gentlemanjimcraddock

[gentlemanjimcraddock]

Sorry if this is too kinky but can you hold my hand and tell me i mean a lot to you.

[gentlemanjimcraddock]

I've come up with a new system of gender, it's very simple - if you went to a drag brunch bingo, would you be there for the drag, brunch, or bingo?

[gentlemanjimcraddock]

Ace pilot tom paris has to go to traffic school has to be one of the funniest star trek b plot ideas ever

[gentlemanjimcraddock]

I'm watching TOS "day of the dove" for the first time and for all its problems, it's kinda sickening that this episode from 1968 had characters being racist and assaulting a woman being evil, wrong, unconscionable things that could never happen if the crew weren't being psychologically affected, and just this week we got a star trek episode where characters being nakedly racist and a character being brainwashed into being a perfect submissive partner are teehee lil jokey jokes

[gentlemanjimcraddock]

Why is it that since season 1 episode 1 snw has been treating its own chief medical officer, a black guy, like he's the medical sidekick to chapel, a civilian nurse and, oh, that's right, a white lady.

[gentlemanjimcraddock]

IMPORTANT NEWS - I taught my toddler niece to say janeway. I asked her if she could say sisko or picard and she said no, she's picked her side.

[gentlemanjimcraddock]

Picard: not like Kirk at all (negative)

Sisko: not like Kirk at all (positive)

Janeway: a little bit like Kirk (positive)

Archer: a little bit like Kirk (negative)

[gentlemanjimcraddock]

Star Trek SNW s3 ep7 "What is Starfleet" puts this up on the screen. There's a predictable paint-by-numbers 'pro cop/military' plotline as the B plot and the A plot is dedicated to saying we should, beyond a shadow of a doubt, not be giving the Lutani weapons. There are no details about the war and the Kasar are non-entities. Even the fact that there's such a large discrepancy in the number of people killed, suggesting a power imbalance, isn't said aloud, just placed on screen and then never mentioned or taken into consideration in how Enterprise interacts with them or how SNW portrays them. There is no emphasis put on it. They are not treated like a planet of people who are under severe attack. There's no explanation given for why they want to use a creature as a weapon. We are not meant to have empathy for the Lutani. Pike says the Federation will of course help them...but not 'like this'. Given the episode's framing, it feels clear to me they aren't saying 'we won't let you use this specific weapon' but 'we won't give you weapons at all' given how much emphasis is put on how wrong it is to give the Lutani "weapons" not just specifically their whataboutism alien butterfly. This episode Does Not Want You To Think. Journalists are bad, biased. Beto can only be redeemed through realizing he didn't actually have any real point and his criticisms had no grounding in morality, only childish feelings that "Starfleet took his sister away :(". He is redeemed through coming around to being completely on Starfleet's side. Starfleet, SNW says, is the thin blue line between order and chaos. It is, ultimately, always in the right. And those who criticize it are symbolized through one character who goes from malicious to misguided - always, ultimately, never having a REAL leg to stand on. Starfleet is good because everyone in it is good. All those critiques from earlier can be safely wiped clean now that we know they weren't REAL. They didn't come from any ACTUAL moral standing. The system works! Why does Starfleet have such a strict code of silence and obedience? Is Starfleet a military power? Is it a colonizing force? Beto's points are brought up, seemingly so the episode can put on the veneer of 'asking the hard questions' or 'tackling issues' but these questions/critiques are never pursued, never made substantial, because the episode doesn't want you to have to actually consider them. Similarly, the episode does NOT want you to think about the conflict between the Kasar and the Lutani. It puts those statistics up but quickly tells you that the Lutani aren't Federation, were on the Klingon's side during a war, and they tortured a creature to turn it into a weapon. The only Lutani shown on screen who's portrayed as even approaching sympathetic, nuanced, or good is a woman who dies going against her people in the scene she's introduced, continuing SNW's incuriosity and unwillingness to explore alien life/culture. Aliens are evil, strange, or they provide helpful tidbits to our heroes before immediately dying. What is the conflict between the Lutani and the Kasar? The episode is ostensibly about it, so what to do we know about it? Practically nothing. Why did the Kasar attack? What is the history between these two planets? Do those death statistics include civilians? Which side put them out? Why are the number of casualties so uneven? Are the Lutani an oppressed people? Why did they ally with the Klingons at one point? The episode uses that decision as a shorthand for 'they're evil' but we don't know. Why does Starfleet want to provide aid to the Lutani over the Kasar and why in the form of weapons? The Lutani scientists said "we were wrong" about using the creature yes but what aspect specifically? Using it at all? Against the Kasar? How they plan to use it? We can only assume. You'd think a star trek episode or its framing device, a documentary, might tell us these things but this isn't a documentary. It doesn't even feel like an episode of TV . It feels like a propaganda piece, and it reads as such, in-universe and out.

[gentlemanjimcraddock]

What is Starfleet, Trusted Sources, and Lower Decks vs Strange New Worlds (long post)

From before the season even started I felt like SNW was not equipped to answer the question of What is Starfleet. After this finished I rewatched Lower Decks Trusted Sources, a similar episode about a format bender being used to have a conversation with what Starfleet is.

In Trusted Sources, we engage with the fact that the show often comes into an area, greatly affects them, and then leaves without any follow up. It is a real critisism that shows that, while Picard's decision helped out the Ornarans, the scars are there and they dont want anything to do with Starfleet anymore. Meanwhile, the Brekkans have been completely lost as a species and them not following up allowed for the Breen to invade unimpeded. It also uses the format to play around with the idea of how we present ourselves in front of the camera. Carol uses the episode to try and put her best foot forward, even if it is against the reality of what her ship is like. The contrast of how she presents off camera as opposed to on camera ends up justifying the impression the reporter has of her and the ship, and while it isnt revealed until later, Buenamigo did the same thing, using the presence of the cameras to show off his personal project in a positive light, despite the dark intentions he had behind the scenes. In both cases their need to get their personal projects to have Starfleet support superseded their mission as representatives of Starfleet. A good episode having critisisms of both Starfleet and media coverage, without fully undermining either, and tying into the character conflicts as well. Mariner's speech about how the people on the ship are like a family mirrors the end of this episode, but feel more substantial.

In contrast, What is Starfleet seems to point to interesting things at the start, but has absolutely nothing to say about them later. It starts out being a very pointed discussion about if Starfleet is colonialist and militarist, and drops them into a conflict where again, we have two planets at conflict, but (we have to assume, given the lack of context) that the power dynamics are completely off. That has led to them turning this animal into a weapon. The whole episode, the crew is visibly against what they're doing but at every chance they get to try and find an alternate and more ethical solution, they reject it, deciding to just follow orders. Uhura specifically says they could try and communicate with it and they still fire the torpedos first. The creature says that it wishes for death and they dont spend a millisecond trying to save it, and that's on top of being willing to deliver it as a weapon of war in the first place, framing this as them making the hard decisions and doing the right thing "eventually." But even then, why is the episode that framed this incredibly asymmetrical conflict as the central point of the story focusing entirely on the extremely desperate losing party with literal millions more in casualties? Why are they who the "You dont want to be an enemy of the Federation." is directed at? So the Federation is portrayed badly. And then it's this framing in which Uhura gives her speech that we're all a family, and ends the episode with them all having dinner and saying yeah it's all good.

And that's just half of it, because the other half is the documentary style is completely wasted. Ortegas is a terrible reporter, gives leading questions, records people without their consent, and is portrayed as overall bad and biased....except it's all in service of undermining his questions at the start, which make no sense because the episode portrays Starfleet badly! Uhura does the kicker and tells him that this journalist trying to find out about if the Federation may be messier than it likes to think is only doing it out of spite because he misses his sister, and needs to chill out and go eat some food. Yeah, the institutions dont need to be questioned, and those doing so have ulterior motives. And the episode seems to agree, and doesnt engage with its questions at all anymore.

At least the space creature looked nice.

[gentlemanjimcraddock]

It's really easy to forget that Cass enjoys being Batgirl. Obviously she's a very tortured character and her stories almost always end in tragedy, but this is still fun for her. She likes the adventure and the thrills. She likes soaring across rooftops. She likes owning badguys. She likes saving people. If anything that's one of the things that most alienates her from the people around her. Barbara is constantly trying to get her to understand that there's a life for her outside of Batgirl where she can finally be happy, what she doesn't get is that for Cass, her life as Batgirl is what happiness looks like.

[gentlemanjimcraddock]

Terry Pratchett started his career as a crypto-monarchist and ended up the most consistently humane writer of his generation.  He never entirely lost his affection for benevolent dictatorship, and made a few classic colonial missteps along the way, but in the end you’d be hard pressed to find a more staunchly feminist, anti-racist, anti-classist, unsentimental and clear-sighted writer of Old White British Fantasy.  

The thing I love about Terry’s writing is that he loved - loved - civil society.  He loved the correct functioning of the social contract.  He loved technology, loved innovation, but also loved nature and the ways of living that work with and through it.   He loved Britain, but hated empire (see “Jingo”) - he was a ruralist who hated provincialism, a capitalist who hated wealth, an urbanist who reveled in stories of pollution, crime and decay.  He was above all a man who loved systems, of nature, of thought, of tradition and of culture.  He believed in the best of humanity and knew that we could be even better if we just thought a little more.

As a writer: how skillful, how prolific, how consistent.  The yearly event of a new Discworld book has been a part of my life for more than two decades, and in that barrage of material there have been so few disappointments, so many surprises… to come out with a book as fresh and inspired as “Monstrous Regiment” as the 31st novel in your big fantasy series?  Ludicrous.  He was just full of treasure.  What a thing to have had, what a thing to have lost.

In the end, he set a higher standard, as a writer and as a person.  He got better as he learned, and he kept learning, and there was no “too late” or “too hard” or “I can’t be bothered to do the research.”  He just did the work.  I think in his memory the best thing we can do is to roll up our sleeves and do the same.

[gentlemanjimcraddock]

Card from a set of officially licensed 1995 Mario quiz cards.

Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: Foreverrainbowz

[gentlemanjimcraddock]

It's also EXPLICITLY enrichment for the starfleet officers, exploring and meeting new aliens is the JOB DESCRIPTION

one thing I CANNOT stand about the voyager fandom is the constant meme of "they would get home so much faster if Janeway would stop checking random planets and anomalies" like voyager is projected to take 70 YEARS to get back if they stay on course, most of them will be dead by then, why the fuck not stop at planets on the off chance that there's some fuckass alien bullshit that will get them there faster AS IT REGULARLY DOES

[gentlemanjimcraddock]

A lot of weird and depraved shit crosses my for you feed on the odd occasion I look at it, and hey live and let live that's what the not for me button is for, but I can't tolerate folks still p*tter posting in the year of our lord twenty goddamn twenty five that's an autoblock

[gentlemanjimcraddock]

marvel making the silver surfer a chick so johnny storm won't look gay for trying to figure out her language is so sad it's almost funny

[gentlemanjimcraddock]

I really dislike the idea he never came back, way to have a black man abandon his children in *checks notes* 2025. But until proven otherwise, my headcanon is that he came back basically right away and hid out on bajor with his family, with Kira covering for him.

[gentlemanjimcraddock]

the life of mick rory as told through publicly available information in the arrowverse is so fucking funny. let's say you're a true crime girlie so you know about the serial arsonist who burned down his home as a kid and killed his parents. next you hear he's fighting the flash with a flamethrower. sure, why not.

then he just disappears for several years before surprise revealing himself to be rebecca silver, noted author of trashy sci-fi romance novels. at a romance novel convention where he'd hired some british woman to pretend to be rebecca silver but she did kind of a shit job and couldn't answer any questions.

later that year he's part of a viral video where a bunch of super heroes and magical creatures fight a dragon with the power of song at a newly opened theme park. they claim this is all real and they're actually a group of time travelling superheroes called the legends of tomorrow.

they become huge celebrities and film one (1) episode of a documentary where they fight a resurrected immortal grigori rasputin, so they explode him and stuff the bits into jam jars. then they hold a panel and claim they faked it all with special effects.

he disappears *again* and never resurfaces but one of his former team members writes a tell all biography of his adventures that tells everyone that mick left the team after he got brain m-pregged by a tentacle alien and decided to settle down with her to raise the kids.