RIP Tracy Tormé, Creator of the "Holodeck Malfunction Episode" and Sliders
Tracy Tormé’s most enduring legacy in popular culture is that, while a writer on TNG’s tempestuous first and second seasons, he created the entire concept of the Holodeck Malfunction Episode.
Yes, even people who suggest you skip TNG’s first couple seasons say that “The Big Goodbye” is one you don’t want to miss. And there was a very nice tribute to Tracy Torme in an episode of Picard, which had him as the author and creator of Dixon Hill… which he is, and deserves credit for this.
I suppose I should mention I had a personal encounter with Tracy Tormé at a convention. The main thing I remember was that he looked absolutely terrified when someone asked him about what happened with “The Royale,” far and away TNG’s worst episode except the clip show, about the crew getting trapped on a hotel they can’t leave from a badly written book. To his great credit, he took responsibility for the episode not working and did not pass on the problems to the production crew.
The most extraordinary thing about Tracy Torme is that he had a Forrest Gump like ability to appear in the background of scifi culture’s greatest moments.
Not only was he inside the TNG writers’ room in 1987-88, he was around during the production of Terminator with James Cameron. Tormé was the one who, hearing about the production of the film, squealed on it to Harlan Ellison, telling Ellison that it was based on his old Outer Limits episodes, with a visual based on his script for “Demon With a Glass Hand.” In other words, he was the Gavrilo Princip who got that entire conflict started, where two of the most proud personalities in scifi butted heads, James Cameron vs. Ellison. Cameron, to this day, insists that the film company gave Ellison money and a credit because it was easier to pay him off than to go through litigation (which rings true, frankly, for risk averse production companies), and to this day Cameron insists, with his absolutely expected big dick swagger, that Ellison is a “parasite” who received money for nothing, and if it had been up to him, he wouldn’t have given him a dime.
It’s also worth mentioning that Torme also created the TV series Sliders.
Has anyone else noticed that Sliders is an incredibly right wing show? Seriously, watch it again if you haven’t seen it in years. If you haven’t watched this show since the 90s and you were a kid and all that went over your head, it’s kind of amazing how Limbaugh/Newt Gingrich era right-wing Sliders actually was. It made 24 look like Doonesbury. The targets of Sliders were 90s New Right satire: health care systems, infuriating hippies, the nanny state disallowing the public smoking of cigars, California weirdness, the drug culture, the USSR. Torme’s right wing views were less John Millius-style “blood alone moves the wheel of history” stuff, but more like that of a slobby regular joe in the 90s, Dennis Leary’s character in Demolition Man for instance, who mostly just wants to smoke cigars, ogle girls, and eat hamburgers without getting scolded by his wife. He was less “Passion of the Christ” and more “Animal House.”
I am not saying this as a negative, but merely a description. Contrary to popular belief, right wingers driven by bizarre sexual pathology and weird grudges produce amazing art, as Millius and John Swartzwelder show. A lot of Steven Universe fans love to say things like “all good art is about empathy and kindness” and I reject that notion. Good art can also be about reflecting things in the human experience like fear, trauma, cruelty, and paranoia.
For that reason, it doesn’t surprise me that Tracy Torme’s best movie script was a horror film about a traumatic experience, Fire in the Sky. An ominous movie about a vanished ranch hand who was the victim of alien abduction, in the earned finale the film’s tension builds toward, our hero remembers the true cause of his missing time: an abduction by aliens, who’s motives are emotionless and incomprehensible, and who subject him to horrific vivisection that we see in excruciating detail. Travis Walton is treated not with sadism or cruelty, but with icy detachment, by alien superintellects that view him as no different than cattle, and are to him as we are to cattle. The most terrifying detail of the film is that the classic “gray alien” look turns out to be spacesuits, revealing a far more frightening appearance underneath.
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Raphael's head mod
(Sliders below)
EMP's NPC heads may have vanished from Nexus, but we've got a new savior:
Raphael heads by samplevi
Adds not only the human version for human bodies, but also the cambion head for tieflings (and mod cambions), as well as Haarlep's and Raphael's cambion hair.
ENJOY FOLKS! And send some love to the blessed mod author!
(Honorable mention: They also made a female Raphael head mod)
Also, in case anyone wants it - I spent an embarrassing amount of time to try and match Raphael's hair color, because it's not just a flat brown from the base colors.
Here's a comparison of my best match, left is character creation hair, right is the actual Raphael model:
Sliders:
Human
Human hair:
Eyes: Brown 2
Skin color: Blush 5
Cambion
Skin color: Red Tone 4
Cambion hair:
Horns:
If you're looking for Raphael's cambion eyes, the "New eye colors" mod has them. The color is called "Mindflayer orange".
Now go forth and have fun!
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my favorite skin details in the sims 4 (maxis match)
find all of my favorite skindetails for ts4, including skinblends, freckles, blush, eyemasks, presets, & more! watch the full video here 🫰
cc links:
skinblends
lilac dreams default skin, lamatisse, nesurii, kindlespice, twisted-cat, simbience, sammi-xox, cicada skinblend by squeamish sims
skindetails (blush, freckles, nosemasks, eyebags, etc)
blushes / booboo blush by squeamish sims, body blush by simandy, highlighter by littlecakes
freckles / kore freckles by glossari, summer breeze freckles by merci, floral skindetail set by peachyfaerie, back to basics skindetail set
general / skindetail kit by pralinesims, nosemask by remussirion, nose shaders by faaeish, face kit no.2 by miiko, eyelid overlay by miiko, eyebags by pralinesims, catchlights by peachyfaerie
presets & sliders
nose presets / nose presets (female) by poyopoyo, nose presets + nosemask (female) by obscurus, lip & nose presets (male) by northern siberia winds
lip presets / summer equinox lip presets by northern siberia winds, lip presets (female) by poyopoyo, lip preset by miiko, lip presets by divinecap, preset dump set by elainaaa13
sliders / brow slider by magic-bot, nose slider by magic-bot, chin slider by magic-bot
eyes (contacts, overrides, & eyelashes)
*default* faded eyes by twisted-cat, eyemasks by poyopoyo, elena eyes by miiko, crybaby eyes by miiko, all eyelashes by miiko
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