#and some TNG episodes also

[ectoviolet]

just found out diane duane co-wrote barbie fairytopia. idk what to do with this knowledge but i feel as though i now understand a greater truth about the universe.

[spirkbitch]

one more opinion about star trek fashion

it actually shouldn’t look like stuff you would wear (or at least a lot of it shouldn’t)

i’ve seen a lot of praise for modern trek fashion being better than classic trek because ‘people would actually wear that’

look at what people wore as everyday fashion 200-300 years ago, would you wear it? probably not, maybe for the novelty of it, but definitely not every day.

like, yeah this stuff looks crazy

it’s 300 years in the future. some of them are aliens, makes perfect sense to me that they would wear ridiculous extravagant clothes that look strange to my 21st century eye

similar to how if you showed modern fashion (especially alternative fashion/runway fashion) to someone dressed like this,

they would probably think we’re crazy.

yet for some reason modern trek wants us to believe that hundreds of years into the future people still just wear zip up hoodies?

(idk if the spock fit actually is a hoodie or not but come on man, the zipper? nothing more futuristic than a zipper?)

or this dress that looks like i could buy it in a 21st century target?

(not to hate on chapel, she’s just the only one i can find decent pictures of out of uniform)

also why is everything so grey now? when was it decided that people don’t wear colors in the future? i can not find out of uniform pictures where any of these people wear color, all black, white, grey, and maybe a bit of muted green.

tldr

clothing design in star trek should be just as important as clothing design in a period piece. i don’t think a screencap from any star trek should look like it could just as easily take place in the 21st century, i should see some crazy outfits. the clothes can do a lot of the heavy lifting to remind us that this is supposed to be far in the future.

[freakdroids]

Lore in Datalore. song is "abusive" by MIMIDEATH

[opens-up-4-nobody]

I'm trying to think of like in a vacuume what is the most well written, compelling episode of star trek? Across all of star trek. Outside of nostalgia or shipping stuff or how iconic some of the episodes became. What is the best Star Trek episode?

[quarks-pussy]

Dilf Worf fucking people up. The fucking "not just another electronic system/biological organism" lines. Durango. Cat dad Data. Brent Spiner in 25 different little outfits. Riker's slutty shirt. Durango. Brent Spiner in a dress! Worf dad #wholesome times.

Fistful of Datas truly out there giving the gays everything we want.

[fflewddur-feanorion]

whenever someone makes fun of a robot or alien character for not understanding humans, I absolutely lose my shit. how dare you. they are trying their BEST. they are processing an INSANE amount of information at any given moment in order to communicate with you and be your friend. and you're laughing?? don't worry, fictional robots. I got you. I will fight the entire world on your behalf

[hornyverymuch]

I can't believe they brought her back just to break my heart again...

on a less angsty note I love the new hairstyle <3

[commsroom]

What does Eiffel think about Star Trek?

wolf 359 and star trek is such a funny topic because. gabriel urbina didn't know. he didn't know wolf 359 was significant to star trek or that people might interpret his choice of star as a reference, in a show with so many pop culture references. i'm not sure about the rest of the cast and crew, but between sarah, zach, and gabriel, you've got ZERO star trek fans. star wars aligned show.

eiffel makes some very surface level star trek references (like, 'anyone with pop culture knowledge could know this without seeing a single episode' level references) but i think you have to assume, as an extension of that, that he's not really a star trek fan. i think he's probably seen at least a few episodes here and there, and i don't think he dislikes it, but it's obviously not his show. eiffel thinks star trek is fine unless someone says it's better than star wars, in which case he absolutely buys into meaningless nerd wars.

[sirellas]

was about to say this in the tags of a post but then I realized I had nothing nice to say lol and op didn't deserve that, but I did not like tng the drumhead whatsoever. everyone was saying wild ooc shit except picard who once again is presented as the moral authority. I think tng has some really weak setups for its plots a lot of the time but this one didn't even make sense for multiple characters (except the most perfect specialist boy picard!!!) and it was so obvious they just wanted to push through the plot/sense to get to the picard moral high ground. long time listeners will know I am not a fan of JL as he is often written. I think he as a character is a case of too many cooks in the kitchen trying to make completely different recipes. and so often everyone else's characterization is fucked at the expense of making him look like a badass. but at his core he is not a badass. he is a depressed archeologist who longs to be day drunk.

[thegeminisage]

i don't know how i'm supposed to simply do a tng update when there was SPOCK but obviously last night (tonight as i type this, but it's late, so this post is going up while i'm at work) we watched unification part i & part ii

tng update:

🌈SPOCK🌈

okay, i'm normal again

part i: BITTERLY disappointed that all we got out of this episode spockwise was one blurry photo and him coming in right at the end. i had a feeling they'd do that. i guess now i have to talk about the nonimportant nonspock parts of this episode 🥱

ive decided i hate sarek's new wife. what business is it of hers if spock objects to sarek in public? if sarek didn't have a problem with it why make one? evil stepmother fr. why did sarek marry another human anyway does he have a fucking fetish or something...at least she was too old to get knocked up. i was reading about ages on the wiki today and amanda was only TWENTY YEARS OLD when she had spock. sarek would have been 65. i know vulcans age way different so it's not as creepy but STILL. girl, wait until you are old enough to drink

speaking of sarek...i went back and forth feeling terrible for him and wanting to attack him with my bare hands. under one hand he is on his deathbed and obviously very ill and miserable and suffering deep regrets over past mistakes and it's hard not to have sympathy...on the other, maybe if you wanted less deathbed regrets about your relationship with spock YOU SHOULD HAVE TREATED HIM BETTER! bitch.

also, whatever he and picard had going on was homoerotic. "we're part of each other" why do they talk about the mind meld that way in tng and not in tos. why did picard feel up sarek's hand on his deathbed the second his wife looked away. hes got a history of homewrecking since he (i know) had his affair baby wesley with beverly. so Whats Going On

picard forcefully obtaining the klingon ship. i LOVE when he gets to be a bitch

ROMULAN RACEFAKING??? a proud star trek tradition at this point i guess but it was truly awful to behold. DEEPLY disappointed sela did not later lick the paint off his ears as the klingons implied she would. smh

i like also how riker blew up that whole ship and nobody batted an eyelash. he really can just do whatever

part ii: SPOCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the first time i cried was when spock himself came onscreen at the end of part i. then just as soon as i collected myself he mentioned jim kirk twice in the space of 30 seconds and i lost it again. we are literally bridging the gap between tos spock and spock prime from aos rn and i Dont like it.

Very Sad his dad kicked it before they could reconcile. but i saw his microexpressions when picard delivered the news. i missed them more than you can possibly imagine

i did love though that he started viewing picard as like a proxy sarek. imagine having daddy issues with a guy who is 75 years younger than you. lowkey they also had a little homoeroticism happening. "cowboy diplomacy" sure whatever

riker and the four-armed pianist 10/10 i hope they fucked. i'm so glad we wont he riker roulette and it wasn't creepy. also only riker could successfully flirt with a women after killing her husband in a spaceship battle <3

i'm a little iffy on spock's uhhh whole deal in this episode. he's lik yeah i chose the vulcan way of life these romulans are gonna have way better lives after their vulcan enlightenment but meanwhile he's criticizing sarek for his obsession with logic to the exclusion of all emotion (which is what he decided in tmp, that you need both) and also the vulcan way of life has done huge damage to his relationship with his father as well. so which is it?? idk, maybe he's not doing well because of sarek dying and all but he seemed like he was in a very "im not willing to acknowledge that i have emotions because rn theyre causing me pain" sort of mood. buddy :(

then again, it IS a tng script. we can only expect so much. it wasn't so inconsistent that it took me out of the episode but it did bother me a little because i just don't understand why he's willing to devote the rest of his life to this cause...he seemed to imply he had emotional reasons but what were they?? we will quite literally never know.

what's wack to me also is that in nineteen years romulus is gonna be GONE. like it's just going to be gone. eaten up by the sun or whatever. if someone had a baby right now on romulus that baby would not be old enough to drink before the sun swallowed them. so everything spock is doing is for nothing.

sela in this episode was really funny. "i hate vulcans." so true queen. i mean i don't care about her at all but that was hilarious

data doing the vulcan nerve pinch!!!!!!! that was so fun. i don't think it requires telepathy to do, just super strength, but i guess if you do then that makes no sense. it made me happy though.

the end when spock melded with picard to quasi-meld with his father and almost wept was me crying for the third time...i couldn't stand seeing him cry!!!!!! i can't believe sarek really just died without ever reconciling with him but i kind of like it better this way bc what sarek did was his own fault not spock's. so spock got closure and sarek. didn't. rip dude

okay. this concludes. the SPOCK UPDATE. tonight: a matter of time. and TOMORROW........the undiscovered country. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[youngpettyqueen]

now that im finished DS9 I think im going to take a very brief Trek break and watch Blue Eye Samurai and Scott Pilgrim Takes Off because ive been meaning to watch those

after that im gonna get right back on Trek and do a rewatch of TOS. ive seen TOS a few times, but mostly as reruns on tv, I dont honestly think I ever sat and did my own watch but I know ive seen it all through either reruns or people around me watching it. so ill do my TOS watch and then im gonna really commit to it by watching TAS, and then all the movies, because ive still only seen Wrath of Khan and I need to rectify that

and THEN im gonna watch Lower Decks

[margottrek]

honestly haven't a clue what the intention is but picard has so many exes its ridiculous

like every other episode we're meeting some guy he clearly used to date and isn't fully over and i just dont know what else im supposed to interpret it as

[1shirt2shirtredshirtdeadshirt]

Sexism in TOS: Worst Offender, or Progressive in Retrospect in Comparison?

I see a lot of folks claim that TOS was the most sexist of the Star Trek shows by a landslide -- and while I agree that it definitely suffered from the sexism of the times, I also have other perspectives to share to give some food for thought.

I am of course not insinuating that TOS isn't sexist -- it is, but I have to ask folks to consider the breadth and depth of Berman's sexism in his run and ask yourself: Was Gene Roddenberry genuinely more sexist in his storytelling and delivery than Rick Berman?

I'm not telling you to feel one way or the other, but all I ask is that you hear me out and consider some perspectives and make your own balanced assessments. Nobody is obligated to share my opinion, but it means a lot just to have folks hear it and see their thoughts on the subject. So here is what I was originally responding to:

Someone's response to this photo:

"Devil's advocate. This was a part of the popular form of cardio during the production time of TNG. Yes, it was heavily sexualised by men, but so is literally every other way women work out. Men have been caught taking pictures of women while trying to do dead lifts, running on tracks and working on sled machines. They post them online to share too. The fact is, there is no way a woman can be shown working out without it going there. And yeah,t hat includes the combat forms of workout they do in Star Trek. Just look at how Dax dresses when she spars with Worf. Yes, they're dating, but still, same goes when 7 does and any other female.

Aerobics routines like this were made dirty and cringy. This was what women wore then by and large. This is how the workout was done. We make it cringy."

My response to them:

"I respect your take, but I disagree on a few fronts.

The miniskirt was chosen by the TOS female cast, not the male cast, specifically requested by Grace LW and affirmed by Nichelle and Majel who would go on to vehemently defend the miniskirt over the years as comfortable and embraced by them.

Grace said it was comfortable and seen as a symbol of female sexual empowerment during the 60s and thought it would be a progressive garment (and turns out that it was, as it was later adapted and worn by male crew as a skant on TNG) -- FYI those were designed by a gay man and Gene approved them.

This was also supposed to be Spock's TMP outfit:

Literally lingerie.

We saw both Uhura (who saves Kirk in from Marlena Mirror Mirror) and Yeoman Landon (the first to initiate combat with a classic Kirk-esque kick to help the Captain being attacked in The Apple) carry out their combat training in their Starfleet uniforms without ever being made to change into any ridiculous workout gear.

In fact, I'd argue Jim Kirk was sexualized even more than the ladies of the week on the show and I saw his naked body more than anyone else's on a fairly regular basis. He wore red yoga tights while topless in Charlie X while the women wore full length gymnastic suits that covered their entire body. If anything, it went out of its way to avoid sexualizing women practicing fitness in those scenes and instead focused on Kirk.

Gene confessed that he asked to have Shatner filmed in suggestive/provocative ways to "give something to the ladies", so he -- as he said -- liked to "film him walking away" or have him conveniently busting out of his shirts in just about every episode as it were, because Shatner apparently had great assets. LOL

Gene made an effort to at least sexualize both if he was going to sexualize one, and he carried that attitude forward in wanting the m/m and f/f scenes in the background on Risa for TNG. He also insisted that the men and women wear skimpy outfits on THAT TNG planet. You know the one. LOL I mean the dudes even had on less than the women:

Gene also gave permission to K/S shippers to have their conventions back in the 70s when he was asked for permission. Gene and Nimoy felt with all the skimpy outfits they had the ladies wear, why not let the ladies and gay men have their fun, too? It's how we ended up with moments like this:

Yes, those are two people dressed up as Kirk and Spock's penises doing interpretive dance. Gene didn't give two damns. LOL

In my eyes, that was a very progressive take on Gene's part for the 60s. It was actually PARAMOUNT STUDIOS who had the big problem with K/S stories and vehemently tried to shut them down. Gene literally hired slash authors on his payroll and even had several slash stories/writers published in his official Star Trek books (The New Voyages & The New Voyages II).

I feel I saw Uhura and women in TOS engaged in more physical combat/altercations defending themselves that Troi or Bev were shown holding their own.

In fact, Kirk used to get furious when someone would "dress up" his female crew members without their consent (Trelane episode, Shore Leave episode) because like his male crew members, he wanted them to be treated professionally and to also have his male crew act professionally.

Berman brought some of his own personal biases into Star Trek that in some ways regressed it. While TOS had blatant sexism and was called on it time and again, that show was made in the 60s -- a solid 21 years before TNG. We as a modern audience understood why some of it was cringe/sexist due to the time period -- look at any other media coming out in the 60s and Star Trek was miles ahead of what other shows were doing.

Compare that to Berman who was churning sexist stuff out when women like Starbuck and Scully were simultaneously on screen on other programs airing, and we had already had Sigourney Weaver and other strong women in Holywood playing respectful roles.

In my eyes, there was no need of the sexism seen in TNG but especially VOY and ENT. There was no excuse for it when other shows were writing women far better and a number of those weren't even set in the future like Trek was, making it age even faster due to having those dated perspectives frequently highlighted.

In the Center Seat documentary as well as "The Fifty Year Mission" book you will find cast members, writers and other studio alumni who attest to this. Some discussions from "The Fifty Year Mission":

"First, Berman was supposed to have been a real sleaze ball . . . According to Terry Farrel, he would go on constantly about how her breasts weren't big enough, how she should do something about it, and how his secretary was a good example to follow as she had huge breasts. She even had to have fittings to get larger bras, and that was all done at his behest.

Later Berman and Braga developed a name for Jeri Ryan's character prior Seven of Nine. They originally called the character "perineum" which if you look it up it is the area between the anus and the scrotum. Later they floated the name "6 of 9". I mean, what does it tell you about where these two were coming from in the development of this character if they had names like that put forward in all seriousness for her?"

Gene Roddenberry also had some of his own more progressive ideas for TNG cut or watered down by Berman. Roddenberry agreed TNG should have homosexual relationships and representation at a con in the 80s and insisted on it in a meeting with his writers -- something Berman later would not honor. Gene wanted the AIDS episode, showing m/m and f/f in the Riza scenes -- these were some of Roddenberry's requests to include in TNG that Berman later stonewalled.

Berman's era was sadly dated by his own misogynist bias, IMO, to the point that it can somewhat hurt the shows he worked on through his cringe egoism and blatant disrespect toward his female cast.

There is a reason why Gene could keep female actresses working with him and Berman had a revolving door of women that he couldn't seem to keep working for him -- he was abhorrent to women, on and off set. Gene wasn't perfect at all, he had a lot of issues himself -- but Berman was a whole other level. Just look at what he did to poor Jolene Blalock, Marina Sirtis and his toxic commenting on her body weight which exacerbated her struggles with eating disorders, or how he treated and talked to Terry Farrell.

Anyway, just some food for thought. I'm not saying anyone is wrong regarding a take like that, but there are a variety of ways to look at this. Gene Roddenberry isn't a saint by any means, but it definitely bothers me how folks will tote the Berman era as if it were the lesser of two evils or the more progressive depiction of women when I felt there were far more concerning portrayals of women in his era with far less justification.

(P.S: I don't event want to go near the sheer amount of "creepy old dude/villain preys on innocent/naïve/scared young woman or little girl" stories there were in Berman's era, either. But that's a whole other can of worms I can write about in a part 2.)

[dduane]

I have started collecting your Star Trek novels, after having gotten to know your writing through Young Wizards. Just finished Spock's World, am a few chapters into The Wounded Sky.

I'd just like to say that I love the way you embrace diversity as a concept in your writing. Your Starfleet is full of Terrans, sure, and humanoids, but also overflowing with nonhumanoids, with species whose inclusion necessitates accommodation and work and cooperation, and it's just so very STAR TREK, in a way even the most ambitious episodes of the original series and TNG never managed, for budget reasons and probably because someone, somewhere said "nobody would deal with that on a starship."

It makes the things that aren't present in the books, the diversity that no 1980s publisher would have allowed in such a mainstream property, feel less keenly absent. This alien is a genderless crystal whose experience of time is utterly beyond my understanding, I think, so of course there's room in this Starfleet for an autistic agender bisexual like me.

It's really uplifting in ways I wouldn't have expected before I really got into your Trek novels.

I'm glad the books have worked for you.

I think one of the things that may be working in my favor here is a tendency to take a series's (or IP's) professed themes and/or philosophies at face value, and run with them—treating them as if they're worth wholeheartedly accepting.* The fairly early statement of the IDIC concept would have been one that jumped out at me when (like all the other viewers in the mid-to-late 60s) I was watching Trek for the first time.

But something else that would always have been in the background for me was a very early engagement with, and enthusiasm about, the relatively hard-SF concept of More Alien-Than-Usual Aliens. This would've come from reading authors who espoused it: Heinlein sometimes, Ted Sturgeon sometimes, but also E. E. "Doc" Smith and William Tenn and Cordwainer Smith... and also, very especially, Hal Clement, who's too little-known these days and did some of the best aliens ever. Add all of these (especially Doc Smith's Lensman series) to a longtime fondness for the Green Lantern Corps, and you wind up with the general let's-get-out-there-and-have-a-good-time-with-our-extremely-alien-cousins approach of the Young Wizards series.

So when they and the Middle Kingdoms crowd (with alien species holding positions of prominence in both series) got me in the door at the print end of Star Trek, the tendencies I'd already been exploiting on my own turf more or less inevitably came with me. As far as I was concerned, the more aliens (or non-usual Earth-based species), the more fun I was going to have. And when it came to the IDIC thing, I didn't think Gene had mumbled. The more diversity, the better.

(No one complained about the unusual aliens, either. The nice thing about Trek-novel writing is the low special effects cost... since your readers do it all in their heads. Original Trek was always running into the "We can't afford that" thing, alas. Not a problem for me, though.)

Anyway: Trek is absolutely, from the ground up, a place where all possible diversity belongs. You could make a case that the Trek series that have least featured this aspect of that universe have in turn been the least effective ones. ...But I'll leave it to other people to argue that out. Myself, I managed to work a sentient-mathematical-concept-Green Lantern into a GL script one time. It'd be fun to do that (and figure out how to make it visual!) in Trek. ...Later for that.

Meanwhile: it's my pleasure to have been of service. Thanks for letting me know. :)

*See also the old idiom about "taking the King's shilling". If you're going to accept it, don't waste everybody's time on half-measures. Go transgalactic or go home. :)

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Spitballing with the fellas on discord and we've come up with a Star Trek character we want to see: A 200-year-old top Vulcan diplomat attending a function and laughing boisterously and slapping backs with everyone and then just relaxing into resting bitch face the moment nobody is watching him. He takes his job deadly seriously and studied parties extensively in the diplomatic academy. Every year he's brushing up on new developments in party theory. He knows every party nuance you could possibly think of, for the sake of intergalactic relations. Peace in the galaxy depends on it. It's weird but you gotta meet people where they're at, he thinks.

[startrekprodigyfan]

“I don’t like NuTrek, they don’t highlight what makes classic Trek so great.”

Cool. I recommend Star Trek Prodigy.

“So much of NuTrek is too far into the future or too far into the past”

Okay cool… I recommend Prodigy. It starts literally after Voyager ended.

“These new seasons of NuTrek are so short, and their plots move by way too fast”

Again… Prodigy. It’s 20 episodes a season, there are two seasons, that’s 40 episodes! Lots of time to go on hijinks and still have overarching plots.

“These NuTrek shows don’t respect the cannon of Star Trek”

PLEASE… I’m BEGGING YOU… watch Star Trek Prodigy. The writers LOVE the canon of legacy Trek and they’ve worked hard to improve on storylines from the TNG and VOY eras while also added some very deep cuts and references only seasoned Trek fans will catch!

Please… Prodigy is on Netflix. You can watch all 40 episodes now. It’s fantastic!