A man who believes he has been condemned to the dreaded “friend zone” seeks the aid of a higher power, of sorts, in “Gather Your Bones” by Jenn Reese (h/t PZ Myers).
The story comes from Daily Science Fiction, a website that apparently delivers exactly what it’s name says, which is awesome.
I should probably also mention, for any denser reader(s), that the concept of the “friend zone” is bullshit.
Science fiction based in the future is fascinating for what it tells us about the present, or at least the period when the particular work was produced. The scifi movies of the 1980’s are especially interesting now, in the sense that they might have anticipated technology that has not yet happened, like distant human space travel, but failed to anticipate technology that did happen, like flat-screen computer monitors. Their most egregious predictive failure, of course, was in the realm of fashion. Many 1980’s scifi movies now look like period pieces about time travelers from the 1980’s going to the future.
I vaguely recall a movie from my early teenage years called “Nightflyers.” Mostly, I remember noticing that it starred Catherine Mary Stuart, a/k/a Maggie from “The Last Starfighter” and Regina from “Night of the Comet.” It was released in 1987, and it looks like what you might imagine would happen if a spaceship captain grabbed a group of people out of an era-appropriate diet cola commercial and sent them out of the solar system. Story-wise, it’s a but like “2001: A Space Odyssey” meets “The Breakfast Club,” if HAL had a mullet.
About the only reason it grabbed my attention recently is that I learned it was based on a novella of the same name by George R.R. Martin. That makes it at least worth a look. Luckily, the whole movie is on YouTube, albeit broken down into multiple parts. I made it all the way to part 5, so see if you can beat my record. Enjoy! Continue reading
I recently started playing Assassin’s Creed III, which, despite the number, is the fifth game in the series. (Assassin’s Creed II was basically its own trilogy.) It is set in New England during the buildup to the Revolutionary War (I’m only about halfway through the game, and we just fought at Lexington and Concord and at Bunker Hill.)
The game offers many improvements to the controls, as compared to previous games in the series, and makes other changes that help game play. The new feature that I most like however, is that animals feature prominently into the game. By that, I mean:
Via tumblr.com
Really, I only care about the third thing. I thought Assassin’s Creed: Revelations was awesome for adding ziplines (although I still don’t quite understand why 16th-century Constantinople had so dang many of them everywhere), but the ability to pet a dog for no reason is gaming brilliance.
Sometimes, dogs will walk up to you and roll onto their backs, but unfortunately, there is no “belly rub” function. Get on that, please, Ubisoft!
Here are a few image macros that express my thoughts quite well: Continue reading
I’m about halfway through watching Star Trek: Into Darkness (spoiler alert, sort of). My first observation is that Benedict Cumberbatch is no Ricardo Montalbán. (I am decidedly of the opinion that Montalbán es más macho.)
At no point during The Wrath of Khan are Khan and Kirk face to face; they speak to each other only over communication links such as view screens. This was due in part to the fact that the set of the Reliant was a redress of the Enterprise bridge, and the two actors’ scenes were filmed four months apart. Montalbán recited his lines with a script girl instead of to William Shatner.
In dozens, if not hundreds of viewing over the past 31 years, I never really appreciated the fact that the two characters never met face-to-face. While the “Khaaaaaaaaan” scream will live on forever in movie history, the world would undeniably be a better place had the film included a 40-something on 60-something fight scene…….in space.
Via sunnydale-scoobies.tumblr.com
Dear Buffy:
First of all, may I call you Buffy? I didn’t mean to be presumptuous. Anyway, I know you’re busy being a fictional television character who has been off the air for over ten years, but I had sort of an epiphany. It made me realize that I owe you an apology for criticisms that I made of your show, especially the first three seasons.
I’ll be honest: I didn’t really start enjoying your show until about mid-way through the fourth season. That’s the point when the show took on a “darker” tone. It became more about exploring the characters and their motivation, and less about vampires and demons as metaphors for high school angst.
I had a hard time relating to your character during those first three seasons, which might be called the “high school seasons,” if you were so inclined. Oh, you’re not so inclined? Okay, seasons 1-3 it is, then. Anyway, the main reason I had a hard time relating, and it seems awful now that I say it out loud, was all the crying.
Seriously, it seemed like you cried at least once per episode. You probably didn’t, but I’m not going to go back and check right now. My thoughts, when watching those seasons at a younger age, was to wonder why you cried so dang much. I mean, you’re the Slayer!!! You’re stronger than that, right? Continue reading
Probably copyrighted, and if so, definitely not by me.
I have launched an online petition asking HBO to case Grumpy Cat in the role of Lady Whiskers in the next season of Game of Thrones. This is probably not the original intended use of Change.org, but what the hey.
Without any spoilers, Tommen Baratheon (younger brother of King Joffrey) is likely to have a more prominent role in the next season of Game of Thrones. He has three cats, Lady Whiskers, Ser Pounce, and Boots. Lady Whiskers quickly establishes herself as the dominant cat of the group, stealing a mouse that Ser Pounce caught. This prompts Queen Cersei to tell Tommen: “Ser Pounce must learn to defend his right. In this world the weak are always the victims of the strong.” (A Feast for Crows, Chapter 39)
Tardar Sauce, commonly known as Grumpy Cat, is an internet phenomenon, and draws huge crowds at appearances at major events like South by Southwest. She is already the subject of a small merchandising empire, so a jump into cat acting seems like the nest step. In her Grumpy Cat persona, she has the right look for a Lannister cat, and seems like the sort of pet that would attract Cersei’s respect.
Of course, I did not mention this to any of Grumpy Cat’s human companions. Maybe if we get the ball rolling first…
Anyway, spread the word, if you are so inclined.
You’ve probably seen the StePhest Colbchella ‘013 “Time to Dance” video by now. Unless you’ve been living under a rock or were really busy like me today. If you missed it, here it is (at least for as long as Comedy Central makes it available for embedding):
The Colbert Report
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Because I am always several years behind the times when it comes to the internet, upon seeing the video, I figured I ought to make GIFs of the video, like I recently did for a Dos Equis commercial I found amusing. Alas, Comedy Central has done a good job blocking downloads of their streaming videos. I know some tricks, but not enough tricks.
Vulture, however, obviously knows more than me, or they have access to an actual video file. They have some GIFs up on their site. I hope they don’t mind if I post a few highlights here.
Totally worth it for the Matt Damon Booth.
From the “Lady Sansa ღ” page on Facebook
In life, the monsters win.
A Game of Thrones, Chapter VIThere is no creature on earth half so terrifying as a truly just man.
Chapter XIV
If we have learned anything from Game of Thrones (the books or the TV series), it is this: the seemingly noble qualities of justice and mercy can have dire, even deadly consequences. (Spoilers ahead.)
I knew the Red Wedding scene was coming from the moment the show started its run in 2011, but I can still say I was surprised that the show presented it in such a brutal manner. The addition of Talisa, a character who does not appear in the books, as well as the news of her pregnancy, added an element of brutality absent even from the books. Much of the reaction I have seen (from people who did not know that the Red Wedding was coming) has focused on bemusement, or even rage, that the show would kill off its main character, Robb Stark.
I have two thoughts in response to that sentiment: (1) Have you learned nothing from the death of Ned Stark? That was not a narrative outlier. (2) Why assume Robb Stark is the central character, or hero? Continue reading
I vowed last year that I would stop comparing the HBO series Game of Thrones to George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, in part because it becomes more and more difficult to hold a story told in the television format to the story found in a (so-far) five-volume, 3,000+ page series of novels. Also, the TV series deserves to be judged on its own merits, not just for its fealty to its source material. That said, the first few episodes gave depth to two characters that, to the best of my recollection, was missing in the books.
SPOILER ALERT: I’m going to talk about things that have happened so far on season 3 of Game of Thrones, some of which also happened in the book A Storm of Swords (book 3 in the ongoing series). This will, of course, draw on things in the first two seasons and first two books. I am still only halfway through book 5, A Dance With Dragons, so if something I say here contradicts something I haven’t read yet, shut up. I’ll finish the book, really.
Via fanpop.com
Margaery Tyrell: The books are told in third-person, but each chapter is from the point of view of a specific character. You therefore see certain events from a specific character’s perspective. The death of Ned Stark, for example, was seen through Arya Stark’s eyes in the book, and we learn about Sansa Stark’s experience later. At no point so far have we seen anything from the point of view of any of the Tyrells. Most of what we have seen of Margaery Tyrell is through the eyes of Sansa and Cersei. Cersei is obviously a less-than-reliable judge of Margaery’s character, but the fact that Cersei hates her is a mark in Margaery’s favor. It is therefore fascinating to see how the show develops her.
We know from an exchange with Littlefinger in season 2 that Margaery is ambitious (“You want to be a queen.” “No, I want to be the Queen.”) Now we get to see her schemes firsthand. Natalie Dormer plays the role with both hypnotic beauty and a very subtle cunning (which might be redundant.) She is genuinely kind to the orphan children, even if we know she has an agenda. That scene was a brilliant foil to Joffrey’s character, who refused to get out of his litter lest the common people try to hurt him. Joffrey expects the people to follow and obey him because they have to, because he is their king, end of story. Margaery knows that she must earn their trust and their love, and that this will bring their obedience. The books only show this through Cersei’s horrified eyes. Continue reading
Via Firefly Fans on Facebook
Come a day there won’t be room for naughty men like us to slip about at all. This job goes south, there well may not be another. So here is us, on the raggedy edge. Don’t push me, and I won’t push you. Dong le ma? -Malcolm Reynolds, Serenity (2005)
The final episode of Firefly to air on network television aired ten years ago today. Although it was the eleventh episode Fox showed, “Serenity” was actually the two-hour pilot. Among the many flaws in Fox’s treatment of Firefly, it showed those eleven episodes completely out of order.
I remember watching that day, December 20, 2002. The episode had an odd feeling of completion, as if they were ending the story of Serenity’s crew by showing us the beginning. Not everyone’s beginning, of course, just Simon, River, and Shepherd Book. We got to see a bit of the origin of Serenity’s crew in the episode “Out of Gas.”
Reams of virtual paper have been dedicated to pondering Firefly‘s demise. I doubt I can add much of substance to the discussion that hasn’t been screamed into the abyss a thousand times before. Fox gave Joss Whedon and the brilliant cast and crew the opportunity to create fourteen episodes, plus a feature film, that stands out as one of the truly great iconic science fiction stories (I’m trying to avoid hyperbole, but this show is just plain fucking good, okay?)
If there is any sort of silver lining to Firefly’s short, yet brilliant, burst through our culture, it is this: unlike so many other great shows, it never had a chance to get bad.
