#because that's just. giving it ao much unnecessary thought lol

[spocksgotemotions]

i know you said you didn't want to talk shit about snw, and i'll try and keep this as like. open as possible bc it still could be rlly good, but if it bothers you at all feel free not to answer lol

i feel like i don't want to see more of the main characters. i loved tos so much, and it feels like a little bubble in their lives that doesn't need explaining or loads of backstory. whatever happens in this, good or bad, it'll be adding stuff into something that was fine to stand on its own for literally 60 years lol. not to say they can never add backstory, but i feel like it has to be unobtrusive and also fitting with the characters, which might be hard in a long show, bc there's so many opportunities to mess up. also we've already had one kirk show, there's not that much need for another one.

that said, if they focussed more on characters that didn't get much attention in tos, like uhura, it might be interesting. it feels less weird if they get more backstory, bc there's not as defined a sense of their personalities (just bc of the amount of screentime they got), so as long as they're sensitive to the original i think it would be fine? i'd still prefer that they just. made new characters for their new show. but it could work.

Yeah no like my thoughts exactly! Like I don’t wanna talk shit (yet) cause like it’s not out and give things the benefit of the doubt blah blah blah. But yeah, it feels kinda unnecessary. I was more okay with it when it was like “yeah, Pike, Number One, Baby Spock, Uhura!” It still didn’t feel necessary, but I could separate it a little more, but like the Kirk thing feels a bit too far?

and like if you wanna do more tos (which I wouldn’t recommend tbh) theres like… a lot of other stuff you could do instead of a prequel. Like there’s a whole series of comic books about the last few years of the “5 year mission” and like I‘ve read some of them and theyre good! There’s also books that take place in different dimensions and stuff (kinda like aos but like less trash, cause they were made by people who cared about Star Trek) But they also have the benefit of being in a different medium so maybe my brain doesn’t connect them with tos as much? Idk.

Yeah I agree with you though and I have a lot of thoughts, but I don’t wanna shit talk before it comes out, because like as unnecessary as it seems, they always could surprise us

[kinetic-elaboration]

June 25: 2x24 The Ultimate Computer

Belated notes on my watch of The Ultimate Computer yesterday.

Kirk’s definitely in Captain Mode today. You can tell when he’s on edge and suspicious and serious.

Yet another old Kirk friend. Does he know everyone in Starfleet?

War games lol. But it’s “not the military.”

Spock is super into this computer.

A-7 Computer Expert Certification.

The crew’s not needed? Wow, okay, this is going to end badly.

“This gadget.” How do you really feel, Kirk?

And there’s Spock literally making faces behind the Commodore’s back. He is soooo that type. He’s like “Jim, are you hearing this? Can you believe this guy?”

I’m insulted on Kirk’s behalf right now. Replacing people with machines so blithely is offensive.

Of course Bones doesn’t like it.

Oh yeah triumvirate walking scene. I love them. it takes so little for me to think ‘what badasses.’ S2 is really stepping up this dynamic in particular.

And Spock is comfortable enough around Bones to be sassy around him

Oh no, the computer is already glitching, and there is no backup and no plan B.... Bones is completely right in his assessment. This is essentially a Titanic situation: way too much hubris involved. Nothing can go wrong so nothing will go wrong so we’ve planned for nothing going wrong!

McCoy has BFF Clearance. He can go wherever he wants.

“It’s the M-5? What happened to Ms 1-4?” Channel #5.

Ahhhh little gratuitous touch to Spock’s arm. They’re In Love.

“There are certain things men must do to remain men.”

“The right computer finally came along.” Damn Bones.

Jim’s suspicions about the computer coming right after that line make it look like he’s jealous that Spock likes it so much.

He’s getting a “red alert right here.” Computers don’t have that kind of intuition.

Jim’s so thoughtful and self-aware. He really cares both about his instincts and about interrogating those instincts for bias and unreasonableness. This is giving me real S1 vibes: the quiet, intelligent, idealized hero Captain at the fore.

This whole scene is perfect, eminently quotable, and sounds exactly like something that could have been written about automation in 2021. You’re okay with it when it’s happening to someone else but then the computer comes for YOUR job....

Uh-h, M-5 is turning off all the lights...

Space merchant marines... good to know.

HOW are the Captain and CMO “non-essential personnel”? The first sign that M-5 is illogical. They should bring some doctor on the landing party mission given that uh humans are going on it and might get injured.

Anyway I can’t wait for Kirk to destroy this bitch and save the day.

Lol it turned off the lights on Bones in sickbay.

Damn, now it’s trying to take Uhura’s job too!

Chekov is so bored.

Spock wants to serve under one man and one man ONLY. Loyalty to one man... sounds like a wedding vow... and Kirk looks so soft...

So, if Spock has to describe to McCoy what that (unnecessary bitchy and catty) “Captain Dunsel” remark means, by saying that it’s a phrase that “midshipmen use at Starfleet Academy,” is this to imply Bones didn’t go to Starfleet Academy?

He’s never felt so at odds with the ship.... a lover’s quarrel...she’s cheating on him with another man...

Jim Kirk, certified Poetry Nerd. He’s such a romantic.

So glad Bones got him a drink so he can return to the bridge and a possible emergency with just a little bit of a buzz going.

Spock in the chair...

Huh, an automated ship with no crew. Interesting concept.

Oh no M-5! She’s got control of the ship and she won’t let go!

Kirk’s face when Enterprise attacks.. the betrayal... his beautiful lady used for mindless destruction.

“Only a robot” ship--! Bones is insulted.

Kirk orders the computer turned off but we’re only halfway through the ep so...

....And the computer is sentient now.

That was the shortest Captain’s Log ever. “The computer has taken over the ship the end.”

Scotty’s like, “...Well what if we just unplug it?”

Okay so now they only have 19 crew.

Spock and Bones are on point today. “Don’t say it’s fascinating.” / “I won’t. But it is... interesting.” This bitch knows exactly what he’s doing.

The computer isn’t a child, guys!

We need powerful computers “so men don’t have to die in space”--like uh that man your computer literally just killed?

I don’t get Daystrom’s logic at all. He talks as if people, like, needed to do work in space, to survive or something. We don’t need to. We want to! We want to go out and meet cool aliens! This guy is no fun.

What is the thing “greater” than fact finding in space that the robots are going to free us to do? Like what is more impressive than SPACE? I don’t even get that.

Time to mix up fake sci fi world-building references with real references! The Nobel and Zee-Magnee Prizes. Sitar of Vulcan.

A theory emerges... the computer acts illogically...Daystrom won’t let Spock near it... I know this isn’t where this is going, but it kind of sounds like they’re implying it’s a scam, lol. He sold an idea he didn’t have so it’s like.. not a real computer.

Spock’s little protege, Chekov.

“We have been pursuing a wild goose.” Aw, bb’s trying so hard to be colloquial. (Also he 100% learned that phrase from McCoy in The Gamesters of Triskellion and now he’s trying it out on Kirk...when McCoy isn’t around.)

“Not to offend you by using the h-word, but... could it be... human?”

Kirk’s really mad at Daystrom now.

The Commodore really set up that dramatic turn to camera there.

Poor Kirk. His ship is being used for evil.

“They can’t destroy the ship, what would happen to the computer?!” Yes, the computer. And the other 19 people and himself but mostly the computer. Daystrom really has lost it.

I love the actor who plays him, though.

“You are great. I am great.” Nothing weird happening here.

Spirk attack! (Spork it out.)

Spock’s way too sure Commodore Wesley is about to die. “He was decent, it’s a shame the ship I’m on is gonna kill him.”

And now another round of Kirk versus the computer and Kirk’s logic wins.

M-5 should argue that it did not commit murder, it committed homicide in self-defense. But then Daystrom didn’t program it with a lawyer’s brain.

It’s uh just gonna leave? Not turn the lights back on?

Kirk is so smart! I know I say this all the time, but it’s true! He knew what to do to save the ship because he knew Bob Wesley. He had formed connections, he had experience and knowledge that doesn’t come from logic. He is not replaceable!

McCoy’s like “Spock, fight me. Debate me Spock. Fight me. I’ll be fun.”

Spock HAS answered the computers versus humans question--he likes humans. He wants to be surrounded by humans.

That was really good! One of the better S2 episodes. Great Kirk, great triumvirate--as a trio and all three sides of the triangle--great sci fi concept, great guest star, great social commentary--still 100% relevant today.

i definitely have to think more about the ‘human computer’ concept. I liked that they specifically went out of their way to explain why the computer was human, how that was part of its design, and then tied that into its creator, his background, his belief system, and his insecurities. I feel like most ‘sentient computer’ or ‘advanced AI’ narratives just assume a computer that’s powerful enough will eventually be alive, which is not something I believe. The scariness of advanced AI to me is the incredible power it has to act quickly, but in a complete black-box way: you can’t literally see the logic string of its thought processes, and nor can you figure them out easily or completely using the creators’ intentions or logic because the machine has ‘learned’ since its inception, and its learning processes are not human. There is a real alienness to them that I find scary. And I do think this ep captured that nuance in M-5: it has the speed and abilities of a super computer, the “human” qualities of its creator for well-explained reasons, and the unpredictability of a mechanism that is NEITHER human nor human-controlled tool. And of course the ep’s ultimate thesis--that humans cannot be completely automated or replaced, and that we should not want to automate or replace humans--is comforting and of a morality I can and want to agree with.

This was also one of those eps that made me curious about the differences in AOS and TOS Kirk--in other words, an ep that relied on his history with Starfleet and his experience, on the reality that he’s a 34 year old man with 15+years of experience in the Fleet. Time, experience, connections, these aren’t things you can replace no matter how smart you are, and I feel like it would have been interesting to see AOS!Kirk deal with some situation that is trickier for him because he’s a Captain with a startlingly small amount of institutional experience. It’s not just about being young or generally inexperienced, in other words--it’s about NOT knowing every Captain, Admiral, and Commodore in the service, it’s about NOT having friends across the galaxy because he just hasn’t had time to make them. Even in deep space, that matters. And I think it’s something that I appreciate more as an adult myself, with actual real world experience of the importance of connections and experience and time, especially in sort of insular or smaller work communities.

Anyway, next is Bread and Circuses! Another great ep for the triumvirate. I can’t believe we’re almost through S2!!

[murasaki-murasame]

Ao no Flag chapter 50 is out now, along with confirmation that the series will be ending Soon [tm]. Which on the one hand makes me sad, but on the other hand it’s heading towards a perfectly natural conclusion and it’d probably be worse if it got drawn out.

Anyway this has been your monthly reminder that the series is going to start getting official English volume releases in April 2020.

Thoughts on the new chapter under the cut.

There’s a lot to discuss with this chapter [in spite of it technically not covering much], but first I wanna talk more about the fact that we’re officially heading into the climax of the series.

I think we’re a chapter or two into volume 8 now, so I think it’s very likely this will be the final volume, in which case there’d be about five or six chapters left. Sometimes with manga, especially shonen manga, they announce that the series is entering it’s last arc or whatever and then the last arc takes like five years to finish, but I feel like that only really happens with super popular mainstream action type stuff. Usually with smaller series like this, this sort of announcement means we’re genuinely in the home stretch.

At most we might get a ninth volume, but since this is a monthly series, it’d still take like half a year for us to finish volume 8, so that’s probably where it’ll end.

I’m pretty glad that it’s going to end soon instead of drawing itself out, since basically all of the major plot points have been out in the open for a while now and everyone’s been slowly confronting and resolving their personal problems, so the series probably wouldn’t be able to keep going much longer unless they came up with entirely new things to drag it out, which would probably suck.

It’s still kinda sad that this means we probably won’t have time to explore much more with Masumi, but at the very least I’m happy with the amount of focus that all the other main characters have received thus far. And who knows, maybe Masumi watching how Touma is patching things up with his friends might give her the courage to come out to Futaba. Considering how everything with Touma’s been handled, it’d feel kinda depressing and unnecessary if Masumi just continues hiding her feelings right to the very end.

It’s also worth pointing out that the series ending soon probably also means that the crack theory I had [for lack of a better term] of Futaba being trans isn’t gonna happen, but that was never something I was super convinced about anyway.

I think so long as we at least get a scene of Masumi coming out to Futaba then I’ll pretty much be entirely satisfied with the series by the end, so that’d be nice. There’s a lot of small things i could nitpick, and other topics I could want the author to explore, but at the end of the day it’s been a perfectly great series, and I’m being kinda unfair toward it in terms of my expectation since it feels like it’s one of the only Shonen Jump series to tackle these sorts of topics at all and so the desperate part of me wants it to be perfect and to do everything, which is unreasonable. Really I just want there to be a wider variety of manga like this in the shonen demographic, lol.

Also, I still think that it ending with about eight volumes would lend itself perfectly to it getting a 25-ish episode anime adaptation. I think that’d be enough to comfortably adapt the entire thing from start to finish. But it’s still probably a pipe dream to expect a series like this to get an adaptation. At the very least, if it does, I hope they announce it before it ends, but I think the Astra Lost in Space anime only got announced several months after it’s manga ended, so who even knows.

Anyway, onto the actual events of this chapter, it’s basically just the rest of the conversation between Futaba and Touma, but it was incredibly good either way. Even though I continue to agonize over the fact that this series is monthly, lol.

I know I said this before but it’s still just so funny to me that Touma and Futaba WANT to get angry and argue with each other because they’ve got a lot of pent up feelings they dunno how to express, but they just keep circling back to being nice to each other and talking about their feelings and emotionally supporting each other.

Even at this point I still don’t know if I’m just getting my hopes up about how I’m getting more and more vibes of Taichi being bi, but this chapter in particular seems to really lay it on thick, lol. I mean, it’s just Futaba’s interpretation of Taichi’s feelings, and we’ve pretty pointedly not been getting a look into Taichi’s actual thoughts for ages now, but she was definitely trying to tell Touma that she thinks Taichi is grappling with the idea of Touma as a potential boyfriend.

I still feel like one way or another Taichi and Futaba are gonna continue dating by the end of the series, but it’d be really interesting if this does actually lead to an acknowledgement of Taichi also having feelings for Touma. Which would make everything way more complicated and depressing all around.

In a weird way I think it might actually make the inevitability of Touma being left single sting even more if Taichi does actually have feelings for Touma, since then it becomes a matter of Touma having ‘missed out on’ an actual potential relationship, instead of it having been a pipe dream right from the start.

I should probably stop being surprised by the stuff this series touches upon in spite of it being a shonen manga, and all the baggage and tropes that comes with, but seeing Futaba reply to Touma’s ‘it’s not like I can be his girlfriend or anything’ by going ‘and I can’t be his boyfriend, either’ was pretty hard-hitting. It at least makes me hope even more that they’re actually setting up for Taichi being bi.

One way or another they’ve been spending what feels like a really long time intentionally keeping us out of Taichi’s head, so with the series ending soon I hope that comes to a head soon. We really need some sort of proper face to face conversation with him and Touma where they actually hash out their feelings.

Kensuke’s still on my shit list and that probably won’t ever change, but I can’t really bring myself to feel disappointed or anything about how things are wrapping up between him and Touma. For one thing I don’t think that sort of scene in this chapter with them was ever gonna be the time or place for anything more deep or serious than the conversation we got, but even then, given what Kensuke’s like, him going ‘everyone in love grosses me out’ is something that I can at least somewhat accept as his way of trying to say that he’s not trying to single Touma out.

I still think he’s a shithead though and I’m side-eyeing all the online comments i’m seeing that are like ‘I’m glad the author isn’t demonizing Kensuke for not accepting Touma’s sexuality’, lol. Y’all are on thin fucking ice.

Anyway, with how this chapter ended, and the confirmation of the series ending soon, I’m really excited to see what happens next. The monthly wait is going to get even more agonizing now.

In general the main two things I want are 1: Masumi coming out to Futaba, and 2: Touma and Taichi having an actual conversation about their feelings. So long as we get that, I could take or leave anything else. Although it’d also be nice to see Touma come out to his family. But still.

[ninety6tears]

tag game

Rules: tag 9 people you’d like to know better/annoy a little with silly games lol.

Top 4 ships: (Having done similar lists, in the interests of not being a broken record this might be slightly weighted/arbitrary, but)

Cassie Maddox and Rob Ryan (Dublin Murder Squad). I love almost every word/character Tana French has ever written, but it always goes back to these two. I know what it’s like to have a complicated, familial yet precariously close to unhealthy intensity in a friendship and it’s not the individual characters as much as the palpable tells of commonality and instinct between them that feels like that but blown into uniquely epic proportions. This relationship is written in some of the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read and even giving fanfic for this series the old college try is always a bit daunting; even though I’ve never not been in the middle of a book it was an obsession which was kind of the beginning of literature making up a good deal of my fandom writing/activity, so, formative at the least, life-destroying at the most.

Barnaby Brooks Jr. and Kotetsu Kaburagi (Tiger & Bunny). I think the reason this is one of my favorites is that it’s one of those extremely unlikely pairings (not so much in the sense of sexuality but their personalities, their histories, that age difference which actually isn’t as big a gap as I initially thought) which isn't really that unlikely when you take a closer look at the way they canonically and potentially complement each other. Even though this is overall a pretty lighthearted series with funny characters that you wouldn’t immediately credit with much subtlety, it impressively draws both guys in this partnership as having maladapted, in occasionally melodramatic but mostly everyday, sublimated ways, to traumatic losses, and these two characters are almost incidentally shoved into each other’s lives when the only self-prescribed recourse is to bury their heads further into isolation. When this series was first airing a lot of the discussion circled around Barnaby (positively or negatively) as a Bruce Wayne woobie type, but look, they’re both the woobie in very different ways (and neither of them is that reductively comparable to any superhero character I know), and they manage to build love and trust between them that withstands the fact that the timing for dropping the emotional bombs is never good.

James T. Kirk and Nyota Uhura (Star Trek). I mean, my longest (and longest-running WIP) fic ever is partly about this pairing and they’ve been living in my head on and off for...ten years. I like these two in TOS too (though mostly in the uh, less gendered moments) but AOS fandom will always have a special place in my heart no matter how much hate other people have for it and I lost my mind over the potential angst and growth and chemistry of this ship. Can’t say I’m unhappy it was never canon though.

Natasha Romanov and Steve Rogers (MCU). So the first Avengers movie came out and they had some brief but very chill interactions and she was being all reformed-murderer and he was being all “ma’am” and I remember having a talk with someone like, man, that would be such an avenue for them to go down exploring an unlikely relationship but then I thought nah, they’ll never be each other’s designated love interest so that would never get explored, right? And then the Russos gave me The Winter Soldier, and they are now without question my favorite relationship in any of these movies. And I love that it’s a male-female friendship that is very close without making those loud self-conscious clarifications about “ugh, it would be like kissing a sibling” because oh no viewers don’t understand complicated/ambiguous/mature relationships between the two genders (discounting that shit in AOU when Steve was like, the designated bro who had to give Bruce the disclaiming permission to pursue Nat or whatever bleghyeahno). There isn’t really a way for me to believe them that isn’t sad or bittersweet, I’m not so on board with them getting married and HEA, but I think...it’s complicated.

Last song: The Vaults cover of Alt-J’s “Hunger of the Pine”

Last movie: Jumanji: The Next Level

Reading: Too many things at once, but I just started Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments. I have reservations about this sequel, with how it’s in a kind of dialogue with the TV series and what that implies (though I think there are also some inconsistencies which just has me confused), and it does seem like an unnecessary return to what was a deliberately open-ended masterpiece timed to the success of the adaptation. Still, Atwood can write pages and pages made up mostly of somber world-building and make it mysteriously compelling. 

Craving: Hugs.

I was tagged by @cosetteferaud <3

Tagging YOU!

[tenscupcake]

the null hypothesis (5/?)

fitzsimmons. teen. i hope even one person enjoys this story as much as i do lol... it is such a source of joy in my life... especially with the dismal turn aos has taken lately. thanks to @aroseofstone​ for the endless support with this fic. summary: roughly one out of every six people can't feel touch; that is, until their soulmate touches them. fitz and jemma are two indignant contributors to that statistic, content to devote their lives to science rather than searching for their supposed 'other half.' both too clever for high school, they head off to university at sixteen, completely unaware their fates are about to become intertwined. but in a world where soulmates don't always match, it's not always easy to confess to a stranger. a soulmate au with a twist. this chapter on ao3 | back to chapter 1 on ao3

By the end of his last class on Wednesday, Fitz has amassed a sizeable inventory of tactile memories. Paired them up with physical properties and adjectives he’s never understood before now. Metal, glass, paper, plastic, wood, nitrile. He tries to think of every possible material he might encounter in next week’s lab and desensitise himself to it, so as not to draw unnecessary attention from Jemma. He knows he eventually has to come clean, but he doesn’t want it to be by accident.

He’s met about a dozen new people over the span of a day: other members of his suite, professors, classmates he’s been forced to work in groups with. And as he’s shaken all their hands, he’s been consistently amazed by how different everyone’s is. Some are unpleasantly moist; others are uncomfortably dry. Some squeeze hard, other barely hold on. Some hands feel massive around his, others are dwarfed by his own. Some have soft hands, others have rough calloused skin he wonders how they cope with. It’s funny, how he can start to make assumptions about the people he meets simply based on their handshake. How confident they are, how muscular, how often they use their hands, whether they have a skincare routine. A useful tool for the future, he speculates, that he’s almost glad to have acquired.

But there’s only one hand he keeps going back to, one he daydreams about touching again. Because only one changed his life forever: Jemma’s. Hers was the nicest of all.

In fact, that little hand has consumed roughly ninety percent of his waking thoughts since he walked out of that lab. Well, that hand and the person attached to it.

The lecture for their chemistry class meets tomorrow morning, and he’s already vowed to himself to try to find her. Being introductory level as it is, an important prerequisite for multiple programs, it’s a huge class. More than three hundred students. Trying to locate someone specific to sit next to without prior coordination may be near impossible.

But his only ill-formed plan as of right now, that Mack helped him formulate, is to get to know Jemma better. His only hope is that, perhaps, if they’re friends, finding out the truth about him won’t be as revolting to her (worse case scenario; best case scenario, maybe she’ll be flattered). And the more time he spends with her outside of their lab section, the quicker he can get to know her, and vice versa. The sooner he can get the answer he needs.

Though, he has no idea what he’ll do if he does find her tomorrow. Simply stare at her from afar? Approach her and hope he doesn’t trip over his own tongue? Sit next to her and pray he can restrain himself from touching her the entire fifty minutes?

He spends the evening worrying about how it will play out as he repeatedly copies down the derivations of the equations he learned in Mechatronics today. Trying to memorize them early. But his wandering thoughts are distracting enough that it takes him much longer than it should. He keeps writing the wrong symbols, forgetting how to do basic integration.

When he finally gives up for the night and climbs into bed, he faces a night just as sleepless as the last. Tossing and turning, seeing Jemma’s face behind his eyelids. It’s a hazy memory, at this point, so many hours have passed since he’s seen her. He vows to himself the next time he sees her he’ll pay closer attention to her features, devote the details to memory.

He finally falls asleep in the wee hours of the morning, dreaming of what it’d be like to touch her again.

But his worry turns out to be for naught.

He does arrive early enough to spot her (he knew she’d be the type to show up ten minutes early), but completely loses his nerve when he sees her. She’s unmistakeable there in the front row, both a laptop and a notebook on her tiny retractable desk, intently focused on the former. There’s a few dozen students inside already, but a myriad empty seats. Including all the ones next to her. He’s entered at the very back (and top) of the large lecture hall, and he’s totally out of her line of vision, for now. He could walk down the steps and wait for her to see him.

He imagines how she’d look over and smile at him, inviting him to sit next to her. Or… what if she simply rolls her eyes, disappointed that he’d not leave her alone here, either?

In that moment, she turns in her chair, as though she’s about to look behind her. With the way the air evacuates his lungs at the idea of her seeing him, he’s no longer uncertain if he’s brave enough to approach her. He definitely isn’t. Heart sinking into his shoes, he looks down to the floor, settling into his usual chair in the back right of the hall instead.

He clenches his fists and mentally kicks himself for chickening out. Fighting the urge to look up.

He doesn’t even know for certain whether Jemma did look up toward the back. But if she did see him, she pretended not to.

Perhaps it’s for the best, then.

 -----

 Encouraged by her conversation with Daisy, Jemma makes it her mission to put Fitz out of her mind. Temporarily. He’s not going anywhere, after all. She’ll see him next week in the lab, where she can put her plan to form a friendship into action. And until then, there’s nothing she can do. Instead, she decides to go on an excursion to break in her new sense. Can’t be giving herself away to everyone around her after all (least of all Fitz).

She wanders around campus with her notepad and phone, touching everything she can get her hand on and trying to match it to descriptions she can find online.

Grass, she punches into Google. Coarse, scratchy, springy. She has too look up definitions for each tactile adjective, and get a sense of how each one translates on her fingertips. But the investigation is well worth her time. This is a whole new way of interacting with the world, and Jemma can’t contain her curiosity.

Polystyrene. Flexible and spongy, yet brittle. She tears off a few pieces of the coffee cup, finally matching a sensation to how it squeaks and rips.

But it isn’t long before she has to admit she’s spectacularly failing her mission. All she can think about is Fitz.

Cement. Hard, dense.

What’s he doing right now? Inventing something, probably. Or maybe he’s still in class, that serious focused face on as he scribbles messy equations down. Or perhaps he’s rolling his eyes at another student he’s been forcibly partnered with.

Water. Fluid, refreshing. She sits on the edge of the fountain, dragging her hand through it, marvelling how it tickles her hand as it resists the motion before finally rushing between her fingers. As soon as she pulls her hand out, each individual droplet trickles down her hand before reuniting with the pool below.

What if he is her match, and he’s just too shy to admit it, too? She imagines the hypothetical revelation making him smile, a phenomenon she doesn’t think she’ll ever get enough of. Those boyish cheeks lifted even higher, his eyes sparkling. What colour were they? Somehow, she’d failed to notice.

She leaps up and walks in circles across the plaza, trying to get a hold of herself. She can’t entertain such thoughts, not when she has no proof yet. It’ll only crush her even more if she’s built up hope of that.

She continues her investigation, instead: the shiny paint and windscreen of a new car, the bark of a tree, the surface of a stone. But even as she catalogues these things, her mind wanders. Curious about how other things would feel. Cupping his jaw. Running her fingers through his hair. Splaying her fingers on his chest. It’s purely scientific, she tries to convince herself. This curiosity.

And yet, she has no desire to quench said curiosity with any other bloke. Any person. Even if it were possible to, which it is definitely not, she’d only want Fitz.

Oh, this is not good at all.

The next thirty-odd hours progress in much the same way. Trying to focus on other things, constantly distracted by her soulmate’s abrupt arrival in her life. Trying to prepare herself for next week’s lab, what she’ll say to him to try to befriend him after the rocky start they had.

But it’s not until seven forty-seven on Thursday morning, when she’s one of the first people in the lecture hall for chemistry, that it hits her that Fitz is in this course. Unless he makes a habit of skipping lecture (which wouldn’t be unbelievable for him), he’ll be here this morning.

Why had this not occurred to her sooner?

There’s just so many people in this class, she’d managed to compartmentalize the lecture portion apart from the lab portion. There are so many fewer students there, such a different learning atmosphere. It’s hard not to separate them mentally.

Suddenly, her decently-controlled anxiety skyrockets again. Heart skips several beats. What if she runs into him? She hasn’t fully prepared for such an encounter yet.

She turns around, scanning the room for him.

Sitting in the very front, as per usual, she has a good view of the entire room. But so far, there’s only about ten other students here, scattered across the room quite randomly.

She tries to focus on what she’s reading, a recent article that caught her interest about genetically engineered allergen-free peanuts. But she can’t stop herself from looking back.

The fourth time she does, she catches sight of him, unmistakeable with his cardigan and tie. The door has just banged closed behind him, way at the top of the hall. But he’s looking down at the ground, evidently unconcerned with whoever else is already in the room. He slumps into a chair in the very back row, the right-hand side too, about as far away from her as he can get. She lets her gaze linger on him for a moment, hoping he’ll glance up and see her, but he doesn’t. He must be looking at his phone, or something else. He looks a bit grumpy, too, from her vantage point. Perhaps not a morning person.

She turns back around, staring numbly at the whiteboard. And doesn’t bother looking back again. She supposes it’s for the best. What would she have done, anyway, if he had seen her? Waved awkwardly? Invited him down to sit with her? Taken the long journey up to the back of the class to sit with him? All those options sound dreadfully anxiety-inducing. It’d probably seem weird and clingy anyway, jumping him like that when he’s not expecting it. Especially this early in the morning.

It’s fine. She can wait until the lab. That’s what she’d planned on, anyway.

But the entirety of the dull lecture, all she can think about is Fitz, sitting in the back of the very same hall. He’s probably just as bored as she is, playing on his computer with engineering stuff.

She’s surprised that mental image makes her smile the way it does.

 -----

 When Tuesday afternoon finally arrives, Fitz is no more prepared than he was five days earlier. He arrives ten minutes early, partly so Jemma knows he was serious about not being tardy again, and partly so that he can mentally prepare himself for when she walks in. After he turns in his completed lab report from last week to the basket in front, he simply takes his seat at their station and waits. He thinks about putting his PPE on, but decides against it. Once he’s suited up, there’s no chance of any skin contact. And stupid and selfish though it may be, he’s hoping for some today. He doesn’t need a lot. Just one touch, and he’ll be content for another week. One little touch.

He jumps every time someone opens the door closest to him, but it’s never her. The TA (Jason, he’d found out his name is by checking the syllabus), then three other students amble in. It’s not until the fifth that he finally sees Jemma.

She looks taken aback to see him, pausing in the doorway like she’s surprised he arrived before her. But she collects herself momentarily, taking a visible breath before offering him a wave and a smile and walking inside.

“Hey, Fitz,” she offers as she approaches their bench.

He realizes he neither waved back nor said anything by the time she sits down, only followed her with his eyes. His poorly committed memory of her didn’t really do the real thing justice. She’s so much more breathtaking than he remembered. Her smile alone brightens the entire aisle around her, and he can actually feel common sense leaving his head the longer he stares at it. Then there’s her eyes, a bright, inviting shade of brown. The way she manages to carry herself with such authority. And is that a bit of a blush on her cheeks?

Oops. He still hasn’t returned her greeting.

“Hi,” he manages. Swallows hard.

Well, this is going well.

“Jemma,” he adds, probably too delayed for it to seem natural. She’d said his name, though.

His last name again. Huh. It’s rare for anyone to refer to him by last name like that. And this is the second time she’s done it in the short time since they met. But it sounds nice when she says it, soft and almost affectionate. Which is mad, because she can’t possibly feel that way.

“Sorry,” she says, unexpectedly. What does she have to apologize for? “I did it again, didn’t I?”

“Did what?” he asks before she can volunteer it.

“Called you by your last name. I don’t know why –”

“That’s fine,” he blurts out.

“Yeah?” she says, surprised.

“Yeah, I, er… I like it,” he manages to say. It must sound mental, but he’s unable to bear the thought of accepting her apology and, by extension, agreeing she should be sorry for anything at all.

She lifts an eyebrow almost flirtatiously. He thinks.

“All right.” With the tiniest of smiles, she delves into her backpack for her things.

Her hands are as of yet un-gloved, and suddenly he realises he’s about to miss his short window to touch her hand again. He runs through a list of ways he could contrive such a scenario in his mind as she pulls out the necessary items from her bag. Just as she’s going for the box of gloves at the end of the bench, a random one spills out of his mouth.

“Oh, er, Jemma, could I… er… borrow a pen?”

Confused, she glances down at his hand, where he’s still holding the pen he’s written down half the protocol with.

“Ran out of ink?” she guesses.

Nope, just an absolute numpty who forgot to stash it before he asked.

He exhales with relief that she’s giving him the benefit of the doubt. That could’ve gone a lot worse.

“Yeah,” he agrees. If the circumstances were different, he’d be lauding her for giving him a good excuse.

With a little more theatrics than necessary, he chucks it into the nearest bin. A perfectly good pen. Oh well.

“You’re in luck,” she says, fishing around in her bag again. “I’ve got lots.” She glances over at his notebook. “You want black, I imagine. To stay consistent.”

Actually, he couldn’t care less what colour ink he uses or if it matches his old pen, as long as it’s Jemma’s.

When he doesn’t respond, she pulls out a black one, anyway. And when she holds it out for him, there’s only about a centimetre of space left on the end of the pen for him to take it.

Is she reading his mind, or is this entirely coincidental?

Greedy as he is, he doesn’t think on it too hard. It’s still a perfect opportunity, and he doesn’t want to miss it.

He reaches for it hesitantly with his left hand, giving her plenty of time to decide if she wants to change her tactic here. But she doesn’t budge. He steels himself for what’s coming, and closes his hand around the end of the pen, lightly brushing one her thumb and finger as he does.

Fitz thought for sure he had built up that first time in his head. That logically speaking, there was no way the second time would be as magical as he’d come to remember first. But he was oh so wrong. Senses alight in the finger pads that had touched her, no less intensely than before. New cells, new sensitivity, it seems the rule is here. He holds his breath, trying not to visibly react. But it’s still tingling, every last bit of skin that touched hers, blood rushing into that hand as fast as into his face.

His heart screams for him to be bold, to reach out and touch more, not caring whether he’s revealed or not. Thankfully, his brain stops him from doing something so stupid, and he just watches her reaction instead. But, again – there’s not much to go off of. She grins tightly once she’s handed off the pen, then turns back to the rack of gloves.

As he’s putting on his own gloves and coat, he churns over what just happened. She could’ve done that so many other ways. She didn’t have to hold on to so much of that pen – a mere inch on the opposite end would have sufficed. She could’ve just set it on the benchtop for him. She could’ve tossed it on his notebook, for God’s sake.

It’s only as he’s thinking back on the fleeting moment that realizes that, just as he’d reached for the pen with his left, she had held it out with her left hand. When he knows she’s right-handed.

Is it possible she wanted to sneak a little touch of her own?

Oh, how badly he wants to believe that.

But that is scant circumstantial evidence. This is merely confirmation bias at work: he’s only absorbing the evidence that supports the theory he wishes to be true. Because there’s plenty of conflicting evidence, too, that he’d rather ignore: such as that she has neither visibly reacted to this second touch, nor initiated a conversation about the first one.

The way he feels about this whole phenomenon is rare, he knows that much. And what reason does Jemma have to fear she’d be mismatched? She’s beautiful and, evidently, brilliant. She could probably have whoever she wanted either way.

No, chances are, his gut instinct is right. He still needs more evidence, more time to be certain, but...

Fitz pinches the bridge of his nose. God, that was such a bad, impetuous idea. He’s only got patches of three fingers on his left hand with sensation, now. It’s going to feel odd until he can somehow contrive a left-handed handshake, or another similar form of contact. (Assuming he can even think of another one that wouldn’t be construed as plain harassment, because right now he’s coming up rather blank.)

He doesn’t have any more time to mull it over before Jason is calling the now full lab to attention.

They’re both a bit less talkative, this time around. Fitz knows in his case, he’s about a hundred times more nervous, being in his bloody soulmate’s presence and making his best effort not to make a total fool of himself in front of her. Only one chance at a first impression, and he already mucked it up. Trying to redeem himself is actually quite stressful.

But it remains a mystery why Jemma is quieter. Especially considering how talkative she’d been last week: narrating the experiment, asking him questions, bossing him around. He sort of misses it.

A small, optimistic part of him hopes it’s because she’s nervous too, being around her own soulmate. But the much larger, realistic part of him that relies on evidence and logic assumes it’s because she’s already decided she doesn’t much care for him.

It’s not that they don’t talk at all, because they definitely do. And Fitz relishes in every bit of new information about her. It’s mostly things related to school – their class schedules, their research interests, what they want to do when they finish school. He tells her about his plan to be an aerospace engineer, and she confesses she’s still having trouble deciding between biotechnology and medical research.

And just as last week, they divide up their tasks efficiently, and complete the base protocol and the extra few steps of investigation that had tacked on quicker than any other pair.

He can’t believe a week ago he had all but written off the idea of a friendship with her. He’s never met anyone so passionate and intelligent before. He’s not overly fond of biology, but he could listen to her talk about it all day. And damn it if she doesn’t manage to make these fogged-up, bulky lab goggles, that make everyone else look like a clown, look adorable.

As the minutes tick by, he’s more and more glad that they’re required to wear full PPE in this lab – that the coat, goggles, gloves can’t come off until they’ve finished. He isn’t sure how he’d stop himself from touching her if they were working this closely together without all that. Every time she taps impatiently on the bench with her fingers as they wait, he can’t help but imagine they’re somewhere else: that her gloves are gone, and he can stop her fidgeting by taking her hands gently in his, brushing his thumb over her skin. Whenever she’s turned away, he can hardly think of anything but what it’d be like to brush the back of his hand along her smooth cheek.

And he’s not proud to admit this, but every second the experiment doesn’t require his immediate focus, he can’t stop staring at her.

They complete their entire modified protocol in, again, just under two hours. But last time, the end couldn’t come soon enough. Now, it’s far too soon. They’ve still got another hour allotted to finish, and he’d like nothing more than to spend it with Jemma. But, lacking a good enough excuse to have them both stick around an extra hour, he’s mute as they finish recording up their observations and final measurements and turn in the carbon copies.

He holds out hope that perhaps Jemma will end every lab with a friendly parting handshake, once they’re free of these bloody gloves.

But she does no such thing today.

“See you next week, Fitz,” she says as she walks past where he’s still stuffing things into his bag.

When he looks up, she gives him a smile that takes his breath away. Awkward red goggle lines on her face or not, she’s stunning.

“See you,” he echoes, trying to smile back. Only hoping he succeeds.

He watches her until she gets to the door, and she stops and glances back before she opens it.

“Good luck with that rat liver.”

“Thanks,” he mumbles out.

With a parting wave, she’s gone.

Fitz’s heart does a backflip in his chest. He’d only mentioned his dread over the upcoming lab this week in biochem in passing. She wasn’t just nodding along with his stories and complaints about his other courses. She was listening, and remembered everything he’d said. Wished him luck.

Floating on the reassurance of that one simple gesture, Fitz can’t stop smiling the rest of the evening.

[kinetic-elaboration]

August 15: 2x03 The Paradise Syndrome

I have seen this episode once before and I remember it being pretty awful... but tbh, I didn’t think it was so bad this time around. Maybe that’s just because my expectations were, like, Spock’s-Brain low. It definitely had issues but there was stuff I liked too!

Hmmm, that’s not the bridge. It appears to be... California?

Wondering what people might be so “blessed by this environment”--what a manly he-man action/adventure guy thing to say, amirite?

How does Spock know the significant markers of all the Native American tribes at a distance, off the top of his head?

(Answer: he doesn’t; all of this information is wrong and also one of those tribes is completely made up lmao.)

Honestly, who’s to say these people aren’t advanced? How do YOU know?

“Just so peaceful... no command decisions.” Oh no, Jim’s feeling Romantic again.

Honestly, imagine this characterization in AOS: overworked starship captain think he wants a break (but is wrong). Beyond made a vague attempt but missed what it is that Kirk finds stressful about command--it’s not that it’s boring, it’s the weight of the responsibility and the inability to find love.

Although funnily enough, even on his Native American Vacation, he still finds himself in a command position. He just can’t be stopped. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Oh no, the obelisk ate him.

Maybe these people specifically built the obelisk so that they could return to this idyllic ““primitive”“ state, hmm? Maybe they like their lives this way. Maybe they experienced "progress" and then decided that whatever era of their development looked like indigenous American peoples had it right. (This is not correct but it roughly is the plot of Errand of Mercy so I’m not without precedent.)

Spock’s using simple tools to explain his point to Bones lol. “Here, let me dumb it down for you, lesser man of science.”

“Who am I? What are these?” Cpine morning voice: “This must be a dream!”

Kirk looks so confused. The god from the obelisk.

“The engines are showing signs of stress.” Seems to me like SCOTTY’S showing signs of stress.

And yet the music is so whimsical.

Honestly Kirk’s expression here = Denny Crane’s when in a meeting

White man brings CPR, is hailed as god. (I wish I were making this up.)

Damn, Salish has been demoted. How embarrassing for him.

This is a VERY interesting Spock. He does all his calculations, but the he takes all the risks. He’s very certain and single-minded, almost obsessed, not afraid of anything. I think it’s IC but I also think you can see some Kirk influence, perhaps... You can see how Spock has grown in his command abilities since The Galileo Seven.

The wise ones = the aliens.

“He died before he could tell Salish the secret” to opening the Obelisk and stopping the asteroid. That IS unfortunate.

“How does this shirt open?” Lol.

“Your name is Kirok?” “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

“I’ve never been this happy and peaceful.” Funny how he looks neither happy nor peaceful. Maybe it’s something like “I’ve never been this happy and peaceful...and I don’t like it.” Or “I’ve never been this happy and peaceful... there must be something wrong.”

“Here there is much time. For everything.” No there isn’t, there’s an asteroid coming.

Kirk’s cottage core fantasy.

Poor Scotty, so stressed out. Maybe he needs some time with the indigenous aliens.

The Joining Day? Lol okay.

Kirk has no chill, at all. “Oh, you want to get married? Tomorrow? Okay!!” Is this how Gary was able to successfully distract with him the blonde lab technician?

The “stardrive.”

“Estimated repair time?” “FOREVER.”

“And you lost Jim.” Cool it Bones, there’s no need to be cruel. Spock’s already in his thinking pose so you know he’s taking this seriously.

Love Spock’s chair. That’s not Starfleet regulation.

“I have found paradise.” Is he high??

Requisite highly choreographed fight scene.

“You’ve barely eaten or slept for weeks.” That’s because he’s worried about Jim. And the giant asteroid. This is a great Spock and McCoy scene though.

I can’t believe this. Spock lies down (barely!) and McCoy just leaves like he actually thinks he’s won, and then Spock immediately gets up again to go back to work.This guy is even easier to fool than Sarek.

You know Spock spent his whole adolescence going "Sure, I'll do the thing" and then just not doing it.

“A strange lodge that moves through the sky...” Well okay.

Okay I’m sorry, is he sensing the enterprise or is he sensing SPOCK? Because most of this dialogue might just imply he’s generically remembering his old life... but he also specifically says that the “flying lodge” was farther away and now it’s closer again, and how he could he know that otherwise?

She’s pregnant? That’s not good lol. AWKWARD.

Also the closest that TOS will ever come to acknowledging people have sex.

Omg he made a lamp. He made a lamp on his first day there. Does this imply that Captain Kirk had an arts and crafts phase?? Like CPR I understand him knowing--I’m sure everyone in Starfleet does. But hand-carving a lamp? That’s a whole other skill.

Various cultures including “certain Vulcan offshoots” use music notes as words omgggggg I love this information PLEASE tell me more.

“The Preservers” is a good concept imo. Nifty sci fi innovation: taking aliens from endangered places and giving them a new place, then setting it up nicely for them.

Stop throwing things guys! It’s not helping!

“I need Nurse Chapel.” Damn right you do.

Spock really doesn’t like that “wife.” He sounds like “Wife?? How dare??”

Then he suggests it’s a hallucination even though there’s a woman right there.

"Naturally, since he did not come from there. He's my man, get your paws off him."

Vulcan mind fusion? What the heck is that? How is it season 3 and they still don’t know what to call it?

“He is an extremely dynamic individual.” Spock was really taken for a ride in that brain.

“The landing party is expendable.” There’s the Captain.

“I have an excellent eye for musical notes.” Brag.

“Just press the right button.”

Looks like Spock was the god they wanted all along.

Okay, that was an uncool ending though. I know they basically had to kill Miramanee as soon as she was pregnant but like, there was also no reason for her to be pregnant??? I would have preferred if (1) Miramanee hadn't been pregnant, (2) Jim got over her as soon as he regained his memory and (3) she lived and they just parted awkwardly.

Also I think it would have been nice if they had ended with the Enterprise explaining to Salish how the obelisk works, and then maybe even a hint that he and Miramanee will get back together. Like, maybe not that, since I’m not a fan of women just being used to, like, make men feel better--though I’m also not a fan of them being fridged because of Inconvenient Baby--but he should have at least gotten his position back and, more importantly, the knowledge he was always entitled to. Also, the very existence of an asteroid deflector, along with the people’s extensive knowledge of what weather signifies Oncoming Asteroid, implies this happens to them with some frequency. So in other words, the threat will return.

Plus Salish never got enough credit for being right, which he was! The whole time!

Oh and also I would have liked some acknowledgement that Jim does like being Captain. If you watch the whole show, you know that he occasionally bemoans the stress and his inability to maintain a romantic relationship, despite his love of long walks on the beach, but that he’s also ambitious, he loves exploration and adventure, he gets bored if left in one place too long, and he believes in the necessity of progress and discovery to keep not just individuals but societies from stagnation. But if you just watched this episode, you’d think he’d never been happy in his entire life, and that returning to command makes him miserable.

Aside from the Native American stuff--which was awkward and rather unnecessary and has aged, as you might imagine, very very poorly--I actually didn’t hate the episode. It had some VERY interesting Spock stuff, which I think is within a reasonable Spock characterization, and some great Spock and Bones moments. Kirk’s story line was surprisingly engaging for him being completely separate from the crew, and the general theme that he sometimes needs, or thinks he desires, a break from command, is definitely in keeping with other episodes. I liked the asteroid as the Big Danger, which was surprisingly dynamic--by which I mean, it did a good job of connecting the very disparate story lines on the Enterprise and on the planet. I also liked the Sci Fi Concept of the week in the Protectors. And it was interesting to see an ep take place over a longer period of time.

None of this is to downplay how awkward the Native American elements are--incredibly fetishistic, and also lazy--like, “I want to show something Simple and Idyllic...I know! Indians!” There was no reason they should look like American Indians. In fact, it makes no sense that they do: the Protectors take peoples from planets that are about to be destroyed and (somehow) discreetly move them somewhere else, but Native American peoples still.... very much exist? And so does Earth as a whole. So obviously these aliens weren’t transplanted from Earth. So why should their culture resemble some awkward mishmash of Native American cultures?

So overall I’d say, the ideas of the episode, the structure, the characterizations (mostly), and the overall ideas were good, but it was just very awkward and unfortunate that it chose the... aesthetic that it did--especially because it was very much an aesthetic choice and not a well-thought-out, culturally sensitive one. Gonna be honest and just chalk that up to it being 1968 though.

Next is And the Children Shall Lead, which I actually think was one of the first TOS eps I ever saw... But I don’t remember it at all.  So we’ll see!

[kinetic-elaboration]

December 30: The Search for Spock

Today, the Search for Spock. Third TOS film in 3 days; I’m living my best life.

I feel like I won’t have much to say about this one, but I always say that and then ramble.

Definitely the best of the first three. I’d rank them: TSFS, TMP, TWOK, personally.

The pacing was the best of the three; the overarching human narrative, of a man’s quest to save his most important person, was way better than TWOK (just two old guys who can’t get over 15 year old beef lmao); the sci fi aspect was literally just Genesis part two but this time I was proven correct in thinking it’s dumb; Kirk was consistently both awesome and in character; the found family feels were on point; the humor was on point; the eerie moments were on point; it had a lot of Dramatic Moments; and a beautiful ending. A+

Some particular favorite scenes: Kirk finding McCoy hanging out in Spock’s quarters; Sarek talking to Kirk about Spock (NO ONE is allowed to talk to me about Shatner’s acting ever again and Mark Lenard is a treasure); the entire stealing-the-Enterprise sequence; the fight scene with the Big Klingon because the only proper fight scenes are Kirk fight scenes; Kirk holding Spock up for their dramatic exit from Genesis; the Ending. Kirk and Spock legit could have kissed at the end and it would have read perfectly fine.

A few complaints: first of all there was 0 reason to have little Spock go through Pon Farr. It was creepy and wrong. He has nothing going on in that brain of his, so he definitely can’t consent to sex, and Saavik’s a daughter figure to him, so you know she didn’t want to do that. Also, he looks like he’s still a child. And she tries to explain it to him, but he doesn’t know language, not even Vulcan--how would he? He’s existed for a day. Finally, real Spock didn’t experience Pon Farr until his late 30s, so it’s completely unnecessary to include that in this film.

Also, I thought Saavik and David were pretty boring in this film. They had a very narrow purpose, as my mom put it, and imo not much character. That David was Kirk’s son was almost completely irrelevant. They obviously have some kind of (romantic?) relationship but no real chemistry. The recasting of Saavik didn’t help her at all. Overall, they were just kinda blah to me. Especially compared to the badass crew of the Enterprise lbr.

I remembered David’s death very differently. I remembered it as Kirk’s fault somehow--but it really isn’t his fault at all. David’s on the exploration mission because, I assume, he wants to be, and then he sacrifices himself on his own, for Saavik. In the context of the protomatter revelation, it looks like a redemptive act. It’s terrible for Kirk but like...even Sarek puts it in the same breath as losing the Enterprise.

I hated seeing the Enterprise brutally torn apart in B*yond, but her death here is completely different: it’s sad, and oddly beautiful, to see the ship flaming out against the sky, but it’s not played as a big action / torture porn sequence. And it’s warranted: she was already going to be decommissioned, Kirk stole her for a last hurrah, and he gives her up as part of a desperate plan, when he has almost nothing else left. Losing the Enterprise is necessary to complete his arc. She’s always been the most important. He’s sacrificed so much of his life for this ship and this job. But now he’s pissed off Starfleet, he’s lost his son (the first person he gave up for the Fleet, when he was still in the Academy), and he’s got just a bare thread of chance to save Spock, the other half of his soul. So if he doesn’t succeed, who cares if he’s lost the ship? He’ll have nothing left anyway. And if he succeeds, as he does, it’s a fair price.

I also feel like this is really the end of the Kirk / TOS story, even though there are 3 more films with him. He’s finally chosen: Spock over all else. He ends the movie on a different planet, with literally only Spock and the rest of the core bridge crew with him, but it’s a happy ending. Because all the excess has been cut away, and the core of what’s important to him has been found. Beautiful.

Then the epilogue is like “but if whales? wouldn’t that be fun?” and it is.

I loved Sulu’s outfit in this and also Uhura’s in Kirk’s apartment. But Kirk and that tracksuit? Is that what he thinks appropriate retirement clothing is?

I loved Scotty hating on the Excelsior and also how Sulu was into it, especially given that Sulu becomes captain of that ship later. I bet he and Scotty still argue about it.

It was interesting that the main alien enemy here was the Klingons. I’m not against it, it’s fine, they’re generic, but they had a cloaking device, and I’m fairly sure this is the first time we’ve seen the Klingons with that. Mom thinks they stole it from the Romulans, and I’d have to agree. It seems the same, right down to the weaknesses. Interesting that the Federation was the first to steal it, and yet the don’t seem to use it.

I’m back on David again. I cannot believe this bitch. He rants and raves about how awful the big mean military is in TWOK and yet WHO was using UNETHICAL SCIENCE to create his big, stupid pointless invention? Oh, that would be David, the civilian scientist. Maybe if he’d gone into Starfleet he’ have learned ethics. Or not a Starfleet officer did sell Genesis to the Klingons lol. (Actually...if they already had it, why are they still after Kirk for it?) He’s also super naive. “The Klingons won’t want this, it doesn’t even work?” My not-so-sweet summer child, it’s a weapon. It’s a much better weapon than it is a terraforming device.

...I think McCoy was turned on by Uhura putting Mr. Adventure into the closet. But then who wasn’t?

I can actually see Scotty and Uhura having romantically compatible personalities at this point in the series.

Definite mom erasure in this film; no Carol; no Amanda. You KNOW Amanda would have been at the weird Vulcan ceremony.

I will give the AOS films this: more than anything in TOS or the TOS films, they make Vulcan look like a real planet where people really live and do normal, every day stuff like sit on their balcony or (sort of) go to school. I mean I realize Spock was resurrected on a ceremonial mountain, which is probably...just for ceremonies, but still.

I loved that the first thing Spock said to Jim was “my dad told me about you” because first of all, love that he got to see his father first, and second, they talked about Jim. “Hey Spock, do you remember me? Good. Do you remember your husband? I hope so because he literally just sacrificed everything to save you.” Wish we had a deleted scene of that.

Anyway I love two (2) space husbands and that is all.

”