#really fucking BOTHERS me

[pilots-and-protons]

Ok I’ve been reading a ton of Tom Paris related fanfic lately (with many different pairings), and I just need to talk about two Big Pet Peeves I have regarding certain uh, “tropes” - especially in older fanfic (from the 90′s and early 2000′s).

Head’s Up: I’m not trying to pick on anyone or start shit, I just really need somewhere to vent about WHY these two specific things bother me, so it’s going to be under the cut. This is my side-blog and I literally made it just to scream into the void about Tom Paris and Star Trek, okay?

Just be aware that I’m going to be talking about my own personal opinions and I don’t know how to NOT be intense about my autistic special interest (AKA any aspect of Star Trek). So don’t read unless you don’t mind hearing my thoughts about other people’s writing/character choices in fanfiction, and I definitely don’t want to hear anyone arguing with me because that’s not why I’m here. 

Anyways if you’re fine and dandy with that, then by all means you’re welcome to read more. Or don’t, I don’t really care.

Ok so there are two specific things that I noticed appear rather often in many Tom-centric fanfics, and they really bother me.

ok there’s also the prison rape thing, but that’s a whole other can of worms

ANYWAYS, my issues are:

#1: Taking the blame for Caldik Prime away from Tom

#2: Conflating Tom Paris with Nick Locarno

To explain the first one, I’m talking about there being multiple fanfics (from many different authors), where either:

- We’re given a reason why Tom wasn’t actually at fault for the accident (there was something unknowingly wrong with the ship, he was an undercover agent and it never really happened, etc.)

- The author tries to soften the blow by explaining why Tom messed up (he was emotionally compromised, for example, because his mother had died, or some big fight/problem with his father had just happened, etc.)

- Or the author tries to say that Tom never wanted to lie about the accident in the first place (he was unconscious/too wounded and his father lied for him, he was coerced into lying from either indirect or direct pressure from his father, etc.)

And personally? I have a problem with all of these. A huge foundation of Tom’s character is that he messed up in the past - big time. It’s something he had to learn from and grow. It affects so many aspects of his character - like wanting to offer support to Seven because he knows what it’s like to want to put your past behind you. And, at least in my own personal opinion, it’s why he’s the one that finds the error in “Timeless” - because he’s not willing to put other people’s lives at risk ever again.

But not once does Tom ever try to push the blame for this mistake on anyone else. The very first thing we hear about it from his own mouth is to tell Harry that yeah, it was his fault and he shouldn’t have lied about it. He knows this, he accepts this, and is even prepared to put up with the backlash for it (which, as we see from the original Voyager Doctor and Cavvit, is probably pretty common).

I understand that people probably felt bad for Tom or maybe just wanted some extra angst, but it feels so wrong to remove this from his character. It negates the growth he goes through - getting rid of the chip on his shoulder, learning to trust people and open himself up. It also negates the good aspects that came from something awful - he did tell the truth in the end, even though it ruined his Starfleet career. That shows what kind of person he really is, to have owned up to his mistakes even though, in his own words, he would have gotten away with it if he hadn’t.

Now for the second issue: meshing together Tom Paris with Nick Locarno.

I’ve seen fanfics where the people who died at Caldik Prime were Tom’s friends (this is sometimes also a reference to Pathways, which I don’t find canon either). There were fics where Tom blamed the accident on one of the dead officers like Locarno did in “The First Duty, and I’ve even seen someone referencing the Kolvoord Starburst as the reason why Tom’s accident happened. In some ways I get it, because we don’t know hardly any details about Tom’s past history so I can understand why many people decided to mesh the two characters together - especially because Locarno was the initial starting point for the idea of Tom Paris. 

The thing is, it bugs me - both because Nick Locarno’s character was much nastier than Tom’s, and also because canon explicitly contradicts this possibility.  

First of all, Locarno was expelled from the Academy - but Tom was thrown own of Starfleet. He had already graduated and was even serving aboard a Starship at some point before Caldik Prime. These are canonical facts that we know, and probably came from the writers intentionally deciding to separate the two characters. Second, there isn’t a single reference to Tom’s relationship with the people who died at Caldik prime other than his own reference of “those three dead officers” - not his friends, not cadets. Even as bitter as he is in the first season, Tom Paris doesn’t seem like the type to be that detached if he had gotten his own friends killed. 

But also, Nick Locarno did not confess to what he did. And that is such an important distinction between the two. Tom fessed up - Nick Locarno was caught, and the only semi-decent thing he did was convince the higher-ups to spare his team the full punishment. It's also implied that Nick Locarno used his position as team leader to pressure the rest of Nova Squadron into trying a very dangerous and banned maneuver in the first place - to boost his own ego. And when things started to get dicey, he blamed the accident on the cadet who had died, to save himself and his team.

Tom Paris never did any of those things, and it feels pretty damaging to his character to lump the two in together. There is no canonical evidence to suggest that Tom was trying anything dangerous, that he blamed anyone for the accident, or anything like what we know Nick Locarno did. All we know for sure is that it was a pilot error and that he lied, falsifying reports. But he makes it clear to Harry that he would have been home free if he’d just stuck to his lie. Nick Locarno was, if nothing else, facing a mark on his permanent record and a group of Academy officials who clearly thought he was lying already, but just couldn’t prove it. If we can go by Tom’s own words, he was facing much better circumstances, but chose to come clean anyways - because of his own conscious. Because deep down, Tom is a decent person and we see that throughout the rest of Voyager.

Personally, I think the best description of the character’s differences came from Robert Duncan McNeill himself - when he said that Nick Locarno seemed nice on the outside, but was a terrible person on the inside. Whereas Tom Paris had made mistakes and pushed people away, but deep down was a good person (I’m paraphrasing, but you get the point).

So yeah, both of these tropes bug me - one because it tries to make Tom into a less flawed person (maybe to seem more likeable somehow?), and the other because it turns him into a much more selfish and unlikeable character when there’s no reason to.

Anyways I just needed to get that off my chest.

[horreurscopes]

dude your intricate ritual just fucking bit me

[wtfforged]

my campaign hiatus has gone on for too long so to cope ive combined my interests at their maximum potency and had some dnd-strawhats thoughts

thoughts in depth under read more... :)!

this is SO self indulgent. their designs literally did not change. but i am a firm believer that dnd doesnt have to be european high fantasy. and also one piece literally IS fantasy. no changes are necessary to fit into dnd. ive already imagined plenty of campaign/oneshot ideas inspired by one piece. so this was basically just an exercise of trying to replicate their canon abilities in dnd 5e as much as possible without totally homebrewing everything. well. aside from luffy. you just cant take away or change his stretching.

LUFFY: (human monk. drunken master subclass. outlander)

the only plain human of the crew to balance out with the fact that he still has rubber powers. obviously a monk. but drunken master subclass specifically because i think the flavor(not the fact that its about being a drunkard) and abilities both fit him really well. this line in the subclass' flavortext especially fits him: "A drunken master often enjoys playing the fool to bring gladness to the despondent or to demonstrate humility to the arrogant, but when battle is joined, the drunken master can be a maddening, masterful foe."

ZORO: (tiefling fighter. samurai subclass. bounty hunter)

a fighter with the samurai subclass is so very incredibly obvious... but i actually had a lot of fun geeking out while comparing the abilities to what he can do in canon; Fighting Spirit, Rapid Strike, and Strength Before Death especially! tiefling is also pretty on the nose for his demon pirate hunter shtick and asura form, but i thought he'd be really human-passing for a tiefling and theorized about his tail getting cut off at some point or another before joining the strawhats. initially wasnt gonna give him a feat, but i gave sanji a feat so i thought itd be unfair to not give him one as well, so sentinel fits the bill pretty well i think!

NAMI: (tabaxi rogue. arcane trickster subclass. criminal)

cat burglar -> full grown literal humanoid cat. this one is INCREDIBLY self indulgent... i love... cats... theres nothing deeper to this and no other reasoning. i took cat burglar and ran with it. can you tell that i love izutsumi dungeon meshi? rogue for the aforementioned burglar-ing as well, and the arcane trickster subclass for when she picks up climatact! the mage hand will be very useful for her pickpocketing. in the future as she levels up with timeskip, i can totally see her multiclassing into wizard as well! weather wizard!

USOPP: (lightfoot halfling artificer. artillerist subclass. urchin)

I HAD SO MUCH FUN THINKING ABOUT HIS CHARACTER SHEET. halfling's Naturally Stealthy ability lets him hide behind his crewmates since theyre (almost) all bigger than him, so its perfect for hiding behind zoro or sanji all the time. Lucky is also perfect for him, and I think Brave fits pretty well too when he puts on the sogeking mask. artillerist artificer is also very fun! tinkering and making magic items for his crew, and i think Eldritch Canon or Arcane Firearm could both be easily reflavored as kabuto or any of his inventions. for emphasizing his sniper-ness, the spell sniper feat was also necessary. i think hes my favorite of all the concepts. big ears and long nose combo is so cute to me.

SANJI: (half-elf monk. drunken master subclass. guild artisan (cook!))

race was mostly based on vibes i wont lie. squints. and that vinsmoke balogna or whatever too ig. but mostly vibes. along with the idea that i think a dwarf zeff raising him would be really funny and cute. monk is also obvious, and same subclass as luffy for mostly the same reasons. though the flavor fits him much less, i think the abilities still fit him perfectly, and this blurb specifically; "Your martial arts technique mixes combat training with the precision of a dancer." i really wanted to give him a different subclass from luffy, but i dislike all the other monk subclasses a lot and i found none of them fit him as well anyways, so to try and give them SOME differences, i gave him the crusher feat.

CHOPPER: (awakened deer(shifter statblock) cleric. life subclass. hermit)

this ones definitely a mouthful im sorry. awakened deer for obvious reasons, but due to magic instead of devil fruit stuff. when i was struggling with his race, i looked a lot at shifter because of his forms, but it occurred to me that itd be super cool if he could shift between all of the different shifter options instead of being stuck with just one to replicate his rumble balls. something like heavy point/guard point=beasthide, horn point/arm point(?maybe?)=longtooth, walk point/jumping point=swiftstride, and brain point=wildhunt. hed definitely need some kind of nerf though to balance out that homebrew... and cleric for class. duh.

ROBIN: (high elf wizard. order of scribes subclass. criminal)

robin is definitely the one i struggled the most with just because of her class. elf came pretty easily- shes very elegant and i think shed look cute with super long ears- and i landed on high elf instead of wood elf for the int-based abilities. i was really on the fence between sorcerer and wizard for her because i knew shed be a full spellcaster, but i didnt feel that any of the subclasses really fit her. i ended up going with wizard for order of the scribes since it focuses on texts and knowing everything. but also because robin with a flying talking sentient book would be crazy cool. it could also be similar to how she spawns mouths and eyes places to talk to or watch people. my "fuck it, why not. this would be rad. its my house" mindset kicked in with her i will admit. also the One with the Word ability made me cackle out loud when i read it. thats the funniest ability ever. anyways, i cant really think of a way to replicate her powers, but maybe we could just reflavor a bunch of spells to be her limbs or clutch; hold person, maximillian's earthen grasp, or evard's black tentacles. thatd probably work okay, and theres a handful of spells to replicate her ability to spawn eyes or mouths. unrelated, but i imagine nico olvia to be a drow. why? her hair is white. i am a simple man!

[sofiaruelle]

❄️☃️The SDV Girlies in their winter garb!☃️❄️

One side how i interpreted their lil avatars and then the other side is just me playing dress up lmao.

“Bois when?” Dunno. 🤷🏽‍♀️ I will if anyone donates screenshots.

[inkskinned]

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

[captainjonnitkessler]

I truly, TRULY do not know how to say this, because the fact that I have to say it makes me feel like I am losing my grip on reality. But no, in the post-capitalistic anarchist utopia, I will not be relying on “autistic minecraft girlies” to be building inspectors because - and this may shock you - one of those occupations takes years of education in how to read and interpret hundreds of thousands of lines of regulations based on complicated math and physics that were the result of decades of tragedy and death, and the other one involves playing a children’s video game.

[gremlingirlsmell]

hey just so y'all know, rhetoric like this:

is anti-transfeminist dogwhistling.

the "radfems" they're talking about are transfems trying to define and use language about our own opression like "transmisogyny" and who is targeted by it.

"gender essentialism" is used to mean different things. for one it's meant to denounce tme/tma language, saying that everyone is targeted by transmisogyny the same, and depraving us of standpoint epistemology. a second meaning i often see is: it's "gender essentialism" to say "we live in a patriarchy that benefits men over women"

this tactic is used mainly to paint transfeminists as dangerous and transmasc-hating, for applying intersectionality and materialism to feminist theory. it's to shun us by calling us terfs (a hate group primarily centered against transfems) which will immediately mark us as unsafe for other transfems and trans people in general. this is done instead of calling us baeddels, because calling us medieval slurs has fallen out of fashion and has become too obviously transmisogynistic

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

well...

[musubiki]

.🖤🔄🤍.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

dreaming abt sophomore year class swap bard!riz

[beetroot-merchant]

petition to make cishetallo the norm instead of just cishet please

edit: badly phrased post, apparently. my point is when referring to non-queer people, if you're not going to say non-queer, put an 'allo' somewhere in there. where you put it does not matter.

edit 2: the 'het' does not exclude ace people. demisexual homosexual: someone who only feels attraction to people of the same gender after they have formed an emotional connection.

[luminarai]

Me: I am actually decent at my job, I am responsible, I’ve spent years acquiring my knowledge and skills within my field, and I put a lot of thought and time into my work

Also me, after receiving literally one (1) angry email:

[the-great-horse-cocktail]

Alternate timeline where Stanley doesn’t accidentally ruin Ford’s project but he still doesn’t get into Geek Life University bc some kid showed up with a baking soda volcano

[astrolotte]

Stupid episode idea where RIGHT after Timmy gets his memories back and reunites with Cosmo & Wanda (but not Peri), he and Dev get stranded together in Fairy World. Dev wants to get back to his fairy rather than hang around this stranger, and Timmy wants to meet up with his brother, but the thing is...

Dev keeps talking about getting back to "Peri". Timmy keeps talking about reuniting with "Poof". Neither of them realize that they're talking about the same person, and both keep trying to INSIST that their Person is more important to find first, and they can meet the other afterward.

Upon Peri finding out about this, he just. stares. You can see the years subtracting from his immortal life. Sigh.

[dromaeo-sauridae]

a dear visitor

heavily based off the max kurzweil painting of the same name :) i like to imagine arthur bullied kieran into bringing his horse over while he was covering from the o'driscolls incident. while grimshaw wasnt looking, of course

(reblogs>likes!)

[watzuu-lmk]

Self-indulgent shadowpeach doodles cuz im starving and my brain is vacant of anything but them