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boldly going

@borgjaneway / borgjaneway.tumblr.com

Gay nerd. This is my Star Trek sideblog.

So I know this won’t necessarily be actionable to folks but I went down a little search adventure over this because g o d I want to see this so I figured I’d share what I found in case it’s of interest! The Washington Area Performing Arts Video Archive has it, they have two meatspace locations where it can be viewed in the DC/Maryland area. Which like, I’m glad it exists somewhere even though I’d love if it was accessible online!

tom paris at voyager open mic night making jokes like “my wife misses me… but her aim is getting better 🤣” cut to chakotay and tuvok in the back where chakotay’s like “say tuvok these jokes aren’t half bad” and tuvok’s like “indeed, commander, they’re all bad”

Interesting.

Actual writer on Discovery sharing his experiences that Paramount, etc ALL networks/studios are pushing for less LGBTQ stories.

It's truly depressing how unsurprising this is. And how much it explains about all the other Treks, which do not have queer showrunners pushing for the crumbs Paramount allows.

tom/b’elanna and chakotay/seven double date is possibly the funniest trek romcom/horror movie pitch I can imagine. please say more about tom and seven's "banter"

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TRULY I'm very glad you see the horrifying potential of this post as well

okay just imagine. they've been back on earth for a couple of months, no one in this group of people knows what the future holds exactly for them (two ex-maquis, one ex-maquis AND ex-con, one ex-borg), tom and b'elanna are exhausted since they're looking after a newborn baby. b'elanna is very pissed at chakotay for this relationship with seven thing (per this other post), chakotay resents that hostility and he's now mad at her and tom (whom he never liked, very understandably so because in addition to tom being kind of a dick to chakotay for no reason i don't think he ever truly forgot about janeway and tom making a fool of him with tom's fake defection, and now janeway isn't their captain anymore, so). tom in turn knows that chakotay doesn't like him and i don't think he'd lose an opportunity to get one up on him. then there's seven and b'elanna's whole rivalry (need i say more?)

to make a long story short probably the two people who are able to tolerate one another the most in that situation are tom and seven, and tbh i can see tom coming up with this whole double date thing and getting seven on board with the idea of "maybe we can make b'elanna and chakotay get along again". (except of course in addition to the more 'noble' motivation they both definitely have a score to settle)

but neither tom and seven are very good at banter in unfamiliar situations, i feel; i mean, at least tom can crack a joke (chakotay would not laugh) but seven would straight up just try a list of conversation starters, which would make b'elanna roll her eyes so hard. tom would start reminiscing about voyager and it'd inevitably be anecdotes involving him and harry, which after a while i think would make b'elanna upset because once again he's not including her. chakotay would respond with his own memories of tom's being insubordinate or some shit, which would make tom temporarily shut up but make b'elanna even more upset. seven might mention something mildly horrifying like she and icheb finding sleep on a bed uncomfortable compared to their old alcoves but finding the privacy of actual quarters refreshing, which would make chakotay and tom cringe but b'elanna would retort that it must be nice to get any sleep at all. if the topic moves to what starfleet plans to do with their requests of joining it will get immediately more awkward (since we know chakotay and tom got recommissioned and seven was shut out, b'elanna still a question mark). i can definitely see the night ending with a dessert half-eaten and a tom making a half-drunk allusion at his and b'elanna's nonexistent sexual life (see: newborn baby), and seven trying to make a joke about her sex life having gotten more interesting recently but really NOT nailing the tone. everyone goes home kind of scarred by the experience and in utter silence.

tl;dr i don't think a second double-date would happen

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I want odo to come back in a future star trek series to help sort out whatever issue the crew of that starship is facing and then have to return to the link, but before he goes he asks to be able to send a subspace message. He sends one to a now much older kira saying how much he loves and misses her and hopes she's alright and happy and he sends one to quark which is basically this

And they both feel really touched and start crying.

the thing is i don’t actually hate tom paris as a character in canon i think he’s interesting in a “this guy has so much wrong with him” kind of way but i do hate the incredibly bland wife guy fanon version of him. like i cannot emphasize enough that this man has so many psychological problems. he encourages both harry and tuvok to cheat on their partners. harry almost murdered him and he brushed it off because harry said he was his friend. he repeatedly expresses that he’s far happier on VOYAGER of all places and has no interest in ever going home. he is not and will never be normal. embrace your faves being fucked up dysfunctional disasters it’s good for the soul

literally tom and b’elanna are sooo epic divorce man/woman-coded like they were born to be divorced from their terrible communication to their stunted social skills to tom’s sitcom dad antics we should rejoice in their inevitable divorce both because it will be better for both of them and because it will be extremely funny

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the aesthetic romanticism of this episode. the deep love for discovery. the decolonization allegory which is not so much a 1-to-1 allegory, so to speak, because sisko proving that ancient bajorans had not only the technology but the sheer Wonder and Curiosity to venture into space is a metaphor for speaking against any number of white supremacist "histories" deriving from imperialistic paradigms since the age of colonization---

to provide the counter-colonization narrative with a space-ship that sails on the impulse of photons (a very real and possible engineering for space-flight--like NASA is building ships like that) is wonderful. this story about the ancient people who thought to travel to space and push their spacecraft through space off the force of light, and then sisko proving to everyone not only its possibility but its historical fact, was sweet and interesting and full of feeling.

it's all as if to say: to engage whole-heartedly with an episteme of decolonization is to engage whole-heartedly with an episteme of curiosity and discovery and love for What Is.

"Explorers" is one of my favorite DS9 episodes, for the reasons op describes. OP, i hope you don't mind if i add on some more of the things i adore about this ep!

First off, I just love when Sisko's artistic passion is showcased.

  • I admire Commander/Captain Sisko, but chef Sisko, craftsman Sisko, literature-and-history lover Sisko truly has my heart. He takes so much pride in his work, and he is truly skilled!
  • In this ep (and various others), he uses his passion for history and crafting to connect with the Bajoran people, learn about and uplift some of their history. Just look at these gifs, at the excitement and (to use OP's word) wonder!
  • Jake — and, we'll see, many others — is skeptical that the ancient Bajorans were capable of doing what their legends say they did.
  • But Benjamin believes — because of that sense of wonder, and also because his identity as a Black man, and depth of knowledge of his own people's history. Sisko understands that oppressive powers depend upon the erasure of their targets' history — most of the rest of this post will explore that further.

Really quick though, I do want to highlight how this episode cultivates Benjamin's and Jake's father-son relationship, which is itself one of the best elements of DS9.

  • I won't spend too long gushing about it because I've done that plenty in previous posts (like this one and this one), but ohhh my goodness, the way Benjamin is always so emotionally open and honest with his son!! The way he encourages his interests and nudges him to engage in the wider world!! I crie!!
  • According to the fan wiki for this episode, Miles O'Brien was originally going to be the one to join Benjamin in his solar sailing, but the producers decided the season needed a father-and-son centric episode, and I'm so glad they did.

Moving on: i think it's fitting that this episode is the debut of Sisko's goatee — a key symbol of Sisko's representation of "unrepentant Black manhood."

  • Avery Brooks fought for facial hair from the start, but a head of hair + clean-shaven face was literally in his contract. Why? While one excuse involved a previous acting role Brooks had, Paramount's president, Kerry McCluggage, admitted that they didn't want Sisko to look too "street" — a bald and bearded Black man would just be too "threatening" to white viewers ://
  • It took all the way till episode 22 of the third season for producers to give in — and what a difference it makes in how Brooks carries himself as Sisko! As this episode explores decolonization, this assertion of Black power that refuses to bow to white comfort is significant.

As he embarks on his quest to prove the ancient Bajorans could have sailed across space and all the way to Cardassia, Sisko wears civilian clothes inspired by his African ancestry (if anyone has info about the specific African culture/s this outfit's patterns draw from, please let me know!). This is an earlier example of Brooks getting the show to let him incorporate African imagery into Sisko's clothes (and quarters).

  • I see a parallel between Bajorans' pride in their history — how they uplift their ancestors' skill and technical advancements in the face of colonizers who deny it — and Black pride in the face of similar erasure of Africa's long history of wealth, scholarship, and scientific advancement.
  • Others have explored better than I can (as a white person) how Sisko's Blackness is vital to his ability to connect to Bajorans: he knows what it is to belong to a people that's been subjugated and stripped of resources, denied autonomy and respect; to grapple with the consequences of Empire long after "official" occupation is over...
  • Of course, within the fiction of Star Trek, we are meant to believe that humanity has deconstructed white supremacy and antiblackness by this point — that the Sisko family lives free of those evils — yet Sisko never forgets what his ancestors endured (and what DS9's Black viewers still endure).
  • As Angelica Jade Bastién puts it, Sisko (and particularly his relationship with Jake) provides "a window into the future of black identity that never forgets the trials of our past or the complexity of our humanity."
  • To me, this identity is what enables him to serve Bajor as their Emissary, to help guide this people so newly free of their oppressors into a future where they are truly free, yet honor what their ancestors went through to get them there.

[Gonna put the rest of this under a readmore cuz it's so long oops]

Some sketches from the week

He does know what a black hole is he just wants to listen to spock talk.

Recently watched some of the star trek movies and wanted to draw some of the stuff

I loved bones look here need to draw him again with this look

I am just now realizing how fucked up the faces look for the last two but honestly I'm to tired to care.

oh dang, it's gonna take them even longer to get home in that

[Image description a news screenshot reading "Physicists make tiny model of Star Trek's USS Voyager that's smaller than a human hair"]