#paul stamets imagine

[mxflowercheck]

I PRESENT YOU THE CHAOS ENGINEERING GANG

AND THEIR CONCERNED BUT ALSO CHAOTIC ADULTS

actually fuck jumping to the future i need the absolute chaos of Reno&Ortegas friendship. OR Stamets&Ortegas friendship.

Tilly and Uhura! Michael and Una!! AND SO MUCH MORE!

[captaincrusher]

A thought on a queer Star Trek timeline

Watching Star Trek from the original series to modern times is to fast forward through the evolution of queer rights through the 20th and early 21st century.

In the original series queerness must be imagined in the close relationship between Kirk and Spock. We can only see ourselves in what we hope and dream about for the future. We get Amok Time.

In the 80's queer people start to materialize in the background. TNG takes tentative steps towards telling our stories, still cloaked in the allegory. We get Outcast.

In the 90's Ds9 gives us Rejoined. Still cloaked in allegory, but the lines get sharper, the mist starts to lift. A character has a monologue about how two people that love each other should be able to be together. Hidden winks has turned into words.

Voyager, while a good show in other respects, does not give us a single crumb of queerness. Aside from the relationships we ourselves imagine.

In the 2000's we are on the cusp of actually having queer people on screen. Enterprise tries to tell stories of gender (Cogenitor) and the AIDS crisis (Stigma), two episodes that are still filtered through a limited understanding of both. When Enterprise ends in 2005 and this Star Trek era ends with it, queer representation in film and tv is still scarce.

The AOS era instead is where queer people, for the first time, stepped out of subtext. Sulu is married to a man - a nod to George Takei, the original series actor. Star Trek Beyond comes out in 2016, the year after same sex marriage is legalized in the US.

It isn't until 2017 that a Star Trek show officially, without subtext or allegory, gets queer characters, when Paul Stamets and Hugh Culber are married on Discovery. Discovery also adds further queer characters down the line, finally saying that yes - queer humans do exist in the future.

I know you all will have opinions on what is queer or not. But when tracking the evolution of queer representation it's important to separate subtext from text and to separate when something is allegoric verses not.

I interpret Jadzia Dax as queer - but she is not human. She is an alien wrapped inside a gender non confirming shroud of gray areas. That is the strength of her character - that it allows the writers to explore themes that otherwise would have been taboo. But the fact that they could only pursue queer storylines with non human characters tells you something about the times.

it really feels like Star Trek was late to the party with queer representation. I think there's multiple reasons for that. One is that when Enterprise was created, it still carried the legacy of shows created in the 80's and 90's. Enterprise itself is also literally a prequel - there seemed to be little desire to be bold and innovative.

Timing is I think the main reason why Star Trek trailed behind. Between Enterprise ending in 2005 and Star Trek Discovery starting in 2017 there's a whole era of representation. If Enterprise had dared make an actual queer character, like Malcolm Reed, it would have been just ahead of the wave of representation that started popping up in the late 00's - but instead it closed on a similar note as DS9 did 10 years earlier.

Feel free to add your favorite queer episodes. There are some "official" queer episodes - but there's a bunch more that meant a lot for us as queer people, for one reason or another.

[lifebloodblue]

In an AU where the Discovery and its crew never went to the future, I can imagine Jim Kirk and Paul Stamets talking sometime after the events of TSFS and Paul would bring up how his husband literally came back from the dead and Jim would be like “Really?? The exact same thing happened to me!!”

[iron-bundle]

okay im putting my disco thoughts here because no one i know has finished the episode yet but its been sitting in my brain since 11pm last night.

when they said they were on lorca's ship i was going to scream if they did a lorca cameo but instead it was airiam and i was like feeling so many goddamn things i almost cried because i remembered airiam's death because i just rewatched it a few weeks ago and it ruins me every time

when they did the bit about drydock discovery i was hoping we'd see straal I'm the only bitch who cares about him i know i hope stamets got to see his best friend again

thank GOD they brought back paul's weird time shit i need them to talk about his weird tardigrade symptoms all the time he's my babygirl

the lack of paul trying to reason with hugh in other timeloops is so annoying please i know he knows he cant reason with hugh but i need Hugh in every episode in like 3 scenes each

Jett Reno my beloved i need you in my life every episode i hope rayner bought you that cocktail

baby rhys... my beloved lt rhys...

speaking of bridge crew. god i missed bryce i hope he shows up again

IMAGINE if they had the chance to do a snw cameo i would have cried we could have had pike or lorca and got NEITHER

the way michael's voice not only is different in the past but also her stance and her speaking pattern oh my god she grew so much i love you michael

and of course. the most important thing. grudge was here yippee she was purring in michaels quarters that made me so happy i love seeing the fucking kitty

[theusssomeproblem]

It's fun imagining what all the people who have the same job from all the various shows would think of each other.

Obviously Geordie and Scottie had some issues around different standards of professionalism, but a lot of that was that Scottie was feeling insecure about being outdated and so trying to compensate by throwing his weight around. If they'd met at the same age, I think the professional standards would still have been an issue, but I think Scottie would have thought Geordie knew how to treat his ship like a lady, and Geordie would have appreciated the way Scottie was ready to throw down over his ship's good name. They would have bonded over dating woes and how the enterprise was the only girl for them.

O'Brien got on great with LaForge, but I think he would have found Scottie a little irritating given how smug Scottie is, that plus the aggressive friendliness can be a little bit like Bashir, but over all I think they'd get along. They would understand each other's ability to hold grudges and issues with xenophobia. Scottie might be scandalized that O'Brien's relationship with DS9 is somewhat combative, but then again he knows The Struggle of working with alien technology.

Scottie would have Problems over B'Elana because on the one hand she's a Kilngon, and on the other she is exactly his type, and I think he relationship with Janeway and his relationship with Kirk are similar in terms of the whole constantly asking for the impossible and just expecting it to happen. Geordie would be like 😍 and it would go very very poorly. I think Miles would hit the dad buttons in just the right way for her.

Stamets and Torres would be at each other's throats for like. 6 weeks, and then they'd wind up trapped in a Jefferies tube for like 18 hours while in some temporal lock or something and after that they would be best friends and it would be miserable for everyone else around them. Stamets would underestimate O'Brien and make some nasty little remark and Miles would decide Stamets was Dead To Him and also isn't that mushroom bullshit really more botany than engineering? Also oh. Oh you were murdered one (1) time? Oh you poor baby that must have been soooooo hard for you. They would get competitive over whose kids were better. Geordie would not tolerate Stamet's bitchy queenery and would eject him from engineering in like 5 minutes, but in a crisis they'd work well together (if you can work with Q you can work with anyone). Paul would take one look at Scottie and Hate Him for gay reasons.

[mylittleredgirl]

the correct answer won here but i’m still gonna talk about it, because honestly it’s pretty important to keep separating “fans” from actual media that a corporation paid to make and promote.

i’m going to use star trek discovery’s paul stamets as an example, because it was big news that he’s star trek’s first openly homosexual main character, and he literally says on-screen that he can’t imagine a universe where he’d be attracted to anyone who isn’t a man. he’s capital g Gay in canon (except in the evil bisexual universe, of course, but no one escapes bisexuality over there).

for star trek to backtrack on that and have him discover his bisexuality or heterosexuality would be a betrayal because of the larger cultural context. even through that’s a story that some real people experience and would relate to, stamets is the flag-bearer for being a proudly gay man on star trek, and they don’t have enough other proudly gay main characters to walk that back without it being a Big Huge Statement about homosexuality. and that statement is a dangerous one to make in a world where conversion therapy is still common practice! in that context, it would be Wrong for them to do that.

but even the most popular people in your favorite fandom have a negligible audience. if some random writer with 200 (or 2000!) ao3 subscribers really wants stamets to kiss a woman, that’s a personal statement, not a cultural one. there are no press releases or entertainment weekly articles. your mom won’t hear about it. this story hasn’t been vetted by a dozen people and a network and filmed for an audience of millions. the number of people who give a fuck are not statistically significant, and the real-world potential for harm is limited and can be avoided by personal choice (not reading the fics; unfollowing tumblr bloggers who discourse about it).

so it’s “wrong” from a “is this in-character in the canon prime universe?” standpoint, but let’s be real, so are most fanfics—and while it might hurt or disappoint someone who chose to read it, it’s not Wronf for someone to do it. it doesn’t move the cultural needle, and that individual fic writer didn’t make any promises to a huge audience in the “hey man how’s it going” universe.

For example, writing fanfiction in which a canonically lesbian character has a relationship with a man; writing about a canonically asexual character having sex; etc.

–

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[clarkimagines]

Michael Burnham, Sylvia Tilly, Saru, and Paul Stamets Discovering You’re Autistic

Requested by anonymous

Michael Burnham: 

After her upbringing by both humans and vulcans, and a career as a xenobiologist, she’s able to take any manner of unexpected behavior in stride. She didn’t seem to give you weird looks or think of you differently, but you still wanted to explain, so you did. She listened while you talked her through your autism, and asked a few questions. She promised she still saw you as the same intelligent, kind, funny person and that she was proud to be trusted enough by you to know so much about you. 

Sylvia Tilly:

Tilly was no stranger to stimming (she’s been known to repeat words she likes and jump up and down after a particularly successful mission) so she didn’t think it was strange when she saw you stimming for the first time. She was glad to learn you were autistic, and she took note of all the setoffs you told her of so she can make sure you’re comfortable. 

Saru:

He would ask you for an explanation of your actions, since it was the first time he’d experienced a human behaving that way. When you explained your autism, he’d be very curious but he wouldn’t judge you for a moment. He’d learn your schedule, do his own research, and he would love finding out more about your special interests. 

Paul Stamets:

He would let you be while you were stimming and wait until you came to him to explain. He would understand when you told him you were autistic, and he’d make sure there weren’t any adjustments that needed to be made for you. Then, he’d tell you he was glad to find out, and treat you like nothing was different aside from knowing a little more about your needs and personality. 

[prider-parker-imaginations]

Imagine Stamets, your best friend, helping you come out to your family.

**Based off of I Don’t Know My Name by Grace Vanderwall**

“Do you want my advice?” Stamets asked, his voice surprisingly gentle.

You nodded, forcing yourself to meet his gaze. You couldn’t help but feel ashamed. Of what, you weren’t sure. Your family, your faith, who you were, maybe some mix of all of them. Being raised in a family of faith had been difficult once you started growing into who you were. You desperately wanted your family to accept you but you were terrified that they wouldn’t understand or, worse, that they’d condemn you for what you were. You had been happier since arriving on the Discovery. Despite the war, you had made some of the closest friends you’d ever had in your lifetime. You had been able to accept yourself and embrace who you were. But whenever your family was involved, it felt like you had to lie and suppress your identity. Like you weren’t allowed to be you anymore.

Stamets licked his lips and drew in a deep breath, “Never hide who you are. I know there are people who are going to make you feel like you should, but you have nothing to be ashamed of. There is nothing wrong with you. Nothing. The coming out process can be rough but it’s better than forcing yourself to be someone you’re not.” The scientist’s thumb came up to brush over your cheekbone. “If your parents think that their faith is more important than their child, then they’ve missed the point of what they believe in. The people who love you should accept you no matter what. That’s what love is about. You are not a contradiction. You are a beautiful, unique individual that is worthy of love and acceptance.”

You ducked your head, fighting the lump that had filled your throat. “I don’t want them to hate me,” your voice shuddered and your eyes burned. You felt like you were lost in a sea of people all trying to get found. You didn’t know how to answer all the questions they would inevitably have. You didn’t know how to convince them what you felt was real. You didn’t have a valid answer for why you were right and they might be wrong.

Stamets sighed and pulled you into a hug, swaying you back and forth, “That’s not going to happen, okay? If they really are your family, they’ll always love you. And if they don’t, then they don’t deserve to be called your family.”

Gif Credit: Stamets

[federsturm]

I had a revelation.

Tarka doesn't want to talk to Stamets because STAMETS HAS EVERYTHING TARKA EVER WANTED.

I mean it's canon that they're the more or less the same character wise. They both know this. And Tarka obviously did his research on Stamets. He learns that Culber was dead. And that he came back.

And suddenly it all makes sense. Why Tarka sent Aurellio to be their middle man. He does not want to see Stamets. Because he got Culber back. And Stamets is happy now. This could've been him. Stamets and Culber could've been Tarka and Oros - if they'd have made it out. That must have been like a slap in the face.

Stamets has everything. The love of his life. His spore drive that he dedicated his life to (just like Oros life's work was the interdimensional transporter) and made it work. He has friends. A family. People that care about him.

And Tarka? Has nothing. Not even a working interdimensional transporter.

He doesn't want to talk to Stamets because Stamets is happy.

I am not okay.

[quantumstarpaths]

"Stamets," Paul answers, flipping open the small communicator that rests on the table before him. Neither he nor Spock know it yet, but they're both very lucky that since coming here, Paul's made an effort to leave the lab on time. No more lingering, no more late nights--within reason, of course.

It doesn't hurt that he doesn't quite feel like he has his place on the ship yet. The transition from project chief to mycologist in charge of nothing has been difficult for him. And...and it doesn't help that there was an...incident involving a very irritated song about how much better he thinks he is than everyone else around him and how much he hates them in his way. Which is why he's here when Hugh isn't due to be home for hours. His shift is over, and he's hiding, licking his wounds.

He imagines that's what Spock wants to talk about. He'd hoped that the whole thing would be brushed under the rug by the whole crew as a particularly horrifying experience, because that's certainly what he wants to do. The next call will probably be from the captain.

"What can I do for you, Lieutenant?"

He's the Ex.

[Closed starter for @quantumstarpaths Stamets stays back on the Enterprise AU.]

The events of the last few weeks have not been exceptionally harrowing, not in a broader sense. They have, however, resulted in quite a significant series of blows to his emotional stability. The compulsive singing of the day had been less than ideal but, now that the problem has been solved, Spock could ruminate on the drastic shifts in his life. Spock, however, wanted very much to refrain from any rumination at all, so he was at something of an impasse.

His options for distraction had also been seriously narrowed. He could not sit in the bar and drink with his usual group of associates, nor with anyone else who had been present for Christine's dismissal. He could not drink alone, he is quite certain he would overdo it if left unsurpervised. He could enlist the watchful attention of Dr. M'Benga but…they were not close and the likelihood of Christine spontaneously appearing was very high.

In the end, he turns to one of his only remaining friends, and probably the only one who had not born witness to his musical dumping. He flips his communicator open before he can fully ponder the wisdom of this decision.

"Spock to Commander Stamets," he starts and his call is routed through the ship.

[astrangergivingthestrangewelcome]

Star Trek is about Paul Stamets awkwardly making small talk with Book after Book lost his whole planet and failing miserable

[mxflowercheck]

Paul Stamets watched bugs and birds in the park in silence when he was a child and it was one of is favourite activities.

He named the spider he found in the living room "Octo" and would not let anyone kill it, instead he carried it outside without fear in his eyes, but with a smile.

He admired a flower growing through the cracks in the middle of the road where people constantly walked.

He looked at the veins in his wrist, listened to his own heartbeat, breathed and laughed, amazed because he was alive.

He cried after classes about wars because he could not understand how anything could be more valuable than life?

He read science books the first week, and then read more and more, fascinated by every little thing.

He frowned at his classmates who said they liked chemistry but not biology, because well… what did it matter if it was all about life, just from different angles?

He thought that something must connect everything in the universe when he was just a teenager who found life and the universe fascinating

He loved science fiction because there were so many things that humanity knew about, that humanity thought were possible, even when they weren't even close to having the technology to do it. And after inventing so many things, after going into space, people never stopped thinking. imagining. inventing.

He went to see the cherry blossoms whenever he could afford it, even if it meant cutting corners because the trees were hundreds of years old and Paul couldn't help but feel butterflies in his stomach when he touched them.

Paul Stamets has always been fascinated by life

[disco-headcanons]

The game Among Us was accidently recreated on the USS Discovery after an accident shorted out electrics at the time of a party; people were drunk and got paranoid. two people thought it'd be funny to be 'imposters' to start off with (Reno and Tilly) and things got out of hand, many many games were created. No one suspected Saru. Paul didn't didn't see Adria coming

Oh my god can you IMAGINE the chaos of it tho? The more games they play and the weirder the imposter duos?

-Adira and Paul being an unstoppable force that unfortunately get caught far, far too soon after an unfortunately timed murder.

-Michael and Tilly never being paired up except One Fated Time and they SLAUGHTERED everyone before anyone even found a single body to report and call the first meeting

-Pollard Single-Handedly winning a 1v8 match after her imposter Buddy Detmer was voted out randomly in the beginning. She gaslit the HELL out of everyone and even managed to convince the last two survivors of her innocence right up until she was declared winner.

-Reno and Paul get partnered up and they spend the entire time blaming each other for the murders. Everyone else thinks “oh, they both have to be innocent, and even if they aren’t, there’s No Way they’re BOTH the imposter, so let’s vote out the other imposter that isn’t one of them”. There is no other imposter. The rest of the crew votes each other out over and over. Neither Reno nor Paul even have to kill anyone to get the win. No one knows how they pulled it off, least of all Paul or Jett.

[fireinmywoods]

I love Hugh and Leonard being friends, I had a lot of thoughts about them running into each other until the most recent season. But what about Paul and Jim? I can't decide if they'd be instant friends or tolerate each other because of their partner?

Hugh to Paul: Well, one tends to worry when they're doomed to love a brilliant but reckless maniac who's willing to risk his life for glory.

Me watching DIS S1 not long after losing my entire mind over McKirk: ...oh.

I guess you could say I have a type!

Somewhat ironically, my take is that while Hugh and Leonard would bond in part over their questionable taste in life partners, Paul and Jim would not be fans of each other at first. The way I see it, they share some very distinct traits - ambition, impulsiveness, an over-the-top passion for scientific progress, dubious perspectives on appropriate levels of acceptable personal risk - but their personalities and worldviews are different enough that there would be some initial friction. Jim’s big golden retriever energy would grate on Paul, and Jim would be stung by Paul’s...Paulness. I imagine them being polite enough to each other’s faces and then grumbling later to Hugh and Leonard, who are both too wise (and resigned) to consider gently suggesting to their dearly beloved that perhaps he and his nemesis might have more in common than they think.

Paul does like Leonard, though, and Jim likes Hugh, and of course they each want their own partner to be happy, so they continue socializing together and staying civil, if not warm. And then one day over dinner the group conversation turns to just the right subject, and Jim and Paul both light up with the high-voltage enthusiasm of men whose partners have limited patience for a topic they themselves could talk about all day long, and Leonard and Hugh exchange knowing looks and hide their smirks into their drinks while their nerdy-ass men are animatedly debating the finer points of dark matter or string theory or the multiverse or some such convoluted shit.

And from then on they’re friends, after a fashion. It’ll take a while for them to truly warm up to each other - Jim still thinks Paul’s kind of an asshole, and Paul still thinks Jim is Too Much and annoyingly pollyannaish - but once they’ve shared that first moment of real connection they can finally look at each other and think to themselves: “You know what? That guy’s all right. I don’t know how [Hugh]/[Leonard] puts up with him 24/7, but he’s pretty okay in limited doses.”

[poetictrekkie]

Request: Saru Wants to Pursue a Relationship With You

Anonymous said: Can I request fluff with Saru to heal my broken heart 😭

Anonymous said: Can I request a Saru x Reader where he’s trying to court her but the way he goes about it doesn’t make it obvious to her

Author’s note: I decided to combine the two requests, since the first one was pretty broad. The unfortunate cause of the broken heart is linked here. Again, so sorry!

ALL REQUESTS ARE OPEN!

As you were walking down the hall, you nearly ran into an extended bowl of fruit. Strange, yes, but you should have expected it.

“Blueberry?” Saru, who was proffering the bowl, asked.

You plucked a slightly soft blueberry from the bowl, and nodded in thanks. This exact exchange had been happening for the past two weeks, and you were sick and tired of blueberries. You had often wondered to yourself if the ship would ever run out of blueberries at one point, at the rate that Saru was consuming them.

Come to think of it, Saru had been offering you plenty of food and drinks as of late. He had given you a mug of fruit-infused green tea (no salt, thankfully) one morning at breakfast, chocolates when you were off-duty, and even a tray of food the moment you walked into the mess hall. Oddly enough, many of your favourite dishes were on the tray, and you couldn’t help but wonder how Saru knew what you liked to eat.

You had no clue that Saru was trying to tell you something very important. When you were assigned to the Discovery, Saru became your friend very quickly. Unbeknownst to you, Saru had developed a crush on you since the moment you arrived. As he had no experience with the romantic lives of humans, he had turned to Stamets for assistance. Judging by his happy relationship with the late Doctor Culber, Stamets was an excellent authority on the subject.

“Well, for starters, get to know their likes and dislikes,” Stamets had explained to Saru over lunch. “Food is always a good place to start.”

Stamets’s suggestion had reminded Saru of something you said a few weeks prior, when finishing a diagnostic on the spore drive.

“I do like something to snack on between shifts, or before an assignment,” you had said. “It keeps my energy up, and gives me a short break. It’s nice to have something sweet, but I’ll usually opt for something healthy.”

Saru had taken Stamets’s suggestion to heart. After an extensive study on human snack foods and beverages, Saru had found many options to offer to you. Chocolate: an excellent source of anti-oxidants, reputed to boost brain functions, and sweet like you enjoyed. Green tea: Saru had found the perfect blend, infused with fruit, full of the energy that tea provided. And, of course, blueberries.

Saru watched attentively as you popped the blueberry into your mouth, and smiled lightly. No effect. Saru had thought you would be aware of his desire to pursue a relationship by then, but it seemed like you were oblivious. Perhaps it was high time that he asked Stamets for a different piece of advice. This one wasn’t working as well as he had hoped.

[rainaweather]

I love the way Anthony Rapp looks in the Discovery uniform. He looks like a plush doll.