Garak vs Elim, a really shitty meta on The Wire.

[sad-eyed-lady-of-the-low-lands]

Honestly the wire is such a great episode, like not even talking about the fact its like watching fanfiction! It’s just so INTERESTING, I love seeing Garak’s mask break, even a little bit. But what I find really fascinating, and what I haven’t seen talked about is the name thing. 

The first time I watched this Julian finding out Garak lied about “Elim” was funny, it was so typically Garak that I just laughed and fondly muttered “You’re such a fucking arsehole” at my TV. And honestly the idea Garak would quite literally lie with his last breath and about his first name, it’s so ridiculously Garak it is amusing.

But then I watched it again. And now I can’t help but feel there’s something very important in the fact that Garak spun stories about “Elim”. And about the fact that most of those stories were about betrayal. 

Garak’s first story, the one about blowing up the shuttle, murdering a bunch of innocent people just to kill a few Bajoran terrorists. I don’t doubt that happened, I don’t doubt Garak did that, or something similar, I don’t think it was why he was exiled, and I don’t think it meant very much. Aside from demonstrating Garak’s habit of lashing out at people when he’s scared. It was designed to be shocking and ugly it was intended to push Julian away, a futile attempt to keep him at arms length. Although it is interesting that this particular story also involves Garak killing Elim.

In the next version he’s exiled for saving some Bajoran children from being executed while Elim looks at him with disbelief.The final version of Garak’s story has him trying to blame Elim for letting the children go, only to find that Elim betrayed him first. And I just find it really interesting how all of Garak’s exile stories involve him betraying/killing Elim, and how that could be seen that, whatever Garak did to get exiled betrayed/killed a part of himself.  

Given “Elim’s” role in Garak’s stories it sounds a lot like he represented the part of Garak that was the professional, the part of Garak that got a confession out of a man by staring at him for four hours and had to be prevented from making false treason charges against a guy because he talked too much. And whatever Garak did he feels like he betrayed that part of himself, or that part of himself betrayed him, or possibly both. But I honestly don’t think he believes he betrayed Cardassia, or Tain. And that just makes me more curious as to what the fuck he actually did. 

Also the implication that Garak was conflicted about his activities in the order is kind of fascinating, I think it’s pretty likely the order was corrupt, especially if Garak could apparently make up charges of treason whenever he wanted but the idea that he was conflicted about that, or that he was anything other than a loyal servant of Cardassia intriguing to say the least 

[deepspacefeels]

I think he did let those children go and that he “framed” himself–because deep down he knew the whole system was fucked. He knew if they were willing to torture children (especially when it was clear they knew nothing), that the act was not about duty to the state, but sadism and abuse of power. And I think Tain knew that he framed himself. It was more than the fact that he let the children go; it was because Garak intentionally got caught doing it knowing full well he would be exiled. That was what Tain viewed as betrayal; he saw this as a radical act of renouncing the state.

[jazzypizzaz]

I was browsing DS9 t-shirts, because my bf got one w the station on it and now I’m jealous, and found THIS….. jklsdfjkljksdf if I were a mother, or if my mom would find it amusing (she wouldn’t), I’d def buy it.

[defconprime]

Zzzaaakk!
Zzap choom hiiisss

[shedoesnotcomprehend]

Reading more SSC archives, and came across this:

I remember, one of my first few months of internship, listening to a patient – not a PTSD patient or anything, just someone presenting with something totally different like bipolar disorder or drug addiction – explain the brutal abuse he suffered as a child. And the whole time, I was thinking “Oh god oh god this is the worst thing I’ve ever heard I want to go home and cry.”

And then he finished his story and I had to say something. And I didn’t want to say “Oh god oh god this is the worst thing I’ve ever heard I want to go home and cry”, because I was supposed to be Competent Medical Professional, and Competent Medical Professionals don’t go home and cry every time they hear a sad story.

[…]

So I said: “Gaaaaaaaaaah!”

This may, in retrospect, not have been the most appropriate comment.

and I realized I had the matching half of this anecdote and needed to share.

---

When I was fifteen, a 70-year-old guy whom I had never met before decided that we were In Love – despite my and my parents’ protests to the contrary – and started doing various creatively creepy things, like writing me long letters about how Pure and Definitely Nonsexual his Love For Me was, and stalking me online, and asking my parents’ permission to court me.

This was exactly as creepy as it sounds. It was really not improved by the fact that various community members, including all of the relevant authority figures, decided to take positions ranging from “none of our business” to “there are two sides to every story” to “you must have done something.”

(Thankfully, my parents were completely absolutely 100% on my side. I don’t think I could have coped, otherwise.)

Anyhow, eventually we went to the police, and so I got to be sixteen and sitting in the office of a local detective watching her look through the casefile my mom had painstakingly made up on this guy in a desperate attempt to get someone to take this seriously.

And as I was sitting there trying not to cry and wishing my parents hadn’t decided I was old enough to talk to the detective alone, she got to the photocopy of the first creepy love letter the guy had sent me.

And I swear to god the detective flinched back from the paper a little and said “Gaaaaaaaaaaah!”

…and I nearly broke down crying on the spot, because it was such a massive relief to finally have someone acknowledge that this whole thing was absurdly horrifying and creepy, instead of having to wonder if I was just crazy or oversensitive or something.

And then of course she apologized and said something much more professional about the casefile which I have long since forgotten. But over the next couple of years of dealing with that guy, I honestly cannot express how often I thought about that professional competent detective going “gaaaaah!” at his letter, and felt reassured that I was not the crazy one, and that the legal system was going to look at this case and go “gaaah!”

I will take that over all the carefully taught Certified Empathy Responses in the world.

[bittersnurr]

This applies to physical illness too. Like I have spent so many years begging for help from various health care workers. And for most of that time my increasing distress, about being sick and not being able to find help, is what gets the focus over you know, the thing causing the distress.

The very obvious difference between the helpful people and not helpful people, is the not helpful ones will act like super concerned about my mental state, but absolutely no reaction when I describe my situation, of being a sick person who has struggled to find care. The doctors who are never going to help me, without fail are very focused on how upset I am, but when given the opportunity to do stuff like idk, write referrals to specialists or order tests, instead refer me to psyche because “my mental state is concerning”.

Good doctors on the other hand, are horrified when I tell them my story. They say “I’m sorry you had to experience that” and go about actually doing their jobs. They understand that “I am scared of dying from lack of treatment” isn’t a distorted thought that needs to be fixed by CBT, but an actual valid fear fixable by well, treating me.

Basically from what I can tell, health care as a whole, does not want to take environment that is not immediately controllable by the patient, as a major factor in illness. I suspect this is because if you admit it, you have to admit that a lot of society is basically harmful by design and not the fault of the people who are trying to just live in it.

If you don’t take in account lack of control and abuse, it’s super easy to just victim blame. It’s not genetics and working a 70 hr desk job making you fat, it’s your bad diet. It’s not an influx of hate crimes making you scared, it’s paranoia and you need medication. It’s not being overworked at a manual labor job causing you pain, it’s you not having coping skills. It’s not poverty making you starve, it’s a choice you are making.

I will take “rude” over robotic “default” answers that ignore individual situations and suck out the hope anyone will ever give enough of a shit to actually help you escape a bad situation any day.

[thepaperplaneofexistence]

do you ever think that maybe when you pull out your cell phone ghosts from other eras get real interested and just stare at you as you text people, or watch you use your laptop

or sighs wistfully as you shower like ‘frick I wish we’d had THOSE dang’

gets jealous as you make your coffee, awkwardly tries to figure out your video games when you’ve left the house

turns on your sink and just watches the taps run and drives your water bill through the freakin roof

idk man ghosts

[genderdragon]

This explains why people living in houses talk about lights flickering/taps turning on and off/etc. curious ghosts

[malekbrosinc]

“Jeremiah! Look at this!” [flips light on and off] “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”

“Did you hear that?!”

[thatshamelessyaoishipper]

I’m honestly so grateful for the creditless Stammi Vicino duet from vol 6 and the official bonus manga because they confirm what I thought before but wasn’t certain of because of the credits which got in the way and because we only got to see like half of Yuuri’s exhibition.

And what I’m talking about here is that Victor and Yuuri switch roles throughout their ice dance.

And yes, I mean female and male roles.

We see that Yuuri starts off in the female role as he is the one being lifted

as well as supported by Victor in moves such as this one:

But as they enter the second half of their performance together, the balance suddenly shifts and

Victor becomes the female partner in their ice dance, now being supported by Yuuri.

And, accordingly, we soon see this:

I wish I knew a professional name for this move, but the point is that when Victor leans to the side, it is Yuuri that supports him through holding his arm and balancing him out. I’ve seen this performed in ice dancing footage I found on YouTube and indeed, Victor would be the woman here, while Yuuri would be the man.

Right before the sequence transitions to Yuuri running in St. Petersburg, we manage to see this:

You’ll notice that Yuuri is leading Victor and pulling him into that spin. Although they both spin, Victor is doing the feminine spin while Yuuri does the masculine spin. The best way that I can explain this is that the one being led holds the feminine role and the one doing the leading holds the masculine role, like in most dances.

All of this we’ve seen in the anime (although somewhat obscured by the credits) and it was enough for me to determine that they do indeed switch roles and it was a very conscious choice on the creators’ side. But one thing that I kept wondering about was: Why does Yuuri not lift Victor? Surely, if he can pole dance while holding Chris with only one arm, lifting Victor should not be an issue? I justified it to myself with the fact that Yuuri is shorter, so lifting Victor on the ice would be considerably more difficult for him than vice versa.

And then the official manga came and swept me right off my feet.

Because Yuuri was clearly lifting Victor.

And when I saw this, I thought: “Wait, why didn’t we see this in the anime?”

And then it hit me - this is the second half of the performance.

And suddenly everything falls into place.

Because Victor has less stamina than Yuuri, when Victor and Yuuri were choreographing the program, they placed the parts where Victor lifts Yuuri as early as possible. And because Victor wouldn’t be able to lift Yuuri in the second half, that’s when Yuuri’s chance to do a lift or two appears. Yuuri has more stamina, so lifting Victor by the end of the program when Victor would be more tired is not an issue for him, and makes perfect sense.

And I just love this so much because it may be such a small detail but it’s so consistent with what we know about the characters and I’m just??? Amazed? Because I don’t think I’ve ever seen such consistency and wholesomeness in anything in recent memory.

But even apart from that, this single panel proves that Victor and Yuuri truly are equal in their ice dance, and by extension in their relationship as a whole.

Which is awesome because it’s further confirmation that Victor and Yuuri and pretty much all of yoi itself is a huge middle finger to gender roles and heteronormative stereotypes (not to mention the real life ice dance/pair skate ISU rules), and I love it and will never stop praising it.

[sachiro]

You’re absolutely right! :D As some added fuel, here’s a link to the original ice dance performed by Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir:

And a beautiful gifset comparing Duetto to this program.

As you can clearly see, they do indeed switch roles mid-program. I did also wonder why we never saw Yuuri lifting Victor but the issue of Yuuri having more stamina and thus saving those lifts for the second half makes absolute sense.

There is something called “reverse lifts” in ice dance and, although rare, is when the female partner lifts the male (since there’s nothing in the ISU guidelines that says the female has to be the one being lifted and the male doing the lifting) but you can see in the last gif in the linked above set that they do indeed switch roles entirely.

Nice catch! :D

As an added bonus, just picture that Yuuri and Victor would have finished in the ending pose of this program. <3

[lanerose23]

I agree with all of this.  There’s one other (slightly older) ice dance that Yuuri and Victor’s dance made me think of basically immediately, and it contains one of the reverse lifts that @sachiro​ was talking about above.  I think the reason I jumped straight to it was because it’s to Time to Say Goodbye (Con te Partiro) which is an Italian duet that you might recognize as translating close to the lyrics of Stammi Vicino.  Which it does, like, nearly exactly, and the song is famous both in a solo male version (because Andrea Boccelli) and in the duet.  So, y’know.  Role reversal for the win.

Also, Anissina and Peizerat originally skated it as their exhibition at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, so I associate it with Japan, rightly or wrongly, lol.

[lazuliblade]

Yep – something a lot of people aren’t aware of is that the lifts in Ice Dance don’t actually use gendered language. In fact, the terminology used is “lifting partner” and “lifted partner.” This lack of gender differentiation also means that there’s no “reverse lift” category. The term “reverse lift” is the layman’s term for it to distinguish between a typical lift (man lifting woman) and the opposite case (woman lifts the man). It’s not a common move because of the size difference between the skaters. Since it’s not distinguished as a separate class of lift, it has the same base value as if the man is the one lifting, so there’s not much technical (or medical) merit in straining the woman with lifting her normally larger partner. Although it certainly makes an impact.

For reference, Italian ice dancers Federica Faiella & Massimo Scali are another couple that does reverse lifts, and coincidentally trained at the Detroit Skating Club – the same place Yuuri trained while in the U.S.:

Fun fact: after retiring from competition, Massimo Scali coached and did choreography at the Detroit Skating Club for some time, too…

2006 Olympic FD:

2010 Olympic FD:

Why Your Opinion Is Probably Wrong & Good Trek #28 The Alternative Factor

[goodtrekbadtrek]

Intro: I’ve loved Star Trek since I was a kid. I started by watching TNG in 6th grade. I’ve been a fan since then and though I’ve spent a lot of time watching Star Trek, I’ve never watched The Original Series. So, I’m watching and reviewing them as a fan of Star Trek, but one who’s never seen any of them. So I’m watching all the TOS episodes for the first time and saying whether or not they suck. At the end, I give examples of better Star Trek to watch that remind me of this episode. That’s it.

The single season On Base Percentage (OBP) leader is Barry Bonds. In 2004 he had an OBP of .6094. Which would be insane at the time even if he wasn’t 39 at the time. Second place is also Bonds for the 2002 season. You have to go back to Ted Williams in 1941 for third place. His was .5528.

Ted Williams was the last person to hit above .400. That was in 1941. It’s been over seventy years since anyone has done that. Ted Williams wouldn’t read at night or chew gum because he worried that would damage his eyes. He wanted to be the best hitter so he did all that just on the off-chance that constant up and down of gum chewing would negatively affect his hand eye coordination.

Nobody has a career OBP over .5000. Not Bonds. Not Williams. It’s kind of nuts that even the greatest players of all time failed to get on base more often than they did. That’s crazy. Ted Williams was the best at getting hits and he didn’t six times out of ten. Barry Bonds was the best at getting on base and didn’t almost 40% of the time.

What I’m trying to say is that your opinion is probably wrong. A thing about the internet that I hate is that everyone is so married to their stupid opinions. It’s easy to get your opinion out there. It’s also easy to shit on other people’s opinions. Both are fun. But every opinion people have seems to be ones that they’re willing to die on that hill for. I don’t get that. People are willing to end friendships over every shitty opinion they have, and chances are they wrong anyhow. Whenever you think anything you ask yourself if you honestly think you’re as smart as Barry Bonds was at getting on base. You probably aren’t, but I could be wrong.

I change my opinions all the time. Something I haven’t changed my opinion on is this week’s episode of Trek. It’s called The Alternative Factor and it sucked.

Recap

The gang is doing a routine survey of a seemingly barren planet. All of a sudden the ship is rocked and the ship and also the rest of the galaxy is “blinked out of existence. The planet is not barren anymore. There’ a crazy dude named Lazarus. He tells him he’s trying to find the devil. He’s nuts though.

Solid looking opening shot. Goes down hill from here

Then a rift opens on the planet and the whole existence is in peril. He’s not a traveler but a time traveler he says. Then it turns out he’s not that but he’s able to go to negative space. I don’t really know.

I guess this is supposed to be another dimension

He needs the Enterprise’s dilithium crystals to go back and fight the devil. He steals them and it turns out he’s actually two people unable to deal with the fact that he’s two people. And if he’s allowed to fight his other self in the normal universe the multiverse will be destroyed. It doesn’t. The two Lazaruses (Lazari) go to an alternate dimension and strangle each other for all time. Fin.

Good Trek?

Good god, NO! I don’t know. Honestly, I watched this episode twice. I’ve been really digging these lately so I fully expected that I was over the TOS hump and was gonna like this one. But I just fucking hated it. It was so bad. Lazarus was a garbage villain/Deus ex machina.

Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill an hour watching TNG’s Parallels instead

Also, Kirk is both a straight up dick and a really bad captain. I don’t know anything about the backstory of this one, but it has the feel of an episode written by, or at the behest of, William Shatner. He was a stupid smug jackass in this one. He’s an asshole the whole time. He’s practically the only one who gets any lines. The lines Spock does get don’t seem to jive with what we know about him so far. He sees Lazarus appear out of nowhere and then straight up accuses him of lying when he can’t explain where he’s coming from. That’s not Spock.

Fuck you, Kirk

This is a very valid question that Kirk just answers with a dumb smirk. There’s a lot going on. Yes, destroy the dimension hopping ship but also, what the hell is going on, Captain? Spock asks this, very appropriate question, given the circumstances. Instead of answering him Kirk just gives a stupid douchey smile and asks him the same question back. So Kirk is an ass, Spock is useless, but at least we get a solid Bones scene. He barely gets any screen time, but what he does what he can with what he gets.

Bones treating this beefed up red shirt like a straight up bitch is the only reason to watch this episode

The ending was as dumb as it was kind of predicted. I’m not saying as soon as I saw Lazarus I knew he was going to be an interdimensional being who was going to be trapped forever fighting his duplicate in negative space, but at the same time when the ending happened, I just yawned. I don’t know. Maybe I was just in a bad mood, but I don’t think there’s too much to say about this one. It stunk.

Better Trek?

Any of them. You could watch almost any episode and come away with a better one. I’d point to a few that came to mind when I was watching this one. For starters, I’d say TNG’s Where No One Has Gone Before. Not my favorite episode. Not by a long shot. It’s among the better season one TNG, but that’s not saying all that much. Starfleet sends out a dude to tinker with the Enterprise’s engines. But turns out he’s not really doing anything and what’s causing them to perform better is a mysterious alien named The Traveler. Something goes wrong and they get lost in between space. I don’t know if they run into the Lazari while out there. The ending involves them all holding hands and believing. It’s not great, but it’s better than that description makes it sound. There’s too much Wesley. The Traveler sucks as a character. A lot of the effects look really dated. But you get to see a glimpse of the character Riker can become. Also, a really solid performance by Patric Stewart. It’s better than this episode, but just about anything would be.

You want a Trek about parallel dimensions though you gotta go with the 7th season TNG episode, Parallels. One of my all-time favorite episodes. It’s just great. Worf is either going bonkers OR is he shifting through parallel dimensions? It’s, of course, the latter. Or else that would mean that not only did Starfleet let a bonkers Worf stay in, but repeatedly promoted him. Michael Dorn is such a great actor. TNG sometimes had trouble writing episodes good enough for him. It wasn’t really until he was DS9 that Trek writers were able to get their money’s worth out of Dorn’s Worf. It’s a cool episode both in terms of plot, acting, and the climaxes visuals when the inter dimensional rift really opens up. They hint at a relationship between Worf and Troi that they never fully develop, which is fine because it leaves him able to pursue and get pursued by Dax in DS9. If you want to watch a Trek and have a hankerin’ for some inter-dimensional shenanigans that don’t really suck, then Parallels is the episode for you.

That’s it for this week. This episode really did suck, but next week’s is City on the Edge of Forever. Supposedly the best episode of TOS’s run. One I haven’ seen, but am looking forward to.

pilferingapples asked:

I took your advice and got Clip Studio! Watching tutorials now:D I'd love to know what your favorite features are about it, if you're willing to talk about it-- no pressure at all, I'm just curious about your (obviously positive!) experience!

goddamnshinyrock answered:

Ah, sorry this took a month to answer! I’m so rarely on desktop, and tumblr mobile is shit at informing one of asks! D: 

I’m sure by now you’ve had time to noodle around in the program, but if you’re still interested in what I like about Clip Studio Paint, here goes: 

Photoshop is a photo editing program that’s been modified to support drawing/painting, whereas Clip Studio was built specifically for those things. The UI is superficially similar, so I was skeptical at first about how much of a difference it would really make, but wow does it EVER! Stuff that I struggled for years to make PS do with third-party modifications, Clip Studio just…. has.… as part of it’s basic functions. 

Pros:

• convincing pencil brush, built right in!! It acts like a real goddamn pencil! way better than the best one I ever found and downloaded for PS. 
  
• watercolor painting brushes make lovely smooth washes
• oil brushes feel so like using real paint it’s almost shocking. 
• all brushes have very easily adjusted and customizable settings
• and the real reason I downloaded it at all: brush stabilization! even on mac! I have very shaky hands, and my inking in PS invariably looks like a steaming pile of shit. Not so in Clip Studio!! Still not up to my traditional inking standards, but not bad at all. 
• can export documents to photoshop WITH ALL LAYERS INTACT. 
• all sorts of built-in rulers that I haven’t played around with yet but look useful, including a perspective one. 
• I can’t emphasize enough how natural and intuitive drawing and painting is in this program. 
• ETA: ALSO! You can paint/draw with transparent as a color, so essentially every single brush can be an identical eraser. 

Cons:

• maybe I just haven’t discovered the correct setting, but when files are compressed with the ‘smooth’ setting, they lose a lot more crispness than they do in photoshop, and the ‘sharp’ setting makes them look terrible. This is easily remedied by exporting to PS before shrinking for web, though. 
  
• again, this might just be me being a novice, but I don’t love the gradient tool in Clip Studio.

[tinsnip]

@ladyyatexel - just in case you might love to do the Thing!

[vintascope]

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