Gemma, What Is Best in Life?

[handful_ofdust]

Well, not being sick is pretty choice, gotta say. Routinely getting to sleep before 4:00 AM. Having a good reason to regularly leave the freaking house every day, and interact with people I respect. All of these are wonderful, I'm almost certain, but it feels like I haven't done them in years and years--more like fourteen days, my Mom recently

Comments

[sovay]

One way or the other, you'll probably never find another show out there on which people swap moonshine for drone reprogramming and automatic weapons, whose characters' internal addictions range from Oxycodone to witch-cap, or one which shows a penniless guy courting a girl by offering her a wood-carving of a bear he made because "bears are big an' fierce, just like my love for you."

I do like the sound of that.

It sounds like most of the action is focused on the Farrells; how much do we learn about the Shays or the McClintocks?

Blackburg's own Sheriff Houghton goes so far out of his way to never go up the mountain if he can at all help it--his father was a mining company negotiator who tried to cut a deal with the Farrells during which two Farrells were killed, only to later be struck by lighting on his way home from work.From this sentence alone, without ever having watched the show, I realize I have a stake in this character not actually going the way of his father, and of course it sounds like the kind of show where's there is

[sovay]

Houghton's great. He's a lugubrious beanpole with extra-terrible choppers (apparently they had to go all the way to Australia for the right sort of dental casting), a booze and pill problem, a dead wife, a son who sleepwalks and severe PTSD. He's also one of the most honest guys in town, dogged and somewhat funny; when he finally arrests Haylie for getting two people killed by the Farrells, she calls him a drunken pill-popping hick and he says: "That's right, I'm a damn triple threat."

[sovay]

He's also one of the most honest guys in town, dogged and somewhat funny; when he finally arrests Haylie for getting two people killed by the Farrells, she calls him a drunken pill-popping hick and he says: "That's right, I'm a damn triple threat."

Well, I'd watch that.

[handful_ofdust]

The Shays and McClintocks mainly appear as back-up in the clinch--they go to pad out the cliffhanger reveal that poor Houghton's assumption of "maybe 80" Farrells up on Shay Mountain is hopelessly undercut; he and his coal company mercenary/local cops incursion team are instead confronted by maybe 500 "cousins," all stamping and yelling Welsh gibberish while apparently calling down a lightning-filled storm. This after just getting up the Mountain took a day and a half instead of hours, slowed down by their satellite GPS systems going all Blair Witch halfway up.

[sulaparre]

Oh my god, so many memories! Loved Oz and found you through your fanfiction (when I found out that you're an award-winning horror writer, I said to myself "Well, that makes perfect sense"). MWAMDW is my favorite fanfiction of all time, which would sound more impressive if I've read a lot of fanfiction, which isn't quite true. Still, I had it in printed out form for years and years and re-read it few times at least.
I frequently gush about it and then when people ask where they can find it, pretend not to notice the question because I suddenly realize that nope, they can't handle it, too gritty) I did recommend it to an acquaitance of mine, highly intelligent woman, good writer and also Oz fan (so, target audience), and she agreed that it's the best fanfiction she've ever read. She just wasnt sure about all these lovely SpellIingGs. ))

[handful_ofdust]

I'm not so sure about them myself, these days! I've been trying to fix the most egregious stuff as I go along--sometimes I want to grab my younger self and tell her: "Dude, you do NOT have to break every sentence in the middle five times just to stick in a few reactive, parenthetical thought-bubbles."

[sovay]

Asa finds himself caught up in the struggle between Big Foster's upstarts and the Mountain's council of elders; he also falls back into a weird, antagonistic three-way with G'Winn (Gillian Alexy), his former lover, and Big Foster's own son Li'l Foster (Ryan Hurst), once Asa's best friend, who were left behind to console each other when Asa took off for "the distractions of civilization."

Having seen on IMDb that the full name of Gillian Alexy's character is "G'Winveer," I have to ask: is this weird antagonistic three-way going to go Arthurian?

[handful_ofdust]

Well, I guess it sort of already has, in that Li'l Foster is the rightful king after Big Foster (and a wonderfully huge, sweet, true guy in general), G'Winn is definitely the chosen queen (for both Fosters), and Asa is the predestined outsider who can be either welcomed as a saviour or decried as a destroyer. G'Winn herself turns to Asa in the clinch, telling him he's the only one who can kill Big Foster because he was banished and is therefore never going to really be "of" the Mountain again. And Asa resents this, but he sort of embraces it, too; he's less a Lancelot than a trickster, a shape-shifter, as much a man of wyrd and vision as Ragnar Lothbrok ever was. G'Winn's always going to be in love with him, even though she knows he'll always let her down.

[sovay]

Li'l Foster is the rightful king after Big Foster (and a wonderfully huge, sweet, true guy in general), G'Winn is definitely the chosen queen (for both Fosters), and Asa is the predestined outsider who can be either welcomed as a saviour or decried as a destroyer.

If so, that's a setting for the myth I haven't seen, so, cool!

[handful_ofdust]

Very much so! I'm really looking forward to season two, which appears to start with a Gangs of New York style rowdy-dow.

[handful_ofdust]

Ah, I'm so sorry. Good to hear from you again, though!