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thegeminisage · 11 months ago

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star trek update time. i'm WAY behind. friday we watched voy's "tattoo," saturday i finally womaned up and agreed to watch ds9's "the visitor" and then we also bravely soldiered on to "hippocratic oath," and last night we did ds9's "indiscretion" and "rejoined."

tattoo (voy):

it's a real shame about (waves vaguely at racefaking "expert" on voy's writing staff) because, due to my own lack of education, i never know which stuff is based in fact and which is just wholesale bullshit. i remember one time i googled something about chakotay's culture because it seemed so obviously fake, and it turned out to be Kind Of True But Not Like That. it sucks because not ONLY was it a huge missed opportunity for Representation And Education (tm) but chakotay is a really interesting guy and i'd like to know more about him and see him get to do more stuff without him getting buried in the like. mysticism and racism of it all. it's no good for him and it's no good to sit through either

bc like. at this episode's core. if you could somehow remove the racist panflute and the whole thing where we portray people from THE SPACE TRAVELING FUTUREEE as primitive savages, you could have had a good story. chakotay struggles with not feeling at home where he lives/in his own culture, goes to space about it, then has an emotional crisis when his dad dies while the two of them are on bad terms. i know that's a good story and i know star trek can make that a good story because do you know who else has that story? SPOCK.

LIKE. IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO EASY. WHAT WERE YOU DOING!

anyway, chakotay naked. i know he was naked for the wrong reasons but that man had his whole ass out. bold moves heretofore only taken by sir patrick stewart himself. GOOD FOR HIM!

oh yeah the b plot of this episode sucked. we have to give the doctor a cold because of his lack of compassion? since When has he ever complained about sick or whiny people? been gruff with them, sure, tough-love kind of guy definitely, but no one would program a doctor who hated serving patients?? i did like that kes gave him an extra hour to be evil though. i love her so much

the visitor (ds9):

i don't want to talk about it.

or, no, i actually already talked about it, and i don't have anything to add, except that 1. christopher nolan can still suck it 2. every episode of ds9's 4th season so far has made me feel like i need to give it a "must see" on the spreadsheet. i almost can't believe i'm watching star trek. i have to start grading the damn things on a curve

hippocratic oath:

THIS IS WHAT I MEAN. stuck with the jem'hadar and julian is like "i can fix them" and o'brien is like "i have been racist my whole life and i'm not about to stop now and also you cannot fix them so i am going to condemn them to a horrible death in order to save your life" because he did at the beginning of the episode say out loud with his mouth that he wished his wife was more like julian bashir and then promptly refused to examine that thought even a little bit

like this had EVERYTHING. gay people. ethical dilemmas. twink with a spine of steel. worf forgetting he's no longer in tng. my best friend odo disguising as an inanimate object. and i'm supposed to just give it a WATCH?

like, i was right there with julian. fix them fix them fix them it's so easy they CAN be weaned off of it this could change everything i was so livid with o'brien for condemning those guys to a painful and undignified ending and for repeatedly ruining julian's attempts to help with all his attempts to escape and then he was like. yeah. i did all that to save YOUR LIFE because i saw that YOU were in danger.

and it obviously doesn't excuse anything and you get the feeling julian COULD have helped them with enough time and the right tools and and and...but he didn't have all that, and obrien KNEW he didn't have all that, and he wasn't willing to risk his friend's life on a gamble when it came to helping enemy soldiers

like, it's his fucking cardassian ptsd. note how he didn't speak when they were captured but bashir did because the gun was on his friend. note how he had to explain why the commander couldn't escape with them. IT MKAES SO MUCH SENSE FOR HIS CHARACTER. who hasn't done horrible things for the people they love? if his wife doesn't get back soon he's going to be asking for julian's hand in marriage by season 5

indiscretion (ds9):

KIRA PULLING THE THORN OUT OF DUKAT'S ASS. sorry i'm good i'm normal

something about dukat...at first he was very boring and flat, and then he was funny but still pretty 2-dimensional, and then he was funny AND gay with sisko but still 2-dimensional, and now he's got all kinds of depth. i completely wrote him off as generic cardassian villain at first but i am genuinely thrilled to see him every time he shows up

like, the bajoran lover and the daughter is such an amazing plot twist, but also, sorry to say this, he and kira have q and picard energy. as in, q wants picard to fuck him so so so bad, and picard has zero interest in doing this, and somehow that interest gets even lower the more q wants it, and the lower his interest gets, the more rabid q is for him, and it's probably the only thing i really enjoyed about either character, a few of sir patrick stewart's better speeches aside. dukat is exactly like that with kira. he is GAGGING for her strap and she finds him vile and rephrensible and the closest they got to fucking was when she pulled the spine out of his ass cheek and laughed at him and he probably is going to put that in the spank bank for the rest of his life. and she will still never fuck him

really fun when she told him to shut up and he shut up <3

i just love episodes that deal with the fallout of the war...it's always such incredible character work. i was worried that with the dominion threat these kinds of episodes would go away and i'm glad that's not the case

also, hi, sisko fumbling things with his gf for the b-plot. dax and julian giving him romantic advice and then mocking him when he leaves. jake being the only one who can talk sense into him. incredible. 10/10

ALSO, not only did capt yates make him work at that apology she did NOT kiss his ass goodbye. and he deserved it.

even quark was funny in this episode, despite the misogyny. he was nice to jake in "the visitor" so i think i've forgiven him because i've made at least two quodo jokes since then. my first love will always be kiraodo (kodo?) though

rejoined (ds9):

LESBIANS IN STAR TREK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

as previously stated about 600 times on this blog i DID NOT KNOW there would be a gay kiss happening. i thought btvs held the honors for the first gay kiss and that this was going to be like an allegory or a metaphor like in tng. and i did like the tng ep for what it was! but holy shit this blows that out of the water.

i think it's so important that this would have been absolutely NO different whatsoever if either half of the couple had been a man. for the time period especially it's very much like. Queers Are Just Like Us which i think is an important step 1 to reel in potential bigots who are still on the fence. i cannot believe my mother is going to watch this episode someday

also, hi, the allies in this episode...? julian sitting through that WHOLE dinner without the first word of complaint. sisko telling dax it's a bad idea but he'll back her tf up. kira bewildered that any of it is any problem at all. sisko's moment was especially nice bc at first you think he's being a dick which is out of character for him and then you realize 1. he's scared for her 2. he loves her 3. he would probably fight the homophobic (recursionphobic...?) trills with his bare hands if he had a good excuse

it's also nice that zero people in this episode were weird about the idea of two women together. it was SO NORMAL. god i can't believe andor let those two women touch hands for a single shot and called it progressive between that and spn my standards are through the FLOOR!!

TONIGHT: ds9's "starship down" and "little green men," and then we're finally back to voyager.

#personal #star trek blogging #ds9 lb #voy lb

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calocera · 2 years ago

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Your posts about SNW Spock makes me so curious, could you please explain how they've done him wrong since he seems very different from the original series :O Are they making him more human despite the SNW taking place before the og?

yeah i can! im not the best person to talk about it probably since im a pretty recent trek fan and also tos/spock arent parts of trek i care about as much as a lot of other fans, but i have opinions for sure!!

firstly just up front i do not like ethan peck as spock. he does not look like spock or act in a way i am satisfied with. it feels like the only reason they cast him was because he has a deep voice. so i am going forward in this with haterism for him specifically not JUST how he is written in snw

Spock is written not like a vulcan but like an anhedonic human. actually not even anhedonic, just like a human raised in vulcan society trying to blend in. like there is nothing about him that feels genuine he just feels like woobiebait for 2012 tumblr to make flower crown edits of because he is awkward and quirky. every scene involving spock is a joke about him and his demeanor, everything he says is a wink wink nudge nudge "lol vulcans act like this and its so stupid lol logic is silly" like i can physically feel a laugh track whenever hes on screen. i enjoy jokes about vulcans but it isnt funny when there isnt anything else. its like spock showing emotion, it isnt satisfying when its a constant and not a little treat peppered in. in snw hes stifling a giggle or screaming in pain or being oopsie awkward silly every time he gets a focal scene, it takes the magic away because now it isnt a rare break in character its just how he is. Ive seen a lot of people defend this aspect as him being young and therefore less mature than in tos, but hes like approaching 30 :\ i get him being less mature but he doesnt act like a sheltered 30 year old he acts like someone freshly 18. at this point its just like…MAKE A NEW CHARACTER!!!!

as a point of contrast, i like how uhura is written in snw (in season 1 anyways, she has barely appeared in s2) she is obviously younger and is growing into her spot on the crew, but they arent hinging her character on the 1 or 2 pop culture uhura moments, retconning anything about that that doesnt align with modern media fandom, and calling it a day; they actually expand on her character outside of like idk her doing a sexy dance and her sitting at the phone (though i guess it is easier for her since she had barely any character in tos anyways). meanwhile they DO do that with spock, his bullet point top 10 iconic spock moments of sometimes being awkward and showing emotion are now the only things he is allowed to do. tldr flanderization

i also think its interesting that it is this way since ethan peck played spock in discovery and there hes the exact opposite. hes extremely serious and vulcan; which fits the tone of the show (regardless of my opinions on the tone of disco). i just dont understand how that spock translated into the snw spock. they are not the same guy.

anyways on to the biggest plot related gripe with him...how he interacts with women!!!yay!!

first theres how they decided to have multiple episodes about his, apparently, strained-yet-loving-and-involved relationship with tpring. the inclusion of t'pring feels stupid because other than the 1 minute of cheap "oh i remember her!" from someone seeing her on screen for the first time what point is there to her returning when the ONE canonical fact about her is that she and spock A: had an arranged marriage, B: did not meet in person since they were children, and C: hated each other. its not like there is a huge contingency of t'pring/spock shippers holding out since 1967 so what value does reintroducing her as a character serve? i assume its as some kind of attempt to give a woman who previously had no real character something to do, but her existence on snw is STILL only about spock and her relation to spock so there isnt any sort of feminist level up happening. including her was not interesting enough to justify retconning the plot of the most iconic episode of star trek. especially when multiple episodes tonally and stakes-wise rely on you caring about them as a couple, and anyone watching who knows who she is already knows that her and spock dont have any relationship to speak of in the future so who is this for? if you really really just NEED spock to have sex with a woman why not make a new character? that would also suck but at least it wouldnt be timeline interfering. im not even a huge continuity purist "oh no!!the timeline!!!plotholes!!!" but when the situation is the writers deliberately breaking the continuity in large ways and the outcome isnt even fun? stupid.

and now his relationship with chapel. i am way more annoyed by this one since its just gross. so from tos the only thing with them is that chapel has a crush on him and spock is not interested. also worth noting that its such a non-plot related thing that it only is revealed under the influence of alien drug virus that makes you horny. and they decided that not only was that enough to base a whole reciprocated romance arc around, but now since theyve introduced tpring back into the story, spock is now a cheater??? what is the POINT of breaking canon to introduce spocks girlfriend only to go "well actually hes horny for his coworker" like...that isnt how love triangles work youve just done a character assassination. the man who would rather kill his best friend than have sex with his wife is now fucking both her and the woman who confessed to him and he got so mad he crushed a computer with his bare hands. ok 👍. i just hate that they chose spock to be the romantic center of the show. anyone else could have been the character who gets into relationship drama why spock? there are multiple new characters who could have taken up the position. and its not like spock has nothing else to do as a character without it

to say things specifically about the most recent epsiode since it was particularly annoying and showed things that happen throughout the series:

firstly spock just does shit thats stupid. illogical even. i know the whole logical fallacy moment with vulcans but when it isnt a point of note in the show and rather just happens as if its a normal occurrence for spock as a person im like...he would be a laughing stock on vukcan and not have any of the positive reputation he holds.

the plot of this ep was basically that spock gets turned completely human and they just miss literally the whole point of it. vulcans have MORE emotion than humans, they ACTIVELY suppress it. yet when spock is turned human he just experiences human emotion completely emotionally? he should be having an EASIER time suppressing his emotions. and OMG he gets a BONER because he sees a hot WOMAN LOL LOL isnt that funny? spock got hard isnt that hilarious? its just so cheap. they act like being human makes him a completely different person, they played it like the voyager episode where belanna gets split into human and klingon BUT in that case she was literally split into two different people (this ep had a lot of issues too ie racism but that’s a different can of worms); here spock just becomes human he still has the same memories and training and history...why would he forget what its like to be a vulcan. they could SO EASILY make excuses too but they just didnt care. and anyways bada bing bada boom the ep ends with him and chapel hooking up which i already complained about and could complain about more.

i think thats already too much so im gunna stop myself here but trust theres more i hate and other people have probably talked about this better than i have :')

blade nation

#ask #star trek #sorry for this everyone im a hater at heart

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curator-on-ao3 · 1 year ago

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⭐ Director's Cut on the First Impressions ficlets, please!

Bahaha! Thank you for asking about those, @fiadorable! ❤️😂

Okay, so the trio of ficlets that form First Impressions are all … first impressions … in the context of two first officers — Jack Ransom and Una Chin-Riley. I originally posted the first and second ficlets to Tumblr (sort of glorified shitpost fics) and people asked me to put them on AO3, which was really nice. I put all three stories on AO3 a few days before the Lower Decks/Strange New Worlds crossover was announced and I thought, “Whoa. Of all my crackships, is Chansom actually going to go canon?!” So, yep, the joke in the crossover made me happy because how can you have first officer actors married to each other and not make a joke about it? The show did good.

Anyway, for the first ficlet, Jack Ransom falling for an Una Chin-Riley hologram (and Mariner teasing him about pulling a Geordi LaForge/Leah Brahms) was fun, and Jack meeting — and respecting — the actual Una as an aged and wise ambassador, all in the service of Jack’s emotional journey for his own self-confidence, was nice to explore. I see Jack as having a really beautiful and needy heart that he hides to protect himself (per Deanna Troi’s analysis). Letting Jack be vulnerable with Una made my own heart happy.

For the second ficlet, I was amused by the number of Trek characters played by married Trek actors and I wanted to get them all into one place. Hence, the nightclub that in my mind is officially named “Okudas,” but I couldn’t get that in there. Having Kira and Bashir (married actors!) comment on Jack and Una (married actors!) while reflecting on Tilly and Ryn (married actors!) and so, so many more had me smiling. (B’Elanna and Damar! Spock and Admiral Rollman! Jean-Luc Picard and the lounge singer from a dive bar in 21st century Los Angeles!) I like to believe that once Una and Jack figured out why they were at the nightclub (“Okay, so we’re fictional characters played by actors who are married to each other. That’s ummm …” “Not even the strangest thing to ever happen to me.” “Yeah, same.”) that they sort of warily circled each other, then Jack made a joke about testing out the ol’ rod and berries (yeah, a Roddenberry dirty joke — I truly believe Jack would go there) and Jack got nervous when Una seemed annoyed at first by his humor … but then he saw the amusement in her eyes and they both absolutely cracked up laughing.

The third ficlet was the only one of the trio that I wrote directly for AO3 (didn’t begin life as a Tumblr fic shitpost). And I have to say, I have a special place in my heart for it. The way Christopher Pike initially dismisses Jack Ransom as an idiot and, sure, it’s fine if Una has history with this guy from the future because it’s obviously just physical attraction and … what’s that? Jack is actually intelligent? Well, shit. Writing Chris becoming more and more insecure while Jack and Una have no idea that Chris is freaking out … and Chief Kyle just wants everyone out of the transporter room … had me laughing (lovingly) as I wrote and every time I edited.

Thank you so much, @fiadorable, for asking about that trio of firsts for two of my favorite first officers. ❤️

Want more information about a fic I wrote? Send me an ask.

#fanfic director’s commentary #i love asks #una chin riley #jack ransom #una chin riley x jack ransom #chansom #star trek strange new worlds #star trek lower decks #i might write more for them because their mutual nerdy competence makes me happy #my heart is forever with poor ditched chris in the transporter room #that man had no idea what he was getting into when jack was beamed aboard #thank you again for asking about those stories #fiadorable

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annakie · 1 month ago

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From Broken Bow to Calypso - Check-in #10 - The Original Series, Season 1

All Star Trek By Stardate Review Posts

Yeah it's been a minute, but I mean, there's twenty nine episodes in season one of TOS, so that took awhile to get through.

Maybe I should have split this post into two, but I'm ready to keep moving through TOS!

So here we go...

First, I'll note, the order that the Rewatch List I'm going off of uses is Production since stardates in TOS are all over the place and don't make sense. So if you're used to watching via airdate, we're not doing that here. I like it better this way because you get the "why is this happening that way, that's not how it works!" stuff out of the way early on and once the show gets things settled in canon, they stay that way.

Second, I'll admit that getting through TOS and TAS are the part of the rewatches I do I always look forward to the least. TBH I think the last time or two I just did like "top 25 best episodes of TOS" list and threw in one or two more and called it good, so it wasn't a full rewatch. And I just added TAS into rewatches in my 2020 watch, I'd seen a few when I was a kid but hadn't seen the whole thing til then. But obviously with this rewatch, it's every episode, no skips.

Well, I mean, I didn't rewatch the Cage parts of The Menagarie and I'm not going to watch the clip show parts of Shades of Grey when we get to TNG :p

When it comes down to it, TOS is a little hard to sit through in 2025. Going from the beautifully shot Discovery/SNW to TOS era feels even harder, though I am watching the Remastered episodes and there's some good stuff in there visually, too. And of course there's going to be some real rough storylines and dialog coming up. I tried to not harp on that too much, but there are places I couldn't help but point some stuff out.

Will have more thoughts at the end, but just wanted to preamble a bit with where I'm coming from here.

Here we go for real.

---

2/28 - Episode #151 - Where No Man Has Gone Before - Starting with Gary Mitchell's episode. Like what's also difficult here is now also reconciling the Disco/SNW characters with their TOS characters, knowing that in reality it should be looking at them the other way around. But like, Spock in stardate order certainly knows what the human emotion irritating is, so it's a bit funny to think Spock's just BEING irritating, to Kirk, on purpose. Sulu gets called in as being a department head of astrosciences. Well, he's gonna get a promotion I guess. There's no Uhura, nor McCoy in this episode, and Chekov doesn't come in til season 2, so it's already a rougher episode without some faves. AND we have this Dr. Piper guy instead of McCoy. At first I thought it was the same doctor as in The Cage, but I guess old white guys just aren't that distinctive here, and hey it's been a couple of weeks since I watched The Cage anyway! And apparently ESP in humans is soooo hot right now. Also, super crazy that here in the first episode they're leaving the Milky Way. Isn't that supposed to be impossible? That's what the last Voyager novel implied, at least. Nine crewmen dead in act one, that's rough. Is the Blonde lab technician Mitchell teases Kirk about Carol Marcus? Memory Alpha seems to think so. Anyway, crazy how fast ultimate power corrupts, eh? Jack Ransom will tell you, too! Wait, there's… an outpost… at the edge of the Milky Way? OK, TOS. I guess no one will go there if you strand two demigods on it, its FINE. And as much whining I did about us expecting to be sad about Ariam when we barely knew her, like, if this is episode 1 we're supposed to care about Kirk and Mitchell's long-lasting friendship when we hardly know EITHER of them. I almost hope SNW brings in Gary Mitchell in a season or two. Kirk's shirt gets ripped already here in episode 1, seems about right. IDK if I'd trust that Gary Mitchell is really dead, but nobody's said he's not as far as I remember. :p Kirk kiiiinda covers up what happened with Mitchell in the end? But hey, absolute power corrupts absolutely. And heeeeey! We're one episode down, 78 to go.

2/28 - 152 - The Corbomite Maneuver - Bailey is definitely an Edward, or Barclay "How DID this guy get in/stay in Starfleet" type. Real glad he was a one-and-done. Also Kirk complaining that he has a young, attractive female yeoman… yeouch. It's definitely a moment you couldn't picture Wesley!Kirk having, thanks 1960's! It gets worse next episode, too. Kirk's poker gambit is a pretty good moment here. The "Trying to break free" sequence near the end drags on FOREVER. I gotta believe that Kirk was super relieved that he got to dump Bailey on Balok and not deal with him anymore. And hey, Clint Howard's first appearance! I think we still see him one more time after this. Amazing that we see him as a little child and then saw him literally 4 episodes ago but also like a 50-something year difference. (It's a record, per Memory Alpha.) Aside from having to pad out every minute, thanks 50-minute episodes with little to no B-plot, this one is pretty good, though.

3/1 - 153 - Mudd's Women - Harry Mudd is BACK and looking way less Rainn Wilson-y. Also he's a space pimp now. Really hating the "men can't control themselves around these women!" trope. Like, I kind of get it with the Orions -- and that was introduced in The Cage -- hate it a lot more here. The scene where Mudd has to give up his identity in the interrogation was pretty good, though. Anyway, remember y'all, women who might be in their 40's and not wearing makeup are UGLY and not worth loving!!! They also deserve verbal and emotional (and let's be real, probably escalating quickly into physical) abuse. It's only when they're compliant and smile a lot are they beautiful and will make good wives! I guess they need to "believe in themselves" to be beautiful. Man, this episode is rough, even by 1960's standards. I don't see a good future for those women, especially not Eve. I liked Mudd better when he was repeatedly murdering Lorca. Also per Memory Alpha there's a deleted scene where Mudd tries to get Uhura to take the venus drug. UHURA? LITERALLY THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN (inside and out) in the GALAXY? Fuck right off with that, Harry Mudd. I do want to see/read the scene though.

3/1 - 154 - The Enemy Within - Kirk gets split into two, his "good" and "bad" sides. But his good side is an indecisive dumbass and his bad side really likes sexual assault and punching his friends. Also, this is the infamous "dog in a fluffy unicorn" episode. Poor Sulu and two redshirts get left on the planet with little more than a parachute to use as a blanket and a couple of phasers to warm some rocks, and somehow survive many hours at like -70 degrees. Great job, Sulu! Also apparently shuttles just didn't exist, sorry guys! It's a good B-story though, and the episode needed it both as a distraction and to raise tension. Honestly, I do love that Sulu has quite a bit to do in this one, love me some Sulu, he was definitely a Crush growing up. Shatner's acting is great in this episode, though, seriously. BUT -- literally everything about the Janice Rand plot in this one is just a complete nightmare though. And look, Good-Kirk is falsely accused and that sucks! But Rand also very much went through some real shit in this one and is being forced to forgive and forget when SHE DID GET ASSAULTED and HALF OF KIRK LITERALLY DID THIS. And then Spock like, TEASES her about it at the end. Just so, SO gross. Peck!Spock would NEVER. I hate this. This episode wouldn't fly at all today. She needs a Culber or an Ezri, and HR. Stat. Damnit, Memory Alpha also says that Shatner SLAPPED WHITNEY to elicit the "right" emotion from her during the "accusation" scene. FUCK I HATE THIS EPISODE SO MUCH NOW. The premise is interesting and good, but I just can NEVER get over what happens to Janice. I liked it when getting split into two happens with B'Elanna a hell of a lot better. Bottom tier episode for me, despite a lot of good in some parts of it.

3/2 - 155 - The Man Trap - Whew back to good old lower amounts of sexism and horror in our Star Trek. This time, a shapeshifting alien who is usually but not always in the form of a woman is going around sucking all the salt out of people. RIP multiple crewmen to this creature. It is absolutely SAVAGE of Uhura to say Kirk is Spock's only friend, when like, he had an entire group of friends on the ship before and Uhura was one of them, AND she introduced him to Kirk. Again, differences between SNW and TOS, but it's one of those little things I have to wonder if a future SNW season will address. Is there some big falling out when Pike leaves? Is that why Ortegas, Pelia, Una, and La'an are gone, too? And M'Benga gets, IDK, demoted maybe? Next time I watch through there may be a lot more answers. Also Kirk is a pretty big asshole to Bones here a couple of times. I do love the little scene with Sulu and Rand in the botany lab, and that they're giving Sulu hobbies. I don't like that McCoy refuses to shoot the creature in the end because it still looks like Nancy. Dude, you've seen HOW MANY dead today because of this thing? You know better. Anyway, the M-113 creature is a great allegory for poor resource management here on Earth. It sucks that these things are extinct now overall, but also maybe it should have asked for help from the Enterprise instead of going straight to kill mode as soon as the landing party beamed down. It didn't seem unintelligent. It's an OK episode overall, and was the first actually aired. I'm enjoying watching in production order more.

3/2 - 156 - The Naked Time - A VERY classic episode, and for pretty good reason. I think first of all the guy playing Tormolen is great in his role, and there's something like, Jeffrey Combs-ian about him, IDK. Sulu's of course a pretty significant star of this one, and his foil scenes are such classics. Takei really had it going on back then. And his grabbing Uhura and calling her "fair lady" and her "Sorry, neither" retort is just a perfect moment. This is also the re-introduction to Nurse Chapel here in our Stardate watch order. And I think watching this episode clarified my feelings about Chapel in SNW. As in, Jess Bush is fantastic, I love her, and she should have always had the role in the series she had, just that that role shouldn't be Christine Chapel. Like, M'Benga should have another brilliant nurse who went through the war with him and literally everything that the character is should be the same… but NOT THE NAME. I just really fail to connect those two roles together as the same character. Especially with the romantic plot with Spock. Again, keep the entire plot, but just with a character who isn't named Christine Chapel. The character Majel is playing here just… is not the same person as the character Jess Bush plays. OK fine they can both be nurses named Christine Chapel but they're two totally different people. Ugh, this may not make sense, but it's how I feel. SNW Christine gets told by Boimler that Spock is largely emotionless and they do NOT end up together and that shifted her attitude completely. Which is great! But now it's years later, Christine had been engaged to Roger Corby, but is back NOW to confessing her love? (Boimler TOLD HER it wouldn't work out!) Something better happen between SNW S2 and this to explain. I will say, it might explain Spock's breakdown afterwards more, though, if HE still loves her too. IDK, maybe my feelings will change as I get deeper in. Still, T'Pring deserves better since she and Spock are STILL ENGAGED HERE. Overall, SNW's Spock has also expressed his feelings to his mother in Charades, which makes his breakdown over his inability to love here look insane, so as much as I love SNW, from a canonical, by-stardate perspective, it sure does mess a few things up. Moving on, The worst thing is that the like 15 minute countdown lasts like 30 minutes. I hate it when shows do this. Just like… figure out what a closer actual time will be? You know about how long you have left in the episode more or less! Rand also gets minorly harassed here, more of just an annoyance. Kirk shows more love for his ship than any other, and gets his shirt ripped by McCoy. The bit about going back in time is really out of left field all other things considered. Like, unnecessary, do they ever actually use that? I thought they just need to slingshot around the sun!??! NITPICKING ASIDE, really fun episode, one of the better early TOSes.

3/3 - 157 - Charlie X - Janice Rand gets sexually harassed -- again. Kirk does a decent-for-the-time job at trying to dissuade Charlie and protect Janice, at least. Definitely not comfortable being a father figure. Charlie could have wiped them all out at any time, and doesn't thanks to the power of Kirk being Kirk. Apparently they celebrate Thanksgiving still in that era, with turkey and all. Talk about how US-centric a show can be lol, This is the famous Uhura sings while Spock plays episode and it is a great scene. And on a programming note, this (March 3rd) is the first day since day 1 of the Stardate Watch I've only managed to squeeze in one episode, I had a lot to do all day! But my average is still way ahead.

3/4 - 158 - Balance of Terror - Aw yeah, here we go. Great episode. Was especially good watching it only like two weeks since A Quality of Mercy. Turns out Mercy was not what as needed here, instead, Kirk just being a persistent asshole. Really fun to see all referenced shots and similar dialog. Mark Lenard is so good as the Romulan commander, it's still hard NOT seeing him as Sarek though. Really liked how they made Martine and Tomlinson real characters in this episode for a bit more of a Lower Decks feel. Stiles is SO insufferable though. Way more than they had Ortegas be in the similar role in AQoM, I will not miss him. Good on Kirk for the "leave the prejudice in your quarters" though it should have never gotten on the ship to begin with. Great scene with Kirk comforting Martine at the end.

3/4 - 159 - What Are Little Girls Made Of? - Ehhh… more Chapel inconsistencies with SNW make this one a slightly annoying Stardate watch. Like she asks Spock if he's ever been engaged when (in STbSD terms) she knows damn well he has, she knows T'Pring. Also, later "Kirk" says that he's the only one who calls his brother Sam and well, so does like everyone else on the Enterprise, and Jim would know that now. And if Sam is going to have 3 kids he better get started on that in SNW. But moving on from nitpicking. Korby is a dick. Like, Christine, why? What did you see in this guy? Guess we'll find out in a season or two of SNW maybe. Hopefully you fell in love BEFORE he became a murderous android. Oh this is also the one where Kirk fights off Not-Richard-Kiel with a giant bumpy dildo lol. Still funny.

3/5 - 160 - Dagger of the Mind - An anti-prison torture episode, pretty progressive for the time. Don't love the whole "mind control Kirk to fall in love with Dr. Noel. oops! plot line, bu this place suuuuuuucks so it's not super surprising shitty things happen here. Kirk is, after all,the bestest and strongest, always, mentally and physically so he pulls through.

3/5 - 161 - Miri - Kirk sure is being forced to be a dad-figure a lot these days, eh? (And ugh to people who think Miri is a Lolita, gross.) Honestly do not understand why Janice Rand beamed down, that didn't seem like a job for a yeoman, but I guess they needed a bit more feminine energy for Miri to play off of. Honestly shocked that the kids stayed alive as long as they did considering they're like hundreds of years old maybe? And what a stock of food that didn't spoil they must have! Hilarious that McCoy figures out how to fix the virus in a few days when the team of scientists who created it couldn't, but tbh every Starfleet doc gets storylines where they do miracles. Overall, interesting concept, OK episode.

3/6 - 162 - The Conscience of the King - I totally did not remember this episode but I enjoyed it a lot! Kirk gets some interesting backstory. The Kodos thing is horrifying but makes for a great story. Spock dropping suspicion on Kirk, and happily working WITH McCoy behind Kirk's back. Honestly Kirk should have told Riley WHY he got demoted and then also like, NOT LEFT HIM TO WORK BY HIMSELF IN ENGINEERING, yeesh, he was in so much MORE danger there. A good whodunit and I'm glad we got solid answers on Kodos in the end. Also, this is Grace Lee Whitney's final episode. It fucking sucks that she was let go, especially now that we know the reason why. Janice Rand (and GLW) you deserve much, much better.

3/6 - 163 - The Galileo Seven - I'm watching the remastered version of TOS but gotta say, Murasaki 312 is a stunning visual for TOS. Ferris is a dick, like he has a point but jfc Kirk keep him off the bridge. Boma has a lot of heart, like he has a pretty strong personality but isn't all wrong. Love how they don't let the female crewman have a phaser, though I think she's a Yeoman so I GUESS maybe she's not combat trained? But Spock sure is having a tough command. He's really Going Through It this episode and his logic keeps getting him digging in harder with the crew. McCoy still being on his side and trying to guide him through is a nice touch though. Spock's idea to attract attention by jettisoning the fuel is a nice "callback" (I know it's the other way around actually) to what Trip did to get the NX-01's attention in Shuttlepod One. And again, the remastered graphics are really beautiful in the distress signal scenes.

3/7 - 164 - Court Martial - Big applause to TOS for putting POC in important roles a couple of times recently, including Commodore Stone and one of the witnesses in this episode. Apparently this is the first time an African American had been shown as an officer in charge of white subordinates on TV. Crazy that they let Kirk's ex be his prosecutor. Also that no Captain has ever been on trial before in a Starfleet court. Spock calls himself a "Vulcanian" lol. NOBODY DOES THAT SPOCK, stop trying to make Vulcanian happen. Also crazy that they let Kirk go down to engineering by himself to get Ben. A third episode in the first few where Kirk has to interact with an adolescent. They really want Kirk to be friends with teenagers. Anyway, pretty good courtroom drama ep. I mean, it's no Measure of a Man and Cogley is no Neera Ketoul, but entertaining enough.

3/7 - 165 - The Menagerie (Part I) - First off, I'm skipping most of The Cage parts of these Episodes. I watched it 30 days ago, I'm pretty fresh on what happened, which makes getting through these two eps pretty fast in one day. Second, the order I'm watching this in means basically two courtroom drama episodes in a row lol. And they're right back on Starbase 11 like in Court Martial. I'm sure it's been a few weeks. Goodbye Commander Stone, now there's already some other Commodore here, Mendez, Star Trek. And of course, this is the final appearance of Pike. (aside from Kelvin!Pike). Kirk: We met when he was promoted to fleet captain!" Yes, in Lost in Translation and not since, just that one time. Not in Subspace Rhapsody or… whatever's going to happen in seasons 3 and 4 (and hopefully beyond) since Kirk is getting SNW promo pictures along with the main cast (and Scotty & Pelia & Batel.) It's honestly fun hearing this story from this perspective since seeing it back in Through the Valley of Shadows, and seeing our dear Pike in the chair, with the face burned is still shocking even knowing it's coming! I guess Spock REALLY got a taste for stealing the Enterprise after The Broken Circle. DIS S2 and all of SNW add so much more emotion to the Pike+Spock relationship here, too. I do like McCoy defending Spock to Kirk. Woah, death penalty for visiting Talos IV is harsh. I do really like that The Cage is basically the Talosians projecting the story them, neat detail.

3/7 - 166 - The Menagerie (Part II) - I do hate even more now the whole suggestion that Pike and/or Una would ever get together in The Cage, I love their platonic friendship, and we all know that Pike is about to go be with Vena forever (Sorry Batel!) Having Mendez (post Starbase 11) be an illusion was a great twist. Spock gets off scot-free which is still kiiiiiinda BS considering, that's 2 for 2 for no consequence Enterprise Theft! But I guess re-contextualizing the fake!Pike and Vena going down to the caves to live happily ever after as Pike's forever ending wasn't that bad. He deserves to be happy. Overall, I loved the envelope story, it actually clipped along pretty well aside from when it started being a Livewatch of The Cage. I'm glad Pike will live out his days in some kind of peace, I hope it's a happy life. And I hope he's fondly missed by the SNW crew.

3/8 - 167 - Shore Leave - Hoo boy. Did not love this one. It's goofy, and not really in a good way! It drags and drags and drags, especially the scenes with Finnegan. There are some good parts, like McCoy thinking he might be nuts, and also the suspense that McCoy could be dead. Also Spock tricking Kirk into thinking he needs Shore Leave. Hate yet ANOTHER "most important woman ever" to Kirk shows up never to be seen again. And this week's new temporary Yeoman getting attacked by a "Don Juan" then has to walk around with her uniform falling off for a big chunk of the episode? No thank you. I'm glad Risa remains the pleasure planet of choice… though I guess we're going back here in TAS. Memory Alpha: "Much of this episode was being rewritten as it was being shot. Cast members recalled executive producer Roddenberry sitting under a tree, frantically reworking the script to keep it both under budget and within the realms of believability" yeah that makes sense.

3/8 - 168 - The Squire of Gothos - Definitely liked this one better than the previous one. The Trelane are an interesting concept and I do like the fan theory that they might actually be Q. Or to quote Mariner in Those Old Scientists, they really do have a whole Trelane thing going on. And he does end up reminding one of Q, especially Junior from Voyager. Hard cringe on the racism towards Uhura there when Trelane meets her. William Campbell really was great in the role, though.

3/9 - 169 - Arena - The infamous Gorn episode. The first half of this episode honestly I really liked. Harrowing, with the team beaming down and the colony is wiped out. They're under attack. Two redshirts die. Sulu commanding (and taking commands from Kirk remotely.) The space chase! Fast paced and tense. …annnd then Kirk gets kidnapped to the planet and it's a half hour snoozefest and bad-goofy with the gorn. Nope. Cannot take that costume seriously. I miss the SNW Gorn. But also it's completely dumb now that Spock, Uhura and Scotty would not recognize the Gorn's handiwork AND have no advice for dealing with them after SNW. The three of them should be staring at each other and being like "Shit let's call La'an." Which is why I said repeatedly during SNW I didn't like the Gorn being the big enemy. Ah well. Yet another all-powerful being fucking with the crew, right on the heels of Trelane, and right before another all-powerful being or two shows up. So even the ending was Whatever. This one needed to end a half hour earlier.

3/9 - 170 - The Alternative Factor - Uhhh… what the fuck was that? Good things about this episode: Charlene Masters. Annnnd we're done. I think the plot on this one was too thin for the amount of screentime to fill, it felt like a loooot of meandering and looooong "weird stuff is happening look at this scifi effect!" scenes. The mystery didn't feel that intriguing to me. Also it's insane Scotty wasn't in the episode considering how focused on dilithium it was. Also, Vasquez Rocks has been getting real heavy screentime these last couple of episodes. Like, literally the exact same location. Poked around and was glad to see this is considered one of the worst episodes of all of TOS and I'm glad my radar wasn't broken about it. I guess my brain wiped this one from my mind since I didn't remember it at all. Thank you brain, for protecting yourself. Do it again.

3/10 - 171 - Tomorrow is Yesterday - OK, so ignoring all the Prime Directive violations here, this episode is so much fun. Time travel shenannigans to modern-at-the-time days! A modern-day person gets to see their planet from space (you know I love this trope). Spock gets left in charge, Sulu gets a lot to do. Capt. Christopher is a good character, I can't blame him for doing what he needs to do to stay in his own time. Just hijinks galore here. The story clips along. Maybe not technically the best ep but a really enjoyable watch.

3/10 - 172 - The Return of the Archons - LANDRU! I was real glad to get a break from Q-like superpower beings and just see a society / the Enterprise subjected by a supercomputer. Don't worry Landru buddy, by the time the Cerritos is doing regular checkups you'll be back in mostly working order. Decent ep with a nice "Hey don't fall for an evil cultmaster no matter who it is" message. Glad un-brainwashing McCoy and Sulu was real easy once Landru exploded.

3/11 - 173 - A Taste of Armageddon - This planet's government: Don't come here. Starfleet: lol no go there anyway and see what's up. Make them be our friends!! *slaps Enterprise hull* This episode can fit SOOOOOOO many Prime Directive violations in it!! Also, apparently they can shoot photon torpedos AND can transport with shields up in this episode lol. ANYWAY… the story itself is great. Very cool concept. Scotty gets command again, and gets a pretty meaty role, it's like a buddy episode with him and McCoy standing tall against the asshole diplomat. Sadly no Sulu in this one like in half the episodes.

3/11 - 174 - Space Seed - Obviously I've been looking forward to this one. Ignoring the ?? of Khan's heritage, Ricardo Montablan just absolutely steals this episode. Even though he's a sociopathic megalomaniac, it's almost impossible to take your eyes off him when he's on the screen. This episode is so important for later in the series, and it really is so good. From a Stardate perspective, it's great to see Khan again after seeing him survive being a kiddo in Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, good thing they made that line about the timeline being all messed up because he was SUPPOSED to have taken over a large part of the world like 20 years prior (in the 1990's), how does that even work out? Also fun having more context of the Eugenics wars from the Singh arc in Enterprise S4. Anyway, McGivers you are an idiot, have a problem with being attractive to horrible men, and are in for a Very Bad Time. Have fun hating the rest of your life and dying early!! TBH Kirk letting them go makes basically no sense but it probably was safer to strand them on Ceti Alpha V than do anything else that gives them a chance to get loosed on the galaxy. Well… he does eventually I guess but it's Kirk and his crew that pay any consequences from that… moooooooostly?

3/12 - 175 - This Side of Paradise - Pretty well known episode. Spock gets to show emotions. The entire crew mutinies thanks to (sex?) pollen. Is this the original sex pollen story?!? There's a scene in the transporter room where Spock attacks Kirk and it is SO OBVIOUSLY a stunt double Spock is attacking, absolutely HILARIOUS. Also Spock met Leila six years ago, so I really wonder if SNW is gonna tackle that is season 3 or 4! McCoy's accent going so super hokey is so bad, lol.

3/12 - 176 - Devil in the Dark - These people do not believe in redundant critical systems, lol. C'mon. Anyway, this one was pretty rough to me, but I guess overall this episode is pretty well liked? I did like the design of the Horta creature, and hey, I liked that they landed on a peaceful solution. But like… everyone seems pretty chill about the 50 people the Horta killed before Spock talked to it. But I felt like this was slow and plodding and had secondhand embarrassment of Spock talking for the creature telepathically. Memory Alpha notes that there are ZERO women with speaking parts in this episode, Uhura isn't in it at all either, and at least Roddenberry later acknowledged it and encouraged the show to do better. Also the little discussion at the end between Spock and Kirk is great.

3/13 - 177 - Errand of Mercy - Uhhh okay so they beam down to (what they think is) a pre-warp civilization, right into the middle of a crowded marketplace, in uniform? I guess it ends up OK since it's the Organians. OK I had very much not ever put together the connection between this episode, Enterprise's Observer Effect and.. Dal in Prodigy, lol. This is why I'm loving doing the Stardate Rewatch. Anyway, I can only assume that L'Rell is no longer in charge of the Empire since they're heading into war with the Federation again and you'd think L'Rell wouldn't want that. Also hey, since this is their first appearance in real world order, we get the smoothhead Augment Klingons (and the cringey darker skin makeup on white actors, boo to that.) Glad that apparently by DS9 Kor gets un-augmented. Although it's another "omnipotent alien" episode, I really liked it. Fast plotting, good lesson at the end. Kor is great, overall, glad we see him again. Also this is where the "Pure Energy" Spock soundbyte comes from for the 80's song "What's On Your Mind".

3/13 - 178 - The City on the Edge of Forever - HELL YES. Been really really looking forward to this one. Just realizing how many of the best TOS episodes are season 1 episodes and this is of course maybe the very best episode? I'd forgotten how funny this episode is in places. And damn Joan Collins is so damn good in it, too. Just an absolute rock solid performance, she's so earnest and easy to love in this role, it DOES feel natural for Kirk to fall in love with her when so many single-episode showmances are really not believable. Good on Kirk for shutting sexist jerk down when talking about Keeler at the dinner scene. McCoy's sick makeup is so well done, and his "i'm crazy" persona here is much better than back in Paradise. The ending is just genuinely moving and affecting as well, with Kirk stopping McCoy from saving Keeler but hating himself for it. I teared up. This episode deserves all the praise and remembrance it earned.

3/13 - 179 - Operation:Annihilate! - Oh noooooooooooo…. it's the Sam Kirk is Dead episode. This is so much rougher now that we know Sam! And now we know Uhura and Spock (and maybe Scotty?) are friends with him too! It took Sam from a "Eh, that's sad for Jim but I'm not that invested in this guy" to being actually sad about him being dead in such a big way now that we know Sam so well from SNW. Also, in the 3rd Star Trek Enterprise Romulan War novel, Deneva is kind of a big deal, it just got pretty beat up in the war, so now I have like, so much investment in this episode because of the planet, too. Dan Jeanette really does look a lot like Shatner in his brief dead-Sam appearance. Shatner is good in the brief moment he has to mourn. Spock: I understand how you feel. -- OK wow, this line actually makes SO MUCH MORE sense in the context of Discovery/SNW. SPOCK KNOWS HOW HE FEELS BECAUSE HE LOST HIS SISTER. Sure, Michael could still be alive in the distant future, but Spock doesn't know that for sure and she's so out of reach that she might as well be dead. Obviously the line didn't mean that when it was written but I LOVE so much that the Stardate order makes it so much more than it was meant to be. I also hope we get to meet Aurelan in SNW, though that'll make this episode hurt even more. Chapel is back and she's going all unprofessional over Spock. Oh no Spock is blind! Nope… he has Special Eyes. He's fine. Did we ever hear from Peter again?

----

And that's season 1 of TOS!

There's some real bangers in this season. And there's some real bad ones, and a lot of mixed ones with some good stuff and too much bad stuff.

Overall, I'm enjoying the TOS full rewatch more than I thought I would when I started. When it's rough, it's rough. There's long stretches of boredom in some episodes where they're just trying to fill time. But when it's good.... like Space Seed and City on the Edge of Forever? Oh man, it is really, really good.

There's of course a lot of annoying little things like someone playing the same character and has a different job every time, or just inconsistencies overall but this is back when continuity didn't matter and no one could have predicted the level of scrutiny and obsession this show would undergo, that it would become the standard by which all other Sci-Fi would be judged.

You more or less have to constantly remind yourself that Yes this was progressive at the time just for having Uhura and Sulu around, having any women at all working on the ship, acknowledging other cultures. Still, not going to excuse them for putting Janice Rand through hell multiple times or unnecessary slapping.

Overall, I've found that watching in the context of the Stardate watch order has really enhanced the show more than it's detracted from it with things like the Chapel/Spock thing. Already a few episodes into S2 and when I hit publish on this I'm going to watch Amok Time... so... see you in another two weeks or so for the next update!

#star trek #star trek by stardate #star trek the original series #tos #annakie's star trek stuff

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britesparc · 4 years ago

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Weekend Top Ten #474

Top Ten Characters Who Came Back from the Dead

I am stunned – stunned! – that I’ve not done this one before. I mean, come on! It’s right there.

So there’s obviously a thematic resonance going on here. This weekend – the weekend you’re meant to be reading this – is famous where I come from because of a story where someone came back from the dead. Unlike other holidays – Christmas, Halloween, the release of a Star War – I’ve actually been a little slow off the mark in making lists that celebrate Easter. I’ve done eggs and bunnies, but incredibly I’ve never done resurrections, which really is the day’s whole deal. I mean, if you get down to brass tacks, it’s kinda the big selling point of the entire religion really. I hesitate to say “USP” because, well, it’s been done elsewhere, but it’s still supposed to be one of the big Christian takeaways (there’s definitely a chain of Christian takeaways in the States, isn’t there?).

Anyway, resurrection. It’s actually more common than you might think. Certainly in terms of comics there are probably more characters who’ve “died and come back” than have never “died” at all. But! And this is where I get pernickety. Most characters who “die” don’t actually die. Take Batman for instance: he’s shot in the face by Darkseid, and then Superman ups and finds his charred corpse, but – shocker! – he’s not actually dead, he was just sent back in time, where he Quantum Leaps his way back to the present day, accumulating enough Omega Energy with each leap that by the time he reaches the present day he’s blow a hole in reality. Or something, I’ve not read that story for quite a few years. Anyway: he wasn’t dead. Neither was Sherlock Holmes, or for that matter Dirty Den. Generally speaking, if someone dies in a story and then reappears, they’re not dead. Not really.

So this list here is supposed to be people who actually died. Now, even here, it’s debatable; I mean, is E.T. dead, or does his body just go into some kind of hibernation? If Optimus Prime’s brainwaves survive, does he ever really die? Is a clone someone coming back to life or not? It’s all a bit wishy-washy really, which kind of makes sense when you’re talking about resurrection. And let’s not get onto the chief resurrector, the Doctor; do they die every time they regenerate? Or is the regeneration itself a way of staving off death? When David Tennant turned into Matt Smith, did the Tennant-Doctor die? “I don’t want to go,” and all that; there’s always a subtle (or not-so-subtle) change in personality. Does that count? Well, for the purposes of this list, I’ve kinda decided it doesn’t. But it’s an interesting discussion to have, if you’re a big old nerd like me.

So yeah: people who have died – properly, I suppose – and then come back to life. That’s the list. No fakery, to mistaken identity, no alternate universe shenanigans; they were dead but they got better (no Chev Chelios either; sorry, Stath stans). No zombies either! Or vampires! They’re not undead; they were dead, and now they’re alive again. That’s the rule. Also I’ve seriously tried to limit comic book characters. And I’m sure there are some big omissions (like, I know there’s one from Game of Thrones that’s not on here, but that’s because I’ve not seen that far into the show yet; I know, I know). But I reckon these are the best at being back.

Optimus Prime (Transformers franchise, from about 1987): OP is the OG when it comes to coming back to life. Dying and then stopping being dead is pretty much his thing. Technically the first time he came back from the dead was in the original animation; famously being offed by Megatron in The Transformers: The Movie (1986), he came back to life a year later. Subsequent media have frequently killed him and brought him back, even in the live-action movies, but I want to talk about the comics. Because the original Marvel run killed off Optimus at a similar time as the cartoon; he’s blown up in slightly contrived circumstances, but his brain is saved on a floppy disk. Two years later he has his body rebuilt and his brain restored and he’s off to the races once more. Then in 1991, when facing down planet-eating mega-bastard Unicron, he sacrifices himself again, but this time his personality has begun to merge with that of his ostensibly-human companion Hi-Q. Hi-Q/Prime is converted/rebuilt into a new body, and he wins the war. So there you go: even in this one sliver of continued continuity – not including off-shoots or spin-offs, let alone other iterations of the overall franchise – Optimus Prime died and came back to life twice. Beat that, Easter.

E.T. (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982): not much to say here that we don’t already know from the Book of Spielberg. E.T., doddery little alien magic-man, grows sicker and sicker as he’s stuck on Earth, until in a thrillingly-edited set-piece he seems to expire, human doctors unable to help him. “I know you’re gone,” says best bud Elliot, “because I don’t know what to feel.” But then! His heart glows! His colour returns! And he positively yells, “E.T. phone hooooooome!” – and Elliot’s euphoric laugh is just devastating. The whole sequence – what is it, ten minutes? Fifteen? – is masterful in every way, from the technical to the performative to the emotional. Bloody magic is what it is.

Gandalf (The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, 1954): Gandalf the Grey famously leads the Fellowship of the Ring across the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, where he faces off against a Balrog. After a bit of “you shall not pass” and all that, they both fall from the bridge, battling each other on the way down, before both perishing at the bottom. Gandalf, though, is not really Gandalf, but Olórin, one of the Maiar – basically a kind of angel, I guess. He is returned to Earth by the powers-that-be to complete his mission, and is promoted to Gandalf the White, supplanting the corrupt wizard Saruman. This new iteration of Gandalf is a bit more serious and steadfast, although he does retain his fascination with hobbits. Regardless, he gets a terrific death scene and a triumphant resurrection, and how it ties into Tolkien’s wider mythology is interesting.

Superman (DC Comics, 1993): comic book characters die and come back all the time; it’s pretty much a staple of the medium. I guess Jean Grey/Phoenix is probably the most famous, but they’ve all done at some point (even if, like in my Batman example earlier, sometimes they don’t actually die). Anyway, Superman died, very famously, after getting into a tremendous barney with genetically-engineered super-git Doomsday (as famously, and atrociously, depicted in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice). The whole “Death of Superman” arc is interesting and entertaining as an example of mid-nineties big-panel EXTREME storytelling: as the issues tick down to the fateful scrap in Metropolis, the number of panels-per-page is reduced until the final issue is basically just full of splash pages. It’s a terrific, exhilarating rumble, really selling the heft of the confrontation. Interestingly, the comic spends a lot of time afterwards dealing with life without Superman, as a raft of imitators/wannabe successors emerge from the woodwork; these include the best-ever Superboy, Conner Kent, and Steel, who’s basically Superman meets Iron Man. Eventually, of course, Superman comes back, his body essentially having been sent to a Kryptonian day spa to recuperate; he emerges clad in black and with a mullet, so death obviously has some lasting repercussions. Overall, it’s a whopping arc with long-term consequences, and whilst it’s easy to make Christ parallels when discussing Superman, this story doesn’t really hew that way (unlike the Snyder-verse which really goes all-in on that plot point, much to the films’ detriment). One of the better aspects is how, even in death, Superman is an inspiration, which in itself has a long trail; leading, eventually, to Batman’s famous withering diss, “the last time you inspired someone was when you where dead.” Anyway, I’ve gone on about this far too long.

Spock (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, 1984): let’s start by acknowledging just how great Spock’s death is in Wrath of Khan. As a plot point within the film, as a piece of staging and performance, and as a landmark moment in this franchise, it was seminal; a death for the ages (as an aside, it’s crazy to think Star Trek as a whole was only sixteen years old when Spock died; the MCU was eleven when Tony Stark clicked the bucket). Anyway, they built an entire film around how to bring him back, and Spock as we know him is absent for much of it; a presence looming over everything as he rapidly ages, going through his Vulcan super-puberty and everything. It’s actually a rather sombre film as Kirk’s son is killed and the Enterprise blows up; bringing back Spock comes with a very real cost. Trek III is not one of the top-tier films – in the loose trilogy that comprises Khan, Spock, and The Voyage Home it’s certainly the weakest – but it’s still pretty good, often underrated. And, of course, it brings back Spock, which is nice.

Agent Coulson (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 2013): Coulson’s death in Avengers comes as a huge shock, one of the fan-favourite characters being brutally offed in surprising fashion. In a film chock full of super-people, it’s the ordinary guy who buys it tragically. However, did any of us really think he was dead-dead? And so barely a year later he pops back up in the TV series Agents of SHIELD. However, his reincarnation became a recurring plot point; his references to spending time in Tahiti (“It’s a magical place”) becoming increasingly sinister as we come to understand even he doesn’t know how he’s back up and running. The eventual truth – Nick Fury using painful and transformative alien tech to basically bring Coulson back to life – may be a bit underwhelming, but it gave Clark Gregg a lot of meat to chew on dramatically speaking, and it underscored a lot of his character development going forward (especially when he, yes, died again, and then sort-of came back, twice).

Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 2001): full disclosure: I never watched Buffy religiously. I think I just missed it at the start and it was only when all my friends were talking about how great it was that I started tuning in more regularly. Weirdly, I think the most I watched it was around the time Buffy died and came back. It’s fascinating, really, and full credit to the show for the way they explored it; in a series full of magic, the afterlife, and the undead, bringing a character back to life isn’t too shocking. Willow, Buffy’s witchy mate, resurrects her with magic; but in an excellent twist, it turns out that she was in Heaven, and is super pissed off to be pulled out of paradise and stuck back on Earth, leading to her feeling depressed and alienated all season. That’s a great hook for bringing a character back, and leads to some meaty stuff for Sarah Michelle Geller to do.

Agent Smith (The Matrix Reloaded, 2003): do you ever feel that The Matrix has slipped from popular culture a little bit? Twenty years ago it was ascendent, rivalling Lord of the Rings for the title of “the new Star Wars”. Everyone was copying it. but now hardly anyone talks about it. probably because it hasn’t had a multimedia shelf-life comprising dozens of games and spin-off shows. Maybe the new film will change that. But I digress; Hugo Weaving is tremendous as Agent Smith in the first film, and is exploded at the end (spoilers) by Keanu Reeves’ Neo. Unsurprisingly – especially as he’s, well, just bits of code – he’s back in the sequel. However, he’s now been corrupted; he becomes, basically, a virus, self-replicating and threatening not just our heroes but the Matrix itself. This builds across two films, as Neo has to fight dozens of Smiths in the famous “Burly Brawl”, before the final conflict in The Matrix Revolutions when it seems everyone in the program has been Smithed. It offers Weaving a lot of scenery to chew on and makes for some great set-piece battles, even if the films themselves are a little disappointing.

Olaf (Frozen II, 2019): let’s not beat around the bush here – Olaf carks it in Frozen II. Okay, maybe Elsa dies; maybe Anna dies in the first film. They’re frozen, right, but I feel like it’s “magic ice” and there’s something going on there. Do they come back to life or were they ever really dead? Anyway, Elsa is effectively “gone” but we get a protracted death scene for the comic relief talking snowman. He literally fades away, slowly dying in Anna’s arms, and melts into a flurry of snow that blows away. People talk about Bambi’s mum all the time, but mark my words; “Olaf’s death” is going to be cited as a major traumatic incident for twenty-year-olds in 2030. His resurrection, truth be told, is slightly less great, Elsa just straight-up bringing him back to life, reminding us that “water has memory” to let us know that it’s the same Olaf and he remembers everything (including, presumably, dying? That’s creepy). And that, to be honest, is where I draw the line; sentient wind and rock monsters I can handle, but we all know homeopathy is bollocks.

Emperor Palpatine (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, 2019): look, I hate this. But let’s deal with it anyway, because I have a funny feeling it’s going to lead to some quite interesting stories being told in spin-off Star Wars fiction. I personally feel quite strongly that Palpatine should have stayed dead. And maybe he did? We are led to believe that the Palpatine we see in Rise is a clone; there are jars of stilted Snokes floating in the background. He’s all knackered and broken, eyes blackened and fingers dropping off; clearly he’s not well. So is he really the same character at all? Is his Sith essence somehow fed into this new body, the way Prime’s mind is downloaded from a floppy disk (“run prime.exe”)? Let’s say it counts, let’s say he’s the same slimy Palps we know and love. He is, at least, a sinister presence, and like I say, the whys and wherefores of how he came to be back is quite interesting. There’s a fascinating story to be told about the rise of Snoke and the seduction of Ben Solo – a more interesting story than anything told in The Rise of Skywalker, for starters. Moff Gideon in The Mandalorian seems to be researching cloning and seeks to extract midichlorians from a Force-sensitive being; are we to conclude that this in service of making a new body for the Emperor? All this – stuff hinted at but not explored in the film itself – is, like I say, interesting if not outright fascinating. And I agree, there is a certain degree of circularity in bringing back the series’ Big Bad for the final instalment. But I still feel, hand on heart, that it undoes a lot of the victory of Return of the Jedi (as did The Force Awakens, if I’m honest), as well as throwing away all the development of Rey and Kylo in The Last Jedi. So: Palpatine is cool, his presence and backstory in Rise of Skywalker is suitably creepy and interesting, but on the whole it’s crap and they shouldn’t have brought him back. The end.

Ten people who definitely died and definitely un-died! What could be more Easter-y? Honourable mention goes to the episode of Red Dwarf where Rimmer changes history and ends up not being a hologram, only to accidentally blow himself up in the final seconds.

#top ten #dead characters #alive characters #easter #back from the dead #resurrection

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beardycarrot · 5 years ago

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Alright! Now that I’ve finished Aliens Ate My Homework (kids’ books really are just a couple hour read for an adult, huh?), I have in mind some things that I think are important for the movie adaptation to stick to.

The look of the characters should be the easiest thing to nail... their outfits probably won’t match what’s described in the book (movies always feel the need to change that in some capacity), but I don’t really care about that. What I’m more interested in is how they portray the less humanoid characters. Pong, Grakker, and Snout can all be played by actors in costumes, but Tar Gibbons is described as having a lemon-shaped body with four legs, a long neck, and a turtle-like head with bulging bug eyes; that’s gonna be a fully CG character.

The other is Phil, a potted plant. Basically a big stalk covered in leaves and vines, with a flower where a head would be, who moves around with thrusters on his pot. He has a symbiotic relationship with creature called Plink, described as kind of a blue cat-monkey. I really like how this illustration portrays it; even if it looks more like some kind of cartoonie bug, I would be perfectly happy if this is the design the movie goes for. These two are also going to be fully CG, so unless they base it entirely on the description provided for Plink, base its design on an illustration from another artist, or just do their own thing with it, I can’t imagine them finding a way to mess these designs up... but who knows.

BKR, the evil alien, should be interesting. He’s described as having blue skin, pale orange spikes covering his head (I was picturing maybe a dozen four-inch-long spikes, but the spike density could also be interpreted as covering his head like hair), and... otherwise, looking like Shirley Temple? That’s gonna be interesting, but this is also the character I expect them to take the most liberties with. I can’t say why... maybe just from experience with this kind of adaptation.

There are a few major plot points that I think they have to adhere to. First, that the good aliens’ ship is malfunctioning (the illustrations portray the ship as a traditional flying saucer, but I don’t think the design matters much) and they’re stuck shrunken to two inches tall until the end. That’s... basically the only reason for Rod, the protagonist, to be involved. The aliens need to repair their ship, so Rod has to carry them around to investigate BKR.

Secondly, they need to eat his homework. It doesn’t have to be the papier mache volcano and math assignment portrayed in the book, but, I mean, it IS the title of the movie.

Grakker and Snout have an unspecified relationship... Snout is very, VERY clearly based on Spock from Star Trek (in fact, I think the third book in this series is called The Search for Snout, a play on the third Star Trek movie, The Search for Spock), so it might just be a close friendship, but they share a room on the ship while everyone else has their own, so who knows. At one point it’s mentioned that they’re “bonded”. Potentially Gayliens. I don’t remember what their relationship is like in later books.

Next, Rod is incapable of lying. There definitely won’t be a flashback to the traumatizing-to-a-toddler reason for it, but that’s Rod’s defining characteristic: he doesn’t, and can’t, tell lies. Who knows whether that will be included.

Finally, Rod’s dad having been missing for quite a while isn’t a huge part of the story, but it does play an important role. Him lying to Rod’s mom strengthened Rod’s inability to lie (you’re not told what the lie was, but it’s implied that this was the night he left), and towards the end of the story BKR claims to know where he went, and implies that he’s no longer on Earth. I don’t remember if this is a plot point in future books, but Bruce Coville did something pretty similar in My Teacher Flunked The Planet, so it could be. This is the kind of thing that adaptations will just arbitrarily change, though, so who knows.

So! With all that out of the way, it’s time to watch the movie!

...Okay, first thing’s first, the opening credits of the movie are set to shots of a model solar system, so I’m assuming that’s the replacement for the volcano. I’ll allow it. Also, William Shatner is in this movie? What? As who?? The only adult male character in the story is an android of a man in his thirties, and he’s only there for what would amount to two minutes of screen time at the end. Rod’s grandfather is mentioned, but only once, in the context of “this is my grandfather’s farmland”.

Alright, definitely a modern setting. I guess the model isn’t for a science fair, instead being something Rod’s filming on his smartphone with his mom, twin siblings, and... his dad. Now, this looked like is was going to be an adaptation fail, but it turns out this was a flashback to the night he went missing. Clever!

Less clever is this abysmal color grading meant to represent a dark and stormy night, and the fact that they live in a cul-de-sac instead of being out in the middle of some farmland... but that’s not that significant of a change.

For some reason the story now takes place in the winter instead of mid-May, making me wonder where BKR (in the guise of Billy Becker) is getting the bugs to smash against Rod’s head. More importantly, as revealed at the end of the book, most intelligent life in the universe is about three feet tall, which is why BKR is pretending to be a kid while hiding on Earth. Instead of being a foot shorter than Rod, however, he’s now taller. Weird. Rod also now has his cousin Elspeth staying with his family for winter break, for... literally no reason that I can think of. Elspeth is a character from the second book in the series, but she wasn’t even mentioned in the first.

Grakker isn’t quite book-accurate, but not entirely inaccurate either... except for the color of his skin. He’s supposed to be green. What the hell. They whitewashed an alien. On the upside, the dialog in this scene is all pretty book-accurate. Unfortunately, they lose a lot of points with Madame Pong, who is supposed to be a very calm, understanding, zen character... but comes across as a little condescending. Also, this:

What? What?? Why did they keep this book dialog, when the house is VERY CLEARLY part of some kind of housing development area? I legitimately have no idea what they were thinking.

I also have no idea what’s going on here. Elspeth is... I guess looking through family photos on a computer? Ignore the subtitles, that’s from a weather report on tv. What I’m curious about is what exactly is going on in the photo. That’s clearly Rod’s dad, from three years ago... but recent pictures of the twins? Did Rod’s mom, who apparently runs a pet photography business, Photoshop a family ski trip that never happened? Is that what’s being implied here??

We’re then introduced to the rest of the aliens, and... wow, I can’t describe my disappointment. Remember how I said Tar Gibbons and Phil would be fully CG characters? Yeah, that, uhh... that didn’t happen. I was hoping they would do as much of this movie with practical effects as possible, but I meant that in the “get good SFX people” way, not the “do everything as cheaply as possible” way. They’re literally both just guys in suits.

Yeah sure eye stalks and a thick neck are absolutely the same thing as bulging eyes and a long neck. More importantly, look at that clearly human body with extra legs just kinda hanging off the hips. Phil is just as bad. You can’t really tell from still frames, but yeah, he has two vines with leaves coming off of his human-body-proportioned stalk at shoulder level and moves like a guy in a suit... and for some reason, his flower is split into halves so that it can be puppeteered to move like a mouth. Despite the fact that in the book his flower doesn’t even play a part in communication. They could’ve easily just installed a light inside the flower and explained that he communicates through pod burps, and would’ve been perfectly book-accurate. Why make this specific change. Also, if you’ve read this far, you’re probably wondering where Snout is. Yeah, uh. Me too.

Anyway, they appear to have combined the characters of BKR and Arnie into one person to simplify things (but then why introduce Elspeth??), and for no readily apparent reason, changed BKR, which is pronounced how you would expect, into B’KR, pronounced... b’car. For no reason.

Good GOD is this movie cheap. I appreciate the set they created for the top of Rod’s desk, with the giant pencil and such, and obviously they’re going to use a green screen for scenes like this... but it looks SO bad in motion. Like, see how the shot ends at his knees? That’s because he’s very obviously running in place, in front of a green screen. Also, why are sixth graders learning about the Drake Equation, which concerns the statistics relevant to intelligent alien life in the universe, in math class? I guess it’s technically a math topic, but not the kind of thing you’d learn in pre-algebra...and for comparison, Rod’s math homework consisted of single-digit multiplication tables, the kind of thing you do in like, second grade.

I’m also not fond of the degree to which Grakker is a comic relief character. Like... throughout the book, he’s completely strict and serious, and most of the comedy comes from Phil, Gibbons, and Rod. The first time you see genuine emotion from him is when Rod accidentally injures Snout, causing Grakker to hold him tenderly and shed a tear (again, potential Gayliens).

This is supposed to be the inside of a thick black canvas backpack. Am I crazy? Did I not see the Universal Studios logo at the start of this movie? Why does it look like the cheapest of cheap made-for-tv movies? Anyway. They appear to have given Snout’s ability to slow time to Madame Pong, which is worrying. Did they just... remove Snout, one of most important characters in the entire book series? To what end? To fit in all the stupid pointless Elspeth stuff? If they were hoping to make sequels to this movie, well... bad news, because again, the third book in the series is called The Search for Snout. Okay, I gotta know, is he actually cut from the movie or just a surprise reveal for later?

Alright, I am now officially dragging this movie. Also, I guess we now know where William Shatner fits in... I hadn’t even noticed it was him. Also Also, is that furry pink lump with one eye supposed to be Plink? Why all the arbitrary changes? Did they just decide that since they couldn’t fit a person inside of it, they would give it no limbs at all? Why is it pink??

Eyyy. Roll credits! Yeah, I wish... I’m only halfway through this thing.

They made Rod’s best friend Mickey Asian, which is fine, he’s a very minor character and never really described in the book... but unfortunately, they also decided to make him Data from The Goonies. He’s an inventor. Because he’s Asian. Coooool character, movie. So far it’s lead to an unfunny Coke and Mentos gag and an unfunny Pop Rocks and soda gag (which resulted in projectile vomiting). They cut Snout out of the movie to make room for this stuff, mind you. I’m sure this is building up to some kind of payoff, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to enjoy it.

Speaking of payoffs, there seems to be an implication that there’s some kind of paranormal activity at Seldom Seen, the hidden field on Rod’s grandfather’s property, and at Rod’s school. I can understand the field, in this version Rod’s dad definitely seems to be involved with aliens in some capacity, and that’s probably where he was keeping a ship or something... but the school is kinda inexplicable. Like, it’s covered in snow... and it’s the only place in town that’s seeing snow. I can only assume it’s BKR’s... sorry, B’KR’s doing, but I’m not sure why. Did they decide that being blue means he’s from a cold planet, and requires it to be cold wherever he is?

No idea what’s up with some of these changes. Instead of BKR’s house being like an unlived-in model home, it’s... a complete sty. The exact opposite of the book. Why. Also, that coffee table is completely covered in video game consoles... GameCube, Dreamcast, PS2, N64... but Rod says he’s got “all the latest video games”. Does he? Does he really? Was that line in the script, so the crew just bought whatever they could find? As for BKR himself...

I mean, I don’t see Shirley Temple, but it’s not bad! Rod wasn’t trapped inside a pocket dimension inside a CRT tv when he took his mask off, but they wouldn’t have been able to manage that scene with this budget anyway. So far, this is the only alien design I fully endorse. There WAS a point to him having a cherubic face in the book, but it’s never addressed, only implied, and I get why they would make him look more menacing.

In the book, BKR didn’t really have any goals. He just enjoyed being cruel for the sake of being cruel, and was hiding out on Earth because it was unlikely they’d find him there. In the movie, B’KR intends to destroy Earth by opening a wormhole (which is what’s causing the snow), and the good guys have about an hour to save the planet.

They kept another of Snout’s abilities, the Vulcan Mind Mel-- er, knowledge transferal, but gave it to Tar Gibbons. This is literally the only thing he’s done in the entire movie. For the record, this was originally the scene where Snout connects their minds, but Rod is startled by it and pulls back, causing Snout severe psychic harm and prompting the aforementioned emotional response from Grakker.

...They just had to get William Shatner to say Klingon, didn’t they. The climax of the movie is all him flying around spouting (sprouting?) plant puns, then Rod throws a banana cream pie (which was, apparently, part of someone’s science project) at BKR’s face... and finishes him off with foam shot from his papier mache volcano. I guess the shrunken spaceship expanding inside of a house, causing the roof to collapse and knock BKR unconscious, was too expensive violent for the movie... but why is getting him messy a solution to anything? Ah well.

Bruce Coville himself has a cameo as the judge for the science fair, which is nice. I think he might be the principal of the school... I didn’t really notice in the scene featuring the principal earlier, since that happened to be the projectile vomiting scene. I can only imagine he was honored to have his work recognized in this capacity... he’s a good dude, I’m sure he wouldn’t be as horrified as I am with the writing and quality of it.

Also the movie ends with the reveal of the actual size of the aliens... which is, uhh. About the size of adult humans. Hrm. Guess they just straight up decided not to get anything right, huh? Oh, and they reveal that Rod’s father actually is a member of the Galactic Patrol. So, that’s a thing.

Please don’t say that. God, was this movie bad. I would understand if they were passionate about bringing the story to more people and just didn’t have much of a budget, or if they made changes to better suit a visual medium, but that... is not what they did. I’m not the kind of person that demands an adaptation remains 100% faithful; if you want the experience of the book, you can just read the book. This, however, changes so many things. Like, in the book, BKR’s crime is cruelty. That’s the message of the book... that in truly civilized societies, kindness is the norm, and needless cruelty is a criminal act.

The characters in the book all either have depth to them or are interesting as sci-fi concepts, but the movie... Gakker is Mr. Slapstick, Madame Pong is Cool Collected Female, Tar Gibbons is... I dunno, wisdom obscured by things that just don’t translate into English and saying Warrior Science a lot (honestly the closest to his book counterpart, though HE was more interesting and actually did stuff), and Phil... yeah, just William Shatner saying plant puns. Bleagh.

Well, despite that end screen, it’s good to know that we won’t be getting any sequels. I mean, like I’ve already mentioned, Snout going missing is a major plot point in the second book, and the third is literally called The Search For Snout. What are they going to do, just skip to the fourth book?

...Oh hey, George Takei.

#aliens ate my homework #bruce coville #long post

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noitsbecky127 · 3 years ago

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rebecca watches tos: the empath

beaming down to the standard rocky desert planet

there’s a lot of records here

yeah you should probably beam back up

or you could just stay there and rely on the atmosphere, that works too

this tape is so ridiculously overacted, my god

THEY TOOK SPOCK

THEY TOOK THE WHOLE TRIO

fuckers took the golden trio, can’t have shit on minara

wtf is this place

who’s she

what is she WEARING

no vocal cords? absolutely none?

if her species doesn’t have vocal cords then they must have some other way of communicating, they can’t just mime everything

mom suggested that she’s a hologram lmao

you can’t call her gem. you already have a jim.

you’re gonna call her gem aren’t you

what the hell are those guys

ok they’re vians

and they have a weird forcefield

is gem ok

oh she’s a healer!

wait shit not a healer, she just takes injuries onto herself

wait but now she’s fixed!

this room is weird

well! guess that’s where the scientists went!

ah shit that’s gonna be their fate too

neck pinching is truly universal, it seems improbable that every species can be knocked out by pinching them there but what do I know

the neck pinch does not last long with these guys then

this sure is a storm

oh hey scotty’s here! with redshirts!

nope just an illusion

jim you self-sacrificing bastard

yeah they were not let go, you can’t trust these fuckers

what the FUCK is going on here

he’s just. hanging there

the vians look so fucking weird

ig gem heals fast or something

and down she goes

the bends? as in, the thing divers get? jim was definitely not diving

those odds are very not good

jim will never be able to make this decision, he’s gonna find a way out of this

or bones could just hypo him lmao

why is everyone in this group so self-sacrificing

alright time to hypo spock, for maximum self-sacrificing

so what’s the vians’ game plan here anyway? they must have some sort of end goal

yeah it has something to do with gem

bones is looking very not good

obviously bones isn’t gonna die but he’s looking pretty close to it

this is really upsetting gem it seems

guess she doesn’t know about his plot armor

what’s their test? what’s the final moment? WHAT ARE THEY DOING?!

make sure they’re worthy of survival? what kind of bs is this

so why isn’t the federation evacuating the inhabitants of these planets?

thank you gem

oh she’s not reacting well to this, honestly understandable

she has to sacrifice herself. of course she does. god forbid a woman put herself first

christ even BONES doesn’t want her to sacrifice herself for him

“all emotion must be suppressed” aren’t you, like, the master of that

these aliens are fucking sociopathic my god

bones lives!

ok I can only assume they’re gonna save gem’s planet, at least I hope they will

and here’s the enterprise!

yeah this wasn’t chance, the vians brought you there

“all the consideration it is due” and I presume that’d be none?

yeah this was definitely a star trek episode

#star trek liveblog #star trek tos #star trek the original series #liveblogging #the empath #tos

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yastaghr · 8 years ago

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Our Skeleton: Chapter 6

Our Skeleton

Characters: Asgore, Undyne, Alphys, Toriel, Papyrus, Frisk, Sans,

Pairings: Sans/Toriel/Asgore, Sansgoriel, Toriel/Asgore, Togore, Asgore/Sans, Sansgore, Sans/Toriel, Soriel, Alphyne, Alphys/Undyne

Warnings: If you see something you want a warning for, let me know.

Story Summary: The people who love him come to realise Sans may be hiding something from them. (not the best of summaries, sorry)

<–Previous || First || Next–>

Ao3

“red one. also blue. there's a really old white one - or maybe it's tan. a green one just pulling into the lot, too.”

Asgore absently rubbed at his arm while the sound of off-key singing washed over him. He stared out the window at the cars anxiously awaiting the change of the light. The remnants of rain dried out drop by drop on the car’s windows. The mottling they left behind had an interesting effect on the muted colors coming in.

“Sans, I don’t believe that they count if they’re still at the dealership. At the very least they must have tags, if not license plates.”

“don’t remember frisk ever mentioning a rule like that.”

“I think that is because they did not expect any of us to move so close to the road of car salesmen. It is much to specialized a rule for them to remember off the top of their head.”

“you’re just jealous that i remembered the rules before you did.”

He sighed, and turned around. Sans’ grin was genuine. Clearly designed to annoy him, but genuine. At least the small skeleton was enjoying his little game enough to for his mood to have picked back up from the day before. Asgore smiled contentedly at the glint in those sockets, happily losing himself in the swirling darkness within those eyes.

The singing came to a glorious, abrupt halt. Toriel, eyes still working the road around them, didn’t see Asgore and Sans’ shared sigh. Her voice had a tint of mirth, “You could say he was green with envy, could you not?”

Sans chuckled, “yup. being outdone is absolutely driving him up the wall.”

Asgore sighed, coating over his happiness with a layer of annoyance, “Quite. I’m just a stuffy old goat who deserves to be in a museum.”

“Dreemur!” Belatedly, he remembered that their destination was supposed to be a surprised. Too late.

Sans’ sockets crinkled in mirth, “ah, so that’s it. i was beginning to wonder. we passed grillby’s like ten minutes ago, and i was sure we were heading over for the sunday special. you really threw me for a loop there.”

Toriel’s guffaw overwhelmed her annoyance as the arrow finally went green and they turned left into the Large Park’s traffic loop. Asgore smiled too, wondering how much longer his wife had expected their small skeleton to remain ignorant. After all, there were only a handful of places the three of them could go from this street, and the city zoo was closed that week while a new sewage system was put in place.

“We would not dream of keeping you uninformed for long, Sans. You were certain to learn eventually, were you not? After all, this is an institute of learning.”

“heh, yup. so, which wing is it today? not the scifi exhibit, please. going with frisk’s class two weeks ago was more than enough for me. they mixed up the names of the homeworlds of skywalker, atreides, and spock. such a crime can never be forgiven.”

The two of them chuckled, having heard this rant before. Sans had been livid that this organizers of this exhibit, which was currently traveling around the world, had not had the decency to double check their signage before sending it on its way.

“No, Sans. We would not make you suffer that again. We had thought perhaps the history wing, if you are interested, and then perhaps one of the IMAX shows later on.”

Sans’ gaze immediately went to one of the enormous banners draped across the front of the building. Galaxies, planets, and stars by the millions decorated its surface.

“really?”

“We would not tell you a fibula, Sans.”

The quiet hum of Sans’ magic brightened. It was funny. Asgore had lived over a thousand years, and in that time had met hundreds of monsters. When he had met Sans in person for the first time, he had almost not realised the skeleton was there. Sans had either the quietest or the most well-hidden magic the king had ever seen.

Over the years he had learned to tune into Sans’ power, and since they had come to the surface it had become easier and easier to do. Now, he rarely lost the thread, and hearing the subdued emotions pick up like that always made him smile.

The fact that the skeleton’s big reaction was to the idea of seeing a show about the stars, and that that reaction had just won him a little bet with Toriel, obviously did not come into it.

She and Asgore meandered their way out of their first stop of the day. As much as Asgore and Toriel had heard in their negotiations about the past 1030 odd years of human history, the picture they had received was contradictory and haphazard. The overview they had just seen, at the very least, gave them a place to start to investigate further.

“I must say, humans seem to have come quite a long way since the war. A winding, faltering way, yes, but the progress they’ve made is very impressive. No wonder they produced a child like Frisk.”

Sans ambled out of the doorway behind them with an expression of mild shock, “i know frisk told me there were parts of human history where they weren’t even nice to each other, but some of that stuff is down-right unbelievable. did they really use to prevent non-male people from even getting a degree?”

Toriel sighed, “Unfortunately, yes. It was rather a surprise to hear that had changed. At the time of the war, female humans had hardly any official rights at all. In addition, the very concept that other genders even existed was utter blasphemy.”

“which god?”

Another sigh, because as simple of a question as that would be to any monster, the politics of the answer were rather depressing, “Most of them, I fear.”

Sans drooped. Asgore eyes moved between his face and her own, then drifted off in a desperate search of the museum’s signs. His gaze lit on something. He shifted his weight from his right foot to his left, nudging Sans gently in the direction of the stairs.

“Look over there! Toriel, it seems they have an exhibit on the plants of the Mt. Ebott subregion. what do you say to a bit of nostalgia?”

She and her longtime partner shared a look. Eventually, she gave in, “Very well, Dreemur. We shall go look at the plants.”

The way his cheeks pulled back into a delighted grin almost made up for the unending stream of plant facts she knew was about to endure. After Asgore had turned, she saw Sans’ right hand move in a blur that any monster alive would recognize as coming from Frisk.

-patella the truth, i haven’t had a chance to root through some of my plant puns in more years than the snowdin trees have rings. what’d’ya say to a pun off? i won’t tell gori if you don’t.-

,Her face broke into a grin, and she responded in kind.

-Stem-thing tells me you have quite the garden to pull from.-

At a tug from Asgore, Sans moved on, but tossed the next set of signs at her from behind his back.

-plant puns are where i got my seed, tori. it’ll be nice to get back to my roots.- Cheeky boy. He had no idea what he had gotten himself into.

“Oh my, Sans. I am sorry. I assure you, I had no idea they had such things here.”

Toriel tried politely to avert her eyes. Fluffybuns appeared to be somewhat hypnotized by the things, his eyes practically bulging.

Sans, despite the posted signs, had once again pulled his phone out of his pocket. He had yet look up at the exhibit in this particular room.

“what, did we run into yet another mislabeled sign? they should put up a warning label at this rate: ‘accurate signage not guarenteed.”

The short skeleton finally looked up from his phone. His expression didn’t flicker, “oh, is that it? they’re just skeletons tori. nothing new here, unless someone lost count and rounded up.”

Gori’s mouth, working in much the same manner as a fish, managed to find words before she herself had recovered from the shock. Perhaps not the most helpful, but still.

“Aren’t you...Sans, I...isn’t this...they don’t have any clothes.”

He ended with a note in his voice she remembered from quite a long time ago.

It had been the first time they had taken young Asriel to meet his kingdom. Of course, the first thing the toddler had done was spill sea tea all over his new robes. Then, for some reason unfathomable to his parents, he had decided to strip bare and run around flailing the soggy cloth like a flag.

Gerson had been amused, and, after Asriel had been rounded up, proceeded to educate Asgore as to the ways of toddlers by sharing an almost identical story about the first time he had babysat for Asgore himself. The then-queen had reacted in much the same manner as Asgore did, and had it not been for his father, he might have had an earlier introduction to her famous sense of justice than he in fact did.

Sans, in the present, blinked, “well yeah. makes it easier to see the vertebrae.”

Finally, Toriel found her voice, “Still, Sans. This is rather...lewd, is it not?”

He tilted his skull at her, “um, no? they’re not alive, tori. anyway, they’re human. if some dead human wants to spend their time going bare bones in a dusty display case, i ain’t gonna judge.”

The two royal goatnesses wallowed in mutual confusion, “But…”

Sans sighed, tucking his phone back into his pocket. His right hand found the edge of the bandage on his left and fiddled with it as he spoke.

“look, guys. it’s...weird, yeah, but not gross or anything. you saw those paintings a few rooms back, right? if humans can put up with seeing pictures of their own, flesh-wrapped species like that in here, i can put up with a few naked pelvic regions. and, again, it’s not like they’re monster skeletons. there’s enough of a difference that it ain’t too bad.”

His sockets had swiveled slowly over and now faced the glass-encased display directly. His tone grew more thoughtful.

“they’re not that ugly, either. not like me, anyway. they’re tall. got proper, straight spinal columns. the ribs are nicely spread. good ratios of leg to torso, too. i can get admiring skeletons like these.”

As the speech tapered off, Toriel heard the note of envy and dismay enter his voice. Her mind instantly derailed from its ‘This is insensitive, I must fix this’ train of thought and switched over to another. Her eyes gleamed red, and she could not help but feel a certain amount of pride at the speed with which Asgore pulled himself up.

“That is a blatant lie, Sans.”

Their skeleton gave her a look of weary dissent, so she pressed on, “While I admit that your analysis of their place in this museum is kinder, and less biased, than mine might be, I must disagree with you about the aesthetics. Their heights are almost strained, are they not? One feels that there is not nearly enough bone to justify that amount of verticality.”

Sans’ eye lights had shrunk. Asgore, contemplating the exhibit with a more critical eye, pondered aloud, “The spines are too straight to be healthy. They would not give an inch, I think. The poor soul would be stuck at permanent attention. The ribs are too gapy, too. I would worry about something poking through, like a door handle or a spear. That spine wouldn’t let them dodge at all. They would have no option but to stand there and wait until help could arrive.”

Sans turned to the inanimate skeletons with an air of great distrust. His focus shifted around, stopping at every joint and section of cartilage.

Toriel hummed thoughtfully, “In truth, the shapes of their skulls are rather lackluster, wouldn’t you agree, Gori?”

“Why, yes. They haven’t much emotion or animation, do they? Even if they could move. And those sockets are so small, too. I wonder how they would be able to see?” Sans’ hand had moved to rub at the rounded curves of his own skull. She padded over, Asgore mirroring her movements. She pulled Sans into a hug.

Asgore knelt down and whispered against Sans’ skull, “We could very well go on for days, you adorable monster. None of those skeletons hold so much as a spark to the supernova that is you.”

She felt their skeleton start shaking in her arms and went to move away. A tight grip on her dress held her back, and she surrendered. The three of them stayed there with her and Gori forming an almost perfect shield around the trembling skeleton until the tremors abated and Sans spoke.

“i, um...guess i was being a bit of a bonehead there, huh?”

She hummed and held him tighter, “No, my dearest skeleton. You were merely being you.”

She nuzzled down on the top of his head and did not let him go until Gori pointed out to her that if they did not leave soon, they would miss their show.

“-and did you see that third shot of ngc 1952? that had to have been a hydrogen-alpha filter, but the detail on it - i can’t believe it! getting a shot like that they had to have used an observatory. no way a backyard telescope would have picked up the shading on the lower right dust clouds, least ways not that well. wonder who shot it? d’ya think they might have someone who would know?”

Asgore planted a kiss atop the skeleton’s skull as they made their way up the stairs.

“It would not hurt to ask.”

Sans stopped so suddenly asgore nearly knocked him over, “heh. you’re right. why- i can - i-”

The lack of motion ended without any warning. Sans went from worryingly still to bounding up the stairs two at a time. He hollered back at them, “i’ll be right back. meet you by the m-k-raptor skeleton, kay? bye!”

The two Boss Monsters watched his retreating form vanish around the curve of the stairs with glowing cheeks.

“Do you think he is aware that his eye lights are currently shaped into glowing blue stars?”

Asgore chuckled, “No, I don’t believe he is. I’ve never seen him this excited before in his life.”

Toriel’s smile slowly faded into a frown. His mind caught up with his mouth, and the implication of that sentence hit him like a train.

“Asgore-”

“Tori-”

Their nostrils flared, then softened. Their intentions synced beautifully, the separate fields of their magics intersecting and merging, every wave amplifying the next.

“Do you think it would be too much of a bother for you to pamper our newest partner for the next few days? I believe I have a bit of research to do.”

He saw her lips pull back in something closely resembling a smile, but without any of the warmth.

“Of course, my dear. Only as long as you promise to let me have a turn, supposing what we suspect to be true is indeed so.”

He knew his expression matched her own.

“I would not dream of doing it any other way.”

#sansgoriel #our skeleton fanfic #sans the skeleton #toriel #asgore #museum #undertale fanfiction #naked skeletons #display ones though #bad signage #astronomy #plant puns #chapter 6 #yastaghr

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thegeminisage · 1 year ago

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ok, its time for a QUICK tng update before xm*s proceedings. saturday we did "best of both worlds part ii" and "family" and last night we did "brothers" and "suddenly human."

best of both worlds part ii: I LOOOOOVED THIS EPISODE. mwah. EVERYTHING i wanted. creepy little cyborg implants. brainwashed picard. his beautiful perfect cgi tear (which may or may not have been cgi, this is a point of debate, experts please weigh in). data bravely doing a robot mind meld. 1000000/10 more borg episodes please please PLEASE

can you imagine if the borg has ben in tos btw. what a thought experiment, except for how i quite literally can't think about it or i'll get so excited i'll pass out

did guinan imply she and picard were lovers in this ep...girl you can do better

my one nitpick with william riker was him promoting that lady he hated instead of someone who deserved it, like worf or data. it probably would have given worf ptsd but can you imagine that enterprise having a captain and first officer being gay on the bridge again...wonderful. except this time there would also be deanna <3

"how much do you remember" "everything" AHAHAHAHA GREAT. GOOD. WONDERFUL. anyway

family: extremely unusual episode but i loved it nonetheless. i was really shocked worf's parents were so sweet!!! i fucking loved them. they're like the cutest people on earth i can't believe they raised such a taciturn and stoic guy like worf...

picard's family i wasn't sure about at first until the wrestling match in the mud. sometimes you need to punch a guy and his brother stepped up to the job admirably. i kept thinking he looked like michael caine, which would have been an incredible choice.

WESLEY.....................................................we don't need to talk about it

everyone's accents in this ep were wack. why does picard have a totally different accent from his brother. why is worf's accent different from his parents. ik its not that deep but its making me crrrazzzyyy

brothers: i didnt even get a look at the title of this episode before we started bc vumoo (the shady site im using to watch) doesn't display them but it was SUCH an unexpected pleasure to get a data episode

absolutely scuh-reaming at the ease with which he hijacked an ENTIRE goddamn starship. he's so competent i love that. a real "glad he's on OUR side" moment, not unlike spock commandeering the enterprise in "the menagerie" (rip i wish that had been a better episode).

lore grew on me really fast. i was neutral on him during his last appearance, the meme aside, but in this episode he was really fun and unsettling. brent spiner can do horrible, horrible things with his face

this ep felt a little cut off? i expected another confrontation with lore, a getting back of the chip, or at least some kind of burial or funeral for dr soong, but we just quit like 3/4 through the episode. maybe less time spent on the opening section of the hijack could have fixed this

anyway i love the foil between data and lore...one has support and the other does not...but it doesn't make sense for lore to get the emotions chip because it seems like he already HAS them??

oh yeah and data repeating "i am not less perfect than lore" got funnier EVERY time he did it. little man was really going thru it i was cracking up genuinely <3

suddenly human: this episode was wack

ok, did you guys read face on the milk carton when you were in school? i did when i was way too young to be reading it and it fucked me up real bad and i completely forgot about it until i watched this episode and then i got to unlock that memory in real time

anyway, while it is obviously the correct choice to return a child to their family when they are kidnapped as babies, it is also hugely traumatic for an older child to be ripped away from a loving home* and transplanted with strangers, which those books explore in horrific detail. so the whole episode i found myself going "i KNOW it's bad politics but could they not just CONSIDER leaving him with the only family he's ever known as a possible choice" and then they DID THAT and i wanted to be ill because it was obviously the worst choice in the world

* this is a different scenario than the first tng episode involving kidnapped children, which strongly resembled the residential schools from real life. THIS particular situation, minus the method of kidnapping (during warfare), more closely resembled the crazy cult shit happening in those books, where the kidnapped girl was being raised by people who thought they really were her biological grandparents and weren't bad people and her biological family also weren't bad people. a "no fault" situation EXCEPT FOR HE KIDNAPPENED THAT BABY DURING WARFARE.

anyway this is the second time tng has dropped the ball on this subject so i think from now on they should not do episodes like this anymore. really really really really bad.

NEXT TIME: "remember me" and "legacy"

#personal #star trek blogging #tng lb

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deathishauntedbyhumans · 8 years ago

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Courting Rituals

Jim and Bones just want each other to be happy with their respective partners. A cute little rp between friends.

Stranger: Bones, I need your expertise. JK

You: ...a highly suspicious way to begin a conversation when you're Jim Kirk, but I'll bite. LM What is it? LM

Stranger: What? Have I ever let you down? JK Vulcans. What do you know about them? JK

You: No, you haven't. That's the problem. LM Socially or medically? LM

Stranger: I always come through for you. JK Either would be nice. JK

Stranger: Me and Spock have been spending a lot of time together. JK

You: You're the Captain and First Officer. It would be a problem if you hadn't been. LM

Stranger: Not like that, Bones. JK

You: ...huh. LM Well, I have no idea how you stand him most of the time, but you've never exactly made sense. LM Vulcans are stubborn and incredibly secretive. It took goddamn years to get any medical knowledge about them, and even then, you have to have a specific clearance to get to some of it. It's, frankly, a little ridiculous. LM

Stranger: We mostly just play chess. but the fact that he gives me the time of day for it says a lot. JK Is there anything odd I should know? JK

Stranger: Besides him being, like, four times as strong as me. Because that is incredibly hot. JK

You: Jesus, kid. If there was ever a sentence I did not need to read, it was that one. I think I need to bleach my eyes. LM Has anything odd been happening? Besides him giving you the time of day, obviously. LM

Stranger: That was tame, compared to some of the stuff I could come up with. Goof to know you're so easy to mess with. JK I don't know what's normal for a Vulcan, that's why I'm asking you, doc. JK

You: Ugh. Disgusting. LM In all seriousness, Jim, any knowledge that I have is either negative or purely based on medical speculation or information. You have more practical knowledge than I ever want to. If Spock was acting differently, I think you'd know better than I would. LM

Stranger: Yes, how dare I be happy and attracted to someone. JK He's just been incredibly short lately. In his own way. I'm worried about him. JK

You: Exactly. Keep your happiness on your side of the ship. Some of us have reputations to uphold as grumpy old men. LM The one thing I've learned from being around Spock is that he's afraid of his own emotions. If you two are flirting around each other, I'd bet my last bottle of good bourbon that he doesn't know how to handle it. LM

Stranger: You know, all I have to do to shatter that is to ask about your daughter. You do love talking about her ;) JK He's better than you think. Or maybe he's just unaware that he's flirting. I was hoping you would know how Vulcans do this sort of thing. JK

You: Oh, shut up. Just because I love Jo doesn't mean I'm not a grumpy old man. LM Kid, the things that I know would curl your hair. LM If Spock was courting you, you'd know it. If Spock's FLIRTING with you, it's probably a different story. I mean, I doubt he'd be very good at it. Awkward silences, cautious touching. That sort of shit. LM What do YOU know about Vulcans? LM

Stranger: It's rather cute, how much you adore her. Really shatters the illusion, though. JK Considering I have nearly everything the other Spock knew in my head, probably a lot. I just don't want to go through that quite yet. JK Oh, there's plenty of that. I held his hand one time and I think it blew his mind. JK

You: [delay] Oh my god. LM

Stranger: What? JK

You: You held his hand? LM

Stranger: Yeah. JK And we talked. It was nice. JK

You: Right. Alright. LM Vulcan hands aren't like human hands, Jim. They're a lot more... sensitive. LM Gives a whole new meaning to the term "hand job." LM

Stranger: And no one thought to tell me this? JK

Stranger: That would explain a lot, actually. JK

You: I'm not about to go around explaining the nitty gritty of Vulcan biology to everyone on the goddamn ship, Jim. LM Do I dare ask? LM

Stranger: No, but you should to the guy who wants to sleep with him, idiot. JK If you couldn't handle me liking how he's strong, are you sure you want to know more? JK

You: No. I most certainly do not want to know more. Jesus. LM You should talk to him. Because if you've been this clueless, it might be time to have an enlightened conversation with the guy. Stubbornness or not. LM

Stranger: Come on. Might be fun. JK Alright. I will talk to him. What do I say? JK

You: Well, you might wanna start by letting him know you didn't mean to handsex him. LM Or maybe you did, and you start with that. Just please... don't tell me about it. LM

Stranger: You're reading too much into this. If he could read my mind, then he knows I was only thinking about him. JK

You: You sound like a bad romance holo. LM Then... I don't know, Jim, tell him that you want to stop dancing around the fact that you're both head over heels for each other. LM

Stranger: Okay. I'm going to do this. JK

You: Good luck. LM Although I doubt you'll need it. Everyone on the ship has been betting on when you two will finally stop making goo-goo eyes at each other and go for it. LM

Stranger: Who's got money on us already having gone for it? JK

You: Chekov. Overexcited little ass. LM Sulu keeps telling him he's wrong. Chekov's positive you two are fucking behind everyone's backs. LM Quite an imagination he's got, that kid. LM

Stranger: You know how I melded with old Spock? JK I saw a lot of things I don't think he intended me to see. Including that the other Spock, was with the other me. JK

You: Huh. LM

Stranger: Yeah. JK

Stranger: He misses the other me more than anything. JK It's kind of screwed up. JK

You: Yeah. It is. LM But it's also out of our control, kid. LM

Stranger: Alright. I'm going to do it. JK Going to message him. JK

You: Good luck, kiddo. LM

Stranger: [Delayed] It went a bit better than expected. JK

You: Oh? LM

Stranger: Much better. JK

You: How so? LM Do I want to know? LM

Stranger: He's sleeping next to me. So yeah. JK And I have /bruises/. The good kind ;) JK

Stranger: So who wins the pot now? JK

You: Uhura and I. Sulu might also be in the running, I've gotta check. LM

Stranger: You people are awful. JK You do know that Sulu is sleeping with Chekov, right? JK

You: Believe me, I know. LM I won that pot, too. LM

You: Although I might have cheated a little, since Sulu came in for a screening of his own volition and may or may not have mentioned it. LM

Stranger: That's the Bones I know and love. JK You ever going to ask your head nurse out? JK

You: Jesus, Jim. Can't a guy just be lonely for the rest of his life? LM I'm an old man. LM

Stranger: She likes you. You obviously like her. JK Come on. JK

You: I'm too old for her. She deserves better. LM

Stranger: You're not that old. JK And she's not a kid. JK

You: No, but she's a young woman who deserves better than anything I can offer. LM We were talking about you, not me. LM

Stranger: For god's sake, just ask her. I'm sure she'd love to go out with you. JK I know for a fact she would. JK

You: Drop it, Jim. LM

Stranger: I'm going to kick your ass until you do it. JK

Stranger: Leonard, you need to get your life in order. JK

You: My life is as ordered as it needs to be, thank you very much. LM

Stranger: Self-pity is a horrible look on you. JK

You: I've looked the same for years. Glad you see things my way. LM

Stranger: Let yourself be happy. JK

You: Maybe someday. Not today. LM

Stranger: Why not? JK

You: You're happy today. If there's too much happy on one ship, it'll explode. LM

Stranger: Ha ha. JK

You: No, really. It's a scientific fact. LM

Stranger: The other version of you was far more ballsy. JK

You: Glad to hear it. LM Shouldn't you be basking in the afterglow or some shit? LM

Stranger: I'm going to talk to her for you. JK Oh, we are. He says you're bring illogical. JK

You: Don't you dare. LM Great. Tell him he's illogical. LM

Stranger: I'll do it. JK He says that is no argument, and that you need to try, otherwise, you don't really have a reason to act depressed. JK I like him like this. JK

Stranger: I think you deserve to be happy. JK

You: And I think you're insane. We're all entitled to our opinions. LM Look, even if I wanted to do something about it, our ranks make it difficult. LM

Stranger: Who's going to tell on you? Certainly not anyone here. JK

You: If the admiralty finds out, we're all screwed. Both of us, you, probably Spock. LM

Stranger: Spock said the same thing to me. And I asked him how I could promote him, when he's one step below me. And it would be pretty obvious if I made him captain, and stepped down. JK So long as you aren't obviously playing favourites (which you aren't capable of), you're fine. I'll have your back. JK

Stranger: I break rules all the time. And I haven't been thrown out. JK

You: Yeah, well. You're Jim Kirk. LM

Stranger: What does that mean? JK

You: You've saved the universe, Jim. More than once. LM

Stranger: And they still hated that I broke rules doing it. JK

Stranger: My mother especially. JK

You: But you saved the universe anyways. They're not about to throw you out after something like that. Slap your wrist, yes. Throw you out? Not a chance. LM

Stranger: My mother wanted to. JK Then they offered me an admiral position. That's a fate worse than /death/. JK

You: Drama queen. LM

Stranger: A desk job would kill me. JK

You: You'd find some way to make it interesting. LM

Stranger: Sneaking onto another starship, yeah. JK I like what I do. You like what you do. JK

You: That's true. LM

Stranger: Even if you do complain constantly. JK

You: Like I said, I have a reputation to uphold. LM

Stranger: god forbid someone thinks you're nice. JK Though, Chapel does. JK

You: Jim. LM You really aren't going to let this go, are you? LM

Stranger: She really does, though. JK

You: And I'm sure she told you this, is that how you know? LM

Stranger: I might have overheard her talking with Uhura. JK

You: Seriously? LM

Stranger: Mhm. JK

You: Huh. LM

Stranger: Just go for it. JK

You: [long delay] I have a date. LM

Stranger: Told you. JK

You: I have a date. LM I. LM Have a date. LM An actual date. LM I'm pretty sure I've gone space mad. LM

Stranger: What did she say? JK

Stranger: What did you say? JK

You: I said that I would like to take her out on a date the next time we're planetside. LM And she said that she couldn't believe it took this long for me to ask. LM Am I crazy? I have to be. LM

Stranger: You two are about as subtle as spock and I. JK

Stranger: I told you she had noticed. She's not a Vulcan that doesn't understand 'mating rituals', as he calls it. JK

You: No one's as subtle as you two. I doubt we even come close. LM

#my post #spirk rp #spirk roleplay #omegling #omegle rp #omegle roleplay #spirk #christine chapel/leonard mccoy #christine chapel/bones #my rp #roleplay #star trek rp #star trek roleplay #courting rituals

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