Author: deejgray

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Black Widow (film)

Black Widow was a movie. Choices were made. Not entirely sure I liked all of them, but still, at least we finally got the movie that’s been promised forever. We finally stopped getting jerked around by the studio. We got something we’d been asking for pretty much since her intro in Iron Man 2.

The film itself was okay. There was more than one point that the movie startled a laugh out of me. I really loved the vibe of it and getting to see more about Natasha here in the MCU. I loved seeing Alexei and Malina and Yalena and all their interactions. The science-y bits were kind of cool, if absolutely terrifying in both scope and practice. Ray Winstone, the bad guy was a snooze-fest and I’m still kind of pissed about what we learned about Budapest. Rick Mason was amazing and I love the actor they cast for it and I hope we get more of him. I was also amused by Valentina’s cameo.

Here’s where I got angry. This movie was treated, in large part, as an afterthought. It should have had a bigger emotional impact and it didn’t. Like it made me laugh a little, but other than that, it fell flat. . The major reason it fell flat was because I already knew what was going to happen to Natasha ultimately and just having that knowledge, robbed this movie of a lot of its strength and emotional impact. We should have gotten this movie before Infinity War at best and definitely before Endgame. It would have had a much bigger impact on the fans. Because they didn’t, we got cheated out of what would have been a much superior experience. We got cheated out of any kind of sequels with Natasha in them.

That makes me angry. I was already furious about Natasha’s end in Endgame and seeing this movie just made that anger worse. I didn’t think it was possible for me to get more livid at Endgame. Then I watched Black Widow and discovered there were still depths to descend in the anger escalator of Endgame feels.

So yeah, it was A Movie. Choices were made. I just wish that those choices hadn’t been at the expense of the legions of Natasha fans or the character herself.

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Fandom Firsts

Fandom Firsts/First Introductions have been on my mind a lot this summer. It’s been the kind of summer where work-life balance is a joke when it comes to my day job. All I’ve done besides work is ponder stuff and occasionally watch something on television. Mostly rewatching comfort stuff because that’s all I’ve had the spoons for. I was rewatching Babylon 5 season one with my dad and it hit me when we got to the first Bester episode that this show was my first introduction to Walter Koenig as an actor. My parents knew him first as Chekov from Star Trek, but I wasn’t introduced to the Star Trek movies and original series until several years after I’d found B5. Seeing him as Chekov was a hell of a headtrip that first time, I kept expecting him to be working some kind of angle or having a shady plan (Dad was particularly amused by this).

Same thing happened much later on as my nerd household started watching Falling Skies and it took me a couple of episodes to place where I’d seen Colin Cunningham who played John Pope before ( I keep forgetting IMDB is a thing ya’ll. I remember a time before it) and that was an even bigger headtrip. Cunningham played Major Paul Davis on Stargate SG-1 who is a character that was a direct opposite to Pope in just about every possible way. It’s still kind of a headtrip when I watch episodes of either series. Cunningham’s range is great.

Or how, since I was a Disney Afternoon kid, getting introduced to the “Indiana Jones” kind of character via Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers years and years before I ever actually saw Raiders of the Lost Ark. Same with the “Magnum P.I” character type. Granted 90’s Cartoons were a million times smarter than they had to be (and a lot of them still hold up which will never not be hilarious and amazing) and a lot of them were packed full of references and visuals that would not necessarily make sense to the target demographic but would be fun easter eggs or references to their parents. I mean The Mighty Ducks: The Animated Series had several episodes that were spoofs or parodies of popular movies (including but not limited to Die Hard and Pulp Fiction). In a cartoon. On the *Disney* Channel.

These are all just a handful of examples – this post could go on forever if I tried to list them all out. Tell me about some of your Fandom Firsts/First Impressions in the comments!

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In The Heights (film)

I finally got to see the In The Heights movie. Never gotten a chance to see it live on Broadway and it hasn’t been here on a traveling tour that I know of, so this was the first time I really had gotten to experience the story (I am aware of the criticisms that had come up around the film version and I agree with them, but this wasn’t an opportunity I could pass up. I am glad I didn’t.

It was going to be good, no doubts on that front. I knew that it was going to be moving and emotional because that’s what Lin and Quiara and Alex and everyone else associated with the film or show is really really good at doing. I knew all these little bits of trivia about it because of my falling headlong down the Hamilton rabbit hole a couple of years ago.

All of this I knew and expected it.

I did not expect that it would make me homesick to the point of tears. The kind of saudade that bowls you over like a tsunami wave and leaves you with an aching head, buckled knees, and the inability to breathe for all of the sheer feeling that is going through you.

There are days where I miss Brasil so much I can barely function. I miss the communidade and the familia and the food. I miss the way everything is so vibrant and colorful and like Usnavi says, the streets are made of music.

If you have a chance before July 11th, maybe give the film a shot. It is a very enjoyable film.

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Hope Wins.

It’s been a couple of hours since we got the official call and I am still shaking with the force of sheer relief and emotion running through me- that we won. We pulled it out and Love WON ya’ll, Hope WON. It may not have been the exact blowout that some were hoping for, but we got it done. Our BIPOC carried us over the line in Arizona and Georgia and in Philadelphia. Sex workers carried us over the line in Nevada. We don’t have to suffer that man in the government anymore, polluting everything he touches.

Biden and Harris are our next President and Vice President.

The work is by no means done. We still need to push the same way we have been for the changes we want to see in the world. A little under half the country still voted for him. We still have 2 months before the changeover. They’ve already shown up with their guns and their threats and their itchy trigger fingers. White brothers and sisters need to be standing in front of our BIPOC people. Do no harm but take no shit. Do not concede an inch. Make a plan for a safe place to go if things go pear-shaped, buy some extra groceries just in case.

Today, take a deep breath. Then we get back to it. President Biden and Madam Vice President Harris have a long and hard job ahead of them. We have to rebuild the Executive Branch. We have to focus on the GA runoffs so that we can take back the Senate and Congress will be Dem Majority again. We need to get this pandemic under control.

Take courage, friends. We won battles all over, but the struggle is not over yet. Take heart, love won. Hope carried the day.

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Articles of the Federation for Dewey’s Readathon

Articles of the Federation is written by Keith R.A. DeCandido and it is the 15th thing I have read for the readathon. It is also extremely my jam. It was marketed as “The West Wing but in Trek” and that is an very apt description. Also, full disclosure, Keith’s a dear friend and I love all his incredibly varied work. This book is no exception to that.

I was incubated a Trekkie, my parents are mad Trekkies, and I grew up with Trek in a way that I didn’t with Star Wars. It’s always been there in the background of all my fandoms. This book gave us a glance at the inner workings of the Federation government which is not something we get to see a lot of in the series. It’s fantastic.

The characterizations are brilliant and very memorable, the writing excellent, and you walk out of this novel having had a very vivid picture painted for you in exquisite detail. If you loved the West Wing, if you love Trek, you will not be disappointed with this book.

My only regret is that there are not seven more seasons of this show/book. I would cheerfully throw all the money at it.

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Die #1-14 for Dewey’s Readathon

It’s Dewey’s time again! I love this so much and it’s the 3rd or 4th year that I am participating in it. Got a later start but hey, it doesn’t matter as much because yay reading.!!! I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks. Currently I am on the lunch break so I figured it was as good a time as any to update y’all on my progress.

So far for the readathon: Die issues 1 through 14. I love this comic. I love this comic more than I can properly express in words or emojis. Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans and their whole team are just freaking brilliant and what they do and this comic is a masterclass all its own on craft, games, storytelling, and the consequences of our own choices. There are layers to it that doesn’t reveal themselves truly until you reread it.

If I have a favorite type of literature, it’s things like this. If you enjoy twisty things, D&D, or really self-aware literature that likes to turn tropes and cliches on their end, do yourself a favor and pick this up. The first 2 trades are out and the third should be following in the next little while.

It’s so breathtakingly unflinchingly good.

There’s even a beta version of an RPG that Gillen wrote while creating this. It’s magical.

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New Liver, Same Eagles: Newman Strikes Again

Reader, I regret to inform you that the Neurotypicals are at it again. Or rather one specific neurotypical is. There is a recent book review in the NY Times that isn’t worth the ink or paper or pixels it’s printed on. It’s written by Judith Newman and it’s a terrifying mass of horrific delusion and absolutely no fact-checking. If that name sounds familiar, this is the same person that wrote To Siri With Love, a book so actively harmful there was a whole movement to #BoycottToSiri because of the levels of sheer hate speech about neurodivergent people in it. The book where she divulged medical histories and personal information about her son without ever asking if that was okay with HIM. The one where she wants medical power of attorney over that same son when he hits 18 so she can get him sterilized.

Yeah, that person.

The review she wrote for We Walk is even more delusional that the letter that Steve Rogers wrote to Tony Stark at the end of Captain America: Civil War. It name-drops Allen Buchanan, a “bioethicist”/eugenicist which is not surprising given the author, but still left me staring in almost incoherent fury at my screen. The book itself has its own issues, falling into the same traps that To Siri did. Newman also seems to come to the conclusion that inspiration porn is good, actually. Which was right around the time my blood pressure started spiking again. Twitter link below goes into some of the details as to why this was a bad take par excellence.

Twitter Link Discussing The Review

As for my personal opinion, I tend towards the side of no representation for us without us. As an autistic adult, I sincerely wish parents of autistic children would stop writing about us without any seeming care for how their words affect us.

Words matter. Attitudes matter. Theirs are actively harmful to people like me.

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Book Review: The White Plague

NB: The bulk of this post was written well before the 2020 pandemic.

The White Plague, a book that never fails to garner an interesting reaction whenever it comes up in SFF circles. A good friend and fellow SFF/horror fen once told me that being able to get all the way through the book I’m reviewing today made me a better fen than him (which is complete BS – fen are fen are fen)   Another person at a Dragon*Con panel I attended mentioned that anyone who could read all the way through this novel deserved a medal or possibly several stiff drinks (which okay fair). Having read all the way through this novel, I can see what would provoked those comments even if I strongly disagree with the former.  This is not a novel for the faint of heart or anyone with an overactive imagination. I have no idea how I made it all the way through without terrifying nightmares. I’ve spoken with longtime horror readers who couldn’t finish this book. And I don’t blame them.  This book by Frank Herbert (yes, that Frank Herbert ) is arguably one of his most chilling and disturbing works.

The Dune saga will blow your mind and then restructure it, as will Whipping Star and its sequel, The Dosadi Experiment.   Herbert doesn’t write “nice” stories, and when there are tender or nice-seeming parts, that’s when a careful reader starts looking for the hidden gom-jabber or poison ring. However,  The White Plague is in a league of its own when it comes to just outright terrifying fiction.  The plot is rather beautiful in the simplicity of it.   A man suffers a terrible tragedy and resolves to get revenge on those responsible. We’ve seen this plot replicated over countless movies, shows, comics, books…the devil, as they say, is in the details. That is where Herbert takes us. The revenge arc unfolds before your eyes from start to finish. You are witness to both the immediate and long term repercussions of what the main character O’Neill has set into motion, out of a rage born from overwhelming grief.   Over the course of the novel, you see how that knowledge, the sure and uncompromising knowledge of exactly what he’s done takes its toll on him mentally, physically, and emotionally.

The way that the governments of the world react to such a event happening. How they handle the various responses to O’Neill’s initial demands and then as they realize the long term consequences that the plague will have…it’s breathtaking the way it all comes out.  Herbert is a master at combining the political, mental, and communal drama in his exploration of how such a thing would change the face of the world as we know it.

The chilling part of this novel, the part that often makes people find it hard to continue through with it is that the novel itself is very blunt and realistic. Herbert doesn’t pull any punches, doesn’t attempt to soften any of the blows with mysticism or philosophy.   It reads less like a novel and more like a non-fiction piece describing the horrific tragedy that happened.

With the starkness of the writing and the events that unfold, Herbert plays into the sense that the events that happen in this novel are not only realistic, but plausible.   There are no fantastical elements, no aliens, no spice, just a human being using modern science to inflict an horrific plague on the earth.

That’s the horrifying chilling  element. That’s what stops readers cold. The fact that these events are not only realistic, but plausible.   The events that occur in the novel could conceivably and believably happen tomorrow.

And that is a revelation that can and will shake you down to your core.  It’s one thing to read a novel that scares you, it’s another thing to realize that the novel that scared you could actually happen in real life.

It’s a fantastic read (but maybe wait to read it until 2021, okay?).

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Dragon*Con Goes Virtual 2020

In this year of Our Lord, 2020, still in the throes of the C19 pandemic, my home convention decided to do the smart thing and instead of canceling outright, decided to go all virtual. And as cons go, it wasn’t bad at all. I got a lot of sleeping done in between panels – something that really doesn’t happen so much at con. I also ate better/healthier and bonus points, it was all me-safe (food allergies make con-going really interesting sometimes)!

I got to talk to the con family on panels and through Discord and Facebook – I dragged my parents onto a panel with me (that was super fun) and got to talk about mythologies and Titans and Westworld and Ladies in SFF and tell fun con stories and while nothing can ever replace being physically at con and I only really got to see a fraction of the people I love there…it was better than not having anything at all. I mostly hung out on the Classics track, the AMSFF track and the High Fantasy track. There were a couple of prerecorded panels that were showing on the main programming channels. I got to do some chatting with friends and also some mini-workshops. In a twist from previous years, I was mostly on Facebook instead of Twitter this year. The signal was better and didn’t drop nearly as often as it does at con itself.

I mean I definitely need to invest in some better equipment but what I had got the job done. I made new friends and got to squee in the comments of posts about stuff coming up and stuff that happened and we added a new cult to the lists of “official” Dragon*Con cults.

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