#stars have their own story like its a WHOLE deal involving some shitty guy who tries to mass produce them

[eebie]

oo you wanna say literally every thought you've ever had about your ocs soo bad (wants to know what their deal is)

ugouguhghhgnnnghhhhh ^ My thoughts on them

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael After Midnight: TGWTG Anniversary Crossovers

I think enough time has passed where I can talk about these films without looking like I’m jumping on a trend.

Back when it was, you know, an actual thing, Channel Awesome would every so often gather together and make a big-as anniversary film to celebrate the site. The movies would always be these massive doorstoppers where everyone would be running around in Halloween costumes of whatever character they liked the most that fit the theme and fighting some random villain. None of this ever really tied in to their work, and none of this even remotely had anything to do with reviews. It was all just hanging around with friends and having dumb fun, and when I was younger I kind of just accepted that.

But certain revelations have made that dubious. No one was having fun making these. Everyone was miserable, except perhaps Doug Walker, who was just utterly oblivious to the plight of his coworkers. There was seedy stuff going on, people were pretty much being tortured and abused, and it’s a wonder anyone was ever able to feign enjoyment in any of their scenes. And looking back on these movies I used to remember fondly, I have to say… they kind of really, legitimately suck ass. These three films – Kickassia, Suburban Knights, and To Boldly Flee – are just legitimately painful and depressing to sit through, for reasons both meta and writing-wise.

The biggest problem with all of them is their humor, which is a pretty big problem when you’re starring a bunch of comedians, some of whom can be legitimately funny. The worst bits tend to revolve around the mind-boggling number of references they cram into each script; To Boldly Flee and Suburban Knights are much worse in this regard, as they have all of the actors literally dressed up as their favorite characters, but there are two examples of this sort of thing that shine as the worst examples of all. The first is Lindsay Ellis doing a Sarah Palin impersonation in Kickassia; Palin was such a flash-in-the-pan politician that it instantly dates the whole movie, and I don’t know if it was just bad writing, lack of direction, or what, but Ellis just fails to make this joke work at all. Like I know I can’t expect this to be as funny as Iron Sky’s Palin riffing, but still, it’s just sad.

The absolute worst, however, is JO in To Boldly Flee as Ed from Cowboy Bepob… at least that’s who I think he’s supposed to be playing. I know nothing about Cowboy Bebop and have outright refused to ever watch it because if Ed is anything like how JO played her, I’m going to fucking hate the whole show, Steve Blum and Melissa Fahn be damned. JO’s portrayal is whiny, hyper, annoying, manic, obnoxious… there’s not a single positive thing that can be said. His performance of the character is pretty much the poster child for just how absolutely awful these movies could get.

There’s also a lot of jokes where the punchline is basically just “this guy’s body/genitalia is funny, teehee.” Suburban Knights and To Boldly Flee have some truly awful examples of this, such as the numerous upskirts Doug Walker gets as Link and the infamous Spoony Dune scene. But even that isn’t the worst of it. The worst of it comes from the frequent states of near-nudity that Justin “JewWario” Carmichael would find himself in throughout these films. To Boldly Flee has him channeling George Takei and fencing without his shirt on, which is bad enough, but Suburban Knights has perhaps the worst scene of all, in any of these films, though only with hindsight.

For those of you not familiar, JewWario was outed as a creepy sexual predator during the whole #ChangeTheChannel fiasco. The guy groomed young women and did god knows what else during his time on the site, with none of his coworkers any the wiser and the management doing their best to cover it up; in fact, everyone only found out because the suits who owned CA made a huge blunder during their rebuttal of the claims of its former employees. With all of that context, please try and rewatch Suburban Knights’ climax in which JewWario helps save the day by revealing his penis to everyone. This right here is Keyser Soze levels of “uncomfortable in hindsight.”

The stories aren’t much better, and often fall into the same sort of issues that The Angry Video Game Nerd movie fell into, in that nothing in these films really showcases why we love the reviewers; Kickassia infamously has the Dr. Insano twist, as one example of how they botched this. All of these movies just feel too epic in scope and don’t really try to incorporate anything that we love about these reviewers into the films. Only To Boldly Flee really does anything right in that regard, as it throws back to everything from oneshot Nostalgia Critic villains to the Todd-Lindsay-Lupa love triangle to Phelous dying… the real problem is you have to actually sit through To Boldly Flee to see that. The movies go for these epic plots where the reviewers do cool shit like take over micronations (Kickassia), quest for powerful artifacts (Suburban Knights), or deal with extremely heavy-handed and hamfisted allegories for internet privacy bills (To Boldly Flee). You’d think maybe throwing a bunch of comedians into an epic plot like any of these could lead to some funny jokes, or maybe some sort of Monty Python-esque parody, but no, instead these comedians decide to revel in melodrama and try to genuinely act, with EXTREMELY mixed results. It doesn’t help that some of these people just aren’t even remotely funny when they’re trying to be.

Here’s the thing with The Angry Video Game Nerd’s movie, in comparison to these, though: it may have had this epic, ridiculous, goofy plot involving Area 51, kaiju, aliens, and crappy Atari games buried in a landfill, but the entire plot was building up to, and ultimately delivered on, the promise of the long-awaited review of the E.T. game. For all the film’s flaws, Rolfe knew what we loved about the Nerd, he knew what the fans wanted, and by god did he give it to them in the silliest, most epic way possible. Even if I didn’t love the film, the fact Rolfe knew why we’d want to see a feature-length Nerd film in the first place speaks volumes about how he understands that he can do what will make him happy artistically and still show the fans what they want to see.

These movies from the Channel Awesome crew don’t seem to get that at all. They don’t build up to a review. They don’t build up to them discovering the worst movie or song or whatever they review. They’re all very straightforward genre comedies where they can make a bunch of shallow, Seltzer & Friedberg-esque “Look at this thing that exists! That’s a joke right?” references. Aside from seeing your favorite reviewers in a goofy plot like this, where is there any bit of the reason you watch these people in the first place? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if they were playing characters instead of them playing themselves, in their internet reviewer personas; at least then you wouldn’t be watching Brad Jones stumbling around in a Darth Vader helmet and think to yourself miserably “God I wish that poor guy was watching another E.T. porno.”

So there are some positives in these films, shockingly enough. Brad Jones is consistently good across the entire ‘trilogy,’ especially in Kickassia where he has the good sense to walk out on all the bullshit for a while. Maybe it’s just because these films got me interested in him, but I definitely think he does a good job. The same can be said for a lot of the actors, such as the bad guy in Suburban Knights and Ma-Ti’s actor; they manage to deliver at least solid performances in spite of the films. And then there are the James Rolfe cameos, and it’s just always good to see Rolfe in general.

To Boldly Flee, despite its reputation, actually has a lot of genuinely good bits. For instance, the distraction song is actually a really solid musical number. Linkara, Doug, and Spoony actually play really well off of each other, so when they have their three idiot villains team up they at least get some decently good moments. And other reviewers I generally like such as Phelous or Todd do a solid job, and frankly in To Boldly Flee Doug Walker does show some impressive dramatic acting… but it’s in service of a character who has previously been portrayed as a petulant, whiny, self-serving, egotistical manchild, so it almost feels like he’s playing a totally different character. Still, credit where credit is due.

None of these films succeed at what they want to. Ostensibly, they are supposed to be celebrating the site and the friendship of the reviewers, but as I mentioned, there’s no reviewing, there’s nothing that indicates what the site is about, and they all just come off as ego-stroking self-congratulatory wanking. None of these films were worth the pain and suffering that the cast and crew had to go through to produce these, and watching them at all these days is especially hard knowing that a lot of these people are smiling and joking through pain, stress, and abuse. It’s sick.

Kickassia may be the most competent, but that isn’t saying much at all. Aside from the whole Palin bit, this one has a simple, straightforward plot and is relatively down-to-earth, and it almost feels like it really was just a bunch of friends making a shitty low budget action movie in the desert… something sadly undermined by reality. Suburban Knights is probably one of the most uncomfortable to sit through due to jokes like Film Brain saying he’d eat Kinley Mochrie’s “pea-ness” (this was before she came out mind you) and the numerous jokes surrounding JewWario’s junk, but it almost works, like it nearly comes close to being a dumb epic fantasy comedy, but it just frequently shoots itself in the foot with the bad writing and acting and its overreliance on references.

To Boldly Flee is, to put it absolutely simple, a hot mess. This film is an utter trainwreck from start to finish. It is the Battlefield Earth of internet review movies, a bloated, messy, overly long dumpster fire with some of the most nightmarish behind-the-scenes stories and horrendous financial mismanagement you could ever imagine. But where Battlefield Earth is at least unintentionally funny, this film… is not. This film just makes you feel bad for everyone involved, it makes your heart ache for all the poor reviewers who had to suffer under the miserable conditions, it makes you question Doug Walker’s sanity in thinking he could turn his screeching manchild of a reviewer into some tragic martyr in a total 180 from how he had always been portrayed prior. None of these three films are worth sitting through, but I think To Boldly Flee is, with hindsight, the one least worth sitting through, which is a truly incredible accomplishment.

It’s kind of tragic. I still like a lot of the reviewers who took part in these – Todd, Linkara, Phelous, Brad Jones, and even Doug to some extent (though that’s an unpopular opinion these days) – but I just can’t muster up any forgiveness for these films anymore. And I don’t blame any of the people in it (except maybe Doug); most of them were there out of obligation or friendship or what have you. These films are just a monument to hubris, ignorance, broken friendships, horrible management, and wanton cruelty to those who called you friends.

See that picture up there at the top? With all of them gathered together like friends? God, how I wish that were the reality. How I wish that picture accurately reflected life, that they were all pals having a good time and that these films were something they were proud of. But behind that picture are stories all of them could tell of hurt, betrayal, resentment, anger, contempt, and some very unspeakable things in Carmichael’s case. I wish the sort of world a surface level glance at that picture shows you existed, where the crew of TGWTG all had a blast making these shitty movies together, because at least in that case I could find a sort of ironic enjoyment in them. But reality has gone out of its way to undermine any of that. 

[meta-shadowsong]

On Moral Ambiguity in Fiction

And where it works and where it doesn’t (at least for me), using Star Wars and Harry Potter as sort of examples/case studies/what have you.

Couple sort of definition things to get out of the way--first, when I say ‘moral ambiguity,’ I’m talking specifically about characters and character arcs/dynamics, rather than overall situations/plotlines. Because the two universes, as a whole, are pretty firmly “there is Real Evil and we are going to Defeat It” type of stories. And both verses also have clear and obvious Evil Bad Guys Who Ruin Everything (Palpatine and Voldemort).

I should also say, as a sort of disclaimer before we get started, that I really like nuance, especially when it comes to characters and character alignments. I have a thing for double agents; for people who were once good but now evil, or were once evil but now good, or who are somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, and exactly where they end up depends on the weather/time of day/what have you. Which is not to say that I don’t enjoy the Obviously Evil villains, or the True Good heroes. Honestly, I think that a universe that has variety going for it tends to work the best.

Last definition - there’s a few different ways to do a Morally Ambiguous/Grey Area character. There are the fallen heroes, of course, and the redeemed villains. There are also “technically on our side in the bigger fight against Evil but also really shitty people” or “Your Allies Can Be Assholes”; and “clearly our enemy but also in some ways a decent person with whom we can Empathize” or “Your Enemies Can Be Decent People.”

(Also, while I’m not really going to focus on them here, I should mention that there are also sympathetic villains, who are never redeemed or switch sides or anything, and remain entirely Villains throughout, but have enough character development/humanizing characteristics that you can at least somewhat empathize with them even as they’re Horrible People who do Horrible Things. I’m leaving them out primarily because characters in that category tend to need way more in-depth discussion/their own essays about where they fall on the good vs. bad line; and besides I’d rather focus on different kinds of Morally Ambiguous/Grey Area characters for the purposes of this essay. Also, while I think there are examples in both verses, characters in this category tend to be very much YMMV. Basically, there’s a sliding scale from “Pure Evil” up to “Your Enemies Can Be Decent People,” and I’m trying to pick my examples that sit further on the lighter end of the greyscale here.)

Right. On to the actual discussion. Star Wars, on the surface, bills itself as straightforward good-vs-evil/Fairy Tale Logic/“once you start down the dark path” etc., etc. Harry Potter, on the other hand, has that great line: “the world isn’t divided into Good People and Death Eaters.”

Of course, once you actually start digging into it, Star Wars is absolutely not what it claims to be, and Harry Potter, while not technically wrong, fails to deliver on everything that statement implies.

When I look at Harry Potter, there are certainly a lot of Morally Ambiguous characters involved. We have Dumbledore, who fits into “Your Allies Can Be Assholes;” Barty Crouch, Sr. fits into this category as well. You have Fallen Heroes, with Pettigrew being the primary example. You have people who are maybe not technically actively working for/with the Big Bad, but are still Truly Awful People; i.e., Vernon Dursley. And you have people who are maybe on your side and maybe not assholes, per se, but have their heads so far up their asses with their preconceptions/have so many blinders on that they move past useless into actively obstructionist; i.e., Fudge.

But what you don’t find is the flipside of that. I can’t think of a single person who falls under “Your Enemies Can Be Decent People.” And while I can think of a few “redeemed” villains, they’re either so badly handled they become Your Allies Can Be Assholes (Snape), exist entirely in Backstoryland and thus don’t really have personalities or anything to latch on to (Regulus Black), or are barely present in the narrative by the time they have their Heel Realization (Dudley).

And that’s...like...leaving aside all the other issues with Harry Potter that have been cropping up in hindsight over the past few years...I think that’s a large part of why I fell out of love with the franchise. Like I said, I have a thing for double agents and grey-area/ambiguous characters, and I think a lot of it comes from the way I read this series when I was younger. I mean, it comes from some other places, too, but HP was a big one (probably because HP was such a big Thing for a long time overall, in my life and in pop culture in general). But looking back, it’s...really not what I thought it was. And it’s such a bleak, crapsack worldview, you know? “The bad guys are Bad Guys, but gueeeeess what! So are a good chunk of the nominal Good Guys!”

So, no, the world isn’t divided into Good People and Death Eaters. Technically. But it’s divided into Death Eaters, Other Bad People, and A Few Trustworthy Friends.

When I look at Star Wars, on the other hand--yeah, there are definitely Your Allies Can Be Assholes characters running around. Saw Gerrera, at least in Rebels and Rogue One, is of course the primary example. But there’s also--like, Borsk Fey’lya in Legends. And, depending on the reader/writer/narrator, various characters could fall into the “so many blinders on that they move past useless into actively obstructionist” categories. Plus, characters like Hondo, and others from the seedier side of the galaxy who are Not Good and Only Occasionally Nice, but they’re reasonable allies against the True Evils out there. And of course we have our Fallen Heroes--even if we exclude Anakin from this conversation, we have at the very least Barriss, to say nothing of Dooku and Pong Krell (we don’t really see either of them in their not-fallen hero state, but we know it existed at some point).

But you know what Star Wars also has?

The other side of this coin.

Again, even if we exclude Anakin and Vader from this conversation. Redeemed villains and “Your Enemies Can Be Decent People” are all over the place. I mean, there’s obviously my best beloved Alexsandr Kallus, but there’s also Bodhi Rook and Galen Erso; there’s General Madine (another super-prominent defector); going to Legends there’s Mara Jade and Gilad Pellaeon; there’s Ventress, who was a good person and then fell and then slowly starts finding her way back; there’s my girl Bo-Katan, who joined Death Watch and probably murdered A Lot of people, and then realized Just How Awful things were and tried to fix it. (...side note, I kinda ship Ventress and Bo-Katan, anyone with me? XD). I’m still catching up on some of the canon novels/haven’t really played the video games, but I know through Tumblr/fandom osmosis there are examples there, too.

Plus, something that came up quite a few times in the Clone Wars was that, apart from Palpatine and Dooku and their inner circles, the majority of people on both sides of the conflict genuinely believed they were fighting on the side of Right; and the Separatists actually did have some legit points about the way the Republic government was messed up. (Which is one of the bits I had a slight issue with in Queen’s Shadow, that they seemed to be taking that away from Mina Bonteri a little bit by having her in contact with someone who seemed to be either Sidious or Tyranus, but I digress.) But the PT era in general is where ambiguity and complicated politics lives, and this also starts getting into some YMMV territory, similar to Sympathetic Villains, so I’ll leave it at that.

I think that what it comes down to, really, is that HP, for all it makes its moral ambiguity explicit/centers it/talks about it, leans hard into the Your Allies Can Be Assholes aspect, while Star Wars leans more towards the Your Enemies Can Be Decent People side of things. And, again, this is not saying that there isn’t a range of quality in how these things can be handled. Like, Your Allies Can Be Assholes, when handled well, can be really engaging/amazing. And Your Enemies Can Be Decent People can quickly go in all kinds of bad directions if it’s not handled well.

But overall, a story that leans more towards the second is more hopeful. One of the main arc words in SW is hope, and I think that’s why the grey-area characters work so much better there, because they support that thesis, so to speak.

I also think that Star Wars has a much more balanced greyscale than HP does. Like, the Your Enemies Can Be Decent People is more prominent because, again, the series’ watchword is Hope, but there's still quite a few Not Nice people on the side of Good, which adds its own layer of nuance/interest, at least for me. ...and, you know, the fact that Star Wars has both Pure Evil and more nuanced villains/antagonists probably contributes to that. It might be that this kind of Moral Ambiguity works best when there is a clearly defined Evil to compare it against. Both in terms of the greyscale good guys and the greyscale bad guys.

In the end, I think there’s probably a lot of things that go into it, but overall the ambiguity in SW works so much better for me than HP. And I think the distribution along that sliding scale is a huge part of it. Because HP’s version kind of boils down to ‘Life Sucks; sure there are a few Good People who try to make it suck less, but most of the people, even on your side, are kind of awful’ and SW’s version boils down to ‘there is hope, even if it doesn’t always pan out; yes there is evil in this world and there are some, even on your side, who might choose it and refuse to change--but there are at least as many people who turn their back on it, even if it takes them a while.’ Both acknowledge that there is Evil in the world, and that dealing with it isn’t always simple or clear-cut, but SW takes a broader, more nuanced look at that question. Even if it doesn’t outright say that’s what it’s doing.

(And, sure, the fact that HP promised things it didn’t/couldn’t deliver and handled a few of the examples it tried to provide really badly doesn’t help, but...yeah.)

So, there it is. A lot of Personal Opinion, obviously, but...I feel like I might be on to something here? What are your thoughts?

((Also, I’m aware that I didn’t talk about the ST like at all, but that’s because, at least IMO, the ST has fewer morally ambiguous characters in general, at least in the sense I’m talking about. That being said, there’s at least the one guy from the Phasma frame story who falls into Your Enemies Can Be Decent People; and I guess I technically could have mentioned Kylo Ren when talking about fallen heroes, on the same justification I included Dooku/Pong Krell, even though I personally find him much less interesting than Dooku, in particular...Anyway, what I’ve noticed in the ST is that, when people are working at cross-purposes, they tend to still be firmly on one side or the other, just with differently-aligned priorities. And/or are Hondo, who marches to the beat of his own drum and always will. I love that he’s still around XD.))

[brilliantorinsane]

The Speckled Band on Stage:      Yep, Still Gay

Note: I tagged those who reblogged the first part of this series. Please let me know if you would prefer not to be tagged in future posts.

This is the second installment in my series on obscure Sherlock Holmes film adaptations and their depiction of Holmes and Watson both individually and in relation to each other. (For a discussion of the 1921-23 silent films starring Eille Norwood, which appears to have been Doyle’s favorite adaptation, see here.)

I really didn’t mean to write a post about this one, seeing as it doesn’t strictly fit the theme of this series. It is a play, not a film, and it is only sort of an adaptation—although a retelling of The Speckled Band, it is written by Doyle himself. But while researching a very gay and very terrible 1931 film, I discovered that it was loosely adapted from this play. Naturally I read it as part of my research, telling myself that I wouldn’t get sidetracked writing a post about it. The failure of my self-control now lays before you.

In my defense, this play really is … well it really is Something. All sorts of wonderful and all sorts of tragic. If you’d prefer to read it for yourself before encountering the spoilers in this post, hop on over here and scroll to the second half of the webpage. And if you’ve got your subtext glasses so much as perched lightly on the end of your nose, be ready to be sent reeling by what you find.

(Spoilers below the cut)

Production and Reception                                  

Doyle’s decision to adapt The Speckled Band for the stage was rather spur-of-the-moment. He had leased a theater for six months in order to showcase The House of Temperley, an adaptation of his novel Rodney Stone, but the play was largely unsuccessful (x, x). Threatened with considerable financial loss, Doyle set to work and within a week had written The Speckled Band. Despite its rushed composition the play was decidedly successful, and Doyle seems to have been quite pleased with it (x).

The play alters the original short story considerably. Some changes are so inconsequential as to be puzzling—the villain’s name is changed from Roylott to Rylott, the names of the stepdaughters are switched, etc—but other alterations are structural and make a significant difference. In particular, instead of following Watson’s pov, the audience’s perspective revolves primarily around the Rylott house. The scenes introducing Holmes and Watson are also considerably altered and expanded for potentially unfamiliar audiences, and a good deal more shouting and action is introduced throughout. 

Oh, and Watson is engaged to Mary Morstan. Yeah. More on that later.

I have two complaints: First there is an uncomfortable dash of orientalism (i.e., western depictions of the east which cast it as mysterious, dangerous, and Other, and which played a largely unintentional but nonetheless significant role in justifying British imperialism), which is present in the original story but rather more prevalent in the stage play. Second, the female protagonist, although commendably brave, loses what little agency she had in the original story. But aside from these elements, I loved this play. The pacing is good and kept me engaged even when neither Sherlock or Watson are present, Dr. Rylott is genuinely frightening and I was really rather tense at times despite knowing the ending, and the occasional humor is on point—I actually laughed aloud once or twice. Further, ACD’s allegiance with the oppressed is out in full force, and there’s some genuinely touching commentary on the debilitating effects of abuse. And then, of course, there is Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson …

Sherlock Holmes on Stage                                      

Guys. This is, pure and undiluted, Sherlock Holmes at his best. If you ever start to fear that Sherlock really might be the cold and detached reasoning machine some folk have fixated on, just read the way Arthur Conan Doyle writes him in this play. You will never doubt again that he is anything besides a snarky ahead-of-his-time genius with a heart of literal gay gold. We’ll get to the ‘gay’ part in later section, so we’ll set aside his interactions with Watson for the moment. There is plenty else to discuss.

You see, this Holmes does spout a variation of that much abused line from A Scandal in Belgravia, saying: “[love] would disturb my reason, unbalance my faculties. Love is like a flaw in the crystal, sand in the clockwork, iron near the magnet.” I understand that the statement, here and in Scandle, refers specifically to romantic love. Yet I cannot think it’s an accident that nearly the very next moment Holmes is flatly refusing to find the wife of a clearly abusive husband, asking only enough questions to ensure that she has found a safe refuge, even though the law is on the husband’s side and the man offers a whopping fee of 500 pounds. As if Doyle wants to drive home that Holmes accepts cases purely on the basis of empathy for the downtrodden and not finances, Holmes then remarks: “I’m afraid I shall never be a rich man, Watson.” Added to this, the manner in which he listens to, comforts, and puts himself in danger for Roylott’s step-daughter Enid is genuinely touching. As many of us have asserted for years, Sherlock Holmes is the champion of justice, ally of the oppressed, and altogether a beautiful smol man. ‘Love is a flaw in the crystal,’ indeed.

There is also a pleasing dash of Holmes the psychologist. It appears most obviously in an early analysis of Dr. Roylott, but most touchingly toward Rylott’s mercilessly abused servant Rodgers. The man is essentially good-hearted but entirely incapacitated by fear of his master, and this leads to his betraying Enid’s attempts to contact Sherlock. It was obviously a shitty move, but Holmes, who earlier expressed understanding of the thoroughgoing damage caused by the man’s long, forced dependence on a maniac for his basic needs, responds compassionately: “He is not to be blamed. His master controls him.”

Added to this we have Holmes in disguises, bamf!Holmes, Holmes calling people idiots and taking far too much delight in dancing circles around them, and of course utterly brilliant Holmes (though that’s a given), so it seems almost an embarrassment of riches that we also get peak sassy Holmes. He makes a number of delightful appearances, although my favorite is the following, which occurs after he has agreed to protect Enid from Rylott:

RYLOTT: What I ask you to do — what I order you to do is to leave my affairs alone. Alone, sir — do you hear me? HOLMES: You are perfectly audible.

As utterly delightful as all of this is, Holmes’s darker side is not entirely absent, at least in his personal habits—the cocaine does make its appearance. But more on that later.

John Watson on Stage                                             

To be honest, I found myself rather anxious about how Doyle would depict Watson. We fans have been in the habit of discovering Watson between the lines of the cannon stories—as the man is far more interested in talking about Holmes than himself, it takes a bit of digging to discover Watson’s outstanding qualities. But what if the Watson we love so dearly is our own invention, and Doyle himself was simply uninterested in the man except as a conduit to portraying Holmes?

I really shouldn’t have worried.

It is true that Watson rather disappears into the background once Holmes is working. But that is not to say he becomes at all useless. In fact, the Watson in this play is quite simply our Watson—kind, steady, intelligent, dangerous, and with something of a temper hidden beneath the steady veneer.

In the play, Watson is the doctor who examines the body of the first murdered sister (who is here called Violet) two years before Holmes becomes involved in protecting the remaining sister, Enid. Watson, bright fellow that he is, clearly suspects that something is off. Ultimately there is nothing he can do at the time, but his involvement allows for one my favorite moments: Watson employing Holmes’s deductive skills. True, it is for a single,  relatively inconsequential matter; but he does it and he’s right and he impresses the whole room and guys! Watson! is! an! intelligent! man! I mean, we’ve all known that for forever, but its rather nice to get such a clear nod of agreement from Dyole.

In addition to his intelligence, Watson exhibits a empathy and compassion that in this story will be matched (not surpassed) only by that of Holmes. As an old friend of Rylott’s now-dead wife, Watson acts as comforter to the surviving girl. We are told that he came immediately and probably well in opposition to his own convenience when first he heard of the tragedy, and his treatment of Enid is gentle without being patronizing. Unsettled by the Rylott household and clearly wishing he could do more, he also repeatedly urges Enid to contact him if she has any suspicion of danger. All of this prompts Enid to declare: “Your kindness has been the one gleam of light in these dark days.” It is a lovely description of the man who has been a light in the dark for at least one other—the sort of testament we would have been unlikely to hear of if this story were reported through Watson’s own narration.

Again, I’ll leave the majority of his interactions with Holmes for the next section, but it is worth mentioning that there is no objection from him when Holmes turns down an easy 500 pounds. Watson is intelligent and he is good—he saw the signs of abuse and he would not have his friend benefit on those terms. These scenes also provide a wonderful dose of protective Watson. And while Holmes is of course at the head of the investigation, he and Watson are wonderfully in sync, and Watson proves his worth.

When it comes down to it, the Holmes and Watson in this play are transparently the two deeply compatible men we seek to dig out of cannon: mutually sharp and compassionate, courageous and quick to protect, with Holmes giving Watson stimulation and purpose and the means to aid others, and Watson providing Holmes with a firm right hand and a ready ear and a steadiness that counteracts the extremities that drive Holmes to cocaine. Watson and Holmes as Doyle portrayed them—as no other adaptation would portray them for far too many years—are just kinda perfect for each other.

But Watson is engaged.

So … What About Johnlock?                                  

*buries head in hands* *giggles* *sobs* … Yeah. Yeah, it’s here. Yeah.

I really wasn’t sure what to expect from this play. I thought that perhaps the stage would strike Doyle as too exposed and vulnerable, or that perhaps he wouldn’t trust the actors, or that he would feel unsafe without the veneer of Watson’s narration—that, one way or another, he’d be persuaded to leave the gay subtext out of this one. But, um, Doyle? Buddy? Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely chuffed that you managed to avoid allegations a la Oscar Wilde. But also … how?

Honestly, I’ve always wondered whether Doyle was aware that he was writing a love story or whether that’s what wound up on paper regardless of his intent. This play just might be my answer.

a.) Sherlock Holmes: The Work as a disguise

The most blaring subtext is concentrated in Act II Scene II, where Holmes first enters the stage and his primary interactions with Watson occur. This play takes place during one of the dark times when Watson isn’t living at Baker Street, and when he visits Holmes to present him with Enid’s case, Holmes comes out disguised as a workman. (Before this Watson comments with dismay on the evidence of Holmes’s continued cocaine habits—this will be significant later). The disguised Holmes pokes fun at Watson, who doesn’t recognize him, accusing him of being responsible for Holmes’s untidy habits. There may be a rather tragic subtextual undertone to the whole conversation, but there’s too much else to discuss. So I’ll leave that aside and instead highlight the exchange that occurs when Holmes drops his disguise:

WATSON: Good Heavens Holmes! I should never have recognized you. HOLMES: My dear Watson, when you begin to recognize me it will indeed be the beginning of the end. When your eagle eye penetrates my disguise I shall retire to an eligible poultry farm.

Now, this could be innocent enough—just a fun way to introduce the clever detective. But if one is at all alert to the mere possibility of subtext, alarum bells should be ringing full force at the fact that the first on-stage interaction between these two characters consists of Holme demonstrating his ability to hide his true identity from Watson, and then saying that if he was unable to deceive Watson it would literally be the end of his life as he knows it. And it’s worth taking note of his phrasing: not “when you begin to recognize my disguises,” but rather “when you begin to recognize me.” Is this just a matter of professional pride, or is there something deeper that Holmes is afraid of having discovered?

But you know, maybe I’m just reading into this. This is a story about preventing Enid’s murder, its got nothing to do with romance or love, that would be thematically inconsistent and out of place—

HOLMES: Well, Watson, what is your news? WATSON: Well, Holmes, I came here to tell you what I’m sure will please you. HOLMES: Engaged, Watson, engaged! … The successful suitor shines from you all over.

Oh. Okay then.

Now, it is important to understand that Watson’s marriage has literally nothing to do with the Rylott plot. The engagement in no way affects Watson’s movements, and Mary never appears on stage. No; the first half of this scene is devoted entirely to introducing us to Holmes—the few clients he sees in this section are clearly selected to give us a sense of his character, methods, and values. That means that for some reason Doyle thought that a proper understanding of Holmes requires a discussion of love and marriage—specifically, Watson’s marriage.

Watson, being an imbecile as well as an intelligent man, thinks Holmes will be pleased with his news. Holmes rises to the occasion as best he can, calling the news “better and better” when he discovers Mary Morstan is the woman Watson has chosen, but not before he lets slip the sentence: “What I had heard of you, or perhaps what I had not heard of you, had already excited my worst suspicions.” Worst suspicions, Holmes? I thought this was supposed to be giving you pleasure? Well, perhaps he’s merely being facetious.

But next moment he slips again, saying, “You lucky fellow! I envy you.” When Watson suggests that Holmes might find a woman of his own one day, Holmes cryptically replies: “No marriage without love, Watson.” This might have been the first line that really floored me—the bare fact of Holmes’s conviction that he will never love a woman (‘woman,’ of course, being implied in the concept of marriage at the time). But when Watson asks why, Holmes falls back on the “[love] would disturb my reason” nonsense.

Now to be clear, I understand that Holmes is specifically discussing romantic love here, and that there is no connection between a lack of romantic attachment and a lack of sentiment and care for others generally. But here’s the thing: Holmes’s self descriptor doesn’t depict him as aromantic—i.e., ‘I just don’t feel romantic stuff.’ It depicts him as a reasoning machine—‘strong emotions disrupt my process.’ And in context of literally every friggin thing he does in this entire play, that’s nonsense. It is abundantly clear that reason is his tool, but compassion and sentiment are his motives.

One might argue that this is slightly sloppy writing (it was composed in a hurry, after all), or that Holmes simply doesn’t have the words to describe his aromanticism. Yet just moments before he said he envied Watson’s relationship, and moments before that revealed himself to be a consummate actor whose very existence as he knows it depends on disguise …

The already unwieldy length of this analysis requires that I speed a bit through the goldmine that follows: through Holmes punting aside requests from a royal family and the actual Pope because Watson has a case in which he has a personal interest—and I can’t resist pointing out that Holmes says he will of course take the case if Watson has “any personal interest in it.” It’s not ‘I’ll make time in my busy schedule if this is really very important to you,’ it’s ‘oh, you have a thing that you at least kinda sorta care about? The Pope can wait.’ I must gloss over Holmes transparently wanting to get as much of Watson’s company as he can, declaring that he has always seen Watson as his partner, and wishing for a plaque with his and Watson’s names on it, despite heavy implications that Watson has been almost entirely absent from Holmes’s work for some time. I’ll just mention in passing the truly remarkable number of “my dear fellows” and “my dear Watsons" Holmes manages to drop in a brief space of time, his clear desire to protect Watson from the dangers of the case despite later informing Enid that he is “a useful companion on such an occasion,” and his cry of “No, Watson, no!” when his friend leaps up to protect him from the poker Rylott is threatening him with.

I will not, however, pass over what occurs when Watson leaves Holmes, intending to meet him at the train station later that day. Watson’s final words on his way out are: “Good bye—I’ll see you at the station,” to which Holmes replies, “Perhaps you will,” adding to himself: “Perhaps you will! Perhaps you won’t!” Ah, what’s that? On about disguising yourself from your best friend again, eh Holmes? But then, within the play this refers to the fact that Holmes intends to actually disguise himself at the train station, so it has a literal meaning and not a metaphorical one, it has nothing to do with a deeper hiddeness, certainly nothing to do with love—

HOLMES: Ever been in love Billy? BILLY: Not of late years, sir. HOLMES: Too busy, eh? BILLY: Yes, Mr. Holmes. HOLMES: Same here. Got my bag there, Billy? BILLY: Yes, sir. HOLMES: Put in that revolver. BILLY: Yes, sir. HOLMES: And the pipe and pouch. BILLY: Yes, sir. HOLMES: The lens and the tape? BILLY: Yes, sir. HOLMES: Plaster of Paris, for prints? BILLY: Yes, sir. HOLMES: Oh, and the cocaine.

Oh … oh. Shit.

Please understand that this exchange—consisting of Holmes again raising the topic of love immediately after returning to the subject of his disguise, both of which he addresses as soon as Watson has left, as if he could not discuss them in front of his friend—comes apropos of nothing except Watson’s announcement of his engagement far back at the beginning of the scene. And I don’t see how the way he raises the subject and dismisses it can be seen as anything but the covering of some deep emotion—there is longing in the way he immediately brings it up, showing that it has stuck in his mind the whole while, and something tragic in the way he next-moment dismisses the clear preoccupation with the claim of being ‘too busy,’ clearly echoing the ‘I envy you … love is not for me’ progression of his earlier exchange with Watson.

And I get that in theory this longing for but dismissal of love could be read in a number of ways besides a socially forbidden love for his recently engaged partner. One might argue, for example, that he is aromantic but lonely and longing for the consistency of attachment others find in romantic love, or that he’s bursting with all sorts of hetero affections that he has chosen to sacrifice for the sake of The Work.

I would simply ask any inclined towards those arguments to consider the framing of this scene. I would ask them to question why ACD chose to introduce and conclude the scene which functions as an introduction to Holmes with the detective’s ability and need to disguise himself from Watson specifically, immediately juxtaposed with discussions of romantic love and Holmes’s desire for it which is clearly present but immediately veiled—disguised?—by his commitment to the work, with the cocaine hovering ominously behind. Then consider that between these mirrored book-ends we watch Holmes allow the man from whom he must disguise himself to disrupt the flow of the work which he claimed was supreme, making clear his wish that Watson be drawn into that work—a desire counteracted only by the transparent fact that he would prefer to risk his own bodily injury rather than put his friend in harm’s way. Add to all of this that Doyle works in a mention of the Milverton case and thus allows Holmes to comment on how his ruse to undermine Milverton involves courting and being courted by a woman and how distasteful he finds the experience and—well, you much reach your own conclusions. I have reached mine.

b.) Watson: Substitutionary desire

I began by speaking of Holmes because the subtext is monumentally more apparent on his part, and unlike Holmes it would be easy and even (though I cringe to say it) reasonable to read Watson as a comfortable heterosexual in this play. Does this mean that Doyle wrote one of those dreadful adaptations in which Holmes is pining away with an unrequited love for a Watson who is incapable of returning his romantic affections?

Not necessarily. As far as I can tell, without the clear implication of Sherlock’s affections one would be on shaky ground arguing that Watson was intended as anything besides a Hetero Bro. However, the clear coding of Holmes as in love with Watson causes one to wonder whether the affection might not be returned, and the results of investigation are inconclusive but intriguing.

Although he doesn’t make an appearance until the second act, Holme is mentioned by Watson in the first scene. Assuring Enid that she can turn to him if she is in any need, he admits that there is little he can do on his own. But he then adds: “I have a singular friend—a man with strange powers and a very masterful personality. We used to live together, and I came to know him well. Holmes is his name—Mr. Sherlock Holmes. It is to him I should turn if things looked black for you. If any man in England could help it is he.”

To be fair, it is not unusual in stories for someone to describe the hero in grandiose terms before he is seen directly by the reader/audience. Still, that’s quite a way to describe one’s friend. I find myself particularly fixating on “strange powers and a very masterful personality.” You do realize that you could have just said he’s smart, right Watson? I mean, maybe things were different back then, but if I described my friend as having a ‘masterful personality’ and then tried to claim they were my platonic bestie, I’m pretty sure I’d get my fair share of dubious glances.

Watson mentions his friend once more when his application of Holmes’s methods to clear up a detail of the investigation prompts an impressed exclamation from the coroner, to which Watson responds: “I have a friend, sir, who trained me in such matters.”

So at the very least, we have a Watson who idolizes, respects, relies on, and emulates his friend—all of which makes the fact that he is no longer living with Holmes something of a puzzle.

You see, the play never gives us a reason for Watson having moved out. The comment to Enid in which he mentions that they “used to live together” occurs two years before Sherlock becomes involved with the case and Watson becomes engaged to Mary, so it clearly has nothing to do with her. Yet not only has he moved out, his involvement in the cases is implied to have dwindled significantly or even stopped altogether—in one of the saddest lines of the play, Holmes comments that of course Watson wouldn’t remember Milverton because: “it was after your time.”

But why these degrees of separation? At no point are there signs of any ill-will between the friends. The danger certainly wasn’t an issue for Watson: when Rylott threatens Holmes Watson literally “jumps” to protect him, and he insists on sharing the danger of the Rylott house. Nor does it seem viable to speculate that Baker Street’s location became inconvenient for Watson—the speed with which Rylott makes his way to Watson’s home and from there to Baker Street demonstrates that they still live quite close. One might more plausibly theorize that Watson was becoming more invested in his medical practice and involvement in Holmes’s work was interfering, but why would ACD make an alteration so irrelevant to the story and then not even explain it? After all, the friends were still living together in the short story from which this is adapted. What could be the point of such a change?

Well, the fact is, while their bond is undeniable and remarkably strong, there are hints of something … off between the friends. Despite claiming to see Watson as his equal partner, Holmes fails to communicate with him about how they will be involved in the Rylott case, telling Watson to come on the 11:15pm train but neglecting to mention that he will be going to the house in disguise some hours earlier. The motive behind this omission is unclear—he previously tried to dissuade Watson from joining the case on account of the danger, so perhaps Holmes intends for Watson to give up and stay away when Holmes does’t appear. (Watson, of course, comes anyhow). Or perhaps Holmes wished to be apart from Watson for a time in the wake of hearing of his engagement (Holmes calling for the cocaine comes unsettlingly to mind here) but knew Watson wouldn’t allow him to go to Rylott’s alone. But whatever Holmes’s motive, Watson knows only that he has been excluded and cut out. Similarly, if in the past he has sensed that Holmes was on some level disguising himself from him would he would not have been likely to imagine a flattering cause. One cannot help but wonder whether it is these exclusions that cause Watson, despite inserting himself determinately when Holmes’s safety is at stake, to feel that he must offer to remove himself from the room when Holmes calls in clients. Certainly Watson has no inkling that Holmes might be in love with him—no kind friend who suspected as much would introduce his engagement by saying: “I came here to tell you what I am sure will please you.”

This then, is what we have: two men who deeply admire each other, long for one another’s company, and would clearly die for one another, and yet one of them is hiding and the other running first from the house and then into marriage. We have good reason to believe the one is hiding because he fears revealing his love; is it unreasonable to suppose the other is running for the same reason? Is it strange to think that Watson, feeling unable to trust to his powers of disguise in the way Holmes can, feeling the continual sting of Holmes hiding from him and cutting him off and unable to interpret those actions as anything besides distrust or indifference, would have sought safety in distance and ultimately comfort in binding himself to another?

A final note: we know nothing about Mary in this play. Despite having come in part to announce his engagement, Watson has no rhapsodies to offer on behalf of his fiancee—he seems far more interested in Holmes’s propensity for love, and, failing that, in Holmes’s work. Although Holmes’s (admittedly not impartial) deductions imply that Watson is genuinely pleased with his engagement, we learn precisely two details about Mary, both from Holmes: first that she has red hair, and second that Watson chose a woman who Holmes “met and admired.” Despite their seemingly limited contact over the past two years, Watson still seems unable to be married without at least some reference to Sherlock Holmes.

c.) Sorry … have some petty ACD as recompense

I feel I owe you an apology. I am aware that if you had the patience to read my ridiculously long ramble and are convinced by my interpretation of the Holmes and Watson’s relationship in the play, your ‘reward’ is having a dark but ultimately triumphant detective story transformed into a fucking tragedy that ends with two broken hearts. All I can offer is the comfort of knowing that for 130 years neither marriage nor death nor the near erasure of Watson from the first forty years of stage and film adaptations have been able to keep these two apart. They will find their way back to one another.

Oh, and you also might enjoy hearing that this play is totally ACD’s revenge on heteronormativity.

Okay, I can’t prove that. But it really looks like it. You may be aware of the 1988 play Sherlock Holmes, written by Doyle and William Gillette. If you’re like me a week ago, you may not know that Doyle wrote the original script himself, and Gillette became involved only when Doyle’s script was rejected and the producer urged him to bring Gillette on to rewrite it. I like to imagine that the rejection letter went something like: “Look, buddy, you can’t have Holmes staring forlornly after Watson while instigating a wistful conversation about love with Billy. You just can’t,” but realistically we don’t know why the first draft was rejected. But we do know that Doyle specifically requested that Gillette not give Holmes a (female) love interest, and that Gillette sent Holmes off into the sunset with a woman anyway (x).

Then, eleven years later with a failing theater on his hands, Doyle locks himself away in a room and says, “Fuck it. Imma write a Holmes play, and when I introduce him the first thing everyone is going to know is that he’ll never marry a woman, and the last thing the introduction will tell them is that he’ll never marry a woman and—you know what, I’ll take that Milverton story where Holmes groans about needing to date a woman and throw that in the middle.” And that’s true of the play even if you don’t buy the queer reading. But also, its super gay.

And frankly I just love that not only did Doyle refuse to give in to society’s attempt to fit his story into their heteronormative mold, it actually worked and Doyle made up all the money he was poised to lose and more by shoving a gay love story into his audience’s face.

Well done, ACD, well done.

Conclusion: Should You Read It?                            

I mean, I think my answer is fairly obvious by now. If you’re interested and have the time, it is 100% worth it. And I hope it doesn’t feel like I’ve spoiled all the good parts. There are reams of gems I didn’t even allude to—and that’s not counting everything I doubtless missed.

I just have one request: if you do read the play and end up posting about it on tumblr, would you tag me in your comments? Hearing someone else’s thoughts on this hidden treasure would be a delight. 

@thespiritualmultinerd @a-candle-for-sherlock @missallainyus @steadymentalityengineer @iant0jones @devoursjohnlock @disregardedletters

[aion-rsa]

Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 Episode 7 Review: Unification III

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This Star Trek: Discovery review contains spoilers.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 3, Episode 7

The Vulcans have long been one of Star Trek‘s most fascinating creations. A society built on the value of logic, The Original Series immediately challenged the concept by making main character Spock half-human, with all of the emotionality that comes with it. Through his struggles, we were able to see both the value and limits of a life led by logic; his conclusions (and ours) on the matter were rarely simple ones. That legacy continues on today in Discovery, with an episode decades in the making. “Unification III” is more than just a reference to the 90s-era Next Generation two-parter (“Unification I” and “Unification II”) that told the story of Ambassador Spock’s efforts to bridge the divide between the long-separated Vulcan and Romulan civilizations, it is an intentional and direct continuation of that story. (If we didn’t get that from the content, we’d glean it from the episode’s title.) This is a yet another Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 installment that is deeply interested not just in pulling back in some of the franchise’s most celebrated characters, but in engaging with its most enduring themes.

What are the pros and cons of being part of something larger than yourself? It is a question last week’s episode, “Scavengers,” explicitly delved into and its one we see front and center yet again here, to even greater effect. It’s a question Michael needs to answer for herself, as she continues to question her place on the Discovery and in the Federation as a whole following her year without them. And it’s a question Ni’Var, the ex-Federation planet formerly known as Vulcan, cannot ignore, as it continues to live in a post-reunification society composed of both Vulcans and Romulans.

It is shocking to know that the planet that used to be Vulcan, one of the founding members of the Federation and always a beacon of light and justice, is no longer part of the interplanetary alliance. Frankly, it’s the biggest warning sign so far that perhaps this future incarnation of the Federation cannot be trusted. But that debate is for another episode. This episode’s debate lies firmly within the confines of The Burn, a mystery that has become increasingly tangled up in the story of Michael Burnham—not because she has any personal memory of the tragedy but because she has made it her mission to get to the bottom of the incident that tore the Federation apart in the hopes that she can bring the Federation back together again.

The mystery of The Burn leads Michael and the Federation to Ni’Var. Prior to The Burn, all Federation member planets were asked to put resources towards Starfleet’s dwindling dilithium problem. Ni’Var came up with SB-19, and experimental project that involved somehow moving ships through space in a near-instantaneous manner that is not unlike the Discovery’s spore drive method. However, the Ni’Var scientists deemed the experiment too dangerous and planned to shut it down… until the Federation ordered them to continue. When the Burn occurred, Ni’Var believed it was their fault and that the Federation forced them into the tragedy. Ni’Var chose to leave the Federation as a result.

Michael is insistent on bringing her new findings on The Burn to Ni’Var, as she believes it proves that SB-19 was not the source of the accident. She also wants access to any data from the SB-19 project that could help lead to more answers about The Burn. Despite her insistence, Michael is initially and surprisingly hesitant to go herself. However, Vance convinces/orders her. After all, who better to act as the Federation’s ambassador to Ni’Var than the sister to Spock, the person who paved the way to the Vulcan-Romulan reunification?

Unfortunately, Ni’Var President T’Rina immediately and definitively shuts down Michael’s request for the SB-19 data. But this is far from Burnham’s first time dealing with stubborn Vulcan-types. She invokes the T’Kal-in-ket, a Vulcan ritual that demands a quorum entertain her request for scientific data. Basically, it’s a debate club meet mixed with a therapy session with tiki torches for ambiance, and it is all so very Star Trek.

Michael is appointed an advocate from the Romulan Qowat Milat, aka the order of warrior-nuns seen this season in Star Trek: Picard and, in the biggest surprise of the episode, it is Michael’s long-lost mom! Honestly, the plot twist that time-traveling Gabrielle has someone become a Ni’Var warrior nun sometime in the last few years is a bit hard to swallow, but it’s such a glorious reunion that I’ll allow it. It also leads to one of the most intense moments of the episode, when Gabrielle more or less emotionally manipulates her own daughter in front of the Ni’Var quorum, the Ni’Var president, Saru, and a roomful of others into publicly working through her issues.

Why is Michael so obsessed with finding out why The Burn happened? How can she claim to speak for and trust the Federation when she was disobeying direct orders just last episode? Where does Michael belong? These questions, in grand Star Trek tradition, are asked in what is more or less a courtroom drama. And, in grand Star Trek tradition, when our protagonist reaches for faith in the institution of Starfleet, in her Discovery family, and in the ideals of the Federation, she finds it. In the process, she convinces T’Rina to share the SB-19 data with her—not by effectively and logically arguing her point in the T’Kal-in-ket, but by prioritizing protecting the fragile peace between the Romulans and Vulcans over getting answers about The Burn.

While Michael needed a win right about now, she needed the process of returning to a place she once called home and being forced to be honest with herself even more. Ni’Var gave that to her. Roughly halfway through the season, Michael has found where she belongs once again. She started this episode “between places,” as her mother described it, and she ended it being where she is: part of something bigger. If this validation of a commitment to and a belief in something bigger than one’s self—for Michael, for the Romulans and Vulcans of Ni’Var, for all of the member planets of the Federation—ends up being Star Trek: Discovery‘s enduring thematic legacy, then this journey to the future will be time well spent. After all, isn’t this what Star Trek has always been about?

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Additional thoughts.

In the other main plot of the episode, Saru asks Tilly to be his Acting First Officer. (Just give her the job!) Tilly has trouble with it, asking what are honestly some really difficult and important questions: Does Saru want her for this job because she is qualified or because she is compliant? He informs her that it is because he thinks it is what would be best for the ship, which I guess means the first option. It checks out that Tilly would have low self-esteem about this. We’ve seen it from her before, no doubt at least partially a result of her overly critical mother. But we’ve also seen how, when given the time and support, Tilly is able to advocate for herself. Honestly, she will make a great First Officer. I am excited to see this relatively non-traditional Captain-First Officer team of Saru and Tilly in action.

Speaking of which, I’m glad Stamets got his act together on this because his initial reaction to Tilly’s request for advice around the possible promotion was pretty harsh and not very helpful.

“The union of the Vulcan and Romulan people will not be achieved by politics diplomacy will not be achieved by politics or diplomacy — but it will be achieved.” Did anyone else cry when Leonard Nimoy came on screen?

I guess they didn’t have the budget to go to the surface of Ni’Var, huh? Bummer.

“What if you hadn’t made it back? What would I do?” I love that Tilly calls Michael out for putting hr in such a shitty position last episode. These two really are very good at being friends.

“You guys are chronic overachievers.” Book nails it.

“There is a whole galaxy out there, full of people who will reach for you. You have to let them.” This quote from last season remains one of my absolute favorites, and is obviously a guiding theme for Star Trek: Discovery.

“You always know where to find me.” Gabrielle, finally, to her daughter.

“Headline: Michael Burnham is Coming.” I love how Vance just transitions into Newsies mode here.

I am kind of shipping Saru and T’Rina?

“You feel like home.” Book and Michael are such a functional couple.

Confirmed! Michael and Tilly are still roommates.

“She wondered how much of the man Spock became was a result of who his sister was.” Wow, this is such a powerful, rare message: the idea that the legacy of an important man, or any important individual, is made up, too, by the people who supported and loved them.

I’m still side-eying that cat.

The post Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 Episode 7 Review: Unification III appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[stormecloudyy-blog]

Amor Proibido [ii]

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else-” Albert Einstein.

What does being happy even mean to me anymore? This is supposed to be the start of writing stories which will shape my career, but this kid is getting under my skin. He tells me he just wants to be happy, and I realize I am not even sure what it means to myself.

My life is supposed to be the most fantastic thing in the world right now… but sometimes I just feel really fucking empty inside. I don’t have the right words to coherently express my unhappiness. However, this isn’t about me. I have to ask this pop star about his music, attend a concert, and write my story.

I don’t need to think about the way I would not mind tracing my fingers over the tattoo on his forearm and softly grasping those arm muscles. Because holy hell, this boy is built like a brick house. All these thoughts are racing through my mind, but my face remains impassive because this is just a job.

Shawn leans over placing his hand on the recording device and clicking it off. Just like that. He does it boldly, his eyes never leaving mine as though daring me to stop him. He acts like he can just get whatever he wants, and it kind of pisses me off.

I snatch the recorder from his hand, eyes glaring, “What the fuck is your problem? You should want me to interview you because a ton of girls will want to fuck you after reading this article. You’ll be even more famous. Isn’t that what you want?”

Hazel eyes bore into mine. “I want to fuck you.”

Preliminary interview complete. However, I still have two more days of dealing with this utter shitstorm I can I tell is just brewing. I keep playing the audio of the interview, trying to make it match with my notes. But I can’t fucking think straight. What the hell am I supposed to write about when all I keep returning to is the way he looked at me the whole time.

“…some of my musical inspirations include Ed Sheeran and Niall Horan…” his voice filters through my big, empty hotel room and I just really need to take a few hours to decompress. Then I can deal with this weird tension Shawn is causing between us, and I can just get this over with and return to my real life. It is just one article/ I don’t need to act like it is going to make or break the rest of my life.

Shutting off the recorder, I stand up and walk over to the window. I could probably just take some time to go out to eat so I am away from this place, but I don’t want to run the risk of seeing Shawn. Not that he would do anything when they were other people around, but I would just paranoid the whole time.

He told me he wanted to fuck me. I mean… I am not sure who the fuck this kid thinks he is. You don’t say those words to a person who is interviewing you for one of the most predominant music magazines in the world. It would be a surefire way to start a scandal and fuck up his own career. But kid is smart. He turned off the recorder and just said it to me. No one knows except the two of us. Shawn has plausible deniability because he is fucking pop star, and no one would believe me just because of my gender. What a fair world we reside in.

My phone starts to ring causing me my thoughts to pull back to the present. Alright. All I need to do is make it through the next few days, and I will never need to see him again. Simple.

Brice calling.

No. No. No. Fuck. Are you serious?

I have been here four hours, not even. And my boss is calling me. What the fuck. Okay, stay calm.

I can just say I was out having dinner and call him back later. It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is fine. My life isn’t falling apart at all. Stay. Calm. My phone ceases to ring, anxiety loosening its grip in my chest. And then it starts once again when his name shows up on the display again. Fuck my whole life.

"Hello,“ I say, sounding false chipper and hoping he isn’t going to tell me I am fired. Oh, my god. I can’t breathe.

“I knew you would answer if I called a second time. You should probably not avoid the guy who makes sure you get paid,” he teases. “But I am calling for a reason. We need press release previews for the interview ASAP. So if you could just send those over tonight, that would be amazing.”

I let out a long groan because this is just my fucking luck. “What the fuck? I haven’t even been here long enough to unpack and you want like three pieces of writing by tonight?” I almost scream at him, feeling the anxiety start to settle heavy on my chest.

“This is a big interview. I told you that. You knew the deal when you agreed. I am not asking you to write the whole fucking thing tonight. We just need a few snippets to get everyone excited.” He pauses, adding, “Shawn’s manager asked us to do it since his concert is tomorrow night. He said Shawn was really impressed. You did well, you know.”

I rub the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger, trying to combat the mixed feelings I am dealing with right now. I am supposed to write a whole lot of bullshit to make some other people happy, but he just said Shawn was impressed with me. Why does this make my heart skip a beat? Ugh. “Great,” I retort dryly, “I will just take that great impression and use it to write some press releases when all I wanted to do was relax because I have been working non stop the past week.”

“You need to get these written as soon as you can. The press is already badgering us to find out what you are going to say. Shawn normally doesn’t give interviews as often as his fans want so this is a fucking huge deal for everyone involved. And he is just a kid, how difficult can he be?”

I hold back laughter because Brice has no idea at all. “Yeah, ha ha ha,” I say and let out a sigh. Pretty sure I am using up my sigh quota for the year today alone. “I will just get started on that right now.” I hang up the phone and throw it down on the couch, squelching the urge to let out a primal scream.

This whole fucking this is horrible. I was supposed to be able to just write the article and be on the way to having an awesome writing career. This is way more stress than I should have for a kid. Just a kid. Shawn Mendes is a fucking evil kid who knows how to get under your skin with those stupid eyes and those curls and that stupid voice.

I want to fuck you. Who the hell says that to someone they just met? This is not a fucking porno. This is my life and career. It must be nice he can do whatever the fuck he wants without any repercussions, but I actually have a real life to return to.

Fuck everything. I sit down on the couch, pulling my laptop over to me and trying to find the words everyone is going to want to hear about the apparently not difficult at all kid, Shawn Mendes.

Three hours later, I send off my pieces to Brice and shut my laptop. I am fucking exhausted, and I just want to crawl into bed. But I am also starving. Too lazy to leave to get food, I decide I am going to venture down the hall to the vending machines and have a junk food feast for one. It will help make this shitty day a little less so. I just need sugar and carbs galore.

Not caring I am wearing a faded tank top and kind of small pajama shorts, I grab my wallet and key card to make my trip. The hall is deserted, making it seem like I am the only person in the hotel. All the better because I don’t want anyone seeing how much of a mess I look after putting in more work tonight than I wanted to.

“Fancy seeing you here.”

I spin around and gasp, seeing Shawn poke his head out of his room and looking at me with a smirk. His eyes travel down my body, taking in my outfit and he looks me in the eyes a moment later.

“Fuck off,” I say with a sigh and stare longingly at the vending machines I am still so far away from.

He is shirtless, curls abound. He is wearing only a pair of faded grey sweatpants, low slung on his hips. I can see every muscle in his body and he even has one of those v cuts which leads down to… nowhere. Fuck. Why the fuck does a nineteen year old kid like him look so much older? Not that I am noticing that much, but it is hard to miss when it is right in my face.

He chuckles. “Are you hungry?” he asks.

I roll my eyes. “I am not interested in eating your dick if that is what you’re offering. Earlier was more than enough, thanks. I just want to get some junk food and then eat alone in my room. Thanks.”

His mouth opens and closes, like he is shocked by my comment. “I…no, I was asking because I ordered a pizza and I still have some left over. Plus the mini bar is stocked full of drinks so…” He shrugs. “You are welcome to come in if you feel like it.” He steps aside, creating a path for me to walk away.

I tilt my head, wondering if this is a trap. “I am not going to sleep with you.”

“I am asking if you want some pizza, that’s all.” He gestures for me to come inside.

Too tired to argue, I relent and find myself sitting next to Shawn on the couch with a pizza between us. He seems more relaxed now. There is a random movie playing in the background, but I notice he still keeps sneaking glances at me when he thinks I won’t notice. It is probably because he thinks I am a big nerd for wearing a Harry Potter shirt.

“You keep staring at me,” I tell him, finishing off my first slice of pizza and reaching for the bottled water on the table. Taking a sip, I notice he is smiling. And he has a nice smile. If you simply take into account how he looks, he is very pleasing to look at. He just lacks a good personality, I guess.

“I love Harry Potter,” he replies, softly tracing the decal on the tank top for a second. “Is that a problem?”

“I already said I am not going to sleep with you.” I smack his hand away, pointing to him with my water bottle. “You need to stop acting like I am going to fall for your charms just because I am a woman. That is a fucked up archaic notion all males need to stop. Just because you are a man doesn’t mean all women are going to be interested. I could be a lesbian for all you know.”

He just stares at me before he starts laughing really hard. I freeze, not sure what is going on. He laughs for a long moment before finally stopping and saying, “You should be the one who stops. You keep thinking every action on my part means I want to sleep with you. I know how to be nice as well. It is why I offered you pizza. If I wanted to truly sleep with you, I wouldn’t be offering you pizza. I would be showing up at your hotel room and making you mine.”

The way he looks at me when he says it. Oh, fuck. I can’t breathe and the tingling between my legs is more apparent. FUCK. My body is betraying me in the worst way possible. The way he said he would make me his actually turned me on, but I am not going to let it show. But oh, my god. Those words alone are ones I could touch myself to for days and never have a problem having an orgasm. It is just the way he speaks with conviction. Plus, his voice may be a little bit sexy when he lowers it and tries to be more fucking hot than he has a right to be.

“My boss said you were impressed with me,” I choke out. Trying to change the subject and crossing my legs subtly, I want to know what he said. “It’s funny how you could not even mention that to me at all before I left.”

He shrugs, picking up a piece of pizza and taking a bite. What the fuck. Even the way he eats is attractive. That is more fucked up than it should be.

I glare waiting for him to say something. I can’t understand how he can be so hot and cold with me. I mean, yeah I am doing the same thing. But this is my job. He should be wanting to stay on my good side since I am going to be writing about him. Instead he is getting further and further under my skin. Ugh.

“The last person who interviewed me worked for like MTV right?” he says, finishing up his pizza and wiping his face with a napkin. He chuckles sweetly. “And she was nice. We got along. But she had this idea in her head we were going to start dating. Don’t get me wrong, she was nice. But I was not interested. Nothing happened, I swear. But she told everyone we fucked like a whole lot of times and that she had to stop me from falling in love with her. When I was the one who said no to her. Still she told everyone how I was just madly in love with her, and I just… fucking drama is the last thing I need.”

I don’t reply because I am not sure what to say. This is Shawn just opening up to me as a person. It surprises me because most famous people know to keep their mouths shut around the press. Maybe he knows I won’t say anything since I kept his earlier comment to myself, and I am in my fucking pajamas. Plus, this kid seems like he is trying to be sincere so the last thing I want to do is betray his trust the way this woman did. Not that I care about him, but I do care about my career a lot.

“Don’t get me wrong. I fuck a lot of women on tour. Not like teenage fans or anything, but it is not like I am a saint. But it kind of pisses me off when someone thinks they can just use me to get what they want. I like you though because you don’t care what I think. You just want to do your job, and I get that because that is how I feel about my music…but there is just something about you that…”

He leans in, pushing a stray lock of hair away from my face. “You’re beautiful.”

I can’t breathe. His face is so close to mine if I just leaned my head the right way…

His eyes are looking into mine and neither of us are speaking.

This can’t fucking happen. It-

Shawn presses his lips against mine, and I almost relent. But I can’t. This is my career. I can’t just…

I tense up, placing a hand against his chest and pulling away. “I have to go,” i mumble, running out of the room without looking back.

When I get back to my own room, I fall down onto the bed and try not to lose my shit. That kid just fucking kissed me and I let him for the briefest moment. Fuck. I am going to ruin everything.

My phone vibrates, stopping my thoughts. Taking a deep breath, I answer.

The voice on the line says, “Hi, babe, how are you?”

It’s Landon, my fiance.

God, I am so fucked.

[stormecloudy-blog]

Amor Proibido [ii]

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else-” Albert Einstein. 

 What does being happy even mean to me anymore? This is supposed to be the start of writing stories which will shape my career, but this kid is getting under my skin. He tells me he just wants to be happy, and I realize I am not even sure what it means to myself. 

My life is supposed to be the most fantastic thing in the world right now… but sometimes I just feel really fucking empty inside. I don’t have the right words to coherently express my unhappiness. However, this isn’t about me. I have to ask this pop star about his music, attend a concert, and write my story.

 I don’t need to think about the way I would not mind tracing my fingers over the tattoo on his forearm and softly grasping those arm muscles. Because holy hell, this boy is built like a brick house. All these thoughts are racing through my mind, but my face remains impassive because this is just a job. 

 Shawn leans over placing his hand on the recording device and clicking it off. Just like that. He does it boldly, his eyes never leaving mine as though daring me to stop him. He acts like he can just get whatever he wants, and it kind of pisses me off. 

I snatch the recorder from his hand, eyes glaring, “What the fuck is your problem? You should want me to interview you because a ton of girls will want to fuck you after reading this article. You’ll be even more famous. Isn’t that what you want?”

Hazel eyes bore into mine. “I want to fuck you.”

Preliminary interview complete. However, I still have two more days of dealing with this utter shitstorm I can I tell is just brewing. I keep playing the audio of the interview, trying to make it match with my notes. But I can’t fucking think straight. What the hell am I supposed to write about when all I keep returning to is the way he looked at me the whole time.

“…some of my musical inspirations include Ed Sheeran and Niall Horan…” his voice filters through my big, empty hotel room and I just really need to take a few hours to decompress. Then I can deal with this weird tension Shawn is causing between us, and I can just get this over with and return to my real life. It is just one article/ I don’t need to act like it is going to make or break the rest of my life. 

Shutting off the recorder, I stand up and walk over to the window. I could probably just take some time to go out to eat so I am away from this place, but I don’t want to run the risk of seeing Shawn. Not that he would do anything when they were other people around, but I would just paranoid the whole time.

He told me he wanted to fuck me. I mean… I am not sure who the fuck this kid thinks he is. You don’t say those words to a person who is interviewing you for one of the most predominant music magazines in the world. It would be a surefire way to start a scandal and fuck up his own career. But kid is smart. He turned off the recorder and just said it to me. No one knows except the two of us. Shawn has plausible deniability because he is fucking pop star, and no one would believe me just because of my gender. What a fair world we reside in. 

My phone starts to ring causing me my thoughts to pull back to the present. Alright. All I need to do is make it through the next few days, and I will never need to see him again. Simple.

 Brice calling. 

 No. No. No. Fuck. Are you serious?

 I have been here four hours, not even. And my boss is calling me. What the fuck. Okay, stay calm.

 I can just say I was out having dinner and call him back later. It's fine. I'm fine. Everything is fine. My life isn't falling apart at all. Stay. Calm. My phone ceases to ring, anxiety loosening its grip in my chest. And then it starts once again when his name shows up on the display again. Fuck my whole life.

 "Hello," I say, sounding false chipper and hoping he isn't going to tell me I am fired. Oh, my god. I can't breathe.

“I knew you would answer if I called a second time. You should probably not avoid the guy who makes sure you get paid,” he teases. “But I am calling for a reason. We need press release previews for the interview ASAP. So if you could just send those over tonight, that would be amazing.”

I let out a long groan because this is just my fucking luck. “What the fuck? I haven’t even been here long enough to unpack and you want like three pieces of writing by tonight?” I almost scream at him, feeling the anxiety start to settle heavy on my chest. 

“This is a big interview. I told you that. You knew the deal when you agreed. I am not asking you to write the whole fucking thing tonight. We just need a few snippets to get everyone excited.” He pauses, adding, “Shawn’s manager asked us to do it since his concert is tomorrow night. He said Shawn was really impressed. You did well, you know.”

I rub the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger, trying to combat the mixed feelings I am dealing with right now. I am supposed to write a whole lot of bullshit to make some other people happy, but he just said Shawn was impressed with me. Why does this make my heart skip a beat? Ugh. “Great,” I retort dryly, “I will just take that great impression and use it to write some press releases when all I wanted to do was relax because I have been working non stop the past week.”

“You need to get these written as soon as you can. The press is already badgering us to find out what you are going to say. Shawn normally doesn’t give interviews as often as his fans want so this is a fucking huge deal for everyone involved. And he is just a kid, how difficult can he be?”

I hold back laughter because Brice has no idea at all. “Yeah, ha ha ha,” I say and let out a sigh. Pretty sure I am using up my sigh quota for the year today alone. “I will just get started on that right now.” I hang up the phone and throw it down on the couch, squelching the urge to let out a primal scream.

This whole fucking this is horrible. I was supposed to be able to just write the article and be on the way to having an awesome writing career. This is way more stress than I should have for a kid. Just a kid. Shawn Mendes is a fucking evil kid who knows how to get under your skin with those stupid eyes and those curls and that stupid voice. 

I want to fuck you. Who the hell says that to someone they just met? This is not a fucking porno. This is my life and career. It must be nice he can do whatever the fuck he wants without any repercussions, but I actually have a real life to return to. 

Fuck everything. I sit down on the couch, pulling my laptop over to me and trying to find the words everyone is going to want to hear about the apparently not difficult at all kid, Shawn Mendes.

Three hours later, I send off my pieces to Brice and shut my laptop. I am fucking exhausted, and I just want to crawl into bed. But I am also starving. Too lazy to leave to get food, I decide I am going to venture down the hall to the vending machines and have a junk food feast for one. It will help make this shitty day a little less so. I just need sugar and carbs galore. 

Not caring I am wearing a faded tank top and kind of small pajama shorts, I grab my wallet and key card to make my trip. The hall is deserted, making it seem like I am the only person in the hotel. All the better because I don’t want anyone seeing how much of a mess I look after putting in more work tonight than I wanted to. 

“Fancy seeing you here.”

I spin around and gasp, seeing Shawn poke his head out of his room and looking at me with a smirk. His eyes travel down my body, taking in my outfit and he looks me in the eyes a moment later. 

“Fuck off,” I say with a sigh and stare longingly at the vending machines I am still so far away from. 

He is shirtless, curls abound. He is wearing only a pair of faded grey sweatpants, low slung on his hips. I can see every muscle in his body and he even has one of those v cuts which leads down to... nowhere. Fuck. Why the fuck does a nineteen year old kid like him look so much older? Not that I am noticing that much, but it is hard to miss when it is right in my face.

He chuckles. “Are you hungry?” he asks.

I roll my eyes. “I am not interested in eating your dick if that is what you’re offering. Earlier was more than enough, thanks. I just want to get some junk food and then eat alone in my room. Thanks.”

His mouth opens and closes, like he is shocked by my comment. “I...no, I was asking because I ordered a pizza and I still have some left over. Plus the mini bar is stocked full of drinks so...” He shrugs. “You are welcome to come in if you feel like it.” He steps aside, creating a path for me to walk away.

I tilt my head, wondering if this is a trap. “I am not going to sleep with you.”

“I am asking if you want some pizza, that’s all.” He gestures for me to come inside. 

Too tired to argue, I relent and find myself sitting next to Shawn on the couch with a pizza between us. He seems more relaxed now. There is a random movie playing in the background, but I notice he still keeps sneaking glances at me when he thinks I won’t notice. It is probably because he thinks I am a big nerd for wearing a Harry Potter shirt.

“You keep staring at me,” I tell him, finishing off my first slice of pizza and reaching for the bottled water on the table. Taking a sip, I notice he is smiling. And he has a nice smile. If you simply take into account how he looks, he is very pleasing to look at. He just lacks a good personality, I guess. 

“I love Harry Potter,” he replies, softly tracing the decal on the tank top for a second. “Is that a problem?”

“I already said I am not going to sleep with you.” I smack his hand away, pointing to him with my water bottle. “You need to stop acting like I am going to fall for your charms just because I am a woman. That is a fucked up archaic notion all males need to stop. Just because you are a man doesn’t mean all women are going to be interested. I could be a lesbian for all you know.”

He just stares at me before he starts laughing really hard. I freeze, not sure what is going on. He laughs for a long moment before finally stopping and saying, “You should be the one who stops. You keep thinking every action on my part means I want to sleep with you. I know how to be nice as well. It is why I offered you pizza. If I wanted to truly sleep with you, I wouldn’t be offering you pizza. I would be showing up at your hotel room and making you mine.”

The way he looks at me when he says it. Oh, fuck. I can’t breathe and the tingling between my legs is more apparent. FUCK. My body is betraying me in the worst way possible. The way he said he would make me his actually turned me on, but I am not going to let it show. But oh, my god. Those words alone are ones I could touch myself to for days and never have a problem having an orgasm. It is just the way he speaks with conviction. Plus, his voice may be a little bit sexy when he lowers it and tries to be more fucking hot than he has a right to be.

“My boss said you were impressed with me,” I choke out. Trying to change the subject and crossing my legs subtly, I want to know what he said. “It’s funny how you could not even mention that to me at all before I left.”

He shrugs, picking up a piece of pizza and taking a bite. What the fuck. Even the way he eats is attractive. That is more fucked up than it should be.

I glare waiting for him to say something. I can’t understand how he can be so hot and cold with me. I mean, yeah I am doing the same thing. But this is my job. He should be wanting to stay on my good side since I am going to be writing about him. Instead he is getting further and further under my skin. Ugh.

“The last person who interviewed me worked for like MTV right?” he says, finishing up his pizza and wiping his face with a napkin. He chuckles sweetly. “And she was nice. We got along. But she had this idea in her head we were going to start dating. Don’t get me wrong, she was nice. But I was not interested. Nothing happened, I swear. But she told everyone we fucked like a whole lot of times and that she had to stop me from falling in love with her. When I was the one who said no to her. Still she told everyone how I was just madly in love with her, and I just... fucking drama is the last thing I need.”

I don’t reply because I am not sure what to say. This is Shawn just opening up to me as a person. It surprises me because most famous people know to keep their mouths shut around the press. Maybe he knows I won’t say anything since I kept his earlier comment to myself, and I am in my fucking pajamas. Plus, this kid seems like he is trying to be sincere so the last thing I want to do is betray his trust the way this woman did. Not that I care about him, but I do care about my career a lot. 

“Don’t get me wrong. I fuck a lot of women on tour. Not like teenage fans or anything, but it is not like I am a saint. But it kind of pisses me off when someone thinks they can just use me to get what they want. I like you though because you don’t care what I think. You just want to do your job, and I get that because that is how I feel about my music...but there is just something about you that...”

He leans in, pushing a stray lock of hair away from my face. “You’re beautiful.”

I can’t breathe. His face is so close to mine if I just leaned my head the right way...

His eyes are looking into mine and neither of us are speaking.

This can’t fucking happen. It-

Shawn presses his lips against mine, and I almost relent. But I can’t. This is my career. I can’t just...

I tense up, placing a hand against his chest and pulling away. “I have to go,” i mumble, running out of the room without looking back.

When I get back to my own room, I fall down onto the bed and try not to lose my shit. That kid just fucking kissed me and I let him for the briefest moment. Fuck. I am going to ruin everything. 

My phone vibrates, stopping my thoughts. Taking a deep breath, I answer.

The voice on the line says, “Hi, babe, how are you?”

It’s Landon, my fiance.

God, I am so fucked.

[julystorms]

will you please rant for hours about good vs evil? i would love to read that

I don’t have the physical strength to type for that long, but meet me for tea IRL and I’d be happy to discuss it with you. ;P

How about a short monologue instead? 

Good vs. evil is obviously not often best-used as a black and white concept within a narrative. It’s tired, it’s boring, and for years now we’ve moved further away from it and toward what most people would call Sympathetic Villains, because most narratives have a “bad guy” for the “good guys” to fight, but it’s unrealistic to portray your villains as puppy-kicking douchebags who sing about being evil and wow the world with their bad breath. Writers have been pulling from their own life experiences to create asshole villains who feel a little more solid and real. 

It might...have gotten longer...than I anticipated...

Hans from Frozen is a pretty decent example. Look, straight-up the guy’s an asshole, but some of the traits we see him display aren’t inherently evil: he’s subtly selfish in Love Is an Open Door, isn’t he? You have to actually think about the words to see that Anna is singing about finding fulfillment in another person/companionship/etc and he’s singing about, um, getting what he wants. He’s charismatic and charming. He’s ambitious as hell. And while all of these traits are used for evil purpose, by themselves they aren’t bad things. Better yet, we find out he’s like 13th in line for the throne and basically A Nobody who has to make his own way in the world. Which, to us plebians, gets a big “boo hoo you poor fucking baby” but in his private personal world is Shitty. So in Frozen we’re given a villain who does evil things to prove his evilness to us, the viewer, but whose actions extend beyond “because I can” or worse, “because being evil is Fun.”

Some people try and take it a step further by making super extra duper sure we don’t forget the old and frankly tired phrase: “there are two sides to every story.” Well no fucking shit there are! But that doesn’t mean the other side is telling the truth. 

Writers like to capitalize on that, on unreliable narratives, because it’s, um, fun. But also because people in general aren’t completely reliable narrators of their own lives and experiences, so to an extent it feels good to tell things from the perspective of a character who skews the truth in their favor--or in the favor of a loved one.

Anyway Isayama, in writing SnK, obviously wanted us to see that there are always two sides to every story. This isn’t a new concept by any stretch of the imagination; it’s been done a million times already. But he tried to take it a step further but getting us into the heads of the “enemy” to see if they are the enemy or not, to see how the “enemy” thinks and how they become an enemy instead of something else to the main characters.

The problem is that if Isayama is going to claim that everything is relative, that has to extend through his entire narrative, not just through the Walled Eldians and the Eldians in Marley. Marley itself needs to be shown as more than evil firebreathing dragons abusing the poor Eldian people. Because everything is relative right?! Why are they being shitty? How can we believe the whole “Eldian people used to abuse their power and hurt Marley people” thing? And if that’s the case, why would you put that slap-bang right in the middle of a narrative chunk of stuff that reeks of WWII? The connotations are legitimately disgusting. What’s he trying to do, make it sound like the Eldians deserved it? Or what about the reverse, that the Jews deserved what happened to them because somehow they’d provoked it years and years earlier? 

I mean for fuck’s sake, if Isayama wants us to see that the good vs. evil debate is tired and old and “hey assholes have reasons for being assholes” then okay cool show us. But he really, REALLY should have thought through the connotations his story was going to bring with it when he punted it into the 1940s and gave his characters armbands with special stars on them I MEAN JESUS CHRIST WHAT THE HELL WAS HE THINKING? Like if it DOESN’T scream THE HOLOCAUST at you have you ever cracked a history book? Do you even know what goes on around you that doesn’t involve you?

And look. LOOK. I hate the tired evil vs. good bullshit because I want to know what makes the “bad guy” into the bad guy. Psychology is fucking amazing. Criminal psych is incredible. 

And I was fine with the narrative showing us that because hey, I don’t mind seeing what the other people are dealing with. But then they’re only evil because someone else is MAKING them evil and haha sURPRISE THAT person happens to be an entire country of Asshats!! Who have no overtly redeeming quality or current reason for oppressing the Eldian people! Yes, they’re afraid of them, we can infer that. But it’s never really shown; their actions are barely explained; the world isn’t built up to ANYTHING. 

And then here Isayama toddles in to tell us that he really isn’t asking if war is good or bad. Okay???????? Nobody asked you to answer that question because WE ALREADY KNOW that in general war is Bad. People die, the goals of war tend to be selfish, etc etc. If people break free of rule that’s called revolution not war. It’s the French Revolution for a reason, not the Stop Being Shitty War.

Anyway, I could discuss good vs. evil in literature/media forever, but nobody wants the dichotomy storytelling anymore. Nobody. And Isayama rolls in in the middle of a story that screams its themes until you’ve gone deaf and tells us, “it’s all relative man, like dude...relative. it’s all...relative...” Like something straight out of Jack Kerouac's On the Road. And it is, but only to a point. Like, sure, Marley is afraid of Eldia. But that relativity only lasted until, idk, they enslaved everyone who didn’t run away. And sure, the Eldians left behind are fighting for their own group of people but that’s only relative to a point, too--probably the point where they’re talking about slaughtering the entire island of Paradis just for their own gain.

And look, this isn’t knocking on the plot itself, though it kind of makes me feel Tired and Bitter. My issue is with Isayama stomping all over his own plot making sure to tell people in an interview that everything is relative when IT’S NOT when you’re talking about these big fucking things. What’s this relativism shit doing in here?? This isn’t Philosophy 101. Go home and think about what you just dumped on your story like a steaming hot shit. My god.