Category: Old Posts

Gotham is not a perfect show, and maybe not even a good show. I’m not going to defend the crazy pacing of Penguin’s rehabilitation/relapse storyline, the utter waste of Tabitha or pretty much any of Bruce’s dialogue, at any point, ever. I’m not going to pretend I’m not disappointed by the ways in which its second season has failed to live up to my highest hopes.

But there’s this notion about Gotham, most abrasively trumpeted by The AV Club, but parroted elsewhere as received knowledge, that Gotham is a show that struggles with its identity, and particularly that it’s “two shows, and never knows which it wants to be at any time” or some variation thereof.

This is not true now, nor has it ever been true. Gotham has a perfectly coherent identity, possibly one of the most rigidly-defined identities of any show on television right now.

Continue reading “Stitches May Strain, but Sutures Don’t Split: In Defense of Gotham’s Gothic Identity” →

(Author’s Note: This is a bad article that makes a bad argument, and I only keep it up because I link to it in a better article refuting the argument of this piece. I strongly advise reading that article before or after reading this one, or better yet, not reading this one at all.)

In the very near future, all four superhero shows that will be airing on The CW as of this autumn – Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl – will have a four-way crossover event, as announced by the network’s president, Mark Pedowitz.

Congratulations, nerds, you have finally crossed the line from merely damaging the properties you claim to love to actively destroying them.

Continue reading “Congratulations, Nerds, You’ve Finally Ruined Everything” →

Such things bring strife amongst my folk.

They will destroy him
if he comes in threat.

We are not the same.

Wulf is on one island,
I the other.

That island is anchored
deep in the marsh,
a nation of cruel killers.
They will destroy him
if he comes in threat.

We are not the same.

I brooded and pined for wandering Wulf,
ensconced in my grief,
steeped in the rain,
yet when the bold one pulled me close,
I perished in pleasure,
but lived in pain.

O Wulf, my Wulf,

my sickness is longing
your seldom-coming,
my spirit’s mourning,
not mere lack of food.

Do you hear, Eadwacer?

Wulf bears the wretched
thing
we made into the woods.

He tears what was never seamed,
the tapestry of our story together.

It will be as a matter of fate for my kin,
They will wish to kill him, when he comes with his brothers.
It is different for me than it is for him.
Faolán is on one island, I on another.
That island is steadfast, hidden in fen,
its native folk are the fiercest of men.

They will wish to kill him, when he comes with his brothers.
It is different for me than it is for him.
I thought of my Faolán and the hopes he smothered,
and I sat in tears, whenever it rained,
yet when I was in his bold arms engirdled,
I dwelled in pleasure, and drowned in pain.

O Faolán, my Faolán, my hopes have curdled
into a sickness, how rarely you stay,
my anxious spirit, not hunger for food.
Do you hear me, protector? A wolf steals away
into the woods with our wretched brood.
What was unjoined may easily sever,
our song, our poem, our story together.

It is as though my people were given a gift.
They will wish to slay him if he comes in arms.
          We are unlike.
The wolf is on one isle, I am on another.
Firm lies that island, set among the fens,
savagery rules the men who dwell there.
They will wish to slay him if he comes in arms.
          We are unlike.
I thought with hope of my wolf’s wanderings.
It rained that day, and I sat mournful,
when the bold warrior laid me in his arms,
I found pleasure in that, but also pain.
          O wolf, my wolf,
your hopes have sickened me, your rare comings,
my grieving heart, not lack of nourishment.
Do you hear me, watchdog? A wolf
takes our wretched whelp into the woods.
Man may easily break what was never joined,
          our story together.