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cherrycola27 · 9 months

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false god

Series Warnings: Mythology!AU. Language, alcohol, drinking. Military inaccuracies. Mutual pining, unrequited love. Allusions to and eventual smut. Minors DNI. 18+. Individual chapter warnings will come as needed. Banner Credit @thedroneranger

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Chapter 6: My Type

You and Bradley were both thankful that you were at a good place again in your friendship. The two of you returned to your previous routine of your Wednesday night hangouts, and the rest of August slipped away into a moment in time. September brought you two closer together as you still danced around the line of friends or something more.

It also brought along Mickey's birthday, and after the way the last party ended, the squad was ready to have a fun night out that didn't end in chaos.

Fanboy had never outgrown his punk rock phase, and for his birthday, he asked that every attend a cover band concert La Jolla. He had gone all out and even rented a party bus to take the group to and from the venue. Unfortunately, you had plans that night and wouldn't be able to attend. You made sure to send him a nice gift, though. Mickey was over the moon when he opened the autograph Star Trek poster and immediately forgave you for missing out on the fun.

Bradley, however, was extremely disappointed in the fact that you weren't coming. He was hoping that tonight would finally be his chance to lay his feelings on the line for you, but instead, he was drinking a beer, sandwiched between Payback and Bob, while Jake and Coyote made use of the stripper poles in the bus.

When they arrived, he couldn't wait to get off and get some fresh air. He had texted you a few times, but you hadn't responded. He checked his phone again to see that his messages were still unread. He sighed in disappointment before tucking his phone away and heading inside with everyone else.

Inside, an EDM DJ was playing some throwback Coldplay while a few techs were setting up for the band. The Daggers found a section near the right side and settled in. They gave their drink orders to a waitress who winked and Mickey when she found out it was his birthday.

Moments later, she returned with drinks and the promise to come back and see if they would need anything later.

With his whiskey in hand, Bradley leaned over to Fanboy and asked, "What's the name of this band again?"

Fanboy rolled his eyes. "The Styx. They do a mix of punk rock, eighties hits, pop, and some original songs. I heard them at a festival about a year and a half ago, and I've seen them a few places here and there. I'm pretty excited to see them again, though. Their lead singer left the band about five months ago to go solo, and apparently, an old friend of the lead guitarist stepped up and has been with them. I haven't heard her, but apparently, she's way better than the old singer." Fanboy explains.

Bradley nods his head and sinks back into his chair as he and everyone else waits for the show to start.

About ten minutes later, the DJ finishes, and some filler music comes through the speakers. The owner of the bar tells everyone that the band will start shortly. More people pour in. Bradley's mind wanders to you, and what you might be doing tonight.

...............

"How's the crowd out there?" You ask Lyla as she checks over her guitar once more. "The energy is fantastic. The place is pretty packed, too." She tells you with a smile.

"Great." You sigh.

A packed house

More people to watch you fail

"Don't worry, babe, you're going to kill it like you always do!" Mariana, the drummer and Lyla's sister, tells you. "Exactly. Just relax, we've got this!" Derrick, the bass player, says to the group. "If anyone boos, I will jump off the stage and shove my keyboard down their throat." Trent, Derrick's husband tells you. You can't help but laugh. You want to say something witty back, but you hear the stage manager start to introduce the group.

You can do this

You love doing this

You're going to be great

You take a deep breath and give yourself a once over in the mirror before stepping out. You look good— really good.

Netted tights cover your legs before disappearing under your cut-off denim shorts that show off your thigh tattoos.

A cropped black vintage Bon Jovi shirt covers your torso. You've cut some of the neck out of the shirt, so the lace of your bralette underneath is visible. Layers of silver chains with charms hug your neck and cleavage. A red flannel is tied around your waist.

Heavy, black, Doc Marten boots are on your feet, and your hair is loose and wild around your face. Sultry dark makeup graces your features, and you've traded your signature cherry red pout for a sensual shade of burgundy.

Rings and bracelets adorned your fingers and wrists. You truly looked the part of a rock queen. You look like sex on legs

Maybe you should pay Bradley a visit after this was over

You were broken from your thoughts by the cheers of the crowd. You took a deep breath as the rest of the group stepped out onto the stage. It was dark, thankfully, you couldn't make any faces out, and they couldn't see you just yet.

You turned to Lyla and the rest of the band who gave you the go-ahead.

..........

The Daggers, especially Fanboy, waited with baited breath as the band set up. Bradley sat there with a fresh glass of whiskey and prayed they were as good as Fanboy had made them out to be. There was nothing worse than sitting through a shitty band.

Soon, the opening sounds of Fallout Boy's "Centuries" filled the room. The band stayed shrouded in dim lights until the opening chorus finished, and then bright lits illuminated the stage.

Fanboy screamed in excitement as he leaned over to say something to Fritz, but Bradley's eyes didn't leave the stage. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. He wasn't drunk. Surely, his mind had to be playing tricks on him.

Just as he was about to say something, it seemed like the entire group came to the realization at the same time.

"Oh my shit." Jake said. "It's that—"

"That's Hades." Bradley said before Jake could finish his question. "Holy shit." Bradley breathed out as he watched you on the stage.

You owned the space. You presses filled the room and demanded the attention of the crowd.

Bradley was captivated by you. He knew that he was attracted to you before. He'd tried so hard to keep his feelings pushed down, and when he kissed you, he knew he'd ruined his chances. But then—then you wanted to be his friend again, and he got the chance to fall for you all over again.

And this time, he fell harder.

Now, there was no denying his attraction for you. As he watched you on that stage, enthralled with your beauty and this new side of you he'd never seen before, Bradley couldn't help but let his mind wander.

The music continues, but now, it's all background noise to Bradley.

He isn't even sure what song you are singing right now. He's too busy watching the way your body moves to the beat and how he's sure you wore that outfit just to mess with him.

He knows that the last part isn't true because surely you didn't know that the Daggers would be here tonight. Fanboy had only asked if you were free tonight. He'd never told you the plans, but in the back of Bradley's mind, he likes to think that you wore that cropped Bon Jovi tee for him and the moment you'd shared months ago.

He watches the hem of your shirt catch on your fingertips as you drag your hands up your body and sway with the music. Bradley hasn't stopped staring at the patch of skin that is just visible between it and the waistband of your jean shorts. He is eager to know what you might have on under it and how it would look on his bedroom floor.

Maybe it was wrong of him to think it, but Bradley didn't care.

Haunting melodies poured from your wine colored lips. They weaved through the crowd and flooded his ears. Bradley was hanging onto every word you sang. His mind wandered as he wondered if his name would sound just as pretty as your songs did when it tumbled from your lips as he brought you to the peak of pleasure.

You were absolutely fearless in the way you put on a show. You worked the room and had everyone captivated. Bradley hoped that one day, he'd be able to find out if you would put on a show just for him in the privacy of his bedroom.

God, you were so fucking beautiful up there. And he knows he probably looks like an absolute ass because he has been ignoring the rest of your friends for almost the entire forty-five minutes you've been on the stage, but he can't help it.

He's so awestruck by you and this part of your life. It's another piece of the puzzle that makes you so unique and so amazing to him.

You're smart, witty, beautiful, funny, and talented on more than one front. Bradley loves that he's learned something new about you.

He wants to learn more new things about you. He wants to add more pieces to the puzzle until he has the whole picture.

He would give anything to spent eternity figuring you out.

You announce the final song of your set list, a rock cover of "Bad Romance," and Bradley finds it ironic because he would take any kind of romance with you. Good or bad.

With this being the last song, you go wild. You release all your inhibitions as you move about the stage and command the room, just like you command the sky.

Bradley has to discreetly adjust himself through his jeans because he gets distracted by the way your necklaces move.

The layers of silver chains of various lengths with charms scattered throughout them hugged your neck in the best way. Bradley didn't realize he could be jealous of a few pieces of jewelry, but as he grips his glass of whiskey tighter, he finds himself longing to replace them with his hands. He just knows that you'd look so fucking beautiful with his long fingers wrapped around your throat while he fucked you like the good girl he knows you would be for him.

Just when he thought you couldn't surprise him anymore, that night, you prove him wrong. When the bridge of the song comes up, you switch to singing in French. French? Since when did you know another language?

Now he wanted to know if you were fluent in it, and if you were, would you talk dirty to him in it. Fuck, you were still a mystery to him, in the best way.

As the song came to an end, you hit your knees for the final high note, and the entire crowd jumped up and screamed for you, the Daggers included. Bradley isn't embarrassed to say that he was definitely the loudest.

After you and the rest of the band thanked everyone for coming out and bidded the audience farewell, Bradley watched you disappear behind a black curtain.

More filler music started up as the squad sat down and looked at each other.

"So, Hades moonlights as a rockstar." Coyote said, breaking the silence of the group.

"Would it be weird if I asked her to get me an autograph from her band mates?" Fanboy asked.

"I don't think so. I just can't believe she didn't tell us." Phoenix said as she finished her beer.

"We all have things that we don't tell everyone about. Maybe she was afraid we'd make fun of her or something. Plus, have you met some of us? A few members of our group aren't the best at respecting other people's feelings." Bob said as he and everyone stared directly at Jake.

"For the last time, I apologized to her! Jeez!" Jake said as he threw his hands up in defense.

.............

Once off the stage, you downed a bottle of water and panted to catch your breath.

"We were amazing tonight!" Derrick cheers as he puts his bass away. "Hades, you killed it with the vocals!" Trent compliments you.

"I'm just glad you didn't have to fight an audience member, I doubt your husband would have bailed you out of jail—again." You needle Trent.

"Oh my gosh, it was one time, and they dropped the charges." Trent huffed.

Lyla and Mariana laugh as they put their things away. "You guys want to get a drink? To celebrate a successful show?" Mariana asks. "Absolutely. Hades, if you keep this up, we might not ever let you go!" Lyla tells you as she slings an arm around your shoulder.

"Lyla, I told you, I'm just helping you our until you can find someone to replace Candice." You tell her.

Lyla shakes her head as the five of you head out of the backstage area and to the bar. You take a seat with your back to the crowd. A few patrons come up and speak to all of you, but none linger too long. You've just put your pomegranate margarita to your lips when you hear a familiar voice call, "Well what do we have here? If it ain't Hades."

You set your drink down and spin on your stool. You're shocked when you turn around and see all twelve of your friends and coworkers standing in front of you.

"Oh my gods, what are you guys doing here?" You ask them.

"This is what I had planned for my birthday." Fanboy tells you.

"Oh, Mick, I had no idea. You should have told me, and I could have gotten you a front row spot!" You tell him.

"You could have told us you were a rockstar." Phoenix says.

You don't have a chance to respond before Lyla says, "Well, aren't you going to introduce us?"

"Oh, sorry. Guys, this is Lyla, we were stationed together in Lemoore a few years ago. She was my wingman until she hung up her wings to be a mechanic. And this is her sister Mariana and Derrick and his husband Trent, and they are The Styx." You say.

"We are The Styx." Lyla corrects you.

After a few polite hellos, you turn to your squadron. "And guys, this is Fanboy, Payback, Halo, Omaha, Bob, Phoenix, Yale, Harvard, Fritz, Coyote, Hangman, and—Bradley." You say as you point out each one of them.

"Bradley—er—Rooster, is my new wingman." You tell your band mates.

"You are a lucky duck to be flying with her." Lyla tells Rooster. "She saved my ass several times."

"Don't let her fool you, Lyla had my back, too." You smile.

"So, Hades, how did you end up doing—this?" Bob asks you, never failing to address the elephant in the room.

"Lyla and I lived together in the barracks. We used to do karaoke on the weekends. She always played a little and decided she wanted to do music more seriously. Unfortunately, Lyla was in a training accident and shattered her left hip." You told them. You wince at that detail. It had been the one time that you weren't flying with her because an admiral had pulled you into a meeting.

"Not too long after Lyla's accident, I was transferred. We kept in touch, and she told me to call her if I was ever back in California." You told them.

"And I couldn't get back in a plane anymore after that, so I took to fixing them and playing guitar in my spare time. At an open mic night, Mariana and I met Derrick and Trent and Candice, our former lead singer. We hit it off, and The Styx was born." Lyla explains.

"But, Candice thought she was too good for us and moved to L.A. five months ago, " Mariana adds.

"Thankfully, Hades just happened to get station in San Diego. So, when she called me to catch up, I convinced her to do a show with us, and that's kind of led us here." Lyla finishes.

"Wow, that's insane." Payback says.

"Yeah, crazy." You shake your head, suddenly feeling on edge now that your work friends new more about your personal life. It wasn't that you were trying to hide this from them, but at the same time, you liked your privacy.

Secrets kept you safe

Bradley could tell that you were getting uncomfortable, so he tapped your knee to get your attention before grabbing your wrist and pulling you away from the crowd.

"You were amazing up there, Angel." He praises you as you tuck yourselves into a corner of the club.

"Thanks, maybe next time, you can join me, and we can hit them with some 'Great Balls of Fire.'" You laugh. Bradley chuckles.

A comfortable silence settles over the two of you. You both look at see the Daggers talking and drinking with your band mates.

"How did all of you get here?" You ask him.

"Fanboy got a party bus. Jake was recreating scenes from Magic Mike on the drive here when he was still half sober, I'm terrified to see what's going to happen on the way back." Bradley shutters.

"I didn't even get to have my drink, so I'm sober. I drove here, wanna ride home with me?" You offer him.

Bradley abso-fucking-lutely wanted to ride home with you. And then, when the two of you got home, he wanted to take you into his apartment, strip you down, and hear you sing for him in a different way. And he wanted you to sleep over so he could make you breakfast the next morning before he fucked you in his shower. However, he couldn't say that to you, so instead, he just said, "Yeah, Angel, that would be great."

The two of you quietly snuck out the back of the club. You had grabbed your things already. You made it to the car before Bradley, but instead of opening your door, you stood there, subconsciously waiting for him to do it. He smiled and opened the door and helped you in.

The drive back to San Diego was filled with playful banter, more singing, and flirty touches.

.............

Once you were back at your apartment complex, Bradley made sure to walk you to your door.

You wanted to invite him in, but it was late, and you were still high on adrenaline from performing, and you didn't trust yourself not to drag him to your bed. If you were going to do this with him, you were going to do it the right way.

So, you settled for a simple goodnight kiss on his cheek before tucking yourself inside your home.

After he said goodbye to you at your apartment door, Bradley bolted upstairs to his.

Tonight, he's thankful that he is your upstairs neighbor and that he has a corner unit where his bedroom doesn't share a wall with anyone.

Why? Because of the way your name sinfully falls from his lips while he touches himself and selfishly chases his release.

He's been hard for you all evening, and your flirty touches in your car on the ride home coupled with the way your soft lips felt on his cheek had him spiraling as he fists his cock.

He cums hard, spurts of it painting his hand and abs with hot white streaks. As he comes down from his high and cleans himself up, Bradley can't help but think about how his cum would look splattered on your thigh tattoo or dripping out of you. He groans, already hardening at the thought of it.

After quelling the fires of his desire with a cold shower, Bradley slips between the sheets of his bed and thinks of you and how he could make the two of you something more.

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p-redux · 5 months

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I say he is in Nepal, either at base camp, or less likely, scaling Everest. Your opinion on this theory?

Hi, Anon, as I said in a previous post, I have a slight obsession with all things Mount Everest, have read the books, watched the movies, the TV series, and every year when it's the push for the summit in May, I follow climbers on Instagram, and watch their treks up to the highest mountain on Earth. Soooo, I do have some knowledge on this subject. Here's my take...

I know Sam has said in interviews that one of his bucket list items is climbing Mount Everest. And he was supposed to star in that Everest movie. The thing is, climbing to the SUMMIT of Mount Everest is only done in May, usually mid May due to weather constraints. And the prep dictates you have to start 2 months before to acclimate to the high altitude. I'll talk more about that down below. IF you are able to spend the two months in either Nepal for climbing from the South side of Everest, or Tibet (controlled by China) for climbing from the North side of Everest, you will be climbing to almost 29,032 feet, 8,849 meters. This is literally the altitude that jet planes fly once they reach cruising altitude. Sam has this pesky thing called a contract to finish out the remaining seasons of Outlander. I highly doubt his Outlander contract, and the insurance company associated with it, would allow him to take such a risk. Every year, people DIE climbing up or on the way back down from the summit. And some people don't die, but they get severe frostbite and lose fingers, toes, tips of noses. It's not for the faint of heart, and it's not for handsome actors who need to keep their beautiful appendages intact for filming Outlander. Unless the writers can work on a storyline involving Jamie Fraser missing a few, um, things.

Having said that, it IS possible Sam could trek to Mount Everest BASE CAMP. This is the area at the base of the mountain that all climbers go to to prepare to climb higher up, and eventually to the summit. BUT, some people who aren't making summit bids, simply make Base Camp their one and only destination. And that may be a compromise Sam makes with Outlander producers. Base Camp is still REALLY, REALLY high. It's at 17,598 feet, 5,364 meters. Sam isn't putting himself in too much risk at Base Camp...unless there's an avalanche. Sadly, there have been avalanches there and many people have died, as a result, the last one being in 2015.

Everest Base Camp in Nepal is trekked either for the Summit bid season February to May, with all summit bids happening in May. OR, it is trekked JUST for the Base Camp in late September to November. We are now in November, so it IS possible. 👇

BUT, you don't simply hop on a plane and get plopped down at Base Camp's 17,000 feet altitude. You could quite literally die from High Altitude Cerebral Edema and or High Altitude Pulmonary Edema due to the low oxygen levels. Soooo, IF Sam wanted to trek to Mount Everest Base Camp in Nepal, he would have to start acclimating at least two weeks before. All travelers going from Nepal's capital, Kathmandu at an elevation of 4,344 feet stay there for a few days, and then they do a 14 day trek up the mountains, to allow their bodies to acclimate to the altitude and the lower oxygen levels. 👇

Sam would have to allow himself at LEAST 3 WEEKS to make the Everest Base Camp trek. 2 weeks to climb there and acclimate, and then you want to spend at least a week there camping and just being there. Then you have to allow time for the return climb back down. This isn't a weekend excursion.

As for whether Sam is actually trying to climb to Mount Everest SUMMIT. That would be a definite NO. Not only from an Outlander insurance and contract issue, but also because it's not summit climbing season. 👇

And for people who want to climb to the Summit, they have to make a 2 MONTH commitment. The summit climb entails the two weeks to climb to Base Camp. And then at least 6 weeks, climbing up and down from each of the higher camps. I think there are at least 4 camps that climbers stay at, higher and higher on the mountain, until they reach the Summit. 👇

So, if a climber wants to go for a Summit bid, which is always in mid-May, they would have to start in mid-March and literally be on Mount Everest at the various camps the whole two months. It's a huge commitment. Most companies charge around $40,000 for the whole expedition. The reputable ones assign each climber a Sherpa to guide you. The Sherpas are natives to the area and they are expert climbers who are born in the area, therefore their bodies are completely acclimated to the high altitude. The expedition companies hire them to help climbers up the mountain. They set all the safety ropes, set up the camps, make the meals, and deal with the inevitable emergencies along the way. No one should climb without a Sherpa. Also, most companies will only take on a climber for a Summit bid if they can show previous experience in climbing at high altitude and have summitted a few of the highest peaks on Earth. That's not Sam. So, if anything, Sam would probably only be allowed to climb to Base Camp.

As you can see, I'm really, really into all things Everest and could keep writing all day hahaha. But, I'll stop here. I hope that was helpful info, Anon.

#samheughan #sam heughan #mount everest #everest #nepal #kathmandu #tibet #north side #south side #north face #south face #sherpas #base camp #everest base camp #summit #everest summit #outlander

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startrekprodigyfan · 10 months

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As of this posting, Star Trek Prodigy is scheduled to be removed from Paramount+’s streaming service tomorrow. And it just got me thinking about how stacked against the odds this poor kids show has been put through.

From the start, the show as a concept struggled because long time Trek nerds were already skeptical and resentful of everything “nuTrek” related. They didn’t like that there was going to be a kids show, and many wrote it off before it even aired.

Then the series began, and fans hated Dal. They refused to give him a chance, despite the obvious story arc of him starting at a bad place and working his way to a better one. I knew he would get there eventually, but fans of Trek wouldn’t give him a chance. So they hate watched it or didn’t watch it at all.

Then the show went on hiatus after the Murder Planet two-parter. Only 5 episodes had aired and it was already gone. For months.

(This was all on the streaming service too btw, it hasn’t aired on Nickelodeon yet, let alone in other countries).

Then the show came back, and thankfully by now Trek fans were starting to get on board… until it went on hiatus… again. This time for an entire YEAR. Another 5 episodes and the conclusion of the first half of the season, and it was gone. For even LONGER.

No toys have been made. No advertising for the show. A plush of Murf was made but it was limited edition and only given out at a specific convention.

After a YEAR, the show finally comes back. And mercifully we get a full second half of the season. 10 episodes that wraps up the second half and ends with a BANG! Toys are only JUST NOW starting to come out too. The show is finally starting to connect with people and find its footing…

And then it gets cancelled.

About a 4 day warning before it gets pulled from the streaming service.

Gone.

Season 2… in the works but not scheduled to air anywhere… yet? Only the first 10 episodes are available on DVD. Season 1 still hasn’t fully aired on Nickelodeon either. And now the show is being yanked from streaming.

I’ve lived through bad release schedules with shows before but this one takes the cake for me. At every point it seems like Paramount has been trying to mess with this show. Do they even want it to succeed? It’s not going to succeed if you don’t let people WATCH IT!

I don’t have anything really insightful to say at this point, I’m mostly just frustrated with how difficult it’s been for people to even FIND this show.

#star trek prodigy #star trek #prodigy #prodigy spoilers #janeway #dal r'el #star trek: prodigy

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lilolilyr · 5 months

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20 questions for fic writers

Thanks so much for tagging me, @purlturtle :) you have 1/8 of the amount of fics I have but a higher wordcount, do you write super long fics or do I write super short ones? xD I think the answer is Yes To Both! :D

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

574 when counting the normal ones as well as both the ones posted for ao3 users only, and the ones posted on anon! (If you also have anon works and want to know your total, you can get to the view in the screenshot when you have or are part of a collection and click on ‘people’ of the collection)

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count?

1,346,577

largely due to the craziness that was 2021 when I was supposed to write my bachelor thesis and instead(I did manage to write my thesis) also wrote over half a million words in fanfic.

And I’m almost at my goal of 100k for the year! Which I didn’t think I’d reach, but flufftober helped a lot there :D

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Too many xD

atm I’m actively writing for Warehouse 13, Holby City, Star Trek, Lie to Me and Hacks

Some other fandoms I’m still in and will probably write more fics for are Good Omens, Gunpowder Milkshake, The Old Guard and Lord of the Rings

You can find my whole fandom list on Ao3, 70 fandoms if I counted correctly!

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

All three parts of the Inkubus Jaskier series (The Witcher, rated M-E) have 600-1000 kudos, I do like these fics but I think the fandom is also just very large.

As it Should be, a 00Q meets Q is a Holmes (James Bond + BBC Sherlock) fanfic, and probably my fav fanfic I’ve written that deserves the ‘humor’ tag, has 617 kudos

Spooky Eyes, the one and only Venom fanfic I’ve written (I have not watched the movie and I haven’t even spent thaat much time in the fandom either) has 588 kudos, and has been my most kudosed fic with over 500 kudos for quite a while before the others overtook it

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I usually do, yes! I love getting comments and want to encourage people to comment by replying to them, and also lovely conversations can happen in the comment sections, as well as mini ficlets of their own! So yes I do want to reply :)

If I don’t, it’s probably just that I didn’t yet, either because I didn’t find the time or because while I did reply to other comments I’m waiting to reply to some because I want to wait until I have the next update in the fic/series/fandom so I can let the commenters know in my reply that there’s more

Or if a comment is really long and detailed and I want to reply in the same detail but don’t currently have the energy for it, or there’s sth complicated in the comment I want to address, I might not answer it yet even though I’ve replied to other comments since

Also sometimes a comment is just really neat and I want to keep looking at it in my Unreads :D

But I do plan to answer all comments eventually:) (unless I ever get so swamped in them that I can’t, but I’ve by no means reached that level of comment spam - I have gotten 2686 comments total, 298 unread, of the unreads probably a hundred are real old ones that are left unread for one reason or other, then probably another hundred I want to reply to if/when I post more, and the rest I’m just gonna reply Eventually xD I’ll have you know that I did reply to most flufftober ones more or less immediately while the event was still going and I even went through some of the backlog while I was at it!)

The only times I don’t answer a comment is when I don’t know whether the commenter meant to be rude (if I know they’re being rude on purpose I just delete, not counting those here) and/or I genuinely don’t know how to reply, if it’s a co-authored work and someone else already replied and I have nothing to add, or if it’s a reply to a reply to a comment and the conversation has petered out

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I think I’ve got a post-canon TOG ficlet with Romeo and Juliet vibes where everybody dies in the end?

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I live for happy endings, no idea what counts as ‘happiest’, all my shippy little getting together and/or everybody lived nobody died fix-its are pretty darn happy imo :D

8. Do you get hate on fic?

Not usually, there have been some that I know I immediately deleted and now can’t remember anymore bc I was clever and immediately deleted lmao, but idk whether anything was ever bad enough to be called hate… and I never had to restrict comments on any fic before

9. Do you write smut?

Oh hell yeah! :D

Though, and I’m always surprised by this, I’ve only got 71 (out of the 574) E rated fics! And 56 M that might have a smut scene or some violence idk, and the 81 not rated ones are more often left that way for violence or angst reasons than for smut… so yeah, main chunks are G & T rated with 198 and 168 fics respectively!

Still, I definitely do write smut, and there’s some quite good erotica there if I may say so!

10. Do you write crossovers?

Rarely, I think most of what shows in the ‘crossover’ tab is just fic I tagged with more of basically the same fandom (Star Trek, Star Trek: Discovery, etc), and the rest is probably AUs set in another fandom’s world without character crossovers

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yeah :D most notably the chaotic Mirandy smutfic ‘Surrendering to Andrea’ with 5 authors: @athousandforests @guardianrock @scarlet-heels @stupidsexycopshows, and most recently the latest fic on my Ao3 actually, Bering and Wells ‘Drunken Considerations’ with @lavendelhummel!

I also made different sorts of collabs with Podfic and arts etc for events and just for fun with @thewalkingmeepa (DWP) @bookgirlfan (Star Trek) @artax-risen (Dracula) @badasspantiestalker (Star Trek) @cinnamonplums (TOG) @jackwolfskid (TOG) sorry if I forgot anyone!

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Don’t make me choose!!!!!

Like literally I can’t! And I don’t even know how to define favorite - 1 the one I enjoy to write for most, 2 the one I like to read most, 3 the one I’m fangirling most about, 4 the one that wrecks me most with feels, 5 the ones I can always return to… those are different ships! Also because my favs are not necessarily the biggest fandoms, so I might not be able to spend so much fandom time on them bc I read all the fics ages ago already lmao

In order of above categories: 1 Milippa Prime, 2 Mirandy and Berena, 3 Bering and Wells, 4 again Milippa and Bering and Wells and also Floreleine(&Librarywives&Killercule) and Andromaquynh(& also the ot3) and Jadzia x Lenara, 5 Bering and Wells and ClintCoulson and J7

By sheer ‘has been mentioned most often in this list’ I suppose the crown goes to Bering and Wells!

But I really just love them all. And others too.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but probably won’t?

The Ocean’s 8 series ‘A Heistwives Kinda Job’ I started in 2018 and kinda lost track of. I think the parts stand well on their own though so it’s not sooo bad but I’m still a bit sad that that never got finished and now probably never will because I just don’t know where I was going with it anymore & also don’t remember the details from the first parts well enough to continue it anyway

16. What are your writing strengths?

I can write pretty quickly and when I’ve got an idea I can just write it down in one go!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

If it’s too long to be written down in one go or I don’t have the time I will forget about it

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

There are different ways to deal with this and my preference Depends - if the characters and therefore the reader don’t need to know what it says, or it’s even relevant that they don’t understand, I’d leave the foreign language in as is, maybe have a chapter end note with what it says, same if what’s said is already explained by the reactions of the characters or something

If it’s one or two languages that are frequently used in the fic and with relevant info, I’d have a note at the beginning of the chapter saying which one’s cursive and which one’s bold and then type everything in English. If the character is abroad or sth and all the dialogue is for example French I’d just mention the fact that it’s French in the note or have it mentioned in the fic that they’re speaking French the first time it happens, but then proceed as usual without even making it cursive or anything

For anything in-between, like relevant info mentioned in foreign language once or a few times, I’d write the foreign language in fic and link down to an end note with the translation and a ^ link back to text. I don’t like having original and translation in-text side by side because imo it just reads in an annoying way, and it’s especially annoying if the reader knows both languages.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

According to Ao3, it’s The Hobbit. According to old sheets of paper somewhere in my childhood bedroom, it’s probably self-insert Hanni & Nanni (St Clare’s) ficlets xD I think I called my SIOC ‘Lilo Liliana’ to be fancy and that’s the origin story for my username! Adsfghjkl I hadn’t thought about that in ages.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

That would still have to be Andromaquynh In Your Stead.

Now closely followed by my Milippa road-trip AU and my Star Trek University AU (that I’m still writing more one-shots for) though!

And you can find all my author’s favs in the tag on Ao3!

Tagging, only if you want to do it of course, everyone I’ve already tagged above as well as @die-schwanenkoenigin, @squishmittenficfan, @xvnot15, @viharistenno, @wellsbering, @lesbianlotties, @batnbreakfast, @danisnotmyname, @charlottepriestly, @onaperduamedee, @lonely-night, @sapphicscholar, @73chn1c0l0rr3v3l lavendelhummel and everyone else who sees this :)

Blanks to copy:

1. How many works do you have on ao3? 2. What’s your total ao3 word count? 3. What fandoms do you write for? 4. What are your top five fics by kudos? 5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? 6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? 7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? 8. Do you get hate on fic? 9. Do you write smut? 10. Do you write crossovers? 11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? 12. Have you ever had a fic translated? 13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? 14. What’s your all-time favourite ship? 15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but probably won’t? 16. What are your writing strengths? 17. What are your writing weaknesses? 18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? 19. First fandom you wrote for? 20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

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xxhappy-chickenxx · 1 month

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Fandom lads to get to know better ✨

tysm for the tag, @wretchedamaranth!!

3 ships you like:

VegasPete (Kinnporsche The Series): In a surprise to no one, these two have my whole body and soul. Just when I think their hold on me has passed, I see some fic/post/tweet/picture and I'm right back where I started.

Chen Yi/Ai Di (Kiseki: Dear to Me): This is a more recent obsession because I finally got around to watching the series and THEY'RE JUST SO GOOD I NEED MORE!!! I've been doing research here and there abt how to write Chinese names in fic since I don't want to fuck it up and once I get that down it's canon divergence time!!

Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian (MDZS/The Untamed): This is my longest-held ship (also shamelessly plugging my sideblog) and not to be dramatic but I will never get over them!!! I think they don't occupy as much 'active blorbo' space in my brain bc they had a more resolved ending, but if I'm thinking or talking about god-tier ships as a whole, they're always on my list.

First ship ever: Ever ever is hard because I feel like I've been shipping characters together since the beginning of time but I will say the first time I thought about characters interacting with each other outside of any 'canon' was Batman and Catwoman when I was like 12 😅

Last song you heard: Magician by Lexie Liu!! (Car crash and flashing/strobe warning for the mv!!) I'm so late to this train bc the song was released like a year ago but IT'S SO GOOD!!! The sound and story is absolutely captivating!

Favorite childhood book: My memory is horrible and I'm sure child-me could give you such a detailed answer because I was a huge reader! One of my favorite series was the American Girl Doll books, and I think Kit was my favorite.

Currently reading: Nothing beyond what's required for my grad program 😭 I'll get back into it eventually, and for now, I have fic!

Lately I've been obsessed with Not Lost, But Found and Tune of Discord by puckbaes, won't be pretty, won't be sweet by blue__jay, and It Was an Honest Loss by YourKnightOfRage!!

Currently watching: The original Star Trek! I know people ship Kirk and Spock and listen... I get it 👀 Might have to do some digging on AO3 pretty soon, but for now I'm enjoying the silly alien costumes and taking a shot every time Kirk takes his shirt off.

Currently consuming: Beef with scallions from my favorite Chinese restaurant 😋

Currently craving: Nothing right now, but I was craving allergen-friendly donuts yesterday and got them delivered 🤌 An expensive but satisfying decision!!

Tagging @thisautistic and @thisnightsrevels if you would like!! But no pressure 💗

#tysm for the tag!!!#one thing about me is i love sharing my opinions lol #tag game

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sshbpodcast · 3 months

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Tasha Yar vs. Ro Laren: Fight!

By Ames

We’re taking a quick break from our normal character spotlights because I just couldn’t justify doing individual articles about either of these characters, but when I realized I could discuss both of them, I got a little carried away. So welcome, one and all, to the Enterprise-D’s contest between its two resident badass bitches. Your hosts here at A Star to Steer Her By needed to know – who wins? Tasha Yar or Ro Laren?

This calls for another Big Board (seen previously when we ranked the Trek films and Star War films)!

To determine this as fairly as possible, we’ve designed this competition and discussed it at length in this week’s podcast episode (jump to 50:53 for the boxscore) to score our two contestants against each other in eleven categories. Not every battle went as we thought it would, there are surprises in store, glavins to be thrown, and the occasional double-cross to keep things interested. Ready? Fight!

Some major spoilers for Picard are below and discussed on the podcast, if anyone cares. Shrug emoji.

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

1. Childhood History

Yar: If there’s one thing (and one thing only) the writers knew about Tasha Yar when writing her character, it’s that she grew up in a failed colony full of rape gangs. Which she brings up all the time. Like, way too much. We see a brief glimpse of it in a flashback in “Where No One Has Gone Before” and yeah, it does not look fun. Basing a character around horrible trauma for no good reason is just the kind of thing the season one writers did, for better or for worse.

Ro: Ensign Ro arrived when the series was much more established with a much more established history that made for the background of the episode “Ensign Ro.” The whole concept of Cardassia-occupied Bajor came along with her introduction, and the story that she tells about watching her father get tortured to death by Cardassians was the complex foundation that this show (and others!) found worthy to explore.

Winner: Ro Laren. The story of the Bajorans ended up being such a major seed for all of DS9, while the established rape gangs of Yar’s childhood only ended up getting entirely contradicted later in “Legacy.” Speaking of which…

—

2. Pre-Enterprise Backstory

Yar: Picard tells Tasha’s sister Ishara in “Legacy” about the first time he saw that woman who would later become the chief of security on the Federation’s flagship. He encountered her rushing to rescue a colonist on a Carnelian minefield. Picard was so impressed that he immediately requested that she join his crew, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Ro: We learn that Ro had a very different standing in Starfleet before her reluctant posting to the Enterprise-D in “Ensign Ro.” Apparently, she got eight crewmen on the Wellington killed due to disobeying orders, and was given the choice between going to prison or performing a mission for the definitely corrupt Admiral Kennelly. Hell, Picard’s first impression of her was basically “I don’t want someone like her on my ship.” Lucky for us, he eventually came around!

Winner: Tasha Yar. These two couldn’t be more different in standing within Starfleet when we first meet them. I’ve got to rule that anyone who piques the interest of Captain Picard is worth a point in this category.

—

3. Friends

Yar: Tasha seems friendly with pretty much everyone on the ship! Worf plays Parrises Squares with her in “11001001” and he even bets on her for a martial arts competition in “Skin of Evil.” We see her borrowing clothes from Troi in “The Naked Now.” And it’s all the more clear that she leaves an imprint on all her friends’ lives when she leaves final words for so many crewmembers after her death in “Skin of Evil.”

Ro: On the other hand, Laren is so much more reserved and particular about who she chooses to spend time with. It’s so significant that Guinan decides to befriend her in “Ensign Ro,” and we see more of their dynamics together in “Rascals.” There was also something hinted at between her and Riker when he says in “The Next Phase” that he wants to deliver her eulogy, but we never get to see what that was.

Winner: Tasha Yar. Clearly she has a rapport with so many of her shipmates in a way that actually affects them deeply and personally, as we’ll see in a moment with Lt. Commander Data.

—

4. Pets

Yar: We see in “Where No One Has Gone Before” that at one point Tasha had a kitty whom she cared for and kept safe from the rape gangs on Turkana IV. Surely, that cat was probably the only good thing going for her through her traumatic childhood.

Ro: None we’re aware of! Your loss, Laren!

Winner: Tasha Yar. This podcast full of cat people has deemed it so! We can’t not spread the love to fellow cat parents, so the winner here was a given.

—

5. Romantic Interests

Yar: I can cite that really hot scene with Data in “The Naked Now” as much as I like, but when you think about it, both of them were under the influence at the time so it’s a little bit squicky. And while it’s clear in episodes like “The Measure of a Man” and in the series Picard that it was meaningful to Data, for Yar, it was just Tuesday. However, the truly lovely romance that we see for her comes in the alternate timeline in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” where she gets to make googoo eyes at Richard Castillo, and we are here for it!

Ro: Similar to that caveat above with the drunken Data, we have to put an asterisk on Laren’s romance scene with Will Riker in “Conundrum” because they were both amnesiacs at the time. Again, there’s something not fully consensual about the thing because they don’t have all the information to know what they’re doing, no matter how much chemistry they have together.

Winner: Tasha Yar. If it had just been a Data versus Riker battle for this category, I’d be uncomfortable making a call because of the lack of the ability to consent involved in both. But that budding romance between Yar and Castillo actually holds meaning for her and we ship them hard!

—

6. Fighting Prowess

Yar: Here’s where we start to put up our dukes in this competition. As chief of security, Tasha clearly kicks some ass. We see this many many times in “Code of Honor.” She drops Lutan’s bodyguard Hagon like a load of bricks in their first meeting, displays her combat skills in the holodeck for the Ligonians, and finally wins in the combat ring against Yareena without killing her. Points off, however, for getting utterly destroyed by Armus in “Skin of Evil,” but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Ro: While phased in “The Next Phase,” we get to see some killer moves from Ro when the phased Romulan confronts her. She sneaks through a wall and gets the jump on Parem, a chase ensues which leads to a fistfight. And while we may have misremembered Ro being the one who threw the guy through a bulkhead (turns out, it was Geordi), she still holds her own and kicks some phased butt!

Winner: Ro Laren. Okay, so we’ve established that both of these women are badasses, so which of them would win in a fight? Put that way, we’ve got to give it to Laren because she’s Maquis and may be more likely to fight dirty. Catfight! Meow!

—

7. Command Skills

Yar: I bring up this category mostly to talk about some missed opportunities on both sides! Ro and Troi were the obvious choices for who should have taken charge while dealing with the matriarchal society in “Angel One,” but Riker walks all over them because it turns out all these bitches needed was a man to tell them what’s what. C’mon! This should have been Yar’s show and instead she relinquishes command.

Ro: Similarly, there’s a power vacuum during the disaster in “Disaster” and Ro is this close to mutinying against Troi who is utterly flailing and refusing to make the hard choices. Ro is there and making the right calls for the situation, displaying that she has the nose for command should the situation arise, but frustratingly, nothing comes of it and she has to apologize to Deanna at the end (even though she was right!).

Winner: Ro Laren. After we later see Troi pass the command test by killing holo-Geordi, it stings that much more that we see how right Ro was when she advocated sacrificing the engineering section, so the point goes to her for being willing to make the tough calls.

—

8. Ethical Stands

Yar: Oh boy, the most up on her high horse we see Tasha get is in the infamous scene with Wesley about drug addiction in “Symbiosis.” The whole scene reeks of Nancy Reagan’s war on drugs and the scene feels forced as hell, like an after-school special somehow invaded an episode of Star Trek. And ya know, the messaging was perfectly clear without Yar spelling it out with a heavy-handed “say no to drugs, kids” speech.

Ro: We do give Ro a lot of credit for coming clean to Picard in “Ensign Ro” after that chat with her new bestie Guinan. Ro’s more obvious display of standing up for what she believes is her joining the Maquis, even though it gives Picard a sad in “Preemptive Strike.” BUUUUUUT! Somehow all that gets undone in the Picard episode “Imposters” when she has apparently rejoined Starfleet, shitting all over that big moment of character growth. Oh Laren, you’re making this one tough!

Winner: Stalemate. Sorry, but we’re going to have to give half a point to each since we could not agree on a winner after that episode from Picard really ended up complicating things (as I’m sure Chris refused to cut from our discussion in this week’s podcast episode). We’ll see in a moment how this affects the overall competition in the Verdict section…

—

9. Strategy & Tactics

Yar: This category was meant to be a catch-all of miscellaneous things the characters have done, and it really made us realize that the tactical officer rarely makes decisions that are particularly… tactical? Yar and later Worf seem to get punked whenever they try to do anything. In both her confrontations with Q, she gets knocked out – frozen in “Encounter at Farpoint” and sent to the penalty box in “Hide and Q.” Is there really anything else worth mentioning? No, really. I’m asking. Comment below.

Ro: We see Ro in fewer episodes than we see Yar, but she at least gets to attempt to do some things. Her plan to use the unmanned Bajoran transport to trick Kennelly in “Ensign Ro” was pretty ingenious. While it’s a good idea to try to knock out all the aliens possessing crewmembers’ bodies in “Power Play,” she does miss Data entirely and her little scheme is foiled. And finally, she and the other child-shaped folks in “Rascals” outthink some Ferengi, low bar that that is.

Winner: Ro Laren. This was an easy win for Ro because, frankly, Yar just plain doesn’t get to DO much in her season of Trek, and when she does, she gets Worfed (before Worfing was even a thing!).

—

10. Death(s)

Yar: A character so nice they killed her twice. There is still much controversy over her death in “Skin of Evil” because it’s so abrupt and pointless, but that was the point. Is that a good or bad thing? Aside from her nice post-mortem message, we’re barely affected by it. Her sacrificing herself in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” would have been an excellent resolution to her character… but that seems sullied by the knowledge that she survived, was kept as a Romulan concubine, and then killed when baby goddamn Sela ratted her out, as established in “Redemption.” Dang, Yar can’t catch a break.

Ro: This one’s tricky because it does mean we have to dip into the Picard series, which we haven’t been doing for other characters in our spotlight series because we haven’t covered it on the podcast yet. Say what you will about the myriad character deaths in Picard (and we can, have, and WILL), but Ro’s death fighting the conspiracy in “Imposters” is a pretty good place to resolve her character. She resolves some character stuff with Picard, uncovers a huge Federation-wide plot, and goes out in a blaze of glory. Is there a better way to go?

Winner: Ro Laren. Especially for a Picard death, Ro’s character resolution actually feels earned and not like the writers picking and choosing who lives and who dies just for shock value (*cough cough* Ah cHugh *cough*).

—

11. Personal Style

Yar: Ooh la la. That hair in “Haven.” Get it, girl. We don’t see either of these characters out of uniform very often, so it’s in little personalizing elements that we get to see their own style, and Yar sure knows how to doll herself up for a wedding-planning dinner. I’ll also give a couple nods to that outfit in “That Naked Now,” though I’m pretty sure it’s alluded to that Yar yoinked that from Troi’s closet.

Ro: Ro’s defining stylistic feature is her big Bajoran earring, which she defiantly wears as a statement of heritage, culture, and a big F YOU to Riker, and we like that about her. Her little headband that we see in “The Next Phase” and “Rascals” is a little funny since it’s so matchy matchy with her uniform, so it might be a wash. I’m also gonna say the undercover garb we see her sporting in “Preemptive Strike” doesn’t count because that was for a mission.

Winner: Tasha Yar. Did we include this category just so we could give heart eyes to that great hair pouf from “Haven”? Yes. Yes, we did.

—

Verdict

That’s 5.5 points for Tasha Yar and 5.5 points for Ro Laren. We have a tie! We really weren’t expecting this, though I must admit throwing Yar a few bones (and cats) since I really thought Ro would run away with the whole thing. Even when we tried to agree to stop citing plot elements from Picard so that we could pick Ro as the winner of the Ethical Stands category, then we’d have a stalemate in the Deaths category and we’d STILL have a tie.

So what does that mean for us? Sure, we can continue to claim that Ro Laren is the better written character from a strictly story perspective (and Michelle Forbes of course is a stellar actress), but she also has the advantage of joining the show after the writers’ room chaos of the first couple seasons had sorted itself out. If Tasha Yar had been given that same chance (as we glimpsed in something like “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” we’ve just proven she’s got the potential and backstory to go toe-to-toe with one of our favorite recurring characters from TNG. You go, girls!

—

So our big fight set piece ended with both combatants sort of hugging it out, which seems the Star Trek way! We’re back to our usual character spotlights next week with a character that bridges our trajectory from TNG to DS9 (and it’s not O’Brien!). So join us for that, continue listening along to our Enterprise watch-through on SoundCloud or wherever you podcast, do the wave with us over on Facebook and Twitter, and punch like a girl!

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stackthedeck · 2 years

Note

the dd fanfic writers slowly fading is SO SAD to watch. like in january i used to refresh the mattfoggy tag on ao3 like 3 times a day and there would be several new fics every time, now there’s only like 1 fic every two days :(

I KNOW RIGHT!! I watched season 1 of Daredevil when it first came out but dropped off between seasons because there were other marvel things I was more interested in but the fact is that the fandom was active for way longer back then! Even though there was a "Daredevil Renaissance" it was incredibly short-lived and it sucks

actually, I've had this rant prepared for a long time so I'm sorry anon but I'm going to take your ask and run with it. So one of the bigger topics of discussion in fan studies is the shelf life of fandoms. Generally speaking, the fandoms that last the longest are serialized works. The best examples are tv shows: star trek, superwholock, x-files, etc. Why is this? the generally accepted answer is that there is a perfect balance of content and no content. You watch the episode and then you think about it for a week until the next one airs and the cycle repeats. You go see a movie, you'll think about it for a week maybe watch it again but eventually, you run out of things to think about. The formula for fandom is frustration+passion, enough time without content is going to increase frustration and diminish passion. This is why Harry Potter still has a thriving fanbase, the books were a series and the movies were a series, there's a lot of passion in the potential and the nostalgia and a fuck ton of frustration. So now that tv is less serialization and more binging, there's way too much content with no time to process it, audiences can find neither frustration nor passion, they simply binge.

okay but Daredevil was originally released as a binging series why did the fandom have such a short shelf life the second time around? Well for one, it's a good show and there was a lot of time between seasons. but two, the original fanbase probably watched marvel movies but they didn't have the mcu mindset yet. The mcu is serialized, it releases things with enough time between to process it but not so much time that you forget it exists, this should be the perfect Petri dish for fandom, right? My working theory is that the mcu is trying to have the best of both worlds with transformative and affirmational fans. There's plenty of merch to collect and trivia to memorize, but there are also lots of character moments and missing scenes to expand on in fic. I mean they even try to queerbait fans, they don't do it well, but they try. The mcu is trying to create the fandom of tv shows and movie franchises and they have, but the fandom model they really should be replicating is comics. Comics fans usually just have their one character or team and then are loosely aware of other things happening in the larger universe for whenever there's a company-wide event (which use to be few and far between but that's a different rant). Because comics are serialized and the big favorite characters were always going to have a book, transformative comic fans were small but consistent. But because the mcu are movie adaptations, they simply can't function like comic fandom. If you're watching the mcu, your fav may show up in a movie for a minute and that'll jump-start the fandom, but it doesn't change the fact that they haven't had a story or development since their last thing.

The mcu is huge, but it is migratory within itself (a largely unique and unstudied phenomenon in fan studies). Mcu fans engage with the mcu like it's a tv show, always waiting for the next episode or season, but because they're really so unconnected, so are the fan works. (this is not a dig at phase 4, this is a dig at the mcu as a whole because it can't tell a complete story like a tv show or film franchise without having one director and a start and an END point. It wants to be a film franchise and a comic book run, but it can't be both.) There's too much content demand of the audience and it's weird that it's all connected. It's weird that I have to watch the iron man movies to understand what's going on in the spider-man movies, that's not how it is in the comics, you just read the spider-man comics and maybe Tony Stark shows up and there will be a little foot note directing you towards the important iron man issues, but you frankly don't need to read them. There's too much content and fans can't possibly be invested in all of it. It's like if you were watching Supernatural and after season 3 we had to watch a prequel about Cas and it's only until two season of that, that Dean gets brought back, you probably wouldn't remember why you cared about Dean in the first place. Like audiences can only reasonably be invested in a team of 3 to 7 heroes, you could maybe push it to 9 or 10, but frankly, 5 is the sweet spot. Having over a dozen heroes that all have dynamics and stories is too much for me as a fan to keep up with and frankly it's too much for directors and writers to keep up with. There's so much happening all the time and there are wildly conflicting tones and fans are expected to not only watch it but remember it!

The Daredevil renaissance was over the minute the thor love and thunder trailer dropped because mcu fans are not behaving like comic book fans—picking and choosing a fav to stick with—but like tv fans. Mcu stans are fans of marvel movies first and their fav second. But like if you're a Daredevil fan—someone who likes gritty street-level heroes that are very grounding in personal drama—I wouldn't recommend high-concept sci-fi like thor or wandavison, I'd maybe tell you to watch falcon and the winter soldier, spy movies are kinda like detective crime thrillers, but there's nothing to keep you engaged with everything at least not in a transformative way. Like this method of producing content is great for people that want to watch movies once or twice and move on, but if you're someone that likes analysis and creation, you going to get burned out fast.

the problem is that there is too much content and not enough at the same time. The release schedule for phases five and six is terrifying, that's way too many movies at once. Even if by some miracle they are all high quality in every aspect, fans will not have enough time to thoughtfully think about it, discuss it, make fan works, and make decide what they want next, etc because the next thing will already be there. Like it's not marvel's job to cultivate a fandom, they want as much money as possible so more projects mean more ticket sales because people aren't seeing these movies twice in theaters. It's a cash cow and a terrible way to make art and it's disrespectful to the comics and all the creatives involved in the project. But hey that's capitalism baby. If you are really taken with a movie or show and you want to make a fan work for it, you'll have to do it fast for people to see it because they're only checking the tag for a week max. On the other hand, there's not enough content. There is a huge Moon Knight fan base and they're probably not going to get more content till phase seven. The show was good, but not cult classic good, no one will be around to watch the next season unless they give Moon Knight a cameo in one of the next movies. But at some point that gimmick is going to get old especially if it's like the Matt Murdock cameo in no way home because like...he didn't do anything, he wasn't important to the plot, there's nothing new to work with here.

like listen, Matt's going to get some more fics once She-Hulk airs and once Echo airs and he gets his own show, and freshmen year happens. Wait a second we're back at the too much content problem. All these projects are happening at the same time people are going to have so much Matt, but unless he's got a compelling story that runs through all those shows and changes him as a character, he's just another set piece no different than the glowing sky beam. All these projects have different writers and directors, mcu matt won't be Netflix matt (like god come on, that "I'm a really good lawyer" line was fun at the moment but when has matt ever said something like that in the show?) Comic fans understand that your fav is going to go do a team-up with another character and it's probably going to be out of character because it's a different author, hell sometimes your fav just has a terrible run and you IGNORE IT. You pick and choose canon with comic fandom especially when you're writing fic and you only want the storylines that respect the character and tell meaningful stories. Mcu fans haven't figured out how to do that because they have to watch everything and like everything or otherwise they've waste years of their life on this franchise. And it's like...yeah you have, these movies are military ads with a CGI coat of paint, but like sometimes a bad movie is just a bad movie and you either write a fix-it fic or you ignore it. Disrespectfully I ignore the entire comic civil war arc because I hate it and it's boring and spits in the face of a lot of growth and characterization (also Nick Fury makes Susan and Johnny Storm go undercover as husband and wife and it's like what the fuck marvel)

and so yeah. Bascially my point is that the mcu is trying to be both a comic franchise and a movie franchise but it is impossible with the constraints of the mediums and they should just commit to making good content even if it means that there's less of it. They need to find a way to assure fans that not everything needs to connect in a big cosmic plan, but it can still connect in a shared universe that feels lived in. Like I don't need Ms. Marvel to team up with Thor and Jessica Jones to fight Galaticus. like just let there be different levels of heroes and fans should just pick their favorite and stick with that. This as much content as fast as possible model may be good for making money in the short term but this will likely exhaust fans, affirmative and transformative alike, and will probably mean an unresponsive fan base in the future and this will result in fewer fans that they have to squeeze more and more money out of with no new fans coming in because you have to watch almost two decades of content (oh wow they're closer to the comic industry than I thought lmao)

yeah these fandoms have an incredibly short shelf life because Marvel doesn't take risks with their storytelling, there is no frustration or passion, only bright colors and flashing lights. Fans don't have time to develop complete thoughts about a work that goes past "I liked it" or "I didn't like it" much less develop their own creative work in response to it. the reason the Daredevil renaissance was so fun was that not only were people discovering this character for the first time, they were going back to old fanworks as well as making their own. Read old fanworks more often, I promise they're still good. That original Daredevil fanbase had lots of content stretched out for a long period of time, they had time to sit with it and think about it and analyze and create about it. But the mcu fanbase does not allow that because there's always the shiny new toy and as a fan creative, it's discouraging knowing that if I just got this fic out a month earlier people would have cared. So you stop posting because suddenly there's no passion, only frustration.

#asks #marvel #matt murdock #daredevil #mcu #fandom #fandom meta #like it's so bad for transformative fandom in the long run #i really liked writing in the spideytorch tag because the fic got way more attention than I though it would #but that because i was writing for the comic fans #sure it's a smaller fan base but it's active and your work doesn't get lost #seriously writing for not the mcu is so liberating #i have my problems with the comic industry #but fundamentally the mcu fanbase is unstable #i want younger fans to know that it didn't used to be this way #superwholock was a years long phenomenon #it is weird that a fandom is only active for a month #this is also the fault of social media to an extent #but i do want to encourage people to not jump to the thing everyone is talking about #stick with your thing for a while and engage with it deeply #because it is that deep and it's rewarding #i mean the mcu isn't that deep #but the daredevil show is

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eldritchamy · 1 year

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read your tags and. (probably) not a girl but anything else you'd recommend rn?

....How do you feel about telekinesis-based witches in very violent Korean supernatural action horror? If this sounds interesting to you, you might enjoy The Witch Part 1: Subversion and The Witch Part 2: The Other One

How about a claustrophobic, tense, atmospheric suspense horror in the vein of Alien but at the bottom of the ocean instead of deep space? Does Kristen Stewart with a butch haircut work for you? If so, watch Underwater.

While we're on the subject, Alien and Aliens. If you've never seen them, change that immediately. Alien is correctly regarded as one of the best horror films ever made, and the (imo superior) sequel Aliens is in my extremely correct opinion the best sequel ever made and one of the best movies of all time. Ellen Ripley in Aliens is my GOLD STANDARD for character arcs. Just masterful writing. Fuck Alien 3. Alien Resurrection is hot trash and VERY OBVIOUSLY a prototype for what became Firefly if you squint, but apart from a few VERY WHEDON lines it's better than Alien 3 honestly. This is not saying enough to count as a compliment. FUCK ALIEN 3. The new films (Prometheus and Alien: Covenant) are OKAY, but a completely different vibe and generally most people either only like the old movies or only like the new ones. Covenant is better than Prometheus imo. And I will say that Covenant has some of the most interesting/inventive xenomorph kills in the series. They do NOT have the same feel as the old movies, though. The design fails HARD to capture the essence of that 80s junk retro-future vibe that makes the old movies so timeless. They're supposed to be PREQUELS but the tech is way more advanced for no reason, which imo was a bad choice.

Supernatural action drama with an interesting plot that will make you wanna read the graphic novel it was based on? The Old Guard.

Wanna see the best and most underrated animated film of the last decade? I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH how much Kubo and the Two Strings was ROBBED during awards season.

Like robots smashing each other with an unexpectedly solid plot? The Bumblebee movie from a couple years ago was shockingly good, in stark contrast to every other Transformers movie.

Want some really well done scifi with a PHENOMENAL concept behind it, framed in a different way than any other first contact style movie, that will make you think about the nature of consciousness? Arrival is a masterpiece.

What We Do In The Shadows remains the best thing in the vampire genre. If you haven't seen it yet, fix that. The movie is great but the show absolutely blows it away.

Star Trek is a good evergreen choice. I don't have as much experience with it as I'd like, but I very much enjoyed TNG up until it hit writers' strike territory and things went really off the rails (mid season 5). Started DS9 but my progress got interrupted pretty hard when my dad was in the hospital for the last time. The different series have different feels to them. Not liking one show doesn't mean you won't like another one. There's plenty of Star Trek to choose from.

I am tearing through The Vampire Diaries at an impressive rate. Is it revolutionary? Not remotely. You can tell a LOT of the character archetypes were pulled from Buffy. But to be fair, it does a lot of those character archetypes better. I got into it partly for a specific character (Katherine Pierce) who is like Evil Girlboss incarnate, and partly as backstory for the world so I can eventually progress to Legacies for ANOTHER supernatural superpowered character (Hope Mikaelson). So far I'm very pleasantly surprised by how much I'm enjoying it. It's actually a good show. VERY straight, but at least the straight vampire drama is better than Buffy's (even if it's very obvious that Stefan and Damon are basically rehashed Angel and Spike).

Have you seen Shin Godzilla? It is, bar none, the best monster movie ever made. An absolute MASTERPIECE of atmospheric, slow terror as the world fails to comprehend and respond to the physical and emotional impact of a nuclear catastrophe on Japanese soil. Absolutely PHENOMENAL movie. The version with all the deleted scenes in it is even better. Incredible film.

Do you like speculative fiction about artificial intelligence, and also think Alicia Vikander is pretty (who doesn't?). Ex Machina is really interesting and good.

Like the classic stuff? John Carpenter's The Thing and the 70s Invasion of the Body Snatchers definitely live up to their reputations.

Want to turn your brain off with a comedy about morons who are in over their head? The Three Amigos is pretty good and has one of my favorite jokes in any comedy movie. (It involves a veranda).

Wanna turn your brain off with goofy kaiju bullshit? The old Toho Godzilla movies are very fun. Be mindful of the older ones, though. If it was made before 1970 and features an island setting, there's usually some outlandish degrees of racism. King Kong vs Godzilla is the worst offender, but a BUNCH from that era had very severe colorism and "primative island culture" vibes. Also probably avoid Godzilla vs Megalon, which even manages to beat King Kong as hands down the worst film in the entire series. It was filmed in under two weeks and Godzilla is only in it for the last forty seconds because it wasn't even supposed to be a Godzilla movie at all. I'm a big fan of the Heisei era movies (1985-1995) personally, with the Millennium series (1999-2004) being a close second. But if you want maximum goofy kaiju cheese, you want Showa (1954-1974). It's all rubber suit bullshit and it's a good time.

The Maleficent movies are fantastic, if you haven't seen them.

The Mummy and The Mummy Returns are cinematic masterpieces. Do not watch The Mummy 3: The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. I mean it doesn't even have Rachel Weisz, what's the point.

The Resident Evil movies are very bad. But they're a guilty pleasure if you're into really bad 2000s cheesy action. If you're into it, they're fun.

The Underworld movies are kinda like that but with vampires (and werewolves) instead of zombies. They're awful movies, but they DO have Kate Beckinsdale in a corset so you win some you lose some.

Want action cheese but more 80s? Demolition Man is fun. The original Judge Dredd is also better than it has any right to be. The NEW Dredd is genuinely a good and cool movie.

Want to watch a shitpost? Romancing the Stone and the sequel, Jewel of the Nile. Very fun to watch with friends because of how batshit insane they are.

GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE. I can't believe the post got this long before I thought of it. It's a great story about a female assassin and a polycule of librarians with guns. Sometimes a family is a little girl, the woman who shot her dad, and 4 gay aunts that love books guns and each other. Great music, too.

For turn your brain off but cute, charming, and low stakes/drama, Kiki's Delivery Service is one of my favorite Ghibli movies. It's about equal to Totoro with how gentle the world and story are. Also has some anti-capitalist vibes and a lesbian artist who lives in the woods. Plus it's about a witch, and who's not a sucker for decent witch movies?

Person of Interest is a really interesting show if you haven't seen it. It's about a national security algorithm that gains sentience and a small team of independent ex-spec ops agents use it to save people because its creator refused to let the government have access to it.

Do you want to absolutely lose your goddamn mind wondering how something ever got made? Try watching Zardoz. Holy fucking shit I've never been more confused.

Do you want that feeling but good instead of bad? Kung Fury.

Terminator: Dark Fate is the best film in the series THERE I SAID IT. It does every single thing the series NEEDED it to do to be good and relevant and fresh for a modern audience. The series has been stagnating for a long time and Dark Fate is EXACTLY the direction the Terminator franchise needed to go.

#eldritch recs #eldritch movies

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rynnaaurelius · 1 year

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2 for the end of year asks!! :]

(Ask post HERE)

Hiiiii <3

2. favourite fic of the year

I read too much fic. Hmm. Shit. We're turning this into Ryn's AO3 Wrapped: The Non-Embarrassing Version (Not An Exhaustive List At All). These were generally judged by how many times AO3 says I chose to re-visit them at 1AM and sob.

For screenreaders: Titles are hyperlinked, I'm @'ing the authors if I know they're on tumblr)

If they choose to see this: Hi. I think you're awesome. I'm just tagging you so people can find you #OnHere. I hope your Friday is rad. :)

Give him time by @obiwanobi personally came and murdered me when I went on another Star Wars kick back when Kenobi came out in June. Loosely canon-compliant, Obikin, and for big fans of characters who decide to re-work reality to bring the person they love back. Also, tragedy.

Accidental Baby Acquisition, which is basically What We Do In The Shadows + Baby. Carries the show tone off really well, is funny as hell, and features one of my favorite OCs ever in later installments in the form of Guillermo's sister Valentina.

The Uses of Adversity because I fell down The Sandman rabbithole like everyone else and "Crime Master!Hob", and this somehow became a comfort fic? He rescues Dream while imprisoned by Rodrick's son and it all spirals from there. Great characterization, great OCs, and there's a sequel happening!

Viable Alternatives, a House of the Dragon AU where Laenor exists to be more than a sad gay and artificial insemination exists! Big fan of how Rhaenyra doesn't get softened here and the Velaryons get more to do.

Time is a River was a real surprise to find, it's a time travel PJO AU that I thought was really fun--it makes Percy/Hermes work for me, which was a shock--and I kinda hope the author finds a sequel in them some day, (No pressure, of course; it was a gift to someone else, but also, it's rad and I want more).

I started reading Preserve or Raze by @foxyatlas before 2022, but the list doesn't feel right if I don't put it on here. It's a PJO AU where Percy winds up at Camp Jupiter, post-the original series, but I feel like it's cheating if I reveal the additional twist. Suffice to say, it is epic, has lots of shenanigans and worldbuilding, and I'd recommend it over Blood of Olympus anyday.

a girl who sees it all is super short, but it's a great Annabeth Chase bit, and I gotta include it.

Space Between is a Star Trek AOS one-shot in which Jim ruminates a lot in first person POV (I know! It's great! It works!) and looks pretty with his shirt off while Spock saves the day--as canon tends to go. Eventual love confessions ensue.

Went on a biiiig X-Men movies kick this year, which is the excuse for The Tower and the Hurricane being on the list. Set in a post-X-Men: First Class world where Magneto proves right and human-mutant war has ensued, and Xavier takes the school to his sanctuary. Lots of pining and tension set against a potential apocalypse, it's good times.

shoulder the sky (and the fic it inspired) is a fucking amazing Star Wars series featuring a lot of Obi-Wan whump, lot of pain, and a lot of the clones doing their best as the Jedi try to keep their shit together. 12/10, would watch everyone suffer again.

and we're gonna sing it again and again is the best Our Flag Means Death fic I have read, go argue with a wall.

kidnapping bruce wayne 'verse by @frownyalfred makes me laugh every time I read it, and is basically what it says on the tin: Bruce gets kidnapped a lot, he inevitably grows on the henchmen who are always contracted to kidnap him. There's a lot of unreliable POV in regards to A, the fact that Bruce is Batman, and B, Bruce is getting railed by Superman on a semi-regular basis, and it is prime comedy.

I regret nothing putting hand in unrebloggable hand (we go down together) on this list. Enjoy.

i won't be shamed by you is basically Buffy the Vampire Slayer is except Spike is really into reality TV and gradually infects the Scoobies with it. Background canon relationships, but the point is that Spike is invested in The Bachelor.

let not time deceive you (you cannot conquer time) is a modern The Old Guard AU where everyone is still immortal but Nicky is a millennial college student, with a lot of pining, lot of grad school and Catholic Church criticism, and a lot of angst. Also, Quynh shows up towards the end and she's a fucking delight.

I am not just recommending as wise as heaven and crueller than hell just because one of the stories was gifted to me by you. It's also fucking amazing PJO and possesses superior Nico and Luke characterization.

#i got an ask!#ryn speaks #fic recs #star wars #buffy the vampire slayer #wwdits #batman #the old guard #pjo #heroes of olympus

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tailsrevane · 1 year

Text

2022 in review, part 3: tv/webseries first watches

just as it says on the tin, here are my top 5 tv & webseries first watches this year. i counted anything where i watched a full season that i hadn’t seen before.

1. star trek: strange new worlds, season 1 (2022)

this has been that Thing they were Gonna Make Eventually and it was gonna be So Good, but given the amount of production time between season 2 of discovery and it actually starting to air it kind of stopped being something real? and it had all that time for expectations to build up in my subconscious, so that by the time it was actually Happening and trailers were starting to come out i kind of like… got super nervous about how much i was actually looking forward to it?

the more trailers i saw and the more i read about what the people involved wanted the show to be, the more excited & nervous i got, and then the pilot dropped and it just blasted me right in the part of my brain where star trek lives, and holy shit if it keeps being this good it might end up going down as the best star trek series ever?

like, it’s only been one season, i’m trying my best to manage expectations but clearly i am kind of failing at that, so uh yeah, that’s more or less where i’m at with it.

2. dimension 20: fantasy high (2018-19) & sophomore year (2019-20)

this became the default Thing We Watched for months, and i’m sure we’ll pivot back to it at some point because it’s just so damn good. i kind of don’t mind that inertia has us currently binging star trek because picard season 3 drops in february, and no matter how much i can’t stand the creative direction of that series i want my mate to have as much context as possible when we get to it.

anyway, though. dimension 20 is unreasonably good. i’m so excited there are so many seasons of it we haven’t touched yet, and i just still think it’s so wild that you can get something this good out of “a bunch of funny people sit around and play d&d.” it’s so unreasonably awesome.

3. sonic prime, season 1 (2022)

this show is having its cake and eating it in the most wild ways. like, it’s doing that whole sliders thing where sonic is jumping around to different parts of the multiverse where all of his friends are completely different, but in spite of that it’s thematically being so much about how much those friends mean to him? and how much he wants them back? and i just fucking love that every time he ends up in a new dimension, literally his first priority is “i’ve got to find tails.”

this show gets it on a level that i didn’t think something that was so very interested in being Cool could actually get it? like, i just kind of go into most sonic projects not expecting them to care about the same things i care about, so when they do it’s just this amazingly wonderful surprise and yeah sonic prime is very much that.

4. star trek: discovery, season 4 (2021-22)

i am so unbelievably glad that this show eventually became This. i really don’t like what this show was in season 1, but it’s come such a long way and it’s basically unrecognizable now. let’s fly.

5. wednesday, season 1 (2022)

oh, you have a series about my favorite goth girl with an incredible cast, incredible visuals & music, and a mystery plot for me? you shouldn’t have!

#star trek #star trek: strange new worlds #strange new worlds #dimension 20 #d20 fantasy high #fantasy high #sonic #sonic prime #star trek discovery #wednesday netflix #wednesday 2022 #wednesday series #2022 in review #year in review #tv #webseries

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mt-musings · 1 year

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Bluebell

Chapter 19

After being abruptly transferred to the BAU at what she suspects was Gideon's request, Cassie Boann struggles to find her footing. Shy and solitary by nature, the transition is made all the more difficult when Dr. Spencer Reid seems to take an almost immediate dislike to her. Unfortunately for them both, their respective areas of expertise leave them paired off more often than not. But when Cassie's past literally starts hunting her, Spencer is forced to consider that he might, in fact, not hate her at all.

Quite the opposite, actually.

Spencer Reid x OC

Warnings: Canon typical violence, kidnapping, stalking, drug use, blood, injury, death, PTSD, eventual smut, more tags to be added

Series Masterlist

Read on AO3

19. Barrel of a Gun

Cassie stood in front of the hardly used mirror in her apartment fussing with the thin black turtleneck she’d bought hoping it would look sophisticated and mature.

She cursed, pulling it off and flinging it onto her unmade bed. She didn’t know why she’d let Spencer talk her into going out with the team. Derek and Penelope had talked of dancing and she knew there was nothing in her wardrobe that was even remotely appropriate. There wasn’t any way she could wear anything like that without putting her litany of scars on full display and practically begging for questions or worse, pity.

She sighed, running a hand over the scars that covered her upper chest, her arms. She’d tried every scar cream on the market, rubbed vitamin E capsules on them every night but nothing seemed to diminish the way the scar tissue caught the light, or the raised surfaces of their number. She’d never considered herself particularly vain, but she knew even now she’d pay anything to have a doctor get rid of them, to have the ability to wear whatever she wanted without having to cover up the reminders of that night.

Maybe it would be better if she just stayed home.

She threw herself face down on her bed, burying her face in one of her pillows. Yes, it would be best to just stay in and order some takeout, maybe crack open the bottle of horilka with Chuck and watch Fight the Future until she was drunk enough to slip into dreamless sleep.

Her phone rang and she cursed.

She glanced at the caller ID before answering.

“Hello?”

“You’re still coming tonight, right? I’m just hopping on the Metro.”

She groaned. “I was actually thinking about bailing.”

“Why? It’s going to be a blast. Thomson and Moreau are going to be there and JJ said there was a handful of people from CASMIRC too.”

“It’s just not really my scene—“

“We’re going to do trivia and drink, it sounds exactly up your alley.”

“I’m not sure I—“

“You know socializing improves memory and cognition. And has been linked to reduced blood pressure and a longer lifespan.”

She sighed, scrunching her face up as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Fine. I’ll see you in an hour.”

She hung up, tossing the phone across the bed. She glared at herself in the mirror, running the heel of her hand, too hard, across the scars on her chest before pulling back on the black turtleneck and hunting down a decent pair of jeans.

---

Cassie wondered how she’d allowed Spencer to convince her to come out with them all. She had no interest in football and even less in joining the sweating masses on the dance floor. She’d tried hanging out Spencer and his egg-head cohort, but she’d never seen Star Trek or Firefly or any of the other dozen-odd shows they were competing in trivia over.

She ended up sitting on the stoop of the bar, nursing her drink as she watched passersby. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t be the first to leave, but she was regretting it, thinking longingly of sweatpants and warm blankets. She watched as JJ exited the bar, phone pressed to her ear, tension rolling off of her in waves. JJ hung up and turned, seemingly spotting her for the first time.

“We’ve got a case.”

“Thank God,” Cassie muttered, too low for JJ to hear, before downing the rest of her drink and following JJ inside to retrieve her coat. Spencer looked up as she returned, grabbing it from the back of his chair.

“Where’d you go? You missed the Star Trek lighting round.”

“I just needed some fresh air.”

“You were gone for twenty-three minutes.”

She searched his face for a moment before pulling on her coat.

“We caught a case. We gotta go.”

---

Cassie ran through her notes from the pathologist, cross-referencing them with the footage playing on Spencer’s laptop. It never got easier to watch the life stolen from someone, but at least they hadn’t suffered much. The slashing of the wrists and thighs had been overkill—important to determining a profile of the unsub, but redundant as far as cause of death. Both victims had had their carotid arteries severed, causing death between ten and thirty seconds after the laceration.

“Assuming it’s not a true given name, isn’t it a bit odd that the unsub would choose Raphael as their moniker?” She asked, perching on the side of the desk.

“Because he’s considered to be the Archangel of healing?” Spencer replied, still pouring over the video.

“Well, that and he’s not right fit for the role they’re playing. I mean, Micheal is the Sword, tasked with striking down the forces of Satan explicitly in the Bible. But Raphael only appears in the Book of Tobit. So if they’re pulling from Canon they’d most likely be of Eastern Orthodox or Catholic faith, since it’s part of the Protestant apocrypha.”

“Judging by area demographics it would be statistically unlikely for either to be Eastern Orthodox. Though I wouldn’t necessarily rule out a Protestant background just because Tobit is used as a reference.”

“It just seems strange to me. I mean, Raphael’s role is to aid Tobias’ journey and purge the demon, not punish sinners.”

“It could just be a coincidence that the name was chosen. Though if it isn’t then it does show a particularly high knowledge of scripture.”

“Seems like he’s picking and choosing what fits his mission.”

“They usually do,” he said, turning to look up at her. “You okay?”

“I’m fine, it’s just bothering me.”

“I mean other than the butchering Archangel. You just seemed off tonight.”

“I’m fine.”

“Cass—“

“I’m just not good with people. Living people, anyway. It’s a lot sometimes, you know?”

“You could have told me. I would have stepped out with you.”

“You were having a great time with everyone. It’s all fine, Spencer, really.”

“Just—just tell me next time.”

“Yeah maybe,” she said, giving him a reassuring smile before dropping her gaze. “You’ll have to drag me out again first, and I don’t envy your chances.”

“Don’t underestimate me.”

She shook her head, opening her mouth to retort when Gideon appeared, looking grim.

“We have another body.”

---

“Why do they always pick Revelations?” Cassie asked as she crouched next to the body, examining the wounds. “I’d like to see someone justify murder through Psalms for a change. I mean, Leviticus would have been the book to pull, right?”

She glanced up to where Gideon was still examining the Bible page.

“Do we have any leads yet on where he took Mrs. Douglas?”

“Not yet. Though we can infer he harbors particular resentment towards women. That and he wants us to know the name Raphael.”

She sat back on her heels, looking up at him. “Out of all the archangels, I still don’t know why he would pick Raphael.”

“There has to be some sort of significance to the unsub. Have you talked to Reid about figuring out the meaning?”

“I mentioned it in passing.”

“Is there anything else to be learned from the body?”

“Always, but for our purposes, nothing of particular relevance.”

“Then let’s leave it to CSI and head back to Atlanta. We can see if Spencer and JJ managed to dig anything up in the complaints.”

---

Spencer lay frozen on the ground as Tobias Hankel pointed his own gun at him, flipping between personalities. Suddenly everything made sense, the calls, the opposing signatures, Raphael—

Raphael who was meant to lead Tobias in ridding the afflicting demon.

Even with that gun pointed in his face his thoughts flipped to Cassie, to the way her face had scrunched as she’d tried to puzzle out the connection. He thought about the way her hand had felt in his, the rush of warmth the simple gesture had filled him with.

He thought of how he’d never told her how special she’d become to him, how he’d begun to work for her smile, he laugh, for the moments she’d get that sparkle of mischief behind her eyes. That he was happy, just being close to her.

How cruel for it all to be ripped away before it had a chance to be anything at all.

---

Cassie hated feeling helpless.

She would give anything to trade places with Spencer, for it to be her up on those screens instead of him. He must be so scared, locked in that dark room, alone, with Tobias Hankel.

She couldn’t stop thinking of the blood on the side of his face, the obvious signs of beatings—

She picked up a rock from the garden edging and thew it as hard as she could at one of the trees that lined the perimeter of the property, wishing the loud crack of the impact made her feel better about anything.

She was so useless, she’d had eighteen years to find her parents’ killer to no avail—how did she expect to find Spencer before Tobias beat him to death? And now what was she doing instead of going through every frame of that damn video?

She cursed, dropping back down to her seat on the porch steps, her head in her hands. She sobbed, silently, her whole body trembling. She needed to get up, needed to wash her face and get back in there. She needed to find him, to bring him home—

She jumped at the feeling of a hand on her back. She looked up to see Morgan crouched next to her, her hand stilling on its path to her gun.

“I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s fine. I’m sorry, I’ll be back in in a minute.” She wiped furiously at her face, trying to hide the evidence of her tears.

“I just came to come and check on you. I know how worried you are about Reid.”

“We’re all worried.”

“Cassie—“

“I just want to find him. The longer he’s there—“ she broke off, running a hand over her face. The longer he was there the higher the chances were of him not making it. The harder it would be to work through the trauma if he did.

“He’s going to be okay, we’re going to find him.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Come on, let’s see if we can find anything in the other hundred journals.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze before standing and offering her a hand.

She nodded, wiping her face one last time as she stood.

---

The drugs were preferable to the beatings, the choosing.

He’d seen Cassie on the monitor, after he’d chosen the defense lawyer and his wife—she’d looked haunted, hollow.

Was it because of his disappearance or what he had done?

Cassie wouldn’t have chosen, would have refused. He remembered the way she’d shielded that little girl in Montana with her own body, how she cried in Texas over those little kids strangled by their father—what would she think of him, after seeing his handiwork?

Gideon had said that it wasn’t his fault that he just needed to survive and pragmatically he knew that was true—he was just trying to make it out alive, buy enough time that he could be rescued. She would understand, he knew—

He looked up at the sound of the cabin door opening, unconsciously shrinking back in his bindings. Would it be Tobias who entered, or Charles, or Raphael?

---

Cassie stared at the monitor, silently willing Spencer to move, to twitch, have the slightest of inhales. She dug her nails into her arms as if to hod herself in place, forcing herself to keep looking at Spencer’s still, lifeless form.

“Come on. Come on,” she chanted, so low she barely realized she was speaking out loud. “Just a breath—“

But there was no breath, no movement. Every second of oxygen deprivation his cells were dying, his beautiful, brilliant mind withering. At four minutes there would be irreparable harm, at six—

She whipped around, fleeing from the room. She couldn’t keep staring at his slack face while her brain screamed at her, real-time, the stage of dying he was experiencing.

Would they find him before lividity set it, before rigor? Would he still look like Spencer? She gagged at the thought of his coffee-and-old-book smell mixing with the putrid sweetness of rot.

She couldn’t even remember the last thing she’d said to him.

She pushed out of the front door and cut behind the house back towards the barn. She didn’t know when she’d started crying, when her knees had given out and she’d slumped down, her breath coming in short, shallow bursts.

It had been a bad idea to go to the barn. It still reeked of blood, now mingled with the bite of decay.

She didn’t bother with any of her usual, grounding chants, instead just sinking her nails as hard into her flesh as she could manage. It was enough to stave off the worst of the panic, enough to keep rational thought. She still had to find Spencer, no matter what it took—

“Cassie!”

She didn’t look up at the sound of Emily’s voice, instead freezing, hoping that Emily would miss her in the dark.

She had no such luck as she heard hurried footsteps growing closer.

“Hey Cassie, he’s okay, he’s breathing.”

“What?”

“Tobias came back and gave him CPR.”

She looked up , her face a mess of tears. Emily crouched next to her, wiping away her tears with her thumbs.

“He’s okay?”

“We have a location. We’re going now. We're going to bring him home.”

Cassie nodded, swiping at her face as she allowed Emily to help her to her feet.

---

Cassie could have sworn her heart stopped at the sound of that gunshot.

She was always one to come in from the flank, to hang back in order to stay out of sight and make the shot its needed, but she broke out into a sprint, dropping her flashlight in the leaves as she ran.

She knew enough to stabilize a gunshot wound until the paramedics arrived, as long as it wasn’t too egregious and she would put down Hankel like a rabid dog to get there. She knew she wouldn’t be aiming to maim as she strived for, but to put a bullet between his eyes, make sure he never lay another finger on Spencer—

She saw him then, through the trees and crumbling gravestones. He was crouched over a body, a still body, as Hotch and JJ and the rest converged. They’d been closer and helped him up. He was unsteady on his feet, clearly favoring his right foot.

She didn’t know why she froze, watching the others swarm around him. Maybe it was shock, or the fact that they all had managed to maintain a level of professionalism throughout the ordeal that she’d found unattainable.

Maybe it was because he looked so fragile, so very breakable.

She watched him say something to Gideon and stoop once more next to the body. It was only after a moment when he glanced around that he spotted her, eyes going wide.

“Cassie?”

His voice was so rough but it carried and she found herself moving again without her volition, holstering her gun without a second thought. She wrapped Spencer in a bone-crushing hug, pressing her face into the crook of his neck.

He was there, he was real, he was alive.

“Spence, god—“

He tightened his grip around her, murmuring something she couldn’t quite make out into her hair. She just hugged him harder, glad that he couldn’t see her tears.

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#spencer reid #spencer reid x oc #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds #multichapter #mutual pining #slow burn

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purlturtle · 2 years

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2 for TNG

2. What I like most and least about it:

I hope you're ready for a small essay, because this is absolutely THE show that shaped me. I'll put it under a readmore so that it doesn't clutter up your dash:

I grew up with it; this was the first show I have seen every single episode of, the first show I remember making sure I didn't miss an episode of (this was back when it was broadcast on TV - German dub, no less!). So it was an absolute mainstay for the time that it ran, and also I was young enough that I don't remember how much, for example, the Locutus cliffhanger upset me. I don't even remember if I had to wait a whole summer to find out what happened next.

I love the family vibes - the fact that here is this big group of people who are jammed into this tin can together and have to somehow figure out how to get along. They don't all like each other and they have very different personalities, and watching how they make that work, how they *cherish that as a strength*, made a big impression on me - just as much as how they interacted with the alien of the week and the antagonist of the week. It was always about finding common ground, about realizing there are commonalities that drive us not matter how different we seem. That, too, has shaped me in a major way. Honestly, if you want to understand me, this is the show you wanna watch (just as Discworld is the book series you wanna read).

I also had a major crush on Deanna Troi (although it took me a while to realize that that was what it was)! I wanted to be her AND be with her; I related so much to how much she felt everything, because oh my god, do I do too. And she was never criticized for it! Never called a wimp, never told to pull herself together. Her crewmates valued it as a talent, and it sometimes saved the day! Including in the actual pilot!! Little me who always felt things way too much was very reassured. Also, either in an episode or in a novel, she tells her worrying mother "I'll never be lonely; I'll always have myself" - and that stayed with me. It made me befriend myself, be my own supporter and advocate. Definitely played a major part in how much I like myself to this day, and how easy it is for me to be by myself. Also also, since I wanted to do her job, I looked into psychology as a field of study and eventually ended up studying social work - and that was one of the best decisions of my life. Hence why I say that TNG gave me my job (usually followed by "and VOY gave me my wife", but that is a story for another day - this is already half an essay!)

Do I dislike anything about it?

Sure. There are episodes that are ABYSMAL, and later on I learned that the situation behind the scenes, for example for Denise Crosby and Gates McFadden, was awful. There are episodes that tried very hard to do the right thing, and yet fell short of their mark. The *relentless* heteronormativity is sometimes hard to bear, and you can only say "product of its time" so often. But overall, this show has a big, big part of my heart, and I will always love it. I love that the cast became such good friends. I love that its message reached me so thoroughly. I honestly would not be the person that I am today, in very many ways, had I never encountered it.

(I'll add that all of this happened very much in a vacuum for me. I never connected to other fans; fandom culture such as existed in the US back then and is even more ubiquitous now was nowhere near as big in Germany, and didn't reach me at all. I didn't have a friend group to squee with, or people who would introduce me to fan fic, or any other form of contact to other fans. I didn't know what shipping was, or the importance of Spirk. I never went to a convention until 2012. So all of these experiences are very "Star Trek and me", and not "Trekkies and me", if that makes sense.)

#ask meme #ask me about TNG and get a novel in reply 😅

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borgchip · 2 years

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"emh transfeminine swag" anon here. now that you've watched "body and soul" i can go ahead with my explanation.

to start at the beginning, his early arc revolves around getting the rest of the crew to recognize his personhood and finding his identity with the help of kes. (kes also reads as trans to me but that's more of a vibes thing) because he was modeled after a man, he assumes that gender by default and puts himself firmly in that box, not thinking that there's an option to be anything else. becoming "he" instead of "it" is an improvement, but not entirely fulfilling. he searches for a name but limits himself to masculine ones, never finding one that fits, eventually settling on the neutral "doctor".

later on, he creates a holographic simulation of a home life, casting himself as the stereotypical patriarch. he tells his friends that he wants to better understand his patients, but in the process he reinforces his position as a man. the family he creates is perfect, but hollow. every word they say is so positive as to sound forced. they have "the most wonderful husband and father in the quadrant", an admiration that hinges on his masculinity.

then we meet dr. zimmerman, the man who created the emh and who he views as a father. he states plainly that he wants his father to be proud of him. zimmerman has a complicated relationship with the mark 1, after putting so much of himself into it only for the program to be essentially discarded by starfleet. the emh proves his worth (and to an extent, zimmerman's own) to zimmerman and succeeds, but the process was long and difficult. after all that, he doesn't want to make any changes to himself, other than what can be explained as technological improvements, in order not to betray zimmerman's intentions for him and lose the admiration he worked so hard for.

the only time he allows himself femininity is out of necessity, when he must download into seven's implants to hide from hologram-hating aliens. this leads to him possessing her. he spends much of this time giddy, trying to have as many experiences in his new body as possible. in the episode, he also befriends one of the aliens and another becomes romantically interested in him. he leans into these relationships and seems to enjoy the social aspect of being viewed as female. however, as he's experiencing this gender euphoria, he has to contend with the knowledge that if they find out that he's really a hologram, ie "really a man", they will be disgusted by him. not only that, they will actively try to kill him. in the end, he isn't killed, but his new relationships never recover from that discovery.

the fallout from that experience pushes him further back into the closet, as he doesn't experiment with gender again for the rest of the series. the subtext that this reading stems from doesn't give us the happiest ending, but unfortunately i think it's one many trans people can relate to, and it means a lot to me.

🥺🥺 this is so sweet... well, ok, maybe not sweet considering the sort of ending we're talking about but... to be honest anon, I can COMPLETELY see where you're coming from. And how well thought out !! I always sort of saw the doctor as somewhat agender but like I'm really starting to consider the opposite direction. I feel like the timeframe that voyager came out was such a waste in terms of exploring things like this. Imagine if the writers actually noticed this trend and actually discussed it/explored it IN episode !! And actually getting to see the doctor figure themself out!! I mean. tbh idk if they'd even explore it NOW considering all the dudebros that go mental over star trek doing anything "liberal" but. WE can explore it... that's the best we can have considering snfjsjg. I MEAN IN TERMS OF DECODING SUBTEXT I THINK YOU'RE DOING A HELL OF A JOB ! I love this... TYSM FOR REMEMBERING ANON?? AND SHARING?? I LO V E META LIKE THIS ESPECIALLY ABT GENDER/SEXUALITY AND. MY FAVE CHAR IT MAKES ME SUPER HAPPY 🥺🥺 U remembered to come back ,,

I genuinely wish he still had kes around cause I can imagine her helping with stuff like this so much and being so supportive :'( but that's only me

Also does give rlly new meaning to in that ep the sort of bitterness when he says "there's NO women like me..." like...ouch.

ALSO I DEFINITELY ALREADY AGREED W THE SORT OF...STARTING OUT AND JUST ASSUMING THE HYPERMASCULINE ROLE. Because that's like. All he knows. It's all he's seen. And yk...trying to be seen as a person as a hologram is hard enough, maybe he also doesn't wanna "rock the boat" by asking to be seen as a woman too, as sad as that is.

#I. definitely think that they and renick would've had a real sorta relationship #yk. if the writer's werent COWARDS.#ch.mail

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crowsinmystarship · 1 year

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Finished my DS9 rewatch with my husband. First time he ever saw it.

Personal stuff under the cut. Just venting some feelings, mostly grief.

I started watching Star Trek again as a response to grief.

Due to some tragic events I don't want to get into, both of my parents passed away before shortly Christmas 2021. It has left me realing and dealing what is probably PTSD but I can't really afford therapy right now.

As a way of coping I guess, I started to watch Star Trek. It's something I used to watch with my Dad growing up, had a lot of happy memories. Often when I visited my parents, the TV would be on and my dad was probably watching some sci-fi reruns (Star trek/Babylon 5/Stargate etc). So I guess I wanted to feel close to my Dad again, now that he was gone.

It started with a few random episodes here and there, ones I remembered enjoying. Eventually collared my husband into watching a few. He has never been much of a Sci-fi fan and he thought Star trek would be boring. but he came around really quickly, and asked if we could watch the whole DS9 series since I said it was my favourite.

So for the past almost a year, that's what we have been doing every week, setting some time aside to watch a few episodes of DS9. He really got into it. It was hard not to spoil some of the funnier things that happened before he watched them. His reaction to Thomas Riker taking off his beard was spectacular cause he had 0 context. We had to pause the episode for 20 minutes cause he was laughing so hard cause he was so confused. It's been really fun.

Upon reflection, I think Deep space 9 was a good one to watch this past year. One of its main themes is grief, and how we move on and recover from it. And I think I needed to hear or see those stories told, especially after this year.

We finished watching DS9 last night, day before what would have been my Mother's birthday. And it's getting close to the first anniversary of their deaths. And here was another thing that was ending. I wept.

But I am grateful for it helping me get through what has been the most difficult year I've been through so far. I'm grateful that I was able to share this with my husband, and we've been able to joke and shitpost about it to each other, and has brought us even closer. Its been a crutch when I've been at my weakest, telling me that it will get better.

To quote Nog.

Am I ok? No, but I will be.

#personal #you can comment but no reblogs pls #grief #death

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chacusha · 2 years

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Picard season 2 review

I finished watching this a while ago, but just didn't have time to write up my thoughts in detail. Basically, the first half was promising; the second half was noticeably worse both in terms of general writing and how the things hinted at/established in the first half ended up paying off in the end. The writing, while probably better overall than Discovery season 4, nevertheless had a lot of the same issues. And then on top of that, I dislike every bit of worldbuilding Picard did and am going to consider this show non-canon. More thoughts, lots of Picard negativity:

Okay starting with the positives, I thought the episodes and pacing were quite good in Picard. I also think the writers did an impressive job of giving all the members of season 1's extremely motley cast something interesting to do this season, which I imagine was really hard because they all have such disparate jobs/life trajectories! There's also a lot of fanservice characters/cameos, which I appreciate.

By the end, though, the characters started having the Disco S4 problem of stating exactly what they're feeling in long speeches.

Also, another major issue with Picard S2 is that the plot is centered around a convoluted time travel plot. Time travel plots have to be handled very carefully because time travel mechanics tend to have weird consequences for both stakes and causality. The more seriously you take a time travel plot and the more drama you try to add, the more possibility for mismatch there is between characters' emotional reactions and the stakes of the show. For example, the show spends a lot of time on the characters grieving Elnor and being glad he gets to still live... but what about all the borgified soldiers from the 21st century who presumably were neither borgified nor killed in the original timeline where the Borg Queen WASN'T brought to Earth by Picard et al., but were killed in order to create a timeline that eventually leads to averting a disaster with a catastrophic death count? Do those soldiers and the Borg Queen's other casualties not deserve mourning? Is their sacrifice for the future not recognized? There is an odd mismatch in tone between the tenderness of Q orchestrating this elaborate series of events to give Picard closure (and also save all those future lives) and the way Elnor is mourned and ultimately revived vs. the way faceless and nameless people are literally used by Q as pawns and killed by the Borg Queen or Raffi et al. to create this future. The show just glosses over this entirely.

And then here are all the creative decisions / retcons / worldbuilding that I did not like:

So, at the time I watched Picard season 1, I hadn't actually seen Voyager so Seven was just, "like, some person I guess" to me when she appeared. Now that I have seen Voyager, though, I am retroactively pissed that they didn't make Seven Starfleet. And then season 2 makes it canon that she was rejected because of racism?! Do not want. Like, if they really wanted Seven to be a ranger living on the rough-and-tumble edge of society, they could have had it so that Seven applied for Starfleet just by default, but Janeway took her aside and said, "Look, you can already do any job on any ship in the Federation. But the thing the Federation can offer you is variety and choice. There are a whole lot of ways to live out there. Go out and try some. And if you decide Starfleet is what you want after all, then, fine, you'll always have a family here. But I want you to know you can do whatever you want." And if Seven then decided she liked being a ranger, cool! But no, this world has to be depressing and so Seven gets rejected from Starfleet because of anti-Borg racism. WTF? I mean, I guess they've already established that the Federation in this world is hella racist against Romulans and synthetics, so this isn't surprising worldbuilding but yeah, I do not approve.

Just... the whole thing with Picard's mother. I don't buy that the advanced Star Trek future wouldn't have better ways of treating mental illness and preventing suicides other than locking people in rooms.

Also, I especially don't like the implication that they kept hinting at, that the reason why Picard became a Starfleet captain and did a bunch of good deeds is to make up for the responsibility he feels for his mother's death. This SUCKS. This fundamentally Misses the Point of the Star Trek future. The point is, people in the Star Trek future are good by default -- either because human nature is good or because a good society is set up so that you get inculcated with the right values as a matter of course, and you're given the resources and support in order to be a good person. The notion that people need to experience personal tragedy in order to be accomplished and want to do good in the world (they didn't outright say this, but it seemed like that was what was going on with Picard at least) is just... bad, verging on tragedy porn or idolization of suffering.

Oh yeah, also, I did not like the implication that the reason why Picard never settles down with anyone is because he believes he is fundamentally unlovable. Bleh. Boring. Why can't it just be the case he is aromantic or just has other things going on in his life that he values? There is so much character development and establishing for Picard throughout TNG where he's presented with the choice of family life and his career and he picks his career every time, and is at peace with that choice. It's not like he doesn't value family but it just is never the number one thing for him. And that's a perfectly fine way of being. Maybe this wasn't the intention, but the idea that Picard's singleness was actually all along because he had Psychological Hangups that needed to be Fixed rather than he's just not that into romance feels like the show has difficulty imagining ways of life outside a conformist sort of pattern.

In general, I do not like the Borg Queen because it turns the Borg from "a very alien lifeform of collective consciousness with unclear/inscrutable purpose because it's just a bunch of people thinking together and who knows what that gets you," to, like, "one Very Evil Lady and her drone army, I guess." That ship has very much sailed at this point, though. Anyway, having the Very Evil Lady actually turn out to be a Very Lonely Lady who just wants Connection and is only doing bad stuff to fill a hole in her heart is... somehow even more underwhelming. And also indicative of the general issue with Discovery and Picard, which is that they do not actually do very well at portraying actual difference; everyone ultimately wants love, connection, etc. Rather than seeing new life and trying to understand it and learn to accept it despite differences, these shows instead settle for discovering how other life is just like us, actually, and ultimately everyone just wants the same things we want and that's what makes love and connection possible. (Contrast, for example, with the way TNG portrays Klingons (e.g. Riker's Klingon exchange program), who have a hot mess hierarchical society and practices that are intense and violent and really go against Human morality, and yet the Federation still manages to maintain friendly relations with them, or the way Voyager portrays Tuvok's really quite cold/distant and unemotional approach to parenting and how it still portrays him as a legitimately good parent.)

While I thought Rios's romantic plotline was cute, the idea that he doesn't fit in the future and has nothing to give up by living in the past kind of invalidates his whole plot arc from season 1... But yeah, I'll forgive this one since the writers seemed to be juggling a lot of balls with the main cast and this might be the most satisfying arc that could have been written for Rios.

(Also, maybe: "Picard's brother? Never heard of him." I guess? I can't tell if they removed him from existence or he just happened not to be relevant in any of this Picard family drama. 🤷‍♀️)

(I also couldn't tell if they were retconning Picard and Guinan's timelines. Shouldn't 21st century Guinan recognize Picard because she already met him in the 19th century? Are they removing that, or is her timeline nonlinear too? I don't get this. )

I just find the worldbuilding in Picard very unimaginative -- it cannot imagine a world where people are good and what the implications of such a world would be, and it can't imagine learning to love and accept people who are actually truly different rather than revealed to just secretly be an instance of what we already view to be relatable. As such, I would like to disregard all of this show's additions to the universe entirely.

#star trek #star trek: picard #st picard negativity

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