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You don't have to be quite so insulting.
Jun. 4th, 2010 01:22 pmOOC: Crossposted from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
theatrical_muse today.
Prompt 336: What's the worst compliment you've ever received?
"Sometimes I forget you're not human."
I trust I don't have to explain why that is a truly awful excuse for a compliment.
Along the same lines, "Perhaps there's a residue of humanity in Q after all," "perhaps there's more humanity in you than I thought," "that's... almost human of you," and other comments of that ilk. Actually, those are worse. "Sometimes I forget you're not human" could theoretically be a compliment on my acting skills and the success of my mimicry of the human form, rather than actually trying to *compliment* me on sinking to the level of a pathetic short-lived mortal species, but the others were attempts at back-handed praise.
What is it with human starship captains and their love affair with their own species, anyway? Here's one that wasn't directed at *me*, but the circumstances made it absolutely appalling. This human captain's nonhuman best friend dies bravely to save the entire ship, and at his funeral, while delivering the eulogy, the captain chokes up, gets all sad and dramatic, and says, "Of all the souls I've encountered, his was the most... human." Come on! As if intelligence, loyalty, strength of will, or a willingness to die nobly for others' sake are solely human traits. I mean, when I saw that, I was glad the dead guy was too dead at the time to hear the comment. (He got better, later, but I'm not sure he ever found out what his friend said at his eulogy.)
But at least *he* was half human, though he didn't identify with it. Calling *me* humanlike is just insulting. And most of the people who use it to "compliment" me know I feel that way about it (and wouldn't react at all to me calling them Q-like... if I was going to do such a thing, which I never would, because none of them are remotely like a Q.)
Now that I think of it, Amanda got rather upset with me when I tried to compliment her on how much like a Q she was becoming. But that's hardly fair. She *is* a Q, and if she develops as she should, she *ought* to become more Q-like and less human-like.
Muse: Q
Fandom: Star Trek TNG (with gratuitous TOS references)
theatrical_muse today.Prompt 336: What's the worst compliment you've ever received?
"Sometimes I forget you're not human."
I trust I don't have to explain why that is a truly awful excuse for a compliment.
Along the same lines, "Perhaps there's a residue of humanity in Q after all," "perhaps there's more humanity in you than I thought," "that's... almost human of you," and other comments of that ilk. Actually, those are worse. "Sometimes I forget you're not human" could theoretically be a compliment on my acting skills and the success of my mimicry of the human form, rather than actually trying to *compliment* me on sinking to the level of a pathetic short-lived mortal species, but the others were attempts at back-handed praise.
What is it with human starship captains and their love affair with their own species, anyway? Here's one that wasn't directed at *me*, but the circumstances made it absolutely appalling. This human captain's nonhuman best friend dies bravely to save the entire ship, and at his funeral, while delivering the eulogy, the captain chokes up, gets all sad and dramatic, and says, "Of all the souls I've encountered, his was the most... human." Come on! As if intelligence, loyalty, strength of will, or a willingness to die nobly for others' sake are solely human traits. I mean, when I saw that, I was glad the dead guy was too dead at the time to hear the comment. (He got better, later, but I'm not sure he ever found out what his friend said at his eulogy.)
But at least *he* was half human, though he didn't identify with it. Calling *me* humanlike is just insulting. And most of the people who use it to "compliment" me know I feel that way about it (and wouldn't react at all to me calling them Q-like... if I was going to do such a thing, which I never would, because none of them are remotely like a Q.)
Now that I think of it, Amanda got rather upset with me when I tried to compliment her on how much like a Q she was becoming. But that's hardly fair. She *is* a Q, and if she develops as she should, she *ought* to become more Q-like and less human-like.
Muse: Q
Fandom: Star Trek TNG (with gratuitous TOS references)
