#(this scene has a series of several 'screams' - two are from women's labor and the third is henry waking up from a nightmare)

[spotlightsaga]

Kevin Cage of @spotlightsaga reviews… Blood Drive (S01E02) Welcome to Pixie Swallow Airdate: June 21, 2017 @syfy Ratings: 0.627 Million :: 0.18 18-49 Demo Share Score: 3.5/10 @blooddrivesource

**********SPOILERS BELOW**********

It’s not that ‘Blood Drive’ is completely unwatchable, because it isn’t, there is certainly an undeniable improvement from E1 to E2. It’s just that as far as options go, particularly within this genre, and television as a whole… SyFy needs to do more than push the boundaries of censorship to keep viewers. The bloody, 'fuck-bomb’, Soska Sisters-wannabe series has already seen a 25% drop in overall viewers as well as that coveted 18-49 Demo Share they need for advertising income from just E1 to E2. No doubt that SyFy has some sort of deal with Amazon Prime & Netflix in place, but they’ll need more than that to secure a renewal. The last two SyFy series we’ve covered were both cancelled after 1 season, and the show we always rushed back to watch (Defiance) was mysteriously cancelled as well despite being SyFy’s too rated show… Marking the last remaining show left over from the tail end of the SyFy Network’s 'Golden Age’. 'The Magicians’ is the only series in the past several years that has actually shown an increase in interest and overall viewership as well as that coveted demo. Just for comparison sake, the universally panned 'Olympus’ averaged 0.551 Million viewers & a paltry 0.14 18-49 Demo Share. SyFy’s 'Wynona Earp’, which is now in its 2nd season is averaging below that, at 0.508 Million & an 0.12 18-49 Demo Share. We assure you, Olympus was at least cheaper to make.

Everyone knows Preacher is back on A&E, right? 'Blood Drive’s core audience seems to be those that are simply impressed with boundary pushing and had big brothers in the 80s who lined their bedroom walls with posters with models like Christie Brinkley, Tawney Kitaen, & Cindy Crawford in skimpy bathing suits with big hair and butt floss. Entering Blood Drive’s 2nd episode, the only character that seems to be of any note is Julian Slink (Colin Cunningham), his motivations besides being a blood thirsty bad ass with a scary demon/deep voiced/possible woman robot boss with multiple copies, Aki (Marama Corbett), who may or may not kill him depending on whatever she feels like doing at the time for no reason whatsoever, are vague and unclear. She loves that Slink showed initiative and killed the over-eager new head of maintenance with the bottom side of a briefcase in the public view of the Heart Enterprises waiting room, so that will buy him time to take the 'Blood Drive’ race on the air to see if they can register better numbers than the SyFy channel. He better hope that he does, though honestly he doesn’t look to thrilled about the idea. Lucky for him, SyFy numbers aren’t hard to beat.

While the race is without its host and partially unsupervised, Good Cop Arthur Bailey (Alan Ritchson) and Bad Ass Female Driver w/little to no character motivation, Grace Argento (Christina Ochoa) take a break from fucking in the front seat of their blood thirsty car that records everything they do and head to 'Pixie Swallow’. Charming, I know. While the 15 year old boys in the audience are stuffing their stiff socks from last week under their bed with an old pizza box, they ready another pair from the dirty pair as the pair checks into a creepy hotel after stealing an Elvis impersonator’s room key. Unfortunately for them, it’s not Arthur & Grace having hot car sex this week (Anyone remember that one movie 'Crash’, the NC-17 one where there was a group of ppl that were obsessed with fucking while crashing cars? Sorry 🚨 ADHD thought alert 🚨).

This week on the 'Blood Drive’ menu, our sex scene is a gay anal scene between a very frail, unkempt and dirty looking 'The Scholar’ (Darren Kent) and a very old, crusty creeper that looks like he could be the cousin of 'The Tallman’ from a parallel universe in 'Phantasm’, but dystopian damaged, and possibly inbred. Yup, I’m talking about 'The Gentleman’ (Andrew Hall). The Scholar professes his love to The Gentleman, but The Gentleman turns his love and affection into hard pumps into The Scholar’s ass. I have a sneaking suspicion that this dude didn’t even spit on it for Christ’s Sake. The Gentleman tells The Scholar tells him that once they win that he can basically fuck off, no going to Bjork’s unpronounceable hometown for him! This makes zero sense for 'The Gentleman’s character. If you want yo get ahead, you wait to screw people over. 2nd episode admittance is kind of like signing your on death warrant in the least original or interesting way possible.

The most revolting two people two have ever starred in a gay sex scene on cable television (is there an award for that? MTV maybe? Possibly the European MTV Awards?) isn’t all that’s on the menu for this round of 'Blood Drive’. The diner connected to the hotel is run by a family of possibly incestual rednecks who are using human meat to make steaks and burgers. This whole schtick has been done to death, nothing new to see here. Anyone remember that bad ass Horror/Exploitation film from 1980 called 'Motel Hell’ or the 80’s film 'Blood Diner’? Well combining two films that are both 30-35 years old doesn’t exactly scream originality. Slightly entertaining? Not really, possibly, sort-of. It’s hard to care. I did mention that 'Preacher’ just started S2 on AMC right! 🚨ADHD thought alert! 🚨 There went another one.

Somewhere along the line, Arthur and The Scholar end up in the diner together, connecting over their disconnection with their driving partners. Arthur is eating his rare burger (ewe, steak ok, tuna ok, but rare human burgers? At least Mid-Well, dawg) and while he’s chewing down he finds one of the fingers from one of the women from the cast of TNT’s 'Claws’. Arthur, of course, investigates and for a reason that wasn’t exactly crystal clear, the owners freak out and a bunch of cannibals take over the hotel. Meanwhile, Arthur’s partner Chris (Thomas Dominique), wakes up at Heart Enterprises and they let him roam around the building, but first they tell him he had 9 erections while he was sleeping. No news as to whether those erections were resituated or grabbed, pulled forward, then let go to smack Chris’ stomach and make a fun noise. Unfortunately, we never find out what happened with those 9 erections and now I’ll forever be haunted by the mystery. In what is the most entertaining scene of the entire episode, Chris goes through Heart Enterprises’ 'Orientation’ and the Aki copy show’s a deep appreciation for her part in the orientation video. The lines are on par, proving that once again, surrounded by total muck and poorly executed ideas, there are some fun moments to be had in 'Blood Drive’.

Apparently great earthquakes created a great scar in the middle of the United States and instead of running from it like everyone else, Heart Enterprises ran toward it… Finding incredible resources in 'The Scar’, such as; “unstable minerals, morally questionable fuel alternatives, unnatural gasses, and deep wells of unidentifiable glowing goo with properties far beyond the realm of modern science. The world ecological disaster was our economical windfall. And now we share with you, the newest member of Heart, the fruits of our labor… We Heart You.” Aki even mouths the words to 'her part’ and makes a heart with her hands as she repeats, “We Heart You.” The scene gets better… Apparently Chris is what this show has been missing. His back and forth with Aki embodies the exact type of silliness, dark undertones, and comedic timing that the Exploitation genre calls for. Chris even calls the Aki copy 'Small Wonder’… Vicky The Robot, anyone?! Aki tells Chris he’s free to roam the building and can leave anytime, but she’s pretty confident that he will stay and join them… So he’s free, but he’s not to contact his partner or anyone else for that matter or he’ll be 'modified’… Behaviorally. Ok. This entire scene just made the rest of this episode completely worthwhile.

There’s some seriously weird shit that goes down in the hallways of Heart Enterprises and again I’d much rather follow Chris, Aki (the many versions), and Slink. These three outweigh our main protagonists by a landslide. That’s not how 'Blood Drive’ is going to work though… And while Arthur, Grace, and The Gentleman search for The Scholar to fix their cars, Chris is returning Arthur’s message and filling him in on the drama going on at Heart… Probably not such a great move, but hey… Blood Drive! There’s a convenient sob story about Grace’s sister and I just thought of how much laundry I have to do… Seriously. 🚨 ADHD thought alert #3! 🚨 Heart and the asylum that Grace’s sister happen to be in are connected. Apparently instead of getting on with the race, they’ll be stopping in that very asylum in the next episode. Back to Chris! I’ve suddenly forgot all about my laundry! Chris is going to stay at Heart and work with them and pledges to one of the Aki Copies his obviously fake as shit loyalty. She accepts. She also delivers on her promise to 'modify’ him as she’s quite aware that he contacted his partner… Former partner, now as behavior modifications are underway. More Chris. More Aki. More Slink. Less everything else.

[corvwase]

Crimson Earth, Pt IV

Crimson Earth: Sodom and Gomorrah

This is a series I wrote several hundred years ago called Crimson Earth. I'm not even going to start on how much crap is in this and how much work it needs, but the basic idea is there. It started to trail off when the company I was running tanked, and I lost interest in writing for a few years until recently. There's a remote possibility I may reboot it and rewrite the whole thing. Until thin, I hope you can at least try to enjoy Crimson Earth, a post-apocalyptic story set in the American Midwest.

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The coal mine was chock-full of bodies. Blue faces, eyes screwed shut and covered in ash, seemed twisted to inhale the air of death lingering in the tunnels. Bloated fingers clawed the darkness, reaching up for anything. The entire place had collapsed in on itself from the sheer amount of tunneling. With no trees to make supports and the steel mills in ruin, the passages buckled from the earth’s weight above, crushing every living thing below. The ventilation shafts were opened and soldiers poured liquid concrete down the long pipes, a slurry of chemicals and sand. The oozing mixture had covered every body, dead or alive, encapsulating the workers forever. The concrete would keep a collapse from happening again, and the veins of liquid rock hardened and held the soil together. Collapses certainly needed to be prevented, for up above there was activity that couldn’t be stopped.

****************************

The entire camp was immersed in silence, a sickening aura of decay, and corpse-like soldiers shuffled around aimlessly. Even its neighbor, Camp 19, was quiet. The twin labor fields, surrounded by barbed wire and bound misery, were only two of thousands.

For the first time in months there were no bodies hanging from the central gallows, and even the incinerators’ distinct hum was silenced. The familiar blaze of hungry flame in the ovens was replaced by rats sifting through the ashes.

One lone figure was leaning in the doorway, observing the rodents pilfering the human remains. His face was pale, beaten, hard. Dark green eyes were crossed by the long scar, a dirty, livid white. The wrinkles across his brow showed the toll of hard labor and a harsh life in the searing heat. His hands were tough and calloused, black under the nails and torn by the barbed wire fencing. His clothing, a heavy, rough canvas, was stained red with the blood of countless bodies he had carried. He carried them from the courtyard to the incinerators, that was his job.

The man seemed content to stand there, gazing at the vermin scurrying about, but his mind was elsewhere.

*His gaze shifted momentarily at the shrieks from Square Three. He bowed his head. Just another, he thought. Just another.

He looked up as two soldiers passed by, dragging a naked woman to the courtyard. His fists clenched, but he knew what fate he would bring on every other prisoner if he got involved. Goddamn these bastards, his mind raced, temples pounding. Bloody tyrants.

The woman was knocked to the dusty ground, where the two Relievers bent over, driving a length of rebar into the soil. The woman whimpered as they tied a cable to the steel and looped it around her neck. The Relievers removed their gear, signalling a few others to the yard. Three men in orange-and-white suits stalked the scene, fingering their rifles and watching intently. One glanced at the man in the doorway; the Reliever narrowed his eyes and looked down quickly after seeing the glare from the man.

The latter turned away, opening and reopening his hands. He squinted, looking skywards. The dark, yellow sun flickered in the shimmering mirages atop the corrugated Square roofs, baking anything and everything inside.

The Relievers brought their rifle butts down hard on the woman’s head when she lifted her eyes to the man in the doorway. Her silent pleas for help were ignored.

They threw her down, one soldier stomping hard with his steel-soled boot. Her face was smashed into the dirt. They flipped her over, and one by one they raped her.

Scarcely twenty minutes later her screams were silenced. Once again the gallows had a body to hold in its cold grasp. The blackbirds flocked to her corpse for days before the captains ordered her to be taken down.

**Every woman who was on the Income List was taken to the incinerators or the gallows. The select few remaining met their dismal end just as this one did. For months they were chained in the Comfort Square for the soldiers’ hideous thirsts, then shot. Any resistance equaled hanging. There was no mercy; mercy had no name.

Aside from the Comfort Squares, the men fared much the same. Forced to build the scaffolds their women were hung on was just one of the countless vile tasks the inmates were subjected to.

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Policies remained. The rulers of this world needed something to rule, and if everyone was dead there would be no one to dominate. Only fifty prisoners per month were permitted to die by camp standards. Prison camps over Size IV could afford one-hundred or so, if there was a steady stream of new prisoners. The devastation of the War left few on the face of the planet, and the camps were running dry. Mills shut down, entire labor camps disappeared. The killing fields were slowed to incremental executions, but still the labor force dwindled.

There has to be end to this. There has to be.