cosmic_llin | Entries tagged with discussion

So, I've been thinking about Deanna's accent. How it starts out with this cool Eastern-European-y vibe, and then by the end of the series it's this sort of American-ish thing. Sometimes it's even hard to imagine early-Deanna saying the things that late-Deanna says. And I think I've figured out why.

As a child of two cultures, Deanna could well have been raised bilingual, learning English from her father and a Betazoid language from her mother. When it sounds to viewers as though she has an unusual accent, that's when she's speaking English, but with a Betazoid accent since she's lived there for so long and was very young when she stopped having regular contact with English-speaking relatives.

At some point, for some reason, Deanna decides to stop speaking English and speak Betazoid, letting the Universal Translator do the work for her. This sounds to viewers as though she's speaking in a fairly neutral accent, similar to what the UT normally provides. She's also speaking a little more freely and easily, and is happier to use colloquialisms.

This could even explain Lwaxana's comment that Deanna's accent sounds like her father - Lwaxana is presumably speaking Betazoid all the time, so to her ears Deanna's accent sounds different than it does to anyone else.

Anyway, that's what I've been pondering, on this day when I have a million more important things to be getting on with...

Current Mood: busy

Voyager fans, does this bug anyone else?

( Thoughts about Seven’s arc, spoilers for everything, but especially Human Error )

Hmm... has anyone ever noticed - practically all the judges in Star Trek are women?

There's Philippa Louvois in The Measure of a Man, Norah Satie in The Drumhead, Els Renora in Dax, Makbar in Tribunal, T'Lara in Rules of Engagement... can anyone think of any more? Or any male examples to balance them out?

Even in the Original Series there was a female prosecutor, Areel Shaw, although in that case the judge was male.

I dunno, I quite like the idea that in the future, law becomes, for whatever reason, a female-dominated profession.

(X-posted to

cc_sff)

I'm so pleased with how the Day of not-Classic Trek went! Loads of people took part and some really awesome stuff got posted.

If anyone hasn't yet checked out

eponymous_rose's Introduction to DS9, you totally should. Even if you're familiar with the show already, it's a really fun read. And if you're not familiar with the show, you should get familiar with it, particularly if you're looking for something to fill a BSG-shaped hole in your life, but with slightly more dressing up and wacky hijinks.

Also terrific is this story about Naomi Wildman by

carawj. I'm not even just saying that because she bought me flowers last week, it's genuinely awesome. ;)

There were some great icons posted, too, like these ones and these ones and these ones. Not to mention essays, femslash for Enterprise and Deep Space Nine, a drabble, a picspam and a clipspam.

And that's not even all of the cool stuff that got posted! If anyone missed it and still wants to go back and see, the post is here.

Well, I watched both Doctor Who and Glee tonight, and... gah, I don't feel equipped to respond to Who yet. So here's what I thought of Glee...

( Spoilers and slight rantage )

Seriously, you guys, I <3 the new Trek movie and TOS, but I sometimes wish, for purely selfish reasons, that there was more stuff on

trek_news for the 90s Trek series. I always get so excited when I see a Troi story or a batch of DS9 icons.

I think it would be cool if, on one particular day, there was suddenly a bunch of TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT stuff on there - stories, graphics, meta, vids, whatever! It would be like the Day of Classic in Doctor Who fandom, which is always awesome.

I don't know if anything like this has been done before for Trek, but would anyone want to do it with me? I propose Sunday June 20th, to give people a bit of time to get stuff together.

Thoughts?

Watched Is There in Truth No Beauty? last night and I’m still not done laughing. What it must be like to be in Captain Kirk’s brain:

‘This attractive woman is somehow resisting my ham-fisted romantic overtures... she must have crippling psychological issues that can only be overcome by me slandering and attempting to strangle her!’

The shocking thing is that it seems to work. Without that final scene where she thanks him, this is a story about a bunch of sex-crazed idiots who harass a perfectly normal lady while she’s busy trying to be all sciencey and stuff, and then do fatally dumb things because she tries to politely inform them that she’s not interested. I think Kirk probably gave her concussion in that Sickbay scene and that’s why she ends up acting like he’s done her some sort of favour.

Seriously, if you take out the dumb IDIC part which is only in there because GR wanted to sell the pins as merchandise, she doesn’t do anything even remotely objectionable – the business with Spock is reasonable professional jealousy and although the scream is a bit much, she’s bound to be worried when it’s so crazy dangerous and she’s invested so much time and effort working out how to do it properly and Spock, for all that he was offered the job before her, didn’t then go on to do all the research and prep that she presumably did.

So yeah, I kind of want to make my own cut of this episode so that it’s more win…

1. OMG HOW GOOD WAS DOCTOR WHO?!?!?!?!!?

2. Off to Russia in a couple of weeks, visa hassle permitting! Rather excited! And looking forward to the enforced healthy eating, walks in fresh air and twice-weekly saunas. Not so much to the plumbing.

3. Was thinking - y'know the Day of Classic thing that happens now and then in Who fandom, where on a particular day people create loads of Classic Who stuff - fic, icons, meta, vids - so that

who_daily looks a bit less skewed towards the new series - has anyone done anything similar for Star Trek?

trek_news is really cool and all but it seems generally to be mostly Kirk/Spock and sometimes Gaila/Uhura - which is fine, but it would be nice to see a bit more variation. If there's not been such a thing already, would anyone be interested in one?

4. Too much chocolate was consumed. I doubt I've learned my lesson.

1. FYI, Deanna does not actually crash the ship in Star Trek: Generations. She does a very good job of flying the ship in the middle of a battle, and by the time it starts crashing she’s lost helm control and Data is the one who eventually gets control of the thrusters. Also in this movie she wears sailor drag and is all perceptive and in charge of things. Why have I not seen this more times?
2. I am TIRED.
3. Remember Kerry Weaver on ER? Wasn’t she AWESOME?!
4. One of my Christmas presents was a cookie jar in the shape of a certain Doctor Who character. Now when people come over and want biscuits we ‘fetch the Davros’. This tickles me.
5. On a similar note, used our lovely new teapot from

bunnyvon for the first time the other night, to much acclaim.
6. Strategies for passing time at work becoming sillier. This morning M and I chose new names for everyone in the office.
7. I have new glasses! They are red. I am told they make me look like a crime-fighting librarian.
8. These new headphones are not as good as my old ones. My old ones are, ALAS, broken.
9. I want January to end soon, please.
10. There is nobody in the world like

carawj. She is incredible and I love her WAY MUCH. I know this is soppy but I don’t care, the world should know how amazing she is.

Three days into a new year already - gosh!

Christmas, as expected, was a bit upsetting and miserable, but had some lovely bits! Quite a few people got me presents to share with

carawj (thank you, those people, for cushions, teapots, spice racks etc! :D) and my brother got me a Davros cookie jar, so, awesomes. And then when I got back to London we had a little Christmas of our own and I had a stocking with jelly beans and bubbles and poetry and biscuits and it was very lovely. :)

As to my feelings on Doctor Who... mostly disappointment and betrayal. I might post properly another time.

So anyway... 2010, eh?

Where I am now is nowhere near where I imagined myself this time last year. And 2009 in a lot of ways was a difficult year, but it was also a year filled with loveliness and awesome, and one in which I think I've grown a lot and learned a lot of things about myself, so I'm counting it as a win overall. I have a lovely home and girlfriend and a wonderful circle of friends both near and far who mean the world to me, and if I don't have a job I love, I at least have one that pays the bills and lets me wear what I like and listen to my iPod in the office, which could be a whole heap worse.

I'm not sure I want to make a list of resolutions, but as a general thing I want to spend more of this year doing things that are important to me, and I want to make more progress towards my goal of making a living from writing. Although technically I do that already, it really doesn't count.

Today I'm sitting in our nice tidy flat, we've shopped and eaten proper food, I've been doing creative things all day and even if I haven't made the best possible use of the Christmas break, I have really enjoyed it. So I think this is a good way to start the year. *nod*

So, we're still on our massive Star Trek kick. We watched Phantasms yesterday, and I really enjoyed it, it's always been one of my favourite episodes. What really gets me about it is Deanna at the end - like, for serious, she just got stabbed a bunch by her friend (ok, so he was in an altered mental state and not responsible for his actions, but still), and it was clearly really traumatic, so at the end of the story she bakes him a cake, and takes it round to his place, along with a big fucking knife that looks just like the one he stabbed her with?!?! I mean, that woman has some serious self-control, I wouldn't be going near him after that.

I also love that she actually is cake earlier in the episode, and Riker's weird moment of being oddly Irish, and Picard trying to get out of going to the banquet. And having his head turned by a pretty ensign. Fun fun fun.

In other news,

carawj and I have tickets to see Bonnie Langford in Chicago, oh hells to the yes!!! Rather excited! Very much looking forward to having over a week off work. It snowed here loads but it's already turned into gross slush. Hmm.

Happy Turkey Day, everyone who’s celebrating it!

Well, I’ve officially given up NaNoWriMo for this year. Sorry, lovely NaNo people! I think it would have gone better if I hadn’t already had so much to do in November, what with visiting folk and having folk visiting me. I got a fair bit done in the first week and a bit in the second, and I really enjoyed going to the write-ins and found them helpful for getting stuff done, but I really need to work hard on the advent calendar stuff for my site and I couldn’t really do both at once. I might give it a go next year, though, depending on what else I’m doing! And I may well still go to a couple of write-ins anyway.

3_fries_short is coming to stay tomorrow! I’m jolly excited! We are going to watch Sanctuary and things.

In other news,

carawj and I have been watching a whole bunch of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and it’s strange, having grown up with it always on at home, been obsessed with it for a while in my teens and then abandoned it for a few years, to come back to it now and look at it with fresh eyes. I’m really enjoying it. I’m loving how much of a dork Beverly is, I totally didn’t notice ever before. She spends her free time looking after her plants, and she squeaks with excitement when she wins a hand at poker. And no matter the cause of death, she always wants to do an autopsy. To the point where she’ll wander the ship, complaining at people about not being allowed to do an autopsy. I am re-warming to Beverly a lot after going through a phase where I was cross with her for not being Pulaski... Pulaski is still my favourite, but Beverly’s very sweet!

And when I say Pulaski’s my favourite, of course I mean she’s my favourite of the two doctors, because of course Deanna is still my proper favourite of the whole cast. And I’m also loving how much of a cad Riker is. We watched the one the other day where he shags a random alien chick just so she’ll help him escape. And the one where he two-times Deanna and Ro. Oh, Riker, never change.