#only to find out that Picards love for speeches and his fighting make for a very entertaining mixture

[yourbuerokrat2]

He would actually make for a pretty good wrestler considering how k.o-ed someone with a freaking sattle and how fast he was to get and use Worfs archery weapons. Also considering that one dialogue with his past archaelogy teacher he was in competitve fighting in his Academy years as well.

How successful would Jean-Luc Picard…

Would you like to submit a character? Click this link if you do!

[celestialholz]

Celestial Live-Reacts: STP 2.3, 'Assimilation'

In a truly inhuman feat of self-control, I have absorbed absolutely zero spoilers for this week, so I know nothing aside from the fact that Q's in it! This has literally never happened in my life!

Let's roll, my darlings...

- Agnes in the back like doo-doo-doo, just a lady doing engineering things - Nice try Seven, bless you <3 - Oh, the missus is fuming - Niiiiice phaser effect - Ah, the overt symbolism of the missus shooting the ex, we love to see it <3 - Nooooooooo, my son! - Ouch - Not her son - Oh shit, hello king, that's very on-brand of you turning up out of nowhere like that <3 - "This is the only kind of life you understand - shall we see what else has been lost in the wake of your fear?" "Q -" aaaaaaand he's gone... - ... He's fucked up with that Borg decision hasn't he - Is that what Picard's fucked up? Was his other self too frightened of the possibility of assimilation? - Borg Queen = pancake queen lmao - Oh dear oh fuck - @the comms, we love you all but the Queen's making you look like cadets - Three speeds: here, there and gone - ... What on Q's earth... and titles! - This theme song gets better every time I hear it <3 - "Welcome to the Earth of the twenty-first century." I swear to the fucking Continuum, if she discovers TikTok... - Picard's face is my face at being part of this period of history - I love how we got a nice moment of exposition before gravity kicked in, terribly inconvenient of it really - Picard be like 'it's my future house and I'll crash into it if I like' - "Can't. Busy at the moment, with organs." A precious angel <3 - I'm with Rios for the second week in a row - kill her to death my guy, Q will deus ex machina you home ;) - Is that on Etsy? Because I'd buy it off Etsy - NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO - Not mine and Raffi's son, oh my god T_T - Why do I get the feeling that this is going to progressively happen through the series, until it's just him and Q left to fix this shit? One of them fighting for their own life, one of them fighting for everyone else's, as they also try and save each other simultaneously? - Beautiful Picard Speech #47920, and Seven is having none of it - 'Intense shock and disappointment in leadership' - ouch - "Why has all of history been changed? Because of Q." Good luck taking him down angel, that's all I'm saying lol - "For decades, you've played games with whatever Q is... because that's what the two of you do, right? You joust, you screw around with people's lives for sport." ... Oh wow. What a fascinating comparative - once again, we're holding up a mirror... they really are two halves. Fuck. <33333333 - "No, Raffi - that's what he does." Is it, though? Is that not what this whole thing is, that you're only a wrong decision away from being just as chaotic? - ... It's like they've flipped. Q now seems to be the one trying to maintain order, I... damn - "It's impossible to determine whether we're existing outside of temporal causality -" "Jurati." Mummy is not amused... - 'We'll revive the Queen' 'Are you sure though' - honestly, valid - "So, to be clear - wake a queen that could kill us all, beam from a ship with no power, and find the Watcher, who may or may not exist." "That's it, Rios." ... Good plan, glad we cleared that one up lmaoooo - Are they losing faith in him? - "They rarely spoke audibly - but a thought would be shared instantly with every Borg." *shudder* - "I felt an intense euphoria, but no sense of my existence." *double shudder* - "But me, she'd take in seconds." "But not me." Oh honey no - Amen Picard, fuck that noise - "I believe the technical term is 'for shit'." His cynicism uplifts me daily looool - 'Hot People Getting Dressed', the best kind of montage <3333 - "Do I still look like a fascist bastard?" "Fascist, no - bastard..." lmaooo - Bless you again for trying, Seven - "Halfway to Hell is still not a recommended destination" is my new tagline - Is this about to be crew member number two who's suffering for Picard's decisions? - The Watcher's going to be Q or Guinan isn't it - He didn't tell them what he and Agnes were doing - Surely this is a trap. There were even similarities between them mentioned last week, there's no way this isn't a trap - ... Is this electronica California Dreamin' in my Star Trek - GTA V: Confederation Edition - "Are you a superhero?"

Adorable <3 - Cristobal Rios everyone, reminding me of that time when I switched to Trevor on the edge of a bridge in the same city and had no choice but to immediately kill him - ... 'No hospitals'. ONE JOB MY GUY, ONE JOB - Give it back, foolish child >:( - Reverse mugging! Hurrah! - "Wonderful ambassador, up against the backdrop of hope meets hopelessness. You're killing it, 2024." ... I would like to officially apologise for the state of us ancient idiots - I wish he was my dad too T_T - Oh, my god. This is genuinely fascinating to watch - "Why don't you tell me about feelings and the last time you had one? Oh you pretend to have feelings to avoid having feelings, how awful must it be to feel what you've -" damn. 'Through a mirror darkly', yeah? We just keep holding up that glass... - "She's getting stronger, now - no longer just observing." Ohhhhh dear - "Locutus." Oh would you look at that, it's a trap - ... Well that went terribly - "My girlfriend and I were looking to capture an image." <3 - "Kevin is not funner than me." lmaooo - This relationship genuinely has more set-up than him and Agnes - "Cool story" lololol - That kid is not old enough to be watching Rick and Morty lmao - "Something that hurts you to lose." "We lost someone dear to us for you." "Is this how you negotiate?" Borg Ice Queen - ... Ohhh, that is his fear - This Queen sounds remarkably Q lmao - "Dictate the file logged 'Shit I Stole From the Borg Queen'" *applause* Beautifully done dear. Keep that up and I'm going to end up liking you - "You've impressed me." Oh shit - He's so honourable, bless him - ... No reading, Admiral. No reading... ... Holy fuck.

Celestial Rating: 8.5/10.

Despite the tragic lack of Q, a slick, cleverly done ride with plenty of mirror imaging. I remain ridiculously impressed by this series. #RIPElnor #HopeThatGetsReversed

[gunnerpalace]

Can I ask your opinion on Fade to Black? I just rewatched it and my Ichiruki heart is just overflowing with feels! But anyways I love your analysis and opinions on all things Bleach.

I am that rare IR who does not actually like Fade to Black very much. I can see what it was trying to do, and I appreciate the idea in concept (and some little moments here and there) but I am not at all a fan of how it was actually put together and executed. I guess I’ll do this as a pros and cons list:

PROS:

I don’t like Mayuri but I sort of like how he was handled in this movie. Him keeping a physical backup of his brain is a cool sci-fi idea for dealing with advancing the plot later.

Dark Rukia’s design is fairly cool. Especially in the little promo book that came with the movie, which you sometimes see screenshots of floating around.

The degree of attachment Ichigo shows toward Rukia is endearing.

The scene where Kisuke asks what Rukia is to Ichigo is cute and pretty spot-on.

Kisuke showing up in his old captain’s uniform for seemingly no reason other than to tweak Yamamoto’s nose is pretty funny. Him and Yoruichi basically alluding to the Soul Society arc is also kind of cute.

Ichigo using some special technique that’s unique to him in order to find Rukia (because it ain’t reiraku) is great.

The fight scene between Ichigo and Dark Rukia, and how Ichigo solves it and saves her, is well done and engaging.

Their little hug scene that’s gif’d on here a lot is sweet.

The ending where they have this discussion about how maybe this isn’t the first time they’ve met feels a little underplayed (they’re real far apart and stoic for people discussing such mushy things) but it’s still nice.

CONS:

I’m really tired of arcs about rescuing Rukia and reducing her to a damsel in distress, because she’s better than that. The Soul Society arc was the first time, and it was set up well and worked just fine—it’s classic. Fade to Black’s reasons are contrived (more on that later) and derivative. Then Hell Verse did it again and it was just stupid by that point. There should’ve been a rescue Ichigo movie instead, and the Xcution arc doesn’t really count since that’s presented as a horror story mostly from his perspective.

Rukia’s has had a hard life as a character and has been dumped on consistently, so I view adding yet more misery and pain onto her as gratuitous and frankly kind of insulting in general.

While Dark Rukia’s design is cool, it’s not really Rukia at all. It is very clear she’s an unwilling participant. It kinda looks like her, but it’s all Homura and Shizuku, they’re just forcing her along into it. And you know what? That’s basically rape, even if it’s not sexual rape. It’s still a total loss of consent and bodily autonomy. I’m pretty not cool with a plot that boils down to Rukia being raped.

I just hate the visual design of the kids. I can’t explain why beyond saying they just look out of place in the setting. Homura in particular looks like she walked off the set of Yu-Gi-Oh.

The backstory with the two kids frankly doesn’t make much sense. She meets Renji when she’s seemingly somewhere around the age of Karin or Yuzu (like 8-12) and they and their friends are together for ten years. At the end of that, she enters the Academy. In the flashbacks with these kids, she looks indistinguishable from how she does in the present? When exactly was this supposed to be happening?

The entire plot of Soul Society not knowing who Rukia is is stupid. Soul Society is a bureaucracy. From what we are shown, the majority of what they do every single day is paperwork. Just like Japan still to this day loves forms in triplicate, Soul Society fucking loves paperwork. And they love records and archives. And all Byakuya can do is find one lone book that references Rukia? There would be literally hundreds and hundreds and thousands of documents referencing her, or signed by her. The most casual search would indicate she was real.

Kon is annoying as hell in this movie. Like, he’s usually annoying, but not as much as he is here. It’s distracting and grating.

Ichigo is a continual disappointment in this movie. There are so many things that I will give them their own entries denoted by letters below:

A. People say he remembers Rukia when everyone else forgets. He doesn’t. Only Kon remembers Rukia. Kon jogs Ichigo’s memory. Ichigo does admittedly remember fully and quickly, which puts him ahead of everyone else, but he still forgets to begin with. That’s stupid.

B. Ichigo is extremely wishy-washy in this movie. He requires a speech from Kon, can’t or won’t beat Shuhei of all people even with his mask on, and loses to Toushirou. It’s pathetic. I get it, he’s a sad puppy without Rukia. It’s still pathetic to watch. The only time in the manga canon where his confidence wavers when it comes to trying to get to Rukia is during the Soul Society arc, when he wants to stay and wait for Ganju so they can settle their quarrel, and you can read that as being unique because it turns out they’re cousins and Ichigo may know something is unique, even if he doesn’t know it. This shit of him becoming discouraged and sad when trying to get to her is out-of-character.

C. This is an extension of (B), but like. Okay, when Orikasa Fumiko is voicing Rukia, and she screams in agony or despair, it chills me to the bone. I cannot explain to you how much I don’t like hearing it. It makes me anxious and makes me angry. She did it on the Senzaikyu when Gin broke her resolve to face death, and she does it in this movie when the Hollow fusion starts. And all Ichigo can do… is stand there uselessly going “Rukia…” like it’s nothing unusual. If he had been on the Senzaikyu bridge when Gin had done what he’d done, and he’d heard Rukia scream like that, he’d have fucking murdered Gin right then and there in cold blood. And here he faces the equivalent and does nothing. That’s not my boy. That’s not Ichigo.

D. When Rukia is crying over the deaths of Homura and Shizuku, Ichigo just stands there uselessly beside Renji and Byakuya and does nothing to console her. Renji and Byakuya at least have an excuse because they still don’t remember her. What’s Ichigo’s? Again, not him. Go to her you moron. At least grasp her shoulder. Not the Ichigo I know.

The fight scene with the goo monster is dumb as hell. Yamamoto should be able to solo it. He activated Ryuujin Jakka and… completely disappears from the fight. He just straight up vanishes. Because you can tell they realized he should be able to solo it and that would deprive them of everyone else getting a fight too. So he just instant transmissions out of the entire movie. And we get contrived shit like the monster being faster than Yoruichi and Soi-Fon so that Kisuke can heroically save Yoruichi (because him doing it in the Yammy fight wasn’t enough already). It’s just contrived, gratuitous, and pointless.

While the IchiRuki moments are very cute (if a little overly restrained, in my opinion) I feel like the rest of the movie that is set up to make them happen is a hot mess. Things happen because they need to for the plot to work, not because it makes sense or is in character for them to happen. I can’t stand movies that are made that way for any franchise, and seeing characters I care about deeply behave in such ways really just kinda pisses me off. The story beats are derivative and generally inferior versions of things we’ve already seen.

Movie Ichigo is generally out-of-character as fuck (and not just in this movie!) in a way that reminds me of like, Jean-Luc Picard in the Star Trek: The Next Generation movies (wherein he acts basically nothing like he does on the TV show). And Movie Rukia seems generally reduced to a background character.

I said recently that Rukia and Doomguy would be friends, and you know what? I would watch that movie instead of Fade to Black or Hell Verse, to be honest. Let’s do an outline. 

Ichigo is kidnapped by some denizen of Hell (Kokutou and Shuren and company, I guess? they can still be anime pretty boys even if they’re damned souls, maybe they have terrible demonic forms or something) to be used as a reiatsu battery or some shit for evil purposes. (Breaking out of Hell to overrun the other worlds?) Ichigo’s energy running wild causes some kind of temporal and dimensional vortex which draws in the Doomguy. He finds himself in the upper levels of Bleach’s Hell and does what he does, methodically murdering his way about.

Rukia is sent to investigate Ichigo’s disappearance and eventually figures out Ichigo is in Hell, and so goes to save him (against orders, with the help of Kisuke and maybe the others). There she encounters Doomguy, and is at first horrified, but she notices the rabbit’s foot he keeps on him. She decides to help him, and they’re left alone for a minute, assessing each other.

Despite their initial lack of a shared language (maybe his helmet can translate Japanese?), she communicates to him (with Chappy drawings!) that she has to go deeper into Hell to save Ichigo. Given their shared love of bunnies, Doomguy is down with that. She rides on his back as she did with Ichigo, working some of his spare guns as they go. (Imagine Rukia cocking a shotgun meaningfully tho…) Along the way Rukia freezes some dudes and Doomguy punches their heads off. The usual stuff. She tells him about Ichigo as they go, like she did to Hanataro. Doomguy says nothing because he’s Doomguy, but he seems to listen.

They eventually get to Ichigo and liberate him through the judicious application of firepower. His raging reiatsu causes a lot of damage to the surrounding environment. Doomguy takes advantage of the chaos to commit more murder, giving Ichigo and Rukia time to have a tender reunion moment. The three then team up to take on Kokutou, Shuren, and the other baddies, possibly over the course of several different battles. (Probably like a third or so of the movie is this, and maybe the others show up to pair off and get some screen time. Doesn’t really matter.)

Eventually Shuren and the other chumps die and Kokutou becomes the big bad. Ichigo and Rukia do a big tag-team bankai attack to kill him after Doomguy provides them with an opening with a BFG9000 shot (as he is mostly doing add-clear).

Victorious, the three escape to the upper levels of Hell again, where they are met by reinforcements from Soul Society and explain that Doomguy is a friend. Eventually, Kisuke does some technobabble shizzlewizzle to send Doomguy back to the dimensions he more properly belongs to. Rukia gives him a parting gift of a drawing of him and Daisy in happier times. Ichigo gives him a fistbump and a CD player with some punk music, or a collection of edgy Shakespearean poetry or something.

Ichigo and Rukia share an epilogue to decompress and have some playful banter about how she’ll always be there for him just like he’s there for her.

Roll credits to At Doom’s Gate or BFG Division. Mid-credit sequence is Doomguy sitting on a massive demon corpse, making a detailed Chappy drawing of himself, Rukia, and Ichigo killing demons together as friends. End-credit sequence is Ichigo and Rukia playing an FPS game together on a console in pajamas or lounging clothes while laughing and bantering.

Like, yes, this idea is pretty stupid (although I am increasingly tempted to write it) and a frankly bizarre crossover. But you know what? It feels truer to the characters to me, and less contrived and dumb in setting up why what is happening is. It doesn’t really make the characters needlessly helpless or incompetent to generate those good moments of interaction.

And that is really my problem with Fade to Black: what it has to do to get the good moments outweighs them, for me. Maybe it’s because I just can’t turn my brain off and can’t stop doing critical analysis, but I always feel like the juice ain’t worth the squeeze. (And I kinda feel that way about all the animated movies. I was really surprised by how much I liked the Live Action: it nailed handling things perfectly.)

Other people like it, and that’s fine, but I don’t really intend to ever watch it again.

[grumpyalpacaman]

The Time My 9th Level Wizard Defeated a Beholder With One Spell

So some context for this one. My Half-Elf wizard is a lawful good pacifist named Aulin. Aulin avoids killing whenever possible, refuses to use any damage dealing spells and spends most of his non-adventuring time running a small school for poor children. He’s a naive, scholarly man who always tries to find a better way and avoid violence at any cost. At least, he was at the time this story takes place. He’s gone through some arcs since then and is nearly 20th level, but that’s a story for another day. My party is battling a group of dark elves on top of a castle they’ve invaded. This is the big culmination of the entire story arc of the campaign up to this point. They’re planning this big ritual that will eradicate all life in this nation because they received a vision from a beholder sealed within the walls of this castle. The prophecy states that the scion of evil, inheritor of the Abyss, will be born in this country, on this day. They don’t know who it is and so to ensure the continuation of the world (and themselves by extension), they want to wipe the nation of life.  My hero, the naive schoolteacher is giving his big Picard speech, “There is another way. We cannot make this kind of sacrifice based on the mad ravings of an insane monster!” The battle is nearly over, my companions and I are mopping up the last of the drow forces when their arch-priestess takes an orb, the focus for their ritual and throws it down a chute. A chute that leads directly to the magical prison of Va’al, the Beholder. My allies are too injured, I’m the only one that can do anything to stop this. 

I decide that to save so many lives, Aulin is willing to sacrifice himself. I fly down the chute, into the dark chamber and smash the orb to pieces at the last moment. The world is saved. Then a massive, glowing eye appears in the shadows, followed by a cackling laugh. I am face to face with a beholder. A monster that my entire party would likely be destroyed by, even at full strength. And there I stood, in its magic eradicating gaze with nothing but a sword, less than half of my hit points and my very meagre martial combat skills to defend me. Staring down a Beholder, a powerful wizard is basically just a regular guy. The DM tells me, “You have one turn to do SOMETHING before he kills you.”

I frantically start checking my sheet. I love playing this character. I made the decision to dive in knowing I was probably going to die but dammit, I’m gonna go down fighting. I don’t even bother looking at my spells, I know they won’t be any help so long as he’s looking at me. But Aulin is a notorious hoarder, holding on to various items and trinkets for long stretches of time. Something on my list had to be able to help me. Something catches my eye. A magic jar of dirt. It was a simple magical item that contained about a cubic foot of dirt that I could telekinetically manipulate into various shapes. At this moment, it was a regular ass jar of dirt. But against a Beholder, it might an alternative us. 

“I throw the jar of dirt in his eye.” D20 comes up with a 9. Not great and as I said before, my martial skills weren’t anything special. I burn inspiration, reroll, Nat20! The DM rules that Va’al is blinded by the dirt and shuts his anti-magic eye. DM says I have bought myself one round. I can cast one spell to get myself out of this. My first thought, Dimension Door. Teleport out of here and leave this monster to his prison. But no, he’s too dangerous. He incited this war with the dark elves through his visions and there’s no reason to believe he couldn’t do something like this again and destroy thousands more lives. I needed to rid the world of this creature, here and now. 

I don’t have many spells left and even at full strength, there was nothing I could do to kill a Beholder in one round. But I did have a nice scroll. Modify Memory. This triggers a bit of lore knowledge in the back of my mind. “I cast Modify Memory to make Va’al believe that I sliced him in half when I came in.”

The DM is curious. He’s good, always tries to say yes to his players and keep things fun but he’s not sure what I’m angling at. “Beholders are psychic creatures. Their thoughts can warp reality if they’re intense enough. I use Modify Memory to make Va’al believe that he has been sliced in half.“

DM puts away his screen and rolls his die in front of everyone. He wants us to know that no matter what, he’s not fudging this one. I’ve put my life in the hands in the dice. D20 comes up a 3. In spite of the Beholder’s great Wis Save, he fails. The DM rules that just because I have altered his memory, doesn’t mean the belief is strong enough to alter reality. Va’al’s will is going to fight this. He gets a second will save to resist his own eradication. It’s a brutal call, but I think it was fair considering I’m trying to OHKO a boss monster, totally out of my league. D20 comes up 5 and the DM reports that in a burst of psychic energy, the Beholder is ripped in half.

That wasn’t the last we’d see of Va’al. Beholders have ways of ensuring their own survival and the furious monster, embarrassed by his defeat at the hands of a lowly school teacher, has been resurrected and vowed vengeance against me. This remains my favourite DnD moment ever and a great example of why I love playing wizards.

[tedlyanderson]

Annotations for Adventure Time: Beginning of the End issue 3!

Did you enjoy my annotations for issue one and issue two of this miniseries? If so, good news! (If not, shove off!) I have annotations for the third issue, right here waiting for your lovely eyes! Obviously, as with the previous posts, this will have great big massive spoilers for the issue, so take that into consideration. Please enjoy, my pals!

Pages 2&3: Okay, there’s a lot to unpack on these pages, haha. First and foremost is a reference to something other than Adventure Time for once: Jake’s monologue on these pages is a loose reference to one of the very best issues of classic Fantastic Four, number 51, “This Man ... This Monster!” In that issue, among other events, Reed Richards travels through the Negative Zone and muses to himself about the nature of reality:

There are cameos on these pages from a bunch of the “cosmic” things of the AT universe, including the Catalyst Comet, the Lich, a copy of the Enchiridion,  Glob Grob Gob Grod, the Finn Sword, and Prismo (in a rare 3-dimensional appearance). There’s also a herd of Time Lards with clocks on their bellies.

Also in this image, note the most minor and in-jokey reference in this entire series: the satellite on the middle-left with the word “FELIS” on it. In the episode “Fionna and Cake and Fionna,” someone asks Ice King where he gets the ideas for his Fionna and Cake stories, and he replies that they’re “beamed into [his] melon every night.” Later that episode, we see him sleeping as a pink laser zaps into his head, carrying images of Fionna and Cake. I chose to interpret this as a reference to one of my favorite authors, Philip K. Dick, who believed that he was receiving knowledge in the form of an information-rich pink laser beam from a satellite called VALIS. So this satellite, FELIS (get it? like cats?), is the source of the Fionna and Cake stories—in my version of the universe, anyway.

Page 4, panel 4: Chronologius Rex declares that he is the lord of Time, not meatloaf. Meatloaf has been established multiple times as Finn’s favorite food.

Page 5: And here we come to the crux of this issue: Finn’s possible futures. Issue 1 of this series was about Finn’s past, issue 2 was about his present, so naturally issue 3 is all about his futures. Obviously none of these should be taken as “canon;” I just came up with three possible paths Finn might take based on what we’ve seen him do throughout the series. I’ll explain my thinking after the third sequence.

All three of the futures are color-coded—the Candy Knight future is pink, obviously.

Page 6: I love Mari’s designs for Queen Bubblegum—the high ‘80s shoulders are great! My suggestion for Old Peppermint Butler was that he be smoother and shinier, as if he’s a candy that’s been sucked on for too long.

In panel 2, the “Dinner Kingdom” is kind of a half-reference to the Breakfast Kingdom in present Ooo.

And in panel 5, note old Finn’s Jake medallion.

Page 7, panel 4: I am not sorry for the “bunch” of banana soldiers joke.

Page 8, panel 1: Beards are indeed a factor in many of Finn’s futures: pretty much every time we’ve seen an older or artificially-aged Finn, he’s got a beard of some sort. I continue the trend in this issue.

Page 8, panel 5: This is a futuristic version of Founders’ Island, the main human settlement outside of Ooo, fixed up and fully repaired. The implication is that Finn not only returned to the human islands, he also helped fix the place up.

The color scheme for the Teacher Finn future is blue, connecting with the water and sky surrounding them.

Page 9, panel 2: I love Teacher Finn’s design so, so much, you guys. I described him as a lovable old professor, someone with his mother’s compassion and his father’s roguish charm, and Mari knocked it out of the park. Note his Jake hat.

Page 9, panel 3: “Homies help homies: always!” is the Adventure Time philosophy in a nutshell.

Page 9, panel 5: Note that Finn is still using his old, trusty sword Scarlett in this future. She’s even more nicked and battle-scarred, but I’m sure she’s still good in a fight.

Page 10, panel 2: Dodging eggs while fighting was part of Finn’s training from Rattleballs in his eponymous episode.

Page 10, panel 2: When it came to Finn’s human wife, I told Mari to make her look a little bit like a human version of Flame Princess. I figured Finn if has a type, it’s her!

Page 11: The third and final possible future is the Space Captain Finn future, which is green-themed for no particular reason. This future is based on the idea that Finn and his Candy Kingdom pals team up with the remaining humans to build a spaceship to take them away from Earth, which is about as likely as anything else in Adventure Time, haha.

Everything in this sequence is of course heavily inspired by Star Trek: the Next Generation, a show that I love and grew up watching. The Minerva A.I. is the ship’s computer, obviously, warning of “excessive sparks detected on bridge.” Jake is Finn’s right-hand-man, just like Riker was to Picard (and Finn even calls him “numero uno,” like Picard’s “number one”). Lady Rainicorn is the equivalent of counselor Troi, Fern is a bit like Data, and Jake’s skateboarding granddaughter Bronwyn is the hotshot kid pilot, like Wesley. Princess Bubblegum is the engineering chief—she always struck me as preferring the role of scientist rather than royalty, frankly—assisted by Frieda and BMO. Flame Princess, upgraded to Plasma Princess, powers the ship as a whole. And Finn himself sports a beard similar to Commander Riker’s—which is appropriate, as a future version of Finn was voiced by Riker’s actor, Jonathan Frakes!

When coming up with these futures, I thought about what the Finn we knew might be most drawn to doing, and boiled it down to three major options: fighting and defending (the Candy Knight future), teaching and training (the Teacher Finn future), or exploring and leading (Space Captain Finn). For what it’s worth, I don’t really have a preference, or any opinions on which future is most likely—one of the strengths of Adventure Time has always been finding ways to surprise its audience with something that makes total sense in retrospect. If Finn does have a “canonical” future, it’s probably something I would never have thought of, but which makes perfect sense.

Page 11, panel 4: Princess Bubblegum yet again mentions “zanoits,” which are maybe some kind of mysterious particle? It’s a funny word and deserves to be used more often.

Page 12, panel 1: I mentioned in my annotations for the previous issue that I felt bad making Susan revert to her simpler speech patterns, since by this point in the series she’s perfectly capable of using big words. I tried to make it up to her by making her the ship’s communications officer, who would use big words all the time.

Additionally, the “Tuffbone sector” is a reference to Meredith Gran’s Adventure Time miniseries, Marceline: Gone Adrift. In that series, Marceline explores space and meets other races, including the Tuffbones, dog-like alien critters.

Page 12, panel 2: Note that Shelby (the worm who lives in Jake’s viola) is wearing a bandolier similar to Worf’s. I was particularly proud of that idea, haha.

Page 12, panel 4: Jake’s exclamation of “Outrageous!” is a reference to another role by his voice actor, John DiMaggio: it’s the catchphrase of Aquaman, from the Batman: the Brave and the Bold series.

Page 16, panel 3: A “dead world” is another bit of unexplored Adventure Time lore: they’re apparently where people go when they die, but they’re not quite the afterlife as we think of it? Or it is, but there’s a lot of them, like at least fifty? Unclear.

Page 16, panel 4: I had to work in the title of the show somehow.

Page 17, panel 3: I wanted to make sure I referenced my favorite song from the show, “Everything Stays” by Rebecca Sugar, and this seemed like the perfect time to bring it up, as Jake discusses the inevitability of change.

Page 17, panel 4: When I described this panel in the script, I specifically mentioned the series Neon Genesis Evangelion, one of the weirder depictions of the end of the world you can find. I love the image of the enormous stone blocks sinking into an endless sea.

Page 18, panel 5: Chronologius’s epithet for Jake, “starchild,” references Jake’s actual origin as a half-alien creature. I checked the dates, and apparently I finished the script for this issue just a couple weeks after the episode “Jake the Starchild” aired, in which Jake’s parentage was fully revealed.

Pages 20-21: Finn’s final “confrontation” with Chronologius might feel a bit underwhelming—essentially, all he does is convince Chronologius to give them an opportunity to escape. There’s no big battle, no war of wits; it’s already been established that Chronologius is basically invulnerable, so it’s not like Finn could beat him in a fight. It’s not terribly exciting, but that’s kind of the point: over the course of this issue, Chronologius becomes more sympathetic to Finn and his plight, particularly after seeing all the good he did (and might have done) in the world. So it’s less about beating up some big bad dude, and more about convincing someone to act like a pal. In a way, Finn beats Chronologius by making him into a friend.

Would it have been better if the ending was more exciting, action-packed, crazy-style? Maybe! Looking back on it, I feel like I could have given Mari more chances to do cool art stuff—the first half of this issue has some pretty far-out sequences and nifty new things to draw, but the second half is basically three characters talking against a mostly boring background. Thematically I feel like it’s better to have Finn succeed by befriending the villain, rather than just punching his lights out, but it definitely doesn’t have the same visual impact. Overall, I’m still proud of it, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be improved.

That’s it for issue three! Join me next time for—issue four?!? Yes! This three-part miniseries is in fact a four-part miniseries, ending with Finn and Jake’s adventures through time! Look forward to it, my chums!

[pb1138]

Thank You for Teaching Me How to Love

So, it’s almost 3am. I still have to pack a week’s worth of shit to go home tomorrow. I have to study vital information for my job and read a contract for a new job. I have to clean my room. I have to finish some work. And I have to get to bed by at least 1 because I have work at 9.

SO HEY LET’S WRITE SOME FANFICTIONS THAT LITERALLY NOBODY ASKED FOR!!! :D

Summary: Data experiences grief (data x oc)

Warnings: Death

That feeling when your own writing makes you bawl your eyes out. Holy shit. I need a life.

The Enterprise bridge crew and some visiting friends, including Chief O’Brian and Keiko, were gathered around the urn pod, listening to Captain Picard talk about her accomplishments: top 5% of her class in Starfleet, an ingenious engineer, a multi-world-renowned vocalist, the list went on and on. A few feet away, one of her songs was playing on an old gramophone. She had frequently praised the ancient machine for the “depth” it gave certain kinds of music. This particular song she had sung in an imitation of a famous French singer of the 1940s, a song called “La Vie en Rose.” More than a few people were crying, Deanna had had to excuse herself before the service had even begun because the wealth of grief and sorrow surrounding her had begun to affect her deeper than she realized.

Picard finished his speech as the song came to an end, wiping his eyes as he said, “Vikara Nellenryll will be more than missed. Her absence will affect us all in a more profound way than some of us have ever experienced.” With this, he walked over to Data who hadn’t moved a single inch since they had arrived at the forest. He put his hand on the android’s arm and squeezed it firmly, drawing his attention. “Data, my old friend, we are all here for you in this hour of need.”

Data nodded slightly, giving a weak smile that lasted .13 seconds. Picard turned back to the urn and was the first to reach down, dropping a small handful of wildflower seeds onto the soil around it. Everyone else followed suit, said their goodbyes, and walked away, not a single dry eye among them. Geordi waited until it was just him and Data left before he turned to his friend. “Data, are you alright?”

Data turned his head toward Geordi, his face void of all emotion. He went to open his mouth but no words came. He tried again and managed to let out a quiet, “I have… I have no words for what I’m feeling. All I can say with certainty is that…no. I am not alright.” And it was true. Data wished with all his might that he hadn’t damaged his emotion chip. He wanted nothing more than to turn this feeling off and to never let it come back on. But for now, he was unable to deactivate it. He could not avoid this feeling, this hopelessness, this despair.

Geordi nodded, swallowing down a lump of tears and he hugged the android tightly for a few moments. He pulled back and patted his arm. “I’ll leave you alone to…say your goodbyes.” He bent down and put his handful of seeds around the pod. As he left, he put his hand on Data’s shoulder for a second again, and then continued on his way.

Data stood rigid still until Geordi’s footsteps were approximately 74.43 feet away and then all strength he had failed him. He sank to his knees in the dirt, dropping the seeds he had been clutching in his hand. He let out a choked sob, sinking back onto his ankles. Artificial tears streamed down his face as his entire body shook with grief. The raging ball of searing heat in his stomach rising up to his throat and radiating down to his palms.

“V-Vikara…My Vik. I can’t—I don’t—How can I?” Even without the necessity of breathing, Data could not help the shuddering intake of air into his chest cavity. He tried to speak again but all that his vocal processor could produce was a strangled cry and he dug his nails into the dirt.

He stayed like that for a few hours until he managed to get his crying under control. His voice was weak and hollow when he managed to finally speak again. “I knew this day would come, but how could I have known it would come…so soon?” He wiped his eyes, staring desolately at the pod. “I hope you find this to be an appropriate means of…” he swallowed the word ‘disposal’ and left the sentence unfinished, unable to vocalize the idea of departing with her body, the body he had spent so many nights lying beside, watching, studying, worshipping. “I know how fond you a…were” he swallowed hard, looking up into the sky to blink away a fresh wave of tears, “of the forests. And this planet has no species even remotely resembling arachnids, which I know you hate…d. Why do I keep doing that? I know that you are…gone… but I can’t, as they say, ‘wrap my head around’ the idea of you being…” He couldn’t say it. He just could not bring the word “dead” to his lips. The pain coursed through his body again and he lost control. For another hour, he could do nothing but sob.

As he settled down, he contemplated the way other species handled death. Klingons released battle cries when one of their own died. Multiple species throw parties to celebrate the lives of their loved ones. Some species preserve their loved ones, some even go so far as to live with the corpses for a while. In some ancient cultures, lovers would throw themselves on the funeral pyres of their lost lovers. Data couldn’t help the bitterness in the back of his mind that cynically wished she hadn’t been terrified of fire so there could be a pyre to throw himself upon.

Instead, he moved so that he was sitting, staring at the picture of her that had been engraved upon the simple headstone they had prepared. It was a picture that Deanna had taken at a party. It had been one hell of a party, too. Someone had gotten their hands on Guinan’s stash of real alcohol, not synthehol, and several of the attendees had taken it a bit too far, Vikara included. In this particular picture, her freckled cheeks were flushed with drink, her curly brown hair was wild owing to the fact that she had broken her hair tie, her gingerbread eyes were lined in flawless eyeliner, her nose ring sparkled from the flash, her painted rosy lips were stretched over a wide smile. Mid-laughter, he thought. She was leaning over him, one arm draped across his shoulders, her other wrapped around his own. He was looking up at her with a bewildered expression. She had caught him by surprise, having just left a raucous discussion with a coworker. He smiled as he remembered that night. That had been the first night she had told him she loved him, but he never mentioned this to her in case it had just been the alcohol. It had taken her another three weeks to say it again, sober this tiem. He had made an authentic Italian dinner for her, spaghetti and an entire loaf of garlic bread. (Garlic is…was Vikara’s favorite food, as she very frequently said.) She had taken his hand after she finished eating and she smiled at him over the candles, blushing. “Data, there’s, I mean, I have something to… Well, Data I love you,” she stuttered out. He had risen from his seat and walked around the table to her. He took her in his arms and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. “I love you, too, Vikara,” he had breathed.

The picture on the headstone changed to a picture of their wedding day. He let out a soft chuckle, a sad smile coming to his lips. She had worn a green dress, off-the-shoulders with floor-length cut sleeves. She said it was an almost exact replica of the green dress worn by a Marilyn Monroe in the later-mid 20th century, “except I made the underside mulberry instead of red,” she had said. She had been breathtaking. Her bouquet was a mixture of Betazed and Thorian wildflowers. Her hair had been braided in one long, thick wave with those same flowers weaved into it. She wore only eyeliner, and very subtly so, but somehow she was glowing. He had worn his usual formal Starfleet clothing, but she had said he “never looked more handsome.” Picard had officiated the wedding, which was held outdoors on Risa 7, on a hill overlooking the ocean at sunset. The way the fiery sunset danced in her eyes and along her skin, she looked absolutely incorporeal. The picture on the tombstone was of their kiss. He had bent her into a low dip, and the way the sun shone behind them, it was though the sky itself had been celebrating their union.

There were eight other pictures that cycled through on the tombstone: her Starfleet graduation picture, a baby picture with her two older siblings, a picture of her performing at a Bajoran music hall, a picture of her with the bridge crew, another of the same setting but with everyone making funny expressions (she had pulled her cheeks apart and gone cross eyed, he was in the middle of asking Picard what expressions were considered “funny,”) a picture of her lounging on a tropical beach in the holodeck, a picture of her with her parents—a human father and a female Trill who had married her father when she was 6 months old, and a picture of her sitting on the floor of their quarters, surrounded by the innards of a broken replicator she had been fighting with. He had taken the beach picture and the picture with the replicator himself. He had hundreds of pictures of her, most of them candid, that he had collected in their six years together. The smile faded from his lips as he realized that was basically all he had left of her, of his wife, of the woman who taught him love.

He sat with her urn a while longer before he lowered it into the ground. He sprinkled growth activator over the seeds and her urn and stood back. Betazed and Thorian wildflowers rose from the ground, surrounding the sprouting weeping willow to which her urn contained the seed and would nourish for the next six months.

He leaned down and picked one of the flowers, a Thorian rose, and tucked it into the lapel of his coat to press later. The Thorian rose had been her favorite flower. He would put it on his desk alongside the picture of her draped across him at the party.

He plugged a chip into the side of the tombstone and music began to play, a mixture of violin pieces which he performed, some vocal pieces she performed, and some pieces they performed together for the Enterprise crew on occasion. The tombstone was solar-powered, so as long as this planet orbited a sun, her voice would grace this forest.

He stood at the edge of her burial plot and tears rose to his eyes once again.

“Vikara, my love, it is time for me to leave now.” He wiped his eyes and clenched his fists once or twice in an attempt to make the pain go away. “I… I will cherish you in my heart, always. I will never forget you, because as you know I cannot forget. But I will miss you with every fiber of my being.” He turned to leave but stopped. He turned his upper body to look down at the budding tree. “Thank you. Thank you for teaching me how to love.” And then he was gone.

ed t��r9

[daleisgreat]

2019-20 TV Season Recap

Previous TV Season Recaps - (2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19) JULY 2, 2020 UPDATED WITH RANKINGS FOR WATCHMEN AND FINAL SEASONS OF GAME OF THRONES CLICK HERE TO JUMP RIGHT TO THEM Greetings, and welcome to my yearly TV season breakdown of all the shows I followed that were released during the past school year. For newer readers, please take a peek at previous TV recaps above that go as far back to the 2013-14 season. I usually try and watch a couple more shows during the summer and will update the top of this entry with an addendum link to new shows I kept up with during the summer. I will keep up my tradition of beginning with some animation shows….

South Park - This is a slight improvement from last year’s season, and it continues South Park’s return to form of episodic storylines. There were a couple dud episodes sprinkled in, but I was a fan of most of the ten shows this season. Standouts were cable TV installers fighting the war on streaming services, criticizing the Chinese government’s censorship to the point of getting South Park banned in China and an awesome season finale that sees Randy’s pot farm in despair when pot is outlawed during Christmas season so he turns to growing cocaine and gets everyone, including Santa and Jesus, hooked on it. Grade: B Simpsons - Last few years I have stuck to watching a few episodes a year of The Simpsons and Family Guy to at least have that constant association with those long lasting shows. Usually it is only the season premiere, finale and the Christmas episode of each show. The Simpsons I will also watch its annual Treehouse of Horror special, but something about this season kept me coming back to it where I watched nearly half of their episodes this season. They had their first ever Thanksgiving of Horror special which I was surprised with the amount of gore that got in. With this being the first full season of the show where it officially fell under the Disney ownership umbrella, there are now constant Disney, Pixar, Star Wars and Marvel references throughout, but likely due to the nature of the show it was not that intrusive to put up with. I really dug an episode with the Flanders coming to terms on reconciling with Maude’s death in a ‘special’ episode. Other fun episodes were the return of Sideshow Bob for the Christmas special and a touching season finale centering around Santa’s Little Helper, complete with a flashback to a clip of the very first Simpsons episode in 1989. Grade: B+

The Conners - Loving how most of the cast is settling into their roles by this point. I was thrilled to see the family regain ownership and reopen ‘The Lunchbox.’ Loved episodes that centered on that homey diner in the original. Sara Gilbert and John Goodman continue to carry the show on their backs. Seeing Dan’s dilemma of coming to terms with accepting the passing of Roseanne and committing to Louise was a chase that was worth following all season and had a gratifying payoff. I loved the ups and downs of Darlene and Ben’s relationship this season, and Ben has easily won me over as a regular on the show and I hope he is there to stay. Harris on the other hand…not so much. I would love to see more of DJ and his family in the mix, and it is disheartening to see he seems like such an afterthought of the show. Seeing Becky’s newfound motherhood troubles were a bit much to keep up with but it had its moments. One nagging issue I have with the series that has now been back for three seasons is that they never addressed what happened to Jackie's kid yet from the original run which is kind of ridiculous. Not even in a passing ‘Fred has custody now on the other side of the country’ sort of way. I was hoping to see Fred make a surprise return for an episode or something to address that, but will have to keep my fingers crossed for season four. Loved most of this season minus the Harris-centered episodes, and a couple of plotlines and barbs that felt like overkill. Grade: B+ Arrow – It was bittersweet to see the final episode of Arrow this past January. It was the last show I kept up with in the DC line of CW shows since I dropped the other couple midseason last year because it became too much to keep up with. Oliver had a fond farewell as the entire season built up that Olly would be riding off into the sunset this season. This season saw the continued use of jumping back and forth between current and future timelines where Oliver’s two children, Mia & William are all grown up and doing their own vigilante justice. I watched the entire five part Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover special between all the DC-CW shows. I will not attempt to explain it because my brain will explode in doing so, but it has a major impact dealing with Oliver’s fate and it all comes full circle in the finale with a heartfelt memorial for Oliver in front of a lot of familiar faces that were delightful to see again. The memorial saw an absolutely killer speech from Diggle that had my emotions running wild.

Arrow has consistently remained my favorite DC show on the CW. It had a touch more edge than the other shows which eventually morphed into a carefree, watered down formula I could not tolerate anymore. It sounds like there will be a new spinoff show with Mia and William starting next season, but I think but this seems like the perfect jumping off point from the ever-growing lineup of DC shows. There were times I felt like I needed a guide to keep up with all the time travelling plot threads, but the recaps helped keep me in check, and this was a great way to wrap up my favorite show of the CW-DC ‘Arrow-verse.’ Grade: A The Witcher – I heard a lot of positive buzz going into this Netflix original series, and being only eight episodes did not seem like too much of a commitment so I dove right in. The videogames this series is based on have been in my backlog forever so I cannot say how they compare, but I was won over by the two main characters of Geralt and Yennefer. Jaskier the bard was also the perfect companion to provide brief moments of levity. Henry Cavill has a tremendous presence as Geralt, and comes off as one powerful badass not to mess with. My favorite episode is where Geralt competes against a couple other factions going up a mountain to hunt a dragon that has many fun twists and turns. It would not be a medieval fantasy show without a big awesome setpiece war of a finale, and Witcher also delivers on that front. Only nitpick I have is sometimes the lore can be a bit dense to keep up with, but at only eight episodes that does not prevent it from being an easy recommendation. Grade: A-

Castlevania – The third season of the Netflix original show based on the hit videogame series is easily my favorite season of the three. There are several separate story arcs transpiring throughout the season, and most of them I was able to get into with the exception of Alucard's odd arc where mysterious loners seek his guidance who oddly turn on him for not revealing all his secrets after only a week under his tutelage. The rest of the cast had vastly more intriguing storylines. Trevor and Sypha are an adorably deadly couple that find themselves helping out a village filled with all kinds of dark secrets. Forgemaster Hector is wrapped up in a pickle of a situation as a prisoner of vampires who want global conquest. Forgemaster Isaac had an arc that I got into where he also is on his own quest for taking over the world. Something about the way it was written this season especially made it pop for me with each episode having one or two standout sessions of conversing. That boat captain especially, I want him to come back after his enticing conversations with Isaac! The last two episodes packed a really mean punch and compensate for the lack of action for the rest of the season. Sure as hell hope to see a fourth season soon enough! Grade: A Star Trek: Picard - During the early weeks of the global pandemic we are now in, a lot of streaming services offered extended free trials. I took advantage of that for CBS All Access, which is the exclusive home of Picard. Despite being nearly 20 years older since we last saw him as Picard, Sir Patrick Stewart remains masterful in the role. Now that it has been about a month since I wrapped it up, I am kind of 50/50 on the first season of Picard. There were some characters that I did not care for, but the show ultimately came together for a semi-decent season. Loved the expected old faces that returned for rushes of nostalgia I was totally into, and am glad only a few older faces returned to save room for future cameos. Took a while to get use to watching Star Trek in a serialized format with story arcs lasting the whole season, but I liked the crew Picard assembled by the end of the season, and although the season arc spiraled into a bit of a mess by the season finale that I additionally will refrain from attempting to explain, a big part of me is feeling like the cast was starting to organically gel by the last episode which leads me hoping for a better dynamic in season two. Grade: B-

Star Trek: Discovery (Seasons 1 & 2) – That CBS All Access trial wound up getting extended further into two months for me so I once again took advantage of that to plow through the first two seasons of the newest core Star Trek show, Discovery. The first season was a bit of a chore to get through. After an explosive two episode season opener setting up the protagonist Michael Burnham, the show gradually got less interesting as they mixed in plot tropes I despise like time travelling and alternate dimensions that play a major role in the first season. I will give props to a guilty pleasure time loop episode I was all in for however that can easily be watched in its own without taking in the rest of the serialized plot. I was not that into Rainn Wilson before, but his recurring role here as con-man Harry Mudd was my unlikely favorite character of the first season. My main gripe about the first season is it is all about Michael, with the rest of the crew primarily relegated to B and C plot affairs while most other past Star Trek shows shined the spotlight on the entire crew. The second season is a step up with some noticeable improvements. I liked the introduction of their versions of Captain Pike and Spock on here that drastically helped the rest of the cast to step up. Seeing Spock & Michael’s sibling rivalry and their past revealed as the season went on was an arc that I was able to invest in. Discovery did a little bit of fleshing out of some parts of the rest of the crew, but it could have done better where instead a lot more emphasis was placed on Michael's character making silly Jennifer Garner-esque reactionary faces. She does a mean vulcan eyebrow though, ditto with Spock! Special effects are in a league of their own, no idea how they have the budget for it with nearly every episode having a ton of spectacular action scenes. TNG nut in me would prefer Discovery to dial back the action a notch or two, but supposedly the new Pike spinoff show, Strange New Worlds, will do that next year. Season 1 Grade: C- Season 2 Grade: B- ====================================== UPDATE – July 2, 2020 ====================================== A couple weeks after I posted this originally I did one of them free one week trials for HBO Max to crank out two more shows I have been meaning to get to for quite some time so here are my thoughts on them….

Watchmen - The 2009 film is extraordinarily polarizing among anyone I talk to. I have a love/hate/love relationship with it myself. The HBO TV series from several months ago appears to be the same from the first few people I spoke with about it too after finishing it earlier this week. It is set in the present in 2019, some 34 years after the events of the graphic novel. I was hooked by the end of the first episode which had an impactful viewing experience due to the similarities of how the police are portrayed in Watchmen to the recent real life events/riots/protests in recent weeks. Nearly every episode had an interesting hook that spiraled into another arc that had its own callback and references to the original story and how the present world in the show was still enduring the rippling effects from the conclusion of the original saga. The second half of the season has a different dynamic to it once certain revelations are made of key characters and other characters are introduced. Seeing each episode’s dose of Ozymandias’ journey from the past 34 years had me scratching my head where it was going until his arc came full circle and it all pleasantly came together. A couple little twists and turns did not sit well with me in how the finale played out, but for the most part I was absolutely invested in the series throughout and hopes the show gets picked up for a second season which is currently in doubt because the season one showrunner feels the first season put an overall conclusion to Watchmen all together. Grade: A-

Game of Thrones - I finally got around to watching the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones. I somehow managed to escape spoilers all this time too. Was in no rush to see it due to noticeable step down in quality from the seventh season based on how rushed it felt and how it crammed two seasons of content into one. Unfortunately the same can be said here for the last season. The thing is though the first half of season eight is extremely good. Episode one is all about reuniting the characters and setting up for the battle of all battles against the undead army that has been building since the very beginning of the show. I loved how the second episode gave nearly every character a moment of their own to take in their presumable last evening before the fight ahead as they basked in each other’s fellowship and drink. Then the battle itself was a huge undertaking for a TV show to pull off a battle scene of that magnitude for over an hour, even with a premium HBO budget. There are parts where I can nitpick and see where they tried little camera tricks and implemented other special effects tomfoolery to give the false illusion they were on par with the AAA budget cinematic battles of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but by and large that battle with the Whitewalkers is an impressive feat of television filmmaking that I will never forget. Loved every chapter of that third episode. If you have fallen off of Game of Thrones after season seven, then do yourself a favor and at least watch episodes two and three of the final season. Now if the series would have ended after that big battle that would have been ideal, but there was still one Queen Cersei to deal with…. …and the final three episodes of the season eight dealt with the rest of the kingdoms building up for one last battle to take over the Red Keep and remove Cersei from the throne. The final three episodes feel overwhelmingly rushed and should have had their own expanded season, and that is saying something because those episodes are all longer than average episodes and around the length of a movie each. While the first half of the final season has key characters meet their demise in a blaze of glory, the final episodes have anticlimactic finales for fan favorite characters and it felt like the writers were trying to make the best of the worst situation for trying to wrap up the show. There are a couple fleeting moments I enjoyed for certain characters having a gratifying conclusion to their stories, but I could not shake this gut-wrenching feeling throughout the final two episodes that the wheels were quickly flying off the rails. For what it is worth, I did like Bran and Jon Snow’s final destinations and scenes for how they were shot and am now relieved I have now got this show out of the way. I avoided reading recaps and spoilers, but had a feeling this was not going to be a good season due to a general lack of reaction and enthusiasm for the final season as it was transpiring, minus a little optimism for the aforementioned midseason battle. The series finale came and went without much of an online reaction to my surprise and in the succeeding months little murmurs of ‘meh’ was what I picked up on in the general sense of how it wrapped up when asking around….and I am essentially on board with that after seeing it myself. Now with that out of the way…should I read the books? Grade: C Past TV/Web Series Blogs 2013-14 TV Season Recap 2014-15 TV Season Recap 2015-16 TV Season Recap 2016-17 TV Season Recap 2017-18 TV Season Recap 2018-19 TV Season Recap Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series Baseball: A Ken Burns series Angry Videogame Nerd Home Video Collections Cobra Kai – Seasons 1-2 Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1 | Season 2 OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30 RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13 Roseanne – Seasons 1-9 Seinfeld Final Season Star Trek: Next Generation – Seasons 1-7 Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle Superheroes: Pioneers of Television The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5

[vintagegeekculture]

Top Misconceptions People Have about Pulp-Era Science Fiction

A lot of people I run into have all kinds of misconceptions about what pulp-era scifi, from the 1920s-1950s, was actually like. 

“Pulp-Era Science Fiction was about optimistic futures.”

Optimistic futures were always, always vastly outnumbered by end of the world stories with mutants, Frankenstein creations that turn against us, murderous robot rebellions, terrifying alien invasions, and atomic horror. People don’t change. Then as now, we were more interested in hearing about how it could all go wrong. 

To quote H.L. Gold, editor of Galaxy Science Fiction, in 1952: 

“Over 90% of stories submitted to Galaxy Science Fiction still nag away at atomic, hydrogen and bacteriological war, the post atomic world, reversion to barbarism, mutant children killed because they have only ten toes and fingers instead of twelve….the temptation is strong to write, ‘look, fellers, the end isn’t here yet.’”

The movie Tomorrowland is a particulary egregious example of this tremendous misconception (and I can’t believe Brad Bird passed on making Force Awakens to make a movie that was 90 minutes of driving through the Florida swamps). In reality, pre-1960s scifi novels trafficked in dread, dystopian futures, and fear. There was simply never a time when optimistic scifi was overrepresented, even the boyish Jules Verne became skeptical of the possibilities of technology all the way at the turn of the century. One of the most famous pulp scifi yarns was Jack Williamson’s The Humanoids, about a race of Borg-like robots who so totally micromanage humans “for our own protection” that they leave us with nothing to do but wait “with folded hands.”

“Pulp scifi often featured muscular, large-chinned, womanizing main characters.”

Here’s the image often used in parodies of pulp scifi: the main character is a big-chinned, ultra-muscular dope in tights who is a compulsive womanizer and talks like Adam West in Batman. Whenever I see this, I think to myself…what exactly is it they’re making fun of?

It’s more normal than you think to find parodies of things that never actually existed. Mystery buffs and historians, for example, can’t find a single straight example of “the Butler did it.” It’s a thing people think is a thing that was never a thing, and another example would be the idea of the “silent film villain” in a mustache and top hat (which there are no straight examples of, either). There are no non-parody examples of Superman changing in a phone booth; he just never did this.

In reality, my favorite description of pulp mag era science fiction heroes is that they are “wisecracking Anglo-Saxon engineers addicted to alcohol and tobacco who like nothing better than to explain things to others that they already know.” The average pulp scifi hero had speech patterns best described as “Mid-Century American Wiseass” than like Adam West or the Lone Ranger. 

The nearest the Spaceman Spiff stereotype came to hitting the mark was with the magazine heroes of the Lensmen and Captain Future, and they’re both nowhere near close. Captain Future was a muscular hero with a chin, but he also had a Captain Picard level desire to use diplomacy first, and believed that most encounters with aliens were only hostile due to misunderstandings and lack of communication (and the story makes him right). He also didn’t seem interested in women, mostly because he had better things to do for the solar system and didn’t have the time for love. The Lensmen, on the other hand, had a ruthless, bloodthirsty streak, and were very much like the “murder machine” Brock Sampson (an attitude somewhat justified by the stakes in their struggle). 

“Pulp Era Scifi were mainly action/adventure stories with good vs. evil.” 

This is a half-truth, since, like so much other genre fiction, scifi has always been sugared up with fight scenes and chases. And there was a period, early in the century, when most scifi followed the Edgar Rice Burroughs model and were basically just Westerns or swashbucklers with different props, ray guns instead of six-shooters. But the key thing to remember is how weird so much of this scifi was, and that science fiction, starting in the mid-1930s, eventually became something other than just adventure stories with different trappings. 

One of my favorite examples of this is A. Bertram Chandler’s story, “Giant-Killer.” The story is about rats on a starship who acquire intelligence due to proximity to the star drive’s radiation, and who set about killing the human crew one by one. Another great example is Eando Binder’s Adam Link stories, told from the point of view of a robot who is held responsible for the death of his creator.

What’s more, one of the best writers to come out of this era is best known for never having truly evil bad guys: Isaac Asimov. His “Caves of Steel,” published in 1953, had no true villains. The Spacers, who we assumed were snobs, only isolated themselves because they had no immunities to the germs of earth.

“Racism was endemic to the pulps.”

It is absolutely true that the pulps reflected the unconscious views of society as a whole at the time, but as typical of history, the reality was usually much more complex than our mental image of the era. For instance, overt racism was usually shown as villainous: in most exploration magazines like Adventure, you can typically play “spot the evil asshole we’re not supposed to like” by seeing who calls the people of India “dirty monkeys” (as in Harold Lamb). 

Street & Smith, the largest of all of the pulp publishers, had a standing rule in the 1920s-1930s to never to use villains who were ethnic minorities because of the fear of spreading race hate by negative portrayals. In fact, in one known case, the villain of Resurrection Day was going to be a Japanese General, but the publisher demanded a revision and he was changed to an American criminal. Try to imagine if a modern-day TV network made a rule that minority groups were not to be depicted as gang bangers or drug dealers, for fear that this would create prejudice when people interact with minority groups in everyday life, and you can see how revolutionary this policy was. It’s a mistake to call this era very enlightened, but it’s also a mistake to say everyone born before 1970 was evil.

“Pulp scifi writers in the early days were indifferent to scientific reality and played fast and loose with science.”

 FALSE.

 This is, by an order of magnitude, the most false item on this list.

In fact, you might say that early science fiction fandom were obsessed with scientific accuracy to the point it was borderline anal retentive. Nearly every single one of the lettercols in Astounding Science Fiction were nitpickers fussing about scientific details. In fact, modern scifi fandom’s grudging tolerance for storytelling necessities like sound in space at the movies, or novels that use “hyperspace” are actually something of a step down from what the culture around scifi was in the 1920s-1950s. Part of it was due to the fact that organized scifi fandom came out of science clubs; Hugo Gernsback created the first scifi pulp magazine as a way to sell electronics and radio equipment to hobbyists, and the “First Fandom” of the 1930s were science enthusiasts who talked science first and the fiction that speculated about it second.

In retrospect, a lot of it was just plain obvious insecurity: in a new medium considered “kid’s stuff,” they wanted to show scifi was plausible, relevant, and something different from “fairy tales.” It’s the same insecure mentality that leads video gamers to repeatedly ask if games are art. You’ve got nothing to prove there, guys, calm down (and take it from a pulp scifi aficionado, the most interesting things are always done in the period when a medium is considered disposable trash). 

One of the best examples was the famous Howard P. Lovecraft, who published “The Shadow out of Time” in the 1936 issue of Astounding. Even though it might be the only thing from that issue that is even remotely reprinted today, the letters page from this issue practically rose up in revolt against this story as not being based on accurate science. Lovecraft was never published in Astounding ever again.

If you ever wanted to find out what Star Wars would be like if they were bigger hardasses about scientific plausibility, check out E.E. Smith’s Lensman series. People expect a big, bold, brassy space opera series with heroes and villains to play fast and loose, but it was shockingly scientifically grounded.

To be fair, science fiction was not a monolith on this. One of the earliest division in science fiction was between the Astounding Science Fiction writers based in New York, who often had engineering and scientific backgrounds and had left-wing (in some cases, literally Communist) politics, and the Amazing Stories writers based in the Midwest, who were usually self taught, and had right-wing, heartland politics. Because the Midwestern writers in Amazing Stories were often self-taught, they had a huge authority problem with science and played as fast and loose as you could get. While this is true, it’s worth noting science fiction fandom absolutely turned on Amazing Stories for this, especially when the writers started dabbling with spiritualism and other weirdness like the Shaver Mystery. And to this day, it’s impossible to find many Amazing Stories tales published elsewhere.

[sleepymarmot]

DS9 season 4 liveblog

[Season index: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 PS]

The Way of the Warrior

they changed the music! I liked the original arrangement better. I guess they decided that if they have to change the opening titles, better redo them from scratch?

I love how the Klingon general dramatically cuts his hand. It's like looking at the origins of an ancient ritual which real and very important meaning has long been forgotten. Tbh I thought the crew would do the same in the previous episode, but they went for the less dramatic blood tests :D

How was the Obsidian Order destroyed? The Dominion destroyed the fleet that the Order wasn't even supposed to have. What about all of their normal agents, infrastructure, gathered intelligence? 

"Not like you? Impossible" (note: as I prepare to publish this post, having just finished season 5, it seems this line was the last time they ever shared a flirty moment... rip garashir 1993-1995)

finally!

please stop reminding me about that awful movie thanks

Poor Worf is so awkward as usual

"And I find you offensive. Now hold up your arm, or I'll have the security do it for you"

"Captain Sisko bet me that you would thank him for the rescue before you started complaining." "I lost."

The Visitor

I have a hard time becoming invested in stories like this, when I know that the entire timeline would be undone by the end. The final scene did manage to make me tear up a bit, but overall I'm not impressed. At least it's not outright terrible like The Inner Light...

Hippocratic Oath

Wait, did Bashir get promoted between seasons?

I don't think that joke about Keiko was very good :\ But this is the second time Miles comes really close to confessing his love for Julian... what's up with that

seriously, why does the new theme have such a messy rhythm? it's as if the beat is out of sync with the melody

Odo is such an unusual security officer, of course there's conflict between him and Worf. I'm glad they're addressing this!

of course O'Brien does a transporter trick

oh come oooon O'Brien do you really need to be such a jerk this week

Sisko is nicer to Worf than I expected

the last scene between Bashir and O'Brien is very poignant

Indiscretion

The runabout scene with Kira and Dukat is unsettling because this rhetoric is too real...

The Worst Field Trip(tm)

Julian & Jadzia's Judging Corner: priceless

honestly the absolute last thing i expected was for Dukat's butt to get so much attention...

Ziyal looks much younger than someone who was 13yo six years ago

halfway through the episode I thought Ziyal would be that Cardassian girl from season 2, I mean there was a reason for that scene, right? right?

great episode

Rejoined

Oh, Dax got promoted too

Trill society sounds dumber and dumber with each episode

Kahn is so beautiful, charming and well-dressed. damn

how did my mom manage to walk into the room just as they kissed? is that a special parent talent

;_;

"your work produced the first artificially created wormhole in history" not counting, you know, THE wormhole

welp. a romance episode finally made me cry :(

Starship Down

Wait, is the alien played by Odo's actor? 

this is like a really boring version of "Disaster"...

Dax knows Bashir now better than a year ago? He hasn't changed much over the past year, the difference is rather between seasons 1-2 and later ones, plus they seemed pretty good friends in season 1 already, not like "she was avoiding him" -- in fact, I thought she was his only friend at the time. Their body language is cute as hell though.

Damn, I could hardly keep track of the plot in this one... or why the characters were saying what they were saying... how dull

you know what was the selling point of The Disaster? characters in unusual combinations and roles! I see none of this here...

Little Green Men

ew using someone else's tooth sharpener

omg Odo! :D

what, Klingons and Vulcans didn't have warp drive by 20th century?

The Sword of Kahless

what, this was the little boy we saw in TNG? Klingon children sure grow fast...

is this sword telepathically infected or something?

So, when Worf was acting OOC he wasn't under outside influence? okay... I enjoyed this episode, but under the assumption that Worf's dishonorable actions would be explained

Our Man Bashir

Bashir's taste is about as lame as Picard's...

"I think I joined the wrong intelligence service"

"This is more than I ever wanted to know about your fantasy life" same tbh... it's enough to remember these gross tropes exist somewhere out there, I don't need them in Star Trek reenacted by my faves

This just made me remember how much I dislike James Bond... We just had a cheesy 20th century pastiche two episodes ago, but at least I don't have anything against that genre. Not to judge what people do behind the holosuite's closed doors, but it's pretty offputting to see a 24 century man so enamored with this sexist fiction. And I have pretty much the same reaction to kisses with not-Kira and not-Dax as in the Mirror Universe episode, though to a lesser degree; that was pretty gross and exploitative. It's as if someone decided that the show wasn't straight enough after Rejoined and decided to compensate...

Also I think this was the first time ever that Bashir wasn't happy to see Garak. It feels strange and sad...

I expected Garak to spend all episode making fun of silly tropes, but the little he said was pretty weak. Though I liked the confrontation in the end and the way Bashir repeated Garak's speech.

And I don't think they even took advantage of the J. B. initials. Come on! :D

Homefront

"I prefer Klingon beliefs. Our gods are dead. Ancient Klingon warriors slew them a millennia ago. They were more trouble than they were worth." I think I prefer Klingon beliefs too...

Why did Sisko put on TNG-type uniform?

Is that Leah Brahms?

Very relevant story about security vs civil rights, and it's very fitting for Odo to be here -- not just because of the plot. I really like the thematic unity between the changeling storyline and Odo's personal issues as a character.

Come on, it's so easy to deprive the entire planet of power?

Paradise Lost

This title is very ominous...

Cadet Shepard haha

I think I've heard this boast... "We have five million Cybermen. How many are you?" "Four." "You would destroy the Cybermen with four Daleks?" "We would destroy the Cybermen with one Dalek!"

So, Earth and DS9 can communicate in real time? But in the previous episode, DS9 "received a recording of a high level diplomatic conference that took place on Earth a few days ago". I assumed the delay was due to the distance, but apparently not -- was the recording just classified before someone decided to send it to Sisko?

Wait, what President's speech? Did I miss something?

I liked the first part better. So, the changeling terrorist attack on the same week was just a coincidence? Everyone seemed to forget about that...

Crossfire

Odo/Kira scene is cute instead of irritating for once

"You could hear that?" "*points to lobes* Hello?"

"I have reason to believe someone is planning to assassinate First Minister Shakaar" and by someone you mean Winn?

Odo and Worf discussing security and order! 

are they replacing Odo/Kira/Bareil with Odo/Kira/Shakaar? How many nice but bland Bajoran dudes can be in love with her?

"Frankly, I don't care whether you and Major Kira end up living happily ever after or not. I just want to see the situation resolved" same

ok, I get it, falling in love makes you very upset, bad at your job, and is sad and frustrating to watch on tv screen. nothing new here

Return to Grace

"Is that what you kept track of during the occupation? No wonder you lost"

"It bothers him, you know. Very much. He talks about it sometimes" crocodile tears... literally

some men just won't take a hint...

wait, since it was previously mentioned that Cardassian flirting is bickering, does Dukat genuinely misinterpret Kira and think he's got a chance here??

so much for keeping Klingon secrets from the Cardassians...

There's something about this dynamic I really appreciate, but I can't yet articulate it. The way Kira confidently and unflinchingly deflects all the bullshit he sends her way? How she is allowed to be right in her unforgiving stance? That being civil and working together with someone and seeing their better side does not mean all their past (and present) misdeeds are forgotten and they're suddenly your friend? Maybe this is the infamous "grey morality" done right -- not the indiscriminate tolerance and moral relativism, but allowing the other side to plead their case without losing sight of what made them "the other side" in the first place.

Sons of Mogh

Jadzia has a great "I'm gonna fuck that" face

"Charged with murder?" Have these people never heard of assisted suicide?

"I don't give a damn about Klingon beliefs, rituals or custom" ohhh so when we talk about Bajoran religion we all have to be tolerant and culturally sensitive and understanding, but Klingons are not allowed to perform their own rituals among themselves?

Wait, did Kurn consent to this or?...

A second good Klingon episode in the season that is tainted by the heroes' inexplicable immoral decisions. Last time Mr. Honor attemped murder in the most dishonorable day possible; this time ritual assisted suicide was deemed outrageous but likely nonconsensual mindwipe is an acceptable solution. The former can be headcanoned away with the assumption that the sword had some curse on it. My headcanon for the latter: people other than Sisko wouldn't have objected to the ritual (Dax canonically, O'Brien was implied to), so they accepted Worf's other solution on the same grounds.

Bar Association

Haha, Odo brings up Rascals, one of TNG's most ridiculous security failures :D

"Have you have any idea how bored I used to get sitting in the Transporter room waiting for something to break down? Here, I've a half dozen new problems every day. This station needs me" Damn, I hoped he got to do something interesting that we just weren't shown...

Wait, O'Brien got into a physical fight with Worf of all people?!

"If this was Ferenginar, I'd have you all taken to the Spire of the Tower of Commerce, displayed to the crowds in the Great Marketplace below, then shoved off, one by one. Small children would bet on where you would land, and your spattered remains would be sold as feed mulch for gree-worms" lol remember Quark's little speech about Ferengi not being barbaric?

I really care about this messed up family...

Yaaaaay I'm so happy for Rom! :D

Ferenginar sounds no less oppressive than Cardassia. I want a revolution! You know what, now that the Dominion has kindly disposed of the Tal Shiar and the Obsidian Order, can it take the FCA next? I, for one, would welcome our new gelatinous overlords in this case...

(I'm not a fan of that Leeta/Bashir background noise, thank you very much.)

Accession

"Quark, did you hear? Chief O'Brien is having a baby!" "I thought your females carried your young."

people from the past should stay in the past... apparently only 50 years ago Bajor was a pretty oppressive place too... 

"Maybe you never realised this, Captain, but we would've tried to do whatever you asked of us when you were Emissary, no matter how difficult it seemed" well that's creepy

oh come on Kira, don't follow your religion so blindly...

O'Brien and Bashir is the real love story of this show istg

oh god they have an untouchable caste too

and of course the aliens can't tell which is the true Emissary because the word "first" isn't in their vocabulary lol

The aliens say "First. Later. They have no meaning to us." -- and in the same conversation use grammatical tense to indicate the order of events: "This IS the one that WAS injured." "He WAS injured" "We KEPT him with us" "The Sisko TAUGHT us" -- so they must have some perception of time

"We are of Bajor" oh? since when do you even know that word? did the poet teach you?

these two are so awkward that poor Keiko has to play matchmaker for her own husband :D bless her

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the direction of this story... Sisko was completely right to feel uncomfortable as a saint for a religion he doesn't believe in of planet he's not from, but it turned out he's so awesome that the Prophets chose him over the man from this culture who fits the descriptions in the sacred texts. Because only an enlightened human can lead the silly natives -- by following one of their own they'd go back to the dark ages! Yuck.

I've seen more than half of the show now... time flies fast.

Rules of Engagement

Courtroom episode!

I like the clever cinematography & editing

Hard Time

Poor O'Brien...

Well. This was really upsetting. I've been crying for several minutes now.

TNG repeatedly failed to show the recovery after a character's traumatic experience -- specifically, Picard's loss of time in The Inner Light and imprisonment and torture in Chain of Command. DS9 finally delivers an episode just about that -- even if the next week the status quo will be restored and I'll have the same complaint. 

What Miles goes through is completely horrific -- so much that I can't imagine how one can survive that. Even as a viewer I want to wipe this from my memory and pretend it didn't happen... For my own peace of mind I'm gonna pretend O'Brien's friend was a part of the simulation, and later he managed to erase it all from his mind somehow.

Now I kinda want a story where the characters become self-aware and O'Brien decides to get away from his sadistic writers (and Bashir helps him, sacrificing their friendship for O'Brien's well-being).

Shattered Mirror

Always nice to see Worf's hair loose

Well, at least Dax is angry at Sisko for the rape by deception...

Why is Kira still wearing that shit...

at this rate you won't have any characters left for the next episode

The Muse

will this adult woman leave Jake alone

poor Sisko

Odo: "Actually, I have some free time and I was wondering if you wanted to take a walk." Worf: "I would." Odo: "I meant Lwaxana."

"Well, just don't go do what I did. Look for someone to fix your broken heart then end up pregnant and on the run." "I don't think there's too much danger of that happening."

aah Odo makes her a blanket! (well, I guess he owed her a night of sleep on his lap...) this entire scene was so sweet

eww not the pedo woman again

why must I watch this

Odo and Lwaxana playing hide-and-seek!!! this is the best thing ever

oh my god this is such a fanfic trope

ew can I just fast-forward through this?

"If you don't mind, this is a very special moment for me"

"You know, for a minute there, I really believed you wanted to marry me" ahh poor Odo's face :( even when he literally declares he wants someone in his life, that person thinks he didn't mean it...

aaaaaah! the goodbye scene!!! Lwaxana is so good! this is so significant and beautiful, this is Lwaxana recognizing and preventing her biggest negative trait/habit (pursiung and harassing disinterested men) with one of her more rarely shown positive traits (compassion and emotional intelligence)

i don’t know what to say about an episode where the main story is 0/10 but the side story is 10/10

For the Cause

Finally, some info on replicator sharing policy! "The Federation only gave Bajor two CFI [industrial] replicators” 

"If she's really a Maquis, then she's no longer a Federation citizen" wait what?! I thought this was the entire reason Starfleet had to keep them in check -- because they were Federation outlaws! have they proclaimed their own state while I wasn't looking?

have they recast Ziyal? she looks different

I don't appreciate all this UST

"I would not become a terrorist. It would be dishonourable" "I wouldn't say that around Major Kira if I were you"

she... invites him... to a SAUNA??! ohhh my god whyyyyyy who wrote this

You go Kira!

okaaay I definitely missed something major about the Maquis formally leaving the Federation

well at least Cardassians enjoy their saunas fully dressed, that's a relief. the idea of lizard people lying around on heated rocks for relaxation is actually really cute, though

To be honest, I was dreading Garak's scenes in this episode. It seems that the writers ran out of Mysterious Past and Unclear Motivations to hint at, and stripped of that he's just... not particularly interesting. Plus, this episode confirmed my unpleasant impression that starting with this season, the producers/writers decided to forcibly drag Garak and Bashir away from each other and throw girls at them no matter how random and/or inappropriate it looks. At least they recast Ziyal so now she actually looks 19 instead of 13! (The problem is, in the previous episode she acted like a child, too, and you can't forget that she's a generation younger, so it's still pretty gross.)

Eddington's point about assimilation would have worked better without the rest of that inane speech. "Why is the Federation so obsessed with the Maquis? We've never harmed you" -- They're obsessed because you're a threat to their foreign relations, what's so hard to understand about that? "We've left the Federation" -- When? When?! Left Starfleet, sure, but the Federation?! Isn’t that the entire reason Starfleet is pursuing them -- because the Federation is responsible for handling its citizens and stopping them from committing crimes against its neighbor!?

To the Death

Iconians -- that's from "Contagion", right?

I like this guy...

"What is the point of doing battle if you cannot enjoy the fruits of victory?" "You mean sleep?" :D

I love how Whatshisname casually gives out the white, rolling his eyes and barely moving attention from his plate -- so different from the Jem'Hadar perspective we saw in Hippocratic Oath!

"I didn't know that was public knowledge." "You told Commander Dax." "Well, that explains it."

O'Brien's answer to the Jem'Hadar! "I am Chief Miles Edward O'Brien. I'm very much alive and I intend to stay that way"

The Quickening

bwahaha

whoa, a city? if it the first one we've seen in the Gamma Quadrant? lovely matte painting

of course they make everything worse. Because being Culturally Advanced and Civilized won't always instantly solve any problem, and hospices and euthanasia aren't evil.

"I was so arrogant I thought I could find one in a week." "Maybe it was arrogant to think that. But it's even more arrogant to think there isn't a cure just because you couldn't find it." Good one, Dax! We're really going back to the pivotal traits of his character in this episode. (Someone on the writing staff: "Hmm, we haven't mentioned Julian's arrogance and hero/savior complex for a couple of months...")

He swallows his pride and decides to stay! I'm proud

I did have a suspicion that the pregnancy would solve everything...

I'm really glad the local doctor wasn't villainized! When Bashir was setting up his clinic I was afraid that he'd raise the townspeople to destroy it or something.

Bashir has more luck with medical episodes than Crusher and Pulaski...

Body Parts

Jadzia's female solidarity!

Alright, how is this one episode going to fit in Keiko's pregnancy (and presumably childbirth?), Quark's condition, Brunt, and Garak? 

Federation technology is amazing...

Second time someone calls DS9 a "Cardassian monstrosity". That would make a good tumblr url... Wait, it's not even taken -- I'm very tempted...

of course Brunt bought him, why else would he be in the opening credits? :D this is so beautifully malicious

finally an episode that makes Quark look like a good person

Garak's face says "Killing you sounds like a great idea" :D :D

This is the most delightfully bizarre way to handle an actress' pregnancy :D

QUARK SHOPPING FOR MURDER-SUICIDE OPTIONS WITH GARAK =  AMAZING

(not to mention very relatable...)

This is Garak's best outing in the entire season, tbh :D

Don't forget to undo your contract with Garak...

aww

This was a blast! This is a huge step in Quark's character development: following Nog and Rom, now he decides to break his society's rules. I'm very happy. ...But what about Garak, though?

Broken Link

Poor Odo...

aw encouraging Quark

"I'm thinking of asking Julian to come live with us. Even things up a little" Is that the only reason? ;)

"Captain, I want to be judged. I'm the only changeling who's ever harmed another. I've spent most of my life bringing people to justice. Now that it's my turn, how can I run away?"

"Don't tell me you'd object to a little genocide in the name of self-defence?" This is such a Cardassian line...

Why human and not Bajoran?

Oh Odo, just as he got comfortable with his identity as a shape-shifter... :/

General impressions:

Bashir in season 4, a summary: "Friendship ended with Garak, now Miles O'Brien is my best friend" Seriously, though... O'Brien and Bashir's relationship has become one of my favourite parts of the show. They got lots of good content this season: countless casual/humorous scenes, conflict in Hippocratic Oath, need for each other's company in Accession, talking down from suicide in Hard Time... And Garak was the most underwhelming part of the season for me, both himself and his relationship with Bashir -- or lack of it. I'm not even asking for shippy stuff, I know it's not going to be canon, but can't they just share screentime and enjoy each other's company, like they did before and Bashir does with O'Brien now?

And while the writers seem unsure what to do with Garak now, Dukat continues to be incredibly entertaining. Need a personification of Cardassian oppression? An unwanted ally the protagonist(s) would barely tolerate? A pompous prick to make fun of? A dangerously charismatic speaker -- or a windbag who thinks himself much cooler than he is? A relatively sympathetic opponent to provide "grey morality"? Well, here's all of that in one character! And my favourite thing is that despite being so immoral, he's not actually an enemy plot-wise (at least so far), so instead of fighting, defeating, and getting him out of the picture, the heroes just keep telling him how much he sucks. An interesting antagonist with a decent amount of screentime -- the dream. But all of that was about the character in general, and my favourite thing about his two episodes in this season is that he's self-aware of his status as a Complex Antagonist and completely overestimates the "complex and sympathetic" part, and (mis)casts himself as some kind of sexy byronic antihero whose deep and rich inner world will eventually win over the feisty heroine. Meanwhile, Kira is really not into villain/protagonist pairings and just wants the creepy guy responsible for genocide against her people to leave her alone. This was filmed twenty years ago but looks like a parody/deconstruction of currently popular ships like reylo or solavellan -- I find it really hilarious. (Maybe I’d feel more grossed out than amused if his behavior disturbed Kira more -- but she seems so gloriously unimpressed!)

I generally like Klingons and was glad to see Worf again, all of his episodes had something that stopped me from fully enjoying them.

It was my impression that Kira’s screetime got reduced because of Nana Visitor’s pregnancy -- and it was actually a good thing for the show! I feel bad saying this about one of the only two main female characters, but Kira is obviously the writers’ favorite, and got the most attention over the past seasons, so stepping back a bit let other characters shine more.