(no subject)

[dreamwitch]

I am a horrible lazy no-good person. Ugh, finals week, uuuuugh. It really wouldn't be so bad, except I should've done transcription of a bunch of voice-recorded interviews weeks ago and put it off, and guess what, it takes FOREVER and I think I'm even slower 'cause I'm always listening to things 4-5 times to get it super-perfect/correct and I can't help it. What concerns me here is that it's like, representative (in theory) of anything that wouldn't come 'naturally' straight out of my head, like your average English paper does: this can only be done by sweating it out, and guess what, it's the thing that might've cost me this quarter, easy as pie. I'm not too thrilled with my performance re: the transcription issue. I mean, what performance? Though I already handed in the paper, I only wrote it based on maybe 8% of the whole of transcription I was supposed to do. :/ So now I've got two more nights to finish the other 92% and I've a headache and want to sleep. :/ Sigh.

Even more hilarious is the idea of 'self evaluations' that are supposed to be super-positive about yourself. I mean, um. How am I supposed to do *that*. :/


As usual, though, when it's exactly the wrong time, I've experienced a rebirth in my fannish self, thanks to discordiana (...who ships K/B), hehe. Nu!Kirk/nu!Spock epics (recs if you have any?), pls, with a side-order of annoyance and discord. ♥. But really I can't *blame* anything on that. It just was... convenient. Also, I've realized breaks are absolutely the *wrong* thing for me. I mean, small 3-4 day/long weekend breaks? Yeah. Week-long breaks just before the final push of the whole quarter? Just long enough to get me out of the groove of actually working. Not cool.


I've also realized bookshop was right when I was complaining madly about HP and how much I hated fandom & wanted to leave (hahaha IT WAS 2005 AHAHAHAHAAHHA). Even more hilariously, I know I've been saying that since '04, maybe even '03. Anyway, Aja said that basically fandom's the one who won't leave me even if I stop talking to everyone, basically, 'cause it's a pov/method, and it's truuuue. It's funny 'cause I basically hate 'fandom' 45-75% the time, but I definitely absolutely love it 25% of the time.

We were talking in class earlier about how academic lit study never really addresses emotional response, and how people, y'know, actually relate to literature. No duh. We were also talking about how different and deeply enriched one's understanding of any text becomes upon discussion in a community of readers vs one's own solitary perception upon reading, and no matter how a class tries to emulate such a community through discussion, the bottom line is that we can never be fandom, where people are there because they want to engage, they're invested, and they genuinely have something to contribute-- it matters to them already, or they wouldn't be there. In class, so many people are just taking up space, or don't care/connect to the some of the work at all. For a person who loves discussing literature (like myself) and is most comfortable, in the end, on the emotional-response level first and analytical meta second (like myself), while an English class may be fun and challenging, fandom is my absolute ideal environment, except when it's not, y'know, haha, since there's the rabid anti-meta faction, and then in the meta faction there's the rabid anti-canon faction, and rarely do the twain ever meet, etc.

At many points in the class, I was thinking about how this or that related to fandom and/or was relevant, and it sucked to not be able to share that with fandom. A lot of times people complained about something (in the current state of social interaction with texts/media) that fandom 'fixes' or answers, when they thought there was only entropy & decline. Basically, I think fandom is in fact one of the most fascinating and encouraging and positive aspects of the glut of brainless monstrosity that is modern pop culture. I used to think it only made sense to 'outgrow' fandom at one point, but you know what, it would be really sad if I did. It really would be.

Comments

[cellia.livejournal.com]

To be fair, all of the cast except for Uhura seem to be doing unprofessional things that should prevent them from being in their position.

Oh true true. It just irks me more with nu!Kirk. Original Kirk broke the rules all the time too, but never in ways that made me think he'd be a bad commander. I think he does look a little before he leaps though, so maybe he's less your ideal in that way? I have no love for a *leader* who leaps w/out looking though. Just irresponsible aggrandizement imho. I liked the idea that (like Naruto) there were somne leaps of faith, but they were actually calculated gambles. These guys just had the guts to risk a lot more than many would.

I just see nothing original in any way with nu!Kirk. They even almost systematically actively destroyed so many of my favorite non-manpain cliches about old!Kirk. Now he's all a ~rebel who didn't work his butt off at the academy (studying and actually working hard within the system is for ~~losers amirite?). God, wasn't Kirk's original tragic past of surviving the Kodos massacre as a teen enough? And they made him an only child and gave him ~daddy issues. ugh + yawn

Nu!Kirk's kobayashi maru felt more like straight-up cheating and less like outside the box problem solving. Sorry, but if you go the ~~such a ~~rebel, no ~~repect for Starfleet/the man... WTF is he doing trying to be a Starfleet officer. Of course because there's a total logic wall between nu!Kirk's ~~rebel, fightin-the-Man status and actually working well with others in a command structure, they had to write a totally contrived way of him becoming captain that is even more offensive to anyone anti-Authority, because it all came down to Pike just ~~liking him.

haha I have more thoughts and passion about this than I realized. I did enjoy seeing the movie... but it did kinda take a shit on so many cool things about the original series, and had, like *no* gutsy progressivism in it comparable to TOS's women officers, and racial and international mix.

I tried reading some of the newer fics, but, eh. Some of my fav older fics are actually very plot-heavy. The world-building in nu!Trek is so weak and almost-offensive that I wouldn't be surprised that if it didn't lead people to fics that explored it. (The future isn't what it used to be etc etc... or maybe the future they made for nu!Trek is *too* disturbingly like it was in 1960... but LESS progressive)

*sprews fangirl hate and ~feelings*

[godspoodle.livejournal.com]

...just as a note.... as far as I know, cheating on the Kobayashi Maru is old canon...? I've heard it of yonks and yonks ago, anyway. :)

[cellia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was always canon that he reprogramed, but in original flavor it really did feel less like cheating-cheating imho, if that makes any sense (I mean, we only had it alluded to, but...). It's more a mood/tone issue. nu!Kirk eating the apple was all about being all annoyingly not-taking-this seriously/ too cool for school. It felt more about "beating the test, which is lame haha I'm such a ~badboy" than "no I truly do not believe in no win scenarios, I will save people, because we are talking lives here in RL, and also I'm a little bit of a maverick." And the actual dialog/event progression really rubbed me the wrong way too in that scene, though I can't remember exactly why now.

tl;dr breakdown: my feeling was that nu!Kirk did what he did because he didn't respect the system and is a ~rebel, old!Kirk respected the system so much, he responded to it in a genuinely honest/brilliant way.

[godspoodle.livejournal.com]

Hm... I see what you're saying, though it's sort of iffy 'cause it's a subjective issue, I think? So it's hard to say definitively, for instance, that the old Kirk was 'working within the system', or in fact that the new Kirk wasn't at least significantly partly motivated by the desire to defeat 'destiny' & save lives (certainly, his past/father dying indicates he'd have motivation to beat similar odds). Personally I was more miffed he depended on Gaila to hack the computers (I think? not sure). I see what you mean-- an apple definitely indicates insouciance-- but I think young!Jim was always a lot rawer/more brash in my mind, and in some tie in novels I read. :> He can't possibly *start out* all balanced and command-material from the get-go like, that'd just be too easy/boring as far as narrative, and no one's perfect (Jim especially). And I think the movie just ran with that, but the kernel was always there in the character, methinks.

I sort of don't think old Kirk was playing *against* the system, but neither was he playing explicitly *by* its rules with the Kobayashi Maru-- he was obviously bending the rules, as he often did, yet within acceptable limits (since he got away with it, as he pretty much always did). But him getting away with it doesn't indicate he was operating within set parameters, just that he had the talent of shifting parameters just enough that his charisma/talent could carry him through the rest of the way. Not too much, in other words. I definitely think he pushed the envelope with Kobayashi Maru the whole time, though, and I doubt his motivation was respect for the system; I mean, this is a 20-22 year old guy, asking that's probably unrealistic anyway, command material or no. Kirk had no business getting command, but he wasn't *that* much more raw/hard-edged than you can imagine him being in the original universe-- that's 10+ years of experience in the lower ranks we're missing. I mean, he got 'battlefield promoted'-- which actually happens in wartime/crisis situations-- which the original Kirk didn't. The system also worked for old Kirk in a way it didn't (father died, no one cared, etc).

I mean, nu!Kirk's definitely a young punk, or whatever. And I agree that in my mind, old!Kirk 'beat' the test because he genuinely just couldn't take the odds as they stood, and he had this 'saving people thing', and I'm sure a healthy bout of ego, whereas nu!Kirk wasn't *as* genuine. But it was still pretty genuine-- the affect (I think) is the major difference, and that Gaila helped, and that Spock programmed it in the first place. I think the affect is hard to compare, since we've never met a young enough old!Kirk. I would guess he was still brash (all fiery leaders are at least somewhat egoistical/brash in their youth, even Picard), but not as confrontational. On some level I think nu!Kirk isn't Starfleet material, but I also think it's obvious they need him, as he's still brilliant, and this is still the early days of the Federation and they're also in crisis mode 'cause of the Romulans. In a way, giving him command is a way of actually putting him on the fast track to maturity-- responsibility stabilizes people like nu!Kirk. Plus Spock is there to spank him.

[godspoodle.livejournal.com]

I guess it's just I always thought that Jim was we saw him must've been the product of some inner journey. I don't think he ever believed in the *system* of the Federation/Starfleet so much as he believed in the most lofty/highest ideals of this system-- he believed in it in ways I don't think most Starfleet officials did, really. You see that Jim is driven by ideals often in the series, but you don't really see it contrasted with the pure systematic limitations of a military hierarchy that much-- 'cause Jim had to basically be free to keep exploring, so they couldn't very well court martial him for real. I think it's mostly luck that he got off the amount of times he did (even in the old series), though. I think Jim was the best of Starfleet-- he believed in its cause whole-heartedly, rather than feeling bound by 'the rules'; so when (rarely) Starfleet's rules contradicted his own values/ideals, he broke Starfleet regs before he broke his own values-- as with movie 3. He actually faces the fact that this Starfleet official telling him he can't go after Spock *is* a part of the system in a way Jim isn't, and that's okay with Jim 'cause it's *Spock*. But the rules-for-the-sake-of-rules doesn't really mean much to Jim, I think.

[discordiana.livejournal.com]

lol I really love new Kirk a whole lot but your whole description of him is so hilarious. I also think a lot of people see him exactly like that, except they LIKE IT. I don't even know. Am I deluding myself?

I just feel the character is better -- I've heard fangirls say he subverted Kirk's machismo (??? Kirk isn't a macho so far in the episodes I saw) but to me it sort of was the opposite. It subverted the whiny pseudo-badass woobie by calling back to the stereotype but having so many little touches that made him different. For example I don't think they made him out to be such a misunderstood victim, he's actually annoying and crass in the scene in the bar. And he's pretty obviously a baby alpha man, which is interesting when you mix it with the adorableness. I see him as someone who is neither insecure!!!! neither a stereoype of a self-confident stoic buff. He's v. self-confident but not buff. I really like my interpretation of him which is that he needs Starfleet and a purpose rather than someone's approval and luv, which is so boring and I think, was deflected. Also Uhura shot him down. So that's why I like him.

BUT I actually also agree that what you described is a part of the character -- I guess there are two sides of him, one which is stereotyped and full of manpain and the things that balance it out and bring the character back to something that feels real to me wtr leaping without looking. It's a delicate balance so it's easy to mess it up.

You know I'm with you on this, why do so many characters need the TRAGIC CHILDHOOD and the MENTOR AUTHORITY who likes them best and be a REBEL WITH A HEARTH OF GOLD. I feel this annoyance is more about the context than the movie itself which becomes more obvious because it's got the backdrop of an original series made in a different context.

Though I don't think he's a rebel actually.

I was hoping the next movie had more focus on the ensemble cast, teamwork, world-building and themes but I'm not holding my breath.

[discordiana.livejournal.com]

You know I'm with you on this, why do so many characters need the TRAGIC CHILDHOOD and the MENTOR AUTHORITY who likes them best and be a REBEL WITH A HEARTH OF GOLD. I feel this annoyance is more about the context than the movie itself which becomes more obvious because it's got the backdrop of an original series made in a different context.

Ok, moment of lolling irl, because Naruto also has a TRAGIC CHILDHOOD and many MENTORING ADULTS/AUTHORITIES who like him best though he's not a rebel. So for a moment I was like, what the fuck is going on here, before I remember why he's not boring and deserving of a punch in the face.

But, funny. Especially since you were also talking about him.