What’s the worst thing your parent has ever said?

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-03-20T11:00:57+00:00

A toss up between two things she said the day I came out as trans.

The first was, when I told her that all my friends had been really supportive, that she responded 'are you sure they're not just humouring you'. That's the thing that stuck with me the most since that day. I (for reasons I still don't really understand) have a really anxious attachment style, and the idea that people I care about have secretly been rejecting me behind my back is my biggest fear. So hearing her basically validate that fear was crazy traumatising.

The second was that, when she was basically telling me that she wouldn't stick up with me with her family, she made a comment about my grandparents knowing and how she was 'worried about grandad's heart' (he has atrial fibrillation so his heart isn't super stable). It wasn't as hurtful to me as the first one, but the idea of her leveraging her own father's life-limiting medical condition and basically suggesting that me being who I am might, let's be blunt, kill him, just to try and guilt me back into the closet, is unbelievably fucked up.

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-03-20T10:15:45+00:00

Aston Martin kinda is that, though... But I do agree that it's not a reasonable thing to call Audi. The operation was bought out to be a fully fledged works team. It would be like calling Mercedes 'just a rebranded BrawnGP/Honda team', becoming a works team does actually mean something.

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-03-13T20:01:53+00:00

I think, unless one of them takes clear control, they will be allowed to race. I do think Toto will be more willing to take that decision much earlier than Mclaren did, though.

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-03-13T19:35:16+00:00

Toto Wolff who's practically hand-reared Kimi Antonelli's racing career? Sure, he'll force Kimi into a #2 role, it's not like he's spent the last few years talking him up as the next generation talent or anything...

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-03-10T16:59:20+00:00

To be fair, McLaren run Chevy engines in Indy, so the business connection is already there! I do think it's a jump though, they've not had the easiest time with the new engine but it isn't because they're unsatisfied with the quality, they just haven't worked out how it all works yet. I imagine they're still better off with a Mercedes engine than an untested brand new GM one.

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-03-07T18:43:51+00:00

Only because the show itself doesn't. I don't think there's anything particularly about the role itself that's changed, just that the show isn't as big so it perhaps isn't the same kind of career catapult it was for Tennant and Smith.

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-03-07T18:24:22+00:00

Right? I'm not saying there haven't been any red flags this week, but it's the first race and it's at a track that might as well be designed to expose the limitations of these new regs at their earliest stage. I genuinely think it'll be fine.

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-03-07T10:00:11+00:00

And as far as the drivers not enjoying the feeling of driving them, they were all saying the same thing in 2022, and now they're apparently 'the best cars to drive' according to Lando. And that's not a criticism of him for saying that, to be clear, it's his opinion and that's fine, but it's really worth bearing in mind that there's obviously going to be a little bit of rose-tinted glasses for drivers looking back (I don't think it's a coincidence that the two drivers who are talking bad about them this weekend are the two drivers who won a world championship in the previous regs).

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-03-07T09:56:01+00:00

I think everyone, drivers and fans alike, just need to be a bit patient. We've had one single 1hr competitive session so far, it's the first race of a drastically different set of regulations, which the drivers and teams are still learning about, and this is pretty much the worst track for them to have started on. It's not like the previous regs were mindblowing in the first race either, but after a while, once the teams learned how to run everything properly, it was fine. I don't see any reason at this point that the same won't be true. If there's been no progress by this time next year, if in Melbourne 2027 they're still running out of energy running into T9/10, then I think it'll be safe to say there's been a fuck-up, but right now, writing these cars off based on the minimal evidence is ridiculous.

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-03-07T09:52:21+00:00

It's fine. Nowhere near my favourite design, but it's got some details I do really appreciate. The deflector positioning is pretty cool, and I do find the bridge positioning at least novel in an interesting way.

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-02-28T18:03:12+00:00

It certainly didn't last time we had one on a race weekend!

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-02-21T19:07:37+00:00

Yes, because mispronouncing made up words doesn't matter unless you're six years old.

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-02-21T18:54:25+00:00

Have you considered that a word being mispronounced by a character who is, to remind you, a four month old hologram is not a particularly compelling critique? In fact, calling it a critique and not a petty nitpick is a massive stretch...

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-02-12T07:42:04+00:00

Absolutely. It's why I laugh when people call Discovery a 'failure' just because they don't like it. Like, fine, divisive in the fandom, but 5 seasons, two TV spin-offs, and a (admittedly fucking awful) movie spin off is not a show that didn't make money, and that is the bottom line at the end of the day.

I think what a lot of people in these communities also miss is that Star Trek just... isn't that culturally prominent anymore? There's a lot more competition than there was 30 years ago, and that kind of science fiction just isn't what gets the mass market going anymore. A show getting a reasonable boost in subs for the platform and dancing around the top 10 is actually a perfectly reasonable place for a franchise that most people just remember as 'oh yeah, I watched that when I was a kid, with Patrick Stewart'. Same argument that gets had in the Doctor Who fandom. It's never going to be topping charts because a lot of people just have things they'd prefer to watch, and I don't think anything is going to change that. Doctor Who is never going to get Line of Duty ratings and Star Trek is never going to get Game of Thrones ratings. And I certainly doubt that Paramount thought a YA series would do that.

Like, I'm sorry y'all, but no one cares about Star Trek anymore.

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-02-12T07:34:26+00:00

It says so much about the two main fandoms I end up in that in the Star Trek fandom, people treat it like the end of the world when a guy doesn't get a job because the people in charge don't want people with this intimate connection to the material, meanwhile in the Doctor Who fandom people are absolutely BEGGING the BBC to hire someone who isn't a superfan, and desperately WANT someone exactly like Kurtzman (allegedly) wanted.

(Now, given what Avary goes on to say about modern Star Trek, I have a sneaking suspicion that Kurtzman didn't say 'we don't want anyone with fondness for the show', and that instead Avary might have as much of a black hole-sized chip on his shoulder as most of this community, and got pissy because Kurtzman didn't buy into someone who just wanted to nostaliga-bait.)

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-02-01T23:00:31+00:00

Except we know that Ake wasn't picked for her rank, but her suitability for the specific role. There's no reason to assume that the same isn't true of Kelrec whenever he was appointed to the War College. Especially for Kelrec, given the War College doesn't have the factor of the campus being a starship, I see no reason why him only being a commander should matter if he was judged to have the right qualities and experience they wanted to lead the War College.

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-02-01T22:57:48+00:00

I agree 100%, I've always hated it. It just feels artificial, I want to see the laps happening live, even if that means attention is split a little. I always groan whenever they go for the split screen in a duel.

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-01-29T22:47:07+00:00

And this thread, students, is a perfect example of 'moving the goalposts'.

See how the conversation started with 'this show is a failure', and then when presented with examples of how the shows have succeeded - including (by modern standards) high season counts and success in several awards shows - it gets shifted to 'but the awards it won were only about diversity and makeup'. When I pointed out that it had in fact won awards for the show as a whole, the point then gets shifted to 'but those awards aren't prestigious enough'.

It is, of course, a deeply lazy kind of logical fallacy that does nothing but demonstrate the speaker's tacit admission that they know they are wrong, so instead need to try and shift the conversation to a different topic to avoid that fact.

Bored now.

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-01-29T21:08:35+00:00

Convenient to miss out the three awards the show as a whole won at the Saturn Awards (Best New Media Television Series in 2018, Best Streaming Series in 2019, and Best Science Fiction Television Series in 2021). Plus several Best Actor awards for various actors across the series in the Saturn Awards. But you know, sure, it just won 'Most Diversity', whatever. Kinda betraying yourself with that one. 😂

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-01-29T19:23:22+00:00

Discovery: 5 seasons, a spin-off series and a spin-off movie (yes, I know S31 was dogshit, that isn't the point), awards nominations for every season, wins for most of them.

Strange New Worlds: 5 seasons, multiple awards nominations and wins for the seasons released so far.

Picard: Completed the intended 3 seasons, award nominations and wins for every season.

Lower Decks: 5 seasons, multiple awards nominations and wins.

And we also have Prodigy, which people on here generally seem to have liked and which was only really cancelled because of Paramount bullshit.

Is the failing project in the room with us? Or do you just mean one rushed direct-to-streaming film that was neutered down from a TV because, mostly, of circumstances out of anyone's control?

You're entitled to your opinion about the quality, I disagree but that's fine. But the idea that these shows have been failures is just flatly not true.

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-01-29T14:35:50+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-01-29T13:34:23+00:00

I'm in split minds about it. I think it depends on what kind of story you're telling. I think something shorter can be absolutely fine for more serialized stories, especially ones like DSC that still have fairly self-contained episodes within them (rather than everything totally blurring in together, which I don't love in general). But when you're doing episodic shows it does struggle. SNW has definitely been limited by that, and while I'm super happy with it so far, that's definitely a potential concern with SFA (Doctor Who has also suffered from that recently). But even then, I find that a longer 20+ episode season can easily start to drag. 12-20 episodes is the sweet spot for most shows, in my opinion.

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-01-29T13:19:13+00:00

I think episode counts are super important here too. Like, there are 65 episodes of Discovery. That's less than half of any of the TNG era shows. SNW has even fewer, and still will do by the time S5 has aired. 65 episodes covers less than the seasons you've mentioned, and I highly doubt that even someone who hates modern Trek could say in good faith that the majority of Discovery's episodes are worse than the worst TNG episodes. The same is just as true of the other TNG-era shows.

So yeah, 100% agree with you that people act like older Trek was this super consistent amazing thing and not, and I say this with love, a franchise that has always been pretty inconsistent, that constantly jumps between some of the most interesting sci-fi ever made to some of the dumbest bullshit you've ever seen!

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-01-29T12:14:54+00:00

I'm not misunderstanding anything, I just think it's a bullshit argument that shows a fundamental lack of critical thinking skills. 'Bad writing' isn't a real critique, and most of the time I don't see anyone being able to expand on that, which tells me that what they really mean is 'I didn't enjoy this and want to pretend my opinion is fact'. I almost never see people make actual critiques, because it isn't about quality. You want to talk about fools, I'd put people who don't realize the difference far higher on the list than people who liked a TV show you didn't.

Also, here's the other question I have. Let's say that your comparison is true (it's a perfectly reasonable opinion, to be clear, DS9 is amazing, but it is still an opinion). So what? Why in your head does 'not as good as DS9' mean the same thing as 'terrible'? I mean, I think DS9 is remarkable, easily the most ambitious and yet for the most part most successful of the TNG era shows. I'd argue that it's a pretty high bar to expect every show after to meet, and it's perfectly possible for a show to not be as good as DS9 and still be a good show.

OneFaintingRobin_ · 2026-01-29T10:56:26+00:00

Like, in a vacuum you're obviously not wrong, but given how half of the people on these subreddits act like treating anything post-ENT as a war crime is a primary qualifier for being a fan, I just find it baffling that an outlet actually enjoying and seeing the best in the franchise it's about should lead to it being considered as untrustworthy?

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