#until fans in that space make peace (or at least neutrality) with the notion of being 'problematic'
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tiktok "toxic yaoi enjoyers" when the ship is actually toxic and problematic and involves continuous mistreatment and manipulation and isn't just a healthy relationship where they have mean banter sometimes
not my tiktok feed going from "BILLFORD!!! TOXIC OLD MAN YAOI😍😍😍😍😍" to "yeah i like billford but ONLY pre-portal billford and i'm not like THOSE fans who like [insert toxic/"""problematic""" thing bill did to ford] bc that's WRONG and and if you like it you're BAD" girl what do you think the "toxic" in toxic old man yaoi MEANT
#y'all will say you love 'toxic yaoi' but will then not only sanitize and woobify all toxicity out of it#but harass and bully creators who ACTUALLY make content where it's ACTUALLY a toxic relationship with ACTUAL continuous toxic behavior#(i.e. the creator of the 'property au' on tiktok that apparently got so bullied and harassed that they took it down and APOLOGIZED.)#(you would've done numbers on whump tumblr)#and i truly believe its because since the biggest demographic of tiktok fandoms is teenagers#that they're still terrified of anything 'problematic' (both seeing it and BEING it) bc its seen as a fucking social death sentence#you don't talk to people who are problematic. you stay away from and actively demean work that's problematic.#you don't deserve a support system or livelihood or an online presence or any form of fucking decency when you're problematic#'problematic' is seen by a huge majority of young fans in fandom spaces one of the worst things you can ever be fucking be in a fandom#because many. MANY younger fans in fandom spaces haven't reached the point in fandom where they just block & ignore things they find Wrong#and instead whoever is 'problematic' or makes 'problematic' work is reprehensible and needs to be harassed into never posting it again#and you'll never be able to have an actual popular 'toxic ship' where it's ACTUALLY TOXIC thrive in a fandom space#until fans in that space make peace (or at least neutrality) with the notion of being 'problematic'#and the term doesn't get innocent creators ran out of the fucking space.#tldr; if you actually want a 'toxic yaoi' ship you're going to have to be okay with things being 'problematic'.#thank you for coming to my TED talk
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Balance of Terror
Air Date: December 15, 1966
Writer: Paul Schneider
Director: Vincent McEveety
Balance of Terror is one of those episodes that seasoned Trekkies revere for some reason, yet new fans may have a difficult time understanding why. I thought it was a good episode, but I’m a sucker for continuity and worldbuilding and this is arguably one of the more important episodes in the franchise for that because it establishes a species so enduring they sort of bookend the Prime continuity via Nero and his gang in the 2009 film.
Why does every post-Enterprise alien antagonist need to be bald?
Romulans appear in every series in the franchise except Discovery (so far!) - they even manage to squeeze into Voyager and Enterprise a few times! The Romulans are almost always an effective counterweight to the Klingons; where the Klingons revere honor (in theory if not practice most of the time), Romulans are notoriously duplicitious; where Klingons entertain notions of peace with the Federation, Romulans openly sustain hostilities and enmity; where the Klingon warrior culture is detailed and fleshed out over the long course of the franchise and even examined from new angles time and again, the Romulans remain almost rigidly enigmatic and mysterious (and perhaps that’s part of their appeal.)
The episode establishes a basic history of the Earth-Romulan war that later canon rarely deviates from.
Not even to force a confrontation between Archer and Big Chin. Seriously, that thing was carved from a Seth MacFarlane cartoon.
On a conceptual level, I like Romulans. I listened to Mike Duncan’s The History of Rome podcast over the summer (twice), and I’d consider myself something of an armchair Roman historian, so the whole “Roman Empire IN SPACE!” thing really engages my thrusters to maximum if you detect my warp signature.
Ahhhh
Indeed, there seems to be a bit of Roman influence in the Romulans...at first. Words like ‘centurion’ and ‘praetor’ are thrown around in this episode, but that’s really it - they’re thrown around. I guess the helmets are vaguely Roman inspired, and there’s a guy named Decius, but that’s about the extent. I’m just disappointed that the Romulans are no more Roman than the Klingons never really cling to anything except a vague medieval-inspired aesthetic and pretenses to honor.
I can’t wait to get to this episode - and would it have been so hard to give the Romulans these costumes?
I hope you’ve enjoyed Part 1 in my 6 part series tentatively titled “How Star Trek Fucked Up the Romulans.”
Moving on.
So the episode opens wonderfully with a shipboard wedding, and in the honored tradition of offshore weddings, the captain is the officiate. Scotty assures him that the event will be broadcast over the whole ship, and Yeoman Rand carefully lights candles in the background.
You crazy kids!
I noticed both are wearing command gold, and the male is the female’s superior officer, and both work in the phaser array section of the ship...and that’s about all the episode really needs to tell us; it’s scaffolding to heighten the tragedy of the episode, to invest the audience and give us a reason to care about the ship-to-ship battle that is coming.
Now, the Romulans (or at least, the Romulan ship that is our antagonist) in this episode appear to be attempting to bait the Federation (by attacking outposts) into crossing the Neutral Zone in order to accuse them of breaking the treaty between the two powers and, in the words of the Romulan commander, give the Romulans the gift of war with the Federation.
Spock gives us the requisite exposition on the history of the Earth-Romulan war, and today’s navigator-of-the-week Stiles reveals a vendetta against the Romulans going back to grand-relatives killed in that war; Kirk reminds him that the war was a century ago and it was their war - not his.
What I got about the enemy commander is that he was some hotshot dickweed Romulan with a fancy new weapon and toy (the cloak) who wanted to bring glory to Romulus and impress his boss the Praetor by making the Federation seem like the instigators. I get the impression that the Romulans were on the losing side of the treaty and wanted to get the war back on track to recover lost possessions and perhaps dominance in the region.
Kirk broadcasts a message throughout the ship to warn the crew that they’re going to go into some deep shit, and we get a few shots of different people - like the lovebirds, and a couple of guys who I remember from other episodes but aren’t named on-screen, like this guy:
And this guy:
The former appeared in Miri and Dagger of the Mind, and this dumb looking kid showed up in the background of What Are Little Girls Made of, looking as confused and constipated as ever.
Anyways, everyone on the ship is tense and wound up because they know the stakes: the Romulan war was such a big deal that people who fought in it have grandkids who are still pissed at the Romulans. I tried putting this in perspective with a clumsy WWI analogy, but it’s different because Germany isn’t several dozen or hundred light-years away from the US.
Spock says something I find very interesting in light of Discovery’s use of cloaking devices on Klingon ships; he says that invisibility screens are only theoretical up to that point. Naturally, Enterprise screwed this up already with Suliban Cabal cloaking technology, so I’ll give Discovery a pass on that one.
Kirk chooses strategic observation over direct confrontation, which I think it a good call and Mr. Styles thinks merits a whiny objection and fear of Romulan spies aboard the Enterprise. (This is actually because of a cut scene where the crew remarks on the similarities in Romulan ship design to Federation specs, which alludes to Romulans stealing designs or something...)
Ever notice how the Enterprise keeps losing navigators?
They technobabble a way to get a shot of the Romulan bridge, revealing that the Romulan in question is none other than...
SAREK!
Just kidding, but he is played by Mark Lenard.
Everyone proceeds to stare at Spock like he just took the last slice of meat lover’s at a tolerant vegan buffet.
Even Leslie!
Kirk has to tap on Stiles’ console to get him back to work. Stiles is a bit racist, and Kirk shuts him down by telling him to leave his bigotry in his quarters. Spock offers some logical considerations as to the similarities in appearance between him and the Romulans; aggressive period of interstellar colonization. If I remember my TOS correctly, this shows up again with a character named Sargon, and we know Vulcanoids show up in TNG on Mintaka - the Romulans themselves are expatriates who wanted to do their own thing.
There is then a scene on the Romulan ship to establish and characterize them, which is something that the show hasn’t done yet and I’m not sure ever does again until the movies. I get the impression that the older Romulan is on his last mission before he retires, and also that he’s the commander’s version of Bones.
The bridge crew puts their heads together to give Kirk options. Spock says the weapon is too strong - their strongest material is castrodinium and the sample he shows them has been reduced to sheet metal. Kirk asks if they can fight the Romulans without dying, to which Scotty responds they can outrun them. Naturally, Stiles wants to fight them, only to be countered by Sulu that they can’t attack without visuals...which is dumb for a variety of reasons, but I’m not going to go into them because it’s a narrative decision.
And then Stiles says more racist shit.
Sulu quietly rethinks his recommendation of Stiles as navigator and wonders if he should stop making suggestions altogether...
Stiles accuses Spock of being a Romulan spy, and to be fair if you’ve never seen a Romulan and you already think there might be a spy on the ship and then suddenly you see the Romulans have pointed ears like the high-ranking officer with pointed ears, well...
But this is the 23rd century, and we’re evolving past that.
Spock agrees with Stiles about attacking - and Bones is wholeheartedly against war, because he’s a contrarian when it comes to Spock. Spock then offers some logical considerations as to the similarities in appearance between him and the Romulans; aggressive period of interstellar colonization. If I remember my TOS correctly, this shows up again with a character named Sargon, and we know Vulcanoids show up in TNG on Mintaka - the Romulans themselves are expatriates who wanted to do their own thing.
The show then plays cat and mouse as the Enterprise parallels course to appear as a sensor ghost on the Romulan space radar, then they go into a comet tail, then they fire on the Romulan ship. The commander loses his buddy and gets pissed.
Rand shows up on the bridge asking Kirk if she should continue log entries, but I get the feeling she showed up because she was scared and wanted Kirk to hold her - which he does, briefly, when the Romulans fire back at the ship.
The Romulan commander’s buddy dies, and in an example of how committed they are to getting out of the situation, he is coldly ejected with some debris in an attempt to trick the Enterprise - but it doesn’t fool Spock.
Nine hours later...
I’m not kidding, the two ships spend 9 hours waiting each other out. Kirk is not exactly cracking under the pressure, but he is not enjoying it. He snaps at Rand so hard she transfers off the Enterprise, but when Bones walks in his entire face changes and he confides in his old friend...the Romulan commander must wish his old friend were still alive right about now.
Spock forces the Romulans out of hiding, and the commander orders his lieutenants to prepare an old-style nuclear weapon that they apparently carry only for self-destruction purposes. It’s a dirty trick in case of compromise; obliterate their ship (and therefore technology), damage the enemy (but it’s space! they aren’t going to be close enough for it to matter!) and irradiate them to boot if the nuke overloads their shielding and hull polarization. Primitive but lucky vessels are screwed.
The Enterprise is NOT a primitive vessel (though it is a lucky one), yet McCoy still refers to 22 casualties from radiation burns. I’m on the fence here - did they lose 22 crewmen? Googling led me to believe no, those crewmen may have been wounded but did not die.
Unfortunately, the Romulans knock out everyone but the lonely male lovebird in the weapons array, so Kirk sends him there and has Uhura fill in navigation. To be honest, she’d probably make a better regular navigator than Stiles, or Riley, or Bailey (seeing a pattern?) - or even old Easily Wounded Ego himself, Gary Mitchell. I think Sulu may have been carefully considering this based on the long look he gave her.
Spock passes through weapons and Stiles starts shit yet again (seriously, guy), and then there’s a coolant leak at the eleventh hour right as Kirk gives the order to fire on the Romulan ship! Spock rushes back, firing phasers and rescuing our bitter navigator so that he can learn a very special lesson in sick bay.
Kirk offers to rescue the Romulan, who refuses because duty. He’s going to self-destruct, as every Romulan in this situation should. He then makes overtures of comraderie towards Kirk; those two have gained a mutual respect for each other’s tactical prowess in this confrontation, and only through luck did the Enterprise prevail.
In sick bay, Bones reports that the male lovebird has died, and Stiles expresses gratitude mixed with incredulity that Spock saved him in spite of all his bullshit; Spock assures him there was no emotion behind the action, that it was done in the name of duty.
Finally, Kirk goes to confront the female lovebird, that her husband-to-be died for a reason if it makes any sense. I for one am amazed she was able to be so calm and serene about the whole affair, telling Kirk she’s alright. Maybe she’s in shock, or maybe (this is what I prefer to think) she knew the risks of serving on an exploratory vessel, of falling in love with a comrade stationed on the same vessel, of being married to someone on the same vessel. She made a choice, and this was a possible outcome that she faced, accepted, and now lives with.
It was a good episode.
Rating: 4/5; Rewatch
Balance of Terror is an essential episode because it introduces the Romulans, and it’s also a pretty solid ship-to-ship action episode that plays like something of a precursor to Kirk’s battle in Wrath of Khan.
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