ST:TNG Darmok
Dec. 3rd, 2010 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI've been watching more Next Gen and got up to Darmok.
I reckon this is the most useful episode ever. For one, it's how we in fandom communicate with each other, only we elaborate on the basics. Shared stories, shared references, creating connections. (Not the bit with fighting the invisible monster together... unless you want to get metaphorical about isms...)
Mostly though Darmok is the episode that made it possible to explain my autistic brother. Even a little bit. Because for years, this was what he did. Only he didn't use character names and titles, he'd just quote, and clearly since you had all the same people in your head you would know exactly what he was talking about. The words would only make the illusion of sense. If you thought you understood the words you had probably missed the point. The actual communication was in the emotional content of the quoted scene, or just in the persona of the quoted character. Be Data to figure things out, be Picard to get things done. And it usually was Next Gen, because back then we could both quote extensively, any episode you liked. So my brother made sense... in a very specialist geek way.
At least that was what I figured then. I reckoned I could understand him. It has been a very long time since then, and we no longer watch all the same things, and quite often I haven't a clue what he's on about. Also quite often he'll make a fairly straightforward sort of sense (and you'll wish he'd just stop saying 'bosom buddies' especially with the hand gesture :eyeroll:). And sometimes he's just sharing a funny, probably, except again the funny must be in the parts of the scene the rest of us would have to have memorised. Plus there's some hope of figuring out 'Put the bunny back in the box'. The time he was making whale or dolphin noises over and over and over and over and over and over and over? *big shrug*
Quite often I am glad I no longer live with him. I love him, he's my brother, but there is a limit to my tolerance for repetition. Also, he always tries to sort my DVDs, and they're already in my order, thanks.
BUT. Anyway. For a while there we understood each other, probably, sort of. Darmok.
I reckon this is the most useful episode ever. For one, it's how we in fandom communicate with each other, only we elaborate on the basics. Shared stories, shared references, creating connections. (Not the bit with fighting the invisible monster together... unless you want to get metaphorical about isms...)
Mostly though Darmok is the episode that made it possible to explain my autistic brother. Even a little bit. Because for years, this was what he did. Only he didn't use character names and titles, he'd just quote, and clearly since you had all the same people in your head you would know exactly what he was talking about. The words would only make the illusion of sense. If you thought you understood the words you had probably missed the point. The actual communication was in the emotional content of the quoted scene, or just in the persona of the quoted character. Be Data to figure things out, be Picard to get things done. And it usually was Next Gen, because back then we could both quote extensively, any episode you liked. So my brother made sense... in a very specialist geek way.
At least that was what I figured then. I reckoned I could understand him. It has been a very long time since then, and we no longer watch all the same things, and quite often I haven't a clue what he's on about. Also quite often he'll make a fairly straightforward sort of sense (and you'll wish he'd just stop saying 'bosom buddies' especially with the hand gesture :eyeroll:). And sometimes he's just sharing a funny, probably, except again the funny must be in the parts of the scene the rest of us would have to have memorised. Plus there's some hope of figuring out 'Put the bunny back in the box'. The time he was making whale or dolphin noises over and over and over and over and over and over and over? *big shrug*
Quite often I am glad I no longer live with him. I love him, he's my brother, but there is a limit to my tolerance for repetition. Also, he always tries to sort my DVDs, and they're already in my order, thanks.
BUT. Anyway. For a while there we understood each other, probably, sort of. Darmok.