#so I hope I didn't make a typo or misspeak somewhere but it's possible

[fantasiavii]

some unpopular opinions

You have been warned.  You don’t have to read this.  I’m not attacking anyone or saying that people who disagree with me are bad (mostly...on 10 I’m pretty mad).  I’m just venting.  There’s a lot of fandoms on here but mostly Star Trek lmao.  In no particular order: 

1. (Les Mis) I don’t really like the Jehan/M0nt-par-nasse ship lmao and I’m sad that it’s pretty much the only ship Jehan’s put in now.  When I joined the fandom there was a lot more Jehan/Courf and I really liked that and I miss it and I miss Jehan/Bahorel and Jehan/Feuilly too even though I never really shipped them like I shipped Jehan/Courf but I just miss Jehan with other people... (Also Jehan/Courf/Combeferre!!! My beloved rarepair rowboat of a ship)

2. (Les Mis) Not really an unpopular opinion just something I found out and I don’t see people talking about: The invasion and colonization of Algeria actually had a key role in the 1830 revolution and the establishment of the Orleans monarchy and its not really mentioned in Les Mis, most likely because Hugo’s looking at French history through rose-colored glasses.  A lot of ideals from the Revolution and Napoleon’s time were weirdly combined under the Orleans monarchy to get people to support the regime and the colonization of Algeria was a key part of this and part of the expression of that ideology.  Essentially, some of the values promoted in Les Mis were used to justify the colonization of Algeria (though in a weirdly monarchist form).  Good reference: By Sword and Plow: France and the Conquest of Algeria by Jennifer E. Sessions.

3. (Star Wars) I like the prequel trilogies.  Not in a “they never did anything wrong/are unproblematic and you are all wrong!” way but in a “I grew up watching all of Star Wars indiscriminately” way because my parents (who grew up with the original trilogy) didn’t hate the prequels and so now I can say I like the prequels, I don’t think they’re any worse than the original trilogy (which had plenty of problems imo) and also Padme is fucking awesome.

4. (Marvel) Loki is canonically bi and genderqueer both in Norse mythology and the Marvel comics and that’s just how it is.  This isn’t even an opinion.  I’m just tired of people straightwashing him and honestly if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine, just stick to the movieverse, I really really don’t mind.  It’s worse when you try to explain away his queerness.  That’s what really sucks.

5. (Star Trek - Vulcans) Vulcans/Vulcan culture seem to have originally been a thought experiment of like...taking Enlightenment era rationality and neo-Stoicism and pushing it to its most extreme and Vulcans, when they were originally created, were (mostly likely, given what I know of the time period) a symptom of the contemporary Western idea that religion would one day die out and be replaced by rational, secular humanism.  Vulcan logic/Surakian logic grew to resemble a religion more over time* (most notably within the Enterprise and Discovery series) and then it most resembled (through my religion major eyes) a combination of Enlightenment era rationality and Buddhism.  Surakian logic’s relationship to Buddhism is complicated, because its resemblance of Buddhism is a symptom of the Orientalism that is still very much present in a lot of science fiction** (usually when Asian inspired cultures appear but not Asian characters), but Surakian logic is also symptomatic of the Americanization of Buddhism or what some people call American Buddhism.  This is a form of Buddhism that has been sanitized of most of its original “religious” trappings and narrowed down to “spirituality” and, again, rationality, because white people went to Asia and thought that Buddhism was the only rational religion for awhile and then brought it to the US and it’s now sold to people as mostly a spiritual, not a religious, thing, and as a way to cope with late capitalism.  Not trying to disparage American Buddhists or people who are into the just spirituality thing.  I’m just saying there was a change when Buddhism crossed the Pacific and some of the process of bringing it over was highkey problematic (same with Hinduism).  The fact that Buddhism was perceived as the “most rational” religion is probably why it ended up being what Surakian logic most resembled when Surakian logic grew to look more obviously like a religion.  And also because Orientalism.

*though it is my opinion that even in its original series formation, Surakian logic could still be considered a religion

**there’s several examples of it in Star Trek besides Surakian logic.  Also Star Wars.

6. (Star Trek - TOS) Take a deep breath on this one guys: the original series is not that great.  Like. It’s valuable for the nostalgia factor and its repetitiveness is comforting and so is the familiarity of the cast but some of the episodes are just straight up bad.  Like That Is Obviously Racist levels of bad.  And I no longer want to waste time with this “they put sexual stuff to distract the censors from the radical message” shit.  That might be true but there’s still blatant exploitation of women and women’s bodies in almost every episode; Jim both is sexually assaulted and sexually assaults other people; Jim is a feminist sometimes but only when it suits the episode.  The fandom put TOS on a pedestal and looks at it through rose-colored glasses and I don’t really understand why??? We should be able to admit it had problematic aspects and move on.  It was groundbreaking for its time, yes.  But it’s been over fifty years and I’m not interested in returning to the 1960s.  

7. (Star Trek - Spirk) The AOS movies (especially the first two) are written like a love story between Kirk and Spock and I know people get upset about the Spock/Uhura romance but there is at least as much homoerotic subtext in aos as there is tos.  y’all are just mean. (esp since Jim so obviously dates other women in tos or has “had a past” with them which is clearly meant to imply romance of some sort......)

8. (Star Trek - AOS) Into Darkness is a good movie.  So it the first one and so is Beyond.

9. (Star Trek and Star Wars) This fandom war is pointless.  You can enjoy both, especially since they’re completely different stories with different messages, and also, by some definitions, different genres (science fiction vs science fantasy).  My parents grew up watching both and (like the stuff about the Star Wars prequels) didn’t ever tell me I should be fighting between the two.  I honestly think these controversies (Star Wars vs Star Trek and SW prequels vs originals) still exist bc they’re taught to us, not because they are valuable debates.

10. (Oscar Wilde) “Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling” is not about oral sex, y’all have just never read De Profundis and it shows.  Oscar Wilde was very much a Christian and while talking about divine love through the metaphor of human love and vice versa is a tried and true thing people do, I can guarantee that this quote is not about oral sex.  You guys just have your minds in the gutter or are, at worst, fetishizing of gay relationships.  Not everything queer people do is about what they like it bed.

And I think 10 is a good place to stop lol.