Discord

Finally got on Discord and joined a server today. I know everyone else has been using them for years but I’ve only just found a reason to - or thought I did.

Back in the day we had newsgroups, then chat rooms, then all that went away as social media giants like Facebook took hold. What was the point of a private chat room when people could put their opinions and dis/likes on Facebook and everyone who knew them (and then everyone that didn’t) could just jump in anyway?

Now it’s come full circle, with invitation-only chat rooms - with added voice, video and jukebox functions - making a big comeback. Share your screen to show you gaming, working, watch-alongs. Chat and video-chat. Type messages and add gifs, images and links. Whatever you want is now in your private chat room once again - and it’s only who you invite.

So today I got an invitation to one and I joined Discord just so I could get in. A 5-minute process that led me down a rabbit hole of fun, frolics and camaraderie the likes of which I haven’t experienced since the Supernatural fandom Hell Bus years, or the Farscape Wormhole Watch years.

Totally worth it. An early bleak, freezing Saturday afternoon became a laugh riot and adrenaline rush as we exchanged our best screenshots, got in our best jokes, welcomed all the fellow noobs and established personalities. A brilliant time was had by all, I think.

The only downside to this is the time zone clash, but obviously that was always going to be a problem and there’s nothing you can do about it. But it means that when I wake up at 6am because I’m bored, now I’ll have a reason to log in and see what everyone else is up to. I’m not saying I need a reason to get out of bed these days (even for work) but I pretty much need a reason to get out of bed these days.

But hey, today was a highlight and I’m so glad I accepted that invitation to the server. Sometimes exploring is more than you’d hoped for.

Soopytwist.

Supernatural - the legacy

It’s 21st November 2020 and the Supernatural finale happened two days ago. I’m still getting over it, but in order to do that I need to process what happened.

Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!

Here be SPOILERS for Supernatural - the series finale!

So much to unpack here - the episode itself, the reaction from the ‘fans’, the feeling of knowing it’s over after so long. Let’s start at the beginning.

The Episode

In best SPN tradition, the big ending people thought was going to go down was actually resolved in the penultimate episode. This left one more round of 40 minutes to clear up everything hanging. Would we find out what happened to Castiel, would we see Jack again, would we find that monsters and demons and angels and everyone else - were they gone now? Cleared up by Jack reverse-Thanos’ing everyone back into existence? Were the other universes brought back too? AU!Charlie and AU!Bobby - were they back as they were? I hope so.

It seemed that Castiel really was gone - as was Death. Of course the next reaper would become the new Death so that would take care of people on Earth. Sounds like Castiel tinkered quite a bit with Heaven and its inhabitants, causing rebellion, sedition, incitement to tear down walls and have a peaceful Heaven as it should have been. From what Bobby said Jack apparently visited, set some things straight, changed Heaven from a place where you relive your greatest moments into a place where you can make new moments. Logically his would imply a new kind of life - an afterlife of new moments, made outside of normal Earth time. So everyone up there - and Bobby made sure Dean knew his parents weren’t far away - may be gone from Earth, but they’re still going. If Heaven is perfect and you have everything you could ever want, it sounds like the perfect ending.

As long as Dean doesn’t get bored of the easy life.

We see Sam’s life after Dean and it’s a good one. Briefly told in quick flashes, the only weird thing is that we never see his wife. Would it have hurt to add in someone from a previous series that he goes back for, and stays with? But he raises his own Dean, and the circle is complete. Dean raised Sam, so Sam raises a Dean. And when Sam finally goes too, there he is, right back next to his brother. Even the Impala made it - or did it? Was it just something Dean would have wanted, and it therefore appeared (with the original number plates), or did it take on enough of an imprint from its owners that it became its own thing, and was rewarded by getting to an afterlife? People will argue about this for the next fifteen years, I’m sure.

But Dean called it - like he always does. When he told Zachariah he’d ‘stab him in his face’, and then seasons later he did just that. When he said he didn’t shoot the deputy, and seasons later he did just that. When he told Sam his perfect happy ending would be Dean having died relatively quick and bloody in some average fight, causing Sam to leave The Life, have a family, and end up dying old and loved - he did just that, and Sam did just that. It was a good ending, the kind of thing I could see happening. Dean got what he wanted, after all the fighting and arguing and fallings-out and raging against the being who put them all through it. He got what he wanted. And after everything, it came back to just Sam and Dean. And I’m ok with that.

The Reaction from the ‘Fans’

It seems a lot of people were not ok with that. Twitter, tumblr, social media in general - the fall-out from the episode was horrific. At time of writing, I am ashamed of the way some of the ‘fans’ have treated the cast and crew who gave us fifteen years of a show that wasn’t pegged to last more than one. While outpourings of love, of loss, of grief and thanks overflowed between the final filming day and the moments before the finale aired, as soon as it ended it was a different story. People ranted, they swore, they sent tweets to cast and crew saying how the ending was shit, how it was stupid and didn’t make sense, how it ‘ruined’ everything, how it wrote off relationships. Ugly, ugly responses indeed considering the source material and how the fandom has been mostly supportive up to this point. I don’t understand how you can turn on something so quickly, so completely, after hungrily devouring everything given to you in the past fifteen years. Some people have fallen out of love with the show gradually, some have fallen by the wayside, and some have just plain given up with it, and I get that. I gladly cut ties with Doctor Who after the way they wrote Peter Capaldi’s first two episodes made me realise the showrunner was a complete and utter self-centred prick who thought racist digs and jokes about sentient beings burning to death in front of them were ok to air. I gave the show with Jodie Whittaker another chance, since the showrunner had been booted for losing 40% of its ratings. (It’s ok, but it’s not the Christopher Eccleston / David Tennant years.)

What I’m saying is, I understand how people can go off a show and walk away. What I don’t understand it how they can continue to watch it if they don’t like it - why do that to yourself? Why torture yourself by making yourself follow a show you actively despise? Just walk away and leave it, go find something else you do like. Unfortunately, that’s a thing with many shows these days - people on social media are only too happy to leave comments saying how bad something is and that no-one should watch it. I reply to these people now, where I used to ignore them. “Then go watch something that makes you happy”, “then stop watching”, “you don’t have to watch it”, “take control of your life and stop watching if it makes you unhappy”, etc. I get backlash but I literally do not care. Someone has to make the point that no-one welcomes a step-by-step account of how they’re still torturing themselves by posting and commenting about something they profess to hate. I get that “sad is happy for deep people”, but behaviour like that toward people who are still enjoying something is just bollocks and they need to fuck right off and leave others to enjoy something they don’t. It’s everywhere in and out of fandom right now and it needs to die a horrible bloody death as soon as possible.

There seems to be a lot of ‘fans’ chucking their toys out of their respective prams because they didn’t get the ending they wanted. It’s childish and it’s so bloody entitled I don’t even know where to start. Yes I do - these are the kind of people who started or signed an actual real petition to try to get someone to re-write the ending of Game of Thrones because they didn’t like it. How bloody self-centred do you have to be to genuinely believe that just because you didn’t think it measured up, that you get to demand it be redone to be somehow ‘better’? How entitled are you? How far are you up your own arse? Someone wrote that and someone helped edit it. People produced and filmed and costumed and catered and rigged and lit and worked bloody hard to bring it to the screen. And what happened? People turned around and shat on everyone because they didn’t get the death they wanted, or the fight they wanted, or the satisfaction they craved. As Bobby says, “boo-friggin’-hoo”. It wasn’t made for just you - sometimes you just don’t get what you want and you have to step back and let it go. If someone gives you a birthday present and you open it in front of them to find that it’s not what you want or even like, you don’t throw it at them and insult them for it, you accept it and say thank you because that person made an effort. You don’t have to like the present, but you should have the fucking manners and self-respect to thank them and move on. No-one’s asking you to keep the present, or to tell everyone you like it - you don’t have to say you don’t like it, and everything is fine. It amazing how many people just cannot grasp that simple concept.

It’s not the way I wanted the show to go out. It’s not the way I want the cast and crew to be treated. It’s not how a fandom should behave. It’s beneath us and it’s ugly. I am ashamed of the fandom and how they’ve acted - and are still acting. To preserve my own sanity in these trying times of Covid and global madness, I can only conclude that these people are not fans. It’s not much, but it’s something.

The End

On top of all that shitshow, there’s the knowledge that this is The End. No more new episodes. No more new adventures. No more sounds of the Impala’s doors squeaking, that little rattle it made just under the dialogue. No more witty comebacks, slip-ups, dressing-downs, bitch fights, machetes, desperate Hail Marys, strained allegiances and tested friendships.

As I look back over the past fifteen years, at all the fun I’ve had at conventions, writing forums, rewatch parties, it brings happy tears to my eyes. I must be getting old. But those were good times - all of them, even the badly-run Rogue Events conventions, the arguments about spelling on those writing forums, the mismatched time zones during those rewatches. A bad day with Supernatural was better than some of my good days, for so many reasons. It was comfort, it was ease, it was familiarity. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a convention; you need to mortgage most of your organs to be able to afford a ticket to a Creation con these days, before paying for hotels and flights. It’s been a long time since I’ve been part of a writing forum; these days it’s all Wordpress and AOOO but it means it’s fragmented, it’s so open and wide-ranging that it’s no longer our corner of the internet. Instead of one person curating an archive of all the best we have to offer, now it’s just a filter on AOOO. This is not a bad thing, it’s just how things change. It’s been a long time since I’ve done a rewatch; those people aren’t available any more, or their time zone is now even further from mine. The pack has broken up, the people scattered over the globe in a way that only time can do. So gradually that no-one noticed, it all became so spread out, so far between that it wasn’t until I tried to get in touch with people that I realised it was too late.

Where are you when I need you, Hell Bus?

But then I realise: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Yes, the show will have no new episodes. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be conventions till the whole platform itself ceases to be a thing. We still have social media and groups, niche follows and tags. We still have AOOO and FF dot net, Wordpress and Wattpad. It feels like we’ve gone into our fifteenth hiatus, only this time there’s no end date in sight.

That’s the most encouraging thing I think I’ve heard since I watched the finale.

And I think that’s all I’ve got. It’s wet, it’s windy, it’s 12 degrees C and we’re into day 250 since my part of the world went into a Covid spiral of working from home / Tier 3 / national lockdown. However, I have a lot of memories and good times to think about, and I choose to do that rather than focus on the arseholes who have made a dumpster fire out of the series finale. I’m opening my SPN playlist and playing it loud.

Take care, everyone.

Highway to Helvegr

Been writing again - kind of a fix-it fic, I suppose. Ladies, gentlemen, boths and neithers, I give you:

Title: Highway to Helvegr

Rated K+ / General Audiences for the occasional naughty word.

Summary:
A defeated Thor arrives in a parallel universe to drink away the loss of his brother. The Winchesters are no strangers to going to Hell for a brother; what’s a little rescue trip to Asgardian Hel between drinking buddies?
Set mid SPN S14 (no spoilers) and right after THAT death at the beginning of Avengers: Infinity War.

Disclaimer: 
I do not own any Marvel or Supernatural characters, names, likenesses or the suggestion thereof. This is all for fun, not for profit. Unless you add me to any favourites lists or leave reviews/comments.

Linky-link-link: HERE at An Archive of Our Own under my name TozaBoma (because they don’t re-edit your stuff later) and HERE at Fanfiction dot net under my name Mardy Lass.

If you even visit the page, I thank you.

On endings

No spoilers here, but I need to take stock of all the things I’m losing, or have lost, in the TV and film world.

Supernatural

With the news that season 15 would be its last, this show has spiralled out of the singular fandom, charities and help groups it had and erupted into world domination; those who watch it are fearful of the end of season 15, and those who don’t are dimly aware something is coming but have no clue of the repercussions.

The season 14 finale gave us everything I wanted in that we come full circle; everything the boys have achieved over the seasons may have been undone and now we have season 15 as either a clean-up or a meltdown. Who can say what it will be? Well the writers, obviously - but writers lie. I know. I’ve met them. I am one. What lies beyond this wonderfully meta finale is anyone’s guess and I can’t wait to see what happens. Even though every episode will bring us closer to the Actual End, I know I’ll be prioritising this show over all others and enjoying it whilst I can.

The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine documentary: What We Left Behind

Where do we start? I was an Indiegogo backer back in the day, and now the documentary is finally done and dusted, we get to see it before the north American cinema release (and blu ray for the rest of us). For those of us just joining us, this was a crowd-funded celebration doc for the 25th anniversary of DS9. All the other Star Trek franchises were hyped and re-released and celebrated by CBS/Paramount either at anniversary dates or just in the cause of making more money. DS9, again treated like the bastard child it was, was of course snubbed. So Ira Steven Behr and a load of others got together to make their own celebration doc, and here it is. We have writers, artists, network people, actors, characters - everything is in here. We have actors reading the original hate mail received by the writers in 1993 when the show first aired (think Mean Tweets but longer and much, much more hateful), very frank conversations about people and actors and make-up, some HD renderings of some of the best moments of DS9, and some special appearances that will make you squee and clap and miss DS9 all over again.

Those were the Star Trek years, indeed.

With my backer’s bundle I got access to an early streaming version of the doc, and I have to say now that I’ve watched it twice it’s awesome. All that remains is for CBS to proper convert the entire 7 seasons to HD/blu ray so that when I binge watch it again (and I will, for perhaps the 4th time in its entirety) it’ll look more like Star Trek and less like a VHS bootleg. I mean come on - have you seen it on Netflix? It looks like a worn-out VHS copy and I’m not even joking. As one of the best, most progressive, and most important Treks, it deserves better.

Anyway, that aside, it brings me back to wondering if, 2 years from now when Supernatural has been off the air for 12 months and I miss is, if I’ll be rewatching it the same as I do DS9. Something tells me yes.

Avengers: Endgame

Wow. Just wow. I know everyone else is going off like a frog in a sock about this, but I have a major problem with one element that makes me go NOPE. It feels like lazy writing and I have to be honest, it makes no sense and it’s not fair to the characters involved. I don’t mean the other heavyweights in this, I mean the character they did it to. I can’t go into details but at some point I fucking will and it won’t be pretty. There’s also the little wrinkle of a certain character not ending up how I’d like, and the fact that they didn’t fucking deserve it, and the moment of the Mary Sue pretending that the mere mention of one gay person once in the background means that Marvel is all LGBTQ+ friendly now. Not enough, dumbasses; not nearly enough. And how you shat on a few characters? Not cool, Russo brothers, not cool.

I’m mostly ok with how it turned out though, however I would have cut about 20 minutes out of it and some characters weren’t in it nearly enough. It’s always sad to see the end of an era, and everything from the moment we first saw Tony Stark build a Mark I suit is pretty much brought to a close. There are other, Tier 2 Avengers / non-Avengers movies coming out, but for right now, it’s ok for the Tier 1 Marvel Avengers stories to end like this.

Gotham

And so to the 5 season saga of how everyone came to be villains, heroes and Big Names in Gotham City. The season and indeed series finale, continuing a theme here, gave us everything we needed. With its final episode the series made good on the promise that was made to us in the opening scenes of the very first episode, when young Bruce Wayne’s parents were killed in an alleyway. We have all our major players, we have our main characters, and we even have all our second tier characters in place so that, in line with the bulk of canon, they can go on to become the other characters in comics and DCU movies.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; it’s a great, great shame that they don’t make DC movies the same way they made this DC series. Somewhere between Man of Steel and Legends of Tomorrow, Gotham knew what it was and never forgot it. It gave us humour through straight-faced characters who were not ashamed to be super villains or superheroes; it gave us some bizarre and dare I say it, batshit-crazy plot lines - but it never stopped believing in itself. It knew what it was and it didn’t shy away from it. The writers dared to go with frankly quite unbelievable storylines at times, but hey, this is a show about normal people gradually being turned into super names of all kinds, and at some point you have to just accept the fact that if other comic studios can have people turning into giant green rage monsters, then others can have humans without superpowers who are just trying to take over a city and if a vat of chemicals gets in the way, then ok, we roll with it.

Fun, balls-to-the-wall incredible and ‘out there’, it was a good series and I’ll miss it next week when it’s not there. I hope DC take note; this was the best of their TV fare.

And that’s all the endings that I want to talk about. There are others, but not the TV or movie kind. I’ll get to those, but another day.

Peach and lube, everyone. Peach and lube.

Supernatural is dead. Long live Supernatural

Yesterday it was announced by the lead actors that Supernatural the TV show will end with the finale of its 15th season.

A few facts that came to mind when I heard the news:

The pilot episode (called, remarkably, ‘Pilot’) aired on 13th September, 2005.
The show went through the first 5 or 6 seasons of its life under constant threat of cancellation. However:
The show is older than the network that now broadcasts it - the CW launched 18th September 2006.

A few feelings that hit me heavier and heavier as the day went on:
Yes, it’s ok that it’s ending. After all, The Winchester Boys have been through everything they possibly could have been through. What do you write about after 327 episodes?
The friends I’ve made along the way - the fandom events, the writing fanfiction, the competitions, the rewatches, the hiatuses, and everything in between.
I remember going on the piss with friends, coming back to the flat, putting on the latest season disc of SPN and drinking at least 2 pints of tea before I went to bed.
I remember the writer’s strike of around 2007, which helped screenwriters get paid much more fairly for their work, and the fact that we all supported them, even though it meant season 3 was 16 episodes long instead of the usual 20-21.
I remember moving to a new flat on 16th September 2008, and scrambling to make damn sure my internet was plumbed in ready for 18th, when season 4 would premier.
I remember watching episodes live - for everyone else it was Thursday night, but for me it was Friday 6 - 7am as I was in HK at that time. But we all got on the SPN fan Hell Bus for tweeting shenanigans, so that we were watching along with a group of people just not in the same room, or had people to talk to about the episode and lots besides.
I remember making new ringtones every week from best lines from the show.
I remember the LOLcaps to reacp each episode on Livejournal, the SPN Headlines of the week, and the icons I made for a dozen smaller, lower resolution social media platforms of the time.


Most of all I remember the fanfiction. I remember the now defunct SupernaturalVille site. Taken out by a DDoS attack some years ago, it was just too much to try to get everything back and put it back together. I understand why the volunteers who had real lives didn’t have the resources to rebuild it, but it still makes me sad to know that everything there was lost. I learnt a lot about writing, a lot about cliffhangers, about giving the readers what they wanted but in such a way that it was satisfying, not placating. I learnt a lot about group writing, about round robins, about putting stories together, about pulling others apart, about citing references for other writers to help and communicate. It’s safe to say that without SupernaturalVille, I would not be writing today. It shaped me as a writer, as a communicator, as someone who had found something they enjoyed doing and also that some people enjoyed reading what I was producing. Luckily, at the time I was posting everything that went on the fic site to Fanfiction .net as well - so when the site went, I did at least have digital-ready copies (as well as my own back-ups offline). Some of these I have reposted at Archive Of Our Own, so my work is still out there. I haven’t done a SPN fic in ages, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel it’s still around. I didn’t sit down and decide I would never write for them every again; when Constantine came along I really wanted a crossover with The Boys so I wrote it, for example.

And now we get to the crux of the matter; writing. Some of my best work ever (and my only script ever) was written for SPN. I was living in a slipstream back then; I was writing constantly, getting about 2,000+ words written a day (on a work day), and then upwards of that on a Saturday before evening parties and shenanigans. Sundays were reserved for polishing the latest chapter that was then posted online for the world, and then going over the week’s fresh writing on the new Work In Progress so far and tidying, checking, fixing continuity or changing plots. The links were posted to social media, and then once everything was suitably pimped out, I had a shower, jumped on the bus, and went out to the weekly pub quiz. Life was perfect - simple, exactly as I wanted it, and I was producing over 15 works a year, running to an average of probably 30,000 words each. To date, I have over 1,600,000 words on the FF .net archive, and the bulk of those are SPN fics or crossovers.

There were the banner-making competitions, the fandom events, the convention circuit write-ups, the swapping of contacts and social media handles - the friends we have made and the support groups we have become. It’s a huge, huge movement, and campaigns such as Always Keep Fighting, the GISHWHES and Wayward AF have only made things official and expanded the network of fans prepared to help other fans they’ve never met simply because they like the same things.

In short, the show may be ending in late May 2020, but everything it has given the fans, and the non-fans helped out indirectly by those same fans, will not. I have a lot more to say on the writing I’ve done over the years for this and other fandoms, but this is not the time. That will come later, when I’ve had a chat with myself over not writing as much as I know I want to.

How do I bring this post to a close? How do I sum everything up and make it work? I don’t know. I do know that the clock is ticking down for The End of Supernatural (the real one, this time). I’m happy Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki have decided to go out on their own terms - the show wasn’t cancelled, or taken before its time, after all. I hope to see them in other productions - after they’ve had a break from constant filming. Vancouver and parts of B.C. may lose jobs, but other shows will come along and hopefully fill that void.

For now though, we have the rest of season 14 to look forward to, and then season 15.

And that’s ok.

Episode adjacent Wayward Sisters

Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!
Here be SPOILERS for Supernatural series 13 episode 10!

We finally got our back door launcher for the Supernatural spin-off Wayward Sisters. Was it all that we hoped? Hmm.

First off, the recap music was I believe the first time we’ve had a female singer open a show; I Am The Fire by Halestorm. Claire walks in and despatches monsters with relative ease and saves a young girl, returning her to her mother. She does all this alone, and for a second I was thinking, can anyone be that good? And then it hit me; if Sam or Dean had done this alone, I wouldn’t even have blinked. Part of that is on me, I know - I fell into the same trap as many other people in going the way society wants you to go, in believing that no woman could pull off what Sam and Dean pull off every week. As soon as I realised that, I was ok with Claire killing anything with skill and a little style. First hurdle for me down; I was on board with the characters hunting and saving and killing and cracking jokes like our series regulars.

The dynamic of the women working together was a good one for once; they weren’t trying to out-do each other, or in fact do anything other than look out for each other. This is becoming more of a thing in media these days, but it’s still new to see and I can’t say it’s a bad thing. The episode itself was a solid idea well-executed; without shunting them into the background completely this gave Sam and Dean an opportunity to be rescued and work it all out later. The only thing I was disappointed in was the fact that this Bad Place was underused. But seeing as they now have seemingly unlimited parallel universes (sorry, 11x04 Scully) to play with, this may not be the last time we see the Bad Place. There also appears to be a process in the Bad Place for a whole host of beings performing the role of guardians or servants for anything bigger than them, hence Sam and Dean being served up to a gigantic thing by a hooded figure. The first time we saw this hooded figure I was convinced there was a young woman under the cowl - the way she moved made me certain. Once we get to the end and find that we lose our universe version of a character, we find there’s the Bad Place version of them - and they’re now in our universe. This stunt has been pulled by countless shows, sci-fi or not, over the last 90 years, but it’s how you do it that matters.

Hopefully this show will be picked up - it had the second highest ratings of the show this season, and the fan fallout has been supremely positive. Everyone seems to be either on board with this or willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and give it a go. This bodes well; the last back door pilot for a spin-off we had was just the most horrendous piece of shit I’ve ever been forced to sit through and I was so monumentally relieved when the people who pick up series for CW passed on it. So. Very. Relieved.

Where does this leave us? Waiting and hoping that the CW folks pick this up and make a series out of it. From there we can hope that Claire sorts her ‘tude out so that I don’t huff at her twice an episode, and that we get Jodi and Donna in every scene. I’m also a big fan of Alex, and while Patience seems to be the odd one out at the moment, I look forward to her doing big things.

Who knows when they’ll actually release any info about this, or announce if it’s been picked up, but I’ll be waiting to see. You can never have too much Jodi Mills or Donna Hanscum. This episode was a victory, and hopefully a turning point in CW TV.

And you know, I thought I'd done a competent job of summing up my feelings here, but in fact SweetOnDean continues to blow every other blogger out of the water with her previews and commentary. Her preview of this episode is comprehensive and entertaining - and it's got shedloads of good links to promo material etc. Give it a look.

Peach and lube, everyone. Peach and lube.

Convention Comparisons

I’ve been to a few conventions in my time - good ones, bad ones, mediocre ones. I’ve just got back from a cruise convention (yes, an actual convention on a ship), and the discussion between people now taking stock of, for some, their first go at the convention circuit, has been very interesting to say the least.

First of all, a quick run-down of some I’ve been to and the experiences I’ve had. We’ll start with the worst and work up to my best experiences, I think.

5. Creation Entertainment - Supernatural

Link: HERE
Cost of entrance: $950 for the top-level entrance ticket alone (other levels are available) - not including flights (to LA for this one) and hotels.
Cost of autographs / photos: $80 and up for single photos, anything up to $150 for ‘sandwich’ photos. Autos from $50.
Organisation: They made an effort. But hey, when you pay for front row seats, I expect those seats to curve so everyone can see - and I expect the help to stop queueing question askers in front of you - whilst you’re still seated - and obscuring the guest artists on stage.
What’s On: A good range of short guest panels and talks, a karaoke night hosted by guests, maybe a party if you’re into dancing and drinking between school chairs set out in rows.
Cosplaying: Less than 15% of the approx. 5,000 attendees.
Atmosphere: Odd. Half of the place feels like they want to high-five everyone with a cool fandom t-shirt, while the other is there to whoop and cackle and scream at people on stage (with adoration, not anything else).
Overall enjoyment factor: Would have enjoyed it more if our horrendously overpriced tickets had afforded us an actual decent view, and if the parties had been… partier. All in all, I felt like I’d been very smoothly fleeced of at least $600.

4. Rogue Events - Supernatural

Cost of entrance: £110 (approx. $150)
Cost of autographs / photos: £50 and up (approx. $70) for singles
Organisation: Poor. Very poor. As in ‘people desperately tweeting each other to find out if anyone else at the con knew where anything was’ poor. Also, people waiting in queues while playing Twitter and Tumblr games to pass the time and to stop everyone going nuts.
What’s On: A full two days of guests on stage in a large, drafty hall. If you saw them all Saturday, on Sunday you could see them all again - in different duos or at different times. And the good thing was, if you didn’t have photos or autos then you didn’t have to keep getting up and running out of the hall to queue up to 2+ hours to get them. All the guests were entertaining, too.
Cosplaying: Nearly none, except for the ‘disco’ night. If you could find it.
Atmosphere: There’s something about a UK Supernatural convention that makes everyone feel just glad they’re at a con where their phone still works because they’re still in their own country, and they can use power points to charge their phones in the hotel (for the same reason), and they look around and see that 75% of the audience is also from the UK. It’s much more relaxed than a US convention (there’s no Beatlemania screaming and we don’t throw things on stage), but everyone seems to want to have a good time.
Overall enjoyment factor: The ruinously bad organisation distracted us a fair bit; unless people were speaking on stage, we were mostly searching for where we were supposed to be or racing to get food between sets. We have had more fun, and often. At least it was sunny in Blackpool in 2017.
Interesting note: Rogue Events closed down in 2017. Make of that what you will.

3. Star Trek the Cruise

Link: HERE
Cost of entrance: $900 per person, depending on the cabin (which is included). This does not include flights or hotels either side of the cruise itself.
Cost of autographs / photos: Surprisingly affordable - from $40 per auto and $50 per photo.
Organisation: Not too bad. Apart from switching times of when to pick up printed photos, or our main show event, or changing times so that suddenly they happen to clash with photo or auto ops, they may have been pretty dire at organising their way out of a paper bag, but at least they hadn’t charged as much as Creation Entertainment. However, there’s the small matter of the photo I took with Nana Visitor that I never got to collect. Thanks, ECP Ltd.
What’s On: Quite a full programme for the days you’re at sea. Obviously there’s less on when the ship hits the shore leave destinations, but what do you want? Main dining was good and the unlimited beverage package is well worth it at $500 - all drinks (except bottled water) and all tips are included. You know exactly where you stand with your bar bill at all times! They put on special Star Trek cocktails and changed menu names, etc. to make it feel themed. A bit more effort could have gone into this but it was at least better than 2017. Parties every night that went on till 2 or 3am, pool parties, 70’s discos, karaoke - lots to do for night owls.
Cosplaying: A lot. At any one time it felt like nearly 50% of the 1,900 guests on the Norwegian Jade were in uniform, or costume, or something along those lines.
Atmosphere: Mostly very good. No in-fighting amongst fans of different eras (at least not in public), not a lot of overheard grumbling. Some is inevitable, but it felt like most people where there to have a good time.
Overall enjoyment factor: Hmm… Pretty good. Apart from the cruise line getting our packages wrong, and our wi-fi allowances, and us not getting our picture with George Takei (because they didn’t tell us we had one, which we found out the next day from other passengers), and them switching things so we couldn’t see panels we wanted, it was still a cruise from Miami to the Honduras to Belize to Mexico. Not bad. And all the entertainment plus the cabin for 6 nights was the same price a gold ticket to Creation. Just sayin’.

2. Destination Star Trek

Link: HERE
Cost of entrance: €300 (approx. $370)
Cost of autographs / photos: €25 and up (approx. $31 and up)
Organisation: Pretty good. Three stages, well-documents timetables on their website a few days in advance of the event, helpers in English and the native language of the European city they’re in at the time, lines taped on the floor, wristbands to help you queue-jump if that’s what you’ve paid for - at times they could have adhered to this better but overall it was a monumental step up from Rogue Events.
What’s On: Two to three full days of panels, programmes and some quiet evening parties.
Cosplaying: Hmm. I’d say about 50%. It’s not exactly spot-on replicas or impressive Klingon foreheads, but it’s a start. And the heart is there.
Atmosphere: Again, European conventions seem to have the same dampening effect on jubilance as UK conventions. People want to have fun, it’s just that they’re a little reserved. Still, they came out in droves and the fact that one stage is just for fan panels and was always full tells you a lot.
Overall enjoyment factor: Not bad, I have to say. More fun than a Rogue Events con and a third of the price of a Creation Con, but still not quite all it could be.

1. Dragon*Con

Link: HERE
Cost of entrance: $90 - $100 for 4 days
Cost of autographs / photos: $20 and up
Organisation: They have their own app; it tells you what’s on and where, and how to get there, and alerts you ASAP if something is cancelled, postponed or moved. They’re spread over 6 host hotels (3 of them connected by ‘sky walks’, A.K.A. tunnel walkways between hotels), they have over 2,000 volunteers each con, and last year they bussed, shipped, fed, sold to, amused, entertained and kept safe over 80,000 attendees - not counting over 250 guests.
What’s On: So much your head spins. They cater to every kind of multimedia including films, tv, comic books, computer games, table-top games, D&D, music, and apps. There are always at least 5 things on every hour - 2 of each you’ll want to line up to see. There are 6 massive parties every night, one in each hotel, each with a theme.
Cosplaying: Yes. Oh Stephen Fry - yes. Last year out of the 80,000 people who actually turned up, 72% were in uniform or costume or similar. You know when you see photos of people at Comic Con and they have a perfect costume - and no-one else in the background is doing cosplay? Well when you take a photo at Dragon*Con, most people walking past in the background are also in cosplay. And don’t forget the opening parade - you sign up and they organise you into sections (fandoms) to march you around Atlanta during their peak tourism and showing-off season.
Atmosphere: PARTY HEARTY MARTY. I mean it. Everyone is there to show off their cosplay and congratulate you on yours. If you lose your friend dressed as Leeloo Dallas, do not stand on a chair and shout ‘Leeloo Dallas’ to find them, because that single hall containing over 5,000 people will shout ‘MULTIPASS’ as one and you’ll still be none the wiser as to where she is. People will high-five, others will drink, others will take photos - and then a ThunderCat will run past you, a Stormtrooper will go into the hotel Starbuck’s with a Farscape Peacekeeper, Batman will be buying an ice-cream for a tiny Ewok child, a Starfleet red shirt will back away from a Colonial Marine straight off the USS Sulaco, Sailor Moon and Daredevil will squeeze past you, Mulder and Scully will be caught chatting to Richard Castle and Kate Beckett, klingons will be at the bar toasting each other, Killjoys from the RAC will be trying to take photos with the Scarback Monks, the Doctor (9th or 10th) will be laughing with the Doctor (2nd or 4th), Tony Stark and a male Starbuck will be sharing a drink and Wonder Woman will be holding the door open for Leia Organa.
Overall enjoyment factor: Are you kidding me? This is Utopia. After 4 days you will never want to leave.

And that’s why Dragon*Con is my all-time favourite. They invite every guest they can get their hands on, 2017 was their 25th anniversary year which means they do know what they’re doing, it’s 10th the price of a Creation convention (have I mentioned how expensive they are yet?) and you will never, ever, be short of things to do. I’ve already blogged about it enough, so all I’ll say is I’ve also already mentioned the uniforms I had. And now I swear I’ll stop going on about Dragon*Con.

That’s is. It feels like I’m still jetlagged but I landed last Friday and it’s now Wednesday night, so I can’t be. Anyway, that’s my convention whinging out of my system. I’m sure next time it’ll be something much more exciting.

Soopytwist.

Wayward Supernatural Sisters

I haven’t blogged about Super-bloody-natural in a while, eh? Yes, I’m still watching it. Yes, I’m still amazed they’re doing so well. I don’t mean that in a bad way; they’s still coming up with good ways to keep it fresh and acknowledge the worn-out bits so they can skip over them to get to the good bits and new twists. We’re on season 13 right now, and long may it last as far as I’m concerned.

I first started watching Supernatural 11-12 years ago. I was visiting the UK when I happened upon the season finale of season 2, and it made me want to go back and start from the beginning. I was in HK at that time and had no idea this show was on, as it wasn’t offered on any networks in HK at the time. Every season Warner Bros threatened cancellation or polite not-picking-it-up. However, every year the fanbase grew and the staunch supporters made the show you see on your telly every week the tip of the fandom iceberg. It has the second biggest amount of fanfic ever written (which is surprising, as the first has been going more than 50 years so it’s had more time to amass the written words of millions of fans); it has its own charity drives and worldwide treasure hunts; it has its own family of mental health support groups; it’s still drawing incredible ratings from a show that people said wouldn’t last more than a few seasons. In this competitive TV show environment, it’s become a staple of the CW channel and the Warner Bros network across the States. In other territories it’s doing well on cable/satellite and VOD services like Netflix (if your country has the complete set) and Hulu, Amazon and of course CW Seed.

So where are we up to? Parallel universes (it was only a matter of time), some characters apparently dead for good (yeah, right) and others reborn in suspicious circumstances. And in the centre, still the brothers Winchester, possibly in the best place they have been for a while where brotherly synchronicity is concerned. All they have to worry about is the son of a major character, some new dude in a white suit (obviously a bad sign), and being the victim of new writers hell-bent (no pun intended) on twisting the current format into something new. Oh, and the rumoured animated Scooby Doo episode coming up in January 2018 (no, I shit you not). I don’t want to know how much crack they were smoking the night they came up with that, but hey, I’ll watch it before jumping to conclusions.

And then there’s the small matter of a back-door pilot. The last time we had one of these (S09E06: Bloodlines, to be exact) it was a messy, derivative, complete arse-gravy affair. Badly plotted, poorly executed, and the way characters were stuffed in fridges to aid the character they were setting up as the main protagonist was just a shitty, shitty waste. I was particularly unimpressed with the perfectly coiffed, marvellously made-up stiff Dallas-rejected white dudes they’d decided were going to be the important factions of the new show. SPN has never been as down and dirty as, say, The Walking Dead, but then it’s a Warner Bros/CW show. How can I illustrate this? Hmm - that moment John Constantine turned up on Arrow and we saw him, rumpled mac, dirty hands and cigarette butts, standing next to perfectly made-up, Beautiful People. That’s the difference. John is rough as a bear’s bum but in a CW way - he can still squeak by to get onto the show, but he’s not One Of Them. The same is true of SPN. They may look clean and CW-coiffed, but they are not One Of Them. To put a back-door pilot in a show like that and make the new one definitely The Boring/White Elite is just wrong.

However, even the CW can realise their mistake and try to catch up. They may have only just noticed the WOMEN ARE PEOPLE TOO bandwagon pass their window and dropped everything to run after it, but they might just have a chance of leaping on the back and having a good bash at it.

See, there’s always been one problem with SPN, and that is Everybody Dies. EVERYBODY. This includes every single female who’s been on the show. The fact that the show is about 2 brothers and not 2 sisters means that it seems to be the norm to kill off all the women. Add to that the fact that the most popular recurring villain they’ve ever had is also a man, and so is the angel who’s somehow got caught up in their shenanigans (and come back to life a few times himself), and you have a very male-centric show. This has been the norm for the last 13 seasons.

So the Next Big Thing every network is desperate to find might be women. Supergirl is making waves and doing very well indeed. Arrow is adding women left, right and centre and it’s helping to keep the show interesting. Lest we forget, Warner Bros and DC just delivered a box office smash with Wonder Woman and people are asking when a Black Widow movie will follow - after the Captain Marvel movie hits in 2018/9. So what can you do with SPN when the cast is by default straight white dudes?

This is where the back-door pilot comes in. Sheriff Jodi Mills is a national fucking treasure and a firm audience favourite. So too is Sheriff Donna Hanscum - a relative newcomer, but no less loved. The response to these two characters has been epic in fandom terms, as they’re the first females that have survived (so far) and yet they’re not here to drastically change the boys’ brotherly adventures. In fact, they end up asking for help from these two women a few times - and these women are in roles that, when first written, I’m sure were there for story-propelling purposes. But now they’ve grown and the fandom has asked for more - and more. If you ever get the chance to see Kim Rhodes or Brianna Buckmaster at a convention, please stop to listen. They are compelling speakers and advocates of change. They’re also heavily involved in the Wayward Sisters movement (a twist on the unofficial SPN anthem of Carry On Wayward Son) and also probably a lot to do with the Wayward AF t-shirts the two of them were selling to raise money for the Random Acts charity. What we’re getting in this spin-off is a host of women doing what Sam and Dean do every week, not as biological sisters but as a group bound together by need and support.

I can’t wait for this - the whole thing sounds like we're finally getting something that blokes got in 2005 with the original SPN show, and in countless others films and shows. I’m hoping it’s going to be good, obviously - the last one did not fill me with confidence for their next effort, but then they were trying to invent a world from nowhere. This spin-off attempt is set in the same universe as the original show, and even carries over 2 or 4 characters from it, too. They’ve already got a fanbase almost built-in, and at least 60% of those really want this new show to succeed.

And with that, I think I’ll get back to my day off. I hear a beer calling; here’s to new shows and the networks finally giving us what we want.

Soopy twist.

TV home from home (I)

It may not surprise you to learn, based on my penchant for a particular kind of foreign film, that I also watch foreign TV. Now I know I moved back to Blighty a while ago (4 years, 26 days ago - but who’s counting?) but Hong Kong will always be a part of me and it’s hard to let go of the amusement you got used to having around for 11 years.

For this reason, I still watch the odd HK drama. The local Hong Kong channel TVB does me quite nicely, seeing as it’s like the Beeb but on a much smaller budget but has a larger pool of actors to pick from. The normal routine is that TVB produce a drama to be shown five nights a week. This runs for 21 or 30 episodes, or if it’s particularly dramatic or written to be a flagship show, then it’s 50 episodes. That’s it - end of story. But if it the ratings were really good or public reception was impressive, then a while later (like 6 - 12 months later) they’ll produce another series and call it ‘2’. And so it goes.

Not all HK dramas are gold - you can’t churn out constant hits. However, the better ones stick with you.

I’m currently watching The Exorcist’s Meter (降魔的). The usual faces have been cast, not least of all the stellar Kenneth Ma (馬國明) as the central character, Siu Ma. He’s a taxi driver with an unusually blessed, if hand-to-mouth, life. When he accidentally pees on the wrong statue (it’s a long story), he releases a genie who’s determined to pay him back by giving him his most important wish. However, this leads to all kinds of ghostly and demonic shenanigans - Hong Kong style. You have the long-suffering mother (except whose mother is she?), the long-dead brother, the neighbour who’s as superstitious as the Ghost Facers and a kindly uncle who’s based his entire life on scientific fact and doesn’t believe in Fung Sui nonsense, never mind ghosts and demons. Add in a TV personality who only got into her tenure on the local equivalent of Most Haunted whilst trying to be a real reporter, a huge question mark over his real parents and of course the demon-hunting genie, and you have some compelling TV. You won't get a more ‘local’ kind of story on HK TV, and I’m really enjoying the mood whiplash between Siu Ma taking the piss out of his cumbersome genie millstone one minute and then him inadvertently picking up ghostly passengers the next. Typical family arguments, hardships that normal people go through just trying to survive - it’s all there and it makes me miss HK at times. But then it also makes me giggle a bit.

Knowing the nation as I (used to) do, it’s easy for me to slip into this TV world and understand the context. It may be challenging for newbies to get their head around (especially if the only travelling they’ve done it between TV channels), but I’d highly recommend this as a bit of fluff that may well stay with you for a bit afterwards. I’m only up to episode 13 but having it on a service where I can binge watch it definitely helps!

That’s it for now. I’m sure I’ll be back soon with more waffle of the entertainment kind.

Soopytwist.

Rogue Events is no more

For those of you who, like me, enjoy a good convention (“con”) now and again, the news that Rogue Events have closed down will come as a surprise.


Well, it would if you’ve never been to a Rogue Events con.

Ask anyone who’s ever attended one of their cons and you’ll probably hear something like ‘the guests were amazing but JFC they couldn’t organise their way out of a paper bag’. I’ve been to 2 of their cons - both Asylum (the Supernatural ones). They ran others too, for Arrow, Once Upon a Time, Vampire Diaries, etc. I have to say, because I didn’t need any autographs, photographs, meet n’ greets or basically anything other than sitting my arse down and watching guests on stage, I saw lots of good stuff and apart from not really knowing where or when things were happening, it wasn’t too bad.

However, I was witness to the appalling almost-organisation of the whole shebang. For anyone who had bought autographs, photo ops, 1 to 1s or similar activities, it was a logistical nightmare. No formal queueing system, so way to tell what the unofficial queue of self-organising fans was for, no word as to where the evening events were being held or when, charging people extra to see the evening entertainment, not telling people when or where to pick up their photos - and that was just what I saw and heard whilst talking to other fans.

Now that they’ve officially folded it’s left of lot of fans out of pocket - many of whom didn’t have a particularly deep pocket to begin with. The question of whether Rogue Events broke UK law in selling a product they knew they couldn’t deliver is one for the courts, and the insolvency firm who are no doubt already hard at work going through WCM Events’ debts. What that means in real terms for people who bought tickets and now have nothing is that, a few years from now when all the large creditors and overheads have been settled, they may get something acknowledging the debt they are still owed. By then it’s anyone’s guess if there’s anything left to reimburse them with.

Enter Star Fury Conventions. They’ve been running cons for 20 years in the UK, and by all accounts are pretty good at it. They’re professional, organised, and more importantly, they understand customer service and How to Make Money and Help People. Take for instance this whole Rogue Events debacle. As their Supernatural con, Asylum 19, has apparently been summarily cancelled (I say apparently as no-one has had official notification; all there is to go on is the official website), Star Fury’s rival Cross Roads 2018 event has experienced a surge in ticket sales. That would be enough for some. But some bright spark at Star Fury has decided that, in order to help fans let down by Rogue, they will give each fan who had bought an Asylum ticket one free autograph and photo op at their own Cross Roads 2018 event. Yes, you still have to pay for entry. But being able to go to an alternative event and still get some of what you wanted is better than no con at all. And if it makes you life-long fans of Star Fury Conventions along the way? So be it.

I would say I’m sorry that Rogue Events has gone. But I’m not. It’s natural business selection; poor management can only get you so far.

Soopytwist.

Catching Up

It’s May 2017 and I’ve done nothing this year so far.

Ok, that was a lie. I’ve actually been to two conventions, one hen weekend, and survived a redundancy cull at work.

Where do I start?

My youngest sister decided a while ago that, due to me turning 40 and the world being A Bit Shit, we needed a really really good con. So she signed us up for the first ever Official Star Trek Cruise. Our Captain was thee Captain, William Shatner. We had so many guests and things to do it was crazy - and we went from Miami (Fee shouts MOYAMI!) to Nassau to Cozumel along the way. We saw shows onboard, we saw talks by ST heroes and some very good nights were had at pretty much all the bars on the ship (tip: buy the drinks package), we spoke to real-life astronauts, real-life physicists, and just had a blast. I wore uniform for a few of the days we were on the ship - the Starfleet uniform I had made for Dragon*Con 2016. We saw make-up artists prepping people for their weekend, people in everything from Gorn heads to full ST VI Admiral’s gear, heard all the message and ringtones in the universe and participated in a few quizzes. We met a UN Ambassador - not bad for someone who started out as a Dabo girl - and picked up a few new friends along the way.

It was epic, and the weather and change of scene and just the whole fandom feeling was comforting and relaxing, compared to the real world where Trump had just been elected President and countries were experiencing unrest and turmoil on a bleakly huge scale. While Norwegian Cruise Lines weren’t the best at organising people getting off the boat (seriously; 3 hours queueing through the entire ship, down one level then through the entire ship again was ridiculous, seeing as Royal Caribbean had the whole thing done in under 45 minutes - with more passengers), and the dining opportunities didn’t really blow our socks off, the event itself went well and we had a bloody good time.

So that was January. I recovered from the fun and excitement of the cruise and went back to work. Time passed, as it so often does, until it was the end of April and my youngest sister’s hen do. This was a short cruise from Southampton to Bruges to Le Harve and back. We got dressed up as Pink Ladies to attend the Grease show, we drank as much as we could and we went ashore to see Bruges (amazing place; would recommend), and seeing as we were diverted to Rotterdam due to the port pilots’ strike at La Harve, we even got to stroll around Rotterdam in the early sun and see the cube-houses arranged on their points like it was nothing. Selfie-sticks were used, souvenir books were signed and drawn in, and it was as memorable as it could be.

Then just two weeks later, my oldest sister, my cousin and I went to the sunny seaside spectacular that is Blackpool. We were attending Rogue Events’ Asylum 16 - the unofficial Supernatural convention. With three episodes left to go from season twelve, there was a mixture of people who did and didn’t want to be spoiled by the guests from the show - but it hardly mattered. They packed in 14 guests a day; Saturday we saw the entire roster, and then Sunday we got to see them again for fresh questions, but in a different order. We didn’t need autographs or photos with the stars, so we saw everything for two days. However, I understand people were unhappy with their autos and photos, as they apparently either clashed with each other or the meet’n greets that were part of their ticket package. All I can say is, between talks I spent fifteen minutes on social media trying to get answers as to where the ‘discos’ were each night. Didn’t find them, assumed they were in the main hall, but then decided we’d rather get on a Blackpool tram and head into the party capital of the beach instead. We went back to several haunts, had some absolutely cracking fish and chips (well, the other two did - I don’t like fish so PROPER STEAK AND KIDNEY PIES ALL ROUND! YESS!), and strolled along the beach. Stunning sunshine the whole time we were there - it wasn’t until we started driving back and we hit The Sarf that it started raining.

As good as it was seeing all the guests and eating and drinking our way round Blackpool front, I believe that was my last Rogue Events convention. There was no organisation and no communication, and although I like to think of myself as a pretty easy-going person, I was getting irate at the lack of information that could so easily have been shared in so many accessible places, both on and off social media (or even their own bloody website).

I’m off to Hong Kong next week - not to live there (again), but for a holiday. I’ve got friends to catch up with and fun to have and I need to prove to myself that I could never work there again and to get over it. Closure, I suppose. Hong Kong, it’s language, culture, and people will always be a part of me now - there’s no getting away from that - but I wouldn’t want to. A part of me, yes. But perhaps by the time I get back and re-assess my life, the thought of it will no longer be a dominant part. Still, the thrill of the idea of being there again hits me at nine at night when I’m checking I have stuff to wear when I get back to the proper heat, at six in the morning when I wake up for work knowing I’ve got to pack 7 days’ work into 3 days at work before I fly, when I set a reminder on my phone for me to check in online. Going through a list of things I’ll need, and realising I won’t need a coat, or a jacket, or in fact anything more than a thin cardie; not needing a power transformer / plug for my smart devices; looking through old shipping receipts and relocation stuff for my Octopus card and then realising I left with my flatmate before I came back to England; finding my old HK ID card and realising it’s not valid any more; opening an old wallet to check for said ID card and finding HK$40 in it… All these things make me happy. I cannot wait to get back to HK and see how much it’s changed - and hopefully, how “it’s a great place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there”. I need to close off that part of my life - some part of my brain never left, never accepted that I didn’t live there and that being in the UK wasn’t just a break but a ‘permanent’ thing.

I think that’s all the news that’s fit to print. I’ll be back at some point - I really have to blog more often. Back in the day it was once a week. Now it’s barely once every quarter. But hey-ho.

Soopy-twist, everyone.

Where There's Smoke

Yeah, done some more writing. I’m still polishing my own original fiction novel, which I took to the Writer’s Workshop in York and got some very good feedback for. I’ve got some time off later this month so I’ll be working even harder on that to get it up to spec, and then it’s going out to agents.


Anyway, I digress. I’ve just completed a Supernatural and Constantine crossover story - eleven chapters - that I’m polishing as I put it up chapter by chapter.

Ladies, gentlemen, boths and neithers, I give you:

Title: Where There’s Smoke

Rating: T \ Teen and Up for adult themes, slightly horrific things that go nom-nom-nom in the dark, sinister tones, a bit of rumpy-pumpy, and John’s swearing.

Summary:
Sam and Dean find an unlikely ally in the war against… library books. John Constantine? All he wants is a quiet life. That’s not the canon way though, right?

Disclaimer: 
I do not own John Constantine or Supernatural (if I did, there'd be more Hellblazer and less New 52, and Crowley would have his own spin-off). I DO NOT condone smoking anything in any form. This is all for fun, not for profit. Unless you add me to any favourites lists or leave comments. Then I profit in the knowledge that someone thinks it’s pretty good. 

Characters:
Dean Winchester. Sam Winchester. John Constantine. A demon or two, and maybe some faerie folk.

Linky-link-link: HERE at An Archive of Our Own under my name TozaBoma (because they don’t re-edit your stuff later) and HERE at Fanfiction dot net under my name Mardy Lass.

If you even visit the page, I thank you.

Tags:
~ fan-fic ~ Constantine ~ Supernatural ~ Hellblazer

Dying Days

Once upon a time, I did a fic called A Study in Shapeshifting - a Sherlock and Supernatural crossover. I really enjoyed it, but that was another life, another me. I was living in Hong Kong and writing for fun. Then it started to become obvious that my time there was coming to an end - for many reasons. My writing suffered a downturn - couldn’t pull anything off, couldn’t get the write words on virtual paper, couldn’t come up with a single proper plot. I floundered.

Then one day I had an idea, and I wrote some scenes. I knew it would have Sherlock Holmes in it (fuelled by my feelings for season 3 of the BBC series) and I knew it would have the Winchesters in it (fuelled by my undying love for how season 9 is panning out, minus that one hiccup of an episode that We Do Not Talk About).

One I’d returned to England after eleven years of living on a different continent, I went about settling in and getting back to writing. And here we are - another Sherlock and Supernatural crossover. You don’t need to have read the other one to start this one - it’s not a sequel and no references are made to the original (well, one, but it’s not important).

Ladies, gentlemen, boths and neithers, I give you:


Title: Dying Days

Rating: Rated T \ Gen and up (language, fights, weapons).

Summary:
Deaths of soldiers are haunting the newspapers - soldiers John knew from his former army company. Sherlock needs to find the serial killer before they can come for John, but the killer isn't human. They know this kind of case is not their speciality. If only they had a couple of friends who knew about this supernatural stuff. Oh wait; they do. Enter Sam and Dean - and a few days no-one will forget.

Disclaimer: 
I do not own Sherlock or Supernatural (if I did, there'd be a rewrite of season 3 of Sherlock, and Crowley would have his own spin-off). This is all for fun, not for profit. Unless you add me to any favourites lists or leave comments. Then I profit in the knowledge that someone thinks it’s pretty good. 

Characters: Sherlock Holmes. John Watson. Dean Winchester. Sam Winchester. OC: ally. OC: villain. OC: you’ll have to read to find out.

Linky-link-link: HERE at An Archive of Our Own under my name TozaBoma (because they don’t re-edit your stuff later) and HERE at Fanfiction dot net under my name Mardy Lass.
The first one (A Study in Shapeshifting), if you really want it, is HERE at An Archive of Our Own under my name TozaBoma and HERE at Fanfiction dot net under my name Mardy Lass.

If you even visit the page, I thank you.

Tags:
~ fan-fic ~ Sherlock ~ Supernatural

Finally a fic

Hehehehehe.

Said I couldn't do it.

I did.

Back in July, I said I couldn't finish it.

I did.



Title: A Study in Shapeshifting

Rating: Rated T (for naughty words).
Summary:
Sam and Dean track down what they think is a shapeshifter. Problem: it’s now in London. Bigger problem: two strange but well-meaning gentlemen think they can help. Two strange but well-meaning gentlemen called Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson.
Disclaimer:
I do not own The CW, Warner Bros., the BBC or any of their characters. This is all for fun, not for profit. Unless you add me to any favourites lists or leave comments. Then I profit in the knowledge that someone thinks it’s pretty good. For those about to read, I salute you.
Linky-link-link:
It's HERE at An Archive of Our Own (because they don’t re-edit your stuff later) and HERE at Fanfiction dot net (because some people still use that place) and, despite all the formatting woes, HERE at SPNVille.net (really haven’t been there in too long).

Chapter 1 has just been posted; 10 more to go over the next few weeks or so. If you do happen to give it a quick read, then thank you very much.

Tags:
~ fan-fic ~ Supernatural ~ Sherlock

Writing and stuff

So there’s the fic about the brothers Winchester meeting Sherlock and John, and then there’s the small matter of the Burn Notice one that I wrote in two days because I had nothing - and I mean, NOTHING - to do at work for nine hours, and I was only working on those two because I can’t write book six of my space opera (even though half of it is already written in fragments) because no-one wants the first one (total of eight rejection letters that has taken a year to compile), so I decided to finish my other sci-fi one first (about people accidentally swapping bodies; nothing to do with my space opera) and then try to get that ‘sold’ to an agent, seeing as that’s probably a lot more bankable.

Deep breath.

Writing is back as the focus of my life for the first time in a long time, because the rest of it is all so boring. It’s fine - there’s nothing wrong with it. It just goes and goes, with no excitement. It’s just not as exciting as tearing my hair out trying to somehow stop some OC from running amuck.

And that’s it.

~ fan-fic ~ writing ~ agents ~ novel

Writing and stuff

For those of you just joining us, I write quite a bit. Right now, I’ve got five books of a space opera / sci-fi saga written, one of which is completely sorted and in the hands of a few agents, in the hopes that someone will want to sell it to publishers for me. I’ve also got another sci-fi book going on, but that’s nothing at all to do with spaceships and planets and new languages and cultures and dead people and bad guys and such. Well alright, it has one bad guy, obviously. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a book. But when that stalls and I just can’t get anything done on it, it’s fan fiction I play with. Right now I’m in the middle of a ‘Supernatural’ and ‘Sherlock’ crossover. It’s actually going pretty well, although I’m not too impressed with chapters five or six - they need overhauling. I’ve already done a ‘Supernatural’, ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Torchwood’ threesome (oh no, people, no! I don’t do slash!), and a ‘Sherlock’ and ‘Doctor Who’ crossover, so this seemed like a proper giggle.

Aside from this, and taking into account that I can’t seem to make an agent want my stuff so far, I’ve just started a course with The Writers Bureau. Hopefully, this will eventually get me work as a freelance article writer. From there, apart from giving up my day job in time, it might help me get an agent. That’s the plan, anyway.

It’s kind of making me rethink everything I expected of my life. I always knew I’d never have a ‘normal’ job - routines and habits are really hard to keep. I can’t even be arsed to keep smoking. But a freelance writer? Finding jobs and submitting stuff and keeping myself in jobs that way? Risky, obviously. It’s not guaranteed work and it’s not guaranteed money. But hey, if I can sell a few books too, maybe it’d be ok. And to be a freelance person, you have to pretty much go out and see stuff - coffee shops don’t cut it. Trips across the harbour even (gasp!), concerts, films, restaurants - activity type stuff. Which means I’ll have to leave the house, but then again, it’s going out to do all the things I really want to do anyway. So it’s all good.

Apart from writing, I’ve also had a stonking good time with a ‘Supernatural’ rewatch - starting with the pilot. At time of writing, I’m up to 2x10 (Croatoan). Bloody good fun all round. It was season seven that reminded me how good the series could be, after season six was distinctly lacking. Anyway, the blow-by-blow account of the rewatch is here.


What else? Or yes. I’ve decided that Life never stops long enough for me to make the changes I want, so I’m giving Life two fingers and doing what I want anyway - i.e., joining a proper gym and getting back into some martial arts. Wing Chun, to be exact. I cannot wait - and I don’t say that about a lot of things that don’t include Christian Bale or Jeremy Renner. I have a kind of induction to get through and then it’s boot camp/pilates/Wing Chun time. In a word: HUUURRGH.

That’s pretty much it. It looks like I’m back to blogging after all. I’ve been having so much fun on tumblr it’s unreal, but sometimes you want a proper bit of text, rather than sixteen million snippets and half-sentences and amusing dancing gifs.

So there we have it. Soopytwist.

Tags:

fan-fic ~ Supernatural ~ Sherlock ~ writing

That which we call 'writing', by any other name would read as awesomesauce

You know when you’re in the middle of writing a book and it’s not writing itself? Ideas dry up and you think: ‘ah bugger, guess I’ll have to leave it a week?’ Well it’s happened to me about three weeks in a row.

Never one to give up writing for longer than a shift at work, I went to something else I’d started but put down in favour of said book. And, ineluctably, here we are: another Supernatural fanfic.


“None Of Your Beeswax”
Rating: Rated T (for Dean).
Summary:
Sam and Dean get mixed up in something rather old and waxy that doesn’t concern them. Don’t you hate it when that happens?
Set during happier times. No spoilers for s4, 5, 6 or 7. Enjoy.
Also up at SupernaturalVille, the home of SPN fan fiction. Now at Fanfic.net, too.
Disclaimer:
I do not own Supernatural or in fact owt but the MacBook Air I typed this on. All I hope to gain from this is reviews. Which, obviously, you can’t bank.

Linky-link-link:






And there you have it. Chapters will be up mid-week and Sunday, just like the good old days!


Peach and lube, people. Peach and lube.

Supernatural 6x20: Wait, whut?

Danger! Danger! Spoilers Will Robinson!
Supernatural season six spoilers are contained in the following post!


You know the story about the bloke who is drowning? A second bloke comes up to him in a boat and he says: ‘Do you need help?’ And the bloke goes: ‘No, it’s ok, God will save me’. So he’s still there in the water and then another bloke comes along with another boat, and he says the same thing: ‘Do you need help?’ And again the bloke says: ‘No, it’s ok, God will save me’. This happens a third time, and eventually, the bloke drowns. He goes up to Heaven, he sees Saint Peter on the Pearly gates, and he says: ‘Excuse me, but where was God? He said he would save me, he said he would look after me.’ And Saint Peter says: ‘Well what did you want? He sent three boats!’

This was the feeling I had when I was watching the latest Supernatural episode, The Man Who Would Be King. It was a really good episode, and I liked that they were brave enough to do an entire episode seemingly from Castiel’s point of view. It’s not very often that a show has the time and ability to give you the bug’s eye view, but this episode was very well done, and very well shot - especially the moments where Castiel is eavesdropping, totally invisible to people in his line of sight. There were lots of the usual lovely dark smouldering profile shots (yes Jensen Ackles, I am talking to you), and there were some very very nice touches (‘If there were a demon version of Bobby Singer, it would be Ellesworth’; cue lots of shots of a demon in a trucker cap giving people shit about dead bodies whilst bullshitting down the phone). In fact all of it was very well written - thank you Ben Edlund, again I bow to your script writing genius - and it was very well executed. So well executed, in fact, that you can appreciate Castiel’s predicament even as you side with Dean and want the two of them to understand why they’re butting heads.

But Castiel missed his boat sent by God; he didn’t listen to what he eavesdropped from Dean. That was his ‘message from God’, that was his wake-up call. He just didn’t hear it.

Considering that I have been bitching and moaning about how some of the episodes have been lacking recently, I really need to pass comment on how fucking good this episode was, and how it was a very welcome return to form. The episode before, where we see Eve finally get her comeuppance (and, I'm sorry, but how fucking badass was Dean, taking her out like that?), just goes to show that they are not going to be dragging out the story arcs over an entire season. There was the small matter of Sam’s dark and light broken chakram being put back together, which may well have been stretched out a lot longer under the previous management (no disrespect to the previous management. Don’t get me wrong; when season five finished, I thought the show was finished. Part of me thinks it still is). Then there was this whole Eve Mother arc, which I was very glad to see was not stretched out for the entire season. Now we have the entire finale set up in just the last three episodes. Normally, this is a little shaky and it’s not exactly the way you do things. However, season six has been all about throwing the rule book out of the window and dispensing with otherwise tiresome plot arcs quite quickly. This is the reason I am still watching it, even though I’ve not been happy with some of the episodes and how they’ve dragged their feet.

Using only the last three episodes to set up the finale is not as crazy as it sounds. In actual fact, they are drawing on the last five and a half seasons of history. Case in point: bringing back an old vampire friend, but because this is season six, she’s quickly dispatched by one of the new posse. And you know me: I love posse! (Yes, you knew that was coming!)

So, what do we have to look forward to? Obvious red herrings? Angels with their loyalties divided? Just for once, this will not be about tearing Sam and Dean asunder - and for that I am very fucking glad. That old chestnut was getting decidedly old, and it’s a brave new management than has decided to go with peripheral characters and how they can be put through the torture mill to tip their dominoes in Sam and Dean’s world. This episode should have played out as one of those Sam-and-Dean-lite stories, but in fact it worked really well as a 50-50. All we have left is two episodes shown back-to-back on USA TV, available for download in your area. At least, I really hope so.

If they hadn’t decided to have episode 20 this way, I don’t know if I would bother watching the last two episodes of the season. I know that’s sacrilege coming from someone like me who owns seasons one to five on DVD, has done a million episode LOLcaps, recaps, headlines, and has enjoyed the last few years of fanfiction excitement, both writing and reading, but it’s the absolute truth. As long as they continue to pull out brand-new plotlines, and save partial rehashes by subverting them, perhaps season seven may not be that bad.

*ducks rotten tomatoes*

What I mean to say is that it was all becoming much of a muchness, and I was bored with how it was going. However, the last few episodes have been solid, and there have been just enough good stories in the meantime to keep it ticking over. The good ol’ days of season two - and season three - it ain’t, but it does have its fair share of thrills and spills and wills. I will be watching the last two episodes, so I suppose I will be watching season seven when it finally airs.

So before I piss of any more of the Old Faithful, I’ll bring this to a close. A very satisfied close.

Soopytwist.

P.S. - THEY 'BROUGHT BACK' CROWLEY! For that alone, I will watch the finale.

Tags:
~ SPN ~ Supernatural ~ Jensen Ackles

Happy new year!

Yes, it's Chinese new year again. Rabbit, in case you were wondering.

So health, wealth and happiness, good fortune, good luck and all those other things. Whirled peas, save Whales and free Tibet (with the purchase of one other regular-priced Tibet).

Peach and lube, everyone! Peach and lube.

Tags:
~ CNY ~ Dean Winchester

SPN update

Yes, I’ve been busy. No, I can’t tell you what I’ve been up to. Well, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. Etc.

No, actually? I’ve done some more Supernatural season six headlines. For those of you just tuning in, they replace the old LOLcaps from season five. Sheerly because the LOLcaps took five hours per episode and the format is now wearing a little thin.

Behold, as I present the updated:



In other news, my A-Team fan fiction is now up to chapter 4 of 5, and the second book I’m writing is now finished. Adopts Hugh Laurie ‘pass the marmalade’ voice: Pass the agent!

That’s pretty much it. Well, there is more, but it would take slightly more webspace than Blogger possesses to tell you all about it.

Soopytwist.


Tags:
Supernatural ~ fan-fic ~ The A-Team ~ LOLcaps ~ fan-fic