#I had watched TOS and TNG before but stopped at the Generations movie so I thought dr. Bashir was gonna be my favorite because

[chapollyn]

Screenshot redraw from Star Trek DS9! As a person who's favorite dnd race is a changeling can you guess who my favorite little guy is? Come on, Odo lives in a BUCKET, he's so silly and so dear to me...

[diesoonandsuffer]

I FINISHED TNG!

please clap.

i never actually did an update on my thoughts post since season 3, so i figured before i watched the movies i'll do a summary of my thoughts on the show.

first off it apparently took me over a year to finish it since i started in july of 2022, and it's now august of 2023. this isn't because i didn't like it or anything, i just kept doing other stuff and unlike with tos, i wasn't watching it WITH someone, so i wasn't on a schedule of any kind. however i did enjoy the show, i grew to like the characters quite a lot and i was invested in their stories. it was definitely a different vibe to tos, while tos is quite episodic, campy, and a bit dated, tng is less campy, a bit less episodic, and slightly less dated lol. it did kind of annoy me that we would start to get these longer arcing plots and then they would be abandoned or forgotten. for example at the beginning of the show it seemed like riker and troi were going to have a lot more "drama" in the show but nothing really happened with them, and then at the very end of the show they put her with worf and don't really explore that fully. i don't just mean romantic pairings but that's an example of what i mean. there was also just a general quality difference in episodes, maybe it was more noticeable here than in tos since tng was longer, but towards the end of the show in particular we got really good episodes followed by quite shit ones. by the time the show ended i didn't really feel like it was ready to end, if that makes sense. i feel like it was always toeing the line between being episodic and being a show with long plots. in general -- was fun. i had a good time. i've forgotten a lot from the beginning but oh well.

here i'll give my thoughts on the characters since that's what i used to do. in no particular order:

picard: i really don't have many strong opinions about him, some episodes he definitely was more entertaining than others. i think i would have liked to see him fail more often because generally he seems too capable at times. i do enjoy the rare moments where he loosens up. despite the longer screentime he had i weirdly feel like he has less depth than kirk? let me know if this is a crazy take but i don't feel like picard is a particularly complicated man, he doesn't seem like he has a lot of inner turmoil or conflict about things, meanwhile kirk is going through it at all times. not to constantly compare the two but. well, i just did

troi: the most beautiful woman in the world i'm such a whore when i look at her. when she got a real uniform i whooped and hollered and when she become a COMMANDER bitch?!?!?! i really do wish they did more with her character she had sooooooo much potential with being half-betazed and they never really give it the exploration it deserves, they use it when its convenient and forget when it isn't. i feel like if we had gotten one more season she could have really shined but they were like i know let's spend the last couple of episodes we have with her making her date worf i guess. also why did they give her mom so much trauma. that wasn't nice.

worf: i grew to like him more and more as the show went on, like whenever i would realize the episode i was watching was going to be a worf-focused episode i would get excited. he's one of those unintentionally funny characters which makes him entertaining, but i also find it interesting seeing the way he balances his klingon heritage with his role as a starfleet officer. i love how much he loves being a klingon, and how he always wants to teach other people about it and let them, in turn, learn more about him. he cares deeply and he tries hard even if he doesn't get it right. i know he's in ds9 so i'm happy to see more of him when i finally get to that

riker: we didn't get enough of him tbh. it felt like there would be multiple season gaps between his solo episodes. like for someone who is the first officer he didn't feel very relevant to the show, they stopped caring about his character after a while. he would have maybe a small arc in certain episodes but he was mostly there because he had to be? maybe the sporadic way i watched is effecting my memory on this. but i really like him, i think he's funny and i like his rogue tendencies.

geordi: we also didn't get enough of geordi. i love him but i feel like i barely know anything about him. but i love how genuinely kind and caring he is, and he's also in the scotty position of "the ship would fall apart without him" i feel like every episode picard would be like geordi fix this! help! also i wish he would have kissed the android.

data: hey it's the android. i love this dude. however i am getting a little overexposed to the dude and i know the movies are only going to continue that. idk why by s6-7 they were like "we're out of ideas for data. what if he liked killing and hurt his crewmates and was maybe evil" which is so lazy. like it would all somehow get resolved by the end and everyone would just move on like data wasn't a genocide machine two minutes ago. the finale reminded me of the way data used to be, where he would constantly ask people questions and say obvious things, and i realized i really missed that. he has dreams and shit now he's not really as compelling. he's been a human to me from day 1 so they didn't need to do all that. however brent spiner continues to be very funny.

beverly: um she certainly was there. don't get me wrong i like her but i feel like i never had any strong attachment to her. she didn't get many solo episodes and the last one i can remember (with the fucking. ghost?) was not good. yeah i can't really think of anything else to say. she's fine.

wesley: ok i know he like left the show after a certain point but i would be remiss to mention again that his arc did not end in a good way and he should get to take a NAP why does he have to keep being SO SPECIAL. also why does anyone ever hate this kid he was like 12 he literally was so non offensive to the show. but i did really like every time he came back after wil wheaton left i feel like wesley brings a new perspective to the show that is needed.

honorable mention ro laren: she's my icon right now so i feel like i have to mention her. i would have loved to see more of her in the show, i found her character really compelling and complex. i liked how she was always a bit of a bitch. i'm on the fence of how i feel about her arc ending, i feel like the episode with geordi and the one where she was turned into a kid both were made to help her feel more like the enterprise could be a home for her. they didn't give me much reason to believe otherwise? i don't care about her leaving, i liked that both her and wesley left starfleet even if the show didn't have the time or capacity to explore it, but i didn't fully believe her reasoning. but i loved every time she was there.

i have probably forgotten. many things. i was in the sun all day and maybe have heat exhaustion. but i'm starting generations in like 10 minutes and i realized i needed to make this post before i watched it. thank you for coming along on this year-long journey of me watching tng. we did it boys

[thegeminisage]

tng night SIGH number four. tonight's eps were uhhh [checks] "lonely among us" and "justice." verdict: idk, i kept getting bored and looking at my phone

"lonely among us" was about a little electric thing that kept hopping bodies. this was initially kind of fun, if stupid, because it seemed SO OBVIOUS that crusher should report missing time right away and she just didn't lol

i do like that deanna finally got something to do (hypnotizing them) but it just made me remember that in tos they werent allowed to do that and this hypnotism could have been an email (vulcan mind meld). i'll get there. i just miss him.

the aliens who wanted to eat live animals were like. unfunny. especially when menacing tasha yar. idk, she always looks incredibly tense and it's starting to make me feel bad for her. she seems to hate everything. poor ms whoever is playing her

data's bit with the sherlock pipe was kinda cringe but i love him anyway. i was VERY mad when picard told him to knock it off. you're stopping him from stimming!!! leave him alone!!! also, in the next episode, he got onto him about babbling and watching data shut down in response was SOOO sad jail for picard for ONE THOUSAND YEARS im glad his ass apologized

unfortunately during the middle of the pipe thing is when i found out about the loz movie via destiel meme (ep was boring i was looking at my phone sorry) so i ruined the best part of the episode for myself

i am coming to understand that generally speaking data is the best part of any given tng episode <3

there was a moment in this episode where wesley was once again right and told to buzz off. in the next episode he does something stupid and they spend the entire time defending him. i DONT understand why it always has to be like this. i don't even dislike wesley, i just dislike the way the other characters are written is reponse to him. he's like the theo teenwolf of tng (dont get me started)

big moment in this ep was the potential mutiny. once again it's too early for this shit. i wanted some episodes where they explore planets and fight some guys (like the ferengi ep!) before we did anything deep. i bet if this happened in like seasons 3-5 i'd be beside myself about it the way i was when it almost happened in tos. but i don't like some of these guys yet, let alone care deeply about them (except data, who is my best friend).

next ep: The Sex Planet. once again, it is inappropriate to be having children on a starship, but it is especially inappropriate to send your fifteen year old """honorary""" """""ensign"""""" down to a planet that you don't know anything about except how they LOVE to fuck. the greeting party literally didn't even know what to do with him if they couldn't feel him up. he had to explain in 1987 hays code that he was a fucking virgin. maybe some research besides "they love to fuck here" would have helped with this situation but also "let's not send the 15yo to the brothel planet" would be a good line of thought too???

anyway he breaks the law has to die and theyre twisting themselves into knots over the prime directive and the setup was ACTUALLY almost interesting except they just beamed away with him in the end without finding a third option, which they could have done like 20 minutes in. also, if theyre trying not to break the prime directive, why are they allowed to tell the aliens they're from space and beam one aboard their ship? like, i actually love ethical questions posed by the prime directive, so this episode is cool on paper, but the execution flopped

oh i nearly forgot worf was bragging about his prowess in bed and how he was too much for weak human partners and riker looked SO intrigued which was like the funniest fucking thing. good for both of them. also it was androidphobia that they didn't let data go to that planet to get laid

anyway, as of now, i have been OFFICIALLY DITCHED. catherine maulthots has decided to let me do s1 and s2 of tng on my OWN and then show her the relevant ones so it's time to watch this shit on 2x speed until i hit the good parts

[alfvaen]

Cellular Peptide Cake

I don't remember when I first saw Star Trek, but I was definitely quite young, maybe five years old.  I was born in 1971, so only a few years after it went off the air the first time, but still playing in syndication.  The first episode I remember clearly might have been "Operation--Annihilate!", and I imagine I found those plastic fried-egg cell things to be quite scary at the time.  I watched it sporadically for years, and I'm not convinced I saw every episode for a long time. I was also reading James Blish's Star Trek episode collections (and the Alan Dean Foster equivalents for the animated series) from the library, where they were filed down in the kids' section for some reason.  To some extent those books and the actual episodes blended together in my head.  In particular I remember Star Trek 9 and the episode "Obsession", which I never saw for years and years, but I knew how it went.  Some of my favourites were ones that maybe haven't held up particularly well, like "Court Martial" and "Specter of The Gun" and "The Savage Curtain", but in general I watched them pretty indiscriminately, had no concept of which ones were from which season or anything like that.  I did watch some of the animated series too, but not nearly as much.

I of course saw the first movie when it came out, and had the soundtrack album; I started reading the novels that came out afterwards, too.  (I suppose I had read some of the earlier ones, like "Spock Must Die", already as well, but mostly the newer ones.)  I saw most of the rest of the movies too (I still haven't seen all of Star Trek V); Star Trek IV was my favourite.  I also got the book "The Making of Star Trek" which lots of interesting behind-the-scenes stuff about how the series came to be.

And then TNG came out.  I was kind of iffy on it at first.  I missed "Encounter At Farpoint", but luckily a friend had it on tape so I watched it a little while later.  As a "gifted child" two years younger than my classmates, I had some issues with the character of Wesley Crusher, finding him painful to watch most of the time.  I stopped watching it with any consistency and it became an occasional thing. But I gradually became fond of it, and enjoyed most of the episodes I watched, though again I lost track of which ones were new or old.  At some point I got a book which had a list of all the TNG episodes, which helped me fill in some of the gaps.  (There was a period where they had TNG reruns on one channel late at night after Jerry Springer, and I caught up on a lot there.)  I wasn't as fond of the TNG movies, though; "First Contact" was the best, but even that was never a favourite.  I haven't rewatched any of them, though.

Deep Space 9...my wife and I tried it when it came out, watched a few episodes, but I think "Move Along Home" mostly killed it for us.  I've seen about half a dozen episodes since then--the tribbles one, the "O'Brien replicant" one, and some of the mirror universe ones.  One day perhaps I'll make a concerted effort to get back into it. It’s possible I won’t just consider it to be a Babylon 5 ripoff.

But we did try Voyager when it came out, and it may be the only Star Trek series (or, at least, the only post-TOS pre-Discovery series) that we never gave up on. Oh, we did miss most of Season 2 because we lost access to cable channels for a year, but we went right back to it when we could, and watched it to the end.  I don't recall it having nearly as many standout episodes as TNG, but it was a lot more consistent from the very beginning, at least.

"Enterprise" we also tried but it didn't hold our interest.  Not sure if there was any big reason, but one thing that low-key bugged me was always when stuff taking place before TOS didn't feel continuous with it.  Like, TNG and Enterprise both used "offline" a lot.  TOS never did...and yet it was chronologically in between them.  It makes sense out-of-universe that TOS wouldn't have used terminology that didn't exist yet in the 60s, but it felt wrong in-universe.  Same thing with the visible tech level differences between Discovery and TOS later.  (And let's not even mention the periodic Klingon redesigns.)

The "reboot"/"Kelvin timeline" movies were okay but didn't wholly in me over either.  They seemed a little gimmicky sometimes.  The third one actually felt most like actual Star Trek to me.  I haven't rewatched any of those either.

Of the newer series...we watched three seasons of "Discovery" and may have given up on it for now.  At least, it's on hiatus for us.  The series-long arc thing takes some getting used to, the continuity issues do bother me a little, and some of the stuff just seems outlandish.  The spore drive?  The giant tardigrade? (Does it never occur to anyone that you can't just make a tardigrade bigger and expect it to have all the same characteristics?  Square-cube law, anyone?)  I like most of the characters, though, and the Harry Mudd time-loop episode was enjoyable.  We haven't tried "Strange New Worlds", and we only watched one episode of "Lower Decks" before deciding it wasn't for us.

"Picard" we've seen two seasons of, though not the third yet.  Once again with the season-long story arcs, but it is interesting how they pick up some of the dangling plot threads from TNG and weave them into other stuff.

Honourable mention has to go to "The Orville", which is the Star Trek which is the most Star Trek without being Star Trek.  (Like that Firesign Theatre joke: "Benjamin Franklin--the only President of the United States who was never President of the United States.")  It's most like TNG, but with characters who swear more and have more juvenile senses of humour.  Again, I haven't seen the latest season of it, but I enjoyed the first two and will probably get back into it at some point.

But it's TNG that I'm always going back to.  TOS I can't take seriously any more, for some reason; I did just rewatch it, partly in step with listening to the Mission Log podcast about each episode, but for the most part I feel like I'm done with it. The animated series...well, I'm still revisiting that one, but I suspect it's not going to hold up that well either.  TNG...the first two seasons are highly spotty, but after that it gets really consistent.  It is more episodic than modern shows, but that just means that individual episodes can be experienced on their own with greater enjoyment.  DS9...I've heard a lot of good things about it, and I'm sure if I can just get over that initial hump I'll enjoy it just fine.  Voyager...that one does demand more of an in-order watch, and there is that entire season I've mostly missed.  Enterprise...well, maybe, one day.

Right now we're doing a TNG watch-through (skipping the really bad episodes, mostly) with the family.  Looking forward to it.

[agirlwithachakram]

Okay, I'm home. I hope this is helpful. I warned you I would do this and you didn't stop me, so here it is :) . And there is a TL;DR at the bottom. I enjoyed writing this and won't be bothered if that's all anyone reads.

It is definitely good to start with The Original Series. If you're feeling extremely brave you can watch the original pilot "The Cage" with Captain Pike, Spock Before They Knew What His Character Would Be Like, Number One (AKA Majel Barrett, who goes on to play Nurse Chapel, the TNG Computer voice, and Lwaxana Troi), and a random assortment of utterly unmemorable white guys. It is very cerebral, slow, and boring, and you can see exactly why it didn't get picked up until Lucille Ball had them make a new one with a fresh crew. I watched that one after seeing a bunch of TOS.

I will be honest, I have not yet watched all of TOS. Some of the episodes are a slog, and you won't be lost if you skip some. Eps I think are worth watching include The Man Trap (the pilot), Where No Man Has Gone Before (delightfully weird), Amok Time (THE Spirk episode), Trouble with Tribbles, Arena (Gorn!), Who Mourns for Adonis?, Errand of Mercy, Naked Time, I Mudd, City on the Edge of Forever, Corbomite Maneuver, Balance of Terror, The Menagerie (Captain Pike is in this), Mirror Mirror, Space Seed (KHAN), Journey to Babel, Gamesters of Triskelion. But do watch them in the series order! Other people might have good suggestions for skip or can't-miss episodes.

After TOS or if you tap out, you can jump straight into The Next Generation, or, if you're set on chronological order, you can watch the first six movies.

"The Motion Picture" (1) is pretty boring, TBH, but it's kinda interesting conceptually.

2 (Wrath of Khan) and 3 (Search for Spock) are great and very Spirk heavy.

4 is the most iconic Star Trek movie ever: the whale movie. An absolute must-see.

5 and 6 are pretty weird but fine and perfectly watchable. Star Trek is pretty good about both rewarding its longtime watchers and not punishing people who just showed up, so no future plots will hinge on you remembering what happened in these, for example.

Anyway, after those, it's The Next Generation time! I'd just watch it straight through. TNG takes place almost a century after the original series but has a similar premise: An updated version of the Enterprise travels through the quadrant seeking new life and new civilizations, boldly going, less sexistly, with more modern storytelling. The captain is Jean-Luc Picard, played by Patrick Stewart.

More movies: Generations is fine. Kirk and Picard are both in it! First Contact has the TNG crew and it's great. Farmer Hoggett is there.

Then we got Insurrection. Mixed reviews, but I like it. It's fun.

Nemesis is the final Star Trek movie, and it's worth a watch especially if you intend to watch the later show Picard. Tom Hardy is in it for some reason.

Back to the shows!

Deep Space Nine is my personal favorite show, and the only one that isn't set primarily on a starship. It spins off of TNG and is set on a space station near Bajor, a planet that has finally gotten rid of the Cardassian army after a very long occupation. Avery Brooks plays Commander Sisko, who runs the station for the Federation along with his Bajoran liaison Kira Nerys, who is shaped by the things she saw and did in the resistance. The whole cast of characters tends to appeal to queer neurodivergent lefties. It's great.

Voyager spins off of DS9. Captain Kathryn Janeway's crew end up 70 years away from home with one working ship and have to work together to get home. Seven seasons. Boldly going. It's great.

After that is Enterprise, which is set about 100 years before TOS. It is...less popular than the others. I don't have a lot to say about it and I've only seen about half a season. I'm a big Trek fan, but a lot of people skip it.

The new era

Star Trek returned with Discovery, which is set shortly before TOS and has queer characters, is led by a Black woman, and Spock is there sometimes. It is very cool and weird. I like some seasons better than other seasons.

Strange New Worlds spun off of Discovery, and Spock is there all the time. It's set on the Enterprise under Captain Pike (so you may want to have watched The Cage from TOS, but maybe The Menagerie will be enough), before Kirk takes command. It's a delightful romp that's mostly monster of the week style, there's a musical episode, Uhura is a major character...it's fun.

Picard is set well after Voyager and Nemesis (I'm not sure exactly whether Voyager ends before Nemesis starts or what, but it doesn't really matter) and multiple beloved characters make a return, so you'll enjoy it more if you've seen TNG, Voyager, and Nemesis.

Finally, Lower Decks is an animated series that is really fun if you're into Star Trek. They're always making references to other shows that are both fanservicey and funny, but it's got its own story arcs. I recommend saving it until pretty late in the game, ie, after watching TNG, DS9, and Voyager. It is set after the end of Voyager. SNW does have a crossover with it, so you may want to watch concurrently with that one.

Now, where to find people to talk to...I am not sure, actually! I think the tumblr tags are probably pretty active for some things.

One last note: I didn't mention the alt movies uhhh because I didn't like the first one and didn't see the others. But basically they're set shortly before TOS but are not set in the rest of the Star Trek verse. Spock and Kirk are in 'em! I don't know if it's homoerotic. swim at your own risk.

TL;DR

here is the general watching order for the series

The Original Series

Movies 1-6 (The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock, The Journey Home, The Final Frontier, The Undiscovered Country)

The Next Generation (seven seasons. set a century after TOS)

Movies 7-10 (Generations, First Contact, Insurrection, Nemesis)

Deep Space Nine (seven seasons, spinoff of TNG)

Voyager (seven seasons, spinoff of DS9)

Enterprise (a lot of people, including me, skip this. set 100 years before TOS. might be worth watching a few episodes to get a sense of it)

new era: Discovery (five seasons, set shortly before TOS)

Lower Decks (five seasons, set after Voyager)

Strange New Worlds (spinoff of Disco, can watch concurrently with Lower Decks, there is a crossover)

Picard (three seasons, set well after Voyager and Nemesis) (honestly you can watch this one at any time after watching those two; Disco and SNW aren't relevant to it)

I’ve been seeing a lot of spirk content and it’s really cute, I want to get into the trek fandom but I’m not really sure where to start- I guess the original series but I know there’s other films and spinoffs and I figured the best place to get the right sense of where to go would be tumblr 😭 Any recommendations for where to go after the original series?

It's nice that you asked me but I'm myself super new to Star Trek and have only watched the first season of ToS yet. I would also like to know where to go and also where to find other people to talk about it.

[ichayalovesyou]

The Undiscovered Country (Live Reaction)

CAPTAIN SULU OF THE EXCELSIOR CAPTAIN SULU OF THE EXCELSIOR CAPTAIN SULU OF THE EXCELSIOR EVERYONE STFU HE DESERVED HIS OWM GODDAMN SHOWWWWW!!!! “Should we report this?” “Are you kidding??” I love him so muchhh

Oh this one is gonna be about racism isn’t it? Yup. I know people judge Kirk for his prejudice against the Klingons in this movie, and I wanna clarify that it’s still not okay, but I just... look back on all of his experiences with Klingons, and he became less and less chill with them as they kept doing stuff to him and his crew, torturing Spock, Sherman’s planet, torturing Chekov, the ugly decisions in A Private Little War then on top of that they killed a son he never got the chance to connect with because his ex never allowed him custody. They almost cost him the chance to bring Spock back on top of that too. I’m not saying it’s not right, and whether it’s justified is subjective, but I also know he learns his lesson in this film. It makes me think of Katara’s arc in S3 of ATLA, how much she hated (understandably) Zuko and the Fire Nation, how she almost killed the man who killed her mother, but then didn’t. If we can love her still with that character growth, I see no reason to suddenly hate Jim.

“Logic is the beginning of wisdom Valeris” god I love Spock, he’s grown so much ☺️ also maaaaan everyone is old now lol, wait?! Where’s Bones?! Oh there he is! Oh wow I can smell the traitor on Valeris she is acting extremely shady! Oh hey it’s General Chang!! I’ve heard of this guy!! Apoliticality hall of fame up in here huh ST? Damn. Klingons love them some Shakespeare lol. Nice Scotty! Ohhhh Chang that was a loaded question, oof thanks for saving your grumpy husband. Ooooh man I love dinner scenes like these, the tension, the delicate conversation, the unspoken words ugh hell yeah. Oof!

Chancellor made a DAMN good point there! Calling Kirk out on his shit before they left! Yessssssss!! Lol everyone is hung FUCK WHAT JUST HAPPENED??? OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK!!! That Zero G effect is cool as fuck! Oh no oh no oh no oh no the war is being staged oh god oh no oh shit oh shit ohhhhhh no!! Ohhhhhhhhhh shittttt this is B A D. Ok so Klingon blood is pink? Huh.

Even with Jim’s prejudice he still values this peace than he does his feelings and that is a Captain Kirk ass thing to do. Bones being fucking AWESOME! Ohhhh nooooo, I liked Gorkon 😔 “Don’t let it end this way Captain.” Wowwww that was cool ass last words. “I sympathize Mr. Scott” growth 🌿 oh hey Sarek is back! Federation has an alien president now? Neat! Also I freaking LOVE Gorkon’s daughter, I am also growing progressively more confused by their kinda over exaggerated behavior in future TV shows? (I imagine they probably had a fanatical ideological takeover, kinda like the Vulcans and Surak but... violent.)

The defense attorney sounds like Michael Dorn??? I know it’s not him but still? OH MY GOD IT IS???? Cool! His name is also Worf? Weird. Awww Bones he’s GOTTA stop making me cry like this I can’t even do this oh man he’s breaking my hearrrrrt. Oh wow they really just listing everything “bad” Jim has ever done huh? Damn. CAPTAIN SULU IS BACK oh and he’s gone again damn. Ooooof penal colony punishment yiiiiikes, seems the Klingons have as outdated a prison system as we do now 😬 oh so Spock is distantly related to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? Neat. Oh Spock don’t trust Valeris, I know you don’t know better yet but still 😬😬😬

Ooof this whole person thing is super interesting?? Who is this WOMAN whose informing them McCoy & Jim, I love her! I love this political intrigue murder mystery stuff!! Those Wargs look AMAZING wow, loving seeing TOS crew with a budget love it! “Not everyone keeps their genitals in the same place Captain.” OH MY GOD 😂😂😂 oh it’s McKirk hours boys, and awww even in a Klingon prison Jim’s prejudice is decaying. McCoy is DUDE WHAT IS WITH YOU?? And I agree, even as an old man Jim is a lil’ bit it a slut. WAIT CHRISTIAN SLATER???? That was a weird cameo. Even after he made out with that lady he was like “damn, what is wrong with me??” Lol

WAIT IS MATIRA A CHANGELING?? That transformation was VERY gooey?? I mean I know there are a bunch of shapeshifter races but still???? Hey watch McCoy is gonna give out from the cold first cuz he’s a southern damsel just you wait. Aaaaaand it took 5 minutes! 😂 he’s immune to dinosaurs but vulnerable to cold. Bullshit Uhura doesn’t know Klingon??? What was that?!?! Oh she’s not a Changeling. TWO KIRKS AGAIN???? How many times is this now, four? 😂😂

Now they’re close enough to kiss lmfao KISS DAMNIT! Aw. Uh oh. I have never, NEVER seen Spock this posed off ohhhh my god. OH MY GOD HE JUST SMACKED THAT SHIT OUT OF HER HAND. Ooof I need to sit down (I say sitting down) way to frickin kick Jim right in his soul with his own words damn Valeris... wow this is so GOOD, fuck. Oh man, the amount of personal strength, feelings of hatred and betrayal, and circumstance it takes for Spock to FORCIBLY meld with someone when we all know how he feels about consent 😨 this is like, the only ONLY situation I can imagine him, in character, EVER doing this to anyone. Wow... wow. Oh my god. OH MY GOD. Ohhhhhh wow, that’s gonna haunt Spock for the rest of his life... fuck.

SULU IS HERE TO SAVE THE DAYYYYYYY WE LOVE HIM!!! Awwww look at these too poor idiots regretting their moral transgressions :( they’re so married. Over here examining prejudices and stuff, I need to study this screenplay oh my goddddd. This is so GOOD oh my god. Kittomer Accord hours!! Here we go! Oh MAN Chang is a cool ass villain!! Here we gooooooooo!!! EXCELSIOR IS HERE TO HELP!! Aw Spones out here flirting before they go save peace in their time, love that! This battle tastes like a beautiful marriage between Balance of Terror and Conscience of A King 😍 YEAH SCOTTY!!! And thus, Kirk completes his character growth. Lol and then everyone claaaaaaped.

Man, Sulu and the Excelsior really deserved their own his Star Trek show, something I hope they will someday remedy! Awwww that little love letter to TNG and all future Treks at the end heck yeh ☺️

[aion-rsa]

How Star Trek: Discovery Fulfills Spock’s Franchise Legacy

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This Star Trek: Discovery article contains MAJOR spoilers for “Unification III,” and spoilers for Picard.

Michael Burnham has returned to her home planet Vulcan in an attempt to recover some data from a Vulcan and Romulan alliance she never thought was even possible. If this sounds like the beginning of an epic title crawl in a Star Wars movie, you’re not far off. In Discovery Season 3, Episode 7, “Unification III,” the Trek franchise has delivered one of its most epic and generation-spanning episodes in a very long time. We always knew Star Trek: Discovery’s status as both a prequel and a sequel to TOS and TNG was tricky, but for fans everywhere, it was hard to believe these time-jumping tricks could ever result in an episode this heartfelt and straight-up cool.

And yet, if the USS Discovery’s visit to the planet Ni’Var had you scratching your head, or running to Google to figure out how everything fits in, there are a few very logical answers to what’s going on here. But, that doesn’t mean these answers are simple. When there’s this much time travel involved – plus multiple, specific Star Trek shows and movies — it’s bound to get a little complicated. Let’s untangle the Vulcan-Romulan web, shall we?

Is “Unification III” a sequel to The Next Generation episodes “Unification I” and “Unification II”? 

Short answer: Yes! In 1991, during  Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, the two-part episode “Unification” featured the return of Leonard Nimoy as live-action Spock to the small screen for the first time since The Original Series. And, not counting archive footage in DS9‘s “Trials and Tribble-ations,�� prior to Discovery, this TNG two-parter was the only appearance of Spock on a Trek TV series after the end of The Animated Series in 1974.

In 1991, Nimoy’s Spock was strictly relegated to appearing in the Trek feature films, and in fact, his final performance as Spock, was also in 1991, in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Because Nimoy co-developed the story for The Undiscovered Country, he felt strongly about promoting the film through a crossover on TNG. This is why Spock gives a speech to Picard about committing Captain Kirk to a peace mission in “Unification II.” At the time, Nimoy and the Trek franchise were giving a small preview of what was going to happen in The Undiscovered Country, which was, arguably, the origin of Spock’s journey to becoming an ambassador. (Something that is funny that people forget, is that at the time this episode aired, there was a rumor that Captain Kirk would die in The Undiscovered Country. And nothing Spock says in “Unification II” confirms or denies that!)

So, what does that have to do with the Romulans? Well, if it’s been a while since you’ve seen “Unification I and II” the story is all about Picard and Data trying to track down Spock after the Federation believes he’s gone rogue. This is why Discovery, the Vulcan president, says Spock “left” the Federation. He did! Of course, he didn’t leave it to defect. He left it to live on Romulus and help bring together the Vulcans and the Romulans. 

Wait. Didn’t Spock leave Romulus — before it blew-up — and travel back in time and meet Chris Pine?

Yes! Old Spock did leave Romulus and, eventually die in the past of an alternate dimension. In Discovery, Admiral Vance says that the reunification of Vulcans and Romulans “took centuries after [Spock’s] death.” This, however, is a presumed death. As far as Vance knows, Spock died sometime in 2387, trying to pilot his experimental ship, the Jellyfish, to use red matter to stop the Romulan supernova. In Star Trek 2009, Spock tells Kirk (Pine) — via mind-meld — that he promised the Romulans that he would try to save their planet. Presumably, Spock had been living on Romulus this entire time. In other words, Spock started living on Romulus in 2368 (TNG) and flew his red matter spaceship to try and save them in 2387 (flash “backs” in Star Trek 2009). So, this means that in just 19-years, Spock’s teaching made a big enough difference to eventually get the Vulcans and the Romulans to hang-out together sometime before the events of 3188. 

When did the planet Vulcan become Ni’Var?

It’s not exactly clear. We know that Ni’Var left the Federation 100 years prior to 3188, but it seems likely that the integration of Vulcans and Romulans was underway a long time before that happened. Could it have been as early as the 25th century? Sometime after the events of Star Trek: Picard? Maybe. After 2387, we know the Romulans literally don’t have a home, and by 2399 (Picard Season 1) there’s a loose government called The Romulan Free State. That said, several parts of Romulan culture seem more open to peace simply because things aren’t going so great. Could the Romulan emigration to the planet have happened sometime fairly quickly after Picard Season 1? It’s possible! In fact, considering we see the Romulan Qowat Milat order in “Unification III,” it feels possible that Picard Season 2 could show us the beginnings of the planet Vulcan becoming “Ni’Var.” Then again, it’s also possible this whole Ni’Var business didn’t start until several centuries after Picard, too. There are 930 years between Discovery Season 2 and Discovery Season 3. But, that’s still 789 years between Picard and Discovery Season 3. A lot could have happened.

Okay, how the hell does this recording of Spock even exist?

IRL, we totally understand where Michael’s brief Spock clip comes from. It’s from “Unification II,” and it’s Spock talking to Picard. But, in-universe, why does this holographic recording exist? There’s really only one answer: Picard must have been recording Spock nearly the entire time they were on the mission. The speech Michael Burnham views is (mostly) from the very end of “Unification II,” in which Spock says: “The union of the Vulcan and Romulan people will not be achieved by politics diplomacy will not be achieved by politics or diplomacy — but it will be achieved.” Spock says this to Picard, while Data is watching. So, it feels possible that Data was recording the entire conversation for the purposes of the mission. After all, Picard and Data were on a covert mission for Starfleet, meaning it isn’t insane that they would have recorded it. When Burnham accesses the file, the computer says “coordinates redacted” but also that it’s from the personal files of “Admiral Jean-Luc Picard.” So, Picard is the source, the coordinates were the planet Romulus, and somehow Picard recorded this convo, maybe with Data’s help, or maybe some other way.

There is one small wrinkle in all of that. The first part of the speech that Michael listens to actually happens in a different part of “Unification II” than the second. When Spock says “closed minds have kept these two worlds apart,” this happens way earlier in the episode when, still dressed as a Romulan, Picard and Spock have some soup together. So, this recording is actually two recordings from Picard during his covert mission, which means Data as the primary holographic recording device is probably out since Data wasn’t there during the Picard-Spock soup debate. 

This leaves only two explanations: Picard had a secret recording device on his person, that allowed all of his convos with Spock to be stored and recorded. But there’s a more fun answer.

Picard is an android now—remember? 

At the end of Star Trek: Picard Season 1, all of Jean-Luc Picard’s memories are transferred into a new Synth body, meaning, effectively, Picard’s memories have now been stored using technology. This fact actually creates a pretty easy way for a holographic file of Picard’s eyewitness memory to exist. He wasn’t recording anything at the time with technology, but later, at some point, Picard pulled out a few memories from his new robot brain and turned those into holographic recordings. Considering all the stuff that Picard has seen and his interest in preserving history, this feels legit. Jean-Luc Picard would totally turn his actual memories into curated holographic recordings. And he might do it for the very reason Burnham accesses the files in Discovery. Picard, like Spock, wanted the truth to survive. Even if it meant pulling those memories out of his robot brain, and copying them onto a 25th-century memory stick.

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Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 is streaming now on CBS All Access.

The post How Star Trek: Discovery Fulfills Spock’s Franchise Legacy appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[amilynh]

teddythecat1234 replied to your post: For the reader's ask: How did you find your first...

I’m not into Star Trek anymore either. I used to be into TNG when I was young and I stuck with it through DS9 (which I never enjoyed as much) and Voyager (which I liked much better), but Captain Picard will always be MY Captain and the Enterprise D is MY space ship. I never got into any of the later spinoffs.

I have seen all 78 eps of TOS, I saw all the movies up through First Contact (after the hand-off), and my friends and I even got all gussied up like we were going to the formal opera, and we called our opening-night First Contact even "Prom Trek" since none of us had gone to prom (NO regrets: we gave ZERO fucks), and so we made our own prom circa age 26-28 doing something we loved.

I watched TNG S1-S5, and then probably saw half of S6, and really not much afterwards, though I tuned in for the final ep (and was DEEPLY disappointed). My true love there was Beverly. (Ah, Gates McFadden, one of the three main people responsible for the realization of SO MANY of my generation's fans of, "Oh...I'm a *LESBIAN*!!" ...the others are Gillian Anderson and Linda Hamilton.).

I have heard SUCH good things about DS9, but I was at uni at the time, and it was one at, like, 3:30 on Saturday afternoons...and it would break up the day, and I'd forget...it was so inconvenient and non-intuitive that I never remembered to watch it, so I've only seen a smattering of eps (including OF COURSE the Mirror episodes...SO GOOD!). I wanted to like it, but timing worked against me.

I watched and LOOOOVED Voyager. I shipped Captn Katie and Chakotay SO hard..."Resolutions" OMG OMG. I was TRULY hopeful that they would address Captn Katie's escalating instability and risk-taking. And I was even MORE hopeful when they did the ep where she locked herself in her cabin for 3 months. I wanted to see them ADDRESS her severe depression and loss of sense of self when separated from the structure of Starfleet that she was so committed to and dependent on. I wanted to see the Doc relieve her of command in order to address and TREAT her depression...to acknowledge that she needed HELP rather than enabling her and ignoring it. But...they skirted that, as they skirted EVERYTHING they built up.

I hate Brannon Braga with the fiery passion of 10,000 suns. I mean, when he was asked, in S1, how they were going to handle when Tuvok inevitably went into Pon Farr, and THAT ASSHAT was like, "What? Pon what? ...OH! Oh, but that's from the OLD show and this is a different show, so that doesn't apply." WTF YOU ASSHOLE OMG YOU'RE PART OF A WIDER CONTINUITY....AAAARRRFGGHGGHH!!! And...then they DID do ...something with it...and it fell TOTALLY flat for me.

I watched S1-S5 (again), and I WANTED to like "The Year of Hell," but it just didn't LAND for me Because Reset. I LOVED the episode where it turned out that Barclay was able to communicate with them...that slender connection to their home...that was VERY cool. And I LIKED Seven...but I didn't like that stupid catsuit...nor did I like that it became the Seven Of Nine Show.

I loved B'Lanna and Tom. I loved how they DID handle HER response to the obliteration of the Maquis and addressed that she was deliberately engaging in dangerous behaviors. I just wish they'd ALSO done that with Captn Katie; she was ENDANGERING THE WHOLE SHIP. I did appreciate that they revisited the concept, but with another character.

A friend had the headcanon (which is really just logic) that the Delaney twins from Stellar Cartography could almost NEVER rest because, typically, on a small ship working in well-travelled areas, just how much does Stellar Cartography DO? ....And then suddenly they're in a TOTALLY UNMAPPED AREA...and they need to recruit DOZENS to help them do all the mapping of this entirely un-documented area...but there are only 120-140 PEOPLE on board...so they must have never slept.

I think they should NEVER EVER let Chakotay fly the shuttles; they couldn't REPLACE them...and he kept crashing or damaging them or (check out the Coffee Nebula) just, you know, ACCIDENTALLY LEAVING SHUTTLECRAFT BEHIND by flying down to the planet and then BEAMING BACK UP.

I missed it when they stopped emphasizing that there was a SHORTAGE of resources. When Janeway couldn't have her coffee? SO awesome. When Neelix was cooking weird variations of the same thing? SO GOOD. I missed that as they forgot that resources were limited and caution was SUPER necessary.

I watched the series finale and was like...Chakotay and SEVEN??? WTF??? And I wanted not to see it END with them returning...I wanted to see the conflict of "Now we're FINALLY back to Starfleet YAY!" ...and the realization that, after HAVING to function independently for so long, finding it VERY difficult to fit into the demands of a command structure again. I wanted to see the reaction to how things had changed in the Alpha Quadrant...the Maquis adjusting to the annihilation of the Maquis...SO many missed opportunities.

I tried to watch Enterprise. I tried. I mean...Scott Bakula. Hoshi. COOL stuff. And yet, they managed to make SCOTT BAKULA--a man who could make the cut of a dress look GOOD and who could sing, dance, play piano, play football...do ANYTHING (see: Quantum Leap) while seeming personable and likeable...they managed to make him BORING. WTF???? I thought Enterprise was a boringly hot mess...but their Mirror episodes were good. I mean...EMPRESS HOSHI? YES, PLEASE. And the ep where T'Pol told the story of her grandmother who got trapped on earth and "invented" velcro so that she could sell the patent and get money for the family who helped her (I call it the T'Nana episode because it was T'Pol's Nana, yo)...I liked that...but I liked the novel "Strangers from the Sky" better....and it's the same plot.

And since then, and especially with the reboot...I just have walked away; I've DONE my time with Trek. I am no longer enamoured, and yet I still appreciate it.

I REALLY love, even now, some of my favorite Pocket Books novels (from before Pocket made the rules so rigid that the novels were no longer just authorized fanfic). My FAVE ones are "The Entropy Effect," "Ishmael" (Barbara Hambly steathily got them to PUBLISH a Star Trek/Here Come the Brides crossover!!!! With Doctor Who jokes! And there's TIME TRAVEL!), and Jean Lorrah's PUBLISHED Sarek and Amanda novels (which ENTIRELY have the backstory that is from her zines that were my first serious fanfic knowing it was fanfic).

I'm forever grateful that Trek fandom was large enough and FINDABLE enough that it gave me the "in" that I needed, back when there was no internet, to FIND fandom, then to follow the bread crumb trails to the fans of OTHER shows I also loved.

[drunkcomicbookrants]

Star Trek the Next Generation: Home Soil

You ugly bags of mostly water

The first season of Star Trek the Next Generatio nis mostly terrible. Let’s just uhh, this is an episode:

Most season ones of most shows are terrible. We’re still figuring out the characters, still figuring out how the off-stage crew works toeghether (lighting is HARD), still figuring out what works ina plot or doesn’t. (looking at you Buffy)

Star Trek TNG holds a special fuckin place in my heart. It was the first show that was MINE, and I’ve rewatched it a few times and I’m honestly, like, PROUD that this is the show that raised me. I honestly feel like I’m a better person because I stumbled upon reruns of this show after my bio family fell asleep when I was on summer breaks. Without getting too INTO IT this show is uhhh fuckin great

Also I could ramble incoherently for at least 45 minutes about the PLACE that TNG found itself in. It was 20 years after the original series aired, before hte internet was really a thing. Back when fucking 45 minutes of every star trek movie was spent on “THJE REVEAL” of the enterprise. Who was this new captain? TV Guide says he’s bald, what?????????? How is this going to cmpareafdafdsfasfd asOMGGDFAFFD so excited, let’s tune in. Also the cold war is a thing and we’re dealing with the beginnings of a technocracy in our IRL lives, and what does this mean for a show that is SOOO fucking good at criticizing us for our actual bullshit???? LET’S WATCH SEASON ONE TO FIND OUT

But season one, as the kids would say, is a big oof. We got your overt racism, we got your weird sexism but almost feminism, we got your wait are the ferengis supposed to be scary or funny or just back to overtly racist? 

When I rewatch this show with somebody, I always give them the choice of skipping over most of season 1. Let’s get to that season 2 hotness where Riker has a beard and the writers have figured out who the characters are and the actors have figured out how to use that to work with each other

But you lose something with that, so I’m always happy to  

Anyway we watch the first half of season 1 and it’s a little bit pretty YIKES

But then we get to EPISODE EIGHTEEN HOME SOIL

and this is the first Star Trek the Next Generation episode to really feel like a Star Trek the Next Generation episode. I mean that as a high compliment.

Before this we had some weird clonse of the original series episodes, some weired racist episodes. We get one episode with Lwaxana Troi where the only good thing about it is Lwaxana Troi. We get a holodeck episode. We get Datalore which is great but isn’t quite TNG yet.

But HOME SOIL is the first episode that has all of the characters doing the right thing. Captain Picard is fucking CAPTAIN PICARD. Bev has her theories, Data says “Uncertain. Possibility...” a few times. Geordi does more than literally look out the actual fucking window (honestly season one you are giving me a rash). Wes is around but not obviously a fucking audience plant. Worf is well okay not quite there yet but still okay. Tasha is competent and beliveable. It feels like a well oiled machine

You’ve also got yourself a MORAL CONUNDRUM where it’s not quite good-vs-evil, things are complicated, and it’s all a bit of a metaphor meant to be planted in the brains of the children watching (spoiler alert: it worked)

This is Star Trek the Next Generation at its fucking core, for the firs time. It’s not, like, the best episode of all time (hey I, Hugh), but it’s the first SOLID TNG episode in season 1.

There are other good episodes in season 1. I already mentioned the Lwaxana episode and Datalore. The binar episode was memorable even if a little weird if you think about it. And I’m looking forward to a few other episodes in season 1, even if they don’t end up going anywhere (fuckin, alien bugs have infiltrated the highest ranks of star fleet, fucking why wasn’t that a Star Trek movie???!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!!!!?!???!!!??!.)

But my point is, Home Soil is the first real TNG episode, and I don’t think it gets enough credit. It’s dismissed as a clone of Dvil in the Dark (the TOS episode with the rug monsters that Spock mind melds)

And I’ll admint that when I started watching this tonight, I thought it was Quality of Life (the one with the drill robots)

But this episode is the first time I felt like I was home again, and it has me looking forward to everything that I know is about to happen.

Beer paring:

This is a seasonal beer that you really like, but you don’t quite remember liking after it goes out of season. But when the season rolls back around, you’re always PLEASANTLY SURPRISED by it. Oh shit, I forgot how good this is!

This is a 21st Amendment Watermelon beer

In my brain I don’t love this beer, but hot damn if I’m not excited every time I see one on tap again. Not only is it a decent beer by itself, but it means that other summer berers, not to mention fucking summer itself, is on its way. It sorta makes you stop and think and question things a bit (wait beer can be watermelony??) but mostly you like it because it means even better stuff is on its way.

Excited for season 2.

[republictrooper]

Star Trek Discovery Season 2 Finale Thoughts.

Ok, so like. I finally got to watch the last episode since I was on Vaycay last Thursday.

I like the ending. It was 90% explosions and 10% plot, but I liked it, a lot, some reservations aside.

I mean, I always felt like we needed a new Trek series set in the future instead of all these prequels (one reason I’m not on the “Pike Miniseries” train), but sending the prequel series into the future to BE that series was... actually a pretty smooth move.

On one hand, it’s a little ingenious how many holes it plugs up from the timeline perspective - Spock never talks about his sister because it’s a matter of temporal security, the Spore Drive never sees wide use because both ships that used it met a grisly,grisly end, Cornwall never showed up in TOS because she was KIA in a battle that was at least partially classified, etc.

On the other hand, I found that most of the people concerned about that stuff were of the whiny fanboy brigade angry that the SJWs were taking over their beloved trek, and honestly, screw those guys. Retcons are a standard of most longrunning series, so just retcon that Michael took her wife Tilly to the Enterprise for regular visits with Spock and constantly teased him about how he was obviously smitten with Jim, and that Hugh and Bones constantly traded tips about how to be gay doctors in space and the Red Lizard alien bridge crew member actually always existed on the bridge even during the TOS era and was Uhura’s beloved wife and helped Spock spirit Pike away to Talos after his injury and etc, etc, etc... Cuz retcons can be ok in a lot of cases and the fanboys could learn some humility.

So it’s comme-ci, comme-ca, I guess. Overall, I do think releasing the series from the shackles of being a lore-friendly prequel was a GOOD thing for sure.

Other thoughts:

We finally got the promised Paul/Hugh reconciliation and it was everything I hoped for and more.

Jet Reno has seen the future, and says she has “at least” 5 lives left? 

Did she see herself almost die 5 more times? 

Did she see herself DIE?

Or was she just using a colloquialism and I’m reading too much into it?

Nhan definitely likes ladies, I’m pretty much convinced of it given how she and Phillipa were basically flirting while they pursued Leland. Hopefully she gets with a nice girl who’s not a backstabbing evil bisexual empress from an alternate dimension, though, tbqh. I could see her and Jett or even her and Michael making a great team, tbqh. I’m pretty sure she survived the fight with Leland, at least.

Speaking of the fight with Leland, the fact that he WAS Control in the end (enough such that his fleet couldn’t keep fighting once he was magnetized) makes me a little nervous that he went to the future with everyone else. I don’t trust those magnets to completely stop him. Or even if they did, what if he reconstitutes in the future and keeps the apocalypse going? Frick, I hope they manage to completely erase and dispose of EVERY SINGLE NANITE. Or do future nanites get their data erased by magnets like old school floppies?

On the other hand, maybe Zora evolves in part because she IS the remnants of control. Which uh. might explain why she was abandoned. Control starts reconstituting again, gets full sapience via the sphere data on Discovery’s computers, so they have to leave her in a space storm in the past in hopes it prevents her from going full Borg again?

Man, I really hope Control isn’t somehow the protoBorg. THE BORG ARE ALWAYS AT THEIR BEST WHEN THEY’RE MYSTERIOUS DAMMIT.

I like to think that shot of Detmer getting back to her chair after Leland left the bridge was because she was making sure her girlfriend was alright. I am glad Owosekun looks alright, when she got hit I was bracing for the worst.

Still not sure I get the whole Ash Tyler situation. This is one of the biggest weaknesses of prequels, at least for me, and one of the few loose ends they didn’t actually tie up with the time jump, oddly enough. You can talk about Ash reforming Section 31 into something better and more transparent, but we already KNOW he fails. At some point in the future, Section 31 will be the horrific secret police of the DS9 era, even grimmer, more nihilistic, and less transparent than pre-Control Leland. I was never an Ashburn fan, and I’m still a little sore at him for killing Hugh, so I’m not especially mourning the fact he stayed in the past, but frick, at least let him go back to Earth and sail boats for the rest of his days. He deserves that more than vainly struggling to reform an organization we already know will fail to live up to the goals he has. 

Anyway, Section 31 was a mistake and Ash Tyler was too good of a character to waste on that. Given they sent Phillipa into the future, I was hopeful they had cancelled the S31 series in favor of keeping her on the main series cast and the concept of S31 as anything other than the clear villains could die a quiet, peaceful death, but I GUESS NOT.

Also, still a little weird that the Klingons are gonna be cold war enemies for the next few decades/centuries. I guess at some point L’Rell is no longer able to hold the Chancellorship solely on strength of threatening the other clans with blowing up Quo’noS and/or doing the whole “Mother knows best” thing? Or then again, they never quite established how or why she gave up the whole Klingon supremacy movement, so maybe she just goes ahead and gets back on that now that most of the Starfleet-aligned people keeping her in check on that are either dead or 900+ years in the future.

Anyway, the biggest question is, what happens in the future?

Do we have a weird Voyager-like situation in which they are so far in the beta quadrant and in time they have to work with limited primitive resources and/or try to make it to federation space despite a travel time of multiple decades, whether because Paul can’t jump anymore due to his injuries, or Phillipa fried the spore drive when she killed Leland?

Or are we gonna have a full on Federation that’s spread between Quadrants, and if so, how does Discovery slot into that? Do they just get reintroduced and get the Discovery retrofitted to full futurosity? Does Tilly get to fulfill her dreams of captaincy in the future Federation, or does she just have to hope Saru or Michael passes the captaincy on to her when they die or retire? Or does she give it up because everything’s gone sideways and instead stays on the Discovery (possibly as chief science officer, while her wife moves up to 1st Officer)?

I mean, I have always loved Trek for its optimistic view of the future, so I hope the Federation is around and basically a forward-looking, peaceful organization, but given the brief glimpse we got from Calypso was of a warn-torn future, I’m a little iffy. S2 was great in part because it dared pull away from the overly darkness-filled S1, I hope we don’t plunged back into a grimdark future. I guess there could also be a plot twist with Zora and Craft. Maybe the Alcor IV folk are human separatists and the V’draysh are the peace-loving forwarding thinking Federation.

The spirk nod was amazing and gdi, I would pay like a million bucks for a retcon somewhere down the line that establishes Kirk and Spock got married at some point and settled down somewhere, where Kirk died peacefully of old age (and not on some dusty distant planet after being swallowed by the metaphysical concept of heaven then spit back out to get unceremoniously bodied by Malcolm McDowell) sorry Generations) before Spock went back to being an ambassador and doing all the stuff in the TNG-era shows/movies/novels/etc.

I don’t even necessarily ship Spirk that hard, Spock is just undeniably queer as hell and we deserve that reading of him finally being canonized. 

Anyway, I liked Season 2 overall. I look forward to season 3!

[ageless-aislynn]

11 Questions

Rules: Always post the rules. Answer the 11 random questions posted for you. Create 11 new ones and tag 11 people. Let the person who tagged you know that you answered.

I was tagged by the lovely @geekns Thanks, hon! :D

1. What was your first fandom?

In terms of being active in it on the Internet, then that would be Lord of the Rings. In terms of being the very first I wrote fanfic for (and submitted to an actual pre-Internet printed fanzine), that’s Phantom of the Opera. In just terms of being the first show I remember loving and being fascinated in and wanting to read more about it when novelizations popped up and creating my own OCs in my head to have adventures with the characters, that would be Star Trek: TOS. :D

2. When did you start watching science fiction or fantasy?

I’ve watched sci-fi shows as long as I can remember: Star Trek: TOS, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Six Million Dollar Man/The Bionic Woman, even cartoons like Transformers, Thundercats, He-Man/She-ra, etc. all had definite sci-fi or fantasy bends. ;) And of course when it comes to movies: Star Wars ruled my childhood. ;)

3. When’s the first time you remember watching Doctor Who?

My actual very first Doctor is Four, whom I randomly came across on PBS one day and I stuck around with him for as long as the show aired. Then it just... stopped and it was many, many years later before I discovered it hadn’t been cancelled, just “cancelled” here. I consider Nine my other first Doctor, because he’s the one that brought me back into the fandom and brought me in HARDCORE. ;)

4. Who is your favorite Doctor?

Oh, I couldn’t pick a favorite, I love all of them for different reasons! ;) But the nearest and dearest to my heart, in chronological order so there’s no hard feelings amongst them, lol, are Nine, Ten, Eleven and Twelve.

5. Who is your favorite companion?

I’ve loved all of Nine through Twelve’s companions but Donna Noble has to be the penultimate companion for me. I love her so much. It was writing my first little Ten/Donna ficlet that broke six years of writer’s block for me and I’ll never forget the fun I had with my fellow Ten/Donna shippers, writing fics and just loving our awesome OTP. ;)

6. Which Star Wars film is your favorite?

*clutches chest* Oh man, how could I pick? I love every film, from the prequel trilogy, to the original trilogy, to Rogue One, to the current trilogy. But if I had to guess which film I’ve probably watched the most... it’s probably a tie between A New Hope and Empire with Return of the Jedi right behind. Granted, the fact they’ve been around longer than the prequels and current films gives them a leg up. ;)

7. Which character do you most identify with in Star Wars?

Jar Jar Binks. No, I’m not kidding. I try to be funny but it comes out annoying. I trip over my own feet and I so often feel like people roll their eyes when they see me loping up. :S

8. The Light Side or the Dark Side?

Gray Jedi, all the way. I think a balanced Force is the real way to go. ;) Otherwise, though, Light Side.

9. What is your favorite book?

I don’t have just one but Beauty by Robin McKinley was the first fantasy book I read and it influenced me in deep and profound ways.

10. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Oh yes. So many. So, so many. ;)

11. If you could live in any fandom’s universe, which would you pick?

There are a lot of answers to that but I think I would probably pick Star Trek: The Next Generation. I would’ve loved to have been a member of Captain Picard’s crew... I’d probably have been a redshirt and immediately killed, lol, but I think STTNG had a lot of hope to it, more than probably any of the other Treks. *shrugs* I also would’ve loved to have hung out with the crew of Voyager but they seemed to have a lot more awful, angsty things happen to them. :S Not that TNG was a laughfest with no angst, of course, but that’s just the way they felt to me. ;)

Not tagging because my brain is too tired to come up with questions, sorry! But if you liked the questions I was asked and would like to answer them yourself, please consider this a tag from me! I’d love to read your answers! *boops you politely on the nose* ;)

[delavian-chocolates]

First impressions of Discovery

Besides of the known fact that I love the franchise as well, I think I got my hopes high for Discovery since I knew Bryan Fuller had participation on it, even though he left before the show began. The ridiculous amount of racism and misogyny in the fandom also played an important part in my personal decision to start watching the series and cheer for it in general. I won’t stop seeing the show and hoping it gets better, after all we only saw the first two chapters, but I’m going to have to agree with most critiques from the talented sensible people around here; once again, mainstream media teased us with some good expectations only to break them right after.

I found the story’s pace too fast. There was too much going on about actions, plot twists and very few moments of introducing the characters, the environment, in which place stands the Federation on those years. In this sense, maybe the influence of JJ Abrams’ movies wasn’t only manifested in the lens flares or the designs, the spirit of the new movies may still in Discovery and this is frustrating for me (I dislike the writing of these recent films).

Neither the new add to the Klingon history nor its make-up is appealing to me. Until now, it doesn’t seem complex and interesting. Actually, if we really think about it, the Klingons have been the most explored aliens regarding episodes, arcs and characters in every series we had so far. We already know a lot about them. It would be better to focus on species that didn’t have this chance yet (even the Trills weren’t that explored in DS9, for instance, nor the Romulans in all previous shows), and even better to expand the canon universe to the future, with new races, new paradigms (stand alone chapters with big story arcs that would deal with things beyond the idea of a Federation), in a way that could combine the best of overall excellent written shows like TNG, DS9 and Voyager.

I love Sonequa Martin-Green performance, but I did not like the way they characterized her in terms of writing. As someone who was raised on Vulcan, she could have been written in a more Vulcan fashion – appearing more Vulcan in personality – because the environment has this huge impact in our upbringing. She is human of course, but I think her humanity should be seen in traces that were still to be developed – to the point of equilibrium between the Vulcan and the human ideal. Yes, she has been on the ship with Phillipa for seven years but her lack of restraint seems a bit too human. Of course, the most serious business about her is that only after the premiere, we already have a woc protagonist in jail.

I also thought Michelle Yeoh was going to stay with us way longer. This is so upsetting, especially since the captain’s, Saru and Michael’s interactions were one of the best things of the double episode. I’m with the ones that have a good feeling about Saru, too. And the Daft Punk robot aboard.

I didn’t like the opening, but it’s not that important.

One thing I have been noticing more now than before is this latent notion that TOS is perfect and the only true reference of Trek worth mentioning and exploring in fandom and among the show’s producers and writers. I’m still very new to the fandom, but I adore TOS and I actually began starting Trek with it. Of course the social impact and importance of the original series is incomparable, but this doesn’t mean the other sagas didn’t add a lot to the package. They could have done a homage to all the other series bringing what was best in each one, but all I could see was TOS.

[frog-senpai]

A Tag!

Rules: you must answer these 85 statements and tag 20 people

Tagged by: @lapotxca​ thank you so much! <3 I love these~

the last

1. drink: water 2. phone call: my mum 3. text message: group chat :P 4. song you listened to: Oomph! - Der Strom 5. time you cried: Yesterday 6. dated someone twice: No 7. kissed someone and regretted it: No 8. been cheated on: Kinda 9. lost someone special: Yes 10. been depressed: Yes 11. gotten drunk and thrown up: No

3 favourite colours

12. the green of Link’s hat 13. black (very original) 14. light violet

in the last year have you

15. made new friends: Yes 16. fallen out of love: Yes 17. laughed until you cried: Yes and I had to hold it back so hard, it still makes me laugh so hard although I don’t exactly remember what happened 18. found out someone was talking about you: Yes 19. met someone who changed you: yes 20. found out who your friends are: Yes/no 21. kissed someone on your Facebook list: I don’t even have Facebook

general

22. how many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: Again: I don’t have Facebook 23. do you have any pets: A cat <3 24. do you want to change your name: Real name? No. Maybe so that people would stop pronouncing it wrong after I’ve corrected them for the fifth time 25. what did you do for your last birthday: I ate cake with my family 26. what time did you wake up: 10 am-ish 27. what were you doing at midnight last night: texting/tidying my room/listening to music or something else in the background probably 28. name something you can’t wait for: friends who don’t want my worst, but my best. Also I can’t wait for my first Spanish lesson in the new semester next week to be over because I don’t know anybody there and I’m really anxious about it 29. when was the last time you saw your mom: just now half an hour ago 31. what are you listening to right now: System Of A Down - I-E-A-I-A-I-O 32. have you ever talked to a person named tom: no, not that I know 33. something that is getting on your nerves: people who think they can decide who I am and people who can’t take critic 34. most visited website: YouTube and Tumblr 35. hair colour: I dye them red but they’re actually light brown/brown (depends on the season) 36. long or short hair: a bit over my shoulders 37. do you have a crush on someone: Yes 38. what do you like about yourself: I can take criticism and use it to get better 39. piercings: No, but I WANT ONE 40. blood type: uuuum, this isn’t a shoujo manga, so I don’t know 41. nickname: Fee (like Fée) but my friends at my new school just call me things that are too near to my real name so I can’t tell you ;^> 42. relationship status: Single 43. zodiac: Sagittarius 44. pronouns: She/her 45. favourite tv show: with real people (haha): umm... Doctor/Classic Who, Star Trek TOS/TNG, Sherlock, X-Files, Merlin! Anime: I would recommend everyone to watch La Rose De Versaille right now it deserves more attention and I love it. I have so many favourites though... Just bear with me here, okay? Hellsing, One Piece, Yu-Gi-Oh! DM, Legend Of Galactic Heroes, Sailor Moon, FMA and so many more... Servamp, not because I liked the animation or anything, just like with Yu-Gi-Oh DM (I’m only talking about animes here and I read more manga so :/ ) but because I really like the characters & voice actors. 46. tattoos: No 47. right or left handed: right handed 48. surgery: no 50. sport: I used to do judo but quit after 5th grade, my favourites would be baseball and judo 51. vacation: Russia, Sweden, France, Lithuania, Japan (of course haha), Scotland~ (love of my life), Egypt, the nordic states in general (sorry we don’t travel much so I basically still have the whole world to see) 52. pair of trainers: ones that look nice? I don’t really care about names.

MORE GENERAL

53. eating: atm? nothing. Just a mint chewing gum 54. drinking: nothing 55. I’m about to: practise drawing digtally 56. waiting for: the Servamp artbook to arrive 57. want: I want this stressing out over everything to stop 58. get married: yes 59. career: Idk? Maybe something with languages/history/books/archives or a pianist/piano teacher

WHICH IS BETTER

60. hugs or kisses: on a platonic basis maybe a hug 61. lips or eyes: eyes 62. shorter or taller: taller 63. older or younger: older 64. nice arms or nice stomach: Idc 65. hook up or relationship: relationship 66. troublemaker or hesitant: not a troublemaker like the fuckboys in my class, but also not too hestant I guess.

HAVE YOU EVER:

67. kissed a stranger: no 68. drank hard liquor: no 69. lost glasses/contact lenses: yes, the contact lens fell down the sink 70. turned someone down: no 71. sex on the first date: no 72. broken someone’s heart: not that I know, but who knows? I don’t think so though 73. had your heart broken: yes 74. been arrested: no 75. cried when someone died: yes 76. fallen for a friend: yes, 0/10 wouldn’t recommend

DO YOU BELIEVE IN:

77. yourself: nah, but I’m trying to 78. miracles: yeah 79. love at first sight: yes, sorry but I love romantic stuff, and this just seems so romantic 80. santa claus: no, we had the Chrischtchindli anyway so I believed in that. 81. kiss on the first date: depends on how long I’ve known the person before that first date 82. angels: I’m still figuring this thing out so I’m not telling

OTHER:

84. eye colour: grey green 85. favourite movies: oh boy, you asked: Full Metal Jacket/Mortal Kombat 1&2/Kill Bill 1&2/Help!/Howl’s Moving Castle/Dracula Untold/ALL OF THE HARRY POTTER MOVIES/Amadeus

I tag nobody, not because I don’t want you guys to do it, but because I think you can just do this if you want to do it and if you don’t want to, then don’t C: Also I could never find 20 users I’d want to tag without annoying them haha

[tardisgirlepic]

Ch. 1: “The Empress of Mars” Analysis Doctor Who S10.9: Fastballs, Mars-Not-Mars, Rassilon References, Etc.

Apologies for getting these 3 chapters for “The Empress of Mars” out after the airing of “The Eaters of Light.”  I post first on Archive Of Our Own, which I did before the 10th episode.  With photos, it takes more time to post here.

NOTE: TPEW = “The Pyramid at the End of the World” TRODM = “The Return of Doctor Mysterio” THORS = “The Husbands of River Song” CAL = Charlotte Abigail Lux, the little girl from the Library TOS = The Original Series of Star Trek TNG = Star Trek: The Next Generation

Wow, So Much to Say and So Little Time!

It’s going to be impossible to cover all the main points of “The Empress of Mars” because of the huge data dump of subtext.  DW has run out of time to tell the story in a slower manner.  Even though the subtext has been coming at a fast pace all season, this episode crams more subtext into it than probably any I’ve ever seen.   It must have taken Mark Gatiss awhile to figure out how to get all the references into the episode.

These week-to-week analyses are just the start, too, of how I read subtext.  The one thing they lack is to place them in the broader context after several weeks and months, seeing how they fit in the subsequent story.  For the most part, I don’t have that luxury of doing that here in a weekly format.  That’s something for a post mortem, so to speak, after Season 10 is over.

Due to lack of time, I’m going to show only necessary photos.

The previous analysis was really long.  My apologies. This analysis will be in multiple chapters.

Big Classic Who Connection

“The Empress of Mars” has a very Classic Who feel to it.  It’s clear to me that Mark Gatiss is a fan of the Ice Warriors since this is the second story he’s written with them.  His first one was “Cold War,” an 11th Doctor story.

However, the really big Classic Who connection comes at the end with the Alpha Centauri character, shown below.  Alpha Centauri is an ambassador, or was, at least, in Classic Who.

The woman, Ysanne Churchman, who voices this character in “The Empress of Mars” is the same person who voiced the original Alpha Centauri in the 3rd Doctor story “The Curse of Peladon.”  I had never heard of this character before.  But now I’m geeking out with the Classic Who connection of getting the original actress.

Ysanne Churchman was born May 14, 1925, and according to the TARDIS Wikia, she has “voiced Alpha Centauri in the Doctor Who stories The Curse of Peladon, The Monster of Peladon and Empress of Mars, and an Eight Legs in the Doctor Who story Planet of the Spiders.”

Usurpation of a Different Type, Cowardice & Leadership

This story has a lot of themes.  And one of them is usurpation.  It’s not possession as we’ve seen but the situation where young Captain Catchlove in the British army is blackmailing older Colonel Godsacre with the colonel’s secret.  Godsacre is a figurehead of sorts, and at any moment of the captain’s choosing, the captain can take command, and he does.

Interestingly, this theme is connected to another, which is people grappling with cowardice in the face of leadership.  The colonel had a crisis of leadership sometime back, which led to his desertion. However, Catchlove fairs no better once he usurps control.

In fact, he is even more of a coward than Godsacre.  Even though we see Godsacre run again from leadership once he, the Doctor, and Bill escape the brig, it’s Catchlove who throws Vincey in front of Ice Warror fire to save himself.  And a little later, Catchlove takes Queen Iraxxa hostage to save himself again.  In fact, he’s planning to desert his men and strand everyone on Mars.

In the end, Godsacre finds redemption when he pledges his life to die bravely in battle. 

GODSACRE: God save the Queen. SOLDIERS: God save the Queen! IRAXXA: You will die with honour, with bravery, and in the service of those you swore to protect. GODSACRE: Thank you. You don't know what that means. Thank you. IRAXXA: But not today. In battle, soldier. To die in battle is the way of the warrior. Pledge your allegiance to me and my world, and I will ensure you have the opportunity. GODSACRE: My life and my service are yours. (kneels) To the end. IRAXXA: To the death, my friend. To the death.

It’s a good day to die, a warrior’s hope to die well in battle.  While this phrase does come up in TNG with Klingons, like Worf, who is living on the Enterprise, among humans, I first heard this phrase as a child.  It comes up in the movie Little Big Man with Dustin Hoffman, a white man who was raised among a group of Cheyenne in the Old West after his parents were killed by another tribe.

I mention this because redemption and dying well have become themes for the 12th Doctor. Dying well is implicit in the whole idea of Norse culture and Ragnarök.  And we’ll examine this more in the next chapter.

Anyway, Godsacre and Catchlove aren’t the only ones grappling with leadership in the episode. Iraxxa admonishes Friday, telling him his duty, as an Ice Warrior, is to command.

DOCTOR: His cryogenic cell was damaged. They saved him.

IRAXXA: And made him their pet!

FRIDAY: It was necessary to dissemble, Majesty. I thought only of your resurrection. It was a tactical decision.

IRAXXA: An Ice Warrior's duty is to command!

She doesn’t accept his excuse.

Cowardice & Leadership in a Broader Sense

Cowardice has long been a theme.  The Doctor has been running all his life, according to the 10th Doctor in “The Sound of Drums,” ever since he looked into the Untempered Schism at the age of eight.  In “Heaven Sent” and “Hell Bent,” we find out he’s been running from himself.  He’s scared of the prophecy that he is the Hybrid, who will destroy the universe for love.

GENERAL: All Matrix prophecies concur that this creature will one day stand in the ruins of Gallifrey. It will unravel the Web of Time and destroy a billion billion hearts to heal its own.

Cowardly in Love

As a result, the Doctor knows he is not supposed to fall in love with anyone.  Love is a curse, which comes back to the 7th Doctor story “The Curse of Fenric.”  He then becomes cowardly in love, too, not telling people how he feels.  We saw those results, for example, in River’s outpouring of anguish in THORS.

Cowardice in the Face of Leadership

In “Dark Water,” Danny Pink dies.  Later, he has a chance to delete his emotions in the Nethersphere, but he can’t bring himself to do it.  In “Death in Heaven,” the 2nd part of the finale to Season 8, Danny becomes a Cyberman with emotions.

He wants Clara to turn off his emotions because he can’t bring himself to do it.  He’s a coward here.  Yet Danny admonishes the Doctor for the Doctor’s cowardice of not wanting to turn off Danny’s emotions, either, and allowing Clara to do it.  Danny is being hypocritical, but then Danny is a mirror of the Doctor.

DOCTOR: Danny, Danny, I need you to tell me. What are the clouds going to do? What is the plan? CYBER-DANNY: How would I know? DOCTOR: You're part of a hive mind now. Presumably that's how you found Clara. Just look. CYBER-DANNY: I can't see much. DOCTOR: Look harder. CYBER-DANNY: Clara, watch this. This is who the Doctor is. Watch the blood-soaked old general in action. I can't see properly, sir, because this needs activating. If you want to know what's coming, you have to switch it on. And didn't all of those beautiful speeches just disappear in the face of a tactical advantage? Sir. DOCTOR: (sighs) I need to know. I need to know. CYBER-DANNY: (sotto) Yes. (normal) Yes, you do. CLARA: Give me the screwdriver. DOCTOR: No. CLARA: Just do it, Doctor. Do as you are told. (The Doctor meets Cyber-Danny's gaze then gives Clara the sonic screwdriver.) CYBER-DANNY: Typical officer. Got to keep those hands clean.

In the end, it’s the women who step up.  Clara turns off Danny’s emotions, and Bill, to help stop a slaughter, confronts Iraxxa in an irreverent way that even the Doctor wouldn’t or couldn’t consider.

Fear & Usurpation

Has the Doctor been usurped because of his fear when he was blind?

Interestingly, the Master talks about his own fear in the 10th Doctor episode “The Sound of Drums.”

MASTER: The Time Lords only resurrected me because they knew I'd be the perfect warrior for a

[Underpass]

MASTER [OC]: Time War. I was there when the

[Cabinet room]

MASTER: Dalek Emperor took control of the Cruciform. I saw it. I ran. I ran so far. Made myself human so they would never find me, because I was so scared.

Turning human is a form of usurpation of a sort, where the human part takes full control of the Doctor’s body.  In “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood,” we saw how different the Doctor was when he was human.  He did things he would never do as a Time Lord, like having children beaten or sending them into battle.

Both the Master and Doctor turned themselves human out of fear.  Is this how all the problems started?  There is subtext in “The Empress of Mars” that suggests, not for the first time, that events are all the Doctor’s fault.  We’ll look at this in the next chapter.

Imperialism: Another Type of Exploitation

Exploitation of beings is one of the main themes in Season 10 within different types of governments, economic systems, and government actions.  We’ve seen it in a totalitarian government in “The Lie of the Land.”   Before that, we’ve seen capitalism gone amok in multiple episodes.  And now imperialism rears its ugly head in “The Empress of Mars.”

According to Wikipedia:

Imperialism is an action that involves a country (usually an empire or kingdom) extending its power by the acquisition of territories. It may also include the exploitation of these territories, an action that is linked to colonialism. Colonialism is generally regarded as an expression of imperialism.

It is different from New Imperialism, as the term imperialism is usually applied to the colonization of the Americas between the 15th and 19th centuries, as opposed to the expansion of Western Powers (and Japan) during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, both are examples of imperialism.

Since exploitation of groups of people, racism, and species-ism are heavily referenced, especially this season, I expect this has to be at the heart of the story with the Doctor.  It comes back to the question: why is Caecilius a slave in Pompeii to begin with?  Is it because he is a Janus of sorts but turned himself human?  The Janus could also possibly relate to Missy and the Master, where Missy represents the future and the Master the past. 

Imperialism, Robinson Crusoe, Friday & Daniel Defoe

Robinson Crusoe, a 1719 novel by Englishman Daniel Defoe, is important to look at since Friday, the Ice Warrior, is specifically mentioned as being named for the character in the book.

In the novel, Robinson Crusoe is an Englishman whose father wants him to study law.  Initially, Crusoe is committed to obeying, but he eventually capitulates to the temptation of the sea and embarks on a ship with a friend. They nearly die in a storm.  On his second voyage, Moorish pirates seize the ship, and Crusoe gets enslaved.  Later, he and a slave boy break free, and Crusoe sells the slave boy.

Years later, he gets involved in the slave trade when he joins an expedition to bring slaves from Africa, but he gets shipwrecked in a storm, along with 3 animals. He reads the Bible and becomes religious, so here is another religious conversion event, similar to the Doctor going through the Great Work. 

Wikipedia says

More years pass and Crusoe discovers native cannibals, who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners. At first he plans to kill them for committing an abomination but later realizes he has no right to do so, as the cannibals do not knowingly commit a crime. He dreams of obtaining one or two servants by freeing some prisoners; when a prisoner escapes, Crusoe helps him, naming his new companion "Friday" after the day of the week he appeared. Crusoe then teaches him English and converts him to Christianity.

Friday, too, wants to eat the people they kill, but Crusoe forbids it.  Crusoe spends 28 years marooned, the last 4 with his servant, Friday, according to Wikipedia, “on a remote tropical desert island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers, before ultimately being rescued. The story has since been thought to be based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on a Pacific island called "Más a Tierra", now part of Chile, which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966, but various literary sources have also been suggested.”

The expression "Man Friday," comes from the novel and describes a male personal assistant or servant, especially one who is particularly competent or loyal.  "Girl Friday" is the female equivalent.  (Nardole is, at times, playing the Doctor’s Man Friday.)

It’s the interpretations of the novel that I find very important because they symbolize themes, especially in Season 10.   It’s James Joyce’s that I find particularly interesting. According to Wikipedia:

Novelist James Joyce noted that the true symbol of the British Empire is Robinson Crusoe, to whom he ascribed stereotypical and somewhat hostile English racial characteristics: "He is the true prototype of the British colonist. ... The whole Anglo-Saxon spirit in Crusoe: the manly independence, the unconscious cruelty, the persistence, the slow yet efficient intelligence, the sexual apathy, the calculating taciturnity." In a sense Crusoe attempts to replicate his society on the island. This is achieved through the use of European technology, agriculture and even a rudimentary political hierarchy. Several times in the novel Crusoe refers to himself as the "king" of the island, whilst the captain describes him as the "governor" to the mutineers. At the very end of the novel the island is explicitly referred to as a "colony". The idealised master-servant relationship Defoe depicts between Crusoe and Friday can also be seen in terms of cultural imperialism. Crusoe represents the "enlightened" European whilst Friday is the "savage" who can only be redeemed from his barbarous way of life through assimilation into Crusoe's culture. Nonetheless Defoe also takes the opportunity to criticise the historic Spanish conquest of South America.

According to Wikipedia, Defoe’s “most successful poem, The True-Born Englishman (1701), defended the [King of England William III, who was Dutch-born] against the perceived xenophobia of his enemies, satirising the English claim to racial purity.”

Interestingly, racism was not overt in “The Empress of Mars,” and at least from what we saw, there was tolerance of both Vincey and Bill, at least race-wise.  We did see sexism, which added realism for the time period. On top of that, Vincey had a picture of Alice, the white woman he wanted to marry.   So I found the message of human toleration hopeful from the start, except for Godsacre’s initial reaction to the Doctor.  Most likely, there’s more going on here with the Doctor than what it appears.

Instead of racism, species-ism is a problem with both the humans and the Ice Warriors.  The humans have made Friday a servant, just like Robinson Crusoe did, and they want to claim another planet as their own.  On the other hand, Iraxxa calls humans pink things and worms. 

I see this episode as hopeful in the end, where the 2 sides show tolerance and cooperation, overcoming whatever prejudices they have to live, work, and die together.

While the themes are sound, we can’t trust the setting.

They’re in the Library Matrix

From the start, the Matrix makes its presence known.  Things aren’t happening the way they appear.

NASA

At the beginning of the episode, the shot of NASA looks very digitized, so we know right away this is in the Matrix.  Also, there’s a reflection line (red arrow) to tell us this isn’t real.

Inside NASA, there’s another reflection line (red arrow).  Also, there are at least 3 types of computers (yellow arrows) in the mission control room.  While I’m not an expert on working at NASA, I’ve been in a similar environment.  The computers would most likely all be the same in this type of environment.  Maintaining multiple types of computers (one is a laptop) costs more money and can create potential problems.

Doctor Fades into the Clockwork

Interestingly, right at the end of the NASA scene, the Doctor smiles at the “God Save the Queen” message, which seems odd once again.  Then, a mist of sorts starts to superimpose itself over the Doctor, and the color mutes before he starts to fade into the clockwork, as shown in the image below. He becomes part of the machinery.

Mars Is Not Mars

We know the Doctor, Bill, and Nardole can’t be on Mars for multiple reasons.  The Doctor while on Mars said, “Mind you, there's a lot here that doesn't make sense.”  So true! These are just a few of the problems:

Martian Gravity

Since Mars has a lot less mass than Earth, the surface gravity on Mars, according to NASA, is only 37.5% of the surface gravity on Earth.  Therefore, if you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh only 37.5 pounds on Mars. The moon’s mass is about 1/6 of Earth, so 100 pounds on Earth weighs only 16.7 pounds on the moon. 

While people on Mars wouldn’t be bouncing as much as on the moon when they walked, there would still be a noticeable difference in how people moved.

Martian Oxygen

To prove there was oxygen on the Mars-not-Mars, there was a fire.  That didn’t preclude any harmful elements or compounds, though.  Nardole, the Doctor, and Bill could still have died when they took off their helmets.

On Earth, our atmosphere is mostly made of nitrogen, 78%, while oxygen accounts for about 21% Argon, carbon dioxide, and smaller amounts of other gases make up the rest.

On Mars, according to the Universe Today, the atmosphere is composed of 96% carbon dioxide, 1.93% argon and 1.89% nitrogen along with traces of oxygen and water.  The atmosphere is not breathable without a spacesuit or an artificial environment.  Even if the Ice Warriors had created an artificial environment, that doesn’t account for the gravity issues, unless this is a spaceship with artificial gravity.

There’s also less atmospheric pressure on Mars.

It’s interesting that oxygen is once again a subject and that there would be a lack thereof.  I’m betting “Oxygen” will be referenced again in at least one subsequent episode. 

Spacesuits Are Fake

The helmets wouldn’t have helped anyway because the spacesuits are the 2-piece variety. Therefore, they can’t be airtight the way they should be.  There’s no way the steam punk spacesuits of the Victorians are airtight.  I do love the ear horns.  Nice touch.  Why does Catchlove’s helmet have all those viewing holes?  How many eyes does he have?

Helmet Lights

Most of the time, we can see 4 lights in the helmets, a sign they are in the Library.  A few times, we can see 5, which is a weapon of mass destruction.  This episode is very much foreshadowing the Doctor’s fate, which we’ll examine in the subtext references.

Martian Ice Cap Obscuring “God Save the Queen”

There’s no way the Martian ice cap wasn’t there in Victorian times.  Therefore, the whole “God Save the Queen” message couldn’t possibly be written the way it appears.

Pitching Fastballs: Astounding Number of Internal & External References

Wow, there are an astounding number of internal and external references in the subtext!  On the whole, “The Empress of Mars” possibly has more internal and external references to movies, TV shows, books, short stories, songs, British terminology, mythology, and other DW episodes than any other episode so far that I’ve seen in DW.  Also, I believe Season 10 has more of these internal and external references than any other season of DW. 

“The Empress of Mars” is a great example of fastballs: the copious subtext references that we have to deal with in one week before the next episode airs.  Because I had to look up most of the references, it’s taken time just to understand all of this before I get to write anything, which cut into my writing time.  There are several references to Classic Who episodes, but I only had seen a few of them before this episode.

On top of this, some of the external references are actually indirect allusions to other DW episodes. So there is a big bowl of spaghetti to look at.

“The Empress of Mars,” The Princess of Mars & Star Wars

Right from the start, the title of the episode, “The Empress of Mars,” is an external reference to a classic science fantasy novel A Princess of Mars by American author Edgar Rice Burroughs.  It’s the first book of his Barsoom series.

The Princess of Mars and the Barsoom series is what Star Wars is based on.  In 2012, Disney put out the John Carter movie but horribly marketed it.  Many people didn’t realize this John Carter story started it all.  The original story really is remarkable given Burroughs wrote it in 1912.

The Doctor even made a reference, too, to Star Wars, when he said, “I have a bad feeling about this.”  That quote is said in every Star Wars movie at least once.

Here’s what StarWars.com has to say about Burroughs’ story The Princess of Mars and subsequent books and the John Carter film.

John Carter is a film directed by Pixar alum Andrew Stanton that follows Civil War veteran John Carter on his astounding trip to the planet Barsoom, which we know as Mars. There he meets a princess leading a rebellion, fights against an evil empire, and meets a variety of strange aliens on a desert wasteland of a planet, gets powers far beyond the abilities of normal men, and encounters a strange religion. There are times where he’s captured, thrown into an arena to fight bizarre monsters, and other times where he’s forced to rescue a princess.

It sounds like I could be talking about Star Wars just as easily as John Carter. And since John Carter came out in 2012, you might be thinking, “No! You’ve got it the other way around! John Carter was influenced by Star Wars.”

But you’d be surprised.

Here’s a quote from George Lucas in a 1977 issue of Science Fiction Review: “Originally, I wanted to make a Flash Gordon movie, with all the trimmings, but I couldn’t obtain all the rights. So I began researching and found where [Flash Gordon creator] Alex Raymond got his idea: The works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, especially his John Carter series of books.”

We examined many chapters ago how the Doctor was going to be involved in a rebellion.  We’ve seen the evil empire in “The Lie of the Land.” Also, we’ve even seen much of the rest of it, including a strange religion – the Church of the Papal Mainframe, the Silence, and the Monks.

Mars Has Significant Ties to Previous Episodes

When I think of Mars references in DW, I think of “The Waters of Mars,” which “The Pilot” alluded to with all the water coming off of Heather.  However, there are other episodes that are very important, too.  BTW, this isn’t an exhaustive list:

“The Pyramids of Mars”

In “The Pyramids of Mars,” a 4th Doctor story, Sutekh, according to the TARDIS Wikia, is a powerful extraterrestrial, also known as Sutekh the Destroyer.  He was an Osiran who planned to destroy all life in the universe.  Afraid of all forms of life which might one day challenge his hegemony, he became the destroyer of all living things.  The Osiran inspired Egyptian mythology.

At one point, he usurped the Doctor’s body.

“The Ambassadors of Death”

“The Ambassadors of Death” is an early 3rd Doctor story with Liz Shaw as his companion.  I had never seen this story before.  It can possibly explain a bit about what is happening in Season 10.

The Doctor joins UNIT's investigation of the mystery surrounding Mars Probe 7.  The Recovery 7, on a rescue mission, runs into problems once it comes back to Earth.  The 3 astronauts are kidnapped.  It turns out these astronauts are a triad of radiation-dependent alien ambassadors, who swapped places with the 3 human astronauts.

According to the TARDIS Wikia, the Doctor finds that Mars Probe 7 is still orbiting in space. Intercepted by a huge, alien spaceship and taken aboard, the Doctor finds the real astronauts unharmed, but mind controlled.  The aliens' captain threatens to destroy the Earth unless the 3 ambassadors are released.

The Doctor returns to Earth and discovers that the kidnapping of the ambassadors is part of a plot devised by xenophobic ex-astronaut General Carrington to frame the aliens.  The general has a machine built to mind control them, forcing them to kill humans, so he can convince the world's authorities to wage war against the extraterrestrials. 

The 3 ambassadors act like robots, very similar to the zombies in “Oxygen.”  In fact, like the zombies, the aliens can kill with their touch.  Once the aliens aren’t being mind controlled, they want to know why they have been made to kill when they came in peace.  The Doctor and UNIT thwart the general’s plans and arrange an exchange of the ambassadors for the astronauts.

Interestingly, right at the end, there is a big structure overhead made of hexagons, symbolic of imprisonment.  The Doctor walks out, representing his freedom as one of the astronauts. 

In the 10th Doctor episode “Smith and Jones,” the Doctor talked about roentgen radiation after using an X-ray machine to kill a Slab, a slave drone, who was trying to kill them.

MARTHA: What did you do? DOCTOR: Increased the radiation by five thousand per cent. Killed him dead. MARTHA: But isn't that going to kill you? DOCTOR: Nah, it's only roentgen radiation. We used to play with roentgen bricks in the nursery. It's safe for you to come out. I've absorbed it all. All I need to do is expel it.

Why would the Doctor or any Time Lord be playing with roentgen bricks in a nursery?

Interestingly, in the very 1st Dalek story called “The Daleks,” the Daleks talk about needing radiation:

DALEK 2: We need radiation to survive. So we must increase our supply of radiation.

DALEK 1: But there is only one way to do that.

DALEK 2: Exactly. We may have to explode another neutron bomb.

There’s a possible theme here of needing radiation to survive in 2 of 3 episodes.

Tip: When reading subtext, always look for patterns (at least 3 occurrences).  Or what could be the beginning of a pattern (2 occurrences).  Themes that keep coming up are foreshadowing the coming canon. Patience is typically required because it’s rare for foreshadowing to become canon in the next episode. Usually, things take years to become canon.  However, Season 10 and the 12th Doctor are different.

There are several key points here, making patterns that we’ve encountered. 

1.     There is a triad involved.  

2.     There is usurpation, not of possessing a body, but of mind controlling the aliens to kill, something they normally wouldn’t do; they came in peace.  

3.     Their touch kills, like the zombies in “Oxygen.”  (This isn’t a pattern with 3 occurrences that I know of, but with everything else matching it becomes part of the pattern.)  

4.     We know the subtext shows in “Deep Breath” that the Doctor is a cyborg.  Is he really a cyborg?  Is it that he is just mind controlled to look that way, or is he really that way?  If so, how did he get that way?

5.     The aliens are being framed, which is something we examined as a possibility in my analysis of “The Lie of the Land,” relating back to how the Valeyard, the Master, and the Time Lords were working to frame the 6th Doctor.

Therefore, “The Ambassadors of Death” does help substantiate my hypothesis that the Doctor is being framed and being used to kill against his will.  And this also goes along with the image we keep taking a look at, shown below, from “Human Nature” that has said all along the 24th Doctor (the Roman Doctor) is in the Library metaphor being framed and used against his will.  And it’s because he’s unbalanced by love.  For the extensive examination, take a look at Chapter 10 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who.

There’s a similar photo of the 12th Doctor that we looked at from TRODM in Lucy’s kitchen in the pre-airing analysis of the episode in Chapter 9 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who.

A cyborg assassin and time travel are themes of The Terminator, which Bill mentioned in “The Empress of Mars.”  The Terminator goes back in time to kill someone to prevent a revolt.  Not only does this have similarities to using the ambassadors as cyborg-type killing machines, but also the movie’s concept of an assassin relates to the 4th Doctor story, “The Deadly Assassin,” which we examined in my analysis of “Extremis.”  In it, the Master frames the Doctor.

“The Christmas Invasion”

While the first 10th Doctor story “The Christmas Invasion” has just a small reference to Mars, it is very significant.  Britain sends the Guinevere One space probe on a mission to the red planet and loses touch with it, which is a call back to “The Ambassadors of Death.”  While, the signal loss is only for a short time, unlike the Classic Who episode, we see a triad of assassin Santas.  Also, Mickey and the others talk of the Santas being pilot fish, a reference to the 12th Doctor.  Santa, for that matter, is also a reference to the Doctor.  Therefore, there is quite a bit of similarities to “The Ambassadors of Death.”

Guinevere is also a character in the King Arthur legend.

“The Waters of Mars,” “The Five Doctors,” the Ice Queen’s & Rassilon’s Tombs

Back in Chapter 19 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who, I posed a question.   “Did the 10th Doctor bring a curse upon himself when he announced he was Time Lord Victorious” in “The Waters of Mars”?

Here’s what I said

I believe he is either a version of Rassilon or a slave of Rassilon, since this most likely comes with a curse of immortality, just like with the Ring of Rassilon.

Rassilon, in the past, has slept eternally in his tomb while his mind lived on in the Matrix.  Putting on the ring grants the wearer immortality.  However, it imprisons the wearer in the stone of Rassilon, watching over him forever.  In “The Five Doctors,” a Time Lord puts on the ring and gets petrified as a relief on the side of Rassilon’s sarcophagus.  The ring comes with the warning:

    To lose is to win     And he who wins shall lose

So Time Lord Victorious loses.

Weeping Angels are probably involved in this.

We’ve actually looked at “The Five Doctors” multiple times in recent chapters because Rassilon’s insignia keeps coming up in Season 10.  Therefore, it’s not surprising that the Ice Queen’s tomb in “The Empress of Mars” looks similar to Rassilon’s tomb, shown below, in “The Five Doctors.”

Rassilon is sleeping eternally (red arrow).  However, we see his projection from the Matrix (yellow arrow) of his head.  The Time Lord on the right will end up in the blank area (white arrow) as a stone relief because he puts on Rassilon’s ring and gets immortality at a price of being a sentinel to Rassilon.  This relief is one reason why I believe the Weeping Angels may have something to do with all of this.

In comparison, here’s the Ice Queen’s tomb, shown below.  Like Rassilon’s tomb, the items underneath the body, in this case gems, have an effect on the body above.

In fact, both Rassilon and Iraxxa claim themselves as resurrected.

In “Hell Bent,” after Rassilon tries to have the Doctor executed, gunships show up

RASSILON: Excellent, General. You sent for reinforcements. DOCTOR: No, he didn't. (He puts on his sonic sunglasses.) DOCTOR: I did.

(The final troopers join the Doctor as the gunships train their weapons on Rassilon.)

RASSILON: What? I am Rassilon the redeemer! Rassilon, the resurrected! Gallifrey is mine!

In “The Empress of Mars,” Iraxxa talks to Friday, who is here sentinel:

IRAXXA: My Sentinel. You have fulfilled your pledge. I am resurrected!

Mars, the Roman God of War, and the Janus Connection

Mars is significant for multiple reasons.  Not only is it the setting of multiple Martian episodes that have a bearing on what is happening, but also Mars was the Roman god of war.  According to Wikipedia, he was also “an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was second in importance only to Jupiter and he was the most prominent of the military gods in the religion of the Roman army.”

Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, “Mars was a part of the Archaic Triad along with Jupiter and Quirinus, the latter of whom as a guardian of the Roman people had no Greek equivalent.”  And Quirinus: “In Augustan Rome, Quirinus was also an epithet of Janus, as Janus Quirinus.”

Regarding Janus: In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past.

This is significant because not only is there a triad, which we’ve examined in my analysis in “Extremis,” although not in the same context, but also we’ve examined the Janus connection, which shows up in “Face the Raven,” where Clara is killed.  We also saw it in “The Pilot,” where Heather is shown as a Janus in a puddle.  Since I never got to finish “The Pilot” analysis, I ended up talking about the Janus concept and mistaken identity in my analysis of “Oxygen.”

The Doctor is a mirror of the 2 Janus in “Face the Raven” as well as Heather.  Interestingly, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings.  We know the Doctor is connected to time, and we’ve examined the Door/Doughnut metaphor (which would also cover passages and gateways) in Chapter 17 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who, along with the Doctor’s struggle with duality in my analysis of “Oxygen.”

Therefore, it’s fitting that “The Empress of Mars” takes place on Mars-not-Mars for multiple reasons.

I’ve arrived at the symbology of duality and the Door/Doughnut metaphor (which includes gates, doorways, and passages) independently from the symbolism of Janus.  Because everything connects, it verifies we are on the right track of reading the subtext.

Tip: When reading subtext in DW, just about all subtext will have multiple connections, so it should link up from various, independent directions.  Once it does, you know these things are important and will become part of the canon in some form.

Alpha Centauri & Ice Warrior References

As we saw above, Alpha Centauri shows up in 2 stories, neither of which I had seen.

“The Curse of Peladon” & TOS: “Journey to Babel”

“The Curse of Peladon,” a 3rd Doctor episode, is very interesting, especially because DW obviously based this episode on parts of TOS: “Journey to Babel” and Spock’s background. Now, I understand better why Spock’s name comes up 5 times in “The Empty Child.”

Anyway, in “The Curse of Peladon,” according to the TARDIS Wikia:

The Doctor and Jo make a test flight in the TARDIS and arrive on the planet Peladon. Seeking shelter, they enter the citadel of the soon-to-be-crowned King Peladon, where the Doctor is mistaken for a human dignitary summoned to act as chairman of a committee assessing an application by the planet to join the Galactic Federation.

Here’s a case of mistaken identity.  Only men of rank and women of royal blood are allowed in the royal throne room of Peladon. The Doctor and Jo become imposter Federation delegates – Jo impersonating a princess.

Every time the term “Federation” came up, I kept thinking of Star Trek.  At first, I didn’t think anything of the soon-to-be king’s pedigree that he was half-human on his mother’s side.  However, when characters started talking about the delegates voting on Peladon’s application to join the Federation and mining rights were involved, along with a strange murder, I suddenly realized this was based on parts of the TOS episode “Journey to Babel.”  And the soon-to-be king was a mirror of Spock, who is the Doctor in DW, as “The Empty Child” makes clear.

According to Memory Alpha regarding “Journey to Babel”:

The delegates will be attending a conference on the neutral planetoid named Babel to decide the admission of the planet Coridan to the Federation, which is rich in dilithium but is poorly defended.

As the Enterprise comes under attack on the way to a diplomatic conference on Babel, one of the alien dignitaries is murdered, and Spock's estranged father Sarek is the prime suspect – but he is also deathly ill, and only Spock can save him.

In this Star Trek episode, we find out Spock broke tradition against the wishes of his father and joined Starfleet, an instrument of the Federation. In comparison, one of King Peladon’s trusted advisors is accused by another trusted advisor of abandoning “the ancient ways of our people.”   And he says that this will bring the curse of Aggedor upon everyone.  To avoid the curse, the advisor kills the other.  The king wants to join the Federation, which would abandon the ancient ways.

The Doctor, as Spock, is a mirror of soon-to-be King Peladon.  The prince wants to marry Jo, the Doctor’s companion.

In comparison to the Doctor-as-a-prince mirror in “The Curse of Peledon,” in “The Lie of the Land” the 12th Doctor is associated with Prince Charles (red arrow), shown behind the Doctor, and Lady Diana in her wedding dress (on the other side of his head). This happens inside the pyramid just before he touches the seated Monk’s head.

Then, in “The Curse of Peladon” both Alpha Centauri and Ice Warriors show up.  The Ice Warriors are not the villains.  In fact, one of the Ice Warriors saves the Doctor’s life.

Even more interesting is that there are emblems of Aggedor, the beast, shown below, whom people are afraid of.  It looks like a pig or boar, which is reminiscent of the sheriff’s boar emblem in the 12th Doctor episode also penned by Mark Gatiss, “The Robot of Sherwood.”

“The Robot of Sherwood”

Here’s the Sheriff’s shield and emblem in “Robot of Sherwood.”  This shield also shows up in THORS.

Surprisingly, Ice Warriors and Mars are also mentioned in “The Robot of Sherwood” in a conversation between the Doctor and Clara.

CLARA: Yeah, you. You stop bad things happening every minute of every day. That sounds pretty heroic to me.

(The Doctor licks something from a large metal spoon. Custard?)

DOCTOR: Just passing the time. Hey, what about Mars?

CLARA: What?!

DOCTOR: The Ice Warrior Hives.

CLARA: You said it was my choice.

The sheriff (a cyborg) was supposed to lose his head in the episode.  However, it was to air just after journalists were decapitated, so the BBC, thinking better than to show a decapitation, edited it out. 

“The Monster of Peladon” & TOS: “The Cloud Minders” 

“The Monster of Peladon” is a sequel to “The Curse of Peladon.”  However, it’s not that good.  Both Alpha Centauri and Ice Warriors show up again, but this time the Ice Warriors are villains.  This episode is based on the same premise as the TOS episode “The Cloud Minders.”  In both the DW and TOS episodes, miners are at odds with the leadership on the planets.

The main thing I came away with from this sequel is that 50 years later, King Peladon was dead, and his daughter is now queen.

Another Master Reference

One of the internal references in “The Empress of Mars,” has the Doctor mirroring the Master again. At NASA, Knibbs starts counting down to the reception of the probe’s signal.

KNIBBS: I got everything crossed. Okay, people. Transmission arriving in ten, nine, eight, seven, six. (The big screen is now counting down to Download Commences with them.) DOCTOR: Five, four, three, two, one! Sorry, I could never resist a countdown.

In “Last of the Time Lords,” the Master says

MASTER: Three minutes to align the black hole converters. Counting down. I never could resist a ticking clock. My children, are you ready?

Additionally, the Doctor’s smile at “God Save the Queen” before the opening credits just seems really odd and out of character.

In the Next Chapters

There are so many references left to look at, so I’m planning on 2 more chapters to show you the meaning of at least part of them.  For example, Friday is a lot more important than he might appear, so we’ll examine him in connection to more than just Robinson Crusoe.  In another example, ravens show up in the subtext in multiple ways, which comes back to Clara.  We’ll begin to look at some of the raven references in the next chapter.  Then, there’s more to the Victorians than it appears, and I’ll show you examples of what I call collective symbology vs. individual symbology in relation to the troops.  Additionally, we’ll look at how the subtext is coming together for Ragnarök and more.

Go to next chapter => Ch. 2: Friday, Odin & the Doctor; Missy’s 2 Faces; Etc.

[poorunfortunatesubjects]

{ When you get this, please respond with five things that make you happy. Then, send to the last ten people in your notifications anonymously. You never know who might benefit from spreading positivity! 🌼 }

aaaaah thank you! tbh when i used to see these messages it would make me sad because the Depression™ makes it so hard to focus on anything good, but now i think i’m learning how to deal with it better

this got even longer than the first one omg

1. tea! whenever i’m having a bad day i like to just sit down in my living room with my ipad and either an iced green tea with ginseng and honey or a hot cup of black tea with honey and lemon while i watch tv (although lately my mom has been watching investigation discovery a lot so instead of chilling in the living room i chill in my room instead bc i Do Not Want…the stories of scorned men and women exacting revenge on the people whom they believe have done them wrong makes me really, really nervous)

2. horses. i’ve basically loved horses all my life and my grandma on my mom’s side of the family owns a ranch and they’ve always had horses so it’s pretty much in my blood. i was the weird horse girl in elementary school who drew only horses, read books only about horses, and referenced and wrote about horses in pretty much everything i could do, but by the time i got to high school it got phased out because between school being an hour away from where i live and band taking up all of my free time i just didn’t have the time or the energy to do anything else. i’m hoping that after this semester of college is over i’ll have more time to take up riding again because i really miss my horse even though she doesn’t like me much.

3. i’ve mentioned music before, right?? okay well how about singing? since we’ve been doing more and more sight-singing in musicianship (and also maybe bc the guy i kinda have a crush on said i have a beautiful voice but sssHHHH) i’ve been finding that i actually like singing even though i don’t have a lot of power to really project yet, and definitely not without making myself all croaky-voiced or mute for the rest of the day when i DO put my best effort into it, but i’m sure that’ll stop happening so much with more time and good practice. for now i just belt out satisfied from the safety of a boiling hot shower

4. star trek! i’ve only seen the original series, the six original series movies, season 1 of the next generation, season 1 of enterprise, and all 3 of the reboot movies but i love me some space adventures and going back to watch tos when i’m in a bad mood is a sure way to make me feel better. i’ve been taking a little break from the trek tho bc tng is just….exhausting to me for some reason and enterprise s2 i’m just not feeling up to yet. but i still love them.

5. my cats, cali and stacy. stacy technically doesn’t belong to anybody, but she hangs out by me the most so i just kind of consider her mine. they’re buttheads sometimes but i love ‘em anyway.