#i used to consume media that wasn't star trek

[leohtttbriar]

I think Michael like for all that she is she is definitely an anthropologist like I think she takes a very great cultural lense before a scientific

you know, i think you are absolutely right! thank you so much for bringing this up! i wasn't even thinking about her academic specialties when i wrote this post. her first question being about "praying" could very easily just have been the way she was trained to meet alien peoples where they are first before obnoxiously being like "what is that, tho"

and, to your point about the cultural v scientific lens:

for better or worse, i'd say star trek collapses the boundaries between a lot of academic disciplines. "hard" v "soft" science doesn't seem to be a distinction in the star trek speculative world, where linguistics and anthropology are as much about physics and biology and no one is going to pretend like learning languages is a different kind of Study to learning chemistry. this sometimes does not work, imo, because sometimes the writing will accidentally slip into an unexamined essentialism with the alien cultures, which renders the whole of the allegory sort of silly and potentially all kinds of offensive. but it sometimes does work.

discovery, from what i remember of the first two seasons (i'm only just now starting the third, bc i lost my cbs account between 2 and 3, alas! etc), seems more able than other series to collapse the distance between disciplines and walk the line between what is cultural and what is material culture informed by biology. like saru constantly talks of his alien species and how their history of being hunted on his planet manifests in a perpetual anxiety and tamed-curiosity for him but also lends a level of care and sensitivity that he excels in---all of which fleshes out the character while giving him the awareness and consciousness to know why he may be acting a certain way compared to others and why he shouldn't ever be demeaned for it and where his body and his body's millions-of-years-old natural history can be challenged with that consciousness and how his consciousness can be valued precisely for its origins.

the klingons and vulcans, while not as sophisticated as the character saru, also seem to be largely cultural products that are informed by their specific biology. michael, somewhat caught between the cultural product and her own biological reality, can affect vulcan mannerisms and is very often portayed as thinking like a vulcan, while remaining very recognizable to us. her phrasing and her pattern of speech, while not monotone, are normally utterances that move from established fact to logical conclusion. I have nowhere to go back to...the only thing I can do right now is trust something, she says, upon being thrust nine-hundred years in the future. it's the statement of a stoic philosopher (probably one of the "vulcan" influences). she is concerned with what is material and what is real and what is real to others.

which is why i really like what you pointed out about her anthropology expertise--culture is real and often naturalized to those who live in it. michael is definitely someone, what with her studies and how she was raised, who is intimately aware of how the alien can be made familiar, how bodies can't be denied but you can learn to know them, how consciousness is strange and existence-in-causal-time stranger, and how people (all creatures included) are never all one thing or another.

obviously there's no perfect speculative fiction creating speculative cultures. the hurdles of making a sell-able show and the ingrained biases and limitations of the writers are not insignificant. but the storytelling here is engaging with conceits concerning the preciousness of life and the immutability of that preciousness--even if you don't understand it.

(also i just love michael burnham with all my heart. don't think it was a coincidence she was named after the angel who carries a sword.)

[themaveriqueagenda]

I'll admit the same about not finding any characters relatable in a maverique way. I have general queer headcannons too, but not maverique specific ones.

Like idk the closet concept I relate to in more mainstream things is third gender or nonbinary, but the third gender thing is received negatively, and I've never fond a nonbinary character (or popularly headcannoned as) that feels nonbinary in a maverique way.

honestly i haven't even been able to relate too much to canon nonbinary characters, but then again, i haven't consumed that much stuff with nonbinary representation either. i used to consume media simply for the representation quite a lot, but i was bored or disappointed so much because whatever i was consuming just wasn't for me. nonbinary representation should just be everywhere so we don't actually have to look for it. and there will be a time i'll get to star trek discovery too. i think the most i relate to a canon nonbinary character would be syd from one day at a time.

a lot of my nonbinary headcanons are genderless or genderfluid for a good reason, like data being genderless because gender isn't part of his programming, odo being genderless because he's technically just a blog who can shapeshift into anything and most joined trill being multigender/genderfluid in some way.

but there are characters i headcanon as nonbinary and nothing more specific. they usually don't feel fluid to me, but with certain characters i can't really pinpoint "what kind of nonbinary" they are. but them being midbinary always feels more likely than them being abinary. i probably also still have some exorsexism to work through, lol.

[sapphosewrites]

you do realize that not every jew is religious, right? i couldn’t care less about jesus, but me celebrating christmas as the end of the year because i’ve lived all my life in a place where it’s a regular occurrence doesn’t make me less jewish. i understand your point but i’d argue that my experience isn’t any less valuable than that of a jew refusing to celebrate or just not caring for it at all. why wouldn’t i write about my own experience? i can be bitter about the daunting prevalence of “casual” christianity and i can enjoy culturally significant holidays simultaneously, those are not mutually exclusive, and people’s experiences and feelings about those things have multiple layers to them… and any jew choosing to find joy in any meaningful or completely meaningless celebration is in their own right to tell about it. what i’m saying is i’m not less of a jew for not practicing judaism or for giving presents to my friends on december 31st

Hello, anon. I have gone back and forth about whether or not to respond to this. My sister advised me not to, because it is just going to start discourse on the blog. But I get the sense you are a real person who is really hurting. It sounds like you feel insecure about other people not viewing you as a "True Jew", and that's a deeply painful thing to experience. Believe me, I know where you are coming from. I'm a Jew who didn't get a Bat Mitzvah, and I often feel embarrassed or defensive or insecure about how others see that. I'm sorry that others have made you feel that way.

I said at the start of the post in question it was hostile. That wasn't humorous or ironic. It was a clear declaration that I was not going to be thoughtful or kind. I was angry. I will be angry when I read fics about Jewish characters celebrating Christmas, just as you will be angry when you read my complaints about it. Neither of us is wrong for feeling what we feel, and both of our emotional experiences are valid. Unfortunately, we have conflicting access needs, and sometimes that's part of living in a society. What one person requires will be triggering for another, and we still have to respect each other and muddle through as best we can.

We always read and perceive things through the lens of our own experiences. That's being human. However, sometimes that means we bring things to the text that are not there. I did not write a post about "real Jews don't celebrate Christmas." In fact, my post was not about how I feel about the holiday practices of contemporary Jews at all. I wrote a post specifically about how frustrated I feel when Star Trek fanfiction writers portray a homogeneous future based on their own experiences in a cultural majority rather than taking the opportunity to learn about and celebrate religious diversity. I am not an authority on what makes someone Jewish or not, nor am I in any way trying to be.

You will continue to create and consume the media that you want and need to create and consume, as will I, and both of us have the right to do so. I empathize with your frustration and experiences, and if you would ever like to talk to another Jew I'm happy to have a longer conversation with you off anon about how we are both navigating complex religious and national identities. My ask box and my direct messages are open. However, if you are just looking for some random stranger with a blog to be a convenient personified strawman, I am not available for that.

[thebreakfastgenie]

Same anon again and I feel like I need to clarify something further as well as I think you might be making some assumptions about me (which is fine, by the way, as you don't know anything about me except my last anon -- I just wanted to clear a few things up). I am also an LGBT person, specifically a bisexual trans person who has been read socially as a gay man, a gay woman and a straight woman at different times in my life as well as being correctly identified by people with more information. I know this means I do not have the same experience of existing as a gay person but I hope you can see how this gives me a perspective on it. Additionally, I know very well the "just don't hit on me" vibes as unfortunately I grew up in the same/similar era and those were more or less the exact words my high school best friend said to me when I came out. That kind of thing has always stuck with me even though I'm aware that now society has shifted in some ways. To this day I still get that in e.g. the workplace. And I think possibly the fact this experience has led me down the path a little of being very protective of LGBT interpretations of certain characters while being very protective of the platonic friendships of some others. To use more examples from bygone eras, though I grant you that I can't think of many examples specifically from the 1970s off the top of my head, I think about perceptions of male friendship in Lord of the Rings (the books, not the films) vs the relationships of the leads in Rebel Without A Cause. Or to look at more recent works, the way "fandom" approached Good Omens (the book) in the 1990s versus the way that "fandom" approaches Good Omens (the miniseries) now.

Hi again! I want to clarify that I was not making assumptions about you or your experiences. I was speaking about my own experiences, without intending to imply anything about the experiences of anyone else. Honestly, I probably subconsciously assumed you had some connection to the LGBT community, just based on the demographics here and your interest in this subject, but I didn't consciously think about it. I do sometimes highlight the way my sexual orientation affected my opinions because I think it's sort of the opposite of what's common here and I like to remind people that gay people are not a monolith and our experiences of consuming media while gay can lead to opposite conclusions. I have noticed that my interests vis-a-vis fandom, shipping, and gay shipping specifically have shifted as I've gained a clearer understanding of my sexuality and become more comfortable and secure in it. A semi-related example: I became much more interested in M/F ships after I realized I was gay; a lot of people report the opposite. For me, I think once I accepted I wasn't interested in a relationship with a man, I stopped trying to force myself to see those relationships as something I should understand or aspire to, and instead became able to enjoy them as relating to characters who are unlike me and trying to feel those experiences, which is an aspect of media I really enjoy. I like Hawkeye/Margaret and I probably wouldn't have ten or twelve years ago.

And hey, I have the same experience, just probably not with the exact same ships! To give an example, I'm fairly invested in the gay Spock interpretation (and this is one of very, very few gay headcanons I have). I'm fairly protective of it and this is definitely wrapped up in getting invested in Star Trek and spirk around the same time I was realizing I was not bisexual, but a lesbian. To give another M*A*S*H example, obviously I dislike hunnihawk, but I aggressively dislike any interpretation of Hawkeye and Tommy Gillis as former boyfriends, even though I headcanon them as gay and bi respectively I am just extremely protective of the platonic childhood best friends dynamic, especially because Tommy dies, and I have, as established, kind of a thing about dead childhood best friends. In addition to that projection, "best friends who both grew up queer" is also an experience that rings true.

[popculturebuffet]

HBO Max's madness continues with it being confirmed DC Super Hero Girls 2019 (the one from MLP Friendship is Magic creator Lauren Faust) is also a tax write off like Final Space and be sealed away once it leaves Netflix this year. Thoughts on this?

And I say this as someone who, while liking what I saw for the most part, still saw massive flaws in DC Superhero Girls, i.e. making a good chunk of the young adult male characters into shallow sterotypes or wasting the titans characters, paticuarlly Dick Grayson. (We already have a show for that). I do feel though the crew had a genuine passion for dc, going with some deeper cuts like bumblebee, zantana or GL Jessica Cruz for the main cast, bringing in my boy ted, and even going so far as to use Julia, wonder woman's surrogate step mom, and doing the character great justice. It wasn't the best thing ever but it wasn't half bad and like everything good or bad does not deserve oblivion. That said at least in this case.. said oblivion is more obvious and something far less easy to hide if someone didn't know of the show thanks to a VERY visible first party tie in game with nintendo, a decent amount of merch, and a crossover film with "please stop punching my children". It's a lot easier to hide what they did to say final space because while well loved and having enough of a fanbase to sell out the finale graphic novel on day one, it's not a huge crowd pleaser. Kids will notice this series is just.. gone and once they find out why they'll be pissed, and dc fans are not the type to really.. forget something happened. Trust me Dan DiDio tried. A lot. The sad part though is they probably will keep doing this as long as they can get away with it. While this will thankfully bite them in the ass more, they've so far been VERY careful at picking their unpersoning targets: while they cancelled tuca nad bertie they weren't stupid enough to unlist it. It's telling my mom hadn't even heard of them doing it, so i'ts likely a lot of general audiences are either ambivilant because it hasn't come for them yet, or simply didn't know because none of the shows affected were things they cared about. Good/bad news is that Parmaount is doing the same shit.. but their also being WAY louder with it, canceling Rise of the Pink Ladies and Star Trek Legacy. And even Trek fans who didn't like Legacy, probably won't be nearly as quite to see an entire series vanish, not helped by paramount having as recently as LAST MONTH promoted having all of star trek with legacy on the banner. While WBD has had a horrifying ripple effect.. it's also getting to the point where said ripples can't be ignored. We also have an ongoing writer's strike which is in part thanks to shit like this, which also means them doing it will just make it harder to settle. Which is bad for consuming media, true.. but is great for making sure this never happens again.

[fantasy-costco]

I found a little book of star trek trivia at my favorite used book store and the book was published in the 80s and I'm flipping through it and it's like "dedicated Fans taping episodes of star trek ensure that future generations will be able to enjoy the series" which is such a weird sort of technology whiplash like we went from VHS tapes being THE way to consume media on demand and I'm over here in 2018 watching this show on my smartphone on Netflix and?? When the show came out VHS wasn't even a wildly avaliable thing??? Sometimes little things give me hope, like a tiny book reminding me how much humanity has accomplished in 50 years.