#—marines & heteronormativity

[bedupolker]

When two crabs are in love the male will hold the female and carry her around (like/comment/subscribe if you agree)

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

What I don’t understand in shuggy is why oda added that brothers line. The in universe explanation of marines didn’t knew works, but we as readers? Why he decided to add that? I heard people talking that Japan is very specific about sworn brothers and shuggy are not but why even write that line? I don’t get this decision. Unless he wanted us to think they were like that or idk Did you ever talked about it from the author pov? Like everything author puts in his work he does on purpose. That line has to have a purpose. And what do you think it was? I’m not attacking, just finding good writer who likes shuggy so can answer that in smart way

well, first off i have to disagree with you: oda isn’t doing everything on purpose.

i mean that both in the sense that we know not everything about one piece has been planned all along, and in the sense that we know he’s added elements to his story and world unthinkingly. sometimes he forgets to draw things! sometimes he makes a joke and didn’t think through the implications! you should look through the SBS catalog sometime, it’s fun to see him come up with explanations for some of this stuff after the fact.

now, is the sworn brothers line one of those unthinkingly added elements? probably not. it feels like something written with intention to me.

what intention? as far as i can tell, just the textual one: to show how limited the marines’ understanding is.

the marines looking at buggy’s history with shanks and calling them sworn brothers shows how, even with all the facts in front of them—like viewing the complete impel down prison footage and deciding that luffy and buggy had the breakout planned from the start—the marines will consistently come to wildly incorrect conclusions about who buggy is, and why he does what he does.

(this has become a common theme with buggy & the marines in the years since marineford—just look at cross guild!)

i’m not even saying this as someone who views that relationship as romantic. shipper goggles off, i’m saying i simply do not believe buggy considers shanks a brother.

we’ve seen a sworn brothers’ bond before: the one between ace and luffy. we know how buggy thinks of shanks. the two relationships could not be more different. thus, by having the marines misidentify the buggy & shanks relationship as 兄弟分, as kyoudaibun, as sworn brothers, oda shows that the marines don’t understand buggy at all.

i really don’t think it’s any deeper than that.

oh, what, you wanted to see what else i had to say? okay, then. but this bit gets kinda mean.

listen.

i am certain that oda does not intend for a queer reading of shanks and buggy. i’ve said it before: oda is a remarkably queer-friendly shonen author as far as gender is concerned—though not so queer-friendly that one of the main characters of the series isn’t deeply transmisogynistic—but queer sexuality is just not present in the text.

now, that doesn’t do anything to stop me from having a queer reading of shanks and buggy. that doesn’t stop any of us from having all kinds of queer readings of one piece!

but it does mean that when you ask me, “i understand your point about the marines being wrong in-universe, but why did oda use the phrase sworn brothers?” a big part of me wants to say, “i don’t know, and i don’t care.”

i’m not a mind reader! i can’t tell you what oda was thinking! and frankly, it doesn’t matter to me what he was thinking! death of the author, you know? our interpretation as readers is equally, if not more, important than any theoretical authorial intent.

and even if oda does someday condescend to answer an SBS question about a five hundred chapter-old turn of phrase, and it turns out i’m totally wrong about everything… so what?

you’re not gonna “prove me wrong” about shuggy. i am under no delusions that i am “right.”

[lizbetlovesbyler]

ex milkvan ride-or-die shipper and i am convinced the majority of modern day milkvan shippers are people who didn’t watch the show until it became super popular in 2022 when s4 was coming out.

like, there is a difference between binging all four seasons of a show and having years of wait between each one.

the time between each one gives you time to reflect on what you might see next season. as a milkvan truther after watching the first 2 seasons of the show in 2018, i was super excited for season 3 because we could see mike and eleven finally be together after their sweet reunion in the s2 finale.

and then…they literally break up in the first 2 episodes 😭

all my expectations flew straight out the window. i remember sitting there like “oh…wait what?” not necessarily disappointed (probably idk i was like 13) but super confused. even when they kissed at the end i hated it because it was just such an awkward kiss omdsssss😑

fast forward 3 years then i’m 16 and in a lesbian relationship and milkvan is just not hitting any spots. can’t remember what my expectations were for them, but i hated their reunion and didn’t have high hopes for them after that. (high hopes looked at the “i love you” scene, laughed, and left forever)

it was after vol2 was out and marinated when i started to see byler for what it was, because much like milkvan itself, each new season broke down all the expectations i had for them whilst byler only thrived.

binging all four seasons completely in one go strips this kind of trial and error experience away from you, you’re less likely to have grown accustomed to the writing and predict what will happen next time. (not suggesting bingers who joined in 2022 and post cant have picked up on byler too, it’s just a bit more difficult for the average person so pat yourself on the back if that’s your experience)

hence why i see so many new milkvans claim s5 is gonna be the season where they’re finally the power couple we thought they’d be back in 2018…and they weren’t.

“they’re gonna get married and 🤫 and have superpowered babies!”…what in the muthr fokc?

the only power they ever had was the power of heteronormativity

still love their pairing, but they’d be so much more powerful as friends like they were in the beginning

[disacurveball]

The Terror is both a celebration and a warning of the certain breed of masculinity which you come into as a white man. A celebration, as a trans man, as there’s so many different narratives of masculinity to follow in the show, both adherences and rejections to heteronormativities. A warning with the hubris this certain brand of white masculinity which celebrates imperialistic thinking and ultimately dooms both them and harms the indigenous people whose home they are trapped in by their own doing. The show asks, “What is a man?” But really the question is, “What is an English man?”

The performance of Fitzjames in a faux masculinity, in his pursuit of vanity he clings to it. Only in the private, authentic moment of femininity does he see his real face in the mirror, bloodied and decaying from the scars of his imperialistic persona. The resolute marine Tozer, the paragon of masculine strength, finally breaking in composure and confiding in another man who cups his face. Goodsir, the soft academic, emasculated in physical strength, is the one to point out the imperialist lie— but he too is duped about the English man. “This isn’t what we’re like.”

No, Goodsir, this is the foundations of their masculine truth— and only to question their very structure of gender itself will save them. Or at least, be a fun little read on ao3.

[kaladinsspear]

Self indulgent fluffy modern Shakadolin AU. Because I love them.

* Kaladin is ex army. One of those people who was special forces and therefore “officially” sat on his butt and did nothing for all 6 years of his service. He didn’t of course, but his entire file is redacted so he gets nothing. No disability (how could he have ptsd? He was “never deployed”) no VA support, no GI bill, nothing.

* He is now working for Amazon as a delivery driver while he goes to school. He started premed, but ended up switching to psychology. He’s especially interested in the body/mind connection. Not necessarily medication (though, he does support its use when needed) but more things like diet, sleep, exercise, and how your physical health affects your mental/emotional health.

* He volunteers at the local animal shelter where he takes dogs on hikes each week. This is how he met Syl.

* Syl is a Veterinarian. She volunteers at the local animal shelter as well, and the two quickly became close friends. They currently share an apartment.

* They tried dating for about a week (heteronormativity ya know?) but decided that it wasn’t for them. They love each other deeply and would consider each other life partners, but they don’t love each other romantically.

* Shallan works at one of those “paint with me” art studios. She has a degree in….drawing? (Sorry! I don’t know what the specializations are in art school!) and takes commissions for technical illustrations on the side.

* She loves the Wheel of Time series and has a thriving fan art instagram and tumblr.

* She met Jasna when she was in school. Jasna was her history professor and quickly became her mentor. Somewhere between a mother and older sister with a little bit of a crush thrown in. Not that Shallan would ever actually want to be in a romantic relationship with Jasna, but she so pretty, and smart, and opinionated, and bold, and…… ya know?

* Jasna is the one who introduced her to Adolin, and he and Shallan hit it off right away.

* They dated for about 3 years before getting married. They are sickeningly adorable.

* Adolin served in the military as well because it was family tradition, but didn’t make the career out of it that was expected of him.

* Adolin was a Marine, and his service is on record. He gets a nice GI bill which he is using to study physical therapy.

* Turns out, Adolin and Kaladin go to the same school.

* At first they are kind of indifferent to each other, but soon bond over shared military experience and an interest in whole body health.

* Adolin introduces Kaladin to Shallan and the two hit it off super well.

* Fortunately, they are all adults who know how to talk to each other and Shallan and Adolin have discussed polyamory before, all be it in hypothetical terms.

* Adolin is actually the one to bring it up to Kaladin, just to make sure Kaladin doesn’t feel pressured or sneaky. All 3 of them have a conversation about what a relationship might look like, and they decide to try it out.

* Turns out, it works great for them. Kaladin and Adolin have a delightful bromance thing going on. They probably wouldn’t have gotten together without Shallan, but they love each other deeply and enjoy their relationship.

* Shallan and Syl are super close as well, and they enjoy drawing together and discussing the Wheel of Time.

* Syl and Adolin get super into cosplay and make fantastic creations together.

[a-lil-bi-furious]

Top 10 Ships Including POC in 10 Different Fandoms

Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | Round 4

I was actually not tagged this time, but I am in desperate need of distraction from life and think about this particular tag chain a lot. SO…Round 5! In no particular order/ranking:

1) Eligia (Gia x Elijah Mikaelson) - The Originals

It’s about the chemistry! It’s about her encouraging him to take care of himself for once and have his own life and desires! It’s about him helping her adjust to a new life and re-engage with her passions! Wasted potential all around!

2) Fayanalissa (Melissa Glaser x Faye Chamberlain x Diana Meade) - The Secret Circle

Girls! Having fun! Supporting each other! The show should have let them all lean into their gayness.

3) Vandermarin (Mona Vanderwhaal x Hanna Marin) - Pretty Little Liars

I couldn’t find a single gif with all three of them so I stuck with just Mona/Hanna, which is fantastic, but imho the best iteration of them involves Spencer too. Then you get the friends-to-lovers, rivals/enemies-to-lovers, and friends-to-enemies-to-friends-to-lovers dynamics!

4) Karolsen (James Olsen x Kara Danvers) - Supergirl

Wasted potential. A whole season of great buildup and for what?? Also a great ship with Lucy thrown in the mix.

5) Forwood (Tyler Lockwood x Caroline Forbes) - The Vampire Diaries

Have I mentioned: Wasted! Potential! And buildup/development! They became everything to me and I’ll never forgive the show or Julie for how dirty they did Tyler and Forwood in the name of a certain Mikaelson sibling.

6) Arisagi (Arisu Riyōhei x Usagi Yuzuah) - Alice in Borderland

If this show and this ship taught me anything, it’ s that the little, seemingly insignificant parts of life mean everything.

7) Gwiles (Miles Morales x Gwen Staci) - Spiderverse

They’re just so CUTE. I need to rewatch these movies post haste.

8) PeterMJ/Spideychelle (Michelle Jones “MJ” x Peter Parker) - MCU Spider-Man

again, they’re so CUTE!! Still devastated about No Way Home.

9) Herongraystairs (Jem Carstairs x Tessa Gray x Will Herondale) - The Infernal Devices

No gif bc no screen adaptation yet, which is crimes. But Ot3 of all time. They all love each other so much it doesn’t even matter how it’s framed in the explicit text, they simply transcend early 2010’s monogamist-heteronormative standards. If Cassandra Clare was braver they’d be even more canon.

10) Everlark (Katniss Everdeen x Peeta Mellark) - The Hunger Games

Everlark has everything, ok? Ship of all time.

Can’t include a gif from the movies for obvious reasons, but I’m a big POC Katniss Truther. I know Suzanne doesn’t talk very explicitly in the books about race for the most part, but the Seam folk are so POC-coded. Given geography, social division & treatment, features, etc. likely of Appalachian Native American heritage.

Absolutely no pressure to play, but in case anyone else is in need of distraction I’ll tag a few people (and encourage anyone who sees this to play too, if you want!) ♥️ @welldressedllama @blairwaldcrf @doyelikehaggis @scribeoffate @letthestorieslive

*Also! Be sure to click on the names below gifs to go visit and show some love and support for the creators’ wonderful sets! :)*

[sarasade]

The Dragon Prince & Queer Subtext - Fandom and Media Analysis of Sort

Lately I’ve been pondering about the ins and outs of Viren and Aaravos’s relationship and why they give off such a queer vibe. So I ended up writing this 2 and half Word document pages long little breakdown because why not.

I think what’s going on here is about the underlying elements of the story- subtext and how their relationship could be perceived through a queer lens. Note: my brain has marinated in queer subtext juices my whole life and I have no intent trying to prove my reading is the only right one.

That Sweet Sweet Gay Shit- A Fandom Perspective

There is a lot of queer subtext between them. Homoerotic subtext even. Their scenes together definitely activated the search function in my brain’s queer coded villain trope lexicon. 

You know- mutual penetration with a phallic object (knife), sharing some kind of mysterious bond through blood magic, so, you know, bodily fluids are indeed involved, the classic slash fiction trope “we are close but we cannot touch” -gay pining because the mirror separates them. When Aaravos is shown for the first time in the mirror the camera does this Laura Mulvey Male Gaze 101 up-down pan shot of him from Viren’s POV. Something that’s usually reserved for female characters when male characters “check them out” in a movie. And then my personal favourite: Something that comes out of Aaravos enters Viren, comes out and then transforms into a creature with a toddler level intelligence- they made a freaky little metaphor baby together! Awwww!

And let's not even talk about the possession and Aaravos slowly taking over Viren’s body. The aesthetics of a toxic queer romance are all over their interactions.

No, Viren! Don’t express vulnerability as an intimidating male figure! Tumblr will babygirlify you!

Storytelling

So what about their interactions makes me perceive them in a queer way? By “queer�� I mean the broader concept of queer here; does the way the characters are depicted come across non-heteronormative and disruptive to gender norms.

I’m mostly talking about the season 2 here since they share their most intimate scenes together in that season.

1 Story Function

Aaravos and Viren’s interactions are supposed to have multiple purposes in the story: They move the plot forward, characterise both Viren and Aaravos, create emotional conflict and intrigue in the viewer etc. Viren observing Aaravos through the mirror is supposed to create mystery and spark the audience’s curiosity. Viren is a device through which Aaravos’s allure gets demonstrated to the viewer so of course their interactions come across pretty, hm, charged. Anyway there are layers of meaning here the audience can interpret in multiple ways both intuitively and through an analytic lens. The meaning naturally changes the more context we get. There are still three more seasons to come.

2 Gendered Tropes

There is a certain element of seduction present: Viren gives Aaravos more access to himself and his body little by little in exchange for Aaravos fulfilling his desires (for power). This could be read as having sexual undertones. Some of Aaravos’s first words to Viren are clearly something Viren wants to hear “How may I serve you?” Weaponising manipulation and seduction, where a character poses as submissive while having alternative motives, is something female characters traditionally do in stories. I don’t know about you but Aaravos’s character has a bit of a femme fatale thing going on if you ask me (haha!) There is something about him that defies gender roles that’s not just about his androgynous looks.

A traditional Femme fatale is often a tragic figure trapped in unfortunate circumstances. They are shrouded in mystery which prevents the audience from empathising with them or understanding their motives. The character often uses coercion to make their victim do what they want. And yes there definitely is an element of coercion and even a threat of violence present in Aaravos and Viren’s relationship. Their goals are aligned for now but what happens if/ when Viren decides to defy Aaravos? TDP makes me wonder (with horror) what it is that Viren has really agreed to.

3 How the Show’s “Camera” Portrays Aaravos

Even the camera emphasises him as an object of desire. Something he is from the story point of view as well. Viren desires access to Aaravos’s power after all. When the camera puts Aaravos on display in an objectified manner in the beginning of the season 2 it’s supposed to, in my opinion, heighten the feeling of Aaravos seeming harmless at the first glance. And by “objectified” I mean he’s portrayed without agency.

I joked earlier about male gaze and Laura Mulvey but I do actually think there is some truth to that. One of the biggest reasons behind me thinking Aaravos was a pretty pretty lady at first was how he was introduced in such a feminised way. And I wasn’t the only one. Just look at the comments under his TDP Wiki article. (Lots of het men being confused about their sexuality. Also shout-out to that one lesbian). This makes him appear less threatening so the story can build suspense around his true motives. It’s not evident that Aaravos is a completely sinister figure at first, at least compared to Viren who seems more like the main villain of the story prior to the seasons 3-4. Little did we know back then that Aaravos was the true alpha male of this whole sordid affair.

Aaravos in the mirror from Viren’s point of view, season 2, episode 3.

Why I’m not mentioning anything about Viren’s gender performance is because his story conflict is all about struggling with traditionally masculine gender expectations. Understanding how his character relates to hegemonic/ toxic masculinity/ emotional struggles men face in real life is a core part of understanding his character as a whole. That’s a broad topic and this post is long enough as it is so I’m going to leave it at that. (Maybe someone else has written about that already?)

4 The Audience Is Also at Aaravos’s Mercy

Aaravos’s submissive façade is supposed to fool both Viren AND the audience. The show plays rather cleverly with the audience’s expectations here. Slowly the roles are starting to flip until it’s clear that Aaravos is the one in control. Given Aaravos narrates the opening of the first story arc it raises even more questions: Is his control over Viren supposed to parallel his control over the whole world of the show? This circles back to the show’s themes of freedom vs destiny. It feels almost meta in a way how the story’s villain tries to gain control over the whole narrative.

5 Horror and Fantasy

The powerplay between the characters naturally creates a plenty of tension and it’s not unusual that this translates into something sexually charged in the audience’s minds. While this is the perspective I’m the most interested in, there are other layers to Aaravos and Viren’s scenes together.

For example this kind of breaking of bodily boundaries is common in horror as well. Aaravos is beautiful and mysterious but is also associated with repulsive things like larvae and blood and there is something very eerie about him in general. These kinds of emotional reactions of repulsion and attraction are essential to horror. The audience sees that everything isn’t definitely quite right about him but it’s also understandable that the audience (and Viren) find him fascinating. I think the key word for these scenes in the season 2 is “ambiguity“. Even if you aren’t invested in these characters this show would be much less fun without all the nuance their interactions have.

In a good story everything isn’t just literal. Especially since TDP is a fantasy story- A genre that’s traditionally been all about symbolism and intertextual references. I could go on and on about the genre traditions with similar flavour to what Aaravos and Viren have. Michael Moorcock’s classic sword and sorcery antihero Elric of Melniboné and his pact with the demon Arioch comes to mind.

Something Something Fandom

Viravos as a ship lives in the subtext but the subtext isn’t always black and white. Fiction uses metaphor and other storytelling methods to create meaning- To give a narrative experience. The queer subtext in TDP feels very elaborate to me and while I’m dissecting these scenes more analytically here my emotional reactions are the original source of that interest. No matter how much time passes I’m still a morbid teenage goth at heart and that part of me loves the dark fairytale aesthetics akin to TDP season 2.

I didn’t even touch on the element of Viren giving into a “forbidden desire” (literally his desire for power but- you know- multiple readings etc.) when making a deal with Aaravos. Something very typical to the horror genre as well. It’s a “deal with the devil” -sort of situation and those stories often paint the agreement as something corruptive and sinful and therefore transgressive. This post by Tiredsunrisesmeta got you covered on that. Also queer coded villains something something- Anyway, read Tiredsunrisesmeta’s blog for more.

Pictured: Yours truly

Last and Least

I remember when I saw a post here saying that “Viravos couldn’t be canon because it’d be too sexy.” and that’s just the funniest way to put it in my opinion. Their relationship feels a bit too, I dunno, mature? for this show. But what does “canon” even mean? Is a gay ship canon when two characters of the same gender kiss and declare their love? Get married? Have kids? Personally, I don’t want to see LGBT+ characters’ stories just copy straight romance tropes beat by beat all the time. I want something that feels authentic and what’s more authentic than Viren being a cringefail bisexual getting rejected by men and women and then getting his life ruined by the sexy femboy elf satan? Kinda iconic honestly.

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

tbh i got 90% of my sex ed in my late teens from resources shared on tumblr and it's also where i learned everything about queer stuff that i knew before the age of eighteen. i cannot stress enough how much i had nowhere else to learn that. hardly any of the books i read growing up had queer characters, they just weren't a thing in uk teen/YA publishing at that point (thank you, section 28 and its legacy that dragged on for years afterwards), and my hometown is a tory-voting suburb full of old people and young families so there was nothing around me i could learn from either. at sixteen i had no idea how lesbians had sex because the only sex ed i'd ever received was lessons about heterosexual reproduction in biology. when i started to suspect i was queer i panicked not bc i thought I'd face homophobia but because i didn't know who to ask for the absolute basics of any kind of sex beyond reproductive penetrative sex. and tumblr is probably the only reason i realised i was queer while marinating in that sea of heteronormativity and ignorance!

this website is deeply deeply flawed but god. i'd have been utterly lost without it. i really would

[hoovesandfloorpaws]

originally posted by the artist, the wonderful @lickboo and it is so beautiful and heart wrenching 🥹 ...made my heart ache.

It made me want to write down my thoughts about Harry, My Policeman and Harry&Louis.

Because watching this created trailer felt similar to how my heart aches whenever i watch old footage of them being reminded how they have to 'keep it down'. Obviously the theme of the film has an even heavier tone, with homosexuality being illegal and all the violence looming for men loving men, but it is my conviction that it's not a coincidence that Harry's (and Louis') life together and the novel's and then the subsequent film's plot overlap so heavily.

And let us not forget that when Harry tweeted "We don't need no piece of paper from the city hall." on September 28th, 2013 - a date on which they definitely did something huge with each other, something-akin-to-getting-engaged-or-married-, same sex marriage was still not even legal in the UK. More than 60 years after the period in which My Policeman takes place.

So let's not pretend that the history we are looking at was ever moving fast and that the struggle of being a member of the lgbtqai+ community only touched them lightly. It touched them heavily and it still does.

Harry chose and wanted his first ever lead debut to be THIS film.

He asked to be in it in early 2020. He only signed on to Don't Worry, Darling in September of the same year.

The director Michael Grandage said, quote: “The person who arrived was incredibly informed: he'd not just read the novel, at least once, he'd read the screenplay many times. I was sitting opposite somebody who was making a case for why they wanted to play Tom Burgess." and also "[...] the script had been distributed within his agency, and they knew what he was looking for in material. So they read this script and thought, This is actually the kind of thing he’s looking for."

(source)

(source)

I could spend hours marinating in these thoughts and they'd make my heart ache for every single minute.

Harry asked his first leading role to be in a film that is about two men who cross each other's paths and instantly feel drawn to each other; a film about two men falling for each other hard and in an environment where they're not allowed to publicly show their love, forced to hide and with seemingly no way out. (pun fully intended) A film that has the one guy constantly in a relationship with a woman he's not in love with, using her as a beard for his safety and feeling bad about it. A film that encapsulates so many emotions tied to having to hide your true heart away to keep each other safe. And the ending... oh my god, the ending.. I still can't write about it without tears filling my eyes, it's so hard-hitting. Honestly, Harry describes it best:

"Styles described his latest film as “devastating.”

“Ultimately to me, the whole story is about wasted time,” he said. “I think wasted time is the most devastating thing, because it’s the only thing we can’t control. It’s the one thing we can’t have back.”"

(source)

And I want to add, when in the same article it states he said: “So much of gay sex in film is two guys going at it, and it kind of removes the tenderness from it … [director Michael Grandage] wanted to show that it’s tender and loving and sensitive.”, he not just states that that were the director's thoughts and vision first and foremost (which he seems to agree with, though), but the main point is:

Harry has been viewed/portrayed through a hyper-sexualized, heteronormative lens since he was 16 years old. Gay sex in media is often heavily fetishized (an in-depth discussion around this is more than my spoon supply can provide today) and more importantly: gay love is almost always heavily sexualized, thus heavily fetishized; removing the three things that Harry highlighted as being very important for the film:

Gay love and gay sex are tender and loving and sensitive.

And it needs to be shown. Wanting to empathise on those things never meant that it's not okay to just want to watch "two guys going at it" (can imagine Harry and Louis enjoy that, too). It's just that the representation is still very imbalanced and Harry and the director recognize that.

To return to the main point that keeps me up at night: Harry wanted and chose to do a movie with this plot for several reasons that, in my opinion, go beyond representation (that is incredibly vital) and to be seen by the world as a gay man (that he is).

And to quote Louis: "That's incredible, Harry."

I think Harry read the novel/screenplay and found himself and Louis in it.

And I think that was a huge reason why he wanted to do this film as his first lead acting role.

[dogmasquerade]

random mshenko thoughts-

i like to think a good reason my Shepard didn't go for Kaidan in ME1 is rank. Paragon Shepard is through and through an army boy- he's been military since he could join. Protocol, rank and file are second nature to him (to the point where he straight up applies real-world military tactics to

*chess* with Traynor (unbelievably cute btw)). To him, Staff Lieutenant Kaiden was as off-limits as could be (plus a healthy dose of forced heteronormativity and a little bit of internalised homophobia).

By ME3, though, Kaidan's a Major. While the Alliance has... weird rankings (Shepard seems to be in a Navy equivalent, while Kaidan is definitely in the Marines), a Major is either equal to (or according to the ME1 codex, outranks) Commander. On top of that, Shepard doesn't actually cement the romance until after Kaidan becomes a Spectre, which basically puts him out of the range of normal rankings anyway.

IDK, I just feel like ethically/morally in terms of power dynamics Kaidan makes the most sense for Shepard to romance, compared to Cortez who Shepard outranks and who actually admits to feeling pressured a bit by Shepard, where the power dynamics are massively skewed. And to a Pure Paragon Shepard, shit like that matters.

[cryingatships]

3/4 in today's ep 6, and I feel like crying already.

Tw- homophobia

There's been a lot of dislike towards Lom, but his situation, his story, is a sad, sad reality in many parts of the world. Even today. In some families, people just never come out because there's so much to lose. You can lose your parents, your family (who, by the way, are considered the main support and identity providers in many cultures) and you hate how they can not accept you, but you can not cut them off either. Perhaps you need them, or you love them even after everything. Sometimes, in some parts, there's the chance of losing your life should you ever disclose your non normative sexual identity or orientation. Even if it doesn't turn mortally dangerous, heteronormativity can be so prominent that publicly disclosing your orientation, openly having a same sex relationship is not possible for many in face of social ostracization.

Lavender marriages happen a lot. Sometimes, it's the only way out, like for Yiwa. (For Lom, too? He won't be harassed by his mother's nagging about marriage anymore.) And sometimes, you can not tell your secret to anyone, not even to your friends. That's just painful. Knowing you're attraction and/or love isn't like "everyone else" as a teen, being told "that doesn't fit in our culture, it's ok, but it's for the western coutries", "it's a phase/fling" for years, it gets too much sometimes.

(Suddenly remembering Badhaai Do....)

Idk, it just speaks to me personally. The pain of knowing that some people you love and care about would never accept you wholly, the fact that you may have to play a hide-and seek game... Cause Yiwa, Marine, Lom—we may come across actual people like these characters any day. It might be one of my queer friends. It might be me. Lavender marriages are still a reality. when are we gonna get equal rights in marriage and everything else

ANyway, gonna go finish watching the rest now. And because this is fiction, can I hope that Yiwa's and Marine's, and Lom's and Nuea's story would have a happy resolution? (And their mums would get some repercussions? Maybe a few slaps? Some scratches from Marine? This is fiction after all!)

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

Why did Oden called Buggy second son? And does that mean he also confirms them as brothers like marines did? First son, second son, sound brotherly to me but I am not fluent in English and know nothing on Japanese names. And is buggy younger? By month me he is, If so why he angry at that?

oden gives a number of characters nicknames of a sort, where he combines their name with a syllable or two of a typical japanese personal name. white-kichi, buggy-jiro, red-taro… the strawhats do something similar to blend in while they’re hiding out in wano, but as far as i can tell the endings they pick are fairly random, while i think oden assigns his with intention.

吉, kichi, means good luck or fortune—and i think that first meeting with whitebeard is something oden looks back on as being very fortunate. it changed his life, in several very big, very meaningful ways!

太郎 and 次郎, tarou and jirou, taken literally mean eldest son and next son. surrounded by grown men, two boys, and his own family, is it any wonder oden gives these kids nicknames that emphasize their youth and position them in roles similar to those of his own children? i don’t think it means anything more than that, though.

we don’t get confirmation of who is older or younger of shanks and buggy in the text… we’re told in extracanonical places like data books and sbs answers that shanks and buggy are the same age, and they were given birthdays by goroawase rules, which puts shanks’ birthday in march and buggy’s in august. so i guess buggy is younger by five months or so?

and i can’t say for sure why buggy is mad about being assigned second son when he is, in fact, the younger of the two of them—though you have to remember, buggy’s temper is rarely a logical beast—but i do have my pet theory.

i may have mentioned it before, idk, but i think buggy was a pretty competitive kid. if you’ve spent much time around that kind of kid, you’ll know they can turn anything and everything into a competition, even stuff they have no control over. who’s fastest? who’s tallest? who’s oldest? who got the biggest piece of meat at dinner? who got the biggest piece of cake for dessert? any way they can make themselves out to be the winner, the best, they’ll take it. and any way they appear to come in last, or even in second, will make them miserable.

now, i’m not here to get into the psychological underpinnings of why such kids are so competitive… but i’m given to understand there’s usually a bit of an inferiority complex involved, which certainly feels appropriate for buggy.

[usaigi]

🏳️‍🌈💎 for whatever hyperfixiation you want

💎 are there any fun facts or trivia that you would like to share?

Jessica Henwick, the actress who plays Colleen, was invited to audition for Xu Xialing in Shang Chi but turned it down because she has hope they're bring back Colleen. I personally really hope they do, I'd love to see her as Iron Fist

🏳‍🌈 do you have any headcanons (lgbt, race, neuro, etc) that are important to you? (I got this one twice so I'm going to split up my response, here's the other half)

Misty - She keeps not showing up in the comics arcs I'm reading so atm all I got is lesbian for Colleen. Misty ily bb I'll be back

Luke - Bi King 💪 It's not weird to cuddle your bros, man. You've just been brainwash by the patriarchy 😒 (But for real, growing up in Georgia in a religious community and going to marines, then the police academy and the prison, Luke spend a lot of time having to unlearning toxic masculinity and still struggles with being vulnerable with his friends. As the group's protector, he often struggles with feeling like he has to suppress and hide his emotions to be their rock) PTSD & OCD

Elektra - Half Cambodian half French, raised Greek. BPD/NPD with murderer tendencies but she's working on it

Layla - Coptic ✌️ Bi 🌈 "oh cool, we finally have a muslim on the team. yay diversity." "I'm actually coptic orthodox" "Shucks. Are we sure we shouldn't hire Ms Marvel?

MK - Sephardic Jewish + Cuban + Guatemalan & PTSD DID BPD Autism. "Wow that's a lot of labels" "Yeah, it was buy one mental illness get 3 free. The alters sale was steal too." In general the system's identities as cishet partly because of Marc but also because of heteronormativity and the fact they're happily married to a woman but some part identity differently (Dani as a lesbian, Mr Knight as AroAce. etc etc). & I think it would be super funny if this was not canon in the AU, this is just what Jake thinks is going on and how he explains the H4H relationship to his system and Layla. Layla, of course, is confused at first b/c.... Wow....Americans. And then she meets Claire and realizes she's bi too

Felicia - colombiana mami 🇨🇴 "Hey isn't it kinda of stereotypical of you to be Colombian and a narco[the King Pin]?" "Mami, if I were a narco's wife, maybe. But this is just feminism. Why should a gringo make all the money?"

send me a ask about my media hyperfixation

[quasitsqueeries]

Decadence, Degeneration & the Drukhari

I think the Eldar are really interesting. While other Xenos in 40K, like Orks and Tyranids, represent a sort of general external threat, Eldar bring some other ideas along with them. I’m afraid we’re going to have to talk about Fascism again, but there’s some other fun stuff too.

So Eldar represent two things that Fascists don’t like (see my previous post if you want evidence that the Imperium is a Fascist state). The first is intellectualism. Fascism demands an uncritical adherence to national myths, and intellectual movements tend to question things like that, so Fascists are by necessity suspicious of intellectual “elites”. Eldar are depicted as more psychic and more cultured than humans of the Imperium, and they’ve been around longer, so they have greater knowledge of things. It’s the Eldar who maintain the big repository of information about the galaxy, in the form of the Black Library. (Maybe someday we can look at the weird relationship the Inquisition has with the Eldar, and how that organisation seems to simultaneously seek out knowledge and supress knowledge) The second thing is that Eldar, shall we say, fail to live up to the Imperium’s heteronormative models of gender. The Imperium, like all Fascist states, venerates hyper-masculinity, I’m not sure I need to argue this one when I can just point at a Space Marine. The Eldar, by contrast, are represented as somewhat efette; elegant and graceful, but physically weak. Orks used to refer to Eldar as “pansies”, GW seem to have realised that maybe getting rid of that bit is a good idea in the 21st Century and so it seems to have been retired. The fact remains, though, that Eldar’s relationship with gender is a bit queer. From the start Eldar have been depicted as androgynous, they’re slight of build, wear form-fitting clothes and tend to wear their hair long. In 1998 GW first released Dark Eldar, which complicated things. Dark Eldar are kinky, but they’re also much less androgynous than Craftworld Eldar or Harlequins. Wyches in particular are really interesting. They’re the first genuinely mixed-gender unit I remember GW releasing, (there were also some Craftworld and Dark Eldar plastic kits around the same time that included a single chest piece with boobs) the miniatures were explicitly gendered, and they were really kinky, there was a lot of skin, a lot of spikes, and a lot of whips. Basically Craftworld Eldar are sort of gender neutral and Dark Eldar are chaotically genderqueer. All of this is the kind of thing that Fascists hate. Fascism centers the role of the heteronormative family unit, which has the role of making more “racially pure” babies (the Nazis called in the Lebensborn program), queer people who reject the gender roles that that unit relies on are therefore instantly suspicious to Fascists. So, to the Imperium, the threat of the Eldar is not just that they’re Xenos, they also present an ideological threat. The Eldar’s intellectualism and knowledge about the galaxy is a threat to the Imperium’s narrative and myths about itself and the universe it’s up against. Their queerness is a threat to the heteronormative gender roles that the Imperium is structured on.

At this point maybe some people are thinking “but aliens and daemons and cults and unsanctioned psykers are a real threat and the Imperium does need to keep throwing bodies into wars to stop them.” The thing is, Warhammer 40,000 is a fantasy about what would happen if all those threats really did exist out there, it’s the aesthetics and ideas that are important. In the real world Fascism is never justifiable, its arguments are never coherent, it only makes sense in 40K because 40K is fantasy.

So, decadence and degeneration, the things I put in the title. If you’ve ever been called a degenerate by some keyboard Fascist, just know that you’re being interpolated into a long tradition. Around the Fin de Siecle (the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries) there were some ideas about decadence and degeneration doing the rounds in Europe. Now I’m probably going to mess this up a bit, but the theme is that due to the rationality of Men, civilisation generally advances on an upward trajectory. I assume this idea came out of the enlightenment, reason leads to progress and makes society better (obviously there are some Colonialist ideas that come out of there). Maybe it’s useful to call this process generation (idk, I’m really winging it here), but anyway, these men are distractable, and if they allow themselves to be distracted by aesthetic things, like the colour yellow, or the taste of absinthe, or the feel of high quality brocades, or the skin of other men, they might become... decadent. Decadence is supposed to be when you give up rationality and hard work to focus on a life of sensation. Obviously there’s an implication here about sexuality. Oscar Wilde was regarded as a decadent. Too much decadence, it was thought, could lead to the reversal of a civilisation’s progress, degeneration, in other words. Versions of this idea pop up all over the place, certain Conservatives regard Western Civilisation as having fallen from the ideal state embodied by the Ancient Greeks (and I don’t doubt these people would blame decadence), and it’s also really common in fantasy. In the Lord of the Rings, the state of the world has fallen from the Númenorean and Elvish civilisations of the distant past, and Elric of Melniboné describes a previous civilisation brought low by decadence.

But, Eldar. So the story of the Eldar is they had this big galaxy-spanning civilisation before humanity reached the stars. As their civilisation became more advanced and the automation of their physical needs freed up their time they started to become decadent, and as they pursued various pleasures and became more and more jaded, the decadence gave way to sadism.

The descriptions of the dying days of the Eldar civilisation sound like being at the worst kink club you’ve ever seen, where nobody’s heard of consent and everyone’s really into knives and medical role-play. Various groups of Eldar began to leave their empire. First the Exodites, who went to live a sort of monastic existence riding dinosaurs about on idyllic worlds as far away from the Eldar empire as possible (it’s a travesy that GW have never made models of them because they’re the coolest thing in 40K).

Then the Craftworld Eldar fled. All the bad and horny psychic energy released by this debauchery built up in the warp (because Eldar are very psychic) and gave birth to Slaanesh, the Chaos god of excess and decadence, exploding all the heads of the decadent Eldar and ending their civilisation. Those Eldar left are supposed to be fallen from civilisation. There’s a sense that they’ll never be able to regain their old empire and their only role now is to become extinct with as much dignity as they can.

The fall of the Eldar is exactly the kind of thing that the Imperium would use as a cautionary tale to frighten its citizens. “Get too curious, or too decadent, or fail to uphold the family model, and your civilisation might collapse.” I wonder sometimes if the whole story was originally just meant to be Imperial propaganda, but these days the game certainly treats it as real. Now, I’m not sure there’s a heap of evidence to suggest that 20th Century Fascists were particularly interested in the concept of degeneracy (although the Nazis thought it relevant as regards art). 21st Century Fascists seem to love the concept. I think it’s fair to say that ideas of degeneration formed part of the cultural millieu of the early 20th Century that fed into Fascism. In any case the ideas that some cultures are more civilised than others, and that decadence can cause a culture to fall into a less civilised state, are consistent with Fascism.

So, again, we’re talking about a piece of fantasy media here. Saying “the Eldar were decadent and degenerate” or “the Imperium’s rejection of the Eldar’s degeneracy makes sense because they did give birth to Slaanesh” is meaningless. The Eldar are a piece of media that express an idea, they play with the concepts of degeneracy and and decadence to tell a story.

[sovaghoul]

Elements

For my Ghesties, some of this will sound familiar. But one of the reasons I connect with Ghost so strongly is because of this.

🕯🌒🌕🌘🕯

Wiccans call upon the powers of the Elements in ritual and other Magickal work. Across the board, the four classical Western Elements are included, those being Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, usually placed in the North, East, South, and West, respectively (though Mike Nichols at Witches Sabbats makes an interesting argument for Air in the North). The Elements as a group are sometimes called the Quarters, as the space between each is one quarter of the ritual space. Other terms can include "the Corners" or simply "Directions."

Each Element has many common associations, although some may differ between individual, Coven, and Tradition.

⛰️ Earth - North - Physical, material, financial, and also sometimes spiritual concerns. Tarot Suit of Pentacles. Represented in ritual by salt and the pentacle. Associated with Winter, transitions, and a pause in activity. Often assigned the color green. Magickally tied to land animals (generally mammals), herbs, and stones/crystals.

💨 Air - East - Mental, intellectual, communication, and travel concerns. Tarot Suit of Swords (usually). Represented in ritual by incense and the athame. Associated with Spring, beginnings, and birth. Often assigned the color yellow. Magickally tied to incense, birds, and feathers.

🔥 Fire - South - Passionate, ambitious, dynamic, and at times lustful concerns. Tarot Suit of Wands (usually). Represented in ritual by candles and the wand. Associated with Summer, action, and life. Often assigned the color red. Magickally tied to lizards and other reptiles, candles, and other flame sources.

🌊 Water - West - Emotional and spiritual concerns. Tarot Suit of Cups. Represented in ritual by water, the cup and the cauldron. Associated with Autumn, endings, and death. Often assigned the color blue. Magickally tied to marine life, water in any form it can take, and bodies of water in Nature.

Some of the time, a fifth Element is included:

🔮 Spirit - Center - Sometimes also called Akasha or the Æther. Any spiritual and Otherworldly concerns. Sometimes associated with the Major Arcana in Tarot. Can be expressed by the adage from Hermes Trismegistus, "As Above so Below, As Without so Within, As the Universe so the Soul."

The most common color association for Spirit is purple, but I personally prefer silver. It is said by some that Spirit is the combination and perfect balance and harmony of all the other Elements. If that is so, then what are all colors mixed together? Well, first we must decide if we’re talking about light, or pigment. If light, then the answer is white. If pigment, it is black. This is yet another duality, and as discussed before, Wicca is non-dualistic. So, if we combine black and white, the result is grey, or perhaps silver. This makes more sense to me than purple, which is red and blue, and while it can be said to be a blend of masculine and feminine energies, to me it then excludes the other colors in the spectrum, not to mention the other dualities (light/dark, life/death, etc.) that the Divine encompasses, and additionally reinforces the gender binary and heteronormativity.

🕯🌒🌕🌘🕯

In ritual, the Elements are each called in turn to watch over and lend strength to the workings that will be performed (it should be noted that the most common places to begin calling the Elements are North and East, and there are compelling reasons for both). Often, physical representations of the Elements are present on the altar or at the edges of the ritual space in the appropriate direction. It is also very important to directly dismiss or banish the Elements at the end of ritual. A phrase sometimes used is, “Stay if you will, go if you must,” but that can invite distaster; imagine the unchecked power of Fire hanging about!

There is a bit more to discuss in relation to the Elements, but as that relates more directly to Tools and Ritual, I am saving it for those posts.

Next post: Roles

[historyhermann]

Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 4 Spoiler-Filled Review

Star Trek: Lower Decks is a mature animation which combines elements of the adventure, comedy, and sci-fi genres. Series creator Mike McMahan is known as a co-creator of Solar Opposites, a producer on Rick and Morty and as a consulting producer on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. This is the ninth series in the Star Trek franchise and second Star Trek animated series after Star Trek: The Animated Series ended in 1974.

Reprinted from Pop Culture Maniacs and Wayback Machine. This was the fifty-sixth article I wrote for Pop Culture Maniacs. This post was originally published on November 30, 2023. PCM editor Jean Henegan she said she added some content "since I'm a massive Trek nerd/fan, I added a bit of context around some of the things you pointed out...and cleaned up a couple of things that weren't quite accurate...Nice piece, overall." I have incorporated those additions here. Most of the text is the same as what I submitted on November 28th.

This animated series, which has aired for three seasons, takes a different tact than previous Star Trek series. It focuses on lower-ranked officers who engage in menial labor, known as lower deckers. Others are supporting characters. Star Trek: Lower Decks focuses on Starfleet, the military and exploration division of the United Federation of Planets, in the 24th century. It is tasked with establishing contact with races across the galaxy using a ship no one cares about: the USS Cerritos.

Four lower deckers are protagonists: Beckett Mariner, Brad Boimler, D’Vana Tendi, and Sam Rutherford. They are voiced by Tawny Newsome, Jack Quaid, Noël Wells, and Eugene Cordero. Four others are recurring characters: captain of the Cerritos (Carol Freeman), first officer Jack Ransom, tactical officer Shaxs, and head medical doctor T’Ana. Dawnn Lewis, Jerry O’Connell, Fred Tatasciore, and Gillian Vigman voice these characters. All are well-known voice actors.

This series stands out because of its animation style, comedy, plot, and characters. Mariner is a big part of this. Her romantic relationships became a big part of the series, especially in the third season, when she is dating Jennifer Sh'reyan (voiced by Lauren Lapkus). Like actual relationships, they don't stay together, partially because Jennifer does not stand by her. She abandons Mariner when many on the Cerritos incorrectly think she is a traitor. Mariner is bisexual or pansexual. Previously, she dated Steve Levy. She tells Tendi, in a season two episode, that she dated "bad boys, bad girls, bad gender non-binary babes, [and] ruthless alien masterminds." She dated Amina Ramsey (voiced by Toks Olagundoye) while at Starfleet Academy. McMahan stated that "every Starfleet officer is probably at the baseline bisexual" and that there was no intention for "anybody to be strictly heteronormative or straight or cis."

Unfortunately, this is rarely explored in Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4. There are some romantic vibes between Mariner and T’Lyn (voiced by Gabrielle Ruiz), a fellow crewmember on the Cerritos (who also happens to be Vulcan), in the fourth episode. They care for each other (as much as a Vulcan can care, with their repressed emotions), especially after knives keep stabbing Mariner during the episode. In the episode after, T’Lyn calms down Mariner’s emotions after her fever causes everyone’s emotions on the Cerritos to go out of control. In another episode, Mariner enjoys being kissed by a guy. Otherwise, her development during the season revolves around her promotion to a higher rank and ramifications of that decision. Although she is still part of “lower decks,” she is now a junior grade lieutenant, which makes her uneasy.

Boimler and Rutherford get closer, especially after the fourth episode. They even solve a disagreement by dressing up as Mark Twain and talking on a simulated steamboat. Both struggle with their promotions, although in different ways than Mariner. For instance, Boimler gets his first mission as commander and attempts to do everything himself. With some prodding from T’Lyn, he ends up sacrificing himself to save everyone and is later brought back to life. Rutherford also tries to find his place on the ship following his promotion. The closeness between Boimler and Rutherford has led some to ship them together. After all, in the eighth episode, Boimler doesn’t mind taking off his pants when Rutherford asks. Presently, there are less than 20 fics shipping them. Comparably, there’s over 120 fics for the Marinler ship (Mariner and Boimler). The latter has a small chance of canonization as compared to the Rutherford/Boimler ship.

Otherwise, there are wild plotlines, whether about Betazoid “diplomats” (actually undercover intelligence officers) with a hidden agenda who almost bring the Cerritos into the neutral zone where Romulans await battle, a fake marriage between Tendi and Rutherford, or megalomaniacal A.I. – known as Badgey – trying to get revenge. In the case of the latter, the A.I. comes out of the Daystrom Institute on Earth, returning following its initial appearance in season two. In the time between the seasons, it was imprisoned in a penitentiary holding other A.I. of a similar nature.  His plans are foiled when he realizes that ultimate power is too much. The plans of two A.I., Peanut Hamper and Aegus, also fail after they realize that killing others isn’t worth it. Both commit to reforming their selves, so they aren’t evil anymore.

The depiction of A.I. in Star Trek: Lower Decks is somewhat similar to the rogue A.I. in Futurama's Season 8 Part One, or near-planet-destroyer Light Hope in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. It differs from the mixed representation in Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur and Cleopatra in Space, or more positive depictions in My Dad the Bounty Hunter, Kizuna no Allele, and Supa Team 4. This matters considering social media rumblings that some actors will not vote for the recent contract between SAG-AFTRA and the Hollywood studios due to reportedly subpar A.I. provisions [Note: The previous line was removed from the PCM version.]

Throuhgout the season, there are also scenes with spoken poetry, a bar fight (started by Mariner, naturally), and an instance of Boimler getting addicted to a Ferengi television series. There’s even a funny episode where everyone recounts their experiences about being stuck in a cave with different Starfleet officers. However, it’s the journey that Mariner takes over the course of the season that truly hits home as the season comes to a close. Following her promotion Mariner struggles to be a leader, desperate to keep bucking command. How can you be rebellious against the command structure when you are part of it? She asks herself this question, trying to determine what her purpose within Starfleet is. It isn’t until the close of the season that she truly understands who she is and why she is so hesitant to take on more responsibility.

In that episode, Captain Freeman is worried about Mariner. She’s unsure why Mariner is taking risks and trying to get herself killed. She orders Mariner’s friends to distract her. This backfires. Mariner, along with T’Lyn, Tendi, and Boimler, all teleport to a planet surface before their ship is destroyed. When they admit they are worried about her, and reveal the Captain’s order, she is unhappy. She agrees to stay with them until she slips out during the night. In the process, she bonds with a Klingon, who tells her what no one has stated directly: she’s at war with herself.

This is only part of Mariner’s attempted self-examination. It is akin to Yor Forger asking herself why she is an assassin in episode 33 of Spy x Family, lingering doubts of Teru Momijiyama / Shy in Shy about her reasons for being a hero, or Sora Harewata-ru / Cure Sky wondering why she hesitates to fight the Undergu empire in episode 42 of Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure. Mariner reveals she is partially in Starfleet to honor Sito, a friend from her time at Starfleet Academy who died a senseless death several years earlier, which makes her continue to question Starfleet’s mission. She admits that while she doesn’t hate Starfleet, she tried to get out of a promotion. She believes Starfleet should solve the puzzles of life, not start wars (which could violate the Prime Directive). As she tells the Klingon, she doesn’t want to send her friends off to die. She wants to be an ensign and nothing more.

Ma’ah (voiced by Jon Curry), the Klingon, suggests that she honor her friend, slay her enemies, and study to be better. In response, she hugs him, rather than fighting him, and says they should work together. The episode hints at her future leadership, possibly in Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5. She rallies everyone together in a rousing speech. Unfortunately, she is kidnapped by “Nicholas” Nick Locarno (who, like Sito, previously appeared in live action in Star Trek: The Next Generation and were once again portrayed – in voice over – by their live action actors Robert Duncan McNeil – who also starred on Star Trek: Voyager – and Shannon Fill), who beams her up into a mysterious ship – a ship that has been “destroying” various species’ ships throughout the season. Thanks to her efforts, Boimler, T’Lyn, and Tendi, along with new allies, destroy a Klingon warbird. They are disappointed that Mariner isn’t aboard.

The Season 4 finale ends with a bang, as it turns out that ships “destroyed” across the galaxy have joined the renegade Nova Fleet/Squadron. It resembles the rag-tag rebel fleet in Star Wars Rebels. There’s a major difference: Nick is willing to engage in terrorism, i.e., threat or use of violence to cause panic or intimidate, especially as a method to affect political conduct, as defined in the Third Pocket Edition of Black’s Law Dictionary. Mariner easily stops this. She calls out Nick as selfish and brainless, then steals a genesis device, which can destroy planets.

Captain Freeman shows her dedication to her daughter, and to the well-being of her crew. She goes to extreme lengths to rescue Mariner. After a failed contest on her homeworld of Orion, Tendi agrees to work for her pirate sister, D’Erika (voiced by Ariel Winter), so they can get a battleship. They use the decrepit warship to smash through the barrier. It creates a hole big enough for the captain’s yacht to enter. In the process, they save Mariner. Nick is left on her ship after he tries to kill her and activates the genesis device. In a moment of clever dark humor, Nick is destroyed by the device since he can’t pay the money needed to deactivate it (since it is a Ferengi model, of course).

The episode ends with Captain Freeman not court-martialed, T’Lyn refusing to return to her previous ship, and the four protagonists come together for a party in the mess hall. While they party for a short bit, this soon ends, as Tendi feels obligated to fulfill her end of the bargain she made with D’Erika: she must return to a life of piracy alongside D’Erika. Although this depresses Rutherford, neither he, Boimler nor Mariner, stop her from leaving. Tendi prepares herself for what comes next. Undoubtedly, her story will be expanded in Star Trek: Lower Decks fifth season, which was in production as of March.

As noted earlier, queer representation was lacking in this season, as opposed to previous ones. In the past, I’ve written that the ship engineer, Andy Billups (voiced by Paul Scheer), was possibly asexual. A recent post on treksphere makes the same claims. It argues that Tendi is aromantic, Billups is an asexual icon, and points to possible asexual vibes from Spock, Data, and Odo in the Star Trek franchise – although all three characters have relationships with women at various points in their stories. Such claims are only headcanons, similar to those who believed that Page in Tron: Uprising was asexual. There are no asexual characters in the Star Trek universe, to my knowledge. As such, having a canon asexual character in Star Trek: Lower Decks, outward in their identity like Todd Chavez in Bojack Horseman, would be great.

Asexual representation in animation, and in popular culture, is slim. While Alastor in Hazbin Hotel, Lilith Clawthorne in The Owl House, Peridot in Steven Universe, or Perry the Platypus in Phineas and Ferb, are asexual, they were confirmed off-screen. The same is the case for Spongebob Squarepants and Percival "Percy" King in Epithet Erased. Some have stated that Seiji Maki in Bloom Into You and Shōko Tanimoto in The Case Files of Jeweler Richard are asexual. In a previous review, I noted this was the case for Hime Shiraki in Yuri is My Job!. I've seen social media chatter about the manga which comes to a similar conclusion.

Hopefully, Star Trek: Lower Decks fifth season expands on Mariner‘s personal relationships and her identity, and that of the other protagonists. Undoubtedly, it will retain its mature comedy and quirkiness. All the while the characters will be thrown into conflict-prone situations, a breeding ground for trauma. This is not unique. There are multiple series airing this fall featuring characters in tense and stressful situations, sometimes involving murder of human beings. This includes certain The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess and Spy x Family episodes.

Otherwise, people anonymously described their conditions at Titmouse in a largely-circulated spreadsheet about animation studios. In the spreadsheet, which has 11 entries for the aforementioned animation studio, people praise Titmouse for good pay, flexible and healthy working hours, opportunities for rapid advancement, and good management. Others criticize Titmouse for disorganization, overwork, low pay, and say it is only good for those entering the industry. Clearly, it’s a mixed bag. There are different experiences, depending on each production, if I’m understanding these entries correctly.

In my previous review of Star Trek: Lower Decks, I noted that LGBTQ+ representation is at the heart of the show. I pointed to myriad examples of such representation (and in the franchise), and note that many fan fictions for Mariner are skewed toward men. As such, I still see the interactions between Mariner and Boimler as platonic rather than romantic. I understand how people see them as the latter, shipping them as Marinler, but I see them as good friends, rather than good lovers.

In the past, this series had some of best queer representation in mature animation. Other examples include RWBY, Disenchantment, Final Space, Bojack Horseman, and Harley Quinn. In season 4 of Star Trek: Lower Decks, this was less emphasized. Even so, the series is still moving in an inclusive direction. It isn't like Star Wars: The Bad Batch. That series had "four White men and one person of color, in the main cast," as I wrote in January.

This direction is clear from the cast and crew. Tawny Newsome and Dawnn Lewis, who voice Mariner and Captain Freeman, are both Black women, like their characters. Noël Wells (voice of Tendi) is of Tunisian and Mexican descent. Eugene Cordero (voice of Rutherford) is of Filipino descent. Gabrielle Ruiz is of Mexican descent. Carlos Alazraqui is Latine. Black men such as Marcus Henderson, Phil LaMarr, and Carl Tart also voice characters. There are some White male voice actors, such as Jack Quaid, Jack McBrayer, Jerry O'Connell, Fred Tatasciore, Paul Scheer, and Paul F. Tompkins. White women like Gillian Vigman, Lauren Lapkus, Georgia King, and Jessica McKenna voice characters too. Although, they are not the majority of the main cast, they comprise much of the recurring cast.

Many of these names were familiar. For one, Newsome voiced Jessica Williams in Craig of the Creek, Quaid voiced Clark Kent / Superman in My Adventures with Superman, and Cordero voiced Jamie in Steven Universe. Lewis voiced LaBarbara Conrad in Futurama, Professor Klabrax V in Cleopatra in Space, The Chief/Tamara Fraser in Carmen Sandiego, and Fannie Granger in Spirit Riding Free. LaMarr is best known for voicing Hermes Conrad in Futurama, Virgil Hawkins / Static in Static Shock, and John Stewart / Green Lantern in Justice League, along with Sky Gunderson in Disenchantment.

Alazraquiprominently voiced Puff in The Proud Family (in the reboot/revival) and Skylar in Elena of Avalor. Winter voiced Princess Sofia Cordova for the entire Sofia the First series, in the Elena of Avalor series finale, and in Elena and the Secret of Avalor, a backdoor pilot for Elena of Avalor. Wells, O'Connell, Tataiscore, Scheer, McKenna, McBrayer, Lapkus, Tart, and Tompkins, had assorted voice roles, as well. However, this isn't counting anyone in the guest cast.

In terms of the show's music, the opening and closing themes were good, and it fits with the action. I don't recall any tracks there were necessarily memorable (apart from the opening and closing tracks). So, I'm downgrading the music score for this review. Even so, Chris Westlake did an excellent job as the series composer. The music echoes Star Trek scores in other parts of the franchise. Those who directed, wrote, storyboarded, and animated each episode, including some well-known names like Jamie Loftus, McMahan, and Grace Parra Janney, deserve plaudits for their hard work as well.

I look forward to the fifth season of Star Trek: Lower Decks. I hope that the personal identities of the main cast are explored more in the next season. I'm optimistic that Paramount executives realize the series' value. It would be devastating to have the series cancelled unceremoniously like Star Trek: Prodigy. Netflix recently nabbed that series as part of the streaming wars.

Star Trek: Lower Decks is currently streaming on Paramount+ or for purchase on PrimeVideo.

© 2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.