For the emoji ask game!

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(PS if you feel like it, can we hear more about Betrothal? 👀)

🌧️Share something angsty from your WIP.

Since you ask, @lost-in-derry, (thank you so much for that, btw) let me tell you about the angsty part of The Betrothal. I don't want to spoil too much, but besides being an Order 66 didn't happen AU, this also is an Arranged Marriage AU. Both Kallus' and Zeb's fathers are Senators and arranged their sons' marriage as part of a deal. Kallus is just resigned to it, his father doesn't care if he wants or not, but Zeb hates the idea as soon as he hears it. He warms up to it after spending some time with Kallus. Kallus has reasons not to like or trust Garazeb, and yet, he can't resist his charm.

That's when everything goes south, and I'm not telling you how or why, but they both end up at the hands of slavers (I haven't decided if Zygerrians or some other). Zeb is taken as a slave immediately to be a fighter, but *for reasons*, Kallus is confused as a slave trader. He plays the part until he can figure out how to get Zeb out there. But as if that wasn't enough, Kallus is a veteran of war (and Onderon happened, not for the same reasons, but with the same people and same result), so guess who also happens to be among the fighters (the champion to be defeated)? If you thought Gerrera's Lasat mercenary, you'd be correct.

☔Is there a fic concept you have that you'd like to just explain and share because you're not sure if you'll ever write it? If so, what is it?

I already answered it here, but I have so many ideas, that you're in luck. Let me tell you about another fic.

I want to write a fic with Cal Kestis and Merrin after Jedi Survivor where Cal struggles with the Dark Side. The idea is that one day he loses control again like he did in Nova Garon and Katra is present. After he regains control, he senses fear coming from her, so he thinks she's afraid of him. In reality, she's afraid FOR him. She already lived something similar with her dad and that didn't end well, so...

Anyway, it's an excuse to write a moment between Cal and Katra, plus Merrin and Cal being adorable together 😆

🌩️ Share something funny/cracky from your WIP.

I've said before, and I'll say it again. I don't write funny, comedy, or crack. I'm bad at it. So this snippet might not be as funny as I think it is. But whatever… It's from The One to Survive.

The high-pitched, mechanical voices of a pair of B1 droids come from the end of the hallway, “Did you hear about Vee-Tee Seven-Six-Four?” one asks.  “Yes, his operative system got corrupted. Started thinking he could use the Force.” Dropper, Clawbird, and Onix share a look. Even when hidden behind his helmet, Onix senses Dropper’s wide eyes. Clawbird’s shoulders shake at the rhythm of their silent laugh. Onix tries to ignore the absurdness of that statement. He has heard nothing more ridiculous in his life. A second later, he’s proved wrong. “Is he going to be a Jedi now? How’s that work?” “It doesn’t. The commander shot him.”

💧Share something romantic/hot from your WIP, or just something sweet if it's gen.

Well, this for Crosshair and my OC Katkris, and it goes under the cut because it's HOT and kinky 😏🔥🥵

TW: anal fingering, praise kink, D/s dynamic

Kat is kneeling on the bed between Crosshair's thighs. He looks so beautiful to her lying in bed, naked. His skin glistens with beads of sweat, and his cock lies on his stomach, hard and flushed. He's the perfect picture of decadence. He has his eyes closed, and his face is pinched with concentration when Kat slowly pushes two fingers into his greedy ass. His body swallows them, offering just a slight resistance as she slides them deeper.  “You’re doing so good, baby. That’s it. Open up for me like the good boy that you are.” The praise provokes a familiar reaction: Crosshair’s ass muscles clench slightly, and he turns his face away into his arm, trying to hide the growing flush in his cheeks. She knows what praises do to him. They are a double-edged blade, eliciting both satisfaction and embarrassment at the same time. It satisfies him because her praises fulfill his great need to feel valued. It’s something that he got satisfied with in the past in the most toxic ways, and it has taken time and effort to unlearn unhealthy behaviors. The embarrassment comes with the difficulty of accepting a compliment, even when deserved. Also, he sees it as a weakness, knowing that he’d do almost anything to get simple praise from her.

Best 'Classic' Trek Theme

Shuttle, Shuttle, Boil and Buttle: Shuttlecraft in Star Trek

By Ames

Diagrams emphatically not to scale here.

A Star to Steer Her By is hitting the open road today. Or open space, I suppose. Pack a lunch for a nice day trip because you can’t get too far in a shuttlecraft in Star Trek, but you still need some flexibility outside your massive hero ship. We’ve covered all those Federation starships before (check out parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 here!). Like they say, “warp’s fine if you like going fast in a straight line,” but what if we wanna do some offroading? Now it’s the little guys’ time to shine!

We’re only going to be looking at classic Trek shuttles from The Original Series through Enterprise because newer series just have too many types of shuttles to count and also because Ex Astris Scientia has a great selection of these shuttles chronicled for easier reference. So strap in and scroll on to see all the screengrabs we could find and listen to this week’s podcast episode (discussion at 1:01:56) for a couple games of “I Spy.” It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

[Images © CBS/Paramount, Ex Astris Scientia, Eaglemoss Ltd., probably others]

TOS: Class F

This simple boxy affair is probably the most recognizable shuttlecraft, especially after the Galileo-7’s starring turn in the eponymous “The Galileo Seven,” among many other episodes throughout TOS. It’s definitely function over form with this basic brick of a vehicle, but that just makes it more endearing.

TAS: Aquashuttle

The Animated Series had a little more flexibility to showcase some new designs, though just how much was getting designed is still really minimal on that cheapskate show. It was nice to see a craft that could transition from space to atmosphere to water when we saw this eraser stub of an aquashuttle in “The Ambergris Element,” so that’s something at least.

TAS: Copernicus-type

We meet the Copernicus in “The Slaver Weapon” and it’s a cute little mosquito of a ship. Everything about her is just so pointy and sharp, and she looks fast to boot. We know very little else about this type of craft, but we appreciate her typical nacelles and her speedboat shape.

TAS: Heavy shuttle

Comparatively more bulbous than the Copernicus we just looked at is this much heavier-looking shuttle from “Mudd’s Passion.” Again, we don’t see much of this thing, but it looks like it’s more durable and able to take a bit of a beating, and it even has a little bit of curve to its windshield!

TOS Films: Travel pod

There’s much more budget by the time we get to The Motion Picture, so the model for this small travel pod that ferries crewmen around spacedock is pretty logical even if some of the compositing is… less so. The purpose of the pod is so simple that its design really reflects that. It even returns for a hot second in the final scene of The Voyage Home.

TOS Films: Executive shuttle

We catch a couple of glimpses of the SD-103 Executive Shuttle from The Undiscovered Country, and again, it’s a pretty simple shape that does its job and then goes home for the day without needing to do much more. This one has a polite little wedge shape, clearly allowing the most room it can to move people back and forth and that’s that.

TOS Films: Type 4 Shuttle

In The Final Frontier, we have a new Galileo and it’s looking like a pretty obvious progression from the original television show. This is what the Type F would look like if they’d had the money and time in the 60s, and we’re digging it. It has the same kind of pointy front, a window that could still stand to be bigger, and empty cavernous space inside that we expect from a shuttle.

TNG Films: Hawking

I’m putting this one back to back with the Type 4 so you can appreciate the very slight differences between the Galileo and the Hawking that we see in Generations. Is it just the added side windows that’s particularly different? And why did it take them so long to add side windows in the first place?

TNG: Type 15 Shuttlepod

Let’s step back to the rest of TNG, now that we’ve already gotten things out of order. We see these things throughout Next Gen and they’re like tiny little remote-controlled toy cars. You can barely fit one person in these things, let alone anything more than that. We hope you’re not flying too far because these flying mousedroids look cramped!

TNG: Type 6 Shuttle

We see these things throughout TNG and Voyager. You’ll notice they are very very similar to the shuttle from Generations above, but a little more squished. One could surmise that the model designers whipped out the Type 4 from The Final Frontier since it was already of the necessary quality for film, and decided to take a cue from this shuttle for the extra windows!

TNG: Type 7 Shuttle

A new design for yet another new Galileo. These things run concurrently with the Type 6 as we also see them consistently throughout TNG, but their design is much more distinct. Their edges are more rounded and their rumps more spankable. Their nacelles also look more like the Enterprise-D’s nacelles. They even come with two options for their much more curved window unit: long and extra long!

TNG Films: Type 11 Shuttle

Picard and Worf chase Data around in Insurrection in one of these cute little doorstops. Everything about these shuttles looks pointy, from the face to the windows to the nacelles! It pretty much clicks that this is the kind of craft you’d find on the Enterprise-E, a ship that’s much longer and more streamlined than the rounder and more bloated D.

TNG Films: Captain’s yacht

In Insurrection, we also steal a glimpse of the Cousteau, also known as the captain’s yacht. What the hell a more weaponized ship like the Enterprise-E needs with a yacht is debatable, but it’s got some of the more movie-era design elements on it, like the pointier nacelles and tapered face. We also like that it looks like those nacelles tuck in for easy storage!

TNG Films: Argo

One last instance from the TNG films and it’s not a favorite (both the film and this vessel). In Nemesis, Picard and friends go down to a primitive planet in the Argo (great name; I’ll admit that), whose purpose seems mostly to be carrying a dune buggy for no damn reason. That aside, this shuttle also just looks unfriendly. More like a fighter jet than a diplomatic craft and that’s not our thing.

DS9: Type 10 Shuttle

Apparently this thing, the Chaffee, lives on the Defiant, though we’re damned if we can figure out where because the Defiant doesn’t even seem big enough to house a full-sized shuttle of any kind, much less a shuttle bay. But in “The Sound of Her Voice” we do get a quick shot or several of this weird little dustbuster of a ship that shares the same tucked-in nacelle look as its mommy ship. Weird.

DS9: Type 18 Shuttle

Oh boy, I’m glad Deep Space Nine mostly used Runabouts instead of these things because they’re goofy as all get out. They do get used in season 3 episodes “The Search” and “Destiny” before we settled into the Defiant, and it’s a good thing because the Type 18 just looks like an old school UFO or something, with a protruding undercarriage like a submarine ride in an amusement park. This design is just trying too hard.

VOY: Type 8 Shuttle

We see these things mostly in early Voyager before the Delta Flyer is introduced, and they look so similar to the Type 6 in TNG that they may as well have not bothered with the update. When in doubt, always check if the nacelles look like they belong on your hero ship or not. That’s my rule of thumb, anyway.

VOY: Type 9 Shuttle (AKA Class 2)

That rule also works on the other shuttle we see pretty frequently in Voyager, especially notably in “Threshold” when the Cochrane breaks the warp 10 barrier. It’s a nifty little ship, closer to the shuttles that we saw in Insurrection than the other series ships in that it looks streamlined and zippy and a little bit like a phaser without a handle.

VOY: Delta Flyer

Once Voyager introduces the Delta Flyer in “Extreme Risk” early in season 5, we use this thing all over the place, even replacing it almost perfectly after it shatters to confetti in “Unimatrix Zero.” And it’s a solid design! It’s clear Tom put a lot of effort into the ship because it looks incredibly sturdy with its triangular shape, embedded nacelles like the Defiant has, and nifty front window that almost reminds me of a stained-glass window.

VOY: SC-4 Shuttle

This special, slightly futuristic shuttle visits us in the series finale “Endgame.” It’s a lot like the Class 2 shuttle in its shape and resemblance to a phaser, but this one’s also got nifty shields like a suit of armor that it fits within! So that’s something to look forward to later in our watch.

ENT: Inspection pod

Moving on to Enterprise, the last leg of our day trip. We’ve mentioned before how much we appreciate the design elements in Enterprise looked like the stepping stones between today’s space technology and the future aesthetics we see in Star Trek, and this little pod with its docking side and its conical shape flat out looks like the module on a modern rocket ship! Cool!

ENT: Shuttlepod

We see an absolute ton of these things in Enterprise (in a majority of episodes, as a matter of fact!) because the transporter didn’t quite work consistently yet. So it’s shuttles or nothing for our prequel friends and this one is actually incredibly cute, with its sorta submarine feel and its cyclops-eye window like a porthole looking out into space.

— Get that barricade ready as we come into the shuttlebay. It’s so good to be back because we’ve got so much to do around the ship! We’re still traveling through the Delta Quadrant with Voyager over on SoundCloud or your favorite podcast application, we’re still sending out a distress signal on Facebook and Twitter, and we’re shuttling off to buttle-oh!

My idea of a seraph from @kvalenagle's Gryphon Insurrection Series

Drew this a while ago, I think while I was reading Opinicus. Not entirely happy with it but I mainly just sketch anyway and never finish anything lol

If you like creature fantasy and gryphons, highly recommend GryphIns! One of my favorite series!

Recaps in long series.

How do you feel about series recaps at the start of new books in that series? And if you're for them, what kind of tone do you expect them to be? Do you expect them to sound like a "Last time on Dino-riders" recap, or more in-world? I'm eight books deep in this series, and it's something I'm always considering. I'm just not sure the best way to handle it or what content to include. Heck, if you've read GryphIns, what sort of things would you want in a recap for Pridelord for readers who last read Opinicus a year ago?

I finally published Part 3 in the trilogy. Better. Together. Get the complete saga on Amazon today. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CWF8LGRM?binding=paperback

and i draw parallels solely on the cinematographic basis of “when my man is no more than a millimeter away from perturbation at all times but you give the Whole Right Half Of The Screen 3/4 Closeup of Harrowing Recontextualizations” like that’s right. we’re living it up

▶️ THE IRREGULAR AT MAGIC HIGH SCHOOL: LA TERZA STAGIONE ANDRÀ IN ONDA DA APRILE!

Lo studio 8BIT (Blue Lock, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime) riporterà in tv lo school action sci-fi di Tsutomu Satou adattando gli archi Double Seven, Steeplechase e Ancient City Insurrection, raccontati dal volume 12 al 15 della light novel.

Title: The Dragon Songs Saga

Author: J.C. Kang

Series or standalone: series

Publication year: 2017

Genres: fiction, fantasy, romance, mythology

Blurb: Princess Kaiya's voice could charm a dragon. Had she lived when the power of music could still summon typhoons and rout armies, perhaps Cathay's imperial court would see her as more than a singing fool. With alliances to build and ambitious lords to placate, they care more about her marriage prospects than her voice. Only the handsome Prince Hardeep, a foreign martial mystic, recognises her potential. Convinced Kaiya will rediscover the legendary but perilous art of invoking magic through music, he suggests her voice, not her marriage, might better serve the realm. When members of the emperor's elite spy clan - Kaiya's childhood friend Tian and his half-elf sidekick (or maybe he's her sidekick?) - discover mere discontent boiling over into full-scale rebellion, Kaiya must choose. Obediently wedding the depraved ringleader means giving up her music...confronting him with the growing power of her voice could kill her.

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My darling @takadasaiko!!! Thanks for asking 💙

🌀Post the fic summary for a fic you haven't written/published yet. It can be hypothetical or something you really plan on releasing…

This is for The One to Survive, which is the first fic in my 4-part "Order 66 doesn't happen AU" series, featuring my OC Clone Squad. Don't ask me when I'll start posting. At the pace I'm writing it, it might be when I'm 98 years old 😂

A new Separatist threat rises on the horizon, and the elite Gundark Squad is called to handle it. Their incursion into a suspicious facility in Ryvia comes with an unexpected discovery.

🌤️Share your favorite piece of dialogue from your WIP.

From the same fic:

“A sensor wall, over two dozen clankers patrolling the perimeter, and only two viable entry points,” Nock reports. “It’ll be tricky, but there’s a blind spot on the east side of the building that I suggest using as an entry point. The exit in the roof’s northwest corner is the best way out. You can disable the sensor wall before leaving so it’s easier to go over it once our presence is known.” “Are you implying we’ll need the closest point to the woods as an escape route while we run for our lives? You wound me, vod,” Clawbird takes offense, but his tone of voice is clearly teasing. “That never happens.” “Nah, never. Only in every mission we do,” Dropper chimes in.

🌈 Share something soft/fluffy from your WIP

Oof!! You put me in a spot. I had to search for this deep in my WIPs folder. I've not written much fluff lately. if you haven't noticed, I've been fixated on whump for a while, which there's a bit of it here too, but it's a stolen comfort moment during the hurt. This is from The Betrothal, another AU where Order 66 never happens (that might or might not be connected to the above series, just many years later). Anyway… it's Kalluzeb, this time.

Kallus lets fall his stoic indifference from his expression as he frames Garazeb’s face with his hands. “Are you okay? Where are you hurt?” “Was goin' t'ask ya the same thing,” Garazeb says, trying to lift the hem of Kallus’ tunic. Kallus dismisses Garazeb’s concern. “I’m fine. They patched me up.” Kallus shows him the bacta patch on his side. He doesn’t say that it’s a little tender, sending sharp pangs when he twists in the wrong way. Yet, it’s on the mend, and it won’t bother him anymore by tonight. Garazeb stretches his fingers as much as he can with his hands bound as they are, grazing the green-and-yellow bruise around the wound. It’s the gentlest of touches, raising goosebumps over his skin. Kallus closes his eyes; the memory of the nights they have shared, Garazeb’s ravenous touch, comes to the forefront of his mind. 

Want more? Send me an emoji from this Ask Game for Teasing WIPs

People who hate on the mjolnir mk2 designs obviously aren't fans of star trek ship design because the similarities in eras and era divides are shocking

Mjolnir mk1: designed for war with insurectionist and later covenant forces so obviously very utilitarian design

Mjolnir mk2: sleeker, more advanced, more political assassination-y

Mjolnir mk3: once again at war but now with the technological advancements of peacetime

Similarly

Constitution/Constitution refit era: a bit crude, armed for conflicts with anyone not in the federation

Galaxy era: star liner designed to ferry important people around but still a large amount of technological improvement

Sovereign/defiant (difficult to name because there was little in the way of a prominent ship that defined the way others did at the time [federation regulations in regards to warships didn't help]) era: fast, deadly, at war with the dominion and borg but retaining technological advances and bringing new ones like quantum torpedoes

Vessel detected: Alien ships in Star Trek: Part 3

By Ames

We’ve looked at Klingon ships and Romulan ships in the past weeks, but there are so many other aliens flying around in Star Trek. So many, in fact, that there’s no way A Star to Steer Her By is going to cover them all, so I’m going to try to keep the list focused on aliens whom we see a lot or who are otherwise noteworthy or whom I just like for my own dubious reasons. So if you don’t see your favorite one-off alien ship, bring it up with the continuum.

We’re starting off with just the couple of alien ships we saw in The Original Series and then blasting through some of the highlights from The Next Generation. We’ve got warp drive online, so keep up with all our allies and enemies below and listen to our discussion on this week’s podcast episode (discussion starts at 1:06:59). Engage!

[images © CBS/Paramount, Ex Astris Scientia, Eaglemoss Ltd., Star Trek Shipyards, Star Trek Timelines, probably others]

First Federation Fesarius

One of the first alien ships we get to see in all of Trek is also one of the most unique. The design of Balok’s First Federation ship is truly alien and that is impressive for so early a ship design. The sphere made up of other spheres is so ornate and intricate that we just wanna disco dance under it, and the beautiful gold color is nice whether remastered or in its original form! Pass the tranya!

Gorn Ship

We may only catch flashes of the Gorn ship in “Arena,” but the remaster and subsequent model designs provide for a nifty vessel that looks like it’s built for speed and maneuverability. Those wings look like they’re reaching out threateningly toward you, and the compact four-nacelle configuration should make the Stargazer feel ashamed of herself.

Ferengi D’Kora class

That’s all I put together from TOS since there just weren’t that many ships to speak of, so let’s see what’s out there in the TNG series, starting with the dreaded Ferengi! While the Ferengi themselves are just laughing stocks, their ships are actually really neat to look at (once you figure out which side is the front and which is the back). The horseshoe crab shape lends for some nice curves and no discernable nacelles, which is a nice change of pace, and the red-orange color is something we don’t see a lot of either!

Pakled Mondor class ship, et al

One of the most reused designs we’re going to see across Trek of the 90s is the Pakled ship: a very basic wedge design with lots of various Swiss army–knife tools all over it. Ex Astris Scientia put together a collection of just how many times we see this resilient little doorstop of a ship, and if you think about it as something a lot of different races would just purchase wholesale off the lot, it makes a lot of sense why you’d see it so much!

Husnock warship, et al

Even more than the Pakled ship, we see the Husnock ship absolutely everywhere during this time period. Ex Astris Scientia counts its sighting in 22 different redresses of this rectangular giftbox in space. The shape of it is quite dull – so dull that most people may not even notice we see it practically every other week in the Alpha Quadrant. Good work to this little prism: the most ubiquitous ship in the galaxy!

Miradorn raider 

Arctus Baran’s ship that we see in “Gambit,” on the other hand, gives us another new and very pointy shape to look at! We’ll see a little more of it in Deep Space Nine as a Miradorn raider, but its debut as the funky little ship of pirates and goons is actually quite perfect. The Fortune just looks scrappy and sharp, and a little like a space invader design to boot!

Borg Cube

There’s a lot to be said about the simple design of a cube that gets across that the Borg is an incomparable force. First off, their ships are huge, which gives them the intimidation factor. The geometrical shape is so out of place for a ship that the wrongness of it is also alarming. And finally the texture! These things are constructed out of so much STUFF and yet so obsessively organized to keep to that cube shape that you know you are literally rolling the dice with your lives just to be in its presence.

Borg Renegade Ship

Another Borg ship we see is that of Hugh and his fellow renegades from “Descent,” and their ship breaks that clean, beautiful cube simplicity by going for an entirely asymmetrical, chaotic shape. It’s still got the normal Borg texture that is clearly made up of all the different other vessels that were assimilated, broken into their parts, and put back together. But the almost haphazard wings of the ship are closer to the corridors of a building than of a ship. It just looks like a pair of arms preparing for a boxing match! Them’s fighting words!

Borg Sphere

If you were more into geometrical shapes from our borgified friends, then First Contact has something for you: check out the Borg Sphere! The Borg Queen sure can travel in style! Like Balok’s ship we took a look at earlier, the sphere is much more than just a ball. Creating a perfect sphere out of hunks of metal is so like those anal-retentive Borg, isn’t it? Polygons are futile!

Vulcan T’Plana-Hath

The other major ship that comes out of First Contact is the Vulcan ship that does that actual first contacting! It’s an interesting shape and looks kind of like some kind of water sprinkler device you’d set up in the backyard. Its three-prong shape is a new design for alien ships, and the landing gear is straight out of sci-fi shows about abductions and crop circles. Is it logical? Debatable.

Son’a command ship

One more TNG movie’s worth of alien ships: let’s feature the ships of the Son’a. Say what you will about these blokes’ faces, but their ship aesthetics are pretty phenomenal! Their beautiful command ship is like a literal set of angel wings and just about as heavenly. The winged look of this ship is sleek and shiny in its chrome-looking silver. It’s no wonder it houses one of our favorite captain’s chairs from the franchise!

Son’a battleship

Another ship from our plastic bag–faced friends is their battleship, which looks like a deadlier version of a boomerang while also definitely coming from the same collection as the command ship. The detailing has that pretty and swooping angelic quality while the shape looks much faster and sharper. I’d hand over the fountain of youth to these things before I fought them, that’s for sure.

Son’a collector

Finally, the pièce de résistance of this collection: the collector ship, which looks like an unassuming jetski splashing around in space until it unfolds into a truly beautiful stellar butterfly. The sails on this beauty queen are so glitzy and golden that it might just be sprinkling us with fairy dust… as it sucks the metaphasic particles out of the atmosphere. But really, could you think of a lovelier death sentence to a planet of people?

—

That’s all I’ve got for you this week, obviously skipping a ton of ships from the shows for the sake of time and sanity. Shout out any of your favorites I’ve missed because we’re hitting the gas on our way to Deep Space Nine next week! Also be sure to keep listening to our coverage of all of Voyager on SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts, hail us on Facebook and Twitter, and catch a breeze with those Son’a sails!

New Post has been published on Books by Caroline Miller

New Post has been published on https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/the-heat-of-the-kitchen/

The Heat Of The Kitchen

A gentleman at my retirement facility returned from a visit with friends in Australia recently.  One of his hosts took him to a remote part of the country where they were joined by others who were his host’s friends.  As might be expected, the conversation turned to American politics.  One individual expressed disappointment that President Joe Biden was responsible for damages to the Nord Stream Pipeline in September, ignoring Russia’s statement that a faulty system compressor caused the explosion. The person sharing his information cited a Fox news commentator Tucker Carlson as his source. That rumor has been debunked by several news outlets, so I asked my companion, a man who’d made his living as a travel guide before retiring, how he responded. “I was a guest, so I listened,” he replied. “The better part of valor is discretion,” said Shakespeare’s Falstaff In Henry IV, Part 1, but as our midterms were at hand, and voters were pondering whether to turn the country over to insurrectionists or to defend democracy, I was in no mood for discretion.  “I didn’t stay silent about apartheid when I was in South Africa,” I snapped.  I regretted my words before I’d finished my sentence. Who was I to judge? Under the circumstances, rebuttal at best would have been useless. At worst, the man would have embarrassed his host.  I tendered my apology, realizing the upcoming election had frayed my resiliency. If I am honest, though, I’m weary of Tucker Carlson and his ilk and would prefer to butt heads.  The coarsening of my spirits has, of late, led me to turn away from the news.  I prefer to watch television cooking shows. What harm can there be in vanilla pudding unless Lucretia Borgia is in the kitchen? I’m not alone in my desire for escape. Susan Stoner, author of the Sage Adair historical mystery series, wrote me to say her 10th novel will focus on 18th-century women who developed recipes for healthy living. Her research so far reveals,“…there is currently minuscule to no information in any archive about these women. Grrr.” If she wrote biographical fiction, the absence of facts wouldn’t hamper her.  She could make them up, as did Annabel Abbs in her 2021 novel about Eliza Acton. Acton predated Isabella Beaton as the author of the modern cookbook and, by accounts, the latter plagiarized some of her predecessor’s work. Acton’s life began as the child of a successful businessman. She was still young when the family’s fortune changed, however, and her bankrupt father fled to France, leaving his wife and children to fend for themselves. Acton had dreams of living a poet’s life and, with perseverance, enjoyed a small success. That being the case, she was affronted when a publisher offered her a contract to write a cookbook. Returned home, a penurious spinster, living under the roof of a mother who nagged her to find a husband, Acton reconsidered the offer. Even so,  she was determined to make the genre her own. She succeeded with Ann Kirby’s help, an impoverished servant who had troubles of her own. Ann’s mother was mad and her father was a drunkard.  The three lived in a shack with not enough money for Ann to own a decent pair of shoes.  The girl, little more than a teenager, jumped at the chance to work in a warm, clean kitchen. The collaboration, born of commiseration, grew into a friendship. The result was a  cookbook 10 years in the making which the public embraced. As an escape from politics, I recommend Abb’s fictional biography. Julie Whiteley, a critic for the Library Journal, as well as others, gave the work a thumbs up. Whiteley writes, Abbs has written a fascinating, long-overdue tribute to the unconventional Eliza Acton, the woman who revolutionized the English cookbook. Ann’s and Eliza’s drives for independence is (sic) inspiring, and their passion for cooking will awaken readers’ inner chef.  My inner life would prefer to eat a cake rather than bake one. Nonetheless, for those who wish to escape the heat of today’s political kitchen, I recommend Abb’s book, Miss Eliza’s English Kitchen: A Novel of Victorian Food and Friendship.  

The evolution of Worf's Sash

Worf's Baldric has changed a few times over the course of the series he's been on. Here's a quick overview

Season 1

Just straight off of TOS, Soft,cozy, pageanty. Don't know what the symbol might be but Kang and Kor wore the same symbol.

(seems sparklier) It doesn't denote their house, so who knows.

Worf's sash remains unchanged for the entirety of the first season.

Season 2 brings Worf's iconic baldric:

It's made out of bike chains.

sometimes it goes off center and you can see how it's attached:

the next major change comes in Generations

The Symbols on it have changed, I'm guessing so it pops more on screen. The bottom one is the Crest of the House of Mogh. He'll carry it over to DS9:

although I am noticing it is now upside down. but that is how it stays.

It looks like a bug. As it is set this way by the time First Contact rolls around it is also facing the same way

The whole saga of the second and final of the House of Mogh and Worf joining the House of Martok means the crest is replaced with one ripped from his sleeve.

And while Insurrection and Nemesis barely acknowledge and actively fight Worf's time on DS9 he still has his Martok family crest.

Now this would be the end, normally, but Star Trek Picard gave us this

New baldric, probably less heavy. The Crests have changed, somewhat. The Martok family crest's arrow is now much bigger than the claw, so something might have changed in the family? and the top symbol is also differently stylized.

Worf's primary sash is unique throughout Star Trek, we've never seen any other Klingon wear the bicycle chain.

this seems to be the common sash in the KDF.

Finally, a couple of ceremonial sashes:

What's this one on his Ceremonial/Dress sash? maybe a fancy version of the family crest? or both symbols together?

And then sad Worf sash from All Good Things....

Thank you for reading thru Sash Talk.

hey!! i am genuinely curious about how the catholic church helped implement the hays code, would you be able to tell me more/do you have any good reading material about it? thanks so much!!

This has been sitting in my inbox for aaaaaages, because I want to do it justice! It's actually a big facet of my research project that I'm going to go into much, much, much more depth on, but here's the short(er) summary:

The foundational text of the Hays Code was written by two Catholics: a Jesuit priest named Father Daniel Lord, and a man named Martin Quigley, who was the editor of the Motion Picture Herald. They grounded their guidelines in Catholic morality and values, based on the idea that art could be a vehicle for evil by negatively influencing the actions of those who view it.

The original list of guidelines written by Lord and Quigley was adapted into the Production Code, popularly known as the "Hays Code" after William Hays, the president of the Production Code Administration that enforced it. As president of the PCA, William Hays appointed a staunch Catholic man called Joseph Breen to enforce the code. Breen enforced it aggressively, confiscating the original reels of films he deemed inappropriate and against the Code. Many lost films from this era are only "lost" because Joseph Breen personally had them destroyed. Some were rediscovered later, but many were completely purged from existence.

When Breen died in 1965, Variety magazine wrote, "More than any single individual, he shaped the moral stature of the American moral picture." He was a very, very big deal, and was directly responsible for censoring more films than I could even begin to list here.

In 1937, Olga J. Martin, Joseph Breen’s secretary, said, “To an impoverished country which had become religious and serious-minded, the sex attitudes of the post-war period became grotesquely unreal and antedated. The public at large wanted to forget its own derelictions of the ‘gay twenties.' The stage was set for the moral crusade.”

In 1936, once the Code was being fully enforced on filmmakers by Joseph Breen, a letter was issued by the office of Pope Pius XI that praised Breen's work, and encouraged all good Catholics to support film censorship.

The letter read in part, "From time to time, the Bishops will do well to recall to the motion picture industry that, amid the cares of their pastoral ministry, they are under obligation to interest themselves in every form of decent and healthy recreation because they are responsible before God for the moral welfare of their people even during their time of leisure. Their sacred calling constrains them to proclaim clearly and openly that unhealthy and impure entertainment destroys the moral fibre of a nation. They will likewise remind the motion picture industry that the demands which they make regard not only the Catholics but all who patronize the cinema."

Basically, this letter was a reminder from the Papal authority that bishops and priests are supposed to stop people from engaging with "lewd" or "obscene" art. That meant supporting things like the Hays Code.

So, to summarize: the original text of the Hays Code was written by two Catholics, including a priest. The biggest and most aggressive censor under the Code was a Catholic man, who had the full support and approval of the Pope at the time. Good Catholics were called en-masse to support the Hays Code, because it was intentionally written to line up with Catholic teachings.

There's a lot more to say on the subject, and if you're interested in reading more on your own, I recommend the book "Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930-1934," by Thomas Doherty. There are plenty other sources I can recommend on request, but that's a solid place to start.

(And if I can toot my own horn, I'm intending to do a video lecture series all about American film censorship and the Hays Code. Pledging to my Patreon helps keep me fed and housed while I do all this damn research.)