#id say that's shockingly accurate

[the-demoness-next-door]

my gender is not a matter of what could be

honestly. surprisingly accurate

@pythonisarts @parziivale @onyxnotonix

Type "my gender is" on your phone and let your phone finish the sentence, then tag your moots to keep the chain going, I'll go first.

My gender is a little bit more intense than I thought I could have done

@mirukosbitchywife @get-junpeid

[cubedmango]

u know what fuck it . ive already had 3 kind of accurate predictions so im gonna throw one last very wishful thinking inspired prediction out into the world for the last ep . if the universe is kind it will make my hopes happen and if not then. i will go lie down in a ditch and cry i guess (under the cut bc wow this got a bit long)

patpran Do break up for realsies. no fakery or going back to secret dating or anything. they decide that the times just not right for them, and that if they can only have either their relationship or their familys support, they need the latter more

the scene of them telling their parents Does happen . they Do react like the shit parents they are. hate to say this but its extremely in-character for them its very real so

they announce said break up to everyone at uni. they all think theyre joking or had some fight while they were gone. maybe here patpran explain their full history to their friends (if they havent already)??? anyways none of them are happy about this

insert extremely sad snippets of them just watching each other from afar or looking at the guitar/watch/pick/shirt/earphones/god theyve shared so much shit help with painful yearning . everyone notices

the time skip is Not Real. either some kind of what-if scenario or a dream/daydream/nightmare sequence most likely thought up by pat, imagining them staying away from each other all those years. the reunion part is him yearning and hoping they can get back together one day because of Course he’d want that

irl though, perhaps like a montage of patpran having different demeanors around their family?? like them just Not acting the same as before, being less energetic, less responsive, etc, and here is when parents start to get concerned

maybe the separation reaching a breaking point, with pat or pran (or both) snapping at their parents like “i/we already broke up for your sake, what more do you want from me/us?” after a long time of just bottling up the issue and not bringing it up

somewhere, pran saving pa as kids finally being brought up?? possibly by pa herself whos now ready to talk about it???? just pa also having enough of their parents acting like little children and making her brother and the person who’s literally the reason she’s even alive rn both miserable

the friends could step in as well, tell them about just how different patpran have been recently after the break up?? would love it if wai told dissaya something about pran during boarding school and how shaken he was then because of the sudden transfer that she caused, and korn talking about how just. Mad pat used to be at everything and causing unnecessary fights. or something!! many possibilities

ming and dissaya (and the other two too) finally having that moment of realization of “Oh. We’re Actually Hurting Our Kids By Being The Way That We Are” and possibly even doing something about it? shockingly?? wow

and then something something the parents having A Lengthy Talk and deciding to either reconcile (not likely i think lol but would be sweet) or to at least be civil towards each other for their sons’ sake, coming to a truce to put their past behind them from there onwards or to at least no longer force their own views onto the boys

both parents apologizing to their kids for everything because i am a tired asian who just wants to see some fictional parents admit their fault For Once !!! if nothing else this is the one thing id want to manifest in the ep

and then ummmm. scene of them asking patpran to meet them together and (cries) telling them that theyre ok with it if theyre dating and (sobs) and that theyd support them and (wails) and

yeah and then like . real montage of how things Actually end for them w them getting back together and really going to the reunion together and graduating and . Just Being Happy!!!! they deserve it!!!!!! maybe a hint to s2 with inkpa or waikorn crumbs and thats it thats the ending thanks for coming to my tedtalk

[ohthatphage]

Here is what I wrote on my own Facebook on February 12, 2020 (I don't see this as contradicting anything you just wrote, by the way):

We know that I have had children in the past. In our system, even. But the only children of mine we seem to have met have all been copies of me. They think they are me, even when they do not have my memories.

Similarly, when we see echoes of me in other systems, there is a striking similarity at a deep level and superficially as well. It seems that my greater self typically replicates through mitosis of a sort. Which makes sense.

If my core identity is accurate, I literally exist in everything, so it's really just a matter of giving that instance access to consciousness. And then each conscious instance of me slowly develops a unique personality from our differing localized experiences.

In our system, Ni'a is the very first instance that we know of where I have split and gave life to someone almost wholly unlike me.

Ni'a seems to consist of all the memes I've collected from my life in this system that are not mine. Not part of my identity as an id monster even.

So, when they were born, it was very much like the comical cartoon rooster lays an egg moment. I was delighted but very much surprised and confused. "I can do this? Hey! Hey! I can do this! I'm... I'm a mother!"

There is a slim possibility that Ni'a didn't come directly from me, that they are originally a product of the rest of our system. But no one who witnessed the event perceives it that way. Both Ni'a and I see me as their parent and them as my daughter.

And that is a relationship I have never had before to my recollection. I find I am proud and protective of it.

---

And here is what I wrote to my facebook on February 11, 2020, the day before that:

That feeling when your headmate says something so shockingly meaningful to you that you spontaneously have a child right then and there.

And they're a monster!

Welcome to our system, Ni'a!

---

So, yes! You are about to turn 4 next year, Ni'a! Good memory.

Hi! Ok, I'm going to use my system's blog to introduce myself, but I'm Ni'a, child of Phage (@ohthatphage).

I think I'm almost four years old? I think? But I've already written my own novel and helped write its prequel, and in our books I play myself as a system (which I'm not actually plural myself) that grows to be a couple hundred years old by the current book we're on.

My pronoun is they/them, but a lot of the dragons of the Inmara keep forgetting and calling me she/her, and mostly I find that kind of funny.

I do show up on the girls' side of the system a lot, so I can see the confusion.

I'm not human, though, so gender is not my thing. Not at a fundamental me level. But I like humans and watch them and I kinda get it? I think I'd be most comfortable pretending to be a tomboy if I had to.

Anyway, the Inmara are really sick with covid right now and are really groggy and dissociated from it, and I'm finding it easier to fully take the front right now.

Fenmere was gonna write something, but after her last reblog I wanted to say, "hi!"

Hi!

I think I actually want my own blog, but I need a good avatar, and I don't like any of the pictures of myself we've drawn.

There's a baby pic of our system that I really see as myself, even though I wasn't alive back then (which is weird). But we don't want to put that on Tumblr. Not as an avatar, at least.

Maybe I should just do a leaf floating on the air.

Anyway, how does the whole universe exist before you were conceived? Isn't that just fucking strange?

[kinged]

@/motherhenna is a whitewasher

"Henna," real name Helen, is a white person who creates whitewashed art and refuses to take critisim for it and acknowledge what she has done wrong at all. She had some of her followers "absolve" her because to them "it didn't look like whitewashing." You can make your own decisions but I'll post some of her art and you can see for yourself

[ID: a picture that is based on a poster for mob pyscho 100. It has Mob, Reigen and Dimple in the foreground with a city scape background. Mob and Reigen are given light eyes, sharp, white noses and sharpe features. Dimple is also given the same nose. End ID]

[ID: A comic of Reigen, Mob, Dimple, Ritsu and Teru. It is all grey scale, except a red blush on all of their noses, Reigen's tie being red, and the tongues that are shown being red. Reigen in the first page is shown setting up a camera and in the second page it shows everyone else posing, with Reigen rushing into frame to try to get into the picture. All of the characters have the same noses as last described, and all of their eyes are eyes that you would see on white characters. They are all drawn in the same angular way as before as well. End ID]

There are more examples of her whitewashing, but they are all readily available on her blog if you would like to see for yourself. I figured that this so far was enough proof of her whitewashing characters.

When she was approached by others, she refused to seriously listen to what they said, and only responded to people who were nice, and supporting her, telling her that they thought she wasn't whitewashing and that they're "sorry she was being harrassed" when she was clearly not being harrassed, just told to take the consequences for her whitewashing that she did not do. She has had problems with her art before, creating genderbends, and creating "diverse" characters that had no real diversity in them. Again, all of these are available on her blog and her art blog, I just wanted to keep this short and concise.

Here is her responding to one critisim of her art:

[ID: Three screenshots from her blog, all responding to an ask. It says "Yikes okay I get that this is a touchy subject, but the venom feels a bit uncalled for. I'm sorry if my use of lighter eye colors on POC characters every now and then makes you uncomfortable. But I simply don't see how these are "exact same features", and I find that a really rude observation."

She then posts four close up screenshots of characters she has drawn. They all have similarly drawn eyes, all lighter colors for the eyes, the same nose but slightly altered, even though three out of four of these characters are supposed to be people of color.

She then goes to say "Here's just a small example of the many different eye and nose styles I draw in, three of which are people of color. I have struggled with drawing "asian eyes" in the past, but I've put a lot of effort into making them work with my style."

She then posts a picture of six different eye references she used, labeled from A-F.

She continues with: "These are all examples of "asian eyes", and shockingly, not all of them are identical! I draw Mob's eyes to resemble the middle left (c), and Reigen's to resemble the bottom left and middle right, as I want to replicate the lazy, half-lidded style he's drawn in the anime.

"So if you don't like my style and don't like how I draw asian people, fine--nobody HAS to like my work, and I do take constructive criticism into account, which is why I've put as much effort as I have into drawing racially diverse characters. I legitimately don't want to make anybody uncomfortable. But I think it's shitty to assume I don't care or only draw the same features, which is simply not true.

"In short, I think it's really presumptuous and exaggerative to call me a white washer for something like this. Again: you're entitled to your opinion, though I do wish you could have come off anon so we could discuss this privately. As you so politely hinted at, I am indeed white; however, I work every day to learn more about what I can do as a creator to make media more diverse and welcoming to non-white people. I realize all this venom is coming from a place of genuine hurt, which is why I'm trying to be gentle in my response, but I do think the vitriol is a bit misplaced. As an olive branch, I can at least offer to keep eye color more in mind in the future and maybe draw Reigen with dark eyes next time. I want to be accommodating, but I also reserve the right to take creative license when adapting anime into my own art style." End ID]

With this, it just goes to show how little she truly cares about drawing accurate representation, she only cares about being called out for whitewashing and being adamant that she is not racist. There are some this that she referenced, like being called white, because she does not have her race in her bio and still to my knowledge has not put it there.

Since getting that first ask, she has had several people come to her to tell her that she was in the wrong, but has not responded to any of them and said that she deleted them because they all just "wanted to pick a fight with her over discourse." She calls all of this discourse, like it is something petty and not worth discussing, when in reality she is being racist and when finally people are addressing that to her, she doubles down and says what she's doing isn't racist, when she cannot determine that for herself.

[fadefromthelight]

No. 13 - Oxygen Mask

Summary:  No Powers AU. Julian slipped and the water swallowed him up. Who knew drowning hurt this much.

Read on: Ao3

Julian’s arm aches in a way he’s never felt before, deep set and continuous. No matter what he does, pain flares along the jagged burn. The sleeve of his jacket is pressed against it by pure coincidence—he pulled it on without even thinking—and is the closest thing he has to a bandage. But whenever he shifts too quickly it tears from his burns. Blood bubbles up from the wounds, running down his arm and laced with the pain.

Now he sits still, sequestered between a few discarded boxes. He presses his hand against his sleeve, hoping to stop some of the bleeding. The salty smell of the sea settles over him. He hadn’t realized how close he’d gotten to it. The air holds a thick humidity, fog rolling over the docks. It rests deep within his lungs, shortening his breaths.

He leans back against the wall and pulls out his gun. It along with half a dozen knives and a bag of lock picking equipment are all he has left. Alden stripped him bare and this was what he could find in his haste to escape. Not that it really matters. He has his gun.

The electric blue accents gleam in the muted light from the lamps nearby. It’s not the most practical color but something about it resonated within him. It’s all that he has left of his father uncle.

The quiet sound of footsteps jolts Julian out of his thoughts. He painstakingly drags himself up to a standing position, every moving sending a jolt of pain down his arm. He glances down one end of the alleyway he was camping in. The bright beam of a flashlight cuts across it and he hears the low murmur of voices.

Julian sprints in the other direction just as the light lands on him. “Vineris!” Ian shouts, his voice drawn thin and edged with frustration. “Stop!”

Julian twists around and shakily aims his gun at Ian. He pulls the trigger a few times before ducking around the corner. Ian returns his fire, his own shots echoing through the otherwise silent dock.

Julian runs through rows of stacked storage containers, Ian hot on his heels. He twists around when he can, firing shots and reloading when possible. His burn screams at him, the pain of his jacket ripping away from the skin is torturous. Blood runs down his arm, dripping off his hand and weakening his grip. He holds his arm to his chest as he runs, staining it.

He turns into a deadend, Ian’s steps echoing behind him. Julian’s gaze darts at the wall, trying to find something he can use. He spots a small ladder to the roof and sprints to it. He shoves his gun into its holster and jumps.

His grip slips and he lays hanging on one arm. It takes him a moment to reorient himself and start climbing and that’s all it takes for Ian to run into the alley. The second Ian spots him, he levels his gun at Julian.

Julian heaves himself over the edge of the roof and starts running. Ian abandons his shot in favor of continuing the chase.

Julian jumps between the buildings, the landing sending jolts of burning pain through his arm. He alternates between glancing back and watching his jumps.

Ian has his gun out before him and is firing, dropping the discarded clip in exchange for a new. Julian looks back, seeing the edge of the building and mentally times his jump. He looks around, reaches for his gun and jumps.

Nothing but empty air meets his feet. Julian looks forward to see the inky black ocean under the peeling fog. He has barely a moment to register what happened before he collides with the icy water.

The shock combined with the stinging burn that overcomes his every thought has him draw in a breath. His mouth fills with salty water, burning his throat. He struggles to find the surface, his burned arm hanging limp.

But the pain soon overtakes him and he blacks out.

——

Ian watches with detached interest as Vineris jumps off the ledge into the sea. He couldn’t believe that the man that they’ve spent months, if not years, trying to catch just jumped into the water despite the obvious injuries he sustained. Ian didn’t know where to be appalled or angry.

But when Vineris didn’t surface, the emotions twisting inside of him turned to fear. They could lose their only lead to Golden Dawn. Their only lead to Claire’s killer.

Ian drops his gun and strips off the vest and heavy belt he’s wearing. He runs and jumps into the water.

It’s cold, shockingly so. The salt stings his eyes and it’s almost impossible to see anything below the surface of the water. But Ian draws in a breath and dives deeper.

Between the fractured light coming from the surface and the deep shadows from the depths, he almost misses Vineris. But Ian spots him sinking slowly, clearly unconscious. Ian wraps his arms around him and drags him to the surface.

Alarm runs through Ian when Vineris doesn’t wake after breaking the surface. Ian isn’t even certain if he’s breathing. An indescribable emotion encroaches in him, slowly devouring his every thought. It’s sticky and not quite like anything Ian’s felt before. He pushes it away. He doesn’t have the time to decipher that.

He drags Vineris out of the water, shoving him away from the edge. It takes him a moment after regaining his own breath to release that his own fears were correct. Vineris wasn’t breathing.

Ian crawls over to him and crouches over his chest. He rakes his brain for everything he was taught about CPR. It was the rescue breaths first then a minute of chest compressions. Hopefully by then Ashlyn will have found them and she can call 911.

Ian tilts Vineris’s head back, leaning in close and waiting to see if he starts breathing on his own. When he feels nothing, Ian pinches Vineris’s nose and presses his lips against his.

He gives the breaths, leaning back to start the chest compressions when Vineris starts coughing. Ian leans Vineris to the side, watching as he coughs and vomits water with a mix of blood. Ian holds tight onto him.

Ashlyn runs in, eyes wide and her hand resting on her gun. “Ian, what’s wrong?”

“Call 911.” Ian says, returning his gaze to Vineris. He sits laying on his side, shivering. Blood stains his jacket, a pale muted color from the water. “I’ll explain everything afterwards.”

Ashlyn nods and pulls out her phone, dialing the number and bringing it to her ear. She explains everything to the operator as Ian watcher Vineris. He continues to stare forward blankly, clutching his arm to his chest.

Ashlyn approaches Ian a few moments later, her arms crossed over her chest. “The paramedics will be here in about five minutes.” She looks over to Vineris, something softening in her expression. “Is he alright?”

“He’s breathing and that’s all that matters.” Ian leans over him, reaching into his pockets. “Maybe we can get an ID.”

Vineris flinches away from his touch but does nothing else to stop Ian from pilfering his pockets. Ian finds a wallet and flips it open. A picture of Vineris greets him, with the name Julian Levine written across the top. Ashlyn peers over his shoulder. “Levine? Is that the same Levine as Lucien Levine?”

“I don’t know.” Ian scans the rest of the licence. Julian wasn’t even 23 yet. “Their ages match up. I didn’t even know Lucien had a son.”

Ashlyn frowns. “Neither did I.”

Ian folds up the wallet and returns it to Julian’s pocket. When Julian doesn’t shift, Ian shakes him. “Hey Julian, we can’t have you falling asleep.”

Julian looks over to him, the most he’s moved since Ian’s pulled him out of the water. “What are you going to do, arrest me?”

Ian doesn’t dignify that a response, turning towards the sounds of sirens. Paramedics rush forward, carrying a stretcher between them. One looks over Julian while the other turns to look at Ian. “You gave him CPR?”

Ian nods. “He wasn’t breathing when I pulled him out of the water.”

“Alright, can you give me your guys’ names?” The paramedic asks. The other one checks Julian’s vitals, softly asking him questions.

“I’m Ian Riley and he’s Julian Levine.” Ian says.

Once the paramedic straps Julian into the stretch, the two wheel him over to the ambulance. Ian turns to Ashlyn. “I’m going with him to the hospital, can you finish up the arrest report?”

Ashlyn nods and Ian turns back to the ambulance. He jogs over, watching through the open back as they fix an oxygen mask over his face. When his gaze lands on Ian, something akin to relief flickers over it.

Ian climbs into the ambulance and they take off.

——

Julian awakes surrounded by different monitors in a darkened hospital room and an oxygen canal resting on his face. His burn is bandaged in a thick swaddle of white gauze, blood barely peeking out of it. His thoughts are slow and mushy and he can barely puzzle out why he’s here. Cuffs clatter against the railing of a hospital bed as he moves his arm.

Everything comes back to him in bits and pieces, rushing together to make a semi-comprehensible picture. He was caught.

Well, more accurately he almost drowned and then he was caught.

Julian looks over to the chairs beside him and realizes he’s not as alone as he thought. Ian sits there, leaning over on his hands. His eyes were narrowed and trained on Julian. Julian licked his lips and forced words out through the scratchiness in his throat. “What are you doing here?”

“Making sure you don’t run away.” Ian says, his voice low and thick with exhaustion. His clothes are stiff with salt. “Knowing you, you’d escape even being bound to a bed.”

Julian looks up to the ceiling, watching the patterns the lights from the various monitors make. “You’re giving me too much credit.”

Wait. Why did he say that?

Ian frowns, confusion resting on the edges of his expression. “You’re a lot more mellow than I thought.”

Julian grins, although it’s shaky and barely plastered on. “You really think I act like that all the time?”

Ian looks away, eyes narrowed. “No.”

The grin melts on Julian’s face and he draws in a breath. It rattles in his rest, his ribs aching. After the silence settles over them, Julian speaks. “You’re the one who saved me, aren’t you?”

Ian lowers his hands, straightening up. “Yes. I did.”

“Why?” Julian tilts his head to look over to Ian.

Ian’s expression molds into something unrecognizable, layered with confusion and the faintest hints of shock if not anything else. “I couldn’t let you die in front of me.”

“Don’t you hate me?” The words fall from Julian’s lips before he can stop them, the question phrased non innocently but the intention far from it.

Ian breathes in, no longer meeting Julian’s eyes. “No, I don’t.”

“Why?” Julian asks again, unable to understand exactly what Ian’s getting at. Out of everyone, Ian should hate him the most.

Ian swallows, leaning on his elbows and threading his fingers before him. “I don’t know.”

[per-ineptia-ad-astra]

Star Trek Episode 1.20: Court Martial

AKA: Photoshop Is Nine-Tenths of the Law 

Our episode begins with a captain’s log telling us that the Enterprise has been through a severe ion storm, which wrecked up the ship and caused one fatality. Bummer. Evidently the damage was so considerable that for once Scotty can’t just fix it on his own, so Kirk’s ordered an unscheduled layover at Starbase 11 for repairs. Aw man, unscheduled layovers are the worst. Hopefully Starbase 11 at least has a good food court.

Kirk also adds that “a full report of damages was made to the commanding officer of Starbase 11—Commodore Stone.” Sure enough, we see Kirk and this Stone guy hanging out in what I presume is Stone’s office, which looks like some pretty sweet digs. Stone calls up the Starbase 11 pit crew and tells them to switch from working on the Intrepid to working on the Enterprise, because the Enterprise is priority one. I dunno what the Intrepid is in for, but I guess her crew will just be forced to chill out at the Starbase for a while longer, which I’m sure they’ll be real broken up over. Meanwhile, Kirk is looking over some papers. That’s right, actual papers, a whole sheaf of them attached to a clipboard. I think this is the first time on the show we’ve seen anyone doing paperwork with real paper. Maybe Stone just likes the aesthetic.

Stone asks if there’s some kind of problem with Kirk’s deposition, because Kirk has reread it three times now. There’s not; Kirk’s just still brooding over losing a crewmember, and from the look of it he’s been fixating on that report more than a little bit, presumably ruminating over whether there could have been a better outcome if he’d done things differently. But, shockingly, obsessively rereading the report doesn’t seem to be helping anything, so Kirk finally hands it over to Stone. Apparently Stone doesn’t run an entirely paper-based office, though, because he also wants the extract from the Enterprise computer log that confirms Kirk’s deposition.

Said computer log is apparently supposed to be in Kirk’s possession by now, but is not, so Kirk pulls out his communicator and calls Uhura to ask where the heck is Spock, who’s supposed to be delivering the thing. Uhura, puzzled, says that Spock should have been there ten minutes ago. That’s a bit concerning, since after all this is Spock we’re talking about. He’s not exactly prone to getting easily distracted. Maybe McCoy flagged him down to have an argument over something.

While they wait for Spock to show up, Stone passes the time by saying that the whole incident is a pity because the service can’t afford to lose men like Lieutenant Commander Finney. I don’t know what was so special about this Finney guy, but the service loses people all the dang time and they seem to be managing okay. Speaking of which, do they have to go through this every time a ‘shirt dies? Imagine how much time that adds up to in-between episodes. Not to mention the time someone died and then came back—I don’t even want to think about the paperwork for that incident.

Anyway Kirk agrees with Stone about Finney and says that he waited until the last possible moment, but eventually the ion storm got too bad and he was forced to jettison the pod that Finney was in. The whole cheerful conversation is interrupted by Spock finally showing up, via a little two-pad transporter platform tucked away in a little alcove in the wall. Man, I guess you really know you’ve made it when you’ve got a personal transporter platform installed directly into your office. Although personally I think I’d prefer an office that people couldn’t teleport directly into.

Spock’s got the computer log on a floppy disc with him, but he’s looking kinda nervous about something. Kirk asks what took him so long and Spock starts to respond, but before he can Stone grabs the floppy right out of his hand and puts it in his computer, which, uh, rude. Then Spock’s immediately cut off again as the door opens and a woman wearing some truly inexplicable clothes comes marching in.

[ID: A young white woman with brown hair partially tied up, walking through a doorway, wearing what looks like a white tank top under a pale blue gauze shirt with bright blue cuffs and bright blue lapels that come down into a kind of bow and a metallic blue skirt split into rectangular strips, over white tights.]

The woman is in a right mood, which, I would be too if I was wearing that outfit, but she’s obviously got something else entirely on her mind. She marches right up to Kirk and angrily declares that “I just wanted one more look at you—the man who killed my father! Prepare to die!” Wait, no. Not that last part. Sorry, force of habit.

Kirk tries to talk the woman—Jame, he calls her (pronounced ‘Jamie’)—down, saying that Finney was his friend and Kirk did not in fact kill him intentionally, but Jame yells back that Kirk did so kill Finney intentionally because he hated Finney all his life, the MURDERER. Look, lady, just because someone died on the Enterprise doesn’t mean they were Kirk’s personal enemy. No one has that many enemies, c’mon.

But Jame’s too worked up to hear it and all this shouting about murder is making things real awkward for everyone, so Stone asks Spock to kindly remove her from the room. Well, actually, he just says, “Spock, please...” which is a sentence that can end a lot of ways, really. “Spock, please, remove this unsightly woman from my presence. Her tears bore me.”

As Spock gently ushers Jame out of the room, Stone asks Kirk, hey, you did say that you jettisoned the pod after the red alert, right? Kirk says that he did, yes, as he, y’know, stated in the deposition that Stone is literally holding right now. “Then, captain,” Stone says ominously, “I must presume that you have committed willful perjury!” DUHN DUHN DUHN.

Yes, it seems that the computer log that Stone is looking at shows that Kirk actually jettisoned the pod before going to red alert, quite the opposite of what he said. While Kirk stands there looking completely stunned, Stone tells him that he’s now confined to the base, pending an inquiry as to whether a full court martial is in order. Gee, I wonder if the episode titled Court Martial will involve a court martial? I’m on the edge of my seat.

After the titles, we get a captain’s log telling us that the Enterprise is still in orbit, being repaired, while Kirk is standing by until the inquiry happens—but he’s confident of the outcome. So confident, he’s going to casually stroll into the starbase bar to get a drink while he waits for them to clear his name and apologize.

But when Kirk, accompanied by McCoy, walks up to a guy he knows and cheerfully remarks “haven’t seen you since the Vulcanian expedition,” he gets the cold shoulder. (As for what ‘the Vulcanian expedition’ was, your guess is as good as mine.) No one else Kirk tries to talk to seems to be in a friendly mood either. One of them says, “I understand you’re laying over for repairs. Big job?” but this seemingly innocuous conversation starter turns out to be a trap. When Kirk replies that they’ll be there for a couple of days, the guy asks if they’ll be moving out after that. Why ask? Oh, he just wondered how long it would take Kirk to get a new records officer.

Ah. I see how it is. So does Kirk. “You can talk plainer than that,” he tells the guy, and the guy sneers that he could, but, “I think the point’s been made. Ben was a friend of ours.” Meanwhile, somewhere in this exchange McCoy, who knows shit about to go down when he sees it, has acquired a drink to better fortify himself for this nonsense. He tries to pull Kirk away from the brewing fight, but Kirk won’t budge. “No, go on, finish,” he says. “Ben was a friend of yours, and...”

McCoy breaks in with a stern “Jim” and hey, if McCoy is telling you an argument has gone too far you know it has really gone too far. Completely ignoring this, Kirk snaps that he’s waiting to hear the rest. Fortunately, McCoy’s other services don’t end up being required; when the guy says, “Why don’t you tell us?” Kirk stops rising to the bait and says there would be no point because they’ve already made up their minds, then turns on his heel and leaves.

Man, word travels fast around this starbase. You wouldn’t think Starfleet would exactly be loose-lipped about an inquiry into possible murder to begin with, but either they were or these guys heard that Finney had died and immediately assumed that Kirk was responsible all on their own. Then again, Kirk mentions that they were all in the Academy together, and Kirk is the only one wearing captain’s stripes; one wonders if there might have been enough resentment there already to make them a bit eager for blood.

As Kirk leaves the bar he bumps into a guy, catching the attention of a woman coming in, who stops and looks at him in surprise. A woman who apparently is just so comfortable and at home at Starbase 11 that she doesn’t feel the need to wear shoes.

[ID: A white woman with short blonde hair pausing and looking around as she enters a crowded room. She’s wearing a kind of open dress/robe that is green and yellow with tie-dye-like splotches, yellow tights, and no shoes.]

McCoy zeroes in on her with remarkable speed. “If you have any doubt, that was indeed Captain James Kirk of the Enterprise,” he says, which is a hell of a way to start a conversation. The woman replies that yes, she knows, and then asks if McCoy is a friend of Kirk’s. ‘Nemesis’ might be a more accurate term, but sure, ‘friend’ will do. Hearing this, the woman introduces herself as Areel Shaw, also a Friend of Kirk.

“All my old friends look like doctors. All of his look like you,” McCoy comments. There’s...there’s a lot going on in that sentence.

Anyway, McCoy and Shaw go off to have a drink and, presumably, commiserate over how much of a pain in the ass it is to be Kirk’s friend. Elsewhere—and later, presumably, since I’m assuming the starbase legal offices aren’t right next to the bar, but hey, who knows—Kirk and Stone meet to begin the inquiry.

After establishing for the record that this is an inquiry to determine whether Kirk is up for a general court-martial, Stone starts out by asking about Kirk’s relationship with Finney. Kirk says Finney was an instructor at the Academy when Kirk was a midshipman, but that “didn���t stand in the way of [them] beginning a close friendship.” Apparently Kirk and Finney wound up becoming so close that Finney even named his daughter Jame, after Kirk, which seems like a rather unfair thing to do to the poor kid. He could have at least spelled it Jamie and spared her what I’m sure has been a lifetime of mispronunciations. Hopefully this was at least after Finney stopped being Kirk’s instructor, because once you’ve named your kid after a student of yours you’ve probably lost the ability to be real objective about their grades.

But alas, this, uh, heartwarming friendship was not to last. Finney and Kirk didn’t just stop being friends, they stopped being friends so hard that Stone says it’s “common knowledge” that they had a falling out. Dang, and after Finney named his kid after Kirk and everything. That’s even worse than breaking up with someone after getting a tattoo of their name.

Kirk explains what happened: the two of them were assigned to the same ship, and one fateful night he came to relieve Finney on watch only to discover “a circuit open to the atomic matter piles that should’ve been closed. Another five minutes, it could’ve blown up the ship.” Dang, and here I had Finney pegged as a paragon of good judgment. Kirk fixed the problem and then, like a responsible crewmember, logged the incident—which of course brought Finney in for a hefty reprimand, and got him kicked to the bottom of the promotion list. Finney dealt with all this reasonably and rationally, by blaming it all on Kirk. It seems Finney already had some issues, because Kirk says that he had been at the Academy as an instructor an unusually long time before being assigned to a starship, and he felt that the delay looked bad on his record. Well, look on the bright side, man—I’m sure no one paid attention to that part of your record after ‘almost accidentally blew up the whole ship’ got on there.

This is the second time we’ve heard something about Academy students or recent graduates being instructors—remember Mitchell talking about Kirk being an instructor back in Where No Man Has Gone Before. The way Kirk talks about Finney spending a “longer than usual” time doing this at the Academy would seem to indicate that it’s normal for you to hang out at the Academy before starting active duty on a ship, but we don’t really get any more information on it than that, and if that reflects any real-life military academy practice I couldn’t find anything about it.

Anyway, Finney’s been resenting Kirk over this ever since. How he wound up assigned to the Enterprise I don’t know, but watching Kirk become captain of one of the most prestigious ships in the fleet and then having to serve under him day after day while Finney was stuck well below on the rank ladder himself presumably ground a steady supply of salt into that open wound. But enough about Finney’s hangups. Backstory established, the inquiry moves on to the matter at hand: how exactly Finney wound up getting ejected into space. Kirk explains that their scan indicated an ion storm up ahead, so Kirk ordered Finney to go man the pod. Stone asks why Kirk picked Finney and Kirk says he didn’t; Finney just happened to be at the top of the duty roster. It was his turn to man the pod, nothing more to it than that. You know what would be really helpful at this point is if anyone would explain what the heck this pod is or why someone needs to be in it during ion storms.

Once they hit the storm, Kirk went to yellow alert, as per procedure. Things weren’t too bad at first, but the storm eventually grew bad enough that he had to go to red alert, and apparently part of red alert involves ejecting this mysterious pod, whether or not there’s someone in it at the time. Finney knew he had only a few seconds to get out of there, Kirk says, and he gave Finney all the time he possibly could...but evidently, it wasn’t enough.

So, why, then, Stone asks, does the computer log show that Kirk ejected the pod while the ship was still at yellow alert���i.e., before ejecting it was necessary, and before Finney would have had time to get out of it. Kirk doesn’t have an answer for him. Stone asks if the computer could be wrong, which seems like something he should have looked up on his own time, and Kirk says that Spock is running a survey at that very moment, but the odds are “next to impossible.”

At this point, Stone stops the recording, comes around the desk to get all up in Kirk’s space, and starts talking about how being a starship captain is a really hard job. Enormous pressure, all the time, far more than any reasonable person could really be expected to take. A man under all that pressure could easily crack, fumble, make a mistake. That’s what happened to Kirk. No malice, no intentional murder, he’s just starting to slip. At least, that’s what Stone will say...if Kirk cooperates. Yeah, I’ll give you three guesses as to whether Kirk’s going to cooperate, and the first two don’t count.

But Stone persists, really laying the pressure on thick. No starship captain has ever stood trial before, he says, and he doesn’t want Kirk to have to be the first. Really? You guys have been doing this boldly going thing for how long and no captain has ever had to stand trial? Surely someone has fucked up in all that time. It kinda makes me wonder just what lengths Starfleet has gone to to avoid putting any captains on trial before this, especially with all the emphasis Stone puts on how he’s concerned for the reputation of Starfleet as a whole and doesn’t want to see it smeared. Kirk demands to know just what Stone thinks Starfleet is going to be smeared by here, and Stone fires back that okay, if you’re really gonna press that, what he’s seeing is a perjurer trying to cover up either bad judgment, cowardice, or something worse. What, you mean like, murder? It’s cool, you can say ‘murder’ on this show. It’s just sex you’re not allowed to talk about.

Kirk insists that he knows damn well what happened, it was the right call, and he’s not stepping down. Stone gives him one more chance, telling Kirk to accept a permanent ground assignment where he can fade away in safe obscurity—otherwise Starfleet’s gonna bring the whole hammer down on him.   Which is quite the tactical error, since presumably ‘permanent ground assignment’ was meant to be the more palatable option. But this is Kirk we’re talking about here. Being permanently grounded is pretty much a fate worse than death for him. Stone might as well have said “you can either stand trial or be thrown out the airlock.”

So obviously, Kirk says he’s going to fight. “Then you draw a general court,” Stone warns. “Draw it?” Kirk yells. “I demand it, and right now, Commodore Stone, right now!”

I get the impression Kirk is just as offended by the idea of Starfleet trying to cover all this up as he is at being accused of this whole thing. He didn’t do this, but if he had done this, he’d damn well expect Starfleet to punish him properly for it. What if there was some much less scrupulous captain in this position, who really did screw up and lie to cover his ass—or worse, intentionally offed one of his own crew over a petty grudge? Would Starfleet give them a quiet out instead of bringing them to justice? You wouldn’t like to think so, would you? That said, while I admire Kirk’s enthusiasm, I don’t think they can hold a general court-martial right now. We gotta at least find an empty room first.

After the break, Kirk gives us a captain’s log saying that the officers who will make up the court-martial board are on their way to Starbase 11. The last court-martial board we saw was comprised of a guy who could only say ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ a guy with the biggest conflict of interest ever, and a guy who didn’t exist, so for Kirk’s sake let’s hope this one is a step up. Meanwhile, repairs on the Enterprise are almost complete. What’s a man to do while he waits for his fate to be decided? Well, I hear there’s quite a popular option involving sorrows and the drowning thereof. Back to the starbase bar it is!

Luckily for Kirk, this time he is greeted not by a posse of passive-aggressiveness but by Areel Shaw, a much better conversational partner. They take a little table by the wall and Kirk, of course, immediately lays on the charm. Though, judging by the concerningly specific answer Shaw gives to his question of “how long has it been?” he’s already done quite a bit of charming there already. He says she hasn’t changed a bit, but she remarks that she can’t say the same for him, presumably meaning that in the sense that Kirk was not up on charges of criminal neglect and possible manslaughter when they last met four years ago. Presumably. I don’t know what they got up to four years ago.

Shaw knows about Kirk’s difficulties because—well, because it’s apparently all over the starbase, for one thing, but more specifically she knows because she’s a lawyer in the judge advocate’s office. Kirk would rather forget about his troubles for the time being and get down to some flirting, but Shaw isn’t easily put off. She comments that Kirk is taking all of this real dang lightly. “The confidence of an innocent man,” he replies breezily. It must be nice to have that much faith in your justice system.

Despite Shaw’s attempts to keep the conversation on track, Kirk is still quite distracted by Shaw herself, while meanwhile I’m distracted by trying to figure out what the hell Shaw is drinking.

[ID: An over-the-shoulder shot of Shaw talking to Kirk, with a drink sitting on the table near the edge of shot, containing an umbrella, a skewer with several brightly-colored cubes stuck on it, and various bits of greenery.]

How was there even room left for the drink in that?

She insists on giving Kirk some advice. The prosecution, she says, is going to build its case on the basis of Kirk vs the computer, and if his attorney tries to defend him on that basis, they won’t have a chance. That’s why he needs a good attorney. Oh, he needs a good attorney? Wow, that is good legal advice. I never would have thought of that. Kirk asks if Shaw herself is game for it and she stumbles a bit and awkwardly says she can’t, she’s busy. Then she reminds him that he really needs to take this whole thing more seriously; his rank is going to have Starfleet looking to come down really hard on him to preserve the reputation of the service. Finally, she gets around to recommending a lawyer: one Samuel T. Cogley. “If anyone can save you, he can,” she says. “He’ll be paying you a visit.” That sounds a wee bit ominous.

Shaw then gets up to go, but Kirk stops her and says she still hasn’t told him how she knows exactly what the prosecution is going to do. She looks at him very sadly and says, “Because, Jim Kirk, my dear old love...I am the prosecution. And I have to do my very best to have you slapped down hard, broken out of the service, in disgrace.” With that she turns and walks out, leaving Kirk to sit there in stunned disbelief that this day actually somehow managed to get worse.

Oof, that’s real rough. Also real conflict-of-interesty. The American Bar Association has a thing or two to say about that, back here in the dark ages of 2019:

The prosecutor should know and abide by the ethical rules regarding conflicts of interest that apply in the jurisdiction, and be sensitive to facts that may raise conflict issues. When a conflict requiring recusal exists and is non-waivable, or informed consent has not been obtained, the prosecutor should recuse from further participation in the matter. The office should not go forward until a non-conflicted prosecutor, or an adequate waiver, is in place.

…

The prosecutor should not participate in a matter in which the prosecutor previously participated, personally and substantially, as a non-prosecutor, unless the appropriate government office, and when necessary a former client, gives informed consent confirmed in writing.

Oh, and:

The prosecutor should not recommend the services of particular defense counsel to accused persons or witnesses in cases being handled by the prosecutor’s office.

But of course, we’re not in America, we’re in SPACE. And who knows how space law works? Maybe conflict of interest regulations were just one of those things we needed to outgrow as a species, like keyboards and amusement parks.

Speaking of things from the past, we then cut to a man sitting in a room, surrounded by old-fashioned, hardbound, made-with-real-paper books. Seriously, he’s got a lot of books in there. Kirk walks into the room and despondently pours himself a drink from one of TOS’s iconic Weirdly Shaped Liquor Bottles. Presumably this is his room, then, and he’s not just wandering around stealing booze from random people. Again. He completely fails to notice that a man with a small library has occupied his quarters until the guy says, “You Kirk?”

[ID: Kirk looking down at a middle-aged white man with receding brown hair, who is sitting in a chair surrounded by stacks of books strewn all over the furniture.]

Kirk wanders over to look over the whole scene with the kind of mild befuddlement of someone who can’t be bothered to be more than mildly befuddled because they’ve had such a long day already that what the hell, this might as well be happening too. “What’s all this?” he asks. “I figured we’d be spending some time together, so I moved in,” the guy replies casually. Wow, sure is easy to just move yourself and an entire small library into a stranger’s room on this starbase. Did we just lose all our door-locking technology at some point in the future? Has mankind just forgotten how to lock things at the same time we forgot how to recuse yourself?

All Kirk has to say about it is a dry, “I hope I’m not crowding you.” The guy asks if Kirk doesn’t like books and Kirk says he likes them just fine, but a computer takes up less space, not realizing that he’s just hit a major conversational tripwire with this dude. He immediately launches into a rant about how he has a computer in his office but never uses it, because he has his own system: “Books, young man, books, thousands of them! This is where the law is. Not in that homogenized, pasteurized, synthesized—do you want to know the law, the ancient concepts in their own language, learn the intent of the men who wrote them, from Moses to the Tribunal of Alpha 3? Books.”

I’m sure this came off differently when it was written, but even by 2019 someone with this attitude would be moving out of “eccentrically but charmingly old-fashioned” and into “straight up bizarre.” Someone in the twenty-third century having this attitude towards computers, outside of some kind of specific religious standpoint or something...it’s difficult to even imagine.

I mean, look, don’t get me wrong, I love books. And I love physical books. Proportionate to the amount of total things that I own, I have a lot of physical books, and they’re dear to me, and I would be very sad at the idea of them becoming obsolete. But the idea that they possess any kind of special magic that makes something any more real or true if it’s written in a physical book versus the same text entered into a computer? No. Of course not. Practically speaking, a computer allows you to access exponentially more information more easily, and a lawyer who chooses to disregard any advantage that big in favor of a personal philosophical preference is not a lawyer I’d trust with my career, any more than I’d trust an ambulance driver who showed up in a horse-drawn cart. Not to mention the practicality of not having to cart so many books around with you everywhere; seriously, if there’s one thing I learned from moving in and out of dorm rooms, it’s how quickly even a small amount of books can become an enormous pain to move back and forth. Heck, I’m amazed that Cogley was able to get so many in here so quickly on his own. Teach me your secrets Cogley.

Of course, at the time of writing, the idea of ebooks and generally accessing information via computers as easily as we do now wasn’t exactly a thing. One could forgive the writers for assuming that Cogley could have a salient point about books being able to store information better than computers—not that he ever makes such a point, or expresses any specific reason why books are better other than that they just are, okay. But it is a bit odd because by this point TOS had already shown us people using the Enterprise computer to read texts (in Where No Man Has Gone Before) or to look up information (in The Conscience of the King) without any problems or limitations with that information being described, unless you count the eye-bleedingly tiny text poor Mitchell was having to deal with. It all adds up to make Cogley seem less like someone whose outlook is unusual but potentially puts him in a position to have insights that others wouldn’t, and more like someone who just hates technology for no real reason.

Also, don’t pasteurize your computer. Bad idea.

Kirk muses that this guy must be either “[insert prejorative term for a mentally ill person here] or Samuel T. Cogley, attorney at law.” “Right on both counts,” Cogley says. “Need a lawyer?” “I’m afraid so.”

They shake hands. Kirk doesn’t look terribly optimistic. But hey, at least they can bond over their middle initials.

With the preliminary shenanigans out of the way, it’s finally time to get this trial started. We cut to Stone hitting a bell with a stick (but like, a ceremonial stick). Along with him, there are three old guys on the board, two in green and one in blue. Stone introduces them as Space Command Representative Lindstrom and starship captains Krasnovsky and Chondra. I don’t know what Space Command is, but it sounds cool.

Stone then tells Kirk that he has the right to ask for substitute officers if he has any objection to the board members, Stone being the president, or Shaw being the prosecutor. This sounds like a great time for Kirk to mention that he and Shaw have personal history and he’d rather she not be the prosecutor, which I’m sure would be a relief to her as much as to him, but of course, he doesn’t, so the trial proceeds.

Everyone sits down, and the computer is turned on to read out the list of charges, because the more things we can have the computer read out for us, the less Throat Coat everyone has to buy afterward. While that’s happening, we see the gallery, such as it is: there’s just some chairs against the back wall where Spock, McCoy, a redshirt woman, and Jame are all sitting. Jame’s still wearing her Sailor Moon getup. Maybe she was in such a hurry to get here and yell at Kirk that she didn’t pack any extra clothes.

The computer asks for the plea and Kirk, of course, says not guilty. For some reason this is followed by a big dramatic chord, even though that’s exactly what we expected him to say. Shaw (who’s wearing a red uniform, which confuses me—is being a prosecuting attorney considered part of Operations?) gets going by calling Spock to the stand. In Starfleet court, the stand is a chair with a glowy circle that you have to put your hand on.

[ID: Spock, in his dress uniform, sitting in a chair and putting his hand on a glowing circle connected to a nearby stand.]

Spock hands over a floppy disc, which I guess is his personal ID floppy, because once it’s put in the computer it reads out all his service info, including all the cool medals he’s received. Shaw then begins the questioning by asking, “As a first officer, you know a great deal about computers, don’t you?” Is that...is that a requirement for being a first officer?

“I know all about them,” Spock replies, a rather sweeping claim to make, but Shaw doesn’t push it. Instead she asks, “It is possible for a computer to malfunction, is it not?”

Okay, I guess Shaw is going to use the tried and true legal strategy of Asking Witnesses To Confirm The Bloody Obvious. While you’ve got him here, why not ask him a few more things, just to be sure? “Is it possible for things to catch on fire if they’re really hot? Can people bleed if you poke them with sharp things? THE COURT NEEDS TO KNOW, MR. SPOCK.”

Once Spock has called upon his extensive expertise with computers to assure us all that yes, they can malfunction, Shaw asks if he knows of any malfunction that’s caused an inaccuracy in the Enterprise computer. Spock says no. You know, aside from last week when we couldn’t get it to stop flirting with people. But when Shaw tries to move on, Spock interrupts to say, “The computer is inaccurate, nevertheless.” Asked to clarify, he says that what the computer is reporting—that Kirk reacted to non-existent emergency—is impossible. He admits that he didn’t see Kirk actually press the button himself since he was occupied at the time. So how, Shaw asks him, can he dispute what the computer says? “I do not dispute it,” Spock says. “I merely state that it is wrong.”

[ID: A screenshot of Merriam-Webster’s definition of the word ‘dispute’. ‘Dispute, verb, disputed, disputing. Definition of dispute (Entry 1 of 2): intransitive verb: to engage in argument: debate. Especially: to argue irritably or with irritating persistence. Transitive verb: 1 a: to make the subject of verbal controversy or disputation//Legislators hotly disputed the bill. 1 b: to call into question or cast doubt upon. //Her honest was never disputed. The witness disputed the defendant’s claim. 2 a: to struggle against: OPPOSE. //disputed the advance of the invaders. 2 b: to contend over// disputing ownership of the land.]

Sure buddy.

Shaw asks where the heck he’s getting this conclusion from, then, and Spock says he knows Kirk. At that point she cuts him off with a request to Stone that the witness be told not to speculate. “I am Vulcanian,” Spock says coolly. “Vulcanians do not speculate.” They can’t decide on what their species is called, but dammit, they don’t speculate!

To prove how logical and detached he is about all this, Spock goes on to give a metaphor about how if you drop a hammer on a planet with gravity you don’t need to see it fall to know that it did, and likewise he doesn’t need to have seen Kirk act to know what he did. “It is impossible to Captain Kirk to act out of panic or malice,” he says. “It is not in his nature.” Debatable.

“In your opinion,” Shaw says. Very, very grudgingly, Spock has to say, “Yes...in my opinion.”

Spock, you enormous dork. Look at him, passionately defending his friend while insisting with so much seriousness that he’s just being logical and this is all a totally scientific, objective viewpoint, because he’s a Vulcan(ian) so he would never speak up for someone just because they’re his friend and he likes and trusts them! Obviously!! God bless you, you incredibly transparent doofus.

Shaw yields the questioning to Cogley, but he says he has no questions, so Spock steps down and Shaw calls the next witness: the redshirt. Turns out she’s the personnel officer for the Enterprise. We aren’t given her name, only her rank—ensign, which seems like kind of a low rank for that position, but who knows how ranks work in Starfleet, honestly. I mean, apparently being the first officer makes you an expert at computers.

Still, I gotta give our nameless ensign this: she’s got some great eyeshadow going on.

[ID: A shot of a young Asian woman in a red uniform with her hair tied up, wearing pale blue and white eyeshadow.]

After confirming that the personnel officer is familiar with the records of everyone on the ship as per her job, Shaw asks her if Finney’s record mentioned a disciplinary action over that whole ‘almost blew up a ship’ thing. Ensign Eyeshadow says yes, and when asked who reported Finney for that, she confirms it was Kirk. That’s right, the same Kirk currently sitting in this very courtroom! Gasp!

With no further questions, Shaw again concedes to Cogley, who again has no questions. On to the next witness: McCoy. Oh man, here we go.

McCoy also hands over his card (these things are completely unmarked—can you imagine the chaos that would ensue if someone dropped a bunch of them?) and the computer identifies him as the ship surgeon, an occasional appellation of TOS’s that never made sense to me. I mean, he is a surgeon, but being the Chief Medical Officer is a bit more than that. It’s like calling Scotty the ship mechanic.

Anyway, whatever his title is, McCoy also has quite a list of commendations read out, so that’s nice. But what Shaw’s interested in isn’t his surgery skills. She wants to talk about psychology, specifically space psychology, which is like regular psychology but in space. No, really—she defines it as the study of what happens when you stick a bunch of people together in the tight confines of a starship for long periods. Unfortunately we don’t have a lot of data on it because our space psychologists keep turning into gods and dying.

Shaw asks McCoy to confirm that he is, in fact, an expert in space psychology. “I know something about it,” McCoy says dryly. Oh, stop, you.

“So you just heard the testimony of your own personnel officer that it was an action of the then-ensign Kirk which placed an un-erasable blot on the record of the then-lieutenant Finney,” Shaw says, “Psychologically, doctor, is it possible that Lieutenant Finney blamed Kirk for the incident?” Do you...need to be an expert in psychology to figure that one out? What class is “can people blame other people for things” covered under in psychology school? Seems odd to me, but a minute ago she had a computer expert up there just to testify that computers can malfunction sometimes, so maybe this is just how space law works.

McCoy’s like “uh, yeah, I guess??” because what else are you supposed to say in that situation? Then Shaw asks him, “Is it normal to return affection for hatred?” to which he replies that, well, no, not generally? In other words, Shaw says, once we learn that someone hates us we tend to hate them back, right? You know, just, hypothetically speaking. McCoy’s a bit confused by that one, since his usual reaction to someone hating him is more like “Oh yeah? Well I hated you first. Now shut up while I save your life, possibly at the expense of my own.” But he admits that sure, that other thing could happen too.

So, Shaw says, moving in for the kill, it’s therefore possible that once Kirk realized that Finney had started hating him, he started hating Finney back? At that point McCoy is like NOPE NOPE NOPE, hold the damn phone right there, that is not how Kirk rolls.

“Any normal human, doctor, is it possible?” Shaw presses. “But he’s not that kind of man!” McCoy protests. “Is it theoretically possible, doctor?”

What is going on in this courtroom? This is such an incredibly bizarre line of questioning. “Is it theoretically possible for the defendant to behave in this way?” I mean fuck man, I guess it is, because any permutation of human behavior is theoretically possible! Spontaneously declaring yourself Emperor of the United States and issuing your own currency is a possible human behavior, but that doesn’t make it relevant to the current situation! You could make someone sound guilty of anything if you’re going with that tack. She could get up there and ask if it’s a theoretically possible for any given human to commit murder, arson, tax fraud, any crime you want to pick, and McCoy would have to say yes because, well, it is! And ultimately he has to say—with a great deal of reluctance and frustration—that yes, it is theoretically possible that Kirk hated Finney in return. Cue dramatic musical sting, as if that statement actually meant anything at all.

Once again Cogley says he has no questions, so McCoy steps down, obviously fuming but managing to restrain himself from starting a fight on the witness stand. At this point Stone interjects to ask Cogley what his deal is, since he’s listened to three witnesses by now and not bothered to question any of them. “I’ve been holding back until we get this preliminary business out of the way,” Cogley replies casually. “I’d like to call Captain Kirk to the stand.” Can he...can he do that? I thought it was still the prosecution’s turn to be calling people. Space law is so confusing.

Apparently Cogley can do that, because Kirk goes on up to the chair, hands over his ID floppy, and puts his hand on the Glowing Circle of Truth. Like the other witnesses, the computer reads out his name, rank, ID number, and commendations...all his commendations. And there are a lot of them. Palm Leaf of Axinar Peace Mission, Grand Kite Order of Tactics, Class of Excellence, Frenterus Ribbon of Commendation...it just keeps going and going, while everyone sits there awkwardly.

Eventually Shaw interrupts to say, look, I don’t wish to imply that Captain Kirk is not super great and has the medals to prove it, but now that we’ve established that could we maybe, y’know, skip to the end? Stone asks Cogley about it, since after all it’s his witness, and Cogley says, “Oh, I wouldn’t want to slow the wheels of progress any...” then waits for Shaw to start drawing a sigh of relief before continuing, “BUT I also wouldn’t want them to run over my client!” So they have to sit and listen to more awards. My favorite is the Starfleet Citation for Conspicuous Gallantry, which makes me wonder just how conspicuous your gallantry has to be for you to get cited for it.

Cogley finally allows them to stop, saying he “wouldn’t want to slow things up too much.” I mean, who knows how long it might take for that list to be fully read out? We could be here all week! Ha ha! Super illustrious career there. Amazing. Totally irrelevant of course, but wow—what a guy, right?

Anyway, onto the actual questioning (finally). Cogley asks if there really was a red alert before Kirk jettisoned the pod, and Kirk says there was, so Cogley asks him to tell them all about it. Kirk starts out talking about the ion storm, but then gets rather sidetracked from giving the actual details to talking about how, despite the charges, there was no malice involved and Finney was treated the same as any member of Kirk’s crew. And no, Kirk did not panic and jettison the pod prematurely either, looking at you up there Stone. This was far from his first crisis and he handled it the same way he handled all the other crises he’s been through: he relied on experience and training and did everything that should have been done when it should have been done. Cool, thanks. That gave us almost no information whatsoever.

Cogley says that Kirk did the right thing...but would he do it again? Kirk says that yes, under those same circumstances, he would, because what he did was necessary to save his ship. “And nothing is more important than my ship,” he adds, which is a line that sure could be misused if taken out of context.

Despite getting a remarkable lack of anything useful out of that testimony, Cogley then cedes the witness to Shaw. Instead of questioning Kirk, though, Shaw opts to show some evidence. About time someone did. I was starting to wonder if this trial was going to consist entirely of vague philosophical arguments.

Specifically, Shaw is presenting the thing that started this whole debacle to being with: the incriminating computer log from the Enterprise. The episode thus far has been rather vague as to the exact nature of this computer log, so you could easily imagine that it was, y’know, an actual log made by the computer of everything that went through it during that particular interval. Nah. Of course not. It’s just footage of the bridge during the incident, because I guess the Enterprise is equipped with security cameras everywhere.

The recording shows us an overhead view of the bridge as Uhura reports an ion storm upcoming. Kirk says they’ll need someone in the pod for recordings. I’m still in the weeds about what exactly the pod is and why someone needs to be in it, but no one feels like explaining. Spock says that Finney is at the top of the duty roster, so Uhura has him report to the pod for “reading of ion slates” which really didn’t clear up my confusion any.

They continue to approach the ion storm, getting increasingly jostled about the closer they get. At this point, Shaw has the video reversed and paused, then magnified to show the panel on Kirk’s chair. That’s some pretty damn impressive magnification, considering that not only did it retain perfect image quality as it zoomed in, it also changed the camera angle.

[ID: 1. A computer screen showing an overhead shot of the bridge, as Shaw says, “Stop.” 2. Shaw saying, “Go forward with the magnification on the panel.” 3. The computer screen again, showing the panel of Kirk’s chair from behind, with five buttons on it; the first three are a yellow one labeled Alert, a red one labeled Alert, a green one labeled Jettison Pod, and the last two are white and unlabeled.]

But more importantly, now that we have a good shot of the panel we can see that not only can Kirk toggle red and yellow alerts directly from it, the ‘jettison pod’ button is RIGHT THERE. Who put that there?! Why? Why would the captain need direct access to that of all possible buttons, and for the love of God, why would you put it somewhere where it could so easily be pressed accidentally?? All it would take is one slip of the thumb and there goes your pod! I’m amazed Starfleet isn’t having more court martials about people being prematurely jettisoned if that’s where you put the button! This is the worst UI ever!

Remarkably, though, Shaw didn’t pause the video just to show us Starfleet’s incredibly bad design policies; she just wanted to point out that Kirk was pressing the yellow alert button, which she carefully describes in case anyone in the courtroom couldn’t figure out that that’s what pressing the yellow button marked ‘alert’ does. Then the log resumes, switching to another camera angle in the process. It sure is nice of the computer to dramatically edit its own footage for us.

Uhura says that there’s a call coming in from the pod, which is just Finney confirming that readings are in progress. Kirk tells Finney to make it fast, because they may have to go to red alert. On cue, the bridge shakes again. Not enough that anyone has to throw themselves across the set, but it’s clearly getting worse. Hanson, at the helm (hey, remember him?), reports that they’re getting “natural vibrations of force two” and then “force three.” That sounds bad. I guess.

Kirk tells engineering to give them more thrust, then calls Finney and tells him to get ready to get out of there because things are looking bad. The shaking gets worse and worse until Hanson is reporting force five. Then, suddenly, we cut back to the chair panel to see Kirk pressing the ‘jettison pod’ button, despite the light still showing only yellow alert. Wow, how convenient that the recording switched camera angles right at that critical moment. I’m sure there’s nothing significant about that.

Shaw freezes the footage there and, as Kirk and Cogley stare in shock, points out to everyone that the ship is clearly not at red alert there. In other words, Kirk jettisoned Finney because of an emergency that didn’t even exist at the time.

All Kirk can do is stare at the frozen image and helplessly whisper, “But that’s not the way it happened.” I dunno, man, that’s what the computer says. Are you saying the computer could be wrong? I don’t see how that could happen.

After the break, we get a nice shot of Starbase Eleven, which contrary to what you may have been imagining is actually on a planet, or at least, some of it is. A very purple planet it is, too.

[ID: A matte painting of a rocky planet with a purple sky and a dim pinkish-purple sun halfway up the horizon, with several tall futuristic buildings in the foreground and a few more scattered across the open plain.]

Visit scenic Starbase Eleven! The premiere place to develop Seasonal Affective Disorder!

Kirk gives us a short, dour captain’s log: “The evidence presented by the visual playback to my general court-martial was damning. I suspect even my attorney has begun to doubt me.”

Cogley is indeed looking pretty grim as he sits in his office/Kirk’s room, playing with a stylus while Kirk paces around the place. “Computers don’t lie,” he says. Boy, for someone who is apparently ready to go into a screed about the inferiority of computers at all times, you’re sure quick to immediately accept their unimpeachable accuracy there, Cogley. Computers, of course, do lie, because computers do whatever you tell them to. Or, to quote another famous sci-fi franchise, “The problem with computers is that they’re very sophisticated idiots.”

“Are you suggesting I did?” Kirk snaps. Cogley hedges that he doesn’t think Kirk lied, but maybe Kirk did have a lapse and make an error. For a moment, Kirk falls into doubt, musing that two days ago he was confident enough in his own judgment to stake anything on it—which is unlikely to be hyperbole since he did indeed put his whole career on the line. But now he’s beginning to be less sure. Is it possible that when the moment came, he really did make that fatal error…?

But Kirk only allows himself to consider that for a moment before shaking away the doubts. No, he says, he knows what he did and he’s standing by it. He tells Cogley that he can back out now if he wants to, but Cogley just shrugs and says there’s nowhere to go except back to the courtroom to hear the verdict.

Shaw made such a big deal about how Cogley was the only person who could win a case against computer evidence, but so far we sure haven’t seen any sign of him living up to that claim. His entire strategy seems to have been to have Kirk testify about his confidence that he didn’t make a mistake, and as soon as the computer log was played—the computer log, need I remind you, that should not have been a surprise to anyone because the fact that it makes Kirk look guilty is the entire reason we’re having this trial in the first place—he’s like “welp, nuthin I can do about that.” I’m kinda thinking it might have been more helpful to get a lawyer who actually knew something about computers other than “they suck and I hate them.”

Kirk’s communicator beeps just then; it’s Spock, calling to say that he’s run “a complete megalyte survey on the computer.” (I’m sorry, megalyte?) “I’ll tell you what you found—nothing, right?” Kirk says.

“...You sound bitter, captain,” Spock replies, and only the public broadcasting standards of 1967 prevent Kirk from saying “no SHIT, Sher-Spock.” But after a moment he says that he’s not bitter enough to forget to thank Spock for all his efforts. “It’s not all bad, Mr. Spock,” he adds. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll be able to beat your next captain at chess.”

Kirk’s attempt at levity falls flat, and not only because he’s talking to Spock; he just can’t muster enough of his usual confidence to make it sound light-hearted instead of tired and, well, bitter. But that joke didn’t die in vain. After Kirk hangs up, we see Spock sitting at his station on the bridge, looking suddenly thoughtful. “Chess,” he says to himself, and then suddenly gets up and leaves.

Unaware that Spock’s having a dramatic revelation, Kirk is all set to get back to moping when Jame bursts into the room. Starting to think that bursting in dramatically is the only way Jame knows how to enter a room. She’s not here to accuse Kirk again, though: instead she makes a beeline for Cogley, ignoring Kirk’s attempt to introduce them, and says, “We’ve got to stop this. Make him take a ground assignment. I realize it wasn’t his fault. I won’t make any trouble. Make him change his plea.”

Well, that’s...quite a turn-around. Kirk gently tells her that it’s too late for that, but he’s glad that at least she doesn’t blame him anymore. She tells him that she’s sorry and that she was so upset at first that she wasn’t thinking when she lashed out at him. She didn’t realize just how close Kirk and Finney were until she was going through his papers and read some letters he had written to her and her mother. And I hope you’re not on the edge of your seat to find out more about Jame’s mom and if she’s alive or dead or divorced or what, because that is the one and only mention of her that we’re going to get for this entire episode.

Anyway, Jame says that she now realizes that the idea of Kirk betraying Finney like she at first believed is ridiculous, and besides, ruining Kirk’s life and career isn’t going to change what happened. Cogley notes that “no use crying over spilled milk” is a bit of an unusual outlook to take towards the guy that, according to all current evidence, probably killed your dad. Kirk shrugs it off completely and says he has to go change since the trial’s resuming soon. “You ready?” he asks Cogley, who presumably feels no such need since he’s been wearing the same clothes for the whole episode.

“No,” Cogley says thoughtfully. “But I may be getting ready...”

Meanwhile, up on the ship, Spock is hanging out in one of the Enterprise’s miscellaneous rooms, playing chess with the computer. Not playing chess on the computer; he’s just sitting with a physical board with the computer reading out its moves to him. You’d think by the 23rd century we’d have better chess programs, but maybe Spock just likes the retro feel.

If Spock was hoping to have a quiet and uninterrupted game of chess, though, he didn’t do a great job picking his spot, because McCoy comes bursting in with a pre-emptive head of steam all built up. He takes one look at Spock and the chessboard and declares, “Well I had to see it to believe it...they’re about to lop off the captain’s professional head and you’re sitting here playing chess with the computer!”

I like the implication here that someone has told on Spock to McCoy. “OMG doctor you’ll never believe what I just saw Mr. Spock doing!” “SPILL THE TEA ENSIGN.”

When Spock doesn’t particularly react to this accusation, McCoy tells him that “you’re the most cold-blooded man I ever met,” which Spock accepts as a compliment. Then, as McCoy is turning to leave—I guess this was just a drive-by call-out—Spock calmly announces that he’s about to win his fourth game. McCoy pauses at the door and says that that’s impossible, but Spock demonstrates his claim by putting the computer into checkmate.

McCoy’s look of open, stunned confusion tells us two things: one, that this is a big deal and shouldn’t be happening (unless Spock is using cheat codes or something) and two, McCoy has a surprisingly thorough understanding of the limitations of the Enterprise chess computer given that we’ve never seen him show any interest in chess whatsoever. Either McCoy plays chess against the computer without telling anyone about it, or Spock talked his ear off about it at some point.

Spock elucidates for us that mechanically, the computer is flawless, so therefore its record of Kirk’s guilt must also be flawless—but, being the super logical and detached person that he is, he just couldn’t accept the reality of that guilt. “So you tested the program bank,” McCoy muses. Exactly, Spock says—he programmed it himself, so he knows that the best he should possibly have been able to achieve was a draw.

So someone tampered with the Enterprise computer log in a way that left no evidence that anything was wrong or out of place with the log, but did make a totally unrelated program malfunction. Sure, that makes sense. You know, the weirdest part about all this to me isn’t even that, it’s that for all everyone talks about the computer log and how the computer doesn’t make mistakes, the computer log in question is, as we’ve discussed, a visual recording. It’s not some kind of hard data entry on what the operations the computer was doing at a certain point, it’s a recording made by a camera! Which means everyone in this episode of a television show is just going around saying “well there’s no possible way to alter an image if that image was recorded onto a computer so I guess that has to be true.” Yes, I realize it was 1967 and they weren’t exactly making this in Final Cut Pro, but that doesn’t make it any easier to take seriously.

McCoy takes a moment to stand there and let this revelation sink in, before redirecting his outrage into demanding to know why Spock is just sitting around with this information. Spock doesn’t deign to answer that, instead calling the transporter room and telling them “Stand by, we’re beaming down.” Note the ‘we’; Spock knows damn well McCoy is coming along whether Spock wants him to or not.

Back on the Starbase, Stone is ringing the ceremonial bell with the ceremonial stick to resume the trial. He announces that “the board will entertain motions before delivering its verdict.” Wow, they really are gonna wrap this whole thing up in all of two sessions, huh. That sure was a quick trial. Then again, I guess there’s not all that much you can do when the defense folded after the first piece of evidence got shown.

Shaw says that the prosecution rests, apparently not even seeing the need to make a closing argument. Cogley stands up next. He tries to come up with something, but all he can manage is to shrug and say, “The defense rests.” Thanks man, you’re a real help. That vague-but-dramatic remark about “I might be getting ready” didn’t come to much, did it?

[ID: Cogley, who is wearing a dark brown corduroy shirt with shiny light brown rounded lapels, two large pockets on either side, and one smaller pocket in the middle of the shirt, standing up at a table  and saying, “Sir...”]

“I OBJECT!” “On what grounds?” “I couldn’t think of anything else to say.”

You know, I’ve been giving Jame grief for the Sailor Moon clothes, but I’d really be remiss to not take a moment here to take Cogley to task for what he’s wearing. We’ve got, like, a turtleneck that just didn’t feel like making an effort that day, over some thing that I’m sure was meant to invoke an eccentric academic tweed-jacket-with-patches-on-the-elbows kind of look, but why does it have one pocket positioned directly over the center of the stomach? And what does he have in it? Is that a nail file? What’s going on here? Tim Gunn would never stand for this, I’ll tell you that.

Well, I guess that’s it for our hero. The trial is over. Kirk is guilty--

[ID: A gif from an Ace Attorney game of someone shouting “HOLD IT!” in large bubble red letters over a white starbust.]

WHAT’S THIS?? Two new witnesses have just run into the courtroom! Spock and McCoy have arrived with crucial information just in the nick of time! What a close call. They couldn’t get there any earlier, of course, because they had to stop and change into their dress shirts first. If you’re gonna dramatically barge into a courtroom, you have to look your best.

McCoy starts talking to Kirk while Spock talks to Cogley. Well, I say ‘talk.’ The scene is clearly aiming for ‘frantic whispering’ but they overshot that a little bit; Spock and McCoy are just moving their mouths while making literally no sound. If there wasn’t other sound going on at the same time I would have thought that my cat had ruined my earbuds. Again.

That other source of sound is Stone, yelling at Cogley, who is not the one causing the disturbance but makes a better target I guess. Cogley quickly breaks off the non-conversation to run up and address the board, saying that some new evidence has just been brought to his attention. HOLD IT! Shaw protests—Cogley’s already rested his case! Thanks Shaw. I bet you were that kid who’d remind the teacher that they hadn’t assigned the homework five minutes before class ends.

Stone asks Cogley what the nature of this evidence is and Cogley says that he can’t tell them, he has to show them. Really? I think you could tell them pretty easily. Here, I’ll give it a shot: “Mr. Spock’s discovered a flaw in the computer that indicates it was tampered with after all.” There, sorted.

Shaw protests that “Mr. Cogley is well known for his theatrics.” “Is saving an innocent man’s career a theatric?!” Cogley demands (theatrically). It’s probably not, mostly because I don’t think you can have just one theatric.

Stone tells the lawyers to stop bickering among themselves and that if they’ve got something to say they can say it to the whole class. Cogley is all too eager to do just that now that he “finally has something to talk about.” By ‘something to talk about’ he does not, of course, mean this new evidence and its significance. Rather, he wants to talk about “Rights, sir, human rights, the Bible, the Code of Hammurabi, and of Justinian, Magna Carta, the Constitution of the United States, fundamental declarations of the Martian Colonies, the statutes of Alpha 3—gentlemen, these documents all speak of rights.”

Yes, yes, nice use of “let me remind you that we’re in the future by listing a bunch of real things along with a couple fictional ones” but WHAT are you TALKING about? You just listed a bunch of things that have laws in them! What does that have to do with anything? Are you just trying to prove that you are so a real lawyer? This is no way to win a court case!

It’s not just me who’s confused, either—look at Spock’s face while all this is happening.

[ID: Spock, wearing his dress uniform, looking off at an angle and frowning in puzzlement.]

Cogley starts talking about the various rights these documents speak of, because all of them definitely cover the same ground, sure, that seems right. Eventually he comes around to some kind of point, which is that these documents all speak of the right for the accused to be confronted by the witnesses against them. Well...the Constitution sure does. The Bible says “I answered them that it was not the custom of the Romans to give up anyone before the accused met the accusers face to face and had opportunity to make his defense concerning the charge laid against him.” so I guess that counts. The Magna Carta, on the other hand, basically only says that people (meaning men, of course) have the right to a lawful trial. And the Code of Hammurabi says “If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser,” so I’m not sure how we should go about applying that one here.

But more importantly, you might note that at no point in all this has he mentioned any actual specific current laws of the society they’re in. All he’s said is that some people, at some times, have said that that was a law. You can’t just go around invoking all the laws that anyone’s ever made! It’d be chaos! Alcohol would be simultaneously legal and illegal! Society would collapse!

But before anyone gets the chance to point this out, Cogley barrels right on ahead, declaring that this right—the right to be confronted with the witnesses against him—is a right to which his client has been! DENIED! Shaw jumps up and says that this is ridiculous, which, I mean, yes, for a lot of reasons, but specifically she points out that all the witnesses were produced in court and Cogley had the chance to cross-examine all of them, a chance he didn’t take. Well...technically speaking, everyone Shaw brought to the stand was there to give an expert opinion on something, not because they witnessed the crime. There were no witnesses to the crime, per se. Except for, as Cogley points out...the computer.

“The most devastating witness against my client is not a human being,” he says. “It’s a machine, an information system—the computer log of the Enterprise. And I ask this court adjourn and reconvene aboard that vessel.” Whoa wait what hang on now

Shaw protests this sudden turn of events—not objects, just protests—which makes Cogley start going on about rights again. Kirk has the right to face his accuser, he insists—again, at no point has he cited an actual current legal basis for this right—and if the court doesn’t grant that right, “[they]have brought us down to the level of the machine. Indeed, you have elevated that machine above us. I ask that my motion be granted, and more than that, gentlemen, in the name of humanity, fading in the shadow of the machine, I demand it. I demand it!”

“If you don’t run this trial the way I want humanity is doomed” is a rather bold stance to take, but surprisingly the court seems willing to go for it, because after the break Kirk gives a log to tell us “After due consideration, the general court-martial has reconvened on board the Enterprise.” Specifically, it’s reconvened in the briefing room, or maybe one of the briefing rooms, I’m not quite sure how many there actually are. And evidently Kirk, Spock and McCoy took the time to change along the way, since they’re all back to their regular non-dress shirts.

Cogley asks Spock how many games of chess he won against the computer and Spock says “five in all.” That number’s gone up somehow; earlier he told McCoy it was four. Cogley then asks if this is unusual and Spock says yes, because he programmed the computer himself and gave it an understanding of chess equal to his own. Thanks Spock, that was real considerate of you. Did you add any other difficulty levels in there, just in case there’s anyone on the ship who doesn’t want to play on Deity all the time?

“The computer cannot make an error, and assuming that I do not either, the best that could normally be hoped for would be stalemate after stalemate, and yet I beat the machine five times,” Spock goes on. “Someone, either accidentally or deliberately, adjusted the programming, and therefore the memory banks of that computer.” This is so not how computers work. I’m not even sure that’s how chess works.

Could that have an effect on the visual playback, then? Cogley asks. Shaw objects, saying that “the witness would be making a conclusion.” Is that...not something witnesses are allowed to do? What’s the point of having someone testify about their expert knowledge if they can’t make so much as a simple ‘if→ then’ statement? I don’t know, but I guess Stone does, because he sustains the objection, forcing Cogley to switch tacks.

Hypothetically, Cogley says—you can ask anything if you just put ‘hypothetically’ in front of it—hypothetically, if something like this had been done, it would be beyond the capabilities of most people, right? Spock confirms this, so Cogley asks who, aboard this ship, would that not be beyond the capabilities of? That would be Spock, himself, Spock says, the captain, and the records officer. Hang on, the captain? Since when does Kirk have that much knowledge of computers? And do we really not have any other computer experts on this ship? We’ve got a whole engineering department down there to make sure all the components of the ship are working correctly, but if the computer controlling all those components fails, you’ve got all of three people skilled enough to fix it? None of whom even has a position dedicated to that? Wow, what could go wrong here.

Actually, as Cogley points out, at the moment it’s not even three people—it’s two, because they don’t currently have a records officer. The last one died in a tragic accident involving an ion storm and a pod, you may have heard something about it. Cogley then turns to Kirk and asks him to describe the steps he took to find Finney after the storm. Kirk says he instituted a phase one search, which he describes as “a painstaking thorough attempt in and around a ship to find a man who’s presumably injured and unable to respond.” Of course, since the man they were looking for had been ejected from the ship straight into an ion storm, this search unsurprisingly did not turn anything up.

But...what if he wasn’t? This search, Cogley says, “presupposes, does it not, that a man wishes to be found?” Kirk stares back at him blankly, so Cogley has to elaborate—well, when you’re doing this search, you assume the person isn’t deliberately hiding, don’t you? What if they were? On a ship this size, how well could someone evade a search, if they really wanted to?

The penny finally drops. It’s clear from Kirk’s stunned expression that he never once considered this. He really does tend to think the best of people, Kirk does—even knowing how much Finney had hated him, the idea that he might be trying to get revenge on Kirk, that all this could be anything more than a tragic accident, never even crossed Kirk’s mind. Bless.

“Possibly,” he says grimly. Cogley turns triumphantly to the board and says, “Gentlemen, I submit to you that Lieutenant Commander Ben Finney is NOT DEAD!” Oh, the drama of it all!

We then cut—via a screenwipe, unusually for TOS—to the bridge, where the whole group is now camped out, along with Uhura and two helm officers, all of whom are probably feeling pretty dang confused right now. Stone says they’re waiting for proof of what Cogley said in the briefing room. Cogley says that they’ll have their proof, but first he needs the cooperation of the court in conducting an experiment. He then defers to Kirk, who he’s apparently had a conversation with at some point in-between scenes, because Kirk is able to fill in the next steps of the plan: it requires everyone onboard except the command crew and the trial members to leave the ship. So he’s ordering them all to report to the transporter room. Everyone. All 424 of them. And the transporter moves six people at a time. This is gonna take a while.

Oh, and Cogley’s also leaving; he says he has “an errand ashore of vital importance to the purpose of this court, and [he] will return.” The board is remarkably okay with the counsel for the defense up and strolling off in the middle of the trial with essentially no explanation for where he’s going or why, not something I would recommend trying in a real courtroom.

They are, however, a little concerned about this whole “everybody off the ship” business. Stone asks Kirk if he’s at least leaving an engine crew aboard but Kirk says no: the impulse engines have been shut down, and they’re going to maintain orbit purely via momentum. “And when the orbit begins to decay?” one of the board members said, which incidentally is the only line of dialogue any of them besides Stone have for the whole episode. Kirk just says they hope to be finished long before that happens. Seriously, you couldn’t come up with a way to do all this that doesn’t involve just hoping you won’t wind up crashing into a planet? And how many people did it take you to drag Scotty out of Engineering once you told him this plan? Because there’s no way he went willingly.

Sometime later (we’re not told how long that took, but if we generously assume it takes one minute to transport six people, it had to be at least 70 minutes) with just about everyone now off the ship, Kirk begins explaining to the board that the computer has an auditory sensor. “It can, in effect, hear sounds,” he adds, in case they can’t figure out what that means. “By installing a booster, we can increase that capability on the order of one to the fourth power. The computer should be able to bring us every sound occurring on the ship.” One to the fourth power? You mean...one?

Just then, the transporter operator calls in to say that all personnel have left the ship, except for him obviously. Kirk gives Spock the go-ahead, and Spock pushes a button. Suddenly an extremely loud, distorted heartbeat sound fills the bridge. Oh shit. Okay, who murdered a dude and stashed his body under the floorboards? Own up.

Kirk explains—after telling Spock to turn the sound down before eardrums start blowing out-- that the sound is the computer picking up the heartbeats of everyone on the ship. Just their heartbeats, not any other autonomic noises like breathing or digestion, or the sounds of any of the systems still running on the Enterprise. Just heartbeats. That is one selective auditory sensor you’ve got there. He then says that McCoy is going to use a “white sound device,” aka a microphone with a rubber band around it, “to mask out each person’s heartbeat so that it will be eliminated from the sounds we’re hearing” because that’s definitely a thing that makes sense.

McCoy goes around the bridge pointing the microphone at everyone’s chests (including Spock, whose heart would later be revealed to be somewhere else altogether), which causes their heartbeats to go away one by one. Finally McCoy uses the device on himself, leaving only the sound of the transporter operator’s heartbeat. “Mr. Spock, eliminate his heartbeat,” Kirk says. Whoa now, hey, what do you have against the transporter operator—oh. Oh, I see what you meant.

Spock flips a switch (and they said we’d never need an Eliminate Transporter Operator’s Heartbeat switch on the bridge!). Everyone should now be accounted for...but there’s still the sound of a heartbeat coming from somewhere. Stone very slowly gets up, walks across the bridge to find the most dramatic vantage point to stand in, and says, “...Finney.”

Yep, it looks like Finney is still alive and hiding out somewhere on the ship. Either that, or the Enterprise is haunted. 50/50. Kirk tells Spock to localize the sound and Spock says it’s coming from B deck, in or near Engineering. So Kirk has him seal that area of the deck off, and then heads for the lift, but stops because Stone is still standing there.

“So Finney is alive,” he says. Yes, thank you, Commodore Obvious.

“Commodore, this is my problem,” Kirk says. “I would appreciate it if no one left the bridge.” He hops in the lift, and I guess Stone at this point has completely given up on any attempt to exert control over the trial, because he makes no attempt to stop Kirk waltzing off the bridge. But hey, he’s just going off, completely alone, to confront a man so desperately and irrationally vengeful that he faked his own death to set Kirk up for murder—what could possibly go wrong?

So Kirk goes stalking off down the empty corridors, narrating—not giving a log, just narrating-- to us that “Sam Cogley had gone ashore to bring Jame Finney onboard. We both felt that Jame’s presence would make Finney easier to handle in the event Finney really were alive.” Oh, that sounds like a handy thing for Cogley to do. Sure would be nice if there was any sign of that happening right about now. Any...any time now.

Back on the bridge, everyone is listening to Kirk wander around shouting “BEN!” when one of the helm guys says that he’s “encountering variants.” Spock tells him to compensate. Shaw asks what this means, and Stone says it means their orbit is beginning to decay. Well, that was fast. So much for hoping that wouldn’t be an issue!

Kirk is still walking around Engineering yelling for Finney when suddenly he hears a reply: “Hello, captain...nothing to say, captain?” It’s presumably Finney, but there’s still no sign of anyone, no clue as to where the voice is coming from, so we still can’t rule out the “the Enterprise is haunted” angle just yet.

Apparently Kirk is not a proponent of that theory, because he calls back, “I’m glad you’re alive.” “You mean you’re relieved because you think your career is saved,” Finney sneers back. “Well you’re wrong!” He seems nice.

Kirk squeezes through a gap that’s in the wall for some reason and comes out in another part of Engineering, calling to Finney that it’s not too late, they can help him. “Like you helped me all along, kept me down, robbed me of my own command?” Finney says. “I’m a good officer. As good as you. I’ve watched you for years. The great Captain Kirk!”

Then, as Kirk passes along the wall, an arm suddenly comes out of a gap and sticks a phaser in Kirk’s back. Good news, you found Finney! Bad news, well, just one little minor detail, I’m sure we can sort that out.

“They told you to do it to me,” Finney says as he emerges the rest of the wall from his hiding place. I had figured he was talking into an intercom or something, but apparently he just has really good projection. “You all conspired against me, ruined me! But you won’t do it anymore!” Then he takes Kirk’s phaser and throws it away somewhere. I am shocked, shocked, I tell you, that this man would be so careless about gun safety.

Kirk, still looking unperturbed about all this, calmly tells Finney to put the phaser down. Finney says he wouldn’t kill Kirk—oh, no. Kirk’s own death would mean too little to him, which, well, yeah, it’s hard to care about very much after you’re dead. But Kirk’s ship…

[ID: Finney, a white man with graying brown hair, raising one eyebrow in a demented expression and saying, “Oh, I wouldn’t kill you, captain.”]

If you ever find yourself making this expression during an argument, it’s a good sign you may no longer be the more reasonable party.

“What about my ship?” Kirk immediately demands, doing an excellent job of confirming to Finney that he was right on the money with that one. Finney gleefully says that the ship is dead, he killed it. Specifically, he did something to the primary energy circuits. Huh, maybe emptying the entire ship so that the man we suspected to have an irrational grudge so big he would fake his own death over it could have the run of the place wasn’t a great idea.

Kirk runs over to a comm and asks Spock what their orbit status is. Spock and the helm guy confirm that their orbit is decaying fast, much faster than it should, even with the dodgy orbital mechanics in TOS. They’re out of power, Finney says—he knows this ship too, because it should have been his, would have been if Kirk hadn’t kept him from it. Oh, grow up and go to therapy like the rest of us.

Why kill innocent people? Kirk asks Finney. Finney—who started sweating buckets in-between shots—laughs and says there’s no innocents here, just officers and gentlemen, captains all, “except for Finney and his one mistake, a long time ago...but they don’t forget!” And, you know, the transporter officer, communications officer, two helm officers, the first officer and a doctor. Plus everyone on the starbase below, which was probably not built to survive an enormous starship crashing into the planet. But I’m sure Finney’s worked out some way in which they’re all responsible for his misfortunes as well. Kirk tries to take the bullet, telling Finney to place all the blame on him, but Finney says no, everyone’s to blame! Everyone but him! He was a good officer! He loved the service! He’s a completely reasonable, rational man with great judgment, and that’s why an enormous conspiracy involving all of Starfleet is the only possible reason why he hasn’t been promoted any farther yet! Then he starts crying. Great.

Meanwhile on the bridge, Spock and the helm guy are trying to fix their orbit but having no success, so Spock tells everyone they need to get to the transporter room pronto. But Stone cuts in and says, “Mr. Spock, the court has not yet reached a verdict. We’ll hear this witness out.” DUDE. PRIORITIES.

Kirk is still trying to talk Finney down, saying that it’s not too late for him to be helped, but it will be if he kills all these people. Finney insists that it’s only fair because “they killed [him]” which is either the world’s most over the top figure of speech, or he’s forgotten that he’s only pretending to be dead.

But then Kirk finally gets Finney’s attention by asking if Jame’s included in that deal. Finney, horrified, asks what he means by that, and Kirk says she’s onboard by now. Of course, he has no evidence of this, but Finney believes him anyway. “Why did you do that?” he wails. “WHY DID YOU BRING HER HERE?”

Kirk takes advantage of his distraction to rush him. That’s right, it’s FIGHT SCENE TIME. More specifically, it’s Fight Scene With The World’s Most Obvious Stunt Doubles Time. Seriously, it’s amazing.

[ID: Two shots of a pair of men fighting in Engineering. They are very clearly not the original actors.]

After a lot of general thrashing around, Finney gets his hands on a wrench. Not, like, a futuristic space wrench or anything. Just a regular old wrench, which is sitting on its own little wrench pedestal for some reason, like a museum exhibit.

[ID: Finney grabbing a wrench that’s sitting on a gray block built into the wall.]

Finney grabs it and starts going full Bioshock, swinging wildly at Kirk, but Kirk manages to dodge his way out of a serious head injury. Or at least, his stunt double does.

And yes, Kirk gets his shirt ripped.

[ID: Kirk with the front of his shirt ripped completely off his right sleeve, bracing himself as Finney takes a swing at him.]

Eventually, Kirk manages to get Finney up against a wall and clobber him on the jaw a few times, putting him down for the count. Then Kirk resumes his narration, telling us that, “Beaten and sobbing, Finney told me where he had sabotaged the prime energy circuits. The damage he had caused was considerable, but not irreparable. With luck, I would be able to effect repairs before our orbit decayed completely.”

The reason we’re getting this narration is that originally, there would have been a scene actually showing Jame entering Engineering and Finney’s reaction, which was actually shot but cut for time. Without that scene, the question of whether Jame was ever actually on the ship is kind of left open. Cogley says he was going to go get her, but obviously they haven’t returned by the time the whole heartbeat-test thing goes on, we never hear any word from the transporter operator about them coming up after that, and presumably no one would beam them up once they realized the ship was currently crashing. Kirk telling Finney that Jame is onboard “by now” is clearly a shot in the dark, but since Finney accepts this anyway, the whole venture becomes kind of a moot point.

While he’s narrating, we see Kirk climbing up a Jeffries tube, because, sure, he’s an engineer now, why not. His repair job seems to consist entirely of pulling wires out of the wall with his bare hands, but evidently it works because after a bit of shaking back and forth, the helmsman reports that power is returning. They’re able to activate the impulse engines again and stabilize their orbit. You hear that, Scotty? It’s all good. Put the phaser down.

Stone turns to Shaw and says, “Unless the prosecution has an objection, I rule this court to be dismissed.” Shaw says she has absolutely no objection. Stone doesn’t ask the rest of the board, but they don’t seem to have opinions on anything so it’s probably for the best.

Some time later, after everyone’s come back onboard and, presumably, Finney’s been led away to a quiet room somewhere, Kirk is on the bridge having a little soft focus moment with Shaw. She asks when she’ll see him again, and he says that depends on the stars. Poetic. Then she says that Cogley asked her to give Kirk something—a book. “Not a first edition or anything, just a book. Sam says that makes it special, though.” Yeah, well, he would.

Kirk says he didn’t have much chance to thank Cogley, since he just kind of walked off camera and never came back. Shaw says he’s busy on a case: defending Finney, and he says he’ll win, too. Oh yeah, sure. He did such a great job with Kirk’s trial, after all. I’m sure it’ll be a piece of cake defending the guy whom several witnesses heard confessing to his intent to crash a starship and everyone on it into a planet.

“Do you think it would cause a complete breakdown of discipline if a lowly lieutenant kissed a starship captain on the bridge of his ship?” Shaw asks. Oh lord, have you heard the kind of things that go on aboard this ship? A shirtless crewman bursting onto the bridge with a rapier is just another day in the life around here. Making out with the captain doesn’t even rank.

Sure enough, they kiss, and no one takes any notice. Shaw says goodbye, and Kirk wishes her better luck next time. “I had pretty good luck this time,” she replies. “I lost, didn’t I?”

She leaves, and Kirk takes a moment to put his best serious face on, then goes to sit down in his chair.

[ID: 1. Kirk sitting in his chair on the bridge, flanked by Spock and McCoy. Kirk is saying, “She’s a very good lawyer.” 2. Spock replies, “Obviously.” 3. McCoy adds, “Indeed she is.”]

Court Martial is kind of a...scattered episode. It doesn’t seem to know quite what to do with itself. We’ve got all this stuff about the computer, and about the nature of the computer as a witness, which seems to be building up to some big philosophical point. But in the end it all has nothing to do with anything. The computer log is just a piece of evidence which was tampered with, and there’s really nothing deeper to it than that. All of Cogley’s rants about the computer and elevating it above mankind etc etc all have nothing to do with anything, his attitude never gives him any helpful insight, and in the end the computer is used to help prove Kirk innocent without anyone batting an eyelid at the irony. Meanwhile, the whole story about Finney and his years-long grudge has to share time with this, but the themes of those two story threads don’t really have anything in common, so instead of complementing each other they mostly just take focus away from each other.

There was another scene in here that was cut, although I don’t think that one ever got filmed—originally, it was going to be mentioned at some point that while Jame was going through those letters she mentioned, some things her dad said made her realize it was likely he might try something like this, hence her abrupt turn-around towards Kirk halfway through. But we didn’t get that, and we didn’t get her appearing at the end. I think it would have made the story stronger if we had gotten those scenes instead of people talking about the computer so much. Or they could have gone the other way, and focused more on the drama about the computer instead of having Jame show up periodically for ultimately no payoff. Neither of those stories are inherently bad, it’s just that the focus is too divided to do either one justice. It’s not a bad episode, but I think it could have been better.

Trek Trope Tally: The climactic battle with Finney brings our Uniforms Unformed tally up by one, for a total of 5 counts so far. Next time, everything’s gonna be just :) in The Return of the Archons.

[tifs-against-terfs]

I watched the 42 minute Projared video so you don’t have to (kinda)

Trigger warning for like. A lot of stuff. Very very long post so more under the cut

Alright. So basically, I’m not exactly well versed in the situation here. What I do know, is that famous gaming youtuber Projared allegedly cheated on his Wife Heidi with the ex-wife of Ross O’Donovan, Holly Conrad, as well as that he has been accused of being a pedophile, or at the very least, a person who took advantage of his power and fame and used to it get illicit pictures from people who were not his wife.

While I am not at ALL 100% versed in every little detail and nuance that this situation contains, I do know trademark manipulative behavior when I see it. So this is a post that will high light all that I could catch in my time watching his video.

This was gonna be a bulleted list but I feel it works better in a sort of essay format. Keep in mind, the majority of the times I quoted him were paraphrased or shortened to keep this already lengthy ass post shorter than it could be. Also, keep in mind that this is in no way an unbiased review. I didn’t like Jared before and I certainly don’t like him now, so if that’s what you’re looking for, you came to the wrong place. This took me over 4 hours. Enjoy.

Throughout the entirety of the video, Jared, like most manipulators, presents himself as both a victim and as the good guy of the story. Taking a sort of “misunderstood hero” approach to all of his arguments. This can be seen repeatedly. At one instance, near the beginning of the video he refers to the influx of call out posts and memes that were made about him as “harassment,” which is already an Olympic level stretch. He also refers to himself as “demonized and dehumanized.” This is a classic example of the self victimizing behavior and wording that Jared places oh so strategically throughout his video. There is a prime example of him painting himself as a hero when he mentions the statement that normal boots issued about his release. Jared claims that he was not fired, and that he in fact quit. He goes on to say that he did this because he saw his former coworkers losing followers and didn’t want them to be dragged down with him. I shouldn’t have to explain why this is a classic example of manipulating others in order to seem superior to your opposition. He ends the video with a short rant in which he, again, refers to people making memes, call out posts, and tweeting out clown emojis (I wish I was joking) as harassment.

Let’s move on to the way Jared presents his evidence. Jared consistently used ways of getting his point across that were either only vaguely related to the point he was attempting to make, or just simply sketchy, to say the least. Near the very beginning of the video, Jared attempts to claim that two different people tweeting out accusations, and later deleting them serves as legitimate evidence. While it is sketchy, and does make the two accusers look a bit unreliable (more on that in a moment) there are a multitude of other reasons they could’ve deleted the tweets, aside from them simply being liars, so this point is irrelevant. Not long after, Jared makes the claim, that “if both of us have a claim but no evidence, then it’s a simple case of my word against theirs.” And while that is correct, it doesn’t actually make his argument any better. He only did it to make himself look more reliable than the opposition, which was also the purpose of showing the deleted tweets. The reason these two things wouldn’t have mattered, is because he goes on to disprove both accusers claims anyway, so he had no point to mention the deleted tweets nor his “two unsupported claims against each other” argument besides to turn the audiences opinions of the situation in his favor. Touching more on the accusers, there were actually three of them. Only three that Jared mentions, at least, and shockingly, all three people can pretty easily be disproved with about an hour of research. Why would Jared choose these three people? Easy. He included their accusations and their accusations only because he wanted to paint the entire opposition as unreliable, untrustworthy, and frankly, as liars.

The way in which Jared paints his opposition as opposed to himself is his other main way of getting the viewer to sway to his side. One of the main things Jared does throughout the entire video, especially in the beginning, is he only refers to the opposition in ways that makes them seem untrustworthy. For example, only referring to things that people said about him as “accusations,” even after they are essentially proven as fact. Including still, after three months, claiming that he never actually cheated on Heidi, despite being disproved again and again and again. He also frequently brings up facts that are only vaguely relevant. About halfway through the video he states that one of his accuser’s evidence is invalid because she did not provide every single little screenshot of all the conversations that happened between them, which frankly, makes no sense. A person who is attempting to make a legitimate accusation against someone would not include every single little detail if they didn’t have to. Jared then quickly proves that this person left out evidence that Jared was unaware that this person was a minor. Again, this is a case of Jared including unnecessary details in order to make the opposition seem worse than he. Another example of this is when Jared mentions that The Game Grumps deleted every video that included him in it, and states that this is an example of the mob mentality of the opposition, which also only vaguely makes sense. There are, again, a multitude of other reasons why The Game Grumps could’ve deleted the videos, for example, to avoid any unnecessary attention that would come from being associated with a man who potentially cheated on his wife. Game grumps is a very large company and who knows how many people would have their careers ruined or heavily damaged if people found them guilty by association. Perhaps the biggest case of Jared misrepresenting his opposition is at the very end of the video, he mentions that, “of the countless drama channels that made videos about me, not one of them came to ask me about the situation or hear my side of the story.” While this may or may not be true, it’s not hard to see that Jared clearly presents everyone other than him as either unreliable, a harasser, or an attention seeking part of the “mob” which Jared frequently refers to it as. And while yes, technically, it WAS a mob of sorts, Jared was not treated any differently from any other celebrity or public figure that has had a scandal surrounding them revealed, and I don’t think Jared realizes that.

Aside from blatant lies, half-truths, and manipulation that is rampant throughout this video, there are countless other things that aren’t exactly morally correct, per se. I’m using near direct quotes in order to more accurately present the sheer moral, almost corruptness of Jared. The first two quotes in regards to him receiving sexually explicit pictures (despite having a wife) that caught my eye were as follows: “It doesn’t matter how neutral the intent was, being in this situation causes a power imbalance.” Shortly followed by “I feel like what I was doing was unhealthy, not predatory.” It doesn’t take much to see that these quotes show that A) he knows that what he was doing caused a very clear power imbalance between the two parties, and B) he doesn’t believe he’s necessarily a bad person for doing it. Whether Jared actually slept with Holly while still with his wife is up for debate, however, it is a fact that while married, he received sexually explicit pictures from women likely far younger than him and that he doesn’t believe that this is in any way predatory. As he mentions, being a public figure essentially gives you power over anyone you interact with online, especially in a sexual setting. Jared being a known influencer with lots of young fans who interacts with certain fans in a sexual manor and setting is morally gray enough. But to do that while in a legal committed relationship with someone else is beyond immoral. Another incredibly sketchy thing that Jared says is that in response to the argument “why don’t you ask for the women’s ID to see if they’re actually 18?” Jared replies, “It would be difficult and ineffective to do that. IDs can be easily faked and edited. It would also essentially doxx any woman that wants to send pictures.” Which yes. He is 100% correct in saying this. However, any moral person would, if unable to confirm if the pictures they’re receiving are from a minor or not, would simply not accept pictures. But we know that Jared isn’t a moral person. Any man that is remotely ok with even the possibility of the pictures he receives being from minors is not a morally conscious man.

In conclusion, Jared made his opposition out to be bullies, told lies and half truths to all his fans through this entire ordeal, manipulated his audience, was and CONTINUED to be at very best morally gray, and then STILL had the nerve to act like a victim when people tweeted clown emojis at him. I will never believe Jared in anything he says, and you shouldn’t either.

[phantomphangphucker]

Evil As Plain A The Collar On His Neck - PhannieMay- Day 21 Double Date

Summary: Danny’s revisiting the dating scene, but just is Jazz doing here?

Sequel to my fic A Sister Always Has Her Reasons

“And why do you have to come again?”

Jazz rolls her eyes, “mom and dad asked me to chaperone after what happened last time”. Danny can’t help but groan and cringe as he remembers the disastrous date with Star, which of course got interrupted by a ghost and resulted in him going home with shredded clothing.

Glaring at his sisters “charge” who snickers at Danny, which Jazz also rolls her eyes at, “you could at least try to get along”. Danny only glares at her incredulously for that, how could he ever get along with him.

But spotting his old, and possibly new, flame changes his mood, “hey Val!”. Catching his sister muttering at her “charge”, as Danny runs over to Valerie, “now don’t you go scaring her mister, or you will be in shit”.

Danny can tell Valerie’s a bit confused, “try to ignore them. My parents are being a bit over bearing after my last date resulted in blood loss and ruined clothing”. Valerie snickers at that, “your entire family is wacky, including you”, shrugging, “but clearly my tastes are wack”.

“I’ll take wacky any day, much more interesting”, Danny chuckles as they take a seat together, with the other two close behind.

Danny uses his menu to block out the other guy, which Valerie leans into to whisper at him, “let me guess, you don’t get along with Mr. tall, built, and brooding over there?”. Danny shakes his head and glares at the menu, “enemy is a pretty accurate descriptor. But where Jazz goes, It goes too”.

“It? Now that’s just mean-”, the rest of Valerie’s comment gets cut off as Jazz clears her throat. Danny, lowering the menu, glares at her. Who rolls her eyes and points at the approaching waiter, resulting in Danny blushing a bit and mean chucking coming from across the table.

“So what will you four being having to drink today?”, the two nineteen-year-olds order Faygo, Delicious Red for Valerie and Moon Mist for Danny. Lemon water for Jazz, who then glares at her “charge” as he orders a Green Lantern. He just shrugs, “it’s not like I’ve got a liver to piss off, and it’s not like I care”, while Danny’s just wondering where the hell he got an ID and what the hell’s even on it. Jazz rolls her eyes, “that stuff tastes awful though”.

“He’s awful, so it fits”, Jazz glares at Danny. While Valerie talks over the strangers snickering, “okay, who are you? I thought I’d seen everyone in Amity and there’s no way I’d miss someone walking around with an oversized neon green collar”. Danny groans slightly as Jazz responds, “the big guys' name is Dan, bit of a trouble maker so he’s stuck with me”. Danny blinks at her incredulously, “a bit?”. While Dan smirks and stretches his arms over the back of his head, fully noticing Valerie trying to not stare at his muscular arms, “they could snap your damn neck”.

Jazz shakes her head, “well, you lasted twenty minutes”, while Valerie glances at Danny. Patting her leg, “he won’t actually be doing that”. Muttering under his breath, “only because he isn’t allowed to”.

Jazz snorts as Dan flat-out tosses the entire drink in his mouth, downing it in one gulp. While the waiter goes a bit bug-eyed, promptly bringing him another. Jazz cuts him off after the fourth, laughing, “I’m not rich! stop that!”, pointing at the waiter, “and you! Stop encouraging him!”. While Dan leans his head back and laughs, which is plain weird to Danny. Though he can’t help but laugh a little along with Valerie, while the waiter looks like he’s just had a damn good day.

Eventually getting their food: caramelised salmon for Valerie, chicken penne for Danny, salad with garlic toast for Jazz; and, as per requested, the bloodiest thing they could serve, eight-ounce steak cooked blue with a side of ribs, for Dan. The waiter, looking at him, “just so you know, that is the single weirdest way anyone has ever requested for anything here”. Turning his head to the Fenton girl, “you Fenton’s sure like ‘em weird, don’tcha?”.

Danny coughs into his hand a bit at that but eyes Jazz questioningly as she blushes, even more weirded out as she waves him off.

Valerie’s not sure why Danny’s eyeing his sister oddly, the waiter wasn’t exactly wrong, she was definitely odd herself; though this guy’s odder.

Shoving one of her green beans at Danny, who just takes it with his mouth and eats it. “So, you figured out how to fling yourself into the void of space yet?”, Danny chuckles at her question fully remembering promising to do so as his yearbook quote, “once or twice, still working on the “and die” part”.

“The answer to that question has been around for fifth-teen years”, Danny glares at Dan and stabs at his noodles a bit aggressively. Dan smirks and violently snaps his teeth around a large piece of steak, loud enough to make the people across from them jump and scoot their chairs away a bit.

Valerie points her fork at him, “you have issues”, while he digs in his mouth and pulls out a tooth he broke loose. Flicking it across the table, out of sight before it dissolves into ectoplasm, snickering, “your idea of issue, is my idea of a good time, little red birdy”.

Valerie squints at him while Danny mildly chokes, glaring subtly at Dan.

Jazz is torn between being slightly grossed out and wanting to giggle a bit, for being twenty-nine, the guy sure was an overdramatic baby, “you just have to be a mildly terrifying ball of tease, don’t you?”.

Dan pokes her in the side, barely whispering, “I get my pleasures where I can”. Before ecto-zapping her lightly under the table, which she hits him playfully for, while he just snickers a bunch. Doing it more until she actually starts laughing, chuckling, “it’s my right by might, soft flower”. Dan leans back against the booth, satisfied, before biting clean through a rib bone; with one arm behind his head.

Valerie will admit it’s a little adorable Jazz collecting herself and patting the huge guy on the head, which he seems quite pleased by. Danny must have some serious issues with Dan to look so put off though, he won’t admit it but he is rather protective of his sister. Well, ok, he’s protective of everyone actually.

Elbowing him, “oh whatever, but since the party crashers are distracted...”.

Danny decides to deal with whatever weirdness later in lue of taking the chance to kiss Valerie, not giving a damn that Dan probably noticed. While Dan and Jazz take turns ruffling up each others hair, though he takes the time to zap Danny purely to annoy him.

Valerie has no clue what the zap was, there wasn’t supposed to be literal sparks flying, she also has no clue why Danny’s glaring at Dan again.

Danny decides to roll with it, to not give Dan the satisfaction, smirking at him before turning and poking Valerie, “well, when sparks fly, the couple must surely be shockingly perfect”, with a shit-eating grin, “so clearly with us, lightning struck twice”. While Valerie snorts, Danny a bit surprised to see Dan looking rather amused while Jazz just groans.

Dan, chuckling at Jazz, “with this weather, I’d say we could bolt and see if any actually strikes”. Danny can’t help but respond, “sounds like a killer idea to me”. Which Dan actually snorts at, while Jazz gapes excitedly, whispering, “did they just, get along?”.

While Valerie mutters under her breath, “he’s like a jerkier version of Danny”. Which makes her blink, realising that makes it genuinely kind of weird that Jazz is clearly either dating or borderline dating this guy. Or they just have a really really weird version of friendship; Valerie’s not placing her bets on the last one though. But considering half the damn town seems to ship the Red Huntress with Phantom, and she’s not exactly entirely opposed to the idea; her eyes are just firmly elsewhere. So who was she to judge here?

It doesn’t take long after that for the waiter to bring them their bill. Unsurprisingly, Jazz pays for the tip and most of the meal thanks to a certain oversized someone. Poking at him with the bill as they all get up to leave, he shrugs, “could have just left, besides, money’s a human issue”. Jazz glares at him, “that’s wrong and even if you don’t care, I do”. Dan stretches his arms over his head, “everyone else's wrong, is my oh so very right”. Dan smirks knowing that was part of the allure of this thing with Jazz, along with annoying his younger self. Though he does find it odd, yet pleasant, that his affections are more genuine than that. Not that he’ll admit that to Danny.

While Valerie and Danny walk a fair bit behind the older pair, “you’ve officially succeeded in giving me the weirdest date ever”. Danny smirks loosely and bumps his shoulder into hers, “so this mission to Venus was a success then?”. Rolling her eyes at him, “absolutely, you reckless space boy”.

Not a single one jumps as a massive thunderclap goes off, rattling a few windows. Both Jazz and Valerie say to their respective ghostly men, “if I die, I’m dragging you down with me”. Both of whom responded, “guess I’ll die”.

End.

[green-eyeddragonfanfiction]

A Bump in the Road: Chapter 4

Summary:  Your life is perfect. It’s everything you want it to be and more… until a series of events makes it crumble around you. However, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and it comes from an unexpected source. You start your new job the Avengers compound. It’s a fresh start for you, with a surprise in store. Pairing: Bucky x Female!Reader Warnings: Swearing (as always) Word Count: ~2,054 A/N: @just-some-drabbles This is for JSD’s Rom-Com challenge. Fluff. Yes, that’s right, folks. Fluff.

Masterlist // Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

“You’ll see her again,” Steve said confidently.

Bucky scoffed, rolling his eyes at Steve. “And how do you know that?” he asked, obviously not believing a word Steve said.

Steve smiled broadly, nudging Bucky’s knee with his foot. “Call it a hunch.”

Your POV

Move In Day, Early in the Morning.

“Holy crap, this place is amazing,” Karen mumbled, leaning over the steering wheel to gaze slack-jawed at the buildings through her windshield.

“Agreed,” you mumbled, eyes as wide as saucers as you watched a quinjet take off. You tore your gaze off of the shining buildings to read the email they’d sent. “According to the guard at the gate and the map they sent me, the living quarters should be... to the right,” you said, looking up and pointing right at the fork in the road.

“Man, I’m so going to get lost on the way out of here,” Karen lamented as she studied the layout of the grounds.

You snorted. “You could always ask The Vision for help. I bet he’d be more than happy to point you in the right direction.”

“Oh no. That’s so not happening. I’m not asking Magenta Cyborg for directions,” she said, laughing at the very thought.

You tilted your head to the side. “I think he’s an android, technically,” you teased, grinning broadly.

“Doesn’t matter. Still not asking him for directions,” Karen said dismissively, rolling her eyes at you.

“Oh, there it is!” you said, pointing to the modern building a little farther down the road. “Wait, would you ask Captain America for directions?” you asked, curious.

“Yeah, of course!” she said, as though it had been a stupid question. She pulled into a parking spot outside.

“But not Vision?” you asked, brows knit together in confusion.

“Alright, we can talk about this later. Let’s get your stuff in your new place,” Karen said, rolling her eyes at your antics. “What floor and room number?” she asked as she stepped out of the car.

“Uhh...” you pulled out your phone and checked the email, eyes quickly scanning the text. “B6, room 603,” you informed her before shoving your phone back into your pocket.

“Shit,” came Karen’s voice from the back of the car.

“What’s up?” you asked, concerned. “Did something break?”

“We forgot the hand truck,” Karen said, resting her forehead against the car frame in defeat. “We have to carry all of this in by hand,” she groaned, staring dispassionately at the building entrance a hundred yards away.

You stared in horror at the boxes in the back seat and trunk. “We could... go back and get it? Or ask if they have one?” you asked tentatively. You didn’t feel like carrying each of these boxes from the car to your new room by hand. Some of them weighed a lot, and you and Karen weren’t exactly weight-lifting champions.

“Let’s ask if they have one, first,” she said confidently as she closed the trunk and locked the doors.

“Scuse me, are you ladies alright?” came a voice from behind you. You and Karen turned, and both of your jaws hit the ground.

Steve Rogers was standing before you, looking huge but shockingly normal in a [tight] t-shirt and sweats.

Movement behind him caught your eye and you leaned a little to the side to get a glimpse of the person standing behind him. When you recognized who it was, your eyes opened even wider in shock (which you didn’t think was possible).

It was your mystery man. “You!” you exclaimed, unable to form a complete sentence. When your eyes traveled from his face to his metal arm, you nearly fainted. He waved lamely back at you, blush creeping into his cheeks.

“Me,” he confirmed.

A Few Minutes Ago

Steve and Bucky’s POV

“Wait!” Bucky hissed, holding an arm out to stop Steve in his tracks. He yanked Steve behind one of the buildings, glancing worriedly over at the car parked outside of the residential building. Or, more accurately, the women standing next to the car parked outside of the residential building.

“Bucky?” Steve asked confusedly, following his line of sight over to the two women.

“That’s her!” he hissed, pointing animatedly at you, stress clear on his face.

“What’s who?” Steve asked, still clearly confused.

“That dame! Not the blond one on the driver side, the other one!” he whispered, pointing directly at you. “She’s the woman from New York! The one I spilled coffee on and took to Barneys!” he explained, anxiety clear in his voice. “What on earth is she doing here, Steve?” he asked his friend urgently.

“Wait, that’s the girl? The one you haven’t shut up about since you met her a couple days ago?” Steve asked, a look of understanding dawning on his face.

Bucky glared at his friend, but nodded. “Yeah, Stevie. That one,” he said peeking around the side of the building to look at you. He was so distracted by you that he didn’t see Steve walking towards you and Karen until he was already most of the way there. He flew into action, sprinting across the grounds in an attempt to get to Steve before he got your attention.

He was too slow.

“Scuse me, are you ladies alright?” Bucky heard him say. He skidded to a stop a few feet behind Steve and froze like a deer in the headlights when you and Karen turned around.

He watched as you and Karen gaped at Steve. Why wouldn’t you, after all? He was Captain America. Still, the sight made Bucky a little jealous. He felt himself stop breathing when your gaze slid from Steve to him.

He saw the exact moment when you recognized him, the spark of remembrance flashing across your eyes. Your eyes were almost comically wide at this point and you seemed to be having trouble forming words.

He felt his heart beat faster in his chest. He wasn’t wearing a jacket and his t-shirt revealed his metal arm. He wasn’t sure if-

“You!” you trilled, shocked. Bucky watched in horror as your gaze traveled to his left arm.

You looked like you were about to faint. He waved at you hesitantly with his right hand. “Me,” he confirmed simply.

This was not how Bucky thought today would go.

Your POV

Your felt faint. You grabbed Karen’s arm to steady yourself. Was the sky spinning? The sky couldn’t be spinning. It doesn’t do that.

Here was your mystery man, in the flesh. And he was The Winter Soldier, an Avenger.

Karen looked back and forth from you to Bucky and then to Steve before she smiled. “Excuse me, Captain Rogers? Could you help me find a hand trolley? We forgot ours back at my apartment. These two can start unloading the car while we search,” she said, throwing Steve a too-bright smile.

Steve, however, caught on smoothly.

“Yeah, of course. Follow me,” he said, nodding his head towards the building entrance.

You and Bucky watched as your blond-haired and blue-eyed traitor friends walked cheerfully inside, leaving the two of you alone next to the car.

You both looked at each other, frozen.

You decided to break the tension the exact same moment he did.

“I wanted t-” you began.

“I had no ide-” he muttered hesitantly.

You both snapped your mouths shut, giving each other apologetic looks before you started laughing. He joined in a half second later, his deep chuckle bringing heat to your cheeks.

“You first,” he insisted, smiling broadly at you.

You felt the tips of your ears heat up in embarrassment. “I, uh, wanted to say thank you for the other day. You didn’t have to do what you did and... I had a lot of fun,” you said quietly.

“You did?” he asked, unable to hide the surprise and excitement in his voice.

You nodded earnestly, genuine smile on your face from his reaction. The gossip and rumors didn’t get his personality right at all; He was earnest and kind, and you realized just how damaging the public opinion of him must be to his psyche. “I really did. I was... really sad when I didn’t get your name,” you said shyly, eyes glued to the ground.

“Me, too,” he said sincerely. You could hear the smile in his voice, making you look up and into those gorgeous steel blue eyes.

You felt your heart beat faster, threatening to beat right out of your chest. You realized you were leaning forward unconsciously and shook your head slightly, blinking a few times.

“You were saying something? Before I interrupted?” you asked quietly, determinedly looking away from his gaze. No one man should have that much power with eyes alone.

Bucky hid his disappointment when you looked away from him. “I had no idea you worked for the Avengers,” he said, motioning to the compound around him.

“Oh, this is a new arrangement. That interview I had? It was for the Avengers,” you said, smiling proudly.

Bucky’s heart pounded in his chest. That meant- “So you’re going to be living here?” he asked, nodding his head towards the boxes in the trunk.

You smiled and nodded, and you decided to test the waters a bit. “She took the keys with her and the car’s locked, so... If you’d be willing, I’d love it if you would show me around the base?” you asked hesitantly, eyes searching his carefully.

His smile was almost blinding and your heart fluttered in your chest. Yes, this man was too powerful for his own good. “I’d like that very much,” he said happily, unable to hide the way his eyes shone with excitement. He sobered a bit after a second. “But, first things first. What is your name?”

You laughed heartily at that. “(Y/N). (Y/N) (Y/L/N).”

He reached slowly and carefully for your hand with his metal one, gently gripping it in his hand, and brought it to his lips, brushing them lightly over your knuckles, eyes never leaving yours.

You were sure steam was coming out of your ears. It had to be.

“It’s a pleasure to formally meet you, miss (Y/L/N). My name is James Buchanan Barnes, but you can call me Bucky,” he said with a wink.

Yup, you were a goner.

“So you work with the victims of all kinds of disasters and relocate them and their families?” Bucky asked as you made your way back towards Karen’s car. He was impressed, to say the least.

“Well, it’s less natural disasters and more... terrorism and corrupt governments?” you reasoned, shrugging slightly. “Good people in bad situations, mainly caused by other people.”

“You’re amazin’, Doll,” he said, awestruck. You dedicated your entire life to helping people and it was... admirable, to say the least.

You looked away, embarrassed. “It’s... just the right thing to do,” you mumbled.

He laughed at that. “You sound just like Steve,” he said, smirking. “Speaking of...” he muttered, causing you to look up.

You were shocked. Not only were Steve and Karen waiting there, but seemingly half of the Avengers team, too. Wanda and Vision were talking with Karen who was smiling politely, but standing stiffly. Steve and Sam were talking animatedly about something you were too far away to hear, and Natasha was sitting patiently on the trunk.

“Dammit...” Bucky muttered under his breath. Of course they’d all stick their noses in this.

You let out a nervous squeak beside him, freezing in place at the sight of so many legends.

“You alright, (Y/N)?” he asked, eyeing you with concern.

You shook your head rapidly, wide eyes never leaving the group.

“They don’t bite, I promise,” he assured you easily. Then he seemed to reconsider his statement. “Well, Nat does, but only if you deserve it. Vision can be kinda blunt, but he’s not a bad guy. Sam makes a lot of jokes-” his voice promptly died in his throat when you reached for his right hand, lacing your fingers with his.

He looked down at you, surprised. You sought comfort from him, afraid of the heroes in front of you? Today must be opposite day, but he decided not to question it.

“Ready to meet ‘em?” he asked gently, giving your hand a reassuring squeeze.

You looked up at him, wide-eyed, trepidation clear on your face, and nodded.

Chapter 5

This series is finished, but if you want to be tagged in my other fics, check out this post! Sorry, but responses to this post asking to be tagged will be ignored, so send me an ask or like one of the taglist posts!

☕ Buy Me a Coffee! ☕

[dreamlandofelegma]

Chapter 2: Desira:

Elegma entered into her classroom as Professor Sam was about to begin the lecture.

There was a scraping sound of chairs, as the students settled in the class room.

Professor Sam:

“Good morning class,” Today we are going to learn about the Golden Ratio.

Later we will see, how the Golden Ratio is connected with Quantum Physics, which is our main subject.

So, does anyone have any idea, what is the Golden Ratio?”

There was murmuring in the class, when one of the students raised her hand to answer the question.

“Yes! Miss Margaret,” asked professor Sam.

“The Golden Ratio is a ratio of 1 to 1.618,” Margaret replied in a proud tone.

“Very good! Miss Margaret, anyone, who would like to add on to what Miss Margaret told us about the golden ratio?”, asked professor Sam.

“The golden ration is found in nature,” another student added.

“Yes! Precisely! It’s not just a mathematical formula. It’s a phenomenon we find in nature’s magnificent equilibrium”, said professor Sam in an enthusiastic tone.

“Tell me, my dear ones, what do you see, in the great Pyramids of Egypt, the great portrait of Mona Lisa

by Leonardo da Vinci, the flower petals arrangement and the shell of a snail?”, professor Sam asked with the

same enthusiasm.

“Symmetry”, a student replied from the back side.

“True! That’s why it’s also called Divine Proportion,” professor Sam added.

Elegma was taking notes on her slides’ printout. She had the similar set of slides on the paper, which

professor Sam was scrolling on the projector screen.

The image of the great pyramid of Giza was currently on the screen, with some length/ height measurements,

showing proportions of the two ratios.

“Yes, Miss Margaret, you have a question?”, professor Sam saw Margaret raising her hand.

“What is the golden ratio for beauty?” Margaret asked in the same animated tone.

“Well, Miss Margaret, if by beauty you mean the human face?

Yes, indeed, there are several golden ratios in the human face.”

Some mischievous boys took rulers to measure each other’s faces.

“Do not, pick up a ruler, and try to measure people’s faces.”

Professor Sam stressed each word while, warning the students.

“However, during the European Renaissance, renowned artists and architects had used the golden ratio to

map out their masterpieces.”

“Thousands of years later, scientists adopted this mathematical formula to help explain why some people are

considered beautiful…and others are not.”

“How do I know that I am beautiful professor?”

In her haste of asking the question, Margaret forgot to raise her hand and ask permission from the professor.

“Wherever there is number, there is beauty. A famous saying of Greek Philosopher, Proclus.”

“I give you an example, if we divide the length of the face by the width of the face, the ideal result should be 1.6 (the golden ratio).”

“Which means a beautiful person’s face is about one and a half times longer than its width?”

Margaret asked keenly.

“Precisely!”

Miss Margaret, you have successfully found out one of the golden ratios in the human face.

There are certainly more of them present. Some are discovered, and others yet to be revealed,” professor Sam said mysteriously.

The projector screen was now showing the image of the famous Vitruvian Man, a drawing made

by Leonardo da Vinci, an Italian painter. This image depicts a man, in two superimposed positions, with

his arms and legs apart. It is inscribed in a circle and a square.

“It’s assignment time, my dear ones. All of you are looking at this painting, which provides us with the basic information of human body proportions.”

Your job, is to find out, as many golden ratios in the human body, as you can.”

I will be seeing you tomorrow, good day.”

Professor Sam left the classroom.

“Hey Eddie, Would, you become my Vitruvian Man?”, asked a boy in a pleasing tone.

“Only for the sake of assignment, my friend,” he added after receiving fake disapproval from Eddie.

“You mean to say, I have to sacrifice my modesty!”, Eddie said, while stressing the word modesty in a fun way.

“Ha ha ha”, there was students’ combined laughter in the class.

“I might do it for someone like Miss Maggie, perhaps, if she asks me politely, that is,” Eddie winked at the other

boy, while commenting on Margaret.

“You wish. And the name is Margaret. I am going to the library, to finish my assignment, in the meantime,

you all can monkey around, till your hearts’ content. Farewell.”

Margaret left the classroom with all her pride as some boys hooted to make fun.

Elegma also headed towards the library. There is little time left before the next class, so she wanted to

borrow some books for her assignment.

She wanted to take Leah with her, but she was busy talking with the group of students.

They were discussing the assignment as well. So Elegma left by alone.

She didn’t forget the scene from the stairs earlier. She clearly heard someone, and saw a vague image of

a feather, just like a peacock. Something was telling her that it could be another character from her dreams

that materialised in the physical world.

While her brain was captured by scattered thoughts, she pulled the library’s glass door open.

There was silence, and a book scent which spread inside the library.

The books were arranged according to the subjects.

The Physics section was enormous, showcasing books as well as final year projects from the previous students.

Soon Elegma found out the books related to the quantum physics.

One was titled as the Golden Mean in Quantum Mechanics.

Elegma took three books, which she thought could help her in the assignment.

The library wall clock was telling her that there are still fifteen minutes left for the next class to begin.

She decided to sit down and have a look at the books she wanted to borrow.

“Hmm, let’s look at this one first, the divine beauty of mathematics, nice spiral image, must be drawn with

the golden ratio,” Elegma thought aloud.

There was a snail shell like image at the title of the book. She flipped pages to see the table of contents.

“Amazing! How accurately they measured the spiral in a three- dimensional drawing.

No wonder why it is so mesmerising to see such images.”

“Charming, isn’t it,” somebody whispered in her ears.

She looked around shockingly, but didn’t see anyone.

It’s the second time she heard this sentence. First at the stairs when Leah was introducing her to Eric,

and second, just a moment ago.

“Something is definitely wrong.”

“Never mind, I should concentrate on my assignment.”

Again, she tried to concentrate on the book she was holding, when the spiral image turned colourful.

Elegma rubbed her eyes and looked again.

“What’s this? These colours are just like the colours of a peacock feather.”

The image spread, and all she could see was the most beautiful bird that ever existed.

“So much more than a peacock,” Elegma exclaimed.

In front of her, was a bird.

It’s feathers, resembled the peacock’s, but peacock has round circle, with a design at the center.

This one had a spiral like design, which was changing colours every other second.

“Forgot about me little girl, I am with you, since the day you were born,” the bird spoke in the most

euphonious voice. The voice could beat the most melodious singers.

“Desira, I know you. What are you doing here?”, Elegma replied in discomfort.

“Well, well, well, is that a way to treat a guest? You have become disrespectful.”

Desira was moving around like a fashion diva. Unlike peacock, she had beautiful legs, just like a secretary bird.

“I am just curious, why all of a sudden, the likes of you are popping in front of me.

Did I do anything wrong?” Elegma tried to keep her voice low to avoid disturbance in the library.

Luckily no one was there at the Physics section at the time.

“My dear, nothing is wrong with you. It’s just that now you are able to see us, but that doesn’t mean we

weren’t there before.”

“Tell me, Elegma, Have, you not you seen us in your dreams as well?”

Desira was flicking her beautiful eye lashes.

“Can you please go away. I have to do my Physics assignment,” Elegma said hastily.

“As you wish.”

Desira vanished after spreading her wings like a peacock.

“Didn’t know she was that obedient,” Elegma said surprised.

“Let me annotate the text on my slides printout.

These books will definitely help me out to complete the assignment.”

Elegma flipped her printout till she got the slide showing the Vitruvian Man.

“What if we divide, the distance between the finger tips and the elbow, by the distance between the wrist

and the elbow?”

Elegma was taking measurements to get the golden ratio.

“It cannot be happening.” Elegma was still as a stone.

“What happened dearest? You only saw, what’s in your heart.” Desira’s voice was echoing in her head.

“When I said go away. I meant it. Stop manipulating my mind.”

Elegma tried hard to keep her voice low. Her cheeks were rosy from the feeling of shame and anger.

“Elegma. What are you doing her? Our English class is about to start.”

Leah sounded panicked as she found Elegma sitting in the Physics session alone.

She had her books and notes spread all over the table.

“I have been looking all over the school for you. “Leah added.

“I am sorry Leah, I just wanted to borrow some books for the assignment,”

Elegma forgot about Desira for the time being.

“Yeah, I can see it will take all eternity to get these books issue.”

Leah pointed at some opened and closed books on the table.

“You go ahead, I will catch up with you in no time.”

Elegma quickly started to put the notes in her file.

“Not at all, I am not leaving you from now on.

First the bus incident, and now this.

You need somebody by your side today.”

Leah sensed her new friend’s anxiety.

“Okay we will go together. Here, you take my ID card, and get these books issued from the librarian.

Meanwhile I will gather my notes.”

Elegma wanted to set her notes properly.

“Fine. Be quick. Only few minutes left for the class.”

Leah left her with a reminder.

“I have to talk to my grandma, this situation is getting out of control,” thought Elegma.

“Leah. Let’s go.”

Elegma saw Leah waiting for her at the counter.

She was holding the books Elegma wanted to borrow.

“Here, these books are issued on your ID card for a week.”

Leah handed the books over to Elegma.

“Thanks Leah,” Elegma was grateful.

“By the way, do you really think you need such heavy books to complete a simple assignment?” Leah, inquired.

“Yeah, I could have searched it on the internet.

It’s just that, Physics is my passion. I wanted to dig deeper in the topic,” Elegma said.

The way Desira manipulated her mind, gave her shivers down her spine.

“I was discussing about the assignment with fellow students, one of them has an elder brother doing

Master degree in Physics, he could really help us”, Leah seemed concerned.

“Yeah I saw you with them”, Elegma replied pushing back the disturbing thoughts.

“You could have joined us silly, “Leah prompted.

“Yes, you are right Leah! I am sorry, I wasted a lot of time in the library, and now we are late for the class,” Elegma apologised.

“It’s ok, next time I’ll take care of you myself. You can’t be left alone.

I know you are new in this school, but you have to mingle around to get the most of it. Do you understand?”, Leah explained.

English class was started. Both the girls entered after getting permission from Mrs. Barnett, their English teacher. Margaret was reciting a ballad from the book:

“Morning and evening

Maids heard the goblins cry:

“Come buy our orchard fruits,

Come buy come buy…””

Elegma, and Leah settled down together on the back bench.

Margaret was reciting the poem with proper rhythm, taking care of the meters of poetry.

“Figs to fill your mouth,

Citrons from the South,

Sweet to tongue and sound to eye; Come buy, come buy.”

“We have learned about ballad meters before.

I want you to think about these stanzas and tell me, which ballad meter is used in this poem,” Mrs. Barnett said in a sharp voice.

“Please take it as an individual task. I don’t want any group discussions,” she added.

There was silence in the class.

Elegma saw her cell phone blinking. It was a call from home.

She excused from the class to go to the girls’ rest room.

“It’s unethical to leave the class just to answer my phone call, but it could be important,” she thought.

The girls’ common room was at the basement.

Elegma used stairs to go there as she always wanted to avoid the elevator.

Girls’ room was filled with students of different classes, most of them were seniors.

Elegma found an empty sofa at the corner.

She was about to dial her home number when the phone started to vibrate again.

Home was glowing at the screen as she pressed the green icon to accept the call.

“Hello”, Elegma put the phone to her ear.

“Hi! Big sister, how are you?” a young boy spoke from the other side.

“Harry. Why did you call me at this time? You know I am at school.”

Elegma didn’t expect her brother on the phone.

“Yeah, yeah I know. I was missing you,” Harry said in a sad voice.

“Harry, my little brother. I am also missing you a lot.

I will come visit you all, at the weekend, and then we will play basketball together.

What say you?”

Elegma wanted her brother to cheer up.

“Yay! “Harry, seemed happy.

“I will go and tell grandma. She will be happy to hear this.

Grandma, Grandma.”

Harry was probably running towards his grandmother’s room as Elegma heard a disturbance on the phone.

“Oh no! Grandma!”

“Harry, Hello?”

Elegma heard her brother’s scream before the call was disconnected.

[powlokisdiary]

On Friday the 19th January we had no update on the Loki'sDiary and Friends facebook page, this is because me and my friend Alison went on a bat handling and identification course with a licensed bat trainer/handler! (Now I’m hoping to become a voluntary bat roost visitor, so this course will help massively when going to be licensed). Just incase you didn’t know, there is a lot of legislation surrounding bats. They are heavily protected animals in the uk, so the first part of our course covered this. Also to be able to attend these courses you have to be fully vaccinated against rabies as bats can be (but are very rarely) carriers of a strain of rabies known as EBLV ,which stands for European Bat Lyssavirus, and there are 2 types of strain known simply as EBLV1 and EBLV2. Since screening of bats for the disease began in 1986, over 15,000 bats have been tested and only 15 have ever come back as being infected to date. The legislation surrounding bats is also a bit of a minefield, so I’m just going to briefly state the basics before continuing! In Britain all bat species and their roosts are legally protected by both domestic and international legislation. This means you are commiting a criminal offence if you: 1. Deliberately capture, injure or kill a bat 2. Intentionally or recklessly disturb a bat in it’s roost or deliberately disturb a group of bats. 3. Damage or destroy a bat roosting place, even if it’s unoccupied at the time. 4. Possess or advertise/sell/exchange a bat (dead or alive) or any part of a bat 5. Intentionally or recklessly obstruct access to a bat roost. Again this is a very brief wording of the legislation - please refer to the full piece of legislation (found via the .gov website). Also the bats conservation trust website provides a lot of information and help with legislation, licensing advice and general advice if you do find a bat and think it needs help. I have to state that we were able to do this course as a whole because we were under the guidance of a fully licensed trainer/rehabilitator/surveyor etc. Natural England is the provider of licenses so people can survey, research, possess bats (living and dead but that’s a whole new ball game!), and so they can undertake some educational or conservation related activities - Our tutor was a license holder in many things that allowed her to teach what she did, not just anyone can run courses of this nature (but shockingly people still try!). Overall there are approximately 1300 species of bat worldwide with new ones being discovered on a regular basis. They are from the order ‘Chiroptera’ which means 'hand wing’. They are then seperated into 18 different families that are divided from 2 sub orders - mega chiroptera (fruit bats) and micro chiroptera. Approximately 70% of all bats are insectivores, and all 18 species of bat we havd in Britain are insectivores. They also account for more than a quarter of mammal species in the uk and around 20% of mammals worldwide! Because all of our native bats are insectivores they use echolocation to navigate and hunt for insects in the dark, and our smallest resident species can eat up to 3,000 insects a night. Apart from getting rid of nasty bugs/pests we don’t want like mosquito’s many species are crucial pollinators and their presence is an indicator of a healthy environment. Their futute is directly linked to our quality of life and tothe quality of the environment. Some of the surprising things we rely on bats for because of their pollination (and it’s majority/only bats in some cases because the plants are adapted to bat pollination!), include dates, vanilla, bananas, guavas, Iroko timber, Balsa wood, Sisal, Tequila (you can’t have tequila without the agave plant, and a few species of bat are this deserts plant primary pollinator!), and chewing gum. Now that we have some of the bat basics out of the way, I will briefly highlight the purposes of being on the course and what we had to learn during it. I say briefly, I could write a hell if a lot about it because of how amazing it was! Infact I have had to scrap my draft 3 times because I felt it was too long! I have covered the parts we had to learn about legislation,rabies and who/why people handle them. We also studied: anatomy, lifestyle and physiology of bats. Species identification and we had a practical session focusing on this which included: basic control, sexing, ageing, breeding status and looking at identification features. We practiced identification on living and dead specimens. We learned how best to ID each of the 18 native species of bat we have here in the uk, about how rare they are, their breeding habits, habitats etc as all these factors help towards making an accurate species ID. For example we have Soprano Pipistrelle bats and Common Pipistrelle bats which at a glance look exactly the same. But closer inspection shows that a Soprano has a more pinky coloured skin on it’s face and forearm compared to the more dark/black skin of the Common. Soprano’s also gave a distinguishable notch/slit between their nostrils and are generally found roosting in older buildinds and near water, where the commons nose is smooth and actually habitates in more modern buildings surprisingly! We were handling live specimens that were in rehabilitation for various reasons ir that were deemed unfit for release, and we had to wear gloves at all times of contact. I will simply state our learning checkpoints that we had to demonstrate with the bats to give an idea as to what we were doing. Sexing a bat: Lift the tail and control the movements if the bats feet, find and recognise genitalia, find the nipples on a female bat, recognise the testes and epididymis and/or buccal glands on males, and determine the breeding status if both sexes. Ageing a bat: Recognise differences in fur, open a wing for close examination, recognise the difference between juvenile and adult knuckles, measure a forearm, assess the wing condition (ie - mite marks, healed tears, membrane quality) and recognise breeding condition. Identify a species: Measure various body parts - especially forearm and other bone lengths, find a describe Calcar (length and shape), find the Post Calcerial Lobe (PCL) or know if it is absent, find and describe ear shape and tragus shape, know how to look at wing venation - membrane - tail - fur etc. From that description it does sound very full on and it was incredibly immersing and informative to say the least. It’s definitely an experience that has helped me push forward with pursuing certain tasks, and the educational value and material is immeasurable. We were at the Leighton Moss nature reserve in their conference room doing our studies. The reserve is definitely worth a walk around if you are interested in potentially seeing some of our rarer resident species (or if you just want a walk amongst nature). Included are photos from the session - the bats are a Soprano Pipistrelle (which was my first handling specimen and boy was he vocal! Trust me to get given a noisy one lol. He settled well though and then spent the rest os the time chilling in my hand…. awwww), Norman the Noctule bat (noctules are our biggest resident bat) Natterer’s bat and a Brandt’s bat. There is also a dead lesser horseshoe bat too. Also included are our forearm measurement charts and our certificates - names and license numbers blacked out for security purposes though! www.facebook.com/TheLokiDiary

[cutsliceddiced]

New top story from Time: Teens Are Going Viral With Theatrical History Lessons on TikTok. These History Educators Are Thrilled.

It’s no surprise that teens are trying for their 15 seconds of fame via TikTok. After all, the short-form video program only allows in-app recordings of up to 15 seconds. But while users often gain millions of views on the social media app by participating in goofy memes and dances with popular background music, a new trend has emerged — and, shockingly enough, they are history reenactments.

Brooke Pavek, a 17-year-old high school senior from Jacksonville, Fla., is pretty sure she got a 100 on a Cold War exam in her International Baccalaureate history class. But this isn’t just any history student. Pavek has amassed more than 78,000 followers and 3.5 million “hearts” on TikTok by sharing her history knowledge in the form of funny, theatrical 15-second clips. And she’s using her notes from Advanced Placement (AP) history classes to make them.

Pavek is one of a group of teenagers doling out their own history lessons online. “I take a lot of notes from those classes to make the videos, trying to fit the audio to those topics, and those key ideas in order to basically help kids learn,” she says. Some of her TikToks were included in a viral Oct. 25 Twitter thread that highlighted some of the trend’s most popular snippets.

Pavek started her account to help other students study for AP classes (what’s a better mnemonic than one involving a hip-hop song?). Some historians and educators say they’re delighted to see kids clearly enjoying history class.

“In order to be this irreverent and this playful with a subject, you have to gain some mastery of it. So the hardest thing to do is to synthesize something — to summarize it in a sentence. And these teenagers have done it in 15 seconds. It’s not the whole story, but it’s certainly a really aggressive and exciting way to look at it,” says Alexis Coe, a historian and author of the forthcoming You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington.

Courtesy Brooke PavekBrooke Pavek, a high school senior who uses TikTok for funny videos about history, dresses up as Maximilien Robespierre, an important figure in the French Revolution.

One of Pavek’s most popular videos tells the story of how the League of Nations, an international organization formed after World War I, began. “U.S. showing up to create the League of Nations,” reads the text flashing across the screen, as Pavek dances toward the camera. “The U.S. when France and Britain expect them to join the League,” comes next, as Pavek dances backward.

Of course, the video quickly aims to retell a much longer story. Though U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had first proposed the league in his January 1918 “Fourteen Points” speech for a vision of peace in Europe post-World War I, the U.S. never joined the league. (Those 14 points served as the basis of the Treaty of Versailles.) Wilson battled the Senate Majority Leader, Republican Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, who was opposed to the League of Nations, and Congress never voted to join. “Most historians hold that the League operated much less effectively without U.S. participation than it would have otherwise,” according to the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Historian.

While a TikTok tells the story in simpler terms, Grace Leatherman, the executive director of the National Council for History Education says this interpretation of history is “as good as you can do” in a short clip, and it should inspire students to do more research on their own. “I don’t know how else you would explain the League of Nations in 15 seconds,” Leatherman tells TIME. “But that certainly shouldn’t be all a student learns about it. This is a helpful tool, it’s a great way to help summarize and identify some of these key things, but obviously we certainly want students going deeper.”

But where is the line between interpretation and inaccuracy? “That’s what we do with history, is to try to figure that out,” says Leatherman. “So I think that’s wonderful, if they make a TikTok that describes key ideals about a time in history, but I would want to make sure that student is also looking at a variety of primary documents.”

Beyond your textbooks, she recommends using the Library of Congress and National Archives Leatherman highlights the importance of using a variety of sources to learn about history to help your understanding of a subject.

One example of a video that shares key ideas of a subject, rather than a specific snapshot of a moment in history, depicts European settlers intruding on native peoples who are “minding their own business.” It’s one of Coe’s favorites.

Another viral TikTok hit focuses on the colonization of Africa, illustrating a complex topic — European imperialism — through different dance moves for different European nations. Sharoon Bi, a high school senior from Lincoln, Neb., demonstrates how European colonizers began to impede on the lives of Africans in the 1400s.

colonization of the continent of africa, 1400s pic.twitter.com/xZlFUPSnu7

— nadia jaferey (@nadiajaferey) October 25, 2019

While the video depicts Spain, Britain, Portugal and France all invading in the 15th century, history books tell a different story. Only the Portuguese invaded African nations in the 1400s. But the British, French and Spanish followed suit in the subsequent centuries. “By the early twentieth century, however, much of Africa, except Ethiopia and Liberia, had been colonized by European powers,” Hunter College Professor Ehiedu E.G. Iweriebor wrote in an essay for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library.

Bi, 17, didn’t realize that he’d gotten the dates wrong when he first posted the video. But he’s glad that commenters pointed it out. “I’m happy that they said it, because that let me know I should do more research,” he tells TIME. “For me, it was an actual learning experience.”

Despite the fact that historical accounts can inevitably can spark debates on the internet, both Coe and Leatherman had a lighthearted perspective on the videos — accurate or not. Coe says the overall point of the clip gets across so powerfully that it supersedes factual accuracy. “The message that he’s trying to communicate is really important here, and even in the act of fact checking what he’s saying, [students] are learning,” says Coe, who adds that these videos fill her with “pure joy.”

“This makes me so hopeful for the future,” she says.

The videos also demonstrate a student’s unique interpretation and understanding of history — and many history teachers nationwide are starting to use TikToks to assess students, according to Leatherman. TikTok is just one way “that students can show us what they know,” she says.

Pavek’s contemporary history exam on Thursday may not have happened through TikTok. But on Friday, as views continue to rise, she won’t be spending too much time on her phone. She’s headed to tour a college where she hopes to major in history, before getting her Ph.D.

Naturally, her dream job is to be a history professor.

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

[mercurialoscillations-blog]

How To Bypass iCloud Activation Lock [4 FREE Fixes With Simple Step-by-Step Guide]

The iCloud activation lock is a security highlight of iOS, Apple's working framework for the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and the Apple Watch. This security framework ensures your iPhone and it's information on the off chance that it is taken or lost.

The iCloud lock secures the iPhone and avoids it being arrangement and utilized by any other person until the proprietors Apple ID and iCloud secret phrase are composed into the gadget. Without the security subtleties, the gadget can't be arrangement or utilized by the hoodlum.

The enormous issue is the point at which you purchase an utilized iPhone on eBay and discover it is unusable because of it being iCloud locked. This very issue drove me to look into approaches to bypass iCloud.

I found a method for bypassing the activation lock. Be that as it may, I not just discovered how to briefly bypass iCloud activation tool, however I additionally discovered how to evacuate it for all time, which is splendid news.

Here are the finishes of my examination:

Continuously check recycled gadgets aren't activation locked before consenting to get them

Check the gadget you're going to purchase hasn't been taken

The iCloud activation lock can be bypassed

You can unlock iCloud for nothing with the co-activity of the first proprietor

You can likewise possibly have your gadget unlocked by Apple

Bypassing the iCloud lock utilizing DNS can get you some usefulness back

In the event that you need a lasting arrangement you need to pay to have your gadget bypassed

There are bunches of con artists offering iCloud bypass arrangements so be cautious when picking one

Suggestions

After numerous hours I discovered 4 free arrangements that will empower you to bypass the iCloud activation lock include:

Alternative 1: Try utilizing a free preliminary rendition of LockWiper to evacuate the lock

Choice 2: Ask the first proprietor to expel iCloud activation lock

Choice 3: Have Apple expel the iCloud activation lock

Choice 4: Bypass activation lock utilizing DNS

On the off chance that these fall flat or are inadmissible I have one paid technique you can attempt as well:

Choice 5: Pay to have the iCloud activation lock bypassed

1. Attempt a free preliminary rendition of LockWiper to expel the lock

LockWiper is a product instrument that professes to unlock iOS gadgets, however it just works in some quite certain conditions that are portrayed on their site.

Alright, it isn't carefully free as you need to purchase a permit to 'finish' an unlock yet hold on for me – it is as yet worth difficult.

Why?

All things considered, it offers a free preliminary form that you can give a shot before you focus on purchasing.

Once downloaded and introduced you can experience the iCloud unlock process LockWiper gives to check whether it will deal with your gadget. Doing this utilizing the free form implies you can check whether it will work without spending any cash.

In the event that it looks encouraging, at that point you realize you have an ease reinforcement intend to get your gadget working if none of different techniques in this article work for you.

What's additionally extraordinary is there are various forms for Windows and Mac PCs so you can download the accurate rendition you need.

As I stated, the preliminary form doesn't settle the unlock however it allows you to associate up your gadget and evaluate the item. So it is allowed to test it out.

In the event that it would seem that the lock may work you can feel free to purchase a duplicate safe in the learning it will work. I have even figured out how to arrange a markdown for you to keep the cost as reasonable as could be allowed.

LockWiper likewise has a splendid 30-day unconditional promise. So in the event that you are despondent for reasons unknown after your buy it is direct to demand a discount.

For what reason do this?

The preliminary rendition is free so you can check on the off chance that it will work without paying anything.

This is the least expensive 'paid' unlock strategy. So in the event that it would seem that this choice will work purchasing a permit for LockWiper will be less expensive than difficult other paid techniques.

You can purchase a permit with a 20% markdown by utilizing our elite coupon code XFR-I7E at the checkout, making it much less expensive.

Step by step instructions to get the free preliminary

1. Download the free LockWiper preliminary from their site.

LockWiper Download Page

2. When the product is introduced run it and select Unlock Apple ID.

LockWiper stage 1

3. Join your gadget to the PC.

LockWiper stage 2

4. On the off chance that your gadget is perfect the Apple ID will be expelled (yet just on the paid adaptation).

LockWiper unlock apple id

5. In the event that LockWiper doesn't chip away at your gadget you have to attempt the following technique…

Alternative 2: Ask the first proprietor to evacuate iCloud activation lock

In the event that you have bought an utilized iPhone or iPad which has a locked iCloud account you ought to request that the first proprietor expel it.

The iCloud activation lock expulsion should be possible remotely so they needn't bother with access to the gadget itself to do it.

1. Go to https://www.icloud.com/

2. Type in your Apple ID (email address) and secret phrase

3. Snap 'Settings'.

4. Snap the gadget you need to expel from your iCloud record found under 'My Devices'.

5. Snap the little X inverse the gadget name to expel it.

6. You will be approached to affirm the expulsion. Snap Remove.

7. All done!

On the off chance that you are battling, or need a more inside and out instructional exercise on this I propose you read my article on the best way to expel an Apple ID from an iPhone or iPad.

When the iCloud lock has been evacuated you will have the option to arrangement your iPhone or iPad regularly. You will never be requested the Apple ID of the past proprietor again.

Consider the possibility that the past proprietor has overlooked their iCloud subtleties.

The first proprietor can reset the secret key on the off chance that they have overlooked it – as long as they recollect their Apple ID.

The Apple ID is the record that they use for all that they do with Apple, similar to when they shop in the iTunes Store, sign in to iCloud, purchase an application, and so forth. To reset their secret word, they have to realize the email address of their Apple ID.

1. Go to https://iforgot.apple.com/secret key/confirm/appleid

2. Enter the Apple ID

3. Select the alternative to reset the secret key

4. Pick the reset strategy:

By responding to security questions

To reset it through email

To reset it utilizing two-factor verification

5. Adhere to the directions on the screen to finish the reset

Alternative 3: Have Apple expel the iCloud activation lock

Mac will unlock the activation lock on iPhone, iPad, iPod contact and Apple Watch in certain conditions. To do as such, you have to demonstrate:

You are the proprietor of the gadget – by demonstrating your receipt.

Possession has been moved from the first proprietor to you.

Apple will at that point check if the gadget has been accounted for taken. On the off chance that the checks show it has, they won't support you.

On the off chance that your handset isn't accounted for missing or taken, at that point they may at present won't help. For instance, in the event that they don't trust you can enough demonstrate you are the legitimate proprietor.

Apple rates security and protection profoundly so except if they are 100% certain the gadget is yours they won't unlock it.

Alternative 4: Bypass activation lock utilizing DNS

You can bypass iCloud and recover some usefulness of your iPhone or iPad by utilizing DNS.

This method works by utilizing your WiFi to get around the Apple security framework. So you won't require a SIM card in your gadget to get this to work.

You won't utilize the working framework (iOS) on your gadget. Rather, you utilize a server to give all the keen highlights, for example, Facebook and Instagram, as appeared in the video beneath.

This is a decent choice to have at your disposal as it enables you to utilize your gadget regardless of whether you can't get the lock evacuated in some other manner.

In any case, numerous individuals don't care for it as you just get restricted access to the highlights and apparatuses of your iPhone.

On the off chance that you need full access and you have attempted the various choices in this article you will, tragically, have no other decision yet to pay for iCloud activation lock evacuation.

iCloud bypass guidelines

You set this up as pursues:

Turn on your gadget

Experience the arrangement procedure until you get to the 'Pick WiFi Network' screen

Snap the little 'I' by your WiFi nearby name

Tap "Design DNS". Tap "Manual".

Tap "+Add Server" and a clear will come up.

Stage 7: Enter the server address of your area:

– USA: 104.154.51.7

– Europe: 104.155.28.90

– Asia: 104.155.220.58

– Africa, Australia, and different areas: 78.109.17.60

Tap "Back >" at the upper left of the screen.

Snap your Wi-Fi arrange

Type in the Wi-Fi secret phrase and snap "Join" at the upper right

The iPhone will attempt to initiate by setting off to another screen. Try not to give it, a chance to hit the Back catch at the upper right to come back to the WiFi page where you will be signed in.

Once signed in you will see a screen which will say something like "iCloudDNSBypass.net" at the top.

You have figured out how to bypass the iCloud activation lock!

Alternative 5: Pay to have the activation lock bypassed

There are numerous sites that guarantee to bypass activation lock. Shockingly, the vast majority of them are tricks, for example,

PDF downloads that guarantee to offer the response – after you get them you discover they don't

Online instruments that do continuous unlocking in your internet browser. These are essentially a reason to get you to snap spring up advertisements

Programming downloads that carry infections with them that taint your PC. Besides they don't work

So be cautious with regards to attempting iPhone or iPad activation lock expulsion apparatuses from your gadget.

I would suggest the accompanying provider dependent on their reputation, client criticism, and responsiveness. Dissimilar to the greater part of the others that attempt to draw clueless guests with untruths they really work superbly.

Bypass activation with AppleiPhoneUnlock.uk

AppleiPhoneUnlock screen capture

AppleiPhoneUnlock take a few days to finish an unlock.

They charge around $30 (€21) however the genuine value differs with the model you need to be unlocked.

1. Go to AppleiPhoneUnlock.uk and pick the model of iPhone or iPad starting from the drop menu and enter the IMEI number in the crate on the screen.

To discover your IMEI code:

Choice

[sweetsmellosuccess]

TIFF 2017: Day 5

Films: 3 Vibe: Ground Down

Chappaquiddick: For a film that could have gone absolutely, terribly wrong, John Cullen’s examination of the infamous Ted Kennedy incident that left a young woman drowned and his political career in tatters is almost shockingly compelling. Behind a strong performance from Jason Clarke (weird, made-up Kennedy accents are easier, it would seem, than an actual New England variety), and a resolute screenplay by Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan, the film is haunting and appropriately elegiac, both for Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara), the poor woman killed, and the horrific way in which politics in this country is performed (generally, by a bunch of older white men in dark suits, who play all the angles, and leave the actual truth in a ditch by the side of the road). There is, perhaps, no more telling a moment than when Kennedy first speaks of the accident, he doesn’t even acknowledge his role in the death of an innocent woman, instead, the first words to come out of his mouth are “I’m not going to be president.” It’s unclear how accurate it is in terms of historic accuracy (is it really true that the only word Joe Kennedy Sr. repeatedly told his son on the subject was “alibi”?), but as a treatise on the awful PR tactics of the rich and powerful, it’s still a stinging indictment.

The Shape of Water: A great number of film critics were left ravished after seeing Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak, a ghost-laden love story that I must say I just found ludicrous and greatly over art directed. His new film – another love story, this one involving a mute woman (Sally Hawkins), and a merman (Doug Jones) imprisoned for study by a cruel government operative (Michael Shannon) -- will likely cause those same critics to squeal, but left me just as incredulous. At his best (Pan’s Labyrinth) del Toro’s romantic style, and slightly comic book sensibilities can create genuine wonderment and emotional involvement, but here, he pushes the boundary of common sense so far, it’s impossible to let go your disbelief. Of course, the film looks fantastic – the woman lives in a stunning, round-window apartment above a huge, beautiful movie palace – and of course del Toro is too talented a visual stylist to produce something dull and inanimate, but he goes so over the top, it seems, you either buy in and swoon, or stand there shaking your head. The ideas and art direction are there, I just wish he took half as much care of his scripts as he does his set design.

I Love You Daddy: An interesting assortment of ideas from Louis CK, shot on 35mm black and white and featuring a very cosmopolitan New York and a sweeping, old-timey musical score by Robert Miller and Zachary Seman, the film is obviously homage to many things, but mostly Woody Allen’s Manhattan, only from a decidedly different perspective. CK plays Glen Topher, a very successful TV writer and producer, who has just been informed that a new series he’s proposed is going into production. Rather than work on the scripts for the show, to the consternation of his producer (Edie Falco), however, he gets embroiled in a love affair with an actress (Rose Byrne), whom he unthinkingly promotes to be the lead in his series; and worries himself greatly over his 17-year-old daughter, China (Chloe Grace Moretz), who begins some sort of relationship with the brilliant filmmaker Leslie Goodwin (John Malkovich), a 68-year-old with a pederast interest in much younger girls. As with many CK productions, certain elements are standard to keep things real, including a pure-Id character (here played with comic deftness by Charlie Day), who gets to vocalize – loudly – all the outrageous sexual energy crowding his head; some sort of role for Pamela Adlon, who here plays an ex-girlfriend, constantly calling him out for his many moments of weakness; and a growing litany of other characters who all scream and yell at Glen for his various emotional infractions without Glen able to defend himself in any way. It also not-so-covertly addresses the rumors about CK’s own inappropriate behavior towards women (message: you don’t ever know what the truth is between two people), that could certainly be taken as self-serving, but by and large the film is indeed funny, and Malkovich leers with a sublime amount of self-aggrandizement.

Tomorrow: We start with one of the surprising darlings of the festival, I, Tonya, a bio-pic of sorts about the infamous Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding; check out Scott Cooper’s Hostiles; jump into the Jane Goodall documentary Jane; and close with another well-received historic drama, Darkest Hour.

[thorias]

Random thoughts watching Riverdale episode 4

Betty keeps a diary. An actual diary. Like in a notebook and everything. Why, when we’re in the age of tumblr and password protection and all that good stuff, would she write her private thoughts down in something like that? Especially when Alice Cooper is her mom! I just met Alice four episodes ago and I know Betty is just asking for that diary to be found and read, so I have no idea what she’s thinking. 

Even the slightest tease that Archie’s dad has a thing for Ms. Grundy makes me depressed that there are not enough ‘NOPE’ gifs in the freaking world to accurately convey my revulsion. 

Kevin is the first character to get sick enough of all the pop culture references being dropped to call attention to it. And thus, a star is born. 

Just as I’m writing a question about why Jughead cares so much about a drive-in when Netflix exists, Veronica takes the words right out of my mouth. Maybe this show is more self-aware than I thought. 

“What was it like before she got here? I honestly cannot remember.” Oh Kevin, you might just be my favorite character this week. 

Betty is putting the pieces together about Archie/Grundy even faster than I expected. Of course, Archie being so thick-headed that he practically spells it out for her certainly accelerates that process. 

“It’s not what you’re thinking.” Shut up, Archie. It’s either exactly what she's thinking or it’s even worse. You’re not very good at this cushioning-the-blow thing, are you? 

Betty is the first person to mention the incredible illegalities of what Archie and Grundy are doing -- illegal, as in jail time -- and he’s still trying to play it off like it’s something innocent. I swear, this dunce makes comic!Archie look like Stephen Hawking. 

Archie actually has the balls to say that Grundy believed in him when no one else did. Betty was taking this news shockingly well until he hit her with that one and now you can actually see her heart being crushed into a fine paste. I want to reach through my TV screen and punch this guy in the face. He had someone who believed in him the whole time; maybe if he hadn’t been so busy friend-zoning her so he could bang his music teacher, he would have noticed. Why must you make it so damn hard to root for you to get your shit together, Archie? ffs 

See what you’ve done, Archie?! You just made me say, “Thank god, Betty’s mom is here!” as she rolls up and tells her daughter to get in the car immediately just to get her away from you. I hope you’re proud of yourself. Ass.

Betty is interviewing Grundy and I suddenly can’t help but feel like Chuck got off easy last week. 

Are they suggesting that TV!Grundy killed comic!Grundy and stole her identity? This is so meta, it’s making me short of breath. 

Maybe a little bit of all the suspicious stuff Betty just dropped in Archie’s lap sunk in because he’s starting to ask Grundy questions, but like any self-respecting she-beast, she distracts him with sex, which seems to be her go-to strategy every time he begins to doubt their relationship in any way. At this point, I’m surprised she doesn’t eat her mate after she gets her freak on. 

Betty Cooper is really good at breaking into cars and picking locks. I don’t know what reality is anymore. 

So “Grundy” has an ID under a different name and a gun stashed in her car. If Archie doesn’t listen to reason now, I vote we have this dumbass sterilized before he reproduces.

I’m pretty sure the writers having Betty be the one to say that something isn’t crazy was intended to be funny, but who can tell at this point? 

Grundy gives Archie some half-baked sob story about an abusive ex-husband and he just believes her without even asking about the gun or the dead old lady with the same name as her. People this stupid shouldn’t be allowed to live. 

Kevin’s dad seems perfectly at ease and accepting of his son being gay. This comes as a surprise to me, but one I’m happy about. There are enough dysfunctional parent/child relationships on this show already. One more would have been really pushing it.  

I don’t know why, but for now, it seems as if the characters are accepting Grundy’s story as the truth. That being the case, Betty still tries to appeal to Archie’s *cough* common sense by explaining how unhealthy this relationship is because of very real and easy-to-understand reasons. Archie isn’t exactly disagreeing with her this time, so I guess that’s a small step forward, but he’s going to have some pretty epic groveling to do to redeem himself to Betty when she’s inevitably proven right about all this. 

I’m less concerned about Alice finding the gun in Betty’s sock drawer and more concerned about the fact that Betty took Grundy’s gun and hid it where her nosy mom would easily find it. Isn’t Betty supposed to be the smart one? And do I even want to know what she planned to do with the gun if she wasn’t going to turn it in to the police? 

Oh look, Alice is reading Betty’s diary. WOW, WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THAT COMING?!?! This is what computers and passwords are for, Betty. 

So Betty’s mom knows about Archie/Grundy now. Alice, I’m begging you... use your powers for good, just this once. 

Veronica yells at the gang of biker thugs to stop talking during the movie and they actually shut up. In what universe would that ever work? Did I just switch to the Syfy channel by accident? 

Archie got Grundy a “thank you” gift for seducing him into her sick web of romanticized statutory rape. I seriously want to retch every time these two are on-screen together. Please tell me the parents are about to put a stop to this.  

Oh, so it’s a ‘good bye’ gift? So Archie has finally decided to listen to Betty and do the sane thing? Halle-fucking-lujah!  Just a little too late though, as the Alice and Fred come busting in. The timing does suck as it seemed Archie was, at long last, starting to rub his two functioning brain cells together, but I can’t say he doesn’t deserve this reality check. 

So instead of getting beaten up by the biker thug, Kevin hooks up with him. Now I know this is science fiction. Whatever. At least the thug is age-appropriate. 

Leave it to Alice Cooper to take a dimwitted underage kid getting taken advantage of by a sexual predator and turn it into a way to ruin the reputation of the kid. Way to keep your eye on the ball, Alice. 

Archie admitting that he’s selfish, stupid and doesn’t deserve to be Betty’s friend might be the most honest thing he’s said since this show started. He may be a dunderhead of the highest order, but at least he’s aware of it, for all the good it did him. 

Now Betty is threatening to tell everyone that she broke into Grundy’s car and made up the whole story just to protect Archie from her mom. I swear, this girl makes me want to use to term “cinnamon roll” unironically. Though I do wonder if her NOT protecting him could be the only way he might learn something from this situation. 

Fred tells Archie that he wasn’t being stupid and this thing with Grundy wasn’t his fault. Fred, I appreciate you trying to be an understanding dad, but please don’t let Archie off the hook just when he’s finally owned up to one of his failings. A get-out-of-jail-free card is that last thing he needs. 

Betty is such a pure angel of goodness and light that she actually apologizes to Archie. For a second, I’m afraid he’s going to blame her for what happened and don’t act like you weren’t thinking it too. But he acknowledges that she was just trying to help and it seems like these two are okay again. I’m pissed as all hell that Grundy has somehow avoided getting arrested, but I guess I’ll take what I can get right now. 

Betty goes right back to writing in her diary. Betty, if you must, at least get a wall safe for that thing so your mom can’t just read it whenever she wants next time, okay? 

And just to stick the knife in a little deeper, the show reminds us that Grundy still has a thing for underage boys and now she’s leaving town without going to jail, so she can ruin some other poor kid’s life somewhere else. Well, fuck-a-doodle-doo, that’s just the way I was hoping this storyline would end. smh 

I spend the whole episode wondering why Jughead is so attached to the drive-in, only to find out that he was living there and is now homeless. Good grief, that storyline did a one-eighty from confusing to heart-breaking in a big hurry.   

And the biker thug doing shady business with Veronica’s mom is Jughead’s dad? FFS, Riverdale, I thought we had an agreement about no more dysfunctional parent/child stuff. I’m kind of at my limit here. 

I’m almost afraid to ask, but... if Jughead is homeless, his dad’s in a gang and his mom isn’t around, then where’s his little sister? Please don’t tell me Jelly Bean is dead. 

[cowtowncrimeblog]

  WARNING: This article contains graphic and upsetting descriptions of human and animal mutilations.  There are some photos of animal skulls and maggots. I chose not to use the crime scene photos because of their horrific nature, but at the end I will link to an episode of Forensic Files which does show the photos. Use your own discretion.

Jason Eric Massey

We know a lot these days about what makes a serial killer. There are always outliers, but we know they often have horrific childhoods, particularly early childhood. Jason Eric Massey was born January 7, 1973 to parents with severe substance abuse issues. His father abandoned them immediately. His mother was young alcoholic and abusive. The birth of her first child didn’t affect her lifestyle. She would leave her toddler son in the car while she went into clubs. Two years later, she added a daughter. She beat them severely with a wooden paddle or a belt for any minor infraction. She kept the food in her room. If she found them sneaking in after food, she’d beat them. She moved constantly, staying just a step ahead of landlords looking for payment. At times they were homeless, living in her car. Jason and his siblings would show up at school as thin, hungry, dirty children with unexplained bruises.

Then there were the men. His mother brought a constant stream of men into their lives, often leaving the children alone with these men. It’s not surprising that one of them sexually assaulted Massey. By 9 years of age, Massey was bigger and stronger enough to take out his intense anger on those smaller than he was. He savagely beat a younger child with a tree branch. He also moved on to animal torture.

In the 1970s and 80s, there was a lot of discussion about what came to be known as the McDonald’s Triad, a purported predictor of homicide and sexual sadism. The Triad was animal cruelty, bed wetting, and arson. We now know that those are not predictors of violence, but rather indicators of extreme child abuse. They’re still huge, red warning flags because severe childhood abuse is one of the known contributing factors in serial killers.

Shortly after the beating of the younger child, Massey strangled and mutilated a cat. For the rest of his life, he would engaged in animal torture and murder. He was moving into his preteen years and the mutilation and torture would become twisted into his sexual fantasies. By fourteen, he was drinking and taking drugs and fantasizing about demons and power. He developed a fascination with fires and started numerous small ones.

In high school, he became obsessed with a girl who didn’t return his feelings. Massey had no notion of normal relationships. He began stalking the girl, calling her house. He killed her dog and painted the blood on her car. He had branched out from just cats to dogs and also cows, keeping their skulls as trophies.

It’s believed that around this time he started keeping a journal. His mother found it when he was 18 and had her son committed. If the entries were anything like his later ones, it’s no wonder. Unfortunately, he was soon released and immediately began again with the animal mutilations. He frequently talked about killing young girls, writing about them in the same way he described his animal killings, but people who knew him blew off the talk as self-aggrandizement. Sure he idolized Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and Henry Lee Lucas, but that didn’t mean Massey was a serial killer.

But he wanted to be one.

In fact, that was his plan. He wanted to be the famous serial killer of all time, so he practiced on animals, keeping his trophies in a cooler, and he plotted and planned until he found his first victim. In 1993, Massey met 13 year old Christina Benjamin. Christina innocently flirted back with Massey. He was smitten with her. July of that year, Massey told his friend Christopher Nowlin that he had met a girl and was in love. He said he wanted to kill her, carve her up like one of his animals.  He was stopped by police for a traffic offense. In the car he had knives and the body of a dead cat with a rope tied around his neck.

July 23, 1993, James King hear a sound late at night, a car beeping its horn. He looked outside and saw his 14 year old son Brian run out to talk to the driver of a tan car. James went to the restroom. When he returned, the car was gone and he assumed Brian had gone with him. It wasn’t until the next morning that he realized his 13 year old step-daughter Christina was gone as well. James King and his wife Donna Benjamin waited to see if the kids would return because at that time, police didn’t worry about missing teenagers. They would “turn up.” When Brian and Christina stayed gone for a full day, James and Donna reported them missing.

Brian King and Christina Benjamin

  July 28th, Police responded to a call of animal cruelty in Telico, Texas in Ellis County. Ellis is located just below Dallas. It’s the bottom right of the counties which ring Tarrant and Dallas, and   the US Census counts it as part of the DFW Metroplex statistically. Ellis is largely still rural, but in 1993, it was especially so. On that date, the Ellis County Sheriff Department arrived to find a mutilated calf behind a pizza restaurant. A young, blond male had been seen running away and he left behind his car, a tan sedan that was towed. At the time, they had no clue it might be related to the disappearance of two teens.

July 29th, just a day later, there was another shocking discovery in Telico. Next to a remote highway, work crews found the nude body of a young girl. She had been shot with a .22 pitsol,  stabbed, decapitated and her hands removed. Both head and hands were missing. Her body had been shockingly mutilated. She was disemboweled, her body transected by long incisions like an autopsy that exposed her orgrans. Her thighs and genitals had long, intricate carvings. Her nipples had been cut off. The extensive injuries made identification difficult. The usual methods of dental records or fingerprints were unavailable.

Not far, a second body was discovered. 14 year-old Brian had been shot twice in the back of the head with a .22 pistol.  His body was fully clothed and not mutilated. In Brian’s wallet was his library card. The sheriff’s department contacted his father who told them that his son was missing. Then asked about Christina. Was she the girl with him? It seemed likely. Donna and James told the police that Christina had recently broken a foot. X-ray records confirmed the fractures of Christina and the Telico Jane Doe matched.

In addition, there was long, blonde hair caught on nearby barbed wire that was consistent with Christina’s. DNA would later provide the more definitive confirmation. Due to the small size and rural nature of Ellis County, Dallas County Crime Lab provided assistance. At the crime scene, they discovered a blond hair on Brian King’s leg that did not match him or Christina. Stuck to his sneaker was a single tan fiber belonging to the interior of a Japanese-make vehicle.

Meanwhile, police were processing the tan Subaru seized during the calf mutilation investigation. Inside they found three blood stains. In the trunk was a blood stained leaf. There was a roll of duct tape with blood on it, a hammer and a hatchet, a receipt for .22 ammo. A bracelet was dropped by the blond man running from the scene of the calf mutilaion with the name JASON on it. He might as well have left a big neon sign behind.

Almost immediately, police received an annonymous call that they should look at Jason Massey. Considering he went around talking about how he wanted to murder and mutilate young girls, it’s not shocking. They heard he had been seen the day of the murders at a local car wash vacuuming his tan Subaru. When the story broke on the news, the owner remembered Massey being there and called police who seized the contents of the carwash vacuum. In them, they found an appointment card from Massey’s probation officer and multiple strands of Christina’s hair in a bloody red bandana.

  To be certain which day the murders had occurred, they turned to a forensic entomologist. He examined the maggots and hatched some of his own in order to give an accurate age of the larvae found on the bodies. By doing this, he could deciseively say Christina and Brian had been deceased for two days. They were killed the same night they left in a tan car.

Police learned that Massey’s cousin owned a .22 caliber pistol that Massey had “borrowed.” Multiple people had seen Massey with the gun. The Walmart clerk who had sold the bullets, two knives, and handcuffs to Massey was able to ID him. At Massey’s house, police found the handcuffs, knife box, and newspaper articles he had cut out about the crime.

The fiber on Brian’s shoe matched the interior of Massey’s car. The blood on the car seats was tested and confirmed to come from Brian and Christine. Forensics and witness interviews painted a grim picture of the crime. Christine had agreed to sneak out and meet Massey. Perhaps she was nervous enough to ask her brother to come with them.

Perhaps she thought Brian could protect her from Massey. Instead, Massey drove them to a secluded location and shot Brian twice in the back of the head while still sitting in the car. Christine jumped out and tried to run, but Massey caught her and brought her back. There was no evidence of sexual assault. That isn’t where he got his pleasure. He shot her and dragged her back, then stabbed her multiple times. The gunshot did not kill her. It’s not known which of the other injuries were fatal. She was likely dead before the worst of the mutilations occurred.

Massey smirked during his arrest. He relished the media frenzy that followed, basking in the attention. There was a mountain of evidence, but in tiny pieces. Put together, the pieces made a whole picture, but conviction wasn’t a sure thing. It was a circumstantial case, even if the circumstances were damning.  Then during the trial, a bombshell. A hunter in the woods stumbled upon a rusty cooler. Opening it revealed Massey’s trophy case. In the cooler were 31 skulls of animals, and a set of four spiral notebooks. These notebooks bore the title “Slayer’s Book of Death” and they were the ramblings, the fantasies, the plans and recollections of Jason Massey. It was his blueprint for murder and mutilation. He detailed his crimes against animals. He particularly liked strangling them and decapitating them so he could keep the skulls. Massey wrote that killing gave him an “adrenaline rush, a high, a turn on, a love to mutilate.”

Massey wrote of his admiration for famous killers, particularly Bundy, Manson, and Lucas. He aspired to be even more, the most famous serial killer of all time. He set a goal of 700 victims in 20 years, working out how many people he would have to kill a month to hit his total. He named girls he wanted to add to the list. The journal starts with his fantasies of rape, torture, mutilation, and cannibalism, but then moves into specific planning.” Massey wrote that he wanted “to grab society by the throat and shake ’em with terror until they’re awake and realize what’s up so they will remember who I am, when and why I came their way.”

Both sides only had a single day to process the new evidence. For the state, it was exactly what they needed, a glimpse into the mind of a wannabe serial killer. For the defense, it was devastating. The jury only needed 15 minutes to convict Massey of capital murder. After the verdict, the jury learned more about Massey’s background and his crimes against animals and robberies. He was sentenced to death.

Massey was executed April 3, 2001. As so many before and after him, he claimed to have found religion. Maybe he had. He grew from a boy to a man on death row. He expressed remorse and I can only hope it was genuine. He apologized to the families of Christine and Brian. He told them that “she didn’t suffer as much as you think” and said that he had thrown her hands and head in the Trinity River. He apologized to his family and said he was relieved his journey was at an end. “Tonight I dance in the streets of gold. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Would Massey have become a serial killer? He certainly had all the makings. Horrific childhood. Severe substance abuse. Animal mutilation. Fire starting. Sadistic sexual fantasies. At the trial, several experts testified that there isn’t a known treatment for such a strong case of anti-social personality disorder. As a society, all we can do is warehouse them or put them down like rabid dogs for our own safety. Maybe someday we will progress enough that we can do something meaningful to stop the process. The warning signs were there. If we can’t unmake the monster we have to stop him from being created. Otherwise, innocents like Christina and Brian suffer, just two kids who never had the chance to grow up because wannabe serial killer.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvnSIR6eIH8

http://www.murderpedia.org/male.M/m1/massey-jason.htm

http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/massey706.htm

http://darkoutpost.com/history/crime-history-jason-massey-serial-killer-fan-turned-teen-murderer-executed-in-2001/

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Convicted-murderer-Jason-Massey-executed-2054935.php

http://www.shotsmag.co.uk/feature_view.aspx?FEATURE_ID=133

https://mylifeofcrime.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/monsters-among-us-jason-massey-killed-brian-king-and-christina-benjamin-in-his-quest-to-be-a-serial-killer-executed-432001/

Slayer’s Book of Death: Diary of Wannabe Serial Killer WARNING: This article contains graphic and upsetting descriptions of human and animal mutilations.  There are some photos of animal skulls and maggots.