10 things you like about your fandom

[CoffeeCat]

This was a challenge I got of a livejournal blogger. Basically all you have to do is pick one of your pet fandoms and write a list of 10 things you like about it. I'm such a pessimist that I had to do this. My list(s) can be found here, but I just thought it would be interesting to see how other ppl respond to this. It doesn't have to be Enterprise (though, I imagine everyone will probably respond that way)

[evcake]

I'm up to five...

[JadziaKathryn]

Hmmm...

Enterprise
1. Tucker/T'Pol 'ship, excepting some of the excessive angst thrown in after T'Pol's marriage to Koss ended. It just felt right with the characters. It was a romance of a very different sort. Trinneer and Blalock were fantastic together.
2. Malcolm Reed. You just have to like a guy who says, "There are two settings, stun and kill. It'd be best not to confuse them."
3. Doctor Phlox. TPTB did a really good job of making him more than a token alien who is basically a made-up human. He was always alien - from the insanely long tongue to the face-puffing, from hibernating to multiple wives.
4. Tucker and Reed's friendship. I consider it one of Trek's best friendships, starting in "Shuttlepod One." Trinneer and Keating made it come to life so wonderfully, and it was generally well-written if a bit underutilized.
5. Fanfiction. This show has given rise to some of the best fanfiction on the web.

Voyager
1. B'Elanna Torres. While lapsing now and again into stereotype, overall I really enjoyed her character development and was drawn in by Dawson's performance. Subcategories here: Paris/Torres, my original 'ship, and the nature of her interactions with Seven of Nine, from sheer antagonism to their moving legacy discussion in "Imperfection."
2. Season 7. It was flawed, as all seasons are, but it was still great. Two highlights in particular - "Lineage": This episode packed an emotional punch for me that no other TV show has matched. "Critical Care": in the longstanding Trek tradition of tackling contemporary issues, this stands out as a long hard look at medical care.
3. Tuvok. He's smart. He's loyal to Janeway but not so loyal he's blind. He's subtley affected by the emotional species around him but remains fundamentally Vulcan. Subset here: his ever-amusing relationship with Neelix.
4. Seven of Nine. Yes, the catsuits were ridiculous, and yes, at times it became the Seven of Nine Show. All the same, I found the character to be fascinating, and the writers wisely let her develop slowly. (Stupid InstaRomance aside.) The whole idea of a liberated drone was a good one.
5. Really great lines. "I would prefer not to hear the life history of my breakfast." "Get the cheese to Sickbay!" "Oh boy, I get to begin my new career as a tricorder." Good stuff.

Well, this is only five each. It adds up to ten, and I'm supposed to read and take notes on two more chapters of The Expansion of England before I go to bed. But I look forward to reading what others say.

[Emberchyld]

I'll play for Enterprise:

1. The fans. We're incredibly international (Roddenberry would be proud) and diverse, we're supportive, we're not afraid to debate, we're (in the case of Enterprise) sometimes the underdogs, we're fun and a little bit goofy. We have great taste in television, books, and fanfiction You don't see that in a lot of fandoms.

2. The Xindi arc. They attacked Earth and carved up Florida (sorry Floridians). Ignoring the lame calling card point of the attack, it was awesome. It hit home, literally, and gave new life to the series.

3. The characters are like us-- they act like we would in the same situations. Instead of the far-removed-from-modern-humanity's "oh, space is so blase, I do this every day" attitude of the "later" Treks, the Enterprise crew finds everything so interesting... Trip and his camera had the touristy moment, there's still Xenophobia on Earth, and, like someone said, it's so easy to picture our grandchildren on Enterprise. They're human and relatable.

4. Of course, Trip and T'Pol. A real, nuanced relationship. Too bad some of the writers (and BnB) had a habit of screwing it up...

5. I babbled on about this at the Cherry Hill con, but they finally had a relatable (and hot) engineer. I belong to one of the uncoolest professions (there's no TV show about engineers-- we've got lawyers and doctors and cops and marketing people, but no one wants to see an engineer in action) Sorry to say about the other Treks, but: A. Scotty-- relatable (although TOS is from so long ago that he still fit something of the "old school" engineering stereotype. But for his time, he was very relatable), but not hot. B. Geordi. Wore a headband on his face. Never got the girl. His best friend was a robot. See my point? C. Miles O'Brien. Boring. But he had a cute kid. Honestly, how many people out there would say, "I want to be cool and be an engineer like O'Brien"? D. B'Elanna. I loved her character, but, sorry, she made us female engineers come across as b*tches. We can already get labeled as such, since we have to be tough in a male dominated environment, but I would think that by the 24th century, there wouldn't be that attitude. Yes, she was half Klingon, but all I saw was a female engineer who had to be tough and sometimes nasty to be good. And, finally: E. Trip. Normal. Guy-next-door with the normal girl trouble and hobbies and family. Brilliant but not an ass about it. Loyal, accident prone, shares a beer with his boss. Relatable. And hot. He's actually cool enough that I can see him inspiring people to go into engineering.

6. Seeing the birth of all of the Trek technology. I love their fear of the transporter, and how Hoshi felt about the ship jumping to warp in the beginning. (ooh,and the moment in Broken Bow when Malcolm pulls out the case with the new phase pistols and they all salivate over the cool new weapon)

7. Malcolm's motion sickness. As someone who gets incredibly motion sick at the slightest thing, it was nice to see that people of my ilk are even represented in space

8. Phlox. I love phlox. Phlox Rocks.

9. There are zippers on their uniforms. No offense to Gene Roddenberry, but stating that we eliminate all zippers and buttons and the like by the future is kind-of lame. I like zippers.

10. "They put the Ho back in Hoshi" and the rest of the MU romp

[evcake]

Oh...it's supposed to be what you like about the series?

That's easy. In no particular order:

Spock
T'Pol
Trip
Phlox
Soval
EMH
Data
McCoy
Sarek
Alien of the Week (arcs can be carried too far, and frequently are, IMO)

and many other things...

[CoffeeCat]

Here's one for ST:TNG - because I love a challenge

1) Worf - the original shit-beater character. Before him there were only red shirted ensigns, but TNG was smart enough to invent one "red shirt" who was more like a timex - takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'.

2) Captain Picard - OK. so he also seemed very uppity at times, but the more I think about him, the more I can appreciate his command style and the fact that he wasn't some flashy show off like a good portion of all the other Trek Captains.

3) Ten Forward - The Enterprise had a barroom, not a stinkin' mess hall. And they have a nice bartender.

4) Data - he was fully functional and anatomically correct.

5) The Borg - remember when they were scary as hell?

6) Doctor Crusher & Tasha Yar - because they were smart, female, and on Star Trek all at the same time!

7) "Shut up, Wesley!" - Yes, this line was actually very frequent during the first few seasons.

8. Whenever Picard was emotionally scarred, they dealt with the issue and never left it up to fanfic writers.

9) Deanna's mother - I thought it was funny as hell whenever she'd come on to Captain Picard.

10) Whenever Data lost his head...

[Linda]

I am only part of one fan group, one board, one site to post my fiction - this one! So I have nothing to compare it to as far as other TV shows or fandoms. I just don't have time to get involved in more than one!

Ten things. Well...

Vulcans. What a great fictional species! None of the other fictional species interest me as much.

Other fan fic writers whose stories I love to read and inspire me to write my own stories.

Characters that make your heart bleed - probably because of the great acting. Thanks, actors! Especially Connor.

Great lines, like those of Soval: "Not quite the warm welcome you expected, Captain?"

Planetscapes - especially the alien cityscapes.

Ships and space stations - all the creative designs.

Battles in space. Exciting.

Vulcans

And more Vulcans

And did I mention Vulcans?

[Rigil Kent]

This is difficult for me because, as I try to list the things I like about the show, I realize that there is a whole lot that I don't like. As much as I hate to admit it, the cons seem to outweigh the pros (which explains why I'm slowly drifting away from Trek in general and, frankly, beginning to lose interest in it.) Any attempt to state what I liked about the show/fandom will inevitably be tainted by addendums (ala "I like the idea of T'Pol but not the ridiculous Sidekick!Polly BS, or the equally inane Sex!Bunny nonsense, or how they repeatedly assassinated her character in order to exalt Archer's", etc.) Seeing as to how I always seem to piss someone off when I make a comment any more, I abstain.

[Linda]

This may be OT, Rigil, but if you are drifting away, do you have some interest that is replacing ST? You seem to have put so much time and effort into ST with your writing and all, will there just be a void for awhile? Of course, your college courses must take up a lot of your time...

[CoffeeCat]

Ah don't worry about it, Rigil. I'm pretty sure my list of cons is just as big. But with me, the more nit picks I can find in a fandom, the easier it is for me to write in it for some odd reason.

But I did become that discouraged once during Voyager's run, so I took a break from it and started toying in the Red Dwarf fandom. If you're still coming up with plot-bunnies for the fandom, I'd keep on writing them down and not give up entirely. Just give it a rest and come back when and if you're ready.

But *PLEASE* don't give up writing. Find another fandom or do some original work.

So back OnTopic, here's a list for Red Dwarf:

1. I LOVE the entire cast. Some more than others, but over all there isn't a single character on the show that aggravates that crap out of me (unlike my other fandoms)
2. It doesn't take itself seriously - it's a parody of all sci fi - it's even a parody of itself
3. If I were to make a crossover with any other series, Red Dwarf characters would win every time (well- perhaps they'd be in for some real conflict if ever crossed with Pirates of the Caribbean)
4. Writing RD fanfic is a big challenge because the characters are actually rather complex and sometimes unpredictable (in a good hysterical way)
5. Each season is distinct in tone - you can pop in an episode and tell which season you're watching after seeing only 1 scene.
6. Even the stinkie episodes are funny.
7. After 8 seasons, they never had an alien appear on the show. No, not once.
8. Most conflict on the show came directly from the character flaws in the main cast. The whole thing was character driven.
9. Funny recurring aliases such as Dwayne Dibley, Ace Rimmer and Fearless!Lister(tm) from Polymorph.
10. Kryten was a convincing AI, he was *not* anatomically correct and he had spare parts (he'd carry on conversations with his "spare heads") - and he was just funny as hell when Kochanski came on board and became jealous of her.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

I will list things from ENT. Like Rigil I do have reservations for most of these points but I'll ignore those here and focus on the positive. Come to think of it, since I'm a born critic I can find faults with almost anything, even things I really like. But here goes...

Ten things I like about ENT:

• 1. T'Pol
  I love that we finally get to see a female Vulcan explored. She's smart, beautiful, nerdy and her introverted persona (she's a Vulcan) appeals to me.
• 2. Trip
  I really like that they made a human everyman character one of the main characters. He's very likeable and one you can easily relate to. I can imagine becoming best friends with him.
• 3. Trip/T'Pol
  What can I say, they're the reason I'm here. The first fictional couple I've seriously "shipped" for. Amazing chemistry that just oozes from the screen.
• 4. Jolene Blalock
  My God, this woman is pure perfection. A very underrated actress that played T'Pol excellently.
• 5. The prequel setting
  I'm bored stiff with the "evolved" and "perfect" 24th century Trek and it was refreshing to go back in time and see how it all started.
• 6. Real characters
  This era is populated with people that are more like you and me and thus they seem more real. They think and act human, not boring saints in paradise. I might add the alien characters too, like Soval, Shran, Phlox and Degra.
• 7. The Aliens
  Seeing more Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites etc. was great. I've missed those species and seeing them fleshed out with more background was great. I even liked the new Xindi aliens.
• 8. Story arcs
  Mostly the show tried to stay consistent with itself, having multiple storylines develop and characters change. I'm thankful they didn't just do the usual self-contained alien-of-the-week episodes.
• 9. The ship
  Yes, I really liked the look of the NX-01, both internal and external. None of the squeaky clean luxury liner look. With few exceptions I don't like the saucer-and-nacelles design, but NX-01 is such an exception.
• 10. SFX
  The special effects and CGI were just mind-blowingly amazing.

[Asso]

I will list things from ENT. Like Rigil I do have reservations for most of these points but I'll ignore those here and focus on the positive. Come to think of it, since I'm a born critic I can find faults with almost anything, even things I really like. But here goes...

Ten things I like about ENT:

• 1. T'Pol
  I love that we finally get to see a female Vulcan explored. She's smart, beautiful, nerdy and her introverted persona (she's a Vulcan) appeals to me.
• 2. Trip
  I really like that they made a human everyman character one of the main characters. He's very likeable and one you can easily relate to. I can imagine becoming best friends with him.
• 3. Trip/T'Pol
  What can I say, they're the reason I'm here. The first fictional couple I've seriously "shipped" for. Amazing chemistry that just oozes from the screen.
• 4. Jolene Blalock
  My God, this woman is pure perfection. A very underrated actress that played T'Pol excellently.
• 5. The prequel setting
  I'm bored stiff with the "evolved" and "perfect" 24th century Trek and it was refreshing to go back in time and see how it all started.
• 6. Real characters
  This era is populated with people that are more like you and me and thus they seem more real. They think and act human, not boring saints in paradise. I might add the alien characters too, like Soval, Shran, Phlox and Degra.
• 7. The Aliens
  Seeing more Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites etc. was great. I've missed those species and seeing them fleshed out with more background was great. I even liked the new Xindi aliens.
• 8. Story arcs
  Mostly the show tried to stay consistent with itself, having multiple storylines develop and characters change. I'm thankful they didn't just do the usual self-contained alien-of-the-week episodes.
• 9. The ship
  Yes, I really liked the look of the NX-01, both internal and external. None of the squeaky clean luxury liner look. With few exceptions I don't like the saucer-and-nacelles design, but NX-01 is such an exception.
• 10. SFX
  The special effects and CGI were just mind-blowingly amazing.

I did want to quote entirely this because these words are absolutely perfect and exact.
I feel these words as my own.