#but actually the pan thing is just their baseline and they are in fact worse than humans in many ways

[birchbow]

How is asexuality viewed in society in PoF? Is it considered normal for some trolls to just ignore concupiscent quadrants?

I mean, as an ace person writing an Id-fic sex-drama I'd love to say "oh I'm sure people would be cool about it!"--and to be fair, I don't know that anybody outside your quadrants would care much if you liked sex, as long as you could still Do Your Duty To The Empire? But there is a HARD minimum amount of fucking for trolls and that is: when the Mother Grub's drones come around, you give them your bucket of slurry or you die.

Being sex-repulsed or dragging your feet too much to figure out concupiscient partners is actively putting yourself in danger of being culled--as well as any partners you do find, if the drones show up and you can't contribute. So like, unfortunately no, man, I don't think being ace would go over super well with trolls. And tbh, they're kind of culturally awful to each other about everything, so they'd probably be dicks about it like they're dicks about a lot of things haha.

[xxgothchatonxx]

Hades for me is ranked at "Why didn't they use Hera" in terms of Disney villans. I liked watching him, but I wanted more Hades-like motivations. Visually he is great and the fact that they had good enough effects for that but put no effort in the make up just... I think they cast him pretty right since I mostly know that actor as playing an entitled asshole and that sounds like a good spin for the character but I have a feeling that's not what happened. . .

It's funny the more they delved into Disney adaptations the worse OUAT was. Like I needed that Mad Hatter inspo from them where they delved into side characters who could have any background because there's nothing anyone is familiar with other than their existence and they just kept retelling things people love badly.

Like, it was kind of genius to use Snow White as their baseline of the show because if you watched the 1937 film, there is literally no real characterization just plot. The only character with any oomph was the mirror. So using that as a base for a show gives you a lot of creative freedom to create a whole world around. I think they forgot that after, and kind of during, the Neverland arc. I'm glad I stopped watching, but I think what I'm more thankful for is how clear the drop in quality was for me to cut my losses at a time when just casually viewed every show I watched.

Descendants!Hades was kind of strange because while Cheyenne Jackson did such a great job, the writing was... not bad, but Hades wasn’t the main villain. So it did deviate from Disney canon. But he did get a good “reconcile with your estranged kid, you deadbeat” story and a very good slam against the heroes hypocrisy about villainy and punishment. I don’t think either of those stories would have worked if they had made him a villain in the traditional Disney!Hades sense. Also I think the only reason why the design worked is that they went theatrical. The flaming blue hair can only work if the rest of his look is as outlandish. It does not work when he’s just wearing a boring black-and-purple suit and nothing’s happening with his face. 

Oh you were so right with “the more they delved into Disney adaptations the worse OUAT was”! Even though I love the Disney characters, I loved that Once was kind of the opposite of Disney, while also giving a few nods to Disney lore (Snow White humming “with a smile and a song” and then trying to squash a bird with her broom is still one of the funniest moments of the entire series). But it just became too much. When it became Once Upon a Frozen, it just wasn’t the same. I think that’s why I loved Tiana so much, because while you did have Dr. Facilier looking like Disney’s Dr. Facilier so there’s that obvious Disney reference, it was a different take on the story. And it’s why I unfortunately had a bit of trouble with Jafar in season 6 (even though our baby Oded was a nice well-needed splash of sexy camp) because he was acting more like Disney!Jafar as opposed to... well, the actually intimidating Jafar from the spinoff. And we were supposed to believe they were the same character (pretty sure this was done after backlash from very confused spinoff fans - personally I see Naveen’s Jafar and Oded’s Jafar as two different characters)

But Once!Hades... god, he really could have benefited from more of the Disney influence. There was nothing resembling the Disney version aside from the hair (which just looked worse and worse as the season progressed) and that was a real shame. Let’s go back to the 1997 Hercules film. What made that character work was entirely James Woods (i know he’s a prick but he did a great job with Hades) because he saw that Hades was just going to be another boring “I want to take over the world!” villain and decided “right, I’m going to play him like a sleazy cars-salesman.” Basically, James gave him a personality. That’s why he’s so well-loved. There wasn’t a villain like Hades before, at least not by Disney. 

That personality was not there in the Once version. Greg Germann made Hades like every boring “world domination” villain, complete with an irritating Christian Bale Batman voice. Which is so bad because he would have been perfect playing that kind of sassy and sarcastic villain role! Instead he got told to do THAT?! And no one thought “this is stupid”?! Also the writing was truly atrocious. This was Hades! For a show that loves to go “hey, morality can be grey - sometimes the heroes are actually villains and the villains are actually not that bad” how could they not do that with Zeus and Hades?! But no. Instead we got a really REALLY forced love story between him and Zelena (oh yeah, that’s the only reason why he was there - to force a completely undeserved redemption arc for the most repulsive female character who should never have been brought back no offense to Bex Mader, she’s lovely) and a really weak Zeus v. Hades backstory that went absolutely nowhere. So stupid design + weird acting + atrocious writing = a pretty disappointing Hades. 

The last great Once villain was Peter Pan (except Cruella but she was more of a fun distraction than an actual villain) - there, I said it. 

[woozapooza]

Black Sails 1x01

Here we go!!! A new show!!! What a good pilot episode. So much happened, I can’t believe it’s only been one episode.

I was apprehensive about starting Black Sails because I’d been anticipating it for months and had built it up in my head. It’s the same apprehension I had starting Wynonna Earp. But once again, I have correctly judged from a tiny bit of information that a show is an excellent match for me. I’m not nearly as good as I’d like to be at following and remembering the events of shows, so after I finished the episode, I recounted as much of the plot as I could remember to myself. While doing that, I realized one thing that made it such a good way to start a show: it’s brimming with the theme of gambling, of making dangerous choices that may pay off hugely down the line or may end in disaster. Combine that with the numerous interesting characters, not to mention the fact that it’s a period drama about pirates I mean come on what’s better than that, and you’ve got the perfect recipe to make me keep watching. I hope everything in the following lil recap/review is factually correct but eh who knows.

Let’s start with Flint. The trope of angsty morally dubious loner captain dude, while cool in theory, does not always go over well for me (see Jack Harkness and Mal Reynolds, neither of whom is as questionable as Flint). But I think in Flint this trope (which probably has a name, or at least is an amalgam of a few tropes that have names) may finally work for me, and I’m not just saying that out of ginger solidarity, nor just because aesthetically Flint is #goals. Flint has been “gambling” for months before the show even starts: he’s been going after ships that don’t seem like good targets because he thinks they’ll lead him to the jackpot, the Urca de Lima. The result of him keeping his plan secret from the crew is low morale and the threat of mutiny. Flint has to walk the line between keeping the crew satisfied and pursuing a goal that will more than make up for the toll its pursuit takes. He fails to walk this line, but Singleton’s mutiny gives Flint the opportunity to change tactics while still very much gambling: by accusing Singleton of stealing the Urca’s schedule, he gets to fight and kill Singleton (he also had to bet on Singleton choosing a duel over a trial, but I’m assuming he knew Singleton well enough that it wasn’t a risky bet) and pretend to recover the schedule from Singleton’s corpse. Until he produced the blank sheet of paper, I really couldn’t guess whether he actually suspected Singleton or he was just looking for an excuse to put down the mutiny. I didn’t expect the trick with the blank paper. Flint may be the main character but you can’t always see into his head, so I expect he’ll be a lot of fun to watch. I enjoy his cleverness, his ruthlessness, and his moments of vulnerability. I’m still unsure whether he meant it at all when he apologized to the crew for keeping secrets from them. I’d like to think it wasn’t a complete lie, even though it was also a ploy to get them to like him again, but it’s not like he’s stopped lying to them. He has his crew’s loyalty back—fortunately he was right to gamble that Billy would play along and pretend Singleton really did have the schedule—but it will only last so long before they realize he doesn’t have it. He also has to hide the fact that Guthrie, who was key to getting the ship, is a) under arrest and b) so far, unwilling to help. Will Flint get the schedule for realsies before the crew figures out that he lied to them again?

Lying now and hoping he’ll have the means to make up for it later is not the worst thing Flint does in this episode. It’s the killing of Singleton that really shows that he’s not a straightforward hero. I wouldn’t say mutiny justifies murder, but then again I’m not a pirate. I also wouldn’t say theft merits the death penalty, but that’s how pirates do. What I’m getting at is, Flint may do questionable things (like, in addition to the very fact of piracy), but he’s not the only one. I guess pirates have their own morality and just because Flint does things I wouldn’t do doesn’t mean he doesn’t have some kind of code. He even acknowledges, speaking to Billy, that pirates have a way of life that makes sense to them but not to mainstream people (I know I’m making pirates sound like hipsters but it was the first phrasing that came to mind): “men who keep what is theirs and fear no one.” 

Speaking of Billy the boatswain, I really like him as well, and not just because he’s played by Tom Hopper. His type of gambling has to do with how much of his faith and loyalty he’s going to put into Flint. He pretends that Flint was correct to accuse Singleton of theft, but he’s by no means a sycophant. When Flint is brutally interrogating Richard Guthrie and tells Billy to point the gun at Guthrie, Billy has no problem pointing it at Flint instead. So if Billy is playing along with Flint’s scheme, he must have weighed the options and decided this was best. Billy, like Flint, thinks, speaks, and acts for himself. Also, he looks like Tom Hopper.

Silver is a bit of a weird character because he’s to some extent our point-of-view character, but he’s also absent for large parts of the episode. Regarding his role as the audience stand-in, it was cool to show him discovering all the information about the Urca de Lima at the same time that Flint’s voiceover was explaining the same information. Regarding Silver’s personality, I really enjoy his unapologetic selfishness and self-preservation. Everyone on the show has their ways of looking out for themselves, and for Silver, that happens to mean hiding below deck, killing the cook (in self-defense, to be fair), stealing the Urca’s schedule because he knows it’s valuable even though he doesn’t know why, and pretending he’s a cook so he gets to join the crew of the Walrus (I’m looking forward to find out whether he actually can cook). But when Flint kills Singleton, do I dare see in Silver’s face a hint of remorse that his actions might have gotten someone killed, or do I need to be more cynical? Anyway, his main gamble is to hold on to the schedule rather than hand it over to Flint. He also has to make the gamble to trust Max.

Max, who is pretty mysterious so far but very alluring, likewise has to gamble to trust Silver. I like their dynamic—good teamwork from two blatantly self-interested people. Her acquisition of the schedule parallels how Silver got it: he could tell the cook really wanted to hold onto it, she could tell he really wanted to hold onto it. Both of them are clearly good at identifying where profit lies and getting there. Silver says that when he sees an opportunity for gain, he can’t help but take it; when given the chance to back out of a partnership with him, Max isn’t tempted, which suggests that she is much the same. As for another of Max’s relationships, as I have said, one of the reasons I wanted to watch this show was that I knew it had quality gay/bi content and WOW it turns out they hit you with it right in the first episode! I ship her and Eleanor by default (and because of the line “Max is your harbor,” I’ve decided my ship tag will be “all I want is to be your harbor”) but their interaction was mostly sex, so I hope we get to see more depth to their relationship soon. However, one of the episode’s few tender moments was Max’s concern when she saw the bruise Vane left on Eleanor’s face, so that bodes well for her and for the two of them.

I think Eleanor might be my favorite character so far, largely because Hannah New is very attractive when she’s swearing. And in general. She gambles by funding Gates’ efforts at bribery (making their interaction also a gamble for Gates) and oops she almost won that gamble but not quite. She also has to choose between loyalty to Vane and loyalty to Flint. She chooses Flint. We’ll see how that turns out. She is undoubtedly and unapologetically self-interested, but without crossing the line into immorality. (I mean immorality relative to the show’s baseline morality.) Same goes for most of these characters, now that I think about it, including Max. In addition to their similarities, these ladies balance each other: Eleanor is gruffer but more emotional, while Max is more subtle and more sanguine. Ship ship ship.

While watching The 100 I often wondered if Roan was just a boring character or if there was an innate boringness to Zach McGowan. Now I can declare that Roan is just a boring character. Vane is not boring. He’s pretty frightening, really. Maybe ZM should just only ever play villains? I don’t know. Anyway, despite being set up as the antagonist, I’m not yet convinced that Vane is really much worse than Flint. We shall see. He’s got a plan of his own, though it doesn’t really fit the gambling theme: he tried to engineer the victory of Singleton’s mutiny so that, once the crew of the Walrus realized they no longer had a competent captain, they’d defect to Vane’s crew. That didn’t pan out since Flint took down Singleton and made up with his crew, but Vane didn’t really lose anything, at least not as far as we’ve seen. For that reason, he’s probably the character who came out of the pilot looking the least vulnerable.

Gates, like Flint, feels like a character type I have seen before: the practical, long-suffering but loyal second-in-command to the headstrong, risk-taking team leader. The only other example I can think of is Bennet Drake from Ripper Street, but I think I’ve seen it elsewhere as well. Gates is the one who puts into words the theme I’ve been talking about: he tells Eleanor that if she loans him money to ensure Flint retains the captaincy, it will be an “investment in the future.” I’m looking forward to seeing whose investments pay off and whose future wins out.

There’s a lot of conflict already, but there’s a lot of overlap of characters’ traits, I guess because they all know this piratey world quite well and what kind of person you have to be to survive and to thrive. Basically, the first episode sets up a rough world where everyone is looking out for themselves and making difficult choices that they think are for their own good but that might have explosive consequences down the line. We get a glimpse of what these characters want and what they’re willing to do to get it. Also there are pirates. What’s not to love?

WHO DOES RACKHAM REMIND ME OF? I looked up Toby Schmitz’s filmography and I don’t think I’ve see him in anything else but I swear he reminds me of someone!

Best dialogue of the episode:

Gates, to Billy: You’re a highly regarded member of this crew. The captain regards your input more than you know.

Gates, to Flint: Billy’s going with you.

Flint: Who’s Billy?

[itsworn]

The Car Craft Project Car Update What’s happened so far, and what’s next for our fleet?

What do you get when you combine a late ‘60s pickup, an early ‘70s personal luxury car, a mid-‘60s full-sized wagon, a Pro-Touring Chevelle, a couple G-bodies, a late-model F-car, a Fox-body Thunderbird, and an EcoBoost Mustang- a schizophrenic car collection? No, you have a nearly perfect blend of project cars for Car Craft. In this installment, we check in on our regular and no-so regular projects, as well as introducing a couple new cars to the fleet. We hope you like what you see.

Truck Norris

Our project 1967 C10 is keeping us entertained with some clutch hydraulic issues and a nagging oil leak. Otherwise, the BluePrint Engines 540 big block is running great with AEM’s Infinity EFI, so much so that it is your author’s current daily driver as the CC/Malibu is out of town for another project and my long-suffering Subaru wagon recently experienced a catastrophic engine failure. Let us know if you want to see a Coyote engine swap into a 1999 Legacy, by the way!

In about four months worth of driving, we’ve worn through two clutch master cylinders. These pictures show the damage. The piston should be uniformly gray from the anodizing it received prior to assembly, but notice how it’s worn through on the rear portion of the piston. The fluid is thick and contaminated with aluminum essentially machined away where the piston and bore made contact.

We suspect the culprit is a misalignment between the clutch linkage and the master cylinder. Our sources at Wilwood Engineering explained that the linkage must be concentric with the master cylinder bore. In other words, it must be centered on the piston and travel straight into the master. We suspect that because we altered the master cylinder’s location, this accounts for the misalignment. American Powertrain’s hydraulic clutch conversion was designed for a small block. With our big block, the master cylinder location would have been touching the exhaust, so we moved it up and outboard from where it should have been.

After the second master cylinder failure, we decided to try a different setup. This came via a member of the 67-72chevytrucks.com message board. His design uses a linkage that comes straight off the clutch pedal, and stepped down via a rocker arm to reduce the travel to about 1.4-inches.

We combined it with Wilwood’s high-volume master cylinder, which has a ¾-inch bore to match our hydraulic throwout bearing. The guys at Wilwood were even kind enough to bench-bleed it for us.

Sometime in this engine’s travels to and from three shops, three different engine dyno sessions, and two mockups in the truck before final assembly, the oil pan developed a stress crack on the left side near the drain plug.

The leak grew worse as the crack slowly spread. This shows the size of the puddle after sitting for 24 hours. For reference, that’s a gallon jug of motor oil next to it.

We know the best fix is to remove the pan, clean it, and weld the crack closed, or simply replace the pan outright. However, as mentioned in the intro, Truck Norris is our only means of transportation right now. We were reluctant to weld it with the pan on the engine, so we tried a series of temporary fixes in the interim: black RTV silicone, JB Weld, Permatex fuel tank repair, but they only slowed the leak. This product has fared the best of all: JB Weld’s Water Weld. It’s resistant to most automotive fluids, and it will set under water. It’s managed to stop the leak for a week already, and will serve as a stopgap until we have backup transportation and attempt to weld the pan.

The CC/Malibu

Our cream-puff 1978 Malibu has been a great runner, now that the cooling system is sorted out. On the rollers at Westech, it cranked out 320 hp and 386 lb-ft of torque, which was more than we had expected. That means the 350 built with Trick Flow’s 400 hp top end kit makes every bit of power it’s advertised to, and maybe a bit more. Either way it’s been a rock-solid reliable road-tripper, and we’ve already taken it to Tucson for the ZipTie Drags, to Las Vegas for Holley’s LS Fest West, and to Northern California for Anti Tour. Still, it wouldn’t be much of a project car without some things breaking…

One annoying problem with the Malibu was an erratic idle, dieseling, and oil-fouled plugs, which caused a few perplexing looks to be directed at the engine.

Some sleuthing revealed leaky intake manifold gaskets that were sucking air and oil into the engine from the lifter valley. Replacing them solved all the aforementioned problems.

If you remember, we’re using a Vortec engine block with no provision for a mechanical fuel pump, so there’s a low-pressure electric pump mounted in the back next to the gas tank, and it would occasionally stop running. We tracked that problem down to this circuit breaker in the fuel pump wiring. It was installed near the hood panel gap and would get doused with water each time it rained or when we washed the car. Obviously, it’s not designed to get wet, so we replaced it with a waterproof inline fuse. The fuel pump has been happily humming along since then.

Most recently, we ditched the stock 14-inch steel wheels for these 15-inch wheels from Rock Auto. They were an optional for 3rd Gen Firebirds for a few years, and we especially like them because they look similar to the hubcaps that came with the car. Rock Auto sells them for a great price, too.

Lucky Costa’s Chevelle and Fury

You all know Lucky as the enigmatic co-host of Hot Rod Garage, which you can watch at MotorTrendOnDemand.com We recently featured Lucky’s 1966 Chevelle on our July 2017 cover, and his 1966 Plymouth Fury wagon can be seen getting an Vintage Air system installed in this issue. We will continue to work with Lucky on these two cars, and anything else he happens to be working on that we find interesting.

With a used 6.0L and T56, line lock, and a heavy right foot, Lucky’s 1966 Chevelle is a ready-made burnout machine. Holley EFI and overdrive makes it a capable daily driver. We will soon be adding a Glasstek fiberglass hood, new Hooker exhaust, and freshening up the drivetrain, which will likely involve a cam change, and new cylinder heads.

A stroked big block under the hood means Lucky’s other car is also a legit burnout machine, and he’s easily coaxed into demonstrating that fact. Read how we chilled out with a new air conditioning system elsewhere in this issue, and stay tuned for some other upgrades. We’ve got sound deadening and heat shield from DEI to install soon, fuel system upgrades, possibly an EFI conversion, and definately more burnouts.

Mike Musto’s 1972 Monte Carlo

You know him as the host of House of Muscle on the MotorTrend channel. This is Mike’s daily driver: a 1972 Monte Carlo he found buried in the back of a radiator and A/C repair shop in San Raphael, California. It’s in great shape except for the fact that it burns oil like a diesel locomotive. We will be fixing that problem then addressing a few other items to make this a modern-running daily driver. Watch for a video series accompanying this build on House of Muscle’s YouTube channel.

To establish a baseline, Mike ran the car down the dragstrip at Sonoma Raceway, where it rocketed to a breathtaking 17.896 at 74.85 mph. On the chassis dyno the next day, it churned out 162 hp and 228 lb-ft of torque at the wheels. It’s all uphill from here, folks!

Chevrolet Performance answered the call for help with this SP383 crate engine. We ran the engine at Westech a recently, and it impressed us with a stout 446 hp and 448 lb-ft of torque, more than double what Mike’s tired 350 is making right now. We will back the small block with a Gear Star TH200 4R transmission, and outfit it with Holley’s Sniper EFI and Patriot headers. Between the overdrive transmission and fuel injection, Mike will have a modern-running drivetrain that lives for road trips and return gas mileage substantially better than the 10 mpg he’s currently averaging.

Mike will do the drivetrain swap with some friends at the home of the flying terriers, Jack Dick Customs in Martinez, California. That’s owner / car builder Ben McCoy and his two mutts.

The CC/Underbird

Who actually likes the Fox-body-era Thunderbirds, anyway? Well, regular contributor John Gatliff does, and so do we, or else we wouldn’t have given him the go-ahead. John’s been plugging away at the Underbird, most recently sussing out a cobbled-together big-brake kit, and ultimately lamenting the fact that it may have been easier and more cost-effective to just have bought one in the first place. Like tech editor Steve Magnante likes to say, “We live this way so you don’t have to.”

Not something you see everyday- these are C5 Corvette brakes on a Fox-body Thunderbird. We show you how to do that and why it’s sometimes better to buy a kit.

The EcoBoost Mustang

Contributor Jason Sands bought a new Mustang and actually skipped past the V8 models for the turbocharged four-cylinder model. We took that as an opportunity to dive into some late model tuning experiments with different octane gasoline, from 87 all the way up to116 octane race gas, backing it up with plenty of time at the dragstrip. We’re testing the limits of the stock turbocharger, before upgrading it and really turning up the boost.

There’s a turbocharger somewhere in there. We’ll probably replace it with a bigger one soon.

CC/Olds

This is one project that’s been languishing while we’ve been focusing on the C10 and Malibu. We discovered our time-capsule drag racing Cutlass has a bent pushrod and a bent valve. We will be freeing ourselves up to fix this soon and get the Cutlass back on track.

Project ZedSled

We’re nearing the completion of this build, contributor Kevin Tetz’s 1978 Camaro Z28. Over the last two years it’s undergone a complete transformation from rust bucket to road-tripping show car. It was on display at the SEMA show last year and Kevin just took it on the last leg of the Hot Rod Power Tour. We’ll finish out the series with articles on some interior upgrades, installing a new fiberglass front end, and a custom-built twin turbo set-up to send the project off with a bang!

Get online Catch up with all our projects online at CarCraft.com, and follow us on Facebook for behind-the-scenes looks at the builds. Truck Norris and the Malibu even have their own Facebook pages: search CarCraftTruckNorris and CarCraftMalibu, respectively.

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