D20 Girls Magazine - Winter 2014
Content
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
1
Staff Credits
Editor in Chief: Erika Litherland
Layout Design: Erika Litherland
Writers:
Erika Litherland
Tara Watson
Jacqueline Arbelo
Deshanna Heavelow
Megan Willis
Amanda Baldwin
Stephanie Hull
Amanda Throm
Brittney Fischer
Luke Wolford
Other Credits:
North Carolina D20 Girls
MTAC
Tomisina Lynn Photography
Michelle Savana Photography Tasia
Marble City Comicon
Computer Express
Planet Comicon
Palouse Comicon
Tommy Tee Photography
Comix Well Spring
Double Stomp Productions
Figments & Filaments
Nerd Girl of the Future
Games Workshop:
Slumping into Irrelevancy?
Harry Potter Photos
30
Newbs Guide to the Multiverse:
On Being Arthur Dent
Queen!
70 Ask Chiki
The D20 Girls Magazine is published four times per year. Manufactured and published in the United States
of America. D20 Girls Magazine is copyright of Le Nurd Mystique, LLC. Products named in these pages are
trade names or trademarks of their respective companies. The publisher shall not be responsible for slight
changes or typographical errors that do not lesson the value of the advertisement. The publisher’s liability for
other errors or omissions in connection with an advertisement is limited to republication of the advertisement
in any subsequent issue or the refund of any monies paid for the advertisement. Works remain the property
of their rights holder.
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D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
Fall 20 1 2
9 Chicago Tardis
10 Sherlock!
12 Elizabethan Insults
14 BBC Party
20 Things I Learned from Harry Potter
23 The North Carolina Girls
34 Hello and Goodbye: Doctor Who
36 Knitting Through Time
38 Meet Claudia Vainglory
44 The Misfits
45 Downton Abbey
46 Being Human: UK vs US
58 Torchwood
62 Life Lessons from Primeval
65 D20 Girls Rock: Meet Glitter
S p eD20c Girls
i a Magazine
l T a t- Fall
t o2012
o Issue! | Game Reviews | Advice | And More!
Contents
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In 1964 The Beatles stepped off a plane onto US soil and
officially made British Invasion a national catch phrase. It wasn’t
just The Beatles, it was a number of bands and pop culture influences
that shaped our own culture, and continues to do so. In recent years
we’ve seen a new wave of British influences gain popularity here
in the states. From Doctor Who and Torchwood to Sherlock and
Harry Potter, our nerd flags are full of UK fandoms. This new British
Invasion is still spreading. Recent shows like the US version of
Being Human and the Canadian version of Primeval show us just
how catching these ideas are. Even my daughter’s music teacher has
her love of Doctor Who displayed in her classroom. British fandoms,
and other fandoms too, are becoming less and less exclusive or
secretive. And isn’t that what this has all been about really? Making
it ok to love what you love, to accept yourself and be proud of
yourself and all your quirks is a lofty goal, one we see becoming
a reality more and more each day. In fact, when we ran our nerdy tattoo’s
issue over a year ago, our cover girl was the proud owner of some awesome
Doctor Who ink. We couldn’t help but share that awesome cover again.
\
But despite the love of these fandoms, this was also one of our most
challenging issues to date. The holidays make schedules hard to manage on
a good day, and on top of that, a number of our volunteer staff are fighting
all sorts of health issues and computer crashes. Blood, sweat, and tears. And
that’s not even me being dramatic! It hasn’t been easy, but we all plugged
through and here it is! Which is really what being a team is all about, isn’t
it? What I lack, others have strength in and what others lack, I have strength
in. Knowing our strengths and weaknesses and working together is what
our team is all about. And despite all of those frustrations, and all the sweat,
blood and tears, I’m very proud of the way we all pulled together on this
issue and in the past year as a whole.
\
Can you believe it’s been over a year since our team took over the production of this publication. And
while things haven’t always been perfect, we’ve really learned a lot. About our fandoms, new fandoms, our
publication, our fans, and ourselves. The next year promises to bring even more changes and lessons as we
look toward what this publication will become. You may soon see some staff changes, or changes in direction,
and these should be looked upon with excitement. Change is something people often fear, but in this case it is
something that I hope you will come to look forward to. Change has led us here, which is a place we couldn’t
even have envisioned a year ago, who knows where we will be a year from now and what that will look like. I
for one am excited to see how things go.
D20 Girls Magazine
6
7
Katie Zheng
Cover Image: Claudia Vainglory
Image by: Tomisina Lynn Photography
Letter from the Editor
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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1
Harrypottershop.com $84.96
This little blood red stone is what started our wonderful adventure with Harry Potter
and the Wizard World. This beauty is made of cut glass and comes with a pretty dome
display measuring about 6-inches in height. Now you can keep it and the Elixir of Life
safe from “He Who Must Not Be Named.”
The Sherlock Files: Official Companion
Shoppbs.org $17.99
Ever wondered what Sherlock scribbles as he attempts to ignore Watsons dull prattle?
Or want an inside look on the clues from The Hounds of Baskerville? Along with episode clues this paperback edition of The Sherlock Files includes exclusive interviews
and Sherlock’s detective notes for you to read and re-read again and again and maybe
you can even gift one!
Doctor Who Tardis Jewelry Box
Urban-collector.com
$33.99
New for Christmas 2013 comes the bigger on the inside TARDIS jewelry box.
7 drawers, 3 metal hooks, and a ring hanger, there’s even room for your Fob
Watch! Buy one now and remember to look in that mirror and tell yourself just
who is “sexy”.
Fandom Sampler Tea Sets
Adagio.com $39
Harry Potter, Sherlock, Doctor Who and more? Oh my! These 10 beautifully illustrated
tins by the awesome Cara McGee tea samplers not only look awesome but taste great.
Flavors like the Mycroft Blend-Chocolate Chip, Vanilla Chai and Cream, or the Donna
Noble-Irish breakfast, Cinnamon and Orange. What’s more british than tea? Celebrate
your inner Brit and drink it pinkies up!
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D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
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Harry Potter Sorcerer’s Stone Authentic Replica
Which Euro-fandom tool is best for the Everyman?
Ou
Products we Love!
Choose Wisely!
The Hitchiker’s Guide: This digital format handbook features an
ever growing library of information containing topics ranging
across the entire galaxy. The content within covers everything from
drink recipes, to local customs, to critical advice for the aspiring
hitchhiker. It also features an electronic thumb for flagging down
passing space crafts and is emblazoned with the comforting words:
Don’t panic!
The Sonic Screwdriver: A rare and versatile device that is the favored tool of the
mostly extinct time lords. It can be modified and upgraded (though only with high
levels of technology and genius level intelligence). By the time of the tenth doctor,
its capabilities included scanning, and projecting sound. Its ability to interface with
virtually any device makes it a useful hacking tool, great for opening locks and
doors, as well as being able to disrupt some forms of offensive weapons. Beyond
that it has miscellaneous uses such as a geolocator and some…vague…medical
purposes.
The Harry Potter Style Wand: Wands in the Harry Potter universe are critical. Witches and
wizards are very limited in their magical capabilities when caught without a wand. The wand
magnifies and directs the inherent magical power of the user, and the magic that can be
done is practically limitless. From healing to offensive powers, levitation and transformation,
unlocking doors and controlling others’ minds, this powerful tool is essential for the modern
witch or wizard.
Lucy’s magic cordial: Given to her by the great and powerful Aslan, Lucy’s cordial is a healing drought that
can repair any wound. It is limitless in its healing ability, being able to repair the most grievous wounds
almost instantly.
Each of these would be useful in their own way, providing a range of capabilities for an adventurer. I considered each carefully, weighing
the pros and cons of each item. The first thing I considered was raw power. Just on power level alone, a HP style wand would undoubtedly
take the cake. It can summon, kill, heal, un-lock doors: most of the functions of the other tools are also contained within this one simple
piece of wood. The reason why I had to set this aside as the top ranking tool for the everyman, however, is that a wand merely directs
and amplifies that inherent power of the user. Most people upon acquiring a wand discover that they are a muggle. At that point the only
purpose of the wand is to depress you. Nearly limitless power…and to most of us, it’s just a stick.
Consider next Lucy’s cordial. Healing is undoubtedly a hugely useful thing, and the wealth and power you could gain just from making it
known that you have the ability to heal anything or anyone would be incredible. The reason, though, it can’t be considered is that it is a
small container, and eventually it will run out and be gone, with no lasting effect left behind, beyond the lives you saved. Well that, and the
money you made (if of course you are vaguely villainous like myself).
The Hitchiker’s guide provides all of the knowledge contained in a planet full of buildings. That knowledge is being constantly expanded and
upgraded by agents working around the galaxy. Knowledge is powerful, yet the aspect that makes it most valuable is the electronic thumb.
The ability to hail passing space craft opens up a world, no, a universe of possibilities of adventure and travel. This tool is the most exciting
to me, but again, I am brought back to earth by (fictional) reality. This is not a highly trafficked area of space, and you, like Ford Prefect
cold be stuck on this mostly harmless rock for a very long time. You could then console yourself by reading about all the fabulous places in
the universe you are currently not travelling.
I had to give the title of best tool for the every man to the Sonic Screwdriver. The tool itself can be utilized for most of its applications by
any user. No door will be locked for you, no chest of treasure kept from your grasp! There will be many functions that are meaningless
to the non-Time Lord, but no worries, The Doctor generally only keeps one at a time, so if you hang on to it for long enough he will
undoubtedly come back for it. In the Tardis. That key element, along with its interfacing capabilities, is what makes the Sonic Screwdriver
the top tool for the average adventurer!
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
5
Nerd Girl of the Future
Meet Maggie!
A typical 3 grader from Missouri who
loves cats, plays soccer, and has a keen
nose for candy in the house.
Games Workshop
Slumping Into Irrelevancy?
rd
By Luke Wolford and Tara Watson
When one speaks of the United
Kingdom’s contributions to sci-fi
and fantasy fandom, for many the
first things that spring to mind are
the popular contributions such as
Dr. Who, or the increasing popular
Sherlock television series, yet one
of the largest contributions to come
from the U.K. comes in the form of
an empire of strategic miniature
wargames.
Maggie is also an unabashed geek.
She is a Whovian who wants to dress
as a Dalek for Halloween. Currently
her favorite TV show is The Sarah
Jane Adventures. She is also a gamer,
loving to play math games on the
computer, board games like Dungeon!
and King of Tokyo, and she even has
characters on Wizard 101 and World
of Warcraft. When she goes to bed,
she falls asleep to the music from the
Taverns of Azeroth cd.
She is a really big fan of Monster High,
and loves all sorts of things spooky
and supernatural.
She loves Tim Burton movies. This Valentine’s day, she
built a mailbox shaped like a coffin. It was decorated
with skulls, keys, and hair bows. For her birthday the
past two years, she’s gone to see The Hobbit movies.
Her favorite part was the use of molten gold to fight
the dragon.
Maggie is not shy. In addition to enjoying tabletop and
computer gaming, she also loves to LARP (live action
role play), perform in stage plays, and help out at the
Kansas City Renaissance Festival. She is learning to
sew so she can start making her own costumes, and
is teaching herself to play the violin. When she grows
up, Maggie says she wants to be a veterinarian.
This geeky girl is not afraid to march to her own drum.
When asked what she’d do if somebody told her she
couldn’t do what she wanted with her life, she smiled
crookedly and answered “Nothing in the ‘verse can
stop me.”
Go for it, geeky girl! The world needs more like you!
6
D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
First, came Warhammer: The Game
of Fantasy Battle. Launching in
1983, Warhammer featured factions
such as Chaos, the Empire, Skaven
and Orcs. Featured miniatures
included individual characters, small
military units, and vehicles. Players
built personalized armies to battle
one another via dice rolls. Games
last an average of about 2 hours in
length, but of course that timing
can vary based on the players.
Aeronautica Imperialis, Golden
Heroes, Stormbringer, Runequest,
Battlecars, HeroQuest, and many
others.
Then, in 1987, Games Workshop
launched Warhammer 40,000 as a
sci-fi companion to Warhammer.
Like Warhammer Fantasy, players
can choose to build their armies of
different races and factions, and
one can also utilize new vehicles.
Empires were built, both on the
game table and in a rapidly growing
fandom.
From there it expanded into novels,
video games, role-playing games,
movies, and many types of merchandise. Stories that are gritty
and dark, often focusing on futile
attempts to stay alive in hopeless
situations. The novel Fifteen Hours
was a prime example, where the
average lifespan of the Imperial
Guard soldiers being exactly that,
fifteen hours.
However, Games Workshop did not
just stop at these games. Using the
overall success of the Warhammer
franchises, they expanded to bring
in other fandoms through The Lord
of the Rings Strategy Battle Game,
Games Workshop is a giant in the
figure-based gaming industry, but
they have recently come under
scrutiny for the high prices of their
figures. Gamers have started to
drift away from the Warhammer
setting, citing rising costs of figures
and the expense of the rulebooks.
As one player commented, “Thirty
dollars for an individual figure is
just too much.” The cost increases
when specialized resin-cast figures
are purchased. UK-based company
Forge World produces these pieces
via contractual agreement with
Games Workshop.
The declining player base has
shown in the company’s stocks. In
mid-January, profits were down by
3.4 million British pounds from the
previous year. The discontinuation
of games such as Necromundia,
Bloodbowl, and Inquisitor; the
end of Finecast; and the decline
of White Dwarf and Warhammer:
Visions taking the monthly slot
heralds a waning in resources that
many see as the beginning of the
end of Games Workshop.
Will the minifig giant pull out of
its slump and draw its player base
back? The fan base is there, but it
will take a lot for Games Workshop
to gain back its trust.
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
7
Chicago Tardis
The D20 Girls of Illinois were fortunate enough to
be invited to Chicago TARDIS this year at the Westin
Lombard Yorktown Center Novemeber twenty ninth
to December first. There were some awesome guests
in attendance including Doctors 5, 6 and 8, as well as
companion Martha Jones. We met up with some Tumblr
friends, made new ones (even some Dalek friends) and
had loads of fun with all the amazing Cosplayers. We
were even lucky enough to meet up with Doctor Who’s
own Commander Strax (played by Dan Starkey) as well
as Mels (played by Nina Toussaint-White), for some
awesome interviews. For more information, head over to
the magazine site at www.D20GirlsMagazine.com for the
full interviews and pictures!
Catch Us If You Can
February
Feb 20: Super Nerd Night, Wichita, KS
Feb 28-Mar 2: VisionCon, Branson, MO
March
Mar 1-2: ETSU Con, Johnson City, TN
March 14-16: Triad Anime Convention, Winston-Salem,
NC
March 14-16: Planet Comicon, Kansas City, MO
March 21-23: Megacon, Orlando, FL
March 29-30: Procon, Charleston, SC
March 29-30: Koku Manga, Johnson City, TN
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D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
April
April 11-13: Marble City Comicon, Knoxville, TN
April 18-20: MTAC, Murfreesboro, TN
April 19-20: Nashicon, Columbia, SC
April 25-27: Figments and Filaments, Independence, MO
April 26-27: Festival of Legends, Chapel Hill, NC
April 26: Nerdcon, Boone, NC
D20 Girls Magazine Online
You can find exciting additional coverage and new
articles every week on our magazine website! Our
volunteer staff write unique articles and share tips,
ideas, and fun cosplay pictures and tutorials. You
don’t want to miss a single update! Go visit us at
www.d20girlsmagazine.com
Follow us on our National Facebook page to help find
new events you can be part of! If you’d like to invite us
to anevent near you, please send us a message through
facebook or send an email to our executive director at
[email protected]
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
9
SHERLOCK!
By Deshanna
Fans eagerly awaited the first
episode of season 3 of BBC’s
Sherlock. How were they going
to explain Sherlock’s survival
of the fall from the top of the
hospital? Theories abounded on
the internet. Each fan had a theory
and was more than willing to share
it with any other “Sherlockian”
or “Cumberbitch”, but how was
Stephan Moffat going to have it play
out?
I stumbled upon Sherlock on
Netflix just over a year ago and
was very leery of watching it. As
10
a huge fan of the original stories
by Arthur Conan Doyle, I am very
protective of what I think of as “my
Sherlock”(just like every other fan)
so I really didn’t want to watch
a show of some guy trying to act
like Sherlock. After much internal
debate, I took a deep breath and
pushed the play button. Less than
five minutes later, I was marveling
at this man that WAS Sherlock.
I was hooked and spent an entire
Saturday marathoning the six
episodes that were available.
Sherlock dumped you right into
the action as Sherlock meets John
Watson, who has just returned
home from Afghanistan after being
injured. John needs a place to stay
and a friend introduces him to
Sherlock. John wants nothing to
do with this nutjob, but can’t help
D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
Heavelow
but be pulled in by the cases that
Sherlock is working on. As the two
work together to solve themurders
made to look like suicides, John
forgets all about his injury, which
is healed and is only in his mind
now. Soon the two have forged an
unlikely friendship and it was this
friendship as much as the stories
that kept me coming back for each
subsequent episode.
The first season was about showing
how Sherlock’s mind worked
as well as showing how little
he understood the world he was
required to interact with. At first I
thought John Watson was going to
be a shadow of a character, but he
found a way to hold his own with
the dominating and overbearing
Sherlock.
The second season showed that over
the course of time between season
one and season two, Sherlock had
“grown up.” He may not have
realized it at the start of the season,
but he had friends. It started
with one, John Watson, however
reluctantly and grew to include
Detective Inspector Lestrade from
Scotland Yard, his landlady; Mrs.
Hudson, a young lady who works
in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital’s
morgue; Molly Hooper and even at
the end of season two; his brother
Mycroft. By the end of the season
and the stand off on the roof of St.
Bart’s with Moriarity, Sherlock had
a whole circle of people who cared
about him and were willing to do
anything to help him. Moriarity
knew that Sherlock cared for these
people even if Sherlock didn’t know
it yet and was willing to kill them.
In the last episode of season two,
Moriarity apparently killed himself
on the roof of St. Bart’s right in
front of Sherlock in order to force
Sherlock to kill himself to save
John, Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson
from assassins. The end of the
episode shows Sherlock lying on
the pavement having jumped from
the roof of the hospital. John runs up
and sees the body of his best friend
lying on the ground, and then we see
John and Mrs. Husdon at Sherlock’s
funeral.
From the moment the episode
ended, theories abounded about
how Sherlock had faked his death.
In a brilliant move, Stephan
Moffat incorporated a couple of
the most prevalent theories into
the first episode as a couple of
characters imagined how it could
have happened. Season three picks
up approximately two years later
and we see that Sherlock has been
working for MI6 all across Asia
and Europe and that John is in a
serious relationship with Mary.
John has moved on, or so he thinks,
but Sherlock expected everything
to return to the status quo once he
revealed himself.
Sherlock knows now that he has
friends and that he even *gasp*
cares for them. This season was
about forgiving. John had to forgive
Sherlock for letting him think he
was dead and Sherlock had to
forgive John for moving on with
his life. They begin their friendship
anew but things are different now
and by the end of the season, they
had found their niches. In the last
episode Sherlock killed a man who
posed a threat to Britain’s security,
and more importantly to him;
posed a threat to his best friend’s
happiness.
That just wouldn’t do, so Sherlock
handled it in the most effective way
he could, knowing that if he did that
he would be sent on a mission that
would get him killed for real this
time. He was on his way to this final
mission after killing Magnussen
to ensure John and Mary’s safety,
when he was called back by Mycroft
because Moriarity had taken
over every TV channel and was
broadcasting. It seems Britain once
again needed her best detective at
home to face the most dangerous of
threats.
Why is Sherlock such a
phenomenon? Is it the story telling?
The characters? What?
I can’t speak for everyone, but
the people that I know that watch
it say that it is a combination of
the story telling, characters and
the actors themselves. A lot of
the time you can tell someone is
acting as a character, but Benedict
Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman
aren’t just playing Sherlock and
Watson, they ARE Sherlock and
Watson. That I believe, is the key to
Sherlock’s success.
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
11
Insults, Elizabethan Style
By Tara Watson
Have you ever been in an argument, and later that night, come
up with the snappy comeback
that you should have used instead of being left in mortified
silence? Maybe you responded
with the ever-mumbled “Shut
up”, or worse, straight from the
interwebs, “NO U!”
Enter the Bard.
They have a plentiful lack of wit.
Thou art a Castilian King urinal!
Hamlet
The Merry Wives of Windsor
You blocks, you stones, you worse
than senseless things!
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Julius Caesar
You are a tedious fool.
Measure for Measure
Men from children nothing differ.
Much Ado About Nothing
Coriolanus
You had measured how long a fool
you were upon the ground.
Cymbeline
12
Thou lump of foul deformity!
Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an
embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood.
Vile worm, thou wast o’erlook’d
even in thy birth.
Richard III
Thou cream faced loon.
The Taming of the Shrew
Much Ado About Nothing
MacBeth
Thou bitch-wolf’s son!
Thou art loathsome as a toad.
Troilus and Cressida
GTFO
I do desire we may be better
strangers.
Titus Andronicus
Thine face is not worth
sunburning.
Henry V
As You Like It
Thou mis-shapen dick!
Away! Thou’rt poison to my blood.
Henry VI, pt. 3
Cymbeline
Henry IV, pt. 2
Liar, Liar,
Pants on Fire!
Dissembling harlot, thou art false
in all!
I scorn you, scurvy companion.
The Comedy of Errors
Henry IV, pt. 1
Henry IV, pt. 2
Jerk Alert!
You are not worth another word,
else I’d call you knave.
Out, dunghill!
O braggart vile and damned
furious wight!
You, minion, are too saucy.
Two Gentlemen of Verona
You are as a candle, the better
burnt out.
All’s Well that Ends Well
They were devils incarnate.
Henry V
Away, you mouldy rogue, away!
King John
He is white-livered and red-faced.
Richard III
Heaven truly knows that thou art
false as hell.
Henry VI, pt. 1
You are strangely troublesome.
Away, you three inch fool.
D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Henry V
Out of my sight! Thou dost infect
my eyes.
Go hang yourself, you naughty
mocking uncle!
Troilus and Cressida
Hag of all despite!
Henry VIII
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
Troilus and Cressida
You are an ass.
Troilus and Cressida
More of your conversation would
infect my brain.
Coriolanus
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Thou sodden-witted lord! Thou
hast no more brain than I have in
mine elbows.
The Comedy of Errors
The tartness of his face sours ripe
grapes.
King Lear
Troilus and Cressida
Stupid Stupidhead!
Thou whoreson, senseless villain!
A fusty nut with no kernel.
Coriolanus
You peasant swain! You whoreson
malt-horse drudge!
I think thy horse will sooner con an
oration than thou learn a prayer
without book.
William Shakespeare may be
almost 400 years dead, but his
insults are nearly as legendary as
the man himself. The next time
you feel the need to give a really
great zinger and leave the other
guy stammering, try one of these
gems on for size.
You juggler! you canker-blossom!
U-G-L-Y, You Aint
Got No Alibi...
They lie deadly that tell you you
have good faces .
The Taming of the Shrew
Henry V
Othello
UR Doin It Rong
Your abilities are too infant-like for
doing much alone.
Coriolanus
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
13
STOP! Who would read about
BBC must answer me these
questions three, ere the party
article he see. What…is your
name?! What…is your quest?!
What... is the air-speed velocity of
an unladen swallow? When I hear
BBC my mind automatically goes to
comedy. Call me old but I love The
Benny Hill Show, Mr. Bean, and let
us not forget the ever wondrous
Monty Python! More recent titles
for BBC comedies would also
include The IT Crowd, The Office,
and The Mighty Boosh. Bringing
these shows together for a party
could only end up one of two ways,
side-splitting laughter or complete
and utter malarkey. This article will
hopefully help you to give your
guests the enjoyment that these
shows and movies have given me
and my friends over the years.
‘Wi nøt trei a høliday
in Sweden this yër?’
BBC PARTY
By: Megan Willis
Drinks
Holy Ginger Grail-ale
Holy cola of Antioch
Coconut Milk
Hot IT(ea)
Beer for Benny (21+)
White Wine (21+)
Bailey’s [from a shoe](21+)
Music/Movies
Benny Hill
Monty Python (anything)
The IT Crowd
The Mighty Boosh
The Office (BBC version)
“Coffin Fodder” - Cradle of Filth
“Spamalot” sound track
“Yakety Sax”
Party Favors
Newts
Poncho (napkins)
Water Color Paint & paper
Games
Mr. Bean face mask
A horse (aka two empty halves
“Yakey Sax” musical chairs
of coconuts)
Monty Python trivia
An Ex-parrot
Dead parrot Piñata
A Wafer-thin mint
GIRLS
MontyD20
Python
FluxxMAGAZINE WINTER 2014
14
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
Food
Ham, Jam, & Spam…a lot
Ni’s (broccoli) Shrubbery
Slices of The Moon
Staplers in Jelly (Jello)
Coconut shavings
Monty Python fishmen
Self Defense Against Fresh Fruit Tray
Decorations
Dead Parrots (MP Flying Circus)
Long Tigers (MP: Meaning of Life)
The Moon (The Mighty Boosh)
Red door (The IT Crowd)
Random geekery (The IT Crowd)
Grail-shaped beacon (MP Holy Grail)
Office Supplies (The Office)
Gorilla hand gloves
Guests were welcomed and
encouraged to wear costumes from
their favorite show/movie and
had countless options. This helps
to liven up things and get your
guests in a better mood, plus, who
doesn’t like to put on silly outfits
and act goofy? ‘Dead’ Norwegian
Blue parrots (either printed or toy)
in cages or lying around plays into
Monty Pythons Flying Circus “Dead
Parrot” skit. Hanging along the wall
was the back half of a tiger that I
had drawn and painted on a large
sheet of paper which stretched out
behind my couch beside a sign that
read ‘Africa’ as a knock at Monty
Pythons The Meaning of Life. While
on Monty Python decorations one
that required a little more work was
a Grail-shaped beacon from the
ladies at Castel Anthrax in The Holy
Grail. This was made using craft
foam and a light behind it like a
lamp (this can sometimes get warm
so check on it).
‘See the løveli lakes’
Moving along to other
decoration ideas…and random
gorilla hand gloves give a hint at
both Monty Python and Bollo from
The Mighty Boosh. There are so
many things you can print off or
paint to hang about for decorations
with The Mighty Boosh including
The Moon, Tony Harrison, and many
others. Along the lines of Noel
Fielding, if you have a large sheet of
red paper or a red plastic table cloth
you can add it to a random door (I
picked the laundry one) and stretch
it over it attaching it with tacks.
If you want to add a little extra
to this IT Crowd “The Red Door”
reference you can print off a picture
of Richmond Avenal waiting for
your curious guests. Luckily with the
IT Crowd, decorations can honestly
be random geeky knickknacks that
are seen on Roy and Moss’s desks
throughout the show. Other easy
decorations from BBC comedy
shows would be office supplies and
stacks of paper for The Office (BBC
not NBC).
recommend any of the shows above
as they are all for a more mature
audience. If you want to steer away
from the flicks you can always
honor Richmond’s favorite song
“CoffinFodder” by Cradle of Filth.
Okay, that may be a bit much but
you can so you could put the sound
track for Monty Pythons “Spamalot”
or the ever famous “Yakety Sax”
from The Benny Hill Show.
‘And mäni
interesting furry animals’
You can use the “Yakey Sax” to
play musical chairs with your guests.
While it plays in the background you
can randomly stop the music and
watch as your guests race to grab
a seat. Seem too busy, then test
your friends knowledge of Monty
Python with a trivia game. I spent a
sometime looking up facts and trivia
question (aka IMDb is your friend)
on everything from The Flying Circus
to any of their movies (if you’re
feeling extra mean tossing their
musical production of ‘Spamalot’)
and typed them up in lines so
that I could cut out the strips of
‘The wøndërful
telephøne system’
Keeping your guests entertained
is easy. There are loads of hours in
movies and shows. The Benny Hill
Show, The IT Crowd, The Mighty
Boosh, The Office (BBC), and
anything Monty Python [Flying
Circus, Holy Grail, Life of Brian,
Meaning of Life, etc]. Your guest’s
level of comfort and ease of offence
will give you an idea of what to
have playing in the background.
For example, if you have a young
crowd of kids…well I wouldn’t really
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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paper. Answers can either be wrote
upside down and backwards on
the back on if you’re OCD like me
the categories in alphabetical order
on sheet of paper, you could also
have the questions numbered with
the same number for answers.
It’s really what is easiest for you.
Trivia not your thing? Then take a
swing at the Dead parrot Piñata. I
sketched out the shape of a parrot
onto cardboard, taped the pieces
together, glued blue streamers on,
and sharpied in some detail (aka the
X’ed out eyes). If you want to go all
out then be my guest but I figure
this thing is going to be bashed
harder than pretty Polly was in the
skit. Finally to calm things down
try your hand at the Monty Python
Fluxx card game. You can find it in
most game store as well as on-line.
‘Including the majestik møøse’
With all of this game playing,
running around, and quizzing your
guests may want to replenish their
energy with some brain food. Play
into King Author’s visit to Camelot
by serving your guests Ham, Jam, &
Spam…a lot!! If you want to make
a tray look a little more pleasing to
the eye roll the ham slices up and
place them on a plate with crackers,
biscuits, etc on each side, jam in
16
the middle for your bread, and fried
Spam on the opposite side of the
tray. Another Holy Grail appetizer is
a lovely broccoli Shrubbery with a
little ranch dip path running down
the middle. If you are as good
as Roger the Shrubber, then you
could add to the plating’s beauty
by putting another shrubbery (of
cauliflower) place it beside the
shrubbery you have already platted,
only slightly higher so you get a
two layer effect. Okay, okay, I’m
done with The Holy Grail…for now!
Anyways, I added slices of The
Moon from The Mighty Boosh using
provolone cheese. You can be more
creative if you like and give him
eyes using black olives and a mouth
using a red bell pepper if you like.
A Møøse once bit my sister...’
Guests have more of a sweet
tooth? Well let them dine on
Jelly (Jello) to commemorate
Tim Canterbury’s Stapler in the
Jelly prank that he pulled on
Gareth Keenan from The Office.
I considered actually putting
miniature staples in the molds but
upon further inspection I realized
the staplers would be sticky,
unsanitary, and messy…which was
fine because I had a better use for
them! Mwuhahaha Ahem. Coconuts
are a must have for snacking
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on sweets. I started off with a
whole coconut and after taking a
screwdriver & hammering at the
things for a good 20-30 minutes
decided it would be just to just have
shaved coconuts for my guests to
munch on and reminisce on the
gallant steeds from The Holy Grail
and other Monty Python skits from
The Flying Circus. And since we’re
back on them, I added in Swedish
fish(men) for when the gang were
fish in The Meaning of Life. Of
course there was also a Self Defense
Against Fresh Fruit Tray incase
our guests needed any training on
how to defend themselves from
someone wielding a banana or any
other dangerous fruit out there!
‘No ovies! She was Karving
her initials øn the ovie with
the sharpened end of an
interspace ovies ush given her
by Svenge – her brother-in-law
–an Oslo dentist and star of
many Norwegian ovies: “The
Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist”,
“Fillings of Passion”, “The Huge
Mølars of Horst Nordfink”…’
At some point your guests will
become parched and need a drink
so how do we tie this all in with a
BBC comedy party, why with Holy
Ginger Grail-ale! Super simple
to make, take a punch bowl and
pour in ginger ale and BAM, you’re
done! Another easy, albeit more
expensive, drink for your guests is
the Holy cola of Antioch. For this
you just need to purchase the ballshaped soda bottles, remove the
cover and badazzle it up however
you see fit. I painted the lids to my
drinks gold since I recycle but you
can add whatever flare you see fit.
If you want your friends to enjoy
the coconut milk from the whole
coconut you purchase I suggest
saving yourself some time and
buying coconut milk as there is
never reallyenough milk in the nut
itself to go around for all of your
guests. And of course it wouldn’t
be a British party without some hot
IT(ea). For the more adult crowd of
21 years and older you can tip your
hat and have a Beer for Benny. One
of the things I remember about
The Benny Hill Show, beyond him
runningaround after the ladies,
was his ‘drunken’ skits where his
character often was enjoying a
pint. For those who remember
the dinner party episode of The IT
Crowd, Roy brought Jen some very
plan White Wine. This was made
by simply printing off a label on a
piece of paper that reads White
Wine 2007 750ml 12%. Finally in
honor of Old Gregg from the Old
Gregg episode of The Mighty Boosh,
Bailey’s from a shoe.
memories. Instead of turning your
friends into newts which, they’ll get
better, you can always give them
rubber newts which can be found
at most dollar stores. According
to Vince Noir from The Mighty
Boosh ‘Charlie’ “it’s impossible to
be unhappy in a poncho” (or in my
case poncho napkins---I couldn’t
find mini ponchos anywhere).
Give your guests a piece of water
color paper and a water color
paint pallet so they can share their
memories of the night like Old
Gregg. To add to the creep factor,
Mr. Bean face mask. I made these
by printing off Mr. Beans face,
cutting out eye holes, and gluing
it to a Popsicle stick. My last Holy
Grail thing for this article(ish) is
of course a horse (aka two empty
halves of coconuts) for your guests
to gallop through the kingdom of
Mercea on their own time. An Exparrotcan be shoved into the bag
of goodies (don’t worry, it’s only
resting and won’t feel a thing). I
couldn’tactually find small parrots,
however I printed off extra parrots
that I used for decorations to give
to myguests. Finally how else could
I see my guests off but with
wafer-thin mint. It’s only a tiny little
thin one.
‘We apologies again for the
fault in the subtitles. Those
responsible for sacking the
people who have just been
sacked, have been sacked. ‘
Thank for reading. I hope this
helped to at least give you a few
chuckles and ideas id nothing
else. If you have any questions or
possibly any ideas that you think
would be good to add to the laughs
of a BBC comedy party let me know
by visiting the D20’s on-line blog
at www.D20GirlsMagazine.com.
My monthly blog is titled Party for
Anyone. As always, thank you all for
your time and have fun partying!
‘The directors of the firm hired
to continue the credits after the
other people had been sacked,
wish it to be known that they
have just been sacked. The
credits have been completed
in an entirely different style at
great expense and at the last
minute. ‘All quotes between
the paragraphs are from the
creativity minds of the writers
of Monty Python & the Holy
Grail! Thank you for the
laughter and my ongoing fear
of being bitten by a moose.
‘We apologize for the fault in
the subtitles. Those responsible
have been sacked.’
‘Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty
nasti...’
As the laughter begins to die
down and guests your guests
head home be sure to give them
a party favor bag as a token of
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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“It is our choices, Harry, that show
what we truly are, far more than
our abilities.” Albius Dumbledoor
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WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
Things I Learned from Harry Potter
By: Tara Watson\
Sometimes, sacrifice is essential.
Know when to let go and when to hold on. There will be times when
the pain of loss seems too great to endure, but the undertaking is
too great, too important. Sometimes you have to give up the most
important thing in your life to move forward with what you must do.
Even the smallest
acts of bravery can
make a difference.
Well, maybe it doesn’t go
THAT far, but it does release
endorphins in the brain that make
you feel better. So when the
boggarts come out of the cupboard
and you’ve just had enough, don’t
hesitate to unwrap a chocolate
bar. Maybe meet your friends at
the Three Broomsticks for that
butterbeer, too.
Just as Ron, Hermione, Luna, Neville,
and the rest gave Harry the opportunities
he needed, the people you surround yourself
with will help determine your success.
Surround yourself with good friends who
don’t drag you down, and rely on each other
to get through the darkest of times.
Everyone has a
chance at redemption.
Dumbledore says “It takes a great
deal of bravery to stand up to your
enemies. But it takes a great deal
more to stand up to your friends.”
This is an absolute truth. Sometimes
the most difficult things are the
smallest ones. And sometimes, they
make all the difference in the world.
Chocolate: better than
actual medical care.
The biggest heroes don’t always
have their name in the title.
Everyone. Whether they take
that chance or throw it away is up to
them. But when a person truly makes the
effort to change, they need to be allowed
to prove it. Give them that chance.
You may not have the
whole story, so wait
before you judge a person.
Nobody knows the path another has
walked. Snape walked one of the darkest
roads in the books, but was one of the
most noble and courageous characters of
all. Know the person before passing
judgement on them. Their story may
not be so different from your own.
In the darkest of times, people still need to laugh.
What was the one place that flourished on Diagon Alley in the darkest of times?
Fred & George’s place. Because laughter is a natural mood booster, and everyone needs to laugh.
Sometimes, a smile is that one thing that can keep you going when everything looks bleak.
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Sometimes you just
need a butterbeer.
There comes a time when you just have to sit back in a
chair and have Madame Rosmerta bring you and your friends
a drink while you hash out what’s going on in your life.
Some people just deserve to be punched.
Sad to say, but there will be people in your life who could really
benefit from one to the kisser. We all cheered when Hermione
socked Draco, but, like your mama told you, don’t go looking for
a fight. If you can diffuse the situation verbally or by walking
away, do it. But once in a while, a mean jab does the job nicely.
Do not forget how to live.
One of Dumbledore’s greatest lessons. Take joy in the
little things that life offers. Don’t get so wrapped up in the
grind that you lose sight of the life you need to be living.
Even the smallest
mouse can roar like a lion.
Everyone has their moment when they can do the
extraordinary. Neville found his courage not only
when he saved the day at the Battle of Hogwarts,
but even before, by standing up for himself against
friends, teachers, and Death Eaters. He held
Dumbledore’s Army together and protected the
school. Find your courage, and do great things.
Everyone has good
and bad in them, it’s what you
choose to do that matters.
Remus Lupin was a werewolf, but that
didn’t keep him from doing his everything
he could to help Harry in the fight against
Voldemort. Even the darkest secrets can’t
change you if you choose to be a good person.
The weirdest ones
have a lot to offer too.
Great lessons can be had from
some of the most remarkable
places. Luna’s quirkiness hid a
knowledge base and will that
was indispensable. Don’t pass
over someone because they’re
different. They may have qualities
that fill in the ones you’re missing.
Friends and family
will always be there for
you even in death.
You may not see them like
Harry did, but they’re there. The
people who we hold close will
always live in our hearts. And the
occasional mirror or stone.
Don’t mess with a mother’s love.
Ever. Lily’s love protected Harry
from beyond the grave. And nobody
messes with Molly Weasley’s family.
Don’t talk to mysterious books.
It’s just a general good idea. In fact,
don’t talk to anything if you can’t see
where they keep their brain.
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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Don’t just be who
you are, own it.
Some of the strongest witches
and wizards in the series were
memorable not only for their
power, but for who they were.
Professor McGonnagall. Molly
Weasley. Mr. Ollivander. They
knew who they were, and they
owned that. Own who you are.
If you’re going to be mischievous, manage it
well.
The Mauraders’ Map was an indispensable tool for not only
Harry, but Fred and George as well. James, Sirius, Remus, and
even Peter thought well when they created it. Always look ahead
to what may be coming, and always double-check your steps.
No matter your past, all that
matters is what you do with your
present and future.
The North Carolina Girls
Photos by Tomisina Lynn Photography
Who you were is not who you are. Every
day, you decide who it is you are going to be
and what direction your life is going to take.
Always stay on the
poltergeist’s good side.
It’s just good advice.
You always have a choice.
Always. The choice to do or not to do.
To lie down or stand up. When things look
most hopeless, there is always a choice.
Socks are the best gift you can give!
Not only can they free abused house elves, they keep your toes toasty. But be careful, because
given to the wrong elf, you’ll find yourself out of butterbeer. Know the meaning of what you give away.
Never eat Jelly Beans blindly.
Know what you’re getting into. What
might be toffee could end up ear wax.
True friends are vitally important.
Harry would have never succeeded without
his friends. Keep your true friends close.
There’s a reason girls go to the
bathroom in groups.
Look what happened to
Hermione when she went alone.
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When you think somebody’s in danger, always
call them first.
So much heartache could have been avoided had Harry just pulled
out his mirror and called Sirius. If you have a bad feeling, call the
person. They’ll be happy you cared, and you won’t get yourself
neck-deep in Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries.
Unrequited love and sacrifice do *not* give you
license to be a total jerk.
Snape. Ron. Harry. They all had their
moments, some bigger than others. Don’t do that.
That love is the greatest magic of all.
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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Luna Lovegood- Chiki (NC D20 Girl)
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
25
Ravenclaw Student- Geneviefve d’Estelle (NC D20 Girl)
Photo by Tomisina Lynn Photography
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Ginny Weasley - Verse (SC/NC D20 Girl)
Photo by Tomisina Lynn Photography
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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29
Newbs Guide to the Multiverse:
On Being Arthur Dent
By Amanda Baldwin
When I first put my theme together, I
Set some deadlines for yourself. Everyone
needs something to keep themselves
motivated. Then relax and enjoy the
wooshing sound they make as they go by.
Know, KNOW for certain, even if it isn’t
true, that you may have not gone where
you intended to go, but you have ended
up where you needed to be. Life... is like
a grapefruit. It’s orange and squishy, and
has a few pips in it, and some folks have
half a one for breakfast. Find a hole that
fits you well and be happy.
characterized myself as an ever-newb.
A curious collusion of cataclysmic
happenings and personal circumstances
has led me to leading a life that is quite
uniquely common. I am allowed to claim
this special paradoixcal privilege, on the
premise that since everyone is unique...
no one is. It is the same conflict that every
human faces: being just smart enough to
realize both the problems of the human
condition AND our complete inability to
do anything about it.
Not to mention that human beings, who
are almost unique in having the ability
to learn from the experience of others,
are also remarkable for their apparent
disinclination to do so.
So, of course you’ve got to do something.
And that’s how you end up laying down
in front of the two ton machine about
to knock down your house. The hard
lesson is that even if you save your house,
someone is bound to blow up your
planet, all over a paperwork error and
an apathetic city council that insists on
building a bypass that no one really wants.
Perhaps the incompetence of humans
is why so many people turn to religion,
or, the structured belief that what is
happening is ultimately Somebody Else’s
Fault. Whatever your religion, whether it
be a dusty old one that you keep on a top
shelf in the garage or a new shiny model
that you just got and insist on showing all
of your friends, it isn’t really helping. On
the topic of religion, suffice to say: in the
beginning the Universe was created. This
has made a lot of people very angry and
been widely regarded as a bad move.
Science is certainly making a Dent, but
it’s sort of like scooping a cup of water
out of the ocean and yelling out ‘I’ve got
this one!’ Every time a scientist discovers
something, they are also adding to the
ten light year long list of things we’ve yet
to figure out. I personally am convinced
that every bit of our bits is made up of a
smaller bit which is in turn are made up
30
Has this article been confusingly
wandersome? Well of course it has. Being
Arthur Dent is being a creature created
in the mind of the great Douglas Adams
(also, I wrote it backwards). Through it
of something smaller, which may or may
not contain tiny robots. Though I spend
too much time in psuedo version of deep
thought.
So, what have we got so far, among
the religious zealots and radical
atheists? Well, honestly it’s a big mush
of extraordinary genius and naive
incompetence, and it is often difficult to
tell which is which. Not to mention how
many awful people you get the profound
lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid
meeting.
The chances of finding out what’s really
going on in the universe are so remote,
the only thing to do is hang the sense
of it and keep yourself occupied. Some
people find satisfaction in putting down
others. Yet you could visit every person in
the universe, in alphabetical order, from
the beginning of time till the end of it
all, and you probably aren’t going to be
satisfied. Not to mention the odds of you
repeating someone are just astronomical,
especially when you account for tricky
time travelers, alternate dimensions and
how many people are named Jane.
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Make your mistakes proudly, with the full
knowledge that someone else has made
bigger, more awful ones than you. For
example: It is a mistake to think you can
solve any major problems with potatoes.
answer, but I simply didn’t have
all I have found one major lesson in his
the room!
works: Things are weird and strange.
Before you were born, they were weird
and strange. After you pass on, no matter
what changes you make to the world, it
will remain weird. Also strange. There is
a theory which states that if ever anyone
discovers exactly what the Universe is
for and why it is here, it will instantly
disappear and be replaced by something
even more bizarre and inexplicable. There
is another theory which states that this
has already happened.
There’s not really any conclusively correct
way of coping with it all, except to just
live. And laugh.
And don’t forget: Don’t Panic.
Points if you can count how many direct
or hidden references and sneaky Adams
quotes there are contained in this article!
Hint: It’s less then 42. 42 should be the
There are some pleasures, though. At
least you weren’t created randomly and
only exist for sufficient time to become
self aware enough to care when you
splat into mush on a foreign planet.
Nor do you have the computing power
and pessimism of certain sour androids
I could mention. Me, I prefer drinking.
Anything that makes me feel like having
my brains smashed out with a slice of
lemon wrapped round a large gold brick
does me just fine when I get to thinking
of how peanuts I am to the size of space.
After all the daunting facts are laid out, if
you are still serious about working things
out, you’ve got to get out there and
make some mistakes. You need to trip
and fall and manage to miss the earth
completely. Only then will you learn how
to fly. Mistakes are life, and you’ve got
to find yours. Find your droll, common,
divine purpose and love it for every little
nonsensical detail. It is yours and it’s not
like anyone else’s, even if it’s perfectly
identical. Go kiss forty-two people and
hate every minute of it. One of them’s
bound to teach you something. You live
and learn....at any rate, you live.
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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T
asia cosplaying as Serafina Pekkala, Queen of
the witches of Lake Enara from Phillip Pullman’s
“His Dark Materials” trilogy. She was born in the
17th Century.
“While the bandana on her cloud pine branch isn’t
canon, since she was very upset over the death of
her friend Lee Scoresby in one of the many battles
over Lyra Silvertongue, I thought it would be a nice
homage.” Photo by Tasia.
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Doctor Who: Saying Hello
and Goodbye
By: Jacqueline Arbelo
hel·lo: Used as a greeting
good·bye: Used to express an acknowledgment of parting
Hello and Goodbye, both are necessary terms in our day to day life and are capable of causing such extreme sadness and
happiness at the same time. If you are a dedicated Doctor Who fan like me, you are very familiar with these two words
and dread to use them both equally. While having a fresh face can bring us grand new adventures in space and time, in
order to say Hello to a new Doctor or Companion we must say Goodbye to those we hold so dear to our hearts.
Throughout the shows’ 50 year span we have seen many Doctors, companions, friends and foes be introduced and then
go. Some departures have been met with sadness other with anticipation of ushering in a new era of adventures. In 1963
when William Hartnell began his role as the very first Doctor, I don’t think anyone involved were quite prepared for 50
years of actors coming and going. With Hartnell’s departure in 1966 the producer of the show came up with the idea
of continuing the show by means of alien transfiguration, later penned “regeneration”. So in episode 4 of the serial The
Tenth Planet, Patrick Troughton became the second Doctor in a long line actors to come and go.
Thus began the mythos of the Doctor Who regeneration mythos. At the end of every actors portrayal of the coveted title
of “Doctor”, the alien Time Lord dies and is born again (retaining his memories) with a brand new body, face and even
personality. The show has now come to see 12 Doctors come and go with a brand new one set to debut this Christmas
following the departure of the young Matt Smith.
No other show in the history of television has had such a vast change of main characters. Sometimes in tv shows and
most notably in movie sequels, only supporting actors have had to be replaced for whatever reason. Very seldom does a
main character get switched and when it does, it is usually penned a “reboot” or stand alone sequel. Never before has an
entire storyline completely revolved around the replacement of its main character, let alone lasting for 50 years.
Nowadays with social media outlets posting spoilers and sneak peeks and people spreading rumor for the most part
(regardless if we approve) dedicated fans are offered a chance to somewhat prepare for momentous changes including
character deaths. Not that is lessens the blow, but it does give us time to accept the change, mourn with fellow whovians
and type, like and reblog heartfelt eulogies. Of course the complaints and occasional death threats to the writers as well.
After a tearful farewell, being able to gain support from other fans in the Who fandom is an integral part of being able to
emotionally survive this t.v. show. Companions of the Doctor are the most frequent character we say Hello and Goodbye
too. Every week we sit in on an hour of these characters lives. We learn where they came from, we meet their family, we
learn their likes and dislikes, their strengths and weaknesses and even their deepest fears. We form a deep seeded relationship with them of sorts. Granted, it’s all one sided, but we still form an attachment and when the day comes for them
to leave, we just are “not ready” for them to go.
34
I think out of all the goodbyes in Who history none can argue that the most tearfully heart breaking goodbye was the
D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
one between #10 and Rose. Our golden haired Bad Wolf, the one to heal his heart, to bring him back from the terrifying
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
brink of perdition, to make him smile
and dance. How can anyone forget
Rose losing her grip and slipping
into the breach only to be saved by
the last second by her father, transported to the alternate universe
and thought to be stranded forever.
The impossible planet sound score
begins to play in the background
as she pounds on the wall in tears
screaming to go back, the Doctor
laying his ear to the same wall in his
dimension. A brief silence, so close
yet so far, a morose defeated #10
walks away. He later burns up an entire sun just to say a proper goodbye.
There on the shores of Bad Wolf Bay,
with the entire fandom on the edge
of our seats, when he is about to declare his love, the connection severs.
Fans everywhere cried, screamed
and nerd raged for months, in fact to
this day we speak of her with glistening tears in our eyes and as I type
this now I can not but help let a tear
or two roll down my cheek.
As we say goodbye to old friends,
the upside is the time for Hello’s.
Of course the transition period can
have a slow start, hating the new
guy, missing the old one then washrinse-repeat. So, I close this article
with the words of the beautiful
Professor River Song:
“When you run with
the Doctor it feels like
it will never end and
however hard you try,
you can’t run forever.
Everybody knows that
everybody dies, and
nobody knows it like
the Doctor.”
Hello and Goodbye from our readers
Goodbye 11 you will be missed.
“The good things don’t always
soften the bad things, but
vice-versa, the bad things don’t
necessarily spoil the good things
and make them unimportant.”
-Emily from California
Goodbye 11, you taught me the
value of bow ties, fezes and being
yourself, as well as bringing me
together with an amazing new
companion. We will miss you
chinny. - Bryan from California
River, thank you for showing me
that it’s okay to be an unapologetic
psychopath and to allow nobody to
dictate my life but myself.
“Goodbye, Sweetie.”
- Brittany from Indiana
Hello to 12. I hope he will be wiser but
still have the fury and passion of 9, the
smarts and quirkiness of 10, and the fun
and genius of 11. - Josh from Texas
Goodbye Ten. We didn’t want you to go
either. - Kat from Chicago WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
35
Knitting
Through
Time
A Knitters’ Guide to Time Travel
Through the Time Vortex: Advent
TARDIS ornament
I have been obsessively knitting for
about seven years and I love the idea
of decking my apartment out with
hand-knits at any time during the year,
especially for Christmas. Something
about filling the place with woolens
makes me feel warm and cozy
regardless of how cold it gets here in
Wisconsin. I love cozying up under a
knit blanket with some hot tea while
watching my favorite shows.
This year I made a tree with yarn;
Boyfriend and I broke out the math
skills (his, not mine) and we figured
out how to make an awesome
yarn-tree on the wall with a lot of
command hooks and about 100 yards
of really expensive green yarn. I put
regular green ornaments throughout
the strands, but decided that I wanted
to add MORE knitting to it! Thus came
the birth of the TARDIS ornament.
Note: This pattern will be a free
pattern available on Ravelry[dot]com
36
When I first thought about it, I
wanted to make a lot to make an
Advent wreath, but that was quickly
overwhelmed by my desperate need
to be warm as the chill crept further
and further lower (As I write this, it’s
a balmy zero degrees outside) so one
or two would just have to do.
These cute little TARDISes take about
two hours to make and require three
colors to complete. I have the perfect
TARDIS color blue a nice Americanmade wool yarn as well as the white
in the same brand and a beautiful
canary yellow in sock weight that
I used to make the i-cord. A size 6
circular needle using the Magic Loop
technique finished out the needs
for this project. Well… that and the
pattern.
I don’t claim to be an amazing
pattern maker, but I went through
an agonizingly long time working the
kinks out of this pattern. Many a night
was spent ripping the stitches out,
cursing at the wretched loops as they
decided to not bend to my will and
finally, when I was exhausted and out
of options, simply altering the pattern
to do what I wanted it to do. I did
myself a happy dance when the first
one was made and merrily hopped
through the apartment making
VWORP VWORP sounds.
The cool and easy thing about these
guys is the combination of stitches.
I create the look of the windows of
the TARDIS using a combination of
knits and purls to create the Garter
Stitch bumps and smooth Stockinette
Stitch squares for the texture of the
walls of the TARDIS. Because of the
size of these little bags, I decided
to not use black at the top (where
the “Police Box” writing is) and just
make it white. I would love to see
people creating it with embroidery
in black thread. I’m definitely not
an embroiderer so I’ll pass on
embarrassing myself with that.
The TARDIS is complete with a yellow
lantern i-cord loop to slide the TARDIS
D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
onto a long i-cord garland in the
colors of your choice. I used red and
green but you could certainly use the
sexy blue if you have any left.
For those of you who are so inclined,
here’s the pattern!
Hardware
1 size 6 circular needle for magic
loop, two circular needles or one set
of DPNs.
Worsted weight yarn in TARDIS blue,
white and Canary yellow
Using Judy’s Magic Cast On (YouTube
it! It will change your life), cast on 28
stitches, 14 per needle.
Rnd 1: Knit all stitches
Rnd 2,4: Purl all stitches
Rnd 3,5: Knit all stitches
Rnd 6: (needle 1) P3, pm, k3, pm, p2,
pm, k3, pm, p3. Repeat this opposite
side
Rnd 7: knit all stitches
Repeat rounds 6 and 7 two more
times.
Rnd 11: knit all stitches
Rnd 12: purl all stitches
Repeat rounds 11 and 12 one more
time.
Repeat rounds 6-14 two more times
Rnds 42-46: K all stitches with white
Rnds 47-49: P all stitches with blue
Rnd 48,50: K all stitches with blue
Join Gamer Adventures for the 6th Annual
Caribbean Gamer Cruise
March 15 – March 22, 2014
Stay, play and melee away! We are packing up our board games and are heading to the Eastern
Caribbean for an exotic trip to some really amazing places. For the sixth year, Mayfair Games is
joining us to hold a Settlers of Catan Tournament, taking the winner to the CWC Qualifier Event
at Gen Con in 2014. Flight, Hotel, Badge and Seat in the semi-final round providing the chance
to become one of two players representing the United States of America in the World Wide
Catan Championship! We will spend seven days on the Carnival Liberty, where your shipboard
adventure includes the following…
Accommodations
All Shipboard Food and Snacks
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Hosted Cocktail Party
Day
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Private Game Room
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$100 Shipboard Credit per Cabin
And much, much more!
Port of Call
Miami, FL
Half Moon Cay, Bahamas
Gaming at Sea
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Arrive
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We’ve got Games, We’ve got Food, We’ve got Adventure and We’ve got a payment plan…
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Prices are cruise only, per person. Prices do not include alcoholic beverages, gratuities, travel insurance
or travel expenses to Miami, FL. Passports or Certified Birth Certificate required. For more information,
please go to www.gameradventures.com or contact Kimberly Maita at 916-502-5585 or email to
[email protected].
Cast off. Create a 4-stitch i-cord with
the yellow yarn. Sew the end of the
i-cord to the middle of the top of the
TARDIS, weave in ends and hang on
the tree!
Should you have any questions or
concerns with this pattern, please feel
free to contact Amanda at keyleth[at]
therearesomewhocallmetim[dot]com
37
WINTER
2014 #285,
D20 Sacramento,
GIRLS MAGAZINE
Kimberly Maita, Ships and Trips Travel dba Gamer Adventures 3323
Watt Avenue,
CA 95820;
phone 916-502-5585, cst 2051435-40
Meet Claudia Vainglory!
38
D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
39
British Invasion!
who is this?
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40
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
WINTER 2014
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
41
42
D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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The Misfits
by Megan Willis
but the series does not revolve
around too much of this. Instead
the show focuses more on how the
juveniles need to work as a team
to solve the problems that they
are faced with and the conflicts
of morals that they come across
along the way. The twists and
turns leave audience members on
the edge of their chair wondering
what will happen next in this dark,
twisted and quite often funny
series.
Misfits is a BBC sci-fi dark
comedy started in 2009 that
revolved around five juvenile
delinquents who obtained odd
yet unique superpowers while
working community service
during a lighting storm. These
powers range from one-way time
travel to resurrection to emotional
manifestation and even satanic
conversion. Throughout the series
each of the characters slowly
grows from narcissistic teens into
more responsible adults in their
own way.
they can. At first this made no
sense under a superhero premise
but as the series progresses I put
this thought on the back burner
and tried to enjoy that it was not
like other superhero shows.
The actors themselves help bring
the right amount of emotion to
each of their characters and all
of them seem to click together.
Nathan is one of the biggest
annoyances with his snarky
attitude and smartalic mouth,
but even he ends up being a
character that you don’t want
to imagine the group without.
Each of the characters in the
series has their own uniqueness
to them that make you hate
them and love them at the same
time while the show progresses.
Some of the series eccentricities,
such as hypnotic breasts and
power removal & bestowal via
sexual intercourse were kind of
out there and exasperating but
the writers made it work for the
most part.
Misfits is intended for a mature
audience and contains a lot of
foul language, nudity, depictions
of sexual and violent acts and
dark humor. This series has both
positives and negatives to it but
what show doesn’t. When I first
viewed the commercial for Misfits
I felt as though the show was
going to be a mash up of Heroes
and Skins (another BBC series)
but was surprised by the freshness
of it. Unlike Heroes the misfits do
not go out of their way to save the
The shows low budget and
world but rather continue doing
production value make the
their community service and try
effects in the series a bit cheesy
to go through life as normally as
D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
44
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
Misfits is not for everyone and
often leaves viewers with either
a love of the show or a hate of
it, there doesn’t seem to be an
in between. There are only five
seasons of the show (37 episodes)
and I personally enjoyed the first
two seasons more so than the last
three, this isn’t to say seasons
3-5 were bad just that I began to
lose interest but I am glad I stuck
it out. Overall I recommend this
show to anyone with a dark sense
of humor who is looking for a
different take in the superhero
genre.
\
My love of stories in general
lends easily to a love of history and
historical fiction, but even knowing
how much I like these genres I didn’t
think that a show like Downton
Abbey would suit me. As if to prove
me wrong, I wasn’t able to stop
watching. It took me a little less than
a week to watch the entire series
(to that date) and quickly learned
that I both love and hate Downton
Abbey.\
\
The series manages, first and
foremost, to bring emotion to a time
that you read about in history books.
We meet a family and the staff that
works for them, and we’re introduced
to a way of living that 90% of us
have no practical experience with and
never will. Even those of us who may
be familiar with having “help” will
have never had the sort of experience
that this family exists in.
\
But it’s not just the emotional
understanding of a time period
long past that it makes real, it’s the
emotional connection between the
characters that really grows on you.
I could spend days writing about
the characters and storylines, but I
think I can boil down what Downton
Abbey has taught me into one major
point.
\
The show actually opens
with the family suffering a loss, a
cousin who was supposed to marry
Mary has passed away on board the
Titanic. The loss of the character spins
the house into a tizzy, as Mary must be
Cherish everything
while it lasts.
married to acquire the title she’s been
groomed for her entire life. I want to
point out that Mary is a character not
to be taken lightly. There are a number
of them, actually, women who defy
the stereotype I had in my head for the
time period. But they still have to toe
the line of the rules that men have for
them. It’s really interesting to see how
they rebel against these rules, both
quietly and loudly, in what gives me
a far better appreciation for the way I
was raised and the respect that I have
been given.
\
But time after time, we see
the character’s go through emotional
highs, followed by tremendous lows.
Every single time we see something
good happen, we wonder just how
long it will last. Sometimes it gets
lost through actions taken by the
characters themselves and sometimes
by a cruel twist of fate. Occasionally
you watch with excited anticipation
to see the catty grin get wiped off the
face of some of the characters you
love to hate, and sometimes you find
yourself biting your nails as you hope
against all hopes that the thing you
think is going to happen...won’t.
\
Lovers defy odds, children are
born, family is lost. You make choices
and sometimes they fail. And then
you go on with the business of living.
Because you have no other choice.
Because everyone is counting on you
to keep going, and weakness is not an
option.
\
There were two times when the
foreshadowing was strong enough to
leave me actually anxious. When you
see them, and I’m sure you will, you’ll
find yourself waiting on eggshells. You
know it’s coming. You see the new car
take a drive on a perfect sunshiney day,
and you know what’s coming. And
as you watch that drive, heart in your
throat, remember all the things that
conspired to lead him to that road. The
happiness and tragedy that went round
and round. Then stop and think about
your own life.
\
Right now, you’re driving
in that car. The day might be sunny
or you may have already run off the
road, but you haven’t ended your ride
yet. You still have time to make those
choices. You still have good and bad
consequences to live through. And that
is an amazing gift.
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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general differences
being human
UK – George, Mitchell and Annie. US – Josh, Aiden and Sally. Names and locations differ, but the core of the
Comparitive Analysis
By Erika Litherland
character’s is pretty similar. At least at first. According to Wikipedia, the writers for the US version watched the first season of the UK
version and copied some elements almost exactly. But after that, they didn’t watch any more of the UK version in an attempt to make
the shows and storylines vastly different. While I see that to a degree, there are a number of elements from the UK show that we see in
later seasons of the US show, though I suppose it isnt impossible that the writers just happened to have similar ideas.
Psych Ward Escape: In the UK version we see George and Nina break a returned and amnesia ridden Herrick from the psych
ward and then argue about if they should kill him before his memory returns. A move that would have saved many lives, but they
ultimately skipped. It left us waiting for Bishop to return. And while he didn’t come back in the same way, when Bishop does make
his return it’s as a plot element that gives a lot of flavor to Aiden’s story.
In the US version we meet the twin werewolves, one of which has been involuntarily committed to the psych ward and wont be
released until the moon forces him to out them all by tearing apart that ward. So Josh breaks him out, introducing us to another story
point from the UK version, the pack. Which we discuss later.
Supernatural’s Anonymous: In the UK version, Mitchell attempts to take control in Bristol following Herrick’s death and he
For those of you who know me, it wont surprise you that my cabinet of fandoms include The World of Darkness, a
WhiteWolf produced role playing game that gives you the chance to explore the life of characters who are any number of
supernatural creature type. I love mythologies and folklores surrounding these creatures, which has always been able to
bend my fandom attention toward shows like Buffy, Angel, and Lost Girl. Vampires, werewolves, and ghosts are right up
my alley, which is why the show Being Human was an easy choice. I started with a couple episodes of the UK version,
which I found somewhat slow starting and the characters not as engaging as I thought they might be from previews. I
started switching between the shows a few at a time, which was really probably not a great idea. There were just enough
similarities that I knew some of the “plot twists” that were going to take place in either show. But it also left me waiting to
see how certain things would be handled on the other show.
Things you should know before you read:
1. Spoilers. Spoilers spoilers spoilers.
If you didn’t hear, this article is full of
spoilers.
I had to watch all of the episodes
available to compare story to story.
3.The UK version of the story takes
2. The story plays out differently, the
a serious turn at the end of season 3,
and I’ll address some of the season
seasons in general have a different
sense of timing. The US version seems 4 story changes but since my first
draft of this article was over 10
to contain more story and character
pages worth of comparison, we’ll
development in the first season but
in retrospect, many of those story
need to narrow the focus. More
specifically, we make the focus our
elements that I thought were missing
at the end of the first season of the
original trio of main characters. I
make this distinction because the
UK version showed up in season two
or three. But it’s important to note
characters we meet in season 4
that there are a number of general
of the UK version are interesting
differences between US and UK shows in their own rights. Hal, Leo and
Pearl with him, are an element that
that could explain some of this. The
I enjoyed quite a bit. Tom coming
first season of the UK version had
6 episodes where the first of the US
back to live in the house is also a
story element that I actually quite
version had 13. It’s not possible to lay
like, and Alex in all her ghostly
one season right next to the other and
glory2014
is very different from Annie.
compare them
directly.
This
means
that
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46
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
But it might as well have become a
different show at that point.
4. The US version got signed on for
a 4th season that I am impatiently
awaiting.
5. According to SyFy “the show’s
audience was as high as 52% female
during the second season, a first for
the SyFy network.” Which is, in my
mind, pretty nifty.
5. Spoilers. You know, just so we’re
clear.
institutes a sort of forced clean living rule. But this isn’t easy for everyone, clearly. Ivan becomes his poster boy of sorts, at least on the
surface, and Mitchell creates a support group to help them. In the US version we see Aiden try to get the orphans to live cleanly, but he
doesn’t give them that sort of support.
In the US version, after meeting Zoe the psychic, Sally is invited to a support group to help ghosts looking to find resolution. And help
with an addiction of their own. Possession, as it turns out, feels good.
Both groups are destroyed, the UK vampires by Lucy with an
explosion that causes Mitchell to lose sight of his humanity and go
on a killing spree with Daisy. The US ghosts end up shredded at
Sally’s hands when the madness sets in and creates Scott. And she
doesn’t even realize she’s doing it until later, causing her to shred
herself and end up in purgatory. Which we discuss later.
The human girlfriend: Aiden dated many times before,
heartbeats included, but when he accidentally dates Josh’s ex it,
at the very least, is different from the human relationship that
Mitchell tries to maintain with Lucy Jaggert. Both women work
at the hospital, and both end up dead. But it’s Lucy’s betrayal
of Mitchell and her role in the death of all of his friends and the
clean vampires he’d been working with that push him over the edge. But the relationship with Julia ends quickly with Aiden and then
she gets back with Josh and fulfills the role of Sam. George needed Sam to help him realize that normal needed a new definition. It
also pushed him back to Nina and into the facility. Julie, however, reacts as would be expected when the eclipse half turns Josh. She
backs away from him, and into traffic. His inability to save Julie makes him renew his desire to save Nora. Even if he has to become a
killer to do so. There isn’t ever a case of George and Mitchell chasing the same girl. And honestly, Aiden’s relationship with Suren is
probably more comparable to Mitchell and Lucy. We’ll discuss that later too.
Mom is dating who?: In the UK version, much later in the seasons, George goes to his father’s funeral and finds out that after
he left, his parents separated and his mom is dating his old dbag gym teacher. In the US version, Sally finds her mom’s ghost and then,
at her mother’s funeral, learns that her mom and their neighbor had an affair and that his ghost has been waiting for her for over 10
years. It’s not what either expected.
The Virus: Season 3 of the US version introduces a virus that has killed The Dutch and Mother, eventually Henry and almost
Aiden. But it’s an element that makes up most of season 3 of the US version but isn’t touched in the UK version at all. It’s a big
element. And it leads to other big elements, but at the end of the day it’s just an arc that season 3 of the US version took. And it doesn’t
have a mirror element in the UK version to make it to this list.
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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mythology
Garlic: Not talked about in the UK version, but in the US version we see Aiden vamp out after eating some of Josh’s
mom’s cooking. He asks if she cooks with garlic and says it makes a vampire show it’s true self. Either way, neither
accept the commonly heard mythology that garlic is somehow a vampire repellent.
Compelling: In the US version we see multiple vampires overtake the will of the humans around them. The power to
suggest actions, to remove memories or to change the course of action that a person intends to take...it’s a very useful
skill, and never mentioned in the UK version at all.
Reflections: The UK version rather regularly shows a lack of image or reflection as a plot point. UK Bernie’s mom
doesn’t see Mitchell’s reflection, you can’t see where Mitchell is for sure on the security cameras at the facility, and when
he finally gets arrested he’s terrified that the cops trying to take his picture will out all vampires. In the US version there
are no such concerns, or benefits.
Blood Bags and Real Food: Aiden lives off of bagged blood and tries to help Rebecca and US Bernie learn to
survive on them. It doesnt taste as good, even when warmed up, but it keeps them alive. In the UK version, Mitchell tells
Lauren that they just wont work. He even gets one for her to try when she doesn’t believe him and when it doesn’t work
he tells her if it worked they’d all do it, but in the UK world, blood isn’t needed for actual survival. Mitchell eats just as
often as anyone else. He says that going cold turkey is the only way to stay clean. They never describe if other vampires
must eat normal food in addition to the blood or if blood is enough for them. In the US version we see Aiden eat only
when it’s needed or expected of him. At one point we see him take Rebecca out to dinner where the heartbeats of the other
diners around them become so overwhelming that they have to leave the restaurant for fear of losing control. But Aiden
must feed to survive, and when the bags stop being an option he has to go look for another one.
48
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Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
Werewolf Blood: While both shows mention the blood of
werewolves being poisonous to vampires, the US version actually
takes it a step farther in using the werewolf blood as an inoculation
of sorts against the virus that humans pass on to vampires. Treating
poison with poison, but with the added consequence that anyone
turned from an inoculated vampire becomes something else entirely.
Mutated, perhaps as a sort of mixed breed if you will. This is a
storyline that will continue into the 4th season.
Purebloods: The UK version addresses this in an entierly
different way than the US version. In the UK version we meet
McNair and his son Tom, a mini pack that shuns humanity as much as possible and lives in the woods. Tom has been
raised with the story that McNair is his father and that he was born a werewolf, a story that Nina quickly debunks when
she tests his blood and finds that he’s actally a baby who’s parents were brutally murdered and was never seen again. In
the US version, we eventually meet Liam and the twins, a family of purebloods who end up sucking Nora into their fold
for a time, a choice she later regrets.
Wolfsbane: Wolfsbane, as Josh is told, helps the purebloods “take the edge off”. It’s an interesting plot development
in general really, the purebloods add a really different element to the world. The twins discuss how the difference between
them and Josh is that Josh feels like he’s in the wrong skin one day every month, and being on edge that day before the
change is the feeling they get all the other days of the month. They take wolfsbane to help them feel normal. To help them
not feel like their skin is crawling.
Psychics and “Others”: The US version is crawling with witches and psychics, something we don’t see in the UK
version. And while both introduce us to a zombie, though very differently, we actually meet a necromancer and succubus
in the UK version, though both of those instances happen in the UK’s season 5 that we’re not dweling on. The only reason
I mention it is because I feel like it shows that the world they live in allows for the existence of other supernatual creatures
that the US version doesn’t seem to allow for.
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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Being Human
vampire
Purgatory Prophecy: The ghost of one of Mitchell’s victims comes to torment him while
he’s searching purgatory for Annie. She warns him, “A wolf shaped bullet” is coming for
Mitchell. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy, considering we later find out that the ghost who gave
him the prophecy is trying to get revenge and made the whole thing up. But when George kills
Mitchell, it comes true all the same. There’s no such prophecy in the US version.
Suren vs Lucy: Aiden knows Suren from when she and Mother came to Boston years
ago. When his childe Henry reaches beyond his station and starts a relationship with
Suren, a relationship Aiden wanted but would not risk everything for. Henry later betrays
Suren by not being able to control his urges. His lack of control causes Suren to out herself
in front of a party of rich humans. To save them, Mother kills the entire party and has
Suren put to ground for 80 years. Bringing her back and forcing Suren to lead Boston is as
much a punishment as putting her to ground was. And when Aiden is successful in helping
her get Boston back under control, Mother turns his reward into further punishment by
barring any vampire from having contact with him, including Suren. He gives up so much
to gain his freedom and then it costs him everything. In the UK version, Mitchell uses
Lucy to help him regain his humanity, only to realize later that she’s been using him. He
fights so hard to come back only to have it thrown back in his face when she destroys all
the efforts he’s been making toward getting the local vampires to stop killing. Aiden goes
back to his old ways with Suren, and Mitchell goes back when Lucy betrays him.
Rebecca vs Lauren: Both girls stories start out pretty much the same. Our vampire lead slipping, and his mentor/
creator “helping” him by turning the girl he killed. Both girls start out angry and enjoying their blood lust, both end up
forced to make a snuff film to bring the lead back to the fold, and both try to escape and live clean but lack the strength
to actually do so. When Rebecca decides to “help” Aiden by turning Bernie we see a stark difference between Rebecca
and Lauren. In her own way, Rebecca has adopted Bishop’s talk of family and tries to create something that she knows
she will never have any other way. The final death of Bernie pushes her reality home, her life is over and she will never
be able to get it back. While she takes her anger out on Aiden at first, she comes to realize that the family she wanted
was really taken away by Bishop and Marcus. It drives home that her new life has never been about her, it has always
been about using her to hurt Aiden and bring him back to the fold. And she decides that she will no longer be a weapon.
In this way, her sacrifice is different from Lauren’s. Lauren begs for death in much the same way, but for her it is more a
matter of her knowing that she is losing her humanity. She doesn’t want to be a monster, but she knows that if she doesn’t
die that she will eventually become one. I also feel like Aiden continues to feel the impact of Rebecca’s death for much
longer than Mitchell does. It becomes a moment of character development rather than the end of a story element.
The Old Ones: A very large difference between the US and UK versions are the larger vampire political network
that the US version brings forward almost from the start. It’s not just the network that Bishop is creating in Boston, it’s
a network that spans the world and an important distinction between the two shows because we don’t get a glimpse of
any real network in the UK version until the trio move to Wales and the elders want Mitchell to come join them in South
America until the Boxcar 20 massacre story dies down, an offer he declines. The idea of these elders from South America,
or anywhere else, are really largely forgotten until season 4 when the vampires try to steal George and Nina’s baby as an
offering to the old ones when they arrive and again in season 5 when Annie finally completes her unfinished business by
destryoying the old ones and baby Eve along with them.
Despite this foreshadowing, it still leaves the vampire world in general feeling more disjointed and broken apart than the
US political network of vampires. Bishop’s actions bring the Dutch down on him, which isn’t something that is surprising
from the history we see of Bishop and Aiden’s past and how Bishop gained power of Boston in the first place. When
Bishop shows his cards he forces Aiden to choose between Bishop and the old ones. Aiden chooses to save one of the old
ones, solidifying himself as an enemy of Bishop and his plans. It adds additional depth to the world surrounding our main
characters and makes more sense than the “there are systems in place” line that Mitchell often gives. If we’re expected
to believe that vampires have existed for centuries, then I think it adds flavor to the story to see these old world societal
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in theMAGAZINE
characters and
their interactions.
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Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
Celine vs Josie: I watched the
US version of this part first, so I saw
Celine first and was ready to see her
counterpart in the UK version. When
Mitchell was drawn to an older woman
in the hospital cafeteria, I knew it would
be her. But the story of these women
was very different. Josie was in the
wrong apartment at the wrong time.
Josie reaches out to the part of Mitchell
that is still horrified by what he’s done
and what he’s become. Older Josie is
still trying to help him remember his
humanity. But what I don’t understand
is why Josie doesn’t recognize Herrick.
She should have known exactly who
Herrick was and been so very angry for
Mitchell putting her through any sort of
conversation with Herrick.
Bernie Vs Bernie: A small
boy being bullied who our vampire
lead befriends in some nostalgic
whim. And in both versions we see
similarities beyond the name of
the character. Single mom home,
desperate for friends and acceptance,
they both steal the snuff film and
watch it, and both of their mothers
cry pervert. In the US version,
Bernie’s tormentors cause him to
back into the street where he gets hit
by a car. In the UK version, the mob
of neighbors attacking Mitchell cause
Bernie to try to speak to his defense,
but his mother yells for him to come
he knows for certain is that someone
in his world has stepped in, and that
they will expect him to pay them back
someday. He knows that it won’t just
be a cost that he has to pay, but that it
will touch George, Nina and Annie.
He asks George to kill him, he claims
George has become complacent,
practically enabling Mitchell to
continue sliding further from the goal
they had. Mitchell claims that George
Celine is foreshadowed more, as her
killing him is how George will regain
name is tattooed on Aiden’s chest,
back. So he runs into the street. Both his humanity. The weakness here is
which gets brought up before we meet
her. Aiden had been prepared to give up boys die. In the UK version, Mitchell that Mitchell has decided he needs to
die but he can’t do it himself. While
makes an offer to bring him back.
the family to live with Celine. Bishop
he seems to be trying to help George
We see Mitchell send Bernie and
responds violently, which is honestly
make up for becoming a silent partner
his
mom
off
on
a
train
with
only
the
to be expected since he had tried to
advice to keep him good. And can we in crime, he’s actually making George
do the same earlier and Aiden had
make a decision that he can’t go back
talk about how terrible that advice
convinced him to choose the family. In
from. George isn’t the type of person
is
for
just
a
second?
What
happens
the end, Celine and Josie make the same
who kills easily, and killing Mitchell
when
she
gets
old
and
dies
and
Bernie
sacrifice. They give their lives to heal
would be something that would haunt
stays forever too young for a job or
our vampire hero before he goes on to
him forever. Mitchell asking him to
a family and eventually left without
confront Bishop/Herrick. And then we
do it is selfish.
even
his
mother
to
care
for
him.
What
don’t see them again. But at least with
will happen then? Oh wait, the UK
the US version, the tattoo still exists.
But then when it becomes clear that
Every time Aiden takes his shirt off, and version answers that later with the
the elders intend to use not only
story
of
Adam.
That’s
the
life
that
particularly in scenes where Aiden is
blood drunk and Bishop first reappears, Bernie has to look forward to. The life Mitchell but everyone else in the
house to achieve their goals, that
that Mitchell has subjected him to.
we see the tattoo and remember her.
they intend to make Mitchell even
worse, George does something that is
Aiden never wanted that for Bernie
actually heroic when he turns around
though. It’s hard for adult vampires
and shoves a stake in Mitchell’s heart.
to learn control and they’ve had
Because he knows that the person
years to practice and other adults to
Mitchell becomes when he’s bad
shape them. He knew that it wasn’t
Bernie who came back, but something isn’t the person George is friends
with. Killing Mitchell now is actually
wearing his skin.
saving him, and his humanity,
Mitchell’s Martyrdom:
forever. We don’t ever really get to
Mitchell and Aiden both struggle
with their inner monster, and both fail mourn Mitchell, as the next season
starts with Nina also being dead and
a few times. But Aiden never fails
George’s sacrifice. We lose three
quite as spectacularly as Mitchell.
characters in a couple of episodes,
Mitchell doesn’t know who made
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story isMAGAZINE
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what 2014andD20
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The Family: In an early episode, Josh follows a familiar scent and finds his sister and
her girlfriend in the hospital. It’s the first time he’s seen anyone from his family since
he ran away and it doesn’t exactly go well. In later episodes when he’s forced to take
her home and confront his parents, who have found the his journal chronicling his first
changes, they think he’s crazy. Like Josh’s parents, George’s family thinks he’s lost his
mind when he tells them that he’s a werewolf. But aside from the one episode, where his
parents drive off into the nigh in camper, George’s family is little more than a footnote.
While Josh’s family comes back throughout the show and his sister even eventually
comes to accept him.
The Dog Fight: In later parts of season one
we see Josh get kidnapped by vampires and
forced to fight another werewolf to the death in
a sort of dogfight that the vampires arrange for
sport. This episode introduces us to a number
of story elements that weren’t carried over in
the UK version. Primarily in the introduction
of “The Professor”, an old man werewolf
who has survived the fights and remained a
prisoner for the last 15 years. After the fights the
vampires allow him to examine the bodies of the Nina vs Nora: It started out so similarly. They meet in
werewolves he’s beaten, the findings of which
the same way, he follows his creator/mentors advice when
he records in great detail in books that Josh
he hits on her and gets shot down, and in the throes of a
takes with him after winning the fight, a win that change (and in an abandoned dark room) they have sex for
Josh has to continue to deal with in a way that
the first time. It even goes so far as to mimic the way that our
we don’t see George cope after killing Herrick.
N named lady gets infected. But from there, we see a very
Maybe this was intentional, as the US version
different story play out between Nina and George as plays
had Aiden kill the leader of the vampires instead out between Nora and Josh.
to add to the story of the vampire politics. We
don’t see the dogfights until season 3 of the
Nina never comes to full terms about what she is. She may
UK version, which has the added element of
eventually accept it, but she always views it as a thing that
the wolves being forced to fight humans. And
happened to her, a thing that ruined her life. Nora, however,
the storyteller in me, who is often sick and
eventually comes to love the wolf. She finds the twins
twisted, see’s a dark beauty in this. Even if the
become a sort of pack that help her learn more about the
human wins, there’s a very slim chance that they world that she’s fallen into. And she falls into a world of
managed to do so without so much as a bite or
violence and instinct that she later realizes is not what she
scratch. And since the mythology of both Being wanted. When she comes back to tell Josh how to break the
Human worlds spreads the curse through those
curse she she tells him that she’s not upset over what she is,
means, it adds an additional element of darkness only over what she’s done.
to the UK vampires.
The Baby: Probably the biggest change between their
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two characters is the baby. While they both sleep with our
werewolf lead before he goes through a change, it’s only
Nora who ends up pregnant from the experience. Nina
doesn’t become pregnant until they move to Wales. Once
they do become pregnant, both characters go through the
usual unexpected pregnancy fears and concerns. And both
show the child growing more quickly than usual. But Nina
is already a wolf when she’s pregnant, and Nora is only just
recently cursed and not aware of it yet.
werewolf
During the time between seasons
Nina has her baby and is beaten
to death by vampires, apparently
before ever naming her. This
becomes an entire story arc, as the
baby is found to be the prophesied
war child, who is supposed to be the
child who will save humanity from
the vampires. We’ll talk more than
that later.
But Nora watches Josh change
as, we assume, the change takes
place with the baby and her human
body can’t handle it. Losing the
baby adds another element to the
relationship between Josh and Nora
and a major element to her personal
story as her entire life and the future
she thought she was going to have
both get ripped away.
Kiss the curse goodbye: In the UK version, they never discuss
getting rid of the curse. It’s a forever thing. And we think that’s true in
the US version, despite all of Josh’s talk of finding a cure. And then Nora
comes back from life on the violent road with Brin and tells Josh that
killing Ray will remove the curse, if done right.
This option isn’t even left open in the UK version for George, as he sees
the note on the wall of the holding room left by Tully before Tully died
in the pressure chamber. Or so we’re left to presume.
Lucy’s Help: The pressure chamber is just part of how Dr. Jaggert
plans to help the supernaturals overcome their curses. But despite her
good intentions, she takes some really awful measures to get there. She
becomes a perfect example of just how awful humans can be. Especially
when we fear something.
What the pregnancy provides to
both stories is an entierly human
reaction between the characters who
find themselves at a loss as to what
to do next. Like many unplanned
pregnancies, it throws them for a
loop, and makes them question their
futures.
George’s Mind over Moon experience: When Nina dies, George
looses himself. He shuts himself in a room with the baby and adds
crosses to pretty much every open space he can find. He doesn’t sleep,
he doesn’t let anyone else hold her, and he doesn’t leave. But when a
trap set by vampires leads to the baby being taken, George tries to trade
himself for his child. Which also fails. But when it becomes clear that
they intend to kill the “War Child” he manages to makes himself partially
change.
The change isn’t complete. And because it wasn’t caused by the curse,
the curse won’t repair him. He forced his organs into failure. And then
he goes through his door to be with Nina. Knowing what we know
about how missing your door can end badly for you, we can’t begrudge
George for taking his. It’s just sort of a shock. We end the prior season
with George killing Mitchell in a teary goodbye followed by telling the
elder vampire in the room that he has a fight on his hands. Then the next
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season opens with Nina dead amd George finding his door.
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ghost
Loving a Loser: Both of our ghosts met their untimely demise in the
house they lived in with the men they thought they were going to marry
and spend the rest of their lives with.
But both get rude awakenings when they find our that the men they
Ghostly Powers: Annie, our UK wrapped the majority of their life up in actually caused their death
ghost, seems more in touch with the
world around her almost from the
start, while Sally only seems to gain
that ability when she misses her
door. The US version does a better
job at playing up how dead and
ghostly Sally is. Self absorbed a lot
of the time, but still ghostly. Annie
might as well be alive for all the
things she can do.
Sally never changes her clothes,
while Annie seems to have a
magic sweater that she can wear
in different ways and have it look
like a different shirt entirely. Which
does exist, but Sally can’t take off
or change her clothes, and at one
point we see Annie take her sweater
off and lay it on Saul’s couch. Or
the time it becomes a dress...Sally
doesn’t get a new outfit until she
comes back from the dead.
It seems early on as if supernatural
creatures get the ability to touch
ghosts almost as equally as Annie
can touch other things. But in the
US version, Sally doesn’t gain
the ability to touch until her door
is missed. Sally can’t touch other
supernatural characters, and even
touching other ghosts creates a
sort of energy transfer instead of a
physical touch but Annie seems to
not suffer that particular problem.
She can even carry baby Eve
around.
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through jealousy induced rage. Though the US version has this handled in
a much classier way, with the engagement ring that won’t go away vs the
thong stuck in the plumbing.
But I have issue with the way the UK version portrayed Annie’s revenge.
After watching the US version, I was originally excited to see how they
would handle the murder of Annie, the exorcism and her attempts at
revenge. In the US version, they almost excercise her, causing a very
scary looking Sally to go force him to almost kill himself, but the fact that
Annie had so much more power than Sally so early on made me wonder
why her attempts at revenge weren’t more powerful too.
Danny, our US bad boyfriend, always felt like a smarmy asshat. Owen
had been cheating all along, but Danny didn’t start dating Sally’s friend
Bridget until after Sally died. And while whatever Annie tells Owen
gives us a slightly more satisfying moment of watching Owen go mad.
Sadly, he ends up turning Professor Jaggert and Kemp onto our struggling
roommates, thus serving as the transitioning plot point to the facility story
arc that made up most of that season.
an early mentor in the form of
an 80’s ghost, but both shows
do a great job of showing how
the cultures were different in the
80’s and both teach our ghostly
lead about the door, even if the
thing that sends them through it
is different. Gilbert is about as
different from Tony as he could
be. But both are great at teaching
our ghost how to use their
powers.
Annie also gets additional help
escaping those who want to pull
her over to the other side in the
form of a ex-military ghost who’s
dodged his door too. Sally does
meet a 90’s party poltergeist, and
Stevie and his friends, who each
teach her new things she can do,
but she never has other spirits
dragging her to the other side.
Not until season 3 anyway, and
then it’s our favorite gruesom
witch pulling her through her
deathspot.
Danny becomes a footnote later on in season 2 when he dies in prison
and comes back to haunt Sally. Except that it’s a couple minutes of him
making furniture sculptures and then the strange black mist that’s been
following our US ghost for half a season shows up and rips Danny ghost
apart and then offers her a job as a reaper. It just felt like they could
have dragged that out a little bit more. Though it did show us another
mythology the US version uses, dispersing spirits with cold iron and all.
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Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
80’s Ghosts: Both ghosts have
Possession: The closest thing
to possession that we see Annie
do is learn to taste, and later to
give memories to someone else,
by touching them. Sally can
actually dive into a body and
pilot it around, an experience
that is, as it turns out, addictive.
And if you do it to one person
too often or for too long, you can
actually leave a bit of yourself
behind, which Sally finds out
when the host she’s been driving
starts drawing Sally’s memories
and thinking she’s going mad.
The other side effect of
possession is that it feels good.
And her psyche breaks a little,
creating Scott the Reaper. Scott
is who does all the things Sally
doesn’t want to admit to doing.
She shreds Stevie and Nick, and
then when she realizes just how
bad it’s gotten, that she’s gotten,
and she shreds herself. This
sends her into purgatory .
Unlike Annie’s trip into
purgatory, Sally and her friends
find themselves reliving their
deaths over and over again, or
something akin to their deaths.
Annie meets Mitchell’s victims,
even as Mitchell is trying save
her. Sally’s time in purgatory is
shorter, and she ends up saving
herself.
But before you go on thinking
that it’s some sort of feminist ‘I’ll
save myself’ line of thinking, she
also ends up trapped in her own
mind with Scott, and needs her
friends to help save her.
coat of paint a couple of times. Sure
she’s becoming more and more
powerful, but how often does she get
taken to a different realm that she has
to get out of?
Purgatory, that special place in her
head, out of Donna’s body, out of
the spa, out of the different times she
jumps to...
The only storyline where she isn’t
stuck somehwere is when she ends
up...oh wait...stuck in her own
body, eating flesh to keep from
deteriorating.
Which is a very different version
of the zombie story, which the UK
brings up when a number of people
who were supposed to die during the
time that Mitchell was saving Annie,
couldn’t cross over.
The darkness of that story is
impressive. Really. Because when
doctors find out about the living
dead, they test on them. And then
they burn them alive.
And can we talk about Sally’s
bad habit of getting herself stuck
in places? The writers seem to
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use the same idea with a different
55
Psychics and Witches: In the
UK version, Annie meets a medium
with a broken gift. Somehow
only Annie can speak to him, and
somehow her mom manages to walk
into that theater while the medium is
there and while Annie is helping him.
And through this medium, she helps
her mother move on with her life.
In the US version we meet Sally’s
mother when she dies and later again
when she tries to help Sally get to
Limbo.
Aside from this difference in how we
meet our ghostly character’s mother,
we also see these other characters
who exist outside of the three type
classifications. Important characters,
like Zoe, stick around for multiple
episodes and guest appearances
in later seasons or become a plot
twist to a story, like Donna. The
UK version doesn’t bring these
other ideas into play at all. Sure we
meet a zombie girl, but she’s only
there because Mitchell going into
Limbo prevents other ghosts from
getting their doors. Zombies aren’t
a thing, they are a consequence.
A one episode aside more than a
world changing story formation. The
one psychic we do meet is treated
in much the same way, leaving me
personally feeling like there are
some story elements that weren’t
developed as fully in the UK version.
Both shows suffer from having many complex and interwoven
storylines taking place at the same time, which often leaves certain
story elements dangling or rushed. We see Liam cause havoc off and
on for most of a season, but his actual death is quick and, frankly, sort
of quickly moved on from. It’s as if the writers were checking things
off of a todo list and realized that they had run out of time for the last
few items so they smushed them all together. The US version does a
slightly better job with continuity. We see the impact of past episode
decisions continue to alter our characters interactions, where the UK
version sometimes shoves something into an episode and doesn’t
bring it up again once that episode is over.
Overall, I actually loved both of these shows. When I started watching
them I found myself trying to compare them and choose a better
one. Now I don’t think that’s fully fair. They may start similarly,
and be based on similar ideas, but the longer each series goes on the
more different they become. In the end, when you line them up side
by side, there is no “winner.” The UK version does a better job of
making it clear that the world of “monsters” is dangerous and fleeting
by killing off character’s that we love, sometimes without warning
and sometimes in ways that feel like tying up loose ends more than
anything. The US version may allow for supporting characters to die,
which impacts character growth more than it seems to do in the UK
version (sometimes), but the main characters themselves are never
truly dead. At least not yet.
I think the real lesson to take away from both of these shows is that
being human is about more than just the species we were born into. Or
to quote Herrick:
“Humanity isn’t a species. It’s a state of mind.”
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People aren’t easily labeled and categorized away.
sI
g
n
i
Th
Being friends with Jack Harkness is dangerous.
From the very first episode we learn that the closer you get to Jack the
worse off you are. The show starts us off with a character who has been
a part of his team for a while, Susie, and before the end of the episode
she’s dead. It’s not just a matter of happenstance, or of being in the wrong
place at the wrong time, it’s no stray bullet. And it’s not Jack directly, at
least not all of the time. It’s the world that Jack brings these people into.
It’s mysterious and magical and you don’t get to leave a mysterious and
magical world and expect to be unchanged. We see people who Jack has
tried to leave, for their own safety, and how their lives are never really their
own ever again. They can never forget the excitement, and danger, of their
old lives. Some don’t want to. Jack’s life, however, is truly to worst. He
tries to not get attached to people, because he knows that at the end of the
day they will get old and die. And he won’t, but he will have to watch.
Never accept a drink from Captain Jack.
Seriously, it’s got retcon in it. I promise. While the security benefits of
something like retcon are easy to understand, but the power it gives can
be so easily abused. Gwen cheats, repeatedly. Then she tells Rhys the truth
and makes him forget it. Sure she goes back to him. Sure, she’s sorry.
But she confesses and deals with his anger for all of 10 minutes before he
passes out and gets back to that blissful oblivion of not knowing. And then
it’s gone. And she goes back to pretending that it didn’t happen, despite it
being thrown in her face a couple of times. As the show continues, they get
married and even eventually having a baby and he still never remembers
what she and Owen did. Repeatedly. And that just doesn’t sit well with
me. And lets not forget what repeated doses of retcon did to Max. Well,
retcon and Susie. But Susie without the retcon wouldn’t have been nearly
as effective.
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Balancing work and family is hard, but worth it.
“How do you switch off from all this stuff?” Gwen asks
Owen, Tosh and Jack. Later he tells Gwen “Don’t let the
job consume you.” It’s sort of a theme for her character
much more than the other characters. She marries, she
chooses Rhys and she eventually has a child with him.
And Rhys is really a trooper isn’t he? He gets lied to,
cheated on, retcon’d, he gets stabbed to death by Bilis,
and any other number of strange things that he sees (some
of which he never remembers.) But he never leaves her
side. And he helps keep her grounded, at least most of the
time.
“You people and your quaint little categories.” Jack exists
without defining himself in terms of sexuality. He is who
he is, and he loves who he loves, regardless of their gender.
Janto, for example, has Lisa in the beginning. They were
in love, and when the cybermen attacked and partially
upgraded her, he kept her alive. But in later episodes, he
and Jack fall in love. And in even later episodes we meet
people Jack has loved before. Because when you live
forever, you’re bound to wrack up a decent sized list of past
loves. Our society still tries to fit people into neat and tidy
boxes, and that’s not how people work. We never really
worked that way. Traditional gender roles and stereotypical
gender identities don’t fit or work, and sometimes we have
to remember that those categories only serve to keep us
from really getting to know the people around us. When
we push our ideas of who they are or who they should be
because of a random set of character traits that our society
has chosen, we keep them from showing us who they really
are. Traits that, by the way, we’ve basically brainwashed
ourselves into accepting despite historical evidence that they
are misguided at best and direct manipulation at worst. We
dress our girls in pink and boys in blue, though when the
trend originally started it was determined that blue was soft
and better for girls while pink is aggressive and fits boys.
Even this, however, was a scheme by a marketing team
for a department store looking to drive sales for their baby
department.
Co-worker relationships are touchy at best.
If we’re supposed to believe Susie, she slept with Owen. Tosh had some
random but meaningful make out with him that leaves her obsessive,
Gwen ends up fooling around with him for a while and the one woman
he actually falls for leaves him to take a chance that she could go
back to her time. None of those relationships end well. Tosh doesn’t
get a decent end to any of her romantic relationships actually. Janto’s
girlfriend goes all cyberwoman and tries to upgrade them all. Then he
ends up falling in love with Jack and dies by his side. Jack and Gwen
have this strange connection that they don’t often talk about. At least
not officially. She chooses Rhys, and while I believe that she truly loves
him, I think she doesn’t choose Jack because she knows that won’t have
any sort of happy ending. A few years of mind bending greatness and
then tragedy, that’s life with Jack. Life with Rhys is safe and steady.
And really, that’s a Torchwood life lesson all on its own. Life with
Captain Jack Harkness will be amazing and terrifying and then it
will end and when it does it will not end well. You don’t walk away
from Torchwood unscathed. At best, you end up like Rhys, angry at
being second fiddle to Torchwood but still left as an anchor and often
accomplice to a key member of the team. He and Andy are the closest
you can get to being in Torchwood without actually being in it. You
get a little bit of adventure with a hell of a lot less danger. But then,
you could also end up like Susie, going more and more mad with each
passing day, making excuses for your behavior and plotting extravagant
schemes to allow yourself to continue those behaviors.
To make matters worse, when you spend all day with people, going
home and spending more time with them is just a recipe for trouble.
You need to be able to go home and relax, be the you that you don’t get
to be at work. We may not spend all day chasing down weevils, but our
jobs are still stressful. And when we leave them, we need to be able to
actually leave them. And lets not get started on how awkward things
will be if and when it doesn’t work out. Breaking up is hard to do, it’s
really awful actually, and if you still have to see them every day at
what’s already a source of stress in your life...bad bad news.
And that’s a lesson for all of us. Find someone who helps
keep you balanced, someone who can help ground you.
Because life will get crazy, maybe not Torchwood crazy
but still crazy, and you’ll need that balance if you want to
keep your sanity.
“Sometimes you can know too much history.”
It’s said during the episode in season one where weevils are being captured, Jack wanders around a warehouse and tells Tosh that they
used to use the warehouses to store the bodies of dead GI’s. While in general I do subscribe to the idea that you’re doomed to repeat
history if you don’t learn from it, but let’s really think about history. The personal story of history is really very tragic. Even the happy
stories eventually end. If you really think about it, even our stories will eventually be history. Someone will look back on our lives
someday and wonder about us the way we wonder about others. Imagine being like Jack and living that history. It’s not some random
person in a book, it’s a friend or lover that he remembers. I don’t even always like to travel down my own memory lane, and it’s
drastically shorter than Jack’s would be.
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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Humans are not always shining examples of humanity.
People do terrible things to each other, which we know, but they also
do terrible things to the aliens they manage to find and capture. Look at
the weevil fight club from season one, or the growing slug creature that
humans have been drugging up and cutting meat off of, or the sleeper
alien who they basically torture into showing herself. Hell, the whole
‘Countrycide’ episode isn’t about aliens at all, but about humans who
have trapped, killed and eaten humans. Repeatedly. Yet we fear aliens.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some pretty messed up aliens and they
don’t always have the best manners, and I wouldn’t expect them to, but
Don’t Kiss Captain John Hart.
humans should know better. And sometimes, the darker side of these
Even if you really want to.
aliens is actually starkly human when you think about it. We’re all
Paralyzing lip gloss? I’m pretty sure he’d still be worth it.
flawed and we all make mistakes, we all have urges that we consider
Honestly, as a character, he’s better defined and much more
inappropriate and that we work to bury. Sometimes we fail, and the
interesting than our season one bad guy Bilis. Actually, can
consequences for that failure have a ripple effect that extends farther than
we just talk for a second about season one’s ending? WTF.
we ever imagined possible. The weevils act on instinct which often leads
We spend two episodes dealing with Bilis manipulating the
to the death of people who get in their way, the fae-like creatures violently
entire team. And he succeeds! He brings the monster out into
protect their own, the cell of sleeper aliens use their arm blades to kill or
the world and it kills everything that touches its shadow, but
blow up a number of people in their stunted take over plot. And Abbadon,
somehow Jack’s unending life causes this monster that has
in his short appearance, kills dozens of unlucky citizens of Cardiff just by
been trapped under the rift forever to self destruct. In less than
casting his shadow on them.
5 minutes we deal with what should have been the big bad of
In season 3 we witness humans willing to sacrifice children to an alien
the season, and we never see Bilis again? They spend longer
race, starting with the poor families. Season 4 shows humans relegating
showing Gwen sit next to Jack’s body. And what the hell
other humans to categories based on injuries and then shipping them off to
happened after that? The world didn’t see the giant monster
concentration camps. Camps that come complete with ovens where people
stomping on buildings and killing everyone? I’d even have
are burned alive. These are things we did to ourselves. Sure, influenced
been happy with a ‘the time rift took it back so it never really
by other elements, but still carried out by humans. And that doesn’t even
happened’ excuse. But it’s never mentioned again. But with
touch the atrocities we’ve commited on each other in actual history. We’re
John Hart we get a complex history, additional history for
far scarier than 90% of the creatures we meet in Torchwood. Except for
Jack, future story arcs, and some funny team nicknames. I’m
those blowfish guys. That’s just messed up.
almost sad Jack doesn’t let him join the team.
There are fates worse than death.
Jack can’t die. This seems like a great trick but as it turns out, it’s a curse. Owen dies and
comes back but he’s practically glass. What about the psych ward full of people like Jonah
Bevan who got sucked into the void and stare at the nothingness until it destroyed part of
him. In these cases, death seems merciful. You find yourself hoping that when your favorite
character get’s shot, they don’t come back. No matter how many characters tell you that
there is nothing but darkness waiting for you when you die, darkness with a terrifying
something moving inside of it, you still hope that when it’s over it can simply be over.
”The end is where we start from.”
No matter how bad things are right now, you can keep going. When Gray and Captain Hart show up we see the story as we
know it end. We watched Owen die once before, and saw him come back, we saw each of the character face situations where
they could or should have died, and didn’t. Heck, we watch Captain Jack die hundreds of time. And watching it lulls us into
a sense that they will always be ok. That death just doesn’t have threat we would normally ward to it. Which makes it all the
harder to accept when death steps back in and reminds us that no one gets that lucky. We watch Tosh help Owen save others,
we watch them both say goodbye and then we’re left with an overwhelming sense of numbness. After everything they’ve been
through, we don’t want it to end like this. I don’t know about everyone else, but I cried like a baby when they tried to close
Tosh’s file and her goodbye video popped up.
But it’s Jack that brings home this final life lesson. When Gwen tells him that she doesn’t think she can go on now, he tells her
that she can. “The end is where we start from.”
And I can’t even begin to tell you how much of that truth rings throughout my life. When things dissolve, and you feel like
your life is falling apart, it’s easy to forget that things will get better. That the end is just a new beginning. It doesn’t mean that
it will be easy, it doesn’t invalidate the pain you’re going through, and no one should expect you to move on or forget. But
take courage, your story is changing, but it isn’t over. You’ll pick up the pieces and put them back together in a new way. And
that’s ok. Because every day you’re alive is a day to make new choices and carve a new path for yourself.
Every single day that you’re alive is a day that someone else didn’t get. And would love to have had.
Focus on the good, learn from the bad, and keep trying. The end is where you’ll start from.
The entire fourth season plays up this life lesson over and over. Suddenly the entire world
can’t die. You can still be mortally wounded, and death won’t bring any relief to your pain.
And even worse, what they do to the people who are still alive but shouldn’t be shows us
just how unequipped we are for making choices in a world that plays by different rules. And
everyone becomes overloaded on pain meds to the point where they stop being effective.
60
D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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Life Les
sons Fro
m
Primev
al
By : Erik
a
Litherla
nd
The Butterfly Effect
Don’t go through a doorway if you don’t know where it leads.
Stepping into an unknown world sounds like it could be a great deal of fun, but reality is often harsher. You’re
far more likely to be the body that Nick Cutter finds at the demolished camp than you are to be Helen Cutter off
cavorting through time. Everyone likes to talk about how taking risks is vital in life, and while I don’t disagree
to a point, not all risks are good ones. It wouldn’t be a risk if there wasn’t a chance of failure. But since we’re
not generally talking about walking through mystical doorways, you have the liberty to do a little research
before making your choices. Especially if something seems too good to be true.
And let’s be honest here, even if you do manage to wander through a mystical doorway and visit another
time, it’s pretty clear that doing so hasn’t got the best odds of giving you any sort of happy ending. Have you
seen Helen Cutter? I mean, seriously. From the time she leaves that slimy shell creature on Nick’s desk to the
moment she decides the Earth is better off without
humans, she’s pretty much spiraling into madness.
Technologically advanced, murder inducing
madness.
Not to mention that some risks, some choices, are
things you can’t get back from. Nick comes back
from a trip through and loses the woman he loves,
Connor and Abby step through and get stuck in the
past for a year, Danny’s brother goes into one and
goes mad, then goes through another and meets a
woman he loves who dies after traveling through
even more anomilies. Which is, of course, a more
drammatic version of what you might experience, it’s
still a cautionary tale to be sure.
Treat risks, and doorways, with the respect they
deserve. Don’t
take them
lightly. WINTER 2014
D20 GIRLS
MAGAZINE
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Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
If you do ever happen to adventure to the past, be careful. You change one thing, one little thing you didn’t
even know you were changing, and you come back to an entirely new reality. One where the people you love
no longer exist and no one else remembers them. Except your crazy not quite dead, not quite ex wife. And
she’s gonna take your personal tragedy and heartbreak as a sign that not only will the world can be changed but
somehow you can choose how it will be changed. That she could personally change the shape and direction of
the world to fit an image she felt would be best for it. One without humans in it.
The entire evolution of the world is just one crushed butterfly away from being altered forever. And on the
topic of being careful, how careful is careful? How many times did Nick wonder what small detail had been
overlooked? In the trip between the days of Claudia Brown and the days of Jenny Lewis, how often did he
replay finding the camp, taking a picture, burying the dead...something that he did or didn’t do changed the
world. His world. Forever.
And while your day to day choices don’t usually have such a large impact, the ripple effect is no less important.
As you act in your day to day life, please remember that the things you do and say can have a long term and
lasting impact on your live and the lives of those around you. You may not make a choice that erases the person
you love from the world, but your choices are still important.
Don’t get Cocky
The really trippy thing about traveling to the past is that it means we can also end up traveling to the future.
Which means that when you get there...this is the past. The really tempting thing is to try to adjust the past
to change the future. Look at Time Cop, where Max Walkers own partner tries to go back in time and buy
up stocks when they are cheap for a company that is successful in the future. It’s in our very nature to try to
manipulate a situation to fit our own desires. We’re even very good at rationalizing why we’re doing it, or
how it’s not for us but for someone else, or how it’s for the good of the world. Who of us is really qualified to
determine what’s good for the world as a whole though. I mean, seriously, Helen Cutter thought killing off the
human race was good for the world. And while she may not be fully wrong, I certainly want the chance to cast
my vote.
Never assume, at any point, that you know all there is to know about something. Or that you’re perfectly
equipped to make a decision. Input from others is vital to making the best decisions, and it’s essential that you
never forget that. Or life will find a way to send you a reminder. Or a T-Rex to eat your face off.
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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D20 Girls Rock!
Meet GLITTER QUEEN
64
GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014 D20 Girls Rock - Featuring GLITTER QUEEN
GLITTERD20
QUEEN
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
\
Nice to meet you, you
can call me Glitter Queen. I have
been a D20 Girl in Chicago as well
as the Illinois state manager for
the better part of a year now and
have loved every second. Gender
bias aside, someone into Sci Fi,
books, gaming and costumed role
play has always been viewed as a
less than desirable friend. Granted
nowadays everything revolves
around these things in pop culture
media, but when I was growing up
that definitely was not the case. I
learned to channel my alone time
into learning and creating and grew
up to be a pretty smart and artistic
woman.
\
Being a part of The D20
Girls Project has helped me meet
hundreds of girls that have similar
childhoods and allowed me to form
bonds that I hope to keep forever.
While in present day, cosplaying
and gaming has made it’s way into
the mainstream, there is still tons of
prejudice against females in those
respective cultures. So as a D20 Girl
we work together to help break
through stereotypes along with
giving each other tips and tricks in
whatever we can.
\
While I have always loved
Halloween and gone to extremes
with costumes, I have only been
seriously cosplaying for the past
2 years. I have about 12 finished
costumes ranging in fandoms from
Star Trek to Doctor Who to Disney
to DC Comics. Like most cosplayers
my wish list is infinite. Quite literally
every day I’m adding and plotting
my next role. Being a novice,
various parts of my costumes are
pre-made or commissioned, but
all of them always have my own
personal touch whether it be a prop
or an added detail or alteration to
the outfit.
\
A lot of my costumes tend
to lean towards Science Fiction,
Villains and Horror, but do believe
I am no stranger to Super-Heroes
and cutesy cartoon characters.
Growing up on Star Trek and Star
Wars (yes I am one of the rare
people who love both) a lot of my
love goes for aliens of all types. The
stranger looking, the better! Which
is one of the reasons I am one of
the biggest Trekkie and Whovian
you will ever meet. This love for
fantastical creatures goes hand in
hand with my love for SFX makeup.
So, while being a D20 Girl I am also
in school for Make-Up Artistry. I am
constantly practicing, learning and
creating looks that I hope will turn
heads.
\
I am also a writer for our
D20 Girls Magazine. I write articles,
as well as help edit and manage
the site design. Being a writer for
the magazine has offered me the
opportunity to hone in my writing
skills, and the chance to get press
passes to prestigious cons and
meet some awesome famous
people. Being a former musician
along with informative articles,
I write song lyrics and dabble in
poetry and fiction in my free time.
A Jane of all trades I suppose, I love
baking, painting, collecting action
figures, creating arts and crafts, and
dabbling in writing film scripts and
video production. I am never bored
and not boring, that much I can say
with pride.
\
Along with my artistic
talents, I am a huge gamer. Being a
Sony fan, my preferred console is
the PS3. What about the new PS4
you say? Well, I have a strong code
of “never buy expensive 1st gen
electronics.” I wait and let them
work out the kinks and release an
improved model. Not to mention to
add more games to the list. Besides,
with my schedule so packed I’m
still behind on several PS3 games,
I mean I haven’t even prestiged in
COD: Ghosts yet!
\
So whether you see me
fangirling at the local Comic Shop,
Cosplaying at a Con, buying fabric
and paint at Joann’s, or shouting
obscenities in a Free For All match,
be sure to say hi!
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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66
GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014 D20 Girls Rock - Featuring GLITTER QUEEN
GLITTERD20
QUEEN
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
GLITTER QUEEN
WINTER
2014 D20
GIRLS MAGAZINE
D20 Girls Rock
- Featuring
GLITTER
QUEEN
67
D20 GIRLS OUT AND ABOUT
The Carolina D20 GIrls and friends
Little Micha and Fawn
SC, VA, NC D20 at Ichibancon as Sailor Moon Fruits
Photographed by Double Stomp Productions
Kansas D20s in the TARDIS
GIRLS MAGAZINE
68GlitterD20Queen\
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
WINTER 2014
BattyJuice (NC) and Intraventus (VA) at Monitacon
Yachan (NC) at Monitacon
Photo by Paul Mrstik
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
69
Dear Chiki,
I’ve just read “The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas
Adams and while it was an enjoyable read I do not feel anymore
suited to surviving life on earth. Any tips?
Sincerely,
42 Skeptic
Dear 42 Skeptic
Pssh! “The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is chock-ful of important
things to remember! Personally I find the bit about never forgetting
your towel a total gem. I shall illustrate with an anecdote! Ready?
Too bad!
Over Thanksgiving a car load of my closest D20 pals and I found
ourselves at the Bristol Motor Speedway in Lights. Now for nonsoutherners let me explain this phenomenon. In an effort to bring
in additional funds during off-season racetracks often “deck the halls” and invite tourists to drive among their parking
lots and even on the track itself looking at lights! Usually what results is bumper to bumper traffic with no exit while you
ride your brake for upwards of 2 or more hours while looking at lit up spectacles usually involving some sort of racing
motif, and dinosaurs. Because nothing says Christmas like Dinosaurs. But I digress. You see we were stuck in this bumper
to bumper traffic and had been for a mere 30 minutes when one of the girls... we’ll call her Eliza* announced that she
desperately needed to relieve herself. I being the driver her told her something along the lines of “tough tits” but when
Candace* and Camilla* also agreed that they too needed to relieve themselves I pulled over.
There are no portapotties or bathrooms in this location... only a deserted parking lot. This is where “always remember
your towel” comes in handy! In this case a towel is a purse full of napkins that Scarlet* so thoughtfully stowed away.
So you can take this one of two ways:
Don’t forget your towel (or napkins) or always use the bathroom before leaving the house.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish!
Chiki
*Names have been changed to protect the not so innocent.
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D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
1
Staff Credits
Editor in Chief: Erika Litherland
Layout Design: Erika Litherland
Writers:
Erika Litherland
Tara Watson
Jacqueline Arbelo
Deshanna Heavelow
Megan Willis
Amanda Baldwin
Stephanie Hull
Amanda Throm
Brittney Fischer
Luke Wolford
Other Credits:
North Carolina D20 Girls
MTAC
Tomisina Lynn Photography
Michelle Savana Photography Tasia
Marble City Comicon
Computer Express
Planet Comicon
Palouse Comicon
Tommy Tee Photography
Comix Well Spring
Double Stomp Productions
Figments & Filaments
Nerd Girl of the Future
Games Workshop:
Slumping into Irrelevancy?
Harry Potter Photos
30
Newbs Guide to the Multiverse:
On Being Arthur Dent
Queen!
70 Ask Chiki
The D20 Girls Magazine is published four times per year. Manufactured and published in the United States
of America. D20 Girls Magazine is copyright of Le Nurd Mystique, LLC. Products named in these pages are
trade names or trademarks of their respective companies. The publisher shall not be responsible for slight
changes or typographical errors that do not lesson the value of the advertisement. The publisher’s liability for
other errors or omissions in connection with an advertisement is limited to republication of the advertisement
in any subsequent issue or the refund of any monies paid for the advertisement. Works remain the property
of their rights holder.
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D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
Fall 20 1 2
9 Chicago Tardis
10 Sherlock!
12 Elizabethan Insults
14 BBC Party
20 Things I Learned from Harry Potter
23 The North Carolina Girls
34 Hello and Goodbye: Doctor Who
36 Knitting Through Time
38 Meet Claudia Vainglory
44 The Misfits
45 Downton Abbey
46 Being Human: UK vs US
58 Torchwood
62 Life Lessons from Primeval
65 D20 Girls Rock: Meet Glitter
S p eD20c Girls
i a Magazine
l T a t- Fall
t o2012
o Issue! | Game Reviews | Advice | And More!
Contents
\
In 1964 The Beatles stepped off a plane onto US soil and
officially made British Invasion a national catch phrase. It wasn’t
just The Beatles, it was a number of bands and pop culture influences
that shaped our own culture, and continues to do so. In recent years
we’ve seen a new wave of British influences gain popularity here
in the states. From Doctor Who and Torchwood to Sherlock and
Harry Potter, our nerd flags are full of UK fandoms. This new British
Invasion is still spreading. Recent shows like the US version of
Being Human and the Canadian version of Primeval show us just
how catching these ideas are. Even my daughter’s music teacher has
her love of Doctor Who displayed in her classroom. British fandoms,
and other fandoms too, are becoming less and less exclusive or
secretive. And isn’t that what this has all been about really? Making
it ok to love what you love, to accept yourself and be proud of
yourself and all your quirks is a lofty goal, one we see becoming
a reality more and more each day. In fact, when we ran our nerdy tattoo’s
issue over a year ago, our cover girl was the proud owner of some awesome
Doctor Who ink. We couldn’t help but share that awesome cover again.
\
But despite the love of these fandoms, this was also one of our most
challenging issues to date. The holidays make schedules hard to manage on
a good day, and on top of that, a number of our volunteer staff are fighting
all sorts of health issues and computer crashes. Blood, sweat, and tears. And
that’s not even me being dramatic! It hasn’t been easy, but we all plugged
through and here it is! Which is really what being a team is all about, isn’t
it? What I lack, others have strength in and what others lack, I have strength
in. Knowing our strengths and weaknesses and working together is what
our team is all about. And despite all of those frustrations, and all the sweat,
blood and tears, I’m very proud of the way we all pulled together on this
issue and in the past year as a whole.
\
Can you believe it’s been over a year since our team took over the production of this publication. And
while things haven’t always been perfect, we’ve really learned a lot. About our fandoms, new fandoms, our
publication, our fans, and ourselves. The next year promises to bring even more changes and lessons as we
look toward what this publication will become. You may soon see some staff changes, or changes in direction,
and these should be looked upon with excitement. Change is something people often fear, but in this case it is
something that I hope you will come to look forward to. Change has led us here, which is a place we couldn’t
even have envisioned a year ago, who knows where we will be a year from now and what that will look like. I
for one am excited to see how things go.
D20 Girls Magazine
6
7
Katie Zheng
Cover Image: Claudia Vainglory
Image by: Tomisina Lynn Photography
Letter from the Editor
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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1
Harrypottershop.com $84.96
This little blood red stone is what started our wonderful adventure with Harry Potter
and the Wizard World. This beauty is made of cut glass and comes with a pretty dome
display measuring about 6-inches in height. Now you can keep it and the Elixir of Life
safe from “He Who Must Not Be Named.”
The Sherlock Files: Official Companion
Shoppbs.org $17.99
Ever wondered what Sherlock scribbles as he attempts to ignore Watsons dull prattle?
Or want an inside look on the clues from The Hounds of Baskerville? Along with episode clues this paperback edition of The Sherlock Files includes exclusive interviews
and Sherlock’s detective notes for you to read and re-read again and again and maybe
you can even gift one!
Doctor Who Tardis Jewelry Box
Urban-collector.com
$33.99
New for Christmas 2013 comes the bigger on the inside TARDIS jewelry box.
7 drawers, 3 metal hooks, and a ring hanger, there’s even room for your Fob
Watch! Buy one now and remember to look in that mirror and tell yourself just
who is “sexy”.
Fandom Sampler Tea Sets
Adagio.com $39
Harry Potter, Sherlock, Doctor Who and more? Oh my! These 10 beautifully illustrated
tins by the awesome Cara McGee tea samplers not only look awesome but taste great.
Flavors like the Mycroft Blend-Chocolate Chip, Vanilla Chai and Cream, or the Donna
Noble-Irish breakfast, Cinnamon and Orange. What’s more british than tea? Celebrate
your inner Brit and drink it pinkies up!
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D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
:
r C
on
te
nd
er
s
Harry Potter Sorcerer’s Stone Authentic Replica
Which Euro-fandom tool is best for the Everyman?
Ou
Products we Love!
Choose Wisely!
The Hitchiker’s Guide: This digital format handbook features an
ever growing library of information containing topics ranging
across the entire galaxy. The content within covers everything from
drink recipes, to local customs, to critical advice for the aspiring
hitchhiker. It also features an electronic thumb for flagging down
passing space crafts and is emblazoned with the comforting words:
Don’t panic!
The Sonic Screwdriver: A rare and versatile device that is the favored tool of the
mostly extinct time lords. It can be modified and upgraded (though only with high
levels of technology and genius level intelligence). By the time of the tenth doctor,
its capabilities included scanning, and projecting sound. Its ability to interface with
virtually any device makes it a useful hacking tool, great for opening locks and
doors, as well as being able to disrupt some forms of offensive weapons. Beyond
that it has miscellaneous uses such as a geolocator and some…vague…medical
purposes.
The Harry Potter Style Wand: Wands in the Harry Potter universe are critical. Witches and
wizards are very limited in their magical capabilities when caught without a wand. The wand
magnifies and directs the inherent magical power of the user, and the magic that can be
done is practically limitless. From healing to offensive powers, levitation and transformation,
unlocking doors and controlling others’ minds, this powerful tool is essential for the modern
witch or wizard.
Lucy’s magic cordial: Given to her by the great and powerful Aslan, Lucy’s cordial is a healing drought that
can repair any wound. It is limitless in its healing ability, being able to repair the most grievous wounds
almost instantly.
Each of these would be useful in their own way, providing a range of capabilities for an adventurer. I considered each carefully, weighing
the pros and cons of each item. The first thing I considered was raw power. Just on power level alone, a HP style wand would undoubtedly
take the cake. It can summon, kill, heal, un-lock doors: most of the functions of the other tools are also contained within this one simple
piece of wood. The reason why I had to set this aside as the top ranking tool for the everyman, however, is that a wand merely directs
and amplifies that inherent power of the user. Most people upon acquiring a wand discover that they are a muggle. At that point the only
purpose of the wand is to depress you. Nearly limitless power…and to most of us, it’s just a stick.
Consider next Lucy’s cordial. Healing is undoubtedly a hugely useful thing, and the wealth and power you could gain just from making it
known that you have the ability to heal anything or anyone would be incredible. The reason, though, it can’t be considered is that it is a
small container, and eventually it will run out and be gone, with no lasting effect left behind, beyond the lives you saved. Well that, and the
money you made (if of course you are vaguely villainous like myself).
The Hitchiker’s guide provides all of the knowledge contained in a planet full of buildings. That knowledge is being constantly expanded and
upgraded by agents working around the galaxy. Knowledge is powerful, yet the aspect that makes it most valuable is the electronic thumb.
The ability to hail passing space craft opens up a world, no, a universe of possibilities of adventure and travel. This tool is the most exciting
to me, but again, I am brought back to earth by (fictional) reality. This is not a highly trafficked area of space, and you, like Ford Prefect
cold be stuck on this mostly harmless rock for a very long time. You could then console yourself by reading about all the fabulous places in
the universe you are currently not travelling.
I had to give the title of best tool for the every man to the Sonic Screwdriver. The tool itself can be utilized for most of its applications by
any user. No door will be locked for you, no chest of treasure kept from your grasp! There will be many functions that are meaningless
to the non-Time Lord, but no worries, The Doctor generally only keeps one at a time, so if you hang on to it for long enough he will
undoubtedly come back for it. In the Tardis. That key element, along with its interfacing capabilities, is what makes the Sonic Screwdriver
the top tool for the average adventurer!
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
5
Nerd Girl of the Future
Meet Maggie!
A typical 3 grader from Missouri who
loves cats, plays soccer, and has a keen
nose for candy in the house.
Games Workshop
Slumping Into Irrelevancy?
rd
By Luke Wolford and Tara Watson
When one speaks of the United
Kingdom’s contributions to sci-fi
and fantasy fandom, for many the
first things that spring to mind are
the popular contributions such as
Dr. Who, or the increasing popular
Sherlock television series, yet one
of the largest contributions to come
from the U.K. comes in the form of
an empire of strategic miniature
wargames.
Maggie is also an unabashed geek.
She is a Whovian who wants to dress
as a Dalek for Halloween. Currently
her favorite TV show is The Sarah
Jane Adventures. She is also a gamer,
loving to play math games on the
computer, board games like Dungeon!
and King of Tokyo, and she even has
characters on Wizard 101 and World
of Warcraft. When she goes to bed,
she falls asleep to the music from the
Taverns of Azeroth cd.
She is a really big fan of Monster High,
and loves all sorts of things spooky
and supernatural.
She loves Tim Burton movies. This Valentine’s day, she
built a mailbox shaped like a coffin. It was decorated
with skulls, keys, and hair bows. For her birthday the
past two years, she’s gone to see The Hobbit movies.
Her favorite part was the use of molten gold to fight
the dragon.
Maggie is not shy. In addition to enjoying tabletop and
computer gaming, she also loves to LARP (live action
role play), perform in stage plays, and help out at the
Kansas City Renaissance Festival. She is learning to
sew so she can start making her own costumes, and
is teaching herself to play the violin. When she grows
up, Maggie says she wants to be a veterinarian.
This geeky girl is not afraid to march to her own drum.
When asked what she’d do if somebody told her she
couldn’t do what she wanted with her life, she smiled
crookedly and answered “Nothing in the ‘verse can
stop me.”
Go for it, geeky girl! The world needs more like you!
6
D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
First, came Warhammer: The Game
of Fantasy Battle. Launching in
1983, Warhammer featured factions
such as Chaos, the Empire, Skaven
and Orcs. Featured miniatures
included individual characters, small
military units, and vehicles. Players
built personalized armies to battle
one another via dice rolls. Games
last an average of about 2 hours in
length, but of course that timing
can vary based on the players.
Aeronautica Imperialis, Golden
Heroes, Stormbringer, Runequest,
Battlecars, HeroQuest, and many
others.
Then, in 1987, Games Workshop
launched Warhammer 40,000 as a
sci-fi companion to Warhammer.
Like Warhammer Fantasy, players
can choose to build their armies of
different races and factions, and
one can also utilize new vehicles.
Empires were built, both on the
game table and in a rapidly growing
fandom.
From there it expanded into novels,
video games, role-playing games,
movies, and many types of merchandise. Stories that are gritty
and dark, often focusing on futile
attempts to stay alive in hopeless
situations. The novel Fifteen Hours
was a prime example, where the
average lifespan of the Imperial
Guard soldiers being exactly that,
fifteen hours.
However, Games Workshop did not
just stop at these games. Using the
overall success of the Warhammer
franchises, they expanded to bring
in other fandoms through The Lord
of the Rings Strategy Battle Game,
Games Workshop is a giant in the
figure-based gaming industry, but
they have recently come under
scrutiny for the high prices of their
figures. Gamers have started to
drift away from the Warhammer
setting, citing rising costs of figures
and the expense of the rulebooks.
As one player commented, “Thirty
dollars for an individual figure is
just too much.” The cost increases
when specialized resin-cast figures
are purchased. UK-based company
Forge World produces these pieces
via contractual agreement with
Games Workshop.
The declining player base has
shown in the company’s stocks. In
mid-January, profits were down by
3.4 million British pounds from the
previous year. The discontinuation
of games such as Necromundia,
Bloodbowl, and Inquisitor; the
end of Finecast; and the decline
of White Dwarf and Warhammer:
Visions taking the monthly slot
heralds a waning in resources that
many see as the beginning of the
end of Games Workshop.
Will the minifig giant pull out of
its slump and draw its player base
back? The fan base is there, but it
will take a lot for Games Workshop
to gain back its trust.
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
7
Chicago Tardis
The D20 Girls of Illinois were fortunate enough to
be invited to Chicago TARDIS this year at the Westin
Lombard Yorktown Center Novemeber twenty ninth
to December first. There were some awesome guests
in attendance including Doctors 5, 6 and 8, as well as
companion Martha Jones. We met up with some Tumblr
friends, made new ones (even some Dalek friends) and
had loads of fun with all the amazing Cosplayers. We
were even lucky enough to meet up with Doctor Who’s
own Commander Strax (played by Dan Starkey) as well
as Mels (played by Nina Toussaint-White), for some
awesome interviews. For more information, head over to
the magazine site at www.D20GirlsMagazine.com for the
full interviews and pictures!
Catch Us If You Can
February
Feb 20: Super Nerd Night, Wichita, KS
Feb 28-Mar 2: VisionCon, Branson, MO
March
Mar 1-2: ETSU Con, Johnson City, TN
March 14-16: Triad Anime Convention, Winston-Salem,
NC
March 14-16: Planet Comicon, Kansas City, MO
March 21-23: Megacon, Orlando, FL
March 29-30: Procon, Charleston, SC
March 29-30: Koku Manga, Johnson City, TN
8
D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
April
April 11-13: Marble City Comicon, Knoxville, TN
April 18-20: MTAC, Murfreesboro, TN
April 19-20: Nashicon, Columbia, SC
April 25-27: Figments and Filaments, Independence, MO
April 26-27: Festival of Legends, Chapel Hill, NC
April 26: Nerdcon, Boone, NC
D20 Girls Magazine Online
You can find exciting additional coverage and new
articles every week on our magazine website! Our
volunteer staff write unique articles and share tips,
ideas, and fun cosplay pictures and tutorials. You
don’t want to miss a single update! Go visit us at
www.d20girlsmagazine.com
Follow us on our National Facebook page to help find
new events you can be part of! If you’d like to invite us
to anevent near you, please send us a message through
facebook or send an email to our executive director at
[email protected]
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
9
SHERLOCK!
By Deshanna
Fans eagerly awaited the first
episode of season 3 of BBC’s
Sherlock. How were they going
to explain Sherlock’s survival
of the fall from the top of the
hospital? Theories abounded on
the internet. Each fan had a theory
and was more than willing to share
it with any other “Sherlockian”
or “Cumberbitch”, but how was
Stephan Moffat going to have it play
out?
I stumbled upon Sherlock on
Netflix just over a year ago and
was very leery of watching it. As
10
a huge fan of the original stories
by Arthur Conan Doyle, I am very
protective of what I think of as “my
Sherlock”(just like every other fan)
so I really didn’t want to watch
a show of some guy trying to act
like Sherlock. After much internal
debate, I took a deep breath and
pushed the play button. Less than
five minutes later, I was marveling
at this man that WAS Sherlock.
I was hooked and spent an entire
Saturday marathoning the six
episodes that were available.
Sherlock dumped you right into
the action as Sherlock meets John
Watson, who has just returned
home from Afghanistan after being
injured. John needs a place to stay
and a friend introduces him to
Sherlock. John wants nothing to
do with this nutjob, but can’t help
D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
Heavelow
but be pulled in by the cases that
Sherlock is working on. As the two
work together to solve themurders
made to look like suicides, John
forgets all about his injury, which
is healed and is only in his mind
now. Soon the two have forged an
unlikely friendship and it was this
friendship as much as the stories
that kept me coming back for each
subsequent episode.
The first season was about showing
how Sherlock’s mind worked
as well as showing how little
he understood the world he was
required to interact with. At first I
thought John Watson was going to
be a shadow of a character, but he
found a way to hold his own with
the dominating and overbearing
Sherlock.
The second season showed that over
the course of time between season
one and season two, Sherlock had
“grown up.” He may not have
realized it at the start of the season,
but he had friends. It started
with one, John Watson, however
reluctantly and grew to include
Detective Inspector Lestrade from
Scotland Yard, his landlady; Mrs.
Hudson, a young lady who works
in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital’s
morgue; Molly Hooper and even at
the end of season two; his brother
Mycroft. By the end of the season
and the stand off on the roof of St.
Bart’s with Moriarity, Sherlock had
a whole circle of people who cared
about him and were willing to do
anything to help him. Moriarity
knew that Sherlock cared for these
people even if Sherlock didn’t know
it yet and was willing to kill them.
In the last episode of season two,
Moriarity apparently killed himself
on the roof of St. Bart’s right in
front of Sherlock in order to force
Sherlock to kill himself to save
John, Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson
from assassins. The end of the
episode shows Sherlock lying on
the pavement having jumped from
the roof of the hospital. John runs up
and sees the body of his best friend
lying on the ground, and then we see
John and Mrs. Husdon at Sherlock’s
funeral.
From the moment the episode
ended, theories abounded about
how Sherlock had faked his death.
In a brilliant move, Stephan
Moffat incorporated a couple of
the most prevalent theories into
the first episode as a couple of
characters imagined how it could
have happened. Season three picks
up approximately two years later
and we see that Sherlock has been
working for MI6 all across Asia
and Europe and that John is in a
serious relationship with Mary.
John has moved on, or so he thinks,
but Sherlock expected everything
to return to the status quo once he
revealed himself.
Sherlock knows now that he has
friends and that he even *gasp*
cares for them. This season was
about forgiving. John had to forgive
Sherlock for letting him think he
was dead and Sherlock had to
forgive John for moving on with
his life. They begin their friendship
anew but things are different now
and by the end of the season, they
had found their niches. In the last
episode Sherlock killed a man who
posed a threat to Britain’s security,
and more importantly to him;
posed a threat to his best friend’s
happiness.
That just wouldn’t do, so Sherlock
handled it in the most effective way
he could, knowing that if he did that
he would be sent on a mission that
would get him killed for real this
time. He was on his way to this final
mission after killing Magnussen
to ensure John and Mary’s safety,
when he was called back by Mycroft
because Moriarity had taken
over every TV channel and was
broadcasting. It seems Britain once
again needed her best detective at
home to face the most dangerous of
threats.
Why is Sherlock such a
phenomenon? Is it the story telling?
The characters? What?
I can’t speak for everyone, but
the people that I know that watch
it say that it is a combination of
the story telling, characters and
the actors themselves. A lot of
the time you can tell someone is
acting as a character, but Benedict
Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman
aren’t just playing Sherlock and
Watson, they ARE Sherlock and
Watson. That I believe, is the key to
Sherlock’s success.
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
11
Insults, Elizabethan Style
By Tara Watson
Have you ever been in an argument, and later that night, come
up with the snappy comeback
that you should have used instead of being left in mortified
silence? Maybe you responded
with the ever-mumbled “Shut
up”, or worse, straight from the
interwebs, “NO U!”
Enter the Bard.
They have a plentiful lack of wit.
Thou art a Castilian King urinal!
Hamlet
The Merry Wives of Windsor
You blocks, you stones, you worse
than senseless things!
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Julius Caesar
You are a tedious fool.
Measure for Measure
Men from children nothing differ.
Much Ado About Nothing
Coriolanus
You had measured how long a fool
you were upon the ground.
Cymbeline
12
Thou lump of foul deformity!
Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an
embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood.
Vile worm, thou wast o’erlook’d
even in thy birth.
Richard III
Thou cream faced loon.
The Taming of the Shrew
Much Ado About Nothing
MacBeth
Thou bitch-wolf’s son!
Thou art loathsome as a toad.
Troilus and Cressida
GTFO
I do desire we may be better
strangers.
Titus Andronicus
Thine face is not worth
sunburning.
Henry V
As You Like It
Thou mis-shapen dick!
Away! Thou’rt poison to my blood.
Henry VI, pt. 3
Cymbeline
Henry IV, pt. 2
Liar, Liar,
Pants on Fire!
Dissembling harlot, thou art false
in all!
I scorn you, scurvy companion.
The Comedy of Errors
Henry IV, pt. 1
Henry IV, pt. 2
Jerk Alert!
You are not worth another word,
else I’d call you knave.
Out, dunghill!
O braggart vile and damned
furious wight!
You, minion, are too saucy.
Two Gentlemen of Verona
You are as a candle, the better
burnt out.
All’s Well that Ends Well
They were devils incarnate.
Henry V
Away, you mouldy rogue, away!
King John
He is white-livered and red-faced.
Richard III
Heaven truly knows that thou art
false as hell.
Henry VI, pt. 1
You are strangely troublesome.
Away, you three inch fool.
D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Henry V
Out of my sight! Thou dost infect
my eyes.
Go hang yourself, you naughty
mocking uncle!
Troilus and Cressida
Hag of all despite!
Henry VIII
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
Troilus and Cressida
You are an ass.
Troilus and Cressida
More of your conversation would
infect my brain.
Coriolanus
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Thou sodden-witted lord! Thou
hast no more brain than I have in
mine elbows.
The Comedy of Errors
The tartness of his face sours ripe
grapes.
King Lear
Troilus and Cressida
Stupid Stupidhead!
Thou whoreson, senseless villain!
A fusty nut with no kernel.
Coriolanus
You peasant swain! You whoreson
malt-horse drudge!
I think thy horse will sooner con an
oration than thou learn a prayer
without book.
William Shakespeare may be
almost 400 years dead, but his
insults are nearly as legendary as
the man himself. The next time
you feel the need to give a really
great zinger and leave the other
guy stammering, try one of these
gems on for size.
You juggler! you canker-blossom!
U-G-L-Y, You Aint
Got No Alibi...
They lie deadly that tell you you
have good faces .
The Taming of the Shrew
Henry V
Othello
UR Doin It Rong
Your abilities are too infant-like for
doing much alone.
Coriolanus
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
13
STOP! Who would read about
BBC must answer me these
questions three, ere the party
article he see. What…is your
name?! What…is your quest?!
What... is the air-speed velocity of
an unladen swallow? When I hear
BBC my mind automatically goes to
comedy. Call me old but I love The
Benny Hill Show, Mr. Bean, and let
us not forget the ever wondrous
Monty Python! More recent titles
for BBC comedies would also
include The IT Crowd, The Office,
and The Mighty Boosh. Bringing
these shows together for a party
could only end up one of two ways,
side-splitting laughter or complete
and utter malarkey. This article will
hopefully help you to give your
guests the enjoyment that these
shows and movies have given me
and my friends over the years.
‘Wi nøt trei a høliday
in Sweden this yër?’
BBC PARTY
By: Megan Willis
Drinks
Holy Ginger Grail-ale
Holy cola of Antioch
Coconut Milk
Hot IT(ea)
Beer for Benny (21+)
White Wine (21+)
Bailey’s [from a shoe](21+)
Music/Movies
Benny Hill
Monty Python (anything)
The IT Crowd
The Mighty Boosh
The Office (BBC version)
“Coffin Fodder” - Cradle of Filth
“Spamalot” sound track
“Yakety Sax”
Party Favors
Newts
Poncho (napkins)
Water Color Paint & paper
Games
Mr. Bean face mask
A horse (aka two empty halves
“Yakey Sax” musical chairs
of coconuts)
Monty Python trivia
An Ex-parrot
Dead parrot Piñata
A Wafer-thin mint
GIRLS
MontyD20
Python
FluxxMAGAZINE WINTER 2014
14
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
Food
Ham, Jam, & Spam…a lot
Ni’s (broccoli) Shrubbery
Slices of The Moon
Staplers in Jelly (Jello)
Coconut shavings
Monty Python fishmen
Self Defense Against Fresh Fruit Tray
Decorations
Dead Parrots (MP Flying Circus)
Long Tigers (MP: Meaning of Life)
The Moon (The Mighty Boosh)
Red door (The IT Crowd)
Random geekery (The IT Crowd)
Grail-shaped beacon (MP Holy Grail)
Office Supplies (The Office)
Gorilla hand gloves
Guests were welcomed and
encouraged to wear costumes from
their favorite show/movie and
had countless options. This helps
to liven up things and get your
guests in a better mood, plus, who
doesn’t like to put on silly outfits
and act goofy? ‘Dead’ Norwegian
Blue parrots (either printed or toy)
in cages or lying around plays into
Monty Pythons Flying Circus “Dead
Parrot” skit. Hanging along the wall
was the back half of a tiger that I
had drawn and painted on a large
sheet of paper which stretched out
behind my couch beside a sign that
read ‘Africa’ as a knock at Monty
Pythons The Meaning of Life. While
on Monty Python decorations one
that required a little more work was
a Grail-shaped beacon from the
ladies at Castel Anthrax in The Holy
Grail. This was made using craft
foam and a light behind it like a
lamp (this can sometimes get warm
so check on it).
‘See the løveli lakes’
Moving along to other
decoration ideas…and random
gorilla hand gloves give a hint at
both Monty Python and Bollo from
The Mighty Boosh. There are so
many things you can print off or
paint to hang about for decorations
with The Mighty Boosh including
The Moon, Tony Harrison, and many
others. Along the lines of Noel
Fielding, if you have a large sheet of
red paper or a red plastic table cloth
you can add it to a random door (I
picked the laundry one) and stretch
it over it attaching it with tacks.
If you want to add a little extra
to this IT Crowd “The Red Door”
reference you can print off a picture
of Richmond Avenal waiting for
your curious guests. Luckily with the
IT Crowd, decorations can honestly
be random geeky knickknacks that
are seen on Roy and Moss’s desks
throughout the show. Other easy
decorations from BBC comedy
shows would be office supplies and
stacks of paper for The Office (BBC
not NBC).
recommend any of the shows above
as they are all for a more mature
audience. If you want to steer away
from the flicks you can always
honor Richmond’s favorite song
“CoffinFodder” by Cradle of Filth.
Okay, that may be a bit much but
you can so you could put the sound
track for Monty Pythons “Spamalot”
or the ever famous “Yakety Sax”
from The Benny Hill Show.
‘And mäni
interesting furry animals’
You can use the “Yakey Sax” to
play musical chairs with your guests.
While it plays in the background you
can randomly stop the music and
watch as your guests race to grab
a seat. Seem too busy, then test
your friends knowledge of Monty
Python with a trivia game. I spent a
sometime looking up facts and trivia
question (aka IMDb is your friend)
on everything from The Flying Circus
to any of their movies (if you’re
feeling extra mean tossing their
musical production of ‘Spamalot’)
and typed them up in lines so
that I could cut out the strips of
‘The wøndërful
telephøne system’
Keeping your guests entertained
is easy. There are loads of hours in
movies and shows. The Benny Hill
Show, The IT Crowd, The Mighty
Boosh, The Office (BBC), and
anything Monty Python [Flying
Circus, Holy Grail, Life of Brian,
Meaning of Life, etc]. Your guest’s
level of comfort and ease of offence
will give you an idea of what to
have playing in the background.
For example, if you have a young
crowd of kids…well I wouldn’t really
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
15
paper. Answers can either be wrote
upside down and backwards on
the back on if you’re OCD like me
the categories in alphabetical order
on sheet of paper, you could also
have the questions numbered with
the same number for answers.
It’s really what is easiest for you.
Trivia not your thing? Then take a
swing at the Dead parrot Piñata. I
sketched out the shape of a parrot
onto cardboard, taped the pieces
together, glued blue streamers on,
and sharpied in some detail (aka the
X’ed out eyes). If you want to go all
out then be my guest but I figure
this thing is going to be bashed
harder than pretty Polly was in the
skit. Finally to calm things down
try your hand at the Monty Python
Fluxx card game. You can find it in
most game store as well as on-line.
‘Including the majestik møøse’
With all of this game playing,
running around, and quizzing your
guests may want to replenish their
energy with some brain food. Play
into King Author’s visit to Camelot
by serving your guests Ham, Jam, &
Spam…a lot!! If you want to make
a tray look a little more pleasing to
the eye roll the ham slices up and
place them on a plate with crackers,
biscuits, etc on each side, jam in
16
the middle for your bread, and fried
Spam on the opposite side of the
tray. Another Holy Grail appetizer is
a lovely broccoli Shrubbery with a
little ranch dip path running down
the middle. If you are as good
as Roger the Shrubber, then you
could add to the plating’s beauty
by putting another shrubbery (of
cauliflower) place it beside the
shrubbery you have already platted,
only slightly higher so you get a
two layer effect. Okay, okay, I’m
done with The Holy Grail…for now!
Anyways, I added slices of The
Moon from The Mighty Boosh using
provolone cheese. You can be more
creative if you like and give him
eyes using black olives and a mouth
using a red bell pepper if you like.
A Møøse once bit my sister...’
Guests have more of a sweet
tooth? Well let them dine on
Jelly (Jello) to commemorate
Tim Canterbury’s Stapler in the
Jelly prank that he pulled on
Gareth Keenan from The Office.
I considered actually putting
miniature staples in the molds but
upon further inspection I realized
the staplers would be sticky,
unsanitary, and messy…which was
fine because I had a better use for
them! Mwuhahaha Ahem. Coconuts
are a must have for snacking
D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
on sweets. I started off with a
whole coconut and after taking a
screwdriver & hammering at the
things for a good 20-30 minutes
decided it would be just to just have
shaved coconuts for my guests to
munch on and reminisce on the
gallant steeds from The Holy Grail
and other Monty Python skits from
The Flying Circus. And since we’re
back on them, I added in Swedish
fish(men) for when the gang were
fish in The Meaning of Life. Of
course there was also a Self Defense
Against Fresh Fruit Tray incase
our guests needed any training on
how to defend themselves from
someone wielding a banana or any
other dangerous fruit out there!
‘No ovies! She was Karving
her initials øn the ovie with
the sharpened end of an
interspace ovies ush given her
by Svenge – her brother-in-law
–an Oslo dentist and star of
many Norwegian ovies: “The
Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist”,
“Fillings of Passion”, “The Huge
Mølars of Horst Nordfink”…’
At some point your guests will
become parched and need a drink
so how do we tie this all in with a
BBC comedy party, why with Holy
Ginger Grail-ale! Super simple
to make, take a punch bowl and
pour in ginger ale and BAM, you’re
done! Another easy, albeit more
expensive, drink for your guests is
the Holy cola of Antioch. For this
you just need to purchase the ballshaped soda bottles, remove the
cover and badazzle it up however
you see fit. I painted the lids to my
drinks gold since I recycle but you
can add whatever flare you see fit.
If you want your friends to enjoy
the coconut milk from the whole
coconut you purchase I suggest
saving yourself some time and
buying coconut milk as there is
never reallyenough milk in the nut
itself to go around for all of your
guests. And of course it wouldn’t
be a British party without some hot
IT(ea). For the more adult crowd of
21 years and older you can tip your
hat and have a Beer for Benny. One
of the things I remember about
The Benny Hill Show, beyond him
runningaround after the ladies,
was his ‘drunken’ skits where his
character often was enjoying a
pint. For those who remember
the dinner party episode of The IT
Crowd, Roy brought Jen some very
plan White Wine. This was made
by simply printing off a label on a
piece of paper that reads White
Wine 2007 750ml 12%. Finally in
honor of Old Gregg from the Old
Gregg episode of The Mighty Boosh,
Bailey’s from a shoe.
memories. Instead of turning your
friends into newts which, they’ll get
better, you can always give them
rubber newts which can be found
at most dollar stores. According
to Vince Noir from The Mighty
Boosh ‘Charlie’ “it’s impossible to
be unhappy in a poncho” (or in my
case poncho napkins---I couldn’t
find mini ponchos anywhere).
Give your guests a piece of water
color paper and a water color
paint pallet so they can share their
memories of the night like Old
Gregg. To add to the creep factor,
Mr. Bean face mask. I made these
by printing off Mr. Beans face,
cutting out eye holes, and gluing
it to a Popsicle stick. My last Holy
Grail thing for this article(ish) is
of course a horse (aka two empty
halves of coconuts) for your guests
to gallop through the kingdom of
Mercea on their own time. An Exparrotcan be shoved into the bag
of goodies (don’t worry, it’s only
resting and won’t feel a thing). I
couldn’tactually find small parrots,
however I printed off extra parrots
that I used for decorations to give
to myguests. Finally how else could
I see my guests off but with
wafer-thin mint. It’s only a tiny little
thin one.
‘We apologies again for the
fault in the subtitles. Those
responsible for sacking the
people who have just been
sacked, have been sacked. ‘
Thank for reading. I hope this
helped to at least give you a few
chuckles and ideas id nothing
else. If you have any questions or
possibly any ideas that you think
would be good to add to the laughs
of a BBC comedy party let me know
by visiting the D20’s on-line blog
at www.D20GirlsMagazine.com.
My monthly blog is titled Party for
Anyone. As always, thank you all for
your time and have fun partying!
‘The directors of the firm hired
to continue the credits after the
other people had been sacked,
wish it to be known that they
have just been sacked. The
credits have been completed
in an entirely different style at
great expense and at the last
minute. ‘All quotes between
the paragraphs are from the
creativity minds of the writers
of Monty Python & the Holy
Grail! Thank you for the
laughter and my ongoing fear
of being bitten by a moose.
‘We apologize for the fault in
the subtitles. Those responsible
have been sacked.’
‘Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty
nasti...’
As the laughter begins to die
down and guests your guests
head home be sure to give them
a party favor bag as a token of
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
“It is our choices, Harry, that show
what we truly are, far more than
our abilities.” Albius Dumbledoor
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WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
Things I Learned from Harry Potter
By: Tara Watson\
Sometimes, sacrifice is essential.
Know when to let go and when to hold on. There will be times when
the pain of loss seems too great to endure, but the undertaking is
too great, too important. Sometimes you have to give up the most
important thing in your life to move forward with what you must do.
Even the smallest
acts of bravery can
make a difference.
Well, maybe it doesn’t go
THAT far, but it does release
endorphins in the brain that make
you feel better. So when the
boggarts come out of the cupboard
and you’ve just had enough, don’t
hesitate to unwrap a chocolate
bar. Maybe meet your friends at
the Three Broomsticks for that
butterbeer, too.
Just as Ron, Hermione, Luna, Neville,
and the rest gave Harry the opportunities
he needed, the people you surround yourself
with will help determine your success.
Surround yourself with good friends who
don’t drag you down, and rely on each other
to get through the darkest of times.
Everyone has a
chance at redemption.
Dumbledore says “It takes a great
deal of bravery to stand up to your
enemies. But it takes a great deal
more to stand up to your friends.”
This is an absolute truth. Sometimes
the most difficult things are the
smallest ones. And sometimes, they
make all the difference in the world.
Chocolate: better than
actual medical care.
The biggest heroes don’t always
have their name in the title.
Everyone. Whether they take
that chance or throw it away is up to
them. But when a person truly makes the
effort to change, they need to be allowed
to prove it. Give them that chance.
You may not have the
whole story, so wait
before you judge a person.
Nobody knows the path another has
walked. Snape walked one of the darkest
roads in the books, but was one of the
most noble and courageous characters of
all. Know the person before passing
judgement on them. Their story may
not be so different from your own.
In the darkest of times, people still need to laugh.
What was the one place that flourished on Diagon Alley in the darkest of times?
Fred & George’s place. Because laughter is a natural mood booster, and everyone needs to laugh.
Sometimes, a smile is that one thing that can keep you going when everything looks bleak.
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D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
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Sometimes you just
need a butterbeer.
There comes a time when you just have to sit back in a
chair and have Madame Rosmerta bring you and your friends
a drink while you hash out what’s going on in your life.
Some people just deserve to be punched.
Sad to say, but there will be people in your life who could really
benefit from one to the kisser. We all cheered when Hermione
socked Draco, but, like your mama told you, don’t go looking for
a fight. If you can diffuse the situation verbally or by walking
away, do it. But once in a while, a mean jab does the job nicely.
Do not forget how to live.
One of Dumbledore’s greatest lessons. Take joy in the
little things that life offers. Don’t get so wrapped up in the
grind that you lose sight of the life you need to be living.
Even the smallest
mouse can roar like a lion.
Everyone has their moment when they can do the
extraordinary. Neville found his courage not only
when he saved the day at the Battle of Hogwarts,
but even before, by standing up for himself against
friends, teachers, and Death Eaters. He held
Dumbledore’s Army together and protected the
school. Find your courage, and do great things.
Everyone has good
and bad in them, it’s what you
choose to do that matters.
Remus Lupin was a werewolf, but that
didn’t keep him from doing his everything
he could to help Harry in the fight against
Voldemort. Even the darkest secrets can’t
change you if you choose to be a good person.
The weirdest ones
have a lot to offer too.
Great lessons can be had from
some of the most remarkable
places. Luna’s quirkiness hid a
knowledge base and will that
was indispensable. Don’t pass
over someone because they’re
different. They may have qualities
that fill in the ones you’re missing.
Friends and family
will always be there for
you even in death.
You may not see them like
Harry did, but they’re there. The
people who we hold close will
always live in our hearts. And the
occasional mirror or stone.
Don’t mess with a mother’s love.
Ever. Lily’s love protected Harry
from beyond the grave. And nobody
messes with Molly Weasley’s family.
Don’t talk to mysterious books.
It’s just a general good idea. In fact,
don’t talk to anything if you can’t see
where they keep their brain.
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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Don’t just be who
you are, own it.
Some of the strongest witches
and wizards in the series were
memorable not only for their
power, but for who they were.
Professor McGonnagall. Molly
Weasley. Mr. Ollivander. They
knew who they were, and they
owned that. Own who you are.
If you’re going to be mischievous, manage it
well.
The Mauraders’ Map was an indispensable tool for not only
Harry, but Fred and George as well. James, Sirius, Remus, and
even Peter thought well when they created it. Always look ahead
to what may be coming, and always double-check your steps.
No matter your past, all that
matters is what you do with your
present and future.
The North Carolina Girls
Photos by Tomisina Lynn Photography
Who you were is not who you are. Every
day, you decide who it is you are going to be
and what direction your life is going to take.
Always stay on the
poltergeist’s good side.
It’s just good advice.
You always have a choice.
Always. The choice to do or not to do.
To lie down or stand up. When things look
most hopeless, there is always a choice.
Socks are the best gift you can give!
Not only can they free abused house elves, they keep your toes toasty. But be careful, because
given to the wrong elf, you’ll find yourself out of butterbeer. Know the meaning of what you give away.
Never eat Jelly Beans blindly.
Know what you’re getting into. What
might be toffee could end up ear wax.
True friends are vitally important.
Harry would have never succeeded without
his friends. Keep your true friends close.
There’s a reason girls go to the
bathroom in groups.
Look what happened to
Hermione when she went alone.
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D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
When you think somebody’s in danger, always
call them first.
So much heartache could have been avoided had Harry just pulled
out his mirror and called Sirius. If you have a bad feeling, call the
person. They’ll be happy you cared, and you won’t get yourself
neck-deep in Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries.
Unrequited love and sacrifice do *not* give you
license to be a total jerk.
Snape. Ron. Harry. They all had their
moments, some bigger than others. Don’t do that.
That love is the greatest magic of all.
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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Luna Lovegood- Chiki (NC D20 Girl)
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
25
Ravenclaw Student- Geneviefve d’Estelle (NC D20 Girl)
Photo by Tomisina Lynn Photography
26
D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
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Ginny Weasley - Verse (SC/NC D20 Girl)
Photo by Tomisina Lynn Photography
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
29
Newbs Guide to the Multiverse:
On Being Arthur Dent
By Amanda Baldwin
When I first put my theme together, I
Set some deadlines for yourself. Everyone
needs something to keep themselves
motivated. Then relax and enjoy the
wooshing sound they make as they go by.
Know, KNOW for certain, even if it isn’t
true, that you may have not gone where
you intended to go, but you have ended
up where you needed to be. Life... is like
a grapefruit. It’s orange and squishy, and
has a few pips in it, and some folks have
half a one for breakfast. Find a hole that
fits you well and be happy.
characterized myself as an ever-newb.
A curious collusion of cataclysmic
happenings and personal circumstances
has led me to leading a life that is quite
uniquely common. I am allowed to claim
this special paradoixcal privilege, on the
premise that since everyone is unique...
no one is. It is the same conflict that every
human faces: being just smart enough to
realize both the problems of the human
condition AND our complete inability to
do anything about it.
Not to mention that human beings, who
are almost unique in having the ability
to learn from the experience of others,
are also remarkable for their apparent
disinclination to do so.
So, of course you’ve got to do something.
And that’s how you end up laying down
in front of the two ton machine about
to knock down your house. The hard
lesson is that even if you save your house,
someone is bound to blow up your
planet, all over a paperwork error and
an apathetic city council that insists on
building a bypass that no one really wants.
Perhaps the incompetence of humans
is why so many people turn to religion,
or, the structured belief that what is
happening is ultimately Somebody Else’s
Fault. Whatever your religion, whether it
be a dusty old one that you keep on a top
shelf in the garage or a new shiny model
that you just got and insist on showing all
of your friends, it isn’t really helping. On
the topic of religion, suffice to say: in the
beginning the Universe was created. This
has made a lot of people very angry and
been widely regarded as a bad move.
Science is certainly making a Dent, but
it’s sort of like scooping a cup of water
out of the ocean and yelling out ‘I’ve got
this one!’ Every time a scientist discovers
something, they are also adding to the
ten light year long list of things we’ve yet
to figure out. I personally am convinced
that every bit of our bits is made up of a
smaller bit which is in turn are made up
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Has this article been confusingly
wandersome? Well of course it has. Being
Arthur Dent is being a creature created
in the mind of the great Douglas Adams
(also, I wrote it backwards). Through it
of something smaller, which may or may
not contain tiny robots. Though I spend
too much time in psuedo version of deep
thought.
So, what have we got so far, among
the religious zealots and radical
atheists? Well, honestly it’s a big mush
of extraordinary genius and naive
incompetence, and it is often difficult to
tell which is which. Not to mention how
many awful people you get the profound
lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid
meeting.
The chances of finding out what’s really
going on in the universe are so remote,
the only thing to do is hang the sense
of it and keep yourself occupied. Some
people find satisfaction in putting down
others. Yet you could visit every person in
the universe, in alphabetical order, from
the beginning of time till the end of it
all, and you probably aren’t going to be
satisfied. Not to mention the odds of you
repeating someone are just astronomical,
especially when you account for tricky
time travelers, alternate dimensions and
how many people are named Jane.
D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
Make your mistakes proudly, with the full
knowledge that someone else has made
bigger, more awful ones than you. For
example: It is a mistake to think you can
solve any major problems with potatoes.
answer, but I simply didn’t have
all I have found one major lesson in his
the room!
works: Things are weird and strange.
Before you were born, they were weird
and strange. After you pass on, no matter
what changes you make to the world, it
will remain weird. Also strange. There is
a theory which states that if ever anyone
discovers exactly what the Universe is
for and why it is here, it will instantly
disappear and be replaced by something
even more bizarre and inexplicable. There
is another theory which states that this
has already happened.
There’s not really any conclusively correct
way of coping with it all, except to just
live. And laugh.
And don’t forget: Don’t Panic.
Points if you can count how many direct
or hidden references and sneaky Adams
quotes there are contained in this article!
Hint: It’s less then 42. 42 should be the
There are some pleasures, though. At
least you weren’t created randomly and
only exist for sufficient time to become
self aware enough to care when you
splat into mush on a foreign planet.
Nor do you have the computing power
and pessimism of certain sour androids
I could mention. Me, I prefer drinking.
Anything that makes me feel like having
my brains smashed out with a slice of
lemon wrapped round a large gold brick
does me just fine when I get to thinking
of how peanuts I am to the size of space.
After all the daunting facts are laid out, if
you are still serious about working things
out, you’ve got to get out there and
make some mistakes. You need to trip
and fall and manage to miss the earth
completely. Only then will you learn how
to fly. Mistakes are life, and you’ve got
to find yours. Find your droll, common,
divine purpose and love it for every little
nonsensical detail. It is yours and it’s not
like anyone else’s, even if it’s perfectly
identical. Go kiss forty-two people and
hate every minute of it. One of them’s
bound to teach you something. You live
and learn....at any rate, you live.
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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T
asia cosplaying as Serafina Pekkala, Queen of
the witches of Lake Enara from Phillip Pullman’s
“His Dark Materials” trilogy. She was born in the
17th Century.
“While the bandana on her cloud pine branch isn’t
canon, since she was very upset over the death of
her friend Lee Scoresby in one of the many battles
over Lyra Silvertongue, I thought it would be a nice
homage.” Photo by Tasia.
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WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
33
Doctor Who: Saying Hello
and Goodbye
By: Jacqueline Arbelo
hel·lo: Used as a greeting
good·bye: Used to express an acknowledgment of parting
Hello and Goodbye, both are necessary terms in our day to day life and are capable of causing such extreme sadness and
happiness at the same time. If you are a dedicated Doctor Who fan like me, you are very familiar with these two words
and dread to use them both equally. While having a fresh face can bring us grand new adventures in space and time, in
order to say Hello to a new Doctor or Companion we must say Goodbye to those we hold so dear to our hearts.
Throughout the shows’ 50 year span we have seen many Doctors, companions, friends and foes be introduced and then
go. Some departures have been met with sadness other with anticipation of ushering in a new era of adventures. In 1963
when William Hartnell began his role as the very first Doctor, I don’t think anyone involved were quite prepared for 50
years of actors coming and going. With Hartnell’s departure in 1966 the producer of the show came up with the idea
of continuing the show by means of alien transfiguration, later penned “regeneration”. So in episode 4 of the serial The
Tenth Planet, Patrick Troughton became the second Doctor in a long line actors to come and go.
Thus began the mythos of the Doctor Who regeneration mythos. At the end of every actors portrayal of the coveted title
of “Doctor”, the alien Time Lord dies and is born again (retaining his memories) with a brand new body, face and even
personality. The show has now come to see 12 Doctors come and go with a brand new one set to debut this Christmas
following the departure of the young Matt Smith.
No other show in the history of television has had such a vast change of main characters. Sometimes in tv shows and
most notably in movie sequels, only supporting actors have had to be replaced for whatever reason. Very seldom does a
main character get switched and when it does, it is usually penned a “reboot” or stand alone sequel. Never before has an
entire storyline completely revolved around the replacement of its main character, let alone lasting for 50 years.
Nowadays with social media outlets posting spoilers and sneak peeks and people spreading rumor for the most part
(regardless if we approve) dedicated fans are offered a chance to somewhat prepare for momentous changes including
character deaths. Not that is lessens the blow, but it does give us time to accept the change, mourn with fellow whovians
and type, like and reblog heartfelt eulogies. Of course the complaints and occasional death threats to the writers as well.
After a tearful farewell, being able to gain support from other fans in the Who fandom is an integral part of being able to
emotionally survive this t.v. show. Companions of the Doctor are the most frequent character we say Hello and Goodbye
too. Every week we sit in on an hour of these characters lives. We learn where they came from, we meet their family, we
learn their likes and dislikes, their strengths and weaknesses and even their deepest fears. We form a deep seeded relationship with them of sorts. Granted, it’s all one sided, but we still form an attachment and when the day comes for them
to leave, we just are “not ready” for them to go.
34
I think out of all the goodbyes in Who history none can argue that the most tearfully heart breaking goodbye was the
D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
one between #10 and Rose. Our golden haired Bad Wolf, the one to heal his heart, to bring him back from the terrifying
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
brink of perdition, to make him smile
and dance. How can anyone forget
Rose losing her grip and slipping
into the breach only to be saved by
the last second by her father, transported to the alternate universe
and thought to be stranded forever.
The impossible planet sound score
begins to play in the background
as she pounds on the wall in tears
screaming to go back, the Doctor
laying his ear to the same wall in his
dimension. A brief silence, so close
yet so far, a morose defeated #10
walks away. He later burns up an entire sun just to say a proper goodbye.
There on the shores of Bad Wolf Bay,
with the entire fandom on the edge
of our seats, when he is about to declare his love, the connection severs.
Fans everywhere cried, screamed
and nerd raged for months, in fact to
this day we speak of her with glistening tears in our eyes and as I type
this now I can not but help let a tear
or two roll down my cheek.
As we say goodbye to old friends,
the upside is the time for Hello’s.
Of course the transition period can
have a slow start, hating the new
guy, missing the old one then washrinse-repeat. So, I close this article
with the words of the beautiful
Professor River Song:
“When you run with
the Doctor it feels like
it will never end and
however hard you try,
you can’t run forever.
Everybody knows that
everybody dies, and
nobody knows it like
the Doctor.”
Hello and Goodbye from our readers
Goodbye 11 you will be missed.
“The good things don’t always
soften the bad things, but
vice-versa, the bad things don’t
necessarily spoil the good things
and make them unimportant.”
-Emily from California
Goodbye 11, you taught me the
value of bow ties, fezes and being
yourself, as well as bringing me
together with an amazing new
companion. We will miss you
chinny. - Bryan from California
River, thank you for showing me
that it’s okay to be an unapologetic
psychopath and to allow nobody to
dictate my life but myself.
“Goodbye, Sweetie.”
- Brittany from Indiana
Hello to 12. I hope he will be wiser but
still have the fury and passion of 9, the
smarts and quirkiness of 10, and the fun
and genius of 11. - Josh from Texas
Goodbye Ten. We didn’t want you to go
either. - Kat from Chicago WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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Knitting
Through
Time
A Knitters’ Guide to Time Travel
Through the Time Vortex: Advent
TARDIS ornament
I have been obsessively knitting for
about seven years and I love the idea
of decking my apartment out with
hand-knits at any time during the year,
especially for Christmas. Something
about filling the place with woolens
makes me feel warm and cozy
regardless of how cold it gets here in
Wisconsin. I love cozying up under a
knit blanket with some hot tea while
watching my favorite shows.
This year I made a tree with yarn;
Boyfriend and I broke out the math
skills (his, not mine) and we figured
out how to make an awesome
yarn-tree on the wall with a lot of
command hooks and about 100 yards
of really expensive green yarn. I put
regular green ornaments throughout
the strands, but decided that I wanted
to add MORE knitting to it! Thus came
the birth of the TARDIS ornament.
Note: This pattern will be a free
pattern available on Ravelry[dot]com
36
When I first thought about it, I
wanted to make a lot to make an
Advent wreath, but that was quickly
overwhelmed by my desperate need
to be warm as the chill crept further
and further lower (As I write this, it’s
a balmy zero degrees outside) so one
or two would just have to do.
These cute little TARDISes take about
two hours to make and require three
colors to complete. I have the perfect
TARDIS color blue a nice Americanmade wool yarn as well as the white
in the same brand and a beautiful
canary yellow in sock weight that
I used to make the i-cord. A size 6
circular needle using the Magic Loop
technique finished out the needs
for this project. Well… that and the
pattern.
I don’t claim to be an amazing
pattern maker, but I went through
an agonizingly long time working the
kinks out of this pattern. Many a night
was spent ripping the stitches out,
cursing at the wretched loops as they
decided to not bend to my will and
finally, when I was exhausted and out
of options, simply altering the pattern
to do what I wanted it to do. I did
myself a happy dance when the first
one was made and merrily hopped
through the apartment making
VWORP VWORP sounds.
The cool and easy thing about these
guys is the combination of stitches.
I create the look of the windows of
the TARDIS using a combination of
knits and purls to create the Garter
Stitch bumps and smooth Stockinette
Stitch squares for the texture of the
walls of the TARDIS. Because of the
size of these little bags, I decided
to not use black at the top (where
the “Police Box” writing is) and just
make it white. I would love to see
people creating it with embroidery
in black thread. I’m definitely not
an embroiderer so I’ll pass on
embarrassing myself with that.
The TARDIS is complete with a yellow
lantern i-cord loop to slide the TARDIS
D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
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onto a long i-cord garland in the
colors of your choice. I used red and
green but you could certainly use the
sexy blue if you have any left.
For those of you who are so inclined,
here’s the pattern!
Hardware
1 size 6 circular needle for magic
loop, two circular needles or one set
of DPNs.
Worsted weight yarn in TARDIS blue,
white and Canary yellow
Using Judy’s Magic Cast On (YouTube
it! It will change your life), cast on 28
stitches, 14 per needle.
Rnd 1: Knit all stitches
Rnd 2,4: Purl all stitches
Rnd 3,5: Knit all stitches
Rnd 6: (needle 1) P3, pm, k3, pm, p2,
pm, k3, pm, p3. Repeat this opposite
side
Rnd 7: knit all stitches
Repeat rounds 6 and 7 two more
times.
Rnd 11: knit all stitches
Rnd 12: purl all stitches
Repeat rounds 11 and 12 one more
time.
Repeat rounds 6-14 two more times
Rnds 42-46: K all stitches with white
Rnds 47-49: P all stitches with blue
Rnd 48,50: K all stitches with blue
Join Gamer Adventures for the 6th Annual
Caribbean Gamer Cruise
March 15 – March 22, 2014
Stay, play and melee away! We are packing up our board games and are heading to the Eastern
Caribbean for an exotic trip to some really amazing places. For the sixth year, Mayfair Games is
joining us to hold a Settlers of Catan Tournament, taking the winner to the CWC Qualifier Event
at Gen Con in 2014. Flight, Hotel, Badge and Seat in the semi-final round providing the chance
to become one of two players representing the United States of America in the World Wide
Catan Championship! We will spend seven days on the Carnival Liberty, where your shipboard
adventure includes the following…
Accommodations
All Shipboard Food and Snacks
All Shipboard Entertainment
Hosted Cocktail Party
Day
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Private Game Room
Gamer Registration
$100 Shipboard Credit per Cabin
And much, much more!
Port of Call
Miami, FL
Half Moon Cay, Bahamas
Gaming at Sea
St. Thomas USVI
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Grand Turk
Gaming at Sea
Miami, FL
Arrive
9:00am
Depart
4:00pm
5:00pm
7:00am
7:00am
7:00am
6:00pm
6:00pm
3.30pm
8:00am
We’ve got Games, We’ve got Food, We’ve got Adventure and We’ve got a payment plan…
just ask!!!!!
Inside
Ocean View
Balcony
$775.00
$885.00
$ 1030.00
Prices are cruise only, per person. Prices do not include alcoholic beverages, gratuities, travel insurance
or travel expenses to Miami, FL. Passports or Certified Birth Certificate required. For more information,
please go to www.gameradventures.com or contact Kimberly Maita at 916-502-5585 or email to
[email protected].
Cast off. Create a 4-stitch i-cord with
the yellow yarn. Sew the end of the
i-cord to the middle of the top of the
TARDIS, weave in ends and hang on
the tree!
Should you have any questions or
concerns with this pattern, please feel
free to contact Amanda at keyleth[at]
therearesomewhocallmetim[dot]com
37
WINTER
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D20 Sacramento,
GIRLS MAGAZINE
Kimberly Maita, Ships and Trips Travel dba Gamer Adventures 3323
Watt Avenue,
CA 95820;
phone 916-502-5585, cst 2051435-40
Meet Claudia Vainglory!
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British Invasion!
who is this?
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Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
WINTER 2014
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The Misfits
by Megan Willis
but the series does not revolve
around too much of this. Instead
the show focuses more on how the
juveniles need to work as a team
to solve the problems that they
are faced with and the conflicts
of morals that they come across
along the way. The twists and
turns leave audience members on
the edge of their chair wondering
what will happen next in this dark,
twisted and quite often funny
series.
Misfits is a BBC sci-fi dark
comedy started in 2009 that
revolved around five juvenile
delinquents who obtained odd
yet unique superpowers while
working community service
during a lighting storm. These
powers range from one-way time
travel to resurrection to emotional
manifestation and even satanic
conversion. Throughout the series
each of the characters slowly
grows from narcissistic teens into
more responsible adults in their
own way.
they can. At first this made no
sense under a superhero premise
but as the series progresses I put
this thought on the back burner
and tried to enjoy that it was not
like other superhero shows.
The actors themselves help bring
the right amount of emotion to
each of their characters and all
of them seem to click together.
Nathan is one of the biggest
annoyances with his snarky
attitude and smartalic mouth,
but even he ends up being a
character that you don’t want
to imagine the group without.
Each of the characters in the
series has their own uniqueness
to them that make you hate
them and love them at the same
time while the show progresses.
Some of the series eccentricities,
such as hypnotic breasts and
power removal & bestowal via
sexual intercourse were kind of
out there and exasperating but
the writers made it work for the
most part.
Misfits is intended for a mature
audience and contains a lot of
foul language, nudity, depictions
of sexual and violent acts and
dark humor. This series has both
positives and negatives to it but
what show doesn’t. When I first
viewed the commercial for Misfits
I felt as though the show was
going to be a mash up of Heroes
and Skins (another BBC series)
but was surprised by the freshness
of it. Unlike Heroes the misfits do
not go out of their way to save the
The shows low budget and
world but rather continue doing
production value make the
their community service and try
effects in the series a bit cheesy
to go through life as normally as
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Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
Misfits is not for everyone and
often leaves viewers with either
a love of the show or a hate of
it, there doesn’t seem to be an
in between. There are only five
seasons of the show (37 episodes)
and I personally enjoyed the first
two seasons more so than the last
three, this isn’t to say seasons
3-5 were bad just that I began to
lose interest but I am glad I stuck
it out. Overall I recommend this
show to anyone with a dark sense
of humor who is looking for a
different take in the superhero
genre.
\
My love of stories in general
lends easily to a love of history and
historical fiction, but even knowing
how much I like these genres I didn’t
think that a show like Downton
Abbey would suit me. As if to prove
me wrong, I wasn’t able to stop
watching. It took me a little less than
a week to watch the entire series
(to that date) and quickly learned
that I both love and hate Downton
Abbey.\
\
The series manages, first and
foremost, to bring emotion to a time
that you read about in history books.
We meet a family and the staff that
works for them, and we’re introduced
to a way of living that 90% of us
have no practical experience with and
never will. Even those of us who may
be familiar with having “help” will
have never had the sort of experience
that this family exists in.
\
But it’s not just the emotional
understanding of a time period
long past that it makes real, it’s the
emotional connection between the
characters that really grows on you.
I could spend days writing about
the characters and storylines, but I
think I can boil down what Downton
Abbey has taught me into one major
point.
\
The show actually opens
with the family suffering a loss, a
cousin who was supposed to marry
Mary has passed away on board the
Titanic. The loss of the character spins
the house into a tizzy, as Mary must be
Cherish everything
while it lasts.
married to acquire the title she’s been
groomed for her entire life. I want to
point out that Mary is a character not
to be taken lightly. There are a number
of them, actually, women who defy
the stereotype I had in my head for the
time period. But they still have to toe
the line of the rules that men have for
them. It’s really interesting to see how
they rebel against these rules, both
quietly and loudly, in what gives me
a far better appreciation for the way I
was raised and the respect that I have
been given.
\
But time after time, we see
the character’s go through emotional
highs, followed by tremendous lows.
Every single time we see something
good happen, we wonder just how
long it will last. Sometimes it gets
lost through actions taken by the
characters themselves and sometimes
by a cruel twist of fate. Occasionally
you watch with excited anticipation
to see the catty grin get wiped off the
face of some of the characters you
love to hate, and sometimes you find
yourself biting your nails as you hope
against all hopes that the thing you
think is going to happen...won’t.
\
Lovers defy odds, children are
born, family is lost. You make choices
and sometimes they fail. And then
you go on with the business of living.
Because you have no other choice.
Because everyone is counting on you
to keep going, and weakness is not an
option.
\
There were two times when the
foreshadowing was strong enough to
leave me actually anxious. When you
see them, and I’m sure you will, you’ll
find yourself waiting on eggshells. You
know it’s coming. You see the new car
take a drive on a perfect sunshiney day,
and you know what’s coming. And
as you watch that drive, heart in your
throat, remember all the things that
conspired to lead him to that road. The
happiness and tragedy that went round
and round. Then stop and think about
your own life.
\
Right now, you’re driving
in that car. The day might be sunny
or you may have already run off the
road, but you haven’t ended your ride
yet. You still have time to make those
choices. You still have good and bad
consequences to live through. And that
is an amazing gift.
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general differences
being human
UK – George, Mitchell and Annie. US – Josh, Aiden and Sally. Names and locations differ, but the core of the
Comparitive Analysis
By Erika Litherland
character’s is pretty similar. At least at first. According to Wikipedia, the writers for the US version watched the first season of the UK
version and copied some elements almost exactly. But after that, they didn’t watch any more of the UK version in an attempt to make
the shows and storylines vastly different. While I see that to a degree, there are a number of elements from the UK show that we see in
later seasons of the US show, though I suppose it isnt impossible that the writers just happened to have similar ideas.
Psych Ward Escape: In the UK version we see George and Nina break a returned and amnesia ridden Herrick from the psych
ward and then argue about if they should kill him before his memory returns. A move that would have saved many lives, but they
ultimately skipped. It left us waiting for Bishop to return. And while he didn’t come back in the same way, when Bishop does make
his return it’s as a plot element that gives a lot of flavor to Aiden’s story.
In the US version we meet the twin werewolves, one of which has been involuntarily committed to the psych ward and wont be
released until the moon forces him to out them all by tearing apart that ward. So Josh breaks him out, introducing us to another story
point from the UK version, the pack. Which we discuss later.
Supernatural’s Anonymous: In the UK version, Mitchell attempts to take control in Bristol following Herrick’s death and he
For those of you who know me, it wont surprise you that my cabinet of fandoms include The World of Darkness, a
WhiteWolf produced role playing game that gives you the chance to explore the life of characters who are any number of
supernatural creature type. I love mythologies and folklores surrounding these creatures, which has always been able to
bend my fandom attention toward shows like Buffy, Angel, and Lost Girl. Vampires, werewolves, and ghosts are right up
my alley, which is why the show Being Human was an easy choice. I started with a couple episodes of the UK version,
which I found somewhat slow starting and the characters not as engaging as I thought they might be from previews. I
started switching between the shows a few at a time, which was really probably not a great idea. There were just enough
similarities that I knew some of the “plot twists” that were going to take place in either show. But it also left me waiting to
see how certain things would be handled on the other show.
Things you should know before you read:
1. Spoilers. Spoilers spoilers spoilers.
If you didn’t hear, this article is full of
spoilers.
I had to watch all of the episodes
available to compare story to story.
3.The UK version of the story takes
2. The story plays out differently, the
a serious turn at the end of season 3,
and I’ll address some of the season
seasons in general have a different
sense of timing. The US version seems 4 story changes but since my first
draft of this article was over 10
to contain more story and character
pages worth of comparison, we’ll
development in the first season but
in retrospect, many of those story
need to narrow the focus. More
specifically, we make the focus our
elements that I thought were missing
at the end of the first season of the
original trio of main characters. I
make this distinction because the
UK version showed up in season two
or three. But it’s important to note
characters we meet in season 4
that there are a number of general
of the UK version are interesting
differences between US and UK shows in their own rights. Hal, Leo and
Pearl with him, are an element that
that could explain some of this. The
I enjoyed quite a bit. Tom coming
first season of the UK version had
6 episodes where the first of the US
back to live in the house is also a
story element that I actually quite
version had 13. It’s not possible to lay
like, and Alex in all her ghostly
one season right next to the other and
glory2014
is very different from Annie.
compare them
directly.
This
means
that
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Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
But it might as well have become a
different show at that point.
4. The US version got signed on for
a 4th season that I am impatiently
awaiting.
5. According to SyFy “the show’s
audience was as high as 52% female
during the second season, a first for
the SyFy network.” Which is, in my
mind, pretty nifty.
5. Spoilers. You know, just so we’re
clear.
institutes a sort of forced clean living rule. But this isn’t easy for everyone, clearly. Ivan becomes his poster boy of sorts, at least on the
surface, and Mitchell creates a support group to help them. In the US version we see Aiden try to get the orphans to live cleanly, but he
doesn’t give them that sort of support.
In the US version, after meeting Zoe the psychic, Sally is invited to a support group to help ghosts looking to find resolution. And help
with an addiction of their own. Possession, as it turns out, feels good.
Both groups are destroyed, the UK vampires by Lucy with an
explosion that causes Mitchell to lose sight of his humanity and go
on a killing spree with Daisy. The US ghosts end up shredded at
Sally’s hands when the madness sets in and creates Scott. And she
doesn’t even realize she’s doing it until later, causing her to shred
herself and end up in purgatory. Which we discuss later.
The human girlfriend: Aiden dated many times before,
heartbeats included, but when he accidentally dates Josh’s ex it,
at the very least, is different from the human relationship that
Mitchell tries to maintain with Lucy Jaggert. Both women work
at the hospital, and both end up dead. But it’s Lucy’s betrayal
of Mitchell and her role in the death of all of his friends and the
clean vampires he’d been working with that push him over the edge. But the relationship with Julia ends quickly with Aiden and then
she gets back with Josh and fulfills the role of Sam. George needed Sam to help him realize that normal needed a new definition. It
also pushed him back to Nina and into the facility. Julie, however, reacts as would be expected when the eclipse half turns Josh. She
backs away from him, and into traffic. His inability to save Julie makes him renew his desire to save Nora. Even if he has to become a
killer to do so. There isn’t ever a case of George and Mitchell chasing the same girl. And honestly, Aiden’s relationship with Suren is
probably more comparable to Mitchell and Lucy. We’ll discuss that later too.
Mom is dating who?: In the UK version, much later in the seasons, George goes to his father’s funeral and finds out that after
he left, his parents separated and his mom is dating his old dbag gym teacher. In the US version, Sally finds her mom’s ghost and then,
at her mother’s funeral, learns that her mom and their neighbor had an affair and that his ghost has been waiting for her for over 10
years. It’s not what either expected.
The Virus: Season 3 of the US version introduces a virus that has killed The Dutch and Mother, eventually Henry and almost
Aiden. But it’s an element that makes up most of season 3 of the US version but isn’t touched in the UK version at all. It’s a big
element. And it leads to other big elements, but at the end of the day it’s just an arc that season 3 of the US version took. And it doesn’t
have a mirror element in the UK version to make it to this list.
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mythology
Garlic: Not talked about in the UK version, but in the US version we see Aiden vamp out after eating some of Josh’s
mom’s cooking. He asks if she cooks with garlic and says it makes a vampire show it’s true self. Either way, neither
accept the commonly heard mythology that garlic is somehow a vampire repellent.
Compelling: In the US version we see multiple vampires overtake the will of the humans around them. The power to
suggest actions, to remove memories or to change the course of action that a person intends to take...it’s a very useful
skill, and never mentioned in the UK version at all.
Reflections: The UK version rather regularly shows a lack of image or reflection as a plot point. UK Bernie’s mom
doesn’t see Mitchell’s reflection, you can’t see where Mitchell is for sure on the security cameras at the facility, and when
he finally gets arrested he’s terrified that the cops trying to take his picture will out all vampires. In the US version there
are no such concerns, or benefits.
Blood Bags and Real Food: Aiden lives off of bagged blood and tries to help Rebecca and US Bernie learn to
survive on them. It doesnt taste as good, even when warmed up, but it keeps them alive. In the UK version, Mitchell tells
Lauren that they just wont work. He even gets one for her to try when she doesn’t believe him and when it doesn’t work
he tells her if it worked they’d all do it, but in the UK world, blood isn’t needed for actual survival. Mitchell eats just as
often as anyone else. He says that going cold turkey is the only way to stay clean. They never describe if other vampires
must eat normal food in addition to the blood or if blood is enough for them. In the US version we see Aiden eat only
when it’s needed or expected of him. At one point we see him take Rebecca out to dinner where the heartbeats of the other
diners around them become so overwhelming that they have to leave the restaurant for fear of losing control. But Aiden
must feed to survive, and when the bags stop being an option he has to go look for another one.
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Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
Werewolf Blood: While both shows mention the blood of
werewolves being poisonous to vampires, the US version actually
takes it a step farther in using the werewolf blood as an inoculation
of sorts against the virus that humans pass on to vampires. Treating
poison with poison, but with the added consequence that anyone
turned from an inoculated vampire becomes something else entirely.
Mutated, perhaps as a sort of mixed breed if you will. This is a
storyline that will continue into the 4th season.
Purebloods: The UK version addresses this in an entierly
different way than the US version. In the UK version we meet
McNair and his son Tom, a mini pack that shuns humanity as much as possible and lives in the woods. Tom has been
raised with the story that McNair is his father and that he was born a werewolf, a story that Nina quickly debunks when
she tests his blood and finds that he’s actally a baby who’s parents were brutally murdered and was never seen again. In
the US version, we eventually meet Liam and the twins, a family of purebloods who end up sucking Nora into their fold
for a time, a choice she later regrets.
Wolfsbane: Wolfsbane, as Josh is told, helps the purebloods “take the edge off”. It’s an interesting plot development
in general really, the purebloods add a really different element to the world. The twins discuss how the difference between
them and Josh is that Josh feels like he’s in the wrong skin one day every month, and being on edge that day before the
change is the feeling they get all the other days of the month. They take wolfsbane to help them feel normal. To help them
not feel like their skin is crawling.
Psychics and “Others”: The US version is crawling with witches and psychics, something we don’t see in the UK
version. And while both introduce us to a zombie, though very differently, we actually meet a necromancer and succubus
in the UK version, though both of those instances happen in the UK’s season 5 that we’re not dweling on. The only reason
I mention it is because I feel like it shows that the world they live in allows for the existence of other supernatual creatures
that the US version doesn’t seem to allow for.
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Being Human
vampire
Purgatory Prophecy: The ghost of one of Mitchell’s victims comes to torment him while
he’s searching purgatory for Annie. She warns him, “A wolf shaped bullet” is coming for
Mitchell. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy, considering we later find out that the ghost who gave
him the prophecy is trying to get revenge and made the whole thing up. But when George kills
Mitchell, it comes true all the same. There’s no such prophecy in the US version.
Suren vs Lucy: Aiden knows Suren from when she and Mother came to Boston years
ago. When his childe Henry reaches beyond his station and starts a relationship with
Suren, a relationship Aiden wanted but would not risk everything for. Henry later betrays
Suren by not being able to control his urges. His lack of control causes Suren to out herself
in front of a party of rich humans. To save them, Mother kills the entire party and has
Suren put to ground for 80 years. Bringing her back and forcing Suren to lead Boston is as
much a punishment as putting her to ground was. And when Aiden is successful in helping
her get Boston back under control, Mother turns his reward into further punishment by
barring any vampire from having contact with him, including Suren. He gives up so much
to gain his freedom and then it costs him everything. In the UK version, Mitchell uses
Lucy to help him regain his humanity, only to realize later that she’s been using him. He
fights so hard to come back only to have it thrown back in his face when she destroys all
the efforts he’s been making toward getting the local vampires to stop killing. Aiden goes
back to his old ways with Suren, and Mitchell goes back when Lucy betrays him.
Rebecca vs Lauren: Both girls stories start out pretty much the same. Our vampire lead slipping, and his mentor/
creator “helping” him by turning the girl he killed. Both girls start out angry and enjoying their blood lust, both end up
forced to make a snuff film to bring the lead back to the fold, and both try to escape and live clean but lack the strength
to actually do so. When Rebecca decides to “help” Aiden by turning Bernie we see a stark difference between Rebecca
and Lauren. In her own way, Rebecca has adopted Bishop’s talk of family and tries to create something that she knows
she will never have any other way. The final death of Bernie pushes her reality home, her life is over and she will never
be able to get it back. While she takes her anger out on Aiden at first, she comes to realize that the family she wanted
was really taken away by Bishop and Marcus. It drives home that her new life has never been about her, it has always
been about using her to hurt Aiden and bring him back to the fold. And she decides that she will no longer be a weapon.
In this way, her sacrifice is different from Lauren’s. Lauren begs for death in much the same way, but for her it is more a
matter of her knowing that she is losing her humanity. She doesn’t want to be a monster, but she knows that if she doesn’t
die that she will eventually become one. I also feel like Aiden continues to feel the impact of Rebecca’s death for much
longer than Mitchell does. It becomes a moment of character development rather than the end of a story element.
The Old Ones: A very large difference between the US and UK versions are the larger vampire political network
that the US version brings forward almost from the start. It’s not just the network that Bishop is creating in Boston, it’s
a network that spans the world and an important distinction between the two shows because we don’t get a glimpse of
any real network in the UK version until the trio move to Wales and the elders want Mitchell to come join them in South
America until the Boxcar 20 massacre story dies down, an offer he declines. The idea of these elders from South America,
or anywhere else, are really largely forgotten until season 4 when the vampires try to steal George and Nina’s baby as an
offering to the old ones when they arrive and again in season 5 when Annie finally completes her unfinished business by
destryoying the old ones and baby Eve along with them.
Despite this foreshadowing, it still leaves the vampire world in general feeling more disjointed and broken apart than the
US political network of vampires. Bishop’s actions bring the Dutch down on him, which isn’t something that is surprising
from the history we see of Bishop and Aiden’s past and how Bishop gained power of Boston in the first place. When
Bishop shows his cards he forces Aiden to choose between Bishop and the old ones. Aiden chooses to save one of the old
ones, solidifying himself as an enemy of Bishop and his plans. It adds additional depth to the world surrounding our main
characters and makes more sense than the “there are systems in place” line that Mitchell often gives. If we’re expected
to believe that vampires have existed for centuries, then I think it adds flavor to the story to see these old world societal
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in theMAGAZINE
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their interactions.
50
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
Celine vs Josie: I watched the
US version of this part first, so I saw
Celine first and was ready to see her
counterpart in the UK version. When
Mitchell was drawn to an older woman
in the hospital cafeteria, I knew it would
be her. But the story of these women
was very different. Josie was in the
wrong apartment at the wrong time.
Josie reaches out to the part of Mitchell
that is still horrified by what he’s done
and what he’s become. Older Josie is
still trying to help him remember his
humanity. But what I don’t understand
is why Josie doesn’t recognize Herrick.
She should have known exactly who
Herrick was and been so very angry for
Mitchell putting her through any sort of
conversation with Herrick.
Bernie Vs Bernie: A small
boy being bullied who our vampire
lead befriends in some nostalgic
whim. And in both versions we see
similarities beyond the name of
the character. Single mom home,
desperate for friends and acceptance,
they both steal the snuff film and
watch it, and both of their mothers
cry pervert. In the US version,
Bernie’s tormentors cause him to
back into the street where he gets hit
by a car. In the UK version, the mob
of neighbors attacking Mitchell cause
Bernie to try to speak to his defense,
but his mother yells for him to come
he knows for certain is that someone
in his world has stepped in, and that
they will expect him to pay them back
someday. He knows that it won’t just
be a cost that he has to pay, but that it
will touch George, Nina and Annie.
He asks George to kill him, he claims
George has become complacent,
practically enabling Mitchell to
continue sliding further from the goal
they had. Mitchell claims that George
Celine is foreshadowed more, as her
killing him is how George will regain
name is tattooed on Aiden’s chest,
back. So he runs into the street. Both his humanity. The weakness here is
which gets brought up before we meet
her. Aiden had been prepared to give up boys die. In the UK version, Mitchell that Mitchell has decided he needs to
die but he can’t do it himself. While
makes an offer to bring him back.
the family to live with Celine. Bishop
he seems to be trying to help George
We see Mitchell send Bernie and
responds violently, which is honestly
make up for becoming a silent partner
his
mom
off
on
a
train
with
only
the
to be expected since he had tried to
advice to keep him good. And can we in crime, he’s actually making George
do the same earlier and Aiden had
make a decision that he can’t go back
talk about how terrible that advice
convinced him to choose the family. In
from. George isn’t the type of person
is
for
just
a
second?
What
happens
the end, Celine and Josie make the same
who kills easily, and killing Mitchell
when
she
gets
old
and
dies
and
Bernie
sacrifice. They give their lives to heal
would be something that would haunt
stays forever too young for a job or
our vampire hero before he goes on to
him forever. Mitchell asking him to
a family and eventually left without
confront Bishop/Herrick. And then we
do it is selfish.
even
his
mother
to
care
for
him.
What
don’t see them again. But at least with
will happen then? Oh wait, the UK
the US version, the tattoo still exists.
But then when it becomes clear that
Every time Aiden takes his shirt off, and version answers that later with the
the elders intend to use not only
story
of
Adam.
That’s
the
life
that
particularly in scenes where Aiden is
blood drunk and Bishop first reappears, Bernie has to look forward to. The life Mitchell but everyone else in the
house to achieve their goals, that
that Mitchell has subjected him to.
we see the tattoo and remember her.
they intend to make Mitchell even
worse, George does something that is
Aiden never wanted that for Bernie
actually heroic when he turns around
though. It’s hard for adult vampires
and shoves a stake in Mitchell’s heart.
to learn control and they’ve had
Because he knows that the person
years to practice and other adults to
Mitchell becomes when he’s bad
shape them. He knew that it wasn’t
Bernie who came back, but something isn’t the person George is friends
with. Killing Mitchell now is actually
wearing his skin.
saving him, and his humanity,
Mitchell’s Martyrdom:
forever. We don’t ever really get to
Mitchell and Aiden both struggle
with their inner monster, and both fail mourn Mitchell, as the next season
starts with Nina also being dead and
a few times. But Aiden never fails
George’s sacrifice. We lose three
quite as spectacularly as Mitchell.
characters in a couple of episodes,
Mitchell doesn’t know who made
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The Family: In an early episode, Josh follows a familiar scent and finds his sister and
her girlfriend in the hospital. It’s the first time he’s seen anyone from his family since
he ran away and it doesn’t exactly go well. In later episodes when he’s forced to take
her home and confront his parents, who have found the his journal chronicling his first
changes, they think he’s crazy. Like Josh’s parents, George’s family thinks he’s lost his
mind when he tells them that he’s a werewolf. But aside from the one episode, where his
parents drive off into the nigh in camper, George’s family is little more than a footnote.
While Josh’s family comes back throughout the show and his sister even eventually
comes to accept him.
The Dog Fight: In later parts of season one
we see Josh get kidnapped by vampires and
forced to fight another werewolf to the death in
a sort of dogfight that the vampires arrange for
sport. This episode introduces us to a number
of story elements that weren’t carried over in
the UK version. Primarily in the introduction
of “The Professor”, an old man werewolf
who has survived the fights and remained a
prisoner for the last 15 years. After the fights the
vampires allow him to examine the bodies of the Nina vs Nora: It started out so similarly. They meet in
werewolves he’s beaten, the findings of which
the same way, he follows his creator/mentors advice when
he records in great detail in books that Josh
he hits on her and gets shot down, and in the throes of a
takes with him after winning the fight, a win that change (and in an abandoned dark room) they have sex for
Josh has to continue to deal with in a way that
the first time. It even goes so far as to mimic the way that our
we don’t see George cope after killing Herrick.
N named lady gets infected. But from there, we see a very
Maybe this was intentional, as the US version
different story play out between Nina and George as plays
had Aiden kill the leader of the vampires instead out between Nora and Josh.
to add to the story of the vampire politics. We
don’t see the dogfights until season 3 of the
Nina never comes to full terms about what she is. She may
UK version, which has the added element of
eventually accept it, but she always views it as a thing that
the wolves being forced to fight humans. And
happened to her, a thing that ruined her life. Nora, however,
the storyteller in me, who is often sick and
eventually comes to love the wolf. She finds the twins
twisted, see’s a dark beauty in this. Even if the
become a sort of pack that help her learn more about the
human wins, there’s a very slim chance that they world that she’s fallen into. And she falls into a world of
managed to do so without so much as a bite or
violence and instinct that she later realizes is not what she
scratch. And since the mythology of both Being wanted. When she comes back to tell Josh how to break the
Human worlds spreads the curse through those
curse she she tells him that she’s not upset over what she is,
means, it adds an additional element of darkness only over what she’s done.
to the UK vampires.
The Baby: Probably the biggest change between their
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Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
two characters is the baby. While they both sleep with our
werewolf lead before he goes through a change, it’s only
Nora who ends up pregnant from the experience. Nina
doesn’t become pregnant until they move to Wales. Once
they do become pregnant, both characters go through the
usual unexpected pregnancy fears and concerns. And both
show the child growing more quickly than usual. But Nina
is already a wolf when she’s pregnant, and Nora is only just
recently cursed and not aware of it yet.
werewolf
During the time between seasons
Nina has her baby and is beaten
to death by vampires, apparently
before ever naming her. This
becomes an entire story arc, as the
baby is found to be the prophesied
war child, who is supposed to be the
child who will save humanity from
the vampires. We’ll talk more than
that later.
But Nora watches Josh change
as, we assume, the change takes
place with the baby and her human
body can’t handle it. Losing the
baby adds another element to the
relationship between Josh and Nora
and a major element to her personal
story as her entire life and the future
she thought she was going to have
both get ripped away.
Kiss the curse goodbye: In the UK version, they never discuss
getting rid of the curse. It’s a forever thing. And we think that’s true in
the US version, despite all of Josh’s talk of finding a cure. And then Nora
comes back from life on the violent road with Brin and tells Josh that
killing Ray will remove the curse, if done right.
This option isn’t even left open in the UK version for George, as he sees
the note on the wall of the holding room left by Tully before Tully died
in the pressure chamber. Or so we’re left to presume.
Lucy’s Help: The pressure chamber is just part of how Dr. Jaggert
plans to help the supernaturals overcome their curses. But despite her
good intentions, she takes some really awful measures to get there. She
becomes a perfect example of just how awful humans can be. Especially
when we fear something.
What the pregnancy provides to
both stories is an entierly human
reaction between the characters who
find themselves at a loss as to what
to do next. Like many unplanned
pregnancies, it throws them for a
loop, and makes them question their
futures.
George’s Mind over Moon experience: When Nina dies, George
looses himself. He shuts himself in a room with the baby and adds
crosses to pretty much every open space he can find. He doesn’t sleep,
he doesn’t let anyone else hold her, and he doesn’t leave. But when a
trap set by vampires leads to the baby being taken, George tries to trade
himself for his child. Which also fails. But when it becomes clear that
they intend to kill the “War Child” he manages to makes himself partially
change.
The change isn’t complete. And because it wasn’t caused by the curse,
the curse won’t repair him. He forced his organs into failure. And then
he goes through his door to be with Nina. Knowing what we know
about how missing your door can end badly for you, we can’t begrudge
George for taking his. It’s just sort of a shock. We end the prior season
with George killing Mitchell in a teary goodbye followed by telling the
elder vampire in the room that he has a fight on his hands. Then the next
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season opens with Nina dead amd George finding his door.
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ghost
Loving a Loser: Both of our ghosts met their untimely demise in the
house they lived in with the men they thought they were going to marry
and spend the rest of their lives with.
But both get rude awakenings when they find our that the men they
Ghostly Powers: Annie, our UK wrapped the majority of their life up in actually caused their death
ghost, seems more in touch with the
world around her almost from the
start, while Sally only seems to gain
that ability when she misses her
door. The US version does a better
job at playing up how dead and
ghostly Sally is. Self absorbed a lot
of the time, but still ghostly. Annie
might as well be alive for all the
things she can do.
Sally never changes her clothes,
while Annie seems to have a
magic sweater that she can wear
in different ways and have it look
like a different shirt entirely. Which
does exist, but Sally can’t take off
or change her clothes, and at one
point we see Annie take her sweater
off and lay it on Saul’s couch. Or
the time it becomes a dress...Sally
doesn’t get a new outfit until she
comes back from the dead.
It seems early on as if supernatural
creatures get the ability to touch
ghosts almost as equally as Annie
can touch other things. But in the
US version, Sally doesn’t gain
the ability to touch until her door
is missed. Sally can’t touch other
supernatural characters, and even
touching other ghosts creates a
sort of energy transfer instead of a
physical touch but Annie seems to
not suffer that particular problem.
She can even carry baby Eve
around.
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through jealousy induced rage. Though the US version has this handled in
a much classier way, with the engagement ring that won’t go away vs the
thong stuck in the plumbing.
But I have issue with the way the UK version portrayed Annie’s revenge.
After watching the US version, I was originally excited to see how they
would handle the murder of Annie, the exorcism and her attempts at
revenge. In the US version, they almost excercise her, causing a very
scary looking Sally to go force him to almost kill himself, but the fact that
Annie had so much more power than Sally so early on made me wonder
why her attempts at revenge weren’t more powerful too.
Danny, our US bad boyfriend, always felt like a smarmy asshat. Owen
had been cheating all along, but Danny didn’t start dating Sally’s friend
Bridget until after Sally died. And while whatever Annie tells Owen
gives us a slightly more satisfying moment of watching Owen go mad.
Sadly, he ends up turning Professor Jaggert and Kemp onto our struggling
roommates, thus serving as the transitioning plot point to the facility story
arc that made up most of that season.
an early mentor in the form of
an 80’s ghost, but both shows
do a great job of showing how
the cultures were different in the
80’s and both teach our ghostly
lead about the door, even if the
thing that sends them through it
is different. Gilbert is about as
different from Tony as he could
be. But both are great at teaching
our ghost how to use their
powers.
Annie also gets additional help
escaping those who want to pull
her over to the other side in the
form of a ex-military ghost who’s
dodged his door too. Sally does
meet a 90’s party poltergeist, and
Stevie and his friends, who each
teach her new things she can do,
but she never has other spirits
dragging her to the other side.
Not until season 3 anyway, and
then it’s our favorite gruesom
witch pulling her through her
deathspot.
Danny becomes a footnote later on in season 2 when he dies in prison
and comes back to haunt Sally. Except that it’s a couple minutes of him
making furniture sculptures and then the strange black mist that’s been
following our US ghost for half a season shows up and rips Danny ghost
apart and then offers her a job as a reaper. It just felt like they could
have dragged that out a little bit more. Though it did show us another
mythology the US version uses, dispersing spirits with cold iron and all.
D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
80’s Ghosts: Both ghosts have
Possession: The closest thing
to possession that we see Annie
do is learn to taste, and later to
give memories to someone else,
by touching them. Sally can
actually dive into a body and
pilot it around, an experience
that is, as it turns out, addictive.
And if you do it to one person
too often or for too long, you can
actually leave a bit of yourself
behind, which Sally finds out
when the host she’s been driving
starts drawing Sally’s memories
and thinking she’s going mad.
The other side effect of
possession is that it feels good.
And her psyche breaks a little,
creating Scott the Reaper. Scott
is who does all the things Sally
doesn’t want to admit to doing.
She shreds Stevie and Nick, and
then when she realizes just how
bad it’s gotten, that she’s gotten,
and she shreds herself. This
sends her into purgatory .
Unlike Annie’s trip into
purgatory, Sally and her friends
find themselves reliving their
deaths over and over again, or
something akin to their deaths.
Annie meets Mitchell’s victims,
even as Mitchell is trying save
her. Sally’s time in purgatory is
shorter, and she ends up saving
herself.
But before you go on thinking
that it’s some sort of feminist ‘I’ll
save myself’ line of thinking, she
also ends up trapped in her own
mind with Scott, and needs her
friends to help save her.
coat of paint a couple of times. Sure
she’s becoming more and more
powerful, but how often does she get
taken to a different realm that she has
to get out of?
Purgatory, that special place in her
head, out of Donna’s body, out of
the spa, out of the different times she
jumps to...
The only storyline where she isn’t
stuck somehwere is when she ends
up...oh wait...stuck in her own
body, eating flesh to keep from
deteriorating.
Which is a very different version
of the zombie story, which the UK
brings up when a number of people
who were supposed to die during the
time that Mitchell was saving Annie,
couldn’t cross over.
The darkness of that story is
impressive. Really. Because when
doctors find out about the living
dead, they test on them. And then
they burn them alive.
And can we talk about Sally’s
bad habit of getting herself stuck
in places? The writers seem to
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use the same idea with a different
55
Psychics and Witches: In the
UK version, Annie meets a medium
with a broken gift. Somehow
only Annie can speak to him, and
somehow her mom manages to walk
into that theater while the medium is
there and while Annie is helping him.
And through this medium, she helps
her mother move on with her life.
In the US version we meet Sally’s
mother when she dies and later again
when she tries to help Sally get to
Limbo.
Aside from this difference in how we
meet our ghostly character’s mother,
we also see these other characters
who exist outside of the three type
classifications. Important characters,
like Zoe, stick around for multiple
episodes and guest appearances
in later seasons or become a plot
twist to a story, like Donna. The
UK version doesn’t bring these
other ideas into play at all. Sure we
meet a zombie girl, but she’s only
there because Mitchell going into
Limbo prevents other ghosts from
getting their doors. Zombies aren’t
a thing, they are a consequence.
A one episode aside more than a
world changing story formation. The
one psychic we do meet is treated
in much the same way, leaving me
personally feeling like there are
some story elements that weren’t
developed as fully in the UK version.
Both shows suffer from having many complex and interwoven
storylines taking place at the same time, which often leaves certain
story elements dangling or rushed. We see Liam cause havoc off and
on for most of a season, but his actual death is quick and, frankly, sort
of quickly moved on from. It’s as if the writers were checking things
off of a todo list and realized that they had run out of time for the last
few items so they smushed them all together. The US version does a
slightly better job with continuity. We see the impact of past episode
decisions continue to alter our characters interactions, where the UK
version sometimes shoves something into an episode and doesn’t
bring it up again once that episode is over.
Overall, I actually loved both of these shows. When I started watching
them I found myself trying to compare them and choose a better
one. Now I don’t think that’s fully fair. They may start similarly,
and be based on similar ideas, but the longer each series goes on the
more different they become. In the end, when you line them up side
by side, there is no “winner.” The UK version does a better job of
making it clear that the world of “monsters” is dangerous and fleeting
by killing off character’s that we love, sometimes without warning
and sometimes in ways that feel like tying up loose ends more than
anything. The US version may allow for supporting characters to die,
which impacts character growth more than it seems to do in the UK
version (sometimes), but the main characters themselves are never
truly dead. At least not yet.
I think the real lesson to take away from both of these shows is that
being human is about more than just the species we were born into. Or
to quote Herrick:
“Humanity isn’t a species. It’s a state of mind.”
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WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
57
People aren’t easily labeled and categorized away.
sI
g
n
i
Th
Being friends with Jack Harkness is dangerous.
From the very first episode we learn that the closer you get to Jack the
worse off you are. The show starts us off with a character who has been
a part of his team for a while, Susie, and before the end of the episode
she’s dead. It’s not just a matter of happenstance, or of being in the wrong
place at the wrong time, it’s no stray bullet. And it’s not Jack directly, at
least not all of the time. It’s the world that Jack brings these people into.
It’s mysterious and magical and you don’t get to leave a mysterious and
magical world and expect to be unchanged. We see people who Jack has
tried to leave, for their own safety, and how their lives are never really their
own ever again. They can never forget the excitement, and danger, of their
old lives. Some don’t want to. Jack’s life, however, is truly to worst. He
tries to not get attached to people, because he knows that at the end of the
day they will get old and die. And he won’t, but he will have to watch.
Never accept a drink from Captain Jack.
Seriously, it’s got retcon in it. I promise. While the security benefits of
something like retcon are easy to understand, but the power it gives can
be so easily abused. Gwen cheats, repeatedly. Then she tells Rhys the truth
and makes him forget it. Sure she goes back to him. Sure, she’s sorry.
But she confesses and deals with his anger for all of 10 minutes before he
passes out and gets back to that blissful oblivion of not knowing. And then
it’s gone. And she goes back to pretending that it didn’t happen, despite it
being thrown in her face a couple of times. As the show continues, they get
married and even eventually having a baby and he still never remembers
what she and Owen did. Repeatedly. And that just doesn’t sit well with
me. And lets not forget what repeated doses of retcon did to Max. Well,
retcon and Susie. But Susie without the retcon wouldn’t have been nearly
as effective.
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Balancing work and family is hard, but worth it.
“How do you switch off from all this stuff?” Gwen asks
Owen, Tosh and Jack. Later he tells Gwen “Don’t let the
job consume you.” It’s sort of a theme for her character
much more than the other characters. She marries, she
chooses Rhys and she eventually has a child with him.
And Rhys is really a trooper isn’t he? He gets lied to,
cheated on, retcon’d, he gets stabbed to death by Bilis,
and any other number of strange things that he sees (some
of which he never remembers.) But he never leaves her
side. And he helps keep her grounded, at least most of the
time.
“You people and your quaint little categories.” Jack exists
without defining himself in terms of sexuality. He is who
he is, and he loves who he loves, regardless of their gender.
Janto, for example, has Lisa in the beginning. They were
in love, and when the cybermen attacked and partially
upgraded her, he kept her alive. But in later episodes, he
and Jack fall in love. And in even later episodes we meet
people Jack has loved before. Because when you live
forever, you’re bound to wrack up a decent sized list of past
loves. Our society still tries to fit people into neat and tidy
boxes, and that’s not how people work. We never really
worked that way. Traditional gender roles and stereotypical
gender identities don’t fit or work, and sometimes we have
to remember that those categories only serve to keep us
from really getting to know the people around us. When
we push our ideas of who they are or who they should be
because of a random set of character traits that our society
has chosen, we keep them from showing us who they really
are. Traits that, by the way, we’ve basically brainwashed
ourselves into accepting despite historical evidence that they
are misguided at best and direct manipulation at worst. We
dress our girls in pink and boys in blue, though when the
trend originally started it was determined that blue was soft
and better for girls while pink is aggressive and fits boys.
Even this, however, was a scheme by a marketing team
for a department store looking to drive sales for their baby
department.
Co-worker relationships are touchy at best.
If we’re supposed to believe Susie, she slept with Owen. Tosh had some
random but meaningful make out with him that leaves her obsessive,
Gwen ends up fooling around with him for a while and the one woman
he actually falls for leaves him to take a chance that she could go
back to her time. None of those relationships end well. Tosh doesn’t
get a decent end to any of her romantic relationships actually. Janto’s
girlfriend goes all cyberwoman and tries to upgrade them all. Then he
ends up falling in love with Jack and dies by his side. Jack and Gwen
have this strange connection that they don’t often talk about. At least
not officially. She chooses Rhys, and while I believe that she truly loves
him, I think she doesn’t choose Jack because she knows that won’t have
any sort of happy ending. A few years of mind bending greatness and
then tragedy, that’s life with Jack. Life with Rhys is safe and steady.
And really, that’s a Torchwood life lesson all on its own. Life with
Captain Jack Harkness will be amazing and terrifying and then it
will end and when it does it will not end well. You don’t walk away
from Torchwood unscathed. At best, you end up like Rhys, angry at
being second fiddle to Torchwood but still left as an anchor and often
accomplice to a key member of the team. He and Andy are the closest
you can get to being in Torchwood without actually being in it. You
get a little bit of adventure with a hell of a lot less danger. But then,
you could also end up like Susie, going more and more mad with each
passing day, making excuses for your behavior and plotting extravagant
schemes to allow yourself to continue those behaviors.
To make matters worse, when you spend all day with people, going
home and spending more time with them is just a recipe for trouble.
You need to be able to go home and relax, be the you that you don’t get
to be at work. We may not spend all day chasing down weevils, but our
jobs are still stressful. And when we leave them, we need to be able to
actually leave them. And lets not get started on how awkward things
will be if and when it doesn’t work out. Breaking up is hard to do, it’s
really awful actually, and if you still have to see them every day at
what’s already a source of stress in your life...bad bad news.
And that’s a lesson for all of us. Find someone who helps
keep you balanced, someone who can help ground you.
Because life will get crazy, maybe not Torchwood crazy
but still crazy, and you’ll need that balance if you want to
keep your sanity.
“Sometimes you can know too much history.”
It’s said during the episode in season one where weevils are being captured, Jack wanders around a warehouse and tells Tosh that they
used to use the warehouses to store the bodies of dead GI’s. While in general I do subscribe to the idea that you’re doomed to repeat
history if you don’t learn from it, but let’s really think about history. The personal story of history is really very tragic. Even the happy
stories eventually end. If you really think about it, even our stories will eventually be history. Someone will look back on our lives
someday and wonder about us the way we wonder about others. Imagine being like Jack and living that history. It’s not some random
person in a book, it’s a friend or lover that he remembers. I don’t even always like to travel down my own memory lane, and it’s
drastically shorter than Jack’s would be.
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59
Humans are not always shining examples of humanity.
People do terrible things to each other, which we know, but they also
do terrible things to the aliens they manage to find and capture. Look at
the weevil fight club from season one, or the growing slug creature that
humans have been drugging up and cutting meat off of, or the sleeper
alien who they basically torture into showing herself. Hell, the whole
‘Countrycide’ episode isn’t about aliens at all, but about humans who
have trapped, killed and eaten humans. Repeatedly. Yet we fear aliens.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some pretty messed up aliens and they
don’t always have the best manners, and I wouldn’t expect them to, but
Don’t Kiss Captain John Hart.
humans should know better. And sometimes, the darker side of these
Even if you really want to.
aliens is actually starkly human when you think about it. We’re all
Paralyzing lip gloss? I’m pretty sure he’d still be worth it.
flawed and we all make mistakes, we all have urges that we consider
Honestly, as a character, he’s better defined and much more
inappropriate and that we work to bury. Sometimes we fail, and the
interesting than our season one bad guy Bilis. Actually, can
consequences for that failure have a ripple effect that extends farther than
we just talk for a second about season one’s ending? WTF.
we ever imagined possible. The weevils act on instinct which often leads
We spend two episodes dealing with Bilis manipulating the
to the death of people who get in their way, the fae-like creatures violently
entire team. And he succeeds! He brings the monster out into
protect their own, the cell of sleeper aliens use their arm blades to kill or
the world and it kills everything that touches its shadow, but
blow up a number of people in their stunted take over plot. And Abbadon,
somehow Jack’s unending life causes this monster that has
in his short appearance, kills dozens of unlucky citizens of Cardiff just by
been trapped under the rift forever to self destruct. In less than
casting his shadow on them.
5 minutes we deal with what should have been the big bad of
In season 3 we witness humans willing to sacrifice children to an alien
the season, and we never see Bilis again? They spend longer
race, starting with the poor families. Season 4 shows humans relegating
showing Gwen sit next to Jack’s body. And what the hell
other humans to categories based on injuries and then shipping them off to
happened after that? The world didn’t see the giant monster
concentration camps. Camps that come complete with ovens where people
stomping on buildings and killing everyone? I’d even have
are burned alive. These are things we did to ourselves. Sure, influenced
been happy with a ‘the time rift took it back so it never really
by other elements, but still carried out by humans. And that doesn’t even
happened’ excuse. But it’s never mentioned again. But with
touch the atrocities we’ve commited on each other in actual history. We’re
John Hart we get a complex history, additional history for
far scarier than 90% of the creatures we meet in Torchwood. Except for
Jack, future story arcs, and some funny team nicknames. I’m
those blowfish guys. That’s just messed up.
almost sad Jack doesn’t let him join the team.
There are fates worse than death.
Jack can’t die. This seems like a great trick but as it turns out, it’s a curse. Owen dies and
comes back but he’s practically glass. What about the psych ward full of people like Jonah
Bevan who got sucked into the void and stare at the nothingness until it destroyed part of
him. In these cases, death seems merciful. You find yourself hoping that when your favorite
character get’s shot, they don’t come back. No matter how many characters tell you that
there is nothing but darkness waiting for you when you die, darkness with a terrifying
something moving inside of it, you still hope that when it’s over it can simply be over.
”The end is where we start from.”
No matter how bad things are right now, you can keep going. When Gray and Captain Hart show up we see the story as we
know it end. We watched Owen die once before, and saw him come back, we saw each of the character face situations where
they could or should have died, and didn’t. Heck, we watch Captain Jack die hundreds of time. And watching it lulls us into
a sense that they will always be ok. That death just doesn’t have threat we would normally ward to it. Which makes it all the
harder to accept when death steps back in and reminds us that no one gets that lucky. We watch Tosh help Owen save others,
we watch them both say goodbye and then we’re left with an overwhelming sense of numbness. After everything they’ve been
through, we don’t want it to end like this. I don’t know about everyone else, but I cried like a baby when they tried to close
Tosh’s file and her goodbye video popped up.
But it’s Jack that brings home this final life lesson. When Gwen tells him that she doesn’t think she can go on now, he tells her
that she can. “The end is where we start from.”
And I can’t even begin to tell you how much of that truth rings throughout my life. When things dissolve, and you feel like
your life is falling apart, it’s easy to forget that things will get better. That the end is just a new beginning. It doesn’t mean that
it will be easy, it doesn’t invalidate the pain you’re going through, and no one should expect you to move on or forget. But
take courage, your story is changing, but it isn’t over. You’ll pick up the pieces and put them back together in a new way. And
that’s ok. Because every day you’re alive is a day to make new choices and carve a new path for yourself.
Every single day that you’re alive is a day that someone else didn’t get. And would love to have had.
Focus on the good, learn from the bad, and keep trying. The end is where you’ll start from.
The entire fourth season plays up this life lesson over and over. Suddenly the entire world
can’t die. You can still be mortally wounded, and death won’t bring any relief to your pain.
And even worse, what they do to the people who are still alive but shouldn’t be shows us
just how unequipped we are for making choices in a world that plays by different rules. And
everyone becomes overloaded on pain meds to the point where they stop being effective.
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WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
61
Life Les
sons Fro
m
Primev
al
By : Erik
a
Litherla
nd
The Butterfly Effect
Don’t go through a doorway if you don’t know where it leads.
Stepping into an unknown world sounds like it could be a great deal of fun, but reality is often harsher. You’re
far more likely to be the body that Nick Cutter finds at the demolished camp than you are to be Helen Cutter off
cavorting through time. Everyone likes to talk about how taking risks is vital in life, and while I don’t disagree
to a point, not all risks are good ones. It wouldn’t be a risk if there wasn’t a chance of failure. But since we’re
not generally talking about walking through mystical doorways, you have the liberty to do a little research
before making your choices. Especially if something seems too good to be true.
And let’s be honest here, even if you do manage to wander through a mystical doorway and visit another
time, it’s pretty clear that doing so hasn’t got the best odds of giving you any sort of happy ending. Have you
seen Helen Cutter? I mean, seriously. From the time she leaves that slimy shell creature on Nick’s desk to the
moment she decides the Earth is better off without
humans, she’s pretty much spiraling into madness.
Technologically advanced, murder inducing
madness.
Not to mention that some risks, some choices, are
things you can’t get back from. Nick comes back
from a trip through and loses the woman he loves,
Connor and Abby step through and get stuck in the
past for a year, Danny’s brother goes into one and
goes mad, then goes through another and meets a
woman he loves who dies after traveling through
even more anomilies. Which is, of course, a more
drammatic version of what you might experience, it’s
still a cautionary tale to be sure.
Treat risks, and doorways, with the respect they
deserve. Don’t
take them
lightly. WINTER 2014
D20 GIRLS
MAGAZINE
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Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
If you do ever happen to adventure to the past, be careful. You change one thing, one little thing you didn’t
even know you were changing, and you come back to an entirely new reality. One where the people you love
no longer exist and no one else remembers them. Except your crazy not quite dead, not quite ex wife. And
she’s gonna take your personal tragedy and heartbreak as a sign that not only will the world can be changed but
somehow you can choose how it will be changed. That she could personally change the shape and direction of
the world to fit an image she felt would be best for it. One without humans in it.
The entire evolution of the world is just one crushed butterfly away from being altered forever. And on the
topic of being careful, how careful is careful? How many times did Nick wonder what small detail had been
overlooked? In the trip between the days of Claudia Brown and the days of Jenny Lewis, how often did he
replay finding the camp, taking a picture, burying the dead...something that he did or didn’t do changed the
world. His world. Forever.
And while your day to day choices don’t usually have such a large impact, the ripple effect is no less important.
As you act in your day to day life, please remember that the things you do and say can have a long term and
lasting impact on your live and the lives of those around you. You may not make a choice that erases the person
you love from the world, but your choices are still important.
Don’t get Cocky
The really trippy thing about traveling to the past is that it means we can also end up traveling to the future.
Which means that when you get there...this is the past. The really tempting thing is to try to adjust the past
to change the future. Look at Time Cop, where Max Walkers own partner tries to go back in time and buy
up stocks when they are cheap for a company that is successful in the future. It’s in our very nature to try to
manipulate a situation to fit our own desires. We’re even very good at rationalizing why we’re doing it, or
how it’s not for us but for someone else, or how it’s for the good of the world. Who of us is really qualified to
determine what’s good for the world as a whole though. I mean, seriously, Helen Cutter thought killing off the
human race was good for the world. And while she may not be fully wrong, I certainly want the chance to cast
my vote.
Never assume, at any point, that you know all there is to know about something. Or that you’re perfectly
equipped to make a decision. Input from others is vital to making the best decisions, and it’s essential that you
never forget that. Or life will find a way to send you a reminder. Or a T-Rex to eat your face off.
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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D20 Girls Rock!
Meet GLITTER QUEEN
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GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014 D20 Girls Rock - Featuring GLITTER QUEEN
GLITTERD20
QUEEN
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
\
Nice to meet you, you
can call me Glitter Queen. I have
been a D20 Girl in Chicago as well
as the Illinois state manager for
the better part of a year now and
have loved every second. Gender
bias aside, someone into Sci Fi,
books, gaming and costumed role
play has always been viewed as a
less than desirable friend. Granted
nowadays everything revolves
around these things in pop culture
media, but when I was growing up
that definitely was not the case. I
learned to channel my alone time
into learning and creating and grew
up to be a pretty smart and artistic
woman.
\
Being a part of The D20
Girls Project has helped me meet
hundreds of girls that have similar
childhoods and allowed me to form
bonds that I hope to keep forever.
While in present day, cosplaying
and gaming has made it’s way into
the mainstream, there is still tons of
prejudice against females in those
respective cultures. So as a D20 Girl
we work together to help break
through stereotypes along with
giving each other tips and tricks in
whatever we can.
\
While I have always loved
Halloween and gone to extremes
with costumes, I have only been
seriously cosplaying for the past
2 years. I have about 12 finished
costumes ranging in fandoms from
Star Trek to Doctor Who to Disney
to DC Comics. Like most cosplayers
my wish list is infinite. Quite literally
every day I’m adding and plotting
my next role. Being a novice,
various parts of my costumes are
pre-made or commissioned, but
all of them always have my own
personal touch whether it be a prop
or an added detail or alteration to
the outfit.
\
A lot of my costumes tend
to lean towards Science Fiction,
Villains and Horror, but do believe
I am no stranger to Super-Heroes
and cutesy cartoon characters.
Growing up on Star Trek and Star
Wars (yes I am one of the rare
people who love both) a lot of my
love goes for aliens of all types. The
stranger looking, the better! Which
is one of the reasons I am one of
the biggest Trekkie and Whovian
you will ever meet. This love for
fantastical creatures goes hand in
hand with my love for SFX makeup.
So, while being a D20 Girl I am also
in school for Make-Up Artistry. I am
constantly practicing, learning and
creating looks that I hope will turn
heads.
\
I am also a writer for our
D20 Girls Magazine. I write articles,
as well as help edit and manage
the site design. Being a writer for
the magazine has offered me the
opportunity to hone in my writing
skills, and the chance to get press
passes to prestigious cons and
meet some awesome famous
people. Being a former musician
along with informative articles,
I write song lyrics and dabble in
poetry and fiction in my free time.
A Jane of all trades I suppose, I love
baking, painting, collecting action
figures, creating arts and crafts, and
dabbling in writing film scripts and
video production. I am never bored
and not boring, that much I can say
with pride.
\
Along with my artistic
talents, I am a huge gamer. Being a
Sony fan, my preferred console is
the PS3. What about the new PS4
you say? Well, I have a strong code
of “never buy expensive 1st gen
electronics.” I wait and let them
work out the kinks and release an
improved model. Not to mention to
add more games to the list. Besides,
with my schedule so packed I’m
still behind on several PS3 games,
I mean I haven’t even prestiged in
COD: Ghosts yet!
\
So whether you see me
fangirling at the local Comic Shop,
Cosplaying at a Con, buying fabric
and paint at Joann’s, or shouting
obscenities in a Free For All match,
be sure to say hi!
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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66
GIRLS MAGAZINE WINTER 2014 D20 Girls Rock - Featuring GLITTER QUEEN
GLITTERD20
QUEEN
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
GLITTER QUEEN
WINTER
2014 D20
GIRLS MAGAZINE
D20 Girls Rock
- Featuring
GLITTER
QUEEN
67
D20 GIRLS OUT AND ABOUT
The Carolina D20 GIrls and friends
Little Micha and Fawn
SC, VA, NC D20 at Ichibancon as Sailor Moon Fruits
Photographed by Double Stomp Productions
Kansas D20s in the TARDIS
GIRLS MAGAZINE
68GlitterD20Queen\
Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
WINTER 2014
BattyJuice (NC) and Intraventus (VA) at Monitacon
Yachan (NC) at Monitacon
Photo by Paul Mrstik
WINTER 2014 D20 GIRLS MAGAZINE
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Dear Chiki,
I’ve just read “The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas
Adams and while it was an enjoyable read I do not feel anymore
suited to surviving life on earth. Any tips?
Sincerely,
42 Skeptic
Dear 42 Skeptic
Pssh! “The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is chock-ful of important
things to remember! Personally I find the bit about never forgetting
your towel a total gem. I shall illustrate with an anecdote! Ready?
Too bad!
Over Thanksgiving a car load of my closest D20 pals and I found
ourselves at the Bristol Motor Speedway in Lights. Now for nonsoutherners let me explain this phenomenon. In an effort to bring
in additional funds during off-season racetracks often “deck the halls” and invite tourists to drive among their parking
lots and even on the track itself looking at lights! Usually what results is bumper to bumper traffic with no exit while you
ride your brake for upwards of 2 or more hours while looking at lit up spectacles usually involving some sort of racing
motif, and dinosaurs. Because nothing says Christmas like Dinosaurs. But I digress. You see we were stuck in this bumper
to bumper traffic and had been for a mere 30 minutes when one of the girls... we’ll call her Eliza* announced that she
desperately needed to relieve herself. I being the driver her told her something along the lines of “tough tits” but when
Candace* and Camilla* also agreed that they too needed to relieve themselves I pulled over.
There are no portapotties or bathrooms in this location... only a deserted parking lot. This is where “always remember
your towel” comes in handy! In this case a towel is a purse full of napkins that Scarlet* so thoughtfully stowed away.
So you can take this one of two ways:
Don’t forget your towel (or napkins) or always use the bathroom before leaving the house.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish!
Chiki
*Names have been changed to protect the not so innocent.
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Matt Blakeley (order #6854723)
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