Sarcasm is an adjusted stress reaction.

This is almost as hard as choosing a favourite captain, and I declined to answer that one. Lemme just go down the list and see how I feel...

Spock: pulling double duty as both science office and second in command. Versatile. Excellent eye make-up. Isn't the most iconic character of the franchise for no reason. I love him. But is he my favourite? Out of all the first officers?

Riker: thrown in because they needed a Manly Macho Man, and yet I've come to love him. Can be relied on for bad trombone, good poker, always has his people's back. Solid.

Kira: a tiny ball of rage and frustration, therefore I love her. Initially working against Sisko and undermining him, which is not ideal in a first officer, but entertaining and consistent with her worldview.

Chakotay: increasingly redundant to the narrative; weirdly passive-aggressive. I like him a lot in the early seasons, but then it turns to indifference and then dislike. So he's the only person who is NOT a contender.

T'Pol: deserves better, starting with her costumes. 100% mentored young Michael Burnham. I adore her.

Saru: also passive-aggressive, but in a really delightful way? He's a tall, delicious horse-sheep man and he's as salty as his tea.

But, after much consideration, I have to give the job to ...



In both her incarnations -- although it irritates me that DSC!Number One is quite different to the TOS incarnation. I mean, they're both great, I just have trouble reconciling them.

But Number One is iconic, and since "The Cage" was the first episode of TOS I ever saw, she gave me a slightly skewed baseline for how the female characters of that era should be written.

( The rest of the days. We're at the halfway point! )

Easy -- "Emissary".

Like, okay, it took me a bunch of attempts to finally get all the way through DS9. So I've watched "Emissary" a whole bunch of times, and on each round, I'm newly impressed by how confident it is.

Yes, it's slow. (My parents' main criticism, in the '90s and also now.) It really takes its time setting up the setting and characters, and trusts the audience to pay attention and wait for everything to unfold.

And it trusts the audience to pay attention to and empathise with characters who are complicated and not necessarily likeable. Sisko is traumatised by Jennifer's death, and holds Picard responsible for events which took place while he was assimilated, an event which was explicitly compared to rape at the time.

(That the writers give Sisko this moment: amazing. That some fans genuinely think he is speaking truth to power: context is important, guys. The scene is amazing because it's complicated.)

Meanwhile, Kira is walking around like she thinks she's the main character (I'm up to the early DS9 episodes in the podcast The Greatest Generation, and the recurring bit where they wonder if Nana Visitor even realises she's not the protagonist gives me life); Bashir and Quark are creeps; Dax is a cipher; O'Brien is the familiar everyman but not the POV character -- okay, not all of these complexities were intentional, but they somehow work.

"Baseball is a metaphor for all humanoid existence" is very American, but that's fitting for the most UScentric Trek bar ENT, and "You live in this place" is one of the most apt metaphors for PTSD around. I hate every single thing about Sisko and the Prophets in season 7, not least because it squanders this wonderful beginning.

(With each successive rewatch, I'm more and more uncomfortable that the Bajoran messiah is not only not Bajoran, but the senior representative of one of the great imperialist powers of the galaxy. But then, there's a reason DS9 is not my favourite Trek: it comes slo close to interrogating the assumptions that underpin Star Trek, and then ... doesn't. Anyway, #justiceforKaiWinn)

( The rest of the days. )

I was on the podcast Enterprising Individuals a few weeks ago, and at the end of every episode, Aaron assigns his guests the rank of ensign and asks what their assignment would be. So my answer here is the same one I gave there:

I wanna be assistant to one of the less-evil admirals. The person who knocks on the door and goes, "Um, Admiral, we've just had a message from the Enterprise, I know they've only been out of spacedock for a day, but Captain Picard says they've encountered an omnipotent being who's putting humanity on trial...?"

It's basically the perfect job: not too much boldly going, close to the centre of things, and if you stay on your toes, you probably won't be murdered when your boss tries to take over the Federation. And then you get to go home to your bed and your cat and have a glass of wine, safe in the knowledge that you're not going to be flung over to the other side of the galaxy and introduced to the Borg. Or whatever.

("What would be your job on the USS Voyager?" is a more specific question with a different answer, because I basically have no skills whatsoever to serve that ship. I'd end up hanging out with Neelix as assistant chef, deputy morale officer and vice president of the Tuvok fan club.)

( The rest of the days. )

Currently: Katrina Cornwell.

Previously, which is not to say that I don't still adore them, they're just not the current objects of my obsession: Kathryn Janeway, Beverly Crusher.

Beverly is the outlier here; Kat and Kathryn are both scientists who switched to command mid-career and excelled, and who share a capacity for sometimes shocking levels of pragmatism, and who will go to extreme, you might say explosive, lengths to protect the people for whom they are responsible.

Beverly has some of these traits, but she was a product of TNG and the mid/late '80s. On the other hand, one of the reasons I first loved her was that she was the only woman who argued with the captain.

(I hear you ask, why not Kira? On paper, she is 100% my Type, and she is my favourite character on DS9. But the timing was wrong -- I was still in the depths of my TNG obsession when DS9 first aired, and by the time I was ready to move on, Janeway was around. DS9 and I were never meant to be.)

( The rest of the days. )

How do you choose just one TNG episode, that's what I want to know. Here's a handful that I love:

• "Conspiracy" -- yes, it's dark; yes, it's violent; yes, Roddenberry and Berman both hated it -- and for all these reasons, it has aged really well. But I loved it when I was a kid, too, so I dunno, I think I just like evil conspiracies, gross bugs and elderly admirals dropping Riker with a roundhouse kick
• "The Best of Both Worlds (part 1)" -- I realise this is the Trekkie equivalent of being a middle class white woman who loves pumpkin spice lattes, but whatevs. (I also love pumpkin spice lattes.) The rising tension, the conflict between Riker and Shelby, the shock of the cliffhanger: AMAZING.
• "Ensign Ro" -- for me, this is the perfect TNG episode. It's one I recommend with no caveats whatsoever.
• "Rascals" -- this is not a good episode, but it's one that I often put on when I need something entertaining and low-stress. "He's my number one dad!" is a permanent part of my vocab.
• A non-obvious choice -- "Future Imperfect". I realised on my last rewatch that I actually really like Riker? Once the writers figure out how to make him masculine without being toxic, he's a lot of fun, especially in the semi-annual "make Riker think he's losing his mind" episode. And I love flash forwards and Romulans, so this one's a good time.

( The rest of the days )

This one's easy for me -- the final twenty minutes of the second season finale of Discovery.

( Spoilers )

This is hard, because every ship is a product of its time and the needs of its series. And, like, I can easily rule out the TOS-era Enterprise or Enterprise-A, but I still got choked up at Discovery's modernised recreation of the "Cage"-era bridge, complete with original sounds, un-ergonomic '60s chairs and weird lampshades over the ops and conn stations.

(And the ridiculously subtle detail that most of the regular female characters, with the exception of Michael -- who needed to look young and vulnerable in that episode -- wore more eyeliner after they evacuated to the Enterprise. It's harder to tell with Georgiou, who had her vengeance eyelashes on, but Kat and Tilly are definitely wearing more than usual, and Number One, of course, always has small wings.)

(I pay more attention to make-up than starships, shut up.)

Anyway, I think my favourite-favourite has to be the Enterprise-D -- yes, it's dated, so dated the wood paneling on the bridge is almost cool again, but it's also the design all the other '90s Treks react against in their starship looks. When I was thirteen, I was more upset by the destruction of the ENT-D in Generations than Kirk's death, and I stand by that.

( The rest of the days. )

I never finish these! But maybe this time will prove the exception.

Day 1 - Favorite TOS episode

It's a toss-up between "Journey to Babel" and "The Enterprise Incident", and not coincidentally those are both episodes with a lot of space politics, tense interpersonal relationships and worldbuilding. Oh yes, and they're both written by D. C. Fontana, that's probably not coincidence.

Runners up: "Mirror, Mirror", "The Trouble With Tribbles", "Amok Time", I guess these are all obvious choices but I don't care.

( The rest of the days. )

I didn't forget about this meme, I just ... didn't do it on the weekend because I was busy napping.

( The first half of the ego-stroking author questions. )

This one's a whopper, so I'm splitting it up over a few days. 

1. What was the first fandom you got involved in?

Star Trek: Voyager. I discovered fic when I stumbled upon the J/C Index (not an archive, just an index!) when I was fifteen. I'd read about slashfic in books about fandom (NERD), but I was amazed and excited to learn that it existed for het pairings, too.

2. What is your latest fandom?

Star Trek: Discovery. I've come to terms with it, I guess.

3. What is the best fandom you’ve ever been involved in?

It's cheating to say Disco, because the show has barely been around long enough to generate any drama or unpleasantness that's touched me. But spacefungusparty is a delight. 

Otherwise, probably Avatar: The Last Airbender -- because I got into it long after the canon had closed, and all the disputes  and shipping wars had largely died down. What a nice, chill fandom, I thought!

Then Legend of Korra premiered...

4. Do you regret getting involved in any fandoms?

No, but I regret my behaviour in some. 

5. Which fandoms have you written fanfiction for?

*clears throat*

• Star Trek: Voyager
• Buffy: the Vampire Slayer
• Angel
• The West Wing
• Firefly
• Mary Russell
• Doctor Who
• ...the guys in the FanLib ad
• Avatar: the Last Airbender
• Legend of Korra
• Star Trek: Discovery

I may have missed a couple. 

I flirted with multifandom in the early '00s, but eventually figured out that I was happiest, and did my best writing, when I was concentrating on one fandom.

Which doesn't mean I'm only reading, watching and thinking about that fandom! The one great thing about Tumblr is that it makes it quite easy to reblog stuff for Thing You Like Consuming But Don't Create For. (People who create sideblogs for every interest they have confuse me.)

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

NO THERE ARE TOO MANY

7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in.

While there are many, many, many pairings I really don't care about or enjoy, I only have three NoTPs across all of my fandoms: 

• Zuko/Katara
• Doctor/Rose
• Doctor/Clara

BY COINCIDENCE, they all involve an aristocratic man "raising" a "common" woman to her "rightful" place, and usually come with a whole mountain of issues, very few of which are explored in a way I find interesting or palatable. 

8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom?

"I guess I'll watch the new Star Trek," I said. "I'm sure it won't be any good, but I like the cast, and I'm really keen to see a Trek centred around a woman of colour as the lead."

Two hours and a flurry of text messages between yiquiqie and I later, I said, "Gosh, that was quite good. I can't see myself becoming A Fan, but I sure do have a lot of opinions."

Five weeks later, at approximately 11:14 pm, I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, going, "I thought I'd enjoy 'Lethe' for Sarek, and I did, but I also can't stop thinking about Admiral Cornwell?"

Two days after that: "...there's a very clear scenario in my head and maybe I need to write it down?"

9. What are the best things about your current fandom?

• most people seem really nice
• there's some pretty great fic out there
• and some stupidly talented artists
• and vidders
• being able to put my hand up on Tumblr and go, "I know this just means it's a day ending in Y, but I'm having a lot of feelings about Admiral Cornwell right now", and I won't be the only one
• PS I KNOW THIS JUST MEANS IT'S A DAY ENDING IN Y BUT I'M HAVING A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT ADMIRAL CORNWELL RIGHT NOW
• I've never gotten into a fandom this early before, and it's interesting to be able to watch firsthand as ideas evolve into fanon, which will soon turn into the cliches we want to deconstruct, and from the deconstructions, new fanon will evolve

10. Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?

I like reading Star Wars fic, but I don't write it. (See above re being monofannish as a writer.) I'm quite fond of Reylo, and of AUs where everything goes terribly wrong, but in a different way to how it goes terribly wrong in canon.