Freakish Lemon

Star Wars Holiday Special

2009-12-26T15:20:08Z

Star Wars Holiday Special

Yes. Star Wars did air a sort of Christmas special in 1978. It was only broadcast on television once. And there is good reason for that.

The Star Wars Holiday Special is SPECTACULARLY bad.

For serious. I first heard about this special back in 1999 when I really started my stint as an obsessed Star Wars fan. All of the older fans in the chat rooms and forums and top ten lists complained extensively about how terrible this special was. Unfortunately, because it was so incredibly bad, it was nearly impossible to find a copy of it.

Just a few days ago, a friend of mine managed to find a download of it. Naturally, he IMed me and told me that he was coming over to watch it with me.

So. Incredibly. Bad.

I’m not even joking. It starts out on Kashyyyk with Chewbacca’s family and once they are named, you know that this special is going to be awful. His wife’s name is Mala. His dad’s name is Idgey. His son’s name?

Lumpy.

So, Chewbacca’s on his way home to celebrate Life Day with his family of freaks and he is delayed by the Imperial Empire’s forces being everywhere. His family is worried. They try to get in touch with Chewie’s friends and find out what’s going on, but oh noes! Stormtroopers! Luckily, Chewie and Han fly in just in time to save the day and everyone has a wonderful Life Day.

That’s all fine and dandy. Nothing wrong there. Except that that is about 20 minutes of this two hour special. The rest of it is Lumpy trying to distract himself with various hidden televisions in their house and nonsensical musical guest stars.

Two words: Jefferson Starship.

Also, there were parts in this special that had nothing to do with the story at all, including a Mos Eisley cantina scene featuring Bea Arthur as a singing barmaid and an animation featuring Boba Fett riding around on a Loch Ness monster looking type thing.

I know. It confused me, too.

But I did have fun watching it. It helped that Justin was there to flail helplessly with me and that we have known for many years that this is a terrible holiday special. We laughed, we recoiled in horror, and we stared blankly when our brains were no longer capable of understanding what we were being shown.

If you’re a Star Wars fan, and I mean a really hardcore Star Wars fan, try and find this. It’s hilarious.

Runes

2009-12-24T03:40:26Z

I enjoy making Christmas presents and this year provided me with a very unique opportunity.

You see, Nilan Hall at Albertus Magnus college is overrun by goblins. Everything that can go wrong with the workings of the house have (from the fridge freezing food to people not getting any water) and, when I was browsing through Brian Froud's Goblins! one day, I found that there was a creature to go along with every single one of these problems.

Some of them were eerily similar.

We also seem to have some kind of a bathroom fae who uses my voice to say things to other people and/or straightens towels while we're in the shower. This, of course, has made several of my friends quite nervous about continuing to live in the house.

So, I devised this little kit. On each of the green stones is a rune: protection, wealth, and happiness. All things a college student needs to survive in a goblin ridden house. The tiny scroll has explanations for the different runes and their meanings, and I knitted the pouches out of some scraps of hand spun, hand dyed Merry Little Lamb wool.

Avatar

2009-12-23T05:57:01Z

Avatar

I know you’ve all been hearing about it, but Avatar, the latest film by James Cameron, is absolutely amazing. I went to see this movie on a whim, actually. My dad asked me that morning if I wanted to go along with him and one of my brothers to see it later that afternoon. All I knew about the movie was that there are blue people and that it cost a ridiculously large amount of money to make.

This movie is a stunning example of new and innovative movie effects. Not only was the movie almost entirely done in amazing computer animation, it was filmed in 3D. Out of all the movies that I’ve seen in this new Real 3D format¹, this movie has the best use of the 3D effects I have ever seen. In the scenes in the forest, there is always something drifting in the frame – leafs, seeds, dust, ash, you name it – and even this simple inclusion completely immerses you in the world presented.

And that’s just the simplest of the effects.

The story itself is quite simple. A child could predict what happens. Especially if that child had recently watched Pocahontas because essentially, the story is exactly the same. Man with the invading force falls in love with the native girl and she teaches him the wonderful things about her world. Very simple, very easy to understand love story. With some environmental activism thrown in.

The design for this movie was amazing. When I found out Weta Workshop did the majority of the designing, I was not surprised. They have consistently done amazing and detailed design work and this movie was a prime example of that design skill.

I definitely recommend seeing this movie. Even if you think that the story is cliché and shallow, the effects and design are well worth the money.

¹Which is, admittedly, not as many as other people.

Project 4 Awesome 2009

2009-12-22T06:41:13Z

Another year, another Project 4 Awesome completed!

The first Project 4 Awesome was started by John and Hank Green, along with a crew of secret project volunteers, in 2007. Each of them made a video promoting their favourite charities and, in turn, commented and faved and rated the hell out of all the other P4A videos they would find.

Last year, I participated in the 2008 P4A and had an absolute ball doing it. I made a video and I stayed up for as much of the 48 hour commenting/rating/favouriting window doing all that I could to take over YouTube. Our efforts were coordinated through a live show on BlogTV and the response in the nerdfighter community was immense.

Things had to be adapted to accommodate our record numbers this year, including a LiveStream show instead of BlogTV, epic Twitter usage, and a brand new website to submit videos for consideration for community focus. Some of us were skeptical about the workings of our efforts this year, but they proved to work quite effectively.

#1 Trending Topic on Twitter

Except for a few videos, we filled up the first four of the Most Discussed pages.

Top Rated

YouTube Video Spotlight

Absolutely brilliant. Loads of charities get free promotion and donations, and we pwn one of the web's largest websites. Everybody wins.

And remember, don't french the llama.

DFTBA

Snowflakes

2009-12-10T02:50:14Z

I've recently started reading a blog called Attic24, which is run by a woman called Lucy. She's a lovely stay at home mom who decorates her house with bright and colorful crocheted and sewed thing. A few days ago she shocked her readers by posting something she made with only one color! And that something was a stack of crocheted snowflakes.

Which, of course, made me very excited.

I had some spare white yarn lying about, so I decided to give these a try. I eventually made 25 snowflakes and chained them all together to make this:

If you want to check out the pattern, Lucy has posted it HERE.

I Aten't Dead

2009-12-08T14:36:29Z

I meant to do this days ago, but I have managed ONCE AGAIN to fail to meet my own deadlines. Such is my lot in life.

I always say I'm going to do things and I think we all know how that goes by now. I finally finished hemming thetinytauntaun's pants yesterday, and she brought those to me... two months ago? Fail. Still haven't finished my T-shirt hoodie completely or hemmed up those other pairs of cargo shorts. I've barely caught up with the on-going shows I watch, and I'm lagging so far behind on the new Fullmetal Alchemist series. I haven't read any updating manga in weeks and I still haven't finished the Xena game.

I staretd Ender in Exile before the fall semester and finished it only a couple of days ago.

Personal deadlines are very much NOT my forte.

BUT I did finish my NaNoWriMo novel in November and after this week of trying to catch up in the middle of finals and funeral stuff, I am ready to get back to reading and crafting and generally GETTING SHIT DONE.

Maybe I won't be lying on Twitter anymore when I say that. That would be nice.

Entries shall be coming soon.

Grey Socks

2009-11-19T15:52:17Z

Since my first knitting lesson at the hands of my younger sister, most of my projects have been really simple. To be honest, it's been scarves up until last year when I decided that I was going to buckle down and learn how to knit other things. I was just sick of making scarves. I couldn't give them away fast enough and I'm not a big scarf wearer.

So I started knitting berets for said younger sister and fingerless gloves, which are a bit tricky when you are first starting out. Then I moved on to learning to cable which I had heard was difficult, but my mother had managed to learn it, so I figured it wasn't all that bad.

Guess what I made with that new skill? More scarves.

'Okay,' I thought to myself this year at the Connecticut Renaissance Faire as I stood in my favourite booth ever (The Merry Little Lamb). 'I am going to make a pair of socks.'

Well, I was actually going to try and make a pair of kilt hose to wear under my pirate boots for Halloween, but I didn't have enough yarn and I wouldn't have finished them in time anyway. But I was determined to make something to wear on my feet.

So I found this Soldier's Sock pattern on the Free Knitting Pattern Directory. It looked simple and adaptable and, if I was going to be making more socks after this first pair, I needed an easy, basic pattern.

I feel like I've hit a milestone. I've made a pair of socks. It's like I'm really a knitter now.

The Waters of Mars

2009-11-17T14:34:36Z

Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars

Instead of a full season this year, the revival of Doctor Who has been showing a spread out series of specials before the Doctor’s tenth regeneration. This series started with the 2008 Christmas Special The Next Doctor and proceeded to the 2009 Easter Special The Planet of the Dead. This past Sunday was the first airing of the third in this series of specials, The Waters of Mars.

As I’ve never reviewed anything Doctor Who on this blog before, let me give you some information on my Who background. Like my knowledge of Star Trek, most of what I knew before the revival of Who came from being around the show. It was one of those shows that would occasionally run on PBS during weird hours of the day, and my dad has been a fan of Tom Baker’s Doctor for as long as I can remember. So I knew what the TARDIS was and I knew who at least one of the Doctors was, and a couple of years ago I heard that there had been new episodes, which really boomed in popularity with the casting choice of David Tennant for the Tenth Doctor. I decided to give it a go.

I watched through all four seasons of New Who in one week, just in time for the airing of the series four finale, and I was hooked. I re-watched the episodes I was particularly attached to and sought out The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood to feed my Who addiction. When I ran out of New Who shows, I went back and started watching The Classics. It’s taken me almost a year and a half to watch through the first four Doctors (nearly finished with Tom Baker’s run), and I’ve loved every single one of them.

So when I say that The Waters of Mars was an awful piece of nihilistic drivel, you won’t write me off as simply one of the Torchwood Hysterical Nine on an anti-RTD rampage. The story line was hopeless from the very start of the episode. Within the first fifteen minutes, you knew that everyone aboard the Mars station was going to die; they showed the newspaper headlines to prove it.

That wasn’t even the part that really bothered me. I just felt that it had already been done with the Pompeii episode in series four and the other ‘trapped on a space station’ episodes. The part that bothered me was the senseless hubris that the Doctor adopted during this episode. He’s always been a bit arrogant (being the only alien among humans would do that to anyone, I think), but it’s never been at the expense of his own morality. In this episode, the Doctor decides that he is God and his actions cause a woman to kill herself.

I do not know what this episode was trying to achieve, but it left me with a very bitter taste in my mouth. There was no hope. There was no redemption. There was nothing in this episode that even resembled the things that I love about Doctor Who.

The Coming of the Fairies

2009-11-07T23:02:17Z

After a number of deaths in his family, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes, turned his attention to Spiritualism. I’m not very good at briefly defining the many different belief systems, but spiritualists believe that there is another plane of existence where spirits dwell and that our planes are capable of crossing and communication.

Spiritualism originally developed in the United States, but its membership was widely spread in most English speaking countries from 1840 to 1920. During this time, there was an increase in the reports of paranormal activity and attendance to mediums and séances. One of the most famous events during the height of the Spiritualist movement was the reveal of the Cottingley faerie photographs.

In 1917, two young in girls in Cottingley, a borough in West Yorkshire, England, caught their play with faeries on film. Two initial photographs were released to the press and, like any claim to seeing the Fair Folk, they were met with much skepticism. Conan Doyle, however, believed in their validity enough to write a book - - The Coming of the Fairies.

This book was a fascinating read. I’ve already made be belief in the realm of the Fae clear in past reviews, but I’d never really done much reading on the Cottingley photos. I knew the story and the circumstances and the press reaction, but I never thought to look any more into it. The Coming of the Fairies is, more or less, a collection of information about the Cottingley faerie phenomenon.

Conan Doyle provides a very sound argument for the validity of the photographs and the existence of faeries. He includes letters he exchanged with the people directly involved in the photography, photography experts that analyzed the photos, and other spiritualists. He includes eye witness statements to other faerie sightings and addresses many of the major claims made by those who believed they were fakes.

Even if you don’t believe in faeries, I’d recommend taking a look at this fascinating bit of myth history. While I enjoyed the fact that it was about faeries and providing good arguments for their existence, I also enjoyed the fact that Conan Doyle presented his argument s in such a calm logical way that even nay-sayers would be capable of enjoying the book.

Trail Mix

2009-11-07T18:39:17Z

It's no secret that I love food. I love trying new things and attempting new recipes. College has been good for that, even if the recipes and foods are simple and easy to make.

But college is also good for rediscovering foods from your childhood and making them for yourself or sharing them with your friends. My parents recently mailed me a box full of goodies for Halloween and in that box were two bags of fancy trail mix from Target.

Trail mix is one of those snacks that I lived on as a child. I grew up near the Litchfield hills. Every fall my family and friends and I would go camping or hiking. We would visit the local forest ranger and have a chat about the leaves and tapping maples for sap. We'd take day trips out to the local orchards and pick apples and make cider.

There was always some kind of trail mix put out or carried along, and it rarely ever came in a bag. Everyone had their own blend. Some were just different kinds of nuts and seeds, some had dried fruit, and some had candy, but everyone had some. That was just how it is.

Now, the fancy bagged kind is fine and I snacked through it rather quickly, but I wanted to make my own like we used to at home. So I did.

Ingredients:
Raisins
Craisins
Peanuts
Sunflower Seeds
Pumpkin Seed
M&Ms
Chocolate Chips

Simply toss those into a plastic bag and mix. Voila. Brilliant trail mix.

Works in Progress

2009-10-26T13:50:23Z

Hey all. Since I haven't posted a craft blog in a while, I thought I'd catch you all up on what I've been working on.

The first thing is that I bought new roving at the Goshen Scottish Festival a couple of weeks ago. Huzzah!

I've been slowly getting through some brown roving and I picked up this blue to provide a second ply. I haven't started spinning that yet and I haven't finished enough of the brown to start plying the two together, but I'll get there.

As per usual, I nabbed some handspun wool from The Merry Little Lamb at the Connecticut Renaissance Faire. I've been learning to knit socks and thought I might attempt a pair of kilt hose (the knee high socks you wear with a kilt), but it looks like I don't have enough to do that. So, what you see in the photo above will be dismantled, but I will find a suitably awesome sock pattern to replace it.

I've also started a new afghan. I've been wanting to work on another big project for a while, but I don't have the money to buy all of the supplies. So, in a move to get rid of some of my scrap yarns, I'm making a scrap afghan. This is a very long term project, as I don't intend to buy any new yarn specifically for this blanket.

And this week I'll be putting together a Max (Where the Wild Things Are) costume for Lainey.

Where the Wild Things Are

2009-10-22T14:25:06Z

This past Friday I went to see Where the Wild Things Are with some friends. I remember being quite fond of the book as a child, even though I didn’t quite remember what it was about until I went to go the see the movie. I remembered the pictures, and I remember that a little boy had run off to live with monsters for a while. I remember that he learned something important about himself. But I couldn’t remember any specifics. It’s been a long time since I read it, after all.

I absolutely loved the movie. The visuals were stunning, the soundtrack was haunting and beautiful, and the camera work was impressively creative. The acting was wonderful, especially that of the little boy who played Max, who displayed a quality of child acting that is rare in movies for kids.

This is a movie for everyone. There were both adults and children in the theater when I went to go see it, and everyone had a good time. There was applause at the end of the film. For us adults (and how I loathe to use that word in regards to myself, but I need to delineate this somehow), it was a lovely trip down memory lane back to when we were reading this book and learning the same things Max was. For kids, it was a beautiful story with a valuable lesson about consequences and what happens when things get out of control.

If you haven’t gone out and seen this movie yet, you should.

I Am What I Am

2009-10-22T02:23:32Z

What’s this? Another autobiography by John Barrowman? Madness!

If you don’t know him - - I don’t know how you managed this, the man’s been doing EVERYTHING lately - - John Barrowman is an actor. And, of course, by actor, I mean actor/singer/producer/entertainer. For most of his career, he’s made his fame doing musicals, including a role in The Producers (he’s the blonde singing Nazi in ‘Springtime for Hitler’), and in the past couple of years he’s expanded that fame to include Captain Jack Harkness of Doctor Who and Torchwood.

Yeah, yeah. Another Torchwood related entry. You can deal for the sake of reviewing, right?

Good.

As I was saying, this is the second autobiography that Barrowman’s published. The first book, Anything Goes, was a straight out (oh the lulz¹) autobiography. He wrote about where he comes from and how he got to where he is today. You know, all the things you expect in an autobiography. His heroes, his influences, his mistakes…

And the fan response had enough questions and reactions to that book to warrant a follow up. Hence, I Am What I Am.

This book is a lot more relaxed than the other. There’s no obligation for him as a writer, and no expectation for us as readers, for a chronology of his life because he’s already covered it in Anything Goes. While both of them read a lot more like a conversation than a book, I Am What I Am is even more like a friendly chat.

It’s just a bunch of stories, most of which are hilarious. It’s a fun book, full of excitement and normal life and honesty. I haven’t read many autobiographies or biographies, but from what I’ve seen, this is probably the most fun you can have. I definitely recommend it to anyone who’s a fan of John Barrowman. Hell, even if you’re not, it’s pretty interesting.

¹ If you didn’t know - - I don’t know how you couldn’t, everyone makes a point of talking about it - - John Barrowman’s gay.

Things I'm Excited About

2009-10-16T16:31:30Z

So, several exciting things are happening.

1- It's full-fledged fall. Leaves falling, wind blowing fall. Fantastic. Even better than that? We seem to have skipped that awkwardly warm part of fall. The part where it will be fall-like for about half of the day before it turns summery again. The part where you are either over bundled or over exposed and it's impossible to determine whether or not you need a jacket.

2- It's nearing the end of October and Halloween is my favourite holiday. I feel like it's the only holiday with any sort of intrigue or mystery or magic left. And I fucking love dressing up. I've sort of become one of those lame people who is dressed as the same thing every year, but I've put a lot of money and time into that costume and I'm very proud of it. (Even though I'm really excited about making a costume or two for FaerieCon next year.)

3- It's nearing the end of October. November 1st starts NaNoWriMo, which I'm really looking forward to this year. I'm going to starting on time (instead of almost a week late) and I have a general plot in mind for the thing. I'm excited. I might be able to write the kind of novel that I've always wanted to write. Dream come true and all that. Also, I think I'm going to post my chapters here as I finish them. I meant to revise last year's novel and post it for a few folks to read, but I never got around to it.

Those entries will be Friends Only, by the way. So, if you haven't friended me and you want to see them, you best get on that.

4- Over the summer, I started watching a bunch of shows while I was knitting and crocheting. Most of them have started back up again. There will be so much knitting getting done this season because of new episodes of Fringe, Lie to Me, Heroes, Merlin, and the Sarah Jane Adventures. Plus, we have a regeneration coming up in Doctor Who, which I am both excited for and dreading, but we'll pretend I'm just excited for. Add that to the continuing Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood series and the list of finished shows I'm tackling (like Xena), and I've got knit-spiration galore.

5- I can knit socks now. :)

Tales from Wales

2009-10-07T15:31:35Z

I was lent this book on the day I moved back into the college dorms. Of course, by lent I mean that my friend came up to my desk, slapped this book down on it, and demanded that I read it.

Close enough, right?

Tales from Wales is a collection of Welsh myths and stories retold by scholar and writer Rhiannon Ifans. This little book contains 15 short tales, along with a number of pen and ink illustrations by Welsh artist Helen Holmes. Judging from the size of the font and the shape of the book, I’d say that this is most likely a book for children, but since when has that stopped me?

I love old stories. Always have. I was raised on Arthurian myths and pursued stories from a number of ancient cultures during middle school and high school. Adding some old Welsh stories to the mix was great.

If you are unfamiliar with Welsh myths, or any myths from that area, Tales from Wales is probably the best way to start. The writing and storytelling in this little book are simple and direct. While there is still that odd focus on details that don’t actually have any significance that myths from the British Isles tend to have, there is less than in the tales written for adults. The stories are easy to understand and interesting to read.

Personally, I enjoyed reading the stories. As I said, I’ve always loved old stories and I haven’t read or heard as many Celtic myths as I would like. I’ve noticed that stories from a specific area tend to have similar themes and characters, so having an easy to understand basis for Celtic myths is nice. Having that basis makes encourages the reader to learn more and makes it easier to understand the more complicated stories.

I would definitely recommend this book for anyone at all interested in myths from the British Isles, especially if those interested are children. The stories are written in a way that is easy to understand, and kids would love these often silly tales.

I don’t actually know where anyone outside of the UK would be able to get this book (I believe Lindsay bought it in Wales at some point), but if you do find a copy, I recommend picking it up.

Much Ado About Nothing

2009-09-25T14:52:56Z

I feel compelled to write a post because I haven't in a while and I have time to kill in the Writing Center.

I also feel compelled to write about a renewal in my faith in the Fae and the continuation of the discussion of myth with Coffey (via assignments, the class is too dumb to understand D:), but I don't think I can make those two things mesh into a coherent entry with the time I have right now.

I could write write about my latest obsessions. I've watched up to mid-season 3 of Xena and being at college hasn't deterred my odd obsession with Welsh history and culture (not really modern culture though, more language than anything else).

And there's really a whole bunch of little things I can talk about, but I don't think any of them with be enough of a subject for one entry. And I don't really want to do a list post.

So, essentially, this is a post about about not knowing what to write. Awesome.

Seriously, how many of these do I post?

More than I should. Merg.

Devilish by Maureen Johnson

2009-09-18T02:22:42Z

“Devilish” by Maureen Johnson is a young adult novel about two high school girls named Jane Jarvis and Allison Concord. After a notably disastrous social faux-pas at the start of senior year, Ally, who has suffered consistent ridicule from her classmates, takes some drastic measures in order to become both smarter and more popular. Jane, Ally’s best friend and the senior class’ social deviant, is worried about her suddenly strange and distant friend. When she investigates this new Ally, Jane finds a lot more than she bargained for.

While I’m not a huge fan of Maureen Johnson’s books, I did have a bit of fun with this one. The plot wasn’t too heavy or forced, and I was pleasantly surprised by some of the more fantastic elements presented. I really didn’t expect any of the characters in the book to be devilish literally and I think Maureen did a great job of fitting those characters in to a seemingly normal reality.

Jane, who narrates the novel, is a wonderfully eccentric character with realistic character faults. Both girls attend an all girls Catholic high school, and Jane’s little rebellions (rolling up her sleeves, unbuttoning her blouse, etc.) and accidental trouble-making are charming; they quickly endear the reader to her. Her reactions and responses to the events in the novel really make the story.

Overall, I think this book was pretty good. It wasn’t complex enough to make it into my top favourites, and to be honest, I thought it was a bit too girly for my tastes, but it was a fun distraction for an afternoon.

Good Things

2009-09-17T13:58:08Z

I've recently noticed that I rarely blog about good things that happen, unless I happen to be reviewing them. I don't know why, but I feel less compelled to hammer out one of these posts if it's about something that I actually like. I mean, it's easier to complain about everything, but I've been meaning to write about this weekend and the things I liked about it for the past four days.

Something about that seems not right.

Despite the continuation of the Torchwood fiasco via Lainey's first viewing of CoE, the weekend was a surprisingly enjoyable one. Probably because we were making the conscious effort to distract ourselves from the DRAMAZ and grief.

The good part of the weekend started with tacos, like all good weekends should. We had tried to make tacos earlier in the semester, but were woefully unprepared. This time, we had the meat and seasoning, tortillas, two kinds of cheeses, that weird salsa that comes in a pouch, lettuce... everything you need, really. It was delicious.

We ended the meal with hot chocolate and ice cream. Again, distracting and delicious.

Later on in the night, after much fanfiction and fix-it discussions, we warmed and spiced some cider. Again, distracting and delicious. Even though it hurt to drink because I had in fact been reading fanfic aloud and my throat was a bit raw.

I don't remember exactly how we managed to stay up until four in the morning, but I'm sure there was a lot of ranting.

Anyway, after we got up and made some breakfast Sunday after noon (cinnamon rolls and eggs with some left over Velveeta-chili dip mixed in), Lainey, Lindsay, and I went for a walk around Edgerton Park.

Oddly enough, we'd never walked in the park when the greenhouse was open, but on Sunday the doors were open, so we went in the poke around. The back was also open, and we went for a leisurely stroll in some vegetable gardens. It was pretty wonderful. And we discovered a brilliant picnic spot.

Yes.

I forgot what my initial point was, but I'm sure I had one. Whatevs. I've got Xena episodes to watch. XD

Goofipinay

2009-09-13T00:12:05Z

It's time for another Threadbanger Guild post!

This half-month, I'm showcasing TB Guild member Goofipinay, whose Etsy account name is ShilynJoy. She's a self taught sewer and specializes in women's top and dresses, although she's made this really short shorts that I'm rather impressed with.

And not just because I can admire the model in them. If you've ever sewn clothing, you know sewing pants/shorts is really hard. Which my brother learned this summer to some hilarious results.

Anyway, in addition to selling her own handmade wares, she's also helping out a friend by donating a percentage of the proceeds to assist in an upcoming eye surgery.

Please feel free to go ahead and check out her shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6714252

BBC Letter 4

2009-09-09T04:58:24Z

Mr. Thompson:

I am writing to you again in order to explain one of the major reasons why Torchwood: Children of Earth was not a satisfactory series for many fans of Torchwood. In the past, I have written to you about the misleading promotion of the series, the seemingly abrupt departure from the Doctor Who universe, and the characterization of the main character, Captain Jack Harkness. In this letter, I’d like to talk about Ianto Jones.

Ianto Jones, as I’m sure you are well aware by now, is the intelligent and extraordinarily competent butler and general support of the Torchwood team. He is always prepared to aid a fellow team member and is constantly working to make the team function. The man, clearly, is not an idiot.

Yet, Ianto was written as one of the most incompetent characters in Children of Earth. In the series one episode “Countrycide,” Ianto is able to locate the stolen SUV with only a PDA, but in Day One of Children of Earth he apparently cannot track the SUV within the city of Cardiff, even while the Hub is intact. In a moment of brief accurate characterization, Ianto is capable of tracking a van with Captain Jack Harkness’ remains with only a laptop, but he is apparently incapable of finding the SUV, which has a tracking device built into it, with the same software.

As I stated before, Ianto Jones is always prepared to aid a fellow team member and this means that he always has what is necessary on hand. He can wire his phone into the Roald Dahl Plass water tower for a signal relay so that Jack can make a call while they are trapped in the Hub. He carries a stopwatch in order to time bombs and other critically urgent issues. In Children of Earth, Ianto buys clothing and food for the other team members as they hide out in a warehouse. However, the man who can find a spare RAF coat whilst on the run from the government and a hard hat when rescuing his leader from a block of concrete cannot find a gas mask to confront an enemy who is known to use deadly viruses and gases? I find this difficult to believe.

Also, Ianto Jones conned his way into Torchwood Cardiff in order to save his girlfriend. Although it would be common sense to have extra equipment and weapons stored somewhere off-base, it is especially likely for there to be an extra store that Ianto set up himself. A man who is always prepared prepares for the worst and Ianto would have prepared for an expulsion from the Torchwood Hub.

There are many aspects of Ianto Jones’ character that fans of Torchwood love, and his seemingly magic butler abilities is a part of him that is very dear to us. To see such a radical change in his behaviour is very disappointing. If a series 4 is to be made, I ask that a resurrection of this character be considered; that the mistakes in his character be rectified.

I thank you for taking the time to read this letter.

--insert signature here--

B!0H@z@rd

2009-08-29T19:28:16Z

Time for another Threadbanger Guild post. You know, pimpin' out some warez.

Or something. XD

This half-month, I've been assigned the shops of B!0H@z@rd. Or, just so I don't have to type it like that anymore, Biohazard.

Biohazard sells jewelry and clothing/hair accessories on Etsy, makes yarn fall and make up tutorials on YouTube, and is building up her own business over at HazardousCreation.com. Her work is more goth/punk oriented (with lots of skulls, spiders, etc.) than other TB Guild members I've posted about, but everything looks very well made, especially her custom yarn dread falls.

If you want to check out her stuff, head on over to her Etsy page.

Blue Gillespie: Cave Country part 2

2009-08-27T19:13:40Z

I love music. Who doesn't? But, chances are, you won't read too many album reviews from me.

It's very rare that I'll sit down, listen through an album, and have something to say about it. I tend to enjoy songs individually. I usually pick one song, listen to it until I can't stand it anymore, and then move on to the next one. And, of course, there are always a couple of songs on an album that I don't particularly care for, which makes writing about an entire album difficult.

Since I started getting involved in all these internet communities, I've moved from favouring big name bands with lots of music to individual musicians whose progress I can follow, and one of the things that small label bands and individual musicians do more often than big name bands is release EPs.**

Blue Gillespie is a hard blues/rock group fronted by Welsh actor Gareth David-Lloyd. Their first EP, Cave Country, was released in December 2008 with six songs. I thought it was pretty good, favouring one or two songs over the others. It's a good album for when you're feeling frustrated and angry, but it wasn't really anything spectacular and I only really bought it because of Gareth David-Lloyd.

Cave Country part 2 is a phenominal difference in sound, and I'm going to go through all four songs individually in order to try to express how impressed I was with this album.

The Swamp
This is the first song on Cave Country part 2 and you are immediately taken into a different world of sound that Blue Gillespie's previous album. While their previous music was rough and a bit grungy and Gareth's voice followed the standard screaming, The Swamp opens up the album with subdued bass strumming and accoustic guitar. Members of the band have always said in interviews that their music is inspired, in part, by Tool, but it was hard to see before. The guitar in this song is very much like Tool's melodies.

Then the lyrics of the song open in prose. I've fanboyed over Gareth's speaking voice before, as I own two audiobooks and four radio plays that he has done, but to hear it over soft guitar and bass is incredible. After the prose, he sings with a clear voice, very different from his screaming, and it really makes a difference in the quality of the music being produced.

Making Sound

I won't go one about Gareth's voice again, but this song is also an excellent showcase and, while there is a brief return of his screaming at the very end, it's appropriate for the shape of the song and is much less in your face than Blue Gillespie's first album.

Blue Gillespie has to have really matured as a song building entity in order to create Making sound and I am enamoured with the shape of this song. Good musicians almost always have great lyrics and melodies, but I find that great musicians know how to build sound. Making Sound starts out flatly, just the guitar and Gareth's voice, and as the song progresses, more layers are applied. Bass gets added, reverb is altered slightly to make all the intruments sound deeper, and it all flares out until the sound is as rich as it could be with the few instruments used.

This is also a personal favourite of mine because of what I've been calling the "dark Labyrinth" feel. One of the phrases for the base sounds like a darker version of some of the phrases in the Labyrinth soundtrack, which is one of Gareth's favourite "musicals".

Sex and Pride

If I had to choose a least favourite from this album, it would have to be this song. Not because it's a bad song. It's just as well build and well sung as the other songs in this album, but nothing about it particularly sticks out for me and I have had more trouble discerning the lyrics than the other songs.

Unfortunately, I think this song, moreso than the others, is a lyric song. While the whole is undoubtedly important, the message is less in the feel of the song and more in the words, which, as I stated before, I have trouble hearing. I'm sure that when someone's written out the correct lyrics for this song and posted them somewhere, I'll have more to say, but this is all I've got right now.

Devil's Skirt

I found this choice particularly interesting to include on this album because a more produced version of this song was on Blue Gillespie's first album. It's really a fantastic juxtoposition of sounds that they've cultivated.

This version is much quieter and more subdued. Again, Gareth's voice is clearer and carries more of a blues quality than the previous "hard" music. I think the accoustic version is an improvement on the song and utilizing Gareth's vocals in this way helps the song go to where I think it had intended.

I mean, the opening lines are "One day I'll be old news/ alone and broken singing old blues." The softer, deeper tones of Gareth's voice really fits the tone set by those words better than the higher, rougher tones.

To listen to Blue Gillespie's second EP, Cave Country part 2, click HERE. If you like what you hear, you can also download or buy a physical CD from that same page.

To visit Blue Gillespie's Myspace, click HERE.

** EPs, for those who don't know, are albums that exist somewhere between a single and an LP (long-playing record album, AKA a regular album). They usually have 4-6 songs.

When It Becomes Everything

2009-08-24T04:07:17Z

Title: When It Becomes Everything
Author: freakishlemon
Rating(s): PG-13
Genre(s): Gen
Pairing(s): Very very brief mentions of Suzie/Owen, Suzie/Jack, Jack/Ianto, Tosh/Owen.
Warning(s): Slight spoilers for non-plot elements of Children of Earth.
Summary: Suzie wondered, not for the first time, if she had finally gone mad...

Suzie wondered, not for the first time, if she had finally gone mad. It’d be easy enough to do, she reasoned, looking around. He’d said that it needed work, but she hadn’t counted on her new workplace looking like every science fiction movie ever had exploded underneath Roald Dahl Plas. She glanced over at her new boss. The grin he was sporting was mildly worrying.

“This is the Hub.” Jack Harkness grinned all the more widely. Suzie snorted.

“More like the Batcave’s retarded younger brother,” she muttered, eyeing the birdcage floating around in one of the numerous grungy-looking pools of water.

“Now, now, play nice Miss Costello. She’s your home away from home from now on.”

“Oh, really?”

“Unfortunately. Or not.” The leer he threw in her direction was positively filthy, but Suzie didn’t entirely mind. Shrugging, Jack started up the stairs to what appeared to be the main area of the Hub, continuing the conversation. “Torchwood’s pretty much an all day job. All night job most of the time, too. We’re a bit understaffed at the moment.”

“All day and all night? People must be lining up for this job.” The railing wobbled a little under Suzie’s hand and she wondered how long this place had been empty. “Maybe I should quit now and give someone else a shot.”

The thing about Jack Harkness’ abrupt about-face is that, although he hardly seemed to move, that ridiculous coat of his takes a while to catch up. Suzie watched as the hem of it arced through the air before taking a step back so that she could actually tilt her head back up to look him in the eyes. The man had no notion of personal space.

And he seemed to communicate mainly through varying grins. This one was smug.

“Suzie Costello, this is the one job that you’ll never quit.”

**

“Understaffed” had been an understatement.

A week after she had managed to clear off the work benches in the corner she claimed just off the main area, Suzie Costello met Toshiko Sato, the only other Torchwood employee.

“Make friends,” Jack had gleefully shouted as he all but tossed the flustered Japanese woman at Suzie. Suzie had herself a good look at this newcomer as the woman recovered. Despite her timid and anxious stance, she was quick to regain her footing and even threw a scowl at Jack as he jogged up to his office to answer the ringing phone.

“Suzie Costello.” She wiped her hand on her work apron before offering it to Toshiko. Toshiko glanced at it briefly before clasping it lightly.

“Toshiko Sato.” She paused. “But everybody calls me Tosh.”

Suzie almost couldn’t hear her over the Hub’s usual noises, but she nodded and half-turned back to her work. She frowned down at the gadget- a cross between an eggbeater and a curling iron, but kept spurting out some kind of mechanical lubricant every time she held it up vertically – before continuing the conversation.

“So, what are you here for Tosh? You don’t look like the type to get mixed up with that nutjob.” She gestured towards Jack’s office with her chin.

“Oh, um… he said he needed someone for the computers. And, well, I’ve always been good with computers.”

“Thank fucking god.”

“Oh?”

“He wanted me familiarize myself with the system yesterday and it doesn’t make a bit of sense. And I’ve done a fair bit of hacking- messing about with university attendance, pranks, that sort of thing- but there’s no way I can make that into something useable.”

Suzie noted that Tosh stood up a bit straighter when she finished. Confident in her abilities then. Good. Suzie may not have been working here long, but even she knew that anyone unsure of their abilities wouldn’t make it.

“So… what do you do then?” Tosh asked tentatively.

“Engineering. Sort of. I take all this crazy shit apart and see if I can figure out what it does. If I can, I rebuild it into something we can actually use.” Suzie kicked the box of unknown, but apparently harmless, alien gizmos at her feet. “Weapons, scanners, whatever. I’m hoping for an alien coffee maker.”

“We don’t have a coffee maker?”

“Well, there’s a machine upstairs. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Jack’s already managed to set it on fire. Frankly, we’re better off running out to Starbucks.” Suzie grabbed her welding mask and grinned as she lit the torch. “Welcome to Torchwood.”

**

Suzie didn’t question it when Jack ran off on his errands and Tosh never questioned anything. They just kept themselves busy while he was gone and hoped that nothing big came through the Rift. Jack called Tosh once at the start of his trip to London to have her perform some of her CCTV magic.

“Poor guy lost his fiancé,” Tosh mumbled, fingers flying across the keyboard. Suzie peered over her shoulder.

“Another one falls to the alien scourge,” Suzie chuckled darkly into her mug of… something that vaguely resembled coffee. She was starting to wonder if that coffee machine was sentient and wanted revenge.

“It’s not funny, Suzie.”

“Whatever.” She shrugged. “You think Jack’s going to recruit him? He’s been going on about getting a medic in here.”

“I don’t know.” Tosh was already turning back to her coding project. She was attempting to make a program to search all of the major government databases in the UK. Suzie wasn’t sure if she was jealous or impressed.

“Wouldn’t mind him round the office, though. He’s got a nice arse.”

“Suzie!”

“What? He does.” Suzie smirked as Tosh’s eyes slid back to the camera feed to check out the doctor. “Maybe you could help him out with those lonely nights, Tosh.”

Suzie nudged Tosh in the ribs with her elbow and laughed at other woman’s blush all the way back to her work station.

**

Owen Harper’s first day on the job, Suzie noted, started out very boring. He was polite and distant and proper and utterly professional until late in the evening when his first alien autopsy exploded in his face. Suzie laughed loudly along with Jack, and Tosh tried not to giggle as she offered to help clean up the autopsy room. Owen just stood there, swearing and trying to spit out alien guts.

Later, Jack asked Suzie what she thought.

“Not sure. We’ll see how he deals with tomorrow’s mess.” Jack nods, and Suzie watched as Tosh tried to help Owen get the innards out of his hair. She tilted her head to one side. She could practically taste the crush Tosh was working on down there.

“Reckon Tosh likes him though,” she said, grinning up at her boss. Jack had laughed and offered her a share of the leftover pizza lurking in the fridge.

**

Suzie was glad that Torchwood seemed to ignore all normal business practices. She was only five months into the job and, anywhere else, she’d be facing the mother load of all harassment lawsuits. She’d slept with Jack in those first few weeks, figuring that he was determined to sleep with everyone and she might as well do it sooner rather than later, and she’d been shagging Owen regularly for the past month.

Suzie took another swig of her beer before Tosh staggered over. She was openly smiling, which was rare these days, and she was apparently too full of Christmas cheer and brandy to give a damn about anything. Suzie laughed into Tosh’s sloppy kiss and held the mistletoe up for her.

**

Tosh always had her PDA on her. It was full of her lists and ideas, which were always very detailed because she’d actually stop and think about them before writing them down. Because she was such a technogeek, she never misplaced it.

Owen had clipboards. The ones in the autopsy room were full of medical reports and alien autopsy findings and forms for when they themselves turned up injured. The ones piled up on his desk were full of admin and wild theories about the Weevils origins and his more impressive video game scores. It was all surprisingly neat for a man that came in half-drunk and/or hung over most of the time.

Jack’s desk, while not clean by any stretch of the imagination, was somewhat coded by colored folders.

Suzie swore as sparks from an Arkan fuel converter caught her forest of post-its on fire again.

**

“Apparently,” Jack announced, as Tosh, Owen, and Suzie stumbled into work, “When you adopt a pterodactyl, they throw in a handsome stalker for free!”

“Sir, I would appreciate it if we could keep the harassment down to a minimum. It is only my first day.”

A young man in a well cut suit descended the rickety catwalk stairs, balancing a silver tray of steaming mugs. It took Suzie a moment before she recognized that this was, indeed, Jack’s young stalker from Torchwood London. She then had three thoughts so quickly in succession that she almost gave herself whiplash.

1. What’s-his-name Jones cleaned up well.
2. Where the hell did he find a silver tray?
3. Those mugs were filled with coffee.

“You have coffee,” Suzie stated dumbly.

“I do,” Jones said with a small smile, handing over one mug dutifully. Suzie looked down at it. It looked like coffee. She sniffed it. It certainly smelled like coffee. It definitely burned like coffee when she spilled some on her hand as she ducked beneath the low flying pterodactyl. She glanced around at the others, who were all performing similar mental checklists with their mugs. Except for Jack, who was leaning against Tosh’s workstation and grinning expectantly.

Suzie took a sip.

“Wow” was all she could get out before she realized that the pterodactyl’s flight had stirred up enough wind to dislodge everything that wasn’t nailed down at her workstation. She spent the rest of the morning fishing scraps of paper and wayward post-its out of the walkway grills and drains.

Suzie didn’t respond to Jack’s repeated questions of “Can we keep him?” (honestly, sometimes that man was such a child) until later that afternoon when Jones reemerged from the Hub’s infamous Archives carrying a large white board. She watched as he set it up next to her main work bench, within arm’s reach of course. He arranged a few different colored markers along the ridge on the bottom before helping her gather the last of her notes.

“I figure it’ll be less prone to escape than these are.” He handed over his handful of paper as he said this. “I’m about to put on another pot of coffee. Would you like some?”

“JACK!” Suzie yelled up to his office.

“Yes, Suzie darling?” Jack emerged from his office with a skip in his step and smile in his voice and, if Suzie didn’t think that this Welsh boy’s coffee couldn’t somehow bring about world peace, she’d be annoyed with her boss’ cheerful attitude.

“We can keep him.”

**

Suzie couldn’t remember if she’d worked like this before Torchwood or if this whole mess was unraveling her thought processes. She dimly remembered a time when she was able to sit down and organize her thoughts. Was it back in university? When she was a child? She didn’t know any more and, really, what did it matter when she’d probably be hauling some half-melted alien junk out of the wet mud of the Welsh countryside in a few hours?

Suzie heard more than felt herself recap a whiteboard marker with just her right hand. That hand had taken to writing out the little half-formed flits of thought that buzzed through her sleep-deprived, over-caffeinated brain before she was even aware she was actually thinking them. Sometimes this was a good thing. Last week she’d had a break-through with a faulty meison energy scanner only to swear profusely when she realized she’d forgotten what it was. It was only just before she left for the night when she realized that it had been staring her in the face from the white board all day. Owen had laughed at her before demanding she leave it alone and come out for a drink.

Of course, there was also the fact that sometimes what she wrote down made no sense and she couldn’t remember why she’d been thinking that. Ianto had tilted his head curiously at “thing with red on vacuum readings,” mouthing the words silently as his eyebrows did that adorable crinkling thing she’d taken to teasing him about. He’d shaken his head, placed her coffee just out of reach of her elbow, and suggested that maybe she take a break, even if only to sort out the board.

She’d frowned at that, but did it anyway. The others had apparently decided that her breaks were also theirs and came down to watch her decipher her scribblings. They didn’t all always come down together. Sometimes Tosh would come down alone to bounce ideas off of her, which Suzie didn’t mind at all because although she was often annoyed with Tosh’s willingness to put up with shit, she was rather brilliant. Sometimes Jack would drag Owen away from his corpses to try and muddle through some truly spectacularly bad handwriting. Ianto never spoke when he stopped to watch, even when he was with the others. He just took it all in.

She’d have to keep an eye on that one. Suzie smacked the small generator she’d been working on against the workbench to try and loosen a bolt. Ianto Jones may play his part well and not-so-secretly flirt with the captain and handle them all like bratty children when they needed it and make the best god damn coffee on the planet, but there was something off about his eyes.

Suzie acknowledged Tosh and Owen’s approaching footsteps with a wave without looking up from her work. They were too old, Ianto’s eyes. Didn’t belong in his face. He was what, twenty three? Twenty five maybe?

“You really think so?”

Suzie blinked at the sound of Toshiko’s voice and wondered when the hell she’d managed to learn to read minds. She looked up at her co-workers and Owen gestured to her theory board.

“Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Ianto = v. efficient. Robot?

Suzie watched as Tosh moved forward, picked up a marker, considered for a moment, then wrote in small neat lettering:

Extensive training at a secret butler academy.

She nodded once, recapped the marker and stepped back. Once Tosh had cleared the small area, Owen reached over and scribbled Clone.

“Oi! Jack! Teaboy! Get down here a minute!” Suzie thought about how Jack’s boots made more noise than they should bounding down the stairs like that. If she didn’t, she was going to start laughing and she wasn’t sure she would be able to stop.

Jack’s laugh was loud and echoed back up to the pterodactyl nest, where Myfanwy (Ianto had named her) screeched at the noise. He turned to his quiet companion with an obscenely bright smile on his face. Suzie knew that if she were normal she’d feel embarrassed about this.

“What do you think, Ianto?” Jack beamed. Suzie was both pleased and puzzled to see that Ianto’s customary smirk was trying to dissolve into a genuine grin.

“Well,” he replied as deadpan as he could muster, “If I were a robot, Torchwood would be the last place I’d go.”

“Ah,” interjected Owen, “But that makes it the perfect place to hide, Jonesie. You’re twisty and sneaky enough to use that kind of logic.”

“In the interest of national security,” Jack’s wink was obvious, “I do believe I’m going to have to check you for seams, Ianto Jones.”

For a moment, Suzie watched as Jack and Ianto caught each other’s glances and wondered why no one else seemed to notice that they were having sex with their eyes right there. Then Jack turned away, still smiling, and scrawled Psychic – reads our minds for what we need under the list on the white board.

Suzie finally let herself laugh out loud at the absurdity of the whole situation when the Rift alarm sounded and the group went their separate ways to deal with a new and intriguing alien threat.

When Suzie came into work next morning, the Ianto theories had been wiped from her board. There was a box drawn in the upper right hand corner. The top of the box read Owen’s Secret Hobbies in Jack’s handwriting.

**

It became a proper game eventually. Someone would slap a prompt up there - Jack’s home planet, Weevil names, a print out of a stupid CCTV moment – and each of the others would filter down to Suzie’s corner to scribble out their response. Whoever had the best response won the game, and the one with the most wins by the end of the week (or whenever the Rift let them have some down time) would get a pint on the team or the left over pizza to take home or just a smidge of extra funding for their research projects.

Suzie noted that Ianto never really seemed to participate in the game itself, but she reveled in the madness of his involvement. He perpetuated the jokes, turned them in on themselves until they made up a silly little world all of Torchwood’s own. He’d make a quip about Owen’s nonexistent painted hermit crab colony and ask about Tosh’s nonexistent vegetable garden and leave a postcard from Columbia (where he apparently teleported to buy their coffee beans) on her desk on rainy mornings and ask Jack if he needed those guitar strings for his nonexistent guitar by the end of the week.

If Suzie stopped to think about it, which she never really did, she’d think that Ianto was holding himself back by not playing their game properly and wonder about that little frown he tried to hide whenever the lights flickered, but the Hub was constantly falling apart and aliens were always about to invade and they were all a bit mad anyway. She supposed it didn’t really matter.

**

Instruments Tosh knows how to play

Harp, she’s got the wrists for it ;) –Jack
Tuba! [badly photoshopped picture of Tosh with marching band hat on]- Owen
Electric guitar. Tosh is secretly a rock star. – Suzie

(Tosh found a tin whistle on her keyboard that evening after Owen and Suzie had gone home.)

**

“Oh bollocks!” Suzie laughed at her team mate’s exclamation.

“Tosh! Language!” She rang her hair out over a railing. It was pissing down outside and there had been five Weevils loose all over town. Of course the damn things wanted to come out and play in the rain.

“Sorry.” Suzie rolled her eyes, turning to flick the still wet ends at Jack, who looked to be the driest out of all of them. “It’s just that that last Weevil snagged the sleeve of my coat and I really liked this one.”

“Just buy a new one, Tosh,” Owen said around the end of a pencil, spinning in his chair.

“Well, I’m going to have to,” Tosh snapped, grumpily. “That’s the third good coat this month.”

“I could have a look at it.” Suzie wondered if Ianto didn’t really have some kind of teleport on him. People didn’t just appear with trays of coffee and biscuits like that.

“Really?” Everyone turned to the young man as he handed out their mugs.

“Of course. My father was a master tailor, after all.”

Suzie laughed along with the others. She knew he was lying, they’d all read each others’ files because they were bored and were told to, but she played along anyway. It was her response to Tosh’s Story behind Ianto’s gorgeous suits. It had been beaten out by Jack’s answer about clothing fetishes and Owen’s answer about secret butler cults, which she was still a bit miffed about. It was all a part of the game.

**

It had been a bad week. A bad month, even. The Rift finally seemed to be quieting down for a while, but it had been spitting out partially diffused bombs and more weevils and violent psychos from the past almost faster than they could contain them. There were too many casualties that they couldn’t prevent, and too many injuries within the team itself for it to function properly.

Suzie sat down on their crappy old couch with a cup of tea heavily laced with something alcoholic and watched as her team mates tried to pull themselves together. Tosh’s eyes were dull and sunken with lack of sleep and her two broken fingers prevented her from typing out her reports as fast as she would like. Owen limped down to the autopsy room to replace the plasters on his forehead, yawning. Ianto slouched as he tried to finish up everything for the night, too tired to stand up straight but too stubborn to admit that he was ready to drop at any moment.

Suzie groaned as she leaned back, suddenly aware of the bruises and scrapes and the tired ache in her bones. They all looked too young and too old and too worn out to be in this place. She wondered if she fared any better when their glances passed over her. Probably not.

She tilted her head up to look at Jack. He leaned on the railing of the catwalk over head, watching. Looking over them. Far enough away to hide his exhaustion and close enough to come running should they need him. Suzie was too tired to stop the small smile that crossed her lips.

Her eyes shifted down to her corner where the white board stood amongst the debris of her projects. Three days ago, Jack had prompted The Meaning of Life. Tosh had answered 42 of course, finding it necessary to cement the fact that she was the biggest nerd here. Owen’s answer, sex, had earned a chuckle and Ianto’s rare participation with coffee had garnered a chorus of amens. Suzie had waited, wondering if this was some kind of bizarre test for them.

Suzie heard Jack before she saw him climb down the catwalk stairs and make his way over to join her on the uncomfortable sofa. Owen shuffled up from his little kingdom to throw himself into his computer chair, grabbing his quickly cooling coffee and rolling the chair over to rummage in the pizza boxes that had been left on the coffee table. Ianto paused next to them, handing Tosh a cup of tea and passing Jack’s mug over. Suzie looked back to her board.

“Did you ever answer it?” Owen asked, mouth full of cold pizza. He gestured towards her corner with the crust.

“No.”

“Answer it now, Suzie dearest,” Jack said, stretching an arm over her shoulders with exaggerated movement. Tosh turned to hear her answer and Ianto, surprisingly, didn’t run off to keep their little world working. “What is the meaning of life?”

Suzie paused and wondered when this became normal, when pterodactyls and Weevils and guns and blood and love in the dark and adventure became everything. She wondered when everything she knew became so brutal and beautiful and so royally fucked up. She smiled into her tea cup, tired and cynical, but undeniably content with the hand she’d be dealt. Despite everything, she really loved this job.

“This is.”

**

FIN

BBC Letter 3 Completed

2009-08-22T21:47:22Z

Letter:

Mr. Thompson:

I am writing to you in order to express my dissatisfaction with the way that the character of Captain Jack Harkness was portrayed in the latest series of Torchwood. Many fans of Torchwood, including myself, feel that Jack was written in a way that contradicts his past self in the first two series of Torchwood and his past appearances on Doctor Who.

Jack Harkness is supposed to be the leader of Torchwood 3 in Cardiff. For two series of Torchwood, this fact was undisputed. However, Children of Earth saw Jack taking a significantly more passive role with his co-workers. Jack is always the man motivating others to action, yet he was the one following Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones’ directions. Jack’s passivity was especially noticeable after the death of his lover, Ianto Jones. In the previous series of Torchwood, Jack went to extreme lengths in order to save the deceased Owen Harper from his fate. If this man fought so hard to save a good friend, why would he not also fight to save his lover?

Based on what we have seen before, when Jack Harkness loses one of his friends, he fights back all the more strongly. In his early days on Doctor Who, there was a time when Jack witnessed the supposed disintegration of Rose Tyler. His response to this act was to break himself and the Doctor out of a prison cell, commandeer a couple of guns, and storm the control floor of the space station they were on. He demanded answers. When Owen Harper was shot by Dr. Copley in the Torchwood episode “Reset,” he immediately turned his pistol on the doctor and shot him. Yet, the death of Ianto Jones garnered no such response. In Children of Earth, Jack gave up and did nothing until he was forced into action.

Children of Earth also seemed to completely ignore Jack’s professional past. Before Doctor Who, Jack Harkness had been a conman and, if his boasting is to be believed, a pretty good one. Also, as seen in the Torchwood episode “Fragments,” Jack did not strictly volunteer for a position in Torchwood. He was conscripted by Emily Holroyd and Alice Guppy and only accepted the position because he needed work while he waited for the Doctor. Someone who does not have intentions of staying in an organization like Torchwood would have stores of clothes, food, weapons, and anything else deemed necessary outside of the main base, especially if that someone used to operate cons for a living. Children of Earth saw no evidence of this type of precaution and even demonstrated a lack of criminal know how on Jack’s part. When the Torchwood team needed to rebuild a short-term base, Gwen Cooper makes a point of teaching Jack how to steal the equipment that they need. I find it difficult to believe that Jack Harkness somehow forgot all of his past experiences during the gap between seasons.

Perhaps the most prevalent in the changes to Captain Jack’s character is the sudden change in his sexuality. Jack has always been overtly sexual and flirtatious. In Doctor Who, the Doctor makes a point of telling Jack to “stop it” whenever he greets someone with a smile and a wink, and Toshiko Sato remarks in the Torchwood episode “Everything Changes” that “he’ll shag anything if it’s gorgeous enough.” Jack himself propagates this view by consistently telling outrageous stories about past lovers and his sexual exploits. None of this behaviour was ever exhibited in Children of Earth.

In fact, Children of Earth seemed to take Jack’s 51st Century views on sexuality and relationships and reverse them. Almost the entirety of the first day of Children of Earth is spent in an awkward attempt to determine whether or not he and Ianto Jones are a couple. When Ianto remarks upon other characters’ comments, Jack responds with “I hate the word couple.” However, it has been shown that Jack Harkness has been married during his earlier Torchwood years and his previously constant anecdotes about ex-boyfriends imply that he has never before had a problem with being seen as part of a couple.

All of these inconsistencies contributed to an overall problem that I had with Children of Earth. It was not Torchwood. Torchwood, as I understand it, is about the flirtatious time-traveler Captain Jack Harkness working with his team to save Cardiff from the dangers of a rift in space and time. Captain Jack was neither the central character nor the same character as seen in previous seasons of Torchwood.

I humbly ask that the Captain Jack that Torchwood’s audience has known and loved be returned if a fourth series is to be made. I ask that he actively fight to bring Ianto Jones back from his untimely demise and that he reinstates Torchwood Cardiff as we knew it, with a team of brilliant misfits muddling along. Torchwood is a science fiction production and because it is such, anything can happen. Characters have been brought back from death before without negating the importance and tragedy of their sacrifice.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.

CoE Survey:

Best Day
Day Two by John Fay

Best New Character
Rhiannon

Favourite Actor
Gareth David-Lloyd

Favourite Moment
Ianto's visit to his sister's house

Scariest Moment
Just after the Day 5 credits, when I realized that Torchwood was well and truly dead

Funniest Moment
(Caption: Because it wasn't all doom and gloom now, was it?)
Yes, actually, it was.

Best Jack Moment
Forcing Ianto out of the Hub to save him

Best Gwen Moment
Her interview with Clem

Best Ianto Moment
Rescuing Jack, hard hat and all

Best Rhys Moment
Talking to Gwen on the phone while house hunting

Special Recognition
Euros Lyn

For You In Full Blossom

2009-08-22T16:38:17Z

My philosophy on TV shows, books, and movies is that, if you are willing to lend me a copy, I’m willing to give anything a try. Chances are you know how I watch shows and what I look for in a story and characters. So, when my friend Shannon told me that I needed to watch this Japanese TV show and handed me the DVD, I watched For You in Full Blossom (Hanazakari no Kimitachi e Ikemen Paradise).

Now, the show’s premise is really nothing original and would really not interest me on its own. This girl Ashiya Mizuki disguises herself as a boy in order to attend Ohsaka High School, an all boys’ school. She does this so that she can convince former high jump superstar Sano Izumi to return to his sport. Awkward moments and hilarity ensues. If you’re a fan of manga or anime, you know that this basic premise is the stock of more shoujo series than I can count.

I loved it.

There are a few things that contribute to this, but the biggest factor for my own enjoyment is the fantastic acting. This 12 episode series is live-action which, I think, makes all the difference. No matter how much you like anime or manga, you have to admit that there are great limits in terms of facial expressions. All of the actors and actresses in this series are incredibly expressive and fun. Nakatsu, in particular, is vibrant and hilarious. I was constantly laughing at the expressions on their faces.

Another major contributor was the soundtrack. For You in Full Blossom is full of seemingly random encounters and weird situations. The background music can make or break those scenes, and the choices for this show definitely make those scenes.

This show is great. The plots barely make sense, but it’s a big mess of fun, which is exactly what I was looking for.

Warning: If you are watching the official DVDs and not fansubs, the English subtitles are very “Engrish.” Grammar and spelling are sometimes a bit arbitrary.