#Kes: Neelix!!! Where have you been!?

[bumblingbabooshka]

Chakotay: Listen, Tuvok. Sometimes I can't stand you but I have to admit - you really are amazing at what you do. Tuvok: Thank you, and since we're speaking candidly, I'd like to say that I also sometimes can't stand you.

[foone]

So if Threshold happens to different Trek crews, who gets who pregnant? Voyager is one of the few shows where it makes heterosexual sense, (for lack of a better word, "sense" not being the word anyone would use to describe threshold)

So for Voyager, it being Paris (pilot) and Janeway (captain) makes sense through that lens. Paris, sure, because he is a pilot. We could pick a Science Guy to do it, but then it might be B'Elanna who does the flying fast, and then who is she going to kidnap for Lizard Sex? Harry? ... Yeah it'd be Harry. Anyway once you've picked Paris, you've got to figure out which woman is funniest to have him abduct into Lizardry. B'Elanna? No, not funny enough. She'd be a Klingon lizard and beat him up instead of mating, even if they did get married later. Besides, what if she evolves into a super-advanced Klingon, not a lizard? *claps* PUT TUVOK ON THE SHUTTLE. Kes? No, they already did a Tom v Neelix episode. Seven of Nine isn't on the show yet, so Janeway it is.

Ok so for other shows, we gotta pick a pilot or science guy (who might be screwing around with transwarp, and thus get Lizarded) and someone they could turn into a lizard to have babies with. The show is assuming heterosexual pairings here, but we know about things so we are not so limited.

The original series: as much as I'd love to say Sulu and Uhura ("I'll save you, fair maiden!" "sorry, neither"), I think TOS was much less of an ensemble than later Treks, so it'd need to be Spock. Spock is doing some science stuff, he gets hyper-evolved, and he picks someone else to hyper-evolve and turn into his lizard bride. As much as I want to say "Kirk", I think it's more likely that he runs off with Uhura and then Kirk has to rescue them. Kirk was always about being the one who rescues people, having the Enterprise come rescue Lizard!Spock (is that antisemitic?) and Lizard!Kirk and it's called commanded by McCoy? Nah.

TNG: the direct analogy to VOY would mean we have Wesley and... Picard? No, no, and no. Sorry. Frankly, we already had this plot on TNG (Genesis), and canonically the answer is Worf and Troi. The problem with it being a pilot thing is that Wesley is a child and Data (the official science guy) is an android, so he can't really be hyper-evolving. We could go with Geordi, the other Science Guy, but then we've got the image of a black man kidnapping a white woman. Uhhhh no. We already did that episode and it is an example of Deep Shame for the show. So Worf and Troi it is.

DS9: so this is what inspired me to make this post. We all agree Sisko would be a damn good father to his lizard babies, but would it be him? If so, with who? You could have it be Dax, and she lizards first and kidnaps him, which makes some sense given that she's a Science Guy. But you also have to consider Weird Guys. Every Trek series needs a Weird Guy so that whenever an ancient alien artifact turns the whole crew into Muppets or whatever, they can be the one who isn't affected and can thus solve it. This is all to say, Odo/Kira could be done. We've had a few episodes where he's been shown to do very extreme things out of his pining for her, so it makes some sense. Odo/Quark would be funnier but given how the DS9 writers handled Profit and Lace, I really don't want to see them do a gay mpreg episode.

ENT: the series with canon mpreg! Direct translation of would be Mayweather/Archer. Mmm. Probably not. I think it's gonna be a rarepair: Trip/Hoshi. Trip/T'Pol is too canon to be funny. The next best option is Archer/T'Pol and that's just kinda bleh. It makes sense but it's just the kind of thing they'd do and it'd be bland. We can do better. Honorary mention: Trip and Reed.

I've not watched enough of the New Treks to have an opinion there. Maybe SNW: Ortegas and La'an. Don't ask why.

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PRELIMINARY ROUND - STAR TREK

PROPAGANDA

T'Pol

1.) dressed as a sex object. far more qualified & experienced than the (male) captain yet treated as less capable. had her agency removed when her past rape was revealed against her wishes & the episode treated it as a good thing. her taking command of the ship got humanity wiped out in an alternate timeline & she "redeemed herself" by becoming a housewife. there was a scene where the captain fell face first into her boobs. whatever they paid her actress, it should have been at least 3x more

2.) i think you can most clearly see the misogyny t'pol deals with in her costuming and makeup. she is given clear special treatment to make her look "more attractive": she wears catsuits throughout the show (despite neither institution she works for having any other similar uniforms, even for other women), sexy little silk pajamas, a cropped jumpsuit one time (even tho…it's a one piece?? and makes no sense to be cropped????), and SFX makeup that doesnt make her look as "alien" as other members of the literal alien species she's a part of. enterprise's main crime is sexualization, and while everyone (quite literally EVERY member of the cast) is hit with it at least once, t'pol pretty much never gets a break. there's a difference between sexy and overly sexualized, and ent is FAR into the over sexualized side of that spectrum. love you t'pol wish your canon was better xoxo

3.) The classic “Rick Berman Star Trek needs a woman who is strong and competent and part of the crew but gets skintight jumpsuits with low necklines instead of standard issue Starfleet uniforms to show cleavage and keep the male audience on board”.

Kes

1.) Poor Kes had it so bad. She's an Ocampan, which is a kind of alien with psychic powers and a 9-year long life-span. I was pretty interested in what they were going to do with her character when I started watching because in theory with the show having seven seasons, we could have seen her go through pretty much her whole life span over the course of the show. Unfortunately, most of her character is tied up in her terrible boyfriend Neelix, who is at a lower estimate in his mid 30s, and at an upper estimate his mid 50. He met her and started dating her while she was taken prisoner after being kidnapped. Neelix is mostly meant to be comic relief, he acts like an annoying, forcefully cheerful clown for the majority of his time on-screen (when he's not having war flashbacks) except for when he's interacting with Kes. With Kes he is possessive, controlling and manipulative. He's constantly accusing her of trying to cheat on him or leave him, throwing himself pity parties whenever she talks to another man and belittling her. And worst of all he's often framed as being in the right. She hardly gets any screen-time that isn't somehow actually about her boyfriend, the Doctor she's the assistant of or another male crew member who has a crush on her (also too old for her). When she does it's pretty much always focused on her psychic powers and not her as a person.

Some of the highlights of her time on the show include the time that Neelix's lungs were stolen, and after he spends the whole episode feeling sorry for himself and accusing her of being happy about it because he thinks she wants to leave him she donates him one of her lungs. Then there's the time some space anomaly makes her prematurely fertile so she has to decide if she ever wants kids right at that moment, and for some reason, almost the whole episode is focused on whether Neelix wants kids. She eventually breaks up with Neelix. Which is great! But she was possessed at the time. So she didn't even get to do that herself.

She was written off the show at the start of season 4 when another character was added and they needed to boot someone. She "ascends to a higher plane of existence". And then everyone on the crew proceeds to completely forget her about her straight afterwards. I'm not sure anyone was actually sad about her essentially dying. She comes back in a later episode called "Fury" which is about her trying to take revenge on the crew for her poor treatment. You'd think this would be good. But for some reason, she's mostly angry at the captain for allowing her to get on the ship in the first place, despite one of her few character traits being that she's adventurous and always wanting to learn things that no one else has. So the episode mostly focuses on trying to pick apart one of the only parts of her character that was well-defined and consistent. Her past self does tell her that she's forgotten what she truly wanted or something to talk her out of her revenge plan. I'm not really sure what they were going for. She tells the captain she was only an innocent child, so she shouldn't have been allowed to make the decision to get on the ship. She is never shown to be angry at Neelix. The man who started dating her when she was according to her future self a child. And a prisoner.

2.) She's kind of the sexy born yesterday character who's already taken. She's an alien whose race only lives nine years, so when i say that she got married at two that's a bit less alarming. She lived underground her "whole" life (about a year and a half) before she left her town, to find the surface, got kidnapped and then rescued by Neelix, a middle-aged scavenger/smuggler/chef who looks like a Cats character from a regular aging alien race. Neelix promises to show her new places and they apparently fall in love and get married and then Neelix takes her to the Voyager, and she leaves her home forever. At the age of 2. She lived in a cave her whole life, then found this gross little man, married him for some reason, and then was convinced to leave everything she had ever known, her entire family and life, to get on a star ship whose express mission was getting to the other side of the universe as fast as they were able.

Once on the ship she was able to find some independence and her own interests, and eventually left neelix, but god their entire relationship was really just loser old man and naive teenager and it was soooooooo uncomfortable

3.) I rewatched the Kes parts of Voyager. The "General Observations" section can be taken as a TL;DR (sorry for the essay). Here are a few not-so-fun facts about Kes:

General Observations:

Kes was kidnapped 4 times over the course of the show.

Kes often talks like a child especially early on in the show. She acts like a classic Disney Princess; sweet, but not quite understanding what's going on around her.

A lot of Kes's character revolves around the fact that she is very young, and a lot of the more uncomfortable aspects of her treatment revolve around this too. It's not like it's an impossible concept to pull off, in the same show the EMH is actually younger than Kes, and has several romantic relationships that don't feel super creepy in the same way most of Kes's do. This is because the writers don't make him act like a child and they actually give him agency in his relationships.

Kes's people, the Ocampa, live underground on a desert planet. Kes travelled to the surface when she was less than 1 year old, where she was captured by the people living there and tortured for information using "every method of persuasion" that they know. This is where she met and started dating Neelix. He explicitly says he thinks she is dating him because she owes him for getting her out of that situation, and yet it seems like the writers think this is a cute and heartwarming relationship.

Nearly all of her screen time is devoted to emotionally counseling the men around her, helping their character development, comforting and caring for them. She is hardly ever shown to have negative emotions ("Fury" aside), and then it's generally only when a man she cares about is in trouble. This includes when she is kidnapped. Even then she has to be calm, understanding and empathetic.

Kes's established character traits: curious, smart, psychic, caring, kind, young, innocent, naive. Pretty much all of these get tossed out the window in "Fury". She kills people she's known most of her life and tries to sell everyone out to organ harvesters because she gets "confused". She decides not to do this in the end because her younger self tells her she's acting out of character. This episode is one of the worst instances of character assassination I have ever seen.

In about 10 of her 70 total episodes on the show Kes makes a significant contribution to the plot that is not focused on a man. Most of those were more her acting as a psychic plot device rather than anything about her as an actual character. There was only one episode "Before and After", which I would count as truly being devoted to Kes as a character.

Practically every man Kes comes across is attracted to her. Often her attractiveness is mentioned in the same breath as the fact that she is literally a 1-3 year old.

Kes's love interests: Neelix, the EMH, Tom Paris, Tuvix, Ameron (while possessed), Nori (while possessed), Zahir. Aside from Zahir, she has pretty much no agency in any of these relationships.

Neelix calls Kes "sweetie", and talks to her like she's a child. When he's not shouting at her, anyway. Kes unconditionally loves and adores him for some reason.

Observations while watching:

When Neelix's lungs are stolen Kes refuses to leave his side and one of the first things she does is offer to donate one of her own, refuses to let the EMH perform any medical procedures until she's sure it's safe. Meanwhile, Neelix goes on a jealous rant at her because she called another man by his first name.

When Kes donates a lung Neelix refuses at first because the operation would be too dangerous, but Kes says "you've done so much for me, let me give you something once", implying that Kes owes him a lung for him helping free her from the people torturing her.

The episode "Elogium" was apparently meant to be a metaphor for teen pregnancy. With Kes as the teen and Neelix (whose actor says that he sees him as being in his 50s) as the father.

Ocampan puberty apparently happens between the ages of 4 and 5. Kes starts the series at less than 1 year old, and leaves at 3. She is apparently at an age where it would be dangerous to conceive a child in "Elogium". She is not sure she is finished growing. She has been dating Neelix for about a year (possibly more) at this point.

When the EMH hallucinates Kes as his wife, she makes him promise not to tell Neelix, because he tends to get "a little jealous"

In "Elogium", Neelix interrogates Kes over the fact that Tom Paris says "see you later" to her because he "Sees the way he looks at (her). (He) used to look at women that way (he) knows what it means." Neelix is later implied to be in the right here, Kes is being naive thinking Tom Paris could be her friend, apparently.

In "Twisted" Kes turns two years old. Tom Paris gives her a locket for her birthday. Neelix gets pissed off because he thinks he's trying to charm her. Neelix is, again framed as being in the right here.

Kes has a very good memory and is able to remember where everyone's rooms are. When she demonstrates this, Neelix implies she knows this because she's slept with every man on the ship. At the end of this episode, Kes decides to put his photo in her locket to always keep him close.

When Kes is upset that Neelix attacked Tom Paris over her, the EMH tells her she should consider herself lucky to have two men fighting over her.

Tom Paris admits to Neelix that he finds Kes attractive, but says that he won't try anything with her because he respects Neelix. He asks if Neelix would allow him to be her friend. Because who cares what Kes wants right? I guess if Neelix had said no he would have just stopped talking to her?

Tom says Kes is very devoted to Neelix, and Neelix admits he thinks she's only with him because he saved her life and she's grateful he freed her from captivity and she owes him. He is dating her despite this. This is never addressed.

Tanis, another Ocampan, calls her innocent and naive, so she seems quite young even by the standards of her own species.

Tuvix, having inherited Neelix's manipulative tendencies tries to manipulate Kes into begging the captain for his life.

Kes gets kidnapped by caveman aliens. When someone comes to rescue her, the cavemen try to trade another woman to them so they can keep Kes.

Kes goes into a coma and acts as the damsel in distress again in "Sacred Ground"

"This is typical of you Neelix… it bothers you that I'm making friends of my own, you always have to involve yourself somehow." "You can spend time with anyone you want" "As long as I spend most of it with you… I never realised a relationship could be any different. I've never been with anyone but you." Kes when she breaks up with Neelix. Except this isn't Kes because she's actually possessed at the time. She doesn't even get agency in her own breakup.

Kes is dressed in skintight leather trousers and high heels and tries to seduce everyone while possessed by a male warlord. He describes Kes as a "little girl".

In "Darkling" Kes starts wearing form fitting jumpsuits somewhat similar to the ones Seven of Nine wears (though not quite as tight). This is possibly because she's supposed to look more mature, and she starts having "young adult" storylines instead of teenager storylines.

"Everyone seems to be treating me like a child, I'm three years old now"

The EMH kidnaps Kes in "Darkling" when he turns temporarily evil. His treatment of her in this episode includes shoving her into a wall and putting his hand around her neck, repeatedly grabbing and shoving her, holding her at gunpoint and throwing her off a cliff.

The evil EMH kidnaps Kes because she wants to leave the ship to travel with her new boyfriend. This is framed as the good inside of him because he is trying to "protect" her. Kes decides to stay on the ship because of this. She never expresses any negative emotions about this incident.

In "Before and After" Kes goes through her entire life in reverse. In the future she sees, she has married Tom Paris and had a daughter with him, and her daughter has a child with Harry Kim, who was the best man at Kes and Tom's wedding. This is by far the best Kes episode, but she never really gets to react to anything that happens in it. Soon after this she ascends to a higher plane of existence in "The Gift".

In "Before and After" Kes sees threats in advance and warns the crew about them, preventing the Captain's death in the future. This isn't really acknowledged.

Half of "The Gift" is focused on Seven of Nine and the Borg. Not even Kes's send-off episode is really focused on her.

In "The Gift", Neelix and Kes have one final scene together. Neelix gets quite self-pitying again and says she broke up with him because he was holding her back. Kes says that wasn't it but doesn't say why it happened. This is the only time they directly talk about their breakup outside of when Kes was possessed.

When Kes decides to ascend, the captain begs her to reconsider. Kes insists she has not lost her judgement or come under an alien influence. Captain Janeway tells her she's family and tearfully embraces her. Tuvok puts out a candle in mourning (everyone forgets about her after this episode ends though).

In "Fury" Kes is back in physical form somehow, despite ascending into some higher plane of existence in the last episode she appeared. She is also much older in appearance.

In "Fury" Kes gets onto the ship, starts exploding everything she can with her psychic powers, kills everyone she comes across and goes back in time to the start of the show to kidnap herself.

Kes and Neelix have a scene in "Fury". It makes Neelix much nicer than he ever was in the early parts of the show (especially to Kes). He actually notices something is wrong and asks her how she is and prepares her favourite meal for her because she had a bad day. I'm not sure he ever even asked her how she was before. I guess at this point they must have wanted to pretend the relationship was a lot less creepy and unhealthy than it actually was. Especially since Kes is the villain of the episode.

Older Kes's plan in "Fury" is to travel back in time, sell out the people she spent the majority of her life with to organ harvesters so she can send her and her younger self back to her home world because the crew "abandoned her a long time ago". I think this manages to dismantle practically every established character trait she has.

Older Kes's explanation of her actions in "Fury": "You (Captain Janeway) took her (young Kes) from Ocampa. Her home. She's a prisoner on this ship. I was a child, you corrupted me. Your ideas. Exploration, discovery. I believed you. In three years I'm going to leave Voyager in search of higher things because you encouraged me to do it. You encouraged me to develop my mental abilities. What I found, I couldn't control it, it scared me… I trusted you!" Neelix was the one who took her from Ocampa. As noted before, Captain Janeway begged her not to ascend.

Old Kes is killed by the captain. They know something terrible happened to Kes when she ascended, but apparently all that they did was get Kes to record a video of herself saying that she shouldn't take revenge because it's not who she is. This worked for some reason, she says she killed everyone because she was confused.

Kes decides to go back to Ocampa. Due to the Ocampan lifespan, everyone she knew before she left is probably dead. To add insult to injury, Neelix is the last person she sees before she leaves for good.

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s4 ep6: The Raven

A backstory episode for Seven, which I think helped to humanize her quite a bit. Even back in the day, when I was pretty prejudiced against her for replacing Kes, I still appreciated this episode for giving us some background and character insight for her.

The opening scene with Captain Janeway trying to teach Seven to sculpt in her Da Vinci holodeck program was pretty cute actually, until Seven has a vision of being chased by Borg and a raven.

Seven keeps having this same vision over and over, and the Doctor can't figure out why, so he shrugs and says he'll look into it. But he tells Seven that she's human enough to eat food again, and sends her to the mess hall to find Neelix.

Meanwhile, the Captain is negotiating with some aliens, the Bomar, for passge through their territory, which would take 3 months to go around. But they're pretty uptight and insist on Voyager taking a winding route to avoid all of their populated areas, which would take weeks or months, so idk why they even bother trying to go through Bomar space at that point, since it's gonna be more of a hassle, and take about the same amount of time. (Because plot, I guess!)

(Side note: I kind of hate the Bomar costumes. While the weird wire headgear was a cool idea, the primary colors made it look way too cartoony. I usually hate how grey and beige everything on Trek tends to be, but using primary colors is actually worse. The Starfleet crew already have the primary colors in their uniforms, so if you start having aliens in primary colored uniforms too, it starts to look like a children's show- we don't need to be reminded of the Wiggles of the Teletubbies when we're supposed to be having serious space drama. For such dour, paranoid aliens, the whimsical, silly colored patterns on their outfits didn't make sense, character-wise. The one time I think sticking to grey or beige would have helped, they didn't. Sigh.)

Meanwhile, back in the mess hall, Neelix whips up a plate of something for Seven, (while Seven tells him how the Borg assimilated some Talaxians, who made good drones, which incredibly creepy fact Neelix takes remarkably calmly) and then there's a rather adorable scene of Neelix teaching a skeptical Seven how to eat food, just like a parent teaching a toddler. But then Seven has another vision, and a Borg implant erupts on her hand, and she appears to be reverting to Borg again as she says 'you will be assimilated' and knocks Neelix down as she marches out of the mess hall.

We then have a sequence of Seven prowling through the ship with her Borg body shielding reactivated, so no one can stop her as she takes off with a shuttle to who knows where. There's a lot of odd camera angles that show her walking from every vantage point possible, and considering her insanely tight costume, it just has a kind of gross objectifying feeling- the shape of her body is on full display at every moment, it's all you can see, and it's like, why?? This moment is not about how hot she is- it's supposed to be tense because the audience and the characters don't know what's going on with her, and if she's going to become Borg again after all the progress she's made to be human. Seeing her strutting around in a high heels, a corset, and a catsuit that's so tight it has a divide between her butt cheeks is just like, really uncomfortably missing the point of her character, and actively sabotaging the storytelling. Corsets, high heels and tight clothes force you to move in a certain way, and it's not natural, and it's not something that someone who's never existed in a context where any kind of sexuality, much less the male gaze, existed, would choose to present themselves as. It's purely gratuitous sexualization for the male producers and directors, and jerky men in the audience, to leer over, and it takes me out of the story. All I can think about when I see it is how uncomfortable that must have been for her to wear, and how demeaning it must have been for Jeri Ryan to know that she was there to be hot, and that every inch of her body was being displayed and scrutinized all the damn time. She's an actor, not a stripper for crying out loud. Let her wear regular clothes!!!

But anyway, after she takes off in the shuttle, the Bomar finally leave, declaring that they'll track her down and destroy her shuttle for invading their space, so Voyager have to find her before they do. Tuvok and Tom take a shuttle so they can slip past the Bomar sensors to go find her. When they do, Tuvok beams over to Seven's shuttle to try to talk her down. She's convinced the Borg are calling her home, but Voyager hasn't detected any Borg ships, and Tuvok thinks something else is going on, especially when Seven very un-borgily says she will not assimilate him, and wants him to go back to tell Captain Janeway thank you for trying to help her. Seven has followed a Borg signal to a moon, where she and Tuvok beam down to find the source- a wrecked, partially assimilated Federation ship. Seven has flashbacks when she gets there- she recognizes it as her parents ship, where she was assimilated by the Borg as a child. Tuvok is a wonderfully calm, reassuring presence as Seven reverts to her childhood self while she relives her childhood trauma, and shows a more vulnerable human side than we've ever seen from her. He helps her refocus on the present, as the Bomar attack the ship, and it begins to collapse. They escape, Tom beams them up to the shuttle, and they go back to Voyager.

Back on the ship, Janeway finds Seven running her Da Vinci studio program on the holodeck, and contemplating what Janeway was telling her about the human need for imagination and creativity earlier. She's been imagining what her life might have been like if she hadn't been assimilated, if she had known her parents and been raised by them, which she'd never even thought of before, and which clearly raises disturbing questions she never considered before. Janeway encourages her to read about her parents in the Federation database, which Seven says she might do, in time. Janeway seems to consider this a positive step for Seven. Despite the trauma that Seven has unlocked with this experience, at least she can now begin to process it, and perhaps move closer to her humanity.

Overall, I appreciated the glimpse into Seven's past, and her human side, despite the extremely sad and traumatic subject matter, and the terrible costume choices distracting from and undercutting the story at every turn. Seven and Tuvok's interactions, particularly, were very well done, and I loved Tuvok's calm and nurturing prescence as an anchor to Seven in her confused state. Honestly I think Seven should have started some guided meditations with Tuvok, since she clearly has a lot of repressed trauma that this episode only revealed the tip of the iceberg on. While I actually think it would be impossible to come back to being human after being assimilated at such a young age, we have to go with the conceit that it's possible for the sake of the story, and I think they should have actually leaned into showing her confronting that trauma even more than they did, since in real life that sort of thing is a continuing process. At least they implied that it would be something she'd continue to work through, though I only remember there being one more episode that actually dealt with Seven's past after this.

Tl;dr: An interesting look at Seven's past, and a nice opportunity for Seven and Tuvok to have some great scenes together.

[catgirljaneway]

For the character ask game: Kes + 1, 12, 20

Thank you so much for the ask!! (Ask game in question)

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

Ok! So I'm a huge Kes fan, and I was initially drawn to her because she's got this little aura of joy, and you can't help but love her, which you can see in other character's interactions with her on the show. Any room she walks into instantly gets a little brighter and she's just so fundamentally kind and gentle and full of love.

So that's what initially drew me to her, but what hooked me, was that fact that the longer you watch, the more we learn about her, the more deeply strange she gets. We've got that fantastic scene in elogium where she eats all those fucking bugs with that deranged expression, and of course, my all time favorite, this one scene where the doctor tells Kes he has some autopsy reports for her to read because he knows she loves autopsies. This by the way, is NEVER brought up again which I think is a terrible loss, because what thing to say about a character and then never mention! What a fact!

So you've got this little elfish looking girl, who's still fundamentally kind and gentle, but now we also know "oh she's a bit of a freak!" and she's wicked smart, and then she learn, oh, she's got these terrifying powers at her core and actually she might not be as fundamentally gentle as we (the audience) or kes herself thought. And now Kes has to grapple with this, and she's still a deeply good and loving person at heart, but now she has to try a little harder to suppress these urges and that makes her fundamentally more interesting.

Also her relationships with Janeway and Tuvok and The Doctor all bring me so much joy. Janeway's love for her, and the way she smiles when Kes is around, the way she hugs her when she leaves just!! Rip me to pieces. And Tuvok's mentorship and quiet protection of her?? And that scene when the Doctor holds her in Twisted. Kes has 3 parents, and honestly all three of them think they're taking care of her, but they need her more than she needs them.

And what's kept me loving her, is in a way her missed potential. So much about Kes wasn't explored, so much was left unanswered, and getting to rotate her around in my head and think about all the things she could have been is so fun. I deeply wish she had been used more, because on paper she's such a fascinating, deeply weird character. And she was just starting to come into her own when we leave her. She's broken up with Neelix, she's making her own choices, and I want to imagine where that would have gone. (I have further thoughts on this, but this is already ridiculously long, so I will continue this in a different post)

Long story short, she's a lovable little weird girl, and I like weird little girls. She'd crawl around on all fours and make up weird stories at recess in fourth grade and I like that about her.

Also she reminds me of the "a little guy!" > "oh they're actually fucked up" meme.

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

Well I LOVE the art where people make her look a little more bug like. With weird pupils and antennae and such. I love that, I definitely headcanon her looking a bit creepier like that.

I also headcanon her as a lesbian. Her whole relationship with Neelix baffles me. I honestly LOVE them as friends, they're so great when they're just silly best friends, but I cannot stand them as a couple. She's a gay girlie.

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

SEVEN!! Seven!!! GAH! The missed potential! Pretty much a weirdgirls club with Seven, B'elanna, and Kes. Kes would have been the perfect person to help Seven reintegrate into society, because she's patient and kind, and she'd get a huge kick out of Seven's deadpan humor. I mean, the EMH is her best friend, she's very good at dealing with people who others consider hard to get along with.

Kes wouldn't make Seven feel bad about the way she is, or try to pressure her to conform to what she wants from Seven. She'd take her how she was and love her for her whole being, not for what she could be. Also Seven would be Kes's scary dog ❤️ Because people meet Kes and think she's an easy target or a pushover (even though she could probably obliterate anyone if she so felt like it) but then Seven is standing behind her looking menacing and they hurry away as quick as they can, completely unaware they were scared of the wrong blonde.

[trx34ksh]

I was listening to an episode of “women at warp” (a Star Trek podcast which I really love) where they talk about some unpopular opinions within the fandom. I’m pretty sure in that episode, the Tuvix ep of Voyager got brought up and how someone said that Janeway’s decision was wrong (yk like in unaliving/splitting up Tuvix back into Neelix and Tuvok) and personally [hot take] I think she was right in doing so.

Like imagine your best friend got mushed together with your other friend’s bf. It’s WILD! So ofc your stressed out and worried for both of them, even though the joined two seem to be content and healthy.

I do agree there could have been better writing within the episode to give more motivation for Janeway to make that decision without being criticized as much by the fandom; like if Tuvix had some cell degeneration due to the accident or some instability even though they are happily combined.

Truthfully, Janeway was right. Her team is in the middle of an uncharted quadrant of the universe, no one is certain of what will come next. You need all hands on deck! She needs Tuvok back not only because they are best friends and a big emotional support for her but he’s also a part of the bridge crew. Kes missed Neelix and wanted him back (though I personally really don’t enjoy their relationship and I think Neelix never deserved to be with Kes and was ultimately really controlling over her).

[sshbpodcast]

Character Spotlight: Tom Paris

By Ames

Strap in and get ready to go fast! A Star to Steer Her By has Tom Paris in the driver’s seat for this week’s character spotlight. Tom is a solid character throughout all of Voyager, with many faults that leave him room to develop over the seasons. He starts off as kind of a badboy with a heart of gold and grows into a good friend, loving husband, proud father, and designer of the Delta Flyer… who occasionally still dabbles into badboy with a heart of gold for fun.

Lt. Paris has a ton of hobbies (perhaps too many hobbies) for the show to mine for plots, but deep down, he’s just a guy with a ton of pressure on his shoulders, looking to redeem himself from past mistakes, and I give Voyager some credit for the Best Moments we’ll explore below, and even for some of the Worst Moments too. So pick a character from The Adventures of Captain Proton and hop in the holodeck with us as we highlight all things Paris below and on this week’s podcast episode (speed over to 55:35). Invaders! Invaders!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

Am I discerning a personal problem here, gentlemen? We can’t be the only ones who hated the childish love triangle between Neelix, Kes, and Paris, and clearly the writers were sick of it too because they knew enough to fix it. Watching Paris and Neelix putting aside their differences in “Parturition,” while predictable and a little obvious, was exactly what their characters needed to get rid of that jealous rivalry no one asked for.

To infinity! And beyond! I will always defend “Threshold” … up until the last five or so minutes of the episode, which go off the rails. But up until then, we get so much great character work from Tom. His speech alone about how much pressure his father put on him to make something of himself and that’s why he needs to be the one to break the warp 10 barrier makes up for all the lizard babies out there.

Always make a pilot your wingman Paris is also just a good guy to all his friends on the ship, even the Doctor, with whom he’s constantly butting heads. So when the EMH is seeking advice for how to progress his relationship with Danara Pel in “Lifesigns,” Tom is there to suggest a trip to makeout point in the back of a Chevy convertible, which definitely does the trick!

There has been a spy aboard Voyager, but it isn’t Tom Paris While I was quick to give Tuvok some sass for how convoluted, dangerous, and bad his plan in “Investigations” was, Tom is what made it work in the end. He plays his part so well that he is able to foil Seska’s plan, expose the true traitor on the Voyager, and save the ship from attack by Kazons. And it is nice of him to apologize for all the insubordination part of the plan.

The cavalry’s here! Speaking of foiling Seska’s plans, Tom gets to save the day from her and the Kazons yet again in “Basics”! Where Chakotay was always too trusting of that secret Cardassian, Tom knows exactly where to tell Seska to shove it. His efforts allow him to escape the commandeered ship to bring back Talaxian reinforcements, sneak a message to the EMH, and thwart the Kazons for good!

I’m telling you again, he’s mine The friendship between Tom and Harry starts all the way back in the premier and comes a long way throughout Voyager, but it is on special display in “The Chute.” Tom protects Harry when he first arrives at the Akritirian prison, even getting stabbed to try to get them a chance at escaping, all while resisting the clamp that was agitating all the inmates’ minds.

Sexy, in a Howdy Doody sort of way You either enjoy or get fed up with the antics of an episode like “Future’s End,” but you’ve got to admit that Tom had chemistry like whoa with Rain Robinson. Watching two B movie fans geek out in the SETI lab was just endearing, and it makes me kinda wish we could have kept Rain around a little longer if only so she and Tom could play something silly on the holodeck.

If you let these instincts take over now, you’ll hate yourself We’ve scolded both Tuvok and Torres for their rapey actions in “Blood Fever” (and here’s an extra scold for Vorik, that dick), but the crew member who treats the situation correctly is Paris. He rightly declares that he will not take advantage of a person who has no ability to consent due to the pon farr, which should be a bar low enough for most people to easily clear.

You’ll miss the whole point of what it means to have a family Again we see Paris being a supportive friend in “Real Life” when the Doctor declares he’s shut down his holo-family program. Tom provides the human perspective that the Doc has needed and convinces him to let the rest of the story play out in a really lovely little peptalk. EMH really seems to get something out of experiencing both the good and the bad sides of real life.

Does the name Captain Bligh mean anything to you? While we were torn in our assessment of Chakotay’s handling of Annorax in “Year of Hell,” we know exactly where we stand on Tom’s approach: a standing ovation. Tom sticks to his guns in refusing to help the Krenim mess with the timeline, getting more blood on their hands. Instead, it’s his provoking Obrist to mutiny that ends up allowing Janeway to take them out in style!

Heavy is the chest that wears the puppet Though we’ll see in a moment that Tom does a lot of dumb things in his relationship with B’Elanna, they’re also a great match and truly love each other. We see this in “Nothing Human” when Torres is stuck under a puppet the entire episode, and Paris is at her bedside pretty much the whole time, being with her and keeping her spirits up.

I hereby reduce you to the rank of Ensign We, and many many fans apparently, have a jaded view of the Prime Directive sometimes. Tom is fully for breaking it in order to save the Moneans’ water planet in “Thirty Days,” standing up supportively for the little guy. So we frankly applaud his efforts, even if certain captains ensured they’d fail, when he tries to do what was morally right even if it breaks a frequently stupid rule.

—

Worst moments

At least he’s a step above Nick Locarno When we first meet Tom Paris in “Caretaker,” he’s in a Federation penal settlement in New Zealand, serving time for covering up a pilot error that caused the deaths of three other officers, which is a coward’s move even if he eventually fessed up to it. This sets him up for a character redemption arc, which I’ll at least say other Robbie McNeil–played characters don’t deserve.

Isn’t there some Indian trick where you can turn yourself into a bird and fly us out of here? What’s less forgivable is this line from “Caretaker” in which Tom makes some racist comment about Chakotay’s indigenous heritage that just comes off as crude. This line insinuating that Chakotay can turn into a bird comes absolutely out of nowhere and probably only serves to remind the audience that his character is Native American, and also that Tom is a tactless pig.

Birds of a feather, stick together On the subject of birds: whatever relationship Tom had with Lidell in “Ex Post Facto” was a terrible idea. Janeway talks so much smack to Harry when he has a consensual adult relationship with Tal in “The Disease,” when really she should have gotten on Tom’s case for having an affair with this molting bird woman who acts like a femme fatale out of a noir.

A whole crew full of women and I have to fall for the one I can’t have Another woman whom Paris really shouldn’t have gone for was Kes. We really don’t know what the writers were thinking with this love triangle, as it makes Tom look like a sleaze and Neelix look like a brute. Tom buys Kes a necklace in “Twisted,” when it was inappropriate as hell. And then “Parturition” starts with him moaning about his crush and being a big baby about it.

The house always wins Tom continues to look like a sleaze when he starts a sort of gambling ring for replicator rations in “Meld.” Tom’s sure got a lot of room to grow in this show because he does start off as this ne’er-do-well character, who is clearly taking advantage of his crewmates and pocketing all the replicator rations for himself because there’s never a winner of their little lottery pools.

Go, grease monkey, you’re burning up the quarter mile At some point, the show just decides Tom is going through a perpetual midlife crisis: adopting more hobbies than any other crewman; neglecting his duties, friends, and girlfriend; and generally seeming like a douche. And the episode that exemplifies this is “Vis à Vis,” in which he gets so fixated on fixing up a ‘69 Chevy Camaro that he becomes insufferable to everyone.

Building a new vessel from scratch, that’s an engineer's dream come true As I said last time, I mostly like Tom and B’Elanna as a couple, but every so often you wanna smack him for how oblivious he is. So while he does create the Delta Flyer in “Extreme Risk,” Paris ends up so distracted it makes him look like a buffoon because he hasn’t noticed that his partner has been having a crisis ever since learning months ago that her Maquis friends died.

The rain in Spain falls mainly in my brain This one’s mostly on the Doctor, but in case we don’t bring it up in a couple weeks when we spotlight his character, let’s blame Tom a little bit for this one too. The two of them make that inconsiderate bet about Pygmalion’ing Seven into a lady in “Someone to Watch Over Me,” and ya know what: she’s already great! Why these two men feel they need to fix her is frankly brutish.

Go ask Alice when she’s ten feet tall... and also a ship We remember from earlier in the show (and in this list!) how fixated Tom tends to get on his hobbies, bordering on obsessive behavior especially when it comes to cars and ships. So even though the eponymous ship in “AIice” is messing with his noodle a little, it’s still a bad look for Paris to get so fully infatuated with yet another piece of technology vying for his attention.

Party until the cows come home This is just a little moment, but I feel like including it. It’s just kinda mean for Tom to trick Harry into kissing a cow in “Spirit Folk.” Not only is it disrespectful to eavesdrop on his date, even if it is with a hologram (especially if it is with a hologram!), but Harry is making himself vulnerable for Maggie the Irish lass only for Tom to point and laugh at him. Be a better friend, Tom.

I didn’t think you liked the mushy stuff One more example of Tom being a dick to his girlfriend (I swear, I do like them together!) is how he constantly neglects her in “Drive.” They’re having a visceral fight about their future as a couple and B’Elanna has been earnestly planning to break up with him. So when Tom proposes, it really does feel like it’s just to get out of the argument and not because he really wants it.

The silent treatment The whole show, Tom’s character arc has focused on his desire to make his father proud of him. So you’d think when they’re finally onscreen together in “Pathfinder,” this’d come up. But no. The two characters have exactly no lines together. Even in the series finale “Endgame” when Voyager gets home and Tom has a daughter to introduce to her grandfather: still nothing! WHY?

—

We’re coming in for a landing in shuttle bay. Thanks for joining us on that little joyride around the Delta Quadrant. We’re back next week with more character spotlights here on the blog, and more Enterprise watchalong episodes over on the podcast (which you’re surely following on SoundCloud or wherever you podcast). You can also hail us on Facebook and Twitter, and remember: two Delaney sisters are better than one.

[worflesbian]

expanding on prev post by assigning the voyager crew a kate bush song each. obviously the whole of the ninth wave is voyager-coded so it'll have to have its own post and be excluded for this one

janeway: all the love is a very janeway song it's literally about pushing away all the people who are deeply concerned about you - 'the first time i died it was in the arms of good friends of mine'. i'm very torn bc there's So many from the red shoes that are janeway coded but i have to say the wedding list is probably the only one that captures her level of unhinged violence like that's janeway when she's out for blood

chakotay: james and the cold gun is about begging the person you love not to sell their soul to an empty vendetta of violence (see above!). i also quite like reaching out as a chakotay song - 'see how the child reaches out instinctively, to feel how fire will feel, see how the man reaches out instinctively, for what he cannot have... the pull and the push of it all'

tuvok: leave it open! it's such a cerebral song but also kind of guttural at the same time? 'harm is in us, harm in us but power to arm' sounds like something he would say to kes about controlling her telepathy.

b'elanna: under the ivy as mentioned but also hounds of love but ALSO love and anger! i can't even quote a single lyric bc the whole thing is So her and specifically her relationship with tom

seven: immediately i think experiment iv but also mother stands for comfort seems very seven and the borg queen and/or seven and janeway. 'it breaks the cage and fear escapes and takes possession, just like a crowd rioting inside (make me do this make me do that)... am i the cat that takes the bird, to her the hunter, or the hunted?'. i also think suspended in gaffa may not be a seven song tonally but it works lyrically for her relationship to her humanity: 'i won't open boxes that i am told not to, i'm not a pandora, i'm much more like that girl in the mirror, between you and me, she don't stand a chance of getting anywhere at all' 'but sometimes it's hard to know if i'm doing it right, can i have it all now?'

harry: i think army dreamers is a brilliant harry song, it's literally about a golden boy dying young because he dreamed of being in the military. from the perspective of his beloved mother. 'give the kid the pick of pips, and give him all your stripes and ribbons, now he's sitting in his hole, he might as well have buttons and bows'. rocket's tail kind of works as a harry and janeway song - 'and it seemed to me, the saddest thing i'd ever seen and i thought you were crazy, wishing such a thing' (tries going out in a blaze of glory himself) '...was it me said you were crazy?'

tom: night of the swallow!! literally about a criminal pilot - 'oh let me fly, give me something to show for my miserable life, would you break even my wings, like a swallow?'

neelix: I actually quite like never be mine for Neelix, it feels like it could be about all the lives that he could've lived, if his family hadn't been killed, if he'd stayed with Voyager and gone to the alpha quadrant - 'this is where I wanna be, but I know that this will never be mine'. also moments of pleasure seems to capture his attitude to life I think - 'just being alive, it can really hurt sometimes, these moments given, are a gift from time'

the doctor: i want to say deeper understanding bc it is about an ambiguously sentient computer program but on a character level i think he's more sat in your lap, which is about wanting to understand everything and being limited by the capacities of your own mind - 'i must admit, just when i think i'm king, i just begin'

kes: I will admit I'm not a kes scholar but I quite like the big sky for her just for the line 'you never understood me, you never really tried' and this idea that she's always looking up for something larger than herself that other people might not pay attention to

[trillscienceofficer]

If you want to: assign a music instrument to each member of the voyager crew + their favourite music genre to play. you may keep harry's clarinet if you wish to, or you may assign him a new instrument! (& take care <3)

This is such a fun question, thank you for asking!! Actually I've been thinking about this for a while, albeit strictly in the context of an orchestra. Some time ago I had an idea for a fic in Harry's point of view where it was hinted that after many a boring shift on the bridge he's basically assigned an imaginary instrument to each member of the senior crew. Here's how it went (and actual music nerds please forgive my partial understanding of orchestral dynamics):

Voyager crew as orchestra instruments (according to Harry Kim)

Harry: clarinet (obviously. charming and eclectic member of the woodwind section, with hidden complexities!)

B'Elanna: oboe (the oboe has such a distinct timbre while still being very expressive. Also the fact that oboe players have to make their own reeds from bamboo blanks really fits B'Elanna's resourcefulness, according to both me and I think Harry as well)

Tom: trumpet (loud and in your face but also able to carry forward entire sections on its own)

Janeway: violin, and precisely principal first violin (for those who may not be aware, this role is also known as 'concertmaster' since they direct a lot of the technical details... it's the closest you can get to being a director while still playing an instrument)

Chakotay: viola (tends to get overshadowed by the violins but taken on its own it has a charming and very distinctive voice)

Tuvok: cello (it HAS the range and it can do so many different parts in an orchestra, but either way it's foundational--source: dude trust me, i used to play the cello a bit)

Kes: flute/piccolo (maybe boring choice but I think Harry would think of her as a fellow woodwind player... also the piccolo can get quite intense if not a little grating!)

Seven of Nine: piano (yeah okay maybe boring choice too since she actually plays it in “Human Error” for some reason but it IS a big instrument with lots of range and dynamics that tends to steal the show... and it's somewhat of a 'later' addition to orchestral ensemble music... hmmmm...)

at which point you're asking... where IS the bass and Harry's answer I think would be

Neelix: contrabassoon (it a a bit of a goofy-looking but surprisingly complex instrument with plenty of range, also again DIY reed-making for resourcefulness)

the Doctor: timpani (drums that can be detuned while you play them?? both melodic and rhythmic?? impossible to ignore even when you would maybe like to?? perfect for the Doctor)

and that concludes it... I realize this wasn't perhaps the answer you were expecting! I'll have to think more about assigning instruments & musical genres outside of the context of an orchestra because that's such a big question! But one I definitely love to think about.

(I absolutely do think Seven blasted “A Blaze In The Northern Sky” from the cargo bay 2 speakers at least once in an attempt to reconnect with her human roots or something)

[marshmallow--shark]

For the character ask game

Chakotay

Oh thank you for the ask and thank you for choosing my lovely Chakotay as the subject!

How I feel about this character

If anyone can't already tell, I love Chakotay, I love him so much! Chakotay is a sweet guy who wants to help people which leads to him getting betrayed and used constantly. He's not afraid to stand up and fight when he needs to. Very susceptible to suggestion/mind control, which is what caused me to fall for him in the first place.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

A- All? Ohh boy. I'll do my best to remember it all but Chakotay is like creamer to everyone's tea, he goes great with everyone. Not including crossover ships:

Janeway, Seska, Paris, Kim, Torres, Doctor, Neelix, Tuvok, Kes, Seven, Annorax, Teero, Suder, Starling, Carey, Kashyk, Moset, Tabor, Rudolph Ransom, Burke, Penk, Iden, Warship Chakotay, Mirror Chakotay, hologram Chakotay from Voy 3.25 & Dal.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

I err.. don't ship unromantically so I've got nothing here.

My unpopular opinion about this character

Chakotay is unfairly hated. His writing and acting is good in Voyager, it's just subtle! Or the fact that it took for Prodigy to make people like him. In my humble opinion, If you didn't like him in Voyager, you don't deserve him at all.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Well I could say something obvious like I wish he got together with Janeway but I'm gonna go for something different like, I wish he dated Torres. I'm aware that none of my slash ships could happen because of the times but Chakorres had so much fuel with her crush on him and she had a dirty dream where she tops him! I'd even have been fine if they broke up in the end but they should have happened, Chakorres had so much potential!

M- My, you got me so passionate there. But I could just talk about my sweet Chakotay forever.

[delta-queerdrant]

in a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways (Cold Fire, s2 e10)

Around the time I watched “Cold Fire,” I read an excerpt from poet Maggie Smith’s memoir, which chronicled how, as a writer and primary caregiver to her kids, she found professional success incompatible with the survival of her marriage. “Please don’t,” she tells a friend who wants to send Smith's husband a picture of the line at her book signing. “It’ll just make everything worse.”

The piece made me so sad, the same sadness I feel every time I’m reminded that our culture is terrified of powerful women. We see this in our popular culture, with its recurring tropes of ungovernable female villains, and perhaps more insidiously, female heroes whose own power is their greatest threat. Men and boys are tasked to defeat external obstacles, but women are always struggling against ourselves. 

“Cold Fire” simultaneously evokes and dodges these themes of dangerous female power in a way that feels very squishy and contradictory. Kes gains access to “dark” Ocampan powers and has to overcome them, but the episode makes the empathetic choice to portray her journey as universal rather than as evidence of a personal failing. “Do not fear your negative thoughts,” Tuvok, Zen master, tells her in the final scene. “They are part of you. They are part of every living being, even Vulcans.” Even Neelix is on board with her self-discovery, earning a stamp in his underutilized “good boyfriend” passport for being genuinely excited about her personal growth.

As the episode opens, Tuvok is leading Kes through a frankly creepy telepathy session (aren’t there mindreading ethics?), when Voyager stumbles on a Caretaker-like array populated by Ocampa. Kes gets to play diplomat to the colony, a fun expansion of her skillset.

Suspiria, the female Caretaker, reinforces the “lawful male / chaotic female” vibe of the episode - while the Caretaker we’re familiar with played divine patriarch to Kes’s people, Suspiria has settled the Ocampa in her own array and gifted them with psionic powers. The whereabouts of the second Caretaker has been one of the chief ongoing mysteries of the show, but Suspiria is frankly very boring - a vengeful, irrational goddess who takes form as a little girl. (Star Trek seems to have a penchant for “tiny blond girls as otherworldly aliens.”) The episode closes with her return being teased, but of course we never see her again.

Under the tutelage of Tanis, who serves as emissary of Suspiria’s tower of Babel, Kes nearly kills Tuvok with her developing psychic powers. Soon after, she nukes the contents of the airponics bay and, doing so, discovers the joy of wielding death and destruction. This is where the episode veers into silliness for me. Jennifer Lien is a great actor, but I can’t buy her performance, because the script doesn't feel, to me, rooted in character.

Parables about power often make this mistake: “it’s intoxicating!” “It’s like a drug!” But people chase power (and intoxication) for extremely personal reasons. Kes is a character driven by intellectual curiosity, and while she’s totally capable of leaving her friends behind for a sufficiently compelling adventure, I can’t see her being tempted to align herself with an amoral weirdo like Tanis. If people are going to write stories about dangerous women, they should at least take a moment to ask why a woman might want to be dangerous.

Happily, Kes doesn’t have to give up her powers; she uses them to save the day and resolves to find balance under Tuvok’s guidance. But I’m not sure this show ever finds the plot when it comes to Kes’s abilities and what they mean to her. At the end of the day, it’s just kinda an incoherent mess. 

2.5/5 dark impulses.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Do you think Kes' ability to pick up on things so quickly is linked to her being an Ocampa? Like, since she's 2~ years old in canon (and has distinct memories of her father) I imagine her species doesn't spend much time as children and I wouldn't imagine they'd have formal schools (like entire buildings for schooling) and would instead learn from like, primarily parents or other elders. In that case learning things very quickly would be extremely beneficial for their survival. Kes: Oh yes, childhood...what a lovely few days~ Kes was a baby like for a day and then the next day she was up and ready to learn. Kes meets Naomi and every day that passes she becomes more and more amazed that she's still a baby. Wow! It's been like two months and she still can't do anything?? The doctor told her it was normal but wow. What I'm saying is they should have had Kes as a jack-of-all-trades character who could slide into pretty much any of the teams on Voyager. The Doc misses her when she's not in sickbay though!

[nebulouscoffee]

if you'd like a distraction of some kind: what's an episode of star trek that you think is great, but is often overlooked by fans and why?

(This was from earlier this week and I really appreciate it!! <3)

I was just talking about this with a friend but Voyager's 'Jetrel' is sooo under discussed in almost every corner of Trek fandom - I'd say I don't know why, but I don't think the fans can be solely blamed here, because the show barely ever builds on what this episode sets up either! Which is a shame imo, because it's one of the most impactful Neelix episodes of the series- it really sheds a lot of light on why he is the way he is, how much of his jovial "just a silly little guy who's here to make you smile!" persona is born of severe trauma and pain- how the way he latches onto community building and overprotects Kes are quite literally trauma responses. It also raises very relevant questions about the complicity of scientists in genocide (which is so important in a franchise that usually espouses the healing potential of science). I'm sure some would disagree with the "I forgive you" scene (and quite honestly there is a pattern in Trek where characters are made to forgive their abusers and/or people who committed war crimes against theirs, I won't deny that) - but I'm honestly quite fascinated by it? I spend a lot of time thinking about forgiveness on one's own terms and the power of it, and I genuinely do believe different approaches work for different people (like I love that Kira never had a scene where she had to forgive Dukat for example, that would've been so demeaning for her character! She's someone who would live a long happy life if she never saw him again at any point during the show. But Neelix... he can't even handle one of his colleagues finding him vaguely annoying, I just get the feeling that he'd forever be haunted by this if he didn't get closure). Of course, I would never, ever, ever expect someone in his position to forgive Jetrel- but it doesn't surprise me that he'd want to, and I think that conversation is what allowed him to move on (I'm definitely someone who can't be at peace without forgiving, personally- I'm not sure how I feel about this mentality being uniformly perceived as weak! It's just different. Forgiveness =/= tolerance or acceptance of being treated badly or permitting/endorsing bad behaviour imo). Anyway I really wish the events of this episode had impacted Neelix's writing down the line more, and I would've loved more lore on Rinax- but as a standalone it's one that always stuck with me (I have a lot of thoughts on how Neelix and his "weird" ("alien") social habits, skillsets, perceived lack of boundaries- and yes, his tragic and expertly-hidden backstory- were very deliberately written in a way that invokes immigrants and people from the third world generally, and how his position both in Voyager's social circle and the reception of him among fans becomes very Interesting in this light- but that's a whole different conversation lol)

[thegeminisage]

STAR TREK UPDATE TIME. last night we watched voy's "scorpion part i" and "the gift." I HAVE FINALLY MET SEVEN OF NINE

scorpion part ii:

ABSOLUTELY loved this one. idk why i was so surprised when seven turned out to be their borg liaison like i had no idea how they encountered her...i guess i was picturing them picking her up like a lost puppy because of hugh in tng

seven hot it must be said. we haven't gotten into the meat of it yet but i do like her. i was a little worried that after all this i wouldn't!

janeway dealing with the borg was sooo fun. literally her no-nonsense take-no-shit mode

i loved also that chakotay was the one to essentially borg meld with seven since he'd had the prior experience...mwah. give him a little borg trauma as a treat

i also really enjoyed janeway and chakotay realizing that seven was right - their fighting and going against each other is why they were losing. what if our future third reminded us that we needed to renew our wedding vows and we were both lost in space?

ESPECIALLY BECAUSE. like on what could have been her deathbed while she was slurring her words she made chakotay promise to do the thing. and immediately he decided to do the opposite even though it broke his heart. like SO TRUE they needed the reminder mom and dad were literally fighting

i have mixed feelings about janeway sort of forcing the detransition from borg onto seven. like yeah no human person wants to be borg especially not the little girl she was when she was assimilated but it's very hard to hear and ignore her wishes NOW when she's stating them so clearly, and when she's so obviously suffering. like i don't think she could have done any different or that i would have done any different but whew! rough

i also think chakotay was SICK with jealousy that tuvok got to go into the cube with janeway and he had to stay out on voyager. i bet tuvcok was so smug about it. idk why but it brings me so much joy to imagine them hating each other and as an extent maybe also fighting over janeway's affection, be it platonic or not

also, i can't remember if this was in this episode or the next one but the bit where seven was in her cell fucking SCREAMING na janeway was behind her grabbing her...sincerely hoping the dyke energy only gets better from here cuz that was gay as hell

the gift:

rip kes...i'll miss you

ik kes left bc they were having difficulties with the actress, but it still sucks that her exit was so dumb. like oh no her powers are going out of control and even though we fixed it every other time this time we can't! anyway bye!

i do appreciate the actresses crying for what felt like...you know, for real, during the goodbye. i almost welled up with them. and ten years closer to home!!! that's 13 years down, 57 to go...

kes is such a rare person in the voyager cast because she has so many connections. she's good friends with tom, she's gort tuvok and the emh as her mentors, janeway as like her fake mom, neelix as her romantic interest...she's connected to so many people. if you name anybody from the rest of the cast you'd get 2-3 connections at most. so it's sad to see her go

and like i hated neelix when he was with kes but their goodbye conversation was so lame. i still can't believe that's all we ever got about their breakup. fucking crazy

on the other hand, seven in this episode was so good, especially with like, b'elanna - her disdain and her sarcasm are useless against b'elanna who can dish it back out just as well and does not give one shit about seven's deal so long as she gets the ship working again. also? lots of women on screen during that scene. let's lez out.

and seven at the end remembering her favorite color :( i was surprised she relented in her willingness to be aboard so quickly - but it just shows that janeway genuinely did get through to her somehow. WOMEN!!!

TONIGHT: ds9's "a time to stand" and "rocks and shoals"

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s4 ep12: Mortal Coil

The one where Neelix has an existential crisis - which I guess dying and being brought back to life will do to you, but this one went into some pretty dark territory, and it felt too easily wrapped up for how deep into his downward spiral Neelix was by the end. (Trigger warning for discussion of suicide:)

It starts off with Neelix being his usual cheerful self in the mess hall, and then helping to tuck in little Naomi Wildman with a bedtime story about the Talaxian version of heaven- a great forest where all their loved ones watch over them, and wait to reunite with them when they die. This becomes relevant later, because Neelix, while on an away mission to a nebula to collect some energy samples, is struck by an energy bolt, and is killed.

They bring him back to the ship, and the crew resigns themselves to the fact that he's truly dead, until Seven of Nine comes in and says, 'I can revive him, I'm Borg' even though he's already been dead for 18 hours. (Which seems like a long time to wait before even telling anyone he died.) Seven uses her Borg nanoprobes to revive him, and he comes back to life with no memory of what happened.

All of which raises the question of why Seven doesn't revive every crewmember who dies from here on out- if it's that easy, and Borg can revive anyone for up to 72 hours, nobody should be staying dead after she comes aboard, but they seem to forget about her magical life-restoring powers after this. It's a major inconsistency that made this storyline feel like they were just lazily waving a magic wand, and I wish they would have come up some other way to revive him than conveniently all-powerful Borg technology.

But anyway, Neelix has a major crisis of faith when he learns that he died, and he didn't see the great forest and all of his loved ones. He's understandably shaken when he sees a holograpic simulation of himself getting killed (geez Chakotay, insensitive much to let Neelix to watch that?!) but Chakotay is sympathetic and tries to convince Neelix not to jump to conclusions and abandon his faith.

Chakotay helps Neelix go on a vision quest to find some answers (the items Neelix chooses to aid his vision quest include a flower from Kes's garden, which hits right in the feels) but it seems more like a bad trip when everyone in his vision tells him life is meaningless because there's no afterlife, and he should kill himself.

So, despite Chakotay telling Neelix to take time to sit with and interpret what he saw, (and maybe suggest that he simply doesn't remember going to the great forest after he died?? That seems the most logical conclusion, especially when he doesn't remember dying, but somehow nobody thinks of that??) Neelix spirals downward into despondency, and covers up the fact that he's literally planning to kill himself from the crew. He writes notes, says goodbyes, and makes an actual plan to kill himself by beaming himself into the nebula, which he even attempts to execute. The computer alerts the bridge to what he's doing, and they manage to stop the transport, but Neelix has a back up site to site transport set up. Chakotay gets to the tranporter room to talk him down before he can use it, and Ensign Wildman comes in to ask him to tell Naomi a story again because she can't sleep. Wildman is totally unaware of what's going on with Neelix, and Neelix's shame at having her find out, as well as his guilt over leaving little Naomi without an explanation, are what finally convince him not to do it.

It's an incredibly dark and heavy storyline to have a main character spiral into depression so deep it leads them to a suicide attempt, and it feels too big to be resolved in one episode. It's not unusual for traumatic things to happen to characters in one episode, only for it never to be mentioned again, in episodic television, but something like losing your belief in your entire worldview and your will to live, and actively attempting suicide, is just too big to never be addressed further. Unlike most perilous situations that Star Trek characters find themselves in, depression and suicide are very real, and something many people watching have had touch their lives. From what I've seen with people in my life who have experienced it, recovery is a long, continuing process, that can take years, and lots of therapy, and sometimes medication. Since they weren't invested in continuing that story, I feel like they probably shouldn't have gone there at all. While it may well have been trying in earnest, this episode felt like it was handwaving away some very serious subject matter. (And though trigger warnings weren't a thing back when this ep was made, I feel like it should probably have one when it's aired now.)

Tl;dr: A very sad and heavy episode that ultimately didn't feel like it resolved the issues it plunged Neelix into, and so felt unsatisfying in the end.

[fancy-a-dance-brigadier]

For the ask game: Voyager and SNW

Feel free to do Ahsoka as a bonus! :)

Thank you for the ask friend! And OF COURSE I am going to do Ahsoka as a bonus because my obsession with that show knows no bounds.

Voyager

Favourite character: I am one of the 0.0000009% of the earth’s population whose favourite Voyager character is Kes. She stood out to me from the very start, and that VOICE my god. She’s the perfect blend of kind and gentle and good but also she can boil your blood with her brain and she eats bugs and reads autopsy reports for fun. Nobody does it like her, and I really wished the show had leaned into some of her more horrific qualities (which obviously they never would because this is 90s Star Trek we’re talking about). But she’s a monstrous woman to me and I love her for it.

Second favourite character: B’Elanna! So many of her focus episodes just hit different - she’s easily one of the most complex characters in the cast, and not only that but the writers actually gave her material that makes the most of that complexity. They do such a good job of exploring her inner conflicts and her complicated relationship to her identity right from the get go (I’m thinking about that season 1 episode ‘Faces’. They really wasted no time in making her so interesting). B’Elanna’s episodes seldom ever miss basically. Also I just love her attitude.

Least favourite character: uhh Q 😂 I know he only has three guest episodes in the whole show, but he makes me want to set things on fire. I do not know why he’s so popular, I do not find him charming at all! Even in TNG!!

The character I’m most like: Idk, I always struggle with questions like this, but maybe Harry? Idk a few weeks ago someone in the uni department I work in said I wasn’t a staff member even though I’m literally on the payroll as a staff member and it just felt like I was living the Ensign Kim fantasy.

Favourite pairing: What a surprise! My favourite pairing is between my favourite character and my second favourite character! Kes/B’Elanna truthers if you’re out there, we can’t let their lack of screentime win.

Least favourite pairing: uhh Kes/Neelix because I honestly think a chaotic sibling-type relationship would’ve suited them so much better. Just let them be adventurous spacefaring besties together, it would’ve made things so much less awkward!

Favourite moment: Ok this is hyper specific and I think I’ve mentioned it before, but you know the ending of ‘The Thaw’? Where Janeway literally kills fear itself and there’s that really striking visual of Fear fading into the darkness and you can only see the parts of his face that are painted white? Yeah, that lives in my head rent free forever.

Rating out of 10: Solid 8/10. Highly entertaining, but I’m not feral about it.

Strange New Worlds

Favourite character: Ortegas! Which is incredibly unfortunate for me because the writers just refuse to let her do anything. It’s been two seasons, where is my Ortegas focus episode??? She’s my favourite character based purely on vibes alone, so imagine how much more there will be to love when they. Y’know. Actually develop her backstory and personality.

Second favourite character: Ok this is really bad but I honestly don’t feel strongly enough about any other members of the SNW cast to have a character that stands out as my second favourite 🙈 They’re all lovely! I do generally like them all! But I just struggle to get invested in them the way I do with other Star Trek characters, idk what it is.

Least favourite character: Chapel 🙈 I think I’m mostly just frustrated by the way she’s written - I think the intention was to make her a stronger character than she was in TOS, but I can’t think of a single aspect of her storyline that isn’t directly connected to one of the men in her life. It’s more like she’s an accessory to Spock and M’Benga’s storylines rather than a character in her own right. She had so much potential, because I remember her being kind of goofy and fun and chaotic and unique in the very first episode, and that was great! But I think a lot of that has got lost amongst the pining for Spock and the wartime M’Benga angst.

The character I’m most like: Hmm Uhura maybe?? Just with the whole struggling to make meaningful connections to people thing. Also I too miss Hemmer.

Favourite pairing: I don’t really have any ships for SNW, but let’s just say Ortegas/Una in the Elysian Kingdom because that was immense.

Least favourite pairing: Spock and Chapel, but mostly for the same reasons why I’m frustrated with Chapel’s character in general. I think there are moments where it does work, and I’m not opposed to them existing as a couple. I just wish they could give Chapel more interiority so they could flesh it out a bit more. As it stands, the whole Spock/T’Pring/Chapel thing reads very much like a generic YA love triangle romance. Maybe polyamory could fix them idk.

Favourite moment: The ending of ‘The Elysian Kingdom’ just gets me man. It hits on similar themes as the DS9 episode ‘Far Beyond the Stars’ in that it really centres on the power of storytelling, and I just love how nicely those two episodes fit together (I mean the Elysian Kingdom book was literally written by Benny Russell!! Hello????)

Rating out of 10: 7/10. It’s a good show and I do enjoy it, but I just struggle to connect with it in the same way that I can with shows that I really love.

Ok I’m going to put the Ahsoka stuff under a read more because I don’t want to spoil anything for you!

Ahsoka

Favourite character: This is so hard because I love them all!! But I think I have to choose Ahsoka because she’s just. She’s so good in this. I know a lot of people think she’s out of character, but I couldn’t disagree more. She’s seen some shit! She’s gone through hell! Of course she’s going to be more subdued as an adult than she was as a teenager! She brings such a presence and a gravitas to the show that really elevates it. Basically I’m love her.

Second favourite character: Shin Hati my disaster daughter. I’m fully convinced that Baylan found her in a trashcan somewhere and was like “I want that one” because she just has this slightly feral energy that I’m honestly obsessed with. I’m really excited to see if the show expands on her character, because she’s mostly been running around doing Baylan’s bidding and getting into very hot lightsaber fights with Sabine. Give my girl some development let’s GOOOOO. (Also honourable mention to Anakin because that’s my GUY that’s my BOY)

Least favourite character: I honestly can’t think of one, I love everyone in this show to pieces. Maybe that Empire sympathiser dude that Ahsoka and Hera met in episode 2. Yeah, him.

The character I’m most like: Ummm Sabine because I too am very fond of cats and creatures that look like cats.

Favourite pairing: Does Shin/Sabine have a ship name? Idk if they do, but either way I feel very normal about them. Mostly because of the vibes, since they haven’t done much beyond beating the crap out of each other. I’m hoping they’ll actually get to have a conversation in the next few episodes, especially after what went down in episode 4!

Least favourite pairing: I don’t think I have an answer for this one? Idk I’m not quite deep enough in the fandom side of things yet to know what else people are shipping from this show.

Favourite moment: Because I am a very basic Prequel era/Clone Wars girlie I have no choice but to choose the entire section of episode 5 with Ahsoka and Anakin. Number one television event that makes me want to bite things, I’m still not over it, I’ll never be over it. It’s fan service but it serves a purpose in the story. Anakin was better than he’s ever been in anything ever. Temuera Morrison was there. I have no choice but to go insane about every single second of these scenes. And don’t even get me started on teenage Ahsoka that was HEARTBREAKING.

Rating out of 10: 10/10. It’s perfect. Star Wars hasn’t been this good in ages. I’m actually actively looking forward to each new episode as they release, which is very rare for me.