Television – Page 3 – Allegra Sloman's blog

just slept the morning away

wheeeee!
Now to get up and eat something that isn’t mostly sugar!

Roasted veggies and boiled corn yesterday for lunch. The veggies came out great (brussels sprouts, yams and zucchini with a spice combo I found at Save On, lemon zest, basil and thyme); the corn was a fermented disaster. Tasted like it had been held at about 35 degrees for a day or so and then put back in the refrigerated environment. No mold, but nasty af.

Actually called Keith for cooking advice about the veggies but he didn’t call me back until after I had it in the oven. The idea that I’d be asking Keith for cooking advice, LOL but that’s parenthood for you, a brace of exploding surprises.

I have now watched 5/6ths of Maximilian and Marie and it’s filmed very dark and foggy, and it just doesn’t seem right. I quite like the principals, and the costumes and fighting and horse-stuff all seems pretty good, but there’s no real understanding of how far Austria is from Burgundy and sometimes it seems to go by a little faster than the contemporary roads would allow. Also, there were a couple of points where I thought well THAT NEVER HAPPENED but it’s the usual Dorothy Dunnett fan grousing about various things. I think they once again did not represent the Spider King properly.

Philip de Commines comes across as a right asshole, too. I did learn that he wrote a huge memoir about his time with the Spider King and is considered a prime source for this period of history, so I bookmarked it in English to look at later.

The crows are yelling at me to put out some food.

power failures

3 in one 24 hour period. Killed one of Jeff’s router power supplies. Resetting clocks over and over. Power failures feel weird now; like we’re prepping for the big one, like civil unrest is ‘about’.

Funny tale of waking up: I tossed my fluffy hoody into a laundry hamper but when I woke up this morning it looked like a sandworm head coming out of the floor and I almost squawked in terror.

Biscotti in oven for Tom. I cleaned the racks and wiped down the interior of the oven, it’s started to smell oily and smoky. Soon, Time Team (we’re in the last season unhappy sigh) and running the dishwasher and the rest of the day gets underway.

Total word count 9189 on Best Roommate. In this latest bit, Amorfo came to pick up the sproing and scared the living shit of Keegan.

Watched the movie Synchronic. I liked it – there are some visuals that were quite striking and the basic concept is interesting. It is a B movie – very earnest and low key. The final shot has an element of ambiguity, but it also contains friendship, which is kind of the point. Anthony Mackie is quite good.

I blew an incredible kazoo solo this morning. I can only ask an intemperate universe that Jeff had his gd headphones on.

still no eeg results

I’ll call the clinic again next Monday. Many things slow down over the festive season so even though it was supposed to be ready it probably isn’t, yet.

You know Hudson & Rex is a terrible advertisement for St. John’s, right? One percent of the population is Black and that’s not how the show demographics works…. also…. you know that they have like a murder a year and so in the first episode they blow through the murder rate like theysa going backwards.

Georgia turned blue, but it was the rest of us holding our breath. FUCK MITCH MCCONNELL.

While I’m in the mood, FUCK AIR CANADA.

If that link disappears, it’s to a story claiming that Air Canada is sending influencers on holiday to sunny places to pad their advertising budgets during A GODDAMNED PANDEMIC ….I mean I knew they were slimy bastids but that’s low.

Buns dough is in the bread-maker. I really am fine with never eating white bread again if I can have yummy brown bread buns fresh out of the oven within 2 hours of conceiving the notion.

In 774 AD the biggest coronal mass ejection in 10k years hit the earth. (Per Phil Plait the Bad Astronomer.) If the same thing hit the earth today satellites would plummet, the grid would fail, the internet would fly up its own asshole and choke and it would be weeks in many places and years in others before the power came back on. So thank your lucky stars you only live in an earthquake zone, lol

I’ll be wandering over to Planet Bachelor later today.

Letters to two Daves in the mail today. pOp’s getting a very big sketch of Baby Yoda.

No progress on UPSUN.

New West yesterday

Went into New West on the bus to pick up ice cream and summat for dinner and to return Mexican Gothic, which was so damned good I understood why I waited three months for it at the library, but also why I had to return it as fast as possible for the next person. On the way home I saw Peggy because she AND TOM drove over and dropped off cookies and Jeff and I ate them all in one go (almond sugar cookies). Sooooo the Christmas I AM EATING THINGS I SHOULDN’T TABLEAU continues.

So Tom is home. He sounds quite vigorous, but he doesn’t get to drive for another month and a half or so.

The big fuzzy hoodies I ordered arrived. I hope people like them and if they don’t they can give them back to me.

Finished the Right Stuff TV show. It’s a little too kitchen sinky to get the full upvote, but I enjoyed it. A second season has been optioned but not ordered.

I hope everyone has a lovely day. I don’t have much planned beyond a walk to the mailbox and add to the 3300 words I wrote on The Best Roommate in the World.

Destiel round up (pretend this is a Private post)

sane people, pls leave – this is in response to Despair ep 18 of the last season of Supernatural.

Original creator of the show Eric Kripke (at least I think that’s who it is) with a rainbow flag and the word COPE:

backstory for the above, fans who only like the relationship between the two Winchester brothers are called bibros. Having Cas (canonically his name is CASS but that’s not what we do in fandom, ha ha) an actual life partner – potentially or otherwise – is making them lose their cheese.

Jesus Christ this above noted post made me laugh so fucking hard

the below-noted post IS IMMEDIATELY WHERE MY MIND WENT AFTER THE SHOW WAS OVER

Yeah NO SHIT, love this callback, although Dean didn’t actually get enough time to say anything

no, I really haven’t, because that’s the kind of love it is, and always has been represented that way, and fuck the haters

now in the fandom they’re saying destiel is what makes Putin resign, which when you consider HOW MANY RUSSIAN FANS THERE ARE is quite possibly the funniest thing about this tempest in a teacup

above is shown the catholic reaction….

LOLOLOL this was the Friday after the show/election

SPN fandom above is memeified in the Avengers universe. Cas disappears during the scene, but he’s already been resurrected three times, so…

I think @solarbirdy’s comments on the above noted complete lack of reaction are best, but she’s a filker so I won’t reproduce her speech without permission

In other words, this represents such an upgrade to the notion of queerbaiting they’ll have to throw out their previous thesis. Also, Tumblr as a social media platform was dying and the extra hits they got as a consequence of Supernatural 15/18 were substantial

Destiel fans often refer to themselves as clowns.

the above-noted isn’t exactly what happened either

nope, not this either and anyone who DOES expect skin should probably give their good ol’ head a shake. I want A HUG FOR THE BOYS that means a little more than the ones they’ve given each other so far.

EVERY G.D. WORD O’ THIS ABOVENOTED POST

palate cleanser

LOOK UPON THE WOMAN WHO SAVED THE WORLD, now we have to survive the next two months OH PS SHE’S OUT ABOUT BEING A SUPERNATURAL FAN but we do not know how she feels about destiel and I would very much like to think that she STANS.

WELL I THOUGHT THAT WAS IT, BUT THERE’S ANOTHER CHASER FOR THAT SHOT

JESUS CHRIST, THIS FANDOM

Destiel fannage

Added later, watched the Supernatural from last night, it was adorable, there was just so much squee with the boys.

Mailed a letter to mOm and another to Barry. Yes I said I mailed it already. No I didn’t actually until now. Mild chest pain (completely normal at this point) on the way up the hill; the problem is that if I stop I fall down or want to, and it’s been raining, so no work in the garden. I think I’m going to have to get one of those stool canes. I had rocks to sit on in Mt. Seymour but they’re thin on the ground in urban settings. Best part of the walk was no mask.

I should walk some more later, perhaps I’ll be able to talk Jeff into coming. Maybe not so much hillage with the walkage

terrifying podcast about what canada should do in case of political instability before/during/after the election and during the transition period, if any.

This is absolutely terrible but it made me laugh.

Welp, I’m awake. Guess I’m having a cup of tea and some breakfast.

Had a nice long talk yesterday with my mOm about my medical woes. I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine; but my body fell apart after that infection in March, and there’s one symptom in particular that makes me think it’s post COVID, but I guess I’ll never know and should get right with not knowing, while I’m working on improving things.

Here’s Jan M. as a retail worker in 2020

She’s been posting costumes every day on her ‘gram, and some of them have been awesome, why she even did a Castiel the other day. AND I DEAD NOW

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Jeff is home

Victoria trip a success by all accounts.

Fed Paul lunch (beef and cabbage stirfry, which was delicioso thanks) and went for a really most pleasant walk in the 12th Ave School yard. The weather yesterday was so delightful, everything fresh under mixed skies.

For some reason I felt like I should call Peggy, and we ended up talking in part about how the more sensitive among us are grieving for the whole world right now.

I’m watching Hannibal without Jeff. It’s kind of exploitative but that’s the whole point I think.

I donated to Red Cross Lebanon for the Beirut explosion.

This is Jim being silly.

This is beadwork by the stellar Gwich’in artist Margaret Nazon.

but Kima has no bones

165 million year old fossil octopus from France.

Isn’t this wonderful? I’m not a fan of the show; merely its surfaces and cultural impact, to the extent that I wrote a desperately bad original filk tune about it, which I’m not even going to bother to renounce since I have no idea what someone more savvy than a girl like I might do with it. Anyway, I likes it, and there were distinct choices that went into its makeup that show comfort and skill.

rebuilding sto:lo

I’ve figured out how to rebuild the city after the quake. Of course this is all, er, fictional, bien sÃ»r.

Once again wondering how I can fall in love with a cop show…. enjoying Black Spot on Netflix.

Get enough sleep and it’s amazing

I am well rested, and in an hour or so will be off to the brekky place with Katie and possibly brO.

Mike’s at Trent’s ManCaveâ„¢ finishing off the Mustang so he can get it back on the road. I was hoping to see him tomorrow but scuffed knuckles come first. He told me he bought a looper and now I’m mad chuffed to see it. His forearms were so sore they were in spasm the last time I saw him, poor guy.

Started watching the UK show Coroner, really liking it! the coroner/cop investigative team is very well done.

Some woman on reddit wants to know Am I The Asshole for breaking up with a man who admitted he had sex with sheep. My comment : How do you explain to a man with that kind of interior landscape that the real issue is not that he 3x interfered w/ sheep, (although “pick a gif for squick”), but that he doesn’t seem to understand the concept of informed consent, which would make any real life they had a mess.

If he was serious about never doing it again he shoulda kept his muttonhole shut.

I will try to work on Cuffs some more today but I need some kind of narrative hook that doesn’t involved 7 point fucking three billion dollars in money laundering. The fact that my novel has now collided with reality is fucking me up.

Was looking for a weapon from my Scythian heritage (the first blue eyed red heads!!!) and found this tasty store.

long stupid rant, please ignore

A couple of days ago, Misha Collins, Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki got on social media to announce that the TV show Supernatural is ending next season (season 15, over 320 episodes) and the finale of all finales will thus be next season – their choice, most likely. A couple of them had been crying, which doesn’t bother me, I’d be crying too if I moved along from the best job I’d ever had even if it was my choice.

Inside the fandom, for the show, there is a substantial chonk of LGBT and straight cisgirl fans who absolutely love on the idea of a romance between Castiel the angel, who appeared season 4, and Dean the Hunter, who, along with his brother Sam the Hunter, carries the show week to week.

There are also Supernatural fans who write fanfic in the A/B/O universe (don’t look, it’s a concourse of poorly realized paraphilias and it’s even worse when you realize that (never mind, just more fandom bs) and I have read precisely one decently written A/B/O fic so I know it’s possible but Jesus it’s GROSS) and write explicitly incestuous fic (it’s called Wincest, and I haven’t even let my eyes roam over one of them, thanks).

Neither of these two things are supported by the show; Destiel, which is the mashup of the names of Dean and Castiel, while not supported word for word in script canon, is teased at, at least once a season, all through the show. I won’t go into the list of specific callouts as to there being romance in the air, just go to the Dean/Castiel page on Superwiki, where it’s all laid out in prim detail.

It’s my belief that the show would rather kill one of the characters than let any of them wander off into the sunset, encoupled. From a strictly ‘whose body is this’ standpoint, there’s no longer any squick about who Castiel’s vessel is, which removed a lot of the hassles about a canonical romance. But

it doesn’t fit the show. And Castiel, although he can be briefly physically affectionate, has not been represented as a sexual being, at least not successfully.

So yeah, I’ll write fanfic because it looks like love, romance and lifetime commitment to me. But anybody who thinks Destiel is gonna be canon is a fucking idiot, because the lead actor, the gold standard of a richly successful franchise, is happy with how things are.

The queer-baiting will continue until you make your own art, folx. (Definition of queer-baiting on the page linked to above.)

Zahn

Zahn McLarnon was so incredible in last night’s Westworld S2 ep 8 that all I could think was “It’s too bad it’s so bloody MOM WOULD LOVE THIS”. Plus the entire episode is subtitled — since it’s not in English.

ANYWAY he ran the gamut of human emotions, first with the dreamlike air of a man in wonderment that he could feel anything at all, and then with the purpose and clarity of a man vouchsafed an unshakeable, grounding, unifying vision. Unbelievably good, and everyone in the episode was good too.

The stuff happening in the background in a couple of scenes was incredible.

The last speech before roll credits. God. Rewatching this episode is going to be a highlight when we do the season 3 preparatory rewatch.

Narrative subversion and apotheosis. Unreal.

My heartfelt love as a creative person for almost everything about the episode and I release my joy and gratitude to the universe for something so fine.

Liana on twitter said

11 out of 12 doctors agree that screaming into the void is the only way to handle a Monday morning.

my response

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I was feeling pretty crappy early this week but I seem to be back writing. Coffee helped….

Sent the latest along to mOm. I’ll be taking Jeff out to breakfast later, but I think I’ll reward myself for making wordcount by watching Orphan Black. I’m watching it without Jeff since he loathes the main character. I’m kinda digging Helena, even if that’s not how mental illness works.

OH AND THE TRANS VERSION OF THE CLONES o my god. Tony was awesome, and it’s a shame I made the mistake of looking him up and learning he’s not in the rest of the show, but at least he kissed Felix just to make all my little valves pop.

Rectify

This truly remarkable show – which Jeff and I are kinda binge-watching at the moment – is a love-letter, low-key and kind and intelligent, to nuance.

A man is imprisoned for 20 years for a crime he did not commit. He comes back to the small town in Georgia he grew up in, and everyone in town and all of his family are affected by what happens.

Everybody in the show, whether you first see them as a saint or a sinner, turns out to be more *complicated*. The dialogue is like following a butterfly alighting on various bushes as it dances in the sunlight. Truly exceptional.

Ray McKinnon, who played the preacher with the brain tumour in Deadwood, is the show creator. A special call out to Adelaide Clemens as Tawney Talbot, Aden Young as the star (playing Daniel Holden), J. Smith-Cameron as Janet, Daniel’s mother, and Bruce McKinnon as Ted Sr., one of the best played “anything you say dear” middle aged married men I have ever seen. We’re talkin’ subtle, folks.

When it’s funny – and the humour is almost all kindly and situational – it’s clever and funny. And when it’s sad, you feel it. It’s so unpredictable, and yet after a while you get a feel for what’s going to happen next….

On another note, D just emailed me a do it yourself mix tape. Life’s good. And if you follow the whole Supernatural #destiel thang you know why this is so very wonderful.

Sigh

Was supposed to hang out with Janice L and sing and play this afternoon but she got overtime and I slept. How very exciting eh wot? Keith came over to watch Westworld with Jeff.

We started watching Hap and Leonard and I’m really liking it, although the standout to my mind is Michael K. Williams as Leonard. Liking Christina Hendricks as Trudy – still not convinced about the casting efficacy of James Purefoy as Hap.

Back at work for another five days. I’m going to try to edit tonight; I’ve had a couple of epiphanies