   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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I feel the urge to make a multiplane camera joke, but I can’t come up with one.
I like playing with multiple layers of depth and trying to mimic different types of camera effects. i do it a lot more often in Crosarth
It’s definitely an appropriate effect for an anime con, seeing as how, in the pre-digital age, multiplane shots were far more common in TV anime than in American TV animation (I’m working on Otakon’s Classic Track right now, so this sort of thing is very much at the forefront of my thoughts 😉 )
Also – the jokes,
“Ruth seems out of her depth”
“Sometimes it takes a minute for things to become clear”
“Barnes would be a great staffer if he could just focus”
Hey look it’s Harry
‘Not much bad can happen right now.’ …really, why does anyone ever say anything like that? It’s like taunting the Universe.
Pre-reg is kind of always the stress-free shift, for us. We know no matter how bad it might go, it’s still pushing through people so much faster than On-site.
..especially this year, when the reg computers had grand fail. From one line of code. For a facebook like button we forgot to pull.
Not my department anymore!
–Chiaroscuro
You just had to say it, Ruth…