted period of time, he will secure the funding for his program. He agrees, but in the process unearths an unexpected conspiracy not only connected to the Empire but to the Chiss Ascendancy and his former protégé, Eli Vanto.

It has been a special treat for Star Wars fans seeing veteran franchise writer, Timothy Zahn, return to reimagine his signature creation for the newest era of the saga. Zahn’s first of this latest batch of Thrawn novels, simply titled Thrawn, proved to be one of the best novels in the current canon and offered an air of legitimacy to the Chiss’s introduction to the Star Wars animated show, Rebels. Zahn reimagined Thrawn as an atypical protagonist, a shining beacon of competence in a sea of Imperial prejudice and bureaucracy. This continued into the novel’s follow up, Thrawn: Alliances, which saw the titular character teaming up with Darth Vader in the present while flashing back to a Clone Wars era mission with Padme and Anakin. While not reaching the heights of its predecessor, Alliances still shined with its fun character mashups. However, with the third installment in this makeshift trilogy, the cracks with this latest batch of Thrawn novels are beginning to show.

The largest narrative flaw with Thrawn: Treason is a quandary that has slowly become more and more prevalent with each passing entry in Zahn’s reimagining of this character: Thrawn simply does not make for an interesting protagonist. Part of what has always made Thrawn such a thrilling antagonist in his original Expanded Universe appearances and later in Star Wars Rebels was his impenetrable mind and analytical approach to combat. Thrawn was always three steps ahead of our heroes and approached tasks with a logic that was both alien but also brutally practical. Zahn with these novels has had the unenviable task of translating this form of malevolent super-intelligence into an entertaining and compelling lead character.

The result has been the more or less refashioning of the Grand Admiral into a sort of alien Sherlock Holmes. Zahn has structured all three of his novels as a sequence of problems and conflicts that require Thrawn’s uniquely capable solutions. Thrawn proved most successful at this by not only making the titular character an underdog of rationality in the petty and flawed bureaucracy of the Empire, but also focusing the narrative through his protégé Eli Vanto. Eli’s modest goals and everyman persona made for a relatable step into Thrawn’s alien worldview and helped guide Zahn’s procedural narrative. Beginning Alliances in a season of power, Thrawn’s only real barrier was stripped away. While its flashback sequences offered an atypical Clone Wars adventure with a fun team up, its present day narrative suffered through a seemingly unflappable Thrawn and a frustratingly clueless Darth Vader sidekick.

What was once his greatest feature, Thrawn’s competence becomes Treason’s biggest failure. Zahn keeps Thrawn’s alien nature and intelligence but jettisons any menace or personal flaw and in the process creates a sterile and boringly successful protagonist. While Zahn does his best to populate the novel with an eclectic supporting ensemble, Treason cannot shake the fact that its primary protagonist lacks any sort of narrative or emotional tension. Zahn continues to write Thrawn as the brilliant mind able to outthink everyone else in the room, but in this case it robs any scene of suspense or even genuine conflict. Thrawn’s success rate is close to pristine and never once does one feel worried about his success or his crew.

Zahn also seems oddly unwilling to challenge Thrawn on a personal level as well. This proves especially odd given that the marketed point for this novel was supposedly testing Thrawn’s loyalty to the Empire when faced with the presence of the Chiss Ascendancy. While characters do occasionally raise this question to the Grand Admiral, he never quite crosses over into any territory that would cause the reader to question where he may side. It hints towards a larger problem in that this current take on the character never really strays morally or ethically. At times it feels almost as if Zahn has forgotten that Thrawn was originally depicted as an antagonist. The clinical brutality present in Rebels or Heir to the Empire is absent, replaced with a hyper-capable and empathetic force devoid of flaw or challenge. It’s done the cardinal sin for any signature character and made them boring.

This is not to say that Treason is a completely disposable read. Despite its utterly dull approach to its central character, the novel does offer an enjoyable military science-fiction mystery. Zahn crafts a fun “down the rabbit-hole” narrative that starts with a relatively innocuous task and rapidly evolves into a conspiracy that involves three galactic governments and the upper levels of the Empire. While there are a few narrative jumps that are fairly hard to track, there is a fun feeling of trying to keep up with Thrawn’s logic and solve the mystery alongside him. The general plot structure in a way almost feels more akin to a Star Trek episode. The concerns of intergalactic politics, procedure, and individual alien culture are highly important to the story and don’t feel that far away from the sort of issues that might beleaguer the crew of the Enterprise. Come to think of it, Zahn’s Thrawn is rapidly becoming a less fun version of Spock.

Lore hounds are sure to appreciate the further unveiling of the culture of the Chiss Ascendancy and their enemies, the mysterious Grysk. Zahn keeps the details sparse but intriguing, teasing out reveals of information through his various point of view characters and the plot points of the novel’s key mystery. While it clearly will not happen given Thrawn’s near “Lost In Space-status” and the collapse of the Empire, the idea of Palpatine’s government having to successfully navigate conflict with two other capable civilizations is an interesting one and is fertile ground for future storytelling.

The true stars of Treason prove to be the novel’s supporting cast, of which newcomer Vice Director Brierly Ronan steals the show. Designed as Director Orson Krennic’s right hand man, Ronan is both a delightful piece of dramatic irony and a welcome wild card to the tidy plotting of Treason. Ronan’s pure adoration of Krennic is an enjoyably playful in-joke to Star Wars fans who know how petulant and self-absorbed the man can be and it makes for a refreshingly different world view. His shifting loyalties and mostly self-motivated goals also throw a needed wrench into Thrawn’s endless planning and deducing and frequently upend conflicts and turn them into new directions. He quickly becomes a character that one loves to hate and also a much needed narrative catalyst at the same time. His presence into every scene demands not only an eye roll but attention and what more could you want from a minor antagonist.

It also helps that Ronan becomes a fun foil for returning character, Eli Vanto. Eli’s good natured support of Thrawn and accidental importance proved to be the heart of Zahn’s first novel in this series and, once again, Eli is a standout. Eli enters Treason with the most dramatic baggage and carries with him some of the most personal stakes of the narrative. Having abandoned the Empire by request of Thrawn at the end of the previous novel, Eli now not only spends his days amongst an alien civilization that doesn’t understand him (in an amusing detail, the Chiss rewrite his name to make sense for their own culture turning him into El’ivant’o), but also with knowing the fact that his old home and family regard him as a deserter and traitor. It forces Eli to cover his tracks when dealing with the Empire but also still strive to impress and survive amongst the relative coldness of the Chiss. The dynamic transforms him and Thrawn into a two person bridge between governments and revives that enjoyable master/student dynamic that made Thrawn such a pleasure.

Treason proves to be a frustrating read as a whole. Its plot is entertaining enough and its supporting characters easily carry the reader through its length, but Zahn’s glass hands approach to his signature character is threatening to undermine what made these projects so fun to begin with. Perhaps the relatively truncated in-universe timeline of this story proved a detriment? There’s really only so much that can be done with the character between the span of a few episodes of Rebels. Regardless, if Zahn ever does get the chance to return to this character, we will need to see him challenged more. Let him make mistakes, let him be a little evil, and let him have something, anything at all, to strive for. As it is, Thrawn is starting to feel like a favorite toy, and nothing more.

Score: C

[richincolor]

Interview with Dahlia Adler

When I was a teen, Edgar Allan Poe creeped me out, but in the most delightful way. I can't wait to dive into this new anthology His Hideous Heart. An amazing group of authors have re-imagined his stories and now the collection is out there in the world waiting for readers to experience the chills. Today, the editor and contributing author, Dahlia Adler, is here to share about this intriguing collection and her work in publishing. His Hideous Heart: Thirteen of YA’s most celebrated names reimagine Edgar Allan Poe’s most surprising, unsettling, and popular tales for a new generation. Edgar Allan Poe may be a hundred and fifty years beyond this world, but the themes of his beloved works have much in common with modern young adult fiction. Whether the stories are familiar to readers or discovered for the first time, readers will revel in Edgar Allan Poe’s classic tales, and how they’ve been brought to life in 13 unique and unforgettable ways. Contributors include Kendare Blake (reimagining “Metzengerstein”), Rin Chupeco (“The Murders in the Rue Morge”), Lamar Giles (“The Oval Portrait”), Tessa Gratton (“Annabel Lee”), Tiffany D. Jackson (“The Cask of Amontillado”), Stephanie Kuehn (“The Tell-Tale Heart”), Emily Lloyd-Jones (“The Purloined Letter”), Hillary Monahan (“The Masque of the Red Death”), Marieke Nijkamp (“Hop-Frog”), Caleb Roehrig (“The Pit and the Pendulum”), and Fran Wilde (“The Fall of the House of Usher”).

As a YA author, editor, and blogger with family relationships to maintain, could you share a few things you've learned about balancing many roles? The number one thing I've learned is honestly that balance is kind of a myth. There's no way to do everything perfectly and make everyone happy. What's worked for me is choosing what my priority will be at any given time and then backburnering things as possible. So, for example, when I knew I really wanted to finish writing a novel, I took a hiatus from blogging inasmuch was possible and took advantage of the fact that my in-laws come over every Sunday to see my child and put my butt in the chair for as solid a time block (usually 3-4 hours with of course some interruptions) on Sunday mornings as possible until I was done. When I take on extra blogging, it means writing is gonna get backburnered. Consistency is important and so is being firm on your boundaries. 

What should we be expecting with His Hideous Heart -- mild creepiness, full on terror, or something more in between? It really does run a gamut, in the same way I don't think everyone realizes Poe's story did. In addition to the Gothic horror he's known for, he's also called the father of the modern detective story, and of course some of his works were far more melancholy than terrifying. I think all of his different facets are captured really well in the collection. Certainly, though, even in the ones with happy endings, you're not gonna find sunny beach reads! Why do you think Poe's stories continue to fascinate readers after so many years? Because his themes have never stopped being relevant or interesting. They're so many of the darkest parts of humanity that we don't necessarily get to live out; they're some of our worst fantasies. Getting to live them out through literature, getting to take action against someone who drives us nuts or mourn ourselves into oblivion, is both a safe and satisfying way to explore them. It takes a brave writer to put that out into the world and I think it takes brave writes to adapt them and say, "Here's how we're still feeling those things in our current world."

How did you choose which story you would re-imagine? Well first off, I took a backseat to the others, because they're all masters of dark fantasy or thrillers or horror and I am...not exactly known for any of those things! So I was only selecting from what they did not. And then from there, "Ligeia" was such an easy choice, because I knew I was going to stick my romantic contemporary strengths as best I could, and I saw immediately how that story would play out if I did. It didn't even feel like a selection process; the idea was just...there, waiting for me to grab it.

What were some of the challenges and rewards of editing an anthology? It's always a challenge to corral that many authors, and it's just logistically complicated. There are a lot of contracts and payments and agent negotiations and I don't think people realize that it's very rare for editors not to be responsible for that (as opposed to publishers). So that in itself is a lot of work before you even get to the editing, deadline enforcing, mapping over everyone's copyediting and proofreading corrections, etc. But I have so much natural curiosity about the industry, especially as someone who's been working in it for over a decade, that I really wanted to learn how more things on this side work, so that was actually a big reward for me! As, of course, is getting to read all these amazing stories early and working with such amazing authors. I really could not have asked for better.

What was the process for finding contributors? This actually half happened on Twitter, where the idea arose and people I think are fantastic in these genres chimed in that they'd be interested, and then half happened in email, when I realized this project was actually going to happen and I wanted to make sure it had as many of my favorites as possible. Honestly, creating lineups is my favorite part of anthologies, so I just went straight to the authors I absolutely love who write in Poe's genres and asked them to join up. It was thankfully easy!

Could you share a few books you've been recommending lately? ALWAYS. I've had a lot of reason to recommend By Any Means Necessary by Candice Montgomery, which has the college setting I know a lot of YA readers are looking for, plus a killer voice, great romance, awesome friend group, and covers really relevant topics. Another upcoming favorite is The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake, which is a Sapphic reimaginging of Twelfth Night that I always pitch as perfect for fans of The Weight of the Stars by K. Ancrum and How to Make a Wish by Ashley Herring Blake, both of which I love. As part of my Patreon for LGBTQReads, I have sort of a "book concierge" service, where I help readers find the perfect queer book for them, and so far Tell Me How You Really Feel by Aminah Mae Safi and Hot Dog Girl by Jennifer Dugan are in the lead over there; all hail the f/f YA Rom Com! And, obviously I've been getting some Horror/Spooky requests too, thanks to both His Hideous Heart and the fall season being upon us, and my standby faves there are The Girl From the Well by Rin Chupeco, Mary by Hillary Monahan, Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake, As I Descended by Robin Talley, and Wilder Girls by Rory Power.

Just for fun, since you are involved with publishing in a variety of roles, would you share one of your strangest experiences in the industry? Oh man, it's really hard not to respond to this with anything I...shouldn't. But I'll go with an embarrassing one that also involves one of the only times I have ever lied at work. My first job out of college, I was an Editorial Assistant at Simon & Schuster. There was an event for an Entourage book, by which, yes, I do mean a show based on the horrid show I was extremely into once upon a time and that fully influenced the character of Josh Chester in my Daylight Falls duology, but I digress. Anyway, I went to the event, which was about 10-15 blocks away from the office, and I reallllly wanted a signed copy, but I also reallllly didn't want to take more than an hour for lunch because I was terrified of my boss. And since I worked there, I knew the name of the editor on the book, and I maybe used that to pretend I was her assistant so I could skip the whole line and then get my book signed. MAYBE. I cannot confirm or deny.

Thanks so much for sharing with Rich in Color. We look forward to reading these shivery tales. Thank you so much for having me!!

Dahlia Adler is an Associate Editor of mathematics by day, a blogger for B&N Teens and LGBTQ Reads by night, and an author of Young Adult and New Adult novels at every spare moment in between. Her novels include the Daylight Falls duology, Just Visiting, and the Radleigh University trilogy, and she is the editor of the anthologies His Hideous Heart (Flatiron Books, 2019) and That Way Madness Lies (Flatiron Books, 2021). Dahlia lives in New York with her husband, son, and an obscene amount of books, and can be found on Twitter and Instagram at @MissDahlELama.

[bbclesmis]

David Oyelowo: ‘We had an illegal amount of fun doing Spooks. We all stay in touch’

The star of the BBC’s new Les Misérables adaptation on colour-blind casting, his love for his breakthrough show, and how playdates with Angelina Jolie’s children influenced his new film

David Oyelowo, 42, was born in Oxford to Nigerian parents and graduated from Lamda. He became the first black actor to portray an English monarch for the RSC and got his screen break in the BBC spy drama Spooks. Now based in LA with his family, he was nominated for a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr in Selma. This Christmas, he stars as Javert in the BBC’s six-part adaptation of Les Misérables.

Were you a fan of Les Misérables? My only relationship with the story had been the film, so when I was approached about Javert, my mind went to a boo-hiss villain. I was initially trepidatious about playing that kind of one-dimensional character over six hours of television, but that concern was quickly alleviated by reading Andrew Davies’s adaptation, which is much more layered. Then when I read Victor Hugo’s book, I was bowled over by how well Andrew had captured it.

That’s exactly how I see it and that’s certainly alluded to in the novel. In some ways, Valjean represents what Javert could have been. Javert was born in prison to criminals but has chosen the opposite path. You can argue there’s an element of self-hatred there.

In your version, there’s also some beard rivalry between them. Well, yeah. And Javert seems obsessed with how strong Valjean is. I feel like they had an arm wrestle at some point and Valjean won.

How was it working with Dominic West, who plays Valjean? We’re both ambassadors for the Prince’s Trust so we’d met before, mostly at Buckingham Palace. So it was completely antithetical to meet again amid the mud, blood and sweat of the prison hulks. Dominic’s a phenomenal choice for the role and a great guy. You have to like and trust each other to be that nasty. We spend a lot of time glowering at each other but there are many outtakes of us cracking into giggles.

It’s a dramatic version, not a musical one, but could you burst into song if you had to? I like a good warble. I’ve done musicals in the past and intend to do them in future. But here I hope viewers get swept away by the epic storytelling, rather than missing the tunes.

Might people criticise the colour-blind casting as “typical BBC political correctness”? You can’t please everyone. Some people will applaud the way we’ve chosen to tell the story. Everyone else can go and read the book.

You get to wear a lot of period hats, too. There’s a whole bunch of hat work. I was nervous about the Napoleonic one I wear in the later episodes. That’s a difficult hat to pull off. A bit like wearing one of those paper boats you’d make at primary school.

You’ve just finished shooting a film called Come Away. Tell us about that.

There’s more hat-work in that, actually. I had a very period summer – parked myself in the 19th century and stayed there. It’s a reimagined origin story of Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, with them conceived as brother and sister. Angelina Jolie and I play their parents. We suffer a tragedy and our children use their rich imaginations to try and pull us out of despair.

Weren’t you already friends with Angelina Jolie via children’s playdates? She’s got six kids, I’ve got four, and they’ve got together in the past to wreak havoc. I’m a producer on Come Away and really had seen Angie mostly as a mother because that had been my interaction with her. I asked her if she’d like to do it and she relished the prospect. She’d never actually played a mother who interacts with her children on screen before. We had a blast.

You starred in crime caper Gringo earlier this year. Apparently you made co-star Charlize Theron pee herself? That’s going to be my claim to fame. I’ve never actually seen that happen before – someone literally pee themselves from laughing. It was extraordinary. Lovely Charlize. I’m sure she’s very happy we’re discussing this!

You’re British-American-African. Which is worse from your viewpoint, Brexit or Trump?

Gosh, they’re both quite egregious in my opinion. At least I don’t have to choose where I live because both places are pretty challenging.

The first thing many of us saw you in was Spooks – do you have fond memories? Very. We all stay in touch. I just reached out to Keeley [Hawes] because I loved Bodyguard. I recently did Othello in New York and Matthew [Macfadyen] came to see me. It’s where my screen career started and those guys are part of a formative time in my life. We were in our 20s, not long out of drama school, and had an illegal amount of fun doing that show.

You once said you won’t play “the black best friend” or do superhero movies. Do you still have rules about the roles you take? I try to stay away from anything that feels obvious. I don’t want to do anything derivative, cliched or stereotypical because images are political. They inform how people view people like me. My other rule is not to do anything that flies in the face of how I’m raising my kids. I’ll do things that are dark in tone but I gravitate towards things that have redemptive, life-affirming qualities.

There’s often talk of who’ll be the first black James Bond but technically you were first, right? I don’t think it’s fair to count an audiobook! That doesn’t quite give me the right to stake a claim. But to me, all that conversation signifies is that the audience is ready to see different kinds of people in those roles. We’re seeing that with our Les Mis, with Black Panther, with all sorts of things. The gatekeepers have had the keys taken away and they’re firmly in the hands of viewers now. It’s an exciting time with different voices emerging.

After Martin Luther King, are there any other historical figures on your bucket list to play? I’m going to do a film about the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson – the best pound-for-pound fighter who ever lived. I’ve been fascinated by him for a long time.

Do you get a break over Christmas? I do, although I’m also directing my first film next April, a coming-of-age story called The Water Man, so I’ll be sneaking off to do some prep for that and hoping my wife doesn’t get annoyed with me.

Les Misérables starts on BBC1 at 9pm on Sunday 30 December

The Guardian, Sun 23 Dec 2018 (x)