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sshbpodcast · 15 days

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Character Spotlight: Rom

By Ames

Among your A Star to Steer Her By hosts, Rom might be the most polarizing character from all of Star Trek. Some of us (and you all know when I’m talking about Chris) worship the ground this grand nagus walks on. And some of us (oh hello, I’m Ames) would rather throw him out an air lock. His rather offensive depiction as someone who seems to have low intelligence ends up contradicted by his otherworldly engineering skills. His actually very funny scenes get offset by how his whole character becomes a goofy punchline. His Ferengi values are deplorable and yet his character journey and love of his family are commendable. And that voice…

All that to say: this blogpost is going to be our biggest roller coaster ride yet.

So get ready to dig into a bowl of tube grubs and keep your tooth sharpener handy as we dig into the moments we adore about Quark’s lesser brother and the moments we detest about him. Read on below and listen to this week’s podcast episode (jump to 1:01:34) for all the Ferengi gossip. And don’t forget to call your moogie.

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

You saved your brother’s life Let’s start off with the good stuff. In “Necessary Evil” when Trazko is pillow smothering Quark, Rom screams and screams for help, foiling the assassination plot and saving his brother’s life. And you know what, it’s actually a pretty funny button when Rom screams again when he realizes that, with Quark still alive, he won’t be inheriting the bar any time soon.

I would be proud to have a son in Starfleet Even I, a bonafide Rom hater, can admit that his relationship with his son is one of the best things about his character. We see him stand up to Quark (a rarity!) and support Nog’s desire to join Starfleet in “Heart of Stone” and we’ve got to give the guy credit for wanting Nog to pursue his dreams of becoming better than his father, low bar as that may seem.

The Ferengi not-so-Benevolent Association When the Nagus’s personality has gotten rewritten in “Prophet Motive,” he somehow ends up making Rom the senior administrator of his new Ferengi Benevolent Association. And you’ve got to give Rom credit for seeing a chance to scheme that even Quark didn’t notice, as he embezzles money from the foundation before Zek turns back to normal. He’s got the lobes!

Moogie’s got the lobes for business In addition to the lovely father-son relationship with Nog, Rom’s relationship with his moogie is also extremely sweet. He eventually supports her profit-making scheme in “Family Business” even though it’s illegal for females to make money, tricks Quark into coming to terms with Ishka, and by the end of the episode is in on the plan to hide some of her profits from Brunt, FCA!

My son’s happiness is more important to me than anything, even latinum It’s worth mentioning how supportive Rom is of Nog again because in “Facets” he foils Quark’s nefarious plan to sabotage his Starfleet Academy exam, even threatening to burn the bar to the ground because he places his son’s personal journey so highly. He also goes to Garak to have Nog’s cadet uniform made personally, which is just about the cutest moment in the show.

Our union, united, will never be divided Rom proves to be a champion of the laborer in “Bar Association” when he starts up a union for Quark’s bar to fight for better pay and working conditions. Again, it’s another practice that’s illegal under Ferengi law, but that doesn’t stop Rom (even when it gets Quark attacked), who rallies his band of waiters and Dabo girls together with confidence we’ve never seen before.

Number one dads! We don’t get a lot of scenes between Sisko and Rom, the two best dads of the station (sorry Miles, but neither of these proud papas left their child to die in the woods). When Jake and Nog are quarreling over their odd-couple habits in “The Ascent”, the two fathers concoct a scheme to get them to talk out their problems and be friends again by pretending there are no other quarters available.

Do I have a reason to stay? Maybe it’s because Lewis Zimmerman comes across as such a cretin, but it feels like a victory when Rom asks Leeta out at the end of “Dr. Bashir, I Presume?” and she decides to stay at the station instead of leaving to become Dr. Z’s sex object. Even though everyone already knew she’d say yes, it takes him the whole episode to muster the courage, but let’s take the win.

Self-replication. That’s the only answer. Rom’s contradictory character traits are nothing if not fascinating. Sure, he couldn’t find a cup of water if you dropped him in a lake, but he still comes up with the ingenious idea to have the cloaked minefield also be self-replicating to take on the Dominion in “Call to Arms.” Moments of sheer brilliance like this make Rom a character of simultaneous simplicity and complexity.

I walk through minefields Rom’s profound bravery is on display during season six when he works with the resistance to undermine the Dominion occupation. And it all caps off with “Sacrifice of Angels.” Rom may not have had time to prevent Damar from taking down the minefield, but he still sabotages their weapons array, giving the prophets the time they needed to save the day.

We’re not commandos, we’re negotiators What could have simply been a farcical play on The Seven Samurai or The Magnificent Seven gets a fresh take when Rom has a rare epiphany in “The Magnificent Ferengi”. The Ferengi don’t have the chops for fighting (except for Leck, whom we love), and Rom points out that they should treat the release of Moogie as a business deal, something more in their wheelhouse.

A kinder, gentler Nagus Rom’s entirely hyperbolized character arc concludes with him becoming Grand Nagus in “The Dogs of War.” Sure, it’s definitely entirely out of nepotism because his mother had put him there, and she’s also definitely going to be the one ostensibly in charge because she can pull his strings, but what a journey! And he’s so magnanimous about it that he even gives the bar back to Quark!

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Worst moments

Not next to that human boy. I don’t want you to have anything to do with him. Onto the bad stuff! In “A Man Alone,” Rom doesn’t even have the caricatured voice yet, but does start the series with all the typical toxic Ferengi values. It takes a battle for him to agree to let Nog attend Keiko’s classroom, and even when he does, his anti-hooman racism shows when he won’t let Nog sit with Jake, just as Sisko didn’t want his son hanging out with that Ferengi trash either.

Now go to your room. And no studying. A few episodes later, Rom pulls Nog from Keiko’s school in “The Nagus” after getting criticized by Zek for allowing his son to learn from a hooman female. It’s one of Rom’s biggest faults (and Quark’s too): his preoccupation with displaying as a typical, profitable Ferengi even among people for whom their value system is hot garbage. Rom at least eventually overcomes it.

Rom’s. Nice name for a bar, don’t you think? Another case to make that point: Rom becomes the lackey of Zek’s son Krax and helps in the attempt to kill off Quark in “The Nagus.” It’s not until later that we see more brotherly love, one-sided though it may seem. But this early in the show, Rom is much more of a typical Ferengi, obsessed with amassing power, fame, and fortune above all else.

Ferengi, Romans, Countrymen: Lend me your ears We here at the podcast really rooted for Pel in “Rules of Acquisition,” a female who really has the lobes to break free of the government’s oppression of her gender. So when Rom outs her to Quark as a female (after a scene way too comically goofy of him literally looking through Pel’s socks to find incriminating evidence), we can’t help but start siding against him, the dirty rat.

You know, come to think of it, my ear’s bothering me too Like I did with the Quark post, I will call out all the uncomfortable uses of oo-mox whenever the show sinks to such a level. We see Rom trying to trick Faith Garland into giving him oo-mox in “Little Green Men” – while his son is actively getting it! – and I just find it so gross. For how much oo-mox is played up to be a sexual act in this show, this is sexual assault, plain and simple.

Too. Much. Oo-mox. And to make things grosser, we get even more oo-mox references a couple episodes later in “Bar Association” when we learn that Rom has given himself an ear infection from too much oo-mox. And it’s self-inflicted. So basically what we’ve learned from this scene is that Rom masturbates so much that he gives himself an infection, a detail I wish I never had to learn.

Even. More. Oo-mox. I’ve got one more oo-mox mention to get out of my system because I’m just so angry every time it comes up. Literally right after Rom has admitted to rubbing his ears raw to Leeta in “Bar Association” and she shows some sympathy for him, his response is to request oo-mox from her! They’re not even dating at this point! It’s disgusting. I hate it. Minus a hundred points.

The better to hear you with Speaking of Leeta, it’s exactly a season after this that Rom finally asks her out in “Dr. Bashir, I Presume?” (as we mentioned above!). But! This is a) after we learn that his first wife Prinadora swindled him on their wedding extension contract like a chump, and b) after we watch him literally tuning his ear to eavesdrop on Leeta and Zimmerman’s conversation. And somehow he still never gets the hint she’s into him. Like a chump!

If you liked it then you shoulda put a Bajoran earring on it I’m just gonna lump what a shitty partner Rom is to Leeta into one screed. In “Ferengi Love Songs,” he tries to make her sign a Waiver of Property and Profit just because Jadzia and Miles were teasing him about not being very Ferengi like. This after he started wearing a Bajoran-style earring, which strikes me as on the questionable side of cultural appropriation.

Later in “Call to Arms,” we see Rom trying to suggest Leeta’s wedding dress literally be a couple handkerchiefs and a loincloth (gross) and then once they’re married, he decides she’s leaving the station before the Dominion rolls in, without her getting a single say in her own life (more gross!). Why are all the men in this show so shit at relationships!?!?

You said the reward was twenty Shockingly, Rom’s incompetence hasn’t come up as much as I expected, but his ability to ruin things through miscommunication and shenanigans is on special display in “The Magnificent Ferengi.” He blurts out that Quark is cheating the other Ferengi out of reward money, riles up the rest of the team, and thus gets Keevan killed because he can’t keep big mouth shut.

Foul ball! I’m not alone in hating on the campy mess that is “Take Me out to the Holosuite” but Rom is so disruptively, dangerously bad at playing baseball that it warrants being on this list. How he makes it as far as he does in the tryouts only speaks to how terrible Sisko is at coaching. The guy breaks Quark’s damn head. That’s how bad he is. It goes past being funny to just being idiotic.

That’s why the lady is a scamp We have space for one more bad “Rom is a nincompoop” joke that doesn’t land. In “The Siege of AR-558,” we’re tortured with Rom’s deliberately atrocious cover of “The Lady Is A Tramp” just because Ira Behr really needed to shoehorn Vic Fontaine into as many of the final episodes as possible, and it shows because it’s just another lowbrow, asinine, bottom-feeding gag. Check that off the list.

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Well, that may have gone off the rails but whenever I have to sit through oo-mox jokes, I get testy. And sadly I already know there’s going to be more of that next week with our final Ferengi spotlight on Nog! So make sure you’re following along to catch that, join us as we continue our watchthrough of Enterprise over on SoundCloud or wherever you podcast, engage in negotiations with us on Facebook and Twitter, and stop making oo-mox jokes!

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sophieinwonderland · 5 months

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can you do like. median tulpamancy? like creating facets

I believe so.

I talk about this a bit in my Foundations post.

I call this Splintering, where you take an existing part of yourself and through tulpamancy-like practices, talk to it and treat it like its own person until you've dissociated from it enough that it becomes its own entity.

It's not that different fron Internal Family Systems therapy.

The only issue is that once that part is fully independent and self-aware, you can't control them. So even if they start as a facet, they may deviate into a full headmate.

Deviation should be taken into account before beginning any sort of tulpamancy.

#plural #plurality #tulpamancy #tulpa #endogenic #internal family systems #ifs #multiplicity #systems #system #plural system #endogenic system #pro endo #pro endogenic #endo safe #median system #median #facets #actually plural

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multiplicity-positivity · 5 months

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I don't know if you'd be willing to give advice but I think I'm a median system with less distinct facets, and wanted to ask someone: Would it be a good idea to try and make them more distinct? If so, do you have an tips for how to do so?

Hi! Every system is different. For some systems, having distinct, different headmates helps them function more cohesively and work together better! For others, these sort of differences can cause internal strife and end up doing more harm than good. So it really depends on the system and their unique situations!

If you and your facets are comfortable as y’all are, please don’t feel pressured to change anything about yourself! Lots of systems function with facets, alters, or headmates who are similar to each other, and that’s okay! Honestly we do see a big push in the plural community to ensure every system member is unique and distinct, but we don’t agree with this sentiment. Rather, we think systems should try to learn more about themselves in order to live their most authentic lives, whatever that looks like for them. It really is okay to be a system made up of very similar headmates, alters, facets, or parts! There’s nothing wrong with this at all, and for many systems, it’s who they are and how they function best.

If you do decide that developing differences within your facets is the right move for your system, we answered an ask a while back with tips on helping an individual headmate flesh out their identity a bit more. You could probably use that advice to help your facets grow more distinct!

We hope this response works for you/y’all… Good luck with everything!

🌷 Corrie and 🐢 Kip

#median system #facets

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stinkbrat · 1 year

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Me spitting blood yall know Ranma is Ranma both ways right. You know "f!ranma" is male right like we all know that right we all understand right we know it right all of us together right you know there is no difference right when you say "f!ranma" its still male ranma and if u ship him with ryoga even in "girl type" form it's still 2 men like. U know that right

#i love them so much i lasted 2 seconds in the tag #the series is dated but its not stupid #some of you are though #facets

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doin-just-fine · 6 months

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Something interesting Even if I'm not sure about the existence of people in my system I can still spell out their motivations for hypothetical things.

Example: Yesterday we noticed someone in the system trying to calm us down and we're trying to figure out who it was so we made a list of facets that have a calming role or motive to calm us down and then what those reasons may be... DoinFine: comforts out of necessity and to self-sooth, comforts to feel better (since they're the one the gets to feel for everyone else) Facet 1: Comforts as her role in the space, her job is to relieve, quell, relax any unfortunate emotions. Facet 2: Comforts to distract, change the subject, avoid

I'm not sure if this is Plural unique or if other people can experience this with just themself but I think it's interesting.

#plurality #median system #system #questioning system #actually plural #actually median #plural community #questioning median system #neurogenic #mediple system #facets

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best-star-trek-character · 1 year

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#best ds9 character competition #Curzon dax #quark #facets #ds9 facets #st #ds9 #deep space nine #deep space 9 #Star Trek #best star trek character competition

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attiredpan · 3 months

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Okay so I added You’ll Play Your Part to my Nog Playlist and I’m gonna ramble about the lyrics and stuff cause holy fuck that’s a Nog Song™️ if I’ve ever heard one.

Content Warnings for discussion of depression and suicidal ideation in relation to It’s Only A Paper Moon.

Okay so starting with Twilight's verse in application to Nog’s storyline, I have two or three spots where I feel it’s most relevant; directly after Heart Of Stone/Facets and directly after It’s Only A Paper Moon.

Both leave him resolute to move forward but undoubtedly uncertain, whether for one reason or another. On one hand, you have him breaking away from something he had been raised with his whole life, that he’s watched his family try to fit themselves into and fail, miserably. And even after getting that confirmation from Sisko that yeah, he’s been recommended to the Academy, there’s still so much uncertainty in whether or not he’ll make it.

Not even mentioning how much Quark is being an absolute ass about it, going as far as to attempting sabotage on Nog’s entrance exams to keep him from getting in. But thanks to Rom being one of the best dads on the station, he does get in. He’s found that purpose, he is making those contributions, and he is part of the plan.

And with post-Paper Moon the ‘future that I can’t see’ line has a lot more weight to it, as for a majority of the episode we see him coming to terms with his disability and the trauma that comes with it, going through what I see as a major depressive episode and passively suicidal ideation.

And as someone who’s been through a similar situation(ie. a major depressive episode with all the suicidal ideation that comes with it) in moving forward from it, the future feels nonexistent because you never thought you’d make it this far. And then you do and you’re stuck the thought of ‘Now What?’ and you’re not entirely sure of what to do.

In Nog’s case though, he had something to return to, and goals to move forward towards, which I feel might’ve made the adjustment post-Paper Moon a little easier. Still difficult as all hell, but a little easier.

Now moving on to the other princesses and who I feel takes those roles in both spots.

With the Heart of Stone/Facets portion, I feel like Sisko, Rom, and Jadzia take up these spots. Sisko as Celestia, Jadzia as Luna, and Rom as Cadence.

In MLP, Celestia is the one who sends Twilight off to Ponyville, just as Sisko is equivalently sending Nog off to the Academy via that recommendation letter. And in watching Facets we get a sense of how hard Jadzia worked to earn the right of being a joined Trill and I feel like she’d recognize that sort of stubborn endurance in Nog and understand why it’s so important to him.

And while Cadence is Twilight’s older-sister-figure-turned-sister-in-law, the way she reassures Twilight in this song very much reminds me of how Rom acts as a father towards Nog and stands up to Quark and allows Nog to both apply and go to Starfleet despite Quarks saying otherwise.

Moving on to the Paper Moon part of this; Vic takes up Sisko’s place as Celestia, Rom takes up Jadzia’s place as Luna, and Jake takes up Rom’s place as Cadence.

“Your destiny is uncertain, and sometimes that’s hard to take’, is quite literally the synopsis of Vic’s little speech to Nog before he finally leaves the holosuite. There’s no telling what’s gonna happen to him if he leaves and as hard as that is, he has to face that.

And I will stand by this for as long as I live but Rom and Nog had some of the best character development out of any of the secondary cast of characters, development that can rival even the main cast. (heh, mane cast(plz laugh))

Rom has gone from being the antsy not even second hand under Quark to being a major player not just on the station but in the war effort against the Dominion. In reflection, I can see him recognizing that same want for something more than what Ferengi society expects of him that Nog has, that Nog inspires in him.

And oh my fucking god I’m gonna lose it about Jake/Jake and Nog’s friendship for a hot minute because watching your best friend go from the local troublemaker aside from yourself to not only a respected officer in one of the major military forces in the quadrant, the same one that your own father is a part of, but also a victim of war that you also are is going to be fucking rough.

That the two of you have come so far from when you first met, ending up so far from where expectations put the two of you. That while both of you have witnessed the horrors of war, you got out with only a few scrapes, being able to move on from it because someone was there and experienced it with you and told you that your feelings were warranted and that you didn’t have to be ashamed of being scared, your best friend, on the other hand, lost a fucking limb, has felt like his problems with phantom pain were chalked up to just something in his head. That he’s just crazy. Your friend is now isolating (in one of the CMO’s holosuite programs no less) from everything and everyone and no one knows how to help him.

And the one time you try to visit him you end up getting socked in the jaw. Every attempt made just seems to push him further away. And then like a month or so later, on top of the three he’s already spent in intensive physical and mental therapy, he comes back out and moves back in with you.

I see it as initially being very tense. Both of them just trying to go about their days in the aftermath and move forward, not knowing how to acknowledge or begin to talk about what happened. And when they do finally sit down and talk about it, it’s probably just as gut-wrenching as when the news of Nog’s injury first reached Jake.

In cliche archetypes/dynamics, I’ve always thought of Jake and Nog as Sun/Moon, the position of who’s which switching. Prior to Nog going into Starfleet, I had Jake pegged as the Moon and Nog as the Sun, but afterward, it switched; Jake is now the Sun and Nog is now the Moon.

Either way, one can’t fully shine without the other.

They’re a packaged deal and to separate them just feels wrong. They love each other. They’ve stuck by each other through so much, I can’t see them just not trying to fix things after Paper Moon. It’s hard, but damnit if they’re not gonna try.

Rewatching The Emissary, you know it’s gonna be a while coming but his time will come soon.

As the Sun rises, so does the Moon

As love finds a place in every heart

He’ll be a captain, he’ll play his part

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cosmic--dandelion · 9 months

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So I have a fairly unique take on Kakyoin's backstory in my own writing. I wrote his parents as straight up toxic, psychologically and sometimes physically abusive, and neglectful. My version of Kakyoin ran away from home years before he met Jotaro, spent some time in a mental institution, and instead of being stalked and kidnapped, deliverately sought Dio out on his own.

Quite a departure from the more commonly accepted "Kakyoin has nice, normal parents who just didn't understand him" interpretation, huh? So why did I write this (other than the fact that I graviate toward angsty backstories) and how does it fit what we know about Kakyoin?

Kakyoin's most obvious feature is his intelligence. All of his friends, who are (mostly) brainy guys themselves, acknowledge that he's the best, most reliable strategist in the group, and a good portion of his dislogue is info-dumping. As expected of an honor student, he's very prim and proper to contrast Jotaro's delinquent image. Yet he's also weird, socially awkward, brutally honest, and emotionally distant. I've heard him described as having no setting in between "uncomfortably polite" and "rude bastard", and damn if that doesn't fit him like glove. In battle, he's probably the scariest, most ruthless crusader and is perfectly capable of straight-up beating the shit out of his closest friends, even if he's also capable of bring the bigger person and forgiving them. Friendship and bonds are everything to him. He's caring and empathetic but has balls of steel and takes exactly zero shit from anyone. He's quite familiar with other cultures' customs and traditions, implying he's an experienced traveler. Kakyoin is very independent and has skills, knowledge, and confidence you wouldn't expect a normal kid his age to have.

I wrote a little about Kakyoin's backstory in the second fanfiction I ever wrote, "Facets" and then in great detail in "In Water". If you haven't yet, please go check them out! They are, in my opinion, quite a bit more interesting that just hearing me talk about them. Now onto spoilers, for both the manga and my own work.

So this is Kakyoin's canonical backstory. All of it. The anime isn't canon, the fighting games aren't canon, the Josuke and Hol Horse spin-off isn't canon. Only this is, plus that 19 page backstory Araki wrote for him thirty years ago that will never see the light of day.

This is it. There's a blurb on his character profile that mentions that his parents are alive, they think he ran away, and they're either "shocked " or "very worried" depending on the translation. Then he dies, and in typical Araki fashion, Kakyoin is never seen or referenced again.

The sheer amount of angst Kakyoin had over no one being able to see his stand, even compared to other born stand users, makes me think there's more to it.

In my version of his backstory, Kakyoin's parents are poor. His dad is a rather unimpressive, unambiguous office worker who's made several bad business decision, escalating tensions between him and his wife. She hails from an upper middle class background and is generally a bit snobbish and image-conscious. Kakyoin's birth just adds fuel to the flames. In addition to being another mouth to feed, he has inexplicably bright red hair and violet eyes. (In my version of the jjba-verse, born stand users just have weird hair and eye colors sometimes.) The husband decides that this means his wife cheated on him with a red-headed foreigner.

Kakyoin is a problem child. He's exceptionally bright and imaginative in a school system (remember, it's 1970s Japan) that doesn't know how to handle gifted children, and he's non-neurotypical with a troubled home life to boot. That conversation with his teacher probably happens around this time. He self isolates, but he's not causing trouble on purpose, and the other kids are intimidated, but not hateful. Yet.

Then his parents have a their worst fight yet, and Kakyoin loses control of Hierophant due to stress and almost kills his father. The man is traumatized (as you would be if you were possessed by an invisible tentacle monster only you son can see and control) and abandons his own family. The mother knows Kakyoin did *something*, but she doesn't know what. Her resentment deepens, and they continue to drift apart.

Kakyoin's relationship with his mother reaches its nadir, and now he *is* getting ostracized. He's angry at the world and starting to lash out. By age 10, Kakyoin has started seeing counselors. He is misdiagnosed as having a whole host of scary-sounding mental disorders and is forced to take powerful mood stabilizers and antipsychotics every day. After all, he spends all his time playing with someone they can't see and drawing a weird green thing that looks like a cthulhuloid abomination. The mother reaches her breaking point and surrenders him to a combination group home/"special school". This experience defined him probably more than any other event in his life before this point. It's incredibly violating and humiliating, and Kakyoin develops a complex about always having to be seen as the smartest guy in the room.

At around age 14, he runs away, desperate to find more people like him. On his travels, he hears rumors about a mysterious, beautiful man in Egypt with strange powers. The entire "family vacation" to Egypt was a lie he made up on the spot because he didn't want to admit that HE sought Dio out, not the other way around, and that he's a runaway with a checkered past.

So what about his parents? My version of Kakyoin doesn't hate them and would have at least tried to bridge the gap between them if they'd both hasn't so thoroughly cut him out of their lives. He feels guilty on some level for not being a good enough son, and he wants to believe that they still love him on some level. Hence the "I'm sorry for making you worry" line.

Are they worried? Probably. They're shitty parents, not monsters.

(The "mom has dad and dad has mom" line? The former Mrs. Kakyoin had a revolving line of boyfriends and lovers, so Kakyoin started to think of 'dad' as a temporary position in her life rather than a singular person. Growing up in a dysfunctional family with no socialization with peers who had normal ones, he has a warped view of how families are.)

So what about Dio?

This one's pretty easy. In my version, Dio acted like a friend at first, lulling Kakyoin into a false sense of security. He was a little intimidated, but not full on terrified. Dio didn't want to risk destroying Kakyoin's brain, finding it quite useful, so he basically tried to groom him so the fleshbud wouldn't be needed. Then once Dio realized that Kakyoin was going to be harder to control than his other minions, he implanted the fleshbud. Dio being Dio, he decided to scare the shit out of the poor kid, savoring his pain and horror and sense of betrayal.

I think I would probably feel differently giving Kakyoin this amount of baggage if I ever wrote anything canon-compliant. I also didn't add it to make him more of a wobbie or break him so Jotaro could fix him with the power of yaoi.

It means something to me that (my version of) Kakyoin went through all this shit and healed from it and went on to lead a long, happy, successful life.

#jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #noriaki kakyoin #stardust crusaders #meta #my writing #child abuse #ableism #neglectful parents #backstory #character study #in water #facets #spoilers #long post

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yuki-firefly · 22 days

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I suddenly am hating this long hair of mine. Whose idea was it to grow it this long?? It’s a pain to wash. Sorry for the sour face. This is how I feel about it.

#actually median #median plurality #median systems #median system #facet #facets #persona #vent post #long hair #alienkin #neptunealien #neptunian #nekomimikin #nekomimi #snow leopard nekomimi

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facets-ttrpg · 9 months

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A gas giant colony which used to be rather fruitful, before it succumbed to the storms.

#facets ttrpg #su ttrpg #facets #steven universe #su dnd #steven universe ttrpg #su facets #su fanart

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hitchell-mope · 1 month

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Good for Nog.

#star trek deep space nine #star trek #deep space nine #facets

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sshbpodcast · 22 days

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Character Spotlight: Quark

By Ames

Do you have the lobes for business? This week, we’re putting our knowledge of the Rules of Acquisition to the test with one of our favorite Ferengi characters: Quark! He really does it all: he tends bar, he runs a profitable casino, he romances ladies who you’d think would be way out of his league, he snarks with a certain gooey chief of security, and he schemes! Boy, does he ever scheme.

The Ferengi overall are a bit of a mixed bag, what with their ultra-capitalist, extremely misogynist society, but Quark proves throughout Deep Space Nine to be a complex and well-written person, full of contradictions and character growth. So read the full contract below and listen to this week’s podcast episode (jump to 55:53) as A Star to Steer Her By takes a seat next to Morn to try to catch the ear of the bartender. Come to Quarks, Quark’s is fun, Come right now, Don’t walk: Run!

Best moments

Make him an offer he can’t refuse Ferengi-centered episodes are typically goofball comedies and worth a laugh or five, and “The Nagus” gets us off to a quite funny start. Quark’s performance as Zek’s successor is full of funny little touches, and the allusion to The Godfather with Quark stroking a gilvo as if it were a lapcat is a good joke indeed. Quark would make a fine nagus, I say. And a decent godfather.

Who wears the clothes in this relationship? Quark may start out as a typical Ferengi, but we see glimpses of his development to becoming a better person due to hanging around all these hoomans. In “Rules of Acquisition,” he’s prepared to pay Pel ten bars of latinum to set her up in a new life, and then outthinks the Nagus when she reveals herself as a female. It’s a small step, but a big one for a Ferengi!

Being with you was the happiest time of my life Somehow, Quark is at his best when paired with reciprocating love interests. In “Profit and Loss,” (not to be confused with “Profit and Lace”), he earnestly attempts to get Natima Lang to safety when the Cardassian government is after her for being a dissident. Sure, it starts off one-sided and creepy, but Natima and Quark’s love turns out to be mutual and really sweet!

Behold the power of math! Yet again, we’re highlighting an episode in which Quark is romantically paired with a kickass female and he comes out looking swish! Not only does Quark battle D’Ghor in “The House of Quark,” but he also exposes the fraudulent bookkeeping D’Ghor had done for Grilka’s house. Quark allows Grilka, one of our favorite Klingons, to realize her agency and be her best.

If they want their money back, give it to them? People give Sisko all the credit, being the Emissary and all that, but in “Prophet Motive” we get to see Quark go into the wormhole to talk to the prophets himself! To save Zek from whatever personality rewriting the denizens of the celestial temple had done to him, Quark takes it upon himself to ensure that Rule of Acquisition #10 remains true: Greed is eternal!

The bigger the risk, the bigger the win Quark’s lobes might only be rivaled by his spine, as he demonstrates an absurd amount of bravery when he disarms the bomb that had Kool-Aid Manned into the ship in “Starship Down.” The thrill of gambling with their lives is perfectly captured in the scene and you feel both the relief and exhilaration when Quark and Hanok don’t explode into little bits.

For a minute there I thought you were talking to me as a friend As we said in the Odo post, the relationship between the constable and the barman is one of the best explored in the series. We can read between the lines how much they respect each other but just can’t say it. So when Quark (in his jammies!) goes to Odo when he’s hurting over Kira in “Crossfire” and pretends it’s just for his business ventures, we all know what it really means.

I claim the Right of Proclamation One good episode with Grilka deserves another! When the ever-glorious Grilka comes to Quark seeking financial advice in “Looking for par’Mach in All the Wrong Places,” Quark goes above and beyond to win her favor. He even practices how to fight with a bat’leth and learns some of the basics of Klingon culture, all while remaining true to his Ferengi identity! Qapla’!

Let me pour you another By the time we get deep into the Dominion War, Quark is keen to play both sides, but he does his part for the little resistance band too. In “Behind the Lines,” he slyly gets Damar shitfaced enough to spill all the information he has about taking down the cloaked minefield. Like another good bartender I could name, Quark’s main role is to tend the bar and to listen.

Nobody moves except you Soon afterwards when everything in the resistance is going headlong downhill in “Sacrifice of Angels,” Quark practically single-handedly (okay, with Ziyal’s help) saves the day! He tricks a guard using a hasperat soufflé and then straight up shoots two Jem’Hadar goons and rescues everyone from the brig. If it’s not the first time Quark has deliberately killed, he sure plays it that way.

Ferengi can be just as tough as Klingons Quark’s choice to assemble an all-Ferengi elite squadron to rescue Moogie in “The Magnificent Ferengi” may seem hare-brained (it’s a goofy Ferengi episode, after all), but it also speaks to his pride in what Ferengi can accomplish. There’s also a pure familial love for Moogie that is worth all the latinum in the Nagus’s reward (minus the finder’s fee, of course).

My, what big ears you have Finally, Quark would want to flaunt how he turned out to be right in “The Siege of AR-558” when the standoff with Jem’Hadar soldiers results in massive casualties, including costing Nog his leg. But Quark staunchly protects his nephew and uses his superior Ferengi hearing to detect incoming Jem’Hadar soldiers and blow them away before they can finish Nog off.

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Worst moments

A contract is a contract is a contract We could really, really, really have done without this detail. Sarda, one of the Dabo girls, reveals in “Captive Pursuit” that Quark has sexual favors written into their contracts. It’s one thing for the Ferengi to be misogynists and kinda sleazy, but it’s a whole other level for him to engage in sexual manipulation, harassment, and assault. And for the writers to play it as a joke!!!

You Ferengi, you think you’re so clever but you’re stupid We gave Bashir a pat on the back the other week when he saved Jadzia’s life in “Invasive Procedures” when Verad and his hired goons kidnapped the Dax symbiont. But remember that it was all Quark’s fault that these worm snatchers got onto the station in the first place! In his greed to make another illicit deal, Quark let them through the docking ring. All for a little latinum.

I’ve been waiting for you Can we all agree that it’s a bad idea for the holodeck to be able to create holo-images of real people because it will always get gross? Geordi did it in “Booby Trap,” Barclay did it in “Hollow Pursuits,” Odo did it in “His Way,” and in “Meridian,” Quark violates Kira’s privacy to create a sex object for that creep Toran and make a little profit, which is a running theme with him.

No nephew of mine is going to disgrace our family name by joining Starfleet The way Quark scorns Nog for wanting to follow his dreams and join Starfleet is also a pretty bad look for the boy’s uncle. First he tries to forbid Nog from applying to Starfleet in “Heart of Stone” and then he rigs up the holodeck to ensure he’ll fail his exams in “Facets.” Quark just comes across as an overstepping asshole when it comes to his nephew in these cases.

Quark’s Treasure, ready to depart Shocking no one, Quark is looking to make another deal in kemocite which he couches in generosity while bringing Nog to Starfleet Academy in “Little Green Men.” And of course this gets them stranded in the past in Area 51 for a while, breaking the Temporal Prime Directive and perpetuating the trope that Quark will put profit over his family members at any cost.

Great Exchequer, take me now! I like to call “Body Parts” “Missed Opportunities: the episode!” When Quark learns he owes his desiccated remains to Brunt, Quark just… gives up on life and plans to get himself killed by Garak. And this is supposed to be a comedy! This is so not in Quark’s character and I lament that we didn’t get an episode of Quark faking his own death, which would be infinitely funnier and better!

Why, Quark? Why did you kill my baby? While most of Quark’s schemes are just typical goofy Ferengi shenanigans you’re meant to roll your eyes at and accept with a snicker, Quark actually sidles up to committing atrocities when he gets into the arms racket in “Business as Usual.” When even Jadzia, who’s the most forgiving of his Ferengi ways, won’t talk to him anymore, you know he’s gone and done wrong.

Oo-mox for Fun and Profit After years of development into a slightly better person, and just when you start thinking “maybe that episode in which Quark put sexual favors in his Dabo girls’ contracts was a fluke,” “Profit and Lace” comes along. The teaser shows Quark asking Aluura to consider giving him oo-mox or he’ll consider firing her. And by the end when he should have learned better, he’s right back at it. VOMIT.

You’re the worst thing that ever happened to the entire Ferengi Alliance Speaking of “Profit and Lace,” there’s more to hate in this deplorable episode. Quark gets into a screaming fight with his mother, blaming her radical feminism as the cause of all their problems with Brunt dethroning Zek as nagus. It’s an ugly fight in an ugly episode, and Quark cruelly goads his own moogie until she has a heart attack, jeopardizing their plan to reinstate Zek. And nearly killing her!

The REST of “Profit and Lace” I’m not done shitting on “Profit and Lace.” It should be obvious why we rated it hands-down the worst episode of Deep Space Nine, and Quark’s depiction of Lumba is at the heart of it. It’s like Quark has never seen a woman before and concocts the most demeaning caricature. The hormones are inexplicable. The walk is atrocious. The whole thing flies in the face of any message of equality the show might otherwise champion, all for the sake of a Ferengi joke.

I loved Jadzia as much as anyone in this room After pining for Jadzia in season six almost as much as Julian, Quark weasels his way onto the mission to get her soul into Sto-vo-kor. Throughout “Shadows and Symbols,” it feels like all he wants is to one-up the grief of the actual widower in the room, Worf. Quark makes Jadzia’s death all about him and whines that Worf isn’t gracious enough that he’s there being underfoot.

Someone has to speak up and I’ve decided that someone is me As if all the ogling of Jadzia wasn’t enough, poor Ezri gets targeted by Quark once she arrives on the station. Quark butts in and advises her not to get involved with Worf in “Once More Unto the Breach,” and it’s none of his damn business! The scene plays it off like it’s romantic and funny and cute, but it’s all self serving because he fancies her. Ugh, why did only men largely write this show?

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All bets are final and there will be no reimbursements. That’s it for our Quark chat, but we’ve got more Ferengi characters to spotlight on the way (save me). So make sure you’re following along here, keeping up with our watchthrough of Enterprise over on SoundCloud or wherever you podcast, place your drink order over on Facebook and Twitter, and you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

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