#which is still so fucking dangerous in terms of verbiage

[buttdumplin]

I swear to fucking god, if I hear one more white person say they don't like or "can't get into" a piece of media because they "can't relate" to it in one way or another, I'm gonna fucking gabe day lose it.

#yes this is partially because of that friend visiting #and i might have to vent about that here at some point because this is the only space of mine that they're not in #but also im just tired of hearing this from white people period #i heard so much of it in college and grad school #and i take care to not have those kinds of people around me #but the fact that it still happened #and even worse this friend doesn't fucking realize that this is what they're saying #they're framing it as “i just want smt to connect to” #which is still so fucking dangerous in terms of verbiage #im just tired #nena ramblings

[fantroll-purgatory]

Skurvi Meeday

Alternian gal for yis

@ancientvacation

Goooood as usual your trolls end up leaving me paralyzed just bc there’s so goddamn little that I actually want to change! What a good fucking troll!

Name: ’Skurvi’ is from the disease scurvy which ailed sailors due to a lack of vitamin C from citrus. ‘Meeday’ is from Artemiidae which is the taxonomical group for Brine Shrimp. It also evokes Artemis slightly, who was a God that travellers could pray to for good weather. It also sounds a little like ‘mayday’ which is a way to alert to a problem, often on ships and aircraft. All in all, her name is a reference to explorers and sailors as well as dangers they present and face.

Strife Specibus: Spadekind. The reason she uses it is because she thought it was a neat lowblood thing to have, and decided to use it to show off her ‘exotic’ weapon to others. It’s also telling that a seadweller would use a ground-based tool. Furthermore, actual monks often used a kind of spade as a weapon, as it could bludgeon, cut, and dig for remains. It’s a subtle way to tie to her light theme of S.E.Asian spirituality.

So to clarify, this is basically a character based on like, rich white women who have just been getting soooo into ayurveda recently without regard for the racial and cultural history behind those practices.

I love her as a character and if I met her in real life she can catch these Tamilian hands.

Fetch Modus: Namemodus. Skurvi thinks this is some amazing prayercirclemodus that requires you to sit down, meditate and really spiritually focus on the item before it’s summoned, taking great skill to do so. In reality, it’s a lowblood con that just releases the item upon it being named. Jokes on her.

Blood color: #7F007F -Violetblood, fits with the nauticality and exploration kind. Plus the type of people she’s lambasting are generally upper-class so it felt appropriate.

Ehhh I still don’t know if we have variants from the canon 12 colors unless they’re mutantbloods so if you wanna keep that compliant it’s better to bump it to #6a016a to be sure. But yeah she’s def a seadweller.

Symbol and meaning:It’s mainly meant to be a Brine Shrimp-like shape with the Violet language. It also resembles the symbol she uses in her quirk. I’d rather not use an extended zodiac sign.

It looks like, a little closer to indigoblood sign language than it does to violetblood? I’ll see what I can do to keep it with a few tweaks!

Trolltag: freshBodhisattva - ‘fresh’ is just a reference to freshwater, a subtle way of showing how much time she spends inland away from seawater. It’s also a way of saying ‘cool’ or ‘hip’ which is something Skurvi would do. 'Bodhisattva’ is a but more fun of a term. It’s a term for someone who has achieved Nirvana but remains on Earth out of compassion for those suffering. This fits Skurvi extremely well, or at least how she sees herself; someone who’s completely spiritually 'chill’ and 'humbled’ but also goes around visiting those lesser off to 'be with them’ when it’s really just fuelling her own delusion. This isn’t even the first time 'Bodhisattva’ has been used this way; my favourite Steely Dan song of the same name is about a Western business man looking to the East for quick and easy spiritual enlightenment, conflating all of Asia into one big exotic fantasy.

Went on for a bit there, but the tag is about how Skurvi mainly perceives herself, both her spiritual zen and her 'fascination’ with landwellers.

I think if you wanna hammer home the fetishism I’d suggest freshKarma, mainly bc like…Bodhisattva is still a term that means a whole lot to some folks? Whereas like…at this point most Indians I know make a distinction between “kuhrmuh” and “car-ma.” The latter’s a white people concept that’s basically like “if you do something bad today then bad things will come to you tomorrow” whereas the former is a fairly simple concept: if you do not follow your dharma, then you are implicated in the consequences of that choice, even if such consequences only turn up in another life.

I kinda like that tag more because it basically immediately shows her whole ass.

Quirk:She replaces 'tT’ and any 'en’ sounds with ’¥’ the Yen sign. This is mean to be a joke to people who get tattoos of things like Chinese characters without knowing what they mean. Similarly, Skurvi has adopted this 'super cool symbol’ into her speech with the joke being to us is that is’s actually a completely mundane symbol. Symbolism aside, it resembles her symbols and horns somewhat, as well as a little 'v’ for victory sign on top. Really, the symbol and horns could use some editing.

Man yeah I like that enough that I wanna preserve the feel of your symbol to keep the quirk.

Special Abilities (if any):None.

Lusus: Seamomkey - A loving if distant lusus. This is because when Skurvi was still rather young, her lusus went into a state of Cryptobiosis, a real process Brine Shrimp can go through which is how they can be packaged and sold under their more popular name, Sea Monkeys. Because of the lack of a parental figure in her life, Skurvi has been travelling in order to make up for her lack of valuable Life experiences by creating her own. 

Awwwwwwwwww

Personality: Skurvi as she is right now is rather safe for a Violetblood. She doesn’t command authority, at least explicitly, nor does she intimidate others into doing what she wants, at least she doesn’t feel like she is. On outward appearances, Skurvi’s a rather friendly and outgoing troll, if a little privileged and caught up in her own bubble without really thinking about everyone else all that much.

Skurvi sees a value and mystique in the 'quaint’ way landwellers live, especially lowbloods. This outward and overt interest in them has made her somewhat antagonising in whatever school, couldn’t resist the pun, of other seadwellers she hangs out with. They call her an 'air-head’ because of how much time she spends on land. Skurvi doesn’t mind this name and actually embraces it, considering it a nice epithet of her story.

The actual meaning of the label isn’t wrong because as well as antagonising, zen, and amicable, Skurvi’s also kinda dumb. Like, gullible really. She’ll believe a lot of things you tell her if you add the caveat that it’s some 'ancient landweller secret’.

Skurvi’s based off a certain type of people that I’m not sure may be present all around the world? Before you head off to university in my country, a lot of people elect to go on a gap year in order to travel, explore and see the world much like Skurvi does. What this often actually involves is going to South East Asian, stroking a drugged-up tiger, getting a nonsense tattoo, buying harem pants and coming back so 'enlightened’ and 'spiritual’. Drug use is also pretty common.

I think her personality might need some more nitty-gritty to it, but this is what I have so far.

NO I FUCKING GET IT.

There’s a girl that used to be peripheral to my friend group who would jet off to various countries each summer and would like, come back from a fucking ashram and talk about how she truly understood how the other side lives. Nah, this is a well-rounded character because tbh that was her entire personality. Still is, a little bit.

Interests: Skurvi’s chief interest is voyaging, going out to land and finding people or places to meet and greet. She likes experiencing the landweller way of life in eating their food, going to their hives and making herself comfy. She’s often a little insensitive and somewhat patronising with her trips however, either antagonising the mid to highbloods she meets and often intimidating the lower bloods based on her high noble caste. If some noble barged into your house to be entertained, wouldn’t you be panicked?

Other than that, she often documents her trips on her blog. These often focus more on herself, how she experienced things, felt about things, and perceived things, so there’s rarely a name on it other than her own. She’s immensely proud of her blog and sees it as a shrine of sorts, a testament to how much she’s 'grown’.

Speaking of growing, she likes cultivating plants, and often decorates her house to try and replicate the zen and order she feels in landweller hives. Her sense of Feng-shui isn’t exactly refined and the plants she grows aren’t exactly traditional. Her use of them is 'spiritually medicinal’ but she really just gets baked out of her mind and falls asleep with reality TV reruns on.

I think her current interests are very rooted, sorry, in Life and could perhaps use one or two more 'out-there’ ones to not just simply have 'hippie stoner troll’.

I think if you want to add another aspect of hers, maybe she’s like…really into holidays? Like the kind of troll who knows it’s Alternian Pancake Day and of course she has the decorations for it! It also gives her a means to justify her zest for travel; she just loves joy, and loves collecting joyful experiences whenever possible!

Title: Page of Life, actively serves herself Life - After her lusus entered it’s catatonic state, Skurvi has been in a state of arrested development that she was very aware of at the time. She started travelling as a means to remedy this, taking active control of her own valuable growth experiences by going on 'enriching’ trips to better herself. Over time, she thinks that she’s been able to perfectly grow and mature as a person, achieving a zen state of being, hence her chill demeanour. In reality, she’s made little to no progress on escaping this arrested development, as she’s not really 'learning’ anything from her trips. They’re just a way for her to believe she’s gone on an amazin enriching quest where in reality she’s just barged into a random lowblood’s house, inadvertently intimidated them to spend time with her, 'teach’ her things and more often than not eats their food whilst taking a memento back, even if said memento is the lowblood’s only bowl for instance.

Right, I forgot that you and I use difference verbiage for classes! I typically think of Pages as an Exploit class, and given the verbiage you use I think I’d personally classify her as a Thief of Life? Like she’s suspending the growth of everyone around her to benefit her own, and is passively utilizing the rules of Alternian society to facilitate that.

D/Ancestor: I have a concept in mind for her dancestor, a person who travels to classify and examine Life as opposed to making experiences for her own. The dancestor is definitely more of a scientific explorer than a leisure sailor, like Charles Darwin 'hence the Seamonkey lusus’. As for the ancestor, I’ve got nothing clear honestly.

For the ancestor how about literally just the Darwinan, doing exactly what you just said?

Land:Nothing so far

How about Land of Permafrost and Parthenogenesis (LOPAP)? The permafrost pretty much effectively leaves her landlocked and drives home her lack of development as a person! Which leads to her second word: Parthenogenesis, a method by which brine shrimp reproduce without fertilization. In her case, I think we could actually do something similar to paradox cloning to repopulate the planet’s citizens? i like this because it’s a case of borrowing from an existing duty with a purpose, stripping it of its context, and repurposing it for her own growth and development.

Dream Planet:Also unsure

I think she’d think she’s a Derse, but she’s a Prospit. She’s not leading any mass changes, nor is she even changing herself all that much.

Speaking of not changing all that much….I futzed with the symbol and horns and made some color adjustments but otherwise she’s good to go.

Thanks again for this woman! She’s awful but like. In a really good way.

-TR

#ancientvacation #skurvi meeday #skurvi #meeday #violetblood #seadweller #review #tr review #submission

[zenosanalytic]

Discovery: What’s Past is Prologue

That was GREAT! This is Long :| :| :|

Ok, so this episode managed to be both a mile-a-minute, actioned-packed THRILLAGANZA and a This-is-why-we-love-Trek Federation Lovefest, which is Quite A Feat owo

For any new Dear, Dear Readers thinking about venturing below the Cut: Over time I’ve found that writing conventional reviews for fan-media usually leads to me producing 10k word dissertations on them, so I do bullet-point reviews instead, sticking to core-reactions. This is STILL almost 3k words though, so, just be aware: when I say something is Long I ain’t kidding :| :| Also my reaction to stuff like Trek tends to be much more Ecstatic that my TSoW review, so expect... Informality o_o o__o o___o

Ok, so Discovery’s Landry was Fed!Landry afterall.

Looks like the Terrans have some sort of Holographic camouflage? Maybe it’s just something Stamets worked out on his own, tho, given how the Terran Empire works.

So Lorca got to the Fediverse the same way Kirk originally arrived in the Mirrorverse! I wonder if that means Fed!Lorca was transported to the Mirrorverse and died? Lorca’s ultimate Mirrorverse-fate was never explained so it’s difficult to say.

This ep’s mutiny/innership fight easily ranks up there with the best from DS9 and Voyager(the only two series with genuinely interesting/exciting examples). The battle over this city-sized planet-killing spacewarpalace is well-paced, tense, and both tactically and emotionally satisfying ouo

It also makes good use of the Terrans. We get to see some examples of their more aggression-oriented tech(like interior defense turrets and the like), examples of how powerful individuals hoard tech to themselves ala Mirror!Kirk’s Tantalus Field(Georgiou’s secret emergency transport, her bracelet, and the Stamets-designed fungal-tech integrated into the ship. Though I kept hoping she’d deploy that murderdisk from last ep again; no joy :T), and some examples of major philosophies within their society(a warrior-ethic in Georgiou’s appreciation for Burnham’s plan and fighting-ability, and her willingness to die fighting to buy Burnham time and display the ideals of her social station near the end, and Lorca’s “Man of Destiny” nonsense throughout).

“...he preyed on my Sentiment, my Weakness for your Face; It will NOT happen again.” Mirror!Georgiou is just so deliciously campy uwu uwu I like how the showrunners chose to make melodrama one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Mirrorverse :> :> :>

...Was that a The Fountain pan when Stamets walked into the Mycelial garden? It LOOKED like a The Fountain pan.

Saru is such a good captain u_u

“...The Terrans are egotistical enough to believe they can replenish this resource before it collapses.” HMMMMM WHERE COULD THESE MIRRORVERSIAN HUMANS POSSIBLY HAVE GOTTEN THAT TRAIT FROM???? Tho, as far as they go, this is probably one of the subtler Global Warming/Carbon Economy analogies to ever pop up in SFF media.

“Make the Empire Glorious Again!” We all, of course, See What You Did There :| :| Though again: much less hamfisted that the usual “Make America Great Again” references media’s filled up with over the last year.

Anyone else notice the gigantic gold frieze of Georgiou over the Imperial Throne??

Saru: “I will Not Consider leaving you Behind.” SARU IS SUCH A GOOD CAPTAIN }:| }:|

It’s a small thing, but Lorca’s continued and varied use of psychology as a weapon and tool of manipulation, something which goes back to the beginning of the series and his use of that distress signal to “motivate” Discovery’s crew, continues to impress me with the showrunners concern for consistent characterization, and their understanding of how complex characters and stories can be built from reiterating simple concepts and character notes in different situations.

Destiny’s not a thing, of course, it’s a fallacy of ego to believe that 1)occurrences involving you are about you and 2)that, because they involve you, they were meant to happen and play out as they did. Fundamentally, it’s self-narration; a recontextualization that, simultaneously, places oneself as the author of one’s life(since you are deciding what it means) and apotheosizes one’s life(and thus oneself) by declaring that narrative the product of divine will. That Lorca’s primary dislike for Stamets seems to arise not from his betrayal but from his rationalist rejection of Fatalism tells you a lot about his narcissism, and how central it is to his worldview.

There’s an interesting metacommentary about how “grittiness” is treated as serious, masculine, and realistic while optimism is treated as frivolous, feminine, and fantastical begged by Lorca’s conversation with Burnham here, and his assertions that the Mirrorverse is “the real world” and the Fed a “failed social experiment”. It’s also a good reminder of his nature as a scientist, and says much of how he thinks and justifies his behavior, that he would choose scientific metaphor for denying the reality of the Fediverse(though obvsl he’d need SOME way to do it to keep himself motivated to return, given that he’s way too egotistical, and too chauvinistically Terran, to just accept that both are equally real).

It also reveals that he REALLY doesn’t understand Burnham at all. She’s a culturally Vulcan Human, for Pete’s Sake; how deluded do you have to be to think that this sort of essentialist argument about biological “Superiority” and sociogenetic Eugenical(“Social Darwinism” in common parlance but, given this thinking predated Darwin and his theory, and other things, I don’t like the term) rhapsodizing would appeal to her, when her whole existence disproves it?

“...that’s why we have duty to lead”? That seems like a bit of a non-sequitur, but I couldn’t get captions to work on this ep so I can’t say for sure that this is what he said. If it is, that’s a really twisted conception of “Duty”, to cast it as the driving concept behind species-segregation and Eugenic Hierarchy. Also, he really doesn’t understand why she did what she did at the battle of the binary stars, or what that fight was about. He seems to think 1)she caused the fight, and 2)it was a conflict about preserving Federation “cultural purity” from some kind of Klingon “corruption”.

Lorca’s comment about Burnham’s “gifts”… taken in hand with the last ep’s “someone better came along, you know how it is” comment, suggest Lorca is incapable of conceiving of people in non-instrumental terms, especially in a romantic context.

Burnham’s explication of the existentialism and affirmation at the heart of the Federation is Pure and Good u_u

Stamets: “We’ll have to use all our Spores. We won’t be able to jump back home” Ensign Rhys: “We’ll need to be close to make that shot |:T” The Federation! ^u^

Ensign Detmer: “I don’t think we can avoid the blast”, Cadet Tilly: “our shields can’t repel the blast and we’ll all die” Saru: shakes head and clicks: *Inspiring Motherfucking Shakespearean Goddamn Speech*[1] THE FEDERATION! THE FEDERAAATION!!!! PEOPLE LOOK IT IS THE FEH-EH-EHDERAH-AH-AH-TIONNN!!!!!!!! :’D :’‘D :’‘‘D

But Seriously, THIS is probably one of, if not The, best Star Trek Captain’s speech ever.

The speech, the action, the at-turns practical, sappy, and optimistic Fed dialogue, the explication of Federation ideals in the face of true danger, challenge, and Doubt: THIS ep is just such a summation of everything that makes people Love Star Trek.

That their writing staff is aware enough to give Burnham the line, “But know this: I’m offering you my Mind; nothing more.” when making her faux-offer to sacrifice herself for her crew is one of the many reason I love this series uwu uwu

As always, Science and Tilly saves the days! I like how simple the solution is, though it’d have been more believably Physicist of Stamets to say not “but not just an explosion” but rather, “but an explosion is a Shockwave!” Also: Trek ships do Quite a Bit of cosmic surfing, don’t they? This sort of thing’s been the solution to dire situations rather frequently o.o

The warp bubble technobabble is equally simple(as opposed to TNG’s frequent reliance on nonsensical verbiage), but I don’t like the solution they went with. A Warp Bubble Warps space. The Mycelial shockwave produces an energetic wave(an explosion) in space, but it also ripples through levels of subspace(including the mycelial network). So theoretically, the Warp Bubble could be attuned in such a way as to interact with these subspace waves in a fashion which would allow Discovery to “ride” them into and through the Network. That’s how I’d have written it, at least.

I’d also like to reiterate, yet again, how well Discovery has integrated respect for Tilly, a mere Cadet, into the Federation ethos. They’ve handled this way better than TNG did with Wesley.

Lorca: “I truly admire you all. You proved such Excellent Clay for my genius leadership” Like I said “Instrumental” >:T Such good, consistent characterization!

Also: Lorca: *Melodramatic Villain Speech* Saru: “Whatever, Napoleon, show me my crewman!” SUCH A GOOD CAPTAIN.

Also Also: Federation pragmatic optimism vs the gothic egotism of Terra

Saru yelling “FIRE!” was SOOOOOO Satisfying owo

Shit Fuck-Uping Commences

Trek-talk will inevitably focus on things other than combat because, philosophically, that’s not really what the show’s about or what draws most fans to it(see above), but Discovery really does have, hands down, the Best fight choreography I’ve ever seen in a Trek series, and most of the movies too. It probably helps that they have Actresses and Actors, like Michelle Yeoh and Jason Issacs, with substantive experience in stage-fighting, but everyone’s performance in these melees is just so excellent, and the flow of them is so fluid and sure, that it HAS to be their fight crew. Also: have I ever seen a mace and its use portrayed with reasonable accuracy in a screen fight before? No; but here’s Burnham, just absolutely TRASHING people with that scepter like a Goddamn Boss :> :> :>

Though there’s an obvs level of unreality to this: you clock someone anywhere around the head, neck, or shoulders with a steel mace and they ain’t keeping fighting you. They’re going Down; they’re DONE

Georgiou’s fighting here is just so brutal and clean. The way she just turns around and slashes that guy’s throat. Her meaty-stabs to that other guy’s gut. Her throw into Lorca’s shoulder. Her KICKING HER OWN KNIFE OUT OF THE AIR WHEN LORCA THROWS IT BACK!!! Magnificent u_u Beautiful u_u u_u Majestic u_u u_u u_u

Lorca Egotism Watch: Unceremoniously Cuts down Landry for having the gall to fight Burnham. Yup |:T |:T She just can’t catch a break, but that’s what you get for loyalty to a person who only sees other people as means to an end.

One particular thing I like about the choreography is how they allow Yeoh to use her smaller size and stabler center of gravity to her advantage. Having her roll, dodge, duck under Lorca’s slashes, use throws and grab, attack Lorca’s feet; such excellent choices, especially given industry standard which is to ignore physical differences and have everyone fight like they’re a 6ft+ muscular man.

The mutual face-punch was a nice injection of comedy into this fight sequence(always a good idea, I think, to give the audience a bit of release from tension). Looks like Lorca gets in one of the trophic Star Trek double-fist hammer strikes in at the end. An utterly useless attack irl, but it’s Star Trek and the Forms must be Honored u_u

Lorca: “Don’t make me have to kill you!” Burnham: “You Won’t.” Bad. ASS. Badass. It is a natural byproduct of Vulcan Logic that their dialogue be the Tightest Shit at all times u_u u_u

Burnham’s fight with Lorca is Astounding, but I don’t know enough about fight choreography to really talk about it. Wow it’s cool to watch, though.

“We would have helped you get home, if you had asked” THE FEDERATION!!!!!!!! And more than that; hell, without the war, they’d have probably helped you kick the crap out of the Terran Empire.

Georgiou running Lorca through was Extreme Satisfying owo owo

Looks like my theory of TylerVoq undermining Lorca’s plans is nixed. I’m not upset though, as there’s something satisfying in allowing plots to be separate, rather than tying them all together in one big resolution.

Burnham running out of cover to telesnatch Mirror!Georgiou out of the fight as she energizes THE FEDERATION! THE FEDERATI- Ok, you know my reaction to this stuf. THE IDEALS! THE IDEALS!! This raw concentration of Ideals and Sentiment will Physically Killing me isttg u_u u_u u_u

They tied the science part of the escape to the action of the shipboard fight so seamlessly, and continue the tension of those scenes into the escape so excellently! 

Another Little Thing that’s actually a Big Thing which I’m only now just noticing, probably because Oladejo(Ensign Owosekun) gets so much more screentime in this ep, is how good a job Discovery does at lighting and filming non-white skin and particularly dark skin, even when not a main character. I’m thinking of it particular in comparison to Agents of SHIELD which is absolutely atrocious on this point. At no point, even when they are in a dark area, or in red light, do Martin or Oladejo or any of the Black cast look washed out or obscured, as Henry Simmons almost always does as Mac even in some well-lit scenes. Just really excellent.

I REALLY HOPE that “Thanks Hugh” and aria isn’t the last of Culber. I continue to wish they’ll rez him, somehow. That was an objectively Romantic scene, though u_u

The ending revelation that they’re 9 months in the future and the Klingons have won the war is certainly surprising, but none of that’s official Fed history, so I’m pretty confident we’ll be seeing some time travel in the final eps. I’m a bit trepidation as to what Mirror!Discovery’s been up to since they’ve been gone <:[

[1]My Fast&Furious rendition of said speech: “Look I’m a coward from a species of cowards and I’m gonna tell you right now: I Ain’t Afraid. I might not know shit about shit, but I know this: you guys are Ride or Die. You’re the Best Motherfucking Crew of Motherfuckers a Motherfucker could ever Fuck Beside, and that’s For Real. That’s from the Heart. Lorca’s a POS, and he used the Power of our Shining Youthful Hearts to do some messed up bs, but we’re Family Y’all and this Ship: she’s OUR big metal space mama -Not his!- and today we’re gonna fly her like we just popped straight out her glowy anti-matter womb with a brace of .45s, a pack of Seagrams, and a surly temper. We got Shit to get Done, and we just ain’t goin down to his Triflin’-Ass Nonsense! So let’s fuck shit up! You have your Orders u_u”

#Star Trek #ST: Discovery #ST: Disc s1 e13 #What's Past is Prologue(Episode) #Discovery Spoilers #Gr8 Art #zA's Outside Viewing #TV Reviews #Reaction Posts #The Fast and the Furious