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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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Voyager. Now that’s a kettle of fish. Obviously watch/enjoy whatever you wish, but I do recommend also checking out SFDebris’ reviews of the episodes (he’s the rwde of Voyager). He is a lot smarter and more eloquent than me.

Putting these two asks together since my thoughts on both are all jumbled!

Now, I want to emphasize that I’ve only watched the first 16 episodes (Season One + Season 2 premiere), so idk if Voyager is going to go seriously downhill later on, but right now I do really like it. And not in a, “Lol yeah compared to the other crap on it’s good, I guess” way, but in a completely honest, “It has its flaws, but is overall a solid, compelling show with lovable characters” way. Out of curiosity I watched SFDebris’ review of “Phage,” though I’m afraid I didn’t agree with it. The only part were I was like, “Yeah okay” was pointing out that they had the Doctor using a keypad when he supposedly wasn’t solid, but that’s precisely the sort of continuity error that, in an otherwise strong show, I’m willing to shrug off. For all the major points, it sounds like SFDebris is concerned primarily with the show he wants Voyager to be, rather than the show Voyager actually is. Which I know sounds familiar--I’ve heard that criticism leveled at my own work: “You just want RWBY to be a totally different show”--but the difference is that Voyager is a part of an established franchise, following three other TV shows, an animated series, and a collection of films. It’s not an original show (like RWBY) that can take itself in any direction the story may need/claim to want (again, RWBY). It has a brand and those established characteristics seem to be bumping up against SFDebris’ critiques:

Hating Neelix as a character - You’re supposed to hate him. Or at least find him frustrating (I don’t personally hate him) because that’s what all the characters are grappling with too. From Tuvok forced to have an awkward conversation while Neelix is in the bath to Janeway dealing with him taking over her dining room, Neelix’s conflict revolves around how others learn to accept him. Star Trek as a franchise is about “Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.” Voyager begins with the problem of how the trained Federation officers are supposed to work with the more violent Maquis. Difference doesn’t just create “Wow, you’re so amazing!” reactions, it also includes frustration, disagreement, and outright hostility. Creating an outsider character with a kind heart but incredibly overbearing personality is a great way to test the other characters’ convictions. Do they actually care about all life in the universe? Or do they only care about life when they personally find it palatable? Having Neelix around is a great reminder for them--and the viewer--that just because someone annoys you at times doesn’t mean they’re any less worthy of love, respect, and companionship. It also doesn’t mean they don’t have something to offer: he keeps the crew fed even if his cooking is horrible, he provides information about this area of space even if he sometimes gets it wrong, we roll our eyes at the “Morale Officer” stuff, but Neelix does provide much needed perspective for characters like Tuvok. If Neelix made fewer mistakes, stopped bugging the crew, became a “cooler” character for the audience to root for rather than be frustrated by... a lot of the point of his character would be lost.

Frustration about discoveries not carrying over to the next episode - AKA, the crew finds inanely powerful, alien tech and then (presumably) never uses it again. This would indeed be a big problem in a serialized story (like RWBY) but Voyager maintains much of Star Trek’s original, episodic nature. Though we have continuity in the form of them inching towards home and evolving as characters, the world still resets to a certain point at the end of each episode. This is what allows Star Trek to explore so many different questions and have so many different adventures. If you demand that serialized continuity--this character needs to have an arc to deal with this traumatic experience, the crew has to follow the thread they just discovered, our Doctor needs to do something with the new tech they just found--then you lose the variety that Star Trek is known for. Instead of a new story each week (or, occasionally, across two weeks) you’ve got a single story spanning months. Neither form is better or worse than the other, it’s absolutely a preference, but there’s a very specific, structural, intentional reason why the characters “forget” about the things they’ve discovered and, at times, experienced. Unlike Ozpin forgetting that he has a nuke in his cane for seven volumes, or Ruby forgetting to use her eyes at crucial points, Star Trek deliberately sets things aside to ensure there’s room for new ideas and questions next episode.

Janeway doesn’t kill the Vidiians to get Neelix his lungs back - No Starfleet captain would. At least, not during this period of Star Trek. Sisko has development in that regard (making morally gray choices), but that’s built into the heart of the show from the start: he’s on a station, not a starship, that is jointly run by the Federation and the Bajorans, and built by the Cardassians. The rules of the Federation always had a tenuous hold there and Sisko as a character always pushed the boundary of the Federations expectations (Q: “Picard never hit me!”) Janeway, in contrast, is 100% a Federation captain and, more importantly, has explicitly told her crew that they will be operating as a Federation vessel, despite being so far from home. That’s the conflict between the officers and the Maquis. That’s why Tuvok accepts the alien tech in “Prime Factors,” recognizing that Janeway can’t. That’s why Seska is a compelling antagonist, pressuring the crew to abandon their ideals for survival. The series (or at least that first season) revolves around questions about identity and whether they’re willing to give that identity up now that they’re out from under the Federation’s thumb. Overwhelmingly, they choose not to... which would make murdering the Vidiian a complete 180 for her character. We’re not necessarily supposed to agree with Janeway’s choice, we’re supposed to acknowledge that murdering another sentient being is not some simple choice to make, especially when you’re a leader devoted to a certain set of ideals. We’re supposed to recognize the challenges here (many of which SFDebris doesn’t acknowledge) like how you’re supposed to keep a prisoner for the next 75 years when you’re already struggling to feed and take care of the crew you have, or the fact that they claim to take organs from dead bodies and this was a rare time when they couldn’t. (It’s only in “Faces” that we learn this is complete BS and they actively kidnap people to work as slaves and then be harvested.) The frustration that Janeway doesn’t act here stems from wanting her to be a character who is, fundamentally, not a Star Trek captain.

Granted, I only watched one review, but that’s what the whole thing felt like: wanting a series that’s not Star Trek. Something without a token, challenging character, without hand-wavy science, that’s more serialized, and doesn’t adhere to a “do no harm” code. (I just started “Initiations” and Chakotay asks a vessel to stand down three times, while actively being attacked, before finally retaliating and then he tries to reestablish communications and then he warns them about their engine and then he beams them aboard his shuttle. That’s what Star Trek (usually) is: that idealized love of life, even when that life is actively hostile). And like, that’s obviously fine! As you say, Flawartist, “watch/enjoy whatever you wish,” but just based on this one review I wonder if SFDebris just wants something other than Star Trek.

I think one of the reasons why I feel passionately about this (beyond my love of context and recognizing when shows are actively trying to accomplish something specific) is that I went through this with DS9. For years I heard about how horrible the show was. It’s trash. It’s a mess. It’s not TNG, so don’t even bother. Or, if you do, be prepared for disappointment. There was this whole, strong rhetoric about how silly it all is--Star Trek is, by default, silly, so supposedly only the Shakespeare loving, archeology obsessed captain is sophisticated enough to save it--and then... I found nothing of the sort. I mean yeah, obviously Star Trek is silly as hell (that’s part of its charm), but DS9 was also a complex, nuanced look into everything from personal agency to the threat of genocide. There’s so much wonderful storytelling there... little of which made it into my cultural understanding of DS9. And now I’m seeing the same thing with Voyager. When I did some quick googling I was bombarded by articles saying how bad it is and now I have an ask comparing it to a show I don’t think has even a quarter of the heart the Star Trek franchise does. Which is is not AT ALL meant as a knock against you, anon. I’m just fascinated by this cultural summary of Star Trek: TOS is ridiculous but fun if you’re willing to ignore large swaths of it, TNG is a masterpiece and that’s that, DS9 is bad, Voyager is bad, and to be frank I haven’t heard much of anything about Enterprise. It’s weird! Because I watch these shows and I’m like, “Holy shit there’s so much good storytelling here.” Is it perfect? Not on your life, but it’s trying in a way that I can really appreciate. It’s Star Trek and Star Trek (at least at the time) meant something pretty specific. Criticisms about divisive characters or idealized forgiveness feel like walking out of a Fast and Furious film and going, “There was too much driving and silly combat. Why didn’t they just fix the situation in this easy way?” Because then we wouldn’t have a film about lots of driving and silly combat! If you make all the characters palatable, make Janeway harder, extend the impact of all the discoveries, remove the ridiculous science that doesn’t make any sense... then you don’t have Star Trek anymore.

#star trek #ST #mymeats #flawartist

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absynthe--minded · 4 years

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Hello. So sorry you are bored. I was wondering if you might now what species in Star Trek would correspond with the races in Tolkien? If you are not a Trek fan then maybe what era uou think Fëanor would cause the most havoc in?

“if you are not a Trek fan” anon last year was my 20th anniversary in the Star Trek fandom so you came to the right place

Dwarves = Klingons, and not just because of the aesthetic. Both the Khazad and the tlhIngan wo’ are loyal to their families, proud of their distinctive artistic and cultural traditions, seen as strange/uncouth/unusual by other races, and appreciative of a good weapon. The Klingons are way more than Proud Warrior Race Guys - they have a rich heritage, and a mythology, and a religion that’s very different from the others we see exhibited in Star Trek, and they’re also fiercely independent of foreign rule or influence, much like the Khazad. If you have a tlhIngan for a friend, they’re your friend for life, and they’ll adopt you into their family and they’ll guard your back. Yes, they rely a bit more on martial prowess than other races in the Alpha Quadrant and more than the Khazad would, but I think that like the Khazad their lowbrow or rough qualities (a guttural language that’s hard to learn and jarringly different from the other conlangs we see, for example, or the fact that they have a political ritual centering around a night of communal drunkenness) tend to lead people to assume that all they are is a big joke. That’s not true at all, and I wish more people would see that. I also love the Khazad and the tlhIngan wo’, so there.

Ainur = Q Continuum, though I don’t mean “because they’re meddling assholes”. Most of the Continuum who aren’t thirsting after Jean-Luc Picard and occasionally babysitting or bothering Janeway? We never see them. They’re busy being pretty hands-off and going about the day-to-day work of running the universe. Like the Ainur as a whole, they tend to assume that incarnates have got this shit covered (I agree with something @nyarnamaitar said earlier, which is that the Valar’s greatest flaw is that they like to think everyone is basically good and doesn’t need active moral shepherding; this comes back to bite them when they’re not prepared for incarnates to need moral shepherding, and many of their consequences or “punishments” make sense from the framework of “don’t you know better than to do this thing we never told you not to do?” But I’m also fairly Valar-positive, and I think they’re flawed but benevolent, and intended more to do the work of upholding and shaping the world as a whole rather than dictating the fates of the Eruhini) and they focus on using their phenomenal cosmic power to just... keep that shit running. They’re the neighborhood mechanics of the galaxy. It’s really just that one Q who differs (well, him and the other Q who wanted to kill himself because he was bored) - the rest are perfectly happy to go on as they always have, doing their jobs, which is basically how I see the Ainur.

Humans = humans, obviously, but I think that it’s worth talking about here? Humans in Star Trek are so, so central to just about everything, because the show is in and of itself an exploration of humanity. Kirk’s “I don’t believe in no-win scenarios” echoes Túrin’s determination to make a meaningful difference in the lives of his people under Morgoth, or the Haladin retaking Brethil after the Bragollach. Picard stripping the mockery out of Shakespeare and demanding that Q take humanity seriously is Andreth, supremely so. Sisko’s constant wrestling with his role as a spiritual leader with a grand destiny while also trying to be a Starfleet captain in the middle of a war is Elros, or Elendil, or Aragorn, or Arathorn II, or any of the other leaders with heavy burdens to bear. Janeway’s fierce and frightful loyalty to her people above all else at the expense of everything is pure Haleth. Trek does a great job of revealing what’s good about humanity, and Tolkien’s humans shine when illuminated by its ideas.

Elves = Trill. I actually really wrestled with this one - I don’t think elves are Vulcans (elves are highly emotional, even if by the Third Age all the impulsive ones have died) and I don’t think elves are Bajorans, either, which was my second choice. Both elves and Bajorans are defined by a very present spirituality that permeates their culture (though elves and Bajorans alike have different levels at which they engage with their religion) and that spirituality centers around powerful beings who they know are objectively real and engaging in the physical universe, but unlike Bajorans, elvish religion isn’t particularly organized, and there aren’t conflicts between elvish doctrine (such as it is) and the physical sciences, like there are with more hardline interpretations of Bajoran thought. Also, the losses and oppression that shape the Bajoran experience as we see it in TV!Trek aren’t things that factor into elvish history in quite the same way. But the Trill? Long-lived in the extreme, with “death” and “rebirth” as recognized, normal parts of their lives? Science nerds who want to experience the whole of the galaxy so much that they have entire social taboos around the concept of not doing that? (Those taboos are fucked, but they existed to give me 90s space lesbians so I’ll allow them) Emotional, and passionate, and blessed with life experience that often makes them think they know everything? Gay as fuck? Yeah. Yep. Those are elves all right.

#replies #anon replies #tolkien #to boldly go again #absynthe's meta

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daleisgreat · 3 years

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Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season Seven

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-Finally, after three years of watching mostly one episode a week, I have finished my re-watch of all seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation (season seven trailer)! I am thrilled to present my final entry here chronicling my adventures with the crew of the Enterprise! For the final season I was able to slightly bump up my viewing habits and mostly stuck to watching two episodes a week, and thus I was able to make faster progress on this final season! Somehow, my horrendously outdated Samsung Galaxy S7 phone has managed to barely limp along this entire journey with me, and the gloriously awful pics featured throughout this article are courtesy of that wonderful device. -Season six wrapped with an enticing cliffhanger to “Descent” where Lore managed to work some sinister sorcery to recruit a squadron of Borg and hack into the code banks of Data (Brent Spiner) in order to recruit him to join his cause. Season seven had a great kickoff to resolve this new threat, and had a satisfying conclusion at putting an end to Lore once and for all. I would rank “Descent” on the higher end of TNG two-part arcs, as the Lore/Borg/Data combination proved to be an intriguing antagonist to see how they would be dealt with.

Picard is ready for combat on the left, while falling ill on the Enterprise leads to crew members tripping with some wild illusions on the right! -I was a little bummed to see a complete lack of appearances from Whoopi Goldberg in her role as Guinan in the final season. I am presuming it must have been scheduling conflicts as she has always been in high demand, especially around this time just a couple years after her Oscar win for Best Supporting Actress in Ghost. Whoopi would return as Guinan in two of the four Star Trek movies based on TNG cast.

-A pair of recurring characters that did return for their final episodes this season are Michelle Forbes as Ensign Lt. Ro Lauren and Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher. Ro is fresh off tactical training for an important undercover mission that conclusively decides her fate with Starfleet as she would never appear in another Star Trek series or film again after this. According to my research I was surprised to learn it took a last minute agreement with Forbes within a week before filming to get her to reprise her role as she was starting to distance herself from the brand after initial plans to make her a mainstay on Deep Space Nine fizzled. Wesley Crusher’s final appearance had a better payoff in “Journey’s End” where during a vision quest he finally is deemed ready by a previous guest character, The Traveler (Eric Menyuk), to join him on a mystical journey to see Wesley fulfill his supernatural potential. I had no idea they were going to payoff these vague promises The Traveler alluded to in Wesley way back in season two, so big props to the cast and crew making that happen! -Other past recurring characters returned, but only to see them casted in middling-to-disappointing episodes. This is the case for Reginald Barclay (Dwight Schultz) in the head-scratching “Genesis” episode that has the Enterprise staff fall victim to a virus that de-evolves them into various primates. The love-or-hate mother of Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), Lwaxana (Majel Barrett), has a major sendoff in her final episode where we learn all about her tragic backstory.

-Speaking of mediocre episodes, season seven has a bit more than previous seasons. A two-parter sees Riker and Picard go undercover to form a fake mutiny to sniff out a Vulcan double agent, and while it is not terrible by any means, the whole arc seems bloated and the second episode feels unnecessary. “Phantasms” is as bizarre as the dreams Data (Brent Spiner) has in the episode, but Data later has a redeeming character episode in “Inheritance” where he meets his mother…..then later hits another stumble in “Thine Own Self” where his radioactive experiments causes a planet’s population to become seriously ill. I will give season seven the benefit of the doubt for the noticeable bump up in lackluster episodes because several of the bonus interviews own up to this and attribute it to the cast and crew being spread thin with the final season of TNG, the second season of Deep Space Nine and being in pre-production of the first season of Voyager and the upcoming movie with the TNG crew, Generations. -The holodeck’s sendoff in TNG, “Emergence” is a decent affair that sees the crew go aboard the Orient Express to solve the mystery of how the holodeck becomes self-aware. The episode had a few promising moments, but could have been better. While I enjoyed the quality of holodeck episodes overall in TNG, from what I understand the holodeck episodes greatly suffer going forward and falls victim to holodeck malfunctions and sexual fantasy tropes.

Worf once again has a strong set of character-focused episodes this season. You have not lived until witnessing Worf adopt a cat for an episode, and experience a birthday party time-loop. -Worf (Michael Dorn) has one of the strongest slate of character episodes this season. Seeing Worf being a curmudgeon at his birthday party was pulled off to perfection! “Homeward” is a feel-good family episode where Worf resolves his rocky relationship with his foster brother, Nikolai (Paul Sorvino). The best Worf-centered episode is saved for last where he trains Alexander (James Sloyan) in the arts of becoming a Klingon warrior with the help of a mysterious Klingon friend.

-A couple other episodes that made strong impressions on me this season are “The Pegasus” and “Lower Decks.” In the former, Terry O’ Quinn of Lost fame, appears here as a higher-up from Starfleet to track down the lost USS Pegasus, but Picard (Patrick Stewart) eventually discovers a grand cover-up that has an enticing way of finding the truth of what Quinn’s character is hiding. “Lower Decks” is entirely focused on the background Ensigns and ancillary characters like Nurse Ogawa (Patti Yasutake). The last couple years saw the streaming service, Paramount+ (formerly CBS All Access) launch a Star Trek: Lower Decks animated series with the very same premise, and if you are a fan of the cartoon, you owe it to yourself to track down this episode as its source material. “Interface” and “Bloodlines” are both strong episodes dealing with long forgotten family members. The former has Geordi (LeVar Burton) risking his life with prototype tech to save his mother (Madge Sinclair), and the latter deals with Picard’s surprise of finding out he had a son (Ken Olandt) from a decades-prior relationship.

-Now to the moment of truth, it is time to cover the final two-part episode, “All Good Things…” The series finale naturally focuses on Jean-Luc as he finds himself constantly time-warping between three different time periods to solve a new challenge bestowed onto him by none other than Q (John de Lancie). I loved how they brought it back full-circle with one of the time periods emanating from the same setting as the original pilot episode of TNG where Q puts the then-newly assembled Enterprise crew on trial. The cast and crew hold nothing back for the final episode with an enthralling narrative as Picard pieces together Q’s final challenge, and has an emotional final scene where after seven seasons, Picard finally joins his crew for a round of poker. -Here is the paragraph with my obligatory kudos to the countless hours spent remastering TNG in HD for the BluRay set. I am not a video-phile and cannot immaculately explain with the proper tech verbiage on how they did it. All I can say is the staff painstakingly made it look like they shot it today, and it does not have any of the old fuzzy standard definition effects that would happen when forcing an SD resolution onto an HD set. Just watch this indicative video that overlays the remastered HD transfer over the SD version to see for yourself. I will also give yearly props to the podcast, Star Trek: The Next Conversation which chronicles every individual episode of TNG and has served as the best supplementary listening material to get the most out of every episode for me. The podcast took a hiatus during the pandemic, and only recently picked up again and are only a couple episodes into season seven as of this writing, so I will pat myself on the back at catching up to them when I was nearly a season and a half behind them when I started from the beginning of TNG.

-You guys know I love covering the bonus features, and season seven of the BluRay is absolutely jacked with them with previous bonus interviews and specials, and all new HD extras. According to my notes, it all added up for just over five hours of bonus materials, and that is not including a handful of commentary tracks on selected episodes. Going over each and every piece of bonus content will kill me, so instead I will highlight the handful that I got the most out of: -----Captain’s Tribute (16 min) – Stewart gives loving testimonials to the cast and crew. A lesson he learned from a dialog with Michael Dorn and LeVar Burton was a key takeaway here. -----In Conversation: Lensing ST: TNG (42 min) - This one is a new HD extra aimed at special effects enthusiasts where a roundtable discussion with camera operators and directors of photography reunite to talk shop of the many highs and lows of on the set production. While a fair amount of trade vernacular went right over my head, they provided ample context and their enthusiasm for their craft is irresistible!

I know it is asking a lot to dive into the many hours of bonus interviews, but nearly most of it is incredibly insightful and well worth your time! -----Starfleet Moments & Memories (30 min) – Awesome feature showcasing the camaraderie and humor between takes that indicates a true sense of friendship among the cast and crew. -----Closed Set: Tour of Real Enterprise (11 min) – The Okundas give a private, narrated, tour of the Enterprise filled with fun facts like how the set for sickbay gained a reputation among cast and crew as “nap-bay.” Every person should have their own nap-bay! -----Journeys End: The Saga of TNG (45 min) – Original 1994 TV special hosted by Jonathan Frakes celebrating the end of an era. ----Sky’s the Limit: Eclipse of TNG (89 min) – Three part special with part one primarily focused on the cast and crew having a lot of projects on their plate the final year and lovingly throwing shade at Picket Fences for stealing their Emmy award! Part two interviews various directors of episodes about their process, and Seth McFarlane shares a special moment he had with a fan on how the show saved their life. The third part interviews a lot of the cast on how they felt the show wrapped, with a couple highlights being Sirtis not being fond of the Worf/Deanna courtship, and Patrick Stewart remarking when asked about future projects that he would consider them, but thought they would ultimately be unnecessary. This was obviously recorded several years before Stewart would return as Picard in the current Paramount+ series, Picard.

-Suffice it to say, the extra features do not disappoint! As I foreshadowed above, there is an apparent dip in quality this season overall compared to the high bar set from seasons three through six, but I will cut the cast and crew some slack since they were seriously overworked during the 1993-94 season. There are still many excellent episodes though as I dissected above, and a terrific series finale that puts the best damn bow they possibly could on the TV series. Thank you so much for joining me on this ride over the past three years and bearing with me on my never-ending entries covering the series. If you missed out on previous entries, click here to see all my previous season recaps of The Next Generation, or click here to continue my journey with TNG crew with my reviews of all the Star Trek motion pictures.

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Past TV/Web Series Blogs 2013-14 TV Season Recap 2014-15 TV Season Recap 2015-16 TV Season Recap 2016-17 TV Season Recap 2017-18 TV Season Recap 2018-19 TV Season Recap 2019-20 TV Season Recap Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series Baseball: A Ken Burns series Angry Videogame Nerd Home Video Collections Cobra Kai – Seasons 1-2 Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1 | Season 2 OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30 RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13 Roseanne – Seasons 1-9 Seinfeld - Final Season Star Trek: Next Generation – Seasons 1-7 Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle Superheroes: Pioneers of Television The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5

#star trek #Star Trek TNG #picard #data #Patrick Stewart #Brent Spiner #jonathan frakes #gates mcfadden #Marina Sirtis #levar burton #Michael Dorn #Wil Wheaton #whoopi goldberg #dwight schultz

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bluering8 · 6 years

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TNG S01

I’m done with TNG S01! I’ve gotta watch some other stuff before I launch into S02, so have a quick round-up of my Very Important opinions on various characters/episodes:

Data - I love Data!! Holy shit do I love Data!! He is precious to me and perfect in every way and I want to hollow him out and wear his skin like a suit. That... possibly sounds creepier than I meant? Look, he’s my perfect wish-fulfilment character, okay. He’s earnest and awkward and he never quite Gets It, but he wants to Get It so badly, and he tries so hard, and whenever he talks people are constantly cutting him off partway through because they’ve decided he’s saying too much or saying it wrong, and he sort of... exemplifies what has been my perspective of the Autistic Experience. And despite all that, he has a career he enjoys and friends who care about him and I want to be him so much that it kind of hurts.

Also, Data has feelings. I will fight anyone to the death on this issue, I sincerely can’t see how anyone could look at Data and not come to the conclusion that he has feelings. Data has so many feelings! He might not have feelings the way humans have feelings, but he unmistakably has his own opinions and his own way of relating to the world. It’s heartbreaking that he doesn’t recognise the value of his own experiences in favour of desperately trying to live up to some arbitrary “correct” way of existing.

Deanna Troi - I hate Troi. I do not want to hate Troi, because empaths are way cooler than they usually get credit for, but she’s so fucking annoying. All she ever does is say things which were already completely fucking obvious. She’s a walking violation of show-don’t-tell and every time she opens her mouth I groan because I know whatever she’s about to say is going to ruin my enjoyment of a scene. About the nicest thing I can say about her is that she’s still a better character then Wesley, being merely irritating rather than universe-warpingly terrible.

Jean-Luc Picard - Picard’s such a dad, holy shit. I never noticed this when I watched TNG before, but now I’m picking up on it as, like, the major facet of his personality. I mean, he also drinks Earl Grey and LARPs as a detective and discusses philosophy with aliens, but mostly he’s just Space Dad now and forever. Somehow I also forgot the LARPing as a detective part of his character? Picard’s just a huge fucking nerd isn’t he.

Q - I have very mixed feelings about Q. On the one hand I always love arrogant, capricious, petulant trickster gods, especially when they have Q’s flair for the theatrical, but on the other hand I think when it comes to Q I maybe love him more in concept than in execution? I spend a lot of time thinking about trickster-god entities and how a nigh-omnipotent creature unbound by linear time and the laws of physics might relate to the universe, and Q’s a very mundane example of the character type. On the gripping hand, Q’s super fun and whenever he shows up I know I’m in for a good time. I strongly suspect that if I were a Q I would also spend an obnoxious amount of time trolling Picard. He’s just so delightfully trollable!

Tasha Yar - Yar falls into a lot of tropes which I absolutely hate, but despite that I kind of... love her anyway?? I just don’t get enough masculine female characters to not love them even when they have rape-y backstories and secret desires to be more feminine and Issues feat. their emotional vulnerabilities, I guess. She was kind of frustrating at first because she kept randomly attacking people, but in the later episodes she seemed to mellow out a lot and started acting the way I’d expect of a security chief, ie 101% willing to solve problems with violence but no longer functioning on a hairtrigger. I’m sad that she died, I would’ve loved to see what she could have grown into as the show developed.

Also she was bros with Worf! Somehow I completely forgot about that, but I love it. This is an extra layer of tragedy in her death, Yar&Worf is a delightful friendship and if it’d had space to develop I sincerely believe it could have toppled Data&Geordi as my most beloved Trek brotp. This is what fanfiction is for, I suppose.

Wesley Crusher - I know it’s kind of Trek cliché to loathe Wesley but boy do I ever loathe Wesley!! The funny thing is that I actually liked him for the first two or three episodes: he was a bright and enthusiastic kid who was transparently desperate for Picard to be his father figure (and Picard was transparently disinterested in being his father figure, which is hilarious), but then he was allowed on the bridge despite not being part of Starfleet or even an acting-cadet at the time, and then the action paused in the middle of an episode so Picard could get lectured on how Wesley is the bestest most wonderfulest, and then... you get the point.

I’m not here to shit on wish-fulfilment characters (I mean, that’d be hypocritical as fuck considering my feelings about Data), I’m here to shit on wish-fulfilment characters who are so devoted to wish-fulfilment that they stop functioning adequately as a character. The universe warps itself into a pretzel so that Wesley can be the bestest most wonderfulest and it really really pisses me off.

S01E01E02 Encounter at Farpoint - You know, for a nigh-omnipotent weird space being, Q is amazingly fucking dumb. Like, who agrees to judge people based on a test without realising that if you tell people you’re testing them they’ll go out of their way to be on their best behaviour? You’re not gonna be getting any kind of reliable data here, Q.

S01E07 Lonely Among Us - What the fuck was this episode, I mean seriously. Okay, so we open with two groups of diplomats who super super hate each other and the Enterprise has to transport them to a meeting, so you’d assume that the episode would revolve around dealing with the conflict between the two groups right? Except no, that’s like the d-plot, the a-plot is there’s a weird space thing and the b-plot is Data has a crush on Sherlock Holmes. The c-plot is Wesley does his homework. And then the episode ends with the news that one group of diplomats has cooked and eaten a member of the other group and Picard’s like “lmao I don’t give a shit, Riker you deal with this I’m gonna go take a nap.” What the fuck, basically.

In other news, spacefuture meat is all cruelty-free synthesised magic apparently. I wonder if vegetarians still exist? Other than vulcans, I guess. I don’t know enough about the philosophy behind not shoving delicious chunks of animal corpse into your face to work out the answer here.

S01E08 Justice - I talked about this episode already and honestly that’s all you really need to know. People try to talk to Picard about Wesley’s impending death and Picard immediately changes the topic to talking about the weird space thing, rinse and repeat.

Anyway I was recently reading about a guy who was transporting prisoners when some of the prisoners escaped. The punishment for letting prisoners escape was death, so he released the rest of the prisoners then ran off to be an outlaw because it wasn’t like they could kill him any more then they were already going to. Then he became Emperor! Anyway the moral of the story is that Light Yagami is a moron escalating punishments are important and if someone knows you’re gonna kill them for something they did then they have basically no reason not to go and do a bunch of other crimes also.

S01E10 Hide and Q - Hey, quick quiz: you encounter a nigh-omnipotent entity who has previously mocked your species for being savage and violent. Said entity dumps you on a planet with a bunch of weird monsters. Do you: a) attempt to communicate with these monsters in the hopes of reaching a peaceful solution, or b) savagely resort to violence by shooting them with your space guns? If you picked option b, then congratulations! You are the crew of the Enterprise. This technically wasn’t the point of the episode, but come on! Step up your mind-game game, Q.

Also Picard yells at Q for constantly changing his costume and it’s like, Picard, dude, you’re aware the thing you’re yelling at isn’t actually Q? Q isn’t a human with superpowers, he’s an incomprehensible entity who occasionally puppets around a meatsack so you can have something convenient to yell at. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from Greek mythology and also Lovecraft, it’s that you super super do not want to see the incomprehensible entity’s true form.

S01E13 Datalore - I LOVE DATA AND I LOVE HIS HORRIBLE BROTHER!! but also, fuck Wesley. I hate Wesley. He’s immediately suspicious of Lore-as-Data purely on the basis of he sees “Data” doing Lore’s facial tic despite the fact that at the beginning of the episode he walked in on Data attempting to mimic sneezing, and despite the fact that there are several other characters with much better reasons to find Lore-as-Data suspicious.

Actually, you know what my dream rewrite for this episode would be? Someone becoming suspicious of Lore-as-Data, not because they think he’s Lore, but because they think he’s Data. The crew had previously been discussing whether or not they could trust Data now that he’d found links outside of Starfleet, so having that issue play out onscreen would’ve been fantastic. (Especially if it influenced their behaviour towards Data and Lore tried to take advantage of that as a “your friends are dicks, betray them and join me” kind of thing. I’m Here(tm) 24/7 for manipulation and corruption, my dude.)

S01E17 When the Bough Breaks - You know, this entire episode could’ve been solved with cloning. I mean actually it couldn’t, but the problem they thought they were having could’ve been solved with cloning. Ask the Enterprise for some unfucked genetic material and you can make your own kids! As many kids as you want!! More than six kids because seriously I don’t know what you were expecting to achieve with that, that’s not enough people to keep your planet alive.

S01E19 Coming of Age - This episode is an excellent example of What’s Wrong With Wesley. Wesley does an exam, and he loses some points in order to help another person with the exam, and at the end he’s told the other person passed but he didn’t, and the other person’s like “oh but that only happened because Wesley lost points by helping me!!”, because Wesley is so bestest most wonderfulest that the only reason he fails is because he sacrificed himself to help someone else to succeed. There’s a vague attempt at suggesting “oh, but there were other reasons Wesley failed!!” but like, fuck you, you don’t get to show me nothing but Wesley succeeding and then attempt to salvage this mess by telling me there were other factors at play, especially not when there’s so much attention devoted to Wesley helping the other person.

S01E22 Symbiosis - Everyone spends this episode focusing on the wrong thing. See, the Brekkians are selling medicine to the Ornarans, except actually it’s not medicine it’s addictive drugs, and this is bad because... drugs are bad? Don’t do drugs kids!! Why are you all focusing on the part where there are drugs and not the part where the Brekkians are lying shitbags taking relentless advantage of the Ornarans so that they can live like parasite kings in a capitalist hellscape castle?

“Golly gosh I sure can’t understand why anyone would voluntarily become dependent on a drug!!” says FUCKING WESLEY, THE WORST CHARACTER, completely missing the part where the drug actually is medicine and the Ornarans are entirely unaware that they no longer have the plague the drug is medicine for and thus believe that they have literally no other choice than to take the drug if they want to live. There is nothing “voluntary” about this at all, Wesley you absolute fuckwad!! Somebody shove this kid into a locker already.

S01E23 Skin of Evil - There are no pockets in Starfleet uniforms so everyone spends this episode wandering around with stuff awkwardly glued to their sides and it’s terrible and hilarious. I’m pretty sure this is true of other episodes but this is the one where I found it really really noticeable and couldn’t stop laughing.

...this episode was just obnoxiously funny in general actually, Goo Man is trying so hard to be super evil and scary and grimdark but nobody really gives a fuck about it, he’s more just like majorly inconvenient and kind of irritating than he is actually threatening at any point. “You don’t understand! I don’t serve evil, I am evil!!” the Goo Man wails. Picard categorically does not give any kind of a shit in response.

tl;dr: Data is precious and perfect and every time he’s onscreen I start weeping. YOU’RE DOING GREAT, DATA! I’M SO PROUD OF YOU!!

#star trek #star trek tng

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littlestooge · 7 years

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Dear author

Hello, Writer!

I am so excited for Chocolate Box! Thank you so very much for writing something for me. I cannot wait to read it!

Yep: happy endings that doin’t fall into syrupy sap, loyalty, domesticity, downtime where the characters just hang out and bond, still waters running deep in terms of emotions (some characters may have trouble expressing emotions but they certainly have them), found families, friendship, emotional bonding, loyalty. If you want to write smut, that’s fine by me! If you don’t, that’s also more than okay. I do prefer sex with an emotional bond present, and that all parties have a good time (winkwink).

Nope: rape/dubious consent, fusions, crossovers, BDSM, scat, sex with people aged under 18, sex with animals, sex with more than two people involved in a single encounter, OT3s, dom/sub, A/B/O-verses or A/B/O dynamics (or similar) in genenral, trans/pansexual/demisexual/asexual headcanons.

Thank you so much for writing for me!

MY REQUESTS

The X-Files

Fox Mulder/Dana Scully; Mulder/Scully & William (their son) My very, very first OTP from when I was just a little girl is Mulder/Scully. I ship them. And I ship them HARD.

Was I utterly thrilled that the shw came back for six new episodes in 2016? Yes! Was I disappointed in episodes 1, 5 and 6? Sure! Was I annoyed that Mulder and Scully had broken up for reasons unknown? Definitely!

But, sadly, I was willing to forgive Chris Carter for writing three terrible episodes (and whoever the hell let him do it!) just for some more time with these two awesome people, and some new information about their feelings about their much longed-for son. And I am looking forward to the new episodes Fox has indicated will land in 2018. Which I very much hope will not suck.

But until then, I would love absolutely anything written about these two crazy kids, at any point of the series (from the Pilot all the way through til now, and anywhere in between). I’d also love to see anything featuring either or both of them and their son. If you’d like to write smut, that’d be great, but I would ask you to remember two things, please: the desperately deep feelings Scully and Mulder have for each other, and the fact that Mulder has an oral fixation...which I’m sure keeps Scully very happy. Ahem.

Star Trek: Voyager

Chakotay/Janeway; Janeway & Q; Janeway & Tuvok; Janeway & Kes; Janeway & Seven of Nine Chakotay and Janeway are an OTP of mine from way, way back, and few lazy canon additions have annoyed me as much as the tacked-on Seven of Nine/Chakotay ‘romance’ in the finale episode (which I already have plenty of issues with).

I don’t think I’m alone in loving their trapped-on-a-planet-together episode, Resolutions, back in Season 2. I also doubt I’m alone in thinking the likely original intentions of The Powers That Be were to put Janeway and Chakotay together as a couple at some point.

So I’d be down with a fix-it that gets rid of the stupid Chakotay/Seven pairing (Seven is probably best with the Doctor, to be honest), and puts Janeway and Chakotay together. I’d just really like some shipfic of these two, please. Anytime in the series (or after it) is fine. And a fic that ignores the finale is fine. And fic that refers to Resolutions would be awesome. An AU where they’re on New Earth for longer, or an AU where they get together at some point after the episode once they’re back on the ship, or anything along those lines? Awesome!

I also love Janeway’s long, deep friendship with Tuvok, her frindly yet antagonistic friendship with Q, and her affectionate, maternal friendships with Kes (who should have never been written out of the series) and Seven.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Kira/Odo; Kira & Odo I admit that DS9 is not my favourite Trek series. It’s not that I hate it, it’s just that I haven’t made the time to sit down and watch all of it the way I have with most of the other bits of the Trek universe. So I’m nowhere near as familiar with the intricacies of the overarching plots and story arcs.

But one part of DS9 I love is how badass Kira Nerys is. I also really love Odo, and how well his confusion and isolation is represented and acted. But most of all, I love the relationship between Kira and Odo, and how it grows and changes throughout the series.

I especially like season five’s Children of Time (and not just because I love time travel as a trope, which I totally do). Odo’s love for Kira is shown as being both a strength and a weakness: the Odo who was trapped on the planet after the Defiant crashed has been able to grow and develop as as a person because of his love for Kira, but he is also driven to extreme lengths (which includes sacrificing his own existence) just so that Kira will live. Kira’s reaction to this news is far more realistic than usually allowed on TV: she is conflicted, touched that Odo loves her, but more than anything, horrified by what that love has caused him to do, especially as she had said she was at peace with her supposedly fated death.

That’s not to say that the writers handled this relationship as well as they could have (a mishandling which I’m almost certain had a lot to do with executive meddling, rather than the writers not knowing what they were doing).

But I’d love to see any fic featuring these guys, during or after the series. Preferably either when they are a couple (perhaps one or both considering the reality of the romantic relationship versus what they thought it would be, especially for Odo), or perhaps just before they take the plunge. When did Kira realise she loved Odo? How did she feel about his feelings for her?

Star Trek: The Original Series

Kirk/Spock; Kirk/Spock & McCoy Ah, Kirk and Spcok! The granddaddy of slash pairings. Who invented slash, damnit. So I love these two. So, so much. And I ship them HARD. I love these two, and I don’t care when any fic about them is set: before the series, during the series, between the series and the films, during the films, after them. Kirk was likely Spock’ first real, close friend, and definitely helped Spock out of his shell, and helped him with his loneliness. And Spock also became friends with McCoy through Kirk, of course. So the three of them could be awesome together!

Christine Chapel & Nyota Uhura & Janice Rand Some of the original awesome sci-fi ladies! I love these three, and I loved them even more when I found out Majel Barrett (who plays Christine Chapel) was originally meant to play the ship’s first officer. So Gene Roddenberry, for all his faults, was certainly a progressive! So I’d love to see some fic featuring any or all of these ladies being BAMFs, please. As they likely would have been presented all the damn time, had executive meddling not got in the way.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Picard/Guinan; Picard & Guinan

Why did we never get any real insight into this relationship, goddamn it?! How did these two first meet? (And no, not in Time’s Arrow; how did Picard first meet Guinan?) And why is their relationship “beyond family”? Genfic or shipfic both very much appreciated!

Picard & Tasha Yar; Guinan & Tasha Yar

There are few pointless deaths in canon that shit me more than Tasha Yar’s. I know Denise Crosby wanted to leave the series because she felt the character was being under-utilised. But goddamn it, that should have promoted The Powers That Be to fic the issue, not let her walk away when Tasha was such a fab, kickass BAMF of a female character. Christ!

I liked the growing relationship between Picard and Tasha: Picard obviously felt very fatherly toward Tasha, which was lovely. And Tasha, who was orphaned at a young age and had to struggle to survive when the colony world she lived on went to shit, obviously held Picard in high regard. So I’d love to hear more about them! I’m more than down for an AU fic where Tasha doesn’t die, too.

And while we only saw Guinan interact with an alternate timeline Tasha in the truly epicYesterday’s Enterprise, it’s still an intriguing realtionship between two awesome women. Would love to see what friendship they could have had had Tasha survived!

Picard & Data; Data & Spot I admit it. I love Data, and the way in which he struggles to understand humans and our emotions. And that shows a lot in his relationships with Picard (who he sacrifices himself for in Nemesis - that’s love!) and Spot, who he clearly loves.

Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (1997)

Romy White/Michele Weinberger; Romy White & Michele Weinberger; Romy White & Michele Weinberger and Heather Mooney; Heather Mooney/Sandy Frink Near the beginning of the film, Michele asks Romy if they should “have sex sometime” to check if they’re actually lesbians. Romy says no, but to “ask me again” if they reach 30 and are still single.

What happens when these two awesome ladies get to 30? They’re obviously successful business women (for real!) by the time they’re 30, but they’re still single. Do they decide to check if they’re lesbians after all? What happens?

I also really love Heather and Sandy as characters. What happens to them next? Do they get together? And what LA adventures do Romy, Michele and Heather get up together?

Frozen (2013)

Anna & Elsa Finally! A wildly popular, money-spinning animated Disney movie featuring a strong female protagonist who doesn’t have even a potential future love interest in the form of some dude hanging around her by the end of the film!

I love the relationship between Anna and Elsa, and the fact that this familial love (and between two women! Who aren’t competing with each other over who is prettier or over some dude or whatever!) was the main love story of the film. And was the love that saved the day.

I understand why some people would like Elsa to be lesbian or bi or ace or whatever in the sequel: there is just so little representation, especially in mainstream media. But simply that she is presented as a female character whose main goal in life isn’t to find someone to shack up with is incredibly refreshing. Which I loved.

(I liked Brave for the same reason: the bond between Merida and her mother. But remember, there were those Scottish lads who were competing for her hand at the start of the film. And Frozen made a hell of a lot more money.)

I’d love to see some more Anna and Elsa bonding, please. I don’t care what they’re doing or talking about. I don’t mind if it’s during the film or after it. As long as it’s not incest (which I admit squicks me), I’m happy!

The Martian - All Media Types

Mark Watney & Ares III Crew This movie also really surprised me with how awesome it was. I admit I have yet to read the book, although it’s on my list!

I just love the bond between Mark and the crew, and would love to see what happens when he gets back to the ship at the end of the film. How do the crew - another chosen family - help Mark put himself back together?

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (movies)

I need to say, firstly, that I was really surprised by how much I loved this movie. I loved the Harry Potter book series growing up (and still do), but I was always “meh” about the movies. But this movie was great!

Well-rounded, non-stereotypical characters, all of whom are actual adults (read: I am so sick of seeing movies and other media featuring characters who are all 24 and under. I’m in my twenties and I couldn’t care less for these brainless stereotypes! Give us some real, complex people who are all at least a decade out of puberty! Please! Jeez.) and have actual personalities.

Tina, for one, is neither played by an anorexic 21 year old, nor is she inappropriately attired for either the time period or HER GODDAMN JOB AS AN AUROR. WHICH SHE COULDN’T DO IN HEELS. THAT YOU VERY MUCH, BRYCE DALLKAS HOWARD IN JURASSIC WORLD. FFS. Even Queenie, who is far “girlier” is still wearing clothes and shoes she can comfortably move around in, and both women have actual depth to their characters. Awesome!

Queenie Goldstein & Tina Goldstein

Just like Anna and Elsa above, I adore the sisterly relationship presented between these two. These two appear to have been on their own for a while, so I’d love to see any genfic featuring these two, please. Before the movie, after it, during it. I don’t mind! They’re both such asskicking BAMFs, and I’d love to see more of it.

Queenie Goldstein & Tina Goldstein & Jacob Kowalski & Newt Scamander

Do I love the found family/family of choice trope? Why yes. Yes I do. All four of these characters are interesting separately, and lose none of that depth when they come together as a little tribe, taking on the world together. And I love the bond these grown ups (who have all lived, at least a little bit, and experienced love, loss, and war, and have grown from it) form. And I’d love to see more of it!

They’re all great characters, and it’s so nice to see such kind characters find each other, and to be able to help the others. They’re all a bit damaged, after all, but they try their very best to rise above it and live the best lives they can.

Newt Scamander & Newt Scamander's Magical Beasts; Frank The Thunderbird & Newt Scamander

To say that Newt cares for his animal friends is putting it mildly. Much was made of the fact that Newt is a true Hufflepuff and attempts to settle his battles with his wits and mind rather than his fists, which was just awesome to see in a mainstream film.

Before Newt finds Jacob, Tina and Queenie, his magical beasts are very much his family of choice, and it’s clear they love him. After all, he travels to America purely to free Frank! So any fic featuring them all being awesome together would be great. How did he find Frank? How did he know where Frank originally came from? How did he begin to collect these animals?

Queenie Goldstein/Jacob Kowalski

I truly surprised myself with how much I ship these two. The affection between them felt so deep and real, and they (surprisingly) completely avert the schlubby-guy-and-beautiful-woman-fall-in-love trope. I really did buy it when psychic Queenie told Jacob she was intrigued by who he was as a person, and that she knew he wasn’t just attracted to her because she’s pretty. The friendship between them felt real, and I’d love to see more of it.

I was actually a bit teary when Jacob stepped out into the amnesia rain at the end of the film, and actually smiled when Queenie came into his bakery at the end of the film. This pairing is just begging for reunion fic. Pretty please? Jacob might get his memory back, or he might not. But I’d love to know what happens next!

Jacob Kowalski & Newt Scamander; Jacob Kowalski/Newt Scamander

I just love these guys. I both ship them and like them as BFFs, so would be happy with them being presented as either. This pairing is just begging for reunion fic. Pretty please? Jacob might get his memory back, or he might not. But I’d love to know what happens next!

Tina Goldstein & Newt Scamander; Tina Goldstein/Newt Scamander

We all already know that, in canon, these two end up married: Luna Lovegood marries their grandson, and they have twin boys. And I have a feeling Luna and her dad would get on gangbusters with Newt and Tina.

I really like how the film ended with these two as friends, rather than with their damn wedding. Tina is a grown ass woman, and she has better things to do than go moping after some English dude with floppy hair. And I love how polite and non-douchebaggy Newt is (both in general, and in the way he doesn’t crack on to Tina like a fucking stalker, whining about how he’s “such a nice guy!”).

They clearly are good friends before they ever become a couple, so I’d love to see either genfic featuring these two as friends, or shippy fic with them as a couple, or pre-relationship UST fic, please. Or whatever you’d like to write! Maybe a flash forward to what they got up to during WWII? Or either of the wars with Voldemort?

Leta Lestrange & Newt Scamander; Albus Dumbledore & Newt Scamander

I don’t think you need magical powers to know that these two relationships from Newt’s Hogwarts days will play a larger role in future films. So any exploration of these relationships would be wonderful!

Harry Potter (book series)

Dumbledore/Grindelwald I’ve long found this relationship fascinating, and the news (from J.K. Rowling herself!) that Dumbledore was gay and in love with Grindelwald was most intriguing. Did Grindelwald return those feelings? Did he not? Did he never know Albus loved him?

Oh, the possibilities! I am also really pleased that JKR herself is writing the Fantastic Beasts movies (rather than the hodge-podge mess the original movies often were, scripted by other people) because we may finally have some light shed on this relationship, which is obviously so crucial to everything that follows it in the wizarding world. So I’d love to read more about it!

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yourbuerokrat2 · 2 years

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Scenario: How to keep the God of Chaos

Inspired by Mirror!Qcard. Still with a more chaotic and even less moral version of Q than in TNG and a version of Picard that finds a way to capture/imprison him. The main differene here is, that Picard is not doing it out of egotism or that he is regularly punishing Q in hopes of using him. No, Q has simply been a huge danger to the universe with no Continuum there or willing to put a stop to him and Picard together with his crew have found a way to imprison him.

At first angry and incredibly upset, Q vows vengance against the human and his helpers who put him in this state, Q soons grows fascinated and perhaps even more with his captor.

After all, Picard is the one who doesn’t really trust anyone with Q, fearing that even someone from Command could be persuaded by Q to release him.

His visits to Q in the beginning are all to make sure, that everything that is keeping Q there is still intact and that Q has not yet found a way out.

He is the only one who visits Q for once because he is one if not the only one Q really reacts or acknowledges and also in the rare case something bad might happen, Qs frustrations and anger concerning his imprisonment would be focused on Picard only.

Q trying at first to manipulate Picard by pretending to show regret for his wrongdoings and trying to tell Picard that he could and would help them, if only Picard would let him out just slightly and only for a little while.

Picard at first trying to ignore him, but with Q figuring out how to push his buttons finds himself arguing with Q and Q having waited for some kind of reaction at least instead of this neverending seeming boredom jumps at the chance of possible freedom.

But, Q soon finds out, Picard has done his fair research on Qs deeds and he is hardly impressed by Qs trys at manipulation. Still, through their arguments and Picard being the only person Q sees and interacts with, Qs interest in Picard develops to become more than just as a way to gain back his freedom.

Soon, the visions of vengeance of what he is going to do to Picard and his crew once he gets out become a variety of fantasies that leave him with a foreign but warm feeling and soon enough his interest becomes an obsession.

#just kind of think it interest the concept of this #since here other than in Mirror!qcard #Picard is not really mistreating Q just holding him in a prison to keep him from doing further damage #also a difference to the more bill ciperhesque darker Q fics would be #Q still harboring some resentment over being forced into this prison by Picard but also starting to have really conflicting emotions since #over the cause of time he falls for him #Wonder what would be more interesting #the Enterprise having an enormous threat even bigger than Q orginally was and Q telling Picard that he will help them #Picard not really buying into this fearing Q will get to his old ways like they first met him #but Q really just wants one payment #or someone else stumbling on Q by invading the Enterprise and looking for something worthwile and Q manipulating them into freeing them #though one of my personal favorites is a young naive and overtly curious ensign #that enters his bosses office for a talk about his performance #and Picard gets suddenly called to the Bridge and Picard simply tells them to 'stay here'#and they start to look around in his quarters and in his office and somehow they come across a secret seeming door and there is Q #who they have heard about of course #but Q makes himself look just so much more miserable than he actually is #making the ensign question wehter all the tales of Q were even true #and Q with false promises of power knowledge and a sob story convinces them to free him #just as Picard enters his room the last thing he sees is the ensig opening the last lock so to speak and Q is free #which is then followed by a role reversal where Q still being not at all forgiving about the whole 'imprisoning him' thing puts Picard as a #payback and he Q is free #although Q is a really conflicted jailer #because over the last few years he ahs fallen in love with him and the fantasies about his freedom with Picard were starting to become less #sardistic and vengeful than they originally were #Picard on the other hand #thinks he might have even prefered a more neutral or vengeful jailer #than an infatuated jailer

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yourbuerokrat2 · 3 years

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So this is just to make the writing and the reading easier.

@teeth-go-clink s ask:

I have a scenario you could write about if you’d like? I think with dark Q, as long as it’s still kinda canon Q, he would not let Picard see his dark moments. With him around he would just be soft and dorky and playfully egocentric, but as soon as Picard would leave the room he would go all evil abstract horror ob people who slightly inconvenienced, or were treating him without the respect he deserved. And they probably wouldn’t ever tell Picard about it (even if Q didn’t threaten them) because they’d be too afraid of what that monster would do if the relationship didn’t work and he didn’t have to play the sweet boyfriend anymore

5 times someone didn’t tell Picard the truth about his boyfriend and one time someone (nearly) did

Warning for body horror is mostly for the first one

1. A bureaucratic Admiral

It has been a a rather long and tiring diplomatic mission for the Captain. Especially since one of the conflicting sides did not need to sleep and demanded constant entertainment.

And they refused to have Commander Data for company since he did not have a high enough rank to be worthy of interacting with them.

As soon as the door closed behind him, he felt a presence rather close behind him.

“My, mon capitaine, we have been rather busy dealing with imbeciles lately. And all that built up tension and stress.”

“Hello, Q.”, it comes out more fond than he would have ever imagined when they first began this affaire that grew into a relationship.

“Lucky for you, your charming and overall perfect boyfriend has already planned an emergency vacation. Two weeks on a planet created for just this purpose and you’ll be back in about two seconds.

What do you say?”

If Q had not been on his best behaviour and if Picard had not found out the last few times he gave Q the benefit of the doubt that he really stuck to his words, he would have said no.

But before Picard could reply that as long as Q kept his absence to two seconds they are free to go, his badge went off.

“Riker to Picard.”

“Picard speaking. What is it, Number One?”

“I am sorry, captain, but Admiral Johnson requests to have a call with you immediatly.”

Time froze. Or to be more specific, time on the Enterprise froze.

And a certain Admiral found himself in front of a very frustrated Q.

“I was this” and the Admiral was suddenly squished between two fingers that started to slowly press against each other, nearly crushing him to deah as a loud voice continued “close to a romantic getaway I have created an entire planet for while having to watch my dear boyfriend work himself to the brink of exhaustion without being allowed to interfere.”

Without so much as a warning Johnson found himself face to face with this dangerous entity that now seemed to consist of the universe itself with black holes and imploding stars scathered across their skin He felt nauseaus and a tad bit mad just trying to look in what appeared to be their eyes.

“And you have the audacity to call upon him after this rather meaningless errand just to”

and the Admiral could feel his mind being invaded by the entity who made sure to let him know about it and about their anger once Q found out the reason behind the Admirals call.

“tell him you need the entire paperwork filled out and a personal report as soon as possible.”

He not so much heard it as felt it in his head, the being erasing any other thought he might have, leaving behind a pain in his head that was about to drive him to insanity.

When Q finally decided to leave his head alone, he was able to think again.

He wanted to speak or to let Q know, that he now sees the error of his ways and that he will not bother the captain any longer. But he found himself unable to form out a single coherent sound.

Q on the other hand did not seem to care about his opinion on the matter, having already made up his own mind as Johnson saw what the Admiral guessed to be a wicked grin, it was really hard to tell with Q losing more and more of his human features.

“But I am willing to give you the ‘benefit of the doubt’ as mon capitaine always says. Perhaps the reason for your insistence on the bureaucrat procedure without giving a thought about how tired Picard must be feeling was less out of malice and more because you have no idea what exhaustion feels like.

Let me help you with that.”

And Q snapped his fingers and suddenly the Admiral was on a running track. Sweating profusely under a scorching sun.

“Go on. Run. I promise, as soon as you have reached the finish point I will send you right back on your way.”, came a voice from above.

Still unable to defend himself vocally nor seeing any other way out, the Admiral started running. Really, it did not seem to be a particularly long run, sine he was already able to see the finish line after a while.

Now, if only his back wouldn’t feel so heavy.

The more he ran the heavier his back got, until he had to resort to go on all fours.

And was he… shrinking? The grass around him seemed to get bigger and bigger and the finishing point further away than it should be.

His sweat was feeling less like sweat and more like a sticky strange liquid that was covering his body and his eyes too started to feel rather weird. Like they wanted to stretch out of his eye sockets.

“A rather funny thing about some of you organics is that each one of you can develop a sort of fear or disgust to something much smaller than yourselves. For Jean-Luc it’s spiders, for Klingons it’s Tribbles and when I got a look into your rather pathetic mind, guess what I found?”

Laughter filled the entire space around him, as realization began to hit him.

But what was he supposed to do? The only thing he could hope for, was that he would be able to cross the finish line in time before it was too late.

When he could feel his legs and arms disappear, his mind followed.

All that was left of him when he finished the race was a small snail that was not capable of any thought other than that it needed to move forward.

Picking the snail up, Q smiled at it. “You know, the french have some rather nice recipies for things like you.

But I am a god of my word.”

Q snapped his fingers and they were once again in the Admirals office with a now terrified Admiral and an amused looking Q, who were both back in their human forms.

“I do believe, that our little misunderstanding has been solved and that you will tell your collegues that should they do the same mistake as you were about to make, then I shall treat them like the insects they are.”

Still unable to talk, the Admiral only nodded franticly.

“Good, now I am going to have to eradicate your fear for a while. Wouldn’t want you to have a panic attack while talking to my dear Jean-Luc.

Because there are certain things he does not have to know about. Do you understand?”

In this situation Admiral Johnson, was willing to understand just about anything, if only to make the entity leave.

And just as Q disappeared, so did his fear and as he looked at the screen to see a clearly tired captain Picard with a smiling Q in the background. He managed to excuse himself by saying how good of a job Picard did and that he wanted to cancel his next visit to the Enterprise out of private reasons.

Needless to say, a warning was issued to most Admirals that would have to deal with the Enterprise in the future.

Up next, because I am really liking this prompt, but don’t have the time to write everything down just yet:

2 Riker

3. Deanna Troi

4. Beverly Crusher

5. The Continuum

+ Guinan

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yourbuerokrat2 · 3 years

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5 times someone didn't tell Picard the truth about his boyfriend and one time someone (nearly) did

Warning for body horror is mostly for the first one

1. A bureaucratic Admiral

It has been a a rather long and tiring diplomatic mission for the Captain. Especially since one of the conflicting sides did not need to sleep and demanded constant entertainment.

And they refused to have Commander Data for company since he did not have a high enough rank to be worthy of interacting with them.

As soon as the door closed behind him, he felt a presence rather close behind him.

"My, mon capitaine, we have been rather busy dealing with imbeciles lately. And all that built up tension and stress."

"Hello, Q.", it comes out more fond than he would have ever imagined when they first began this affaire that grew into a relationship.

"Lucky for you, your charming and overall perfect boyfriend has already planned an emergency vacation. Two weeks on a planet created for just this purpose and you'll be back in about two seconds.

What do you say?"

If Q had not been on his best behaviour and if Picard had not found out the last few times he gave Q the benefit of the doubt that he really stuck to his words, he would have said no.

But before Picard could reply that as long as Q kept his absence to two seconds they are free to go, his badge went off.

"Riker to Picard."

"Picard speaking. What is it, Number One?"

"I am sorry, captain, but Admiral Johnson requests to have a call with you immediatly."

Time froze. Or to be more specific, time on the Enterprise froze.

And a certain Admiral found himself in front of a very frustrated Q.

“I was this” and the Admiral found himself squished between two fingers that started to slowly press against each other, nearly crushing him to deah as a loud voice continued “close to a romantic getaway I have created an entire planet for while having to watch my dear boyfriend work himself to the brink of exhaustion without being allowed to interfere.”

“And you have the audacity to call upon him after this rather meaningless errand just to”

and the Admiral could feel his mind being invaded the entity making sure to let him know about it and about their anger once Q found out the reason behind the Admirals call.

“tell him you need the entire paperwork filled out and a personal report as soon as possible.”

He not so much heard it as felt it in his head, the being erasing any other thought he might have, leaving behind a pain in his head that was about to drive him to insanity.

When Q finally decided to leave his head alone, he was able to think again.

He wanted to speak or to let Q know, that he now sees the error of his ways and that he will not bother the captain any longer. But he found himself unable to form out a single coherent sound.

Q on the other hand did not seem to care about his opinion on the matter, having already made up his own mind as he saw what the Admiral guessed to be a wicked grin, it was really hard to tell with Q losing more and more of his human features.

Let me help you with that.”

And Q snapped his fingers and suddenly the Admiral was on a running track. Sweating profusely under a scorching sun.

“Go on. Run. I promise, as soon as you have reached the finish point I will send you right back on your way.”, came a voice from above.

Now, if only his back wouldn’t feel so heavy.

The more he ran the heavier his back got, until he had to resort to go on all fours.

And was he... shrinking? The grass around him seemed to get bigger and bigger and the finishing point further away than it should be.

“A rather funny thing about some of you organics is that each one of you can develop a sort of fear or disgust to something much smaller than you. For Jean-Luc it’s spiders, for Klingons it’s Tribbles and when I got a look into your rather pathetic mind, guess what I found?”

Laughter filled the entire space around him, as realization began to hit him.

But what was he supposed to do? The only thing he could hope for, was that he would be able to cross the finish line in time before it was too late.

When he could feel his legs and arms disappear, his mind followed.

All that was left of him when he finished the race was a small snail that was not capable of any thought other than that it needed to move forward.

Picking the snail up, Q smiled at it. “You know, the french have some rather nice recipies for things like you.

But I am a god of my word.”

Q snapped his fingers and they were once again in the Admirals office with a now terrified Admiral and an amused looking Q, who were both back in their human forms.

Still unable to talk, the Admiral only nodded franticly.

“Good, now I am going to have to eradicate your fear for a while. Wouldn’t want you to have a panic attack while talking to my dear Jean-Luc.

Because there are certain things he does not have to know about. Do you understand?”

In this situation Admiral Johnson, was willing to understand just about anything, if only to make the entity leave.

Needless to say, a warning was issued to most Admirals that would have to deal with the Enterprise in the future.

Up next, because I am really liking this prompt, but don’t have the time to write everything down just yet:

2 Riker

3. Deanna Troi

4. Beverly Crusher

5. The Continuum

+ Guinan

#if anyone is worried #no the future ones will not involve Q doing horrible stuff to the Enterprise crew #It's jusit that they are witnesses to his darker side #maybe Beverly but there is still only so much he would do since as you wanted #sort of canon Q he does care about Picard and he knows how much this crew means to him #so doing anything horrible to them would be too obvious and make his captain feel miserable #still it's going to keep being dark #dark qcard

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daleisgreat · 3 years

Text

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season Six

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-I am indefinitely grateful for your patience awaiting my semi-annual Star Trek: The Next Generation season recaps. Today I bestow upon you all my thoughts for the penultimate sixth season (trailer) of TNG. It is already a little jarring to realize I am down to one season left on this series I have gradually-yet-steadily been picking away at the past three years. Once again, all the screens here are courtesy of me pointing my outdated Samsung Galaxy S7 phone at the TV screen so you have my apologies for the questionable fidelity of the pics! -For notable cast changes, there are several I want to make sure to address. Transporter Chief O’Brien (Colm Meaney) departs midway through this season to be a regular cast member on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine which started in January of 1993. I knew of Colm’s switching shows during this season for a while now and was anticipating some big episode or climactic scene explaining his departure from TNG. While there was a crossover episode introducing some of the new Deep Space Nine characters right before its debut, there was never a scene this addressing O’Brien leaving the Enterprise….unless it was a quick passing line of dialogue that went right over my head! Another notable change is halfway through the season Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) gets chastised by a new interim commander for her unorthodox uniform and makes her fall in line wearing matching Enterprise uniforms with the rest of the crew. In the bonus interviews on the BluRay, Marina states how she had to fight for a matching uniform for many years and it was one of the few things the higher ups finally granted her.

-I am glad TNG compensated for the lack of a Q (John de Lancie) episode last season and had him in two episodes in season six. The first episode is a middling affair where he steals a Starfleet prospect who discovers she is a long lost member of the Q Continuum. The second Q episode fares much better where Q helps a stuck-in-purgatory-Picard (Patrick Stewart) after Doctor Crusher (Gates McFadden) has a return of poor doctoring and loses Picard on the operating table. The two travel back to pivotal moments in Picard’s younger days to see if he would change the past in order to get a second chance at the future in an investing episode. Speaking of Crusher’s poor doctoring, there is another episode this season where it feels like the writers are in on the joke and have an episode where Crusher is disbarred after some major bad doctoring again on her part….but of course Crusher manages to change that by the episode’s end. If my notes are accurate (no promises!), than I believe this is the first season with no appearance from Troi’s mother, Lwaxana (Majel Barrett)! I would not be surprised if she has two episode next season. Season six also does not feature an appearance from Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton), but I understand he will return in time for the series finale in season seven. A recurring character who does return is everyone’s favorite engineer, Reginald Barclay (Dwight Schultz), who is in a couple episodes this season, with him playing a key part in a holodeck episode with another long overdue returning character I will touch on soon.

Not only does Worf has some killer episodes this season, he also demonstrates his prowess at Yoga this season....while Crusher continues to demonstrate her prowess at poor doctoring. -There are a pair of excellent holodeck episodes this season. The first one is easily the best named episode of the entire series in “Fistful of Datas.” It sees Troi, Data (Brent Spiner), Worf (Michael Dorn) and his son, Alexander go on a wild west adventure where problems with the holodeck causes Data to take over nearly all the AI personas in the simulation. Swashbuckling hilarity ensues! The other holodeck episode sees the return of Professor Moriarty (Daniel Davis). This was long anticipated since Moriarty’s last appearance in season two as the Sherlock Holmes antagonist who became self-aware and whose consciousness became trapped in the holodeck in the following four years. In “Ship in a Bottle,” Moriarty attempts a master plan to connive his way out of the holodeck as a program and as an actual living being. The twists and turns that lead up to the gratifying resolution for everyone was a memorable ride and sadly Davis’s last guest appearance on the show. Daniel Davis and Patrick Stewart have a natural chemistry with each other that shines whenever those two share the screen, so I highly recommend tracking down and viewing both of his episodes!

-The flute that Picard was gifted in the previous season once again returns for a couple of memorable scenes when Picard starts courting another crew member who plays keyboard. Naturally this leads to the two having an emotional duet together that starts off kind of hokey, but by the end the pair had me reeled in all the way! Just click or press here to see for yourself. -Worf has a few notable dedicated episodes this season. A two episode arc sees him track down a long lost colony of Klingons imprisoned by Romulans that has Worf encouraging them to relearn and embrace Klingon customs. Another episode has Worf dealing with the fallout of seeing the return of the Klingon god, Kahless, and the fascinating drama that unravels with another satisfying conclusion for all conflicting parties involved.

-Even though by season six nearly the entire cast and writing team was firing away on all cylinders, I would be lying if there were not a couple clunker episodes. Riker (Jonathon Frakes) portrays a mental patient in a play he is rehearsing for, but the play starts going to his head and he starts losing it for real, but the way the plot unfolds is a mess and a half to follow along with. The other dud is TNG’s homage to The Thing which sounds promising on paper, but instead features lousy CG of its “Thing” and a groan-inducing twist that was not entertaining whatsoever. -As much as I enjoyed Leonard Nimoy returning to play Spock last season, I was delighted even more with The Original Series star James Doohan dusting off his communicator to portray Scotty. Watching him overcome his differences and exchange engineer expertise with Geordi (LeVar Burton) was a treat. The scene with Scotty and Picard sharing a drink on a holodeck reimagining of the original Enterprise gave me nostalgic goosebumps throughout.

-Season six started off with the conclusion to “Time’s Arrow” that saw the TNG crew time travelling back to the 1890s where they first encountered Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) and were forced to alter the timeline to rescue Data, and win over an aggressive Mark Twain. While not on the level of the “Best of Both Worlds” two-parter season finale, it was still a highly entertaining two-parter in its own right, and as I alluded to earlier, I am all for seeing the TNG crew in an old west setting. Season six ends with another cliffhanger that sees the Enterprise encounter the Borg again, and they manage to convince Data to flee the Enterprise to seemingly join the Borg as their new leader. Suffice it to say, I am intrigued to see how this pays off in season seven! -I referenced a few times before here how I was keeping up with podcast reviews of every TNG episode with the show, Star Trek: The Next Conversation. It looks like I have finally caught up with where hosts Andrew Secunda and Matt Mira have recorded their latest shows just a couple episodes before the end of season six. It looks like they took a few extended breaks this season, and I cannot fault them for that at all when dealing with everything the pandemic has wreaked upon us all this past year. I still enjoyed their takes as usual, and plan on going back and listening to whenever they post new episodes to catch up with their remaining casts covering TNG. I understand they have a Patreon companion with exclusive podcasts dedicated with them marching through both Deep Space Nine and Voyager now, so who knows, I may have to start working my way through those series down the line.

-You know the drill by now, this BluRay is loaded with carried over DVD extra features and all new ones for the BluRay. Not including three commentary tracks for this season, there are just over three hours of behind-the-scenes interviews and documentaries. Almost all of them are informative, but I will only recommend a few of the must-see ones here. Mission Overview: Year Six has introspective reflections from Whoopi on “Time’s Arrow” and James Doohan on “Relics.” Bold New Directions has some fond insights on “Fistful of Datas” and fascinating memories from Stewart and Burton from getting their shot at directing episodes this season. Beyond Five Year Mission – Evolution of Star Trek: The Next Generation is the headlining all-new bonus feature. It is an hour and a half, and split into three parts. Part one has plenty of love for being the cast and crew’s personal favorite season of the show, debuting Deep Space Nine concurrently during this season and trying their best to work within Gene Roddenberry’s “no conflict” framework of the series. Part two is themed around TNG being more serious when compared to TOS, and highlighting how several episodes were scored. Part three stands out the most with an awesome story from Whoopi on what lead to her becoming involved on the show, Sirtis dealing with a lot of pushback from studio executives and Spiner’s love/hate relationship with the cat that played Spot.

There may be many hours of bonus interviews to sift through, but most of it is worth it for endearing moments above like Burton and Frakes sharing a laugh, and Spiner sharing his disdain for a certain feline. -Season six is a step up from the minor-yet-noticeable dip in quality from season five, and brings it back to the high bar established with seasons three and four of TNG. The highs were remarkably prominent this season with some standout holodeck episodes, memorable two-parters, and a scintillating season finale that has me anticipating the kickoff to the season seven. I cannot believe it, after a few years of starting this, I am finally down to just one season left of this legendary show. Please join me one last time here in a few months for my thoughts on the final season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

#star trek #star trek tng #star trek the next generation #Patrick Stewart #jonathan frakes #Marina Sirtis #levar burton #gates mcfadden #dwight schultz #daniel davis #james doohan #colm meaney #Michael Dorn #Brent Spiner #Wil Wheaton

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