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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I’m guessing this particular con’s cosplay policies don’t forbid this. Get with the times, guys!
Whole thing seems like a rollup to Jim acting like Jim again. He’s been weirdly ok…ish? lately. It can’t last. Or this’ll be his Waterloo – pick one or both.
The guy in the uniform should have volunteered info about cosplay, but it’s possible nobody was listening.
Yeah, see, I have this medical condition. Anytime someone in a Nazi uniform opens their mouth, all I hear is a racist version of the teacher from Peanuts. Whatever justification or argument he might give is drowned out by the fact that he’s dressed like a NAZI.
Yeah. Pretty much this. *points to Viktor*
I also have the same medical condition. It’s called “Good sense.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSwTuzGasSU
A couple of Nazis at 3:18 and a Nazi officer at 3:20. I asked why and my wife said; “Hetalia.”
(That wouldn’t explain the Nazis in the gas masks, though)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZDrK2KLXkQ
1:30; “zombie” Nazi?
Part of me says ‘of COURSE that’s awful and shouldn’t be allowed.’
But I know if someone wandered by dressed up as Schrodinger from Hellsing I’d be delighted and likely not even cross my mind they’re dressed as a Nazi.