A trekkie's manifesto on inspiration, determination, the effects of a good opening
This is a drive by post*. Thanks to everyone for the congrats on the last post, graduation was amazing and I'll probably post about it later.
Just... been watching first season DS9, which I don't remember ever seeing (but I was only like, 6). Early Rom is like O_o. Nothing to do with his actual persona. He's all... growly in his talking. He sounds like an actual Ferengi. Again, I say, o_O
I saw the opening of Star Trek: Enterprise when I was at the gym (goal for this summer is to bike there everyday - but for the moment? Ow. :P). Usually I make fun of the opening, do it over the top style to my sister-in-law or my bestest star trek buddy, Hussian. This time I didn't. I kind of got teared up. Not because of the images (which are inspiring, but I mean, I've grown up with Star Trek, it's not that show-stopping) but because of the lyrics.
It's been a long road
Getting from there to here
It's been a long time
But my time is finally near
And I can feel the change in the wind right now
Nothing's in my way
And they're not gonna hold me down no more
No they're not gonna hold me down
The chorus is still too cheesy to be real, but that first line actually made me tear up just a little. At the frakking gym! A Rod Stewart song (though not his exact version). But Star Trek has done a lot of me. My whole life. Stargate took over when my TFC tv stopped showing them (right at the end of the Dominion occupaton of DS9 in season 6, and oh yeah, still annoyed about that) and LOTR was my first fandom love ever from before I could read. But Star Trek... I can't explain it. It taught me to imagine. It gave me the setting for my first Mary Sue and thus my first fanfiction ever (though I didn't write out a story, more just put myself into it. The first story was in 1997 with Star Wars). It taught me the power of determination, loyalty, curiousity. Most importantly, friendship. That people could be different, even different species, and still got along. That people like me, over-eager, awkward, shy yet not. Different in interest, and for most of my childhood, ability. A place. Acceptance. Love. Trust.
It gave me a thing for strong women (Kira, Janeway, Seven), a thing for tall, strange men (Bashir, Gul Dukat, Riker, Data, Tom, Spock (though that came later)), a thing for bulky guys (Sisko, Riker). I can trace my attraction to a lot of people based on Star Trek characters.
I don't know how to convey this well. My words aren't flowing just right, but that's okay. I'm feeling sappy right now. Nostalgic.
I love the openings for all the Treks. Nothing else comes close, not even the shows themselves. Because the shows have problems and crappy storylines and too much technobabble and over-acting and Berman and Braga and an earnestness that can be too much, fail in places that are hard to ignore, formulaic plots, Threshold... But the openings are inspiring. The openings encompass the tone, the mood, the setting. They are what I remember most, the thing that visually binds me to Trek, through good episodes and bad. The anticipation I feel watching each opening never dulls, never lessens, never ceases being special, and I remember and love and watch each one of them differently.
I'll start at the beginning, but the last one for me: TOS. I started watching TOS regularly with Hussian after we exhausted New Who. The over-the-top singing was just my style, so I always sing along. Which for some reason Hussian never minded (I think she may have liked it) but that was why Hussain and I are such good friends. I frakking love the camp of that series, and I get geared up for it everytime by singing along. The series is just pure joy, from McCoy to Shatner to Spock dangling from a tree because of spores, people. Love. And I never get tired of the opening, even when I get tired of the show. It's tea, and cookies and Hussian's basement apartment, quoting lines of the series to each other, watching Khan, again, again, again, until the neighbours tell us off for our laughter. That's TOS for me.
TNG was my first love. I remember watching it in our second house (which we only lived in til I was 6 I think). It always came on at 5 o'clock, and I would watch the opening each and every time. I still do. I fell in love with Picard's voice (I blame him for my love of live Shakespeare, which helped get me through IB, let me tell you). I fell in love with the solar system. I fell in love with space, and adventure, and exporation, and discovery. The point in the opening where the comet's tail/ray spreads towards the camera and the screen is filled with pink and light? My favourite moment, bar none, of any opening. There are others I like better (FMA:Brotherhood and Firefly come to mind) but I adore that moment. I used to love pink, a lot. And that moment used to feel like it was just for me, like the show was just for me. It helped immensely that Star Trek: TNG, more than anything else (other than maybe LoTR, but my mom doesn't like the movies that much) that our family can enjoy without saying anything. No arguing, no upset. Even music isn't free from that. TNG is being too young to know, but old enough to remember, trusting in righteousness, and morals, and ethicsm bending the rules when it's the right thing to do. It's being six years old and exploring the galaxy with my family. I remember wonder, and that's a powerful thing. I remember being on that sofa, with my brother, in front of our old tv, and the excitement I felt, that I always feel, at the first notes of the theme.
DS9 has always been my favourite without me even realising it. My family doesn't like it, but there's a reason why I'm starting with it for my 2010 Trekathon: School's out forever rewatch. Because it's just... it's characters. Characters that I love, every one of them, and darkness and consequence and war. It started my fascination with war history (and thus my interest in 20th century history) because of the fight with the Dominion. It was the first Trek to have danger, to have doubt, to have failure, and I felt that epicness watching it. Their triumph over their struggles, in the face of loss and overwhelming defeat - those episodes in the 6th season made me feel hope when I thought there was none. I also had a huge crush on Julian Bashir (starting my love for the name Julian - a name I want to call my first child, but also because of my two best friends (they just don't have to know the first reason, shush)). I always thought that Daniel Jackson began my love of the Woobie, the over-achieving academic, the genius with arrogance and a heart bigger than three galaxies. Compassion and curiousity and capability. But, nope, nah-uh, it was Bashir from the beginning. (It must be noted that no one else in my family likes either Bashir OR Daniel, but that's okay by me.) My memory of DS9 has always been the mines in front of the wormhole, the power-play between Dukat and Sisko with the baseball. The image of the Federation ships, sailing overhead to battle, to death, for a slim chance of success. That was the last thing I ever saw of DS9 until the week before graduation. It was always unfinished for me, always unclear, always that epic battle. It was longing to do something right, something good, something meaningful. It was becoming my own person; the show ended when I was twelve, just about the time when I was starting to like things of my own and to pursue them.
Voyager was aired on cable, which we didn't have. So the night that Voyager premiered, we went over a friend's place and watched it. I don't remember the plot of the episode, but I remember the opening. It was pretty. It was more than pretty, it was gorgeous. I wanted so badly to touch the stars, I dreamt of nothing else for years. To be transported to the future and enlist in Starfleet, to wander the holosuites, to explore and be part of something greater. Later, much later, long after I'd stopped watching Voyager (which I only got to watch when my dad was in the hospital) I watched it with my roommate on youtube last summer, drowning out the parties upstairs. Every time I see the ship fly towards that sun I think of our relentless mocking of Tom Paris and Harry Kim and I love my strange, odd, peculiar roommate more than I ever.
I never got in to Enterprise, and I've already said how I used to mock it, singing along to it with overt emotional displays. I thought it hokey (save for the amazing Mirror!verse opening). But today... yeah, it spoke to me today.
Because I walked across that stage. Despite troubles and near-misses, failures and disappointments, and years of self-doubt and loathing, I walked across that stage. I lost faith in myself, but I did keep going and I made it through. I may no longer be top of my class, third in my school. I'm not that at all any more. I don't have honours or distinction or possibly even the respect of any of my professors. I don't care. I have a Bachelor of Music, Minor in History. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what I want. But I have this achievement. I have this piece of paper. I have the opportunities this paper brings to me. I've got faith to believe I can do anything
So, thanks Star Trek, for all that guidance growing up. Thanks for uniting my family. Thanks for providing endless hours of amusement, of wonder, of imagination, for leaving no stone unturned, no problem unsolved, no fight abandoned. Thanks for being there all those times my dad was hospitalized, because Trek is the memory I keep of those times, not his sickness, his fraility, nor my own helplessness. Thanks for being there that terrible week before I found out I was graduating, for the determination in spite of horrific odds, the infallibility of character. For love, for loyalty, for trust, for the faith in a better tomorrow. They may be only fiction, but you know how you see on fandomsecrets how people draw strength from characters they do not want to disappoint? Sisko did that for me. It's stupid and cliched and cheesy, but he did. They all have. My whole life.
Summer 2010. Star Trek-a-thon. Let's party like it's the nineties, kids. Reboot can't have all the fun. :D
And thanks, Mom and Dad, for bringing me up a Trekkie.
*Errr...not so much. It was supposed it be. This is more like a manifesto. Like, what, self.
Just... been watching first season DS9, which I don't remember ever seeing (but I was only like, 6). Early Rom is like O_o. Nothing to do with his actual persona. He's all... growly in his talking. He sounds like an actual Ferengi. Again, I say, o_O
I saw the opening of Star Trek: Enterprise when I was at the gym (goal for this summer is to bike there everyday - but for the moment? Ow. :P). Usually I make fun of the opening, do it over the top style to my sister-in-law or my bestest star trek buddy, Hussian. This time I didn't. I kind of got teared up. Not because of the images (which are inspiring, but I mean, I've grown up with Star Trek, it's not that show-stopping) but because of the lyrics.
It's been a long road
Getting from there to here
It's been a long time
But my time is finally near
And I can feel the change in the wind right now
Nothing's in my way
And they're not gonna hold me down no more
No they're not gonna hold me down
The chorus is still too cheesy to be real, but that first line actually made me tear up just a little. At the frakking gym! A Rod Stewart song (though not his exact version). But Star Trek has done a lot of me. My whole life. Stargate took over when my TFC tv stopped showing them (right at the end of the Dominion occupaton of DS9 in season 6, and oh yeah, still annoyed about that) and LOTR was my first fandom love ever from before I could read. But Star Trek... I can't explain it. It taught me to imagine. It gave me the setting for my first Mary Sue and thus my first fanfiction ever (though I didn't write out a story, more just put myself into it. The first story was in 1997 with Star Wars). It taught me the power of determination, loyalty, curiousity. Most importantly, friendship. That people could be different, even different species, and still got along. That people like me, over-eager, awkward, shy yet not. Different in interest, and for most of my childhood, ability. A place. Acceptance. Love. Trust.
It gave me a thing for strong women (Kira, Janeway, Seven), a thing for tall, strange men (Bashir, Gul Dukat, Riker, Data, Tom, Spock (though that came later)), a thing for bulky guys (Sisko, Riker). I can trace my attraction to a lot of people based on Star Trek characters.
I don't know how to convey this well. My words aren't flowing just right, but that's okay. I'm feeling sappy right now. Nostalgic.
I love the openings for all the Treks. Nothing else comes close, not even the shows themselves. Because the shows have problems and crappy storylines and too much technobabble and over-acting and Berman and Braga and an earnestness that can be too much, fail in places that are hard to ignore, formulaic plots, Threshold... But the openings are inspiring. The openings encompass the tone, the mood, the setting. They are what I remember most, the thing that visually binds me to Trek, through good episodes and bad. The anticipation I feel watching each opening never dulls, never lessens, never ceases being special, and I remember and love and watch each one of them differently.
I'll start at the beginning, but the last one for me: TOS. I started watching TOS regularly with Hussian after we exhausted New Who. The over-the-top singing was just my style, so I always sing along. Which for some reason Hussian never minded (I think she may have liked it) but that was why Hussain and I are such good friends. I frakking love the camp of that series, and I get geared up for it everytime by singing along. The series is just pure joy, from McCoy to Shatner to Spock dangling from a tree because of spores, people. Love. And I never get tired of the opening, even when I get tired of the show. It's tea, and cookies and Hussian's basement apartment, quoting lines of the series to each other, watching Khan, again, again, again, until the neighbours tell us off for our laughter. That's TOS for me.
TNG was my first love. I remember watching it in our second house (which we only lived in til I was 6 I think). It always came on at 5 o'clock, and I would watch the opening each and every time. I still do. I fell in love with Picard's voice (I blame him for my love of live Shakespeare, which helped get me through IB, let me tell you). I fell in love with the solar system. I fell in love with space, and adventure, and exporation, and discovery. The point in the opening where the comet's tail/ray spreads towards the camera and the screen is filled with pink and light? My favourite moment, bar none, of any opening. There are others I like better (FMA:Brotherhood and Firefly come to mind) but I adore that moment. I used to love pink, a lot. And that moment used to feel like it was just for me, like the show was just for me. It helped immensely that Star Trek: TNG, more than anything else (other than maybe LoTR, but my mom doesn't like the movies that much) that our family can enjoy without saying anything. No arguing, no upset. Even music isn't free from that. TNG is being too young to know, but old enough to remember, trusting in righteousness, and morals, and ethicsm bending the rules when it's the right thing to do. It's being six years old and exploring the galaxy with my family. I remember wonder, and that's a powerful thing. I remember being on that sofa, with my brother, in front of our old tv, and the excitement I felt, that I always feel, at the first notes of the theme.
DS9 has always been my favourite without me even realising it. My family doesn't like it, but there's a reason why I'm starting with it for my 2010 Trekathon: School's out forever rewatch. Because it's just... it's characters. Characters that I love, every one of them, and darkness and consequence and war. It started my fascination with war history (and thus my interest in 20th century history) because of the fight with the Dominion. It was the first Trek to have danger, to have doubt, to have failure, and I felt that epicness watching it. Their triumph over their struggles, in the face of loss and overwhelming defeat - those episodes in the 6th season made me feel hope when I thought there was none. I also had a huge crush on Julian Bashir (starting my love for the name Julian - a name I want to call my first child, but also because of my two best friends (they just don't have to know the first reason, shush)). I always thought that Daniel Jackson began my love of the Woobie, the over-achieving academic, the genius with arrogance and a heart bigger than three galaxies. Compassion and curiousity and capability. But, nope, nah-uh, it was Bashir from the beginning. (It must be noted that no one else in my family likes either Bashir OR Daniel, but that's okay by me.) My memory of DS9 has always been the mines in front of the wormhole, the power-play between Dukat and Sisko with the baseball. The image of the Federation ships, sailing overhead to battle, to death, for a slim chance of success. That was the last thing I ever saw of DS9 until the week before graduation. It was always unfinished for me, always unclear, always that epic battle. It was longing to do something right, something good, something meaningful. It was becoming my own person; the show ended when I was twelve, just about the time when I was starting to like things of my own and to pursue them.
Voyager was aired on cable, which we didn't have. So the night that Voyager premiered, we went over a friend's place and watched it. I don't remember the plot of the episode, but I remember the opening. It was pretty. It was more than pretty, it was gorgeous. I wanted so badly to touch the stars, I dreamt of nothing else for years. To be transported to the future and enlist in Starfleet, to wander the holosuites, to explore and be part of something greater. Later, much later, long after I'd stopped watching Voyager (which I only got to watch when my dad was in the hospital) I watched it with my roommate on youtube last summer, drowning out the parties upstairs. Every time I see the ship fly towards that sun I think of our relentless mocking of Tom Paris and Harry Kim and I love my strange, odd, peculiar roommate more than I ever.
I never got in to Enterprise, and I've already said how I used to mock it, singing along to it with overt emotional displays. I thought it hokey (save for the amazing Mirror!verse opening). But today... yeah, it spoke to me today.
Because I walked across that stage. Despite troubles and near-misses, failures and disappointments, and years of self-doubt and loathing, I walked across that stage. I lost faith in myself, but I did keep going and I made it through. I may no longer be top of my class, third in my school. I'm not that at all any more. I don't have honours or distinction or possibly even the respect of any of my professors. I don't care. I have a Bachelor of Music, Minor in History. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what I want. But I have this achievement. I have this piece of paper. I have the opportunities this paper brings to me. I've got faith to believe I can do anything
So, thanks Star Trek, for all that guidance growing up. Thanks for uniting my family. Thanks for providing endless hours of amusement, of wonder, of imagination, for leaving no stone unturned, no problem unsolved, no fight abandoned. Thanks for being there all those times my dad was hospitalized, because Trek is the memory I keep of those times, not his sickness, his fraility, nor my own helplessness. Thanks for being there that terrible week before I found out I was graduating, for the determination in spite of horrific odds, the infallibility of character. For love, for loyalty, for trust, for the faith in a better tomorrow. They may be only fiction, but you know how you see on fandomsecrets how people draw strength from characters they do not want to disappoint? Sisko did that for me. It's stupid and cliched and cheesy, but he did. They all have. My whole life.
Summer 2010. Star Trek-a-thon. Let's party like it's the nineties, kids. Reboot can't have all the fun. :D
And thanks, Mom and Dad, for bringing me up a Trekkie.
Click to view*Errr...not so much. It was supposed it be. This is more like a manifesto. Like, what, self.