#would be neat coming from her perspective as half betazoid and half human

[joshuaalbert]

troi <3 <3 <3

ok I feel like you may not like some of these answers but. blame the writers ok

favorite thing about them

troi is a character I like the potential of more than I like the execution. like. the setup for her character is so interesting! obviously one of the most famously compelling things about spock is that he’s half human half vulcan, and although betazoid and human values/culture are not necessarily at odds with each other to the same degree and she doesnt need to have the same type of conflict to be compelling, any character that is biracial in this sense should have a really unique perspective on things. her empathic abilities have the potential to be both extremely useful and also a really significant burden and there’s a lot of potential for examination in terms of keeping that balance. she’s effectively the humanities major on a ship full of STEM majors, so that’s another unique viewpoint bc goddamn sometimes they cannot explain Anything in words, and she has the most engagement with the crew as a whole, rather than just her division or the senior officers. there are a lot of cool and different things to work with here! boy howdy I sure hope they work with them!

I also like that she has the most interesting and complex relationship with her mother of any character in the series! there’s nothing inherently Wrong with exploring children and their fathers, but quite often we don’t get the other side of that, so I think that’s neat. there’s not really an ominous twist on this like there was in the last paragraph I just think it’s neat.

also this is a minor thing but I think it’s funny that her entire job is to be emotionally supportive but she does sometimes make jokes at inappropriate moments when talking to someone asking for her help with something. objectively terrible behavior for a therapist but very funny as a character moment.

so. all that said.

least favorite thing about them

well that would be the wasted potential. despite her being so potentially fascinating as a character, for most of the show it feels like she’s just there to be hot and say “i sense…” and i mean she does great on both counts but that doesn’t make a fulfilled character. literally the single most interesting scene about the fact that she was half human half betazoid was cut from 3x5 the bonding and it makes me want to commit vehicular manslaughter. who wrote this and why didn’t they write the rest of the show. she uses her abilities and sometimes makes references to betazed, but to the best of my recollection, that’s largely it, and while I think there’s significant value in having a character who has learned to balance both aspects of themselves, it more often comes off as “no one really put any effort into this so she acts mostly human but she can feel stuff” imo.

I can only remember a couple times off the top of my head that her empathic abilities were used in a truly interesting way, and of the times that the downsides are explored, a lot of those episodes are. idk they somehow seem to always stop short of being really good character episodes somehow. 4x10 the loss is probably the closest but even then I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s…standout? (in its defense it does come right after final mission, an episode i was being really normal about, so I should probably rewatch it). also there was a proposed edit to the naked now script that would have dealt with the potentially overwhelming nature of feeling everyone on the ship’s emotions and I’m really mad that they didn’t do that rather than like. I don’t even know what she did in that episode?

so many of her focus episodes are about her and some guy and like obviously I’m not being like oh a strong female character can never have a plotline where she’s into a man that’d be a fucking stupid take but it feels both disproportionate and detrimental to her individual character development. she doesn’t get any kind of fun and interesting hobby/interest until 6x8 fistful of datas where it turns out she’s actually super into westerns! her father used to read her stories about the old west and she always wanted to be the Mysterious Stranger!! that’s so fun!! why did it take us until season 6 to get to something like this!!! her best episodes are in seasons 6 and 7 when she gets involved in cool plotlines and wants to advance her career but not until the last two seasons and I can’t keep going like this or I will start Screaming. I feel insane. you understand my point. they do not utilize a potentially incredibly complex character to her full potential and I feel insane.

brOTP

I respect people who live that deanna/beverly life but generally speaking I like them most as friends. that said I will make an exception for the episode where they’re doing aerobics together in gay little complementary outfits.

OTP

I am a troi/riker heaux. no creativity here. such is life. I like that even when they’re kind of on again off again it’s generally not in a forced angsty drama way it’s just like ok this is what we’re doing today and regardless of where we stand we are friends first and foremost. also I think some of her most fun moments are when they are being Bitches together or she is heckling his musical skills.

nOTP

okay I am going to put this in as spoiler free terms as possible but. in season 7 they introduce a relationship that I don’t entirely hate on its own merits and that I think could have some interesting facets to explore but I think it’s a HORRIBLE misstep from a writing perspective. admittedly I had knowledge of the films and knew what the ultimate outcome was going to be, but I think even if I hadn’t, I would’ve known it wasn’t going to be endgame, and it feels like the time spent on it in the back half of the last season of the show could’ve been spent way better elsewhere. it also completely fucks over her chances for an actual interesting examination of her character in the finale, because why stop letting her be defined by men even at the very end?

random headcanon

I feel like she should listen to like. metal sometimes. or like a betazoid equivalent. because like! I think it would be A Lot to have so many people’s thoughts and emotions at the edge of your consciousness all the time even if you’ve generally figured out how to filter it!! I think sometimes you’d need a way to try to drown it out!! and like yeah she’s not Hearing Their Thoughts it’s a different sense so it’s not literally drowning it out but I still think having another really strong sensory input would help yknow?

unpopular opinion

honestly I don’t even know what the popular opinions about troi are. I’m just here.

song i associate with them

I think what we’ve learned from these ask games is that I have associated songs for literally 2 characters

favorite picture of them

uniform troi!! uniform troi I love her. idk why they were like oh people will not know she is Beautiful Woman if she’s in uniform so we cannot do that until like season 6. look at her.

[peppernickel]

Hmmmmmm. I wonder what some betazoid art is like. Cause a lot of art is a form of expression whether it be expression of ideas, emotions, or concepts in general that can’t always be explained in words. How did art form if they all just know what each other are feeling? (And thinking, i guess, if Lwaxana is anything to go by) Is it even more intricate because they have a deeper understanding of emotions? Is it LESS intricate because they already have that understanding? If that which is unspeakable or unspoken can be simply felt by another party, is art simply an immortalization of that feeling? I’m sure art and poetry is still used to explain moral concepts, but again, do they just think about it and other people understand? Could they just paint a blue circle and everyone understands the meaning??