#or b) holding a gun prop in ways that would certainly AT THE VERY LEAST maim you if it were and irl gun

[eldritchmochi]

i am going to become an intimacy coordinator but specifically for cosplayers and their guns

[thelostexperiment]

It had been about a year after The Last Adventure and F.O.W.L's desertion of the Lost Library of Alexandria. All that was left with the massive monolith of ancient knowledge, standing as tall as ever in the middle of a raging sandstorm. It was still full of both artifacts of the past and state of art, modern tech from the renovations of F.O.W.L all left to gather dust. For the most part the entire library was devoid of life, with the exception... of a young female duck dressed in classic adventurer's gear.

She roamed the halls, apprehensive of her surroundings while shining her flashlight down every passageway and dark corner she passed. Occasionally she'd call out if anyone else was there, even if she wasn't sure if she wanted an answer back.

"Sweet Salin, this place is creepy." She muttered to herself with a southern drawl in her voice.

It wasn't long before she entered a huge expansion of the library with thousands of empty cells lining the walls as far as her eyes could see, or at least as far as her flashlight could show.

"And who or what the heck were all these used for?" She said in awe, as she walked through the massive room, making slow twirls to get a full 360 view of the room. She suddenly stepped on something hard and the 'crunch' made gave her a start. She found that her foot was standing on the barrel of a strange looking broken gun with a cracked crystal in it sparkled at her when she shined her light on it. She decided to quicken her pace through the room after that, but this time being more mindful of where she stepped.

After turning a few more corners and going down a few more corridors, she found herself in the medical section of the library. Maybe there could be something helpful here? She certainly hoped so. The inside seemed like a typical infirmary; cost, chairs, medical equipment and tools, some curtains, it reminded her a lot of the nurse's office at her school. Except the motivational posters on the nurse's wall didn't say–

"Don't give up!

Because not even your God(s) can save you if you fail us.

~F.O.W.L."

At least the kitten on the poster was cute... After pulling aside a curtain in the back area of the room, she noted that her school nurse didn't have two huge empty stabilization tanks in the back. Now this looked more like a sci-fi movie to her and she hoped there wouldn't be any experiments running around. Well, all she could do now was to investigate further, which led her to the back storage room of the infirmary.

She was able to jimmy the door open with her pocket knife, and as soon as she did a mouse scurried past her. The sudden movement made her jump back with a yelp before she released what it was, then felt silly as she watched the cute little guy skitter out of sight. She couldn't help but laugh at herself a little as she entered. It was a large space (not nearly as big as the cell room, though), with large crates and boxes full of medical supplies and dust all over everything.

As she went further in she noticed through the dark, a dim red light flashing against the very back wall behind a huge stack of crates. Curiosity took her to what was causing the light, which was a rather old looking computer screen attached to what looked like another stabilizing machine. Only this one wasn't as modern as the other two, the tank was slanted vertically and it wasn't empty, the fogged glass obscured whatever was inside, but she could see the silhouette of... something.

"Oh... I don't like that…" said the young duck as she looked at the machine with wide eyes, and slowly reached over her shoulder and grabbed the walking stick that was attached to the side of her backpack to bring it forward as a weapon.

Cautiously, she approached the monitor that was flashing in all big red caps, "ERROR!", and tapped the 'entire' key on the keyboard under it. The screen cleared and turned blue, but then another line of text appeared.

"Cooling unit disabled… Emergency thaw in progress…"

A loading bar appeared under the text. It was almost full…

"Aw, I really don't like that!" She exclaimed as panic settled into her heart. Even though she didn't know exactly what was behind that glass, but she'd seen enough old horror movie tropes to know this couldn't be good. Maybe it could be fixed? She tried what little she knew to override the computer, but couldn't get past the password. Then searched the thing over, frantically hoping to find the problem, and there it was. A large cable running from the machine to the wall had been gnawed through… by mice… and some of the wires were chewed to bits.

Well, there wasn't much she could do now. She took a few steps back and raised her walking stick at the ready as the loading bar reached 100%. The inside of the tank lit up, with a 'pop' and loud 'hiss' the door to the hatch of the tank cracked open, the duck readied herself to smack whatever was coming out, and—!

Nothing...

After a few seconds of holding her attack, the confused duck used her would-be weapon to push the hatch open all the way without getting near it. To her bafflement, mist poured out of the machine and cleared away to reveal an old man... Just an old balding vulture in a black suit and tie, probably sleeping...?

The unexpected twist of the situation made the young duck tilt her head and let out a– "Huh…"

All that fuss over some old guy.

She rested her stick on the ground and approached him casually this time to get a better view of him. She couldn't really tell if he was alive or not just by looking at him. If he was breathing it was very slight. She grabbed the vulture's to check his pulse, it was ice cold to the touch, but she could feel something very faint.

"Hey, Mister, you alright?" She asked as she tapped the end of his beak with the index finger of her other hand to wake him.

This did cause him to stir as his face scrunched a little from the tapping and his eyes started to blink open. The young woman stepped back as the old buzzard sluggishly drudged himself upright with a long groan that morphed into a loud yawn. She patiently waited for him to fully wake before she spoke up again.

"Well, hello there!" she said gregariously which snapped his attention towards her.

"H-hello?" He hesitantly replied in a low gruff voice as he titled his head in visible confusion, in an attempt to actually see who he was talking to.

Suddenly, the possibility of finally getting some answers about this place sparked some excitement in the young duck, especially since this old man didn't seem particularly dangerous.

"Alright, so my name's Susan Spruce, and I found this place after my plain got caught in a sand storm and kind of crash landed, and it so nice to meet you, because the place is a bit creepy by myself, and it's great to finally find someone who knows about this place. So what's your name?"

She spoke all this in a rapid fire manner, meanwhile this poor old buzzard was still struggling to see, and as he tried to lean in to get a better look at Susan his hand felt a small pair of glasses lying next to him. He picked them up and started looking through them just as she finished with her question.

"I...uh," he put the glasses on his beak, finally, he could see, "I don't know..."

That was definitely not an answer she was hoping for and the spark in her smile started to wane a bit. "Aheh… Okay, uh… how'd you get here?"

"I don't know." he repeated flatly this time.

"Well… is there anything you can tell me about yourself?... or this place…?" She asked a bit more pleadingly.

Now he was starting to get a little irritated and it showed by the look he was giving her. He straightened himself a little, cleared his throat and said calmly, "Alright, I'll tell you, but this is very important and I'm only going to say this once so you need to listen very carefully." Susan nodded, giving her full attention to him as he cleared his throat again.

"I."

"Yeah!?"

"Don't."

"Uh-uh…"

"Know."

"..." At this point she was just as annoyed as he was and it showed by the look she was giving him back, which did make him smile. Although to be fair, she'd be a bit sassy too, if a stranger started asking her questions as soon as she woke up. She stooped down to pick up her walking stick with a disheartened sigh, "Well, sorry for buggin' you then."

The old vulture took her apology as a 'goodbye', and not really wanting the only other person here to leave yet, he attempted to walk.

"Wait, don—!" The instant his feet hit the ground his legs buckled under his weight and he began to drop. The only reason he didn't face plant onto the floor was Susan jumping towards him propping him back up, and helped lean him against the machine that served as his bed for who knows how long for stability.

"Here," she said, offering him her stick, "you need this more than I do right now."

He took it with a humbled, "Thank you." A small glasses case fell out of his inner coat pocket and clattered on the floor as he used the walking stick to straighten his stance, which Susan was quick to pick up.

"Oh, hey!" she chimed as she got a good look at it, "I found your name!"

She handed the little case back to him and he read the gold print on black leather.

"B. Buzzard "

"Huh…" was all he had to say before tucking the case back into his pocket.

"Well, I guess welcome to the future, Mr. Buzzard." Susan Greeted, this wasn't what she expected to find in an ancient library, but she was glad for the company.

[letterstothemidnightsociety]

It’s 2020 and my anxiety level is so high, I grind my teeth while I’m asleep and awake!  But let’s ignore all that and instead focus on critically analyzing America’s premiere soap opera for monster hunting! It’s Supernatural! 

As you may have already guessed, I watch a lot of TV. And in the Year of Our Troubles, 2020, when I’m encouraged to stay home and indulge in my favorite pastime for the health of the nation, I watch a hell of a lot of TV. When you watch that much TV, you start to notice the rhythm and the flow of how seasons of television progress. You probably notice it too, even if you don’t think about it as much as I do. 

Like, you know that episode that happens right near the end of the season where all the characters are happy? They’ve overcome a whole bunch of obstacles and they’re finally winning and they can see that light at the end of the long tunnel? You know the one I’m talking about. That’s the moment that you, as an audience member, know things are about to go downhill very quickly

Like when Poldark smiles over something and you’re just like, ah yes, I’ll prepare for the funeral. 

Season 1 of Supernatural is like a case study of the rhythm that makes a network show work. There’s this wave effect throughout the season, building the tension up for a few episodes and then sliding through the next handful. Look at the first five episodes: they’re all about holding our breath, we’re gasping at every new turn - death and ghosts and monsters and Family Drama and Bloody Mary and PREMONITIONS AND THEN we let it out over the next three. 

Aaaaaaand exhale!

This first season especially, but I’d argue the first three definitely, you can see this pattern repeated over and over again - building the tension, ramping the horror, bringing it to a major Mythos or Series Arc Moment and then releasing all that tension with a cool-down filler/self-contained episode. 

And that’s where I am in the show now. We just had a major series arc episode with “Shadow” - John finally reunites with his sons, the villain is revealed (Meg and also the demon that killed their mom), and the endgame (for this season at least) is in sight. BUT! We’re a network show with 22 episodes to fill, and we can’t just head straight into the Finale Fight now, we’re only on episode 17! I mentioned in my last post that getting the team together again for all of 6 minutes and 44 seconds (yes, I did go back and count) felt like a slap in the face. I assumed it would have something to do with Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s shooting schedule, but looking at it again, it probably had more to do with the fact that it was too soon to bring John Winchester back as a major player.

So our next episode, our breather episode after all this High Drama, should feel a little disappointing to anyone caught up in the arc of the season. But. BUT. But. The next episode is “Hell House."

Yes, this is a filler, but this is filler done RIGHT. I mean maybe it’s just cuz it’s 2020 and I’m very tired and sad and scared all the time, but I was SO HAPPY to see Ed and Harry again, guys you don’t even know. Guys, the GHOSTFACERS ARE HERE!

And man, I am SO glad that this is a recurring side team that shows up throughout the series. Pease no one tell me that they die in a later season, I’ll find out eventually, I just can’t handle it now. 

They are the anti-Sam and Dean. They have no idea what they’re getting into, they have no idea how to hunt anything, but they’re here to get famous and that’s just...it’s beautiful guys. Just beautiful. 

Plus, you have this soft b-story line where Sam and Dean get to be Real Brothers for a hot second and prank the shit out of each other the whole episode. It’s like even Sam and Dean are saying, yeah, we need a break from all the feelings, let’s put itching powder in each other’s boxer briefs. I want to say that I was really annoyed the first time I watched this and did not care for these shenanigans, but this time around, it was a REAL JOY. 

I’m also not mad about this.

And this breather feeling sort of carries over into the next few episodes. Sort of.  

“Something Wicked” is another feelings-heavy episode. Backstory! Child-eating Monster! Tiny!Dean! I think Dean maybe cries again? Or just does that thing where he stares into the middle distance, all pain and torment and chiseled jaw line and I’m doing it again, I’msorrynotsorry. 

You know. THIS face.

All of these things lead to an episode that has a lot of character development and strengthens the bond between Sam and Dean. Sam literally validates Dean’s whole existence by apologizing for fighting him on this job and then saying “I know I’ve given you a lotta crap for following Dad’s orders, but I know why you do it.” It’s a lot. It’s a big moment from Sam, who hasn’t really reconciled with John yet and who’s still hoping for a future that isn’t all about killing every evil sonuvabitch they can find. It’s a big moment for Dean, too, since his main motivation is protecting his family and (from his limited point of view) that family keeps trying to leave him. And while we do get some insight into the f-ed up childhood that was forced upon our eponymous heroes, there’s nothing really driving the season’s plot forward in this episode. 

Same goes for “Provenance”. This episode is another good horror episode. I mean, even if that painting wasn’t possessed by a murder orphan, it is deeply haunted and I hope props burned it when the production wrapped. And what is it about ghost children particularly that’s upsetting? Is it the size? Is it the fact that their eyes are too big for their heads at that age? I mean, it probably has something to do with perverted innocence and goodness blah blah blah, but also their hands are tiny and so all the knives look bigger.

Same, Sam.

Aside from that, Sam gets another nice growth moment where he gets to imagine a world after Jessica. He’s been so fixated on finding Jessica’s killer - I’d argue more so than his mother’s killer albeit they are the same entity. That’s not a judgement against him, mind. He knew and loved Jessica, he did not know his mother, so I’m not mad about that character decision. But the show is really wrapping up the Jessica plot line because that won’t have legs in a season 2. And that’s harsh, so I’ll temper it with the fact that Sam, as a human being, is getting to the final stages of processing his grief and starting to move on with his life. Plus, I think that Dean wingmanning his brother is adorable and I love it. Good Brothering, Show! 

But nothing in this episode has anything to do with the killer Sam’s been fixating on, so there’s no progression for the season’s main arc. 

Last but certainly not least on this disc of my season 1 box set is “Dead Man’s Blood.” My notes on this episode include the key phrases “I’m pretty sure this episode is...dumb?”, “ I...do not care for vampires,” and then like, two lines later, “Nope. Still don’t care for these vampires.” They’re just making up some random-ass lore and their fashion sense is SO 2006 and I just...I just hate them. 

I hate them SO MUCH.

BUT! That’s not the point of this episode. The point of this episode is to point us towards the season finale. FIRST, we start to see a little bit more of the world that the Winchesters inhabit. We actually meet another hunter, Daniel Elkins. He dies immediately, but that’s a cold open for ya. And when Sam and Dean go to investigate Elkin’s death, John comes back, this time for good (haha, lol). We get a real taste of the family dynamics in this episode - John and Sam fight and come together and fight and come together and Dean’s standing there kinda like, SPONGEBOB! 

You know, Plankton! Krabs! Dean Winchester! Right? Anybody?

All sides have good arguments, and I appreciate that none of the conflict between the the three of them feels forced, or at least, it doesn’t feel forced this watch. The fights all come from deep character places that have been established through the whole season. They’re natural progressions of what we’ve come to expect of these characters. 

And finally, most importantly, John knows how to defeat the demon that killed their mother. Enter Deus Ex Colt Revolver. 

Colt Revolver Ex Machina?

CAN I just take a break for a second to say that BOTH Elkin AND John were ready to WASTE PRECIOUS COLT BULLETS on VAMPIRES, who can be killed IN OTHER WAYS?? Listen, you make a magic gun that only works with these  like, 5 BULLETS, and then you just THROW AWAY A BUNCH OF SHOTS, GUYS??? ALSO, what the HELL does Haley’s Comet and The Alamo have to do with this STUPID GUN??? I JUST- you know what, we don’t have time for all that. 

Attaining the Colt is the brick they drop on the gas pedal to drive us into the season finale of season 1. 

Wasting a some PRECIOUS F*CKIN’ BULLETS, GUYS.

When you look at the season’s pacing at the outset, it seems like it shouldn’t work. I was that person who felt disappointed in each episode where it became clear we were definitely on a side quest, not the main quest.  Watching it now, though, I think that pacing is important. Yeah, the Monster-of-the-Week episodes are a little hit and miss, but sometimes you have to think of a TV season like a marathon and not a sprint. There will be times when you pick up the pace, yes, but it’s a long race and you’re gonna need some periods of recovery if you’re gonna make it to the finish line. And frankly, a lot of those side quest episodes ended up being my favorite episodes of the entire series. 

NOW. I doubt you would see this sort of structuring in a show today, specifically in shows that don’t get a 22 - 24 episode order. You MAY get, MAY, a Ghostfacers-type episode thrown in after a major emotional climax for that breather effect. MAY. But if Supernatural was made today - probably for an online streaming site, probably with only 10 - 13 season order - I don’t think you’d see episodes like “Something Wicked” or “Provenance” or “Faith”. The nice thing about short seasons is that you can keep the storytelling focused and tight, but I also think that can be a weakness as much as it is a strength. What do those three episodes all have in common? They’re strong on character and relationship development. We, the audience, get a deeper understanding and appreciation of the Winchesters and how they work and grow as a unit in these episodes. So if we’ve watched this far, through bugs and ghost trucks, through all their little victories and major setbacks, we’re well and truly invested in how the season is going to end. 

I’m not saying you can’t have big character moments in a shorter season. And I’m not saying that a show more focused on plot, on the What Happens rather than the Who It Happens To, is a bad thing. But watching this season over again in comparison to present day television seasons, it’s highlighted what Supernatural did right. On this side of the series, it’s easy to see why the show went on for another 14 years.

[mst3kproject]

511: Gunslinger

I’ve probably given the impression that I hate Westerns, which is not quite true – I’m mostly just bored with the entire concept after having been force-fed it since childhood.  If a Western wants me, it’s gonna have to give me aliens or dinosaurs or vampires or something as a ‘hook’.  Gunslinger is just a straight-up tale of law and order in the old west, and as such it doesn’t interest me much at all.  Yet when I watch it, I have to give it a surprising number of props, especially for being something that wound up on the Satellite of Love.

Gunslinger does not waste time.  In the opening scene we see the Marshall of Oracle, Texas, gunned down in his own office, and his wife Rose vow to take her revenge on the killers. Until the new guy can arrive from San Antonio, Rose decides she’s going to do the Marshalling herself!  She starts small, trying to make the local Red Dog Saloon comply with the laws about not being open late.  This brings her into conflict with the Saloon’s owner Erica, who decides that Rose has to go.  While Rose makes freely with the police brutality, Erica hires her outlaw ex-boyfriend Caine as an assassin.  This being a movie, Caine and Rose immediately fall in love instead. Her husband’s been dead about a week at this point.

The biggest strength of the movie is that the writing and acting, while not stellar, are certainly good enough.  We know who all these people are, we can tell them apart, and we know what they want and why they’re in conflict with each other. Rose and Erica have never liked one another, and now their jobs have put them in a position to do something about it. Erica uses people’s image of her as a floozy to bilk them out of money.  Jake is in love with Erica and tired of being spurned.  Mayor Polk dwells on his war stories because they’re more exciting than his lackluster present life.  Caine is still shaken by PTSD and doesn’t understand that killing Polk won’t make it better.  The funeral scene introduces us to most of these characters, and their relationships are sketched out in ways that aren’t boring and don’t interfere with the flow of the story.

Gunslinger’s ‘gimmick’ is that it takes a pretty standard Western plot – local Sheriff versus land-grabbing tycoon – and places women in the main roles.  This could have been an absolute disaster depending on what the writers thought of women, but Charles B. Griffith and Mark Hanna handled it very well.  It never treats either Rose or Erica as a joke, or thinks they’re ‘cute’ for being a law enforcer or a businesswoman.  Both of them are portrayed as people, slightly larger-than-life in the way genre characters always are, but written and played with complete sincerity.  The fact that they’re women allows the introduction of the love triangle with Caine, but the only person who lets that get in the way of what anybody’s trying to accomplish is Caine himself!  Even the very minor character of Mayor Polk’s wife Felicity is an active rather than reactive character, who actually protects her husband when she thinks he’s in danger rather than just standing around fretting.  Likewise with the can-can dancers, who take action to try to avoid losing their livelihoods.

Rose in particular could have driven the whole thing into the ground if her heart had overcome her head, but while she does have a weakness for Caine she knows it’s a weakness, and uses it to her advantage when she can. She meets him knowing he plans to try to seduce her, but keeps her head and questions him.  She firmly tells him that she can’t let emotion interfere with the unpleasant job that needs doing, and at the end, even though it visibly upsets her, she does her duty and kills him.  Even the fact that he just shot Erica to protect her doesn’t sway her decision!  The way Erica and Rose keep their heads while Caine loses his heart suggests to me that this inversion of the male and female roles is entirely intentional.  Gunslinger is predicated on the idea that men and women are equally capable of being rational and emotional, giving and greedy, and generally human, and on that basis it seems to be an earnest attempt at a feminist movie.

So as far as that goes, Gunslinger works all right.  The plot is, as Kevin noted in The Amazing Colossal Episode Guide, a series of wild west clichés, with only the gender swap to really give them any flavour.  Details of Erica’s land scheme are pretty muddy and the movie studiously avoids any actual action or suspense, but we’re interested enough to see it through to the end. It’s not really that bad. Unfortunately, it’s not that good, either.

The primary reason why is because the movie is desperately cheap.  The streets of Oracle often look all but abandoned, as they couldn’t afford extras and therefore saved them for the most important scenes.  The buildings appear to be made out of cardboard and the jail cells in the Marshall’s office look like they would have trouble holding a large dog, never mind an armed human being.  Characters ride horses along dirt roads with visible tyre tracks.  Most of the film takes place at night, but you can’t tell because they shot it in the daytime and didn’t even use a very dark filter – witness the hilarious bit where Caine points out the constellation Ursa Major while there is blue sky visible behind him.

Another reason is the direction, which is at best boring.  Far too many wide shots call attention to the empty streets, while all the gunplay takes place at very close quarters to disguise the fact that none of the actors can even pretend to aim.  The fight scene between Caine and the Deputy is downright tragic, with punches that obviously miss by several inches.  The worst moment of this is Caine’s story about why he hates Polk.  I understand and respect that they couldn’t afford an actual flashback, but all we see for this entire narrative is Caine’s talking head in a single, static shot. Surely there was something more interesting they could have done here.  I should not watch this and find myself thinking about how ugly that wallpaper is.

The thing I spent most of Gunslinger thinking about, though, is Rose’s approach to law enforcement, which is inconsistent to say the least.  We have a few quick scenes in which she upholds the law in Oracle by shooting people – what these men did we’re never told.  Later she shoots at Caine, having mistaken him for somebody else. What if she’d hit and killed him? Yet only minutes later, she’s telling Caine she wants this man alive and tells him off for shooting the guy before he could be questioned.  So how exactly was Rose planning on questioning a dead man?  Later, when Erica’s little toady Jake tells Rose that Caine is planning to kill her and Mayor Polk, she says she cannot arrest him for something they have no evidence of.  Really?  She seemed perfectly happy to shoot a guy whose face she couldn’t see earlier in the film.

Maybe this is supposed to be Rose’s character arc.  She goes from cold-bloodedly shooting one of her husband’s assassins at the funeral to realizing that the law is more complex and due process is necessary.  Maybe realizing she’d almost killed the wrong man was her turning point.  The script actually does kind of hint at this.  At the end Rose leaves Oracle and all its bad memories behind when her official replacement arrives, wanting nothing more to do with this town or with law enforcement, and she and Caine do discuss the violence associated with the job.  Men who are outlaws in one state become lawmen in another, and then go back to a life of crime – either way you get the rush of killing (and a lawman can do so legally!), but crime pays better.  Caine thinks of himself as better than other professional murderers, because he’s in it for the money rather than the blood.

That’s not how the movie uses these moments, though.  Rose’s killing spree is apparently supposed to convince us she’s the most effective law enforcement this town has had in a long time, and her almost shooting Caine merely provides a ‘meet cute’ scene of sorts.  Their conversation about killing and police work just gives them something in common to bond over, and her leaving at the end has to do with being forced to kill the man she’s fallen in love with (just days after her husband died!  Couldn’t they have made her the first Marshall’s sister or something?).

Gunslinger is one of those movies where just a little extra effort would have made the whole thing a lot better.  A few more extras would have made all the difference to a lot of shots.  Better lighting would have improved the night scenes immeasurably.  Anything would have been better than a talking head and bad wallpaper for Caine’s war story.  These are such tiny details, and yet just a little more money in the right places could have done so much to help the audience focus on what’s there instead of what’s missing.

Sadly, this is a Roger Corman production, so making a good movie was never really the goal.  Rather, the union rules were about to change so that actors could only work five days a week, so Corman shit out Gunslinger as fast as he could to get it done before he would have to let anyone have a weekend.  Explains a lot, doesn’t it?