Aerliss | Sunday, October 9, 2011 at 6:44PM J.A. Henderson’s children’s books are dark, clever thrillers that hold no punches and drag you along for the ride with their devastating honesty.
YA, books, fiction, reviews | in Children's Fiction tompl | Saturday, August 6, 2011 at 11:45PM 
I’ve been working on a series of illustrations which may or not have a heading like this post. My intention is to frame the finished series together for my mother as a little Christmas extra.
I often take progress snaps quickly and roughly with my iPhone and have uploaded the recent work on the Drake of Summer to scatter through my mumbling on the project.
Graphitint, Inktense, Moleskine | in Illustrations Aerliss | Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 10:26PM I think this is going to be a series of posts. Everyone loves drinking games…
Drink For…
Silent Space; in space, no one can hear… well, ANYTHING! Thank you, Joss!
Brotherly Love; Simon protecting River in a manly fashion by punching people, jumping of balconies… or getting punched
Loving His Guns; Jayne does ANYTHING that involves a gun (or grenades). Talks about or to one, cleans one, pulls one prematurely, shoots at someone/thing unecessarily.
Philosophising Whore; Companions know stuff, lots of stuff, about swords, history, spiritual and emotional well being.
Un-Shepardly; Book’s a strange preacherman, he knows how to use guns and talk to feds, he knows codes and ship engines.
Bad Guy In A Hat; mostly for Badger, but there are plenty of other villains in hats.
Bullet In The Brainpan; whenever River does or says something crazy (you will NOT thank me for that rule)
Gratuitous Strawberry; fruits and other fresh foods are rare in the ‘Verse, so if you see someone enjoying one, especially Kaylee then drink!
Mal Shot First; counts for two if whoever he shot was unarmed. This one’s particularaly good when watching Serenity.
Them Ain’t Kosherised Rules; Mal punches someone, Male gets punched, two is Mal punches Simon!
Warrior Woman; it’s hard to determine the difference between Zoe being normal and badass Zoe, but do try.
Thanks for these rules should go to a whole bunch of my friends, but most of them have little to no internet presence outside of Stalkerbook, so no linkies.
Drinking Game, Firefly | in Television Aerliss | Saturday, June 4, 2011 at 8:27PM I’m not going to do an in depth review of A Good Man Goes To War (S06E07). I’ll just say a a few things. It had great writing, great performances but crappy plot. It was ret-con central. I am REALLY hoping the ret-cons turn out to be not ret-cons, that Moffat is pulling a fast one again and fooling us all big time.
If Rory is River’s father then why didn’t she recognise him in the Pandorica Opens? Why didn’t his presence as a centurion set off massive alarm bells for her? Why does she barely even acknowledge Amy in The Time of Angels? She lords her knowledge of the future over the Doctor and doesn’t manage to avoid spoilering Donna about her lack of presence with the Doctor in the future. But Amy? Not even a comment about how they’re going to have fun together in the future. Nothing at all.
It all smacks of ret-con. It smacks of ret-con and she’s not dead. River’s going to regenerate in the library she died in, in Forest of the Dead. She’s going to find the diary that Tenth left there, along with the sonic screwdriver and then throw herself off that balcony so the Doctor can swoop in and catch her in the TARDIS again.
Eugh. Let me just quote myself from the first set of predictions;
What about the idea that River is TLTL? Just kill me. If she gets ret-conned as a Time Lord I’m giving up on Doctor Who (again). She died. She is dead and gone. I will not have her helping the Doctor repopulate the universe with Time Lords. Ew.
*headdesk* ‘Nuff said.
I Am Cassandra, Watch Me Weep
There isn’t really very much left to predict, except a few things surrounding River. We still don’t know who taught her to fly the TARDIS or who she kills. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that it’s Rory on both counts.
She kills the greatest man she ever knew, and claims she was taught to fly the TARDIS by the best but that it wasn’t the Doctor. Who is the greatest man that a person might know, especially in a life such as the one River might lead? Her father. Who is her father, or at least the man who is probably going to be treated as her father? Rory. Who dies a lot? Rory. Who was the real good man that went to war? Rory. And who is reminded of his existence as a nurse and that nurses don’t survive on battlefields? Rory (the Sontaran nurse says as much in A Good Man Goes To War, in case you missed it).
Yeah, she’s gonna kill Rory.
Who is Madam Kovarian?
Honestly, I’m not sure that there’s anything to indicate that she’s someone we already know. I’m holding out hope that she’s the Rani still, just because, you know; THE RANI! Mad scientist, probably VERY irritated at the Doctor after that T-Rex incident and a woman of sever fashion sense.
Rani means “queen” in Hindi. Kova means crow in Hindi and in Hindu mythology the dead can take the form of a crow to receive food.
Just sayin’.
Two Doctors? Now That Was A Whole Other Birthday
I still very much think that Gangers are going to be involved, especially given the above line from River. Tennant and Davison’s names have now been removed from the cast lists at IMDB, but Frances Barber’s (Kovarian) name has also been removed from all the episode she had been listed in. Suspicious?
The Silence is still going to come (as Amy brings them, apparently) and they have yet to fall. The Silence that Canton shoots says “the Silence will fall” but not as though it is prediction but as a threat.
Both seasons are interlinked. Whoever was flying the TARDIS in The Pandorica Opens caused the explosion that created The Crack, and whoever they were they are likely to be the ones who said “the Silence will fall,” when a crack appeared on the screen of the TARDIS in the Pandorica Opens.
And So We Wait
I really think that we should be looking for more clues in both seasons. I haven’t watched The Lodger again (because I really don’t enjoy it) but I think that might just hold more clues for us. Doctor Who is set to return in September, so until then we can only watch and re-watch the last two seasons and keep our beady eyes open for more inconsistencies (ones that don’t fit in with the conclusion to Season 5).
Things like the final resting place of the Headless Monks being mentioned in The Time Of Angels…
Oh, and hello Jenny! We were wondering when you’d show up again.
Silly predictions?
I know I did these in the last two, but my stupid predictions are turning out to be somewhat accurate (again). I don’t want to play anymore.
Doctor Who | in Television Aerliss | Saturday, May 28, 2011 at 10:16PM There’ll be one more of these, after the mid-series finale next week. I was hoping to save it up until that one but Ginger Nic and I have been spazzing at each other over things we’ve noticed.
Too Many Screwdrivers!
How many screwdrivers were in that episode? I think I have the events sorted. Tell me what you think;
Yes? No? So Flesh can form complex machines… complex machines that can destroy Flesh?
Who Shrank Amy’s Wardrobe?
In Series 5 Amy wore something different in every episode and her clothes were often commented on; her kiss-a-gramme outfit, how she was dressed for Rio. Series 6 though, she seems to be wearing virtually the same outfit all the way through… even though Rory has changed clothes. Is this an indication of when Ganger Amy turned up? We (GingerNic and I) checked up on this… and nearly broke my TV in the process when I couldn’t pause at the right damn moment!
Impossible Astronaut; she’s wearing a red check shirt throughout.
The Day of The Moon; she begins in a red check shirt but changes out of it in the TARDIS after being ‘revived’ in the perfect prison. She changes into a very similar purple check shirt. Then she changes into a black suit and remains in this until the end of the episode.
The Curse of the Black Spot; she’s still wearing the purple shirt.
The Doctor’s Wife; still in the purple shirt and a very tiny miniskirt.
The Rebel Flesh and The Almost People; she’s now back in the red shirt and a pair of trousers. This is the same outfit she was wearing when the Doctor was shot on the beach in The Impossible Astronaut except for the shoes… only in the final scene she’s no longer wearing the boots that she’s had on throughout and has changed to the shoes and socks she had on in The Impossible Astronaut;
What’s up with that? I had a check back and she doesn’t wear this outfit, as far as I can tell, in the previous season.
She has definitely been GangerAmy since The Day of the Moon, because she first saw Madame Kovarian (Eye Path Lady) in this episode. However, Amy, or GangerAmy has been pregnant since at least the second time she sees a Silence, in the Oval Office in The Impossible Astronaut because she gets sick after seeing it. However, she doesn’t get sick the first time, when she sees a Silence on the beach. Is she not pregnant here or does she simply just not get sick?
The psychic palm recorder also seems to pick up real Amy, as opposed to GangerAmy’s panicked words when she begins crying and saying how dark it is.
I think that Amy was pregnant on the beach and Amy gets swapped out for a Ganger during their three month period on the run… although that seems too obvious a moment, I can’t think of a better one.
Remember that River also gets sick upon seeing the Silence… was I right about her being pregnant too? Who/What is SHE pregnant with?
Who Shot The Doctor?
And was it in fact THE Doctor? In their final moments together GangerDoctor checks his watch and says “Well, my death arrives, I suppose.” The Doctor replies “But this one, we’re not invited to.” He then tells the Doctor that his molecular memory can survive the melting and it might not be the end, but GangerDoctor doesn’t seem entirely convinced, as though he doesn’t know what the Doctor is referring to. But he SHOULD know and should have come to the same conclusions about past/known-future events as the Doctor. Nurg!
But that’s definitely implying that it’s GangerDoctor that that gets killed AND that the Doctor already knows about his death and the invites. So is it HIM in the suit? Was it not the Doctor that sent out the invites at all?
And about that whole Doctor getting shot thing; what about his TARDIS? Why did no one stop to think “Oh, the Doctor’s dead but er, what about the TARDIS?” Then when the Doctor turns up again and they fly off in the TARDIS, why does no one think “er, there’s a freaking TARDIS out there going spare!” Not even River?
And if the Flesh can form a working Sonic Screwdriver, can it also form a working TARDIS?
Back to; who taught River to fly it? Did a GangerDoctor teach her? Is it GangerDoctor flying the TARDIS in the Pandorica Opens?
I SAID Amy Was A Fake!
I’m not even sure how I originally jumped to that conclusion, but I did! Boo-yah! We’re still stuck with the Silence, who or what TLTL is and who her father is… The Time Stream itself, like Anakin and the Midichlorians? The TARDIS? Not the Doctor? At least not 11th…
I noticed something while watching The Eleventh Hour (wow, I JUST got that). While Amellia is sitting outside something dark and shadowy runs through the kitchen. It comes with a little chord to tell us it’s a bad thing, so not her mysterious Aunty. On first viewing we’re obviously meant to assume it’s Prisoner Zero. However, Prisoner Zero isn’t bipedal and while it can take whatever form it wants, why would it do that while no one was there to see it.
Later, in The Big Bang, we might assume that it had been the Doctor, if we remember it at all. Is it though? e don’t see him sneaking through the kitchen again. That first scene isn’t put into context.
How long has Amy, Amellia, been a Ganger? I was actually looking for some evidence of her early body snatching due to something Moffat said; “when you see the end you’ll realise you’ve known it from the beginning.” The beginning of Series 6? Nah, too easy. Beside’s the Silence are mentioned RIGHT from The Eleventh Hour. I thought he might have meant The Big Bang, that being a reference to the total beginning of everything, but I think that… thing running through the house is DEFINITELY something to do with The Flesh, Madame Kovarian and/or the Silence, not Prisoner Zero or the Doctor.
Then there’s the line “Well I’m Amy now.” With hindsight that sounds a LOT different.
Then in the Big Bang, as Ginger Nic pointed out; her parents AREN’T Scottish. An awful lot is made of her being Scottish, and then her parents aren’t? Not even a hint of an accent. Her dad seems to be from Yorkshire!
Doesn’t that all strike you as a bit weird?
Wibbly-Wobbly Timey-Wimey
And what’s with Rory remembering being a Roman? He was dead, that wasn’t him! He shouldn’t remember it at all. Surely the last thing he should remeber is, er, dying?
MOAR Doctors!
Check out the cast list for the final episode. OMFGWTFBBQ!! Three Doctors? Three freaking doctors?! Maybe more Doctors is there are Gangers wandering around! And in case Moffat gets a wiff of SPOILORZ, here’s an image;
No I have NO idea what this could mean (does 5th teach River to fly the TARDIS? Is 5th the one controlling the TARDIS in the Pandorica Opens?), but it is so full of win. The only way it could be more win is if it had 8th, Paul McGann (he’s MY Doctor so shush).
Brain… Ache…
I have more for this, but I need a break… and want to post this much ASAP.
Doctor Who, Predictions | in Television