TV Brew: The Magicians Season 3 Review

Pop Culture Uncovered

((WARNING: The following contains some spoilers, so if you haven’t finished the season STOP READING NOW!))

Syfy’s The Magicians has completed its third season, and us hedge witches and Brakebills students are already itching for more. How will our heroes be restored to their previous selves? Who will take down the evil alliance of the Library and the McAllisters? How will the beast from Blackspire be defeated?

This season was a rollercoaster of emotions, and I’m still not sure I’ve recovered from the tears and cheers. Season 3 has felt like a lifetime, literally in the case of one episode, and we’ve watched the best (and worst) of our favorite characters.

I could probably rattle on forever about the show, but instead, I’ll try and refine this recap to those points that stuck with me, both positive and negative.

What Was Our Goal?

I think one thing that…

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TV Brew: The Women of Black Lightning

It was great being able to talk with you and discuss this fascinating show! Thanks for bringing me in to share thoughts, and I hope we can do it again.

Pop Culture Uncovered

We promised we’d be back with more after thattwo-partarticleon the relevance ofBlack Lightning. To celebrateWomen’s History Month, we’re going to give a focus on the main female characters of the show.

Holdt: Yeah and it’s a good thing too because we have a lot of ground to cover since the pilot. Lady Eve alone could fill an article, but we don’t have time for all that!

So let’s get down to basics, and fair warning – there will be some spoilers!

Anissa

Holdt: I’d like to start with my girl Anissa, who’s unquestionably a fighter for civil rights – for both metas and normies – and she’s proud of her principles. She’s willing to adapt as well, which we get to see in her change of heart over vigilantism, citizen’s responsibilities and community solidarity.

Brook: Anissa is probably the…

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Black Lightning: The Growing Relevance of PoC Shows (Part I)

Pop Culture Uncovered

Pop culture is living in a tumultuous social and political time lately. With everything from white supremacists marching in the streets to unashamed bigotry in the highest offices, there is a need to resist these racist movements.

Even before recent events, we had some of that in the form of Luke Cage. The third in Netflix’s Marvel series was unabashed in its “blackness,” as it presented African-American culture and confronted their issues.

This comic icon brought to life was enriched with the music, culture, and lifestyle of Harlem and New York City. Not to mention, the obvious allegories regarding gentrification and police brutality made Luke Cage one of the most relevant shows of 2016.

Of course, that was a mere month before the General Election, and the series was made long before anyone knew what was coming.

Hollywood and pop culture have been in overdrive recently, pushing hard…

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Let Black People Feel Things in Fandom 2018

Stitch's Media Mix

In 2016, I made a list of things that I wanted to see fandom leave behind as we moved into the next year.

Fandom left absolutely NONE of those things behind in 2017.

I’m not going to talk about the stalking, the increase in harassment, the doubling down on the claim that Armitage-fucking-Hux being a more interesting character than Finn or Poe Dameron are in the Star Wars fandom. No, I’ll save those hot takes for another day when I don’t feel quite so much like doing a salt-and-burn on several fandom spaces which have crossed boundaries I didn’t know existed.

For now, I’m going to talk about how fandom is incapable of letting Black people – real Black people and the Black characters we love – feel things without rushing to delegitimize those feelings.

To a significant chunk of the Star Wars fandom, Finn is a traitor and a…

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Fear of Fucking Up: Not Actually A Good Excuse For Erasing Characters of Color

100% accurate. Reblogging.

Stitch's Media Mix

Recently, there’s been a spate of fannish and original writers claiming that they’re so afraid of negative reception and responses from people of color, that they refrain from writing characters of color in their works.

We saw this during Amy Lane’s racist mess (where she wrote a book that had a black character refer to himself as a monkey) where dozens of M/M authors rushing to defend her claimed that POC were so scary and aggressive in defending themselves from racism that they were perpetuating (racial slurs as “cute” petnames and objectification in droves) that they’d never be writing characters of color again.

We also saw it a couple months ago in fandom where BNF Franzeska decided that the best response to Black fans pointing out racism towards Finn in Star Wars to write thousands of words of white washed fandom history that contained comments about how we

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Why You Should Be Watching ‘The Magicians’

Pop Culture Uncovered

Friends, we here at PCU have been neglectful, and we’re very sorry. Usually, we cover the best in geek television, from broadcast to Netflix.

Now, we admit we can’t keep a regular tab on everything. There’s far too much out there, not to mention shows that are just plain horrible or locked behind paywalls.

Still, there is no excuse for not covering shows that are fantastic and fun. Sadly, we did precisely that when we did when we didn’t include SyFy’s The Magicians.

Well, there’s no good excuse, but there are reasons you may not have seen the show.

I love The Magicians, but I didn’t watch until SyFy offered all of Season 1 online. I’d heard about the series, based on the novels by Lev Grossman, but I wasn’t sure if it would be my cup of tea.

I can tell you now, I binge-watched…

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It All Began by Kinkmeme – A Fanfic Story

So I admit that I trawl the (conspicuously anon) archives of the dcu/dceu/dccu kinkmemes. I do. I have no shame about this.

What I’d never done was actually submit to any of these communities.

Until now.

 

I took on a prompt that seemed at first glance to be an “easy in’ – can’t take more than 2-5k, I thought to myself with unseemly glee, ready to flex my kink muscles.

Yup. That was me…

….back in late April.

 

Now it’s January, and I’ve managed to post about 100k and am in the fourth in said BDSM, Bottom Clark, Dominant Bruce (though Dominant b/c of dynamics, not who tops/bottoms!!) series.

I’ll be posting chapter 7 of 14 in part IV sometime this week, adding 6k to my wordcount.

I have another 40-60k in the wings waiting for my longsuffering beta reader.

AND

• It’s been rec’d. More than once!! What is happening in the world?
• It’s inspired/prompted two fan-covers (by ManicMea):

• A particular fanartist  (handled ‘Albi’) who Ive followed for some time (you may recall the Superbat manga of ‘right in front of my salad’ with Diana at the counter? Yeah..Albi) both rec’d and contacted me with these amazing beauties!

(The other two are in-line on the AO3 host page and the available epub from AO3)

So I’ll just leave that story link right here…

Position Assurance Series by Holdt

How long will this go on? Well, until the story is finished, I suppose. Aiming for 200k written this year (in total, not just this project).

Wish me luck!

All of this is just to say how incredibly honored and amazed I am at the top of this year. Fandom, fam… fandom is fucking amazing. 

And it requires a response.

Thanks everyone for their help, whether reading, encouraging/cheer-leading, creating art, having written something that further inspired me,  alpha views, arguing canon vs fanon over pastries with me, debating/interrogating the differences between bottom-shaming/misogyny and BDSM subbing when the sub IS the bottom…

You know who you are. Thank you.

ETA: FYI, if you know this is trggering/disliked/material you as an adult CANNOT HANDLE, then do us both a favor and just skip the links. You will not be welcomed. You will not convince me that I am doing wrong. You will only waste your time with a non-hetero genderqueer feminist who is in no mood for your shit. 😀

Diverse OCs in Fanfic

Recently had a conversation with a friend today who shared with me how hesitant she was to include a “diverse” OC in her fic because Racefail. Okay…

Look.

Writing the Other isnt your problem, friend.

I’ll be clear: I write “the Other” all the time, and Im forced to because thats the “majority lens” of media that I, as a PoC, even with my background– (D.C. born & raised, our home had etageres, china cabinets and paneling)– have available in this culture. And I’ll tell you – it isnt easy.

It’s *work*.

You may make mistakes. You may mischaracterise some very important cultural business (though probably not if you do the proper groundwork). You might have to do twenty rewrites.

But at the end of the day, you are writing a PERSON. So do that.
**Yes it will take time. Yess, it will take serious thought beyond “how do I get them naked” or “I want them to be edgy – they’re brown, I know – they are career criminals!”.

But a lot of the work has already been done for you. Its STILL being done, fam. All you have to do is engage with it on a deeper level.

Resources added: GIYF racefail + thinkpieces

https://fanlore.org/…/List_of_Discussion_Posts,_Sorted_by_D…

http://annsomerville.net/a-themed-summary-of-racefail-09-i…/

Anyway, this is seeming more like a rant and less like what I intended – a suggestion and support of those who work to involve more cultural and caste-based worldbuilding in their fic.

Hope it helps.

ETA: No, sensitivity readers are not really optional.

ETA 2: Writing the Other by Nisi Shawl is an excellent resource

Why So Many Men Hate the Last Jedi But Can’t Agree on Why

Bitter Gertrude

Carrie Fisher and her daughter, Billie Lourd, as General Leia and Lieutenant Connix, in a PR shot for The Last Jedi taken by Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair

NOTE: Many spoilers.

My feed (and yours, I presume) has been filling with people, mostly men, denouncing The Last Jedi for all sorts of reasons. Here are a few I compiled out of my own feed over the past week:

It’s too draggy and long
It’s too fast-paced
It is magically both draggy and fast-paced
It’s too much about one family
It’s not about family
The plot is terrible
The plot is fine but the acting is terrible
The plot and acting are fine, but the pacing is terrible
The plot, acting, and pacing are fine but the characterizations are terrible
It needed more humor
It needed less humor
It needed a different kind of humor
Not enough character development
Too much…

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Game Review – Life is Strange: Before the Storm

Pop Culture Uncovered

While there have been many narrative games in the past, from the first text-based DOS games to Japanese visual novels, none have struck me like modern adventure games. While Telltale is probably the best known if only for their Walking Dead series, and Firewatch earned accolades, I think the high point (so far) is Life is Strange.

Life is Strange provides a fascinating at the turmoil of adolescence, combined with a touch of science-fiction and fantasy. The primary game, released in 2015, followed the protagonist as she dealt with life and relationships, unraveled a mystery, and dealt with the power to rewind time (and its consequences).

The original game received positive reviews and won numerous awards, not only for its excellent story but also for tackling topics like bullying, suicide, drugs and alcohol, and the loss of loved ones. I also prized the fantastic soundtrack, consisting of both…

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