Fuckable Fictional Characters: Simon Bellamy

March 18, 2017August 22, 2018Michelle R. Lane 1 Comment

So, you know how yesterday I mentioned that whole feeling of pastiche I experienced while watching Misfits (or something to that effect), well, if you know me at all (or bothered to read my blog), you know I have a special place in my heart for the mentally disturbed, the outsiders, the creepy kids, weirdos, the unstable…well, you get the idea. Some of my favorite fictional characters are monsters who have a sad, or at the very least pitiable backstory. This didn’t happen by chance. I’m not going to delve too deeply into this personality quirk of mine, but I will say three things:

My father was a mental health professional and I respected the work he did.
As a child, I was led to believe that my differences would make me difficult to love.
I fell in love with a schizophrenic punk rock music journalist and human rights activist while studying abroad in the UK as a college student (who, by the way, didn’t find me difficult to love).

I couldn’t help but be drawn to the attractive, overtly-nerdy, somewhat off-putting, yet well-meaning young man with the creepy stare. Simon Bellamy, played by Welsh actor Iwan Rheon, is a first-class weirdo of the most endearing kind. Yes, he has the potential of becoming a psychopath, but instead he uses his knowledge of Science Fiction and Fantasy films and comics, his understanding of how to cover up a murder, and his geeky sex appeal to win the love of a girl. I mean, look at him, he is super-fucking-adorkable.

ATTENTION: UNADULTERATED #FANGIRLING AHEAD

OH, AND SPOILERS

LOTS AND LOTS OF SPOILERS

SO MANY SPOILERS

At the beginning of the series, when we slowly get to know each character and why they have been assigned community service, the strange quiet boy appears to have the most depth. Nathan Young, the self-centered prick who has some of the best lines of dialog, has an almost psychopathic preoccupation with making fun of Simon. Nathan is so self-absorbed that he often forgets other people’s names, including the people he spends every day with doing community service.

I mean, honestly, nothing is sacred to Nathan, but he seems to zero in on Simon, which eventually, I believe, is one of the reasons he steps out of his comfort zone of shyness. He has no choice but to defend himself against the onslaught of name calling.

We soon discover that Simon is very smart. To be fair, his nerdy tendencies lead us to assume that about him, and like most weird kids, his intellect has led him down some culturally-specific paths. He’s well versed in genre fiction (Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy) in the form of films and comic books. When weird things start happening, he usually has an answer that he pulls from one of these areas of interest.

Simon is not only a great resource for fun facts about monsters and super heroes, but he also has an uncanny ability to figure out how to get away with murder. As if, he’s been planning quite a few. I mean, he did attempt arson which is why he’s doing community service, and you get the sense that he’s been picked on a lot. So much so, that he really has a hard time trusting people.

He not only provides insight into how to dispose of the first probation worker and the kid with the cap, but he also ends up killing the second probation worker in order to protect himself and his fellow Misfits, who he considers his only friends in the world, from being connected to the first murders.

The second probation worker, Sally, was engaged to the first probation worker, Tony. She’s convinced that the weird kids doing community service have something to do with his disappearance. But, she has no proof. She observes them individually, and then focuses on Simon, whom she believes will rat out the others. She begins by stalking/befriending him online under an alias, and then seduces him in an attempt to learn more about Tony’s whereabouts.

She manipulates an awkward lonely boy with promises of affection and then is surprised that he gets upset when he learns the truth.

Not only does he end up killing her accidentally while fighting to get his cell phone with incriminating evidence from her, but he conceals the crime by hiding her body in a freezer at the community center.

He visits the freezer almost daily to spend time with her dead body. You know, to touch her, and look at her, and eat pizza while hanging out alone with her corpse. Now we’re in potential necrophilia territory. I told you he was weird. Without his true calling, Simon could have easily become a serial killer.

At this point in the series, Simon is still a virgin, so we know very little about his sexual preferences beyond very weird things that come up at inopportune moments. Like, when we discover Alisha’s power, which as I mentioned yesterday, is really more of a curse. When people touch her they have an uncontrollable desire to have sex with her, and most people say extremely disturbing things in reference to what they’d like to do to her.

Okay, he had me at “I tried to burn someone’s house down,” but he lost me at golden showers. Of course, he won me back when he was actually in the shower.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Okay, we can stay right here for another moment or two.

A…N…D…moving on.

Before we can get back to that super sexy shower scene (and I promise you, we will), Simon has to go through some other harrowing adventures that would probably make a normal person lose their mind. But, since Simon is already at the questionable end of the sanity spectrum, he’s able to find humor in really dark situations and uses kindness and intellect more often than force to win out over terrible circumstances. And, he seems to have better control over his ability than anyone else. Which makes the superhero name Nathan assigns him really unfair.

Aside from the fact that Simon’s destiny is leading him to become a hero, there are lots of reason to like him even if creepy cute guys aren’t your cup of tea. Here’s a short list:

He likes to dance, but especially after someone spikes his beer with MDMA.

His eyes are big and dreamy and somewhat reminiscent of Peter Lorre‘s.

Even Nathan thinks he has…something.

He’s kind to the mentally ill. Even when they’re scary-as-fuck shape-shifting stalkers. (That sentence right there, that makes you want to watch the show. Right?)

Scary-as-fuck shape-shifting stalkers seems like a good place to jump back into Simon’s character arc. As to be expected with well-developed shows that slowly unveil their secrets to us, each episode we get to know Simon a little better and begin to understand where his darkness is coming from. For instance, in the first episode he blurts out why he’s been assigned community service. He tried to burn someone’s house down. Later, he confides to Sally the probation worker that it was his neighbor’s house. He was upset because the boy who lived in the house stopped being friends with Simon once they got to school. This boy not only denounced their friendship, but participated in the cruelty Simon experienced at school for being an outsider. Simon’s last straw was being humiliated after turning up at a club thinking he’d been invited by his neighbor, but soon learns he received the text message by mistake. With no apology from his ex-friend, Simon leaves the club, and apparently decided arson would solve his problems. A few episodes later, we learn that after committing arson, (which he didn’t actually succeed in doing), he was sent to a hospital for psychiatric observation. While at the hospital Simon acquires an admirer.

As it turns out, Lucy was also effected by the storm, and now she’s a shapeshifter. When she sees Simon at the community center she’s disappointed that he doesn’t wish to rekindle their friendship. She becomes jealous of his new friends and tries to sabotage his relationships, going so far as to threaten to turn him into the police for killing his probation worker(s). One of the first things Lucy does to disrupt the circle of friends is to transform into Alisha who is dating Curtis, and give Simon a surprise blowjob. Simon’s O-face is adorable.

Of course, Simon doesn’t know it’s Lucy pretending to be Alisha, and he assumes Alisha is interested in him. Later, when he approaches the real Alisha and awkwardly asks her out on a date, she laughs in his face. Confused and hurt, he demands to know why she’s toying with his emotions.

Soon, the group realizes something is wrong. Of course, Simon immediately guesses that Lucy is a shapeshifter, so they have to devise a way of knowing if they’re talking to her or each other.

After Simon is violated and mislead to believe that Alisha finds him sexually attractive, she ends up meeting a future version of him and can’t help falling in love. Okay, at first she falls in lust.

See? I promised we’d get back to that shower scene. It is here when things get confusing for Alisha. I mean, the Simon that she knows is hands down one hell of an adorable guy, but this Simon? Hot damn! This Simon is sexy, cool, and mysterious. He can travel through time, and he dresses and acts like a super hero. When you find out why he does all of this, it may just break your heart.

Alisha isn’t immediately smitten, but she is intrigued by the fact that he can touch her without being effected by her power. No one has touched her since the storm without wanting to have sex with her. So, even though she’s been dating Curtis, it hasn’t been the most satisfying relationship. She begins to wonder if she’ll ever be able to have a normal relationship. I’m not gonna lie, I really wanted Alisha to get together with Future Simon. If only to live vicariously through her amazingly good stroke of luck.

When she meets Future Simon, he makes her swear not to tell anyone his secret. And, he tells her that eventually they will fall in love with each other. But, she’ll have to be patient with Present Simon, because he’s not quite ready.

While she’s trying to figure out how to deal with the secret, she realizes that she does have feelings for Future Simon and since he already has feelings for her, things heat up pretty quickly.

It’s amazing what a little confidence and a slightly different hairstyle can do for a guy. Not to mention a little sexual experience.

And, he knows the way to a girl’s heart.

So, while Alisha is dating Future Simon, Present Simon meets a nice girl with an overly protective father. She’s immediately attracted to him and they decide to lose their virginity to each other.

But, they don’t have any dates after that night, because it turns out Jessica’s dad has been killing everyone who shows an interest in his little girl. It’s a classic love story. Invisible boy meets pretty girl, and pretty girl’s homicidal maniac father tries to stab him to death. Oddly enough, Alisha is jealous of Jessica, especially when she realizes Present Simon has lost his virginity to her. But, she’s still seeing this guy.

Who tells her to fall in love with this guy (who’s listening to The Killing Moon by Echo & the Bunnymen in case you were wondering).

So that he can become this guy.

Confused? Don’t be.

All you need to know is that these two make a beautiful couple. Even when he has feelings of inadequacy compared to his future self who is apparently better in bed. But, as we all know, practice makes perfect.

Lots and lots of practice.

And, they have some pretty great dates as well, it doesn’t take long before they are in love. Sweet, sweet interracial love.

And, they continue to have some dangerous adventures along the way.

This image may only be used for publicity purposes in connection with the broadcast of the programme as licensed by BBC Worldwide Ltd & must carry the shown copyright legend. It may not be used for any commercial purpose without a licence from the rights holder. © Clerkenwell Films 2009

I’m not going to tell you how their story ends, but I will show you how their story begins.

More than one girl (and a few older women) fell in love with Simon Bellamy after watching Misfits. I think you will too.

Save Me, Barry!: A Review of Misfits

March 17, 2017August 20, 2018Michelle R. Lane 1 Comment

Sometimes the stories we feel closest to and enjoy the most are the ones that create a feeling of pastiche in our hearts and minds. A cluster of false memories in which we long for an imagined past that reminds us of who we wished we’d become. Who we wished we had known, friends and lovers that well-developed fictional characters make us crave. Through them we revisit our own feelings — real or imagined — of the highs and lows in life. And, if those characters happen to have supernatural abilities they can inspire feelings of longing we can’t even explain. Alongside the lust, love, pity, fear, and loss we feel for them, there’s this added dimension of wishing we could become invisible, immortal, turn back time, or simply read other people’s thoughts. Any of us who have had the experience of being an outsider can relate to the overwhelming desire to be accepted, even if it’s by a group of misfits like you.

MISFITS Titles from MOMOCO Film Titles on Vimeo.

I’ve been dying to talk about the BBC television show, Misfits, which is currently streaming on Hulu. My desire to talk about the show is two-fold: First, the show itself is a wonderful SFF dark comedy about young adults facing unexpected complications in an already complicated time of their lives. And second, I’m going to discuss a very fuckable fictional character, Simon Bellamy (stay tuned, post coming tomorrow).

If you haven’t watched the show, I highly recommend it, because it has a lot going for it. It’s darkly funny and chock full of dick jokes, and oddly enough commentary on the spectrum of sexuality and gender politics. It’s necessarily violent, and people die. Violently. It has a wonderfully diverse cast of young actors you will grow to love. At the heart of this SFF show about young adults gaining superpowers from a freak storm, there’s a love story. Several love stories. And most importantly, an interracial love story.

ATTENTION: SPOILERS AHEAD

The show opens with a group of young people showing up for their first day of community service. They don’t know each other, and at first glance, you can tell that they all lead very different lives. Obviously, none of them want to be there, but each of them has committed some offense and now must work off their sentences by picking up trash, scrubbing graffiti off the walls of the community center that acts as their home base, painting benches, and participating in other community events like dances for the elderly, and art therapy for the mentally ill, while wearing orange jumpsuits.

We begin to get a picture of their personalities as they complain about being forced to do community service, show disrespect for their parole worker and each other. Curtis, an athletic dark-skinned guy complains about having to work with the other people, saying over and over that he shouldn’t even be there. He thinks he’s better than the rest of them. Kelly is a Class-A Chav with an attitude and a taste for violence. Initially, she doesn’t seem especially smart, but turns out to be an excellent problem solver and survivor. And, aside from Simon, she ended up being my favorite character.

Alisha is a pretty light-skinned black girl who uses her good looks to manipulate people and get what she wants. However, she was unable to talk her way out of a drink driving stop when she fails the breathalyzer. She is desperate for attention and uses sexuality in place of personality until people start treating her with kindness and respect. Nathan is a hysterically funny and morally corrupt prick who ends up making us feel a lot of sympathy and pity. He’s a wanker with a heart of gold. And then there’s Simon. A painfully shy, comic book reading nerdy boy with his shirts buttoned all the way up to the neck. He’s cute and delightfully creepy in his social awkwardness that borders of psychopathic behavior. Initially, we don’t know why any of them is there, but slowly, their stories unfold.

On their first day, a freak storm comes out of nowhere, dropping hailstones the size of soccer balls that are heavy enough to cave in a car roof and break through pavement. Their probation worker, Tony, yells for them to take cover and they run toward the community center for shelter. Before he can unlock the door, each of them is hit by lightning and knocked silly. At least, five of the young people and Tony are hit. Another young offender misses the storm, because he’s hiding out in the men’s room smoking a joint. He stomped off after getting paint on his cap, and never came back to finish his assigned task.

Kelly is the first to notice that she’s developed a power. A few weird things happened the night before, but now she’s certain something is different. She can overhear what people are thinking. And, like Sookie Stackhouse, she realizes that people are twisted and disgusting, and you really don’t want to know what most of them are thinking. Especially their thoughts about you.

The next day they show up at the community center and the kid with the cap isn’t there. Their all a bit too self-absorbed and freaked out by the storm to even really notice that he’s missing. While getting ready for the day, Simon discovers his ability in the locker room. Ironically, the one that everyone tends to ignore is able to turn invisible. No one notices him disappear and we get our first peek at the anger and frustration bubbling beneath Simon’s quiet surface.

Tony gives them their assignment for the day. No one notices that Simon is missing, but he eventually becomes visible again and joins the others outside. While cleaning graffiti off a wall, Kelly asks if anyone else is experiencing anything weird since the storm. Nathan makes fun of her, but Simon speaks up and says that he was able to turn invisible. No one believes him either.

At some point, someone thinks the wrong thing about Kelly and she storms off, overwhelmed by her feelings and her fears about this new ability. Whiles she’s off having a smoke and a good cry, we soon realize that the parole worker has also been affected by the storm. He developed an uncontrollable need for violence that looks a lot more like the Rage Virus in 28 Days Later rather than the Hulk wanting to smash. Running for her life, Kelly seeks the safety of the community center and tries to warn the others. She’s terrified and locks the door behind her, but none of them believe her. Nathan is a smart ass know-it-all, and opens the door just as Tony approaches and he kills Kelly by hitting her over the head with a sharp-edged piece of metal.

That’s when Curtis discovers his power. The emotional overload of seeing Kelly murdered triggers his power, and he is able to turn back time and warn them about Tony. He still gets in the building, but Kelly has enough time to hit him over the head with a paint bucket. Repeatedly. Tony’s murder was admittedly self-defense, but Kelly knows that no one will believe them based on their records. In the process of figuring out what to do, they find the kid with the cap stuffed into one of the lockers. Now they have two dead bodies to deal with, and while everyone is freaking out, Simon calmly says, “No body, no crime.”

Bound together by a freak supernatural event and murder, they hide the bodies and prepare for whatever happens next. Amazingly enough, they deal with the unusual circumstances pretty well, and even manage to laugh at themselves and each other. Of course, we soon discover that their problems are only just beginning. Alisha’s power is more of a curse than an ability, and we don’t discover Nathan’s until we’re well into the first season.

After burying Tony, their new probation worker, Sally, arrives and suspects them of killing her co-worker and fiance. It is through this character’s interactions with Simon that we begin to see the darker sides of him, but also develop an emotional connection with him that makes him one of the most interesting characters. Despite his creepy good looks and spooky intelligence, he has the best character arc in the series. He goes through a personality transformation that made me want to pay closer attention to the beautiful Welsh actor who plays Simon Bellamy, Iwan Rheon. Apparently, I need to start watching Game of Thrones again.

As the series progresses, we get to see how these supernatural abilities change each character and the society around them. The characters experience a variety of outcomes at the extreme end of the consequences spectrum based on the choices they make out of selfishness, for the sake of love, or the belief that they’re helping others. The show is a lot of fun to watch, but the it also gives you some tasty food for thought. I dare you to watch only one episode. I bet you can’t.

Fuckable Fictional Characters: Mr. Spock

February 23, 2016August 22, 2018Michelle R. Lane 4 Comments

When I was a little girl growing up in the heart of Pennsyltucky, I lived with my mom’s family in a small town where I was one of few if not the only person of color. Everyone around me was white. Pretty much everyone I saw on TV was white. There were a few exceptions, but most of the women of color I saw on TV were usually characters who had very little power. They were either in the background serving the people around them, or they were sexualized objects. There weren’t a lot of role models out there for a young ethnically mixed person of color for me to relate to in popular culture. Then I started watching Star Trek.

Not only was there a woman of color who served on the bridge as the communications officer of a starship, but she was also friends with a handsome alien who was, like me, the child of a “mixed marriage.” Science Fiction provided me with two people I could not only relate to, but also admire as role models. Lieutenant Nyota Uhura gave women of color hope and the courage to step outside of the expectations society had in mind for us. And, Mr. Spock’s ethnic heritage was one of his strengths, not a weakness like he was led to believe while growing up on Vulcan. These two characters had a profound influence on me at a very young age. I identified with both of them and wanted to be just like them when I grew up. I’m still waiting to be invited to Star Fleet Academy, but I haven’t given up hope.

Today’s post is going to be a little different than the previous ones. I’m going to talk about two characters instead of just one. I know these posts are supposed to be talking about totally fuckable fictional characters and I intend to stick with that theme. However, today I’m also going to talk about two characters who I always imagined coming together as a couple when I was a child. As an adult, my dreams came true.

February 22: Mr. Spock and Nyota Uhura

Leonard Nimoy and Nichelle Nichols

I am aware that many die-hard Star Trek fans were confused and a bit unsettled by the decision to make Mr. Spock and Lieutenant Uhura a couple in the 2009 film, Star Trek. I couldn’t have been happier. It’s like someone had been flipping through the files of my childhood fantasies and granted me a secret wish. So, for the fans who either don’t understand their relationship or for some reason oppose it, feel free to get over it.

Zachary Quinto and Zoe Saldana

In the famous scene in which the first interracial kiss in television history took place between Uhura and Kirk, the original script was written for Spock and Uhura to share that kiss. According to Nichelle Nichols: “My understanding is Bill Shatner took one look at the scene and said, ‘No you will not! If anyone’s going to be part of the first interracial kiss in television history, it’s going to be me!’ So they rewrote it.”

Fuck you, Captain Kirk. I’m almost 100% sure that if I would have witnessed Spock and Uhura kissing as a child, my teen dating experiences would have gone a lot differently. And, I’m pretty sure we would have seen some super sexy episodes of Star Trek after that. Whelp, I guess that’s what fan fiction is for. Am I right?

When I was a kid Mr. Spock was one of my favorite characters. Period. I always preferred him to Captain Kirk, and was usually puzzled, especially after I hit puberty, about why Kirk got so many chicks and Spock was practically celibate. Clearly, he was more attractive, more intelligent, gifted in ways that resembled magic, and he respected all people regardless of where they came from. He had a childhood that I could empathize with, and his differences often made him seem like an outsider. He was usually the voice of reason, and he had some of the best wisdom to offer his friends and colleagues.

In the original series, Spock has a few flirtations with women from time to time, and he was engaged to a Vulcan woman as part of an arranged marriage. In a society where emotions are not valued, the concept of love is irrelevant when it comes to marriage. Marriages are arranged for more practical reasons. And, I would imagine one of the primary reasons to wed is to deal with pon farr, the hormonal imbalance Vulcans experience every 7 years that triggers the need for sexual intercourse, preferably with a mate. If a Vulcan is unable to have sex with a mate or another object of desire, the consequences could be insanity and/or death.

The fact that Mr. Spock could potentially go insane if he doesn’t get laid makes him an extremely interesting character. I mean, who doesn’t want a partner who is literally driven wild by desire. Chemical imbalance or not, that is totally hot. Vulcans are able to have sex at other times, despite the fact that some people thought that Spock and his fellow Vulcans were only interested in sex every seven years. Pon farr is simply a biological impulse that helps ensure procreation. An antiquated ritual is performed and then the person experiencing the hormonal imbalance has sex with their mate or object of desire to alleviate the symptoms. Unless your mate chooses someone else.

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Okay, that’s enough about Mr. Spock’s sex life. Just kidding.

Despite the fact that Mr. Spock is an alien from a planet that prizes a lack of emotions as a sign of superiority, he’s usually the one character who is most in touch with his emotions. Perhaps it is because he spends so much time trying to deny that he has any, that he actually has a better grasp of emotional maturity and can empathize with others when they are feeling extreme states of any emotion. His humanity makes him passionate and caring, a loyal friend, but his alien appearance makes him somehow sexier than the human men on the Enterprise. Don’t get me wrong; Scotty and Chekov are both hot in their own ways, but Mr. Spock’s appearance has always been more appealing to me than any other character. His pointy ears, shiny coal black hair, large, devilish eyebrows and tall, slim body created a blueprint in my young mind of what attractive men should look like. Alien. Devilish. Vampiric. Otherworldly. Yeah, that sounds about right.

Leonard Nimoy was obviously my first Spock, and he will always have a special place in my heart. In fact, I couldn’t imagine anyone else filling those black pointy-toed boots. Until an actor who plays some of my favorite psychos, Zachary Quinto, put on the pointy ears and Spock stole my heart all over again.

Quinto’s Spock is a bit more emotional that Nimoy’s, but Leonard Nimoy gave his blessing when Zachary was chosen to take on the role of Spock.

Tears shed by a Vulcan are 10 times more touching.

And, most importantly, Quinto’s Spock gets to kiss Uhura. And judging by that kiss, we can all infer that there’s more than just kissing between these two. They kiss as if there has been intimacy between them for some time. Their kiss not only satisfied one of my childhood desires, it was totally hot and worth the wait. The sexy, dark-haired, modest science officer got the girl instead of the womanizing jackass captain. I don’t know about everybody else, but this geeky woman of color was giddy with delight. And incredibly turned on.

Kirk who?

Let’s take another look.

What’s that? I couldn’t hear you over the sound of my childhood fantasies coming true.

We better take another look. You know, for Science.

Is that a phaser in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?

Seriously, these two are totally into each other and anyone who thinks otherwise is high on goofballs.

So many feels.

I mean, how can you watch this and not see that Spock and Uhura are in love?

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m going to keep holding on to my childhood dream that a dark-haired stranger from another land will whisk me off to discover the secrets of space.

Girl Meets Monster

Writing, Reading, and Helpful Hints for Dating in the Underworld

Tag interracial kiss

Fuckable Fictional Characters: Mr. Spock

February 22: Mr. Spock and Nyota Uhura