#Iain writes (FINALLY)

[theromanticrationalist]

Shit. SHIT. SHIT!!!!!!

😭

Damn, Iain Armitage is doing a phenomenal job. The level of anxiety and struggle he is conveying in Sheldon's manner at the relentless changes, to being gut-punched at having his father wrenched away out of his life like that.

My heart is breaking at this level of trauma Sheldon is experiencing, and he has nothing to help him process it. All I want to do is wish I could protect him from it! 💔

[scotianostra]

On February 16th 1954 the writer Iain Banks was born in Dunfermline, Fife

Banks was a son of a professional ice skater and an Admiralty officer. He spent his early years in North Queensferry and later moved to Gourock because of his father’s work requirement. He received his early education from Gourock and Greenock High Schools and at the young age of eleven, he decided to pursue a career in writing. He penned his first novel, titled The Hungarian Lift-Jet, in his adolescence. He was then enrolled at the University of Stirling where he studied English, philosophy and psychology. During his freshman year, he wrote his second novel, TTR.

Subsequent to attaining his bachelor degree, Banks worked a succession of jobs that allowed him some free time to write. The assortment of employments supported him financially throughout his twenties. He even managed to travel through Europe, North America and Scandinavia during which he was employed as an analyzer for IBM, a technician and a costing clerk in a London law firm. At the age of thirty he finally had his big break as he published his debut novel, The Wasp Factory, in 1984, henceforth he embraced full-time writing. It is considered to be one of the most inspiring teenage novels. The instant success of the book restored his confidence as a writer and that’s when he took up science fiction writing.

In 1987, he published his first sci-fi novel, Consider Phlebas which is a space opera. The title is inspired by one of the lines in T.S Eliot’s classic poem, The Waste Land. The novel is set in a fictional interstellar anarchist-socialist utopian society, named the Culture. The focus of the book is the ongoing war between Culture and Idiran Empire which the author manifests through the microcosm conflicts. The protagonist, Bora Horza Gobuchul, unlike other stereotypical heroes is portrayed as a morally ambiguous individual, who appeals to the readers. Additionally, the grand scenery and use of variety of literary devices add up to the extremely well reception of the book. Its sequel, The Player of Games, came out the very next year which paved way for other seven volumes in The Culture series.

Besides the Culture series, Banks wrote several stand-alone novels. Some of them were adapted for television, radio and theatre. BBC television adapted his novel, The Crow Road (1992), and BBC Radio 4 broadcasted Espedair Street. The literary influences on his works include Isaac Asimov, Dan Simmons, Arthur C. Clarke, and M. John Harrison. He was featured in a television documentary, The Strange Worlds of Iain Banks South Bank Show, which discussed his literary writings. In 2003, he published a non-fiction book, Raw Spirit, which is a travelogue of Scotland. Banks last novel, titled The Quarry, appeared posthumously. He also penned a collection of poetry but could not publish it in his lifetime. It is expected to be released in 2015. He was awarded multitude of titles and accolades in honour of his contribution to literature. Some of these accolades include British Science Fiction Association Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award, Locus Poll Award, Prometheus Award and Hugo Award.

Iain Banks was diagnosed with terminal cancer of the gallbladder and died at the age of 59 in the summer of 2013.

[elizabethwydevilles]

Padme, during RotS development

One thing to understand is that for the first several months of pre-production, George Lucas is still writing the script (pre-production started roughly around late April of 2002, with the first draft of the script finished in late January 2003. To quote Paul Duncan: 'before the script was written, the design team were given the freedom to imagine possible scenarios', and Rick McCallum: 'usually no one would go off and spend millions of dollars without understanding what the very foundation of the film they're making is, but we break that very rule of film production'.

Sources for this post are The Art of Revenge of the Sith by J. W. Rinzler (2005), The Making of Revenge of the Sith by J. W. Rinzler (2005) and The Star Wars Archives, 1999-2005 by Paul Duncan (2020).

It's also going to be a long ass post, so see under the cut.

June 7-21 2002(?): Ryan Church painted a battle scene: 'What if a bunch of bad guys were attacking Padme and the clones who were trying to get back to their ship?'

August 2002: While revieving costume designs, GLucas indicated that Padme will need senatorial, casual and action wear.

October 12th, 2002: 'For the first time, it is rumoured that Padmé might die in this film. She might be seen last on Alderaan.'

October 25th-31st, 2002: In response to GLucas requesting a new locale for a Padme and Anakin 'love scene', Erik Tiemens designed several Naboo sceneries. Upon viewing them, GLucas moved the scene to Coruscant; some design elements are used for Kashyyyk.

October, 2002: Iain McCaig designed costumes for Padme. Note the bird of prey.

October 2002: While designing the world of Kashyyyk, Erik Tiemens painted a scene of Padme walking with wookies. (Note: Image is a cropped version of the full art work)

November 1st-8th, 2002: Iain McCaig: 'George said there might be a scene where Padme's doubled over in agony and Yoda is there unable to help her'.

November 22nd, 2022: Erik Tiemens designed a set of new locations for Padme and Anakin 'love scene' on Coruscant.

December 19th, 2002: Erik Tiemens: 'I was brainstorming with Iain [McCaig] and he thought that Padme might have a dagger in her hand'.

December 20th, 2002: Derek Thompson illustrated his idea of having Vader find Padme and the children, who are being protected by Jedi.

January 31st 2003: GLucas delivered the first rough draft to his producer Rick McCallum. The outline given in the book is brief, but Padme's basic storyline in the 55 page script appears no different. However, Anakin's nightmare about Padme features her consumed by flames, and Padme goes to Mustafar with her handmaidens and Captain Typho - who are gunned down by clones on arrival.

February 6th, 2003: Erik Tiemens designed a piece of concept art for Padme's funeral procession.

April 12th/13th 2003: GLucas presented the first official draft of the movie script. It's 111 pages long. Padmé and her entourage are still attacked on their arrival on Mustafar, but this time by droids whom Anakin defeats. In regards to Padme's death, Palpatine tells Vader that a Jedi murdered her.

May 5th, 2003: Iain McCaig's designed Padme's funeral outfit.

May 24th, 2003: Erik Tiemens illustrated Padme and Anakin's farewell before he leaves for Mustafar.

May 29th, 2003: Erik Tiemens illustrated Padme watching the Jedi temple burn.

June 13th 2003: GLucas presented the second official draft of the movie script. It's 135 pages long. Anakin's nightmare of Padmé is changed from her being consumed by flames, to her dying in childbirth. There is now a scene where Palpatine suggests to Anakin that Obi-Wan is meeting with Padmé secretly. In regards to Padme's actual death, Palpatine tells Vader that he [Vader] murdered her, just as in the movie. Just like the finished movie, it is noted that Padme dies of a broken heart. Padme's final smile at Leia is noted to be the smile that Leia remembers in RotJ.

June 26th, 2003: The fourth draft of the script is completed, consisting of 129 pages. Padme is no longer accompanied to Mustafar by Typho and her handmaidens.

June 30th, 2003: Principal photography begins.

July 2nd, 2003: First Padme scenes are shot, both located in her apartment (Her and Obi-Wan discussing Anakin, and Padme with the other senators).

July 3rd, 2003: Revised script for the scene in which Obi-Wan tells Padme he knows about her and Anakin.

August 12th, 2003: Last day of principal shooting for Natalie Portman.

September 17th, 2003: Principal shooting finishes.

December 21st, 2003: Iain McCaig designed a practical costume for Padme.

March 9th, 2004: All but the last ('thunderous applause') of Padme's political scenes have now been cut from the final film.

August 23rd - September 3rd 2004: Reshoots

August 23rd, 2004: Additional scene scripted for reshoot the following day.

January 31st, 2005: One last day of filming for Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen.

Script excerpt (unknown date)

Art (unsure dates)

Padme's apartment layout and colours

[dbacklot99]

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About The Crow Road, But Couldn't Get Through it To Find Out

Co-written by dbacklot and cheeseplants

WARNING: SPOILERS EVERYWHERE!!

Overall Premise: Books are clearly important to Good Omens and Neil & team have left us Clues. In S2E2, the xray trivia highlights a list of books they would like the audience to read. But even more specifically, there are names of certain books on the back of the chairs in the theater in the opening credits. Those books are: The Tale of Two Cities, Pride & Prejudice, and The Crow Road - twice!

What might this mean? One theory is that the chairs represent the seasons. The body swap in S1 is similar to how Carton, in Tale of Two Cities, takes his doppleganger's place in jail, sacrificing his life so Darnay could go free and be with his family. Pride & Prejudice is clearly referenced in S2, with Crowley's proposal as a sort of mirror to Darcy's first proposal. (There's probably a whole lot more to unpack there - and if you like Austen, here are some thoughts about Aziraphale's favorite book, Persuasion, and how it may relate to the characters.)

BACK to The Crow Road. The title is shown on two chairs in the opening sequence, suggesting that it is related to both S2 and S3. Furthermore, we see the book multiple times in the show and it's the book Muriel reads at the end. As an aside, Neil Gaiman and Iain Banks were very good friends. Iain Banks died over a decade ago, so it is also likely a bit of a tribute to his friend.

So let's dig in and see why perhaps Neil keeps holding this book up and shouting Clue!

Side note: The book is long and most of the action happens in the final third, which can make it a hard read for folks. There's also a lot of characters and it can be tricky to remember how they are all related. There is a family tree BUT it has spoilers.

The Name: The Crow Road is a phrase used by the grandmother to indicate someone has died, ie - he's gone the crow road.

The Plot: This is the story of Prentice growing up with his immediate and extended family in Scotland. His Uncle Rory disappears in his early childhood. Some family members choose to believe Rory is still alive. After a hook-up with his Uncle Rory's former girlfriend as a young adult, Prentice starts gathering journals and writings from his missing Uncle Rory, who was (for a few years) a successful writer and traveler. Prentice eventually learns that 1) another Uncle, Fergus, had murdered his own wife and covered it up as a car accident and 2) Rory had figured this out and confronted him. Fergus then murdered Rory, hid all the evidence, and hired an acquaintance (who also traveled) to send matchboxes from bars across the world to Prentice's father, Kenneth. Kenneth, believed - as Fergus intended - that these were messages from Rory, indicating he was still alive. 

Stylistically, Prentice's childhood memories and fragments from Rory's journals are interspersed throughout the book, much like the minisodes are in S2. It can take the reader a while to figure out who is telling the story or where this information is coming from. It is also unclear how reliable Rory is as narrator - perhaps this also plays into S2.

What it Might Mean: 

Fergus could represent the Metatron. He is very powerful, rich, and conservative; he lives in a castle (Heaven?) and wants authority. Fergus also murders two relatives and hides those murders; the murder of his wife may have been inspired by jealousy over her sleeping with another man, an event which may or may not have happened.

Fergus also sets up fake messages!! The matchbooks are red herrings to make it look like Rory is still alive. As the Metatron relays messages from God, I can't get over the possibilities here. We have seen God speaking directly as recently as Job, but are the other messages real?

I can't help but wonder if the matchbooks and their use as messages inspired Neil to use the matchbook in S2. The matchbook in S2, incidentally, connects to all three minisodes - the quote from Job, 41:19 (reversed 1941), and the matchbox is from the Resurrectionists pub. So the matchbook contains not only Gabriel’s memories but refers to Azi’s as well?

Much of the book is about this missing uncle. Is a character (or their memory) missing in S3? I have theories, but its too soon to tell.

There's also an interesting theme of Prentice collecting his Uncle Rory's writings and records, including sending some corrupted computer discs to an expert in America to try to restore them. Given the emphasis on records ("It contains information in a tuneful way") and journals in S2, not to mention this trivia nugget ​​ - my brain is itching that there's a connection there.

Faith & Beliefs: The book talks about Faith a lot. Prentice believes in God and his father Kenneth doesn’t. And Kenneth doesn’t just reject religion, he wants his children to reject religion too. Prentice on the other hand desperately wants something to believe in - especially after a friend's death in an accident. This leads to a huge fall out - they end up not talking over it.

"'I mean, what's the big argument? Can't you just agree to disagree?' 'No; we disagree about that,' I shook my head. 'Seriously; it doesnt' work that way; neither of us can leave it alone. There's almost nothing either of us can say that can't be taken the wrong way, with a bit of imagination. It's like being married.'" (Ch 7)

Kennth seemingly taunts God - he climbs a church during a lightning storm and is struck dead. His uncle Hamish (one of Kenneth’s brothers) also represents the extreme version of Faith and ends up running a sort of cult, at least until Kenneth’s death.

What it Might Mean: The thread they pull through a lot is about meaning, and whether you can have meaning in life without God. Prentice gains Faith because his friend died senselessly; he wonders how can you have a world be so cruel. There must be a reason for it (this is sort of Az coded), and he turns to God to create the meaning for him. 

BUT Kenneth’s argument is that you don’t need Faith for the world to have meaning (or at least that is my reading). It is wonderful because it is inherently meaningless (this is very existentialist, but I do think that’s the point). That Faith doesn’t do that, and just means you are looking outwards without looking at what is right in front of you. Which again, could be a Crowley way of looking at it, or at least where he is headed. Life is good as life, and doesn’t need God to make it so. 

Hamish represents someone putting so much meaning into Faith that they lose all sense of Joy, he becomes distant.  (One of my favorite scenes is Hamish doing a jigsaw puzzle with the pieces upside down - and cutting the pieces with scissors if they don’t fit right!)

The Romantic Relationships: Prentice is infatuated with a cousin (second cousin?), Verity. She is described as beautiful, in white/light colors, pure, lives with Uncle Fergus in the castle. There are legends around her birth -  she was conceived under a tree during a storm. She is unattainable and eventually ends up with Prentice's older brother.

Ash, on the other hand, is almost literally the girl next door and Prentice’s long-term best friend. Her family is poorer and maybe has some domestic violence issues. She's always there for Prentice - literally a shoulder to cry on, sharing a bottle of whiskey, helping him sober up after said whiskey. There's obvious romantic tension from Ash’s side but she never pushes him and instead guides him along. And the book ends with a romantic resolution that feels very much like the final fifteen - except with a happier ending.

“- and I still didn’t feel I could tell her how I felt about her because she was going away now, and how could I suddenly say I love you when I’d never said it to anybody in my life before? How could I say it now especially, the night before she was due to leave? It would look like I was trying to make her stay, or just get her into bed. It would probably wreck this one precious evening that we did have, and upset her, confuse her, even hurt her, and I didn’t want to do any of that.” (Ch 13)

They finally kiss and spend the night together, both confessing their love. Ash has to leave the next morning to pursue a career opportunity in New York; Prentice is sad that she goes but re-dedicating himself to his studies and working towards a relationship together. 

What it Might Mean: To me, Verity is very Heaven-coded and Ash is very Hell-coded. A big part of Prentice's arc (Prentice may represent Azi here) is getting over his blind infatuation with Verity and realizing the value and love he has with Ash. However, they also need to be apart and grow a bit before they can be together.

Other thoughts? Connections? Would love to hear your theories!!

@cheeseplants

[theniceandaccurategoodomensblog]

Good Omens and The Crow Road

I read the novel The Crow Road by Iain Banks—the book Muriel is reading at the end of season two episode six and the book that hints at the events of season three.

My thoughts are under the cut. You can also read it on AO3 here. Obviously it includes spoilers for The Crow Road.

The Crow Road

The protagonist of The Crow Road is Prentice McHoan. He is a young man (early twenties) and, personally, I found him to be a bit of a dick though he does mature over the course of the book.

The book meanders and leaps about in time, telling the story in a non-linear way and with switches in point of view. This means that the relevance of events is often not clear as you read them, only becoming clear later on.

The title The Crow Road is a metaphor for death as the novel introduces early on that “he’s away the Crow Road” is a way of speaking of someone being dead.

There are three key story arcs:

(1) No one has spoken to or seen Prentice’s Uncle Rory for years. Rory is Prentice’s globetrotting Uncle who became famous because he wrote a bestselling travel diary as a young man. Rory’s ambition is to write a serious novel he called “The Crow Road”. No one knows where Rory is but Prentice’s father believes that he is still alive because he regularly receives match book covers from different locations all around the world. He believes that Rory is the one sending the match book covers because Rory once confessed to him that as a child he lit a fire that accidentally burned down a barn. Prentice becomes increasingly obsessed with what happened to Rory.

(2) Prentice is estranged from his father and he struggles with this. The estrangement is over belief in God. Prentice’s father is a communist and an atheist. When a friend of Prentice’s dies tragically, Prentice decides that there must be an afterlife and hence a God. The estrangement begins and he moves in with a religious Uncle.

(3) Prentice has an intense and unreciprocated infatuation with a young woman called Verity and does not handle it well when Verity becomes an item with his own brother Lewis. Seriously ridiculous childish drama here. Prentice complains about this all many times and at length to Ash, another young woman who is a more patient friend than Prentice deserves.

Here’s how each story arc lands (obviously this is the big spoiler bit for The Crow Road):

(1) Prentice eventually works out through reading a rough draft of Uncle Rory’s novel that Rory was murdered by another of Prentice’s Uncles for realising that that Uncle had previously murdered his own wife (and Prentice’s Aunt) in a car crash by undoing her seatbelt. The match book covers were being sent to Prentice’s father by a friend of the murderous Uncle to convince him that Rory was still alive. Rory’s body is found in a lake. It is all quite proven as far as Prentice is concerned but the murderous Uncle dies and hence there is no sense of justice, just a mystery solved.

(2) Prentice’s father dies while climbing a church spire by being struck by lightning and falling. At the point of his death Prentice and his father are still estranged. In the end, after solving the mystery of Uncle Rory, Prentice decides that there is no afterlife and no God. Prentice hopes that his father died knowing that he wouldn’t be a fool forever.

(3) Prentice’s brother Lewis marries and has a child with Verity. Prentice finds peace with this and realises that he actually loves Ash, the patient friend who has been listening to his nonsense for years.

Prentice and Ash sleep together and confess their love—I kid you not—in Morse code during sex with a series of squeezes and pushes. Yeah. Sometimes I think we come up with weird stuff in fanfiction and then I read a published novel and… but I digress. Point is, they are in love and they both know it. Prentice is finally growing up. But Ash planned to spend time in Canada and she goes anyway (good for her) saying that if Prentice does love her then they can still be together and simply continue when she returns. That’s where it ends which might sound sad but it actually feels mature and real after Prentice’s carry on with Verity. There’s a general feeling that Prentice has finally grown enough himself to make a relationship work and they are both starting that relationship right.

Implications for Good Omens seasons three:

(1) Good Omens has also been jumping about in time. The story is not being told in a linear manner. I suspect that there are scenes we’ve already seen where the meaning of those events won’t be clear until sometime in season three. I suspect that there are missing pieces to the overall story arc that will also be shown in season three. In short, we don’t have all the information and we don’t know what we truly have.

(2) Season three will involve working out, possibly using a diary or a book of some kind, what has happened to somebody. From simply hearing about the plot of The Crow Road I thought it would be Muriel working out what’s happened to Aziraphale by reading his diaries. Perhaps season three will open with a very different Aziraphale to the one we are used to and Muriel will work out what is really going on (memory wipe, manipulation, Aziraphale lying to enact a plan). This might still be true but after reading The Crow Road I was left with a different idea.

After reading The Crow Road the obvious parallel to Uncle Rory is not Aziraphale but God. God narrates season one but season two is strangely lacking in God’s narration. As Crowley says she’s “not talking to any of us”. Just like Uncle Rory. Yet everyone assumes that Heaven’s orders ultimately come from her. What if they aren’t coming from her? What if they are being sent by the person who murdered her? I think a big focus of season three will be what exactly is happening with God. It won’t necessarily be that she’s dead like Uncle Rory. Not everything is going to line up perfectly with The Crow Road. But finding out where she is and why she isn’t talking to anyone, just what this ineffable game is, will be important.

(3) It is worth noting that in The Crow Road Prentice’s father is sent match book covers to convince him that his brother, Rory, is still alive and in Good Omens we have Gabriel putting Beelezebub’s fly into a Resurrectionist match box. Does this mean anything beyond simply making a connection between Good Omens and The Crow Road? I don’t know. I can’t see any extra meaning to this yet.

(4) Aziraphale, like Prentice, won’t be a fool forever. We can depend on that. He is currently fooling himself because the truth (that Heaven is corrupt all the way down or rather up I suppose) is too painful to contemplate. But this won’t last. Aziraphale and Crowley are currently at odds, but they won’t remain so. Aziraphale’s viewpoint will shift and align more with Crowley’s.

Unlike Prentice’s father, Crowley has already fallen and will be ready when Aziraphale comes to his senses. Their estrangement will have a full resolution.

(5) Aziraphale will move on from his immature infatuation with Heaven to focus on his mature love relationship with Crowley.

Crowley will clearly state his love during passionate sex in Morse code by rhythmically contracting his effortfully formed vaginal muscles around Aziraphale’s hard cock. Wait. What? Crowley, if you are reading this please don’t do that. I know you struggle to put your love into words but that’s not the answer. But seriously, the physical expression of their love will be important. It will be important to Aziraphale. This is consistent with fanon conjecture that physical touch is Aziraphale’s love language and that physical (ie human) expressions of love are what is unique to Aziraphale and Crowley.

(6) This quote slapped me on the face: “Places have an effect on people. They alter your thoughts.” It is very like the Good Omens quote, “form shapes nature”. Aziraphale has been on Earth a long time. I wonder how he will be affected by being back in Heaven? Even if he has returned with a plan, Heaven might start seeping back in. Our angel has never been more vulnerable.

(7) This quote slapped me in the face too: “Faith itself is idolatry”. I wonder what Aziraphale would say about that? Is his faith in Heaven a form of idolatry? Aziraphale needs to shift in his stance regarding Heaven but I wonder where he will ultimately land on God. Will his faith in God be preserved or must that die too? Much depends on what exactly has happened to God and just what kind of ineffable game she is playing. So I suppose we will have to wait and see.

[chargoeson]

Hello! Writeblr re-Introduction

hiiiii pals! I made my writeblr introduction last year and it was such a good intro to the community! but as time goes on and organizations fall i want to re-introduce myself and my writing without any associations.

my name is Charlotte, but you can call me Char as well. She/Her, I'm 25, queer, and live in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

I write literary fiction with a special affection for surrealism and dream-like vibes. I do have a couple soft fantasy and short story projects that I've made posts for, but I'll stick to my litfic on this pinned post as they are my passion projects!

themes I often explore in these books are: isolation, anxiety, complex relationships between mothers and daughters, bisexuality, winter, dissociation, and overall rural misery!

I have a bachelor's degree in English Language and Literature and paid special attention to Gothic and Romantic movements.

on top of writing, I also love quilting/sewing, collage making, playing Stardew Valley and Baldur's Gate 3, and doing DIY home renovations.

Reading is my passion, even more so than writing! My favorite authors are Murakami, Mieko Kawakami, the Bronte sisters, Iain Reid, Han Kang, and Ottessa Moshfegh.

my three main WIPS can stand alone but are technically a trilogy. read about them after the cut!

The Ballad of a Blue Whale-- This novella was written in November, 2023. It follows Maren Hara, a recent college graduate who has to move back in with her father, a rigid and unfeeling doctor. To cope with the emotional distance of her father and the slow dissolution of her relationships she begins walking through the night. Both to be away from home and removed from her current life. It’s during these walks she finds a jazz bar in an adjoining city. The patrons, and especially the owner of this bar, captivate her. At the core of the narrative is her inability to open herself to others, and how attempts to do so are physically and mentally cataclysmic, although necessary. As she finds herself, she loses both her old life and this interim space. 

I Want to Build a Home with You-- This novel is in the first draft/development stage. I began in December, 2023. Its events follow Leonie Richards as she walks her grandmother, famed novelist Hellen Barnaby, through the final weeks of her life then inherits her home. Leonie, once an infamous performance artist, decides to settle into a life of portrait painting for a small but wealthy pool of clients left to her by her grandmother. Her old peers. After Hellen’s death, Leonie’s final connections to the outside world are her strange clients, the art store clerk, and her uncle Ox who is embittered by his lack of inheritance. The longer she stays in the home, the stranger things seem to be. She wakes up ragged, dirt under her fingernails with memories of a rock formation in the forest she has never seen. Forest spirits or generational curse, there is a limerence threatening her life. 

No Glory-- Special Agent Seth Barnaby has been tasked with investigating the mysterious, possibly cult-associated murders of young women across the state, but this one could be the key. To decode the newest set of clues he teams up with Director of Anthropology Dr. Miel Noh and they get into the field. The small town misleads them at every turn, from an odd boy named Calf to the corpse of a girl who was staying in his family’s motel. With Seth’s checkered past he recognizes the patterns, but time is of the essence and if they don’t find answers another woman could die. With no way out, they return to the only lead Seth knows: an institutionalized man who confessed to the first murder that brought Seth to the FBI years ago.

and that's a wrap! thank you for reading, would love to reconnect with writers from last year as well as new friends. feel free to slide into my asks, follow, or join the tag list.

tags: @annlillyjose @coffeeandcalligraphy @subtlefires @belovedviolence @onomatopiya @thelaughingstag

[atopvisenyashill]

Every time I think of Game of Thrones and shipping I go a little bit insane because of the fact that Jon and Dany are supposed to actually love each other according to the script and have ZERO on screen chemistry meanwhile Jon and Sansa have such good on screen chemistry and it amounted to nothing. The thing is that I could get behind either ship under specific circumstances but the show didn’t really offer my preferred circumstances for either and it completely fumbled both in different ways. What do you mean we’re supposed to believe Jon still loved Dany even to the end? What happened here?

okay let’s rant about the show acting.

the thing about kit is he needs a STRONG scene partner to kick it into gear. a lot of the early night’s watch scenes are awkward as shit bc the other guys ARE good but they’re not strong enough (whether that means less confident or less seasoned, take your pick here) to herd him into good acting all the time. when he gets to the wildlings, i think he hits a high point bc he has some strong scene partners - rose leslie, ciaran hinds, Kristofer Hivju, i think they just brought out something a bit deeper in him. i haven’t watched the meli scenes since they aired so i can’t speak to that one yet but i do think this carries into the winterfell story arcs. sophie is just a very good scene partner for him! and tbh, i thinks this even fits with jon’s character a bit - kit is so much better at the Stark Aspects of Jon and of course he is, because imo the overreaching arc of jon snow is him defining himself as a son of house stark in character if not in name. it would have been nice if they cast someone who didn’t need to be herded as much as kit tho aksjdjd

the thing as i see it with emilia is…..i have no fucjing idea how to get a good performance out of that girl aksjdjd like her good moments are even more fleeting & hard to pin down. tbf her writing is also consistently bad from the jump. you know how skai jackson posted her audition tape for gossip girl and she was doing the exact sort of disney channel snarky delivery & it was like well That’s why u didn’t get cast. somehow, emilia got cast (and AIDEN I DONT UNDERSTAND IT HE ISNT GOOD ITS GIVING PREMINGER FROM BARBIE OKAY CONLETH SMOKES HIM IN EVERY SCENE). i think that scene where she puts the egg on the brazier & irri walks in is p solid. the scene where she slaps the fuck out of viserys is solid. the final shot of s6 where she’s on the ships is solid. the battle of the bells scene is excellent. her two big dothraki speeches (i think it’s middle of s6 & the last episode?) are very good. everything else isn’t even like, cringe, it’s straight up bad. i think she had good chemistry with iain jason peter & for those 5 seconds elyes, but there’s also a stark difference in acting there that jars me that doesn’t jar me out of say, the “if we die we die” jonygritte scene. but again, can’t overstate how ass her writing is. they’re relegating her to screeching at people & smirking, they very notoriously use emilia’s body a LOT for sexy tiddy scenes so much that once she blew up as a character she leveraged her new found pull not for more money but to not have to show her boobs anymore. that’s just not an added stressor that kit was dealing with.

anyways so, what happens when you get two actors who aren’t very good at acting on the screen is that you just don’t get a lot of good acting. and when there’s no good writing to speak of, well, that’s how you get the romantic story lines of later game of thrones. the one that actually goes canon is just perplexing in how it’s written and badly acted. the one that stays non canon is well acted but also perplexingly written & it doesn’t even get solid pay off at the end? not even expecting them to kiss, like, there’s no focus on how they’re feeling about the events of the final season they just hug once and dip. not that the canon one gets pay off either skdjd like these are just very stupidly written arcs for these three. the only people that won were jon/tormund truthers and even then they flanderized tormund so bad that it’s like eh.

[blogger360ncislarules]

It started and ended with a Big Bang.

Thursday’s Young Sheldon series finale marked the returns of Jim Parsons and Mayim Bialik as Drs. Sheldon Cooper and Amy Farrah Fowler. A future-set storyline confirmed that Sheldon has been writing his memoir all of this time — hence Parsons’ role as narrator and Bialik’s periodic interjections throughout the prequel’s 141-episode run.

Sheldon was determined to stay home and keep writing — more on all those office Easter eggs in a moment! — but Amy insisted that he get up and attend their son Leonard’s hockey game. (Leonard plays for the Pasadena Penguins, which tells us that Sheldon and Amy haven’t moved very far from 2311 North Los Robles Ave. in the years since they won their Nobel Prize.)

Big Bang Theory viewers likely clocked about a dozen Easter eggs in Sheldon’s office — including, but not limited to: Sheldon’s Nobel Prize, a framed photo of #Shamy in Stockholm, the DNA model, a Flash mug, a Rubik’s Cube coaster… and the couch from Apt. 4A!

“We should have kept count of how many Easter eggs are actually there and see who could catch them all because there’s a bunch,” executive producer Steve Holland tells TVLine. “There’s the robots boxing painting that hung in the living room… Sheldon’s Gollum statue is on his desk… there’s a little MythBusters bobblehead of Adam Savage that was on his bookshelf on Big Bang Theory….

The biggest Easter egg of all is saved for the series’ very last scene. Upon arriving at the California Institute of Technology, Sheldon is approached by a professor who asks if he’s lost. He’s played by none other than UCLA professor David Saltzberg, an experimental particle physicist who has served as a scientific consultant on both Big Bang and Young Sheldon for a combined 18 years, after he was first hired as a consultant on Big Bang’s unaired 2006 pilot.

In the video, series star Iain Armitage (aka Young Sheldon) talks with TVLine about Parsons and Bialik’s returns and sharing his final scene with Professor Saltzberg. Below, Holland dives even deeper into Sheldon and Amy’s returns and offers an update on the rest of the Big Bang Theory gang.

TVLINE | What was it like having Jim and Mayim back and getting to write for these characters again? I mean, it was so great to have them back just as people. We spent so many years with Jim and Mayim, and we still see them from time to time and keep in touch. Jim, obviously, works on the show, but we mostly see him on Zoom from New York. On a personal level, just to get to hang out with them in person again was great, and then to watch them step back into these characters was really emotional. I think Jim and Mayim both have said that they were very nervous and that they weren’t sure they could just step right back into [these roles], but it didn’t feel like that from watching them. It was also a difference of going from a multi-cam show [shot in front of a live studio audience] to a single-cam show, and watching them make those adjustments to play it differently. You play everything a little bit smaller, and they just did it so effortlessly. From the outside, just watching them slip back into these characters, felt really great.

TVLINE | I think many fans, myself included, were expecting a fleeting glimpse of Sheldon and Amy — perhaps they’d be saved for the tag scene. I was not expecting to see Jim and Mayim in what felt like a third of the episode! Like you said, people know that they’re going to be in the finale, but is there still a way to surprise people? Maybe most people think that this is going to be a coda at the end, so hopefully cutting to them right off the bat will come as a bit of a surprise. We were also trying to be really careful not to let them overwhelm the finale because, at the end of the day, this was still a Young Sheldon finale and this still had to be about the Cooper family. I feel pretty good about how we struck that balance. It was more than just a cameo, but that the whole episode didn’t revolve around them was important to us.

TVLINE | You revealed in Young Sheldon‘s Season 4 premiere that Sheldon and Amy’s son is named Leonard, after Johnny Galecki’s Leonard Hofstadter. Why didn’t you reveal their daughter’s name in the series finale? You know, we talked about it, but there’s a point of where it starts to feel like a barrage of Easter eggs. We had said the name Leonard before, and it felt like if you were going to say the daughter’s name, it would be weird if it was just Sally, you know? It had to be something, and then it felt like, “Are we learning into Easter egg territory?” We like the fact that like there are a bunch of these Easter eggs on the set that aren’t focused on [in the episode] and hopefully people won’t be so distracted by them that they they don’t pay attention to the scene; you can go back and rewatch it, freeze frame later and see what you can catch.

TVLINE | Sheldon has the couch from Apt. 4A in his office. That feels like a pretty big, potentially distracting Easter egg! The couch we rarely focus on. We thought if it’s too featured, people are gonna be, like, “It’s the couch!” and no one is going to pay attention to what’s going on. We were trying to be very careful about where we put things and keep them in the background.

TVLINE | We establish that Sheldon and Amy have moved out of Apt. 4B and have a house, but they’re still living in Pasadena. But having the couch from Apt. 4A, which stayed with Leonard and Penny once Sheldon moved across the hall with Amy, would seem to indicate that maybe, just maybe, Leonard and Penny have also moved now that they have a kid of their own. In your mind, are the characters from Big Bang — Leonard, Penny, Sheldon, Amy, Howard, Bernadette and Raj — all still close by and in each other’s orbit? I think so. I think they’re still close, and still friends. It was important for us at some point to put in an establishing shot of the house they were in because we wanted to make sure people didn’t think they were still in the apartment. It doesn’t look exactly the same, but it doesn’t look so different that you could not look at it [closely enough] and think that it was just the Big Bang Theory set. It was important for us to let people know that they have a house. They’ve grown up, they’ve moved out of the apartment, and in our minds, a lot of that stuff in Sheldon’s office is stuff that Amy was, like, “Well, you can put that in your office. That’s not going in the rest of the house, but that can go in your office.”

TVLINE | We end with Sheldon’s arrival at Caltech. It’s the first time you have shot on location, outside on campus. How did it feel to be able to shoot there after this combined, 19-season run? It felt amazing. I think the only other time on Big Bang that we went there was once when Stephen Hawking was on the show; we went and shot him in his office at Caltech, but you wouldn’t have known that because it was just inside. This is our first time going on the, on the outside of and we and the Sheldon had gone to visit [in Season 3], and we had seen the cafeteria [set from Big Bang], but to actually go to the campus was great. We talked a lot about who the professor should be that stopped Sheldon and has that last exchange with him, and we realized that other than [series co-creator] Chuck [Lorre] and Jim, [Professor Saltzberg] has been with the character the longest because he worked on the first Big Bang pilot. It felt like a really nice way to recognize David and all that he contributed to both of these shows that he has the last moment there.

TVLINE | Young Sheldon‘s series finale airs Thursday, May 16, 2024, exactly five years to the day that Big Bang ended on Thursday, May 16, 2019. Does it feel like kismet that these two shows get to share a date in TV history? I don’t think I actually realized that it was the same exact date — that it happens to be a Thursday and falls on the same date again. Yeah, that feels… that feels right!

[bonaesperanza]

book ask: 3, 4, 12

I'M SORRY THIS IS SO LONG :( Anyway, this post was for my book ask, everyone else reading it feel free to join in!

3. What were your top five books of the year?

Hoo boy, if I were perfectly honest they would all be Lymond Chronicles books. Those books are PERFECT, they literally have everything I've ever wanted: operatic drama AND Ocean's 11-style competence porn AND meticulously researched historical battles AND a morally grey manipulative messy depraved bisexual protagonist who ends up breaking down into a puddle of mental health issues at several points AND really well-rounded strong female characters. However, for fairness's sake, I'm going to pretend that I can only put in one book in a series, so here goes:

Pawn in Frankincense by Dorothy Dunnett (Lymond Chronicles book 4/6) - I only read this at the beginning of the year and I've already reread it twice. It has all the content warnings, the lushest writing you'll ever see, and it will make you fall in love with it and then break your heart. Two bisexual Scottish noblemen, one of which is Depraved and the other one Repressed and Catholic, travel the Mediterranean in search of the bastard child of one of them, which is held hostage by a sadistic knight Hospitaller. They are accompanied by a maybe-sister of one of them (it's a mystery if they're related and how!!) and a perspicaceous fifteen-year-old girl who can't be convinced to leave even though everyone agrees it's inappropriate for her to be there. As everyone around them dies in increasingly gruesome ways and everything starts feeling like some kind of orientalist fever dream, they bicker constantly due to their shitty personalities and the mounting UST between several of them. The main draw of this series as a whole is that most of the characters are simultaneously manipulative cunning chessmasters and very mentally ill, and you are left wondering (alongside their friends and family) whether their current breakdown is part of some elaborate byzantine plot or if they're just genuinely losing their mind <3

Prince's Gambit by C.S. Pacat (Captive Prince book 2/3) - it maintains a laser-sharp focus on the characterizations and character dynamics (and the characters have many layers to unpeel) while rolling out a pretty twisty and well-constructed military/political plot in the background. Also full of lush, sensorial writing and sordid personal drama, just as I like it <3

The King's Shield by Sherwood Smith (Inda tetralogy book 3/4) - literally the emotional payoff of the previous two books, as this series follows a group of military school friends as they grow into their aristocratic roles and here they finally meet up after having spent a book and a half apart. Amazing nuanced and realistic exploration of how growing up in a very militaristic, macho, almost proto-fascist society impacts various types of personalities, amazing unique and detailed worldbuilding that makes you fall in love with the local culture (despite the almost-fascism), complex realpolitik, amazingly lovely and realistic depictions of healthy male friendships, a subplot about defending a castle from an invasion that's harrowingly historically realistic AND makes you realize the practical utilities of why the culture is The Way It Is. MORE PEOPLE SHOULD READ THIS SERIES IT HAS 8 FICS ON AO3 FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!

The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks (The Culture book 2/10) - wide-scope heavily left-leaning reflections on various properties of culture and society and its purpose and a very... literary fiction-esque approach to characterization, almost, smack in the middle of a book that hinges entirely on sociological storytelling. Very cool mix! And the plot is, just like I like it, filled with cool twists and moves within moves within moves, so it's not like you'll get suffocated by plotless philosophical considerations of the Evil of Imperialism - it's still a really exciting, fairly plotty book!

Memory by LoisMcMaster Bujold (Vorkosigan Saga book 10/16... I think? The numbering of these books is Complicated, okay?) - This is a series that's like 80% fast-paced madcap plotty fun but the characters feel like icebergs in that you get constant hints of the 70% that's below the surface. This book is a cut above the rest because it leverages the gradual buildup and reader goodwill accumulated over the previous 9 books and uses it to swerve into a character study of the protagonist, his flaws, how they were shaped by his environment, and his deeply-seated mid-life crisis while ALSO delivering a decently fun mystery plot.

4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

Absolutely! Technically I discovered Dorothy Dunnett last year, since that's when I started my first read of Lymond, but I finished it this year and am on my second reread currently so I think it counts.

C.S. Pacat is another new favourite - he had Dunnett as a major influence but I feel like they're two very different beasts in many respects - Pacat's writing is less chaotic and more deliberate in its exploration of the characters' inner lives. Dunnett's characters feel like deranged children screaming in the back of the car (in the most deliberate and best possible way), while Pacat's feel like fine, carefully constructed clockwork. Dunnett also embeds her characterization in a sprawling complex plot that can be compared to something like Game of Thrones, Pacat leaves the plot in the background (although it's still complex enough!) and hones in on the character dynamics.

12. Any books that disappointed you?

I am gonna get shit from the Beloved Mutuals for this I think but I HATED The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. I hated it so much, and I had heard so much hype about it before I read it. Like, I literally have a bunch of notes with evidence of it botching literally every aspect of writing/storytelling that I consider important, it's fascinating to me in how I am convinced of it doing literally everything wrong and yet it's so popular? Like I consider it worse than ACOTAR, and I was even thinking of writing up a long post dissecting what I consider are all its flaws, but so many people on here seem very attached to it and I wouldn't like to ruffle any feathers.

Honourable mention to The Secret History by Donna Tartt - technically I'd read it over 10 years ago but I remembered nothing from it so this year I did a reread because a person whose tastes I respect a lot heaped lavish praise on it. But I also hated it and thought it was a fake-deep book for people who like nonsense fake-deep Facebook quotes and Old Money Quiet Luxury (tm) aesthetic boards :S

[wine-dark-seashells]

Over-analysing the books we saw referenced in Season Two (which I watched all in a go last night from 11pm to 4am and therefore am a little hazy on). If someone has already done this I bow to thee I just couldn't find you.

It's not reflected in my blog but one of my main special interests is Good Omens (and has been since I first read the book, a bit before season one was released) y'all I am ugly crying over the season two finale. If I've missed any books I'll just edit I guess I don't have access to the show anymore so I can't double-check anything. I KNOW Muriel was reading a book that wasn't The Crow Road but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was.

The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett (under I for In): On a surface level, it's a fantastic little nod to Mr Pratchett, the book that started the Discworld, and, to top it off, one of the best covers in existence. Funnily enough the same edition we always stocked when I worked in a bookshop but that's not important.

On a deeper level, think about the plot in bare-bones terms. Incredibly naïve tourist from an other-worldly place shows up in a grimy but incredibly magical city with a very odd box and spends his entire holiday with a wizard who is bad at magic. It ends with the tourist floating off into space to go see other worlds. Sounds familiar, right? I'm shaking this season like a small child with a maraca and I am chewing the plot until it is tasteless.

The Crow Road - Iain Banks (under I for It): Look, this one is so obviously significant that multiple people have done it already but I'm adding layers. Crowley gives it to Muriel in the last episode, I'm sobbing, but it's actually first referenced by Gabriel when he's "sorting". The tile is a fairly common metaphor for death, such as he's away the crow road. Other than the fact that it's literally part of Crowley's name, crows are a death omen. He gives it to Muriel for so many reasons and I don't know how it was intended originally but they're curious about humanity and The Crow Road contains one of the most fundamental parts of being human - asking too many questions.

Also, The Crow Road contains a lot of themes centred around death, mystery, and quite a bit of questioning of religion. It could be interpreted as a tell towards Crowley's real feelings about the finale. Metatron is death for him, as a demon, and he's just taken Aziraphale away to "chat". Remind me to actually write down my interpretation of the finale some time.

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (under I for It): See, this one has actual plot relevance and therefore is explained in the show so I don't really think it needs an explanation. However, it is a neat little plot device to show how Aziraphale and Crowley have had very very different experiences with, and therefore perspectives on, Jane Austen herself. I think that's a pretty good way to show how they think and differ from each other in their shared experiences. Also, spitballing here, Crowley is Pride and Aziraphale is Prejudice. ("Of course you turned down Hell, they're the bad guys. Heaven is... good!")

A Tale of Two Cities, Book One - Charles Dickens (under I for It): Come on. This wouldn't need an explanation except, once again, chewing here.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." is the only bit Gabriel reads out loud, but the rest is along those lines (give it a read, it's fun). All one sentence. I don't really think it needs a huge amount of explanation, except that to me Dr Manette is Gabriel. Quite a bit of the first book is about his release from jail (and, to top it off, he was there because he reported the abuse perpetrated by members of the aristocracy and was put away under a lettre de cachet, something signed by the King and at least one of the King's ministers which could not be appealed). He's briefly taken in by a former servant (who goes on to be instrumental in the Storming of the Bastille) and the man's wife, who own a wine shop together. I am going insane.

No, I did NOT forget Good Omens (under I for It): History repeats itself over and over and over -

I need to go drink some water but Mr Gaiman sir how'd I do.

[brokehorrorfan]

The Resident Evil films will be released in a Steelbook 4K Ultra HD (with Blu-ray) box set on November 3 via Sony Pictures. It includes all six movies in the action-horror franchise based on Capcom video game series.

The series kicked off with Resident Evil in 2002, followed by Resident Evil: Apocalypse in 2004, Resident Evil: Extinction in 2007, Resident Evil: Afterlife in 2010, Resident Evil: Retribution in 2012, and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter in 2016.

Paul W.S. Anderson (Death Race, Event Horizon) directed the first, fourth, fifth, and sixth installments, in addition to writing and producing the entire franchise. The second chapter was directed by Alexander Witt, while Russell Mulcahy (Highlander) helmed the third.

Milla Jovovich stars in all six movies. The cast also includes Sienna Guillory, Oded Fehr, Ali Larter, Michelle Rodriguez, Iain Glen, Shawn Roberts, Mike Epps, and Jason Isaacs.

All six films are presented with Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio. Both the theatrical and extended cuts of Apocalypse are included. Special features are listed below, where you can also see individual artwork.

Resident Evil 4K Ultra HD special features:

Theatrical Trailer

Resident Evil Blu-ray Blu-ray special features:

Cast and Filmmakers’ Commentary

Visual Effects Commentary

Alternate Ending with Director Paul W.S. Anderson’s Video Introduction

12 Featurettes

“My Plague” Music Video by Slipknot

Resident Evil: Apocalypse 4K Ultra HD special features:

Filmmaker Commentary

Cast Commentary

Writer/Producer Commentary

Deleted Scenes

Game Over: Resident Evil Reanimated Documentary

Corporate Malfeasance Featurette

Game Babes Featurette

Symphony of Evil Featurette

Resident Evil: Apocalypse Blu-ray special features:

Theatrical and Extended Cuts

Theatrical Trailers

Resident Evil: Extinction 4K Ultra HD special features:

Resident Road Map: Reflections on the Future of the Series

Theatrical Trailers

Resident Evil: Extinction Blu-ray special features:

Under the Umbrella Picture-in-Picture

Filmmaker Commentary

Deleted Scenes

4 Featurettes

Resident Evil: Afterlife 4K Ultra HD special features:

Alice Activated

Theatrical Trailers

Resident Evil: Afterlife Blu-ray special features:

Undead Vision Picture-in-Picture

Filmmaker Commentary

Deleted and Extended Scenes

Outtakes

7 Featurettes

Resident Evil: Retribution 4K Ultra HD special features:

Evil Goes Global

Undead Retribution

Theatrical Trailers

Resident Evil: Retribution Blu-ray special features:

Director and Cast Commentary

Filmmaker Commentary

Deleted and Extended Scenes

Outtakes

Project Alice: The Interactive Database

8 Featurettes

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter 4K Ultra HD special features:

Maximum Carnage: Best Kills

Creature Chronology

Theatrical Trailers

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter Blu-ray special features:

Retaliation Mode with Paul W.S. Anderson and Milla Jovovich

3 Featurettes

Based on the popular video game series by Capcom, the Resident Evil franchise stars Milla Jovovich as Alice, a superhuman security expert pitted against the sinister Umbrella Corporation as the world’s population is transformed into flesh-eating creatures by one of its most dangerous biological weapons.

Pre-order Resident Evil: 6-Movie Collection.

[theromanticrationalist]

Young Sheldon Season 7 Thoughts. . .

"I've got a hot wife and a Nobel Prize, I turned out fine."

I LIVE. <insert Mushu gif raising from the afterlife> It has been awhile since I have been able to update on here! There are many reasons for this, one of them being my other fandom obsession (Dune, you know the other neurodivergent, genius, socially awkward white boy who thinks he is a god...), but also I've reached the level of obsession with Sheldon Cooper that it is nearly physically impossible for me to watch the new episodes! I hope others understand that feeling. I LOVE THIS BOY SO MUCH. 😭 I am just SO NERVOUS about this season! I don't want Sheldon to experience tragedy. Yet - I have chosen to persevere, and I have now caught up!

And the story has certainly unfolded in interesting directions! 😮 Okay, okay - so the BIG thing - Sheldon witnessing his Father sleeping with "another woman"! I am feeling conflicting emotions - impressed, relieved, and a little upset. I am impressed and relieved because they were able to adhere to the integrity of this show while still allowing established canon to be technically true. However, I am also a little upset because it makes Sheldon's experience less serious and lessens the trauma of it that clearly was established in TBBT. In the episode when Sheldon confesses to Penny about what he saw with his father and how it effected him, that was deeply personal and profoundly impacting. It is what scared him in regards to his relationship with Amy, and kept up his walls against intimacy and vulnerability because he was terrified of hurting her. And it is what made him develop the three knocks coping mechanism. To me the fact that it was actually just a silly misunderstanding (his mother roleplaying) is just another aspect of the writers once again invalidating Sheldon as a character. It is THE main mistake of TBBT, playing Sheldon's personality quirks as primarily foolish and "Hah hah hah! Isn't he a weirdo who doesn't understand social conventions and established normal human behavior?! Har har har!"

"Penny, I'm going to tell you a story that I've never told anyone..." Sheldon and Penny at the ice cream parlor in Season 10 Episode 5 The Hot Tub Contamination of The Big Bang Theory. This was one of the rare moments this show treated Sheldon's character with gravitas. That's kind of ruined now. . . This is a sin that Young Sheldon has not committed until now, and so that really steams my clams! One of the main reasons I love this show so much is because of how it has always treated Sheldon's character with nuance and dignity, showing his complex layers in a deeply human and beautiful way - even while, yes, maintaining the comedic, quixotic charm of the character as well. So, the fact that they've flattened this significant event in Sheldon's life into a ba dum tss moment thrown at the end of the episode last minute is pretty shitty of them. And yet, Mary and George Cooper rekindled their marriage! I thought it was SO SO adorable how they wrote letters to one another while she and Sheldon were in Germany. That warmed my heart. Young Sheldon's thematic structure works and is reliant upon Mary and George Cooper's marriage (something I will go into more in-depth later) so George cheating on his wife just didn't make sense for this story they were telling, or even the characters they had established. So, it's fifty-fifty. I guess it was the best possible outcome given the givens, and certainly makes me happy because I prefer a reality where Sheldon grows up in a stable - albeit dysfunctional - household rather than the heavily implied even more dysfunctional, traumatic one from the TBBT canon. In most of TBBT, Sheldon certainly painted a deadbeat, failure of a father. Such as his mentioning how his father lost a job due to his stealing from the cash register, which Sheldon had been responsible for telling on his father (The Big Bang Theory 9x12 The Sales Call Sublimation) rather than in Young Sheldon, his father losing a coaching job because of his reporting rule breaking at work (Young Sheldon 1x01 Pilot). There has been some significant retconning going on here in this show, but the retconned reality is the one I prefer - so . . . what are ya gonna do? 🤷‍♀️

[lonelier-version-of-you]

Well, you know what - I am absolutely exhausted now. That's the thing about double Casualty nights. I went off them quite a while ago because it gives me a lot to talk about afterward, making typing up my thoughts take longer, and because while I like to think I have a good enough attention span it can only last so long. Also I was more triggered by the eps than I thought I'd be (my fault though, I misjudged how I'd feel).

Yet! I am glad. We went two entire eps without Faith turning up at all. My second-least fave, Iain, was there but primarily playing the only role I like him in: Jacob's friend who tries to look out for him. And thus, even he was likeable tonight.

And of course, Jacob is finally, finally getting focus again!! It's been long enough.

But before I get into all of that, thoughts on ep 1:

Rash's storyline was... well, it's very intense. A lot more so than I would have expected. His whole breakdown about everything being broken was incredibly sad to see. Poor, poor Rash.

I didn't think this would lead to him leaving but I'm not sure now, I could easily see this being an exit story. I hope not - though, on the other hand I want him to be happy, enough that if he has to leave for that I'd go along with it.

Neet Mohan was brilliant. He's one of Casualty's best when he gets the chance to be. I'm pleased it seems the show is finally acknowledging that, even if it means Rash getting a sad storyline for now. Also, I tend to like an ep that partially revolves around a character being in therapy. I hope we get one for Jacob eventually.

I'm... intrigued by Patrick. I really don't know what to make of him, though I don't think I'm meant to. He's definitely an unknown quantity of sorts so far. I thought he'd remind me a lot of Henrik and he does, albeit mostly in different ways than Max did. Patrick makes me think of early Henrik. The grumpy, not exactly nice new man in charge who just wants everyone to focus on their work, with just the tiniest hint of a gentler side beyond all the rudeness. The scene where he talked about Rash being like him, however, was not very Henrik of him. I don't think early Henrik would ever have opened up even that much.

I continue to like Tariq as a character so far. I enjoy his dynamic with Rash a lot, still. Their borderline-brotherly dynamic is very interesting. And I have to say, he was cast really well - he feels like such a believable cousin for Rash!

Ngozi continues to be great, as well. I adore her.

I thought the way this ep depicted how busy the department was was incredibly well done. I don't have much more to say there, but I wanted to point it out.

And as for the second ep:

I'd almost forgotten just how good Charles Venn is when he gets to do dramatic acting! Not that I don't enjoy the comedy/lighthearted stuff too, but there's been hardly any of that recently either - it's just felt like nothing but "Iain, I am now going to prop up your storyline because you're not interesting enough to carry it alone, I hope you don't mind". But he got to be brilliant again tonight.

And Jacob gets the focus he deserves. It's about time Blake came up again! I wonder what's going on with Blake, he did sound very upset. And I wonder what Elle is doing. I hope she doesn't get forgotten.

Jacob's line about how him and Blake haven't really talked for a while was very intriguing. I'm glad him being basically never acknowledged for like, forever is seemingly being incorporated into the storyline rather than glossed over.

Nicole is an excellent character so far. I love her.

Rida was fantastic tonight. Incredible acting from Sarah Seggari! Some very upsetting moments, undeniably, but the writing and performance were pitch-perfect. Wow. She's amazing.

Siobhan is wonderful. I've definitely come around to her.

Anyway, that's most of what I can think of to say about tonight but I'm sure I've left a lot out that I can't remember at the moment. Basically, however, the TL;DR version of all this is: I love Jacob.

[unofficial-book-of-quotes-tm]

Taskmaster New Zealand series 1 summary

So, I finally caved and decided to expand to Taskmaster NZ and I have to say, I like it a lot, which I didn’t exactly expect, to be honest. I know a lot of people like TM NZ and have been recommending it to me non-stop, so yeah. It’s genuinely brilliant. Paul Williams and Jeremy Wells are great choices in my opinion for the assistant and the Taskmaster. They aren’t at all like Greg and Alex which I find quite refreshing. Don’t get me wrong, I adore Greg’s and Alex’s dynamic and it’s a huge part of why I adore TM UK so much, but I’m glad they didn’t try and replicate it. Jeremy is a lot quieter, more lenient and nicer when scoring the contestants, and whereas Greg has rarely a nice word to say about Alex, Jeremy basically showers Paul in praise. It’s so different, yet I think that’s why it works so well. I’m a BritCom kind of guy through and through, so I don’t know any of the NZ contestants, but everyone won me over so fucking fast. The first series is always difficult, and TM UK was already a household name when TM NZ got its first series, but I think they pretty much nailed it. The first series of TM UK holds a special place in my heart, but TM NZ slots in so easily alongside it. I expected some awkwardness, and especially Jeremy seems to struggle a little to find his footing in the early episodes but I don’t mind. I also think the Taskmaster Ranch is a nice location and so much bigger than the Taskmaster House, allowing more variety in scenery even when they’re just in one location, and I really think they nailed the tasks too. As far as I’m aware, Alex writes the tasks for TM UK himself and it’s just him who does it whereas for TM NZ they have a team creating them and it’s somewhat noticeable on occasions, but I don’t mind either way. I don’t have anything negative to say about the first series. Sure, there were things they could have done better, but who cares? I was also quite lenient about TM UK’s first series and I think they’re both highly entertaining, which should be the main point, right? The cast is also just really wholesome and I appreciate that when showing the VTs, the editors don’t just stay on the VT but intercut it with the reactions from the cast and you can also hear their reactions throughout the VT, something I miss in TM UK (I know they did it in earlier series, but why they stopped I don’t know (I mean, Tim Key’s reaction to Romesh smashing the watermelon on the ground lives in my head rent free)). Jeremy’s scoring feels sometimes even more arbitrary than Greg’s and introducing half-points in the first series could have gotten messy, but it didn’t. And I like his use of bonus points. As I know none of the cast, I basically couldn’t give less of a fuck about who won, so, yeah, I’m down with Jeremy’s scoring. As a side note: A funny thing I noticed was in episode 4 and 5, there was a guy in the audience who really, and I mean really, enjoyed himself. He was there to cheer and cheer he did. Good for him.

I love Angella Dravid. She’s so awkward and anxious but she has some prime responses / one-liners. She and Guy are the contestants I thought were funniest and she seems to be a genuinely sweet person, the way she interacted with Paul and the other cast. I thought about comparing her to Joe Thomas, but they’re on opposite ends of a spectrum for me in terms of awkwardness. I think she might be my favourite contestant overall (at least at this point in time).

I don’t know if this is a controversial opinion or not, but I think Guy Williams is a better Iain Stirling, as in, Guy did annoy me slightly, but he was also genuinely hilarious to the point where he managed to combine these things perfectly, and he was a joy to behold, especially him and Paul bouncing off of each other. You really do feel the sibling dynamic there.

I don’t know enough about Leigh Hart to conclusively determine whether he was just being nice when he offered Paul a drink anytime he was leaving to get stuff or if this is a joke I don’t get. I think I laughed each time he hit his head on the shed’s ceiling (and I feel kind of bad for laughing). Also, I loved Leigh’s feud with the blender and mixer. He seems to be one of those inoffensive white guys every iteration of Taskmaster has had at some point, so yeah, quite competent without doing anything too memorable — although that cheese sandwich looked fucking delicious, admittedly.

Watching Brynley Stent attempting most tasks was like watching an overexcited puppy, peaking in episode 7 with her crawl whilst carrying the frisbee in her mouth. I got to say, VT Brynley and studio Brynley are two entirely different people for me, like, how are they the same person? My brain can’t compute that at all. I did enjoy watching her, even though some of her ideas felt a little unhinged, overall she had a rather innocent brand of comedy about her. I liked that.

Madeleine Sami looked quite handsome in her suit, didn’t she? As I loved Leigh’s feud with the blender, I also adore Madeleine’s love story with the leaf blower. I don’t have much to say about her otherwise. Madeleine was very average, in my opinion, despite coming second with a massive lead over third place, I don’t remember much of what she did, although I have since gone on to watch Deadloch, specifically because Madeleine Sami is in it.

And I think it’s wild to have that many musically talented people in one cast. Anyway, that was TM NZ series 1. I’m not going to follow this up with series 2 immediately and put my focus back on TM UK for the time being, although series 2 and 3 were hilarious as well. But yeah, I’ll figure out a way to change it up a little every now and then. Thanks for sticking around!

[pinktinselmonstrosity]

every book i read in september!

this has been a very weird and depressing month for me, but at least i got a lot of reading done 🙃 a few v long books and some others i raced through, let's get into it!

The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman

I had just started The Silk Roads (more on that later) at the end of last month when I got covid, and decided to switch to something a bit easier. Luckily I had this on hand, and it was absolutely perfect. I love this series so much, and I think this may have been the best one yet. Very good!

The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan

My first foray into reading history for fun, one year post-history degree, and boy was this a bad place to start. I don't have a problem with the book overall, I just don't think it was right for me. I'm used to very focused studies of one particular historical period, so I found the broad-ness of this quite disappointing; it covers essentially all of human history in around 600 pages, so naturally can't go into great detail about any part of it. I found myself slightly bored and not learning anything new about periods I was already knowledgeable about, and being left wanting to learn much more about periods I wasn't already knowledgeable about. Again, this is definitely a problem with me rather than with the book - when I dip my toes into history again, I'm for sure going to go for something very specialised rather than something broad.

Slow Horses by Mick Herron

My parents love this series and we've been watching the tv show together since it started, and the book does not disappoint! It's about a group of, essentially, reject spies, who accidentally find themselves at the centre of a terrorist plot. I did find myself imagining the characters only in the way they're portrayed in the show, but that didn't impact my enjoyment (also I could not remember the plot at all, which helped).

Penance by Eliza Clark

This book has been sitting on my shelf for over a year, and I finally got around to it. It was good but, for me, didn't live up to the huge amount of hype. It's a faux-true crime story, using the conventions of true crime writing to tell a fictional story and criticise the genre. As someone who enjoys true crime but also thinks critically about it, I've read a few of these kinds of novels, and to be honest this one is not the best (I would recommend Devil House by John Darnielle or The Curious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett, for anyone who's interested).

I was actually really enjoying it until the ending, which seemed tacked-on and didn't really make sense with the rest of the book. It kind of felt like a random plot twist just added to make the book seem more edgy, without actually saying anything more than ''sometimes journalists twist the truth''. It also didn't feel like it mattered very much, since the reader knows the entire story is made up. Kinda disappointed, especially since I know people who really love this book.

Complicity by Iain Banks

This was fantastic! It follows a journalist who is investigating a series of grisly murders and unexpectedly becomes the prime suspect. Much more gruesome than I expected, and even though I figured out who the killer was fairly early on, it still kept me hooked. I loved the use of flashbacks and multiple perspectives, both of which made it much more tense and exciting. Would highly recommend!

The Examiner by Janice Hallett

Hallett is one of those authors whose books I will literally take a detour and immediately buy if I see a new one in shop windows. All of her novels are stand-alone crime novels with quite different subjects, but they're all told through documents, like emails, text messages, call logs, etc. They're basically the book equivalent of found footage, and it works SO well. This one is set in a university, focusing on a small class of postgrads and the mystery surrounding their final project. In addition to things like text messages and emails, the book includes sections of the students' essays and marking feedback to tell the story. It has one fantastic twist, and it definitely one of my favourite of her books yet!

The Castle by Franz Kafka

I really wanted to love this, but it turned out to be one of the most difficult books I've ever read. The prose is impenetrable; trying to read this book feels like wading through quicksand. Every few minutes I would be flicking through to see how many pages I had left, which is very uncommon for me. I feel the need to clarify that I'm a very strong reader, and usually enjoy difficult novels, but this one didn't feel rewarding enough to make up for the complexity. The narrative is unsatisfying and feels completely pointless; I understand that that basically is the point, but I didn't feel compelled by it. Unfortunately this was not for me at all.

Currently Reading + On My Radar

I am currently reading The Night Manager by John le Carré; it's very good so far, and the perfect antidote to a slow-moving, plot-less book hangover. Since next month is October, I'm planning to read some spooky things. I have some horror novels on my tbr, like Sheep's Clothing by Celia Dale and Rouge by Mona Awad, as well as Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, which I'm reliably informed is horrifying. Looking forward to it!

[magpiefngrl]

mid-year book freak out tag

Let's talk about books! Thanks for tagging me @bloody-wonder ❤️😘

1. Best Book You’ve Read So Far in 2023?

I've read 48 books till now but nothing leaps to mind as The Best. Like a novel that knocked me out, you know? If I had to choose one, I'd say Seven Summer Nights, a romance by Harper Fox, because I adored the first half and because it's the only book so far that gave me a book hangover.

2. Best Sequel You’ve Read So Far in 2023?

The 2nd novel of Alexis Hall's trilogy, How To Blow It With A Billionaire, was delightful. Judging by the title I'd braced myself for angst, but instead 90-95% of the book was Arden and Caspian falling in love and getting closer (until the last chapter and the inevitable heartbreak). It is one of the most skillful, heartwarming and sexy relationship progressions I've read.

3. New Release You Haven’t Read Yet, But Want To?

This has been on my sights since 2021 but still haven't got around to it: She Who Became The Sun.

4. Most Anticipated Release For Second Half of 2023?

There's nothing that I'm truly impatient about. The first that comes to mind is KJ Charles's A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel.

Also, A Power Unbound by Freya Marske. I can't say I was blown away by the first two novels, but I have a feeling the ship in this one is my kind of ship.

I'm curious for a lot of books, but not eagerly anticipating them.

5. Biggest Disappointment?

Oh boy. I left a long review on GR about it and I still cry bitter tears about how let down I was by Alexis Hall's third installment of his Billionaire series. Like I said above, I really enjoyed the second book. It ended in heartbreak but I assumed we'd see the pairing work their way through their issues together and end up HEA. What I did NOT expect was that they'd be apart for most of the novel, only getting together at 90%. I don't want to be (even more) spoilery so I'll say nothing more. Just that this book had the promise of being truly spectacular and it turned out all over the place, and it hurts.

6. Biggest Surprise?

The Lodestar of Ys by Amy Rae Durreson, a short novel I got because a GR pal left an enthusiastic review and said that it was available for free. I don't know the author and mostly read it for research and was not prepared to enjoy it as much as I did. The writing is solid, the worldbuilding fascinating, the rivalry between the ship is realistic and convincing as is their growing attraction to each other. Good smut, which isn't normally the case with pub romance. Becomes a tad too cute for my tastes towards the end, but still a great read. And free!

7. Favourite New Author?

No one stands out. I guess Amy Rae Durreson (see above) is a new to me author that made me go and check out her other books, so let's go with her.

Oh I'm also really enjoying The Scottish Boy by Alex de Campi so her too.

8. Newest Favourite Character?

Bucky Iain from The Scottish Boy, I guess?

9. Newest Fictional Crush?

No one. How weak has my reading year been??

💕Best Ship💕

Richard and Alec from Swordspoint. I refuse to read the sequels where they (I think?) break up. NOPE.

10. Book That Made You Cry?

I cry pretty easily and I'm sure I cried at a novel this year (if not more) but for the life of me I can't remember which.

11. Book That Made You Happy?

I had the most fun during my reread of Scum Villain's Self-Saving System. Gods, what I wouldn't give for more authors having so much fun with their stories.

12. Favourite Book Adaptation You Saw This Year?

I watched the final season of BBC's The Dark Materials early this year. It makes me happy to have such a great adaptation of one of my fave series of all times.

13. Favourite Review You’ve Written This Year?

I haven't written a lot of reviews this year. In the past there were times when I'd write long essays; now I'm all for short and sweet. Can't be arsed for more tbh. Unless I disliked the book and I need to rant.

14. Most Beautiful Cover?

I mostly read ebooks and I rarely notice covers. I did, however, notice the stunning cover of A Taste of Gold and Iron, which turned out to be a book I hated, so I'm even more distrustful of covers now.

15. What Books Do You Need To Read By The End of The Year?

I have a bunch of unfinished series to complete (see 2023 reading goals), so that's my first goal. My second target is reading some of the dozens of unread books I own (both on the shelves and my ereader). I do need to finish Checkmate, this is getting ridiculous, but I keep getting distracted by romance.

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Overall, it hasn't been a spectacular year. I've read a LOT--esp in June I couldn't stop reading--but I've reread a few series to complete them, which ranged from meh (The Nikolai trilogy and Darker Shades of Magic) to flawed-but-interesting (The Dreamer trilogy) to seriously uneven (the Billionaire series). Early in the year I finished JS&MN and Spinning Silver which were great, but they feel a long time away and nothing amazing has come since. Idk. Some of my reads were unusual and made an impression, but can't say I enjoyed them fully. The most satisfying books these past few months have been a few romance novels. Fingers crossed for a more exciting second half of 2023.

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2022 mid year book tag

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tagging: @lettersbyelise @tackytigerfic @julcheninred @lqtraintracks @shealwaysreads @the-starryknight @wolfpants @violetclarity