#Borg fuckery

[rocket-sith]

Q GOT TIRED OF MAKING ROBINHOOD LARPS SO HE DECIDED TO OPEN FOUR DIFFERENT CHRONO-TRIGGER SAVE FILES AT THE SAME TIME INSTEAD, but only one needed further progress (non-linear progress of course), two were already complete but were saved in the wrong place and missing a sidequest (lol time being non-linear what?), and the fourth was a big ol' sparkly decoy, a glitched file of nonsensical bits n bites, alluringly named Picard, that nearly crashed the game and took everything with it while you were busy looking for continuity in all the wrong places.

Behold! Season 2 of Picard, AKA Facepalm Theater Presents, AKA "Dude, where's my Tapestry?"

Love it, hate it, WTF it, or some should-be-impossible combination thereof - but somehow, you feel it. Are you in one or both of those last two camps? Yeah, me too. But I think I might have a theory. And no, it's not bunnies. (I rambled a bit about this somewhat in the A/Ns and comment thread of one of my fics a few weeks back, but the proper brain dump belongs here).

Season 2 of Picard is neither episodic, NOR is it one major overarching story with various sub-plots. It's FOUR overarching major stories, well-conceived in theory (mostly), but thrown together as gracelessly and incoherently, with the same abundance of panic and lack of transitions as the night-before-it's-due school essays we're all so painfully familiar with perpetrating. (Admittedly, a lot of us got pretty good at being zero-hour coherent by the time we got to high school, but apparently, this skill does not translate to timetravel via stellar slingshots and demigod trolls.) So that leaves us with - 

Picard Season 2: A Trek in Four Acts Loosely Disjointed and Sloppily Squished Together Parts. Feast your eyes, rub your temples, and buckle up. 

CRIS AND THERESA'S WILD RIDE: (Love story, social commentary, classic Trek shiz focused on the more touching/emotional side of temporal shenanigans.)

RENEE PICARD'S TIME HEIST AND EVEN WILDER RIDE:  (Classic Trek shiz, classic time travel fuckery, focuses on the more action-packed side of temporal shenanigans.)

THE RED HERRING, AKA THE ROCKY HORROR PICARD SHOW:

Supposedly the main plot, but really a completely ridiculous distraction that's the narrative equivalent of dumping sand in the snowglobe and violently shaking it up. Captain Picard takes a wrong turn at Albuquerque and has to go do the Timewarp (again) in some creepy old castle so he can be magically transported back home. Yeah, okay buddy, just don't forget the teddy and the TP rolls to throw around the theater.

Cut this entire arc out, and the season improves substantially in both enjoyability and coherence. (I said what I said.) If any of the four major threads don't belong, don't move the story forward, and only serve to muck things up - it's this one. It's not so much an arc as a collapsible squiggly line that looks like it might go somewhere but never does. Great if you're drunk with a shadow cast and some floorwalkers. Not so great if you're actually trying to figure out WTF is going on. 

TAPESTRY RIDES AGAIN, AKA GRAND THEFT BORG QUEEN LOS ANGELES: And now for the main event, which was literally announced as such in one of the episodes, by two people breaking the fourth wall who were probably the LAST people anyone was expecting to break the fourth wall: Seven and Raffi. So naturally, we viewers took it as a couple of throwaway comments and cute banter to lighten the dark/intense mood of all the other crap. Yeah, oops. We can't say they didn't warn us.

At one point the two of them are joking around, talking about how they're the main event, and all these other side stories are just side stories, but...yeah. Looking back after S3, that was not a joke, and it goes above and beyond the call of foreshadowing. It was a flat-out tell, and with ALL the potential fourth wallbreakers in S2 - Q, the Borg Queen, The Traveller, the Long-Lived Alien Bartender With Multiple Mysterious Powers, The Temporally Flexible Romulan Spy Of Dubious Origin - if somebody's gonna spill some futuristic tea, it's gotta be one of them, right? RIGHT? Nope. Seven and Raffi snuck in the back door.

Basically, the Grand Theft Borg Queen arc was Tapestry, but for Seven (and Raffi and Jurati to an extent). Jurati and Raffi were, IMHO, initially intended to be pieces on the gameboard, not players, but they made themselves into major players. To what extent Jurati's involvement in outsmarting the Borg Queen was meant to be a challenge for her by Q, or part of Seven's trial that Jurati unwittingly assisted in IDK, and ditto Raffi's major role in all the aforementioned drama, but either way - Seven finally accepting herself the way she is, Borg hardware and all, was a direct, not even subtle parallel to the TNG episode Tapestry. 

The most direct link is the scene in Tapestry where Picard realizes he'd rather die as his true self than live as his other-universe self who "corrected" the "mistake" that led to his artifical heart. Seven accepted that she would rather live as her Ex-B true self than die as a fully organic human, and in doing so, passed the test. 

And Jurati and Raffi played no small part in that realization, and passed their own tests in the process - with Raffi embracing Seven (literally and figuratively) while resisting the urge to manipulate Cris out of choosing his own fate, and Jurati outsmarting and merging herself with the damn Borg Queen to protect humanity and her friends. Seven passed the Q Troll test with flying colors, and Raffi and Jurati did too - giving us Elnor and a benevolent Borg Queen in the future as a result. (Q is totally one of those teachers who gives his students rewards for passing the Big Test.)

Fire up S2 of Picard, get your Fast Forward button ready, and follow the Grand Theft Borg Queen: Los Angeles arc and ONLY that arc. Skip over every single thing (other than Q monologing, as that's the one common thread) that doesn't have Seven, Raffi, and/or Jurati. You'll get an entirely different experience. It's Tapestry, but for Seven, and with different tests/opportunities for Jurati and Raffi. (And they all pass). 

Now do it again, but FF anything that ISN'T either part of the Renee Picard Time Heist plotline or part of Cris and Theresa's story. You'll get a classic Back to the Future, MCU, Reset the Timeline, Poke-An-Alternate-Reality's-Doom-Destination-With-A-Stick style story. And they all pass too. Cris and Theresa get their happily ever after and punt the primeline forward through the next generation of temporally paradoxical, adopted and found family members. 

As for the BS at Chateau Picard? It's all a decoy/charade. So come in costume, bring plenty of shit to throw, and chug the wine. You'll need it. 

[rocket-sith]

So I'm guessing this was part of her actual exoskeleton that the doctor removed, and not something that was inside or fused to her human body?

I think the Doctor went too far with how much tech he stripped from her before she could really consent to anything, but at the same time, it seemed like they didn't realize how much of an actual human was really there until after they stripped the tech away.

It's like she started out as a science experiment, like the scientist dissecting the alien in ID4, but then they were like, "Oh shit, that's a person."

Rewatching Revulsion and I just noticed this for the first time. This is the episode Chakotay assigns Harry and Seven to work together and update/upgrade the Astrometrics Lab with Borg tech.

I was watching along until I hit this scene:

Seven: The proper instrument was part of my thoracic assembly before the Doctor removed it.

Do you mean to tell me the Astrometrics Lab doesn't just have any Borg part-- but it's actually upgraded and made from Seven's own parts???

And thoracic, or thorax, from wiki:

The thorax (pl.: thoraces or thoraxes)[1] or chest is a part of the anatomy of mammals and other tetrapod animals located between the neck and the abdomen. [snip] The human thorax includes the thoracic cavity and the thoracic wall. It contains organs including the heart, lungs, and thymus gland, as well as muscles and various other internal structures. Many diseases may affect the chest, and one of the most common symptoms is chest pain.

The navigational data that helped Voyager through large swathes of space was from Seven's internal implants, from her thoracic!

Also, this is the first episode where Seven gets injured as an ex-Borg:

I don't think Seven even considered she could get hurt before this moment. But this is a rude awakening for Seven, and the first among many instances where Seven realizes she's not as invincible as she used to be. And she has to constantly visit Sick Bay just to function regularly.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Pre-existing Conditions 

[HELP ME!] All that is wrong with you Lies in wait For the trigger  to go off. An imbalance from the father Healed by the child. [”Why? Wait. Please, please, don’t-!”] Very frightened. Very frightened. Shameful. Uncontrolled. [This is a holy time.] Are you afraid? Is not even this safe? [Pagh’tem’far B’tanay.]

[mortiflyer]

compilation of weird results at this open so far

bc my last post made me wonder what other kinds of fuckery have occurred less than two rounds deep

atp:

6-4 4-6 3-6 6-3 7(10)-6(8) [rinderknech d. eubanks, r1]

2-6 6-1 3-6 6-1 6-4 [marozsan d. medjedovic, r1]

6(6)-7(8) 7(7)-6(2) 7(7)-6(4) 4-6 6-4 [evans d. khachanov, r1]

4-6 5-7 6-1 6-2 6-2 [rublev d. rinderknech, r2]

6(5)-7(7) 0-6 6-4 6-4 7-5 [lehecka d. krueger, r2]

6-3 4-6 6-4 1-6 6-3 [etcheverry d. cerundolo, r2]

6(4)-7(7) 2-6 6-2 7(7)-6(5) 7(10)-6(3) [mensik d. schoolkate, r2]

6(8)-7(10) 6-3 6-2 7(7)-6(1) [goffin d. mannarino, r2]

6(1)-7(7) 3-6 6-0 6-3 6-1 [ruud d. shang, r3]

6(5)-7(7) 6-1 3-6 7(8)-6(6) 6-0 [borges d. mensik, r3]

6-3 6(4)-7(7) 6-0 6-0 [de minaur d. evans, r3]

wta:

6(4)-7(7) 6-0 7-5 [alexandrova d. tomova, r1]

0-6 7-5 7-5 [burel d. stephens, r1]

6-1 3-6 6-1 [kalinina d. dodin, r1]

6-3 0-6 7-5 [ka. pliskova d. sherif, r1]

0-6 6-1 7-5 [krueger d. zhang, r1]

7(12)-6(10) 6-1 [kostyuk d. dart, r2]

4-6 6-1 7(10)-6(8) [badosa d. ruse, r3]

2-6 6-1 6-2 [sabalenka d. alexandrova, r3]

rb if you want this updated lol

[therealaves-blog1]

I want the void to see my takes on Star Trek: Coda

I have opted to read Star Trek: Coda, the tilogy that sort of closes out the pre-disco/pre-picard eu novelverse that carried on from the shows and the movies from like the 90s to I think late 10s?

Three dudes put it together and wrote each book. Book 1 (Moments Asunder) is by Dayton Ward someone I admit I am unfamiliar with. Im mostly doing this cause this lil EU has a soft spot in my heart for having read the Destiny Trilogy (Borg War mentioned below) one of the Titan books (Sword of Damocles, fun time nightmare) and the first DTI book ‘Watching the Clock’ (The DTI is basically the Federation’s Time OSHA) Destiny was very cool for teen me (dont know if it holds up but the Aventine is a certified banger of a starship).

 DTI follows fan favorites Dulmer and Lucsly from that one ep of DS9 as they deal with time bullshit, the Temporal Cold War from Enterprise, local DTI counterparts and their superiors/successors from Uptime: The TIC of the 19th Century (Temporal Integrity Commission from Voyager, actually Time Cops kind of dicks) and the FTA from the 31st century (the reformed version of the TIC who are much less angy about everything and more yoda to their mace windu.) 

I bring this up because its a good book (need to read the others) has some fun stuff about how time works and linking different Time Episodes from TNG - ENT and has my favourite detail about the DTI: the entire department hates Kirk for his time crimes (his frequent jaunts through history is stated to be a big factor in the forming of the department) and Janeway for her own time crimes which led to a fun story where Lucsly quit in disgust when DTI and FTA agents stopped them from sending her to time war criminal jail (Uptime agents are by default in charge because) for vague time reasons (listed below)

Fun opener: lists pertinent details of the setting in dot point form like Sisko was in the wormhole for like one year lmao, ds9 got blown up by the breen and so they built another one but federation design and its ds9 2. Ro Laren is in charge because Kira decided to be a Vedek. Some of this is stated, some of this I learned in the few other books Ive read, and some of this is a wiki dive on Memory Beta (its like their official licensed but not canon works wiki, lots of cool ships pictures.) Apparently those weird critters that got into starfleet in early TNG were a trill offshoot from 1000 years back that basically left Trill to make their perfect joined society in space with no normies and then did some genetic fuckery and accidently made them into Goa’ould that are insane and want to do genoicde. They thought they got them all and just erased that part of their history but Dax finds out about it from the big trill that lives inside those caves which is super old and because of political issues its agreed all symbionts will return to the caves following their current hosts death until a sufficient number is reached so that anyone who wants to join can be joined.

Janeway died stopping a Borg attack where they ate Pluto and was then resurrected a year later by Q to help the full circle fleet (federation exploration fleet equipped with slipstream drives that were perfected from Voyagers info, sent to look at how the Delta Quadrant is doing) with a negative space wedgie that she'd solved in the history where she didn't commit crimes against the timeline. It has something to do with the Q and the Omega molucule being like opposite forces and the Q Continuum are creative balances or something to the Omega Continuum’s raw chaos? and a crew member of full circle is like a child of Omega somehow, Idk, these summaries arent great. They figure out how to stop it from blowing up the universe and Lady Q is pissed cause it kills q, but Q understands why it happened and says she’ll forgive Janeway in time. Ensign Omega also dies but she was books only I think. They only lose a few billion years from the lifespan of the universe which seems pretty good all things considered.

Data also was resurrected 5 years after he died in Nemesis (they figured out how to pull his brain out of B4) and so was Lal (they figured out how to pull her brain out of Data and make a body that didnt brain destroy itself). Bashir also dated nice augment lady from those two eps of DS9 which I dont really like as a concept because of the whole power dynamics they acknowledge in that episode. Also hes recovering on Cardassia with Garak after the 31 stuff listed below. Tom Parris and Belana Torres are still together but had to flee with the full circle fleet cause their kid is apparently some Klingon messiah or some shit.

its been two years since the Borg war, where they assaulted the entire alpha and beta quadrant in a 'more trouble than they're worth' attack. It was solved by time bullshit, learning the origin of the Borg (which I admit I liked when I read), and a higher species led by the now functionally immortal Captain Hernandez (archers ex from that one ep of Ent with the Columbia who managed to survive the og event that inspired the Kobayashi Maru Test and limp to a planet with advanced alien leading to a bootstrap paradox deal.) It led to a bunch of bullshit including andoria briefly seceding, the romulans, the gorn, the breen, the tholians and others making the typhon pact which is sort of the federations counterpart in peaceful exploration and expansion but of the bad guy races (of them only the romulans and some gorn are actually trying to do the whole peace in our time thing the rest use it as a military alliance).

The Federation and Klingon Empire responded by expanding the Khitomer Accords to include the ferengi (now less libertarian and shit, thank you based Rom who immediately accepted entrance into the accords), cardassia (now less fascist and shit, maybe thanks Garak on that one? idk, need to read A Stich in Time still), the free romulan state (the supernova happened and basically split the empire ideologically into the hardliners and the nicer ones, the nice ones were going to join but got forcibly absorbed into the Typhon Pact) and the Talarians (cant place em, think they were in like one ep of TNG?).

Bashir succeeded in taking out Section 31 and their crimes were exposed but it accidentally implicated Picard because he helped remove a corrupt federation president who 31 then had quietly moided. Riker is an Admiral (suck it Picard) with the Titan as his psuedo flagship as he leads exploration efforts in the Beta Quadrant (and Tuvok is there, yay Tuvok!). The Titan is also a certified banger of a starship.Riker was its former Captain but got promoted for the whole ‘helping directly neutralize the Borg forever’ thing. He and Deanna have a kid which the lizard man chief doctor helped deliver (I like him, hes fun and I think makes jokes about being a carnivore). His ex and former XO, Christina Vale, is the permanent captain and im sure she and Deanna have a lot of fun talking shit about the admiral behind his back. Part of why Titan is a banger is that it has the most diverse crew in the Federation, so lots of weird aliens! we start at human plus with Melora Pazla from that one DS9 ep and going way way harder.

I love when they just have weird races, one of the crew members is from a race of like predator shapeshifters who look like gold and have a humanoid form because their bionest mother or whatever decided it would aid in working with humanoid species. There also Ensign Torvig who is from a race cybernetically uplifted by another race and was very emotionally fraught during the borg thing because of depressing existential questions about cybernetic life. Seemed like a good egg from what I remember (not literally, they're like deer-ish if I remember right?).

Bajor is in the federation too now, but further research indicates Quarks is now a bar and embassy so he can keep making money in utopia. Must be nice having your based Union Chad Brother leading your people. also in this eu canon, Sisko got back from the celestial temple a whole year before Janeway got home? which is very funny to me. Also Rom and Leeta had 3 kids and stopped Brunt from couping him with false marriage contracts or someshit (suitable Ferengi). Good for him, glad he and Leeta made it work (and also created a workers paradise Im assuming). The Enterprise E is currently in the Odyssean reach or something, charting space and making friends on the border with the romulan chunk of the Pact States. Yay! Boldly going!

I think that's everything relevant to the starting line? Jesus this is set barely 10 years after Nemesis. Shit hit the fucking fan for a few years there. And now it appears to be again with some kind of weird time nonsense, will our beloved characters be able to stop history going bad? again? again? Will we see some cool ships? Will Captains not named Picard or Riker get to be cool as hell? Will Lt. Cmdr. Nog be promoted from acting Assistant Chief Engineer to Chief Engineer of DS9 2? Wiil Chief O’Brien be brought back from Starfleet Academy just to suffer? Those answers lie in the next post and beyond!

[rocket-sith]

Latent Image is a massive shitshow of this particular flavor of moral fuckery on multiple levels too. At first, it's basically like Measure of a Man but not boring and addresses the issue of the Doctor's personhood rather than Data's.

But... that almost exact conversation up there takes place with Janeway and Seven after Seven lights the fuck into Janeway for not treating the Doctor as a person. Seven actually starts to get scared that Janeway will stop seeing her as a person too because of the way Janeway is treating the Doctor, and it's a big damn mess.

And the more you watch the ep, the more Seven's furious, desperate, panicked argument in favor of the Doctor's personhood basically boiled down to, "I've done everything to be what you turned me into, and you still keep me alive. So has the Doctor, so he deserves the same courtesy. Or if you decide I'm not turning out how you want, are you going to reprogram me too?" The twisted branches of the fuckery tree just keep getting more and more fucked.

THIS MIGHT BE THE MOST “THESE WOMEN ARE ALL DEEPLY UNWELL” VOYAGER DIALOGUE EVER

I can't believe I entirely forgot about it until now, rewatching “Lineage”. God.

The fact that B'Elanna has obviously a clear idea of what would made her daughter “safe” in a way that she wasn't and it's giving her blond hair and no visible Klingon trait (esp. the forehead ridges) which is so, so painful to witness even outside the Klingon metaphor

the fact that before going to have it all out with Janeway, B'Elanna clearly thought about how to defend her intentions regarding her daughter and what B'Elanna landed on was a reverse-uno-card “well Janeway made Seven into a recognizably human (and blond) woman so I'm justified” and she's not entirely wrong to bring that up but also it's obvious that

it's well known among the Voyager crew that Seven had essentially no choice in determining the way she now looks but in B'Elanna's (deeply misdirected) cause-consequence thinking it was all worth it in the end because “Seven's life is much better”

Janeway obviously defends her own choices re: Seven saying that there's no comparison between the two situations and well... I'm not sure the show manages to make her rebuttal very effective, to be honest

Again, this thing where the show always frames Janeway as Seven's mother figure but I can't even be mad at that here because it's SO fucking insane how it's brought up. “You molded her into what you thought was best for her and it turned out to be good for her, so I'm going to do the same thing for my daughter.” BUT WAS IT REALLY GOOD?? HAVE ANY OF YOU ASKED SEVEN??

The way this dialogue makes it obvious that the way B'Elanna was hurt and still is by the racist harassment she encountered and encounters is THEE reason why here she can't see Seven's situation as anything similar to her own, because Seven was re-made into a (white, blond, blue-eyed) human and whatever difficulties she still finds adapting to a life free of the Collective, in B'Elanna's estimation she will always have a place on Voyager, while B'Elanna (and her daughter by extension) occupies a much harder and more precarious space within the ship (in the previous scene B'Elanna told Tom that he couldn't possibly know how it was like to be the one who's different among a group who are all one way). And this is true diegetically! ! ! ! ! ! !

And granted here B'Elanna is reacting more than thinking and I don't think this reveals any kind of deep conviction of hers. Panic in response to old trauma does not make any of us deep thinkers, and B'Elanna's idea and reasoning are obviously deeply ill-advised. But the fracture between how she sees herself vs how she sees Seven's situation on the ship is also, imho, something she clearly had considered before.

I'm going to throw myself off a cliff goodbye

[rocket-sith]

Hello, new mutuals and old mutuals who are seeing this blog become active again for the first time since like 2017!

Tags I use a lot that you might want to potentially block:

Picard Spoilers (self explanatory)

Bad Batch Spoilers (self explanatory)

Obikin (Anakin/Obi-Wan, in my case TCW era.) I'm not as active in the TCW fandom as I used to be, but I'll still reblog posts and fan art sometimes. If this ship bothers or triggers you, I totally understand. I work really hard to remember to tag this one in particular so people can avoid it if they want. It's pretty much the only "controversial" ship I'm into.

Jedi Fuckery - Not literal fuckery. Pretty sure this is a personal tag, but a few other peeps might use it too. Idk. With me, I use it to tag my harshest criticisms of the Jedi Order, their dogma, and of various Council members. I started using this tag primarily for people who've got personal religious trauma.

Borg Fuckery - My personal tag for stuff relating to the Borg that's particularly dark, fucked up, or nightmare inducing, even by Borg standards. This tag doesn't have graphic gory pics or anything, but if stuff like Criminal Minds freaks you out due to the combined themes of psychological and physical horror, then block this tag.

Voyager Fuckery - Also a personal tag. Let's be honest, there was a LOT of fucked up shit happening to and with that crew. Block this tag if you're here for the Threshold memes, silly jokes, and general Voyager stuff, but don't want the creepy stuff, the dark stuff, or the deep dives into how the entire crew is a dysfunctional trauma bonded mess.

If there's a specific topic I tend to post a lot about that triggers or upsets you, please message me and ask me to tag it. I'll come up with a tag if I don't already have one so you can avoid the content.

If the topic is "text posts" then just unfollow my rambly ass. I love fan theories, speculation, character analysis, and fandom history like no other. Run away now before the rabbit hole devours you too.

[merrybandofmurderers]

I’m not new to dragon age games by any means, but I have only read the stolen throne so far, and I also don’t have any social media besides this so I don’t know why everyone dislikes David Gaider? Could you educate me on what he has done if it’s not too triggering/troubling for you? You don’t have to of course!

gaider isn't the worst person bioware's ever employed, but i personally think he embodies the very lukewarm, liberal-lite, "gray morality," pseudo-progressive narrative that makes up the dragon age franchise

he was the one who referred to the qunari as the "militant islamic borg" on the old forums. he later claimed he didn't mean it "that way" and also argued that the qunari aren't analogous with muslims at all. he was also a part of this fuckery. he was responsible for mae's status as a trans woman revealed via getting beaten and partially unclothed

he was the one who wrote dorian, a brown man, supporting slavery. also i will die mad that it's an option to accuse dorian of "leading on" an f!inquisitor as a response to finding out his dad attempted blood magic conversion therapy on him

and i don't have a link for this, but back when he had a tumblr, someone asked him point blank if fenris was a person of color, and he dithered about how he "didn't want to get involved" and acted like "POC" was some vague, unclear term. like sir, they want to know if fenris is a brown man, it's a yes or no question 🙄

i won't get into the stuff that's not dragon age related or is just obnoxious but not bigoted. but yea, he's very much you're typical racist white centrist progressive and there's reasons why lots of bioware fans dislike him

[rocket-sith]

So would this be like a computer language or...?

The Borg language is a delicious concept

[vexedtonightmares]

Hi, rank the skam france characters for chaotic vibes and rank them for energy levels. 🤗

ahh sorry this took me so long to answer but i’ve finally done it (maybe)

just so this isn’t a novel’s length, i’m just gonna do the grew and lamifex

chaotic vibes

lucas lallemant- have u met him even one time. king of chaos and that’s on periodt luv.

basile savary- the gang are the most chaotic characters in skamfr and we love them for it. sometimes i forget how chaotic baz is because he’s such a sweetheart too, but then i rewatch s3 and i’m like ah, yes, the one who fell over in one of the first clips he was ever in.

arthur broussard- got hit by a car on friday and went to school on monday. if that doesn’t scream chaotic vibes idek what does.

yann cazas- i would prepare a powerpoint of every instagram photo yann has ever been a part of as evidence, but that would make this even longer, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

jo- we barely know her but i just f e e l those vibes from her. everything she’s done in every clip i’ve seen her in is just so chaotic in the best way possible.

alexia martineau- pink and blue hair screams chaos vibes i don’t make the rules!! also, remember when she said we should organize a hunger games for population control?

emma borges- re: my other vibe post, she talked to a horse to help her solve her life problems. godspeed my queen.

max- all of lamifex rules by chaos and i think that’s SO sexy of them. i do be thinking about the beginning of the vid jo made where max kept accidentally getting in the shot quite often. 

sekou- vibe lord vibing and dancing with jo and max while lola and maya fall in love. the least chaotic of the jo/max/sekou trio, but chaotic enough. bless him.

daphne lecomte- we didn’t watch daphne go into full on chaos mode in season 1 and 2 over charles for her to end up at the bottom of the list.

eliott demaury- he’s more mysterious than chaotic, or maybe comes across as too cool to be chaotic. like, he has a secret street art persona known for getting to all these places other people can’t which, on the surface, is chaotic, but for some reason it doesn’t seem as chaotic because it’s him. idk i’m talking out of my ass at this point.  

lola lecomte- she slapped a bitch to the upside down. case closed. 

manon demissy- manon is the most feral of the nooras and u can quote me on that but otherwise she’s not as chaotic as most of the rest of our skamfr pals.

maya etienne- not much chaos, tbh, just a beautiful lovely flower who wants to save the whales and kiss pretty girls. valid, so valid. i’ll give her a lil chaos point for doing urbex tho.

imane bakhellal- none of the sanas are very chaotic, i mean, someone has to balance out the rest of the squad’s chaos, and imane comes in clutch for them.

energy levels

jo- she koala jumped on eliott the first time we met her. i cannot wait to see what other energetic fuckery she gets up to.

daphne lecomte- relating back to her levels of chaos, these two are intrinsically tied together, but her energy edges out the chaos. bubbly hyper energetic icon.

eliott demaury- sunshine baby who is physically incapable of not bouncing while he walks and smiles hard enough to create world peace. 

alexia martineau- another ray of sunshine, plus, she dances and has a million hobbies which i’d say requires much energy.

basile savary- remember when they had to yell at him to quiet down when lucas introduced eliott as his boyfriend? yeah.

lucas lallemant- every party scene. he do be dancin. he’s just a bit more subdued than some others in everyday life, but he still got energy to spare.

sekou- smart ppl aren’t always the most energetic but u can tell he’s the kind of person who dives into one topic and can talk about it for days on end, and that’s a special type of energy that we love to see.

arthur broussard- u gotta have a lot of energy to bounce back out of bed after you’ve been hit by a car. (i’m sorry about all the car jokes, no i won’t stop)

manon demissy- manon leaning over to daphne on the bed in season one saying “i bet i can make you excited”. that’s all.  

max- all of lamifex has an inherently strong energy level, but i think that jo takes up about 75% of it sekou has about 15% and max and maya have 10% and 5%, respectively.

maya etienne- enough energy to keep up with the rest of lamifex, but she’s definitely the most chill and serene of their crew. jo, max, and sekou are probably going off on the reg and maya’s there to bring them back down to earth.

yann cazas- least energetic of the gang but that’s just because his vibes are so strong on their own that he doesn’t need extra energy to back it up. live ur truth king.

emma borges- she has energy when the situation permits, but she’s mostly pretty chill. yes girl go girl give us nothing!

imane bakhellal- definitely not the most energetic but it works in her favor because it provides a nice balance within the girl squad. imane is on one end of the spectrum, daphne is on the other. 

lola lecomte- i don’t think energetic is a word i’d use to describe lola, and i don’t think it needs to be. i just want her to be HAPPY goddamnit.

[nepobabyjimkirk]

A few weeks ago I started giving every Star Trek episode I watched a Friends-style episode title (despite not even liking friends) as I watched it. Here’s TNG season 2:

2.01: The One With Unexpected Pregnancy

2.02: The One With the Gigantic Thing

2.03: The One With Sherlock Holmes Cosplay

2.04: The One With Basically Han Solo

2.05: The One Where Horny is a Person

2.06: The One Where Data Gets Possessed

2.07: The One With a Space Pandemic (Again)

2.08: The One Where Riker Hangs With Klingons

2.09: The One Where Respect Data or Die By My Blade

2.10: The One Where Teenage Boys Are Dumb

2.11: The One With Space Atlantis

2.12 The One At The Casino

2.13: The One With Weird Time Fuckery

2.14: The One Where Riker Has Daddy Issues

2.15: The One Where Data Is Talking To Kids Online

2.16: The One With the Borg

2.17: The One Where Stop Shooting Giordi

2.18: The One With the Clones

2.19: The One Where Troi Wants To Yeet Herself Out an Airlock

2.20: The One With Holodeck Sex

2.21: The One With Picard vs Riker War Games

2.22: The One With All The Flashbacks

[zandergb]

One of the things I really like about The Orville is how it’s not afraid to explore the really MUNDANE things in its setting. There was never an episode of Star Trek where nothing really important happened and people were free to go about their day. The closest we got was The Baseball Episode of DS9, and even that was all about baseball. “Data’s Day”, an episode about a “regular” day with Data, ends with the Miles/Keiko wedding and the Enterprise accidentally delivering a spy back to the Romulans. “Family”, an episode about the crew seeing their families in the lull after the Borg attack, has Picard’s breakdown and beginning of his mental healing from being assimilated.

The most eventful thing that happens in The Orville’s “Ja’loja” is that they stop off at Bortus’s planet so he can take his yearly piss, and that only happens at the very end of the episode. The rest of the episode is just the crew going about their day, and it’s full of great character interactions.

Now don’t get me wrong, all those Star Trek episodes I mentioned are great, but I want to see a purely average, run of the mill day in Starfleet. I know, I know, “every day’s an adventure!” and “weirdness is part of the job!”, but come on. I know we get bits and pieces in a lot of episodes, but there couldn't be ONE DAY without some attack or rescue mission or wacky alien or weird space fuckery? Give me an episode devoted to mundane worldbuilding. Show me the maintenance of the engines. Let me in on all the reports people have to write.

Going back to the The Orville, acceptance of the mundane even comes up during exciting events. In the latest episode, Gordon knows how to detect a missing ship’s hidden trail through space. Does he have years of command experience? Is it because he has multiple lifetimes of experiences to draw from? Was he a well-traveled detective that caught someone using it before? Did he know it from being part of a vast hivemind? Nope, one time back at the academy he stole a shuttle to turn it into a party bus and used the same technique to hide its course. Again, there’s nothing wrong with those Star Trek examples, but it’s nice to see a regular, normal reason.

[brokenhandsmedia]

The Gone-Away World (Nick Harkaway)

Maxwell's Demon (Steven Hall)

The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon)

Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World (Haruki Murakami)

Shriek: An Afterword (Jeff VanderMeer)

In a Grove (Ryunosuke Akutagawa)

Six Characters In Search Of An Author (Luigi Pirandelo)

Gonchposters’ reading list:

If on a winter’s night a traveler (Calvino)

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (Borges)

Pierre Menard Author of the Quixote (Borges)

The Hydraulic Emperor (Martine)

The King in Yellow (Chambers)

(This list is incomplete. You can help by expanding it)

[krisknifeswissknife]

Brief summary of Last Light; which happened... Last Night (hee hee)

After helping Krispy take control back, the LIGHT that gave him the resolve to keep fighting never left.

This LIGHT is actually a sort of hivemind entity, dating back to the beginning of human civilization. 

The Light’s purpose is to keep balance with the Dark, but they’ve grown tired of their crusade, and were especially pissed to be their newest incarnation, Kris.

But also very happy, as Kris knows where the source of the Dark is, in the form of the Fountain. 

If they destroyed it, their crusade would be over, and they could finally die knowing they created what they envision to be ‘Heaven.’ With them taking the role of the Angel that brings it.

Yes, the Angel’s Heaven, that Angel’s Heaven.

They ended up getting talked down, Kris is still a hivemind and very new to the fuckery of being a one-kid Borg collective. But he’s still adjusting to having feelings of his own.

[the-private-local-enemy]

fooni times, ss13

#1. mid-shift joined as geneticist. standard genetic fuckery: found genes until space adapt, set up some consoles with space adapt + some other funny genes out for the public. helped a chaplain get genetically fucked up for his religion along the way. then proceeded to make my own DNA explode in an attempt to Ascend into Snailmanhood or become a dullahan or something... instead i became a statue conveniently in front of the line of dna consoles. 

not long after someone offered a sentience potion to a spider (pass) and a lust xeno maid (yeah!!!!!) so i clicked ‘yes’ and managed to get the xeno maid. the research director then proceeded to sell me to a chemist for some meth. poor chemist found out i couldn’t do anything other than polish and clean because y’know, maid, and all... but it was gucci! some spatially unstable radioactive midget engineer kept finding ways to get in in an attempt to un-radiate himself. at one point he picked up a syringe gun loaded with neurotoxin and chemist dad shot him near to death with a gun bestowed upon him by the captain to protect chemistry. i cleaned up the evidence, of course. :)

the rd came by, newly reformed and wholly against drugs. while old dad and chem dad were exchanging words, something exploded, setting chem dad on fire while some other guy ran in and started dragging poor chem dad out into maintenance. me and the rd followed and we both got shot to death & chem dad got thrown out into space by the assassin. the rd got brought back to life and dragged my deceased xeno corpse to the shuttle with the promise of a good funeral (after pilfering chem dad’s xeno maid college fund from his ID......... as any good spaceman would)

at some point throughout all of this someone dragged my first corpse, the statue, to the shuttle, too. so. i ended the round with TWO of my dead bodies on the shuttle!

#2. i managed to roll traitor clown and absolutely fucking failed loL

i bought a syndi radio encryption key for shits and giggles and decided to hold off on my objectives since they were assassinations and i don’t like tryyying to round remove people near the beginning/mid because boo that’s mean (and i suck at playing cat-and-mouse with security). so. i held off and played spy.

wandered around, creepily told some chick that was being watched/tailed by the AI that she was being - well - watched. i can’t remember if she was a heretic or anything. big ol’ shrug emoji. 

speaking of heretics--some guy thought i was one and kept coming at me with a baseball bat. so rude. i mean, i WAS evil! just not a heretic! anyway i saved his ass from dying of a lack of oxygen/pressure in a hallway and he stopped trying to bat my head in. batty guy. total loony tunes. 

also witnessed the execution of some other heretic 👌

at some point i ended up being clown-napped by a borg who... took me to the research director’s office, stole the locker full of the RD’s stuff, and brought both it and myself to maintenance and offered it all to me? i was so confused and i still am 

then a dragon spawned and started wrecking havoc. the shuttle was called. i waited in the chapel after buying a syringe gun and a box of poisons for one of my targets, the only one of the two i’d ever seen ALL DAMN SHIFT, the chaplain. he came in. we started chatting. an announcement rang out, evacuate! there’s gonna be an influx of space carp! the dragon succeeded! “welp,” i thought. “no point in trying to kill this guy now.”

but then he said he didn’t like clowns so i shot him with a poison dart. first dart hit the altar though so i kind’a just awkwardly wandered around it to get a better shot the second time. he keeled over. we continued talking. i was planning on leaving him there to die, you know? but then the head of personnel came in and grabbed him, took him to the shuttle. i followed. his death, clearly, was just not meant to be. the chaplain was put on a stasis bed. i just watched from outside.

and then the fucking dragon showed up and i got out of dodge thinking that big fucking lizard will SURELY finish him off, right? sure! escape is one of my objectives! the pods are gone! the shuttle left without me! OH WELL, RIGHT? ONE OF MY TARGETS IS SURELY DEAD! POISONED AAAAND THERE’S A FUCKING FIRE-BREATHING LIZARD ON THE SAME SHUTTLE AS HE!

so. i started to make my way further onto the station ‘cause why not. saw some carp. turned back. got shocked by the fucking door, which let the carps roll up and bite me to death.😢

... cut back to the shuttle.

it’s chaos.

everyone is dead, but for one guy in a crate and two people on stasis beds, still alive. some other guy, and the target. who, somehow, survived a syringe of poisons (mind you i know fuck all about which ones are most effective and just loaded up the syringe with three different things that sounded funny) and a fucking space dragon rampaging in his general vicinity 

he really was not meant to die 

[afishtrap]

1. THE HEINOUS FUCKERY IS REVEALED

This is the “first turn” of the story: something happens that disrupts the status quo and this event pushes the protagonist (and perhaps the world around him) into the tale. The king dies! Terrorists attack! My beloved pony has been pony-napped! A vampire just joined your Little League team! This turn, unlike all the others in this list, isn’t optional: storytelling is an act of taking the straight line that is the status quo and kinking it like a garden hose. This first turn — known sometimes as the inciting incident — is why the story exists in the first place.

2. THE ACTUAL HEINOUS FUCKERY IS ACTUALLY REALLY REVEALED

In some stories we chug along thinking we know what the problem is (“My boyfriend broke up with me!”) but at some point during the tale, perhaps around the midpoint of the narrative, we learn of the real problem lurks behind the scenes (“My boyfriend broke up with me because he’s actually a robot hell-bent on invading our high school and turning us all to robots and now I have to save us all!”) The initial problem, the one presented by the inciting incident, is something of a stalking horse — it’s a bit of magical misdirection that the protagonist and the readers fall for while the real problem waits in the shadows to be exposed.

3. THE TRULY VILLAINOUS FUCKER IS REVEALED

Similar, but different: the problem is connected to a particular antagonist, and we think we know who the true antagonist is, but oops, there’s a meaner scarier malevolenter (not a word) motherfucker in the wings: Darth Vader steps aside and it’s The Emperor! We think it’s George Bush but it’s really Dick Cheney! Agent Smith is the bad guy but really it’s a bunch of, uhh, squidbots and spider-borgs and whatever it doesn’t matter because it turns again and actually it’s really Agent Smith anyway haw haw haw you just got played, audience!

(and more)