That Blake’s 7 fandom was materially better before the show aired in the States. They had gone through the painful sorting out of characters and characteristics and relationships and were developing these really interesting themes of psychological trauma and manipulation that they were beginning to explore - it was really interesting and the themes were fascinating. Them the show aired in the States, they went wild over Avon and all the stories and themes starting revolving around him. I don’t mind him as a character; I do mind his character taking over all of fandom. It’s sort of like if all the Harry Potter stories suddenly and inexplicably became Ron-centric; it’s not necessarily wrong, but it’s weird and people who liked other characters got left out in the cold, and some of us still resent that.

As an aside, when Blake’s 7 fandom split up, that too was fascinating. As was usual in those days, there was a pro-slash contingent and an anti-slash contingent. When B7 fandom split up, all of the pro-slash fans went into Robin of Sherwood fandom, and all the anti-slash fans went into The Professionals fandom. The problem being that RoS was almost exclusively gen and Pros was almost exclusively slash. It was very weird.

What else? That the second season of War of the Worlds should’ve been an entirely different series: the people who loved season 1 were never going to like season 2; and people who had tuned in and disliked the series during season 1 weren’t going to Even try season 2.

That Krycek became such a big character on The X-Files due to one woman who saw his potential and kept talking about it to her friends, many of whom were popular/prolific fannish authors and artists. She convinced some of them (there was incredulity and resistance at first) but it gathered steam, Chris Carter was flummoxed but rolled with it, and here we are.

That the main follow-on series for Highlander: the Series should’ve been The Methos Chronicles and that one’s not even up for debate.

That the final episode of Miami Vice is a masterpiece, particularly with the echoes and parallels to the first episode - and that the show itself took a major downturn the moment they decided to kill off their comic relief characters. That having God in the final episode of Quantum Leap (the original) being played by an actor who was also in the first episode of the series made it much more interesting. That if you were ever interested in Space: 1999, the “Message from Moonbase Alpha” short has some really interesting implications.

That Space Rangers and Moon Over Miami were cut off entirely too early. That Quark is funny as hell for a science fiction fan of my generation, even if it’s extremely dated now. Similarly, The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne was hella fun and should’ve lasted much longer (though Michael Praed’s Shatner-esque line deliveries were exceptionally annoying at times!). That the Sonny Steel grave arc is majorly under-represented in Wiseguy fiction.

Almost certainly others, but those are the ones that came to mind.

Oh no!

So the solution is to introduce more violence?

Whatever you spend it on, may I make a suggestion, if you have a little extra money yourself? Spend the gift card money, yes: buy something you’ll enjoy, share that joy with the people who got it for you, let them see how happy they’ve made you.

Then take the card that the giftcard came in, put in $75 cash, and put it in a special place. Do that every time someone gives you money or a giftcard. As I’ve gotten older, a lot of the people in my life have died, gotten ill, or moved away. Sometimes, when I’m feeling sad or depressed, I’ll go to my little drawer of cards and pull one out at random. I’ll re-read the message, and think about the person and the love that we shared at that time, and I’ll take the money and do something special for myself, to cheer myself up a bit.

Then sometime in the next few days, I’ll get the same amount of cash from the bank, put it in the envelope, and replace it in my stash: the caring we felt for each other at that time was true (regardless of how things eventually turned out), so the cards give me a little emotional boost and the cash lets me do something for myself that I’d normally not spend money on. It helps me feel better, even if only for a little time.

[I’ll also be honest and say that sometimes I’ve run out of money, and something will twinge and I’ll remember I have this little stash of cash, and having that has helped me get through some slightly tough times. But I always put the money back in the cards when I can afford it.]

… Does Alberta realize that doing business in a landlocked country can be difficult? Almost all their imports and exports will have to go through either Canada or the US.

Cool, now to continue to enshittify the Post Office, limit ballot drop-off locations, and post ICE next to the ballot boxes to “protect the election process”.

Bryce Canyon is gorgeous. If you get the chance (not sure if you’re local or visiting), Cedar Breaks is just stunning.

Some of the Epstein files released. Bondi already said earlier today that they wouldn’t make the deadline for all the files.

Ice ice baby …

And this is why 22 states and DC have refused to turn over their voter rolls. And now four states [Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas and Wyoming] have agreed without the Memorandum Of Understanding, while two more [Colorado and Wisconsin] have rejected it. Eleven more states have expressed an interest: Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia.

The DoJ says that they need the info to “verify that only eligible people are voting” - except that the Constitution explicitly says that running elections is up to the states, and DoJ has already said they’re going to share those lists with Homeland Security.

And “Homeland Security” runs ICE, which has the ability to kidnap people out of their homes and off the streets, decide that you’re not a citizen if you don’t have proof with you [and claim that your valid papers are “fake” if they want to], then throw you into a “camp” before sending you to a foreign country you have no connection to.

Why is it always suspected trans women? Paxton probably uses ED pills, which are gender-affirming care, we can start there.

Also, even if you’re carrying your ID with you, there are multiple cases of ICE deciding the papers are fake and arresting you anyway.

As the investigation into the fatal shooting continued, MAGA conservatives pushed out unsubstantiated theories about the tragedy.

Lol, they do that with every shooting, they’re a bunch of paranoid conspiracy theorists and if you believe them, then every shooting is done by a trans person targeting conservatives. It’s so predictable by now, you’d almost thing there were a bunch of robots just primed to spread anti-trans conspiracy and hatred at every opportunity …

I’m holding my celebration until they actually (a) stop voting for Republicans, (b) express public contrition for their vote, © start actively and publicly working against the political party that brought this into being, and (d) continue until that political party is dismantled because it wasn’t just “Trump” that brought this into being, it was the entire Republican party who deliberately stacked the federal and Supreme Court, who gerrymandered maps to keep their extremists in power, and who’s “moderates” still toe the party line (except in a few cases where their votes don’t matter, but only so they can have a couple things to point to, showing how “independent” and “Washington outsider” they are when they go home to campaign for yet another term).

He’s a rural Montanan whose way of life and livelihood depend on public lands.

Translation: he depends on socialism to survive (not that he’ll ever see it that way, of course).

Hunting season had yet to open when we spoke, but Zink was already hearing from fellow hunters who had to cut their own way into trails to hunting camps after Forest Service trail crews were laid off en masse.

Oh, no - work?!

Ranchers and farmers use public lands for agriculture; outfitters and guides take guests into them; hunters access them regularly to put food in the family freezer; and forestry, timber and sawmill workers fulfill contracts on them for wildfire mitigation and lumber.

Party of small government sure likes to suck the government teat.

I spoke to people across Montana, from different professions and down the political range from independent to staunchly conservative

Helluva range there, considering that (on a global scale) Democrats have right-wing views.

A ranch this size, 700 private acres, could still operate without a public land allotment by leasing other private land, but that’s much more expensive — prohibitively so, for most ranchers. Down in the Southwest, he said, many ranches are a whopping 90 percent federal land allotments; it’s often much less than that in western Montana.

Yeah, I don’t care enough to finish the article.

Edit typo.

Weiss reiterated a question to [Erika] Kirk about whether political leaders are responsible for turning “the temperature down right now.”

“Well, I think everyone has a responsibility to do that and I’m doing my part,” [Erika] Kirk answered.

See, I’d have an easier time believing that if she hadn’t vowed to continue Charlie Kirk’s “legacy” and said:

“If you thought that my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea,” she continued. “You have no idea what you just have unleashed across this entire country and this world. You have no idea. You have no idea the fire that you have ignited within this wife. The cries of this widow will echo around the world like a battle cry.” source

“would severely intrude on the President’s prerogative to control the image he presents to the public,” also writing that the president has “the prerogative to shape his Administration’s image and messaging as he sees fit.”

You don’t get to control your image, other people and organizations do that. You can try to shape your image, but again your image is how other people see you and you can’t control that.

I’ll add that I can’t imagine trying to be a sign language interpreter trying to make his word salad comprehensible on the fly.

I love you for doing this.

What’s interesting to me is that sedition and treason are acts against the state, not any particular representative of the state. But he’s clearly thinking he is the state, not just a representative. L’État, c’est moi much?

Khajit is innocent of this crime!