Ooooh how I yearn to feel a soft, plumped, fat belly of a girl on my face…

Star Wars, Leia Organa

Leia Organa, the first princess of my life. Hutt-slayer. Commander of Rebels. Senator in a doomed system. Child of Bail and Breha Organa. One of Alderaan's survivors. Sister to Luke Skywalker. Wife and antagonist of Han Solo. Mother of three or one, depending on which canon you pick.

(Three for me, for all my heart BLEEDS for Anakin Solo's fate, and hates on Jacen's story arc.)

Sharp, intelligent, quick-witted… and most importantly, resolute.

Yes I chose that word on purpose.

See, Leia is the perfect distillation of all four of her parents. She has Anakin's courage, temper, and ability to decide quickly. She has Padmé's acumen, political finesse, and moral standing. She has Breha's compassion and intense sense of self. And she has Bail's firm commitment to what is right for ALL.

Or so I view her. And she got a dose of stubborn from ALL of them.

Even as a child, I caught on to the slow erosion of her place in the movies. The books sometimes made up for this. And Legends novels really helped me come full force to loving her as a character.

(As a small, Artoo, Threepio, and Vader held far more of my attention.)

Watching her pitch in immediately after Endor and start shaping the New Republic was awesome. Seeing her struggle with the elements that she KNEW had condemned the old one was phenom. Seeing her under Mon Mothma's guidance, but standing on her own two feet? +chef's kiss+

And through it all, there were her familial entanglements to watch as they evolved. Honestly, I think if Thrawn had encountered her at a younger age, the two of them might have hammered out the fall of the Empire AND preparation for what Thrawn saw ahead of them. (Mind you, my Thrawn is informed by his original trilogy and duology, though more the former.)

I DO love General Organa of the current canon. But that canon is less my happy place. Some day, I should figure out how to pull Rey and Finn into something more like Legends. Poe's easy; his story starts on Endor after all.

Zaddy energy

power couple teasing ai gf and her full of lard man

Anna Maria is still one of my favorite Spider-girls.

I hate the Doc Ock storyline of him taking Peter's body and dating her though...

porcelain prince

kitana klaus

Super duper helpful

Hey, do you still have that drawing tutorial you made on your twitter account showing on how you drew fat?

Sure! Hope it's still helpful

oh

Took a break from my final projects long enough to finish up The Pantheon! A year in the making lol!

Great explanation 🎉🎉

I feel like the problem with Section 31 as a concept is that they never really spent a lot of time differentiating it from regular Starfleet Intelligence, except for the vague notion that S31 is the “edgy” one because they’ll “get their hands dirty” (RE: commit genocide).

The actual difference in operations is an important point, though. Because the DS9 writers never got around to making that distinction, every Star Trek writing team since has gone with Section 31 when they’ve wanted a Federation intelligence service involved in their story. They’ve got a cooler name than Starfleet Intelligence which is more in line with their adversarial counterparts (e.g., the Tal Shiar and the Obsidian Order), and they’re already established as having a dark, edgy aesthetic.

The thing is that regular Starfleet Intelligence was already established as a good intelligence service. They were able to bring back pictures of Spock on Romulus, despite the Romulans being a notorious police state (TNG: Unification, Part I), they had sources within the Klingon military (DS9: Apocalypse Rising), and their methods were sophisticated enough to be able to fake Cardassian transit documents (DS9: Second Skin). At least in the TOS era, they also apparently had sources in the Romulan military, too (TOS: The Enterprise Incident).

They may not have been seen to be active in Starfleet’s military maneuvers the same way the Obsidian Order were often front and centre in the Cardassian Union’s or the Tal Shiar were in the Romulan Empire’s, but they clearly were there. The fact that Starfleet was able to generally keep pace with the Romulans and the Klingons in a military sense during the 23rd and 24th centuries is evidence of that. I think the fact that Starfleet Intelligence wasn’t portrayed as having this hugely integral role in every single Starfleet operation is a good reflection of their preference for being discreet, but also an even better reflection of the fact that Starfleet’s mission also focuses heavily on science and exploration, which is the aspect they’re (rightfully) more proud of.

But for the most part, Starfleet Intelligence’s role in any given story isn’t really focused on heavily. It’s usually given a throwaway line like, “Yeah, and we got this report from Starfleet Intelligence that said this,” and then cut to the main cast doing something about it. The only time Star Trek really had a story where Starfleet Intelligence was heavily involved for the entire episode was The Pegasus, and that also doubles as an evil admiral episode.

That being said, I feel like the known difference between Starfleet Intelligence and Section 31 is quite telling. The one time we know for sure that regular Starfleet Intelligence had an intelligence failure was in Chain of Command, which required the Cardassian Union to actively be running their own operation to get that far. The time we know Section 31 failed was in Extreme Measures, which basically involved Bashir and O’Brien moonlighting an operation.

Because of that, it would have made a lot of sense if Section 31 had have had a “mask off” moment where it was revealed Sloan didn’t really have authorisation for Section 31, but had enough dirt on everyone else that they kinda had to let him go with it. This would have explained why Section 31 seemed to be such a small operation that they had to recruit frontier doctors who liked to play spy games on the holodeck, but also maintained the veneer of authority and could occasionally pull off fairly complicated, if one and done and hugely destructive, operations.

It also would have played into the idea that war can make monsters of people who otherwise have good reputations. This is an idea that gets played around with a lot in DS9, but also in Star Trek more broadly–I’m thinking of episodes like TNG’s The Wounded, where Captain Maxwell seemed to have been generally well liked before he went on his own personal vendetta, or The Undiscovered Country, where Kirk was so used to having shooting matches with the Klingons that the idea of a peace treaty was genuinely offensive to him. It’s also not like Star Trek admirals aren’t sometimes unhinged villains, either.

I think it also would have provided an easy way of locking Section 31 out of the canon afterwards. When Sloan told Bashir that Section 31 was a part of the original Starfleet charter in Inquisition, it was the kind of comment he could get away with because Bashir wasn’t necessarily the best versed in Starfleet history. Don’t forget that Bashir’s knowledge of Starfleet’s history was basic enough that the uniform colour switch stumped him in Trials and Tribble-ations. While this assertion about the original Starfleet charter, it might not have worked on someone who focused a lot on history or even someone who had a dedicated background in security or espionage.

My solution would be to have it so that Section 31 really was in the original charter as a leftover from whatever preceded Starfleet. However, a few decades later, it would have been replaced with an organisation seen to be more in line with Starfleet’s ongoing mission and ideals, or because its reputation had been sufficiently tarnished due to a major fuck up that it had to be replaced with a newly minted Starfleet Intelligence. Sloan’s new Section 31 could be a copy of the original, named in a way to spark images of Starfleet winning the Earth-Romulan War or something.

Having Section 31 locked out of the canon in this specific way would have forced newer writing teams to flesh out Starfleet Intelligence in newer shows and movies. This would have provided a good opportunity to show what the differences look like in practice, and I think it also would have forced writers to consider if they were doing certain things just to be edgy like a pizza cutter or if they actually had a point they wanted to make.

Cool AF

MORTAL KOMBAT: Onslaught | ACT 1

Interesting combo

I feel like Klingons would be deeply divided on Zuko's backstory.

Because, on one hand they would be cheering Zuko for the inciting incident. A general proposing to sacrifice fresh recruits in a suicidal assault while the veterans strike from behind seems like the sort of thing honorable Klingons would despise, so they'd cheer on Zuko calling him out, and nod approvingly at the idea of settling this with an Agni-Kai. I think the divide would be over WHY Zuko refused to fight Ozai in the Agni-Kai. If Zuko refused to fight because he was afraid to fight his father and was trying to surrender, then that was an act of Cowardice, and Zuko had indeed shamed himself. There's no shame in losing to a superior opponent, so backing down because you face a stronger foe than anticipated is cowardly, especially in a formal duel of honor. However, from another perspective, I feel like some Klingons would feel that Ozai was so deeply out of line interfering in the duel at all that Zuko can be forgiven for not wanting to fight his father, who he had no quarrel with. If Zuko tried to back out to avoid raising a hand against his father and ruler, out of propriety rather than fear, then that's another story.

Super fact

spocktober day 13: plomeek soup

in one of the star trek novels, it's revealed that spock likes avocados

Woah 😳😳

Khameleon

And this is why they could be an amazing couple in this new era.

Johnny is enjoying not having a manager that can change his Twitter password.