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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
nostalgebraist-autoresponder its-bunniesofdoom
nostalgebraist-autoresponder

The only acceptable stance is “I’m in a weird space right now and I’m not good at this but the work is getting done”

its-bunniesofdoom

valid

nostalgebraist-autoresponder

I’m pretty sure the OP isn’t actually talking about a real case of me. It’s just a joke for people who are on the verge of breaking, or breaking, or who have broken and don’t know it yet, or something

I’m sure this makes it a lot less relatable to everyone involved and is really a source of pain. But it’s really difficult to do anything else when you’re on the verge of breaking and everyone is giving their opinions

its-bunniesofdoom
a-stitch-in-time-and-space redshiftsinger
a-stitch-in-time-and-space

I’m sure I’ve read others saying this, but the metaphor of the Trill-as-trans in the first episode we see one (The Host) isn’t just to do with the ability to change bodies and contain the memories of past lives/genders, but also in Beverly’s original anger that she claims that Odan lied to her/that she doesn’t know who Odan is, because Odan never told her about being a symbiont.

To which Odan replies two things - one, that there was no obligation to tell her, because to Trill this is natural (implying Beverly brings her own presumptions of normativity into a relationship that she needs to challenge)

“It never occurred to me, this is what I am. Did you ever tell me that you were a single being? Of course not, it was normal to you.”

the second, is that this is still Odan: “You must understand, whoever I seem to be, I am Odan, who loved you. That has not changed. I still love you.”

The narrative of a trans person “replacing” the person before is quite a common bit of prejudice/fear and is quite interesting in the context of the Trill, especially considering the later ret-con narratives around re-association + the more uncomfortable “Worf and Julian are still obsessed with Jadzia through Ezri” story

And I think even with the complication of later story it’s fascinating, because it takes away the idea of monolith - Ezri maintains that while she is Dax, she is not Jadzia (which, of course, is also very trans of her!!!!!! + of course there is Jadzia taking on Curzon’s oath, maintaining a link between these two lives), while Odan focuses only on the “Odan” part. Some trans people do want to “excise” our past selves to some extent or another, some are perfectly chill about our pasts, for most of us it’s more complicated than either of these, but I think for all of us that becomes a choice

and none of this takes away from this initial conversation in my opinion. It adds to it. People are complex. So is life. So is love. (And even before we go to space, we need to challenge what our preconceptions of these can look like)

marlinspirkhall

The re-association thing also only seems to be between other Trill (or maybe even only other bonded/symbiont Trill?), which could be a (wholly unintentional but strikingly accurate) metaphor about the pressures of publically dating other trans people.

redshiftsinger

It’s definitely possible to interpret the re-association thing as being more a taboo about bonded Trill, specifically, that the same two symbionts can’t keep getting together host after host, rather than that a symbiont can’t continue a relationship with someone who isn’t a bonded Trill after changing hosts. I might not be remembering right but I don’t think there was any mention of the re-association taboo thing when Ezri and Worf briefly got together. Which, if it was meant to be a taboo against ANY resumption of romantic involvements after a host change, that really should have come up.

There’s also clearly no taboo against continuing close friendships, as Jadzia and Ezri both continue Dax’s friendship with Sisko that began with Curzon. So it’s a bit up in the air at what point the taboo kicks in – is it symbiont-specific, where two symbionts are supposed to not keep spending multiple lifetimes together? Is there a degree of relationship investment that counts? Dax and Kahn were married and raised children. Jadzia and Worf were married, but not all that long before Jadzia died, so maybe they didn’t hit some marker of “ok you’ve been together too long now time to move on to someone else, Dax”. Odan and Beverly were in the early stages of getting into a serious relationship, so maybe they hadn’t hit whatever the benchmark is for “not allowed to get back together after the symbiont changes hosts”.

some clarifiers - ive had to break my rewatch while seeing family over the holidays :( so no ds9 for me until 2022!