Quincy and Daniel have shared everything from the very beginning. They began by splitting one zygote in their mother’s womb and have gone halves on all their worldly possessions ever since.
Their tiny flat has only one bedroom, but it’s no bother at all because Danny’s perfectly happy with his string of day jobs and Q is equally content with consulting via computer at night. And there’s no living room since it was converted into Q’s office as soon as they moved in, but that’s fine too because Q let Danny hook the Playstation 2 up to one of the monitors, and there’s enough room in front of the desk for the squashy sofa that’s terrible for one’s spine but excellent for movie nights. They share breakfast and dinner and on Sundays, tend to sack out on the sofa, draped over and under and around each other like kittens who are just a little bit cold.
They’ve got a really great lineup of speakers this year, and they’re also going to be talking about their new exhibit, “Our War Too: Women in Service.” I also happen to know that one of the women who consulted on Tyler Perry’s upcoming film about the 6888th Postal Battalion is speaking!
This is a really big deal. I have several friends who are historians and museum professionals who’ve been to the NWWII, and they’ve said that while it is a beautiful museum, it is very much telling a white, male-centered story. The new exhibit they are opening is a first for them, and it needs to succeed in order for them to do more like it.
If you find yourself with some free time on March 1, please consider signing up and tuning in to the livestream. Attendance at programs like these, even digital attendance, helps show museum executives that people care about these topics and want to see more of them.
Okay cool, but what fic? We are reading “Lay it Down” by dhampir72. You can join us without any familiarity of the story and just ask for a recap on what you missed, or you can catch up by reading up to Chapter 2. (Full details below the cut)
Please join us to read, to just hang out and listen, and to generally enjoy a good story together!
“The first five African-American servicewomen of the American Red Cross to arrive in Britain during World War II, October 1942.
They are in the UK to run the American Red Cross Club on Great George Street - a club for black servicemen only, and the first of its kind in Britain.”
L-R: Sydney Taylor Brown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Henrine Ward of Chicago, Illinois; Carol Jarett of Denver, Colorado; Magnolia Latimer of Atlanta, Georgia; and Gladys Edward Martin of Topeka, Kansas.
Friends, I have failed you all. I’ve seen a lot of posts over the last week with a lot of great biographical detail about many of the flyers and aircrew who’ve been name-dropped so far in Masters of the Air - and I haven’t seen a single thing about the one name that is directly in the center of this blog’s lane.
In Part 2, returning from their mission to Trondheim, Cleven and Egan walk into the Interrogation hut and Egan accepts a cup of coffee from a woman he thanks as Tatty. Later on, at the dance, James Douglass remarks that he will be ‘coming in hot’ on one of the American Red Cross women on the other side of the room, and one of his friends asks “General Spaatz’s daughter? Or the other one?”
Katherine “Tatty” Spaatz was a member of the American Red Cross Clubmobile service and the daughter of General Carl “Tooey” Spaatz, who commanded the Eighth Air Force on its move to England. (General Spaatz later moved to overall command of the entire Army Air Forces in the Europe Theatre of Operations, or ETO. He is, as the kids say, rather important.)
But we’re not talking about him here. We’re talking about her.
Being hunted down and cornered by an MI6 agent is not what he’d expected.
“You were already a magnificent beast. Fall into the wrong hands, and you could become a monster.”
“And what will I become, if I go with you?” he asks.
“Legend.”
“I don’t want that.”
“Then what do you want to be?”
“Cherished. I don’t care if masses admire me, or how high my value on the market rises, so long as one person looks at me and sees me, and wants what they see.”
“Single treasure seeks lonely dragon? I can work with that.”
What’s that? You said you wanted a World War Two series where women actually speak to each other? Have I got a deal for you!
When Band of Brothers first came out, I did not have cable, but what I did have was a card at a library that owned seemingly every PBS drama ever broadcast. I know and love a lot of these shows, and I hope you do, too.
As we wait for Masters of the Air to join us, maybe you can fill some time with one of these!
Classic: These shows were made in the 70s and 80s and while the production values are not the same as something made more recently, they’re all fun to watch.
Danger UXB - daily life in a bomb disposal unit.
Dad’s Army - comedy show about the Home Guard.
Hogan’s Heroes - situational comedy about life in a POW camp.
Piece of Cake - follows British pilots stationed in France as the Phony War begins.
Homefront Perspectives:
✨Housewife, 49 - Based on the wartime diary of Nella Last, who participated in the Mass Observation project. One of my favorites.
✨Foyle’s War - procedural crime drama following DCS Foyle and hsi team as he solves murders in wartime Britain. Another favorite.
Island at War - Wartime life on the Channel Islands during the German occupation
Land Girls - Follows the lives of a group of Land Girls working on an estate farm.
Bomb Girls - Follows the lives of a group of workers in a Toronto munitions factory.
Home Fires - Life in a small British town near an air base. Based on a book.
World On Fire - Follows the disparate lives of several people in several countries as the war begins.
✨All Creatures Great and Small - The life of Yorkshire Vet James Herriot, based on the book series of the same title. A favorite, both the 1970s original and the 2020 version.
First of all, we trust @mercurygray’s recs implicitly; you cannot go wrong with this list.
Second, PSA that several of these are available for PBS members through our app! Right now we’ve got:
Land Girls, Home Fires, World on Fire, All Creatures, Atlantic Crossing, and Call the Midwife (the most recent season + most recent Holiday Special).
YOU HEARD THE GOOD WGBH PEOPLE.
And in all seriousness, access to PBS Passport supports your local PBS affiliate and gets you streaming access to top quality shows. It’s cheaper than most other streaming services and they’ve got some cool stuff.
This is not a paid promotion, btw. I already own a shirt that says PBS NERD on it and a lot of mugs for my local station.
So, Harry Potter is one of my favorite childhood series. (I do not agree or condone Rowling’s statements about the trans community.) And I asked myself, what if our favorite four were part of the wizarding world. I gave each of them a Hogwarts house, wand wood & core, and a Patronus animal.
Q
Hogwarts House - Ravenclaw; the house for those with a “ready mind,” where else do you put this genius? Q loved being surrounded by similarly intelligent people during his school years.
Wand Wood & Core - Beech and dragon heartstring. A young owner of a beech wood is wise beyond their years and if that doesn’t fit the youngest Quartermaster in MI6 history, what does? A dragon heartstring is the most powerful core, but it’s also temperamental, rather like Q when he’s short of sleep and/or tea.
Patronus - Raven; the person who produces this particular Patronus is intelligent, mysterious, and a watchful guardian with a quick wit and fiery passion. James certainly gets to see the fiery passion when he fails to return his kit!
finally picked back up the darkening sky today and i've got to say... reading the training chapters while listening to your "mix for a modern girl gang" playlist is top notch! first off, it matches the confidence and strong-willed nature of the women so well, but also it's really funny listening to "coming up swinging" while reading the part where they practice hand-to-hand combat with the men... and absolutely crush them ;)
Aw, thanks, Blu! Making playlists isn’t usually a part of my fandom practice, but 2020 was a weird time, and since I was working at home, I started running a few times a week to deal with some anxiety. That was my running playlist!
TDS has two other playlists - one is more period-ish music, and the other is just for Dick and Joan.
