#i FINALLY actually started watching ds9

[hitrone]

i’m gonna be insane guys

#star trek #star trek deep space nine #st ds9 #ds9 #elim garak #julian bashir #odo #quark #i FINALLY actually started watching ds9 #i’m so happy #i’m soooooo in love with everyone this is crazy #so far trying to figure out how to draw them

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/740136068340482048/the-funniest-dni-i-ever-encountered-in-all-my-12?source=share

As a House Martell stan, it's been interesting to watch the evolution of that particular corner of the ASOIAF fandom over the years. For a while, because they were less present on the show (and their actual focus on the show was pretty bungled), they were mostly the favorites of superfans who'd read the books and therefore were deeply devoted to the whole ASOIAF universe, and given how much that means memorizing various types of Targaryen incest over the years, were almost never antis. A lot of people were also drawn to that they were the ~sexy, liberated house, as well as there being a fair number of POC who identified with some of the few non-white people in those books who were actually fully-realized characters (in the books, not so much in the show). IME it was usually people who were also shipping a lot of the other popular "problematic" ships in the fandom like Jaime/Cersei and Sansa/Petyr Baelish.

Then, at some point - particularly after the show ended and the fandom shrunk a lot - it got infected with a bunch of people writing long essays about how Daenerys and the entire Targaryen family were inherently "white supremacist" (previously, it had been more common for POC and other fans who focused on anti-racism to stan Daenerys, and point out that what the final season did with her was some white bullshit that tried to conflate killing oppressors like slavers with killing poor downtrodden people) and there ended up being a fandom fight between those people who saw the Targaryens as the more racist house or the Starks, but they all stanned Martells but in a very shallow sort of way just because they were the POC house. It's also worth nothing that Dorne has equal primogeniture - women can inherit, and in the books it's Doran's eldest daughter, Arianne, who is his heir, even though he has two younger sons - and it also is more accepting of LGBTQ+ people and bastards and general "sex outside of marriage" than most of the rest of Westeros, so it attracts a lot of people who are into them for that reason. I mean, I like them for that reason among others, but of course that's going to be a magnet to people who want to prove that they're extra special progressive for stanning them over like, the Lannisters.

Also, probably worth noting, the people in the second group were generally younger. Book-centric fans generally tend to be older IME in ASOIAF fandom. I feel like whenever a fandom is younger, there's more likely to be more anti behavior.

Anyway it was very weird to get back into ASOIAF when I read Fire and Blood and then when House of the Dragon started airing, and feeling like "my corner" of the fandom had become completely unrecognizable in my absence.

Also, I suspect it's probably drawing in some people who just really like Pedro Pascal. (It was better when it was drawing in the Alexander Siddig stans from DS9 fandom, snerk. Although even that fandom has had an obnoxious influx of younger purity-policing virtue-signalling types discovering it these days, writing stupid discourse about how Garak/Garashir is problematic and people should instead ship characters who don't like each other that much and don't interact much one-on-one because the combinations of them are more progressive or something.... sigh! Anyway, probably not helped by the fact that Game of Thrones completely wasted him, even though his character was one of the best ones in the books and a big one that drew me into loving House Martell. He would've been great as book!Doran, but alas....)

I'm also going to say that as others have pointed out, I'll always be mystified by the fact that ASOIAF even HAS antis. If you're that opposed to incest, age-disparate relationships, violence, etc. anything controversial, how can you stan the actual canon of that show? Or the books, which arguably have even more rape and incest and ephebephilia going on. It just seems like you'd have to have a very adversarial relationship with canon to a point that I just don't understand why you don't pick another fandom. Of course, it's probably really just that antis are hypocrites.

--

Hypocrites, yes. But also drawn to material that they're not comfortable being drawn to. The younger they are, the more the cognitive dissonance makes them act out.

I don't condone it, but I do understand it.

[eponymous-rose]

So I've been rewatching Star Trek: TNG as comfort TV during/post-move and just got to Yesterday's Enterprise, which I remember liking well enough, but man, it's really unusual in the context of the rest of these early episodes. For one thing, the violence shown is a lot more stark than we've seen in the show thus far - Riker with his throat cut, Captain Garrett with the metal shrapnel in her head, lingering close-ups on dead faces. It's dark and moody and the "happy ending" resolution (as far as we know at this point, anyway) is saving the few survivors of a brutal battle, patching them up, and then shipping them straight back into that battle to be killed.

Given the show's not-so-great track record with its female characters, it's weirdly refreshing that we get a re-do for Tasha Yar. And yeah, she falls in love with a dude and goes off with him on his ship, but she was ready to say goodbye to him and that would've been that - what finally prompts her to step willingly into the meat-grinder is the realization that she had an "empty death" (Guinan had some really raw lines in this one) in the other timeline, and that now her death can have some meaning. It's nicely done, if a bit of a self-flagellating "mea culpa" on the writers' parts.

The alternate timeline isn't the gleeful, campy evil of the Mirrorverse, it's just an exhausted grind through the final days of a losing war. Lots of little touches show how desperate things have become - Wesley's been fast-tracked to a full ensign, Picard is a tactician first and foremost (he takes officers' opinions under advisement, yes, but he's also keeping from them the inevitable, imminent surrender), the bridge is laid out so the captain is front and center with everyone else in the background. As a contrast with the actual Enterprise's chill 90s living room lounge vibe, it's pretty striking. It's like a sneak preview into the bleak and war-heavy sci-fi that would start saturating pop culture a decade or so later, and then it's a firm rejection of that premise - "This isn't a ship of war. It's a ship of peace."

I have a long, long history with TNG - DS9 is my favorite Trek on balance, but TNG is encoded in my DNA. From around ages 3 and 5, my brother and I were watching and rewatching TNG constantly. (My parents would laugh over the fact that my brother didn't know how to read yet but had memorized the episode titles of the first couple seasons.) We had pajamas. We scoured every garage sale and had a giant metal can full of action figures and phasers and tricorders and ships and even, shockingly, that transporter toy that made things disappear using mirrors.

The tactile experience of those toys is burned in my brain - the loose nacelles on the Enterprise model, the click of the left phaser button, the little hole at the bottom of the Borg cube that we once stuck a pencil in and had the tip of the graphite snap off and rattle around forevermore. My brother and I played incessantly with our action figures, to the point where most of them had the paint at least partially rubbed off - we created hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of new episodes over the years. The first time I ever used a touchscreen was at some sort of Star Trek exhibition in Canada in the early 90s that we stumbled across on our way to visit my grandparents.

I'm always fascinated by how kids interact with fictional media - my brother and I were so young, but we obviously knew Star Trek wasn't real. Except... I just always assumed that important people watched it, realized "well, that seems nice", and were actively working to make that future happen. I was (perhaps a little embarrassingly) older when I realized that no, we weren't gonna be out there on science missions to the stars during my lifetime. At least, not in an Enterprise kind of way.

At any given time, there's just this Star Trek filter over how I experience the world - when I got to go to college thanks to scholarships, I had that weighty feeling of responsibility and awe that came with daydreaming about Starfleet Academy. I saw my career shift from the gold of engineering to the blue of science to the red of command. And the older I get, the more I appreciate a show that, for all its flaws, managed to make a utopia interesting and complex.

Because TNG was such a phenomenon when I was a little kid in the early 90s, a lot of my family relationships also have TNG tied up in them. I remember going to my grandparents' apartment and my uncle showing us a fan magazine about the show. I remember another uncle who didn't really "get it" but gifted me and my brother astronaut ice cream because he knew we liked that space stuff. I remember watching most episodes curled up on the couch or my parents' bed with my brother and my mom and dad. When Mom got sick and we talked about death, I remember the way she wistfully brought up the Nexus from Generations or how she hoped she could see the next season of Picard (she didn't, sadly, but she really enjoyed that first season). Hell, one of the first real bonding moments I had with my otherwise hyper-professional and businesslike PhD advisor was when she made a TNG joke, I laughed at it, and she said, "I just love that show, everyone's so nice to each other."

It's just been a lot of fun coming back to this show, is all. I think I periodically forget how much it's affected me and the extent to which it was a fundamental, formative influence. While a lot of it either hasn't aged well or fails to hold up to modern media analysis, so much of it is still lovely, and occasionally there are these moments of shockingly good storytelling.

Star Trek good.

#eponymous text post tag #eponymous moving tag 2023 #star trek tng

[tj-dragonblade]

Star Trek AU WIP

@introvertbibliophile you had asked about the Star Trek 'AU' for the WIP Titles thing! I am a lifelong Trekkie and a DS9 girlie and basically, I want to write a more-often-than-centennial meeting in the 24th century while Hob's on DS9 for one reason or another. I think I'm leaning away from having him enlisted in Starfleet; there are a dozen civilian reasons he can be there, I'll settle on one eventually. Here's an earlier write-up on it with a little more detail; largely it's just Vibes™ but I'm starting to see a sharpening of shapes for it. Possibly they aren't together romantically yet despite what I said in the linked post; maybe this can also be a confessional conversation after they've been building their friendship for another three hundred years. But! Thanks to this ask, I have roughly drafted an introductory snippet to share:

The view is excellent from up here. Hob leans back in his chair, eyes sharp, roaming over the crowds on the lower level of Quark's. It's busy this evening; station personnel and patrons from all over the quadrant are milling about the dabo tables, thick along the bar, haggling over holosuite prices in a cheerful cacophony of noise and high spirits that is as familiar as his own face. The centuries may come and go, but a pub is a pub. Even lightyears from home. He taps his fingers absently against his glass and swirls it around, watching as what he'd guess is a freighter crew tumble into the bar, rowdy and eager to be parted from their latinum for the promise of a good drink and a good time and the chance to unwind. It's comforting, how familiar it all is despite the differences. It's June 7th, 2372 as reckoned by the Earth calendar; he's lived a thousand years and seen scenes like this playing out thousands of times. People will always be people, even when they come from different planets or even different corners of the galaxy. But there's only one person, one entity, that he's truly looking for at the moment. And he has every confidence that Dream will come; his friend always does, but there's forever that little voice of 'what if'—born when he'd learned of Dream's 20th-century imprisonment—that only goes quiet once Dream actually shows. It's less chaotic here on the upper level and Hob's got a good angle on the second-floor entrance as well as the hubbub below. He sips his drink, soaks in the noisy flow of life all around him, and waits. Finally, he spots the moon-pale face and electric shock of black hair he's been searching for slipping through the upper entrance across the mezzanine, and he can feel the way his entire being just. Brightens. He smiles, unable to help it, and when Dream's searching eyes meet his it cracks into a full beaming grin. Dream's always-so-solemn mouth tilts up at both corners in return, and Hob waggles his fingers in a brief 'hello'.

WIP Title Ask Game

#askmemes #TJs Writing #Dreamling #Sandman #The Elder Fandom #DS9 #wip: stau

[thegeminisage]

oh boy IT'S tng update time. last night* we watched "imaginary friend" and "i, borg."

*tonight. it's 1am. whatever. it's posting tomorrow when i'll be awake but busy. anyway im gonna have to start splitting these up so tumblr will stop FUCKING me re my character count

imaginary friend:

what i like about this episode and indeed tng as a whole is that the little girl was fucking adorable. tng fans, your show has at least one point of validity. whenever there was a child on tos i wanted to throw them out of the airlock because they acted possessed. all the children on tng inspire within me motherly concern.

HOWEVER. THERE SHOULD NOT BE. CHILDREN ON A STARSHIP.

we've gone over this at length. we don't need to do it again. i am sick to death of hearing myself talk about it. i want to stop. and yet. every. and i mean EVERY. SINGLE. PROBLEM. in this episode. happened because there were children on a starship.

problem #1: child is making up a fake imaginary friend instead of making real ones = it's because her dad hops from starship to starship

problem #2 her imaginary friend is real now and wants to drown her in the pool like in that one episode of s*pernatural = this is because an alien, from space, read her mind, which it could not have done if she wasn't in space on a starship

problem #3: the alien HATES the grownups and thinks they should die = because she is seeing the ship from a child's pov, because there are children on this starship

and on and on and on.

aside from this huge and ongoing point of contention it was solidly watchable. i liked the little girl. i like guinan. i like worf being a big old softie when he found them out of bounds. i like people not undermining deanna's counseling work. i liked the horrifically unsettling imaginary friend with laser eyes who definitely absolutely inspired 2.11 playthings.

can anyone tell me if the other star trek shows just let them have kids on the ships? ds9 i get because that's a space station but are there kids on the ship in enterprise? voyager? discovery? genuinely please write in i can't take living like this

i, borg:

ooooooh. ooh i am twirling my hair and kicking my feet and giggling about it. OHHH finally we get a good tng episode. and not just a good episode a GREAT episode. the liz community has forgiven tng. oh baby where do i even begin

okay, firstly, beverly. she so instantly sees someone injured and HAS to help, i mean HAS to, it's so good. it's very bonescore in a way that doesn't feel like they're trying to make her a cheap bones knockoff but rather a spiritual successor. he would have also helped his enemy rather than watching him die. hell, he DID do that and got quite literally mind-raped for his trouble, and he'd probably do it again. i was really really lukewarm on poor bev at first but she's come into her own so well and i'm proud of her

the borg himself - third of five, aw, just like seven of nine - but no, hugh - the name is dumb but whatever i'm glad he has one - was well-cast. it would have been easy to make him uncanny and an unpleasant presence onscreen (this was my biggest issue with data's daughter even though the ep DID make me cry, deeply sorry to data whomst i love the most). his "you will be assimilated resistance is futile" song and dance was actually really funny when played off of geordi's wry indifference. "ok, but before we get assimilated, can we please finish x test?" so true king

geordi's a natural choice to pair with this guy because when he's not being the creepiest person on earth to holodeck girls he's sociable, outgoing, and patient. PLUS he has experience befriending machines because of data. hugh actually reminded me of data in some ways because of his general lack of understanding re: humanity but - and this is critical to me - HE IS HUMAN

like, i feel like the episode didn't quite nail the point home hard enough possibly because they were afraid of the implications but the cold hard truth of the matter is that each and every person on the borg cube IS A PERSON. they have been assimilated, but we've twice now seen that it's possible to unassimilate them with only a few days of effort. picard (and guinan!) consider the entire collective their enemy but the collective is comprised of brainwashed prisoners. those fucked up little borg babies they found in the cube were assimilated as INFANTS - i assume they weren't born on the cube bc if the borg could reproduce on its own it wouldn't need to assimilate - but even if they were born on the cube, they had no choice but to be this. you know.

which is whyyyy it's so fucked picard was like yeah give hugh some digital poison let him carry it back to his cube and we'll kill them like ants <3 like, oh my god his lingering borg trauma or whatever. MWAH. when he told deanna he didn't wanna talk. when he and guinan had to trauma-bond while fencing. when he told geordi that he needed to unattach himself because it was nothing more than animal experimentation. STONE FUCKING COLD BY THE WAY. he is fighting in the war on animal experimentation on the side of animal experimentation. he was going to let his cre heal and feed that kid and then send him back laced with poison. diabolical <3

and, of course, when he didn't want to speak or associate that borg kid at all because that's who he used to be AND WHO HE STILL IS in some corner of his brain (!!!)

LIKE. WHEN HE WAS FINALLY CONVINCED TO INTERROGATE THIS KID. and IMMEDIATELY broke out the locutus voice. he still remembered all the protocol! the way of speaking! everything! i was so shocked and thrilled.

i love also how everyone who spoke to hugh came away extremely unsettled but also totally convinced of his humanity. even guinan, which was so fun, because she was even more anti-borg than picard at first and they were bonding over trauma and fantasy racism. that bit where hugh, who had only known about the concept of loneliness for like an hour, immediately pegged her as lonely after like three lines of dialogue. oh my GOD???

i was decently satisfied with the ending - obviously they couldn't send him back with poison nor could they protect him from the borg, but i wish they had informed him of the inevitable memory wipe before he made his choice. (a selfless choice! he loves geordi!!) still i think he mostly walked into it with eyes open. very sad but very proud of him.

my one tiny nitpick with this episode is that for all beverly's genuine and justified concern about hugh, i don't think theyre ever gonna address the fact that she shot and possibly killed some of the borg in the episode where picard got assimilated. i feel like after realizing they are all people, like hugh, she should also realize she's broken the hippocratic oath, and have a little crisis about it. i have no idea why we had the DOCTOR shooting and killing anybody but let alone if we aren't gonna get into that. i don't think anyone cares/cared except me though.

but tbh, for me this is one of the main draws of the borg. they're ALL brainwashed cyber-assassins and they're ALL prisoners and in theory ALL of them could be saved if only they would stop attacking first. sure, yeah, in fights you gotta do what you gotta do because your own life has gotta come first, but the unique scifi horror aspect of all of those guys being perfectly innocent people fucks and they should utilize it a little more!!!

NEXT TIME: "the next phase" and "the inner light."

#personal #star trek blogging #tng lb

[sangfielle]

if its okay to ask, ive been listeing through all of f@tt for the last like, have a year or so, and im finally getting close to the end (close as in im about to start sangfielle, but grand scheme i still think thats close, lol). do you have any podcasts / webcomics / books / etc that you feel have a similar tone, or that you really like as well?

thank you!

okay! hi. sorry this took forever to get around to because i honestly don't know a lot of things that i would consider to be in the same vein as f@tt? the two immediate ones that sprung to my mind were heaven will be mine and gundam, but i get the strangest feeling you already know about both of those. i do have some suggestions that, while not really like friends at the table, i feel you're liable to get something out of if you like it.

podcastwise, something rotten and the ranged touch podcasts (i've only listened to homestuck made this world, but am going to get around to the others, any my friends like them, lol) are nonfiction analysis podcasts. i'm pretty sure austin was actually on the most recent ranged touch patreon episode? but i don't have the money for many subscription things right now, so i can't confirm if that was actually the latest one or anything. + batman unburied is honestly a pretty good podcast that i would recommend if you can buy into the bullshit that is required to get into any major superhero setting. i've also enjoyed what i listened to of campaign: star wars, though that has been very limited. my interest in star wars varies pretty heavily, so i can only listen to it when i'm in a specific mood, and when i am in that mood i'm usually working on catching up on a more civilized age instead.

webcomics: brainchild, fairmeadow, the last halloween, prague race, soil that binds us, and white noise i've all enjoyed what's been put out so far & think other fatt fans may like. i'm a particularly devoted longtime fan of prague race, and i've been really liking white noise.

books: discworld is a very mixed bag for me, but i can't pretend i don't get anything out of it, and i feel if you haven't already read it that there's going to be a lot of appeal overlap for parts of fatt. this is how you lose the time war, obviously. i've moved recently, and have basically a full storage unit's worth of books, but not easy access to them, so i can't really go through and give you recommendations at the moment, because most of the books/series i'm taken with are bad but interesting, and most things that i file under that category i don't know if everyone else will similarly appreciate. i can give you a reading list when i actually get settled in at some point, lol.

shows & movies: nope 2022, the boys (if you can get past the grossout shock humor part of it), the expanse (i am intending to read the books but can't speak to the quality of those yet), the get down, event horizon, palm springs, his house, star trek (especially tng/ds9), princess tutu. this is just off the top of my head, i'm sure i could actually find more shit that i feel like i could put here if i combed through everything i've ever watched.

video games: if you like janine's characters in specific, dragon age will probably be up your alley. other than that, weird west, fallen london and the games surrounding it, disco elysium (obviously), the dishonored series, elder scrolls, zero escape, slay the spire, a mortician's tale, king of the castle (obviously, again), fallen hero, manor hill, vespertines, & dr langeskov (^^) i've all found charming and to hold some level of interest.

i have a lot more things i could recommend if you don't specifically want something good, but i figure i should leave it at things i can actually recommend without too many disclaimers (besides discworld) for this.

#personal

[yunyin]

ooh you watch DS9? what are your favorite things about it? or what would you say to convince a friend to watch it? cause I am interested and started it but had a hard time getting into it…but I grew up on TNG so I feel like I should love it and maybe I just need to push through a slightly less compelling beginning or something lol?

EYYYY TNG buddies!!

So for me what I love is that the world building feels so solid. Like every character is an individual and complex and interesting, and the conflicts feel real. I do think like TNG it gets better as it goes on, and the season finales tend to be really satisfying.

I actually haven't had much luck watching DS9 from the beginning, even though if you miss episodes you can be REALLY confused. Instead I've been watching it on Pluto tv, (it's one of those free with commercials streaming things) and they have a couple Star Trek channels where they do diff series' in a loop, Original and TNG on one and DS9 and Voyager on the other. You tend to be able to pop in on something compelling that way, and I think I've seen most of DS9 now, though not in order, and there are a few things where I'm missing key episodes and idk how something happened or resolved lol.

There are overarching conflicts and seasonal ones so you tend to be able to follow something along to a natural conclusion if you get near the beginning of a season.

You also get to find out what happens with some of the TNG cast too, so that's fun!

#yunmusings #star trek #star trek ds9 #deep space nine #star trek deep space 9 #yunreplies #marimbles

[mylittleredgirl]

all the posts about harry kim getting shafted have me thinking about What Could Have Been and YES he should have gotten promoted and that is the LEAST they could do, but it should have been so much more than that. harry could and should have been the audience self-insert pov growing-into-hero character we deserved.

basically, he's perfectly set up to fill the wesley crusher role on voyager without the three things that pissed off tng fans (unfairly imho): that wesley was a literal teenager, a civilian who hadn't earned the right to be an officer, and that he was overpowered because he kept figuring out answers alone.

harry's strength isn't in his individual genius, but in his a) relentless starfleet optimism, and b) ability to collaborate and bring out the best in other people. his weakness is that he has been on the job for 14 hours when everything goes to hell.

if they weren't so allergic to continuity, voyager is set up to be theee individual character development show and they should have leaned into that hard (because tng was the "these characters are already the best starfleet has to offer" one and ds9 already had the "we all have to learn to collaborate with our different objectives and points of view" story well in hand). so let harry be the flagship character of that story!!

first off: he shouldn't have walked on board as the operations officer. almost nothing has to change for this. let his first conversation with janeway when he comes on board be about his potential. "it's a special privilege to be a starfleet officer's first captain," she says, which tells us a lot about her character right off the bat (she's great at spotting potential and loves to develop people). "your job is to do your best and watch and learn from the experienced officers around you, and one day you'll make a great one."

and then two scenes later we get flung into the delta quadrant and the senior bridge officers DIE, and in that moment of holy shit this is my first day on the job and all these people died and i don't know what's going on, harry steps up!! and in the ocampa arc he shows how he handles first contact like a starfleet officer even when literally dying. after the pilot we would totally get why janeway is like "welp i guess you're getting that chance to be a senior officer a lot sooner than expected." both he and the audience know that he's stepping into huge shoes he's not really qualified for (last held on-screen by DATA) but we want to root for him!!

and i don't think anyone else's story has to be sacrificed for this either. i know the EMH and b'elanna have fish-out-of-water senior officer stories already, but this is something different. those two are both fully confident in their individual abilities, but need to learn the interpersonal skills to work with others and lead a department. harry needs practical experience to offset his academy idealism and develop faith in his own skill.

and tom's story isn't competition because that's a "second chance" narrative and has a totally different arc.

so that's the setup, and THEN we get to go through all the things that actually already happen on-screen with harry (and more of the same -- a "nightingale" type story should have happened way sooner). there should have been more of the kind of scenes with janeway that we got at the end of "emanations" where she helps him process his experiences and recognizes him for his development. give the kid some medals! his night shift command could have been be a big deal!

and YEAH he finally gets promoted! i think it should come either after "the killing game," or after an unwritten episode where all the senior officers are captured somewhere and harry has to rally a handful of lower decks crewmen to save the day. that would be a fantastic episode in this storyline actually, because it could start with him kind of bemoaning that he's not really a command officer because he doesn't get to / can't make these bold command decisions on his own that janeway & chakotay do -- janeway especially gets a lot of individual heroism moments. but here you have him in charge of some scared crewmen and yeah he makes some decisions but also he leans into his strengths and raises them all up. in some nice narrative parallels, he gives them a speech that janeway gave him early on about how You Can Do It Actually.

and at the end of that, janeway gets to talk to him about how every captain has a unique style. she can't give him his own ship, but here, now he's one pip closer.

anyway since that did NOT happen paramount owes me money and they can pay me back by having the phrase "youngest admiral in starfleet history harry kim" spoken aloud and guys you literally have FOUR actively airing shows where this could happen.

#star trek voyager #all of this is isn't that original so probably didn't need to be resaid but it's my blog and i want to #harry kim #deserved this!! garrett wang deserved this! #and voyager would've been so much better for it i'm still so mad #voyager is deep inside in The Fandom Zone of that alignment chart. so much character potential wasted #meanwhile harry #star trek thoughts

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Some good news and some bad news regarding Season 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The good news is that now that the strikes are over, production of Season 3 is set to begin next month! This is good because there have been rumours swirling around possible cancellation in the wake of Star Trek Discovery being ended after its 5th season. But SNW continues (Lower Decks has also been renewed for Season 5). The only caveat to that is Paramount Plus still cancelled Star Trek Prodigy even with its Season 2 complete, so nothing is a guarantee anymore. (And even then, it's been reported that Prodigy S2 will at least get some sort of Netflix release).

(Further good news is Season 2, with its amazing musical and Lower Decks crossover episodes, is set for Blu-ray release before Christmas.)

The bad news - though this is likely educated speculation on Screen Rant's part - is the possibility that the 10-episode 3rd season my be split, with only 5 episodes airing in 2024 and having to wait till 2025 to see the rest. Aside from that wrecking viewer momentum, those 5 weeks will come and go very quickly. If this news is correct, though, they could be telegraphing some sort of 5-episode story arc, which should be good but I actually prefer SNW's episodic format as it better supports the type of experimentation we got with not only this past year's musical and part-animated episodes, but the episodic format is what made TOS what it was. No official word on any cast changes, though I will be surprised if S3 doesn't reintroduce Dr. McCoy in some fashion.

I haven't written much about SNW but it's my favourite of the live action modern Treks. I stopped watching Discovery and Picard but SNW has kept me. I've had songs from the musical earworming for the last week or so after I rewatched it. And I greatly appreciated the time-travel episode "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" for finally canonizing an explanation as to why the prequel series haven't always lined up with what we know as canon from TOS, TNG, etc. which as far as I'm concerned frees the writers to deviate and retroactively serves to rectify canon issues dating all the way back to some episodes of DS9, never mind Enterprise, Discovery and SNW itself. I will explain for those who don't know but I will put a spoiler break here for those who might be waiting for the Blu-ray or haven't had a chance to stream season 2 yet. If the break doesn't appear below, stop reading now if you don't want the spoiler.

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The episode reveals that due to the many time travel events over the years (including ones we haven't seen on screen by enemies of the Federation; the episode relates one involving Mary Queen of Scots (in-joke for the actress) what we have been seeing in SNW etc. is an alternate timeline. Maybe not as extreme as the Kelvin timeline of the films, but events such as the Eugenics Wars - indeed, the birth of Khan himself - were delayed by decades. This major change to the timeline - and then you fill in the blanks by factoring in even minor changes such as the guy who accidentally killed himself with McCoy's phaser in City on the Edge of Forever, Sisko replacing Gabriel Bell in the Bell Riots, the Voyager crew going back to 1996, Archer and T'Pol heading off agents of the temporal cold war in the early 2000s, etc. - and you can see how it's possible that things progressed differently resulting in SNW and Discovery being more technologically advanced than TOS-era ships should be as established in TNG, DS9 and Enterprise that used the original tech and designs. Also character differences, like Pike's crew being aware of T'Pring and Khan when Kirk's crew in TOS did now despite Spock having worked with La'an Noonien-Singh and Kirk being aware of La'an's feelings for him. Or the lack of reference to Kirk's brother, who dies in a famous TOS episode, having been former Enterprise crew. And it literally stems from two lines of dialogue. It's exhibit A of how quickly and simply a show like Doctor Who can fix things.

#strange new worlds #strange new worlds season 3 #strange new worlds spoilers

[diesoonandsuffer]

I FINISHED TNG!

please clap.

i never actually did an update on my thoughts post since season 3, so i figured before i watched the movies i'll do a summary of my thoughts on the show.

first off it apparently took me over a year to finish it since i started in july of 2022, and it's now august of 2023. this isn't because i didn't like it or anything, i just kept doing other stuff and unlike with tos, i wasn't watching it WITH someone, so i wasn't on a schedule of any kind. however i did enjoy the show, i grew to like the characters quite a lot and i was invested in their stories. it was definitely a different vibe to tos, while tos is quite episodic, campy, and a bit dated, tng is less campy, a bit less episodic, and slightly less dated lol. it did kind of annoy me that we would start to get these longer arcing plots and then they would be abandoned or forgotten. for example at the beginning of the show it seemed like riker and troi were going to have a lot more "drama" in the show but nothing really happened with them, and then at the very end of the show they put her with worf and don't really explore that fully. i don't just mean romantic pairings but that's an example of what i mean. there was also just a general quality difference in episodes, maybe it was more noticeable here than in tos since tng was longer, but towards the end of the show in particular we got really good episodes followed by quite shit ones. by the time the show ended i didn't really feel like it was ready to end, if that makes sense. i feel like it was always toeing the line between being episodic and being a show with long plots. in general -- was fun. i had a good time. i've forgotten a lot from the beginning but oh well.

here i'll give my thoughts on the characters since that's what i used to do. in no particular order:

picard: i really don't have many strong opinions about him, some episodes he definitely was more entertaining than others. i think i would have liked to see him fail more often because generally he seems too capable at times. i do enjoy the rare moments where he loosens up. despite the longer screentime he had i weirdly feel like he has less depth than kirk? let me know if this is a crazy take but i don't feel like picard is a particularly complicated man, he doesn't seem like he has a lot of inner turmoil or conflict about things, meanwhile kirk is going through it at all times. not to constantly compare the two but. well, i just did

troi: the most beautiful woman in the world i'm such a whore when i look at her. when she got a real uniform i whooped and hollered and when she become a COMMANDER bitch?!?!?! i really do wish they did more with her character she had sooooooo much potential with being half-betazed and they never really give it the exploration it deserves, they use it when its convenient and forget when it isn't. i feel like if we had gotten one more season she could have really shined but they were like i know let's spend the last couple of episodes we have with her making her date worf i guess. also why did they give her mom so much trauma. that wasn't nice.

worf: i grew to like him more and more as the show went on, like whenever i would realize the episode i was watching was going to be a worf-focused episode i would get excited. he's one of those unintentionally funny characters which makes him entertaining, but i also find it interesting seeing the way he balances his klingon heritage with his role as a starfleet officer. i love how much he loves being a klingon, and how he always wants to teach other people about it and let them, in turn, learn more about him. he cares deeply and he tries hard even if he doesn't get it right. i know he's in ds9 so i'm happy to see more of him when i finally get to that

riker: we didn't get enough of him tbh. it felt like there would be multiple season gaps between his solo episodes. like for someone who is the first officer he didn't feel very relevant to the show, they stopped caring about his character after a while. he would have maybe a small arc in certain episodes but he was mostly there because he had to be? maybe the sporadic way i watched is effecting my memory on this. but i really like him, i think he's funny and i like his rogue tendencies.

geordi: we also didn't get enough of geordi. i love him but i feel like i barely know anything about him. but i love how genuinely kind and caring he is, and he's also in the scotty position of "the ship would fall apart without him" i feel like every episode picard would be like geordi fix this! help! also i wish he would have kissed the android.

data: hey it's the android. i love this dude. however i am getting a little overexposed to the dude and i know the movies are only going to continue that. idk why by s6-7 they were like "we're out of ideas for data. what if he liked killing and hurt his crewmates and was maybe evil" which is so lazy. like it would all somehow get resolved by the end and everyone would just move on like data wasn't a genocide machine two minutes ago. the finale reminded me of the way data used to be, where he would constantly ask people questions and say obvious things, and i realized i really missed that. he has dreams and shit now he's not really as compelling. he's been a human to me from day 1 so they didn't need to do all that. however brent spiner continues to be very funny.

beverly: um she certainly was there. don't get me wrong i like her but i feel like i never had any strong attachment to her. she didn't get many solo episodes and the last one i can remember (with the fucking. ghost?) was not good. yeah i can't really think of anything else to say. she's fine.

wesley: ok i know he like left the show after a certain point but i would be remiss to mention again that his arc did not end in a good way and he should get to take a NAP why does he have to keep being SO SPECIAL. also why does anyone ever hate this kid he was like 12 he literally was so non offensive to the show. but i did really like every time he came back after wil wheaton left i feel like wesley brings a new perspective to the show that is needed.

honorable mention ro laren: she's my icon right now so i feel like i have to mention her. i would have loved to see more of her in the show, i found her character really compelling and complex. i liked how she was always a bit of a bitch. i'm on the fence of how i feel about her arc ending, i feel like the episode with geordi and the one where she was turned into a kid both were made to help her feel more like the enterprise could be a home for her. they didn't give me much reason to believe otherwise? i don't care about her leaving, i liked that both her and wesley left starfleet even if the show didn't have the time or capacity to explore it, but i didn't fully believe her reasoning. but i loved every time she was there.

i have probably forgotten. many things. i was in the sun all day and maybe have heat exhaustion. but i'm starting generations in like 10 minutes and i realized i needed to make this post before i watched it. thank you for coming along on this year-long journey of me watching tng. we did it boys

#when i finish the movies i'll be able to follow people who post tng stuff #then i can add my thoughts to those posts as they come up #for now have the brain soup #tng lb #tng #sam's thots

[sniperct]

I’ve never watched Star Trek. I’m a trans lesbian, big SFF reader, enjoy Star Wars quite a bit with my wife and a kiddos. Where do my wife and I start?

There are a number of different ways you can watch it. If you like a bit of camp with good stories, starting with TOS is never a bad bet. You could also start with Strange New Worlds which is like TOS with more modern progressiveness(but TOS was incredibly progressive and transgressive for its day. We're talking when mini-skirts were so much the height of feminism that the female cast members insisted on it and plots such as 'this alien is half white black and hates the alien who's half black white for looking different and that's bad' among others.

TNG had a rough first season, but there are some gems, 2nd season is better than many people remember and 3rd season onward is generally gold. That's also a good onramp point as they don't lean too heavily into trek nostalgia. DS9 is my favorite trek for a variety of reasons and with both DS9 and Voyager you don't really need too much prior knowledge, they're good at explaining things as they go. DS9 is a direct spin off of TNG so there are some concepts (bajor, the cardassians, sisko's backstory) that spin out of that but they explain that in the first episode. VOY spun out of DS9, the biggest thing being a group called the Maquis, which I don't remember if they fully explain them enough.

Discovery is GREAT, but the first season is heavy and i don't recommend it as a starter series. I also don't recommend Enterprise until you've watched everything (and tbh I don't recommend it at all except for the 2 mirror universe episodes, but a lot of people like the show so more power to them.)

Picard is good once you've watched TNG and the four TNG movies.

There are three cartoons. The Animated Series has terrible animation but there are some amazing episodes with great writing hidden in there. Generally something to try after watching TOS, before the TOS movies. Lower Decks I think is great for newbies but is mostly a love letter to fans and geared for adults. Prodigy would be a good onramp as it does a good job of introducing starfleet and the federation and explaining the ideals of both. Its a bit like the clone wars as an animated show for kids with some deeper themes.

For the most part you can't go wrong starting just about anywhere, but my personal preferred watching order when I do the yearly 'turn on star trek while working' marathon is mostly chronological.

But I really don't suggest watching discovery first, so a good order would be Original series, animated series (okay to skip tbh, the animations is really hard to get through), the first six movies(you could probably skip 5 but then you'd miss a reference in strange new worlds lol), The next generation, the first TNG movie, DS9 seasons 1-4, the second two TNG movies, DS9 seasons 5-7, the last TNG movie, Voyager 1-7, Lower Decks, Prodigy, then skip back to discovery and strange new worlds, then finally finish with Picard.

That said, my gut tells me strange new worlds, TOS or TNG would all be good starting points for you, but I can't recommend DS9 enough once you've dipped your toes in, so maybe even start with that one!

I know this answer sucks but I've been a fan so long I'm not sure I can honestly answer for new people coming in as to what they might or might not like as a starter.

Actually going back to star wars, DS9 is one of the more actiony series, discovery is too, but very heavy first season (all of the new treks make good use of modern effects to give starships the manueverability you'd want/expect, but DS9 is where they started doing that first). Both series explore the darker side of the universe, or rather the more morally grey side, while also willing to embrace the hope and beauty of the universe (discovery especially has that become the main theme of the series. hope, unity, exploration, wonder)

TLDR: there's so many places to start is there anyone who is a newer fan who might have better advice?

[readytospock]

Hello! Dumb question but I’ve really liked your blog and I wanted to ask a bit on how you got into Star Trek (if too personal skip) and what are some of your favorite things about it (that’s the dumb part) I’m doing my first ever watch through and it’s a lot of fun!

I actually just got into star trek in 2020! I was raised in a star wars house (still love it) but I was curious about trek, and I finally started watching the original series when I noticed it was on netflix during lockdown :D

I love star trek for a few different reasons. Firstly, I find the optimism of shows like tos to be really inspiring and comforting, especially when compared to the post-apocalyptic narratives about humanity's future that are so common. Even when it's challenged in shows like ds9, the underlying premise of people striving to be better and do what is right against the odds perseveres, which is cool :)

I also admire the underlying commitment to diversity and representation (though lacking, flawed or missing at times), and the use of sci-fi framing devices to deliver meaningful social commentary.

Last of all, I just really love the earnest camp! There's something very fulfilling about a franchise that revels in its own silliness, stupidity and wacky premises, instead of offsetting them with "well that just happened" jokes and irony. And it also makes for a really fun watch :D (also i love the sets and costumes and everything else!)

thank you for the ask, and I sincerely hope you enjoy your watch through <3

#askbox #this ended up longer than I expected lmao but yeah!

[thegeminisage]

okay WHEW it's star trek update time. last night* we watched tng's "interface" and ds9's "the siege." *i'm typing this at fuck o clock and scheduling it to go up tomorrow when i'm not here <3

interface (tng):

i don't want to talk about it

actually wait no yes i do but mostly i just want to complain. i wish there was perhaps some sort of skip/watch list with the dead parent episodes labeled. for star trek. i mean i know i'm making one but not that one i can't use that until it's too late. i can't crowdsource EVERY dead parent episode of star trek through my tumblr followers. though i will say whoever warned me about 4.02 of ds9 (i forgot which person it was, i'm so sorry 🙏) has my deepest gratitude. ok. complaint lodged.

what else...um, geordi and data. emptiness. Yeah

yeah. that's all. sorry. my spidey senses started tingling about halfway through the episode and i googled whether or not his mom really was dead and upon receiving my answer we stopped the episode to go directly to ds9.

the siege (ds9)

LOVED this one. where do i even begin

well i will begin at the obvious: women! kira and dax in the shuttle. mwah

what i loved most about kira and dax in the shuttle wasn't even the homoeroticism, though i did - of course - deeply enjoy the homoeroticism. what i loved MOST was that they seemed to have invented a personality for dax at last! i have no idea what was going on in this episode or who this dax was or where she was during s1 but i REALLY liked her. it's shocking bc i almost gave her LAST PLACE in the character rankings, but she was so fun here?? and also kind of like...airheaded and weird. "i might keep the nose." seems like they really DIDN'T know what to do with her in s1, but better late than never. i will continue to try and forgive her really terrible hair even though it makes her head look soooo weird and offputting

big spider bad. actually it was too stupid looking to be scary but i still didn't like it

quark and odo's gay little goodbye <3

julian FUCKING bashir pretending he was hot shit when he held those guys up. KING.

actually all of the action sequences in this episode were great. all three of season 2's episodes have been really funny even as they're also very serious at the same time, i fucking love it

love also the little nod to o'brien's service record on the cardassian front in the way of wartime rations. not only is it funny but it is, again, a great reminder of his cardassian trauma, and why he might feel obligated to stay behind

SPEAKING OF. everyone in ops, down to the last person, agreeing to stay at ds9, even though some of them have families like o'brien does. i'm SO glad they didn't forget his family, that they actually showed him and keiko arguing about it, but he STILL felt morally that he had to stay - that it was more important than his own life, and the risk of his family having to continue on without him.

PLUS the fact that not a single person wanted to leave, even after sisko assured them that they SHOULD think of their families...girl he is literally the best captain or commander or whatever. that's stone cold loyalty. they all trust him or love him or both.

i was a little ambivalent on li nalas as a concept but he actually was used finally...i think "off the hook" was a great way to take care of that arc neatly, because making him live the lie would have felt cruel, but him just ghosting would have made him look like an asshole, no matter how justified. i hope there's a bajoran afterlife he can chill out in

did we get set up for season-long villains with winn and jaro? that would be fun. the concept of "storylines" feels so foreign in a star trek show but there it is........

TONIGHT: tng's "gambit part i" and ds9's "invasive procedures," which with any luck will hopefully be about subjects besides dead parents 🤞

#personal #star trek blogging #tng lb #ds9 lb #i did go back and finish the episode later on like 2x speed during the nonimportant bits. only second or third tng ep ever to make me cry #that riker and geordi scene................

[lesbianmarrow]

just watched legends of tomorrow 7.08. i was RIGHT oh my gosh. the show really is finally confronting how inherently reactionary the legends’ mission is, and how that clashes with who they are as people. we love to see it. this episode reminded me a bit of the ds9 mirrorverse episodes, in that they give the regular actors a chance to play their characters differently and be a bit silly. it was so fun seeing nate being stupid, spooner & behrad being jerks, zari & astra being haughty, and ava being sadistic and scary. also alien gary haha. sara starts out very over-the-top dramatic and harsh, but as the episode goes on she becomes more and more like our sara which i think was a really good acting/direction choice. and it makes it even more effective when we see she’s been reverted to callous assassin sara at the end 

this episode examines so many elements of the show’s past. most obviously it’s making fun of the first season and the whole “sometimes we need to actively or passively cause bad things to happen for the good of the timeline” ethos that rip hunter originally established there. but it’s also looking at the conflict between sara and ava in seasons 3 and 4 and how their fundamentally different values caused them to clash. i think it’s also fair to say that it’s taking inspiration from the season 5 focus on destiny and the season 6 themes of identity and empathy. so like although the episode features versions of the characters that are wholly new to us, the story itself is very rooted in what the show is about. the episode really is grappling with what this show was at the beginning and what it is now, and how some of the founding premises of the show are no longer compatible with what the show has become. specifically the “end justifies the means” attitude regarding protecting the timeline and the depiction of the legends as superheroes (as in, superior beings). 

the episode shows us what we already know, which is that preserving the timeline requires a callousness toward human suffering that the legends are incapable of based on who they are as people. in making the android legends tools for evil gideon to carry out her mission of timeline preservation, she strips away what makes the legends who they are - their empathy, their kindness, their creativity, their affection for each other - until they are nothing but flat caricatures of themselves. the android metaphor also gets at the roboticness of gideon’s mission. every mission is the same: violence and murder to protect the status quo. the androids may look like people, but they operate like robots, performing the same exact task over and over and over again as they’re ordered. there is no ability to dream of something better, no room for possibility or uncertainty. 

i’m really excited to see where this storyline goes, because it gets at an aspect of the show that has irritated me for a long time and that i never thought the show would actually address. i feel like each episode this season is giving me something i never would have expected, which i guess is kind of this show’s brand, and i am loving it so much. 

#legends of tomorrow #syl posts

[vavandeveresfan]

Things I like/love that have been ruined in canon.

In no particular order:

Star Trek: I was so-so about all the TV sequels/prequels (liked DS9 for about a minute).  But the movies . . .  Fuck Amok Time, they gave us Horny On Demand Spock and Kirk sexually harassing females across the universe.

Star Wars:  Jar Jar Binks.  Need I say more?

Doctor Who:  I really enjoyed the original series, even though it fell apart in the last years.  The remake made The Doctor a romantic/sexual being.  No no fucking goddamn no.

Supernatural:  After Season 5, took everything everybody loved and broke it, killed off favorite characters for Shock Value, then faked bringing them back just to kill them again.  Really really hated its fans.

Sherlock: Second season became super self-conscious that it was A Hit, started mocking women because being written by a gay man and a misogynist.  Really really hated its fans, then whined when fans stopped watching and the series was canceled.

Sleepy Hollow:  Was just staring to get into the Ship when its creators literally verbally attacked fans on Twitter, then intentionally destroyed Ichabod/Abby by killing off Abby. Really REALLY hated its fans.

American Auto: Started out clever and funny like The Office, in Season 2 devolved into 4th grade potty humor.

Clarice:  Gave it a chance even though there was no Lecter.  First two episodes showed promise, then made Clarice a whiny, weak character, then added an incredibly ahistoric 1991 trans “women” FBI agent -- at a time when in reality gay male agents were fired for fear of their being blackmailed -- who literally yelled at Clarice, and Clarice took it.  Thankfully its ratings plummeted after that and it was canceled.

Grantchester: Watched it for Geordie, then they had Geordie cheat on his wife.  NOPE.

Foyle’s War: The original series ended perfectly.  Then they dragged it from its grave and made a thin, forced series about the Cold War.  Bleh.

Inspector Lewis: The original series ended perfectly.  Then they dragged it from its grave, made Dr. Hobson clingy and whiny, ruined the dynamic of Lewis and Hathaway, ended it terribly.  Bastards.

Endeavor:  Revealed Thursday cheated on his wife during the War, then had Thursday accept bribe money, then the series finale . . .  Don’t ask.

Shetland:  Perez goes against his ethics and tries to fuck his close friend’s wife.  But especially they had Tosh r*ped.  Fuck that shit forever.

Once Upon a Time: First season was wonderful.  Second season iffy.  After that turned the series into a promotional vehicle for Disney movies.  Robert Carlyle gained 30 pounds, lost all energy, and mailed in his performance.  They tried to end it well, but brought it back rebooted and godawful, especially by killing off Belle.  Truly, truly awful.

MCU:  I loved the first Thor, first Captain America, first Avengers, the Ironman trilogy, and especially Spider-man: Homecoming.  Then it all went to fucking hell.  Don’t get me started.

Miraculous Ladybug: From season 3 on, its creators took it from being a fun, exciting, sweet, enjoyable superhero story to trying to turn it into part of the MCU.  Fucking do NOT get me started about what they did to my man Gabriel.

Possible Future Canon Ruin:

Father Brown:  3 cast members have left the series and been replaced.  Haven’t seen Season 10 yet, but I have a bad feeling about this . . .

Addendum:

Rewatched Seasons 7 & 8 of Foyle’s War and actually liked them quite a lot.  Me having a crush on Tim McMullan helped.

Have seen Season 10 of Father Brown . . .

The directing is slow and stiff.  There’s no dynamic worth mentioning among the new characters.  All the episodes felt like dress rehearsals, not polished performances.

#ruined by canon #fuck canon #fandom ruined #miraculous ladybug #Gabriel Agreste #Supernatural #MCU #Endeavor #Foyle's War #inspector lewis #ONCE #OUAT #Father Brown #Shetland #Grantchester #Sleepy Hollow #Sherlock #Star Wars #Doctor Who #Clarice #American Auto #queued post

[beesnutz]

i love endgaeme ds9 with the 8 parter its like 6 convoluted storylines that dont even have time to fully develop until the end, you keep continuing the plot on deep space 9 but then it suddenly cuts to damar and weyouns office to specifically watch them bicker like a divorced couple but bot actually give us any more insight on the war from the dominion perspective, then theres them trying to wrap up ezris romance plot but it was so goofy cause we had only know her for about 10 episodes until she and worf fucked and until she reluctantly starting to like julian ,and then there was the beautiful blooming relationship of julian and obrien with amazing scenes like them dying and both of them admitting they like each other more than their actual partners. Odo has garth marenghi broccoli aids OH MY GOD and theres also the entire dukat + winn plot that honestly just mirrors the damar weyoun stuff again. siskos just doing his thing. anyways this all ends up culminating into the finale thats pretty ok but has one of the worst and funniest scenes ever which is Slow motion Black and White SlideShow Montage of best moments on ds9. Worf thinks about all of his best memories on the ship but since nobody wanted to pay terry they never even showed him GETTING MARRIED. also beforehand OBRIEN had a whole montage which was lterally Only just obrien and julian moments, which, does that imply those were obriens best moments on the ship too??? quarks wasnt even related to him it was just stupid moments throughout the show. anyways best subplot of the finale was definitely the garak + kira + damar sleepover moment at garaks house where mila made all of them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

#wrote all of this on the toilet