"The power. The passion. The danger."

[selenak]

Casting news (in one case older news for most people, I'm sure) that made me realise my priorities and double standards:

a) Bradley James is in the fourth season of Homeland. Sorry, Bradley James, I loved your Arthur Pendragon in Merlin, but there were a lot of reasons why I quit watching Homeland in early s3, among them loss of quality and questionable ideology, and I'm not going back.

b) Lucy Lawless is the the second season of Agents of SHIELD. Now this is a show I haven't watched so far; my flist/circle had about two third naysays, one third (all the more enthusiastic) yaysayers about it, there were so many other interesting shows to watch, and also I'm so fond of the MCU I didn't want to risk dampening the emotion by disgruntlement should I dislike AoS. However, Lucy Lawless in the Marvelverse? Must have! (Unless she's only in one episode, I should acertain that first.) (If you recognize where the quote titling this post comes from, you might feel similarly.)

Meanwhile, further news both on the Lewis & Tolkien and the solo Tolkien biopics in planning demonstrate someone's (be the publicity people, the reporters, or, heaven forfend, the scriptwriters) lack of actual knowledge re: Tolkien and Lewis, as is entertainingly pointed out here.

Penny Dreadful:

We have a Penny Dreadful vid! And a good one, covering the ensemble and the relationships between same - with one unfortunate exception. Which, sadly for me though not for the vidder and the vid, happens to be the relationship I'm most interested in. There is a complete lack of Malcolm in the vid (and hence also no Vanessa and Malcolm). Which reminds me that last week when someone at last posted Penny Dreadful icons, I was delighted...until I saw there were no Malcolm and no Vanessa and Malcolm icons. Alas. Anyway, back to the original point, which was: a shiny vid about a lovely twisted Victorian Gothic show:


A Shot for the Pain (11 words) by Franzeska
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Additional Tags: Fanvids, ConStrict 2014


X-Men: Days of Future Past:

Missing scene type of fanfic covering how old Erik and old Charles reunited, which is just what I need when the angst elsewhere gets too much:

Rescue Me (2492 words) by Unforgotten
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Characters: Erik Lehnsherr, Charles Xavier
Additional Tags: Pre-Movie(s), jailbreak, Reunions
Summary:

Against all hope, Charles and Erik reunite at the beginning of the Sentinel War.

And lastly, not completely unrelated to the beginning of this post, something only funny if a) you know German, b) have a vague idea about what the Bavarian dialect sounds like, and c) are familiar with a certain 1990s fantasy show made in New Zealand: Xena auf Bayrisch.

Comments

[percysowner]

I'm sure you've heard, but the first half of AOS is not TV at it's finest. They had to wait for the Captain America movie to come out so as not to spoil the movie. But once you are past that part the show gets good very quickly, IMHO.

[selenak]

That is encouraging.

[d_generate_girl]

There is a complete lack of Malcolm in the vid (and hence also no Vanessa and Malcolm).

I don't know if self-pimping is appropriate or helpful, but I'm 3/4ths of the way through a Vanessa vid that is at least half about her relationship with Malcolm.

[selenak]

Hooray! I'm very much looking forward to watching it!

[lonelywalker]

I understand people not liking Malcolm very much, but his relationship with Vanessa is pretty central. There's even kissing! Sort of. And okay everyone kisses everyone in this show. But still!

Anyway, I'm always happy to see that things are happening in this fandom.

[wee_warrior]

Honestly, I like Malcolm partly because he is this horrible. It's not like the show asks us to excuse what he has done or is still doing. But, I mean... Timothy Dalton! CHICANERY!

[lonelywalker]

If the show was simply Timothy Dalton intermittently saying "Chicanery!" it would still be worthy of an Emmy or two.

[wee_warrior]

*g* Throw in Harry Treadaway reciting bizarre monologues and getting splattered with blood now and then, and I'll call it a win.

[d_generate_girl]

TRUTH.

[selenak]

Me too, and quite. The Vanessa and Malcolm relationship is not only central to what happens in the first season but to Vanessa's characterisation, and thus you'd think it's impossible to do a Vanessa portrait justice without taking it into account...

[wee_warrior]

Being a Malcolm fan is pretty much an acquired taste in this fandom, I'm afraid.

[selenak]

So I've noticed. lonelywalker, d_generate_girl, you and me seem to be only ones!

[wee_warrior]

There seem to be some more people on tumblr, but that's it. We definitely need a secret handshake or something.

[selenak]

Simple: we mutter "chicanery" at each other!

[wee_warrior]

A fantastic idea!

[d_generate_girl]

There's also the crossover - I keep forgetting you and notomys on Tumblr are the same person, so I *think* there are more fans than there are, and I keep getting disappointed!

[wee_warrior]

Hm, true. I know you're voodoochild over there (same on tvtropes, yes? I'm mostly hollygoolightly over there, in case you were wondering who has been adding stuff to the PD character pages), but I don't know if lonelywalker is one of our fellow tumblr Malcolm enthusiasts. (I don't know so many, since I'm mostly navigating the Victor fans, who tend to fall into "'fix' the finale with fanfiction," "well, that's just Victor" and "OMG, FRANKENSTEIN in all it's shapes and forms." That can be trying, but at least there are more of them?)

[d_generate_girl]

Yes, I'm "shes-a-voodoo-child" on Tumblr, and "voodoochild" on TVtropes (oh good! I'm so odd about show pages, because there have been fandoms that have edit wars going on and I don't want that for Penny).

Ahhhh, Victorfen. I feel they and the Dorian fans and the Caiban fans seem to be the most combative. I try not to get into too much drama or fighting on the internet.

[wee_warrior]

(Absolutely. I'm usually trying to be reasonable and keeping things humorous and light. So far, the PD page is quite nice, I've been on others that are a lot more volatile.)

I'm honestly not paying attention to that. I'm very generous with blocking, I'm ignoring anyone who is a Caliban fan, because I don't see the point in fighting with them and gladly leave them to their own devices, and since I don't ship, most things concerning Dorian go over my head, anyway(I guess it helps that I'm concentrating on the family dynamics mostly - and while I suspect Dorian's tour through the main cast will have him end up with Victor eventually, I don't see that having romantic potential, and mostly look forward to it because of the effects it will have on Victor, and Vanessa and Ethan once it comes out.).

[thirdblindmouse]

I've heard Agents of SHIELD improved after Captain America 2 (it would have to, no?), but until I heard about Lucy Lawless that wasn't quite enough to motivate me to watch more, given how bad the first half season was. If Lucy Lawless appears in a recurring role, that tips the balance.

[selenak]

Googling doesn't tell me whether it will be recurring or a one episode thing; however, it does point out ComicCon San Diego is around the corner, and they'll probably make the official announcement there, so then we'll know.

[lizvogel]

Agents of SHIELD is one of those things, IMO, where when they get it right, it's brilliant, and when they get it wrong, it's really stupid. So far I've managed to enjoy the brilliance and not foam at the mouth about the stupid (or only briefly). But if that's not a dynamic that's comfortable with you, I'd say yeah, approach with caution if at all.

That said, Lucy Lawless seems perfect for the show. I shall look forward to that!

[selenak]

The first season of B5 has both avarage, stupid and brilliant episodes and I put up with the mediocre and the stupid for the sake of the brilliant (which turned out to be a good thing, long term). And the first season of TNG was mostly very bland. So as long as I know things improve, as opposed to getting worse, I can battle my way through bad episodes. Also, Lucy Lawless!

[jesuswasbatman]

I'm really surprised that there will be a fourth season of Homeland, given how negative much of the reaction I've seen to the third season was, and what I heard about the way it ended.

[selenak]

Me too, but here we ware - a trailer is out already. Presumably the ratings were still enough for the network to finance a fourth season?

[jesuswasbatman]

Unless it'll turn out that the big event at the end of the third season was actually a fake, because you can't trust those Iranians!

Not that I think that wouldn't be an awful idea.

[franzeska]

Eee! Thank you for the rec!

It's intriguing to see everyone's reactions to the vid/the fact that it has little Malcolm. I actually don't think Malcolm is that much of an acquired taste or rare in his popularity. I do think that Tumblr trends young and Victor is prime fanon Loki, Draco in leather pants-bait who appeals to the teenage soul while Sir Malcolm's person and flavor of awfulness are more likely to appeal to a significantly older audience. (Certainly, the people I've watched the show with offline all immediately loved Sir Malcolm even before they realized who was playing him, while they all instantly hated Victor--and Dorian and Caliban, but I find that unsurprising, particularly in Caliban's case.) I think they're both equally bad people while being great characters. With such a visual show and most fandom activity for everything being on Tumblr these days, I'm not surprised to hear that some of the younger characters have a bigger apparent following.

To be honest, I don't really consider this vid a good showcase of the ensemble or the first-season plot. It had a pretty narrow purpose: to make ConStrict attendees who'd never even heard of the show go: "What is this? I need it to watch it NOW!" In my head, it has a three-part structure, but that structure is not Ethan, Victor, and Vanessa but rather three flavors of shipping that go over well at slash cons and three flavors of visually-obvious horror:

Ethan: werewolves and canon gay
Victor: Frankenstein and hoyay
Vanessa: possession/19thC spiritualism and lesyay (with a side of femdom)

Plus the vampires that tie them all together, of course since those are also easy to show to a clueless audience. And then I threw in the Brona/Dorian to show how the camera tends to ogle the men in sex scenes (to go with the shots of Ethan's ass) and how much canon bloodplay there is (to go with Victor and Caliban's scene and the Vanessa/Dorian sex scene). It's kind of the odd one out, but it's such a great visual, even out of context, that I wanted it in. The Dorian orgy scene was like that too: it's another time the show has very blatant same-sex stuff going on and also blatant iddy sex stuff. I was including it less for Dorian's emotional journey with regards to Vanessa and more to show the original vid audience "Hey, look what they actually did in canon!"

The problems with Sir Malcolm are twofold: First, his plot is more complicated and more visually confusing. It would require a whole vid just of the Malcolm-Vanessa-Mina mess or a whole vid about how Vanessa and Victor are Malcolm's creepy replacement children who fit him much better than his original children ever did. I am totally down with making that vid (or betaing it--I see at least two in progress right now), but it's not something I felt I could accomplish in the same vid that has Ethan and everybody else. A lot of Malcolm's key scenes are particularly poorly-lit (like him fucking Vanessa's mother), so they need a lot of time and setup unless you're vidding just for an audience that knows every shred of context. I include in this problem the fact that Malcolm's identity and role are not an obvious visual horror cliche in the way that Frankenstein, a werewolf, and Vanessa's possessed face are. "Mina's dad" is not something that is easy to convey succinctly with visuals, and "big game hunter" is not something the show has telegraphed all that well visually. "Vampire hunter" is, but...

The second problem was that I was making this for a slash con where I expected people to know zero about the source. I was concerned that showing Vanessa banging devil-Malcolm would read as M/f rape or as father/daughter incest. I love all of the weird vibes on the show, and I think my target victims... err... potential new Penny Dreadful fans would enjoy those same parts, but only in context where you can see that Vanessa is an unusual badass and not the typical victimized lady being creeped on. And I already felt like I was showing an awful lot of heterosexual sex for a slash con vid, so I wanted to keep that down to mostly shots of Ethan's ass or of F/m and blatant visual kink. (The black eyes are interesting, but demon-Malcolm's burning hotness is greatly helped by Timothy Dalton's sex voice, no?) The fact that this was made specifically for a slash con definitely influenced my choices of what to highlight.

It's true that character study-ness and my meta thoughts on the show inevitably crept in there as I vidded, but the original structure was very much about hoyay/lesyay/omgcanongay and visual horror cliches. That's why I build up to the m/m kiss at the end when that's not--IMO--an emotionally important moment for either of those characters in the overall season. This was more about not spoiling the m/m kiss for my audience without also setting up why this m/m kiss is a surprising turn of events that makes me trust the showrunners ("OMG the manly dude who has straight sex scenes does that?! It wasn't just leading up to violence?!" etc.). It's a very Doyalist set of vidding choices rather than Watsonian... at least that's what I was thinking when I made it.



(Yay. tl;dr)

Here's hoping for more PD fandom. It's such a viddable show! I'd be curious to see what someone could do with the full version of this song, actually. It's eight minutes, which could make a fantastic true ensemble vid aimed at a show fan. I thought about it, but I'm not cruel enough to inflict that on a con.

On another note, did you see the Timothy Dalton vid from VividCon?
http://archiveofourown.org/works/2116974

[selenak]

Thank you for writing me such a fabulous DVD making off commentary! This was a treat to read. I didn't know the vid was created for a con, and your reasoning is eminently logical. Timothy Dalton's voice certainly is a big part of Malcolm's appeal, and I can see the vidding problem there, along with the badly lit scenes, and the lack of context a first time audience would have especially for the Malcolm and Vanessa, and Malcolm and Victor scenes. (You couldn't even intercut the later with Malcolm and Peter to make the point because there are no scenes with adult Peter and Malcolm in the same frame.)

re: the Timothy Dalton vid, no, I hadn't seen it! Thanks for linking. And oh my, is that baby David Morrissey getting it on with TD? Why yes it is. (Talk about another man who gained in appeal by aging - his young self seems so callow by comparison.)