A Frosty Geek?

(Me: “Mood”)

Bones, continuing:

Spock, raising his eyebrow as if to say ‘bitch you kidding me,,, you think I don’t have a warm feeling???’:

Bones, knowing exactly what he means:

Me:

(Star Trek S2: E25 “Bread and Circuses”

The long-lost heir is not the hero, he’s a side character who deliberately uses himself as a decoy.

The real hero actually fails in his quest, his goodness and determination and willpower utterly fail in the face of evil, and the world is saved by a series seemingly unrelated good deeds.

The central conflict is not between destroying the world and preserving it. An age of the world will come to an end, and many great and beautiful things will perish, whether the heroes win or lose. The past may have been glorious, but preserving it is impossible, and returning to it is impossible, time has passed and the world has moved on. The king returns, but the elves are gone and magic fades from the very substance of Middle Earth. The goal is not to preserve the status quo, the goal is the chance to rebuild something on the ruins.

Killing the main villain seems to instantly solve the problem, eradicate all enemies and fix the world, except it doesn’t, not wholly, since the scouring of the Shire still has to happen.

Also, the hero gets no real reward, and what he gets, he cannot really enjoy. He is hurt by his ordeal, and never fully recovers.

There is a team of heroes, a classic adventuring party, except the Fellowship is together for less one sixth of the series. The Fellowship is intact from the Council of Elrond to Gandalf’s death, four chapters. The remaining eight are together until Boromir’s death, an additional six chapters. This is nothing compared to LOTR’s length of sixty-one chapters, if I count correctly.

Tolkien is not classic high fantasy. If you actually think about it, there is very little magic. The hobbits’ stealth is not magical, most elven wonders are not unambigously magical, wizards are extremely rare, and even Gandalf hardly uses magic if you compare him to the average DnD wizard. Most magic is indistinguishable from craft, there is no clear difference between a magic armor and a very good armor, between magic bread and very good bread, between magical healing and competent first-aid plus a few kind words.

Customer: “Can I ask what you’re taking pictures of?”

Me: “I’m documenting my ADA violations case.”

Customer: “What violations?”

Me: Points out five violations I can see from where we are. Explains how to see patterns of ADA violations.

AO3 won the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Related Work!

Here’s the speech given by Naomi Novik when the award was accepted:

All fanwork, from fanfic to vids to fanart to podfic, centers the idea that art happens not in isolation but in community. And that is true of the AO3 itself. We’re up here accepting, but only on behalf of literally thousands of volunteers and millions of users, all of whom have come together and built this thriving home for fandom, a nonprofit and non-commercial community space built entirely by volunteer labor and user donations, on the principle that we needed a place of our own that was not out to exploit its users but to serve them.

Even if I listed every founder, every builder, every tireless support staff member and translator and tag wrangler, if I named every last donor, all our hard work and contributions would mean nothing without the work of the fan creators who share their work freely with other fans, and the fans who read their stories and view their art and comment and share bookmarks and give kudos to encourage them and nourish the community in their turn.

but listen. my dude. listen.

i don’t even like cider, okay? I’ve tried it and it’s not as horrible as beer, but certainly not something I would ever drink on purpose.

there is absolutely no chance of me liking any beer in the world, and of this I am certain.

Beer is sour and bitter and awful while wine is sharp and bitter and awful. Now I do have some exceptions for each - fruit lambics are the koolaid of beers and I enjoy them while there are a fair number of dessert wines that I find tasty.

But I am far, far pickier about both than I am about either cider or mead. I love the vast majority of those boozes. Except for the recent trend of making snooty, dry ciders. People need to stop trying to turn cider into beer or wine. Leave my sweet fizzy apple booze alone.

... because I’m pretty sure most people skip this one. Because it IS called “The Yellow Face.” And it was written by a British dude in 1893. So there are a couple of… very reasonable assumptions you could make about the content. But I’m telling you that humanity can be wholesome and pure, so hang around, it’s story time.

We open with Holmes and Watson, who are just sort of wandering around London in silence, “as befits two men who know each other intimately.” (awww). And when they get back to 221B, they’ve got a new client waiting. 

Mr. Grant Munro is one of those mid-thirties guys who looks a lot younger. It turns out he’s married an American widow from Georgia and she’s started acting really REALLY weird. 

Like, she’s sneaking out in the middle of the night without saying where she’s going. Withdrawing a lot of money from the joint bank account, not saying why. Pretending *not* to know a strange Scottish woman who’s new in town. One day this guy gives into temptation and follows her. She goes to a random cottage that she’s secretly renting, in a town called Norbury. He has no idea what is going on, but he comes back to visit this cottage a few times after that, and every he walks past it, he sees a strange expressionless yellow-white face at the window. It ducks out of sight whenever he looks too long. 

Anyway, Holmes glances over at Watson, says thank you and that he’ll look into it. When the client leaves, he shakes his head, “There’s blackmail in it, or I am much mistaken.” 

Holmes’ theory is that the American widow’s first husband is still alive, and he’s blackmailing her. Or (second option) the first husband like, went insane or something, and the mysterious Scottish woman has worked out the situation, and she’s the one doing the blackmailing.

Homes & Watson and Grant Munro “solve” the case by basically just sneaking into the cottage when they’re not expected. And they find - 

A little, four-year-old African-American girl. In a mask and long white evening gloves.

Holmes goes and takes off the mask first thing, but the little girl is fine, just laughing and smiling at all the confused people. Watson “burst[s] out laughing, out of sympathy for her merriment.” 

But Grant Munro looks at his wife, who’s just run into the room, and says, “My God! What can be the meaning of this!” 

His wife’s backstory comes out. See, her first husband was African-American (she’s got his picture in her locket, Watson calls him “strikingly handsome and intelligent looking”) and the little girl is their daughter. (”Dark or fair, she is my own dear girlie and her mother’s pet!”) She didn’t think that a second husband would sign off on a multiracial daughter, so she’s been letting the Scottish nurse raise her - until she just cracked, missed her little girl too much, and had to have her near, even if it meant doing dumb things like giving her a mask and evening gloves so they wouldn’t accidentally start a rumor about an African-American girl living in the neighborhood. 

And then - actually, I’m just going to go to Arthur Conan Doyle (and Watson) for this last part:

It was a long ten minutes before Grant Munro broke the silence, and when his answer came it was one of which I love to think. He lifted the little child, kissed her, and then, still carrying her, he held his other hand out to his wife and turned towards the door.

“We can talk it over more comfortably at home,” said he. “I am not a very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you have given me credit for being.” 

Holmes and I followed them down the lane, and my friend plucked at my sleeve as we came out.

“I think,” said he, “that we shall be of more use in London than in Norbury.” 

Not another word did he say of the case until late into the night, when he was turning away, with his lighted candle, for his bedroom.

CALL ME OUT NEXT TIME WATSON

KEEP THESE RECEIPTS FOR ME

The ideals he used to hold sacred are tarnished, everyone he loved or cared about is gone or fading away. Heroes are pitted against one other. His once closest friend became a brainwashed killer.

We find Steve Rogers at one of the last diners from his era. Greasy, dirty, and worn out, but it smells like home and distant dreams.

Medium shot, profile, Steve seems to be talking to himself, talking about all he’s seen and all he’s done since he came back out of the ice. His eyes are tired. His back is straight, but his shoulders sag.

As he talks, the camera dollies in slow until his face is framed in a close up and he asks, “Is this really a world for heroes anymore?”

Then a woman’s speaks, as the camera slowly pans around. “Steven,” she says, slowly, giving us time to see the revelation that he’s talking to Diana. 

Diana - immortal, ideal - she hasn’t changed. She moved the world around her, and stayed the same hero he knew so long ago. Warrior, princess, hope.

She stands up and puts her hand on his shoulders. She says:

It’s when there is something so wrong with your body that your brain goes “this isn’t right” “oh I already know that” “wait this really isn’t right” “shush I know that” over and over again and you’re just left with this sense that something is wrong.