The return of Action Saru!

Me when the episode called “Mirrors” turns out to be related to the Mirrorverse:

They had hope. And they found freedom. Despite impossible odds. Maybe that's why Dr. Cho went back and left the clue on that ship. Maybe that's our lesson here. That like them... maybe we can shape our own futures, too.

STAR TREK: DISCOVERY

S5 - EP5 | Mirrors

Star Trek Discovery - 5.01 Red Directive

*Boop*

I hope Rayner buys Reno that Vesper martini he owes her from the alt timeline. And probably make her go "sir, you know I'm a lesbian, right?" xD. But then they bond over being salty bitches. Reno can teach him how to be a better functioning salty bitch that isn't disliked by everyone.

Obsessed with the new Disco eps. Some doodles of them while rewatching. Is it just me or does Saru hate that Vulcan plant? XD And T’Rina, lots of emoting, even when she puts the tea cup down! Loved it!

What? Callum Keith Rennie is on season 5 of Star Trek: Discovery? And he has fancy ears?? OMG, yay!

Captain Michael Burnham being grateful for her second chance and paying it forward by giving Rayner a second chance, was a profound moment.

Handshakes as rebellion: Star Trek Discovery thoughts

So I’m watching Star Trek: Discovery (finally) and I just watched the episode where Sarek nearly dies and keeps going back to the moment Michael was supposed to be admitted to Vulcan Science Academy, and at the end she’s pushing to be more human and reintroduces herself to Ash Tyler with a handshake and a smile. Up until this point she’s been very no to handshakes cause Vulcan raised, and while it’s not logical, it is fun to imagine what her hand thought process is.

Star Trek loves to back track the Vulcan hand shit they built in, ya know to make Spock and Kirk less in love, but it’s there and Michael’s whole resistance/aversion to handshakes is so stark. Like you could argue she grew up with touch telepaths so it’s just polite to not touch hands, but touching hands is also an intimate thing (See Vulcan kisses) for Vulcans, that the mind tends to wander.

After learning her Dad (fuck you Sarek, blood or not, that’s your daughter you fuck ass) basically did a big betrayal, and then nearly let himself die rather than show her, AND LET HER THINK FOR YEARS THAT SHE LET HIM DOWN, one of the first things she does (after giving Sarek what I like to call, the oldest daughter shake down), is go talk to the new cute boy and offer to shake his hand again with a smile.

If we’re talking text that was definitely a rebellion for Michael. She’s shed some of her Vulcan conditioning because it doesn’t serve her healing process, she realizes now that her and Sarek were never going to live up to what the other wanted from them, and she’s embracing her humanity.

But if we’re just little gremlins for a second it looks like Michael went up to a cute boy and asked to make out after her dad almost died.

It’s fun to imagine, in a cracky sense, Michael holding hands with boys in her teens and Sarek finding out and giving lectures about propriety and shit. Amanda walks in from picking up Spock from school and the vibes are tense, Spock immediately knows whats up because he’s the one whose been keeping look out for Michael (idk if that’s accurate to them yet but I hope it is) when she sneaks off and meets with idk Salvir, the neighbors son who she really thinks is boring but has nice hands.

Amanda hears what the problem is tries not to laugh but truly thinks this is dumb, and can’t help but be brought back to her own dad chiding her about going around with that Vulcan boy (they were full grown adults, but still) and how it looks unseemly. And she says as much and Sarek goes green, and Michael and Spock are watching and he drops it. Michael doesn’t hold hands with Salvir anymore…she holds hands with Chu’lak, who lives two roads over and studies at home so Sarek never finds out.

I have a feeling I’m gonna love Commander Rayner the same way I came to love Captain Shaw on ST: Picard. 😂 They’re jerks but they’re our jerks.

Linus playing the piano!

STAR TREK: DISCOVERY

S5 - EP4 | Face the Strange

I liked that today's star trek discovery had a scene where Book said "all I want out of this is to Discover the scientific reason why men can get testicular torsions and why someone would design it that way" and then Burnham shed a tear. Really advanced the characters.

This view was just so beautiful ✨

discovery honestly really struggles to take the destruction of book's planet fully seriously and they're doing him so dirty and it bothers me so much. i know it is fiction, i know it's not a real genocide, i know that no one involved is a political scientist thinking about the extended political ramifications of the narrative. but also i need the writers to realize that "accidental" genocide is not a silly funtime premise that can be pared down into a romantic conflict the next season because genocide does in fact have extended and unavoidable political ramifications.

so species 10-C is leveling a planet-destroying weapon anywhere they want in the universe with total disregard and willful ignorance towards even the potential of other lifeforms, they do destroy a planet and wipe out all of its life, cultures, languages, relationships, more, plan to do it again, and they're not!! bad guys! they destroyed all life on a planet mining for raw materials (Not Fucking Cool regardless of whether there's human-equivalent sentience there) and they're not bad guys because they didn't know, they didn't think about it, it was an accident. and that's as deep as we go. if we ask if they had a responsibility to check for life before pointing their WPD (weapon of planetary destruction) out into the universe, the answer is absolutely and unequivocally YES. of course they did. but 10-C never has to answer for this.

book does. book has to accept that their willful ignorance and the devastation they wreaked against him and his is nothing. stricken from the record, not even a tally of their sins. in this we see a distinctly brutal and american legitimacy of violence. like a recreation of global superpowers vs the third world. 10-C is a powerful and technologically advanced species using dyson rings and advanced mining technology. they're equal with and to the federation. they're considered a State. despite being the last person from his planet, book isn't considered a State. book comes from a piddly little planet with no significantly advanced tech that the federation sees primarily in terms of the aid it requires. the equivalent of a third world country changing proxy states from US to USSR except it's the orions to the federation. not allowed at the big boys table. book is not allowed to withdraw from the federation or their authority, he's not allowed to act on behalf of his planet without the federation's permission, he's not allowed to react to the destruction of his planet and its people like the act of war that it is. he, his species, his planet are not considered equal to the federation like 10-C is, so he must be punished for the arrogance of acting without authority

10-C is allowed to wipe out a planet while mining for raw materials without being considered criminal, but book is criminal for attempting to deactivate their weapon. and no, he did not care about the possible consequences to 10-C in deactivating the WPD because 10-C CLEARLY didn't consider the consequences to anyone else before activating it. in this, you see the paternalism. one man from a piddly planet without technologically advanced resources can't possibly understand the choices that he's making or their consequences. ignore that he is actively being lied to and mislead by the same scientist the federation was relying on. Book individually is more responsible for negative repurcussions of trying to destroy a WPD than the species that created it. he must be punished for thinking his miniscule concerns are worth the risk of galactic war. not 10-C though. their actions are completely different. destroying entire planets without checking for life first isn't a risk of galactic war that can be held against them. because their motivations aren't personal, not polluted by grief or revenge or any emotional attachment to anything they're destroying, they're elevated. superior. advanced. just mining, just business, just an accident. they didn't mean to.

it was fine when michael was like "we disagree but I can't judge you for your choices." but now that she actually has a problem? now that she didn't call him for MONTHS after he lost his entire planet and was criminalized for trying to destroy the weapon that caused it? because she thinks he should have considered "maybe they didn't mean it" more deeply when (a) there was no possibility of communication until literally the penultimate episode; (b) i cannot stress this enough-- 10-C destroyed multiple planets including his own and (c) he turned against the evil scientist the second he figured out what was going on? i'm furious. i've got steam blowing out my ears.

part of this is the structure of trek's fictional universe. everything is resolvable through diplomacy, so "they didn't mean to!!!" has to remain meaningful. another part of this is that trek is distinctly and profoundly american and therefore unable to reckon with the violence of base assumptions of the american state. because "they didn't mean to!" falls apart as an argument when it comes to building a planet destroying mining laser, pointing it at an inhabited planet, activating it, and destroying the planet. you absolutely did mean to do that. you did not mean for anything to survive and give you grief about it. but that is still the narrative we have and its justification

it's like the writers heard "trust intent, name impact" once, tried to apply it to (admittedly fictional but still) genocide, and then also forgot to name impact. it's science fiction. social sciences are sciences. where's my fucking truth and reconciliation council