sholio | (no subject)

Hat tip to

umadoshi for linking to

smallfandomfest, now taking prompt submissions and "fandom pimping" signups for their current round! I used to follow them on LJ back in the day; I didn't know they were on DW.

Pimping post signup | Prompt submission post/instructions | List of available prompts

.... brb, submitting Iron Fist and Defenders prompts at lightning speed. xD

(Prompt submissions are open 'til Nov. 21. "Small fandom" defined as less than 2000 fics on AO3.)

On the topic of small fandoms (microscopic in this case), Orion and I have been watching a show called Banshee lately, which is utterly BATSHIT. I don't even know what to say about this show, although I'm really loving it; it's a cops & cons show set in small-town Pennsylvania in the middle of Amish country. The protagonist is a thief/ex-con who cons his way into being the sheriff of a small town (basically he impersonates a dead guy, the new sheriff that no one in town has met), so then he's solving crimes with the group of cops/deputies while also running heists with his old crew.

And it's just a completely nutzoid show. There is no level of OTT that is too OTT. My favorite characters on this show include:

• A drag queen hacker who kills people a lot.
• A former neo-Nazi trying to atone for his past, but still covered in white power tattoos (played by the guy who plays Ward on Iron Fist; he's really great in this, and also completely ripped - though something of a guilty pleasure, for obvious reasons)
• A suburban mom who moonlights as a vigilante and dresses up for her vigilante evenings by putting on raccoon-eyes mascara, which became a running joke with me and Orion ("Don't mess with her, she's wearing the murder mascara!")

This is a show in which you never actually learn the main character's real name (every time he starts to tell someone, he gets interrupted/ the show cuts away to something else); there's an episode in which an Amish crime lord and a gang of heavily armed Native American radicals have a shootout in the middle of downtown that leaves probably like 40 people dead; a cop blows up a drug dealer's van full of bales of drugs with a rocket launcher and no one seems to notice; a ring of Satanists are kidnapping random victims from around town and sacrificing them to Satan in midnight ceremonies. There's a whole episode told almost entirely in bodycam/security camera footage and radio communications between the characters (which was really cool, honestly). There's a shootout in a strip club, an episode that consists mostly of the main character getting tortured in/trying to escape from a speeding semi trailer full of drug dealers, and Eliza Dushku playing a crack-smoking FBI agent (literal actual crack, not a metaphor) who is probably the least convincing FBI agent I have ever seen on TV.

The murder rate in this town has got to be like 1 per 10 people.

The show finished running in 2015-ish so it's complete in 4 (relatively short) seasons. It's a Cinemax show so it's definitely R-rated; there's graphic sex, graphic violence, etc. The first two seasons are streaming on Amazon Prime. I ended up skipping straight through the first couple of seasons and starting later, because I couldn't get engaged with the first couple of episodes (the main character is still not that engaging to me, though I love the ensemble), and found myself absolutely loving it once the cast really started to click. I loved the ending too. Now I'm catching up with the earlier eps that I skipped over the first time, which are a lot more fun now that I'm already invested in the characters.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Banshee was the best batshit! I loved how the show played around with identity and people trying to reinvent themselves.

Also, hi! I subscribed to your journal after the wonderful treat you wrote me for ToT. ♥

Hi! ♥ I haven't gotten around to properly answering comments yet, but I'm really delighted you liked the treat! You gave the BEST prompts and I loved writing it.

I'm also delighted I'm not the only person in the universe who's seen this show, LOL. (The fandom is so tiny!) I'm a total sucker for that identity/reinvention theme - out of curiosity, have you ever seen Dark Matter? (General premise: six people wake up on a spaceship without their memories. The show is about all of them investigating their own pasts - most of which are pretty terrible - and trying to figure out how to go forward. Tragically cancelled on a cliffhanger, but with most of its major mysteries resolved at that point.)

Anyway, yeah, batshit and bonkers and fun; I was both relieved and delighted with the ending (after the bloodbath of season three, I was expecting things to end in a much worse place than they actually did) but I wish there was more to look forward to. :D btw, I don't know if you ever read fic for it, but on my ao3 page there are a couple Banshee fics I wrote in the last few days, set post-canon, just in case that's a thing that would be relevant to your interests.

I watched the first season of Dark Matter and really enjoyed it for those same reason but never got around to finishing it after hearing about the cancellation. Although I didn't know that most major mysteries were resolved - I may have to finish it after all!

Oooh, Banshee fic! I will check those out. :D

Re: Dark Matter - Yeah, as forever cliffhangers go, it's actually not too bad - it's more like "awww, but I wanted to see what happened next!" than "I am going to go bonkers wondering about that thing they never explained!" Most of the question marks about the characters' pasts and big worldbuilding mysteries have actually been resolved by that point.

... I mean, with the caveat that it definitely does end on a cliffhanger. It's just that it's not the worst cliffhanger they could've left it with.

I watched Banshee a couple of years ago in more or less one expanded sitting and enjoyed the heck out of it. It's not quite Justified, but it hit my pretty people blowing shit up (I think I came off Strike Back) and dysfunctional small town living (see Justified).

My son actually just finished Ozark, and I think I'll suggest Banshee next :)

It did actually remind me of Justified a lot! Justified definitely has its own unique style, but the whole "totally bonkers small town with an unrealistically crime rate" aspect was very reminiscent of it.

Anyway, I'm glad I'm not the only person who likes this show. :D If your son goes ahead and watches it, I hope he likes it too!

Oh, Banshee - miss it so much! Great characters, great visuals and some mean emotional sucker-punches. 'Tribal', the episode where the sherrif's office was besieged, was so well done, but man was it brutal. But given that the town is called Banshee it makes total sense that there is so much death.

I never thought about comparing to Justify, but it does make so much sense! Both shows are so good at creating a very distinct, facetted sense of the place where it takes place and the people that inhibit it.

Tribal was GREAT. I think it may have been my favorite single episode in the series - although, yeah, it was really harrowing, emotionally. I absolutely love that kind of plot when it's well done, the "under siege" bottle-episode type plots. It made me think of one of my favorite Justified episodes, the one where the Marshals' caravan is pinned down on the road by attackers and they have to fight their way out. (And yeah, the two shows do remind me of each other a lot. They've each got their own distinctive style, but like you said, they do a great job with that vivid sense of place and character.)

Banshee sounds really fun!

I really love it! It's very violent and emotionally wrenching, though.