#btw i have done astral projection and at first when i heard about shifting i was like

[friendofthecrows]

I miss that brief golden era from like 2012 to 2016 when the online witchcraft community was actually good and full of open minded people looking to learn more and share what they know plus maybe the occasional vampire middle schooler instead of the situation now where it's been taken over by capitalist tiktok transphobes who like to come up with ways to shift to hogwarts via their inherent magical vagina powers and then sell coated quartz to cure cancer instead of seeing doctors.

[kinetic-elaboration]

September 4: 1x13 The Conscience of the King

Past midnight and I’m tired but!! The Conscience of the King!

This was a wild ep. A lot to untangle about it.

Dramatic Shakespeare! Jim’s very invested in the performance.

I legit thought that the guy next to him was McCoy the first time I watched this. I hadn’t seen much ST at the time and that’s my excuse but also in my defense he has a similar facial structure and it’s dark.

“What do I do about my log???” New hydration game: drink whenever someone mentions their logs.

So Tarsus had only 8,000 people--that’s not very many. They must have been very isolated and new. And Kodos killed 4,000.

The Karidian players are part of the “Galactic Cultural Exchange Project.”

One of my problems with believing this Kirk/Lenore romance outside the usual honeypot aspects is that she is a little young for him perhaps??? I say as if I didn’t know couples with a bigger age gap but--she’s only 19 so it’s different.

So Kodos faked his death, fairly immediately had a daughter, and then changed his identity. Her age being exactly 19 is probably just about keeping math simple but I would like to read more into it than that.

Major plot hole that there’s a PICTURE of Kodos in the database. Like???? Then everyone knows what he looks like? The idea that only 9 people have the secret knowledge to bring him to justice and yet also everyone with an internet connection can see his photo is just nonsense.

Kirk, being charming at a party. I feel like his flirt game isn’t so strong at first (here, have this glass I’ve already sipped from?) but it gets stronger as their conversation goes on. He doesn’t have the greatest lines but his attitude is so charming and attractive it legit does not matter what he’s saying.

I used to feel, at least, that Lenore was one of his real, legit love interests, probably because of the ending and because it was one of the first eps I saw so I took it as more face value, but on a rewatch... not really sure. At any rate this initial flirting is all about the Strategy.

I find it somewhat disturbing that Lenore played her father’s wife.

The Astral Queen??

Lenore is really bad at judging Kirk, like from beginning to end. If this were airing now and I were in the fandom, I’d be getting into internet fights with people about how her analyses of him are biased and shouldn’t be taken at face value because they clearly have no connection to how he actually is. “Where’s the brash young man from the party?” Was there ever a brash young man? Is he in any way different on their walk versus inside??

A dead body, what a mood killer.

I like the aesthetic of this planet, though.

Wow, wtf, Kirk, your friend’s widow is crying and you give her a five-second hug and then literally push her off screen? Gotta hurry it up ma’am!

So he just has to say ‘over and out’ and the communicator cuts the transmission and he can call someone else. Very high-tech.

Spock is displeased. A little suspicious. A little jealous.

How did you know she was coming on the ship? “I’m the Captain.”

Spock should appreciate how sneaky Kirk is being with all his schemes. It’s not Menagerie level but still.

Riley! I wish he were in more eps. He’s one of my favorite minor characters. I realize he’s only in this one because they accidentally cast the same actor twice but still--he had potential. I see he’s been taken out of Navigation. And given a backstory in Engineering, and then moved to Communications. But he keeps the gold shirt. Busy fellow.

“Star Service.”

So he transferred Riley to protect him because he figured... no one knows where Engineering is?

I love this Spock and McCoy scene. McCoy being so laid back and Spock being like “I am suspicious of this suspicious situation.”

Vulcan was never conquered though??

“Your personal chemistry wouldn’t allow you to see that” sounds an awful lot like a veiled “you’re gay” reference.

Someone finally comments on the romantic lighting that follows Kirk around.

Wow, how did all this “surging and throbbing” talk get past the censors? Tone it down, Lenore.

Kirk claims he eventually really liked her, but this is like the last positive scene they have and he’s still CLEARLY fishing for information.

Love that cut from Lenore and Kirk making out to Spock alone on the bridge at night, brooding. (No one needs to steer the ship at night I guess?)

Poor Riley, stuck by himself in Engineering during the late shift. “You’ve been a bad boy.” I love when the crew gets to just hang out and be friends. Also interesting that Uhura has borrowed Spock’s harp.

Spock: “Riley can’t die because KIRK.”

This is a great triumvirate scene. I love how they play off each other, and how they simultaneously care about each other and about their jobs and doing the right thing.

I do find it weird that McCoy is so anti this whole investigating Kodos thing. Like, this isn’t some crazy vengeful path that Jim’s on or whatever he’s implying. Jim’s actually being pretty careful and slow in his actions? And there is someone actively killing people, like--the threat is imminent? It’s just a weird side to represent. I get the balance they’re trying to portray with the three sides but McCoy just doesn’t have a good argument and Jim doesn’t really need to be pulled back--if anything, he needs to be pushed, as Spock is pushing him.

“Logic isn’t enough. I’ve got to feel my way.”

 Double red alert sounds like double secret probation.

Spock shushing the Captain.

Throw the phaser out the window.

Lol after all this hullabaloo about being extra sure and all this scheming to get people on his ship--Kirk just comes out and asks Karidian if he’s Kodos. Well that’s one way about it!

Kodos, like his daughter, fundamentally misunderstands Jim. I know he seems very ‘starship captain with his technological tests’ or whatever but--to call him not human?? He is the MOST human!!

Kirk does understand life or death decisions but he would never have made the decision Kodos made.

I’m with Spock, this is not ambiguous. This man is clearly Kodos. I’m glad there was a character actively saying that the alleged tension in this “who is he really?” plot line is not actually real.

This guy is such a manipulative drama queen oml.

I feel like the morality of this situation is not as gray as some characters are trying to make it. Like, no, Lenore, no one’s crying a river for Kodos lol.

The Kodoses again are either not good at reading Kirk or are deliberately trying to gaslight him into incorrect beliefs about himself because he has literally been nothing but human and merciful this entire time!!! An inhuman person would be like “logically he has to be Kodos” and an unmerciful person would be like “and he needs to die” and just like killed him 10 minutes into the ep.

This is the downside of audio logs--private things don’t stay very private.

Riley’s on the loose! Very IC of him.

I love that the ship has a theater, btw.

Riley must have been very young on Tarsus. No more than maybe 6, 7 years old. Knowing what I know about people’s inability to actually remember things or identify people with any accuracy at all, I don’t actually believe he recognizes Kodos’s voice. But what were we saying about how Kirk is unmerciful and in human?

Riley sure backs down fast when Kirk says so.

This Lenore and Kodos scene is probably the best in the whole ep. Really laying bare their fucked up relationship and how absolutely, tragically, irredeemably mad she is. The drama! I love a true wild woman.

The irony! The Shakespearean over-the-top-ness of it all!

You know at least one person in the audience thinks this is just a really weird play.

Leave it to McCoy to ask all the wrong questions lol. He wants to know if Jim liked the girl--who the fuck cares? He knew her for one day. Maybe he was briefly legit interested in her for a few minutes there, but she’s certifiable AND she tried to kill him, so that’s that on that.

The real important thing we should be talking about here is how Jim feels about the death of a man who killed 4,000 people and traumatized him for life.

And Spock stays away entirely, instead of walking over the chair as he usually does. Giving Kirk space to sort out his feelings, perhaps?

So yeah there’s a lot to unpack in this ep.

I think I once ran across a tumblr post that said this ep implied Kirk was slated to be on the to kill list but honestly it’s pretty clearly the opposite--Kodos killed exactly who he wanted to kill, so if Kirk’s alive, Kirk was supposed to live. (I guess they thought the implication came from Kirk being one of the people to see him? But we have no idea what the circumstances of that were, or why the people to see him included a couple of teenagers and a small child.) Also I think I heard once that there was a deleted line about Kirk saying he was one of the people considered worth saving.

This ep is really wild because introducing Tarsus into Jim’s background really changes a lot and introduces a lot into his character and yet it’s basically just done for plot purposes, to make sure the main character stays at the center of the story. But truly it must have transformed him to witness that at ~15.

Overall we hear very little from Kirk directly here. We know he wants to be sure Karidian is Kodos, and he goes to a lot of trouble to be sure, even though it’s quite obvious there’s no mystery to these massive coincidences. We know from his actions--bringing the players aboard, using Lenore, transferring Riley--that he’s deeply affected by this. And sometimes people (who don’t know him well) talk about him, mostly incorrectly (though in a way where I wonder if the writer was trying to get us to think this stuff is true of him? for the dramatic effect?) But for all that, he doesn’t talk about his feelings much at all.

Another take on this ep that I also saw on tumblr and liked a lot was that Kirk is so optimistic and hopeful in part because of Tarsus, because he saw that Kodos rushed to kill people when he really didn't need to, when he didn't think the supply ship would come in time--but then it came early. So the lesson to take from that is, to always be hopeful, to always believe in the last minute save, to always prioritize people's lives and safety first because anything could happen.

I feel like we're supposed to feel bad for Kodos in some way because he left all the mass murdering behind ages ago BUT it doesn't work so well because we're also supposed to believe, imo, that he was the killer, not Lenore. Like, Spock wants Kirk to act as if this man is Kodos and be proactive, but he's not doing it because he's a vengeful person--he's doing it because Kodos, he thinks, is threatening Kirk. Spock never goes beyond that to advocate, for example, a vengeance killing versus giving him to the authorities versus idk just yelling at him or something. So this idea that interfering with Kodos in any way is just being mean is sort of bizarre--there's an active threat here.

Plus sorry but committing genocide 20 years ago isn’t something we just sweep under the rug. He was the mastermind of something truly horrendous and he got away with it! I’m not going to feel bad for him!

And on top of that the idea that he was just killing people to save other people is one thing--at least morally gray I GUESS lol. But he was targeting people for his own eugenics purposes!! He even says this is part of "the Revolution." The famine was an excuse. He wanted to kill them.

Like I realize most of the people getting on Kirk's back for literally everything are the Kodoses, who are nuts and evil, but I feel like he took a lot of shit for doing nothing wrong.

My mom was wondering how Lenore knew her father was Kodos. I’m not entirely sure but I will say I love her and how just unrepetentedly mad she is. I prefer Lenore to most TOS women because I often feel like the show doesn't......really know how to write women. With Lenore there was no attempt to make her anything but off her rocker nuts. And the twist that she was the killer was effective.

She has that very classic insanity, which is the person who has only one thought and it consumes them. Only one purpose. I think she must have been raised separate from literally everyone but her father--he's been a traveling actor her whole life, so she never socialized, she never went to school, she had no other family. He's very private so she never had, like, a social circle. So he's her WHOLE WORLD. And then maybe she got suspicious as to why that was, and discovered his past. And then she felt that this past threatened him, and anything that threatened him threatened EVERYTHING. So she became...this person we see here.

And, as my mom also pointed out, the ‘body burned beyond recognition’ story is so suspect. With all their future tech? There was no way to id it? Also, what was the official explanation as to how that happened? We know 4,000 people were killed; we know a supply/rescue ship came early, and we know Kodos died and his body wasn’t identified. But what’s the rest of the sequence of events? Was there a riot or revolt and he was killed? Did he kill himself? It’s unlikely he burned to death on accident. The point is that he did not fake his death by himself.

One downfall of this ep is that it is very complicated for only 50 minutes. So much stuff is cut short or cut out--a lot of the backstory, most of Kirk’s feelings, but even stuff like Riley backing down so fast, or Tom’s widow getting literally pushed off screen while she’s grieving. The idea that Lenore and Kirk were supposed to have a real romance somehow? And, the eugenics angle is obviously a huge part of the story but it’s barely touched upon.

According to the trivia on amazon, the original script explained Kirk's presence on Tarsus as being related to Starfleet--he was just out of the Academy and stationed there. That would make him older than other episodes assume him to be--about 42, versus 34-36. But I like it better having him be a teen bc then we don't expect him to know all the stuff that went down later, the aftermath etc. My mom suggested he might have been doing the high school version of a study abroad year, since he’s so smart. This would also explain why his family doesn’t seem to have been on Tarsus, even though if we take his age from other episodes, he was not an adult.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think AOS Kirk was on Tarsus, if in fact Tarsus happened at all in the alternate universe. I just see no evidence in his character that would make me think he’d had that experience.

Next up is Balance of Terror, yet another favorite episode. I mean Mark Lenard?? Romulans?? Can’t go wrong with that.

[sage-nebula]

14, 17, 27 for Voltron 8)

14.) Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

Honestly, this is me with the Voltron fandom*:

And I think that’s all that needs to be said about that.

(*Except for those that genuinely love Keitor as a legitimate ship and not just as a crackship, who ship them in earnest and sincerity. Genuine Keitor shippers are the real MVPs.)

17.) Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen …

I mean, would it be possible to just throw the entire thing out and make Paradigm Shift an animated series instead? No? Okay … then if I absolutely had to keep the same characters as in the actual Legendary Defender show (ugh at most of them), then off the top of my head:

Shiro would still have a huge presence in the show, but he would not come back to Earth at the start and would instead have died before the show even started. Before anyone gets up in arms, in my version of the show all of our representation eggs would not rest solely in Shiro’s basket (meaning that there would be plenty of queer, PoC, and disabled characters front and center), so no, we wouldn’t lose any representation points this way. 

Shiro would be presumed dead in the Kerberos mission, just like in canon, and Keith’s reasoning for wanting to get to space By Any Means Necessary would be to go find him, because Shiro was the only family Keith had after losing his parents (having taken him in as a surrogate younger brother through the Garrison mentor-mentee program), and if there’s one thing Keith Kogane does not do, it’s Give Up. Ever. However, his grief spiral at the Garrison after losing Shiro led to him getting booted out, which left him to roam the desert chasing energy signals. Keith would steadfastly believe that Shiro was alive and Out There Somewhere until probably around season three, when he’d receive irrefutable evidence (perhaps even a spiritual, astral projection of Shiro himself, because how else would Keith believe it?) that Shiro had died. At that point cue griefstricken breakdown #2, only this time when Keith yells at Shiro was the only one who ever believed in him and the only family he ever had, the rest of the team—having actually been able to bond with Keith on-screen this time around—gets to have a “then what the hell are we?” moment, and actually be there for him as Keith comes to realize that he’d been bonding with a new family all this time. (Which in no way diminishes his relationship with Shiro, of course, but still gives him others to rely on and love and bond with.)Also, he’s confirmed half-Japanese (half-galra) on-screen, and he’s in the Black Lion from the start. (And Allura is in Red while doubling as commander of the castle, Pidge in Green, Hunk in Yellow, Lance in Blue.) No Lion swap nonsense to cause discourse and drama this time around.

As mentioned, Allura doubles as the paladin of the Red Lion and commander of the Castle. Having the fastest Lion enables her to jet back to the Castle to open wormholes when necessary. Her character arc is focused on learning that she can create her own legacy rather than just walking in her father’s footsteps, because Alfor wasn’t always perfect like she believed he was, and it’s not a disrespect to his memory to want and actually be better. This ties in with her learning to be comfortable taking the crown and title of queen, because as crown princess she is technically queen at the start of the show, but her insecurities make her feel as if she’s not yet earned that title. Btw, she survives all the way through the end of the show.

Since Keith has the “finding family” subplot on lock, Pidge’s would be different. Instead of being a family of genius scientists, in this version the Holts (or at least her father and brother; not sure Pidge would have a mother in this one) would be a family of pilots. They know enough to fly their ships, but they’re not much into science otherwise, and at least not the theoretical kind that Pidge is. Pidge’s father always favored her older brother, Matt, pretty blatantly, and while Matt himself loved Pidge, he was also a bit patronizing whenever he tried to comfort her over not taking to flying like him or their father. As such, Pidge figured the way to prove herself was to be As Much Like Them As Possible, hence doing everything in her power to look and act like her older brother. But once she gets to space, she slowly comes to realize that her area of expertise is actually needed on the team, she’s valued more as herself rather than her brother’s shadow, and she comes to realize she never needed to prove anything to anyone.

Lance is the spoiled only child he always acted like on the show who, at first, thinks everything should be about him and if it’s not, then others are wrong. He’s innocently insensitive in that he doesn’t always realize when his behavior bothers someone (namely, Hunk), and decides that Keith is his rival without Keith’s consent or genuine acknowledgement. Lance’s arc in the show would be about noticing and paying attention to others more, rather than always making everything about Lance, Lance, Lance. He becomes a much better friend to everyone in the process.

Hunk has something of the opposite problem to Lance: He’s always putting others before himself and rarely, if ever, speaks up when something they do bothers him, preferring instead to mutter passive-aggressively about it under his breath if he says anything at all. This allows some (like Lance) to walk all over him, and also means that he enlisted in the Garrison even though he didn’t really want to because his family badgered him into it. His arc would be about learning more self-confidence and self-assertion, realizing that it is okay to do things for himself, to assert boundaries, to say no and have that no be heard, and that while it’s good that he cares so much for others, he can’t care for them if he doesn’t care for himself first. Hunk deserves to aim some of the love he gives everyone else at himself, too.

Squad ends up in space because Spoiled Only Child Lance decides he want to take one of the land fighter jets out on a late night joyride and drags Pidge and Hunk with him. (Pidge goes because she has a crush on Lance and also doesn’t want to see him die or get expelled and knows at least one of those things will happen if she’s not along to prevent it, and Hunk goes because this is the first episode and he can’t say “no” to Lance and have it be respected yet.) The three of them follow Keith in to where the Blue Lion is, and a fight almost occurs before Lance awakens the Blue Lion and they all end up in space by accident. 

Season one is spent mostly on building the bonds between the core team. Every single team member has at least one bonding episode (in the A Plot or B Plot or even C Plot) with every other member. So Keith gets one with Allura, Lance, Pidge, and Hunk; Allura gets one with Keith, Lance, Pidge, and Hunk; Lance gets one with Allura, Keith, Pidge, and Hunk, and so on and so forth, you get the idea. That said, we’d start hearing names of important organizations and people later on. Lotor would get name-dropped multiple times and we’d see evidence of him and his team even if we didn’t know it was them at the time, the Blade of Marmora’s sigil would be sighted and would get name dropped, et cetera.

We still get team up episodes in season two, but also name drops start paying off. Blade of Marmora is introduced (as is Keith’s heritage), Keith still rescues Acxa in the Weblum, and we see Lotor on-screen for the first time at the end of the season when Keith’s infiltration mission goes awry and Lotor is the one to save him, in person, having heard from Acxa that Team Voltron had a half-galra on their crew and wanting to investigate that little fact for himself. Their first face-to-face meeting would probably go something like:Keith: “Who are you?”Lotor: “Haven’t you heard it’s rude to demand another’s name before introducing yourself?”Keith: “Yep.”[beat]Lotor: [chuckles] “Very well. My name is Lotor.”Keith: [recognizes the name, but tries not to give that away; nods] “I’m Keith.”Lotor then goes off and also saves Thace because the more agents the Blade of Marmora has alive, the better the chances of toppling Zarkon’s regime.

After all is said and done Keith asks Kolivan if he’s heard of a group of half-galra rebels (because presumably that came up during his little meeting with Lotor), and Kolivan just heaves a long suffering sigh because he knows exactly who Keith is talking about and had hoped to keep Keith far, far away from Lotor. 

Team Lotor is never broken apart, and Narti—who is still blind and mute—never dies. Instead, at some point (probably starting in season three, maybe in season four) they meet with and join forces with Team Voltron—not out of desperation, but because to battle an empire one needs an army to match, and an army united is much better than one divided. Additionally, Team Voltron has zero (0) plans of what to do with the planets they’ve freed, whereas Team Lotor has been working on training part-galra rebels to help defend freed planets and eventually establish a galactic federation, so they bring these plans with them with the agreement that once the federation is formed, Voltron won’t be needed anymore. (They’re also secretly making the Sincline ships to make sure Voltron has a check if needed, but shhhh.)

With Team Lotor now joined with Team Voltron, each Lion now has two pilots who can swap around at will, but also learn to work together.Black: Keith and LotorRed: Allura and AcxaGreen: Pidge and NartiYellow: Hunk and ZethridBlue: Lance and EzorObviously each of these pairs get episodes and development together (especially since Keith/Lotor and Allura/Acxa are endgame, and the fact that Zethrid oozes self-confidence helps inspire Hunk), but they mix and match around, too. Zethrid absolutely sweeps Allura into her arms to take her off to a spa day in one episode, while also laughing about how she could snap Lance in half without breaking a sweat in another, and Keith and Acxa quickly find that they’re kindred spirits and bond a lot, too.

Endgame ships (that would be inarguable, half on-screen kiss confirmation, and would not have either member of the pair die) would be:Keith/Lotor, Acxa/Allura, Ezor/Narti, Kolivan/Antok (I just want Kolivan to be happy), Zethrid/Romelle (maybe; Zethrid has a lot of options), Hunk/Shay or Hunk/Regris, and I guess Lance/Pidge.

And that’s enough for now.

27.) Least shippable character?

Probably Slav, but also Throk, because as my bff @severalbakuras knows I will never, ever take Throk seriously, and that includes ever giving him a serious romantic partner lmao.