#see I AM a renaissance fan writer

[beauty-and-passion]

Did you see Thomas Sanders' YouTube community post about his plans for videos, including Sanders Sides?

... well, it looks like something happened in the SaSi fandom. Jeez, I cannot leave for a couple months to celebrate the Gravity Falls renaissance, that Mr. Sanders decides to pull up some stunts while I wasn't looking :P

Maybe he hoped I wouldn't notice. That I was gone. Well, unfortunately for him, I am always around - and if I lose something, there are always nice people ready to give me a heads-up. So here I am again, ready to give my unrequested two cents about the latest updates.

A lot of things happened since dear anon wrote me this ask, so I will not talk about one single post (also because I have no idea what post the anon was referring to :P) but I will briefly talk about the latest info taken straight from the ts_criticism tag, which is always the most updated place regarding SaSi.

No, Mr. Sanders' updates do not count, considering they're non-existent.

_____________

Season 2 finale: to watch or not to watch?

There was a survey going on in the criticism tag regarding the season 2 finale and whether people would watch it on YouTube, another platform, or just ignore it.

Now we can tell ourselves all the stories we want, but at the end of the day, we know everyone will watch it - no matter if on Thomas' YouTube page or somewhere else.

And even though we already know it will never be worth the years of waiting, I am sure everyone will still give it a chance. The view count will be high.

But if that's true for part one, who knows what will happen for all other parts? What if part 1 is not worth the wait? Will people still be willing to give a try to the other parts? Will they be willing to wait who knows how long for them?

_____________

The hilariously bad Brei Grace situation

Is it so surprising, that Thomas lost another person working for him? It's basically a constant, considering people keep being laid off, disappearing or not getting paid enough. By now, you would think this man learned something from the past but hey, it looks like I overestimated his intelligence.

What I find incredibly funny about this situation is not that Brei herself had to tell the truth to the public because Thomas, as always, refuses to be honest about anything. It's about this specific part of his post regarding Roleslaying with Roman:

Oh my god, this is so bad it's hilarious.

So Thomas laid his last writer off, but apparently he wasn't clever enough to find a proper replacement before doing it and he openly admitted in a post, to his fans (including his investors) that he has no writer to replace Brei and will have to keep following/begging her to get more of the script, because there's no one else who can develop the story in her place.

Do I really have to explain why everything about this is so stupid? Do I? Okay, then:

Thomas was apparently very quick at firing Brei, but not quick enough in finding another writer before doing it. That's not how any competent person works: when I left my last job, my boss asked me to stay for a couple more days, just enough to get a replacement. But hey, I suppose "finding a replacement" and "not leaving a vacant position" were too complex, too difficult thoughts for Mr. Sanders.

Mr. Sanders showed his investors he's so disorganized and impulsive, he fired someone with no backup plan and, as a result, had to put the series on hold. One of the series people are paying him to produce. If I were still paying him, I would stop immediately after this: if you're this unprofessional, you don't deserve money.

After laying Brei off, Thomas still wants to reach her for details regarding the story. The same story he fired her from. If he was so desperate for more of her work, he should've found a way to keep her around, not laid her off, then waste more time trying to find a way to get more of her.

If I were Brei, I would ignore Thomas forever and refuse to write even one more word regarding Roleslaying. But I'm a cold, heartless person, so I don't count. Still hope Brei will have some self-respect and refuse to share her work for free just because he's begging.

Or, at least, I hope she will ask for pre-payments first.

Thomas thought it was a great idea to show how unprofessional and disorganized he is via Twitter post. And refused to say the whole truth too. And no one was in the room to tell him: "Hey, what if you get a replacement first, so at least you won't have to admit you are dropping a series because you have no writer left?".

That's so stupid it doesn't even make me mad. It simply goes all the way around and becomes pure genius.

It also (involuntarily?) reconfirms a thought I had long ago, when Joan left. When I watched the goodbye video, I expected Thomas and/or Joan to tell us: "Hey, Joan is leaving, but here is the person who will replace them!".

But nope, no introduction of a new writer, no update post. Literally nothing. Joan left and no one came in. Only vague mentions of other people and names, but mostly Thomas confirming he was the main SaSi writer.

Thomas. Who is not a writer - let alone a competent one.

That's so stupid it's hilarious.

So, since now Thomas got rid of his last writer, what will he do? Learn how to become one? Considering his lack of progress in general, I suppose not.

So what? Will he hire another one of his friends? Will he think he can do anything and write RwR himself? Or will he keep trying on SaSi, a series that is so difficult to handle and with so many stakes, that even a competent writer would have problems with?

The incompetence has just reached a new level and I can't wait to see how deeper we can go.

_____________

The spoilers for the next SaSi episode

Thanks to @t-slanders, who appeared out of nowhere and decided to feed us something more than the absolute nothing Thomas gave us for years, we know what the next SaSi episode will be about.

And look, it's a plot in which:

The main topic of discussion is Thomas and Nico's relationship

Roman is ready to push things further

Janus and Virgil are not

Virgil is hiding he's on Janus' side

Wow. Wow. That's what Thomas came up with, this is what he's working on for 4+ years and hasn't finished writing yet.

Now, I'm not saying he should've created another plot: that's the only possible plot he could've developed. The only one that made sense, considering how WTIT ended and what was hinted during the 5 year anniversary special.

Why am I so sure of that? Because those are the exact same plot points for the season 2 finale - part 1 I came up with: in my version, Thomas was questioning if he was ready to have a relationship with Nico, Roman wanted to push things further, Janus wanted Thomas to be more cautious, Virgil was siding with Janus but refused to admit it.

Sure, some elements are different of course, but the plot points are the same. The biggest difference is that it took me a few months to develop them into a plot, not 4+ years.

And since those are the plot points, I already know how they will develop too. And not because I'm a genius but, again, they can only go in one direction: Thomas will eventually agree with Janus, it will become obvious Virgil is siding with him, Roman will feel betrayed and his arc will start in the next parts. It's already all written here, it can only go this way. The time travel idea is an "embellishment", but the plot can only go one way.

However, that doesn't mean the season finale will be automatically bad. A lot of stories I can predict end up being great anyway. So no, I won't judge it for its predictability. I will judge it for the production time and the characters' personalities.

And speaking of personalities...

_____________

The tweet video

I watched it at 2x speed, because didn't want to waste too much time on it.

It was... okay. Just okay. The characters' personalities are just okay. Everything is just okay.

Sigh. I'm tired of everything being "just okay".

And no, I cannot shake the feeling that Thomas pulled out this video in 0.2 seconds, only because he had a sponsorship to do.

One last thing I want to tell now, so consider it a warning: if the next episode and/or eventual season finale part 1 are "just okay", I will consider it negatively. From a canonical episode, I expect more than to feel "meh" while watching it.

_____________

And now?

We do the same thing we do every night, my dears: we wait forever for Mr. Sanders to finally decide to update us, to work on SaSi, or to do some stupid shit worthy of a discussion.

Of course, that doesn't mean we should burn him at the stake or cancel SaSi: we are all adults here, so we will simply highlight the shit Thomas does, because if you do stupid shit, you deserve to be criticized. That's not a personal attack, that's just being objective. I hope, one day, he will learn that too.

And maybe, who knows? He will also learn from his mistakes, hire someone competent, pay them properly and not lay them off without finding a replacement first.

Or, maybe, he will just find the perfect excuse to drop SaSi/put the finale on hold forever, so he will be finally free from the burden he clearly feels. When that day comes, I wish him to find a series he will be truly passionate enough, to keep it on until the end.

And sure, of course I will be around when the supposed next episode will supposedly come out: one part of me hopes it will be good, while the other part loves shooting a fish in a barrel. So... well, at least I will be satisfied either way ;P

[volkswagonblues]

god i could ask every single q on that ask meme but for the sake of not sounding obsessed. 1, 4, and 11 for let the rock roll?

let the rock roll (Interview with the Vampire)

1. What is a piece of symbolism in your fic?

There's one small thread I amused myself by weaving in, and it's Armand's lowkey reoccurring fascination with blue skies and birds. I think it's one of the many tiny pieces of the original Devil's Minion short story I put in as easter eggs,

For context, the QOTD!Armand gets obsessed with modern technology and the story describes it this way:

“Anything with blue skies enthralled him. Then he must watch news programs, prime time series, documentaries, and finally every film, regardless of merit, ever taped.” (Queen of the Damned)

But for LTRR human!Armand, I liked the idea of the blue sky as a symbol for everything he was denied in his life: being forced to stay in the ship's hold as slave, being turned into a vampire and unable to see the sun for years, etc. And tied up with that image is some stuff about birds too--chap 1's turning scene has Daniel unlocking a rare Arun memory, where he's chasing some birds as a very small child. Birds represent freedom and home for Armand, but he himself doesn't know that. Something like that.

4. What's something you've researched but haven't incorporated into your fic?

OH MY GOD SO MUCH. Daniel's random backstory tidbit where he lived in Paris as young man, because the show really made it sounds like he's very familiar with the city. I wrote a really long conversation between Armand and Daniel that's basically a long bait and switch for 1970s Devils Minion (as in, the fan theory that Armand and Daniel were lovers for a decade before Armand wiped his memories).

Armand says, “It was the late seventies and you were in Paris. The summer of 1979, to be exact. You were sick of America and you thought that Europe would offer you something you lacked, so you joined the many young American artists and writers before you and bought a one-way ticket to Paris. Your money didn’t last as long as you thought, and work was slow. A friend of a friend got you a job as a switchboard operator at the local bureau of the New York Times, working the graveyard shift from 6 pm to 1 am. You didn’t mind. You liked arriving at the Right Bank building when everyone was leaving. You enjoyed being awake when the normal world was asleep. You read books and listened to your pocket radio playing jazz and old French songs you didn’t understand.”

“Yeah,” Daniel says. “I wrote about Paris in my book. That New York Times gig. I walked home every night because the Metro stopped running by that time. Got mugged twice."

"You didn't write about this night."

To be clear, 70s DM absolutely did not happen in LLTR. That would have been just WAY too much to unpack. But I just like 1970s Paris so I might recycle this whole thing for a sequel one day.

Also there's a ton of stuff about Renaissance Italy that I cut. I'm worried the fic has too much "Armand just monologuing about Venice while Daniel goes 'un-huh, and then what?' :)".

11. Is there anything important in your fic you think readers have missed/overlooked?

A lot of stuff about Daniel, I think. He is very fucked up about death. He's terrified of mortality, which I thought was THE defining character trait of the original QOTD Daniel. He's not joking when he keeps offering to turn Armand.

Related to that, he was also a truly terrible father, I think that part of his character is just not as interesting compared to the Armand/Daniel psychosexual mind games, but it's there. From the scraps of info we get about Alice in the show, I got the sense that Daniel's one of those terrible men who's great "when he's in the room"--he can pull off being romantic and charming (he scraps gum off Alice's shoe! He books the perfect table in the bistro!) but he's an addict to drugs and to success and the act inevitably collapses. But there's hope, becoming a vampire at 70 really reconfigures one's life priorities.

And lastly, I also cut the scene that explores this more, but the reason Daniel is like this is that he's repeating patterns of behaviour from his own parents. There's stuff about his Irish-Armenian background I wish I explored more. In 2 separate scenes, he thinks about his curly hair and his green eyes as the only good things his father and mother left him, which to him are just assets to better sell his body--so, that's fucked up!! Also, his father was definitely an alcoholic. The poison drips through....

[amrass]

RDR2 fanfic recommendations

I began this a month ago, then posted days ago, then realized marking posts as private makes me the only one who's can see them. Huh! So, I repost!

This is a spotlight with a handful of Ao3 RDR2 fanfics I enjoy. I got specific tastes, so this list has lots of Micah, and everything from gen fics to dead doves, randomly ordered. Please consider checking these out and give the writers some love. Chances are you have read a few already, but hey, you might find something new.

My Country has no Borders by Spacehat

You know the rare moment when a fic is so good it satisfies your whole need for a pairing or a character? Whenever I wanna read about Dutch, Hosea, a young Arthur, and Vandermorgan, I read this and boom, satisfaction. Literary level writing, masterful nonlinear time frame, and a spot on character analysis of Dutch. 

Wagers of Sin by Spacehat

The first Morbell fic I read that made me go hallelujah. Power bottom Micah, confident and mischievous, a well endowed and hard ass Arthur. The humor and the smut work so well together, the banter is excellent, and it's less dark than MChnB, for a lighter taste. Many of my Morbell headcanons are from here, so if you like my work, you might like this, though I consider the style better than mine.

The Mule by jenny_of_oldstones

Funny oneshot with crack elements, about a race between Arthur on his trusty mule Rooster vs Micah on Baylock. A very good take on Lenny, intelligent and witty, potentially the future leader of the gang. Arthur is funny and cute. Micah is an asshole, and awful fun. 

Vengeance is Hereby Mine by Delta_Meow

Crossovers do not get the attention they deserve, and this can be read without having seen the Dollars Trilogy (specifically A Few Dollars More, my personal favorite). There are three very strong leads - Arthur, Manco and Mortimer - with interesting relationships between each other, heaps of sexual tension, extensive horse knowledge, action, drama and a little American serial killer folklore! Also Micah owns the chapter he is in - very evil, very nice.

Red Dead Stuart Little AU by SourApplechips

This is a super cute and funny series, containing fics with the "everything is the same except one thing"; Micah is a rat, and John is a squirrel. There is an animated writing style that lends itself well to humor, a good eye for detail, a good grip on action and banter. I still seek these out when I am having a bad day. Also, it is interesting to note the connection between humor and horror, here: the writer masters both, which require a sense of timing and tension.

Here is a trio of dark fics within Morbell pairing, which are short or in their beginning, all ongoing. A lot of people only read complete fics, but supporting a writer in their journey can be so meaningful, so please give these a try: The World by SourApplechips (good take on the horror genre, top notch gore, excellent scenery details), Kindling Play by ohcmonjustdont (mythological, deeply poetic, and damn hot smut) and Idiotic Bull by zzzzzz01 (coiling dialogue and a good mix of violence and sensuality). I will not compare, but will rather point them out within a context of what honestly feels like a renaissance of Micah content. The characters feel like outlaws, the landscape - so clear in the game - is so present but conveyed differently, overall it is nice to see three unique voices emerge around the same time.

Nailed Her Pretty Good by SadomasochismTango

An unusual take on a Micah x random bathing girl fic, written from his perspective as an unreliable narrator with a strong dick game, making this deliciously dubious, but also is an excellent character study of him. This might be the piece on this list where the reader best feels Micah's age. He feels like a confident, creepy, forty year old outlaw. Also, the writer is a confirmed Tom Lehrer fan! Great!!!

Home in Damnation by SadomasochismTango

This is might be the darkest story on this list, so I'm hiding it at the bottom. This contains non-descriptive forced noncon incest in the Bell family, between grandfather and grandson. Still, this is tastefully done, direct but not crude, mixing extreme emotions beautifully. This is my favorite fanfic about Micah because it is so well written. If you can stomach the warnings I cannot recommend this enough.

(PS: If a writer for ever which reason wants me to remove their work from here, I will do it no questions asked and with no bad feelings. I think most authors are okay with being recommended, but it is completely okay not to be!)

[starsopinions]

The Golden Globes...

It has been the hot topic the last few days: The Golden Globes. And because there aren't enough opinions out there already, this is mine. Here is my opinion on all of this from the point of view of a teenage girl who would one day like to work in the film industry.

We as a society have had a history with sexism but I'd like to think that in the twenty-first century, we are all equal. Unfortunately, I am proven wrong time and time again.

I was very excited to watch the Golden Globes, as a film fanatic I was very interested in who would win. Being a Swiftie, I was hoping for a win for Taylor and as a huge Greta Gerwig fan I was rooting for at least a few wins for Barbie. I didn't get either but we did get something far worse. yay!!

I'm sure you've seen the 'jokes' that were made but let me recap:

"Oppenheimer is based on a 721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project, and Barbie is on a plastic doll with big boobies."

"The key moment in Barbie is when she goes from perfect beauty to bad breath, cellulite, and flat feet. Or what casting directors call character actor!"

"Yo, I got the gig 10 days ago, you want a perfect monologue? Yo, shut up. You’re kidding me, right? Slow down. I wrote some of these, and they’re the ones you’re laughing at.”

“The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL — on the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift."

To make matters worse, he added this in an interview with Variety the morning after The Golden Globes:

"Yes, I’m a stand-up comic but that hosting position it’s a different style. I kind of went in and did the writer’s thing. We had 10 days to write this monologue. It was a crash course. I feel bad, but I got to still say I loved what I did.”

I think that it is disrespectful and the fact that they didn't even think about if it would fall flat or not is horrible. The comments were written by multiple people, so multiple people read them (all men, no doubt) and not a single one thought that it might not go well?? I am baffled. This is not some cheap festival we are talking about these are the Golden Globes! How can something like this go wrong so badly??

I am personally so disappointed about it because 2023 was such a good year for women. The Eras Tour, The Renaissance Tour, Barbie, I can go on.

These aren't just projects featuring women, we all made friendship bracelets for The Eras Tour. We all wore pink to the movie theatre for Barbie and then we all cried for 'What Was I Made For?'. Those are experiences, that is womanhood! and I had so much fun!! I was at the movie theatre and there was this lady and she must have been well in her 70s and she was wearing this beautiful, hot pink (!), prom-style dress and she came up to me and she told me how it was her birthday and she was taking her grandchildren to see Barbie. And if that isn't the best thing you have ever heard then I don't know what to tell you! And that is just one example of how beautiful womanhood is. I am telling you this to showcase that no, Barbie is not just a plastic doll with big boobies. I feel like you would know that if you actually watched the movie and respected the people who worked so hard to create it. It breaks my heart to see people make fun of it like that.

It is so sad for me to see because these are the people I admire. They put their hearts and souls into this and they make these beautiful things. Greta Gerwig and Taylor Swift have worked so hard to get there and they still aren't respected like their male counterparts are. Did you hear a single joke about a man? Me neither because there weren't any.

It is so sad to see because it shows how it doesn't matter what we do, how hard we try or how successful we are. We will never be treated fairly.

It is so sad to see because these are the most successful women in the industry, if they aren't respected, I will never be either.

Loads of people think that these are "just jokes" but I disagree. These kinds of "jokes" reveal how men treat women in society. It might sound dramatic but it is true. It is all good when women make them money and fix the economy, but giving them basic respect is too hard to ask. It makes me angry that a comedian that no one has ever even heard of is allowed to make these kinds of comments about some of the successful women in the world. In the future, they should hire people who are actually funny and not disrespectful (and maybe even a woman? Shocking, I know).

Thanks for reading

- star ☆

[atlararepairbigbang]

Meet the Mods!

We have an awesome team of mods working together to put on this event, so we figured we'd introduce ourselves as we prepare for sign ups to kick off on the 26th of March!

Sav, aka @badlucksav

Mod Sav here! My favorite ships are Irosami, Makonora, Makorra, YuTen, Zutara, Azutara, and JetLee, but I like any ship that makes my brain sparkle. I’ve been in fandom for almost 3 years, joining during the Renaissance initially as a ZK shipper but branching out into different ships and then into LoK as well. I’m a writer and sometimes artist, and occasional beta. A fun fact about me is that I wrote my longest fic (273k words) in just under six months.

Sooz, aka @it-is-sooz-again

Hi, I’m mod Sooz! I’ve been a part of the Avatar fandom since 2011, but only really started making fanart for it in the last couple of years. I’m a multishipper and rare pair fanatic, and can be sold on just about any ship that passes my way, but I have a soft spot for anything involving Jet or Ty Lee. Unsurprisingly, my favorite ship is JetLee. A fun fact about me is that all my headcanons are depressing 🙂 !

Orange, aka @orangepanic

Hello, I'm mod Orange. I'd never even heard of fandom until summer of 2020 when I suddenly needed a creative outlet to offset the fact I was locked inside my apartment and busted out 60k words of spiteful canon fix-it. My favorite ships are Irosami and complete and utter side character crack like Ursa/The Boulder, Lin Beifong/Lightning Bolt Zolt, June/Col. Mongke, Azula/Joo Dee, Baatar Beifong/Eska, and Viper/Jargala Omo. Fun fact: I've written nearly 25% of the Irosami tag on AO3.

Neva, aka @neva-borne

Hi, I'm mod Neva (pronounced knee-vah). I started writing for the fandom back in 2019, finishing my first fic a year later, though I've been a fan of ATLA since I was a kid. I kind of dove headfirst into fandom and running events. I'm an artist and writer, and I've dabbled in betaing through my event experience. My favorite ships are Zutara and Jursa, and I actually wrote the first ever Jursa fic on Ao3!

Crooked, aka @crookedmouth-mountainbones

Hello, I'm mod Crooked! I joined the ATLA fandom officially with the renaissance of 2020 but was first introduced to it back in college. I am a writer and beta reader in this fandom as well as others, and am your resident villain devotee. Rarepairs and crackships have always been my favourite, though I am -- to no one's surprise at this point -- partial to pairings involving Zhao. As for a fun fact, some of my non-fanfiction work has been published, which is cool, I guess, if you're into poetry.

And that's the team! We hope to see you soon!

[authorofthemoon]

I wanna preface this by saying I am a very casual Batman fan and I haven't read really any comics. Most of my knowledge of Batman and the Batfamily comes from social media and comic Tik Tok, so I am by no means an expert.

That being said, I feel like I picked a really good time to be a Batman fan because it seems like Batman has been having Batfamily recovery period for the past couple of years. I heard someone call it a 'good dad Bruce renaissance' which I can agree with seeing what he's said and done in past issues. Though, comics are hard to have a consistent character due to multiple writers.

But what I've noticed is that there has been a shift in the recent Batman stories that focus on recovering from the trauma that entire family has faced for over a decade. To me it really seems thst Batman has just been drenched in misery a lot and it's just tragedy after tragedy and miscommunication after miscommunication and complex after complex. So, it's nice that they seem to be in a new era.

I think an example of this is how Batman was largely represented in video games through the Arkham games which again, are drenched in misery (I've only played Asylum and City but those games are really bleak start to finish and it's more Batman than Bruce Wayne imo). Like, I don't even wanna play Arkham Knight bc I know the twist in that. They took the most fucked up, tragic thing that's happened in Batman and turned it into something even more fucked up and tragic and I honestly don't think I can bring myself to play it because of that.

But compare that to Gotham Knights (which people are devisive about but I enjoyed it) where the primary focus are characters, how Bruce affected them, and Bruce Wayne as Bruce Wayne and not just Batman.

Idk if Wayne Family Adventures was the spark for this era or was just the beacon for it, but I enjoy the dynamic of them are really trying to make things work between them all even if they don't fully understand each other rather them just constantly turn against each other.

Again, these are just my opinions about the direction I've seen Batfamily comics going in and I enjoy the healing era instead of character backpedaling (though I'm sure it will happen again at some point). So, if anything I said is slightly off base, it's because I'm not the most well informed in the 50+ years of Batman comics, but I hope others feel similarly.

[antisociallilbrat]

i would like to hear about the history of stenbrough as a ship bc as someone who left the fandom after like two months in 2017 (<- book fan curse) i am INVESTED

Say no more *cracks knuckles*

Disclaimer: Please do not take everything I say as fact, this is just my interpretation of the ship's history through out this fandom from my perspective

Okay so let's start at the very release of the 2017 movie. There were four ships out the gate and they may surprise some people, but they were Reddie (which would quickly become the main ship runner), Bichie, and Stanlon. Billverly was a strong contender but it was quickly overshadowed by Benverly once Movie fans were made aware by Book fans that they were endgame in canon. Notice how I didn't mention Stenbrough?

I'm not saying people didn't ship it after the movie came out but it couldn't compete with Bichie or Stanlon in those first few crucial weeks. Stanlon eventually died down the level of popularity that Stenbrough was at during this time but Bichie still ran strong for a good while until eventually losing popularity the more popular Reddie got. Which brings us right into the the It fandom of early 2018.

So if Bichie was losing popularity, what do we do with Bill? Who does he smooch? Oh what about Stan? They had some romantic chemistry right? - A reddie fic writer (probably)

Stenbrough really got its popularity from being a background ship for reddie fics. I can't say why Reddie writers choose this ship more over Stanlon, maybe they actually just shipped them or maybe it had something to do with wanting to just write the core four? This is also around the time the *bad* trend came about of just disregarding Mike, Bev, and Ben, or giving them like two lines- or their tropes. Ya know, Mike the only single Loser, Ben just being Bev's Bf, and Bev being a fangirl for a core four pair.

Anyways- I need to mention this even though it makes me uncomfortable bc it was such a dark time in the It fandom that Ik we all try to forget but we can't deny it happened. Remember fack? Which did fuel the reddie ship for a couple of weirdos? Same was happening- on a smaller scale- with Jyatt. Plz someone I am literally grimacing I hate this so much. Some weirdos went "Jaeden and Wyatt are best friends in irl so now i'm going to ship them" which boiled over into Stenbrough.

OKAY MOVING ON into something so much nicer, the Stenbrough renaissance 🥰🥰

From like mid 2018 to 2019 there were so many good Stenbrough fics. Stenbrough had become popular enough to stand on its own as a ship. And I'm not saying that good fics that were solely stenbrough based weren't coming out before this, this was just when we saw a big boom of them. Also at this point in the fandom, especially late 2018 to early 2019, the fandom had died down a little. I actually took a bit of a break from the it fandom during this period. But bc the fandom had died down during those few months, other ships had some room to breathe besides Reddie, one's like Bichie and Steddie, Stanverly, Poly Losers, but mainly Stenbrough. I would dare say at this point some shippers were Reddied out (they didn't know what was coming with that 2019 movie, the resurgence) so Stenbrough was honestly, very popular.

Now let's get to the 2019 movie. Reddie once again, took its place right back on top, there was a resurgence in the It fandom. I- foolishly- went into the 2019 movie hoping to see more Bichie content that would fuel my headcannons bc I was not yet a stenbrough shipper. Still didn't change after the 2019 movie.

So the ships this time around concerning Bill and Stan were a lil different. Stanpat had more of a bearing- albeit usually always as a background ship- but Hanbrough became extremely popular. Kind of a switch from the 2017 movie with Stanlon. So honestly while Stenbrough did grow after this movie, I would argue that growth was kinda stunted by Hanbrough- which I can't say I'm mad about, that's an awesome ship as well.

And yeah Stenbrough ship held on for a while after the 2019 movie and we were still getting good fics and works for it, but I think the reason it held on for so long was because Idk- a major world event happened or something and people suddenly had more free time. Am I saying covid affect the It fandom? Abso-fucking-lutely. That's when i started writing fanfic for Stenbrough.

When did I start shipping Stenbrough? It was a mixture of being home during the pandemic and reading fics from the Stenbrough renaissance. Whoops.

Which just brings us to now bc from late 2020 to now in 2023 it's pretty much the same. Stenbrough is technically a dead ship. People still enjoy it and good fics still get written for it, but it doesn't even brush the height of it's once popularity and it never will again. Kinda depressing but I don't let it bother me too much. I'm still going to be the fool who pushes out content for it 🤷🏻

[vulturevanity]

Like, it was bad, y'all

I've been revisiting FiM because a friend decided to check it out (after she realized it was a significant part of my personality and wanted in on it), and by god, did they do a racism. And then another one. And then another one. And then-- you get the idea.

And I'm not talking about the weird ways in which they tackled the subject of racism itself, most notably on the later seasons. Setting aside awkward lessons in "be nice to those who look and act different from you", gen 4 is loaded with racist caricatures, cultural appropriation, tone-deaf storylines of conflict between natives and colonizers and a heap of other elements that, later on, the writers seemed to realize were, hmm!, not so great!, and therefore quietly phased out of the show without ever addressing them in a sensible way. Things that go as far back as episode 5.

It's late and I don't have the brain power to tackle all of these right now but I just want to list some of the things I'm deeply umcomfortable with in the show that I can recall right now:

Zecora as a character AND as the only zebra we see in the show for all of 9 seasons. Simultaneously the Token Black side character, the Magical N**** stereotype and the fact that she's described in the show as an "exotic" outsider. (You know, later on they had an Egyptian-coded character appear in the show. She was a pony. I never got why they didn't use that opportunity to fix The Zecora Problem)

The Buffalo episode. Specifically the fact that settlers took their sacred land and they were told to just "learn to share" and it was ok because the settlers gave them pies about it

That scene where Pinkie Pie dresses as a stereotype of Rroma people (which spawned a very popular arc in a parody that had her saying and singing the G-slur in multiple songs.)

The imperialism in The Crystal Empire (not king Sombra, the fact that after they defeated them, rather than letting a Crystal Pony rule the empire, they put Cadence, who is from Equestria, on the throne)

After deposing Chrysalis, the one changeling put in charge was the one the ponies had a good relation with (something that happens with startling frequency between the US and cartain parts of the Middle East)

The uncomfortable power dynamics between the pony races (especially the Hearthswarming Eve backstory)

The W*NDIGOS

And that's just off the top of my head. That's just what I can remember at 1 am while frantically typing in the dark.

The fandom's white supremacy problem suddenly isn't all that surprising when you realize how BAD things were in the show. It's not like it was doing much against that kind of bigotry.

And for the record, I'm not trying to "cancel" FiM. I still love this show with all my heart; it's really important to me, and it's still a good show that, in a way, kick-started the 2010s cartoon renaissance. We owe a lot to it. But that's exactly why I'm so upset by it's failings as a show that defined itself by its morals on friendship and standing together against hardship. To see the glaring blind spots on a show created by a white woman, with a writing room full of mostly white people, who despite having good intentions really did not know what they were doing sometimes. It hurts me as a fan of colour, and it hurts black and indigenous fans most of all but not exclusively.

Hopefully, now speaking a as someone aiming to be in the animation industry, we can use this as a learning experience, so we grow to be more critical of our own work, and maybe our own shortcomings won't be offensive or hurtful towards any demographic we may want to represent.

[ripeteeth]

Hi!Hope you are keeping well.You don't have to answer this question but I am such a fan of your writing,I really want to know how do you do it? How do you write? What is your creative process like? What goes in your head while deciding the direction of the plot or story? What books do you read to write those lovely quotes on the beginning of each chapter? Who or what are your influences?

How do you manage to achieve that lyrical quality of writing, amazing plot,characters with such depth and their personal meditations on life?

You are one of my favourite writers and i would be elated to hear your advice.It's hardly ever you get to hear from your idols.

Omg, I am bowled over, you are way too generous and way too kind! Thank you!!! So much for the ultra lovely words! It makes me so happy that you like my scribblings. I'm afraid I'm not very good at giving writing advice (or taking it) and I don't know how well I can explain my hack of a process, but I'll do my best.

Generally, it just starts with an idea. Two characters I want to see mashed together, or a scene I want to see realized. Like I'm working on a book with Theseus and the Minotaur, and the first thing in my head was Theseus and the Minotaur looking at each other down a long dark, candlelit hallway, with this uneasy and erotic tension. I also wanted to play with a bit of character inversion and make the Minotaur extremely well-read and gentle and creative, and make Theseus a bit of a brute. One of my favorite things in literature is taking the typical unsympathetic or villainous character and recasting everything through their POV. So I think a core idea or scene and also, almost more important, I think of the sort of main emotion I want to evoke in my reader and leave them with.

I'm a terribly messy writer and tend to throw plot points at the story like spaghetti on a wall, just looking to see what sticks. (Though I'm really working to change this as I move from fic to original stuff because I'm taking on more plotwork and it's too much to pants for me.)

The others, where I find the quotes and how my writing and character work has developed, are really one and the same. I read a lot! And I read a lot of books that write the way I admire and would like to write. I'm not very original tbh, but I am a very good mimic. As one of my favorite books on creativity says, "Start copying. Nobody is born with a style or voice. We don't come out of the womb knowing. who we are. In the beginning, we learn by pretending to be our heroes. We learn by copying. We're talking about practice here, not plagiarism - plagiarism is trying to pass someone else's work off as your own. Copying is about reverse-engineering. It's like a mechanic taking apart a car to see how it works." (I highly, HIGHLY rec this book if you are looking for great viewpoint on creativity and originality and finding your voice in creative fields, it goes into it much deeper but the core is this: study and copy the masters you're inspired by like you're an apprentice to a Renaissance master. Figure out how they did it. Find the thinking behind it, the technique. Then take that and put your own characters and setting and story through that lens, see what you find.)

So, I copy. I reverse-engineer. I read and reread my favorites and make notes about why certain things work and resonate and how I'd like to try something similar. Sometimes I try to write similar characters or similar scenes as writing warmups and practice, just to see how it feels or changes my own voice.

My favorite authors and the ones I'm the most inspired by are Jeanette Winterson, Anne Carson, John Gardner, Ocean Vuong, Clarice Lispector, Umberto Eco, Italo Calvino, and Patti Smith. I know I'm forgetting a bunch, but these are the top ones that I'm always circling back to, taking down their books and opening them up like they're a cadaver and I'm Victor Frankenstein, desperate to see how they tick.

You TRULY made my whole month with this ask, it's so lovely and a bright spot as I struggle and gnash my teeth over my current projects, so really, thank you so much!

[leverage-commentary]

Leverage Season 3, Episode 12, The King George Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

John: Hey I'm John Rogers, executive producer.

Christine: Hello I'm Christine Boylan, writer of this episode.

John: And unfortunately the fantastic director, Millicent Shelton, of this- of this episode could not join us.

Christine: Because she's working all the time!

John: She's working all the time.

Christine: She's amazing!

John: Christine, how did this show come about?

Christine: I am obsessed with- [Laughs] a lot of things that are in this episode. And I begged you to let me do them.

John: The only thing missing from this is bustles and parasols, really.

Christine: It's true! It's true, we had everything but bustles and parasols.

John: James Frain.

Christine: James Frain! Obsession. [Laughs]

John: Great actor, yes, that wasn't creepy at all on set.

Christine: He became one.

John: Yeah, there you go. No, it was- we had been- we wanted to do a Sophie backstory episode for a while.

Christine: Absolutely.

John: We had been wanting to talk about- since we had been addressing - all year - everyone's reason for being on the show.

Christine: Obsession.

John: Obsession?

Christine: Eliot in a pilot outfit.

John: Eliot in a pilot outfit? Really? I did not know that.

Christine: [Laughs] Look guys, hot guys in pilot outfit? That's hot.

John: I was not aware.

Christine: I'm just saying.

John: And, you know, as you'll see in the finale, you know, we really get into why Eliot is trying to redeem himself. And in this was our chance to kinda see- to have Sophie realize what a lot of grifters sorta push off, is that it's not a victimless crime.

Christine: Absolutely.

John: You know, that you rip off institutions and you rip off insurance companies, so it's all kind of a chess match with giant corporations and you know, that there is some human fallout. Which is something shes not dumb enough not to realize before, but she’s always emotionally quashed.

Christine: She's been able to turn a blind eye to it before now.

John: Exactly, because she’s evolving. She's actually- that's something we talk about in the Sophie/Nate relationship all the time is part of the problem is, Sohpie’s actually becoming a better human being faster than Nate is.

Christine: Hmm.

John: And that's one of the reasons they can't actually ever quite make it work.

Christine: Mhhm, mhmm.

John: She's farther along her sort of, you know, decency evolution.

Christine: This, look- this was, all day this large choreographed scene where they said, “You may as well have written The Music Man.”

[Laughter]

Christine: It's a lot of moving parts, a lot of people doing a lot of simultaneous things, and it had to play out almost like a little play, which was a lot of fun for me.

John: Yes. You love little plays.

Christine: I do love little plays.

John: Camera people when you have three or four cameras in there at the same time, not so much.

Christine: No likey. Camera people no likey.

John: Big thing for the fans, kids- people dig Eliot Spencer helping adorable war orphans.

Christine: I know, yeah, they really do. And how cute is this kid, she's so cute.

John: She was adorable, she was really great.

Christine: She was wonderful. She was wonderful.

John: And this was also- it was interesting we were breaking this episode, it was so plotty that it was one of those things where we realized we just have to jump in the middle.

Christine: Just- I love starting in the middle. Oh my god, great, staring.

John: Just immediate - we’re up, we’re running.

Christine: We’re up and running.

John: The audience knows the show by now, we’re well into third season, you'll figure it out!

Christine: I mean yeah, look it’s James Frain, do you think he's the good guy? No!

[John Laughs]

Christine: No, he's not the good guy!

John: He's a sinister Brit in a suit! Come on!

Christine: He's a vampire sometimes, sometimes he's a, you know, renaissance villain.

John: We did do the take where James kissed Aldis like in True Blood, and that's on the servers somewhere.

Christine: That's on my reel at home. That's a private reel.

John: By the way, having just flown through, this looks distressingly like the actual customs arrival at Logan.

[Laughter]

Christine: Yay!

John: Yeah, it’s actually pretty close, it’s actually-

Christine: Did you get caught with some contraband?

John: I did not get caught with some contraband.

Christine: Illegal lion statues?

John: No. 

Christine: Tiger statues?

John: No, I- all my illegal stuff is virtual.

Christine: I am also obsessed with antiquities trafficking. Because it is something that drug lords do to make money to move drugs, which is a lot fun! 

[Christine Laughs]

John: And we've mentioned on a couple of the commentaries, we spend a lot of time- and this is one of those weird things, you know, people that write shows are human and they get into their little sort of obsessions. And we got really deeply into money laundering and the ways in which you launder money this year. And it just so happens that some of them are very glamorous.

Christine: Absolutely.

John: Like antiquities smuggling.

Christine: Absolutely.

John: Yeah, it's not just for giant nations pillaging other giant nations.

Christine: It’s true.

John: Antiquities. It's for individuals too.

Christine: That was-

John: We gave her a bear! A little bear of peace to hug!

Christine: Come on, how cute is she?

John: She's adorable.

Christine: Adorable.

John: Adorable. An accessory after the fact, I'm sorry she's going to jail. 

[Christine Laughs]

John: That was another thing, too, by the way. I love watching the arc of audience research on the boards and forums.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: Cause I do go and watch, and as people know I’ve got the blog and ask questions. And this was one of those things where it's like, ‘Well I love the episode, but I don't know about- can they really take kids and keep them in custody? Can ICE really do that?’ And then about a day later- it's the same on all of them, a day later it's like, ‘Well, I'm doing some research,' and then about a day later, ‘Oh god, this is horrible!’

[Laughter]

Christine: Oh it's real!

John: ‘It's real and horrible!’

Christine: It's real!

John: Yeah. We do a lot of research into horrible things so you don't have to.

Christine: Mhmm.

John: And bang, we’re into the credits.

Christine: And here we are. That was very wonderfully cut together, wonderfully directed, vital kind of- they did a great job.

John: Truly difficult. That whole teaser, that happens in one scene.

Christine: They gave me so much shit on set. Paul Bernard just looked at me with the eyes of death like, ‘Come on lady! Nine pages, huh?’

[Christine Laughs]

John: Nine pages. You do write big scenes.

Christine: Look at this!

John: I adore you, but you do- you don't write television scenes.

Christine: Look at this shot!

John: Keep talking about the shot.

[Laughter]

Christine: This is Shanga Parker, he’s a great actor.

John: How long was the first act you ever gave me in the first script?

Christine: Twenty pages!

John: Twenty page act.

Christine: Twenty pages in The Miracle Job, act one.

[Laughter]

Christine: First draft.

John: There were some beautiful speeches, they’re lovely.

Christine: Some beautiful speeches, they moved to like act three mostly, so.

John: Now I'm sorry, what was I talking about?

Christine: This was Shanga Parker, he is a fantastic local actor who we worked with.

John: Where were we by the way? We are at the convention center?

Christine: Also a professor. This is the convention center.

John: In Portland. This is great.

Christine: Yeah, not overrun by comic book fans, which is usually how I see a convention center. So this was, you know-

[Laughter]

Christine: This was nice.

John: It's like, ‘Oh, this is what it looks like when normal humans walk through?’

Christine: Yeah! It's what- they look like airports!

John: Yeah theres no chunky transgendered Wonder Woman in here, it looks like an airport.

Christine: No. Oddly enough there was, actually.

John: That was odd, actually on the set.

Christine: I brought her with me, she was my assistant.

John: Really? There you go. Doing a lovely job, just- you know there's a lot of good people in the system, and doing their best to help people out. And, you know, it's one of the things we talk about the morality of the show. It's like, are we good guys, are we bad guys? Well, you know, sometimes the system needs a little kick in the ass, cause there are good people who are too good to kick it in the ass.

Christine: Absolutely. Immigration advocates, these guys work really hard.

John: That's a nice bit of staging, by the way, having the couple passed out on the couch.

Christine: Yeah.

John: That's a beautiful little bit of airport detail.

Christine: It was tough, we had to kinda cheat a little bit to make sure they weren’t distracting, but I learned a lot about what to put in background and what's already in the shot and- Millicent’s a great teacher, and she didn't mind me- my shadowing her like a little duckling for most of the shoot. It was really helpful.

John: That is also one of our first sort of great- we got in fast, and now we're doing a lot of backstory to reconnect this episode with the season arc.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: It's one of those weird things- and this is how it falls out. We had planned to salt the Moreau plotline about every third episode, but due to actor scheduling issues and a rewrite it just wound up being on either end of the season.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: So, you know, this really had- this episode had a lot of heavy lifting to do, which was kinda reintroduce this entire plotline. And Derek Frederickson of course doing great work on the graphics in order to make it clear.

Christine: Fantastic. And not only is he incredibly prepared and does a lot of research and does great work, you know, before, in prep. But when you show up on the day and you want something different, he can whip- he’s magician! He's a magician.

John: Yes, he's actually sitting there with a laptop and I said, you know, “Give me something that looks entirely different.” Five minutes later, “This?” “Oh my god!”

Christine: I have not bought him enough cocktails, that’s the- [Laughs]

John: I think- that has to be a digital shot. Because- yeah.

Christine: Yes.

John: We were shooting through the TVs at that point, and I don't think we’re capable of doing that.

Christine: No.

John: This was also very cunning of Millicent, to break our five up into twos in a way I don't think we'd done before by shooting straight at them.

Christine: Yes, yeah.

John: Usually we rake. Claridges, real? Made up?

Christine: Claridges is made up. A lot of the stuff in here is real in the Leverage world.

John: Yeah.

Christine: Some of the royal stuff, we wanted to- I love the royals. Don't you, John?

John: I hate the royals.

[Christine Laughs]

John: I hate the royals. It’s-

Christine: It’s class warfare.

John: It’s absolutely class- 

Christine: Class warfare.

John: If I could watch that castle burn to the ground… Anyway.

[Christine Laughs]

John: No, it was.

Christine: See I’d like to, you know, get them out and live in the castle.

John: Yeah, no.

Christine: It’s two different approaches, same result.

John: I am personally- level that ground and build a school on it.

Christine: More of an opportunist myself.

John: This was actually fun, was giving her the, “Can I brood here, too?”

Christine: Oh, yeah.

John: It's, you know, people are not unaware of the fact that Nate is a moody bastard. 

Christine: Mhm.

[Laughter]

John: And this is one of the- another great things in the third season where they are pairs, they are partners, they're, you know, they're equals here. This is, again, not a scene that would have happened in the first two. And part of the fun of doing television, you can develop relationships over a long periods of time.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: You can't do this in a movie.

Christine: No, you absolutely cannot. That's why movies will always be the inferior.

John: Really? Wow.

[Christine Laughs]

John: There's a reason you're my favorite!

Christine: Ohhh, that's right!

John: Nicely done!

[Christine Laughs]

John: There you go.

Christine: This was a lot of fun to shoot; this was rewritten. Like- I try to rewrite everything on the day, that's the- [Laughs]

John: Really, make it easier for yourself, Boylan.

Christine: Yeah, except for those big Music Man sequences. But this, you know, Gina and Tim know their characters, they wanna play and we can- this scene always gets ten times better when you sit down and just read it with them, you know?

John: It's always fun, too, because I remember the first time I was on set and they came up and they're like “John, we think we're rewriting this scene”. It was- I think it was in the military one first season, oh my god we made enough of these- Homecoming. Where we want to change the nature of this conversation, and I was bracing myself for the giant actor thing of a total rewrite but they just [unintelligible] two sentences later. ‘That's it?’

Christine: O-ok?

John: Alright, fine!

Christine: Sure!

John: And, you know, they- yeah.

Christine: There's a respect that goes both ways, and I think the writer needs to be present for the actor and vice versa. And it really-

John: That's what the writer’s on set for.

Christine: Absolutely.

John: You know-

Christine: And to learn directing secretly!

[Laughter]

John: Don't get seduced by directing. 

[Christine Laughs]

John: A monkey could direct. [Monkey noise] “Ahhh ahhh!” Pointing at- there are the actors! What else are you supposed to point the camera at? It's not hard, people!

Christine: But here is another one of these- this was- we shot it at a college?

John: Yeah.

Christine: Beautiful location.

John: Lovely establishing. Wow, her in that dress is kinda amazing.

Christine: She’s amazing. Oh my goodness, and this- this office. I mean we turned it into an auction house, everybody did such a good job just dressing it, and already a beautiful location.

John: Dressing on this was great. Yeah, Becca and the whole production design team doing an amazing job.

Christine: Becca's another one who’s just, you know, a magician.

John: Yeah.

Christine: [Laughs] like pulling it out of a hat, I don't know how she does that.

John: I love that you've got a picture of Queen Victoria there, cause that really establishes exactly the tone and the style of the auction we’re gonna be doing.

Christine: I think so, it certainly made me feel comfortable.

[Laughter]

Christine: Loyalist that I am.

John: I know. You understand that blood isn't special. You understand that, right?

[Christine Laughs]

John: And Frain with the ascot! How perfect is that!

Christine: Look at Frain! Nadine really had to sell me on the ascot, but once she did- once he walked in she looked at me and she said, “Right? Am I right?” And I said, “So right, Nadine.”

John: So right.

Christine: So right as always. That's- playing the thug there, Ollie Trevena. Hilarious, and-

John: Really great.

Christine: Good with the stunts.

John: And it's tricky too, cause we had to have one of the funnier thugs we've ever had in this one. He really had to be able

Christine: He got a little speechify later on.

John: That bang over from there to there, that’s- this what I really like about this episode in- you know, it's great - this is the first episode Millicent’s directed for us, and so she brought a subtly different style to the show.

Christine: Mhhm

John: And watching it, it made- I really enjoyed it, because we’re in London, it feels like our ‘we went to London’ episode. 

Christine: Yeah.

John: It has a tonal difference, and part of the fun of doing the show is it's a different movie every week.

Christine: Absolutely.

John: And this is one of the ones where it really feels like it's a different movie. You know, now we're doing our Thomas Crown.

Christine: Yes, absolutely.

John: You know, the other one you did, it's our Friends of Eddie Coyle, you know.

Christine: Mhhm. And once again, Portland did provide.

John: Yes. Absolutely. 

Christine: Portland gave us London, so thank you, Portland.

John: White gloves.

Christine: Just put gloves on this guy, we’re in London! There you go!

John: Now wouldn't you take the gloves off in order to-

Christine: Absolutely not, he would not.

John: Oh this was great, this may be the single sexiest scene in the entire show.

Christine: Oh, she’s like, ‘could this be longer?’ But she was great.

John: Yeah.

[Laughter]

John: Actors- they all want monologues, and then the monologues are too long.

Christine: Oh I know, Gina said the same thing.

John: You can tell I'm in the second Guinness cause I'm starting to bitch about them.

Christine: No, I love them.

John: No, this- I love this scene. 

Christine: She’s amazing.

John: Because, again, this is how Parker sees the world. Inanimate objects and people are both- you're capable of relating to both of them on exactly the same way.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: No. 

Christine: She's manipulating them as well.

[Christine Laughs]

John: Wow, I don't know where that came from.

Christine: John!

[Laughter]

John: This was a ton of fun, doing the auction research, and figuring out how that worked. All these- also the antiquities research, although you had a lot of that from your previous stuff.

Christine: I had brought a lot of that with me, but it was fun to kind of- I had mostly looked at, you know, older stuff. Really just stuff from antiquity. But looking at the kind of newer things in the King George stuff, and the, you know, the signet rings.

John: Yeah, and we have to give- and as part of the whole we use all the parts of the buffalo, we have to give a shout out to the wonder twins.

Christine: Oh, yeah.

John: Cause the wonder twins had originally come up with the idea of a treasure hunt episode.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: And they put it in Boston, which naturally put it in revolutionary times.

Christine: Right.

John: That led us to King George, but then we shelved that episode-

Christine: Right.

John: So years later when we came into the antiquities, you jumped on that, and it was-

Christine: Let us do King George, yeah.

John: It was great.

Christine: See, they would go for the revolutionary side of things, and I went for the the-

John: I know.

Christine: Red coat side.

John: Really?

[Christine Laughs]

John: Really.

Christine: That's why we’re a good team!

John: Go live in Acadia.

Christine: We’re a great team!

John: We are a great team.

Christine: Look at that statue, statue of Ra. 

John: I love that you can just ask Eric Bates: we need a statue of Ra, and he's like “I've got one on the truck.”

Christine: Yup, patted me on the shoulder, “Alright, Boylan.” With that look of ‘You're crazy, but alright. Let's do it.’

John: No, well it's not quite as bad as when he walked in the first season finale and went, ‘how many tiny statues of David?’

[Laughter]

John: ‘You realize these don't exist, actually, anywhere?’

Christine: Oh, man.

John: It's never boring on Leverage.

Christine: Having Sophie figure out, you know, Frain’s character's heart desire on the fly.

John: Yeah.

Christine: That is- that was fun.

John: That was- this episode, interestingly, really benefits, because it's not a particularly action filled episode. It benefits from the density of the investigation.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: Because a lot of these- a lot of these scenes, a lot of these acts, and this is why you rewrite and stuff. Really in the outlining and the breaking we’re like “OK, this is gonna wind up being two episodes.”

Christine: Mhhm.

John: You know, and just crunching it and churching it and crunching it, really gave you exactly what everyone's job is at all times, and really made you understand why Sophie is a crucial part of this team. Sophie is a genius in her own way, as much as Nate is.

Christine: Absolutely.

John: No one else could pull this off.

Christine: And this is her area of expertise. I do like going into, you know, each of their areas of expertise in different episodes. It's nice to kind of- Parker's role for a while as we did in yours and Geoffs.

John: That was kinda fun in Gone Fishing, you're in Eliot's world. 

Christine: Absolutely.

John: Eliot- if you're gonna be running around the woods with people trying to kill you-

Christine: You wanna be with Eliot.

John: Yeah, exactly.

Christine: It's true, if you were gonna be in an auction house, you wanna be with Sophie.

John: Exactly. This was fun, this was-

Christine: Tim, looking dapper.

John: Exactly. And interesting- I had actually pitched this originally, when you were breaking this, but actually happening in the mens room.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: And then- 

Christine: We couldn't find a good location, so we had the mens room lounge. This is like the right outside of the toilet.

John: As one does!

Christine: As one does.

[Laughter]

John: Absolutely. Also you can rough a man up in a lounge and people won’t pay attention, in the mens room, it’s expected? I don't know-

Christine: It's England, you expect Michael Caine to walk in and gut punch somebody, come on.

[Laughter]

Christine: Come on.

John: Michael Caine, great in an interview, the best advice about playing a villain I ever heard, which is the scarier the guy is, the softer he talks.

Christine: Oh I love that. Well Frain’s definitely got that down.

John: Yeah, Frain’s playing that. It's really is- he has no need to threaten someone because he is, himself, threatening.

Christine: And by the way, there's no nicer person in the world.

[Laughter]

John: Than James Frain?

Christine: Nicest guy in the world. And completely menacing.

John: Yeah, I love the way he picks up the physical cues. Coming up with the physical cues was fun.

Christine: That was fun. Ok, so this is where we went off and we worked on two different scenes.

John: Yes.

Christine: That had to connect, and we basically wrote exactly the same thing.

John: The same scene, yeah exactly.

Christine: Which was- made me feel like I learned something. I feel pretty good, you know.

John: It was- you know, the writers know this show by now. 

Christine: Yeah.

John: You know, and also I would say, temperamentally, you and I are probably the most similar- 

Christine: Mhhm.

John: Style-wise.

Christine: Yes. We’re both haptic, we like, you know, we like using all the senses, but having the object in your hand?

John: Yeah.

Christine: That's what this episode is about.

John: Exactly. And the- also that was kinda fun was coming up with, when we were first breaking it, trying to figure out what Hardison's job was.

Christine: Yeah.

John: And coming up with Hardison- that Hardison became- hacked history. That was-

Christine: That was-

John: That's my favorite part of the episode.

Christine: That's your most shining moment right there, by the way. That he hacked history.

[Laughter]

John: Thank you. That’s- we just, it- we’re kinda talking inside here, because of the nature of scheduling, Boylan and I wound up working on this one a little bit more cause I'd come back from directing-

Christine: Absolutely.

John: The other episode, and so I was out of the loop on another episode so I ended up jumping in on this one.

Christine: It was not a huge [unintelligible] with this one.

John: And also, you did back to backs.

Christine: I did, I did.

John: You were actually producing-

Christine: Yeah.

John: And being on set for-

Christine: Three-Card Monte.

John: Three-Card Monte. So I actually wound up hanging out and doing a little bit of the research before you came back, and you came back, I'd crunched a little bit of this.

Christine: Yeah. And it helped that it was this one, because at least I had done all that work, like, prior to going to Portland.

John: No, that's the thing - you had broken the plot, and just left me with the all the little research-y bullshit to come up with. Which I love doing.

Christine: You do.

John: I love- part of the fun for me in the show is finding everything out that's true that we can put on the air that people don't believe. She's amazing in this scene.

Christine: She's amazing. The two of them? Wow.

John: Yeah. Look at that kinda- she's a totally different human being here - that kinda bored, looking off a little to the left, the little head tilt.

Christine: And the genius of Gina, which some people are going to sort of recognize here and some people are not, but the way she slightly alters her accent. Just slightly goes for a more refined, different class.

John: Yeah, just the way she carries herself, the way she's thrown on the little sweater around the- she's wearing a knockout dress and by putting the little wrap on-

Christine: Changes everything.

John: Changes everything.

Christine: And again-

John: And look at that! She looks imperious there.

Christine: Oh, god.

John: You know. And meanwhile, in real life she's a really sweet, kinda goofy, you know-

Christine: Absolutely. ”Ooh Christine, another monologue!” That she had perfectly memorized and performed brilliantly. 

John: Yes, you know.

Christine: Of course.

John: They have to complain.

Christine: Of course. 

John: And again- I will say again, Nate in a chair getting beat up while Sophie runs a con, I have no problem saying this is one of my favorite recurring themes of the show.

Christine: I told Tim it was a dream of mine.

[Laughter]

Christine: Tim really enjoyed this episode, I have to say - he had a lot of fun on set.

John: Now, it's- well, you know, he looks great, by the way. That's a great look with the little- and he's hooked, and he's back in.

Christine: Yeah. And yeah the two of them had a lot of fun with this. Yeah, the hook- I love the walk away and then coming back.

John: Yeah, and also, again, one of the things you can do in third season, but also one of the things we try to reinforce now that she's his peer, when she says, “You know what I'm running here”, and he goes, “Yeah, but it's dangerous.” 

Christine: Right.

John: We don't wanna- don’t need to explain it to you, all you need to know is these two people know each other well enough to know what they're playing-

Christine: Mhhm.

John: And what the risks are. And it's a shorthand between peers.

Christine: Yeah.

John: Does she throw that- was she wearing that necklace in the other scene?

Christine: She was.

John: She was.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: It's amazing.

Christine: It looks different against the black than it does against the- yeah.

John: Amazing how different it looks.

Christine: And that's a fantastic sweater.

John: And Nadine throwing together a great little ensemble.

Christine: Oh, Nadine's amazing.

John: And the evil look there, and this is a bad idea.

Christine: Oh no.

[Christine Laughs]

John: This is a bad idea is one of our- now here's a question. Everyone else is dressed for the weather. Was it hot in that office?

[Laughter]

John: Is there- did he nearly pass out from the heat?

Christine: It sure was! Really hot in there.

John: Was it hot because they were trying to put on the lamps to make sure the gun show was bright enough?

[Laughter]

Christine: It was!

John: I remember-

Christine: I promise certain things!

John: Coming into the writing room, and on the wall it's like, it was you know, the priorities-

Christine: Strip Aldis down to his underwear.

John: The priorities for the episode, and one of them was Hardison in the t-shirt for the fans.

Christine: Yes.

John: Like alright, there you go.

Christine: Absolutely.

John: Aldis not complaining.

Christine: This is my favorite scene ever. [Laughs]

John: Ever?

Christine: Until now.

John: Yeah, there you go. No this is-

Christine: Until the one we’re performing right now.

John: This one right now?

Christine: This one we’re doing right here.

John: This is a great roundy round. This is interesting, this- we don't usually go around the circle on this type of-

Christine: Mhhm.

John: On this type of scene. But we were not in our usual set.

Christine: Yes.

John: So this table kinda demanded this geography.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: And giving- again, Sophie, this is competence porn. This is pure competence porn.

Christine: Absolutely.

John: Giving Sophie the ability to instruct everyone else, ‘You’re in my world, these are the rules.’ And yeah, and then coming up with the physical aspect of exactly why the, you know, why the statue was unfakeable.

Christine: Right.

John: Absolutely lovely.

Christine: Why had we failed, how can we succeed, basically.

John: And now- and then, I think it originally started with a knighthood.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: And then when we were doing the research we had no idea knighthoods were so cheap.

Christine: [Laughs] Knighthoods are pretty cheap.

John: Knighthoods - twenty six hundred. We actually used the line in the show. And it was just deep in the guts of doing the research we spent some time on the royal boards, and there are actually forums and websites of people dedicated to watching royalty. And not just famous royalty, but keeping track of the second cousins, and the third cousins.

Christine: Oh yeah.

John: And the people who are, you know, dukes four times removed. And that was fascinating!

Christine: Mhhm.

John: The idea that like, for example in New York, there are- there's royalty walking around that you would not recognize in any way shape or form.

Christine: Oh yeah. They have jobs, they live on the upper east side, they're, you know, wherever.

John: Yeah and they're, you know, seventh in line to succession someone.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: And that was- and that led us to the lost baronies.

Christine: Yes.

John: The lost- and-

Christine: And there are so many we thought about planting some of our-

John: Yes, exactly. 

[Laughter]

John: It didn't really look all that hard to tell you the truth.

Christine: Just don't tell them we’re Irish. It’s fine.

John: Yeah.

[Laughter]

John: Don't tell them they're Irish. They don’t understand the horror of what's going on.

Christine: Smelling the statue.

John: Smelling the statue. And it was also a very nice beat you did here by giving each person- separate person a clue, so it wasn’t static.

Christine: Mhhm, yes.

John: And again, one of the things that the third season, discovering stuff during the scenes, makes exposition part of the conflict more. And I'll say this- no one comes to a show the best writer they are. You know, we definitely- the first season and second season were great, but I look back at them now and realize they gave us tools to do, you know, some great stuff in third season.

Christine: Completely.

John: Yeah. 

Christine: I'm constantly- I just learn on the job. I don't know what I'm doing on any given day.

[Laughter]

John: Well that's you. I'm talking about other professional writers.

Christine: Oh other professional writers.

John: You are-

Christine: Well I-

John: I'm basically stunned you're working.

Christine: I just walk in saying like, “Hey, look at this great statue. Let's do a-” [Laughs]

John: Yeah, exactly.

Christine: I mean, you know, all joking aside, having the audience as involved as possible is one of my constant goals. I want the audience to be a little- not even a little bit ahead, a little bit behind, but there.

John: Yeah.

Christine: Present, you know?

John: You like a lean forward episode.

Christine: I do like a lean forward episode, you know, there's nothing worse than being spoon fed information.

John: Yeah. I'm going to give a giant shout out to the greatest antiquities crime show of all time, Ian McShane in Love Story.

Christine: Oh, yeah.

John: For giving us some of the ingredients on that list.

Christine: Absolutely.

John: Because I'm pretty sure when we were breaking this it was like, “And here's the Love Story moment.”

Christine: Absolutely, yeah,

John: I remember being boggled when I was a kid watching that show like, ‘You can do this? Really?’ And, you know, we talk a lot about the influences on the show but Love Story is not not in the canon. It’s-

Christine: No, it's not.

John: It's in there, it's a big part of it.

Christine: Well I was also thinking because, you know, we had watched Three-Card Monte, and I'd written a little more investigative stuff this year, and I think it's because you made me watch Jonathan Creek.

John: Yes!

Christine: There was a lot of Jonathan Creek going on when I wrote this one, so.

John: Yeah. You know what, there's a lot of good stuff up there.

Christine: Yes, a lot of good stuff out there.

John: It’s people.

Christine: Most of it coming from Britain.

[Laughter]

John: No, well no. No, I mean it’s- we’re about to go on a giant side thing. Every country makes great television.

Christine: It's true.

John: They just don't export the bad stuff.

Christine: You know, well said. Well said.

John: Yeah, no, Jonathan Creek, created by David Renwick - great show. If you have a chance to get our DVD, and then get your friends to get our DVD, but then go get Jonathan Creek.

Christine: Go check that out.

John: Yeah.

Christine: Also a great show.

John: Also Millicent, great job here making a very static scene be fraught with parallel.

Christine: She's not afraid of the long scenes, John.

John: Yes. Long scenes are death in television, Christine.

Christine: Long scenes can be amazing as long as they have, you know, breaths and moments in fits and starts.

John: We actually talked about this one one of the other commentaries where the wonder twins were saying to Marc, “God, this scene is so long.” And he went, “No, directors love this! Gives us a chance to park the camera and work with the actors.”

Christine: There's an arc in the scene.

John: There is an arc in the scene. And that's the trick is writing is fractal. We get very geeky when it's just you and me.

Christine: I know, I kinda miss this, we haven't done this in a while, it’s fun.

John: Yeah, writing is fractal. Every show has a three act structure, every act is a three act structure, every scene has a three act structure.

Christine: Absolutely.

John: And, you know, if there's not a goal-

Christine: Whether it’s three lines or no lines or-

John: Exactly. If there's not a goal and not opposition, then you shouldn't be watching it happen.

Christine: Absolutely. And these two really dug in and it was magic to watch. I mean some of the best times were just sitting there watching them.

John: And I also love when Gina gets to do this, when she gets to do the lean forward hook.

Christine: Oh, man.

John: Because a lot of times she's playing slightly bitter characters, so she can't play the physical intimacy.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: I remember when we did the pilot, and she did the similar thing to Saul Rubinek.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: Who of course has been acting for ages. Saul is one of the best actors I've ever seen in my life.

Christine: Absolutely.

John: And we broke and walked over and Saul was leaning against the railing. I said, “You ok?” He went, “You have no idea what it's like to have the full force of that woman's attention.”

[Laughter]

John: “I just- I need a moment.”

Christine: Mhhm.

John: She's great in this.

Christine: You know, we know why she's the greatest grifter, this is why. And these two. Hilarious.

John: Always hilarious. You cannot go wrong with a Hardison/Eliot scene. Oh and the little throwaway- by the way, this is nice, too, because it's not bickering.

Christine: Right.

John: You know.

Christine: They are working together, and-

John: If you go back and look at the season, you can see that to a great degree, their relationship has evolved.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: And when they’re arguing, it’s because Hardison, quite frankly, is doing something stupid or dangerous.

Christine: Right.

John: All Eliot wants to do-

Christine: Well Eliot cares about him!

John: Eliot has wanted to have one job: keep all of these idiots alive.

Christine: Right.

John: That's it. It's just- keep them alive until they get- you know, until they are finished with the con.

Christine: He is the rational center.

[Laughter]

John: Eliot has the best sense of judgment on the crew. I say this constantly. Nate Ford is not good at escape plans.

Christine: No.

John: No. Eliot has the hardest job on the crew.

Christine: Parker can escape, but you know, by herself.

John: This is why I know, by the way, it’s you and I doing this because we're such writer geeks, we’re not really talking about the actors as much as we do on the other ones.

Christine: I know! We really should be!

[Laughter]

John: It's like right now in the internal life of the character.

Christine: Right! So. No, but I will say the Hardison/Eliot stuff- it was nice to have Millicent there. She's directed so many different, you know, various things, but she's also directed a lot of 30 Rock. That helped.

John: Yeah.

Christine: The kinda comic pacing and timing, It worked with the boys’ sensibilities. We had a nice fun set, and stuff moved along at a nice clip. Which is good considering it was a breakneck schedule.

[Laughter]

John: Yeah it's always a break- yeah, it's always horrible.

Christine: As usual, it's a breakneck schedule.

John: No, if you were to play this whole scene back to back it'd be- it’s an act!

Christine: Yeah.

John: It's almost an entire act, isn't it?

Christine: You look at me like I should be surprised at that.

John: Yeah, it's like a ten page scene.

Christine: I am not surprised at all! [Laughs]

John: And now the we think things have gone horribly wrong.

Christine: Janet Penner, she's lovely! Lovely local actress

John: Who's that? I'm sorry?

Christine: Janet Penner, local actress who was wonderful, and imperious in ways. Just, you know, yeah, she scared me.

John: Where do we come up with this twist, that she knew her? I'm trying to remember-

Christine: Well, we had talked about- it’s coming off of the Jimmy Papodakalis thing we'd been talking about earlier that, you know, they've got these personas. 

John: Yeah.

Christine: And to get that deep into a grift-

John: Yeah.

Christine: You know, she'd been running this-

John: Sophie was the long con.

Christine: For a long time. Yeah.

John: Exactly.

Christine: This is a long con.

John: And this is also something that- this is some backstory Gina had given me first year.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: Gina has an entire Sophie backstory in her head. And we talked about how actors prepare, you know, Gina had the backstory. Beth has a little bit, Eliot has a very- Christain has a very detailed backstory. Hardison has a little bit. Tim, it’s very organic, he kinda plays it every year.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: And fills in the backstory as he wants to evolve the character. Again, t-shirt really? That warm in that hotel room?

Christine: Uhh, look at all the work he's doing. 

John: Yeah? Really?

Christine: Yes.

John: Good to know. 

Christine: It's England. The AC doesn't work there. Also it’s winter.

John: I didn't know that. Huh.

[Laughter]

Christine: This hotel because it's very old, and it's hot.

John: Oh wow, good way to fill it in.

Christine: It’s not wired for that.

John: I'm just saying.

Christine: You know.

John: If I put Beth in an outfit like that, I’d-

Christine: I would like- exhibit A, Beth's outfit.

John: Oh, there you go.

[Laughter]

John: What's always also fun is we don't often play a Parker and Eliot versus Hardison scene.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: It's usually the other way around.

Christine: That was fun.

John: Yeah, it was a lot of fun just realizing he's a little overinvested. And the big thumbs up! I love the big thumbs up.

Christine: Oh man, hilarious. The IV pole with ink made me laugh so hard.

[Laughter]

Christine: That was a lot of fun to put together.

John: That was great set dec, that was really nice.

Christine: Oh man, they're great.

John: And now a big giant bombshell about Sophie's past; this was a lot of fun.

Christine: In a big giant hat as well. You had to have some big giant hats, or else this whole episode wouldn’t work.

John: Seriously, it's just- this thing is one long-

[Laughter]

John: Working at your subconscious in one long thing in this episode. And now we mention that we both plant the Moreau, remind people about Moreau, also I plant San Lorenzo.

Christine: Yes.

John: Which is important.

Christine: All leading up to the explosive finale.

John: The explos- wow. That- you really sounded like an announcer.

Christine: [Laughs] I can do a sound bite, I can do it.

John: There you go. I love how Tim’s playing this revelation. He's not being judgemental-

Christine: No.

John: But he's finally- he's got a giant chess set in his head of trying to put together Sophie's life, and this falls in.

Christine: Oh, yeah.

John: You know. It was tricky to figure out how to make sure it wasn't her name. And it was actually Gina who gave us the answer.

Christine: Yes, absolutely. And this is why you have to have intelligent actors to work with, who can participate.

John: Because we had this great bit and it was all “How do we write around her never saying her real name?”

Christine: Right.

John: And it was all this sort of dancing, and then Gina said, “Well it’s my stage name.”

Christine: Mhhm.

John: You know, she met me when I was an actress, and-

Christine: It's perfect.

John: Thank you so much.

Christine: And there was a lot of discussion about the lines of succession, and the royal houses, and yes, ours are a little bit- these are the royal houses in the Leverage-verse.

[Laughter]

John: Yes. There was a slight- there was a slight hiccup in the Edwardian succession that really- 

[Laughter]

John: It changed the Leverage-verse history slightly. Also zeppelins. Which you don't usually see cause we don't shoot the sky.

Christine: Yes. Also steampowered things.

John: This is- Leverage-verse is a little steampunk.

Christine: It is a little steampunk-y.

John: You hear- you see the great thing I heard the other day I put it on the- steampunk is what happens when goths discover brown.

Christine: Ohhh, wow.

[Laughter]

Christine: That's fantastic. 

John: Great- is that another white scarf? That is gorgeous.

Christine: Yeah, look how nice.

John: That is a great outfit.

Christine: Look how nice. He really, you know, he just looked great. [Laughs] Between takes I'm like, “Tim, beautiful.”

John: I know.

Christine: Beautiful. He enjoyed wearing nice clothes.

John: And then we had the full- this one, again, could be two episodes crammed into one.

Christine: I don't know what youre talking about. [Laughs]

John: We do a thing at the airport, and then we do a blown con, and then we do a hook-

Christine: Mhhm.

John: And we forge an antiquity, and now we steal an auction.

Christine: Right.

John: And we’re in act three.

Christine: Yes. I mean we bury the real bait inside the thing.

[Laughter]

John: Yes, exactly. No, and it was a lot of fun too, was coming up with the way that fourth act paid off.

Christine: Yes, brilliant.

John: That was nice.

Christine: That was- that was-

John: We’ve been wanting to do that for a while- well we'd been wanting to do that for a while, because Russian icons always kinda fascinate me.

Christine: Yes.

John: The idea of art that doesn't look like art.

Christine: Oh, is this something you're obsessed with?

[Laughter]

John: No not obsessed, just I have a big-

Christine: Super interested in.

John: Chris Downey calls it my big doctor's bag of bullshit.

[Laughter]

John: I have a giant doctor's bag of just random stuff that I've picked up from being odd. I also love that- just the- him drying it.

Christine: Oh man, manicure dryer.

John: The manicure dryer. Great bit.

Christine: They- the props, oh my god it's just- oh my god. Props and set dec working together to create genius in that whole sequence.

John: And that's great, all you have to do is pan across one- just one car with the steering wheel on the wrong side and you're in London.

Christine: That’s all you need, you're in London, look at these toughs.

John: And having been to London, by the way, yeah that's pretty much what it looks like.

Christine: I mean, Portland giveth.

John: Portland giveth. I also love the- this is kind of a callback to the overly loquacious villain in The Future Job.

Christine: Little bit.

John: A little bit.

Christine: Little bit. [Laughs] A little bit.

John: This may be related to, occasionally, when I drink the room I go into the villain speeches.

Christine: Yes, and they're long!

[Laughter]

John: They're long. They're long villain speeches. I think villains have rich internal lives.

Christine: Also, we like British thug movies. We like these kind of, you know-

John: Yes, exactly, this is where the show becomes snatched. Just for like-

Christine: A little bit.

John: This side of it.

Christine: Kinda love that.

John: Also we got the ‘very distinctive’ joke back.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: Which I always love. 

Christine: Yeah, that worked out really well. And Ollie and Christain had a good time with those-

John: Yeah.

Christine: With all those takes and- hilarious for us.

[Laughter]

John: And now the stall. It's tricky, it's one of those things where the audience- television is tricky in that shows really are- the fates of shows- you generally know what's gonna happen in a show. And so trying to figure out how to create obstacles without them being schmut bait.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: You know, is it a stall? Is it really something going wrong?

Christine: And there are moments that just rest entirely on Sophie's ability to charm the pants off of him.

John: Yes.

Christine: And it works!

John: It works, absolutely. Yeah, and then she drops back into the other character. No, it's lovely.

Christine: Just so easily.

[Silence]

John: We’re doing that thing where we just watch the episode.

Christine: Yeah, it's really good, right?

[Laughter]

John: I hate when that happens.

Christine: Ah, I love that angle, and this.

John: Yeah and this.

[Laughter]

Christine: Also fun.

John: Honing door rule by the way - if we can avoid it, we never show Parker arriving in a scene.

Christine: Right, she appears like a sprite.

John: Ye- like a sprite? Really? I was gonna say ghost or wraith-

Christine: Sprite! Sprite’s are terrifying.

John: This was fantastic!

Christine: Oh.

John: We had like a whole mini con set up, and- how did we- how did that happen?

Christine: Ok, that was a joke- you know what? That's my husband's joke.

[Laughter]

Christine: That's weird! Yeah, it was a joke that Eric and I-

John: We should say Chrisitne got married, like, three days ago.

Christine: I got married a couple days ago, yeah. It's a joke Eric and I had thrown back and forth, and I believe he had made to you. We were having dinner with Wil Wheaton one night, and he made that joke in the parking lot.

John: That's right.

Christine: And we had been bantering it back and forth and then I'm going over the script and I thought, “Ooh, right here!” And he said, “Yeah, use it! Do it!” I said, “Wait, is that somebody else's?” He said, “No, I think that's ours! Or mine! Or somebody’s!”

John: All good things come from Wil Wheaton.

Christine: So there you go, yeah.

John: There you go. So if you wanna write, Wil Wheaton.

Christine: Go have dinner with Wil Wheaton, and he will inspire you to great jokes.

John: And if he says he's busy, just don't listen to him. Just break into his house and have dinner with him and good things will happen.

[Laughter]

Christine: He’ll love- he’ll respond to that.

John: This was a ton of fun.

Christine: Oh man [Laughs]

John: This came out of the original scene where she said, “Ooh, the last time I saw you was in The Louvre.”

Christine: Right!

John: The idea of Parker doing an auction of stuff that she at some point had her hands on? Lovely.

Christine: And it comes back to, you know, the theme of these are objects you can touch. These are objects that she has touched and moved at some point.

John: Well, it- also we had talked about the idea, we had had to create Parker's living space for episode five, and the idea that just in the darkness past that, there's just piles of this stuff!

[Laughter]

Christine: Yeah!

John: She has priceless artifacts sitting in a warehouse in Boston.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: Because she likes having them.

Christine: That's right, why not?

John: And then we wound up paying it off in Ho Ho Ho when that's the stuff she hangs on the Christmas tree.

Christine: They do pay off the storage units.

John: We do, the storage units-

Christine: Full payoffs.

John: I have a storage unit, so I know how-

Christine: So do I.

John: Oh you have a storage unit now?

Christine: I do. I'm a married woman now; I have a storage unit.

John: Exactly, had to move all your stuff.

Christine: How else to lure the young unsuspecting-

John: No, don't! Don't go there!

[Laughter]

Christine: Boxes of comic books! Into your storage unit!

John: Oh, I was thinking of another one.

Christine: Oh.

John: And I love- you know what? We talk about the different moods of the actors, Aldis’s ability to make Hardison convey that no one appreciates he's a genius is just great.

Christine: Ohh.

John: It's my favorite recurring bit on the show. That's a great shot, by the way.

Christine: Ooh, ooh, great shot.

John: That's a gorgeous shot. 

Christine: Sexy. Wow.

John: I wouldn't have thought of that shot in a million years, that's really nice that light coming through.

Christine: She really uses the room, and she and Dave Connell worked really well together to design these shots.

John: Also a good reminder that Hardison is not necessarily the most athletic guy in the world.

Christine: Right.

[Laughter]

Christine: He looks really good, but he's not out there running all day long like Eliot is.

John: He's not- yeah. 

Christine: Finding the right pair of glasses, that was a lot of fun..

John: Yeah.

Christine: Some were too insanely comic, some were too serious, these were perfect.

John: And his frustration- just take the damn thing! I'm sick of your toying!

Christine: Yeah.

[Laughter]

John: Yeah, and that's, you know, one of the reasons I think he wants to- that character wants to run his own crew is he’s sick of, you know, he's sick of being unappreciated.

Christine: Mhhm absolutely. Well it's- when you're the youngest person in a group, it can be- it can be difficult.

John: Yeah. And the little tap, the little little push, yeah paying off the NLP and the other stuff. This was great.

Christine: Oh, he's lovely.

John: Casting- how is he referred to in the script?

Christine: [Laughs] What did we call him? Pretentious…something?

John: Yes, he's like eurotrash.

Christine: I- he said, “How do I play it?” I said, “Like a Whit Stillman character.” And not a lot of people knew who I was talking about.

[Laughter]

Christine: Cause he's quite young, this actor.

John: The pink shirt really lands it.

Christine: The pink shirt really, yeah. And he was lovely.

John: And then again, the same thing, trying to create an obstacle in order to-

Christine: American fop?

John: American fop! I think it was that.

Christine: I think it was American fop.

John: And this was interesting, too, one of those things where we were trying to figure out- we had to have a problem during the auction, and so why would there be a problem? Well, we had to create one, we had to create an obstacle for the other character, which meant we had to create parameters. Parameters gave us the $250,000. 

Christine: Mhhm.

John: It's amazing how much you work backwards.

Christine: Yeah.

John: You know, you work backwards from the conflict, and come up with the rules for the conflict and around the most interesting version.

Christine: And then it feels like the most natural thing in the world. 

John: Yeah.

Christine: Which is a great moment. Many scotches later.

[Laughter]

John: Many scotches.

Christine: Oh the storage unit!

John: Mostly Irish whiskey this year. Ah, the storage unit. And again, this was fun because really trying to figure out- we had originally broken this to be on the docks.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: And then when budgetary constraints said perhaps we could not go and fake up the docks of London, we went back to the ending of the season one finale, where we established that she had the storage unit and that she was- it was one of many.

Christine: Yeah, why wouldn't she have many all over the place?

John: Yeah.

Christine: Smells the book.

John: We use all the parts of the buffalo.

[Laughter]

John: And the little bit of joy there. The little- the victory lap, yeah.

Christine: He made that from nothing!

[Laughter]

Christine: It is one of my favorite things I've ever written if I do say so, was the “I have gone from apprentice to journeyman to master.” And he did such a good job [Laughs] on that!

John: He really did.

Christine: Cause it was the- it felt very analogous to the writer's career.

John: Well, it was very- he really dug in on the mania of it.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: And then Sophie being left behind. Now-

Christine: Yeah.

John: I always wondered, did we- was an integral part of the con? No, he bailed on her.

Christine: No, he bails on her. Cause, I mean, you know, scorpion’s a scorpion.

John: Yeah. Exactly.

Christine: [Laughs] Always count on a scorpion to be a scorpion.

John: Also, I remember we had a long discussion about exactly what- how she would feel about this moment. I mean, on one hand, it's getting her off the hook, on the other hand, it's kinda a painful reminder exactly why she became a grifter.

Christine: Absolutely. And that's the part I wanted to deal with, was the latter. Because this persona’s taken a lot of beatings.

John: Yeah.

Christine: She had a hard time with this. With this long con, and revisiting it is not something I think she thought she would ever do.

John: Yeah. And that's the mistake you make, you get too close to Eliot with a gun.

Christine: Mhhm. Oh, oh sad.

John: And the out. You can never go wrong on an act out with a guy drawing a gun.

Christine: Take the gun out!

John: Now, he's drawing on Eliot so we all know how this is gonna end. But the fun was coming up with a creative way to beat the hell out of three guys.

Christine: Oh, yes.

John: Belt fu! First time we've done belt fu.

[Laughter]

Christine: Belt fu!

John: First time we've done that. That was-

Christine: But he does try to explain first. [Laughs]

John: Yes it's like he’s- actually grown to like this guy-

Christine: Yeah!

John: And would prefer not to beat the hell out of him.

Christine: They have a professional respect, but you know, the job’s gotta be done. There you go.

John: Yeah. And the belt!

Christine: Mhhm.

John: This came out of, I think, the big bag of old Jackie Chan writing.

Christine: This was- yeah. Mhhm

John: This- I think we use this on a Jackie Chan animated episode.

[Laughter]

John: I think I went in there. No, this is a great fight actually. And the snap! That's gotta hurt.

Christine: Oh man. And it's funny. I do say that action’s not my strong suit, but fights I love.

John: You do love a good fight. 

Christine: I love fights.

John: Well, you know, what if they had swords, you'd be the happiest girl in the world.

Christine: Absolutely! Well ‘cause fights are about character.

John: Yes.

Christine: Fights are all about character.

John: How someone fights, how they handle the geography, the choices they make-

Christine: Absolutely.

John: How they escalate violence. It's one of the things we talk about with Eliot, we never try to give him just a fight scene, he always has an attitude on the fight scene.

Christine: Mhhm.

John: And hoisted by your own petard, sir.

Christine: Ohhh

John: Hoisted by your own petard.

Christine: Basil Harris, local actor, nice guy.

John: Oh yeah, no really- nice guy, nice performance.

Christine: Yeah, he's really good, right? But he's really-

John: And this looks sufficiently different from the other airport.

Christine: Look at that! This was late at night. [Laughs]

John: How late?

Christine: Very late.

John: Yeah. We tend to go a little late.

Christine: Those were late days.

John: No, coming up with- it’s interesting, it's one of the recurring themes of the show- that's me rubbing my face, by the way, cause my voice went weird cause lord, I'm tired of doing this.

[Christine Laughs]

John: Is how you move stuff.

Christine: Yeah.

John: How you move stuff- when we did Rashomon Job, at one point we had four little paper cups with different things simulating the object moving around.

Christine: Oh yeah.

John: You know, it's a lot like- it is- you know what? That's why, I suppose you watched Jonathan Creek, it’s like a magic trick.

Christine: It's a magic trick, yeah.

John: It’s a magic trick. And no, it's a lot like designing a magic trick from the ground up.

Christine: Yeah. 

John: And-

Christine: And again, it's the physical object of it all.

John: Yeah. And we talk about this actually on another commentary when we did Scheherazade Job, it’s like when you do a high concept episode, you need- when you do a heisty episode, you need something you can hold.

Christine: Oh yeah.

John: Like it was diamonds for that one. You need very clean simple goals.

Christine: Mhhm. The audience can track.

John: Alright, this actually- you wrote this.

[Laughter]

John: At a ridiculous time of night. At a ridiculous time, and you wrote the whole, “What's all this, then?”

Christine: “What's all this, then?” Come on, I did that on purpose!

John: Which- on purpose. And you gave me the draft and I laughed my ass off. I'm like, “Now you're screwed, cause it's staying in.”

Christine: Of course!

John: And is the classic Monty Python- that is the classic 1930s stage show arrival of the cops.

Christine: Of course!

John: Really mandatory.

Christine: Absolutely mandatory.

John: For the arrival of the police.

Christine: I write to make you laugh, sir.

John: Thank you.

Christine: I write to entertain you. Look! Look, she's ok!

John: She's being reunited with this lovely- her aunt and uncle.

Christine: She's gonna go live in New jersey!

John: Oh that's great.

Christine: It's fine!

John: She's got an education, maybe go to Stanford.

Christine: Aww, that's great!

John: She's got a beautiful future because-

Christine: She's gonna go fight for women's rights in the middle east, it's gonna be wonderful!

John: Exactly, because of our horribly immoral, immoral, crew.

[Laughter]

Christine: Yay bad guys! Who are good guys! Yay!

John: Yay!

Christine: Also-

John: It gets a little fuzzy at the end of the season this year.

Christine: Having Eliot speak Arabic, super hot. On a list of hot things.

John: It's interesting-

Christine: Languages you didn't know they knew, but you assume they knew.

John: Always interesting doing the commentaries with a female writer. 

[Laughter]

John: There's a lot of stuff I didn't know we did just cause it was hot.

Christine: The ladies do things that are super hot.

John: No, no, I'm very scrupulous.

Christine: Everything Gina does in this episode is hot.

John: Yes, but that's because she's hot. That just happens.

Christine: Yes, correct.

John: No, this is a great walk away and a great acknowledgement of- and the great ‘Screw you that you don't really know my name.’

Christine: Mhhm. Millicent came into, you know, she was- it was her first episode, she directed the hell out of this.

John: Oh I could not be happier. This feels- and there's- yeah, she's actually handling the dog tags!

Christine: Mhhm. yes.

John: There, which are- which do not- which are blank. And we wound up- although the audience doesn't know they are blank, the crew does. It's interesting she was actually playing to the cast at that moment, not the characters. We wound up writing it into the Ho Ho Ho Job, because Gina came up with the idea that she wears blank dog tags so we wrote it into an episode.

Christine: That's great.

John: Great. This is the only time I think ever, other than the two part season finale, we hint at the next episode.

Christine: Mhhm. That was fun hinging-

John: Yeah. There was a lot of- there’s advantages to serialization, you're always tempted, it just carries momentum forward. I love Parker's smile at the end of that. That’s-

Christine: That was a lot of fun!

John: That was your last episode for this season.

Christine: That was my last episode for the season.

John: You did a great job.

Christine: It was a fun season.

John: I hope you enjoyed that. This is John Rogers.

Christine: This is Christine Boylan!

John: And stay tuned to put another DVD in, because it is a lot more, including explosions.

Christine: A lot more.

[babbushka]

Hi I am a really big fan of your work I use to read all your Adam driver fics all day long. I love all of them I remember in like 2020 I came across your fic called (Our Hill of Stars) and I fell in love with it so I was wondering are you still writing for it or are you completely done with it as I see it hasn't been updated in a while but if not I just wanted to say you got me through the Covid lockdown, I would literally just read you fics and do my work but you really are an amazing writer and I just wanted to say thank you for your amazing writings

This literally brought tears to my eyes, thank you my kind anon! I can’t tell you what it means that you read my work through lockdown — I was writing to stay sane and I’m so happy someone found comfort in it!

It’s funny you mention it, I actually have plans to finish all my WIP fics in 2024. I know it’s been a long time, and I really am so grateful that anyone sticks around despite my crazy long hiatus (unplanned, wedding things and family heath scares have taken priority this year).

Thank you for being here and being patient with me, I really think that 2024 is going to be a fanfic renaissance on this account!! ❤️

[leinehilloftheshire]

Hi there! My name is Leine Mariya Hill and if you’re reading this, I am new on Tumblr! Actually, I used to use Tumblr a lot back in the 2010’s, but I have since deleted my old account because I wasn’t using it anymore and it didn’t reflect who I was as a person anymore. So, here we are again! I’d love to make some new friends, so feel free to reach out (just please be kind and respectful).

I’ve been a fangirl most of my life, so I’m mostly going to ramble and reblog about my numerous fandoms. I’m also a fanfic writer! I write under thispastelpinkheart on AO3! I also have a side blog mainly for fic stuff like headcanons, ideas, and shorter fics. It’ll basically serve as my fic notebook of sorts.

Now, fandoms. I got a lot of them. Here’s a definitive list of what I am into:

Lord of the Rings

The Hobbit

The Silmarillion

Monty Python

The Beatles

*NSYNC

One Direction (OG fan; since 2011)

Take That

Boy Band Culture in general

Flight of the Conchords

The Simpsons

Bob’s Burgers

Sanrio (especially My Melody)

Magical Girl Anime

The Princess Bride

Bluey

RuPaul’s Drag Race (US + All Stars)

Disney Renaissance Movies

SpongeBob SquarePants

Shakespeare

Classic Literature

Poldark

Good Omens

New Kids on the Block

So if you’re into those things, we might get along!

That’s about it for now. Hope to see you around!

Love,

Leine (lie-nuh)

P.S. My page is a page that celebrates love and happiness so if you’re by any chance a bigot, please block me immediately. There is nothing for you here.

[inamindfarfaraway]

I consider myself a pretty small writer, or least not big. But why, when my most popular fic, Lightning Bolts and Breaking Clouds, has 3308 kudos and is constantly gaining more? Because my fic with the second-most kudos has 99. My statistics look like this:

My most popular fic is an outlier adn should not be counted. Now that you have the context of these graphs, I would like to say a few words to fans of that particular unfinished fic about Jason Todd becoming Billy Batson’s dad. I’ll put them under the cut because it’s off-topic from the poll.

Listen. Listen to me. I have NOT forgotten about this fanfic, okay? I will not forget. I promise. And I promise that someday I WILL continue it. But not yet. Not anytime soon. I wouldn’t call it abandoned, but on indefinite hiatus, and here’s why.

I was a beginner with a great concept, a burst of inspiration and absolutely no plan when I wrote it, publishing chapters as soon as my beta and I were finished with them. I’d never attempted a multichapter story before. I was not expecting it to get as popular as it has, let alone at such breakneck speed. It was overwhelming. Suddenly I had thousands of people clamouring for more. More that I couldn’t give you, because I hadn’t worked out anything else and inevitably ran out of steam. And I still haven’t had time to. Life in general takes precedent, as do other fanfics that I have actually completed and/or outlined and have more motivation for.

Between the drought of inspiration and motivation I have regarding it; the mistakes inextricably woven into what exists of it; the awareness of how many people are waiting on me; and the frequency of comments asking or begging for updates or complaining about me abandoning it, the emotions it fills me with are shame, guilt, stress, regret and frustration. Furthermore, the steep disparity in the amount of reader interactions it gets compared to all my other fics has actually caused me to resent it. It hurts to see that so many people are aware of my AO3 account and like my writing, but only a small proportion of them care about the majority of my output, fics that are usually complete, I judge to be significantly superior to this one and often worked harder on. Most of them are in the Batman comics fandom too. It doesn’t seem fair to me. I’m not ungrateful - I love that any of my fics brings you joy. I am earnestly touched by the praise and compliments on Lightning Bolts and Breaking Clouds. But maybe next time you want to reread it, as a number of comments admit to, try reading one of my dramatically less popular, but perhaps more skilled fics instead if you haven’t.

Readers, I’m sorry. I’m so incredibly sorry that my overconfidence and naivety got you all hooked on a promise I couldn’t keep. I hate it too! I wish I could churn out a wonderful, satisfying story and update every week! I wish I’d kept it as a document and taken the time, done all the difficult work, to have a finished product ready to post! I still daydream about my visions of Jason and Billy and their family! I want more just like you! But I simply can’t get the words out. Asking or telling me to update won’t help, it reinforces my shame and makes me want to be more avoidant. Please don’t do that.

This fic haunts me, and due to my guilty desire to give Jason, Billy and my vast multitude of very devoted readers the story they deserve I have resolved to only get back into it when I can commit to it. When I can do it right: outline and write the whole thing and then confidently commence regular updates. The last thing I want is to raise people’s hopes and then leave them hanging again. I don’t have the time, energy or motivation for that renaissance yet, but I will keep searching for them. Thank you for your time.

The submitter of this poll encouraged any fanfic writer to promote their fics under this poll.

This poll was submitted to us and we simply posted it so people could vote and discuss their opinions on the matter. If you’d like for us to ask the internet a question for you, feel free to drop the poll of your choice in our inbox and we’ll post them anonymously (for more info, please check our pinned post).

[hislittleraincloud]

is your content 18+? i wanna read your stuff when i get the chance (work and such) but i know a lot of writers on here are uncomfortable with people under 18 on their blogs. i am 17 though lol

It's labeled as such on AO3, but I have always used the MPAA label "NC-17" (even though these aren't movies). That's the old school MPAA label for things rated X.

I know that my haters are going to love this, but I honestly don't give a crap about who reads what (unless they're really young, see below) since people are going to read whatever they can get their hands on regardless of age.

What people — writers included — don't comprehend is that writers are not babysitters. And as cute as I'm sure some of y'are, I'm not here to babysit anyone. I'm here to write and publish, and whatever moral arguments I'm having about what I write and publish, I assume that those who want to argue with me over them are other adults 18 and over.

Someone asked the question "What responsibility do I have towards very young readers?" over on the Reddit 🤖 and I think the responses are sound: Writers don't have any responsibility than to write what they write and tag it appropriately. You wouldn't be a very young reader (the kid the above Redditor was concerned about was 12 and I'd rather not 12-year-olds seek out/read my work), so there's that. Websites in general have a lowest age threshold of thirteen (this place, AO3, Facebook, LiveJournal, etc.), so it's really up to your parents to babysit you when you're that young and approaching/reading online media. Older teens don't need babysitters though, so tread as you will through the online forest of fandom salaciousness...no one's here to judge you (they're here to judge me 🥲) and no imaginary entity is going to send you to Hell or prison for reading what I write.

And as much as my haters would love to see it, I'm not going to Hell or prison for what I write...I live in the States, where Free Speech/freedom of artistic expression applies and there are strong laws protecting this kind of written word. 🫠🇺🇲💕✨

I will only strongly advise anyone reading what I write that: It is fantasy* fiction, take it for the fantasy fiction that it is, just as you would take any horror or gore writings/films/media as fantasy fiction. People get all twisted and bent out of shape about sex and relationships while permitting gore and violence, which has forever intrigued and baffled me. I mean, to me it's choosing between sensation/feeling alive and desensitization/feeling dead inside.

Anyway, the content published on AO3 is labeled as 18+ as that's how the site is/how most sites run for works containing 'adult content'. My (completed) 10-year-old Borgias story here is rated R, but if you never watched the show you'd be a little lost (just a little...but if you love Renaissance Italy/the time of Alexander VI, you might be o.k.). I would probably label Under Virgin Circumstances more benignly than Afterburn, if only for that Cairo is 18, while Wednesday is (currently, where she is stuck in November 2022) 16. (However, placed side-by-side, Wednesday's mental maturity is comparable to, if not surpassing that of, Cairo's...I have yet to publish, but UVCCairo has some cuckoo bird issues that Afterburn Wednesday doesn't have, and that makes her a little less mature, even though she's technically older. But I digress. 💀)

The Teal Deer: I'm not one of those writers who is uncomfortable with 17-year-olds on here because I was once a 17-year-old who had already read and written (and drawn) dirty stuff by that age; as well, it's a neverending conveyor belt of fandomers coming into their own (we're just at the tail end of a Gen Z phase right now...in just a year, the Gen Alphas will be the thick of younger fandom (14 to 16 year olds), and they will grow/mature just as the Z's are ageing out of fandomish things/the bulk generally move on towards functional adulting). As a longtime Gen X author of fan fiction, my only responsibilities here are to write and comply with the rules of publication.

(Wow, kinda scary to think that the oldest Gen Zer is almost 30...damn....)

[pencilofawesomeness]

Another writing tag game I saw @ladylynse do. At first I was like “oh that’s neat” but then it made me look at my working titles... heh. Time to reveal how crazy I really am with WIPs. (There’s so many, send help.)

Rules: Post the file names of all the files in your wip folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous the name.

Note: So I don’t really have a “wip folder” but rather a writing folder, that includes in progress works, finished works, notes, and things I will never get back to again. I have have two (2) docs with little bits, scenes, and working ideas on. For my sanity, I’m only going to use my most recent one. (Those are where the fun titles are at, lol.) I also get good at labeling in my document, so names include fandom or however I labeled it. Also, some of these ideas are definitely dead and I have no plan of going back to them, but I am a hoarder, so. Some of these might actually get revived or continued at some point. Who knooooows?

/* some of these exist out there on the interwebs, and some of them exist only on my harddrives and back-ups; if it is familiar then I already posted it because it is done or I was hoping to be more active, or I am just super unoriginal :p */ /* These are also just my fan works. My original stuff is elsewhere, and if it is peppered in, I’m skipping it for my sanity because I’m not reaaaady */ /* and feel free to ask questions if anything peaks interest! */

Desktop Folder:

22 AUs A STRQ Contrast AID Timeline Avatar AU Beaten We Rise Again  Bios Brothers Once and Forever Crossover Writing Game Everything to me Fading Finding Home Forged Future Stuffs Galactic Freedom Fighters HTRYDS Drabbles HTYRDS The Eighth Tower HTRYDS Verse Notes Idea Graveyard Ideas Mobius Prime Continuation Timeline One of Those Days OOBOJ Unlimited Random OOBOJ Unlimited OOBOJU Random Scenes Outlines and Notes Papalogia fic Random Stuff 2 Random Stuff Repurposed RISE - Notes RISE Secrets Best Left Unsaid Sic Semper Tyrannis Space Family Spare Time Tales of Valor The AID Files The Clan Wars THE DIMENSION GAMES The End is not the End The Future is Now The Sanctuary The Secret School of Superheroes These Days Past Under the Wing United Random Stuff United Timeline United

Inside Random Stuff 2:

VOLTRON: LEGENDARY DEFENDER | SST - Alfor Character Study VOLTRON: LEGENDARY DEFENDER | Sleeping Habits SUPERGIRL | Mon-El and Kara escape Cadmus SUPERGIRL | The Legion meets Mon-El SUPERGIRL | Mon-El and Elida SUPERGIRL | Mon-El Returns - Visiting Clark SUPERGIRL | Mon-El Returns AVENGERS | Loki injured by Mortor VOLTRON: LEGENDARY DEFENDER | Out of body, out of mind VOLTRON: LEGENDARY DEFENDER | Red’s Reaction TALES OF VALOR | Imra and Mon-El talk TALES OF VALOR | Mon-El returns; Brin meeting TALES OF VALOR | Name drabble ATTACK ON TITAN / AID | Falco’s Lament ATTACK ON TITAN / VOLTRON | Gabi wants answers ATTACK ON TITAN / VOLTRON | Reiner meets with Porco BATMAN | Vicky Vale and Jason VOLTRON / AOT | Bertholdt vs Annie ATTACK ON TITAN / PJO | Random AU HTTYD / AOT | Bertholdt’s story UNITED | Random Piece TALES OF VALOR | Scars MY HERO ACADEMIA | Cat Hunting // no cats harmed MY HERO ACADEMIA | Eri Drabble Thing SWORD ART ONLINE / VOLTRON | Meet the fam SWORD ART ONLINE / VOLTRON | Intro THE FUTURE IS NOW | The Reset SONIC FORCES | Scene I can’t get out of my head UMBRELLA ACADEMY | Ben snapshots UMBRELLA ACADEMY | Batman Adopts the Hargreaves MAPLESTORY2 | Neryna and Einos FAIRY TAIL | Mystogan—Name Drabble FAIRY TAIL | Fantasy AU / HTTYD AU - Gajeel finds Natsu FAIRY TAIL | HTTYD AU - Tiny Wendy FAIRY TAIL | Fantasty/HTTYD AU FAIRY TAIL | HTTYD AU - From the beginning, for real this time FAIRY TAIL | Superhero AU - Igneel FAIRY TAIL | FMA AU - Natsu’s transmutation SEVEN DEADLY SINS | Brother Talk SEVEN DEADLY SINS / TOWER OF GOD | The Scout FAIRY TAIL / SEVEN DEADLY SINS | What it means to be human alive FAIRY TAIL | Papalogia AU Prologue Thing FAIRY TAIL | Those who smile the most FAIRY TAIL | Papalogia-verse - Meeting Mystogan GENSHIN IMPACT | Kaeya and Klee GENSHIN IMPACT | Zhongli Drabble - Return to Dust

This isn’t even including the stuff in my Random Stuff 1 doc (it got long so I split it) or the stuff in the 22 AUs doc, though there would be some repeats and moving things once I get around to it. 

I might have a problem.

Tagging @therosefrontier so we can determine which one of us is worse.

[dreamerswriter]

I Watched This Recently and It is Actually Pretty Good

Hey everyone! So, I don’t know when I’ll make the youtube video for this, but I plan to once I am done with classes. So, here’s the script for it since I finished writing it. This is basically what I would personally hope for if they ever come back and make another season of this or two. I think two would be better, but it will likely get one. Regardless, there is something here and I love this show way more than I thought I would. I do highly recommend it for the animation, style, story, and if you need a laugh and some good moments. 

To clarify something, I did watch this when I started high school. I didn’t get to finish it, because life happens and Disney wasn’t showing it much on my end. I finally finished it in a month, so yeah.

May 7, 2022: I updated this to add one more part to this. I will have the video on my channel on May 9th! Thanks for reading and enjoying this!

May 9, 2022: Here’s the link to video if you want that. I don’t know if you do since there is this already, but it doesn’t hurt to share. 

https://href.li/?https://youtu.be/uK516qs5BWw

I have nothing else to say other than I would honestly like another season. So, here’s the script I wrote for if this show got another season or two. I’ll make the video soonish. I also plan to do a review video on it too. Either way, I like this. He feels like a high school kid and did half the nonsense my friends and I did when we were his age. We weren’t smart and we are barely smart now. Enjoy! 

Introduction:

Hello everyone, I am the writer, I have no words to describe the nonsense this show is, but here we are. To be honest, I like this, because it is my guilty pleasure with magical girl shows and an idiot clearly in over his head and being a normal teenager.

Again, this show is going through a renaissance right now, and I have no clue. The best I can come up with is that Ben Schwartz being Sonic launched this, but I don't know. Or, it is because Kick Buttwaski got the third season, and fans of this show want it. To be honest, I do too. There is something here and it has a charm to it. The humor and style, and the characters. It is great and consistent and finished the main goal of it.

Rules

So, I don't know where to start with this, but I will keep some rules in mind as I write this.

I will keep the episodes in the 15-minute format.

Randy will appear in all the episodes

I will keep all the cast the same. Not adding nor subtracting anyone.

The sorcerer will not return to be a major character in the newer seasons.

Just a personal note, please don't change the animation. I love it. It is so good. I think it is wonderful. Please do not change it.

Also, these are just my ideas. This is just what I think would be fun to see if the show ever continues or gets picked up. This is just what I hope to see. I am sure a ton of fans have ideas of their own and maybe they are secretly working on this and already have the entire thing planned out from beginning to end. Also, this is for fun!  And you can have your ideas. So, just enjoy it and have fun. Again, for fun!

If anyone from the show is watching this for some odd reason, you are free to take this and use it. I am not kidding. I want to see this end, so if this helps, please take it. I just want to see more of this show and the content. Please do more with this show.

I will make this assumption. Randy and his classmates might be juniors if we pick this up. The reason I believe this is because he had a chemistry textbook in season 2. I can believe that he and his classmates wear the same clothes to high school for two years and that he was a sophomore. I do believe he is junior now with most of the cast. I'm also basing this off the public school system in North America because he is clearly from one.

I believe two more seasons would be the best to wrap this up.

Each season is a year of high school which I think is fine. You would normally graduate in four years anyway.

Season 3 will be a junior year and the last and fourth one will be a senior year.

Also, they need new clothes. I do love how they do have different outfits, but for junior and senior years, they should get a new wardrobe. I think it would reflect the passage of time.

Also, and I cannot believe I am saying this, thanks to Disney plus, they can come back to this and work on it. Also, I think this would benefit from a whole release than a weekly one considering it is an animated series. Similar to how Visions was released. That would work out well for it.

I think that’s it.

We will start with season 3.

Sorcerer's Origin

So, let's address one episode I think we all want and will kind of break a rule.

One episode that can be a two-part special is the sorcerer. I know I said we should move on from this guy, but I think an origin story would be fine. It can start the third season off with Randy sitting in his new room and reading the book and seeing the origin of the Sorcerer which can lead to the new antagonist the sorcerers. She got out of the land of shadows once, she can do it again. I think it would work well and even see the return of the First one and his sidekick. This can be two parts to pace itself and also get the audience caught up to the third season.

The Book

I know we love the 800-year-old non-binary book, but I want an episode on it. I know it is alive because it reacts to Randy and the situation he is in. It also created an evil version of him and has done so many things that I want an explanation. That can be 15 minutes, but to tie into this, we could get the second part being the book's perspective. I will be honest, I thought we would've gotten an episode on the book's POV. I'm surprised they never did that. I would love to see the book's POV on some situations Randy gets himself into. We can even have the First one and his sidekick appearing.

Sorceress' Return

Again, she got out before, she can get out again. I also think this would be an interesting parallel to Randy. Look, we all know Theresa is supposed to be his love interest, but I can see her becoming a tri protagonist to Randy and Howard and that's not a bad thing. Sam, Danny, and Tucker are a trio, heck kingdom hearts exists, so it can work. I think she's spunky enough to join them and go on adventures. I'll talk about her in the next section

As for the sorceress, she could return and try to steal energy from others and go after Randy once she discovers that he made the sorcerer turn good and gain peace. Heck, she can take different forms and stay at the school.

She could also stink Randy and Howard, two characters who haven't had those forms. It would be interesting to see and figure out how to save them. I really can see her being the next threat.

Theresa Being a Protagonist

I believe she was going to have a bigger role in the next season since she was featured in the final ish. I know I am grasping at straws, but I can see her becoming a protagonist. She does open a lot of potential storylines in the series.

I feel like her and the Sorceress would be an interesting parallel. We don't know much about the sorceress's relationship with the sorcerer other than they love to cause chaos together, but considering she manipulates boys to do her bidding and to earn her affection, I don't know how long that relationship would've lasted.

As for Theresa, she likes Randy for who he is and what he does. She doesn't want him to change and wants him to be who he is. There are little deleted moments where she is sad he doesn't think about asking her to the dance in the episode. She is confident, but she does love Randy for who she is. Even if we don't quite understand it.

With her, you can also do plotlines that can have her finding out who Randy is, and maybe she gets a turn with the suit. She can get sucked into the book. Her relationship with Debbi would be interesting to see. Heck, maybe something with the cheer team. I can honestly see that being interesting episodes. She would be a calmer version of Sam, but still have the spunk to help out and go on adventures.

Randy's Parents

I know this show has done fine without his parents, but I think it would be nice to see his parents. We know he has a mother who comes and goes. She probably has a job. We know he has a father, but we have no idea what either of them does as a job. He does have a good relationship with both since they do give him a curfew and don't hesitate to punish him when he does mess up. I also think the mother must be aware that her son is the Ninja and that would be a good dynamic. I can also see her supporting her son as being the Ninja. As for the father, I have no idea. We know more about the mom than the dad. I also don't think they need to appear more. Just do one episode with his mother and then the second one with the father. Then, they could appear here and there. They don't need to be main characters, but they will be there on and off which I think is fine.

Prom

This is one of the highlights of high school. One is not all the highlights of high school. I can see this being a huge shipping moment for Randy and Theresa and technically Howard and Debbi too since Howard kind of has an interest in her, but I can also see him and Howard messing up everyone else's prom. I don't know. I feel like this would be an episode where something plot-important would happen along with shipping moments. It is prom! Let them have a dance! Randy can dance and Theresa is a cheerleader, give it to me!

Conclusion to Season 3

To be entirely honest, I have no idea how this will end. I hope it ends similarly to how Howard sort of helps him defeat his enemies, but with Theresa too. Yes, if it isn't obvious enough, I love them. they're so cute together. I think it would be a fitting end to the sorcerers too. Being defeated by their version of love, I don't know. I know romance is not the point of this show, but I think it would be sweet. At the same time, I don't know how many people would be fine with that. I think it would work as a way to parallel how Randy and Howard did work together to sort of stop evil Julian. Having Theresa help Randy beat the sorcerers would be a good parallel too. Either way, I think it would work.

Hopefully, she'll either find peace or something else. I think she'll be defeated than find peace. I think that would be an interesting ending for her, but since this show does redeem or give its characters peaceful endings, she'll have one. Maybe she'll move on from love and magic or find her love. I don't know, someone else writes the ending for me.

Then, we have Season 4

Viceroy as the Final Main Antagonist

The past seasons are a villain origin story if I ever saw one forming besides Harry Osborn. The way his boss treated him! I'm honestly surprised he hasn't started a coup! He could do it. He's evil enough too, but also, he's redeemable too. I don't think it would be like the sorcerers, but something else. Like an apology but heartfelt. Again, this man is one bad day from being a villain and we've seen it throughout the show too. If anything precious to him is lost, he will destroy the city for it. All I am saying is that man did see where the Chaos Pearls fell and would be able to figure out how to use it.

McFist + Viceroy Past

We know McFist and the ninja of 85 had a past together and that his wife was a daycare worker. But how did they meet? What did Viceroy get out of this? Seriously, why do you bother to work for the worst person in the universe? What do you gain out of this?! Please tell me! Also, and yeah, I'm not a fan of the wealthy man, but how did he lose an arm and then give it a brain? That's a story! That's a story! But mainly, I want Viceroy. I do.  Sure, evil college school was cool, but how did you meet this terrible person? Tell me!

The Last 8 Chapters + Spider-Verse But Ninjas

I love the first Ninja and we get another one who is Kronk. I think a good idea would be for Randy to see some other notable ninjas in a spider verse kind of way but either with time travel or something happening to the book. This book has been alive for 800 years. I want to see more of them! Show me more! I think it would work. This could also help them revisit old concepts or even help him finish training the last 8 chapters since this kid is supposed to be the chosen one which is insane. I don’t know who decided that, but all right. I think it would work and show each Ninja helping him learn the last 8 chapters. This would be an interesting arch in this season, because again, Viceroy seems to be a bigger threat.

The Creeper

Going to be entirely honest, I think Randy would keep his memory of the book. I believe some people might’ve kept their memory of being the ninja. I can see him being one of them. Heck, maybe the Creeper will give him the book and become the guardian. Of course, that depends if Randy wants to go to college or do something else with his life which is also a valid way to end this.

Either way, he and the swordsmith need an episode about their pasts. I can see this also being a two-part episode, but I think four would be better to flesh it out.

Tengu's Past

So, he burnt the mask. Unless every ninja goes through this, the Tengu fireball is something unique to Randy, right? I have no clue. I want to know more about the bird. So bad. I want to know how this existed and was sealed into a stone. How does this work? Are there more mythical creatures? Why didn't the first one use it? I have so many questions and so few answers!

And they could even bring back a concept that was featured in the games a cold form of the suit. Again, there are interesting concepts. I wouldn't be surprised that besides the tengu, there is something else in the suit. I believe it could work too. But how did he meet the bird and why don't we see more of it? I want him to summon it like a persona! What can I say, I'll always be a video game nerd first.

Conclusion to Season 4

If anyone is going to reveal Randy's Identity, it's Viceroy. This would be a four-part ending too. I can see Viceroy revealing Randy's identity in the first part of the final and then having to deal with that.

Also, magic and machines are not a combination you want to fight. That would overwhelm Randy. However, I think this final would be in four parts, and Howard and Theresa would do something to help him with Creeper too.

For the first two-part episode, I can see Viceroy revealing who Randy is to everyone as Viceroy goes mad with power and tries to destroy the world. Heck, maybe he damages or destroys the Nomicon. There's your angst to anyone who ships Randy with the book! As for how Howard and Theresa could help, I can see them picking Randy and helping him through the pain of losing the book and possibly dooming their city. They can similarly help him as to how MJ and Ned did in Spider-Man No Way Home and Far From Home. I can see Theresa stealing the Chaos Pearls as Howard destroys the machines. I also imagine Randy not being here, because he feels like a failure and beating himself over this mess. Then, the Creeper comes in and helps Randy back up to his feet to fight the Viceroy. I think what would snap Randy back is seeing both Howard and Theresa getting captured by Viceroy. Randy saves them, thanks to them, and goes back to fight the Viceroy.

The second two-part episode can be Randy fighting Viceroy and doing what he can, but his power isn't enough. Randy realizes that he has to get McFist to make him apologize to Viceroy. Of course, he trusts Theresa and Howard. As for Randy, he gets to use the powers of all the Ninjas. I can sort of see him using their skills and teachings as he gets the Chaos Pearls away from Viceroy. Without the magic, Viceroy is still a threat and uses his machines. He effortlessly beats Randy, because again, the engineer is smart and probably programmed his machines to handle their fight against Randy. So, just as Randy is getting beaten, Howard and Theresa arrive with McFist who genuinely apologies to Viceroy for what he has done.  Viceroy calms down and Randy destroys the machines to then destroy the Chaos Pearls once and for all.

Afterward, Viceroy and McFist make up, and the scene changes to them about to graduate from high school. I can see the three of them preparing to get a mind wipe but don't. I think the Creeper would mind-wiping them and I see him giving Randy the book and mask. This would be along the lines of "my time is done. It is your turn". I can see Randy hanging on to the book and mask, but I can also see him heading to college or doing something else. I think both or either works as an ending. But, I think maybe the Creeper will still stay and watch the book and mask, but I don't think Randy will lose his memory. I can honestly imagine the ending scene where a new ninja is watching the school and fighting evil as Randy looks from a distance and smiling, proud and content. But to be honest, I have no clue how this should end, so again, go nuts with this. I think this has the potential to have any kind of ending and that's pretty awesome.

Stuff I wasn't sure where to put in the video, so this is where it goes.

Everyone does not like Bash

I just think it would be hilarious if there was an episode where Bash leaves and then everyone in the school throws a party. I just think that would be hilarious until the book snaps Randy out of it to teach him a lesson.  As for the ending, Bash does leave because he finally graduated, I don't know. Someone can come up with a better reason, or maybe he doesn’t leave. Maybe they interpret it wrong. That is probably what will happen.

Dear Nomicon

I thought the second season was going to have Randy start writing in the book and informing it about what he learned over the years. Yes, I am thinking of Twilight who would write to Princess Celestia. I thought that's what was going to happen. I just think that would've been funny to see, but I also think it would be a good way to show he's moving on and writing lessons for the future ninjas to use. I don't know if they can even use this without fear of copyrights. I just want someone to draw Randy writing in the book and saying "Dear Nomicon, today I learned not to do this stupid thing" To which the book is thinking "I can't believe you needed to learn that, but I am grateful you did"

Nomi Randy

For the small-time, he was out, he caused enough chaos. This makes this better when you realize the First Ninja is watching him too. There is more potential with this …. What even is he? He came from the book…. And has a Boston accent. I have so many questions about this being. So… another episode. Make it a two-part special.

Star Crossover Episode 

If you grew up in the 2000s, then you remember how cool crossover episodes. Billy and Mandy meeting the Kids Next Door to Lilo meeting Kim, Jake, and Penny. Seriously, those were so cool! So, I think out of ever Disney shows around the early 2010s, Star and Randy would've crossed over. For one, in the side game, the two of them have been shown to be good friends. Randy and Star would be good friends, because they are both magical girls. One is clearly based off that while the other has the transformations and power ups. Marco would be losing his mind and freaking out about the chaos. Howard would just be questioning what his life is at this point. Magic, dimensions, and other nonsense. Again, this would be an interesting crossover and just be fun to see. I hope they would get some of the original cast to come back and do this. It would just be fun and doesn't have to be canon unless they want it to. This would be fun to see, but very unlikely to ever happen. 

Conclusion to the Video

This was a video. I am not sure where this came from, and this kind of has nothing to do with the channel's content to an extent. I just thought of this and haven't stopped since. I like this show. It is a lot of fun. Making this video was also fun. I want more of this show and I think it is possible to see more of it, I hope. Also, this was for fun. I am sure everyone has their ideas of their version of how this series should end, and hey, you can share down below if you want. Well, that's it for this video. Thank you for watching, be sure to subscribe, like, and comment, and have a wonderful day! Goodbye.