14. April. 2023

I went and got myself some seeds and started plantin some snackies recently 🌱🌞

Unhappy bc I was assigned four more one-hour interviews to transcribe and I rapidly discovered during the transcribing of the last round of interviews that I frickin hate transcribing. I don't know what it is because it's pretty mundane work that I'm usually fine with, like along the lines of data entry, but if I do it for more than an hour at a time I get super antsy and become physically uncomfortable. Like I have to take at least an hour break between every hour of work, and the most I've ever been able to transcribe in an hour is 8 minutes of audio (and that was with perfect audio that had no fritzing or echoes or background noise), so it takes like bare minimum seven or eight hours for me to be able to transcribe a one hour interview.

Daily update post:

This morning, 15 minutes after the break in fighting was supposed to begin, Hamas fired two rocket barrages into southern Israel. This is what we mean when we say that Hamas has broken every ceasefire ever. The only reason why this didn't lead to the hostage deal falling apart, is because Israel chose to "contain" Hamas' violent rocket attack. But remember this when we explain why we can't accept Hamas' existence anymore.

Israel confirmed that the 13 hostages being released have arrived in Egypt, and there are already Israelis there, taking care of them. IDK when we'll get their names, and images of them safe back in Israel, but as you can imagine, everyone here is holding its breath for that. Still, their well being comes first, they're being taken to a hospital first, to see their families, and only then (and based on whatever they prefer) will there be anything more public. There will not be interviews, however, 'coz something they say might risk the other groups of hostages meant to be released in the upcoming days.

Hamas is also releasing some of the Thai nationals they've kidnapped (I heard 12 of the 23 taken hostage), which are being let go of unconditionally. Before anyone tries to make out this shows Hamas is humane, I'll just point out that Hamas terrorists murdered at least 33 Thais on Oct 7.

Some of my fave commentators recently on what's going on here since Hamas' massacre aren't Jewish, or even Israeli. Here's a few of their tweets:

Regarding the last one, I just wanna say that most Israelis will continue to trust most Arabs. That's just how we have always lived, despite the on going terror attacks. The day after Oct 7, I mentioned that I went to my hospital treatment. The guard there is an Arab guy. He carries a gun. I couldn't help but think about it. And then I did what I always do, I thanked him for his work (being a guard is difficult), and wished him a good day. He smiled big and wished me the same. He's lovely. What Hamas did on Oct 7 is not his fault. But the mistrust of survivors, and some of those who care about them, is also very human and understandable, as much as I'll continue to call on everyone not to generalize about Arabs, or any group.

Especially when some of Hamas' victims are themselves Arabs. Here's a young Israeli Muslim Bedouin woman, who has been speaking up on behalf of her friend, 17 years old Aisha al Ziadna, who was kidnapped by Hamas on Oct 7.

A Sky News reporter was particularly shameful the other day. She tried to use Israel's willingness to release 3 convicted terrorist per just 1 innocent civilian hostage to vilify Israel. Here's the reply she got:

Just a reminder, once again, that when you listen to western media, which is supposed to be objective, these are often their info sources on this conflict:

Speaking of lack of objectivity, an Israeli newspaper found out that the International Criminal Court has appointed a Danish lawyer to investigate the Israel-Hamas war, and it's a man (I'm not sure I'm transcribing his name from Hebrew correctly, but it should be something like Andreas Laursen) who has worked in the past for a Palestinian "human rights organization" which has been outlawed in 2021 for having ties to terrorist organizations, who was involved in 2018 in trying to make the case that Israel had committed war crimes, who has lived in the Palestinian city of Ramallah, and who is married to a Palestinian woman. This Israeli newspaper has contacted the ICC, asking why the person appointed to this investigation isn't someone who would at least appear to be unbiased. The answer was (I'm translating from the Hebrew article): "We maintain confidentiality about anything that pertains to specific subjects that are related to our employees. Every personal decision made by the head prosecutor fits the policy and relevant procedures that oversee the court's human resources matters."

Because there are still people denying the Hamas rapes:

I've spoken before about Liel, and how long it took to identify her body, but this tweet kind of broke me all over again.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

I was sent a link to a ‘chat with Mark Darrah' interview video that I hadn’t seen before. [here is the source] link. the interview took place in 2022, so bear that in mind when listening, but it still has interesting insights and things in there.

the rest of this post is under a cut due to length.

this post is just some brief notes and a few transcribed quotes of interest from the video.

Mark ofc was in charge of DA:O, DAII, & DA:I, then, quote, “then a bunch of malarkey happened” and he ended up in charge of Anthem in 2017 in its final ~16 months

In AAA games narrative is a certain thing that was very much defined in a lot of ways by BioWare

There’s a BioWare story in Anthem (though certainly not its best), if you just ignore everything else

The average gamer puts way too much stock into what engine is used to make a game

Mark is pretty sure that the guts of Neverwinter Nights is underneath the Witcher engine

Moving DA from Aurora to Eclipse to Frostbite (engines) opened up more possibility spaces

Frostbite stagnated because it essentially was the engine everyone had to use at EA

Before DA:I, there was a game at BioWare internally codenamed “Blackfoot”. It was going to be a multiplayer DA game and was using Frostbite before DA:O, during the time of DAII’s late development but before DA:I started development. It never shipped as it got eaten by DA:I

For the MET, Casey was originally trying to make a Star Control-type game but cinematic. Echoes of this can be seen in ME1. But ME the IP itself wants to be a space opera. Ultimately the cinematic experience side of it won out

And some specific quotes:

“Something that I noticed is that, sometimes, if your studio is hiring only your biggest fans, which I saw at BioWare sometimes, those people are in some ways, they’re almost more, they have more zealotry towards the ‘old way’ of doing things than – that’s right, that [from a fandom point of view] is all they know. And they don’t necessarily know that this was awful or that ‘there could have been a better way, we just didn’t see it until later’. All they know is, ‘this is what you did, and you made this thing I love, so we have to do that too’, and, so that’s a danger that could happen is, you get the, you know the monkeys and the bananas, like, ‘I don’t even know why we’re doing this anymore, but I know we’ve always done it.’”

-

“The biggest reason to consolidate on an engine is for the ability to share more work within your studio. In theory.” “The problem that often happens is that you end up with not nearly as much sharing as you would imagine. FIFA doesn’t share anything with DA. And in BioWare’s case it’s even worse than that, there’s very little sharing between DA:I and ME:A, and between ME:A and Anthem. A lot of troubles ME:A and Anthem had is [because of] not building upon the foundations of DA:I.”

-

“My great frustration of BioWare from around 2013 to basically today [2022], there wasn’t a building upon the past.” “30% of DA:I’s tech budget was spent on tooling. On ME:A they didn’t build upon the tools that were laid by DA:I, partially because they started before DA:I shipped, but also for ‘Not Build Here’ reasons. They spent 10-15% approximately of their budget on tools. Anthem didn’t build on either of these foundations and they spent about less than 10% of their budget on tools. So it was like they were going backwards, respecting the engine less and less as they went forward, resulting in more and more struggles happening.” “I have the most sarcastic PowerPoint presentation ever which compares those two games, which are treated as if they’re widely different things. They’re pretty much exactly the same game, from the perspective of any external observer. ME is more like DA than it is like anything else. So it’s ridiculous. The answer is hubris, is the answer.”

-

On endings and the future:

“I think you have to do something [about the endings]. ME was always conceived as being a trilogy, but I think what you actually end up with with ME1-3, if you kind’ve just stick them together into one ridiculously big game, that’s why it, in some ways, the complaints about the original ME3 ending are so hilarious because in a way, the game ME3 is the ending for this entire huge game, which isn’t awesome, because you know, the last Hobbit movie is also stupid because it’s all ending. So, that’s not necessarily the best, but that’s essentially what you have. So because it was intended as a trilogy, it, to some kind of degree it kind of takes its ball and goes home at the end, where its like, ‘I’m gonna render the possibility of a direct sequel to this sooo nearly impossible that it’s ludicrous’. It could be that, so we know that the Mass Relays are down, that’s also true, but, like, we have potentially, everyone’s a cyborg, potentially there are no robots, potentially, potentially, potentially, it’s bananas. But interestingly, if you look at ME1, ME2 and ME3 as a single game, and then you look at DA:O, DA:O was always, was originally envisioned as a standalone game. There was never even a consideration for a sequel made for that. If you look at DA:O and then look at what it does at its ending, so the ending of the game itself is fairly tight, it’s like, well you definitely have to kill the Arch Demon, and you’ve ended the Blight, but then you go through the end credits stuff, the epilogue screens. And it’s like, maybe there’s a civil war happening in Orzammar, maybe there are werewolves spreading across this entire part of Ferelden, maybe there are no werewolves at all. Like it’s similar. Now what DA, the way that DA approached the solution to that was to canonize some of those choices, but for the most part just move away, far enough physically, so it’s like, okay, well maybe there are werewolves down south there, that’s not my problem, I got my own problems. Or it moves through time, which is one of the reasons why DA2 moves through so much time is, it gives distance from DA:O. One of the major reasons why ME:A is literally hundreds of years in the future and in another galaxy, it’s like, okay, well, something happened, [shrug], we can react if we want to but we don’t have to worry about the consequences. DA has had the same problem that ME had, just to a lesser degree. DA:O did such a great job of building up the Warden that people are really attached to that and they keep wanting to see the Warden come back. People are never gonna let go of Shepard. DA, new player characters every time because it allows things to be done, but there are costs to that, if you don’t have nearly the [same] attachment. I mean, there’s a reason why every single Zelda game starts with you as Link getting bonked on the head. They’ve essentially solved the problem, reset button, either you have amnesia or you’re like the great-great-great-great-grandson. So it’s like, maybe there’s a way that they can do something like that, but Zelda’s jumped through a lot of hoops that probably a modern game can’t be allowed to do. You’re “Link”, so maybe there’s a way that you can be Shepard but, but Shepard, you can be “Shepard”, maybe there’s a way you can do that, but yeah, it’ll be interesting, it’s definitely a problem that they have. Because certainly, Ryder from ME:A is not the same character, nor could any character from a single game compete with a character from three games. Maybe the approach is, you canonize the choices from MET and you say, ‘and the choice we’re making is, Shepard made it, and you’re Shepard. [shrug]”

-

“I think there is a lot of DNA of its older games still at BioWare, but you’re right. Every game needs to be a game in its moment. It needs to be appropriate to the time and space of what’s going on. So, I get it, you kind of just want to feel the thing you felt when you played ME2 or feel the thing you felt when you played DA:O.” “If suddenly you got an ME2 again magically appearing out of the ether, I don’t think it would be received the same way. The industry isn’t in the same place. BioWare needs to set a new bar.” “The sad truth is, the older you get, the less relevant a part of the buying demographic you are. So the reality is, I mean ME:A had a shaky launch unfortunately, but it’s a lot of peoples’ favorite ME. Mostof those people who it is their favorite ME are younger people because it targets, you know, it’s got a younger PC, it’s got a stronger, more. I mean, the MET is very much, Shepard is a hero from action movies from the 80s and 90s, for millennials. He’s stoic. Whereas Ryder is definitely, he’s much more a protagonist from a CW show. The reality is is that, sorry, but they’re not trying to make it for you anymore.”

[source and full watch link where you can check it out]

ND Stevenson interview about She-Ra and animation in Celsius 232 (2022)

This post is a transcribe of second interview/talk made to ND Stevenson during the Celsius 232, a multimedia festival about fantasy, scifi and horror genres celebrated in Avilés, a city in the North of Spain. The interview was about She-Ra and The Princesses Of Power. There was another interview about his comics that I attended, but I couldn't find recordings of that one. In this interview ND talked about topics such as Catra's choices, toxic relationships, Nimona's film adaptation and Lumberjanes' TV adaptation. He also answered questions from the public.

Click on Keep reading to read the whole interview!

Thanks to Comic Astur for recording the interview. They have another interviews during Celsius 232 in their channel, both to Spanish and non-Spanish authors. So check it out!

First of all, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! This post is being released on Christmas day in Spain, so I think it's a good moment to make a gift to the SPOP fandom. 🎁🎄

I don't do professional trancribes, I just want to share this interview. I love Celsius 232 and hearing ND Stevenson in person was a great experience. I want to share this with international fans. The interview is in a mix of Spanish and English, so I'll translate the Spanish parts (and also use some of Diego's translations that you can hear in the video) and I'll transcribe everything in English. I'll also add some notes here and there about the interview.

The auditorium opened some minutes before the beggining of the talk. It was almost full. There were some cosplayers of She-Ra, Adora, Catra and even one cosplayed as Finn, Adora and Catra's post-canon child. There was also a baby cosplayed as She-Ra (baby She-Ra!!). Some people brought with them pride flags because of the series nature. 🏳‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ When ND Stevenson entered the auditorium everyone started clapping.

In the scenario, as you can see in the video, there were three people. ND Stevenson (center), Jorge Iván Argiz (left, interviewer) and Diego García (right, interpreter). Jorge Iván did the questions while Diego translated everything to ND and then to the public.

The interviewer started the talk remembering that ND Stevenson will come back to Celsius next year, for Celsius 2023, and he also claimed the importance of animation. Then, he asked his first question:

Interviewer: When you make a comic you have full control. You have a blank paper or a screen. You have your pen and you can do wathever you want. However, when doing an animation film, even if it has a main creative, it's a hugely collective work. How it was your first experience? How it was entering the animation industry and realizing that it's a huge teamwork effort?

ND Stevenson: Getting into animation was actually kind of an accident for me. I didn't plan to go in that direction. When I started out writing comics I thought of myself as an artist first before I was a writer. And so getting hired as a writer in animation was kind of a surprise for me. And I wasn't sure if it was something I was going to stay with. But my first job was amazing. It was working for Craig McCracken who did Powerpuff Girls and a lot of other stuff that defined my childhood and other people's childhoods. It was a very cool job to work with him.

Thinking of myself as a writer... it took me a while to accept that. But also, the collaboration of animation was what made me fall in love with animation. I also had always loved animation as a kid. Sneaking into my parents room where the TV was, when they were out of the house, to watch Teen Titans, which was my favorite show. To be behind the scenes, to be able to share this world that we were building together with the rest of the crew, that was... I immediately became addicted to that.

To write a comic it is all you. And unexpected things still happen but it all comes from your own brain, you own hands. With animation, everybody has a little piece of that world. And so, I would look over people's shoulders and ask to be in meetings that I wasn't technically a part of, just because I wanted to know everything and see everything. And so that is what made me fall in love with animation and that's what eventually lead me to make She-Ra.

Interviewer: Now we're going to talk about She-Ra. She-Ra as a character already existed, created as a base for a series of toys. I think that it started in 1985 and it was a show with near a hundred episodes. She-Ras was a twin sister to He-Man and she had a similar story to him, it was kind of complementary. But you made something completely new with this character and this universe. This seems wonderful to me. The first example already appears in the tittle [of the show]. The original series was called She-Ra Princess of Power. But here we're talking about She-Ra and The Princesses of Power. This collaborative spirit that you liked a lot when making animation shows was translated to the animation series. I imagine that this was the first decision [that you made], to bring a more complete arc for characters and to create not just one, but multiple princesses of power.

ND Stevenson: Yeah, the show ended up being- it was about teamwork. It's not just what the show was about, it's also the way in which we made it. It was a show that was made under a lot of pressure, not just because of She-Ra, but because we didn't have the biggest budget and we didn't have the longest timeline for making it. And so it was really something that if we were going to pull it off, we had to rely on each other to do it. And so that was something that really brought us together.

But that show, taking it from being- I hadn't watched the show myself [before], the original show from the 80s [when I was] growing up. But I loved it when I watched it [as an adult]. I had a lot of love in my heart for that show. Trying to pay that off and take that so it could appeal to new fans as well and still make old fans happy was always the line to find and walk. Taking it from one princess of power to an entire team of princesses who are very powerful and making it more about that, about the group instead about the one individual. That was something that was very important for us to do. Because it was so personal for us, with how the show was being made, because we were so close to each other. It was important to show that aspect of friendship and teamwork, and relationships in general. And love in every form. That was our inspiration behind that aspect of the show.

Interviewer: I would like to know if from the beggining it was always clear that the series was going to have that format and that number of seasons. The first season was a presentation of the princesses, almost one per episode. For me the series starts having more pace when each episode develops these stories that connect with each other. I would like to know if the series was already thought like that or if after season one you still had freedom to make changes.

ND Stevenson: The production of the show was actually pretty unsual in animation. The show had already been greenlit for 26 episodes before I was even hired for the show. They just bought the rights to She-Ra and they knew that Netflix had already ordered the first season. They also knew that they wanted to do 52 episodes total. So when I was hired it was my job to pitch that second season. And so, when I pitched the show, I'm kind of a wordy person, so my pitch was supposed to be like 20 minutes and it was like over an hour [in the end]. And I was lucky that the people I was pitching to were receptive and interested, but I pitched all 52 episodes. That is part of why it was so long, because I wanted to have this conception of it.

Some things stayed the same and some things changed over time, but we had certain ideas that stayed the whole time. For example, an early idea was that Catra was going to get a promotion at the end of every season and move further up the ranks. And also she was going to betray somebody in each season. That really ended up in the show. She just keeps kind of working her way up the ranks and eventually decides that she's out of there, going back to Adora. That was something that stayed true over time, but there were some things that we found along the way. A lot of things were really unexpected. At the very least, it was very helpful to have those broad strokes figured out from the beggining. I'm glad they didn't just cut me off after 20 minutes of talking cause that would be embarrasing *laughs*.

Interviewer: One of the best things that has happened to YA narrative is the shift from just entertainment and fun spirit to topics that were forbidden before. This change probably happened because of the new young people creating new stuff for young audiences. Some of this topics are abuse, bullying, mental health... She-Ra is about some of these topics, toxic relationships are very present in the show. There are multiple cases. It has been talked a lot about the relationship between Adora and Catra, but the relationship between Catra and Scorpia is also another perfect example of a toxic relationship. Something that someone denies, although everybody is warning them. I would like to know more about these messages that can make the audience think about their own relationships. Tell us about it.

ND Stevenson: I'm of the believe that it's important just not to see representation of good behaviour and role models that we can model ourselves on. But is also, I think, a good thing to see representation of characters making the wrong choices and doing the wrong thing. And Catra is defined by that. This was [something that] the crew [asked about as well]. People would come and they'd be like: "so, you told me that she's gonna join the good guys again, right? She'll be OK? When is that going to happen?" And people started to stop believing me that it was going to happen.

AJ, who voices the character, I would [tell her] "We have a big run for you today, Catra is going to do something new, but I promise that she's going to be OK in the end". And she'll be like: "yeah, sure, you say that every time". But I think that's why [Catra] was very beloved among the crew and by me. She's a character who kind of consistently always makes the wrong choices. And it can be so frustrating. Because you'll yell at her at just be like: "OMG, you know you don't want that, why can't you just do the right thing?". And that, I think, in it's own way can be something that also tells us how to make decisions ourselves. So when you see somebody who we sometimes want to scream [at], sometimes we're compelled to do things that make us a bad friend or bad people. And it's important, I think, to know the consequences of those wrong decisions.

Catra is someone who expresses those things and my hope is that it is cathartic in it's own way, but it's also a little bit of a cautionary tell. She ends up alone at the end, without any friends. And that's the consequences of her actions. But then it's also something that it's- you know, there's nothing you can't come back from. There are things that if you work, if you make yourself vulnerable and open yourself up and try to make amends for your mistakes, it is possible to come back. That was something that was very important for us to show. It's my believe that it's important to see characters, specially female characters, making those bad decisions. We found it cathartic, and I hope that it was cathartic for others as well.

Interviewer: Now two short questions about the animation. First, it is traditional animation, or at least it looks like it, with some touches of CG here and there. I wanted to know if it was a conscious decision so the show would look like it was intended, or if it was because of the low budget and short production time which you said you had.

The second question is about the aesthetic of the ancient buildings. It makes me think about an illustrator called Roger Dean. I don't know if it's by chance or if it was an inspiration for this aesthetic.

*a fly 🪰 flies near the interviewer and he tries to hit it*

ND Stevenson: We had an option on pursuing 3D animation as well. It was something that was done at this studio I was at, at DreamWorks, pretty often. But it was also for an epic... There's a fly!! 🪰

*the interviewer and translator agree and everybody laughs* There's a fly in my... flying over and over... 🪰

Yeah, for epic action scifi fantasy it is harder, it's more expensive to do CG animation. And you have fewer resources. One thing that happens is that the characters can't go to many places because every room and setting has to be build in three dimensions. My friends who are writers working on shows in 3D have limitations of what they can use. They have a set number of characters and a set number of locations, which is true in hand-drawn as well, but less so. You don't have to design the whole thing if you'll only going to see it from one angle.

So that was a lot of the reason of just what was posible with the show. But also, I thought it was important because She-Ra was one of the last shows in the 80s animated in the US, before everything moved overseas to be animated in South Korea and Canada, France and Ireland. It felt important to stay true to the original and the hand-drawn look of the original.

As for Roger Dean, that was definitely one of my inspirations. You have very sharp eye! That very epic... The science fiction illustrations of the 70s and 80s that you would see on the cover of a paperback... That is how I wanted the world to feel. But populated by characters who felt a bit newer. As a kid, I always loved this covers because you would see these floating rocks or the sky with dozens of planets and moons. I wanted to capture that feeling. It always sparked my imagination to see those illsutrations and I wanted to capture that in the show.

Interviewer: Before starting with the questions of the public I have to ask about the adaptation of Nimona into a film, as well as Lumberjanes' TV adaptation. Tell us a little bit about both projects.

ND Stevenson: You're gonna see the Nimona movie early next year, I think february or march. *big applause from the public* So get excited because I just saw the newest cut and it has a lot of the animation. I've seen the board drawings for a while, but I started to get the animation and it is completely surreal to see really dumb drawings that I made as a teenager like, suddenly being executed in three dimensions and it's gorgeous and the style is amazing. So I'm very excited for everyone to see it.

And Lumberjanes is still in the development period. This is a little more standard. I said that She-Ra was unsual in the animation industry and part of that is that the development happened very very quickly. Less than a year. For most animated projects it takes longer than that. So on Lumberjanes we are still on the development phase. We haven't launched into the actual production of the show yet. It's still on the writing and creating the look of the show, finding a studio and everything like that. I think that I'll hopefully have more news about it soon for you. And I think that it's going to be also really cool. So... yeah. *applause*

Interviewer: Great. (To the public) Any questions?

#1 audience question: 1) I heard some rumors that you had trouble with Netflix because the series did not have as much advertisement as they wanted, the low-budget... That was the case? 2) Would you be interested to start working for other platforms like Amazon?

ND Stevenson: Something that not many people know it's that I actually haven't worked for Netflix. I created She-Ra as the show that you saw on Netflix, but I made it at DreamWorks. DreamWorks is it's own animation studio and they had a deal with Netflix that Netflix would stream the shows that DreamWorks was producing. So that was the deal. That's different now. They still do co-productions with DreamWorks, but they [Netflix] created their own animation studio after a year or so after I started working on She-Ra. So actually I didn't have much interaction with Netflix at all. I didn't get notes from them. I didn't know my executives there personally... Actually, I did, but... One of my executives was actually a good friend of mine. But I didn't actually have meetings with Netflix in any way.

If there's rumors about being trouble with Netflix it's certainly not in any kind of working relationship way. They are pretty mysteryous, they guard their algorithm pretty closely. But yeah, that was my experience with Netflix. For me it was very positive. I can't speak any more to what their reaction towards the show was because we were in different places. Hope that answers that.

I'm not currently working with Amazon, but that's something that is definitely... it's pretty common in animation to kind of move around from studio to studio. So it's definitely posible.

#2 audience question: I'm almost 30 so I'm a bit old for the She-Ra target audience, but me and my friend loved it because there is a lot of queer representation. For me and my friend that is very important. I was wondering how it felt because we're more of less of the same age, so we've grown up with similar cartoons and there was nothing that showed you what queer means. We didn't really see ourselves in mainstream shows. I was wondering how it felt to put for the queer community out there this clear representation.

ND Stevenson: It was obviously pretty important for me in a personal level. But another thing that I don't know if that many people know it's that when I got the job I wasn't out yet as gay. So it was certainly not something... Honestly, the show is probably responsible for making me way gayer, just working on it. *everybody laughs*

But it was something very important to me, just in the world of the show, you know? For me, it's always queer characters, they're always on the front of what I make, even before I was out. But also it's something that is defined by the show itself, what makes the world feel more alive. So I felt that having very fluid gender expression was an important par of the show. Because honestly, the original show has fairly fluid gender. He-Man wears pink and purple in his clothes and then wears a furry diaper when he transforms as He-Man. All the characters are wearing tights and belly shirts and men and women, there're not non-binary people in the original show, but it makes sense for us that there would be. So there's something for me that made the world feel more alive. And again, rainbows and drag queen princesses were such a big part of the original that it just makes sense to [have them] and it made our world feel bigger and more expansive. So that was a lot of my thinking behind it, and sometimes it was an easy sell I think. We were pleasantly surprised that the studio would be very receptive for Bow to have two dads. And Double Trouble, we were very excited about that and very supportive of hiring a non-binary voice actor.

And then there were other things that were a harder sell. I got on the phone with a lot of different people for the Adora and Catra relatioship and had to pitch it a bunch of different times to different people. Got a few notes at first. And then, you know, appealed it, and then the noes turned into yeses. And I still didn't believed it until I was actually watching the final season on Netflix. I didn't believed it'd really happen. But it did so, yeah, that was really cool.

*when the interpreter was translating this answer by ND he tried to hit the fly 🪰 and everybody laughed and applaud, it was really funny*

Interviewer: (To the public) One last question with a short answer?

#3 audience question: In the series there's a lot of characters. I wanted to ask who do you relate to the most?

ND Stevenson: I think all the characters have little bits of me and the rest of the crew. I think almost every character is sort of- there's someone on the crew who identified with them really strongly and that person became more expert on the character. So we have someone who strongly identified with Entrapta, or Tecnia as you said... (Tecnia is the name of Entrapta in the Spanish dub <3) I forget they have different names sometimes. Which is a great name, Tecnia is a great name! *public laughs* But yeah. Almost all of the characters had some counterpart among the crew.

For me, I think that I sort of related the most to a tie between Adora, Catra and Glimmer. One of the things I struggled with on the show was that I was very young when I was hired and I'd never been a manager before. And I mostly just worked on my own stuff and so, having to suddenly become a leader was a thing that I found very difficult and very scary. Like, I really really wanted to do a good job. I wanted everyone on the crew to be taken care of. And it was very difficult and terrifying. That's something that I think all three of those characters deal with in different ways.

Glimmer unexpectedly becomes the new queen. Adora changes sides and suddenly has to deal with all the guilt of having been on the bad guys side before. And Catra has this drive and this ambition, but she also starts to fall apart the higher up the ladder she moves.

I put a lot of those feelings into the characters. With Glimmer there's an episode where she can't go on missions anymore with Bow and Adora because she needs to stay and go to meetings, which was like my everyday. Everyone's going to do something fun and I have to be in a meeting, I can't hang out with [other crew members]. Like Adora in the episode where they play D&D and she keeps just being like: "no no NO, we're all gonna die and everything is gonna go wrong" and she's trying to anticipate every possible way it could go wrong. That was a lot of like, you know, having to conceptualize and keep consistent a story that was going to be told in such a long period of time, with such a large crew of people. That was how my brain felt a lot of the time. A lot of these feelings were poured into she show through the characters. Those are the characters that I think I have the strongest connection to.

(ND is, in fact, wordy, so it wasn't a short answer LOL)

Interviewer: There are big threats and the world needs to be saved a lot of times, and at the same time what you're woried the most is if the characters will recover their friendship... What's going to happen next? Someone will pay attention to Scorpia? *everybody laughs* This shows us something that happens in our lifes as well, that a big event can change you as much as an event that may seem small. This series also shows us that being different is cool, being the same as everyone else can be pretty boring. Being different can be even desirable. ND said that at the beggining he started working with someone who changed his life and who gave him a show such as The Powerpuff Girls, and I anticipate to him that right now, very very soon, there will be people that will say "I'm working for ND Stevenson, who changed my life thanks to She-Ra and his other works". To make easier our wait for the next year [Celsius 2023], when he comes back to Avilés, we're gonna say goodbye to him with a very very strong applause.

*all the public applauses, ND does a heart shape with his hands 🫶 He also thanked the Celsius 232 organizers and the public for coming*

This interview was done on Friday 22nd, july 2022. ND Stevenson made another talk/interview the day before. After that one talk I went to the signing and got my copy of Nimona signed. He was really nice and we could talk with him a little bit. He seemed really happy to visit this event in Spain and I'm really excited to see him next year. At that time the Nimona movie will be out, so I'm sure that we'll be able to know more about it and his future projects!

Photo with ND Stevenson during the book signing on Thursday. My boyfriend and I went together. We both love Stevenson's stories. <3

Thanks to ND Stevenson for coming to Spain and to Celsius 232!! I've been going every year to this event since 2018 and they always have great authors and the festival is really nice. I've learned a lot of stuff thanks to this festival and with talks like this one that ND made. The event is mostly about books and literature, but as you can see other forms of media are in Celsius 232 as well.

That's all! Thank you so much for reading this whole thing. I hope that it was interesting. <3

🌟Attention All Wordgirlies!! 💫

It’s time that I announced one of the coolest WordGirl things that I’ll be working on for this month and it's criminal that I can't make that title any bigger ajfhsksfsd.

While I did originally announce this on a WG server, I wanna make sure to let every WordGirl fan know about this! 

Right now I’m working on a university project that revolves around interviewing a content creator. Well, I decided to try to reach out to a few crew members for WordGirl and get this: I’ll be interviewing not just one, but TWO WordGirl crew members:

Mike Nordstrom, who was a storyboard artist for season 1 to season 6 of WordGirl!

annnnnd

Jack Ferraiolo, one of the co-creators/writers of WordGirl and the voice of The Butcher!

I’m super stoked that I was able to reach out to them and that they were both willing to make the time to have an interview! 

While I will be recording this interview and transcribing for my school project, I also want to invite all you WordGirl fans the opportunity to ask your own questions to both Mike and Jack! 

I’ll leave the link to the Google Forms I created below the cut, but I do have a couple of disclaimers that I must address firstly so read them pls.

With that said, please share and reblog this to any other WordGirl lovers ya know; the more the merrier!! 💖💗

Aight disclaimers:

1. Since I have no idea how many questions y’all will have, I will likely have to limit the fan questions I ask to 2-3 questions. This is both so that transcribing isn’t a pain for me as well as to be mindful of their time. If I get a lot of questions, I may end up conducting a poll of some sorts to help us decide which questions to ask!!

2. While both Mike and Jack confirmed that they were interested in having an interview, I want to let you all know that I’m still trying to wrap some final details before having these interviews. While my plan is to start interviewing this Friday, should either Mike or Jack express any concerns about this interview that may end up changing. 

Aight ya read the disclaimers? Ya sure? Okie dokie here’s the link! https://forms.gle/m6xbrp5cjkKt2QcN7

I think my life is done falling apart/together for now

I don't even know how to transcribe the chaos that has been happening in my life the last...forever...but specifically the last 6 months and especially the last couple of months

2020 and 2021 were the best years of my life, maybe that tells you something. They were the years I felt most secure and became most aligned with myself. I've always been a survivor who thrives in liminal spaces.

Falling apart and falling together look remarkably similar. If you take away anything from this post, remember that.

I want to move forward and stay still and let myself be happy and do the things I've been wanting to do but I also want to remember every twist and turn that brought me here. Because I'm grateful how it all worked out.

Wish I could do a cut under a cut Here is the story, I suppose, of what happened.

There is even more I can't write, but the present trials feel like they truly began when I lost my hair from alopecia during 2022.

I've struggled with alopecia areata, one of several chronic illnesses, but that was the first time I became bald. My long auburn red hair I saw as part of my identity, gone. Who am I? I had to find out quickly who I really was and find strength to keep going that I never knew. Cutting or shaving hair as humiliation against one's will, to break one's spirit, I understood why. I didn't recognise myself. During this same time I also had a traumatic experience with people I thought were my friends that was directly related to my experiences with alopecia.

It took months and along with a newly-approved-by-the-fda medication for alopecia and continued scalp injections, it's growing back fairly well. But just as this was happening, we became financially unstable when my partners gig job dried up and he began experiencing a severe health condition at the same time.

Things were stressful and challenging at this point but manageable. Then we lost our food money. At points we were half-starved (I say this without exaggeration - support your local food bank it will save someone's life). The morale blow/raise of losing/gaining treats is not to be underestimated. And people who have never been food insecure don't realise how little other things matter when you can't eat. You can barely think to do other things. I was food insecure growing up so at least that was something I knew how to deal with. But it's still a terrible thing to be hungry.

After going through the winding maze insurance companies so often require even for life-changing prescriptions, my partner finally received the medication he needed to recover his health to a manageable state.

But eventually we faced eviction from our apartment with one week's notice after attempted financial aid fell through. It's traumatic and frightening and sorrowful to have to leave the place you call home under circumstances beyond your control. My partner was interviewed and hired for a perfect job after no luck for months within DAYS of the eviction, ensuring that no matter what happened, we'd finally have food and other resources.

But we still only had a week to find somewhere to move.

One day, management (who had a history of being unreachable, including during the time we tried to seek financial aid and work with them) showed up and tried force their way in (the door chain stopped them) and then proceeded to lie and tell us we had to be gone that day even though legally we did not until 24hrs after the notice had been placed on the door, which it had not yet. That was scary though. And they had sent their newest person, and it's possible she didn't even know it was a lie. But we had the paperwork and emails to prove it. I remember physically trembling, the paper shaking in my hand as we tried to explain. Another time pest control tried to force their way in. I'm sure management sent them too, as the email had only said you could sign up for a visit if you were having issues, which we were not and never signed up for. At an apartment complex, a door chain is such an extra sense of security that prevents people from unlocking your door and just walking in whenever they please, as was proved to me many times.

So we had a week to find somewhere to live. Friends (true friends) helped us more than we can ever repay, in ways that money alone could never repay. We got everything into a storage unit in record time. Our Winter Solstice was spent moving the largest pieces of furniture. Darkest night made bright with their help.

Some places wouldn't even give us a tour because of the eviction now on record. Most things I read during this time about renting with an eviction seemed so bleak. We found one apartment we thought was perfect and applied. They denied our application - but mysteriously accepted it a few days later without us even appealing. Was it because of all the construction at this complex and they were desperate? Did my partner's words somehow sway them? I don't know but I was considering the lilies of the field very, very hard at that point

So we had a place to move to on the 2nd of Jan but in the mean time we had to wait it out at our other apartment, unknowing when we would finally have to leave. A couple weeks sleeping on an air mattress in a near-empty apartment. Merry Christmas. We still had our tiny tree. Happy New Year. Our New Year's Day meal was a single heat and serve bag of basmati which we split, a tin of sardines and some corn. It felt like a small feast. Looking back, all symbols of prosperity and abundance.

On the day we were to move in, my partner's workplace somehow messed up (holidays at least partially to blame) and he still hadn't received his paycheck though he tried everything he could. So we had to scramble to borrow the deposit money from my mom. It's a long walk up to our new apartment at the moment because of all the renovations going on putting out the elevator. And when we got there, we realised they had given us the wrong set of keys so we were stuck outside in the hallway outside the door for 45min with the birds and our small carry items because she'd said she'd bring the correct sets of keys up, meanwhile I also had to go to the bathroom intensely. We'd laughed a lot through all of this when we weren't near-consumed with stress and fear of what would happen next, but it was nice to have a moment that was just purely funny.

The paycheck drama continued for another week so we had to work around that as well. But we had somewhere to live. Somewhere safe.

By the time it was my birthday about a week later. I slipped on the carpet running to say bye to my partner. It could have been worse but I scraped up my knee and hurt my leg. My knee/leg still hurt :') That same day our car also had trouble and stalled while my partner was on the way to work, so our plans to finally go out were dashed BUT he ordered Indian for us so we had a great meal nonetheless.

I love this new apartment. The layout is interesting and unique, one of the reasons we were drawn to it. The closet shelving is threatening to collapse but that can be fixed. Lack of bathroom counter space and large mirror is the only real downgrade from the other place but I can honestly say everything else here is equal to or better. Most important, you can see the moon from the window, and the best view of the sky.

The construction here is intense at the moment but inside the apartment itself is a haven, despite the chaos outside. I don't mind it because, after all, it likely played a part in how we were able to live here.

It sounds so small somehow when I write it all down. But it's not comparable to be on the other side of an ordeal where you can see how it all played out all at once and what you dodged and how you survived. When you're in it you have to get to the next day. Sometimes the next hour. I felt real fear during this time, an emotion I wasn't very familiar with. Throughout my life I've been through what some people might call "a lot", since early on. I've had people tell me I'm the strongest person they know. I've learned to handle many fears of many things. But this was an unfamiliar unraveling. And once I realised what it was, I was able to deal with it better. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. Frank Herbert was right.

My last time at the other apartment was happy, peaceful and filled with relief. It was a nice place for the time we lived, but everything good came with us. There were things I loved about it, but there were also things I won't miss and am glad to get away from (like living by the highway).

Thanks for reading this post if you made it all the way through. I wasn't sure how much to tell strangers on the internet but - we're friends here :)))

Adapt. Survive. Survive. Thrive.

Outside our window currently looks like the blitz. But only in the best way possible. Because the chaos doesn't bring any grief or fear - just a way out.

An interview featuring Keiko was posted on the Sailor Moon official Youtube channel, and a transcribed interview was posted on the Sailor Moon Cosmos official website on June 25th, 2023.

For the written interview, here's my translation attempt. While there are some similar responses and themes across all 3 interviews I've translated, each also gives a slightly different insight and new tidbits of information that makes me fall in love with Keiko even more. <3

Interview - Kitagawa Keiko

— This is the final chapter of a new series that began in 2014. How did you feel when you received the offer?

I enjoyed Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon immensely as a child and was greatly influenced by it. Moreover, the fact I played Sailor Mars/Hino Rei in the 2003 TV live-action drama Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, the series holds a very special place in me. I still get together with the cast of the live-action drama several times a year, they are my irreplaceable friends. All in all, I feel as if I have been with the "Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon" series forever in my life.

When I first heard about this opportunity, I was so surprised that I was trembling. The overall series is at its 30th anniversary this year, and it is also the 20th anniversary of the TV live-action drama Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon and of my own debut. On the one hand, I was very happy to receive an offer to play an important character in a work that I have such a strong emotional attachment to, but on the other hand, I also felt uneasy, wondering "Am I the right person for the role?" In [the live-action Senshi team's] minds, Sailor Moon = Sawai Miyuu-san. Considering the ultimate and future form of Sailor Moon, I kept wondering if it was okay for me to voice Sailor Cosmos. I was worried. But when I talked to everyone about it, they basically said, "We are so happy that one of us gets to be involved in the anime film like this. We definitely want you to do it. We'd also be happy if this becomes an opportunity to get people to know more about the TV live-action drama." and gave me the push I needed to do this. With that, I no longer needed to think about unnecessary things. I was able to participate in the experience with a positive mindset.

— What a beautiful relationship!

Not only were we like comrades-in-arms, fighting alongside each other during the filming process, but we were also like rivals in friendly competition motivating each other to work hard. Tokusatsu filming is often a tough job. They are my best friends that I overcame such hardships with together, rivals who continue to work hard together in the entertainment industry, and truly irreplaceable friends who are like family to me.

— With the push you received and continue to carry from your teammates, how did you feel when you read the script?

The story was so magnificent and epic, at first I was at a loss on how to grasp and portray the character of Sailor Cosmos. But as I continue to read, I fall back on realizing this was still the Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon that I know and love. When Usagi-chan is in trouble, her friends reach out to her, and even when she seems to be on the verge of falling apart, in the end, she would find the strength inside to face herself and stands up for herself. Believing in yourself, and believing in your friends, pushing forward once again, these are exactly the things that everyone loves about Sailor Moon. Ahh. Realizing this is the culmination of all of this and the climax of the series, I got goosebumps thinking about it.

— In this story, Kitagawa-san's Sailor Cosmos is a very important character, isn't she? What was your impression of her? Also, was there anything you were conscious of when you portrayed her?

She is [the future ultimate form of Sailor Moon], and from her appearance, you get the feeling that she has a very divine and transcendent air about her. But in all the battles she has fought, she has had hard times, seen things she didn't want to see, lost things she didn't want to lose… I think she holds the duality of having the strength to overcome anything and the fragility of a human. That was what I wanted to express through my performance.

I don't have a lot of experience as a voice actress, so it was very difficult for me to express Sailor Cosmos's sense of transcendent depth that you see and feel from her images. Even though I don't have the skills of a voice actor, I tried to convey as much of my emotions and feelings into my performance.

I feel a little superior because I am the only one who gets to listen to this (laughs), but Mitsuishi Kotono-san did the guiding voice-over for the reference clip. The depth and persuasiveness that comes across from her voice were really wonderful. It was a voice that really grasped the essence of the role. Similar to what Mitsuishi-san made me feel, I prepared and approached my part by coming up with a voice that I hope would make people feel comforted and safe when they hear it.

Mitsuishi-san contacted me before the voice recording, "Just do what Keiko-chan thinks is best, just be [yourself]. Don't worry about it and just have fun!" she told me, and with a slightly lighter heart, I went into the voice recording session.

Mitsuishi-san is just like the Usagi-chan I admired, I am very happy that we were able to star in the Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon production together. I would love to be able to tell my younger self that one day we will be in Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon together.

— And I assume you have seen the finished work, what did you think?

Although it made me feel very nostalgic, the visual was very much levelled up with the current technology. It is truly the culmination of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon's history, a fusion of what I used to watch as a child and what I watch now! That's what I felt. It is a product of extravagance.

The answer that Usagi-chan came up with in the end, was very Usagi-chan-esque, and seeing that made me happy.

— Usagi-chan's answer still resonates with us even when we're adults, doesn't it? Kitagawa-san, are there any moments that you empathized with when you saw the film?

Usagi-chan isn't perfect, she cries at times, and she hesitates at times. But she'd pick herself back up in the end, finding the strength to face and confront her challenges again. It's the same with the other Senshi, that they'd fight as hard as they can, even if they don't know at the time if your actions are right or wrong, they forge forward with everything they have.

As we live, I think we all encounter moments where we wonder "Should I have done it or not?" "Was I right?" that kind of trouble thoughts. Whenever I feel like I'm about to lose my nerve, I may cry, or hesitate like Usagi-chan, but if I can accept and believe in myself that I had done my best in the end, and that I made the right decision, I think ultimately there is a wonderful future waiting for me.

It is truly a message of encouragement for people to embrace and live in the present. This is now Kitagawa-san's second time appearing in a production of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. What do you think of this series now?

In these past 20 years, I was able to do my best because I know my fellow Senshi whom I met through the live-action are also all giving their best in this industry, this series is inseparable from my life, as if it's my life itself. Being able to participate in the film version of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Cosmos has only added even more significance to me.

— Finally, please give a message to everyone who is looking forward to the film.

No matter if you are you are a fan, someone who's never been exposed to Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, or who doesn't usually read manga or watch anime, I hope everyone would still watch this film.

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon is not just a story about girls transforming into cute costumes and fighting, but it is also filled with messages about how to stand back up when you hit a wall, how to look up and move forward when you feel down, and offer comfort and encouragement to those who struggle with anxiety and unknown about their future path. I am sure that in our current time and societal climate, there are things that people will definitely resonate with if they watch this film. I hope this film will reach many people.

Hey there! First of all - I can't begin to say how amazing your work on here is. Your metas, fanfic, comics - as a relatively new 70s fan, it's been so great to peruse. I started watching the show in the autumn last year, and grew up in the 2000s so it still feels nostalgic to me.

It might be a bit of a weird question, but basically I've really been interested in researching the original screenplays, especially the 'scrapped' s7 ending (Aka the original finale) before it was renewed for season 8. I've had no luck so far, and I was wondering if you have had any experience looking for these before? If you have, would it be possible to ask for any pointers on where to start on my journey?

Thanks so much for everything you do, honestly it's amazing to read!!

Thank you for the kind words! I'm happy you're enjoying my T7S works. 😊♥️

Unfortunately, unless you got a hold of the T7S writers' own copies of their original drafts (if they -- or the producers -- still have them), they don't exist online anywhere.

The information I have about them is from the That '70s Show message board at Fan Forum. It was active from the time the earliest seasons first aired until my co-mod and I shut it down this year. The archives are still available to read at Fan Forum.

Before I was part of the board, it was a known quantity to people at That '70s Show. For instance, Wilmer Valderrama posted there a few times.

People who ran T7S fansites (which were a thing before social media sites like Facebook and Tumblr existed) often had connections to the show, and they shared insider info with people on the board, including about the S7 rewrites once S8 was greenlit. One specific example is that Jackie and Hyde were not supposed to reconcile until after Jackie's job offer in Chicago / ultimatum -- in other words, the series finale.

Because the series finale turned into a season finale, Jackie and Hyde's happy endgame was scrapped to give a ready-made story-arc to S8. That also led the showrunners to reconcile J/H temporary to give them a little more time together as a couple, allowing for the cliffhanger of the now-season finale.

J/H's reconciliation episode in S7 is badly written. Probably quickly written, and it shows. It contains no depth, no acknowledgement of their two-and-half years of show time as a couple. It defaults to their status in "Going to California" (5x01) and misinterprets and retcons it to boot.

(Reminds me of how T7S writer and T9S showrunner Gregg Mettler admitted he used Wikipedia to remind himself of the T7S characters' basic characterization and storylines instead of actually watching the show again for the most accuracy.)

When I became co-mod of the T7S board, I read through over fifteen years of posts (did my due diligence so I could be as knowledgeable as possible about T7S, behind-the-scenes info, and the fandom. The number of posts I read is staggering (we're talking close to 100,000), not just from my board but every T7S-related boarding on Fan Forum.

I also followed links to the fansites, using the Internet Wayback Machine when necessary. Found interviews with cast members and producers (transcribed, early podcasts, and filmed). Read through the Live Journal fandom and any other T7S message boards I found. I was beyond thorough. I treated my new post like getting a PhD in T7S.

Talk about hyperfixation (but I had my reasons 😅). My memory for this kind of info is scary. I might not remember how the contents of my dresser drawer have been arranged for over a decade, but I'm the person who naturally memorized her most interesting college classes and could recite their entirety to people (who were interested) for years after I graduated.

So it was with the T7S info I learned. Spoilers from taping reports with alternate takes and scenes ultimately cut from the aired episodes. The words I read while in a grocery store checkout line of the S8 showrunners from a TV Guide (I believe) interview and how unhappy I was upon learning they hated J/H's relationship and were reverting it back to their season-1 dynamic (as they [mis]understood it).

By repeating all this info for a decade to people who asked, it remained with me. I shared some of my findings on this blog with links. But to get the full picture, one would have to read all the posts and fansites, etc., which is a ridiculous task. So I do my best to provide what what specifics I can.

When I was a co-mod of the T7S board, we still had people visit who interacted with T7S creators. One person, for instance, had interviewed Mark Brazill (the man who came up with the major concepts of T7S) for his own site and posted the transcript for us.

I'm sorry that I can't help you find the actual original scripts (I'd love to read them myself), but if one watches T7S's latter half, original parts are still evident -- as are where stories were spliced and rewritten.

NEW YEARS DAY's ASH COSTELLO Opens Up About Pregnancy Loss, Divorce And Dating

In a new interview with The Mistress Carrie Podcast, NEW YEARS DAY singer Ash Costello opened up about the personal tragedy and trauma that she went through during and after the pandemic. She said in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I don't talk about that stuff publicly ever, really. We were announced [for this year's] Rockville. Welcome To Rockville is a really amazing Danny Wimmer festival. We're playing with MÖTLEY CRÜE and JUDAS PRIEST. And the last time we were on Rockville, we had to cancel — we had to cancel all of our festivals last summer. And I saw the comments, like, 'Oh, NEW YEARS DAY's gonna pull out again.' 'I don't trust they'll ever make it.' 'How come they always cancel?' And I just wanna reach out to those people, like, you have no idea the personal battles I was going through that summer."

She continued: "I had to really learn to prioritize myself and my health. I went through a pregnancy. I went through a pregnancy loss, which was really traumatic because it was like a prolonged — tons and tons of tests, and it just kept getting worse and worse. And it was like an all-summer stressful event. And then a divorce and moving to another state. And there's just so much that happened, and I just wanna reach out to those people and be, like, you have no idea what any artist you're idolizing is going through. We're all human beings facing battles you know nothing about. But that was a big lesson for me because I was never putting myself first, and it showed. So now I put myself first, and we're getting way more creative, which I'm excited about."

Elaborating on her pregnancy loss, Ash said: "I didn't know how common it was. And although common, still not fun.

"I had plans to be on that 'Kiss Of Death' tour [with ICE NINE KILLS and IN THIS MOMENT last fall] seven months pregnant. That was gonna be the plan. I was gonna rock it. I was actually really into the idea of it, even though I'm sure it would have been really hard, but I was gonna do it. And everyone was on board and everyone was supportive. And then it just didn't…

"Life gives you what you need and taketh away what it's supposed to take away, and looking back, everything happens as it should, even though it's still sucky, but everything goes exactly as it should," Costello philosophized. "And it's not something I talk about. It's how you said, it's important to have a community of women in the rock world talking about their real womanly issues that go on in our lives. I don't talk about this in general, but this is a girl's podcast. So I feel super comfortable talking about mental health and self-care and prioritizing yourself and not sacrificing your happiness and your mental health just to grind."

Ash also talked the difficulty in maintaining romantic relationships while being in a touring band. She said: "I'm not a dater. I've never been. I hate dating. I don't do it. I'm the kind of person where it's, like, 'All right, we get married or not, 'cause I've got somewhere to be.' I've always been like that. And if someone freaks out over that, I'm, like, 'Cool. You're not my person. Next.'

Addressing specifically the breakdown of her marriage, three and a half years after she tied the knot with Jered Boeving, Ash said: "It was harder to make a marriage work while being in a band with maybe a person who's not from the industry and doesn't necessarily understand… 'Cause I always said I'm not gonna date anyone in a band. I'm gonna go with someone in a totally different field. And then that also came with its cons as well, because it was a little hard for the other person to understand what it takes. And I'm a very friendly person. I've always been one of the guys, just because I've always been in bands. And so that can be a bit jarring for someone who maybe doesn't understand what the camaraderie is actually like while you're traveling and stuff like that. So definitely difficult to navigate. It's gonna take a very understanding person or just someone in the industry."

NEW YEARS DAY's fifth studio album, "Half Black Heart", arrived on March 1.

Amid the WGA strike, let me talk about an other group of underpaid, undervalued writers: freelance journalists.

Their work can be found everyday in newspapers, magazines and digital media. Some are willing to risk their life to cover wars. Others are experts in technology, in business, in social issues, in architecture or fashion, can talk at length about the latest trends or the main challenges of an industry. Publications around the world don’t hesitate to use them for their experience and contacts.

Yet, the average fee for a story hasn’t changed since…1980. It means that freelance journalists are paid less than they were 40 years ago. Some publications even have the nerve to offer nothing but the promise of visibility, as if a byline could pay for groceries or rent. Sure, they can try to negotiate, but at the risk of losing the contract altogether.

Digital and print outlets usually pay only after publication or at least after they receive the story. This means hours of work in the form of research, interviews, transcribing and writing are unpaid labor, and freelancers often get paid weeks or months after completing their story. Pitching story ideas is also time-consuming and not a guarantee of work. In the last 15 years, some of my ideas were shamelessly stolen and given to a staff writer.

There are no sick days and no paid time off. No workplace protections and no benefits. You have to be incredibly passionate about your work to keep going, year after year after year.

If you’re still reading my endless post, I'm sorry to inform you that I don’t have any solution to offer. I just wanted to shed some light on the conditions freelance reporters are facing.

fail, girl!

5:49 p.m. Friday, on a straw mat, with peel-off lipstick on

When we were in a journalism competition, a newspaper columnist came and held a small workshop for us small budding high school students. She was one of those old-Martial Law era types, the ones who got the grit and experience necessary to survive being a journalist here in the Philippines, a dragon with callused wings swanning into a place full of ickle baby lizards with fresh bits of slick membrane still clinging to our scaly lids.

She asked who among those of us competing for the copyreading category in the room wanted to become a journalist. I was the only one who tentatively raised a hand.

She was confused, and a bit disappointed that none of these little reptiles who managed to clear the first two rounds of the competitions wanted to pursue fact-checking and editing and newswriting in totality. I thought she was just reacting as an animal bred for her field- her life was words, and she couldn't fathom anyone else trying so hard to succeed in a field they weren't going to nurture and continue in any way.

At least, that's what I thought she thought then. Now I know she was probably just confused. No other deeper meaning to it.

Like I am right now. I have not been a law student in two to three weeks, just simply going to events and covering them and interviewing clients and transcribing quotes and attempting and failing to write the articles I need to write from them.

I feel impotent and stupid and just plain useless. Those kids who didn't raise their hands... they were smart. They were onto something. They knew that this wasn't a field to pursue if you wanted to be successful in the long term. These smart kids, achievers and top ten placers in their school with their latinate appellations a soft launch for their three-to-four letter profession markers in their certificates.

They were just there because the journalism competition held a lot of points in class and school rankings, not because asking people and getting answers and writing those down and spreading them out was fun and nice to do. They were smart, playing the game like that. I just played with whatever they gave me and never thought to do anything that required higher thinking skills with it.

They gave me a pencil, then a pen, pointed me to people and events and ideas- and I wrote. I didn't think anything beyond that.

Now I type, heavily and with such excess. I don't like what I type, and I think I hate typing...even writing this update is very tiring for me. I don't like it anymore. I don't like the updates getting from my bosses and coworkers, I don't like being jealous and envious of my coworkers having their ducks in their row and effortlessly slaying this industry I thought I was a good fit for. I don't like working for people who use money to do fucking shit in my place, I don't like platforming [type of company redacted for anonymity purposes] on our articles, and I fucking hate talking to people in a large crowd.

A few days ago I met a journalist who never asked questions (fully online desk reporter, though she worked in local print media like I did) and was more anxious than me and I felt a kinship with her and she was nice. Until I saw a friend of mine during the same event, and she congratulated me for getting into law school, and that my cousin from my father's side who failed the bar exam thrice but was married to an attorney he met in law school was surprised that I was still there and why I haven't quit the silly little news writing thing I was doing. And this journalist congratulated me for doing such a good job. I felt like a fraud, like I have inadvertently put her under the same illusion I somehow cast over everyone else- the spell of "oooh look at her she is a competent person who has her ducks in a row".

She has expectations of me that I don't know how to meet!

And I was stressed but I wasn't as stressed as my friends who were also working in offices with solid hours and good career prospects and great work-life-school balance and they had three midterm exams back-to-back.

You know what I did with those same hours? Nothing. Just daydreaming and sleeping thinking about fictional characters being loved and nothing else and I have put off so much. The gig I took, the articles I am three to four days late in passing, the fucking law school!

Killing myself isn't even going to cut it anymore, the phrase has been slicing over so many thoughts in my head for nine months now that the edge of it has dulled and it can't pierce through the brain fog right now.

I want to have my cake and eat it too, like the greedy Jupiter-Venus person that I am (but the Mercury-ruled detriment of both these planets is literally knowing that this isn't practical or realistic or rooted in explainable and measurable actions). So yeah... we go fucking on? I don't know. I don't have much faith in myself any more.

Do I learn how to say no? Or how to stop saying yes?

(30) 6:34 p.m.

Enderal for the fandom ask? (Because I'm sure someone else will ask for WOTR and IWTV)

Enderal

((No Interview with the Vampire yet 😁, but that's such a great choice, aaa, one of my favorite games in the history of ever. <333))

Favorite Male Character Jespar Dal'Varek, my beloved boy. Mercenary (and noble who really doesn't like that fact) and the character with the second-best romance I ever played in my life. I'm definitely drawn to hedonists with a melancholic side. He's much ... softer than Daeran though, if you're wondering, with a similar bitterness underneath but still ... gentle. I should also mention the Father. But how to talk about them at all without spoilers ... Leader of a secret cult who believes that the mind should defeat the body. Highly intelligent, highly mysterious and related to my favorite quest. I could write a whole essay about them, but I realize every word I mention about their personality takes away from the pleasure of discovering them yourself, so I'll stay silent for now. 😁 (Also, they are neither a male character nor a female character but agender.)

Favorite Female Character Natara Dal'Veram. Do I have a weakness for conceited, intelligent women in power? You bet. She's the Truchessa of The Holy Order. Sounds important? Is important! She fights the protagonist on every turn. Once more I can't go too much into detail without giving away plot twists, only that she's devoted and hard working and loathes the main character because they step into a high position without doing much for it (or so she believes).

Least Favorite Character The High Ones and what they stand for. I rarely ever hate the antagonist(s) of a story, this time I did. Also Grandmaster Tealor Arantheal for being a fool and slightly Yuslan Sha'Rim for making a certain decision. (I love-hate him though.)

Favorite Ship The Prophet (player character) and Jespar. The romance is so good. So good. You asked me once if there is an existing character Eneas would fall for. He was my Prophet and fell very hard for Jespar despite him being different from those he's usually interested in. I have to add that I played a very young Eneas to fit the story. Very angry, very lost. He changes over the decades. On the other hand, he will change in the Enderal universe too while growing older, and in similar ways ... Ah, so much to think about always.

Favorite Friendship Very weird answer I would love to explain should you ever play the game: The Prophet (player character) - or well, mine at least - and the Father.

Favorite Quote "The world would be a much better place if everyone could just acknowledge that the only reason we're here is that we want to be happy." (Jespar) "All those “heroes” and self-declared messiahs are no better than everyone else. In the end, we are all selfish, because we always act in accordance to what we think we have to be like." (Jespar) "… I've always considered responsibility and being happy to be contradictory. But actually, that's wrong, it's the exact opposite. In order to be truly content, we need... connection. To a person, to a cause, to anything. If you never find that, you'll never find yourself." (Jespar) "I led them into the light. I alone." (Tealor) Ah dammit, I could transcribe the whole game actually.

Worst Character Death (if any) SPOILERS: All of them. So many dead, so much despair, it hurts to even think of it. How to even pick, they'll follow me forever, this game goes so deep. Rynéus, I will never recover. Calia, she deserved the world and he couldn't save her. Lishari, why did it need to come to this, it broke my heart and his as well.

Saddest Moment It's a very sad game in general. Bittersweet. Heavy on the shoulders. SPOILERS: Rynéus' death after this flicker of hope. He would have adopted him. The ending and the last decision and to see it in all its cruelty.

Favorite Location Ark! I fell in love with the city and its people. Also Whisperwood. The atmosphere is beyond amazing and always makes me shiver.

Bonus, because Enderal needs its songs: I picked Eneas without knowing how well he'd fit into the role of the Prophet. German for those who like to hear the Original.

tuesday again 12/6/22

tuesday again no problem will be taking a break next week, and will return on 12/20/22

listening

rich people by carsie blanton. this is an understated, acoustic little thing with piano and upright bass that builds up with some snaps and some...not quite call and response but something similar. it is direct and to the point, very much in the vein of labor songs and union songs.

i, very hard of hearing, transcribed this by HAND off spotify before i found this video bc i liked the lyrics so much. you're welcome.

Who run the world? It ain't the Jews Rich people don't pay no dues Who did the crime? It ain't the blacks Rich people don't pay no taxes Who took your job? It ain't immigration Rich people with corporations Who threw the vote? It ain't rednecks Rich people with thick fat checks

this interview is from two years ago (and reading about how seriously everyone took covid two years ago is...disheartening, now in the winter of 2022) but is a good answer to a really vague question about how she puts a song together (also explains why it pings so many of the union/labor song associations in my head):

I would say what I’m aware of in songwriting is that if you’re trying to fit a message into a song, it had better be a really catchy, exciting, fun song, because otherwise the message will not be heard. So I think I’m a songwriter first, and most of the songwriting I admire is what I would call American popular songs. So most of my favorite songwriters will just try to write a hit. That’s true in the ‘30s and ‘40s and in the Motown era. So that’s the writing I really admire. And I think in trying to get political messages into songs, I try to make the hook the thing that drives everything else. So it has to have the right energy, it has to have a catchy melody, or nobody cares to listen to the message.

ty to spotify weekly recs??? the least expected source

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reading

Batman: Noël is a 2011 graphic novel written and illustrated by Lee Bermejo. dipping a toe back into reading with some batman comics. i love batman oneoffs bc there are eleven billion of them and i don't have to have read several thousand other comics to understand them. this one's schtick is: what if batman is scrooge? it's not very successful in the storytelling aspect of this, bc by DC editorial mandate batman and gotham cannot change or grow.

however! it is beautifully rendered. this spread was quite lovely imo, very funny to think sixties tv show batman and edgy grimdark 2010s batman are the same guy

this was chosen at whim from the selection available to me on my library's comics app hoopla. i have spent worse half hours

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watching

white christmas (1954, dir. Curtiz) while choosing and addressing holiday cards. in like 2016 i decided doing this the first weekend in december would be my new tradition and i have done it like three times since then. so it goes.

has this movie aged well? no. did i watch it many times every winter while growing up bc i was brunette and my sister was blond? yes. these women simply do not look related but that's neither here nor there

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playing

quick question, pokemon company

who ARE these women. why are they in little caped costumes. i found the little group of three all together but beating them up didn't give me anything except more questions. what is their DEAL

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making

pasta failure. i have two boxes of mostaccioli (penne with no grooves) from really early in the pandemic when instacart gave me that instead of normal begrooved penne. in the interest of eating my pantry down before i move, i made sausage and peppers with onions, threw the leftovers in some diced tomatoes, and threw all that on top of this pasta.

this did not work bc this pasta has no grooves and cannot hold the tomatoes. the peppers and onions, which are cut in strips (as sausage and peppers with onions is typically made) are a little more successful but this shit sucks man. and i still have another whole box. other than ziti (and even that's questionable, bc the sauce issue remains, also i hate ziti) i don't think there's a good use for this pasta and i'm not completely sure why it exists except as a cruel italian joke, maybe.

in other house news, i am begrudgingly hanging more things bc i do want this joint to look a little less bare for when my siblings come.

in three columns left to right and then describing the columns from top to bottom:

postcard from the museum of sex in manhattan, postcard from my grandfather's collection, postcard from @believerindaydreams, cyanotype i did in high school

postcard from the restaurant my best friend's wedding reception was at, postcard from my sister when she went to japan, postcard from my sister when she went to france (no they are not flipped, also i had to trim this one without trimming any of the text and mack played with the sliver of cut off postcard for a solid forty minutes. acrobatic playing too, she was really going to fucking town smacking this sliver of postcard around)

another postcard from the best friend wedding reception restaurant, postcard from justseeds with a patreon backer reward postage stamp on top, patreon backer reward postcard from @calicojackofficial

i am not fucking around when i say i love postcards. this isn't even all the framed postcards in my house bc there are a series of five in one big frame, two in my room and two by my front door. plus some more in a box

and that's going to have to tide everyone over for the week break. i won't be totally offline (regular blogging, whatever the fuck that means, will probably continue) but i simply will not have the energy or time needed for a tuesdaypost

Arestovych's pre-OP military career

Because there’s nine years’ worth of misinformation around Arestovych, and as someone who’s gone through the full “huh he seems interesting” -> “huh he has to be full of shit” -> “no he genuinely did a lot of hardcore things at personal cost and it’s mostly just that he’s weird and obnoxious and politically inconvenient” arc, I feel the need to make a comprehensive post with links and photo evidence from all my digging.

His military career is still a popular angle of attack for people trying to discredit him, given a lot of it sounds wild and a good deal would necessarily be confidential and hard for him to prove, but there's nonetheless some very interesting stuff out there. I plan to follow this post up with another one on his (also heavily misunderstood) work in the OP.

TL;DR: He's largely honest about his personal achievements, he did some bonkers things and there's evidence, people who actually worked closely with him personally seem to have a lot of regard for him--and tbh, he's less of an asshole than most people would become after putting his life on the line repeatedly for his country and getting nine years of unhinged hate for it.

Given my language limitations and those of the intended audience, I'll be basically exclusively providing text and image sources that can be easily machine translated, plus some videos with English subs/dubs. Corrections and additions welcome!

According to Arestovych, he met Zaluzhnyy at Odesa Military Academy, they’ve been friends for 28 years, he served under him in the Donbas in 2018-2019, and he really loves cuddling with him. As with most of his stories, this is not as improbable as it might sound. I feel like that's an apt note to start this on.

Some people like to claim he “only” has a military translator diploma from Odesa Military Academy as a way to discredit his military background. But here's him front and center in a group photo with an honor guard sash, and he explained in a 2011 forum post from an account that was by that point linked to his real identity that he graduated with a civil bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and a military specialty in mechanized combat, and the translator diploma was in addition to that, traditionally received by military and intel officers. (Yes, he transcribed his entire courseload from his diploma to win a forum argument, if anything he's mellowed out with age.)

People also like to insinuate that he didn't really work for the GUR back in the '00s, there's no evidence for it (never mind that naturally if he worked for military intel a lot of information would be classified). But I've found a certificate of distinction from the GUR dated to 2003. Budanov, when asked about whether Arestovych worked in the GUR in a recent interview, answered "as far as I remember, yes."

Which might seem a bit vague, but they have an interesting relationship of their own. Arestovych left the GUR before Budanov started working there, but he's claimed that he'd known Budanov since before 2014 through GUR connections, and that they worked together in 2018 while he was serving in the army. In support of this, there's this..."interview" from August 2020, right after Wagnergate and the firing of the previous head of the GUR, when Budanov was the young and then-little-known newly appointed head of the GUR and Arestovych was "just" an infamous milblogger, not yet working for the OP. Ostensibly, it's the head of the GUR taking the unprecedented step of interviewing with a notable blogger and commentator to dispel rumors around the PR mess on his hands, but if you actually watch...it's a very odd video. They seem to know each other better than they're letting on, it's more of a creative collaboration to control the narrative than an actual interview, and it's very interesting that Budanov would pick Arestovych to do this with in the first place--Budanov gave interviews only rarely before the full-scale invasion, and Arestovych already had something of a reputation. Some hidden currents there.

Anyway, there's not much else in the way of public surviving evidence from all the way back then, but Arestovych has talked about going to Britain as a lieutenant on exchange, gathering intel for Ukraine's involvement in the Iraq War, and going to the conference with Dugin as part of his intel work (which convinced him in 2005 that Russia had revanchist designs on Ukraine, but his superiors wouldn't take him seriously.) [Edit 4/21/23: I'd seen hints before, but he confirms in this interview that one of his military specialties was "information counteraction", shaping the public opinion to a given objective. Which sounds an awful lot like the work he'll do later on.]

Arestovych quit the GUR in 2005, he says due to conflict with higher-ups, and spent the better part of the next decade bouncing around civilian life. One interesting interlude: in 2008 he was involved in unofficial preparations for the defense of Crimea against Russian invasion. Maidan was when he first became a public media figure (and almost immediately attracted a hatedom and Russian spy accusations, some things never change.) I've posted a bit about what I've found about that period here and here, but for the purposes of this post I'll move on to the outbreak of war in the Donbas.

On the one hand, Arestovych started volunteering almost immediately. He was already in Kramatorsk in April 2014, and he did a lot of work collecting donations and delivering supplies to the frontlines, especially comms equipment. He was awarded two medals around this time, for his work at Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, and he's talked a bit about his adventures (including nearly getting shot up by his own side twice) in this post and its associated comments. He founded the People's Reservist program to train fighters to supplement the dire state of the Ukrainian army at the time--he worked with a lot of notable volunteers at this time, including the combat medic Tayra, who's talked about training in his program, taught combat medicine for it, and remains friendly with him now.

On the other hand, he also gained a decent amount of fame as a prolific military and political commentator, both on social media and on various TV channels and media publications--including the one Podolyak was editor-in-chief of at the time, interestingly, although there's no sign they ever met before the OP. (It's worth noting that Arestovych makes a point of calling himself a military commentator rather than a military expert--in his words he dislikes the term "expert", he doesn't call himself that, and tries to correct other people if they use the term, but he can't be correcting everyone.) After the initial years of the Donbas war, he was pretty open that he'd been waging information war, trying to maintain morale and fight enemy narratives. And he seemed to take some pride in doing more good as a smooth-talking soft-skills pretty hipster popular with housewives than what gruff manly "proper military men" could manage. He's been called out on his fake news, especially after entering politics, and his defense is that everyone else used "black PR" too but only he admits it, and that unlike a good deal of the domestic intelligentsia he did it for the country instead of for someone else's money. (And the OP wanted him precisely because of the fake news, but that's something I want to save for the next post.)

But his chronic problem is that because his life story is so batshit, and because he's a weirdo self-confessed lying propagandist with really obvious neurodivergent vibes, people tend to assume the worst about him personally. The Russian spy and provocateur accusations seem to follow him no matter how many times he's done genuinely valuable and dangerous work for the cause--he generally just makes fun of the accusations, up to and including his old Facebook description being "swindler and FSB agent", but he's still new enough to them in May 2014 to sound actually hurt.

And people really like to accuse him of lying about his own accomplishments and credentials. His actual philosophy, in his words, is something like "boasting in front of a dead lion is worthy of all contempt, but boasting in front of a lion you killed is worthy of all respect." He'll dramatize, but the main evidence that he's outright made up any of his own exploits is lack of evidence, and when it's actual Russian policy to seek leverage on important officials and hunt out the social networks of potential resistance, he has very good reason these days to, say, not to give away the names of people he fought with even nearly a decade ago unless the connection is already public. He's been dragged to hell and back for getting goaded into saying he didn't like to talk about his missions publicly but he's made "33 combat outings" and has seven awards, in what he apparently thought was an off-camera conversation with a reporter in 2020 that got edited into the main interview, but I really think he's being honest. The one witness he's named for some of them is Tayra (with her permission), who posted in 2014 about being in Mariupol with him and others from the People's Reservist program, around the same time he posted about making four outings near Mariupol spotting enemy positions with a drone, in the context of soliciting donations for more drones. And I've seen another source for him having fought as a volunteer in 2015 that I'll get to below, discussing his stint in the actual army in the ATO September 2018-September 2019.

In a way he really didn't help the speculation around his service by deciding to hide that he was in the army that entire year, keeping up a stream of social media posts and comments to news sites as always, and then going "surprise! guess where I've been!" when it was over. To be fair to him, this might not just have been for the sake of trolling--there's a 2015 interview where he says that his enemies have tried to get him called up to the front (where, it's implied, they could get him killed), only he's a specialist of a type that can't get called up except in the case of full-scale war. Which sounds wild, but--he was a significant enough figure during Maidan that he had SBU trying to dig up dirt on him, other activists and volunteers were mysteriously ending up dead those years, and he was then vocally hostile to various forces in power. So he might've had actual reason for secrecy--although he was also having a great time trolling his audience. Someone notices he's been posting fewer videos than usual? He's just taking a break! Someone asks if he's planning to serve in the army once it's been reformed? Oh no, he's far too much of a delicate flower!

He started out as a captain, serving as assistant chief of intelligence to the 72nd Mechanized Brigade and performing recon, before getting promoted to major three months later, and apparently serving in the General Staff at some point. In response to Butusov accusing him of lying about his service and rank after he got a government position, he posted his seven awards and documentation, which include three medals dated to 2019, and another dated to November 2018, for the minefield incident, which is a story worth expanding on.

This is the original account of the incident by the brigade commander: a trained group sweeping for snipers in front of their positions hit a landmine that killed two and wounded two, and they evacuated with the help of a reserve group. Only the killed are named in the article, but it says that everyone in the group received an award, and the date lines up with that on Arestovych's certificate. He's talked about the incident a few times himself: he escaped the mine explosion with only slight injuries and made four trips to help evacuate, including one where he got separated from the others and wandered into his own side's minefield, in a position exposed to enemy fire, and he was so exhausted and past caring that he just walked straight through the minefield. And, miraculously, made it out alive. Upon which he went back again to bring back more equipment.

In a way, further confirmation of his involvement is the fact that, unlike Butusov, who insinuated Arestovych never really served on the front, Serhiy Kryvonos, a general and Poroshenko-era appointee whom Zelenskyy fired from the NSDC the same month that Arestovych became an advisor to the OP, insinuated that Arestovych was on the front where he deliberately led his team into the mine. Kryvonos had lengthy and ongoing beef with the Zelenskyy team, but he might have even older beef with Arestovych--one interesting circumstantial item is that Arestovych was at Kramatorsk Airport in 2014 while Kryvonos was commander, and has since criticized the leadership he saw there.

Aside from Arestovych's own response to the accusation, pointing out the holes in the story, there's another poster on the same military forum that Arestovych used to frequent who claims to be a Ukrainian officer who knows someone who knows him--although they're anonymous, they have a five-figure post count and the other posters aren't calling bullshit on them in that much earnest. According to them (translated in DeepL to make it slightly more comprehensible), awards don't correspond well to what someone's actually done in the military, and Arestovych shouldn't have been on the front when he could've been doing military analysis like he was trained for, but he really was at work on the frontlines and did the things he said he did.

Though the best evidence for his military career in general is that most of the people he's working with in the government and the higher echelons of the military would have access to his military records and the power to do background checks--and the press is free to make inquiries too, for that matter. Even if they can't obtain the details of his work, when he made an offhand quip last year that people took to mean he'd been promoted to colonel, journalists had no problem obtaining a document from the MoD signed by Reznikov confirming that he hadn't been. The fact that they can't manage anything for the rest of his service and awards besides insinuations is a pretty strong sign.

So that gives some idea of his extremely wild and extremely formidable resume coming into the OP. They hired him for a reason, despite the many rude things he'd said about them in the past. He's someone with, uh, dramatic flaws, but also a lot of genuinely heroic virtues and accomplishments, and I suspect that there's a lot more that we don't know about. For all he has a reputation as a narcissistic blabbermouth, he seems quite responsible about other people's secrets, and doesn't give away as many of his own as people think--more than once, he's embraced the accusations instead of laying all his cards out on the table.

More on that next time, hopefully: Arestovych's work in the TCG, the OP, and how there are no ex-advisors.

I appreciate the fact that team green ‘supporters’ generally seem to acknowledge that their side is not perfect by any means. The Dance was badly written in my opinion, but I do think the moral of both sides being the same destructive family that was willing to harm the small folk to get what they want did come across quite clearly (though this was messily written in some places *cough cough* aemond in the riverlands *cough cough*). This isn’t to say that team black never looks further in depth into the morality of their side, some certainty do. However, I think for show-only fans it takes more critical engagement with the medium to consider supporting the greens which breeds more self-aware discourse. That being said, there are definitely “our glorious king aegon ii shit gold and farted rainbows” people, though far less than there are people defending daemon.

I don’t side with either side personally but I’ve read posts by supporters of both and this is simply what I observed

Hello!

I agree that watching the show, especially if it’s just in the background or your not fully aware of the context around, you’re led to support Rhaenyra and Daemon before Alicent and her family. I’m rewatching the show with my mom and there are parts even in the first episode that can catch viewers up easily. Daemon’s police brutality scene is justified by Daemon and Viserys as needed to ‘keep the citizens safe’. It’s a POV trap that needs people to question it or fall into it.

The Dance and Fire and Blood are also not as greatly written as they could be. Definitely reads as George’s editors wanting a book and him pushing one out asap. I do love the theme of history being unclear and sources conflicting. I’m a history buff especially for ancient history and unclear sources are like my bread and butter. But this theme of conflicting stories muddies the themes of both sides being in it for them selves and nothing else. This theme conflict is more pronounced with the show choosing and adding elements from the book allowing people to argue over what even is true.

I think a way to clear up the themes of the dance while sticking to Fire & Bloods theme of history sources being unreliable would be to have the author transcribing interviews with the different sources.

For example, the author could start by talking about a town that was burned during the war and towns people reporting it to be Vhagar. A source that supported the greens might try to justify or lessen it by saying there were traitors in the town or it was a mistake while a black supporter would exaggerate the impact and say it was Aemond going on a burning spree. The author could then engage with these sources to try and extract the truth but still leaving multiple options that ask the reader to engage with the argument and find other solutions. It would work a lot better than just saying “mushroom said this but Orwyle said this and the septon didn’t write anything on it”.

In my ideal version of the show, everyone would have scenes of them being good and bad (pretty loose terms but easiest way to express it) AND have their good and bad qualities acknowledged by characters in story. Like someone saying that Viserys must want war upon his death if with how bad his succession plan is or Rhaenyra saying that she loves her father but can’t forgive him for killing her mother. (Someone just call Viserys out in the show PLEASE!)

Thankyou for your ask!