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anotherkindofmindpod · 5 months

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Hello lovelies! I wanted to go back to another episode, Strange Bedfellows: Hiroshima Sky, and address a point raised in that episode. You all discussed Paul "bothering his dying wife" with the song credits switch issue, but I had the exact opposite impression. Here's Paul's quote to Anthony DeCurtis of Rolling Stone in 2001: "But this is why we don't have a great relationship. That, and the fact that Linda rang her during the height of her chemo shit and asked her, and Yoko said, 'That's never going to happen.'"

I do agree with your conclusion that Yoko was not obligated just because Linda was sick and I was pleased you both eventually allowed that Linda may have been offended on Paul's behalf, because that's what I think happened. Let me backup.

Earlier in that same Rolling Stone interview, Paul said, "So when the [Beatles] Anthology came out, after thirty years of always having John’s name in front, I thought it should say, ” ‘Yesterday,’ by Paul McCartney and John Lennon.' So I rang up and asked Yoko. This is when Linda and I were going through our real horror times. I rang Yoko up and said, 'Couldn’t I, on the Anthology, just on this one song, put my name in front? Could we put, ‘Written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon’? It would be a great favor to me.' Linda actually rang her and said, 'Do this as a favor.'"

"Yesterday" appears on Anthology 2, which was released on March 18 1996. According to Keith Badman, Anthology 2 was originally slated for release on February 26, 1996, supposedly due to a track re-ordering (moving "I'm Down") and thus making the original CD booklets obsolete and needing to be reprinted (Paul supposedly footed the bill for that). I have wondered if that delay for Anthology 2 was actually due to Paul wanting to change the song credits on "Yesterday," as he later described (or maybe the booklets had the credits switched on "Yesterday"and Paul had to pay to put them back!).

Paul told DeCurtis that he and Linda made the request "during our real horror times." Linda allegedly started an intensive chemotherapy regime in January 1996 (diagnosed with breast cancer in December 1995), just a month before Anthology 2 was originally due to be released, before being pushed back to March at the last minute. Due to that timeline, it's almost certain that the "Yesterday" credits request from Linda took place in January 1996.

Per Badman's Beatles Diary, Paul essentially stopped working during the year 1996 to care for Linda. He only made two public appearances, both in support of LIPA, and three brief recording sessions for Flaming Pie (separated by months-long gaps) in the entire year. He also did the final Anthology edit approvals and promotional interviews working from home, which was unusual for him at that time, and cancelled a few other work obligations that year.

Now we have the context that Paul and Linda made the "Yesterday" credits request at a terrible time in their lives. Paul seems to have taken offense less at Yoko's refusal and more at the way she did it, which he perceived as insulting to Linda when she was going through an awful time. Whether Linda asked Yoko independently of Paul because she was loyal or protective of him, or whether he knew beforehand and/or urged her to do it? We'll never know.

Yet if you go back to the statement Yoko made on Linda's death, Yoko wrote without elaboration, "The last conversation I had with her was in January this year [1998]." Now why would Linda and Yoko have spoken that January? Did Linda call Yoko, or vice versa? What else happened that month? Well, it so happens that Yoko's "Paul was Salieri/Paul made the phone calls" interview was broadcast in a BBC documentary on.....January 6, 1998.

Putting the speculative pieces together, here's my wild guess as to what happened. While working on the Anthology, Paul realized he wanted to have his name first on "Yesterday." What if Paul brought up the issue in the run up to the Anthology launch, not when Anthology 2 was to be released? Then right after Anthology 1 and the miniseries premiered to much success, Linda was diagnosed with cancer. Right after she started intensive chemo in January 1996, Linda asked Yoko to allow the credit switch as a personal favor to her. Maybe she knew it would give Paul a life preserver during that time, or she thought Paul was right, or some combination thereof, or whatever. Anyway, Yoko said no. Maybe Paul learned about that, was incensed, and tried to switch the credits on the Anthology 2 CD booklets anyway, causing the delay of the album's release.

Then, in January 1998, Yoko gave the Salieri interview with the hurtful comments which cut Paul deeply and Linda, who was always fiercely protective of Paul, became angry. According to friends, Linda was deeply concerned about Paul's emotional state during her illness, and I could see another perceived insult from Yoko sending her over the edge. So she called Yoko to confront her. Paul learned of that conversation (at the time? at some point later?) and, knowing how sick Linda was, became incredibly angry at Yoko in turn.

I think that everything during this time has to be looked at through the lens of Linda's illness. The credits issue, the flaming pie kerfuffle and finally the Salieri comments must have been seen by the McCartneys as Yoko throwing blows when they were at their lowest.

Thanks for all this, very thorough! We're delighted you enjoyed Strange Bedfellows. :) Thanks for listening and writing in.

#AKOM #Strange Bedfellows #credit reversal #Salieri-Mozart gate #Linda's illness #Anthology #Yesterday #Yoko Ono #Hiroshima Sky

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mashpoll · 7 months

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Some 38th Parallels (s4 e20): Radar bonds with a patient, Hawkeye is unable to bond with a nurse, and Frank decides the camp's garbage could be as valuable as war bonds.

Strange Bedfellows (s11 e11): Colonel Potter discovers his son-in-law's infidelity, while Hawkeye and B.J. have to find a cure for Charles's snoring.

#some 38th parallels #strange bedfellows #season 4 #season 11 #round 1

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celinamarniss · 3 months

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Ao3 is down so I'm posting the first chapter of A Smuggler's Guide to Joining the Rebellion (the sequel to Things You Find on Tatooine) here as a birthday present for @virusq Happy Birthday!

It was the sharp tone in Mara’s voice that Han registered long before he recognised the words as they carried down the starboard corridor. “Chewbacca,” Mara hissed, “you’re not listening to me—”

It was the sort of tone that brought Han to an abrupt stop before his brain had realized what his body was doing. Chewie’s reply was too low to make out, but his answer was terse and unhappy.

Oh no no no no. Han was not getting in the middle of some lover’s spat. Swiveling on his heel, He slunk back down the corridor as quietly as he could manage.

“I know you’re there, Han,” Mara’s voice rang down the corridor.

Han frowned, foot half-raised. He was sure he’d been quiet. Why had he tried so hard to be quiet? This was his ship, wasn’t it? He didn’t need to creep around on his ship.

“Yeah?” he called back. “What of it? A man should be able to walk around his own ship whenever he pleases!” To prove his point, he let his feet fall heavily on the grated floor, even though he was still retreating backwards down the corridor.

“If the both of you are done bickering, we’re coming up on Riggett Station. If anyone on the crew wants to help dock the ship today.” A sullen silence answered him and followed him into the cockpit.

Moments later, Chewie lumbered down the corridor. “Teenagers,” he muttered under his breath as he joined Han. Mara trailed behind him like a little black cloud.

She got like that sometimes. Han didn’t understand it, Chewie couldn’t predict it. Without warning, she would fall into a sulk and shut herself off in her room with only her small arsenal of weaponry to keep her company. Eventually she’d come out again, usually to eat, and when she did she acted like nothing had happened. Han didn’t know if this was normal, since he wasn’t entirely sure how teenaged girls were meant to behave. The girls he’d known when he’d been a teenager had, like himself, been fighting too hard to stay alive on the streets of Corellia to mope in a cupboard.

Mara tucked herself in the seat behind Chewie and turned to the navigator’s console without speaking. Chewie grumbled something Han didn’t catch as he settled into the co-pilot’s couch.

“What was that?” Han asked absently as he reached for the lever that would take them out of hyperspace.

But he never did find out what Chewie was going to say, because at that moment, realspace solidified around them with an abrupt jolt that rocked the entire ship. Was the alluvial dampener malfunctioning again? Han had a moment to wonder before the proximity alarm began to shriek.

“Shit.”

An Imperial patrol ship hovered like a viper wasp in the starboard viewport, gleaming silver against the star-pricked void.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit.” Han silenced the alarm. “That shouldn’t be there!”

They knew the patrol schedule for this sector—at least, they’d known last month’s schedule—and no one was due in this particular space lane for a few days.

“They’re hailing us,” Mara said tightly.

The Falcon’s comm dropped the first seconds of the call, almost as if in spite. “—erial patrol, freighter, please identify yourself.”

Han jabbed at comm with enough force to drive it into the control panel. “This is the freighter Millenium Falcon, sending our transponder ID now.”

“Stand by, Millenium Falcon.”

“They’re going to board and search the ship,” Chewie rumbled.

They were fucked if the Imps did a full search of the ship. The fifty barrels of high-grade Kessel spice sitting in their hold wasn’t sort of haul you couldn’t hide under a floor panel. They didn’t have time to move the barrels to a more secure hiding place and if a boarding party had a strong enough scanner, it wouldn’t matter where they hid it.

“Prepare for approach,” the comm droned.

“Uh, that’s not necessary, officer,” Han said, knowing, even as the words left his mouth, exactly how unconvincing he sounded. “As you can see from our ID, we’re just an independent freighter headed to pick up some work on the station.”

“Millenium Falcon, hold and prepare for boarding and inspection.”

There was a finality to the click that ended the transmission that couldn’t be denied. The nose of the cruiser slowly rotated until it pointed in their direction like a blunted arrow.

“Dump ‘em,” Han barked. “We’re still out of range of their scanners. We’re far enough into the system—we dump the cargo and it’ll just look like orbiting debris.”

“Will that work?” Mara asked.

“It’s worked before,” Han said grimly. He and Chewie had never tried it before—not exactly—but it was a common enough tactic that lots of smugglers employed. “But we have to do it now. Dump everything. Mara—”

But she was already gone. Han cursed under his breath and scrambled after her. When he caught up to her in the cargo bay, she had already donned her gloves and was releasing the locking clamps on the rack of barrels.

“Just shove ‘em into the elevator and we’ll dump them out of the loading—careful! What are you doing!—Don't scrape them along the floor! They’ll be able to tell there was cargo in here.”

“On this floor?” Mara waved a hand wildly. “Oh, they’ll definitely be able to tell what scratches on this floor are from illegal cargo.”

Han heaved a barrel into the freight elevator. “I’ll be able to tell, and if I can tell—”

A large furry hand reached around from behind him and hoisted two barrels out of the way. “Quit arguing,” Chewie rumbled.

“We’re not—” Han and Mara snapped at the same time.

“Just a difference of opinion,” Han said as he helped Mara tip a barrel on its side and roll into the lift. “Mara’s opinion is wrong and mine is right.”

Han kicked the final barrel onto the freight elevator where it banged against the other with an ear-piercing clang. He spared a millisecond to worry about the goods before remembering that they were about to space the whole lot.

“Alright, back off.” They retreated to the entryway of the hold as Han activated the elevator release.

The elevator disappeared into the floor as it lowered the barrels out of sight. They listened to the clunk and hiss of the airlock sealing the cargo off from the rest of the ship, and then—nothing. It was all gone, thousands of credits dumped into space.

Back in the cockpit, they watched the shadow of the patrol ship slide across the Falcon’s viewport.

“Everyone gets boarded,” Han said into the silence. “It’s fine. It’s going to be fine, everything’s going to be fine. They’ll smell that something’s off, but if they can’t find it, they can’t pin it on us.”

The Falcon shuddered as it was caught in the grip of the tractor beam and they all flinched at the vibration, followed by the deep mechanical grinding of the airlock slotting into place.

Han could feel Mara and Chewie’s eyes on him. “I’ll go show ‘em around,” he said.

He had a bad feeling about this.

“I’ll do it,” Mara said, darting out of the cabin again.

“Mara—”

“She can do it,” Chewie said.

“She’d better,” Han muttered, pushing out of his seat. “All our asses are on the line if she doesn’t.”

By the time he reached the airlock, five stormtroopers were assembling in the cramped corridor headed by an Imperial officer that looked exactly like every other Imperial officer that Han had ever met. There was something about that uniform that seemed to drain any sort of personality out of a person.

Mara stood between him and the Imperials, her hands loose at her sides, as unarmed as Mara ever was. “Officer! Welcome to the Millennium Falcon!”

Han had never heard her use that tone of voice before. It was innocuous and sweet, too-bright. Chirpy.

It clearly wasn’t the sort of reception the officer had been expecting, either, and it was just enough to throw him off. He closed his mouth around an unspoken command and stared down at her for a moment before he was able to reassess the situation he had walked into. Mara met his gaze with the straightforward earnestness of a concerned citizen with nothing to hide. Han almost believed her himself. Good girl, he thought.

“We’re here to search this freighter for any contraband or unregistered cargo,” the Imperial officer said stiffly.

“Of course, officer,” Mara replied, bright and eager. “We’re on our way to Glavis to pick up a job, so we’re running light right now. Do you have all the equipment you need to scan the cargo hold?”

“A visual inspection is all that’s required at this juncture. Is that your captain?” The officer said, craning his head around in Han’s direction. The expression on the Imperial’s face froze as Chewie lumbered into the view.

“Yeah, I’m him,” Han said. He gestured at Chewie. “Our first mate. And muscle.”

“Is it under control?” the officer muttered, more to Mara than Han.

“Chewbacca’s very reliable!” she said, before Han had a chance to mouth off. “You don’t have to worry about anything! Would you like to view the hold now?”

The officer made a show of looking Han and Chewie up and down once more before he nodded. “Keep an eye on them,” he said to one of the troopers.

“Sure, we’ll just wait in the lounge until you’re done,” Han said, backing down the curve of the corridor. The trooper hefted his blaster and marched in the same direction.

“Our cargo hold is right this way!” Mara chirped. “If you’ll follow me, sir…”

A single stormtrooper remained to guard the exit as the other three marched after Mara and the officer toward the cargo bay. The stormtrooper assigned to watch Han and Chewie stood at attention in the entryway to the lounge, and while it was impossible to tell where he was looking, not with those helmets, Han could feel his eyes on them.

Kriffing Imps.

Chewie put his hands on the table, relaxed and visible, as though he were just resting them on the edge of the holoboard. After a moment, Han did the same, though he itched to drop his hand and rest it on the handle of his blaster.

Every moment that passed, those barrels were spiraling further and further away from the space lanes,

They’d never be able to retrieve them.

After about two minutes, he couldn’t take it anymore. The stormtrooper hefted his blaster as he got to his feet, and Han jerked his hands up in a display of compliance.

Insolent compliance. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

“Keep within bounds,” the Trooper barked.

Han let his hands drop a few inches as he paced over to one end of the lounge, turning on his heel at the edge of the room and looping back again. And again.

If Mara wasn’t able to convince them that the Falcon was a perfectly harmless cargo hauler, then the Imperials would arrest them and likely throw them into some sort of hellish Imperial prison. Han didn’t want to think about the sort of sentence that Chewie or Mara would face.

Or—the Imperials might just shoot them.

Or this was just routine harassment, and if they didn’t see any evidence of smuggling, they’d accept a bribe—not that they had much of anything to bribe with—and be on their way.

Han made another circuit of the lounge. He could hear Mara’s chatter drifting down the hall before he saw her. The sound of a door sliding open, and then another, told Han they were doing a search of the Falcon, but only a perfunctory one. He craned his head out of the lounge, obeying the letter of the law by not lifting a foot to step into the corridor. He could hear the impatient shift of the stormtrooper behind him, but the Imp didn’t call him on it.

Han tensed as Mara paused in front of the door to her personal arsenal. She stood in front of the former supply closet, radiating innocence and chattering on, and not one of the stormtroopers moved to open the door. It was almost as if they couldn’t see it.

Han squinted at the troopers as they continued on down the hallway until they reached the airlock. He could hear the click and of their comms, and then the trooper on guard duty in the lounge shouldered past him to rejoin his squad.

The inspection was over.

If they’d had an Imperial flag onboard, Mara would have waved them off. “Thank you, officer! We appreciate your service!” she called as the airlock rolled back into place.

They waited in the cockpit for a long, tense half an hour before the comm pinged.

“Millennium Falcon, you may go on your way,” a bored voice droned over the comm. Above them, the patrol ship slowly glided back into the space lane and hovered there, clearly waiting to track the Falcon’s route as it headed toward Glavis. There was no way they could go back and collect the spice they’d dumped without giving themselves away. Han could barely feel his fingers as he steered the Falcon away from a fortune in spice.

“Jabba knows exactly how many barrels we were delivering to Glavis,” Chewbacca said.

“Yeah.” A cold stone settled in Han’s stomach.

They were fucked.

#a smuggler's guide to joining the rebellion #or should it be 'joining the rebel alliance'?#wip weds #works in progress wednesday #my stuff #the things you find on tatooine #strange bedfellows

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mental-mona · 3 months

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Excerpt:

In 1979, Iran underwent an Islamic Revolution that reversed decades of progress in economic development, women’s rights, education, health, and more. But why would a country that had taken such strides toward a promising future undergo a revolution? To understand this, it's important to recognize that the so-called Islamic Revolution in Iran was not purely Islamic — it was initiated by leftists and executed by both leftists and Islamists.

Many Mullahs, including Ayatollah Khomeini, grew increasingly enraged with Iran's rulers, Reza Shah and his son Mohammad Reza Shah (the last of the Pahlavi royal dynasty) due to their progressive reforms concerning women's rights. These reforms, perceived as Westernized and contrary to Islamic values, were instrumental in inflaming the discontent that fueled the Islamic Revolution. However, the Mullahs themselves lacked the political skills necessary to instigate a revolution on their own.

In the years leading up to the revolution, Iranian leftists, deeply influenced by revolutionary communist theories and literature, were also growing restless and impatient. Lacking the means to mobilize a people’s revolution independently, these leftists found allies in the Islamic clerical establishment. The mullahs, with their extensive network in mosques and influence over the populace, provided the perfect machinery for an uprising. Together, they were powerful enough to overthrow the system.

...

A key architect in building the ideological framework for the Islamic Revolution was the Iranian sociologist Ali Shariati. Influenced by his time among Parisian radicals in the 1960s, he sought to reinterpret Islam with a strong emphasis on social justice and anti-imperialism by incorporating elements of revolutionary Marxism. He aimed to synthesize these schools of thought to mobilize the Muslim masses (especially the youth) against imperialism, and to promote social change within an Islamic framework. His Islamic-left ideology was the single most influential doctrine that led to the 1979 revolution.

The revolution succeeded. The Pahlavi shahs were deposed and the Ayatollah Khomeini emerged as the leader of Iran. It didn’t take long after the success of the revolution, however, for leftist ideals to be jettisoned.

...

In 1988, the Islamic Republic began coordinating extrajudicial mass executions of political prisoners, including the Tudeh Party and members and supporters of other leftist political groups. The main target of the killings was the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, also known as Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a militant leftist group. Khomeini issued an order for their execution referring to them as "moharebs" (those who war against Allah) and "mortads" (apostates from Islam), using their alleged non-Islamist beliefs and actions as a justification.

...

Iran today ranks among the least free countries in the world. LGBT people have virtually no rights. Same-sex behavior between gay and bi men is a crime that carries a maximum penalty of death. Indeed, thousands of LGBT people have been executed by the Iranian regime since the 1979 Revolution. Women who refuse to wear the hijab risk brutal attacks, imprisonment, or even death, as the much-publicized case of Mahsa Jina Amini showed. And political and religious minorities live as second-class citizens or worse. How might things have turned out if the progress prior to the revolution had been allowed to continue?

The trends, behaviors, and beliefs that led to the disastrous Iranian Revolution threaten to repeat themselves today in the West. We have already begun to see early glimpses. The most prominent example is the ongoing wave of mass anti-Israel and/or pro-Hamas protests following the Oct 7th attacks. Not only has Hamas been a disaster for women, LGBT people, and their own civilians, but the Palestinian “one state” solution would result in a country as unfree as Iran — and one equally antithetical to left-aligned values. Other warning signs include the case of Hamtramck, Michigan, where a progressive-backed Muslim-majority town council voted to ban Pride flags, or the spate of young TikTokers siding with Osama bin Laden’s 21-year-old “Letter to America.” This goes beyond Islamism. Segments of the far-left and Christian far-right are more than willing to team up, as we’ve seen in recent years with European populist movements, the opposition to defending Ukraine from Russian conquest, and radical lefties voting for Donald Trump to “let the empire burn.” The question is: why?

There is a particular strain within leftist thought that often exhibits a fascination with revolution and a drive to dismantle and disrupt, sometimes indiscriminately. Young (and some not-so-young) radicals see the problems that exist today, and with no appreciation for how far we’ve come, pronounce society to be irredeemably flawed. The only solution is to tear it all down. Whatever rises from the ashes, this dubious logic goes, cannot help but be better than the status quo. This perspective, while rooted in a desire for human betterment, usually leads to the precise opposite. Such revolutionary zeal is not just a desire for change, but an impulse to break the existing order, often “by any means necessary”, as so many recent anti-Israel protest signs can attest. This includes allying with any group or ideology that opposes the current power structures. This “enemy of my enemy is my friend” approach leads to alliances that are, at best, ideologically inconsistent, and at worst, counterproductive to the values that many leftists traditionally uphold.

In their pursuit of anti-establishment goals, many leftist factions find common ground with Islamist movements, not because of shared values, but because of a shared opposition to perceived imperialist or colonialist forces. The fact that Islamic fundamentalists oppose women’s rights, secular governance, and basic freedoms; the fact that they criminalize homosexuality and bisexuality in every society they control, is willfully overlooked by the far-left in the pursuit of a common adversary. But the blanket romanticizing of perceived underdogs, often without a critical assessment of their values or intentions, risks empowering forces that, given requisite power, could establish regimes far more oppressive than those they replace. In their quest for a radical overhaul, they’re willing to discard tangible progress in the pursuit of an idealized, hypothetical future. In Iran, decades of progress in economic development and women’s rights were thrown away in the revolution. The West today, which is so much further along, has even more to lose.

#israel palestine conflict #strange bedfellows #iran revolution #history repeats itself #not so progressive #woke madness #israel hamas conflict #leftist antisemitism

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laf-outloud · 1 year

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@PCOSisaidso

If you're missing Walker this week, don't worry! The Walker: Independence watch party continues! We're on Episode 9: Strange Bedfellows!

#walker: independence #WIndy rewatch #SaveWalkerIndependence #WIndy 1.09 #Strange Bedfellows

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arielries · 30 days

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Handed in the final art files for Strange Bedfellows on Monday...not to toot my own horn but it's a bit of a stunner

#strange bedfellows comic #ogn #strange bedfellows #comics #artists on tumblr #graphic novel

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sshbpodcast · 3 months

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Character Spotlight: Worf

By Ames

It’s an honorable week here on A Star to Steer Her By because we’re shining our character spotlight on the show’s first Klingon main character, Worf, Son of Mogh! He’s also the first specifically main cast member to span two different series (sorry, O’Brien), so we’ve got glimpses from both The Next Generation and its films and also Deep Space Nine to cover. Worf might get the most time of any character to truly develop, growing from the guy who gets thrown across the room by the baddie of the week into the complex warrior who, for just a moment, wears the robes of the Chancellor of the Klingon High Council. Go Worf!

So put on your baldric, grab your bat’leth, and top off your mug of bloodwine as we give Worf all the honor he deserves (which every so often, isn’t very much, but other times is a lot!). Read on for the commendable battles below and listen to our death yells over on this week’s podcast (fight your way to 55:39). Today is a good day to die.

Best moments

Bloodwine is red / Andorians are blue… While we gave Dr. Pulaski lots of props for whipping up an antidote so she could participate in Worf’s version of a tea party, it’s also just lovely that Worf honors her by performing the ceremony in the first place in “Up the Long Ladder.” Deep down under the head ridges and scowl, Worf is just a poetry-reading, tea-sipping teddy bear and we love it.

Klingon paper dolls Star Trek characters jump at any opportunity to play dress up, and we get a good instance of that in “The Emissary” when Worf and K’Ehleyr put on their warrior garb to trick a crew of Klingons in cryostasis into thinking they represent the Klingon Empire. As always, this episode gets some extra points for featuring K’Ehleyr, and it turns out Worf’s pretty good at improvisation too.

We have bonded and our families are stronger While we’re certainly going to give Worf some shit for how badly he parents his biological son, his connection with Jeremy Aster in “The Bonding” is actually quite beautiful for the both of them. Each an orphan, they are able to form a familial-type relationship together, and it’s really touching when Worf invites Jeremy to join him in the R'uustai that will bond them as brothers.

He has claimed the right of vengeance A trend emerged in our Best Worf Moments when they tended to fall into the “killing the fuck out of some jerk who deserves it” category, and the first to really deserve it is Duras in “Reunion.” Duras has been begging to get murdered since we first heard his contemptible name, but when he killed Worf’s mate in cold blood, Worf knew exactly what he had to do with his bat'leth.

You may now give birth Despite the fact that it resulted in adding a baby to the cast (blech), we have to give some credit to Worf for delivering the O’Brien baby in “Disaster” in a way that only he could. We’d need a whole additional blogpost for all the great Worf one-liners throughout the two series, as Michael Dorn’s delivery is always gold, but “Push, Keiko, push” has got to be pretty high up there.

Doesn’t gik’tal mean to the death? Worf sees so much potential in Sito Jaxa in “Lower Decks” and spends most of the episode arguing on her behalf for a promotion. So when we see Worf testing her with the made-up gik’tal martial arts to teach her to stick up for herself, we can’t help but see in her just what Worf sees. Ya know, until Picard totally gets her killed.

Assimilate this! Sure, it’s a soundbite-y line designed to be marketable in the trailer, but when Worf survives getting his EV suit punctured by tying it off with some Borg bits and then blows up the interplexing beacon in First Contact, it just feels right. Maybe it’s that Michael Dorn can get away with cheesy lines like “Assimilate this!” or maybe we just love watching Borg explode.

If you were any other man, I would kill you where you stand While the movies are mostly showcases for Picard and Data, First Contact gives some great moments to the other castmembers. Worf’s standoff with Picard is nothing short of chilling. Borg are overrunning the ship and Picard orders Worf and his security team to what is almost certain to be their deaths. Lucky for us, Worf doesn’t actually mutiny, just threatens to a little bit.

And in this corner… While we spent most of The Next Generation watching Worf getting knocked around as shorthand for “the alien threat is strong,” by Deep Space Nine, we don’t really get that anymore and instead he actually gets to kick some ass! In “By Inferno's Light,” Worf is forced to battle Jem’Hadar after Jem’Hadar in the fighting ring, and he refuses to quit even when he has every right to.

Help me fight again, Worf You’ll see in a second that sometimes when Worf tries to help another Klingon die with honor, things can get complicated, but when Kor asks for help going out in the warrior fashion, Worf is totally a good guy about it. He gets the old legend a place on Martok’s ship in “Once More Unto the Breach” even though it’s not Martok’s favorite thing, but in the end, Sto’Vo’kor gains a new warrior.

Seven down, one to go We still have more “killing the fuck out of some jerk who deserves it” mentions to bring up! What list would be complete without the murder of at least one Weyoun on it? In this case, Worf straight up snaps the neck of Weyoun 7 in “Strange Bedfellows” when he has the opportunity and it is a thing of such beauty that it gains Damar’s respect.

What I have done was for the Empire Finally, our last jerk who needed to get killed the fuck out of is that bastard Gowron in “Tacking into the Wind.” Gowron was going around making terrible decisions, rewriting the history books, and trying to get Martok killed in various ways, and Worf finally has enough and kills him in honorable combat. He gets the cloak of the Chancellor for it but selflessly passes it to Martok, like an absolute boss.

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Worst moments

I would rather die than pollute my body with Klingon filth While Geordi is putting racism aside to be able to coexist with his new BFF Bochra in “The Enemy,” Worf takes the opposite path. By refusing to let Crusher give his blood to Patahk, Worf condemns the injured Romulan to death just because of his race. And then the show takes some of the guilt off Worf by having Patahk refuse treatment anyway, leaving Worf’s hands clean, I guess.

This is not unlike a drumhead trial Worf is also quick to fall in line with Admiral Satie’s Red Scare of a trial against crewman Tarses in “The Drumhead.” He gets so infatuated with dispensing justice that he jumps past “innocent until proven guilty” and determines that Tarses is guilty of treason because he’d lied about his alien heritage, when the two things aren’t even related.

Would you further dishonor our family with your disobedience? It’s a running joke in the Star Trek community that Worf is a terrible father and… well, he is. To his defense, he did have Alexander sprung on him when K’Ehleyr died in “Reunion,” and he did try to pawn the little brat off on the Rozhenkos, but that was a terrible move too. So when we watch how clueless he is trying to parent in “New Ground,” we cringe hard at how Worf just doesn’t get it.

Donkey Kong: 1. Worf: 0. A lot of Worf’s decisions about how to deal with his paraplegia in “Ethics” are complicated and problematic, but the way he ended up in such a state is what we’re really here to roast him on. My dude got bitched by a big blue plastic barrel in the cargo bay, and that is downright dishonorable for a Klingon warrior. Battle, sure. Explosion, fine. Spat with Spot, of course. But not blue barrel!

How could your mother mate with a Romulan? Worf’s prejudice against Romulans comes out again in “Birthright” when he learns that Ba’el is half Romulan and he starts spouting racist accusations at her when he’s already seen what kind of a person she is, and even what kind of person her father is. Since his father’s death at Khitomer, it’s a long road for Worf to accept that all Romulans are not that same, and it’s unclear if he ever gets there.

Tell him he is a pretty cat and a good cat All your hosts here at A Star to Steer Her By are ride-or-die cat people, so when Worf refuses to tell Spot he’s a good cat and a pretty cat in “Phantasms” when Data asks him to look after the feline, we take it super personally. Frankly, Data should have looked elsewhere for someone to catsit because what’s supposed to be a humorous moment in the show just makes us angry at Worf. Hiss!

I believe the Ferengi bartender is plotting something By the time Worf joins Deep Space Nine, his racism against Romulans doesn’t come up, but his racism against the Ferengi sure does. Ever since “Hippocratic Oath,” Worf refuses to call Quark by name, instead calling him “The Ferengi bartender.” We joke sometimes on the podcast that the only race it’s okay to be racist against is the Ferengi, but you know what? It’s really not okay.

My life is in your hands Sure, we can argue that Kurn coming to Worf for the Klingon rite of Mauk-to’Vor in “Sons of Mogh” is messed up and puts Worf in a tough position, but Worf manages to pick an even worse outcome for his brother. Instead of killing him and sending Kurn to Sto’Vo’kor with his honor intact, Worf does the least honorable thing and has Bashir wipe Kurn’s memory. Without Kurn’s consent! Eeesh.

Everything you do reflects on me There were a bunch of times during DS9 that we really thought Jadzia could do better than having Worf as her mate, and “Let He Who Is Without Sin” is the chief offender. Worf starts the episode arguing about Jadzia consorting with other men even though she’s with him now, gets jealous of the Dax’s previous relationships, and generally poopoo’s Jadzia’s streak of individuality like a toxic boyfriend.

Have you accepted Kahless as your lord and savior? And that’s not even the worst thing Worf does in the abysmal episode “Let He Who Is Without Sin.” He spends the rest of their vacation on Risa palling around with the New Essentialists who’ve decided that people enjoying things is bad form, which is just Worf being petty. So when he goes out of his way to help them literally rain on everyone’s parade, it’s super damaging to his character.

I do not know you, nor do I wish to know you After Jadzia’s death, Worf utterly fails as grieving in a healthy, productive way and instead opts to take it out on Ezri during “Afterimage.” Just because she’s not Jadzia, Worf treats the poor Trill with disdain, ignoring the fact that she too is living through the trauma of being joined to the symbiont. None of this is her fault! Don’t yell at the innocent cupcake!

If it looks like a Dax and it quacks like a Dax… Worf and Jadzia had chemistry like whoa and we were here for it. Worf and Ezri… just don’t. So when they bump uglies in “Penumbra,” we just find it kinda gross and distasteful. My dude, that is not your wife anymore, and she’s in a very vulnerable state having had the Dax symbiont thrust upon her, so it strikes us as kind of problematic that they go to the bone zone (and I don’t mean Worf’s calisthenics program).

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Qapla’! Now that we’ve got our honor back, take the R'uustai with us and subscribe so that you can see our next batch of character spotlights as we segue smoothly into our crewmates from Deep Space Nine! On the flip side, you can listen along to our dishonorable rewatch of Enterprise over on SoundCloud or wherever you podcast, challenge us to a bat’leth fight on Facebook and Twitter, and join us for some good tea in a nice house.

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