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crack_van2003-11-05 02:05 am
svmadelyn.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2003-11-05 02:05 am
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November Small Fandom II: Witchblade
It should be noted that "Witchblade" originally was a comic book series. It was made into a television movie, and then a show. I am mostly familiar with the show so the canon you read here comes from there, and the fiction you will see in this fandom generally works off of the television show rather than the comic books. It should all work out.
First, some music to help you get in the proper mood. Here is a great place to listen to a lot of the music from the episodes in Witchblade Season One. (Click at the bottom of the page on "Season One Music".) I'd highly recommend the song in Episode 1.04 "Sacrifice", called "Cathain." Conchobar sings this to Sara in the episode.
Our Cast of Characters: A Brief Overview
Really brief, because this show is complicated.
Sara Pezzini: A NYPD Homicide Detective completely committed to bringing criminals to justice, following in the footsteps of her beloved father. The newest, current wielder of the Witchblade, an ancient weapon of incredible supernatural power. Sara finds that 'everything is connected' through her use of the blade, and must constantly keep her job and the fact that she's a wielder in balance. Another view of the gauntlet.
Kenneth Irons: The billionaire owner of Vorschlag Industries, Irons wants control of the Witchblade. He once tried to wear the Witchblade, years ago, but it rejected him. Not much is known about Irons' past--except for the fact that he sought out Elizabeth Bronte (description forthcoming) and seduced her. He loved her, but he loved the blade more. When she died, he tried to cut it off her wrist. He placed it on his own and was horribly scarred. The moments he spent wearing the blade however, slowed the aging process dramatically and left him bound to the blade, so he has been able to lay in wait for the next wielder to appear. He's still haunted by the experience, and his every action revolves around regaining control over the blade.
Whoever controls the wielder, controls the Witchblade.
You do the math.
Ian Nottingham: Irons' walking, talking, fighting machine and right hand man. He's highly trained in the martial arts and has been raised by Irons since childhood. One of his tasks is to constantly watch over Sara and find out how much the Witchblade has been revealing to her. Devoted to Irons, in love with Sara, Ian has a complicated life.
Danny Woo: Sara's partner, who dies in the first minutes of the series, murdered by the mobster Tommy Gallo. He becomes a ghost and because of the Witchblade, Sara is able to see him and he acts as her guide for the rest of the first season.
Jake McCartey: After Danny's death, rookie Jake becomes Sara's new partner. Don't let the "Hey, that's the guy from Baywatch!" vibe fool you. There is more to Jake than meets the eye--he winds up joining with Dante's police vigilante force, the White Bulls. Only, he turns out to be an undercover FBI agent working to bring them down.
Gabriel Bowman: Owner of the ancient artifacts store talismaniac.inc, Gabriel is Sara's truest friend and becomes a valuable source of information.
Other Characters You Might Come Across In Fic:
The Former Wielders and Pretenders:
Dominique Boucher: Owner of the most elite New York modeling agency, the Boucher Agency. She was with Irons for a time back in the fifties, but he dumped her as soon as he found out she was not the true wielder. In her jail cell, she aged at a tremendous rate, turning into a shriveled old woman before our eyes.
Elizabeth Bronte: Sara's grandmother who turns up to guide Sara through key points in the Witchblade's development. Elizabeth was also a wielder. She was a linguist, sent from the State Department to Germany during World War II. She seduced a SS officer, who stole the Witchblade from Hitler's collection of objects of power. With the Blade's help, she was able to break the enigma code and escape from Germany. For more information on all of the past wielders, including Joan of Arc and Marie Curie, go here: History of Past Wielders.
Other Key Characters:
James Pezzini: Sara's beloved father, a cop who was murdered years ago.
Joe Siri: Joe is the former Captain of Sara's division, her father's old partner.
Tommy Gallo: The mobster that Sara and Danny had been tailing for years. He murdered Sara's best friend Maria, along with Danny.
Hector "Moby" Mobius: Lethal assassin that was a member of Ian's old unit, the Black Dragons. Sara killed him.
Lazar: Elizabeth Bronte had a daughter who gave birth to Sara. Sara was kidnapped as an infant, but she remembers Lazar holding her. Irons tells her Lazar is the one who placed her with James Pezzini.
Captain Bruno Dante: He becomes the captain of the Homicide and Special Crimes unit when Joe Siri retires. He doesn't like Sara and the feeling is more than mutual. He's the leader of the White Bulls, as well.
Conchobar: Sara's lover, the man who sang "Cathain" that you should have clicked on in the beginning of this review. :D He's an Irish folk singer, and he's later discovered to be Sara's soulmate--in a previous life he was a Celtic prince and in love with the then-wielder, Cathain.
Other Great Pictures of the Slash-y Variety
And you think *your* fandom has daddy issues? Pictures like these are where those icon captions come from.
Same, Part II
I think you're understanding why I love this fandom.
But I just want to make *sure*.
The Story, With Key Witchblade Facts Noted:
The Witchblade had been quiet for decades. It only is wielded when there are times of great trouble--and only wielded by women, never men. Originally this wasn't so--both men and women wore the blade, but there used to be an army of wielders of both sexes. One of the female wielders grew upset with her fellow wielder/lover and banned men from ever wearing it again. The origins of the Witchblade were hinted at throughout the two year series run. Elizabeth Bronte once told Sara that the Witchblade was a branch torn form the tree of knowledge.
The television series starts out with Sara investigating who killed her friend Maria. She and her partner, Danny, stake out their primary suspect, a mobster by the name of Tommy Gallo. She takes off running after one of Gallo's employees and winds up in a museum. She winds up next to a display case where--surprise, it's the witchblade on loan from--you guessed it--Kenneth Irons. Gunfire breaks out and the display case is smashed, the gauntlet flies toward her, ending up on Sara's wrist. She's completely unprotected against the bullets, so she raises the glove to protect her face, and suddenly it is covered in armor.
WB Fact One: The Witchblade can turn into a multitude of useful weapons--a mace, a gauntlet, a sword, just to name a few.
Sara also has to go through constant trials to determine her 'worthiness' to wield the blade. The major trial is the Periculum. Elizabeth Bronte first appears during this episode on the television series because bladewielders from the past visit and ask questions during the dream-like state of the periculum. If the wielder passes, they become one with the blade. If they fail, they die.
Sara makes it through, and at home has her first visions.
WB Fact Two: The Witchblade allows its wielder to have visions. Or, as Irons tells Sara: "The visions make some of the wielders paranoid but you should trust them. They are showing you things that are real, as real as what you normally see -- if not more so....You see things that other people don't. You see the periphery, the fringes, the faces in the shadows."
WB Fact Three: Once a wielder passes through the Periculum, her blood becomes a fountain of youth because it has bonded with the wielder on a cellular level. Irons knows this, and has kept Elizabeth's blood around for this very reason. However, the blood loses effectiveness after the wielder's death--only a live wielder has the capacity to prolong life for any true period of time.
Why this fandom's canon can be incredibly confusing:
You see, in the first season's finale "Transcendence" some serious things go down to put it mildly. Ian has died, so Irons has replaced him with a clone. The clone kills Jake and Gabriel and Sara kills him and Irons, but not before Irons has managed to literally stab her in the back. Sara finds out that she gets a one-shot chance to turn back time, undo everything that has happened. But she can only do it *once*, that's the key. Sara decides to do it and then in the final closing shots of "Transcendence", she's in a car in the minutes before Danny's death.
Yes, yes. At the *beginning* of Season One. And thus, Season Two begins literally at the beginning. Sara doesn't remember any of the events that are coming though, and everything basically turns upside down in Season Two, which is why if you go on any now-defunct Witchblade board most viewers will tell you that Season Two simply doesn't exist for them. Season One was the glory, and you won't find all that many people who disagree. I myself have yet to see most of Season Two because I just couldn't take the butchering any more.
Of interest: Other names for the Blade:
"Digitabulum Magae" -- the "glove of the witch." ~ Latin
"Lame de Sorciere" -- the "Witchblade" ~ French
"Làmh an caillagh" or "Llan An Cailleach "-- the "glove of the witch" ~ Gaelic
And now, the actual fiction...
Good Witchblade fan fiction is harder to come by than people who like Lana in the Smallville fandom. Following are links to most of the archives I have come across. Basically if there are more than two stories at the site, I linked them. Rare, rare, indeed the Witchblade fan fiction is. Most of the stories you will see me rec are from people who only wrote in the fandom as a one-shot fic, disappointingly enough.
The Witchblade Fan Fiction Archive
Kompireality
Mala's General Fiction Site
Sare Liz's Fan Fiction: Necessary to Life
Witchblade Fan Fic: The Abyss Stares Back
Believe In The Witchblade
The Wonderful Witchblade Fan Fiction Archive
Jake Defender's Fan Fiction Archive
First, some music to help you get in the proper mood. Here is a great place to listen to a lot of the music from the episodes in Witchblade Season One. (Click at the bottom of the page on "Season One Music".) I'd highly recommend the song in Episode 1.04 "Sacrifice", called "Cathain." Conchobar sings this to Sara in the episode.
Our Cast of Characters: A Brief Overview
Really brief, because this show is complicated.
Sara Pezzini: A NYPD Homicide Detective completely committed to bringing criminals to justice, following in the footsteps of her beloved father. The newest, current wielder of the Witchblade, an ancient weapon of incredible supernatural power. Sara finds that 'everything is connected' through her use of the blade, and must constantly keep her job and the fact that she's a wielder in balance. Another view of the gauntlet.
Kenneth Irons: The billionaire owner of Vorschlag Industries, Irons wants control of the Witchblade. He once tried to wear the Witchblade, years ago, but it rejected him. Not much is known about Irons' past--except for the fact that he sought out Elizabeth Bronte (description forthcoming) and seduced her. He loved her, but he loved the blade more. When she died, he tried to cut it off her wrist. He placed it on his own and was horribly scarred. The moments he spent wearing the blade however, slowed the aging process dramatically and left him bound to the blade, so he has been able to lay in wait for the next wielder to appear. He's still haunted by the experience, and his every action revolves around regaining control over the blade.Whoever controls the wielder, controls the Witchblade.
You do the math.
Ian Nottingham: Irons' walking, talking, fighting machine and right hand man. He's highly trained in the martial arts and has been raised by Irons since childhood. One of his tasks is to constantly watch over Sara and find out how much the Witchblade has been revealing to her. Devoted to Irons, in love with Sara, Ian has a complicated life.
Danny Woo: Sara's partner, who dies in the first minutes of the series, murdered by the mobster Tommy Gallo. He becomes a ghost and because of the Witchblade, Sara is able to see him and he acts as her guide for the rest of the first season. Jake McCartey: After Danny's death, rookie Jake becomes Sara's new partner. Don't let the "Hey, that's the guy from Baywatch!" vibe fool you. There is more to Jake than meets the eye--he winds up joining with Dante's police vigilante force, the White Bulls. Only, he turns out to be an undercover FBI agent working to bring them down. Gabriel Bowman: Owner of the ancient artifacts store talismaniac.inc, Gabriel is Sara's truest friend and becomes a valuable source of information.Other Characters You Might Come Across In Fic:
The Former Wielders and Pretenders:
Dominique Boucher: Owner of the most elite New York modeling agency, the Boucher Agency. She was with Irons for a time back in the fifties, but he dumped her as soon as he found out she was not the true wielder. In her jail cell, she aged at a tremendous rate, turning into a shriveled old woman before our eyes.
Elizabeth Bronte: Sara's grandmother who turns up to guide Sara through key points in the Witchblade's development. Elizabeth was also a wielder. She was a linguist, sent from the State Department to Germany during World War II. She seduced a SS officer, who stole the Witchblade from Hitler's collection of objects of power. With the Blade's help, she was able to break the enigma code and escape from Germany. For more information on all of the past wielders, including Joan of Arc and Marie Curie, go here: History of Past Wielders.
Other Key Characters:
James Pezzini: Sara's beloved father, a cop who was murdered years ago.
Joe Siri: Joe is the former Captain of Sara's division, her father's old partner.
Tommy Gallo: The mobster that Sara and Danny had been tailing for years. He murdered Sara's best friend Maria, along with Danny.
Hector "Moby" Mobius: Lethal assassin that was a member of Ian's old unit, the Black Dragons. Sara killed him.
Lazar: Elizabeth Bronte had a daughter who gave birth to Sara. Sara was kidnapped as an infant, but she remembers Lazar holding her. Irons tells her Lazar is the one who placed her with James Pezzini.
Captain Bruno Dante: He becomes the captain of the Homicide and Special Crimes unit when Joe Siri retires. He doesn't like Sara and the feeling is more than mutual. He's the leader of the White Bulls, as well.
Conchobar: Sara's lover, the man who sang "Cathain" that you should have clicked on in the beginning of this review. :D He's an Irish folk singer, and he's later discovered to be Sara's soulmate--in a previous life he was a Celtic prince and in love with the then-wielder, Cathain.
Other Great Pictures of the Slash-y Variety
And you think *your* fandom has daddy issues? Pictures like these are where those icon captions come from.
Same, Part II
I think you're understanding why I love this fandom.
But I just want to make *sure*.
The Story, With Key Witchblade Facts Noted:
The Witchblade had been quiet for decades. It only is wielded when there are times of great trouble--and only wielded by women, never men. Originally this wasn't so--both men and women wore the blade, but there used to be an army of wielders of both sexes. One of the female wielders grew upset with her fellow wielder/lover and banned men from ever wearing it again. The origins of the Witchblade were hinted at throughout the two year series run. Elizabeth Bronte once told Sara that the Witchblade was a branch torn form the tree of knowledge.
The television series starts out with Sara investigating who killed her friend Maria. She and her partner, Danny, stake out their primary suspect, a mobster by the name of Tommy Gallo. She takes off running after one of Gallo's employees and winds up in a museum. She winds up next to a display case where--surprise, it's the witchblade on loan from--you guessed it--Kenneth Irons. Gunfire breaks out and the display case is smashed, the gauntlet flies toward her, ending up on Sara's wrist. She's completely unprotected against the bullets, so she raises the glove to protect her face, and suddenly it is covered in armor.
WB Fact One: The Witchblade can turn into a multitude of useful weapons--a mace, a gauntlet, a sword, just to name a few.
Sara also has to go through constant trials to determine her 'worthiness' to wield the blade. The major trial is the Periculum. Elizabeth Bronte first appears during this episode on the television series because bladewielders from the past visit and ask questions during the dream-like state of the periculum. If the wielder passes, they become one with the blade. If they fail, they die.
Sara makes it through, and at home has her first visions.
WB Fact Two: The Witchblade allows its wielder to have visions. Or, as Irons tells Sara: "The visions make some of the wielders paranoid but you should trust them. They are showing you things that are real, as real as what you normally see -- if not more so....You see things that other people don't. You see the periphery, the fringes, the faces in the shadows."
WB Fact Three: Once a wielder passes through the Periculum, her blood becomes a fountain of youth because it has bonded with the wielder on a cellular level. Irons knows this, and has kept Elizabeth's blood around for this very reason. However, the blood loses effectiveness after the wielder's death--only a live wielder has the capacity to prolong life for any true period of time.
Why this fandom's canon can be incredibly confusing:
You see, in the first season's finale "Transcendence" some serious things go down to put it mildly. Ian has died, so Irons has replaced him with a clone. The clone kills Jake and Gabriel and Sara kills him and Irons, but not before Irons has managed to literally stab her in the back. Sara finds out that she gets a one-shot chance to turn back time, undo everything that has happened. But she can only do it *once*, that's the key. Sara decides to do it and then in the final closing shots of "Transcendence", she's in a car in the minutes before Danny's death.
Yes, yes. At the *beginning* of Season One. And thus, Season Two begins literally at the beginning. Sara doesn't remember any of the events that are coming though, and everything basically turns upside down in Season Two, which is why if you go on any now-defunct Witchblade board most viewers will tell you that Season Two simply doesn't exist for them. Season One was the glory, and you won't find all that many people who disagree. I myself have yet to see most of Season Two because I just couldn't take the butchering any more.
Of interest: Other names for the Blade:
"Digitabulum Magae" -- the "glove of the witch." ~ Latin
"Lame de Sorciere" -- the "Witchblade" ~ French
"Làmh an caillagh" or "Llan An Cailleach "-- the "glove of the witch" ~ Gaelic
And now, the actual fiction...
Good Witchblade fan fiction is harder to come by than people who like Lana in the Smallville fandom. Following are links to most of the archives I have come across. Basically if there are more than two stories at the site, I linked them. Rare, rare, indeed the Witchblade fan fiction is. Most of the stories you will see me rec are from people who only wrote in the fandom as a one-shot fic, disappointingly enough.
The Witchblade Fan Fiction Archive
Kompireality
Mala's General Fiction Site
Sare Liz's Fan Fiction: Necessary to Life
Witchblade Fan Fic: The Abyss Stares Back
Believe In The Witchblade
The Wonderful Witchblade Fan Fiction Archive
Jake Defender's Fan Fiction Archive
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Would you mind giving me editing access to this post? I'm in the process of redoing my website and I'd like to get the pictures back up.
Thanks! :)
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Being so fixated on slash, I hadn't really thought of Witchblade in terms of fanfic, but I really liked the interactions between both Sara and Jake and Sara and Ian. I'll be looking forward to your recs :)
(and, btw, I can't see any of the photos for some reason)
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And *yes* this show is incredibly thorough and complicated. They account for everything, and they think through what should be happening way at the end of the season, as all the *good* shows are wont to do. WB excelled at this first season, then second season...stumbling is a kind word for what occurred.
My domain that I hosted them on is apparently weird--a lot of people can see it, some cannot. Are you on a mac, possibly?
http://www.bladetv.com/media/sc_100/
That's a great site for caps, so I hope those help you get a good picture of it all. I'm sorry mine didn't work out. :( Hopefully the recs will make up.
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This was my first online fandom, and where I met two of my dearest friends. (Ironically, I was so shocked and disappointed by how they ended the first season, I decided to go online and see what everyone else thought.) It was also the first time I ever attempted writing fanfic (but never finished it). I have both seasons on tape, now I just might have to pull them out and watch them.
Links to WB fanfic