fannish argosies

"This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."

I spent my Sunday looking at butts instead of doing chores, and I regret nothing. Please enjoy some Hollanov themed silliness set to a very silly song indeed.

Source: Heated Rivalry, Peloton and Verizon ads

Music: Melocoton by Subwoolfer

At least one assassination attempt on Leia’s life has been thwarted because the person planning on slipping something in her drink at an important function started chatting with him as cover not realizing who they were talking to and he sensed something was fishy before they could slip away.

Even if the "I kind of prefer being the hole rather than the peg" line came from the book, originally, Tierney could have just left it out of his script. I sincerely doubt he signed some sort of legally binding document requiring that he keep it in there.

Showing off the Arapaima I made! (Pattern also made by me)

Because of course, Heated Rivalry is an adaptation. Each change or addition/removal made is there for a reason. Obviously, we're not Jacob Tierney and we can only guess what those reasons are. (At least for now. I WANT that book he's releasing, ASAP, please!)

But anyway, I've heard that Joe-the-figure-skater isn't in the books, and I think that's really interesting. Because he doesn't really have that big of a role in the show. He's not a blank spot in Shane's backstory the way Sasha was for Ilya. Shane's already in Russia for the Olympics, so it's not like he needs a specific reason to be there. Scott and Carter could have gone with Shane to any event. Shane could have met with Ilya at any event.

So what's the point of Joe (aside from letting me babble on about the possible implications of Shane being interested in a figure skating career)?

And I think it's to show that Shane isn't a coward. Because so much of Shane's actions in the first episode are colored by his fear. He's afraid that Ilya will tell what they've been doing. He's afraid to be caught by Scott Hunter. He's afraid that someone on the roof would see them.

(He's afraid of the intimacy with Ilya. He's afraid of what he can have with him. Every time he insists "I'm not scared" he's visibly and adorably lying.)

I'm still angry at fans who belittle Shane's fear. Just because he's not in Russia doesn't mean the US or Canada are necessarily SAFE for him.

But Shane IS brave, when it counts. And we see that with Joe. Because right now, in those scenes, Shane IS in Russia. And he's going to watch his figure skating friend skate. He invites fellow hockey players, men that as far as he knows are very heterosexual, to come and watch too. And he doesn't take back the invitation even when Carter reminds/explains how scary Russia is for gay people. Even when Carter reminds him that the assumption about figure skaters in the US and Canada is that they're gay.

He still goes to support his friend. He still goes to talk to Ilya. Because he's concerned and he wants to give some emotional support. It wasn't a good time, and it wasn't a good idea, but it was sweet and brave nonetheless.

Sure, he's "not the most sociable" to outsider's eyes, but once he's decided you're one of His People, Shane is dedicated to that. He's gonna show up for you even when it's scary.

And then generative ai was created.

And now I get it. I get why nobody on Star Trek spends all their free time in the holodeck. I get why all the crew are putting on stage plays, and holding music recitals, and building models, and playing poker. I get why everyone was so skeptical and mean to the Doctor on Voyager. I get why the ONE TIME we see someone obsessed with the holodeck it infringes on people’s likeness rights and permissions.

Because fundamentally at the end of the day we are human beings and we ENJOY working with our hands and making REAL human connections. A person who learns to play an instrument is always going to be viewed as an artist over someone who asks the computer to generate music for them.

Even as recent as Lower Decks they were making fun of the fact that the crew were putting on amateurish plays and holding music recitals. But after living with Ai for so long and seeing how detrimental it’s been to the world… I’d much rather watch my friends put on a stage play than “participate” in a holodeck movie.

What’s most amazing about this is that it was completely unintentional. I do not for one second think that the writers of the time in the 90’s were really thinking about the larger issues that generative ai and chatGTP would cause. How could they? Text to speech back then was still robotic as heck. More likely they wrote that stuff in because it was cheaper to film on sets the owned than try to build, film, or rent out different locations each week.

That’s the down to earth logistical real reason Data is reciting poems about his cat or Riker is in a play put on in ten forward. It’s just cheaper to do that than to build a whole new set or move production to a new location.

Yet at the end of the day, I think that unintentionally speaks to a very human need that ai is making more and more prevalent to us day in and day out.