Introduction!

[melannen]

Hello everyone, and welcome to starry_sea! I'm still working on icons and layout and things (though if you would like to help or make icons, I would love the help.)

In the meantime, let's have introductions! Leave a comment here to let us know something about you and your relationship with Star Trek.

Here's some questions to get us started (not required, but fun):
1. Who are you? What are you looking for in this community?
2. How long have you been a Star Trek fan? How did you first become one? How would you describe your previous involvement with the fandom?
3. What do you consider part of your personal canon? What's your personal fanon?
4. For you, what is the most essential thing about Star Trek that makes it Star Trek to you?
5. If you could rec us only one book/episode/comic/movie, which would it be?
6. Link us to a fic, website, discussion post, or community - yours, or someone else's - that we should all check out.

I, your friendly mod, will start things off in the first comment. And will probably strain DW's comment limits in the process.

Comments

[melannen]

1. I'm your friendly mod melannen, and I started this community because I can't talk about Star Trek without talking about the books and animated series, and my admiration of the foresmutters, and other bits of my personal canon, and I realize that this may annoy people who are actually in it for the shows. :D

2. I've been a Star Trek fan since the Blizzard of '93, when I was ten and school was cancelled for two weeks, and I spent my mornings sitting on the couch in the den, watching TOS reruns with bad reception on the ancient dial television. My parents had always been fans, but when I was little I was terrified of the show and would go hide in the closet when the theme music came on, so that was when I actually fell for the show. I rapidly started reading all the books I could get my hands on, and taping episodes, and watching TNG. That phase only lasted about four years before I got annoyed at Voyager and DS9, but by then I'd already read nearly all the books that were out. I've wandered in and out of organized Trek fandom since then, but the parts that were active were never the parts that I was really passionate about, so I never really joined a community, but I've had lots of RL friends and family that I've bonded with over Trek.

3. My personal canon is, in order of priority, the Diane Duane and Diane Carey novels, the Original Series, the rest of the TOS novels up through about '93 or so, the first six movies, and the TNG episodes "Unification" and "Relics". I'm also down with the Mirrorverse and Reboot canon AUs. The rest of it I feel free to pick and choose from. My only important fanon is that by the time of the sixth movie, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy all have a bond that goes well beyond friendship and into soulbond territory. Oh, also, the Enterprise is a person, and all her crew is in love with her, and she loves them back.

4. Star Trek to me is about hope and aspiration. It has faith that nonviolence is always a viable option, and that good always triumphs over evil, as long as it is very, very careful. It believes in peace and prosperity, exploration and discovery, science and beauty, diversity for its own sake, the ultimate perfectability of humankind. It's a bright, shining hope, a great white bird spreading wings against the darkness. ...it is possible that I take Star Trek far too seriously.

5. You have to read The Wounded Sky. Diane Duane's novels in general, but if I had to pick only one, then The Wounded Sky would be it.

6. FTL Publications has a free online PDF of Boldly Writing, A History of Star Trek Zines 1967-1987. It includes, among other things, the complete text of the original Mary-Sue story.

[trouble]

Interesting. Whenever anyone has talked about the "original" Mary Sue story, they've always implied that it was written on purpose, not as a parody.

[melannen]

Yeah, that was the first way I heard about it too; but when you see the real thing, it was clearly done as parody. (It's possible that there was an actual mary-sue named mary-sue that she got the name from, but I've never seen a reference for it.{

[klangley56]

I realize this little conversation is eons old, in 'net terms, but I only now have gotten myself a Dreamwidth account . . .

No, Paula did not base her Mary Sue on another character with that name. I could ask her specifically, if you like, but I expect it's just that Paula, who has always been a *fiend* at parodies, found the name appropriate for her story.

Are you still doing introductions here?

[melannen]

Introductions are ongoing! I'll try to remind people periodically to check by this post, too.

The Mary Sue story is amazing. :D