#also love a world that subtly mixes magic/fantasy and science fiction

[thaliajoy-blog]

Princess Arete is so good & fun. A locked up little princess who yearns to learn & do useful things is controlled by her father & his councillors and ends up kidnapped by an evil wizar ; she escapes from him & realizes the wizard has big time self-loathing problems.

[greenlodgecypher]

Book Corner

From Adria

This month's Book Corner is So You Want To Be A Wizard, by Diane Duane. 1983. This came out a while ago, but it's one of my favorite books ever. Student Nita finds a how-to book that inducts her into a Silmarillion-esque cosmology of programmable magic, talking trees, and a Luciferesque "lone power" (and if you've read the Silmarillion you'd be right to think Melkor or Sauron) that she needs to fight. It does all this while mixing in modern-day social drama, science fiction concepts, and a very mature sensibility. Its ending is entirely opposite to that of The Neverending Story in terms of what to do about bullies in your modern-world magical story. It doesn't even make its leads fall in love. This is a standout work (currently a four-novel series) and you should read it. There's nothing like it. It's amazing. The fundamentalist crowd probably hates it, and it's sort of an either-or when it comes to fantasy vs. scifi categorization, and it's all the better for these things. For lovers of general scifi-fantasy adventure, it's technical and intelligent. For film nerds, it's got a very visual style (as it should, since its author writes scripts). For anime fans, it may be up your alley in terms of scope and imaginative wordbuilding. Duane has also written The Door Into Fire series, which has absolutely delightful (and subtly rebellious) worldbuilding. She is responsible for several Star Trek novels, including Spock's World and Dark Mirror, and various television shows and comic novelizations.

[365days365movies]

May 6, 2021: The Martian (2015) (Recap: Part One)

We’re leaving lo-fi sci-fi, people. Kind of.

I mentioned before that films like Her are what I define as “lo-fi sci-fi”, which is a category that I’ve kind of made up. Basically, it’s the science fiction version of low fantasy, meaning it contains science fiction themes contained within an otherwise contemporary setting. In the case of Her, Joaquin Phoenix’s character, along with many others, live in a world and setting basically like ours, but with technology advanced enough to generate AIs (like Siri) that are intelligent enough to actually ascend our reality. Because we live in a society.

You give me Joaquin Phoenix, I’m gonna make a Joker reference; it’s in the contract of my existence. Anyway, that is admittedly kind of broad, right? I mean, that has the capability of crossing over with a BUNCH of sci-fi genres and themes. And, considering that we’ve already seen magic, speculative technology, time travel, monsters, and artificial intelligence, we’ve already touched on quite a bit.

And with science fiction, the sky’s the limit. Literally. So, I think it behooves us to re-examine lo-fi sci-fi a little bit. Specifically, we should note that it can also be defined as an extension of currently existing technologies and possibilities. Writers would call this “speculative sci-fi”, assuming in this case that it’s set within the present or a near and attainable future. Her definitely fits in this category, as does Westworld. But, let’s crossover to another genre by speculating upon another possibility. And it begins with this man. Probably.

Hey, Elon, what’s up? Now, Mr. Musk here is a...controversial figure, for COMPLETELY understandable reasons. Instead of touch upon the man himself, I feel like touching upon one of his recent focuses: space travel. With SpaceX and the various upcoming space trips and journeys that they’re planning, Musk has made it clear that he plans to shoot to the Moon. Again, literally.

In fact, this full plan is to go even further than that, and to fuel potential commercial space flights in the future, which is admittedly very cool. And of course, if you’re going to shoot for the Moon...

Guys...guys, that’s Mars. THAT’S FUCKING MARS

Is that not amazing? We have sound and pictures from FUCKING MARS! THAT’S A DIFFERENT PLANET, GODDAMN IT! It’s cooler than I have the ability to properly express, but it IS goddamn cool. And this means that, easily within my lifetime, we could (and likely will) land on Mars. Which is amazing. God, I really want to see that happen.

And so, landing on Mars is BARELY science fiction, but since we haven’t yet done so...yeah, it’s fictional at the moment. And so, any film about landing on Mars falls within this category. Well...to an extent.

2000′s Mission to Mars, for example, was a Disney-funded film (to my IMMENSE surprise; and it’s based off of an old Disney World ride, WHAT), and a movie that I saw a LOT when I was a kid. I also barely remember it, to be honest. But that film is straight-up science fiction because of, well...aliens. The idea of Martians is, as far as we know it, fictional. And most fiction involving Mars includes these aliens somehow. Whether it’s DC Comics’ entire civilization of Martians, as seen in Justice League, Supergirl, or Young Justice...

...Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s heavily mythologized civilization, as seen in the Barsoom series of novels (and another Disney film)...

...Or one of the best Looney Tunes characters.

Mmm. Yes. Isn’t that lovely?

But, yeah, Mars and aliens go hand-in-hand in our media. So, to properly look at lo-fi science and speculative science fiction in relation to the Red Planet, we’ll need a movie that goes to the planet, and doesn’t touch upon the concept of aliens AT ALL.

Enter...Ridley Scott?

Yeah, the director of Legend, Alien, Thelma and Louise, Blade Runner, Gladiator. Also the director of Kingdom of Heaven, Prometheus, Exodus: Gods and Kings, and...ugh, 1492: Conquest of Paradise. I’ve talked about his mixed record before, in my Recap of Legend right here.

In 2014, he was brought on to adapt a book by Andy Weir called The Martian, which is a great book! I’ve listened to the audio book, and I whole-heartedly recommend doing that. And because of that, I am VERY MUCH looking forward to watching this film, especially seeing as it’s often called one of the best science fiction films made during that year, and was critically acclaimed then and now. It got seven Oscar nominations (although it won none of them), amongst other awards. So, enough navel-gazing, huh? The Martian!

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (1/2)

On Acidalia Plantitia, at the landing site of the Ares III mission, a group of scientists are gathering samples. These scientists are commander and geologist Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain), pilot Rick Martinez (Michael Pena), systems operator Beth Johanssen (Kate Mara), surgeon Chris Beck (Sebastian Stan), German chemist Alex Vogel (Aksel Hennie), and overly talkative botanist Mark Watney (Matt Damon). 

The group seems to have a good dynamic, but that dynamic is interrupted by a massive dust storm, which is large enough to cause the entire crew to evacuate. However, in the chaos of the dust storm, Mark is hit by debris and lost in the shuffle. Although Lewis goes back to find him, she can’t get to him before they need to leave, and Mark is believed dead. This is reported (pretty callously) by NASA Director Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels) to the press soon afterwards.

But of course, that wouldn’t be much of a movie, now would it? Mark’s alive! And Mark’s alone. With his suit damaged, and low on oxygen, he trudges back to headquarters, which is intact and still contains breathable oxygen. He gets inside, and realizes that he’s been stabbed in the abdomen by some debris. He removes it, and stitches up his own wound. Which is...god, it’s fucking BRUTAL just to think about, nevertheless watch.

Once he’s finished, he records a log for the future, if he doesn’t make it. It’s day 19 of the 31-day mission at this point, and Mark’s basically screwed. He needs lasting oxygen, water, and food, and he might need that for 4 years, when the next manned mission can come to the red planet. Additionally, he has absolutely no way to contact NASA, leaving him completely stranded. Another dust storm rolls in that night, and Mark looks over the belongings of his colleagues, packing them up for their eventual return. It’s somber, to say the least. However, Mark affirms that he’s determined not to die on the planet.

After doing the math, Mark should have enough food to last him for about 300 days, especially if he rations it. Until then, he’ll need to figure out how to grow his own food, on a planet where nothing grows. Which is, of course, going to be a difficult feat to accomplish. But Mark Watney’s a botanist with botany powers, and he’s gonna do it.

It’s day 31, and Mark’s brought in dirt from the outside, and uses the bio-waste from the crew’s stay there for a form of compost. After 5 days, mostly full of him watching Happy Days on TV and trying to farm, he realizes that he needs water, both for himself and for the soil. To do that, he goes chemical and decides to use hydrogen-laden rocket fuel, wood from Martinez’s belongings, and good old-fashioned fire to make water! And since hydrogen + oxygen = water, it should work. With a minor side-effect.

So, yeah, he blew himself up. As as he records a video log, the sound mixing makes itself impressively known by subtly and realistically generating a tinnitus sound. It’s VERY well-done, holy shit. Anyway, he makes a stable fire, and the place is soon covered in condensation, moistening the room and the soil successfully.

We get to day 54, and Mark’s planted leftover potatoes from the crew in order to grow them. And while he’s being mourned at a funeral on Earth, and in NASA, he’s seeing the fruits (or shoots) of his efforts.

Back on Earth, Mars Mission Director Vincent Kapoor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is trying to convince Director Teddy to let him lobby for another Ares mission, despite the risk of bad press for the callousness of the proximity to Watney’s death. Meanwhile, satellite technician Mindy Park (Mackenzie Davis) looks down at the Ares III site, and realizes that the site has changed visually, meaning that Mark may actually be alive.

Shocked by this, she tells Kapoor, Teddy, and media director Annie Montrose (Kristen Wiig) about this, and they realize the absolute clusterfuck that this whole thing is. They can’t tell the other members of the Ares III crew about it, because it’d devastate them for the 10 months they have to get back to Earth, at the VERY least. They can’t tell the WORLD about this, because they just had a funeral for the guy, and they’d reveal that they left him stranded on Mars accidentally, destroying faith in the Mars Missions Program. And they can’t save Mark, who they’re sure will starve eventually. It’s a mess. And Kapoor also wonders what’s happening to Mark psychologically through all of this.

And yet, they reveal this to the world regardless, causing the clusterfuck reaction that they think it’s going to cause. But Mark’s busy on Mars, figuring out how to get to the site of the next Ares IV mission in 4 years, at the Schiaparelli crater about 50 days travel away. This is a struggle, as his Rover has only so much power and fuel, and he can only get more power by cutting out the heater is risking death by freezing. So, problems. However, he figures out a potential solution: radioactive isotopes! In a move that is, let’s face it, COMPLETELY INSANE, he digs up a radioactive generator from the ship in order to heat the ship.

On Earth, they try to figure out Mark’s moves, as well as how to resupply Ares IV sooner for Mark’s benefit. This is with the director of JPL, Bruce Ng (Benedict Wong), and the flight director of the ship Hermes, Mitch Henderson (Sean Bean), who insists that they tell the Ares II crew. They continue to monitor Mark, and note that he’s been travelling for 17 days in his Rover towards something. Kapoor figures it out, and flies to California.

See, Mark needs a way to contact NASA, and he believes that the way to do so is through Pathfinder, the first probe ever sent to Mars in 1997, lasting for 9 months since landing until they lost contact. Mark digs it up, and the people at JPL in California start their own efforts for contact. And despite communication being extremely rudimentary, initially limited to yes/no questions that use a still-frame camera, it fucking WORKS! WHOO!

To boost this communication hurdle, the two camps figure out a hexadecimal system for communication, allowing them to communicate using a circular table of numbers that represent an alphabet. That allows them to teach Mark to hack into the Rover, allowing it to piggyback off of its broadcast signal and send them messages via keyboard. Nice! Now that communication is reasonably possible, Mark’s able to ask how the crew is handling his death. But upon learning that they haven’t told him. He’s understandably a little goddamn enraged. And so, they FINALLY tell the Ares III crew about this.

The news breaks the crew, even though Mark continues to stress that he’s all right, and that it wasn’t their fault. Meanwhile, Mark’s able to survive for 912 days with his potato plants, and things improve with the help of technicians on Earth. They plan to launch a supply rocket to him in the next year, and things are looking fine! Unless, of course...something goes horribly HORRIBLY wrong.

Well...fuck. Good place to pause for Part Two, then?

[love-takes-work]

Nonbinary characters in Steven Universe

Steven Universe has been (rightly) praised for its inclusion of nonbinary gender characters. We live in a world where media almost exclusively presents characters who are men or women (and often treats binary trans people, when they're even included, as if they are an additional "middle" gender even if they don't identify that way). So of course, characters who are agender or nonbinary are long overdue and worth celebrating.

HOWEVER.

Steven Universe includes two forms of nonbinary characters, and they both involve aliens. We have Gems who come from space and are largely femme-presenting nonbinary aliens (who use she/her pronouns, but that does not make them female), and we have Fusions whose gender and pronouns are shifted to neutral or undetermined when Steven is included.

While it's still great to have such a cool science fiction show that's got nonbinary characters, presenting their nonbinary gender as a consequence of "mixed" genders or extraterrestrial origin subtly associates nonbinary gender with being nonhuman. 

Stevonnie is referred to canonically as "they/them," and it sets a great example, but we know they are a Fusion of Connie (she/her) and Steven (he/him). 

Smoky Quartz has been referred to as "they" in a context where it was unclear whether it was them or their components being talked about, but given the precedent, I assume Smoky is also they/them: another Fusion of a she/her and a he/him. Fusions of Gems who both use "she/her" are also referred to as she/her, so these pronouns are not reserved for Fusions.

I know several nonbinary, trans, and otherwise gender-atypical people who relate really hard to Stevonnie and/or Smoky, and are thrilled to have this kind of representation. It's so excellent to see Stevonnie, with their femme-leaning androgyny and their clear attractiveness to guys and girls on the show, developing confidence and never dragging the audience through a Very Special Episode where they feel required to disclose and discuss their gender. They're worried about other things, but this gender thing? It just is, and people in their life don't make a big deal out of that part of it. But I think we need more, and I think Steven Universe is just the show to do it.

We currently DO NOT HAVE any known nonbinary characters in the show who are not either aliens or Fusions. If we continue to represent nonbinary characters as having a nonbinary gender only because they're a mixture of male and female or influenced by nonhuman gender concepts, we're presenting it as a concept but not as one that might be applicable to someone in the non-magical, non-alien, everyday Earthly world. 

But nonbinary humans are everywhere, and I would love to see someone show up in the show with casually referenced nonbinary representation--so we know this isn't a gender concept we can only accept in association with fantasy concepts.

What's interesting is the Steven Universe COMICS are already doing this. First, in Issue 1 of the ongoing comic series begun in early 2017, Steven, Peridot, and Lapis find a baby bird. Steven automatically defaults to they/them pronouns for the bird, and after they argue about the bird's name for a while, they settle on naming them Susan. 

Susan is a name pretty heavily coded as female in Western society, but they set a great example here by NOT having Steven change to she/her pronouns to refer to the bird just because they have a traditionally feminine name. There is no discussion of what pronouns to use and no justification of this. It's just there for you to accept, casually, as it should be.

In Issue 2 of the ongoing comic series, we have Stevonnie going to prom with Kiki. There is plenty of weirdness associated with this because Kiki doesn't know Stevonnie is a Fusion of two kids and they're both struggling with teen awkwardness that has nothing to do with Stevonnie's Fusion status, but what's significant about this is Kiki's automatic, consistent use of they/them pronouns for Stevonnie when introducing them to her friends. 

Plus, Stevonnie and Kiki use the same dressing room when trying on dresses, try on a variety of clothes (some of which are traditionally gendered either male or female), and don't completely ignore the issue. 

Kiki asks Stevonnie if they prefer to lead or follow, and that's a really nice acknowledgment that the expected gender roles have to be redefined for a dance couple like them. 

If you just present a nonbinary character where no one's ever confused about how to treat them, you're ignoring programming nearly everyone in our society has, and it's inevitable that someone like Stevonnie would sometimes confuse people if they're trying to squeeze them into a gender box--and unfortunately, that also sometimes means being misgendered, like when Kevin called Stevonnie "girl" during their first appearance on the show.

But then, most notably, in Issue 4 of the ongoing comic series, Peridot goes to a Renaissance Faire and watches a joust, with a visiting knight named "Sir Render." And Sir Render, despite their traditionally masculine appearance and title of "Sir," is consistently referred to with they/them pronouns. 

Even though they're a pretty beefy, hefty knight, and even while they're getting booed by audience members who want them to lose. Nonbinary people do not have to be androgynous, and they/them pronouns can apply to people who are frequently perceived as traditionally feminine or traditionally masculine. Sir Render doesn't HAVE to "try" to look androgynous or less traditionally masculine to have their pronouns respected. And Sir Render is a background human. Not a Fusion and not an alien. This comic also includes the phrase "Lords, ladies, and gentle-enbies." Wow.

Some people have criticized Steven Universe for featuring so many same-gender relationships between Gems without broaching that subject with humans. Gems are not women/girls, but because of their gender presentation and consistent use of she/her pronouns, they are clearly designed to at least be very relatable to female and femme audiences. Nonbinary people are certainly supposed to be able to see themselves in the Gems, but girls and women can too--it's amorphous and up to interpretation, and couples like Ruby and Sapphire or Pearl and Rose can be very meaningful to fans who feel their relationships are more like their own relationships than most anything on television. But when it comes to humans, the explicitly romantic relationships and crushes that include them are surprisingly straight. (And this is acknowledging that human men's crushes on Gems are not "straight" crushes, since literally any relationship that includes one of them is a queer-coded romance by human standards, but these men are likely perceiving the Gems as women and being attracted to them for the same reasons they are attracted to women.)

Jamie crushes on Garnet. Mayor Dewey crushes on Pearl. Greg crushed on Rose and fell in love with her. Sadie and Lars have, well, something. Steven and Connie are developing a close friendship that will likely one day be a straight-up romance. Lars's parents Martha and Dante appear to be a straight couple. Connie's parents Doug and Priyanka appear to be a straight couple. Vidalia had a child with Marty and married Yellowtail, and those appear to be straight relationships. I of course have to be cautious here and acknowledge that characters who LOOK like straight couples may not be straight, especially since bisexual and pansexual people who "settle down" in a relationship are often misinterpreted as being an orientation they don't identify as just because of the gender of their partner. But given no evidence to the contrary, the show does appear to be showing us humans coupling up only in cross-gender partnerships.

The only exception I can think of besides non-speaking background characters is Mr. Smiley's relationship with Mr. Frowney. It is not explicit, but subtext certainly suggests that Harold and Quentin used to be a thing. 

There is also Pearl pursuing Mystery Girl and receiving her phone number, which does suggest Mystery Girl was attracted to femme-presenting people at the very least. 

Oh, and of course we also see Peridot rooting for the Percy/Pierre ship on her favorite show, even though the canon of the show has Percy being pushed toward Paulette. And Uncle Andy made a reference to one of his relatives having a "partner," which seems like something he wouldn't do if it was a cross-gender relationship considering he also assumed Greg had a wife and used the word "wife." (This was offscreen, however--not even pictured characters.) 

But overall, what we've seen is that we can have same-gender relationships as long as we can hide it behind aliens for plausible deniability. (Though at least in the United States, I think reports of Cartoon Network actively attempting to stop "gay relationships" from getting on TV is highly exaggerated.) It would be fantastic to get some explicit representation of humans having these relationships too. But at least there are some hints and some subtext, while we really don't have much of anything for human nonbinary characters.

Like most other situations in the show, I think the usually sensitive writing and nuanced understanding of these important issues would be in reach for the Crew on this topic. I really hope we will see nonbinary characters on this show in the future when there is no "alien" or "Fusion" explanation. Plenty of nonbinary humans exist in the real world, and this show would be a perfect place to start reflecting that.