demonbrat_98 | Reading

This is to let you know that I have now joined the ranks of Taskmaster RPF writers, except not in a way that I think most people do. I got the idea for this fic last year when listening to the Taskmaster live shows, where Greg and Alex joked about a dark version of the show and Greg being a dictator, and somehow this dystopian political satire just popped into my head, fully formed. Resemblance to any governments, British, American, or otherwise, are purely coincidental.

(it was originally supposed to be more of a Squid Games fusion type of thing - hence the title - but then, uh, the real world turned out to be more inspiring in a bad way)

And for the record, it's in an Anonymous collection but not because I don't want it associated with me, but because I know that the Taskmaster production team reads fic on AO3 and I've already been contacted by a British production company once after writing comedy RPF so I wanted to make it at least a little bit more difficult for them to connect it to my fannish identity ;)

The Taskmaster Games - Episode: "We Aim to Please" (3301 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Taskmaster (UK TV) RPF
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Characters: Original Characters, Greg Davies, Alex Horne (British Comedy RPF)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Dark, Satire, Dark Greg Davies, Dark Alex Horne, Minor Greg Davies/Alex Horne, Current Events, Bigotry & Prejudice
Summary:

He'd posted a joke on social media. That was the reason why he was here. Ever since the elections, he'd been more careful with his words. No naming names, no directly calling out the Regime. But he'd still managed to trigger some invisible tripwire and came home from a gig to find the men in black waiting for him.

Welcome to Taskmaster. A show where a broken funny bone isn't just a metaphor.

beccaelizabeth

I bought a bunch of these audios based on the book New Adventures because I liked the first one I heard with these companions. But they feel a bit sideways of what I'm used to in Doctor Who.

This one was written by a much younger Russell T Davies, and it indeed sounds like it is written by a much younger RTD. Sort of concentrate of RTD, like later it gets smoothed out.

... okay now I'm staring at the posting form it turns out that's all I've got to say about it.

It's not quite to my tastes and it is very much itself.

snickfic

In which I review two movies with main characters named Grace.

Ready or Not 2 (2026). Immediately after the events of the first movie, Grace is kidnapped, handcuffed to her estranged sister, and put into a new hide and seek game against the heads of all her in-laws' fellow rich devil worshippers.

This was a great time. It's not as tightly written as the first, and I have some quibbles, but Samara Weaving is once again and absolute delight, and the cast of rich assholes was a lot of fun, even if they couldn't bounce off each other quite as well as in the first movie because they're not all related to her. I adored Sarah Michelle Geller as Ursula, one of a pair of twins who take the field together, and one of my biggest regrets is that we didn't get more of her and Grace interacting directly. Even with the little we have, I ship it really hard.

I also enjoyed how the movie managed to take multiple key themes and plot points from the first movie and put new spins on them, and I enjoyed the expansion of the lore.

I wasn't totally sold on the sister relationship. I didn't have a problem with the estrangement part or how that got used to retcon in a family member for Grace, but I wanted their history to be a lot messier. "I didn't take you with me when I moved out at age 18 because I didn't think I could take care of you" vs "You abandoned me" just isn't that interesting a conflict to me, you know? Nor does it offer much room for interesting resolution. I've seen people say they found the movie very shippy for sistercest, but I'm not really into it, unfortunately, because they just weren't fucked up enough for me.

Also, this movie was straight to a distracting degree. ( spoilers )

So: overall not quite as charming as the first, but still very fun.

--

Project Hail Mary (2026). Ryan Gosling stars as xeniobiologist turned middle school science teacher Ryland Grace, who gets recruited for an interstellar mission to try to save the sun from getting eaten by space microbes.

Gosling is the only human being on screen for about 80% of the movie, and he carries the movie so effortlessly that I was genuinely surprised to realize that this movie is by far his most financially successful leading role. He's been getting lead roles for 20+ years, so it feels like oh yeah, of course he's an A-lister, but actually I think this is the movie that is going to cement that for him. And good for him!

The other main character is the rock alien, who is primarily a puppet augmented with animatronics and CG. I wish I'd realized going in that he was mostly practical, because I'd have paid more attention. The sets are also fully practical, and I read somewhere that there is zero green screen work; when Grace is doing his spacewalks and so in, Gosling was being filmed against matt paintings that were touched up later. And you can feel it! This is a megabudget SFF movie that was nonetheless made with love.

There are some other characters in the flashbacks, but the only one I cared about was the administrator of the mission played by Sandra Huller, whom I absolutely loved. She brings such gravitas that it felt like she was in some other movie entirely. I looked her up, and it turns out she starred in that movie Anatomy of a Fall from a few years ago, which I definitely need to see now.

The story itself is really linear, even taking into account the flashbacks in the early part of the movie. There aren't really any surprises here; you'll get the movie you saw in the trailer. I enjoyed all the montages of Grace Doing Science, which I gather is the novel author Andy Weir's big strength. The ending stutters a bit, in the sense that there were about three in a row and it wasn't clear which one was the actual end, and I have some worldbuilding/plot questions about how things shook out, which I assume Weir answered them at length in the novel.

It didn't blow my mind like it seems to have blown a lot people's, but I had a good time. If you're in the mood for a space adventure, especially one with a lot of practical filmmaking, you should check it out.

shadowkat

Another day, another dollar - or several dollars - hence the reason I got up at 6 am, got on the subway around 7 am, and lugged my sorry old ass to the tip of Manhattan and the eighteenth floor of a steel and glass building to work. My thirty-odd years in NYC has resulted in jumping between all sorts of office buildings and in just about every borough but Staten Island. (Which is good thing, because I'm not entirely sure how I'd commute to Staten Island from where I live?) I finally made into an office with a window and a few, and some semblance of privacy, it's still a cubicle - but at least it's a nice one.

Political Interactions on Threads or social media (that is not Dreamwidth), which is why I'm rarely on Threads? It makes me wish there were a lot more Darwin Awards.
( humorous if it wasn't true, which alas it is, so...anxiety inducing right now, humorous about 30-50 years from now, assuming of course anyone is still alive and we've not destroyed ourselves yet? )

Shower. Bed. I'll write more another day, hopefully not about politics.

yourlibrarian

1) For those who use Zoom for meetings, something to be concerned about: WebinarTV Turning Zoom Calls into AI Podcasts. Stanford has issued guidelines to campus users to prevent it happening.

2) Turns out Xfinity offered us free Peacock (supposedly Peacock Premium but we have ads anyway). Getting Peacock access was quite a process though. All I should have had to do was click the email link and accept the offer. In fact, everything I tried kept sending me to a 404 page. ( Read more... )

3) When I finally did get into Peacock, I used it to watch Song Sung Blue and thought it was mostly an enjoyable film. I liked Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson leaning into their ages and downplaying his looks. The music was fun and it was a nice, small scale love story. ( spoilers ).

3) The Peacock issue wasn't the only technical frustration of the last few days. After finishing my taxes and other to-dos I had pending, I wanted to take some time to get back into my LEGO Star Wars game on the Xbox which I'd last tried almost 3 years ago. ( Read more... )

4) I feel surprisingly upset to hear that Starfleet Academy is essentially cancelled. (There's another season coming but that had already been planned before S1 began). I wrote earlier about how much I was enjoying it, and that was before I watched the fourth episode. I will miss these characters, and it seems there's so much more that could be done.

5) The latest

marchmetamatterschallenge writing prompt was "How do you define genres? Is it still a useful tool to find entertainment you like, or have offerings become so niche and melded that it's hard to use categories anymore? Was it ever something useful for you, personally?"

To some degree yes, but increasingly no. ( Read more... )

Poll #34417 Kudos Footer-568

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beccaelizabeth

https://www.bigfinish.com/ranges/v/torchwood
Big Finish audio adventures: Torchwood is on sale if you want some adventures. Ianto adventures tend to be excellent. The range is going to end soon with adventure 100 and the cover for it is proper frightening, so I look forwards to it and want to hide behind the sofa about it in equal measure, as it should be.

Mostly I have just been going very slowly at listening to Torchwood, since once I have listened them all there shall be no more to listen. Which is sad, but, how many shows get over a hundred extra episodes after they're off the TV, even as audios? Pretty awesome.

https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/torchwood-salvage-2997 is not Ianto but is by Gareth David Lloyd, and he does the voice for the AI of the SUV.

It is not my favourite of his works. ( Read more... )
So it is a story with some theme and strengths.

But I'm having a bunch of feelings about it and
mostly want to go back and relisten to more familiar audios
which is part of what the feelings is about.

I don't know how any of you would react to it.

Or what an honest review type rating would look like.

It's a story about Torchwood as we knew it being on the scrap heap and the feelings it brings up aren't the fun sort, but it tells what it sets out to and makes you have a bunch of feelings, so fair enough.

I am feeling like I'd rather go play a story where a scary monster gets put back in its box, but the ones about grief and the passage of time and facing up to difficult truths definitely have a place as well.

shadowkat

Dang-nabbit, internet, is persuading me to buy books again. (I really do not need to buy any more books. Although at least they are e-books - which is either a lease to read it on the Kindle, so not really buying ...I don't know, the whole thing confuses me to no end. And I can't afford a Kindle and a Kobo. Plus buying books on Kindle is easy and cheap, so there's that and I get points. )

1. I bought Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Safron - about a boy in late 1940s Barcelona or post WWII Barcelona who is charged with protecting a book, long out of print, and rare - from the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. The Book in question is also entitled "Shadow of the Wind". Thank you Sarah Michelle Gellar for perking my curiosity enough for me to purchase this book. Much appreciated. (She said in an interview broadcast on Instagram that her two favorite books were Donna Tartt's Secret History (which I loved and devoured in the 1990s) and Shadow of the Wind (so I got curious about Shadow of the Wind - which Stephen King also adored). The book is difficult to describe with a convoluted plot - I apparently like to read and write these types of books, which makes my life more difficult but far less dull.

Then grabbed, "Locked-In by John Scalzi" - which I'd flirted with previously, as when he first published it ages ago, but got persuaded when he posted that a bunch of people in Texas (it's always one of the Southern States - must be all those hot days? Bakes the brain?) had chosen to ban it. He was upset about it. (I'd have been too.) Apparently it's never happened to him before. (which is interesting - he's certainly liberal and political enough). So, I got curious - and decided to get it for $6.99.
Which is admittedly more than usual, but there you go. It's a sci-fi/mystery hybrid with a convoluted plot. Has a Black Mirror vibe to it. I've read a couple of his "stand alone" books: Red Shirts, Starter Villain, Kaijiu Preservation Society...the last two were read by Will Wheaton. Scalzi is a nerdy sci-fi writer, and usually has nerdy protagonists. He's kind of similar to Andy Weir? Except I like Weir's books slightly better.

As an aside? I'm fundamentally against censorship. Are there books that I despise? Yes. Do I think they should be censored? No. The challenge of "free speech" is folks you don't agree with have to have it too - in order for it to work. There were librarians commenting on Scalzi's post stating they sent out books they despised all the time.
( thoughts on book censorship )
And finally a Dark London Mystery/Romance Series novel entitled Winterblaze by Kristen Callihan which was $1.99,
and a second chance romance between an estranged married couple, in a paranormal verse. "Poppy Lane is keeping secrets. Her powerful gift has earned her membership in the Society for the Suppression of Supernaturals, but she must keep both her ability and her alliance with the Society from her husband, Winston. Yet when Winston is brutally attacked by a werewolf, Poppy’s secrets are revealed, leaving Winston’s trust in her as broken as his body. Now Poppy will do anything to win back his affections." The second chance ex-lover trope is a huge kink of mine. (I prefer older romances to young ones...for the most part.)

I love books. Books are my friends. They've seen me through some tough times.

Coworker: Are you one of those people who always has a book in your hand or with you?
ME: Definitely

If I had to choose between books, television and movies - I'd probably pick books - easier to carry around and less noisy.

beccaelizabeth

I am rereading (slowly) some fantasy books I haven't read in a while (decade or two?)
and what it just made me think about is
how many of them invent
TREE
but better.

Like, there is a Tree, and it can feed you!
and yes, that is indeed one thing a tree can do.
so what is the But Better?
well if it was simply not being seasonal that is a handy one, food but all year, everyone likes that.
but then it's like
tree but more supermarket.
what if fantasy landscape had a corner store, and no human needed to tend it.
let us just make labor even more invisible, and have Tree available to any and everyone just by walking past and grabbing a bit, that is obviously But Better, apparently.
And don't get me wrong, a lunch pail tree is obviously pretty cool, it makes you think about lunch pails and the way they do not in fact just grow that way and draws attention to the whole work goes in aspect of it, but
Tree But Better, These Guys Never Went Camping Edition,
is just
you can eat the tree!

And they do indeed eat every part of the tree.
you don't even need to know which part.
you eat all the tree and can live on it.

they never connect this up to the trees being ill
even though they have to avoid several ill trees to find a well one to eat.

they never get into the ecology of it all.

why are Trees But Better just sitting around for humans to eat?
why do they not have epic numbers of herbivores eating all the things?
why are they tree shaped if it doesn't get the edible bits away from the eaters?
every bit of the tree is edible.
that thing has no roots in logic land, something ate them already.

But nope, because it is Fantasy Land, so everything exists only for human adventurers.
Specifically ones that have no Survival skills, don't feel the need to Learn Plants, and just want to shove a food in their mouth.

And these miraculous items are somehow not part of the agricultural economy?
poor people might eat them if they wanted to badly.
otherwise they just sit there being trees
while people do farming
of unnamed crops
for nebulous reasons.

You know what does not happen when plentiful trees are literally a complete surviveable food?
the exact kind of feudal farming with thralls that is designed to grow you enough plant and animal to live on.
because you can already live on the sodding trees
which are everywhere
and nobody needs to tend them
and if you in fact don't have enough of them to feed all the humans
you would
Grow Trees On Purpose
because that is a complete meal
and a sheep is not.

But that isn't the point of the story so the whole world is vaguely medieval
because that's how it works.

Same thing with
Tree But Better:
You Can Shelter Under It.

And to be fair there are entire woodland societies that do indeed grow Trees But Better to live in.

It's just once that is simple, effective, and available everywhere you can walk to
you have to wonder why anyone else *isn't* doing it
or why every time they look for somewhere to shelter
there is a convenient
unoccupied
tree
with no beasties in it whatsoever.

Tree But Better exists solely so the narrative can stop thinking about survival and ecology and labour and make it so you don't need an inn to survive overnight in the middle of sodding nowhere.

It's like this character who went hiking in his running shoes to go find a portal, and the narrative has him still wearing them a year later after all the adventures, and that never turns out to be a bad idea.

You know how many times you have shopped for shoes?

You know how you have to check really carefully to get the right shoes for the job or you end up squelching around in foot ruining agony?

Terry Pratchett certainly thought about boots, and where they come from, and the socio economic implications of different sorts of them, and what boots dragon riders would wear,
but I can't think of a second example.

It's not even that they wouldn't make story mileage. Of such things is civilisation made.

But not if you're doing ye olde fantasy novel apparently.

Fantasy and magic makes everything But Better, so you can just ignore where things come from and who might be making them and the vague possibility that people might need other people even for basic goods and services and that that maybe might be why civilisation in all its varieties occurs
and just get on with the hard job of intimidating the natives with your clearly superior inherent worth
etc.

Today it is irritating me.

shadowkat

I've a bunch of doves, sparrows, cardinals, and robins, also pigeons, tweeting in the backyards behind my building. My living room windows look out on a bunch of tree tops - so I see the birds, along with an occasional squirrel in them. I've debated buying a bird feeder - but I've no idea how I'd attach it to the back of a window without killing myself in the process. And it's not really necessary? They perch on my wide window sill all on their own.

***

I finished, Illona Andrews' The Inheritance (Breach-World Series #1) - which is a survival/adventure story not a romance, and if you are at all familiar with the writer - is most likely within the Innkeeper and Bayou world-building, it has similar characters and a similar tone/writing style to those two series, albeit without the romantic elements.

The book is hard to describe? There's a lot of world-building. And it has a convoluted plot. But I'll take a crack at it? ( description of book I just read, without any major spoilers ) So this is definitely not a romance novel - it's a science-fiction survival story and what the heck happened investigation, which is a huge story kink of mine. I love stuff like this. Mystery/Survival/Sci-Fi Hybrids are my favorite. (Also reminds me a little bit of a video game.)

It's the first book - I sped through in a while. So fingers crossed that the reading slump from hell has ended? Not wishing to tempt fate, I'm trying an earlier series by the writers - The Kinsman Series - which has two novellas, a short story, and a book length book involved in it. I don't know - but it appears to be more along the lines of romance fantasy or romance sci-fi, which isn't really my thing? But it might work. Who knows? At least the writers write strong female characters for the most part. Also the books are dirt cheap. The first ebook was $4.99, and the other was free on Kindle Unlimited.

***

Flirting with the television series Succession - which I'm told gets really good after the third or fourth episode, and takes off in the sixth episode. This is unfortunately true of a lot of television series? Particularly HBO series that fall under the category of hyper-realism.
Also flirting with the c-drama, Pursuit of Jade - of which there are 40 episodes on Netflix, it's in Mandarin with subtitles, and is...very pretty on the eyes? Honestly the cinematography is amazing for a television series. It's a historical action/adventure romance. I may continue - it's pretty and kind of relaxing to watch? Considering I have subtitles or closed captioning on half the time anyhow...not sure it matters? I have more issues with it for animated series. Mainly because it's hard to see the close captioning through the animation - they have a tendency to put it in white.

***

Catching up on March Question a Day Meme:

23. When was the last time you ate some chocolate?

About an hour and fifteen minutes ago. It's my main vice. And I'm not giving it up.

24. Harry Houdini was born today in 1874. Are you a fan of magic shows? Have you ever seen someone perform close-up magic?

Depends on the magic show? For the most part I enjoy them? But I also know some of the tricks?

Yes, more than once. I was even pulled into the act once on a girl scout retreat with my father when I was roughly speaking 10 years of age?( Read more... )

25. How often do you wash your hair? Do you style it, or just let it dry naturally?

Just did. But typically every other day, and sometimes every two days, depending on what I'm doing and usually at night.( Read more... )

beccaelizabeth

I am stalled at page 330 on finishing the magic kingdom book
which is nearly the end
but this book is
bad.

there is one character in it.
he is a bit rubbish.

he is also King because money says so.

Everyone around him only exists to provide exposition or go Oh No Don't and then he do.
They have days and days of travel but it keeps saying they don't talk.
Can you imagine, just days and days of not getting to know each other because they're treating it like zoning out on the bus home.

This is not an author who thus far has a firm grasp on how long a day is, is all.

Make him write a 45 minute script based on this lot and it would cover the whole story and be Dire.

The naked lady has no motivation except Fate and Belonging To Him.

I keep being distracted by imagining any other set of characters walking into this world, and the basic problem is they would tear through the paper thin flats of the backdrop and NPCs without even trying.
Any fandom's blorbos are better realised characters than this and to make the world fill in to their level would take writing so so much of it.

This book is inspiring.
If something this flat can get published I'm not all that bad.

shadowkat

It was raining most of today - as it turns out, and cold. With a chill in the air. When it wasn't raining, it was misting.

1. I'm glad I'm not flying anywhere at the moment. Newark has had several plane collisions in the last few months, and on Sunday, Laguardia (LGA) in NY had a fatal plane collision with a Fire Truck. Air Canada and a Fire Truck collided.

LGA Air Canada and Fire Truck Collision.

I woke up this morning - turned on the news - and there it was as the lead story. It happened late Sunday night, they shut down the airport and evacuated the terminal - the news broadcasters told us that nothing was flying in or out of LGA until 2pm.

And if you were catching a flight before then - to contact your airline because it was probably cancelled and the airport was closed. This was at 6:30 am this morning.

( what happened as far as we know... )

( how many flights were canceled )

Art History Major aka Busy Bee - is off to Florida on Wed. ( TSA and ICE not the best mix for travel )

God, how did we get here? We all agreed that we wanted the thing in the White House gone. And when it happens? We'll flood the streets, hold impromptu celebrations, dance in the street, kiss each other on the cheeks, and hold a big street party. We'll be united in glee. Another rendition of ...the classic 1941 ditty, When that Man is Dead and Gone - which is both tragically and ironically valid today

Mother, I, AHM's boss, and Breaking Bad have all decided we're not flying anywhere any time soon. I'm hoping this sorts itself out by at least May or June. But not holding my breath.

2. I'm frustrated with My Doctor's Office/Health Care Provider. So the PT wanted me to schedule an appointment with his buddy - the vestibular therapist on Tuesday, but alas my primary care gave me a referral to a therapist who can't see me until May and isn't the vestibular therapist the PT introduced me to and wanted me to see this week.

I went online, and after a lot of maneuvering in their site - managed to find the PT that I wanted.

So I asked if I could choose my own or switch to the other one. Primary Care agreed - and if they don't allow it, let her know and she'll send a new referral.

So I call the physical therapy scheduling office and after an hour on hold and, it doesn't exactly go well?

( talking to healthcare provider schedulers requires far too much patience... )
[I'll got talk to the schedulers tomorrow in person. Maybe I'll get somewhere. Unlikely, I'm going in with low expectations? With Healthcare Providers - it's best to go in with low expectations - that way you don't get disappointed.]

See? This is the reason that I've done nothing about the vestibular/vertigo issue. By the time, I actually see the guy, the problem will be gone.

3. There's been a lot of "problematic" famous people dying lately? James Vander Beek, the guy who shall not be named - he was a political guy, and Nick Brendan. Of the three JVB was probably the least controversial and easiest to deal with - and considering he was against vaccines, and a Trump supporter, that's kind of saying something?

Nick Brendan portrayed a problematic character on Buffy (who I consider complicated and was actually quite likable towards the end of S3 and through S7 for the most part. Being a well-rounded and 3 dimensional character - he had plenty of flaws, but that made the character memorable. Also, beloved and relatable to many. Perfect characters or goody two shoe characters are not relatable or beloved. We tend to forget about them. Yes, he was a bit of a jerk in S1-3, but also an adorable goof-ball, and he saved Buffy's life three times). He was troubled and problematic man in life, far more so, actually than most of the characters he portrayed or at least the most familiar of them.

I stumbled upon Nick Brendan's last post on FB - where he takes questions from his devoted fans, and ....I felt for him, while at the same time, was horrified at what he'd become and what his fans, unwittingly enabled. There's a lesson for us all in there somewhere? ( discussing a dead man feels so morbid but here we go... )

The internet scared me today - because I looked up what ailed him. It's "Cauda equina syndrome (CES)" which according to the Orthopedic Centers of Colorado is a rare, medical emergency involving severe compression of nerve roots at the base of the spine, requiring immediate decompression surgery—ideally within 24 hours—to prevent permanent paralysis, incontinence, and sexual dysfunction. Key symptoms include severe low back pain, saddle anesthesia (numbness in groin/buttocks), and sudden bowel/bladder dysfunction.

The internet loves to throw symptoms at you that you think you have and don't. Technology is turning me into a hypochondriac.

( back to discussing Brendan's demons )

4. Stumbled upon this disturbing article about being a young professional screen actor and dealing with the toxicity of social media.

Barry Keoghan Says Online Abuse Means He
Doesn't Want to Go Outside Any More

"Oscar-nominated actor Barry Keoghan has said online abuse about his appearance is affecting his life, to the point that he now does “not want to go outside”.

The Irish actor, who is playing Ringo Starr in Sam Mendes’ upcoming Beatles tetralogy, told SiriusXM host Ben Harlum that though he left social media in 2024 due to online abuse, it was still so bad that he was “shying away” from the public eye – and it was making him want to retreat from acting.

Asked about his fans, Keoghan acknowledged that some “people are so lovely out there”, but added: “There’s also a nasty side of it. And I’ve removed myself from online, but I’m still a curious human being that wants to go on. And if I attend an event or if I go somewhere, you want to see how it was received. And it’s not nice, you know?”
( my two cents )

yourlibrarian

1) It was nice to see that when Jeopardy used "slash fiction" as a clue, they actually had the correct definition.

2) This article which looks at Hamnet's role as an Oscar nominee was interesting but asked an odd question at the start: "(Chalamet) is not wrong in noticing that the classical arts have less mass appeal than pop art...Given this logic, if the classical arts have a connotation of decline because the masses no longer engage with them/or they are inaccessible, why does William Shakespeare—arguably just as distant from everyday popular consumption—continue to carry enormous cultural prestige, especially in industries like awards-season filmmaking?" ( Read more... )

3) Enough time has passed now that I'm not entirely sure what I wanted to discuss regarding several Netflix shows, but I think it had to do with what made them memorable. ( Read more... )

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elisi

I'm not sure what to say about Nicholas Brendon as he leaves behind a complicated legacy, except that we lost him way too young. I hope he is at peace now.

However

kerk_hiraeth has been re-posting their old Xander fics In Memoriam, and I thought it would be nice to link them here.

Inside Knowledge
Missing scene for S7 (post ep.11, Showtime)
Drabble

Right Hand Man
Post-series, Xander passes away
1.3k words

A message finally delivered
Xander receives a letter from Cordy
1.3k words

Following the Rules
A little scuffle
200 words

An Honorable Farewell
A funeral
Drabble

Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay
A contemplative moment
Drabble

Current Mood: thoughtful

shadowkat

1. Been watching mostly Grantchester on Netflix this weekend. Season 1 - which is a cozy little murder mystery series - about a jazz loving vicar and a semi-alcoholic homicide detective who solve crimes in the 1950s - in a quaint English village just outside of Cambridge. The village is going through a bit of a crime spree?

[ Apologies for typos or mistakes? My reading glasses aren't working well tonight for some reason - the distant vision appears to be fine, but my reading vision is kind of blurry - it's very odd. It was fine earlier.]

It has a kind of Call the Midwife/All Creatures Great and Small vibe to it - except murder mysteries. And it develops its characters rather well. I like the characters and find oddly comforting.

2. Also finished watching Song Sung Blue on Peacock - the film starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson, in which Kate was nominated for best supporting actress? They play two singers that impersonate famous singers, who meet and decide to create a Neil Diamond Tribute Experience. It's based on the true and somewhat tragic love story of Lightening and Thunder. It's based on the 2008 documentary.

It's tragic, but surprisingly doesn't milk the melodrama or sentimentality like most of these things do. And kind of earns the tears. I credit it - for being based and adapted from the 2008 documentary, I think Clair (Thunder) pushed them to downplay the melodrama. I was surprised by it - it is rather good, particularly if you like Niel Diamond, who specialized in easy listening, hummable ditties, that could and often did fall into ear worm territory - but are fun to thing. Kind of like ABBA. I'd put ABBA and Diamond in the same category.

And damn, Hugh Jackman and Hudson are good performers. Both can sing, move and have chemistry to spare.

3. Illona Andrews - the sci-fi novel, The Inheritance, follows a trend I've been seeing of late in science fiction - which is making arachnids not villains or evil monsters. The Inheritance kind of turns them into something akin to silk worms or domesticated animals like I don't know sheep, aka dangerous sheep.

I get the metaphor though? That often the thing we've demonized in our heads isn't so scary or evil if viewed through another angle. And can in fact be a friend or ally.

It's an interesting book - the writers do a good job of navigating difficult themes without preaching, sermonizing or providing easy answers, and I can't help but applaud them for that.

In other news? Someone did a theme of "what books" the Buffy characters would be reading, and listed Illona Andrew upcoming book - "This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me" as the book that Xander was reading. I found that interesting - in a - my two fandoms collide - in a way I wasn't expecting sort of way? Continuing along those lines - I saw an interview with Sarah Michelle Gellar stating her two favorite books were Donna Tartt's The Secret History (which she struggles to explain why she loves it so much to folks) - and Shadow of the Wind. (I may have to pick up Shadow of the Wind - it's about the hunt for different pages of a book.) I am a fan of Donna Tartt's The Secret History, which much like Gellar - I hope is never made into a film, and just is great as is. So again, fandoms indirectly collide.
This rarely happens.

I've watched and been fannish about a lot of television series in my life time? But Buffy will always hold a special place in my heart, that nothing else can quite touch - and that's something people either get or don't?

beccaelizabeth

I started rereading Terry Brooks
Magic Kingdom For Sale Sold
and immediately discovered I have retained very little of this and am now finding it *very* annoying.

I think the only women with words so far are receptionists, and I am over 150 pages in.

I keep stopping and staring into space for a bit thinking
okay but if even one woman was in the room right now and able to speak
this would be a very different story.

Also: I am not buying this guy as a lawyer, corporate or otherwise. ( Read more... )

Basically he's a lawyer as an alignment, to go with the Paladin.

I and my tiny legal knowledge want to throw a collective of lawyers at this setup just to see how MANY spanners could be hiding in the works that this story has no interest in.

The story as written is being very boring so far. I can only buy the idea this man thinks he can buy a Kingdom and save it if I also think he's a really annoying kind of a person. It's not ideal.

But it is reminding me why I have a collection of books where the appeal is
a woman is in this book and she gets to talk and everything.
Their reread value is less than their first read value at the time, but I am recalling why they were an improvement.

ETA: page 167, there is now a woman in this story.
this is not an improvement.
she arrives naked and announces she belongs to the protagonist.

Honestly at this point I'm only going to finish reading it because I know I've read the whole series before. It has to get better than that.

shadowkat

Doing the dance of the robot vacuums - or rather, the robot vacuums are dancing - while I'm sitting here with my feet up - listening, and typing along on my laptop. Tech - sometimes? I love it. Not often, but sometimes.

I do have to watch the vacuums and make sure all the chords are safely off the floor or they will attempt to eat them, which never ends well.

Catching up on the Question a Day Meme for March:

16. How often do you eat out?

I can't remember if I answered this one or not, and too lazy to go back and check.

Not often. If at all. I do occasionally pick up something for lunch while at work - but I only get it at Pret Manager - and it's either a white bean salad, a falfala Mediterranean Salad or Morrocan Lentil Soup. Everywhere else is either too expensive or doesn't cater to folks with highly restrictive diets and/or are coeliac. ( Read more... )

17. It’s Kurt Russell’s birthday – a child actor who grew up. Have you seen any of the Disney films in which he acted (he played the college student Dexter Riley)?

Yes, pretty much all of them - ( Read more... )

18. Which flowers or trees are blooming where you live now?

Well, very little is at the moment? It's still winter and cold, the warmest we've gotten it up to a high of maybe 60. Right now, it's cloudy and 51 F, feels like 48 F. So the trees and flowers are being a touch hesitant? I see some crocuses here and there, and some buds on the trees, and bushes, but that's it.

19. If you had the space (and the time), would you like to keep chickens?

No. I do see them though. There's someone about two blocks up and one across that keeps them. They keep brown chickens, and a rooster.
But no - I don't want to raise birds.

20. Was learning a new language part of your education when you were at school? Can you still remember any of it?

Yes. And ...very little of it. I wasn't very good at it, and unfortunately all my attempts to immerse myself in it - in order to learn it - were dashed. ( Read more... )

21. It’s National California Strawberry Day. What is your favourite way to eat strawberries?

With whipped cream or dipped in chocolate.

22. Do you still buy physical books, or do you tend to buy e-books these days? Does it depend on the type of book (i.e. fiction or non-fiction)?

I buy both. But I swing more towards e-books because it's become increasingly difficult to read physical books without glasses. And, I'm tough on books - I get things on them, tear the pages, they get rumpled as I read them. The last paperback I read, is kind of a rumpled mess. People don't like to loan me - books, once they figure out how tough I am on them? I kind of love them to death?
( Read more... )

**

Almost done with my Angel S5 rewatch - stretching it out. Damn. It's better than I remembered. That series holds up well. Particularly the last season, which is even more relevant now than when it first aired over twenty years ago.

There's some good lines:

"We're apparently in the midst of the apocalypse and have been for some time. Evil just neglected to let us know about it. And, as it turns out, we're fighting on the wrong side - although the winning side, since evil is winning, so I guess it depends on how you look at it?"

"Trying to cure Cancer, Mr. Wyndom-Price?"
"No. It wouldn't be profitable. I'm thinking we're probably making a major profit off of it as it is. With all the hospital visits, etc."
"True. Our client holds the patent on it."

"The worst part wasn't going into the basement and getting my heart ripped out over and over - don't get me wrong that's bad. No, it's the promise of the nice life, the kid, the family, the lawn, the sunny sky, the home, and the realization that it is all just a lie - none of it is real."

The satire in this show is on topic and well done. I miss it.

shadowkat

1. For those interested? Nick Brendan was apparently working on and had completed a film, Yesterday is Almost Here prior to his death.

Sad time to be a Buffy fan.

2. The Dental visit went well - for the most part nothing has changed. I do have bleeding gums/sensitive gums - but that's a result of medication and diabetes, and possibly coeliac disease. Hence the reason, I'm seeing a dentist every six months now, as opposed to one every two or three years, like I had previously. (I don't get cavities. But alas, there are other things.) The dental hygienist's head came to my waist. I met her and thought okay, Latin America or Southeast Asia, they grow them tiny south of the equator. I don't know why some people are very tall and some are very short. I am not a biologist or geneticist. I think she had to be four foot?
I'm almost 6 foot. She also either had a frontal lisp, it was the mask, or a heavy accent with the mask - muffled her speech. I had to listen closely to what she was saying and ask at various intervals. (I'm used to doing this - I've done it my entire life - since I naturally mishear things. Also, having grown up with a speech issue which took me about twenty-five years to overcome, and sucking at languages - I'm patient with folks, more so than most. You won't survive in NYC if you aren't?)

Afterwards - I over taxed my knees by wandering to and from grocery stores and stores along Court Street. Managed to pick up various GF pre-prepared foods and items, such as Feel Goods: Vegetable Egg Rolls, Soup Dumplings, and Mozzarella Sticks, GF Deli SourDough Seeded Bread, Gluten Free Pizza,
GF Ravioli, GF Biscuits, GF Clam Chowder, GF Chicken Vegetable Soup (Hale and Hearty)...among other things. It was a haul - so heavier than intended.
I didn't get sweets - or baked goods at least, outside of some chocolate sandwich cookies. Icing my knee now.

It's slightly warmer today - made it up to 58 degrees and 60 in some locals. As a result, small children have been playing noisily in the backyards behind me, screaming as only small children cas. Brings back memories of my own childhood - when I had a sprawling backyard, no fences, and woods that seemed to stretch for acres behind us (it didn't - I was small).

3. Still enjoying my book - I actually look forward to reading it - and consider doing it instead of other things. And think, no let's draw this out. Why I love it and haven't been able to get into other books (some admittedly better written) is beyond me? I think it's that this one has a writing style and trope that I'm craving at the moment?

What's going on in the book at the moment? ( Read more... )

snickfic

The Revenant (2015). A wilderness guide (Leonardo Dicaprio) left for dead after being mauled by a bear goes on a revenge quest against the trapper (Tom Hardy) who killed his son.

As suggested by that summary, this extremely whumpy, if you're into that, to a point well beyond realism. Somehow our guy Glass struggles through total wilderness for tens of miles with myriad open wounds and a broken leg, and rather than dying of deprivation, exposure, or infection, he actually gets better. By the end of the movie he's barely even hobbling anymore. Also, the people in this movie spend so much time tromping through and even immersed in barely-melted icewater that I expected them to either die of hypothermia or lose some toes to frostbite in the first twenty minutes.

This is also an incredibly linear movie. There are no surprises here, no unexpected decisions or developments. No depths of character are revealed. It's also incredibly male-centric. The only female character with lines is Glass's wife, who's dead before the movie even starts, and the only other woman on screen is a Native woman-shaped Macguffin who gets raped on screen, then rescued, but never gets to speak. Even worse than that, to me, is that we get nothing of Glass's relationship with his half-Pawnee son at all. Other than simmering resentment over unjust treatment, we don't have any sense of the kid's personality or Glass's dynamic with him, which makes for a weaker movie and also makes it hard to believe in the movie's pretensions of giving a shit about the effect of European colonization on Native peoples.

I watched this for the scenery, and I will say it was great on that front. Lots of snowy crags, excellent! I also really enjoyed Will Poulter and Domhnall Gleeson, who round out the cast.

Cannot believe this beat Mad Max: Fury Road for best picture.

--

Stalker (1979). Wikipedia summary: a man called a stalker guides two clients through a hazardous wasteland to a mysterious restricted site known simply as the "Zone", where there supposedly exists a room which grants a person's innermost desires.

This is a Soviet movie by director Andrei Tarkovsky, who also did Solaris. If I'd realized that, I could have better set my expectations for this movie. I watched it because the premise gave me cosmic horror vibes and specifically because it felt like a precursor to a bunch of more recent cosmic horror that I've loved or at least loved concepts from, including Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy and movies like A Dark Song, Malefique, YellowBrickRoad, and Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made. (If you're not familiar, this a hilariously idiosyncratic list of widely varying quality, lol. There's a reason you probably haven't heard of most of those.) Maybe, I said, this is the original source of these other things I love!

Unfortunately, while this does promise many horrors, it delivers none of them. Very possibly it was an inspiration for those other things, but in the sense that other people watched this and were like, "okay but what if this were actually a horror movie."

The first hour or so is my favorite; I was genuinely shocked when the sepia filters of the real world give way to full color in the Zone, and there's some great tension as our stalker navigates the Zone using methods that hint at incomprehensible dangers. However, the longer we go without encountering any of those dangers, the harder it is to believe in them. By the time we finally arrive at the possibly magical room, I was more than half convinced that the dangers were all imagined, and the glimpse of two decaying skeletons came too late to change my mind. And then! We DON'T EVEN GO INTO THE ROOM. NO ONE GOES INTO THE ROOM. *flips over table*

Tarkovsky was not trying to make the movie I wanted to watch; he was much more interested in big philosophical questions and really long takes, and I gather this is considered an all-time classic for those reasons.

This was apparently an adaptation-in-name-only of the Strugatsky Brothers' novel Roadside Picnic, which I happen to have already have on hold at the library for unrelated reasons. I'm interested to see how it compares.

shadowkat

Whoa. RIP Nicholas Brendan (Best known as Xander Harris on Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

"Nicholas Brendon, best remembered as series regular Xander Harris from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has died at the age of 54. His family revealed the news in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter, which read:

“We are heartbroken to share the passing of our brother and son, Nicholas Brendon. He passed in his sleep of natural causes. Most people know Nicky for his work as an actor and for the characters he brought to life over the years. In recent years Nicky has found his passion in painting and art. Nicky loved to share his enthusiastic talent with his family, friends and fans. He was passionate, sensitive, and endlessly driven to create. Those who truly knew him understood that his art was one of the purest reflections of who he was. While it’s no secret that Nicholas had struggles in the past, he was on medications and treatment to manage his diagnosis and he was optimistic about the future at the time of his passing. Our family asks for privacy during this time as we grieve his loss and celebrate the life of a man who lived with intensity, imagination, and heart. Thank you to everyone who has shown love and support.”

Brendon’s film credits include Demon Island, Unholy, Psycho Beach Party, and Coherence. Beyond Buffy, he was a series regular on the short-lived Fox adaptation of Anthony Bourdain’s memoir Kitchen Confidential alongside Bradley Cooper, and had a recurring role on the series Criminal Minds."

SMG wrote on Instragram:

"They'll never know how tough it is to be the one who isn't chosen. To live so near to the spotlight, and never step in it. But I know. I see more than anybody realizes, because nobody's watching me. I saw you Nicky. I know you are at peace, in that big rocking chair in the sky."

snickfic

- For fic reasons, I've been watching the first night of Knebworth 1996, and gosh, the footage is gorgeous. Incredible that they sat on it for almost thirty years. Here's an example:

Watch on YouTube

- Speaking of Oasis, did you know the mangaka of Chainsaw Man also wrote a one-shot about two young female mangakas? And more importantly that the title Look Back is a direct reference to the Oasis song Don't Look Back in Anger? Yes.

- Have a silly video about the Oxford comma, among other punctuation. Really takes it up a notch in the second half.

- Trailer for Dune Part 3!! My perspective of the Villeneuve Dune movies is that the visual spectacle is incredible, but they're a little too self-serious and not weird enough. The books also take themselves very seriously, but make up for it via frequent batshittery. However, I'm definitely interested to see how Villenueve finishes things up, especially since he'd started going off the map by the end of part 2, and part 3 appears to all be taking place in the gap between the end of the first novel and beginning of the second. Here's hoping for lots of Jessica. 🙏🙏🙏

- They cast Jason Momoa's son as Paul and Chani's kid. Let the Paul/Duncan mpreg headcanons begin.

- You can now filter your AO3 bookmarks by wordcount!!

- IDK how it never occurred to me before that the bugging scene in The Matrix would spawn a whole new kink, but it absolutely did, and I stumbled across that corner of deviantart earlier this week. Bless.

- I'm not going to do a whole Oscars postmortem, but horror movies got EIGHT awards, which has got to be an all-time best, including two of the four acting awards. I'm especially happy for Michael B Jordan and Sinners cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw.

- Tough week for Buffy fans. I'm relieved that the reboot appears to be DOA; I was going to watch it, but I wasn't hopeful. Meanwhile, sucks about Nicholas Brendon. Losing him and Michelle Tractenberg a year apart, when they were both so young, is fucking rough.

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April 2017

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Page Summary

ruuger - FIC: The Taskmaster Games - Episode: "We Aim to Please" (Taskmaster, Gen)
beccaelizabeth - Big Finish Audios: Doctor Who: Damaged Goods
snickfic - movies: Ready or Not 2 and Project Hail Mary
shadowkat - (no subject)
yourlibrarian - Feeling the Ugh
beccaelizabeth - Torchwood: Salvage
shadowkat - Sigh, I acquire more books...now that reading slump is gone
beccaelizabeth - But how is this But Better
shadowkat - Wed Book Meme...
beccaelizabeth - (no subject)
shadowkat - Monday Monday ...Rainy Days and Mondays...
yourlibrarian - Getting It Right
elisi - Rest in peace Xander
shadowkat - (no subject)
beccaelizabeth - A little more logic and a lot more women could improve this immensely
shadowkat - Question a Day Memage Catchup...
shadowkat - (no subject)
snickfic - movies: The Revenant and Stalker
shadowkat - R.I.P Nick Brendan
snickfic - fannish things

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Page generated Mar. 30th, 2026 01:55 pm

Musings of a DemonBrat

Reading

FIC: The Taskmaster Games - Episode: "We Aim to Please" (Taskmaster, Gen)

Big Finish Audios: Doctor Who: Damaged Goods

movies: Ready or Not 2 and Project Hail Mary

(no subject)

Feeling the Ugh

Torchwood: Salvage

Sigh, I acquire more books...now that reading slump is gone

But how is this But Better

Wed Book Meme...

(no subject)

Monday Monday ...Rainy Days and Mondays...

Getting It Right

Rest in peace Xander

(no subject)

A little more logic and a lot more women could improve this immensely

Question a Day Memage Catchup...

(no subject)

movies: The Revenant and Stalker

R.I.P Nick Brendan

fannish things

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April 2017

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