#tng time's arrow part 1

[filmjunky-99]

s t a r t r e k t h e n e x t g e n e r a t i o n created by gene roddenberry [time’s arrow, part I, s5ep26]

'Do you remember the first time we met?' - guinan

'Of course.' - picard

'Don't be so sure. I just mean, if you don't go on this mission, we'll never meet.' - guinan

[fox-stuck]

Next Generation constantly stuns me with how thoughtfully it deals with grief and it doesn’t even have to be the overall theme of the episode although the end of season 5 is really packed with ones where it is (The Next Phase you own my whole fucking heart). The crew thinking they lost Geordie and Ro and mourning but also celebrating and then the entire crew wrestling with their anxiety around Data’s death is so refreshing as are Data’s thoughts on being mortal. Data confirming that his comms badge is like a family airloom. And inbetween those episodes is an entire species mourning their lives and planet with/through Picard. I just love how openly they talk about grief and mourning and love as things that are innately entwined

[andyoullhearitagain]

Top Ten Least Bad Outfits in TNG

I'm gonna be honest and say that the non-uniform outfits in TNG are not my favorite costume design in the world, but there are some looks that stick with me:

10. That Girl Who Kissed Data That One Time's Outfit:

I can never decide if I like this look or I think it's ugly, but I love the pants and tall boots combo. Her blouse is bad and the bouclé jacket is both too heavy and too fussy for this outfit, but I love the belt and suspenders combo, and the chevron embossing on the suspenders. This costume and all the others except #9 is a Robert Blackman design.

9. This Jumpsuit On That Girl From "The Dauphin":

This is the only William Ware Theiss design on this list. I love his TOS stuff but most of his TNG designs leave me cold 🤷‍♀️. But I love this is extremely 80s jumpsuit. Love the pretty drape, love the ruching on the sleeves, love the harem pants silhouette. Only note is that the whole bodice should be a structured corset bodice instead of the kind of odd structured panel it has now.

8. Picard's Shorty Pyjama Set:

TNG is absolutely full of the strangest pyjama choices you can imagine and Picard is no exception but I love this bold look. Would kill for this pyjama set. He also takes a work zoom wearing this one time which is insane.

7. Data's 1890's Looks But Specifically This One With The Shirtsleeves And The Blue Shirt:

The best part of "Time's Arrow" is that Data isn't a fish out of water in the 1890s, he's absolutely killing it, and I love that the only real Casual Data look we get is this one. I prefer the blue shirt to the pink because Data should really wear more blue, it's a nice contrast with yellow. Please also note his emerald watch fob, which was 0% necessary to blend in, he's just having fun with it.

6. 12 Year Old Keiko's Linen Overalls:

The paperbag waist! The bow! The little bows at the shirt cuffs! I can understand why she replicated a miniature copy of this outfit.

5. Beverly and Guinan's Dixon Hill Holodeck Costumes:

I'm counting these as one because they're essentially the same design in different color pallets but what color paletts! Bev is pulling off the very difficult pink+red+red hair and the mint green on Guinan is 🤌. I particularly love how Guinan's hat is so 1940s yet also echos the silhouette of her usual costume.

4. Deanna's Teal Dress:

Like all of you I prefer Deanna in the uniform, but this dress slays, ok? The space age asymmetrical neckline. The drop waist. The structured bodice. The slit almost all the way to the hip. And of course the matching tights and shoes CANNOT BE BEATEN. Also one time I saw a dude on a Star Trek forum call this a "ballgown" which baffles me to this day, this is clearly a slightly fancy day dress.

3. Picard's 1890s Look:

You'd think Picard would go full posh in the 1890s but instead he gives us this working-class Shakespearean director look and he 👏 looks 👏 incredible 👏. Way to mix textures, Jean-Luc.

2. Lore's Turtleneck and Giant Vest:

You and I know that Lore stole these clothes from the Pakleds because we pay a lot of attention to Star Trek costumes, but to a normal viewer Lore shows up and this is just his outfit!! It's giving, like, space-age goblincore and it's incredible. I want wear this oufit every day. I want to make a little doll Lore wearing this outfit to express my love for it. It's only not #1 because the pants are too orange and a strange weave.

Deanna's Ancient West Holodeck Outfit:

Deanna!!! The pants! The hat! The calico! She looks 10/10 hot in this outfit. For sure the superior version of this is before she gives her neckerchief to Worf (it really benefits from that cool highlight) but either way this is the best anyone's ever looked on that holodeck.

[hadeswearsprada]

STAR TREK TNG Time's Arrow Part 1

[myautisticpov]

Pub quiz question: What penname did the author Samuel Clemens write under?

Me: That sounds familiar, but I can't place it...

Team member 1: It was him who wrote the book about the naughty kid

Me, somehow knowing exactly what they meant, but not the book or author's name: Him out of that TNG episode where they go back in time! The one where Data's head's in a cave! Time's Arrow, parts one and two!

Pub quiz team: ...

Me: The one with the moustache

Team member 1: Mark Twain

Me: That's the fucker

[staringdownabarrel]

I've seen a couple of posts where people are getting caught up on the time travel aspects of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow because they aren't really sure how it's meant to work. This is an aspect of Picard's second season that people got caught up on as well, so I want to go over how time travel works in Star Trek.

I think the part people are getting caught up on is that time travel in Star Trek is largely based on two rules, but neither of them are explicitly stated in canon. They've both largely gone unstated.

Rule 1: Time travel doesn't make a difference unless it causes a difference

What this means is that just the act of going back in time isn't enough to cause huge changes in the timeline. This isn't the kind of franchise where you can go back in time and move a leaf and suddenly cause all of history to drastically change. It's only if you actively go out of your way to change things--e.g., killing one historical figure or saving another--that it makes a difference.

This is the reason why in The Voyage Home, when Kirk and co. go back and save the whales, they're not presented with this drastically changed Federation when they get back to the 23rd century. Bringing two whales and a marine biologist to the future isn't enough to cause drastic changes to the timeline. It's not enough of a difference to make a difference, essentially.

It's also why Sisko was able to take the place of Gabriel Bell in DS9's Past Tense two-parter without it causing issues down the line. While Bell not being there and doing what he did cause a ripple effect, as long as someone was there to fill that role, things would all go according to plan. Sisko playing the part of Gabriel Bell during the Bell riots kept his timeline intact because while it was a difference, it also wasn't enough of a difference to make a difference.

The third example of time travel by itself not causing a difference is something like TNG's Time's Arrow two-parter, where just the TNG crew going back to the nineteenth century isn't enough to cause ripples down the line. It just means they're there.

Rule 2: When it does make a difference, it overwrites everything that happens afterwards

The best example of this rule in practice is Voyager's Year of Hell two-parter. Annorax's temporal weapon ship is built to be able to cause changes in the timeline that ripple out and change everything afterwards. He's also obsessed with restoring the timeline to what he considers its proper course, and that's an ongoing thing during the story.

There's other examples of this rule in practice, too. The other obvious example of this is TOS's The City on the Edge of Forever, where if Edith Keeler survives, the Nazis win World War II and cause the Federation to never exist. In DS9's Past Tense, if the Bell riots don't happen, the Federation never exists. In VOY's Endgame, Admiral Janeway going back in time causes Voyager to be able to get back to the Alpha Quadrant years earlier than it had in her timeline.

This doesn't mean that the timeline splits off and causes a new universe to form. It means that everything that happens after the significant change in the timeline, everything after that change is different.

This is why Guinan didn't remember Picard during the 21st century scenes in Picard's second season. Because the timeline had been changed so that the Federation didn't exist, it'd also been changed so that he probably hadn't been to the nineteenth century in this version of the timeline. There wasn't an evil Federation version of Time's Arrow in this timeline essentially, so there was no reason for Guinan to have met Picard because from her perspective, they hadn't.

This is also one of the reasons why the 2009 movie tends to be such a contentious thing in some circles. Its presentation of time travel causing a change in the timeline so bad that it causes it split off and create a new universe isn't really in line with how time travel has traditionally been presented in the franchise. The flow on effect of this is while the writing team for the Kelvinverse films are pretty adamant that Enterprise as shown is canon to both the Prime universe and the Kelvinverse, there are fans who don't really buy into that idea.

Keep in mind that during First Contact, when the Enterprise-E is chasing the Borg sphere through the temporal vortex, nobody's saying, "Oh, we're in a new universe now." What they do say is that the Borg assimilating the Earth in the past is a major difference and therefore needs to be prevented.

That's in direct contrast to an episode like TNG's Parallels, where when Worf goes to each new universe, they're able to run some tests on him and find he's not meant to be in that universe. Stuff like that wouldn't work if there wasn't a difference between going to a different universe and traveling in time.

So the opening scene of the 2009 movie, where the Narada came in and destroyed the Kelvin, is really better explained by one of two options. One is that this was a different kind of time travel that hasn't been expanded upon since or even replicated in canon that caused the new timeline to split into a new universe, or the Kelvinverse was always a separate universe. Either would be fine, in my opinion.

How this is all relevant to Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is that this episode is another example of how a change in the past was enough of a difference to make a difference. While there is room for debate on where the line is for what constitutes enough of a difference, this episode clearly framed this set of changes as enough. This is a pretty straight example of how time travel is supposed to work in Star Trek.

[thegeminisage]

IT'S. sigh. tng update time. monday we did "the next phase" and "the inner light" and last night we did "time's arrow" parts 1 & 2. for once i actually am writing this the next afternoon lol

the next phase:

i LOOOOVED this one. wow <3 for so long i have been saying THOLIAN WEB and it's NEVER tholian web but THIS TIME IT WAS!!! i kind of wish it had been riker and worf but it HAD to be geordi because of data sorta kinda tracking him down

anyway i do love ro so much so i can't be too unhappy to have gotten her, and it's so nice to see geordi get to do things that arent be creepy with a woman...im really glad they didn't try to do any ro/geordi romance, they were just buds in a situation and they were thrilled to wiggle their way out of it

ro's thots on the afterlife were actually really poignant. it seemed stupid at first, when geordi knew and she knew that they weren't dead, but by the end it really was a nice subtle touch to have her acknowledge that the certainty of her beliefs can't compare to the vastness of the unknown, or the amount of things she doesn't and may never know

absolute BALLER of a time watching the enterprise plan these guys funerals. data doing geordi's was SO sweet because he loves him!!!!! he loves him!!!!!!!!!!!! meanwhile you get to hoot and holler over riker, having fucked ro while they were all amnesia'd, absolutely wracking his brains over something appropriate to say at her funeral.........and then he just plays his trombone instead and she invisibly shoots him in the head. iconique.

the invisible romulan really got me...i THOUGHT that extra was doing a bad job of looking like he wasn't listening to geordi and ro AND THEN HE GOT UP AND WALKED AFTER THEM. extremely cool moment. it was fucking stupid that he tried to shoot them instead of just work with them but it did lead to a cool and terrifying moment where they SPACED HIM??? by virtue of him simply phasing through the wall of the ship. i would have been so terrified of windows after that. like geordi just straight up killed that guy

also, fight scene while the romantic couple blissfully has their date. incredible.

some logistics questions: if they were alive why couldn't deanna feel their emotions? also, if they phase through stuff why do they stick to floors? more questions than answers...

the inner light

you know, this was good actually. i'll admit i was kind of bored at times during this episode, because i don't super care about picard As A Character, so all his tender moments with his wife and family were like eeehh. who cares. and since i like the side characters more the episode that pretty much didn't have them is a bit of a hard sell

THAT SAID. conceptually this popped off. it reminds me of the buffy episode where she's in the nut house or the r*ddit lamp story which hilariously references the star trek episode in the edit. the changes like the tree and the dead plants on their house and the skill involved in picard's flute playing (i wonder if sir patrick stewart can actually play...) were cool to track even if some of the interpersonal moments fell flat, and i REALLY like the actress who played his daughter, i think she did a great job

i normally hate old person makeup but picard's actually looked pretty good until the very end stage lol

one thing i wished for in the end was a little more emotion or even some fallout at all?? which i feel like i say about tng all the time, and i KNOW tos was also guilty of this sometimes, but some tng episodes spend AGES on the scifi technobabble (which is good only if it serves the plot OR adds to the scifi concept presented, and it often does neither) and then feel like emotionally they need another 5 or 10 minutes at the end and it drives me nuts. like, ik they don't cry in this show but he didn't even cry. deanna didn't come in and tell him those memories and that time were still real to him and it was okay to be fucked up about them. no one asked him how long he held onto the memory of his other life before he gave in completely and became kamin. we didn't even get any lines about like "i'll contact starfleet and do everything in my power to help revive their culture" or whatever. just flute scene (which was good!) and then we're done. sigh.

also, i really hate whatever riker has going on with picard. like he's so weirdly overprotective and it doesn't even speak to affection, they way it would with say deanna or worf or one of his other creew mates, it feels infantilizing (making picard seem even LESS competent and compelling than he already does), smothering, and, because it's ONLY with picard and ONLY riker that does this, it doesn't even feel like poignant platonic love-and-duty mixing like in the tos movies where each and every one of kirk's crew is willing to commit crimes and risk their lives to go after spock's body, just because that's how loyalty works. it's so awkward and uncomfortable, i hate it. like i always say tng doesn't have enough displays of affection and then the one time they regularly do have riker displaying concern for another character it's whatever he's doing with picard. like picard is his frail old man grandpa and riker's trying to keep him from wandering off with the car keys. sigh again.

time's arrow:

a massive disappointment. or maybe i can't say disappointment if my hopes weren't high to begin with. i remember reading the summary and thinking "cool, a data episode!" but also "19th century earth? yeesh, sounds holodeck-y," and i was right on both counts.

again it's a problem that we did the s5 finale and then s6 opening in a single night, because it made it feel MUCH longer, and it's also impossible for me to differentiate ebtween the two episodes now. hopefully this is the last time it will work out this way, but generally speaking, aside from the borg episodes, all of tng's two-parters (there may be an exception i'm forgetting) have been uh. not great.

star of this show: DATA'S HEAD. i remember being so disappointed we didn't get to see it in that episode where riker had to carry it around BEING SEEING IT WAS HORRIFIC. i can't believe they put that on television!!!

the emotion stakes of data's impending death were good. i wish they'd mattered! geordi trying to fix him could have had a little more desperation, a little more "i'll cheat fate itself for my friend if i have to." actually the person who showed the most worry WAS picard, and while this was nice, it made no sense that he allowed data to go down to the planet regardless of it, and then...also advocated that they forget data and focus on their mission, even against RIKER'S request to keep looking for him. riker showed concern for someone other than picard and picard was like yeah um whatever. today in picard crimes: advocating for leaving one of his guys behind. sorry to keep comparing him to kirk but EVERY time kirk lost a guy, you felt it. you saw HIM feel it. not even a guy he was close to like spock, even just a little red shirt, you knew he was thinking of the fucking letters he'd have to write to their families, you know? meanwhile picard is just like "um what concern? that was 20 minutes ago, we have scifi stuff to do now."

19th century earth sucked. it DID feel holodeck-y and was only marginally better because at least the stakes here were real, poorly illustrated as they were. like you know data's not gonna die, but instead of focusing on the enemies this episode (and that tall lady genuinely was a bit spooky...too bad she had no lines) we farted around with the most annoying portrayal of mark twain i have EVER seen in my life. we also got cool lines such as beverly saying "cholera wasn't THAT infectious" and the native american guy at the poker table grunting "pale face" at data. super.

guinan was a GREAT change of pace, but we had a golden opportunity to get more backstory on her and got absolutely none of it. that one line about her father intrigued me so much - is this before the borg ate her planet? does she regret not reconciling with him? did he die in that attack? why is she at odds with him? was this why she wasn't at home when they ate her planet? imagine if we had gotten some of it and picard had been tempted to save her whole planet by urging them to evacuate, or at least telling her to spend time with her loved ones while she could...but instead we had to focus on mark twain being ~quirky and randumb XD~

in the end, the consequences of data's head spending 500 years underground were...nothing. except that picard got to leave himself a back to the future 3 message not to shoot the aliens i guess

SPEAKING OF THE ALIENS. did he just WIPE OUT their entire species without a single fucking word breathed about the prime directive? genuinely the aliens who were eating people were cool and spooky. i'd have liked to see more of them and we barely knew what they were and what their purpose was. so much for working it out nonviolently. picard made half an attempt and the lady alien died and he shrugged and was like oh well! genocide it is. add to this to the list of problematic picard stances, including advocation for euthanasia of the disabled, conversation therapy, human trafficking, animal testing, and leaving your guys behind to die. THEY HAVE GOT TO STOP MAKING HIM LIKE THIS. this is killing me. i'm trying my very very best to like him and i hate his ass!!

next time: i, alone, am doing "realm of fear" which i am told is a barclay episode and "man of the people" which seems rapey. i am in total dread. tng is fantastic every once in a great great while, but most of the time i cannot wait for it to be over.

[geekygwen]

[trek-tracks]

Data is a #Mood

[data2364]

via Trekcore.com

Jonathan Frakes (Commander William Riker) and Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi) 1992 in Star Trek: The Next Generation “Time’s Arrow" (Part 1)

https://data2364.wordpress.com/2018/10/17/daily-star-trek-17-oktober-2018/

[pouncequick]

Troi does a delightful Data impression, and the series should have done more with this.

[filmjunky-99]

s t a r t r e k t h e n e x t g e n e r a t i o n created by gene roddenberry Samuel Clemens [time’s arrow, part ii, s6ep1]

'This idea of time travel is not so far fetched as it might seem.

In fact, I have learned that, even now, there are people from the future right here in San Francisco and I have no doubt that their intent is to foul our world just as my Yankee did in King Arthur's time.' - clemens [to reporter]

[ace-aro-fandroid]

Data, amazed to be in San Francisco, California, USA, Earth. 

Left - holodeck, mid 1941, as the United States of America prepare for their inevitable involvement in World War 2

Right - real, late 1893, during an extra-terrestrial attack disguised as a cholera epidemic

Left: Star Trek: The Next Generation S1 E11 “The Big Goodbye” 13:45

Right: Star Trek: The Next Generation S5 E26 “Time's Arrow 1″ 18:27

[thecraggus]

Wakey! Wakey! It’s Craggus’ Trek Trek Phase II Omnibus – Vol.18 Here's your weekly Omnibus Edition of Craggus' Trek Trek Phase II covering Season 5 episode 21 to Season 6 episode 1:

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 14 first part

(RR The Untamed Masterpost) (Canary’s Pinboard - more Masterposts) 

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Murder Turtle, Continued

Lan Wangji wakes up after a good night's sleep leaning against a rock wall, to find that his leg is no longer splinted, and his perfectly clean and unbloody headband has been put back on his head while he was sleeping.

Leaving aside the "not waking up" part of things, how, exactly, did Wei Wuxian get his headband on without mussing his hair? Did he bring a crochet hook?

Wei Wuxian gives him a sitrep and then they cozy up and have an extended conversation about the nature and history of the Tortoise of Slaughter. Wei Wuxian is interested in everything Lan Wangji has to say, and Lan Wangji talks a lot more than usual; they are completely on the same wavelength here and are enjoying swapping obscure knowledge.

Lan Wangji: My lacerated leg and I are actually super aware that it has big teeth, but thanks for the reminder.

In the course of the conversation, Wei Wuxian mentions his plan to 1. sneak into the tortoise's shell and 2. drive it out of its shell so they can attack it. 

OP did a little tortoise research and learned that the only species of turtle that can leave its shell is the Koopa Troopa.

Good news for Wei Wuxian: If you jump on its shell in the right spot, you can rack up a pile of extra lives.

Does that make the Tortoise of Slaughter a giant Koopa Troopa? Perhaps...the king of the Koopa Troopas?

I'm gonna say yes.

(More after the cut)

Let’s Go Killing

Wei Wuxian is exhilarated by the idea of fighting a giant dangerous monster with Lan Wangji. Some day Wei Wuxian will found the Nike clan, because his motto is definitely "Just do it." 

It's sweet how, in his romantic notions about chivalry and Lan Wangji, he's completely elided the original reason they were (sort of) told to venture together. 

Wei Wuxian: I'm still on the "find the Yin Iron" quest; I'm just skipping the "suppress it" part.  

Wei Wuxian weighs up their chances against Bowser and tells Lan Wangji that even if they die, it will be badass to be killed by a famous monster, so they won't have to feel embarrassed.

This is the exact moment that Lan Wangji's feelings for Wei Wuxian go from "smitten" to "gagging for it."

Lan Wangji: as soon as we get out of here I'm going to borrow a whole lot of books from Nie Huaisang

The boys come up with a plan that involves a rather long montage of collecting archery equipment and deconstructing it. This potentially-dull montage is fun to watch because they are both very, very good looking.

Artists who want to draw Wang Yibo as an elven archer, this is your episode.

Now we suddenly have, with zero explanation, telepathy. Ok, sure. It seems to work kind of like a phone conversation, in which they say specific things to each other, rather than like Cherry Magic telepathy where you can hear everything the other person is thinking. Or at least, neither of them is embarrassed, so I assume they are maintaining some mental privacy.

Club Ruohan

Same, Wen Chao, same

At some point there is a boring sequence at Club Ruohan.  Wen Ruohan doesn't know where Xue Yang is, but really wants his hunk of Yin Iron. Wen Chao thinks that WRH's 3 pieces of Yin Iron should be able to beat Xue Yang's 1 piece, but apparently he is dumb and that is not how math works. O...kay? OP does not understand this either but whatever, Wen Ruohan is boring, moving on. This scene is really just here to make us think about Yin Iron before Wei Wuxian jumps into Bowser's shell.

Bigger On The Inside

So then Wei Wuxian climbs into Bowser's shell, which is, to quote The 12th Doctor, bigger on the inside.

Bowser’s shell is the approximate size of my entire house. It is also bathed in a hellish pure red photo filter, which OP has done her best to remove for these gifs, because it gives me eye strain and it obscures Xiao Zhan's hotness.

Camera Operator: What did I do? 

Wei Wuxian wanders around inside, finding random corpses encased in slime cocoons. Tortoise, spider, xenomorph, whatever. There are also random curtain things hanging all over, and then at one point Wei Wuxian stares into the face of a corpse, and then does a jump scare response at the camera operator even though nothing particular happened. 

I imagine the corpse was supposed to open its eyes and say "killl meeee" but it got censored. He also makes about 8 other faces at the camera operator, so we get that the inside of this TARDIS-like tortoise shell (must...resist...temptation...to...say...TORDIS) is yucky.

Lan Wangji waits outside listening to Wei Wuxian telepathically complain about the smell.  He is anxiously clenching a bundle of string and an arrow, and wishing he could clench Wei Wuxian Bichen instead.

Serendipitous Yin Iron

Wei Wuxian backs his way through the TORDIS until his butt bumps into a sword that is steaming with resentful energy. That's right: Wei Wuxian is about to pull a piece of Yin Iron almost literally out of his ass.

He grabs it and is overwhelmed by its screaming resentful energy and has to let it go again.

So this is what a vibrator with 4 batteries feels like

When Bowser comes looking for him, however, he quickly decides to go for it, grabbing the sword and singing "I've Got the Power (Gonna Make You Sweat)"

Wei Wuxian plunges the sword into Bowser's lower jaw, and Bowser pulls his entire head out of his shell with Wei Wuxian attached, while leaving the rest of his body and all rational laws of physics inside the shell.

Gamera Versus the Cultivators

What follows is one of the more ridiculous action sequences in the history of the world, and I say that as someone who likes Mothra movies. 

Wei Wuxian hovers in a perfect horizontal plank while “hanging from” the sword, which is held well below the level of his torso. While Bowser spins him around. For much of the time, Bowser keeps his head still and just waves his neck around.

Lan Wangji and the camera operator do everything they possibly can to make "guy pulls on string" look interesting. 

Everybody tries really, really hard and the actors are great at pretending something is there when it isn't, but this whole sequence is just horribly conceived.

What works well, though, is the Yin energy and Wei Wuxian's wrangling of it. He starts off being frightened and overwhelmed, and looking like it's too much for him; I dont' know if they made his face puffy on purpose or if that's just what happens when you spend days hanging from the ceiling fighting an imaginary monster. But he looks slack and unwell as he grapples with the iron sword.

Which makes this moment, when he gets control of it, deliciously creepy. He uses the power of the Yin Iron to stick a bunch of pokey things into Bowser's neck.

Lan Wangji has seen him struggling and now sees him...not struggling. Which scares the piss out of him, and he moves to finish the fight as quickly as possible, slicing up his hand and breaking the string. Combined with the pokey things, this does the trick and Bowser dies while Wei Wuxian faints and falls into the water.

Do the Whumpty Whump

Lan Wangji rescues him and wakes him up, and Wei Wuxian clutches the Yin Iron sword and tells Lan Wangji that he was knocked out by the screaming of disembodied voices.

This certainly sounds like a strange and dangerous phenomenon, so Lan Wangji carefully asks him to explain everything.

Ha ha ha j/k. Lan Wangji asks him exactly nothing about the strange sword or the black smoke or his weird evil smile or his new power over pointy objects. Lan Wangji appears to have a Star Trek: TNG level of unconcern about strange phenomena happening directly under his nose. But in fact he has noticed what's up, which is why he will be instantly distressed when he sees Wei Wuxian's flute moves at the Wen Corporate Headquarters.

Wei Wuxian has a fever (stay positive test negative) and comments on Lan Wangji's being so nice to him.

Wei Wuxian: I could never have imagined Lan Er Gongzi acting this concerned about me. Lan Wangji: what else have you never imagined me doing, while we're on the subject? 

Lan Wangji transfers a stream of spiritual energy to him. Lan Wangji has so much spiritual power he can be a battery for Wei Wuxian without breaking a sweat or, like, noticing whether Wei Wuxian has a golden core or not, for that matter.

Wei Wuxian basks in the nice feeling of gigajoules for a while but then decides he's bored. So then he pouts, whines, and cajoles Lan Wangji in exactly, EXACTLY the way he whines at Jiang Yanli.  I think this, while annoying of him, is a leap forward in his relationship with Lan Wangji.

He's letting his guard down and not just allowing Lan Wangji to take care of him; he's demanding to be cared for on multiple vectors, when he asks the guy who's already busy healing him to sing to him as well.

Lan Wangji obliges, singing him the song he composed about their love cultivation journey, while Wei Wuxian (or possibly Lan Wangji) (or possibly both) has a flashback to assorted sexy interactions that they've had so far.

Wei Wuxian memorizes the song perfectly on one hearing, before passing out.

Writing Prompt: Baldur’s Gate III / Untamed Crossover AU featuring elf archer Lan Wangji

I DARE YOU

Soundtrack: 1. Everybody Dance Now by C+C Music Factory 2. Paradise by the Dashboard Light by Meatloaf 

Wei Wuxian fainting tally (cumulative): 3

[theboywhocriedworf]

Let's overanalyze!

The many faces of Brent Spiner in 'Masks'

Ever since watching TNG: S7E19, 'Masks', I wanted to make a masterpost with gifsets of all personas played by Brent Spiner.

I will gradually add links to the separate parts of this post, so it's easier to find.

Part 1: Ihat. Part 2: Victim. Part 3: Boy. Part 4: Elder. Part 5: Masaka.

For further info >

I wanted to maybe spark a little discussion: I think that 'Masks' is an underappreciated episode with much potential, that couldn't fully develop due to production constraints. It was written by Joe Menosky, the creative brain behind 'Darmok' (Shaka, when walls fell), 'Hero Worship' (the episode where a boy tries to process trauma through copying Data), the two-parter 'Time's Arrow' and others. Menosky worked on DS9, as well: he wrote the story in among others 'Dramatis Personae' (where the crew loses it, getting 'possesed') and 'Distant voices' (where Bashir is trapped inside his mind). If you think of it, Menosky has several very distinct themes which pop up in his episodes, and I feel as if he is asking a question: what is it like to connect to the Other, and to the other within us, and how can we connect, if we have many facets, many personalities within us that feel like madness at times?

Another reason why I wanted to dissect this episode is Brent Spiner's acting. He found this episode one of the most difficult acting assignments in the series. "I had some good stuff seventh season. I just wish they had been scheduled differently. I got the script for 'Masks' on the night before we shot it and I was finishing "Thine Own Self" the midnight before, so I didn't have the time to even absorb the script and digest it and figure out who these people were that I was playing…I think I said to Jeri at the time, 'Give me six months and I think I could give all the characters their due,' but as it was, I didn't know who these people were and so I was doing instant acting and just coming up with whatever I was coming up with because we had to put it to film." /Memory Alpha.

Just imagine what we could have got if he really had six months? A girl can dream.

And of course, anything is reason enough to post more gifs of Brent Spiner for the enjoyment of all my fellow Spiner lovers.