Meanwhile, in another country

Saturday = Black Sails day! Ah, the joys and torments of open canon. I want to write meta about how the show uses the term "partners " pretty badly, and how nearly all its main characters either seek, confirm or reject partnership to one or several of the other main characters - the notable exceptions are Billy & anyone. There are so many useful quotes - from Max, from Anne, from Jack, from both Hamiltons (both times with Flint as the adressee, of course), from Eleanor - and how Silver's statement to Flint in 3.03 both compares and contrasts with the other examples. Also how that connects to John Silver's overall character development. But with the ongoing season delivering something meaty in terms of character scenes every episode, I think I'll restrain myself until the season is over.

Teaser trailer for season 3 of Penny Dreadful. The second season was a bit uneven, but I am still looking forward to the third one. Reunite the team, John Logan, plan your season arc a bit better, and never stop letting the amazing Eva Green chew up the scenery. Also, the fact there's a shot of the three Pyramids of Gizeh makes me hope again I shall finally get my walking Mummy. And it better be *spoilery character whose s2 fate I'm still disgruntled with*, though fine, I'll take other Mummys, too.


Any horror, no matter how gory, is better than current day reality. See also this article:

How America made Donald Trump Unstoppable: Quote from article, summing up the central argument: Trump found the flaw in the American Death Star. It doesn't know how to turn the cameras off, even when it's filming its own demise.

No kidding. He's getting more coverage than any other candidate, and the idea of him (or any of the other Republican candidates, given their voiced views and record) in the White House scares me almost more than our own right wing nutters on the rise. (Not because they're better, because the US President can do more global damage.)

Chewing over what ifs...

The Citadel arc in s3 of the The Clone Wars introduces one Captain Tarkin (to the audience and Anakin Skywalker alike). He shows up now and then on the show thereafter. (His voice actor is no Peter Cushing, but the characterisation is v. plausible as a younger version.) My question is this: in A New Hope Admiral Tarkin clearly knows Darth Vader used to be a Jedi (he refers to Vader being the last thing left of the Jedi in the 'verse), but do you think he's also aware Vader used to be Anakin Skywalker? I'm usually going with the assumption that on the Imperial side, no one other than the Emperor and Vader himself is aware of this, and the official Imperial story is that Anakin Skywalker died on Mustafar (or just plain died, maybe defending Palpatine against the Jedi coup - something like this). However, Tarkin, who shows up at the end of Revenge of the Sith in a favoured position and presumably was involved in the execution of Order 66 before that, may just have been enough of an insider to have either figured it out or have been told by Palpatine for some Machiavellian reason (playing out Tarkin and Vader against each other to a certain degree to ensure they don't team up, for example). (Tarkin clearly outranks Vader in ANH in the Imperial hierarchy. One my pet peeves in reviews of The Force Awakens is when reviewers sum up the backstory by referring to Vader as the dead ruler of the Empire; guys, not only was he never No.1., he arguably wasn't No.2 as of the start of the OT, either.)

The reason why I'm asking may or may not have to do with an idea for a New Hope AU in which Vader figures out at the worst possible time that Leia is his daughter, i.e. either when he's interrogating her or when Alderaan gets destroyed. (Maybe either occasion inadvertendly makes Leia's Force potential break through a la Rey in TFA.) Which wouldn't immediately make him repent, of course, let alone go light side, but being Vader, he's bound to strongly react and do something, and then I think it would make a difference whether or not Tarkin is aware of the Vader = Anakin truth. (Not least because near the end of The Clone Wars, Tarkin ( did something spoilery in connection with Ahsoka )

, which would invite possible parallels in Tarkin's mind.