#justice for deanna fucking troi.

[thegeminisage]

tng update time and oooooh am i ever mad about it. tonight we watched "hero worship" and "violations."

hero worship: i wanted to like this episode. but, firstly, it's just yet more evidence why children should not be on starships. this has been bothering me the entire time i've watched this fucking show. i hope there aren't any kids on voyager or whatever because this is literally fucking killing me

secondly, i felt really weird about everyone just...going along with this kid's idea that he was an android. i feel like there's a way to be lenient of his trauma without reinforcing the delusion or whatever sorry ik that's not how you're supposed to say it. it just didn't seem like solid therapeutical practice is all. i will admit there was also some secondhand embarrassment watching this kid's impersonation of data but i think it COULD have been cute (which seems to be what they were going for) with a better execution

i DEFINITELY think data's interactions with him should have been supervised too, not because i don't love and trust data wholly but because he has this way of missing certain emotional cues. and while that isn't a problem in day-to-day life, like, that's just the way he is and i resent anyone who would make him feel like it's a bad way to be/there's something wrong with him because he is PERFECT the way he is!!! for someone who is so vulnerable i think that data could accidentally do harm where it isn't intended (almost did a couple of times!), and data wouldn't be happy about that either because of course it would never be his intention. like i LOVE episodes where we just throw data into the deep end and let him figure it out, i love watching him go, but this is a child whose entire family/ship just DIED HORRIBLY who thinks he is responsible for the event. im not saying dont let data be his buddy data deserves so many buddies im just saying give data some INSTRUCTIONS at least. for both their sakes

anyway it was mid at best. it had a few good moments but ultimately not enough to salvage it for me

violations:

okay wait hold on i feel like i need to start a brand new text block for violations. you're only allowed 4000 characters per paragraph and i have stuff to say. i have Things To Get Off My Chest. please picture steam pouring from my fucking ears right now

actually forget the bullet list i don't need a bullet list this is not a normal liveblog Post. do you know every day i see threads on r*ddit and sometimes even tags here on tunglr dot edu about how people don't like tos because it's sexist. thats all well and fine and good. tos IS sexist. ARE WE SAYING TNG IS BETTER?????

tasha yar and the rape gangs. the naked time: 2! where both women got turned into insatiable sex object. deanna's impromptu and nonconsensual pregnancy. tasha's impregnantion by rape and her death at the hands of her rapist. that time they filmed deanna's feet. beverly crusher for all of season 1 having absolutely no personality outside of being a mother. lwaxana troi getting gang raped by ferengi for laughs. genuinely uhura on tos in the fucking 1960s got treated better than deanna troi on tng in the 1990s. yes tos has extremely bad moments sexism wise. JUSTICE for janice fucking rand. but truly how can you be as sexist against women when they aen't there. meanwhile, tng has women in every goddamn episode and all it takes is for one bad writer to

actually you know what is so funny. gene roddenberry and two women are credited with writing this episode. ALL of them are going to hell, gene roddenberry especially. i hate hate hate HATE his rape fetish. justice for janice rand AND tasha yar AND DEANNA TROI!

the thing about this episode is, it could have been good. there were good parts about it. for example: worf's joke about being probed. they knew what they were doing and it was hilarious. deanna getting to talk about her overbearing mother. riker's little speech to deanna when she was in the coma with literal tears in his eyes and this is a WHOLE separate rant but

my problem with tng is that you don't see them care about each other. we're TOLD that they care about each other. they SAY, "oh, x is worried about [character who's in danger this week]." but we almost never SEE them act it out. every once in awhile riker gets weirdly protective of picard, and worf seems kind of protective of everyone which i like, and picard also does a good righteous rage on behalf of others, but i don't usually get to SEE it. like when wesley goes missing or whatever he and his mom don't always immediately rush into each others arms on their reunion. when deanna passes out you don't always see riker abandon what he's doing and rush to her side. nobody asks "are you okay?" with genuine concern. and even when we DO get for example geordi driving himself crazy wondering what went wrong over data's fake death we don't get any follow-through - there's no reunion between geordi and data at the end the way there would be for kirk and spock.

BUT RIKER AT THE HOSPITAL BED. ohhh i was eating. it was so good. he wasn't even saying anything of merit but just the SIGHT of her passed out like that had him almost in tears. riker, who is the epitome of good humor and dealing with space horrors with laughter. IN TEARS. it was so good. a true show instead of tell moment. and in THIS fucking episode

my issue is: they had three on screen rape scenes. the first rape scene was extremely long. like they couldn't show anything explicit because this is 90s tv but it was VERY VERY LONG so it hardly seems to matter. and THAT was bad enough. but then they made us watch it AGAIN when he planted his dad's face in the memory and A THIRD TIME when he was like "ugh she's being so sweet to me even though i raped her i can't NOT rape her again." like at least that time she was able to hit him and get away but it feels like a hollow victory when he's already gotten away with it TWICE, AND!!! when worf had to come in and save her anyway at the end.

it was doubly horrible that he got away with the crime SO WELL that nobody suspected him - like, picard is out here asking deanna to let him into her mind a second time and she GOT RAPED. A SECOND TIME. deanna is like oh yeah you can come in! and it could have been a compelling mystery and plot twist to be like OH IT'S THE DAD but really it's the son except we SAW HIM DO IT the first time. there wasn't even any mystery to solve or anyone to suspect, he wasn't misdirecting US, we just got to watch him successfully misdirect this poor stupid naive trusting WOMAN

also, the thing about deanna's attack being a rape scene while riker's was someone dying under his command and beverly's was IDing her husband's dead body is that for riker and bev these are REAL THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO THEM. deanna never got raped by riker. like, he wouldn't do that and they wouldn't still be as close and comfortable with one another if he had. (i am mad on his behalf TWICE now that they left it open whether or not he committed that particular crime when every other piece of evidence says he wouldn't. the guy is not a closet serial rapist and leaving the endings open to be edgy is extremely poor form.) like, they literally JUST made deanna's attack a rape scene to sexualize her and feed roddenberry's fetish and HE'S DEAD. HE WAS DEAD WHEN THIS AIRED. HE CAN'T JERK OFF TO IT ANYMORE

they didn't even explain why that guy kept leaving people in comas. deanna i get because he was stalking her and wanted to fuck her but why riker? why beverly? that made it MORE suspicious. why all those other people on the other planets? was he raping every single one of them? how did he plan to keep going after he'd framed his dad for his crimes?

and it COULD HAVE BEEN GOOD. beverly's thing with IDing her husband's body was fun and terrifying. deanna could have gotten a memory that spoke to character development instead of being sexualized like this. in fact i think it was lowkey a pussy move not to deal with any of riker's close encounters because of the two of them riker is the one who has actually been raped! "someone died under my command" is generic and lame. but the way the telepathy worked was cool, the plot twist could have been cool, you could have felt real betrayal from liking this dude if he hadn't been all evil smiles from the beginning. and they dropped the ball SO HARD. and i could forgive them for doing that! i have given tng so many benefits of the doubt! BUT THREE RAPE SCENES IN 45 MINUTES?

the worst part is, there was no emotional resolution. they had that guy say the word rape out loud and then the credits rolled. deanna and riker didn't speak one word to each other. she was never like, i know you didn't actually rape me like that's not what happened. no one was like, beverly go have a hot drink and call your son. there's NO EMOTIONAL FOLLOWTHROUGH ON THIS SHOW. tos was guilty of that sometimes too but this level of it is fucking unreal

tng enjoyers im sorry for my meanie posts earlier. love who you love etc etc. i'm just. baffled. HOW IS THIS BETTER THAN TOS. at least what happened to janice rand (and uhura one time) was over quickly and didn't replay three FUCKING times!!! "tos is too/more sexist" I AM TURNING MY BRAIN INSIDE OUT TO TRY AND UNDERSTAND THIS FUCKING STATEMENT

#truly put the women back on the top shelf until you can treat them like they deserve. back to the boys club im begging you #sorry. i'm done now #personal #star trek blogging #tng lb #rape tw #uhhhh normally i say what we're watching tomorrow but i forgot already. and also idc <3 #justice for deanna fucking troi.

[namimikan]

honestly, for a s1 ep, i do think you need a riker gets jealous episode, and deanna getting conveniently forced into an arranged marriage, makes sense, bc finally they spill the beans on what went on with them, they've been exes from the start, but the circumstances that split them continue to be vague -- so it's spelled out a bit clearer here -- riker prioritizes his future career prospects, but that doesn't really mean that he's... really moved on from troi, and ofc it does hurt to see the love of your life maybe about to disappear forever...?

(it's maybe a lil bit wierd bc you've already had justice, three eps ago, and it's pretty heavily implied that riker did do a whole lotta fucking on the 'we do anything that feels good' planet, but alternatively, enough time has passed for those long forgotten feelings to re-emerge, with the prospect of losing troi)

i just think in the greater span of things, it's a bit of an issue, that starts here, and then never really goes away? i mean, it kind of does, bc the way riker/troi handle their relationship as exes, as friends, and everything in between is good! it's largely solid! and you can see why they worked out in the past, and in the future! they're so likeable and charming and ofc you root for them!

but every now and then. idk. it might just be a s1 and s7 issue.

#trekking stars

[keyofjetwolf]

I actually was JUST thinking about Deanna as I was watching this. I’m trying not to be too hard on this kid, as she’s young and has had such a rough time. But also, like, YOU CAN FIGURE THIS OUT I BELIEVE IN YOU JUST DO WHAT YOU WISH EVERYONE ELSE WOULD DO AND PUT ON A GODDAMN FILTER. They have no idea what they’re doing BUT YOU DO.

Also, they show her as having a loving and nurturing grandfather, who it’s highly suggested knows what she can do and is fine with it, or at least doesn’t let it affect how he feels about her. I don’t want to go too heavy with it, having a general idea FOR SOME REASON that this may not be the world’s most serious story, but he’s been there for her through all this with love and support. Has he done fuck all to help her navigate the world and basic human interaction? Her mother leaves her at like age six or seven. She’s at least fourteen now, I’d say. Meaning he was her primary caregiver for half her life, and she seemed to be a scared, confused, and grieving kid, but not irreparably broken! How did he not help her figure out the basics? We can’t have him both accepting and loving her AND her this weird little antisocial loner unloved sad girl who can’t figure out the answer to “So, where did you transfer from?” isn’t “FUCK OFF WITH YOUR INSINCERITY”

All of which has precisely zero percent to do with Deanna Troi, BUT ANYWAY YES JUSTICE FOR TROI 2KALWAYS

#jet wolf watches kotoura #I COME TO THIS SHOW ALREADY WITH ISSUES RE: THE PREMISE

[hudsonisms]

⌠ LOGAN SHROYER, 23, CIS MALE, HE/HIM ⌡ welcome to  gallagher academy, RICHARD HUDSON! originally hailing from JONESBOROUGH, TENNESSEE, they were exposed to too much during the protest, and the academy is now in charge of their safe care. when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of (primped blonde hair, white converse, letterman jacket, a warm and genuine smile). when it’s the (libra)’s birthday on 10/11/1996, on the bad nights they request their FRIED CHICKEN from the school’s chefs. looks like they’re safe in witness protection. ⌿ deanna, 24, she/her, est ⍀

come welcome my new bby boy please and thank you !  ( also this got long I’M SORRY )

first and foremost, these are the names NOT to call him: richard, rich, richie, dick, or dickie  ( yikes ) .  somehow his parents thought it was a good idea to give their eldest son a nickname of DICKIE, which no matter how much he hated it stuck like glue, and the older he got the more jokes he heard about it. when he eventually left his small town to make his way in the world, he dropped the nickname and his first name all together and decided to just go by his last name: HUDSON.  so please, call him hudson kthx

hudson’s the oldest of three kids in a painfully middle class family. his dad’s a banker and his mom’s as a preschool teacher, high school sweethearts who have been in love with since they fifteen and continue to be in love and generally gross their youngest two kids out with their lovefest. 

but hudson found his parents absolutely charming, and kickstarted the romantic he’d one day become.

his parents had hudson when they were only nineteen, a fun little accident that stemmed a shotgun wedding. they wouldn’t have their other two kids  ( milo & cameron )  until much later, when they had more money and a house to themselves and all that jazz. by the time his little brother milo was born, hudson was fourteen years old, and when they had cami he was sixteen. 

he helped take care of them while he was still around to do so, and lowkey loves the kids like they’re his own. but hudson also can’t wait until they’re adults already and he can have normal sibling relationships with em. 

the town he grew up in was small and didn’t have a whole lot to do -- though it’s tennesee’s oldest town, a fact that has been shoved into his brain for as long as he could remember -- so it was a lot of running around outside and riding his bike with his friends and causing general little boy mischief. he was always a good kid though, even if he was pretty easy to peer pressure into doing less than noble things  ( teenagers, ya know ? )

hudson can’t remember when he started to feel like he wanted more than the small town life his parents had given him, but by high school he was already looking into colleges as far as possible, places that could help him one day CHANGE THE WORLD.

he had the grades for some of the best schools in the country, but he didn’t have the world experience they needed or he wanted. so he took a gap year after graduating high school to volunteer in third-world countries, building up his resume and college applications  ( but also genuinely looking to make a difference and learn about other cultures )  so he could apply for the next school year.

the one thing that surprised him the most about traveling that year was how HOMESICK he became. not for tennessee, but for his parents and his little siblings who were getting bitter and bigger every time they face timed. so when he got accepted into GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY -- only a six hour drive home, much closer than the other schools he had been looking at.

now a senior at georgetown, hudson has been THRIVING there. he’s a peace & justice studies and political economy double major and co-president of the amnesty international club  ( along with his bff steph as president ) .  but that’s not all he does -- he’s in an honors fraternity, a part of two other clubs, and volunteers on the weekend at the nearby animal shelter. it sounds super Excessive, but hudson genuinely likes keeping busy :  he had been looking forward to going away to a great college for a long time, so he wanted to make the most of his time there.

he’s EXTREMELY likable, basically a golden retriever tbh. he’s no longer the pushover he once was and is very sure in his beliefs, but is always willing to hear someone else out and rarely starts fights  ( only  “ dialogues “ ) .  he’s charming but in a genuine way.

he’s literally that all american boy who played football in high school. troy bolton ain’t got nothing on him smh. 

he wants to work in the peace corps after college  ( we get it hudson, you’re a good person ) . before getting a job in the government. he loves washington dc and hopes to one day settle down there.

and by  “ settle down “   i’m talking this guy wants a wife, some kids, a white picket fence... not NOW because there’s still so much he wants to do, but back home nearly half his old high school classmates are engaged, married or with babies on the way, so he’s starting to feel that compulsion to find his PERSON.

he has a southern accent that’s super cute if i do say so myself.

uhh being at gallagher is super WEIRD for him because just twelve hours ago he was at a protest that he had a hand in starting and now classmates of his are dead and he’s in hiding at this weird school when he’s supposed to be starting his last semester at college and like??? will he graduate on time??? do his parents know where he is??? he has a lot of questions.

but since he’s in a leadership position in the club, he feels like he has to try the hardest to look Calm and Collected and not freak the absolute fuck out like he wants to.

if you got this far i appreciate you and slide into my discord if you wanna plot xoxo

#gallagher:intro #come plot w my Boy

[skptrace]

tng really loves fucking over tasha yar huh. i wanna kill someone. namely gene roddenberry can we bring that guy back so i can kill him. he really had to try to combat her pure dyke energies by having her flirt with everything that trapped, kidnapped, and tried to murder her huh.  “oh, if you werent a captain...” she says to her superior officer. while being threatened with death again. “of course im attracted to him.” she says while talking to deanna troi about the man who is about to force her into marriage. they use deanna troi, one of the only other woman, to pull a “dont you want it?” also wild how every time q shows up she gets zapped away at the first sign of resistance while every other guys bitchiness is not as dumb for some inane reason. can i get a dead picard? can i please get a dead picard? gene roddenberry voice: “this guys smart. he knows shakespeare. hes an immortal powerful god. so obviously hes gotta quote shakespeare.” i really wanna punch an old guy rn. fucking Q chuckie cheese teeth bitch. sorry to bring up TOS while im talking about TNG but can i PLEASE get some justice for janice rand. she really almost got r*ped MULTIPLE times and they didnt say shit about it huh. FUCKING RIKER. im talking about my ladies here but also im so fuckin mad about how they treat geordis blindness. he got some redemption in hide & q but OH SPEAKING OF HIDE & Q. love that lady riker fabricated just so she could growl, get beat by worf, and continue to try to offer herself to him. cute, fun, kms.

#star trek. #text. #00.

[bluering8]

TNG S01

I’m done with TNG S01! I’ve gotta watch some other stuff before I launch into S02, so have a quick round-up of my Very Important opinions on various characters/episodes:

Data - I love Data!! Holy shit do I love Data!! He is precious to me and perfect in every way and I want to hollow him out and wear his skin like a suit. That... possibly sounds creepier than I meant? Look, he’s my perfect wish-fulfilment character, okay. He’s earnest and awkward and he never quite Gets It, but he wants to Get It so badly, and he tries so hard, and whenever he talks people are constantly cutting him off partway through because they’ve decided he’s saying too much or saying it wrong, and he sort of... exemplifies what has been my perspective of the Autistic Experience. And despite all that, he has a career he enjoys and friends who care about him and I want to be him so much that it kind of hurts.

Also, Data has feelings. I will fight anyone to the death on this issue, I sincerely can’t see how anyone could look at Data and not come to the conclusion that he has feelings. Data has so many feelings! He might not have feelings the way humans have feelings, but he unmistakably has his own opinions and his own way of relating to the world. It’s heartbreaking that he doesn’t recognise the value of his own experiences in favour of desperately trying to live up to some arbitrary “correct” way of existing.

Deanna Troi - I hate Troi. I do not want to hate Troi, because empaths are way cooler than they usually get credit for, but she’s so fucking annoying. All she ever does is say things which were already completely fucking obvious. She’s a walking violation of show-don’t-tell and every time she opens her mouth I groan because I know whatever she’s about to say is going to ruin my enjoyment of a scene. About the nicest thing I can say about her is that she’s still a better character then Wesley, being merely irritating rather than universe-warpingly terrible.

Jean-Luc Picard - Picard’s such a dad, holy shit. I never noticed this when I watched TNG before, but now I’m picking up on it as, like, the major facet of his personality. I mean, he also drinks Earl Grey and LARPs as a detective and discusses philosophy with aliens, but mostly he’s just Space Dad now and forever. Somehow I also forgot the LARPing as a detective part of his character? Picard’s just a huge fucking nerd isn’t he.

Q - I have very mixed feelings about Q. On the one hand I always love arrogant, capricious, petulant trickster gods, especially when they have Q’s flair for the theatrical, but on the other hand I think when it comes to Q I maybe love him more in concept than in execution? I spend a lot of time thinking about trickster-god entities and how a nigh-omnipotent creature unbound by linear time and the laws of physics might relate to the universe, and Q’s a very mundane example of the character type. On the gripping hand, Q’s super fun and whenever he shows up I know I’m in for a good time. I strongly suspect that if I were a Q I would also spend an obnoxious amount of time trolling Picard. He’s just so delightfully trollable!

Tasha Yar - Yar falls into a lot of tropes which I absolutely hate, but despite that I kind of... love her anyway?? I just don’t get enough masculine female characters to not love them even when they have rape-y backstories and secret desires to be more feminine and Issues feat. their emotional vulnerabilities, I guess. She was kind of frustrating at first because she kept randomly attacking people, but in the later episodes she seemed to mellow out a lot and started acting the way I’d expect of a security chief, ie 101% willing to solve problems with violence but no longer functioning on a hairtrigger. I’m sad that she died, I would’ve loved to see what she could have grown into as the show developed.

Also she was bros with Worf! Somehow I completely forgot about that, but I love it. This is an extra layer of tragedy in her death, Yar&Worf is a delightful friendship and if it’d had space to develop I sincerely believe it could have toppled Data&Geordi as my most beloved Trek brotp. This is what fanfiction is for, I suppose.

Wesley Crusher - I know it’s kind of Trek cliché to loathe Wesley but boy do I ever loathe Wesley!! The funny thing is that I actually liked him for the first two or three episodes: he was a bright and enthusiastic kid who was transparently desperate for Picard to be his father figure (and Picard was transparently disinterested in being his father figure, which is hilarious), but then he was allowed on the bridge despite not being part of Starfleet or even an acting-cadet at the time, and then the action paused in the middle of an episode so Picard could get lectured on how Wesley is the bestest most wonderfulest, and then... you get the point.

I’m not here to shit on wish-fulfilment characters (I mean, that’d be hypocritical as fuck considering my feelings about Data), I’m here to shit on wish-fulfilment characters who are so devoted to wish-fulfilment that they stop functioning adequately as a character. The universe warps itself into a pretzel so that Wesley can be the bestest most wonderfulest and it really really pisses me off.

S01E01E02 Encounter at Farpoint - You know, for a nigh-omnipotent weird space being, Q is amazingly fucking dumb. Like, who agrees to judge people based on a test without realising that if you tell people you’re testing them they’ll go out of their way to be on their best behaviour? You’re not gonna be getting any kind of reliable data here, Q.

S01E07 Lonely Among Us - What the fuck was this episode, I mean seriously. Okay, so we open with two groups of diplomats who super super hate each other and the Enterprise has to transport them to a meeting, so you’d assume that the episode would revolve around dealing with the conflict between the two groups right? Except no, that’s like the d-plot, the a-plot is there’s a weird space thing and the b-plot is Data has a crush on Sherlock Holmes. The c-plot is Wesley does his homework. And then the episode ends with the news that one group of diplomats has cooked and eaten a member of the other group and Picard’s like “lmao I don’t give a shit, Riker you deal with this I’m gonna go take a nap.” What the fuck, basically.

In other news, spacefuture meat is all cruelty-free synthesised magic apparently. I wonder if vegetarians still exist? Other than vulcans, I guess. I don’t know enough about the philosophy behind not shoving delicious chunks of animal corpse into your face to work out the answer here.

S01E08 Justice - I talked about this episode already and honestly that’s all you really need to know. People try to talk to Picard about Wesley’s impending death and Picard immediately changes the topic to talking about the weird space thing, rinse and repeat.

Anyway I was recently reading about a guy who was transporting prisoners when some of the prisoners escaped. The punishment for letting prisoners escape was death, so he released the rest of the prisoners then ran off to be an outlaw because it wasn’t like they could kill him any more then they were already going to. Then he became Emperor! Anyway the moral of the story is that Light Yagami is a moron escalating punishments are important and if someone knows you’re gonna kill them for something they did then they have basically no reason not to go and do a bunch of other crimes also.

S01E10 Hide and Q - Hey, quick quiz: you encounter a nigh-omnipotent entity who has previously mocked your species for being savage and violent. Said entity dumps you on a planet with a bunch of weird monsters. Do you: a) attempt to communicate with these monsters in the hopes of reaching a peaceful solution, or b) savagely resort to violence by shooting them with your space guns? If you picked option b, then congratulations! You are the crew of the Enterprise. This technically wasn’t the point of the episode, but come on! Step up your mind-game game, Q.

Also Picard yells at Q for constantly changing his costume and it’s like, Picard, dude, you’re aware the thing you’re yelling at isn’t actually Q? Q isn’t a human with superpowers, he’s an incomprehensible entity who occasionally puppets around a meatsack so you can have something convenient to yell at. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from Greek mythology and also Lovecraft, it’s that you super super do not want to see the incomprehensible entity’s true form.

S01E13 Datalore - I LOVE DATA AND I LOVE HIS HORRIBLE BROTHER!! but also, fuck Wesley. I hate Wesley. He’s immediately suspicious of Lore-as-Data purely on the basis of he sees “Data” doing Lore’s facial tic despite the fact that at the beginning of the episode he walked in on Data attempting to mimic sneezing, and despite the fact that there are several other characters with much better reasons to find Lore-as-Data suspicious.

Actually, you know what my dream rewrite for this episode would be? Someone becoming suspicious of Lore-as-Data, not because they think he’s Lore, but because they think he’s Data. The crew had previously been discussing whether or not they could trust Data now that he’d found links outside of Starfleet, so having that issue play out onscreen would’ve been fantastic. (Especially if it influenced their behaviour towards Data and Lore tried to take advantage of that as a “your friends are dicks, betray them and join me” kind of thing. I’m Here(tm) 24/7 for manipulation and corruption, my dude.)

S01E17 When the Bough Breaks - You know, this entire episode could’ve been solved with cloning. I mean actually it couldn’t, but the problem they thought they were having could’ve been solved with cloning. Ask the Enterprise for some unfucked genetic material and you can make your own kids! As many kids as you want!! More than six kids because seriously I don’t know what you were expecting to achieve with that, that’s not enough people to keep your planet alive.

S01E19 Coming of Age - This episode is an excellent example of What’s Wrong With Wesley. Wesley does an exam, and he loses some points in order to help another person with the exam, and at the end he’s told the other person passed but he didn’t, and the other person’s like “oh but that only happened because Wesley lost points by helping me!!”, because Wesley is so bestest most wonderfulest that the only reason he fails is because he sacrificed himself to help someone else to succeed. There’s a vague attempt at suggesting “oh, but there were other reasons Wesley failed!!” but like, fuck you, you don’t get to show me nothing but Wesley succeeding and then attempt to salvage this mess by telling me there were other factors at play, especially not when there’s so much attention devoted to Wesley helping the other person.

S01E22 Symbiosis - Everyone spends this episode focusing on the wrong thing. See, the Brekkians are selling medicine to the Ornarans, except actually it’s not medicine it’s addictive drugs, and this is bad because... drugs are bad? Don’t do drugs kids!! Why are you all focusing on the part where there are drugs and not the part where the Brekkians are lying shitbags taking relentless advantage of the Ornarans so that they can live like parasite kings in a capitalist hellscape castle?

“Golly gosh I sure can’t understand why anyone would voluntarily become dependent on a drug!!” says FUCKING WESLEY, THE WORST CHARACTER, completely missing the part where the drug actually is medicine and the Ornarans are entirely unaware that they no longer have the plague the drug is medicine for and thus believe that they have literally no other choice than to take the drug if they want to live. There is nothing “voluntary” about this at all, Wesley you absolute fuckwad!! Somebody shove this kid into a locker already.

S01E23 Skin of Evil - There are no pockets in Starfleet uniforms so everyone spends this episode wandering around with stuff awkwardly glued to their sides and it’s terrible and hilarious. I’m pretty sure this is true of other episodes but this is the one where I found it really really noticeable and couldn’t stop laughing.

...this episode was just obnoxiously funny in general actually, Goo Man is trying so hard to be super evil and scary and grimdark but nobody really gives a fuck about it, he’s more just like majorly inconvenient and kind of irritating than he is actually threatening at any point. “You don’t understand! I don’t serve evil, I am evil!!” the Goo Man wails. Picard categorically does not give any kind of a shit in response.

tl;dr: Data is precious and perfect and every time he’s onscreen I start weeping. YOU’RE DOING GREAT, DATA! I’M SO PROUD OF YOU!!

#star trek #star trek tng

[tessatechaitea]

Star Trek: The Next Generation, S1, E3: "Code of Honor"

"She took her marriage vows seriously but the fire in her pants spoke of greater truths. Would she falter to temptation or maintain her Code of Honor?" Sometimes I wonder if any conservative political thinkers are fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Every aspect of the 24th Century relies on a model that took liberal values of caring for everybody and extending them further and further left. It's as socialist a world as you can get. And with that liberal mindset, we still get episodes like this. I'm not saying that liberals can't make mistakes in their social perspective; I'm saying the exact opposite. Liberals are often blind to the ways in which they support a racist system because they so fervently believe they aren't racist. And while this episode's intent probably isn't the way I'm perceiving it, how can I not see it as a bunch of white people teaching black people how to be civilized? Well, maybe I'll tell you how later! Maybe! The story centers around two separate cultures whose values and traditions come into conflict early. Maybe the story is supposed to be analogous to white imperialist explorers imposing their beliefs and traditions on indigenous peoples and we're supposed to judge the crew of the Enterprise by their actions. That is, after all, sort of the basis for the Prime Directive. Explore, study, learn but don't impose your will on others or interfere in any way with their progress. But it's hard to think it's a story about humankind's having learned from their past imperialist failings when the plot revolves around the people of Ligon II being "taught a lesson" by Jean-Luc and his cohorts. Perhaps I should just view the episode as a conflict between Jean-Luc and Lutan, the leader of Ligon II (planetary president, I guess?). It is, after all, Lutan's disregard for his people's own traditions that brings him into conflict with the Federation and not the Federation's disrespect for them. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself! Let me just stick to the plot for a moment. The Federation needs a vaccine that only the people of Ligon II can make. Dr. Crusher can't even replicate it in her lab without it degrading. So they need to deal with the people of Ligon II on their terms to secure a trade. The only thing the people of Ligon II seem to want is for the Federation to respect them. Seems easy enough, right?! Well, it's easy to pay lip service to another culture's beliefs and social mores. But when one of them kidnaps your head Security Officer, things become a bit more complicated. One of the traditions of Ligon II is to kidnap a high ranking member of another tribe to show your prowess in, um, I don't know, social situations? After which, the other person has to plead for the return of this kidnapped person. The person is returned and all is well because the traditions of their social conventions have been met by each party. Jean-Luc understands this because the Enterprise has a full deck of interns researching every race they interact with to figure out how to not offend them. They should probably be paying this staff though because the staff always seem to realize the important stuff too late (see the episode "Justice" for more examples (which I haven't written yet so hold your horses)). Here, they forget to tell Jean-Luc that Lutan is going to kidnap somebody as part of the diplomatic process. The real trouble comes not because of the kidnapping but because Lutan suddenly refuses to return Tasha Yar, instead deciding to make her his wife. This decision shocks even his own people because he is breaking some serious social taboos. Tash Yar, used to dealing with Rape Gangs, just takes it all in stride. Sure, she wants to kill somebody but doesn't she always want to kill somebody? She's more bloodthirsty than Worf (which is probably a racist comment but then I'm not the one who spent several television seasons making sure the audience understands that Klingons are violent killing machines who almost certainly choke each other near to death when they fuck (again, see commentary on "Justice")). In the end, Lutan's wife, Yareena, challenges Tasha Yar to a fight to the death which is too often par for the course when a guy steps out on his lady. She should challenge Lutan to a fight to the death. What the fuck did Tasha Yar do?! In this episode, we also learn that Data doesn't know how to tell a joke and his programming allows for slips of the tongue. Maybe his creator added that because when he made Lore, Lore was all, "I'm going to fucking kill all humans!" and his creator was all, "Oh shit. I've got to put some flaws in this machine so I can defend myself against it!" The fight to the death uses gloves covered in a fast acting poison. To make sure the audience understands the danger to Tasha Yar, Tasha knocks off Yareena's glove. It flies into the crowd, pricking a spectator who dies immediately. But since he never gets a name, we don't have to care about his death. Nobody does. Whatever. Too bad. Presumably, he knew the danger that came with ring-side seats to the bout. In the end, Tasha Yar pricks Yareena after which she dives on her and they're both transported aboard the Enterprise. I'm no transporter genius (or layman, even) but that seems like a good way to have a serious The Fly transporter accident. How do the two of them not fuse on recombining?! Yareena dies from the poison but Doctor Crusher brings her back from death. It's important that she dies because her death ends the "fight to the death" challenge honorably and with accordance to all laws and Prime Directives. But it also dissolves her marriage to Lutan! And since women on Ligon II hold all material wealth and land rights, Lutan gets nothing in the separation! He loses everything and his second-in-command, who rooted for Yareena during the fight, winds up being her husband and, I guess, planetary president? Lutan gets his comeuppance just like somebody who overreaches should. Just ask MacBeth about overreaching. Hoo boy, does it never work out! And I guess the people of Ligon II don't really learn a lesson. The white people don't show them anything new or civilized. Maybe my initial reaction to the episode was due to systemic racism influencing my every thought and not that the episode was racist even if it exists in a culture of systemic racism. In a way, I'm glad the producers aired an episode this early in the series that a viewer couldn't help seeing as analogous to white imperialists invading Africa and all the other continents of Earth. The comparison shouldn't be that the Federation was just doing the same old thing. What should be learned was how different the Federation, working within the Prime Directive, acts when encountering other peoples and cultures. They don't merely assume human beliefs and traditions are correct. They treat them as just one option to living that is no better than any other that developed in different ways on far flung planets full of diverse sentient creatures. And I know Jean-Luc Picard seems smug and above everybody else at times but how can you not adore him? He fucking hates children! The worst part of this episode is when Deanna Troi tricks Tasha Yar into professing that she's flattered by Lutan's attraction to her. Really? She grew up being chased by Rape Gangs and we're supposed to believe that this incident wasn't traumatic but flattering?! I know Tasha Yar wants as much space dick as she can get but not in this situation! She should be fucking angry and pissed and scared. That's all Troi should be feeling from her. But instead, Troi is all, "He's kind of hot, right? And you know what they say about the size of Ligon II dicks, yeah?!" And Tasha is all, "*blush blush crotch overflow error*". It just seems like some tone deaf writing. Although maybe the writer of this episode, Katharyn Powers, didn't realize everybody else was writing all of this Rape Gang shit into her history. She probably skimmed the character portfolio on Tasha Yar, read "She loves to fuck!", and was all, "Oh yeah! Tasha's my girl! Get some mystery space cock, bitch!"

#ST:TNG #Star Trek #The Next Generation #Code of Honor