tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44778611155462498472024-02-06T18:43:27.164-08:00Professional Fangirl!Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.comBlogger313125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-52659708546349112272016-06-07T08:51:00.004-07:002016-06-07T08:51:37.944-07:00Professional Fangirls Danyi and Sami participated in the first 12 Monkeys aftershow!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="480" scrolling="none" src="https://blab.im/michael-ahr-12monkeys-after-show-group-therapy-ep-208-lullaby" style="max-width: 100%;" width="640"></iframe></div>
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And the <a href="https://blab.im/sdjmkg">link to watch on the site in case this one gets wonky</a>!</div>
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<br />Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-58166864529892384842016-06-01T15:23:00.001-07:002016-06-01T15:26:03.281-07:00Letter from the Editor - June 2016<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Welcome to June, Fangirls! The weather is evening out into endless heat in the Northern Hemisphere, nights are coming later and leaving sooner, and the movies are giving us a few more of the big summer blockbusters! Here at ProFangirl, we're still expanding and we're looking to pick up a few more girls (or girl-identifiers) to add to the crew! Email me to see what you need to do.<br />
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I spent a lot of the last month sick, and as being sick makes me even more introverted, thinking about what I want Professional Fangirl to be. My conclusion, really, is that we're on the right track, but I want it to be more. So we're going to be filling her out in the second half of the year, and I hope you're all going to like what we have in store for you!<br />
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Here's what TV has for us this month:<br />
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<li>Cleverman, an Australian scifi show about the Dreamtime</li>
<li>The last season of Beauty and the Beast</li>
<li>Outcast, Kirkman's new show that is about demons instead of zombies</li>
<li>Preacher hits it's real run through this month</li>
<li>A new Voltron special on Netflix</li>
<li>Hell on Wheels finally gets to finish up it's last season</li>
<li>Last Ship comes back</li>
<li>Norman Reedus picks up a reality show about mortorcycles in his downtime from making TWD</li>
<li>Wrecked, meant to be Lost if it was a comedy starts it's first season</li>
<li>Dead of Summer wants to bring us 80s-set campground horror on TV</li>
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And in movies, we've got:</div>
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<li>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2</li>
<li>Warcraft</li>
<li>Finding Dory</li>
<li>Independence Day 2 (finally!)</li>
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Events this month:</div>
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<li>9th: Donald Duck Day</li>
<li>16th: Captain Picard Day</li>
<li>30th: Meteor Watch Day</li>
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What're you looking forward to?</div>
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<br />Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-8154365645128025052016-05-23T10:19:00.001-07:002016-05-23T10:19:18.699-07:0012 quick reasons to watch #12Monkeys<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<ol>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">It's scifi based on HOPE, and when was the last time that happened?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Moral ambiguity is the name of the game, and it's addictive, not offputting.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Every episode crams five episodes of some lesser show's worth of story into it.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">The fans are international, thoughtful, passionate, and dedicated. The creators are open, accessible, and informative. Also often really funny!</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">It's PACKED with awesome, awesome ideas that no other show has given us.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">It's deeply serious, but not bleak or dire--there's funny parts, bizarre parts, and good old gee-whiz awesome parts. It's Big Weird Ideas that blow your mind grounded in 100% human emotional reality.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Remember when Lost and Fringe were all about figuring out the patterns and guessing the answers? It's like that, but it actually gives answers as often as it poses questions!</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">The love story is literally epic. It transcends time. It also is more than just romantic love--and it involves just about any combination of people you can think of, somehow. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">The whole thing is smart--the characters and their development, the writing, the plotting, how they use time travel and time-travel-story-tropes, the way they assume the audience can keep up.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Women who do things and men who aren't afraid of of them or made powerless!</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Hard scifi with a deep emotional core--something a lot of scifi shows miss out on.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Conspiracies! Everywhere! Who doesn't love a conspiracy?</span></li>
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<br />Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-37948695259693944302016-05-18T10:43:00.000-07:002016-05-18T10:43:41.933-07:00A tweeted letter to Syfy about #12Monkeys and their brand<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I think <a href="https://twitter.com/Syfy">@Syfy</a> should just give up on canceling for a while, but especially, they should save <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/12Monkeys?src=hash">#12Monkeys</a> for it's ideal five year run. >></div>
— Samantha Holloway (@pirategirljack) <a href="https://twitter.com/pirategirljack/status/732983819763060737">May 18, 2016</a></blockquote>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/Syfy">@Syfy</a> Because, look: scifi fans have been floudering. Network TV is unreliable. You could be the beacon of hope that the shows will LIVE.</div>
— Samantha Holloway (@pirategirljack) <a href="https://twitter.com/pirategirljack/status/732984007672135682">May 18, 2016</a></blockquote>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/Syfy">@Syfy</a> You could be the channel where awesome, smart, clever, daring shows go to get the good treatment they deserve.</div>
— Samantha Holloway (@pirategirljack) <a href="https://twitter.com/pirategirljack/status/732984315286544385">May 18, 2016</a></blockquote>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/Syfy">@Syfy</a> You could *obliterate* the expectation that scifi shows--the backbone of your channel--never get a decent end. Start with <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/12Monkeys?src=hash">#12Monkeys</a>.</div>
— Samantha Holloway (@pirategirljack) <a href="https://twitter.com/pirategirljack/status/732984605985374209">May 18, 2016</a></blockquote>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/Syfy">@Syfy</a> Let <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/12Monkeys?src=hash">#12Monkeys</a> prove the formula, then do the same for <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Killjoys?src=hash">#Killjoys</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DarkMatter?src=hash">#DarkMatter</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TheMagicians?src=hash">#TheMagicians</a> etc, & LIVE the rebranding you've given us.</div>
— Samantha Holloway (@pirategirljack) <a href="https://twitter.com/pirategirljack/status/732985042121691137">May 18, 2016</a></blockquote>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/Syfy">@Syfy</a> Embrace the geeky, tech-savvy, passionate, forward thinking fans you already have and don't eff over your ideal audience--surprise us.</div>
— Samantha Holloway (@pirategirljack) <a href="https://twitter.com/pirategirljack/status/732985417360891905">May 18, 2016</a></blockquote>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/Syfy">@Syfy</a> Be better than the low expectations so many people have for good scifi on basic TV. Prove the doubters wrong. Be good to your shows.</div>
— Samantha Holloway (@pirategirljack) <a href="https://twitter.com/pirategirljack/status/732985770458419200">May 18, 2016</a></blockquote>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/Syfy">@Syfy</a> Take this good start you've built the last yr & a half, and RUN with it. Launching these shows was bold&surprising. Don't chicken out!</div>
— Samantha Holloway (@pirategirljack) <a href="https://twitter.com/pirategirljack/status/732986511528984576">May 18, 2016</a></blockquote>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/Syfy">@Syfy</a> We just want to know that our most loved shows are safe--give us that, and we'll stay for years and other shows. Deal?</div>
— Samantha Holloway (@pirategirljack) <a href="https://twitter.com/pirategirljack/status/732986817415393281">May 18, 2016</a></blockquote>
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Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-18599004505241728132016-05-17T19:08:00.002-07:002016-05-17T19:08:34.600-07:00Tea Science and Professor Layton<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-9b7dd3a6-c194-9e46-52e2-fd783dffebd6" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-9b7dd3a6-c194-9e46-52e2-fd783dffebd6" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For many players I know the most charming and memorable part of the Professor Layton games was the tea mini game. For those of you unfamiliar with the mini game, players would drag and drop ingredients from their organized little compartments and into the waiting white porcelain tea pot. The eight ingredients, while having resemblances to Chinese medicinals, were on a whole fictitious. Never the less, the idea of balancing flavors through a blend of ingredients into a pleasing brew is one that resonates even in nerd culture. What follows is a beginner’s crash course to blending your own tea flavors.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Firstly, Americans often use the word ‘tea’ to describe any infusion and not just that of the Camellia sinensis (tea plant.) But there are two major differences I would like to discuss with you when it comes to infusing and that is the difference between a tisane and a decoction. A tisane is an infusion prepared by pouring heated water over ingredients and allowing them to steep, this is used for delicate ingredients and ones that have been powdered or otherwise processed to infuse quickly. A decoction is prepared by boiling your ingredients with the water, often done in a pot or steel kettle this is for larger woodier ingredients that take longer to release their flavors. Most commercially produced teas you may purchase are already blended with their ingredients processed at sizes allowing them to all infuse at the same time. This means that those hard, woodier spices such as cinnamon, cloves anise and others generally are included as powders. Regrettably powdered spices infuse fast because they have more surface area exposed, but this increased exposure also means the essential oils are more easily damaged by time, sun and heat. This gives your convenient tea bags a short shelf life. After six months or so you might as well be pouring water over sawdust and this is very convenient for the company that makes them as it results in you either drinking stale tea or throwing out boxes unused.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Insert Laurel’s tea set and with it a whole parade of teapot culture both elegant, practical and largely unknown to the American ‘bag and mug’ audience. By using a device like a tea pot and putting your ingredients in to freely infuse you can easily recreate that Layton charm we all love. You will also need a nonreactive pot and lid large enough to hold a quart of water.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">New to this and don’t have a tea pot? Your cooking pot and a strainer will work even if it’s not an elegant addition to your table. Being the wandering hobbit I am, I myself prefer the best of both worlds with a GSI steel camp kettle.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If you keep an ample and up to date spice cabinet (or know someone who does and will let you borrow their kitchen) you may use these recipes and put your powdered spice ingredients directly into your tea pot. Aren’t you civilized!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Constant Comment</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">3 Tbs Ceylon</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">3 tsp dried orange zest</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1/8 tsp powdered cinnamon</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">½ tsp powdered clove</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Chai</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">3 Tbs Assam</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1 tsp cardamom powder</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">½ tsp ginger powder</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">¼ tsp cinnamon</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1/8 tsp cloves</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pinch of pepper & powdered fennel (or anise)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Hibiscus</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">¼ cup cut hibiscus flowers</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1/8 tsp cinnamon</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Large pinch of allspice and clove powders</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For the rest of us who do life the hard way, a trip to your local import store is in order! There you may find large bags of whole spices and other alchemical looking ingredients at much more reasonable prices. I suggest you go with a friend and divide up the bags. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Before adding the spices to your stove top pot place them on the counter and give them a whack with the bottom of the pot. This breaks them up to infuse more evenly, doing this just before use insures the flavors stay fresh. Pour your water over your selected spices and heat on medium until a gentle boil is reached, turn down to low and simmer for ten minutes. Then turn off the heat and either add the tea to your cooking pot or pour this mixture into your waiting tea pot with the dry tea measured into it and allow to steep according to the tea used.</span></div>
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<table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="184"></col><col width="262"></col><col width="162"></col></colgroup><tbody>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Constant Comment</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Boil 13 cloves with half a cinnamon stick</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pour over 3 tablespoons of Ceylon and 3 teaspoons fresh orange zest</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Chai</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Boil 6 cloves, 2 whole cinnamon sticks, ¼ inch ginger, 10 green cardamom pods, ¼ whole fennel seeds and 5 pepper corns</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pour over scant ¼ cup Assam *please note this chai recipe is meant to be mixed 1:1 with hot milk and sweetened*</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Hibiscus</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Boil 5 allspice berries, 5 cloves and one cinnamon stick</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pour over ¼ cup crushed hibiscus flowers</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Large quantities of single house (one source/preparation) teas can be purchased online or at said import store. Another reason to love making your decoction separate from your tea infusion is that you may use ANY type of tea you wish for your final product because you can cool your decoction to the correct brew temp for your base tea. Example, I like Chai with Assam but if that is too much caffeine use the cooled liquid and follow your brew instructions for your favorite green or caffeine free tea leaves. Not a tea drinker? Use the decoction to make your coffee or make it twice as strong with half as much water then add two cups of sugar to make a flavoring syrup for steamed milk drinks. The possibilities are endless!</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002333103848260975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-283622785184047602016-05-12T16:13:00.001-07:002016-05-12T16:13:52.214-07:00#12Monkeys Monkey Musings 4 - I have a problem with Aaron Marker<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM3V0_ZmuILtMbScAXMU_-5-mSFmgGUpcwoJ94rsdOwhu8450nN74iGRSd80fblX54sCrcwg2faZFpPpO4z9sqL0GAmwqg2kJigveNRtpeeJsqOrfcdOjGRHm4pbcpNSq8WgcREZg-QLj6/s1600/pro+fangirl+header.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="56" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM3V0_ZmuILtMbScAXMU_-5-mSFmgGUpcwoJ94rsdOwhu8450nN74iGRSd80fblX54sCrcwg2faZFpPpO4z9sqL0GAmwqg2kJigveNRtpeeJsqOrfcdOjGRHm4pbcpNSq8WgcREZg-QLj6/s640/pro+fangirl+header.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuMToPmdqYMP8BjeUa-djsl8HhPQPfqYZ7vKA0Qe5riOaX8aeg6xL2BlzfE36AFcOG2g5Nqp6BH4ZUnAxfVI9OQzskYkNHcvOdWgatXxZ8H6Expbe712HF1SI_Y_zQ2vYFWHejq6tW9u9Y/s1600/marker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuMToPmdqYMP8BjeUa-djsl8HhPQPfqYZ7vKA0Qe5riOaX8aeg6xL2BlzfE36AFcOG2g5Nqp6BH4ZUnAxfVI9OQzskYkNHcvOdWgatXxZ8H6Expbe712HF1SI_Y_zQ2vYFWHejq6tW9u9Y/s640/marker.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>ETA: I almost didn't publish this because it feels like I'm picking a fight when really I'm asking someone to change my mind? Let's talk, Monkeys.</i></div>
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We in the fandom have been talking a lot lately about who the Witness is. Personally, I think it's going to be Sam, Ramse’s son--mostly because it'll then all literally be one person’s fault, because that one person fought so hard to make sure that kid existed--or one of the Joneses because they are the ones who broke nature to invent time travel. Story-wise, and based mostly on my own personal writing habits and understanding of stories, those are my favorite theories.</div>
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But actually--if the Witness is actually a villain and not misunderstood or trapped*--on an emotional level, I’m hoping it's Aaron Marker. Because he's a punk and a weenie and I want him to keep being a villain and not get out of owning up to his weenie-ness so easily as dying.</div>
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See, here's the thing. I have a problem with Aaron Marker. The fact that Cassie is so pro-Marker in her anger right now has brought into focus what it is for me: he is a problem.</div>
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Cassie loved him in the beginning and it looked like they were set up for a fantastic rich-and-influential-people life. But then Cassie, the woman he's engaged to, who he wants to spend the rest of his life with, is kidnapped--and he doesn't support her through her trauma?</div>
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Okay, I get that she's talking about time travel and killer viruses and it looks like she's snapped, but he's the one person in the world who should have been there for her, and he wasn't. From what we’ve seen, he mostly wanted her to stop talking about it and never think about it again--to pretend she was still the same as before--and get back to their lives as if nothing had happened. As if that wouldn't have driven her insane for real.</div>
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Then, when he does know for sure that she’s been telling the truth all this time, we never see him apologize for being so unfair to her for two whole years. He just, again, tries to pick up where they left off. He doesn't give her space to mourn her dead partner she was on the phone with when he died, that we see, he just wants to sweep it all under the rug. Again. And she’s lost and lonely and grieving and without purpose again, and goes along with it. Before Cole comes back after Chechnya, she doesn’t look as okay with all this as Marker does, no matter what she says.</div>
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And then, when that's blown up again, and they find out they still need to combat the end of the world, his third chance to get on board with the mission the woman he loves is dedicated to whether she likes it or not, he sells them out.</div>
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Now, I don't doubt that he loved her. If he's alive, I don't doubt that he’ll say he still does. But it was a small, closed-doors, narrow-minded sort of love that led him to literally be okay with killing the whole world if he gets to keep her--despite the fact that she had already told him that's not acceptable and he knew that she'd been working on this problem for two years. That’s what bothers me the most about his tactics: she specifically said that’s not how this is going to go, and he goes that way anyway--and tries to force her when she won’t go willingly. He was willing to not only sell out Cole, but to cut Cassie off from the only purpose she has in life now, and to hold her hostage while something she could have helped avoid happens all around her.</div>
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That's not a good man.</div>
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And it's my opinion that he would have still been that man even if the plague was never going to happen and Cole had never shown up. He proved to be the sort who isn't far-sighted enough to think of the many, the sort who isn't secure enough to let his potential wife make her own choices or trust her own experience, and the sort who more than once tries to avoid both dealing with big issues and taking responsibility for actions taken because of them. They would have gotten married and been rich and powerful--and then some other crisis would have shown who he really is.</div>
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For all his faults, Cole always believed in Cassie’s intrinsic value and capableness--which, in the beginning, is probably one of the things that drew her to him. He accepted her for what she is, and didn't try to make her fit some mold he had predetermined for her. In fact, he told her not to change, to stay who she is.</div>
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And now, in her anger, Cassie has decided that Marker was some wonderful thing and that Cole systematically took that from her. It irks me. I have infinite compassion for the trauma she's going through, but I really hope we get some time with her dealing with what's happened to her and realizing that Marker wasn't good for her, that he never had her own wishes at heart and often directly tried to stop her from making decisions as if she wasn't an autonomous adult, and that Cole has never systematically done anything. I think she’s mourning the life she thought she had and lost more than the person Marker actually was, and is avoiding dealing with the fact that he was always a weenie and they would have all died if Cole hadn’t smashed into her life like he did.</div>
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Marker made his own bed. And Cassie needed fuel for anger to keep her alive and sane, so she canonized him and blocked all that, and blamed Cole.</div>
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But he's still a weenie.</div>
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Think of the reality check Cassie will get if they find out the Witness is Marker. If he's justifying everything he's done with his love for her--if he’s upped his game from letting the world die to actively making it die in an attempt to keep her. Cole will also take the blame for having beaten him and not made sure he was dead in that fire, but that beating was directed by Cassie of her own free will. She made him, and he made himself, and they've been against him all along. That's a story I would love to watch.</div>
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I love Noah Bean, so I’m inclined to like him, but he’s made a character that severely bothers me on a personal level--and I think that’s some genius casting. Take this inherently likable guy, and make him this hard-to-define low-grade ordinary-standing-in-the-way-of-epic bad. Make him less bad than the actual baddies, and therefore more ambiguous. And pit him against the heroes. Then, maybe one day, revealing him as a greater villain than they thought. That’s brilliant, and it’s worked so well so far. What potential! </div>
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I fully expect the show to throw every wrench** at me on this topic, like all others, but the story feels unfinished and in the middle of the action, and I’m willing to have my opinion changed...because it’s not a great opinion of the man right now. And, of course, with actual change thrown in, maybe they've already altered him and his story, but still have their own memories of before to deal with...</div>
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*Olivia is making me think that either a) the Witness is not telling everyone everything and is more devious than we’ve been led to believe, or b) she’s just saying whatever she wants and calling it the will of the Witness, which would make her worse AND bring the opportunity that she’s USING the Witness rather than serving him.</div>
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**Monkey wrenches!</div>
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Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-40935380505338523262016-05-06T11:37:00.001-07:002016-05-06T11:37:12.513-07:00Sami on Captain America : Civil War<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Okay, so I went into Civil War worried about several things: </div>
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<li>The movie being too grim</li>
<li>How they were going to handle the divide in the team and how annoying and contrived it was going to be</li>
<li>How much boring and depressing politics was going to be in the discussions about that bill</li>
<li>Why Nat wasn't on Cap's side</li>
<li>How they were going to handle having so many people in a movie that's supposed to be about Cap</li>
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But I really don't think I needed to worry. Captain America : Civil War is not a perfect movie, and not as fantastic as Winter Soldier, but it's still really good and better than Age of Ultron. <b>Spoilers ahead</b>, so don't keep reading if you don't want them!</div>
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I really hated the marketing that kept trying to force everyone to pick sides. I think it was unneccessary for the fans to be divided as well as the team, and my favs were spread out across both sides. So that was part of why I wasn't super happy about the idea of everyone splitting down the middle, but in the actual moment of the movie--though I still don't like the advertising--it didn't matter that much. Everyone was just doing what they thought was right, and Cap and Tony actually were forcing everyone's hands, so it was in-line with the theme and the feel of the film itself.<br />
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Also, one of my least favorite things about the way this Phase has been going is Tony being more and more afraid of everything. It's fully understandable, and I think it was handled well in his own third movie, but in Ultron it was making him make really stupid decisions, and in Civil War, though he was dealing with it by trying to atone for those stupid decisions, it made him come across as an asshole, manipulating the people he was trying to protect.<br />
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The part of that that struck home the best, for me, was where he considered the Avengers his family and just wanted to keep his family together--because his original family hadn't stayed together very well at all. They could have played up the idea of family a little more and not the idea of government oversight--which is distasteful, the way the real world is, but I guess that is why it's there to begin with--but whatever. When Tony was a broken kid looking for a home, that's when he didn't seem like a jerk, and that's when I liked his half of the story best.<br />
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I didn't like that all his reasoning was so small--you want to pinion your own wings because you have no self control and you want to keep your girlfriend from dumping you? That was handled better in Ironman 3, and I thought it was resolved. The family angle was bigger and more grand, if you ask me.<br />
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Cap's half of the story was more emotionally true, I feel. He'd been looking for Bucky since he lost him, and now he finally had the lead he'd been searching for, only to get it at exactly the worst possible time to be associated with the Winter Soldier. And he did anyway, because Bucky needed him. I like Steve as a rebel for good--he saw exactly how corrupt the government had become last movie and he didn't want a part of that this time...but all his talk about taking your own blame? How exactly was he going to do that for all the literal and emotional damage he has helped cause? Come on, Cap. You gonna go and rebuild those dozens of buildings yourself?*<br />
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Bucky is where the heart of the movie was. Sebastian Stan did such an amazing job with all the variations on a character that barely talks--creepy, brainwashed Winter Soldier; shell-shocked survivor trying to lay low and disappear; almost-Bucky trying to deal with what he'd done and figure out how much blame he should get, since he's aware that he's been controlled, but also that it was literally him who did those things. In the reveal scene with Tony's parents, that came to a head: he knew Howard before all this. They had friends in common even if they weren't friends themselves. And he killed him because he was told to and as Winter Soldier, he couldn't not.<br />
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Hearbreaking.<br />
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It would have been nice to see what Bucky would have done with four other Winter Soldiers, but it was clever how that was side-stepped, and it showed the villain's deviousness really well: he knew exactly how to push all their buttons, and they all fell for it. Now they're all divided and it seems like most of them don't even know just how manipulated they were.<br />
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It's a movie about manipulation, I guess.<br />
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All the really fun stuff came from everyone else, and there was lots of everyone else involved. Almost too many, but they were handled pretty well, with everyone getting a few moments to shine.</div>
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Wanda being still too untrained to really do this super-hero stuff, and her being so upset about her mistakes was a good sign on how her character is going. I really liked how Steve took her under his wind as sort of a little sister. And I liked how totally smitten Vision is with her, but how they didn't force her to like him back the same way, yet. The fact that she's the only one who has a chance against him is encouraging that they're equals if they go with the romance angle, but it also sets them up against each other if they go with comic-stories for either of them about being overpowered. Because <i>damn</i> is Vision unstoppable, and if she can match him, that means she's unstoppable, too. In the big airport-faceoff, both of them were pretty alarming.</div>
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Nat actually made sense being on the side of signing the Accords, but I was so much more happy when she switched sides like I'd hoped she would. And it was refreshing not having to have her be the stand-in for missing love interests...though the whole Sharon Carter thing was weird. I loved Nat and Clint basically playing along and not actually fighting each other when everyone else was being super serious about the fight. Clint is a gift, and why don't the two of them have their own movie yet?**</div>
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Ant-Man was so much fun, even though his mask made him look like a weird robot baby. I love Scott, and I can't wait until his second movie. All the current fun in the MCU is in these side heroes, and he brings a lot of it here where it's needed to balance the tragedy that is Bucky Barnes. </div>
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Spiderman was GREAT, but not how Tony went and paid him off and threatened to expose his identity to get him to work on Team Ironman. Like. The kid is still in high school. He's an infant compared to these guys you're setting him against, and that's <i>crazy irresponsible and potentially dangerous</i>. Good thing he's damn near indestructible.</div>
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Rhodey did not deserve any of this.</div>
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Sam Wilson's "I really hate you" was probably his best line in the movie, but my fav part with him was when he and Bucky, both pretty large dudes, were crammed into that tiny car, waiting on Steve. Oh, my god, so much fun, both the argument over seats, and the bro-nod after that weird Steve-Sharon kiss. So great.</div>
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And Black Panther! Considering how most of his screentime was devoted to kicking Bucky's ass, he did really well with an enlightened revenge arc--he really seemed to be learning the lessons that everyone else was sort of not learning; he pays attention and lets other people make mistakes instead of making them himself, and that's really interesting in a superhero story. Also, it's amazing that both sides basically respected that he's <i>an actual king</i> and kept his honors.</div>
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I think Civil War actually wrapped up the Steve-and-Bucky trilogy more than the Captain America trilogy we thought we were watching up till now, and the main purpose was to mix up the teams more than to tell either Steve or Bucky's stories, but it's a pretty good movie for all that. This obsession the MCU has with everything being OMG THERE'S TWO--yeah, I got tired of that with the two SHIELDs and two HYDRAs, and I'll be glad when they get that out of their system and stop with it already, but it'll be interesting to see how a UN-sanctioned Avengers team and a rogue Avengers team will interact. </div>
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Which one is going to recruit each of the new heroes as they pop up? Which team will Hulk and Thor side with when they get back***, assuming they're not going to just be problems for the teams to deal with? If they are problems to deal with, how will that go with half the team being their friends and half being people who came after they disappeared?</div>
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I love that so much of this movie was about the absolute damage these people cause, but it would have been nice if they'd maybe not caused more and proved the point that they do need to be kept in check--it would have made Cap's view stronger if he'd told his team NOT to destroy that airport, those planes, all that cargo and people's belongings, all those cars...Like, did you not listen at all to that totally basic part of the UN powerpoint? </div>
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I also love that Bucky's "I'm not going to kill anyone" became like a theme for the movie. The badguys killed people, but the goodguys made a point not to...though they were totally destroying property, still, and probably breaking a lot of bones.</div>
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Things I really want to know now:</div>
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<li>What is going to happen to Bucky? Who can help him--both with his arm and with all the Hydra mess inside his head?</li>
<li>What happened to That Book? Are there other copies of it, or is that the only one? </li>
<li>Just how freaking awesome IS Wakanda? I'm really looking forward to Black Panther now! I wanna see that one lady actually get to kick someone's butt.</li>
<li>Will Seb get his wish and get a love story with Nat?</li>
<li>Can we trust whoever is in charge of Zemo now? And what's going on with his plan, all creepily alluded to?</li>
<li>Where are Steve and Co going to set up shop now that they're technically criminals, even if they're still acting as heroes? What resources will they have?****</li>
<li>Who else was at that mid-ocean supermax? Did they get out, too?</li>
<li>Are the new Avengers going to get their own movies? I mean, I want Nat and Clint to get one first, but then, can we get Wanda and Vision?</li>
<li>Also Falcon. Doesn't that nerd deserve a movie of his own after all he's been through?</li>
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Still lingering stories I want to see come back:</div>
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<li>I mean, Zola can't just be gone, right? Am I really supposed to believe that he uploaded his brain to thousands of too-early-tech computers and survived for decades developing an algorithm to track very specific people, and then he'd just let himself get exploded like that?</li>
<li>Hulk. Like, where. What's he doing? Also Fury. Also Thor. Also, where the heck was Maria Hill--doesn't she work for Tony's security firm they've not done much with now?</li>
<li>How does any of this affect or interact with SHIELD? Because that show is practically in an alternate universe, it has so little effect on the mainstream, and it's getting annoying. Are we going to have to have three more seasons of this before the Inhumans movie forces them to <i>just admit that Coulson is alive and everything is really stupid with his agency?</i> Come on, this is exactly what SHIELD is supposed to be dealing with, and the Avengers have been without backup for YEARS now because of all this fuckery on the show.</li>
<li>Are the Secret Avengers / whatever the heck the Inhuman team on the show is called ever going to have anything to do with the other Avengers?</li>
<li>Why are they not making shorts anymore? Because seriously, they could do a lot with these movies that don't exist as shorts--a few Nat and Clint side-missions, Rhodey and Falcon and Wasp and randoms crossovers that they can't work into the movies, etc could all do great things in the shorts. Hell, they could made a whole series based on those who who were recruited after Avegners by Sitwell, and what they've been doing since SHIELD fell!</li>
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So, overall, I really enjoyed the movie (despite any complaining above), and I'm excited to see what happens next! I just wish that there had been more actual attempt not to destroy every single thing everywhere, when that was one of the points of the Accords half the movie was fighting. It's going to be super interesting to see how a world that technically doesn't have a superpowered Avengers team anymore--since one half is in hiding and the other half has to get permission--is going to deal with all the weird stuff coming up in the next few movies. </div>
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And I'm super-interested in what's going to lead up to the Infinity Wars and the union of the cosmic MCU and the earth-MCU.</div>
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*I would, however, pay good money to see a movie where some ex-Shield nobodies who were used to the grunt work set up a massive construction firm dedicated to cleaning up after superhero fights. You listening, Feige? I'd write that for you.<br />
**I'd write that movie, too, though I'd probably wind up writing them as a triad with Clint's wife, and get shot down on that.<br />
***Weird that the Avengers don't know where either of them are for what could be two years? When will Hulk get his own movie? Weren't they looking for them the way Steve's been looking for Bucky?<br />
****Hank Pym really doesn't like Starks, so maybe he'll foot the bill?<br />
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Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-56159083644013347172016-05-04T20:17:00.001-07:002016-05-05T20:30:37.973-07:00May the Fourth Be with You! - Lauren and Star Wars Today<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsJ9sFlToyV20C-InKxAouniv7oT7Di3W8jRqk1ZhKvvqYrutq4poxF3CJvufjl2adjXdols1Ku21D1zC6Dvw8szitX3H5zxruAIhj7F4QHDJGSBH_NFcPy2XlkANSMv_Zi8DmzgwR4UVR/s1600/header+-+lauren.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="78" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsJ9sFlToyV20C-InKxAouniv7oT7Di3W8jRqk1ZhKvvqYrutq4poxF3CJvufjl2adjXdols1Ku21D1zC6Dvw8szitX3H5zxruAIhj7F4QHDJGSBH_NFcPy2XlkANSMv_Zi8DmzgwR4UVR/s640/header+-+lauren.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Beware. Here there be Spoilers.<br />
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So, the Fourth snuck up on me this year. Usually I line up Star Wars episodes IV, V, and VI and watch them in a glorious build up to the Fourth.<br />
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This year I was distracted by a lot of things that came up and didn't realize until yesterday that May the Fourth was imminent. I still ran around all day saying "May the fourth be with you." And replying "And also with you." As one does.<br />
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I was a bit bummed that I'd missed my traditional movie run through, but the truth is, Star Wars is never far from my life.<br />
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You see... The thing is...<br />
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I just recently dug up and played<i> Knights of the Old Republic</i> (KotOR) I and II and I, totally coincidentally, finished my play-through of the second game today, about twenty minutes ago.<br />
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I am now filled with unrequited nostalgia for the pre-Disney years of the expanded universe. I understand why Disney chose to make pretty much everything but the original three movies non-cannon. They needed breathing space to write in, they really did.<br />
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But I miss Thrawn and his evil blue conquering ways. I miss the mysticism and danger of the New Jedi Order books where the galaxy was under attack by invaders from yet another galaxy, invaders who were invisible in the force.<br />
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I even miss LucasArts. KotOR II kind of demanded a sequel and there may never be one now - especially since all the material in the games is essentially just fan fiction.<br />
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There were things I liked about <i>The Force Awakens</i> (not the title to be sure, lol), but it didn't give me the satisfied feeling I always got after reading through one of the expanded universe books. I've thought a little about why that is, and I've come to three main points.<br />
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1. <i>The Force Awakens</i> DRASTICALLY narrowed the Star Wars universe down and only gave us the familiar old elements to work with. That might be comforting to some after the wretched disappointment of episodes I, II, and III (I could write an essay on all the things they <i>almost</i> did right in those films, which is why they suck so much, actually). But we've had Star Wars for almost 40 years now, and giving us another orphan hero from a sandy planet (even if she's a girl) isn't going to do it for us. It's too much like saying "lets start fresh with absolutely nothing new."<br />
It also feels like the heroes in the original movies accomplished absolutely nothing, which really sucks. Their only legacy is more storm troopers and a brat with a really questionable looking lightsaber that Luke hid from when he got out of control.<br />
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2. The Villain isn't compelling. Neither of them. Whichever one is the real villain anyway.<br />
Neither Kylo Ren or Supreme Leader Snoke (however much he looks like damaged Anakin from the <i>Return of the Jedi</i>) can hold a candle to the foreboding figure of Darth Vader. In fact, Kylo's vague worship of his dead grandfather just seems silly.<br />
Vader's introduction as someone holding on to the traditions of the force in a galaxy nearly devoid of those who could channel its power made him interesting. His conviction and brutality toward his people and the rebels alike mad him fear-worthy.<br />
The emperor really gains a lot of his power from the hold he has over Vader. If Darth Vader obeyed the guy, there HAD to be something scary about him. Snoke just pushes around a whiny kid who can't control his temper and destroys five planets that everyone immediately forgets about.<br />
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3. The best part of the original movies were the way the characters developed their relationships with each other, and those relationships <i>changed the galaxy</i>. Except now in the new movie, they didn't. And the best part of the new movie was the relationship that Rey was building with Han Solo, but that got cut off before it could do more than hint at something meaningful. Because Rey and Fin are both extremely inconsistent characters, even the hints at friendship and attraction there are watered down. I'm desperately hoping they'll do more with Rey and Leia in the next film... talk about potential for awesomeness, but I don't see it going that way since they tracked Luke down at the end of the film but, once again, there's no relationship there, nothing to make me care about what they might do together going forward.<br />
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4. I know I said only three, but I lied. Sort of. This is the part where I admit my own bias a little. I grew up loving Jacen and Jaina Solo and their friends and kid brother, I loved the way Luke and Mara Jade got together, and the birth of their son, Ben, was a HUGE event in my life.<br />
Now Ben is Han and Leia's son, but he goes by Kylo Ren 'cause he hates his parents? It's just tough to give up the old thing when it was so much more satisfying.<br />
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I know I griped and maybe that's not what May the Fourth is about, but it's hard not to complain about things that are actually pretty near and dear to your heart. So I thought I'd go out with a list of things I loved about <i>The Force Awakens</i>.<br />
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1. BB-8 - he wasn't R2-D2 all over again, but had similar appeal.<br />
2. Poe Dameron - just yes. Totally.<br />
3. General Leia (She's still a princess, dangit! even if Vader blew up her planet. Well, Moff Tarkin did, but anyway).<br />
4. Maz .<br />
5. Rey is a girl (though it sucked that she was a super inconsistent character).<br />
6. Fin (sadly inconsistent character again).<br />
7. Fin and Poe flying and shooting together.<br />
8. The practical effects - thank goodness.<br />
9. Fin using a lightsaber.<br />
10. Han and Leia hugging - though I'm of two minds about their reunion. I liked it better when their marriage was solid.<br />
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Now, I think I'll go play some Star Wars <i>Dark Forces</i> before bed...<br />
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May the Fourth be with you all!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05295754455771648260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-62148447808253126062016-05-04T15:57:00.003-07:002016-05-04T15:57:50.131-07:00May The Fourth Be With You! <div style="text-align: justify;">
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Hello lovely readers!</div>
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Happy Star Wars Day and May The Fourth Be With You! Let's celebrate with one of Sami's amazing creations - <a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/267531963/most-adorable-android-star-wars-bb-8" target="_blank">Most Adorable Droid</a>, inspired by BB-8! I have always loooved R2D2 and now there's BB-8 to split that love with. I wish I had a droid...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM17uxtIn-0M4r29jeiN6VW8JX-bo7Q3hBIUNlmfEzoV3tqRaqJxkE4b0nkKZvfA9qgaf7BQZVmjxvsJAc4RVJA092jgPYAZF4ycfuVNzPBZ52B8ptp61eXH8-AKDWSXDeIk9B_1xIDmI/s1600/ITMostAdorableDroid1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM17uxtIn-0M4r29jeiN6VW8JX-bo7Q3hBIUNlmfEzoV3tqRaqJxkE4b0nkKZvfA9qgaf7BQZVmjxvsJAc4RVJA092jgPYAZF4ycfuVNzPBZ52B8ptp61eXH8-AKDWSXDeIk9B_1xIDmI/s1600/ITMostAdorableDroid1.jpg" width="500" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://imagesmtv-a.akamaihd.net/uri/mgid:file:http:shared:mtv.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/bb-8-1452704237.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://imagesmtv-a.akamaihd.net/uri/mgid:file:http:shared:mtv.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/bb-8-1452704237.gif" height="206" width="500" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i><a href="http://www.mtv.com/" target="_blank">[source]</a></i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeEbhLfo2UF_gpUtOFdtJTbuUqKfs_PuVgSTPvSAvUMgRoBJ35xyRoC4kwZ_iCqjkPeh8XEbjn9nYIEOpryqTonu8JHOoy3HbJMifzTD_5virWeoWi9af9CwUOmLPeQlqnMGyqfflH4Jo/s1600/ITMostAdorableDroid2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeEbhLfo2UF_gpUtOFdtJTbuUqKfs_PuVgSTPvSAvUMgRoBJ35xyRoC4kwZ_iCqjkPeh8XEbjn9nYIEOpryqTonu8JHOoy3HbJMifzTD_5virWeoWi9af9CwUOmLPeQlqnMGyqfflH4Jo/s1600/ITMostAdorableDroid2.jpg" width="500" /></a></div>
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Isn't this polish freaking SPOT ON?! I luuuurve it! This is three thin coats with lots of top coat, because of the big spangles. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiddA_qqOSuyzAmkiWcPV1Je2Bc2jU3WSQ5SrK7IrQ9gA0T5jU387kD3YXHwHbwb81uKfpK4JqlhuNswVLHTULNRIKmNQRu_4S4ipFVnjeufZ_xHoQRGLP39T3gO7rRztoyOkYeWaJ894c/s1600/ITMostAdorableDroid4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiddA_qqOSuyzAmkiWcPV1Je2Bc2jU3WSQ5SrK7IrQ9gA0T5jU387kD3YXHwHbwb81uKfpK4JqlhuNswVLHTULNRIKmNQRu_4S4ipFVnjeufZ_xHoQRGLP39T3gO7rRztoyOkYeWaJ894c/s1600/ITMostAdorableDroid4.jpg" width="500" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://hackadaycom.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/bb-8.gif?w=640" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://hackadaycom.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/bb-8.gif?w=640" width="500" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i><a href="http://hackaday.com/" target="_blank">[source]</a></i></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh41uwb3lUU_FwA9Q25gVCiSLpfys1n3VSWWURyOT3s9WOVy0sIzr469Q9VsEZMBFONY2BgNurNW2a3y8VIlDKvfc2NNEIbC37KQjBFGAAU_jIVBvyo7XzEfehceI5-lojvC9y91MmVieQ/s1600/ITMostAdorableDroid3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh41uwb3lUU_FwA9Q25gVCiSLpfys1n3VSWWURyOT3s9WOVy0sIzr469Q9VsEZMBFONY2BgNurNW2a3y8VIlDKvfc2NNEIbC37KQjBFGAAU_jIVBvyo7XzEfehceI5-lojvC9y91MmVieQ/s1600/ITMostAdorableDroid3.jpg" width="500" /></a></div>
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So this is what I think:</div>
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<a href="https://45.media.tumblr.com/d772a7470e4c0a36f0677a3c0fe04c7f/tumblr_o1go9v1OXd1v4itdoo1_500.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://45.media.tumblr.com/d772a7470e4c0a36f0677a3c0fe04c7f/tumblr_o1go9v1OXd1v4itdoo1_500.gif" width="500" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://45.media.tumblr.com/d772a7470e4c0a36f0677a3c0fe04c7f/tumblr_o1go9v1OXd1v4itdoo1_500.gif" target="_blank"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[source]</span></i></a></div>
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And here's a little more cuteness to celebrate!<br />
<a href="https://49.media.tumblr.com/fddc9664da277494438d6916c11189cf/tumblr_o00apoW8SU1qkyn8ho1_500.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://49.media.tumblr.com/fddc9664da277494438d6916c11189cf/tumblr_o00apoW8SU1qkyn8ho1_500.gif" width="500" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/reallifedoodles/comments/3yg9bs/bb8_is_better_with_limbs/" target="_blank">[source]</a></i></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: start;">And don't forget to </span><a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/267531963/most-adorable-android-star-wars-bb-8" style="text-align: start;" target="_blank">grab your bottle</a><span style="text-align: start;">!</span></div>
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Manis & Makeovershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08032980550976417399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-28101105034799607012016-05-04T12:47:00.000-07:002016-05-04T12:47:01.876-07:00May the Fourth Be With You! - In which Sami rambles about her relationship with Star Wars<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHTyntcK50s1D8ybvGzGBI_J2IwGXLANVpTOCW1B2LRQwwHm39A5ZCiKYNGel6R-NjrQSTZwB23pk-V8TODBpZIo7eSOWX-uUIqUDZ5BQ4a1PUCZXXEPpOEI-rC4qbUbBbtQ2DFSyPzMW_/s1600/blogger-image--955273418.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="82" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHTyntcK50s1D8ybvGzGBI_J2IwGXLANVpTOCW1B2LRQwwHm39A5ZCiKYNGel6R-NjrQSTZwB23pk-V8TODBpZIo7eSOWX-uUIqUDZ5BQ4a1PUCZXXEPpOEI-rC4qbUbBbtQ2DFSyPzMW_/s640/blogger-image--955273418.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQPVTAG_rfnaWewCnU-h9wPpiLVFXudeP5PTutP8MW29jBcb9KNVYYXqPDOmDaBae8QeYX3t-CZSV_eb5JyKUX9ThSSRzJfW9sIPrm4cYnp0alL020ax4AaQ_R4ul24jFNdPamvN-uZrzU/s1600/may+the+fouth+be+with+you.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQPVTAG_rfnaWewCnU-h9wPpiLVFXudeP5PTutP8MW29jBcb9KNVYYXqPDOmDaBae8QeYX3t-CZSV_eb5JyKUX9ThSSRzJfW9sIPrm4cYnp0alL020ax4AaQ_R4ul24jFNdPamvN-uZrzU/s640/may+the+fouth+be+with+you.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was my very first movie. I was 11 days old, and when the wompa jumped out at Luke, it was almost Baby's First Headwound, but I think the existence of the film that early in my life left more impression on me than my mom almost dropping me. I grew up in a scifi-friendly household*, playing Star Wars with my brother and sister. I was Sami Skywalker, because I wanted to be a Jedi and Leia didn't have a sword. My brother was usually Han, which I also wouldn't have minded being, because he was cool, but you couldn't fight with my brother once he made a stand when we were kids. My sister, who was probably four or so at this point, was an Ewok because Ewoks don't talk.**</div>
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If I blame David Bowie in Labyrinth for my love of bad guys in eyeliner, I blame Han Solo for my love of smugglers that has taken me all the way to Captain Mal in Firefly and beyond, with detours into various pirates movies and any number of space-rebellion stories in between. I think Han and Leia were one of my very first favorite love stories, but there was never a time when they weren't together (until recently), so I don't call them a ship--more like Ship Goals, because they were so great together.</div>
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I grew up in a world where Star Wars was always on TV somewhere. My aunt had the Endor movie that people like to not talk about. We had toys. It was this wonderful thing that had always been there, and as I got older, I started to feel lucky that I had lived in a time when Star Wars existed, you know? It introduced me to the Hero's Journey***. It's a huge world and everyone in it has a story and a name. There's spaceships and lasers! I love a spaceship. And best of all, it's got this idea that even people who grow up in the middle of nowhere can be awesome heroes, even tiny angry girls can be fantastic rebel leaders. </div>
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When I was in high school and into college, the prequels started. It was SO GREAT that we were getting new Star Wars! I loved that they existed. I loved that someone was actually making them. I did not love that they weren't super-great, and lacked most of the humor and heart that the original trilogy had--probably because the CGI sucked the life out of it, and they somehow took Natalie Portman, who had been so good in Leon and made her stiff and strange and never really let her be as cool as I wanted he to be. There was a time when I actively hated them, but I've since been softened by decades of "what if they were good" fan edits and rewrites, and none of those awesome stories would exist if the prequels hadn't been made. And also, the new ones probably wouldn't exist, because they proved there was still a market for these stories.</div>
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But the prequels came with the original trilogy being re-released into the theatres, and even though I think almost all the special-edition changes were unnecessary, it was so good to see them all shined up and big-screen again. And, of course, the anti-special-edition-ness--which I think, for me, was eventually more because they refused to let us own both editions and were therefore trying to edit my past and what it meant to me--meant I got to go to a con and get my grubby paws on the originals like a rebel smuggler myself!</div>
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I wasn't thrilled when Disney bought Star Wars. It also bought Marvel at that time, and that just sort of felt like they were greedily gobbling up everything geeks love, making a geek monopoly we wouldn't have any alternative to if it sucked. </div>
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It didn't suck.</div>
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Now we live in a world where we're going to be down-right SPOILED with Star Wars. A movie a year until it stops making money. Episode VII was <i>exactly </i>what I wanted it to be--aware of the originals, but it's own story with awesome new people and wonderful practical effects, and a whole new chapter that doesn't need to fill gaps or condense the past--my biggest issue with the prequels is that they make the rise of the empire and the fall, like, twenty years apart, which makes it seem like Luke is less of a big deal. Before they existed, it sounded like he was bringing down an unstoppable thing that had been around so long there were only a few people fighting it; but if it rose around the time he was born, that's only one generation, and there should have been SO MANY people who remembered what it was like before and fought back. They stole Luke's thunder.</div>
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And even better, now, we get to have new Star Wars stories! Flashbacks. Flashes sideways to tell about other stories happening around the edges of the stories we have. A whole new, wide-open future without the need to read seven hundred books that filled all the gaps already. </div>
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I'm so happy that Star Wars can be part of this current Golden Age of Geekiness! It would have been lacking without the galaxy far far away.</div>
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What are your memories of Star Wars?</div>
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*My dad's idea, seeing Star Wars in the theatre. Also my dad's idea, watching Star Trek when I was five. I don't see why there's such a divide in the fanbase, like you can't possibly like both at once. They're different things!<br />
**As in "Shut up, Ewoks don't talk!" We were not lovey-dovey siblings.<br />
***Which I have sort of decided needs to be made more...equal, because the proposed Heroine's Journey is boring and why should be boys get all the fun?<br />
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<br />Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-27614558284491086222016-05-03T12:38:00.002-07:002016-05-03T12:38:19.745-07:00#12Monkeys Monkey Musings #3 - On changing time but not changing emotional fallout<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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They did it! They managed to change time! Cole will never have to stand in 2017 and watch Cassie die in his arms because the virus doesn't happen till 2018 now! But that means he remembers it and it drives him, but she'll never get to that point--if she does, it'll be a different point now, with a different set of circumstances leading up to it.</div>
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And that's what a time travel show is about.</div>
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See, to have that scene from Cassie's point of view, they'd have to fail so spectacularly that time resets and the plague goes back to 2017, but now, the plague isn't even the point. Whatever the Messengers are doing is, and it looks an awful lot like they're changing time, too--or making it so there is no time to change?</div>
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We still have the issue of the space between 2016 and 2044 that got shifted. There's enough more people in the future now that there's music and radio broadcasts, but our four mains don't remember any of that because they were protected from being rewritten by the serum--how long before Dr Eklund and a restored Lasky aren't the only major personal difference that they stumble across? Because Cassie and Cole and Ramse and Jones are working on the assumption that things have only changed a little and their own perceptions of the future are close enough...but what if they aren't? What if they're now missing vital pieces of information? Things that matter to whatever else is out there--or now out there--that hasn't come to the front of their attentions yet, because they don't know to look for it?</div>
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Old!Jennifer probably saw time changing because that's what she does. But Team Splinter doesn't notice a difference. Deacon doesn't. He still hates Ramse and has a rivalry with Cole, but what if there are slight differences in his history that make him different--like, if Ramse wasn't <i>trying</i> to get himself killed last episode, what if he didn't know not to push that button because OldTimeline!Deacon wouldn't have had it, and NewTimeline!Deacon does?</div>
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And regardless of all that, Cole and Cassie didn't change, and everything that has piled up between them since she didn't save him from Chechnya last season, all that stuff they haven't dealt with at all, is still there and came with them into the new timeline. Everything that softened Cole since then--learning to dance, eating good food he didn't have to fight for, seeing what sort of world he was saving, meeting Cassie and being impressed by her compassion and her competence--had the flip side of making her hard. It stopped him from killing and taught her how to kill, and did both after she was already mad that he'd let her former fiancee get killed horribly. She thinks Aaron died protecting her from Cole, and seems to have forgotten that he'd sold them out to do it. Cole saved her instead of letting her die, but he did it by stranding her in the exact world that happens because everything she stands for fails--as of this moment, they manage to push the plague back, to delay the apocalypse, but she still fails to save the world, and that's the mission she's given herself since Cole first showed up in 2013 and changed her life.</div>
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And they haven't dealt with any of that. </div>
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There's piles of guilt and resentment and crossed wires between them, and while Cole was in 2016 hoping and learning lessons and remembering Cassie fondly, Cassie was in the apocalypse learning how to kill people, seeing what failure costs, and getting trained by the man Cole specifically didn't want to be like. </div>
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And it looks like all that is starting to fall out now. It's blocking Cole and Cassie from making up. It's stopping them from even being as good a team as they were, because she's convinced now that she can't trust him, which hurts him, and makes them both wary and questioning when they need to be able to depend on each other.</div>
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Cassie tore Cole's picture in half. That was sort of mean, but it makes a point: they're not together, and the picture isn't how things are. She tore it right down the middle between the two of them. But she didn't shred it or toss it--she gave the two pieces back, and they could be mended, and that's symbolic, too. Maybe on some level, she didn't want to completely burn that bridge. She just wants to keep poking at Cole until she gets the reaction that she wants--and guilty sweetness doesn't seem to be it.</div>
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It hurts, watching them with this wedge between them. But it's also wonderfully well done--and it's perfect continuity. How often have people on TV really just needed to talk something out and never gotten around to it? Never even gotten around to admitting that there <i>should be</i> emotional continuity? But 12 Monkeys is a bigger and more thoughtful show than that, and it's taking the rocky road that means characters get what they deserve, and it's amazing.</div>
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<br />Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-83523642981495808872016-05-01T14:00:00.000-07:002016-05-01T14:00:10.242-07:00Paula for Paranormal Day!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Editor's Note: Paranormal Day is May 3rd! Share your weird stories with us!<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">The Paranormal is a topic that i consider fun. Either you believe the paranormal is indeed real, a fairy tail or you haven’t taken the time to even think about it. Either millions of people have encountered circumstances they could not explain or millions of people were all seeing swamp gas while intoxicated at a nut bar convention. Of course there are cases where people created hoaxes, yet does that mean all of the cases are now hoaxes as a side effect? Some people enjoy stories so they look towards the paranormal to entertain them, while other people are fascinated by such stories and they decide to take the subject as truth. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;"> Weather you enjoy a tall tale or really believe that the truth is out there, my view of the paranormal is a personal view point that in no way is scientific proof that the paranormal is real.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">Yet if you fancy a bit of reading that makes you think “What if ”, then you’re in the right place. My thoughts on the Paranormal range from, “oh i can see that happening” to “what kind of drugs is this person on?” So hold on tight, this is going to be a bumpy ride. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">My love of the Paranormal began at an early age. Listening to ghost stories my mother told me and other tales of wonder. Since then I wanted to know more about the unknown. Finding out about the paranormal was a favorite book topic of mine since then. Growing up i used to watch The X-Files on tv, what an awesome show. It made me curious. I grabbed any book i could get my hands on on the subject. I watched documentaries and listened to radio broadcasts. It seemed the topic was on many people’s minds. So why were there so many people who believed it all to be a lie? Why were so many people risking their jobs, family’s safety and relationships by speaking about the topic if it was all a lie? Was it merely a world of fancy or was there truth to be found?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">paranormal topics include:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">Ufo Faeries Chupacabras Mermaids Witches</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">Ghosts Sea Monsters Aliens Knomes Zombies</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">Bigfoot Vampires Angels Werewolves Unicorns</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">Most cultures believe in the paranormal in one form or another since ancient times. Ghosts seems to be the most common in all cultures around the world. The belief that a persons soul roams around in the afterlife, or haunts a location is very old. The ancient Egyptians prepared mummies for the journey of the afterlife. People today pray for family members to cross over to be with Jesus in heaven. So why is it so hard to believe someone when they say they saw a ghost? What is the determining factor that says it’s okay to believe here in church but not here listening to a person who says witnessed an apparition? The belief that a person lives on in spirit after they die has been around for a while. There is also the belief that a person can reincarnate and be born again as someone new somewhere in the world. I’ve pondered what if my grandma was reborn and was celebrating her 3rd birthday somewhere in the world? That would make a lot of people happy and disturbed at the same time. Happy because their loved ones aren’t gone and are okay, yet disturbed because if you have a child it could be someone who just recently died! (have i reached the what kind of drugs is this person on yet? don’t worry it gets worse.) What if there is life on other planets and when they die they reincarnate here or on another planet? So your living with a possible alien and you didn't even know it (told you it gets worse.) All of this is mere speculation and random thoughts yet there are weirder stories out there.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">How is a investigator supposed to rationally try and understand a person who comes out with stories like these? My belief is they are not supposed to. An investigators job is not to Judge a person and say you are lying or telling the truth. An investigators job is to find all the information about a case they can get their hands on and present it to the public. Who knows there might be a case just like that one in some other part of the world that could unravel the meaning of what said investigator is researching. Believe me even paranormal researchers say “oh my god this person is bonkers!” Yet the nature of the job is not to judge others and pigeon hole them or the case into a forgotten corner. That would never solve the issue, but rather suppress temporarily the research. As always everyone makes up their own mind about if what they encounter is real or not. If the paranormal is real or not is not the issue, the important part is to enjoy the journey. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">Now that we’ve gotten past the is it real is it fake question let’s get to some weird cases!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">1. Reincarnation: Bridey Murphy, Virginia 1952</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">There are many theories which surround reincarnation - the notion that the soul of a dead person can re-establish itself within the body of another living being. However, the case of Bridey Murphy is used by many as an example of a verified case of paranormal reincarnation. In 1952 Colorado housewife Virginia Tighe began to talk about her past life whilst under hypnosis claiming that she was once an Irish woman called Bridey Murphy, born 1806. Under hypnosis, Virginia spoke with an Irish accent, used Irish language and supplied details of obscure place names, many of which were checked and verified at a later date. Research uncovered that Bridey Murphy did actually exist and Virginia's vivid tales were authentically accurate.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">2. Visions at Fatima; Fatima - Portugal</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">How much do you need for something to be considered an event that changed history? How about the blessing of the Roman Catholic Church? With some cajoling, The Miracle Of The Sun was finally recognized as an actual, Biblical miracle on on 13 October 1930, a good twenty years after the event itself. And it was a doozy.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">At around lunchtime on Sunday 13 October 1917, in the town of Fátima, Portugal, thousands of gathered beneath storm clouds which were interrupted by an an opaque, spinning disk in the sky, which then blasted a dazzling ray of light down upon the on-lookers, many of whom claimed to see an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in it.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">Right? This was a thing that really happened, was viewed by between 30,000-100,000 people of varying ages, and has since been confirmed as a miracle by the Roman Catholic church. Despite some theories about space dust and tricks of the light, though, science has been unable to explain exactly what all those people saw.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">3. Mermaid: May 2013 – Kiryat Yam, Israel</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">Kiryat Yam is the only place in the world where a $1 million reward is up for grabs for the first person who can provide conclusive footage capturing a real mermaid. The local government has offered this reward in response to the numerous mermaid sightings there.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">Allegedly there is a mermaid that appears sometimes at sunset. One of the first people to see the mermaid was Shlomo Cohen: “I was with friends when suddenly we saw a woman laying on the sand in a weird way. At first I thought she was just another sunbather, but when we approached she jumped into the water and disappeared. We were all in shock because we saw she had a tail,” Cohen was quoted as saying by Israel National News.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">4. April 1st 2014 Caithness, Scotland</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">A man, who wishes to remain anonymous, has spoken out about seeing a unicorn roaming the highland area near to Wick in Caithness, Scotland. It is not the first time such claims have been made, although it is a first for northern Scotland and comes in the wake of a Unicorn Lair being proclaimed to exist within North Korea that was backed up by spurious photographic evidence last year. The man was out hiking near to the Castle of Old Wick when he spied what he described as a unicorn, saying it was "basically a horse with a horn, I could nae believe it". He did not manage to get a photograph but locals say that his sighting is the talk of the town, indeed it seems that it was all anyone was talking about when we visited the Crown Bar on Wick's High Street yesterday evening.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">It didn't stay in sight for long and was last described as cantering off in the direction of Loch Hempriggs to the south of the town. It is expected that this sighting will lure many to Wick to try and sight the magical creature of lore, with some saying that they hoped Wick would benefit from those wanting to come and try their hand at spotting the unicorn, in a similar way that Loch Ness has become a haven for fanatics to try and spot the as yet unfound but much sought after Loch Ness Monster.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">So here we have four cases ranging from very documented and being blessed by the catholic church no less, to a man said he saw a unicorn and wishes to remain anonymous. Indeed the paranormal has About 37,800,000 results (0.54 seconds) on google yet the topic itself is fascinating and ranges from many topics and types. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">Please feel free to share your weird stories, tall tales or even stories you heard from a person who heard it from another for Paranormal day! Believe me i won’t judge you for a second :)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">If you are interested into looking more into the unknown one of the best places to start is just browsing videos on youtube or searching on google for stories of the unknown. As always the truth is out there.</span><br />
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<br />Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-17948321190487321172016-05-01T11:00:00.003-07:002016-05-01T11:03:38.512-07:00Letter from the Editor - May 2016<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Whoo, Fangirls! It's almost summer here in the Southern US and starting to actually behave like spring in some of the more northerly places we all come from! Personally, I hate the heat, but I LOVE summer movie season--it's what always kept having a Memorial Day-adjacent birthday from being horrible, and it means I always get a blockbuster to go to every year! This year, it's X-Men: Apocalypse, third and last of this particular trilogy, though I hope they're not done all together. I like the X-Men movies (XM were always my favs since I was a 12 year old scrounging change to go buy comics), and with Deadpool and another attempt at Fantastic Four coming to that world, it'd be cool to see what the new-timeline team is doing now, you know? Other than Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead hanging out in an empty mansion...</div>
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We here at PFg are continuing to make everything more awesome for our readers, and there's lots to talk about this month! If you have anything you want us to talk about, or if you're a lady (or identify as one) and would like to offer a guest post, contact us and we'll see what we can do!</div>
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Here's what's happening in geekery this month:</div>
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<li style="color: #222222; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Spring shows are all wrapping up! There'll be at least a few season-ender discussions on them!</span></li>
<li style="color: #222222; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Returning shows: Penny Dreadful (tonight / 1st), Person of Interest (last season, 3rd)</span></li>
<li style="color: #222222; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">New Shows: Houdini & Doyle (2nd), Preacher (22nd)</span></li>
<li style="color: #222222; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Events: </span></li>
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<li style="color: #222222; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">3rd - Paranormal Day</span></li>
<li style="color: #222222; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">4th - Star Wars Day / May the Fourth Be With You and then Revenge of the Sixth!</span></li>
<li style="color: #222222; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Captain America 3 (6th in the US)</span></li>
<li style="color: #222222; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Free Comic Book Day (7th)</span></li>
<li style="margin-left: 15px;"><span style="color: #222222;">Limerick</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"> Day on the (12th)</span></li>
<li style="color: #222222; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">George Lucas Day (14th)</span></li>
<li style="color: #222222; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Drawing Day (16th)</span></li>
<li style="color: #222222; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Pizza Party Day (20th)</span></li>
<li style="color: #222222; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Alan Turing Day (23rd)</span></li>
<li style="color: #222222; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Geek Pride Day / Towel Day (25th)</span></li>
<li style="color: #222222; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">National Paper Airplane Day (26th)</span></li>
<li style="color: #222222; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">X-Men: Apocalypse (27th)</span></li>
<li style="color: #222222; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My birthday (28th)*</span></li>
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What're you guys up to this month?</div>
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April's most popular post happened yesterday and comes from Kaelyn!</div>
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<a href="http://professionalfangirl.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-beginners-tabletop-game-guide.html"><span style="font-size: large;">A Beginner's Guide to Tabletop Games</span></a></blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNgdpicAYMz0pyDn1TKHiOfeA-2ImOMKTv2kRXIM9VHP105RY1oQLQIhHIsxyQs6wHZVGSygfhAYUlSdXYFilcYfxFGKkNXDknMPRWvpF-llSJYhc-SNsQM81cB4NxdsBOGf1Kz66RpOSp/s1600/header+-+notes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="56" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNgdpicAYMz0pyDn1TKHiOfeA-2ImOMKTv2kRXIM9VHP105RY1oQLQIhHIsxyQs6wHZVGSygfhAYUlSdXYFilcYfxFGKkNXDknMPRWvpF-llSJYhc-SNsQM81cB4NxdsBOGf1Kz66RpOSp/s640/header+-+notes.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
*My birthday is totally an event because I'm the fearless leader, yall.Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-63480354483194256492016-04-30T18:59:00.002-07:002016-04-30T19:16:26.536-07:00Working with Player Choice, Catalyzing Chaos<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-a17de5b7-6a01-61be-e456-42c3324c9113" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNLA6FGxpIfQfrUAwQC2W8ubsyqTGCDAt0Zlhro-GDntp-jX3zcPpP8dOnPG2j7D_4u8kSQewdo7VUJZtsEVwFCMcWIslWEa4x087LJ8Scukqh0VcRhQIjlWMur7xOLNaTG2_xy80zSxE/s1600/header+-+michelle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="36" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNLA6FGxpIfQfrUAwQC2W8ubsyqTGCDAt0Zlhro-GDntp-jX3zcPpP8dOnPG2j7D_4u8kSQewdo7VUJZtsEVwFCMcWIslWEa4x087LJ8Scukqh0VcRhQIjlWMur7xOLNaTG2_xy80zSxE/s320/header+-+michelle.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In the mind of the game master, the world they created is a glorious clockwork machine filled with carefully constructed intrigue, adventure and drama. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Players, by their nature, want to play! They want to explore new worlds through the medium of the tabletop experience. Through all five of the player senses: touch, taste, sight, smell, and hitting things with medieval cutlery, players want to interact with everything. They are also people, as such they act about as predictably as the dice they wield.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Players may completely ignore the city the game master created, after having spent many sleepless nights researching civic infrastructure, and instead insist on setting sail upon the nearby sea. By some small slight or misspoken word, the players may just slay that all important NPC with a backstory that took up several three ring binders! They generally don’t do this maliciously it is simply in their nature to act in a way most exciting for them. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Some game masters might be utterly demoralized by this, harboring animosity for derailing what they had felt was a truly majestic story. This might come out as petty cruelties. Or perhaps as despondent acquiescence to whatever the players feel like doing leading to a meandering adventure that eventually leads no where. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Myself however, I invite it. For me there is no greater pleasure than a collaborative story.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Being a game master is essentially a combination of author and actor, one must gain proficiency in both to run a successful game. This includes improvisation, in fact I would hazard to say that improvisation is key to the success of a game. Your players are essentially improvising every step of the way so it only seems polite to meet them in this. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Allow me to recount an example from my most recent game, a Halloween session of Call of Cthulhu. The players were all engaged in tea and desserts aboard the orient express. Seated at their table were two NPCs, an occult minded dilettante and a land owning hunter. The players felt they had reason to be suspicious of both of these characters and tailed both in their own ways. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Unknown to the players, the hunter was a restless spirit, given unnatural life by way of a boon of the underworld. This semblance of life had a time limit which I was keeping track of by way of an hour glass. The players of course had no idea what the hourglass was measuring, simply that I had turned it over when play began. I had intended the hunter to return to his cabin on the train and perform the rite that would keep him enfleshed. Having done this, he would participate with the players in the fight that would happen soon after against a monstrous creature assaulting the train. In this way, I hoped to keep the players somewhat more loyal to someone they had fought alongside as a greater reveal later when he turned on them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What I had not counted on was a series of terribly good rolls as the players silently stalked the hunter and then jumped him in his room. They knocked the hunter unconscious and forced him to waste what time he had left to his spell. Upon waking they had intended to question him, which is when he transmogrified to his true, putrid, inhuman form. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In the first half hour of the game one of the major antagonists had been revealed and his method of disguising himself, the pips of a magically enchanted pomegranate, were stolen from him. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I hadn’t planned on this by any means, I had assumed the hunter would be found out far later in the adventure after some pre-arranged slip up or by way of deduction. His scenes and short narrative arc involving his villa had to be scrapped and needed to be filled in immediately as this was meant to be a one session game. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But I was so immensely pleased, because it meant I could start the game out in a far stronger way than I had intended. The players put themselves in occult danger immediately, facing down the hunter in his undead, cervine form in the tight confines of the sleeper car. Without knowing it the players had created a far more exciting scenario for their first scene than I would have written! Now they would be injured and rattled from the experience of seeing a man twist and decay before tearing through the window into the dwindling light of dusk. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’ve had so many incidents like this, such as a dungeons and dragons session where my players were exploring a swamp and the random monster table demanded I send frogmen to attack them. My players were charmed by my descriptions of the beasts and decided to befriend them instead of kill them. They made good rolls so I let it happen. I felt like the frogmen needed a good reason to have attacked the players and reasoned that perhaps there was some clan war going on. The players had inadvertently stumbled into the middle of it and the frogmen that attacked them were starving and desperate. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What followed was a team of adventurers sharing their food with the beleaguered frogmen and giving them assistance in their war. On the fly I assigned two other major clans to be antagonists and gave the players the benefit of their surrogate clan being very amenable to trade and goodwill with the nearby city. The war wrapped up by the end of the session and now the players had some treasure, experience, contacts in the fledgling frogmen settlement and even a frogmen hireling! </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In the games I’ve run there are some fundamentals I’ve always stuck to: </span></div>
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Learn what your individual players think is fun or cool then make that happen.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Every critical success should yield something exciting. Player wants to woo the red dragon with his charisma to try and get out of being fried? He rolled a 20? Well now that player has to deal with the intimate interests of an ancient red dragon, I certainly hope he keeps scrolls of fire resistance handy.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Avoid saying no whenever possible, this tends to make players feel stifled and slowly will breed resentment.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Use redirection whenever possible in the place of just saying no. Tell the players what they can do rather than what they can’t do. </span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Be ready for your players to be creative, to ask weird questions, to do weird things. Try to practice your improvisation with writing exercises, read as much as possible in the genre you want your game to exemplify. </span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Also be ready for your players to obsess over incredibly inconsequential stuff and immediately write off vitally important details. If necessary, just switch them around, they will never know the difference and you don't need to waste time having heart palpitations over it. </span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Understand what you think is fun, what you really want to get out of the adventure, let that be your guide for how you run the game rather than the specific crunchy details. </span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Make any detour your characters drag themselves into feed your story. Try to imagine the threads of your story, your villains or your heroes, how far out do they spread?</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Never feel like the fantastic set pieces you create are wasted if the players don’t get to them. You can always adjust the details and fit it in somewhere so don’t worry about losing that gorgeous prose you prepared or that really exciting character you’ve been rehearsing for days.</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You are the game master, the storyteller, the dungeon master and ultimately the host. The only way for the players to have fun and ultimately to experience your story is through you. Your players have to contend with the challenges you lay before them, but for you the challenge is to engage with your players and create a fun experience with them. It can be a little more difficult than rolling to hit armor class zero but for me the rewards have always been incredibly satisfying. </span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09002333103848260975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-41540800119979568872016-04-30T17:48:00.000-07:002016-05-01T09:46:13.998-07:00The Beginner's Tabletop Game Guide<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">Tabletop
gaming is a beloved pastime for gamers and roleplaying enthusiasts – an outlet
for creative problem-solving, character development, and old fashioned monster
bashing. But for someone looking to either join a tabletop party for the first
time, or start a game of their own, the endeavor is overwhelming.</span><br />
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">I
remember my first foray into the possibility of playing Dungeons and Dragons.
It was a late night after a cast party – a character sheet covered in a hideous
spill of math and statistics, and not enough brain cells to process it from
lack of sleep and sugar high. Stat after stat we tried to render, having to
stop and desperately search a slim packet of rules for something we understood.
In the end, we admitted defeat and went to play video games instead, and I
learned a valuable lesson: tabletop is a difficult hobby to get into, or enjoy,
without experienced players to take your hand and show you the way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">And so I
became Professional Fangirl. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">Nine
years after that unfortunate evening, now with years of successful campaigns
and friendships forged around the dungeon map, I have the opportunity to give back
what was offered to me: the know-how to make the beginning of a tabletop adventure
manageable and fun. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">The first
thing that any aspiring tabletop player should know about this hobby is that it
is not something you can get away with doing on-the-fly. As much of the rules
of tabletop gaming are ALWAYS secondary to enjoying yourselves, they exist to
maintain balance, and, in many ways, enhance the challenge and storytelling
possibilities of a campaign. Even the best players need to consult rule books
from time to time, and even the best storytellers can continue to find
inspiration in mechanics and obscure skills and feats that will challenge
players and make the campaign engaging. To avoid frustration and overwhelming
everyone involved, please allocate time generously to letting the rules of
character creation, combat, and role-playing sink in. While this is not always
the case, I usually plan to have a first session (about four hours) dedicated
purely to character crafting. That way, everyone involved has access to rule
books and time to iron out any kinks before the game truly begins. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">Disclaimer
aside, it is also important to mention that there are a wide variety of tabletop
games with unique and vivid settings. If traditional fantasy ala D&D does
not appeal to you, you might enjoy the cyberpunk universe known as <i>Shadowrun</i>. If a modern setting with a
magical twist is more up your alley, try White Wolf’s <i>Mage: The Awakening</i>, or perhaps <i>Werewolf</i>,
or <i>Vampire: The Masquerade</i>. The world
of Celtic mythos opens with <i>Changeling</i>,
and the steampunk realm of <i>Tephra </i>also
offers options for people who are squeamish at the thought of the quintessential
fantasy with dragons. These settings come with their own sets of rules,
materials, and varying degrees of difficulty in learning, but, with a little
doing, all offer endless options for adventures to suit anyone's tastes. This
small list has only a few of the many games you could explore, but they all
have a few things in common: dice, rule books, and character sheets. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">When Borders
was going out of business in my hometown, I took a gift card and plunged into
the sales frenzy. My curiosity piqued once more as I saw a pile of D&D manuals
on sale. The urge to try my hand at tabletop had emerged again since that fateful
night of confusion, and as I rifled through the good nine or ten volumes, all
with different titles, I had the sinking realization that, once again, I had no
idea what I was looking at. Monster Manual, Players Handbook, Dungeon Master’s
Guide, all these titles meant nothing to me. Which did I need to start a game?
Which were optional? They were expensive – even on sale – so once again, I gave
up. I used my gift card on chocolate and manga. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">So here
we go. You ready? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">The
comprehensive guide for what a fledgling tabletop game needs, doesn't need, and
where to get them! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; line-height: 107%;"><b><u><span style="font-size: large;">Dice:</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 11.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">Whatever
game you have chosen to take your group into, most have different systems –
which means a different set of rules and tools you use to play. Many of these
systems are defined by what kind of dice they use. The more infamous system is
called d20, which means, in short, it is a system that mainly utilizes a
twenty-sided die. White Wolf games utilize a d10 system – 10 sided dice. Shadowrun
uses a d6 system. Naturally, the first thing you want to procure will be your
dice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">The
average person has probably seen a d6 in their lives, whether in games of Yahtzee
or Monopoly, but it is not common to run across, say, a d4, d8, or that elusive
d20. You won't find them at Walmart. It's one of those little mysteries that
people who are outside of the hobby run up against. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">The
answer: the internet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">Chessex
is the largest producer of officially-weighted tabletop dice. They sell what is
referred to as the “basic set,” which is the collection of 7 dice that covers
most of your tabletop needs. Inside will be a d4, d6, d8, d10, percentile die, d12,
and a d20. This set is designed for any d20 system, like Dungeons and Dragons,
GURPS, Pathfinder, and others similar. Aside from being rather beautiful, these
dice are the backbone of your campaign. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">Keep in
mind that, more often than not, you may need multiples of the same dice – especially
if you're playing a White Wolf game. These d6 or d10 systems tend to rely
solely on one kind of die. If your first game is <i>Werewolf</i> or <i>Shadowrun</i>, buy
<u>many</u> d10 or d6. The d20 systems tend to be more conservative when it
comes to how many dice are needed for each player.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">While it
is not necessary for every player to own their own dice, its speeds combat up,
and it is more fun to have a personal set all your own rather than constantly
trading around a communal pool. The most cost-effective way to get a whole
party the dice they need is to buy a Chessex “Pound o’ Dice,” which will have
many of each denomination in various colors, and is only $20 on Amazon. For those
fortunate enough to have a comic or gaming store in their area, dice, as well
as many other supplies, can be purchased (at full, painful price) there. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Rule Books:</u></b></span><span style="font-size: 11.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">No matter
what system you're interested in, all will have a core set of rules that
dictate character creation, lore, combat, and other facets of gameplay that
players and storytellers alike should adhere to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">This is
your table top bible: the Player’s Handbook, or PHB. It is the first book you
will want to buy, and is really the only one that is <i>necessary</i> to run a game. Yes, there are an overwhelming number of
books for alternate settings, special monsters, and even premade adventures,
but these books will not have the necessary information to run the actual meat
and bones of your campaign. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">Now, when
buying rules books, it is very important to find out what <i>version</i> of the game you are buying. Everyone likes to save money,
and so finding rule books used online or at used book stores is easy, but if
you have never purchased a tabletop manual before, you can easily buy books and
supplements that do not match each other. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">Tabletop
has been around for a long time, and old systems have been revamped. Rules have
been changed. New content has been added. Dungeons and Dragons is the best
example of this. It has been through many incarnations: the original, advanced
D&D, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, Pathfinder, 4.0, and the most recent incarnation: 5.0.
Picking up a rule book from 2.0, a setting from 3.5, and a monster manual from
4.0, will be not only be a headache, but downright impossible for you to use
together. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">So which
system should you use? Well, in my experience with D&D, at least, there is a
general consensus: 3.5 is beloved for not only its breadth of materials, but
also its very in-depth rules. The drawback is it is complicated and has a huge
amount of information to learn. It also requires many additional books and
supplements if you want to get to experience that depth. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">The
system that shows a great deal of promise in simplification of the system, as
well as incorporating unique customization in your starting books, is 5.0, the
most current edition. Because it is a new addition, you are unlikely to find
reasonably priced used versions of the 5.0 PHB. 3.5 has been out for years, and
is much cheaper and easier to get a hold of. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">In the
end, which edition you choose to play is purely a matter of taste. Just keep in
mind that whatever game you play, whatever edition you play, all the
supplements you use <u>must</u> match the <i>version</i>
that your rule book is. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Character Sheets:</u></b></span><span style="font-size: 11.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">The last
essential for a table top game is the character sheet. Rolling a character, aka
creating them with all of their statistics and gear, is a process – a long one
if you haven't done it often. Having an organized place to record stats and be
able to find them mid-game is essential. Most PHB’s in any system will have a
character sheet in the back of them. Making copies of it for yourself and for
your fellow party members is a good idea. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">For the
people who purchased a used book, or are playing a system that has no unique
character sheet, once again the internet saves the day. There are many fans
sites and source pages that have free downloads of character sheets and spell
lists. Fill them up, mark them silly, and update them often. Years later, I
occasionally pull out my old character sheets and enjoy the memories that come
with them.</span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #444444; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;">Welcome
to tabletop, and to <i><a href="http://professionalfangirl.blogspot.com/">Professional Fangirl</a></i>. In coming installments, I will expand
upon my guide for new players, breakdown character creation, party compositions,
storyteller tips, and much, much more. Happy International Tabletop Day, and
may you find adventures worthy of you wherever you go.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01092918059403454196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-79242183616494348982016-04-30T11:58:00.001-07:002016-04-30T11:58:22.166-07:00#TabletopDay - My fav tabletop games<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHTyntcK50s1D8ybvGzGBI_J2IwGXLANVpTOCW1B2LRQwwHm39A5ZCiKYNGel6R-NjrQSTZwB23pk-V8TODBpZIo7eSOWX-uUIqUDZ5BQ4a1PUCZXXEPpOEI-rC4qbUbBbtQ2DFSyPzMW_/s1600/blogger-image--955273418.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="82" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHTyntcK50s1D8ybvGzGBI_J2IwGXLANVpTOCW1B2LRQwwHm39A5ZCiKYNGel6R-NjrQSTZwB23pk-V8TODBpZIo7eSOWX-uUIqUDZ5BQ4a1PUCZXXEPpOEI-rC4qbUbBbtQ2DFSyPzMW_/s640/blogger-image--955273418.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIkbRBvhLk4J3o16mUiqMZANmdOKF7IvfZPP-vxbPoHIqQg_IOiLiq5eq1dk0lEMoKbAfghE4Ad3Z420UBnwuuS8GAbIcwitIgw4-qJy75VDntOS3dFH1nREbqj-_EDX3q_KXV0K5zkvkU/s1600/arkham+horror.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="552" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIkbRBvhLk4J3o16mUiqMZANmdOKF7IvfZPP-vxbPoHIqQg_IOiLiq5eq1dk0lEMoKbAfghE4Ad3Z420UBnwuuS8GAbIcwitIgw4-qJy75VDntOS3dFH1nREbqj-_EDX3q_KXV0K5zkvkU/s640/arkham+horror.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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Do you like freaking enormous games that take all day to play, an hour to set up, and that you'll probably play wrong for a while but you'll still love?? The Arkham Horror is for you! The base game is already big--so big that I wound up buying more dice to play it regularly*. But now there are several expansions that make it even more epically huge (which I haven't gotten to play yet, much to my woe), and it's easily and all-day thing if you want it to be.<br />
<br />
But it's so cool, you guys. Even though the last time I played I wound up mostly Lost In Time And Space.<br />
<br />
Here's what I most love about it:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>It's a whole story--there's so many things to track and follow and work around</li>
<li>It's not competitive, it's collaborative--there's no point in being mean to the people you're playing with because it's all of you against the board, and the board will probably win anyway, so work together</li>
<li>It's got lots of little tokens and bits and stuff to mess with and read and move around</li>
<li>Dice!</li>
<li>It's freaking gorgeous, dudes.</li>
</ul>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBBUmUMUu46LTjFBP3h6TYNdqTa2D9fytEeyLEwezxnMtndcr4_BlRfnCi4pOypBWo8lBj45PnipaQcoKsb4xtEXKgGBb2XbByk68odXdI_rJxl9DiZ7pKi55iGONCGl117JO9rFxqP_9f/s1600/settlers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBBUmUMUu46LTjFBP3h6TYNdqTa2D9fytEeyLEwezxnMtndcr4_BlRfnCi4pOypBWo8lBj45PnipaQcoKsb4xtEXKgGBb2XbByk68odXdI_rJxl9DiZ7pKi55iGONCGl117JO9rFxqP_9f/s640/settlers.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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If you're in the mood for a faster game that involves jokes about sheep and wood, this is the one for you! It's not complicated, how it goes is mostly about how well you pick your original placement, but it's <i>super satisfying </i>collecting resources, trading with neighbors, and building things up. There's a number of expansions, too, so you can get bigger and fancier stuff going on, and it's easy to learn.<br />
<br />
Also, it's all modular--the board changes every time you play!<br />
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Back when we were kids, we lived overseas in places where there wasn't often TV and where cable hadn't been invented yet. We read books, or we played games--all those classic family games like Monopoly, Candy Land, Life, Trivial Persuit. But my fav was always Parcheesi.</div>
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It's cooler than Sorry, though basically the same sort of game. It's less likely to be missing pieces than Chinese Checkers. Our copy had really nice wooden pieces that felt nice in our little-kid hands and looked like candy. It's easy enough for kids to play, but fancy enough that adults can play, too, without feeling dumb. It just always felt really classy to me, and I still love it.</div>
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What're your favorite games? Share in the comments and I'll start a list of games I need to check out!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNgdpicAYMz0pyDn1TKHiOfeA-2ImOMKTv2kRXIM9VHP105RY1oQLQIhHIsxyQs6wHZVGSygfhAYUlSdXYFilcYfxFGKkNXDknMPRWvpF-llSJYhc-SNsQM81cB4NxdsBOGf1Kz66RpOSp/s1600/header+-+notes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="56" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNgdpicAYMz0pyDn1TKHiOfeA-2ImOMKTv2kRXIM9VHP105RY1oQLQIhHIsxyQs6wHZVGSygfhAYUlSdXYFilcYfxFGKkNXDknMPRWvpF-llSJYhc-SNsQM81cB4NxdsBOGf1Kz66RpOSp/s640/header+-+notes.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
*Well, my friend bought them for me. They have my name on them. I love them.<br />
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<br />Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-40462896299212698562016-04-30T11:40:00.001-07:002016-04-30T11:40:07.746-07:00#TabletopDay - The meanest game of Uno you will ever play<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHTyntcK50s1D8ybvGzGBI_J2IwGXLANVpTOCW1B2LRQwwHm39A5ZCiKYNGel6R-NjrQSTZwB23pk-V8TODBpZIo7eSOWX-uUIqUDZ5BQ4a1PUCZXXEPpOEI-rC4qbUbBbtQ2DFSyPzMW_/s1600/blogger-image--955273418.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="82" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHTyntcK50s1D8ybvGzGBI_J2IwGXLANVpTOCW1B2LRQwwHm39A5ZCiKYNGel6R-NjrQSTZwB23pk-V8TODBpZIo7eSOWX-uUIqUDZ5BQ4a1PUCZXXEPpOEI-rC4qbUbBbtQ2DFSyPzMW_/s640/blogger-image--955273418.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_7dKfRa67tdlPU5811GQjwozJNq7wvDEmrQEUgbzJ8Ib2AY4hHAeQ8lYQOVWu7LshHeTLvveH0KHW6JQqpF8tNtpr8AdTZeedSrsg8Ojqeo85GafrM-V1sq4nSLLRfBNqmcOwH6Tb3PlN/s1600/uno.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="408" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_7dKfRa67tdlPU5811GQjwozJNq7wvDEmrQEUgbzJ8Ib2AY4hHAeQ8lYQOVWu7LshHeTLvveH0KHW6JQqpF8tNtpr8AdTZeedSrsg8Ojqeo85GafrM-V1sq4nSLLRfBNqmcOwH6Tb3PlN/s640/uno.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Uno is one of those games you learn when you're a kid because it's easy and it's fun and it's not too fussed about how many people play it. It's also <i>mean</i>. Like, seriously, the only physical fight I've ever gotten into was over a three-person hand of Uno--the other two, my <i>best friends</i>, teamed up to skip or reverse on me for <i>twenty minutes straight</i> and the only time I got a go was when I had to pick up cards, so I kicked one of them. She hit me, so I hit her back, and then she bit me and tore my nightgown with her steel-enforced teeth. </div>
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Good times.</div>
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Anyway, Uno is also one of those games where you have lots of house rules* AND one where there's lots of variation-decks so you can mix it up.</div>
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My brother and I recently created the <i>meanest house rule ever</i>, and it will murder your game and make all your friends hate you, and it's awesome.</div>
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It's this:</div>
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<ul>
<li>If someone drops any Draw card on you, you can avoid having to draw those cards by playing ANOTHER draw card that matches, and the next person has to draw the cards listed on BOTH cards. </li>
</ul>
<div>
The best part of this rule? <i>There's no limit to it</i>. When we were playing, we had a hand that circled twelve times and the last person had to draw more cards then there were in the draw deck, and we wound up adding a second deck to the game!</div>
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<div>
It's <i>hilarious</i>, you guys, everyone waiting for the time when there's no more Draw cards and someone has to pick up the whole deck. Everyone holding so many cards that they can't find the ones they're looking for because their hands are too small to fan them out properly. The wails of the lost as they take forever to get through all the cards they're holding.</div>
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<div>
It's the best house rule <i>ever</i>.</div>
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<div>
What're your best house rules?</div>
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*Ours are: You keep drawing when you don't have a match until you find one you can play, no matter how many you have to draw. If you go out of turn, you have to draw five. Sometimes we have random stupid things you have to say every time someone plays a certain card; depends on how dunk we are.</div>
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<br />Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-43936631725817278312016-04-28T12:19:00.000-07:002016-04-28T12:19:07.443-07:0010 things a show needs to produce an awesome fandom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>1. Good content that the fans can't get anywhere else</b><br />
A show that doesn't have it's own clear identity isn't going to inspire that much caring or feedback from viewers to make them into fans. If it's a knockoff, it'll just get written off as "not as good as __", and people will be able to tell if it's happening just because something else was popular elsewhere. That's pandering and it's pointless. People have so many choices in TV now, there's no reason to have two shows that are the same.<br />
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<b>2. The idea that the fans are smart enough to keep up and figure stuff out</b><br />
You've got to trust your audience, not talk down to them, not tell them how to feel about things. One of the biggest things Sleepy Hollow did in it's finale this year (other than pointlessly killing a main character who happened to be a woman AND a poc) was spend a whole act trying to convince us that the stupid thing they'd done was okay. No. Let your fans feel what they feel. And give them stories that are worth keeping up on.<br />
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<b>3. A certain "openness"--space for the fans and their ideas inside and around it</b><br />
Openness in the story for people to fill in gaps themselves. Openness in the show for different points of view. Openness to fan theories and opinions (though not slaves to that). Openness to fanworks and meta. Accessibility of story points, moral stances, and character motivations. You want the fans to feel like they're part of it, not passive consumers with no right to think or say anything<br />
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<b>4. Good social media presence</b><br />
It's great when the actors and writers, creators and producers live-tweet a show with the fans. It's more great when the show's official accounts support fans, answer questions, provide sneak peeks and behind the scenes info, and basically are useful and not just places to sell things. Being on multiple social media accounts at once helps, too!<br />
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<b>5. Reliability</b><br />
Which leads to trust. Trust that the characters will be clearly defined and respected, not bent and deformed for whatever whim the writers or the network wants to follow. Trust that promises made in the story will be paid off, and it's not any sort of 'baiting or intentionally misleading. Trust that there will be good continuity, and not random storylines that are introduced and left dangling forever. Trust that the people making the show know what they're doing!<br />
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<b>6. A feeling of collaboration, not competition</b><br />
A competitive fandom is a fandom that will tear itself apart, so it's better to bring a sense of togetherness and inclusion, and that comes from both the show (or movie or whatever) itself, and from how the official powers handle the people watching.<br />
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A feeling of safety around fanworks would be cool, too--no big lawsuits, no weird behavior about them. Either leave them alone, or be respectful.<br />
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<b>7. Some sort of positive feels--funniness, joy, playfulness, shippiness, etc--regardless of how the rest of the show goes</b><br />
A show that is 100% serious all the time is a) exhausting to watch, and b) unrealistic. People crack jokes and snark at other people and say funny things for any number of not-funny reasons. A show that slogs through it's own story like it's a trial will not inspire fans to love it, nor will one that insists on denying it's own best parts as being awesome. Characters who never laugh are no fun. Characters who never fall in love--or at least have the opportunity to-- will be hard to make emotional connections to for a lot of people.<br />
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There has to be a break from the heaviness of reality or serious story or dire circumstances for everyone to get a break and get to know the characters.<br />
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<b>8. Awareness of the genre-history it comes from, and respect for it</b><br />
Shows don't happen in a vacuum. Everything had something else before it that either inspired it or gave it something to react to. You have to know your history to do it right, because the fans will definitely know it.<br />
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To go back and poke at S2 of Sleepy Hollow: It was insulting because the writers a) didn't seem to be taking any of the things that were the backbone of the show seriously, and b) were directly ripping off shows like Buffy without any understanding of the context or the appeal of the things they were blatantly stealing. Contrast that with Supernatural, which usually respects the stories it's building on and also makes them their own.<br />
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It's the difference between acting like your viewers are idiots who won't notice, and respecting that they will and giving them a new take on it.<br />
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<b>9. Respect for the fans as actual people and not pawns or product</b><br />
It's <i>people </i>who carry a show, not numbers on a graph. Treating people like promo-slaves is what bit The 100 in the butt when they killed off Lexa; don't do that. Interact with them one on one, not like a giant media conglomerate telling people what to think and do.<br />
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<b>10. Network support</b><br />
Advertising, so that people know you're there and when to find you. Good media events--especially at cons and related things where the people who make the show can interact directly with the people who watch it. Trust from the producers and network people that the creators and writers know what they're doing and can get it done, so they don't have to try to get it done while navigating interference and meddling. A willingness to let a show find it's feet before dropping the ax on it--XFiles, one of the biggest hits Fox ever had, wouldn't have lasted one season now, with how rough that first season is. A minimum of preemption and no schedule-rearranging without a really good reason and a lot of thought put into it--like NOT putting it up against much bigger shows. No snap decisions!<br />
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What do you think creates a good fandom?<br />
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Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-39104333455216872312016-04-28T11:39:00.000-07:002016-04-28T11:39:03.097-07:0010 things you're missing out on if you're not watching #12Monkeys<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>1. An amazing story that's totally Binge-able</b><br />
As of this moment, there are fifteen episodes. Thirteen for the first season, and two so far in the second. That means that you can watch all of them in one day, if you're <i>really</i> dedicated, and get the full extent of the series without ads or breaks or waiting on anything! It's immensely re-watchable; these writers have put in all sorts of hints and clues and foreshadowing that you pick up more and more of when you rewatch, but the benefit of watching all at once is that you can track all the storylines without gaps between them. It's basically one big story pretending to be episodic, and though jumping in the middle could be confusing, there's so much story crammed into so few episodes, you can start from the beginning and be caught up in a week. (Watch<a href="http://www.hulu.com/12-monkeys"> on Hulu</a> or on the <a href="http://syfy.com/12monkeys">Syfy site</a> for the views to count!)<br />
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<b>2. Complexity that works</b><br />
We're two episodes into season two, and there's no signs that it'll be anything less than mindboggling. Terry Matalas and Travis Fickett took the framework of the movie--scavenger from a dying future goes back in time to stop a plague--and blew it up to epic proportions <i>successfully</i>.<br />
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There's story happening in our time, in the future, in various points in the past. There's characters who exist in more than one time-frame, even if they're not time travelers, and there's time travelers on both sides of the good-bad divide. There's moral ambiguity starting with "if I kill this one guy, I save billions" and upping the ante through "if I save this one person, it's worth the whole world dying" vs "can I let this one person die if it means saving the world" and onward. There's a lot of character development in just about every character shown on screen, both in real time and in flashbacks--and even, occasionally, in alternate realities. There's time loops, and imposed cycles, and conspiracies, and multi-generational plans in play--and there's Cole, smashing through it like a bull in a china shop, hoping to make things right.<br />
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And the world itself! The present day world we know is stranger than we think. The future is a near-perfect apocalypse that's still happening, which feels innovative to me. When was the last time any apocalypse wasn't a <i>post</i>apocalypse? All points they visit are carefully made as real as each other, so that no matter where in time they are, no matter how strange it gets, everything has the same level of clear reality.<br />
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And it works. It's like a symphony, it works so well. Or one of those puzzle boxes that's so well made it feels like a gift.<br />
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<b>3. The best use of time travel in, like, ever</b><br />
The best thing: time travel has a cost--it makes you sick and you have to weigh every time you do it against risk and reward, and the only cure so far is literally creating paradoxes inside your own body, which is dangerous, to say the least.<br />
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Sometimes time travel is more of a vehicle, getting people from one place to another, but as season one unfolded and into season two, it's more and more an intrinsic piece of the story's structure. Things happen out of order because people who aren't time traveling are stuck in a straight line, past to present to future, and people who are time traveling can hop all along that line, regardless of the usual order of things. People on both sides are working with time and against time while also working against each other, trying to bend history to their own will--and it sometimes works, but mostly it causes more trouble that they then have to work out. It's the main process for several long-games to happen and to play out.<br />
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They give us clear indications of which times we're in and there's always a reason for why we're there, and the show as a whole literally couldn't happen without time travel. It's <i>about </i>time travel, not just featuring it.<br />
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<b>4. Awesome female characters as complex as the males</b><br />
The main villain is a woman.<br />
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Cassie is the female lead, and as S2 happens, she has switched places in the moral grey-areas with Cole--which is amazing, letting her be as violent and single-minded as he was, something ladies on TV don't get a lot.<br />
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The biggest wild card on the show is Jennifer, who is either insane, or the sanest person on the show, depending on where her story goes, but who exists at both ends of the time-travel and is definitely up to something.<br />
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The creator of the Splinter Project is wonderful, semi-sociopathic, damaged, brilliant Jones, who is some sort of post-apocalyptic life goal, since I'd be about her age in 2044.<br />
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And the only one of the enemy agents we've seen directly so far is a woman.<br />
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It's kind of amazing, having so many women around who aren't <i>only</i> love interests, or arm candy, or bit players. There's love in there, but they're also damaged and striving and have goals of their own. They're not defined by the men around them. They're smart and resourceful and as able to take care of themselves as everyone else.<br />
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<b>5. An epic love story--literally</b><br />
Cole and Cassie--Casserole--is a ship that sails itself, but in between them meeting and any confessions they might have in the future, there's plenty of time for story, and it's Big Story. Cole comes back from the future specifically to meet Cassie, Kyle Reece style. Cassie believes in him so strongly that she goes off script to save him more than once. Now that Cassie is compromised, Cole is staying by her side to make sure she's alright, despite differences in opinion about how the mission should work. In season one, Cole saves Cassie's life three times, because her dying always results in history going bad. Their love is literally what is saving the world in those cases. It's a ship for the ages!<br />
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<b>6. Anything can happen</b><br />
Because of the time travel and the way they can rewrite history, they can do insane things like kill a main character three times and <i>fix it</i>. They can have scenes and episodes in any time period they want. They can interact with each other out of order, and characters can interfere with each others' pasts and futures. <i>The entire world can literally be changed,</i> and it will make perfect sense within the story.<br />
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It's brilliant!<br />
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<b>7. Kicking a squeamish TV system in the shins with awesomeness</b><br />
TV as a whole doesn't seem to like things like complexity, male-female equality, gleefully being smart and assuming your fans are too, and taking risks with characters and plot and reality. You know, the stuff that the target audience is specifically looking for, and that critics love. By watching 12 Monkeys and making it more popular all the time, you're poking holes in that dumb idea that lowest-common denominator is the best way to go! By not watching, you're proving that only cheap, stupid shows get views.<br />
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So watch the good ones and improve TV as a whole!<br />
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<b>8. Stopping the Standard Fate Of TV Scifi in it's tracks</b><br />
Ask any scifi TV fan about shows they're still mad about, and most of the list will be shows that got messed with, ruined, or cancelled before they could tell their whole stories. That's become a cliche--but also a trap. People want good shows, but they don't trust that regular TV will take care of them, so on channels like Fox, lots of the potential viewership <i>just doesn't bother watching</i>. And that means that the show gets cancelled anyway--a self-fulfilling prophesy. Syfy really should be the exception to that, being specifically <i>for</i> scifi, but it's a channel like any other, and even if ratings are an inaccurate way to judge viewership these days, they still want the ratings.<br />
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The only way they can get them is if WE watch the shows we want TV to keep making. The only way we can break the cycle is to give them such good ratings that scifi proves that it can support an audience over many seasons the way a show about doctors or lawyers can, even if the numbers aren't as high as those.<br />
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Let's not let 12 Monkeys be the next Firefly; let's make it the next Star Trek--seven years and a slew of movies and books!<br />
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<b>9. Some of the best fandom and creator-fan interactions around</b><br />
The 12 Monkeys fandom is a great one, full of smart, talkative people who understand both the show and the genre it comes from. Better yet, the actors, writers, and creators on the show do their best to be very interactive, answering questions and giving hints and reblogging links. It's (so far--knock on wood) a remarkably adult and drama-free fandom with lots of ideas and thoughts and opinions, and it's a great fandom to belong to.<br />
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<b>10. Hope</b><br />
A lot of scifi drama lately gets mean. The heroes can't actually make any headway. People die for no reason (cough - Walking Dead - cough). Things are needlessly grim and violent. The overall tone is nihilistic and soul-crushing, focusing on how pointless everything is.<br />
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12 Monkeys isn't like that. The show itself is aware of how cool all of this stuff is, and while it gets a little dark and very dramatic, it doesn't go down the grim-for-grim-sake path. And at it's core, it's not about how people can't change anything, or how Big Events ruin lives. It's about characters interacting with each other and finding better ways. It's about how mercy and love are better than slavish fate. And that's <i>amazing</i> after BSG showed everyone such a dark version of scifi.<br />
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12 Monkeys isn't sappy, it's genuinely emotional. It's not mean, it's about being better than meanness. It takes the story about making the world better and looks at it from all sides and strives to actually do what it says. And the existence of the show can make the genre better, too, if we keep it alive.<br />
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Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-65263725267519038352016-04-26T14:18:00.000-07:002016-04-26T14:18:06.631-07:00Sami on Hunters 1.3 - In which we learn about Reagan<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Hunters airs at 10pm on Syfy Monday nights!</i></div>
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I think it's still being damaged by being after the feels-stravaganza that is 12 Monkeys; it's very hard to jump right from whatever happened in the last few minutes of Monkeys into Hunters that is very much a slow-burn and much less...I don't want to say interesting, because it's very interesting, but it isn't as complex so far, and it doesn't hook me as strongly or as quickly. I continue to basically not care at all about whatever the case of the week is.</div>
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This week, it was blah blah blah terrorists funding themselves with drugs blah blah excuse to get into the jungle. There was a child soldier who could have been useful, that they shuffled off much the way they shuffled off Emme, who is also a teen girl who could be useful. There was a guy called Alejandro who was smart enough to figure out that they weren't looking for normal drug people, who then had to be killed because apparently murder is okay if you're in the ETU? Like, it's problematic whenever they try to talk about anything A-Plot on this show.</div>
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But there was also a huge focus on Reagan, and I liked that. She grew up thinking she was human until she almost killed someone as a child, then her dad showed her she's alien but apparently didn't tell her how to handle it--she wound up trying to cope by using all sorts of drugs and sex, but since she says in the non-flashbacks that alcohol doesn't work, I'm going to assume the drugs are minimal, too. She has to flee her house at sixteen with no understanding of what she is, and then gets "recruited" by the ETU in a way that sounds more like "do this or die in jail" and "we totally knew who you were all along and were looking for a chance to prey on your insecurities for our own ends". It didn't make me like him more, but did make me feel bad for her.</div>
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She's a total badass in modern times, and it's rough seeing her being such a mess in the past. I don't think bossman really cares that much about her, either, and that makes it worse.</div>
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Meanwhile, she and Flynn are on better terms. He's still trying to learn about her to understand his wife, who they're not chasing down today, and it feels like a set-up for a ship...which could be cool, if his wife wasn't his main driving point. Maybe after they find the wife and deal with her story in some way. Reagan and Flynn would be a lot less gross than her and McCarthy, who was blessedly absent this week. I think Flynn is basically a good guy, even if they seem to have forgotten that he has PTSD to deal with.</div>
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The Hunters had left the camp where they were brewing what looks like actual drugs and creepy alien-taken-from-humans drugs (that's the first the team has seen of that connection, I think), and killed most of the people that were just people, but there's still a monster in the woods. It's stalking them, and it's the reason they kill Alejandro--he freaks out when he figures out that monsters are real. </div>
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But it also gives some of the very rare humor the show feels like it needs to allow--when the boss is all "abort" and Flynn fakes interference and goes "report? we'll finish the mission and then report!" and stops taking calls. I think he could be really fun, if they'd let him. And I think the show could really use the slight breaks from all the scowling and bickering and brooding. It would give the team members something in common, too, because they're not doing a very good job of team-building, and it's making them kind of the suckiest elite team ever.</div>
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I hope they start getting ahead of things soon, too, because they're always fumbling around in the dark and not getting much of anywhere. </div>
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I missed Emme this week; she's still an underused resource. I missed the kitten*. I did not miss McCarthy being the grossest person ever, but I think he's probably behind the attack that drove Reagan out of her house at sixteen. It seemed like there's a division between the ones who want to blend in just to blend**, and those who want to blend in just to later come out and blow stuff up, and she grew up on the hiding side. Maybe McCarthy's weird interest in her is because she was pointedly hidden--she's biologically or culturally or historically important. That would be super cool, and it would be very important that she's on the human side, if that's the case.</div>
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Hunters could be so cool. There's this whole pile of awesome, progressive ideas that I haven't seen on any other show. But they seem to be tangled up in a contest to be more gritty than they need to be, with a lot of shock-value choices that keep coming at me so that they aren't as shocking as they could be and ARE more annoying than they're intended to be. And in the meantime, their good ideas keep being underused.</div>
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On the other hand, this episode feels like things are coming together, a little, and that's a good sign. If they can get on the ball before the mid-point, they've got a chance! </div>
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Here's what I'm seeing around all the messy gratuitousness:</div>
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<li>A kickass lady-lead who is alien but wants to be human: she's not happy with what she is and keeps trying to drown it, but that's where all her literal power is, and she's probably important to her own people in a way we don't know yet.***</li>
<li>A male lead who is founded on manliness--he's an ex marine--but who is compromised by the trauma of that life so that he can't do it anymore, and then is thrust into a world where those skills are needed but he should have to find other ways to the same results.</li>
<li>Music as a weapon.</li>
<li>A girl who has perfect recall and doesn't have standard human reactions to things, who could really be an asset.</li>
<li>A shifty boss who has a hardass boss of his own, neither of which seem to care all that much about the actual team they're running, and a crew of scientists who look to be poised to get stuck between team and leadership.</li>
<li>Aliens who communicate with synaesthesia!</li>
<li>A mole in the agency!</li>
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I don't care about the terrorism angle. But there's lots else to play with! Go play, Hunters!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNgdpicAYMz0pyDn1TKHiOfeA-2ImOMKTv2kRXIM9VHP105RY1oQLQIhHIsxyQs6wHZVGSygfhAYUlSdXYFilcYfxFGKkNXDknMPRWvpF-llSJYhc-SNsQM81cB4NxdsBOGf1Kz66RpOSp/s1600/header+-+notes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="56" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNgdpicAYMz0pyDn1TKHiOfeA-2ImOMKTv2kRXIM9VHP105RY1oQLQIhHIsxyQs6wHZVGSygfhAYUlSdXYFilcYfxFGKkNXDknMPRWvpF-llSJYhc-SNsQM81cB4NxdsBOGf1Kz66RpOSp/s640/header+-+notes.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
*They showed too much of the kitten in the first ep for it not to be convenient to the story later! Bring back the kitten!^<br />
^Or have I been spoiled by 12 Monkeys, where Everything Matters, and I'm over-estimating this show?<br />
**I feel like her parents should have raised her with some coping mechanisms--"you have sensory problems, things will seem too loud or too bright, here's how you deal with that". Save them the trouble of "oh no, my daughter almost killed a kid"...<br />
***Is she the only female Hunter we know? Would we be able to tell if the others were male or female? Do they always pick the human gender that corresponds?<br />
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Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-65542165850382751512016-04-25T16:07:00.002-07:002016-04-25T16:37:27.562-07:00Prepping for the "Limitless" season finale!<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Hello everybody!</div>
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Finally I found some time to post here on this awesome blog, which I have used many times to decide whether or not I should watch a show and now I'm co-blogger! When Sami asked me, I was so super honoured! Now I've never really wrote about things like these before, so bear with me.</div>
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So let me introduce myself. I'm Lothwen, nail polish and nail art blogger at <a href="http://manisandmakeovers.blogspot.com/">Manis & Makeovers</a> - which is how I came into contact with Sami, she creates the most beautiful nail polishes, most of which are inspired by fandoms and other things I love. I've had the privilege to swatch many of her creations and when I got a Limitless-inspired polish, I knew I wanted to post it here in honour of the season finale! Let's have a look at "On NZT":</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUIEBAPBLoOLb_LcnPjnSaemdQcJYfqJZNQdeMW3_BU_nGP9cyaEA-I-fDH-bzf0mpt3OQASsCHHA-lzL7S7WEaOp0GZCd9c1cVLLLc54r9Lh9Li0XCkS0mtNk60ATIgix9znRz8LBj4w/s1600/ITOnNZT1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUIEBAPBLoOLb_LcnPjnSaemdQcJYfqJZNQdeMW3_BU_nGP9cyaEA-I-fDH-bzf0mpt3OQASsCHHA-lzL7S7WEaOp0GZCd9c1cVLLLc54r9Lh9Li0XCkS0mtNk60ATIgix9znRz8LBj4w/s1600/ITOnNZT1.jpg" width="500" /></a></div>
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You know, when Brian takes NZT, his world becomes doused in a golden glow? This polish is that NZT-effect times a million! It is a gold flakie polish with different sized golden glitters and holo particles. It can be used as a top coat, or as I did here, two-three coats on its own. It doesn't even require top coat, it has a lovely finish on its own!</div>
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That was the nail polish part of things.<br />
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Now about Limitless; when will CBS finally announce the show's renewal? I mean, come on, it's a great show! It is the perfect amount of humour, mystery, drama, detective work and romance with a hint of nonsense all mixed up beautifully into one of the best new shows of the season! I don't know if you follow <a href="http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2016/04/19/cbs-renewcancel-standings-week-30-code-black-is-probably-getting-discharged/">The Cancellation Bear</a>, but he recently told us the good news that the show is more likely to be renewed than cancelled, so I'm just going to hold him to his word!</div>
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What will happen in the finale? Oh gosh, I see a cliffhanger coming... Will Brian find Piper? Will Mike and Ike be in this episode (I missed them last time). (<i>Editor note: Me too!) </i>The last episode ended on a scary note - the DEA agent, who was working with the CJC, turned out to be in Sands' pocket and made sure Sands got out of prison. All of Morra's people - AKA The Legion of Whom - got car bombed and the way seems paved for Sands to acquire world domination... OOPS! </div>
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Perhaps Brian, the FBI and Morra all need to team up in an effort to obliterate Sands... Well it would be nice to see Bradley Cooper agian, I like him in this sleezebag-that-you-just-can't-hate role, lol!</div>
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I can't wait to see tomorrow night's episode, and let's all hope it won't be the last!</div>
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Circling back to the nail polish, I did some Limitless-inspired nail art with it as well, which I posted on my blog, so if you're interested, just click the pic below! Thanks for listening to my rambling!</div>
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Manis & Makeovershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08032980550976417399noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-40998192004260072172016-04-25T09:23:00.001-07:002016-04-25T09:23:20.315-07:00You guys, we have a job to do: "Call to Action: 12 Monkeys, Wynonna Earp, and Hunters Could Use a Show of Support | Cancelled Sci Fi"<a href="http://www.cancelledscifi.com/2016/04/25/call-to-action-12-monkeys-wynonna-earp-and-hunters-could-use-a-show-of-support/">Call to Action: 12 Monkeys, Wynonna Earp, and Hunters Could Use a Show of Support | Cancelled Sci Fi</a>:<br /><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">"12 Monkeys (Syfy): This show was never a stronger performer in the ratings in its first season and it has returned at its lowest numbers yet in its second year. It has already used the Escape-the-Network-Executioner-Free card that Syfy tends to give all its first season shows, and it is likely on a short leash at this point. As a cable entry, it may have international financing / partnerships helping it, though a show of support from fans could definitely give it a boost. Syfy has been paying close attention to the digital viewing lately as well, so if you watch it on their website, that will be counted (as opposed to watching it live during the linear broadcast or on the DVR which is only counted for Nielsen families). And buzz on the social networks has been helping cable shows of late as well. If fans of this show want it to stick around for a third season, they need to get active and make sure Syfy knows they are out there. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"> Agent Carter (ABC): It was not included in ABC’s first round of renewals and Haley Atwell has been cast in an upcoming pilot. Plus, Agent Carter‘s executive producers have said that chances of a third season look “bad”. But then a rumor has emerged that ABC has decided to bring the show back for a third season, so perhaps the network is at least considering it. All the more reason for fans to make noise in support of the show to convince the network it deserves a third season (or at least have that promised cross-over with Agents of SHIELD to resolve the show’s storylines). </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Limitless (CBS): Don’t drink the Kool-Aid CBS Boss Leslie Moonves is offering by claiming all of the network’s freshman shows will be renewed. New entry Angel from Hell has already been axed and Limitless is currently performing below where that show was when it was sent to the Network Executioner (in a large part due to constant preemptions). Plus, Limitless is certainly more expensive to produce. Fans need to make a strong show of support and let CBS know they are out their before that network (which is known to have an aversion to sci fi shows) squashes this promising new entry. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Stitchers (Freeform): This show never saw high ratings in its first season and has returned even lower in its second year. Of course it appeared on the schedule without much prior notice, so that’s not much of a surprise. The overnights are probably not as important for this show, and “stickiness” on the social nets could go a long way toward helping it into a third season. I know it has a very vocal fanbase, and they need to get active now to bring attention to this one. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Wynonna Earp (Syfy): This show has performed the best of Syfy’s Spring debuts, but only just slightly. The same comments for 12 Monkeys above apply to this one, though Syfy may still let it play its Escape-the-Network-Executioner-Free card. But fans should get active on the social networks and with digital viewing to make sure that Syfy knows they are out there."</blockquote>And there's other shows there, too! We're in a golden age of TV for those of us who like the speculative-fiction shows; we can't let all of these new, awesome, barely-reached-anything-like-their-full-potential shows go in the same year!<br /><br />
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My whole life, there's been like one or two shows a year that I just loved; right now, it's at least one show every night of the week, and I don't think that should end because of a ratings system that's drastically and dangerously flawed, and doesn't show how people actually watch TV anymore. We've got points to make, you guys,<br /><br />
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Let's do it.<br /><br />
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-10364938307298772632016-04-20T11:35:00.003-07:002016-04-20T11:35:50.100-07:00Sami on GeekCraft Expo RDU<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This past weekend, me, our very own Paula P, and <a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/davesempire1981">my brother David</a> went to table at the local GeekCraft Expo! I've never done a show on this side of the table, and never been to one of the GeekCraft shows before, so I had no idea what to expect. I was SO NERVOUS setting up, but I'm so glad that Kim took a chance on me and let me join! It was awesome!<br />
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So often, in fact, that I didn't have time to take many pictures. These were sent to me by Paula! There were tables set up in several rows--not a big space, but a lot of variety inside it, everything from adorable tiny top hats, to chain maille, to awesome cupcakes. You can <a href="http://www.geekcraftexpo.com/#!geekcraft-expo-rdu/k8dnh">see the whole list</a> of dealers here.</div>
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It was so exciting to be able to sell my stuff directly to people! So many people didn't know that home made nail polish was a thing, and it was so flattering and vindicating when people laughed at the names I'd given them. Everyone was so nice and so enthusiastic! I wish my helper had been able to come*, so that I could have wandered around and taken a look at more of what other people had to offer, but the sellers I talked to couldn't have been nicer or more friendly, and the customers--I had no idea that NC was so nerdy before I saw how many people came through the show!</div>
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The Expo was very well run, set up and taken down without a hitch as far as I could tell, and the people in charge did really well with social media promotions--lots of people came looking for us specifically because they'd seen us on the FB page and on Instagram! It was a long and exhausting day, but in the best way possible, and I'm so glad we did this!</div>
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*My niece, who had a play that weekend and couldn't make it.<br />
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<br />Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-16490946256177936662016-04-19T12:04:00.002-07:002016-04-19T12:04:40.169-07:00Hunters 1.2 - In which things get more interesting but not much clearer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Hunters airs at 10pm on Syfy Monday nights, right after 12 Monkeys!</i></div>
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I feel a little bad for Hunters, coming right after 12 Monkeys--as a lead-in, it's probably not a bad idea, since they'd likely have a similar audience, but Hunters is gloomier and much newer, and probably suffers from everyone still talking about what happened on 12 Monkeys and not paying attention. I know that's what I was doing, and it looked like a lot of people on Twitter were, too!</div>
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The plot was pretty straight-forwardly reactionary to last episode: Flynn is getting ticked that it's taking so long to find Abby, McCarthy is cleaning house by blowing up places that hold evidence, and he's taunting the ETU by calling them by names and threatening to blow more stuff up unless they give him the body they captured last episode. Flynn and Reagan talk to the dead guy's wife, who claims she didn't know he's an alien, and then proves that she actually did all along when she's the one that sets off the next bomb.</div>
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The fun stuff is between all these plot-boxes to check off.</div>
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Emme is not happy at school--they put gravy on everything and she hates gravy--but Flynn remembers that she has really good memory for details and goes to ask her about the people they're looking for. She's also got Aspergers, that makes her faceblind, so the pictures don't help, but Flynn lets her hear the message-song and it triggers a memory of going to a music shop with Abby. The song was playing loudly out of some guy's headphones, and the music shop in question is the one that got blown up already. That leads them to see that McCarthy has been passing secret messages through the shops and the Spotify channel used for his remixes. </div>
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It's great that Emme is neurodiverse and that it's being presented as a plus, not a problem. Flynn doesn't know what to do with her and would obviously be a terrible single dad, but he knows when her strengths would be needed, and they're the key that unlocks what they need to track McCarthy down!</div>
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And the second thing that comes of that song being used in the investigation, is that Reagan realizes she has synaesthetic communication! The clicks and distortions embedded in the song form a picture in her mind and "the colors come from the shapes of the sounds"--and that's very exciting! As a synnie myself, it's super cool when someone comes up with a way to use it that makes it useful for the plot and interesting for the character.* It means the actual language of the Hunters is intrinsically and fundamentally different from human languages. It's built on conveying images though this crossed senses thing, and that's <i>so cool</i>.</div>
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Because of what she sees, they know which music shop is going to be hit next, and they get there and evacuate it before the crazy culty wife blows the place up. Reagan manages to save her and Flynn from the blast, but something about the whole day makes her go all animalistic and she tears the woman's throat out with her bare hands--and horrifies herself.</div>
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Through the whole episode, there's been beef between her and Flynn because he doesn't trust that she's different from the people they're hunting. She admits that she doesn't know what planet she's from or how she was born, but she is on their side--she's not the mole that the dead guy warned them was in the ETU. Oddly, it's the event with the bomb that makes Flynn warm up to her, maybe because she saved his life. He asks about her periodic skin condition and says that Abby never had something like that, but Reagan says that with enough lotion, it goes away and you'd never know. Flynn digs through Abby's stuff and finds about twenty bottles of lotion, and he's not happy about it. He's been denying that she's an alien and wouldn't have told him--and the culty wife makes that worse by saying so pointedly that her husband wanted her to know who and what he is. </div>
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Meanwhile, McCarthy tortures a blonde girl and takes like a core sample out of her back, then injects it into himself like a drug, and it's GROSS. She's not Abby, but he lets Flynn think she is so that he can get the drop on him and finish him off, except that Reagan stops him. He almost kills her, and then seems to notice that something is different about her--and instead sort of hangs over her with her pinned to the ground in a weirdly about-to-make-out thing while he clicks at her and she seems frozen in place. What is he saying to her? She doesn't say, but she does say that it's harder for her to control herself when the skin condition flares up, and she's scared--she wants some treatment her boss has, but he wants her strong and fast and tells her, basically, to suck it up.</div>
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McCarthy also creepily does some other blonde girl in the shower after saying he'll have to "punish you again", and then, later, has a third girl in the car waiting while he meets with a deformed-looking guy in a cloak and feeds some skin he tore off Reagan's arm to a giant mouth in the man's chest. Such a weird and intriguing and gross note to leave it on!</div>
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He's creepy, guys. He's got this predatory thing down that makes sense for someone who is actually a vicious alien predator, but it seems to also bleed into being a sexual predator. It's icky as crap how he touches all the women he comes into contact with, like there's no difference between abuse and making out. Does he mesmerize the women? Is it a breeding imperative, or is he a monster in that, too? He's all big talk and violence, and he's incredibly off-putting, but he's also incredibly charismatic. I'm just worried I can't follow where they take him, if he goes too far into that woman-hating mess.</div>
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On the other hand, yay neurodiverse characters and helpful aliens and people with near-literal demons! I missed the kitten, and Flynn's PTSD, and there was no new message song, which is a shame because they could have a nice full 13-song soundtrack if they did a new one every week, but the characters are starting to work as a pretty effective team and Flynn is good at getting his butt beat without it stopping his mission. Reagan is so interesting, the alien trying to be human. I mean, she's vegetarian and watches Downton Abbey. I wonder if there's going to be a storyline about assimilation later, where she has to choose which world she'll belong to?</div>
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So far, the show is walking a pretty good line between government conspiracy, alien-body-horror gross-out, and scifi action, and it's given depth by the choices they're making with the characters and their roles. If they can keep the balance, and keep showing people's so-called "disorders" as secret strengths in a secret war, this could be an important show. It's already more interesting because of it!</div>
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What did you guys think? Comment below, or come <a href="http://twitter.com/pirategirljack">talk to me on Twitter</a>!</div>
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*And this way is more similar to how I experience it than the way they use it for Cassie in The Librarians, though I can't, as far as I know, communicate with it.</div>
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Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477861115546249847.post-66588070803200065282016-04-19T11:13:00.000-07:002016-04-19T11:13:18.164-07:00Monkey Musings 2 - There are no straight lines<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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One of the themes of this show is that there's no straight lines, and they've done a really good job of running with that. The virus wouldn't have happened if they hadn't sent someone back to stop it--the old Terminator Syndrome. But also, Cassie wouldn't have been there to save Cole when he landed in 2015 if he hadn't wound up too far back and told her to be there. They never would have found Jones to save him later in the season if he hadn't landed too far forward and met a later Cassie. Hell, he wouldn't have been there to begin with if he hadn't gone there to begin with and called home to tell them to send him! And as they said, it took time travel to invent time travel.</div>
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And there is, of course, the loops that the story takes, so that they're only linear if you follow the characters--once you start time traveling, your future and The Future are no longer the same thing.</div>
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But what's most fascinating to me is that there isn't any straight lines on the emotional level, even. </div>
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If it weren't for time travel, Cole and Cassie never would have met, and Cole and Ramse never would have wound up on opposite sides. If Cole hadn't been there in the room with Cassie the last time she died, holding her in his arms, would he have realized just how much she meant to him? Would he have come back more determined than ever to save the world for her? Definitely, Ramse's defense of his child wouldn't have hit the brick wall of Cole's resolve if being out of sequence hadn't made it.*</div>
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And now, here in episode one of the new season, they're out of sync again. Cole has been in 2015-16 for only three months, and it's been rough but it's also been in civilization and all it's available luxuries. He's learning what it is he's saving, even if that's just a side-effect of being in it. Cassie, though, she's been in the future for eight months, more than twice as long.** What happened in her own time sits differently in the context of the reality of 2043-44, and what she has to do there. Cole is the one who has to wait for the heroic time traveler to come back, he's the soft one who values life. She's the badass, hard-nosed killer. And they don't match up now.</div>
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If humanity is the mark of progress, Cole has gone forward while Cassie has gone backward, and Ramse went off on some side route. Who knows where Jennifer is, or how she got there, but she's also in the future, pulling strings and sending people back--Ramse wouldn't have known what to do if she hadn't given him that necklace and told him a bunch of things he's now had almost 30 years to mull over as he goes back into association with her younger self. And isn't that an interesting thing? My tendency is to focus on Cole and Cassie, but behind them, we have Ramse and Jennifer; she said he'd be a good friend to her--but is that because of what happens now? While Cole and Cassie are coming back to common ground, how are Ramse and Jennifer going to deal with being on the same team now? How much did he have to do with her life when he was Ethan Seki and she was Leland's weird daughter?*** How much will that bear on their adult interactions now?</div>
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It's fascinating. It's complex, and a bit addicting, watching how people line up, or don't line up, watching them moving through their own timelines and coming into sync and falling out of it with each other. I feel like I need to make a character-infographic, but how would that even look? There's no straight lines to draw on it!</div>
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*And now--he's got that memory, that knowledge of her personal future (assuming it doesn't get changed along with everything else as they alter stuff this season), and if things start looking close to that, will he try to divert it? Will the still try to save her?<br />
**Almost long enough to have had a child there, if they'd gotten to hook up before the left...(sorry, that's literally where my mind goes every time it's mentioned that something is eight or nine months)<br />
***I would love to see a flashback of her as a little girl, and him talking to her because she's the only kid around and he misses his son.Samantha Hollowayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02976242240657795974noreply@blogger.com0