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!
![Nerd & Tie[dot]Social Forums](https://www.nerdandtie.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/natsocial-nicepreview-square-300x300.png)
Damn it, Jim
Wow… That’s actually kinda shitty considering how much she’s done for the con. Sure, punching Terrence wasn’t the best decision while in a leadership position, but there is some reasoning behind it.
And it would be one thing if the staff had collectively voted her out on their own, but for a leader to poison the well to that degree? That says leagues about the kind of person someone is, and it’s not a nice statement. And it’s just childish really. Big loss of respect for Jim.
Also, should Lynn’s second speech bubble say, “They would get rid of me”? There seems to be a word missing?
Nah, it’s right. It’s more slang-ish/vernacular than “proper” English, but it’s still grammatically correct.
Fair enough. I write for a living, so I don’t always catch on to slang, lol.
It’s Unagi Con’s funeral. Besides Lynn can now go back to Bork Con and revive that con and restructure it again. And I have a feeling this is story has some real life influence.
Stuff has consequences, even stuff that you should indeed be doing. Trite but true, even here.
Lynn gave Jim several huge headaches. The obvious one is “when will she be violent again?” another is “what else would she lie about?” with a third being “What other con staff will she spread those behaviors to?”
If Jim wasn’t going to go, Lynn had to go.
Or he could have done his job instead of letting the Hate Policy violator stay.
Those questions seem rather hard for a first-time offense while on his staff. She hasn’t made a pattern of these behaviors while working for him, so jumping to “Oh no! She’s inexplicably violent! I must spread a whisper campaign to passive-aggressively run her out of a leadership position!” is just childish. He’s an adult, not a teenager. What he should have done was waited until after the con and had an adult conversation with her. Like a fricking adult.
(I have little to no patience for passive-aggressive behavior from people who should know better. I dealt with that BS enough through a great deal of middle and high school.)