#Jack's Borg thing was fucking stupid.

[youngpettyqueen]

alright, thats Picard in the books. what to say about Picard...

overall? I wasn't impressed. the first season had the potential to be intriguing, but failed to live up to that potential and instead felt like it dragged. the second season was stronger, with stronger writing, but was again bogged down by some pretty stupid writing choices. still, I think the second season was the most strongly written. the third and final season was also fairly strong with most of its writing, but unfortunately where it was weak, it was really weak, and made it difficult to enjoy what I thought would be the easiest season to enjoy

the character writing in this show, when it came to the new characters, left a lot to be desired. season 1 was the worst for this, and things improved in season 2, but season 3... it was alright, in season 3, except for Jack. I could go on an entire rant about Jack, but ill spare you. it was just overall not great, the character writing, and it made it difficult for me to get invested in these new characters

Raffi was the best of the bunch of the new characters. her writing was also the best, and she really got to shine. I came around to Agnes in the second season, and enjoyed her. I never, at any point, cared about Rios. his entire thing bogged down season 2. I was glad to see him gone. Laris and her arc turned out to be entirely pointless, which. thats a whole other rant. lmao. Elnor was good, I really liked him, wish we got to see him in s3

I won't go on the Jack rant just know I hate him from a writing standpoint. Shaw was annoying and I didnt care for him. I did, however, quite like Sidney. and I wish we could've seen more of Alandra, we didnt get much so I dont have much of an opinion about her

there were good elements of this show. I enjoyed the focus on Picard letting himself feel, and express his feelings. I enjoyed the callbacks, and some of the cameos were really cool- I loved seeing Wesley, and Guinan, and even Moriarty. there were some good moments of closure, like Data and Lore, and Ro and Picard. I particularly loved Q and his role in the second season. the dynamics and interactions between the original members of the TNG crew were great, there was a lot of love, and I laughed a lot- shoutout to "I hope we die quickly! :D" and every single interaction between Worf and Riker. and, again, Raffi- cannot praise her enough. absolutely loved her, and would love to see more of her

this show could've been something really good. unfortunately it doesnt quite get there. I find it took itself far too seriously, and the writing often felt like a cop out. the changes to established lore were also annoying- trying to make Picard's father out to be more sympathetic, Picard having been infected by the Borg, etc- and felt like they were shoehorned in. I also wasn't a fan of how they kept bringing in more minor characters- Icheb, Hugh, Ro- just to kill them off. felt cheap

overall, im not a fan. I won't be rewatching this series. I wouldnt call it terrible, it has its good moments, but I wouldnt call it good. pulling off a sequel for a 30+ year old beloved series must be difficult, and I wish Picard had hit the mark, but unfortunately it falls short and fails to live up to TNG's legacy

[vanvelding]

Star Trek: Picard Final Spoilers

Below the cut

Who had "Jack Crusher with the power of love" in the pool?

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Borg Queen: "Watch. Your future's end."

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The Enterprise-D is fucking cash money for such an "antiquated old ship":

-Immediately finds the Borg super-cube in Jupiter when every ship passing through Sol for YEARS couldn't.

-Takes out the point defenses of the Borg super-cube in one volley (remember when The Borg had tractor beams?)

-Star Trek XIV: Jupiter Drift

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Worf didn't die. I thought for a moment, but they didn't. They just made him more badass. If nothing else, this season treated Worf with the disrespect we expect of TNG, but otherwise pretty fucking well.

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"What did you do to him?" Motherfucker, she did the one thing Borg do to him.

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"Man, it's easy to reverse assimilation by killing the Borg Queen." I know; it's a new type of assimilation except for when Picard jammed an assimilation tube into himself--which I guess is a thing now--and then when Jack took it out he...deassimilated himself.

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Data: "The Borg super-cube has powered down its weapons and lowered its shields."

Picard: "That's an invitation."

Borg communication: "To the approaching vessel, if Will Riker is on board, we surrender. Otherwise, resistance is futile."

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Lrrr, of Omicron Persei 8: "Why does the Queen not simply destroy the ship and crew which have stymied the Borg at every turn?"

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I talk a lot of shit about this show, but Shaw's "The rules she breaks were probably broken anyway..." Actually good television. I'm not sure when he recorded that, but I choose to believe it's before they left spacedock.

.***.

We didn't get the Worf versus Borg Elnor fight. I...I didn't realize how much I was anticipating that.

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I can't get over how this show uses blood and death and trauma to pose as mature, but erects a protective field around its main characters that would make a golden age comic blush. It's elitist trash at its core, especially when it goes all-in on making the Gary Stu that dwarfs Wesley Crusher and Picard II into the captain's assistant and Q's most special boy.

.***.

I thought for a moment, "It would be stupid and lazy and so unoriginal if they gave us an MCU-style teaser at the end of--OH GOD THAT'S Q THOSE IDIOTS DID FINALLY DID IT. DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!"

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The thing with Seven and the Titan finding a way to buy time cleverly integrated so many things that had been set up in the series. It was legitimately enjoyable to watch and well-executed. The cloak didn't even fail first, which it usually does.

.***.

No Janeway. I thought we'd get Janeway. I don't have any strong feelings about this one way or the other.

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Was joking about Chekov showing up (or Chekov's son? Grandson? I'm not really sure what was up with that except it was cringeworthy fanservice). I'm happy Walter was cut a check and finally canonized into the TNG-era.

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This isn't a comment on the show, but Geordi if you're going to order a woman to blow up the core of a ship which is going to her kill son and baby-daddy, maybe...just do it yourself. Be graceful dude.

.***.

When I talk about "jerking off until your dick falls off," I mean going straight to the Enterprise-G when we just saw the Enterprise-F. Why show the Enterprise-F when it's going to get immediately sidelined and replaced.

Also, renaming the Titan to Enterprise erases the accomplishments and history of the Titan. I don't even care about the Titan, but that's fucked.

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So what the fuck is wrong with me???

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It's cute how we end on a poker scene reminding us that we've ended up exactly where we were 30 years ago, except Picard has a son. We get these huge stakes and then...poof it's like none of it ever happened. I wouldn't care if the stakes weren't so pretentiously, pointlessly high.

This is why I quit reading comics. World changing stakes once a year that...get referenced but culturally forgotten pretty soon. None of it really matters because we're computer-generating a Borg cube bigger than the last one to convince you simpletons this story is better than the last one because the odds against our heroes are larger. How could they ever get out of--they got out of it again with no consequence and no lasting effects. Status quo antebellum.

[miminmimikyu]

I think the kindest thing I can say about the Picard S3 finale is that if you completely divorce it from the nine episodes that preceded it (and the previous two series as well), it's... fine.

Like imagine a story where the Borg reveal was not a surprise episode 9 "twist" that everyone had maybe 30 in-universe minutes to react to, but something that the entire crew had to work together to strategise against-- where Seven's knowledge and scientific skills had been useful in any way at all. Where Data and Picard's experiences with being allied with the Borg at one point had been relevant. Where Beverley had a hand in pulling Jack out of the queen's snatches, a story where she might have known something was wrong with Jack, spent 20 years counteracting it and realising that she couldn't do this on her own, that she needed help? A story where, when Picard said to Beverley "You did everything right", that actually was warranted?

Or where Seven and Raffi became Captain and first officer on the Titan after showing how they had each others backs, even if they were apart, where they pushed back at each other where necessary, where they had actual scenes together! (so, like not undoing S2 Seven & Raffi) A story where Seven made good command decisions (rather than saying she "doesn't trade lives" and then trades her crew's lives to save her captain.. for one episode). Where it was revealed in-universe that Shaw specifically asked for Seven to be his First Officer (and not word of god on twitter). Where Tuvok and Seven had an actual conversation at the end.

Or where Beverly, Picard and Jack playing happy families by the end of S3 happened in a story that hadn't started with Picard being in a relationship with a different woman, who they never mention again? If Beverley hiding Picard's child for 20 years wasn't left unexplored but for a single argument.

For that matter, how much more satisfying would it have been if Jack's immediate acceptance into Starfleet had been preceded by him showing Starfleet-like behaviour at any point? Where he acted in the greater good, where he listened to others? Like, I hate that he ended up being a Starfleet nepo-hire with no training, I 100% would have preferred an ending where the three of them went on that space holiday or where Seven introduced him to the Fenris Rangers, but if you're going to put him into Starfleet just like that at least give him some qualities that make it seem like this is a good place for him to be.

That said, that whole scene with the Titan? Renaming it the Enterprise-G, populating the bridge with the children of the previous generation, making Jack a special councillor to the captain on his first commission in Starfleet, with no prior training and like five minutes after he executed world's most stupid plan against the borg queen that almost got everyone in the federation killed if daddy hadn't come to calm him down? Also, as one last fuck you to S2, bringing Q back from the dead to now make Jack his personal pet project? That was insulting.

[galactic-pirates]

Ok I’m going to do it. New drinking game (in no particular order):

Personal anti-wishlist aka do NOT want predictions for Picard Season 3 finale

Screentime is limited. Raffi is either not seen or only in background shots. It’s explained she is trying to sabotage the Titan’s engines or something if she is mentioned at all. Seven and Raffi are barely (if at all) on screen together and their relationship is never mentioned.

Seven is shown carting Shaw to sickbay. She uses her Borg nanites (hello Voyager callback) to help bring him back to life. This doesn’t make him a Borg it is just temporary. Shaw is not grateful and chews her out for it. Says she isn’t StarFleet. Seven agrees and resigns.

There is no Saffi spin-off, no Fenris Rangers. Raffi is never seen again. Seven is either never seen again or…

Shaw gets his own show spin-off. Possibly Seven guest stars one episode so he can save her life, and show he is magnanimous while still pressing the point that he was right and she was never StarFleet.

As part of being magnanimous Shaw pays Seven a compliment. Only it’s something backhanded like “you made really good coffee” and the writers think fans will be happy at the nod to Janeway, and completely overlook the fact that in the 25th century a brilliant woman is reduced to being ‘good at making drinks’.

The only assimilated we see get killed/do bad things are aliens, POC or both.

At the end Geordi is seen hugging his two crying girls and Sydney apologises to him and goes home with him. As part of the end montage she is shown handing him tools to fix the battle damage on the Enterprise-D because fuck that she had dreams of her own to be a pilot I guess.

To gain an advantage in battle Picard uses the “Picard manoeuvre”. Bonus points if it doesn’t make sense as to how it would help.

Even though Vulcan, Klingons etc. have a lot of their own ships nobody can/will help them against the assimilated fleet. Only the Enterprise is fighting the good fight. Sort of like an oblique reference to the hopefulness regarding the Federation shown in Prodigy. That was where StarFleet ships were all taken over by an external force and made to attack each other…. wait a minute *deep sigh* but anyway nobody helps because fuck that stupid kid show right? 😔

Somebody very gravely says “we are on our own”. Despite being decades older, and the odds being 50-1, the Enterprise is so special it manages to hold it’s own in battle long enough for Jack and Picard to save the day.

Even though he is assimilated and it should be impossible Jack is ‘special’ and Picard manages to reach him through his special Dad bond (fuck Beverley as the mother who raised him I guess), and Jack manages to sever the connection/put them to sleep/stop all the StarFleet assimilated.

In a parallel to Nemesis the Borg Queen self-destructs. Picard tells Data to get Jack off the ship and he has to stay behind. They both could have escaped given Picard spent a minute monologuing about friendship and family but he has to sacrifice himself like Data did in reverse.

As the unassimilated were murdered the changelings were all killed. Why/how they teamed up with the Borg, what happened to the people they impersonated etc. is never explained. They are dead, the situation is tied up with a bow. And this “they are all dead” is only an off-hand mention in a single sentence.

Despite name-dropping her Janeway neither appears nor is mentioned unless she comes in for a cameo at the end to lead the memorial/give Jack his medal/commission etc.

Hundreds were killed but the big memorial service only focuses on Picard and how he is the most legendary of all StarFleet heroes.

Jack is given command/made Captain of the new Enterprise even though it’s the flagship, he never went to the academy and has no experience. This is possibly done at said memorial service.

Inexplicably Worf is security, Beverley CMO, Deanna counsellor and Riker as first officer. This is seen with “Captain on the bridge” when Jack walks in. They all look very proud.

Kestra is never mentioned. Who is looking after her, where she is etc. is never explained.

The last line reveals Jack has taken the name Picard so he is “Captain Picard” like his dad and he says the legendary ‘Engage’.

I really hope I don’t reblog this next Friday and cross a lot off. I just really hate how damn plausible I think this list is 😭 this is a do NOT want list universe. Don’t get confused now. This is like worst case scenario for where they could go (in my opinion). So let’s really hope not. Unless of course I have had a failure of imagination and it is even worse somehow 😬

[ashley-slashley]

Alice in Modland

Summary: originally written in 2018. I found a prompt on Reddit (I don't remember who posted it) and accidentally wrote fanfiction

Rating: T/Teen

Warnings: language, some violence, long paragraphs

A/N: unfinished overall story. i transferred this from my ao3. enjoy!

Chapters: 1, 2, 3

I thought I was thrown like a star in my vast sleep, I slowly opened my eyes to see if what occurred to me was a dream: trying to look around was painful, “I guess it wasn’t a dream or some sick nightmare since I’m not by the sea, gazing with tranquility.” my thoughts continued, “Where is that British bastard, anyway? I’m going to seek out Mad Mod’s worthless life and useless civilization, and boldly go and kick his ass. Where in the hell am I? The walls seem to form a circular room covered with panels resembling metallic swiss cheese, four rib-like structures descended from the ceiling to the floor of this strange place, and a large chamber in the center. Whatever this place is, it seems to be ran on some jacked version of dilithium crystals. The silence was perforated by an upper-middle toned voice, “I knew Lyndon B. Johnson was an alien, but why did he want Vietnam?” A tall man with short, shaggy black hair didn’t notice me as he assumed his position at the console of this environment, however, my psyche didn’t listen to me by engaging dumbass factor two.

    My stupidity boldly asked where in the fuck I am and who this person is, “I’m The Doctor” he explained, “and this is my Tardis”. Well, that answered my questions, but the one everyone is wondering is how did I go from some family’s living room to whatever the fuck a Tardis is. “What kind of doctor are you?” my curiosity proposed, “I’m a doctor of time, a Timelord” he justified. The Doctor went on a tangent about his basic information, however, he knows what is going to come through those doors. Obviously he wanted to know how I got here since the Tardis travels through time and relative dimensions in space, I gave him the ludicrous speed version of the past twenty-four paragraphs and stopped at what’s happening now since now turns into then, and what will happen is soon. “Running from your foe sounds like what I would have done, did you by chance see a Dalek anywhere?” The Doctor responded. Obviously I have no clue what the hell a Dalek is, so based on what The Doctor informed me, a Dalek is a trash can that runs on pure hatred and wants to annihilate everything. Meanwhile a Cyberman is basically a cross between the Tinman and the Borg. Shockingly enough, Mad Mod didn’t try to summon an army of Daleks or an army of Cybermen to erase my existence. I asked The Doctor if he has any ideas of what I should do about my situation, he listed off ideas that are either batshit crazy or could possibly work - the first of the two was traveling throughout time and space ignoring Mad Mod. How in the fuck would that work? “Doctor, I’m unsure if you’re aware of this, but unlike Martha Reeves, I HAVE NOWHERE TO RUN TO OR HIDE!” I went from a normal pitch to pissed off headmaster in a snap. To attempt to calm me down, The Doctor offered me lemon drops - okay then. After I accepted the lemon drops, he suggested other options such as throwing Mad Mod through a portal, disabling Mad Mod’s cane with the sonic screwdriver, and throwing Mad Mod into space itself among other things. The Doctor mentioned something quite strange, the Tardis can randomly teleport you somewhere by her own will. The Tardis is a female? What next, she can turn into a giant maid with a vacuum and steal oxygen from a planet?

    “First off, what the hell is a sonic screwdriver? Secondly, how is that supposed to help me defend myself from an insane 60s fashion guru? Can the Tardis shoot lasers or torpedos and is one of the features of the sonic screwdriver the ability to create a sonic boom?” I question the strange man. The Doctor explained that the Tardis is unable to fire missiles or lasers, but is able to protect herself and her passengers with a shield - the real question is, how is that supposed to act as a barrier between me and a guy that can warp time and space. Furthermore, the strange man pulled out a small thin metal tube resembling a straw: “this”, he began to explain, “is a sonic screwdriver, a rather fabulous multi-functional tool that’s features include the ability to pick locks, detonate objects, project sound, and is unable to work in the same area as a hairdryer, among other tasks''. The real question is, can it destroy a cane wielded by a maniac? Perhaps. Perhaps not. With the fact Mad Mod obviously took my rifle, the only defense I have is The Doctor.

    Two people of average height came into the room from what I suppose is a corridor, “Hey Doctor, where are we goin’ ne-” the man cut himself off as he made eye contact with me. The man, donning a red and black tartan kilt and a cream colored sweater, equipped himself with a knife of some sort and slowly stalked towards me. “Jamie” The Doctor called, “please step away from the stranger. They’re actually running from a ‘cherry-haired psychotic maniac’, their words not mine”, reluctantly Jamie put back his knife and slowly backed away. Meanwhile the girl continued staring at me with her large, doll-like, dark gray eyes, “Doctor, how did that person get into the Tardis?” she questioned in a soft and light voice. The Doctor briefly explained my ludicrous trek from my office to here, the girl introduced herself as Zoe, an astrophysicist from the late twenty-first century: I guess humans don’t somehow annihilate one another and cause the Earth to implode itself. Juxtaposingly to Jamie, Zoe’s attire is comprised of a shiny black jumpsuit and white boots.

    A Timelord, a Scotsman, and a scientist from the future, I can kinda see how they can defeat Mad Mod alongside me, and I’m not just saying that because I have a Scot. “Jamie, Zoe” The Doctor called, “do either of you have any ideas how we could help this person?”, the Scot casually wields himself with his knife and suggested we ambush him then proceed to stab him. Jamie, I wish I could have done that in the first place. Zoe, looking like she just remembered some pseudo-traumatic moment in the middle of the night, brought up a constant in all of Mad Mod’s attacks: he never sets aside his cane, therefore most likely being his power source and way to warp reality. If only I could somehow steal the cane and destroy it, alas the psychotic mod most likely has a force field around it to protect both the cane and himself. “Oh my giddy aunt!” The Doctor proclaimed, “Hypothetically speaking I could aim the sonic screwdriver at the ruby and shatter it with sound waves or blowing it up, thus making Mad Mod powerless!”. That idea sounds plausible, however, taking the quirk of not functioning around a hair dryer into account, the sonic screwdriver would be useless - I mean, we are talking about a loony fashion designer here.

    Crash! the four of us were thrown to one side of the bridge of the Tardis with the fury of a star ship hitting a cement wall of turbulence. I’m guessing this is one of those instances where the Tardis transports you somewhere against your own desire, either that or the loon found me. “Doctor!” I shouted in a concerned fashion, “Do you know how to fly this thing?” I had my arms tightly wrapped around one of Jamie’s knees. The Doctor somehow managed to defy the laws of physics by going to a part of the console and, I guess, steadily bring the speed down by quite a few warps to an idle position. Getting up from the floor, the three of us automatically looked at the doors of the Tardis, timidly speculating the brave new world awaiting The Doctor, his two companions, and I.

    The doors opened to what appeared to be the reception area of a hospital. “Where the hell are we?” I pondered aloud, “Hello, welcome to heaven” a woman with brassy hair and Buddy Holly glasses peeped up joyfully. I glared at The Doctor, his only response was a simple shrug. The receptionist mentioned an absurd detail, somehow not including what you’ve just read, “Happy Christmas!”. I suppose Mad Mod will now be ripping off Dickens. We then went to a large auditorium where dining tables and people of the past and present were occupying: soldiers who stepped out of 1879, topless women, World War I or World War II era soldiers, men in suits and ties, and undoubtedly a family of the lower class. Evangelists are going to lose their shit over this phenomenon. Adjacent to the front of the stage, a symphonic band appeared out of nowhere while the curtain lifted up to reveal a Zeigfeld inspired stage setup.

[qwertyfingers]

we know that bobby only watched ds9 and dean watched the tos movies for sure which implies he's seen tos as well (plus he calls jack spock). so what do you think everyone's favorite trek is? sam is without a doubt a tng fan first and foremost. i think out of all tos movies cas prefers the wrath of khan because he Feels Things when kirk and spock do the ta'al through the glass. charlie has definitely seen some trek (we've seen her llap), do you think she's into tos first and foremost? anyway let's talk about star trek nights in the bunker.

OKAY SO I HAVE. MANY MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS. SORRY THIS IS SO LONG.

like. like of COURSE bobby only likes ds9 of course he does i could have told you this without the show becuase like. bobby is That Bitch. i think rufus will have watched TOS at least because leonard nimoy worked hard on linking jewish faith and practices into the vulcan lore and i think that would mean something to him. bobby will catch rufus smiling at him sometimes while they’re watching ds9 and ask him what all gruffly and rufus will smirk at him and say something about sisko with jake and bobby with dean and bobby will just cough and take a swig of whiskey and rufus will raise his eyebrows but let it slide. rufus definitely makes a comment once about dean&cas being like jake&nog that totally flies over dean’s head but bobby is all knowing eyebrow raise about.

i think cas and jack would really like discovery. while it has some issues with inconsistency, pacing, being a little dark, it also does better than the other TV treks at utilising the nature of film as a medium to instill a sense of wonder, at space and the world, and that’s something they’d really appreciate. i have my own issues with disco, but an obol for charon is as close to the central core of trek that disco ever gets. cas and jack also like that one in particular because they like listening to all the different languages being spoken. they all love michael (everyone loves michael). cas’ faves are stamets and reno because they’re mean and gay, jack’s fave is tilly because she’s excitable and bright and he latches onto that. dean likes reno because she’s got spunk. sam’s fave is airiam and he will never forgive them for killing her off. sam, cas and dean all feel an uncomfortable kinship with both ash and culber - they’ve both been the one with monster teeming under the surface, controleld by something not themself, but they’ve also all spent that time in hell/purgatory, separated from everyone they love.

thinking about episodes that would really get to them all, darmok is. THE ONE. i have a whole unfinished essay about darmok as the platonic ideal of star trek; the perfect distillation of everything trek is SUPPOSED to be about. it doens’t always get there but by god it tries! that speech michael gives in the disco s2 finale - “There's a whole galaxy of people out there who will reach for you. You have to let them. Find that person who seems farthest from you and reach for them.” - that’s what darmok is about!!! it’s all about a situation where real communication seems impossible, where everything we know about talking and learning has broken down. and picard says, okay, i will find another way. i can’t relate to you, you can’t relate to me, but by god i’m going to try. we all meet people we have trouble communicating with in our lives, and often, those people will not care about changing their own ways to accommodate us. for people with autism, adhd, psychosis, the list goes on, this is a very common occurrence. it’s exhausting and frustrating and alienating. darmok is all about crossing that barrier. about reaching for someone through a world of difficulty and learning how to talk. learning how to share something with someone who seems out of our reach. it’s beautiful, it’s heartwrenching, it means more to me than i can easily put into words! 

anyway i think the bunker fam would experience a lot of emotions watching it together. there’s defintiely a lot of hugging eachother, sam cries a lot and won’t look at anyone until after the episode ends. jack just asks a lot of questions and talks about his progress learning sign language with cas. dean snakes his hand into cas’ halfway through and doesn’t let go. doesn’t show the emotion on his face, but he clutches harder at the emotional beats. cas runs his fingers through jack’s hair and thinks a lot, and decides not to say anything unless dean talks first. its just a Lot for everyone. 

dean def makes them marathon all the TOS and TNG movies. it’s an experience everyone needs at least once. i think you’re right about cas and TWOK with the ta’al through the glass, but also ‘this simple feeling’ and the hand hold would make him feel crazy. bones being the one that spock entrusts with his katra DEF makes dean feel some type of way because as much as destiel is kirkspock-coded, dean IS bones, and seeing spock trust bones so completely despite how at odds they were when they first knew eachother would dig deep into dean’s psyche and make him more than a little bit nutso. the movies are way too long for jack so he mostly sits and plays animal crossing while they watch and looks at the screen when everyone else gasps or when something exciting is happening that holds his attention for a while. sam’s fave is nemesis precisely because it’s terrible and he loves how camp it is.

dean has definitely seen all of trek. i refuse to believe someone who watches as much tv and films as dean wouldn’t sit and watch the whole shebang. i think he’s probably seen TOS and the TOS movies more than the others because its easier than sitting through 7 seasons, but i think rather than that being his favourite he’d just have really strong opinions about the best episodes of each one? like if you asked him what his favourite is he’d say you can’t answer that because they’re all so different from eachother

VOY - bride of chaotica, non seqitur, macrocosm for the favourite episodes. seven, janeway and tuvok would be his favourite characters. he think toms a bit of a knob but also feels a kinship with him for the similar brand of bab dad-ism but he wouldn’t be able to put that into words. he’s also a fierce defender of threshold being a good episode (he’s right for that)

DS9 - our man bashir it’s our man bashir. he doesn’t dislike ds9 but its very plot heavy and he didn’t care for it when he was younger. rewatching it after living through multiple supernatural wars he’d probably appreciate it more. i know for a fact he cries every time there’s an episode about sisko being a good dad. jadzia and garak are his faves

TNG - he LOVES q. he also absolutely will not be caught dead referencing how much loves q after cas comes into his life because sam will do the little brotherly knowing eyebrow raise at him and he will die of embarrassment. he regularly��references ‘there are four lights’ because he’s a fucking nerd. he has made cas watch elementary my dear data and fistful of datas a half dozen times each at LEAST. cas KNEW how dean was going to be about the cowboy hat he’s defintiely got into full cowboy getup at home just for watching movies and in cas’ head star trek is fully to blame.

TOS - oh there are so many good TOS eps to choose from. obv he loves most of the series becuase TOS has MANY banger eps, his favourites are probably like. mirror mirror, amok time (baby dean defintiely had some kind of crisis watching it for the first time; i know the rituals are intricate). i know deep in my bones that dean watched the conscience of the king (introduction of the tarsus iv massacre) once and then spent his entire teenage years writing fic about that in his head, whether he posted it or not. dean related too much to those experiences of shared hunger. city on the edge of forever is one of everyone’s faves for a reason (and i’m STILL mad we never got a closer take on that episode in spn it could have been so fun). 

ENT - he definitely thinks enterprise is stupid and he’s not wrong but he has also definitely watched it and been very repressed about the whole thing. mans was like oh i feel a kinship with malcolm reed the obviously repressed queer man. i will never examine this feeling ever again thank you <3 he also makes fun of archer for being obsessed with, of all sports, water polo. shran is his favourite character because he’s a little shit and makes him laugh, and t’pol, because t’pol is a badass and he’d appreciate that. i can’t remember the title of a single episode off the top of my head though lol.

i can see what you’re saying about sam being a TNG stan. i’m conflicted though, I feel like TNG’s generally the favourite of 1) obnoxious nerds who think knowing trivia facts makes them smart, 2) men desperately trying to seem masculine and 3) people who’ve watched it three times and have extremely complex thoughts on the personhood and rights of robots. i could see sam fitting into the third group, but people who are in it for the robot feelings are a coin flip between voyager and tng being the fave, and i just have a feeling that voyager would be his favourite. i know kid sam is getting gender envy watching voyager in shitty motels while dad and dean are out, trying to find the words for it. his first semester at stanford he talks a friend into giving him the janeway haircut and rides that high for months. sam’s favourite characters are seven and EMH. 

sam and dean have definitely had dozens of long drawn out debates about philosophical topics in star trek. do the holograms deserve rights and if so which ones. are the romulans and vulcans still meaningfully the same people. was spock right for trying to foment reunification by going undercover on romulus. can the borg be redeemed. etc etc.

i haven’t seen any of picard at all so i can’t comment. i also think sam and dean probably read a lot of the trek books? they’re pretty common to find in secondhand bookstores and cheap, would have been even cheaper back in the day. sam probably doesn’t care for them much, dean has a few solid faves though. i’ve only read the disco books so i can’t comment anything specifically (besides the fact that i think dean read dead endless and cried like a baby), but some of the TOS and DS9 books are gay as hell and i know dean was eyes emoji-ing that shit. 

[ernmark]

oh my god this new episode holy shit

Okay, folks, spoilers under the cut.

But before that: if you have triggers, check the episode notes before you listen. I know it’s basically the same list of triggers as in most episodes, but this time it gets pretty intense.

Q) Why did I not see the proliferation of the THEIA coming?

A) Because it seemed so absurdly, prohibitively expensive that you could only realistically buy one or two of the bionic eyes.

And that would have been a problem, except 1) Ramses is richer than God, and 2) I think the bionic interface itself is the expensive bit, not necessarily the software. Once he had the THEIA developed (and you know he commissioned that shit), you know he just found a way to slap it on people. And we saw that foreshadowed expertly in the sewer bots. 

I’ve said it before: good writing feels like a good riddle: when it happens it completely catches you by surprise, but when you go back and think about it it seems completely obvious. 

Here’s the thing about really, really good foreshadowing: it doesn’t feel like foreshadowing. Every piece of foreshadowing feels like its own end, rather than a means to prepare us for something else.

The THEIA Spectrum? Was totally just a thing to persuade Juno to come to Ramses’ side, right? 

The THEIA Bots?  Totally to clear the sewers. I was expecting more robots like them, but not like that.

Overriding Juno’s nervous system to the point of making him shoot better, controlling his pulse, giving him trauma-specific nightmares, and freezing his whole body on command? Fucked up enough to be a thing to be defeated on its own.

But it’s not just that. Look at Ramses himself:

He was a micromanager to an obscene degree.

JUNO: What I’d like is two minutes to collect myself.Little needy of you to call me on the car ride to you. (Lesson Learned)

But within days made himself indispensable, filling in every gap in workflow he could find, learning every job that needed doing, and, most importantly, playing emotional translator to some of the more ‘gifted’ artists on staff. We called him a writer, but really he was always more editor or manager… (Long Way Home)

He was a master manipulator– of Sarah, of Juno, of Yasmin Swift, of the entire population of Hyperion City

But every so often something would go wrong. His grand plot to give Sarah the profits fell through when she refused his hush money– and as a result he filed for a restraining order. Jocelyn got impatient for him to write a decent version of Andromeda 3, and erupted into a truly alarming screaming rant. They want to use NorthStar’s funds to make something that’ll the profit the company instead of forcing mass layoffs of the rest of their staff, and he cuts and runs. 

JACK: Damn the deadline! You’re exactly the problem, Jocelyn, focusing on the smallest issues when you should be solving the big ones, taking the solution now over the solution that works— DO NOT SPEAK while I am speaking! (Long Way Home)

And notice the common thread there: this is when he has a vision for a Big Master Plan, and somebody else doesn’t want to go along with it, so he gets absolutely furious with them– and then throws them away altogether. 

So how do you save people? You make sure that they always agree with you and never even have the option to go against your Master Plan. After all, you know best, don’t you? And his plans were always meticulous and perfect, so long as everybody else always behaved exactly as he wanted them to.

Rita points out that even the THEIA isn’t a proper AI– it can’t learn or change and grow, it’s just a thousand copies of the exact same complex program. And one that is very flawed and vulnerable to viruses. 

Funny that. Expect to see Rita bring down the whole system the minute she gets a chance.

On the subject of really good foreshadowing: Khan’s fixation with stun blasts and heart conditions, plus what we saw of Vespa being nearly killed by a stun blast when she was high up.

Not gonna lie, before Juno narrated what happened, I assumed that Mick was standing on the balcony and got blasted off the fourteenth story. Thank god that wasn’t what happened, because there’s no bringing somebody back from that kind of fall.

I knew Mick would be the one they go to. I knew Mick would be the prime target that sends Juno over the edge. But God, I wasn’t expecting this. The whole sequence made my skin crawl. 

And even when we were in Mick’s apartment, I didn’t see it coming. I honest to god thought it was the tea– that there are nanites in the water or something (to be fair, I just got done playing We Happy Few, where the water is drugged to fuck and back). 

So I have feelings about Mick Mercury.

All this time, he’s been “setting the record for going nowhere fast”. People think of him as a loser, and a lot of times he thinks of himself as one.

And then comes the THEIA, and suddenly he’s put together, and refined, and capable of superhuman feats, and he makes tea and everything. 

How’s he going to feel about giving that up? Will he be relieved to be rid of it, or will a part of him still miss what it made him?

I want to point out how very sick Ramses sounds here. I keep coming back to the theory that he’s dying, but I’m serious: He’s on death’s door. 

“Time. Time. Just give me time. This will work. It has to.”

It speaks to Matthew Zahnzinger’s skill as a voice actor that Ramses actually starts to sound more lively when he’s with Juno, and then even more when he’s absolutely furious– and when he calms down he sounds even sicker than before. He’s got so little life left in him. I’d really feel for the guy if I didn’t want to beat his skull in with a tennis racket. 

It’s not just confidence that has him offering to completely capitulate to Juno’s demands after 24 hours– I don’t think he has much more than that left to him, and who the hell cares where his money goes when he’s dead?

On that note, the THEIA is pre-programmed to be self-replicating. 

“Only Newtown residents and certain select guests can enter Newtown until the city adjusts to our idea”. By which he means the Newtown residents will leave the city, infect other people, and those people will be ‘select guests’.

Once it’s stable and well-seated in Newtown’s populace, the people already infected with the THEIA Soul will make more and infect the rest of Hyperion City, and after that we’ve pretty much got a Borg situation.

As for Ramses’ conversation with Juno:

God, that was hard to listen to.

In the first eight minutes or so, Ramses is surprisingly endearing. We know enough by now to realize it’s a smokescreen, but it sounds sympathetic and real, because that’s how he works. He makes himself the good guy.

But then Juno shuts him down, cuts him off, assures him that he’s never going to forgive him, and Ramses switches tack. He showers Juno with facts– incomplete facts, facts that only show one very sketchy and incomplete version of the truth, but facts that Juno can’t refute and doesn’t have enough information to argue against. 

And then he backs up his facts with emotional triggers– he’s “recycling” equipment from the police force that robbed Sarah blind all those years ago, and then he slips in the idea that that’s what drove her to abuse her kids, rather than his own actions. 

Smoke and mirrors. Fucking smoke and mirrors.

But once again, Juno cuts him off and refuses to be baited, but his ire is up. Ramses is already under his skin and in his head, even if he isn’t entirely pulling the strings yet. 

And then Ramses turns it around and starts asking him questions that Juno can’t answer. Now Juno feels stupid and unprepared, and Ramses knows it. And while Juno is struggling to put his thoughts into words, Ramses starts absolutely steamrolling him with emotionally loaded facts and ideas too quickly for Juno to argue with, and you can see Juno start to crumple under the onslaught. 

And he plays with this insidious premise that what he’s already done is irrelevant, and only future action matters– ignoring the fact that he did all of this in secret specifically so he wouldn’t be stopped, and that he’s got even more of this plan up his sleeve in ways that Juno couldn’t possibly predict. And he spins it all in such a way that Juno can’t argue, because he puts all the burden of proof on Juno and writes off anything Juno says as too emotional.

The whole thing is so slimy it made me want to take a shower. 

And Juno still holds on. 

And he legitimately lands blow after blow that Ramses can’t deflect: He brings up the rabbits. He points out that Ramses keeps discarding his ideas out of hand. He dismantles Ramses’ narrative that Juno was “saving Ben” by letting Jack into Sarah’s office. And he takes Ramses’ attempts to use his feelings about Sarah against him, but he turns them about. 

I’m so fucking proud of him for it.

If this is a verbal boxing match, Juno starts off strong, falls behind, and then hits Ramses with wallop after wallop until Ramses has to pull out entirely and find another way to beat him– by which he means sending him out into New Town to get himself infected with yet another THEIA.

Motherfucker.

So… Juno has money.

Just from Ramses, or has he been having lots of money coming in for a while now?

I mean, it’s not like he’s been spending it on anything except booze, has he? 

[rahkshirock]

Andromeda thoughts: midnight edition

mass effect is an interesting topic because it is a lot of people’s formative game series. i can respect that

personally I grew up with educational homeschool games like leapfrog, reading rabbit, cluefinders and fucking zoombinis

I got pretty deep into bionicle too but my folks wouldn't buy the games for me.

my first experience with a real plot was starcraft, which was pitch black toned sci-fi with a straight up villain victory at the end

in highschool i finally got some freedom and got portal 2, deus ex: human revolution and a little later, dishonored. throw in a little bioshock mass effect and halo, but only the first of each. mostly i watched let’s plays

so recently, since i’m not financially or educationally drowning, I am catching up on the series i kinda missed. most recently, Mass Effect.

I first played Mass Effect 1 in freshman year of college while procrastinating. I didn’t have a lot of fun, and it was the steam version that doesn’t have any dlc, so I stopped a few missions into 2, since the draw of the series is porting your character and decisions into the next game

3 years later, I finally acquired the entire mass effect series, including all dlc, and played through beginning to end, 100% completion of all quests, all side content, romancing garrus with femshep

and it was good. I enjoyed it. objectively speaking however, it has some issues. there are a few series retrospectives on youtube that explain this better than I can, but to put it simply:

mass effect 1′s intro is ham-fisted and frontloads you with 3 bad guys (including the reapers with no setup) in the first 30 minutes, before you even take control of the Normandy. structurally however, it was sound. the mako sections broke up the main missions, and so the pacing was alright despite only having 5 main missions (getting liara, stopping the thorian, stopping benezia, virmire, illos/citadel) and most people didn’t like the mako levels because the levels didn't like the mako and its stupid physics model. the ending was solid however, and ended on a fun optimistic note

mass effect 2 managed to have at once a more realistic, down to earth setting, a more personal story, and the most highlights of the series. Most people consider this to be the best one, and for some of the game, it is! however, the main plot and the suicide mission broke down for me because 1. you only fight the collectors 3 times, 2. legion, an intensely interesting squad member was locked behind the threat of losing my crew by getting him before 2 missions from the end, and 3. I put zaeed as the secondary squad leader in the protect the engineer part, and tali got shot in the face with a fucking rocket launcher. it took me out of the whole experience because I had to load a previous save, and looking it up, the assignments feel arbitrary. Miranda can lead the mission despite jack JUST saying she’s a horrible leader? but the founder of the blue suns can’t? what? what clues did I have to sniff out to prevent a VERY IMPORTANT CHARACTER from dying?

all I'm saying is, me2 is great, but it’s structured badly. it is a series of short stories, not all of which are even tangentially related to the existing universe.

also Jacob Taylor “I didn't think the alliance was doing enough to help people so I quit and joined a FUCKING TERRORIST ORGANIZATION EXPLICITLY FOR HUMAN SUPREMACY” “also if you romance me I cheat on you in the 3rd game” is the worst character in the game and I had to LOOK UP how not to trip into accidentally romancing him because just being nice can trigger that flag and his loyalty mission is FUCKED as far as implications go.

and ME3, while having the highest hights in the series (Tuchunka, Rannock) also undeniably has the lowest, with an ending that will be recorded as the worst ending to a good series of all time, and its main plot is inconsistent and generally poorly written before it completely breaks down in the 3rd act.

all of this proves that good games don't have to be perfect, and that a game can still be fun even if you hate the way its written (ME3)

so then I saw that Andromeda was only 20 dollars, and even though I had heard it was a tire fire of a game, I picked it up

after 115 hours, I can say that I do not understand gamers. this is not only a worthy mass effect game, it is the best one in its entirety. the volume of joy I’ve gotten from this game is equivalent to what I got from the ENTIRE original trilogy. the space you explore is tightly focused, and yet deep and richly detailed.

after 2 games, they finally reintroduced a working vehicle and designed levels around it. they tightened the cast and made your entire crew, not just your squadmates, interactable and fun. gone is the pseudo-military backdrop of the first game: npcs and squadmates come from a variety of backgrounds, from rescuing people from natural disasters, a human who trained with asari commandoes, or a turian smuggler who you would EXPECT to be the new Garrus, but instead puts on a minigun and tech armor. drack and peebe are definitely archetypal of the asari adepts and krogan battlemasters weve had through the series but heres the thing

tropes are not bad

take one facet of the new villain: the kett. they like to make more kett by injecting other species with a serum that causes them to mutate into them borg stile

now mass effect has had this as a plot point since minute 3 of the first mission of the first game: humans are turned into husks. 

however, how do characters react to these revelations?

just joking. in the original mass effect there is exactly one asari who is scarred mentally after she was attacked by a banshee that used to be part of her squad.

1 character, at the end of the series reacts to the tech zombies in a meaningful way.

1.

meanwhile, every squad member has thoughts on this revelation. jaal, the Angaaran squad mate, who has been fighting kett for decades French resistance style, grapples with the revelation for the rest of the game. you see many other resistance fighters give up, unable to kill those who used to be Angaarans, others you find are galvanized by the atrocity. every plot point has people in-game debating the implications. every party member of course gives you a personal loyalty mission, but they also ask for small favors, ask stupid questions, go on their own with big plans and need to be helped out of sticky situations. even if you think that the characters are cliché (which they aren’t) they have such a volume of interactions that each is fully fleshed out only a third of the way through the game, and continued to grow and change perspectives, arguing and falling in love. the loyalty missions are often main-plot relevant and sometimes wacky one-offs that bring in minor characters. I heard that if you want, you can steamroll through the game without stepping foot on 3 different planets, but that's not my style, and the final battle incorporates the allies you’ve made into gameplay seamlessly, tying off nearly every single combat capable person from the story’s plotline, in a sequence that puts HALO to shame.

on hard difficulty with 100 percent completion, I got the golden ending, and saw a LOT of people come to help me. even so, it was excruciatingly difficult, and I had to utilize every bit of skill and preparation I had to make it through

so to people who said that there are no consequences in this game for your actions? its the first entry in a new series so sure they can only kill minor characters. I get that. 

so they went for pure gameplay effect on said final battle. you can have very few people assist you at all.

I at least would not have made it without my effort, and so it was worthwhile and necessary to have done those sidequests. in my book, THAT is what ME3′s ending should have beenlike in the first place.

I don't really have a conclusion other than that yes, Andromeda adds just a few new ideas into the series, and more than a few recycled ones

but iT does it with skill, style, and occasional subtlety. it is, I’d say a GOOD FUCKING GAME, better than the original trilogy except for the very best of 2 and 3.

except for the inventory and weapons crafting system, that can go straight to hell

good night!

[nothingbythebook]

First, an apology for the title slug. I know you’re all sick and tired of plays on A Love in the Time of Cholera. Still. There’s a reason we’re doing it.

Second… but really first:

i. A catalogue

I recently moved, and as part of the uprooting, I culled my physical books to the essentials. (Ok, I moved like 500 metres away, but hey, packing and thus purging was definitely involved.) Stress on the physical: thank gods for my e-readers, a library of thousands always in my pocket.

Still. I was pretty ruthless. Totally ruthless, actually. Goodbye, university textbooks. Goodbye, books from the “I was a teenage Wiccan” phase. Goodbye, big thick books that look good on my shelf and make me feel smart because I own them—but let’s be honest, I’m never going to read Infinite Jest. I tried. It’s unreadable. I read Gravity’s Rainbow—goodbye—and, frankly, wish I hadn’t, don’t remember what it’s about, and I’ll never get that time back.

Goodbye, all of Jeanette Winterson’s not Sexing the Cherry books. Goodbye, gifted books that missed the mark—goodbye, self-bought books that I read, don’t remember, will never read again. Goodbye, books I once loved but don’t anymore—that cull was the hardest.

What’s left was still heavy to move and comprises about ten shelf equivalents. But each of these books is loved. Important.

Like The Letters of Sylvia Plath and this little known book of the poet’s drawings:

I don’t actually own Plath’s The Bell Jar or Ariel. How is this possible? Note to self: must buy. Response to self: this is how it beings, hoarding, pack-ratting expansion. Don’t do it. Response to response to self: Shut up. I want my Sylvia.

All of my Polish books:

Some of these have travelled the world with my parents and me for almost forty years. The Polish translation of A.S. Lindgren’s Children from Bullerbyn (which used to belong to my dad’s sister, actually—she got it and read it the year I was born) and of Winnie The Pooh—the first “chapter” books I ever read. And, of course, Sienkiewicz, Mickiewicz, Orzeszkowa, Rodziewiczówna. Kapuścinski. The more modern poets: Zagajewski, Anna Świrszczyńska and Wisława Szymborska, not in translation.

This cultural heritage of mine, I have a very… fraught, complex relationship with. So much beauty, so much passion, so much suffering—so much stupidity, so much pain.

Governments do not define a national, a culture, or a people, I suppose. But in a democracy, they reflect the will and the hearts of the majority of the people, and, if the current government of Poland reflects the majority of the will and the hearts of the (voting) Polish people, they are repugnant to me and I want nothing to do with them. I am ashamed of them, of where I come from.

But I do come of them, from there, do I not?

Still. I keep the books. Including the one celebrating our first modern proto-fascist, Józef Piłsudski. History is complicated; ancestry not chosen.

Next, a shelf of all of my favourites.

All of Jane Austen, of course. Most of Nabokov. Virginia Woolf, because, well, it’s complicated. Susan Sontag’s On The Suffering of Others, and E.M. Forester’s Maurice—I gave up Room With a View and the others. J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, not so much because I’ll ever read it again but because it was so important back then. Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, because nothing like it has been written before or since. Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas—I mean. I had to keep it, hero of my misspent university youth. I put him right next to Charles Bukowski’s Women, which isn’t great, but which… well. It taught me a lot about writing. Then, Jorge Luis Borges’ The Book of Imaginary Beings, which always makes me cry because a) it exists and b) I will never write that well.

Edward Said’s Orientalism, the only book to survive my “why the fuck did I keep all of these outdated anthropology and sociology and history textbooks for 25 years” purge. Margaret Mead’s New Lives for Old, which wasn’t one of them, but a later acquisition, kept in honour of the woman who dared live her life, do her thing. She wasn’t the smartest, the brightest, the most original—but fuck, she dared. Fraser’s The Golden Bough and Lilian Faderman’s Chloe Plus Olivia, both acquired in my teens—the first gave me religion for a while, while I freed myself of the Polish Catholicism in which I grew up (“freed” is an aspirational word; I suspect the religions we are indoctrinated into in childhood stay in our bones forever—the best that we can do is be aware when that early programming tries to sabotage our critical thinking and emotional well-being), and the second showed me I wasn’t a freak, an aberration, alone.

Next, The First Ms. Reader and the Sisterhood is Powerful anthology—original 1970s paperbacks bought in a used bookstore in the 1990s when I was discovering feminism. Monica Sjöö and Barbara Mor’s The Great Cosmic Mother—I suppose another Wicca-feminism vestige. I will never read it again, but way back when, that book changed my life, so. Here it is, with me, still.

And now, back to fiction: The Doorbell Rang, my only Rex Stout hardcover, although without the dust jacket, and a hardcover, old, maybe even worth something, with protected dust jacket intact, of P.G. Wodehouse’s Psmith, Journalist. Next to them, The Adventures of Romney Pringle and The Further Adventures by Romney Pringle, the single collaboration between R. Austin Freeman and John J. Pitcairn under the pseudonym of Clifford Ashdown. Written in 1902 or so, both volumes are the first American edition. In mint condition. Like the P.G. Wodehouse—and The Letters of Sylvia Plath, and the unique, autographed, bound in leather made from the butts of sacrificed small children or something, Orson Scott Card Maps in the Mirror short story collection, which is next-but-one to them on the bookshelf—they were a gift from Sean.

A lot of the books on my shelves, here with me now, are a gift from Sean.

Between them, a hard cover Georges Simeon found at a garage sale, and then G.K. Chesterton—Lepanto, the poem about the 1571 naval battle between Ottoman forces and the Holy (that’s what they called themselves) League of Catholic Europe, which I will never read again, but which is associated with a specific time and event in my personal history, so I keep it. Next to it, The Collected Stories of Father Brown, in battered hardcover, which I re-read intermittently, and which are—well. Perfect, really. Then, all of Dashiell Hammett in one volume. Then, almost all the best Agatha Christie’s in four “five complete novels” hardcover collections, topped with two multi-author murder mystery medleys from the 1950s.

Looking at this shelf makes me very, very happy.

Next, the one fully preserved collection. Before the move, these books lived on a bookshelf perched on top of my desk. Now, they are here, their “natural” order slightly altered because of the uneven height of this case’ shelves. The top shelf is, I suppose, mostly reference and writing books:

The Paris Review Interviews, Anne Lammott’s Bird by Bird, Neil Gaiman’s Make Good Art, Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, and their ilk. At the end, a couple of publications in which I have a byline.

The next shelf, the smallest on the case, is a bit of a smorgasboard, but is very precious to me:

Do you see Frida and my Tarot cards? Also an Ariana Reines book that I really should give back to its owner…

Next, my perhaps most precious books.

Philip Larkin’s Letters to Monica and Nabokov’s Letters to Vera. Anne Carson’s If Not Winter: Fragments of Sappho. Four Letter Word, a collection of “original love letters” (short stories, they mean, pretentious fucks) from an assortment of mega-stars, including Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. LeGuin… a strange assortment, really. But some lovely pieces in there. Some lame ones too—and I like that too. Even superstars misfire, every one in a while.

Then, Leonard Cohen, Pablo Neruda, Walt Whitman, Jack Gilbert, Vera Pavlova. Finally, Anaïs Nin’s Delta of Venus and Little Birds, and a bunch of battered Colettes. Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer right next to Colette, of course. Then, my Frida books.

The next shelf is full of aspirational delusions.

Farsi textbooks next to Hafez, Rumi and Forough Farrokzad translations. I will never be able to read Hafez in the original Persian. But maybe? Life is long. Maybe, one day, I will have time. Then, Jung’s Red Book, Parker J. Palmer’s A Hidden Wholeness, Rod Stryker’s The Four Desires, Stephen Cope’s The Great Work of Your Life, Thich Nhat Hahn’s The Art of Communicating (I failed), The Bhagavad Gita (still trying).

As I said, the shelf of delusions.

The bottom shelf is aspirational/inspirational, and also, very tall.

And so, that’s why my Georgia O’Keefe books are there, as well as The Purple Book, and Obrist’s do it manifesto. Perhaps there is room there for my leather-bound Master’s thesis, currently tucked away in the closet, right there, next to a course binder from SAIT? Then, all of my Spanish books, including Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s El Amor en los Tiempos del Cólera… which, also, one day, I will read in Spanish and actually understand. Life is long, right?

Next, not really a book shelf as such, but the top shelf of my secretary desk, where the reference and project books of the moment live.

The Canadian Press Stylebook has a permanent home here, of course. And I’ve got two copies of Canadian Copyright: A Citizen’s Guide there, one for me (unread, but I’ll get to it, I promise myself, again), one for a colleague. Both snagged from a Little Free Library, by the way.

Almost done.

In the bedroom, the books of vice.

A shelf of battered Ngaio March paperbacks, tucked beside them some meditation and Kundalini yoga books that I’m not using right now, but, maybe, one day, I am not ready to give up on this part of myself yet.  Below, a shelf of even more battered Rex Stout paperbacks.

I read and re-read these books—as did their original owners—until they fall to pieces. They are my crack, my vice—also, my methadone, my soother.

Below them, space for library books, mine and Ender’s:

I am finding Anna Mehler Paperny’s Hello I want to Die Please Fix Me unreadable, by the way. I pick it up, put it away. Repeat.

Will likely return it to the library unread.

Currently not on display: books by friends. Some here with me, some on the shelves in the Co-op house. There are a lot of those. Can one be ruthless… with friends?

ii. A reflection

Books, for readers and writers, are the artifacts that define us. When I enter a reader’s home, I immediately gravitate to their bookshelves. What’s on them?

What’s not on them?

What I’ve chosen to let go of, to not bring with me here tells me… a lot.

What am I going to do with this information?

xoxo

“Jane”

Books in the Time of Corona: what’s on my shelves and what’s not, and the story it tells First, an apology for the title slug. I know you're all sick and tired of plays on…