meddow

Damn it Torchwood, exploiting my soft spot for characters who are civil servants and using it to keep me on tenterhooks.

I do have a huge soft spot for civil servants though. I was actually way more upset about what happened to Yvonne Hartman in Doomsday than I was about anything to do with the forcible ending of Ten and Rose's co-dependence. Of all the things Laura Roslin did in BSG, which included election fraud, ordering a genocide and baby stealing, one of the few things I can't get over were those few times she was mean to Tory (even after what Tory did in The Ties that Bind) and in fact what happened to Tory is my biggest Daybreak gripe, and I was totally a Percy Weasley apologist in Harry Potter fandom.

And then if you tally up my favourite characters in various fandoms, a hell of a lot of them work for the government in some kind of fashion: Nymphadora Tonks and aforementioned Percy Weasley, James Norrington and Weatherby Swann in PotC, nearly every character that has ever worked or been affiliated with UNIT in DW along with Yvonne Hartman and now John Frobisher, Billy, Gaeta and Tory in BSG, and, although technically elected officials, in my mind I lump them in with the above lot: Harriet Jones, Harvey Dent and Laura Roslin. There is most definitely a trend.

I blame The West Wing, it being my major fandom through my wilderness teenage years and nearly every character being a noble and put-upon civil servant.

As for the episode, I could have done with out the slime and certainly the slime sound effects. Reminded me of Aliens of London Saying that, oh I would laugh so very hard if the 456 turn out to be the Slitheen. And then I would throw things.

So Jim Broadbent’s playing Slughorn (how many Oscars is that between the adult cast now? I can think of at least five). Which illustrates why I adore Harry Potter casting, they always get it right with the adults. It’s always a shame though that the adult characters get so little to do in the movies. It’s always the adult roles that get the most cut. For obvious and good reasons of course, but still, I generally find the older generation characters more interesting than Harry’s generation.

Meanwhile I discovered the casting link between Pirates of the Caribbean and New Who. I have this theory that you cannot watch anything which has a sizable amount of British actors in these days and not find at least one who has shown up in the new Doctor Who or one of the related spin-offs, and PotC was defying this theory. Until I found out that Young Elizabeth Swann from Curse was in School Reunion (as the “Kenny blew up the school!” girl) Ha ha!

Seriously though, they crop up when you least suspect. I’ve been going on a hunt for Richard Armitage features and so was watching the Shakespeare Retold MacBeth with James McAvoy and Keeley Hawes (incredibly good BTW, it’s set in a kitchen with the three witches being bin men), and there was Maria’s hot Dad from The Sarah Jane Adventures playing Banquo. And then I was watching North and South and it has Suki from The Long Game and the lead actress was one of the bad guys in an episode of Torchwood.

Though more importantly than casting games, why had I not discovered North and South earlier? I’d never heard of it before which is terrible considering it’s up there in the guilty pleasure costume drama stakes with the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice. In fact, it might be even better because it’s got commentary on the social, political and economic conditions of the time, particularly with the battle between the Masters and the Unionists. And I know my family was working in the cotton industry in Manchester at the time, so bonus points for being personally relevant (guess who spent her childhood going through old cotton mill museums). And on a much shallower note: Richard Armitage dressed in black and strolling through the white cotton dust filled cotton mill FTW.

Anyway, Elizabeth Gaskell has rocketed to pole position on my big list of authors I must read when I have the time.

Gah! My cinema has finally updated its movie schedule for tomorrow onwards and isn’t listing AWE as playing at any time all week. I know there are advanced screenings, I know they’re going to have it on, so WTF?! I’m just going to have to rock up tomorrow morning and hope I make it in on time to catch the first screening.

And for the record…

Dear Various Characters of the Pirates of Caribbean Universe

If one of you lays a hand on Norrington in a way that I don’t approve, I am going to write self-insert fic in which I hunt you down and beat you with my umbrella. Are we clear?

Yours,
Meddow.

Two weeks before AWE! I want to be more involved fandom wise in the run up but find myself way too busy at the moment, which is unfortunate. But come July hopefully I’ll have the time to actually act on the millions of plot bunnies I have right now.

Though it’s never going to be as good as DMC. DMC had me wanting to leap out of my seat and run around the theatre in joy. There I was thinking that Norrington, my favourite character for the first movie wasn’t going to be in it because he wasn’t in the trailer, and somewhat disappointed about it, only to have in the first five minutes have Becket deliver and arrest warrant and Governor Swann say “Commodore Norrington resigned his commission some months ago,” which to my mind meant “Norrington’s going to show up Tortuga as an angry pirate” (well you don’t just leave random bits of info like that in a movie, if he wasn’t going to show up at all there would have been no arrest warrant and any mention would have either the words ‘transferred’ or ‘promoted’ in there). And low and behold, Norrington shows up an hour in an angry, drunken, dirty and incredibly hot pirate and proceeds to be snarky, angsty and crafty and get himself in the middle of the greatest sword-fighting scene ever! XD

Good times.

See, poor AWE is doomed from the beginning. I’d be very hard to beat that level of pure fangirl ecstasy. They’d need lots more great sword-fighting action and something like Elizabeth deciding choosing Norrington over Will and Jack to beat it (highly unlikely, but if the writers are looking for a truly original ending to the trilogy, that would be the way to go about it). And since the Norrington fans have been left rather out in the cold promotion wise (I keep saying to myself that the Norrington scenes are all CGI heavy and thus not ready yet for stills and the trailer but I don’t really believe it) and because I’ve read the 50 page leaked script, I’ve got this awful feeling I’m going to be really disappointed.

So I’ll I think I’ll just continue repeating to myself my little fangirl mantra: There is always fanfic!

1. Happy New Year!

2. This has been eating at me for the past few days - I’m against the death penalty. I think that entity such as a state, especially a democracy, should sink to the level of those that it prosecutes. It is very hard saying this in respect of a man like Saddam Hussein who was a monster and if anyone deserves to be hung, it’s him; but the events of a few days ago do not sit right with me. Also, I would have liked to see Saddam Hussein be tried for every single crime he committed and justice be served for the lot of it.

3. I never realised Hornblower was in Titanic. Ioan Gruffudd was pulling bodies out of the water in the end.

4. Watching Pirates of the Caribbean with people not involved in the fandom can be very irritating.

“So Steve is in the second one as well.”
“Yep.”
“And he turns into the bad guy.”

In fandom I could say:
“Well if you read the long piece of meta I wrote on the subject you will realise he is in fact just acting out of his own self-interest like every other character in the movies and does not have the same access to information as the viewers such as whether the Kraken and Davy Jones really exist and that the Navy is no longer a force of good and so is probably incapable of predicting the devastating outcomes of his actions. And Elizabeth Swann did far worse. So I think the phrase ‘bad guy’ does not quite apply.”

Instead I have to settle for: “Yep.”

5. The rt_challenge challenge starts today! I haven’t written any Remus/Tonks since, oh, the last challenge so I think it may be the only thing that motivates me to write the pairing these days. Thank you challenge mods, you do a brilliant job.

1. If you use a plot device such as ghosts, figments of the imagination, or a rogue metamorphmagus etc to externalise a characters internal conflict, can a writer still call the conflict internal?

2. Damn you Disney for deciding to release DMC without deleted scenes, especially which I know for a fact there are more Norrington scenes. They'll release them months later, everybody knows it and I’m not made of money.

3. Okay Universe, in just over a month you have taken Steve Irwin, Peter Brock, Lord Cooke, the Maori Queen and the King of Tonga. Okay. I can deal with that. Just hands of the Top Gear presenters. Thank you.

I realise “Dear John” letters are terribly cliché, but what’s a girl to do when the man in question is fictional.

Dear Superman

First off, let me say; it’s not you, it’s me. I was wrong to enter into a relationship with a man that has not one of the six qualities I want in a man; a sexy accent, hot period costuming, a layer of dirt, the ability to swordfight, a healthy love of alcohol and a the amoral pursuit of an in inherently honourable ambition.

Now I have to admit, there is another man. A man who manages to fill not just a few, but all of these qualities. ( Here Be Spoilers )

We will always have Superman Returns,
Meddow

So anyway, saw the movie but I’m blown away by the hotness to really give my opinion. And yes, this probably does mean the end of my Superman obsession, but a new one has just begun.