> Learn Of The Show “deep Space Nine”

I impressed myself on this one actually.

its just embarrassing when you make a fandom related post and it doesnt get any notes like okay. so no one want to play tuoys with me. no one wants to play with our little guys together. okay thats fine. yeah its cool... puts my hands in my jacket pockets. kicks a beer can that was on the side of the road a little

She flies the ship! (Shes pretty sure she does anyway)

Stupid doodles and a regular one cause I love her

the word you're looking for is 'unnatural' meaning not from nature

^ his name is gherkin

caveat: all trek is beautiful, this is in no way a better/worse thing

i joke that one of the biggest problems I have with tng characterization is the 'we need to give a character the Bad Opinion' phenomena.

an episode wants to explore a moral quandry through plot, but for that to work, they usually need to Give A Character The Bad Opinion– it's often Geordi, or Riker, or Worf who take a stance that's less generous, more defensive, or just plain wrong-through-misunderstanding. now this does give the episode narrative structure, where the character with the Better Opinion and the Bad Opinion can have interpersonal conflict, and then this can resolve in a nuanced understanding. I get it. it's basic plot construction. but this also gives these Bad Opinion prone characters some wildly uneven characterization over the show's run.

I've been rewatching some ds9 episodes (I only just finished my first watchthrough last month) and I've realized that ds9 avoids this issue by simply having so many more characters who are not good people.

It's weird when they write Geordi being unnecessarily stubborn and easily-annoyed towards Scotty, or Riker being a shouty hard-ass to Barkley– because both of these characters are fundamentally good people who we need to root for. It's weird to see them being complete dickbags above and beyond what seems congruous to their characterization, when the whole point of the show is that the crew of the Enterprise is flawed but fundamentally equipped to carry out their mission.

By contrast, it makes perfect sense that Garak would be the one to try and exterminate the Founders instead of finding an ethical peace. It makes perfect sense for Quark to position himself on the side of whatever benefits his business most, even if it's horrific. None of this feels incongruous with who they are throughout the rest of the show– because their function as characters simply doesn't depend on you rooting for them the way you want to root for tng characters.

just thinking a lot of thoughts about this horrible satellite zoo of freaks and bad people who still deserve community. thinking a lot about how you don't have to be good to have a home.

After starting A stitch in time, it’s crazy to me how buck wild Cardassians are. Like they are psychologically torturing their youth and for what? No wonder all cardassians are like That

in order to not succumb to sex negative conservatism you have to accept that people will get off to things that are upsetting to you. and you cannot assume anything about what they have or have not experienced, what they do or do not believe, and how they act based solely on what gets them off. even if it's extremely confusing and disturbing to you. there are people who have only ever had heterosexual vanilla sex in missionary with the lights off, who actively contribute to more real world harm than your average fetish artist. kink is not a reliable source of information on someone's moral standing. it just feels good to think that way.

rb to tell prev they're being so brave right now and pat their head a little please

so I’m about a third of the way into A Stitch In Time and I just have so many thoughts.

this is unexpectedly one of the most fascinating books I have ever read, because the circumstances of its existence (tie-in novel for established tv show, written by the actor, largely taken from his character-dev writing) create a novel that would’ve never existed otherwise.

in any other normal novel, the protagonist with a sad childhood who gets shipped off to train to be a weapon of the state, in a violent, loveless institution, would be… taking a stand against the status quo! that’s what protagonists do, they make unlikely friends and they stand up for what’s right and they change their world etc etc. yahoo. yay !

but as we good and goddamn know: garak’s not a protagonist

these flashback portions follow so many classic sf/f coming of age tropes of a young lad finding himself in a harsh new world, but instead of the main character being guided by a convenient moral compass and growing in defiance of the competitive, cruel environment– garak adapts, learns to outcompete his peers, learns to be crueler.

it’s not so much that you’re reading garak becoming worse (though he is, for sure)

it’s more that garak is drifting from being a mere product of his environment, to a perpetuator of it