#i tend to have one in every star trek show

[lostyesterday]

The most interesting dynamics in Enterprise to me so far (I’m a few episodes into season 2):

Hoshi and T’Pol: Partially because they’re my two favorite characters, but also I’ve found almost every scene they’ve shared compelling. I think they have the capacity to understand each other really well and I wish they interacted more. Also they should hold hands again and maybe kiss.

Hoshi and Phlox: I love the few indications so far that they’re friends. Their dynamic is so cute, and I love the scene of Hoshi learning Phlox’s language, and the apparent ease and comfort they have talking to each other. Phlox feels a bit distant from the rest of the crew in most episodes so far, which is a shame, but the exception I think would be his scenes with Hoshi. I could be convinced to ship them, I think.

T’Pol and Phlox: Being the only two non-humans on a ship full of humans makes their dynamic really interesting to me, especially given how different they are in basically every other way. So far, their interactions haven’t had much depth to them, but the potential is there.

Hoshi and Travis: Every indication is that they’re close friends even if there haven’t been a huge number of scenes between them. The scene of Hoshi convincing Travis to sit in the captain’s chair was so cute. I like to think they know everything about each other and are best friends who maybe date each other for a little while at some point.

Archer and Travis: This seems like a potentially really interesting mentor/mentee relationship. It could have the potential to be a little bit messed up which I enjoy in these types of relationships. Maybe a bit of a Janeway and Harry thing going on perhaps?

Hoshi and Malcolm: I thought these actors worked really well together in the few scenes they were in together. I love the idea of Malcolm training Hoshi to shoot. I know I’m shipping literally everyone with Hoshi here, but I do think they have chemistry. I’m hoping the show never actually tried to make them a couple at some point because that would probably ruin it for me (I rarely like canon ships in Star Trek).

Trip and Malcolm: I’m grudgingly putting this one on the list because this is one of the dynamics we’re Supposed to care about as the audience, but okay, they got me here, their friendship is fun, so long as you ignore the sexism. Idk if I ship them, really, but I get why people do. There are some definite Julian/Miles vibes here.

[shut-up-danny-kun]

I've read hundreds of Star Trek TOS fics by now and it never ceases to amuse me how many different ways there are to fuck up Spock's characterization...now hold on just a minute - this post has a more interesting point than “fanfic writers stupid”, I promise you.

Every time, it's a spin on the massacre wheel. It's kind of amazing. Will he be overly emotional to the point where he's not himself anymore? Will he be so cold it's unpleasant and kind of hard to understand how he's lived to this point? Will he be extremely horny for no good reason? Will he speak in a way that sounds complety wrong?

I chuckle and shake my head. Of course, I KNOW what Spock is like, and MY interpretation of him is the most perfect and correct one. Obviously. He's just a very nuanced character, formed by many people in an unconventional way, with traits that seem to contradict each other at first but ultimately form a rich and unique character that so many people fell in love with specifically because he's so complicated...

Or...is he?

Let's entertain the idea that there isn't one correct interpretation of Spock, that all of these messy bits of characterization are not part of a bigger picture, but...just what they are: a product of many people with starkly different visions, working on a show that refuses to properly develop its characters. What then? Well, then Spock is a Rorschach test. Each viewer connects the random dots in their own way, and ignores the ones they don't like.

Let's use an example: me! In my interpretation of Spock (the most correct one, of course) he is, first of all, gay and on the asexual spectrum, reserved, largely uninterested in casual flirting or sex. When he is interested in the aforementioned things, he tends to be quite ashamed of it.

Makes sense, right? I can show you plenty of evidence for why that could be true. However, in the beginning of the first bloody season, Uhura sings a song about how Spock is actually kind of a heartthrob who likes to drive women insane with how hot he is, and Spock smiles. He smiles at her, as if agreeing and being very amused by all this! This interaction goes against pretty much everything I think about Spock. So what do I do? I explain it away in the most bizzare fucking way possible. See, Uhura and Spock are friends (there is no evidence for this), and Uhura knows everything I've just told you about him (through telepathy I guess? Not like he'd ever tell her!) and she's just trolling him (why would she do that? That is NOTHING like Uhura!). I need to do some Olympics-level mental gymnastics here, the opposite of Occam's razor.

“But Danny,” I hear you say, “it's just the start of the show! They hadn't figured out his character yet!”

To which I say: you can say that about anything! You can blame it all on a bad writer for that episode, and ignore virtually any scene that doesn't jive with your headcanons. It's there, and I can't ignore it.

So...how am I different from the people that want Spock to be thar heartthrob Uhura is singing about? That evidence is as much a part of canon as my favorite lines. Well, I'm not any different, that's the thing. And all those writers I complained about also have a point.

It's kind of a nihilistic take, I know, but maybe the reason Spock is such a cultural icon is because he is...whatever you want him to be: just concrete enough to spur on your imagination, yet vague and contradictory enough to let your brain fill in the gaps.

Don't get me wrong: I absolutely do not believe in this. In my mind, it just so happens that I'm one of the, like, 5 people ever who truly understood Spock (and one of them is Jim Kirk himself). But I still think it's something worth thinking about next time you're mad at a fic.

[terresdebrume]

I think I want to point at the elephant in the room today

The problem when we have the ever more frequent conversation of how to keep a fandom alive after the show it's based on stops airing is that we tend talk about it in a way that ignores the very real differences between the juggernauts of old fandoms like Star Trek and newer shows like Dead Boy Detectives, namely:

1. The difference in amount of material

2. The accessibility of said material

Part of the reason why Star Trek or The X-Files still have active fans so long after they aired is because those shows had multiple seasons with an average of 20 episodes each. For the X-Files' 11 seasons that's about 200 episodes each with their own storylines, themes, interesting ideas and frustrating mistakes right there to inspire Fanart, fic, meta, and any number of fanwork. I'm not even going to do the math on Star Trek: this show got about a bazillion shows

Dead Boy Detectives, and a lot of genre shows nowadays have like... Eight episodes. Ten, if we're lucky. Fandoms for procedurals or more broadly appealing shows fare better (Lone Star comes to mind, or sitcoms for example) because networks tend to keep them online longer, but genre series get ever shorter with ever fewer opportunities to really grow an audience... Think of all the shows that got popular on Tumblr in the past few years and tell me how many got a proper season? Shadow and Bones was cancelled. My Lady Jane: one season. Gentleman Jack, two (three?). Good Omens: maybe 3, depending on how the network handle the Gaiman situation. The Umbrella Academy got four seasons. Stranger Things, with 5 seasons and 42 episodes managed to equate roughly 2 seasons of the X-Files (probably not even that if you account for episode length). The Witcher currently has 3 seasons for 24 episodes.

Contrast this to shows like Dead Boy Detectives with, again, eight episodes. Maybe 16 if we get really lucky, but I'm not holding my breath. This is just materially WAY LESS soil for a fandom to grow in. It's not that people aren't motivated, it's that as much as you want to keep it going, there's only so much to say about 8 episodes! George Rexstrew, who plays one of the leads, even recently admitted that he's running out of things to say about his performance, and who can blame him? So after a while, you gotta turn to AU which by definition are always going to be potential hits and misses, since they diverge from what brought people to the show in the first place.

I know we're all real good at spinning yarn but sometimes it gets really hard not to run out of fiber.

As for accessibility: the Big Olds benefitted from two things. One, they were broadcast on much wider-reaching channels, if not from the start, then when they eventually made it on public networks. They had a regular play time, and you could stumble onto them by accident, this getting interested and picking it up. And two: the popular shows had a decent chance of getting tape or DVD sets, which made them easier to own and show to your friends so they could binge the story and join you in the fandom

By comparison, look at the barrier of access for Dead Boy Detectives:

Need to have a Netflix account

Need to see it somewhere in your recommendation (good luck if you come in more than a month after it released)

Need to see people talk about it as they binge (need to be in the right place at the right time, and by that I mean where fandom happens since Netflix has a habit of doing zero advertising for new shows)

Need to keep paying for a Netflix account if you wanna rewatch, or figure out how to do a piracy, which is getting more difficult and riskier every year

Need to be willing to get invested in a forever unfinished story

And when on top of that the writing in the first episode is, let's say it frankly, far from the best, that is a LOT of obstacle to overcome for a pretty small sandbox

So like, yeah, sure, we should be willing to keep making a fandom happen after a show ends, but at some point we can't ignore that the effort it takes to keep fandoms alive is getting way more intense than it used to be

[wander-wren]

sometimes i wonder about what fandom is going to look like in 5 or 10 years. i think we might have already started to see a shift.

because, look, most of the oldest, biggest fandoms are from tv shows and movies, in particular ones that go on for years and scores of episodes. star trek, star wars, stargate (is everything star?), doctor who, supernatural…even sherlock really got its biggest popularity boosts in the modern day from tv adaptations. marvel and dc were comics first, too, but movies made them more accessible; their “cinematic universe” tags are the biggest on ao3 by far.

but what tv shows are we getting now? short, 8-episode things that get canceled two or three seasons in, that are usually less-than-faithful adaptations of other media anyway.

what movies are we getting? well, marvel turns more to slop every day, and everything else is remakes and sequels no one asked for. the general populace will still go see them and find some good movies that they like, but there’s not much really for fandom to grasp onto.

the best shows for fandom that we’ve had recently, that i can think of, are stranger things, game of thrones, and maybe our flag means death. stranger things is dying off, especially since they’re looking at a 3-4 YEAR gap between s4 and s5. game of thrones’s popularity plummeted after its final season, we all know that. our flag means death is still chugging fairly okay, but after that second season a lot of the fandom dropped it, and with it now being cancelled, i don’t see it sticking around.

yes, we can chalk part of this up to a new generation to of fans having this growing idea that fandom is super temporary, to be abandoned as soon as its not on trend. but media used to be on trend for a whole lot longer than it is now. seasons were longer, we had filler episodes, things were lower quality sometimes but at least they came out on a consistent schedule. i don’t mind if supernatural isn’t an artistic masterpiece, but if i was a stranger things fan waiting until 2026 for the final season, i would be annoyed if it wasn’t damn near perfect. that’s assuming i watched it at all—we’re all so used to not getting endings and moving on, so why would i bother?

i think there are two types of shows doing sort of okay about this. one is procedurals—9-1-1 is a popular one i’ve run into, and it started in 2018, around the beginning of the decline, but it’s managed 7 seasons in those six years, most of them with 18 episodes. the other is, honestly, anime—though we can and SHOULD talk about the terrible working conditions that make the fast turnarounds there possible. look at how big some anime fandoms are.

judging by the relative fandom popularity of other procedural dramas (grey’s anatomy, law & order, criminal minds), i think that’s going to remain sort of niche. fandom likes fantasy and scifi best, and they just don’t tend to have as strong of an overarching arc to dig into. at least, that’s why i wouldn’t watch them. i think there’s also a good chance these will start to die out in the coming years as well.

anime could also die out a little bit. better working conditions would necessitate less/slower content, and it’s true that most of the popular anime fandoms have been around for years, even decades.

so, what, no new, lasting tv show or movie fandoms anymore?

what will the biggest fandoms be in 5-10 years?

podcast fandoms have a shot. the magnus archives is still going strong, and i’ve been seeing a lot about dungeons and daddies. i think we’re kind of almost past the golden age for podcasts, but i am an outsider, so maybe that will change.

book fandoms seem like a kind of obvious choice, but they just don’t get as big without, you guessed it, a movie or show adaptation. and the downsizing has hit them, too—can you think of anything from the last 5 or 10 years that rivals harry potter, percy jackson, warriors, lord of the rings, hunger games, acotar…even game of thrones (asoiaf) again? i can’t. the collapse of the publishing industry is another post entirely.

2020 is really what cemented these changes, though they were starting in the late 2010s, at least. with actual industries shutting down, there was room for indie creators making things alone in their houses to pop up, and people had more time on their hands to try new things out and get into them.

the two things that have really been on the rise since 2020 is rpf and video game fic—often both combined. we’ve got genshin impact, call of duty, minecraft of course being huge, rpf of various youtubers, and k-pop rpf. now, i think rpf is contentious enough that it won’t really become the main fandom, but video game fic…might be it.

even video blogging rpf can often be a blurred enough line that people are more comfortable with it. and the thing is…youtube creators are actually more reliable than mainstream television these days. they need to be, to maintain their platforms. they need to not cancel series and to live up to their own hype as best they can and to not abandon the channel for 3 or 4 years at a time. and again, you can talk about burnout and unrealistic expectations and all of those things, but it’s still true.

maybe i’m completely wrong. maybe in 10 years the film and publishing industries will all sort themselves out and we’ll go back to the status quo. but i think this position fandom is finding itself in is interesting, and i wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if what’s most popular (both in the specific source material sense and the medium/genre sense) is different some time down the road.

[purple-iris]

Saavik headcanons - 

As promised, here they are! It’s not that much, but those just live rent free in my head. 

When the rescue vessel first arrived at Vulcan, Amanda came to the spaceport to greet Sarek and Spock. This was Saavik’s first encounter with her, and she instinctively clocked her as a trustworthy figure. In the early days of her Vulcan education, she would pull up the ta’al toward Amanda with a smile, rather than a neutral expression, having not yet learned emotional control. She still tends to show her emotions more around Amanda (who is a very happy grandma) (This is the image i have basically: 🖖🙂)

Considering the conditions of starvation in her childhood on Hellguard, Saavik encountered a plethora of health difficulties: Namely, her immune system was not built for bacteria native to Vulcan, and she fell ill in the first few weeks she spent there with Spock before they moved to Dantria IV. Her bone density is also significantly lesser than the average vulcan, a result of the lack of certain nutrients and proteins in her alimentation as a very young child. Her genetics still makes her stronger and more resistant than a human, but much less than a full-blooded, healthy Vulcan. She is also among the shorter percentiles in terms of heights.

On the plus side, she is not a picky eater at all. Her curiosity applies also in the matters of gastronomy and she enjoys discovering new foods and manners of preparing them. She insisted that Spock teach her how to program replicators (Spock asked Jim’s help on that, because he knows more about replicator code than even Spock does)

She more than once spooked Spock in the middle of the night, allowing him to discover that Vulcan’s secondary eyelids acted much like an earth cat’s tapetum lucidum, reflecting the light and glowing. He had never noticed it in his peers, having not spent much time with them in the night, and had to hold back an emotional reaction when she simply wanted his help to grab a glass of water at 2 am. 

Saavik also took a long time before she trusted people enough to fall asleep near them. She would always curl herself up in the corner of her bedroom, and to help her Spock placed her bed farthest from the door, while also making sure in case of danger she could escape by the window. The first time she fell asleep on the living room floor from exhaustion after reading one too many datatape was extremely endearing for Spock. He got the chance to carry her to her bed. 

Spock had to learn to take care of her curls, and would facetime with Uhura in the late hours of Dantria IV’ night to get advice. Saavik would sit on the living room floor and he’d carefully untangle her curls with a wide toothed comb nearly every night until she began doing it herself. 

Once she joined Vulcan school after the year on Dantria IV with Spock, she often got teased for the green color of her eyes, her peers likening it to blood and trying to elicit an emotional response out of her. Sometimes it worked and she’d fight them off, sometimes she threatened to get Ambassador Sarek’s rightful power (I dont wanna say anger) on their parent’s career. (might as well use her adopted nepotism against bullies)

During her first year at the Academy, Saavik let the others, mostly human students, assume that she was just fully Vulcan. After the events of The Pandora Principle, she began cryptically correcting that she was Half-Vulcan, like her father, bringing about school gossip about her parentage. Once it became widely known she was Spock’s child, the gossip shifted on whether or not professor Spock had her with a random human woman or if he and professor Kirk found a way themselves. (The gossip about the professors at the academy must be fire) 

When she got accepted in the Academy baseball league, she began reading up on all the aspects of the sport, to a point where she could quote stats from players who played back in the 20th century. 

In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, her hair is actually straightened, in an effort of seeming more Vulcan to the human crew during her first starship assignment. After Spock’s loss, she cannot bring herself to continue straightening them, hence her curls return in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. I also think Uhura helped her with the do she had during the funeral ceremony. (The volume sorta reminds me of Uhura’s TOS hair.)

That’s all for now!

[inell]

Possibly a dumb question but I saw you reblog a few leverage things recently and you're one of my favorite 9-1-1 writers so I was wondering what you think a 911 Leverage Fusion AU could look like if you were to think about it because their two of my favorite shows

Goodness! Thank you for the compliment. I thought about this during my commute home from work, and this is what I came up with.

We use season 7 of 911. Councilwoman Ortiz is obviously dirty, having used her power to force Gerrard into the 118, and to remove Mara from HenRen’s custody as well as revoking their foster status. That’s all canon.

We pick up with Toni, Hen’s mom, reaching out to these nice people she met when she lived in Portland years and years ago. They ran a gastropub but she also knew about their other business because Alec was a sweetheart who chatted way too much. She contacts the new Leverage HQ in New Orleans looking for Hardison, and she gets Parker. Who is very interested when she hears about the kid being removed and she shares it with the others, research is done, and, because it’s 911 (which tends to be racially cliche), Ortiz ties into the cartel subplot (her son died from illegal drugs, after all, and there’s also the people trafficking subplot that could be linked).

Cut to Leverage crew showing up in LA and meeting Toni, who hasn’t told Hen about her interference. Parker and Eliot fight over who gets to go undercover at the firehouse, because they need to get rid of Gerrard and figure out his connection to Ortiz. Eliot wins, obviously, simply by asking Parker to put on full gear and carry a 200lb weight.

Parker is Not Happy, but Eliot goes undercover as a new firefighter. He and Eddie hit it off with the whole military slash guilt slash PTSD slash dislike of firearms thing, and Buck is suspicious because they don’t have an opening for another member on their team and also why is this guy being so friendly with Eddie and who cares if he’s from Oklahoma which is next to Texas and they bond over TexMex and country music and Eliot tells Eddie he needs to keep his dog on a leash before it gets bit, and Buck really really hates this new guy who oddly has the same name as a character on Star Trek, according to Chim.

Meanwhile, Breana is sent to work at the city council as an intern who is assigned to Ortiz, while Sophie and Harry work on a cover to get closer to the whole drug slash trafficking thing, and Hardison is working on a project in Cairo but FaceTimes Toni and Parker a few times (showing off his muscles that he’s happened to get while geeking out and not because there’s a new movie role he’s filming in RL), and Parker annoys Eliot by being in his ear every shift, listening to everything and watching what he sees through his nifty camera lenses.

Parker loves Chimney, thinks he’s hilarious, and she doesn’t know why Eliot won’t tell Chim the dad jokes she keeps repeating in his earpiece because she wants to know if Chim thinks she’s funny. She’s also working on the whole foster revocation situation with help from Hardison, but bugging Eliot is a lot more fun. She especially likes to make popcorn for the times when he’s chilling in the loft with his new BFF and said BFF’s BFF. She might be neurodivergent, but she’s not even as fucked up as Buck and Eddie and their whole thing. Breana shares the popcorn when she isn’t working for free and trying to suck up to Ortiz.

In the end, they manage to catch Ortiz, the person on the foster system that did her dirty work, the main cartel players connected to her, and they link Gerrard to them. They give Toni the money they got from the deal, which she explains to Hen and Karen as a lucky lotto win when she gives it to them for Mara and Denny. Eliot quits the 118, but not before locking Buck and Eddie up in the supply closet and telling them work out their UST, damn it, and Bobby comes back as Captain.

[pretentiouswreckingball]

sundrarry rec! 🍏⚡️

I've thought a lot about doing this but after some encouragement on your part and my incessant need to talk about Drarry, I decided to do Sunday Drarry recs or as I call them sundrarry recs (I have a way with words, what can I say). So, every Sunday, I'll post some of my favorite Drarry fics, some I read a long time ago, some I read more recently but overall, they all are little gems I've found in my time reading the pairing. Either way, I hope you like them <3

Come Hell or High Water by mallstars

Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Healer Draco Malfoy, Auror Harry Potter, Depression, Mutual Pining, Angst, Fluff, Asexual Harry Potter, Hopeful Ending, Gently Implied Happy Ending.

Rating: Mature | Chapters: 5/5 | WC: 22.1k | Status: Completed

Summary

In his bed under Mungo's floating candles, Harry sips tea, watches reality TV, and does his best not to pay any mind to the curse which has invaded his body.

Harry wants to heal.

He wants his healer even more.

Keeping one desperate secret can't hurt. Not much, anyway.

Spoiler-free extract

Malfoy comes back the next morning, and the one after that. He fluffs Harry's pillow and tends to Molly's bouquets. He plucks at Healer Willowisps' diagnostic spells but doesn't take notes on his clipboard. He doesn't take charge.  It's a yes now, always, whenever Harry asks for his time.  I'm thinking of taking a walk in the courtyard. Will you come with me? Ron is swinging by with pizza later. Do you wanna have a quick lunch with us?  Have you ever seen Star Trek? I might need a break from Lockhart, do you wanna watch that instead?  Will you stay? Stay?  Stay?  It's always a yes. 

Personal thoughts

I love a good hurt/comfort just like the next guy but this, guys. This fic. My god, I haven't read something quite like this in a while. I couldn't stop once I started it and the plot twist at the end *screams* I didn’t see it coming at all but once I re-read it (because, of course) I noticed all the little hints that led to that ending which made it even more heartbreaking, it was there all along! What I like the most about this fic is the gentleness and softness of the pairing, the writing is impeccable and it shows how much care the author put into the story, they hold your hand all the way to the end.

[vinelark]

fic writer meme

thank you [checks notes] @megafaunatic, @cairoscene, @englishsub, @yuebings, and @cafecliche for the tags ilu

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 15! which is solidly 14 more than i ever expected to have on there when i made the account

2. What's your total Ao3 word count? 277,844

3. What fandoms do you write for? on ao3: mdzs/cql, tgcf, shl, and dc. in groupchats/dms/my own head i’m running wild all over the place

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? 🐉 this river runs to you 💍 i’ll have you and you’ll have me 🪐 i will be chasing a starlight ⚔️ you’re the trouble that i always find 🌊 a wave crashes to shore

5. Do you respond to comments? not often; i have made multiple attempts to start replying regularly but all have eventually failed in the face of me desperately wanting to show my earnest and genuine appreciation for each comment vs. wanting to hide my blushing face under a pillow every time. also, because of who i am as a person, each time i sat down to do it i ended up spending hours making little progress and eventually decided that i will make an effort to spend those hours writing or commenting on other fics instead. i am honored by each and every one though!!!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? while i tend to write angst it is always firmly of the “with a happy ending” sort. the one exception is my shortest fic (originally posted on twitter) never been away so long, which is more of an ambiguous/open ending with implied angst. i dooooo outline the eventual happy ending in the endnotes, though. also as it CURRENTLY stands buy back the secrets ends on one hell of an angsty note, but there are two more chapters in the works to fix that.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? despite the wangxian star trek au having like 20k of deliriously happy post-misunderstanding sex, i think trrty has to have the happiest ending because not only does the fic end happily, but there are also multiple very happy codas in which wwx gets a good night’s sleep, finally gets to bang his dragon boyfriend, and, my personal fav, one by aubreyli where wangxian go flying in a thunderstorm.

8. Do you get hate on fics? not so far, for which i am grateful but mostly lucky.

9. Do you write smut? occasionally; on ao3 there’s the aforementioned trrty coda, plus the aforementioned cowritten wangxian pon farr sequence 💪

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you have written? hmm, i’m not opposed to crossovers—i’ve read some really fun ones (recent fav crossover read here)—but i’d have to be really compelled by both source materials and have a very clear vision for how they interact to want to write one myself. i’ve written a few fandom fusions (aforementioned wangxian star trek au; i also started a wangxian dragon age au but again, no dragon age characters were going to show up, just the world/setting) but no full-on crossovers. i did have one partially drafted wangxian fic that was going to have a hua cheng deus ex machina, alas.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? not that i’m aware of! it’s not something i really go looking for/concern myself with, but so far, like with fandom hate, i’m grateful to not have encountered it.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? yes! my wangxian wedding fic was translated to russian.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? i co-wrote seventy thousand words of published fic with @feyburner! and probably two hundred thousand words of unpublished fic and outlines and story ideas just for fun. even when we aren’t co-writing we tend to talk through our individual fics with each other so we’re pretty in sync when it comes to writing. i also spent like a year in @cairoscene’s DMs concocting whole outlines/zerodrafts for batfam fics together that i still cherish and reread (notable favs: tim drake ella enchanted au, concept where the waynes are cursed to suddenly feel nothing but apathy about tim and he has to deal with that, story where robin!tim gets de-aged and oops red hood is the first one to show up…). i’d say the OCBFEU is fic-adjacent and cowritten by a group of us. also shoutout to the mdzs threadfic @cafecliche and i brainstormed/zerodrafted where lan qiren gets cursed into an owl and post-cql wei wuxian is the one who unknowingly saves him.

14. What's your all time favorite ship? oh yeah it’s [loud truck goes by]

15. What is a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? cyborg!wwx…i still think of you fondly. the only ao3 fic i’ve ever posted knowing i probably wouldn’t finish it but wanted to share just for fun.

16. What are your writing strengths? pangs��� mining little character details for humor (or, more often, for more pangs)… i also think i’ve really improved my action writing/pacing over the last few years.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? i write actual drafts/prose fairly slowly, which can be frustrating for me. also like @yuebings i often get very caught up in trying to perfect one small part of a draft before moving on. ummmm describing outfits/settings for reasons other than immediate plot-relevant details, i’m terrible at that + remembering to do it—i literally make myself do a What Are We Looking At Here Pass while revising sometimes.

18. Thoughts of writing dialogue in another language in fics? i’m not totally sure what this question is asking tbh, but it’s something i think can be done incredibly well—and, like with many things in storytelling, it’s the sort of thing where if you don’t actually speak the second language you need to be willing to put in work beyond a cursory google to try to achieve what you’re doing, and be willing to admit if it’s beyond your capabilities. i really like how the portuguese dialogue in bbts ended up and that’s 100% because @tigerjpg translated it for me and also already understood the scene/concept/characters; without them i would have found a different way to approach that scene. also, stylistically, i personally like when dialogue in other languages isn’t italicized unless there’s a real reason for it to be.

19. First fandom you wrote for? oh it was [a second loud truck whooshes by]

20. Favorite fic you have written? right now it’s bbts, because i think it’s also the fic i’ve had the most fun writing. trrty, though, will always hold a special place in my heart.

and i tag! @tlumeti, @burins, @smilebackwards, @bonesbuckleup, @hearteyeshayley, @sonosvegliato

[abigail-nicole]

DS9 Watch Notes

“Star Trek Deep Space 9: What if the Nazis ran a shopping mall but now they're gone and you have to be in charge of the mall” - my spouse

Season One

I grew up watching Star Trek my entire life. Even like Discovery and Enterprise which no one but my mom liked I’m pretty sure

but somehow my parents, white christian conservatives, didn’t watch DS9……hmmmm

anyway I finally in 2024 started DS9, and we start with an intense hot mess in opposition to every other well-ordered utopian Star Trek

DS9’s instant cast of marginalized characters, a chaotically destroyed space station, Sisko hating Picard??? strong writing choices

“When governments fall, people like me are lined up and shot” -Quark

“Never trust ale from a god-fearing people��� - Quark

So DS9 came out in 93-99 … vs 87-94 for TNG, then 95-01 for Voyager. And TNG got all the star trek money because DS9 sure didn’t. Man these special effects are bad

Cool that Sisko and Dax, neither of whom are Bajoran, get to go on a Bajoran spiritual journey. Not weird colonial appropriation vibes at all

Tumblr really wants me to ship garak & bashir and quark & odo…. fine

Julian so excited Garak came and talked to him he went and told all his friends, who all think he’s annoying with no coping skills

I knew Julian was autistic bc tumblr but I wasn’t prepared for how much he’s exactly as annoying as a second year medical student

ACAB includes Odo

You could absolutely do something interesting with the ferengi, because a culture that puts an explicit price on everything and doesn’t believe in the implicit value of things is a great way to do social critique of what a culture implicitly and explicitly values. Too bad Star Trek never does this

For how much there’s Gender in this show, don’t think S1 of DS9 passes the Bechdel test

The best part of DS9 is when the holodeck fantasies come to life and Bashir’s sexy submissive version of Jadzia Dax meets real Dax and she smirks and goes “I understand, I was a young man once”

Odo defines himself in relationship to Quark. what is a cop without his criminal. he wakes up & thinks “what is Quark doing right now.” girl love yourself

I’m really enjoying the cardassians. Aliens on Star Trek tend to be one note. Vulcans love logic, Klingons love honor and battle…. Cardassians are just humans. Plus the cardassians get to be played by good actors and have complex character arcs

The way half the characters say “bazhoran” and “bay-zhor” and half (incl Kira, but not all Bajorans) say Bajor and Bajoran

Jake & Nog friendship is the future liberals (me) want

[quiet-nocturne]

Tag game for fanfiction authors!

Thanks to @the-blue-eyed-firebender for the tag!

Tell us:

The story you're proudest of: Probably my febuwhump 2024 collection, "i'll destroy you like I am", because I wrote a ficlet EVERY DAY for a month, often from scratch, and edited the fic as well. That's kind of crazy to me now, lol. I think the pressure of having to post each day really pushed me forward. Otherwise, I tend to procrastinate from editing. 🙃

Your story that's gotten the most love online: Definitely "i'll destroy you like I am" - people really do like whump, haha.

Tease a current WIP or idea you're working on: so this is from chapter 15 of overcome, my massive royai big bang fic - ironically, this is a moment where Riza is comforting Roy, when the majority of the fic is him comforting her, lol. But I wanted to include some scenes to show how he is still very much fucked up from the war/the promised day:

"I know." She soothed softly, her chin bumping against his shoulder as she held him. "You're the only one who does." He said hoarsely - the words sounded like they were being scraped out of his chest. "That's why I'm so fucking glad you haven't left me."  “You know I won't.” His voice hitched, betraying how torn up he was. "I can't fathom why you're still by my side, even after all these years." "There's nowhere else I'd rather be."  The hand clasping around her wrist tightened, a wordless acknowledgment of her admission.

this scene was exciting to write because they hug (!!!) and this fic is very, very slow burn, so there hasn't been much touching at this point. It will eventually escalate from there, though - trust me, the longing gets rectified. 😏

Your top 3 fandoms: FMA is the only fandom I've written/published for in the last few years. I also love Dragon Ball Z and Star Trek, and both of those I've written (and read) an extensive amount of fanfic for, but have never published what I've written lol. Maybe someday! 🤷‍♀️ Also X-Files as an honorary mention!

Your top 3 ships: I've only had a few ships that have utterly taken over my brain. Royai is still there, and I don't think it will ever leave. But they are: Roy/Riza (FMA), Vegeta/Bulma (DBZ), and Spock/Uhura (Star Trek Kelvin Timeline movies). Also Mulder/Scully as an honorary mention!

Rec someone else's fic: holy water cannot help you now by starsinherblood - it's a kidnapped!riza fic, with roy rescuing her... and the angst hits sooo good. Also roy goes a little crazy, which is always fun. It's an excellent read!

Pick one!

Fluff or Angst: Both - angst followed by fluff, especially!

Oneshots or longfics: Oohh, that's hard. A really good one-shot can hit the spot. But I do love a longfic, so that's the one I pick.

Canon compliance or canon divergence: Canon compliance! I love writing/thinking about behind the scenes moments.

AO3 or FF.net: AO3, my beloved. <3

Tagging @rizaposting, @flowersforriza, @littlewitchbee (no pressure though!!) and anyone else who writes and would like to do this! I think most of my writing mutuals have already been tagged, but yeah!

[staringdownabarrel]

I'm glad they never gave Janeway a series-long love interest and instead just gave her Mark, stuck in the Alpha Quadrant, and the occasional love interest of the week who'd fuck off at the end of the episode. There's a couple of reasons for this.

Firstly, one of the reasons why Janeway works for me is because she's not a romance-heavy character. Her focus was always on what was best for the crew and on finding a way back to Federation space.

I don't think this angle of her character really gets enough credit: it was a rare thing for a leading woman in a TV show to not be paired off with someone long-term at some point. Even nowadays, it seems like every other television show wants to pair its women off, even if it would be fine for this specific character living in these specific circumstances to prefer remaining single.

Even if they had have paired her off with someone, the only people they reasonably could have paired her off with long term are people directly under her command. That wouldn't have gelled well with her general demeanor of at least trying to be that kind of classically professional Starfleet captain who didn't get romantically involved with a subordinate.

So if they had have given her a long term romantic pairing, it would have derailed her character both as the staunch professional she wanted to be and as the progressive "doesn't need a man to be interesting" woman she was from an out-of-universe perspective.

Secondly, the canon pairings in the Berman era were awful. The only ones that were at least passable were the O'Briens, Ben Sisko/Kasidy Yates, and Tom Paris/B'Elanna Torres. Some of this is just because I'm genuinely confused as to what most of the canon pairings would have seen in each other, so I think they would have ended up pairing Janeway with someone who didn't quite fit with her. Mostly they just sorta sucked at writing romance in general, to the point where even the passable canon pairings were passable in a "okay, it makes sense that these two are together, but please don't dwell on it too much" kind of way.

I think this point gets lost in a lot of fan circles, too. A lot of the focus in the more ship-y circles of fandom tends to be on these popular fanon pairings, so sometimes the actual romance writing on the source material gets lost. At least with Star Trek, the canonical romance writing is often so awful that it's probably a good thing that a lot of the shippier fans forget it exists.

Still, had they paired her off with someone long term on the show, I suspect it would have ended up being one of those things where people's response would have been something like, "Janeway and Neelix? Seriously, guys? Is this what we're doing today?"

Really, the best thing that could have happened with Janeway in a romantic sense is one of two things. One would have been if early on she had have come out and said, "Actually, I'm mostly aromantic. Mark is the only guy I've ever seen in that light."

There would have been room for this kind of scene in canon. I forget which episode it was, but early on in Voyager there was a scene where Chakotay and Janeway talk about the crew pairing off, and the general tone is that eventually it will happen because of how long their journey is going to be. It ends with Chakotay saying, "And what about you?", with the scene intending to imply that maybe there was a little spark between the two.

This scene could have been changed so that instead of it just cutting to the next scene, Janeway had have replied with, "I'm mostly aromantic. Mark is the only person I've ever seen in that light", and then cut to the next scene.

I think this would have worked because it would have given Janeway an easy out to not be in a relationship; especially if there was never any followup to that scene. It also would have made Janeway one of the very few aromantic characters to have ever been on television, and probably the only one from the '90s, so it would have doubled down on the progressive elements of her character.

The other way they could have gone about this is if they had have set up some holoemitters in her ready room and given her a holographic personification of the ship itself to fall in love with. This could have been a very literal take on Kirk's love with the Enterprise. It also would have worked with Janeway's character in general, as Fair Haven establishes she is capable of falling in love with a hologram.

The subtext here would be the open question of whether or not she's in love with the persona specifically, actually in love with the ship, or if she's in love with her position as captain. All three would be acceptable answers. Still, this is a much more fan fic-y idea and I'm not entirely sure how it'd work in practice.

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s3 ep9: Future's End pt 2

Another episode where I sit there twirling my hair, kicking my feet, and grinning, having my happy Star Trek fun time. It's truly got it all: epic adventure, silly hijinks, time travel paradoxes, phaser shootouts, a cute romance subplot, heck, even a car chase! You could not ask for more.

It's also the ep that introduces the Doctor's moblie emitter, which is a huge deal for his character, and the show in general, now that he can leave sickbay like everyone else. It was honestly a genius move to have a villain use stolen 29th century holo technology to kidnap the Doctor, because not only do we have a workaround for how it can technically be accomplished, in spite of established limits of holodeck technology, we get to keep the emitter and use it forever without any temporal prime directive red tape. Slow clap for that one!

Also, what is up with Chakotay doing flirty flirt all the time in this story?! First with the Captain in the first part (typical, tbh), but then with B'Elanna in the second part! Was this a direction? Or just Beltran spicing things up for his own amusement? Idk, but it's a lot, and it feels weird with B'Elanna, especially when we straight up know he's down bad for Janeway.

And I gotta say, no alien on Star Trek has ever inspired me with visceral terror the way those flannel wearing white guys with guns in this one do. Even the Borg are pretend at the end of the day, but gun-toting rednecks are very real, and even though I know they're not going to kill off main characters, I still sit there thinking "get them out, get them out now!!" when they capture Chakotay and B'Elanna. Having the Doctor phaser those guys was a huge relief tbh!

This story feels more like a TV movie than a regular episode- being able to go to actual locations makes everything seem so much bigger. I mean, they drive past houses! They never just go down random streets on alien planets, because it's too expensive and time consuming to build just to be in the background, and here, we get all the little details of real places, atmosphere, sunshine! It's so great! All the colors look really saturated too, it's almost cartoonish, but not in a bad way. I honestly wonder if they used some kind of filters to make the trees greener and the sky bluer, or if LA really just looks like that. Star Trek tends to be very grey and beige, and I just love all the colors we see in this one.

There's so much here that's nostalgic- the flip phones! Rain Robinson's entire wardrobe! (Girl looks like she stepped out of the pages of Teen Vogue- every girl wanted to dress like her, she even had a VW van, which was very cool at the time.)

I really do like the little romantic subplot they gave to Tom and Rain. It was sweet that they bonded over being nerdy, and it was so lovely that they let Tom be genuine and not cheesy, finally. I love that they gave Rain a little speech recognizing how selfless and dutiful Tom actually is. (I think this episode is where little 10 year old me started to develop a crush on him- and here we are, 27 years later, and I'll still fight anyone who doesn't respect my cringefail nerd blorbo. I'm fine and normal, I promise!)

One thing I noticed on rewatching this, though, is that after the big car chase, when Tom and Rain have their little goodbye kiss, Tom walks away, and gets beamed back to Voyager, but, um... how is she supposed to get home?! Her van just got crashed into, and they're in the middle of the desert! You couldn't just get an Uber in those days! They left her stranded out on a desert road with no car, no food, no water! She's gonna die y'all! The least they can do after she helped them is beam her the hell back to town!! Lol wtf?!

This is one of those eps that's so much fun that you don't want it to end. But of course, our plucky Voyager crew stops Starling from taking the timeship back to the future, and prevents him from destroying the solar system. It's very satisfying knowing his greed is what gets him killed- if only billionaires always got what they deserved lol. And then they get to go back to their own time, but they have to go back to the Delta Quadrant- that pesky temporal prime directive! But we get treated to a final scene of all of the crew together in the mess hall, for the first time ever! I'm not sure if they're celebrating the Doctor's mobile emitter, or getting back to their own time, or what, but it's cute AF. Tom then calls Tuvok a freakasaurus (affectionate), and I'm just about to keel over from warm fuzzy feelings as the credits roll. I love this one so, so much!!

Tl;dr: A conclusion that lives up to the first part, this is an epic time travel story with all the fun, nostalgia, and excitement you could ask for. One of the series best, a true classic.

[dominickeating-source]

TV Zone Issue 63 (2005)

Reed All About Him

As the curtain comes down on Star Trek: Enterprise, Dominic Keating talks with Steven Eramo about the show's final episodes and looks back fondly at his tour of duty as Lt. Malcolm Reed.

His favourite food is pineapple, he tends to be shy around the opposite sex, and he takes great pride in doing a job well done. Over the past four years, fans of Star Trek: Enterprise have gotten to know a bit about what makes the Enterprise NX-01�s tactical officer Lt. Malcolm Reed tick. Recently, he was even forced to reveal a part of his life that he'd previously kept well-hidden. But the lieutenant's TV journey has come to an abrupt end with Enterprise's cancellation. 

"I was in the parking lot of the YMCA when Rick Berman called to tell me that the show had been cancelled," says Reed's alter ego Dominic Keating, referring to the series' executive producer. "I more or less took it on the chin. Deep down, I think we all knew. It's quite sad, really. I mean, there are people I know at the gym who ordinarily wouldn't watch a show like Star Trek. However, because they know me, they've been watching and have become fans. Over the past few months, these people have come up to me and said, This year has just been incredible. They've been genuinely excited to tune in each week, especially as Enterprise seemed to have finally found its stride this season. But, of course, now it's all over."

There's no denying that the first half of Enterprise's fourth year was very much Malcolm Reed-lite. Except for his bridge scenes and the occasional rescue mission, the character remained off the radar. However, Keating was of the mind that good things come to those who wait, and he was right. "I did hardly anything in the first 11 episodes of this season," says the actor. "That said, they were terrific stories in terms of Star Trek lore, and I was just happy to be working. I'm not an actor who reads the scripts week after week and says, Is that all I get to do? I'm lucky in that I got off to a good start with Enterprise and had some neat Malcolm stories in the first three years. That sort of satiated my actors vanity and need to be recognized," he laughs.

"As for this season, things started to pick up for Malcolm with Observer Effect, in which his body is among those taken over by an alien life form. I had some fun scenes in that one, including the opening teaser where Malcolm and Ensign Mayweather [Anthony Montgomery] are playing chess. That was an actual chess game that Anthony and I played for every take. It was shot in a fairly wide angle so that you could, in fact, see each move."

Reed's other moment in the spotlight - albeit a very shadowy spotlight- came in the two-part story explaining the differences between the smooth-headed Klingons of the original series and the bumpy headed models of more recent years.

"I can't tell you how excited I was when I received the scripts for these two episodes," says Keating of the episodes which revealed Reed to be an agent of the black ops unit Section 31. "Funnily enough, I'd actually pitched a story not unlike it back in season one. It was an idea for a Manchurian Candidate-type episode apropos the Suliban. So when Affliction and Divergence came along I was thrilled that my character had this 'boiled sweet' as it were at the back of his mouth that nobody knew he was sucking on. I didn't even ring Manny Coto to ask for any backstory. I just figured that Malcolm was a member of some skull and crossbones society that he joined years ago and that it had now come back to haunt him.

"This was a solid story, very gritty, and a nice little arc for me. I thoroughly enjoyed the scenes I had with Scott Bakula, and Eric Pierpoint, who played Section 31 chief Harris, was a pleasure to work with as well. The two of us really hit it off and we had a lot of laughs together on set. Eric has guest-starred several times on Trek, including the year one Enterprise episode Rogue Planet. This season, his character of Harris recurs almost right up to the end. In fact, threes a scene in the episode that LeVar Burton directed Demons where Harris and Reed meet in a dark alley and he suggests that my character go work for him. During one of the rehearsals I asked, "Why, what have you got? A TV pilot? A movie? That brought the house down, especially as we'd already heard about the cancellation."

It was while filming the second half of the alternative universe episode, In a Mirror, Darkly, that Keating along with the rest of the Enterprise cast and crew learnt of the shows imminent demise. " Supervising producer Merri Howard had announced she was leaving while we were working on the first part of this story," says the actor. "That was a bit of a belly blow. It was like, Oh, God, they're all jumping ship. Merri kept saying it didn't mean anything, but it was difficult not to imagine that it did. And then we got cancelled. The news was tempered by the fact that for this episode they'd built a replica of the original Enterprise bridge as well as its corridors, and our characters were dressed in classic Trek costumes. Still, it was an odd time. As I mentioned earlier, we all had a feeling this was coming, so it was like a dark cloud was suddenly hanging over us."

Not surprisingly, shooting Enterprise's finale, These Are The Voyages, was an emotional experience for all concerned, including Keating. "We shot our last scene in engineering on Friday night [25th February]," he notes. "It was Connor Trinneer and me, and it's quite wonderful, really. I think it's one of those moments that fans will play back over and over in their heads. Basically, it's a thinly disguised allegorical scene for the end of our stint on Enterprise as both characters on the ship and actors on a TV show. It's very moving. There were a couple of times that night where I welled up. That Friday it really hit home for all of us that this was it."

Although he has no idea what fate has in store next for him, Keating is sure that he'll be OK. "I truly believe that, generally speaking, things happen for a reason," muses the actor. "I remember at the time I was gutted when my contract wasn't renewed on the UK sitcom Desmonds. Nonetheless, I went ahead with my plans to visit friends in San Francisco. I ended up going to Los Angeles, which wasn't planned, met some people there and six weeks later I moved to the States.

"Had things not turned out the way they did on Desmonds, I wouldn't be here today. I love living in Southern California and best of all, during my time on Enterprise I've learnt how to really act in front of the camera. I'm a different acting animal than I was four years ago. The show was an amazing luck of the draw for me. It may take some time, but I've just got to wait for the right part in the right project to come along again. I'm confident that will happen."

Celestial Bodies

Among the final episodes to be shot for Enterprise's fourth season was Bound where three Orion slave girls use their feminine wiles to persuade male crewmen to do their bidding. "Let me just tell you, the dance that the three actresses perform in the episode is very sexy," says Keating "The choreographer they worked with had also worked at one time with Janet Jackson. There were no wardrobe malfunctions, but there was quite an energy on set, green or otherwise," chuckles the actor.

"Cyia Batten, who played the lead Orion slave girl, was one of the original dancers in The Pussycat Dolls. She's just beautiful, as are the two women who played the other two Orion gals. William Lucking, who guest-starred as the girls owner did a terrific job as well and gave a very Marlon Brando-like performance. The set for this episode was great, too. It was a sort of space-age Sci-Fi tent where our characters were seduced with food, drink and foxy chicks."

Taking the High Road

Looking back at his time on Enterprise, Keating has nothing but good things to say about the shows cast, in particular, Scott Bakula. "One of the times I welled up on the Friday that I previously spoke of was while we were shooting a scene in the shuttlepod launch bay," he says.

"It was me, Scott, John Billingsley, Linda Park and Anthony Montgomery. I remember watching Scott at work and thinking, Scott, I can't tell you how great these past four years have been. I've learnt so much working with you, not only about the craft of acting and how to carry oneself on a film set, but also about being a human being.

"Scott is an extraordinary individual and one of life's true gents. Without sounding too full of myself, there are moments in my daily life when I'm not prone to take the high road, and I'll ask myself, How would Scott Bakula behave in this situation? That's the kind of positive affect he's had on me."

Source: www.dominickeating.com

[thresholdbb]

For the Star Trek Ask game: 5, 16, 17, 20

5. Episode plot you wish they had handled differently?

Retrospect. I get what they were trying to do after listening to the Delta Flyer's episode about it, but it does not work. The messaging is terrible even in a context prior to Me Too. Don't believe victims; they're lying to you. I think there may have been a way to do an episode about false memories without having serious sexual assault undertones.

The other one would be The Fight. I think the concept of chaotic space is interesting, but the episode is just a hot mess of confusion and space boxing. Maybe if the boxing hadn't come out of nowhere, but Chakotay-centric episodes unfortunately tend to be pretty bad.

16. If you could steal the basic plot of an episode for one show and apply to another which would you choose?

A Deep Space Nine Rascals would be hilarious. Can you imagine little Jadzia with the symbiont, simultaneously a tiny girl and an ancient worm? Julian would probably still be an augment, but how long did his brain take to fully adjust to that change? Kira would get some childhood, like Ro did. We could have a pocket Garak! I don't think O'Brien and Sisko would change much, and Keiko's already been through it. I'm not sure if Odo would change or would he just not be able to de-goo? A mini Weyoun? A tinier, eviler Dukat? Hell, de-age the entire station and make them interact.

Actually I want all the crews to have to interact as children for an episode. Every. Single. One. Even TOS. Even Enterprise.

17. What role would you have aboard a starship?

While I would love a cool job like Captain or First Officer or something, no one has ever trusted me with a management role, though I can give a mean speech. Given my professional background, probably somewhere in communications, though I wouldn't be thrilled about it. Honestly, I'd probably be scrubbing plasma conduits and clearing out the holodeck filters.

20. Which piece of technology do you wish existed in reality?

Replicators. I don't remember who said it, (maybe a behind-the-scenes Trek person?), but their explanation was that replicators are ultimately what enables a Star Trek future. If people don't have to worry about their basic needs being met, they are free to do so many other things. A future where everyone is clothed and fed no matter what would be a good one.

[whiskersz]

Can I have a platonic matchup, please?

My name is Maria Eduarda, I’m Brazilian, 22 years old, my pronouns are she/her and I study Environmental Science at the College

I’m awful describing myself, but here we go. I’m introverted, usually I don’t start a conversation with someone else, but I like to chat if another people star talking to me. I'm quite a procrastinator, but so far it hasn't caused me any major problems. I am well organized and responsible with anything that involves other people, I don't want to harm anyone. I work hard at anything that I think will bring me good things in the future, I really like making jokes (even dark humor ones) and I consider myself very loyal to my friends. I am very unassertive in showing what I want and I always give in to avoid conflict. I don't know how to act under pressure (I usually freeze when it happens and I need some help)

Hobbies: videogames (Nintendo is my passion), I love to write; currently learning how to make digital art (still being awful at it), also trying to learn how to play piano (this one I’m doing better) and I’m learning to like going to gym

Likes and dislikes: I Analog Horrors and sci-fi (my favorite series are Doctor Who and Star Trek), I love food, but I hate to cook; I hate when the weather is too hot (it’s weird, since I live in Rio de Janeiro); I hate crowds and I hate the feeling of being left out of something

Hey Maria! This is the first fully platonic matchup I do I think; let’s see if I chose your friend well :3

I match you with...

Rosie!

Rosie is gracious and kind, especially to her loved ones, and to me your two personalities match because you seem to own both of these characteristics as well, especially the kind part. You seem like a pretty chill person to hang out with and Rosie appreciates that, Cannibal Town can get pretty overwhelming so a break from that is most appreciated.

She also has this calming energy about her that I think you would benefit from; she quite enjoys consoling her loved ones in times of need so if you need help when you’re overwhelmed with things to do and under pressure she can definitely lend you a hand (quite literally too!).

She also has no issue starting conversations, she’s quite the extrovert even though her appearance may indicate otherwise, so as long as she knows what topics you like talking about she’ll always be the first to talk to you about them, unless you decide to initiate conversation once you’re more fond of each other.

She appreciates your humor a lot, especially when it gets a little bit darker. She actually quite enjoys making morbid jokes from time to time too, and will laugh at yours while elegantly covering her mouth with her hand.

Another thing she absolutely loves is your love for horror! She wants to know everything about analog horror, I’m pretty sure her date of death goes back to at least one century so she’s not all that familiar with it, which makes her even more curious.

She also thinks that you being able to play the piano is very cool, and with her musical talent she definitely asks you to play it for her as she makes up a song to go with the melody. With her by your side, you’ll get better at playing in no time as she’ll ask you to do this often!

She also loves your art and encourages you to pursue your hobby; if you don’t practice lots and learn to trust in your abilities when starting a new piece, it’ll be difficult to improve, but she’ll be encouraging you to do it every time you show her new art.

Rosie loves cooking, so she’ll definitely try to get you to cook together sometime, making the process more fun for you since you don’t absolutely love it. If you decline though, she’ll be happy to cook for you on her own...make sure to specify that you are not from Cannibal Town, though, or you might get served a plate of fingers!

Lastly, if there’s conflict between you and someone else, she’ll gladly try to solve it for you since you tend to avoid these situations. She’s the peace maker, with her you’ll find a peaceful way to get through it!

[sshbpodcast]

Character Spotlight: Worf

By Ames

It’s an honorable week here on A Star to Steer Her By because we’re shining our character spotlight on the show’s first Klingon main character, Worf, Son of Mogh! He’s also the first specifically main cast member to span two different series (sorry, O’Brien), so we’ve got glimpses from both The Next Generation and its films and also Deep Space Nine to cover. Worf might get the most time of any character to truly develop, growing from the guy who gets thrown across the room by the baddie of the week into the complex warrior who, for just a moment, wears the robes of the Chancellor of the Klingon High Council. Go Worf!

So put on your baldric, grab your bat’leth, and top off your mug of bloodwine as we give Worf all the honor he deserves (which every so often, isn’t very much, but other times is a lot!). Read on for the commendable battles below and listen to our death yells over on this week’s podcast (fight your way to 55:39). Today is a good day to die.

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

Bloodwine is red / Andorians are blue… While we gave Dr. Pulaski lots of props for whipping up an antidote so she could participate in Worf’s version of a tea party, it’s also just lovely that Worf honors her by performing the ceremony in the first place in “Up the Long Ladder.” Deep down under the head ridges and scowl, Worf is just a poetry-reading, tea-sipping teddy bear and we love it.

Klingon paper dolls Star Trek characters jump at any opportunity to play dress up, and we get a good instance of that in “The Emissary” when Worf and K’Ehleyr put on their warrior garb to trick a crew of Klingons in cryostasis into thinking they represent the Klingon Empire. As always, this episode gets some extra points for featuring K’Ehleyr, and it turns out Worf’s pretty good at improvisation too.

We have bonded and our families are stronger While we’re certainly going to give Worf some shit for how badly he parents his biological son, his connection with Jeremy Aster in “The Bonding” is actually quite beautiful for the both of them. Each an orphan, they are able to form a familial-type relationship together, and it’s really touching when Worf invites Jeremy to join him in the R'uustai that will bond them as brothers.

He has claimed the right of vengeance A trend emerged in our Best Worf Moments when they tended to fall into the “killing the fuck out of some jerk who deserves it” category, and the first to really deserve it is Duras in “Reunion.” Duras has been begging to get murdered since we first heard his contemptible name, but when he killed Worf’s mate in cold blood, Worf knew exactly what he had to do with his bat'leth.

You may now give birth Despite the fact that it resulted in adding a baby to the cast (blech), we have to give some credit to Worf for delivering the O’Brien baby in “Disaster” in a way that only he could. We’d need a whole additional blogpost for all the great Worf one-liners throughout the two series, as Michael Dorn’s delivery is always gold, but “Push, Keiko, push” has got to be pretty high up there.

Doesn’t gik’tal mean to the death? Worf sees so much potential in Sito Jaxa in “Lower Decks” and spends most of the episode arguing on her behalf for a promotion. So when we see Worf testing her with the made-up gik’tal martial arts to teach her to stick up for herself, we can’t help but see in her just what Worf sees. Ya know, until Picard totally gets her killed.

Assimilate this! Sure, it’s a soundbite-y line designed to be marketable in the trailer, but when Worf survives getting his EV suit punctured by tying it off with some Borg bits and then blows up the interplexing beacon in First Contact, it just feels right. Maybe it’s that Michael Dorn can get away with cheesy lines like “Assimilate this!” or maybe we just love watching Borg explode.

If you were any other man, I would kill you where you stand While the movies are mostly showcases for Picard and Data, First Contact gives some great moments to the other castmembers. Worf’s standoff with Picard is nothing short of chilling. Borg are overrunning the ship and Picard orders Worf and his security team to what is almost certain to be their deaths. Lucky for us, Worf doesn’t actually mutiny, just threatens to a little bit.

And in this corner… While we spent most of The Next Generation watching Worf getting knocked around as shorthand for “the alien threat is strong,” by Deep Space Nine, we don’t really get that anymore and instead he actually gets to kick some ass! In “By Inferno's Light,” Worf is forced to battle Jem’Hadar after Jem’Hadar in the fighting ring, and he refuses to quit even when he has every right to.

Help me fight again, Worf You’ll see in a second that sometimes when Worf tries to help another Klingon die with honor, things can get complicated, but when Kor asks for help going out in the warrior fashion, Worf is totally a good guy about it. He gets the old legend a place on Martok’s ship in “Once More Unto the Breach” even though it’s not Martok’s favorite thing, but in the end, Sto’Vo’kor gains a new warrior.

Seven down, one to go We still have more “killing the fuck out of some jerk who deserves it” mentions to bring up! What list would be complete without the murder of at least one Weyoun on it? In this case, Worf straight up snaps the neck of Weyoun 7 in “Strange Bedfellows” when he has the opportunity and it is a thing of such beauty that it gains Damar’s respect.

What I have done was for the Empire Finally, our last jerk who needed to get killed the fuck out of is that bastard Gowron in “Tacking into the Wind.” Gowron was going around making terrible decisions, rewriting the history books, and trying to get Martok killed in various ways, and Worf finally has enough and kills him in honorable combat. He gets the cloak of the Chancellor for it but selflessly passes it to Martok, like an absolute boss.

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Worst moments

I would rather die than pollute my body with Klingon filth While Geordi is putting racism aside to be able to coexist with his new BFF Bochra in “The Enemy,” Worf takes the opposite path. By refusing to let Crusher give his blood to Patahk, Worf condemns the injured Romulan to death just because of his race. And then the show takes some of the guilt off Worf by having Patahk refuse treatment anyway, leaving Worf’s hands clean, I guess.

This is not unlike a drumhead trial Worf is also quick to fall in line with Admiral Satie’s Red Scare of a trial against crewman Tarses in “The Drumhead.” He gets so infatuated with dispensing justice that he jumps past “innocent until proven guilty” and determines that Tarses is guilty of treason because he’d lied about his alien heritage, when the two things aren’t even related.

Would you further dishonor our family with your disobedience? It’s a running joke in the Star Trek community that Worf is a terrible father and… well, he is. To his defense, he did have Alexander sprung on him when K’Ehleyr died in “Reunion,” and he did try to pawn the little brat off on the Rozhenkos, but that was a terrible move too. So when we watch how clueless he is trying to parent in “New Ground,” we cringe hard at how Worf just doesn’t get it.

Donkey Kong: 1. Worf: 0. A lot of Worf’s decisions about how to deal with his paraplegia in “Ethics” are complicated and problematic, but the way he ended up in such a state is what we’re really here to roast him on. My dude got bitched by a big blue plastic barrel in the cargo bay, and that is downright dishonorable for a Klingon warrior. Battle, sure. Explosion, fine. Spat with Spot, of course. But not blue barrel!

How could your mother mate with a Romulan? Worf’s prejudice against Romulans comes out again in “Birthright” when he learns that Ba’el is half Romulan and he starts spouting racist accusations at her when he’s already seen what kind of a person she is, and even what kind of person her father is. Since his father’s death at Khitomer, it’s a long road for Worf to accept that all Romulans are not that same, and it’s unclear if he ever gets there.

Tell him he is a pretty cat and a good cat All your hosts here at A Star to Steer Her By are ride-or-die cat people, so when Worf refuses to tell Spot he’s a good cat and a pretty cat in “Phantasms” when Data asks him to look after the feline, we take it super personally. Frankly, Data should have looked elsewhere for someone to catsit because what’s supposed to be a humorous moment in the show just makes us angry at Worf. Hiss!

I believe the Ferengi bartender is plotting something By the time Worf joins Deep Space Nine, his racism against Romulans doesn’t come up, but his racism against the Ferengi sure does. Ever since “Hippocratic Oath,” Worf refuses to call Quark by name, instead calling him “The Ferengi bartender.” We joke sometimes on the podcast that the only race it’s okay to be racist against is the Ferengi, but you know what? It’s really not okay.

My life is in your hands Sure, we can argue that Kurn coming to Worf for the Klingon rite of Mauk-to’Vor in “Sons of Mogh” is messed up and puts Worf in a tough position, but Worf manages to pick an even worse outcome for his brother. Instead of killing him and sending Kurn to Sto’Vo’kor with his honor intact, Worf does the least honorable thing and has Bashir wipe Kurn’s memory. Without Kurn’s consent! Eeesh.

Everything you do reflects on me There were a bunch of times during DS9 that we really thought Jadzia could do better than having Worf as her mate, and “Let He Who Is Without Sin” is the chief offender. Worf starts the episode arguing about Jadzia consorting with other men even though she’s with him now, gets jealous of the Dax’s previous relationships, and generally poopoo’s Jadzia’s streak of individuality like a toxic boyfriend.

Have you accepted Kahless as your lord and savior? And that’s not even the worst thing Worf does in the abysmal episode “Let He Who Is Without Sin.” He spends the rest of their vacation on Risa palling around with the New Essentialists who’ve decided that people enjoying things is bad form, which is just Worf being petty. So when he goes out of his way to help them literally rain on everyone’s parade, it’s super damaging to his character.

I do not know you, nor do I wish to know you After Jadzia’s death, Worf utterly fails as grieving in a healthy, productive way and instead opts to take it out on Ezri during “Afterimage.” Just because she’s not Jadzia, Worf treats the poor Trill with disdain, ignoring the fact that she too is living through the trauma of being joined to the symbiont. None of this is her fault! Don’t yell at the innocent cupcake!

If it looks like a Dax and it quacks like a Dax… Worf and Jadzia had chemistry like whoa and we were here for it. Worf and Ezri… just don’t. So when they bump uglies in “Penumbra,” we just find it kinda gross and distasteful. My dude, that is not your wife anymore, and she’s in a very vulnerable state having had the Dax symbiont thrust upon her, so it strikes us as kind of problematic that they go to the bone zone (and I don’t mean Worf’s calisthenics program).

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Qapla’! Now that we’ve got our honor back, take the R'uustai with us and subscribe so that you can see our next batch of character spotlights as we segue smoothly into our crewmates from Deep Space Nine! On the flip side, you can listen along to our dishonorable rewatch of Enterprise over on SoundCloud or wherever you podcast, challenge us to a bat’leth fight on Facebook and Twitter, and join us for some good tea in a nice house.