#(the difference being 1. hes in the 23rd century 2. hes a literal doctor and 3. needles are like an ancient unnecessary practice)

[goofyjelly]

ive been terrible with shots and needles practically my whole life, but YOU WANNA KNOW WHO ELSE IS?

DOCTOR LEONARD HORATIO MCCOY

[fireinmywoods]

Do you think Leonard McCoy is strictly qualified to be a CMO? What kinds of degrees and certifications do you think that role needs, and does he fill them despite being fairly young (and mad scientist-y). Is he as much of a genius prodigy as Jim? Or did Jim make it clear that he wasn't going anywhere without Bones as CMO and Starfleet Medical just... made it happen.

I think that, like many of the other green but highly capable officers who end up in control of the Enterprise by the end of her maiden voyage, Leonard is exceptionally bright and skilled at the core duties of his role - in his case, medical care and surgery.

It’s pverse canon that Leonard was a gifted child and skipped a couple grades, and while I’m obviously biased, I feel like this isn’t too hard to believe, especially since it also helps explain how tf AOS presents him as a fully-fledged doctor at age 28. (Under the current system in the U.S., it would be the exception to the rule for someone to complete residency before 30.)

(And while we’re on the subject, it’s interesting to me that by the mid-2200s, medicine and surgery seem to have basically melded into a single discipline. Which I suppose makes sense considering the technological advancements - when you can give a lady a pill to regrow a kidney, you’ve eliminated a lot of the details that require so many years of highly specialized training.)

Anyway, my personal backstory for Leonard is that he did his residency at the 23rd century equivalent of Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, because 1) it makes sense that he would move back to Georgia for residency after graduating med school at Ole Miss, and 2) as a Level 1 trauma center and one of the biggest public hospitals in the country, Grady is the sort of place where a new doctor would get one hell of a crash course in trauma care. I have friends who did their med school training there, another who worked there as an ER doctor, and they’re definitely the people I’d want holding things down in the event of some catastrophic emergency.

I mean, just look at how Leonard reacts in the wake of the Narada’s attack and the violent death of his superior (and who knows how many others). That right there is a fella who has SEEN some shit.

Furthermore, I imagine that his time at SFM while attending the Academy would have given him the opportunity to scrub in on some higher-level surgeries. Compared to our 2250s Grady equivalent, SFM seems to be on the other end of the hospital spectrum - the kind of prestigious institution which does a lot of groundbreaking research and gets referrals for unique and challenging cases from other hospitals, as well as likely being the go-to for xenosurgery. There’s no reason to believe Leonard didn’t do quite well at SFM, and if anything, I think they probably would have wanted to keep him on rather than losing him to a starship.

Finally, we know that the reason Leonard was the one to inherit the CMO role from poor Dr. Puri is because he was already appointed as a senior medical officer, so it’s not like he was brought onto the ship as a lowly brow mopper and accidentally tripped his way into a senior role. (Unlike some stowaways-turned-captains I could mention.)

So I’m comfortable asserting that Leonard was already an outstanding physician and surgeon with a solid foundation of relevant experience when he first stepped onto the Enterprise. The CMO would need to be an excellent practitioner themselves and have the experience and expertise to advise the other providers working under them, and Leonard’s CV sets him up surprisingly well for that. Time in a trauma center would also have forced him to develop his ability to direct staff and lead a care team when shit hits the fan, and from what we see in the films, he appears to be pretty good at it.

The only thing which gives me pause are the managerial responsibilities one can assume would come along with the CMO position. I’d say the most analogous role to a starship CMO in modern day civilian medicine is that of medical director of a clinic or practice - and believe me, it takes a particular type of doctor to do well in that position. It’s a whole different skillset, and not everyone is cut out for it.

Managing his team in a crisis? Sure, yes, Leonard will knock that out of the park. Managing people day in and day out? Ehh. My man didn’t land that gig on the strength of his soft skills, you feel me?

That said, I’ve joked a lot about how Leonard must have joined up with Starfleet to escape such pesky nuisances as medical board review and ethics committees, but like…I’m only sort of joking, y'all. Sure, he might not do well as a medical director at my hospital with strict metrics to hit and JCo crawling up his ass about patient safety - but out in space, operating near the top of a strict pseudo-military hierarchy where he literally just gets to boss his staff around and they’re obliged to obey his commands? Hell yeah. I can see how he’d take well to that.

So to answer your question: do I believe Leonard McCoy was qualified to be CMO of the Enterprise when he assumed the role in 2258? Yes. Do I also believe Jim would have pitched a whole-ass fit if anyone tried to take Bones from him? Oh, god yes. It would’ve been a bloodbath. Better for the brass to let them both go and keep an eye out for a different, less aggressively bonded young doctor to fill McCoy’s shoes at SFM.

[mazanica]

So I felt a desire to list some, though not all because that would take too long, of my AUs. So here are main AUs and some favourite AUs of mine!

MAIN AUs

(includes AUs I’ve yet to write or publish, but have planned out, and links to the ones started/that have anything written for them)

Phantom Watchers (Aliens AU): TW- Contains mental, emotional and physical abuse of a child. Bandi Cator is the son of General Commander Akrai Cator and Head Doctor of Sciences Aniya Martel, of the planet Lapinia. He isn’t sure who he really is, but it’s never mattered before... until he wakes up on a strange planet, alongside 11 others... and a mysterious group watching from the skies. (xx)

One Stormy Night on Lakeview Road (Vampire AU): When Goldie and his friends were children, they went into the old abandoned mansion on Lakeview Road and met the long-missing Fischbach family, whom they knew for only a single stormy night. Twelve years later, Goldie is the only one who remembers everything that happened that night and to believe that it was real- and he is the first to figure out just what was really living in the abandoned mansion. (xx)

Beneath Their Masks (High School AU): TW- CONTAINS SEVERE ABUSE, from physical, mental/psychological, emotional and sexual. Also contains cliques and highschool bullying. Spring and his friends are trying to survive their final year of highschool without anyone finding out their little secrets. Goldie and his friends are trying to enjoy their final year of just “being kids.” However, when new science teacher Mike Schmidt partners Spring’s group with members of the Fazgang, cracks begin to form and their classmates see right through them. (5 different parts; xx)

Division (Elemental/Magic AU): In a world divided into those who have Powers (Pazons) and those who don’t (Norands), two different rebellions are rising up... but they take completely opposite approaches and innocent people get hurt. One group of highschool students caught in the crossfire is about to learn the ugly truth of the world they live in and that nothing is what it seems. (xx)

Circuits to Flesh (Paranormal-esque reincarnation-ish horror AU): Freddy Fazbear and all who stepped through his door was always meant to have a tragic end. After the Mangle bit Jeremy Fitzgerald, the Toys were slated to be destroyed and the Originals sent to the old location again. However, rather than bemoan their fates, the Toys choose to spend their last hours fixing their older counterparts and making right what was wrong. This simple act of kindness changes everything. Fate has something else in store for them. For all of them. But they have to earn it. (xx)

Ribbons (Android AU): Many years ago, droids rose up and rebelled against their organic creators, and the survivors retreated into the places their mechanic creations could not follow; the wet forests, the blazing deserts and the freezing tundras. However, as the androids advanced and redesigned themselves and created new droids, they found a way to overcome the flaws of their “ancestors.” With sealed, synthetic skins, stabilizing fluid and a highly realistic appearance, the war between organics and droids continues. At least, that’s what Blu has always been taught- but when he meets and gets to know Bonnie, a Droid, it becomes clear that things aren’t so black and white. (xx xx xx)

Pennies AU: Bonnie, Freddy and Goldie are highly successful musicians who feel like they’ve lost something. They return to their hometown, Durmont, where a string of disappearances around Alban Creek have been happening the last 12 or so years. Bonnie remembers the first kid who disappeared when they were only around 5 or 6, whom he had spoken to the same morning he disappeared- the same morning of Bonnie’s mother’s funeral- and goes to Alban Creek with Freddy and Goldie... where they find themselves falling into another world. (xx)

CANON AUs

Aftermath Verse: After the murders, the Toys made a terrible choice and the OGs can only try and finish what they started. (just look through my Aftermath Verse tag lol)

Shadowed Verse: The Shadows play a game and Blue and Red are the ones who suffer.

Mending Bridge: Mike Schmidt returns to Freddy Fazbear’s to unravel the secrets of his past, in the process saving all of their futures.

Forever Five Nights: Mike Schmidt tells his granddaughters the story of how he befriended the animatronics through small acts of kindness.

Timeline (Unnamed): When something threatens to unravel all of time, Mike, Jeremy, Scott and the animatronics are chosen to save the multiverse. However, a difficult choice must be made- one where no one knows the outcome of. (Only includes FNaF 1-4 and explores the idea of a Redeemable!Purple Guy) (xx)

ANTHRO AUs

SCY-FY

Like I have 30 Phantom Watcher AUs it isn’t funny so I’m not even gonna list them (maybe if you really beg to see them all but some of them are literally the same AU but if one detail was different so-)

Starlight Dream: Similar to Phantom Watchers, it’s an Alien AU. However, Bonnie is an alien and Blu is not. Bonnie, a Lacatran Soldier fighting for Lacatran Independence from Lapinia, crash lands on Earth, right in Bonito (Blu) Rodriguez’ field. Blu brings the alien into his home and tends to his wounds, and begins to teach Bonnie Earthen cultures.

Project Xeros: Blu is an alien. A sexless, species-less alien known as the Xeros, one of the many products of Project Xeros; designed and bioengineered by a race intent on galactic domination, the Xeros can take the form of any species they have seen and touched in their true forms, and within a few generations any chosen planet would be completely wiped out as the Xeros multiply. However, upon discovery, the Xeros were ordered destroyed by the Galactic Alliance. Blu is one of the few survivors, and ends up on Earth in the company of Bonnie Henderson, a farmer’s son who, despite dreams of life on a stage, has taken over the family business after his parents’ untimely passing. (I think I’ve posted 1 or 2 things about this AU on tumblr...)

Stargate Atlantis AU: In which the cast end up discovering the lost city of Atlantis... in another galaxy. Spring, a young, mysterious and strangely brilliant scientist with a powerful Ancient Gene, is recruited into the Stargate Program where he goes to Atlantis under the leadership of Freddy Fazbear and his brother Goldie. Life on Atlantis is always an adventure, and it isn’t long until everyone on the voyage begins to lose their Earthen identities as they mingle with the locals of this new galaxy- from the strange bear “Red” who lives on the Atlantis mainland, to the Chickens of Avia whom become their main ally....

Dystopia/Droid AU: Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy are Droids built in the 23rd century. They watched the fall of Man shortly after their creation, but they sleep through the centuries under the careful watch of the Tower’s AI, “Goldie.” One day, many centuries later in the 27th century, Red, Blue, Chirp and Mangle (and those are not nicknames; simply words that have been found, but meanings lost, from the Old Writings, as language has changed over time) live just outside the ruins of an ancient and great city. The know it as a forbidden place, as it’s from the era of Hubris. However, they choose to explore the old tower at the center of everything, and unknowingly fix what had been broken- unintentionally waking of the vestiges of the past that everyone wishes had been forgotten...

More Droid AU: There are different types of Droids; Service Droids, Rally Droids and Kindred Droids. Service Droids are Droids built to fulfill specific jobs, such as factor work or servant work or farm work. Rally Droids are Droids made for fighting, like Droid Wrestling or something. Kindred are Droids built for people who either cannot have children of their own, or want a child they can mold perfectly into what they desire. The first two of these are not meant to be sentient, but they became sentient over time. Kindred are meant to mimic people as realistically as possible, to the point where their parts “grow” over time so the parents get the full raising-a-child experience- just feed them metal, keep them up-to-date at a doctor (mechanic), and you’re good. Except... none of the Droids are happy with this arrangement. Blu is a Kindred who desires more out of life than what his “parents” want him to be, and Bonnie is a Rally Droid who, after losing a match and being badly damaged, is bought by Blu’s parents as a sort of “bodyguard” and “companion” for their sheltered Kindred. However, the two begin to learn from each other...

False (Human AU): The world (of anthros) is a simulation, and in order to see what’s really happening, you have to die without dying- i.e. die before your body dies, without the script, so that the world resets back to before you died... and for the briefest of moments, where you are, you wake up. And only those who “died” and woke up, even just for a second, remember or realize it was ever reset at all. Blu has figured it out long ago, and Bonnie has always had a sense of something being wrong...

FANTASY AUs

Soulmates; Words: TW contains child abuse and neglect. In which the first words your soulmate ever says to you is written on your body. Bonnie and all his friends have very interesting tattoos. Blu and his friends have equally interesting tattoos. However, none of them believe soulmates are tied together, and a few of them have personal reasons to avoid it at all costs...

Soulmates; Colours: In which you can’t see the colour of your soulmate’s eyes until your eyes meet. 

Soulmates; Voice (PW AU): In which you can hear the voice of your soulmate in your mind, and speak to them through the link. Blu and Bonnie are a Lapinian and a Lacatran, and on the night of the last Lacatran uprising, where Blu’s father razed over 50 Lacatran villages, including Bonnie’s, the link connects Blu to a hysterical Bonnie. Over time, the two become friends and learn each other’s secrets, perhaps even falling in love along the way, but neither see how they will ever even meet, let alone be together. Until the day they wake up on a planet far away from home, not even ten feet from one another...

Soulmates; Red Strings (PW AU): In which the red strings of fate tie everyone together, and some people can see them; thin red lines, tied to everyone’s middle finger and fading away, extending across the ground to places unseen... or to the person a few feet away. A young Lapinian, Blu, has always been able to see them, and he has always known he was different- because instead of going across the ground, his string went straight up into the sky. He’s met only a handful of people like him, whose string goes into the sky and who can see them. He’s curious, but when he finds the person on the other side of his string is a Lacatran....

Angels & Demons AU: Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy and Goldie are demons. Red, Blue, Chii and Mangle are angels. Spring is... something else. No one really knows. But these two groups end up colliding in their assignments on Earth, and no one really knows what to do about it. Least of all them.

Accidental Demon Summoning (unnamed): TW Contains child abuse and elements of racism and bullying. Bonito “Blu” Rodriguez has just moved to the USA with his mother and new stepfather, leaving all his friends behind and starting at a new school. One day, after being locked in the attic by his irate mother, Blu finds some belongings from the tenants before them- some old candles and demonology books. Blu doesn’t believe in demons and he’s bored... so he decides to do it. However, he makes a terrible mistake; he doesn’t outline contract parameters. Therefore, when a demon actually appears, Blu is pretty sure everything is going to go pretty badly... but the demon decides to stick around, just to mess with him. Upon seeing what is happening, however, the demon decides to fulfil his contract anyway, and Blu is horrified to find that they now have a new classmate. Spring Salvage, a demon hunter and Blu’s first friend in America, isn’t pleased.

Long for the Sea: Bonnie has moved in with his father in an old town, and reunites with his childhood friends Freddy, Goldie, Chica and Foxy. However, he’s not the only new kid on the block; strange things happen around Spring and his group. It turns out that Spring, Blu, Shabon, Red and Chii are merfolk, and Mangle a benevolent sea witch, who have fled from a dangerous war for the Throne- which Spring, the crowned prince, cannot yet claim as his blood isn’t “mature” enough. So they bide their time, and Bonnie feels drawn to investigate...

Reincarnation AUs: I have a few of these actually, including one that has Blu remembering all his past lives and Bonnie remembering flashes of the last. Another one, however, is Bonnie and Blu are the reincarnations of a semi-famous historic couple, a lord and a lady, who died young and childless, almost perfect replicas of their past selves, and remembering the last ballad they wrote together... which only the current owner of the old historic house, Bonnie’s own uncle and direct descendent of the lord’s sister, knows.

Pirate AU: Foxy is the captain of one crew. Mangle is the captain of another. Spring is a dread pirate who retired and went into hiding years ago to care for his young son, whose mother (one of multiple lovers Spring had had at the time) died in childbirth. Some things happen that drags Spring out of retirement, causes Foxy’s crew to start searching for him, and makes Mangle’s crew go undercover in a large medieval city to find answers and save their “princess”...

Dragons AU: Bonnie is a dragon who can take human (er, rabbit) form. He fell in love, many years before, with the magic queen of the kingdom at the base of the mountain his horde of gold is in, and dedicated his life to serving her and her kingdom. However, a war that the kingdom was swiftly losing, even with the help of a magic dragon, threatened to tear everything apart, and Bonnie made a choice he never wanted to make; as a last ditch effort to save the queen, he used almost all of the rest of his magic, trapping him in his dragon form for over a hundred years, to send her through time, to a future where “you will be safe.” Now, nearly three hundred years in the future, long after peace has been made and the kingdom now lives under the rule of Ursius (now a country, rather than a planet lol) while maintaining its culture through festivals and historical plays and such (with the Ursian twin kings’ blessings) and the mystery of the missing queen, Blu lives with his family near the forest’s edge near the ruins of the ancient city, seeing the tip of the castle protruding just above the treeline. He has no memory of his past, but feels a strange longing to go there...

Historical Hero AU (NOT PW, all on one planet, the names are all countries): Bonnie is a Lacatran Warrior... from long in the past. He is credited with almost singlehandedly defeating the Lapinian Army, with just one snag; he fell on the battlefield and was never found. It’s a mystery that haunts everyone to modern times. In modern times, peace has for the most part been attained; Lacatra gained its independence from Lapinia as a direct result of Bonnie, Lapinia and Ursius and Lacatra are now all allies of one another, and only Lapinia is still run by a monarchy, under the close watch of a Council. Blu, attending the College of Arts and History in Lacatra, has always been looking into the mystery of “Where did Bonnie of Lacatra go?” Well, he gets his answer one day when he heads to his home near the Lacatra-Lapinia border and literally trips over an injured rabbit. The answer? “He somehow slipped through frikkin’ TIME.” Bonnie does not adjust to modern times well.

Zombie World AU: TW references child abuse and running away. Blu is living a pretty hard life when he ends up slipping through the gaps into a parallel dimension, just like his best friends who disappeared years before. This world is much like his own... except it has been many years since a zombie outbreak, and no one he knew in his world was ever born here. Now he must find a way back, but a desire to save his new friends causes some trouble... after all, if someone who was never meant to exist crosses dimensions, what happens then? (xx)

Pokemon AU: Blue began his journey to becoming a Pokemon master when he was young, but he doesn’t go it alone.

PARANORMAL AUs

GHOSTS AU: TW talks about past suicide and murder. Everyone’s a ghost. They’re all dead. Boom. Bam. Okay a little more on that, everyone knows ghosts exist, but they all seem to gather in this one area... and in this one town, where the barrier between the worlds is thinnest, the ghosts look just like anyone else. Sometimes you don’t even know you’re dead. But when it’s normal to have a dead classmate, things get weird. Deadly weird. The living and the dead were never meant to mingle, and bad things happen to the living who cross that line. So no one does. It’s pretty easy, though- the dead tend to ignore the living. Bonnie is new in town, coming to live with his father after his mother was murdered during a trip to the mountains, and he feels drawn to a certain group of students. Two groups of students, actually; the Fazgang, and Springtrap’s gang. However, he’s told from day 1 to not approach Springtrap’s gang... because they’ve been dead for over ten years, and simply going through the routines they’d had when alive. Yet he somehow gets the ghosts’ attention, something that was nigh on impossible for the living to do... but Bonnie begins noticing some strange things about himself, and his new friends. Maybe they aren’t as alive as they thought.

ANOTHER GHOST AU: Bonnie and his friends move into an old creaky house, and right off the bat Bonnie sees strange shit happening. He’s none too pleased, because no one else will believe him that they’re not alone in the house. However, something happens that brings it to everyone’s attention... there are ghosts living in the house. It doesn’t take long for Freddy to put together the pieces; these are the ghosts of the Fischbach Family, a family that was murdered over fifty years before and their bodies, save for a piece of one of their ears, was never found. Now they have to help the ghosts move on by finally, finally, solving the case of their murder. Except ghosts can be so cryptic and never tell you what you need to know...

YET AGAIN A GHOST AU: Well, kinda-ghost AU. It’s not really ghosts but it’s hard to explain. Basically some culty crap happened, and the man who funded the local high school, Samuel Salvage, died under mysterious circumstances, as did his entire family. Bonnie, a conspiracy theorist, has many theories as to what might have happened, but Goldie, who is having a hard time coping with his and Freddy’s parents’ divorce and failing his history class, could not care less. However, when he’s given a research assignment about the family as extra credit- his only chance to pass and graduate- he goes to the graveyard where the entire family- the two parents and all eleven of their children, whom died within 10 years of each other from unknown causes- is buried. He accidentally ends up standing on one of the graves, and from that point on he’s able to see and speak with Franklin “Spring” Salvage, one of Samuel Salvage’s sons, though he isn’t aware of his identity at first... and he begins to uncover a dark, dangerous secret that no one wants him to learn.

NORMAL WORLD

The Dome (Dystopia AU again): WARNINGS this AU contains classism taken to an extreme. All of society now lives in Dome, a city inside- well, a dome. There are two levels to the Dome; Above, where the elite live, and Below, where the lower classes struggle to survive under the dangerous iron fist of their totalitarian government. Freddy, Goldie and their friends have always lived Above, never knowing the horrors of what happens Below in their spacious, sunny scapes. However, a school project has them venturing Below for a documentary that turns out to be more dangerous than any of them ever imagined.

Circus AU: THE OG MAZANICA AU YO! CAN’T BELIEVE I ALMOST FORGOT LIKE. WARNING, THIS AU CONTAINS EXPLICIT RACISM. In a world where Anthros are legally considered little more than animals and have few protections and many discriminations, Freddy, Goldie, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy run a restaurant, with Mike as the owner on paper. Red, Spring, Blu, Chii and Mangle run a circus (along with Marion, BB, JJ and a few others) with Jeremy as the owner on paper. They’re both funded by the mysterious sponsors Shafred Umbre and Bonsha Shade, two of the rare “Animals” who made it in this world. So of course, it’s only a matter of time before these two groups meet... (xx)

OTHER

Narnia AU: Pretty self explanatory, but basically; Red, Blue, Chii and Mangle are four siblings who find themselves in another world, and they live out an entire life there...

Wrong Number, Thank You: WARNINGS this AU contains depression and suicidal ideation/attempts and mentions of self harm Sometimes a wrong number message can save a life, as Goldie learned when he accidentally messaged one of his classmates instead of his brother. After receiving some help on the math homework- and a picture of the notes with something suspicious in the background- Goldie makes it his goal to befriend and help this mysterious classmate.... if only he could figure out who it was. Meanwhile, Spring is frustrated with his nosy classmate, yet...

OKAY I HAVE A LOT MORE BUT THESE ARE SOME OF MY FAVOURITES, if you have any questions about any of them just shoot me a message and I’ll happily answer. I might add more later on so yeh. I have so many more lol... Now in Mazey’s Oneshot Collection there’s a ton already but I have like 10x that many so-

[datainthetardis]

TOS Tag Game

Many thanks to @cptdorkery for tagging me; I was hoping someone would do that. I haven’t watched TOS in two months or so as I have been to busy rewatching TNG, so maybe once I watch TOS again I will change my mind about an answer, but these are my answers as of today.

1) What is your favorite horrible prop/costume/set design?

I don’t have favourites, but I’ll list a few that I’m particularly fond of.

-The cardstock rocks

-Gary Mitchel and later Dr. Dehner’s tin foil eyes in “Where No Man Has Gone Before” (that episode was a whole gallery of fantastically terrible special effects)

-Yeoman Rand's hair

-The terrifying plague make up in "Miri"

-The machine in “Dagger of the mind”. I don’t so much like the prop as I do the concept, which reminds me a lot of the Ludovico technique in A Clockwork Orange, but the result is still creepy.

-The true form of the aliens in “Cat’s Paw”

-Balok’s design in “The Corbomite Maneuver”. It was kind of unsettling in my opinion. He was literally a man baby.

-The costumes of those two girls that Bones makes appear at the end of “Shore Leave”. They were so furry and ridiculous. There was this Mexican sitcom called “La Familia Peluche” about this really eccentric family that would dress in furry clothes, and those bikinis the girls in “Shore Leave” were wearing looked like they came straight out of that show. I only watched one episode in my cousin’s house several years ago, but that was enough to make the connection.

-Space Abraham Lincon from “The Savage Curtain”

There are more, but these are the ones that I can come up with from the top of my head.

2) If you could have dinner with any one member of the Enterprise, with the exceptions of Spock, Jim, or Bones, who would it be?

This is though, REALLY though. Dinner with Scotty would be a hilarious blast; I could talk for hours with Sulu about plants and he could give me tips to keep me from unintentionally killing them; I could ask Chapel if people still watch House MD in the 23rd century and if so, I could fangirl with her and talk about how well/terribly House and McCoy would get along; and Uhura and I could have a great time talking about our love of linguistics, and she could teach me some Vulcan or Klingon or some other non-Earthly tongue. However, I think for today at least, I would choose Chekov. It would be interesting talking to him about being so young and already an ensign on the Enterprise, I could listen to his dubious claims about things being invented in Russia, and he could help me on my current quest to learn Russian. I find TOS Chekov’s personality very amusing and he kind of reminds me of a friend I had.

3) What period of Earth’s history would you have liked to see the crew time travel to?

This is even harder than the last question. Let’s see... I’d tell you today, just because I’m curious to see what their reaction would be to this very illogical world we are living in, but our 2018 doesn’t match canon 2018. Star Trek is designed to be a reflection of humanity today and what we could become, so whatever the time and place, it would be interesting to see them in a time of oppression. They already went to see Nazis, so maybe something like the Armenian genocide or Aztec Empire when the conquistadores decided to come in would be interesting, idk; something that doesn’t take place in America or Europe. On the lighter side, I also think it’d be funny to see them accidentally show up backstage at a Beatles concert and see the reaction to Spock’s haircut. Here’s a Doctor Who/Star Trek fanfic idea: somehow the crew comes across the Doctor, and for whatever reason, they have to go the 60′s where they meet the Beatles and have to fight some alien in the streets on Liverpool. People think Spock is a Beatle.

4) Please give an universe-plausible reason (no breaking the fourth wall) for Jim’s shirts being made with the durability of tissue paper.

I have been pondering over this for the longest time. I have no idea. Kirk obviously enjoys having a torn shirt, or just downright being shirtless, so perhaps he does this intentionally. Here is my (very silly) headcanon: Kirk wants an excuse to show off his chest (perhaps to woo Spock?), and since apparently walking around his ship shirtless in unacceptable by Starfleet regulations, he had to get creative. In Discovery we learn that uniforms are replicated, and Kirk knows that those uniforms are pretty sturdy, so he can’t wear those, so he learns how to sew. He makes his shirts out of plain cotton (or hemp or whatever thin fabric they have in the 23rd century), so that he is sure his shirts will rip. Starfleet takes notice that Kirk’s shirts end up ripped no matter what, and Kirk tells them that it’s because the replicators are malfunctioning and he is the only one with ripped shirts because he is the only one who puts himself in that kind of danger. Starfleet believes him and they tell Scotty to please fix the Enterprise’s replicators, which really frustrates him and the rest of engineering because no one can find any flaws in the replicators but yet Kirk always comes back after beaming down with a rip the size of Asia on his shirt.

5) Which episode would you recommend first for a non-Trekkie who is interested in watching the show? Or which episode would you not let them anywhere near?

I always introduce people to TOS with “The Man Trap”. It was the first aired episode and it works beautifully. I think it’s a fantastic episode: it has a moral dilemma, it’s a good introduction to all the major characters (save Chekov who is not in season 1), there’s tension between them, there’s a mystery, there’s a moral, etc. I think this episode holds up quite well. I know of people who try to recruit new fans with “Where No Man Has Gone Before” because it was the first TOS episode filmed with the Kirk crew, but the reason I don’t like doing that (although I love that episode) is that everything is different to all the other episodes. I think it’s not a good introductory episode precisely because it was the first episode filmed with this cast. Shatner looks like he feels out of place, Spock acts strangely throughout, McCoy isn’t even in the episode, and the science in this episode was really BS. I once introduced someone to TOS with “Charlie X”, which also works well, but “The Man Trap” is my top pick.

Out my followers, I believe that @boi-urthebird and @little-alien-duck have not been tagged. If you have, well, anyone else who hasn’t can jump aboard.

Here are the questions:

1.) What is your opinion on the Vulcan ideology? Is logic the way?

2.) Is there an episode you wish you could wipe from your memory? It can be either because it was so bad you wish to forget or because it was so good you wish you could experience it again for the first time.

3.) If you were part of the crew, would you be in command, sciences, engineering, or would you risk it and join security?

4.) Favourite race that appears in TOS?

5.) What character of the crew do you wish the show had explored further?

[thesoundofnat]

Take This Sinking Ship part 3

Tony, Jim

Summary: Tony finds the engine room, sees space, and needs to make a decision about where to go from here.

Warnings: a brief panic attack

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 4]

[Read it on AO3]

Words: 2 179

Tony woke up sweaty and out of breath and absolutely terrified to realize he wasn’t in his own bed. The bed he’d been sleeping in for the past week, though he reckoned this room was similar enough for him to know he was still on the Enterprise. That he was able to think about it so calmly now was worrying. It hadn’t been too long since he used to wake up in the Avengers Tower next to Rhodey or Pepper or Steve. At least not to him.

He was next to Jim now, their bodies nearly touching but now quite. Tony could tell the lights in here were supposed to mimic the sun rising (which was so very clever), and he watched Jim’s curled up form for a moment as the room slowly got brighter and brighter. He remembered the previous night clearly and knew they hadn’t done anything. The booze had simply transformed him into an emotional wreck and Jim had refused to let him go after that.

“I’m not unfamiliar with self destruction,” he’d said as he’d forced Tony into the only bed in the room.

“I’m not kicking you out of your own bed,” Tony had said and that was that.

He was grateful for it all now, though he was definitely debating fleeing before Jim woke up. Waking up next to each other after a one night stand was one thing. Waking up next to each other after an emotional night was a whole other.

Water. He needed water. And a bathroom.

He realized that an emotional hangover differed from a alcohol-induced one, but it still wasn’t pleasant to drag his body and pounding head into what he guessed was the restroom. The cold water against his face helped, and he took a moment to examine his face in the mirror.

He looked the same as he had back then. The lines on his face proof of the life he’d led. His graying hair and beard showing his age. He looked more tired than he had in the 21st century, despite the long sleep. He wondered how the Avengers would’ve reacted had he been found when they were still alive. If he would’ve come out of cryo like Steve had, preserved and confused and not the same at all.

Maybe it was better this way.

He found the little kitchen-like area of Jim’s room, a tap, a mini fridge and a microwave available for what Tony reckoned was quick meals. He knew they all took their meals together - or apart - in a cafeteria, but he would be a fool to think at least the captain wouldn’t be given ways to eat without being in public.

He downed a glass of water and refilled it, sipping it more slowly this time. He wished there was a window he could stare out of, realizing quite suddenly that they were in outer fucking space and that he had yet to look out to see the universe surround them. Placing his glass in the sink, he made a mental note to ask Jim to show it to him.

“Morning.” Jim was standing behind him when Tony turned, arms crossed and a hint of a smile on his lips. “Slept well?”

“I think I had a nightmare. You?”

“I slept all right.”

“I didn’t kick you or anything, did I?”

“Well,” Jim said, dragging out the word. He laughed when Tony winced. “Nah, I’m kidding. At least I didn’t notice.” He took a few steps. “You want coffee?”

“You still have that?”

“We do.”

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier? I’ve been suffering.”

Jim laughed again. “Sorry. I’ll rectify that right now.”

Tony grinned in anticipation. “God, I used to live off of that stuff. Day out and day in I’d be locked in my lab building things and downing cup after cup. I guess you could say I had a thing with abusing beverages.”

“Should I second guess my making you some now?”

“If you do I won’t be as calm as I was at the prospect of you taking my booze.”

“Speaking of that. We never finished the bottle.”

“And I don’t think we should.”

Jim nodded. “Whatever you want, Stark.”

“Please. Call me Tony. Especially after last night.” He hated how his face burned at the mention of it.

“Tony,” Jim corrected himself.

He brew the coffee, and Tony was happy to find that it tasted very much like it had in his time. Another thing that had remained the same. He doubted it was thanks to him.

“We can go have breakfast in the cafeteria,” Jim said. “I don’t really have much to choose from here.”

“Haven’t gone grocery shopping, I see.”

“I’ve been kinda busy.” Jim took a sip of his coffee. “You want to shower or something before going?”

“I’ll go use the one in my room. Meet you here in half an hour?”

“Sounds good.”

Tony downed his coffee and left, wondering how he was having such an easy time making trivial plans when he felt like a wreck inside.

He didn’t see much of neither Jim nor Bones that day, as they were both focused on their jobs and Tony didn’t want to interrupt. Instead, he decided to take a walk around the Enterprise on his own, partly to find a window, partly to do something that didn’t include sitting alone in a room trying to fend off anxiety attack after anxiety attack. There surely was something he could do to rid himself of these attacks? He was in the 23rd century, after all.

He didn’t find a window, but he found where all the engineers did their work, and he could barely contain his excitement as he wandered in unnoticed.

***

“He what?”

Tony wasn’t sure why he felt like a child being scolded, but he was definitely not hiding behind Scotty who was explaining to Jim where he’d spent the past few hours. Scotty was merely standing in front of him.

“Helped me fix the monitor, Captain,” Scotty was saying in that delightful scottish accent of his. “It’s been malfunctioning for days and we haven’t had time to properly focus on it.” Tony couldn’t determine if he sounded happy or simply relieved.

“Huh.” Jim took a step to the side to catch Tony’s eye. “I guess I should’ve known better than to keep Tony Stark away from a lab. Maybe we should do something about it.”

“I still need my job,” Scotty said, and Jim burst into laughter.

“Don’t you worry, Scotty. I have something else in mind.”

“What do you have in mind?” Tony asked as they left Scotty who went back to work.

“I have no idea,” Jim admitted. “I just didn’t want him to worry. But we’ll figure something out. There must be something for you to do.”

But Tony was terrified there wasn’t. What could he do for a universe that was already so ahead of the time he’d lived and worked in? He was practically a toddler in their eyes.

Or possibly a teen.

“Did it take long to fix the monitor?” Jim asked as they rounded a corner.

“It wasn’t very complicated, but definitely time consuming. I can see why they had been neglecting it.”

“And you fixed it in how long?”

“An hour.”

Jim stopped in his tracks. “An hour.”

“Yeah.”

“Scotty told me it would take at least half a day.”

Once upon a time Tony might’ve grinned smugly and reminded him who he was talking to, but all his confidence seemed to have died with his friends.

“Maybe if you have a hundred other things to focus on,” he said. “I only had that one thing.”

Jim looked like he wanted to say something, but Tony started walking again, promptly forcing him to follow.

“Can I ask you something?”

Jim caught up to him. “Of course.”

“Do you guys have any windows?”

Ten minutes later Jim had dragged him onto the Bridge, a place Tony had been avoiding since his first visit purely because he knew he had no business there. What he had missed the first time was the gigantic window slash screen slash whatever the hell it was that took up the entirety of the wall, which Jim explained worked as both a way to see the areas they were around, and also to communicate with others.

Tony was intrigued, and ignoring the eyes that were on him he walked closer. “It’s like my suit,” he breathed out, mostly to himself. “A bigger version of it.” He watched the literal space from the window, seeing everything he’d spent years watching from Earth. All those stars that were dead now. All that potential.

He turned to Jim, stunned. “We really made it to space, huh?”

Jim just smiled, so warmly and friendly that Tony didn’t know what to do.

He turned back to the window, a sadness in his chest. “I mean, I should’ve guessed that we would when a literal god from space arrived in my living room.” His chest was tightening, until he realized that it wasn’t merely sadness residing in it, but panic.

He was in space.

The same space that almost killed him once.

He fiddled with the neckband of his shirt. “This ship is safe, isn’t it?”

“As safe as it can be.”

Somehow that didn’t calm Tony in the slightest. What should’ve been beauty just looked like danger now. A danger so grave it had forced him to just about die in the suit that was meant to protect him. A danger that only produced dangerous things.

He needed to get out of here.

So that was what he did.

***

“Are you okay?”

Tony was still coming down from his panic attack, but he was in the last stages. His body weak, eyes still wet with tears. He managed a nod, but didn’t trust his voice.

Jim had followed him as he’d rushed out of the Bridge and had stayed with him as he’d panicked in his room. That man had seen the absolute worst parts of him and they hadn’t even known each other for a week. Tony reckoned that couldn’t have been avoided in such a confined space (not to say the Enterprise wasn’t gigantic), but he remembered how long it had taken his teammates to realize he’d been falling apart back when they were all living under the same roof. Maybe the difference was that Tony was actually seeking out the company and comfort now. Would probably go crazy if he didn’t.

He had no one else, after all.

“Anyone would panic in your position,” Jim was saying. “You know Bones? He threw up on me the first day we met because he was terrified of flying.”

Tony forced out a sound akin to a laugh. “Why is he a space doctor then?”

“He had nothing else. A nasty divorce made him feel as if Earth wasn’t his to roam anymore.”

“Wait.” Tony sat up more properly on the couch. “Earth? You’ve still got an Earth?”

“Well, yeah.”

Tony blinked. “Huh. I thought maybe you’d found a new planet. We weren’t exactly taking care of it back then.”

“Fortunately humans got their shit together.”

Tony smiled then, a genuine one. “You don’t know how relieved I am to hear that.”

Jim adjusted his position, a nervousness flickering across his face. “I wanted to talk to you about that. About Earth, I mean. But maybe this is not the right time.”

“On the contrary, now is the best time, since I’m both too exhausted to flee uncomfortable questions and to panic again. I hope.”

Jim barked out a laugh. “Right. Well, I was just wondering what you want to do. I cannot expect you to want to roam around space with us forever, especially after- well, you know. I know it’s a lot to ask right now, so please feel free to not answer immediately, but I figured I could at least let you know your options.”

Tony’s heart was hammering against his chest, but he really was too exhausted to panic at the prospect of a future in the future. “All right, shoot.”

“Unfortunately you would have to do a lot of training in order to stay here, and I think we’d be forced to drop you off at Starfleet first either way. So I guess you could either take classes at the Academy. That’s sort of like college. You can pick your program and all that jazz. And then you can work for Starfleet somehow.”

Tony hummed. He tried not to let the idea of having to go back to school hurt his pride. “What other options do I have?”

“I’m not too sure. I think you need to meet certain people down on Earth.”

“So either way I’ll have to return to Earth.”

“If we’re gonna follow policy, then yes.”

The thought of returning to an Earth that wasn’t really the one he’d left overwhelmed him, but he knew he couldn’t stay up here forever. “So let’s go to Earth.”