Whose (Halloween) Couch Is This?

Happy Halloween!!! 

Last week I asked where this couch's flashy fabric came from and Karen got it in one!

This baby's take straight from Gamester's of Triskellion:

I don't have a couch for next week yet. I need to pull some more swatches together and I've been too busy with Inktober to really make a go of it. But I'll try to get back at it ASAP! 

Till then, have a great Halloween. Don't eat too much candy! 

Or do. 

It's up to you.

Voyager Re-Watch: Latent Image and Bride of Chaotica

Lucky for you all I just happened to be super-extra behind in my voyager into Voyager which means  this week I watched both Latent Image and Bride of Chaotica--two episodes that are totally fitting for Halloween.

Latent Image:
The Doctor stumbles into evidence that his memory and program have been tampered with. Upon closer inspection (and with help from Seven) he realizes it was the Captain and that the whole crew knows about it.

So this one isn't really Trick-or-Treat scary. It's a psychological thriller with legitimate psychological and ethical questions being asked. The Doctor suffered an irreparable feed-back loop wherein his ethical and logical subroutines couldn't reconcile themselves with a choice he'd had to make. He was damaged and it seemed there was no way to fix him--they'd had to re-write his memory. And yet... is it what they should have done? Should they do it again? This one is dark and serious. It's almost a bottle episode with the exception of The Doctor's flashbacks so it also feels fairly claustrophobic.
I love that it's Seven who ultimately comes to The Doctor's defense. I love that it's Janeway who sits up with him as he struggles through reliving his ethical dilemma. The Seven/Doctor/Janeway trifecta is a powerful one and it's already off to a wonderful start with Latent Image.

Bride of Chaotica:
It's a romp! Here Voyager accidentally makes contact with a photonic alien species who refuse to believe that biological lifeforms are a thing. It's got all the zany antics of old timey sci fi serials and Kate Mulgrew does a perfect job chewing up the scenery in her fabulous Bride of Chaotica ensemble.
If you're in the mood for some Voyager this weekend, settle in with your bowl of candy and your pumpkin beer and queue up Bride of Chaotica.

Voyager Re-Watch: Thirty Days and Counterpoint

Thirty Days: This is the one where Paris is in solitary confinement for a month because he helped a guy blow up an aquatic some mining facilities in the hope that doing so might make the government build better (less environmentally distressing) mining facilities to replace them. This isn't a terrible episode I just don't really have anything to exciting to say about it.

Counterpoint:
Voyager is traveling through Devore Space and they're harboring a bunch of telepaths--who the Devore totally hate. A certain Devore captain (Kashyk) kind of has a thing for Janeway and he defects from his government and suspiciously offers to help Voyager smuggle their secret crew to safety. Along the way a sort of cagey romance blossoms between Janeway and Kashyk and, at the last minute, when Kashyk reveals himself to be a double agent, Janeway lets him know that she was never fooled.

Guys, I love this episode. I love Janeway here. She is all things in Counterpoint. Powerful, calm, collected, sensitive, sexy, secretive, smart. She never loses her bearings, never lets down her guard, yet some part of Kashyk's advances get through just enough that she sincerely offers him a place on her ship and she's remorseful (but resilient) when he shows himself to be a fraud.

The episode itself is tense and dangerous. The stakes are high not only for the people Voyager is carrying to safety but for the telepathic members of her crew as well. In Devore space, if they're caught, they'll be thrown into camps without remorse and never heard from again. If they stay hidden in Voyager's transporter buffer for too long they'll suffer cell degradation and possibly die.

I love that we're thrown straight into the action. From start to finish, Counterpoint is filled with the kind of dramatic rise and fall, the harmonic meeting and parting of the episode's namesake. I always get excited when this one comes on even though I always forget to list it among my favorites. But I suppose it is pretty high up there. For all of its quiet, sub-surface tension, Counterpoint is thrilling.

Voyager Re-Pictured: Timeless, Infinite Regress, Nothing Human

So I had this "great" idea recently to, instead of writing long posts about each episode, I could do an illustration summing it (or my thoughts about it) up. So I drew all of these sum-up illustrations over the weekend but then I felt like they weren't actually decent enough to put up. But then I had a crappy day yesterday which ended up with me sitting at the Urgent Care at 8PM (don't worry, I'm fine) and by the time I got home I pretty much said, "No. They're just the first in a line of ideas. It'll be ok to post them." So here they are.

Infinite Regress: 

Why the Voyager crew would've frozen in ice forever if things happened the way I like to imagine them:

Infinite Regress:
Wherein Seven had a ton of voices in her head and, yes, I know more than half are male but whatever. I like drawing boobs.

Nothin Human:
Wherein B'Elanna gets a horseshoe crab stuck to her chest and they have to basically bring in a Nazi Cardassian to fix her and everyone has a lot of feelings (including me):

Whose Halloween Couch Is This?

Alright, so this one isn't really upholstery fabric but (back when I could remember how to make Photoshop do my bidding) I thought it'd be a fun challenge to create a couch based on a certain TOS costume:

Obviously this sort of sidesteps the conceit of these posts as it definitely does not resemble conventional upholstery fabric but I figure couches can dress up for Halloween too! This sofa's material was taken from a rather infamous episode of The Original Series. Its cushions were taken from a second character within the same episode.

Hint: Technically there wasn't enough of the silver for me to work with (the costume was rather skimpy) so I had to make my own.

Guess whose couch this is in the comments! I'll let you know the correct answer on Halloween!

Voyager Re-Watch: Extreme Risk, In The Flesh, Once Upon a Time

Extreme Risk:
So B'Elanna keeps risking life and limb running dangerous holodeck programs with the safeties off. She's totally checked out of her real life and regular duties and everyone starts worrying about her. Eventually Chakotay pokes around in her holodeck programs and figures out that she's been sort of wigged out ever since she found out all their Maquis friends died back in the Alpha Quadrant.
The idea behind this one is that B'Elanna is so damaged by the constant desertion and death of people she loves that now she's numb and she's just trying to feel something. I have some similar desertion issues and my emotions can be unpredictable but I typically just work out really hard--though this means I also sometimes get hurt. Anyway, Extreme Risk is an interesting episode. We see B'Elanna in a somewhat different light, checked out and depressed rather than invested and emotional and it's an interesting place to be for forty-five minutes.
PS- B'Elanna goes to Neelix and asks for banana pancakes at one point here, hoping to feel better by eating them and remembering her grandma. I made banana pancakes this morning but I ate them too fast to take a picture. Sorry.

In The Flesh:
Here Voyager comes upon a super realistic Starfleet Headquarters simulation and realize pretty quickly (after Chakotay does some serious dating sleuthing) that the simulation was built and is populated by Species 84722302948 who figure humans are a bunch of jerks since they teamed up with the Borg that one time. I still remember watching this one the first time and I remember how intrigued I was by the idea. I love that this hearkens back to Soviet spy training towns and I love that part of what brings Chakotay's alien girlfriend (who, yes, looks just like every other blonde, blue-eyed chick he's been after since Seska broke his heart) around to considering the humans' non-evilness is our literature.
Bonus Points here for Boothby's appearance.

Once Upon A Time:
Everyone groans when Naomi or Neelix show up and this one prominently features both. And, I admit, even I am a little put off by Naomi's holodeck program but I like the bits of payoff at the end are enough to make it worth it. In Once Upon A Time, Ensign Wildman is off on a mission with Tuvok and Tom while Neelix keeps an eye on little Naomi. The trip goes south fast and, as everyone on Voyager works to get their crewmen back, Neelix tries to tamp down his own feelings of loss as he distracts Naomi from the fact that her mom is missing and really should've called by now. Under all the holodeck nonsense this episode has a ton of heart and it makes so much sense for this show, where there's no day care, no teacher, no counselor--they're all just trying to get by and do the best they can and sometimes it takes a village. Tuvok even goes so far as to tell Samantha Wildman that if she dies, he's confident Naomi will be alright because she's surrounded by people who care about her and will do the best they can for her and it's legitimately touching.
The Payoff I mentioned: I love the little snippets of dialogue here where everyone reveals their own Flotter Program experiences and I love that Flotter went so far as to recognize Naomi's mom and mention how she's "all grown up now."I don't know what you watched when you were a kid but people tend to forget that our sensibilities change as we grow up. I loved Mr. Rogers and would have defended him to the death as a child but I was already rolling my eyes at Barney by the time my little sister came along and got obsessed with the big purple dinosaur. Shows for little kids are often fairly grating to adults because they're so simple and repetitive but they're not talking to us are they? They exist to teach kids basic lessons about life and learning and kindness and, in that way, I feel like Naomi's program was pretty much just future PBS and I'm not about to fault it for that.

Voyager Re-Watch: Drone

You already know what I'm going to say, right? I love Seven. I love The Doctor. I love Janeway. We've pretty much entered the Golden Age of Voyager now so anytime these three are the main players (which is practically every other episode) I'm 9000% in. Yeah, that's the case here too.

Some of our folks (including Seven and The Doctor) come back from an away mission via transporter (because their shuttles suck and Chakotay keeps crashing them and they need a Delta flyer) and some subspace crazyness causes The Doctor's holoemmitter to go bonkers and when it's paired with Borg tech and some human DNA (sampled from Ensign Mulcahey--I actually considered doing a Generic Ensign post for this one but decided not to) we get a BRAND SPANKIN' NEW LIFEFORM. What a great Trek premise! This one is reminiscent of The Offspring except that the Drone (self-designated, "One) is part of a super scary killing machine race and, also, instead of being the product of hard work and planning he's an accident. Hey, been there, buddy.

I love The Offspring and I think it's a pretty much perfect TNG episode but I definitely identify with One (played with sweet sensitivity by J. Paul Boehmer) more than Lal. I always knew I was an accident. I don't think I ever even had to ask. I always just sort of knew. And, I might not have had a scary robot race coming to claim me but my existence did feel sort of dangerous. I knew my parents' lives veered off course the second they decided to go ahead and have me. Like One I watched from the center of the hurricane of my family's life and often wondered what might've happened if I'd never existed. And, like One, I loved them even though, most of the time, they weren't really sure what to do with this hot mess of a human they'd inadvertently created.

Aside from my personal issues with Drone, it's a well-written episode. Both Seven and The Doctor are the perfect reluctant parents and there are several bittersweet moments throughout. From the crew's initial reaction to One to Neelix's good-natured coaching and the explanation of emotion/anxiety/fear/family from Seven in regard to The Borg. And, of course, the last exchange between Seven and One--a line repeated from his initial awakening--is particularly resonant as One makes the choice to leave Voyager and sacrifice himself for the well-being of the ship.

"You are hurting me."
"You will adapt."