Having Watched All Of Deep Space Nine, I Now Say….
I have now devoted one hundred and twenty-nine hours of my life to watching the entirety of Deep Space Nine. Assuming I’d never slept, that’d be five and a half straight days of television, but as it was, finishing DS9 was a commitment. We gave up Mythbusters, we gave up sitcoms, we gave up Boardwalk Empire because we knew if we strayed we’d wander off and never know how all of this ended.
And how did it end?
Well.
I told you when I started watching DS9 that I hadn’t seen it before now because I “knew” it was a pale rip-off of Babylon 5 – a complaint that has some traction. But DS9 and B5 had similar evolutions because of the nature of the show.
Which is to say that Next Generation was a spaceship swooping from exotic locale to exotic locale, every week a new distraction, so you didn’t have to worry about the characters all that much. Hey, it’s Picard – on a pleasure planet! Hey, it’s Picard – fighting the Borg! Hey, it’s Picard – arguing with Q! So your main plotline isn’t so much the evolution of the characters, it’s the latest show-and-dance.
….Though I note that the fan favorite episodes tend to be the ones where Picard is forced through character evolution, such as “Picard has to live a whole life as someone else” or “Picard goes home and breaks down over the Borg.”
What DS9 did, simply because it was a static locale and didn’t have the luxury of a different enemy every week, was to change the characters. Because you literally couldn’t go elsewhere, the characters had to evolve, and as such what you had was a situation very unlike Star Trek where the characters’ choices in Season 1 would not be the choices they made come Season 7. (As evidenced by Sisko’s chilling, yet correct, choice in “In The Pale Moonlight” – a choice Picard never could have made, yet a choice that needed to be made.)
Deep Space Nine is both far better and far worse than Babylon 5. B5 had the problem of wooden characters and bad actors, while DS9 had rich characters and some very bad actors mixed in with some very good ones. (It took me a long time before I could accept Sisko’s stilted delivery as a riff on Shatnerian earnestness. And ever since Bec made me watch Shatner’s documentary “The Captains,” where he interviews all of the other Star Trek captains only to find Avery Brooks is a singing, piano-playing loon, I found it hard to separate Avery from the role.)
Basically, every flaw Deep Space Nine has when compared to Babylon 5 comes down to “Babylon 5 knew where it was going.” B5 had an end point, so it had a clear character arc for every character – Londo’s redemption and corruption, Garibaldi’s fencing with the Psi Corps, even Sinclair/Sheridan’s attitude towards Earth. As such, the characters had very bold decisions where they moved from friends to enemies, or vice versa, with the grace of a dancer.
DS9 gets the evolution, but falters a bit because they don’t know where they’re headed – they were just running for a few seasons and hoped to tie it up. The only one where they absolutely nail the arc is Odo and Kira, and even that wavers for a bit as the “Will she or won’t she” turns into cruelty for a bit as you can sense the producers not quite sure what to do. So you have a lot of relationships like Odo and Quark that are quite nice as they are, but are entirely about moving by inches and never reach a breaking point.
On the other hand, DS9 has a much better grasp on emotional issues, unlike B5 which treats emotions as something that happens to further the plot. DS9, like all Star Treks, loves devoting individual episodes to giving each of their leads a challenge that shows us who they are. So we get these character spotlights where we wind up getting very much inside the heads of Kira and Dax and co, which matter more because that’s what Star Trek does well – that human factor.
On the other hand, DS9 has the Ferengi episodes, which vary wildly in quality, and a lot of Klingon episodes – and since I can’t stand Klingons, it feels like there’s a lot of filler.
Thing is, though, the end game of DS9 is ultimately pretty satisfying. It suffers because, like all “We’re making it up as we go along” shows, there are dead-ends and shoehorned in aspects – hey, what’s that book that suddenly turns out to mean anything, and why’s it only show up three episodes before the end? Why did the prophets make such a big deal about Sisko making a choice where his punishment was that he could never return to Bajor if this was their end game all along? Who are these Breen guys, anyway, and why’d they steal Leia’s armor from Jabba’s palace?
None of that matters, though, because they got some of the emotional arcs right. DS9 is different from Roddenberry in that it believes that war has a cost, and that cost takes its toll. The end of Next Generation is Picard saying “Engage,” and that there are tons of new adventures to be had – which is inspiring, but not necessarily honest.
DS9 shows that characters must make sacrifices in the course of this war, and what happens in the end isn’t always happy. Some real losses are had – not death, which is kind of easy in fiction, but the kind of thing where ultimately to do the right thing you have to step away from what you want personally to accomplish the larger goal. And in that, DS9 shows how friendships are born and shift as yes, you have friendships, but you have marriages and careers and, yes, the fate of the fucking galaxy, and sometimes you’re going to pay for that currency in unhappiness to get the paltry satisfaction of having done the right thing.
That’s where DS9 nails it. Yes, it’s a little uneven in the last season as the non-arc shows sputter out. Yes, maybe some of the end game is too much “Because The Prophets say so.” Yes, maybe all our questions are not answered. But the emotional resonance of knowing that no, in fact being a tool of the Prophets does not lead to happiness, war does not lead to happiness, combat costs.
And that, I like. So much that I can forgive the unevenness.
Why I Love Kelly Link
Kelly Link was my first teacher at Clarion, and I adore her with all my heart. I like her better than I do her writing, and you can only understand what a compliment that is when you realize how much I love her writing.
Anyway, this quote is not from her, but she quotes this in her interview, and it is perhaps the truest thing I’ve ever read about writing a novel:
Deciding to write a novel is like visiting an obscure, half-forgotten and slowly-evaporating planet entirely comprised of swimming pools and deciding that what is needed is… yes, another swimming pool! But, for obscure reasons, a swimming pool that must be built single-handedly from scratch and then filled using only a syringe.
Don't, Don't, Don't Let's Start
A brief note to anyone dating me in any fashion:
In the course of your life, you will do things that make me paranoid, jealous, and upset. Your flirting will make me feel second-rate. Your friendships will sometimes make me concerned that I’m not enough for you. Your need to concentrate on, you know, your money-earning tasks will occasionally make me feel neglected and lonely.
Don’t change your behavior unless I ask. Please.
Look, it’s bad enough that I have these unpleasant emotions boiling within me, but I’ve learned that I can’t control my emotions. Emotions arise spontaneously, like the weather, and there’s not much I can do about them. I’m often seized by petty, unworthy, shitty feelings.
The only thing I can do is to control my reactions.
So I may be a little upset, but that’s my problem. I love you. I don’t want you to feel bad, because you’ve done nothing wrong. It’s just the reflex of a fucked-up brain reacting from an artificial feeling of scarcity and a poisonous sense of Impostor Syndrome. So I’ll be a little down for a bit while I wrestle these feelings back into the snake pit they emerged from.
The worst thing you could do when I’m mopey is to take responsibility for these emotions and change, simply because I’m upset.
If you start feeling bad about my feeling bad, and legitimizing these riotously poor gut reactions by changing your behavior, then basically you’re allowing yourself to be enslaved by my pettiest instincts. And it’s not your problem. It’s my problem, and if you start cutting back on the things you enjoy because Mister Insecurity Risen here is nervous, then I’m going to feel monstrously shittier in the long run…
…and it won’t make me feel any better. I’ll just find something else to feel nervous about. This is how broken I am.
Trust me. I’m monitoring myself, and if it gets to the point where I think you doing X is a legitimate problem, then I’ll come to you and talk about it. But lots of things make me feel like I’m a fraud – writers having big novel sales, women who don’t even know I crush on them finding partners, folks who earn more money than I do. The aspect of me that envies those triumphs is a twisted, awful part of me that I want to starve, not feed. I’ll feel better if I can shield you from this Godawful part of me.
So please. Don’t change your behavior. Occasionally I’ll withdraw for a bit when stung so as not to infect you with my silliness, because gimme a bit of time and I’ll recover.
This is a flaw of mine. If you must fix it, just kiss me on the cheek and tell me you adore me, and continue doing what you’re doing. Because I’m the one who’s fucked up, not you. Okay?
Love,
Me
A Brief Explanation of Terms
Every once in a while, it occurs to me that new readers might not know my cast of characters. So in an attempt to summarize Who I Am and What I Do for everyone, I’ve written up a brief explanation of who’s who around here.
My Wife Gini, a.k.a. Zoethe.
We met online in a Star Wars chat room, and proceeded to tear each other to shreds in political debates for five years straight without a scrap of romance in there anywhere. Then my fiancee (correctly) dumped me just as Gini was getting divorced, and when I found out Gini was flirting with someone else, I sent her an email that said, summarized, “Don’t you realize the reason I’ve never flirted with you once is because I’ve been half a heartbeat away from falling in love with you?”
Her response, summarized, was, “I’m very flattered, but before I continue and potentially embarrass myself, answer one question: were you drunk when you wrote this?”
Of such greatness was a grand relationship made. It’s been twelve years and is still awesome.
Erin and Amy
While technically my stepdaughters, I consider them my blood-kin. Close to my heart, sadly far away in the physical world, as Erin works and Amy goes to college. I do not blog about them much because a) I don’t consider myself a good enough parent to expound on parenting theories, and b) if they want to write about their own adventures, they should get to decide when and to whom.
La Casa McJuddMetz
Our Cleveland house, where we’ve lived for ten years now. Named as a mashup of all of the family’s last names. A small house, it’s been renovated recently – in fall of last year, we painted all the walls bright colors and stripped the awful rugs from the floors, and this summer we turned our kitchen into a fabulous open-area space. Now we’re getting a new bed. It’s like we don’t even know our home.
The Friendly Ghost At La Casa McJuddMetz
Referenced in my author profiles, we never blog about the friendly ghost.
Cleveland
Cleveland’s the butt of jokes, but realistically it’s also a major food capital. Clevelanders go out to eat more than just about any other city, and the rent is way cheaper because the city’s still imploding from a lack of industry, so all of the New York chefs are coming out here to start expensive restaurants on the cheap. Basically, Cleveland has a lot of culture (great food, arguably the third best orchestra in the world, a thriving theater district) – we’re just not snobby about it.
The Velvet Tango Room
We don’t go as often as we’d like, maybe once every two months, but Paulius serves the best drinks in the world. They’re fifteen bucks a glass, but are designed to be stand-alone drinks with the complexity of a meal. It’s a surprisingly low-key institution – you’d think it was a liquor store, viewed from the street – but manages to cram a casual elegance that makes it one of Cleveland’s must-stops.
StarCityGames.com
The largest independent Magic: the Gathering site, where I work as a webmaster/programmer. I wish I played Magic more, but I haven’t the time to muscle a social group back into play – and sadly, the closest store looks like this.
Clarion
A six-week science-fiction and fantasy writers’ workshop, where I was reborn as a writer in 2008. Before that, I’d been writing for twenty years, and I knew I wasn’t good enough, but I didn’t know why. Clarion dissassembled me and put me back together, and since then I’ve published nineteen stories. Hopefully a novel. My life’s goal is to publish a novel. At which point I’m sure my life’s goal will mutate into publishing a successful novel. (I note they’re accepting applications right now.)
Polyamory
Gini and I are polyamorous, and while I’ll discuss aspects of polyamory, I tend to be very low on the personal details of who I’m dating, mainly because my blog’s a relatively big stage and I don’t like dragging people on here. I’ve seen some high-profile bloggers have problems with rhapsodizing about Their Glorious New Poly Love and then when the breakup comes, everyone takes sides and I suspect it’s that much worse for the poor bastard who’s now broken up with… so while I have lots of love, I don’t go into specifics. I’m convinced this is the reason our poly relationships last so long, because polyamorous relationships are like dog years in that one year equals seven.
I have two “core” relationships, who are sufficiently close that they have veto power over who I’m allowed to see because a) they’re entrusted with my best interests, and b) if they’re not happy, I’m not happy. Gini and I also see other people, who we love, but we don’t necessarily have to run things past them, just keep them apprised.
Bec
Bec is our local “core” girlfriend, who Gini and I have been dating for about three years now. She lives in Cleveland, and we have weekly dates as well as doing much Stuff on the weekends.
Angie
Angie is our long-distance “core” girlfriend who lives in Detroit, and we’ve also been dating for three glorious years. We see her maybe once every two months, which is never enough.
That’s pretty much a summary of what’s going on. Any questions you have about my life you wanted to have clarified? Now’s your chance.
In Happier News….
Yesterday, our girlfriend Bec got us our matching Christmas presents. And this immediately ensued:
Yes, I know – as jenphalian, that crazy SCA nut told me, my form is horrible, I’m leading with my face, I don’t care. I’m using JEDI MIND POWERS, forcing Gini back with MY BRAIN. And then we made a very Christmassy display:
Also, thanks to some Christmas financial assistance from Mom, I got my main gift of a king-sized bed. From a mattress expert.
SIDE NOTE: Seriously, what is it about mattress stories? If you’d asked me, I’d told you there was maybe one mattress store in all of Cleveland. But the minute I started seriously thinking about purchasing mattresses, suddenly there was a goddamned mattress emporium on every corner. They must have teleported in at my psychic beckoning; surely, I can’t be that oblivious.
But this store held a goddamned mattressing wizard. She took us to the bed we’d requested to see, a quilted brick, and then carefully showed us to the bed we wanted. She accurately predicted the kinds of pains and aches we’d have if we slept on the bed we had, guessed our bed’s age within two years, discussed how the hips work when you’re lying down. When she was done showing us through, I had no choice but to buy a bed to reward her.
So what did we get? A king-sized latex mattress with an inch-and-a-half thick top to support our fat bodies. The Mattress Queen loves fat people. Apparently, skinny people lay on all kinds of mattresses and can’t feel a difference because they weigh as much as a leaflet, but fat people? Fat people know the distinction. She can sell to fat people. And so she did.
A Brief Vomiting Of Hate Upon The NDAA
There are days where I don’t want to vomit rage all over you. Today isn’t one of those days. But I think it would be hypocritical of me to let the day pass without mentioning the passing, and subsequent failing to veto of, the National Defense Authorization act.
Fucking leprous shit-eating motherfucker.
Obama’s record on personal liberty has been pretty abysmal – I mean, I still blame Bush for starting the Guantanamo detention camps, but Obama’s kept them going. And at this point, what I’m seeing as Obama’s legacy is two things:
1) A complicated boondoggle to fund the insurance companies that he shoved through Congress without actually explaining to anybody, which may or may not work and which may or may not be dismantled in the courts;
2) Destroying habeas corpus.
Basically, by not vetoing the bill, Obama’s said, “You know what? If I think you’re guilty of something, I can jail you for as long as I want. Do I need evidence? Nah. A trial? Nah. If you fucking annoy me, I can fucking get rid of you.”
Which, as has been noted here, is not really a surprise – the NDAA merely codifies what Obama and Bush have been doing all along, a great big ol’ reacharound Presidential land grab of authority. And you know, maybe I do trust Obama not to lock up civil enemies without warning, barely, but this isn’t about just Obama. This is about every fucking President from now on being able to do this. This is handing a loaded gun to every dickwad wanna-be tyrant who walks into office.
And Obama knows this.
As I’ve said time and time again, the problem with just side-stepping the law is twofold: one, if the laws aren’t sufficient to catch criminals, reform the fucking laws. Without laws, you have abuse. And while it’s tempting to just tell the cops, “Yeah, it’s hard to play by the rules, so we’ll look away while you go beat up the guilty,” in reality what happens is the cops pick on whoever they don’t like instead of actually carrying out justice. If the current tools aren’t good enough, refashion the fucking tools, you leaking diarrhetic fuckfaces.
Two, as Irving Berlin once said, “Anything you can do, I can do better,” which is to say that every time the United States says, “Hey, we don’t need to actually follow rules or encourage freedom locally,” some shit-pot of a tyrannical dictatorship looks to us and goes, “Well, if the country of freedom can’t be bothered, we certainly don’t need to be.”
If America’s going to advertise itself as “The land of the free,” then it needs to be an example of what freedom is to other fucking countries. And freedom is not full of shortcuts. Freedom’s a hard thing where sometimes the terrorists are smarter than your laws, and sometimes you know someone’s guilty, but you let them free because it’s not about your gut feeling, it’s about proving it to other people with evidence. Because the alternative is just fucking grabbing whoever looks guilty, and feeding into that feeling that the system is rigged, which eventually leads to a never-ending series of overthrows as people come to realize that if they’re not the guy on top, they’re going to be fucked over.
Obama’s a scholar. He knows that. He’s studied what happens, and still he threw it away in a cynical, personal power grab. So fuck him and fuck his idea of freedom.
Random People I've Been Meaning To Plug Recently
1) My friend Adam Fromm has just recorded his first folk CD The Elmsley Count – which, if you’re into music in the vein of S.J. Tucker and her ilk, you should go take a look at. Fortunately, the site he’s selling off of gives you the ability to listen to full tracks, a feature which I absolutely adore, so head over, check it out, and ascertain just how much cash you want to plunk down to support a local artist.
2) My friend Perich has just released his first e-book Too Close To Miss, which in the interests of full disclosure I have not read… But I have read his blog for years, and adore his posts on Overthinking It, and so I think that given it’s a thriller novel, it’s probably worth a look. It can be found here.
3) Someone else I have not read is Terri Windling, even though all the cool kids apparently have. I’m a firm believer that anyone who influences as many people as she has must be worth reading, since my main metric for authorhood is “the love of devoted readers.” Terri is sick, and various artists are offering all sorts of things in auctions to help her out at Magick 4 Terri – and some of the things are quite tempting indeed.
Now, I am extremely late to mention this (which should show you how terrible I am at remembering things), so the auction closes tomorrow. But there is still time, as you can see by going to the LJ site right now.