Disappointed as I was when it was announced that Discovery would end with season 5, I'm eight eps into Star Trek: Voyager's sixth season for my blog (only the premiere has actually been posted so far, because I like to have a cushion), and maybe we're better off letting Discovery end before it gets as stale and tired as Voyager was by this stage. There's a lot to be said for short seasons in terms of how they don't leave cast and crew visibly burned out and over it.

Anyway, these are just some freeform notes which I shall attempt to express more coherently when I record the podcast tomorrow.

( Spoilers for 'Red Directive' and 'Under the Twin Moons' )

Title: the meteors these days are the size of corpses
Fandom: Star Trek: Discovery
Wordcount: 47,380
Rating: adult
Characters: Gabriel Lorca, Katrina Cornwell, L'Rell, misc ensemble
Pairing(s): Gabriel Lorca/Katrina Cornwell

Warning(s): I used "chooses not to warn" on AO3, because I feel like it's always more complicated than straight up rape/non-con where the mirrorverse is involved. Suffice to say, there are allusions to outright assault, and questions arise as to whether consent can be meaningful in some circumstances. Also a lot of people die, on page and off, and there's torture and slavery and problematic elements all over the place. Your fave is problematic: the mirror universe. But you probably knew that, right?

Notes: Originally posted to AO3 in 2018, so before season 2 of Discovery had dropped.

I meant it when I said slow burn, sorry. I think the shipping starts in earnest around maybe chapter 6? (I swear, I started this thinking it'd be an easy 5,000 words. 10,000 at most.) Vaguely compliant with Drastic Measures, but there's no need to have read it.

The Terran medical division uniforms being red instead of white is from an interview with Gersha Phillips, which honestly just put a mental image in my head that left me needing to write this; interrogators being part of medical is my own conceit, but whatever, it makes sense. Sort of. Just work with me here and remember this was a few years before "Terra Firma".

Title is from "There's a War Going on for your Mind" by the Flobots, because for some reason this fandom lends itself to long, pretentious titles. Beta'd by NonElvis, who it turns out was writing more or less the same plot but with different characters. We're friends because we're into the same things, right?

Summary: Trapped in the mirror universe, Gabriel Lorca makes a deal with the devil: if he works for Inquisitor Cornwell, she will find him a way home. The question is, what will he become in the meantime?

( Gonna post a chapter a day so as not to overwhelm you. Also there are sequels. Sorry. Not sorry. )

Fandom: Star Trek: Discovery
Rating: All ages
Characters: Katrina Cornwell, Gabriel Lorca
Pairing(s): Katrina Cornwell/Gabriel Lorca
Notes: Written for Katoberfest 2022

Summary: They used to be rivals; now they're friends. Could they be ... more? Cadet Lorca gives Cadet Cornwell a tour of his home town. Day 6 of Katoberfest 2022: Rom-Com.


( This was going to be part of a 5 Things fic, but my brain was approximately 85% mashed potato. )

Rating: all-ages
Warnings: Mild body horror; I'm still pretty mad about how season 2 ended, if you were wondering
Relationships: Truthfully there is too much het to call this gen, but not enough shipping to call it het
Characters: Katrina Cornwell, Christopher Pike, Ash Tyler, glimpses of L'Rell
Notes: Good news, I haven't entirely forgotten how to write fic. Bad news, titles are still really hard; this one is from "Good Grief" by Dessa, because when in doubt, turn to Genius.com. Many thanks to Lion Owl for her beta and Aristofranes for reassuring me that the emotional beats worked.

Summary: Kat has been waiting for her chance to confront Chris Pike.

( You're just two people amidst hundreds exploring the markets of Pacifica's southern beach on a cool night. )

Talking about Discovery, I've had it in the back of my mind to point out -- okay, complain -- that as much as I like Rebecca Romijn as Number One, she's significantly younger than Majel Barrett when she played the role.

Only ... I just checked. Barrett was 32 when "The Cage" was filmed. Romijn was 44/45 when season 2 of Disco filmed. (She's now 46.)

Likewise, I did complain about Mia Kirshner being too young to play Amanda, and in her early 40s, she is much too young to play the mother of Michael (29-30) and Spock (late 20s). But she is also just 13 years younger than Jane Wyatt was when "Journey to Babel" filmed, which isn't far off the "ten years before TOS" timeline.

(I figured they cast Amanda on the youthful side because her first appearance was in a flashback to Michael at about 22, and it's easier and cheaper to age a younger actor up than an older actor down. But Kirshner also looks a lot like Wyatt -- moreso than Winona Ryder, in my opinion -- and I kind of like that they aren't bothering to age her up or down. We mostly see her through her children's perspective, and to them, she's constant.)

Anyone who has watched Classic Doctor Who knows that -- for various reasons of lifestyle, experience, diet and access to skincare products -- people seemed to age faster in the sixties. And that's without getting into the relatively subtle plastic surgery options available now. But ALSO I am really, really bad at estimating people's ages, in any era.

(I've also realised it doesn't do to get too caught up in linking actor and character ages with Disco. Saru is about Michael's age; Doug Jones is in his late fifties. Tilly cannot be more than 23 at the absolute most; Mary Wiseman is in her thirties. Michelle Yeoh is two years older than Jason Isaacs, but Georgiou was at the Academy with Pike, and Anson Mount is ten years Yeoh's junior -- and it's easier to assume Yeoh is younger than Mount is older.)

(All this is only a problem if, say, you had headcanonned a timeline for who was at the Academy when, how they overlapped and how that impacted their relationships, and you're still coming to terms with having to throw it all away and start over.)

Meanwhile, separately, casting for the Picard series is still coming out, and people are going, "Oh my God, the majority of the cast are in their thirties, this is going to be a teen drama!" Turns out some fans really did think it was going to be TNG 2.0. 

...is that -- no spoilers -- at this point the show is catering to me, specifically, to such a degree that I won't even be surprised if the Red Angel turns out to be Kathryn Janeway.

I mean -- ( okay, this bit's spoilery )

I'm still putting together my thoughts on last week's Discovery, mostly because the story unfolded so differently from my expectations that I need some extra time to figure out how I felt about it. ( But I do have a crack theory... )

Reading

I'm halfway through The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal, which is one of those books I enjoy reading over lunch at work, but never feel compelled to pick up at any other time.

The plot: a meteor wipes out Washington DC and a big chunk of the east coast of North America in 1952, this is going to be an extinction-level event in the long term, so the space program goes from "maybe a satellite lauch?" to "we need to colonise Luna and Mars by the end of the century".

This is feminist hard SF, and although it feels a bit heavy handed to me, as the heroine learns important lessons about racism and intersectionality, it seems to read more subtle to people who haven't been following those discussions in SF publishing for years. My main criticism is that it has some of the worst sex scenes I have ever encountered in published fiction. They're not graphic, but ... there are rocket metaphors. It's unfortunate (and unsexy). Fortunately I was warned in advance, and could brace myself.

(Also, I've seen it being recommended as a good book for people who want f/f romance in their SF? I'm over 50% through, and if there are any queer characters at all, so far they haven't come out to the heroine. I truly hate when media is recommended for inclusiveness it doesn't actually have.)

Watching

I'm into season 3 of Bron | Broen, the original Swedish/Danish version of The Bridge. A lot of Scandinoir is driven by coincidence, and this is no exception, but I think it's my favourite entry in the genre that I've seen -- mostly because Saga Noren is such a great character. But she has a temporary boss in this season, who is basically the Dolores Umbridge of police captains, and I'm spending a lot of time silently shouting STOP TRYING TO MAKE SAGA ACT LIKE A NEUROTYPICAL PERSON at the screen.

("Dear Ask A Manager,

My temporary supervisor is determined to make me reconcile with my abusive mother, and tricked me into attending my father's funeral. Is this legal?")

I also watched the first episode of Russian Doll, and hated it a lot. It wasn't bad, I just hated the main character, and also every single other character except the cat. So that was easy to drop, and hopefully one day Netflix will stop telling me to keep watching it.

(I mentioned this on Twitter, and a stranger popped up to tell me I needed to give it a few more episodes before I dropped it. There is no faster way to make me angry than by recommending something I already know I'm not into (see also: Leverage, where I was initially bored and indifferent and now I actively hate it), so that earned them a nice, fast blocking.)

Just throwing some half-formed thoughts at the wall before I shower...

( Spoilers do not come with house dressing )

I started writing up a Disco post, then realised I'd just end up repeating myself on my blog in a few days' time.

Suffice to say, the last couple of weeks have represented a very restrained, traditional type of Star Trek, which is not inherently bad, but I was concerned that Discovery is playing it safe in season 2, and consequently pulling back on some of the things that made me love season 1.

Fortunately, this week marks a return to TWISTS and TURNS and SHENANIGANS and QUESTIONABLE PACING DECISIONS, and that only describes two of the three-and-a-half plotlines.

Remember, the term "space opera" was derived from "soap opera". I AM DELIGHTED BY EVERYTHING THIS STUPID SHOW IS CHOOSING TO BE. 

Okay, well, I do have some notes. But that's half the fun.

Also the official website is selling Section 31 merch, and I don't need it, but I want it, and I'm also very ashamed of that. 

I really didn't use enough disco references last season.

( Spoilery rambling about season 2, episode 1: 'Brother' )

Right! That's my preliminary thoughts recorded, now I'm off to have breakfast -- I have a big day ahead.
Which is going to be ... unfun for me, because sometime during the night, the excruciating bunion pain that dominated my teenage years made a triumphant return. Seriously, it's a bad sign when you're dreaming about trying to rate your pain out of ten and being turned away as a drug seeker.

(After two paracetamol, it's down to a steady four when I'm not moving, but at some point during the night, it was too painful to have a blanket or anything else touching it. Which was nice.)