The Valkyrie Directive

Ship of the Valkyries!

Ensign Hallie Kim Lt. Tamara Paris Chief Engineer B’Elanna Torres Ambassador Nelixia Lt. Cmdr. T’vok Captain Kathryn Janeway (accept no substitutes) Commander Chakotaya The Doctor Seven of Nine, born Annika Hansen Kes and honorary Voyager crewmember Lt. Regina “Reg” Barclay of the Pathfinder Project.

I was going to go with just the full swap, but Voyager was actually the best of the Treks about having an equal amount of ladies and gentlemen, and said ladies were so incredible that I couldn’t bear to exclude them. So I did two versions. The full swap is linked below.

Honestly, I would have left most of these names the same, but I tried to follow Vulcan/Klingon/Talaxian naming conventions, and Chakotay did say that Taya was the feminine version of his name.

Specifically, the fans on here who are interested in / read or write fic about the female Star Trek characters.

As some of you may already know, I am now a fledgling academic, in my final year of a BA in English Literatures, and I’m currently working on a research project about female-centred fic.

I already knew that, for my very first big research project, I wanted to focus on Star Trek female-centred fic, because quite frankly I think it’s fantastic, and I want my research to be on topics that are important and interesting to me. But when it came time to figure out what particular aspect of it I wanted to research and write about, I was a bit stumped – until I noticed a ‘trend’ in some of the lady-focused fic our community creates and shares. Namely, a subset of them involve 'domestic’ activities like knitting, gardening, going on holiday, hanging out in the holodeck, having drinks at Ten Forward/Quark’s, and so on. And I was like, huh, I wonder what’s going on with that? Voila, research topic found.

It’s taken me the better part of the last few weeks to realise/decide that this sub-section of fic is actually an, as yet unlabelled, subgenre – which in my paper I am going to be giving the label 'Homoaffection Fic’. I’m still narrowing down my definition, but so far I’m defining it as: Fan fiction that resists (so-called) “masculine” narrative/elements, which connects the “private sphere” with the notion of women liking women, in order to “feminise” the canon.

In other words: Fic that doesn’t have a “masculine” narrative or elements like action and conflict, which are typical of a normal Star Trek episode. Which takes place in the “private sphere”, i.e. non-work spaces (e.g. people’s quarters, holodecks, bars, restaurants, Risa, etc) in which domestic and/or “feminine” activities take place. And which depict positive relationships between women, whether platonic, romantic and/or sexual, which have a lack of conflict or a peaceful conflict resolution.

Having done all this preliminary research, it’s now time for me to actually do the reading and analysing fic part, and then write the paper – which is where you come in!

I’ve already been talking to the wonderful @cosmic-llin, asking her for fic recs and lamenting the lack of good academic articles about femslash, but considering this community is the one I’m focusing my paper on, it’s only proper that I ask all of you for your help in finding fic to make sure that I don’t miss any perfect examples!

Furthermore, I’m still trying to refine this definition, so I would like your help in doing so – by sharing recs with me, based on my definition above, you’ll actually be helping me to narrow down my definition. Even if you want to send me fic and say “Look it ticks two of the boxes, but not the third, but I still feel like it fits” that’s helpful to me! I think that Homoaffection Fic is something we can all recognise, even if we’ve never labelled it or grouped it together before now.

I know that fandom and academia haven’t always had the best of relationships – and rightly so, considering some of the stuff that’s gone down in the past! But I’m hoping to change that. I’m as much a fan of this stuff as you are, and the whole reason I’m writing a paper about this is because I think it’s super fascinating and want to shine a light on my own work and pleasures as well (the two fic I’ve published on AO3 both classify as Homoaffection Fic).

I will be asking permission from each fic writer to use their work in my paper – and want to clarify that this is only for a University assignment, and will only be read by my supervisor. However, that said, this paper could be the basis for published work in the future (I certainly hope so, because I’m sure there’s more I can say about this exciting topic!), so do let me know of any concerns you may have.

Over at Women in Fantastical Illustration on fb, a bunch of us took on the challenge of redesigning a female character, and I picked Seven of Nine!  You can see more examples of the challenge posted at Muddy Colors, io9, and Tor.

I decided to retain a lot about her appearance, from her hairstyle to the remaining cyborg implants on her hand, cheek, and eyebrow.  I also gave her the same build - though here, it’s not exaggerated by a corset, a shimmery skintight catsuit, high heels, and careful lighting/posing/framing, as on the show and promo for same, so it’s not as obvious.

This is the outfit she deserved.

For over a year I’ve been noticing and sometimes documenting the kinds of sexist, racist and homophobic comments that proliferate on the official Star Trek Facebook page (more examples of posts here).

And I kept hearing from followers: this is a serious issue and it needs to be addressed in an organized campaign.

Thanks to testimonials sent by many of you, and incredible help from some other Tumblr connections to screencap even more egregious examples (collected at this link), we’re ready to go.

Please click here to sign the petition to CBS and StarTrek.com, calling on them to work together to implement a comments policy that:

Clearly bans hate speech, rape jokes, and referring to women as a group by derogatory terms (e.g. “sluts”). As well, the policy should ban comments referring to groups of people by racial, homophobic, transphobic, or ableist slurs;

Disallows personal attacks against other commenters; and

Bans aggressive negative commenting on the personal appearance of other commenters and the posts’ subjects.

See here for additional supporting documents:

Examples of good comments policies from other sites

Fan testimonials on why the page needs to change

Collected screencaptured comments from a single two-week period on the page, categorized into Racism, Homophobia, Sexism, Rape Jokes, and Fan Responses & Comments

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I don’t think I’ve ever heard people talk about hating any of the main male characters, and yet it seems like every other day someone’s complaining about Kira or Ezri or Jadzia (JADZIA! FFS HOW COULD ANYONE HATE JADZIA!) - or one of the other Trek ladies in the other fandoms.

Kira’s a bitch. Ezri’s not as good as Jadzia. Jadzia’s immature. Keiko’s a nag. Lwaxana’s selfish and ‘oversexualised’.

What even IS this stuff people are spouting? What do they WANT the female characters to act like, is what I want to know!

People say they don’t show enough emotion.

People say they show too much emotion.

They’re never, EVER allowed to express any sort of negative emotion - especially not anger, anger is right out.

If a male character gets angry he’s a badass or we understand and sympathise with him. If a female character gets angry she’s a bitch or a nag or selfish or whiny or any of the other innumerable negative terms we use to describe women (because it’s always women, when’s the last time you’ve heard someone describe a male character as a nag? Or selfish. Or whiny. That’s right, probably never.).

It just seems like female characters are being scrutinised and judged for traits that people wouldn’t even think twice about if they belonged to male characters. 

I wonder if it’s the way the male characters react to these behaviours in female characters, that invites this scrutiny and judgement.

Someone already mentioned that the OP’s complaints (because that is not a bloody confession) were pretty much word for word what Worf complained about in the awful Let He Who Is Without Sin. And I can’t help but wonder if some of the negative reactions people have to Kira is due in part to the way ‘Bajoran women’ are introduced and stereotyped by male characters (such as Miles warning Sisko about Kira in the very first episode).

I just want to know why it is that male characters are allowed to express a range of emotions and remain relatively free of judgement, while female characters are freely disliked or hated.

Or am I oversimplifying things?

I'm actually struggling to think of any male characters that left any of the Trek shows - not including Data or Trip, as their pointless deaths occurred at the end of their respective series.

But the point still stands.

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I don’t think I’ve ever heard people talk about hating any of the main male characters, and yet it seems like every other day someone’s complaining about Kira or Ezri or Jadzia (JADZIA! FFS HOW COULD ANYONE HATE JADZIA!) - or one of the other Trek ladies in the other fandoms.

Kira’s a bitch. Ezri’s not as good as Jadzia. Jadzia’s immature. Keiko’s a nag. Lwaxana’s selfish and ‘oversexualised’.

What even IS this stuff people are spouting? What do they WANT the female characters to act like, is what I want to know!

People say they don’t show enough emotion.

People say they show too much emotion.

They’re never, EVER allowed to express any sort of negative emotion - especially not anger, anger is right out.

If a male character gets angry he’s a badass or we understand and sympathise with him. If a female character gets angry she’s a bitch or a nag or selfish or whiny or any of the other innumerable negative terms we use to describe women (because it’s always women, when’s the last time you’ve heard someone describe a male character as a nag? Or selfish. Or whiny. That’s right, probably never.).

It just seems like female characters are being scrutinised and judged for traits that people wouldn’t even think twice about if they belonged to male characters. 

I wonder if it’s the way the male characters react to these behaviours in female characters, that invites this scrutiny and judgement.

Someone already mentioned that the OP’s complaints (because that is not a bloody confession) were pretty much word for word what Worf complained about in the awful Let He Who Is Without Sin. And I can’t help but wonder if some of the negative reactions people have to Kira is due in part to the way ‘Bajoran women’ are introduced and stereotyped by male characters (such as Miles warning Sisko about Kira in the very first episode).

I just want to know why it is that male characters are allowed to express a range of emotions and remain relatively free of judgement, while female characters are freely disliked or hated.

Or am I oversimplifying things?

But I wonder if the way we/people in general look at his character is different to the way they'd look at another 'angry' character, like say Kira. I feel like, with Archer, we stop to go 'why IS Archer angry? this writing sure is poor in regards to his characterisation'.

Yet most of the complaints I read about Kira are 'what a bitch/she's always whining about Bajor' and other things of that nature.

I feel like I'd have to do some actual research to see whether this is just a perception on my part, or actually a reflection of how people talk/think about these characters.

And I know what you mean about the way Barclay, and some of the other male characters on TNG (like Geordi) are written in regards to their interactions with female characters is very problematic. But I also find the way characters interact with him very odd, as someone who deals with anxiety herself, I found the Enterprise quite lacking in terms of any sort of understanding about his mental health issues ... 

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I don't think I've ever heard people talk about hating any of the main male characters, and yet it seems like every other day someone's complaining about Kira or Ezri or Jadzia (JADZIA! FFS HOW COULD ANYONE HATE JADZIA!) - or one of the other Trek ladies in the other fandoms.

Kira's a bitch. Ezri's not as good as Jadzia. Jadzia's immature. Keiko's a nag. Lwaxana's selfish and 'oversexualised'.

What even IS this stuff people are spouting? What do they WANT the female characters to act like, is what I want to know!

People say they don't show enough emotion.

People say they show too much emotion.

They're never, EVER allowed to express any sort of negative emotion - especially not anger, anger is right out.

If a male character gets angry he's a badass or we understand and sympathise with him. If a female character gets angry she's a bitch or a nag or selfish or whiny or any of the other innumerable negative terms we use to describe women (because it's always women, when's the last time you've heard someone describe a male character as a nag? Or selfish. Or whiny. That's right, probably never.).

It just seems like female characters are being scrutinised and judged for traits that people wouldn't even think twice about if they belonged to male characters. 

I wonder if it's the way the male characters react to these behaviours in female characters, that invites this scrutiny and judgement.

Someone already mentioned that the OP's complaints (because that is not a bloody confession) were pretty much word for word what Worf complained about in the awful Let He Who Is Without Sin. And I can't help but wonder if some of the negative reactions people have to Kira is due in part to the way 'Bajoran women' are introduced and stereotyped by male characters (such as Miles warning Sisko about Kira in the very first episode).

I just want to know why it is that male characters are allowed to express a range of emotions and remain relatively free of judgement, while female characters are freely disliked or hated.

Or am I oversimplifying things?

"If there’s nothing wrong with me, maybe there’s something wrong with the universe" ~ Dr. Beverly Crusher

For the third installment of my Ladies of Star Trek Playlist Series, I present a musical tribute to Our Lady of the Flawless Cheekbones, Dr. Beverly Crusher. Listen Here

Tracklist: Laura Viers - Galaxies // Elbow - Teardrop // The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Open heart surgery // The Bird & The Bee - Polite Dance Song // Nick Drake - Cello Song // The Knife - We share our mothers’ health // Blue Boy - Remember Me // Grizzly Bear & Feist - Service Bell // The Velvet Underground - Pale Blue Eyes // Radiohead - Where I end and you begin // Mazzy Star - Fade Into you // Fiona Apple - The Way Things Are // Groove Armada - Remember

Hello,  I saw this ridiculous post and I figured you might be interested 

I’m really quite baffled as to the purpose of this article? ‘Bizarre facts’ - what does that mean exactly? What stance are the authors taking on the topic, are they saying basing an entire character around her cleavage was sexist or ridiculous? I honestly don’t think they have any stance at all, other than sharing these ‘tidbits’ of information. They neither celebrate nor condemn the decisions made by the producers, thus I don’t really understand the purpose at all.

Then again, they did include over a dozen pictures of Troi, including no less than nine in a row, so perhaps I’m overthinking things here and it’s simply a ‘yay boobs!’ “article” - in which case I’m rather offended that they even credited me for the images, because that is the exact opposite of what this blog is for.

The comments section really does confirm that it's just a flimsy excuse to share some pictures of Deanna's cleavage.

"That’s the one reason why I ran away. They are lost, defeated. I will never be."

I have completed the Ensign Ro mix that I was putting together in my head, though I decided against calling it “The life and times of Ensign Sasspants”. It follows her (all too short) character arc with “I’ll Stick Around” representing her reluctant arrival on the Enterprise and “Line of Fire” representing her joining the Maquis at the end of “Preemptive Strike”. Listen here

Track List

Foo Fighters - I’ll Stick Around // The Kills - Cat Claw // MS MR - Hurricane // Crazy Girl - The Rebel // Spoon - The Underdog // The Julie Ruin - Oh Come On // Liz Phair - 6’1 // Tegan and Sara - Walking with a ghost // Cults - Oh My God // Cat Power - Metal Heart // The Dandy Warhols - Burned // Junip - Line of Fire

Inspired by a wave of DS9 nostalgia a lot of other really great fanmixes, I created this Major Kira fanmix, Full Circle

"Kira has come full circle, but going full circle, she’s explored all the degrees all the way around the circle, so she’s pretty much in the same place, but not the same person at all. " Nana Visitor on Kira Nerys in a 1998 interview

Nico Vega - Fury Oh Fury // The Kills - Future Starts Slow // The Arcade Fire - Joan of Arc // Cat Power - Cross Bones Style // London Grammar - Strong // Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Gold Lion // Spoon - Got Nuffin // Other Lives - For 12 // Gil Scott Heron - Me and the Devil // Kari Kimmel - Black // Kasabian - Empire // Radiohead - You and Whose Army? // The Boxer Rebellion - Caught by the Light // Wilco - I am trying to break your heart // Fever Ray - I’m Not Done

Her first mix features my personal favourite character, Kira Nerys, and I defy anyone listening to this to not hear her and her story in these songs.