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Feb. 17th, 2016 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwydion* "Grassroots Organization Aims to 'Change the Narrative' About North Korea:" http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/grassroots-organization-aims-change-narrative-about-north-korea-n516261?hootPostID=b26ba78bdadf876e444fcb0ec87d3275
* "South Dakota Fighting Unjust Anti-Trans Bill:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2016/02/south-dakota-fighting-unjust-anti-trans.html
* "Australian comedian comes out as transgender in an original way:" http://siz.io/australian-comedian-comes-out-as-transgender-in-an-original-way/?src=tum
* LM is fundamentally Squirrel's cat, to exactly the extent Hector was mine. She'd come for pettins and crashes out in my bed with me sometimes, but until last night, she's never sat on my feet or curled up in the leg mest in the bat cave for cuddle pets for more than hours. Poor beastie.
* One of the things I like about Walking Dead is the way both carol and Darryl use the skills they developed to survive abuse as zombie apocalypse survival skills, even though they have come a long way from who they were when they've abused. The healing process is ongoing, but they haven't forgotten how to deal with dangerous unpredictably violent people. We've seen Carol do it a lot over the years. The bit with Darryl and Neegan's men was perfect. you could see him adopt the behavior and persona he used to survive Meryl as a mask, letting them assume he was the weakest link, while they focused on the big obvious alpha male looking guy in the dress blues and the obviously tough and angry Sasha, thus lulling them into not guarding him properly. It reminded me a lot about carol using her old skills for surviving her husband to lull the Alexandrians when the group was not sure what was what there.
It was something I can really identify with. I don't call on my survival self often, but it is incredibly comforting that the skills and defenses are their when I need them.
* As it turns out, I like the Knick more than Mercy Street so far, though they are very similar.
* Cambridge Spies was excellently done and relevant to at least three of my interests.
* Black Sails XXII:
* I think this episode's overall point is to show how far a whole bunch of these characters have come in a season and a half and to really start digging in on themes like freedom and colonialism that are key to the series as a whole.
* I know this is a small thing that able bodied people don't care about, but it matters to me how they are handling John Silver's wound. So many shows do this sort of thing badly. The wound is there for plot reasons and is generally forgotten unless it gets plot important. They generally only show rehabilitation if the story is about that. They generally make the character all about the injury or they forget it entirely. They cure it or "cure" it a lot of times (Fuck you, Dark Angel). What I like is that Silver is such a rich character. Dealing with his new disability and the ongoing issue of the wound not healing properly is one aspect of his arc, but it's not all there is about him. The injury has plot significance and character significance, but it doesn't go away when they don't need it for what they are doing at any given moment.
In the opening segment here, he is tending the wound, but the scene isn't about that. Here is a thing he has to do, Flint inquires as to how the wound is doing, and then they talk about other important stuff going on. The wound is a part of life, like Billy washing, and them bringing water, and the guy pounding the peg for a shelter. I love that matter of fact handling. The representation is constantly present and requires dealing with, but it's not the whole of his character or his story.
* Silver's figured it out. He took the 80 pardons offered and did the math on the politics. I don't imagine short term thinker Season 1 Silver would have done that. Like Max he's come a huge distance on the thinking bigger and planning in advance front. (I still think hornigold would have killed Flint rather than giving him the pardon though he might have been dealing fair with the others. I think Flint would have ended up another lure in another pirate trap or the like.) Flint's thought further though, imagining pretty accurately the effect of his absence when the pardons are offered. He couldn't have figured in Blackbeard sailing the bay and thus half the pirates holding firm, but things are crumbling. It's not over as he assumes, but it's very, very bad with the fort out of the equation and Charles undermined by Eleanor. Again. So Silver's confidence is about the same degree of half correct as Flint's pessimism.
* Rogers is a dangerous sort of clever, I think, and as ruthless as Eleanor in almost the same way. The two of them working together as partners is terrifying.
* It's nice to get a reminder that Jack Rackham is dangerous. People, including us, have an easy time seeing only his flaws because the ways he is coded. That was such a characteristically Jack display of sudden violence, and a reminder that he is a pirate, not just the buffoon we saw in the first episode of season three. He does have a plan. He is getting them out. He and Charles are different kinds of clever, this is a Jack Rackham out of the frying pan situation and shows him off to effect.
Anne asks the really important question here, "Why just you? Island full of murdering, thieving f*cks and you were the only one they can't forgive?" Again, she's not flashy bright the way Jack, Max, etc. are, but she thinks and she observes. Here she's spotting the thing they most need to know going forward, the thing that doesn't make sense unless you know Eleanor is alive and advising the invaders.
I love the face Anne makes when Jack declares "it's over." It's a small thing, but I enjoy her reaction shots.
* While I trust the writers on their queer content, I am less trusting when it comes to their racial narrative. Watching the colony of escaped slaves, I am suspecting that this whole plot line including the Mr. Scott reveal is a course correction decided between seasons instead of baked in the way Flint's back story was. This I way better than where I was worried they might go with this, though I still have concerns.
* So here we have two powerful, intelligent women with conflicting political opinions. I hope it prove as interesting as Max vs. Eleanor was, but different.
* I like that Flint and Silver didn't try to lie to the Queen. I like that they didn't pretend pirates didn't deal in slaves and that Flint isn't lying to himself about it.
* I totally knew that would be Ben Gunn the moment he started to speak. It pretty much had to be and i was half expecting him from the second they sighted the island.
* This is random, but I really wish they would give the ronin pirate lines and a backstory. I've been wanting that since way at the start of season 1.
* Jack has grown up a bit too after all. "Nor would I be a ward of yours. I've made something for myself here. I'll make it again somehow, but I've come too far to go back."
* "Fuck you, Jack" is finally said with fondness.
* Woodes Rogers sees through Eleanor when it comes to Charles. I love that he's trusting her anyway.
* Eleanor is practical and clear eyed here exactly the way Flint is being in this episode.
* You can really see how far Silver has come from season 1. Instead of seeing this as a problem of talking himself out of immediate danger, he is seeing their captivity as a political problem to be solved politically using an understanding of psychology and observations of how the village works politically. This moment is fairly quiet, but it's character development big the way Billy returning and backing Flint was big. Our Silver is thinking like a captain now, really and truly.
* Vane fights like a street fighter, dirty and hard for survival. So right and perfect for the character. Here comes Stab Dad!
* Mr. Scott playing Hornigold makes me weirdly happy.
* Blackbeard gives Charles the answer to Anne's question, then watches his face as he takes it in. Lovely little reaction shots there from both men, silent commentary.
* Did Charles leave the pen unlocked or did Mr. Scott? Either way is interesting.
* Flint is talking to Silver as an equal here, explaining why he is pretending to Billy. I keep thinking of his relationship with Mr. Gates. This is different, more intimate, but there's that same sense of partnership. I am also thinking of right before a long ago sea fight when it was Billy flint explained to about appearing unafraid for the men whether you are or not. The lie here feels like an attempt to protect Billy, but it also shows the ways Silver's gotten closer to Flint lately.
* I have really been enjoying Flint, Silver, and Billy doing things together this season, the subtle shifts of alliance and degrees of closeness.
* Flint's dream: "You're curious again. Ready to follow me through a door that is somehow less frightening knowing I await you on the other side." *Shudder* They are still on the River Styx, I see. His internal debate continues.
* Jack mourns his dream. Anne carries on trying to build whatever is next. Practical. Matter of Fact. "It ain't good and it ain't fair. But it is what it is. We need to leave Nassau behind us."
* Silver starts out trying to list reasons, but he ends up framing their refusal of the pardons as a fight for freedom. He is trying to sell her Flint's koolaid the way Flint has sold it to them all, even Silver to his own previously expressed horror. Only he adds a little twist, designed to try to divide the Daughter from the Queen. "Your men are filled with anger towards England, as are mine, but my captain wanted England to see that anger and make them fear it. And for whatever reason, your mother would prefer your men fear England."
* And here we see how far Charles vane has come in two and a half seasons.
Charles Vane: She was on that deck for a reason. So I'd see her. To provoke me into making a mistake. What matters most is achieving our goal. To exit this bay with the fleet intact and to move on from this place.
Blackbeard:Charles Vane sees past his anger to achieve the greater end. How did that happen?
Charles:I was taught a lesson once. It's been effective.
Blackbeard:Taught by whom?
Charles:Her.
* Eleanor's self assessment is brutally honest. Ouch. Woodes Rogers can't say he wasn't warned.
* The fire ship sequence is yet another beautifully shot and edited action sequence. Seriously, the use of light and shadow, the painterly compositions. Gorgeous.
* Flint admits to Silver that this was his plan, that the taking of Nassau which he now opposes was something he built. Flint, always building his own nemeses. Silver and Woodes Rogers are both the products of his own work. Now Flint is looking clear eyed at the way he is now 180 degrees from where he started. His death wish is on full display, alone here with Silver, and Silver stands against it, wanting to keep trying to talk his way out. "We’ll all face certain death with our own kind of lie. Billy’s is that he can fight his way out of it. Yours is that you can talk your way past it. But for me… I don’t know that I have any more lies left in me." - Captain Flint
* Silver has gotten into Mari's head, looks like.
* I am glad they are finally deciding to properly flesh out Mr. Scott. He's been well acted and there were improvements in season 2 as far as scripting, but he was still woefully thin as far as on page dialog and motivation. It's better than sembene on Penny dreadful, but was bordering on a lot of the same problems. Him basically running an underground railroad and using his position with the Guthries to build a free colony explains some things and will likely help. Unlike with the Flint reveal, the clues are a bit thin on the ground: him not asking for his freedom earlier, mostly, and I think some of the slave ship passages argue against, but I'll need to rewatch them. (I'm still angry at Eleanor over her having waited all this time on that).
What foreshadowing there is was in Max's XXI arc and not in Mr. Scott's which is interesting. Instead of seed clues in his behavior, they opted to talk about Empire coming and colonialism through Max's experience of it, and then open things up further with the hidden village. There were a whole lot of such places in real life, by the way, in South America and the Caribbean. Escaped slaves would form villages and even networks of villages and fight off colonial powers where they couldn't hide. One lasted more than 80 years.
I do like that instead of just having the two opposing forces: Empire (corrupt racist colonizers) vs. Pirates (anarchic democracy, multi-racial, but led by white people and dealing in slaves), they are likely adding a third power, representing a different kind of resistance. Given their treatment of prisoners, it will likely be as problematic as Empire and Pirates are, but it would be hypocritical to talk about freedom without dealing with the fact of slavery and the fundamental hypocrisies involved. I continue wary, but am interested to see what they will do with it.
* Zimbabwe has joined Ethiopia in disaster level drought People and animals are dying. Want to help? https://www.wfp.org/help
* Help the poisoned children of Flint Michigan. "Water Crisis:" https://www.cfgf.org/cfgf/GoodWork/FlintArea/WaterCrisis/tabid/855/Default.aspx
* "How to help Flint, Michigan:" http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/how-help-flint-michigan
* Want to help finance my meds/medical co pays? Paypal Lethran@gmail.com
* Donate to help refugees "UN Refugee Agency:" http://donate.unhcr.org/international/general
* Organizations helping with the refugee crisis: http://captainofalltheships.tumblr.com/post/128790538169/an-updated-list-of-organizations-to-donate-to-help
* Want Game of Thrones without the creepy? We desperately need new players. We are very inclusive. "Game of Bones MUSH:" gobmush.wikidot.com
* "South Dakota Fighting Unjust Anti-Trans Bill:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2016/02/south-dakota-fighting-unjust-anti-trans.html
* "Australian comedian comes out as transgender in an original way:" http://siz.io/australian-comedian-comes-out-as-transgender-in-an-original-way/?src=tum
* LM is fundamentally Squirrel's cat, to exactly the extent Hector was mine. She'd come for pettins and crashes out in my bed with me sometimes, but until last night, she's never sat on my feet or curled up in the leg mest in the bat cave for cuddle pets for more than hours. Poor beastie.
* One of the things I like about Walking Dead is the way both carol and Darryl use the skills they developed to survive abuse as zombie apocalypse survival skills, even though they have come a long way from who they were when they've abused. The healing process is ongoing, but they haven't forgotten how to deal with dangerous unpredictably violent people. We've seen Carol do it a lot over the years. The bit with Darryl and Neegan's men was perfect. you could see him adopt the behavior and persona he used to survive Meryl as a mask, letting them assume he was the weakest link, while they focused on the big obvious alpha male looking guy in the dress blues and the obviously tough and angry Sasha, thus lulling them into not guarding him properly. It reminded me a lot about carol using her old skills for surviving her husband to lull the Alexandrians when the group was not sure what was what there.
It was something I can really identify with. I don't call on my survival self often, but it is incredibly comforting that the skills and defenses are their when I need them.
* As it turns out, I like the Knick more than Mercy Street so far, though they are very similar.
* Cambridge Spies was excellently done and relevant to at least three of my interests.
* Black Sails XXII:
* I think this episode's overall point is to show how far a whole bunch of these characters have come in a season and a half and to really start digging in on themes like freedom and colonialism that are key to the series as a whole.
* I know this is a small thing that able bodied people don't care about, but it matters to me how they are handling John Silver's wound. So many shows do this sort of thing badly. The wound is there for plot reasons and is generally forgotten unless it gets plot important. They generally only show rehabilitation if the story is about that. They generally make the character all about the injury or they forget it entirely. They cure it or "cure" it a lot of times (Fuck you, Dark Angel). What I like is that Silver is such a rich character. Dealing with his new disability and the ongoing issue of the wound not healing properly is one aspect of his arc, but it's not all there is about him. The injury has plot significance and character significance, but it doesn't go away when they don't need it for what they are doing at any given moment.
In the opening segment here, he is tending the wound, but the scene isn't about that. Here is a thing he has to do, Flint inquires as to how the wound is doing, and then they talk about other important stuff going on. The wound is a part of life, like Billy washing, and them bringing water, and the guy pounding the peg for a shelter. I love that matter of fact handling. The representation is constantly present and requires dealing with, but it's not the whole of his character or his story.
* Silver's figured it out. He took the 80 pardons offered and did the math on the politics. I don't imagine short term thinker Season 1 Silver would have done that. Like Max he's come a huge distance on the thinking bigger and planning in advance front. (I still think hornigold would have killed Flint rather than giving him the pardon though he might have been dealing fair with the others. I think Flint would have ended up another lure in another pirate trap or the like.) Flint's thought further though, imagining pretty accurately the effect of his absence when the pardons are offered. He couldn't have figured in Blackbeard sailing the bay and thus half the pirates holding firm, but things are crumbling. It's not over as he assumes, but it's very, very bad with the fort out of the equation and Charles undermined by Eleanor. Again. So Silver's confidence is about the same degree of half correct as Flint's pessimism.
* Rogers is a dangerous sort of clever, I think, and as ruthless as Eleanor in almost the same way. The two of them working together as partners is terrifying.
* It's nice to get a reminder that Jack Rackham is dangerous. People, including us, have an easy time seeing only his flaws because the ways he is coded. That was such a characteristically Jack display of sudden violence, and a reminder that he is a pirate, not just the buffoon we saw in the first episode of season three. He does have a plan. He is getting them out. He and Charles are different kinds of clever, this is a Jack Rackham out of the frying pan situation and shows him off to effect.
Anne asks the really important question here, "Why just you? Island full of murdering, thieving f*cks and you were the only one they can't forgive?" Again, she's not flashy bright the way Jack, Max, etc. are, but she thinks and she observes. Here she's spotting the thing they most need to know going forward, the thing that doesn't make sense unless you know Eleanor is alive and advising the invaders.
I love the face Anne makes when Jack declares "it's over." It's a small thing, but I enjoy her reaction shots.
* While I trust the writers on their queer content, I am less trusting when it comes to their racial narrative. Watching the colony of escaped slaves, I am suspecting that this whole plot line including the Mr. Scott reveal is a course correction decided between seasons instead of baked in the way Flint's back story was. This I way better than where I was worried they might go with this, though I still have concerns.
* So here we have two powerful, intelligent women with conflicting political opinions. I hope it prove as interesting as Max vs. Eleanor was, but different.
* I like that Flint and Silver didn't try to lie to the Queen. I like that they didn't pretend pirates didn't deal in slaves and that Flint isn't lying to himself about it.
* I totally knew that would be Ben Gunn the moment he started to speak. It pretty much had to be and i was half expecting him from the second they sighted the island.
* This is random, but I really wish they would give the ronin pirate lines and a backstory. I've been wanting that since way at the start of season 1.
* Jack has grown up a bit too after all. "Nor would I be a ward of yours. I've made something for myself here. I'll make it again somehow, but I've come too far to go back."
* "Fuck you, Jack" is finally said with fondness.
* Woodes Rogers sees through Eleanor when it comes to Charles. I love that he's trusting her anyway.
* Eleanor is practical and clear eyed here exactly the way Flint is being in this episode.
* You can really see how far Silver has come from season 1. Instead of seeing this as a problem of talking himself out of immediate danger, he is seeing their captivity as a political problem to be solved politically using an understanding of psychology and observations of how the village works politically. This moment is fairly quiet, but it's character development big the way Billy returning and backing Flint was big. Our Silver is thinking like a captain now, really and truly.
* Vane fights like a street fighter, dirty and hard for survival. So right and perfect for the character. Here comes Stab Dad!
* Mr. Scott playing Hornigold makes me weirdly happy.
* Blackbeard gives Charles the answer to Anne's question, then watches his face as he takes it in. Lovely little reaction shots there from both men, silent commentary.
* Did Charles leave the pen unlocked or did Mr. Scott? Either way is interesting.
* Flint is talking to Silver as an equal here, explaining why he is pretending to Billy. I keep thinking of his relationship with Mr. Gates. This is different, more intimate, but there's that same sense of partnership. I am also thinking of right before a long ago sea fight when it was Billy flint explained to about appearing unafraid for the men whether you are or not. The lie here feels like an attempt to protect Billy, but it also shows the ways Silver's gotten closer to Flint lately.
* I have really been enjoying Flint, Silver, and Billy doing things together this season, the subtle shifts of alliance and degrees of closeness.
* Flint's dream: "You're curious again. Ready to follow me through a door that is somehow less frightening knowing I await you on the other side." *Shudder* They are still on the River Styx, I see. His internal debate continues.
* Jack mourns his dream. Anne carries on trying to build whatever is next. Practical. Matter of Fact. "It ain't good and it ain't fair. But it is what it is. We need to leave Nassau behind us."
* Silver starts out trying to list reasons, but he ends up framing their refusal of the pardons as a fight for freedom. He is trying to sell her Flint's koolaid the way Flint has sold it to them all, even Silver to his own previously expressed horror. Only he adds a little twist, designed to try to divide the Daughter from the Queen. "Your men are filled with anger towards England, as are mine, but my captain wanted England to see that anger and make them fear it. And for whatever reason, your mother would prefer your men fear England."
* And here we see how far Charles vane has come in two and a half seasons.
Charles Vane: She was on that deck for a reason. So I'd see her. To provoke me into making a mistake. What matters most is achieving our goal. To exit this bay with the fleet intact and to move on from this place.
Blackbeard:Charles Vane sees past his anger to achieve the greater end. How did that happen?
Charles:I was taught a lesson once. It's been effective.
Blackbeard:Taught by whom?
Charles:Her.
* Eleanor's self assessment is brutally honest. Ouch. Woodes Rogers can't say he wasn't warned.
* The fire ship sequence is yet another beautifully shot and edited action sequence. Seriously, the use of light and shadow, the painterly compositions. Gorgeous.
* Flint admits to Silver that this was his plan, that the taking of Nassau which he now opposes was something he built. Flint, always building his own nemeses. Silver and Woodes Rogers are both the products of his own work. Now Flint is looking clear eyed at the way he is now 180 degrees from where he started. His death wish is on full display, alone here with Silver, and Silver stands against it, wanting to keep trying to talk his way out. "We’ll all face certain death with our own kind of lie. Billy’s is that he can fight his way out of it. Yours is that you can talk your way past it. But for me… I don’t know that I have any more lies left in me." - Captain Flint
* Silver has gotten into Mari's head, looks like.
* I am glad they are finally deciding to properly flesh out Mr. Scott. He's been well acted and there were improvements in season 2 as far as scripting, but he was still woefully thin as far as on page dialog and motivation. It's better than sembene on Penny dreadful, but was bordering on a lot of the same problems. Him basically running an underground railroad and using his position with the Guthries to build a free colony explains some things and will likely help. Unlike with the Flint reveal, the clues are a bit thin on the ground: him not asking for his freedom earlier, mostly, and I think some of the slave ship passages argue against, but I'll need to rewatch them. (I'm still angry at Eleanor over her having waited all this time on that).
What foreshadowing there is was in Max's XXI arc and not in Mr. Scott's which is interesting. Instead of seed clues in his behavior, they opted to talk about Empire coming and colonialism through Max's experience of it, and then open things up further with the hidden village. There were a whole lot of such places in real life, by the way, in South America and the Caribbean. Escaped slaves would form villages and even networks of villages and fight off colonial powers where they couldn't hide. One lasted more than 80 years.
I do like that instead of just having the two opposing forces: Empire (corrupt racist colonizers) vs. Pirates (anarchic democracy, multi-racial, but led by white people and dealing in slaves), they are likely adding a third power, representing a different kind of resistance. Given their treatment of prisoners, it will likely be as problematic as Empire and Pirates are, but it would be hypocritical to talk about freedom without dealing with the fact of slavery and the fundamental hypocrisies involved. I continue wary, but am interested to see what they will do with it.
* Zimbabwe has joined Ethiopia in disaster level drought People and animals are dying. Want to help? https://www.wfp.org/help
* Help the poisoned children of Flint Michigan. "Water Crisis:" https://www.cfgf.org/cfgf/GoodWork/FlintArea/WaterCrisis/tabid/855/Default.aspx
* "How to help Flint, Michigan:" http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/how-help-flint-michigan
* Want to help finance my meds/medical co pays? Paypal Lethran@gmail.com
* Donate to help refugees "UN Refugee Agency:" http://donate.unhcr.org/international/general
* Organizations helping with the refugee crisis: http://captainofalltheships.tumblr.com/post/128790538169/an-updated-list-of-organizations-to-donate-to-help
* Want Game of Thrones without the creepy? We desperately need new players. We are very inclusive. "Game of Bones MUSH:" gobmush.wikidot.com