If you are thinking about lesbian sex or tits or whatever that is me beaming it into your mind right now

Thank you for your contribution.

In Defense of Sarek

Can I just say that I’m not all that fond of the way Sarek’s legacy has been altered lately?

Sorry this is long, very long.

Mark Lenard of course played him to perfection in TOS, the TOS films, and TNG ( although all the actors who have played him have been excellent). And he is very fleshed out throughout. He obviously loves his family but of course struggles with expressing it and his relationship with Spock is very complicated. He loves him but has disagreed with his life choices to such a point that they spend a lot of their lives estranged from each other. You always get the sense that they love each other, but they are very different people.

Then he is portrayed in the AOS films much the same but the death of his wife forces him to be more open with his son, admitting that he married her because he loved her. I often imagine their relationship being much closer after that despite still having their issues with each other.

And then we have The Final Frontier. OK so we all know that this is definitely one of the lesser films and it really brings up some confusing canon. Like the idea that Sarek was married to a Vulcan “Princess” and they had a son. And after she died he married Amanda and had Spock and the boys were raised together. Of course this brought up all kind of questions. How did we not know this? Why after all these years would Spock never once mention it? Vulcan has royals? But whatever, we kind of accepted it for what it was. It’s a bad film but I still love it.

Then came the scene where Sybok showed the trio their deepest pain and all that. And Spock’s just made no sense. It pretty much implied that from the moment of Spock’s birth Sarek regarded him with scorn for being half human. Which is ridiculous. He obviously loved Amanda, married her for good reasons, and if he thought having a half human child with her was a terrible mistake then he would not have done so. Before that his troubles with Spock were always shown to be because of common father/son issues with Spock’s career choice etc. But the idea that he hated him because of Amanda is just, well it’s illogical.

But again, we just kind of said OK and moved on. I always took it as more of an unconscious fear on Spock’s part anyway that related to his own identity issues. Especially since it’s not like he would actually have remembered what Sarek said at his birth. And do you think Amanda would have put up with that shit if Sarek has said that right after she gave birth? Hell no. He’d have been out on his ass.

After that film the whole Sybok plot line is pretty much ignored by the rest of the films and shows. Probably because why bring up such a poorly written piece of canon? Even in the TNG episode “Sarek” where Sarek’s innermost turmoil is revealed, Sybok is not mentioned. It’s here we see him again admit to loving Spock dearly and having deep regrets about the way their relationship degraded. A fact later revealed to Spock in “Unification”. This probably had a lot to do with Amanda’s death.

Aaaaaand then we have Discovery. I already wrote a stupidly long post on the reasons I don’t like Discovery so I won’t repeat myself too much here. But one of my major issues with the show is its disrespect for canon and Michael’s ridiculous and pandering connection to Spock. The idea was nonsense in Final Frontier and it’s still nonsense. And again, Sybok isn’t even mentioned in Disocovery! I guess they thought their secret sibling was better than the previous one. Sarek is portrayed in Discovery as well and has a complicated relationship with Michael in a lot of ways. In short, she has some complaints about his parenting too.

So here is my problem. Because of this Sarek is considered by many fans as someone whose parenting skills are on the same level as let’s say, Odin in the Marvel Thor films. I hear a lot about “Sarek’s A+ Parenting” and all that when people talk about how he treated his kids. And frankly I think it’s kind of unfair.

Sarek was never really portrayed as a bad father, just one with a complicated relationship with his son. And then one bad film script came a long and made him out to be a monster who hated his kid for being half human (you know who else hated that plot line? Leonard Nimoy, he thought it was ridiculous and says so in his book). Not to mention the film giving him another son he never talks about. But hey bad scripts happen and everyone just ignored it after that.

Then Discovery bursts in and says “Final Frontier had the right idea, Spock needs more secret siblings and a shit dad!”

Not only does this make no sense (Pretty sure Sarek would have mentioned in the TNG episode all the other kids he’s estranged from) but it makes Sarek out to be an asshole! And look at this guy:

Does he look like an asshole to you? I’m not saying they demonize him on Discovery, but they give him a shit reputation that I don’t think he deserves. Discovery likes to make a habit of taking things from the original series and altering them to fit their needs without any thought towards canon or consideration of what came before them (like turning Harry Mudd from a lovable rogue to a cold blooded murderer, that was fun). And I just don’t like them deciding that Sarek was a bad dad to up to three different kids when nothing except Final Frontier, a shitty film that everyone ignores canonically anyway, gave any indication of that.

Maybe I’m totally wrong, maybe there are books I haven’t read that show him to be that way, or maybe my view of him on Discovery is colored by my dislike of the show overall. But if I see one more “Sarek: The Worst Father of Star Trek” tag line then I’m going to blow a gasket.That being said, to all the artists who have drawn adorable pictures of the three kids together, no notes, keep it up, you are the only good thing to come of this.

He deserves better. Mark Lenard’s incredible portrayal deserves better. And as far as I’m concerned, this guy:

Is a good dad. He loved his family despite their differences, he crusaded for his son’s soul to be saved and admitted to a Vulcan High Priestess that his logic is questionable where his son is concerned (Pretty sure that’s a big fucking deal on Vulcan). And then stood up for his son’s friends when they were being accused of multiple crimes. He’s not perfect, but he damn sure isn’t Odin. Yeesh.

Sarek fucking rocks. I won’t be told differently. End rant.

@forestwind1234 Thank you I’ll definitely have to check that book out!

On this day, 4 May 1929, actor and Dutch resistance activist Audrey Hepburn was born in Belgium. Her parents, a baroness and a banker, were both fascists who personally met with Hitler. After her father abandoned them, she and her mother moved to the Netherlands, and her mother’s views changed when Nazis executed her brother, Otto van Limburg Stirum, in retaliation for resistance activities. As a child, Hepburn studied ballet, and began to perform recitals to fundraiser for the resistance. The performances were referred to as “zwarte avonden” (“black evenings”) as organisers blacked out windows while they took place so they could not be observed from outside. Hepburn described how “Guards were posted outside” to warn of approaching Germans, and how audiences “made not a single sound at the end of [her] performance.” And she explained that: “afterwards, money was collected and given to the Dutch Underground.” Hepburn was part of the resistance cell of Dr. Hendrik Visser’t Hooft which, according to his daughters, he proudly recalled to them. Hepburn would help deliver copies of his underground anti-fascist newspaper as a courier: “I stuffed them in my woolen socks in my wooden shoes, got on my bike and delivered them,” she later recounted. Hepburn also told the New York Daily Mirror that her activities included “running around with food” for downed Allied pilots. As an English speaker, she also relayed messages between downed British pilots and the resistance, and according to her son her family sheltered a British pilot who had been shot down. Hepburn also pointed out that many Dutch children “did their little bit to help… Many were much more courageous than I was.” More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10460/audrey-hepburn-born https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=619879573518595&set=a.602588028581083&type=3

shoutout to the adhd people who did well in school for years but suddenly crashed and burned when the responsibilities outweighed their coping skills

shoutout to the adhd people who couldn’t finish college

shoutout to the adhd people who do great work but lose their jobs because of poor time managment

shoutout to the adhd people who don’t lose their jobs but can never advance because of their inconsistent performance

shoutout to the adhd people who want more work responsibilities but are afraid of what will happen when they inevitably make a careless mistake or their inattention leads something important to be forgotten

shoutout to the adhd people who have damaged their credit rating by forgetting to pay bills or return library books

shoutout to the adhd people who work their ass off every day but never know if the results will be stellar, average, or terrible

shoutout to the adhd people who have done just well enough to go most of their lives knowing something was wrong, but figuring they just needed to work harder to fix it.

I've been trying to take it to heart when people say don't treat AO3 like Instagram, and that it's good to comment on old posts. And while I plan to continue I can see why people can get discouraged about doing it when you get replies like this from authors. Now granted my comment includes criticism, so perhaps they were just being defensive. But I tried to be as polite as possible, I just think things should be tagged accordingly. They did update the tags as they claimed so that's nice.

I was going to respond that I would respect their wishes but of course I've been blocked now. Oh well.

They updated their reply, I guess it's good they're going to alert readers that they don't want comments, since they're leaving the works up. Still bizarre but ok. Whatever works for them.

You ever invite your coworker to watch you give birth just to spite a racist

Okay howmst the fuck has a ship doctor in the far future never handled a birth without the father present? Are sperm donors and gay couples and trans women no longer a thing in the bajillionth century CE?? :/

I while understand the frustration with erasure sometimes it helps to look at things through the cultural context of when something was made. Star Trek the Next Generation was made in 1987, this particular episode I believe aired in 1988 a time when a future where the husband was always present for the birth would have been amazing to many of the people watching the show as men had only been allowed to be present for the birth of their children for 10/15ish years at that point in the US.

Women (and many men) fought for decades with hospitals to even have men allowed in the delivery room during the early stages of labor, which can last for several hours, and hospitals only began to give in to their requests in the 1960s but even then they would be kicked out of the room by hospital staff before the actual birth took place. So many of the couples watching the show would have had to go through labor without having/being allowed to support their spouse regardless of their wishes. Having the child’s father present for the birth only began to happen in the 1970s and 1980s. Which means most people watching this show either went through birth without the support of their spouse, were not allowed to support their spouse during the birth of their child, or their own mother’s went through that during their birth.

A future where the husbands were always present for the birth was still a little crazy to consider in the late 1980s. A good kind of crazy for the people living in that time, it showed a future where the wishes of the couple were finally consistently listened to by medical professionals as a result of the actions of people during their or their parent’s lifetimes. And it does that by also subverting it in allowing Data to step into the role of the father when the father was unknown and/or unwilling/unable to fill that role (I’ll be honest my knowledge of Next Gen is a bit spotty and I have not seen this whole episode, just a piece of it at family Thanksgiving). The woman’s desires as to how she would give birth are listened to and respected, something that still doesn’t happen in many hospitals now and would have been seen as even more revolutionary then. So while it isn’t perfect I think this scene was actually fairly impressive for its time and cultural context and shows a future that many people of that time would have seen as ideal.

I think this kind of contextual understanding and analysis is really important because things that look antiquated now were revolutionary then. I remember reading that the mini skirts in Star Trek TOS were legot just in fashion (about 64’ ish), one of the actresses (the one that played Rand) requested they be in the show and both her and Nichelle Nichols said they didn’t see them as demeaning but liberating in that time and context. Where as NOW it looks like ‘sexy male gaze’ but then it wasn’t.

Miniskirts are comfortable and easy to move in - unlike longer bulkier skirts, which had previously been required for “modesty.” And unlike the approach of “we’ll just put them in pants,” miniskirts made a statement that women crew-members weren’t being treated like men. Miniskirts were a way to say “I can be an attractive woman, wear comfortable clothes, and still look professional and do a serious job.” 

The clothing for that message today would be different. 

This is also why the bridge crew of TOS may seem “tokenistic” today. When it came out, the Cold War was in full swing and “Soviets” were maligned and hated, Black people could not count on their right to vote being honored, and mixed-race people (like Spock) were called horrible things like “half-breed” and “zebra.” A white man was in charge of the ship, but Gene Roddenberry was fully aware that a chunk of the viewership read him as queer, and did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DISCOURAGE THAT READING, at a time when “homosexual activity” was illegal in the United States!

By today’s standards, “one of everything? How tokenistic.” In 1966? “A Black woman, a Russian, a man from multiple cultures, and a man who loves differently, all top of their fields, all working together and finding common ground to learn, grow, and help where they can? What a wonderful future!”

Also I’m sorry but like. A show also featuring a Japanese man who isn’t a stereotype but part of the crew, having a Scottish character be a part of the central cast (idk if I need to get into why this is important, but considering how England has continuously tried to erase Scottish culture and identity, and the stereotype of Scots as bumbling bumpkins, etc, its kind of nice to see a Scotsman who’s the best of the best at his job).

Moreover, a lot of kids watched this show. MLK himself contacted Nichelle Nichols and asked her to stay on the show when she was considering leaving, because “you don’t have a Black role, you have an equal role,” and there wasnt many Black role models on tv. I can only imagine how Black kids, Asian kids, and mixed race or mixed culture kids felt seeing people like them on tv. Hell, seeing Uhura on screen is what inspired Whoopi Goldberg as a little girl.

Also, yeah, its easy to look back and say ‘damn, fathers weren’t there in the delivery room? What assholes’ but no like they legitimately were not allowed in there.

Tiny correction: while George Takei is Japanese, and while Sulu thus looks like what we in the 20th-21st century consider to be an ethnically Japanese man, Hikaru Sulu was Pan-Asian by design. His last name is not Japanese. And Roddenberry designed him like that intentionally, because while there was a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment in the US at the time (I mean, hell… George Takei himself spent years in Japanese internment camps during WW2), there was also a lot of other anti-Asian sentiments, and Roddenberry intentionally put ALL of it on the character of Sulu.

Like, all the years of anti-Chinese racism in the US? Sulu. Anti-Japanese sentiments left over after WW2? Sulu. Korean War in 1950-52? Sulu. The Vietnam War, with Johnson in 1965 (a year before TOS started airing) choosing to start sending American troops into the conflict? Sulu.

Sulu was Roddenberry’s desperate attempt to show all Asian people as inherently worthy, inherently human, and yeah, he probably put kind of too much on Sulu’s shoulders, but it was the 1960s and Roddenberry fucking cared about representation, so he did what he could.

Just, you know… a little bit more historical Star Trek context

Also to hammer this home?

Scotty was third in line for the captain’s chair. The only non-Kirk who had the con more then him was Spock.

He was smart, he was a *ranked* crewmen, he was a gentleman, he wasn’t a skirt chaser, and he was capitol L loyal. The only time he got into a fight was when someone both went after his Captain, AND his Ship.

And he was Scottish. 

That’s so above and beyond the typical Scottish stereotype even TO THIS DAY.

Dr Polaski was coded as something of an arse just so they could make their valid points about equality and bigotry using her as a foil. Yes it was kind of clumsy from a modern perspective, but it was also kind of groundbreaking (not least because you didn’t usually get arses being played by women)

I am hard-coded to put this on any post that mentions MLK and Nichelle Nichols.

Also, it’s very worth noting that the “token minority character” label doesn’t apply in any way to these characters.

Tokens are there to present the appearance of diversity. Whereas Roddenberry created a diverse cast in an era where there wasn’t even a need for the appearance of diversity. Roddenberry didn’t put these characters in because he wanted to look diverse– he put them in to BE DIVERSE.

Context. Is. Everything.

every word out of guillermo del toro’s mouth is the most hardcore thing i’ve ever heard and he says it all so casually like he doesn’t even realize how much of a gothic visionary he is 

“Since childhood, I’ve been faithful to monsters. I have been saved and absolved by them, because monsters, I believe, are patron saints of our blissful imperfection, and they allow and embody the possibility of failing”

I STILL THINK ABOUT THIS EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE

Yo okie Guillermo has some of the best quotes and lines I’ve ever heard, here are just a few of his quotes that have me questioning life:

“What is a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again? A moment of pain, perhaps. Something dead which still seems to be alive. An emotion suspended in time. Like a blurred photograph. Like an insect trapped in amber.”

“I knew that monsters were far more gentle and more desirable than the monsters living inside ‘nice people.’ Accepting that you are a monster gives you the leeway to not behave like one. When you deny being a monster, you behave like one.”

“When you see something or experience something extraordinary, you can’t go back to normal… I think that that’s the way I see the supernatural-as happening in mundane circumstances or to people who are unprepared”

“To learn what we fear is to learn who we are. Horror defines our boundaries and illuminates our souls”

“Any legend, any creature, any symbol we ever stumble on, already exists in a vast cosmic reservoir where archetypes wait. Shapes looming outside our Platonic cave. We naturally believe ourselves clever and wise, so advanced, and those who came before us so naïve and simple…when all we truly do is echo the order of the universe, as it guides us…”

And the last but certainly not the least:

“In fairy tales, monsters exist to be a manifestation of something that we need to understand, not only a problem we need to overcome, but also they need to represent, much like angels represent the beautiful, pure, eternal side of the human spirit, monsters need to represent a more tangible, more mortal side of being human: aging, decay, darkness and so forth. And I believe that monsters originally, when we were cavemen and you know, sitting around a fire, we needed to explain the birth of the sun and the death of the moon and the phases of the moon and rain and thunder. And we invented creatures that made sense of the world: a serpent that ate the sun, a creature that ate the moon, a man in the moon living there, things like that. And as we became more and more sophisticated and created sort of a social structure, the real enigmas started not to be outside. The rain and the thunder were logical now. But the real enigmas became social. All those impulses that we were repressing: cannibalism, murder, these things needed an explanation. The sex drive, the need to hunt, the need to kill, these things then became personified in monsters. Werewolves, vampires, ogres, this and that. I feel that monsters are here in our world to help us understand it. They are an essential part of a fable.”

Do you ever think about how Kirk had a "best friend" on the ship before Bones in Gary Mitchell, a man who:

and then chooses to replace him with Bones, a man who:

because I do

what you need to understand about recommending a show to me is that no matter how much we both know I'll like it, I can't watch it until the Neurodivergence Department in my brain approves it. I don't know when that will be, and I don't have any more control over it than you do.

I came out to have a good time and honestly I’m feeling so attacked right now [source]

Never ever be normal about fictional characters but please GOD be normal about the people who play them, I am begging you

I love neelix so much cos of the way he treats seven of nine cos like with characters like tom paris znd belanna shed be like hi 😐 and theyd be like Do You Ever Think?????.?? ABOUT THOSE U ASSIMILATED. don't you feel GUILT! but she went up to Neelix and was like we assimilated a freighter of talaxians they were efficient drones for the collective and he was just like ahaha good for u anyway this is how you eat food. King shit

Big Chonk Kirk and small tired bones

something that’s legitimately started to worry me about the switch from physical media to streaming/online only is that services like netflix & disney not only can but actively are changing the music in series/movies, deleting and editing scenes, changing the color grade, etc. here’s an example where they cut out an entire conversation about a pentagram necklace in the netflix version of supernatural. anyways save ur hard copies kids <3 

An excellent point, seriously, they will change content for all kinds of reasons. Censorship, licensing, or people like George Lucas insisting on only certain versions being available to viewers.

But it's more than just this folks. Remember, streaming requires you to always have money for the monthly payment, physical copies are a one time buy.

Streaming your favorite show forever relies on the idea that the show will always be available streaming somewhere. Which is not at all a guarantee. Contracts run out, owning companies decide to take shows down, etc. Many films and shows are not on streaming and never will be for different reasons, and the DVDs are no longer produced and going for big money on Ebay.

Streaming requires internet/wifi, and you may laugh, but that's not necessarily a guarantee in your life either. Many people rely on phone data for their internet needs and do without the rest to save costs. Media players only require electricity.

Blu-ray and DVD discs, when properly taken care of, can last for decades. The players need more replacing sometimes, but used ones are pretty cheap now that no one wants them.

I'm just saying, think twice before dumping your physical media, you may regret it later.

And if you really don't want them, please consider donating them to your local library. Libraries circulate millions of AV materials each year, and very often the people asking for them are people who cannot afford streaming. The more selection the better.

I know I should just be grateful that The Winchesters is a good show, and that we got to see Dean at all but...god I am so fucking sad right now.

It's my own fault for getting my hopes up, but when I saw the pictures of Dean on the show I was so sure he had managed to change something.

I knew we weren't going to get Destiel, or a full finale reversal, but I thought he'd manage to change at least some of it. I know Jackles has to tow the line and wouldn't be able to push hard but just a little change would have worked for me. Like seeing him and Cas together, or mentioning Eileen is with Sam, or Dean getting a second chance at life, or being sent on more multiverse adventures.

But nope, NOTHING has been changed, the finale is completely intact. Best I can get from it is knowing that Jack restored the multiverse. And Jack's presence...he was so final that Dean had to stop and be done after this.

I watched for weeks hoping for change and everything is right back where we started. I love how hopeful some people's posts are that there will be more Dean if the show continues but I don't know. Will he ever be able to alter anything without alienating half the fanbase? Would he even try?

Sorry everyone I'm just crushed right now. I feel like I did when I saw the finale, like we came all this way just to get the most hopeless, spirit crushing ending ever made. I know it's not quite the same but it feels like I'm re-living it.

A few weeks later and I do feel better about this. While I still wish more things had been addressed in the finale I can see that some things were changed for the better, most importantly Dean taking more control of his own narrative than the spn finale allowed. Thank you Tumblr folks for boosting my spirits with your posts about it all.❤️

me and my brother: *explains how adhd affects us*

our parents: that's not adhd, that's normal

me and my brother:

"late seasons spn is bad" and do you people not appreciate bad media???

Honestly at this point I feel like every single season has equal parts good shit and stupid shit. But is always 100% entertaining.