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I just tried to explain Tasha/Data to my young friend in Pakistan who has never seen Star Trek or dealt with much science fiction.

I think I broke him.

His only context for the whole thing was Titantic. Sadly, I don't think he's entirely off-base.

Current Mood: amused

This has not happened in a decade or more. Most importantly, I have places to store all my priority item for easy retrieval when I can actually get to them so stuff doesn't get lost or overlooked. It's a Star Wars Day Miracle!

DON'T CALL ME FROM THE BATHROOM, KID!!!!!

So, OSPI (The WA State Office in charge of Education) dropped the rules I'm supposed to follow for grading this week. I did love the first rule of "do no harm." It is very focused on improvement over test scores and other meddlesome crap, which is as refreshing as a well-made pina colada on a warm day. About 1/2 of my students need to boost themselves a bit to go on and 1/2 are good to go.

One student's parent sent me one of the most wrecked papers I have ever seen for math. It makes me wish I could just send a hologram of myself to her living room and try to sort this out myself. I'm retooling her work and sending it off with smaller steps and a new approach. I hope it works.

Everyone else is humming along okay for now thankfully. It won't last, but it's nice when you have it.

You'd think quarantine would be a boring malaise. No. It's just as busy as ever, but the work has shifted. there's a lot of "life," stuff," I've been reconnecting with and balancing things out after nearly a decade after grad programs and five years of Special Education work.

I hated the grad programs, love the work, but there was a lot of "me," that got put to the wayside. Barely any fandom work. Starting new fandoms was a rare thing. Old fandoms were on perma-pause it seemed like.

There's a lot of new things I like: Steven Universe, the new She-Ra, Stranger Things, Brooklyn-99, The Good Place...but I can't improve on them. It's almost like having to listen to the internet is making the content creators smarter and more thoughtful about what they are doing. It's also as if 50+ years of media fandom normas seeming into creative consciousnesses is improving storytelling. I mean, not all storytelling. There is still crap. So so much crap.

But overall, I'm more entertained by what I sit down and chose to watch with my limited time. I don't feel the need to take it into my own hands. Weird feeling. My sister and I just always did that. There was always something not quite right about what we were watching and there's be this feeling. I would call it an itch, but it's more like on Star Trek when Troi senses something. It's this nagging, "Something's not right here." Sometimes it's minor. Sometimes it's overwhelming, but the itch doesn't appear as much any more.

Anyway, the last 4 days or so have been spent breaking in a new computer, and I have not had one of those in over 7 years. New computers are a chance to re-prioritize. So I have been setting up speed dials that encourage writing and role-play instead of work, school, and more work. It is nice having a system that doesn't crash while running Discord and Thunderbird at the same time.

Damn, how I have missed this format!

Look, I was part of the whole LJ thing and loved the unholy hell out of it before the Russians screwed it up. (Well, there was that one run-in with Archie Comics, but...) Then I went to Facebook like everyone else on the planet.

Facebook sucks for nuanced thoughts though. It's terrific for networking and shitposting and meme, but being out there too long just ups your blood pressure. There's not enough friendly content between the, "Aw, fuck, what did the GOP do now?! You get quick cuts of friends, nice pics, and then it gets swallowed whole by the next thing.

I remember everyone going to Tumblr there for awhile. Tumblr always seemed a little chaotic, not a deep thought kind of place, and very reactionary - like a step down from Twitter. I'm learning to use it now that I'm on this break, but after all that shit with the censorship and Yahoo and all that...nah. It's just not going to be my primary.

I'm also just not into the ads everywhere.

I mean, I wish more friends would come on back here; but I'll enjoy what I have and make some new friends while I'm at it.

My husband is also a creative type. Writing, digital art, role-playing games...

It's not easy to have more than one of these per household.

He's been on his own project and it has not been going as well as he'd like. We're talking deep frustration here. I'm trying to work on my writing as well - which the internet slows has been affecting, keep office hours for my students, communicate with parents, and keep the house cleaned up. Quarantine has been pretty good time-wise, but all the traffic in the house has increased the daily use and maintain item count.

And I tweaked my back. Joy.

But we had a conversation that went something like this:

Me: "I feel that only one of us should be on a project at a time, based on how things have been going."

Gavin: "How can I support you?"

Me: "What do I do for you while on a project?"

Gavin: "Maintain the house. Poke at people to get their part done. Take away my dishes. Feed me. Get me something to drink...But mostly, you let me have my space."

Me: "Unless you are at a good window where you want to info dump all the awesome things you have been doing. Yeah."

Go figure.

Not the Episode itself. I've been saving Picard as a reward for finishing my fic and my biggest fear with Picard is that I've been working on what I want to do with the universe and the AIs in it, time travel, parallel worlds, etc. Michael Chabon was one of the only comic book commentators that hasn't actively pissed me off in roughly 15 years. I've been impressed with him and his actual give-a-damn, plus there's this hope I have they will turn the lights back on in Star Trek. Apocalypse, as we are all discovering, is a conceit of those who think they will be Mad Max at the end of the world and not one of the people under the tires. People who know they are mortal or will be thrown under the wheels in favor of a more privileged person know better than to glorify the end.

But that's a whole other essay, and I kind of want to discuss something else. We're discussing Data. Dear sweet, wonderful, best person ever Data.

That said, my favorite character is Tasha Yar, and much of Tasha is defined by Data. Oh, Gods, am I aware how insanely problematic this is from a feminist perspective, especially for a character meant to be struggling with gender and sexuality and her own impulses to be feminine without "losing anything." Character that is exploring what it is to be a liberated woman safe within her own psyche being defined by the shows most popular male character? Welcome to Trek: The Berman Years.

But if you were going to have to be defined by someone else, Data is your best in-universe bet. Perfect memory. Every day an epoch. Every mundane thing an adventure and an excuse for wonder. I've frequently struggled one the question if the pair were in love and, no, they couldn't be traditionally. Data's actions, words, and memories of her are love of a kind and with Tasha - how could she not? I'm sure there's a way, but I can't see it for someone who cries on the bridge and openly adopted the childless Picard as her father before even Wesley did so.

Now that window closed a second time. Sure, Picard remembers her, but the writers are never going to mention her again even with all the Romulans swirling around unless Sela shows back up. If it happens then, it will only be to gnaw at Picard's guilt and protectiveness of those in his charge. I will not hear anything more about the wonders of my character ever again unless I or other non-canon never counts write it.

Tasha and Data both died twice - or three times depending on how you count it. Both have envious siblings who question their bravery, loyalty, and worth as people and whom would kill their chosen family with little hesitation. They both had offspring without their consent. Both had a villain hold them as prisoners of war and both were solicited for sex during that time which could not have been wholly consensual by the very nature of circumstances - and that's me being generous. It seems both of them had their best chance at very real human intimacy through a drunken one-night stand. Personally, I'm looking around a lot wondering why they chose to do these things to both halves of my 'ship. Were they meaning to build on those parallels which made these two opposites no longer that opposed? I'm betting they didn't even notice, and if they did, all focus would be on Data.

Again, I don't begrudge this. Most fans are not going to seek my stories for Tasha primarily. I know it. You know it.

But...I'm in this weird place today seeing Data fans watch as their character, their Star Trek compass, was ripped from the grave and then shoved back into it. I'm watching them orient themselves with the reveal of unexpected and sometimes problematic offspring. And I remember being 15, seeing Sela, and doing this alone.

"Aren't you just glad to see Denise Crosby back?"

Well, yes, but - no.

"I thought it was well done."

I'm sorry. Did you miss the whole rape part where they took a survivor and made this happen again? I know. I know. There a handful of fics out there that make that Romulan General/POW Consort thing look much less creepy, but still. Also, I wish I cared what you thought right now. I'm in My Own Thoughts-landia right now.

"Well, her death opened the way for Worf to be a better character."

Okay, beyond the whole it's a fucked up dynamic when a female character has to die so a character played by a black actor can thrive when white men do not have nearly this same problem: Can you just not speak right now?

So, I stopped talking about it unless the conversation got into deep waters with other Trekkies. Even then, I'd preface it with a, "Are you sure you want to go there?" I think one of the things that kept the fic I'm writing in the back of my head is that conversations I had to have to sort it all out had to be with myself.

I'm watching Data fans mourn right now. They have more support than I had. They had the fandom camaraderie I wish I did.

So, if you've gotten to the end of this: I'm here. I've been here. Done this. Hated it. Am I over it? I've chosen not to be because there still benefit to not being. It's a valid option. I'll transcend it when I feel like. You can chose the same for the Data in your head or you can move on.

I'm here because Tasha wouldn't have it any other way.

Current Mood: indescribable

Sending a field report what it is like to work with Trickster Gods.

While in deep meditation to restore my writing ability, the God of Stories appeared. (He dresses /spectacularly/ everyone; just so you know.) He offers to get me over my slump in exchange for cornbread. I find a recipe and print it without looking at it closely. He’s smirking this whole time.

I have been trying for weeks to cook this thing. Each time, the kitchen is dirty and I have to clean it. Or I have a surprise remote conference I have to go deal with. Or Social Distancing limits the hell out of my household grocery runs, stuff is out of stock, and/or something would not make the list. It was always some little thing. And then I had everything together. I checked.

The recipe I was lead to? It has eggs. Last thing on the list. My fake eggs just went bad, but my lovely best friend who lives with me accidentally ordered 2 dozen last week when she needed 1 for baking; so plenty of eggs everywhere that need using. I cannot crack eggs without getting blisters due to allergies and blisters do not go with cooking. I have to get my family to help me make this stuff, and then they will eat it.

Ding!

The real offering was not the cornbread. The real offering was to stop trying to do this by myself and get my family to support me with my projects the way I support them and theirs - all while Anansi has a good chuckle watching me trying to cook his cornbread. He also wants me to publicly admit I was a punchline and deserved to be one and ask if anyone has a really good vegan cornbread reciepe for next time.

Humbled and Laughing,

Gods help me. I hate one-night stand narratives. Yet, my favorite ship in my formative fandom? One-night stand. My favorite song? One night stand narrative. New current favorite song? Yes, one of those, too.

So why do I hate one-night stand narratives? Because most of them kind of suck. While a one-nighter can be very meaningful, it's also limited. There's only so much you can get to know someone in a day. If it's between friends, then you have to re-establish rules and then it either goes back to status quo land or moves onto another style of relationship. One-night stands are great for a short story or as part of the landscape of a novel, if done with a modicum of care. They are the backbone (or something else) of porn, but as a story unto themselves? Usually it's snore central, because stories I like are about emotional impact and normally emotion is not the point there.

And yet...here I am writing about an emotionless android and someone that was enacting a bad porn script and this was literally the whole damn set up. They don't even kiss on screen. Ro and Riker got a damn kiss and this did not. Ugh. These two deserve better.

Both these characters deserved so much better than they got - and they got each other for a few moments on screen.

That's the beauty of missing scene fic. You can fill it in. You can make this have a build up, a relationship. Maybe if I shimmy it the right way a romance.

I do plan on making quite a few sideways references to "Encounter at Farpoint," throughout this series beyond the characters talking about the events here. Let's see who spots them.

Fic here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23390329 and Crossposted to Fanfiction.net.

Current Mood: artistic
Current Music: "Save A Prayer" Duran Duran