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galactic-pirates · 1 year

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Spoilers. Warning. Episode 3 of Picard.

So that happened.

Yeeeeah this episode was just… the first two I had enthusiasm because it’s Star Trek! Seven is back! Raffi is back! Whoo.

Honestly what the hell was that? Like I am trying to think what was good, what was bad, and analyse but I am left with the fact that I paused it 3x to scroll social media instead as it was just not keeping my attention.

The whole “big blowout” with Picard and Crusher was everything I expected and I am just bored with it. I really hoped that there was going to be something more. Now obviously… don’t misunderstand me. Twists for the sale of twists suck - foreshadowing is good. I’m not complaining because I predicted the ‘reason’ for Crusher keeping the secret of the son. I’m complaining because it is such a “logic not found” argument. It’s a tired cliche. It’s been done. I didn’t like it then, I don’t like it now. I get it people are people and they do human things, they make mistakes and then don’t feel they can take them back. Crusher was scared etc. I get it, I understand it but just ugh.

I did make myself laugh by remembering Bones quote from the lens-flare Trek movie “If you’re going to ride in the Kentucky Derby, you don’t leave your prize stallion in the stable.” because Seven on lockdown in her quarters? Huge waste of talent. Honestly the one bright spot in the episode was baby LaForge visiting and calling her Commander SEVEN. Because damn straight. We can keep baby LaForge.

Also I might have laughed at Shaw hitting his head. I still want to throw him out the airlock but it’s a start. I jest, I jest, obviously injury is bad. Also it was such a forced way of getting Riker to have the command. It was all a setup for the conflict between Riker and Picard and that felt very unnatural, like they were trying to force this dynamic that wasn’t right. It was so choppy, like maybe the episode was badly edited and they cut some stuff they shouldn’t? Nothing really felt earned.

The whole Worf not in StarFleet and the terrorist changeling is a bit confusing as I have not seen all of DS9. I am pleased (kinda?) that the changelings are involved. They had hyped up a “DS9” continuation and I was thinking perhaps that was just Worf’s inclusion as he had done double duty being on DS9 as well.

Raffi continues to be an absolute gift. The snark and banter and the “cool” at the end, also the respect and just I don’t know everything. Worf was kinda weird like he’d turned half-Vulcan or something but I don’t mind it. I wonder if the portal creation thingy that the shrike has was what they were hiding the theft of? I mean something has to tie the two storylines together and the changelings are involved with the shrike as there is one as the saboteur.

Side note I can’t hear “the shrike” without thinking of Agents of Shield. It’s very distracting.

Also I am laughing about the portal wormholes because Stargate will forever be my first love. Something is tickling my brain about that image of the portal thingy being in the Strange New Worlds opening credits but I could be mistaken about that.

Yeah I don’t know. The vibe from this episode was just off. Maybe different filming methods too? A lot of shaky cam (which sucked) and that will give it a different feel. I think it just felt really heavy handed. Like they wanted to hit these beats (the whole 17 seconds thing) and it was just too in my face to emotionally resonate. Plus I did read somebody say about the message that biology is all that matters sucks. I think of Elnor who Picard could have had as a son but he never even visited him. Yet the whole ‘father’ thing kicks in with Jack Crusher? Big ugh again.

Seriously like the whole Picard’s mother storyline last season was an eye roll. But I had some investment because I was pissed off. For all they aesthetically tried to make it look like Picard grew up in the 1800 somethings, it was actually around 500 years later, and yet mental illness is still “lock the crazy lady in the attic?” I mean who thought that was a good idea? I thought the Federation was supposed to be better than that. Now I get the “let’s not trivialise and suggest everything has a cure” because that is also really problematic and would piss me off. I’m just saying have a little compassion and respect. Anyway I digress. My point is the storyline this season is just as eye roll ugh as the mother storyline, but not so maddening. It’s going to be a temptation to fast forward I swear. Not even the Han Solo scoundrel vibe will amuse me forever.

Not a fan. I hope episode 4 is better.

#picard spoilers #star trek: picard #in which I am negative and I am sorry but just ugh

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therealaves-blog1 · 10 months

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I want the void to hear my takes on Star Trek: Coda

Part 2 of Book 2.

Sisko comes up the road to Jake’s house on Bajor with his wife and tells him to run fast, easily passing a good dad skill check to convince him. Jake’s wife seems to be the same lady he married in the alt future of The Visitor, one of the most heavy DS9 episodes (which is saying something what with the war and such). The DS9 Bois: Bashir, who everyone notes looks like crap; O’Brien, what the fuck are you doing chief engineering out here, you should be on earth with your wife; and Nog, now first officer on a california class ship (hey! thats the one from lower decks, neat!) all arrive to drink Dax off and then plot some shit. Sisko tells them about some vision shit and they go to find Kira.

Spock is meditating and gets woken up by Savik (Special Guest Star Kirstie Alley) who says he was sleep walking which is confirmed by the whole in the middle of a monk room thing. She offers aid to find out who’s brain is going wrong and they go brain diving to discover: its Worf! and his brain isnt bad its actually being attacked by echos of itself from other realities. Spock decides to go help him out, and also maybe contribute to this whole prevention of temporal doomsday thing. I guess Riker is getting possessed by his own ghosts from dead histories? and its making him an asshole?

Sisko meets with Kira and is a lil worried about how many people are all doomsdaying it up (there is apparently a prophecy for this which of course there is lmao, why wouldnt there be). He meets with Kira and they’re very much same vision as they do the Predator shake. He gives her a comm badge so she can discreetly leave to not cause a panic (she’s apparently a big deal on account of being the Emissary’s pal and being possessed by that Prophet that one time). Picard and Co wait for the search to thin out before they resume course for the wormhole, Data thinks its the point the Devidians are getting in to this reality through and thinks its worth considering destroying it to buy more time. Fucked up. Weird space dudes live up there. Sisko’s mom is up there.

A ship finds them and its Spock who wants to help out. they ask him how he found them and he just says some bullshit that can be summarized as ‘Spock is the smartest in the galaxy.’ Why not just say he did some mind meld tracking bullshit, or felt his way there, or some shit like that. You got the distance telepathy use it. He tells Worf the good news and they go into his brain and Worf tells his ghosts to fuck off and die with honour, which works and they leave him alone. they go for bajor with spoke seconding the wormhole toasting. Picard slips into Deanna’s dms to try to tell her about the whole possession by time ghosts (different ones) thing but Riker traces it and comes down and is all pissed. Picard sends the data at least and Riker sets course for Bajor.

The ds9 crew beam up thanks to Quark who smuggles them aboard (he also took their cash mid transport lmfao). Apprently he’s dating Ro Laren who is captain of the station. That feels...weird. Odo appears, apparently hes doing security again? I guess he fixed the fucking dominion already and went back to DS9 instead of Kira’s house? Ro comes down and prepares to arrest them but the wormholes all fucky so she takes all the help she can get. Nog is on his ship when Time snakes attack the outermost planet in the system and he tells the captain about whats going on so they can try killing it. It doesn’t work and only one snake is kind of annoyed while the rest age the planet to nothing. They get hit and its bad, Captains dead and Nog prepares to call evac but then the good old Aventine flies in and kills the snakes saving the day. Yay!

Jake and wife meet Keiko and Yoshi (Molly is on earth with the grandparents) and the transports aren’t leaving and people are getting antsy, especially when they hear about the planet getting got. Jake pulls the son of the emissary card and does a dad impression which gets them to start launching people, On DS9 more snakes attack as they agree to take out the wormhole by ramming the station down it and self destructing. Sisko takes the Defiant with Worf and a few others, Picard grabs Aventine with Bowers, and Nog takes his ship to defend the refugees. Things go tits up pretty quickly when the snakes eat a moon and damage Nog’s ship, but he rams them and uses his own warp core breach to injure them enough that Aventine and the Defiant can hold em okay. RIP Nog, wish you got to stick around.

The battle goes poorly and even the help of Wesley grabbing time copies of himself out of alt history's to pilot runabouts doesn't really help much. the snakes adapt to their attacks and cripple the Aventine pretty bad. On DS9 Ro and Quark go to slow down the mini versions of the snakes currently invading and go out blowing themselves. a deck, and the snakes to space hell. Kira and Chief start the self destruct as they cross into the wormhole but the snakes break into ops. Chief sends Kira through and locks the hatch behind her, dying to buy time. Rip Chief, you were more than a hero, you were a union man. The refugees get away and Kira gets a vision where a prophet wearing her mothers face hands her something and tells her to look after it. She escapes in a ship as DS9 goes up and takes the wormhole with it. The Aventine picks up Kira who they find praying over the cool hourglass crystal part of the orb of time, now dead and black. She’s partially catatonic.

No one knows where Wes or the Defiant are and before they can start a search, old mate Riker arrives, more unhinged and demands Picard’s surrender or he starts cutting up the Aventine, christ, how is that not relieved of duty worthy? Picard beams over, but its not Picard, its Odo. Hey! He got better at faces. Good for him!. Picard is beamed over to the Defiant which has its cloak back apparently, where everyone tells him its been a few hours and they got the characters that matter over (Bowers stayed behind with the Aventines crew to buy them all some more time. Data points out they’ve bought time but now need to stop them final styles, which everyone agrees to. Needing a hiding place, Bashir suggests the mirror universe because he apparently knows someone or some shit.

Fucks sake, now I need to read up on the state of the mirrorverse in the novels.

Last thing we get is a shot of very old man Wes on the Devidians intertime planet o’ doom. He scans it with his cool time tricorder and the they send their time ghosts and time snakes after him. He realises that he’s out of fight so he jumps into the timestream and sets course for home, landing on the beach in front of Picard and Bev and Rene back in book 1. Loop complete. Well, at least the way there is locked up in his cool tricorder somewhere. Im sure making it a stupid puzzle will have a good reason why he didnt just fill it with pertinent info and like, how to build guides for his cool ultra future tech.

Enjoyed this one more than the first, despite its higher body count of beloved characters. Some choices I don't get, like why make Ro Laren part of the DS9 umbrella, she never interacted with them? Also RIP Based Chief, the most important man in starfleet history. You went out doing the good fight, but should’ve been on Earth. Like him retiring to teach was great, and after the war no way in hell he’d want to put any child on a DS9 ever again. Bashir and he dont get much time together which sucks, nor do he and Nog, or he and Kira, or he and Sisko, which is a bummer.

Space Heaven got a couple new Angels today, and also Quark died.

What happens next? Idk, but the Defiant is our girl once more. MVP of the Fleet, she’ll take us home. Or at least let Sisko go down swinging.

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reginaldqueribundus · 3 years

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having a fun friday looking back at some of my star trek tags

#big riker milkers

#every morning quark's wardrobe chose violence

#bi riker or 'biker' if you will is much more important

#i mean riker was on a klingon ship for 0.005 seconds and a klingon woman announced she was going to jump his bones

#riker was tonguing worf's ridges as soon as he heard the words 'men kiss'

#and he used worf's strap-on to do it

#everybody who meets picard ends up with a dead wife

#suck on that jean luc

#it wasn’t his obsidian order implant it was the aggravation of having to watch quark mix horizonal stripes with leopard print day after day

#'hello luffy my name is elim garak and i work for cp9'

#w-when will Bashir-senpai notice me??

#ah yes better give myself the most magnum dong in the quadrant

#so now on top of everything else the bajoran vedek assembly is excommunicating sisko for blasphemy

#i thought 'why are all these clones of mccoy surrounding jim kirk as he pees

#worf i'd like you to meet the woman who fucked me to death

#GIVE. WORF. A JETPACK.

#they probably hooked the orb of time up to the holomatrix so they could go back and fight khan noonien singh or something

#cbs please give us a miniseries about molly and kyoshi o'brien dealing with their family curse

#imagine being trapped in the delta quadrant and the only version of cats you have access to is the 2019 movie

#when u order ur captain picard from wish

#not that i give af what gene thinks

#after all we got to see all of its terrible 1960s takes on gender

#some discussion of michael that isn't just blatant racism

#dr. b's foot fetish strikes again

#how the hell did voyager still manage to have more lines by men???

#the *real* miracle tech of star trek isn't the transporters or warp drive#it's their flawless voice recognition systems

#yeah but you also got your ass whooped by 2 ferengi carrying medieval swords

#star trek is absurd enough it doesn't need a giant buddha running starfleet thank you very much

#she was a wagon#(she had wheels you see)

#some people just see a lizard with marc alaimo's voice and go bug wild#and that's valid

#that awkward moment when your former boss killed your new boss's wife#while possessed by robo zombies

#the captain looks at me funny because i'm the reincarnation of his recently deceased best friend#my past life's klingon ex-husband gets upset if i try to date#and OH YEAH there's a murderer in my head advising me to kill people with this prototype teleportation rifle

#i too must acknowledge that problematic outfit yes but also seven very beautiful hnnngh

#they fight all the time but they also consider it foreplay so like? i guess they're just constantly flirting with each other 24/7

#has like 30 planets that are all identical to earth except everyone is gangsters nazis etc#and aliens who die if they don't get laid every 7 years#don't take them too seriously

#disco misses the mark in some ways#but holy god can we talk about *that* instead of your crippling fear of feminism#please i just want to have one (1) conversation about the show that doesn't involve the word 'sjws'

#i'm a vulcan kinny now i guess

#michael singing 'let it go' as she flies around in her angel suit

#tilly hitting osyraa with a frying pan

#poor sweet neelix would just go see the funny singing cat movie with zero clue that he's supposed to mock it or hate it

#LET HIM HAVE WEIRD TENTACLE SEX YOU COWARDS

i cannot choose a favourite

#star trek #my tags #will riker #worf #julian bashir #ezri dax #quark #elim garak #a post by me™#sam rambles about star trek again

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calliecat93 · 3 years

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ST: TNG S4 Watchthrough Episodes 22-25

Half a Life: Okay Lwaxana, let's see if the fourth time is the charm. So… gonna be honest, this episode just made me uncomfortable with the subject matter. Essentially Lwaxana becomes friendly with a man named Timicin… who is going to commit suicide as part of his culture due to his age. needless to say, I thoroughly am not okay with this. The episode does delve into it like Lwaxana reacts as you would expect and there are points made about how she has no right to interfere in others cultures/personal beliefs and how we treat middle-aged individuals nearing their elder years. But… y’know… a society that dictates that you kill yourself at 60 is… I’m sorry, I just cannot discuss this topic fairly. While I am opinionated, I do try my best to be fair… but I’m just not comfortable enough to discuss this topic in this way because I thoroughly disagree with suicide as acceptable on any level. At least not with how it was done here. That being said, being fair, I can give some praise. First, David Ogden Stiers! Heck yes~! I love his work in various Disney films, and he was excellent here! And on Lwaxana… I liked her here. Not only is her man-chasing ways with a man who is receptive to it so it feels less dumb/annoying/kinda creepy and more charming and legitimately entertaining than when she’s forcing it on Picard, but frankly I was on her side throughout the episode. When suicide is involved, someone should intervene and Timicin shouldn’t have to die just because he’s hit 60 and they don’t want to burden their children with caring for the elderly. My dad died at 54, and I never hesitated in trying to care for him. No one in my family did. But you could see Lwaxana’s pain and grief and when she broke down in the Transporter Room to Troi… God. I may not be the biggest fan of her character, but the poor woman just needs a big hug. In the end, it's really hard for me to tell which side the episode is standing with. it chooses to shoot down the middle with Timicin choosing to go through with it and Lwaxana finally allowing it… but it doens’t feel like we’re supposed to be okay with it. I get it, it’s their planet’s beliefs and whether one should interfere in one's culture or not is a legit question… but when it comes to matters like this I just… IDK. Like I said IDK if I can give this a fair opinion because again, I just don’t agree with the subject matter whatsoever and it just feels utterly wrong. Maybe it’s supposed to, but… yeah. I’m gonna be fair here and shoot down the middle for the rating because I can’t say it’s a poorly done episode and the personal bias may be affecting my judgment… but it is certainly one I am unlikely to revisit. 3/5.

The Host: Crusher’s got a boyfriend, aww~! Too bad that he ends up dead, aww… but it’s okay! Turns out they’re actually a symbiote known as a Trill in a host body and they stick him into Riker in the meantime! Uhh… sure? Is this how it works for Jadzia in DS9? So the symbiote, Odon, is also an Ambassador and still needed, so Riker volunteers to be that host… despite no human ever carrying a Trill before. Needless to say, this not only causes issues for Riker but… well, muddies up Crusher and Odon’s relationship quite a bit. This makes sense, Odon not only mentioning this detail but being a symbiote that goes from body to body can be hard to settle. Crusher does eventually decide to try and make it work despite the awkwardness because she genuinely loves Odon, who is suffering due to Riker’s body just not being suitable. It’s fine, it’s certainly an interesting concept… until we get to the ending. What causes Crusher to break it off with Odon? His new host body suited for them… is a woman’s body. Now she says it’s because she just can’t handle the body hopping and I’m gonna take that as the truth… but the way the episode portrays it, it’s more like she can’t handle the body hopping into a female body despite her saying that’s not it. I know, I know it was the 90’s and again I’m just gonna act like seeing the new body was when the reality was hitting Crusher and she realized that it was just too much too fast. I can buy that. But again, the execution makes it feel… well, there’s no other way to say it, homophobic/biphobic/transphobic. Again 90’s, but still. At least the Trill’s aren’t picky about their gender at least physically, I can respect that. But yeah… needless to say this has quite a few unfortunate implications under a modern lens. Still, it was alright. Considering Jadzia in DS9, I’m looking forward to seeing more about the Trills then. The episode was alright, I just wish that the ending was more open-minded because it really put a damper on my final opinion. It shows that for all its progressiveness, ST still has plenty of prejudices from the real-life eras that they were made in. I’m just glad that we’re at least beginning to improve now. 2/5.

The Mind’s Eye: Geordi has been kidnapped by the Romulans. That sucks… and it gets worst when they conduct a painful mind-control experiment on him. Why? Well, the Enterprise is en route to deal with a Klingon insurrection and have a Klingon ambassador on board. They want Geordi to kill said the ambassador and thus crumble apart from the Federation/Klingon alliance. So yeah, bad. Geordi is a good boy, in romantically hopeless, he didn’t deserve this! Poor guy isn’t even aware of what he’s doing and can’t even sleep properly. It especially got tense there in the end as Data started piecing everything together… just as Geordi is readying to execute the assassination. Thank God that they managed to stop him, but again, poor Geordi. Oh and the fact that there was a Klingon turncoat on board triggering the order… yeah. Looks like Duras wasn’t the only Klingon in ona. Romulan conspiracy. Geordi’s left with implanted memories and the trauma of undergoing a brainwashing that he can’t even remember happening. Another solid episode that continues the threat of the Romulans and this whole RomulanKlingon conspiracy. We’re beuilding up to something, and it’s likely to be explosive. 4/5.

In Theory: A girl named Jenna has a crush on Data, oh my! Data, despite believing that as an android he can’t feel romantic attraction, decides that he’d like to pursue this, even making a romantic program for himself. In other words, it’s The Dauphin 2.0. So first, again with this whole thing about Data being an unfeeling android. Why can’t Data feel romantic attraction? He’s been shown to feel plenty of feelings including some level of affection for Tasa, just because it’s not in the ‘’normal’ way doesn’t make it any less true. Maybe Data is aromantic, but that’s not gonna come up in a 90’s show, which 90’s standards are why this feels so wrong. Data’s curiosity on the subject and deciding to pursue it is fine. He’s new to it and sure studying/emulating what media and books say about romance isn’t always best as the episode does demonstrate. That’s certainly a fine message to express and plenty of people have done/gone through that. There were some fun moments like Data seeking out advice from the others and Worf pretty much threatening Data to treat Jenna, who is part of Security, well or else was also amusing XD But yeah this episode was cute in a few ways, but I just can’t get over that whole ‘Data is emotionless’ thing. The show has shown far more evidence for Data having emotions than lacking them? Maybe Data thinks that he doesn’t, I can believe that, but still. Had they portrayed it simply as Data, being new to love and curious about it, didn’t fully get it/wasn’t ready but was trying to force it anyways and Jenna broke it off because of that instead of using the ‘he was a rebound’ excuse? I’d have been more accepting of that instead of wondering why they even bothered with this plot to begin with. To say that Data can’t feel love and anyone who tries is doomed to failure instead of Data learning to be better over time? Yeah… sorry, not buying it. The Dauphin, despite me not liking how Welsey acted at the end, was standard but still cute. This one though? Sorry, didn’t care for it. But hey, we got Spot again, so that made it worth it! 2/5.

So… aside from the third one, not the best episodes. But hey, everything else this season has still been good. Very least I’ll have plenty to make a Top 5 Best/Worst list for S4 now. Next time is the S4 finale/S5 premiere! Yay~! S4 has been such a fun ride so far! Will the ending end things on a high note and guarantee a strong beginning for S5? We shall see~!

#st watchthrough

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july-19th-club · 4 years

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i couldnt stop thinking about “the offspring” and also ive been thinking it could be kind of fun to write from deanna’s POV so here’s both of that

We’re all a little surprised to see him walk back into the game a month after the memorial. He’d been so quiet during it, and has been very withdrawn with most people for the past several weeks. Not so in our sessions; he veritably lets loose and says things I can sense he’s barely articulated to himself without a willing audience. But in public he’s been far more reserved, and only nods politely and changes the subject as soon as possible whenever she comes up.

“Surprised to see you,” says Worf, never one to avoid stating the obvious. “Sit.”

He does.

“You okay? You ready for this?” Will gives him one of those friendly brother-slaps on the shoulder. Data shrugs.

“I know,” I say, as a faint, jittery mote of - apprehension? - hits me. His sensations always come across more...mechanically, with a slight delay in my experiencing of them, and I’m wrong about what exactly they mean more often than I’d like to admit. It took me years of knowing him to even begin to find their fine tendrils in the psychical space, since my ability is mostly an act of biology and there’s nothing biological about him. Even now I’m not sure how much of my impressions, when it comes to Data, are actually telepathy or whether or not it’s all just basic cold reading. But they’re there, little sparks of this-unsettles-this-being and this-being-is-engagedinterestedfulfilled-by-the-task-at-hand and preoccupation-obscures-this-being’s-other-processes. Right now my strongest impression is this-being-is-suppressing-impatience, which I have to mentally sort through a filter of good old-fashioned psychology to fix to a source motivation. Given the circumstances, it’s a good bet that he doesn’t want anyone to make a big deal out of his finally being back to the poker table, but it’s too late for that and he wishes we’d just get on with the evening.

I lock eyes with him across the table, and he brings her up of his own volition, surprising me. “Thank you. I imagine that you would, Deanna, being the only other member of this party who has both had, and lost, a child.”

That he’s been thinking about me in this sense is touching. We don’t talk about me during session, of course, but it must come to mind for him whenever he enters my office. I am proud of his willingness to address the elephant in the room outside of counseling, though, so I take the conversational olive branch. “You had Lal for a good deal longer than I had Ian,” I admit. “This end of the grieving process is bound to be exponentially more painful.”

“Again, Counselor, I cannot grie-”

I hate cutting him off, but this is something he’s supposed to be working on. Supposed to being the operative phrase. He has such a knee-jerk reaction to it, and it’s been like pulling teeth to try and change that. I feel unpleasantly teacherish and scold-y, but I speak up as I told myself I would the next time he automatically shut down someone else’s emotional observation. “Data. Just because your mind and body do not interpret and process emotion in a human way does not mean the experiences you have do not affect you or the way you think and experience things afterwards. We talked about this.”

He’s contrite, clasps his hands in his lap and looks away from me, at the table. “Yes, we did.” Then he meets my eyes again. “But not here. This is not therapy, this is poker night.”

“Mmmm, same difference,” says Will, as he starts passing the drinks around.

I raise my gin to toast Data. “Damn right,” I say, “and tonight I’m going to crush you and your big brain.”

There’s a hint of ease in his shoulders. Powering down from work mode to casual mode, as I’ve come to think of it. “Highly improbable,” he says. “My brain is in here -” he taps his forehead - “surrounded by dense protective alloy.” Chuckles around the table, and you could almost miss it but I catch a tiny self-satisfied nod. He told me a couple weeks ago he was working on a ‘observational humor subroutine, which has a better chance of merging with my automatic reasoning processes.’ I have to say, it’s an improvement over all those men walking into bars.

“There he goes again, bragging about his thick skull,” says Geordi, as the door opens and he takes his seat. “Sorry I’m late, guys. You forgot this.” He hands Data his green sunshade, which I’d hardly realized he wasn’t wearing. I see their hands brush, the way Geordi leans closer. He’s positively radiating fondnesswarmthcomfortreliefwelcomereturntohabit and it brightens my mood just to be in the same room as it. “Good to have you back, by the way. I’m gonna squash you like a bug.”

“We will see,” Data says evenly, donning the green shade. He takes the offered cards, shuffles, offers them to Geordi to slap for luck, and deals. And the game begins again.

#this was really fun to write actually #wish all my fic ideas came to me in neat little easily-wrapped-up vignettes #star trek #star trek: tng #q

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datagirl14 · 3 years

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(Please be nice. First photo edit I have done and I don’t have a beta reader for my fanfictions)

Title: All About Us

Summary: What happens when Commander Riker finds out his daughter is dating a certain android?

Lieutenant Nicole Riker was making out with Lieutenant Commander Data in the turbolift. They just had like their 3rd or 4th date on the holodeck. It was a Sherlock Holmes program but Nicole went as Jane Watson.

They solved a fun mystery together that was set up in the Holmes setting. However, when they got in the turbolift, Nicole couldn't hold back. She wanted Data. She was the one who made the first move and began kissing him.

Data was a little startled, but went along with it, he wrapped his arms around her, kissing her back. Nicole had her arms wrapped around his neck, stroking the back of his neck lightly.

Just then the turbolift stopped and the doors opened on Deck 8 where Nicole's quarters were located. They were too engrossed in each other to notice Commander Riker and Captain Picard were there waiting for the turbolift.

One of them cleared their throats quite loudly that it startled both Data and Nicole. Nicole turned beet red and averted their looks. Picard was smiling, but Commander Riker was upset for some reason.

"Captain, Commander, excuse us." Data said, taking Nicole's hand and leading her out of the turbolift.

Commander Riker placed a hand on Nicole's shoulder, stopping her dead in her tracks. "We'll talk about this later." He said.

Nicole could sense that he was unhappy with what he just witnessed. Was she in trouble for making out with her boyfriend in the turbolift? There was no Starfleet rule on that. Is there?

Or was he upset, because who her boyfriend is. Lieutenant Commander Data, the ship's second officer. She knew better than it was cause he was an android. Her father knew that it wasn't the case. No, there had to be something more to it. Why was her father so upset?

Nicole decided to shake off the thoughts and enjoy the rest of the time she had with Data before they went back to their duty shifts tomorrow.

***********

A few weeks went by since the little incident and Nicole could tell that her father was playing the good card even though he had all this built up anger towards their relationship. It was still unclear as to why.

Nicole wanted to try and talk to her father about this, but chose best to threw someone else instead. Someone not only close to the commander, but also his Imazadi. Her mother.

"Do you have any idea why Commander Riker would have all of this built anger towards my relationship with Data?" Nicole said telepathically

Troi shook her head. Nicole turned her head to look out the windows of Ten Forward.

Troi wasn't against the relationship. She never had been. She could sense the "crush" Nicole had for the android. It was actually Troi's idea for Nicole to talk to Data about it. And Data agreed with pursuing a romantic relationship with the young Lieutenant.

It was going so good until they got caught.

"Are you sure it is directed towards you, sweetheart?" Troi asked telepathically.

Nicole turned back to her mother and shrugged. She picked at her ceaser salad. She wasn't really hungry today.

It was against doctor patient confidentiality for Troi to talk about the ship's first officer with her mother. Nicole understood. She just wanted to know what the big deal was.

"It is just since we were caught kissing in the turbolift, he seems tense everytime Data and I are near each other, mother." Nicole said. "Data has even noticed." Nicole said the last bit telepathically.

"Yeah, he tried bringing it up with Will, but Will didn't want to talk about it." Troi said, taking a bite of her salad.

Nicole pushed her salad out of the way. She didn't feel like eating.

"You shouldn't let this get you down, honey. Your father probably doesn't understand how to respond with you growing up."

Nicole glared at her mother. "He was NEVER there for me! So why would he have a problem with me "growing up" as you say!" Nicole said, quite loudly.

Crewmembers were giving them looks. Well Nicole looks. Commander Riker walked in about that time and over to them. He kissed Troi on the cheek.

"I am going back to Engineering, thanks for lunch Counselor. Commander." Nicole said, standing up and leaving Ten Forward.

************

Back in Engineering, Nicole got her duty schedule for the next week or so. She was working the early morning shift. She usually didn't have a problem with that, but she wasn't going on the bridge, she was going to be working in Engineering so that meant she wasn't going to see Data any.

Her father must've had a say in this. Commander Riker usually left it to the department heads for the schedule, but he must've talked to Geordi about Nicole's schedule.

"I am sorry, Nikki." Geordi said, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Nicole shook Geordi and plopped down in a chair. Why was her father doing this?

"Can we talk?" Commander came in her field of view. He leaned against the console.

"About what? About how you're against my relationship?" Nicole said, through gritted teeth.

"Now listen here, Lieutenant." Commander Riker said, holding up a finger.

Nicole stood up. She probably was going to get reprimanded for this, but she was too angry with her father.

"No you listen here! You just can't walk into my life out of the blue and tell me how to live it!" She yelled. Geordi came over and tried to calm her down.

"You can live it the way you want to, Nikki!" Commander Riker folded his arms across his chest. "I just don't think you should be dating right now."

"Seriously!? I am NOT a little girl! And what gives you authority to make that choice!"

"Excuse me!" Commander Riker stood up. He overtowered Nicole. "I am YOUR father!"

"NO YOU ARE NOT!!"

Commander Riker was taken aback. Nicole could sense the tiny bit of sadness, but she wasn't backing down.

"MY father walked out on MY mother when she was pregnant, because his career was more important!"

Commander Riker was silent after that. He turned away from Nicole and left Engineering. It hit Nicole like a ton of bricks! The wave of hurt and guilt coming off the first officer. Nicole collapsed back in the chair. She placed her elbows on the console and hid her face in her hands. She took deep breaths to keep from bursting into tears.

Geordi placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. He knew how Nicole felt about her father. She resented him for all of the bullshit he caused. He was even against her joining the Enterprise, but her skills as an Ensign aboard the USS Newton not only made her a Lieutenant sooner than she should've been, but it got her on the Enterprise.

"Maybe you should take the rest of the day off." Geordi said, sitting in the chair next to her.

Nicole sighed and went back to work. "No thank you, Geordi. I am okay. I just want to work."

Geordi patted her shoulder. "Okay." He said.

***********

At the end of her shift, Nicole stopped by her quarters to feed her cat and to change into a pair of gray Starfleet Academy sweats and a graphic tee. She felt working out in the gymnasium would help with this built up anger.

She just didn't expect to see the ship's first officer there either. She put her headphones in. Listening to 90's pop while punching the punching bag.

Her baby blues kept meeting Commander Riker's baby blues. Even though they were on different sides of the gym.

Nicole was in her own world that she didn't notice her father coming over to her. She could sense the anger in him as well but the guilt and hurt was still there quite hidden though.

"Want to spar?" Commander Riker asked.

Nicole raised an eyebrow. It was known that the Rikers solve their family problems by sparring. Nicole is so much like her father in that way.

She took her headphones out. She asked the computer to play her station through the speakers.

Pretty soon they were sparing on the mat. The first couple times, Nicole was on the mat, but soon she was able to trip up the commander and pin him to the mat.

"You've been training with Worf?" Commander asked, flipping Nicole over and pinning her to the mat. "So have I."

Nicole rolled her eyes. "Why do you care?" She asked, pushing him off of her and standing up. She got back in her stance.

"I didn't want to leave your mother, Nicole." Commander Riker said, blocking a hit.

"Then why did you!?" Nicole asked, attempting to take down the first officer again, but he blocked the attempt and took her down.

"I was a junior officer at the time your mother had you. I was so stuck up in my career that I wasn't ready for a family." He said.

Nicole tried to push Commander Riker off of her, but exhaustion forbade her too. Nicole felt guilt again. Her baby blues met the baby blues of the commander.

"You're guilty that you left us." Nicole said, eyes wide.

Commander turned away from his daughter. "I wanted to be there. I really did, but my career was so much more important to me." He said.

Nicole sat up on her elbows. Commander Riker sat back on his heels. "With all do respect, sir. You didn't miss much. I was mostly with my grandmother while mother was at the academy."

Commander Riker laughed as he stood up. He held out a hand and helped Nicole up.

"I bet it was brutal." Commander Riker said, laughing.

"Oh it was!" Nicole was laughing too.

After a few moments of silence Commander Riker took a deep breath. "You can continue with your relationship with Data."

Nicole raised an eyebrow. "You know I was going to without your blessing, right? But thank you."

Commander Riker smiled as he looked down at the mat.

"Permission to speak freely, sir." Nicole said, turning her back to him to get a sip of water.

Commander Riker looked up. "Granted."

Nicole turned around, holding the steel water bottle in her hand. "Why were you so against me joining the Enterprise?"

"I don't know. I knew you were good at your job. You showed exemplentary work on the Newton. I guess I was just scared that you would resent me for leaving you and your mother."

"I do resent you, Commander." Nicole said.

Commander Riker looked down again. "I guess I deserve it. I am no better than my father."

"Sir." Commander Riker looked up and he was looking down at his daughter. "For the record, you are nothing like your father. You are one hell of a first officer! A great leader and friend. And you are learning to be a father. A better father at that."

"Nicole, I know I was never there for you, but I am here now. Let me try to be the father you deserved to have that whole time." Commander Riker said.

Nicole smiled. "I would like that very much so, sir."

Commander Riker smiled back. Although they both were sweaty and smelly, Commander Riker pulled Nicole into a hug. He looked towards the entrance of the gymnasium to see a smiling Troi leaning against the bulkhead.

#startrektng #lt commander data #au fanfiction #original character

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set-phasers-to-whump · 5 years

Text

taking a bullet

whumpee: will riker

fandom: star trek tng

here it is @has-a-blonde-sidekick !!! i’m really sorry it’s not very whumpy but i do plan to write the other prompts you gave me and i promise those will be more whumpy!! i hope this is ok anyway!

Everything had been going so well. The away team, consisting of Riker, Data, and Worf, had beamed down to the city of Ender, which served as a sort of world capital for the planet Angore. The planet was considering becoming a member of the Federation, and the Enterprise had been sent to begin the process.

The away team had had a brief meeting with the governor of Ender, which had been highly productive. They had then been told they could wander around the building which housed most of the government offices of Ender, while they waited for a few officials from various cities around the planet to arrive for discussions.

So the trio had decided to explore the building, which was extremely large and ornately decorated. Most of the doors in the hallways were locked, but occasionally, one would open, revealing a small library, or a supply closet, or a file room. Data had just pushed open an unlocked door, which swung open to reveal a dark room illuminated by several screens on the walls. The three of them had stepped inside for a closer look, and a man had suddenly stepped out from behind a cabinet and pointed a phaser at them.

“What are you doing in here?”

“We don’t want any trouble,” Riker said calmly, raising his hands slightly to show he wasn’t a threat. “The door was unlocked, and the governor told us we were welcome to explore the building.”

“Did she now?”

Beside him, Riker could feel Worf begin to reach for his own phaser. “Don’t,” he whispered. “It’ll be fine.”

“No, it won’t!” shouted the man with the phaser. “Don’t think I can’t see you reaching for your phaser, Klingon! Don’t test me, or I’ll shoot all of you, I swear I will!”

“Commander, I can-”

“Negative, Worf. Just stay calm. We really don’t want any trouble. Nothing that might make the Federation reject your planet’s application to join,” Riker said, hoping to explain to this man why shooting them would be a very terrible idea.

“You think I care about your stupid Federation? You came and busted in on my work, I don’t care if you’re the governor!”

Data stepped forward. “You must think this through,” he said. “You would not risk-”

His sentence was cut short by the blast of a phaser. Something knocked into him, and then fell on him, pinning him to the ground. There was a shout, and a thud.

Worf stood up, having stunned the man, and kicked his phaser away. He turned to the other two members of his team, both of whom were on the ground.

“Commander? Data? Have you been injured?”

“Negative, Lieutenant,” came Data’s voice from beneath Riker.

“Commander?”

There was no reply.

“Commander?” Data asked, gently pushing Riker off of him and to the floor. He sat up, then rolled the Commander over onto his back.

“He is alive,” Data reported. “Merely unconscious.”

There was a long burn mark across Riker’s chest, curving down from his right shoulder as he’d tackled Data to the ground. His shirt had been burned away there, his skin charred underneath.

“I will stay here with him.” Worf poked at the stunned man with his foot, addressing Data. “You and the Commander beam up to sickbay.”

Data nodded sharply and tapped his combadge. “Data to Picard, two to beam directly to sickbay.”

A second later, he and Riker were in the middle of sickbay. Immediately, two nurses were upon them, quickly transferring Commander Riker to a bed and pulling Data to his feet.

Doctor Crusher hurried into the room. “What happened, Data?”

“Commander Riker was struck by a phaser. He is alive, but unconscious.”

Doctor Crusher nodded. Her nurses had already set to work-phaser wounds were fairly easy to treat, especially if the patient was already unconscious.

“What exactly happened?” she asked. “This wasn’t supposed to be a dangerous mission.”

“He...pushed me out of the way, Doctor. The phaser blast would have hit me, but Commander Riker pushed me aside and took the blast instead.”

He was having difficulty understanding why the Commander would do such a thing. He was an android, after all, and less susceptible to damage than a human.

“I do not understand why Commander Riker would do this,” Data confessed, wondering if Dr. Crusher might be able to offer some insight. “I am far less damageable than he.”

Dr. Crusher glanced to the bed where the two nurses were diligently healing Riker’s wounds. She smiled slightly, then turned back to Data.

“He feels responsible for...well, basically everyone on this ship. Even the Captain,” she laughed. “He is the first officer, and a big part of that job is being ready to protect your crew. He’d do just about anything to protect you, Data, or to protect me, or Worf, or any crewman, no matter who they are, regardless of whether he even knows them. But,” she continued, “it’s more than just a duty to him. It’s...innate, the same way healing people is for me. It’s part of him.”

Data took a second to process this. “I believe I understand, Doctor. I had not previously considered this information.”

Dr. Crusher smiled at him. “Maybe don’t tell him I told you all that?” she asked.

“Indeed, Doctor,” Data agreed. “I believe I shall thank him, however, for, to use an old Earth expression, ‘taking a bullet for me.’”

“You can thank him now,” Dr. Crusher told him. “He’ll be coming around any second.”

Riker blinked open his eyes. His chest ached, and he felt exhausted. He thought about what had happened-they’d been down in Ender, exploring the government building, then they’d opened a door, and there’d been-a man with a phaser! He had to find Worf and Data, and see if they were alright!

He bolted up, then took a second to examine his surroundings. Much to his surprise, he found himself not on Angore at all, but instead in sickbay. He glanced around confusedly, until his eyes landed on a familiar face.

“Data! What happened?”

Data sat carefully on the edge of the bed and briefly explained the events that had occurred after Riker had been shot.

“Is Worf back yet?”

As if in response to his question, the door to sickbay slid open, and Worf walked in, hurrying over to Data and Riker.

“Commander, it is good to see you have been healed. The man who shot you is in custody in Ender, and negotiations will resume tomorrow. The governor sends her apologies.”

After delivering his news, Worf turned to Dr. Crusher. “How bad were the injuries?” he asked.

“Not too severe,” she told him. “The burn was fairly bad, but it’ll hardly leave a mark.”

Worf nodded, then turned his attention back to the Commander. “If I may speak freely,” he began, not really waiting for permission, “that was an incredibly foolish thing to do.”

“I am more resistant to phaser fire than you,” Data agreed, then remembered his conversation with Dr. Crusher. “However, I appreciate you preventing me from being harmed. Thank you,” he said, attempting a grateful smile.

Riker smiled back at him, then closed his eyes slightly. “I’m tired,” he remarked.

“Getting shot by a phaser will do that to you,” Dr. Crusher said. “Just get some rest, Will. You’ve earned it.”

Another small smile ghosted across his face before he closed his eyes, falling asleep almost immediately.

Sorry the ending sucks my endings are always just Bad and i should probably fix that,,,anyway again i’m sorry this has barely any actual whump content but i hope it was alright!!

#i keep rereading this and hating it more #sorry i did not do your prompt justice but i promise i'll write the other ones better #my writing #i say things #will riker #star trek tng #shot #burned #unconscious

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han100894 · 5 years

Text

Some of My Frustration with NNT

So this is probably going to be a controversial take, but as much as I like NNT, there are things about it that have been bothering me.

One big one is, despite attempting at least lip service, the girls often vastly get overshadowed by the guys.

(Note, this is me airing my frustrations, I still like NNT, I like all of theses ships to some extent, I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade. It would be awesome to know if anyone else agrees, but mostly I’m just trying to make myself feel better and honestly it may not be the best written and I’m probably forgetting points that made me feel this way and I’m sure I’ve forgotten things in the Manga itself.)

Just look at the three biggest ships: Kaine, Banlaine, and Melizabeth.

I like Kaine, it was my first favorite ship but… it’s ultimately King’s story. The majority of the focus is on King’s POV and feelings. Even Daine’s memory loss is played more about how he feels than her—she doesn’t even get a chance to get mad at Gowther for it, or for that matter angry at King—no instead King gets mad on her behaft. She gets pulled around by the plot, and the memory loss in particular to give King extra angst. Even her confused feeling for Meliodas are mostly played as comic relief, drama fodder early on with Elizabeth, and to King more angst. We get very little from her POV.

And whenever Diane tries to protect King (In my memory at least) it always backfires on her, leading to King to Angst and “power up” and come to the rescue.

She has no real major victories to her name. Generally in any fight from the second half of arc 1 and moving forward she’s either coached by King (The Vytle festival, he saves Diane and defeats his enemy alone, but Diane needs couching), or King takes the spotlight (fighting Helbram, fighting Mael)

The only plot point she gets on her own is the brief time with Matrona after she loses her memory once again. Otherwise her plotlines are heavily tangled with King’s and again we usually see things from King’s point of view. Even when they both went back to the past Diane ends up goofing off but King notices something is wrong. We just—we never get into her head like we do King. We don’t see anywhere near the kind of character development he has.

And King gets several plots unconnected to Diane, Helbram, the fairy forest, Ban and his sister, his inferiority complex…

I just wish she’s get some focus that didn’t revolve around King (or Mel)—and also that she got a chance to protect King without it instantly backfiring on her or making King feel bad about himself again…

(Also, there is no reason for Diane to be “equivalent of 15” none at all. Made even worse once King gets to go through “fairy puberty” in an instant and grow up something she can’t do (Also why the heck would 700=15 when giants only live to like 2000?)

And then Banlaine:

Let’s be honest, Elaine exists almost completely as a prop for Ban’s story, up to and including dying on him (aka being fridged) and causing his manangst and driving his story). She spend half the story dead and the other half deathly ill. She has little to no interaction with anyone else—even her conversations with her own brother is all about Ban.

She doesn’t even really get much of a say about the whole thing, Ban’s quest to save her, it just is.

I do think the Raven’s arc was the best arc, but it was so entirely because of Jericho and her character development and drive, not because of Elaine. She had one moment of cute interactions with Elizabeth as they fought off two people who had no build up and were pretty much fodder, and then she had one moment where she saved Ban and managed to “grow up” something that’s downplayed slightly by being part of the reason Ban gets into his huge angst, and her losing her upgrade literally the next time we really see her just in time for Ban to save her (And turning her back into a child look alike) something that was truly not necessary. Gloxina didn’t lose his wings when he died, and wings are literally something fairies are killed for to sell—she could have stilled died and not lose her upgrade.

Honestly what I want from her is her to get to talk with her god damn brother, and maybe actually work things out on screen how he hurt her, and her understanding how he did so almost entirely unintentionally without Ban being their or brought up would be nice. Off screen does not count at all either. other than that let her be a person and not a prop!

And finally Melizabeth

Technically, or at least some people believe so, Meliodas and Elizabeth are the two main, main characters of the story. Honestly I kinda feel that Meliodas, Ban and King are the one who have gotten the most development and focus throughout the whole story, or at least until recently.

Elizabeth has tried, but in a lot of situation she’s been a plot point (Getting kidnapped, the seed not being in the cup for her test, ect) or had a lot of her agency taken from her to push the story along. Ever since she got her memories back she’s been trying to change that yes, but so far has instead been nearly instantly kidnapped and put into a situation where she could only be saved by others. (And yes, in story context she as in a bad situation for her powerset, but Nakaba still decided to have this happened to her and decided that she could do nothing to help just after she decided she would do something about all of this. It’s not like he didn’t have a choice.)

Meanwhile Meliodas has mostly treated Elizabeth like a child—which is fair considering she is one, she’s only 16 (Seriously, why couldn’t she have been at least 18, what would that have changed other than a tiny bit of the creepy factor)—but even after she regains her memories, he decides what he’s going to do with no input from her (Take the Commandment, break the curse, kidnap her, ect) and yes he has no emotions at the time but it’s still really shitty and only a step more than earlier when he refused to allow her to join the Sins again at the start of arc 2, without even explaining why, and even insulting and hurting her instead.

And it’s not that I want her to be a badass fighter. I’m fine with her being a realistic pacifist and mostly a healer and leader—that’s great. I just want her to have more agency instead of being shoved around to force the plot to do what Nakaba wants and get a chance to actually help Meliodas like she wants.

Bonus: Monspeet and Derieri

Their relationship is interesting, as on its outside it’s actually reverses some of the tropes this story has. Derieri is the one who get most of the focus and character development, while Monspeet is somewhat behind her. And in a twist, instead of the girl being fridged for the guy’s character development, the guy is fridged for the girls. Something rare enough that I actually thought that Monspeet’s death was somewhat okay (Up until Derieri’s story faltered right after).

Derieri has the same somewhat realization as Elizabeth—she was always the one being protected by Monspeet, being taken cared of by him, and how she wanted to be the one who did it back.

But then just as she was getting a big moment, finally a chance to somewhat redeem herself and try and help stop this war and save Mael, she is killed just as she’s about to do it, stopping her story cold turkey.

And now with Mael doing the weird reincarnation thing I have to ask why. If she’s almost certainly going to come back at some point (probably in the sequel—Arthur’s story I’d assumed if it actually happens) why couldn’t she have succeeded when she was so close. Why did she have to be worfed to show off Mael and eventually being the catalyst to power up King.

It’s just… frustrating.

I just wish she’s been allowed to succeeded after everything. I wish she’d gotten at least one moment where she protected Monspeet.

Last complaint

And one thing that has bothered me over all is, most notably while Ban and Meliodas were in Purgatory, how “We are going to get out of here and save our girls” which is great I guess, but, both them, and King in his “I have to protect you” say it so often that it almost feels…infantizing. The guys are so obsessed with taking care of and protecting the girls who don’t get the same chance to do it for them, or try and get punished for it, or realize to late and it’s just…

Ban and Mel really do it, King has his huge “I have to save everyone” complex, even Monspeet goes overboard with Derieri a bit (hitting away the rocks anyone). Escanor is similar, though he respects and believes in Merlin as much as he wants to jump to her defense making him a bit of an exception but I have no idea if Escalin is supposed to be a thing or not at this point. Margret got to be political prisoner for ages, and when she went out to find Gil she gets manipulated into becoming Ludo’s host. Veronica gets a whole side plot only for it to suddenly stop with no conclusion.

I just want the girls to get to do cool things, sometimes completely unconnected to the boys, and not have it backfire on them or get overshadowed. I want the relationships to have more equal screen time between each partner, Is that so much?

#seven deadly sins #nanatsu no taizai #me being kinda salty #ignore me if you want

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margridarnauds · 5 years

Note

6, 7, 10, 21, 23

THANKS AVERY

6. Answered here

7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in.

Let’s have the SALT. (Mandatory disclaimer that my own personal feelings towards the SHIP does not inherently extend to the shippers, that I ship many dynamics that some people would call “abusive” given the ongoing debate over what “enemies to lovers” means, and that some dynamics here are things that I might have shipped under other circumstances, but things just...didn’t work out that way.)

Cats - I hated Plato/Victoria before I even knew that it was POSSIBLE to hate a ship that much. I always went with the Plato = Macavity theory to get that little skeavy dudebro off my girl. (Also, I’ll be honest, the whole “mating dance” thing is...such a fucking weird sequence anyway. Like, my ship preferences aside, ALW WHY DID YOU HAVE TO HAVE A SCENE WHERE THE CATS FUCK?)

Pirates of the Caribbean - Jack Sparrow/Elizabeth.

Harry Potter - Ron/Hermione. I never saw it, tbh, and they seemed to be pretty bad for one another, even in the books. The films just took it up several notches.

OUAT - Captain motherfucking Swan. I hated that smug, greasy little motherfucker so much. So much.

Star Trek Ds9: Jadzia/Worf. THERE. I SAID IT. Both sides brought out the absolute worst in each other, leading to an absolute trashfire of a ship that obliterated all in its wake. AND THEN WE HAD TO DEAL WITH THE FALLOUT OF THAT. EVEN AFTER THE SHIP WAS *DEAD*. Don’t mind me, don’t mind me. I’m cool, I’m cool.

Carmilla - Tbh...Laferry. Never my thing. I know that her character development’s a BIG part of Perry’s arc and I fully embrace character growth, but it just. Left a bad taste in my mouth. And the way shippers used to treat Laflashdrive shippers back in the day. As if shipping a nonbinary character and a flashdrive somehow makes it hetero. (#LetLafBeaRobotfucker2k19).

Les Miserables - You know what? While I’m on the Salt Train...

Enjolras/Grantaire. Now, there are plenty of ships that are probably more deeply annoying to me, but none are as prevalent as this one. And I might like them a lot more if they WEREN’T so prevalent. But as it is, it’s like a black HOLE that’s devoured the fandom, so that you’d think the entire fucking novel/musical is about these two. And. Maybe I shouldn’t talk given what I ship, but it isn’t even like they’re THEM at this point, they’re just two generic white guys in an “uwu” relationship. And I’m not speaking for EVERY single thing given that I have neither the time, concentration, or will to read every. Single. Thing. Made about these two, but it’s something I’ve noticed, though I’m not saying that I haven’t enjoyed SOME things made about them and the whole “You believe in nothing.” “I believe in you” is...good content.

It’s like...you’re walking in the woods (there’s no one around and your phone is dead) and you see a brightly colored pink tree. At first, it’s great. A pink tree! You’ve never seen one of those before. You wander further into the woods, and there’s another! And another! And soon enough, you’re surrounded by pink trees, in a technicolored horror realm. Where’s the sky? Where did you come in at? You think you remember seeing the sun once, but NO, it’s another fucking pink tree blocking your way. There is no God, there is no ground, there is only a technicolored nightmare blocking your every move, drowning you in visions of Barbie-esque horror.

Terra Nova - Skye/Lucas. WHY GOD WHY? Look, we KNOW I have terrible taste in ships, some of which have...questionable dynamics. BUT EVEN I CAN’T GET INTO THIS ONE. There’s no...mutual spark between the two of them, just Lucas creeping on Skye and Skye trying to get away. Also, since I’m here...Skye is estimate to have been born in ‘32-33, making her approximately 16-17 by the time the plot kicks into gear. Let’s be very generous and bump her into 17-18. Lucas? 2124, making him...oh, 25. Not the WORST age gap I’ve ever seen in my lifetime...but....questionable. Very questionable. And I know the series wants to have us believe that people grow up faster (see: The fact they actually think Maddy’s old enough to GET MARRIED. TO A SOLDIER. WHO IS REALISTICALLY IN DANGER OF MAKING HER A WIDOW,) but NO. Like, at my CURRENT AGE, with less than four years separating me from that age gap, I can’t see it. That is still at least 7 years of experience in the “real world” that she doesn’t have. He still saw someone with THAT MUCH of an age gap with him and WANTED something, whether or not she wanted it or not, and tried to PURSUE that something while calling her “sister”. Like, I can’t stop anyone from shipping it and I have a firm “ship and let ship” mentality, but....EW. EWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWeWEEWEWEW.

B5 - I’m in the same boat as you as far as...on one hand. Byron/Lyta makes me want to vomit, but also...our Teep OC does owe her existence to her weird, hetero white goth uncle.

Star Wars: Han/Leia. Because, as we all know, cornering a woman before you kiss her is the love story of the generation. Han would have been better with Luke and Leia with Holdo.

The Pirate Queen - Tiernan/Gráinne. I. Hate. This. Ship.

His Dark Materials - Torn between Ruta Skadi/Asriel and Lyra/Will. Tbh, leaning towards the latter because while the former is AWFUL and signifies the quite frankly terrible writing decisions that distinguish the second and third books, at least it didn’t involve a badass, feral girl child becoming a dainty, submissive 50s housewife in the body of a 12 year old. “Oh, Will, I’ll do whatever you say, I promise. I won’t use my awesome powers unless you say I can, you’re so fantastic, Will.” Gag me. Also...they’re twelve. This doesn’t HAVE to be an epic, tragic romance, and the fact that their “kiss” (WHAT THE FUCK PULLMAN, WHAT THE FUCK, I’M NOT A PURITAN BUT WHAT THE FUCK) is the key to saving the universe? Really? Basically, they should have been friends.

1789 - Danton/Solène. (I KNOW WHAT YOU THOUGHT I WOULD SAY, BUT NO. MY HATRED FOR THIS ONE MANAGES TO OUTSHINE IT.) “But Rachel,” you might say, “You’ve been very, very open about preferring anything to Ronan/Olympe” and that’s TRUE. But the Toho version managed to push my hatred of this one with The Scene, AKA “Go back to the kitchen, Solène and let the menfolk take care of this.” The French version didn’t even really have it as A Thing, he was just a customer. And the amount of time Danton spends with Solène is always directly proportional to the amount of spinal surgery she’s going to have. Now, I can’t exactly BLAME the two Japanese productions for doing what they did, because they have to appeal to a Japanese audience in the way they see fit. It’s an ADAPTATION of 1789, not a tour of it. But that doesn’t mean I have to LIKE it. And. Like. You know there’s no way THAT one’s going to end in a way that’s good for Solène. Either (1) he’ll set her aside for his family or (2) If they SOMEHOW stay together...the Reign of Terror’s looming.

Also: Danton/Charlotte. No. No. Just. No. There are so many reasons why. But no.

Ace Attorney - Maya/Nick. WHY SWEET MOTHER OF HETERONORMATIVITY WHY?

10. Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?

We’ve both discussed a lot about how...DIFFICULT it can be to write fic for something. There are a lot of things I love dearly but just don’t have it in me to write fic for. Ace Attorney is an obvious one, Mozart l’Opera Rock, Elisabeth (though I’m trying to work on that one), Les Miserables, Star Wars, Star Trek, B5....a ton more that I could mention but it would honestly take too much time. Words hard, reading still hard but slightly easier.

21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?

The first thing I ever wrote, when I was five years old, was (very heteronormative) fanfiction for The Stinky Cheese Man, where he finds The Stinky Cheese Woman, which now, of course, I recognize as my own attempt to write myself into a narrative from which I’d been excluded. Or something. I think my mom still has it buried someplace, lurking...

Also, @theocraindora at some point managed to get me to write at least one full Carmilla AU during the second season, when we both must have been about 17-18-ish, if my math’s not too dubious, and that was the first thing I ever actually finished for a long time, even though it didn’t ever meet my personal standards for publishing and is likely to stay buried. For awhile, at least.

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it.

Since I talked about PLP’s tragic backstory, time for something happier. Paradise Lost, which I’m actually pretty damn happy with because it was my first time working with something that’s not a historical piece, and it was honestly a treat working with Mira’s voice. I think that Mira really “clicked” for me as a character here. Like, “Yes, this is why she’s like this, this makes sense.” There are some times where you can really feel a character’s voice when you’re writing and you can get things out, and this was one of those very rare times for me. Not saying that it’s going to happen NEXT time, but this time, it was rather relaxing.

It was honestly one of the smoother writing experiences I had? Like, it only took me about a day or so, from when we exchanged PMs to publishing it, which is pretty impressive, all things considered. I’m still not tossing out doing anything more with this world in the future, tbh. That and Goosefic were probably two of the easiest to just...get out. (WHICH. 92 HITS. GOOSEFIC HAS 92 HITS. THAT IS INSANE FOR A ONE-SHOT IN A SMALL FANDOM. HOLY SHIT.)

(From your other ask!)

50. How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction?

I’ve been WRITING fanfiction since I could hold a pencil and make scribbles. When I was younger, I could write that kind of thing easily, the shame came later.

Finding out that fanfiction EXISTED...was probably when I was about 9-10 and found Balto x Harry Potter crossover fanfiction. Which. In hindsight. Was pretty horrible, but my young self was CAPTIVATED because Balto and Harry Potter? In the same universe? IT WAS LIKE MAGIC.

Astonishingly, I did not read M rated stuff until I was at least 15-16-ish. I kept myself remarkably sheltered and only looked into it when I became curious. And got over my weird hyper-religious phase.

When I was about 12-13, I started to toy with writing myself, writing my own OC crossovers for Phantom Manor (the gother, European version of Haunted Mansion that was my special interest for. Ages). Carmilla when I was 17-18 was one of the first things I wrote a full, complete Thing for, even if I never published anything for it. And from there, I’d try to write things for both The Pirate Queen and Dracula, though both projects proved to be too ambitious and I ended up cutting them off, tragically, but they gave me the confidence I needed to get into 1789, which I DID publish something for finally, on the day I was taking my GRE because. Well. I had something else I feared more than a flame.

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

I don’t know if this is one thing or five separate things in a trenchcoat, but here you go.

I love how we can explore things that could never be explored in canon, for one reason or another; I love that we have an experience that we can filter according to what WE want, including trigger warnings, which is honestly a godsend to me. We talk a lot about the transformative nature of fanfic, and it IS, but also, the level of empowerment that comes with being able to take back a narrative that says “hey, you’re not supposed to be in this narrative” or “You’ll like what we put out and you’ll stick with it” or “Well, if you don’t like it, create your own” and say “Okay, I will.” And, obviously the comments are lovely, having that kind of instant encouragement, and in the small fandoms in particular, it’s VITAL, but I also don’t feel like they’re inherently mandatory or that readers should feel FORCED. But I do love that, no matter what, something you write can connect with someone from the other side of the world. Like, people can argue all they want about fanfic being valid or not, but MOST people who want to be professional writers never get that. And when you stop and think about how we’ve been changing the narrative for as long as we’ve had oral stories, that this is how storytelling was ORIGINALLY done...that’s very humbling.

#janetcarter

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avatarsymbolism · 6 years

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The Full Avatar Trek AU

I felt bored, so I decided to do a follow up on all of @yinza‘s awesome Trek/Avatar crossover art by creating a timeline (with episodes) of all the Avatar Trek shenanigans. Also because I’m a huge nerd and there are just SO MANY THINGS that kind of parallel each other in really weird ways despite their differences.

I’ll start off with ATLA and make a post later for Korra.

Anyway, let’s begin!

Note: This was made pre-”Star Trek: Discovery” so, unfortunately, there won’t be any Lorca/Zhao parallels…yet. I did add one “Discovery” related thing though.

Avatar

Avatar is the story of a Vulcan-Trill hybrid named Aang who commands the Appa, one of the most prized ships in the Vulcan fleet. Aang himself is a prodigy of sorts, so much so that only he was deemed worthy of the Avatar sybiant–one of the oldest symbiants known to the trills–despite not being fully Trill himself. And, to make the Klingon’s hunt for the Avatar make more sense, I guess we can maybe say that because it’s an old symbiant the Avatar has access to some kind of higher plane of power? That, or maybe the Avatar just tends to be very powerful?

He was merely a Lieutenant Commander serving as first officer to Captain Gyatso when the Klingons attacked the Vulcan homeworld. After Gyatso was fatally wounded in one of the Klingon’s initial assaults on Vulcan, Aang took the initiative and tried to steer them towards safety.

But, as luck would have it, the Appa got caught in some kind of space anomaly which forced Aang to land on the nearest planet–a small Bajoran colony–which is where our story begins…

Book 1

The Man in the Anomaly

Katara and Sokka are two Bajorans hunting for food to bring back to their village. The situation on Bajor (and the Bajoran colonies where Katara and Sokka live) is a mix of the ATLA and DS9 canons While there are no signs of camps, the Klingons have frequently raided the Bajoran colonies and tried to harvest their resources in order to weaken Bajor Prime.

Anyway, Katara and Sokka are out hunting when a space vessel decides to land a few hundred feet away from them. Sokka cautions Katara to stand back, fearing that it might be some kind of Klingon trick. But, when the doors open, the only person to step off the ship is an exhausted looking Aang.

Meanwhile, on a worn out looking Klingon warbird, Lieutenant Jee informs Zuko that they’re receiving a strange signal from a nearby planet. Zuko investigates. This is rather odd, since last he checked the Vulcans began masking their signals to protect them from the Klingons long ago. Hell, he didn’t even know how many of them were left alive–unless…

And that’s when Zuko decides to head a course to the planet.

I guess I shroud probably also add that the space anomaly that Aang encountered whipped his ship through time and space.

The Avatar Returns

The kids’ grandmother informs everyone that a Klingon ship is coming their way. Everyone panics, and Aang is banished from the village by Sokka, who still doesn’t quite trust the guy.

Enter Prince Zuko and his awesome bat’leth. Zuko demands to know the location of the Avatar–basically a similar situation to what actually happened in canon. Aang appears, offers himself up on the condition that Zuko leaves everyone alone etc., etc.

Back at the village, Katara and Sokka investigate the ship–a few canonical things happen–and they end up taking control of the vessel to go and save Aang.

Canon stuff happens–and Katara and Sokka end up managing to teleport Aang back onto the ship.

As they make a run for it, Aang thanks his new friends and appoints them as officers aboard the Appa (Later on, Katara becomes the chief medical officer and Sokka becomes the science officer).

Also, I just realized that there should technically be a ton of dead bodies on the ship…no idea when/how they’d be removed yet.

Return to Vulcan

The Gaang travels to Vulcan (just go with it) where they try to look for Vulcan survivors, knowing that not all the Vulcans were actually killed in the Klingon attacks. This leads to some Aangstig when our captain voices regret about not tending to Gyatso when he had the chance, and not being there when his people needed him. Katara assures him that that was nothing he could do anyway (which makes this episode a mix of “The Southern Air Temple” and “The Storm.”).

Meanwhile, Zuko meets Gul Zhao (Yes, he’s a Cardassian and you can’t tell me otherwise. Also, there’s been a long standing alliance between the Cardassians and the Klingons and Ursa was a Cardassian which is why Azula looks like a Cardassian and Zuko looks like a Klingon in @yinza‘s fan art), and some canon taunting happens. Also, Iroh is not a fan of red leaf tea. He does like prune juice through. “A warrior’s drink!” That, and blood wine.

[filler stuff and exploration I guess]

I guess instead of a waterbendding scroll, the Gaang could be after some kind of prized Bajoran manuscript?

I was also going to suggest that, with Rene Auberjonois playing one of the tribal leaders in “The Great Divide,” that that episode could be about Bajoran orbs but, that would still be a very boring episode, I think.

The Storm

BACKSTORY TIME!

After some asshat spouts bullshit, Aang and Katara find themselves in a cave where Aang recounts the events leading up to his landing in the future.

Meanwhile, the crewmen of Zuko’s ship are threatening mutiny and bringing up the prince’s dishonor. Iroh intervenes and explains Zuko’s story because everyone respects General Iroh (I feel like he’d get along well with General Martok for some reason…man, I need that au now. Meanwhile, Zuko and Worf can talk about how they restored the honor of their families.).

Cut to Aang’s story. Aang’s busy serving under Gyatso when the Klingons attack. Everyone’s on red alert. Gyatso is busy captaining and trying to get the Appa away from the Klingon flank. Gyatso gets hit, but instead of tending to Gyatso, Aang takes the helm. Aang voices regrets about leaving Gyatso to die saying that he should have been by his side. Katara assures him that that there was nothing he could do (Hmm, since this is partially a repeat of “Repeat to Vulcan,” this may need some work).

Cut to Iroh and the story of Zuko. Zuko is a young, enthusiastic youth eager to learn how to rule. He wants to observe a war meeting etc., etc.

(Oh, and fun fact: Daniel Riordan, the guy that voices General Bujing–the guy that Zuko speaks out against–played a Klingon in Star Trek: Enterprise. What kind of Klingon lets someone else fight his own challenge!)

Zuko speaks out of turn…dual…Zuko gets a quarter of his face cut by his father’s bat’leth and is discommendated and banished from Qo’nos until he manages to find whoever holds the Avatar symbiant.

The Blue Spirit

Similar premise to the actual episode, although it may need a better name (btw, instead of being a theater geek, the Zuko of this universe is a big fan of Klingon opera). I keep re-imagining Aang’s speech from this episode as something that sounds like it may have come from Captain Picard. (Hmm…Kuzon and Kurzon…).

The Siege of Bajor

Zhao’s plot in the latter half of this season is basically the final arc of Gul Dukat’s plot. I have a few words for you all:

I AM A LEGEND NOW. CARASSIA WILL FOR GENERATIONS TELL STORIES OF THE GREAT ZHAO WHO CONQUERED BAJOR! THEY WILL CALL ME ZHAO THE CONQUEROR, ZHAO THE GODSLAYER, ZHAO THE INVINCIBLE!

Zhao tries to destroy the orbs or something like that, but Aang manages to get the Prophets to intervene and Zhao is killed the same way as Dukat. That, or Aang just shows up, doesn’t intervene with the Prophets and it’s Zuko that watches Zhao get destroyed by the Prophets…or maybe Aang. I don’t know how Zuko fits into all this.

Book 2

So, after the Siege, Pakku decides to travel from Bajor to some of the settlements to help them rebuild, and gives Katara some kind of special Bajoran poultice thing…I don’t know–something like the spirit water that Pakku gives Katara in ATLA canon.

Meanwhile, Zuko meets up with Azula, who tells him that Ozai has apparently decided to restore his honor. Canon stuff, big fight. I can’t decide how Iroh and Zuko would try to disguise themselves. Maybe they just try to blend in, somehow? There’s no way they could just do reconstructive surgery or something since they’re fugitives.

I’m also wondering if there could be some stuff that makes the Avatar symbiant more significant. I don’t know what though.

The Cave of Two Lovers

The Gaang’s plot would probably play out differently, but the cave could be some kind of alienish thing that the Gaang encounters.

The idea of having Chong and co being hippie aliens makes me laugh though for some reason (Oh, I bet it’s because of the drug psa episode of TNG).

The Swamp

I feel like this could be a variant of “If Wishes were Horses,” or better yet “Where No Man has Gone Before.” Huu could even be a traveler or something that the Gaang meets. Maybe this planet has some sort of alien property that connects them to the universe in such a way that they almost become enlightened just by being there for a period of time.

Katara sees a vision of her dead mother, Sokka sees Yue, and Aang has a vision of a girl wearing a VISOR, standing beside a flying boar.

(Another fun fact: Buck Bokai is Jeong Jeong, Also, Wesley Crusher is the pet shop owner in “City of Walls and Secrets,” and the circus trainer that hurts Appa? Yeah, that’s Lt. Barclay.)

The Blind Bandit

So, the Gaang is trying to find their way to Earth when they meet Toph in some kind of arena.While there, Aang tries to talk to her but, Toph doesn’t really give a shit.

Later they manage to find the Beifong household, and Aang meets Toph. Just like in canon, Toph’s parents try to shelter Toph s much as possible, not thinking that she could manage anything on her own, even with her VISOR.

Later, Aang and Toph talk, and she tells him about the VISOR. By the episode’s end, Toph decides to join the Gaang as their engineer.

(Wait, this now brings up the valid question of who’s running the ship before all this and whatnot. Maybe we can have a few episodes about the crew and whatnot like we had in TNG? Granted, I don’t think Aang’s crew would like it all that much if he just randomly approved two Bajorans as his science and medical officers. Maybe there could be some other officers and Sokka/Katara/Toph can eventually work their way up? That, or somehow Aang is the only one left on the ship.)

Zuko Alone

Zuko disguises himself with a hat (yes, we’re doing that), and enters a small village in one of the Earth colonies. There, he gets in trouble with some Terran officers (since we can’t really do Starfleet at this point. Although, Starfleet being like the URN would be cool–Oh, so THAT’S why Raiko is so incompetent. He’s one of those asshat Starfleet command types that knows diddly squat about what he’s doing.)

Zuko meets Lee’s family, and we get some nice character development an some flashbacks.

In this universe, Zuko’s family has a monopoly on the Chancellor position (that or it has become hereditary). General Iroh has laid siege to Earth for 600 days when his son is killed in a Terran counterattack. Devastated by the death of his son, Iroh ends the siege.

Meanwhile, Ozai meets with Azulon and asks that he be made his father’s heir instead of Iroh. Azulon is offended by Ozai’s request and orders Ozai to kill Zuko.

Ursa intervenes, and thanks to some chance events, Ozai is made Chancellor after Azulon;s death.

(It is also at this point that I’ve come to realize that Zuko would basically be the Avatar equivalent of Alexander Rozhenko…I hated that kid. Zuko is 1000 times cooler and less lame. Although, Zuko’s lack of fighting skills as a kid and his empathy probably puts him on par with Alexander…somewhat.)

Lee’s mom meets up with Zuko and tells him that the Terran soldiers are threatening to take Lee away. So, Zuko decides to help her get Lee back, and we get some canonical stuff with a fight.

Well, Zuko’s hat comes off (man, that just sounds really stupid. I’ll come up with something more clever, eventually…maybe) and everyone find out that Zuko is a Klingon. Also, prejudice just like the actual episode.

The Chase

I feel like this would be another fun episode to Star Trekify. You get lots of action, fighting, wisdom etc. Maybe Toph still meets up with Iroh, and she doesn’t realize that Iroh is a Klingon so the two of them drink tea and share wisdom (wait, the VISOR would tell her he’s a Klingon. I’ll have to fix that sometime.). .

The Serpent’s Pass

This will probably need a name change. But, this could probably have the Gaang traveling through an asteroid belt or something. Meanwhile, Zuko and Iroh are ALSO on their wa to Earth, and Zuko meets Jet. I’d love to see a Star Trek version of their relationship. It would be interesting.

(Ok, this now brings up the question of: if Jet realizes that Zuko and Iroh ar Klingons, why doesn’t he just remove their hats? This hat problem is now sounding ridiculous.)

City of Walls and Secrets

The Gaang arrives on Earth and tries to meet with the United Earth Council Finding that they’re having difficulty meeting some of the higher ranking officials, the Gaang decides to sneak into one a gala hosted by Kuei.

However, things don’t go quite as planned when the Gaang gets taken captive by Long Feng, the head of Section 31. Long Feng tells Aang to stop distrupting the state of peace that’s been maintained by him and his agents. For here they are safe.

Meanwhile, Jet tries to reveal Zuko and Iroh’s identity and fails, being taken prisoner by Section 31 and is brainwashed.

(Also, what if, in this univrse, Long Feng tries to steal Aangs ship so he can better keep tabs on him or something?)

Ok, the Book 2 plot definitely needs to be reworked so ‘ll just skip to the finale.

The Earth King

(Or, rather, the equivalent of)

The Gaang manages to show the Council that Long Feng and Section 31 have been running a massive conspiracy, and Long Feng is arrested.

Meanwhile, Azula (Cardassian), Mai (Klingon), ad Ty Lee (a human presumably from a Klingon colony or something), infiltrate the United Earth Council and are ‘caught’ by Long Feng.

The Crossroads of Destiny

Plotwise, this episode is pretty much the same as canon.

The Star Trekified differences are that the Appa, Azula’s ship, and Zuko’s eventually meet up.

Zuko and Kaara were busy having their canon conversation when Katara is beamed away to the Appa, and Azula takes her place.

The Gaang waits anxiously, all the while wondering what the hell is going on.

Azula teleeports back to her ship..

Zuko’s ship readies to fire…and the Gaang realizes that they’re about to to get attacked!

Katara is heartbroken! A hit surges through the circuits and Aang gets zapped in his captain;s chair!

Madness endues!

The Gaang just barely makes it out alive, and Katara ends up using some Bajoran medicine to revive Aang

Book 3

Book 3 pretty much follows canon, so I don’t think I need to explain much. The Gaang travels from place to place, meets different people,there’s an equivalent to “The Day of Black Sun” (not sure what exactly it involves, but maybe they use the cave systems mentioned in “Star Trek: Discovery”) and then the finale.

#aang #zuko #katara #sokka #iroh #toph #suki #admiral zhao #long feng #king kuei #azula #atla mai #au headcanons #avatar trek #star trek

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calliecat93 · 3 years

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ST: TNG S7 Watchthrough Episodes 2-5

Liasons: Picard crashes on a planet and is helped by a woman whow as stranded… and she’s just a little unhinged. This is essentially the ST version of Stephen King’s Misery. You know, the story where the obsessed fan kidnaps her favorite author after he getsinto an accident and nurses him bck to help, but turns out to be an utter psychopath? Yeah it doesn’t get quite as horrific, but the sentiment is there. So it was alright, at least for most of it. The Enterprise plot is alright, Worf dealing with an annoying alien and just wanting to strangle him is amusing. Not much to note otherwise. The Picard plot… along with the Misery parallel, it feels like All Our Yesterdays from TOS if Zarabeth had been faaar more unhinged and tried to force herelf on Spock instead of how it actually happened. There’s a plot twist with this one… and while I won’t give it away, it makes the entire thing utterly horrible. The concept is interesting, but the most I can say is that at least they emphasized that forcing yourself on someone is wrong, although the one responsible got off extremely light. But all I’m goign is ‘…why didn’t you just ask to know what you needed ot know instead of doing… this?!’. So yeah… not one I’m keen on looking at again. 2/5.

Interference: A Starship has gone missing along with its captain… who is Geordi’s mother. This happens just as they are testing a neural interface connected to a probe that makes Geordi feel as though he’s actually there. During one of the tests he encounters, to his shock, his mother. God, I feel so bad for Geordi in this. While everyone, including his father, assumes his mother is dead, because there’s no evidence of it Geordi refuses to believe it but it’s clear that this has hit him hard. He’s upset when a memorial service ges planned, keeps pressing with his job, and when Data offers comfort he tries to deny it until admitting that he does. It’s all very understandable and when he finds even a slimmer of hope, he takes it even when it means breaking regulations. But can we blame him? Honestly, it annoys me that everyone just assumes that Geordi is wrong because he’s upset. Several times they took these things seriously and at least looked into them, like in Remember Me and The Quality of Life. Aside from safety concerns with the interface, which is justified as it can cause legit harm to Geordi, the fact that they won’t even investigate the possibility just feels OOC. Still, it was a fine episode. Certainly one of Geordi’s better focuses episodes since there’s no forced love interest where he never learns. I won’t give away the ending but it is a bittersweet one. Also due to the interface, LeVar Burton gets to go without the VISOR and contacts for a while, so that must have been a relief for him XD

Gambit: Another two-parter alreadt? You’d think they’d wait at least more than two episodes, but whatever. Let’s see what we got.

Part One: Picard is dead… okay yeah no he’s not, but the crew presume him dead after investigating. Riker is Hellbent on making the ones who caused his captain’s ‘death’. Yeah it kinda loses some dramatic impact since unless your name is Tasha Yar, you know that they ain’t gonna kill one of the leads so anyone watching this can already figure out that Picard’s alive. Fortunateley they seemed to know that and don’t play it out for very long. I question Riker’s more vengeful reaction, but it’s moot as he gets kidnapped by mercenaries. Thus Data is left in command of the Enterprise while Riker is forced to work on-board the bad guys ship… and finds Picard also working for them. The mercenaries are after some Romulan artifacts, so we have Picard and Riker infiltrating the ranks (Picard having created a whole new identity/persona for himself while solo) while the rest follow suit. It was an alright eppisode, it does it’s job welle nough. it feels like we had some good potential with a psyche out death from Picard and Rike wanting to avenge him. Even with The Best of Both Worlds at least the posisbility they could save Picard was there. But the way they did go works and we have a mystery with the artifacts. Solid first part, but we’ll see in Part 2 can uphold it. 3/5.

Part Two: So those Romulan artifacts? As it turns out… they’re Vulcan. The artifacts can form a weapon known as the Stone of Gol, which was created pre-Surak and can let Vulans use their telepathy to kill those with violent thoughts. Yeah… you can probably tell why the current logical Vulcans wouldn’t want that used. I would say they probably should have destroyed them since that seems the most logical option, but I guess this works too… anyways! It seems like Picard and Riker may have some help as one of the mercinaries is a Vulcan woman named T’Paal posing as a Romulan who is investigating due to a group of Vulcan extremists seeking it. Holy crap, a Vulcan extremist movement? That is an awesome plot point! We don’t get much unfortunateley cause plot, but the closest we ever got to this was with Sybok in The Final Frontier so I’m still glad to have it included! As far as the episode goes… it’s fine. It really gets good enar the end when the mercenaries get on the Enterprise, get the artifact, Picard fakes Riker’s death to get him back witht he crew, and Picard provokes a mutiney against the mercenary leader whose been forcing the rest to work for him. But there is one more twist. As per usual I won’t give it away, but lt’s just say that the’s one other Big Bad within the ranks. The fiirst half was kind of meh, though I liked Data being in command with Worf as his Number One and the two having to work the dynamic out. But once we get the artifacts all together? That’s when things got exciting. Lke I said I wisht here had been more with this Vulcan extremist movement, but still pretty good all in all. The final scene got a good giggle out of me XD 3.5/5.

Overall: It was a decent two-parter. Like I said, I think they should have waited a bit before doing another two-parter, but still fine. The infiltration plot is fun and Picard was at his absolute best. It was fun to have a villainos Vulcan as well, especially apparently she was played by the second actress for Saavik. That’s an effective way to use a returning actor haha! There were a good few parts where it dragged and it feels like with some tweaking they could have made this a regular hour episode. Also the Stone of Gol, while it has an interesitng cocnept… doesn’t really do much damage since Picard figured out the weakness quickly. It’s pobably the weakest two-parter in the series just because it’ nowhere near as exciting, provoking, or even as entertaining as some of the others were and did pretty much nothing on a character development front. It’s still fun and the plot works, it just both feels stretched and like it wasted some really cool opprotunities. Like rewrite it so that the Enterprise works with a Vulcan to find these artifacts and lies thaty they’re Romulan, the Vulcan turns out to be an extremist, use it to do some more exploration on Vulcan culture and the ramifications of the logic-based society that The Final Frontier kind of brought up (maybe this movements was even inspired by Sybok if we go the ‘emotions over logic’ route), and Picard has to piece it all together while implying a potenial major Vulcan conspiracy going on. The mercenaries are ultimateley irrelevant at the end of the day, so you can easily write them out. Still, it was fine. it’s at least watchable and had some fun moments. 3.5/5.

#st watchthrough

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calliecat93 · 3 years

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ST: The Next Generation S4 Watchthrough Episodes 2-5

Family: I fully expected the episode after the whole Borg thing would just be another typical episode that maybe brought it up, but otherwise be business as usual. Thank God that they didn’t go that route. This was the follow-up needed, a calmer, more introspective episode. No aliens. No politics or social issues. No heavy action. Just a cool-down, character-driven episode to let the audience breathe and allow character development. Picard of course is the big plot, going back to France (is this a joke because Patrick Stewart is British?) to reconnect with his family and deal with the trauma of the Borg assimilation. Robert is kind of an ass… but he does care about Picard and does ultimately help him open up about the trauma. Seriously, Patrick Stewart’s acting in that scene? 100% perfect. I like his sister-in-law and nephew as well and I liked finally seeing Earth outside a Starfleet base/an area not technologically advanced. We also met Worf’s adopted parents! While they’re a little much, they clearly love Worf, did their best to adjust in properly raising a Klingon child, and I’m just glad to see some actual competent/caring parents in something. Crusher and Wesley’s plot isn’t much… but not gonna lie, if my mom hadn’t been in the room I’d have likely cried. Wesley watching the hologram of his deceased dad… while Wil Wheaton’s acting was a little underwhelming… yeah God that hit far too close. My dad died three years ago and I still get choked up about it sometimes. And when Crusher was going through Jack’s belongings and picking up his uniform? Just… damn. I’m so glad to see an episode that just… lets the characters develop and grow without having to add a whole bunch of melodrama or an over-complicated plot or anything like that. It’s about family, and it was freakin’ perfect. 5/5.

Brothers: Well… I should have seen this coming eventually. Lore is back folks. Oh but it’s not just him. After three seasons, we finally meet the infamous Dr. Soong. Guess this is why Data wasn’t in the last episode, his family issues needed one all their own. So first… Brent Spiner deserves every freakin’ acting Emmy ever because he played all three of these characters. Yep, all three at the same time in the same episode. And he plays all three with great distinction and character and… the man is freakin’ good. The whole episode was just… damn. The first half where Data essentially hijacks everything.. yeah if Data ever went evil, everyone would be screwed. That was legit horrifying… though why they left Data alone on the bridge when something was clearly wrong with him I’ll never know. As for Dr. Soong himself… I’m not sure how to feel about him. Oh as a character he’s great. Brent Spiner really put a lot into him. I’m just not sure whether to call him out or feel bad for him… but maybe that’s part of the point. And Lore? Well… while he’s certainly evil… I actually felt bad for him? I can’t blame him for being angry and resentful because… yeah him being deactivated/disassembled while Data got to live out a life and shown clear favoritism is very understandable. He truly feels like the angry older brother whole Data is the younger, more inquisitive brother not quite sure what to think. Soong does seem to regret decommissioning Lore, especially now that he’s dying (which Lore’s actual emotional reaction… it was possibly an act but IDT it was, again excellent work by Brent Spiner), and it does feel like he summoned the two (even if Lore was unintentional since he didn’t know he’d been reassembled) to make some form of amends, but IDK if it’s legit regret or some form of ego. It really feels open to interpretation or perhaps a mix of both. Despite that, Soong being killed by Lore who escapes with the emotion chip not designed for him implanted to wreak havoc again in the future… yeah him accepting that it’s over and his and Data’s goodbye with Data calling him ‘father’… again, just perfect. This whole episode was perfect, Event the subplot with the two kids was done well and served as a good parallel to the Data and Lore situation. Those two were able to forgive… but I don’t think it will be that simple for Data. I’m still hoping that Data gets happy things later (WHEN DOES HE GET HIS KITTY?! I WANT HIM TO GET HIS KITY!), but still a fantastic episode. 5/5.

Suddenly Human: So in this episode, we have a human boy who was raised by an alien culture known as the Talarians. Due to being raised among them, he acts and views himself as a Talarian moreso than he does a human. Well… that’s certainly an interesting episode topic. It’s kind of like with Worf, a Klingon, having been raised by humans, albeit they did try to keep his Klingon heritage intact as much as they could. I think that this may be the first tme we’ve had a human being raised in an alien culture? Spock may have kinda counted, but he was half-Vulcan, half-human, and still had both parents so that’s still a different situation compared to someone born and raised human until his parents died and was taken into the very group that caused their deaths. I guess the title character in Charlie X back during TOS may have also counted, which I do get similar vibes from especially the whole ‘captain super awkwardly stepping up as a father figure against his will’ part… albeit I feel more sympathetic towards Jono than Charlie who went thoroughly power-mad, plus Charlie very clearly didn’t want to go back to the aliens. Jono just wants to go home. Honestly… IDK how to feel about the situation. I get wanting to have Jono connect to his human roots and being concerned about him being among the Talarians who have a… rather ruthless, very patriarchal lifestyle. However, the man who took him in does genuinely love him and it does seem like he’s been accepted into their world and he’s content with that. It’s where I get the crew’s concerns and while a little too excessive Crusher’s concern about Stockholm Syndrome does make sense somewhat… but I’m also like ‘this is his choice, if that is what he wishes then grant it to him.” . Trying to make him get in touch with his roots as though they know what’ best for him when they absolutely don’t, no matter how well-intentioned… yeah don’t agree with that. Even if he has remaining family on Earth, then as sad as it is, he gets to make that choice for his life no matter what the consequences may be. IDK is they intended to bring up the moral complexity of these kinds of situations because there are solid arguments that you can make for all sides here, but I do think it’s there and is very much a relevant topic in today’s world. I’m very much on the ‘make the choice for yourself and allow one to make that choice’ opinion. Allow them to learn about their heritage and the truth about how they ended up where they did, and let them decide what they’d like for themselves/how they’d like to lead their lives. Ultimately that’s what Jono did. He understands what happened and he finally expresses missing his parents and the trauma he endured due to it… but he also chose to remain with his adopted father and those who raised him, but maybe now more open in getting in touch with his Earth/human heritage. IDK if it was the right or wrong choice, but it was his choice. 4/5.

Remember Me: 🎶Though I have to say goodbye. Remember me, don't let it make you cry.🎶 Sorry, the Disney/Pixar nerd in me required me to do that XD Okay in all seriousness... guys they did it! They made an episode centering on a female character (Dr. Crusher) aND IT WAS ACTUALLY GOOD! So we have huge chunks of the crew disappearing and everyone’s memories of them wiped… except for Dr. Crusher. So… I won’t go into the plot twist here. Like with The Survivors it is really something I’d rather not spoil. But damn, I already liked Dr. Crusher… but this made me love her. The poor woman keeps questioning her sanity because of all the disappearances/memory gaps. To everyone else, nothing is out of place. To her? Everything is breaking down. I do like that the crew does listen to her and take her fears seriously. No one questions her going insane, Troi even telling her that if she thinks that something is wrong, then she’s acting as she should. Even when it’s only Crusher and Picard, despite clearly getting tired of it… Picard still listens to her and trusts her word. With how in both this and TNG they sometimes have dropped in common sense, it’s just so nice to see them treat this situation seriously and carefully and not act like Crusher is just a hysterical woman. Which she is not. While she understandably is freaked out and upset, she acts competently and intelligently especially when it’s only her left. Again, without spoiling anything, the way she gets out of it shows just how freakin’ awesome she is. Just an overall really good episode and Thank God that Dr. Crusher finally got the focus that she deserved. Sorry Pulaski, but them ditching you was worth it for this~! 4.5/5.

Wow we are off to an excellent start! Brothers may be my favorite episode in the whole show thus far. Much more to go, so hopefully the quality remains consistent. We shall see~!

#st watchthrough

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