Fear, Anchovies, Fear, and the Dangers of Ingesting Mercury

Festivid: Black Flowers (Call the Midwife)

2014-02-08T23:51:31Z

Title: Black Flowers
Vidder: meddow
Fandom: Call the Midwife
Music: 'Teardrop' by Massive Attack
Summary: But now, no face divine contentment wears

Download Link: Download 75mb mp4

Tumblr link: Tumblr post (please if posting on tumblr reblog the linked tumblr post or post a link to this post. Please do not embed.)

Black Flowers from Meddow on Vimeo.

Password: Bernadette

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth at http://meddow.dreamwidth.org/206684.html. Comment here or there.

Dear festivider

2013-10-22T06:54:23Z

Firstly, thank you! I'm so excited and really looking forward to see what you do and I'm just overjoyed to see any vid of any of the fandoms below and don't feel you have to pay much attention to what I've written.

But if you want more detail here's a bit more.

The Almighty Johnsons

I pretty much love every character in this series, I love the humour and I love the relationships they have with each other. Because I love them all, I'd love just a big ensemble vid. Or a vid about the relationships between the brothers. Or about the goddesses. I also love the show's occasional darkness, the idea that the characters are trapped by the status as gods-incarnate and some of them do get one hell of a raw deals. Also love the Goddess struggle to break free of destiny. Michele's my favourite character by the way. Basically, I'd love joyful and funny or dark and thoughtful or anything in between. Whatever you feel like.

Apollo 13

Not much to say here other than I've loved this movie since I was a kid. I think it's fantastic and underrated.

Braindead

This movie is delightful warped and I love how it managed to do the Shaun of the Dead thing and be a romzomcom and mix genres. I don't mind gory if you want to put/leave the gore in.

The Hour

Okay, I love the women on this show. Lix Storm is my idol. Marnie, Bel, Kiki, Sissy all of them, hence why I'd love an awesome women of the Hour vid. I'd also love a Lix centric-vid or a Randall-centric vid. Lix/Randall is my OTP, it'd probably be impossible to vid one without the other, and I'd love a Lix/Randall vid as well, it's just I've vidded that paring myself.

I also love the whole Hour gang so would also love a vid about all the characters and the workplace camaraderie That would be wonderful.

Master and Commander

I love boats, I love the ocean, I love navy battles. I think the harshness of life on the ocean at that time is fascinating. The characters in this movie I love as well, but it's the setting that really captures my imagination.

Scott and Bailey

I adore the three central women on this show, Rachel, Janet and Gill. They really are the show so just something around them would be wonderful.

Suburban Shootout

I discovered this show because I'm a massive fan of Anna Chancellor (see my love of Lix Storm above), so it is really the rivalry between the gangs, Camilla vs Joyce. The show it utterly crazy and I absolutely freaking adore the insanity of it so I'm happy for you go as crazy with the vid.

A Touch of Cloth

Another one picked because of the insanity of it appeals to my sense of humour. Really, go crazy. I do really hope you'll include Part II as well as the first Touch of Cloth.

Hope that helps. Again, thank you. What ever you create I will adore, I'm sure of it.

Save the Hour

2013-02-17T18:03:25Z

SIGN THE PETITION
GET #savethehour TRENDING ON TWITTER
LIKE THE FACEBOOK PAGE
FOLLOW THE BLOG
EMAIL THE BBC

Sorry guys, had to post this as I love this show and right now the Hour's petition has 63 signatures to go to hit 12,000.

A Confession

2013-02-17T00:57:17Z

Hello. My name is Meddow and I'm a tumblr addict.

It all started out innocently enough. You see, I've had a tumblr account for a while and I used it just to follow a couple of blogs but I didn't use it, and I also had a IRL tumblr for blogging some of my IRL adventures.

But then The Hour came along with its gorgeous set design and colour pallet and cast of my favourite actors (Peter Capaldi! Anna Chancellor!) playing wonderful chain-smoking passionate intelligent characters with a workplace dymanic which wouldn't be out of place in an early Sorkin show but without all of Sorkin's problems with writing women and was all “Hey babe, my fandom's over at tumblr. Join in. You know you want to.”

And so I followed, thinking I'd only maybe post links to my livejournal stuff, and maybe one or two Lix/Randall gif sets. I could balance it, I told myself. I could use tumblr for fandom without going to the dark side.

And then people started followed me and I followed them and suddenly my dashboard was filled with so many colourful gifs of so many fandoms – fandoms I had not been involved in for years – it appealed to my short attention span and to appreciate them all I had to do was press a little heart-shaped button which suited my busy lifestyle. And The Hour fandom is wonderful. I haven't seen a bit of wank at all.

It was so enticing and alluring. Suddenly I was using words like 'feels' and stressing out about my gimp skills and...and...I did the most tumblr of all tumblr things you can do: I started a fuck yeah community, FY!AnnaChancellor.

And then it took over my life. I was spending what free time I had for fandom activities creating gifs and editing photographs. My other fandom activities started to suffer and before I knew it, I had completely neglected my livejournal.

I'm sorry. I am ashamed, so ashamed. But I hope you all understand.

I will try to be better in future. But I don't think I'll be giving up tumblr any time soon.

Serious aside: Having grown increasingly unsatisfied with Livejournal the company over the years I gave up my paid account with Livejournal in December, but never felt the desire to pay for my Dreamwidth account. Plus, I do rarely have the time to write a full journal entry and, lets face it, I went weeks without and update last year. So I think this has actually been coming for a while.

TL;DR version: While I won't be giving up my LJ, I'm primarily over on tumblr these days. Sorry.

Festivid: Under Pressure (Shaun of the Dead)

2013-02-02T18:41:59Z

Title: Under Pressure
Vidder: meddow
Fandom: Shaun of the Dead
Music: 'Under Pressure (Rah Mix)' by Queen and David Bowie
Summary: Queen vs Bowie vs Love vs Shaun vs Zombies

Download Links: Large (75MB) Medium (50MB) Small (20MB)

Under Pressure Signed (Large) from Meddow on Vimeo.

Password: Red On You

Vidder's Note: Thank you so much Nancy Blackett for requesting Shaun of the Dead because this vid is the is the most fun I've ever had vidding.

Also, thank you Simon Pegg for your amazing face.

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth at http://meddow.dreamwidth.org/206458.html. Comment here or there.

Happy Festivids!

2013-01-19T20:09:50Z

It's festivids!

I have two wonderful vids this year and I love them both to pieces and you should all check them out.

The Princess Bride: Killer Dillers

The Thick of It: The Fucking Manual

The masterlist is here. There's so many. And I've contributed of course.

I'll do a rec post in a couple of days time when I've had a chance to watch a lot of them.

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth at http://meddow.dreamwidth.org/206082.html. Comment here or there.

Trope Bingo Card and Some Quick Reviews

2013-01-13T03:30:51Z

Finished my festivid entry last weekend, so now I have a new challenge. Trope bingo

food porn	au: apocalypse	secret child	secret twin / doppelganger	de-aged
au: space	kiss to save the day	soul bonding / soulmates	au: daemons	fake relationship
immortality / reincarnation	accidental marriage	FREE ★ SPACE	sharing a bed	handcuffed/bound together
cross-dressingtd>	au: cop / detective	game night	au: were / vamp / supernatural	au: historical
kidfic	au: circus	presumed dead	holiday	road trip

It's really fun. I mean, I'm currently writing an au: were/vamp/supernatural fic for The Hour, which sounds ridiculous, which on a level it is, but it's actually become a really fun exercise in world building since to pull that off, I've got to come up with a plausible explanation for why vampires and werewolves would exist in London in 1957 and what the world would be like if that happened, and what it would be like if they worked as a team on a TV news show. Anyway – I am having fun.

(FYI, I very much believe the key to good crossovers, AUs and crack is you've got to take your premise seriously and properly run with it).

In other things: Watched Call the Midwife as am in a 1950s mood, and is that not just the most perfect little drama ever? It's just magnificent and I want to hug it for being just so wonderfully humanist and not at all soapy and all about women.

Also watched Les Mis. I did not cry. Which is pretty damning really, since I cry at everything, including the trailer for The Impossible which aired right before the movie. I just didn't connect. But aside from my lack of connection, it was very well done.

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth at http://meddow.dreamwidth.org/205846.html. Comment here or there.

Driveby Rec

2012-12-31T10:15:09Z

Quick Yuletide rec: just a pawn, waiting to advance by anonymous. The Hour/1984 – George Orwell. Not a true crossover, but an AU

Recommended because an AU version of The Hour set in the 1984 universe is just pure genius. Given the 1950s UK setting and the emphasis on truth, lies and paranoia in The Hour, I can't think of a more perfect match. It's very bleak, but then as 1984 is the setting, if it wasn't bleak, I'd be disappointed. But what's really going for it is that even though there's a considerably darker twist on the characters, Freddie, Lix and Randall are all so very heartbreakingly Freddie, Lix and Randall.

Anyway, read. Read even if you haven't watched the Hour – it's an AU and so familiarity with the characters and canon is not required.

Also: I think reading 1984 as an impressionable teenager is a major factor in my love of messy doomed romances. Hmmm. Thank goodness Twilight wasn't around then.

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth at http://meddow.dreamwidth.org/205569.html. Comment here or there.

Fic: Everything, Yourself and Home (The Hour Doctor Who Crossover)

2012-12-30T09:32:44Z

I actually wrote fic!

Title: Everything, Yourself and Home
Author: meddow
Rating: Teen
Characters: Lix Storm, Randall Brown, the Eleventh Doctor (Lix/Randall)
Spoilers: The Hour 2x03 (though takes place mostly pre-series), Doctor Who Angels Take Manhattan
Summary: Spain 1938. The Doctor accidentally picks up a pair of British journalists.

---

They're in trouble, and deep down she fears they will not be getting out of this one.

There's shots being fired all around them. A plaster wall explodes to their right and Randall's bleeding from a wound above his eye.

They run into an alley, realising as they do so their mistake. It's a dead end.

“Over there,” Randall says as he wraps and arm around her waist.

She doesn't question where he's leading her or what on earth an English police box is doing in the back alley in a small town in the middle of Spain.

But as they reach it, she pulls open the door and they both fall through it onto a hard metal floor. She opens her eyes and looks up to both a cavernous room filled with light and a man standing over her.

They're in a box that's bigger on the inside containing a man wearing a bow tie.

"Stowaways!” he exclaims with a big grin on his face.

---

The man tells them he's the Doctor and that he's an alien and after throwing some switches informs that that it's no longer Spain outside the door of his box, or Earth, or even the 20th century, but deep cold space.

She doesn't believe him until she pulls open the doors and finds herself faced with Saturn's rings.

Right then and there it's all a bit too much. She hasn't had more than two hours sleep all week or changed her clothes in three days. She's been living on coffee and adrenaline and there's rubble in her hair and Randall's still bleeding and muttering something about Jules Vern. Right then, she doesn't care whether she's being kidnapped by a man from outer space or if she's gone mad. The Doctor says there are bedrooms and she feels safe.

She looks to Randall, tie undone and pressed to his forehead as a bandage and he seems to be thinking the same thing.

It's enough.

---

She wakes to find Randall testing the walls, as if under pressure they would dissolve and they would both wake up. She supposes Randall is being remarkably calm about the whole thing, even if the clothes she had wantonly disregard on the floor some hours before were now neatly folded.

“War correspondents!” the man who called himself the Doctor exclaims as they walked into the console room. “You hear gunshots and you run towards them. And two of you! Let me guess, he's got the notepad, she's got the camera: he's cunning, she's daring, and you're in love.”

At that, Randall starts folding and unfolding a handkerchief. They had never discussed whether or not they were in love.

They try and explain that they would like to return to Spain, but the Doctor will not hear anything of it, telling them to not be silly and that they deserve a holiday.

The first planet he takes them to, all the plants are purple and blue and there's a red gas giant in the yellow sky.

She pulls out her camera and takes a photograph of Randall standing in waist high purple grass, examining a small white flower he's found. He has an expression on his face of a sort of reluctant acceptance that the whole thing is real.

He hears the click of the camera and looks up puzzled. Something about the shock in his face causes her to burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of it all, because one minute they were following each other around Spain and fucking every now and again in his small apartment between days spent witnessing atrocities and evenings spent drinking to forget. The next they've travelled by blue box to a purple alien planet and Randall's looking at flowers.

She's happy. For the first time in years, that weight of everything around them is off her chest. And in that moment, she realises that Randall has become more to her than her strange colleague she sleeps with – that there's more to them than wartime desperation and loneliness and lowered inhibitions.

In that moment she realises she loves him.

---

They're journalists – curious by nature and getting answers is their profession. It doesn't take long for them to find out that the Doctor had recently lost two friends. He was mourning, they speculated, and whoever those two people were, clearly they reminded him of them in some way.

Lix doesn't like the idea of being a replacement, but she does like the idea of photographing the universe on the proviso that he can have them back in time to file the story they'd just survived collecting. If that involved spending some time living in a strange box that was bigger on the inside, so be it.

Randall, meanwhile, seems to be more interested in the box itself than the possibilities of where it could take them.

He sits down next to her in the darkroom that she had discovered and quickly made her office of sorts and produces three hand sketched maps of the TARDIS interior. The day before yesterday, yesterday and today, he names them.

They're all completely different – and she wonders for a moment how she didn't notice that the rooms were changing, and secondly, why Randall was not straightening the photographs she had hanging on pegs at the thought of living somewhere where change was constant.

“It's not random,” he says. “It's playful. She's alive.”

It's a puzzle, she realises, and that's what's helping him.

---

She leans on the TARDIS door frame, taking photographs of an accretion disk spiralling around a black hole. That matter, the Doctor had told them, was once a planet. Life had begun there, evolved and died, and now all that was left was being swallowed and destroyed – and the sight is beautiful.

Randall sits with his back against the other side of the doorway reading book from the very planet they were watching that he found in the library. He lifts his head up every now and again to study the thing before them.

The Doctor's off working on the TARDIS console. He has big plans, he tells them, a massive revamp and he even has blueprints, which is a first for him. His plans leave just them in peace.

She gives a sigh and pushes the camera back in her pocket, and lights a cigarette.

It won't work. No matter what she does with the exposure, it'll never look like more than white dots and grey clouds on a black background. Nothing to say a civilisation was here, one that nobody aside from the Doctor has ever known.

“They wrote in sonnets,” Randall says, interrupting her thoughts. “Fourteen lines in iambic pentameter with a rhyming couplet. The sonnet predates human civilisation.”

“They invented the sonnet and what's left?” She asks. “My terrible photographs and a book of poetry.”

He puts hand up towards hers. She takes it. They stay there for a long moment while the smoke from her cigarette drifts out into space.

---

They visit the market on Yantala Five, the biggest market place in five galaxies. It covers and entire planet, the Doctor tells them. Billions of people shop there every day and there's an entire continent devoted to shoes.

There's humanoids of different sizes and colours, some with two eyes, most with more. And things that look like giant spiders with elephant noses that laugh heartily at Randall's attempts to keep his tie straight in the hustle and bustle, which only serves to set him off more, until she pulls his face to hers and kisses him right there in the street.

As they walk through the streets, there stalls everywhere with objects they had never seen before and smells that ranged from divine to the stomach churning. Randall has to play with every strange object he finds (and straightens more than a few stall fronts while he's at it), while she takes photographs of stall holders sitting proudly behind their wares and children playing in the streets.

Eventually, Randall gives on object to her, a glass sculpture that looks deceptively like a round paperweight filled with intricate swirls, and the moment she touches it the swirls inside it change to blue. The exact same blue as her eyes.

But before long, they've uncovered a back alley slavery ring and Randall's posing as a wealthy potential buyer from some planet they've never heard of while she sneaks around a warehouse getting photographic evidence.

In no time at all, they're running for their lives. The Doctor eventually swoops in with this screwdriver and a list of twenty five inter-galactic regulations that the slave traders are breaking (which Lix is certain he's made up) and before long the ringleaders are being lead off and the slaves freed.

“Journalists,” the Doctor mutters as they walk back to the TARDIS. “Professional snoopy busybodies and daredevils – I can't decided whether you're all mad or marvellous. Clearly marvellous in this instant.”

She lines up her photographs a few hours later, photographs of smiling children and shopkeepers and Randall rummaging through books at a stall and people locked in cages with desperation in their eyes.

Randall passes her a whiskey glass and they silently toast. It's a tradition they had developed some month earlier, a toast to the cruelty of the world, except it was now a toast to the cruelty of the universe. Acknowledgement, defiance and a hope of one day forgetting it all.

---

It's the fifth planet they reach when things start to go wrong. It seems like any other – a future human colony and a bustling city. The Doctor's wanders off looking for potential parts for the TARDIS while Randall and her get invited on an official tour, which he takes up and she declines, deciding there's more interesting things to be seen if she goes with a local invite – between the pair of them, they'll see most of what there is to see.

Soon alarms are blaring in the streets and people are running past her and she can hear something marching towards her. Heavy footsteps. Heavier than any human could make.

Adrenaline pumping, she hides in an alley and readies her camera, prepared to get the photograph and then run. She's worried about Randall and wishes she knew where he was - or the Doctor for that matter. But looking though the viewfinder, her doubts seems to vanish as seconds seem to turn into minutes and all she can hear is the steady marching and the distant wail of the sirens and her own breathing.

As the marching creatures round the corner, the flash of her camera reflects off their steel armour.

---

Her hands wont stop shaking.

The Doctor works away on the TARDIS, not talking, just pulling at wires and waving around that screwdriver of his.

Randall hasn't told her what happened. But she knows it was not his blood that covered his clothes when she finally found him in that slaughterhouse. Maybe she should have forced out of him whatever he went through, maybe she should be there for him, but she found she just could not. She's barely keeping herself together. There's not enough of her to keep Randall together as well.

Now he's turned to a bottle of whiskey and she doesn't know where he's got to – she suspects he's passed out drunk in the library and she envies him for that.

She has a bottle of whiskey herself, but hasn't drunk nearly enough of it yet.

They burnt. They all burnt in front of her, all the people that had yet to be converted to cold steel drones and she saw it all through her camera lens. Madness, destruction and genocide all captured on the one roll of film she had left on her when things went to hell.

And that one roll now sits, waiting to be developed.

Another day she decides. For now, she just wants more to drink and for her hands to stop shaking long enough to light a cigarette.

---

After that the peace is shattered. No matter where they land, there'd death and destruction and Lix is certain they have caused it. Like the war they had left behind was catching up with them through time and space and reminding them of where they should be. Not on some planet or moon or asteroid but once again filing stories from their small apartment in Madrid.

It's calling her back, but she doesn't want to go.

They keep going from planet to planet with death following in their wake, but she hopes it has to end – because for a few moments, they were perfect.

And she wonders if she finally understands Randall, that strange drive of his, that knowing that there is a perfect way that they could be, but to never ever being able to find it.

Instead with every planet they reach they're pulling further away from each other. She in her darkroom with rolls of film to be developed, Randall in the library with books and a bottle of whiskey and the Doctor in the console room with his blueprints.

They're all living separate lives.

---

She sees the empty whiskey bottles and the Doctor eyeing them and she wonders if he's ever going to say anything.

He doesn't.

He does however, one very bad day when they're in a crashing ship being attached by rat-like green alien termites, turn to her camera.

She swats at rat creature away and notices the perfect photograph opportunity – a body lying face down on the floor in a pool of blood. It was the first mate, his name she thinks was Meyers.

She readies her camera when the Doctor notices. She doesn't know why, maybe because he finds her instincts to document rather than aid and protect repugnant and that particularly day he'd had enough.

Or maybe it's because he knows she's stopped developing the photographs she takes.

He yells at her, “For two seconds, stop taking photos!” Then he grabs her hands and pulls the camera away from her.

And she's just left there, standing on some foreign spaceship, the crew screaming around her as fires roar from consoles and rat creatures jump from vents onto crew members and attack them.

And she just freezes, unable to move.

The Doctor seems to realise what he's done instantly and thrusts the camera back into her hands and tells her that he's sorry and to carry on, but it's too late. She's lost her nerve now and her hands begin to shake.

She sees one of the rat creatures crawling up a console before her and time seems to slow down as it eyes her. Part of her tells her to take the shot and jump out of the way, but another part of her tells her to run. Neither instinct is winning and she still can't move.

It leaps.

She stands, still frozen.

And Randall's there with a fire extinguisher, shooting it down mid flight. Next thing she knows she feels Randall's arms around her and he's pulling her through a door.

“Where are you going?” the Doctor yells

“Getting her out of here,” Randall screams back at him.

They hide in a storage cupboard. Randall being silent and still while she fiddles with film, trying to place a new load back into the camera with her shaking hands and failing.

“I can't. I...I just can't,” she mutters.

“I know,” Randall replies. It's the only solace Randall can offer.

She can smell the whiskey on his breath.

---

There's no looks from the Doctor after that. He's largely silent and throws himself further into his construction project.

Randall's there, but not in any way that matters. He's always drunk, but now he's never sober. The sex they're having late at night when neither of them sleeps, is mechanical – devoid of the passion and care it once had.

When they're done, he pulls away at her touch.

She doesn't even know what triggers it when he finally goes off. He rushes back to the TARDIS and she follows. On reaching their room he's starting to move things about and she grabs his hands – it worked in the past – but this time he just forces her way.

“I need you to go,” he says.

And she does.

She can't talk to him, he won't even let her touch him any more. She doesn't know how to help him – the photographer who takes photographs she can't bring herself to develop can't even help herself – and so she goes as asked.

She waits in the library for three hours and then returns and the room's spotless. Everything neat and tidy.

Except the glass sculpture he gave her is now chipped and cracked.

“I'm sorry,” he says, as she examines it closer.

“That's...that's meaningless,” she mutters as she hurries out of the room.

She heads into the console room, pulls open the TARDIS doors and throws the sculpture into space. Watching it drift away, she lets out a sob.

When she turns around, the Doctor's there. He was watching her.

“He's...it's something he can't,” the Doctor starts.

“I know,” she says. “Which only makes it worse.”

---When she finds Randall there's a mostly empty bottle of whiskey besides him and his eyes are ringed red.

“When you found me, in that factory...” he stares into the glass in his hand and then looks up at her. “Deficient,” he says. “The Cybermen found me deficient. Not worthy of conversion.”

Her heart breaks. She knows him – she loves him – and she knows it's the idea that he's mad has been eating away at him his whole life. Now his very life is testament to whatever is in his head that makes him so afraid of himself.

“My life because I am deficient,” he says. “Faulty. Inferior. Unsatisfactory. Defective,” he stands up suddenly and throws the glass in his hand across the room, where it shatters.

“Damaged,” she says, because they are. Damaged and broken and beyond repair.

Wherever Randall's gone in his head, he's not coming back. They've had their moment.

---

She can't take the looks of disappointment from the Doctor any more. So when he suggests dropping them back off in Spain, she agrees.

It'd be best for them all.

She wonders what his last two travelling companions were like, the ones he misses so much. She knows her and Randall pale in comparison. She, who is only brave when she has a camera in her hand and Randall can barely function any more unless he's drunk. He doesn't want to travel any more with two people who far too often smell of whiskey and fuck loudly because sometimes its the only thing they can do which makes them feel anything but tired and numb.

The Doctor doesn't want them.

They wish him luck with his travels and he tells them they'll go on to do great things with their lives, and there's a flash of guilt and pity in his eyes that tells her more about her future than she wants to know.

They file their story.

One week later she realises she's pregnant. Three months later, Randall walks out - but he's lost to alcohol and the turmoil in his mind long before he leaves.

---

She survives Spain, she survives parting with her daughter, she survives the war. She decides to quit photography and stay in London. She finds radio doesn't suit her but the new medium of television does. She meets Bel Rowley and Freddie Lyon. She becomes part of The Hour.

And between Spain and Lime Grove there's many others who share her bed and body and more bottles of whiskey than stars in the sky but no men from space, and no contact from Randall.

Nearly twenty years pass before Randall walks back into her life.

---Isaac mentions to Freddie who mentions to Bel who mentions to her, that he's considering science fiction for his next radio play but couldn't think of a good plot.

Between that and Randall stalking the halls she thinks of the box of photographs she keeps at her flat and finds just the one she's looking for beneath pictures of a marketplace and Randall and rolls and rolls of undeveloped film.

She calls Isaac into her office and hands him the photograph.

“For your next play,” she says.

“You're giving me a photograph?” he asks.

“Darling, I'm giving you a plot,” she replies. “Do you know what that is?”

Isaac looks clueless and of course Randall walks in at that moment. He stands in the doorway where she can see him in her peripheral vision. She chooses to ignore him and focuses on Isaac.

“It's the matter stream of a destroyed planet heading towards a black hole to be consumed and lost to the universe. A planet that had life and history and literature and this is all that is left.”

“That and a book of poetry,” Randall adds, which causes her to look at him standing there and acknowledge his presence.

Isaac looks from her to Randall and back again, the poor boy clearly not knowing what to think about their exchange.

“Yes. But what is it really?” Isaac asks.

She looks to Randall.

“A moment,” he says.

Tumblr, and Catching Up With Christmas Specials

2012-12-28T04:19:03Z

Have I ever linked to my fandom tumblr here? I know I've linked to my personal tumblr once before, but I don't think I have my fandom – mostly because I created it and then neglected it, but I've decided to be better at tumblr, I've even learnt how to do gif sets. So here is the link (currently mostly devoted to The Hour, Once Upon A Time, Anna Chancellor and Peter Capaldi).

So, apparently, Christmas is a good time to kill of characters? Okay, I can't talk, I spent my Christmas day watching The Mist and then The Great Escape, so depressing endings all around.

Downton Abbey: I think the Christmas special may well be the last Downton episode I'll watch. I'm not annoyed at the last scene plot twist, I just found the whole thing rather boring. Watching the fandom get all up in arms about whatever happened backstage that lead to the last scene plot twist is at least ten times more entertaining than the episode itself (somebody really need to sit some of those fans down and tell them that acting is a job and you cannot expect actors to say in a job they don't want more than you can force anyone to stay in any job they don't want)

Doctor Who: The villain repeating “winter is coming” again and again made me lol from the bottom of my Stark-adoring heart and I do have to wonder if Moffat was poking a bit of fun at Game of Thrones in addition the obvious fun he was having gently poking a bit of fun at Sherlock (and I just looked up Jenna Louise Coleman and found out she's dating Robb Stark himself, Richard Madden, and now that has become just that little bit extra amusing).

Clara I really liked. Really, though, I'm still a bit hesitant towards her at the moment due to being worried that if she's around for more than one episode, the writing of her will deteriorate, so I can't quite bring myself to emotionally invest in her, if that makes sense.

I enjoyed the episode overall – I can't help but like episodes which contain a bit group of the Doctor's allies working together, but it wasn't close to knocking The Runaway Bride off its top spot as my favourite Doctor Who Christmas episode.

And, finally, I am really missing The Hour. I know I kind of rubbished it in my last few posts, but I really miss that show now I haven't got new episodes to watch. I think I'm going to have to do a bit of rental stalking of the cast while waiting news on a third season (please, BBC, please, please can The Hour have a third season – the characters are perfect).

Vid: Give It Up (The Hour, Lix/Randall)

2012-12-16T07:45:17Z

I watched The Hour in vid mode, so felt the need to respond to the second season with a vid – but being quite aware that I should be actually working on my festivids assignment, its just a quick short one.

Of course I had to focus on the Lix/Randall subplot. Kind of a love story, but more a story of regret, guilt, hope, grief and intimacy.

Title: Give It Up
Vidder: meddow
Fandom: The Hour
Music: “Give it up” by Punches
Spoilers: Through to and including 2x06
Summary: “Why did you have to come back, wake me up? Give me hope?" Lix Storm/Randall Brown

Download Link: 28MB avi (Xvid)

Give It Up from Meddow on Vimeo.

Password is: spain

Vidder's notes: Speaking of Lix/Randall, I'm desperately hoping for a third series of The Hour because I do want to find out what happens between them. The last episode left things open ended. Now that they've found out what happened and their connection severed, will they just go back to living separate lives or will the grief reunite them.

And I have learnt two things from this vid: Firstly and annoyingly, Premiere Elements hates mp4s, which is a such a shame because I do prefer the picture quality of mp4s over avis.

And secondly, I should really set myself deadlines more often. Apparently that's what needs to happen for me to actually finish a vid for once rather than either just decided I hate it due to insecurities/perfectionism and give up or just get distracted by some shiny new fandom.

The Hour

2012-12-15T09:05:17Z

I watched the second season of The Hour over the course of three days. The writing unfortunately still lets the show down, which is such a shame because it does have one of the absolute best casts on television and the production design is amazing. It's not that the writing is bad, it's just a bit, well, mediocre sometimes. It's like watching a bright kid get Bs when it should if they really bothered to apply themselves, they should be getting straight As.

However, it was a lot better than the first season mostly because unlike the first season, this season felt thematically cohesive. I loved the focus on vice – from prostitution, blackmail and corruption in the main plot, to Hector and Freddie's self destructive behaviour, McCain and Randall who have to cover-up their 'vices' because of the 1950s attitudes to homosexuality and mental health issues (that it was Randall who handed the olive branch to McCain was absolutely perfect and one of the small moments this season that I loved).

Plus there were two side-plots that I absolutely loved. Firstly being Marnie's character development as she stops being a doormat to her husband and goes out and gets her own successful career. The other was the Lix/Randall sub-plot, which was absolutely sublime. It was only a couple of scenes per episode but every single one of those scenes was perfect and it's the kind of love story that I adore - one that's not about falling in love and more about two heartbreakingly damaged people with a past reconnecting after one of them decides to try and revisit and make up past mistakes made – and also Anna Chancellor and Peter Capaldi just knocking it out of the park, particularly in the big wrenching scene in the final episode which was just amazing – I demand that every award out there be given to them.

I really hope the show gets a third series with all of its season two cast intact (which is my thoughts on the cliffhanger). Yes, it's still frustratingly not as good as it could be (although it is improving), but I do love the cast and the characters and the show is gorgeous.

Also, I may have just sat at my computer for seven plus hours today and knocked out a Lix/Randall vid. Still needs a bit of work before posting, but watch this spot.

Stuff I Have Watched of Late

2012-12-11T07:52:32Z

I finally finished Dragon Age! It shouldn't have taken me two months – I got really close to the end over a month ago and I was all fine with having the royal bastard whose hand I held through the whole game and whose virginity I took break up with me for the good of the succession, but then I found out that if I'd played as another origin story, I wouldn't have been publicly dumped and could have ended up Queen, which pissed me off immensely. So had to play the whole thing over again with a new character and installed myself as Queen this time.

The new Star Trek trailer came out last week and my official reaction is 'meh'. The trailer feels like some generic sci-fi action movie that wants to be a Christopher Nolan film but clearly isn't a Christopher Nolan film and not at all like Star Trek, and that really does not work for me. But then, as my hopes were dashed by the lack-lustre trailer, I did remember it's an odd numbered Star Trek film and therefore will not be any good anyway.

(“But, meddow,” you say “Nemesis is 10 which means Star Trek is 11 and Into Darkness 12 which means the rule does not work.” “But it does,” I reply, “if you count the magnificent flawless Galaxy Quest as a Star Trek movie in which case Galaxy Quest is 10, Nemesis is 11, Star Trek 12 and Into Darkness 13.” )

Been watching The Hour, my primary reason being that the second season promises Peter Capaldi in glasses, and that is my Achilles heel of casting. I've just finished episode five of the first season, and it's alright. Great cast, I do like the fifties and I do like setting and the Broadcast News vibe what with the love triangle (I prefer Hector to Freddie – is that odd? But I do actually rather hope it ends the way Broadcast News did). Problem is that I find the whole spying storyline rather dull. I'd much rather stick to the Suez Crisis and just follow the characters try to put a show together rather than the Tinker Tailor-lite stuff. Plus there needs to be way more Lix. Way, way, way more Lix. She's just wonderful.

Also watched Brave, having really wanted to see it in theatres but having missed it because of my mid-year two month pop culture hiatus. I had heard it was a lesser Pixar, but while it's not up to the standards of Wall-E, Toy Story 3 and the first 10 minutes of Up, I loved it thought it was was wonderful and would happily rate it up there with The Incredibles, Toy Story Original and the rest of Up. Admittedly, I'm a complete sucker for mother-daughter stories, and stories where where being a bad ass rebel with a bow is treated as awesome and also being a bad ass sensible and responsible diplomat is also treated as just as being just as awesome.

Unfortunately, I happened to think to myself that Merida and Elinor are just like Arya and Catelyn with the hair colours swapped around, and then how the Starks are pretty much just Disney-Pixar characters anyway, what with the honour and goodness and the freakishly intelligent pets – 'cept they're trapped in hell and poor, poor Catelyn and her daughters and why can't they they have their Disney-Pixar happy ending and...and....and....just...Starks *cries*

…It is so easy to fall into a ASOIAF depression spiral.

Maybe it's just the new Game of Thrones season three footage that's been released and RW has been filmed and I'm getting all emotional months in advance.

No Victory Burgers for Regina

2012-12-03T06:39:19Z

Yeah, so in Once Upon A Time this week, good defeats evil, the audience gets lots and lots of answers, and then everyone goes out for burgers...

...Except Regina. No victory burgers for Regina, and that is heartbreaking in a Lana Parrilla makes me forget that all the bad things Regina's ever done with her sad, sad eyes way. But good on her for saving the day, and good on Henry and Emma for recognising that and providing positive reinforcement for her for once making good choices.

Oh, my goodness, Cora's motivation is the best thing ever. Actually planning to wait until her daughter hits a new low so that she can reconcile with her (which in Cora's mind is control) because she loves her...that's the most twisted messed up thing ever, and I love it.

So you know my weakness for incredibly messed up twisted relationships in which one part is all 'love you, you are the centre of my life – love me' and the other party is all 'stay the hell away from me you evil, murdering, life-ruining psycho' so long as the source treats it like the screwed up relationship it is an at no point condones it (see: Kira/Dukat, Magnus/Druitt, Catelyn/Littlefinger).

Yeah....apparently my love of that type of relationship extends to gen relationships as well because Cora and Regina have now become my absolute favourite relationship on Once. Move over Swan Queen, I want to see how this one plays out. I guess that Regina will hit a new low, Cora will swoop in telling her she loves her, Regina being a vulnerable mess will go essentially back to her abuser's arms and Regina will spend the rest of the season playing the dragon to her mother's big bad until inevitable season finale showdown.

MULAN LIVES! (Being a character of colour not named Regina, the odds were not in her favour). As does Aurora. Yay! Also, in the move over Swan Queen stakes – can Aurora and Mulan please kiss already. Although, I doubt we'll see them again – but that's a good thing. I do like the way the show writes out secondary characters that it hasn't got time for by having them go off and do other stuff. They're off having their own adventures rescuing the soul of prince from a Dementor in a post apocalyptic wasteland which is awesome and invites fic and flashbacks if they do reappear, much better than the kill them off for angst approach. Same goes for August.

Both Cora and Emma's heart ripping immunity surprised me both times. Yay for Emma piecing together the dots regarding her and her saviour role, or at least the dots whacking her on the head. Now, if someone could please piece together the dots regarding Regina and Rumpel that would also be nice.

Oh, and Cora and Hook literally sailing into town. Lol.

"I am the one who knocks"

2012-12-02T03:30:40Z

I finished watching all four and a half seasons of Breaking Bad! Finally, I don't have to avoid spoilers – although I was spoilt well in advance for the season four finale unfortunately.

Walter White gets my vote for being the most terrifying villain on television at the moment, just because it's not that events transformed in in Heisenberg, it's that Heisenberg was in him all along, he just was unleashed once Walter stopped giving a damn about the rules. That's a very terrifying statement – that a ruthless egomaniacal crime lord could be lurking in the most innocuous of people. Thankfully, the trio of Skylar, Jesse and Hank exist to make a case for decency existing in the world, given that the former two managed to stop themselves from heading too far down the path and the latter actually has become a better person in the face of adversity.

I'm rooting for Skylar, Jesse and Hank to join forces to take him down (not sure how they would join forces, but it'd be awesome), and if anyone is going to pull the trigger, right now I hope it's Skylar.

Also, Bryan Cranston's amazing, and should be in everything, but looking him up in IMDB it appears he is in everything now and that is good. Also, I hope Aaron Paul has a long and wonderful career because he is also amazing.

ETA: this tribute video is amazing and pretty much in a nutshell why everyone should be watching the show - because it is brilliant.

In the other TV show I am watching right now, stuff has actually happened on Once Upon A Time. In fact, so much stuff happened they didn't have time for flashbacks in the last episode which I am very okay with.

I do really like that in a season where the emphasis has thus far been on mother and child relationships, the fairytale that it's been hinting at and skipping around all season is Rumpelstiltskin since Rumpelstilskin is the only fairytale I can think of which is about a mother fighting for her child.

Although, I can never really tell if the writers have a master plan or if they're just winging it. For example, Hat Trick from the first season is quite brilliant really for introducing the multiple universe thing and how to travel between them, and, if Cora is indeed the Queen of Hearts, introducing the season two big bad and Regina's mother under the radar - which is quite great and they deserve kudos for that. But then, they can't even seem to get Emma's lie detecting ability consistent. I don't know.

The show has so many flaws I could pick it to pieces, but just being a genre show in which women and their relationships with other women are the emphasis and there's as many badass mothers and grandmothers, good, evil and morally ambiguous, I can't help but love it. And then I see media deride it or ignore it, and I can't help but wonder if it gets more than its fare share of criticism because it's clearly about women and the audience that watches are women. I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure that genre shows with an emphasis on women get the worst of it, being derided for being a genre show and being ignored by the fanboys (the exception being anything by Joss Whedon).

In television I used to watch as a child, there's a really good article here on Knightmare which I remember spending hours watching as a kid because it was the best (in other things I remember doing as kid – writing a letter to Jim'll Fix It *shudder*. Anyway...). Somehow I does not surprise me to find out it was rigged, I can't remember any team winning, nor does it bother me. I do remember though that freaking giant spider that lurked in the forest which freaked me the hell out every single damn time.

And, watched Skyfall. I'm not a James Bond fan, I've had major issues with the way the franchise treats female characters as far back as I can remember (honestly, I've thought of the franchise as sexist since before my age had hit double digits) – but the trailer and interviews promising lots of Judi Dench had me intrigued and...I loved it. I thought it was fantastic.

Dragon Age, Breaking Bad and Once

2012-11-03T23:02:47Z

I made a big push to try and finish Dragon Age yesterday, because while I'm having so much awesome fun trying to save a land with an adorkable knight, a swamp witch with no social skills and my pet war hound – I want my damn life back. Didn't manage it, since apparently not only is the storyline wonderfully similar to Game of Thrones (in 'isn't an appending apocalypse by ~~others~~darkspawn a good time to have a succession crisis'), but the fact it doesn't end is also quite similar to Game of Thrones. Good value for money though.

Anyway, still addicted.

However, I have also managed to watch the second season of Breaking Bad over the past few weeks, and this show is quite fantastic. I have to say, I did not predict the second series finale, but then if anybody claims did predict that before the episode aired, they must be lying. I was sitting there wondering to myself it it was the world's biggest cop out or a completely genius statement on the unpredictable consequences that can emerge from every decision a person can make. I've decided its the latter.

I find Walter White morally repugnant and loathe him even though I find him compellingly watchable (Bryan Cranston's amazing), but conversely, I want to wrap Jesse Pinkman in cotton wool and hug him all day.

Also, I'm enjoying Hank and Gus a lot, and I'm particularly thankful Gus showed up, because while watching Walter and Jesse attempt creating a drug empire with very little clue is entertaining (and clearly, neither of those two have watched the Wire, because they wouldn't have lasted five seconds in Baltimore), those two lasting any longer without a Stringer Bell figure showing up would be unbelievable.

I also have thoughts on Once Upon A Time

Firstly: I love the fictional multiverse thing that the show has going on – that all fiction and fictional characters exists in parallel universes/'lands' and you can travel between the magic ones (by means of magic hats, magic wardrobes, magic beans, enchanted looking glasses and magic slippers) - particularly since the show is determined to have so much fun with the concept (Victor Frankenstein's world being black and white and as such massive nod toward the Universal monster movies is particularly perfect). Also, given that Star Wars is now under Disney, I'd imagine that one 'land' is a galaxy far, far way.

Secondly: I hate the magic-is-addictive storyline that the show has chosen to go with as part of Regina's redemption.

Thing is, it makes Regina's slide into evil too neat and completely undermines everything else she has going on in her backstory. Regina was abused and controlled by her mother and forced into a marriage she didn't want where she was again controlled (possibly, her marriage to Leopold is currently one big plot hole at the moment), and while that was all happening, she was being manipulated and again controlled by Rumpel (but more subtly - we've had no indication Regina even knows how thoroughly she's been manipulated and used by Rumpel her whole damn life - seriously, what he's done to her is so very wrong).

That's the thing about Regina, she's desperate for control. The curse itself, while an act or revenge on an epic scale by a woman obsessed with it, is also an act of a woman who is so desperate to be in control she destroys everything and remakes with herself in an untouchable position of power so she can never again be controlled.

Power for Regina is addictive not by its nature, but by what it gives her: the freedom from control she most desperately wants and needs. The thing is, Regina only associates freedom from control with controlling others, in that she thinks that the only way to be free, is to control others, for which one needs power – which is understandable because that's what both her mother and Rumpel taught her to think (I say 'taught' but actually, it comes across in scenes, especially the ones with her mother, as more like brainwashing).

What Regina really needs to learn is that she can have freedom without it coming at the expense of others. That's the grand revelation and mental shift she needs to have in order to stop being the Evil Queen. (Also, Rumpel would benefit quite a bit from figuring this out as well)

Instead the writers have gone down the track that her power itself is what has corrupted her, which as I said, makes things too easy. But for a start, cold turkey is doomed to fail since her mother – who is currently single handedly laying waste to whole villages – is out to get both Regina and her son. What's Regina going to do without magic? Sure she can throw a punch, but that ain't going to do her much good. Regina's magic started off as self defence. Her first use was to break free of the mother. It just feels that she's going back to square one – completely powerless to do anything about her evil mother.

And just, on a level, I'm super uncomfortable with storylines which say that power is what has corrupted a woman and that in order to be good she has to give it up. As a feminist, that just makes me feel icky. And she is the damn Evil Queen, one of the oldest and most famous powerful women in fiction, which makes it a bit worse.

Ideally, I would like Regina to have power and have her redemption, she can have both. And the show needs stop emphasising that it was power that made Regina evil. It wasn't power that made Regina evil, it was all the people in her life that made her feel powerless.

Movies and RPGs

2012-10-30T07:14:38Z

I have become addicted to Dragon Age: Origins (like three or so years after it was released). I thought I could buy an RPG game and not have it take over my life like Baldur's Gate did when I was a teenager. I was wrong.

Also: saw some movies

Argo: Not excellent, I didn't connect enough with the characters to rate it excellent, but a pretty bloody great movie, and incredibly suspenseful. Reminded me a lot of Torn Curtain. Plus, brought back a lot of wonderful (read: not so wonderful) memories of various boarder crossings I made on my international trip which made me smile a lot.

Prometheus: I was dying to see this movie when it came out, but it came out during my aforementioned international trip and I couldn't find a cinema showing it. But then I heard it wasn't that great and actually kind of bad so I was rather worried about being really disappointed so sat down to watch it with low expectations. It was much better than I expected. Not as good as Alien and Aliens, but ticked all the all important boxes that I think an Alien franchise should tick with aplomb: spaceship, enclosed space, body horror, gore and most importantly, a kickass resourceful heroine. Noomi Rapace I think it a worthy successor to Sigourney Weaver. So yes, I really liked it, but then, also, I really like Aliens 4, so, you know, keep that in mind if you're an Alien franchise fanatic judging my opinion.

I totally have thoughts on The Thick of It finale have not yet formed themselves into coherent sentences, plus if I post something, that means the show has really ended, and I don't want it to end.

Now, I'm going to go recruit Dwarfs to fight Darkspawn. As you do.

Once

2012-10-22T06:59:00Z

Given the last scene reveal, does this mean that the Evil Queen and Hook are never going to become bffs? Because the writers missed a trick there. The could spend their time lamenting about how they lost the love of their lives, compare notes on taking out their anger on children and share eye-liner tips. Hell, it could be a spin-off: super hot villainous bffs.

I'm not sure how I feel about a a whole episode without Emma, Snow or Regina. Their omissions weren't glaring and this episode and it is sandwiched between a Snow and Emma heavy episode and a Regina heavy episode. Still, it's odd having an episode without at least one member of the central trio present (I see the show as having six central characters (the three aforementioned, Charming, Rumpel and Henry), the rest secondary, but even then, of the six central, it's always been Emma, Snow and Regina that were the primary three).

Three steps forward, one step back for Belle. She did get out of Rumpel's house, make a friends and get a job, but it looks like she still hasn't gotten over the idea that she can change Rumpel. Still, it's nice that the show is addressing the many problems with that relationship.

Red continues to be awesome. I do hope they develop her and Belle's friendship.

I'm very glad it turns out that Rumpel's wife chose to run away with Captain Hook, because for a while there the alternative that appeared to have happened was a hole bundle of Not Good.

At this point, I don't have very much sympathy for Rumpel at all. I feel bad for him pre-Dark One and I could understand him getting revenge against various people that have bullied him throughout his life, but he takes it much too far.

Cora and Hook is an odd team up. I'm guessing that Hook doesn't know what Cora did to her daughter's true love. Given that it's incredibly similar to what happened to his true love, Hook and Regina do seem to be more natural allies.

Next week: I can't believe the Brothers Grimm, Lewis Carroll and Mary Shelley all forgot to mention in their books about the time when the (not yet)Evil Queen and the (not yet)Mad Hatter hung out with Dr Frankenstein. I'm so glad Once is going to set the record straight. I say that with plenty of sarcasm, but I am really looking forward to next week's episode.

The Inquiry

2012-10-21T08:08:16Z

So this week's Thick of It

…

…

…

I'm finding it harder and harder to process this show every week.

So is this the end of Malcolm Tucker? Instead of going down swearing fire vengeance on who ever fucked him or having a massive heart attack, it's the moment in this episode when he doesn't know what to say, when he hadn't got an answer or a retort because he broke the freaking law, and they know it because they caught him with his own web and he's probably going to go to prison.

Please let it be. It's kind of perfect.

Also: Peter Capaldi is an acting god. Apparently there was no rehearsals for this episode. They just chucked the actors in it, which just goes to show how amazing the cast is in general.

I loved that clearly things were going on outside the inquiry chambers, Malcolm was obviously trying to drag down the enquiry by feeding stories.

Anyway, this episode. Just this episode. A straight hour of the characters just getting ripped to pieces for being the lousy human beings that they are, followed by Malcolm's great speech about the abandonment of morality by the political class, because that's the whole point of this show really. The characters are horrible and do horrible things, but it's always been because of the environment they're in – in which it's all about the pursuit of power and in which they're constantly under siege. Whether or not they've created the environment the show hasn't answered, but I do think that they've shown over the years that even the idealists (like Nicola) and otherwise generally decent people (like Glenn and Peter) are pulled into the mud with everyone else so there is no escaping it.

This show is amazing. I know I say that a lot about a lot of things, I'm not one for holding back praise, but I really, really mean it. This show is amazing. It this is indeed the last season and next week's episode is the show's last, I hope the writers, cast and crew know that they've made one of the greatest television shows of all time.

Downton and Once

2012-10-15T08:49:20Z

Downton Abbey: I have one thing to say about Downton and that is that I don't care what Violet says, I'm with Cora on blaming Lord Grantham. But then, I've been rooting for Cora to divorce his sorry ass for some time now.

Once Upon A Time: Not as good as the past two episodes – this episode kind of costed on the cast being so darn cute and likeable and having fantastic chemistry and the ending being a bit (okay a lot – yeah I got teary eyed a bit there) heartbreaking and Snow being a lot awesome.

But, really, speaking of the cast and coasting on them, put any combination of Emma, Snow, Charming, Regina, Henry and Rumpel together in a scene and it just works. They could be sitting there being reading the phonebook and it'd be adorable or heartbreaking or creepy, which ever of those that relationship happens to hit. This episode happened to be Emma and Snow, Snow and Charming, and Charming and Henry. I does though make me wonder if it will just fall back into the first season rut again when the filler episodes that don't focus on those characters begin again - the guest stars and secondary characters rarely are a match for the main cast.

I do miss my weekly dose of Emma and Regina though – it's been a whole two episodes with them giving each other eye sex and acting like a divorced couple. I miss it so much. No wonder there was all the life saving and the touching in the season premier – that's probably the last interaction they'll be having for ages.

In other disappointing things: LANCELOT! NOOOOOO!!!! YOU WERE AWESOME!

I was hoping the show was making an effort to include more non-white characters. Introducing a black character only to kill him off in the same episode is not a good way of going about it.

(On the other hand, congratulations to the show on continuing the tradition of killing off all the hot guys – it amuses me)

And the other disappointing thing: the lame ass non baby curse plot. Ugh.

Snow is so awesome. I love that she's all wonderfully melancholy, hopeful and sweet but at the same time a complete badass and startlingly wise and mature. She is an awesome Queen.

I quite like Emma's fish out of water-ness.

How can a show that gives it audience Regina and Rumpel, two villains both despicable and sympathetic, so incredibly fascinating and wonderfully layered, and also give the audience the big blah that is King George who is just so boring. I can't even bring myself to hate him, he's just that dull. Half the time I don't even remember he's a character and there. But he was there in the episode and....*snore*

On the other hand, reminding the audience that George is in Storybrooke was good – just because it reminded me that there's probably lots of villains in Storybrooke, all probably keeping their head down and hoping everyone stays too pissed at Regina to remember that they're there. It'd be kind of a fun storyline to reveal that with Regina running the mayors office and Rumpel owning the town, those two have really been running the show – but with Regina's power diminished and Rumpel keeping to himself, there's the potential for a power vacuum to form and other villains to take over their place.

Speaking of big bads in Storybooke: I am so looking forward to Cora seeing her daughter again and meeting her Grandson. That is going to be a confrontation for the ages. The big question will be, will confronting her mother cause Regina to get over a lot of her past issues and help her on the path to redemption, or will she just return her old ways but worse. That's the big mystery of this season for me, because it could go either way.

I love Henry. I just do. He's the cutest master emotional blackmailer out there.

Regina had about thirty seconds of screen time and was heartbreaking, but then we awesomely had the return of Regina's creepy heart dungeon to balance out the good.

Oh, and Mulan and Aurora need to cross universes and hang with Brienne and Catelyn. Because they just do.

One of those Numbered List Posts

2012-10-14T03:01:52Z

1. This news about the SHIELD TV show is fantastic.

2. I didn't have to wait a week for the scene I'm dying to see in the next Once episode, it got released as a sneak peek. I for one am looking forward to the inevitable Regina meltdown that this plot seems to be heading towards. Also, I wish they would stop handing Emma the idiot ball - there's ways of getting her to divulge that info to Cora without making her look stupid.

3. I've started watching Breaking Bad. I'm five episodes into the first season and while I can currently take or leave Walter White, I do love me some Jesse Pinkman and the fact that the show is a bit of a love letter to chemistry.

4. I'm enjoying the new Red Dwarf.

5. Via erinpuff: The Thick of It Characters made out of Lego.

6. Speaking of The Thick of It, it's now really starting to make me think of Game of Thrones on fast forward...

...You know, what with the ever shifting alliances and there being about seven different groups vying to survive at the cost of all the others. Goodness, watching them all run around like chickens with their heads chopped off is fun!

Go Nicola! You go get revenge of Malcolm! I hope she succeeds. My heart broke for her a lot in that stairwell.

Also, Glenn. My heart breaks for him as well. And Terri a bit – all she wants to do is get made redundant and open up a tea shop.

I think Ollie's starting to realise that hanging his flag to Malcolm is not good for his soul, and also that he has a soul, and that he actually may give a shit about it.

It was nice to see Robyn back. Oh, how I hope the inquiry is led by Lord Bonnie Longford himself, Julius Nicholson. It's just not a Thick of It series if he doesn't show up.

Dear Festividder

2012-10-13T23:23:30Z

Firstly: I'm so sorry this is a bit late. Things kind of got on top of me.

Secondly: Yay festivids! I'm going to try and be helpful in this post, but I'm not sure if I'll succeed.

Thank you so very much in advance!

Okay, so music: I'm really not fussed. Go crazy.

The Almighty Johnsons [TV]
Details: I really don't mind the subject of this vid. I'd just love one a vid for this fandom.

In case your reading this having matched up with me on one of the other fandoms, brief into to this show: it's a dramady about four brothers who live in Auckland New Zealand who happen to be Norse gods and their search for love, and it's bonkers and wonderful and unique.

I'd really like a vid that just captures what I love about the show, it's uniqueness and sense of humour. I do adore the relationship between the brothers so just focusing on the brothers would be wonderful, but I also adore the goddesses and pretty much everything.

The American President [Movie]
Details: I'd love either a vid about the central love story or about the ensemble.

This is my favourite romantic comedy of all time. If it's going to be about the romance, just don't make it sappy. I love Sorkin romances for being rather screwball so more along those lines.

Black Swan (2010) [Movie]
Details: I'd love something creepy and mind twisty.

Basically: creep me out and blow my mind.

The Incredibles [Movie]
Details: Just a gen vid about the movie would be nice, but I'd love the main focus to be the family and the relationships between them all.

It's really the relationship between the family that makes the movie one of my favourites.

Political Animals (2012) [TV]
Details: Something about Elaine, or Elaine and Susan (shippy or gen or something in between) or Elaine and Bud (again, shippy or gen or something in between).

Elaine's my favourite character so I'd really like her to be the centre.

The Princess Bride [Movie]
Details: Something cute and fun and ensemble-ly. I've loved this movie since I was a child.

I'd just love a vid that captures the humour of the movie.

Silk [TV]
Details Martha Costello/Justice OTP!

I think Martha is amazing so I'd love a vid in which she is central and particularly one focuses on her devotion to her clients. Beyond that, I'd really love a vid that looks at the justice system and all its virtues and imperfections through Martha would be wonderful.

The Thick of It [TV]
Details: I'd really, really love a vid that focuses on the the ensemble, government, opposition and coalition through the series. Just a general vid about everyone.

While Nicola and Malcolm are my favourites, I adore nearly every character in this show and I thnk the cast is amazing, so something that celebrates everyone and captures that they're really just a bunch horrible yet likeable human beings would be perfect.

Once!

2012-10-08T08:18:22Z

It's very early days into the second season, but if feels like Once has finally lived up to it's potential. Seriously, this episode was amazing, the last episode was amazing, all the character interactions were amazing, the plot is zooming along and a good pace, we're finding out stuff. This! This is the show I spent the first season hoping it would become and it has. Yay!

REGINA! Okay, so the reason why I love Regina is because 25% of the time you feel bad for her, 25% of the time you want to smack her making bad decisions and feel she deserves all her misery, 25% of the time she's utterly terrifying and the last 25% of the time she's hilarious.

Oh, man, nearly all of that Regina was in the last episode. Not so much the hilarious Regina (but the line “I will not listen to childcare lectures from a man who put his daughter in a box and shipped her to Maine” was hilarious and spot on).

But between both young and present Regina struggling against her dark side (and confusing her relationship with her mother for her dark side – no Regina, your mother may have caused it, but that rage exists in you whether your mother is in your life or not) and making some crappy decisions and some good ones and finally being honest with herself, Henry and Charming. And also those moments in which she just got high on magic and off the rails insane, we had the other 75% of Regina present and accounted for.

(Also, that scene in which she strangles a young Snow was so creepy and shocking).

I was hoping for a Regina redemption storyline. I've seen takes on Snow White in which the Evil Queen's completely evil, I've seen takes in which she's slightly sympathetic, and I've seen takes on Snow White in which she's good and Snow is evil, but having the Evil Queen redeem herself is a take on the tale I've never seen before and one I've been hoping for since the first episode. It did seem a little quick that she came to the conclusion that she wants redemption, but given that she didn't burn her mother's book, and that her mother may show back up in her life, and nearly everyone still hates her guts regardless, I'd imagine she's going to fail spectacularly before she succeeds in her quest.

(Also, she's massively powerful. If the town ever comes under attack, they're going to need her with magic, whether it's good for her or not).

I'm slightly on the fence about magic being addictive since it's only a few months since I watched season six of Buffy and I loathed that storyline, but maybe this show can pull it off better.

RUMPLE! So we finally have confirmation that Regina was the baby Rumpelstiltskin made off with in Rumpelstiltskin – and that is just horrible. Rumple was basically grooming her to become a magic-addicted psycho murderer and universe destroyer from birth* (and being very touchy feely with her as well with made it all the more creepy). At the end of the day, Regina made her own choices and if she wants redemption, she's got a long hard road ahead of her – but damn, if Rumple's wants redemption as well, he's got to admit what he did to her and take a degree of responsibility the way she turned out.

That being said, I felt bad for him finding out that he can't leave Storybrooke. Hundreds of years he'd been planning for that moment - close to his son, but so far away.

*(I was really hoping this would be the case as I love the dynamic between Regina and Emma and that they're both very much different sides of the same coin - both lonely, damaged from crappy experiences and as a result struggle to love, and bound to each other whether they like it or as they share a child. That one of them was set up from birth to cast the curse, the other was set up from birth to break it (and then Rumple was going to go on his merry way and leave everyone to it, apparently) just adds to this dynamic).

CHARMING! This episode made up for all the David Nolan suckage of the last season. I loved him struggling to be something more than the guy that fights stuff, and I love how we had confirmation that of the pair of them, Snow was really the leader – but him rising to the occasion and becoming the guy the townsfolk need. Also, he's one of the most adorable grandfather's ever.

HENRY! I do love that kid – it's hard to not love a kid that can stand up to his mother when she's being that terrifying and sacrifice his freedom for the good of the town (although he did have an escape plan), and I love how he pointed out that she gaslighted him last season and that is abuse and made him feel terrible.

RED! Red was everywhere this episode being all supportive and wonderful. Also, Granny wandering about with a crossbow.

CORA LIVES! I think the general assumption of fandom was either Regina murdered her mother or banished her, I'm so glad it's the latter because Cora's a character who can really thrown both Regina and Snow into a spin and dredge up all those issues - but also force Regina to confront the fact that it wasn't Snow's fault Daniel's dead, it's Cora's. And it's quite possible she outsmarted Rumple that one time so she's a match for him. If she winds up in Storybrooke, it could be amazing. Also, does this mean she was the Queen of Hearts?

Very light on Snow and Emma this episode, but given they're trapped in a dungeon with well, Emma's evil step great grandma who is the master manipulator of the family, next week promises to be interesting

So basically, I LOVE THIS SHOW.

Once is Back!

2012-10-01T09:27:03Z

Once Upon A Time - the only show on television where you can watch three generations of the same family trying to defeat a ~~wraith~~dementor armed with only two broomsticks and a hat – is back! Yay!

Anyway: Rene from True Blood! Regina in peril! Swan Queen! Mulan! Aurora! Mulan being the Brienne to Aurora's Catelyn! Dementors! Regina in more peril! More Swan Queen! That super awkward moment when you realise your best friend is your long lost mother and you know way too much about her sex life! That other super awkward moment when you've go a guy pinned to a wall an your about to rip his heart out and your kid walks in on it!

You know, I just realised that Once did the reverse of the Amy, Rory and River storyline – and did it way better.

Just please tell me the whole Belle/Rumple storyline is going end with her realising that staying with a guy to 'fix' him is a really, really bad idea and in doing so the show can subvert the dodgy as hell moral of Beauty and the Beast. Particularly when contrasted in the same episode with Henry having the good sense to walk away from Regina for being evil and in doing so illustrate Belle's got less common sense than a ten year old. Hopefully she'll quickly ditch Rumple and join the Emma, Snow, Red, Mulan and Aurora (with occasional member Regina when she feels like it and she's in a not-so-evil mood) band of badass Disney Princess with swords.

Also, The Thick of It

Malcolm you evil bastard! Poor, poor Nicola. He couldn't think of way to bring her down without so much public humiliation? Although, Ben Swain got exactly what he deserved. Still, her “I really thought I could be Prime Minister” was a bit heart breaking, as deluded as that dream was.

Are Glenn and Ollie officially a bromance? Glenn helping Ollie get to the loo was another one of their oddly sweet moments.

The references to Peter and Nicola's marriages have become a strange little highlight of this show for me. I just think it's super cute that Peter seems to have a rather strong relationship with his wife, despite the past affair, while the revelation that the reason why Nicola hasn't divorced her useless husband is cos she'd end up with the kids was brilliant.

The Angels Take Manhatten

2012-09-30T02:49:16Z

The Ponds are gone and I'm....

...not an emotional wreck. Sure, the Doctor being never able to visit Amy and Rory is sad and I shed a tear (but this is me, I cry at nearly everything), but Amy and Rory got to live to old age together and keep their memories of their travels. Really, in terms of Companion exits, it's one of the more happy ones.

The Statue of Liberty being a Weeping Angel was priceless.

Also, I've come the conclusion that my thoughts on River are many and complicated and that I will probably never write them down.

Bye bye Ponds. You are among the all time great adorable married couples.