More site woes. But also: H:tLJ screencaps!

[marycrawford]

I think I'm spamming LJ today because of my frustration with Squidge.org (which hosts my website). The site isn't really down anymore, just reaallly slow, which means it takes hours to upload something and that my planned site overhaul is taking forever. And I still can't get into my Squidge email, although I can get far enough to see that I've got ten messages waiting. Rrgh.

So, since I've had fifteen pages of Hero's Heart screencaps burning a hole in my harddrive since Tuesday, I've decided to upload them elsewhere. The screencaps are at Fotki. This is a trial account which will expire on August 19th, but in the meanwhile it seems to work fine and doesn't seem to have any data restrictions or add photo brands or do any of the annoying things other free services do. And I was able to batch-upload all of the pics at once, thank goodness. Please let me know if you have trouble seeing/downloading the screencaps, getting to the Fotki page or anything like that. We aims to please.



Love, love, love this episode. It's the classic 'Hero loses memory' plot, but I think they did a good job with it. The absent-minded, flighty goddess Fortune was a nice touch, I wish she'd been in more episodes - then again, Hercules already has plenty of divine relatives to complicate his life for him. And for once, the plot actually makes sense! After Iolaus is unable to save a woman from falling to her death, he's devastated - he feels he has to give up the whole hero business, that he's doing more good than harm by being Hercules' partner. Hercules, needless to say, doesn't agree, but gives Iolaus some space so he can work things out. (Not very much space, however, because somehow Iolaus keeps bumping into him. *g*)

Oh yeah, screencaps. As usual, you can click on the thumbnail to go directly to the large image.

ETA: no, that didn't work. Changed the links so you go to the medium-sized image if you click on the thumbnail.

But if you go to the site, click on the thumbnail first, then on 'Get original uploaded photo', you should get the original large version. Hope this works...





Above all, this is the episode where Iolaus owns the screen - he's 'a bit of a rake' (as Michael Hurst puts it in his commentary) as well as a hell of a dangerous guy, and he fairly smoulders his way through the episode.

There's a wonderfully angsty scene where we first see Hercules, alone and forlorn by the campfire, and then we cut to Iolaus, alone by his. (Nicely bookmarked shots; Herc is sitting left, Iolaus right, so that you can see the empty place where the other should be sitting.) Iolaus is in tears, and talks to Fortune about how much he loves Hercules, he'd do anything for him, but right now he wishes they'd never met. I'm completely spellbound by the scene no matter how many times I see it. (And so is Michael Hurst, who falls silent during the commentary, then admits that he was completely absorbed. *g*)

Fortune causes Iolaus to lose his memory up to the day he met Hercules, so that the last thing he remembers is being a thief in the Lowacks gang. And so that's the mode of life he returns to - falling in with a crime boss, ousting his right-hand man and taking his place, staging a gold shipment robbery. But at the same time we see that he's still a hero, that he tries to fill the void in his life with loyalty to his boss instead of to Hercules.

And then Hercules turns out to be the man who's guarding the gold shipment - and Iolaus is unable to kill him. Love, love that scene, love Hercules' determination and utter trust that Iolaus won't kill him, even with a naked blade aimed at his gut. Love Iolaus' devil-may-care, 'you may be big but I'm gonna cut you down to size' attitude, and his complete consternation when he can't kill Herc and doesn't know why.

Did I mention that I love this episode? *g*


Best of all, Randi DuMois wrote the perfect sequel/missing scene story for this episode, which fills the gap between the arrest of Iolaus' crime boss and the return of his memory. It's very hot, beautifully written, Iolaus' voice is dead-on perfect, there is snark and frustration and wrestling and it includes my favorite one line sex scene ever: They hadn't said much the rest of the night, except of the "ow, you're on my hair" variety.

Some Enchanted Evening, by Randi DuMois, rated NC-17.

Excerpt:

Iolaus managed to wrench himself halfway down Hercules' back but the demigod twisted and clapped an arm across his shoulders, pinning him again. He said grimly, "You're not leaving here if I have to tie you to that bed!"

"You had your chance!" Iolaus snarled.

The furious and awkward struggle was interrupted by a quiet voice. "Hercules." It was General Telegonus, standing in the court, dressed in a blue and gold bedrobe and watching them with a lifted brow. "Anything wrong?"

Comments

[falzalot.livejournal.com]

Nice shots! And believe it or not, I actually read Randi's story long before I ever saw the episode. For some reason, this was one that I'd missed. I remember watching the beginning, but none of the rest of it. So it was a treat to finally get to see it when the DVDs came out.

Now I just need the time to watch it again with the commentary!!

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

MH's commentary is fun, although not quite as effervescent as his commentaries on the season 1 set - but I do think that's because he got so caught up in the episode. *g*

[falzalot.livejournal.com]

heh. Well, I haven't seen the S1 ones he did yet. Bad me. I was more interested in catching up on the episodes than watching the extra bits!

And now somebody is borrowing them! Ack!

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

If I were you, I wouldn't let them leave my hands until I'd listened to his commentary on Warrior Princess. Oh, man. He could take that show on the road. :-D

[falzalot.livejournal.com]

Okay, I take it back. You just reminded me that I ~did~ listen to Warrior Princess and Pride Goeth before a Brawl. Who could forget the old married couple or 'can I be on top tonight' comments? :->

[halimede.livejournal.com]

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /v97/free/6063d/3/337874/1203628/nfa086-or.jpg on this server.

hennaing hands = terse.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Argle. Thanks! Will try and fix.

And post a pic when they're done, will you? I love stuff like that. :-)

[halimede.livejournal.com]

I'll see what I can do. Want me to henna you when you're here next?

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Want me to henna you when you're here next?

Yes! That would be fabulous. I've never had that done before.

Mary, cavorting

[halimede.livejournal.com]

Cool. We can watch DVD's while it dries & stains. :)
If you can, remind me by email the day before, so I'll remember to set the henna to soak. :)

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

This is sounding better and better. :-)
Will try to remind. Have to remind self first, of course...

Mary "If I Only Had A Brain" Crawford

[halimede.livejournal.com]

I'll try to remember as well, but two heads are definitely better than one in this case.

Pick a couple of patterns (http://www.hennapage.com/henna/what/lineart/patternindex0.html) you like, don't look at the difficulty levels: I have a very idiosyncratic idea of what's difficult and what's easy. So if you pick a couple of things you like, we can talk about what's feasible on the day. :)

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Woot! Oh, that's gonna keep me occupied for some time, I can tell. This will be fun. :-)

[ltlj.livejournal.com]

Just realized, thinking about this episode again, that Zeno is also a father figure, which is probably another reason Iolaus gets attached to him so quickly.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he is, isn't he? I like the actor who plays him, too. He's got the balance between evil-yet-somehow-honorable down nicely and it's not at all hard to believe that Iolaus sees something in him to commit to.

[ltlj.livejournal.com]

And I forgot to say, Oh my god, what wonderful screen captures! Iolaus looks fantastic in every shot and you caught some of the best ones.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks! And don't worry, I'm not going to go "I'm not getting enough comments and will not make screencaps ever again, phhllbttt". Am having far too much fun for that. :-)

[dbw.livejournal.com]

LOL! :-)

And these are great shots, by the way. I see more icons coming in the near future (rubs hands gleefully!).

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

I see more icons coming in the near future

Woohoo! I still haven't gotten over the last ones you did. *g*
I love the effects in this one and the Iolaus-on-the-beach one I snatched. (Can you possibly tell me how you do this, or is it very complicated to explain?)

[dbw.livejournal.com]

Can you possibly tell me how you do this, or is it very complicated to explain?

It isn't exactly all that complicated, but... it really depends on what graphics software you use (because it's all about the filters) and I can't remember if you use Photoshop (PS), Paint Shop Pro (PSP) or something else.

Tell you what--let me know which software you use (I'm hoping its PS or PSP), and I'll write up a description of how I make the next icons (from your screencaps). I'll post it along with the icons. How's that?

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

That'd be great! And I use Photoshop.

(Oh, if you see my other comment about the site with the PS tutorials? Pray disregard the plea for help, because I finally found it again. *g*)

[ltlj.livejournal.com]

Snort! Now who could you mean? Man, you guys should get internet medals for trying to deal with that whiny attention vampire. I looked at her last drabble, and she got two nice comments, which is about average especially in the summer, when most people aren't online as much. It's also better than average for someone writing gen Xena and Gabrielle, when most of the members are Hercules and Iolaus fans or Strife fans or Ares fans or Xena subtext fans. If I was the moderator, I would have booted her out of the community already, which is why I don't moderate things.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

whiny attention vampire

Bwahaha! I love it when you snark. *g*

And yeah, to me it's strange, that kind of attitude. Seems to me that if you want more attention, you need to get more people to the community who like the kind of thing you like. And it also seems to me that the best way to do that is to write great drabbles, advertise a little in your LJ and let the rest take care of itself...

[barbaraa.livejournal.com]

"Snort! Now who could you mean? Man, you guys should get internet medals for trying to deal with that whiny attention vampire. "

So I wasn't being a non-compassionate conservative when I read that and thought WTF?

I have only gotten 1-2 on some of my drabbles I thought were great, but it never stopped me from continuing to spew them out. I still have to think of two to make up for my absence.

Barbara, who is very disorganized right now.

[falzalot.livejournal.com]

Mary!!!! You must made me spew soda all over my monitor!!!!!!!

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

I did? Score! *eg*

Mary, unrepentant

[cookatwork.livejournal.com]

Uuuuuhhh! And finally even I know what you all are talking about. ( trying to write something that might be considered a story by those who mean well, puts a real dent in my attention span [ which isn't very long to begin with ] ).

Somehow I'm glad that I didn't catch up earlier. All I would have said to her, would most probably have been something like 'Good Riddance' - and that's not very nice.

At least so I'm told.

Come to think of - I've posted a few drabbles and didn't get one lousy comment about them.

INJUSTICE!

But I'm really impressed by the comments ( we could have made it to fandom_wank if the community members weren't so very nice ).

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Hee! Love the slogan on your icon.

INJUSTICE!

Actually, you did get comments, but I hacked into LJ and suppressed them (with the aid of my loyal sockpuppets minions, of course), because all comments are rightfully mine.

Hmm, you think that's enough to gain us fandom_wank notoriety? Probably not, huh? *g*

[cookatwork.livejournal.com]

I KNEW IT!

No - actually I didn't had a clue. I just assumed all the other members simply didn't liked the drabbles enough to comment on them. And not even that stopped me from posting them.

But I'm afraid - as long as we don't attend any cons and make utter fools out of ourselves ( happened with BOBW ) our fandom won't make it to fandom_wank. Apparently HercXena-fans are too nice and tolerant with other people.

Hee! Love the slogan on your icon.

Thanks! ( The keyword for the pic is "Where's Iolaus?", but I couldn't fit in an arrow pointing in the general direction.) But - since ltlj proclaimed this week the "Hero's Heart Festival"-week - I have another new icon. Kind of lame, but I really like him when he's smiling that little smile. ( I found another one at Fotki which just begged to be made into an icon called 'wallflower', but it's still refusing to come out right. What a chore! ;-D )

[cookatwork.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear about your site-woes ( but at least there's hope that once the server-moving is complete everything will be back to normal :: presses thumbs furiously :: ), but the screencaps at Fotki are working great.

And they're lovely.

And gorgeous.

And absolutely fascinating.

Did I mention gorgeous?

:: goes back to drooling over ... Hercules ::

Well - I had to make a choice and I'm currently rediscovering the overwhelming sexiness that is Hercules - so I'm more than happy to hop back to Fotki and drool some more.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the kind words! I hope everything will soon be back to normal too, it's been a week already. And when it is, there should be plenty more for you to drool over. (thinks: now where's my nude Herc icon? Ah...)

Alas, there's so very little Hercules in this episode - but I agree he does look intense and sexy in a number of scenes. It's just that for me, he's wholly outshone by the nova-like intensity of Iolaus in this ep. Can't help it, I seem to be wired that way. *g*

About your icon

[cookatwork.livejournal.com]

:: THUD ::

very faintly from the general direction of the floor: Thanks

:: thud ::

Re: About your icon

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Hee! And I get to say it again: score! *g*

That's from the blooper reel screencaps, BTW. Which will hopefully be online again soon...