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You're not immune to being the bully btw. You're not immune to being in the wrong

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*i spin the wheel to the right so hard i dislocate both my arms*

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Okay I know we all joke about how the Star Trek First Contact handshake is accidentally a kiss, but the more I think about it, the more I feel it actually works in-universe and elevates the scene.

There are dozens of sci fi stories where first contact is fumbled based on a misunderstanding and it turns into a massive war. Babylon 5, Ender's Game, several Star Trek episodes in fact. Two different peoples meet but are just a bit too different and we murder each other over nothing. That's just how it goes, right? Realistic, if depressing.

And in Star Trek's first human contact, everything is set up for a fumble. Cochrane is an engineer with zero political skills, and while the Vulcans who come in have at least learned English they're far from an official diplomatic envoy. Earth is not in great shape and they've no idea aliens even exist, so there's a chance for tension. And when the captain does the traditional salute, the human can't even move his fingers into the right configuration, and instead offers his hand. In Vulcan terms, this is about the equivalent of offering a handshake and the other guy wants to shove his tongue down your throat. Plenty of room for disgust, misunderstanding, conflict, another warning about the dangers of difference.

But that isn't what happens. The Vulcan captain sees this and accepts it, reaching out to complete the gesture. He doesn't fully understand what's happening, but he saw Cochrane at least try to do the Vulcan salute, so he chooses to assume the best of him. To meet him where he's at, even if it's a bit awkward for him personally. And it works out. He and his crew are invited for drinks and music, and the dominoes are instead sent towards ending humanity's dark age and starting the Federation. All because the Vulcan captain saw past what could have been an insult and gave humanity the benefit of the doubt.

Star Trek is not a perfect universe where human-Vulcan first contact goes 100% smoothly. Star Trek is a universe where first contact is nearly a diplomatic incident, but they're able to move past that and create something better because both sides chose to be open-minded and compassionate. It might not be (fully, the scene is meant to be a bit awkward but not that awkward) intended, but damn if it doesn't work.

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Captain’s Log, April 5th, 2063. The voyage of the Phoenix was a success, again. The alien ship detected the warp signature and is on its way to rendezvous with history.

STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT (1996) dir. Jonathan Frakes

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middle aged lady on my bus just called someone's partner "your whimsical idiot boyfriend" over the phone . with sincere frustration might I add

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grabbing like 80 percent of the lesbians I know by the shoulders and saying listen. listen. you have to stop categorizing everyone and everything into Women (Good) and Men (Bad). you might not think you’re doing it, but you are. it’s very clear from the ways in which you talk about trans men and bi women and your experience with gender and your difficulties in the dating scene that on some subconscious level, you think that moral purity is directly proportional to how much Man Stuff somebody has in their life. that contact with men and male-associated cultural byproducts will give you Boy Cooties. it won’t. but I can tell you think it does, and so do all of your trans friends, and it makes us all uncomfortable. so cut it out

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I don’t think we talk enough about how, despite the presence of multiple globes, PotC takes place on a flat earth, ice wall included.

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quick reminder that everything russia’s doing to ukraine isn’t new. there were 170 governmental bans on ukrainian language in the last 150 years. most of ukrainian writers from the basic school literature curriculum were murdered or oppressed for speaking out for ukraine. an average person doesn’t have to know executed renaissance or slovo house or the ems ukaz or forced russification or literally hundreds of similar precedents, but please do note that this all was a thing long before putin

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Mal's Avatar: The Last Airbender rewatch: The Boiling Rock (Part 2) 3.15

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“Appeal to a wider audience” is corporate lingo for “strip more themes from a piece of media so it’s safer and more sanitized for investors���

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I'm pretty sure I remember seeing a fandom post talking about Bashir having had some kind of brain surgery to make him the Smartest Guy Ever but I am eight episodes in and I have yet to see any evidence of this guy being smarter than my rabbit that tried to eat shoes

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vlad_shevchenko

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