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.
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You know, the sad part of this mess is that other than the reason for the defiance, Jim is 100% correct. You just can’t have people flat out saying, “Fark it, don’t care what the boss says, doing it anyway!” and continue to function as a company/event/whatever.
But then you get situations like this, where the boss is 100% wrong as hell and refuses to admit it. What do?? It just doesn’t end well no matter what.
Except the guy dressed as a nazi was violating 2 restraint orders and was only dressed that way to troll con goers
To be fair, the restraining order only came up when Lynn needed a way to get out of punching Terrance. If Lynn had led with it, they could have gotten rid of Terrence, but then she wouldn’t get to punch a Nazi.
Except that the reason for all of that nullifies him having any good reason whatsoever of acting like a shit like this.
Additionally, Lynn did not quit, she was forcefully removed from her position in an act of very, very negative character assassination. So no, even WITHOUT the reason, he’s still in the wrong.
He acted like a complete and total dick because A) He would not do anything about a person walking around in Nazi guarb and acted like removing him is a bigger deal and unnecessary when it is completely so B) About a person that ALREADY has a restraining order against them and C) was suddenly upset when Lynn reacted the way she did because he chose to sit on his hands about a goddamn Nazi walking around.
The man’s an idiot and a jackass to boot masquerading around as a ‘good con chair’. He is not a good con chair if he is letting some doofus run around and Nazi garb and actively working against anyone on his staff wanting to act on a policy they very much have in force. Its asinine to the highest degree and he has no one to blame but himself over the whole thing because he could have easily, easily prevented it.
$20 pre-reg? Not bad! How many days is the con?
It’s for the weekend. It’s common for pre reg tables to sponsor an early bird special. It gets people to pre register and guarantees money for the con. It’s kind of like when oeople book plane tickets to a city months in advance and the tickets are significantly cheaper than they are the day the plane flies.
I know about pre-reg discounts, I wondered if it was a two day or three day con?
Three day.
Thanks!
And of course it now occurs to me that I could have checked the archives … where it’s immediately clear from the titles … sorry …
Jim has a right to be angry that Lynn defied him. She lied to his face when, as con director, he needed a truthful answer. That also means Unagi con is better off with staff that won’t support the team, so why get too mad about it? He might have expected better from a friend but he didn’t put it that way.
Lynn quitting afterward would hardly come as a surprise considering Jim’s whispering campaign.
Poaching Garner would be the one that stings.
She lied to his face only after he refused to enforce their hate speech policy. That hate speech policy is a promise from the con to everyone(including staff) who isn’t white/straight/male/abled that they will be safe at the con. When Jim refused to enforce that policy, it was left to everyone who attended or was working at the con to guarantee their own safety, which she did. Why should Jim expect honesty from her about that after the fact? It was his own failures as a director and as a decent human being that caused the problem in the first place.
It bothers me very much that this concept seems to be so hard to grasp on people who read this webcomic.
She lied to Jim because he didn’t want to do anything about a goddamn troll walking around as a Nazi despite them having a very specific policy about that sort of shit. Jim’s an idiot, and no, he is not in the right whatsoever ESPECIALLY after the act of character assassination because he didn’t get his way.
He’s a complete jackass and he’s completely in the wrong 100%. There’s no middle ground on this.
Nicholas Schneider & Viktor – You are the kind of folks who make me wish this comment section had a like/up-vote.
I know, right?
He started a smear campaign against her. She had every right and every reason to quit. And he can’t fault Lynn for Garner ‘s decision either – particularly since the selling point for him was not wanting to work with someone who does nothing about Nazis.
I can see where he’d be mad she lied about punching Terrance, but I imagine it would have gone over worse if the con had ignored the Nazi wandering around the con and the staff did nothing about it. You don’t want to be the con director that just let that go.
She didn’t quit you kicked her out