Tabbyclaw

It doesn't discount anything. It's all been speculation that the baby or the woman is Mara, and there's no indication that that's true. Whatever we might have guessed the "Origins" title to mean, it's become clear with this installment that it was referring to the origins of the town itself, and that the Troubles predate the settlement we know as Haven.

Last week they established that no sex happened in Colorado. Duke allowed Nathan to think that this meant that nothing at all happened in Colorado. It was a nice look at how well they know each other. Duke is lying by omission about something that he doesn't consider a big deal, but he knows it would matter to Nathan and that's enough to make him feel guilty and evasive. Nathan knows that if Duke is lying about something, it's because he knows he's going to be in trouble when the truth comes out, and how bad must it have been if Duke is experiencing guilt about it. They were both making it seem worse than it was by applying each other's standards. interestingly, I found Vince and Dave a lot more distinct when they were alone, but once they started having scenes together they started to blend. I imagine it's harder keeping to the "new" characters when so much of both brothers' characterizations is based in the way they play off each other and the rhythm the actors have found.

Well, they got me with Mara pretending to be Audrey. I spent most of her scene with Duke going "this feels off somehow," but I was still sticking to my original thought that Mara wasn't going to try faking it because she doesn't have the patience to feign vulnerability when she considers herself so above everyone else. I bow to Emily Rose for knowing exactly what she's doing. (Is she overacting sometimes as Mara? Yeah, and sometimes it works with the character and sometimes it doesn't. But she's doing a bangup job on the whole "not being Audrey" thing even when Mara isn't being a brat and a ham.) And not only does Emily get to play someone else, so does everyone else this week. Words cannot express the glee I felt upon seeing the trailers for this one, because bodyswap is one of my favorite sci-fi tropes, and I was not disappointed by the performances here. It was a great mix of "that's an excellent subtle shift of your body language" and "God, you giant comedic dorks." Hard to choose an MVP for this one, but since I spent the entire episode praying to see Lucas as Duke that's where I have to cast my vote. The facepalm, the repeating it when he realizes he can't feel it, the vocal cadence, the excessive gesturing (all of it left-handed!), it's all gold. And yeah, the arc-plot stuff was pretty decent, but you give me a bodyswap episode and I'm not going to focus on anything else the first time around.

I have no problem with the wood flavor (I almost like it sometimes, just as a contrast to the ice cream), but the texture of ice cream on a stick is rarely as appealing as regular ice cream.

Dropping in to plug Wakfu, a French Flash-animated cartoon whose first season was just put up on Netflix, both subbed and dubbed. (Watch the subbed version. Seriously. This is not an argument I usually get into, but the English actors are really not great.) It's based on the MMORPG of the same name, so it's a fairly standard Five-Man-Band Fantasy Quest story about characters with disparate personalities and character classes becoming friends and fighting a Great Evil. Nothing you haven't seen before, but it's entertaining and visually appealing, and the characters are fun. There is a second season in existence that they promise will be subbed/dubbed, but I don't know when, and the first season works as a self-contained arc while still leaving plenty of room for more stuff to happen.

The only reason I would not be 100% behind this idea is because my favorite part of that show was the villains (especially Drakken and Shego) and I can't imagine them translating to live-action well. Another weird litle comparison is that I can't hear the neighbor's name (Bryn) without thinking of the Vampire Weekend song of the same name. I can't help wondering if that was deliberate, since in my limited non-top-40 musical exposure they seem to be a "shorthand for 'hipster'" band.

Took me half the episode to connect that the guy's name was Freddy and smack myself in the face for not getting it sooner. Not as many laugh-out-oud moments for me this week, but a lot of "heh"s and a major "aww" at the end. My favorite line was "You don't have to signal me. Observing all this in tandem with you." Followed by Eliza's painful and unnecessary OK sign. The interaction with Charmonique was also lovely. I never saw the aired version and I heard people saying that they redid the ending scene because Eliza was "too nice too fast," so I wasn't really expecting them to keep having pleasant conversations. I'm glad it looks like they will be. Also appreciated: Another appearance by Henry's advertising rhymes. Eliza pointing out that Henry wants her to laugh at his jokes. Eliza observing in voiceover that Henry reached for Facebook because he was feeling lonely, but not hammering us over the head with the parallel between them. This is probably an odd comparison to anyone who's not me, but Eliza's speech patterns and the way she randomly shortens words reminds me of nobody quite so much as Kim Possible.

There was a six-month period in college where there was never more than an hour at a time where I did not have Tori Amos' "Talula" running through my head. I have no idea why, but thankfully it has not recurred.

Favorite tiny moment: Crane telling Abbie to 'unspool' the security video, and her little smile and head-shake of "Not quite, but God bless you for trying, you giant dork." I laughed at Crane's delivery on the "Your generation didn't invent homosexuals*" rant, but the whole exchange felt off. Abbie's lecture on gay rights felt too rehearsed (although fridge brilliance kicks in at the thought that maybe she's been bracing for this moment for a while), and even if Crane was personally unconcerned about homosexuality I'd still expect him to be surprised to see it on public display. And I have a hard time believing this is the first time he's come across men wearing hats indoors. One possibly-odd thing I appreciate is the fact that -- tying her up and attempting to blood-bond with her aside -- Abraham isn't aggressive or violent with Katrina. I keep expecting him to hit her when she doesn't fall into his arms the way he wants her to just because it's so common for the media to act like that's the only way you can prove that a stalker-with-a-crush character is Really Bad, but it wouldn't fit with his particular brand of horrible human being and the show knows it. In fact, showing a wide range of types of evil is something that the show is consistently good at. *Yes, rigid categorization of sexuality is a relatively new thing, but that's beside this particular point.

High-schoolers in the US don't get recess; it's a grade-school thing only, and often only the lower grades where a) the average kid needs a little bit of running-around time to keep them from going completely off the rails and b) they're trying to foster the habit of regular physical activity for fun.

I don't get tired of We Will Rock You. It's short, it's catchy, and it doesn't really burrow into my head. We Are the Champions, however, is one of my 'punch holes in the radio in my hurry to change the channel' songs, and it drives me nuts that radio stations treat them like one song. It's not a current "If I hear that one more time...", but I'm working on a story that takes place in 2010 and one scene involves a character singing the first song that comes into his head to drown out a supernatural influence. I spent a while mulling over what that was likely to be for this particular character, but after a while it occurred to me that in 2010 and 2011 everybody had Rolling in the Deep stuck in their heads at all times.

I'd like to note that I made that post just before powering everything down and going to bed last night, and as I was shutting off the computer I thought, "Dammit, I should have said 'trying to cajole a friend.'"

I went 'aww' out loud when Rosa appeared in the horrible dress, and then again when she made it her mission to help Boyle find a new apartment. There is a tiny bit of me that's worried they're eventually going to get together, but the way he asked felt like he's 100% over trying to woo her and was just trying to get a friend to do him an onerous favor.

That's where the "arrogance" part of the equation comes in. I don't think she thinks she's immortal in the way that a god would think they were immortal, but the way people who do asinine stunts on YouTube think they're immortal.

I said on another forum that Nathan is probably the TV character I feel the most protective of at the moment, because I want to protect him from himself as much as I want to protect him from the awful situations that lead to him making terrible terrible decisions.

"I think people see me as a dramatic, serious actress," says the woman whom I will never think of as anyone other than Julia from Heart and Souls. (It's not your fault, Kyra. Robert Downey Jr. has only escaped the same instant mental association from me by virtue of being in so damn many movies.)

Preach it, especially the first sentence. All I want for Christmas is a prequel series about these two idiots being teenage frienemies. I'm reading it less as her thinking she's genuinely immortal and more a mix of generalized arrogance and the knowledge that they (think they) need her too much to hurt her. I feel like "It's just really weird circumstances" sums up a lot of the odd or questionable behavior on this show. This episode was my favorite so far this season. Everything fell into place for this one, and even if we're still not getting a lot of answers I feel like we're getting somewhere.

The caramel Talenti is horrifying. A good kind of horrifying, mind, but horrifying nevertheless. It's less like gelato and more like eating pure, cold caremel sauce. The ones I can't get enough of are their raspberry chocolate chip and the hazelnut that's only sold at Target.

It's an obnoxiously passive-aggressive song. "Some people seem to think I'm vapid and shallow and obsessed with my disastrous love life. But I'm not one to complain. In fact, I'm so not bothered by those people that I'm going to write an entire song about how not bothered I am. I'm fine. Really." There is some weird part of me that desperately wants to like her as a person. I don't have any idea why; I don't like her at all as an artist, not even a guilty pleasure. I just really want to find some proof somewhere that she has hidden depths of intelligence and/or warmth. Maybe because she seems to lack depth so aggressively that I just really want there to be something more to her.

I meant to mention, and then forgot this thread existed: I tried the cookie butter ice cream. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on what part of me is talking, it wasn't great. The cold mutes the flavor of the cookie butter pretty heavily, and the ice cream itself has a meh texture and is not very vanilla-y. Oh well. Back to the Private Selection pints.

Just a heads up to anyone who might have missed the announcements, the Night Vale/Thrilling Adventure Hour crossover episode is now available for purchase on iTunes.

There were stables. And she was making plans for the landscaping. Amy was going to have a fancy Lego tower. I don't laugh a lot at television. There's plenty of stuff I find funny, I just don't physically laugh much. But this show invariably gets me to laugh out loud multiple times an episode. Everything about the writing and the acting just falls together perfectly and hits me just right.

The same "respectable company" that creates children's nasal spray that allegedly causes Satanic hallucinations. And where the boss starts out a meeting by planting one on a subordinate because he read somewhere that it was okay and ends it by telling said subordinate "come to my daughter's wedding, and bring a date because it's weird that you're not constantly glued to another human being."

Everyone in my family is having a bad week and I don't want to put any effort into cooking, so I'm making pasta carbonara because it is both the easiest and most indulgent recipe I have. Whisk together cream, eggs, and finely-grated parmesan (the good stuff), then stir it into hot pasta so the eggs thicken and the cheese melts and it turns into a ridiculously gooey, creamy sauce, then add bacon, onions fried in the bacon grease, and peas. Takes no time at all and you end it by feeling like you never need to eat anything again.

She's a sales rep whose entire strategy is based, according to Coworker Guy Who Kinda Looks Like That One Guy From Grimm (And Who Was Totally Hitting On Henry In The Elevator), on "the magic of the miniskirt," and he says she's their best-performing one. It's her role in this clearly-ridiculous company (seriously, I am totally on board with the headcanon that it's a Veridian Dynamics offshoot) to dress for attention, and I'm sure they encourage her to stick to her "brand" both on and off social media.