#very strong episode!

[bbygirl-aemond]

harwin you ARE the father

[lab-gr0wn-lambs]

Send in the clowns

[ewwww-what]

Nobody is as excited about the preview as I am. I have paragraphs.

[lara635kookie]

[edwinisms]

on my third rewatch and just got through ep 3 and man. the devlin house is such a strong fucking episode. like quality-wise. acting-wise. plot-wise. etc. that’s not to say the first two episodes weren’t strong, but the devlin house hits noticeably harder and hits different. like it’s the precise turning point episode where you realize oh. this show isn’t just gonna be campy with a dash of angst. we’re addressing some serious heavy ass trauma. and not just magical unreal trauma either like. just straight up abuse. and the boy who’s been unserious and silly this whole time isn’t just like that for shallow comic relief reasons. there is so much more there lurking under the surface. oh man it’s good

[youngpettyqueen]

I know the decision to have Julian's parents have him augmented was made on the fly but imo its pretty obvious from early on that Julian has Family Issues because he avoids talking about his family like the plague and I think they should've incorporated this into the Julian and Sisko dynamic right from early on because I think it would've made for some really compelling stories and moments and could've set up a REALLY interesting Julian and Jake dynamic which they kinda started to do but never fully went for

[turtleblogatlast]

Unironically think that each of the bros (+April) don’t actually get how impressive their feats really are so they just do what they do and on the off chance someone comments on those feats they all react like:

[graycious-tea]

So are we just not gonna talk about Tommy’s fan-fucking-tastic in the closet joke or????

[luciolefire]

Can we just slow down with the preemptive Earthspark Season 2 hate? People are making huge assumptions about the entire story based on a 30-second trailer and a few (not very good) leaked episode synopses.

The season hasn't even started to release yet. Maybe give it a chance before you throw it away.

[kazz-brekker]

hotd episode 9 thoughts:

thought i might miss rhaenyra & daemon & co in this episode, but there was enough tension and drama that i honestly didn’t and i think it was a good choice to have the whole episode be centered around the greens.

i do have to admit i’m a little amused that the way they stretched out the green council plot was by having people run around king’s landing looking for aegon. an egg hunt, one might say…

olivia cooke was absolutely FANTASTIC in this episode she did such a good job of showing how alicent was pulled between her love for rhaenyra and what she thought was her duty.

rip lyman beesbury you spent most of your screen time talking about boring finance stuff but you were a real one when it counted.

let out an actual flinch when they mentioned storm’s end and lord baratheon’s unmarried daughters. if you know you know.

helaena with her bug embroidery was so cute.

i don’t know who in this fandom coined the phrase “mommy’s favorite war criminal” in relation to aemond and alicent but i am literally incapable of not thinking it when they have a scene together now, so that’s your influence.

rhaenys was such a badass in this episode, i love her very much. her scene where she told alicent that she wasn’t seeking freedom but rather to make a window in her prison wall … oh hell yeah it was everything i wanted someone to say to alicent.

the whole otto vs alicent plot was SO good i am ready for their relationship to fall apart. alicent calling him out for manipulating her whole life was incredibly satisfying, i’ve literally been waiting all season for it.

criston cole saying all women are made in the image of the mother and they should be treated with reverence … i believe that’s what we call irony.

i enjoyed aemond complaining about aegon and how he should be king instead, it was a great insight into his character. also, aemond targaryen canonical nerd.

i do have to respect mysaria for just being totally on her own side with her own agenda and willing to support whoever will further it.

her stuffing aegon underneath the sept to keep him safe was honestly kind of hilarious.

aegon running away from his coronation was a bit funny but mostly just very sad. he doesn’t want it! he doesn’t want to be king! this whole tragedy could have been averted if not for the forces pushing him around!

the fight between aegon and aemond WAS extremely funny though. the hair pulling, the spitting, the rolling around on the ground shouting … peak sibling behavior.

as a twin i greatly enjoyed the building tension between erryk and arryk and their conflict about serving aegon, it’s going to lead to so much drama.

i could have lived a long and happy life without seeing that scene between alicent and larys. but unfortunately i have seen it. and now i must life with the trauma.

big fan of how completely dead-eyed and miserable aegon looked during the coronation scene, props to tom glynn-carney for his acting.

the scene with rhaenys and meleys bursting through the bottom of the dragonpit was extremely cool and i was rooting VERY hard for her to murder aegon even though i know it wasn’t going to happen. your dragon stepped on a bunch of people what’s torching one guy after that!

category 5 event imminent i spy aemond taking off his eyepatch and vhagar up to no good in the trailer for episode 10. 

literally since the moment this show was announced i have been steeling myself to see That Event at storm’s end adapted and now that we’re almost there i would like to publicly announce that i am still! not! ready!!

[variousqueerthings]

thing about rose, for me, is that she wasn't there first -- this in a "she was first in nu!who in the sense that this was the first person to travel with nine, and the first person since the timewar, and the last person that nine was with, to the point that ten was born out of that experience/modelled on her."

and in that framing, I am a big fan of her haunting of the narrative, because it start outs with her placing herself inside the doctor's ribcage and rebooting their ability to want to feel things, but unfortunately rose is still a human, like every human the doctor travelled with before, it's just that the doctor forgot how to steel themself against that inevitability because of the circumstances around meeting rose

this is The thing that I find tragic about martha, because I think she could have been that person, if she'd been the first person post-timewar to travel with the doctor, but because she's coming in during bleeding-heart times, she's got to deal with triage instead. and yes, there are wonders, and yes, there are good times, but for a lot of it, it's shrapnel, and I think if it hadn't been, she would have had a very different attitude towards *waves hands* space and time travel and aliens and the universe (one where she wouldn't be the person trusted with something like the osterhagen key)

and donna had a sense of that Space the doctor was in post-rose (she canonically stopped the doctor from dying in runaway bride) and stepped away from it, and didn't get back to the doctor until some of that hole-in-chest had been bandaged up, which martha did a great job of, but didn't get to really benefit from, and I think that's the sad thing about martha jones, is that she absolutely got a taste of the beauty and the splendor, but never without all the violence and heave weight that was put onto her

which, again, she seems to have been very aware of, considering she joined UNIT and Torchwood. her eyes were barely ever rose tinted (no pun here) during her whole journey in the story. martha really is in my opinion the most tragic companion (that I've met so far, I know Adric straight up dies, but maybe he had some fun times before that?), because yes, donna loses her memories and rose is in a parallel universe, but that's more tragic for the doctor -- they've both built lives

in donna's case there's probably a lot of imperfection in that life, but clearly a lot of joy as well, with her and her husband and her kid and her mum, and I'm sure she'd have preferred to be the donna who saw the universe and was splendid, but martha never gets to forget, and has to continue her life one step out of sync of everything she could have been

which, maybe her life is pretty flipping fantastic, but we really don't know, which is the biggest thing I side-eye about the first nu!who era. that whole weird ending with the sontaran and mickey is like... anti-character work, it answers nothing and it makes very little sense

all I know about her at the end is that she more than anyone saw the doctor's life and became a soldier (still a doctor as well, but...) because that was the work she saw needed doing, and she's the kind of person who does what needs doing. but is she... okay? youknow?

but going back to the original point, is that framing martha through the lens of rose is all well and good in the sense that rose is the reason the doctor is at that emotional point when he meets martha -- although donna absolutely had a very big hand in that as well -- but once we've established that, martha's arc is martha's arc, and it's dull to me to frame it as the "rebound" arc or even particularly about alloromanticism (including -- and this is why i get why people do it in fandom -- some shit said by rtd, which is just less interesting than what I get out of it, so shhhh)

she's got so much going on, and her relationship with the doctor changes the trajectory of her life, and it's in many ways a more interesting and far less straightforward trajectory of bad-to-better that many companions get -- it's a wonderfully complicated narrative that (and again, I get that some of this comes from within deliberate framings of the text, even though I think it's more than open enough to do more with, death of the author and all that -- but certainly not all of this is text either, some of it is ignoring what is actually there) is done a disservice by not going through the real messed up fascinating extraordinary shit that's going on during her era + arc in s4

but also... is she ok? I want to know. it's one of my top three burning questions, since we're getting a bit of best-ofs of the noughties DW era, some of your crimes can be righted by a simple bit of martha mr davies

[mazojo]

I wonder how much of the spinoff reflects on Opera's original believes, values and world views before meeting Iruma and Sullivan

[spacespore]

I’m still learning to draw them so they look a little off (^_^;) these are actually my first digital drawings of them!!

[o-uncle-newt]

We don't talk enough about the Petherbridge/Walter adaptations of the Wimsey/Vane novels.

(Well, we probably talk EXACTLY enough about Gaudy Night, which is really pretty bad, but besides for that...)

(Sorry, just a warning, Richard Morant as Bunter is fine but I won't have much to say about him here. I just really like this picture.)

The casting is basically perfect, especially Harriet Walter as Harriet Vane. I no longer see the book character in any other way- the only notable difference is that in the book she's noted as having a deep voice, but Walter's has a distinctive enough tone that I think it works regardless. She is just so, so, so good- captures the character beautifully, sells everything she does whether mundane or ridiculous (probably the best/most realistic reaction of someone finding a body I have EVER seen in Have His Carcase), makes the most of every limited minute she's on screen in Strong Poison and leaves her mark every minute that she isn't... and she looks AMAZING doing all of it. Just perfect, could not imagine better casting.

Edward Petherbridge I don't hold up to that level of perfection- I think that, try as he might, he's not really able to capture Wimsey's dynamism (possibly because he's a bit too old for the role) and is a bit overly caricatured in many of his mannerisms. But overall he does a pretty good job, in addition to looking quite a lot like how I'd imagined Wimsey- but in particular, I think he does a really lovely job of selling a lot of the emotion that he has to convey in some scenes that feel like they SHOULDN'T be adaptable from the book- specifically the scenes of him and Harriet. Him proposing to Harriet, him being disappointed when she (completely reasonably) turns him down... those shouldn't work on screen with real humans rather than in Sayers's calculated prose, but it DOES work and in no small part because he's great at selling Wimsey's feelings as being genuine even when his actions seem over the top. And, of course, Harriet Walter sells her end of the scenes right back. All in all, I think I have mixed feelings about Petherbridge as Lord Peter Wimsey the detective, but I'm a fan of him as Peter, the man who has feelings for Harriet.

Overall, though, both are, I think, very successful in capturing these characters- the fact that they take these people who even in the book can sometimes push the boundaries of likeability (which to be clear, is part of what I love about reading them) and make them eminently watchable is a great achievement. And also, in addition to their really looking like their characters individually, they're very well matched as a pair in the way that one pictures them from the book. They're even of very similar height and build, which we know is canonically true from Gaudy Night, and thus at least a somewhat relevant element of their dynamic.

Now, the adaptations are very uneven, and that's even without talking about Gaudy Night because, while it has about as good a rendition of the punting scene as I think we were ever going to get, most of the rest of it is crap and massively expands on what I think are serious problems to Peter and Harriet's relationship that the series as a whole had (not to mention cutting the character of St George, which is a travesty). None of the adaptations are perfect, and mess with aspects of their relationship in negative ways- for example, the ending of Strong Poison is exactly backward in a really awful way. I'll get back to this.

But when the show gets the two of them right, it gets them RIGHT, even when it's adapting Sayers's text/creating new dialogue. There are scenes in this one that I love almost as much as the canon text, like this one:

I don't think any of this is in the book, and there are things that happen here that I don't think Sayers would have ever written. But at the same time, a combination of the dialogue and the actors makes it COMPLETELY believable as these two people, and it captures a moment that is just really key for Peter as he faces his limitations and his feelings- something that in the book is conveyed through a lot of internal narrative on Peter's part that would be impossible to adapt as is, but that in the world of the show needed to happen in a much more visual and narrative way. Not all of the dialogue that this series chooses to fill in those gaps works, but even when it doesn't the actors do their best to sell the heck out of it, and when the dialogue DOES work it is seriously brilliant.

Probably my favorite of the adaptations is Have His Carcase, and scenes like this one are a big part of the reason why:

They change the location, but otherwise it's EXTRAORDINARILY faithful to the equivalent scene in the book, and honestly it shouldn't have worked with real people doing it and yet it does. It's just acted perfectly, given just enough arch and silly humor (particularly with the spinning door) that we don't attempt to take it too seriously, while also conveying the relevant emotions so well. The actors in the scene through only their faces and ways of speaking convey subtext that Sayers, in the book, conveyed a lot later on as actual text in the characters' thoughts, and there's something pretty great about that.

Other Have His Carcase scenes are less good (the dance scene is mediocre at best, I think), but if there's another Have His Carcase scene that I think illustrates how great Walter and Petherbridge are at selling the human sides of their characters, it's That Argument- seen here:

The Argument is a pale imitation of that in the book- the one in the book is, in fact, probably unadaptable as is- but it is still just so good because the actors are so good at selling it. Walter is just brilliant in the role and utterly inhabits it while also imbuing it with her own spin, and makes us feel Harriet's pain- and Petherbridge, through some relatively subtle facial expressions and reactions, is able just as well to make US understand what all of this means to him and how he feels. It's actually really remarkable that, just like how Sayers writes a relationship dynamic that only feels like it works because she's the one who wrote it that very specific way, this scene feels like it only works because these two actors play it in this specific way. Could two other actors do it? Very possibly, but it would feel super different and I wonder if it would feel this authentic. (I do want to note though that this scene made me really wish that we'd seen a Frasier-era David Hyde Pierce in the role of a younger and spryer, but equally posh, witty, and vulnerable, Wimsey. It just gave me vibes of something that he'd do beautifully.)

Now, as I said above, this doesn't get EVERYTHING right. In fact, quite a lot of their relationship ends up going pretty wrong- as I think a major mistake is their throughline which emphasizes Peter's continued pursuit of Harriet as not just reiterating his interest to make it clear that he hasn't changed his mind, but actively taking advantage of moments and situations in a romantic sense, taking a much more specific role in engaging with her physically, commenting on her appearance, saying how difficult it is for him to NOT pursue her more, etc. It makes the whole thing feel a lot more cat-and-mouse rather than a budding relationship of equals, and one where Peter acknowledges the whole time that they HAVE to be equals for a) Harriet to feel comfortable with him and b) them to be good together. In fact, however good the Argument above is, it's kind of undercut by this very pattern- he makes the book's point about him treating his feelings like something out of a comic opera, but he also at that point in the story has had a few much more oppressively serious scenes with her that clearly make her uncomfortable- nothing like anything in a comic opera. It's like the show misses the point a little.

I think the place where this really starts is at the end of Strong Poison. (I could see an argument to be made that it starts earlier, in a few smaller nuances of their jailhouse scenes, but I like those enough that I choose not to read into them too much lol.) After what I think is a great addition to the final jailhouse scene (one that I loved so much I repurposed it for a fic)- "it's supposed to be about love, isn't it" and some excellent reactions from Petherbridge- Harriet goes to court, her charges are dismissed, and unlike in the book, when it's Wimsey who leaves first (which Eiluned and Sylvia point out is a sign of his decency in not waiting for Harriet to thank him), here Wimsey is the one who watches as Harriet rejects him and walks away from him- the beginning of the chase. But nothing about their relationship is meant to be a chase! It's so frustrating to watch as that proceeds to be a continuing issue to a limited degree in Have His Carcase (where it's at least balanced by enough good moments that it doesn't matter so much) and to a MASSIVE, genuinely uncomfortable degree in Gaudy Night.

The only praise I will give it is that while the punt scene in the book is unfilmable, I think this adaptation did its best here and it's pretty good.

I'm not going to spend much time talking about Gaudy Night otherwise, because I'd need all day for it and also I'd probably need to rewatch it to make sure I get the details right and I have zero interest in doing that, but the way that it has Wimsey imposing himself and his feelings/hopes on Harriet to a really ridiculous degree, in a way that he never, ever does in the book, is just so so discomfiting and makes me feel terrible for Harriet. She doesn't deserve that. If I recall correctly, in that scene at the dance at the beginning, she's so happy just being with him and then he's all "oh so this means you want to marry me" and she just droops. He's so aggressive!

And that's what makes the worst part so bad, because not only does this miniseries not depict Wimsey's apology as the book does- one of the best scenes in a book full of brilliant scenes- it would actually be weird if it did, because this show doesn't imply that there's ANYTHING for Wimsey to be apologizing for! In fact, unlike in the books where we see Wimsey growing and deconstructing the parts of himself that had been demanding of Harriet, in the series we only see him get more demanding- until finally he wins. It's honestly infuriating and I hate it- the actors do their best to sell it (and apparently they were given bad enough material that they actually had to rewrite some of it themselves, though I have mixed feelings about the results) but it is just massively disappointing. Basically the whole emotional journey between the two of them is not just neutered but twisted.

For all of my criticisms of the adaptations' all around approach to their relationship, I do have to reiterate- Walter and Petherbridge do a wonderful, wonderful job. (Especially Walter.) When they're given good material to work with, and even often when they aren't, they are able to sell it so well- and particularly in the case of Walter, I genuinely can't think of the character as anyone but her rendition now. She IS Harriet Vane for me. And, for all the flaws that the series has, that's something pretty dang special.

Anyway, for anyone who read through this whole thing and hasn't seen these adaptations, I DO recommend Strong Poison and Have His Carcase- but not Gaudy Night unless you're either really curious or a glutton for punishment. The first two, though, have very good supporting casts, are quite faithful plot wise (sometimes to a fault- another flaw is that they are really devoted to conveying the whole mystery with all its clues sometimes to the point of dragginess, but will drop sideplots like, for example, Parker and Mary- which is totally reasonable, but still vaguely disappointing as those sideplots tend to add some levity/characterization), and just generally are an overall good time. (Some standout characters for me are Miss Climpson in Strong Poison and Mrs Lefranc in Have His Carcase.) And, of course, the best part is seeing the little snippets of Peter and Harriet that come through- less so their journey, vs in the book where that's central, but so many scenes where we just see the two of them together as they are in that moment and it's so satisfying.

[incesthemes]

sam is so soggy at the start of season 7... it's driving me crazy (i want to hurt him)

also dean's whole speech at the end of 7.02 is fucking nuts. what's with him telling sam to use him as his entire foundation for reality. using a wound he sewed up to ground sam in reality and prove that he's not just in his head. positioning himself as a tether to the earth to keep sam from floating away. the only anchor sam has when his own mind is turned against him. he takes on the entire burden of sam's reality without even blinking. i'm going to be sick

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

do you have any advice about boycotting? I have been trying to follow bds but people online are always calling for boycotts and saying people are supporting genocide for bot boycotting xyz and Im having a lot of anxiety about it. Obviously feelings arent more important than not supporting a genocide etc

There's a bit of discussion of boycotts at the moment, so it seemed like a good time to finally respond. I do have advice - very simple and strong advice. The point of a boycott isn't individual moral purity, it's using collective power.

The starting point for building collective power has to be people resisting oppression. Just like a strike can only be called by the workers, a legitimate boycott can only be called by those who are resisting oppression.

For the last 20 years, a coalition that crosses Palestinian society has called for Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions. I follow what they say - I don't give a shit about what people online are saying. They are very clear about their strategy - and the important of strategic boycotts. There are some global targets, and then other targets are organised locally - the link above includes information about how to find out what the local calls are.

I believe there is a strong moral and political imperative to observe BDS. I hope that the clear direction and the short list will help with your anxiety.

I think it's really important to understand that there's a principle here - it's not just about BDS. When offering solidarity, you start with what organised groups resisting oppression have asked for. Don't listen, or get stressed out about what random strangers have said.

******

There is, I think, another point, which is just as important. People who are going around making up targets are actively harming the Palestinian Liberation struggle. There are two messages I hope people get from this post - the first is that the starting point of meaningful solidarity is what people collectively resisting oppression are asking for. The second is that the sort of mouthing off online that is stressing you out is actively doing harm - and anyone who wants to do meaningful political work - has to stop pretending that indulging in self-righteous and reactionary social media posting has anything to do with meaningful political work.

There are two reasons that people who make up things they think other people should do actively does harm. One is that it undermines the ability to build power by substituting an individual's voice, for the collective voice of people resisting oppression. Substituting individualism for collectivism is guaranteed to weaken movements

The second is the behaviour you describe is coming from the more reactive parts of our psyche. Politics is about building power through coalitions. When people try and prove they're right and other people are wrong they are letting the anxiety processes of our brains take control - and substituting our most reactionary selves for meaningful political organising - then they're actively getting in the way of building power.

The fact that you're feeling anxious isn't an accident - it's a direct result of other people's choices to act from the reactionary and anxiety part of their pscyhe. If one person is acting from their own anxiety - it absolutely does promote anxiety in others. Good political work comes from building power and coalitions - which involves strengthening relationships - none of which are done best from a position of anxiety (you'll probably be anxious at times, when doing political work - that's really normal. But that's different from anxiety being at the centre of the political work).

I think one of the biggest problems of social media's impact on our ability to organise - is that it's very easy for people who are reacting entirely individualistically, from the reactionary parts of their psyche, guided by their anxiety, to persuade themselves that they're doing collective organising - when they're actually doing the opposite.

I'm sorry you're feeling really anxious. I think it would really help to turn around what you think you're doing. You frame this as not supporting genocide - but that's probably not an option. The political and economic system you are living in supports genocide, and if you imagine you can opt out of that you're setting yourself up to fail. If instead of trying to do the impossible - you focus on acting in solidarity with people collectively resisting their oppression - then it should both be less stressful and more effective. The requests are clear and simple - and you can and should do them.