vitasaurus

i can believe claudia's ghost would throw slurs at another Black person that she hated. i can believe she would say those specific things to Louis to hurt him! if this happened in s1, i would say "yikes" and move on, trusting that the writers knew what they were doing with it and that it didn't just happen for the sake of it.

not so much seeing it in s3, which has consistently elevated its white characters above its characters of colour, has shown NO awareness of literally anything but the most basic white girl feminism ("justice for antoinette") (which ALSO pushes down the Black characters simultaneously by saying that Louis/Claudia's experience of Antoinette was "shrinking" her lmfao?!), has given no care or depth to the social issues it does depict (incest, sexual abuse, power imbalances) and instead glosses over them or depicts them humorously, has chosen "it's Lestat's story" as an excuse to retcon the narrative of the two Black abuse victims we saw in s1 in favour of exonerating Poor Misrepresented Lestat...

in light of all that, Claudia's entire rant just feels... lazy? like a slap in the face? "I liked Lestat better btw" was particularly dogshit to me. I can imagine her saying that just to hurt Louis, but given everything else about this season, it feels much more like the writers saying "See! Lestat wasn't that bad actually!" and yeah, you can argue that us seeing Lestat's POV does not mean that Louis/Claudia's ISN'T true, but... the narrative is kind of treating it like it is?? Because so far we haven't had Louis go "Actually, no, that's not how I remember it" in response to any of Lestat's "corrections" (partly because they've barely been onscreen together lol. there isn't really the opportunity for it) so it's just like. All we have is what the show is actually showing us. Which so far has been "Lestat wasn't an abuser, Claudia was a liar and Louis was crazy". Sighs.

Idk man. Usually I would say "let the tale seduce you, trust the writers here" but I do not think that 6 episodes in out if 7 they're somehow going to make everything better in retrospect. Yknow??

like it starts with sharing passwords and whatnot, but then they have the keys to each others' rooms. grace is glued to her side like they're conjoined twins. she brings him along to meetings to science translate like he's her emotional support dog. he brings her lunch because she always forgets. they both fall asleep working in one office or lab or another all the time.

eventually they straight-up form their own way of communication. grace can say something on the same level of incomprehensible as "carl and i made a baby" and stratt will respond with some obscure hand gesture, and both of them will completely understand. they hold entire conversations like that. one day ilyukhina pops her head in the door to ask grace a question, witnesses this, and wordlessly backs away. she'll ask dubois.

there's a betting pool going on on whether they're hooking up, but one day someone finds out that grace is aroace or something, and it becomes immediately and violently clear that something much more concerning is going on with them.

because on one hand, narratively, it’s an important piece of establishing the character of Benjamin Sisko - it tells us where he comes from and what kind of family raised him. the family restaurant situates him in a particular historical and cultural context by showing us that the Creole food he cooks on the station is something he and his son quite literally inherited and is part of a continuation of Creole culture in New Orleans centuries ahead of the here and now. it is the antithesis of Star Trek’s usual watered-down and whitewashed approach to various Earth cultures, where established characters of color are stripped of their culture in order to fit into the homogeneous Human.jpg box Star Trek likes to put its human characters in to contrast with the aliens of the week - all under the guise of equality. textbook allegorical storytelling. what sets Sisko apart from this tendency is that he is not just a Starfleet captain who happens to be Black, he is explicitly written as a Black American captain whose identity and family history is deeply rooted in the legacy of his ancestors. on this hand, Sisko’s Creole Kitchen is a vessel of cultural preservation.

and on a sort of different hand, Sisko’s Creole Kitchen is a very clear example of community-based food sovereignty on a post-capitalist Earth. on this Earth, Joseph serves his patrons without any expectation of compensation for his and his kitchen staff’s labor, which means that he’s likely not paying for anything that allows him to keep running the restaurant. might seem a bit contrary to the whole concept of a restaurant, but that’s what i’m trying to get at, here.

in a future where every starship and probably most homes are equipped with replicators that can create pretty much anything for you, farms and restaurants and even the act of cooking might seem a bit redundant. so why continue those traditions at all?

well, the concept of a restaurant in the world of today is, essentially, to eat a meal that you don’t have to prepare for yourself, as well as for chefs to share cultural ties through food and creativity with others. it’s both a time-saver for consumers and a platform for culinary art. but it also commodifies food, the act of cultivating it, the act of consuming it and the act of making it.

in a post-scarcity society, where, presumably, no one is required to work long hours at the expense of their physical and mental health just to keep a roof over their head, everyone should, in theory, have enough time to put as much effort as they choose into preparing their own food. of course, cooking is not everybody’s particular love or strong suit, so the appeal of restaurants as access to good, fresh food remains.

Our Man Bashir (ST:DS9 season 4, episode 10)

But between Claudia calling Louis nappy headed, a slave, and how she hated her rapist less... It's like... Surely we had better lines to convey her hatred of him?

100% valid in hating the man that brought you to your suck ass second life (and afterlife). But those particular comments, and that Lestat glazing... I just... It reminds me of how white folk think racism is just slurs and insults, and so that's what's "hurtful".

we didn’t see any shots of lestat’s head in the bowling bag. we saw him burn, but it was portrayed as comical. we did not see bruce as he died, we did not see lestat get torn up by the wolves, we did not watch nicki die. in the majority of the scenes where a white character is injured, the action is cut away, out of frame, out of focus, mostly implied.

so uh guess what i watched

and then grace very gently corrects him but also crucially makes fun of him the entire time.

rocky: (peeved) how would rocky know this crazy science wrong and dumb? relativity also crazy science but is real!

grace: haha... but seriously though. its not remotely the same. (twenty minute rant about how people conflating the two is actually a VERY serious issue back on earth)

rocky, being inquisitive, keeps researching and soon finds out that bringing up his new pseudoscientific discoveries & pretending to be fully earnest about it all is probably one of THE easiest ways to drive grace up the wall. needless to say he exploits this tactic to no end.

rocky: i do research. grace is jerk all make sense now. astrology birth chart say taurus with ascendant leo very ambitious. strong opinion, independent thinker. also big ego. easily bruised if criticized.

grace: ... i know youre trolling and this is all bullshit and yet somehow it affects me.

rocky: moon in gemini also very insightful!

grace: dude im begging you to stop. what do i have to do to get you to stop.

rocky: math is sound... stars and planets no lie. opposition between moon and saturn responsible for grace emotional constipation! ohh, grace also have difficult relationship with guardian in early life, expect neglect and rejection from others, is all coming together now...