Motherhood is highly overrated.
Feb. 10th, 2008 01:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qcontinuumOOC: Reposted from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
theatrical_muse from 5/16/2006, 41 of 50.
I only know two mothers from my own species, since we've only ever had two children.
Hmm, perhaps I should clarify. The Q don't have gender. I suppose it makes just as much sense for me to call myself a mother as to call my ex one. However... I don't feel like it. As long as I'm talking to an audience of mostly humans, I prefer to hang onto the human form I chose, which happens to be male. Also, a mother who was abandoned by a father is such a stereotype, and I prefer to be more unpredictable than that. Besides, I am a totally irresponsible and hedonistic entity who managed to stick by his kid anyway, and I want credit for it, dammit. "Mothers" are supposed to be all self-sacrificing and whatnot, whereas fathers are perfectly free to admit that sometimes they hate the little shit and wish they never had him, without it being held against them as long as they *do* the right thing.
What species invented this self-sacrificial stereotype for mothers, anyway, and why do they play into it?
Anyway, mothers. There have been two Q mothers. First, Q and Q decided they were going to hang out with humans. This was before I got interested in humans, so frankly I thought they were nuts. They took human form, they went to Earth, they invented identities for themselves... and then Q got herself knocked up. At the time I thought the sensible thing to do would have been to not create herself a body so accurately as that it was *capable* of human reproduction, let alone actually go through with a pregnancy. I mean, she got fat. She had to use her powers to keep her human body from pissing its pants. Her human form turned all ugly and puffy. And when I showed up to mock her about it, she and Q (who had, sensibly, taken the male form, and was thus avoiding all the unpleasantness), rhapsodized to me about the miracle of life and their fascination with their project, the idea of creating a Q child incarnate in a mortal body.
See, the main reason we don't reproduce, aside from being immortal and therefore not needing to, is that until me and my ex figured out how to do it, infant Q could not survive the Continuum, but no Q can survive without the Continuum. The chaotic energies of our realm require a near-adult mind to channel and focus them; a Q without an unshakeable sense of self will be absorbed into our overmind, and a Q without precise control over its powers will theoretically burn to nothingness under the onslaught of chaotic energy the first time they try to draw power from the Continuum. At least, for billions of years that was the theory. Q and Q believed they could solve the problem by creating their child anchored within a mortal body, so that until that mortal brain developed enough that it could bridge the connection to the Continuum and start sending and receiving to the overmind, the child would simply be mortal. Well, better than most mortals, and perhaps harder to kill, but essentially not really a Q until the connection to the Continuum kicked in. Some of us thought the research was interesting, perhaps worthy -- I personally had no interest in offspring at the time, but what the hell, I'm always up for finding out something new -- but that the way they were going about it was stupid. They had cut themselves off from us, mostly, for the sake of protecting this child... and because they were having fun slumming it and playing human. And you're not *allowed* to do that. Living with mortals as if you were mortal yourself is all right if you don't use your powers, but it's hardly fair if you do, and it's kind of pathetic. (Yes, given that I tried to do the same thing years later, I suppose this is hypocritical of me, but then, in retrospect *I* was being kind of pathetic when I tried it.)
Overall, though, the Continuum disapproved. We had already made mortals into Q, we didn't see the need to make more. Having a new Q start out as an infant was somewhat interesting, but given that she wouldn't truly be Q until she was an adolescent, and every other Q in the Continuum (except for the very oldest, the pioneers who created us) started out as, effectively, an adolescent, what was the point? Also, they were very plainly rejecting the rest of us and declaring that this small, pathetic species was more interesting than their companions of five billion years. (Truth hurts.) So we told them they would have to do without their powers, or they would have to come home.
Q was unwilling to abandon her baby. Her boyfriend thought of it more as an interesting experiment; he had some willingness to hand the child over to human surrogates and see how things would turn out. But *she* was all "mothers don't abandon their children!", which just goes to show, she's never seen a kangaroo throw her joey to a predator so she can run away faster. Her obsession with raising her own child, protecting and caring for the mindless little thing, blinded her to the political danger she and her lover were in. Several of us tried to talk them out of it, but he was besotted with love for her and she was besotted with the kid, so they wouldn't come home. And they wouldn't stop using their powers. I can't blame them for that -- after the one day I spent without powers, I wouldn't ever agree to refrain from using them -- but the Continuum did. Orders were orders, and they had disobeyed.
They lived in Kansas, on Earth. The Q who actually carried out the execution had something of a sick sense of humor -- they cut the two off from the Continuum and then had a tornado touch down on top of their house and destroy it. We let the kid live, I tested her and brought her into the Continuum when she finally reached age, and as it turns out it was one of the best things I ever did because if it hadn't been for her, me and all my political allies would have died in the first skirmish of the war. But that's beside the point.
So the first Q mother was loving and self-sacrificial, stupidly so. The second Q mother was just a bitch. My ex didn't have to endure any of that disgusting pregnancy stuff -- she and I created our baby within the Continuum, nice and clean, and took on the role of shielding him and filtering the raw energies around him so that he could, in fact, live within the Continuum, though when he was younger we still took him out as frequently as we could for his own safety and to give ourselves a break.
I have known her my entire life. We'd been lovers and best friends about half my life, off and on. I had no idea how much, deep down, she really despised me until she started seeing me in our son and decided that I had "ruined" him, and that if she didn't run out on me I'd run out on her first. Yeah, okay, raising a kid was a lot more stressful and time-consuming than either of us expected, but *I* stuck with it. Me, Mr. Irresponsibility, Next of Kin to Chaos. She walked. Spends most of her time out of the Continuum nowadays, too; I suppose she's just that disgusted with the both of us.
So. Mothers. We've had one idiot and one bitch. Not a great track record. Of course I can't say much for our fathers either, given that I'm one of them and the other one was as big an idiot as his girlfriend, but hey, *I* am still alive and sticking with the job, which is more than either of the mothers can say.
theatrical_muse from 5/16/2006, 41 of 50.I only know two mothers from my own species, since we've only ever had two children.
Hmm, perhaps I should clarify. The Q don't have gender. I suppose it makes just as much sense for me to call myself a mother as to call my ex one. However... I don't feel like it. As long as I'm talking to an audience of mostly humans, I prefer to hang onto the human form I chose, which happens to be male. Also, a mother who was abandoned by a father is such a stereotype, and I prefer to be more unpredictable than that. Besides, I am a totally irresponsible and hedonistic entity who managed to stick by his kid anyway, and I want credit for it, dammit. "Mothers" are supposed to be all self-sacrificing and whatnot, whereas fathers are perfectly free to admit that sometimes they hate the little shit and wish they never had him, without it being held against them as long as they *do* the right thing.
What species invented this self-sacrificial stereotype for mothers, anyway, and why do they play into it?
Anyway, mothers. There have been two Q mothers. First, Q and Q decided they were going to hang out with humans. This was before I got interested in humans, so frankly I thought they were nuts. They took human form, they went to Earth, they invented identities for themselves... and then Q got herself knocked up. At the time I thought the sensible thing to do would have been to not create herself a body so accurately as that it was *capable* of human reproduction, let alone actually go through with a pregnancy. I mean, she got fat. She had to use her powers to keep her human body from pissing its pants. Her human form turned all ugly and puffy. And when I showed up to mock her about it, she and Q (who had, sensibly, taken the male form, and was thus avoiding all the unpleasantness), rhapsodized to me about the miracle of life and their fascination with their project, the idea of creating a Q child incarnate in a mortal body.
See, the main reason we don't reproduce, aside from being immortal and therefore not needing to, is that until me and my ex figured out how to do it, infant Q could not survive the Continuum, but no Q can survive without the Continuum. The chaotic energies of our realm require a near-adult mind to channel and focus them; a Q without an unshakeable sense of self will be absorbed into our overmind, and a Q without precise control over its powers will theoretically burn to nothingness under the onslaught of chaotic energy the first time they try to draw power from the Continuum. At least, for billions of years that was the theory. Q and Q believed they could solve the problem by creating their child anchored within a mortal body, so that until that mortal brain developed enough that it could bridge the connection to the Continuum and start sending and receiving to the overmind, the child would simply be mortal. Well, better than most mortals, and perhaps harder to kill, but essentially not really a Q until the connection to the Continuum kicked in. Some of us thought the research was interesting, perhaps worthy -- I personally had no interest in offspring at the time, but what the hell, I'm always up for finding out something new -- but that the way they were going about it was stupid. They had cut themselves off from us, mostly, for the sake of protecting this child... and because they were having fun slumming it and playing human. And you're not *allowed* to do that. Living with mortals as if you were mortal yourself is all right if you don't use your powers, but it's hardly fair if you do, and it's kind of pathetic. (Yes, given that I tried to do the same thing years later, I suppose this is hypocritical of me, but then, in retrospect *I* was being kind of pathetic when I tried it.)
Overall, though, the Continuum disapproved. We had already made mortals into Q, we didn't see the need to make more. Having a new Q start out as an infant was somewhat interesting, but given that she wouldn't truly be Q until she was an adolescent, and every other Q in the Continuum (except for the very oldest, the pioneers who created us) started out as, effectively, an adolescent, what was the point? Also, they were very plainly rejecting the rest of us and declaring that this small, pathetic species was more interesting than their companions of five billion years. (Truth hurts.) So we told them they would have to do without their powers, or they would have to come home.
Q was unwilling to abandon her baby. Her boyfriend thought of it more as an interesting experiment; he had some willingness to hand the child over to human surrogates and see how things would turn out. But *she* was all "mothers don't abandon their children!", which just goes to show, she's never seen a kangaroo throw her joey to a predator so she can run away faster. Her obsession with raising her own child, protecting and caring for the mindless little thing, blinded her to the political danger she and her lover were in. Several of us tried to talk them out of it, but he was besotted with love for her and she was besotted with the kid, so they wouldn't come home. And they wouldn't stop using their powers. I can't blame them for that -- after the one day I spent without powers, I wouldn't ever agree to refrain from using them -- but the Continuum did. Orders were orders, and they had disobeyed.
They lived in Kansas, on Earth. The Q who actually carried out the execution had something of a sick sense of humor -- they cut the two off from the Continuum and then had a tornado touch down on top of their house and destroy it. We let the kid live, I tested her and brought her into the Continuum when she finally reached age, and as it turns out it was one of the best things I ever did because if it hadn't been for her, me and all my political allies would have died in the first skirmish of the war. But that's beside the point.
So the first Q mother was loving and self-sacrificial, stupidly so. The second Q mother was just a bitch. My ex didn't have to endure any of that disgusting pregnancy stuff -- she and I created our baby within the Continuum, nice and clean, and took on the role of shielding him and filtering the raw energies around him so that he could, in fact, live within the Continuum, though when he was younger we still took him out as frequently as we could for his own safety and to give ourselves a break.
I have known her my entire life. We'd been lovers and best friends about half my life, off and on. I had no idea how much, deep down, she really despised me until she started seeing me in our son and decided that I had "ruined" him, and that if she didn't run out on me I'd run out on her first. Yeah, okay, raising a kid was a lot more stressful and time-consuming than either of us expected, but *I* stuck with it. Me, Mr. Irresponsibility, Next of Kin to Chaos. She walked. Spends most of her time out of the Continuum nowadays, too; I suppose she's just that disgusted with the both of us.
So. Mothers. We've had one idiot and one bitch. Not a great track record. Of course I can't say much for our fathers either, given that I'm one of them and the other one was as big an idiot as his girlfriend, but hey, *I* am still alive and sticking with the job, which is more than either of the mothers can say.