Reality Is Almost Always Wrong

Alive, just blah.

2026-04-12T16:25:27Z

Starfleet Academy got cancelled. I'm not surprised--and, frankly, given who's now in charge of Paramount, it's likely that whatever the show would've been under their thumb would've been Not Great--but I am angry, and frustrated, and despairing.

So I've mostly been not thinking about it, except to be glad that there are still ten episodes to go. Provided the corporate overlords don't memory hole them for a tax writeoff.

*~*~*

In much more pleasant news: a couple weeks ago I was doing my semi-regular search of local used CD/DVD shops for stuff I wouldn't mind owning when, AMAZINGLY, one of the shops suddenly had one of my white whale DVD sets in stock. So now I have Once a Thief! The Canadian TV show from the mid 1990s! On something other than grainy 30-year-old VHS tapes recorded off antenna broadcast!

Much like The Pretender, it's been DECADES since I last watched this show. I'm excited to see how/whether it holds up!

*~*~*

Looks like I won't have a vid to premiere at VidUKon this year, alas. I had three (3) solid ideas--two that would've worked well for the themed show (Unfinished Business), one of which also could have been a premiere for the vidshow I'm doing, and then a third that would've just been a regular old premiere--but for the entirety of March my brain absolutely refused to vid. I'm hopeful that I can eventually make two of those vids sometime when there's not a deadline involved. (The third is a very pointed vid about SFA's cancellation, so I'm just going to let that one go because see above re: anger, frustration, and despair.)

*~*~*

I've fallen completely out of watching Matlock--I got behind by a couple of weeks while SFA was airing, then felt zero interest in catching up--and Elsbeth is on thin ice. Scott Speedman's new show, RJ Decker, is from the same guy who showran Elementary; it's more copaganda, but it's good when nothing else is on.

The Pitt's finale is next week. This season has been good, but hasn't reached the heights of its first--but its first season was STELLAR, so I wasn't expecting it to manage the same feat of excellence twice. It's been nice to watch that set of characters (and actors) doing their thing every week. (I have resolutely ignored 80% of fandom discourse, and I am perfectly happy to continue to do so.)

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When I am older than these small goddamn hills

2026-03-15T22:42:43Z

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, 'Rubincon': ( Not a typo. )

Overall, a very solid first season and a very solid season finale. I have quibbles with some stuff, but mostly that stuff is related to the constraints of the 10-episode season, and boil down to I Wish They Had More TIME. Generally--and in a lot of the specifics--both the seasonal arcs and the episodic stories are really good. All of the actors did great work; all of the characters are engaging. I'm SO looking forward to s2, and keeping my fingers tightly, TIGHTLY crossed that Paramount's new leadership won't decide to shelve it for a tax break.

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New Fic! The Pretender fic!

2026-03-15T02:27:40Z

I have written a thing! The Pretender fic! Gen, but also Miss Parker/Jarod in the way the show was MP/J! The AO3 version is here!

( Thousands of Words )

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Specialist Krebs isn't a very responsible pet owner.

2026-03-08T19:28:08Z

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, '300th Night': ( Spoilers! )

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Stages

2026-03-01T02:15:08Z

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, 'The Life of the Stars': ( THEATAH!!! )

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Co-sign

2026-02-21T00:34:36Z

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 'Ko'Zeine': ( Because they have an aquarium! )

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We climbed aboard their starship/we headed for the skies

2026-02-15T18:08:53Z

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, 'Come, Let's Away...': ( Every time I see the ep title, 'Come Sail Away' starts playing in my head. )

*~*~*

Guess who has two thumbs and more thoughts about The Pretender!

'The Paper Clock' is the fifth episode of TP's first season, which aired in 1996. It kicks off Jarod's episodic Pretend as a lawyer by introducing him to his first client: a man named Isaac who meets Jarod at the courthouse dressed in a skirt, wig, full face of makeup, and heels. ( Cutting for length! )

I won't say that TP kept up this level of justice to DEI throughout its run, because it didn't. But it managed it sometimes, in unexpected yet very appreciated ways. And I think its successes in that regard were because its main character's superpower was empathy, and the writers' room--whatever their faults may have been--made an effort to take that seriously. ('The Paper Clock' is credited to Javier Grillo-Marxuach.)

*~*~*

Finally, a couple of TP fic recs, both by vimesbootstheory:

Tether & Spark: an AU from the finale of s3 in which Jarod didn't escape the Centre at the beginning of s4. The Centre has found a new way of keeping Jarod in check--a way that gives him physical freedom from the Centre yet keeps him firmly under their thumb--and Miss Parker has been put in charge of his fieldwork. Naturally, complications ensue. This fic is also a fusion with one very specific element of The Invisible Man, the TV show from the early 2000s. To paraphrase the author's notes: don't worry, you don't need to know anything about TIM, and also don't worry, nobody turns invisible. Of the two fics recced here, T&S is my favourite: plot-wise, the fusion element is handled fantastically, adapted to the world of the Centre and explored thoroughly in all of its terrible consequences; character-wise, the way everyone responds to the evolution of the Centre's control over Jarod is spot-on, well-explored, and generally pretty delicious. Also, primo-quality Jarod!whump. Also also, the author made some Choices re: Brigitte, and all of their Choices were very very good.

The Face of Dogs (series): set some time after Jarod and Miss Parker's trip to Carthis, but magnificently ignores all of the woo inherent in Island of the Haunted. This series--which, per the author, is technically unfinished, but IMO it ends in its current state at a decently complete stopping point--starts with Miss Parker getting roped into taking over one of Jarod's Pretends, progresses into Miss Parker seriously derailing another of Jarod's Pretends, evolves into Miss Parker and Jarod having to team up on yet another Pretend...and things just keep going from there. While a bit shaggier than T&S, TFOD has some great stuff in it, too: more high-quality Jarod!whump, which is always welcome; some fun casefiles; and a particular standout in the second story in the series, when MP and Jarod argue about where they stand and what their options are via a particularly well-employed parable.

Both fics are good, long, meaty, plotty, slowburn Miss Parker/Jarod. The author does a fantastic Miss Parker POV voice, and in dialogue they have a solid grip on MP's and Jarod's voices in particular. I enjoyed both fics a whole lot, and strongly recommend them!

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Theremin!

2026-02-08T20:58:45Z

This week's Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, 'Series Acclimation Mil': as I said on Bluesky, this was an episode made with love if ever I've seen one. ( Thank you, indeed. )

Not a perfect episode, but a very very good, very enjoyable episode crafted out of deep love and respect.

*~*~*

Back around Christmas, thingswithwings asked on Bluesky for recs of Star Trek tie-in novels. The ensuing thread got me thinking back to the many (many) TNG tie-in books I'd read back in the day, which in turn made me dig a few of them out of my stash in the basement. One that I remember fondly was Eyes of the Beholders by AC Crispin. I re-read it this week--for the first time in 20-some-odd years--to see if it would hold up. And it does! Mostly! The main story is really good, there are strong character moments for most of the main cast--and some well-drawn original characters, particularly an Andorian little girl and a Tellarite doctor--and there's a subplot that explains why Selar wasn't around after season 2. The thing that gets the "mostly" qualifier is a cringey reminiscence about 15-year-old Will Riker losing his virginity to a woman more than twice his age, but that's literally the only truly objectionable thing in the book.

But the reason I'm mentioning it is this: there's a subplot in this book about Data trying to write a novel, and I feel certain that this subplot--about an artificial intelligence trying to generate fiction--got absolutely NAILED by Apollo's Dodgeball of Prophesy. For details--because this really does need excerpts from the book to illustrate how eerily prescient it is--please see the Tumblr post I made here.

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Festivids Reveal: Labyrinth Vids

2026-02-07T16:57:02Z

I made two vids for Festivids!

Here
Source: Labyrinth
Music: 'Here' by Alessia Cara
Vid by: Jayne L.
AO3: here
Streaming: YouTube
Download with subtitles: Mediafire

Worst (/best) party Sarah's ever been to.

( Notes )

So there I was, end of November, with a completed gift and another song still bubbling away at the back of my head and my source already clipped and all kinds of time left until the deadline. And a few people other than my recipient had requested Labyrinth, so I decided to make a treat.

White Rabbit
Source: Labyrinth
Music: 'White Rabbit' by Jefferson Airplane
Vid by: Jayne L.
AO3: here
Streaming: YouTube
Download with subtitles: Mediafire

Sarah in Wonderland.

( Notes )

All in all, a very successful first Festivids, if I do say so myself! Working out my offers was a challenge, but getting my assignment was good for pointing me in a direction and giving me something creative that I HAD TO do. The vidding process was fun, the anticipation for go-live was SO ANNOYING, the vids I received were wonderful, and it was nice to contribute to the overall haul. I will very probably participate again next year. :D

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Gonna need a SFA icon soon!

2026-02-01T16:11:40Z

Festivids are here!!!!! There are SO MANY great vids! But I am going to single out the ones made for ME, because they're both delightful, albeit in very different ways:

The River, a gorgeous Secret of NIMH vid about Mrs Brisby being a little mouse who goes through A LOT but perseveres.

and

Hero, a vid for the two Ewoks movies from the early 1980s, Caravan of Courage and The Battle For Endor, about how Cindel needed a hero and got Ewoks.

I recommend both!

As for the other side of the coin, I'm very curious as to whether I have enough of a house style for people to figure out what I made before reveals.

*~*~*

I know it hasn't seemed like it, but I have been watching things other than The Pretender lately! They just haven't been hitting the fangirl switch in my head. Specifically, I've been enjoying Amadeus and Ponies and, of course, The Pitt.

And then there's Starfleet Academy.

Ep 3 was fine. It leaned heavily into 1) sports and 2) school rivalry, neither of which are things that really call to me. But it was entertaining enough, and did a decent job of starting to show layers beneath Darem Reymi's Arrogant Jerk surface.

And then we got ep 4, which was FANTASTIC. ( Spoilers! )

--Finally, a Klingon big high muckety-muck who has ~a past~ with Chancellor Ake is played by David Keeley, who some of you may remember from 20-some-odd years ago as Paul Gross's partner in country music. (Or, if you're me, as Bud Travis on Power Play.) Have I mentioned how much I love that Trek is filmed in Toronto now? Because I love that Trek is filmed in Toronto now.

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Are you ready for almost 3000 words discussing Pretender nonsense?

2026-01-24T17:43:02Z

Because thanks to a very kind benefactor, I have gotten my completionist little paws on the two Pretender movies! Thank you, very kind benefactor!

I regret to inform you that one of the movies is not worth the 25-year wait.

I am DELIGHTED to inform you that the other one is balls-to-the-wall bonkers and, as long as you divorce it entirely from the show, it's actually a lot of fun!

Without reading past the cut tags, can you guess which is which???

( The Pretender 2001 )

( The Pretender: Island of the Haunted )

In conclusion: NONSENSE. Some parts more enjoyable than others, but on the whole, oh my god why is this how this series ends. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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If you're going to San Francisco

2026-01-18T00:19:27Z

Got my grades! Aced both courses! Now to submit my receipts to my boss and see if he can muster up the guts to follow through on promoting me!

*~*~*

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy: I enjoyed the first two episodes a lot!

Moreso together than if they'd just aired ep 1, I think. It was a solid decision to air the first two eps together as the premiere, because each of those episodes showcases extremely different things about what this show can do. Ep 1 is very actiony and expositiony, full of SFX and fights and flash; ep 2 is a classic Trekian "let's watch people debate their positions and eventually find common ground" story filtered through teen angst. It was reassuring, after the action-heavy first ep, to immediately get something more sedate and thoughtful in ep 2: not only did it illustrate that SFA has range, it also illustrated that SFA is confidently competent at both extremes of its range. (It did also show that the SFX budget had been allocated more successfully to ep 1, because ep 2 featured one cartoonish-ass whale. No offense intended towards Gillian, Trek's ACTUAL cartoon whale, who was rendered more realistically in PROD than the one in SFA ep 2.)

( Spoilery stuff )

Overall assessment: it's not perfect, but it's good, and more than that, it's PROMISING. It's earnest and wholesome and has a sense of humour that's not predicated on ironic detachment. It's optimistic without ignoring difficulties. It presents troubling situations without being grimdark. Its cast is solidly good to great. Every character has something interesting about them.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the season!

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It's really very good. Until it's not.

2026-01-17T03:51:46Z

I've finished s4 of my The Pretender rewatch! Unless I can get my hands on the two TV movies, this is the end of the line!

I had forgotten just how much I HATED 90% of what happened in 'The Inner Sense'!!! ( Lots of words about that, and about s4 in general. )

Upshot: seasons 1 and 2 are great. The s2 finale, 'Bloodlines', is easily the show's highest point. Season 3 is good, but starts to show signs of writers' room fatigue. Season 4 has a few really good eps scattered throughout but is largely kind of a mess, and ends by chucking a whole lot of BS twists into the mix just in time to be cancelled. (Except for the two TV movies, which I have not seen but understand from fannish osmosis are Not Good, and also end without resolving much of anything.)

I have ideas for two (2) vids and two (2) fics and I don't know if I'll actually be able to make any of them before the hyperfixation fades. *hands*

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Stuff to watch!

2026-01-10T18:56:27Z

First full week back at work: DONE. I made it through Wednesday fine, but Thursday morning was tough, and Friday didn't feel like a Friday. But it was! And now it's Saturday! And I have no obligations! So that's nice.

*~*~*

One helpful thing is that there's about to be new TV to look forward to week-to-week:

--The Pitt is back! I enjoyed the first episode of s2 a lot! The new characters are nice little seeds of potential, but mostly it was just really good to see all the people from s1 back in action again.

I do think Noah Wyle saw the audience's reaction to Robby in s1 and thought, "Hm. Gonna have to do something about that in s2." ( Spoilers! )

--Star Trek: Starfleet Academy starts next week, and a bunch of advance reviews are very positive! As I said on Bluesky, I'm trying not to get my hopes up because there were a lot of advance reviews of PIC s3 that were absolutely glowing, and I ended up hating it. But encouragingly, a lot of the positive reviews of SFA explicitly call out some of PIC s3's failures in contrast to things SFA does right, so: hopes...rising...!

I am somewhat concerned about something mentioned in Gavia Baker-Whitelaw's review for TV Guide: ( Spoilery )

*~*~*

I have stuff to blather on about re: The Pretender (I'm almost through s4), but perhaps I'll leave that for another post.

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Only a slight exaggeration.

2025-12-31T23:43:50Z

I wrote the exams! Nobody ask me how I did! I won't get my grades for another 2-3 business weeks!

Anyway, to celebrate being done/for something completely different:

As noted in the subject line, this is only a slight exaggeration of how it played out in the episode. Also, note Miss Parker's microexpression of relief at the end.

*~*~*

Happy New Year! Let us kick 2025 to the curb with all due vehemence! And may we all have a 2026 with circumstances much improved!

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Couch! Couch! Couch! Couch!

2025-12-28T17:57:42Z

All family obligations are complete! Liminal Spacemas is here!!!

...except that the final exams for my accounting and payroll courses become available on Dec 31. I am determined to get them both over with that day if at all possible, which means I'll have to spend some time tomorrow and Tuesday studying. (I've taken this weekend off entirely because I NEED IT.) Do I resent having to put effort into anything during this precious truly-free time? Heck yes. Is it better than taking the whole week off then having to waste some of the weekend--right before I have to go back to work--on exams? Also heck yes.

*~*~*

More The Pretender thoughts!

--Sydney is such a freaking hypocrite. (So is Miss Parker: she finds out her beloved dead mother was trying to rescue children, including Jarod, from the Centre, but remains committed to hunting Jarod down and bringing him back to the Centre against his will. But at least her hypocrisy is rooted in having to confront and overcome the pro-Centre and pro-Daddy conditioning she's been indoctrinated with her entire life.) The man was kidnapped by Nazis and experimented on as a child! HOW did he (and Jacob) decide that doing basically the same thing to children at the Centre was in any way justifiable???( Moar thoughts! )

--Leland Orser! Jessica Steen! Younger Tim DeKay! Andrew Robinson! Barely-out-of-her-teens Jennifer Garner! 1990s guest stars are fun. :D

*~*~*

I have a hankering for Star Trek stories, so I pulled a few of the tie-in novels I have out of the storage bin in the basement and splurged a bit at ThriftBooks on tie-in novels I haven't read yet. If anyone can rec any good, preferably substantial (10k+ words), TNG or VOY or DS9 fic, please share!

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I also love how everyone keeps reminding the world that HR was funded by Canadian tax dollars.

2025-12-21T00:22:58Z

This is the first weekend in a very large number of weekends that I haven't had to do some task or assignment or errand or obligation or multiple of the above. Christmas presents are bought and wrapped. Christmas menus are decided on, and the grocery shop will happen on Monday after work. Festivid is [redacted]. Coursework is all done except for the final exams, which both become available on Dec 31, so there's no point in studying until next weekend at the earliest. The house is as clean as it needs to be to get me through the next couple of weeks, because I'm not hosting anything.

...I'd almost forgotten what it's like to have a whole entire weekend to do with as I please.

*~*~*

Whenever crackers I like go on sale throughout the year, I buy some, because their regular price nowadays is RIDICULOUS. (When I say "go on sale", what I mean is "are sold at the price that used to be their regular price 5-6 years ago".) Inevitably, at the end of the year, I have a stockpile of crackers, many of which have best before dates early in the new year. Which makes it extremely fortuitous that the end of the year is when all the cheeses go on sale!

*taps forehead knowingly* Streets ahead.

*~*~*

I'm still rewatching The Pretender! I'm enjoying it immensely!

I had some thoughts over on Tumblr about a couple of things:

1) ( The choice to use Patrick Bauchau's voice with Alex Wexo's performance as flashback!Sydney. )

2) ( Why Nina was 10000% better than Miss Parker would've been as Jarod's first sexual partner. )

And one thought not from Tumblr:

3) The mid-s2 pivot from Lyle being a Centre power player to a scrappy wild card: I wonder if that was planned all along, or if the writers saw how static he was in his original role and reworked it on the fly? (Also: revealing that Brigitte wasn't actually British/Australian. Her accent wavered between those two enough in her first few eps that I can see why they'd want to retcon that and just let her be American, but still.) I know he gets back to being a Centre power player eventually, but the detour into his murderous past and thumbless desperation did a better job of making him feel threatening than everything they tried introducing him with. (Experimenting on Jarod by killing and reviving him, taking over Mr Parker's office, Raines calling him "the boogeyman".)

*~*~*

As for TV that's not 30 years old (The Pretender turns 30 in 2026!!! HOW.):

--Elsbeth: this season is not as good as previous seasons. Pairing Elsbeth up with different partners every week ends up making things feel very scattered, and the characterisation of Elsbeth herself feels a lot broader than it used to be wrt her quirkiness. And I can't help but question the decision to have the seasonal mytharc focus on a NY mayoral candidate who's extremely progressive and popular yet secretly terrible in some way. Given the whole Mamdani drama in RL NY, that just feels less-than-coincidental, timing-wise. Who knows, maybe the back half of the season will do something unexpectedly great with this, but...hmm. HMM.

--I haven't watched Heated Rivalry, but I'm having a heck of a good time watching everybody else watch HR. I'm especially enjoying how Francois Arnaud is suddenly all over my Tumblr feed. ♥Francois Arnaud♥

I'm also kind of boggling at the Discourse coming out about this show in American TV press. Like. I know, intellectually, that this show employs narrative tropes that are pretty specific to fandom romance fic. But seeing journalists and TV reviewers and "scene-y LA gay guys" (♥ARNAUD♥) watching this show through a wholly non-fandom lense and completely missing 95% of what it's doing is a TRIP.

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It was at least a tasty abject failure.

2025-12-14T17:47:23Z

Festivid progress is [redacted]! I AM [REDACTED]. I'm really looking forward to [redacted], because hoo boy, adding a challenge/exchange assignment to the holiday season has been [redacted].

*~*~*

I'm still rewatching The Pretender! This week I got to 'Gigolo Jarod'!

The thing about this episode is that it breaks the premise of the show. "He's a Pretender: he can be anything he wants to be." Except, apparently, a sex worker who has sex with his clients. ( Further thoughts, also posted over on Tumblr )

If the HBO Version thought experiment does anything, it shows that 'Gigolo Jarod' isn't a bad episode. The A and B plots of the Pretend are fine, and the C plot of Jarod and Miss Parker's emotional entanglement is actually pretty great. (Despite the weirdness of how the thinly-veiled Miss Parker romance novel is handled. Because keeping that part PG made it pretty weird.) But it's SO INTENSELY COMMITTED to making it clear that Jarod hasn't actually slept with any of his clients! (It's suggested that he might sleep with Cindy after that plotline fades to black, but at that point he's no longer pretending to be a gigolo so that doesn't count.) And sure, fine, you can argue, "He's not REALLY an escort, he's just ~pretending~." But I submit that if you're gonna make an episode about your lead character becoming a sex worker, your lead character should become a sex worker. It's like when SPN made Dean a demon but when it came to showing him BEING a demon he was the most milquetoast demon ever. You want points for being daring/edgy/salacious? EARN THEM.

*~*~*

I have been so busy for a solid month and a half. And yesterday was Christmas Baking Day, so I spent all day on my feet. (And I had my first Christmas Baking Abject Failure! I've had the occasional recipe not turn out quite right before, but this is the first time I've had one turn out unsalvageable.) At least I have Christmas through New Years' Day off work. I plan to be an absolute potato from Boxing Day evening, when the last of the family Christmases will be over, until the 2nd. In the immortal works of international K-pop sensation HUNTR/X, "Couch! Couch! Couch! Couch! Couch!"

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SL-27

2025-11-30T01:20:20Z

This month has gotten away from me! Where did it go!!!!

1) Accounting and Payroll courses are proceeding apace. They're only 3-month courses, so I'm just about two-thirds of the way through. I was doing really well at working ahead, but this past week I ran into available-time-for-coursework issues and also the first accounting lesson that I wasn't able to parse on the first try (inventory! which isn't even something I'll have to do if/when I take over the books at work, because we are a service business, not a merchandise business!), so I lost this afternoon to catching up.

2) I got my Christmas tree this morning! I still have to trim the very top so I can fit Cas's gloriously tacky halo on it, but otherwise it is decorated and brightening up the dark corner of my living room.

3) Along with the traditional Getting of the Tree came the traditional Cleaning of the Floors, which took up the rest of this morning. Between the cleaning and the course catchup, this Saturday has not felt hugely restful. I plan to do as little as possible tomorrow.

4) My Festivid is [redacted]! I'm [redacted], because [redacted], and I wasn't entirely sure how [redacted]. Anyway, despite various other demands on my time over the last couple of months (primarily, see Item 1), I have made good progress!

5) Murder in a Small Town did a frustrating thing: it wrapped up Cassandra's political subplot (Kristin Kreuk's idealist newly elected to town council vs Marcia Gay Harden's long-incumbent and mildly corrupt mayor)--which IMO has been the most reliably engaging storyline of s2--before the season finale so that it could pivot her into a "jeopardise the lead's love interest" storyline involving the surfacing of an old stalker. Sigh.

6) I've been rewatching The Pretender! Very slowly! I started in October and am just now finishing s1! Ah, the glory days of 20+ episodes per season.

6a) In the episode in which Jarod loses his virginity, he watches Star Wars on laserdisc. Ah, the glory days of the mid-1990s.

6b) ♥MISS PARKER♥

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First snow of the season forecast for tomorrow, supposed to be a big wallop. :(

2025-11-09T00:34:13Z

Got my flu shot and covid booster today! And it's a good thing I got them on the weekend: while my last few covid boosters haven't had any side effects beyond some sleepiness and a bit of ache in the arm, today I got the Big Ache and Stiffness in my neck and shoulders that accompanied the first two/three covid shots I ever had. Application of my sloth heating pad and a nap helped quite a lot.

*~*~*

I watched Murder Before Evensong, a new show on Acorn based on some books about a Church of England rector who Solves Crime. I've never read the books, but I enjoyed the show a lot! It's the very definition of a British cozy murder mystery: autumnal vibes, principled and likeable lead, quaint English town populated by characters with secrets, mystery rooted in location-specific history. It stars Matthew Lewis as the rector, and yes I did look up whether he's one of the Potter kids who's grown up to have sensible opinions. (This interview is encouraging, if not quite as definitive as I'd like.)

I TRIED watching Talamasca, and I'm sorry, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, but your show is DULL. I know not every Anne Rice adaptation can reach the dizzying heights of IWTV, but woof. I tapped out partway through ep3, and unless I hear about something monumental via fannish osmosis, I will very likely not be back.

I'm still watching Murder in a Small Town, High Potential, Matlock, and Elsbeth. The latter feels a lot more scattered now that Kaya and Elsbeth aren't a team anymore; I'm waiting to see how Kaya's undercover storyline shakes out before I fully pass judgement on whether removing her from the main cast was a good, fully-thought-through idea, but so far, meh. (I haven't seen this past Thursday's ep yet, so if it did something big with that storyline, I will find out when I watch it tomorrow.)

*~*~*

BIG STRONG VID REC for Jagged Little Slayer: a BTVS vid album to Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill by Periru3 and Tafadhali. Making a whole vid album is always impressive, but there are some inspired vidding choices in this thing. Well worth a watch (and then some rewatches)!

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Brief I Aten't Dead

2025-10-26T22:16:51Z

--Talamasca starts tonight. I wasn't planning on watching it, but then I found out that Maisie Richardson-Sellers is in it (Amara/Charlie from LoT), so now I'm at least going to give it a shot.

--The Tracker s3 premiere marked the return of TRACKLES (Jensen Ackles guest starring), so I watched last week and I'll have to watch again this week, as it seems to be a multi-ep storyline. The show is competent but I don't find it particularly compelling, so the majority of the fun is saying, "TRACKLES!" whenever he shows up.

--I was pretty solidly meh on Murder in a Small Town in its first season, but I'm finding it much more engaging in s2. It revamped a chunk of its supporting cast, tightened up the mystery portion of its storytelling, and gave Cassandra something to do besides being Carl's girlfriend--all improvements! I do, however, think that the show as it airs on Fox is set in the US, while the show as it airs on Global is set in Canada: I think the cast has been required to film themselves saying American place names and governmental agencies, then ADR in Canadian place names and governmental agencies for the Global broadcast. Why do I think this? Because in the first two episodes, which I watched on Global, there were a couple of very obvious moments of the actors' mouths saying one thing while the audio said something else.

And I just *hands*. It's a Canadian show, Fox. It's set in the same small Vancouver town as The Beachcombers. Get over yourselves.

--Progress has been made on my Festivid! This weekend was my first chance to really sit down and focus on it, and as a result there are now a few solid sequences on the timeline. \o/

--Halloween's on Friday! I never get trick or treaters, so my plans are to cozy up with snacks and either whatever old horror movies are on TCM that night, or a double-feature of the Addams Family movies.

--I've finally had to put the comforter back on my bed and switch to long-sleeve pyjamas. Soon I shall swap out the afghan on the couch for my electric blanket!

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Dear Festividder

2025-09-28T19:55:35Z

...I'm doing Festivids this year! \o?

Dear Festividder,

I've enjoyed this exchange from the sidelines for years, but this is the first time I'm participating. I'm excited to see what you come up with for whichever of my fandoms you choose to work with!

( Music )

( My Requested Fandoms )

Festividder, thank you for taking part in this exchange and taking on one of my requests! Whatever you make, I hope you have fun with it. :D

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Is it indistinguishable from magic or is it just magic?

2025-09-14T15:51:47Z

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds s3 was pretty unsatisfying when compared with seasons 1 and 2. Overly focused on romance and gimmicks, didn't develop or pace its ongoing plotlines particularly well, and took a hard swerve into "science so advanced it's indistinguishable from magic" to justify a CG glowy-hands battle between Good and Evil at the end. ( Some spoilers about that last thing. )

I dunno, maybe this all worked for other people a lot better than it worked for me. I'm not totally opposed to a little bit of mysticism in my sci-fi, but the operative words there are "a little bit". This season finale really felt like they took a fantasy-shaped story and tried to cram it into a Star Trek-shaped hole.

Hopefully season 4 will be better! I mean, I know they haven't abandoned their gimmicks, because they did the whole puppet reveal at Comic Con, but. Maybe, puppets being such an undertaking and all, that will be the only gimmick episode next season? Maaaybe?

*~*~*

I've been bone dry on inspiration for anything creative, so I'm eyeing maybe possibly perhaps making this the year I might do Festivids, since Festivids would mean I could have inspiration dictated to me by whatever source I get assigned. I nominated some stuff, so we'll see what the final tagset looks like.

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End of a vacation

2025-09-06T23:54:30Z

My week off has been largely low-key: since I took my big trip to QC at the beginning of August, I didn't have any big plans for this week, just a desire to Not Do Much.

--I assembled the new storage I got for my bedroom (I went with the nicer-looking-but-holds-less option) and rearranged the existing furniture so it would fit.

--Since the temperatures were forecast to drop as of Wednesday night (and indeed they did), I made a point of sitting out on the back porch as much as I could at the beginning of the week. Gravity chair + patio umbrella + sunshine with the occasional breeze = very nice!

--I had a leisurely browse through a bookstore that resulted in finally buying The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. It's been so long since I read the other Hunger Games books, I'd forgotten just how compulsively readable Suzanne Collins is: I expected I'd have a rough time with being in Coriolanus Snow's POV, but I'm just barrelling through it. (I do plan to buy the Haymitch book, too, but that's gonna wait until it's in softcover.)

--I ripped a WHOLE BUNCH of DVDs and added stuff to my Plex. I can now rewatch TNG, DS9, BtVS, SPN s1-8, The Pretender, and Roar (heh) whenever the urge strikes, without having to fuss with discs!

--My one big ("big") excursion this week was a visit to the local reptile zoo. I bypassed the wall of tarantulas at speed, but otherwise took my time wandering through, and saw a bunch of turtles and fish and lizards and snakes and etc. Here's a short thread of pictures. Since I deliberately went on the first day of school, the place was basically empty: it was me and three small families with very little kids in the whole place for the majority of my time there, and the kids were all into what they were seeing so it was fun to watch them as they looked at the animals.

--I had a nap almost every afternoon! ♥NAPS♥

Basically, Not Doing Much: Achieved, and now my vacation is almost over. The Sunday Scaries tomorrow are gonna suuuuuuck.

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From the sea to the sky

2025-08-23T22:19:25Z

Season one of Nautilus--the only season it's ever going to have, sadly--was a pretty reliable throwback to syndicated Saturday afternoon adventure shows: a mixed bag of lightweight and more substantial adventures-of-the-week, sometimes silly, sometimes thoughtful, with an engaging cast of characters. The season ended really strongly; it's easy to see what they were setting up for s2, and the finale did a good job of bringing the characters' season-long arcs to a head before pivoting them to the beginning of their new, next-season trajectories.

Which no one will ever get to see, because Disney canned the show without ever airing it, and I sincerely doubt AMC's planning to get the band back together to make more after two(+?) years. Especially since this single season was a (probably cheap, since they didn't have to pay to make it, just for the rights to air it) decent little one-and-done summer-timeslot-filler.

If all these streamers want to commit to is one or two seasons of something, maybe they should develop more shows specifically as miniseries. Miniseries used to be a thing! Since 98% of scripted series these days end up getting cancelled after just one or two seasons, maybe they should be created with that expiry date in mind so that they can tell a whole story in the time they have! Miniseries could be a thing again!!!

The state of TV these days is depressing. And that's just as a viewer! I can't imagine how demoralizing it must be for all the creatives who work in it.

*~*~*

ST:VOY's 'The Cloud' was on the other night. Famous for the line, "There's coffee in that nebula!", it's also a really great example of an episode that's early enough in the run that the writers are still putting effort into defining the characters, so all the characters in the ensemble get both airtime and concrete demonstrations of personality:

--Janeway gets her monologue about being unsure of what it means to captain a crew when she and her crew are going to be stuck with only each other for the next who-knows-how-long. Also, her coffee thing. Also, at the very end, her pool-shark thing.

--Chakotay gets the "akoocheemoya" bullshit bestowed upon his character by the show's Pretendian Native American advisor.

--Kes gets her line about how, if she was captain, she'd "open every crack in the universe and peek inside".

--B'Elanna's revealed to be the only person Chakotay's ever met who tried to kill her spirit animal.

--Tom gets his Sandrine's programme up and running and emphasizes that he is a horndog skeeze.

--The Doctor gets to be curmudgeonly and frustrated by the crew giving him less courtesy than they would an organic crew member.

--Neelix is overbearing, but also folds like a cheap shirt the second Janeway asserts her authority.

--Tuvok gets the least in terms of character moments, but he does demonstrate that he's very proper about bridge etiquette, which brings me to...

--Harry. In this episode, Harry Kim 1) sasses Tuvok to his face, B) has the emotional intelligence to understand that his captain needs an invite into her crew's society, and iii) talks earnestly about remembering being in his mother's womb. Like. What the HECK, Harry. Where on earth did this guy go for most of the rest of the series???

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