let's go to the stars

you will never catch me complaining about an actress on a tv show having an imperfectly concealed pregnancy or a character going on a sudden trip somewhere while her actress is on maternity leave. so many actresses (and women working in any other field) are fired, punished and pressured into making reproductive decisions for their employers' convenience & if i have to try a bit harder to suspend my disbelief then that's absolutely what i'm going to do if it means people are getting to exercise reproductive & bodily autonomy without punishment

My favorite writing of this was how Star Trek DS9 handled Nana Visitor's pregnancy. It felt out of character for her character (Kira Nerys) to get pregnant and it's the semi-utopian future, so presumably birth control works quite well and abortions are easily available. Solution: another female character gets pregnant, is injured in an emergency situation, and Kira agrees to act as surrogate. They effectively wrote this entire story line well enough, with implications for the dynamics between Kira and the biological parents, that I didn't realize until later that the actress was actually pregnant. I thought it was just an interesting plot line.

My only gripe with the entire storyline - and I do mean ONLY - is that her decision would have made an amazing episode in of itself. It would have had to be filmed in the weeks immediately following her telling the producers and writers that she had a baby on the way so that she wasn't showing yet (and then held on to until she was showing to slot it into the correct part of the timeline), but the idea of being stuck on a runabout with an injured Keiko, a doctor who CAN do the procedure but has to be convinced that she fully understands the risks she is taking and have her say "Yes, actually, I do understand and fully consent, because I care about these people and so do you" would have been AMAZING.

speaking of garak’s political career, ”legate damar died in my arms” is pretty unbeatable as a conversation ender. he could keep pulling that card for the rest of his life

Like a big, scaly, scary kukalaka who shrieks like a tea kettle and dresses like a fruit salad 🥹🥹