scans_daily: Three Contributions

mcity (

mcity) wrote in

scans_daily,
@ 2010-03-03 01:09 am UTC

Entry tags:

char: sinestro, event: blackest night, medium: fanart

Three Contributions

First, the latest member of the Red Lantern Corps.

from Champ

Then a reaction to recent, spoilery developments in Blackest Night.

And finally, a legality scan.
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

series:foxtrot
char:sinestro
event:blackest night
(fanart tag)

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	no subject zordboy 2010-03-03 09:08 am UTC (link)
	Oh I hate Daleks. Not because they're so scary and terrifying but because everyone thinks they're so scary and terrifying... and they're not. Giving them Red Lantern rings is a little better, but still. (Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 35 comments) (Show 35 comments)

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sinisterlink
2010-03-03 10:02 am UTC (link)

I don't know much about them, since I've never really been into Dr Who, but I like them just for the fact that they look like giant salt/pepper shakers and roll around wanting to kill everything. Plus I've had some interesting conversations with my mom because of them. Like the first time she saw the trailer for the Iron Man movie and at the end they do the Black Sabbath song part where it says, "I am Iron Man" in that distorted/electronic type voice, my mom was like, "He sounds like a Dalek." Lawl.

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	no subject zordboy 2010-03-03 11:48 am UTC (link)
	Oh I think conceptually they're interesting, as you said. It's very rare to find a hero who's main archnemesis is a genocidal salt and pepper shaker. They win me there. It's the, "Oh noes they're so terrifying!" press (which is pretty constant) they get. 'Cause... <_< ...they're not. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 26 comments) (Show 26 comments)

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stig
2010-03-03 12:47 pm UTC (link)

Oh yes they bloody are. You might be of the newer generation of substance-less horror, but the Daleks are among the very very few alien monsters created in popular fiction that aren't based on humans or Earth creatures, alongside Carpenter's Thing; they have no faces, hands, legs or discernible emotions. Familiarity encourages empathy; you can't empathise with a Dalek because you and it are utterly different.

I suppose it's not your fault, really; your biggest exposure to Daleks has been from their lacklustre appearances in the new series. Apart from the poorly-named 'Dalek', the RTD writing team approached the main villains the same way they did every other aspect: in the manner of a toddler on a sugar rush. You should have seen the subtle, oppressive terror employed in their first-ever appearance, or the Frankenstein-like emergence of their hatred before Davros in "Genesis of the Daleks". Back before Davies mucked everything up they were proper hide-behind-the-sofa fierce, not pushovers who could be wiped out entirely after every single adventure.

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crinos
2010-03-03 01:32 pm UTC (link)

Ironically, it was the new series Daleks that got me interested in Doctor Who in the first place, more specifically their argument with the Cyberman in the season 2 finale.

"THIS IS NOT WAR! THIS IS PEST CONTROL!"

"WE WOULD DESTROY THE CYBERMEN WITH ONE DALEK!"

"YOU ARE SUPERIOR IN ONLY ONE RESPECT; YOU ARE BETTER AT DYING."

I just love everything about the Daleks. Probably my favorite race of evil aliens.

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	no subject stig 2010-03-04 01:11 am UTC (link)
	Yes, okay, that bit was kinda cool. But then you get to them...spinning around a lot. And keeping Davros as a pet. Uh? Where's the strategy in humiliating and imprisoning your creator and one of your finest tacticians? (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject crinos 2010-03-04 01:24 am UTC (link)
	Well its not like they were ignoring him, they were taking his advice and instruction, and he was all too willing to help (Davros is so vain he'll support his own creations even when they're kicking his ass, simply because he's glad they're so awesome they surpassed him). (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

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zordboy
2010-03-04 12:31 am UTC (link)

Except, except... "Familiarity encourages empathy; you can't empathise with a Dalek because you and it are utterly different."

"You're odd" is entirely different to "you're terrifying". It's impossible to take them seriously, and I'm not talking about the last four or five years or whatever (although agreed that RTD needs to back away from the keyboard. Or at least seek immediate psychiatric help for his problems, 'cause evidently, the man has quite a few).

There is a not a single appearance where they haven't left me with the grand feeling, "meh". Oh no, the pepper pots want to kill everything, I'm trembling in my boots. Trembling, I tell you. They're just not scary. I mean, they're not, I don't know how else to rationalise that. And it's the constant press -- maybe it's the British way of storytelling, maybe it's a lack of budget or whatever, but the entire Whoverse seems built on telling rather than showing. The Doctor has press telling us he's great and wonderful and heroic, and up close and personal he's a wanker. The Daleks have press telling us how they're terrifying, and Jackie Tyler with a big gun can make one go "boom". Again, I'm shaking in my boots. And I think you're giving them far too much credit given the wealth of alien creatures running amok in fiction, at that.

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	no subject stig 2010-03-04 01:05 am UTC (link)
	Yes, but most of those aliens are anthropomorphic and therefore carry a layer of familiarity. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject stig 2010-03-04 01:13 am UTC (link)
	I will concede that Ten does feel a bit of a wanker mainly because, unlike previous versions, he isn't advertised as being so but as being a heroic children's figure. The old Doctors were mostly good-natured but clever bastards (except for Six, who was a complete bastard), and mostly proud of it. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 9 comments) (Show 9 comments)

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zordboy
2010-03-04 05:32 am UTC (link)

Yeah, Ten didn't impress me. I spent a lot of time wanting to smack him. I'm glad Donna did, a few times. At the very least she called him on his jerkiness on multiple occasions, and good on her -- but then of course, she got fridged. Yay.

I find that's the problem with Doctor Who. The show has *such* a fanbase, and has been around for *so* long, that not-enjoying the franchise (and finding the Daleks about as scary as wet cardboard) puts you in a tiny little minority.

And people -- a lot of people -- feel quite threatened when you really don't care for it. When I told my friends that, after watching the show I found it quite lacking, my geek-cred got shredded (as one of my friends put it*). And it does seem like, you're not an acceptable-sci-fi-nerd unless you know and love Doctor Who. My exposure was *mostly* Nine and Ten, and I'm gonna give Eleven a try, but no, it all really turns me off. Don't get me started on the technobabble, either.

* -- to be fair, that same week I'd (1) admitted to liking the movie version of "Twilight", (2) become a fan of Australian football and (3) attended a Britney Spears concert when she was in Australia. In my defence, (1) the movie was a damn side more entertaining than the books, (2) some of those players are hot, and (3) one of my best friends worked at the concert-place and was given some free tickets. Still.

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mcity
2010-03-04 06:17 am UTC (link)

>but then of course, she got fridged

As I recall, everyone was pissed about that. Rose gets sent to an alternate universe, eventually ending up with her very own Doctor, Martha eventually leaves, and gets married--to the only other prominent black guy in the Davies run--and Donna, who is pretty much the anti-Rose, gets her memories wiped, despite the presence of a device that sucks the Time Lord out of people which played a major part the previous season, and could doubtless be reconfigured with thirty seconds of Davies' Patented Dramatic Breathless Technobabble.
So, yeah. Issues.

>And people -- a lot of people -- feel quite threatened when you really don't care for it. When I told my friends that, after watching the show I found it quite lacking, my geek-cred got shredded (as one of my friends put it*)

http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html

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stig
2010-03-04 08:21 am UTC (link)

I too have been the bearer of bad tidings against the new series, mostly because in his entire history on the show Davies wrote a single episode ('Gridlock') where the creativity was not swamped by the need for childishness and thirst to see blood spilled.

I can't stand chavvy old Rose Tyler, I don't like the new Cybermen compared with the classic ones, I'm appalled by the writer's ridiculous need to appeal to the kid's audience first for a sci-fi series originally intended for adults (imagine them remaking a series of Star Trek that way), so that the climax of many episodes seems like it's been written by a 8-year-old - "And then, erm, er, ALL THE DALEKS ARE DISAPPEARED FOREVVER AN' EVER!", "And then the Master dances around and puts the Doctor inna cage 'cos he's silly!", etc. - while simultaneously upping the body count to troubling levels. The last two episodes displayed graphic cannibalism as Christmas teatime entertainment. What?

Also, Simm's Master was rubbish. Give us a new direction, sure, even give us a Master who smiles a bit, but make sure he looks capable of tying his bloody shoelaces together.

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	no subject mcity 2010-03-04 02:51 am UTC (link)
	>Or at least seek immediate psychiatric help for his problems, 'cause evidently, the man has quite a few). What do you think of Torchwood? I either get people raving about it, or deriding it as gussied up Doctor Who fanfic. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 9 comments) (Show 9 comments)

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zordboy
2010-03-04 05:22 am UTC (link)

I seem to be one of the only people on planet Earth who doesn't find John Barrowman sex on legs. Possibly it's a pheromone thing? That, plus the fact I only dipped my toes into the Who-franchise because of all my friends, I never really had any interest in checking out "Torchwood" at all. So I didn't. Even Spike showing up didn't pique my interest one bit.

I *did* watch "Children of Earth".

*BIG* mistake.

But if I type out the list of reasons *why* I thought CoE wasn't brilliant, I'm likely to offend the people who enjoyed it.

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mcity
2010-03-04 06:02 am UTC (link)

I'm starting to wonder how many people like Harkness as a character, and not for being a lot like every smut fanfic fantasy ever. He likes girls! (Yay, I can imagine him with me, the fangirl!) He likes boys! (Yay, slash!) He likes interdimensional space creatures with visages indescribable*! (Yay, tentacle porn!) And when you start combining them, that's when the fun really starts.

I've never seen the show myself, since it's on BBCA, and I don't pirate. I'm not sure I'm missing much. I liked Jack well enough as the Doctor's sidekick, but I'm not sure there's enough character depth there to lead his own show.

*I'm guessing on this one.

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skalja, 2010-03-06 01:44 am UTC (Expand)

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stig
2010-03-04 12:50 pm UTC (link)

The premise of "Torchwood": If Men in Black started off, badly, in Cardiff, led by a man with the powers of Wolverine & Bill Clinton combined.

Don't get me started on the sheer playground-game writing style of "Cyberwoman", or the disgusting insult of "Countrycide", where the people-eating monsters turn out to be...depraved humans. When you read about local mass murders in the news EVERY DAY it seems beyond tasteless to write sci-fi episode about it, with the protagonists sleeping around on each other AGAIN by the closing credits.

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skalja
2010-03-06 01:20 am UTC (link)

Season 1 is amusingly bad, Season 2 is great, Children of Earth was obnoxiously awful with bonus let's-insult-the-fans drama from the series creator afterwards.

The only people I know of who liked Children of Earth are a segment of the people who'd never seen Torchwood before. I'm sure there ARE fans who liked it, but I've never spoken to or read commentary from any!

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	no subject icon_uk 2010-03-03 12:54 pm UTC (link)
	What's not scary about a race which views any and all forms of life which are not Dalek as something to be exterminated with extreme prejudice, and has the firepower to back up the threat? (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 5 comments) (Show 5 comments)

	no subject zordboy 2010-03-04 12:24 am UTC (link)
	... yeah, I got nothin'. They're just not. Oh noes, they want to kill everyone! Because no other villain in the history of fiction is like that >_>. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 4 comments) (Show 4 comments)

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icon_uk
2010-03-04 12:28 am UTC (link)

Actually, I'm hard pressed to think of any equivalent villain which sees universal genocide as not so much an aspiration so much as a business plan. You can't rationalise with them, harangue them or threaten them, they just don't care about anything except destroying every single thing which is not a Dalek.

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	no subject stig 2010-03-04 01:07 am UTC (link)
	Exactly. The Aliens in '''Alien''' want to breed, the Borg want to assimilate, the Thing wants to survive...all the Daleks live for is the destruction of others. Hell, they're even worse than bloody Atrocitus. At least he has a justified reason for his hatred. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject stig 2010-03-04 01:14 am UTC (link)
	Oh, wait, there's also the people of Krikkit...though to be fair, they were manipulated by someone else. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject halialkers 2010-03-04 03:02 am UTC (link)
	Imperiex? (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject halialkers 2010-03-04 03:02 am UTC (link)
	Indeed. The best way to make a real terrifying enemy for the Doctor Who crowd is to do a thinly-disguised homage to S&M Stirling's Domination of the Draka. Anti-America that genetically engineers regular Homo sapiens into a genetic slave class? With super-baboon troops? It'd both fit in and be Darker and Edgier..... (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

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