A Fond Farewell to Clone Club: Reviewing the End of Orphan Black

Luce: Well, guys, it’s been a long journey to the finale. Five years of twists and turns later, we’ve finally reached the end of the journey (or, at least, this journey) for Clone Club. But how did our favorite clones fare at this, the end of all things, and did they all make it through unscathed? Reviewing the end of Orphan Black is too much to take on alone, so I’m super glad to be joined by all of our faithful Orphan Black review team for this very last review.

Spoilers after the jump!

(via denofgeek)

Fanfiction Fridays: The Queen’s General by nire

*right click* “Set as desktop background” (via comicbookmovie)

While I enjoyed Wonder Woman as much as the rest of this blog did, I did come out of the movie wishing for more of the Amazons. Not only did the scenes on Themyscira feature dozens of women of a Certain Age™, whom Hollywood would usually block from action scenes, being totally badass, I can’t remember the last time we saw a joyously matriarchal society portrayed on screen. I was also hoping against hope for some good old-fashioned Sapphic love, it being an all-female Greek-inspired island and all, but I guess I’ll keep waiting there. Thankfully, the internet, being the internet, is always happy to provide me with these things when Hollywood fails to. And while there is a very small contingent of femslash growing in the nascent Wonder Woman AO3 category, the one story that really struck a chord with me was a gen fic focused on Antiope, General of the Amazon army and Diana’s beloved aunt and mentor.

Sexualized Saturdays: Motherhood vs. Fatherhood in Geek Media

I don’t know if I would say that Saga is my favorite comic, but that’s probably because it’s just so good, and so consistently so, that it’d be like saying that I like breathing air. I take it for granted that Saga is going to be one of the best comics out there every time I pick up a trade. The fifth trade collection just debuted this week and it got me thinking about motherhood and characterization. The main characters of the story are Alana and Marko, the parents of our narrator, Hazel. Alana and Marko are from Landfall and Wreath, respectively, a planet and its moon that have been at war for as long as anyone can remember. The fact that they’ve fallen in love and had a baby has put them at the top of both their homelands’ hit lists, and they’ve been on the run for the entirety of the story, trying (and failing spectacularly) to find somewhere safe to raise their child.

One of the things that I love about Alana is that, while she is absolutely and fiercely dedicated to her daughter, it shows in a way that is consistent with her character. She will fuck up anyone who threatens to lay a hand on Hazel, but she’s not the best at motherhood or at being a decent person, and her best-laid plans too often go awry. She’s also still got interests and desires outside of simply raising her daughter; she didn’t stop being a person when she started being a mother. She loves the trashy romance novels that helped her bond with Marko when they first met. She developed a drug problem while trying to support her family on the run. She felt miserable and unsexy when she and Marko tried to have sex while she was pregnant. She can fire a rifle and curse a blue streak but still struggles to get along with her in-laws. In fact, Alana as a character is more in line with what we usually see of fathers in pop culture.

Motherhood in Geekery

This post is quite obviously two days late; Mother’s Day has come and gone. I’m-a apologize for that, but it kind of goes to point I want to make: mothers and motherhood get remarkably short shrift in pop culture in general and geek culture in particular.

For the most part, moms just don’t exist. Where they do, they’re either saintly and loving, or creepy and weird. Archetypes without full characterization. Which is all to say, it’s time we do better.

You Should Watch This: Call the Midwife

You know that mythical unicorn of a show, the one that has a mainly female cast, with diverse characters, women who aren’t defined by their relationships with men, and a high quality of production? Call the Midwife is that show. 

Call the Midwife might not be the typical geek show, but it’s one that all geeks (especially girl geeks) should pay attention to. It’s another period drama from the Brits, a BBC creation in the same family as ITV’s Downton Abbey, but for some reason it hasn’t caught the same popularity wave in the US. Based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth, the show follows newly-minted midwife Jenny Lee as she dives head-first into serving the residents of the East End of London during the 1950s. Jenny lives and works with a group of Anglican Sisters (of the nun variety), whose primary work is nursing and delivering the hundred or so babies born each month in the Poplar district. The first series of 6 episodes aired in early 2012 in the UK, the second series of 8 in early 2013, and the first series aired on PBS in late 2012. A third series is planned for 2014. So far I’ve only seen the first series, via Netflix.

So why is Call the Midwife all kinds of awesome?