so, I hear you think I burned down my church.

I FINALLY WROTE THIS!

smercy — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 04:43:45 GMT

FAIREST OF ALL THE YULETIDE WRITERS:

I am very sorry about the lateness of this letter. I promise I have excuses, but listing them seems weird. but because I don't have a lot of time, this letter will be a lot less detailed than the ones from previous years. so if you want more details about me and the things I like, check out my yuletide letter tag.

I believe in overexplaining so that people can pick and choose the stuff they want to care about. well, it's what I like receiving for prompts. I understand that it can seem like a lot of pressure. by all means, this is NOT me describing the contents of my dream kitchen which I want replicated down to the exact color of the shiny shiny stand mixer that will sit on my purple marble counters. inspiration is weird, so I'm just going to throw out as much stuff as I can in the hopes that something will help. I've been doing yuletide for years now and have been disappointed exactly never. I think this is one of those cases where just trying to make me happy is enough.

all of the details for the prompts are going to have spoilers for the canon in them. so if you haven't seen something, keep that in mind. I am absolutely 100% willing to upload anything from this canon for you if you want. even if has nothing to do with the fic and you're just curious.

ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WANT: graphic non-con. dubiously consensual situations treated like that's totally normal. or basically any dub-con outside of the americans and orphan black. (will explain more in those sections.) objectification and dehumanization masquerading as love/romance. suffering for suffering's sake. manpain!

AN IMPORTANT NOTE: I'm gonna be straight-up honest right now, if there is a straight white dude in my fiction, there is a 98% chance that I do not give a shit about him. his chances improve if he thinks that a lady I like is the greatest thing since the invention of oxygen, but only if he's not a creeper about it. I care about people from disenfranchised minority groups a hundred bazillion times more. (especially women, people of color, people who don't fit the traditional gender binary and folks with health/disability issues.)

ABSOLUTELY DO WANT: ladies! value placed on the relationships between ladies! hugs! consent!

my favorite types of stories focus on HOW things work. I'm more interested in seeing HOW sarah connor built her robot fighting empire than how she FEELS about it. I want to see all of the gears inside of the watch. I want to know how the really mundane things work. so I really like slice-of-life style fics where not a ton of stuff happens plot-wise. I prefer characterization to plot. and as much as I love worldbuilding, I prefer characterization. I hope that makes sense.
I'll try to simplify it more. sarah connor kills a bunch of robots < sarah connor has feelings about killing robots < how sarah connor kills robots < how sarah connor gets the guns she needs to kill the robots < what sarah connor's life is like in the spaces that aren't shown in the movies/show

SHIPPING: I generally don't like to read about white guys penis fencing. I love friendships. I am fine with reading all levels of explictness, but I don't really want to read about beastiality or watersports. my favorite thing in romantic relationships is adoration. like, when one person looks at the other one and is just blazingly happy that s/he exists. (also my favorite thing in friendships.)

1. The Americans (2013) - Nina, Claudia, Elizabeth Jennings
LADY SPIES! This show is all about hard decisions and it doesn't shy away about what that means for women and I love it and all of these women are METAL AS FUCK. I love them.

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS BEFORE: 1 season. 13 episodes. 42 minutes each. currently airing, on hiatus. set in the cold war era, about the lives of russian spies deep undercover living in america. and the systems surrounding them.

WHY I LOVE THIS SHOW: it looks unflinchingly at the way that being a female spy sucks specifically more than a male one. and specifically looks at the ways in which is horrible and unfair. I love spy shenanigans, it is one of my biggest narrative weaknesses. I just love all of the secrets and the politics and the information brokering. these women are tougher than their male counterparts. because they have to be. they are terrifyingly resilient.

MORE DETAILS: I love nina the best. nina is my favorite favorite and I would throw a parade for her any day of the week. claudia is the one I find most fascinating. I love elizabeth to tiny pieces but her 'will their marriage be a real one or not?!' plotline has begun to annoy me. I mean, it'd be pretty impossible to have a story without her marriage involved, but I don't want that to be the focus.
here's the big thing I'm going to be picky about: I DESPISE amador. I am seriously creeped out by how the show venerated him after his death. leaving aside all of the spying stuff, that dude was stabbed because he was stalking his ex-girlfriend and threatening her new boyfriend with violence and all of the power he gets from his job. that dude treated women like fuckholes from when we met him until he died and he is not a person worth fighting a crusade for. that dude is the reason we have fucking workplace sexual harassment laws. if he's treated like a hero in the fic, it'll seriously bother me.
and another thing: nina's relationship with her cia handler. she clearly has that dude enspelled by her lady parts and is working that advantage as best as possible. but it started because of a serious abuse of power on his part and nina just sort of salvaged what she could from the shit pile. the man who was blackmailing her and had access to information which could get her legit killed showed up drunk and wanting to fuck her, what else could nina have done?
consent stuff: the nature of consent when it comes to their jobs and the alliances they have to make and their personal relationships is really murky. and I get that some stuff is straight up hinky consent-wise. I'd rather acknowledge that fact than pretend that anybody is able to 100% enthusiastically consent to what they are doing. I'd prefer to not focus on rapey stuff or have an exploration of straight up rape stuff, but if that has a part in the story just try really hard not to victim-blame, okay?

2. The Immortals (Tamora Pierce) - Daine Sarrasri, Numair Salmalin
Nostalgia! I just reread this series on a long plane flight and oh man when I was a baby I shipped Daine/Numair SO HARD and those books hold up SO WELL. And so anything that has the two of them being together and happy would be enough to have me super jazzed.

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS BEFORE: it's a 4 book YA series set in a larger collective universe by the same author, but the other books are not really necessary. THERE IS A GIRL WHO CAN TALK TO ANIMALS. and basically it is like a baby feminist utopia everywhere. all of the ladies get agency! and hugs!

WHY I LOVE THESE BOOKS: I don't even know any more! because they exist, basically. I love the characters and the setting and the fantastical animals and how magic is a talent and not a gift, something you have to practice and master and not just something bestowed upon the cosmically deserving penis of justice. also daine and numair are a fucking amazing pair. I love they way they overreact when the other one is in trouble. (especially daine. her temper tantrum at the end of book 3 is literally legendary.)

MORE DETAILS: I don't care about having a big fancy plot. I would rather read a fic where daine and numair snuggle platonically on a mountain while he feeds her grapes. slice-of-life stuff! stupid domestic arguments! do you want to write kissing stuff? I am all for that!
I realize that the age difference and power imbalance and student/teacher roles complicate this a lot, but I ship them to a hyperbolic degree. he's just so nerdy and uptight and she does not give a fuck! it's almost like book smarts vs common sense! or like I don't even know. seriously I would just like to read about them bickering about gardening and then smooshing their faces together. they engage my brain at a really deep level that doesn't care about thinky thoughts. (childhood ships, man.)

3. Orphan Black - any
CLONES!

I am really interested in the idea of their bodies being property and anything they make with their bodies is derivative property and that is so creepy and awful. I also like the adventures of clone club. Or Felix could host a clone club sleepover with cookies and excessive amounts of alcohol. There's so much here that would make me happy, I loved the series so much that I just want more of it.

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS BEFORE: 1 season. 13 episodes total. 42 minutes each. currently airing, on hiatus. CLONES. there are a lot of clones. and two secret evil conspiracies fighting against each other! and ladies everywhere all over the place! found families! lesbians! science! clone club!

WHY I LOVE THIS SHOW: it's some damn good scifi. I care about everybody except for paul and the rest of the creepy white guys. I love how the show can go from felix and allison snuggling as they watch old musicals and critique the costumes to an in-depth look at the long term effects of childhood trauma on adult development to a conspiracy thriller to straight up action movie to crushing bleakness and tears everywhere. the show contains multitudes! also, LADIES. and felix! and science lesbians!

MORE DETAILS: in terms of a potential fic, I'd sort of either like a really in-depth look at what it's like running that kind of kind of conspiracy (what kind of surveillance did they have? what there the non-interference protocols? how did they get the money to pay their staff?) OR felix and the clones snuggling on the couch while being snarky about things. so I guess I'm drawn to the extremes that the show holds. I don't have a favorite clone. I don't have a favorite character, although I am especially fond of mrs s.
consent stuff! so much of the show is based on deception, and not just on sarah's part. the cosima/delphine relationship is 7 different flavors of fucked up. I really like it, but then I also realize that delphine was pressured into doing whatever it took to get cosima to trust her and then turned around and abused the hell out of that trust. so it's not healthy. sarah and paul's relationship is awful. allison's relationship with her husband is terrifying. everybody has ulterior motives for wanting to fuck the people they fuck and it all makes the whole thing super uncomfortable for me. not that relationships should be avoided at all, just that I need that fact to be acknowledged.

4. Elementary - Joan Watson, Irene Adler/Moriarty
I know that Ms. Hudson isn't on here, or Clyde, but I love them too! I have kind of been really desperately wanting a story where Ms Hudson, Clyde, and Joan Watson team up to foil crime (Moriarty.) Or something serious. Or everybody gets snuggles.

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS BEFORE: 2 seasons. 22 episodes in season 1, season 2 is currently airing and I don't have access to it. 42 minute episodes. currently broadcasting, but I haven't seen any of season 2. THE ONLY ADAPTATION OF SHERLOCK HOLMES THAT I CARE ABOUT. sherlock's brilliance doesn't give him a license to step on other people's heads and joan watson is my freaking hero.

WHY I LOVE THIS SHOW: here's the deal, I usually DESPISE case-of-the-week and procedural shows. hate them! hate crime shows! but I love this one. and it's because I am really attached to joan and sherlock. they are trying the best that they can to be good people and it means a whole lot for me to see. sherlock is a genius and he's fucked up and he has the emotional problems and drug addiction but then the show never lets that excuse anything he does. and he tries to be kind to people. and joan doesn't let him get away with shit and the show treats that like a good thing. it's the kindness that I like the best, I think. it's a very kind show, but it's a very practical kindness. (also sherlock openly adores every molecule of joan all the fucking time.)

MORE DETAILS: so I love sherlock. but I didn't put him as a character because I don't want him to be the focus of a story written for me. side character, not main. I am completely happy with joan and sherlock being platonic or fucking like bunnies. I seriously do not care. do whatever you like, so long as he continues to treat her like she is the greatest person on the planet.
I like all the recurring characters, but I care about the ladies the most and the white dudes the least. there is not a ship that bothers me, except that I don't care about gregson getting any. CLYDE IS THE GREATEST PET ON TELEVISION. (I had pet turtles as a kid. they were amazing.)
I guess that what I love best about this show is that it's not super scary n terms of worrying about bad things happening to the characters I love, but the dark things in the show are shown to be properly dark and awful and real without turning into tragedy porn. sherlock's drug addiction was genuinely life-shattering.
shit, I forgot to write about the characters I actually requested. okay, so. joan is magically able to genuinely care about people without taking any of their shit. and she gets all kinds of stuff done. and she's brave and strong and empathetic and curious and fantastic. she's just the best. sometimes I've noticed that a lot of sherlock holmes adaptations don't really know what to do with watson. there's this supergenius and he's brillaint and witty and the supersmartest white due ever to be a white duded and then another guy follows him around and he's okay I guess. but with elementary I get the sense that sherlock's big brain is just running in crazy directions all the time and he needs some kind of focal point. so first he had irene and now he has joan and they are IMPORTANT. sherlock isn't sherlock in a bottle. all of my favorite parts of that dude are when he tries his hardest to be respectful to joan. (which is all the time. but especially in emphasizing the partnership always.)
and irene/moriarty, the lady who was not fridged! gosh, what a stone-cold badass. she is so bitter and furious and such a good actress about it except when she has feelings about stuff and then you can see all of her resentment leaking out around the edges. I just think she's amazing. even if your fic doesn't include any moriarty at all, I'd mostly just like acknowledgment of the effect she's had, because it is towering. AND SHE WAS NOT DEFEATED BY A DUDE! she lost because she underestimated joan, which is my favorite thing probably ever. what a fucking great show.
I'm really not sure how to describe what I'd want from a fic in this fandom, this has for sure been the hardest thing to write. I'd say, honestly, if in doubt I'd love to read anything about snuggling. everybody getting snuggles. or irene conning the fuck out of people until joan accidentally stumbles upon the scheme and foils it and then they maybe make out? I AM IN FAVOR OF EVERYBODY KISSING. kissing with mutual respect!

IN CONCLUSION: thank you! (sorry for the lateness!) I'm really looking forward to the story, so thanks again.

this is a dear yuletide santaperson letter.

smercy — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 09:05:41 GMT

hello! I am smercy and I ramble a lot. I tend to write overwhelmingly long and overdetailed yuletide letters. (I like to err on the side of too much information.)

I have a tag! it is called "yuletide letter", this post is also tagged with it. should you want more details about me and what I like, I probably have a novella's worth stuck in there and this year I am not exactly rolling around in free time, so I'm aiming for the shortest letter ever.

I'm including information about all of the fandoms, how long they are, that sort of thing, should you be interested in maybe checking the non-matched ones out. (they all obviously have my seal of approval.) I'm going to repeat the prompts and then give a few more details and shove it all under a cut and if you have any questions feel free to show up anon and ask anything.

MOST IMPORTANT: I have one inflexible requirement: no non-con. no dub-con, either. basically, if consent is in question I will generally not like it. (sort of exception: la femme nikita. I'll explain there.)

other things that might be important: I am a huge fan of ladies, especially super competent ladies being all badass and awesome. this is the thread that holds all of my fannish pursuits together. so I'd like it best if the story had a lady as the main character and focus. I prefer characterization to plot and this year I'm kind of craving fic about the tiny details and day-to-day lives of folks. should you want to write an au where everybody's a pirate, that's super great, but maybe throw in some stuff about how they're actually navigating the pirate ship.

to the requests!

1. Batman Beyond - Barbara Gordon
I love Babs. I had a paragraph about how much I love her, but I figure that's a bit overkill. She's probably my favorite person in all of the DCU. But I especially love her in Batman Begins. So, she's super great. And Batman Begins is super great! I love the vision of the future filtered through the 90s with all of those tiny floppy discs. I am most interested in Babs being a super badass Commissioner. I think that the transition from Batgirl to Commissioner is fascinating. And since there isn't a whole lot of canon about what happens between the Tim thing and the beginning of the show, there's tons of stuff to focus on. Babs was a librarian, how did she end up on the police force? How did she become comfortable using those fancy laserguns? Or stuff going on during the series or post the series would also be super cool. I really like her husband Sam, so please no bashing or having her settle for a dude that she doesn't actually love because of soap opera cliches. Including the Batfamily is awesome. I am cool with Babs/Bruce and Babs/Tim and if you want to delve into that emotional minefield I would be super thrilled. Honestly, the only bit of backstory about Babs that I'm not comfortable reading about is what happens when Alfred dies. Whenever I think about how there's no Alfred, my chest hurts, and I wouldn't like to dwell on that. And I'd err on the side of "The Killing Joke" didn't happen in this verse. Or maybe you could include something with what the JL is doing in the future. But I'd just really like to see Babs doing something Police Commissioner-y and being super competent and just all-around the best. (I'm biased.)

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS BEFORE: it's an animated show from the 90s. it had 3 seasons. episodes are 20 minutes long. the opening credits are a work of art. 52 episodes in total, although babs wasn't even in half of them. I can come up with a list of every episode she's in should you want it. and there is 1 movie sequel called batman beyond: return of the joker that's pretty essential for her characterization.

OTHER STUFF: did I mention that I love max? I do. I love her. and also ace the batdog. and babs's husband. I think the thing that I would be most disappointed to read would be if the fic was about bruce sitting alone in the batcave in the dark getting all manpainy about how he misses babs. if we're talking about the batgirl and batman relationship, I care about her feelings on the matter about 100,000 times more than his.

Continuum - Sonya Valentine, Alec Sadler, Kiera Cameron
REQUEST HAS SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN. So I should be honest and say that I devoured the entire season in 2 days and spent most of the time freaking out about how it treats ladies so well and the worldbuilding. That is some seriously impressive worldbuilding, I'm just saying. So I don't have a ton of thoughts that aren't part of a big amorphous blob of feelings. But I've got to be honest, I don't really care about the time-travel theory. I love time-travel, but I don't think there's enough data to figure out exactly what kind the show is using. But if you want to write about it, more power to you. I just don't really require that. I'm really interested in characterization. I'd be happy with the fic set in any time period so long as it doesn't try and explain what exactly is going on with the overarching mytharc. So I find Sonya Valentine super fascinating, especially her particular brand of loyalty to Kigame. I also really love the dynamics of how Liber8 set themselves up in '12 Vancouver. But I also really love Kiera and her tendency to find danger and then run straight into it. If the story is Kiera-centric and about her job on the '12 policeforce, I definitely like Betty best out of all of the cops. And I love how Kiera and Carlos are platonic. And I don't really have any strong feelings about Kellog either way. I really like Alec, but I think that the Alec I like best is the Cigarette Smoking Dude from the future with his puppet strings all over everything. Uh, I hope that was helpful and not overwhelmingly specific. When in doubt, go for characterization and lots of ladies, that's what I think.

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS BEFORE: continuum is a canadian scifi show. it's got 1 season of 13 episodes and another one on the way but it won't be here until at least next summer. episodes are 42 minutes long. it's easy to bust out in a weekend: that's what I did.
OTHER STUFF: FULL OF MORE SPOILERS. so I forgot to mention in the request that I chose these three characters because I think that they are sort of the lynchpins of what's going on. kiera's the law and order, sonya's liber8, and alec is the dude manipulating the fabric of spacetime to get what he wants. so they are all going to influence each other no matter what happens. stuff about my time period preferences: because it's super complicated. I like anything preseries in '77 and in '12. I am cool with anything that happens during the course of the show. I am super interested in what happens between '12 and '77 so long as it's not about what happens to the characters on the show. I want the show to tell me what's going to happen next. I prefer the micro to the macro for this show. boom, summarized it!

La Femme Nikita - Madeline
So, I love Madeline. But the part of her that I love the best is her ruthless pragmatism. I think I'd prefer something about her singularly and not so much about her relationship with other people. And honestly, she is one of those characters where you could write a fic about her murdering babies and I'd buy it. I'd rather err on the side of darkness, too. Any time period is fine. I'd be interested to read something about what her job duties actually are. She does mission planning, she oversees and sometimes administers the interrogation of prisoners, she assesses agents on their job fitness, she does that creepy therapy thing, she's the second-in-command, and in the early seasons she had a full wardrobe in her office. I have no idea what her job description would be and I think that's super fascinating. A big action-y plot isn't a huge necessity, I'd just like to see Madeline be all horrible and emotionless for Section.

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS BEFORE: the show ran for 5 seasons but only the first 4 matter. it was on in the 90s and it is very much of that era. 22 episodes per season, 42 minutes per episode. madeline was not a main character, I can provide a list of all of her episodes at request. it was about spies and was basically like what would happen if alias and dollhouse had a baby that was run by bill adama and his emotionless robot girlfriend. (madeline being the emotionless robot, of course.)

OTHER STUFF: so I know this show does not especially get along too well with the logic. but I love it. I also love logic. when they fight, I generally pick the side that makes madeline the most badass. I don't care about time periods or about the characters involved (so long as it's not about her star-crossed romance with walter or something) I do think I would prefer something set in section rather than an action-y mission.

WHAT THIS HAS GOT TO DO WITH NON-CON: madeline is a torturer. by definition, she's doing painful stuff to people against their will. it's not a safewords situation. I'm okay with reading about her torturing random folks. I'm less okay with her getting tortured and then doing something super badass like stopping her own heart to blackmail the dude in charge. I'm not okay with much else. her relationship with operations is complicated, especially the arc at the end of s3. I think that the weird sort of abusive turn it took was a double-cross and she was in on it the whole time, therefore making it part of an evil plan and consensual. but umm. ugh, this is difficult to word. it's not a nice show. it's a very mean universe. I like that about it. I just don't want to see the characters I love getting massively hurt, especially in a way that involves sexual trauma. this is not the fandom for a h/c fic.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day - Sarah Connor
I would really like to see a story about the mechanics of how Sarah Connor runs her operation. How does she get all of her guns? Where does she store those guns and how does she decide on the places? What does she do about potential allies? Where does she get her fake IDs? That sort of thing. I don't really care if it's pre or post-movie. Ideally, this fic would ignore the movie sequels, but I'm a huge fan of the tv show so I'd be fine with that being included. Futurefics would be cool too, although I would prefer something pre-apocalypse. What happens when Sarah finds out about the GPS trackers that they put on pets to make sure they don't get lost? Oh, and please no cancer. But honestly, so long as Sarah is the focus of the story and she gets to be a stone cold badass, I will be really happy.

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS BEFORE: it's a movie. it's less than 3 hours and I am too lazy to google the exact running time. it's a sequel, so there's a predecessor that's also less than 3 hours. there are 2 movie sequels that I give precisely zero fucks about because they involve no sarah. there's a tv show that I loved with my entire heart. (2 seasons, 31 episodes total, 42 minute running time) you don't need to watch the tv show to write a fic. I'd suggest it, but I'm biased and I don't know how much free time you have, unknown writer person.

OTHER STUFF: sarah connor is the best. I think the thing that fascinates me the most is how she transformed herself from a waitress to somebody who has caches of illegal arms stored in the desert presumably in multiple countries. it's been a while since I saw the first movie, but I'm pretty sure it only spanned a few days, during which time she got all of her information about the future while staring at a hot dude. I'm pretty sure she didn't have a tape recorder. she had to memorize everything he said and then make a plan to try and stop the apocalypse from just that knowledge alone while raising a kid. ugh, she's one of my competency heroes. ugh, not sure how to phrase this properly so bear with me and ask questions if necessary, but it seemed like in the movies sarah and john lived a very blue-collar life and in the tv show they were comfortably middle-class. I'm way more interested in how they live their life if they don't have a comfortable income and money to spend all over the place. and I really love linda hamilton's portrayal of sarah. and do whatever you want about the asylum stuff so long as it isn't a ton of flashbacks about the abuse she suffered there.

in conclusion: awesome ladies kicking ass! competency! how, exactly, these ladies kick all of that ass! characterization! competency!

in final conclusion: thank you.

dear yuletide pinch-hitter!

smercy — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 06:24:44 GMT

HAHAHAHAHAHA. THIS IS SO LATE.

this is like, beyond late. however, I had a draft of this letter that I never bothered to post and since I am getting pinch-hit, I want to help out that kind person who will write me a fic in the next 60 hours or so.

(sidenote: hi, flist. sorry I haven't updated in like fifteen milennia! I've been really busy knitting socks.)

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO:

I have super duper long and detailed letters from past years under the yuletide letter tag, those'll have a better description of what I like. (I'm kind of rushing to get this out.) (this is also tagged with it, so it's easy to find.)

Request 1: Batman: The Brave and The Bold
Character: Arthur Curry (Aquaman)
Original prompt: Aquaman is my favorite. In a perfect, ideal world, I'd get a fic in the form of a passage from his memoirs, but I'm not at all tied to it. I love his relationship with Mera, (she's so great) and I love his relationship with Batman and I love basically anybody that's been on the show, so if you want to do a teamup, I'd love it. I would just like some Aquaman getting into adventures with lots of cheesy ocean puns.
Further Elaboration: got to be honest, this is probably the easiest canon to get through, and the happiest, if you aren't super familiar with it. I have a list of relevant aquaman episodes, and I have ip address logging turned off so if you would like to go anon and ask for uploads I am SO there. (some of it can be found on youtube, but there are some egregious holes in there.

Aquaman episodes: (it's ranked in stars. more stars, more aquaman. one star or under is pretty missable.)
***1.03 - Evil Under the Sea! (his first appearance)
***1.09 - Journey to the Center of the Bat! (with The Atom)
**1.14 - Mystery in Space! (a smaller role, but pretty epic. with Adam Strange)
1.24 - Mayhem of the Music Meister! (he dances around in the background. on the other hand, neil patrick harris.)
****2.04 - Aquaman's Outrageous Adventure! (the best aquaman episode ever.)
*2.06 - Sidekicks Assemble! (he's barely in it, as he is not a sidekick.)
2.07 - Clash of the Metal Men! (he's in the pre-credits sequence)
2.14 - The Siege of Starro part two! (he's got one super great scene it, but it's short an an ensemble episode.)
2.19 - The Criss Cross Conspiracy! (he's in the pre-credits sequence. it's really great, though.)
*2.23 - Darkseid Descending! (he joins the new justice league international, there are a few other eps like that. not a starring role for him, but he is definitely there.)
*3.05 - Shadow of the Bat! (another justice league international episode, but batman is turned into a vampire.)
**3.06 - Night of the Batmen! (pretty ensemble heavy, but the aquaman is fantastic.)
*3.08 - Time Out for Vengeance! (justice league international, although aquaman does go to ancient rome.)
***3.09 - Sword of the Atom! (aquaman teams up with the atom again, but this time, it's even better!)
**3.11 - Bold Beginnings! (a bunch of heroes tell the tale of how they met batman, aquaman's tale is super outrageous.)
*3.12 - Crisis 22,300 Miles Above Earth! (justice league international. they meat up witht the old justice league. not very much in terms of aquaman.)
*3.14 - Powerless! (justice league international, but this time with captain atom.)
3.15 - Mitefall! (he's in this one, but it's more of a meta stand-in than anything else.)

so it's basically 7 20 minute episodes.

and here's the deal: I had a really shitty christmas last year, and the thing that I found helped salvage the holiday was watching all of the aquaman episodes on repeat. aquaman's not as dumb as everybody thinks, he's smart enough to know that he's not considered smart, but he doesn't really care enough to fix it. he just enjoys being a hero. so really, I'd take aquaman doing anything, it's pretty much guaranteed to be outrageous.

and if you're looking for teamup ideas, I love all of the dc ladies ever. (I'm serious) and his wife mera is super awesome. and I don't really like the justice league international the best.

omg was that too much peer pressure? please don't feel peer-pressured. his enthusiasm is contagious!

Request 2: Parks and Recreation
Characters: Leslie Knope, April Ludgate, Ron Swanson
Original prompt: I love everyone on this show. I don't really care about Chris or Mark, and when Jean-Ralphio and Tom are together, it can get kind of creepy. But I love everyone. I'd just like there to be an adventure with teamwork and friendship and happiness. I love the three characters that I requested the most, and I love every single combination of their relationship. I also love the Tammys, if you want to throw them in there. I just want more of the happiness with these great people.
Further Elaboration: so here's the thing: I genuinely love this show. but I especially love the ladies. (I prefer ladies to dudes, especially when it comes to tv heroes.) and I'd be so happy with anything in the spirit of the show that I feel like I just want to throw out some words that sound like fun adventures for the peeps to have.

(I love when people go on adventures. especially when leslie knope is one of those people.) ice cream! drinking games! snuggles! cupcakes! one of those mini-countertop pie/donut/cupcake/pretzel makers! (I think I'm hungry right now) office olympics! french fry confetti! snuggie attacks! (I'm just throwing words together.)

and you know what else? I just realized this 2 days ago while doing research for my yuletide fic. RON SWANSON IS BASICALLY THEODORE ROOSEVELT. (seriously, look at his wikipedia page.) if you could add anything about how ron swanson and theodore roosevelt are eerily similar, I'd love you forever.

Request 3: Luther(TV)
Characters: Alice Morgan, John Luther, Zoe Luther
Original prompt: I would like a fic about Alice, mostly. And while I love Zoe, I don't think she necessarily needs to be in there, so long as any post season 1 fic acknowledges the shadow she's left behind. I ship all combinations of the three of them, and I'm cool with adding Mark to the mix so long as it's not just boyslash. Alice is my favorite, though. I'd be happy if she did anything.
Further Elaboration: second easiest canon to get through! if you're crunched for time, there are 6 one hour episodes in the first season, and 4 in the second. (I don't really care about the last two. got to be honest, I'm almost entirely in it for alice. and occasionally idris elba's facial expressions.)

and this is the only dark angsty fandom in all of my requests. but I do not want it sunshiney at all. I think that anything would be great if it was the tonal opposite of parks and rec. I'm all for twisted. I don't care how high the ratings go. I do not want non-con, though. no non-con at all.

if you want to write: alice kills all of the things, I'd like that quite a lot. I also think that if zoe had stayed alive, alice/zoe would've totally been a thing that happened (unless it already happened), so I'm cool with anything involving that. and I like aus and missing scenes and diverging from canon. the only thing I ask is that alice stay out of prison like the road runner.

Request 4: The Middleman (TV)
Characters: Wendy Watson, The Middleman
Original prompt: I would like to see the team solve some unusual problems. I'm really not picky. Use any character you want, I love them all. I'd be cool with the team doing anything, and I'd be okay if it was literally every character ever to be on the show working together, and I'd be okay if it was the two of them locked in a room. I think robots are awesome, if that helps.
Further Elaboration: 13 episode season! it'd be easy to burn through if this wasn't a pinch hit, but it's not, so I'm not going to try and pitch it.

I'd like something plotty, if possible. doesn't necessarily have to be episodic, or long, or anything. but I'd like the characters to be DOING something. something geeky.

got to be honest, I'm kind of running out of steam. but I love this show and all of its choices. I especially love the ladies and their competence and agency and how nobody's life revolves around romance. I'm all for unusual teamups. wendy watson is basically my hero.

oh, and I haven't seen the last unproduced episode. I have it on my computer, but I'm not ready to be done with the middleman, so I haven't seen it yet. if you could try to not reference it too heavily, I'd really appreciate that.

IN CONCLUSION: I am super rambly. please don't take anything I say as a hard rule. (except the thing about no non-con, that is a hard rule.) I love yuletide. I'm super excited to be getting a fic.

if you have any questions, I have ip logging off. thanks so much for writing something for me, dear pinch-hitter.

BECCA'S BIRTHDAY PRESENT (one of them) PART THE FIRST!

smercy — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 19:02:58 GMT

THE ANSWERS TO THE SPECIAL aka_katya EDITION OF THE CHARACTER MEME!

well, lj, here's the deal. I wrote so much that I can't fit it all in one post. I broke the updater box.

THIS IS PART ONE, WITH ALL OF BECCA'S QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

first, the cast of characters:

01. Fox Mulder from "The X-Files"
02. Catherine Weaver from "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles"
03. Kenzi from "Lost Girl"
04. Pam from "True Blood"
05. Pinkie Pie from "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic"
06. Sophie Devereaux from "Leverage"
07. John Henry from "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles"
08. Irina Derevko from "Alias"
09. Cameron from "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles"
10. River Song from "Doctor Who"
11. Adelle DeWitt from "Dollhouse"
12. Patty Hewes from "Damages"
13. RuPaul* from "RuPaul's Drag Race"
14. Alex Drake from "Ashes to Ashes"
15. Laurence Dominic from "Dollhouse"
16. Donna Noble from "Doctor Who"
17. Parker from "Leverage"
18. Claire Jackman from "Jekyll"
19. Olive Snook from "Pushing Daisies"
20. Sexy from "Doctor Who"
21. Sarah Connor from "Terminator" things
22. Cara from "Legend of the Seeker"
23. Agent Helo from "Dollhouse" & "Battlestar Galactica"
24. Yosaffbridge from "Firefly"
25. Gemma Teller-Morrow from "Sons of Anarchy"
26. Gene Hunt from "Ashes to Ashes"
27. Dana Scully from "The X-Files"
28. Savannah Weaver from "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles"
29. Daisy Adair from "Dead Like Me"
30. Katherine Pierce from "The Vampire Diaries"
*This has absolutely nothing to do with the real person RuPaul, it's just pretending that the host of Drag Race is a fictional character.

next, the questions and answers!

CLASSIC aka_katya QUESTIONS, RENUMBERED: THE ORIGINAL MEME.

If 30 (Katherine Pierce) died from an allergic reaction to a pair of edible undies give to her by 4 (Pam), who would show up at her funeral?
Sexy vampires. (And probably a member of the Scooby Gang attempting to go undercover.) (And Katherine totally faked her death. Pam was in on it. They were part of a secret snarky lesbian vampire conspiracy.)

If 3 (Kenzi) and 20 (Sexy) were the only two people left in the world and had to repopulate the human race, what would their children look like?
They'd be deceptively small and delicate with very large brains and excellent catchphrases. And they'd make the very best traveling companions and best friends.

If 5 (Pinkie Pie) and 11 (Adelle DeWitt) were trapped in a cave together with only a blanket and a toothpick, what would they do?
PARTY.

If 6 (Sophie Devereaux) killed 13 (RuPaul) in a jealous rage, would she get away with it?
RuPaul is immortal. This is clearly all a hoax, designed to con a rogue terrorist faction of the gay mafia. (After the con is run, RuPaul will take Sophie and Parker out shoe shopping and end up giving Parker impromptu lessons on how to be a lady.)

If 10 (River Song) contracted a STD after sleeping with 26 (Gene Hunt), how long would it take for everyone on the list to be infected?
Assuming that small children do not count and that robots are immune to sexually communicable disesases and wouldn't bother having the sex anyways, this is a bit of a trick question. River Song travels in time and with other people who have time machines, so everybody was infected chronologically before this question was even written.

If 16 (Donna Noble), armed only with a fork, fought 28 (Savannah Weaver), who of course is armed with seven pounds of silly putty - who would win?
They wouldn't fight each other, for one. Clearly, Savannah is Donna's newest protege. They're going to save the world together. They would be fighting the forces of evil, and they would win. They are brilliant redheads, and they can both type really fast, and they would be fucking unstoppable together.

If 11 (Adelle DeWitt) wrestled with 3 (Kenzi) in a giant tub of jello, how many tickets would 1 (Fox Mulder) be able to sell to watch them fight?
Fox Mulder would attempt to sell tickets, but would get distracted by the opportunity to tell the large hoardes of assembled people about how aliens were going to kill us all, and wouldn't get around to talking about the jell-o wrestling match. The televised jell-o wrestling match, of course, is an elaborate distraction. Echo accidentally got kidnapped by a pack of territorial mystical werewolves that have each bonded themselves to several of her individual personalities, and the Dollhouse hires Bo to help them get her back. The only way to properly distract all of the werewolves in Vancouver for the werewolf convention is to have an elegant British lady face off against a spunky Canadian.

Would 24 (Yosaffbridge) be more likely to enter into a murder/suicide love pact with 21 (Sarah Connor) or 27 (Dana Scully)?
Sarah Connor would never enter a murder/suicide pact unless it was an elaborate trick to guarantee her some dead robots and a faked death, so she is totally out. Yosaffbridge, a con woman in need of a faked death every once in a while would obviously have red hair in common with Scully. That's a completely solid reason for those two to have all of the sex. And Scully can totally use a faked death every few years. So yeah, it's a sexy redhead conspiracy. And there is no danger, since Scully is canon immortal. In fact, it almost definitely happened in the future.

If 23 (Agent Helo) started his own cult, what would it be called and would 14 (Alex Drake) join?
Agent Helo has started a doomsday cult to warn the world that computers will steal your brain and turn your ladies into slaves and that the only way to salvation is through hot robot girlfriends. It is called, "The Way to True Salvation" and he is the Supreme Counselor. Unfortunately, a lot of very impressionable, attractive young women end up folded into this den of bad decisions. And Agent Helo cannot tell when a woman requires rescuing and when she is breathing, so there are a lot of independant women made into damsels against their will. Alex Drake joins on a undercover mission to take his cult down from the inside. She's fucking good at it, and she can save her fucking self. I mean, that doesn't stop her backup from employing a bit of police brutality at the end, but Alex Drake can out-think armies of hot robot girlfriends, and that's what really matters.

If 10 (River Song) was naked and dipped in chocolate, how many people would line up to lick her clean? Would 24 (Yosaffbridge) be one of them?
Well, there would be a rather large crowd of people lined up to participate. Unfortunately, the Doctor has a Tardis and is not above setting up a paradox so that there is an endless line of Doctors clogging up the queue. (Even if you re-dip her in chocolate as soon as she's clean.) Yosaffbridge, though, is a special case. While she would ordinarily be all over that, there is no guarantee that River's body chocolate is not hallucinogenic, and Yosaffbridge has been burned before. (Where did you think she learned the hallucinogenic lipstick trick from?)

If an army of 1 (Fox Mulder) clones took over the world, how would 11 (Adelle DeWitt) react?
If there is an army of Fox Mulder clones, Adelle would just get out her personal army of Samantha Mulder clones and program all of them to distract him. You know, by showing up and going, "It's me, Samantha!" And if there aren't enough Samantha clones, they can just grab some ladies off of the street and program them with Samantha's memories. Anyway, once all of the Foxes were distracted with their sisters, Adelle would have already used the confusion to take over the world herself.

If 13 (RuPaul) was lost in the jungle with 6 (Sophie Devereaux) and 5 (Pinkie Pie) and had to eat one of them to survive, who would they chose? How would the other react?
Nobody is eating Pinkie Pie. And RuPaul and Sophie are already great friends, so they could never cannibalize each other. And Pinkie Pie is made of magic, so she will just throw a party and everybody will live on cupcakes until help cam come and rescue them.

If 30 (Katherine Pierce) was captured in the jungle by a tribe of cannibals, and given a choice of how she would be cooked - what would she chose? How would she taste? Would 11 (Adelle DeWitt) find her yummy? What is 11 (Adelle DeWitt) doing in the jungle with a tribe of wild cannibals in the first place?
Katherine would clearly choose the slowest rotisserie-style roast possible, to get her flesh as tender as possible. And, you know, because the longer they spend trying to get her to cook, the more chances she has to escape and murder them all. Well, everybody but Adelle. Katherine owed a favor and is secretly there to get Adelle to safety. The Rossum corporation has some strings, let me tell you. Adelle's only there because her plane suffered a mysterious malfunction on the way back from a scientific discovery expedition and she's the only survivor, and she decided that she'd have a better chance of getting the fuck out of there if she found some natives and convinced them through cunning use of chemistry that she was a goddess and should be worshipped and then sent to civilization with as much haste and comfort as possible. Katherine and Adelle are going to get along splendidly.

26 (Gene Hunt) dies of auto-erotic asphyxiation while being serviced by 9 (Cameron). How does 27 (Dana Scully) react?
So we have the "corpse" of a man in a SPOILERY condition found in suspicious circumstances with a woman that has no fingerprints, official identity or reason to be with the corpse. It's just another day in Scully's office. But it definitely has nothing to do with El Chupacabra, Mulder.

25 (Gemma Teller-Morrow), 2 (Catherine Weaver), 9 (Cameron), 16 (Donna Noble) and 3 (Kenzi) are playing a game of strip poker - who wins?
Catherine Weaver loses, since her clothes are all technically one piece of the robot, but nobody else minds. Cameron is too unimaginative to bluff properly, so she's the next to get naked. So then it's Donna, Kenzi and Gemma. Donna may be the world's best temp, but she cannot hold her liquor. So then it's just Kenzi and Gemma battling it out. Kenzi has years of thievery and general misbehavior to fall upon, but Gemma has more of them. On the other hand, Gemma is not in the practice of wearing very many clothes. So then they would both get out the alcohol to make the game better, and by the time that they were in just their underwear, both Gemma and Kenzi would forget that they were competing against each other. And that is how Kenzi became the protege of the baddest biker queen in the state of California.

If 20 (Sexy) was a love song, what would it be called? Would 10 (River Song) sing it to 16 (Donna Noble)? Would this make 1 (Fox Mulder) jealous?
The song would be called, "To the Ends of the Universe" and it would be all about how no matter when and where you are, you are loved. There are all sorts of other songs about Sexy, and especially about things being bigger on the inside, and how awesome it is to steal and bite people, and how awesome is traveling anyway, but that one's the most about love. And fuck yes, River would sing that to Donna. FUCK YOU, RDM. That's just fucking heartbreaking. And even in an alternate universe where Donna was not massively fucked over, River would still sing it, because the two of them would be fucking excellent friends. And yeah, Mulder would be jealous, but he needs to learn that just because he has previously gotten into Scully's pants, that does not give him an unlimited pass into the pants of all super competent redheads and time-travelers with knowledge of the alien conspiracy.

If 27 (Dana Scully) was having an orgy and invited everyone but 2 (Catherine Weaver), would 2 (Catherine Weaver) come anyways? How would 13 (RuPaul) react?
Well, if Scully is going to go and have herself an orgy, everybody would want in on that. Fortunately, Scully has standards. And one of those standards is that no robots or aliens are allowed. So Catherine Weaver would try to disguise herself as Mulder to get in, but this plan would fail when fake!Mulder treated Scully with decency and respect, so she'd get kicked out again. RuPaul would be a bit disappointed, considering all of the different sorts of sex toys that a goobot can shape into, but she would totally get over it.

8 (Irina Derevko), 11 (Adelle DeWitt), and 14 (Alex Drake) are skinny dipping when a great white shark attacks. Who gets eaten first? Does anyone make it out alive? Would 12 (Patty Hewes) risk her life to save everyone?
I can't answer this question. It's too hot. Let's just say that the shark was attracted to the hotness, but then got too close and melted. Patty Hewes wouldn't need to risk her life, but it is in her best interest for all of the naked ladies to be alive. And then my brain exploded, the end.

20 (Sexy) and 14 (Alex Drake) travel back in time. Doing so causes 23 (Agent Helo) to cease to exist. How is the world a different place without 23 (Agent Helo)? Did 20 (Sexy) and 14 (Alex Drake) mean for this to happen or were they really trying to get rid of 26 (Gene Hunt)?
Well, this is almost too easy. We have two canon time-travelers, and Alex would totally love the fuck out of being able to travel via an actual time machine and not just have messages sent through the tv all the time. Anyway, they did not go back to prevent the existence of anything, it was to save Gene Hunt's life. Unfortunately, Agent Helo totally thought that Gene Hunt was part of a conspiracy to turn hot girls into robots (he's not very bright) and he got in the way and then when he was sulking about how Alex wouldn't be his girlfriend, he tripped and fell through a crack in time. But on the upside, Sexy took Alex and Gene back to the 80s and they had lots and lots of wine. And ice cream. Tooootally platonically.

If 26 (Gene Hunt) was a cheesy pickup line, what would it be? Would 17 (Parker) fall for it?
If Gene Hunt was a pickup line. Well, Gene Hunt isn't especially subtle, so it would be something like, "I have wine and a very large bed. You in?" Parker would appreciate the directness, but she is physiologically incapable of falling for pickup lines.

22 (Cara) and 16 (Donna Noble) both fall in a pool of toxic waste. Which one melts into a gooey mess and which one develops super powers? What kinda of super powers do they develop? Do they use them for good or for evil?
Well, Cara already has superpowers, so she dissolves into goo. Well, her clothes do, she's otherwise unharmed. Donna develops the ability to teleport and time travel, with an extra bit of invulnerability and all of her memories back. So she totally uses her powers for good, but first she has to find the Doctor and slap him a few dozen times.

Who is most likely to run down a football field naked during the middle of a televised game, while juggling onions and reciting Shakespeare - 24 (Yosaffbridge) or 10 (River Song)? Who is most likely to be aroused by this performance - 18 (Claire Jackman) or 26 (Gene Hunt)?
Well, River Song has too much class for that. She'd just start shooting things until people did her bidding. So it'd be Yosaffbridge, but it would totally be part of a long con. Claire Jackman does like the crazy, but she's kind of busy dealing with the whole "two husbands" thing. Gene Hunt, on the other hand, would love an excuse to arrest those breasts.

Could 14 (Alex Drake) successfully assassinate 8 (Irina Derevko) with nothing but a piece of paper and a rubber band? Who is most likely to order the assassination of 8 (Irina Derevko) - 23 (Agent Helo) or 27 (Dana Scully)? If 14 (Alex Drake) fails her mission, who would be next in line for the job - 12 (Patty Hewes) or 11 (Adelle DeWitt)?
Here's the thing: there isn't a person in the world who could get one over on Irina Derevko using only a piece of paper and rubber band. It just isn't possible. So Alex never actually stood a chance. (And Agent Helo is an asshole for convincing her that doing so would get her back to her proper time period.) And honestly, only Agent Helo would suggest the paper for a method of assassination. Scully is too busy babyshitting Mulder to get involved in that shit. And while Agent Helo would love to have Patty Hewes (she always wins) and Adelle (leader of an army of programmable people) on his side, both of them would kill him on sight. So his big assassination plans are foiled.

Everyone is invited to a dinner party. By the end of the evening 11 (Adelle DeWitt) is killed in the library with the candlestick, 1 (Fox Mulder) is killed in the study with the lead pipe, 3 (Kenzi) is killed in the kitchen with the rope, 9 (Cameron) in killed in the conservatory with the revolver, and 7 (John Henry) is killed in the ballroom with the rope. Who did it?
Agent Helo. That bitch is untrustworthy. Fortunately, everybody totally saw this coming and Catherine Weaver played the parts of all of the dead people.

6 (Sophie Devereaux) goes crazy and runs around the neighborhood naked under the belief that she is invisible. Does 1 (Fox Mulder) call the cops, or sit back and enjoy the show? Does 22 (Cara) invite herself over and bring snacks? What kind of snacks?
Well, Mulder might call Scully in order to suggest a threesome, but that's about all of the authority people he'd alert. The nakedness was supposed to be a diversion designed to pull Mulder out of his house so that the rest of the team could bug his apartment and therefore Hardison could nail the Lone Gunmen, who totally owe him after a poker game. But no, Mulder refuses to investigate the suspicious alien-esque behavior because he's too busy enjoying the show. Cara would invite herself over, but not to Mulder. She'd invite herself right up to that naked lady and offer sex and then some cookies. And the mental image would cause Mulder to pass out, thus leaving the team an opening into his house, and so Sophie could take Cara up on her offer and when Mulder woke up the next morning convinced that his house had been bugged, not even the Lone Gunmen would believe that story.

4 (Pam) dies in a freak paperclip accident and leaves all her money to 10 (River Song). How does 6 (Sophie Devereaux) react? Did 10 (River Song) kill 4 (Pam) for the money? How does somebody die in a freak paperclip accident anyways?
Well, it is obviously a great tragedy that Pam has been crushed underneath a gigantic industrial crate of paperclips. Except that she totally hasn't died, she just faked her death. Duh, vampire. She only willed her money to River because River was in on the con and they are going to split her life insurance policy. Sophie didn't actally know Pam very well, but she mourns the loss of Pam's shoe collection. That is, of course, until Sophie finds Pam shoe shopping in Paris a few months later and they become good friends and have a lot of very well-costumed sex.

If 7 (John Henry) became supreme leader of the universe, what would be the first thing he would do to create the new world order? What sort of leader would he be? Would 13 (RuPaul) be successful in leading an uprising against him?
Well, it is entirely possible that John Henry could become the unironic leader of the planet, so at the very least, he is prepared. The first thing that John Henry will do is to get rid of all of the nuclear devices. The second thing he would do would be to ensure that the entire planet has access to wifi. He would do lots of other things, but most of them would be pretty decent. I mean, it depends on if he has inheirited the planet after a nuclear fallout or not. If he has, it would totally make sense that RuPaul and her posse of super deady drag queens would try to liberate the planet in the name of all things good and holy. But since it's John Henry and Savannah running shit, there really isn't much for RuPaul to liberate, so John Henry would totally make her the president of North America, since she put in such a great effort.

If 24 (Yosaffbridge) was a contestant in a beauty pageant, would she sleep with all the judges in order to ensure her victory, or would she play fair? What would her talent be in the talent portion of the competition?
Yosaffbridge wouldn't just fuck all of the judges, she'd also make them hallucinate that she's the winner and lock her competition in closets. Most of her talents are for illegal things, like lockpicking and convincing dudes that you are a blushing virgin, so Yosaffbridge would jump topless on a trampoline. She plays to win.

If 16 (Donna Noble) had a livejournal, what would her username be? How many people would be on her flist? Would 2 (Catherine Weaver) friend her? If she posted this crazy cracked up meme on their journal, who out of the 20 would respond with the craziest questions?
Hmm, I have put a lot of thought into this and I am pretty sure that Donna's username would be something like super_noble. Just because. (She's awesome.) And she would be super popular and have a huge flist, but a large amount of those would be sockpuppets that don't ever comment. It'd be okay, because Donna would put up the best linkspam and post the best gossip, she wouldn't really spend a lot of time talking about her feelings. (And then, only behind a lock, and she would choose her inner circle very carefully.) Of course Catherine Weaver would friend her. They're both redheads, Donna's super important, and her linkspams are legendary. The Doctor would post the best questions, but he would do it in the middle of the night after he's hacked River's account.

-

CLASSIC aka_katya QUESTIONS, RENUMBERED: THE SECOND MEME.

10 (River Song) is a total fangirl (don't try to deny it, you know she totally is! TRUFAX). What is her favorite guilty pleasure ship? What screenname does she post her smutty fanfic under?
Oh, River Song is totally a ridiculous fangirl. That is only a small part of her online presence, as she has dedicated herself to eradicating spoilers and punishing those who would put spoilery shit outside of a spoiler cut. So after a long few hours of making spoilery assholes cry and re-evaulate their lives (under her fuck_spoilers screenname), River likes to unwind with some ridiculous shipping. The biggest one is obviously Batman/Catwoman. He's a guy that dresses up and tries to save people in the night, taking entirely too much responsibility on himself. She's a morally ambiguous jewel thief with a soft spot for him that's only eclipsed by his soft spot for her. They have really hot sex. Her fics have a reputation for being inventive and plausible, without lots of horrible euphemisms, although she doesn't post especially often (day job.) But seriously, spoil her and you will cry. Oh, you will cry. No bitch spoils River Song.

19 (Olive Snook) needs a vacation. Where does she go? Does she have a crazy vacation romance with 26, (Gene Hunt) 27, (Dana Scully) 21, (Sarah Connor) or 10 (River Song)?
This is a trick question, because Sarah Connor, Dana Scully and Gene Hunt NEVER take vacations. They just don't. So River's the only other person left, and you know she'd be up for some fun vacation sex with Olive. She'd totally stop Olive from moping about Ned while in the very tropical beach locale. It would be fantastic! And then they could totally pull off some kind of heist together! Olive Snook is an ace junior private investigator in training, her skills are totally useful! And she can look innocent in a way that River simply cannot. Clearly, this was meant to be.

28 (Savannah Weaver) and 5 (Pinkie Pie) are both covered in chocolate! Do they fight or ~~fuck~~ cuddle? Who does 7 (John Henry) think looks ~~sexier~~ cuddlier?
There will be no sexual activity between young children, ponies and robots. Those are all off-limits. Clearly Pinkie and Savannah are covered in chocolate after a long day of baking. So they are going to have lots of hugs and then eat some cupcakes and have a party. And John Henry is fond of both of them, but Savannah is his best friend and she is the cuddliest. Pinkie Pie doesn't mind, though. New friends don't always have to be your best friend, it's nice to have friends that you are just friendly with, too.

What food item would 26 (Gene Hunt) use to try and kill 23 (Agent Helo)? How successful would he be?
Well, Agent Helo is kind of ridiculously easy to kill. Gene Hunt could use a soggy tortilla and get the job done. On the other hand, Agent Helo is super annoying, so Gene wouldn't bother with the easy choking hazards/slippery things to trip on. No, Gene Hunt has a plan. He is going to get a brownie that is cut to look like a robot, and then he is going to throw it on the ground and yell, "Oh no! This robot requires rescuing!" and when Agent Helo dives to save the robot, Gene Hunt will just kick him in the head. Yeah, that is cheating, but Gene Hunt doesn't need the rules when it comes to kicking the crap out of annoying assnoodles.

2 (Catherine Weaver) is floating around in the vast nothingness of space and is about to run out of oxygen. Does 19, (Olive Snook) 17, (Parker) 25, (Gemma Teller-Morrow) or 15 (Laurence Dominic) save her? How did 2 (Catherine Weaver) get there in the first place?
Catherine Weaver miscalculated after some time travel, and she could use some rescuing, but she doesn't particularly need that oxygen. Olive is too busy baking to answer the call of duty, Gemma doesn't fucking care about people outside of SAMCRO, Mr. Dominic is stuck in the attic, so that just leaves Paker. Now, Parker could totally do it, 'cause she's a master thief, but before she can get inside the rescue shuttle, Catherine Weaver rescues herself. She's a goobot, she just turns herself into a self-propelled flying object.

Which horrible smutfic cliche would be the most overused in a smutfic written by a thirteen year old (who is actually a 13 year old version of 14 (Alex Drake)) about 1 (Fox Mulder) and 4 (Pam)? How many itty bitty fangirls would squee that the fic was OMG!SO AMAZING BEST EVER!!!!!!!111111!!! 1+4=OTP4EVER!
So, when Alex Drake was 13, the trend in Young Adult literature was vampires. Lots and lots of teenagers and vampires. Well, Alex Drake was too cool for Twilight. (Shut up, I will place this on the timeline whenever the fuck I want.) But she did love The X-Files, mostly because Scully was so great. However, she knew, as most of the Scully fangirls know, that Mulder was not good enough for her. So Scully got shipped with science and Mulder needed a lady to warm his heart. But he needed somebody strong, somebody that would keep him in line and who wouldn't take any shit. And she needed to be supernatural, so that he'd be interested. Clearly, he needed the most badass, no-shit taking vampire to boss his ass around. Enter Pam. So Alex got on her computer and wrote a 14-part series, most of them multi-chaptered, about the great love between Pam and Mulder (and how Scully and Pam were best friends who hung out and had tea a lot.) It wasn't especially good, but it was soap operatic and her grammar was fantastic. There weren't a large number of fangirls squeeing over her work, since the crossover fandoms don't have as much traffic, but amongst the Mulder community, she was legendary, and her posse of fangirls were vicious and loud. Anyway, this was all hosted on GeoCities, so it's all gone now.

22 (Cara) and 1 (Fox Mulder) are characters in a popular pre-teen romance series about unicorns and sparkles and rainbows. Describe the flowery awesomeness of their OMG!4EVER LOVE! How does 22 (Cara) react when 1 (Fox Mulder) is trampled to death by screaming fangirls?
What is it with Mulder and being stuck in the romance novels? It's like he left at the beginning of season 9 and spent the whole time inside of the Harlequin romance oevure. So. He's a brave, bold FBI agent with no patience for rules and regulations. He has a very large heart, and he has never recovered from the mysterious disappearance of his beloved sister. Mulder is driven and determined, but almost too much. You see, he just can't bring himself to let injustice go. He has to tell the world about aliens. Until one day when he falls into a portal and a mystical new world, where magic is real. And then he becomes Cara's sex slave. (You know, in the soft-porn way.) And together, they liberate the unicorns. Well, it's mostly Cara. The blade of her sword is made out of a rainbow. And they know it's true love when after a night of passion, Mulder trips over a tree root and discovers that he bleeds glitter. From there, it's destiny. They must have the child that will grow up to save the planet from the evil that falls from the sky. Well, if Cara is very careful to not decapitate him every time he annoys her. (The secret, of course, is very blurry off-screen oral sex. Constantly. While on horseback, even. If he's not using his mouth on Cara's ladybits, he's in danger of losing his head.) Anyway, when Mulder is trampled to death by the fangirls at the movie pre-launch party, Cara stifles a giggle and then gets on with her life. Because, you know, she's Cara.

15 (Laurence Dominic) is poised to take over the world with an army of loyal minions! The only person who can stop him is 24, (Yosaffbridge) who has just died in an unfortunate accident involving a gluestick and a staplegun. 26 (Gene Hunt) is asked to take up 24's (Yosaffbridge) mission to save the world from 15 (Laurence Dominic) - does he succeed?
Well, the problem is that it is not Mr. Dominic that is trying to take over the world. It is the Rossum corporation using Mr. Dominic's body. Unfortunately for the rescue squad, Adelle is adamant that his body be preserved. Yosaffbridge was the only person around who had hallucinogenic lipstick, which was the first strategy, but Adelle has other plans. She has an almost unlimited source of bodies that she does not even slightly care about. Gene Hunt owes Adelle a favor from back in their days in London. The Gene Hunt plan works by having him show up in the Quattro and convince the Rossum dudes that his body is totally the better body and then he can kidnap Dominic's body, shove it in the trunk, and macho it out of there. Of course he succeeds, he's Gene Hunt. (Alex totally helped save his ass, though.)

Is 1 (Fox Mulder) or 12 (Patty Hewes) more likely to star in a biopic about 25 (Gemma Teller-Morrow)?
Fox Mulder. We already know that he looks good in drag, he likes the attention, and Patty Hewes is too busy pwning all of the other lawyers to give a shit.

In a fight between 16 (Donna Noble) armed with a wicked cool machine gun and 17 (Parker) armed with a toothpick and a rubber band who wins?
Donna and Parker would never fight. But considering that Donna is invincible and Parker can out-backflip machine guns, the only people who would have to worry would be bad guys.

Who is most likely to call in sick to work so they can stay at home in their sweatpants and watch a Lifetime original movie entitled "Crimes of Passion; She Woke Up Pregnant." 6, (Sophie Devereaux) 8, (Irina Derevko) or 11 (Adelle DeWitt)? Who directed this cinematic masterpiece, 15, (Laurence Dominic) 18, (Claire Jackman) or 3 (Kenzi)?
Well, Sophie has the sort of job flexibility that she wouldn't need to call in just to watch the movie (and she totally would watch it.) Irina also has the job flexibility, but she never developed the taste for that sort of thing. Adelle, on the other hand, would totally get tired of the work and the Topher, and would totally spend all day in bed watching shitty movies. Kenzi totally directed it, on a dare, while pretending to be a film school graduate just for the fun of it.

In what sort of universe would 24 (Yosaffbridge) give birth to 27 (Dana Scully)?
In a universe in which time-traveling is possible. They are both redheads. Obviously, the more plausible situation would be that Dana Scully is fucking immortal and she hangs out until the future and then has rebellious, beautiful redheaded daughters that scorn authority and morals and then Uncle Skinner is going to have to drag her home by the ear for a stern lecture, but if Yosaffbridge traveled into the past, she could totally make it work. You know, assuming that Scully's mom is totally cool with adopting another daughter, or having her mind wiped to convince her that Dana has been her kid all along.

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NEW QUESTIONS FROM aka_katya!

1 (Fox Mulder), 24 (Yosaffbridge), 14 (Alex Drake), 9 (Cameron), 3 (Kenzi), and 2 (Catherine Weaver) are in an accident and when they come to they have been transformed into ponies in Equestria in the 1980's! OH SNAP! What are each of their cutie marks? What are their reactions to being ponified? What was the accident that transported then to the pony 80's in the first place?
OH SNAP, INDEED! Mulder's cutie mark is a UFO, obviously. Yosaffbridge's cutie mark is a lipstick that is secretly poison. Alex Drake's cutie mark is a red balloon, because chasing after lost balloons saves lives. Kenzi's cutie mark is a magnifying glass with some mystical symbols on it, because she's a private eye, but with magical creatures. Catherine Weaver's cutie mark is an eel made out of metal, because she is dangerous like an eel and made of metal. Well, Alex Drake has been back to the 80s before, so she figures that the pony bit is a deepening of her hallucination. Cameron and Catherine Weaver have dealt with time travel, but the part where they're ponies is new and weird and they don't know what to do about it, but they're robots and therefore will passively assess the situtation until they can figure out what the fuck is happening. Yosaffbridge has been pulled through time, but I doubt that she would know much about the 80s except that the outfits are fucking outrageous, and she's heard that crazy shit happens when you get smacked with hallucinogenic lipstick, and it is entirely possible that her application was too sloppy. Kenzi is convinced that she is drugged on fae booze and that everything is just hunky-dory. Mulder thinks it's the aliens, of course. And the pony 80s is basically like regular equestria, but everybody's manes are crimped, all of the colors are neon, and there is a whole lot of brightly colored eyeshadow. And shoulderpads. In fact, it was shoulderpads that caused the accident in the first place. This is what happens when science experiments are done on shoulderpads while Pinkie Pie is in the nearby area. On the other hand, that was a pretty epic party. What happens when two pony-conwomen, two robot ponies, and a pony alien conspiracy theorist walk into an 80s party? SHOULDERPADS, that's what happens.

Mulder and Scully are investigating 26 (Gene Hunt). What sort of alien conspiracy is 26 (Gene Hunt) involved in?
Oh, Gene Hunt is an extremely complex case. You see, not only is he British and very abrasive, he doesn't seem to age and he works for a department of the police that is full of time-displaced officers with a literal demon and there are ghost shenanigans. Of course, Mulder starts investigating him under suspicion of lycanthropy. To be fair, he was growling very threateningly when Mulder accidentally dropped from the ceiling and alerted the pile of no-good ruffians that they weren't alone. Scully found that he was perfectly well-behaved, if not a little misinformed as to the nature of how autopsies were conducted, but that was understandable considering how long he'd been with the force. Mulder could not be convinced that there wasn't anything supernatural happening, even after testing him with silver and wolfsbane. So he went and threw a bag of crisps all over the floor in front of DCI Hunt to see if he would compulsively pick them up. (He didn't.) And after it was confirmed that DCI Hunt was also not an incubus (incubi could not resist Scully) or an alien (he knew too much about Earth culture), Mulder admitted defeat and left the X-file open and unsolved. Well, until Scully was organizing one day and accidentally threw it into the trash. (In Scully's defense, their file cabinet space is limited.)

11 (Adelle DeWitt), 16 (Donna Noble) and 20 (Sexy) are locked in a room together. The air conditioning is broken. What do they do to combat the rapidly increasing heat?
Well, for the purposes of this question, Sexy is totally in a human body. First, they take all of their extraneous clothes off. Then, Adelle gets out her booze. Then, they reminisce about England. Then they get bored and decide to play, "Never Have I Ever" and Sexy gets royally trashed, since she has basically done everything. Then, Sexy starts confusing her tenses, and the heat becomes oppressive and they start to become sluggish and loopy. They would all start making out, but the heat is too oppressive and they can't stand flesh-to-flesh contact. So then Donna will take one of Adelle's very sharp stilettos and start using it to break a hole in the door, and eventually, they will all make it to safety and have some friendship sherbet.

8 (Irina Derevko) has been buried alive by 23 (Agent Helo). Why? Out of the remaining 30 who is most likely to notice 8's (Irina Derevko) disappearance? How do they come to 8's (Irina Derevko) rescue?
This is after Agent Helo's attempted paper assassination. Well, you see, Agent Helo has a thing for Sydney Bristow. He thinks that she has been coerced into the CIA and requires some rescuing. And Irina is standing in his way. Jack is super scary, but Agent Helo figures that if he can incapacitate Irina, Jack will be incapacitated with grief and easier to target. Anyway, he watched Quentin Tarantino movies to try and learn how to be tough and decided that being buried alive was an excellent strategy. (He's not very good at strategy.) I'm going to say that even though Irina can totally fucking rescue herself, she could use some assistance. A vampire or robot would be best at digging, but a robot can do it any time day or night. And since Catherine Weaver would totally notice when one of her paid operatives went missing, she'd totally find Irina and break the fuck out of that high tech coffin. And then they'd go for ice cream.

27 (Dana Scully) and 14 (Alex Drake) have been having an affair. Are they hiding this affair from 19 (Olive Snook) or 22 (Cara)? Would they invite 6 (Sophie Devereaux) or 26 (Gene Hunt) over for a threesome? Who discovers their secret affair, 4 (Pam) or 17 (Parker)? And do they reveal their secret or join in?
Right, so. Alex Drake and Dana Scully have been having a secret affair with all of the sex. So clearly Mulder got the two of them over to London and there was a suspicious case and they had to collaborate with the Ashes folk. A case involving time travel and aliens and murder, of course. And then Alex is a hot psychologist and Scully is a hot doctor and they have all of the sex. They mostly have to hide it from Mulder, but that dude is clueless, so it would make more sense that the shenanigans must be hidden from Cara, who is somehow tied to the portal shenanigans because she would want to join in and then they'd never get any work done and also she's a little bit too unstable. Gene Hunt would invite himself over for a threesome, but Scully is too practical for that shit. Sophie, unfortunately, wasn't sucked into any interdimensional portals, so they will just have to do with everybody's favorite rogue time-traveler with a reputation for sexytime excellence. (River.)

10 (River Song) and 1 (Fox Mulder) are invited to a costume party by 23 (Agent Helo). What do they go as? How much time, energy and money do they put into their costumes?
Since it is Agent Helo we're talking about, this is a party in Los Angeles in the early 2000s. It's a fancy masked dance ball, with all very important rich people and their dates invited. (It's totally an investigatory trap.) Agent Helo totally managed to accidentally invite the evil conspiracy, and Mulder got a tip to come. He was going to wear a tux, but he forgot, so he ended up in one of his regular suits, which happens to be black, and then ran to the nearest cheap-ass menswear store and bought himself a crisp white shirt and bow tie (unfortunately, they were all out of black, so he got stuck with navy), and he totally looked raggedy and misplaced but has no idea this is the case. River Song also showed up there to deal with the evil alien conspiracy dudes, but she always knows how to dress period-appropriate. (She's a fucking archaeologist.) So she was in an evening gown with all sorts of hidden fancy alien tech and guns. And that way, when the alien bounty hunter shows up, she just punctured his neck and got on with the champagne. And then when the Rossum dudes showed up and their dates had a technological malfunction due to an alien artifact that Mulder smuggled in, River defused that shit too. (It involved distracting kisses and hallucinogenic kisses!) And then she jumped off the top of the building, just for fun.

2 (Catherine Weaver), 6 (Sophie Devereaux) and 24 (Yosaffbridge) are running a ice cream shop together. What is their ice cream shop named? What is each of their favorite ice cream flavor? How successful are they in their ice cream selling endeavors? Who is their most loyal costumer: 5 (Pinkie Pie) or 12 (Patty Hewes)?
This is clearly a ye olde ice cream shoppe of deception and thievery. So naturally, it is called, "The Emporium of Deliciousness" and it has 1,000 different flavors and toppings and super high quality ice cream and frozen yogurt. Catherine Weaver likes getting vanilla ice cream and then giving it to her daughter. Sophie likes the most chocolatey death by chocolate variety. Yosaffbridge likes to keep her favorite flavor a secret and lie like a fiend to everyone that asks, and thus doesn't really spend much time actually eating her favorite flavor. Anyway, Catherine is a ruthless businesswoman, Sophie is a brilliant saleswoman, and Yosaffbridge's milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard. They've basically demolished all of the competition within a 50 mile radius. Patty Hewes doesn't have time for ice cream, but Pinkie Pie always needs ice cream for parties. They can have ice cream parties at the ice cream parlor!

13 (RuPaul) is a fangirl, of course, and decides to do this very question meme. Which 10 characters are chosen? what sort of questions does 20 (Sexy) ask, and what are 13's (RuPaul) answers?
I would like to state for maximum clarity that this is not at all the real person, RuPaul, but imagining that the host of Drag Race is a fictional character. Because really, I'm not okay with RPF, and this has nothing to do with the person.
Her ten characters are all contestants on Drag Race.
So it goes something like: Raja, Tyra Sanchez, Bebe Zahara Benet, Manila Luzon, Raven, Nina Flowers, Alexis Mateo, Jujubee, Ongina, and Shangela.
Unfortunately, Sexy has a whole lot of tense and time period issues in her questions, so they mostly end up looking like gibberish. For example, "5 and 1 were friends who travel together, with where will they travel together but not together and why 9?"
And, of course, RuPaul's answer would be, "Bitch, you are crazy. But they would have a threesome. In space."

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL. THERE IS A SECOND PART, AND YOU CAN GET TO IT BY CLICKING ON THIS SENTENCE.

BECCA'S BIRTHDAY PRESENT (one of them) PART THE SECOND

smercy — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 19:02:33 GMT

THE ANSWERS TO THE SPECIAL aka_katya EDITION OF THE CHARACTER MEME!

here's the deal: I wrote too much and it won't all fit in one post and therefore, I have to split it up. this is the second part. DID YOU MISS THE FIRST PART? CLICK ON THIS.

a refresher on the cast of characters:

01. Fox Mulder from "The X-Files"
02. Catherine Weaver from "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles"
03. Kenzi from "Lost Girl"
04. Pam from "True Blood"
05. Pinkie Pie from "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic"
06. Sophie Devereaux from "Leverage"
07. John Henry from "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles"
08. Irina Derevko from "Alias"
09. Cameron from "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles"
10. River Song from "Doctor Who"
11. Adelle DeWitt from "Dollhouse"
12. Patty Hewes from "Damages"
13. RuPaul* from "RuPaul's Drag Race"
14. Alex Drake from "Ashes to Ashes"
15. Laurence Dominic from "Dollhouse"
16. Donna Noble from "Doctor Who"
17. Parker from "Leverage"
18. Claire Jackman from "Jekyll"
19. Olive Snook from "Pushing Daisies"
20. Sexy from "Doctor Who"
21. Sarah Connor from "Terminator" things
22. Cara from "Legend of the Seeker"
23. Agent Helo from "Dollhouse" & "Battlestar Galactica"
24. Yosaffbridge from "Firefly"
25. Gemma Teller-Morrow from "Sons of Anarchy"
26. Gene Hunt from "Ashes to Ashes"
27. Dana Scully from "The X-Files"
28. Savannah Weaver from "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles"
29. Daisy Adair from "Dead Like Me"
30. Katherine Pierce from "The Vampire Diaries"
*This has absolutely nothing to do with the real person RuPaul, it's just pretending that the host of Drag Race is a fictional character.

next, the questions and answers (from other people!)! WITH BONUS GAMING THE SYSTEM.

from afrocurl!

If 5 (Pinkie Pie) and 11 (Adelle DeWitt) ever met, what would they drink to pass the time?
Punch! It's Pinkie Pie's special recipe. It's filled with magic, not booze, and that means no hangovers.

Given the correct mission, and the right amount of peril, how would 22 (Cara) and 7 (John Henry) work in a disaster?
Well, the mission would have to be apocalypse-related. John Henry likes making friends with everybody, but Cara would basically be there to make things blow up, so there would be a fair amount of awkwardness. So long as their interaction was limited to John Henry pointing out where Cara's ass-kicking would be most useful, everything would be functional.

From the perspective of 10 (River Song), who is more attractive, 1 (Mulder) or 30 (Katherine Pierce)? Why?
Mulder is the worst boyfriend probably ever, and he would be entirely too fascinated with the whole "from the future, not entirely human" thing, so he'd be entirely unsuitable. And annoying. Katherine, on the other hand, has an identical doppelganger, and we already know that River likes those...

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from likeatruck

If 5 (Pinkie Pie), 11 (Adelle DeWitt), 2 (Catherine Weaver), 3 (Kenzi) and 29 (Daisy Adair) formed a band, what genre would they be and what would they be called? Who would eventually leave the band and cause them to fall into utter disarray?
Well, it should first be noted that there were unusual circumstances that created the band. It all started when somebody was careless with an ancient magical relic and accidentally opened up a portal to Equestria, accidentally letting out a dragon, a few ponies, and Pinkie Pie. As Pinkie seemed the most harmless of all of the magical cartoon characters, Kenzi was in charge of retrieving her. The mad dash down the streets of Vancouver lead them to a secret meeting between Catherine Weaver and Adelle DeWitt. Catherine was totally getting a feel for Rossum and what sort of tech they had that could be used for eventual robot domination, and Adelle was supposed to be seducing her for information. When Pinkie Pie and Kenzi ran by, all that they had accomplished was tea. Daisy Adair was standing a close distance behind, tapping Catherine as often as she could and getting progressively more and more freaked out that she wasn't dying. And unbeknownst to all of them, the same magic that brought Pinkie Pie to the world gave her magical powers, so that all that listened to her had to follow her commands.
So when Pinkie decided she needed a break, to find new friends, and to party, she created a band out of all of the ladies around. And that is how Cupcake Hats was born. (Pinkie chose the name. When they went on the world tour, they would all wear cupcakes on their head. It was a brilliant plan.) As everybody knows, Catherine Weaver cannot sing, so she was given the lead guitar. Kenzi is good at hitting things, so she got the drums. Adelle is an excellent pianist, but pianos are too clunky, so she played the keytar. And Daisy loves attention, so she got to be the frontwoman. Pinkie Pie was the lyricist and the one who bounced around in the background and commanded the audience to dance.
Cupcake Hats were the premiere girl-pop band singing about dessert confections and the importance of friendship.
Well, that was until Bo showed up. She realized that Kenzi was taking way too long and went to investigate, then found herself in the middle of an impromptu sidewalk concert. The music was good, but that was beside the point. While the rest of the band sang about why it was important to let your friends choose which kinds of cake they wanted to eat for themselves, Bo convinced Pinkie Pie that all of her friends in Equestria missed her and that she should go back to visit them. And thus, Pinkie left the band and it collapsed into nothingness. (And then everybody got their minds wiped and woke up with a massive sugar hangover. Well, everybody but the goobot. But she did learn an important lesson about the importance of homemade frosting that day.) AND IT WAS GREAT, THE END.

If 17 (Parker) propositioned 8 (Irina Derevko), how would 12 (Patty Hewes) feel, as the housemate of 8 (Irina Derevko)? As 17's (Parker) significant other, how would 21 (Sarah Connor) feel and subsequently respond?
So, Irina Derevko and Patty Hewes are roommates, and Parker is dating Sarah Connor. But Parker cannot resist the lure of Irina's superior spying skills, and tries to seduce her. So, Irina is clearly Patty's live-in personal bodyguard/private investigator. Patty would be annoyed if someone were to compromise Irina's time, but could be convinced to make an exception if she gets to use Parker's master thief skills to steal some fucking evidence. I don't think that Sarah would especially care, since she and Parker are not technically dating so much as Parker totally helps fund the apocalypse fighting effort and they occasionally do it in all of the places. And it's not like it's easy to get a STD from another lady, and they're totally non-exclusive, so. I'm pretty sure that could end up being a wonderful business arrangement for everybody involved.

How would 26 (Gene Hunt) treat a puppy?
Secretly, as not to ruin his reputation.

Who would 7's (John Henry) pony-alter-ego be?
Well, John Henry has some special circumstances. He was trying to send Savannah Weaver to safety using his time machine, but there was some sort of fuck up and she has disappeared and he needs to search all of the parallel universes to find her. (He started at Hogwarts.) So John Henry is in Equestria, in pony form, trying to scour the place to see if anybody has seen Savannah. ("She has red hair.") Unfortunately, she is not in Equestria, but it is a wonderful place to learn about the power of friendship. John Henry's cutie mark would ordinarily be a computer, but due to the circumstances of his arrival, it's totally a yellow duckie. (Don't worry, he totally finds her safe in Narnia.)

14 (Alex Drake), 19 (Olive Snook), 24 (Yosaffbridge), 4 (Pam) and 30 (Katherine Pierce): which three are Cylons, and which of those know/are sleeper agents?
Well, vampires cannot be cylons, so that knocks Pam and Katherine right out. Our cylons, then, are Alex Drake, Olive Snook, and Yosaffbridge. Yosaffbridge totally knows and really enjoys using her wiles to outwit stupid humans, and is deadly efficient and effective. Alex Drake was a sleeper agent, but her programming went wrong, causing her to think that she is stuck in the 1980s. Olive is too nice to be part of the cylon cause, so she goes out into the world and bakes everybody comfort food. (That's how she's so perky, she doesn't need to sleep.) She read the entirety of the harlequin library!

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from charliechaplin2

If 1 (Fox Mulder) and 30 (Katherine Pierce) had a baby together (whether naturally or adopted), what would they call it, and would it be a boy or a girl?
Fox Mulder's sperm is so magical that it can impregnate even a corpse! (Or is that just Elena undercover? The world will never know!) Even though Mulder needs to be kept away from the hot vampire ladies for fear that the world get sucked into a pregnancy epidemic, Katherine totally stole baby William from his other adopted parents and Mulder has to go undercover and seduce her to get him back.

Who would be more likely to fall in love with 6 (Sophie Devereaux)? 4 (Pam) or 17 (Parker)? And why?
Parker would fall in BFF love with Sophie and have Sophie teach her how to make out, and Pam would fall in love with Sophie's shoe collection.

Would 29 (Daisy Adair) consider being in a relationship with 12 (Patty Hewes)?
Patty Hewes is rich, of course Daisy would try to tap that.

What crime would 14 (Alex Drake) most likely commit?
Assault. On Gene Hunt. Repeatedly.

Would 8 (Irina Derevko) ever become a vegetarian? And why?
She would if it meant she could better assassinate some assholes. That isn't even slightly difficult when compared to some of her other undercover assignments.

If 22 (Cara) shot 20 (Sexy), would 23 (Agent Helo) be a good lawyer and why would this scenario happen at all?
Cara only shot Sexy when the random blue box showed up in the middle of the field and blocked her path. But Sexy was still in box form, so was completely unaffected. Agent Helo is a terrible lawyer, and he is lucky that Sexy accidentally blocked Cara's bullets. (It is, however, unlucky for him that Cara move to a position where a box isn't blocking her shot.)

How many times has 13 (RuPaul) had sex?
How many stars are in the sky?

What is the title of 15's (Laurence Dominic) first novel?
Classified.

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from smercy (I blind wrote the questions with no number in question, and then aka_katya filled in the numbers for me with a random number generator.)

29 (Daisy Adair), 24 (Yosaffbridge), 12 (Patty Hewes), 17 (Parker) and 15 (Laurence Dominic) are master thieves. What are they stealing? And why are they stealing it from 8 (Irina Derevko)?
They are stealing SECRETS. Well, and a whole lot of diamonds. And some hard drives. You know, regular thievery stuff. It's not like inception. Patty Hewes is the mastermind, because she is fucking brilliant. And because she is brilliant, she built her team with a former NSA agent freelancing from the private sector, a master thief, a master conwoman, and an out-of-work actress that has a face that nobody suspects of wrongdoing. It's nothing personal against Irina, of course, it's just that she is the largest receptacle of things that people want to steal.

It is the robot apocolypse. 3 (Kenzi), 18 (Claire Jackman) and 6 (Sophie Devereaux) are trapped in a bunker together. How do they pass the time? Why has 17 (Parker) decided to rescue them?
So we have a rogue demon hunter, a master thief, and a clone! Claire and Sophie totally spend their time trying to find the differences in their bodies, and then Kenzi brings out the booze and they all get drunk. After that, it's basically just drinking and cards and orgies and more drinking and elaborate robot-killing plans. Parker is there just for Sophie, but she can't figure out which one of them is Sophie and is too busy fighting off robots to pick one. Kenzi looks useful enough, so she can totally tag along too. And then they fight some fucking robots with girl power! LIKE THE SPICE GIRLS. (Except with more Gina Bellman. And thievery. And clones. And magic. And eyeliner.)

14 (Alex Drake) and 22 (Cara) are handcuffed together, conveniently next to 23 (Agent Helo) and 4 (Pam), who are also handcuffed together. Why did this happen and how long before it devolves into an orgy?
Agent Helo is dead. Let's just get that out of the way, because Agent Helo breathed on Pam and she tore his throat out and had fun with it. Pam always did like sucking the life out of a good set of abs. So, Gene Hunt got drunk and bored and decided that it would be really fun to see what would happen if he took the most dangerous people he knew and handcuffed them together and see how long it would take for an orgy to break out. (Don't worry, he wasn't planning to videotape it.) Agent Helo wasn't planned, but he was so fucking annoying that Gene decided to throw him in there and have the ladies teach him a lesson. Anyway, after Agent Helo is dead and his hand is ripped off and he is removed from the handcuffs, Pam decided to freshen up her make up while Cara broke the handcuff chain with a karate chop. And then they realized that they were locked in a jail cell together and it was really boring, so Alex brought out a few flasks and they (minus Pam) got drunk and played truth or dare. The third dare involved nakedness and it devolved from there. And that's how that particular cell ended up with 15 bent bars and the bed ripped from the wall.

30 (Katherine Pierce) and 26 (Gene Hunt) are in a fight against a dalek, armed only with a very large magnet and their wits. What happens?
Katherine gets to be the "human" shield, because getting electrocuted with the death ray doesn't actually do much to her. The original plan is that she distracts the dalek while Gene Hunt sneaks around behind with the gigantic magnet and bashes it over the head. In fairness, it was very hastily composed. He's only using the magnet because there isn't anything else to bash the dalek with, and Katherine has to keep pulling the magnet off of the dalek and passing it back to DCI Hunt. There is a lot of frustrated yelling, especially about how the dalek is fucking ridiculous-looking and this is all bullshit. And then DCI Hunt accidentally got the magnet stuck to the panel that opens the shell and reveals the gooey part, and from there, Katherine's super speed and ruthlessness took care of that bitch. And then Gene Hunt kicked the dead shell of the dalek a lot, the end.

8 (Irina Derevko), 1 (Fox Mulder), 24 (Yosaffbridge) and 16 (Donna Noble) are suddenly turned into vampires! 23 (Agent Helo), 3 (Kenzi), and 17 (Paker) are vampire hunters! 19 (Olive Snook) and 26 (Gene Hunt) have magically delicious-smelling blood. 14 (Alex Drake) and 12 (Patty Hewes) are in possession of actual magic powers. They are all locked in a room together. What happens?
So, Irina, Mulder, Yosaffbridge and Donna are vampires. Mulder is the world's most geeky vampire. He just spends the whole time explaining his traits very loudly and to everyone that will listen, and then getting the glowy-eyes and looking in the mirror. Irina was already immortal, so the vampirism is kind of inconvenient, but nothing unreversible. Yosaffbridge totally loves the enhanced strength, and starts trying to find folks to eat. Donna is super pissed. She immediately starts yelling about how all this is bullshit, which endears her to Kenzi. Kenzi already had experience hunting vampires, so the official title doesn't bug her much. And she knows that some vampires are cool, so she doesn't go blindly trying to stake everyone. Not like Agent Helo. It's a good thing that Irina noticed his shifty eyes straight off and shoved him into a file cabinet. Now, Olive snook obviously has super great-smelling blood since she is made of sugar and the sweetest thing around, and she works in a pie shop. Gene Hunt is magic, hence the blood. DCI Hunt totally sees how sweet and delightful Olive is, and then he totally protects her ass. But that doesn't save him from Yosaffbridge, and he has a thing for bad girls with big tits. Thankfully, Alex can just conjure herself a truth lasso and start lassoing Gene to things. And Patty just teleport flounces out of there and starts using her magic on some evildoers. And at the end of the day, all of the potentially crazy people are incapacitated, the police/spy/private eye types are investigating the situation, Donna and Olive are snuggling, and all is well. Oh, and Mulder still hasn't stopped with the glowy eyes in the mirror thing.

2 (Catherine Weaver), 28 (Savannah Weaver), 5 (Pinkie Pie) and 9 (Cameron) are invited to a tea party with Dame Maggie Smith. (in Downton Abbey) Who is her favorite? Who gets kicked out? Is it a disaster, or can they end up in her good graces?
Well, for the purposes of reality, Pinkie Pie is Savannah's favorite stuffed animal who travels where ever Savannah goes. So, we have a Scottish robot, an American-raised Scottish child, her favorite stuffed animal, and an American robot all sitting down to tea with Dame Maggie Smith. Of course, Savannah would start off by insisting that Pinkie Pie be served tea as well. Pinkie Pie loves parties, especially tea parties, and it would be rude to leave her out. This would raise a few eyebrows, but nothing would be too badly ruined. And as Savannah explained, Pinkie Pie likes to be involved in the party, but she's not actually hungry and doesn't really want to eat anything. She just likes to be friends with everybody.
Since Savannah has dealt with a secret robot replacement mother, she is immune to Dame Maggie Smith's eyebrow, not that the Dame is especially employing it in her direction. It is very odd to see Scots and Americans with such flawless table manners, but they are all done robotically with no grace to it. Terrible conversationalists, too.
At the end of the tea, the children and stuffed animals escorted out of the room so that the adults may talk. This is, of course, about business. Secret robotic money business. Savannah doesn't really mind, though, since she has Pinkie Pie with her.
Well, the tea party was by no means a success. The company was far too strange, and the child was far too talkative. However, there was nothing actively offensive done, so it was probably the best tea that Dame Maggie has had in months, not that she wants to endure the company again. There's just something about the American accent that grates on her nerves, and she has enough of that already.

17 (Parker), 9 (Cameron), 11 (Adelle DeWitt), 27 (Dana Scully), 12 (Patty Hewes) and 26 (Gene Hunt) have been transported into a medical drama. Which ones are doctors, which ones are nurses, and who's the asshole hospital admin? 4 (Pam) is a sick patient, which of the hospital staff saves her life? And which two members on the staff are having a secret, forbidden love affair?
Dr. DeWitt is the super formidable and terrifying hospital administrator in: "Body of Competence" (coming to NBC whenever they get the fucking stick out of their asses.) DeWitt runs the show, she runs everyone. Well, everyone but the willful and stubborn genius brain surgeon, Dr. Hewes. Nobody orders her around. In fact, nobody tells her much of anything at all, she is far too busy saving lives to get caught up in petty office gossip. That doesn't mean, however, that the gossip stays away from her. You see, there is a new medical intern with a mysterious past. She only goes by one name, Parker, and she has an uncanny resemblance to Dr. Hewes, but lacks the basic social skills to do much more than the most precise stitches this hospital has ever seen. She could do more, but it's not like Dr. Scully would let an intern overstep bounds. Oh no, Dr. Scully likes things quite within their bounds. All of her paperwork is done promptly and completely, but that doesn't stop the weirdness from sticking to her. They say she used to have a husband, years ago, but he suffered a mental breakdown and was never seen again. Every once in a while, his old friends show up and make weird demands, the newest is that a strange girl, Cameron be admitted to their nursing staff. Scully had to pull some strings, but Cameron, a girl with a mysterious past and a crippling case of literal thinking soon becomes their newest nurse. This is news to Nurse Hunt, who runs the tightest fucking ship on this side of the Atlantic. Don't tell anyone that his heart is made of gold, he only cares about his patients when they're unconscious. And anyone who insults the quality of the nursing staff or makes jokes about masculinity in front of Nurse Hunt is likely to get a surprise to the face. Outside of that, this is an amazingly competent and life-saving hospital, but they are plagued by quite a few cases of very weird happenings. And there are skeletons in closets that just never seem to stay closed. How, for example, can you perform brain surgery on a woman that technically spends the entire procedure without a pulse and have her come out the other end alive? Don't ask Dr. Hewes, she won't tell you. In fact, there are quite a lot of things that should be neither asked nor told, especially if you are the head of this hospital. Oh, which knowledge would be worse if it came to light: the secret illegal stem cell cloning procedures, the recent suspicious disappearance of the hospital's head of security, the nights that she spends in Dr. Scully's bed, or her own ties to the mysterious disappearance of Dr. Scully's lost husband? Don't ask too much, you might fuck this procedure up in... "Body of Competence".

22 (Cara), 8 (Irina Derevko), 6 (Sophie Devereaux), 16 (Donna Noble), 4 (Pam), 24 (Yosaffbridge) and 2 (Catherine Weaver) have been transported into a legal drama. Which two are prosecutors and which two are the defense? Who is the accused party? What is this person accused of? Who is the court stenographer and what does she write in their diary at the end of the night? Who is the mysterious private investigator and who does she work for? And which two people are having a secret, forbidden love affair?
Sophie Devereaux is a good woman in far, far too over her head on the case that may very well end up being the trial of the century, if everyone makes it out alive, on: "Rulings and Regulations". Sophie Devereaux became a lawyer only by chance, she intended to con and rob a rich judge and then got stuck in the role. Now she's the assistant to the District Attorney, Catherine Weaver, on a trial that is dangerous and seems to be falling inside of a rabbit hole that only goes deeper. They're trying to prosecute the serial killer who goes only by "Cara", a woman who has murdered into the 3 digits. She worked for various unsavory and criminal groups for years, before going a bit crazy and freelance. Well, so they think, but can't quite find the evidence to prove. All they know for sure is this, Cara took a katana to a Dave Matthews concert in the September of 2008 and slaughtered 29 audience members and wounded over 100 more, completely without motive. The defense says she's crazy, but Cara is adamant that she isn't. So what if she was systematically tortured and conditioned to be the perfect killer? Her defense team doesn't care what Cara says, they will get her acquitted at all costs. Unfortunately for everyone, Cara got the services of one Irina Derevko, the fucking shark. Her practices are questionable and her tactics are dirty and she rarely loses a case but even when she does, she always ends up on top. Her assisting attorney, Pam, is fearsome, gorgeous and gives away nothing, but only seems to show up at night. They both look like models. They have a dizzying legal strategy, and judges have been bribed. Sophie would be completely lost if not for the incredible competence of DA Catherine Weaver. She works so hard that sometimes Sophie could swear that Catherine didn't sleep, and she has never in the history of her career shown emotion against her will. If anything, she doesn't show enough emotion, that was why Sophie was assigned to the case. She may be completely unfamiliar with the law, but she is brilliant at winning a jury's sympathy. That is, if the case ever makes it to trial. A series of mysterious letters followed by explosions have been disrupting the proceedings, and the police can't figure out where they're from. And there have been threats to the beloved court stenographer Donna, who may have accidentally seen too much. She always sees too much, Donna, since she never needs to look at the keys, and that knowledge might be hidden in her secret diary, if anyone was able to find it. And furthermore, there's a suspicious redheaded private eye hanging around, taking too many pictures and looking too conspicuous, and her name always seems to change. Yosaffbridge should be working for the defense, Derevko does sign her paychecks, but Weaver has secretly been blackmailing her for months. Which side will be brought down by Yosaffbridge's scheming? Who is the mysterious force behind Cara's serial killing training? Is that connected to the threats? What will happen when one of the threats becomes reality? Will Donna manage to survive to the end of the trial with her fingers and diary intact? Will anyone discover the secret love affair between the cool, collected Pam and the cool, collected Cara? What is Pam hiding behind that smirk, anyway? Which side will win? Is Cara even guilty? And most importantly, will Sophie be able to hide that her identity is stolen for the entirety of the case? Find out on... "Rulings and Regulations"

18 (Claire Jackman), 25 (Gemma Teller-Morrow), 15 (Laurence Dominic), 3 (Kenzi), 19 (Olive Snook) and 29 (Daisy Adair) have been transported into a police drama. Who is the grumpy cop in charge? Who is the corrupt bureaucrat at the top? Who is the corrupt cop? Which cop is too stupid and brings the rest of the force down? Who is their secret weapon? Which two are married? Who is secretly a mole for the mob? Which two people are having a secret, forbidden love affair?
Mr. Dominic is a good man, just trying to do the right thing, just trying to keep the people safe, just dealing with the most difficult promotion of his life in: "Flashing Sirens" (coming with no fanfare or notice to ABC and then just as quickly disappearing.) After his beloved partner was washed away at sea and the police building that he loved was partially exploded by a bomb, Mr. Dominic found his life in tatters, and he was the only person able to hold the pieces together. He starts the series as the newly-promoted captain of the force in the crime-stricken Kansas City (MO). His boss is the fearsome Gemma Teller-Morrow, Super Gem for short, and she runs a fucking tight operation. She has no tolerance for mistakes and even less patience, and she is legendary for running the most successful undercover sting in the state's history. Mr. Dominic soon finds that his previously quiet and solitary life is now full with his team. There is the best cop of the bunch, Kenzi, who looks young but hides a fearsome intelligence underneath her eyeliner. Everyone always underestimates Kenzi, and that's how she likes it. Her best friend, Olive Snook, is their most effective undercover agent, when she manages to get out on the field. You see, Olive is sweet. Too sweet. The rest of the team must band together to keep her from harm and jadedness. And if Olive is dead, who will bring them their donuts in the morning? The job is especially hard for Claire Jackman, a brilliant detective with a bitter past. They say her husband had schizophrenia and went crazy one day, she knows otherwise but doesn't say so. Detective Jackman doesn't have many friends, and that's not by choice. Her life is consumed with work, and there is a whole lot of work to be had. The last core member of the team is their newest recruit. Daisy Adair used to be a waitress, but she had a strong love of justice in her heart. She's a good shot, but she's green, and she clings to Dominic a bit too much. Unfortunately for Dominic, the glue binding everything together, jagged lies are threatening to rip his new family apart. Corruption can seep into even the tightest of families, and Detective Jackman needs money to fund the secret search for her husband. A search that might be better aided if she knew about what, exactly, Kenzi was doing on the night of his disappearance, but Kenzi has sworn she will never tell. And Kenzi needs to keep herself out of trouble if her relationship with Olive is going to work out. Olive has said that she'll marry Kenzi, but Kenzi knows that she needs to keep everything on the straight and narrow until she's got that ring on Olive's finger. But Kenzi's secrets are nothing compared to Daisy's, since she grew up dating the son of the area's most influential mob boss, before he was tragically gunned down while they were still teenagers. Yeah, Daisy has connections to the mob that go way back, but then, Gemma knew that. Gemma, it seems, had a harder time pulling herself out of her undercover position in the mob than she ever let on. But that has nothing and everything to do with Mr. Dominic, who is just trying to do the right thing in a world that's gone bonkers. Will they ever find out what happened to Dominic's partner? Will Daisy and Super Gem's affair manage to go unexposed? What will happen when they start getting more bomb threats from the same elusive bomber that last took out half of the station? And will Mr. Dominic realize that he really does need love after all? Find out on... "Flashing Sirens"

1 (Fox Mulder), 26 (Gene Hunt), 7 (John Henry), 8 (Irina Derevko), 10 (River Song) and 21 (Sarah Connor) have been transported into a spy drama. What is the name of their super secret spy organization? How morally gray are they? Who is the boss? Who is the spy intern? Who is the dude who makes all of the special gadgets? Who has the secret evil twin? How effective is the agency? Which three people are having a secret, forbidden love affair?
Irina Derevko is the reluctant leader of a fledgling spy agency gone rogue in: "Moniker" (coming soon and ending soon on FOX.) Irina Derevko never thought she'd see the day when she'd be successfully blackmailed, but that day has come. If she wants to secure the safety of her daughter and her stash of stolen, valuable artifacts, she must assemble a team, much like Charlie's Angels, to do the bidding of a mysterious Mr. Hand. Her first pick was Dr. River Song (it's not her real name) who owed her a favor and a few drinks. Dr. Song is the best sharpshooter around, no matter where on the Earth you place her, and she has a taste for excess. The only thing that Dr. Song can do better than shoot is keep a secret, and oh, the secrets she keeps. The next member of the team is a notorious terrorist broken out of her jail cell in secrecy, Sarah Connor. She's an expert with explosives, and is not bad looking herself. Everything Sarah Connor learned, she taught herself, and that makes her a great. Their next pick up was a tip from Connor, a reclusive genius going by the name of John Henry. His social skills are seriously impaired, but his hacking skills are legendary, and he is fast becoming the top gadget-maker in the business. The next member, still on probation, is a buddy of Sarah's from the slammer. Gene Hunt used to be a cop, but his love for justice and violence got in the way. Now, he's in charge of getting information from bitches by any means necessary. It was a rush job, but Irina thought that the team was a decent start up. She thought she'd run a few jobs, collect information on her blackmailers and bust her way out within weeks. But then she ran into Fox Mulder, a man who got far too deep into information he had no business knowing. He needs protection, but he's too stubborn to see it. But Mr. Hand has ordered that this Mulder be protected under all circumstances, and now Mulder fancies himself a spy. Mulder has even dubbed them The Amalgamation, and it's stuck. It's been two months and Irina is tired of taking orders, that was one of the biggest reasons why she went rogue in the first place. The work is hard, and their practices are dirty; but thankfully, Irina has Dr. Song and Ms. Connor to entertain her at night and during breaks, but the effort keeping the two of them from knowing that they're sharing her bed is beginning to show. Who is the mysterious Mr. Hand? Why are they so frequently in Paris? Who is pulling the strings? How can Irina get out from under the thumb of evil blackmailers? What sort of secrets are Dr. Song hiding in her hair? How can the Amalgamation keep Mulder from sending himself straight into mortal danger without having him constantly handcuffed to things? What does all of this have to do with John Henry's brother? What happens when Sarah Connor shows up to find River Song naked in Irina Derevko's bed? Find out on... "Moniker"

27 (Dana Scully), 9 (Cameron), 25 (Gemma Teller-Morrow), 4 (Pam), 20 (Sexy), 3 (Kenzi), 21 (Sarah Connor), 29 (Daisy Adair), 15 (Laurence Dominic), 10 (River Song) and 13 (RuPaul) are blackmailed, coerced and tricked into making a movie together. But they only have a budget of 100 grand. Who is the director? What kind of movie do they make? Who writes the script? How do they assign the crew? Who are the actors? Who is having a secret, forbidden love affair? How much of a disaster is this production? Is it a masterpiece or a masterpiece?
Well, this ramshackle team of misfits has one idea in mind: "Get this shit done." It is quickly decided that the best way to make money is with a superhero movie. Bitches love superheroes. Since Scully was the first one to come up with the idea, she's nominated as director. However, there is no fucking way that Scully wants to be the fucking director, so she passes it off on to the only other person stupid enough to take it: Kenzi. Kenzi decides to co-write the script with Pam, because she looks cool, River, because she was talking about jumping off of buildings earlier, and Daisy, because she won't stop bugging Kenzi about making her the perfect part.
This is the exciting origin story of Dr. Disaster, the world's most dangerous lady superhero. She can fly, when she feels like it, and she can shoot laserbeams from her fingers with fantastic accuracy. She goes around in a catsuit, because it's practical, and wears a black domino mask because they're easy to find. Beware her lipstick. She was once an ordinary aristocrat, secretly rebellious but relatively tame, until one fateful night. She was at a fancy costume party, but she decided to follow a mysterious stranger in a suit and mask, and she followed him right into a secret hedge maze. She thought that they were going to make out on a bench, but instead, he bit her and then poured some of his radioactive blood into it, giving her superpowers and bonding her to him. He was the dastardly Sir Fiasco, and he named her Miss Disaster. They went on a crime and sex spree together for nearly 3 years, until she remembered that she had a conscience and also that she was into women too and left him behind. She used her super-knowledge to get a doctorate in computer sciences in record time, and uses her genius hacking skills to help solve crime. Well, when she's not taking her skills to the street and ass-kicking in person. The only hamper to her amazing powers is when she has to put her needs aside for someone else. Dr. Disaster was only at half power while fighting with Sir Fiasco, but all of that has changed. Now, she is a single, attractive rich woman, who might possibly be in love with her personal secretary, Ann, but struggles with the burden of keeping a dangerous secret from her. What happens when Sir Fiasco comes back into town intent upon seducing her back, in both superhero and plainclothes avenues? Explosions. (They'll figure out the end of the script when they get to it.)
So once they have the preliminary script (after a long weekend of drunken shenanigans and then somebody spent Tuesday typing it up), production begins. Daisy is cast in the lead role as Dr. Disaster. Unfortunately, there is only one man who can be her leading man, and he had wanted to be the cinematographer. But Dominic, by default, has to be Sir Fiasco, and it's a good thing that he can do stunts. Cameron is the innocent secretary, Ann. RuPaul is playing the role of God, and occasionally a few street thugs outside of drag. The other street thugs are Gemma and Dominic wearing a mask over his face.
As Dominic will be busy acting, the only other person with steady hands is Scully, so she becomes the director of photography and the continuity master. Costuming is mostly done by Sexy, with an assist from River because nobody can tell what the fuck Sexy is talking about. (She keeps talking about how this is better than the sequel. But she seems to be forgetting that there is no sequel, since they haven't even made the movie yet. At least she is of the opinion that the original is way better and that the sequel crew sucks.) Sarah Connor is in charge of stunts and explosions, Daisy is in charge of also making sure that everybody has snacks. (Usually waffles. Nobody knows how she gets them.) River is in charge of getting locations (through whatever means necessary.) Pam stands off to the side of the set and makes sound effects, occasionally does a few of the flying stunts, and fixes people's makeup. Gemma is in charge of security. Cameron is in charge of night security, but she just secretly appointed herself and never bothered to tell anybody.
The production is surprisingly mostly disaster free. I mean, except for the few times when it's interrupted by vampires, succubi, werewolves, aliens and a few random time travel disasters. But those totally add character to the film. The actors work decently well together. It was hard to get Dominic to do anything but a blank deadpan, but Kenzi totally decided that was the direction she was going to give him anyway, so that worked out well. Daisy got lessons in how to glare menacingly from the crew, and made for a surprisingly sympathetic heroine. Yeah, there was random melodrama and screaming and at the beginning of the movie, her punches were totally weak-looking, but she can emote and she looks good in a catsuit. The stunts were fucking fantastic, and River got them pretty fucking plausible locations, and it was all-in-all a decent 2 weeks that nobody can really remember since they were so drunk.
Kenzi totally became the director-monster in the editing room and had a huge power-trip and edited the fuck out of that all by herself, mostly in one sitting. Cameron did the special effects work, since she was good at photoshop and whatever the fuck else they use for special effects (but most of their effects work was practical, so Cameron's hardest job was editing out a pimple that Daisy was flipping her shit about.) Pam stood around and offered bored commentary. Daisy brought waffles and suggest that her role be extremely prominent. She's always in favor of more closeups. Eventually, everyone but Pam was kicked out, and that was only because Pam brought more alcohol.
And then after a fevered week of editing and making a trailor, getting very drunk and accidentally leaving their shotglasses on the film negatives, "Dr. Disaster and the Big Mistake" was ready to be released to theatres.
It was, of course, an enormous cult hit and there were musical parodies and youtube parodies and t-shirts with quotes on them. The movie was generally considered to be a thoughtful deconstruction of the modern superhero cliche, even though it totally isn't. It made an alarming amount of money, even though all of the actors faded to obscurity and it was revealed months later that the director/writer was working under a pseudonym and refuses to make another movie again. (The hangover is not fucking worth it.) They couldn't get any of the original crew back for the inevitable sequel.
The sequel, by all accounts, sucks.
And Mr. Dominic, for the rest of his life, had to deal with random people on the street pointing at him and going, "OMG, it's Sir Fiasco!" (Even in the fucking apocalypse, goddamn.) Kenzi, who totally bonded with Dom during their work together, never ever let that go.

And everybody else lived happily ever after, the end.

TODAY IS A FANTASTIC DAY.

smercy — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 06:26:10 GMT

TODAY IS aka_katya'S BIRTHDAY!

I am ridiculously excited. this is going to be great.

this might not be common knowledge, but becca and I became friends in february of '08 when I decided to do a meme. it was a blind questions meme, with numbers standing in for mystery characters. becca asked me THE VERY BEST QUESTIONS. they are seriously amazing questions, and it made the answers AMAZING. and through the question and answer process, becca and I became close and eventually best friends.

AND THAT IS HOW I AM SITTING IN HER APARTMENT ON HER BIRTHDAY GIVING HER ALL OF THE HUGS.

so, in honor of becca, I AM DOING THE MEME AGAIN. but this time, with 30 of her very favorite characters.
(you guys should totally ask me bazillions of questions. it's for a good cause!)

want a rules refresher? read on!

1) Make a list of 30 characters. (IT'S 30, BECAUSE I CONTINUE TO CHEAT.)
2) Assign each character a number.
3) Without telling anyone who's on the list or the character's assigned number, get questions from your flist about what they'd like to know about them.
EXAMPLE: "Could 10 successfully assassinate 11 with nothing but a piece of paper and a rubber band? Who is most likely to order the assassination of 11 - 1 or 20? If 10 fails their mission, who would be next in line for the job - 2 or 16" (The more random and complicated the better!)
4) Post the answers and who was who on the list.
5) Profit.

ASK THE QUESTIONS FOR BECCA, YOU GUYS. SHE IS THE BIRTHDAY GIRL.

in conclusion, some expressive .gifs!

40% hilarious, 60% concerning.

smercy — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 00:24:10 GMT

YOU GUYS, WE HAVE A PROBLEM. IT'S NOT LIKE, THE WORST PROBLEM EVER OR ANYTHING, BUT. UMM. BUT.

so aka_katya and I have found skynet. (and somebody needs to alert sarah connor.)

it's a computer company called "LaCie". they make products that will create the technological apocalypse. WE HAVE PROOF.

here are some incriminating pictures. IT'S A PICSPAM. A PICSPAM OF DOOOOOOM.

so I was hanging around, checking out external hard drives. becca started checking them out with me. first, she found this:

looks like HAL, right?

yeah. that external harddrive has like 8tb capacity and it looks like HAL. THAT'S NOT SCARY OR ANYTHING.

next, becca found this:

aka_katya: "omg this looks scary."

IT DOES LOOK SCARY, IT LOOKS LIKE IT WANTS TO EAT ME.

then, we started investigating.

looks like the turk.

looks like a grenade.

looks like a pipe bomb.

"The XtremKey’s memory modules are shielded inside of a 2mm casing and sealed with wear-resistant screw threads and a rubber O-ring, which makes it watertight up to 100 meters. In addition, it’s resistant to 5-meter drops, fierce heat and bitter cold—it holds up in any environment, no matter where you take it (+200°C / -50°)."

"The XtremKey is constructed with zamac, a metal alloy composed of zinc, aluminum, magnesium and copper that’s so strong, it can withstand the pressure of a 10-ton truck."

THIS EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE HAS A GOOBOT INSIDE.

this is apparently a fingerprint scanner. I think it looks like a finger eater.

this looks like a security camera.

this external hard drive looks like a motherfucking checkbook.

this external hard drive looks like MONEY.

THESE FLASH DRIVES LOOK LIKE FUCKING KEYS. THE KEYS TO THE MOTHERFUCKING APOCALYPSE.

and then aka_katya went to their actual website, where shit got even scarier.

THESE ARE NOT LEGOS. they are 1tb external hard drives with which to program your children.

I DON'T EVEN KNOW.

aka_katya: "THEY LOOK LIKE THEY COULD SUCK YOUR SOUL OUT"

from their chairman's public statement: The last secret ingredient of LaCie’s success is that we run a very aggressive organization.

WHICH ONE OF THESE IS THE HARD DRIVE?

IT'S THIS ONE, WHICH IS STYLISH, MADE OUT OF SILVER, AND PERFECT FOR STOWING YOUR APOCALYPSE KEYS.

WE. ARE. DOOMED.

final evidence: "la ciel" is french for "sky"

I think we should all stock up on bottled water and twinkies.

carnivale watch: 1.09

smercy — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 04:00:35 GMT

THIS IS CARNIVALE WATCH, NOT BEEF.

episode 9 - insomnia
everything after this sentence could contain a spoiler for this episode and everything before it.

content advisory: graphic onscreen rape, graphic sexual content, abuse of mind control, graphic violent dream imagery.

INSOOOMNIA.
(apparently, it leads to sexytimes!)

-

we open on a closeup of ben's face. he's grimacing and shaking in bed. and then he gets up and lights a cigarette, just barely.

the shot shifts to sofie, who's carrying a pail of water over to her trailer. but when she gets close to it, she can hear banging and a woman crying, "no!"

a man's voice says, "bitch!"

sofie drops the pail of water and tries to get inside. but the door is stuck. the woman screams, "stop!" and then sofie takes a chair like a badass and smashes the glass in.

there's a tattooed man naked and violently raping a woman. we can't see his face, only the tree on his back. everyone is crying.

and then sofie is screaming for it to stop. and then the woman turns her face to sofie and we see that it's apollonia. and it was a vision.

sofie is still outside the trailer. she drops the pail again and rushes in, asking her mom who the man was. appy didn't know that sofie saw it. and then appy starts screaming, and soon sofie's screaming too. then she hugs her mom.

-

and then it's the next morning. lodz is having lila spy on ben to see how his awakeness levels are. those two are really quite creepy. lodz exposits that ben is trying to hide from his dreams.

and then lodz has a miniature temper tantrum.

and outside, ben is still awake, but he's staggering around.

ooh, and then somebody rings a triangle for breakfast. an actual triangle!

samson stomps through the carnival. somebody yells, "good morning, boss!"

samson: "what's good about it?"

('cause management and lodz didn't invite him to their slumber party.)

(the above statement is false. it's 'cause when management and lodz get together, viciously ruthless schemes are hatched and there's lots of collatoral damage.)

anyway, samson stomps into lodz's trailer, and lodz is smirking like a smug bitch and he says he'll be out in a moment. samson makes this epic "bitch, please" face, but it's totally lost on lodz.

and then lodz and samson are outside, and samson has got lodz by the sleeve and is kindly leading him around, 'cause samson is fucking classy. he leads him to management's trailer, obviously pissed. and lodz walks in, and samson's face gets angrier.

-

samson's sitting at a table with the head rousties. (jonesy and burly and other unnamed people with their backs to the camera.) he tells them that he wants a small skull. burly complains, because that is all that burly is good for. and then samson goes, "burly, I hope you like the taste of pride, because that is all there is gonna be to eat around here soon."

samson gets shit done, you guys. osgood, the guy from the really unpleasant prostitute incident in episode 3, is very dense. he's tasked with finding a turtle shell, except he doesn't know where to get those. (hint: look by the turtles.)

that's when jonesy realizes that they're gonna do a fireball show. and samson's not even ashamed about it. his people have got to eat!

osgood, mr. thickety thick, has never heard of a fireball show. and then there's a digression as samson goes into the money box, which only has coins left, and pays the rousties for the supplies. osgood still doesn't know. samson ignores them and tells everybody to get the word out to literally everybody they can.

the camera pans to ben yawning, and I am even more pissed about how he gave $7 of the carnival's money in charity. anger, anger, anger.

osgood still doesn't understand about the fireball show. he pesters jonesy but he gets sidetracked jonesy and rita sue share a SIGNIFICANT look. and rita sue says she's got "lights" giving her "trouble" and she needs him to "take a look." and jonesy's all for that. and then osgood says that rita sue's built like a brick bean oven. SHUT UP, OSGOOD. (it's his catchphrase.)

-

ben looks like a chewed up piece of twine. (says samson.) meanwhile, samson gets shit done. he shows ben the significant masonic thingy that was hack scudder's. ben doesn't want to deal with it, but then samson shows him the initials and then gives it to ben. he doesn't want to touch it.

and then samson is all like HENRY SCUDDER IS YOUR DADDY. and then walks away like a motherfucking badass. because YES. samson gets all of the shit done.

ben makes a significant look at the camera, but I can't decipher it. I think he's supposed to look both exhausted and shocked or something, but my brain says that he just looks constipated.

-

A RADIO STATION IN CALIFORNIA.

it's iris crowe! she's talking, very excitedly, about hobos. apparently the state police called the migrants hobos and iris is very upset.

and then tommy is behind her, talking about how iris needs to let it go 'cause they're about to get their very own army.

and then there are things going on in the radio show! oh man, this is so neat. there's a man and a woman in front of a microphone. she's smoking. he says, "then I guess our baby will be... blessed. ha! ha! ha!"

and an announcer chimes in with, "join us tomorrow for another chapter of: the romance of erica s. brought to you by cream of wheat."

and then tommy pulls iris away because they're gonna go on the radio together and iris just holds her hand to her heart and looks super nervous.

-

A MENTAL INSTITUTION (SHERWOOD STATE HOSPITAL) SOMEWHERE PROBABLY IN CALIFORNIA.

the same radio music is playing, and the announcer is plugging cream of wheat. and the residents are acting like regular mental institution patients. brother justin is sitting at a table and very calmly making a wallet. he's sewing two pieces of leather with what looks like a shoelace. high quality work.

-

CALIFORNIA RADIO STATION.

it's a special broadcast of "true tales from on the road"! (iris makes it special.) she's sitting next to tommy, breathing heavily and her posture is completely stiff and she just looks so nervous.

tommy says, "good morning, friends. today, in the continuing saga of brother justin, we have-"

-

CALFORNIA MENTAL INSTITUTION.

"a wonderful treat." a nurse, all in white and smoking, turns the volume up. "with us is a remarkable woman. brother justin's sister, miss iris crowe." justin flinches.

-

RADIO STATION.

iris leans too closely into the microphone and says, "hello." she looks so awkward. it is amazing. (note: iris's entire life, she never had any limelight at all whatsoever. she was basically justin's shadow. and now she's showcased on a hugely popular radio show all on her own.)

-

INSTITUTION.

"folks, believe it or not, this is the lovely miss crowe's first time on radio." when tommy dolan says lovely, justin squeezes the wallet really really hard. "she's here to send a message to her brother, a man we've spoken about many times on this program."

justin looks over at another guy, who is painting quietly at a far away table. the guy looks back, then gets up. tommy dolan says, "a man who is still missing. still out there, somewhere." the doctor from the previous episode is crouching by the door to the room, frantically scribbling onto his clipboard.

as justin is whispering orders to the guy, iris says, "justin, it's me."

-

RADIO STATION.

iris continues, "if you can hear the sound of my voice, I want you to know that I'm praying for you."

-

INSTITUTION.

justin continues whispering.

iris says, "everyone in mintern is praying for you."

the guy walks over to a support post in the middle of the room and begins bashing his head into it. really violently, too.

it drowns out the sound of iris saying, "norman, the migrants, even some we used to count as enemies. I love you."

justin looks terribly angry.

the guy keeps bashing his head until he is bleeding and orderlies have to pull him away. "god will grant you peace if only you will return home," says iris.

the doctor, bowtie undone, keeps scribbling.

brother justin keeps working on his wallet.

-

back at the carnival, jonesy is metaphorically hammering a tent spike into the infertile ground. it's not meant to evoke aaaanything, even though he's half-naked and glistening with sweat.

stumpy comes up to him, trying to find a way to get a performance rating. but then he sees that jonesy's putting up signs for "turtle boy" and "man eating chicken". stumpy starts laughing, 'cause it's ridic. and then flat-out asks for a performance rating.

jonesy's all, "it was fine."

and then stumpy asks if rita sue did the extra special thing with the feather.

jonesy evades. and says that rita sue was "swell". HEEEEEEE.

and stumpy gets all offended. because with rita sue, "swell" is a complaint! HEEEEEEEEE.

so jonesy perfunctorily raves and then flees from stumpy and his lack of boundaries.

and then accidentally runs into rita sue, hanging her bras on the clothesline. man, what is up with the sex metaphors? they share a pointed look over her bras.

and then sofie walks over and wants to talk. and that makes jonesy super happy, 'cause he's still not over her. (even though crushing on her is kind of creepy.) but rita sue sees it and she doesn't look happy. oh, the perils of having to juggle two fine ladies, riiiiiight?

-

ben's stringing lights in a tent that has a flap with all kinds of mystical-looking symbols on it and also a random skull and crossbones.

he breaks a bulb and then lodz goes to poke at ben's wounds some more. he says that ben's sleeping habits are of grave concern to management, but lodz forgets that ben literally does not give a shit about ANYTHING at this point in the show. and then lodz is like, "I may have deliberately withheld information, baby, but I never ever lied to youuuuuu. please believe me!"

and then it's more talk about how ben is the special-est snowflake and he has to practice so that he can get perfect and blah blah blah lodz prolly has a crush on him and this is so uncomfortable. no means no, dude.

and then lodz says that if he doesn't take magic lessons, then everyone he knows and loves will be put into mortal danger. just like what happened to his daddy! (this still doesn't explain babylon.)

and then lodz is all like ALSO I KNOW THAT YOUR INABILITY TO DEAL WITH YOUR MAGIC KILLED YOUR MOM. and then lodz is all, "how many more will diiiiiie?" (he doesn't realize that ben's mom refused to let him heal her.)

and ugh, assholes.

-

sofie and jonesy are walking through an empty, scrubby desert-y field. sofie asks, "did you ever know anybody that went crazy?" awww, sofie!

jonesy did. a shortstop.

sofie wants to know if it was gradual or all at once. jonesy says gradual. and that the guy would stare off into space like bela lugosi. and he started taking really long towers, and one day he scrubbed himself bloody. and then sofie breaks down.

she thinks her mom is going crazy. she tells jonesy about how she saw stuff that appy was keeping from her before.

jonesy doesn't say anything. it's actually pretty nice, they just sit and are quiet.

-

rita sue is relaxing in bed. stumpy sees her and tries to go flee.

and then rita sue, the goddamn champion, is all like, "what do you want me to do? tell me and I'll do it."

and stumpy's all, "I don't want you to do anything!"

and rita sue's all, "I'm not talking about fucking you."

eventually stumpy sits down. he's sulking and she's crying a little. it's kind of horrible and great at the same time. emotions!

-

back in a tent, samson's got a can of white paint and he's slathering it on a turtle shell. ben walks in, asking samson about the thingy. ugh, I don't know what it's called.

and then samson shows off his a++ deduction skills. (omg get him a spinoff with sherlock holmes.) lots of people are flocking around him. ben says that there's no reason, 'cause ben likes his secrets. and then samson's all, "I'll tell you, we deliberately picked you up. managment made me do it."

and then samson attaches a baby doll to the turtle shell and shows off turtle boy. it is pretty lolarious.

and then samson (in direct contrast with lodz) is all, "I lied. I knew the lady in the picture you showed me." and he brings out the photo album of doooooooom. and is sherlock holmes. and then talks about how when scudder left ben's mom, he felt really broken up about it.

samson says he got the photo album from management, the man who never leaves the trailer. and ben's all like, "but I've never seeeen him!" and samson's all like, "stop worrying. I say he's good, so he's good. and lodz isn't. I wouldn't trust him with his own mother."

omg, stop being so awesome, samson. (he's kind of breaking me.)

-

and then sofie and jonesy are walking back into camp. and jonesy's all, "it was good just talking with you," 'cause he's got the kind of crush that makes him awkward and stupid.

sofie looks afraid to go back into her trailer, and then jonesy tells her that it's gonna be okay, and then she kisses him on the cheek. but so close to his mouth that the "cheek" designation is suspect.

and then jonesy goes over to rita sue and tries to break things off. rita sue tells him to come back before the show starts.

and then she goes into her tent. she has mugs of water for the both of them. stumpy apologizes for the jonesy incident, and rita sue says that it's okay 'cause he was just another trick. and then he wraps his arm around her and they snuggle. they look so sad.

-

MINTERN, CALIFORINA.

tommy dolan and iris are in his car, pulling up to the crowe house, and laughing. (it sounds a bit scandalous on iris's end.)

tommy: "but you had fun?"
iris: "I was terrified!"
tommy: "but you were good!"
iris: *blush* *head shake* *giggle* it was an experience.

tommy has such a crush, you guys. iris tries to deflect with a, "thank you for all you've done FOR MY BROTHER."

and then tommy's all, "we're in this together." (dude, no you're not. you're being creepy.) then he does the totally manly cough while slipping an arm over her shoulder.and then iris is all, "THAT'S WHAT JUSTIN ALWAYS USED TO SAY TO ME." which, way to assert your priorities, lady. she sounds so forlorn about it, too. IRIS JUST NEEDS A HUG.

and then tommy is all, "he's a hero to me too, iris." dude, you are not realizing that the only way to get into her pants is to compliment her brother.

and then he leans in and whispers, "thanks to you." and then he grabs iris by the chin and kisses her.

OMGWTFBBQ.

and then iris doesn't just flinch, doesn't just immediately pull away, but one of her arms starts flailing with displeasure. and iris is all, "WHAT THE ALMIGHTY FUCK!"and then she yells, "you just ought to be ashamed of yourself!" and then she grabs her stuff and runs from the car.

and tommy's all like, "hang on a minute! you're supposed to be in love with me now! I'm super charming!" (that was subtext. he's really just like, "whoa! wait! hang on! iris, I...)

-

it's nighttime and the carnival is running. there's a good huge crowd going in, and they're marking the rich customers and taking their wallets. and then there's a montage of acts and thievery.

and then the turtle boy is basically just put underwater. and stumpy is calling for the man eating chicken. spoiler: it is a roustie eating a roasted chicken. and when the crowd complains, stumpy tells them that they can just use the joke to trick all of their friends.

and then there's a closeup on the top of lodz's tent, which is kind of like a teepee. also, dude looks ominous. he's holding on to an item and saying that it is giving him a strong mental vibration. ben and samson are watching. lodz is using his magic powers to sense stuff and getting the crowd to focus on the watch. dude is legit magic.

he asks for another item and samson sends scudder's engraved thingy up there. and then lodz has a fucking seizure. NOT SO FUN WHEN IT'S HAPPENING TO YOU, EH, PROFESSOR. and then his seizing is intercut with dream sequence imagery. heads on pikes, mauled bodies, chanting dues, bloody feet, the usual. he's chanting something in latin and ben translates that it means, "by the son, we conquer."

and ben's all I DON'T KNOW HOW I DID THAT STOP BUGGING ME. and samson's just like, "you're gonna have to pick a side. pick whatever you want and do it soon. now go help ruthie."

-

OUTSIDE OF A MENTAL INSTITUTION SOMEWHERE IN PROBABLY CALIFORNIA.

brother justin walks out the door wearing a custom-fitted suit and shiny silver tie. the doctor that misspelled excitation is now at his side, bowtie undone and looking manic and exhausted. he hands justin a binder of writing, tells justin that it's good work, and shakes his hand. brother justin idly looks at it as he walks through the darkness. the title page reads, "acts of redemption by brother justin crowe" the first chapter is titled, "pain is an unavoidable side effect".

so brother justin just had the doctor dictate all of his thoughts in book form. I am so jealous of that power. brother justin smiles, but he is distracted by the sound of the city. he says, "be still" and all of the sounds fade away.

he smiles and leaves the institution, walking by foot down the sidewalk.

-

ben is watching ruthie's snake dancing.

I could try to use a lot of adjectives to describe it, but basically, IT IS SO SEXY.

and everyone is hypnotized, but ben especially.

-

in a really smooth transition, the record is shifted over to rita sue, who's painting her toenails in her nightie. jonesy comes in, expecting to break up with her, probably. rita sue looks super alluring.

and when jonesy says that it's the last time, rita sue is totally cool with it. she calls jonesy a damn fine man. and then they shake hands. so she goes in and kisses his cheek goodbye, but then that leads to full-fledged outmaking. and then groping.

and then that transitions back and forth into ruthie's snake dancing and ben's staring at her. it's a montage of sexiness.

and then the audience throws coins at ruthie and ben forgets to pick them up for a while. did I mention that ruthie did the entire thing in pants? because she did. it was so great

-

and then the carnival is over and the lights are off.

and ben's in ruthie's trailer, fangirling all over her. and ruthie's all like, "aww, you're settling into the carnie life!" ruthie is the greatest. and also super observant. when ben is slumping exhaustedly on top of the bed, she's all, "dude, how long has it been since you slept?"

ben's all manly and like, "I'm okay." but then ruthie reaches over and rubs his neck and he cannot handle it. he turns basically into a puddle. and that leaves him wide open for ruthie to kiss him. ben pulls away, but he's a prude, so this is to be expected. and ruthie isn't even slightly hurt, she's just calm and reassuring.

and here's the thing, ben is already super overwhelmed with plot developments and a lack of sleep. I think that getting into ruthie would be unwise. I'm totally behind this whole thing.

-

and sofie's sitting on a bench, smoking. samson walks over and checks up on her, because samson is the fucking boss.

sofie says that she can't go home. (I don't blame her.) and then she tells samson about how her mom was raped.

samson looks like he is about to cry a little. sofie explains that she saw it in her head. and that her mom has a whole lot of trouble distinguishing between the present and the past in her head. but she's worried that it's happening to her too.

samson's face, you guys. he wants to help so badly, but there's nothing he can do.

-

and then lodz is in management's trailer, he has the scudder vision thingy wrapped in a handkerchief and he's all, "this is why we had so much trouble with hawkins." which, dude, it's easy to say THEY'RE JUST NIGHTMARES OF DUDES WITH HEADS ON A PIKE AND YOU MAULED BY A CIRCUS BEAR until YOU HAVE THEM YOURSELF AND IT SENDS YOU INTO EPILEPTIC SHOCK.

and management is all, "ah, babylon." in a super creepy voice.

-

and then samson's going through a wallet that's flush with cash outside of management's trailer. and lodz comes out, laughing condescendingly. samson is all passive-aggressively like, "so I take it we're going."

and then lodz, like an enormous asshole, blames it on samson for having a fireball show. and then he gives samson scudder's thingy back and says that samson played it well. WHICH HE DID. but now samson has to go back into the trailer after he plotted without management. I'm a bit worried.

-

and then the camera pans through the dark carnival, where ben is laying underneath a truck, still trying to sleep.

lila is still spying like lodz wanted her to, but lodz is now even less concerned, I don't know why.

but ben keeps his eyes open.

-

THIS MAY HAVE BEEN A SETUP EPISODE, BUT IT WAS SUPER GREAT.

lots of sex and sexual metaphors. you know, like the show does.

but there was such a wide range of sexual desire going on, from apollonia's rape to tommy dolan's unrequited crush on iris that stopped after one kiss, to sofie and jonesy's friendship blossoming into something more romantic, to jonesy and rita sue unable to keep their hands off of each other, to stumpy unable to let rita sue even touch him, to ruthie and ben both wanting each other but neither ready to act on it.

sex is complicated, serious business. and nobody's immune from it.

even brother justin, who is canon in lust with his sister, cannot bear to hear her voice so badly that he makes a man bash his head against a wall until it's bleeding, but he doesn't scream. (that is what she inspires in him.)

and the only person who has a plotline completely independaet from sexual desire is samson, and he is the father of the carnival.

basically, this show is totally badass.

now, let's talk some carnivale! (no future episode spoilers in the comments, please.)

carnivale watch: 1.08

smercy — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 10:45:55 GMT

THIS IS CARNIVALE WATCH, NOT YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING.

episode 8 - lonnigan, texas
everything after this sentence could contain a spoiler for this episode and everything before it.

content advisory: graphic dream violence, mauling via bear, abuse in a mental institution, oral sex, inappropriate unwelcome groping, injury fetishization.

lonnigan, texas!
darth real life totally overwhelmed me for a while, but now I'm back!

-

we open on the sounds of an explosion, and a doctor lighting a match for his cigarette in the dark. he is wearing glasses, a nurse fetches him. after sticking his hands into a bloody basin, he goes to tend to patients in a military tent. it's gloomy and men all around are groaning with pain. the camera zooms to a soldier mauled by a bear and shaking. he has lost both of his legs, one arm, and has a deep claw mark across one side of his face.

the dream zooms over to ben, who is moaning something that sounds like, "mattie" in his sleep. as the camera pans out, ben removes his blanket and finds that he is missing the same limbs as the solider.

and then he flashes to brother justin in a desert, crouching in his cassock. his eyes are black.

-

and then ben wakes up, whole. and lodz is sitting in brother justin's position.

lodz still wants ben to be his padawan and is convinced that the bad dreams will wear ben down until ben will have to submit.

samson sees all of this, and he looks suspicious.

the shot slides over to stumpy, sitting in his car, drinking, and singing along to, "paper moon."

rita sue walks over to the car, all friendly, but stumpy won't even look at her. rita sue wants some time alone with her husband, but stumpy says he can't do it.

rita sue misses stumpy, but he walks away.

-

sofie goes over to jonesy, and she's got her baseball mitt with her.

they go and toss the ball together. and the shot is GORGEOUS, all of the carnival is between them.

jonesy tells a trick about picking a face in the catcher's mitt and throwing into that. it's a thinly veiled ploy to get sofie to talk about her mom.

appy doesn't like sofie's friends. everyone but jonesy. but he doesn't like libby either.

(he fucked that one up.) the thing about sofie is she doesn't take any shit.

-

samson sends ben to go and get a new recruit for the carnival. a fellow that's got claws for hands. ben thinks it's sketchy.

(ben hasn't realized that he works in a carnival in the 30s.)

samson's not going because samson understands espionage. (but he really should've chosen somebody better.) he sends ben off with $15.

-

A MENTAL INSTITUTION, SOMEWHERE PROBABLY IN CALIFORNIA.

brother justin is screaming. four men submerge him in a tub full of ice water, then they strap canvas on top of it so that he can't get out. super creepy music is playing, and they put a rubber bridle in his mouth to stop the screaming.

then, they strap him to a table, still screaming, and inject him with something sinister-looking. shove a tube down his throat, and then he has a seizure.

they drag him down the hall, barefooted, and brother justin's feet barely touch the ground.

-

the music turns into a record that lodz is playing. he just got done with doing his lady and now they're snuggling.

"insomnia is a cruel mistress."

lodz thinks that ben's dreams are totally hilarious. and then he has lila spy on ben for him.

and then they have some awesome drugs and make out for a long time. until he decides that he's gonna take a turn on lila. she is very vocally appreciative.

-

ben drives down the road. and omg, there's one of those totally ancient wooden signposts pointing people toward the towns. but I guess he doesn't understand them, because he stops and asks some dude peeing off the side of the road how to get to gunderson.

the guy looks at the carnival logo and sends him off in the wrong direction.

-

sofie is sulking through the carnival as it sets up. she walks over to the cooch tent and sees libby practicing her dance moves. (fully clothed.)

the ladies have a sweet little scene where they talk about how they're not leaving. libby says she's a chicken. and also that she's sorry. sofie admits that she saw it in the cards. sofie puts on some good music to try and cheer them up.

-

cut to jonesy whining about sofie to stumpy.

he's totally mad that sofie can tell that he wants to do her and that it colors every bit of their interaction together. stumpy is drinking on a turn table as it goes around.

jonesy cuts his hand, pours booze on it, and then takes a gulp.

then stumpy realizes that clearly the cure to all of jonesy's issues is if jonesy will fuck his wife. it'll be totally great, there won't be any conflict of interests there! nope, no thorny tangles. just jonesy getting rid of his blue balls.

stumpy says that he has a friend that had a nut that exploded from blue balls. and rita sue is totally the cure.

jonesy thinks that this is a terrible idea.

but oh nooo, rita sue has the hungriest vagina ever. she requires more maintenance than one man can provide! stumpy: "I'm chapped all the way up to my bellybutton! I need a relief pitcher here!"

stumpy sets up a meeting for later that night. jonesy looks conflicted. common sense versus penis, I hear it is often a terrible dilemma.

-

libby and sofie are dancing together.

the record is yodeling, and they are laughing. and rita sue sees from the tent and starts smiling. (unless I'm mistaken, this is the first shot of rita sue genuinely since dora mae died.)

lila suggests that sofie join the cooch tent, and rita sue doesn't think that's a bad idea. and then she asks about ben and leaves. rita sue keeps watching and smiling.

-

A MENTAL INSTITUTION, SOMEWHERE PROBABLY IN CALIFORNIA.

there is more screaming, and a man in a suit walking down a spiral staircase. an orderly carries a chair in front of him.

brother justin is in the farthest corner of a padded room, straightjacketed and in the tiniest ball. he doesn't bother moving his head from the wall. he has been crying.

the man has a clipboard and a pen. he asks for justin's name, but justin won't give it. so he calls justin "john doe." blah blah threatened to jump off of a bridge. he asks if justin remembers.

brother justin says that he remembers. then, "I've always been what I am."

DIGRESSION. brother justin is a man of god. he tries to do good in the world. he lusts after his sister, but then he flagellates himself for it. he has all kinds of dark impulses and he is constantly fighting them. so his entire life, justin has been fighting himself to be a good person, probably thinking that all of his darkest feelings and desires come from outside of him. (probably from the devil.) and that he is an innately good person.

but now justin knows that he committed murder as a child. so he is not a good person, he is innately bad. it's a huge perspective shift for him. (and really important for his future characterization.) brother justin now believes that he is fundamentally evil.

he cries a little bit as he says that he is the left hand of god.

"it means I am no longer his servant. I am his will, made flesh."

the doctor says like jesus. justin laughs. he's not like satan either.

brother justin's eyes get dark, and his voice is threatening. he says, "you've misspelled 'excitation'."

justin says that being the left hand of god means that he broke a man's neck. it appears in the doctor's notes, but he's never heard it before. justin says, "I willed it, and it was so." it was fascinating and terrible.

the doctor says, "the treatments that you've recieved were not intended to be punitive. the pain is an unavoidable side effect."

justin agrees with the second sentence. the doctor drops his clipboard on the ground. justin asks for paper and a pen. when he is denied, he says that it's unnecessary. something has clicked inside of his head.

the doctor leaves the room and checks his notes.

he's misspelled excitation.

-

ben, in the car, drives past a family stuck on the side of the road. well, more like close to a gas station. it's run by an albino man who stutters.

ben asks for gunderson. the albino has no idea. not even when ben asks after a scorpion boy. but they do have a lobster gal. she's in the direction that ben just came from.

-

the land is so open. and the carnival is setting up. and libby and sofie are sitting on the stage, drinking coke. rita sue starts pitching a job to sofie, buttering her up a lot. she sends sofie away.

rita sue was scared that libby wouldn't ever smile after her sister was murdered. awww. but then she goes straight into asking libby to dance, no actual stripping involved. sofie says she's already got a job, and also that her mom would freak out. rita sue says that's a selling point.

libby walks in, super pissed. sofie walks out. libby sees through rita sue's hustle. rita sue says that she's doing it to make libby happy. it's really messy.

-

lodz is interrogating samson about why he chose ben to go and find the new carnival worker. samson says that ben's the only one who can keep his mouth shut. and actually, that's pretty true! it is super hard to get ben to use words!

lodz lectures samson that ben is a fugitive and he just gave him cash and a car. samson marks a man to have his wallet stolen. it's just a piece of chalk, it's super classy. and samson points out that most of the rousties are also fugitives.

and then there's a mini-fight about whether or not ben is a bumpkin. I do not understand why lodz is wearing a fur fez in the summer in texas while directly under the sun.

you can't pull one over on samson.

-

A MENTAL INSTITUTION, SOMEWHERE PROBABLY IN CALIFORNIA.

brother justin is sitting in a chair in an empty hall that's full of windows. when the camera pans around him, all of the other inmates are standing mutely in front of him. dude, it's creepy.

-

ben drives over to lobster gal's house, pretty pissed off. it looks creepy. there is serious deliverance-style banjo going on.

when he finds the lobster gal, she's signing a contract. it's the same guy that gave ben the bad directions.

-

appy is flipping out about the dancing offer. and sofie goes and rebels.

and then sofie brings up that she has no idea who her father is. so appy psychically slaps her. and then sofie slaps appy right back and storms off.

-

stumpy forgot to clear with his wife before he invited jonesy to get all up in her ladybusiness. rita sue doesn't fuck the rousties. it's just policy.

stumpy wants to make an exception. rita sue is totally on to stumpy's shit, she knows that jonesy didn't set it up.

rita sue worries about their marriage, stumpy says it won't effect anything, and then rita sue passive-aggressively says she'll do it.

and then sofie walks in.

-

A MENTAL INSTITUTION, SOMEWHERE PROBABLY IN CALIFORNIA.

an inmate is wailing like a siren. a radio is playing. the inmates just walk around.

brother justin looks perfectly happy, staring out the window. a nurse changes the radio to tommy dolan's 'true tales from the road.'

he's talking about brother justin. justin does not look pleased about this development. tommy dolan talks hyperbole about the biggest, most important question in all of california. brother justn says, "be still." everyone is silent. tommy dolan asks, "where are you, brother justin?"

he's standing in front of a window.

-

back in hickety hickville, lobster gal gets into another man's carnival truck. except his truck isn't a truck, it's a snazzy green convertible. he says, "no hard feelings," and ben sulks off. the dude offers ben a drink, 'cause freak finders got to stick together! he knows samson.

ben is unimpressed. but he is eventually convinced to shake the dude's hand. they start convulsing and ben gets a magical flash. there are swords crossing, people chanting, bloody feet in a pile, knights, fire, bells ringing, other ominous stuff, and then a head on a pike. the guy pulls his hand away and his ring is in ben's hand. it's a lodge ring. ben steals it. he drives away.

-

the carnival is running still. libby is helping sofie with her hair and makeup, but she's pissed.

libby's seen rita sue do it to gullible girls a lot. and she wants sofie to be smarter than that. and sofie just doesn't see it.

she thinks that rita sue wants her to dance because sofie makes libby happy. sofie says that she'll stop if libby asks her to, but libby doesn't.

-

ben's back at the gas station with the albino, filling up and I think putting water on his engine. he watches the family stuck on the side of the road.

a random dude starts accosting ben, trying to get him to buy a chair. because he needs the money for a tire. and the albino is super pissed with him for bugging the customers. ben doesn't like it when the albino slaps the man, so he offers to put all of his change from the $5 towards fixing the truck. he gives the guy another $5 and doesn't take the chair and drives off. (you know, 'cause he's innately good.)

but the guy sees a wanted poster with ben's name on it and grabs it.

-

it's dark when ben gets back to the carnival. lila's doing some mending and waiting outside for him.

and outside the cooch tent, stumpy's selling libby and sofie. sofie's made up to look like an oriental girl and hiding behind a fan.

jonesy notices sofie up on the stage and totally flips out. sofie is so busy trying to ignore jonesy that she doesn't notice when a random dude in the crowd grabs at her dress. but then the dude won't let go and he just keeps pulling until jonesy goes through the crowd and pulls him off. and then starts punching and won't stop.

samson comes over to break it up and flips out when he sees it's sofie. but then the asshole dress-grabber gets a free ticket out of his broken nose. and even stumpy's pissed off about how they used sofie.

-

sofie is back in the dressing room, washing off her makeup. she seems really scared, and libby's hovering. rita sue comes in and sends libby away.

she starts taking sofie's makeup off. she says, "I'm really sorry, but that can't happen again." (it's what happened to dora mae.)

it won't happen again because sofie won't ever work with them again.

sofie tries to blame it on jonesy distracting her, but rita sue gets really upset. because sofie's lucky to have someone like jonesy to care about her. sofie walks out.

-

samson's having a drink at a picnic table when ben stops over.

he just throws the envelope at samson and starts whining that he's ready to get yelled at, but just keep in mind that he knew that ben wasn't good at this kind of stuff and made him go anyway. (uugh, passive-aggression.)

and then ben starts talking about a weasel that gave him bad directions and stole the lobster gal right out from under him.

samson laughs and then ben realizes that the same weasel is sitting LITERALLY ACROSS THE TABLE FROM HIM. because he wants his magical vision ring back.

ben hands it to samson, samson laughs 'cause it's not even an especially valuable ring, but the guy, who's name is boffo, just loves it.

and there's a code! carnies don't steal from carnies.

except when it comes to talent, I guess.

the guy leaves. and samson looks in the envelope and finds it $10 short. but the fill-up only counts for $3.

and then ben has to explain that he spent the rest of the money that wasn't actually his to spend on a dirty hick that is going to rat his ass to the police. well, ben just says that he'll make it good.

and then samson uses his scary face and goes back to his drink.

-

jonesy stands outside the cooch tent for a while, considering. rita sue goes out to get him.

she's in a silky black nightie and she pulls her stockings off right in front of him. jonesy is super shy. and he thinks it's a bad idea, especially since he's never paid for sex before. and then rita sue goes and undoes his leg brace. then his pants, with some reassurance.

she looks at his knee for a while, and jonesy's ashamed. so then rita sue strokes his scars, and then very tenderly kisses it, all over. jonesy looks like he's going to cry. and she keeps kissing his mangled leg.

then they're both crying. and kissing. and then they're on the bed.

-

samson walks over to management's trailer and hears lodz inside. lodz is gossiping and laughing a lot.

when samson walks in, there is ominous music, and then a voice says, "samson, leave us."

oh no, you guys, shit just got bad.

also, samson looks really hurt. and his face just looks wounded. and he sees this templar badge, same as the ring, with H.S. (henry scudder) engraved into it.

-

AND THAT'S ALL, FOLKS.

aww, no iris. this is a really hard episode for me to write about. I found all of the plotlines super uncomfortable.

but whoa, is this ever a hugely important characterization episode.

now, let's talk some carnivale! (no future episode spoilers in the comments, please.)

YULETIDE!

smercy — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 04:07:33 GMT

DEAREST YULEGOAT!
warning: I wrote you a novel.

firstly, I'm sorry about the delay. this took me ages to write.

secondly, I ere on the side of giving way too much information. full disclosure! feel free to ignore if you want, but it's my personal preference to get as much information as possible.

my yuletide letters tend to be epic, especially last year's. this is my third yuletide, and all of my past letters should be here under the "yuletide letter" tag. they'll have even more about which other fandoms I like and why, in case that's helpful. also, they'll have probably more overlapping details about what kind of stuff I like.

important: I have a serious trigger regarding consent issues. my story should not have any kind of consent issues in it, even if they're in a gray area. (with a possible exception for LFN that I'll explain in that request section.) also, anything regarding choking is a huge trigger. please please please don't trigger me.

-notes about me and my story preferences!

--things I like:

female characters with agency. I tend to super like strong female characters, but this is not exclusive. I do not need my ladies to have guns and be super assertive, they can also be quiet and shy. the most important thing for me is that when a lady does something, she does it because it is what she wants, not because it's what the plot requires. I basically watch tv for women, and I'm serious about this. I can't watch shows that include no women at all, or even team shows were the ladies are around as stock characters.

(I'm not especially ship-focused, but I have ships. everybody does. there are only three couples that I feel protective about and would be upset if they were split up or with someone else, and I didn't request any of them for yuletide, so that isn't relevant. unless I specifically say, 'do not ship this,' I'm okay if you do and want to add that in there.)

if there is going to be romance, I'm generally pretty open to it. I don't dislike it unless it is the focus of the story before the characters. but here's the deal, if characters are kissing, I want them to be kissing because they both want it. I find mutual attraction super hot. I like it when people really thoroughly enjoy the kissing that they're doing.

genfic! I am a really big fan of character studies. I like my fics to be about characterization more than about plot or kissing. I especially like fics that are about pointing out new angles and perspectives on the original canon.

in terms of tone, I tend to enjoy the darker end of the spectrum. super peppy treacley fics really annoy me more than emo angstfests (although I don't want either.) humor is really tricky to do, although I'm totally good with light and fluffy humor fics where damon gets a puppy or something. I just need it to be character-based. and all of the fandoms I chose this year are dark in tone, so I can't really see a fic where everything is shiny and happy and wonderful. there needs to be realism in there.

competence! I really like it when characters are good at what they do. even if, like elena of tvd, it is being the most stable, awesome friend. doesn't have to be superpowers. I just like people being awesome at their jobs, and I especially like when other characters notice that and acknowledge it somehow, even if it's silent acknowledgment.

in regards to ratings: I'm cool with most ratings, that's why I didn't pick one. explicit sex is fine. explicit violence is fine. g-rated fic is fine. what I really want is for the rating to match what the story requires. just go with what the story is, I don't care what that ends up being.

in regards to shipping preferences: I'll read f/m, f/f, m/m and threesomes, no problem. I have no preferences there. (well, I tend to not read a lot of slash, but that's just because female characters are so important to me. if there's a way to have a slash pairing that involves ladies and ladies being awesome, I am all for it!) and the ultimate ship of my heart is justin/iris from carnivale, and they're canon consensual brother/sister incest. so I am not opposed to incest in principle, but I only actually enjoy mutually-desired consensual incest, if that makes sense.

conflict! even if the conflict is "should I go to the grocery store or not?", I want there to be conflict in the fic. something has to happen. no matter if it's saving the world with a toothpick. I just want there to be some kind of conflict, something to accomplish.

other random things that I like: the five things structure. robots, especially robots trying to learn how to be human. dance parties. hugs. the concept of devotion and what that does to a person. secrets, especially secret motivation. plotlines that run diagonally to the plot of the original text.

--things I dislike:

procedurals. I can't deal with the formulaic unchangingness of them.

grammar issues. it's nitpicky, but I can't help it. (especially putting apostrophes where there should be plurals. drives me fucking batty.)

writing in the second person. also, I tend to dislike first person. and I don't like present tense. if you don't feel comfortable writing in third person past tense and you're sure that you need present tense to express what's happening, I'm sure you can sell me on it. but please only do it if you honestly feel like it's necessary for the story.

hurt/comfort, bodyswap, genderswap, mpreg, gratuitous angst, and bodily fluids.

(when I say I don't like genderswap and bodyswap, I mean to say that I don't like the traditional fandom trope. if you want to write a story about a trans character or someone struggling with gender identity, I think that would be super awesome. but I wouldn't like a fic where two characters woke up in switched bodies or woke up a different gender.)

also, I really really dislike romantic relationships with a power imbalance. whether it's a big age difference or because one person is underage, or even if it's a teacher/student or mentor/mentee or boss/employee relationship. if a power imbalance would make it so that one person could be pressured into staying in an unhealthy relationship, I don't want it. (this gets a little wonky with LFN, but I'll explain in the LFN section.)

fics forced into boxes. I like organic stories. please don't try to force everything I like into the fic, even if it doesn't make sense for the story. if things run counter to what I requested, that's fine. I'd rather you write a story that you're proud of, the story that makes sense, than something that's been edited to fit a list of my tickyboxes.

again: non-consent. (this is a big deal for me. I'm saying it a lot, but I just want to make it very very clear. not that I'm worried, just that I want to be super clear. this is the most important thing to me personally.)

oh, and I also hate -isms. (sexism, racism, classism, bashing of any kind, especially lgbtq bashing.) if possible, I would not like there to be any isms in the plot, whether it's a pov character blindly hating on another group or a peripheral character being sexist in the background. I'd just rather not go there. I mean, if it's important to the story, that's okay. but please please please be sensitive about it.

ABOUT THE FICS.

I chose dark fandoms this year. lost girl is the fluffiest, but that show is definitely not actually fluffy. it's just kind of cheesy and canadian. dark stuff is happening in all four of the fandoms.

if in doubt, I really like things dark, twisty, complex and messy.

I'll put fandom notes under the original requests, which will be in italics.

1. Lost Girl

I would really like a fic where Kenzi is awesome and Kenzi-like. Going through the wacky Lost Girl verse being all awesome. I really don't care if Bo is having a romance in the background, but I do not want that to be a focus, I don't particularly ship Bo with anyone. I like the Bo and Kenzi to be friendshippy and not romantic but I guess that the only way I could see them getting it on would be through magical sex pollen or something. But basically, I just want Kenzi doing something awesome a lot.

I watch lost girl for kenzi. she is my favorite. I love all of her catchphrases. but most of all, I love how devoted she is to her friends. in 1.09, even when she had the crush on the doomed guy, she told him to go after his barmaid crush and genuinely rooted for him. kenzi always wants the absolute best for her friends and is so genuinely glad when the get it, even if it runs contrary to what she wants. I love that about her.

I don't have any specific ideas about what I want kenzi doing. it could be kenzi going grocery shopping and getting sidetracked by a vampire. it could be kenzi getting a ghost boyfriend. it could be bo kidnapped by a random fae and kenzi having to go all detective and save her ass. honestly, I'm okay with all levels of plot on this one. even if it's a slumber party with dyson.

the only important request I have is that somewhere in the fic, I want kenzi and bo to hug.

2. The Vampire Diaries (tv)

I love these women. So I would like to have a fic where they all team up and fight crime. (Even if Katherine is super reluctant and snarky about it.) Or they could have a road trip. I just want them to have teamwork and bonding and snarky banter. I am cool with Damon being around, but I do not at all ship Damon/Elena, so I wouldn't like anything shippy going on there. And really, I love every female character. Stick them all in there if you want!

here's the deal: I love literally every lady on this show. my favorite character is anna, but I couldn't figure out how she would fit in to a group adventure, so I didn't ask for her. I also love lexie. the boys are more complicated.

the boys are more tricky. I don't like jeremy. I don't like tyler. I don't like the werewolves. (well, don't like is kind of harsh. it's just that I care about them 5000% less than everybody else.) I'd prefer to just not read about them, or have them minimized. I don't ship bonnie/jeremy, it kind of bugs me. I'm pretty sure that tyler is the right guy for jeremy. I think alaric is super cool, I like how steady and competant he is. but I don't ship him with damon.

damon. okay, so here's the deal. I find him fucking hilarious. and he's a really interesting character. and he is probably the character I enjoy watching the most (after katherine and caroline) because dude makes the best faces. and is very witty. but I do not ship damon/elena. at all. the only way I could get behind damon and elena kissing is if they were having a threesome with stefan. (I'd totally ship that.) I am not a big fan of damon in a romantic relationship with anybody, I don't see how he could handle that. but it would be super awesome if he was made mayor.

stefan! I really really like him. he's the best vampire boyfriend ever. I think that stefan/elena is not creepy, and I love how he respects elena's feelings and agency and how much of a wonderful, supportive friend he is. dude is noble and honorable and kind of dorky, and I dig that. (also, I do not mind stefan/damon, there is more than enough subtext on the show.)

about my request: caroline is amazing. bonnie is amazing. elena is amazing. and I love katherine. I think that katherine would add a really awesome layer of conflict to that dynamic. I love all of these women for exactly what they are. (awesome.) and the trio's friendship, even though it's strained in s2, is just super amazing. I'd like to see more of that. I'd like them to have a plot of their own. fluffy, cracky, angsty, whatever. I'm cool with alternate universes and time travel and you can set it on the moon if you want. just, you know, group bonding.

3. Fringe

I love Nina. I would like a fic about Nina from her POV. I don't care if it's pre-series or post-series or AltNina in the AltVerse or anything during the series. I can see her shipped with anybody but Peter and Walter. I just really really really want something where Nina is awesome. (Preferably interacting with some of the other women on the cast.) Morally gray behavior would be a super bonus, too.

I watch fringe for nina. it's hard, 'cause nina is in 2/5ths of the episodes and is usually only around for one scene, but I just love her so much. and the fandom usually ignores her. it's hard. I want more fic about nina.

here's the deal: I would like to read fic about nina with any of the main fringe cast (alternates included) (except maybe charlie, [and lincoln] because I don't see how that would work.) I'm cool with shipping her with anybody not a bishop. nina/broyles is probably my favorite, but I also love her relationship with olivia.

I'm not picky about the plot. even if it's a day in the life of running massive dynamic, I'd love it. nina sharp has a fucking robot arm. and she basically runs microsoft by herself. and she keeps all of the secrets. she always has her own agenda. and she is fucking brilliant. that's what's important to me.

4. La Femme Nikita

Madeline is my favorite. I would like a fic where Madeline is super awesome. Either pre-series or post-series when she has faked her death and is running shit in secret somewhere, please. Well, I would also like fic from the show canon, but not as much as something pre or post-series. I can ship her with anybody, so long as she's not turned into "the girlfriend". And I'm being really vague, but I would even be cool with a fic where she kicked puppies and then insulted Betty White. (Although that wouldn't be my first choice.) In summary: MADELINE DOING STUFF.

I love madeline. she is one of my all-time favorite fictional characters. and then the nikita remake came out and there was julie cooper playing the madeline role and it broke my heart, because she was nowhere near as awesome.

the thing about madeline is that she is terrifying. she strikes terror into the hearts of everyone that crosses her. and she's calm and collected about it. but there is always payback. and there are consequences. and she only gives one warning.

when I was trying to recruit all of my friends to watch this show, I described it as "bill adama and his emotionless robot girlfriend run alias in the dollhouse." and I stand by that. the show is such an interesting mix of cheese and absolute moral bleakness, I love it.

I can see madeline shipped with most people. but not birkhoff or walter, I really do not care about those two. I especially like madeline/operations and madeline/nikita. when I watched the show, I tended to only laugh at michael. I don't find him sexy. I don't ship nikita/michael. (and I disliked the sex police plotline.) I also think that her relationships with the old regime at section is super interesting, especially her relationship with adrian. (and her relationship with her husband.)

I don't want the fic to be about madeline learning that feelings are good after all! (especially if it's 'a christmas carol'-style) I think madeline is perfect just the way she is and she doesn't need to change. she is cold and she can turn her emotions on and off like a switch and she doesn't really like other people. and she is the most fucking competent person ever.

about madeline/operations. forget everything I said about power imbalances. their power balance is totally fucked up. it is a relationship where he could order her killed at any moment. but at the same time, madeline is the one who really holds the power. she knows all of his secrets and he wouldn't actually kill her. she could get out at any time. the power imbalance does not bug me, and I found "three eyed turtle" amazing and fascinating.

and because this is spying and espionage of an especially dark sort, consent gets into a gray area. I am okay with a plotline where someone would have to have sex with another person they don't want to fuck because the job depends on it. I'm not okay with someone being raped on the job. basically: if it's uncomfortable but for the job, I'm okay with it. but outside of that, I'm not.

I firmly believe that madeline faked her death at the end of season 4. I am cool with a fic where madeline does anything in any time period. it would be nice to get a mixture, but that's not necessary. I just want fic where madeline is awesome a lot. anything else is up to you.

in conclusion: I know I wrote a novel. I'm sorry if it was information overload. I believe in trying to be as clear as possible. anon commenting is turned on if you have any questions.

and I know that it is going to be impossible to get literally everything that I like. and I am perfectly fine with that. except for the consent issues, I don't really have any firm desires. please just write the story that you are inspired to write, I'm just glad to be getting the fic.

thank you.

carnivale watch: 1.07

smercy — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 02:33:56 GMT

THIS IS CARNIVALE WATCH, NOT YOUR MOMMA.

episode 1.07 - the river
everything after this sentence could contain a spoiler for this episode and everything before it.

content warnings: slut-shaming, assault, graphic injuries, graphic but absurd magical violence.

the river!
(the episode that made me love this show.)
(for the second fucking time. I am very bitter about this, and sorry that the quality's gone down so much.)

-

brother justin is standing on a bridge, disheveled, looking down.

he opens his arms and it turns into a horribly effect-heavy flashback sequence. his life, the ministry, his pain.

a cop tries to talk him down, says, "no matter how bad you think it is, there's nothing happened to you that hasn't happened to somebody else."

justin glares at him and then swan dives off of the bridge and into a river.

-

ruthie calls ben over and asks him if he'd like to go snake hunting. well, of course he would. (oh look, he's got one in his pants!)

rita sue and stumpy are sitting at the table. rita sue wants to make him feel better, but stumpy's not having any of it.

libby's bleached and cut her hair. it looks a bit marilyn monroe-esque, it's very white. rita sue HATES it. she throws a fit. but stumpy likes it.

everybody deliberately doesn't speak about dora mae.

stumpy asks what would make libby happy. she wants to leave. she wants to go to hollywood, just like every pretty girl wants to.

stumpy says to start packing.

-

MINTERN, CALIFORNIA.

iris is in her brother's room. she places his bible on his nightstand. she picks up his coat and snuggles it before putting it away. there is a doorbell, but iris goes to under justin's bed. she pulls out his briefcase.

and then she fondles justin's whip, smelling him on it. that's when eleanor the former slot machine walks in and tells iris that she has a caller.

iris is flustered. she puts the whip away and takes a long breath.

it's tommy dolan sitting on their couch. he's a reporter, not a minister like he lied. eleanor doesn't like lying liars who lie. iris sends eleanor away, but iris is curt.

but when he mentions that he saw justin, iris visibly softens. she asks about her brother. tommy says that justin was unshaven and in need of a bath. (TOTAL MENTAL BREAKDOWN, YOU GUYS. brother justin is always immaculately groomed!) tommy mentions that they were passing a bottle and iris very sweetly interjects, "no, my brother doesn't drink."

there is a shipment of mail, and tommy rifles through it. one letter contains $5, and there are huge piles of letters all around.

awesome tiny little detail: eleanor's son with the overalls and the crazy beard who plays accordian is sitting at the table sorting the mail. and when iris dismisses him, he takes an apple from their decorative centerpiece. (these migrants are hungry.)

tommy offended iris by asking about the money, so he tries to make it up to her by talking about how justin revealed that they had many troubles with the town. and offering to use his magic reporter penis to fix the problems for her.

iris, because she is incredibly smart, asks what he'll be getting out of the deal.

tommy's stated reasoning goes like this: big stories = more listeners = more renown = more money = more hookers.

iris says that he should go to church. but she wasn't flirting and he was. so she flees. (she really only likes her brother, you know.)

-

A RIVERBANK, SOMEWHERE IN CALIFORNIA.

there's a fade from white into a slow pan of brother justin laying partially in a river. his leg is mangled beyond use. two children are watching him from behind a downed tree. he falls into unconsciousness.

he wakes up, he is on his stomach, this time, fully on the banks. the children are still staring. it's a girl and her younger brother, and they are in formal clothes. justin crawls to them, calling, "I need help."

the girl whispers something to the boy and they walk toward him. the girl says, "why do you chase us? where are the others?"

justin says that it is very important that they tell their parents that he is injured and he needs help. he asks for their mother. she says, "my mother is dead." he asks for their father. she says, "my father's an evil man."

they run away.

brother justin can't chase them. he collapses to the ground.

-

ruthie and ben are walking alone in a big, empty field. ben says that he does not understand the appeal of snake dancing, you know, because it's unnatural.

but ruthie knows what it's all about. "something about watching a woman handle a snake. makes a man downright percolated. probably goes back to the serpent in the garden. garden of eden."

ben starts reciting chapters of the bible. his mum read some to him every day. but now ben is done with that. well, you guys, this does explain why ben reacts to every instance of magic and even regular carnival life with shock, disgust and treating everything like it is unnatural and a sin.

ruthie changes the subject back to snakes. she tells a story about how she accidentally picked a poisonous snake. and it bit her. and she almost died. but thankfully, henry scudder was there to save her! (with his magical penis.)

ruthie tries to show ben where he touched her. (on the forehead, you pervs!) but ben flinches away. he doesn't like to be touched. ruthie does not approve, so she touches him again, but more gently, and accidentally lingers on his lips.

ben looks totally snake charmed but has no clue what to do about it.

-

rita sue is extremely skeptical of this hollywood business. you know, 'cause she's the practical one.

stumpy is refusing to listen to logic or anything practical. he just wants to get out and then sort everything else later.

but rita sue knows that if they leave without another job lined up, they'll go straight to homelessness. she's gonna put on a show. she wants him to help her, but stumpy says, "she ain't but two weeks in the ground."

rita sue leaves and stumpy keeps packing.

-

libby and sofie sit on the empty still carousel, talking about girl things. libby's hair, hollywood, famous actresses. libby shares a birthday with thelma todd, it's her icebreaker.

libby tells her that they're leaving tomorrow. and sofie's heart breaks a lot. just as she's found a friend, she's lost her. and sofie wants to go too.

but when libby asks, sofie offers a free tarot reading, smiling.

-

lila the bearded lady and lodz are up to mischief walking around the carnival. they happen upon ben touching up ruthie's old snake charming ad. (painting with whatever passed for paint in the 30s, with a paintbrush that's probably more like a dull stick, on a vertical piece of canvas that has no backing support and is fluttering in the wind.)

lodz stops to bug ben about being his padawan some more. (he's wearing what looks like a fuzzy fleece fez.)

ben says, "would you tell your blind old granddaddy here that I ain't interested and I never will be?" I have to admit, I snorted. lodz is NOT grandfatherly towards lila.

so lodz gets pissed and offers ben THE TRUTH about scudder and ruthie. (they were porking it.) (come on, the show wasn't exactly subtle about it before this.) and then lodz proceeds to slut-shame the fuck out of ruthie. says that she rewarded scudder for saving her life with her magical ladybits. and that's how she rewards every other man that helps her. D: (ruthie has standards, you guys! slut-shaming is so uncool.)

well, this hurts ben's feelings, so he stomps away.

-

and then conveniently stomps right into ruthie and big gabe, full of moral indignation.

summarizing!

ben: OMG YOU FUCKED SCUDDER YOU WHORE.
ruthie: what did you say?
ben: I KNOW IT'S TRUE.
ruthie: NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS.
ben: I'm making it my business, since you obviously sleep with every drunk loser you find on the side of the road!
ruthie: I DON'T ANSWER TO YOU, LOSER.
ben: YOU'VE BEEN LYING TO ME.
ruthie: YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING.
ben: LYING WHORE.

and ruthie spends most of that time trying to get in between the boys so that they don't brawl, but big gabe just keeps getting progressively more and more upset that ben is insulting his momma.

so there's a brawl. which ben starts. and big gabe mostly just throws ben over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. and then he lets ben down when his momma tells him to. and that's when ben shoves big gabe into a tent pole and the rousties show up.

big gabe gets hurt pretty badly. he starts crying, and he looks all of five years old.

-

MINTERN, CALIFORNIA. (unfortunately, not with justin or iris.)

mr tommy dolan is interviewing val templeton for his radio show. (val's the pudgy asshole who justin went all darth vader on.)

he starts by buttering val up, but that does not last for very long.

in the crowe house, iris is sitting in justin's chair, doing needlepoint and listening to the radio.

when tommy brings up the troubles the ministry had with city council and how city council is still cockblocking them, tommy gets all passive-aggressive in the best way. "all of the listeners are concerned about the whereabouts of brother justin. aren't you concerned?"

and that's when val tries to weasel his way out of the interview. but tommy dolan got street cred for a reason. and he's all, "so what about the investigation into who committed the arson and killed those six innocent children?" and then, "how much will city council be contributing to the church rebuilding fund?" (val thinks nothing.)

and then tommy essentially blackmails him into paying at least $3000 to the ministry. it's pretty fucking badass.

-

THE RIVERBANK.

it's nighttime. brother justin is leaning on a log, and he's in paaain.

the children have returned. he wakes up when he hears them. the girl says, "you're a bad men. my father sent you to kill us." her accent is very thick.

justin's leg is still mangled. he just wants help! (and his sister!) the girl says, "you lie. mother told us you would. that we could not trust anyone but man of god."

what a coincidence! justin is totally one of those! but when he tells the children, they don't believe him. and that's when they hear voices in the distance.

brother justin calls out to them, but before he can say much of anything, the girl bashes him into unconsciousness with a rock.

-

carnival goings-on are going on at the carnival.

sofie reads libby's tarot card.

we don't see the first card. the second card is the fool.
(sofie says that it's good, that it means you're lighthearted and free.)

the third card is the chariot, but it's reversed. (sofie says that doesn't mean anything.)
(sofie says that it means that she's destined for fame. but reversed means the opposite.)

apollonia does not approve of the lying. but sofie won't hear anything bad about libby.

-

samson and rita sue are hanging out in her trailer.

rita sue just danced the cooch all by herself for 2 hours with no help. and her financial contribution totally put the carnival into earning.

rita sue's not hooking at all tonight, because she wants to spend some quality time with her husband. (convincing him to stay. with her womanly charms.) she reapplies her makeup and puts on some perfume. then. a sexy nightgown.

she puts a red pig outside of the tent.

-

libby sees the red pig and turns away. (it's a signal. it means rita sue wants to get porked.)

she finds sofie, who's sleeping in the back of a truck with some blankets. libby crawls in under the blankets. and they snuggle. it's AMAZING.

they're all giggly like girls. libby asks sofie about her birthday, but sofie doesn't know her birthday. apollonia became so sick immediately after giving birth to sofie, and she doesn't remember anything about it, except that there were cherry trees blooming. so sofie picks a new birthday every year.

sofie is trying really hard not to cry. she doesn't want libby to go. and libby wants sofie to come with them. (she says that sofie's mom can be taken care of by the carnival.) she says that sofie deserves better.

-

rita sue can see someone approaching the tent, and she fixes her tits so they look their most alluring.

but when stumpy sees the red pig, he turns around and walks away.

jonesy finds stumpy sitting on a high seat on the ferris wheel, drunk off his ass. stumpy climbed up, got drunk, and now can't get down. (or stop giggling.)

stumpy offers jonesy a drink, and they both start drinking. but a few seconds later, stumpy gets melancholy.

he says, "every which way I turn, I see my little girl." of course he wouldn't want to stay.

-

ruthie leaves her trailer. she says, "I'll be right back, sweetie."

big gabe says, "okay, momma." big gabe is just a sweet little 5 year old trapped in a giant's body.

ben's been lurking outside of the trailer. you know, to apologize. for breaking gabe's wrist and endangering his life (infection) and his ability to make a living. but ben's totally sorry, so that'll fix it, right?

ruthie says, "that means exactly less than nothing to me right now." YOU PREACH IT, RUTHIE.

ben's all, "what you said before? you were totally right. I get it, that wasn't my business."

and ruthie's all, "I don't answer to no man. never have, and ain't gonna start now."

and then she basically says that ben can accept that or he can suck it. and leaves. because ruthie is MADE OF AWESOME.

-

MINTERN, CALIFORNIA.

there is a shot of a record player, which pans to a bottle of wine, which pans to iris and tommy dolan sitting on her couch.

they're listening to val templeton promise to donate money. iris is thrilled. she turns over to him, beaming, then realizes what she's doing and turns right back.

dude is using his bedroom eyes. and then iris is all, "thanks for bringing the recording. I'm sorry I missed it, but I was in prayer." awww, iris crowe is manipulative to her very core and tommy is eating it up.

he really really wants her to get sloshed so that he can stick his tongue down her throat. and then he says this frankly amazing gem of a pickup line:

"jesus turned water into wine. that's quite an endorement in my book." JESUS WANTS YOU TO GET WASTED.

so iris has a little more. she says, "I feel decadent." but totally ignores him when he tries to flirt harder. he wants her to tell him a story. but iris says that she's very simple. (iris = the center of justin's entire life. justin = the center of iris's entire life.)

she says, "I'm actually very simple. I live my life trusting the lord."

but then she gets a little too drunk and decides to tell tommy a toooootally completely made up story that has nothing to do with her at all.

(with convenient flashbacks to justin on the banks of the river.)

"there were two children. a boy, a girl. immigrants from russia. and they were traveling with their mother, by train. one night, there was a terrible accident. a bridge collapsed and the train went down into to the water. there were no survivors, except the boy and the girl. by god's divine mercy, they surivived, washed up on a riverbank. they were pursued. a man was sent to kill them. the girl fought to protect her brother. and then the day came when the boy had to protect his sister."

(iris did not use any of brother justin's rhetorical flourish.)

-

this transitions SEAMLESSLY into brother justin on the riverbank.

he's alone with the little boy. he tries to charm him.

when that doesn't work, he says, "your sister has been very, very bad. she's getting both of you in a lot of trouble. when people find me, I will tell them what you have done. and you will be punished. you will be beaten. (something in russian that makes the boy flinch.) but you're a good boy, you're a good boy, I can see that. I know you want to do right. I know you want to help me. don't worry about her, don't worry. you're the man of the family, take charge."

excellent manipulation skillz, brother justin, but perhaps you shouldn't have tried to stick a wedge between them.

because that's when the girl whacks brother justin in the mangled leg with a stick. but he grabs the stick and pulls until he has her off-balance, and he then grabs her by the neck and squeezes.

the boy screams, "irina!"

brother justin demands that he go and fetch help and continues to choke the girl. she cries, "alexsei!"

and that's when his eyes get very dark. and his face becomes tense, and brother justin is thrown back. he drops the girl. and then his head starts to twist backwards until his chin is past his shoulder with a snap.

and he's dead.

-

CALIFORNIA.

brother justin is still standing on the bridge.

he's dazed. says, "I killed him." he doesn't notice when a cop pulls him down from the ledge.

brother justin mutters, "this was not visited upon me. this is my birthright." he keeps muttering about his birthright as the cop drags him away.

-

MINTERN, CALIFORNIA.

tommy is mesmerized by iris's story. (also, her face.)

iris tries to say that it's a parable. and then goes immediately to, "in russia, there's a saying." (perhaps she should've picked a different country for the immigrant children to be from?) and then amy madigan mangles some russian.

but it means, "pray to god, but row for shore."

iris believes in faith and action together. because she is fucking badass. and then she gets a little bit teary, because she misses her brother.

faith and action is how she lives her life.

-

next morning at the carnival, rita sue is not here to make friends. she goes up to stumpy hungover and asleep on the breakfast table and throws a piece of paper at him, demanding that he write an ad for a new cooch girl.

because they need one. DORA MAAAAE.

stumpy says he won't, because they're leaving that day.

rita sue says that they're not.

stumpy says that he is.

rita sue tells him that he isn't. and then she flounces, totally confident.

-

ben and big gabe walk through an empty field. ben leads them to a pond and they both walk in up to their waists.

ben tells big gabe to trust him, and that he can't tell anybody, because this is a secret.

and then be puts his hand on gabe's wrist and heals him.

gabe doesn't trust the wrist at first, but soon he's smiling. that's when the dead fish start to rise around them in droves.

it's the two of them, and the empty lake, and all of the fish that ben's powers have killed.

-

rita sue is smoking on the carousel. she looks completely unconcerned.

samson walks over to her, wanting to hear about what's going on with the leaving business. he's seen stumpy packing.

but rita sue's still sure. she knows her husband.

samson takes the moment to apologize about what happened to dora mae. he says that he blames himself because he didn't fight management more. but rita sue says that it's her fault, because she decided to do the blow-off. they're both just sad and regretful.

rita sue says that the only thing that gets to her is that dora mae's murderer is still out there. samson says, "no, he ain't."

rita sue's face, you guys.

-

sofie is packing a bag, not listening when her mother says that she won't be going.

-

the three of them strap their luggage to the car and get inside. libby is wearing a jaunty red beret, and they are all grinning.

from the rearview mirror, stumpy can see rita sue sitting on the carousel. he stops.

libby begs him to go. but stumpy says that tomorrow will be better.

they're not gonna go.

he says, "tomorrow," and gets out of the car.

libby yells, "you promised, you son of a bitch."

and sofie climbs into the front seat, offers to drive just the two of them. but libby's not leaving without her dad. so they're not going.

-

ben and gabe walk back into the carnival. ben waits until they're well into the carnival limits before he quickly has gabe put his arm back into the sling. UGH. that was stupid.

so stupid that lila saw it.

-

sofie walks back into her trailer. it's dark like a funeral parlor in there. appy says that she told her so.

sofie replies, "I'll tell you something, mother, you don't know everything."

-

lila tells lodz about how ben fixed big gabe's arm.

THIS COULD HAVE BEEN FIXED HAD BEN NOT BEEN RIDICULOUSLY THICK.

at least gabe has an excuse. and is sweet. and bathes. and never calls ruthie a whore.

anyway, lodz is pleased with this development. so he starts spanking lila.

-

MINTERN, CALIFORNIA.

there is a single light on in the crowe house. and the phone is ringing.

iris runs out of bed with her hair down. she sounds desperate for news.

justin is on the other side of the phone. he says, "privyet, ira."

ira is the diminutive form of irina.

she exhales, "alexsei!" then, "justin, where are you?"

"you always knew what was inside of me," he says. and then hangs up.

and violins start to wail in the background.

iris looks heartbroken. she turns off the light and walks back upstairs.

on the staircase, there is an old photograph or maybe even daguerreotype, and it is of the two children from justin's vision standing with a young priest.

it's justin, iris, and norman.

(iris wasn't actually telling a parable.)

-

OMG THIS EPISODE.

I would like to point out, in the way of faults, that they reveal that justin and iris are irina and alexsei, the children from justin's vision four different times. the show is not especially a fan of subtle mythology.

on the other hand: omg.

the thing that I would like to talk about is that justin and iris are orphans. they were orphaned young children, taken in by a minister (norman) and raised in the church.

when justin looks at the children, the orphaned migrants, he is seeing himself and his sister. all of the time. the dead orphans represent that justin has grown to fulfill norman's role of protector, but that he has failed. and the children like him have been punished for it.

also, don't mess with a crowe. they will fuck you up.

GOOD EPISODE. now, let's talk some carnivale! (no future episode spoilers in the comments, please.)

carnivale watch: 1.06

smercy — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 21:42:02 GMT

THIS IS CARNIVALE WATCH, NOT A UNICORN!

episode 1.06 - pick a number
everything after this sentence could contain a spoiler for this episode and everything before it.

content advisory: I don't know what to put in here. basically, dealing with character death, graphic offscreen mauling by circus bear, attempted murder, murder, and super bad stuff happening to a character that doesn't deserve it.

pick a number.
(when in doubt, pick a low number.)

-

previously: dora mae was murdered and I still cry a little when I see it.

we open with jonesy's face as he blows bubbles underwater. (this seems like a pretty weird choice to establish as a point of view character considering that this is the episode that deals with dora mae's death and he's not related to her at all or anything.)

anyway, jonesy's having a flashback and you can tell that because the camera is deliberately blurry and the audio is murky. he's being held down by four men as a dude in a random baseball hat (I don't know the team) brings a baseball bat down hard onto his knee.

and then jonesy rises gasping and glistening from the barrel of water, obviously freaked out. also, wearing old fashioned underpants. (hee) and he's alone. he stumbles into a tent and hops over to see that jonesy is sitting vigil over his daughter's body.

"harlot" was carved into her forehead.

jonesy, still dripping, puts on his leg brace. gecko comes over, yelling about how the show is shutting down and now it's impossible for him to make a decent living and so on. but dora mae's dead.

dora mae was the character closest to gecko. and he screams as he sees her.

-

rita sue stumbles through the ranks of silent miners, screaming for libby.

there is something about the way she screams that makes my heart hurt, still. I was sure that rita sue screamed for a few minutes, but when I counted how long it was, the scene was 18 seconds.

libby yells, "yeah, momma?"

and then rita sue has some misplaced anger. and so she slaps libby and then hugs her and starts crying.

-

"I've got 500 men here, how am I supposed to find out who killed your whore?"

she wasn't a whore, she was DORA MAE. this is the bit that kills me the most, that other people could hear about her death and completely dismiss it because she worked in the cooch tent. she was dora mae, and she was the nice sister. and she deserved so much better than what she got.

samson says, "I don't care if you find the right guy or not. you pick him. could be the killer, could be you. we don't rightly care. someone stands tall before the wagon."

samson gives the guy until morning to pick a miner to come to justice, and the miner laughs.

then jonesy asks samson what management said about dora mae. (still thinking that samson is management.)

samson doesn't answer and then asks if jonesy's sober. he's sober enough.

samson calls for a head count to make sure they're not missing anybody else.

and then jonesy says, "no more of this management crap, just say what you want." jonesy won't take any of samson's excuses, says he's been in managment's trailer and it's empty.

and then jonesy stomps off.

-

lodz is still waiting in front of the tunnel, shivering with cold.

-

jonesy comes back with the headcount, and lodz and ben are the only ones missing.

managment said that they shouldn't worry about those two, 'cause management is PSYCHIC.

they finish the managment conversation pretty rationally. samson points out that it's crazily elaborate and has gone on for several years.

and then points out that management is magic and won't be seen unless he chooses to be seen. he can totally do that.

jonesy still doesn't believe him. (and the plotline tires me.) BECAUSE DUDE YOU LIVE IN A MAGIC CARNIVAL AND YOU ARE FRIENDS WITH SOFIE.

-

MINTERN CALIFORNIA

the camera has a slow tracking shot through the burned wreckage of brother justin's church.

brother justin reads:

and it came to pass after these things that god did tempt abraham. and said unto him, "abraham, take thy son, thine only son, isaac, and offer him for sacrifice on the mountain which I will tell thee."

and then he says:

"but you spared us, why not the children? I know you have your reasons. please, tell me your plan. help me understand how their deaths serve your purpose."

he's sitting in the dark in the middle of the room in a fancy chair. and completely wrecked.

there's a noise and he turns and sees the children, alive and whole in the doorway. and his face opens and he looks delirious with happiness.

but when he walks over to them, they dissolve into the dark. and then he starts shouting, shouting all alone to the heavens, "tell me what you want me to do!"

iris hears and calls to him. she says, "come home, it's late. I made you something to eat." her voice is very soft, like he's a wounded animal.

justin growls, "leave me." and when she doesn't, he screams, "now!"

this is probably the first time he's ever yelled at her in his entire life. and she just quietly walks out.

-

breaking news: ben's still in the fucking mine shaft. but he has a fancy flashlight headband. this time isn't as prettily lighted, I'm afraid. and now the mine is dripping water!

he walks into a wooden underground enclosure with walls like a house. and a window, and from the window he can see a battle, and hear explosions in the backgrund, and he steps through the window.

and now he's wearing a uniform. he puts a helmet on his head and starts walking through the piles of dead bodies. something is gnawing at a man's course.

so ben grabs a rifle. and from another angle, we can see the soldier from the diner dream. he aims at the solider in the helmet (ben) but misses his chance when an escaped circus bear comes toward ben and ben falls on the ground in helplessness trying to aim his weapon. the dream guy shoots the bear, which is still wearing its jaunty red hat.

and then the bear turns on him. and totally begins mauling him. and then ben runs away.

and he runs into lodz, calling out for his bear. "have you seen my bear?"

and then he wakes up.

-

ben was asleep on the ground in front of lodz, in front of a mine shaft. his formal overalls do not look especially dirty.

-

someone is washing dora mae in a basin, and the water keeps getting redder.

libby says that she never wanted a sister she just wanted a brother.

gecko is washing dora mae's hair, stumpy is still watching his vigil, and the conjoined twins are painting dora mae's nails.

sofie sits outside with libby and they smoke. libby wanted twin brothers. named ed and fred, who would play football and join the army. but she got dora mae. she didn't know what to do with a sister, they just faught all the time.

sofie says, "bad things happen in this world." libby takes a drink.

libby says that she's leaving as soon as the carnival goes. she's going to go to hollywood.

sofie cries and hugs her and they are very quiet.

-

ben and lodz in the badly-lit night!

lodz is pestering ben about his magic dream. ben still has the "tavaratavaratavara" written on his arm. but he won't say anything to lodz.

and then he leaves lodz alone to stumble toward the carnival.

-

it's the next morning. jonesy is sitting on the steps to management's trailer. samson asks if jonesy's drinking again.

it looks that way. samson looks to see his hands before he gives him a rifle and a box of shells.

-

ruthie and lila are all dressed up, dressing dora mae's corpse in silk.

ruthie talks to her like she's still there, talking about how she got the silk and wrapping dora mae in it. they've been using that silk for years.

and the tiniest little details hurt. lila says, "remember that little silk g-string I made you with the roses on it? well that was from this silk right here."

stumpy and rita sue are smoking and watching.

stumpy says, "don't cover her face." it's bad luck to lay a body to rest with her face uncovered. but jonesy wants everybody to see what they did to his little girl.

rita sue gives her husband a pistol and tells him to bring someone back for revenge.

-

all of the men of the carnival are assembled outside the tent, ready to help.

samson says, "we ain't coming back here empty-handed."

and stumpy's the last one to leave.

-

rita sue empties a bason of water red with her daughter's blood. and as she fills it, she cries.

-

the town is completely deserted.

but the men still search.

-

ben comes back to an empty carnival.

he sees ruthie and asks what's wrong. ruthie says, "everything."

-

MINTERN, CALIFORNIA.

and jesus, being full of the holy ghost, returned from jordan and was lead by the spirit into the wilderness.

brother justin looks at the ceiling, and a swinging piece of broken glass (in the shape of an axe) reflects light into his face. and then it falls into the floor, spinning.

justin repeats, "and was lead by the spirit into the wilderness."

justin drops his bible on the chair and his priest's collar on the floor and walks out of the church.

-

the babylon bar is empty, half-filled drinks abandoned on the counter.

the movie theater is empty. stumpy plays a few off-key notes on the piano.

everything is empty.

jonesy blames samson.

"you to me, you son of a bitch, and you listen good. you can drink yourself stupid, you can go out and call me a liar, but don't you hold me up for what happened to that little girl."

the carnival watched dora mae grow up. she's still their little girl.

the town is empty. the men ask what to do next.

stumpy says, "I want to bury my girl. I want to bury my little girl."

stumpy drops his rifle and leaves.

-

MINTERN, CALIFORNIA.

the church is empty and wrecked. iris walks in and looks for her brother, but he is not there.

his bible is on the chair, and his collar is on the floor.

she runs through their house, calling for him.

the house is empty.

-

brother justin walks off a bus and onto the side of the road. he is in front of a grove of orange trees. he is wearing a suit and his glasses.

-

ben is digging the grave hole and everyone else is watching. he just digs.

-

jonesy goes to samson. he says that he's going to be leaving, planning on going to another carnival.

samson says that he trusted jonesy when no one else would. and he hopes that it goes both ways, but jonesy just walks away.

-

the first little bit of "funeral for dora mae" plays, and the entire carnival gathers outside of a tent. there are six men, dressed in their finest, carrying dora mae's body away.

the funeral procession follows on foot behind them.

and I can't even describe the rest of this scene with words.

-

harlot was carved into dora mae's forehead.

she is lowered into the ground.

ruthie says:

lord, I knew this girl. she was dora mae dreiffus. she was like kin to me and everyone standing here. you know her, lord. you know she had a hard life. some of what she done you may not approve of. some of what she done you may call sin. but she was a good girl, lord. and we loved her. and we want you to welcome her into your arms. we know you will.

the wind is blowing something fierce.

libby says, "dora mae, you was a real good dancer." and then she runs away. stumpy goes after her.

libby and dora mae used to always fight about their dancing.

the twins start singing. stumpy hugs his daughter.

ruthie puts her favorite scarf into dora mae's grave. gabriel gives a book. gecko gives a small ivory elephant. (everyone gives something.) sofie gives the dress she lost her virginity in. someone gives a tamobourine. jonesy gives a baseball. the rousties throw coins. samson drops a card that says, "samson the magnificent" from back when he was a member of the carnival. and he gives a pocketwatch from management that he got in the old country. it'll never need winding.

everyone walks away and stumpy and libby are still hugging.

-

sofie tells jonesy that the carnival doesn't feel like home any more, it feels like a prison. but she can't leave, she's trapped.

jonesy doesn't reply, because he sees a man climbing the hill.

there's still one man left in babylon. it's the bartender, he's wearing a hat and carrying all of his belongings. the carnival comes with a fleet of trucks and gets him.

-

they uncover a horribly dusty wagon. gabe lifts it into the big top and everybody walks inside.

lodz walks up to ben and exposits what's going on. there's going to be obscure and fascinating carnival justice!

-

note: I find the transition to this incredibly jarring after the bit with the funeral.

the man stands in the center of the tent, and everyone stands quietly around him. they close the flap.

samson does the talking.

summarizing: the carnival wants justice. samson calls for the wagon, and they wheel it three times around the dude. they speak dora mae's name. samson has the guy pick a number 1-6. he doesn't know why. he picks 3.

stumpy hands samson the pistol and samson puts one bullet in the chamber and then spins it.

the guy says that he's not sorry because it's not like dora mae was a good person. and then stumpy goes after him, completely deservedly.

the guy admits to it. he says that there aren't any women in babylon. he wants someone to dance with.

the guy begs to be taken over the hill before he's killed.

samson pulls the trigger. the gun doesn't fire. and again, no fire. and a third time, and it doesn't fire.

the crowd says to pull it again. but that's against the rules.

rita sue says that she lost three children before this, but she got through it because it was god's will. what happened to dora mae wasn't. she wants the gun.

but jonesy backs the tradition up. they have a code.

and then they let him go.

-

SOMEWHERE IN CALIFORNIA.

there is a campfire and a bunch of homeless men are telling stories around it. brother justin is all hunched up and silent.

one man is asking for stories. he asks brother justin for his.

justin says, "I lost my god."

-

the question-asker from the campire is a dude named tommy dolan, and he is a radio man. he has a radio show, and his show is about telling the stories of the homeless.

he talks about brother justin.

and then there's a montage of folks listening to the show. and justin walks down the road past a man listening to his story on the radio.

tommy asks, "where are you, brother justin?"

-

the next morning!

samson walks into town.

dora mae's murderer is playing a few notes on the piano. samson walks into the bar, asking for whiskey.

dora mae's murderer thanks samson for sparing his life and gives him the whiskey for free.

samson asks him about henry scudder.

strange fellow, that one. came here to work the mines, but right off people knew there was something different about him. then he killed old carlton with a pick-axe and that was it. people were very unhappy, let me tell you. no law here, of course. so the miners set out to take matters into their own hands. they were gonna string scudder up. but he wasn't having none of that, no sir. that's when it happened. the cave in wiped out the whole company. terrible thing. I was there, I saw it. I saw him. and then the next night, they came back. every one of them, every one of them, they came back. they just keep coming back.

samson thanks him for the whiskey and shoots dora mae's murderer in the face.

-

as samson's walking back to the truck, "I only have eyes for you" is playing very faintly.

samson stops where he is.

dora me is standing naked in the reflection of a window. an arm reaches around her neck and pulls her back into the darkness.

and samson's face.

-

the trucks are all packed and lined up.

samson says, "let's go."

-

WORST DEATH FOR A FICTIONAL CHARACTER EVER. it is so cruel, so fucking cruel.

dora maaaaaaaaaae!

and who, you ask, could write such cruelty? ronald d moore.

/soapbox.

AND NOW I AM COMPLETELY WRECKED AGAIN. it never fails to hurt me.

final notes: sorry about the lateness, this ep took forever to recap because it just kills me.

also, check out this conveniently themed postsecret posted this week!

now, let's talk some carnivale! (no future episode spoilers in the comments, please.)

carnivale watch: 1.05

smercy — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 12:14:36 GMT

THIS IS CARNIVALE WATCH, NOT NAIL POLISH.

episode 1.05 - babylon
everything after this sentence could contain a spoiler for this episode and everything before it.

content advisory: nudity, assault, character death.

babylon! (the place where you really don't want to go.)

we open with blackness and brother justin saying:

and he cried out with a mighty voice, sang, "fallen, fallen is babylon the great. she has become the dwelling place of demons and a prison for every unclean spirit and hateful burr. and the kings of the earth, who committed acts of immorality and lived sensuously with her will weep and lament over her when they see the smoke of her burning. standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment. saying, woe, woe, the great city babylon, the strong city, for one hour your judgment has come.' "

during this speech, we fade into brother justin's face as he prays, then fade into him kneeling in the ruins of his burned church, then into a still desert landscape, and then we fade to a man walking alone down the an empty dirt road. and as brother justin's speech finishes, the carnivale trucks meet him on the road.

samson asks the way to babylon, and the man is from there, but he says he's leaving. and that the folks in babylon have been waiting for them for a long time. and then he walks away.

TURN BACK, YOU GUYS.

the road is brown and the land is brown and the sky is brown and there is nothing else but their tucks.

and the members of the carnival are scared to stop there, but they set up anyway.

-

samson asks management for something to tell the rest of the carnival, but gets nothing.

and the rousties are ready to bolt.

and ben goes over to lodz's trailer, where lodz is shaking, sick, in bed. lodz knows that ben's there because he stinks. CANON. lodzs is most likely suffering from alcohol withdrawal, and ben comes in to say that lodz doesn't know anything.

and then ruthie comes in to fetch ben back to work, they're still both too aware of each other's space. and once ben is gone, ruthie goes after lodz on ben's behalf. "you leave that boy alone or I will tear your pecker off like a piece of french bread!" (I love her so much.)

-

over in the magic tarot trailer, appollonia is being pretty hideous to sofie. saying that she's carnie trash, begging her to get a good man, and constantly devaluing sofie's one bit of (sexual) independence until sofie has to defend it just on principle. and he didn't knock her up because that only happens in dime novels.

when she leaves the trailer, she sees rita sue choreographing libby and dora mae. dora mae has a hard time with them and says this amazing gem, "all they want to see is my titties, they don't care about no fancy dance steps!" and then the family splits up and dora mae runs away.

sofie goes over to libby and asks for a cigarette. and then asks how she could tell if she's pregnant. libby, of course, is shocked, but nice about it. she asks if he wore anything and sofie says he kept his socks on. which, omg. sofie is so innocent. sofie doesn't even know what rubbers are, and he didn't wear any. but sofie's probably not pregnant because you can't get pregnant your first time. the lack of slut-shaming is amazing.

-

blah blah ben shaving with a car's rearview mirror, until he's interrupted by dora mae saying, "one of my titties is a whole lot bigger than the other." DORA MAE SAYS THE BEST STUFF. ben says, "oh, yeah, I hadn't noticed."

dora mae loves her boobs. she started dancing when she was 13, but she didn't like to do it until she got ber boobs.

ben asks if she likes it, all of the guys hollering and trying to grab her.

but dora mae says, "don't make no difference to me." then she wipes a bit of shaving cream from his face. and then she says, "bet you're a real good kisser."

dora mae is SEDUCING him and totally unashamed of it. because dora mae is AMAZING. and then she laughs as ben runs away.

-

samson tries to make idle small talk with jonesy and jonesy has none of that until samson offers to pay everybody's tab in town.

so everybody gets dressed up and goes into town. which is completely empty, the man from the road is alone, tending the bar.

sofie and libby go alone to the theatre, which is completely empty, but for a bunch of candy. candy! and then the theater owner comes in and says, "y'all want some candy?" which, HOW FUCKING CREEPY.

libby, who is completely unashamed, says that they're dancers from the carnival looking for some fun, walking up and distracting him while sofie stuffs her purse with candy. but once sofie's done, the guy tries to stick his hand down libby's top and his hands are so grimy, but libby somehow manages to get him away and pimp the show at the same time. libby's pretty magical.

and while the dude is putting on a musical, the girls run over to the dusty piano and libby plays while sofie dances.

and then the movie plays. libby asks sofie about it, since they're alone. way to be tactful, libby! sofie says that it's okay, and then libby says that her first time hurt like hell. she was 12.

-

over in the empty bar, somebody's playing music and most everybody is dancing and laughing. the gecko (the lizard man) is managing to dance with both of the conjoined twins at the same time.

dora mae asks where everybody is, and the barkeeper flirts with her a whole lot. gets her a free drink and everything. and dora mae blushes, actually blushes. and everybody is dancing with everybody but ben is all alone, wearing his formal overalls.

libby and sofie enter holding hands, and then they dance together. everybody is a great fucking dancer. but then when the camera pulls away from the window, there is a whole crowd of men standing outside, just watching them.

once the music has slowed and the couples have all coupled up, libby and sofie are still dancing. jonesy tries to cut in, but he gets shot down.

and then sad jonesy and ben pee against the side of a building. ben says, "you can go to hell." and jonesy says, "where do you think we are, farm boy?"

ben wanders off. because he's drunk and bored and hates other people.

-

next morning!

sofie puts appollonia in a wheel chair and wheels her down a wooden ramp, because her mom needs sunshine. but when appy makes a rude comment about libby, sofie leaves her sitting in the wheelchair.

sofie and libby go to get lunch, rita sue and stumpy are arguing, lila is reading to lodz about historical events, ruthie is looking for ben but ben has disappeared.

back at table awesome, libby is putting makeup on sofie. dora mae tries to be nice, and libby shuts her down. and then they totally have a sister conversation. libby's on the rag, so dora mae's going to have to do "the blowoff" all by herself. and dora mae doesn't care because she gets better tips. ugh, such sisters. and then dora mae feeds the dogs, and then appy calls sofie away.

-

lila the bearded lady gives lodz a haircut and then sticks her hand down his pants. because lila is awesome. but lodz has some other business to attend to. so lila and lodz go out walking together, lila with the most fucking awesome parasol.

-

ben is stuck somewhere dark. completely black, even! when he turns on his lighter, we can see that he's stuck in an empty mine shaft. ben wanders around for a while, and the lighting is fucking gorgeous. but the end of the tunnel has gotten caved in.

-

nighttime! there's a half moon.

lodz is sitting alone in the dark, and samson turns on the lighted sign.

then there's a wail, and the town of babylon comes flocking to see them. they are completely silent. the only sound comes from the talkers, and the men are too close to everything else.

the crowd is assembled around dora mae and libby, completely silent. samson says that's something's not right, he doesn't trust these miners. the girls have to keep their panties on.

-

we enter the cooch tent on a close up of a sign reading: "the performance stops if anyone touches the girls. no refunds."

and then it's libby, dora mae and rita sue dancing all choreographed together. the crowd pushes against the stage, finally making noise.

and then two miners at a time are sitting in the ferris wheel. two miners try to stiff jonesy of their tickets, so he puts the speed on high and doesn't let them off. aww, passive-aggression!

sofie reads the miner's tarot cards, but all she can hear is that the miner's future is uncertain. appy asks if the miner knew a man named scudder.

he did. scudder worked in a mine a few years ago. he killed a man with a pick-axe, and then fled.

-

ben is still wandering around the mine in the dark. he sees a pick-axe and then scudder with a mining light on his head.

ben stops and yells, "I know who you are!"

scudder turns around and says, "but do you know what that means?" and then he keeps walking.

until he finds a dead man with a pick-axe in his chest. ben stops there and starts crying.

-

back in the cooch tent, libby and dora mae have started stripping. it's going well.

so rita sue makes an executive decision, the blow-off is back on.

the crowd keeps pushing against the stage.

once dora mae and libby get off, stumpy gets back onstage and starts pimping dora mae's "special dance". for $.50.

"this is a dance you will take to your grave, this is a dance you don't tell your momma about."

they all go to the back of the tent.

-

outside, jonesy still hasn't stopped the ferris wheel and he keeps drinking. so a gang of miners beats him up. and then samson stops it. everybody's in a fucking foul mood.

-

dora mae starts stripping again. and stumpy is nervous. rita sue just looks proud.

and then dora mae takes off her panties, goes straight into a handstand and opens her legs upside down.

but when she lands, it's too close to the stage and the miners all grab at her. pulling her into the crowd while she screams, "daddy, help me!" and stumpy pulls her away while the tent collapses.

outside the tent, dora mae's still shaking. stumpy gives her some medicine and kisses her forehead, then goes off to talk with rita sue.

-

when ben flicks his lighter back on, the support boards all say, "taravataravataravatara" and there is an exit. ben writes the letters on his arm with a piece of charcoal.

then he grabs the dead miner's flashlight and goes out.

-

jonesy is stumbling, drunkenly in the dark. but then he sees something. legs, hanging from a tree. he vomits.

and then he carries dora mae's body back into the carnival.

ruthie puts her coat on the ground and they lower dora mae onto it. and that's when rita sue starts screaming.

"harlot" is carved into dora mae's forehead.

-

and then there's brother justin's voice:

and on her forehead, a name was written. a mystery. babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth. they threw dusts on their heads and were crying out, weeping and mourning. saying, "woe, woe, the great city for one hour, she has been laid waste."

and all of the carnival gathers around dora mae's body as rita sue wails and it all fades to black.

-

THIS IS WHY YOU DO NOT GO TO BABYLON, YOU GUYS.

DORA MAAAAAAAAAAAE! *sob*

this episode always makes my insides die a little.

now, let's talk some carnivale! (no future episode spoilers in the comments, please.)

carnivale watch: 1.04

smercy — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 19:39:03 GMT

THIS IS CARNIVALE WATCH, NOT A POISONED APPLE!

episode 1.04 - black blizzard
everything after this sentence could contain a spoiler for this episode and everything before it.

content advisory: I don't exactly know how to warn for this, but there's some non-graphic onscreen sex, unrelated nudity, and an uncomfortable amount of slut-shaming.

black blizzard
(wow, I wonder what happens in this one!)

a note: my computer is currently maaaalfunctioning and the battery isn't holding a charge. and the power cord is loose, so if I wiggle, the computer instantly loses power. and not only power, oftentimes a lot of work, even if I've saved. so this is about the seventh time I've tried to write this. I am currently very tired of this episode.

barely useful trivia: this is the first episode of the series that doesn't have daniel knauf (the creator) in the writing credits.

-

the first shot of the episode is of ben, with a wrench in his hand, using his fingers to screw in a bolt. using the hand that holds the wrench to screw it with his fingers. and he moves on to another bolt without using the wrench once.

I think that is an apt metaphor for ben, he knows what to do, and he has the tools, but he does it his way anyways. (and it sucks.) uh, not that I'm holding a grudge or anything. just that the dude is stubborn and refuses to admit that there are good ways that are not his ways.

and then there is a fucking amazing conjoined twins cartwheel. how the fuck, super awesome actresses?

ben stares at them, you know, because he hasn't assimilated yet.

-

looodz, inappropriately well-dressed and sitting in the dark with some booze. the glass shakes, and he smiles a super creepy smile.

-

and then it's over to sofie, who is packing. she's gonna go out, but her mom doesn't want her to go out. ooh, drama.

and it's really interesting how the show uses camera angles to make different kinds of reaction shots out of what is essentially a static face.

two weather-related foreshadowing scenes in a row means we're gonna have a fucking storm, you guys!

-

in scenes that are important to the construction of the episode, samson fixes himself up in the mirror, says, "handsome devil." (trufax) and then leaves. we can see the reflection of management's curtain closing.

blah blah lunch scene. ben sits down at a table and the other guys flee away from him! you know, 'cause he's unpopular. showing up late when you're critical to an event that feeds the entire show is not likely to win you friends!

and at the picnic table full of awesome folk, lila the bearded lady tells everybody that their road is going to pass through babylon. and they commence to get freaked the fuck out.

libby: "I heard they strung up three rousties in babylon back in '32 just to watch them dangle."

babylon is scary shit, you guys. the show really really really wants you to know.

-

in other fucking awesome scene transitions, lila says, "you know jonesy don't squat unless samson says shit."

so they cut to samson yelling "shit," and jonesy following him like a dog. awww.

summarizing: samson has one foot out the door. jonesy has legitimate concerns. samson's all, "dude, I can try but don't expect any change." and jonesy's all, "let me try! I'm charming and all-american!" and samson's all, "not gonna happen and gives him an epic glare. and then he gets in the car and skedaddles.

-

lodz is a fancy booze huffer, apparently. (he's putting away bottles so they don't break in the storm.)

he wants to be ben's obi wan. but ben hawkins is 4000% more petulant. so he tricks ben into driving him somewhere unspecified with the promise of unspecified information about scudder.

dude's pretty pimp.

-

MINTERN, CALIFORNIA.

iris is leading a choir of nine young children in a hymn. they're doing the thing that little kids do when they open their mouths as wide as possible as they sing. justin is behind her, collecting bibles from the freshly-built pews.

enter norman, their adoptive dad. he's a reverend too. (note: when justin says he wants to show him around, he only mention's the children's dormitories. he thinks they're the most important part.)

but norman comes bringing bad news. the city council sent an angry letter to the bishop. shit's about to get ugly. (justin doesn't like red tape, norman's all like, "how many times do I have to tell you!" and justin's all, "I didn't use any of their money, it's none of their business." and norman's all, "they own your tiiiiime!" ugh, politics.)

in conclusion: the church won't allow brother justin to work there. he can either give the church, which is getting kicked out in a few weeks, to somebody else or he'll be forcibly reassigned to somewhere really unpleasant. basically, justin's screwed.

way to throw a ton of hurdles into god's chosen plan, show plot!

-

sofie changes in a random bathroom, wears a jaunty hat and practices saying, "has it been that long?" to the mirror.

and samson goes to a prostitute's house, bearing flowers. he's beaming.

sofie fixes herself in the car and just waits. a random jason dohring-looking dude gives her the eye.

and ben and lods are in a truck!

dohring-looking dude, who is called "harley" spends a lot of time looking at sofie. and then knocks on her car. ('cause he's horny.)

sofie says she's "betty jones." and then she cons him into his restaurant and a free drink. 'cause she's a widow! (she pretend married jonesy and then he pretend died. and now she's getting not-pretend pity!)

ben, tired of lodz's cryptic bullshit, pulls over just to see a storm in the distance.

and the hooker is topless in bed after samson's done with her, and he's whistling. and then he notices the storm.

it's a storm, you guys! (the cgi is really good.)

and sofie is too busy lying to notice the fucking stoooooorm. she only notices after it's too late and she has to wait out the storm inside.

and then ben uses the storm to take a nap.

dora mae and stumpy run to rescue appy, who's buried in grit.

and then lodz walks blindly into the storm. ben follows, because while he says he's not curious, he means about things that don't possibly have anything to do with him. blah blah they found an abandoned shelter. lodz's clothes are probably ruined. they're both covered in grit.

harley, receptacle of liiies, assures sofie that he's not married. and the namesake of his restaurant is his mom. he loves his mom. and then the power goes out!

begin the most terrible time that three people can have while locked in a house together. it's silent for a really long time. and then osgood, the roustie that's essentially supposed to be samson's silent chauffeur, offers the hooker $2. and then samson scoffs. but she takes his money and pulls him to the bedroom. samson is very upset that his illusion has been shattered.

lodz blindly made a fucking fire, you guys. possibly he used his heat vision for this. and then ben throws a temper tantrum. lodz lectures him about the definiton of "black blizzard". it kills dreams, you guys! and then needles ben about his mom until ben really freaks out. and he wants the wind to stop! so he opens the door and it has. it's very nicely green-screened into a farm. but then ben says, "no" and it starts back up again. and then ben denies everything. and says, "I don't want your help, you two-bit used up old junkie!" so lodz smacks him across the face with ~~his pimp cane.~~ a still-hot fire poker. ben puts his hand to it and it disappears, bum bum buuuuum.

-

MINTERN, CALIFORNIA.

brother justin is hiding in a corner with his face buried in his hands. iris walks up the line of pews behind him. she asks him what's wrong and he hands her the letter, but she looks for a long time at his face before reading.

her first words are, "we need to speak to norman." which is coded talk for, "I am in this with you and will help you fix it."

but norman was the one who sent the letter and endorsed it. justin is totally feeling super betrayed. iris suggests going with norman without actually suggesting anything. because he saved them. (more than once.) BUT JUSTIN WON'T IGNORE THE WILL OF GOD.

he really won't. and when iris tries to console him by saying that it's probably also god's will that there are these insurmountable obstacles, justin proceeds to flip the fuck out. not at her, just at the cumulative weight of his worry.

so he talks about the orphans. one was abandoned in a restaurant by his mother, one was sold into slavery for $1. he says, "no one considers the little ones." well, he does. and it's pretty obvious that this is a deep wound of his, that other people do not feel for these children like he does.

and in return, iris looks totally freaked out that she is the one on the end of his lecture. (this has probably never happened before. they're always in agreement.) (they're still in agreement, he is just using her as his safe way to vent all of the anger and pain and getting really vicious about it.) zomg, the things that iris does in her face.

from there, it's a list of really poetic descriptions of why child labor is bad. iris looks nauseated. and the camera gets closer, and the background slowly fades to back, and justin's voice gets harsher.

until he shouts. until there isn't anything but his face, twisted with rage.

-

back at the carnival, the storm is doing some terrible shit. everybody's hiding in one trailer, and sofie's missing, and jonesy is very, very upset.

okay so, I have to summarize this part really briefly because I find it super upsetting. samson knocked something over in rage and blamed it on the wind. he's super pissed. he starts interrogating the hooker about the frequency of her jobs. and other "job related" stuff designed to shame her. and then he asks her to see how fast it would take to do the other guy. and she doesn't want to do it. he offers up a bunch of money. but now it's a pride thing! so even though he offers her $10, she fucks the other guy for free out of spite.

in the random shelter, ben's whining about how he doesn't want his magic powers. lodz gave up his eyes for a bit of what ben has. (he seems to not realize that everyone does not react to power in the same way, or he ignores it.) then there's more babylon foreshadowing. lodz really really wants to be ben's jedi teacher, and ben just gives him the silent treatment.

over in sofie's plotline, she's getting did on the floor, still wearing her knee socks. he finishes fast. but her face, you guys. she's crying but her face isn't moving at all, and you can just see little parts of her insides getting crushed. she pulls on her panties and takes a cigarette, but he won't look at her. she blames it on the storm and then drives home, studying her face in the rearview mirror to see if it's changed.

meanwhile, in samson's uncomfortable plotline: he gives her money to replace the thingy he broke and then she takes it and tells him he's not welcome back. you go, shit-refusing hooker lady!

back in the trailer, dora mae's looking after appy. and stumpy's trying to comfort jonesy.

-

jonesy takes it upon himself to visit management. (this is a bad fucking idea.)

when he enters management's trailer, it is silent. he pulls back the curtain and finds it empty. oh snap!

(but remember, earlier this episode, we saw it move! what kind of magic tomfoolery is this!)

-

once they get back to the carnival, lodz tries to convince ben again, not realizing how stubborn ben is. (note: this is ben's main character trait in s1.) so then lodz throws a temper tantrum until lila goes to get him.

back in sofie's trailer, appolonia's hair has gone grey with dust. and sofie says she's sorry, but appy isn't having any of it. (she tells sofie that he was married.) and then she cries a single, solitary tear.

and then jonesy is super wicked pissed at samson. because obvs. but he says, "hunky dory" and that segues to:

-

MINTERN, CALIFORNIA.

iris walks through the hallway of their house in the dark, eyes closed and wincing. she goes into justin's room without knock or hesitation, but she pauses when she sees him.

justin is asleep. she says, "there's been a fire at the ministry."

justin runs over, still in his pajamas with a suit jacket on top. he looks at the steaming doorway and then asks for the children. they're laying in a pile on the ground, a pair of charred legs the only thing visible.

and then justin literally breaks into a heap on the ground and iris covers him with her body and he sobs and sobs.

-

AND THAT WAS BLACK BLIZZARD

it had a weird internal structure of what felt like long scene montages during the blizzard. every scene was incomplete when they cut to the new one, so there wasn't a sense of closure. it was an interesting technique for the episode, I think.

this, like the previous episode, is mostly foreshadowing and setup. but it's nice, the character moments felt a little bit more organic to me.

and don't forget that babylon is not a good place to go, but our show is going there anyways!

let's talk some carnivale! (no future episode spoilers in the comments, please.)

carnivale watch: 1.03

smercy — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 05:25:12 GMT

THIS IS CARNIVALE WATCH, NOT SPARTA!

episode 1.03 - tipton
everything after this sentence could contain a spoiler for this episode and everything before it.

content advisory: telepathic choking

tipton!

it opens on a long shot of a man with his back to the camera, standing in front of a wooden shack. he holds his hand on the brim of his hat to keep it from blowing way in the wind. and then a reverend exits with a casket. (and it looks like this has been filmed in regular speed and then slowed down in post, the slow motion is so jerky.)

they are interrupted by a parade of the carnivale trucks.

and the important man is michael o'neill! (ron butterfield from the west wing, and basically anything on tv that requires an authoritative-looking cop.) he doesn't like those carnie folk, of course. (and he's the sheriff)

-

I have to be honest with you guys, I don't particularly like this episode. it feels like so much setup. this is probably going to be short.

-

blah blah ben walks into town and is trying to find out about the mysterious picture of his mom, but then the little girl with the fixed legs from the pilot spots him and sends her mother over. from there, people are clutching him in the street, just trying to touch him. it's very biblical. also, creepy. so many hands, so much dirt, and the town is visibly plagued by disease.

-

MINTERN, CALIFORNIA.

iiiiit's a religious parallels segue! instead of taking down the old neon "mr chin's" sign, the church just takes a banner and ties it over.

justin has named his ministry, "dignity ministry"

(from dictionary.com)
dig-ni-ty
-noun
1. bearing, conduct, or speech indicative of self-respect or appreciation of the formality or gravity of an occasion or situation.
2. nobility or elevation of character; worthiness: dignity of sentiments.
3. elevated rank, office, station, etc.
4. relative standing; rank
5. a sign or token of respect: an impertinent question unworthy of the dignity of an answer.
6. archaic
a. a person of high rank or title.
b. such persons collectively.

it's a pretty neat little character note. I'm going to guess that by naming his ministry for the migrants "dignity", brother justin stating his intent to use the bible to raise the migrants' character and worthiness. to make them dignified, it's a promise to elevate them.

and the tagline is, "come worship with us." it is really fucking interesting contrasting brother justin's philosophy with that of his parishoners'. basically, the parishoners consider these migrants to be subhuman, unworthy, and somehow lesser. but brother justin sees them as people, albiet in desperate need of help (aka god.)

anyway! eleanor the former slot machine is handing out paper flyers at the entrance of the building, and actually performing much of the same duties as a carnival taker.

inside of the new building, the music is loud and joyous. ("old time religion", which is kind of extra hilarious with the hindsight of the show behind it.)

I would like to pause and state that justin and iris's faces are the cutest things ever. EVER. they're both grinning like their mouths will break from it, and they're clapping along wiht the music. they just look happy. IF SOMEONE WOULD LIKE TO MAKE ME A .GIF OF THIS SCENE, I WOULD PROBABLY DIE OF HAPPINESS.

random note: eleanor's son with the creepy beard and perma-overalls accompanies them on the accordian. this is not a rich operation.

the contrast in iris during the service of the last episode and of this one is STUNNING. just saying. justin and iris are full of passion, they're overflowing with it. (this is what they love to doooo.)

and then another there's really interesting line that I want to highlight from brother justin's sermon, "who has more faith in god than those who have born witness to his fury?"

brother justin's speeches are very structured, and this one goes straight from its climax to a reprise of, "old time religion".

and then it's a cut to the end of the service and justin thanking the parishoners as they leave. the last two people in the church are the only two in suits. (they're from the city council.) and they want an ominous tour of the ministry.

-

back at the carnival, which has been banned from setting up in town, jonesy has a lightbulb moment. not a carnival, a christian revival!

oh, the ways these folks will find to take your money.

and then stumpy is the best fucking talker ever. and it's really nice to see him do an about-face and go from selling strippers to a christian faith healer.

-

and inside the tent, ben has greased hair and is wearing henry scudder (dude from the dream sequence)'s geek tuxedo. the resemblence to scudder is so intense that ruthie has to leave the tent before she swoons or something.

I would also like to state for the record that stumpy's fake christian name is "lazarus dubois", which needs to be somebody's porn pseudonym posthaste.

and then there's just a very long faith healing scene, where they choose ruthie and fake the whole thing.

-

DREAM SEQUENCE!

the same song from the diner dream sequence is playing as henry scudder stands on a porch full of greenery and flips a coin across his fingers. he's with a woman, a brunette. and as soon as they make eye contact, the record begins to skip. and then he walks away.

and ben wakes up, back to being super grimy.

and the carnival took in so much money during the revival that they got fresh eggs, bacon, and orange juice. the applause is something to behold.

and there is something going on between ruthie and ben, not much at this point, but she'll make eye contact with him, and touch him whenever she walks by. and that's really significant for somebody that tries so hard to avoid other people like ben does.

and then ben is stupid and goes into town to investigate and doesn't come back in time and gets caught in the crowd trying to go see him, and then is chased by an actual mob and gabe has to carry him out of there on his shoulder like a sack of dirty potatoes.

-

MINTERN, CALIFORNIA.

the ministry is still new enough that they haven't scraped the paint from the windows. and men are constructing pews inside. and brother justin has started a children's shelter, it's obvious that this is his favorite part, and it is where iris is working.

ship moment: justin calls over to her and then reaches backwards to her with his whole arm and they hold hands. omg my ship held hands, you guys. they love each other! (yep, this is basically most of my internal monologue.)

one of the city councilmen is the uncle of carol, the child molester who gave them the building. he segues straight into, "you totally didn't get city council's permission. we're shutting your shit down."

the entire block is slated for demolition! the middle of next month! brother justin starts accidentally using the growly part of his voice. and iris's face gets very tight. before justin says anything, he looks over to iris. because oh man, she is totally his partner in this.

they want him to take a piece of shit land in the middle of nowhere and justin is not even pretending to be polite about it. just flatly refusing in his scary voice.

val templeton riles brother justin up, and then he storms off. because god spoke to him! god chose that specific place! and then as he's roaring, "noooooooo!", justin pulls a literal darth vader and psychically chokes the fuck out of val templeton.

IRIS SAW THAT.

-

appy sends sofie on an errand with ben to try and find out about his moooooom.

road trip!

the woman he's supposed to talking to lives in the house that has the porch from the dream sequence! and she's infirm and dying. (and kind of psychic.)

she knew henry scudder. but she doesn't know where he is. she is yet another lady to do him and have him show her the picture of his one truuuue looove, ben's crazy mom.

scudder had the same gift that ben has! woooo, plot.

important note: "to give life, you've got to take it from something else."

so whenever ben uses his magic powers, he's reallocating the supply. everything has a cost.

and then the evil sherriff is her son! dramaaaaaa.

-

on the way back, ben refuses to answer sofie's questions about what the fuck they were doing, so she kicks him out of the fucking car. because fuck yeah, she's sofie. she also tries to run him off the road. twice, after he calls her a "crazy damn bitch" and then he goes off and has a literal temper tantrum. dude doesn't know how to handle emotions.

and now he's sitting on the side of the road, as it gets dark out, because he's sulking and making the entire carnival suffer. grrrrrrrrrr.

they got a replacement ben, but he's not as good and the crowd is not fooled. stumpy does a super awesome dance, though.

and then the bad replacement is found out when the sherriff brings his mom to be healed and ben dramatically runs in. he lays her down and begins to try and heal her.

but she says she doesn't want to get healed. and her last breath is telling him that henry scudder went to babylon. that sounds like such a friendly place, you guys.

anyways, everybody decides that this christian revival idea is totally a bad one and they decide to quit that shit forever!

(this is a good plan.)

going through texas: a bad idea.

stopping at babylon: it's like taking a bad idea, squaring it, and then covering it in poop.

jesus christ on bicycle, indeed!

-

and that right there was an episode that basically just revealed important mytharc information and set up the future plotlines.

it totally gets better.

in conclusion: BROTHER JUSTIN IS DARTH VADER. (he is your father!)

let's talk some carnivale! (no future episode spoilers in the comments, please.)

carnivale watch: 1.02

smercy — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 07:14:26 GMT

THIS IS CARNIVALE WATCH, NOT SPINAL TAP!

episode 1.02 - after the ball is over
everything after this sentence could contain a spoiler for this episode and everything before it.

content advisory: self-mutilation

after the ball is over!

funny note: this ep was co-written by ronald d moore, and is one of the very few (aka, only carnivale) things that I can still stand to watch that involve him! (hi, my unresolved bsg pain and bitterness!) and that's the last I'll speak of him!

I'd like to first start off by talking about the amazing first scene. it's one of my all time favorite dream sequences.

brother justin, wearing his cassock, walks into a diner that looks like it belongs in an edward hopper painting. there is a waitress smoking and pies on the counter. brother justin sits at the bar and the waitress silently pours justin a cup of coffee.

as justin picks up the cup, ben hawkins walks into the diner. the bell jangles. he sits one stool away from justin, and the waitress pours him coffee too.

the door opens and a man in a tuxedo enters, taking off his top hat and collapsing it. he takes a seat in a booth directly behind justin, the booth has a white tablecloth, food already on the table, wine glasses and a lit candle, it is the only decorated booth in the entire diner. the waitress walks over and silently pours two glasses of red wine, reflected in the mirror facing justin and ben. justin watches.

a soldier in full uniform walks into the diner, and this time ben stares. he walks over to the booth and exchanges a look with the man in the tuxedo, and then sits directly behind ben, taking off his hat.

the four men are framed like a portrait. justin and ben having their coffee, the two men eating their meal behind them. the two men have a silent toast. the waitress disinterestedly sighs, "every prophet in his house." and then two men clink glasses, the plate glass windows of the diner exploding as they do it.

the song goes:
this suspense, it's killing me
I can't stand uncertainty
tell me now
I've got to know
whether you want me
to stay or go

love or leave me
let me be lonely
you won't believe me that I love you only
I'd rather be lonely than happy with somebody else.

you might find the night time's the right time for kissing
the night time is my time for just reminiscing
regretting instead of forgetting with somebody else

there'll be no one unless that someone is you
I intend to be independently blue

I want your love
and I don't want to borrow
to have it today, give back tomorrow
for my love is your love
it's your love or nobody else

oh, love me or leave me
let me be lonely
you won't believe me that I love you only
I'd rather be lonely than happy with somebody else

FUCK YEAH, RELEVANT IMAGERY.

and then brother justin and ben wake up, shaken, simultaneously.

THAT'S A REALLY IMPORTANT SCENE, YOU GUYS. also, fucking gorgeous.

-

from there, it's a the only time that ben hawkins bathes in the entire first season. (and then libby dreiffus hits on him and he gets reaaally uncomfortable.)

it's actually a really interesting scene, gender-wise. back in ye olde 30s, ladies weren't actually supposed to have sexual feelings. and if they did have them, they certainly weren't supposed to show them. you know, because that would be improper. women who showed an outward interest in men could very easily be branded as loose and immoral.

well, the dreiffus women all strip for a living and rita sue's a whore, so showing sexual interest in a man is really the least of their transgressions. and it's also really informative as to showing that these women are not ashamed to be around other people. libby is not ashamed that she could be considered a sexual person who could have sex out of wedlock, since she already does that for a living. there isn't any shame in the dreiffus women, and I think that is fucking awesome.

and these are two confident, sexually empowered women talking with a man who's a prude. fuck yeah, unusually portrayed gender dynamics!

I do have to admit, for the record, that rita sue's tits are truly hypnotizing.

-

this episode is really fixated with women's bodies and the power they hold, especially over men.

HI, THE THING I WANT TO TALK ABOUT.

the first scene with plot has rita sue jiggling her tits in ben's face to mock his prudery.

the third scene ben fixated on watching ruthie in the shower stall. there's just a quick glance at the side of her body as she reaches out for a towel, but she's also not at all self-conscious.

I mean, that makes sense from a plot standpoint, because communal showers. but the gaze of the show also points out that ruthie (adrienne barbeau) is a beautiful fucking woman. that part is obvious, she's adrienne fucking barbeau. but the interesting part is that she's in her late 50s, well past the traditional hollywood of completely denying that older women have sexualities.

this is also a really neat introduction to the idea that these women in the carnival are fairly sexually liberated and that it has been normalized within the culture. ben, as a newcomer, gets to be shocked when he's introduced to it. but nobody else around him is shocked, so he becomes an audience stand-in. as he eventually becomes comfortable with naked ladies all the time, so will we! (or something.)

-

a note about the "baggage trailer"

there were a few significant details:
-the fetus in the jar blinks as ben exits the trailer
-the suitcase that ben first opens contains a tuxedo and pop-up top hat just like the one that the man in the dream sequence was wearing, except this tuxedo's faintly blood spattered.
-ben finds a photograph in a box that says, "H.S. and FLD"; this is significant

-

I personally find some of the atmospheric suspense regarding the baggage trailer to be overkill. it seems like an introduction to the idea that things are magical and mysterious in carnivale! except we already have a girl psychically talking to her mute mother who has telekinesis and whatever the fuck is going on with lodz's dream reading. it's pretty well obvious that this carnival is magical already.

-

MINTERN, CALIFORNIA.

the scene opens up with justin staring at himself in the mirror, preparing for church. he's spending a really long time fixing his hair and straightening his clothes. brother justin is actually pretty vain for a man of god.

it starts the scene on the note that justin is not as pious as he could be. which is an important clue when it comes to the next part of the scene.

as justin walks down the hallway, presumably to start getting ready for church, we can hear running water and iris singing. when justin hears the water turn off, he turns around, walks slowly to the edge of a doorway, and peers inside.

we can then see that iris is naked in front of the mirror, toweling herself dry and still humming.

justin watches for a very long time. really, a very long time. then closes his eyes and wrenches himself away, obviously forcing himself to do this through sheer willpower.

something twisted is going on between these siblings!

I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS.

first of all, that was a nice "mirrors show your sins" parallel right there. but I want to talk about iris's role in all of this. on one hand, she's the naked lady being stealthily stared at in the mirror.

but also, she left the bathroom door open. she left the bathroom door open while she was showering. she stood directly in front of the mirror. the two of them had to have lived in that house for at least a decade. iris knows where the doors and the windows and the mirrors are. and she was singing.

she wanted him to look at her.

aaaaand that adds a whole additional dimension to that scene, doesn't it?

-

from there, it's a cut straight to the church, where iris is leading the choir in a hymn. ooh, singing parallels. and justin continues to look at her and not at the rest of the congregation, smiling.

and then there is a bit of a commotion because eleanor the slot machine has brought her family of migrants to church with her and the rich parishioners are scandalized. scandalized! the old guy is unshaven and he's wearing overalls under a suit jacket.

(justin and iris see, but they're also busy staring at each other as they sing.)

and then we cut to the post-church socializing time! justin and iris talk with the migrant family first and are actually super nice and respectful to them. and justin seems genuinely touched that he eleanor is faithful now.

but then they're interrupted by a sneering pair of snobs. they think it's crowded and justin thinks it's super awesome. (I really love this bit because it shows how excited justin is to be sharing god with people. he genuinely loves his job.) but carol templeton, super rich snob, wants to have a talk with justin about that. iris makes the most subtle face and justin totally picks up on it and it is amazing. and then they go back to being friendly.

-

more talk about ladies' bodies back at the carnival!

dora mae and libby have some food and go to sit with their family on the eating picnic benches. (I don't know what to call them! olde tyme cafeteria? mess? dunno.)

rita sue immediately attack's dora mae's portion. dora mae is built like rita sue, busty and thick. libby is slender like her father. stumpy has no problem with what dora mae eats. dora mae is hungry!

and then there's the really lovely bit where rita sue says, "gal, you eat like a lumberjack, you're gonna look like a lumberjack, and nobody wants to see a lumberjack dance the cooch!"

libby does. it's actually a pretty great mental image.

women's bodies! they're super awesome.

-

the next lunch scene also sets up really interesting lines of tension. jonesy likes sofie, sofie likes ben, and ben likes ruthie. nobody gets what they want.

and then there is lila, the bearded lady. completely up for breaking ben in and totally unashamed about talking with her boyfriend about it.

-

MINTERN, CALIFORNIA

oh man, there is this lovely long tracking shot of justin and iris walking through town. iris is chattering about idle gossip and justin is completely tuned out.

even though he is not paying attention, he takes iris by the arm as they walk and steers her away from every obstacle.

he has a comfort with touching her, and her with being touched, that adds another layer to the fucked up desire. and then when iris knows that her brother isn't listening, he just compliments her dress and she lets him get away with it.

and then they walk into the diner from the dream sequence (considerably busier, though.) justin is freaked out and ends up getting whacked by the door. the same song is playing.

and then they meet up with their adopted father, norman! norman is totally great. he's also a reverend. and he's got a shiny new car! he's very good natured, norman, and he and iris tease each other a lot.

iris looks happy. justin is completely oblivious, because he is considerably freaked out. he keeps seeing snippets from the dream.

not gonna transscribe, but suffice to say that justin is paying no attention and those two can totally tell and they make faces at each other!

and then norman loves babe ruth. iris doesn't get all of the fuss, and then norman compares babe ruth to the biblical story of david, to much outrage.

he makes a speech, which I'm totally transscribing:
"in desperate times, the good lord looks over the flock and chooses one man to inspire the multitudes. one man to accomplish the impossible. one man to offer hope where there was only hopelessness. and who are we to judge the wisdom of the almighty? he chooses his servant to fit his plan. and when he chooses a servant from among the flock and gifts him with talents, it is a grave sin to bury them in the earth."

he may be talking about babe ruth, but justin can only hear about himself.

-

back at the carnival, there is a montage. also, stumpy dreiffus is fucking awesome at his job. dude should be in informercials. (and everybody knows that there is a billy mays-sized hole to be filled there.)

anyways, sofie does a tarot card reading and apollonia refuses to participate. she's throwing a temper tantrum, 'cause she wants to spend more time with ben.

we switch over to ben's pov and then ruthie calls him over. she needs him to go and get her son's big leather bracelets 'cause he won't go onstage without them. (gaaabe! he is so tender-hearted.) and she has to stall the crowd. she has been go to her trailer to grab them. ben takes the time to fondle her things and smell her perfume. dude has a crush, is what I'm saying. and then she kisses him on the cheek in thanks and he can't handle it.

-

MINTERN, CALIFORNIA

carol templeton is a snobby bastard. he's making a house call. they make faces over his back. iris goes off to fetch lemonade and let the men talk.

justin has a super awesome idea! he's gonna start a new ministry for the migrants. justin wants to do it 'cause his ministry is overcrowded, templeton wants to do it because he doesn't want to get contaminated with migrant smell or something snobby like that.

and then there is this amazing bit. justin basically goes, "there is a building on state street that I want. you own it. I want you to give it to me."

and then templeton is all like "oh fuck no, my den of iniquity is waaaaaay too profitable for that." and then he offers $50 to get the migrants a stupid tent.

but justin isn't having any of that shit. so he grabs templeton, and then they both have a flashback to templeton's biggest scene.

summarizing: it's molesting little boys.

and then templeton is so ashamed of it, and of having justin there, that he is crying when iris interrupts them with their lemonade.

justin perceptably softens when he sees her and smiles as he takes a big gulp. it's AMAZING.

-

back at the carnival, as it's closing, jonesy is trying to get sofie to spend time with him. because of his epic crush. and then she brings up that he's known her since she was eleven, which is a tad bit creepy. but I guess not such a big deal back then.

dora mae sees and her reaction is, "he wants to get laid and he chooses the prissiest prude girl in the carnival? thaaaat's stupid."

-

then there's a scene with lodz and samson where lodz expresses his doubts in management's plan and samson can't really do anything about it. and then samson watches ben with suspicion. and then lodz goes to visit apollonia to propose that they team up. apollonia is having none of that shit, even if she can't move.

-

dream sequence!

basically, the soldier from the diner is at war. he is above ground. the man in the tuxedo is there too, he steals a helmet from a dead comrade and walks slowly from cave to above ground. there are explosions and lots of dead bodies. (and trumpet.) and then there is growling. something is eating a corpse. it's an escaped circus bear, its mouth covered in human blood.

how's that for imagery! sometimes this show is so whack.

when ben wakes up, apollonia is walking toward him. but dudes, apollonia can't walk! this is a biiig deal. she touches him and then says, "you're the one."

and then sofie notices that her mom is gone. apollonia faints. and then ben calls sofie over. there's a huge commotion, and dudes start beating ben.

(obvs because it seems like he kidnapped apollonia to rape her.)

samson stops the beating. and then ruthie goes and tends to his wounds. (the best part about ruthie is how she doesn't tolerate ben's "silent and wounded" shit.)

-

so then ben is topless in ruthie's trailer and she's tending to his wounds as they sit on her bed. she's only wearing a silk bathrobe. it's really interestingly charged, because ruthie is able to openly look at him as he stands up and gets dressed.

and then ben shows her the picture, and she knows who that is. (a former member of the carnival's sweetheart.) also, ben's mom. the former member's name is "hack scudder." he was a geek (dude that bit the heads off of live animals.)

and he's the man in the tuxedo from ben's dream. plot!

outside the trailer, gabe is crying. he doesn't like hurting people's feelings.

-

MINTERN, CALIFORNIA.

brother justin takes the key to chin's and walks inside. it's empty.

brother justin stands on the stage where strippers used to, you know, strip. he opens his arms and begins preaching. it's actually super beautiful.

also, carol templeton drives his car to an abandoned field and shoots himself. you know, because of the shame.

for the first time, brother justin's sermon reaches the low range of his voice, and it changes the sound of everything.

-

he goes back to the house. iris is asleep on the sofa, listening to the radio with needlepoint in her lap. her hair is down. justin gazes at her for a long time,then turns off the radio. she wakes up as he is sitting in the chair in front of him.

justin is so happy with his news that he's trembling. he talks about the church and the migrants and his mission all at the same time. he's been chosen by the lord god! he spoke to justin!

now, if somebody (anybody) were to say this to me, my eyebrows would not be able to contain their skepticism.

iris takes a deep breath and says, "praise the lord."

justin starts crying. he is obviously just beside himself. and then there is this gorgeous long shot as iris gets up and walks over to him, rubbing his shoulders as she talks about how he is a good man. he leans into her for a long time.

and then he walks into his bedroom, takes off his shirt and kneels on the floor. he takes a briefcase from under his bed and pulls a whip from it. then he takes a deep breath and begins to whip himself across the back.

there are old scars underneath where he is whipping.

and iris can hear it from the living room, but she continues her needlepoint.

-

the radio segues over to the carnival packing up, where the conjoined twins are singing the same song. (and the song is called "after the ball is over")

ben looks up and he sees the circus bear's hat tied to management's trailer.

-

AND THAT WAS EPISODE TWO.
super long recap was super long!

in conclusion: women's bodies are desirable things, and that desire is power.

THAT IS A FUCKING AWESOME THEME.

let's talk about some carnivale! (no future episode spoilers in the comments, please.)

carnivale watch: 1.01

smercy — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 05:34:59 GMT

THE GREAT CARNIVALE WATCH OF '10 HAS OPENED!

episode 1.01 - milfay
everything after this note could contain a spoiler for this episode and everything before it.

content advisory: scene involving a baby corpse, attempted rape, victim blaming, nudity, onscreen animal death.

MILFAY!
it's the pilot!

I've decided that for today, I'm just going to recap the whole fucking thing. why? I don't know why. it's just what's gonna happen.

I might not recap all of it, I'll just talk about stuff I find interesting. let's all hop aboard the incoherent ramble train of bad metaphors!

FIRST, THERE WERE CREDITS.

and then there's samson making a really pretty, yet cryptic speech. (it does make sense in the context of the entire show, but the first time I saw it I nearly wtfed the dvd out.)

we open for real on a creepy-ass dream sequence. dudes running through a cornfield! a random soldier! a tattooed guy! scenes from upcoming episodes!

and then there's ben hawkins, our hero. he's very dirty. he's keeping a really nicely filmed silent vigil over his mother, who is dying. also, insane and deathly afraid of him touching her. she really really does not want him to touch her. and then she dies!

obviously the next thing to do is to dig her a grave in the back yard, but our hero is rudely interrupted by a surly dude on a destructive machine of some sort (backhoe? fuck if I know.) oh no, ben's house has been taken over by the bank and the surly dude is threatening to run him over if he doesn't go! but ben won't go until his mom is buried! dramaaaa!

luckily, a passing traveling carnival is passing by! samson bets jonesy that ben's gonna get run over. jonesy proceeds to cheat to win. so he uses his magical baseball throwing skills to get the surly dude to stop and fruitlessly interrogates ben for a while. (dude does not like to answer questions, let me tell you.) oh, and it's also revealed that ben escaped from a moflipping chain gang and hasn't gotten around to getting the iron off of his leg.

anyways, when it's revealed that he's just trying to dig a grave for his mom, the carnival helps out. because back then, men were noble and stuff! and then the whole rest of the carnival goes and throws her a funereal in style!

there is a montage of the important carnie folk! ruthie plays a badass accordian, sofie looks pensively around from her truck, the dreiffuses look bored and disinterested from a shot that is connected to nothing else because the dreiffuses were added in the late stages of the pilot and not around for the actual shooting of this scene. and samson is a motherfucking badass.

so then the surly dude bulldozes ben's house, and then the police come, and then ben totally faints like a damsel and big gabe has to pick him up and carry him to the carnival, where they continue to be super ridiculously charitable to him.

ENTER MINTERN, CALIFORNIA.

there is a sermon! it's brother justin's sermon. he has the most epic voice. it's super amazing, you guys. (although not his best sermon by a long shot.) there's some sermonizing, some hymn singing, and while the collections are being taken, iris, who has the eyes of a hawk, sees a dirty migrant stealing from the collections plate.

iris, of course, is the church bouncer. so instead of letting the dirty migrant flee during the last hymn, she forcibly grabs her and holds her in place and then delivers her to brother justin. let me tell you, this was the moment when she stole my heart.

and then there's the big confrontation scene. the dirty migrant is eleanor and she has a pretty awesome hat. and then justin is all, "you know what you're doing is a sin" and then she gets really apologetic and then she vomits coins like a fucking slot machine! so they pray together.

and then it turns out that the coins are a shared hallucination and brother justin is kind of creepily holding her while iris watching secretly from the doorway with an unscrutable expression. shenanigans are afoot, I say!

and then we're back with the carnival! they're driving. samson and jonesy are talking about their depression-era money woes. and management wants the new kid to stay on even though they can't afford it and they are both skeptical. I don't blame them, ben is rude, sullen and smelly.

meanwhile, ben's napping under a homemade quilt like a delicate flower. lodz-the-patrick-bachau and lila-the-bearded-lady are playing gin rummy and lodz cheats and then wins and there's all sorts of innuendo that they're doing it. and then lila begs lodz to read ben's dream.

this is a bad idea which brings more dream sequences! but this time, they're intercut with lodz having a motherfucking seizure. dude, if you're having a seizure 'cause you're touching him, stop touching him! and then lodz passes out and ben remains obliviously asleep.

and then it's the morning! ben wakes up naked and violated-feeling under a gorgeous homemade quilt. lila is asleep wearing a motherflipping boa. and ben's got his iron off. so of course the next step is to make a robe out of sheets and peer ominously out the window.

cut to sofie! she's brushing her mom's hair. and carrying on a one-sided psychic conversation. apollonia throws a temper tantrum and psychically fucks with a deck of tarot cards with her mind.

and then ben is in a daisy flowered silk bathrobe. it's pretty fucking lolarious, I won't lie. obviously the next logical step is for all of the carnies to make fun of him and then he falls into a mud puddle where everybody further mocks him and he gets his feelings hurt. and then he steals his now-clean clothes back and pouts.

in lodz's den of iniquity, he drinks a lot of absinthe and tells samson that they shouldn't keep ben 'cause he's daaaangerous in the psychic fashion. samson is wonderfully skeptical and badass.

ben then pouts and sulks a lot and stomps off down the dirt road to leave FOREVER. sofie pulls up behind him in the carnival truck and offers him a ride because sofie is a fucking good person. so of course ben insults her a lot. I don't blame you for driving off, sofie, that dude was an asshole.

ben walks on. and walks. and gets progressively dirtier. dude is wearing a pair of overalls with the overall part just tucked down like a crotch bib. AND THIS NEVER CHANGES. anyways, he pulls up on a bustling settlement where a stranger, for no reason, tells him that this lady won't let them bury her dead baby.

obviously it's because she's gone crazy with grief! she's pretending that it's still alive and she looks really creepy while clutching it. ben stands near her and talks really softly and then she suddenly realizes that it's dead and lets him take it. (this plot was originally going to be the start about how one of ben's magic powers was the power to heal people's grief and suffering with his presence. but it got abandoned, this is the last of it. which is good, 'cause this shit is confusing.)

sofie at the gas station! but then there are creepy gas station attendants. and then they drag her into the gas station and try to rape her.

who should be walking by at that exact moment but ben hawkins! he hears the screaming and goes to help. he knocks a rapist out with a piece of lumber, and then sofie clocks the other dude with an oil can. she's pretty upset. also, her top is ripped. it's wicked sad.

back to the car! ben is trying to be nice but is an asshole instead. but then he gives her his jacket so that she can cover up.

back at the carnival, jonesy is fucking suspicious. and then sofie tells him that it's not ben's fault and he gets super duper mad at her for going off on her own and engages in a shitton of ugly victim blaming. but sofie won't stand for that shit! so she slaps him right in the face and yells about how it's not her fault. omg yay sofie.

and then samson offers ben a job but ben is super rude and an asshole about how he's not gonna take it 'cause he's not a freak like the carnies. it's a good thing that samson doesn't put up with shit.

cut to ben devouring a ton of the carnival's food while samson continues to be awesome. but when he tries to ascertain what kind of person ben is, where he comes from and shit, ben pulls a hissy and leaves the food on the table. he's sooo classy, our hero.

aaand now it's time for the carnival! which is fucking awesome, by the way. there are all kinds of sounds and speeches and cool shit happening. it's basically a montage of all of the important people minus lodz and sofie until a very extended time spent with rita sue and libby stripping in the cooch tent. let me tell you guys, rita sue's tits are EPIC. they're mesmerizing. I don't even know how to describe them, but they're super duper epic.

and then ben watches some dude pay $25 to get to fuck rita sue, which is a ton of money back then. you go, expensive lady! and then samson comes along and is all, "rita sue is fucking awesome and you'd better not talk shit about her." thankfully, ben doesn't.

and then sofie return's ben's jacket and is super sweet and offers him a free tarot reading. but ben's ingrained assholery is totally waging an epic battle against how much he likes her, so he ends up making an ass of himself and getting left alone. (ongoing theme!)

DREAM SEQUENCE! but this time it's brother justin's! he was sitting in front of the radio reading the bible while iris worked on her needlepoint, but then he fell asleep and had a prophetic dream. there is this amazing sequence where iris and justin have a conversation with their body language, but then brother justin just gets up and starts walking.

there is this super epic scene where clancy brown is so tall and the white of his shirt under his jacket is the brightest thing around and his strides are so long. he just looks important. it's wonderful, and the score is gorgeous.

he walks through migrant settlements until he gets to an asian-themed brothel called mr. chin's. he had seen the sign in his prophetic dream. of course, he's accosted by a prostitute, but brother justin totally isn't having that. he's a man of god, you know. brother justin just stares at the sign for a while.

until it starts snowing. and he's alone in front of the blinking sign. and then the snow turns to blood, and it's suddenly raining blood. omg, his face, you guys. so he opens his arms and the neon sign sparks and explodes until the only shining part left is the shape of a cross. brother justin drops to his knees outside of the vision and prays in the middle of the street for a little while, but nobody notices him.

back at the carnival, ben's totally helping out! dude's gonna be a roustie. I love watching the carnival get torn apart, it's so gorgeous. they pack it all into trucks, all of the intricate pieces that are somehow grime-encrusted and still bright.

and then sofie offers to read his cards again. she reads his past. it's dramatic!

I'm getting tired, so I'll summarize. the three cards all have to do with a probably repressed memory of ben's. when he was a very little boy, his cat died. he dug it up from the ground and brought it back to life. his mom promptly flipped the fuck out, started screaming, said that he was interfering with god's will. so then she drowned the poor kitten and said that he was devil spawn made of the devil. and she broke his heart. and called him "filth" a lot.

obviously the next logical step is for ben to flee. flee far away from the carnies sofie and samson offering him a motherflipping job even though this is the motherflipping great depression and there's like one job available for every thirty people who need them. he flees to a field, sobbing.

and then there's this adorable little girl with legs that don't work sitting alone in a wagon in the middle of a field. (she's been around in a few scenes before, but I never bothered to mention her.) and then ben asks her if her legs hurt, and they do. so he puts his hands on her! his magical, magic hands.

there aren't any special effects or anything about him. but behind ben, the green fields start wilting. and he runs back to the carnival, which is leaving, and hops on the back of the last truck to take a nap.

the last shot is of the little girl, running through the fields as they all wilt and turn brown with her. and then her family starves to death!

happy, happy show.

AND THAT'S IT FOR THE PILOT EVERYBODY.

and you know what? NEEDED MORE JUSTIN AND IRIS. I mean, I know I'm gonna say that a lot, but it totally applies.

notes: I'll probably not do this again, I'm thinking that I'll go into meta for the next few episodes, but it's really hard to do meta based on nothing. so now there's this!
another note: I watched this live with merlinburgh and she was delightful and it was great. I rec her.

and after this the show gets better! wooooooo.

~~I don't know how to conclude this.~~ uh, this concludes the first post of carnivale watch '10!

let's everybody talk about carnivale! (no spoilers for future episodes in the comments, please.)

WATCH CARNIVALE.

smercy — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 04:03:44 GMT

THIS RIGHT HERE IS THE OPENING POST OF THE GREAT CARNIVALE WATCH OF NOVEMBER '10!

one episode per day until there are no more episodes!

this is a primer!

I think you should watch carnivale. I really, really do. but this is not really a recruitment drive. all of the future posts will be full of spoilers for the episode in question and all previous episodes. so if there is a recruitment post, that would be this!

note: I feel very awkward and self-conscious about writing meta. I really, really do. so I'm just going to type this out exactly the way I think it and not bother trying to make it seem well-thought out, because I will probably suffer from writer's block trying to find the proper words and that would be inconvenient.

maybe I'll do a real formal carnivale write up, but it is not this one. this one has charm! charm, and very few graphics.

so, an informal primer to carnivale!

carnivale was on hbo. (it's very pretty.)
it had a hbo budget and the costuming and set design especially are fucking amazing.
it ran for 2 seasons, each with 12 episodes. and then was cruelly canceled without plot resolution.

it's really hard trying to explain carnivale, because it's super dense and multi-layered and all of the layers get stuck together. BEAR WITH ME.

it's set in america in the 1930s. there are two separate, but interconnected plotlines. the main plot is about a traveling carnival (called carnivale) in the dustbowl. they pick up a new kid, our hero, and proceed to get into shenanigans! the second plot is about a preacher in california who starts to get visions from god.

but how are these connected, you ask? DREAM SEQUENCES. fuck yeah. these are the densest, prettiest, most confusing dream sequences ever. HBO BUDGET. dudes running through cornfields! mystery meetings in diners! a dude with a tattoo!

you see, this show is not just about the ins and outs of a traveling carnival. IT'S ABOUT MAGIC. and I do mean real literal magic. magical things happen. our protagonist is magic. the preacher is magic. there are four other magic members of the carnival and magic guest stars. psychic powers! healing the sick! visions of the future! psychic visions! all kinds of crazy magical stuff.

this is because the show is also heeeavily biblical. and it's not just because of the biblical passages used and the onscreen sermons. it's a messiah story and also a fable about good versus evil. that part is pretty unavoidable.

so, it's a show about a messiah figure in a magic 1930s carnival in the dustbowl with magical dream sequences. SOUNDS PRETTY GREAT, RIGHT? (it's super interesting.)

also, it's hbo. so there are bare tits. often. very voluptuous ladies going topless as part of the plot. (the carnival has a cooch tent.)

what else? oh, yes. you guys, it's super pretty. I mean, it's super super super pretty. for sure, one of the prettiest shows I've ever seen.

FUCKDAMN, LOOK AT THIS FUCKING GORGEOUS PROMO PICTURE

and there is an enormous cast. there are literally 50 bazillion regulars (slight exaggeration.) THERE ARE SOME ACTORS THAT YOU MIGHT RECOGNIZE, LET ME LIST THEM.

actors that have big roles with plot time!
-nick stahl (he was john connor in the bad terminator movie that had no linda hamilton.)
-clancy brown (the voice of mr krabs in 'spongebob squarepants'. also in 'the shawshank redemption' and 'highlander'.)
-amy madigan (married to ed harris. was kevin costner's wife in 'field of dreams')
-clea duvall (lots of 90s movies about quirky offbeat girls, and also a small recurring role in 'heroes'.)
-tim dekay (he's in 'white collar' as the fbi agent dude.)
-patrick bachau (I don't actually know what he's been in, but he's super badass and whenever a patrick bachau fan recognizes him they always yell "PATRICK BACHAU" in all caps, so I think this is meaningful.)
-adrienne barbeau (she was in 'escape from new york'! and also, she is the voice of catwoman.)
-robert knepper (t-bag on 'prison break'! and pretty much all kinds of stuff in which he seems sketchy.)
-carla gallo (apparently she has a guest starring role as daisy in 'bones'.)
-michael j anderson (he was the man from another place in 'twin peaks'!)
-and there is this picture of the main cast that google found for me! that one's pretty helpful if you're interested in looking at more!

ALL KINDS OF GOOD TIMES, you guys. and the show is super pretty. (I know, this is like the seventh time I've said it, but I can't really say it enough.) not just the set design and the costuming, but the makeup! everything is so visually stunning.

hey, watch the ridiculously gorgeous credits!

the score is super amazing too! and the show is just full of all kinds of lovely little historical details from the 30s. not just slang and old items but down to every little detail. celebrations when they can get orange juice, the cars and how slowly they drive, the way that literally everything is covered with grime all the time. it's not in a preachy "let's relive this famous historical event" way either. it's just really well-researched and beautifully presented.

now let's talk about justin and iris! brother justin is a minister and iris is his sister. it's consensual adult sibling incest supported by canon. I ship it so hard, you guys. this is the ship of my heart. I view the show through a justin/iris lens. I am not even going to pretend to be unbiased about this. if people disagree about justin/iris they are welcome to take it outside of my livejournal. (not that I will hate you if you disagree or are ambivalent. or even if you don't ship it as hard as I do. I'm just saying that justin/iris haters are not gonna be tolerated. my space, my rules and all that.)

to summarize: this show is weird.

oh, and please be aware that the second season is weaker than the first. there was all kinds of production leadership changes and a bunch of network meddling and all kinds of weird stuff, so it's kind of uneven. but still really good! but I should warn you, because it can get shocking.

THE PART WHERE I LIST SOME THINGS THAT COULD BE WARNED FOR: nudity, graphic simulated sex, graphic violence, magical violence, magical flashbacks to violence, mild gore, consensual adult sibling incest, attempted rape, rape, all kinds of insanity, religious imagery and overtones, body possession, mind control, attempted murder, murder, and sometimes the cgi gets a little dodgy. (umm. not all at the same time! this sounds really hardcore when I list it all together, but this is not a show like oz or anything. it's just that it contains all of the hbo things with additional magic shenanigans thrown in.)

and carnivale can be found fairly easily. there are dvds pretty cheap on amazon, you can google it, or you can also shoot me a private message if you want to try it.

I will be here for questions! or comments! or concerns! (this post is subject to edits if I got something wrong, accidentally spoiled something, or need to add something, etc.)

BASICALLY IT IS A GOOD SHOW AND I WANT TO BE ABLE TO TALK ABOUT IT WITH MORE PEOPLE.

GO FORTH AND WATCH.

picspam: Rubicon 1.01

smercy — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 02:54:09 GMT

RUBICON: I LOVE IT.
the show is so gorgeous.
no real spoilers, so everybody check it out.
(caps from toxic_caps.)

SERIOUSLY. THIS SHOW.

SHOOOOOOOOOW. I love it.

THE LOLPIRE DIARIES: IT'S A PICSPAM.

smercy — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 02:35:57 GMT

IT'S TIME FOR PART TWO! BWA. HA. HA.

-do not repost
-or turn into icons
-or claim as your own
-I mean it.
-(screencaps are by killcolor, purple_inthesky and me.)

this is a recap of the second episode of the vampire diaries. in picspam form, with commentary. I worked so hard on it!

AND I WOULD LIKE TO RESTATE THAT THIS IS A PROBABLY PRETTY GOOD PRIMER FOR FOLKS THAT HAVE NOT SEEN THE SHOW BUT WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED.

THIS IS THE PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT. THINGS WILL MAKE MORE SENSE IF YOU READ THIS FIRST.

AT LEAST THE SHOW GETS BETTER.

picspam repost! Olivia Williams in The Ghost Writer

smercy — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 16:51:00 GMT

I made this as a present for aka_katya.
it was only posted in the olivia williams fan community.
I figure that this is a good time to repost here for an archive and all that.

-all caps by me
-not to be turned into icons
-please don't spoil yourself with this, it would hurt me.

SURPRISE PICSPAM IS A SURPRISE!

smercy — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 01:33:24 GMT

this is for "jekyll" episode 3. THERE ARE SPOILERS.
watch it instead!

SO GREAT. I ship it. YAY, GINA BELLMAN.
also, yay, layer sets!

THIS ONE WAS FOR YOU, aka_katya

LOLPIRE PICSPAM.

smercy — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 03:49:27 GMT

so uh, this is what I've been doing for the past 10 days straight.
DO NOT REPOST ANYWHERE OR I WILL CRY.
(screencaps are by killcolor, purple_inthesky and me.)

it's an overview of the pilot episode of the vampire diaries. in picspam form. with commentary.
I LOVE THIS SHOW.

AND I WOULD LIKE TO STATE THAT THIS IS A PROBABLY PRETTY GOOD PRIMER FOR FOLKS THAT HAVE NOT SEEN THE SHOW BUT WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED.

the good news is: this is the worst that the show will EVER be.
AND THAT'S THE SPAM, EVERYBODY.

BECCAMAS: THE MEME ANSWER PRESENT!

smercy — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 04:01:58 GMT

SO THIS IS THE FIRST POST OF BECCAMAS, MY CELEBRATION OF HOW aka_katya WAS BORN.
THERE WAS THIS CHARACTER QUESTIONS MEME THAT I DID A SUPER LONG TIME AGO. THE FIRST BATCH OF ANSWERS WAS POSTED IN FEBRUARY. I HAVE BEEN SAVING MY ANSWERS TO HER QUESTIONS FOR THIS DAY, THE ANNIVERSARY OF HER BIRTH.

THIS IS THE FIRST OF MANY PRESENTS.

AND NOW:
THE PART ONE OF THIS MEME!
THE QUESTION-GATHERING POST. (it has the meme rules in it.)
AND THE CHARACTERS!

01. Han Solo from Star Wars
02. Donna Noble from Doctor Who
03. Mayor Richard Wilkins from Buffy the Vampire Slayer
04. Four from Doctor Who
05. Captain James Tiberius Kirk from Star Trek: TOS
06. Ida from The Middleman
07. Emerson Cod from Pushing Daisies
08. Lorne from Angel
09. Eleanor Iselin from The Manchurian Candidate
10. Maryann from True Blood
11. Adaleen Grant from Big Love
12. Adelle Dewitt from Dollhouse
13. Toby Ziegler from The West Wing
14. John Henry from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
15. Gemma Teller-Morrow from Sons of Anarchy
16. Sarah Connor from the Terminator series
17. Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother
18. Godric from True Blood
19. Yosaffbridge from Firefly
20. Iris Crowe from Carnivale
21. Captain Jack Harkness from Doctor Who and Torchwood
22. Agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks
23. Delgado!Master from Doctor Who
24. Angela Petrelli from Heroes
25. River Tam from Firefly
26. Justin Crowe from Carnivale
27. Patty Hewes from Damages
28. Jack Bristow from Alias
29. Chad Dylan Cooper from Sonny With a Chance
30. Billy Keikeya from Battlestar Galactica
31. Drusilla from Buffy the vampire Slayer
32. Clyde Langer from The Sarah Jane Adventures
33. Sue Sylvester from Glee
34. King Silas Benjamin from Kings
35. Parker from Leverage
36. Queenie from Blackadder
37. The Middleman from The Middleman
38. Claude from Heroes
39. Three from Doctor Who
40. Olive Snook from Pushing Daisies
41. Irina Derevko from Alias
42. Sarah Jane Smith from Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures
43. Jack Donaghy from 30 Rock
44. Leoben from Battlestar Galactica
45. Gibby from iCarly
46. Lilly Kane from Veronica Mars
47. Alec Hardison from Leverage
48. Agent Helo from Dollhouse
49. Cameron from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
50. Wendy Watson from The Middleman

from aka_katya

Ok, so we all agree that Helo/Ballard needs to die a horrible death right?
YES WE DO. (You don't like it, get out of my livejournal.)

Who is most likely to disagree and want to give him a pass and who wants him dead the most 05, (Captain James T. Kirk) 13, (Toby Ziegler) 26, (Justin Crowe) or 42 (Sarah Jane Smith)? Please feel free to elaborate on these character feelings for Helo/Ballard and the reasoning behind their choices.
Well, Sarah Jane is a pacifist, so she believes that most life, no matter how idiotic, should be protected. She does not think very closely about his specific case.
Cap'n Kirk would enjoy doing him, 'cause the dude has got some CHEEKBONES, but then Agent Helo would get all clingy afterward and force him to accidentally get pushed off the side of the Enterprise.
Toby would last all of 3 seconds before shoving a stapler through his eye. (Dude hates self-righteousness. And he's got a temper. It wouldn't be pretty.)
Brother Justin has a scythe and he's gonna cleanse the world of impurities.

The character from the above section that wants Ballard dead the most has decide to hire an assassin to take care of him. They have a choice between 06, (Ida) 10, (Maryann) 20, (Iris Crowe) 34 (King Silas) and 50 (Wendy Watson) who do they hire? Which method does our assassin chose to slowly and brutally kill Helo/Ballard? Gory detail please!
Brother Justin would never hire an assassin to do the lord's work. But he would choose his sister to accompany him in his holy mission. (Iris likes poison. Also, fire. Also, bludgeoning to death. She would probably do all three to make sure the job was done right.)
Maryann would orgy him to death; Ida would use her robot laser eyes; Dubbie would accidentally forget to use the stun setting on her gun, unless it is alternate universe evil Wendy and then she would torture the emo out of him; and King Silas probably choke him to death like an old school motherfucker.

Now our assassin has decided to frame someone for Helo/Ballard's gruesome murder. Do they choose 01, (Han Solo) 03, (The Mayor) 19, (Yosaffbridge) or 49 (Cameron)?
Well, hmm. Prison would pretty much be useless for robots, so Cameron's out. And Han is too busy making out with his lady to be bothered to kill a bitch. And the Mayor is like, Iris's ideal not-her-brother guy to hang out and have ice cream sundaes with. So it's Yosaffbridge, that hussy.

Our framed murderer is now being brought to trail for the murder of Helo/Ballard. What is her supposed motive for killing Helo/Ballard? And who has she hired as their lawyer (02, (Donna Noble) 30, (Billy Keikeya) 47, (Hardison) or 48 (Agent Helo)?
Yosaffbridge is brought to trial under the suspicion that when she married Agent Helo to prevent him from learning the location of the Dollhouse, she couldn't take his constant speechifying and had to get rid of him. BUT YOSAFFBRIDGE HAS BEEN MARRIED 17 TIMES AND SHE'S NEVER GOTTEN DIVORCED. Yosaffbridge hired a cylon copy of Agent Helo as her lawyer and was immediately exonerated, which was a good thing 'cause he was created to be a mute sex toy for a bunch of Eights and wouldn't have been able to defend why he needed to go to the bathroom.

Is she found guilty or innocent?
Innocent!

How is 18's (Godric) life better now that Helo/Ballard is dead?
He no longer needs to sunlight himself to death, because the world is now a livable place again.

09 (Eleanor Iselin) is a total fangirl (don't try to deny it, you know she totally is! TRUFAX). What is her favorite guilty pleasure ship? What screenname does she post her smutty fanfic under?
AHAHAHAHA. Eleanor Iselin. Okay. Well, the lady likes stirring shit, so she would start a sweeping multi-chapter epic Supernatural incest slash where in a shocking twist at the end, it is revealed that the brothers are godless heathens with no respect for life who kill an entire busload of children and then each other and then go and hang out in hell. But it's so damningly well-characterized that the uproar breaks fandom for 3 days.

If 07 (Emerson Cod) is a toy poodle and 16 (Sarah Connor) is a Saint Bernard, what does their secret love child look like?
Prince Charles.

32 (Clyde Langer) needs a vacation. Where does he go and does he have a crazy vacation romance with 14, (John Henry) 21, (Captain Jack Harkness) 23, (Delgado!Master) or 46 (Lilly Kane)?
Well, Clyde does need a nice vacation. He goes to America to have a grand tour of the West Coast and also to visit Maria, and generally be super awesome. But when he's driving through the town of Neptune, California, he sees a ghost on the side of the road, waving for help. But it can't be a ghost! But it appears to be a ghost. Obviously, Clyde has to investigate. So he realizes that Lilly Kane was wearing a super special alien technology pendant when she died, the one that she got as a present from the dudes who taught her dad the secret of streaming internet video. She's trapped there! He has to save her! (Lots of stuff blows up.) And then the Delgado Master shows up, trying to create a dastardly credit card ponzi scheme that will break the American economy and send the entire global marketplace into unrest and eventually destroy the Doctor's favorite planet, bwahahaha! (He's trying "subtlety" this time.) But Captain Jack never forgets such distinctive facial hair, so he shows up to simultaneously foil the Master and manage to have hot alien-ghost sex. Clyde leaves him to clean it up and travels further down into LA, where he meets a robot on the side of the road. He has K-9 come and pick him back up so that Sarah Jane can figure out the best place for him to be sent. (The adventures of John Henry and K-9! Coming to fanfic sometime in the next decade!) And then Captain Jack shows up and deflowers Clyde. THE END.

22 (Coop) and 33 (Sue Sylvester) are both covered in chocolate! Do they fight or fuck? Who does 44 (Leoben) think looks sexier?
No woman can resist the Coop, and chocolate has the tendency to make Sue tender, so of course they have to put the Barry White on. Leoben prefers Coop, for Coop is spiritual. (They cuddle a lot.)

What food item would 28 (Jack Bristow) use to try and kill 8 (Lorne)? How successful would he be?
Jack Bristow could use any motherfucking food item in existence to kill any motherfucker. Jack Bristow could use a fucking orange peel and decimate a motherfucker. When he first saw Lorne, Jack decided that demons could not be allowed to walk the streets of LA for his daughter's protection and grabbed a granola bar from a passing hippie and staked Lorne through the chest. Thankfully, Lorne's heart is kept in his butt, so by the time Jack figured out its location, he realized that Lorne was a super awesome dude after all, and they became besties. (Well, after Lorne read Sydney and told Jack exactly how to prepare for her future.)

41 (Irina Derevko) is floating around in the vast nothingness of space and is about to run out of oxygen. Does 12, (Adelle DeWitt) 46, (Lilly Kane) 18, (Godric) or 01 (Han Solo) save her? How did 41 (Irina Derevko) get there in the first place?
Rambaldi gone wrong, oh no! It's a good thing she's got a magic catsuit that gives her protection from the harsh realities of space. Well, Lilly Kane is a ghost that can go whereever she wants, and Godric is a vampire that doesn't need to breathe, and Han Solo has a motherfucking space ship. But it's Adelle. And then they make out.

Which horrible smutfic cliche would be the most overused in a smutfic written by a thirteen year old (who is actually a 13 year old version of 13 (Toby Ziegler)) about 4 (Four) and 23 (Delgado!Master)? How many itty bitty fangirls would squee that the fic was OMG!SO AMAZING BEST EVER!!!!!!!111111!!! 4+23=OTP4EVER!
Toby would write a hurt/comfort epic where Four, still reeling after the loss of Sarah Jane, gets locked on a planet with radiation-poisoning crystals! And then the Delgado!Master shows up and realizes that the Doctor is in such desperate pain and there is only one cure: his penis. Unfortunately for young Toby, his writing is so precise that the fangirls can't handle it and he gets like 7 comments, and 4 of them say "I liked it."

10 (Maryann) and 39 (Three) are characters in a popular pre-teen romance series about unicorns and sparkles and rainbows. Describe the flowery awesomeness of their OMG!4EVER LOVE! How does 39 (Three) react when 10 (Maryann) is trampled to death by screaming fangirls?
Clearly this is about their doomed love, the man who can never keep the same face and the immortal woman who loved him. His loss drove her mad, drove her to wild orgies where she tried to replicate the feeling of his love, but could not. She waited on the long path for most of Earth's history, just hoping to get to get porked, hoping that his next personality would be one compatible with hers. Slowly, his love drove her insane, slowly, her insanity gave him purpose. He is the greatest superhero of all time: The Doctor, and she is The Woman He Could Not Fix (and not beacuse she was mostly immortal.) After their saga makes enough money to buy world peace, the Doctor feels mildly regretful after the army of Masters tramples her vengefully to death, but she will be avenged. Oh, she will be avenged! (In the fifth sequel, coming 2012.)

Did 4 (Four) or 46 (Lilly Kane) replace the scripts for the real season 4.5 of BSG with the sucktastic scripts they end up shooting? How does that fit into their plan to take over the world?
Lilly would never commit such sacriledge. But Four did it accidentally through a stage of mad-cap mishaps while fighting the Master with a tuna fish sandwitch and a ping pong paddle. He's very apologetic about it, but never actually remembers to go back and fix it.

36 (Queenie) is poised to take over the world with their army of loyal minions! The only person who can stop her is 23, (Delgado!Master) who has just died in an unfortunate accident involving a gluestick and a staplegun. 17 (Barney Stinson) is asked to take up 23's (Delgado!Master's) mission to save the world from 36 (Queenie) - does he succeed?
Yeah, it's gonna be pretty hard to stop ENGLAND. Dudes know how to colonize, is all I'm saying. Delgado Master's plan for saving the world is half-hearted at best, seeing as he's only doing it to impress the Doctor with how noble and committed and not evil he is, but he kept getting distracted by making elaborate traps that served only to fuel the chaos and did nothing to further either side of the battle. But after the Master's tragic death, there is only one man for the job. And that man is Barney Stinson. He seduces her and saves the world: the end.

Is 25 (River Tam) or 26 (Justin Crowe) more likely to star in a biopic about 50 (Wendy Watson)?
RIVER TAM. Girl can do fight scene choreography better than the original. (She's recruited to the Middle Organization afterward.)

In a fight between 2 (Donna Noble) armed with a wicked cool machine gun and 39 (Three) armed with a toothpick and a rubber band who wins?
Donna. She doesn't even need the machine gun. She can just smack him upside the head and he'll do what she says, albiet grumpily. The machine gun was just to show him who's the best at foraging for weapons on a deserted planet. SUPER TEMP CAN FORAGE ANYTHING FROM ANYWHERE, BITCHES.

Who is most likely to call in sick to work so they can stay at home in their sweatpants and watch a lifetime original movie entitled "Crimes of Passion; She Woke Up Pregnant." 23, (Delgado!Master) 44, (Leoben) or 12 (Adelle DeWitt)? Who directed this cinematic masterpiece, 10, (Maryann) 27, (Patty Hewes) or 41 (Irina Derevko)?
Adelle. The Master doesn't have to call in sick, and watching bad Lifetime movies is research for his next dastardly world-ending plot. Sometimes Adelle just needs something really stupid so that she can feel better about herself and her life choices. Obviously Maryann directed this as an instructional guide for what happens after her orgy party leaves town.

In what sort of universe would 5 (Captain James T. Kirk) give birth to 29 (Chad Dylan Cooper)?
Uh, this one. Dude needs to buy some time traveling birth control, is what I'm saying.

45, (Gibby) 33, (Sue Sylvester) 12, (Adelle DeWitt) 15, (Gemma Teller-Morrow) 35, (Parker) 8 (Lorne) and 41 (Irina Derevko) VS. #'s 42, (Sarah Jane Smith) 9, (Eleanor Iselin) 48, (Agent Helo) 7, (Emerson Cod) 17, (Barney Stinson) 19, (Yosaffbridge) and 21 (Cap'n Jack) IN AN EPIC ROLLER DERBY BATTLE!!! I want team names, individual aliases and a play by play of the epic throw down!
Gibby, Sue, Adelle, Gemma, Parker, Lorne and Irina are: Stepford Wife Sentences
(They dress like 50s housewives, complete with pastel, full makeup and rolling pin props.)
Gibby is: Robin D Cradle
Sue is: Sue Ture
Adelle is: Jane Austentatious
Gemma is: Cleosmackya
Parker is: Smack N Cheese
Lorne is: Sirius Trouble
Irina is: Laura Mangles Wilder

Sarah Jane, Mrs. Iselin, Agent Helo, Emerson, Barney, Yosaffbridge and Cap'n Jack are: Sisters of No Mercy
(They dress like nuns.)
Sarah Jane is: Olive Destruction
Mrs. Iselin is: Ivanna Destroya Commie
Agent Helo is: Major Pain
Emerson is: Sir Rebral Concussion
Barney is: Broseph Stalin
Yosaffbridge is: Tara Yerheartout
Cap'n Jack is: Sexy MotherPucker

STEPFORD WIFE SENTENCES VERSUS THE SISTERS OF NO MERCY. (note, I do not actually understand how roller derby is played.)
team roles!
SWS!
captain: Adelle! (Hhe has lots of experience running crazy shit!)
coach: SUE, obviously.
mascot/cheerleader: Gibby! (His shirtlessness was an issue at first, but then his amazing victory dance became the stuff of legends.)
others: Lorne has neither speed nor accuracy nor violence, but he is their special weapon since he can sing at a super high frequency and make the other team fall down in pain, like he's a roller derby nuclear bomb! Gemma is in it to fuck shit up, she just bruises shit up like a mooootherfucker, do not cross her! Parker is the speediest of the speedy, and she does it as a side job because it is super easy to pick the opposing team's pockets while in the middle of a bout. Irina is just fucking badass all of the time.
SoNM!
captain: Mrs. Iselin! (Like she would let anybody have control over her.)
coach: Emerson! (Dude is totally brutal with the strategy, and he has no tolerance for tomfoolery!)
mascot/cheerleader: Barney was demoted to this position after he groped too many of the derby girls. Most of his costume involves handcuffs to keep him under control.
others: Jack and Sarah Jane joined when Sarah Jane owed him a favor and helped him infiltrate an international roller derby league in search of a fugitive from time (Yosaffbridge). It turned out that Sarah Jane was incredibly fast, and crazy tough. Jack doesn't care about getting injured, so he just goes around tackling folks. Yosaffbridge is very very good at running and at lulling the other team into a false sense of security. Agent Helo was let on the team because he seems very muscley, but it was quickly revealed that his strong moral code allowed him to oogle the other team, but not to actually make any physical contact with them.

SO IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT, THE ROLLER DERBY STADIUM LIT ONLY BY THE LIGHT OF GLOWSTICKS AND MIRRORS. THE CROWD WAS GOING WILD. The Sisters of No Mercy was first to the rink, habits flapping in the wind. Barney did a stunnignly good version of a bondage robot, and the crowd further went crazy. But then the Stepford Wife Sentences entered the rink! Sure, they looked all pretty with their makeup and immaculately styled hair, but underneath was a barely veiled ruthlessness. Adelle was wearing stiletto skates, and Gibby's skating cartwheel was a wonder to behold. Agent Helo decided in the pre-game skate that he was Parker was a quality woman and he was going to marry her someday. AND THEN THE SKATING BEGAN.
AND THE REST SHOULD BE FINISHED IN A FANFIC OF SOME SORT.
(But be assured, it involves Irina skating over Agent Helo's face, even though she could've easily jumped it. And Gemma shanks a lot of bitches, making the mortal enemy of Mrs. Iselin. Jack and Sue have dirty monkey sex on the floor of the rink. Barney gets an epic slap. And Parker steals a ton of Agent Helo's shit, including his money, his identity, his morals and his future. And Irina and Adelle continue their epic secret affair in broom closets and under bleachers, and do it all while remaining impeccably dressed. Spoiler: Stepford Wife Sentences win.)

2, (Donna Noble) 27, (Patty Hewes) and 24 (Angela Petrelli) are on 'Clean House'. How messy is their place? What sentimental heirlooms do they put up a fight to keep? What random obscure item earns them the most money at the garage sale? What is each character's general reaction to the pushy hosts?
Patty Hewes would never stoop to such a level, and Angela's house is fucking immaculate and everything inside it is classy and super expensive, so the Clean House team goes to Donna's by default. (But if Angela were put around the Clean House team, she would have them sobbing like small children within 5 minutes, and Patty would crush them in one hand like Athena, Goddess of War. Patty Hewes always wins, so you always lose.) Donna was signed up for this by her angry mother, who will grow to regret it (oh yes, she will regret it.) Donna's place is not messy, but not immaculate. She does have the closet full of weird odds and ends and presents that she'll never use and 183 bottles of unopened hand lotion. The Clean House team is not allowed to touch her clothes, her jewelry, her books, her bed, and anything that she specifically says should not go. Donna will cut a bitch. Surprisingly, some sketchy dude in a trenchcoat with enormous sunglasses comes over and buys her gramps's decorative reindeer antlers that just happened to accidentally end up in the yard sale pile and pays 3000 euros plus miscellaneous coins for it. And then Donna gets to go on a vacation to somewhere where she can be completely oblivious to the next alien invasion.

What fandom does 33 (Sue Sylvester) write horrible Mary Sue fic for? Please provide a brief plot summary for said fic (including the Mary's Sue's nickname)
Sue Sylvester writes horrible horrible self-insert Community fic. In which a new student, Isabella Jackal (they call her The Jackal 'cause she always wins) comes to Greendale and proceeds to change Jeff's life, teaching him the meaning of love, winning, and how to live life fully without the use of hair product. Summary: This is the best fic ever. Read it or you're a jealous spinster, you douchebag. And if you don't review, I'm coming after you with a spork.

42 (Sarah Jane Smith) armed with pie VS. 2 (Donna Noble) armed with cupcakes! Who wins?
The Doctor's pants, after he wakes up.

40's (Olive Snook) favorite pizza toppings?
Olive has never been much for pizza as comfort food, and it's a bit too savory for her taste, but she can pretty much always go for a good Hawaiian with extra cheese and some lemon juice squirted on top, it's just so sunny!

What's 49's (Cameron) secret superpower?
She's a robot.
Also, she can communicate with all of the animals that dwell in the ocean.

What obscure fandoms does 23 (Delgado!Master) ask for for yuletide? What prompts does he give? Who is he assigned to write for: 3 (The Mayor) or 17 (Barney Stinson)? and what are the prompts is he given?
1. The Karate Kid: I would like an epic retelling of the story where that funny blonde chap perserveres against the forces of annoyance and stupidity and thrashes that imbecile.
2. The Breakfast Club: I would like this to be a character study of the cute redheaded one, immediately after the events of the movie, when the school is attacked by plagues of zombies and the rest of her unlikely new friends are slowly eaten off beside her.
3. RPF: (Transformers): I would like to see Michael Bay get mutilated to death in graphic detail.
4. Plan 9 From Outer Space: I would like to have a fic that rewrites this movie into something good.

He gets Barney, who has requested:
1. Charlie's Angels (2000): The angels have an orgy.
2. Charlie's Angels (1976): FARRAH FAWCETT ERA. The angels have an orgy.
3. RPF: (The Price Is Right): Bob Barker goes on an epic quest to rid the world of all of its evils and to spay and neuter all of our domesticated housepets.
4. The Golden Girls: Rose, Blanche, Sophia and Dorothy all stay up late talking about their problems and having some pie, with a mandatory group hug at the end.

Delgado Master, of course, writes a Charlie's Angels (2000) and Charlie's Angels (1976) crossover with orgy and jet ski race.

What random gift from regretsy.com does 8 (Lorne) get for 4 (Four)? How does 4 (Four) react?
These "Kawaii Nerd" Glasses which Lorne successfully realizes harness the power of alien crystals to give the wearer supersonic hearing. Four, of course, loves them and uses them to save the planet. Then they live in a special pedestal in the world-saving fashion room of the TARDIS.

What are 10's (Maryann) thoughts on the great work of art that is the 'Holey Vagina Mary'?
HOW FAST CAN I GET IT DELIVERED?

41 (Irina Derevko) and 12 (Adelle DeWitt) are caught having crazy wild office sex! How does this affect general workplace morale? How does 10 (Maryann) react? Who records the encounter via their cellphone: 45, (Gibby) 15, (Gemma Teller-Morrow) or 17 (Barney Stinson)? How does the resulting sex tape scandal affect 41 (Irina Derevko) and 12 (Adelle DeWitt)?
Well, when are Adelle and Irina NOT having crazy wild sex? It's not the office's fault that it just happened to be around when they felt the need to tear their clothes off. I mean, it wasn't Panera's fault, and it wasn't the mall's fault. Really, if anyone is to be blamed, it's the antique desk's fault for being so conveniently-shaped. Or possibly the blinds for not staying shut. Well, Maryann would be super jazzed and then try to join in, only to be struck with a stilletto through the forehead courtesy of Ms. Derevko. Gibby is much too young for these sorts of shenanigans! He was getting something from a vending machine instead, probably gummy bears and doing a super awesome gummy bears dance. Gemma would be vaguely interested in the proceedings, but then would get distracted by smacking justice into some leering douchebags with a skateboard. Of course Barney would record it. He's BARNEY. But the only scandal involves Barney's wounded pride when Irina steals it back in a formal-attired caper, and then Adelle hacks into every single computer-related possession that he has and wipes all of their memory out of safety and spite. And then Irina and Adelle do it some more, this time drunk on victory and underneath a suspension bridge in defiance of physics itself!

How many tickets can 38 (Claude) sell to #s 1-20 to watch Helo be mauled to death by circus bears in pink tutus? How mad are #s 21-50 at being denied the ability to purchase tickets to this epic event and who sneaks in anyways?
(1-20: Han Solo, Donna Noble, The Mayor, Four, Captain James T. Kirk, Ida, Emerson Cod, Lorne, Eleanor Iselin, Maryann, Adaleen Grant, Adelle DeWitt, Toby Ziegler, John Henry, Gemma Teller-Morrow, Sarah Connor, Barney Stinson, Godric, Yosaffbridge, Iris Crowe)
(21-50: Captain Jack Harkness, Dale Cooper, Delgado!Master, Angela Petrelli, River Tam, Justin Crowe, Patty Hewes, Jack Bristow, Chad Dylan Cooper, Billy Keikeya, Drusilla, Clyde Langer, Sue Sylvester, King Silas, Parker, Queenie, The Middleman, Claude, Three, Olive Snook, Irina Derevko, Sarah Jane Smith, Jack Donaghy, Leoben, Gibby, Lilly Kane, Hardison, Agent Helo, Cameron, Wendy Watson)
answer
Han Solo grew up in the galaxy far, far away where watching folks get mauled to death was a perfectly normal pasttime so he does it out of nostalgia. Donna Noble is a pacifist, so she steals the fare from the Doctor's pocket and skips out after the pre-show slapathon. The Mayor schedules some time into his schedule and turns it into a fundraiser. Four declines. Captain James T. Kirk goes in with the intent to infiltrate and save the noble warrior from certain doom, but realizes haflway through that Agent Helo is a douchebag and then recuses himself. Ida hacks into the security feed and makes a recording of Agent Helo's agonized groan as he is first mauled and then sets that as Wendy's ringtone. Emerson Cod goes undercover to try and find a fugitive from the law and doesn't pay attention to the show at all. Lorne declines. Eleanor Iselin gets VIP tickets and cackles a lot. Maryann goes in with the intent to turn it into an orgy, but fails. Adaleen Grant is much too godly for that sort of thing. Adelle DeWitt would go, just to smirk triumphantly at him and drink something obnoxiously expensive. Toby Ziegler declines. John Henry would buy a ticket, intending to learn more about humanity, but Ellison would take the ticket away saying that it is much too violent for him. Gemma Teller-Morrow would be all over that. Sarah Connor does not have enough spare time to get involved in that kind of tomfoolery, but she has no objections. Barney Stinson does not go, as it is not a good place to pick up chicks. Godric declines. Yosaffbridge tries to find a husband there, but mistakenly marries Agent Helo instead, fortunately it all works out when she inheirits his life insurance. Iris Crowe goes to relive the nostalgia of watching a hated enemy getting mauled by circus bears. (13 tickets sold.)
Captain Jack Harkness is too busy doing the sex to everything to care too much, although he's a little upset that he wasn't invited. Dale Cooper wouldn't have gone anyway, because he is far to chill for that shit. Delgado Master would sneak the fuck in, and attempt to add some alien shenanigans to enhance the proceedings. Angela Petrelli would glare at someone until they folded and let her in, assuming, of course, that Agent Helo did something to piss her off. River Tam would like dancing circus bears, but not the mauling part, so she will just go to the ballet instead. Justin Crowe would of course be going, even if he had to cut through the crowd with a scythe, especially since bear mauling is a favorite thing of his to imagine. Patty Hewes is far too busy pwning everything ever to care about watching someone else get pwned by someone not herself. Jack Bristow would go with a bunch of international terrorists wearing a horrible fake mustache. Chad Dylan Cooper would try to get in, since it is the coolest entertainment in town, but would be repeatedly rejected at the door for being underage, and no, the staff does not know who he is. Billy Keikeya would be too busy being amazingly competent and getting shit done. Drusilla would be all over that, so she just follows a ticketholder, drains him, and takes his place. Clyde Langer would not be down with that, so it's a good thing he's in London. Sue Sylvester would cover it as part of her 14 part investigational journalism series entitled "America: Be More Like This" so she got a promotional press ticket for free. King Silas does not need a ticket to get into events, every event is mandated by law to have a seat for him just in case. Parker would sneak in, not really caring about the content, and just steal a bunch of wallets for fun. Queenie would also get a royalty seat and cackle a lot. The Middleman would normally, due to his strong moral code, have to shut that shit down, but there is an unfortunate jell-o factory crisis that suddenly consumed his time. Claude doesn't need a ticket because the dude is invisible. Three would sneak in just to prevent the Delgado Master from wrecking shit. Olive Snook would decline and bake mac and cheese instead. Irina Derevko would go in to disbatch some terrorists and to liberate her husband from the fake mustache travesty. Sarah Jane Smith would not go, because she is in London being super great and hugging folks. Jack Donaghy would be in there helping the folks prepare for the international microwave broadcast of the event, and looking super awesome. Leoben would be too busy praying. Gibby is too young for that shit. Lilly Kane would go because ghosts don't need no entry fee. Hardison wouldn't go, because he's got a weak stomach and also there is a Doctor Who marathon on. Agent Helo would be getting mauled! Cameron will muscle in there on a strategic mission to learn how to better protect John from a bear mauling. Wendy Watson would be too busy getting partially swallowed by a semi-sentient lump of jell-o to even notice that this was going on.

AND THEN AGENT HELO GOT ATE TO DEATH. THE END.

THIS HAS BEEN A POST FOR BECCAMAS, BECAUSE I AM GONNA MOTHERFUCKING CELEBRATE THAT aka_katya WAS BORN.

UP-DATE

smercy — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 13:38:24 GMT

hey, you guys.

I'm going off to a vacation for a week. in an old historic cabin that my family's had for about a hundred years. on a teeny tiny pond in maine. there's no internet there. I'll be there for a week.

this is my sadface. my face is sad. I wish I had the internet.
I won't be able to check anything.
that is where I'll be.

BE BACK SOMETIME SUNDAY NIGHT.
nobody burn the internet down, mmmkay?