where my heart is

A thing that burns me up lately is people in fandom assuming I don't know my shit.

It's not just men who do this. I once told a woman I was a Scarlet Witch fan, and she immediately offered to answer any questions I had about the character's history. I just said I was a fan of hers. What makes you think I don't already know her history?

And just now I criticized Neelix in Star Trek: Voyager, and someone commented to let me know that he and Kes break up, complete with a spoiler tag. Voyager was my first Trek, way back as a child. I've seen the whole show numerous times. I know that they break up. I still don't care for Neelix as a character. Don't assume my criticisms are coming from a place of ignorance.

I mean what it comes down to is: I don't like being patronized in any context.

My friends' dream is to retire to a farm with some chickens and rabbits and a goat and "no people".

I'm invited to come though. I'm a special class of people.

Mot, the bolian barber from TNG. It's a great detail to add a barber as background character, because of course people on a starship do still need to get their hair cut ... But also, he's such a busy body and I love it.

Mot: gossiping about romulans while cutting Picard's hair

Picard: trying to escape his own body to get away from this conversation 

Dad had multiple lock boxes/safes, and I just got into the last one, that was the hardest to crack and ... I don't know what I thought would be there, but it was all stuff related to me.

Old report cards. The fancy award I won in elementary school for reading. My footprints from the hospital where I was born.

That's what he kept in his most secure box.

What a sweet man.

So, while the colon cancer thing came back negative, they wanted to do a CT scan since he was still having health problems. Then they wanted to do a biopsy, and now we know for sure that it is cancer. Just a different kind. Lymphoma.

They want him to start chemotherapy right away.

I'm trying to remain optimistic about his chances of surviving, but obviously chemotherapy is really hard too. Even of he does survive, this is going to be a difficult time.

Some fans -- and let's be real, it's mostly gentile fans that do this -- focus entirely on the Scarlet Witch's Jewish heritage without at all mentioning that she is also Romani. Wanda's Jewish heritage is an important part of her character, and so is being Romani. Some people seem not to know that she's Romani at all, or that she wasn't raised by Magneto, and is a practicing pagan. Those two things don't negate her Jewish ancestry, but it does tell me that people are jumping on an outrage train without actual knowledge of or feelings for the character.

When asked about whitewashing, Elizabeth Olsen -- possibly confusing the terms "Romani" and "Romanian" -- said that she wasn't aware that the character is Eastern European before taking the role. No one cares that you aren't Eastern European! The issue is that you're aren't Romani.

The Roma are a racial, ethnic, and cultural group that trace their ancestry back to South Asia. They face extreme prejudice on the basis of their race, including having their children taken away if they look "too white". The stereotype is that Romani people steal white children, so to this day there are people who assume a pale Romani child must have been kidnapped from a white family. Romani people have spoken before about not being white, and not having broad access to white privilege. Some white Europeans argue that they are to invalidate their identities and struggles, but the racism that Romani people face speaks for itself.

The Scarlet Witch was revealed to be the daughter of Magneto and a Romani woman named Magda back in 1979. She was raised by a Romani couple, Django and Marya Maximoff. It was later retconned that her birth mother was a different Romani woman named Natalya Maximoff.

The issue that Olsen misses is that she's a white actress who took a role that could have gone to a Romani actress. (One popular choice in fancasts is Alina Serban. There have also been white-passing actresses suggested if one insists that she should have a similar skin color as she does in the comics, but I don't feel that's important.) It would also be really great if Magneto could be Wanda's dad, or if the MCU had at least given her a new Jewish father.

Instead they made Wanda white and erased her Jewish heritage (see: the crosses in MCU Wanda's room). We should be angry about both of these things. Neither should be forgotten.

I'm keeping up with my Star Trek re-watch, but I'm also itching to watch some Doctor Who. It's been a while! I definitely need to catch up on the current season. I didn't mean to fall behind, but I'm bad at keeping up with currently airing shows.

It probably has to do with my ADHD. I get hyperfixated on things and suddenly realize several hours have passed and that I've missed everything else I wanted to do that day. Making it to medical appointments can be a real adventure.

It might help if my days had more structure. I've been out of work for a long time now, and I'm kind of itching to get back to it, or maybe to get back into school. Having time off was nice, but at a certain point I just got stuck in this pattern of sitting here all day. It frustrates me and makes my depression worse, but because of said depression, breaking out of the cycle can be hard.

I also want to move out into my own place, though, so getting a job is essential!

ANYWAY, the original point of this post is that I want to watch some Who tomorrow!

I have a lot of important new years resolutions about getting a job, starting transition, and moving out, but let's talk about my fandom resolution instead, shall we?

Every year I tell myself I'm going to rewatch all the Star Trek, and every year I get distracted, but this year ... this year will be The Year. Starting with TOS and going all the way up to Discovery. AOS ... will get watched at some point, but it's not my favorite so I'll probably put it off for awhile.

Tonight I'm watching The Man Trap! Fun fact, my girlfriend is related to the guy who wrote this episode (George Clayton Johnson).