#this post is NOT a space for Spock/Christine hate

[lonesomedreamer]

another thing that’s wild about SNW is the way it treats Spock, the franchise’s most beloved and iconic character by far. it’s not just the weak writing (Ethan does a great job, and it’s obvious that he loves Spock—but there are times when even his best efforts can’t save the script).* it’s that almost none of the SNW characters themselves seem to like or respect Spock.

I’ve already pointed it out how often Spock is mocked and belittled by his fellow officers for just doing his (essential!) job as the science officer; that judgment and harsh treatment extends to his own fiancée (while in-character for her, T'Pring’s attitude is often portrayed as reasonable by the narrative). even Christine, Spock’s biggest supporter and the most understanding/sympathetic of his colleagues, ultimately shuts him down when he does his best to be emotionally supportive!

sure, there were plenty of times when the og Spock was teased—or even insulted—by his friends. Uhura sings about him in an early episode, but he’s obviously in on the joke, because he’s smiling and playing lyre while she sings. when Kirk does it, the audience can tell that it’s coming from a place of love. when Bones does it (whether or not you think he’s actually being racist or not), Spock can and does give as good as he gets—it’s mutual. and when someone else is judgmental towards Spock, their behavior is almost always called out by other characters (Bones included!) (“leave any bigotry in your quarters, there’s no room for it on the Bridge.” / “he has no heart.” “his heart is different!”)

an entire TOS movie is dedicated to the idea of Spock being so valued by his friends that all six of them would put their careers and lives on the line without hesitation just for the chance to bring him back from the dead! there are also plenty of other instances in the show itself when his friends refuse to give him up for dead (“shut up, Spock! we’re rescuing you!” etc.) though Spock’s linguistic precision and technobabble are sources of humor, they’re not usually used a reason to ridicule him.

contrast that to SNW, in which Christine has to beg two of his fellow Bridge officers, Ortegas and Uhura, to accompany her when she begs the inter-dimensional aliens to fix Spock’s broken genome, because she’s the only one on the Enterprise who seems to care that he’s been altered. his fellow officers also regularly make snarky comments like “plan on marrying that debris field, Spock?” and “can’t you just say ‘two moons’?” etc., as Spock is making scientific observations in his capacity as the science officer and even confront him (“are you just some heartless, pointy-eared computer?”) in traumatic/dangerous moments. and to make matters worse, the SNW writers rarely if ever allow Spock to clap back in this scenes the way he so often did in TOS.

I understand that SNW’s Spock is younger, less experienced, and less sure of himself. he’s a lieutenant, not the first officer. nonetheless, he’s the butt of so many jokes and looked down on/judged harshly by so many other characters that I can’t help but wonder if the writers have a similarly low opinion of him.

*to be clear, I don’t think that exploring the possibility of a romance with Christine Chapel is an example of the show or writers disrespecting Spock—but the way they’ve handled his relationships with both T’Pring and Christine (the fact that both of them are “love interests” at all, actually) evidence of their apparent disregard for and misunderstanding of his character, imo.

[pollyna]

Fem!verse: ace!Mickirk+ Enterprise crew edition.

• Jim full name is James Tiberia Kirk. James because George said so before he died and Tiberia because people seriously have sense of humor. She hates when people calls her with her full name and loves Jim, because Jim fits her better than anything. The only person who can call her James is Leo;

• Leo goes for Leonora Horatia Mccoy, because every single Mccoy needs to have Horatio before the surname. It's the law. Everyone calls her Leo or Nora but in the middle of a shuttle ride Jim Kirk decided she was going to be Bones and that's that;

• Leo's the best dancer of all Georgia and she ends breaking everyone heart between the steps. She met Jocelyn on the dance floor and they are sixteen, marries at 20, becomes parents at 23, divorced by 26. They kiss one last time when they are 24 and half and then they fight, fight, fight, while Leo drowns herself into work and Jocelyn in Clay's bed;

• Jim was born in space but lives all her life in Iowa with Frank and Sam, util Sam leaves them when she's 11 and he's 16. Tarsus IV is just a year later;

• Leo is 6'5 ft tall where Jim is 6' (5'9 Jim, don't bullshit yoursel). Leo hates her hair longer than ten centimeter and loves all the kind of undercuts- she actually learned to cut them herself during med school because if she didn't have time to sleep she surely didn't have time to go to the hairdressers-, where Jim always have them long and longer, forgetting her hair tie in every single room of the Academy and then on the ship, on planets and one memorable time even in a volcano;

• when they met Bones was 26, recently divorced and it was almost six month since the last time she saw her baby girl, while Jim was 22 and just met the floor of a bar;

• Leo loves Joanna. She loves her little girl and would do anything for her. But she didn't really want her at the beginning, she did it mostly because Jocelyn wanted to a baby and her mom always seemed sad when she tought about her not having a children;

• Leo comes out in the middle of a study session because a guy from her xenomed course invited her for dinner and dessert and honest to God with people are always thinking about sex. Jim looks at her for a long moment before asking for something more (first year);

• Jim comes out while she is drunk because how could she not. She says, holding her hand out, as if she was counting to not forget how many words she has to pronounce: I'm non binary, biromantic and asexual. What's your prognosis doctor? Leo orders another round of drinks and sleeps in Jim bed, holding her tight against her chest that night. The next morning she asks Jim what pronouns prefers. (she/they; secone year);

• they start dating almost at the end of their third year, after the most intense friendship both of them ever had. It's not like one of them says to the other we're together, they just kiss once before class and then the same night before going to bed and every other day from that moment on. Theoretically they have two different dorm with different roommates but they sleep in the same single bed for months. Sometimes in Leo's dormitory, sometime in Jim's;

• Leo finishes her (second) PhD during the second years and Jim is awestruck with how clever her best friend is and she gets a thank you at the end of the thesis because I wouldn't even got very far without you. It's almost a love confession;

[• Pike always looks out for them and a part of him looks at Jim and see George, almost twenty years before. He rembers how they used to spend hours in the simulator because George wanted to teach him how to fly every single ship he could find and Christopher used to follow him around. He wasn't in love with him but he could be easily been the case if it wasn't for Winona. (bi!Christopher Pike; one-side!Chris/George (was it really one-side?); George/Winona; dadmiral)];

• they end up on the Enterprise because of Nero and now she is Captain James Tiberia Kirk and her girlfriend is the CMO of a boat she hates half of the time, but she couldn't be happy anywhere else;

• between Leo and Spock is not love at the first sight and not even at the second, or a thousand, sight. It's not love at all but their frenemies relationship is the most awsome thing in her life after Joanna&Jim. Spock needs a hand but he doesn't know how to ask for it and then Geoffrey M'Benga arrives with all their knowledge on Vulcans and stuff just falls in the right place. He tells her he's trans and wants to transition but Vulcan is still not the most open place about it so he would like to be helped. Leo can tell him no;

[• Geoffrey M'Benga is 32 years old, non-binary and use they/them as pronouns. Everyone calls them GF. People really freaks out when they have to meet them because they never know who are going to meet. With him it comes Christine Chapel, the queen of lesbians and with her all the best of Starfleet Medical are together];

• Spock and Nyota become a couple when Jim/Leo are fighting and then a trouple when Gaila gets a post on the Enterprise. Leo is still angry and honestly she could care less of everyone and their lives (Nyota is bi, Gaila aromantic, Spock kisses them with his fingers and with his mouth and it's one of the best thing of the day);

• they are fighting because Jim is reackless and Leo would like to not see her in the infermery every other week and, on the last planet they visit, the prime minister flirted with her and Jim almost let herself be kissed. She doesn't know with whom begin more pissed, herself for believing they could last or herself, again, for believing they could fail so easly;

• they both miss Chehkov's freak out on the bridge because he looks at Hikaru and oh yeah, but then he looks at Leo and he got the crush for her but then there's the alien with three genders and the one after that that as none. They all make Chehkov hot hot hot. And he is 18 and wants answers and to try everything at least once. Okay, maybe it's better if he doesn't say a word about the crush he has for Dr. McCoy but for the rest;

• it takes two weeks to find the way to solve this particular fight because talking is so difficult when you never had to.

Probably will be more.

[prue84]

Non-canon!AOS characters headcanons: Christine Chapel

Series of headcanons about characters from the classic timeline that were never introduced in the Kelvin Timeline movies, characters just mentioned that are a blank state, or created after the movies release. And one OC. Post-Into Darkness canon complaint.

1. Philippa Georgiou | 2. Number One | 3. Michael Burnham | 4. Crew members (Chapel, M’Benga, Mitchell, Rand) | 5. human!Enterprise

———————————————————————————————

Christine Chapel, the woman with the Kirk Disease immunity

Rank: Ensign Occupation: Head nurse Ship: USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

Christine Chapel studies medicine and biochemistry. One of the classes she follows is held by renowned professor Dr. Roger Korby, who picks her to be part of some of his scientific expeditions. It’s her travels in space with the professor that eventually make Chapel consider to give up her career as researcher to work in Starfleet instead. At the Academy she specializes in psychotherapy and finds her true call when she starts to work closely with traumatized patients. During her tenure as cadet she meets a fellow scientist, Carol Wallace. Despite their opposite study fields (Carol learns what it’s needed to invent new weapons to more efficiently maim and kill people that Chapel will try to heal) they become close friends.

By 2258 she’s waiting for the launch of the brand-new flagship, the Enterprise, where she’s been assigned as nurse. She’s part of the crew for the ship’s impromptu maiden voyage that follows Nero’s attack and, during the medical emergency, she’s one of the nurses who distinguishes herself by going above her duty to help the overwhelmed doctors holding together a chaotic sickbay.

Once back on Earth, she and Kirk have a brief fling that doesn’t end anywhere but leaves a sour taste in Christine’s mouth. Her opinion on Kirk further worsen when the details about Kirk’s illegal boarding and dubious course of action on the Enterprise start to circulate within the campus despite Starfleet’s attempts to keep everything under wraps. The choice of awarding Kirk the captainship of the Enterprise despite his conduct is the last straw for Chapel: she cannot see herself serving under a man she doesn’t feel personal nor professional respect for and puts in a request to transfer elsewhere. She moves to the outer frontier, where she keeps working as nurse.

An year later, in 2259, after the details of the battle of San Francisco reach her, Christine returns to Earth to help Carol work through the tragedy occurred in her life, putting her own career on a break just to stay close to a friend who hadn’t just lost a father but discovered that the father they loved was a traitor who conspired to provoke an intergalactic war. Christine gets accommodations at the compound but, on her invitation, she moves into Carol’s apartment.

Christine gets temporarily reassigned to the Starfleet Teaching Hospital, where she plans to stay until Carol is ready to move on - where, they both don’t know. Their friendship rekindled by living together, they reach an agreement that they will try to stay together in their next assignment. But Carol is somehow hoping to get another chance on the Enterprise, even if she’s mildly pessimistic about it, since she first joined the ship under a false premise, and she’s sure first officer Spock hates her guts.

Half a year later Carol’s request to be permanently assigned to the Enterprise is accepted by none other than Kirk, who has just been deemed fit for duty, and Christine finds herself in the awkward position of choosing between following her friend out in space and return on the flagship or steer away from serving under a man she feels no respect for. Despite working under him for few days, Carol speaks highly of Kirk and Christine can’t understand how an intelligent and independent woman like Carol can fall for the cheap charm of the same guy Christine resents. She’s unable to connect the cheating cadet she’s known to the brave captain that sacrificed himself for the well-being of others. Carol keeps insisting, every day she’s trying to talk Christine into applying for the Enterprise, claiming that she just wishes the best for her best friend and nothing is better than serving on the flagship, but Christine is adamant that she doesn’t want to serve under Kirk. Carol knows it’s mostly her selfishness speaking, but she really does want her friend at her side and, since she can’t convince Christine, she employs plan B. “If mountain will not go to Mohammed, Mohammed must come to the mountain” after all, and she just knows where to knock to move Mohammed, so to speak.

Carol, who had the chance to spend some time with the Enterprise’s senior crew since that awful day, calls in a favor with Uhura, who bullies Kirk into a blind date, while Carol does the same with her friend. And so Christine and Kirk find themselves together, sitting around a table, and it’s Kirk - undoubtedly under threat by Uhura - who breaks the metaphorical (and almost physical) ice. Carol told him that she doesn’t want to apply for the Enterprise and he’s sorry that she doesn’t only because of him: he won’t apologize, because he didn’t do something he should apologize for, but he’s sorry if what happened between them has caused her distress, and she doesn’t really have to miss a career chance just because of him. It turns out their fling had that disastrous outcome because of a big misunderstanding - Kirk not being clear enough about what he (not) wanted from them and Christine expecting too much. After a genuine promise that their past relationship will not interfere nor taint their professional relationship, Kirk - who doesn’t really hide that he’s been threatened into saying it - tells Christine that she’s free to send in an application if he wishes to, their past won’t be held against her and she’ll be evaluated like any other applicant. But the request won’t land on his desk, everything pertaining sickbay goes in the hands of his CMO: he’s a mean employer, he personally wouldn’t suggest anyone to serve under Bones but, meh... she’s welcome to try her luck with Leonard McCoy, if she really feels like applying for a job under Darth Vader.

Few days later Christine gets a call from McCoy, who wants to meet her. It’s uncommon - usually the service record is enough to get picked, or to earn a rejection. Christine had met the CMO, although briefly, during the emergency launch of the Enterprise in 2258, when she assisted the senior medical officer - and, ironically, Kirk - but knows little of him. Carols speaks positively of him, but Carol holds also Kirk in great esteem so she might just have dubious standards with male senior officers. Christine is also mostly puzzled by Kirk’s warning, and walks to the meeting with a sense of dread, almost expecting the man to appear with the Imperial March playing in the background and a hand already in position to choke her with a brutal use of the Force. The first thing McCoy does is complaining about the idiotic urge everyone feels to head out in space. Chapel can’t keep her mouth shut and really needs to point out he should consider another career if he hates space so much; she bites her lips after that, fearing she just ruined her chance with the Enterprise (or given the man a reason to choke her like a random Imperial officer), but McCoy just makes an annoyed hmpf, grumbles something about his personal bane and his need to make sure “that idiot doesn’t get himself killed”, and then moves on. McCoy is brusque but far from the evil figure Kirk painted: he’s firing question after question and he even has her shadow him for a couple of hours during his shift at Starfleet Hospital to see how she does in action. The next day the assignment request, countersigned by Captain Kirk, is waiting in her inbox and she’s officially part of the crew. Despite her initial reluctance, she has to admit that Carol was right, and reading on her profile “Current assignment: U.S.S. Enterprise” has a nice ring.

Her competence and matter-of-fact attitude earns her the respect from CMO McCoy and, barely a month into her new position, she's surprised with a promotion to head nurse. While gentle and friendly in nature, she’s capable of turning into a very strict officer if necessity requires it and more than often McCoy entrust her the sickbay, knowing that it’ll be in hands as good as his. Despite his manners and his complains, McCoy is clearly very fond of Kirk and, when Kirk’s health is concerned, he never delegates: Christine knows she’s got McCoy’s full trust when the doctor allows himself some rest and entrusts an injured Kirk to her cares instead of pulling an all-nighter to stay at his friend’s bedside.

As Carol starts to be drawn by Kirk’s gravitational pull - they have much in common and they click almost immediately - Christine, whose opinion of the man behind the tunic is still soured by her previous experience with him, finds herself hanging out with Uhura, the third part of the oddly-mixed friend triangle formed by Carol and Kirk. Uhura is clearly fond of the captain, Christine cannot mistake those sighs and jabs for else, but she also doesn’t hide the exasperation she feels every time Kirk says or does something dumb - which, unsurprisingly, happens often - and they start on the common ground of sharing a rare and precious immunity over Kirk’s charm. On a starship where most of the crew look up at Kirk as if he were a god walking among mortals, or as if it was just his sheer will that fueled the warp core that made everything run, they are the only two who don’t drool on his boots, worship the floors where he walks on or want to get into his pants. Yes, there’s McCoy and Spock, but the doctor is weak to Kirk’s puppy eyes, while everyone - including admirals at HQ - know Uhura’s man experiences the closest to a platonic crush that a straight, engaged Vulcan could ever feel, so they don’t count. Christine and Uhura bond on being the only two sane officers on the whole ship. Even though Christine has to grudgingly admit that some myths about Kirk’s sexual prowess are indeed true. That makes only Uhura completely immune, but Chapel can pride herself of having got his immunity after coming down with a disease anyone else can’t seem to beat.

As months turn into a year, Chapel develops a crush for Mr. Spock, an infatuation that - as days go by - she finds harder to quell down. It wouldn’t be an issue if she hadn’t stricken a friendship with Uhura, Spock’s fiancee. She feels guilty for having feelings toward the man of a friend and for keeping them a secret, but she fears she could loose Uhura if she revealed her the truth. When the Psi 2000 intoxication is brought on the ship and she falls under its effect, Christine reveals her feelings to a shocked Spock and then attempts to kiss him; after the intoxication is cured from the crew, Spock - for the sake of honesty (and against Kirk’s suggestion that female friendships are tricky and some things like kissing your friend’s boyfriend are better left untold, especially on light of having happened under an external influence) - speaks to Uhura about what happened. (He might also want reassurance that he hadn’t inadvertently done something to encourage those feelings - he’s still unsure about human courtship and its chaotic rules). All in all Uhura keeps her head cool and, instead of lashing out at someone she's learned to considered friend, she faces a mortified Christine. Uhura knows Christine had always acted as respectfully as she could toward both she and Spock, and she knows she cannot fault the nurse for acting out when she wasn’t in her full mind. Both of them know that Spock loves Uhura and Christine is just experiencing an unrequited crush; Uhura just hopes that it will soon fade - not because she’s bothered by it, but because she doesn’t want to think about poor Christine suffering for it.

———————————————————————————————

Notes Technically speaking, Chapel is a canon character, but we know so little about her that we can as well put her in a "non!canon" list. Anyway. I tried to give some sense to what we're told about her by Carol. It's unclear if Jim has been a dick to her or if the scene was just meant to show he doesn't remember the girls she has a relationship with - as the authors suggested. We don't even know if Chapel transferred to the outer frontier on her own choice or because of a fallout with Jim - Into Darkness is vague on that, and it's all up to the viewer. Soooo, I tried to be vagueish about what happened between him and Christine as well, but I did choose that it was because of Jim that she decided to leave the Enterprise while, at the same time, I made sure to not put the blame on Jim for this, making it instead one case of "they didn't communicate". It's my own interpretation of the canon, you're free to dismiss it.

Fancasting Rachael Taylor.

———————————————————————————————

Crossposted Livejournal: prue84.livejournal.com/83582.html Dreamwidth: prue84.dreamwidth.org/75784.html AO3: archiveofourown.org/works/36493045/chapters/91108396 Ad Astra: adastrafanfic.com/works/1148 SquidgeWorld: squidgeworld.org/works/46623

[autistic-puffin]

Part 2 of “What I’d rather see in TOS”

(part 1)

these guys:

[image description: photograph of Sulu and Chekov on the brig of the Starship Enterprise. Both are wearing yellow Starfleet uniforms. Sulu, on the left, is seated, with one hand on the viewing screen apparatus coming out of the control board. Chekov, on the right, is standing with one hand on Sulu’s chair and the other on the control board. They are both looking at something above the camera. end ID]

This isn’t a single character (Make no mistake; I want more Sulu and I want more Chekov) it’s the bond between Sulu and Chekov that I wish there was more of.

1. Sulu being apparently the only one to know that Chekov’s an only child is just really funny to me. He’s like the Chekov authority because apparently no one else pays attention to Chekov or knows anything about his life. It makes me think about the two of them on duty and making small talk for hours and hours and I find that really endearing. They have a bond. Sulu’s the only one who knows Chekov well enough to know he’s an only child and I’m not sure why that stands out so much to me but I really love it AND I WISH THERE WAS MORE OF IT FOR US TO SEE IN THE CANON.

[image description: a screenshot of Sulu with the caption “His brother? He never had a brother.” end ID]

2. I just. I love this interaction so much. And it’s hilarious. Chekov’s being angsty and annoyed and Sulu’s just having a blast and it’s such a funny and genuine interaction and like if every episode had more of their interactions like this? It’s gold! It’s one of my favorite moments in TOS!! It’s like the only non-Spirk scene I’ve forced my brother to watch! It’s just like! Wow! I dunno now that I’m hyping it up so much I feel like people are going to think it’s weird that I love this scene so much but IT”S AMAZING OKAY AND I REALLY WOULD RATHER WATCH THEM AND THESE INTERACTIONS THAN LISTEN TO SH*TNER MONOLOGUE FOR THE WHATEVER-ETH TIME!!!!!!!!

[image descriptions: all three screenshots show Chekov and Sulu sitting in the brig, Chekov is on the left, annoyed, Sulu is on the right, looking amused. The first’s caption is “You’ll live”, spoken by Sulu. The second’s caption, spoken by Chekov, is “Oh, yes, I’ll live,” and the third’s caption, also by Chekov, is “But I won’t enjoy it.” end ID]

3. Sulu using his hand as a pillow for Chekov’s head for this whole scene. I just. I love it. I got a bunch of screenshots for different parts of this scene, but I think it’ll have to be a separate post because this is getting long and there are seven of these images. THE!! SIMPLE!!! ACT!!! OF!!! CARING!!!!!!! ABOUT!!!!!! OTHERS!!!!!! You know that Lindsay Ellis video where she talks about how everyone in the Transformers movies hated each other and there were no like....bonds? This is the opposite of that. I wish there was more genuine platonic affection shown in the various bonds on the Enterprise. Like Uhura’s joy for Christine when Christine’s fiance was found to be alive! That was so pure and beautiful and I loved it so much! These people work and live together in long-term space voyages. They like each other! Doing small acts of kindness for each other is just not overtly shown a lot and yeah I just stan their bromance because they have the most obvious partnership of the “side” characters and great chemistry and I just would like to see more kind acts of friendship and far less forced heterosexual lustings with varying levels of creepiness and misogyny.

[image description: Spock, Uhura, Bones, Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov are all on the brig. Uhura is on the outer level. Spock, Bones, and Scotty are standing in a half-circle around the control board. Chekov is unconscious in the chair, with Sulu cradling his head, leaning over slightly so he is lower than the other three standing men. end ID]

I don’t really know why I wrote all of this. But I’ll probably end up doing more. Now to try and come up with tags so other TOS fans can chip in their two cents about what they’d rather see/why they love Sulu and Chekov/etc...

[genocidershodan]

Someone on this Star Trek group posted a thread “Name 8 things you thought was wrong with the new Star Trek movies and explain why”.

A lot of you have probably heard me mention that I really hate Into Darkness, but I don’t know if I’ve really talked about why.

Everyone's got their opinion so here's my version.

Basically, Beyond was great, and 2009 was ok. It failed at Star Trek but at least was able to be a good space adventure film. My big problem lies with Into Darkness, which fails miserably at being Star Trek, problems carried over from 2009 and amplified, and fails miserably at being a film.So for the purposes of this exercise I'll focus on Into Darkness but boy oh boy is there so much more than this.

1. MILITARY EMBLEMISM IN MAH STARFLEET. Not much more to say really. It's pretty self evident, the grey uniforms everyone has with the shoulder ranks. Starfleet is not a military organisation, and Gene Roddenberry wanted to completely disassociate Starfleet from military. In designing the uniforms he wanted them to not be recognisable as any type of military uniform, and the command structure of Starfleet is modelled after the Merchant Navy instead of any military.

2. A PORTABLE DEVICE THE SIZE OF A SUITCASE THAT CAN WARP KHAN FROM EARTH TO QO'NOS. This is the dumbest world breaking device I've ever heard of. I don't need to even describe how much this breaks the Star Trek universe.  And the only real function this can seem to serve is so they can have Klingons which leads me right into...

3. A PLOT DRIVEN ENTIRELY BY CONTRIVENCES BUILT AROUND MAKING AS MANY REFERENCES AS POSSIBLE. There's nothing of substance here. It's a revenge story. There's no character arcs, dropped plot threads, nonsensical series of events. During my first viewing of this movie I found myself continually asking "What are you doing? Why are you going there? What is happening?", and 90% of the time the answer is because the plot says so. And the whole thing is jam packed with vapid moments and shout outs. Urgh, why did they copy the kirk/spock hand on glass scene without understanding why it was such a powerful moment. But they screwed it up by reversing the script. (I suppose they thought it was a twist). It's so much more meaningful that Spock put his Vulcan salute against the glass first and then Kirk puts his hand against that, but they fucking screwed it up.And then they just pull a rewind and bring him back because they decided to, for some ungodly fucking reason, test the blood on a bloody tribble. What the fuck is a tribble doing just sitting on the enterprise having random blood tested on it for fucks sake? How the fuck could Khan from the 1990's help starfleet build more advanced ships? Why did they bring back Leonard Nimoy just so he could tell Zachary Quinton that Khan is not a cool guy. god damnit I hate this fucking movie.

4. CHARACTERS STRIPPED DOWN TO THEIR POP CULTURAL OSMOSIS This is usually the hardest to discuss because to be quite frank there's not a lot to most of the characters. Like nothing much is explained about Chekov's history other than he's Russian. Scotty was the Scottiest Scotsmen that drank Scotch. Uhura was calm and friendly and among the most affectionate members of the crew. But I guess the writers now decided she needs to be a sassy black lady. Spock is now struggling to deal with his human side, and also his unemotional tranquility seems to have translated into some kind of meanness. Kirk? What have they done to you? You know back on the show he was poetic, passionate, professional. He was a very by the book captain. Did you guys know that back in his academy days he was much more akin to a bookish nerd than a jock? He even had an upperclassmen who regularly bullied him.

5. THE USS VENGEANCE This is the stupidest design I've ever seen. Why the fuck is it so big? It's designed to be operated by a skeleton crew and even by 1 person. It's so needlessly big. What the hell is it so big for? All that is doing is providing a larger target and larger surface area that requires maintenance. And it's mostly all just empty space. Why isn't it in a smaller compact design allowing for maneuverability where all the components are more tightly packed together with no weak spots like a real Starfleet warship (see Defiance)Why is the bridge now a weak spot from both the top and the bottom?

6. KHAN NOONIEN SINGH'S ETHNICITY Yep, there we go, why won't you cast Indian actors for Indian characters?

7. THE TREATMENT OF WOMEN Come on guys. If a TV show from the 1960's treats its female characters with more dignity and respect than its counter part made today, you've got a problem. Into Darkness doesn't even pass the Bechdel test. Where's Janice Rand? Where's Christine Chapel? Oh and they totally just decided that she only became a nurse because she was one of Kirk's past conquests. Blah. It seems kinda telling that the female uniforms don't have rank bands. 8.THE WHOLE MARKETING REGARDING KHAN.You know, this one kind of sticks as a sore point for me. Because I was one of those few people who said "No, it's not Khan." in the lead up to this movie. I was actually quite convinced it was going to be Gary Mitchell. And I don't really know why everyone was so sure it was going to be Khan. Maybe I'm too naive and actually believed them when they said that it wasn't going to be him. But I went through the evidence and found more to indicate that he wasn't Khan than that he was. (like his ethnicity, but that's a dead horse now). I remember thinking "If it turns out to be a twist that he was actually Khan, that would be the stupidest thing ever." And then I saw the movie, and the reality was so much worse.