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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As a dude, I… can’t really disagree…
yea i think it’s why i have mostly female friends
As a dude, I can’t really either. But it should also come with the words, “in public.” At least in my experience, women are just as gross. Just not where everyone and their sister is there to note said behavior*.
*:observation void in groups of female friends hanging out with no one else around. There will sometimes be discussions that are nasty enough to make Bob Guiconne’s head spin. Exceptions also made for long term significant others – there’s only so long you can hide it as much as they’re around.
…no. You really must not get it.
There’s a difference between a conversation between trusted friends, and things you suggest to someone you just met.
Well of course there is. That went in there more for the crowd that sees dudes and super gross and immediately feels that true converse must be that women are sweetness and rainbows and never gross. Unrealistic, if nothing else outdated as all get out, but you still run into it a surprising amount of the time. Was well aware that that wasn’t particularly where she was going with it in the comic, just kinda made me laugh and comment as to the common phenomenon you get when people say this kinda stuff.