Merlin fan and other things

There's a sort of running gag with the Star Trek engineers. Something will need to get done, the captain asks how long it will take, and the engineer gives an estimate. The captain will then say they need it done twice as fast, or more. They then usually pull it off somehow. This is the done thing. TVtropes calls it "Scotty Time", after the engineer from the first series.

We get this same interaction over and over across multiple series, from multiple different pairs of captains and engineers. By the later seasons of Next Generation they're already riffing on it. One scene establishes that the initial estimate is usually actually already longer than they'll actually need, because captains love to pressure their crews and the engineers know this, so getting it done in less time than initially proposed makes them look good. This ritual has by this point been established as Starfleet standard, seen in the original series, Next Generation, and prominently in Deep Space Nine.

So then we get to Star Trek Voyager, and we have our captain Janeway and our chief engineer B'elanna Torres, and we know how this is gonna go. In a season one episode, sure enough, Janeway asks that whatever needs to be done gets done in half the estimated time, and... Torres stops her. No, she says, it takes as long as it takes, it can't be done faster. And her face is dead serious. Janeway is momentarily surprised but doesn't protest. And it's some great characterization for both of them. It establishes Torres as an honest and hard working officer, a straight shooter who doesn't take shortcuts. She'll look her commanding officer in the face and just say the truth. And it establishes Janeway as someone experienced but not incapable of adapting to her crew. She knows how this interaction is supposed to work, but takes Torres at her word, and doesn't repeat this trope for the rest of the series. I like it a lot. Idk end of post

It would’ve been cool to see Merlin struggling to contain all this power especially at the start of the series while he’s still learning to harness his magic:

Like maybe Arthur throws something at Merlin while half paying attention but Merlin’s magic stops it midflight and he has to quickly unfreeze and take the hit to avoid suspicion

Gwen asks Merlin to pass her the washing but it’s moving before he can even get his hands on it and Merlin has to scramble after it to grab the basket midair

Merlin’s carrying a meal up to the princes chambers and trips, his magic catching him and the tray of food and quickly righting them both, and Merlin glances around to see if anyone noticed

Gaius asks him to light a candle and suddenly every wick in the room is lit before he can even finish his sentence

This is a tribute to my friend who made me watch merlin

I don’t do live ppl portraits mostly bc they never end up looking alike

But then again, I mostly watch cartoons/anime/donghua so I don’t need to do it that often either

Audio: A recording of Leonard Nimoy reading it on Internet Archive.

Text: A PDF version.

Nemoy’s voice is PERFECT in this!

I'm just gonna slide this on in here for anyone that is interested in preserving old games. They take it very seriously too, they want an archive of every single game. Like, they have lists of every game ever released for a system, and once that system gets old enough, they add it to their archive and start collecting. Their latest addition was the Xbox 360, they opened that vault up in September 2022, and proudly announced they'd finished their collection of games for it back in April.

Also, while their game archives are almost entirely complete, they've got another project of archiving the manuals that came with those games, and that is... considerably less well filled out. Their collection of Xbox 360 manuals is especially rough, they've only gotten manuals for three games. So if you've got some Xbox 360 games kicking around, and the manual's still with them, please consider scanning them and submitting them to the site!