I Am Establishing A Position On The Internet

now get on it, washington

2008-05-16T01:21:29Z

HEY HEY HEY HEY in case you haven't heard, California has proven itself once again to be pretty damn awesome in a variety of regards: GAY MARRIAGE IS BACK, BITCHES.

*dances, a little weakly, because she is tired*

on the other hand, today i got to snicker at the Very Brokeback Moment in all the pretty horses

2008-05-15T02:12:22Z

Time for my monthly Sometimes We Just Need To Rant post! Skip past, people, unless you are bored, in which case go ahead.

Let's start with that first word. Time. God, how much I need time; we all do, time for important things or for not-so-important things, and I'm staring down a graduation date that is now, officially, exactly one month away, and I know that that month will rush by faster than a speeding TARDIS, but there's still so much I need to do in it. Let us continue, then, to the crux of the problem: school. School is going to end. On one hand, that means time, glorious time, but I need to get there first, and in order to get there, I need to use up as much of my time as possible. There's a required senior history project on foreign policy--I chose North Korea, because I am insane--and there are due dates, endless due dates, coming up, and I don't even know everything I need to do with it, and some of it is due tomorrow and. And. I have three hours and ten minutes until I have to go to bed. Time. Always time.

With school comes theatre. With theatre comes rehearsal, which cuts away an hour and a half of time from my day, but today it was a solid two hours, because we need to get things done before Friday but we do not have the time to get them done before Friday and what that meant for today was that I lost a half-hour I could have used to frantically catch up on my internets with, so it's after dinner and I'm still not done with that. Stupid internets, being so big.

So, rehearsal leads to a lack of time, which only compounds the problem of homework not only taking up time itself but also being confusing and complicated, which leads to not having enough time to spend doing other stuff, which leads to: Doctor Who, and the great big stretch of an appropriately time-devouring monster I'm staring down.

I don't know exactly how many episodes there are, and I don't know exactly how many I need to watch, and I don't need to; all I need to know is that there are too many, and I'm not going to be done with them any time soon. Every time I think, "yes! I've familiarized myself with a certain character! I can skip to their last episode, and then I can move on to the next one!", I realize I actually need to watch more of their episodes, and then I realize I need to go back and watch more episodes of another character, and this is why I watched all but one of the Leela episodes instead of just two or three, and why I'm going to watch at least two or three more Delgado!Master episodes instead of just 'Terror of the Autons', and why I had to tear myself away from Two and Jamie--not that that even worked, since 'The Invasion' is lurking on our Netflix list, and be assured, if it was readily available on the internets, I would have watched it by now already. (Instead, it is a reward for me once I finish watching the current disc of Freaks and Geeks. Two more episodes. That's all. But I don't want to watch them, because watching them is using time that could be used for watching Doctor Who. But if I watch them, I can watch more Doctor Who...nyargh.)

So it's going to take a while to finish the entire show, you say. So what? It's not like there's a time limit on this. This is true! There is no time limit at all. However. I have two vids burning in my brain, and I can't stop thinking about them, but--but--they require a familiarity with...you guessed it...the entire show. Up to and including the movie. Every Doctor, every companion, every Master--all of it. And I want to make these vids so, so badly, but I just don't know enough to do that yet, and it's killing me, because there's so much to watch, and I need to watch it fast, but I don't have the time to do either. Time.

(One of the vids, incidentally, only requires Old Who clips for the first, let's see, eight seconds, but no, that includes the movie, and the continuity freak in me will not let me watch that before I watch everything else.)

So what am I going to do? I am going to do my homework, and then, if I am lucky, I am going to watch another part of 'The Mind of Evil', and then I will go to bed, which will be nice. Allons-y!

the bit with the necklace: you can't deny it, that was pretty fucking well-done

2008-05-14T03:53:00Z

So, uh, House!

...hurry up and be next week.

I DON'T WANT TO BE TRAUMATIZED

(I also don't want to be confronted with ships I don't ship, but I probably can't avoid it at this point.)

they don't even use the lyrics of the song. what, do they think we don't know who david bowie is?

2008-05-13T23:38:01Z

Oh god, they've released the trailer for the US version of Life on Mars.

...he's too muscular.

And he doesn't wear the hair nearly as well.

And Colm Meany, I'm sorry, you're trying very hard, but you're no Phillip Glenister.

And the voiceover and the background music just make me wince.

....and is Annie blond?

*sighs and goes back to Doctor Who, which has already gotten over its thankfully brief bit of Americanization and will never suffer from it again*

i do not like being late to parties but sometimes you can't avoid it

2008-05-13T05:00:50Z

Okay, so, perfect awesome convenient pretty blond girl with a close connection to the Doctor who shows up randomly and rocks everybody's socks off; I was, shall we say, a little wary of this. But, you know, on reflection, I kind of liked her. Not sure if I want her to get a spin-off, but hey, maybe a come-back episode in a couple seasons. Cute kid you've got there, Peter Davison. Let's give her a chance.

At first, I was also wary of Martha's immediately-getting-captured, but then she pretty much immediately un-captured herself and used Brains and Medical Skills and Friendliness to Get Stuff Done, and it is pretty much impossible for me to object to that, so well done, Stephen Greenhorn.

Donna using leet temp skills to save the day: have I mentioned, lately, how much I love you? Because I do. I love the way you don't immediately scream and cling to the Doctor, I love the way you think about stuff, I love the way you can still get excited and awed by things, I love the way you can be completely serious (and yet, still funny, for I shall never get tired of it) about you and the Doctor Not Being A Couple, I just love you. And that is why I want to yell at you for saying you're going to stay with the Doctor forever. Don't say things like that. Rose said things like that! Look what happened to Rose. Hell, we don't even know all of what happened to Rose yet. BUT I BET IT WASN'T GOOD.

...please don't die? Please? You're too cool to die, and it would be stupid if you died, but I don't know how else they're going to get you to leave. Not the Jamie and Zoe way, please, for the love of god, not the Jamie and Zoe way. Pretty much the only way I will accept you leaving is if you move to Sarah Jane's neighborhood and join her posse and become the other badass alien-seeking mama figure in town. (Although I don't know if she'd make much of a good mother figure. Still. It could happen.)

And now it is time for my music geekery: Martha's theme just gets used everywhere, doesn't it? I'm trying to track down what it actually means--not just Martha any more, obviously; maybe something to do with science, or fighting? But the other bit of Significant Music, oh hoh, we know what that means, Doctor, you and your drumbeats. Clever composer.

So. The Doctor's kids. Plural? Times like this, I really wish they'd bothered to give even some kind of an explanation for Susan, unless they actually did and I've never heard of it, which is entirely possible. And...that means Susan's dead, then? Jeez. I don't know her all that well, but...I don't want her to be dead. Same with Romana. First time I see Romana, all I can think is "well, she's dead now", and that's just depressing. But I guess there's no getting around it.

The mark on the back of the Doctor's hand looked a bit familiar, didn't it? It must have been a coincidence, because I can't think of any actual connection to 'The Empty Child' here, but surely they can't have just done it on accident. Hm.

I want to spell it 'Genny'. Can I spell it 'Genny'? Only maybe I actually want to spell it the normal way, I'm not sure. How about Jgenny? J/Genny? Tell you what, let's just go with Jenny, it's easier.

Also, did anyone else think Guest Star looked rather like Sally Sparrow? I think she did. And, because I feel like sharing, have a link to a silly little Doctor Who vid. Oh, Ten. You shameless accidental man-whore.
AND ANOTHER ONE. Less of Ten being a shameless accidental man-whore, more of the Master being the star of a Disney movie. No, seriously. Check it out.

i am not shipping them i am not i am not i am not

2008-05-11T23:50:40Z

What? Every Doctor Who fan on LJ needs a redscharlach icon or two. I just...happened to like this one, that's all. *coughs* But anyway. Let us get back to:

Adventures in Watching ~~Almost~~ Every Damn Episode of Classic Doctor Who That Is Possible To Find, part four:

Reason for watching this episode: the debut of K-9! Other reasons for watching this episode: nonexistent. It...isn't what I would call, oh, let's face it, good. Four and Leela get a distress signal from a base of some sort on Titan, which it turns out is being infected by a sort of electric bacteria thing (I would say virus, but "electric virus" has different connotations and just sounds silly anyway), whereupon the Doctor is...er...mind-impregnated by "the nucleus" of the virus species. Which infects other people by shooting electricity into their eyes, obviously. Thankfully, Leela is immune, possibly because the virus really likes advanced intellects and she is more of an instinctual person, possibly because of some flimsy genetic thing that is never explained. But the point is, the virus is infecting everybody and then, because the Doctor is feeling just a bit under the weather (read: self-induced coma due to being mind-impregnated), it is the obvious decision to go to a nearby hospital ship, taking with them The Only Other Uninfected Person On The Base. Guess what it turns out he actually isn't?

At the hospital ship, there is a very smart and very German-accented doctor who specializes in...something complicated to do with the brain, I don't remember, and his talking mechanical dog. Both the doctor and the dog are actually quite helpful, but they are trapped in a horrible, horrible episode, poor things, so, once the not-all-that-uninfected-after-all guy starts infecting everybody, they are forced to clone the Doctor and Leela, shrink the clones down to microscopic size, and inject the clones into the Doctor's brain to destroy the nucleus. But don't worry! The clones will only last for about ten minutes. It's not like they'll have to worry about morality or anything.

Have I mentioned Leela's role in all of this? So far, it is mostly: 1) huddle and cling to the Doctor's scarf (no, seriously), 2) whine about Sensing Danger, and 3) not understand anything anybody says. On the other hand, she does get to say "Doctor! I've found the solution! Knife them in the neck!", and she's the one to come up with the ultimate solution (blow the base up), so it's not all bad. After a lot of cringe-worthy things involving inexplicable makeup and incubation hives, the virus is destroyed and the doctor asks that the Doctor and Leela take K-9 with them, as he is going to go back to Earth and won't need a robot dog any more, or something. The Doctor, Leela, and K-9 are all delighted by this, which is actually quite understandable, as K-9 is the bomb.

There's something to do with a glowing skull that contains the essence of the ancient evil race of the Fendahl which possesses a lady and makes monster slug things appear in the spacious mansion of an eccentric scientist and his crew, and an awesome old lady who grumbles about having the Second Sight and really likes rock salt, which mostly made for a decent episode, although K-9 stayed in the TARDIS the whole time for some reason, but what I am actually going to talk about here, much to my chagrin, is how whoever wrote this seemed to really like the dynamic between Four and Leela. I may, of course, be reading far too much into this--lord knows I'm capable of it--but, man, I swear there is at least a bit of it there. Let me elaborate.

I can't give exact quotes and transcripts, because I don't have immediate access to them and am lazy, but one of the first things we see the Doctor do in this episode is compliment Leela on her new dress, making her grin, of course. He does not compliment her on her new hairstyle, because it's kind of awful. Later, in an effort to pull the Doctor away from the nasty glowing skull trying to kill him, Leela somehow manages to pull them both down so they fall and he lands on top of her; the Doctor is remarkably blase about all this, although he looks at her funny when she tells him he's heavy. (Unless I'm misremembering that, but she does say it.) Later still, in the scary woods when they're hiding behind a tree, she tells him not to worry, because she'll protect him; he gets a bit ruffled by this, but doesn't bother to correct her. And in the end, of course, when they're back in the TARDIS and she's put her hair back in its proper order (thank god), he compliments her on her new dress again, only she's actually changed back to the original, now, so she gets snarky at him and inside I die a little. SEND HELP. It was bad enough with Two and Jamie! Or is "icky het" a fair trade-off for "icky old guy"? The world may never know. Actually, I'm not utterly opposed to het, I just...don't like shipping the Doctor with anyone other than the Master. It feels Weird. I can only imagine how much trouble I'm going to have with Romana.

And now I'm off to have dinner at the house of some family friends; I think my mom is bringing pie. Mmmmpiiiiie.

the haircut is actually rather recent--i will never grow tired of making it shorter

2008-05-11T19:06:25Z

Hey so remember when I said I wasn't going to take a picture of my Master and Doctor action figures in an interesting position? Here's the picture I didn't take, plus a few others, including me omg. You can see my face! And my hair! I rather like my hair. I'm very proud of it.

I actually had to move these guys to a different place (they were on my dresser, which does not get very good light), so this is not their normal habitat, but they seem to have settled into it well. You cannot see the Master's face because it is scary. The Doctor just looks pretty bored, though. Just another day.

Rose and Martha are a little perturbed by all this, but Cassandra (who came packaged with Rose) seems intrigued by the whole thing. Giant pieces of skin take their fun where they can, I suppose.

Meanwhile, Delirium does not really care, because she has found her fish.

This hangs on my window, because one day I got sick and tired of the gloom seeping in through the nasty gray sky and I stuck it up there to block it out. It sort of worked, so I kept it there. I got the thing at WorldCon a few years back, where, in fact, there was a life-sized TARDIS and Dalek, but I didn't really care about it so much, what with never having seen the show. Oh, what I would give for a time machine. (There was also a fair bit of impressive HHGTTG props and costumes from the miniseries and movie, and I did get pictures of those. Somewhere.)

One of my walls, bearing 1) an Ursula Vernon print entitled, appropriately, "Pearaphim", 2) my Heroes calendar, currently on Bennet month, and 3) an old Girl Genius poster, acquired from god knows where. Probably a convention.

IS ME. In the bathroom, because that way I could look in the mirror to get a rough guess of what the picture would look like. I have glasses! I bet you didn't know that. Although I'm pretty sure at least one of you did. Didn't know about the haircut, though, nyah!

Right. Homework. Notes on the foreign policy of North Korea. Can I just put "N/A" and get away with it? Probably not.

i also bought a muffin, but i don't think any of you care about that, and rightfully so

2008-05-11T01:51:14Z

Hey, selenak! I saw Julie Be-enz, I saw Julie Be-enz!

...very briefly, because I didn't have enough money for an autograph and she didn't look very happy to be there anyway, but I still saw her.

Yes, I was at Emerald City Comicon, and I didn't actually do much there besides briefly see Julie Benz and grab a few books (the new Courtney Crumrin collection--damn, they certainly took their time with that one--and a couple Wondermark books; Malki! himself was there, and he was very sweet and self-effacing) and a Master action figure--ahahah, it is horrible, and it only comes with the laser screwdriver, but I had to get it. Alas, I didn't have enough money to get Jack (in his Empty Child attire) or the Weeping Angel, and I would've liked to get K-9, but he only came with a Rose I already had...when are they going to make a Donna figure? They need to make a Donna figure. And a Sarah Jane figure. And a Jack figure in something other than his Empty Child attire, although I suppose that would be a Torchwood figure.

You know, I'm far too interested in things that I never use for anything other than decorative purposes. I know that other people have it far worse--I confine my madness to Doctor Who, for the most part--but it's still a bit odd to realize that I've just spent $50 on action figures. (Not today. Today was only $12. Last year at Comicon proper, however...)

~~I am not going to put my Ten and Master figures in a compromising position. I am not. That would be crude. But if I did, Martha, Rose, and the TARDIS would get to watch. It's only fair.~~

i just hope nathan still has his s2 hair

2008-05-10T17:37:35Z

HEY LOOK I'M TALKING ABOUT HEROES AGAIN, THE WORLD AS I KNOW IT HAS BEEN IRREVOCABLY SHATTERED

We have promo, people! Very vague, nothing-we-didn't-already-know promo, but hey!

It's interesting, though, which characters they choose to turn from "hero" to "villain" (in the promo, in the promo--we know nothing about what will actually happen, or at least I don't)--Niki and Claire? Seriously? Well, okay, Niki. Especially given the Jessica rumor. But Claire could be quite interesting. As for "villain" to "hero", yeah, Nathan's a gimme, but they're saying Hiro and Peter were villains? I suppose you could say s2 Peter was kind of...not in whitehat territory, but I wouldn't call him or Hiro a villain, per se. And I heard about Peter having something of a dark side in this, so how's that heroic? Basically, my opinion on this promo is: I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'm sure it's very interesting.

Also, 3 HOUR PREMIERE WHAT. That could either be very, very cool or very, very overwrought. *crosses fingers that the writers are merely trying to make up for the lack from last season* Either way, I'm glad I won't be watching it on a high school schedule, because I might be able to actually stay up late enough to watch it. Unless it starts at 7. But anyway. 3 HOUR PREMIERE WHAT.

the way that things are going down, nothing seems to feel the same

2008-05-10T00:06:53Z

My first thought while watching the episode: wait, don't I know that voice? My second thought: IT'S LORNE. OMG, LORNE. My third thought: ...well, bye-bye, Lorne! Nice of you to drop by!

But I guess there was some stuff that happened after that.

I never knew what to think about Bela, really. Did I hate her? Did I kind of like her? Was I merely vaguely annoyed by her? I still don't know. I do know that sexual abuse is way over-played, but I kind of want to give her 14-year-old self a high-five, because doing that takes balls, yo. Fare thee well, Bela Talbot. Your name was about as subtle a reference to this show's origins as they come, and I can't look down on that. Also you did look pretty authentically scared at the end, and it is hard to hate someone when they look like that.

Dean. Deano. Deany-boy. I'm not sure where I'm going with this. Dean. Please go to Hell. No, seriously. My biggest wish for the finale--holy crap, that came up quickly--is for Sam to fail miserably and Dean to get dragged down to Hell, and the show to follow him there. What, you think the guy never learned anything from his daddy? Season four can be the epic, dark, flame-drenched story of how Dean crawled his way out of Hell. Or how Sam pulled him out. Or both. Really, I just don't want them to welsh on this. We get a huge, nasty cliffhanger, right? That probably means they are not going to make everything immediately better with rainbows and kittens, but I still want stuff to happen. Like, some serious Actual Effect On The Characters And Plot. Come on, don't tell me you're not salivating at the prospect of that. But I guess we'll find out next week, won't we.

i had the horrible realization that i could be a four/leela shipper, but i clamped down on that fast

2008-05-09T16:55:19Z

Adventures in Watching ~~Almost~~ Every Damn Episode of Classic Doctor Who That Is Possible To Find, part three, in no particular order, because I can't really remember what the order was:

A Two adventure, watched pretty much solely because I was having difficulty letting go of Jamie. And Two and Zoe, I guess. But mostly Jamie. Out of curiosity, when the Doctor decides Team TARDIS needs a vacation, does it ever actually turn out to be a vacation? In this case, the part of Happy Peaceful Planet Dulkis (no, seriously, Dulkis) that they land on turns out to be a former testing ground for radioactive weaponry, although of course all the nasty radiation has been helpfully sucked up by the evil, evil Dominators (guess what they like to do?), who never even bothered trying to say it was a vacation and just went straight for the mining and slave labor. Their robot servants/attack dogs, called the Quarks (I suspect they were really running out of names with this episode), march around on tiny, ineffective feet and blow things up. Their tinny mechanical voices are, in fact, adorable.

Ultimately, Jamie gets to blow things up, Zoe gets to be the physically strongest member of a group, and the Doctor gets to have the brilliant idea of turning the island they're on into a volcano, which leads directly into 'The Mind Robber'. Good times.

Three, this time around, bearing the introductions of both Jo Grant and the Master, and thus winning the award for Most Incongruous Introductions Ever. Jo is really very, very sweet, and she tries so hard, but I always rather did wonder how she managed to get a job at UNIT, and it turns out it was because her parents have a lot of influence, not because of any, y'know, qualifications. Although she did manage to get out of those ropes, and in a later episode, I believe she developed an immunity to mind control, which is quite a useful attribute for a companion. Here, anyway, she is mostly very sweet and very determined, which makes it impossible for the Doctor to get the guts to fire her, and she does grow on you.

But let's get down to the nitty-gritty. The Master. In his first appearance. Very...blase. Suave, really, but aside from the whole mind control thing, he's not trying to be charming, here; he says things like "Which I will use to destroy this planet" (like, like, I can't remember the line exactly) in a totally casual voice, like it's something he does before his morning cup of tea, which it probably is. He also proves that the phone-call thing is something of an old habit, as he uses one to, er, try to strangle the Doctor with a phone cord. I'll give him points for trying. He escapes in the end, natcherly, and the Doctor looks quite happy at the thought of encountering him again. Oh, Doctor.

(The Brig is also awesome, as always. And Sergeant Benton tries to make cocoa on a Bunsen burner, for which I have decided to adore him.)

Two again, because I may have a problem. *coughs* This time, however, we have a little lady called Victoria rather than Zoe, who is from...the Victorian period, because, as I've mentioned, this era seems to have some difficulties with names. She's quite sweet, and responsible for what is predictably my favorite part of the episode:

VICTORIA, examining her new, non-Victorian clothes: I don't know, this skirt seems so short.
DOCTOR: Nonsense, it's fine. Just look at Jamie's!

And then the Doctor and Jamie walk off holding hands, except they quickly stop because they remember Victoria is watching. Anyway.

So the Cybermen are a species, apparently? A species with tombs and hieroglyphs and everything. Huh. They are also hi-larious in their old, slow-moving tinfoil costumes, and their Cyber Controller has a most magnificent hat. And there are little mechanical bugs called Cyber-Mats, the purpose of which is difficult to ascertain, other than to make noise and scare people. Stuff happens, folks die (but really, even archaeologists should know better than to look for the tomb of a massively homicidal race), racist black stereotype is racist, and Team TARDIS heads off once more, except OH NOES A CYBER-MAT MADE IT OUTSIDE THE TOMB. What does that mean? I really don't know. Victoria is quite nice, actually, and I think I'd like to see her intro episode, which is apparently the one before this one, but I suspect it is lost. Woe.

Leela's first spin in the TARDIS, and she gets...a robot uprising! Always a classic. I rather like these robots, actually--they must have had some influence on the designs for the Heavenly Host decades down the line, and they're very aesthetically appealing. Lovely and green-silver. Very nice voices, too. They're the staff of a big mining ship helmed by a group of humans, none of whom seem to like each other very much, and they are, of course, Completely Incapable of Killing People. It should come as no surprise, then, that they start killing as many people as they can find, and the Doctor and Leela must find a way to stop them before it is Too Late! They are aided in this by a rather awesome detective-robot who infiltrated his way onto the ship because of suspicions that such a thing would, in fact, happen. The ultimate solution involves using helium gas to make a guy's voice funny so the robots will kill him on accident. No, really.

A mysterious light crashes into the sea near a lighthouse in the early 1900s! What could it be? Absolutely nothing, says the old man in charge of the lighthouse to the younger man who saw it. The lighthouse, interestingly enough, is electric, rather than oil-powered--one of the first, it would seem. Which of course means that the power must go out at regular intervals, as dictated by the laws of horror. The Doctor and Leela land there already wearing Victorian clothes, which makes me think that I should probably watch the episode that came before this if I want to know why. Leela does not like these clothes, and changes out of them as soon as possible, scaring the poor young guy. Man, I love Leela.

So, there is a monster! And the monster is killing people with electricity! And it's fluorescent! And, because its arrival caused a nasty thick fog to spring up sharpish, a yacht crashes onto the rocks, bringing a few new players to the game. They are rich and annoying, except for the one who is rich and not really annoying, and the sailor who is not rich and not annoying at all. This being a Doctor Who episode, I should not have to say anything about what happens to them. Leela, meanwhile, threatens them, demands that the Doctor let her go kill the damn thing, and brandishes her knife at every available opportunity. Did I mention that I love her?

The monster turns out to be a Rutan, or, as I have decided to call them, Green Glowing Jellyfish. Leela blows it up with a makeshift cannon and is Very Proud of this; the Doctor rather wishes she weren't, but doesn't have time to argue, and, for reasons that don't need to be explored at this juncture, they have to make a mad dash out of the lighthouse into the TARDIS before everything goes boom. And then Leela's eyes change color due to the nature of the blast. Apparently. Was there an actual reason for that, or did they just decide she needed a change of pace? The world may never know.

live a life less ordinary, live a life extraordinary with me

2008-05-09T00:08:30Z

Great coincidences of the world, episode 205,673,042: a really great multi-Doctor multi-Companion DW vid makes me put serious thought into using this other song to do something similar (mostly about the overarching theme of the Doctor's relationships with all of his Companions, seriously, all of them, I'm...probably going to need to dig deep for some of the clips), only I never actually knew the band that created or the title of the song I'd use, so I finally look it up, and it was by the same guys who did the first vid.

I guess they just really like Doctor Who.

it's always fun to draw black and white next to color

2008-05-07T05:05:26Z

So it occurred to me that, for someone going to art school in a few months, I don't actually, y'know, draw much.

And then I looked at my desktop wallpaper and I thought about the sort of thing that would be fun to draw and I came up with this, for which I cannot be blamed one whit.

Preview:

look, my awesome journalism teacher recommended it, okay

2008-05-06T22:18:43Z

So this is the part where I admit that I've read Twilight and didn't have any objections to it (look, it's kind of nice to see a vampire romance novel that doesn't actually have any sex in it, okay?) and am sort of looking forward to the movie.

That being said, the trailer, while very pretty and having lovely music, is totally put together wrong. I like what they did with the jump-cut car accident, but they should have put that last--well, next to last; they should have the "how old are you?" bit actually last, they should have at least tried to not make it completely obvious from the beginning. And I wouldn't have put the "she's not one of us!" bit in there at all. Too obvious, too cliche. (Yes, I realize I'm saying this about Twilight. Shut up.) What they should have done was start slow, maybe the bit with him watching her, the "I'm not scared of you" bit--oooh, if they filmed the bit where, er, whatsisface, the Native American kid, warned Bella about Edward, that would've made a good second or third clip. Alas, the bit with the deer, while quite cool, just seemed a bit random. And honestly, when I see "guy attacking a deer", I think "werewolf!", not "vampire!". (Although that may be a bit of Being Human sneaking back into my subconscious. Man, I can't wait for that to start up again.)

You know, I am probably the only person who is more het up about this than about the actual movie. *g*

(Also, damn, but they did a good job making the Cullens look pale. The moody eyes were probably a bit much, though.)

i have finally wrested myself away from two and jamie and am moving back to three, thank god

2008-05-06T03:25:41Z

Finally, someone has the sense to bash in a window! Good to see where Donna gets her practicality from, although of course she was not particularly displaying any in this instance, so maybe only one person is allowed to be practical in any given scene. I suspect this may be the case.

Let us all sigh resignedly for Ross, yes? This is why it does not do to get attached; if you are a supporting or minor character, and the Doctor takes a shine to you, you are doomed. Trufax. (See also: Jabe, Lynda.) But better to have loved and lost than never loved at all, I suppose.

On a more cheerful note, Brig reference for the win. Wonder why they couldn't get in a cameo? Maybe Nicholas Courtney is of ill health, or maybe they thought that would (rightfully) dominate the episode, or maybe they thought one reunion was enough. Speaking of which, the clone scene = oddly effective; nice to see them dodging straightforward-good-and-evil-ness, and same with both the kids at Rattigan's and Rattigan himself. Nice exit, kid.

...you know, I wonder just how many times the Doctor has tried to kill himself in a dramatically self-sacrificial way. Is it a relatively new thing? Someone should start a count.

I'm not feeling terribly talky about this, actually, so I'll stick with: was good! Nice little flash of Rose, nice Donna being productive and brave (even though she was scared--you can be brave and scared at the same time), nice Valiant cameo, nice reference to Jack, excellent reference to 'The Empty Child'--I laughed far too loud; I suspect I scared my parents a bit--nice Martha showing off her gumption and maturity by choosing to remain home again, even if she, er, didn't have much of a choice in the matter. I will admit that I called it the moment I saw her in the TARDIS--I said to myself, "Look, she's got her traveling hair back on, bet that's significant", and hey, I was right.

The next episode is the one that deals with...something that might be related to Susan, yes? I do hope they reference her. Crying shame not to, especially in this context.

i'm actually familiar enough with two to get back to three, and yet i can't stop

2008-05-06T00:24:23Z

Three minutes into 'The Dominators' (and boy, isn't that an interesting title), and I feel I am morally obligated to share this line with you: "Well, here we are, everyone! The Island of Death!"

It's not actually the Doctor saying it, but the guy still sounds so cheerful.

since i have been listening to music for like three hours now

2008-05-04T23:54:27Z

Hey, you know what we need right now? POINTLESS MEMES.

Comment with the name of one of my stories and I'll 1) upload a song that I associate with it and 2) give an explanation as to why I associate the song with it. Warning: reasons may not be very good ones.

i'm actually familiar with all but three of these guys now, hamg

2008-05-04T18:17:24Z

My current wallpaper.

No, you shut up.

dammit, being a fan of this show is going to be the death of me

2008-05-03T21:51:13Z

Adventures in Watching ~~Almost~~ Every Damn Episode of Classic Doctor Who That Is Possible To Find, part two:

Enter Three! Post-regeneration antics are always fun to watch. I say this, of course, having now witnessed a grand total of two (three if you count Jacobi-to-Simm Master), but I know enough to be deeply amused by watching Three go all spastic with a wheelchair. The Brig, as always, is marvelous and pretty much exactly the opposite of what government/military leaders are typically portrayed as in genre stories--e.g., unrepentant, heartless hard-asses who only get in the way with their insistence on Procedure and a tendency to ignore whatever wild theory Our Heroes have come up with today, whereas the Brig is quite a nice chap and prone to fits of reason. Dammit, he better get that cameo. Practical, intelligent Liz gets two-thumbs-up all around. Loved the end with the car, of course--oh, Doctor, clinging to a surrogate TARDIS so soon? (They should give Bessie a cameo, too. They should just give everybody a cameo.) And then, we get to...

I know that this is only the second episode I've seen with Jamie and Zoe in it, but the first one was five parts long and this one was ten, so I can be damn well forgiven for growing attached to them. And Two, of course. Lady Jennifer and Lt. Carstairs were quite nice, and bully for them for getting to go back to their own time (I am assuming they got married and had lots of wonderful, practical children). But speaking of going back to one's own time...

...yeah.

Look, okay, Zoe's going to be fine, she seems to live in a pretty cool place. Jamie? Is a soldier (or something like it) in 1745; he is not going to live that long. And, and, neither of them even remember, that is just--for fuck's sake, that's just mean. Hell with you, Rose, you got to keep fighting the good fight, they had to go back to ordinary lives, not even remembering all the things they got to do. Yeah, I cried. Sometimes, being a fan of this show hurts. At least Jamie shows up again in 'The Two Doctors', which I have already marked as one of the few Six episodes I need to see. Dammit, I reiterate my above point--everybody should get cameos. Sarah Jane got one! Maybe they shouldn't all get spin-off shows--that'd be a bit overwhelming--but I just really, really want to see all of the old folks acknowledged. I bet Donna'd love to see the 18th century.

...sniff.

In related news, it seems Jamie was actually the longest-lasting Companion the Doctor's ever had, excluding the Brig--and IMDB lists him for 115 episodes, which is rather impressive, even given that that's counting each part as an individual episode. My boy was a mainstay, yo. Except the vast majority of those episodes are lost to the world. I swear to god, I ever get a time machine, I'm going back to right before that fire and nabbing all of the tapes. It's not like there'd be a paradox or anything! They'd be gone anyway!

if all fifteen of my shows are ever airing all at once, i will not be sure whether to cheer or cry

2008-05-03T04:32:52Z

I had hopes, of course, but I knew it wasn't John the moment he said "I love you". I mean, come on, demon. Did you even do your research?

I also watched Waitress with the fam, and it's very sweet, and Nathan Fillion is also very sweet, and between it and Pushing Daisies I suspect I am developing a pie fetish, and it's very weird to see someone on screen you know was murdered not long after filming that. Adrienne Shelley is just so...well, sweet. Life is weird. So it goes.

i was going to put my supernatural episode ramblings in here too but i couldn't decide between icons

2008-05-03T01:44:05Z

Lucy Davis! Always excellent to see her around, even if they're playing her up as some kind of bitch. Initially, I was hoping they would go the route of her turning out to be Ben's ideal girl despite not having any of the characteristics on the list, but alas, it was not meant to be. At least I'll get to hear more of that perky little voice, neh?

Everyone loves a good "total stranger mistakes them for gay" moment, yes? Well, maybe not everyone, but if you are here, you probably do, and my slasher's cackle could be heard far and wide.

Actually dealing with and coming up with a good solution for the eternal Love Interest Problem = THANK GOD FINALLY. Can Andi nab some souls now plz? Also, I can never say this frequently enough: good god, but Missy Peregrym has epic shoulders. They're...entrancing.

Tony is still v. cool, and that is why he will probably die. Sniff. One of the things I like about this show is that it does slip in the occasional bit of genuine darkness--maybe not as often as it should, but lately it's been getting better with it, possibly because they can smell the impending cancellation and want to start building up to the end quick. (Sniff.) How many episodes are left, anyway? Not enough, I suspect.

this post does not have a house icon because i have spent too much time on icons lately

2008-04-30T00:31:15Z

So, House? Still pretty gay. Amber? Still pretty awesome, and I spent most of the episode squinting at her in a puzzled manner until I realized that she actually looks a bit like Donna. (If they ever met, it would be glorious beyond all words.) Wilson's hair? You know, it's shorter, but I think I like it anyway. Chase? Way too excited to be House's new bowling buddy; also, hot. Nurses' strike? Totally not a reference to anything, I'm sure. Kutner? Still cute. This episode being co-written by David Shore, who not only created House but also wrote many episodes of Due South? Only makes the Canadian joke funnier. Wilson saying "[When House wants revenge, or something, I don't remember that bit], he'll just switch out your lubrication with super-glue"? UH WHAT. I know he was saying it to Amber--yes yes, I know women use it too--but really, that's not nearly as funny if you take it in a female context. Also, sweet Jesus, House, that shit is just nasty.

(It occurs to me that he might have meant it in a car context, or something like that, but seriously, that is not the first thing you think of.)

And now, off I go to watch more 'The Face of Evil', because OMG FOUR and OMG LEELA and OMG FOUR AND LEELA and I pretty much can't stop flailing about them. She killed three people in a rather nasty way in the first part of her first episode! HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE HER.

i keep getting the urge to draw a salacious tosh/owen pic. this has nothing to do with anything.

2008-04-29T02:29:03Z

You know, the reason I waited to make this post was because I wanted to make an icon for it first. It's true. Shut up.

A kinda-cute American teenager is running a school of kids in evil red tracksuits, and a woman boldly doing the Sarah Jane Thing is unfortunately drowned. Couldn't she have punched out the windows once the car filled with water? It's what you're supposed to do, y'know. But that would be logic, and this is, after all, Doctor Who. Donna learning how to fly the TARDIS! omg domestiks. And then, the ~~gun on the mantelpiece~~ cellphone rings and we get swept back up in omg Martha. 'Omg Martha' is a documented phenomenon. Trufax. But the real question is: are we going to have to cut Chris Chibnall for being a malicious bastard, or is UNIT still full of nice folks? The latter, mostly! Yay!

Donna and Martha get along. Excellent. Just like Rose and Sarah Jane! How are the (relatively) new girls going to deal with those two? Quite well with Sarah, I should imagine, since Sarah is awesome and friendly and mature, but Rose...erm. Look, you know there'd be some sort of a bitchfight even if Rose wasn't possibly evil. Not that this stops me from being hella excited to see it, of course. (Perhaps Sarah Jane will have to intercede and say, look, y'all, you are being stupid and also you're like numbers 28-30 in a long list so shut up plzkthx.) And it is good to see that Martha did, in fact, hook up with Tom. It's not like they could have randomly paired her off with some guy we've never met before, after all.

UNIT = not evil, but I still miss the Brig. And I barely knew the guy! Is he at least going to get a namedrop? He got one in The Sarah Jane Adventures, and she wasn't even there! Margle. Ross, however, is awesome. We like Ross. Please don't die, Ross. It's probably too much to hope for you to get a spin in the TARDIS, but at least don't die, okay?

The conversation where the Doctor thought Donna was leaving: d'awwwww, you two. I'm actually getting wibbly (wibbly is an established phrase) over a platonic ship--man, I have got it bad. And I wouldn't have it either way.

I am inordinately pleased, incidentally, to run across a villain with whom I am actually familiar; I've seen 'The Time Warrior' and 'The Sontaran Invasion', so I recognize these guys, omg. Look, ma! I'm educated!

We all love Donna's grandfather, yes? There is no need for discussion. It is a matter of fact. We simply do.

We do not really love that Martha is getting victimized and strapped to a table again, but I kinda liked the way the clone looked before it finished turning into her, so I can forgive it a little. A little. Is it too much to hope for that she'll bust herself out of there? Probably. Can Donna do it, at least? Companions should help each other out.

I do reiterate: break the fucking window, guys. But they'll probably figure that out. Donna-Grampa is too cool to die. The shot of the Doctor staring out into the gas-filled street was pretty cool, though. Cinematography FTW!

House tonight, and the weather forecast is reading MOAR GAY. Oh dear. JUST LET ME STICK WITH SOMETHING, I SWEAR TO GOD. *flails at the fandom gods*

you're not matin' with me, sunshine

2008-04-29T01:12:14Z

Boy, it's been ~~at least a few weeks~~ a while since my last icon post, hasn't it? Clearly that must be rectified. This edition: DOCTOR WHO.

I actually had a bunch of Doctor Who pics on my hard drive already (for collage purposes), so, because I, er, have sort of been getting back to watching the classic episodes (yes, selenak, that includes 'The Aztecs', and you are right, it is awesome), I felt the need to make a couple oldies. Yay, Four! Yay, Sarah Jane!

Don't we all need a Martha icon? I needed a Martha icon, anyway.

I think this one wins the "Most Befuddling If You're Not Familiar With The Context" award.

I FINALLY HAVE A DONNA ICON. Or a Donna/Doctor icon, anyway. (In the non-shippy sense, of course.) You would not believe how long it took me to find a decent cap for this--I bet there'll be a perfect one next episode. That is how the universe works. In other news, my love for Donna cannot be measured by any mortal means. In case you were wondering.

And finally, the one I used for this post! The TARDIS deserves just as many icons as the rest of them; she is, after all, the Doctor's only true love. (Do you remember that "Does he still stroke bits of the TARDIS?" line from 'School Reunion'? That's one of my favorite lines in the history of ever.)

You are, of course, welcome to take any of these; just give me credit.

guess what my wallpaper is

2008-04-26T21:52:22Z

So, uh, does anybody here have a Razr cellphone? And do any of you know how to get custom ringtones on them? I'm not wholly against paying for anything, it's just that I don't think the default stores the phone lists are likely to carry the TARDIS noise.

Shut up.