#also this isn't the writing i mentioned earlier. it's more writing! yay :D

[lenievi]

First TOS thingie written this year \o/ It was written as mckirk.

prompt: signal

Could be longer, but I really wanted to make it only one hundred words.

---

The signal isn’t coming.

Jim grips the fabric of his pants. “Come on, Bones.”

The planet visible on the viewscreen is blue like home. Even now, Jim feels the wave of longing, but it’s quickly drowned by dread and worry.

“Two minutes to the eruption,” Spock says, and Jim holds himself back from snapping.

McCoy’s still on the surface! Doesn’t Spock care?

Uhura’s urgent calls for “Doctor McCoy” are the only sound on the bridge.

“One minute.”

Jim stands, fists clenched, seeing nothing but blue.

A noise in the intercom. “Enterprise?” McCoy. “Three to beam up.”

Jim exhales in relief.

[madzilla84]

new fandom smell

might as well talk about this here a bit huh!! otherwise this would be a LOT of tweets

(ofmd) (major spoilers) (long) (emotional) (not clickbait)

So there's no real fascinating backstory here - I saw the internet (and more importantly, my friends) losing their collective shit over Our Flag Means Death, and if my experience with Yuri on Ice taught me anything, I knew it would be something I'd end up liking - which was precisely why I was avoiding it a bit, somewhat unwilling to hand over my brain on a silver platter. I also hadn't watched What We Do In The Shadows or anything like that (I will, sometime), but then unexpectedly last week we watched the pilot during one of our phannie caracal watch sessions and well. That was the end for me, goodbye, game over. (If you wanna watch/rewatch the show too we've only watched the pilot so far; well we watched ep 2 yesterday but we're rewatching it tomorrow for those that couldn't make it)

Immediately obsessed. I 'acquired' the rest of the episodes through a very appropriately-named website (it's not yet available legitimately in the UK) and watched them all on Sunday evening (I was just gonna watch 1 or 2 to begin with, hahaha idiot) and I was Done For. It was sadder than I was expecting but I'm actually not completely sad about it because - you know what, we'll get to that later.

I knew a little bit about the real Stede Bonnet (and have since refreshed my memory, especially after discovering one of my fave youtubers Internet Historian made a feature-length video about his life a couple of years ago that I had somehow missed, YAY), courtesy of my late teens/early 20s pirate phase (didn't we all have one), mainly because I was 19 when the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie came out and I was o b s e s s e d. Anyway of course for all things pirates we must consult the ancient texts:

(Remember these?? I had all of these books. Dragonology was probably my favourite)

And yes, they're in it:

But anyway, yeah. Getting sidetracked. I mentioned YoI earlier and I brought it up because this feels quite a bit like when I finished watching that (I watched it during its run, but towards the end). It was such a nice, happy, positive feeling, just sort of - joyful that this thing exists and that I got to see it, and diving headfirst into all the theories and amazing art and gifs and wailing and squeeing and what-have-you.

People who are a lot better at wording this sort of thing than me have posted amazing things about how and why it's such great and important queer/POC representation and how it was such an antithesis to the queerbaiting we're all so used to, so I won't go too much into that, but I just loved everything - the acting, the writing, the music (day 3, still can't listen to perfect day without crying, i'm fine though, really, honestly, just fine), the characters, the cast, the fanart, the memes, it's just. It's really, really great, and it's a nice feeling to be so thoroughly brainrotted by something I'm enjoying so much. I haven't been grabbed by something new like this for quite a few years now (since getting into dnp in 2018, maybe?), so it's just. You all know how the New Fandom Smell is, it's the best.

I mentioned that I wasn't too sad at the way it ended and, well, obviously that isn't entirely accurate, it was totally heartbreaking - but like, when it *did* end I found myself feeling - excited? Also very sad obviously, because it was sad, but ... I find that I trust the writers and showrunner to take it to a good place, in the end (which is a weird and new and unique feeling), and the journey to get there might be a bit painful (it already is) but that's gonna make it so much sweeter when we finally get there. And that angsty and beautiful journey is gonna be so fuckin good!!

All of that is assuming, if course, that the show continues and that they get to tell the story they want to tell, which, COME ON, it has to. But you never know, I suppose, and of course if that doesn't end up being the case it would change how I feel about it a lot - where we left off was a wonderful place to leave off, there's so much promise and potential, but as an ending it would be pretty unsatisfying and sad, so. We shall see, I guess, but I'm hopeful. Maybe I'm just being a clown, as per usual... (I am here on tumblr dot gov, after all.)

anyway i could go on forever so i'll wrap it up with some random bulletpoints:

The Swede is precious and must be protected

I don't think for a moment that Lucius is dead; fully willing to eat my words but I just don't think so. I don't know if he'll turn up right away or after an absence but i DO know it will be funny. And the tension will be Pete dealing with his idol trying to kill his boyfriend, and of course however Stede feels about it

They separated all the couples at the end (Jim on the ship, Lucius and Stede wherever), which means so many reunion scenes; sad or not that is my favourite shit I cannot WAITTTTT

Obviously fell in love with Taika Waititi; yeah yeah I know the internet has been in love with him for years, but somehow I have managed to get this far in my life without seeing anything he's been in or has made, which clearly was an Error, he's delightful and I have no idea how he does that with his eyes, like a damn Pixar character

Beards don't usually do much for me so I have NO idea how Ed managed to be equally hot and beautiful as full-beard leather version and clean-shaven ethereal doe-eyed anime prince version and angery leather facepaint stubble version, hOW

Same with Rhys Darby; not having watched WWDITS I hadn't seen him in anything either (although? I have the vaguest of vague memories of seeing his standup at some point yeeeeeeears ago on TV, though I don't remember anything about it) - obviously since watching the show I've hunted down many a clip of him/them doing interviews both recently and years ago and it's so lovely to see how funny they are and what good friends they are. They have such insane chemistry, and you can tell they love each other (albeit platonically) in real life. But yes, I absolutely loved him/Stede from the first moment, he's so lovely and endearing and it was such a wonderful performance, especially because it wasn't just comedic, it was so full of depth and emotion and *all* of those things were done so brilliantly, by him and Taika and all the cast, really. How is it his *first* lead?? He's amazing! And Stede is just - extremely relatable, to me at least. (And yes, I got him in that 'which character are you' quiz.) Long may he roam. :_)

The cast!! The characters are just amazing, but so are the cast, at least the ones I've encountered so far; I followed David Jenkins on twitter and twitter was like 'would you like to follow these other 12 people' and i was like 'sure i guess' and they're just wonderful so far. Special shout out to Con O'Neill (Izzy) whose twitter seems to be half him retweeting horny fanart and half hating the Tories. Truly iconic.

And Vico Ortiz (Jim) who went to a ren faire with Samba Schutte (Roach) last weekend and cosplayed as Izzy with blue hair XD. And Samba who cooks IRL and actually made the 40-orange cake!! They all seem like very good eggs.

Spanish Jackie do you need to replenish your spouse numbers or-

Me, a twat, trying to figure out who 'Menozes' was before I realised Jackie was talking about the nose jar. ffs XD

There were so SO many good moments actually I would need a whole separate post or 12

the MUSIC fuck MEEEEEE such good music choices! It was actually the song at the end of the first episode (high on a rocky ledge) that left me with the Longing TM to watch the rest of the episodes IMMEDIATELY (as well as, you know, everything else). I already mentioned I can't listen to perfect day without crying now - it was already a beautiful song, but now? And if you listen to the lyrics? Fuck off??? ;_; and the rest, of course. That Spotify playlist's gonna get some action, I think, heh.

I'll stop here partly because it's super late and this is already so long and partly because tungl's text editing is el shit but man. I'm so glad I found this show, so glad they made it. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts to share soon, I have only watched it once through so far but obviously I'm gonna rewatch.