Rambling of a Madman

Don’t be a dick, respectful(ish) discussions. Always open to asks, DMs, so on and so forth. I love to talk about shit.

[risingchaos]

Happy Pride month! Shout out to..

The Gays ✨

[garaks-padded-cell]

GUYS ITS ME GARAKS-PADDED-BRA i was so moved by being terminated for no reason i wrote a song so beautiful that tumblr would have no choice but to give me access to my wholesome family friendly blog once more. Reblog if you want Gpb RETURN so you may LOOK AT THE PAUL WILLIAMS FANCAM I MADE

[risingchaos]

I honestly think Lal would kick major ass in dodgeball and it would terrify everyone involved.

[gesssekai]

STAR TREK: VOYAGER // S6E25: The Haunting of Deck Twelve

[kewsi3542]

ol' chum

[risingchaos]

I think it’s really interesting to think about the differences between the one and twos in the old era of Star Trek (TOS-ENT).

Spock and Kirk were written to be essentially opposites each other that worked perfectly together, as well as working as our introduction into the universe.

Kirk is emotional, courageous, and a leader. Spock is logical, patient, and a right hand man. As we dig deeper into their psyches we see more overlap in Kirk’s conniving nature, Spock’s strong sense of loyalty.

Picard and Riker are written to be opposites to Kirk and Spock. Picard is a diplomat through and through, self-sacrificing, and struggles with the toll of his job. Riker’s a cowboy, he wants to save everyone, wants to have fun, and struggles with the weight of his job.

I mean, we see the continuous thing of Riker being offered command he doesn’t quite feel ready for, and Picard being a teacher to his core (as long as it’s not to children).

Then we get to Sisko and Kira, who are completely and entirely different from the other one and twos we have so far.

Sisko was written to be incredibly separate from the other Starfleet members, and we can tell. He’s more willing to bend rules, strong in his convictions, and he’s the first proper wartime commander we see. Kira’s an ex-revolutionary that actively fights Sisko, she’s someone with an incredibly set moral compass that doesn’t always point in the same direction as him. They actively clash.

When we move on to Janeway and Chakotay, we get a near similar dynamic but it’s changed just enough.

Janeway’s similar to Sisko in her willingness to do what she thinks is right, but due to her circumstances, she prioritizes Starfleet protocol for a sense of normalcy and we see her constantly working against her guilt. Chakotay doesn’t have the same Starfleet loyalty, and that makes both of them work well in saving the crew in different ways.

Then we have Archer and T’Pol.

Archer falls back hard on the cowboy archetype we had from Kirk and T’Pol was originally slotted into a near adversarial role, both of them massively struggling with one another. T’Pol’s character arc exists separate from Archer, but we see her try to accept his emotionality through her own difficulties and him accept her lack of due to their circumstances.

Each one builds on the past but still does a successful job reinventing a dynamic while not losing what it is that’s needed for this kind of dynamic. Your Captain and your First Officer need to be strong or else shit falls apart, and if it does, you gotta have a damn good reason why.

[risingchaos]

Congratulations Star Trek: TOS, you can now make withdrawals from your retirement without getting a penalty.

[lady-lazarus-13]

And yet....still super hot to me.

[prokopetz]

Much has been said of how Andrew J Robinson's performance of Elim Garak in his initial appearance was a spontaneous decision he made the first time he saw Alexander Siddig in costume, but it's fun to bear in mind that this must have been true from an in character perspective as well.

Like, this is Julian Bashir's first posting fresh out of med school; Garak theoretically has access to what's in Julian's academic record, but he has basically zero personal or professional history to go on.

We thus have to imagine Garak asking "all right, what is the best way to go about pumping this person for information?", taking one look at Julian, and making an on-the-spot decision that his best play is to crank up the daddy energy and attempt a good old-fashioned honey trap.

[custard3unny]

big fan of bajoran tail headcanon

[risingchaos]

Julian had spent over an hour staring at himself in the mirror one night.

It wasn’t that big of a deal at first. He was fifteen, a few months out from having his entire worldview ripped apart then unsteadily taped back together, and took too long one night in preparation for bed.

He’d been brushing his teeth, and after spitting, caught his reflection by the jaw to examine.

His teeth were straight. Very straight, actually. Well sized. Running his tongue over them, applying a bit of pressure to the tips, made him flinch slightly. Sharp, but not too sharp. Just right.

Perfect. His.. His teeth were perfect. Not in some ego boosting boasting way, no. His teeth were flawless.

It descended slowly from there. Julian struggled to not magnify himself under a microscope with a detachment he was recalling more and more, poking at his bones and pulling at his skin to make it show bruising that never came.

Each look made his brain shake harder and harder, not knowing what the right way to process each strike of new revelation.

His eyes were symmetrical. His brow bone was prominent, but not too much so. His ears took up the appropriate amount of space, his forehead was proportional, his chin sized to the edges of his nose.

Every piece of him he measured, down to the millimeter, and he came to one horrifying, dizzying conclusion. It clicked into place like a drawn dagger.

Julian Bashir was perfect. Uncannily so. Eerily so.

It wasn’t natural. He was a math project. The idea of a man, not the execution of one. Built and tweaked and changed.

He’d been a gangly kid. Too much limb and not enough substance, even at five years old.

He wasn’t anymore. He always assumed it was merely dumb luck, wonders of the draw of life.

Turned out, he was wrong. There was no chance here. Simply weighed dice tossed by the hands of his parents, his commissioners, sleeping peacefully two rooms away.

Violently, he wanted to take a knife to it. Ruin their canvas they claimed responsibility for, pretending they painted and not just bought for display.

Instead, he slunk back to bed like an ashamed cat, shoulders shifted low and head bowed to watch. Going off to hide from what he’d discovered, not face it.

Not tonight.

He put a sheet over the mirror in his bathroom the next day, and hoped his parents never saw.

[risingchaos]

Props to Star Trek for having such little faith in how hot all of their actors would become as they aged. Just really did them as dirty as possible so that anything slightly better than cartoonishly old man was stunning in comparison.

[risingchaos]

Tuvok realizing his degenerative disease is getting worse because he got beat at a strategy game is iconic as all hell. Like no fucking way did I just lose, obviously I am losing cognitive efficiency. That’s the only explanation.

[risingchaos]

I’m still not over how easy it would’ve been to just.. leave t’hyla at friend and brother. You didn’t have to add lover. There was no need to add the potential for homosexuality into this. Nobody would have blamed you for not including the lover line, actually. But nope, we got Spirk canonized instead.

[risingchaos]

Something I think about a lot with Garak and Bashir is just how incredibly different they are as individuals, and yet they make such a beautiful relationship with each other based on sheer interest in the other person.

The two of them were raised almost entirely differently. Their personalities clash in a million ways. Their ethical and moral standards are so separate. And yet there is a mutual respect and fascination with the other person that allows them to approach with an open mind, and it becomes a truly special experience of two people from truly different worlds connecting on a shared experience.

Wanting to understand someone else.

[walkingstackofbooks]

I was just reading through the Memory Alpha page on Inquisition, and:

[risingchaos]

Every time I think about T’Pol I get righteously angry because of what they put Blalock in.

Here’s the thing. I could deal with the jumpsuits if they gave us an explanation. It’s impractical to wear robes aboard a starship as an XO, this is what Vulcans wear under their robes, whatever. That’s fine. It’s the silky crop tops she wears when by herself that I like, “hm” at for the most part. If we saw other Vulcans wearing something similar, put Tuvok in one of those, I really wouldn’t care. But it’s purely because they wanted her to be hot and I just sigh every time.