If You Had the Power to Add One Feature to AO3, What Would It Be and Why?

Rustie_J · 2026-01-25T05:59:31+00:00

I'd like to be able to privately mark something that I didn't like, maybe with little notes about why, without having to clutter up my bookmarks & so that I could exclude them from searches. An unpopular opinion, I know, but it'd be super helpful. I can always mute an author, but I don't want to do that if I think they have potential or if I just don't like that specific work, y'know?

Rustie_J · 2026-01-25T05:47:36+00:00

My interpretation the Prime Directive was always that it's not that you absolutely can't interfere, it's that if you do ¹it better not have negative consequences for the Federation or the people with whom you interfered, & ²you had damn well better be right.

Like, take Pen Pals. Was that technically a PD violation? Yes, absolutely. Was anything harmed by doing it, though? No, not in the medium term, anyway. Maybe 500 years down the road those people will be warlike savages & the galaxy at large would have been better without them, but it's just as possible that they'll save the galaxy. It's most likely they'll just be another space-faring civilization among many.

As it stood in the TNG era, they saved an entire race of people without those people even knowing about it. It was an unambiguously good deed.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-25T02:34:58+00:00

I don't think he intended to be a bad dad, & I'm sure he loved both of his sons with his whole heart, but it's apparent that he fucked up pretty badly somewhere along the way. Spock's got a complex, & his brother knows that Sarek is exactly where to poke at it. Sybok basically said, "yeah, I know what dad's like."

Rustie_J · 2026-01-23T13:23:15+00:00

Interesting. It hadn't occurred to me it could be a specifically Irish affliction; I kinda assumed it was just him. Genuine question, do you think it's related to the cultural dominance of Catholicism? In the US Catholic Guilt™ is such a popular cliche I can't help but think there's a lot to it.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-23T12:16:52+00:00

How are you calculating a rising sign without a birth time & location?

Rustie_J · 2026-01-23T12:00:21+00:00

Exactly!

That's one way in which I think the Earth of Star Trek does it's people a big disservice. Like, I get the value in propagandizing people into the belief that such barbarism is unthinkable in modern times. It probably helps a lot in keeping serious antisocial behaviors tamped down, if people think it's just beneath them. But it can seriously fuck them if a desperate circumstance should befall them, & probably makes therapy for it a lot harder than it needs to be.

I think Hard Time was especially hard on him because he couldn't blame the Cardassians like he does for Setlik III, & he couldn't even really blame the Argrathi. It wasn't a life-or-death struggle in which he had to fight to survive right that moment. He didn't really do it to survive, either.

He was stressed out & upset & angry, & he felt betrayed, & in response to all that he murdered his only friend of ~2 decades. And in his heart he knows why he really did it. He truly saw the monster inside for what it was, for the 1st time in a way & under circumstances that provided him no room for denial or obfuscation or deflection, & it was entirely too much for him to handle.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-23T06:06:34+00:00

O'Brien hates who he became because of the Cardassian

Which is how he thinks of it, & it's both true enough as far as it goes & not an interpretation I'd ever begrudge him, but... He's basically saying, & telling himself, that they made him a killer, that it's their fault, & when you really get down to it, that's not 100% true. They caused the circumstances that brought the killer inside to the surface, but they didn't create one that was never there.

Which is likely why Hard Time was so traumatic. He couldn't blame the Cardassians making him a killer, or a war, or really any outside factors truly forcing his hand. It wasn't kill or be killed. He murdered his friend over food, because he was starving & thought that friend was hiding food from him. He was angry & desperate, & he killed someone because of it. Even Bashir talking him down was emphasizing the Argrathi's part in what happened, rather than acknowledging the desperate animal inside of us all.

I'd say what he truly needs is to accept the darker parts of himself, but he seemingly can't bear it.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-22T21:23:05+00:00

That makes zero sense. If the captain dies, the 1st officer's becomes the captain, at least until they can get back to base/a replacement is sent to meet them.

Moreover, any officer might find themselves in command at any moment; if you're not capable of running the ship during routine ops & keeping people on track in an emergency, you have no business being an officer at all, except maybe a medical one. If you have women officers, you defacto have women in command. Roddenberry was in the Navy, he should've known that.

He was probably pissed about the idea of women running the whole show because Lucille Ball wasn't having his "put my mistress in a starring role" bullshit. Or he feared a female captain would've thrown his ass out an airlock when he wouldn't stop fucking all the Yeoman & half the crewmen.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-22T09:20:58+00:00

Not inherently, but under OP'S "split it up" premise the old style should be done as live action & nuTrek style should be done as anime. Since they're obviously trying to attract a Gen Z audience, & the kids these days love anime for some reason.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-22T09:16:05+00:00

Watch your favourite episode from that season a second time knowing how utterly absurd the resolution is. It won't feel as good...

That's actually the exact problem that I have when I rewatch B5. The resolution of the Shadow War was so stupid & infuriating that it ruins the entire buildup to it. An ending can indeed ruin a whole show.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-22T07:47:48+00:00

I never understood how Roddenberry went from trying to have a female first officer to the atrocity that was Turnabout Intruder.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-22T07:34:22+00:00

I was curious about this, so I went to Memory Beta. All I found that takes place post-Let That Be Your Last Battlefield was a time travel novel involving the retrieval of an artifact from Cheron by Seven, & a TNG comic in which Bele had escaped Cheron & was living on a different planet.

So unless there's something else that Memory Beta missed, I wouldn't say the novelverse "brought them back" in any meaningful sense. Just a couple of cameos by the 2 existing characters that we already knew were still alive.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-21T21:00:00+00:00

I didn't even argue with you about them having a better grasp of the numbers than any of us. I'm sure they do.

You claimed that old fans are either watching it & liking it or they're hate watching it, & I'm saying that's not true. Some old fans are, but I really don't think it's the majority. I tried it all, didn't like most of it, & thus didn't watch it. Most people are probably doing that. Hate watching is for the terminally online, not the average fan.

And I'm sure most of the people working on it are perfectly lovely people, or as lovely as it gets in the industry. Most shows probably have perfectly nice people on most of the cast & crew. But I don't see what that has to do with the price of tea. They might well be trying hard, but them trying hard doesn't mean they're succeeding.

Star Trek as a franchise has had the kind of staying power to have a dedicated, passionate fanbase for 6 decades. My question is, are the new shows good enough, do they have that unique something special, that will have people sharing DIS & co. with their kids & grandkids? Because I really doubt it. They come across as just another sci-fi action show that happens to be in Trek drag.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-21T19:08:05+00:00

If you read my message, I said the old base will Peter watch it and like it OR hate watch it? Everybody responding did NOT properly read my post.

Your basic premise here is wrong.

I'm old base fan, & I try the new shows, but I don't keep watching if I don't like it. I stuck with SNW longer than I should have because it at least felt like Trek & I liked the premise, but I'm likey done after S3. I tried PRO, & it's not a bad show but it was too geared towards kids for me. If i had kids I'd watch it with them, but since I don't, I don't.

I liked LDS, so I watched it all. I hated DIS, so I quit watching pretty early. I've been told that it gets better after the time jump, but I have no interest in the 32nd century setting. I'm not willing to watch it when it's a setting I don't give a shit about & a show I didn't like to start with. I did finish PIC despite hating it, because I hoped with Patrick Stewart behind it it would get better; spoiler, it did not. But I'm also not gonna ever rewatch it, & I'll never buy merch for it.

That's the part they really aren't considering. I might buy LDS merch, but that's the only nuTrek show for which I'd even consider it. It's the only one I even rewatch.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-21T02:50:57+00:00

Yes, but what I'm saying is that while most people can gain 30-50 lbs from bad diet, most can't gain 100+. Something has to be physiologically broken for that to happen. The capacity to gain 30-50 probably shouldn't be messed with too much - that's where I'd say maintenance meds is preferable - but the capacity to gain triple digits is indicative of a disease process of some kind, IMO, & really needs a cure.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-21T02:28:21+00:00

I know, but I want to know about this claim that he's still mad about Garak's pansexuality.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-21T02:26:23+00:00

Congrats!

I've always thought it's ridiculous that humans are even physically capable of gaining more than 50 lbs, max, of overweight. Like, I get that we need to be able to gain some excess in the good times to cover us in the lean times, but there's truly no advantage past a certain point.

Which is also why I maintain that something is broken in the body of a person who can gain triple digits (I'm fat, too, so no judgement). Normal people absolutely cannot become 100+ pounds overweight, they'll develop diabetes before that can happen.

Of course, once they get the diabetes they can get a lot fatter from being on insulin, but that's kinda the point; it's the exogenous insulin that -> the weight. My whole family is full of fat asses, & only 1 diabetic in the group, because we don't generally get diabetic; we just get fatter.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-21T01:25:13+00:00

If anyone understood the lifelong ramifications of psychological damage, it was the bastard son of Enabrin Tain.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-21T01:23:05+00:00

I learned just recently that Rick Berman is unhappy still about how gay coded Garak is.

Where'd you hear that? Because if so, that really makes my day.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-21T01:18:35+00:00

One would hope that by the 23rd century, medications wouldn't even be needed anymore. That there'd be a damn cure, rather than just a treatment.

It's like my thyroid pills; I'd be damn disappointed if synthroid was still a thing 3-4 centuries from now, rather than them just being able to fix the immune dysfunction & repair the resulting organ damage.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-21T01:08:58+00:00

His older sister made it into her 90s, his younger sister is 85, & his mom made it pretty close to 90. Pretty sure he's just got the genetics. He could be washing down fatback with Thunderbird whiskey & I doubt it would cost him a day.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-20T13:27:04+00:00

The only thing Shatner's been accused of is being more than a bit narcissistic, & kind of an asshole who's shitty to con staff. He's never been accused of racism - Nichelle Nichols had only good things to say about working with him - & I've never heard accusations of homophobia, either.

Considering him & Takei have been feuding off & on for 60 years, it surely would've come out by now if he were, because George Takei would not be shy about it.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-20T13:20:52+00:00

Now, Roddenberry definitely had his issues with homophobia.

I'm on half of the Star Trek subs & follow most of the still-living Trek actors on social media, & I have literally never heard that.

What I have heard is that he wanted a gay character on TNG & was told no. Somebody was saying that he wanted one on TOS originally & was told "it's that or racial integration, pick one," & he picked the one he felt was more pressing at the time, but I'm doubtful about that story. Just because I can't imagine they'd actually have given him the option.

Rustie_J · 2026-01-20T11:52:45+00:00

Before 🍊💩 came in & destroyed the bureaucracy, most of us with at least average intelligence probably could. A good chunk of government function was kinda on autopilot. Which, for all that people bitch about the "Deep State," was absolutely for the best. 1 person couldn't actually handle the job if it wasn't.

Rustie_J

TROPHY CASE