#Sisko and baseball is just my favorite

[babblingbear09]

[sputnikodin]

@seepmost OHHH that's really hard ...... i think going off sheer in-the-moment emotional impact i'd have to say duet. i was crouching on my chair instead of sitting down in it or doing anything else normal by the end of the episode bc it was making me lose my mind so much. so in terms of writing quality that's top notch. progress also made me feel similarly ....... but the episodes i return to the most in my mind are the pilot and necessary evil. i think about necessary evil every single day of my life if we're being honest here

[purplespacekitty]

Three generations of Sisko men gathered close for a jambalaya dinner in Ben's ancient Bajoran lightship, as illustrated by celebrated science fiction writer, Benny Russell. Russell keeps a souvenir baseball on his desk, signed by the legendary Willie Hawkins. In the corner, Russell stashes the sketch that gave him the inspiration for this family's story: space station Deep Space Nine.

Deep Space Nine is my favorite Trek. It has nuanced, 3-dimensional characters who become part of the show's world over the course of 7 seasons. There are some off plot lines here and there but for the most part, the story seems to write itself. I've written at length on here about how much I love Captain Benjamin Sisko and I'd like to share a project of mine I did for a class (I have so far managed to fit Star Trek into three separate final projects for three separate classes, one of which I already posted about here).

Through the lens of Sisko's character, I wanted to examine Deep Space Nine's portrayal of Black masculinity, fatherhood and Afrofuturism with three episodes (although one's a two-parter): "Homefront" (Part I), "Paradise Lost" (Part II), "Explorers" (which I made a post about here) and "Far Beyond the Stars". Initially, the idea was to focus on Ben's fatherhood to Jake, how from the viewer's side of the screen, the two of them break down numerous racial stereotypes around Black men, an important thing to remember with DS9's debut not being far removed from the end of the Reagan Administration, from which sprung stereotypes of "absent Black fathers" and "welfare queens." As I continued with this project, I found I also wanted to analyze how Sisko's relationship with his own father informs his parenting of Jake and what it means to have three generations of Siskos in one room, on one planet. That was how I got "Explorers" and "Homefront" and "Paradise Lost" in there, as I wanted to showcase episodes that focus on these exact dynamics.

"Far Beyond the Stars" offers a window into Earth's history as a commentary on racism within creative circles and the systemic racism that shapes the world we live in today and the world of Deep Space Nine. It not only invites viewers into the life of Benny Russell, a Black science fiction writer from the 1950s, but also invites us to consider the link between the future he envisioned of the life that Sisko leads in the 24th century as a Black spaceship/space station captain, father, son, husband and cook who carries the weight of his ancestors' legacy on his shoulders and the reality Russell himself lives in day by day. "You are the dreamer and the dream" has a whole lot more gravity to it when you recognize it as less of an obvious observation of what we've known and been shown throughout the episode (Avery Brooks plays both Sisko and Russell) and more of a nod to the Black future that Sisko inhabits and that Russell dreams of. As a creation of Benny Russell, Sisko and his family are Afrofuturism in a nutshell, carrying on the cultures, stories and knowledge of their ancestors as they live their lives in a future those ancestors imagined and built. Furthermore, Benny Russell's Deep Space Nine is not only important because it features a Black space station captain but also because it encapsulates a fragment of Russell's drive to write his own stories for himself and his Black readers, to breathe life into his creations, to share his art in the ways that he wants to. To cherish his experiences and ideas and imagination and reality through the creative process of putting pen to paper, stamping ink to page, painting scenes to canvas.

The DS9 finale was originally going to see Benny Russell wistfully wandering the promenade alone and implicate him as the creator of not just the story of Deep Space Nine, but of the Star Trek franchise as a whole. Obviously, this concept did not make the cut, but Strange New Worlds' "Elysium Kingdom" follows another story written by Russell, solidifying him as a real person who lived in the 20th century within the Star Trek universe and who presumably continued to write stories that got published after the events of "Shadows and Symbols".

Comprised of screenshots from "Explorers", "Homefront", "Paradise Lost", "Far Beyond the Stars", "Shadows and Symbols" and "Civil Defense" - in which Dukat flicks Sisko's baseball off his desk - (and also a picture of a random coffee table taken by me because we see surprisingly very little of Benny's desk), the collage above is my humble attempt to honor Benny Russell and his creative vision.

[bengiyo]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks....

10 Favorite Characters

You asked a broad question, so I hope you’re okay with answers outside of my daily posting. I post a lot about BL on here, but this list is a mild reminder that I am Black. As I’m putting this list together, I’m recognizing a common thread of ruthlessness in these characters that I will have to unpack at some point.

Omar Little (The Wire)

Omar is one of my favorite characters of all time because he was the first sympathetic gay character I ever watched on TV with my dad. As I got older, my dad decided I was old enough and wanted me to watch what he considered to be one of the greatest shows ever made (NOTE: He is correct). I was obsessed with Omar because of his strict code and how gentle and loving he was with his boyfriends. It was amazing to me that we had this powerful gay character in the middle of a modern Greek tragedy and he is one of the most compelling characters ever created in American television.  

Ender Wiggin (Ender’s Game)

One of the sad thing about growing up queer is the people who wrote a lot of your formative works hate queer people. Orson Scott Card was my first major disappointment in this regard. In the 7th grade, I discovered this book in our school library and ended up reading it and the related books multiple times throughout my adolescence.  I was a weird kid who was too smart for my own good. In middle school I struggled with feeling out of place because I was relatively new compared to most of these kids, and my family had me on a specific life track that meant that I had to perform at a high level constantly. I connected with Ender’s isolation and his brilliance. I also connected to his ruthlessness.

Marco (Animorphs)

Animorphs is a pretty dark series for a bunch of elementary school kids to read, but that was K. A. Applegate’s point. War is horrible, and should be avoided. Reading this series is a reading the perspective of child soldiers. There was something about the way Marco always masked with jokes, but was quietly the most ruthless member of their group that means he’s always the one I remember first. There were also the ways he commented on Ax and Jake that just didn’t read straight, and I’ve been relieved that Applegate and the ghost writers have acknowledged the fan read on Marco’s bisexuality. I just love how from appearances at the end of the series Marco is actually okay after all the war, but he absolutely is not.

Benjamin Sisko (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

He was our first Black captain in Star Trek and I will love him forever. He’s also from New Orleans and cooks our food. He’s a devoted father, which was something Avery Brooks requested for the role to make sure we had a positive depiction of Black fatherhood on TV in the 90s. He has an understated spirituality to him. He has grit from facing the ugly side of maintaining a utopia and has an incredible temper that he holds most of the time. He’s a nerd about baseball. He cares about his people and holds firm as their commander. This isn’t a committee for him. He can be so brutal. I love him.

Ghost Dog (Ghost Dog)

Ghost Dog (1999) is one of my favorite movies of all time, and I’ve always loved the version of masculinity Forest Whitaker put into this character. He has a sense of style and flair, and also follows a strict code of conduct. His adherence to his way earned him the respect of everyone in his community, and gangsters in his neighborhood show him admiration and respect. I loved his friendship with Raymond, in which neither knows what the other is saying and yet they are actually on the same page constantly.

Raymond Holt (Brooklyn Nine-Nine)

Yes, this show is copaganda, but I love Raymond Holt so much. I love that Andre Braugher played the Straight Man role in a comedy as a politically out gay man who has such a serious exterior. Holt was so gay in so many ways and I am obsessed with him. He is so deep into his niche interests (like me) and yet he was actually such a great mentor figure to everyone under him. I loved that he and his husband were so devoted to each other but were never depicted as the perfect couple. I love that he has a petty beef with another colleague. He’s just an incredible character.

Kiram Kir-zaki (Lord of the White Hell)

Kiram is the first time I ever realized how deep the programming in speculative fiction to read the protagonist as a white man with brown hair and brown eyes. Kiram is a dark-skinned Haldiim youth with curly gold hair and light eyes. It took me three readings of this book to perceive Kiram properly, and it’s something that has shaken me for a long time. Kiram is brilliant, snarky, and too gay for his own good. He’s also not stupid. I love reading a smart gay character who generally cannot hide who he is doing the work to blend in to a homophobic setting. Ginn Hale also writes gay sex better than some gay male authors.

Kakei Shiro (What Did You Eat Yesterday?)

Honestly, when am I ever not thinking about this man? I love how, even if he can’t immediately give Kenji everything he might want, he gives Kenji all that he can. He couldn’t say he loved Kenji for a long time, but you could feel the love in his cooking. I’m so happy to have this man and his partner back on my screen again. It is just so hard to be gay. I am so relieved that many of the folks reading my posts didn’t suffer The Knowing, because I know that Shiro and I will never be able to get away from what it did to us.

Chiron (Moonlight)

The terrible intersection of poverty, race, and sexuality has never been better exemplified for me than in this film that has no white people in it. There are just so many fewer choices for us, especially if you can’t hide who you are. I love Chiron so much because we see so much of what he was forced to be pushed onto him. There’s something heartbreaking and beautiful that as an adult he resembles Juan, and that he never got over Kevin.  I find it hard to explain why Chiron means so much to me, but I’m black and gay so I don’t always feel like I have to.

Max (Black Sails)

I love Max because she consistently chose to not be cruel when so many others would have. She is not accumulating power for her own ego or to punish those who wronged her. She holds power as a facilitator. History doesn’t remember the facilitators who keep the lights on and make sure the bread gets made every day, but you notice their absence within two days when they’re gone. Max is also funny to me because she and Flint almost never encounter each other, but have caused the other so much grief.

Thank you for the ask!

[thegeminisage]

STAR TREK UPDATE TIME! last night we watched ds9's "in the cards" and "call to arms."

in the cards:

this one was SO cute. i loved that the b-plot was the a-plot and vice versa. like yes you have open warfare getting ready to happen in the background but what really matters here is baseball

there's not a single unfunny joke in this whole episode. worf listening to klingon opera at 82 decibels. the mission impossible esque theft of bashir's teddy bear. the horrific puns in kira's speech. jake and nog accusing kai winn of stealing a baseball card. jake bullshitting to weyoun that he was a time traveller investigating willie mays. i could go on and on

but, of course, special shoutout to this guy who was doing the immortality thing. the uh. "my cells get bored and experience cellular ennui so i have to deliver uplifting and entertaining messages to my nuclei with this here machine" guy. the "getting hounded by soulless minions of orthodoxy" guy. shoutout to him for easily being the funniest one-off character trek has ever had. every word he said was full of like 10 other words. i felt like could listen to him ramble forever and he would just keep getting more and more outrageous. he is my favorite kind of star trek background freak i think

finally, the end did get me to well up a little. jake and sisko my BEST friends are so heartwarming and also his and nogs good deeds giving everyone that last moment of peace...wah

call to arms:

MY KING ROM! i'm so thrilled he's finally getting hitched. actually, between that and his general demeanor (calm and brave in the face of danger) i was SURE they were gonna kill him off in this episode. so sure that i paused and checked for "status: active" on memory alpha. very scary moment

also it's so funny how he came up with this saving grace hail mary solution while in the middle of a wedding panic attack. he is so smart and i love him

quark overbuying the yamok sauce and then kira calling him a worm right in front of dax, who is a worm, and then quark missing the yamok sauce at the end. this show is truly so funny sometimes. the way he like. wah. says he thinks rom's wedding is stupid and rom is dumb for staying behind but really he's elated rom got married and he's worried about rom's safety. alright. idk i think letting us see that he does HAVE a soul was so important because now when he says evil shit it's so much easier to infer that he doesn't mean it exactly the way he says it, or it's not all he really thinks, etc etc. he's grown so much for me this season <3

KIRA AND ODO'S LITTLE CONVERSATION.................man everyone seems to Hate this ship so i've been so worried it will be bad but Actually it was very good. neither of them are very good with the touchy-feely stuff unless someone's dying, about to die, or has just died so this was actually very in-character - even odo was relieved to sort of put it on hold for the moment. it was charming. also, it's romantic that he knows exactly what would make her the most comfortable in this moment <3

sisko and weyoun are great but theyre never gonna be what sisko and dukat were. like, weyoun has taken over that little frenemy who is also a freak niche because they wanted to remind us that dukat is ACTUALLY a bad-bad person and not just our friend shaped war criminal, and they're fine, i like weyoun, but he just isn't dukat

i do NOT like this thing theyre doing with garak and ziyal. please please please for the love of god no. he is like 20 years older than her. if you are going to make him date someone who is not bashir can that someone PLEASE be his age

DAX AGREEING TO MARRY WORF! now that's romance. damn it's really going around

idk, it's really nice because everybody was at their best and bravest. dax giving worf a reason to come back and kira and odo and quark all babysitting the station together and sisko giving dukat hell before he leaves, martok's perfectly timed rescue, jake and rom staying behind. ds9's action episodes normally feel a little weaker to me but this one had so much heart, it was absolutely fantastic

TONIGHT: voy's "scorpion part ii" AAAAAAAAAAA and "the gift." rip kes but HELLO SEVEN OF NINE!

[sshbpodcast]

Character Spotlight: Nog

By Ames

After some great blogposts on Quark and Rom, we’ve got one Ferengi left to shine the spotlight on, and that’s another of our fan favorites: Nog! Similarly to his father, Nog’s character arc over the seasons of Deep Space Nine is captivating to watch, as he grows from a little punk ne’er-do-well into a fully realized, complex person full of nuance and opportunities to learn. Which is pretty much DS9 in a nutshell.

So get prepared for some character whiplash, as we’ve got both childish pranks and severe post-traumatic stress disorder to explore in our blogpost below as we applaud the impressive versatility and range of the late Aron Eisenberg. Check out what your A Star to Steer Her By hosts have assembled as some of the young Ferengi’s best and worst moments, and check out our discussion on this week’s podcast episode (jump to 1:15:10 for Nog!). And there’ll be no running on the promenade!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

Vulcans stole my homework As usual, we’re starting off with the good moments, and early on in “The Nagus” we see Nog get pulled from Keiko’s school out of Rom’s sheer racism. But what’s most commendable in the young Ferengi is that he sticks with it, secretly learning to read in the cargo bay with Jake and entirely subverting Sisko’s expectations and systematic racism against the Ferengi!

Maybe this isn’t a problem. Maybe it’s an opportunity. While we gripe about how the Ferengi can be cartoonishly one-dimensional at times, there are times when their obsession with profit makes for good character and plot moments. When Nog encourages Varis Sul, Tetrarch of the Paqu, to view her land-rights situation in “The Storyteller” as a business negotiation, she finds a compromise everyone enjoys!

Say that five times fast Speaking of Nog’s business acumen, he’s clearly still learning some of the basics in “Progress” but we still enjoy watching as he and Jake create their own Milo Minderbinder–like syndicate to sell yamok sauce and self-sealing stem bolts for what will turn out to be great running gags for years to come… not to mention tongue-twisters that frequently plague us on the podcast.

Because I don’t want to end up like my father From what we know about Nog by the midpoint of season three (including some of the bad moments you’ll see below), it seems entirely random for him to want to join Starfleet as he says in “Heart of Stone.” But when he exposes to Sisko that he has dreams outside of making profit, of being something greater than his father, you really root for the guy and know he’s really going to do it!

Best friends in subspace When old man Jake Sisko is ready to embark on some outlandish quest to find his father, lost in subspace for decades, in “The Visitor,” there is absolutely no surprise that Nog is right there at his side in the Defiant, ready to do whatever it takes for his old friend. Sure, it’s an alternate future version of Nog, but the connection he has with Jake is as real as ever.

On Wednesday we wear red Of course, Starfleet Academy is a challenge for Nog, who has set his sights on getting into the elite and extremely cliquey Red Squad to make a name for himself. But when it turns out that Red Squad is just a bunch of cadets being used by Admiral Leyton for his coup in “Paradise Lost,” Nog helps Sisko to find the truth of the matter, even if it is reluctantly at first.

Not quite a Vulcan Hello The B-plot in “Blaze of Glory” may not entirely gel with the A-plot of watching Eddington’s sacrifice, but it’s still some cute stuff for Nog. When he stands up to Martok after a whole episode of getting walked all over by the Klingons, you’ve got to respect the guy. As Martok says, “Courage comes in all sizes,” and it’s great to watch Nog tackle his problems head on.

Have a good day! There’s just something about “In the Cards” that makes you feel good. Nog, being the best friend a kid could ask for, agrees to help Jake win his dad a baseball card, going so far as to loan all his money to Jake (I can hear every Ferengi screaming at that). And then the rest of the episode is them going around the station, making everyone have a genuinely nice day. It’s so cute!

Boogie woogie woogie Okay, Nog might only have one line in all of “You Are Cordially Invited,” but I just find him dancing with Jadzia at her bachelorette party just so endearing that I had to include it. Aron Eisenberg came up with the little Ferengi frog dance himself, and when Terry Farrell joins in, I find myself smiling every time. Thank you, Aron, for creating this adorable moment.

Have faith in the Great Material Continuum So the whole Rube Goldberg device that is the chain events of schemes in “Treachery, Faith, and the Great River” may be kind of a repeat of the deals from “Progress” but it’s still very clever. After he joined Starfleet, you could almost forget that Nog is a Ferengi under the ensign uniform, but he pulls off deal after deal after deal to get the chief the stabilizer he needs.

We have a casino to build While it is painful to watch Nog struggle with PTSD in “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” the way he knuckles down to assist Vic with his finances and to work on expanding the lounge into a casino is simply fascinating. It’s helping him cope, so that by the end of a brilliantly acted episode, he doesn’t even realize that he’s put himself on the road to recovery that is right for him.

He’s not just a hologram, he’s my friend Speaking of Vic’s casino, Nog is quick to pay back his holographic crooner friend for helping him recover by participating in the big heist in “Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang.” Nog’s part is to crack the safe in the countroom, and when he learns that it has an auto-relock tumbler that no one was expecting, he keeps his cool, gets to work, and helps the whole crew save the day!

—

Worst moments

You never get a second chance to make a first impression The very first glimpse we get of Nog in “Emissary” is him stealing shit (almost certainly at Quark’s bidding) and getting locked in the brig by Odo. He has all of two lines in the episode – “Hurry up!” and “Now!” –  but he is immediately cemented as a bad seed under the thumb of his uncle. The show literally starts Nog off with such a bad reputation there’s nowhere to go but up!

What this place needs is a school Nog’s delinquent behavior doesn’t stop there. When he and Jake strike up a friendship in “A Man Alone,” it’s by sharing the experience of pranking a couple of civilians on the promenade with some Garanian bolites, which cause them to itch terribly and turn colors in a scene that legitimately looks like torture. It’s no wonder Keiko steps in by starting up her little school.

Buckets of fun! We see another of Nog’s juvenile pranks in “The Storyteller” when he fills Odo’s bucket with oatmeal and dumps it on Jake who, utterly mortified, believes for a second that they’ve somehow killed Odo. It’s a little funny in hindsight, but at the moment it just seems cruel. Jake’s reaction of terror certainly helps that along, cementing Nog’s station status as a nuisance.

No running on the promenade! There’s one more Nog prank to make the list! When he sprays some foul-smelling fluid on Tumak in “Sanctuary,” it causes a big fight to break out with the various Skrrean kids. Nog just can’t help himself. As if these refugee kids haven’t been through enough, they have this short, big-eared, froglike nuisance wreaking havoc for them. What a brat.

No one’s asking you to think, my dear As we’ve discussed in Quark’s and Rom’s respective spotlight posts before, Ferengi culture is garbage, especially how they treat females. We see some of that come through in Nog in “Life Support” when he goes on a double date with Jake and acts like a complete asshole to Riska. He’s demeaning to her, he requests she cuts his food for him, and somehow Jake’s the one apologizing!

I’ve been looking for it for two years Even when Nog has matured and joined Starfleet Academy, we get little reminders of the miscreant that he was from the start. At his coming-of-age yardsale, Kira discovers that Nog has had her lost springball racket all along and was attempting to sell it in “Little Green Men.” Sure, that was two-years-ago Nog, but he could have returned it in all that time!

Could you massage it some more? Across so many of these posts, every time oo-mox comes up it automatically makes the worst moments lists. So when Nog tricks Faith Garland into giving him oo-mox in “Little Green Men,” and not for the first time evidently, I find it abhorrent. Here’s hoping I don’t have to bring up such rapey behavior again for a while (at least until that one Ferengi episode of Enterprise).

Healthy body, healthy mind After a season or so at Starfleet Academy, Nog suddenly becomes a tightass. The conflict with Jake, now his roommate, in “The Ascent” is manufactured and trite – the kind of odd-couple antics of eponymous sitcoms. Nog is now a neatfreak. He constantly works out. He corrects Jake’s stories without permission. It’s like his character has been rewritten to fit a punchline, and an old one at that.

I won’t turn my back on you again This one’s just a little silly peeve. After the events of “Empok Nor” when Garak’s little murder spree on the titular station, Nog vows to never turn his back on Garak when they’re out searching for supplies in “Rocks and Shoals.” But then after they get hostage-handoff’ed, he immediately turns his back on Garak as they cross the levy. Dude! What did you just say?

Red Squad, Red Squad, Red Squad! Nog got tempted by the allure of the corrupt Red Squad in “Homefront” and “Paradise Lost,” but it’s in “Valiant” that he gets thoroughly taken in. Acting Captain Watters offers Nog everything he’s ever wanted: respect, rank, and some semblance of power, in exchange for his unquestioning obedience when the utterly impossible plan goes swiftly sideways. Gee, who’da thunk?

And you find that impressive? The Dominion War sure brings out the worst in a lot of people. Sisko commits some war crimes. O’Brien is typically racist about the Jem’Hadar. And Nog starts to fancy himself a soldier, bent on killing the enemy. In “The Siege of AR-558,” he blatantly admires the Ketracel-white tubes that Reese has collected as war trophies, and Quark is all of us, displaying utter disgust at this.

You don’t come into my club and start hitting customers While we totally get that recovery from the loss of his leg is a struggle, that’s no excuse for how Nog treats his friends in “It’s Only a Paper Moon.” Living in a holodeck starts off as a way to not only avoid the people he thinks are staring at him, but to avoid helping himself get better through therapy and rehabilitation. And when Jake visits, Nog is rude to Jake’s date, and then outright attacks Jake in the middle of Vic’s set. Pally!

— You’ve got a deal! That’s the end of the Ferengi spotlights (for now?), but we’ve got more great DS9 recurring characters to examine for the next couple weeks, so make sure you’re following along here. We’re also still plodding through the Xindi arc over on our watchthrough of Enterprise, so join us on SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts, and hail us over on Facebook and Twitter. Now say it with me: self-stealing stem– dammit!

[graegrape]

right now 2 seasons in my favorite thing about star trek ds9 is that sisko is just a normal guy. chosen by the prophets?? holy being?? doomed by the narrative?? and he's just a middle aged father who likes baseball. he's great

[phatburd]

violence!: 4, 14, 22

4. what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

If we’re talking about my most recent block, it was on Reddit where the dude tried to argue gender essentialism at me. Basically, he asserted that my call to write women like people was bullshit and that women should be written like women (weak and helpless). Yeah, I did not and do not have the emotional bandwidth to deal with that shit.

Even better though, when other people in the thread brought up Ellen Ripley as an example of where a role was originally written for a man but Sigourney Weaver was cast instead. The dude then stated he had never watched any of the Alien movies, but he read the Wikipedia article on Ripley and assumed she must be a boring and poorly written character because she was a woman.

Yeah, dude … delete your fucking account. All of your accounts, everywhere.

Tumblr blocks? Yeah, it was the Nth blog that posted the TOG van speech verbatim and declared JoeNicky to be the most perfect thing ever. Went into the blog, found their AO3, blocked that, then blocked their Tumblr. Because clearly this person and I have nothing to say to each other, and I’m tired and I get petty when I’m tired.

14. that one thing you see in fics all the time

Making the bottom in an m/m ship extremely feminized, sometimes straight up infantilized. This isn’t to say there aren’t feminine gay dudes in RL, because there are. I’m talking about fan works.

I don’t know if it’s out of ignorance, sexism, misogyny, or just boring-ass heteronormativity, this idea that someone has to be the “girl” in a same-sex pairing. And every time I see it, I’m reminded of this little cartoon:

I don’t really get top/bottom discourse and especially the need to assign specific personality traits to the top or the bottom. It was something I set out to not do in my m/m Bessimu fics. I wanted to write them as equals, and I think I succeeded.

(FWIW, I see Bessimu as both being switches, because that’s more fun. I also find it hot to write Bessières as a power bottom dom and Murat as the submissive service top, and it’s not what one would expect when judging them by their public personas.)

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

From The Old Guard? Those three and a half thousand years that Andy spent alone as the only immortal on the planet (as far as anyone knows).

I’ve been wanting to explore that period and, yes, it’s fucking intimidating. Historical documentation is more miss than hit once you start going back to certain points in human history.

Three and a half thousand years is a really fucking long time. What did Andy do, where did she go? What did she see? There’s a lot of potential to mine there, and maybe I’ll do it someday.

For the Napoleonics? Joseph Fouché is a fucking amoral bastard, but I think people forget he tried to save Marshal Ney. Ney, being Ney, was either politically naive, stubborn, and/or he just wanted to fucking die already when he refused Fouché’s offer of fake papers and an passport to sneak out of France in the aftermath of Napoleon’s second abdication.

(I’ve also read that Laurent de Gouvion St. Cyr was the one who offered the passport and papers, so take the above with the proverbial grain of salt. St. Cyr did vote for exile in the final trial, which lends weight to that too.)

I also have a shitload of question marks around Bessières’ final years and the way it gets treated by academics, but that may be better off in a post of its own.

For Star Trek ... no one ever really talks about what kind of influence Sisko might have had on the Bajorans other than just being the Emissary/Space Jesus. Like, did baseball become a national sport and baseball leagues spring up all over the planet? Is there ticky-tacky Emissary merchandise one can purchase, like humans have in real life of the Pope?

(Sisko did show up on a pack of Bajoran tarot cards in Lower Decks, and I squealed over that, ngl.)

Thanks for asking! 😘

[dumbass-duo-showdown]

Listen. Listen. With all this Buddie propaganda I feel like I gotta step up for my favorite guy in the current running. (No shade to y'all 911 folks, but it can't be all the propaganda!) Benjamin Sisko is best dad. Greatest Dad in the known universe. So much of a dad that he will be a dad to random children, and he loves babies SO MUCH. Like, they found a mysterious alien baby one time and he was so enamored with this baby. Dude loves kids. He's a single space dad that raised a good son and also loves his OWN DAD, and it's just so good, man. He cooks elaborate meals for his friends and son on a semi-regular basis even though he could just replicate it! Just press a button and have food! But no, this baseball-loving, soft, strong man loves to cook for those he loves. In part because his dad taught him that. We love us a caring man with hobbies, y'all. He's such a good dad. He is my personal fave fictional dad, no matter what the poll(s) end(s) up saying.

I have yet to watch Star Trek, but based on what people say. I agree

[garashir]

I watched watchers top 5 dad characters and it really made me think because most of the dad characters I could think of are all kinda the Worst™️ so I wanted to deep dive and assemble my own top 5 ranking:

5. Ned Stark

Is it a basic answer? Maybe. Is it a good answer? Maybe not. Did it only come to mind because I’m currently reading asoiaf? We’ll never know! But heres the why: I’d love to be a Stark, I’d love to live in Winterfell. He clearly loves his kids even though he thought it was a good idea to take a 10 year old to watch him execute someone. Idk we can’t all be perfect. I’d get to have a direwolf!! It’s Sean Bean! What more can I say?

4. Bard (The Hobbit Movies)

Listen, he just radiates comfort. The second he appeared on screen I knew he was the only character in those movies that mattered. He loves his kids. He actively defies and resists the Master of Laketown. He killed a dragon. He’s Lord of Dale. I feel like he’d still be a great dad even after becoming Lord.

3. Stacker Pentecost

The scene where he finds young Mako Mori!! He’s so protective of her! He trained her to pilot a jaeger. He’s a badass who pilots a jaeger. It’s Idris Elba! He gives the most inspiring speech! We are canceling the apocalypse!!! I trust him so much! Again radiates comfort!

2. Bail Organa

This is becoming a theme of characters that I just imprinted on the first time I saw them on screen. Even though he’s literally such a minor character in aotc I IMMEDIATELY was like: this is my favorite guy! Always been a Bail Organa stan. It’s always been hard to explain why I love Bail so much so I guess if you get it you get it. He is so soft with Leia he adores her! And his line in Rogue One “I would trust her with my life” like!!

1. Benjamin Sisko

Thee Most Dad character of all time!! The reason I wanted make this list was to give Sisko the recognition he deserves. He was immediately number one on this list, everbody else I had to think about. He’s legit my favorite star trek captain, he’s the emissary of the prophets which is sick. But aside from that he is such a good father to Jake. He makes time for him (even though they have a lot going on on the station), he is invested in his interests. He has so much love to give. He is warm and such a caring force to his crew. He cooks them real food! He takes them to play baseball! His smile! His laugh! There isn’t anyone who could take his place on this list! Number one fictional dad!

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

Having now seen the last season of DS9, I can blab about it, in no particular order: 

Take me out to the Holosuite - this was just stupid fun.  Sometimes you need stupid fun episodes, and this was delightful.  Really loved Worf yelling “Death to the opposition” while everyone else was shit-talking the batter.  Also, somehow Quark is a better baseball player than Rom, and that’s hilarious.

Chrysalis - I made a joke halfway through the episode that Sarina was going mute again to avoid Bashir’s flirting, but that’s exactly what happened? What the absolute hell is Bashir doing trying to date a patient who has been in a cataonic state most of her life?  And he’s moving so fast?  Suddenly he’s in love and he’s talking about taking her to Risa, what the hell?  I’ll give him credit - when he realized what he was doing, he backed off immediately and felt bad about it.  I can understand him being attracted and feeling a kinship to the only other genetically engineered person he knows who seems moderately “normal,” but he went so far overboard here.  They had to downplay Ezri in this episode, otherwise the actual trained counselor would have come in with a sanity check and possibly a slap in the face for Julian.

Faith, Treachery, and the Great River - I love Nog.  I love how he fits into Starfleet as a Ferengi who has chosen to embrace Starfleet ideals, but is still a Ferengi and will sometimes do things the Ferengi way.  I love how Sisko will sometimes quote the Rules of Acquisition to him, because he’s studied up and he respects that it’s part of Nog’s culture.  Also, alas, poor Weyoun.  The Vorta really are quite interesting.  They do horrific things with no remorse, but they are literally bred to obey the Founders without question.  They are kind of tragic figures.

Also really love how we have the “Klingons die with honor!” rah-rah battle episode right before the “War is hell, Starfleet officers die and Nog gets maimed for no good reason” episode.  It’s a nice juxtaposition.  Suddenly, we’re reminded that a LOT of people are dying horribly in the Dominion War, and sometimes it all seems pointless.

(Why did Quark not immediately get beamed out when Sisko decided they would stay to help defend the outpost?  I know he was there to be part of the story, and give commentary on human behavior, and kill a Jem Hadar for the very first time, but logically, the non-combatant civilian should not have been there.)

Covenant - Gul Dukat leading a Bajoran cult worshiping the Pah Wraiths was already hilarious, but then that woman gives birth to an obviously half-Cardassian baby and he tries to spin it as a “miracle.”  God, what a sleazy asshole, I love to hate him.

It’s Only a Paper Moon - okay show, I like Vic now.  He’s okay.  Another episode where O’Brien needs to be sidelined, because O’Brien, who lived on the Enterprise during “Hollow Pursuits” would hear about someone literally living in a holosuite and be like, “Uh, guys?  That’s....not gonna work out very well.”  It actually does eventually work out for Nog, because Vic is aware enough to help him, and Ezri steps in to give advice where needed.  Nog mostly just needed a break from Starfleet life, and a distraction.  Not a “perfect holosuite fantasy” distraction, but a challenge completely unrelated to Starfleet to pull Nog out of his own head and get him going again.  Then, of course, he needed to leave the holosuite and come back into the real world.

Prodigal Daughter - nice to know more about Ezri and her family.  My favorite part was O’Brien and Ezri constantly interrupting each other’s storylines until the two storylines intersected.

Mirror episode - Holy shit, Mirror Ezri kissed Mirror Kira, why can’t we have this in the Prime universe?  Why are characters only allowed to be gay in the “evil” universe?  I somehow blame Rick Berman.

Field of Fire - unfortunately, this episode was just bad, and didn’t do Ezri any favors.  The actors did their best, but it was just corny and badly written.  From the first Joran episode, I got the impression that he killed mostly out of anger or hatred (he killed the doctor that recommended he be removed from the program), but now he’s some Hannibal Lecter type, talking about the mind of the killer and selecting prey, etc.  Also, the killer is a traumatized Vulcan who can’t stand the sight of people smiling?  Give me a fucking break.  An interesting idea that should have been better written.

Holosuite heist episode - they wanted a heist episode, and by god they found an excuse to have a heist episode!  Another fun one, and even Cassidy got in on the act.  I liked Sisko getting to say his piece about how Vic’s program is a romanticized version of this time period on Earth, completely removing the racism that existed back then, and that he would not have been welcome in nightclubs as a black man back then.

The rest of it:

That one episode with O’Brien and Bashir going into Sloan’s mind was like the last buddy episode for them, and an absolute gift to shippers.  Personally, I don’t ship it, but these two guys both admitted that they like each other “just a little bit better” than the women that they love?  Yeah, I see it.  I love their friendship.  And also, fuck Sloan.

Don’t really care about Ezri’s romances, but it was nice to see her and Worf bury the hatchet and make peace with each other.  And if she wants Bashir, why not?  Ezri can have a little sexy doctor, as a treat.  Wish we’d gotten more than one season of Ezri, to get to know her better. 

Loved Kira and Garak helping liberate Cardassia.  I still hate Damar for Ziyal, but he had an understandable semi-redemption, fighting for Cardassia against the Dominion.  It worked for him.

Speaking of redemption, I’m glad Gul Dukat didn’t get one.  He didn’t seem like a character who should get a redemption.  That may be hypocritical of me, as there are other horrible dictator characters whose redemption I fully support, like the Diamonds in Steven Universe.  (Although I would also argue that Steven Universe is a kids show, I’m not expecting the Diamonds to burn with the Pah Wraiths.)  But Dukat was just not a character I could ever like, despite the actor doing an excellent job making him nuanced and complex.  He’s just so slimy and smug - if anything, he’s the villain I love to hate.  He never showed any actual remorse for his actions, just kept pushing Kira (who grew up in Cardassian labor camps and lost both parents to the occupation) to not only accept, but exonerate him.  He wanted her to “admit” that his actions running the occupation where millions of Bajorans died were somehow “not that bad” because he occasionally tried to be kind.  Even understanding that his hands may have been tied in some matters, other Cardassians who weren’t responsible for atrocities showed far greater remorse for the occupation.  I can see Dukat as an aborted redemption - he started to show a better side of himself with Ziyal, but losing her drove him back into selfish destructiveness.  He’s a piece of shit, and the actor did a fantastic job portraying him as such.  I understand, though, if people who liked Dukat, or saw more potential in him, were disappointed and wanted his redemption to continue.  Personally, though, I’m glad he went down hard.

Kai Winn was also completely awful, but I felt worse for her than for Dukat.  Imagine constantly praying to your gods and never getting a response, even though other people do.  And then when she finally gets a vision, it’s the wrong gods.  Even when she starts to realize her error and turns to Kira for guidance, the prophets won’t speak to her.  She’s a horrible woman, but slightly better than Dukat, in my opinion.

Loved that Kira and Quark were the ones who got the last goodbyes to Odo.  “That man loves me.  It’s written all over his back.”

Kira and Odo - I could never fully get behind them as a couple, but I still love their relationship, and hope that they see each other again.

O’Brien finally does right by his family and goes back to Earth.

Sisko goes to live with the Prophets, and that’s a bold choice that comes right up to killing him off without actually killing him off.  I can’t say it comes out of nowhere, though, his connection to the wormhole aliens has been a thing through the whole series.  I’m glad that he claims he’ll be back at some point, given that he’s leaving a son and pregnant wife behind.

Overall, a good ending for my favorite Trek series.

[vulcanssaygayrights]

[POINTS AT YOU] ur thoughts on sisko my liege

[bows] why, certainly, my liege!

...alright so this template doesn't have the right squares to adequately sum up the way i actually feel about sisko. but i did the best with the squares i was provided, because there was no option for "wow. good dad :')" and i am nothing if not adaptable. i think there's a lot of nuance and complexity to sisko's character, but he doesn't get enough attention from the fanbase sometimes. like a lot of characters, he kind of gets drowned out by ship content, which is a shame, because sisko is SO interesting. i marked off that he works better as part of a dynamic because that dynamic is him at the head of his crew; i think my favorite sisko moments are when he's just having fun with his crew, doing stuff like cooking or playing baseball, because it takes this character we know as a strong leader and really humanizes him. but also he's just??? such a cool captain??? probably my favorite, in fact??? as you can see i'm very incoherent about him, but i think he's very neat. and yes, i want him to be my dad. don't we all.

[ask me for my character opinions!]

[autisticburnham]

5,12,17,34

5. What do you wish more people knew about autism?

Mainly just that it's a spectrum and presents in many different ways. We're not all the same and there's no right or wrong way to be autistic. Also that Autism Speaks sucks ass and ABA is abuse

12. Do you headcanon any characters as autistic? If you want, tell us why you headcanon them as autistic.

Boy do I! Obviously with the url, Sisko. The way he drums his fingers when he's stressed read like stimming to me and since baseball is pretty much a dead sport, the intensity of his fondness for it reads like a special interest. Plus you could interpret his cooking as being a way of controlling his food and what textures and flavors he deals with. All of the "outsider" characters because they are written specifically to struggle with social norms and communication, but especially Seven and Julian. I consider Julian practically canon bc of his unnamed developmental disorder that his parents had him engineered to get rid of. But Spock, Saavik, Data, Worf, Tuvok, T'Pol, and Michael are all common enough headcanons that I don't really feel the need to explain. Oh, and Tilly is also basically canon with her special needs line. I also really like the idea of Troi being autistic. Being hyperempathetic but struggling to articulate her own emotions, plus her strong friendship with Data. This list is getting long and this is my Trek sideblog, so I'm gonna cut it here, but I've got autistic headcanons for pretty much every fandom I'm in.

17. Do you own any stim toys? Which is your favorite?

Not any actual marketed as stim toys, but I do absolutely fidget with my necklace and wear it to work specifically because I know I'm gonna need to stim with it to self soothe

34. Do you enjoy hugs? Or are they sensory hell?

I like them for the most part! I don't have any sensory issues with them unless they go on for a very long time, but I do sometimes struggle with knowing how long to hold them, so I can get a bit in my own head about that and get stressed out.

[captaincrusher]

Hello I just followed! My favorite character is Sisko and I love the part with all the *tightens fist* baseball. But also I felt the need to tell you that when I saw your avatar’s thumbnail at first I thought it was Janeway drawn in the style of Peggy Hill.

Hello! Welcome! I also love Sisko and his obsession with this game which is like if your boss today was really into 16th century hoopswaddle or slap-the-peasant or whatever they did back then and then made the whole office do that on the company retreat.

You're not the first to think it looks like Peggy Hill, but the avatar is actually from a video where they remade a part of the episode Threshold in the animated series style, which is really cool.

[wlwkiranerys]

for the star trek favorites ask game: 3, 17, 25, 26 !!

star trek ‘favorites’ ask game

3. favorite episode answered here (really the only favourite [blank] i have one answer for] 17. favorite ensign HARRY KIM. even THOUGH it feels wrong calling him just an ensign because he proved himself to be so much more then that..but I love him a lot <3 25. favorite captain-first officer dynamic I don't think my answer will surprise anyone but Sisko and Kira. My two favourite characters from the show and overall of trek and their dynamic is especially good. How at first Kira doesn't really know how to be just his first officer because he's the Emissary and that means a lot to her and then slowly overtime they get to be friends and Kira is able to see him as more then just the Emissar..And the scene where Sisko offers to take her to a holosuite baseball game is so SWEET. starship down is also just an overall great episode and is what really sold me on their dynamic more then I already did.

26. favorite time travel or holodeck episode answered here but because the time travel episode was a movie.. I'll pick an actual episode this time! Trials and Tribble-Ations FOR SURE. the original episode is already really fun and then having the ds9 crew time travel back to that episode makes it so much more fun..like truly just great and I love how Sisko tells Jadzia to not talk to anyone and then talks to Kirk. its great

[thegeminisage]

ok its star trek update time. once again i am So Fucking Behind thank you work week from hell. monday (i think...) we watched ds9's "starship down" and "little green men," tuesday we did voy's "cold fire" and ds9's "sword of kahless," wednesday was voy's "maneuvers," except we watched it right after we watched star wars so i was incapable of paying attention properly, and last night we got ds9's "our man bashir" and voy's "resistance." whew!

starship down (ds9):

ALMOST perfect. i have very few notes here

first of all, sisko my best friend sisko my favorite guy sisko. i think it was very fun drama that sisko had to order the little bulkhead closed when he knew dax would die if he did in order to save the ship. i JUST WISH. he and dax. or he and literally anyone. had spoken about it afterward. i mean he thought his BEST FRIEND was DEAD and that it was HIS FAULT and we arent gonna follow through on that? what is this, tng??

that said, it was such a lovely way to deepen his relationship with kira...my best friend kira my favorite terrorist girl kira. it's easy to forget that she she has a truly and deeply held genuine belief that her boss is space jesus who is gonna save her people. and so then you've got. Your Boss, Who Is Jesus, But Also A Fallible Human Man. dying of a brain injury on the floor of your little spaceship. and what can you do! you only talk about work! kira wasn't out there making fun of him for "it's a big step" absoluuuutely not. she's just gotta tell him jack and the beanstalk, space version. and try to keep him from passing out. and then pray even though he thinks that's awkward. what a moment

AND THEYRE GONNA PLAY BASEBALL LATER. it it a TRAVESTY that baseball isn't ds9's thing the way poker was for tng or pool is for voyager. i understand it would be more expensive to shoot but like they got a whole ass set for that pool hall. come on.

side plot of bashir diving back in to save dax...WAH THEY LOVE EACHOTHER. HE'S SUCH A GOOD PERSON!!!!!! GOD

other side plot of quark lowkey being at fault for all of this (by cheating those guys) initially annoyed me but this episode did so much for quark in the me community because then he's like yeah i can deprogram the torpedo. and he can get in but not deprogram it. he just gets lucky. idk. it's so nice to see him do literally anything other than make unfunny jokes AND WHEN HE DOES he does a great job.

my final note is that it was charming kira misunderstood "hot dogs" but that quark will know what they are. how much do you think sisko had to pay him to get him to start making those for the holosuites lol

little green men (ds9):

im so glad i was able to forgive quark before this episode

this one was...fine. i enjoyed rom and nog a lot, and i didn't mind quark very much. he even made me laugh a couple of times!

i enjoyed all the jokes about how stupid were to be smoking and dropping atom bombs. when even QUARK is shocked at your behavior ("they IRRADIATED they OWN PLANET?") you know you've really fucked up

this raises so many questions about the universal translators though. people just...have those? under their skin? in their ears? all the time? then what on earth did they need a big one for in tos? what is this, farscape?

i've just now learned one of the guys in this ep was in tos, but since i never rewatch way to eden i didn't recognize him at all. iirc he famously said he'd love to come back to trek one day but only if they let him wear proper clothes. i am absolutely tickled with this information i love star trek

also, it was funny when nog said "i'm supposed to report you for smuggling but i'm not sworn in yet so i'll keep it under my hat for 10%." i love him so much.

of course, my favorite part of this episode was surprise odo. i remember joking when the dog put its paws on quark's chest "haha it's odo" and then 2 seconds later the dog DID TURN INTO ODO and i lost my fucking mind. my best friend odo...we haven't had any odo-centric content in awhile so this was a nice way to tide me over until "crossover," which ik is going to be a biggie and which BETTER BE FUCKING GOOD.

cold fire (voy):

my absolute favorite thing about this episode was that we get a little outside pov on voyager. this dangerous warship that appeared out of nowhere and leaves destruction in its wake with its advanced technology. <3 like, is that what theyre doing? no, at least not on purpose, but i absolutely LOVE that it's how they look to outsiders.

someone has got to teach kes how to recognize a red fucking flag. that guy was soooo shady from the get-go. girl, run. you know it's dire when even neelix's paranoia is justified.

actually, neelix wasn't in this ep much, but i liked what we had of him. he was willing to go with kes anywhere and just wanted her to be safe and live longer. wah. i really wish he didn't have this jealousy plotline as a black mark on his record because i REALLY like him otherwise

i liked the horror elements in this one at the end! the demonic little blonde girl, the women being pinned to the ceiling dripping blood...you may stop watching s*pernatural but you will never really stop watching s*pernatural. VERY surprising but in a fun way. also, tentacles

on a final note, tuvok is a VERY good sport about almost getting his head boiled by kes. like yes logic blah blah blah she does need instruction but just bc vulcans dont allow emotions to control them doesnt mean they dont FEEL emotions. anyone else would have been through with teaching her forever probably. i love tuvok so much i am so happy every time he is on my screen

sword of kahless (ds9):

RETURN OF THE KING!!!!! i'm so glad if any one of them lived it was going to be kor. i thought he died and that would have been kinder probably but he was the first ever klingon on star trek...he deserved another episode the most. also, if i had had to look at squire of gothos guy again it would've made me unwell

ALSO, KIRK MENTION. i literally had to rewind it and listen again 😭

i LOVED the first half of this episode. i loved dax and worf getting to know each other in a more subtle way, and i REALLY loved kor treating worf really niceys and vice versa. they were such good buddies! we were having a great time!

everybody got really annoying after they found the sword, except of course for dax, who got to be really fucking done in a funny way. dax having a consistent personality now has made her so fun, genuinely

and like, i kept wondering if the sword was cursed, how it made them act this way, why weren't they in their right minds...and then in the end it was Just Them. they quite literally tried to murder each other and it was JUST THEM. which could have been a very sobering realization if it was played that way, if like dax had assumed there was a curse or a psychic something-or-other messing with them, and then they realized in the cold light of day they had no excuses to fall back on...but that's not what they did, so, eh. gets an "either" on the spreadsheet. rip season 4's winning streak

i will say i had to google halfway thru the ep whether kor died and found out he does come back but then dies later. i'd rather know though because i couldn't take the anxiety.

OH WAIT YEAH I NEARLY FORGOT.................the return of that random kid from that one tng episode. fucking insane. the DEEP deep lore. i couldn't believe it

maneuvers (voy):

SESKA MY BEST FRIEND SESKA. SHE IS BACK!!! TO CAUSE PROBLEMS ON PURPOSE

kazon politics in this episode were BOOOORINGGG but seska made up for it

rewinding a little: chakotay and b'elanna flirting at the beginning was hot. i STILL can't believe she ends up with tom paris. that said, chakotay could work with almost any character on this cast. he's just great like that. thats why seska wanted him

also, i liked that janeway took the time to explain to neelix why "one little computer component" had the potential to cause sooo much trouble. it's a clever way to disguise that what she's really doing is explaining it to the audience, but it's also kind to stop and take a second to genuinely hear and respond to his concern, and make him understand, instead of just getting annoyed

b'elanna is really that ride or die friend. chakotay fucked RIGHT off and she still went to bat for him MULTIPLE times to try and get janeway to go easy on him. in the pilot she wouldn't leave without harry kim even though she didn't even really like him because they had been stuck together. she defends tuvok in an episode later too that i'll get into when i get there but i really truly and deeply love that about her. NO one is more loyal than b'elanna

some SERIOUS close encounter shit happening in this episode with seska. i'm thrilled that chakotay finally gets some juicy drama that they don't need to consult their fake racist expert to write. especially because:

BABY? SESKA IS GONNA HAVE CHAKOTAY'S BABY?? god i can't fucking wait. then he'll have just 3 less babies than tuvok. who has 4 babies, if i haven't mentioned that yet today

also, his scene with janeway at the end...AUGH. one thing that differentiates voyager from tng for ME is how much they all love each other on voyager. it comes through SO clearly, even when they're angry with one another, maybe especially then. tng was so. STERILE. every scene janeway and chakotay have together is CRACKLING. voyager has had a lot of duds so far, it's true, but you just don't get that kind of tension on tng - or when you do it's very very VERY rare

our man bashir (ds9):

another ds9 s4 ep i'm "eh" about..i mean, i don't like holodeck episodes in the best of circumstances, but i genuinely believed if anyone could pull it off it'd be ds9. however i am feeling so lukewarm

garak and julian were incredible, of course. i was particularly thrilled by the bit at the end where julian straight-up plagiarized him to stall for time. AND after thinking about it i like that garak was literally willing to leave them to die - it seemed ouit of character at first, because you think of him as a Good Guy Who Is On Our Side Because He Has Breakfast With Odo, but maybe actually it serves as a nice little reminder that he's still quite unknown

AND i love when avery brooks gets to act unhinged. mirror sisko i will miss you forever

i also liked that horny thing o'brien did with the gun. do it again

that said...the set-up for this episode was sooo flimsy. like, why was garak even there, for starters. like it's kind of funny that he's just being nosy but also like. it is flimsy

also, i've never seen any bond movies, which means i didn't get most of the bond jokes

but my major complaint was the women...what is this, tng? jadzia "honey bear" dax was one thing - dax kind of likes being sexy and showing herself off and she's more than down to clown. but putting KIRA in the holosuite and then objectifying her like that (AND making her kiss julian! i know the actors were married but cmon) just feels...so demeaning. kira would never want this. we quite literally had an entire episode devoted to the fact that kira would feel angry and violated for her image to be used in the holodeck for any purpose, let alone sexy ones.

even in that one episode with old bashir in the coma, which may as well have been a holodeck episode, we learned something about him. the episode fucking sucked but we came away from it with some measure of character development. we got nothing here but a fun time (if you have seen bond movies and don't mind objectifying women).

resistance (voy):

THIS ONE MADE ME CRY............

that weird creepy old man...i spent all of the episode going if anything happens to this guy i'll kill everyone in this room and then myself

and by the time we got to the end and he DID die i was almost grateful because then at least he can stop missing his family.

AND LIKE I BELIEVED HIM. i was right there with janeway!!! i was like damn you gotta go find his wife before you leave AND SHE WAS REALLY GONNA GO. she was gonna risk her life for it! BUT SHE'S DEAD

and then at the end when she isn't listening harry kim doesn't look hurt or offended he's just CONCERNED. because they LOVE HER her crew LOVES HER. like what the fuck

anyway i'm glad he killed that guy FUCK that guy no one deserved to kill him more than that old man

the other thing that really got me was tuvok and b'elanna. again, b'elanna is the ride or die friend bc when they tried to take him she was LITERALLY going to fight 3 guys with guns to her certain death to keep it from happening and only didn't because tuvok told her not to.

i am so sad for tuvok always. he is so far from home and they were TORTURING him!!! he hasn't seen his 4 babies or the orchids he breeds in like a year and they're torturing him!!!!! i really loved his and b'elanna's conversation when he got back to the cell...it was a very sweet moment between them

but i MOSTLY loved when tuvok got to vulcan nerve pinch that guy. not NEARLY enough vulcan nerve pinching in this series since spock left if you ask me. i want him to do that many more times

also, absolutely giddy that nobody bothered to explain what it is to either the characters or the audience. we all knew. everybody say thank you leonard nimoy

WHEW. that was so many, may it never pile up like this again, etc etc. TONIGHT: ds9's "homefront" and "paradise lost."