Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
So I'm just going to come out and say it: My favorite episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation is "Conundrum." It's episode fourteen of season five, and I just deeply love it.
I don't know if it's because I literally just assumed Erich Anderson's Commander McDuff was a random Enterprise officer of the week (which we saw quite often during the show) when I watched it as a kid during the original run, so the twist actually worked on eleven year old me. I don't know if it's because I just like a good "everyone has amnesia" story. I don't even know if it's just because it's a good Ro Laren episode. I don't know if it's just because we learn that Starfleet doesn't give a crap about lasers.
I just like it. It's neat.
And I rewatched it last night, and feel that it holds up -- which is why I found it deeply weird that the folks who wrote the episode actually think it's not that good. My favorite episode of the entire seven season run of the show was a failure according to the folks who wrote it.
And maybe, as a writer and creator, I should remember that.
Like the hardest part of releasing creative works to the public is that often, after a while, I'll start to judge those things far more harshly than when I first made them. Or I'll compare it to the potential I thought an idea had in my head. And if I don't reach that potential, I'll think of it as "bad" -- when it might just be slightly different than that idea. I have one hundred percent published stories that I thought were just sort of okay and later had someone tell me how much it meant to them to read it.
*cough*I Hate November*cough*
So I should make sure I remember Conundrum. That one of my favorite things to rewatch is considered one of those failures by its creators. That the things I make might have value, just not in the way I originally thought they should.
It's just sort of how things work out.
Remember that on April 5th at 11AM Eastern/10AM Central you can join me for the Critical Thinking Witches' Collective's April Brew virtual event! Attendance is free, and you can register here!
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Give a dipshiat an inch…
You know, there was a time, maybe 7-10 years ago and before, that I would have dismissed the events in this comic as unlikely. I don’t now.
The funny thing is that the most absurd stuff you couldn’t possibly make up, are in fact the very things that often happen.
Ugh, I come across ‘Dave Peviani’ (and I know who he’s based on) fans in a fandom I’m part of. Some of them are so sure he’s innocent that it’s pathetic, and they go rabidly attack anyone that doesn’t agree with them.
yea anyone who’s even a little into anime or a fan of… “Male Avian Dentistry” know who dave is based on ….he’s a tw@
I have yet to come upon something here that is ‘unrealitistic’ in any light no matter what it is.
But that’s also probably because I’ve experienced some of this shit.
I’ve experienced a lot of it myself, yes. But the level of, “I’m a complete dickhead moron, and Ima gonna get up and yell about it at a public event like this.” that happens now – not so much. Living proof I’m old I guess. Was a time when this kinda shiat would have had the crowd closing in on you with, “Ok you can STFU and leave, or you can get your ass kicked by 12 pixies, 4 Master Chiefs, 2 centaurs, and some dude cosplaying a Khornate Chaos Marine a little too well. Twice.”
MFers used to stay under their rocks where they belonged.