#they never get Chakotay right!!!!

[bumblingbabooshka]

Me reading fics where Tuvok encourages other peoples’ romantic pursuits:

[homewrecking-lore]

There is so much to be said about the unhealthy codependency the Voyager crew have, but I still can't get over how much love was expressed by these characters for each other. And right from the beginning! The first moment we see Tuvok and Janeway alone in show premiere is Tuvok's face softening into a smile as he approaches her. We see Janeway fretting - because she met Harry's parents. Because she never seems to know the crew on a personal level and wants to. B'elanna calling Harry 'Starfleet'. Tom intervening for Harry at Quark's bar and Harry seeking out Tom even when everyone corners him about it. Chakotay taking the time to reach out to the officer who transported him safely to Voyager. And it's this constant thread throughout the show that they will always choose each other. Doesn't matter how many years pass or what life they're offered they'll erase timeline after timeline to give each other one more chance. Just a bit more time. Maybe this time they'll all make it.

[leohtttbriar]

the sequence of “deadlock” to “thaw” to “tuvix” to “resolutions” is so interesting. a sequence of traumatizing events about: what it means to be intimate with no one but yourself, intimate with fear as a simulated person until you both fade from simulated reality but remain in the material one, and intimate with a merged half such that it's not two halves but one whole--and then with an equal with whom, by position and consequence, no intimacy can be allowed to exist. which i guess is just a different kind of intimacy?

it's like a cycle in which janeway learns she is alone in a fundamental way, making decisions and hard calculations with no other cooks fixing the broth, and while there could be a new and equivalent love, there actually can't. no matter the small acknowledgment, she walks back onto the ship to the start of the cycle, again. sacrifice, fear, choice, sacrifice, fear, choice, sacrifice--

in a meta way, there's an interesting read regarding how mulgrew didn't want janeway and chakotay to get together, and how she was right for it: the first female-captain character of this enormous franchise couldn't be the first to also have an explicit romance with her second-in-command. to be in a specific singular position requires constructing some scaffolding that might not otherwise be needed. in this is the implication that, while other captains would be as lonely as janeway, they might not be quite as actually alone. and it's like how strachey describes queen elizabeth i, forever unmarried, but in the most cunning of ways--prevaricating on committing to the personal, leaning into the tension but never breaking it, pledging only in the quiet so it can't ever be interpreted as contractual, all to retain a hold on centered power. a power which, in many ways in the story, is the ethic driving the crew back across the galaxy and acting as infrastructure for the culture of their unbelievably distant home, through sheer will. it's a kind of compromise of personhood to the position that seems particular to janeway, because of her gender and the fact that she's the highest-ranking officer of a distant culture's diplomatic and governing organization for 70,000 light years.

she has to be aware she's more representative than real at this point. like, it's almost an idea somewhat suggested by her brief duplication and her brief simulation. (and like of course she split tuvix back up--she only thinks now with two bodies instead of one, kathryn and captain, and it's inconceivable these separate persons might genuinely fuse.) the solitude of janeway makes either her insane or, as strachey put it, "a sane woman in a universe of violent maniacs."

[lostyesterday]

Star Trek Voyager ended with two canon couples – B’Elanna/Tom who get married and Chakotay/Seven who start dating right at the end of the show. But what if things had gone differently? What if a different set of couples had gotten together?

Scenario A: B’Elanna and Chakotay start casually dating in season 3 and Chakotay proposes to B’Elanna in season 6. Seven and Tom start bickering constantly in season 6 until it is revealed at the very end of season 7 that they’ve been secretly dating for several months.

Scenario B: In season 4, it is revealed that Harry has been in unrequited love with B’Elanna all this time – or so he thinks. It turns out she loves him back and they get married near the end of season 7. Janeway and Neelix have the exact same relationship they do in canon except that in mid-season 7 they’re infected with a virus that makes them tell each other their darkest secrets. After this, they suddenly start dating.

Scenario C: B’Elanna dates Tom starting in season 4, but then a love triangle begins when the Doctor falls in love with B’Elanna too. In season 6, B’Elanna breaks up with Tom because they argue constantly, only to get together with the Doctor in season 7 who argues with her at least as much. This is never acknowledged. Seven initially starts dating Harry in season 4 as an “experiment”, but they end up staying together long-term.

Scenario D: In season 5, Neelix becomes Seven’s main tutor in “becoming human” (based on Neelix's observation of humans over the last few years). The two of them grow to become good friends and start dating in season 7. In season 6, Janeway and the Doctor suddenly start being put into increasingly obvious and contrived sexually charged scenarios. In the final episode, the Doctor confesses his love to Janeway and they share a single kiss. It is implied that they eventually get married.

[straightbaittournament]

may the best bait win! propaganda under the cut

brienne and jaime:

[major spoilers for the show] homoerotic as hell. for some reason. from what i've heard this seems like a rare case of buried straights. jaime i believe dies right after they get together. the first time they have sex jaime says he's never done it "with a knight" before. literally most of my knowledge about this ship comes from bait: a queerbaiting podcast (one of their "straightbait specials"), which i'm officially suggesting as propaganda i'm only up to s4 but i feel like they should be hereThey def have already been submitted but I'm getting in early on the #BraimeSweep They're soulmates 4real :( <33 "Brienne caught him before he could fall. Her arm was all gooseflesh, clammy and chilled, but she was strong, and gentler than he would have thought. Gentler than Cersei." "The swords kissed and sprang apart and kissed again. Jaime's blood was singing" "Jaime's golden hand cracked him across the mouth so hard the other knight went stumbling down the steps. His lantern fell and smashed, and the oil spread out, burning." "You are speaking of a highborn lady, ser. Call her by her name. Call her Brienne." "In this light she could almost be a beauty, he thought. In this light she could almost be a knight." Come on. This het couple has no right to drive me (a lesbian) crazy. If they don't get together I'll explode.

kathryn and chakotay:

Janeway is the Captain of a Starfleet ship lost so far from home it will take decades to reach. Chakotay is the Captain of a Maquis (rebel) ship also lost there. They decide to work together to get home and combine their crews when the Maquis ship is destroyed, and Chakotay becomes her second-in-command. Because of the seriousness of the situation, Janeway feels that she cannot afford the distraction of a romance and so they never get together. They have NO personal space and look longingly at each other quite often and one episode has them forced to abandon ship potentially forever and they live together in a little house and he builds her a bathtub because she complains about not having one and they share a romantically charged massage where he tells her a made up story about a warrior and the woman who inspired him which he openly admits is made up and actually about them. Also he holds her while she cries about their chance of going back to the ship being destroyed. In a different episode she “dies” and he cradled her body while weeping about it. They also have candlelit dinners regularly and she lent him a copy of the book her ex-fiancé gave her, and every time the show conspires to make one temporarily unaware of the other, they flirt hardcore. An episode designed to show how they wouldn’t work as a couple only makes more people ship them. Also a young version of Janeway meets older Chakotay via time travel and asks him if they’re together in the future despite her being engaged at that point. He declined to answer directly.they have a lot of Tension thruout the series & a very deep relationship, but Janeway has someone waiting for her back home & Chakotay ends up in a romance plot with another person in the last season (that I personally felt came from out of nowhere but whatever) I rooted for them! I rooted for a str8 couple! I did not care that Janeway had someone waiting for her back home even tho I usually do! but I did not care! they deserved to fuck!

[the-heartstring-chronicles]

As someone who has shipped P/C since 1994 and JC since 2006. I just want to say:

Continuing justice for Jean Luc and Kathryn!

( No, no! Not as a ship, you can stop screaming in horror now, I have not abandoned my soulmate pairs)

But as characters:

They both get a very bad wrap for being addicted or married to duty. And in some ways they are, it’s true!

But as confirmed by Picard season 3, Jean Luc says he would have wanted a shot at being a husband to Beverly, from his own lips! And he says that he would have wanted to be a father. She may not have known either of those things, but it doesn’t make them any less fact.

He was also openly affectionate to her, sometimes in public during TNG. Riker knew about them, he says as much to Jack. No one on the crew bats an eye about Jack in fact.

JL and Bev were about as subtle as an air horn set on low volume. Trying to be circumspect, but actually being a billboard for lifetime love. Heck even Shaw knew and we had never met him before. People don’t know that much about a relationship if one person in it is solely married to duty.

And Kathryn! Miss Ma’am let Chakotay build her a bathtub while still trying to get off the planet. She cried at his speech, even though it was so mushy, it could have been day old oatmeal. Why? Because she knew he meant it. ( and I as a mushy viewer, appreciated him being that honest about his feelings too)

She let him give her a rose in Coda and she struggled mightily with his disappointment in her several times in later seasons. Her counterpart in Shattered was also very openly interested in how far they went in seven seasons. (Shoot your future shot lady! Go you!) and no one thinks S7 Kathryn was totally cool with C/7 right? Her face said otherwise. Admiral Janeway, was also heartbroken in about six ways, only two of which were Seven dying and Tuvok getting sick.

She also seemingly, from what I’ve read, made it part of her goal to find him in Prodigy too. Like Jean-Luc with Beverly, when Chalotay is lost, she will seek.

So while yes, duty sometimes sidetracks each of them. they are loving people who adore their other halves as well. They are complex.

And that’s part of why I love each pair, for the devotion that both of the partners in each relationship feel and how they navigate it together.

True love must flow from each heart to make a sustainable ship

And so I hope that as much as we discuss the duty bound Admirals and those who love them, that we also keep discussing and writing about their softer sides and the ways they show that love in return.

[xchronicles]

Okay… real talk now, just between us girlies.

Aaron, if you’re reading this, you’re one of us and you’re always welcome in.

We joke, argue, and moan a lot about the J/C stuff - especially now with Prodigy being the latest new canon story. We all know, at the end of the day, they’re not real. However, what they represent and the impact they have on the audience is very real.

I watched Voyager back in the day when I was in primary school. My emotionally undeveloped self quickly picked up on the J/C stuff, and soon I found myself watching the show more and more, hoping that today’s episode would be about them or at least feature a lot of scenes with them together. I vividly remember the heartbreak after watching "Endgame" and being so confused on what I had just witnessed. I remember expecting the next episode, which never came, and feeling so confused. I felt betrayed by the show and didn’t want anything to do with it anymore. I was just a kid - exactly the target audience that Prodigy aims to reach.

Now, as an adult, that kid in me still feels that betrayal. I’ve always leaned on imaginary characters as a coping mechanism. As a girl who never quite fit into traditional gender roles and was often criticized for not being "girly" enough or not aligning with societal expectations, I found solace in the reversed gender norms between Janeway and Chakotay. At the time, I didn’t realize that this was what appealed to me so much.

What I’m trying to say is that making Janeway and Chakotay canon, no questions hanging, healthy relationship and all, is an incredible narrative tool to show that women can be in the position of power, having a career while also being in a loving, supportive relationship. It would teach younger audiences, especially girls, that they don’t have to choose between career and relationship and, more importantly, that they don’t have to strip down parts of who they really are to fit into a gender role box to be accepted as a proper woman.

I get frustrated watching interviews with Kate because whenever she asks why fans want the J/C relationship to become romantic, she never gets a good answer. I understand her pushback to some extent because I don’t think a man could ever give her an answer that truly resonated with her. Men don’t think about the constant criticism that women face about not being "womanly" enough. Kate gets told that fans want the relationship because she deserves it and that is the problem. It’s not about what she deserves - it's about the women who have been constantly told from a young age what is “appropriate” for them and that if they don't change they'll end up alone cause no man will want them. They’re the ones who truly deserve to see that they can have both, represented in a strong character like Janeway, whom they’ve admired be it for a year or over 20 years

Men do face their own set of pressures though, like being told they aren’t “man enough,” which can contribute to toxic masculinity. However, Prodigy has addressed this issue beautifully through Chakotay. He’s a wonderful example of strong, non-toxic masculinity, embodying the true essence of what it means to be a man. Season 2 did a fantastic job showcasing this with both Dal and Chakotay. I just wish we could see that same level of depth and growth for Janeway, particularly for young girls who look up to her. Right now, the message feels as if you have to choose between pursuing a career or pursuing a relationship.

Truth be told, I think a big part of the issue is that Kate views Janeway as Prodigy’s lead character, which might make her feel that maintaining the “will they or won’t they” tension is necessary to keep the audience engaged. That perspective might be true if the show were solely focused on Janeway like Voyager was, but Prodigy is so much more than that. The core of Prodigy is really about the young crew and their journey. In fact, younger viewers are likely more interested in the relationship between Gwyn and Dal. I truly believe that making J/C canon wouldn’t hurt the show - instead, it could provide a positive example for the young crew and their audience to look up to. Find solace in them just as I have when I was their age, minus the horrible heartbreak thanks to Endgame lol

[jenlrossman]

Tuvix as a metaphor for Janeway's mindset throughout Voyager

When Tuvok and Neelix merged into a new individual after a transporter malfunction, Tuvix was born. Possessing a combination of the memories and personalities of his component parts while still being his own unique self, Tuvix quickly proved he was more than just a transporter accident, showing he had potential to find his place among the crew of Voyager and settle in to this new normal.

And when Janeway learned of a way to separate him, bringing back Tuvok and Neelix, Tuvix was killed. Against his wishes, against the doctor's ethical subroutines, Tuvix was killed.

I'm not going to discuss whether or not this was right. That's an entirely different subject that many people have debated ad nauseam.

I just want to talk about how the decision to kill Tuvix and bring back Tuvok and Neelix might actually be the defining moment in developing Kathryn Janeway's mindset for the rest of the series. The sometimes questionable mindset best described as

"There's the right way, the wrong way, and the Janeway."

To Captain Janeway, Tuvix is a problem to solve. He is the thing standing in the way of the status quo, the thing preventing her from seeing her loved ones again.

She says as much, when Kes is expressing reservations about developing feelings for Tuvix and says she hasn't given up on the idea of him being separated.

You’re experiencing what people on this crew have been going through since we first got stranded in this quadrant. Do we accept that we're separated from our loved ones forever, or do we hold onto the hope that someday we'll be with them again?

Tuvix, therefore, is a physical representation of being stuck in the Delta quadrant. He is the thing preventing them from being with their loved ones, and she might not be able to get everyone home right now if ever, but she's going to do everything she can to see Tuvok and Neelix again.

Whether or not it is right for her to kill Tuvix, that isn't as important to her as proving—to herself and to her crew—that she is going to do anything she can to get them home, and killing him is a symbolic representation of that.

We see this mindset continue throughout the series, and the Lower Decks episode Twovix gives us some great examples.

While most of the crew is dealing with another transporter malfunction, Boimler and Rutherford are dealing with holographic representations of various things the Voyager crew encountered. And they just happen to be some of Janeway's greatest hits… Or misses.

Michael "delete the wife" Sullivan—Janeway's holographic Irish boy toy, who she widowed and altered to suit her preferences even though those episodes deal with the possibility of all holograms having a chance to achieve sentience

The macrovirus—which was dealt with by Janeway unleashing it on a crowd of (again, possibly sentient?) holograms

The personification of fear—the clown who was defeated when Janeway went so far to save her crew that she literally made the concept of fear afraid of her

Chaotica—Janeway didn't particularly want to play the role of Queen Arachnia but she got very into it because when push comes to shove, she really doesn't mind being the villain if it means protecting her crew

And of course, the Borg…

The series finale of Voyager is the ultimate example of the "anything to see our loved ones again" mindset Janeway shows in Tuvix.

Voyager gets home. It takes 23 years, but they get home.

However, Seven is lost along the way, Chakotay dies after reaching earth, and the delay in getting home has exacerbated Tuvok's Vulcan equivalent of Alzheimer's to the point that he is not himself anymore.

Three of the most important people in her life, gone.

So what does she do? Of course she doesn't accept that, she can't, she never has been able to.

Kathryn Janeway goes back in time, erases the lives of everyone in the universe to rewrite history on her terms, she defeats the goddamn Borg—just to see them again.

And of course she does it herself. As we learned in Tuvix when the doctor refuses to separate him, Janeway doesn't care. She'll do it all herself, ethical consequences be damned, she just needs everyone she loves to get back to the Alpha quadrant.

So whether or not it was right to separate Tuvix, it doesn't matter. The right way, the wrong way, none of that matters. Not to her, not as long as doing things the Janeway gets everyone she cares about home safely.

[elephant-in-the-pride-parade]

Prodigy Recap

I love it I love it I love it I could watch it forever

I'm truly irrevokably in love. I'm done for. I'm probably going to rewatch this all month before I am satisfied I've fully taken it all in. I NEED to rewatch Mindwalk and Supernova again ASAP because knowing what I know now about the memories HJ had just recovered. I know it is going to wreck me to watch her in those episodes with S2 in mind.

My ship HELD HANDS GUYSSS. HE TOLD HER SHES HIS HOME. HE DIDNT FEEL LIKE HE BELONGED ANYWHERE UNTIL THEY MET. SHE BROKE TIME FOR HIM AGAIN AND AGAIN. HER EYES GOT SO BIG! THAT HUG LOOKED SO GOOD. (I'm getting off topic a lot but i need to get the "my ship is canon - in a way i don't hate!!!" fangirling out of my system.) breathe. breathe. okay gonna keep going.

Its gonna take me a few more watch throughs to fully wrap my head around the paradox. And around how you fit a humpback whale in the original ISS Voyager (seriously. has that been there the whole time? does OG Voyager have a whale? was she retrofitted in the AQ? did Mirror J steal a whale from 1996?) And if that timeline where KJ was lost on the infinity means shes also trapped on future solum with Chakotay or just dead. and and and... so many things. so many fic ideas. so many plot bunnies

(wait no -- shoves the plot bunnies away -- go away. not ready for more wips yet)

There. was. so. much. that I loved. it was such an ambitious story to tell in 2 seasons and oh my god, i really feel they mostly pulled it off. They brought back Voyagers legacy characters and put them to work in a plot that fit them, and it was such a joy to see them again. They stay true to who they were on Voyager - thoroughly wonderfully 100x better than on Voyager in Chakotays case. and i really believe theyre the same characters with a few more years of life since ive last met them.

And the new characters too. I love Dal and Gwyn and Rok and Murf and Zero and Jankom and Maj'el to pieces. (Majel!!! is such a perfect tribute!) I want to see so much more of Noum and Tysses. I am in tears over Adreek. God how much i want Season 3 just to see how their stories continue.

But I think... what strikes me most and what I appreciated the most was how much this show wholeheartedly respects its fans!!!

It never dumbs things down or babies it's younger audience. its very mature for a kids show. it is a great introduction to star trek and the universe without over explaining. there are storylines in these 40 episodes that would be right at home in TNG or Voyager. it's really more of a fun for the whole family show than a kids show in that way. (it says something that it's the first "cartoon" my parents have ever cared for and they are watching it wholely for themselves.) It really manages to tell the story in a framing thats aimed at kids without taking anything away from the story its telling for all ages.

And it's adult audience...

I worried about how it would feel to have enjoyed such a rich fanon universe in the 3 decades since the show ended. There were advantages to having a ship with very little canon. the fan universe thrived on how much room there was to work within. After that - having headcanoned and written and imagined so many futures for the characters - I feared having some new canon come in and make a new story for them that would invalidate so much if that imagination, or create something so unsatisfying or rigid or antithical to their last canon encounter that nothing new would be inspired by it. (P/C in Picard was like that for me)

Prodigy didnt do that. Prodigy made no grand sweeping canon for the years in between Voyagers homecoming and the new show. Prodigy didnt shoe horn any character into a rigid relationship status. Prodigy picked them up, set them on a new adventure, sprinkled in tantalyzing new details, and left a wealth of room around the events of the season and the relationships between the characters for so much fan imagination to thrive. The possibilities before and during and after the seasons for the characters are bountiful and perfect for imagining their other adventures. I couldnt have imagined my ship becoming canon (or maybe affirmed by the canon is a clearer way to put it) in a better way.

And then they went and added Tank Top Action Janeway in there as a treat.

Truly a masterpiece. i'm so grateful for this show. i hope it gets the 3rd season it so dearly deserves.

[louthestarspeaker]

it's almost 1am here's my essay about Dal and captainhood <333

I hath promised a Dal essay and I hath delivered… 

I've had this in the drafts for so long, but I just rewatched season two and it really allowed me to solidify a lot of my thoughts.

One of things that really strikes me about Dal's character and his relationship to command is that being in charge is a place of safety for him. He's had to be self-reliant and self-sufficient pretty much his whole life until the Protostar. It's something that was engraved into him since he was small, that the only person Dal could really depend on was himself.

And because he was never around anyone who actually cared about him until the Protostar, that was the right thing to do. This need to be in charge, to be in control really, is a learned survival skill. "I can tell you from experience, people in authority lie."

But in season two, his circumstances have changed (for the better!), and that's not the right thing to do anymore. Ultimately, to me, Dal's season two character arc is about vulnerability and trust. He's been in survival mode for so, so long, and now we watch him learn to heal.

You start with this boy who's spent the grand majority of his life alone or with people who are exploiting him, and the story takes him by the hand and tells him "now that you're safe, now that you have people who care about you, you can't live like that anymore."

All throughout season one he learns trust. Trust in his crew, in Hologram Janeway, in the Federation and in Starfleet as institutions that can and will help him and his newfound family. But as a captain,when he was guiding his crew through active crisis after crisis, trust looked like open doors. It looked like laying out all the variables and problems on a table so they could figure a way out together. 

Trust looks very different on the Voyager-A. It asks him to have faith in what he's not seeing, what he's not being told. He has to believe that they have his best interests at heart, that he's not trusting his family to something that will try to hurt them. 

Captainhood isn't just bossing people around for Dal. It's the responsibility of holding the lives of the people he loves in his hands. He trusts his own hands. He has the best interest of his crew at heart. 

To ask Dal to relinquish control, is to ask him to place the lives of himself and his family into someone else's hands. Which, historically, has not gone great for them. It prods directly at his trauma, asks him to take undo and ignore the survival instincts that kept them alive for so long. Is it any wonder he has trouble with that?

Dal's not going around crawling through Jeffries Tubes because he's a brat or because he thinks he's entitled to know everything. He's a traumatized kid whose self-sufficiency, independence, and ability to make his own decisions were once, for a very long time, the literal line between life and death for him and his crew.

And even if he trusts Starfleet and Janeway in his head on a logical level (which I absolutely believe he does), there's still this instinct that's written into him. It's a process to learn how and when to turn that off, and that's what we see especially throughout the first half of season two. 

This really culminates in the cafeteria scene after they return with the Protostar and Chakotay, when Dal advocates for the Starfleet temporal management guys to figure out a way to get the Protostar back to Tars Lamora. Dal was able to see that his hands weren't the best ones for the job, and trust Gwyn's life to someone else. That's huge for him. He trusts not just a person, but a branch of an institution he's never interacted with before, with one of the people that mean the very most to him. And Dal's able to give up that control, to place himself and his crew in that position of potential vulnerability, because he's finally started to feel it in his bones that he's safe here.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Everyone needs to start getting way weirder (read: hornier) about this moment so I don't feel so alone.

Also - Tuvok....this is WILDLY funny. Tuvok is SO cringe I love him, he's the worst guy ever. Absolutely 0 hesitation to, IN FRONT OF EVERYONE, straight up go "Hey, first officer? Sorry for cutting you off in the middle of this life-or-death situation but I just couldn't help but notice that I, Tuvok, made a suggestion and you didn't follow it? That's literally never happened before. Did you not hear me or..?" There's literally not even a good reason for him to object it's straight up ONLY because it wasn't his idea.

[stellacartography]

Thanks to @lisbeth-kk for tagging me.

Fic Writer's Meme

How many works do you have on ao3?

I have 28! 18 in Sherlock, 6 in Star Trek: Voyager, and 4 Good Omens.

What’s your total word count?

182,614, a majority of which is Kinesis, but as a person who has always struggled with completing things, the 100,000+ words that aren't Kinesis are a real victory in my head.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Kinesis (Mystrade), The Interrogation of Anthony Crowley, Witch (Ineffable husbands co-written with @mevima), Avast Ye Merry Gentlemen (Johnlock Christmas), The Bold and the Bruised (Mystrade 360MG), Atonement (Janeway/Chakotay post-series reconciliation).

Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

Absolutely! I love comments. If I haven't responded to a comment it's only because life has been eating my brain and I will get to it once I've recovered.

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Probably All the Time it Takes to Wait, which is titled after a song I played obsessively at the time while I was dreaming up the scenario of Chakotay actually getting to have feelings about the whole Fair Haven disaster. Nothing is resolved but they have it out. The song is angsty and so is the fic.

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

It's gotta be Kinesis. Not to overhype, but the ending is pretty satisfying and joyful.

Do you write crossovers?

I have the outline of a Sherlock/Star Trek crossover in my WIP pile.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

No, but I can't wait. Bring it on, internet. I love an argument. I love to analyze the fears and insecurities of people who start fights on the internet over free content lovingly created and bravely posted. I am unhinged and ruthless.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Hell yes. Smut has been an essential part of my recovery from religion, both the reading and writing of. Smut is so revealing of a character's motivations, their vulnerabilitites, their desires. I think it's a marvellous thing.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge. If so, I'd rather not know.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

No.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, the aforementioned The Interrogation of Anthony Crowley, Witch was so much fun to write with @mevima. It was way outside my comfort zone, kinkier and darker than anything else I've written.

What's your all-time favourite ship?

Johnlock and Mystrade are forever duking it out in my head. I also love Ed and Stede's speedrun enemies-to-besties-to-lovers dynamic in OFMD.

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

Never say never, right? I have another long one that could be a Good Omens AU set in Toronto in the early 90s. Because it's last on my list of long fics, I don't know when I'm going to get to it. Also all the garbage behaviour of a certain writer/creator has really sapped my enthusiasm for writing in the fandom right now. I had a thought to turn it into an OFMD fic but I'm not sure if or when I'll get around to it.

What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue is my friend. If I get stuck in a scene, I just make the characters talk and it helps me move on. Comes from a background in writing plays.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Endings! Spare me from having to finish anything. I get burnt out and distracted easily but I'm learning to manage it. I look forward to the times when the story really flows, but since most days are not like that, it's about finding ways to write the next 5, 10, 500 words.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Like so many things, I don't think there should be hard and fast rules about what writers can and cannot do. For me, I'd be inclined to check with a native speaker if I can find one, but keeping in mind that this is not a professional venture, I think foreign dialogue in fic is a "do your best and be forgiving" venture.

That said, if a writer chooses not to get a native speaker to weigh in on their usage and they get comments like "Hey you bum. Don't use google translate for this!" we have to be willing to take our lumps and seize the opportunity: "My hero! Will you look at the rest of my dialogue for me?" Fandom is about connection building.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

My first creative writing project in first grade was an origin story for a talking boot puppet in a horrifying Canadian children's program called Readalong. But I had no idea what a fanfic was at the time.

My first intentional fanfic might have been an unpublished Sailor Moon or Mulder/Scully fic that may live on in a hard drive somewhere.

First fic on AO3 is actually poetry called Not a Romance about what Kathryn Janeway was thinking after the episode Resolutions.

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

Our Flag Means Death. Probably Ed/Stede but there are so many great characters, it might be hard to choose.

What's your favourite fic you've written?

Kinesis. It's the fic I've always wanted to write. It has some of my favourite vibes. And I derived great joy from firing Mycroft Holmes.

Tagging @hubblegleeflower @may-shepard @the-toad-in-your-piano @copperplatebeech @blogstandbygo @fearlessdiva930 @cirquedereve @antheiasilva if you feel like answering and haven't already been tagged. I tag anyone who sees this and wants to answer (please @ me in your response and I will reblog).

If you see this and you're more of a reader, tag your favourite writers in a reblog or the notes. Seriously, this goes for anything. If you tag me on your original posts, I will gladly reblog and hype your content.

[leohtttbriar]

I have to ask... what did you think of Tom asking B'Elanna why she lives the life of a monk, right at the start of "The Swarm"? Obviously he was flirting but I think the way that line is written reveals something about both her work ethic and her reserved nature, and how B'Elanna might appear to the rest of the crew (almost like she has this duty to keep the ship running that sets her apart, not unlike the captain)

lol so i know i just watched this episode but i still had to go and re-watch that scene bc i think my brain tends to slide over tom-scenes without much acknowledgement--like when you're driving on the highway for a long time and you're technically still taking in the road but you're sort of unaware of it and thinking completely different thoughts to driving... anyway. i think on first viewing i must have filed it as a tom-flirts-and-i-don't-care scene and moved on, but, after re-watching it, i'm like "well now, that's interesting."

because you're right! surface level it's man-being-flirty-and-woman-rejecting-advances. the stuff underneath the structure, however, is revealing b'elanna in some way:

her work ethic and her reserved nature, and how B'Elanna might appear to the rest of the crew (almost like she has this duty to keep the ship running that sets her apart, not unlike the captain)

absolutely agree! i mean, we don't see b'elanna doing things off-duty all that much--unlike tom and harry who seem to always be hanging out. i feel like the only time we've seen her deliberately having fun is coming back from playing that game, whatever it's called, with chakotay. who is the only person b'elanna seems to trust with her personal feelings--the only person she really treats as a friend.

and, like, "monk" is such a hilarious descriptive word for someone who holds themselves apart because it implies that she's not sexually expressive and also that she thinks of her work as something of a higher order than the work of the """laymen""" around her. which does make her very like the captain and does set her apart. no fraternizing with the people she holds in her hands like a small bird, maybe? or maybe she really is just that inwardly turned and focused.

it's an interesting conversation to introduce this episode too because this whole episode is b'elanna getting involved in a fairly personal thing. like a really person-y personal thing. tom accuses b'elanna of being a monk--cut to the doctor getting really into opera and making enemies with long-dead sopranos (very glad he never subjected maria callas to his nonsense) in a very involved and non-monk-like way. then, while b'elanna serves as a builder/fixer, like always, in the story, she also has some of the sweetest personal moments in this episode: comforting kes, trying to fix something that looks impossible to fix, claiming a headache just to keep the doctor activated, and then watching on and smiling as he sings puccini again. when kes says "i know b'elanna can find a way," the rest of b'elanna's actions reveal what kes could mean by that: that people trust b'elanna to not only do the work but to do it kindly. she's just pure of intention.

so is the sort of back-handed "you live like a monk" from tom both a tease and, retrospectively, a compliment? i don't know. and now im on the verge of comparing her to mimi just bc that song is from la boheme but that's probably too much lol.

b'elanna's place on the crew and the way they react to her is such an interesting question. thanks so much for sending this to me--i think you are so so right about that scene and what it reveals. i clearly need to stop tuning tom-scenes out like this.

[annakie]

Okay so I just finished season 2 of Prodigy.

I woke up early this morning and got a few episodes in.

I WFH so I worked all morning getting shit done, and then watched at lunch, and then my normal Monday afternoon work is work that can easily be done while multitasking watching things, so I actually got a ton of work done while watching straight through the afternoon and finished the last 5 or so episodes after work/dinner.

I posted a few posts today with some thoughts but hey let's make it more coherent.

Heavy spoilers!

I loved this season so, so much from start to finish. It somehow never felt like there was a lull. Every episode either did something interesting or pushed the story forward in an important way.

So many shows do that "one story in a long season" thing and the show really suffers for it in the middle, especially. But I, personally, never felt that, even when they were taking diversions like getting Zero a body, that and the Tribble episodes might have been the "slowest" and still, I really enjoyed those.

Digging deep into the tropes and finding something new.

And the arc actually came together so well and nothing felt forced. It was a complex arc, too. So many moving parts, and it would have been easy to lose some threads and let things drop, but it actually felt like every element was important and it all tied together nicely.

They did a great job giving recaps where needed to reinforce what was going on in the storyline and why they were doing what they were doing, which was appreciated. I never felt lost. No arc felt like it dragged on too long.

Everyone got their moments to shine. Some of the characters had more of an arc in the season, like Zero, and some had less, like Jankum, but no one felt left behind from the main cast. I think it would have been easy, especially with adding in a new major character to the group, Ma'jel, but they really made her fit in. I especially love that they used Wesley to help cement her part in the group.

And yeah, the cast was huge. Seven main "kids" now. Janeway, Chakotay, Wesley, and the Doctor all felt like main cast throughout the season, plus Ascencia, Dreadnok, Ilthuran, Tysess and Noum... the cast is huge but everyone had a place. With 20 episodes they had some time to breathe, and I loved that.

The kids each had a lesson to learn, something to contribute. Gwyn was at the center of it all even more than last year, but she's such a fantastic character that holds the story up so well.

Of course there's a contrivance in things like... them not getting thrown in the brig in the first couple of episodes, and the fact that the ending was something allowed at all when they literally just said because of the Synth attack on Mars ships were in short supply but I mean, all easy to overlook in the name of the Story needs to happen. None of it really bothered me.

But as much as I love the kids, what they did with the legacy adult characters this season meant the most to me.

The Doctor fit right into this show, and was such a great inclusion. Still the same egotistical but loveable hologram. It was so good to have him back. And that scene with him and Holo-Janeway was adorable. I was glad to see that their rights weren't affected in the Synth attack -- at least not yet!?

I don't know if ANYONE would expect Wesley Crusher. That hit me in the face like a ton of bricks, seeing Wes again, and it was amazing. He's now been in Picard, Lower Decks and now Prodigy and every time I'm just delighted to see him.

But this was definitely his best re-appearance so far. A Wesley Crusher at his full Traveler powers. He was so smart, and funny, and a little manic with his big brain running at a thousand miles an hour. It really felt like this was what Wesley always had the potential to be, a real logical progression in the best way from the Wes we saw at the end of TNG. Space, Time and Thought all coming together and he had awesome magical powers to go along with it.

I was hoping after his initial two episodes that he'd be back! They dropped some decent hints about it, and they mentioned him almost every episode while he was gone, so having him in the final handful of episodes was amazing. And it seems like he might have a place in the future of the show, if we get that future! (and GOD I hope so.)

But my absolute favorite part was the MOST unexpected. I was hoping we'd get to see a bit of him calling Beverly. But then the hug, he went and saw her and Wil's voice breaking when he said Hi to her and gave her the hug broke me, and I cried.

Then, holy shit, they closed the loop on that burning question so many of us had at the end of Picard S3, if Wesley ever met Jack. Wes met his brother, and spent time with Beverly, and that meant so much to me.

It's crazy that the ending of this season tied up loose ends from other shows, and integrated those shows into the universe with fewer seams. It was amazing.

---

And as great as all of everything else was... I just want to be more coherent about Janeway and Chakotay.

Not going to lie -- the fact that there wasn't a kiss, or an obvious love confession did sting a little, but what we got was so, so good, and it was enough.

I do get it -- this is a kid's show and as much as we love them and how important they were to the season, this show is about the kids and not J/C as much as some of us are watching for J/C reasons. I'm not mad about it.

We got fed. More than Voyager.

You'd have to be blind to not admit that there was love there, on both sides. They never gave up on each other, they both looked forward to that reunion, they were terrified of losing each other again but did their duty. There was a little tiny bit of hand holding and quite a bit of touching. It's enough, it's canon enough for those of us who have been shipping it since Season 1 of Voyager.

And like I said in that previous post, they did so much more for Chakotay than Voyager did. This post summed it up better than I could. This season took two of the most maligned and neglected characters from their initial iterations -- Wesley and Chakotay -- and not only did them justice but made them the best versions of themselves. I felt like I was seeing the Chakotay from the Beyer novels on screen, the character he always should have been.

His relationship with Dal was an unexpected delight and I very much hope that in season 3 that mentorship continues.

I need more of that Chakotay. I need more of Janeway and Chakotay together. I just need so much more of this show.

---

I love every Trek. Yes, even that one that isn't that popular, or that other one that people forget exists. But this was without a doubt one of my favorite seasons of any Trek ever.

I'm so mad at Paramount's treatment of this show.

I'm so glad that Netflix stepped in and let us get this one.

I need at least one more season, y'all.

[lodessa]

For the headcanon ask ❤️‍🔥🫂 for Chakotay please

❤️‍🔥 A romantic headcanon

Chakotay has never "pursued" someone in his life. He flirts and he drops hints and his heart is on his sleeve, but he waits to be asked, to be invited, to be pounced. This actually works out pretty well for him in general, since he's so damned cute.

🫂 A friendship headcanon

Chakotay is that friend who you could call after a significant gap in talking to each other, and pick right up where you left off. It might be weird for the first fifteen minutes or whatever, but then suddenly he's referencing your old inside jokes and more importantly you suddenly remember just how nice it feels to hang out with him, the warmth of his presence, the way he can be so gentle and yet turn sharp on a knife's edge. Next thing you know, you are telling him about the big stuff that's been haunting you lately, and he seems to get it in a way that no one else does, there's just something about the way he listens and the questions he asks and how you see belief in you reflected in his eyes.

[trekfacility]

sometimes tuvok will say some shit and i would pause the show and get flabbergasted for a second because of how WELL he phrases some situations or because he finds such good words to explain something, some feeling, for which i could never find the appropriate words

this hit me yesterday when i was watching an episode where some corporal alien and chakotay's consiousness were beefing:

tom paris: am i being accused? tuvok: we are merely following a line of deductive reasoning

hellooo???wow?! idk maybe im getting too crazy here over some small sentence but that really stayed with me how well he phrased that and how i need to take that into my speech because this is something i sometimes want to explain but for some reason cannot find the right words