#Battlestar Galactica UNEXPECTEDLY

[travllingbunny]

Thank you for the tag, @ryder616!

This tag game has unexpectedly led to an interesting discussion about what exactly an “Endgame Ship” means... which seems to be largely open to interpretation. I’m still not sure how I see that term, but for the purposes of this post, but to narrow it down and not mention way too many ships, I’ll take Endgame in two different meanings: for “Favorite Ship(s) That’s Endgame”, I’ll take it to mean pairings that were together and in a happy relationship at the end of the story. But for “Ship(s) You Wish Had Been Endgame”, I will take “Not Endgame” to mean that the ship was not treated as these characters’ main romance at the end of the show, or at least there was a lot of ambiguity and/or a rival ship for one or both characters was instead the current one at the end of the story. (A lot of my favorite ships have the tendency to end up unhappily in spite of being portrayed as the main romance of the story..)

Warning: this post contains spoilers for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Agents of SHIELD, The Hunger Games, The Leftovers, The Americans and The 100 (though if you’ve spent any time on my blog, you’ve certainly already been spoiled for the ending of The 100) and .

1. First Ship - When I was about 4 or 5, I was obsessed with Lady and the Tramp (I had a book version with a few pictures and it fell apart from how much I was reading it - it may have been my first book that wasn’t mostly a picture book), so I guess my first ship was two dogs (which is really appropriate, since I love dogs). If we’re talking TV, again going back to my childhood, before puberty and before I even knew what “shipping” was, I remember being pleasantly surprised when Raquel first appeared on Only Fools and Horses as a love interest for Del Boy - the show was an episodic comedy where the two brothers, in the early years, usually didn’t have a serious love interest. I thought “oh, he really is in love with her! And she feels the same, and they are so cute together.” I hoped she’d come back and wouldn’t just be a one episode character but a long-term LI. And then I was so happy when that very much did happen. I guess this can be considered the start of my TV shipping (and also an early sign of my love for contuinity and longer arcs on TV).

2. First OTP - Ignoring pre-puberty: at the age of 12, I was really obsessed with Wuthering Heights and Heathcliff and Cathy and read the book who knows how mny times. Regarding TV, I’ve shipped over the years, but I guess the first TV ship I would really call my OTP was in This Life, a 1990s UK drama about a bunch of 20-somethings in London, which I watched on TV in 2001. which now sadly seems almost forgotten. Anna and Miles had an on-off, love-hate relationship throughout - they were sexy, snarky, and it was painfully obvious that they were in love, but these idiots had trouble admitting it to themselves and even more to each other. If it had been a romcom, they would’ve been certain to end up together, but it was a realistic drama.

3. Current Favorite Ship - Bellarke - oh, what an OTP of all OTPs that was before it was stupidly destroyed out of spite. Over the last couple of years, Dark (season 3 mostly) made me really love Jonas and Martha (the first pairing I’ve made gifsets about), and most recently (last month!), I binged Halt and Catch Fire and fell in love with the show and with Joe and Cameron’s relationship (which, I just realized now, shows that my taste in OTPs hasn’t changed in 20 years).

If we’re talking current as in, in current shows rather than finished ones, then  Kanej (Shadow and Bone), Harlivy (Harley Quinn), Gereon and Charlotte (Babylon Berlin) and  Roy and Keeley (Ted Lasso).

4. Your ship since the first minute - I really rarely ship anything from the first minute (unless we’re talking Morticia and Gomez, who are of course already a perfect couple and nothing ever changes there). It usually takes time for me to fall for a ship. A rare exception is Roy and Keeley - their first one-on-one scene in S1 already had huge OTP vibes. 

5. Ship(s) You Wish Had Been Endgame - Do I even have to say it? BELLARKE. A hundred times Bellarke, who were portrayed as endgame before the showrunner decided to retcon and ruin them together with the show overall.

Others: Jessica and Luke in Netfix Narvel shows, May and Andrew on AoS, Willow and Oz; or, depending on how you interpret Endgame, Willow/Tara (some argue that it is Endgame as Tara is definitely portrayed as the love of Willow’s life regardless of everything else). Spuffy (again, there are different opinions as to its status as both the show and the comics ended ambiguously and tried not to have a clear Endgame pairing for Buffy’s character), Xander/Anya (if you take comics into account).

6. Ship You Wish Was Canon - Some would say Bellarke, again, but I tend to consider it canon. It’s debatable, for sure (if you only consider making out/sex and/or “I love you” as markers of canon, it is not canon; if it is enough for the show to make it so blatant in the first 6 seasons that you have to actively search for ways to deny it to make it sound platonic, and for actors to confirm it was portrayed as romantic- than it is.)

So my answer would be: Kastle (Netflix Marvel shows), QuakeRider (AoS), and Octavia and Diyoza (The 100) and maybe Faith and Buffy (mostly in the sense that canon could have explored the nature of Faith’s feelings for Buffy a bit more and a bit more openly).

7. Ship that Most of the Fandom Hates, but You Love - Angel and Darla, May and Andrew, Coulson and Rosalind (hated how it ended though). Miller and Bryan (because they were more interesting than Mackson, and Bryan had a personality), Though “ships that most of the fandom ignores” would be a more apt term. The one that most of the fandom does hate and I like it is Octavia/Ilian - I liked it for what it was, two damaged people finding comfort together in what could have grown into something more - instead of the “we’re ve just met and talked to each other once and we’re already IN LOVE!” trope that the writers of The 100 were so fond of.

8. You Don’t Even Watch the Show, but You Ship It - Why would I ship something from a show I don’t watch?

9. Ship That You Wish Had A Different Storyline -  BELLARKE (duh - the ending). Veronica and Logan (the ending, again). Coulson/Rosalind - they had such an interesting and fun dynamic that could have been explored much more; instead, the writers opted for one of the worst tropes there are, and I hated that entire plotline for so many reasons. Tyrol and Boomer on Battlestar Galactica - what they did with Boomer was crap. Baltar and Caprica - all the bad writing in season 4. This is a weird example of a ship that I shipped so hard for 3 seasons and that was given Endgame in every sense of the word, but, by that point, I barely cared anymore, because the writers forgot about their relationship throughout the final season and made it seem like they didn’t even remember each other, and then slapped a last minute happy ending. Plus they retconed/explained their connection in such a stupid and anticlimactic way that ruined it retroactively.

10. Favorite Ship(s) That’s Endgame - Everlark, Nora and Kevin (The Leftovers), Philip and Elizabeth (The Americans), and Josh and Della on Night and Day (a really obscure early 2000s UK show that was watched by maybe 100 people.) Some others worth mentioning: FitzSimmons, Niles and Daphne, Tim and Dawn (original UK The Office), Jake and Amy, Memori (the only bright spot in a rubbish ending). And of course, there’s Morticia and Gomez, though they are less Endgame and more AlwaysGame.

Tagging: @jeanie205 @kizo2703 @poppykru @sheigarche @weareagentsofnothing @sometimesrosy @misskittyspuffy @otp-armada @carrieeve @sexy-zeitreise-detektiv @jonaskanwalds @immortalpramheda @ladyofthefrostfangs @tennyo-elf @fandomkru @natassakar @hadrianvonpaulus @sillier-things @angearia @thekawaiislartibartfast @foolishnymeria @erikiara80 @heartbellamy and anyone else who sees this - sorry I didn’t tag you and please consider yourself tagged. :)

[groovesnjams]

gr_OOves ‘n j A_ms       S // O // T // Y 2o2o

nO. 7/50

“Inspirit” by Julianna Barwick

MG:

I see them less now that the productivity industrial complex has moved its robotic lazer gaze from the homebound worker to the out of work and homebound but at the beginning of the pandemic there was no shortage of articles advising you maximize your time inside by learning a new skill, taking up a new hobby, redecorating, or in any and all ways producing labor and consuming goods. You, fragilely human, must not let down your society by safeguarding your health (that is, your life on Earth) instead of the health of every business, great or small. I think it was while I read one of those articles that desperation really sank its teeth into my flesh. I spent the rest of the year infatuated with the idea of “purpose.” It’s the antidote to capitalism, I thought, and if I could just settle on a purpose I wouldn’t be such a sucker for learning to cook or taking up drawing or anything else that requires payment upfront and eventually morphs into a side hustle. As it turns out, purpose is nothing but a grail quest and here we are with wireless internet and chemotherapy but no fucking philosopher’s stone so purpose, grail quest, whatever, as always, the journey is the destination. Purpose and grail quest as both opposites and the same reminded me of utopia and no place. We strive and debate and search and postulate because that’s all we can do, utopia doesn’t exist except as the process of discovery. Yet, life can be really magical (another thing that doesn’t exist in its purest form) and even though we can’t go to utopia and there’s no real reason for our lives, we can imagine what our senses can’t experience. “Inspirit” is its own same and opposite. It’s ethereal and gossamer but only because of the layers and layers of human voice. It’s hopeful and resolute but without the formality of language. Not to be too hard on any of the extremely excellent dance music on our list, but “Inspirit” also had the year’s best bass drop.

DV:

A decade after my bookstore coworkers pushed it on me for the first time, I’m currently rewatching the war-on-terror remake of Battlestar Galactica, finding it frustratingly and frighteningly relevant today, when the US is still fighting the same wars and we’ve only added more since the show ended. Not all of it’s aged gracefully, and it’s ultimately copaganda in many ways - but it’s striking how much more meaningful the show feels the second time around, now that I know its grim exterior overlays a fundamentally optimistic universe, directed by a higher power toward a greater good. This is not our universe, but it’s an unexpectedly pleasant place to spend time while ours dominoes around us - or, perhaps worse, moves placidly and implacably toward a future where we no longer exist. Like Battlestar Galactica‘s theme song, “Inspirit” starts idyllic and becomes sharply intense at the halfway mark; like “Inspirit”, Battlestar is really about how you should open your heart because it’s in your head. Their shared silliness and predictability are where their true value lies, the bass drops and bloody space battles are just decoration for the profound mundanity at their core. Maybe no real truth is actually shocking, but it sure does feel more real if it’s dressed up enough to seem like it might shock someone.

[lovemesomerafael]

Cinderella of Chicago              Chapter 4, Part 1:  The House

Chapter 1  Chapter 2  Chapter 3      Read it on AO3

OK, so it’s Halloween and I kind of liked the idea of putting Otis and Meg in another fairy tale, so...   It got long so I’m splitting this chapter into two parts.  Bonus points if you can guess which fairy tale this is.  

*****************

“You’re sure this is a good idea?  I don’t know this part of town at all,” Meg said, looking out the windows of Brian’s car at a neighborhood that was far from hers, both in distance and in character.

Meg lived in a blue-collar, working-class neighborhood.  Brian’s apartment was in a much nicer part of Chicago, which is why it took all three of them – Brian, Joe Cruz, and Sylvie Brett – to afford the rent.  But this neighborhood was something entirely different. This neighborhood… it was weird to even call it that because the lots surrounding the mansions were so huge, it seemed that even people who lived in houses on adjacent lots lived too far apart to qualify as “neighbors.”  

“We’re good.  Just trust Siri,” Brian said, giving Meg a little smile. Not the big, incendiary one that turned him instantly from cute guy to hottie, but one that gave Meg a little rush nonetheless.  

“I don’t know.  I don’t belong here.  I keep thinking any minute we’re going to be pulled over for Driving While Poor.”

“I’m with you there,” he agreed. “And then we’d be escorted to the border and told not to come back.”

Meg laughed.  “I hope you aren’t as turned around as I am, or else we’re gonna need that escort.  I’m so lost right now, I could never find my way out of here.”

“That’s why there’s Siri.”

Unfortunately, Siri let them down.  She was not able to help Brian and Meg find the house they wanted.  She said she could; at one point, she announced – very pleased with herself, Brian thought – that they had reached their destination. But they were at the bottom of a dead-end street that had no houses on it.

Brian gave Siri a piece of his mind.  Meg had to laugh when they began to drive away from the spot and Siri said, “Recalculating…”  

“Recalculate this, Siri!!!”  

This was all a little out of Meg’s comfort zone, but she totally understood Brian’s desire to go to this effort. The guy had advertised an authentic Admiral Grus jersey actually worn by Barry Lueck in the original series of Battle Astronauts.  The Craigslist ad said he had documentation of its authenticity, which Brian insisted upon after the Battlestar Galactica helmet incident.  So she totally understood his disappointment.  

“Maybe we could drive around, see if we can find the street name.  It’ll still be light outside for a little while.”  Meg would actually rather give up and cuddle up on a couch to watch an episode of Battle Astronauts, maybe order a pizza.  But the jersey had actually been worn by Barry Lueck on the show, so she was willing to stick it out as long as Brian was.  

They ended up driving around the winding, seemingly shifting streets of this exclusive neighborhood for two hours.  It was no good.  They couldn’t even find the street.  By the time it was full dark, Brian was crushed and asking, once again, what kind of Craigslist poster doesn’t answer calls and texts about their advertised item. But he was grateful to Meg for her patience, and for coming with her at all.  

“You’ve been great about this, Meg.  So you get to decide what we do tonight.  I’m up for whatever you want to do.”  

They’d had some fun dates. The more time they spent together, the more they found they had in common, and the more they liked each other. They had a few friends in common that they could double- and triple-date with.  They’d also had a few chances to spend some more time alone together, which was something that was on both their minds as they contemplated how to spend their Saturday night.  Both Brian and Meg were on the hesitant, awkward side with the opposite sex to begin with.  And, although they’d never discussed it explicitly, they also shared a reluctance to rush into sex.  

As new couples do, they had gone a bit further each time they were alone together.  After midnight black-light bowling with Cruz and his girlfriend Chloe, which had probably been Meg’s favorite of their dates so far, she had invited Brian up to her apartment for a BattleGround Jupiter rematch.  They’d both ended up shirtless on her couch, and there had been some over-the-jeans petting.  After Brian’s favorite date, laser tag, they had done a lot of shirtless grinding. And after their latest date, an alcohol-fueled and hotly-contested game of Catan with three other couples at Brian’s apartment, they’d ended up in Brian’s bed.  They’d undone each other’s jeans and done some very pleasant exploration, but didn’t get completely naked.    

So when Meg said that she wanted to watch Battle Astronauts and order pizza, Brian suggested they do it at his place.  He said it was because his TV was bigger, but in fact it was because that’s where his condoms were.  Just in case.

The original Battle Astronauts had not aged well in some ways, but for the most part, the plots and characters held up very well.  Besides, it was just a fun show to watch and, given that Brian and Meg had seen every episode at least three times, they didn’t have to pay much attention.  They enjoyed pizza and the show, cuddled together under a blanket on the couch in the living room.  They laughed and joked, made fun of cheesy parts of the show, and kissed.  

During the third episode, the kisses became more insistent.  It was a short time before they had each other’s shirts off.  With Meg’s legs wrapped around his waist, Brian was helpless to stop himself from rubbing against her, especially with her encouraging him, until they were both gasping.  But when she reached her hand between them and began fumbling with the button on his jeans, it was time to go upstairs before either of his roommates unexpectedly came home and got an eyeful.  This time, although they saved the final act for later, they did get completely naked, and they both slept in Brian’s bed after satisfying each other for the first time.  Well, times.    

The following morning, as they were hungrily eating waffles and bacon, Brian’s phone pinged with the sound of an incoming text.  

“Finally!”  He cried, seeing that the text was from Gruseliger Forscher, the person selling the Admiral Grus jersey.  Brian wasn’t sure whether Gruseliger was a man’s name or a woman’s, but assumed it was a man.  Forscher said that he had received Brian’s messages, although he said nothing about all the frantic calls.  This time, he texted directions to the house, mentioning for the first time that GPS didn’t really work in his neighborhood because the streets hadn’t been correctly mapped.  Brian had a lot of opinions about Forscher not mentioning that before, but now that he had actual directions, and after his amazing night with Meg, he was again full of hope and ready to try again.

Again Brian and Meg set out in search of the house.  The neighborhood, when they finally got there, was just as overwhelming and intimidating as before, although it made them feel a little better to have directions. Except that there were an awful lot of one-way streets in the area.  Brian didn’t say anything, but he became less confident of his ability to find his way back out with every turn.  He’d expected to simply reverse Forscher’s directions, but that wasn’t going to work. He was going to have to ask Forscher for directions back out of this labyrinth of mansions and gated compounds. He wouldn’t use the word ‘lost’, at least not to Meg.  At least not yet.  

The directions weren’t that great, either.  They did a fair amount of wandering, looking for street names, because there simply wasn’t much about the actual landscape that matched the directions.  Meg was just beginning to think that the jersey, even if authentic and even if it still had traces of Barry Lueck’s actual DNA in it, might not be worth this kind of time and aggravation.  She knew Brian would be disappointed if he didn’t get the jersey, but they’d been driving around for almost two hours.  Again.  

Brian spotted the street first. It was Copper Drive Southeast, and they wanted Southwest, but he thought that they might, finally, be getting close. He turned the corner in hopes Copper Drive Southeast would just, at some point, become Copper Drive Southwest. Meg wasn’t sure it worked that way, but she was noticing the gas gauge, and hoping for some luck.  It was starting to seem like a long time since they’d eaten those waffles.  Besides which, both she and Brian were getting a little bit testy with each other – taking their boredom, anxiety, and emerging hunger out on the only available target.  

And then, as if by enchantment, the street became Copper Drive Southwest.  Brian let out a whoop of victory and Meg leaned over and kissed him while he drove.  Both began to look eagerly for house numbers.  They turned out to be hard to find.  Some houses simply didn’t have any visible numbers.  There were tall hedges interrupted by stone pillars supporting locked gates, or actual carriage houses flanking electronically-controlled barriers, or carefully-cultivated landscaping that split to admit a driveway, but concealed the houses at the end of the drive.  They began to fall back into a tense, unhappy silence as more and more time elapsed without them seeming to get any closer to their destination. Without saying so, Brian was becoming truly concerned about the amount of gas he had left.  He would never have believed it would take this much driving to find the house, and they were certainly not going to come upon a Chevron in this neighborhood.  

The street made another wide, curvy turn, and they could see, perhaps a quarter-mile ahead, that Copper Drive Southwest came to a dead end.  

“No!”  Brian gasped.  

“Don’t give up,” Meg said. “There’s still one house on the right.”

Brian slowed the car.  As he pulled up, he could see that there was no house number on the river rock plinths that supported large, wrought iron lamps on either side of a curved driveway.  There was a gate, but it was open.  A good sign.  Brian stopped and he and Meg squinted up at the house, which was surprisingly overgrown with trees in need of trimming and some kind of dark, clinging ivy.  Still, Meg thought she could see a house number on the small porch roof that overhung the double doors at the front.  

“This might be it,” she said. “That looks like the right numbers. We’ll be sure when we pull in.”

“I don’t know.  That house…  Don’t you think it’s a little creepy?”

Brian was right.  The house was tall and square, apparently three stories, with a mansard roof that featured two dormer windows on each side. It had been an indiscriminate beige color, but was badly in need of paint, with moss growing on the water-stained roof.  The fence around it and the railings on the flat areas of the roof featured wickedly pointed uprights that, while intended to be decorative, gave the house a distinctly menacing air.  The lawn in front was short, but dry and full of bare, brown patches.  In the fading light of late afternoon, it was not a welcoming place.

Until Brian saw the Batmobile.

Parked just past the front of the house, where it hadn’t been readily visible from the street, was a low, sleek, black car with red trim and the classic rounded, dual-sided windshield and top from the original Batman television series.  It even had the red bat logos on the door and hubcaps.  Meg, who had removed her seat belt to lean forward to see the house number, bumped her head on the windshield as Brian slammed on the brakes.  

“Do you see that?  That’s a Batmobile!  There’s a real, original Batmobile in there!”

He quickly backed up and turned the car into the driveway, leaving Meg to hold on as best she could. When they reached the front of the house, they could see that it was, in fact, the right house number.  They didn’t discuss it, simply got out and went immediately over to the Batmobile before knocking on the door.

“That is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.  I mean, it could be a reproduction, but who cares?  It’s awesome!”  Brian cried.

Meg noted the three chrome exhaust pipes angling up from the sides, and the grate-covered flashing light on top.  “This is amazing – it’s got everything from the original show!”  

For long minutes, they walked around, ooh-ing and aah-ing over the details of the Batmobile, forgetting anything but its long, aerodynamic lines and the memories evoked by the car. “I wonder if blue flame comes out of here,” Meg asked, pointing to the round exhaust port in the rear.

“It looks brand new, I bet it runs!”  Brian exclaimed.

“Of course it does,” a creaky voice said.

Brian and Meg turned to see an elderly woman leaning on a walking stick, standing on the driveway about halfway between the door and the Batmobile.  She was hideous.  There was no other word for her.   She was very tall and stooped, wearing a long, baggy dress of faded green over her overabundant form, with a brown sweater that was more hole than yarn hanging limply over her shoulders.  Her feet were encased in what appeared to be house slippers that had absolutely no shape anymore.  Her long, grey hair sprouted sparsely from a greyish-pink scalp and a faded scarf of no particular color was tied loosely and carelessly around her head. Her face was careworn and hung with sagging folds of skin which did nothing to distract from her massive, misshapen nose.  Meg thought that her teeth probably gave her a lot of pain and bad breath, because what few there were of them were brown and chipped.  

This old hag was the last person on Earth Brian would have expected to own a Batmobile, yet she hobbled over to them and patted one of the long fins affectionately.  Meg was again concerned about the woman’s health as she noticed the painfully gnarled and bent fingers of a long-term arthritis sufferer. “This baby purrs like a kitten, and yes, it shoots blue flame out the back.”  She smiled hideously at Meg.

Meg smiled back, going into nurse mode.  She dealt with all manner of people in her job in the ER at Chicago Med, and could easily turn off conventionality and judgment to deal with people on their own terms, after doing it for years.  “Hello. I’m Meg, and this is Brian.”

“I’m Gruseliger Forscher,” the old woman said, nodding but making no move to shake hands.  Meg wasn’t surprised; it would probably hurt to have someone squeeze those fingers even lightly.

Brian came over to stand several steps away from the woman.  “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Forscher.”  He, too, was good at talking to people who were different from him.

“No one calls me Mrs. Forscher. I’m Granny.”

Meg laughed a little, and said, “It’s nice to meet you, Granny.”

“Are you the one selling the Admiral Grus jersey?”  Brian asked.

“Oh, yes, that’s me,” the woman said in her wheezy, creaky voice.  “Would you like to come in and see it?”

Brian and Meg both had the urge to share a look, but out of politeness tried not to.  This place, and this woman, were creepy.  They really didn’t want to go into the house.

“I have all kinds of memorabilia,” Granny said.  “This is just the beginning.  I have a helmet from the 1962 version of General Craddock From Mars.  Not the crappy remake, the original movie, you know.”

“Seriously?  Cool,” Meg said.

“And then, of course, there’s my Team Neptune stuff.”

“Wait – Team Neptune?  You have Team Neptune stuff?”  Brian’s eyes went wide and he took a step toward Granny. Team Neptune had been his absolute favorite show as a little kid, and he still had a special place for it in his heart.

“Oh, yes.  Collected that for years.  Come on in, I’ll show you.”  

Without even thinking about it, Brian and Meg followed Granny up the driveway and into the dark, creepy house. Everything inside was strangely clean, but seemed to be from another era.  The furniture was shiny with polish, but heavy and dark, and the windows were swathed in thick, dark fabrics that kept out the scant sunlight that could penetrate the overgrown trees outside.  The air was dense and stale, as though no door or window had been opened for ages, and there was a slight chemical tang to it.  They didn’t see any thing resembling science fiction memorabilia anywhere as they followed the woman, now taking the chance to share a puzzled but amused look between them.  This was definitely an odd place, and an odd woman.  

She waved them into a parlor with more of the heavy, polished furniture, inviting them to have a seat on an overstuffed sofa with a tall, rounded back, covered in dark plum-colored velvet.

“Please, have a seat. I’ve made us some tea.”

After taking a seat on a wingback chair across from them, she lifted an ornate silver teapot and began to pour into the three cups waiting on a matching silver tray.  The table was more shiny wood, with complicated, curlicued legs.  It looked like it weighed too much for Meg to be able to move it.  Now Meg and Brian openly looked at one another, dawning concern on each of their faces.  

“Mrs. Forscher-“

“Oh, call me Granny,” she said, smiling hideously with her few remaining teeth.  

“Granny,” Brian continued, “I’m afraid we don’t have time for tea.  We’ve come quite a ways and we’ve been driving around…  It’s kind of you to offer, but we can’t really stay for tea.”

Granny finished pouring out and picked up a teacup and saucer.  She indicated that Meg and Brian should do the same.  “Oh, I insist.  I’m an old woman, I don’t get much company.  And maybe you’d like me to tell you some stories about being on the set of Team Neptune.”

“You were on the set of Team Neptune?”  Meg was intrigued and picked up a teacup without thinking further about it.  

“Oh, yes.  I was what they called a script girl in those days…”  

For the next fifteen minutes, they sat rapt as Granny told them stories about the set of Team Neptune, and the antics of some of the actors.  Brian thought the tea was terrible, but Granny kept watching him and looking at his cup.  He would have simply stopped drinking it, but she was so persistently observant that he felt he had to finish the cup.  Somehow he managed it, but it wasn’t easy.  At least Granny’s stories were interesting.  The second he set his empty cup down, Granny ended the story she was telling and struggled to her feet, grunting.  Brian noticed that Meg’s cup was still half-full.  He decided to complain later about Granny paying attention to his cup and not hers.

“Let’s go see the jersey,” Granny croaked, and led them to a doorway, then down a narrow hall with a thick, sound-deadening rug on the floor. At the end of the hall was a tall wooden door that was as shiny as the rest of the wood in her house.  The door opened, not with the creak Brian was expecting, but with an almost pneumatic-sounding swish.  

Granny stepped aside and waved them inside.  There, on a mannequin bust, was Admiral Grus’s jersey.  Brian exclaimed and rushed toward it.  As he did, the woman moved much faster than they had seen her move before, and certainly much faster than they would have expected she could.  She pushed Meg back through the doorway and slammed the door, closing Brian inside the room.

“What the hell?”  Meg gasped, slammed against a wall of the narrow hallway by the old woman’s quick push.  

“Don’t worry, dearie.  I’m not planning to hurt you.  I just need your help with a little project I’m working on.”

“Wait – open that door! Let Brian out!”

“Brian is fine.  I need his help, too.”  The woman pulled a small, tarnished brass key on a chain from under her shapeless dress and fitted it into the doorknob of the room where Brian was pounding on the door to be let out.  As she turned the key, a thin, unseen panel on the side of the door opened and the woman slid a metal grate, made up of vertical bars about six inches apart and three thick horizontal bars at regular intervals, over the doorway to click into a frame on the other side of the doorway.  Then she turned the key again and pushed the door to the room back open, tucking the key back under her dress.

Brian pushed the door roughly back to the wall and began to step out, seeing the grate only in time to avoid knocking into it.

“Hey!”  He cried.  “What’s going on?  Let me out of here!”  

“You’ll be fine,”  Granny sighed, turning to open a door further back up the hall toward the parlor.  She went in, leaving the door open behind her.

Brian and Meg looked at each other, astounded and now deeply concerned.  “Call 911,” Meg said quietly.  She didn’t have her cell phone with her, but Brian did.

He stepped back into the room, moving down the wall a bit in hopes the woman wouldn’t hear him calling but, at that moment, she came out of the room she’d gone into.  “Oh, you won’t have any service in here,” she said, apparently fully aware of what Brian was doing although she couldn’t see him.

It was then that Meg saw that the woman held a little metal tray like those at a doctor’s office or hospital, upon which sat modern blood-drawing equipment, the same kind Meg used daily at Chicago Med.

“What the hell is that for?” Meg knew she was shrieking, but she was past trying to be polite or calm at this point.  They needed to get out of this house and away from this creepy old hag.

“It’s for you, my dear. To draw his blood.”

“WHAT?  I’m not going to do-  And how did you know I can draw blood?  Who are you?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. Let’s just get the first sample, shall we?  So we can see what we’re working with.”

Brian grabbed and shook the grate over the door.  “Let me out of here!  This is illegal!  Let me out right now!”

Meg moved toward the old woman. “Listen, lady, I don’t want to hurt you, but if you think I’m going to let you hurt either one of us, think again. Let him out.  Now.”  She tried to sound scary, but the truth was, she was scared.  

The old woman simply stood placidly, holding the tray of blood drawing equipment.  “You may try to leave, if you like.  You won’t succeed.  Go ahead, try.”

Meg ran down the hallway, through the parlor, to the door.  For at least five minutes, she tried to open it without success.  Giving up at last, she turned to see that the old woman was not behind her.  She was afraid of what the woman might be doing to Brian, but there was no sound from the back of the house.  Meg decided enough was enough.  She picked up a straight-backed chair and swung it, legs first, into the closest window. It bounced off.  What the hell?  She tried again, two, three, four more times, each swing harder than the last.  There wasn’t even a mark on the window.  Meg knocked on it with her knuckle, and found that it was some sort of thick material that felt almost plastic.  Beginning to panic, Meg ran from window to window, knocking on all of them.  They were all made of that unbreakable material.

Shouting a vile string of words, she ran back through the parlor to the hallway.  “Let us the fuck out of here, damn it!  If I have to knock you down and take that key, then that’s what I’ll do.  I am not messing around here.”

She glanced at Brian, who looked as frightened as she felt.

“I understand, my dear. This is very upsetting,” the hag wheezed, a horrible smile showing her disgusting teeth.  “Do what you must.”

The woman just stood there, still holding the tray.  Meg hesitated briefly, looked at Brian behind that grate, and lunged.  The woman didn’t budge, but simply held an arm out to keep Meg from being able to grab at the chain around her neck where the key hung. It was as if she was made of solid rock. Nothing Meg could do made her move, or seemed to change her expression, even when Meg became desperate and began to kick at her.  

“I’m not taking Brian’s blood, you witch!  What the hell do you even want it for?  Just let us out of here.  I’ll use a weapon if I have to.  We are not staying here one more minute.”

Again, the old woman said, “I understand, my dear.  Do what you must.”  

Meg retrieved the chair she’d used to try to break a window and brandished it at the woman.  The woman didn’t move, and didn’t change expression. Meg looked to Brian.

“Do it,” he said.

Meg swung the chair with all her strength, straight at the center of the woman’s body, hitting her on her left arm and chest.  She didn’t move or react.  The only result was gouges in the thick, heavy legs of the chair and some very sore muscles in Meg’s arms.  Now she was truly frightened.  

“What the hell?”  Brian gasped, his wide eyes and gaping mouth mirroring Meg’s.

Meg set the chair down slowly, unsure what to do.  Despite Meg’s attempt to bodily remove the key from around the woman’s neck, and hitting her with a substantial chair, the hag hadn’t even dropped the little tray with the blood drawing equipment.  For a long time, no one said anything.  The look between Brian and Meg was full of fear and questions with no obvious answers.

“I won’t hurt Brian,” Meg said quietly.

“Of course not, dearie. You’re just going to draw a little blood.”

“Yours, maybe.  Not his.”  Meg hissed, trying to act braver than she felt.

“There are knives in the kitchen.  You may try to spill my blood, if you must.”

The looks between Brian and Meg had graduated to terrified and unbelieving.  Without a word, they decided that it would be useless, and possibly dangerous to Meg, for her to try to hurt the woman.  They would have to find another way to free Brian and escape the house.

[imreallyloveleee]

6, 13, & 19 🖤🖤

6.  What is a TV show you recommend binging?

just any of my favorites, i guess? Mad Men. Community. Crazy Ex Girlfriend. Schitt’s Creek. RuPaul’s Drag Race. The Magicians. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Superstore. Big Mouth. Battlestar Galactica.

actually, I take Mad Men back - I’m not sure that’s a good binge show. that’s a show you want to sit with for a bit. but the rest, definitely!

13.  Have you experienced any positive changes or unexpectedly good things because of the quarantine?

I feel so much more connected to my close friends on a daily basis, because we’re now using a Discord server to stay in touch throughout the week. Some of them are people I’d probably only be checking in one-on-one with once or twice a month and now I hear from them every day, which is really lovely!

19. What is the strangest thing you’ve done that you’re blaming on being stir crazy?

I don’t think I am stir crazy. I’m highly anxious, but it’s not really related to being stuck in my house. I’m not bored. This is a terrible answer lol but I can’t think of anything I’d blame on that.

[hallmark-movie-fanatics]

ASHLEY WILLIAMS AND PAUL CAMPBELL STAR IN ‘HOLIDAY HEARTS’ A NEW ORIGINAL PREMIERING NOVEMBER 23, ON HALLMARK MOVIES & MYSTERIES

Part of the Network’s Annual “Miracles of Christmas” Programming Event

STUDIO CITY, CA – October 11, 2019 – Fulfilling a little girl’s Christmas wish list makes former childhood friends see each other in a whole new light, when Ashley Williams (“The Jim Gaffigan Show,” “How I Met Your Mother”) and Paul Campbell (“The Last Bridesmaid,” “Battlestar Galactica”) star in “Holiday Hearts,” a new original premiering Saturday, November 23 (9 p.m. ET/PT), on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries as part of the network’s annual “Miracles of Christmas” programming event.

During the week leading up to Christmas, Peyton Canaday (Williams), who is charged with planning the big annual Christmas Eve party at her family’s inn, is unexpectedly drafted to assist her former crush, Dr. Ben Tyler (Campbell) in helping a mutual friend’s daughter carry out her late mother’s wish. Together, they must create a magical Christmas inspired by the girl’s beautiful memories. In order to make this work, however, Peyton must put aside the hurt she experienced from Ben’s rejection 10 years prior.

“Holiday Hearts” is produced by 4 Ever Wish Productions Inc. Suzanne Arnott, Michael Shepard, Ivan Hayden, Harry Winer and Kim Arnott, are executive producers. Allan Harmon directed from a script by Susan Brightbill, based on the novel The Christmas Wish by Barbara Ankrum.

http://awsprxdam.crownmediadev.com.s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/highRes/3438690.pdf

[rebelsofshield]

Star Wars: Alphabet Squadron-Review

Alexander Freed resurrects the X-Wing novel in Alphabet Squadron, a rousing and emotionally complex adventure that ranks among the best in the current canon.

(Review contains minor spoilers)

The second Death Star is destroyed. The Emperor is dead. The Empire is falling and its forces are scattered and desperate. For the first time since the Galactic Civil War began, the Alliance, now the New Republic, is winning. However, as a galactic government collapses and a scattered militia group begins to take its place, it turns out that the waning days of the war may be more chaotic than anyone anticipated. Among those caught in the chaos is Yrica Quell, a former Imperial TIE pilot of the infamous 204th Imperial Fighter Wing aka “Shadow Wing,” who herself just one of thousands of other former soldiers looking to escape to the otherside of a losing war. After Yrica attracts the attention of New Republic Intelligence agent Caern Adan, she is drafted into a makeshift working group to hunt down and eliminate her former wingmen, whom have become a major thorn in the burgeoning Republic’s side. Overseen by Adan, New Republic general Hera Syndulla, and a reprogrammed Imperial torture droid, Yrica helps to form a group of misfit and war addled pilots to help save the New Republic from dying before it even begins.

At Celebration Chicago, Alexander Freed said that he was inspired to write Alphabet Squadron by the classic Expanded Universe X-Wing novels written by Michael A. Stackpole and Aaron Allston. While Freed’s pilot focused narrative and thrilling action sequences are sure to evoke memories of this series, the book that Alphabet Squadron seems to brush shoulders with most after first read is Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy. Like Aftermath, Alphabet Squadron is the first in a trilogy following an ensemble of misfit characters in the waning days of the Galactic Civil War and the fallout of the Battle of Endor. Wendig’s trilogy always boasted an impressive scope and stylistically impressive prose, but the first installment of Aftermath struggled due to characters that failed to make an impression and an unfocused narrative. Each novel in the trilogy improved on the one that preceded it, but it is hard to deny that Aftermath got off to a rocky start. Conversely, while Alexander Freed’s dense prose may not appeal to some readers, Alphabet Squadron launches out of the gate with fully formed characters and a sense of purpose and place.

Like his previous Star Wars novel, Battlefront: Twilight Company, Freed excels in making the Galaxy Far, Far Away feel lived in. As previously mentioned, his dense writing style may turn off some readers, but it does an incredible job in helping this setting come to life. It’s clear that Freed put extensive thought into helping to realize a galaxy in this degree of turmoil. In the months immediately following the Battle of Endor, there truly wasn’t a seat of power in the galaxy as both The Empire and the New Republic are each in periods of transition and internal upheaval. The Empire finds itself lacking in direction and leadership and facing a long collapse that seems unlikely to turn in their favor. The New Republic must not only contend with forming a new government but transitioning from a guerilla military to an expansive force capable of finalizing a war it never really prepared to win. Alphabet Squadron in the process evokes such classic pieces of desperate military science fiction like Battlestar Galactica and even The Last Jedi. In the aftermath of such devastating canon events as Operation Cinder, Freed captures the fluctuating and unstable state of the galaxy with descriptive settings, well thought out dips into everyday life of the average galactic citizenry, and first and foremost the characters at its center.

As any good novel should do, it is truly the characters of Alphabet Squadron that make this book sing. Freed brings together an ensemble of damaged and diverse pilots to make up the titular Alphabet Squadron. Fittingly each of these characters not only feel as unique and varied as the ships they fly, but they all realistically bear the scars of beings who have spent their last years embroiled in war. For better and for worse, Freed frames much of the narrative around the reader and the characters gradually learning about the pasts and motives of the different pilots and their commanders. While Freed maintains a rotating third person limited point of view, it becomes quickly apparent that what we learn from each of the characters isn’t necessarily to be trusted. These are damaged people that are hiding things not only from their teammates but from themselves and it is this obscuring, while at times perhaps a bit too illusive, that adds a larger sense of discovery and engagement to a narrative that by and large follows the familiar “learning to work as a team” structure.

Of the five main characters, Yrica is undeniably the most intriguing and fraught. Unlike many classic Imperial defectors, Yrica joined after the Battle of Endor when Palpatine’s regime was already collapsing. While her motives for seeking out the New Republic are mostly self-serving, Freed succeeds at making Yrica a sympathetic protagonist, if an undeniably flawed one. Her narrative becomes one not only of finding a purpose or direction in a galaxy that wants nothing more than to cast her aside, but of deprogramming from fascist doctrine. “Think like a rebel,” becomes a mantra that carries its way not only in the cockpit but to the cantina, to her therapy sessions, and in learning to be a leader to her team.

The rest of Alphabet Squadron are similarly impressive. Nath Tensent is a classic Star Wars style rogue, a mix of pirate, rebel, and early Imperial defector, with a charisma that easily wins over reader and co-pilots alike. He’s the type of lovable bastard whose true intentions are often hard to read and frequently underhanded but nonetheless is capable of incredible moments of humanity and empathy for others.

Wyl Lark and Chass na Chadic hail from two formerly paired squadrons, whose long, tortured final mission takes up a large portion of the first act of the novel. Lark becomes Alphabet Squadron’s heart, bringing a boyish sense of naiveté but also empathy to his fellow pilots. Smartly, Freed knows how to show the dangers of this though and demonstrates how Lark’s inherent good nature sometimes leads to personal danger and overstepping his bounds in the care of his teammates. It avoids cynicism while also teaching the value in trusting the independence of others. In particular, this is demonstrated with Wyl’s relationship Chass na Chadic, the music blasting Theelin pilot, who joins Alphabet Squadron alongside him. Given their shared trauma and different manners of coping, Freed frames the frayed relationship between these two particular characters as a central arc of the book and it works well, especially given how well drawn both characters prove to be.

And Kairos? Kairos is the resident, silent badass. Cloaked in rags, armor, masks, and mystery, Kairos remains the closest to an enigma at the novel’s conclusion. What little we learn of her hints at a past filled with trauma and strife which not only comes about in cold mystery but short bursts of intense violence. She feels not unlike the fan favorite animated bounty hunter, Embo, with a dash of Wolverine-esque tragic past. It makes her brief moments where she opens up to the other members of Alphabet Squadron linger for pages afterward.

Even supporting cast members spark with their own sense of personality and life. Caern Adan tows the line between grandstating jackass and pragmatic foreward thinker in a way that makes him feel realistic if not empathetic. Chass and Wyl’s former squadmates before joining Alphabet Squadron shine through with individual quirks and personalities and their presence becomes particularly haunting and painful despite their relatively little time on the page. Even Adan’s mechanical assistant, an Imperial Torture Droid turned team therapist, is a standout with an unexpectedly endearing sense for emotional sensitivity.

Fans of Star Wars Rebels are also sure to enjoy Hera Syndulla’s meatier than expected role here. Freed paints a picture of a war weary Hera that is driven by duty and longs for the days of Ghost family. Her maternal caring for those under her command shines through and her moments of guidance to the Alphabet Squadron team rank as some of the most emotionally affecting beats of the novel as a whole. Those hoping to see Jason Syndulla or some of the other members of the Rebels may be disappointed, but any fan of the Spectre Two is sure to get a lot out of this book.

Freed also succeeds in bringing these characters into action. While his prose while the characters are grounded is often dense with detail and minutiae, Freed somehow finds an incredible balance when his characters step into the cockpit and begin fighting off TIE Fighters. Dogfights feel energetic and kinetic and Freed manages to block these with a sense of action and pacing that feels clear and exciting. Alphabet Squadron even gets creative in just how a squadron of five different types of ship would function and the resulting set pieces feel both imaginative and surprisingly practical. Given the strong work done to fleshing out these characters and their chaotic world in the quiet moments, it gives the beats where blaster bolts are flying and starships are exploding an extra oomph of tension and emotion.

It may not be immaculate, but Alphabet Squadron is a truly engrossing and affecting read. Between Freed’s incredible sense of setting to his well-drawn characters, it’s hard to find a more satisfying book in the current Star Wars canon and the wait for the next installment of this series in 2020 feels like an eternity away. The sequels may be ending this winter with The Rise of Skywalker, but the next great Star Wars trilogy may have already just started.

Score: A-

[reactingtosomething]

Kris Reacts to The Defenders (cont’d)

"For Whatever It’s Worth, I’m Glad You’re Here.”

Find my off-the-cuff mini-Reactions to the first five episodes of The Defenders here. A full-sized Reaction with some others may be forthcoming later in the week. SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP for the rest of the season. Some non-spoilery, mostly Daredevil-related thoughts first.

I feel even more strongly than before that to get very much out of The Defenders, you really should watch both seasons of Daredevil. There are for sure lots of quality Jessica-Luke moments, don’t get me wrong, and in the unlikely event that your favorite Defender show is Iron Fist, Colleen Wing gets a surprising amount to do. But the most important non-Defender characters, including significant villains, are from Daredevil’s supporting cast.

I love Matt Murdock (although not as much as Caroline loves Matt Murdock), but he has got to stop referring to New York (or is it just Hell’s Kitchen, or Manhattan? I’ve never been sure) as “my city.” Especially when Daredevil never really gave us a sense of what either the Kitchen in particular or NYC in general means to him. In fact, I’d love a moratorium on all superheroes referring to “My City,” especially if we rarely see them interacting with the people and places of “their” cities in meaningful, specific civilian capacities. The bar here is set by Luke Cage, which in two episodes does more to flesh out Harlem than the entirety of either Daredevil or Jessica Jones (which are otherwise the best entries in the Defenders series) did for Hell’s Kitchen.

The Defenders shares a composer, John Paesano, with Daredevil. This is not surprising, as these shows also share showrunners, Douglas Petrie and Marco Ramirez (who were producer-writers under Drew Goddard and later Steven DeKnight in Daredevil s1). What is surprising is how much I like the music in these shows. It’s pretty melody-light, and vaguely “atmospheric,” and there’s a lot of repetitive percussion, which all taken together is generally a style that annoys me. But what usually annoys me about that style is that it’s intended to blend into the background, to not really be noticed at all. And Paesano’s music, while it isn’t always super prominent in the sound mix or anything, uses simple but still hummable leitmotifs that -- even if in your experience their overall impression is to blend in -- can be recognized as very Of This Show. In other words, unlike many movies that have melody-light or even effectively melody-less scores, often with aggressive percussion, things scored by Paesano actually have musical identities (including Mass Effect: Andromeda, whose musical identity is probably the second-best thing about it, after combat).

Take the first music we hear in season 2 of Daredevil, “The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen”:

At first this seems like it’s just gonna be generic chasing-and-punching music, from literally any post-Bourne action franchise, but around 1:14, the ostinato that’s the backbone of the title theme kicks in. It’s much faster than in the titles, but instantly recognizable. Even if you don’t consciously recognize it in the moment, you probably feel a distinctly Daredevil vibe. It goes away again for a bit as the action of the scene ends, but returns as we see Matt (relatively) clearly for the first time in the season, a devil perched on a chapel.

This music from the climactic fight of the s2 finale, “They Have Nothing Now,” is another good example, riffing on both the ostinato and the main melody that starts about 18 seconds into the title theme.

Contrast this with the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, which do have a melodic instrumental theme, but which you almost certainly don’t associate with the movies or the characters. Partly this is because it’s just OK, but mostly it’s because what anyone remembers about those soundtracks are the needle drops of the Awesome Mixes. Don’t get me wrong, the Awesome Mixes are cool and all. But they also consist of music that most people would not specifically or exclusively associate with Guardians. Weirdly, the same composer worked on Atomic Blonde, which takes a similar approach to its music. This always seems to me like a missed opportunity. It’s like your movie or your show is somehow incomplete. What is Star Wars without John Williams? Or Batman: The Animated Series without Shirley Walker, 30 Rock without Jeff Richmond, Battlestar Galactica without Bear McCreary, Game of Thrones without Ramin Djawadi? What is Wonder Woman’s No Man’s Land without “No Man’s Land”? 

Anyway, all this to say that I’m a weirdo who REALLY LOVES A LOT that when a character briefly plays an instrument late in The Defenders, what they play is the show’s simple, vaguely Danny Elfman-esque title theme, rather than some overused classical piece.

Moving on... spoilers below!

There’s a lot about The Defenders that doesn’t work, and we’ll get to some of it. But unexpectedly, what’s stuck with me -- perhaps its single greatest achievement -- is that after the shitshow of his solo series, it renders Danny Rand pretty likable. Or at least, much easier to empathize with, much more often, than in Iron Fist.

In episode 6 when he’s tied up and Luke is babysitting, Luke (sarcastically) asks him to recount again the story of how he earned the Iron Fist by punching a dragon in the heart. Danny has a very bad sarcasm radar, and complies, and Luke has to remind him that he doesn’t give a shit or even really believe him (EVEN AFTER ALL THE WEIRD SHIT THAT’S HAPPENED). And Danny gives this sigh that back in Iron Fist I probably would’ve found petulant and childish. It does still feel, for lack of a better word, very young here. But I also found myself honestly feeling bad for the guy. He’s trying so hard, and in episode 4 he was the only one who (this is crucial) like the audience was rooting for the team to be a team, yet everyone keeps treating him like an annoying little sibling. Also, he’s telling the truth, he’s been telling the truth since he got back to New York (admittedly in the least persuasive ways possible at the start of Iron Fist), and since he got back to New York almost no one has believed him. And finally there comes the one guy in The Defenders who doesn’t have to believe Danny because he knows that Danny’s telling the truth: Stick. But then Stick is the one who wants to take Danny off the board at the top of episode 6, pulling the rug out from under him just when it seemed he had an all-in ally and even a potential mentor (something he realized he still needed very badly late in Iron Fist). This can’t be a fun place.

So that sigh actually carried some decent emotional weight for me. All the more because Luke immediately realized he’d genuinely hurt Danny’s feelings, and not just “get over yourself, you privileged white boy” feelings but “this is a central part of his identity that I’m mocking mercilessly” feelings.

Now, to be clear, Danny is an annoying little sibling. But Iron Fist never really recognized this, because it wanted Danny to be an imposing, menacing badass when what it needed him to be -- what The Defenders makes him -- is sweetly goofy and eager-to-please, a puppy who just happens to also be a trained killing machine. Danny’s the kind of guy that the cast of Leverage would call “adorable” with equal parts condescension and fondness, the kind of guy about whom you might say “bless his heart” and actually kind of mean it.

It should surprise no one who knows me well that despite all of the above, I Extremely Approve of Elektra pretty easily outclassing Danny in their fight at the end of episode 7, Iron Fist or no Iron Fist. 

But as Caroline mentions in her thoughts on her Patreon (and as she discussed in her Daredevil s2 reviews), it’s never super clear what it means for Elektra to be “the Black Sky.” For that matter it’s still unclear (though more deliberately) what the full potential extent of Danny’s Iron Fist powers is. And I think The Defenders could’ve gotten a lot more mileage out of parallels between Danny and Elektra as “living weapons.”

In general I’d hoped, perhaps foolishly, for a lot more from Elektra than we got. I didn’t have any problems with the acting, to be clear; I’m basically in love with Elodie Yung, entirely on the strength of her absurdly charismatic performance in Daredevil. But because Elektra doesn’t come back to life with her memories, Yung has to spend most of The Defenders keeping that charisma locked away, until a Plot Twist (Elektra killing Alexandra!) that I’m not convinced entirely works. I went along with it wholeheartedly anyway because it meant Yung got to unleash her full powers again. Or it would’ve been her full powers, if there’d been a lot more time to flesh out exactly what and who Elektra 3.0 is. 

We get a complete-ish answer by the end of the show, when it becomes clear that Elektra not only has her memories of Matt back but is still in love with him. But this is a character whose main challenge in her first life was that she was never permitted to figure out for herself what she wanted to do with that life, and “hijack the Hand’s plan to return to K’un Lun, and more importantly become immortal” -- though immortality certainly makes sense as a thing Elektra would want -- doesn’t come close to concretely addressing the ultimately relatable existential crisis (what is my place in the world?) that she faced in Daredevil. 

Sigourney Weaver is able to sell a desire for immortality as Alexandra Reid’s overriding concern because we meet her getting a (vaguely defined) terminal disease diagnosis, and because we spend a lot of time with Alexandra dwelling on her physical fragility and on her concerns about legacy. Yung’s Elektra doesn’t have that way in, and the writers don’t have the time or space in the last act of the season to do more than gesture broadly at Elektra’s desire to finally decide her own destiny. I think the reason this doesn’t land as well as it ought to is that it’s framed as a Villain Monologue, delivered to Danny, a character with whom she doesn’t have history. She doesn’t have this conversation with Stick (she just stabs him), and worse, she doesn’t really have it with Matt outside the chaos of a fight scene, though at least they get that last (?) kiss.

There’s a lot of lazy dialogue in The Defenders, especially in the finale, though thankfully these actors for whom we have a lot of banked affection just about pull it off. The last line of the cold open -- Luke’s “let’s go do something crazy” -- is... just kind of there? Which is a weird choice for the first big punctuation mark in the climactic chapter of this crossover event. He could’ve said that at basically any other point of the show; this should have been a line he could only say at this moment. 

Trish’s “Jess is a good friend speech” to Karen is not great. It’s not awful, either, but it’s not all that specific: Jess doesn’t do any of the things most of us in the real world ask our friends to do, “but when it comes to the real stuff, the stuff that’ll last forever...” What is that stuff? That Trish is interrupted by Malcolm and Foggy with some Bad News feels a little like the writers just didn’t know how to finish that sentence. How exactly are Matt and Jessica good friends? Yeah yeah yeah, they save your life, cool, standard superhero. But what’s the last time Matt in particular was 100 percent emotionally there for you? I do remember Jess and Trish’s friendship being my favorite part of Jessica Jones, but it’s been almost two years and some details would’ve been nice. 

Actively bad is the exchange that ends this scene: “That was the epicenter.” “Of what?” “Everything.” That’s just -- come on. That’s nowhere near as profound as it seems to want to be. That Midland was the epicenter of the earthquake is PLENTY to convey to the others that “ohhhhh that WASN’T a natural earthquake and shit’s about to go down.” In the abstract, “EVERYTHING” may sound more important than “the earthquake.” But the latter was a major inciting incident of The Defenders, and because none of these characters actually knows all of the other pieces the Defenders themselves are concerned with, the specificity of the earthquake is what should have been prized.

(In general, though, I did love that Karen and Trish got a scene together.) 

Luckily the best lines -- or at least, the best line readings -- of the episode come in the scene immediately afterward:

JESS: If you’d told me a week ago that I’d be here, with you two, about to blow up some building and fight ninjas to save New York... LUKE: (sigh) MATT: (chuckle) For whatever it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here. JESS: What? MATT: No, circumstances could be better, I’m just saying, you know -- I’m glad we found each other. LUKE: I’m not hugging you. MATT: (resigned sigh) JESS: You guys ready or what? LUKE: No. MATT: ...No. JESS: Sounds about right.

The sheer endearing-ness and tonal perfection of this moment is hard to convey in writing. Charlie Cox’s delivery of Matt’s “No” in particular is just terrifically world-weary. The other thing I need to say about this scene is that I identify a weird amount with Matt’s series-long resistance to the team culminating in a belated moment of emotional openness, only for him to be met with the realization that the emotional availability of others doesn’t work on his schedule. 

It’s possible I’m reading way too much into this. After all, I also identify with Luke’s resistance to hugging it out.

(My favorite dialogue in the show is probably still the “Are those pork?”-through-“God, you’re weird” exchange of episode 4.)

Another dialogue thing that stood out to me in the finale was the repeated trope of The Moment I Saw You.

Elektra, to Matt: “We’re together. Something I’ve wanted since I first laid eyes on you.”

Claire, to Foggy, about Matt: “But there was no talking him down. He had his mind made up the day I met him.”

This isn’t remotely unique to The Defenders, but it is a trope I tend to find annoying. I don’t think I believe in love at first sight, is probably part of my problem here, and I guess I get it if your mileage varies on that particular account. But it also feels lazy that it happens twice in a relatively narrow span of time, and about the same character, no less. Arguably more importantly, this is -- I know I lean on variations of this word a lot -- such an unspecific thing to say, in a show that had SO MUCH specificity at its disposal in the solo series. Why “since I first laid eyes on you” rather than a callback to something Matt said that night, or to their Sexy Sparring Session? Why “the day I met him” rather than a reference to Claire stitching Matt back together, or finding Matt in a literal dumpster?

(I liked that Claire and Foggy got an ��our mutual friend” scene, but as others have said, it’s super weird that Claire and Matt never had a moment.)

There’s probably also something to say here about destiny and purpose, which ties into Elektra and Danny, and into the formation of the team itself, but again the show didn’t really make the time for that. I'm absolutely not suggesting that they needed 13 episodes -- I just don’t think they really managed their time well -- but with so many characters to serve, maybe 10 would’ve been interesting? To give Elektra a more robust arc post-Alexandra, if nothing else?

(About Alexandra -- I read some reviews to the effect that Sigourney Weaver held the first few episodes of The Defenders together through sheer force of will and Sigourney Weaver-ness, but I did not feel that way at all. I mean I thought she was very good, but the writing mostly wasn’t deep or clever enough for her to take the character of Alex anywhere near the level of Cottonmouth or Kilgrave or Wilson Fisk, and I think this “Sigourney Weaver is the best thing about The Defenders” take was mostly wishful projection on the part of people who know her corpus much better than I do. I’ve seen Alien but not Aliens; #sorrynotsorry.)

I did love that both in the premiere and the finale, Luke got to call back to Pop’s “Forward” mantra, without repeating the full “Forward always, always forward.” It was a nice way to show that Pop’s philosophy is thoroughly a part of him now, and that -- unlike Jessica, the person he’s with for the second callback -- he’s really deliberately thinking about his future.

I also liked, or wanted to like, that Jessica said maybe they could get coffee, but I wasn’t entirely sure what was intended by this. See, in Luke Cage, “coffee” turns out to be a euphemism Luke uses for sex, or at least a one-night stand.  But he’s with Claire now, which may be a reason he doesn’t deliver the established winking response from his own show: “I don’t drink coffee.” (Misty said it to him back then; he replied, “Neither do I.” I don’t think Luke not drinking coffee was a thing in Jessica Jones, and even if it was, it would totally be in character for Jess not to remember.) Apart from the lack of a callback response, my uncertainty comes from “we should get coffee” almost inevitably meaning, in my experience, “we are definitely not going to make the effort to get coffee,” even if we’re both totally sincere about wanting to catch up, which seems like a relatable social phenomenon Jess would snark about. 

To backtrack a bit -- that big fight scene in episode 7, against Gao and Bakuto and Murakami? It was... not shot well. Way too claustrophobic, and at least by the high standards of Daredevil, way too choppily edited. Most of the fights in The Defenders were underwhelming -- really missed Philip Silvera’s work -- but that one in particular stood out as a mess. (Caroline remarked that it’s a shame the fighting styles of the team aren’t better differentiated, at least in the show’s latter half; this is particularly true for Matt and Danny. It’s interesting that although Finn Jones is overall much better at the action here than he was in Iron Fist, the fights in The Defenders do lose a fair bit of the wushu character that previously distinguished his hand techniques, at least, from Matt’s.)

Anyway, I could probably say more -- I’m particularly sorry I haven’t done justice to the Jessica-Luke dynamic, or to the Daughters of the Dragon -- but I’ve lost most semblance of a train of thought here, so I’ll stop. I do recommend checking out all of Caroline's Random Thoughts, and, as always, the episode reviews over at The AV Club. (As of this writing the AVC is currently on episode 5.)

Though I did want a lot more from The Defenders in a lot of ways, as with the pretty strange and uneven Age of Ultron it was still a lot of fun to spend time with these characters, both alone and together. This was very much a show that did not manage to be more than the sum of its parts, but at least many of those parts were very pleasant. And frankly, I’m glad the run of episodes 6 through 8 was the last thing I watched this weekend, rather than the trainwreck (Tormund banter, zombie burning, and Dany’s winter wardrobe notwithstanding) that was this season’s penultimate episode of Game of Thrones.

I’m also cautiously optimistic about the possibility of a Luke Cage-Iron Fist team-up show, and to a lesser extent even -- I can’t believe I’m gonna say this -- the next solo season of Iron Fist (which will have a new showrunner -- Scott Buck is helming Inhumans, something about which I have strong feelings that we just can’t get into right now -- and add Simone Missick’s Misty Knight to its roster). If that’s not an endorsement, I don’t know what is.

[justplainsalty]

first time watching Battlestar Galactica: unexpectedly this isn't the scifi trash the title suggested but a show with a revolutionary style, articulate realism and searing dialogue and the most stellar cast in history; it uses a truly fantastical premise to highlight a dark, yet idealistic truth about our most basic human nature

second time: wow this truly is the perfect simulation of a genderblind society that still has to deal with classism and racial issues whilst combating complete moral bankrupcy in the face of extinction

third time: every time i watch this show i discover new nuances and still enjoy the stories

fourth time: gaius baltar toilet jokes

[itsfinancethings]

October 28, 2019 at 09:15AM

We don’t exactly need more television in the year 2019, but we sure are getting it. When it launches on Friday, Nov. 1, Apple TV+ will kick off a new generation of streaming services that includes Disney+, debuting on Nov. 12, and HBO Max, which is slated to arrive next year. And while the tech giant’s initial lineup of originals can’t compete with the vast content libraries of its competitors, there is some good stuff in the mix. To help you decide whether to plunk down $4.99 a month for Apple TV+, I screened all of the new series provided for advance review. (Oprah’s Book Club and a handful of children’s programs also set to premiere Nov. 1 were not sent to critics.) Here’s a breakdown of what to watch, what to skip and everything in between.

What to Watch

The Morning Show

Is the flagship show from Apple TV+ everything a drama à clef about morning television in the #MeToo era should be? Probably not. The intersection of feminism, fame and media deserves more depth—and more boldness—than early episodes of The Morning Show provide. Still, it’s pretty enjoyable to watch Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carell play versions of the sanitized personalities with whom so many of us start our days. A supporting cast that includes Mark Duplass, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and The Diary of a Teenage Girl star Bel Powley is just as strong. Add in solid dialogue, quick pacing and decent production values, and the result is addictive, if not quite revelatory, viewing. (For more on The Morning Show, read my full review.)

The Elephant Queen

A hit at film festivals earlier this year, this nature doc from Victoria Stone and Mark Deeble follows a family of African elephants—led by 50-year-old matriarch Athena—as they trudge from one watering hole to the next, in search of hydration, sustenance and relief from the oppressive heat. The filmmakers get astonishing, often adorable, footage of the pachyderms trekking, playing and caring for one another. And Chiwetel Ejiofor provides gentle narration, introducing many animals who round out the elephants’ ecosystem, from the frogs and turtles who make homes in their wading pools to the dung beetles who… well, you can imagine. One note of caution: Though The Elephant Queen is a family film, and it never devolves into a total downer, Athena’s clan eventually weathers a drought. Stone and Deeble don’t turn away from the tragedies that follow, in what might be a tough watch for very young viewers.

What to Try

For All Mankind

“Red Moon.” That’s the newspaper headline on June 27, 1969 in the America of this solidly constructed alternate-history drama, which games out how the 20th century might’ve gone if the Soviets had beaten the United States to the moon. As a prolonged space race unfolds, creator Ronald D. Moore (the cult TV maker behind Battlestar Galactica and Outlander) imagines a demoralized NASA, where The Killing star Joel Kinnaman’s disgruntled astronaut Edward Baldwin sabotages his own career with a drunken rant to a reporter about the cowardice of the organization’s leaders. Meanwhile, in a subplot that’s sweet and timely but feels tacked on, a Mexican girl crosses the border with outer space on her mind. If you’re intrigued by that premise—and neither exhausted by ‘60s period pieces where brilliant, flawed men brood as brilliant, perfect women endure retro sexism, nor put off by frequent scenes of mission control guys frantically mashing buttons—For All Mankind is going to be your show. If not, there’s little else to see here.

Dickinson

There are straight-faced alternate histories, and then there’s this bonkers show, which poses the question: What if Emily Dickinson, but too much? In an unexpectedly excellent casting choice, Hailee Steinfeld plays the poet as a mercurial, mischievous, proto-goth teen (think Aubrey Plaza with a sugar high) who’s desperate to escape the domestic sphere. Obstacles to her liberation include a mother who’s obsessed with housework (Jane Krakowski in “zany Jenna Maroney project” mode), a fond but sexist dad (Toby Huss) and a brother (Adrian Enscoe) who insists on marrying Emily’s best friend and secret lover (Ella Hunt). Episodes inspired by poems juxtapose 19th-century visuals with contemporary-ish language, pop music and such YA archetypes as mean girls (and an inexplicable gay Japanese teen whose depiction made me cringe). The Dickinson kids throw an opium-fueled rager, grinding to rap in floor-length gowns. Emily escapes her home, one night, to snuggle with the personification of Death—played by an extremely high-looking Wiz Khalifa—in a carriage pulled by ghost horses.

The show is kind of a mess, veering between empathetic depictions of its hero’s struggles against the social norms of her time and slapstick humor that recalls Comedy Central’s costume-drama parody Another Period. Yet it’s never boring. And to the extent that it represents Apple’s bravery in taking on a strange project from a first-time creator, Alena Smith, Dickinson may be the most promising show to come out of the service’s initial lineup.

What to Skip

See

As TV execs scramble to find the next Game of Thrones, you can’t blame a new platform for throwing money at a big, silly genre show. But, at a reported cost of $15 million per episode, See is both bigger and sillier than most of its competition. Starring Khal Drogo himself, Jason Momoa, the sci-fi/fantasy hybrid takes place hundreds of years after a 21st-century virus wiped out all but 2 million humans, leaving those survivors—and, for some reason, all future generations—blind. Society has long since reorganized itself around sightlessness, a process that apparently entailed regressing into primitive, superstitious, warring tribes. Momoa’s Baba Voss is, unsurprisingly, a distinguished warrior with a heart of gold, who’s raising twin babies fathered by his new mate’s old lover as his own. The twist is that the kids and their biological dad, a guy who happens to be the object of a cruel charlatan queen’s (Sylvia Hoeks) obsession, can see.

It isn’t a hopeless setup, though the idea that universal blindness would bring out the worst in humanity for centuries to come may verge on ableism. Yet the execution, particularly in scripts by Steven Knight (of January’s box-office bomb Serenity), is an unmitigated disaster. Speaking with that grand, stagey inflection I think of as Fantasy Voice, characters say things like: “I feel savage intent in the air.” Sex scenes, including what may well be the most awkward masturbation sequence in the history of television, are uniformly creepy. The plot has more holes than a sieve. Aside from Momoa doing what he does best—fighting, grunting, snuggling—Alfre Woodard gives the only memorable performance. Costumes look recycled from a dozen medieval or post-apocalyptic movies, though the queen could be an Anthropologie model. Director Francis Lawrence (who helmed the final three Hunger Games movies) gets in some lovely nature shots, but the massive amount of screentime devoted to combat and foot travel can be mind numbing. Not to put too fine a point on it, See is one of the worst TV series I’ve seen in years.

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: Dragon Awards, Conan and the Living Plague, Atari, Farmer in the Sky, Obscure RPG

Conventions (PulpFest): PulpFest has become a top venue for writers and publishers to roll out their newest titles. Following are some of the books that will be premiering at our 2019 convention . . .

Age of Aces Books is a publisher of pulp fiction treasures with a keen eye for design. At this year’s PulpFest, Chris and David Kalb will be releasing two thrilling collections from the tattered pages of the air war pulps.

  Pulp Fiction (DMR Books): The sixth installment in the serialized version of Tros of Samothrace is titled “The Dancing Girl of Gades” and consists of what would become chapters 67 – 81 of the novel published in 1934. Set in the late spring of the year 54 B.C., this story tells of the aftermath of Julius Caesar’s first invasion of Britain and was first published in the December 10th 1925 issue of Adventure magazine.

  Awards (Larry Correia): One awesome thing about the Dragon Awards is that they are an actual popularity contest for all of fandom. They want authors to spread the word and get their fans excited. DragonCon wants as many fans as possible involved and participating. So please tell your friends. They aren’t an elitist clique, and one look at this list of nominees demonstrates that they are actually inclusive, with big names, new names, large publishing houses, small houses, indy, and everything in between.

    Conan (Rough Edges): John C. Hocking is the author of CONAN AND THE EMERALD LOTUS, a novel which is widely regarded as the best of the Conan pastiches published by Tor in the Eighties and Nineties. I finally got around to reading it several years ago and agree that it’s easily the best of those pastiches. Hocking wrote a sequel to that book called CONAN AND THE LIVING PLAGUE, but unfortunately, Tor cancelled the Conan pastiche program and Hocking’s second novel was left languishing in limbo.

      Fiction (DMR Books): Coming hot on the heels of the action-packed sword and sorcery anthology Death Dealers & Diabolists is its companion volume, Warlords, Warlocks & Witches. Like its predecessor, WW&W contains eight tales of magic and mayhem.

            Fiction (Peter Grant): A year or so ago, I was pondering the idea of writing another fantasy novel. I mulled over several potential scenarios, plots, and so on, but couldn’t find one that really caught my imagination. Then, one night, I woke up unexpectedly in the small hours of the morning, thinking, “What would the Middle East have been like if Mohammed had never lived, and Islam had never arisen?”

  Culture Wars (Jon del Arroz): Over the weekend, I was pronounced banned from SFWA, an act which is both a heavy blow to me as a professional writer trying to make a name for myself, and an atrocious act as standards are applied to me, a Hispanic author, which are not applied to many of their white members.

  Edgar Rice Burroughs (Recoverings): In September, after Bandit came out, McClurg forwarded Ed a letter from the prestigious agricultural magazine The Country Gentleman,owned by Curtis Publishing Company. Curtis had Ladies Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post,magazines firmly in the “slick” category of the newsstand. Ed had long hoped to make a sale in that market, a lot more lucrative than the pulps. This could be his chance.

  Robert Heinlein (Tip the Wink): This, the fourth of Heinlein’s YA (juvenile) novels, is about a teenaged boy and his family who emigrates to Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, which is in the process of being terraformed. A condensed version of the novel was published in serial form in Boys’ Lifemagazine (August, September, October, November 1950), under the title “Satellite Scout”. The novel was awarded a Retro Hugo in 2001.

      Art (Don Herron): Gallery of Paul Stahr art.

          Comic Books (Paint the Monk): When confronted with adapting this to comics, Thomas chose to expand the story, developing the background characters and bringing the crew of the Tigress to life. It was an ambitious move, made all the more real by John Buscema and Ernie Chan’s dynamic illustrations.

      Pulp Fiction (M Porcius): One of the first hardcover SF books, a volume printed before the Campbellian revolution and the publication of the first SF stories by Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and A. E. van Vogt in 1939, was the 1936 Edmond Hamilton collection The Horror on the Asteroid.  The Horror on the Asteroid contains six stories first published in Weird Tales, Wonder Stories, and Astounding.

        Gaming (Future War Stories): A few days ago, a video popped up on my YouTube feed concerning the failed 8-bit ATARI 7800 and a connection between it and a well-known military sci-fi franchise: Battlestar Galactica. While there are other 8-bit system are far more worshiped and discussed than the failed and forgotten 7800 system in the retrogaming community, it was important to me. That is because I was one of those kids that got a ATARI 7800 over the beloved Nintendo Entertainment System…yeah…that was a good decision by the 10 year old me. For those who do not know, the ATARI 7800 Prosystem was the iconic ATARI company’s second-to-last great attempt at recapturing the home video market back in 1983 when the “ATARI 3800” project was undertaken.

  RPG (Swords and Stitchery): Conan always seems to get more attention then Kull in my humble opinion but Kull has a charm all his own in the annals of Sword and Sorcery. There is lots to use including the best depictions of the serpent men outside of their mention in Lovecraft. Then there is the entire depiction of Kull’s Atlantis and all of its environs.

  RPG (Goblin Stomper): he idea, I think, is that the RPG is ultimately about the long game.  Even rolling back to the early days of Basic & Expert, the goal of the player was to keep the character alive for as long as possible.  For many DM’s, new and old, it’s tough to keep a game on track in order to fulfill this desire.  With character death hanging over the party like a never-ending storm cloud, getting the player character to the next adventure was (and is) key.

  Cinema (Brain Leakage): The film opens on a desert vista, with a rough-looking group of wanderers approaching a small town. These wanderers are Juggers, players of a savage sport known only as The Game. At their head is veteran player Sallow (Hauer).

Excitement in the village mounts at the strangers’ arrival. The local team of Juggers quickly assembles, prepared to play off against the newcomers. The rest of the villagers gather to watch. Among the observers is Kidda (Joan Chen), a talented and eager young player who apparently serves as part of her home team’s second string.

  RPG (RPG Confessions): As a first generation gamer, I didn’t know how good I had it. Especially since I didn’t have ready access to Lake Geneva, WI, or GenCon, or even the means to do that if I were so inclined. Later, in my late teens, I finally went to a convention by just, you know, going. But in the early 1980s, there wasn’t a map for me to follow. There were two areas of the gaming world; over there, where all of the good stuff was happening; and right here, in Abilene, Texas, which was the middle of By God Nowhere.

  RPG/Culture Wars (Breitbart.com): A professor of education at Stanford University argues in a recent academic journal article that the tabletop game Dungeons & Dragons perpetuates white privilege.

Standford University Professor Antero Garcia argues in an academic journal article that the popular game Dungeons and Dragons perpetuates systems of privilege.

  Sensor Sweep: Dragon Awards, Conan and the Living Plague, Atari, Farmer in the Sky, Obscure RPG published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[emetophobiahelp]

Battlestar Galactica (2004 Remake)

Prequel mini-series is safe.

Occasionally characters have small amounts of blood drip from their mouths due to injury.

There is a character with cancer who occasionally looks unwell, as well as characters experiencing shock/trauma who look unwell. No audio/visual v* scenes result from those instances that I noticed unless otherwise recorded below. I’ve taken note of quite a few scenes that could be mildly triggering, even if there isn’t actually a v* scene, but I’m sure I haven’t caught everything because triggers are different for everyone. If anyone has issues with needles, there are several instances of people self-injecting medication.

 S01E03 No v*. Walking through the empty city, Sharon sees some rats (it is implied that there is a dead body off-screen) and covers her mouth, looks unwell, and makes a few gasping-type noises.

S01E08: No v*. Torture scene involving dunking someone in water. They cough/splutter a bit several times when they come up out of the water.

S01E10: (TW: possible trigger word) Sharon v*s in the scene after she climbs up into the hayloft. You see her look unwell for about 20 seconds, then cover her mouth and run, but there is no visual when she actually v*s. Audio includes one short realistic v* sound, and one other quiet sound after that sounds like a dry heave.  

S01E12: No v*. Someone says “hold on to your lunch” before the raptor ships jump.

S01E13: No v*. Some coughing in the first scene after a crash landing.

S02E01: A mention: “p*ing your guts out.” Also coughing/gasping sounds from someone struggling to breathe due to injuries.

S02E02: No v*. Someone opens a refrigerator door with old food inside and covers their nose and mouth.

S02E12: No v*. A coughing sound happens unexpectedly after two prisoners are beaten.

S02E13: No v*. A critically ill patient is seen in a hospital bed looking unwell off and on throughout the episode, and she has a seizure.

S02E15: at approx. 22:30 a pilot gets out of his ship and starts climbing down the steps and v*s, full visual and audio, lasts less than 10 seconds. It happens without much warning right after the scene with the close up on Lee listening to the pilot’s coms when it cuts to the scene where the ships have returned to the bay. This episode also has several scenes with drinking: one where a character is very drunk, and one where she spits her drink out, but neither have any v*.

S02E18: No v* - a cylon coughs while being reborn.

S02E20: No v* - After Kara says, “You seen Sam?” it cuts to Sam doubled over coughing. He coughs several times throughout the episode.

S03E01: Just a mention: “makes me wanna p*.”

S03E4: in two different scenes, men cough/g* after having a cloth pulled out of their mouths, but they do not v*.

S03E5: When Dr. Baltar enters the infected cylon base ship, there are multiple cylons lying/sitting inside who have been infected with a disease and appear s*. One cylon sitting on the floor leans over and v*s (without much warning) – full audio (somewhat mild) and visual. It is over quickly but is quite realistic. There are a few other coughing and gasping sounds from other cylons. Dr. Baltar gets in a heated conversation with one of the dying cylons, and I found it stressful because she looked like she could v* but she doesn’t. This whole scene could be anxiety-provoking in general due to so many people looking unwell.

S03E06: A lot of the scenes deal with with either the cylon disease, or torture. Many people look unwell, but I didn’t notice any v* events.

S03E07: more scenes involving mentions of the cylon disease, and you see at least one cylon who is infected, but not as prevalent as in past episodes, and no v*.

S03E08: The Admiral spits blood from his mouth during a boxing match.

S03E09: Sharon is exposed to radiation and looks unwell. Mentions of radiation causing n*. Just before the 20 minute mark, pilots return from taking trips through radiation and look unwell—one of the pilots leans over and v*s multiple times, audio and visual. In the meeting of the pilots that follows, many of them look s* and like the are on the verge of v*.

S03E11: Sharon coughs after being downloaded. Kara makes facial expressions due to pain from her injuries and it looks like she might v*, but she doesn’t.

S03E12: A group of Saggitaron refugees board Galactica, and many of them are s* with a disease. I didn’t notice any v* but there is coughing and fainting. Saul spits out blood after being punched.

S03E22: A bit before the 38 minute mark, several people are hearing music and looking disoriented, and it cuts to Tory who looks confused and unwell. She runs to the toilet and v*s once, and you hear the audio (realistic, short, relatively quiet.) The only visual I noticed was seeing the back of her head over the toilet. When she moves, you can see inside the toilet, but I didn’t notice any obvious visual that I could see inside it.

S04E01: a child has an illness. No v*

S04E02: when someone is shot you can see blood in their mouth as they fall.

S04E03: Callie v*s unexpectedly. She wakes up in the night and takes the baby with her, then finds the chief talking/drinking with someone. As she storms toward him, she suddenly v*s a couple of times. There is audio. The visual is obscured: you can see her mouth as it starts to happen, and see her lean over and collapse to the ground, but the way the shots are framed keeps you from actually seeing the v*. I didn’t anticipate this scene coming. In another scene, the doc tells someone “the n* should go away in about an hour.”

S04E04: Gaius is hit in the face and has blood pour out of his mouth.

S04E05: Leoben spits out blood.

S04E06: A woman in a hospital bed, Emily, coughs and gasps very suddenly and violently while talking to Laura. Several characters appear unwell.

S04E11: Kara lifts the helmet of a long-dead pilot to see who it was, and then covers her mouth and looks like she’s going to v* for a few seconds, but she doesn’t.

S04E14: Gaius says “I feel s*” but nothing happens.

S04E20: (Part 2/3 of finale) Around 8.5 minutes in there’s one v* scene. Right after Kara and Lee put Lee’s drunk brother on the couch, and Kara suggests they do shots, it cuts to a scene where Bill Adama is drunk, and right away he kind of slunks to a sitting position and v*s a couple of times, with quiet-ish audio and full visual. It’s not a long scene, but it’s fairly graphic and realistic-looking, and he continues to have v* on his face/clothes for the rest of the short scene.

[gamingtipsandtrickshacks]

God of War's Full Soundtrack Now Available on Spotify

The eagerly-awaited next chapter of the God of War series is only a week away from release, and now those looking forward to the epic journey will have a small bit of the game to enjoy through its music.

Over on the PlayStation Blog, Sony has announced that the complete soundtrack for God of War is now available to listen to on Spotify, allowing fans at least a small taste of the epic experience that awaits them one week before the game officially launches on PS4.

Composer Bear McCreary (who previously composed for films and TV such as Battlestar Galactica and The Walking Dead) shared a few insights on the making of the music for the game, saying that he was “awestruck” to work on the series’ latest chapter as a fan of the original games.

Specifically, McCreary stated that “it became clear that this new game would require wholly new music that did not revisit the memorable scores of the original games” after speaking to director Cory Barlog, but instead wanted to focus on “new musical territory.” McCreary also stated that of all the tracks he worked on and composed for the game, the one that resonates most with him is “Memories of Mother,” as he sought to create “an unexpectedly beautiful theme for Kratos.”

God of War will release exclusively for PS4 on April 20th, 2018. For more on the game you can read our full review, which earned one of our very, very rare 10.0 scores. In the meantime, you can also pre-order the game on Amazon. To listen to the soundtrack, you can check out the Spotify widget below:

This post contains an affiliate link where DualShockers gets a small commission on sales. Any and all support helps keep DualShockers as a standalone, independent platform for less-mainstream opinions and news coverage.

[gldngrl7]

WIPs on my hard drive (okay, my flash drive)

I have a flash drive full of half-written, mostly finished, or barely fleshed out fanfics that still float around in my head. I can’t focus completely on them because...well...Karamel, but I can’t bring myself to give up on them completely. Here are my favorites (all titles are working title):

Amelia, My Love

Start date: Sometime in 1997

A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Historical romance fusion

Painfully young watcher Nigel, fresh from Oxford, is assigned to tutor 8-year old potential, Amelia, the eldest child of th Duke of Berkham. At sixteen, she leaves, a gangly, awkward child for a two year Grand Tour of the Continent, but returns a beautiful, self confident young woman ready for romance. Unfortunately, she’s unexpectedly Called when the precious Slayer dies. Nigel tries to fight his feelings for his stubborn, fearless charge, but she has no intention of letting him. Complicating matters, five blood sacrifices have flung wide a Hellmouth in London’s White Chapel District. Can she defeat the Vampire Queen so they can live happily ever after?

The Eighth Day:

Start date: January 13, 2007

A Stargate SG-1/West Wing crossover.

S6 of the West Wing left a bad taste in my mouth, particularly as it pertained to my OTP Josh Lyman and Donna Moss. Josh just kept getting more and more dimissive of her and her potential. I played with the idea of giving Donna a better love interest in small fics but she always ended up with Josh. Until I decided to commit. Relating to Donna, the underappreciated Assistant to the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, I championed her and insisted she find a man worthy of her glory. Upon reflection, there was only man I determined was good enough for her: Dr Daniel Jackson.

After a Starbucks meet-cute, Daniel walks Donna to work, where he has a high-level meeting with the President. Immediately smitten with one another they pursue a relationship with the encouragement of CJ cregg and Sam Carter, but despite Josh Lyman’s passive aggressive disapproval.

But is their blossoming love a matter of destiny, or was it engineered by a higher power with an agenda all its own?

Birthright

Starting Date: November 1, 2013

Arrow/Wonder Woman/Spartacus fusion

What if Oliver and Felicity had met before but had no memory??

A little over a year after his shipwreck Oliver is taken from Lian Yu to a hidden island just half a day’s boat right away: Thermiscryra. An island populated by warrior women, where the men are eunachs or breeding stock destined to meet a gruesome end.

Having been found abandoned as a baby, Druscilla has not matriarchal line to speak for her, an accident of birth that leaves her open for mistreatment by the others. Drawn to lost souls they see in each other, Oliver and Dru fall quickly in love, even though it’s forbidden on many levels.

Can their love survive the Rite of Agapitos? A ritual that will wipe their memories and separate them, giving them only two years to find one another again?

Note: this story was started before casting for the movie began. Similarities are conincidental.

Life Here Began Out There

Starting Date: uh...sometime in 2014

Battlestar Galactica/Stargate SG-1/Stargate Atlantis crossover

Post-Alliance

After the Final Five are revealed, the entire fleet seems to fall into a depression leading to a rash of suicides. All hope is lost. Until Ellen Tigh, returned from the dead, presents an intriguing idea. Leave this galaxy for another. Send Centurian scouts to gather intel on potentially habitable planets. With any luck, John Cavill’s Cylons won’t follow, especially now that they no longer have resurrection. They name the dwarf galaxy Elpadra, the Tauron word for hope, but others call it Pegasus....

Smallville

Start date: 2015

Lois and Clark raising their three very different children and trying to keep them from revealing their family secrets to the world. Kindergarten’s a bitch.

[gamingtipsandtrickshacks]

God of War's Full Soundtrack Now Available on Spotify

The eagerly-awaited next chapter of the God of War series is only a week away from release, and now those looking forward to the epic journey will have a small bit of the game to enjoy through its music.

Over on the PlayStation Blog, Sony has announced that the complete soundtrack for God of War is now available to listen to on Spotify, allowing fans at least a small taste of the epic experience that awaits them one week before the game officially launches on PS4.

Composer Bear McCreary (who previously composed for films and TV such as Battlestar Galactica and The Walking Dead) shared a few insights on the making of the music for the game, saying that he was “awestruck” to work on the series’ latest chapter as a fan of the original games.

Specifically, McCreary stated that “it became clear that this new game would require wholly new music that did not revisit the memorable scores of the original games” after speaking to director Cory Barlog, but instead wanted to focus on “new musical territory.” McCreary also stated that of all the tracks he worked on and composed for the game, the one that resonates most with him is “Memories of Mother,” as he sought to create “an unexpectedly beautiful theme for Kratos.”

God of War will release exclusively for PS4 on April 20th, 2018. For more on the game you can read our full review, which earned one of our very, very rare 10.0 scores. In the meantime, you can also pre-order the game on Amazon. To listen to the soundtrack, you can check out the Spotify widget below:

This post contains an affiliate link where DualShockers gets a small commission on sales. Any and all support helps keep DualShockers as a standalone, independent platform for less-mainstream opinions and news coverage.

[gamingtipsandtrickshacks]

God of War's Full Soundtrack Now Available on Spotify

The eagerly-awaited next chapter of the God of War series is only a week away from release, and now those looking forward to the epic journey will have a small bit of the game to enjoy through its music.

Over on the PlayStation Blog, Sony has announced that the complete soundtrack for God of War is now available to listen to on Spotify, allowing fans at least a small taste of the epic experience that awaits them one week before the game officially launches on PS4.

Composer Bear McCreary (who previously composed for films and TV such as Battlestar Galactica and The Walking Dead) shared a few insights on the making of the music for the game, saying that he was “awestruck” to work on the series’ latest chapter as a fan of the original games.

Specifically, McCreary stated that “it became clear that this new game would require wholly new music that did not revisit the memorable scores of the original games” after speaking to director Cory Barlog, but instead wanted to focus on “new musical territory.” McCreary also stated that of all the tracks he worked on and composed for the game, the one that resonates most with him is “Memories of Mother,” as he sought to create “an unexpectedly beautiful theme for Kratos.”

God of War will release exclusively for PS4 on April 20th, 2018. For more on the game you can read our full review, which earned one of our very, very rare 10.0 scores. In the meantime, you can also pre-order the game on Amazon. To listen to the soundtrack, you can check out the Spotify widget below:

This post contains an affiliate link where DualShockers gets a small commission on sales. Any and all support helps keep DualShockers as a standalone, independent platform for less-mainstream opinions and news coverage.