[Narnia Content Note: Animal Mistreatment. One gif from the Frozen 2 trailer.]
The Magician's Nephew, Chapter 6: The Beginning of Uncle Andrew's Troubles
When we last left our heroes, they were rocketing at high speeds away from Charn towards the Woods Between Worlds (though, through what medium they are traveling, I could not say) and they had an unexpected tag-along.
“LET GO! LET GO!” SCREAMED POLLY.
“I’m not touching you!” said Digory.
Then their heads came out of the pool and, once more, the sunny quietness of the Wood between the Worlds was all about them, and it seemed richer and warmer and more peaceful than ever after the staleness and ruin of the place they had just left. I think that, if they had been given the chance, they would again have forgotten who they were and where they came from and would have lain down and enjoyed themselves, half asleep, listening to the growing of the trees. But this time there was something that kept them as wide-awake as possible: for as soon as they had got out on to the grass, they found that they were not alone. The Queen, or the Witch (whichever you like to call her) had come up with them, holding on fast by Polly’s hair. That was why Polly had been shouting out “Let go!”
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Narnia: In Which Little Happens |
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Open Thread: Light Reflected Off Wet Containers |
Sorry for the lack of open thread last week, depression was really bad, and after Tuesday evening I had some very different priorities. I figured that it was better to wait for Friday and this one than post a stopgap open thread so late on Wednesday that it might as well have been Thursday.
The picture was taken from the Portland side of the red bridge (Casco Bay Bridge.) This loading yard used to be parking for the Scotia Prince, which was a cruise/ferry that went from Portland to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Notable for also being a way for Mainers in the Portland area to gamble, since as soon as you crossed out of Maine territorial waters it became legal.
Friday Recommendations! What have you been reading/writing/listening to/playing/watching lately? Shamelessly self-promote or boost the signal on something you think we should know about - the weekend’s ahead of us, so give us something new to explore!
And, like on all threads: please remember to use the "post new comment" feature rather than the "reply" feature, even when directly replying to someone else!
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Film Corner: Predators |
As a grand finale to the Alien Franchise re-watch, I'll close out with Predators which is not an alien film but cheekily sorta refers to the xenomorphs at one point. I really enjoyed Predators more than basically any of the other Predator movies and concepts I've seen because it was like someone took the idea and tried to make it more... hmm... tonally consistent? Well, that's my opinion anyway.
We open with Adrian Brody waking in a freefall and being very confused and terrified. A strange parachute attached to him opens when *it* feels like, rather than from any urging on his part. It's a very effective opening for shit getting real. Adrian wakes up again, this time on the ground, just in time to see a confused and frightened stranger land with similar violence and point guns at him. "Don't!" Adrian orders, but in a sort of friendly badass way.
This is my FAVORITE trivia about this movie: According to Nimród Antal and Robert Rodriguez on the commentary, in the script, the character Cuchillo was described as "a guy who looks like Danny Trejo." When Danny Trejo heard this, he called Robert Rodriguez and said, "hey, I heard there's a guy in the script for 'Predators' who looks just like Danny Trejo, and guess what, I look just like Danny Trejo!"
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Film Corner: Aliens vs Predator |
Alright, here we go. Movie night. Aliens vs. Predator has a soft spot in my heart because my spouse made me watch it and I expected to absolutely HATE it and instead ending up liking it a lot. That was a few years ago, though, so let's see how it holds up. I tentatively select "extended version" on the play screen, though sometimes that's a mistake. We'll see.
We start in a snowy place where a panicky man is running around willy-nilly. Invisible Wolverine stabs or shoots him, it's unclear, and we cut away. I'm sure that's fine. In space, a Weyland satellite exists. It locates an identified heat signature in somewhere. Everyone seems very excitable about it. A Black woman climbing an icy mountain gets a call on her bluetooth headset from someone claiming to represent Weyland Industries. They offer her a bribe to meet with Weyland, and when she reaches the top of the mountain a helicopter is there waiting for her.
Smash cut to... somewhere warmer and people speaking Spanish. A person excavating a dig locates a pepsi-cola cap before HE takes a call from Weyland as well. Weyland is clearly putting together the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. A Scottish man takes a picture of the Black woman while she sleeps. She has the extreme patience to not slap the camera out of his hands. He asks her to take a picture of him for his boys. He's a chemical engineer. She splits her time between environmentalism and taking scientists on the ice. I love her and would die for her.
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Open Thread: Sun-Obscuring Clouds |
In spite of how it looks, this isn't actually that close to Sunset. At least, I don't think it was. Taken through the passenger window of a car.
Friday Recommendations! What have you been reading/writing/listening to/playing/watching lately? Shamelessly self-promote or boost the signal on something you think we should know about - the weekend’s ahead of us, so give us something new to explore!
And, like on all threads: please remember to use the "post new comment" feature rather than the "reply" feature, even when directly replying to someone else!
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Film Corner: Covenant |
Anyway, if I want to start Covenant tonight I need to do it now, so I guess let's do this.
We open with David being turned on for the first time. Weyland quizzes him about what he sees and feels. Weyland looks a LOT younger than before, which suggests that the David on Prometheus was an older android model than I'd expected. David and Weyland talk about god and needing to meet one's creator and David instantly questions why he should have to serve Weyland if Weyland is ephemeral, fleeting, and capable of death. This is just... argh, no.
The best I can do here is assume that David was programmed with Weyland's values, because there's no *objective* reason to assume that immortal beings are inherently better than mortal ones. Something being fleeting does not make it less precious. It feels like Scott or whoever wants to make a really profound point about existence with these movies but instead is just exposing a lot of his own fears and biases which aren't, strictly speaking, facts or objective.
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Open Thread: The Great and Powerful |
Not the first time I've used an image of a toy, though it might be the first time I used a picture of one that someone I know actually owns instead of a toy spotted in the wild, as it were. While I was picking up clothes off the floor of a closet, I found The Great and Powerful Trixie Lulamoon laying on her side.
Originally I was going to use a different image of her. That one is much sharper, but it came at the expense of the sparkles. Trixie here captures the light of a flash in a way that makes it look like she's glowing, but the flash completely overpowers the sparkles, and the sparkles, I have realized, are compulsory.
So, anyway: small sparkly plastic toy. Sit/stand/whatever in awe of her greatness and power.
And, like on all threads: please remember to use the "post new comment" feature rather than the "reply" feature, even when directly replying to someone else!
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Film Corner: Prometheus |
Alright, bitches, witches, good friends with stitches, and people with itches: the Alien marathon continues with Prometheus. Prometheus has a lot of emotions for me because I wanted to see it in theaters (a new alien movie! In my lifetime!) but I was instead in the hospital having surgery. Then I saw it on Bluray and was glad I didn't see it in theaters, lolsob.
In a sign of the high quality control that went into this release, I have to wrestle with the Bluray disc for 20 minutes in an attempt to get the damn thing to fucking play. I think the bluray is trying to cleverly "resume playing" from the last time and is instead just horking itself. The fact that we're gonna have to watch the DVD instead would almost be funny if I weren't so irritated, lol.
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Open Thread: Fallen Leaves |
Sorry this is so very late. Depression has been really bad. I have food and water, but it's hard to think, hard to move, hard to get the food or the water, and hard to remember that I'm supposed to be eating or drinking it instead of staring off into space.
Normally I'd reserve such "Woe is me" stuff for the comments or my own blog, but this is really late and I figured you all deserved an explanation.
Picture from October 29th of 2018. I haven't exactly been taking a lot of pictures lately.
And, like on all threads: please remember to use the "post new comment" feature rather than the "reply" feature, even when directly replying to someone else!
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November Newsletter (2019) |
October is over and it feels like all I did was blink. Where did the time go?
A lot of it went to a new friend who is a bit more than a friend now. *shy* It's hard to remember only a year ago I was asking you all to reassure me that I'd someday be able to stop missing my ex-husband so much. I can't remember the last time I've been this happy, even if it means I'm not as productive as I'd like to be. Time keeps slipping away but in good ways, in that did we just spend two hours talking about our favorite movies kind of ways.
[TW: Parental Bigotry] What was, uh, not fun was my mother dropping by to demand if I was "in a homosexual relationship". (If you're on twitter, you may have already seen this thread.) This was a case of a particularly suspicious stopped clock being right: she couldn't believe my friend would come over to take care of me while I was ill unless we were dating. *sigh* I told my mother that I'm bisexual and that there's a girl I'm interested in dating, and she berated me for a bit and bluntly suggested that this was why my ex-husband left me. (It's not, and it would be biphobic of him if it was, rather than "my fault".)
I'm not quite estranged yet, but visits from my parents (and the resultant disability care they were providing me) have essentially stopped. Which is honestly a strange relief on my part, but more than a little inconvenient because I needed the aid. Based on a lot of your recommendations, I'm looking at Care.com for some in-home aid but a lot of this is overwhelming at the moment. My friend is helping to chase the nightmares away by holding me at night and I took this week off of work to try to put myself back together. It's difficult because I really did try to give my parents the fiction they wanted, but I just couldn't convincingly lie and say I was heterosexual like she wanted.
In terms of what this means for Patreon, I did get some outlining done on my No Man of Woman Born sequel idea and I noodled some words onto paper but they aren't ready for post. So it's another month of live-watches, drabbles about characters, and let's play videos. And maybe a few more things.
Reminder! It's a new month, which means new paper books for the $25 patrons and new bookmarks for the $5 patrons! If I don't have your address, send me a message on the internal system or email me at AnaMardoll at gmail dot com. I love sending ya'll things!
An index to the deconstructions on my blog is here.
My YouTube channel is here. The Phoenix Wright videos are here.
Do you like "Tumblr Threads" which collect funny tumblr posts? I have one here!
My Twitter account @DivorceKittens with stories and pictures is here.
Thank you for much for hanging in here with me--you are all quite literally helping me to stay alive. I love you.