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stardate44002point3 · 1 year

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Shaw and Risk - some thoughts

Rewatching Picard S3 and to turns out I have more thoughts about Shaw. Who out there is surprised?

So, much of what follows is actually derived from the many, many Todd Stashwick interviews about Shaw that are all over the internet right now. With some additional insightful commentary from the Shaw Nation Discord server (thanks all y'all).

Here's the thing. In response to all the people who hate Shaw, who think he isn't a "real" Starfleet captain; who think he's a coward (thanks dudebros on the ST Facebook pages); who think he's boring. He's actually none of those things. He's what actual military (and quasi military) leaders look like. Our first introduction to him is him talking about structure and tempo and meter; structure exists so that when you are doing something inherently risky (exploring the final frontier) you have guidelines so that you aren't always relying entirely on your own judgement. Rules and guidelines and procedures exist to keep people safe in an inherently risky environment.

To make a real life comparison, in search operations, coastguard, marine and mountain rescue there are specific conditions under which a rescue will NOT be initiated because the weather or other conditions are too dangerous, exceed the tolerances of the equipment etc. Think back to the beginning of the year when Julian Sands went missing in the San Bernardino Mountains, there were entire days when not only were the helicopter search and rescue teams grounded because of weather, but even the ground team didn't deploy because it was too dangerous (and there were multiple people lost on Mt Baldy at the time). Are they cowards? Of course not, they have procedures and criteria that are laid down by risk management experts that advise whether there is too great a risk to the rescuers. If the risk is too great, they don't go out.

But we're used to fictional universes where those are exactly the kinds of high-stakes situations that make for good drama, and that always end well because our deontological heroes always have to be vindicated.

Presumably Starfleet has exactly those kinds of structures and procedures that govern their operations; so taking a crew of 500 out beyond the edge of Federation space to rescue Bev Crusher from some unknown peril is exactly the kind of thing that Starfleet would have policies for, and those policies would say NO. As they should. We're just used to our Starfleet heroes blithely ignoring those structures, taking the 1% of success chance and of course, succeeding because the writers make it so.

Although it has often struck me that, if we actually were able to count the 'redshirt' (they aren't all redshirts, that's just shorthand for unnamed characters) deaths in Star Trek, the attrition rates for our favorite captains might be surprisingly high, even with writers giving us deus ex machina saves every second week. It's just that they aren't main characters so their deaths are meaningless.

Back to Picard: there is a moment in Episode 2 that struck me at the time, where Seven is really disingenuous. She asks Shaw if he wants to be known as the captain that let two legends die; or the hero who saved them. As his XO she should also have pointed out option 3; that he be known as the captain who led his crew of 500 into a face off against a much more powerful opponent and they all died. Now, why didn't the writers put those words in her mouth?

Added to which, Shaw is an engineer, I think there's a reason the writers made him an engineer. A huge part of his professional life is risk-management, that's much of what engineers do. They are consequentialists. They look at the equipment tolerances, margins of safety, human capacity for error, and then they make rules to allow certain actions to take place (exploring the final frontier) and also keep as many people as possible safe (bringing most of your crew home alive).

And finally, there's all that accumulated trauma from Wolf 359. Shaw lived, undeservedly as far as he is concerned, his job as captain is to make sure everyone else lives. And using Starfleet protocols is one way to make sure that happens, to the best of his ability.

I mean, Shaw is clearly not a coward, he has commendations for bravery in his ready room, he's all in once he makes a decision to commit to a course of action, and he puts himself in the frontline every time he has a (realistic) chance of shielding his crew from harm. The man was willing to die to stop the Changelings from taking the bridge.

And that's the only niggle I have about his last appearance, and his speech about Seven; Shaw is not boring and rules don't necessarily need to be broken because again, the rules exist for a reason, they are generally not arbitrary and, in reality, breaking the rules gets people killed. The only reason rule breakers are celebrated in Star Trek is because it is FICTION. It's how we would like to see the world, not how it is, but it's actually a pretty dangerous way to think.

#liam shaw #picard s3 #shaw thoughts #Star Trek ethics

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sebastianshaw · 9 months

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re THIS QUOTE it's one of the best that sums up Shaw, I think. He doesn't intend to KILL this woman to silence her, it's messy and uneccsary and would just draw MORE attention. And he doesn't NEED to. He can just buy out all the publishing houses. And doing so doesn't even conflict with his own ideals----freedom of the press, of course, but the press has the same freedom to refuse a story. And if he owns the press.... Honestly, I think it's a GREAT example of just how powerful someone like him really is in ways that have nothing to do with punching or violence, and how that power can be used. And it's way more interesting to me than if he just murdered her.

#shaw thoughts #meta

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perfectfeelings · 7 months

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I like how sleeping next to someone means more than sex sometimes, the body’s way of saying ‘I trust you to be by my side at my most vulnerable time,’ you have no defenses when you are asleep, you tell no lies

Eric Shaw

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thehopefulquotes · 8 months

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I like how sleeping next to someone means more than sex sometimes, the body’s way of saying ‘I trust you to be by my side at my most vulnerable time,’ you have no defenses when you are asleep, you tell no lies

Eric Shaw

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linusbenjamin · 21 days

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Amy Acker as Root Person of Interest Created by Jonathan Nolan

#person of interest #poiedit #tvedit #scifiedit #root #samantha groves #amy acker #nikolatexla #i love how i thought i'd only gif michael emerson before i start this show and then i only giffed root and shaw lol

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thoughtkick · 3 months

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Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

George Bernard Shaw

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pigeon-princess · 9 months

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The duality of DnD characters. Silas is in the nightmare castle of a thousand rats while Tybalt has no thoughts in his head.

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #dnd character #dnd character art #dnd ocs #ocs #Silas Shaw #Silas #Tybalt #tybalt montague #dnd art #dnd 5e #curse of strahd #my art #Tybalt has no thoughts in his head #Silas is consumed with a thousand thoughts

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quotefeeling · 1 year

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I like how sleeping next to someone means more than sex sometimes, the body’s way of saying ‘I trust you to be by my side at my most vulnerable time,’ you have no defenses when you are asleep, you tell no lies

Eric Shaw

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darling-solaire · 28 days

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sketches of a couple of redacted couples

(This is a new side blog to hopefully convince me to post more redacted content but we’ll see if I fully commit to it)

#they’re saved from my TikTok that’s why they’ve got the watermark #I have many many thoughts on the characters and their partners cause I cannot view the listener as myself and always end up making them #their own character 😭😭#redacted #redacted asmr #redacted audio #shaw pack #milo greer #redacted asher #redacted milo #Sam Collins #redacted Sam #redacted guy #David shaw #redacted David #redacted arron #redacted.txt

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perfectquote · 2 months

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Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

George Bernard Shaw

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scribble-dribble-writes · 7 months

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Pinterest knows me well omg

#jeff ward #deke shaw #one piece buggy #buggy the pirate #op buggy #captain buggy #buggy the clown #buggy one piece #buggy thoughts #buggy #opla buggy

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arrowfleur · 1 month

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“What was that for?”

Some more thoughts on Darlin’s love languages and Sam’s HBS. Part 1 observations.

Disclaimer: I wrote this last summer so if all of this seems really obvious now that’s why but I’m just posting my drafts and I still like it 😌

(Also thank you to @darlin-collins for reminding me I wanted to write this when you reblogged that old Darlin love languages post of mine! I remember you said that you wouldn’t mind if I talked about it for hours and so I hope this and the next post serve you well <3 )

To me it is clear that touch is one of Darlin’s main love languages . In their relationship, Darlin’ initiated the first touch (besides healing) when asking to hug Sam. The first video with the pair in a non-platonic relationship, Darlin strokes their fingers across Sam’s chest and initiates their first kiss, whereas Sam clarify’s his feelings with words.

Darlin’ also does not hesitate in hugging Asher nor David when the contact is offered, instead eagerly using it as a way to receive/give comfort.

Which makes it all the more devastating when you remember how long they went without it/ how they used physical touch to harm themselves. The way that as soon as Sam asked if there was anything he could do for them in the video after the David debacle Darlin straight away asks if he could give them a hug?!?! 😫😫

Whenever Sam compliments Darlin’ there is very rarely a gap where they’d reply but there is commonly a kiss straight after. Which shows that they use physical touch to display emotion and communicate as well.

For example; Straight after Sam’s famous ‘you just feel so right, like I didn’t know it could’ and ‘a lot of things come easy with you’ lines.

When Sam assures them that it’s okay to rest and relax when they moved in with him, Darlin’ once again kisses him straight after and then proceeds to move onto his lap.

In Sam’s HBS 22 they kiss Sam (to comfort him) straight after he confides in not wanting to burden them with the fact he can’t go out in the sunlight (at 12:47) and straight after he compliments how they look (at 16:40, as a thank you).

So when Darlin’ kissed Sam at the nightclub to stop him from overthinking and he responded with ‘what was that for?’ It was a genuine question. He knows they use physical touch to communicate and he didn’t understand what they meant by it, since to him there was no comfort or thanks necessary.

And I just think that’s cute as shit.

#it may be a little bit sad that i observe them this much but i dont care #i'll never not be astounded by how well thought-out these characters are #redacted audio #redacted asmr #redacted sam #redacted darlin #arrowsqueue #redactedverse #redacted david #redacted asher #redacted headcanons #redacted shaw pack

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sebastianshaw · 1 year

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TL;DR I don’t write Shaw as taking sexual advantage of unequal power dynamics and I have a pretty solid canon basis for that. Throughout the 80s and 90s, Sage is undercover in the Hellfire Club as Shaw’s trusted assistant Tessa. She’s constantly clad in lingerie like all the other women, and is shown as totally faithful to him and always at his side, but never ever shown or even hinted to be romantically or sexually involved with him in anything that I’ve read of them. And Shaw is a guy who was shown to be, well, sexually active. And if I were the writers, I feel like it would have just been natural to think “hey what’s a good way to play up he’s evil and sexual? Have him be sexually evil! How about to his sexy subordinate, Tessa?” But that never happens. I have not found even the barest hint of that in canon except for this one miniseries where she’s written as weirdly super-flirty and OOC and doesn’t even LOOK like Tessa tbh so I don’t really count that. And like...Claremont was writing most of the stuff where she’s his assistant AND the stuff after her reveal as Sage. Claremont LOVED sexually predatory villains. So I think if Shaw was ever meant to be taking advantage of their power dynamic, Claremont would have played that up to the MAX, instead of never even hinting at such a thing. As I discussed with my mutual @emmatriarchy who writes Sage, her being in lingerie as “Tessa” probably had more to do with horny artists than anything, and it would make SENSE for her as a SPY to blend in with the other women as much as possible (also, if men there think she’s Shaw’s “property” they’re less likely to bother her) There’s also the scene in The Legacy Quest trilogy I’ve mentioned many time when, despite his attraction to Storm, he flees the room when she offers herself to him sexually because she’s not in her right mind. And for all his horny, he’s NEVER been creepy to a female opponent, never done anything Like That to a captive or even hinted he’d like to, etc. Dude keeps villainy and sex separate. So that’s why I don’t think he would attempt to sexually exploit the power dynamics her has with @the-blackened-dove (who is in a similar role to Sage as Tessa, just with magical binding to boot) or demand it of @hraunwyf because he bought her in marriage from Odin. It’s clearly a line he finds distasteful and beneath him as a gentleman, however horrible he may be in MANY other regards. I realize writing an entire thing on “my character is not a rapist” is not normally a thing you need to do, but the idea Shaw’s pervery crosses over this line is pretty common in fandom + there were some hints dropped in Th 2010s Retcon We Don’t Acknowledge Here that he might have been sexually abusive to Emma on top of everything else (you know, just to make it even more OOC why not)

#out of shirt #shaw thoughts #headcanons

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resqectable · 4 months

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Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

George Bernard Shaw

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thehopefulquotes · 23 days

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Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

George Bernard Shaw

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jacks347 · 2 months

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So I was relistening to Sam for the billionth time and once again came across David lecturing Darlin for being dumb.

Now, this episode gives me...mixed feelings. It always has. And the point I'm about to make was actually one of the first I ever made on the Discord but y'all know me, never missing a chance to restate and overexplain.

I'm most definitely not the first person to point this out but Darlin's first interactions with Sam that get them chewed out are extremely similar to Milo's first interactions with Sweetheart. They both meet somewhere where the listener shouldn't be, they come to a tentative agreement, then fight something that gets them fucked up and was kind of stupid. The difference is, as far as we know, David never finds out about Milo's stupid mistake. And, if you ask me, a shade is far more dangerous than a couple of vampires.

Can you imagine that pack meeting? Darlin getting read the riot act, Milo sitting there knowing he did something just the same but got away with it. Do you think he called them out? Or do you think he stayed quiet, knowing he had no room to talk?

And more so, how do you think Darlin reacted when they found out the story of how Milo and Sweetheart first met? The indignant rage of knowing what he did and got away with, the memory of the burning shame they had to sit there and endure, the humiliation they felt getting lectured like a child. He did the same thing and got none of that. I always imagined that when Sweetheart told them that they had to go take a walk for a few minutes in order to keep a cool head and not explode and then refused to talk to Milo for three weeks so that the rage would calm down and they wouldn't have to suppress the urge to break his jaw whenever they spoke to him.

The point I first made was "Do you think Darlin holds a grudge against Milo for not getting the same lecturing that they did?" Maybe it's not a strong one, but it's there.

It's interesting how the same event characterizes people differently. In Darlin's case, we see them as reckless and stubborn, someone acting out without a plan. In Milo's case, we see him as strong and protective, wanting to help keep someone safe. How can the same even paint one character as a hero and one as a villain when they did the same thing?

Because of connotation, my friends.

Milo has been painted as the smart-mouthed but fiercely loyal and protective friend, so we (including the rest of the pack) want to see his actions in the same light. Darlin has been painted as a brooding, emotional outcast, someone who acts rashly but with good intentions, so we see their actions similarly. But that's not fair. It's not fair to Darlin, who just wanted to protect their friends, and it’s not fair to Milo, who needs to be reminded that him throwing himself in the problem headfirst in life or death situations isn't the solution.

In conclusion, Milo deserves to have his little excursion with Sweetheart revealed and be reprimanded out of respect for Darlin cause that shit ain't right and it bothers me.

(Also, one more thing. In Sam's first healing audio after the double vampire fight he asks why Darlin wouldn't just tell a healer to shut up and heal them when they started asking questions. But in reality, the healer that Darlin would've gone to while running on instincts probably would've been Marie and yeahhhh I'd like to see anyone tell that woman to shut up and do something. Don't fuck with Mama Greer.)

#this got out of hand #once the thoughts start #they dont stop #and now we're here #but yeah #i've held this in the back of my mind for almost 2 years #justice for darlin #asmr roleplay #redacted audio #redacted asmr #redacted darlin #redacted milo #redacted david #redacted shaw pack

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