lieutenantcharleslorem - Tumblr blog

[lieutenantcharleslorem]

[lieutenantcharleslorem]

random stuff plus scenes from the star trek pocket novels that haunt me enjoy

[lieutenantcharleslorem]

we started watching DS9 a little while ago and it’s KIND OF BECOMING MY FAVORITE TREK after a lifetime of being a TNG person???? I did not anticipate this at all. But I can’t help it, it’s a show comprised almost entirely of people who would just be weird side characters in another show! 

anyway i started drawing this trash goblin. every time quark and odo are onscreen i find myself clapping my hands like a small child

[lieutenantcharleslorem]

Fanfiction is such a thing, cause you can read all the warnings, and go through all the tags, and really think you know what you’re getting, and still nothing will prepare you for someone using guacamole as lube.

[lieutenantcharleslorem]

In the first episode of Improvised Star Trek (a podcast I highly recommend), the episode is called About a Gorn, and the The USS Sisyphus hosts a Gorn Ambassador. They’ve come with the classic sci-fi problem, ‘we are out of babies for some reason and humans are compatible to help us make more babies.’ I haven’t listened in a long time and I bet some jokes don’t age well because it was 2011. But if I recall the Gorn was fairly normal, and it was everyone on the ship around them being weird and prejudice. But ultimately they got some babies out of it because their resident slut man Ch’arles Lorem (who my blog is named after) couldn’t be professional for a single mission. I forget why I’m telling anyone any of this. I lost the thread.

New Star Trek apparently brought back the Gorn for the first time in ages, only to make them always chaotic evil monsters who are literally born with a blood-thirsty muderlust and also breed like xenomorphs for some reason.

And, like, I understand this is very much me complaining about a Glup Shitto not being in character, but the whole point of the Gorn in their original appearance was to subvert the audience’s expectations of how space exploration stories go.  We’re introduced seeing a Federation colony that’s been destroyed by them, and our hero swears revenge on them in turn.  When we finally see what they look like, Kirk, our hero, tells us himself that he is instinctually inclined to be revolted by their features - they’re reptilian with insectoid eyes, which is fairly nonhuman for a Star Trek alien.

But the big revelation for Kirk and the audience is that the Gorn didn’t strike first.  They saw an interstellar super power land on their planet and set up a base without so much as asking if anyone else lived there.  The Federation was in the wrong, and while the Gorn’s response was aggressive, it wasn’t necessarily unreasonable, especially given how many superpowers in the Star Trek universe are explicitly hostile conquerors.  The Gorn captain that Kirk has his big goofy fight with even acts with relative honor in his fight, showing that, no matter how repulsive he may look, he is ultimately as much a person as Captain Kirk himself is.

But lol fuck that right let’s just make the reptile characters into inherently evil monsters that reproduce parasitically and need to be put down like rabid dogs as soon as they’re born, that’s way cooler amirite

[lieutenantcharleslorem]

I think they understood balance really well.

I also love how ds9 can't have two episodes about the horrors of war in a row (except for like towards the end maybe) so when you binge watch it you get "the ship" immediately followed by "looking for par'mach in all the wrong places"

[lieutenantcharleslorem]

Memes sent to odos security deputies group chat part 1

[lieutenantcharleslorem]

was thinking about how both sisko and bashir have what i think of as “cardassian interlocuters” aka a cardassian character who acts as their Other/shadow self/nemesis/mentor and who is also deeply, deeply drawn to both men. garak being attracted to bashir is obvious, and dukat is positively obsessed with sisko. he’s consumed with a desire to both oust sisko and understand how sisko earned the love and trust of not only the bajorans but their gods. his journey throughout the show parallels sisko’s - the deeper sisko moves into accepting his role as emissary, the deeper dukat moves into evil and desperation until he eventually becomes a cult leader for the pah-wraiths, going right back to sexually exploiting bajoran women and mass-killing bajorans when he needs to cut his losses. 

garak meanwhile moves in a different direction. he doesn’t abandon his cardassian ideals, but he comes to see how federation ideals can sometimes be useful, and his collaborations with the federation are honest even when they’re self serving, and while he struggles with the guilt of betraying his people, he understands why he needs to betray them in order to save them. he’s not hung up on earning the love and trust of the bajorans - in fact he openly admits that the cardassians committed atrocities against them, unlike dukat who tries to whitewash his crimes. he comes to respect and treasure bashir’s friendship as well as bashir’s ideals, even if he doesn’t always agree with them. he learns from bashir’s example of humanitarian values that cardassian imperialism has done more harm than good, and concludes the show in league with a former bajoran terrorist, taking orders from her, respecting her, and even risking is life for her. garak allows himself to be transformed by his encounter with humanity, while dukat digs in his heels and descends further into destructive ideals of supremacy. (bell hooks’ discussion of “eating the Other” is relevant for dukat literally taking on the form of a bajoran in the final episodes) there is of course a lot to be said about how both dukat and garak help shape sisko and bashir into who they are by the end of the show. both sisko and bashir learn to stand firmer in their truth because of their cardassian interlocuters, and some of their most soul-searching episodes are with these interlocuters - that’s after all the interlocuters’ purpose. from a doylist perspective, i think it’s really fascinating how DS9 gave the two men of color in their principal cast these Others, interloucters from an alien race based strongly on german fascists but also embodying an amalgamation of fascist, xenophobic, imperialist ideologies. i think about andy robinson saying (and i’m paraphrasing) “bashir is the best that humanity has to offer” and how garak confronts himself because he’s confronted with this ideal of humanity. and if we extend that analysis to sisko as well, who is himself a paradigm, and if we return to that meta perspective, DS9 is making a rich, complex, worthy-of-discussion racial statement by choosing two characters of african descent, two brown men as avery brooks would say, to counterpoint, contrast, and challenge the alien embodiments of fascism. 

[lieutenantcharleslorem]

I begin letters to new penpals with “This has been my handwriting since first grade, nothing I do changes it... Sorry about that.”

anyone else remember being a child and seeing the very neat handwriting of other little girls and somehow knowing that you were a different genre of person than they were

[lieutenantcharleslorem]

Okay…. So your telling me in the show…. Nana Visitor is pregnant with Alexander Siddigs kid… BRUH WHAT

[lieutenantcharleslorem]

It’s called “shhhh” it’s connected to a story hence the hood (that and I’m bad at drawing ears!!)

[lieutenantcharleslorem]

Just a silly playful watercolour sketch today - not a good likeness but a fun pose ... I like to use a looser style sometimes - I like Garak’s rolled up shirt and scaly arm ... love the colours in Garak’s skin .... one day I’m going to do a really nice oil painting of them ... but I’m looking for the perfect pose....

[lieutenantcharleslorem]

Another cute cuddly sketch cos .... awww

[lieutenantcharleslorem]

I haven’t logged in to this tumblr in ages, and I come on and this is the first thing I see, and I’m like, oh good, nothing has changed.

actually it gives Tain plausible deniability if Garak is always calling other men 'daddy'

[lieutenantcharleslorem]

*on ds9*

Good morning, this is your captain speaking! My son Jake is a journalist and a writer. He's incredibly talented and I'm very proud of him, so I want to share some of his work with you! This one is titled "Captain Proton Ex Reader" and-

Jake: NONONONOnoNoNOOOOOO NONONONONOOOONONOOO no DAD NO STOP NONONO PLEASE NOOOONONOnoNonOnOOOOnoONono

[lieutenantcharleslorem]

Love those episodes of TOS where the new alien planet is very obviously just some fuckass part of LA like

That's LA babey

[lieutenantcharleslorem]

I’ll never tire of reading posts along the lines of “wasn’t expecting Julian and Garak to be as gay as everyone promised but BOY WAS I WRONG” I just love to see it 💕