#die-casting enterprises

[gudmould]

Typical case analysis of digital industry, real materials of die-casting!

Die casting, also known as high pressure casting, is a near net shape technology that has been widely used in automotive, aerospace, and electronics industries in recent years. In die-casting process, molten metal (usually light alloy) fills cavity at high pressure and high speed under action of punch, and cools quickly to form final casting.Die-casting is generally divided into cold-chamber…

[thestuffedalligator]

The duchy was founded - unofficially - when some enterprising little thief had read through the royal lawbooks, looking for loopholes like a worm trying to wriggle its way through a brick, and had discovered that while the king's men could follow a man across mountains, forests, and plains, they were not granted the same jurisdiction over bodies of water.

This had started the popular idea amongst the kingdom's criminal underbelly that if a thief took a boat and paddled out into the middle of a pond, the king's men technically couldn't do anything about it.

Of course, the realist interjected, it'd never work; if you tried it, then you'd be one thief in the middle of a pond, with all those guards waiting on the shore for you to either wash up with the flotsam or die of starvation.

Still, the idea was alluring. It hung around the popular consciousness as a thought, an untested hypothesis, an interesting fact.

It would've remained so if it wasn't for Edmund Snood, an enterprising young thief who hadn't quite enterprised an escape plan, and with the guard closing behind him had grabbed a rowboat and cast himself out into the largest of the kingdom's lakes so fast that he had skipped like a thrown stone.

And as Edmund fended off the banks and the horrible, grinning, patient faces of the guards waiting for him there, word had spread across the kingdom. Soon enough, thieves and thugs were all paddling up to the little rowboat with a sandwich and a few words of encouragement, attaboy, Eddie, show them who's boss, eh? We're all rooting for you back home!

And after four days, the duchy was founded - unofficially - when Jack "Jackal" Jaseroque had lashed his rowboat to Edmund's and took over the duty of paddling while Edmund took the first sleep he had in half a week.

After that, another boat lashed together with the two. Then another. Then four more. A lean-to shelter was built, torn down, and rebuilt bigger. Walkways were tied together. And then in a wave of tidal force, the thieves and thugs, bandits and brigands, vandals and vagabonds of the kingdom all sailed out to the little assemblage. Leather bladders were inflated to help with bouyancy. Ramshackle halls were raised. A strict rotation of paddling duty was arranged to fend off the banks.

And the tune of the realist had changed - they can't be watching all the shores, right? So if we just spend a couple days here, keep an eye out, and head out again once we've spotted a gap, then who cares about a little bit of paddling in the meantime, right?

The duchy was founded - officially - when Edmund Snood took on the role of dukedom to universal acclaim. This was also when the name of the little commune had been agreed on, as the makeshift structure bobbed gently on the water's surface.

It was called the Robber Duchy.

[vivmaek]

POETRY FOR YOUR MOON SIGN

✰ my masterlist poems written by someone who has the same moon sign as you <3

☾PISCES☽

Edgar Allen Poe, A Dream Within a Dream

“Take this kiss upon the brow! / And, in parting from you now, / Thus much let me avow – / You are not wrong, who deem / That my days have been a dream; / Yet if hope has flown away / In a night, or in a day, / In a vision, or in none, / Is it therefore the less gone? / All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream.”

June Jordan, You Came with Shells

“You came with shells. And left them: / shells. / They lay beautiful on the table. / Now they lie on my desk / peculiar / extraordinary under 60 watts.”

Toni Morrison, It Comes Unadorned

“it comes / Unadorned / Like a phrase / Strong enough to cast a spell; / It comes / Unbidden, / Like the turn of sun through hills / Or stars in wheels of song. / The jeweled feet of women dance the earth. / Arousing it to spring. / Shoulders broad as a road bend to share the weight of years. / Profiles breach the distance and lean / Toward an ordinary kiss. / Bliss. / it comes naked into the world like a charm.”

☾AQUARIUS☽

W.B Yeats, A Coat

“I made my song a coat / Covered with embroideries / Out of old mythologies / From heel to throat; / But the fools caught it, / Wore it in the world’s eyes / As though they’d wrought it. / Song, let them take it / For there’s more enterprise / In walking naked.”

W.B Yeats, The Lover Tells of the Roses in His Heart

“All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old, / The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart, / The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould, / Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart. / The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told; I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart, / With the earth and the sky and the water, re-made, like a casket of gold / For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.”

Louisa May Alcott, The Lay of a Golden Goose

“Oh! Be not rash,” her father said, / A mild Socratic bird; / Her mother begged her not to stray / With many a warning word. / But little goosey was perverse / And eagerly did cry, / “I’ve got a lovely pair of wings, / Of course I Ought to fly.”

☾CAPRICORN☽

John Milton, Sonnet 19

“When I consider how my light is spent, / Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, / And that one talent which is death to hide / Lodged with me useless, through my soul more bent / To serve therewith my Maker,”

Jala al-Din Rumi, The Guest House

“This being human is a guest house. / Every morning a new arrival. / A joy, a depression, a meanness, / some momentary awareness comes / As an unexpected visitor. / Welcome and entertain them all! / Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, / who violently sweep your house / empty of its furniture, / still treat each guest honorably. / He may be clearing you out / for some new delight. / The dark thought, the shame, the malice, / meet them at the door laughing, / and invite them in. / Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent / as a guide from beyond.”

Gwendolyn Brooks, a song in the front yard

“I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life. / I want a peek at the back / Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed / grows. / A girl gets sick of a rose.”

☾SAGITTARIUS☽

Lewis Carroll, A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky

“In a Wonderland they lie, / Dreaming as the days go by, / Dreaming as the summers die: / Ever drifting down the stream – / Lingering in the golden gleam – / Life, what it is but a dream?”

Dante Alighieri, From “Inferno”

“It’s the pain / of the people down there that empties my / face. / It’s pity / that you’ve mistaken for fear. / And it’s the long way / that pushes us now. / Let’s go.”

Victor Hugo, Tomorrow, At Dawn

“Tomorrow, at dawn, at the hour when the countryside whitens, / I will set out. You see, I know that you wait for me. / I will go by the forest, I will go by the mountain. / I can no longer remain far from you. / I will walk with my eyes fixed on my thoughts, / Seeing nothing of outdoors, hearing no noise / Alone, unknown, my back curved, my hands crossed, / Sorrowed, and the day for me will be as night.”

☾SCORPIO☽

Sarojini Naid, Autumn Song

“Like a joy on the heart of a sorrow, / The sunset hangs on a cloud; / A golden storm of glittering sheaves, / Of fair and frail and fluttering leaves, / The wild wind blows in a cloud. / Hark to a voice that is calling / To my heart in the voice of the wind: / My heart is weary and sad and alone, / For its dreams like the fluttering leaves have gone, / And why should I stay behind?”

Shel Silverstein, Dreadful

“Someone ate the baby. / It’s absolutely clear / Someone ate the baby / ‘Cause the baby isn’t here. / We’ll give away her toys and clothes. / We’ll never have to wipe her nose. / Dad says, “That’s the way it goes.” / Someone ate the baby.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Aftermath

“When the summer fields are mown, / When the birds are fledged and flown, / And the dry leaves strew the path; / With the falling of the snow, / With the cawing of the crow, / Once again the fields we mow / And gather in the aftermath.”

☾LIBRA☽

Maya Angelou, Caged Bird

“A free bird leaps / on the back of the wind / and floats downstream / till the current ends / and dips his wing / in the orange sun rays / and dares to claim the sky.”

Emily Dickinson, Good Morning – Midnight

“Good Morning – Midnight – / I’m coming Home – / Day – got tired of Me – / How could I – of Him? / Sunshine was a sweet place – / I liked to stay – / But Morn – didn’t want me – now – / So – Goodnight – Day!”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, My Heart and I

“You see we’re tired, my heart and I. / We dealt with books, we trusted men, / And in our own blood drenched the pen, / As is such colours could not fly. / We walked too straight for fortune’s end, / We loved too true to keep a friend ; / At last we’re tired, my heart and I.”

☾VIRGO☽

Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays

“Sundays too my father got up early / and put his clothes on in the blueback cold, / then with cracked hands that ached / from labor in the weekday weather made / banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. / I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking / When the rooms were warm, he’d call, / and slowly I would rise and dress, / fearing the chronic angers of that house, / Speaking indifferently to him , / who had driven out the cold / and polished my good shoes well. / What did I know, what did I know / of love's austere and lonely offices?”

Jack Kerouac, How to Meditate

“Thinking’s just like not thinking- / So I don't have to think / any / more”

William Faulkner, Study

“Muted dreams for them / for me / Bitter science. Exams are near / And my thoughts uncontrollably / Wander, and I cannot hear / The voice telling me that work I must, / For everything will be the same when I’m dead / A thousand years. I wish I were a bust / All head.”

☾LEO☽

Walt Whitman, I sing the Body Electric

“I sing the body electric, / The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,”

Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol

“Yet each man kills the thing he loves, / By each let this be heard, / Some do it with a bitter look, / Some with a flattering word, / The coward does it with a kiss, / The brave men with a sword!”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friendship

“A ruddy drop of manly blood / The surging sea outweighs, / The world uncertain comes and goes; / The lover rooted stays. / I fancied he was fled, – / And, after many a year, / Glowed unexhausted kindliness, / Like daily sunrise there. / My careful heart was free again, / O friend, my bosom said, / Through thee alone the sky is arched, / Through thee the rose is red; / All things through thee take nobler form, / And look beyond the earth, / The mill-round of our fate appears / A sun-path in thy worth. / Me too thy nobleness had taught / To master my despair; / The fountains of my hidden life / Are through thy friendship fair.”

☾CANCER☽

Shakespear, Sonnet 147

“My love is as a fever, longing still / For that which longer nurseth the disease, / Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,”

Robert Frost, Acquainted with the Night

“I have been one acquainted with the night. / I have walked out in rain – and back in rain. / I have outwalked the furthest city light. / I have looked down the saddest city lane. / I have passed by the watchman on his beat / And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. / I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet / When far away an interrupted cry / Came over houses from another street, / But not to call me back or say good-bye; / And further still at an unearthly height, / One luminary clock against the sky / Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. / I have been one acquainted with the night.”

William Blake, Auguries of innocence

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand / And a Heaven in a wild flower / Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand / And eternity in an hour”

☾GEMINI☽

Rudyard Kipling, Blue Roses

“Half the world I wandered through, / Seeking where such flowers grew. / Half the world unto my quest / Answered me with laugh and jest. / Home I came at wintertide, / But my silly love had died / Seeking with her latest breath / Roses from the arms of Death.”

John Keats, To Sleep

“Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords / Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole; / Turn the key deftly into the oiled wards, / And seal the hushed Casket of my soul.”

Lord Tennyson, The Eagle

“He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, / Ring’d with the azure world, he stands. / The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; / He watches from his mountain walls, / And like thunderbolt he falls.”

☾TAURUS☽

John Donne, Air and Angels

“Twice or thrice had I lov’d thee, / Before I knew thy face or name; / So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame / Angels affects us oft, and worshipp’d be;”

Audre Lorde, Recreation

“my body / writes into your flesh / the poem / you make of me. / Touching you I catch midnight / as moon fires set in my throat / I love you flesh into blossom / I made you / and take you made / into me.”

Margaret Walker, Lineage

“My grandmothers were strong. / They followed plows and bent to toil. / They moved through fields sowing seed. / They touched earth and grain grew. / They were full of sturdiness and singing. / My grandmothers were strong. / My grandmothers are full of memories / Smelling of soap and onions and wet clay / With veins rolling roughly over quick hands / They have many clean words to say. / My grandmothers were strong. / Why am I not as they?”

☾ARIES☽

E.E Cummings, Love is more thicker than forget

“love is more thicker than forget / more thinner than recall / more seldom than a wave is wet / more frequent than to fail”

Mark Twain, Genius

“But above all things, / to deftly throw the incoherent ravings of insanity into verse / and then rush off and get booming drunk, / is the surest of all the different signs / of genius.”

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Ships that Pass in the Night

“Out in the sky the great dark clouds are massing; / I look far out into the pregnant night, / Where I can hear a solemn booming gun / And I catch the gleaming of a random light, / That tells me that the ship I seek is passing, passing.”

[electronickingdomfox]

"The New Voyages" review

This one is actually a collection of short stories by fan authors, which makes the stories seem more like episodes of the series. It has also the distinct honor of being introduced by Roddenberry and most members of the cast. The stories are generally well-written and in character.

Some spoilers ahead:

Ni Var (by Claire Gabriel; intro by Nimoy) takes the plot of "The Enemy Within", but applied to Spock and the division between his Vulcan rational part, and his human emotional part. Besides the fact that I'm not sure such division works at that biological level, the two Spocks aren't all that different really. And it's not a very novel concept, specially right after a similar plot in previous book "Spock must die". But bonus points for Kirk giving the middle finger to his own reflection.

Intersection Point (by Juanita Coulson; intro by Doohan) is one of the best stories. The Enterprise is seriously crippled while navigating through an anomaly cloud, which is quickly contracting and threatens to crush the entire ship. Anyone who enters the cloud to retrieve a crucial component of the ship, is mentally destroyed by its eldritch qualities. Great tension and difficult choices.

The Enchanted Pool (by Marcia Ericson; intro by Nichols) is an attempt to write a fairy tale with Spock thrown in the middle for good measure. A bit of purple prose, and doesn't quite work. The resolution of the mistery is ingenous, even when convoluted.

Visit to a Weird Planet Revisited (by Ruth Berman; intro by Barrett) is actually the other half of a fanfic (Visit to a Weird Planet, not published here) where Kirk, Spock and Bones end up in the real world, right in the studio where they're filming Star Trek. Here instead, we follow the actors, who appear in the Enterprise and have to improvise to avert a danger. The other story was more fun, since Kirk and co. are more clumsy and hilarious in our world (being even "attacked" by fans), while the actors are just slightly less competent than their counterparts.

The Face on the Barroom Floor (by Eleanor Arnason and Ruth Berman; intro by Takei) is a really fun story. Kirk gets into a fight in a bar while in shore leave, is detained, teams up with a ratty thief, and crashes a party, while his crew search for him frantically. In the line of TOS best comedy-adventure episodes.

The Hunting (by Doris Beetem; intro by the editors) is a bit "meh". Spock goes into a Vulcan ritual which requires to mind-meld with a wild beast, and McCoy accompanies him. When Spock goes wild in the process, the good doctor has to hunt him and give him back his sanity. There could have been a more homoerotic fight between them, as in "Amok Time".

The Winged Dreamers (by Jennifer Guttridge; intro by Kelley) is another high point. The Enterprise crew falls under the influence of some creatures that make their fantasies seem real. So real that people can actually die if imagining the wrong thing. Spock is less affected, but slowly begins to hallucinate too, and the triumvirate fall into paranoia as neither they (nor the reader) can tell what's real and what's not anymore.

Mind-Sifter (by Shirley Maiewski; intro by Shatner) drags a bit at the beginning, when Kirk wakes up in a sanatory, his mind almost destroyed. It gets more interesting once Spock and McCoy start a quest to search for him. Great interactions between these two, reminiscent of "The Tholian Web".

After the eight stories there's still a little poem about Spock and Leila.

Spirk Meter: 10/10*. Not all stories are equally slashy, but the parts which do, are slashy in spades.

Ni Var has Kirk worrying about Spock all the time, and "human Spock" wondering if what he feels for the Captain is friendship... or love (something which happens too in one of Roddenberry's story concepts for a movie, around this time).

Intersection Point has a clear parallel between the anguish of a female crewmember, after a man (obviously her boyfriend) loses his mind in the anomaly, and Kirk agonizing once Spock has to enter the same anomaly.

The Enchanted Pool, where Spock refuses to kiss a beautiful female time and time again. Even when the woman assures him it's the only way to break a spell and escape. Even when Spock is doing far more dangerous things ALL THE TIME to solve problems. Of course, he considers the kiss a total waste of time once it doesn't work.

The Face on the Barroom Floor: Kirk is invited to a bar by McCoy and Sulu, who have found three women to pass the time, one for each. What does Kirk do? He gets out the bar two seconds later, puts on a samurai costume, and goes instead to a bar full of muscular, rowdy men, to get thrashed by them. Of course.

The Winged Dreamers has Spock wishing to stay on a planet with Kirk, just the two of them, for ever and ever. McCoy totally gets what's going on.

And I thought that Mind-Sifter would be about the love between a (quite unproffesional) nurse, and her mentally unstable patient, Kirk. But oh man, where do I even begin!? For starters, we have Kirk using his mind link with Spock to cry for help, across the galaxy and several centuries. And later he's concerned about how much can Spock read into his mind. Then we have McCoy informing the nurse that no, Kirk can't stay with her, because his love is his career and his... (trails off, having said too much). Gallant Spock carries an unconscious Kirk in his arms, and tells the nurse that, no matter how much she loves him, Kirk DOES NOT love her back (bitch!). If that wasn't enough, there's a lenghty conversation at the end, where Kirk almost melts in love and appreciation for Spock, and the Vulcan blushes at his own emotional display.

*A 10 in this scale is the most obvious spirk moments in TOS. Think of the back massage, "You make me believe in miracles", or "Amok Time" for example.

[toboldlygohome]

"Because you're beautiful."

Leonard McCoy X Reader

Summary: This morning, you wake up before bones.

Character(s): Leonard "Bones" McCoy

Warning(s): Pure fluff

You drifted slowly awake to the rays of artificial sunlight peeking through the window of your room. The Enterprise had docked at Yorktown the previous evening and you were intent to sleep in. Unfortunately old habits die hard; the clock beside the bed read 7:45 AM. You had managed to pull an extra 45 minutes of sleep, but you were up much earlier than you wanted to be.

You closed your eyes and hoped for sleep to return to you, but your sleep schedule prevailed. You stared at the ceiling for awhile before moving to sit up. You stopped when you heard soft breathing coming from beside you.

You turned and finally noticed your husband of three years, still sound asleep. Leonard worked the alpha shift most days, while you worked the beta shift. This meant that he always woke up well before you. He always said that waking up to you sleeping beside him was the best part of his day. You never understood why until now.

His hair was a mess, brown strands sticking up in every direction. His eyelashes cast little shadows over his cheeks. You admired the way those beautiful lines on his face softened, how his lips parted slightly as he breathed in and out slowly, deeply.

You laid back and watched his chest rise and fall, watched how his hair waved in the breeze of the air conditioner. Leonard's skin lit up with the sunshine streaming in, the perfect mix of gold and pink that glowed in the most ethereal way. Time slowed as you took it all in.

Something stirred from deep within, sending a wave of emotion through you. Every day you fell for him a little more. Three years of marriage and you were still mesmerized by him.

You scooted closer, craving the warmth of his body against yours. As if on instinct, Leonard reached out and pulled you to his chest. Your stomach did back flips as you pressed your cheek against him. You could hear every silent exhale, every steady beat of his heart. You swallowed hard and pressed a tender kiss to his chest. Then another. Then another.

You slid a hand under his shirt and hugged him close. He released a soft sigh as the skin of your hand made contact with his side. He smelled nice too. A mixture of fabric softener and a smell that was so distinctly Leonard, it was impossible to compare it to anything else. You closed your eyes and took a mental snapshot. There are some times in your life where you become aware beyond what would be considered normal. Small moments that should have been insignificant, but somehow endure and replay in your mind over and over again. This was a core memory being formed, not a big one like when you first stepped on the enterprise, your wedding, or your tenth birthday party. It was a quiet one, like riding bikes in the park with your best friend, or the first time a butterfly landed on your arm. You knew that someday when you were old, grey, and drifting away into eternity, you'd see this moment flash before your eyes. And when you did, you'd feel that jolt of unbridled love just as strongly as you were feeling it now.

You turned your head up to his face again and smiled, thinking how lucky you were to wake up to such a vision of a man. You couldn't fight the urge to lean in and kiss his cheek. It tickled your lips with the stubble growing there. You kissed him again, enjoying the prickliness. Leonard hummed and gave you a squeeze. Slowly, his eyes fluttered open. The sun caught them at that perfect angle yet again. You could never quite discern their color. Were they green? Blue? Brown? Right now they seemed like the perfect culmination of all three.

"Good morning darlin'," Leonard whispered in his early-morning timbre that sent goosebumps down your back and up your arms.

"Good morning handsome," You beamed at him and brought your hand to his hair, smoothing the unruly tufts.

"What time is it?" he closed his eyes again while he waited for your answer.

"Too early," You joked as you drank him in. You felt that tug in your chest again, the one that took the breath from your lungs and brought a stinging to your eyes.

His eyes opened again, a smile playing on his lips. The light from the window behind you cascaded around your head like a halo. It was as if he awoke in his own personal heaven, complete with an angel. But the moment his eyes focused, his brows furrowed in concern. "Y/N? What's wrong sweetheart?" He brought his hands to your face and stroked the skin just under your eyes with the pads of his thumbs. "Did you have a bad dream?"

"No honey," you laughed softly as a couple stray tears fell to his hands. "Nothing like that."

"Then what's wrong?" he peered into your watery eyes.

"Nothing's wrong," you admitted.

"Then why are you crying?" Leonard watched you expectantly, trying not to lose himself in the love your gaze was swimming in.

You paused and ran your hands through his hair again. Another snapshot etched itself into your mind. No star in the universe could compare to him. You'd trade all of them away to remain suspended here in his arms forever.

"Y/N?"

"Hm?"

"Why are you crying darlin'?"

"Because you're beautiful," You breathed.

A new expression crossed his face in that moment, one you remembered seeing the moment you said I do.

He pulled you down and kissed you deeply, cradling your face in his hands. You sighed dreamily and clutched his shirt tightly.

Frozen.

His hands moved to your waist as you lost yourself in the feel of his lips. Leonard's deft fingers danced along your sides, sending delightful shivers rippling across your skin wherever they touched.

Another snapshot.

He kissed you desperately, like he might never have the pleasure again. He was breathless and lost in a daze. Leonard needed you like he needed air, it was only now that he realized just how much you needed him too

You pulled back and pecked his forehead softly. The lines were back, but you didn't mind. They made him look distinguished.

You eased your head down to his chest. Leonard breathed deeply, content.

"It's early... let's stay here for awhile, if that's okay with you." You whispered.

"You ain't gonna hear me complaining," he smiled against your temple.

"Good," You hummed. You never really considered yourself a morning person. In fact, you loathed rolling out of bed at the crack of dawn and you could barely function without a cup of coffee. But as it turned out, maybe being an early bird wasn't so bad.

After all, you got yourself one hell of a view.

....................

Taglist: @shadowbriar

If you want to be added to my taglist, feel free to reach out!

Thank you for reading!

[stra-tek]

Lots and lots of random spoilerific things about Star Trek comics

Gold Key's old run was written by people who had never actually seen the show. Later they involved fans like Doug Drexler to make things a bit more authentic

This however made them, IMHO, amazing

Blond scotty. Wearing green.

Voodoo planet, with papier mache versions of Earth landmarks which, when blasted with a death ray, cause the real ones to collapse

Spock learns voodoo to combat this threat

The Enterprise completely razes a planet of hostile plant spore things. Like full on extermination of all life

There's a locked room on deck 7 full of evil Vulcan spirits. A yeoman blunders in and all hell breaks loose

Kirk doesn't know what a god damn black hole is

Spock is kidnapped by aliens, has their entire knowledge downloaded into his brain which makes him into a bobblehead for awhile

The Enterprise is briefly taken from Kirk and given to Captain Zarlo, who is a total bellend

Spock forgets to have pointed ears sometimes

The old UK newspaper comic strips were even worse. The first few issues feature "Captain Kurt" and he wears a red shirt. Bailey is also a lead character, giving away which one episode they had knowledge of

Depictions of the Enterprise in their very first strip will shock and horrify you, but after that the art becomes amazing and maintains a very high standard

Marvel did a series following The Motion Picture, and it was a vast improvement, although they technically had rights to the movie and not the series, which led to a little weirdness. Tons of references still were snuck in, though

There's a series of Book and Records, which you can listen to on YouTube and are goofy fun. The Enterprise desperately needs a meal in the art, though.

They draw Romulans as green wizards

They didn't have the rights to Nichelle Nichols or George Takei's likenesses, so get ready for White Uhura and Black Sulu!

They didn't have the rights to The Animated Series either, so M'Ress is a human with weird face paint and Arex is substituted for just some guy

There's an unlicensed Chinese adaptation of The Motion Picture's novelisation (made with zero prior knowledge of Star Trek), which features an all-star cast like O.J. Simpson as Decker and James Brolin as Kirk. It's called The Star Trek, which is a better name than The Motion Picture, IMHO.

DC comics' first run is considered some of the best Trek ever. They're made with love and a deep knowledge of the source material

You know how Star Trek III takes place right after II? WRONG. It was several months later and the crew (with Saavik taking over from Spock) had tons of adventures in the interim. It just seemed like it was right after😂

Before Worf and long long before Ash Tyler, Kirk had a Klingon on his crew

He was a cowardly Klingon named Konom who fled the Empire

He fell in love with a human woman named Bryce

They adopted an albino Klingon/human child with dwarfism which they named Bernie

Kirk has an unhinged, insubordinate crewman on board named Bearclaw and they hate each other

Tension escalates and eventually there's a stabbing

Sulu/M'Ress happens and I don't think people knew what furrys were in the 80's

You know how Spock comes back at the end of III but isn't his old self until the end of Star Trek IV? WRONG AGAIN. He came back just fine, and lost his marbles following an incident months later that just happened to line everything up to make it all seem like it was right after.

After STIII, Kirk becomes captain of the U.S.S. Excelsior NX-2000 and Spock becomes captain of the U.S.S. Surak. We get a few issues exclusively focusing on Spock's ship and his band of merry weirdos.

The U.S.S. Surak keeps changing design, starting off as a sort of Oberth-class ship, then randomly becoming an Excelsior-class ship and finally ending as the warp sled shuttlecraft from The Motion Picture

The Surak's crew include a giant chicken man, a Vulcan hating racist lady and a balding man with a bicycle

They all die horribly and a massive reset button is pressed so everyone is exactly where they were at the end of Star Trek III

In order to make that work they had to bs that the Klingon Bird of Prey was hidden in Excelsior's shuttlebay all this time despite it being way, way too big for that

There's a full on mirror universe invasion

Kirk becomes a celebrity from saving the galaxy all the time

Mr. Arex comes back and becomes chief of security but doesn't really do much

HORTA CREWMEMBER. It's as amazing as it sounds

The first Next Generation comic miniseries was made with knowledge of the first 2 or 3 TNG episodes and nothing else

Everyone is hench as fuck. Picard has washboard abs and bulging muscles

Data is emotional and Troi feels the emotions she senses a la "Encounter at Farpoint"

Wesley is drawn as if he's 10

The B-shift con and ops team are a husband and wife who wear caped superhero versions of Starfleet uniforms with bare legs.

They argue. A lot.

The crew meet an alien Santa Claus and Q loses his powers years before "Deja Q"

The whole Q Continuum visits the Enterprise and they're all John De Lancie but in Starfleet uniforms of every colour under the sun.

After that initial miniseries, the Next Gen crew lose a lot of their muscle mass and start resembling their on screen counterparts a lot better

Picard had a brother who fell down a hole and died as a child. Q offers to rewrite history so he doesn't die. Claude Picard grew up to be Space Superhitler and turns Starfleet and the Federation fascist.

Before all this Q turned Jean-Luc into a goat for the lolz

Marvel's The Early Voyages was very literally Strange New Worlds before Strange New Worlds.

They have a pyrokinetic security officer named Nano and he's awesome

Marvel lost the Trek license quite suddenly, and so the series ends on a cliffhanger where Admiral April is up to something iffy.

Marvel did a Starfleet Academy series featuring Nog and its utterly fantastic

A female Andorian cadet tries to make Nog feel at ease by greeting him in the nude, but Nog fails to take it as an innocent gesture and she immediately sends him flying across the room

Romulan agents with split personalities in Starfleet Academy!

They visit Talos IV and get help from Captain Pike, who's still alive

IDW comics did a prequel to the 2009 reboot where Picard is an ambassador, Data is captain of the Enterprise-E and Nero has hair. It was co-written by the movie writers and was considered sort of vaguely semi canon ish for a time

They originally wanted the Romulan supernova to destroy a lot more, including Earth and have Nero kill the TNG crew. It was the Star Trek Online devs that got them to scale things back because they'd have no universe left to set their game in.

Nero's ship looks like it does because after Romulus was destroyed he took it to a secret Romulan base and had it equipped with reverse-engineered Borg technology

You thought DC struggled to keep ship designs correct? IDW's comics keep using traced fan art from Google Images, and fan art (sometimes with unique ship designs) has shown up on multiple occasions as the Kelvinverse U.S.S. Enterprise

In one IDW TOS comic, the bridge is totally covered with TNG LCARS graphics.

In another, an Orion ship is a gigantic Stargate sticking out of the middle part of Battlestar Galactica.

Wanna see Kelvinverse versions of TOS episodes? That was their first comics run, picking up after the 2009 reboot movie. They start off very faithful and as the series goes on things diverge more and more

To the extent some stories have very different backstories and outcomes

We visit 2 Kelvin mirror universes and a genderswapped universe too. No, Kirk doesn't do what you're thinking.

Q visits the Kelvin Universe and brings the crew forward in time to their version of Deep Space Nine

Nero's time in Klingon prison (from the Star Trek 2009 deleted scenes) and escape is fleshed out

Nero meets V'ger.

Nero mind melds with V'ger.

V'ger turns away due to the sheer force of Nero's hatred.

I wish I was making that up.

Klingons get their hands on Narada's technology and go to war

We get a Khan backstory where the Eugenics Wars are a full on nuclear conflict and "Khan" is the title that little Noon Sing adopts when he takes power

After being revived in the 23rd century, Admiral Marcus has Khan surgically altered to look like Benedict Cumberbatch as part of his John Harrison cover identity

They did a series of shorts called Waypoint, and in the first one Geordi is captain of a future Enterprise and his crew is made up of holographic versions of Data and it's a really sweet concept (this was several years before before ST: Picard brought Data back twice)

There's a prequel series centred around Number One where nobody manages to say her name before being interrupted. If you put the bits together it seems her name was Eureka Robbins. Of course, this is long before novels and SNW made her Una Chin-Riley.

[kaibacorpintern]

How do you think 'to lose is to die' seto kaiba would react to getting a glimpse into 5d future where dueling determines social cast, whether or not law enforcement can arrest you (?), the power source of major cities, and through all this kaibacorp is still somehow the number 1 tech company. Sidenote i think mokuba would be whatever the less intense version of disgusted is.

kaiba would say this is the correct way to organize society, surpassing democracy, capitalism, communism, socialism, a republic, theocracy, theocratic autocracy, oligarchy, etc. consider that in a society that runs on card games, a company that makes card game technology is an exceptionally powerful entity. the world's superpowers would no longer be china, EU, USA, etc. but just kaibacorp, in a horrible twist on the historical theory that every period of history is defined/dominated by an empire. no one said that empire couldn't be an international capitalist enterprise with terrible benefits.

mokuba of course helped him implement a dueling-based society (duelocracy) in the ever more futile hope that this would finally make niisama happy... provided that mokuba himself did not implement this in the hopes of convincing his brother to come back from aaru. one of the directors of 5Ds mentioned, in a now long-deleted tweet, that yuugi died in the Zero Reverse explosion, so you must now sit with the thought that kaibacorp and therefore kaiba probably killed all of our DM favorites.

[spirk-trek]

Whether or not Spock gets his memories back is technically up for debate.

But it is also made perfectly clear that on Vulcan Spock was taught What he is (being re-educated), and when as a part of that education he is asked about Who he is he is stumped. And later on, he learns Who he is, and a point is made to allow us to understand that development. Whether Who he is included his memories or not is never perfect clear, and Nimoy did play the character slightly differently because dying would have an impact on him, and he did show that through his performance.

But does he truly know his friends? Yes.

Does he fully understand the depth of the friendship he shares with them? Yes.

Does he feel pain when he hurts them (entirely accidentally)? Absolutely yes, to the extent that 80 years later he is still so wracked with that guilt it influences his actions.

Spock after his rebirth, you could argue, doesn’t remember all of the moments he shared with his friends prior to his death. But his death also allowed him to connect with them in ways that he had never been able to previously.

It’s very very very good, and definitely a subtextual thing (hence it being open for debate), but you can read it in the performances.

And I’d argue that the whole thing makes the Kirk Spock Bones relationship all the more powerful and important

uuuugh see i don't think that's BAD or uninteresting (in fact it's 100% the opposite) but i still just physically recoil that everything with jim and his ENTIRE LIFE ON THE ENTERPRISE become memories he only has through inference and mind melds and whatever else :'( it's good writing! and character development! and i love the cast so much so i know the acting will be perfect, no notes, but i literally feel overwhelmed with grief knowing he becomes someone different essentially living a stranger's life once he comes back :( like it just hurts my heart so much :( and if it's up for interpretation that means he won't have the "oh i remember everything now" moment that my tacky, unelevated, cheesy, campy, childish soul needs if i'm going to be asked to watch spock DIE and come BACK.

like.... jim. sweet baby boy jim. i can't watch him break like that :(

thank you so much for typing this out for me anon!!! it actually did help me understand better and i think made me a little more open to eventually watching them. i'm not hating, not even a little. i could never hate anything about Them <3 this is just me and my autism in full swing lol

[thegeminisage]

oh boy IT'S tng update time. last night* we watched "imaginary friend" and "i, borg."

*tonight. it's 1am. whatever. it's posting tomorrow when i'll be awake but busy. anyway im gonna have to start splitting these up so tumblr will stop FUCKING me re my character count

imaginary friend:

what i like about this episode and indeed tng as a whole is that the little girl was fucking adorable. tng fans, your show has at least one point of validity. whenever there was a child on tos i wanted to throw them out of the airlock because they acted possessed. all the children on tng inspire within me motherly concern.

HOWEVER. THERE SHOULD NOT BE. CHILDREN ON A STARSHIP.

we've gone over this at length. we don't need to do it again. i am sick to death of hearing myself talk about it. i want to stop. and yet. every. and i mean EVERY. SINGLE. PROBLEM. in this episode. happened because there were children on a starship.

problem #1: child is making up a fake imaginary friend instead of making real ones = it's because her dad hops from starship to starship

problem #2 her imaginary friend is real now and wants to drown her in the pool like in that one episode of s*pernatural = this is because an alien, from space, read her mind, which it could not have done if she wasn't in space on a starship

problem #3: the alien HATES the grownups and thinks they should die = because she is seeing the ship from a child's pov, because there are children on this starship

and on and on and on.

aside from this huge and ongoing point of contention it was solidly watchable. i liked the little girl. i like guinan. i like worf being a big old softie when he found them out of bounds. i like people not undermining deanna's counseling work. i liked the horrifically unsettling imaginary friend with laser eyes who definitely absolutely inspired 2.11 playthings.

can anyone tell me if the other star trek shows just let them have kids on the ships? ds9 i get because that's a space station but are there kids on the ship in enterprise? voyager? discovery? genuinely please write in i can't take living like this

i, borg:

ooooooh. ooh i am twirling my hair and kicking my feet and giggling about it. OHHH finally we get a good tng episode. and not just a good episode a GREAT episode. the liz community has forgiven tng. oh baby where do i even begin

okay, firstly, beverly. she so instantly sees someone injured and HAS to help, i mean HAS to, it's so good. it's very bonescore in a way that doesn't feel like they're trying to make her a cheap bones knockoff but rather a spiritual successor. he would have also helped his enemy rather than watching him die. hell, he DID do that and got quite literally mind-raped for his trouble, and he'd probably do it again. i was really really lukewarm on poor bev at first but she's come into her own so well and i'm proud of her

the borg himself - third of five, aw, just like seven of nine - but no, hugh - the name is dumb but whatever i'm glad he has one - was well-cast. it would have been easy to make him uncanny and an unpleasant presence onscreen (this was my biggest issue with data's daughter even though the ep DID make me cry, deeply sorry to data whomst i love the most). his "you will be assimilated resistance is futile" song and dance was actually really funny when played off of geordi's wry indifference. "ok, but before we get assimilated, can we please finish x test?" so true king

geordi's a natural choice to pair with this guy because when he's not being the creepiest person on earth to holodeck girls he's sociable, outgoing, and patient. PLUS he has experience befriending machines because of data. hugh actually reminded me of data in some ways because of his general lack of understanding re: humanity but - and this is critical to me - HE IS HUMAN

like, i feel like the episode didn't quite nail the point home hard enough possibly because they were afraid of the implications but the cold hard truth of the matter is that each and every person on the borg cube IS A PERSON. they have been assimilated, but we've twice now seen that it's possible to unassimilate them with only a few days of effort. picard (and guinan!) consider the entire collective their enemy but the collective is comprised of brainwashed prisoners. those fucked up little borg babies they found in the cube were assimilated as INFANTS - i assume they weren't born on the cube bc if the borg could reproduce on its own it wouldn't need to assimilate - but even if they were born on the cube, they had no choice but to be this. you know.

which is whyyyy it's so fucked picard was like yeah give hugh some digital poison let him carry it back to his cube and we'll kill them like ants <3 like, oh my god his lingering borg trauma or whatever. MWAH. when he told deanna he didn't wanna talk. when he and guinan had to trauma-bond while fencing. when he told geordi that he needed to unattach himself because it was nothing more than animal experimentation. STONE FUCKING COLD BY THE WAY. he is fighting in the war on animal experimentation on the side of animal experimentation. he was going to let his cre heal and feed that kid and then send him back laced with poison. diabolical <3

and, of course, when he didn't want to speak or associate that borg kid at all because that's who he used to be AND WHO HE STILL IS in some corner of his brain (!!!)

LIKE. WHEN HE WAS FINALLY CONVINCED TO INTERROGATE THIS KID. and IMMEDIATELY broke out the locutus voice. he still remembered all the protocol! the way of speaking! everything! i was so shocked and thrilled.

i love also how everyone who spoke to hugh came away extremely unsettled but also totally convinced of his humanity. even guinan, which was so fun, because she was even more anti-borg than picard at first and they were bonding over trauma and fantasy racism. that bit where hugh, who had only known about the concept of loneliness for like an hour, immediately pegged her as lonely after like three lines of dialogue. oh my GOD???

i was decently satisfied with the ending - obviously they couldn't send him back with poison nor could they protect him from the borg, but i wish they had informed him of the inevitable memory wipe before he made his choice. (a selfless choice! he loves geordi!!) still i think he mostly walked into it with eyes open. very sad but very proud of him.

my one tiny nitpick with this episode is that for all beverly's genuine and justified concern about hugh, i don't think theyre ever gonna address the fact that she shot and possibly killed some of the borg in the episode where picard got assimilated. i feel like after realizing they are all people, like hugh, she should also realize she's broken the hippocratic oath, and have a little crisis about it. i have no idea why we had the DOCTOR shooting and killing anybody but let alone if we aren't gonna get into that. i don't think anyone cares/cared except me though.

but tbh, for me this is one of the main draws of the borg. they're ALL brainwashed cyber-assassins and they're ALL prisoners and in theory ALL of them could be saved if only they would stop attacking first. sure, yeah, in fights you gotta do what you gotta do because your own life has gotta come first, but the unique scifi horror aspect of all of those guys being perfectly innocent people fucks and they should utilize it a little more!!!

NEXT TIME: "the next phase" and "the inner light."

[meddow]

I’ve been catching up on Star Trek Discovery and it’s kind of interesting the difference in stakes between Disco and SNW. Disco has this focus on season long plot arcs in which what is at stake is avoiding some cataclysm which would destroy whole planets or threaten the entire Federation and somehow only Discovery can save everyone. That has it’s plus points. While the seasons start slow I’m usually end up binging the last few episodes, and also gets time explore the concept at the heart of the season more than a one episode or two-parter ever could. I loved that a whole chunk of episodes was devoted to figuring out how to first contact a species which was nothing like the Federation had ever encountered before.

But, it does feel like slightly wearisome that somehow it's always Discovery saving the galaxy. And the show really struggles with smaller, character driven stakes. And too often it just falls back on killing off a character to given another character angst, which is a mistake in the first place, and then only for then the series to not even commit to killing that character off and they’re back – sometimes within the same episode.

Whereas Strange New Worlds keeps the stakes considerably lower. The only episode I can think of in which the entire galaxy is threatened is (hilariously) the musical episode. Sometimes the whole ship is in danger (Ghosts of Illyria, Momento Mori and Among the Lotus Eaters come to mind) and sometimes the threat is the Federation being dragged into war (Hegemony, Quality of Mercy – but given that’s a essentially a dream sequence, it doesn’t really count). SNW does do a lot of character stakes. Ad Astra per Aspera obviously is the example of the show doing this extremely well – where the stakes is Una going to prison.

But then SNW suffers from being a prequel and the subsequence plot armor that characters have as a result. Sometimes that’s fine. Pike knowing his fate and having to deal with that was an interesting plotline in season 1. Knowing Chapel/Spock is doomed gives the relationship a bit of kick it wouldn’t necessarily have given romantic relationships is not one of the show’s strengths. But for example in Hegemony, everyone worrying Chapel was dead felt like a massive waste of time – we know she’s not because she’ll still be on the Enterprise when Kirk takes over. Same with Spock, Uhura and M’Benga.

Really of the main cast the only characters who currently have stakes are Una, La’an and Erica cos we don’t know their future. If Erica gets fed up with only ever being the pilot and decides to get a transfer, we can believe that she may just. If La’an is badly injured fighting the Gorn we can believe she may die. If Starfleet decide to offer Una a promotion and her own ship, we can believe she would accept it. Yet those characters are largely underserved (Erica particularly, Una and La’an have their moments, but it never feels like enough).

Anyway, this is all a bit of a ramble but really the true winner is Lower Decks, which sometimes does have Federation threat level stakes but more often keeps the stakes nice and low, doesn’t rely on killing off characters for drama but when it does and brings them back a few episodes later manages to make a joke out of it, and none of the characters have plot armor except that it’s a cartoon and of course it will most likely return to the status quo the next episode.

[celticcatgirl2]

“…To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause—there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action….”

“Uh that’s nice Luna but all we’re doing for English homework today is verb conjugations…I need your help with that….”

[electronickingdomfox]

"The Wounded Sky" review

Novel from 1983, by Diane Duane (I had read some TOS comics, and even played a text adventure by this same author, but this is the first novel I read). Very bizarre, very imaginative. You'd probably have to go back to "Planet of Judgment" (1977) to find a similarly unusual TOS novel. Most of the "action" unfolds inside mental landscapes (and that's not even a proper description; the situation is actually far more complex than that). At times poetic, at times metaphysical, it's a more difficult novel than the standard TOS light literature, though there are also many humorous moments.

The aliens are remarkable for how truly "alien" they are, which produces lots of absurd (from a human viewpoint) situations. There's a species who only see in infrared, and needs properly heated cards to play poker. A feline alien that doesn't have language to express the passage of time. Another species with twelve sexes, all of them male (specially the ones who bear children). And glass spiders with an altogether different understanding of physics, who spend a lifetime building a nest of memories to pass to their offspring, and then die at the time of mating. I haven't read any novels by Terry Pratchett, though I know about Discworld from the videogames, but may I say there's something "pratchean" in all this?

In many ways, this is a fascinating novel. But is it a good representative of a Trek novel? I'm not sure. I feel the scope and the depth of this story is a bit constrained by the Trek frame. The TOS series, and even the movies, had a smaller scope: interpersonal problems, specially among the big three, or political conflicts. The aliens were usually very human, and represented different human societies/worldviews. Even when more alien creatures appeared, like the gas cloud from "Obsession", the story was really about Kirk's very personal demons. So maybe this novel would have benefitted if it was set in its own, independent sci-fi world, that provided the needed freedom to explore the larger cast and variety the story strives for.

I'll try to summarize the plot, though this is over-simplifying, since "themes" are more important here than "action". Spoilers under the cut:

The Enterprise is tasked with testing a new revolutionary invention, that will allow ships to travel instantly as far as they want, even outside the galaxy. The artifact in question works by "inversion", sending the starship to a different dimension where time doesn't exist, and popping it up again at the desired coordinates. Since there's no time involved, there's no damage done to ship and crew. Theoretically. Well, what could possibly go wrong?

They take aboard the artifact, along with its Hamalki inventor: K't'lk (pronounced "ketelk", I think). She's the glass spider from the cover, and thus far, takes the prize for most unusual "lady of the week". K't'lk soon becomes best friends with Scotty, though the engineer struggles to understand the nutty physics of the Hamalki. For his part, Kirk has a conversation with her about the reproductive habits of her species, during which K't'lk weaves a strange crystal sculpture, and gifts it to him. She also makes a demonstration of the inversion process, without changing the ship's coordinates. But Kirk can't feel anything, except a vague dizziness.

However, soon after leaving the starbase, the Enterprise is attacked by Klingon ships which desire the inversion apparatus. Sulu manages to outmaneuver them, sending the Klingons into a nearby star, which becomes nova right then. The Enterprise escapes the explosion in the nick of time, by activating inversion and leaving the normal plane of existence. And this time, the crew has indeed strange (but blissful) experiences during inversion. For example, Kirk finds himself living as if he was the starship itself, and this had a conscience of its own.

Upon reappearing in the normal universe, they find out the explosion somehow messed up the coordinates, so they're not anywhere near the Lesser Magellanic, which it was their mission to investigate. Also, the nearby star is going nova too. Coincidence again? Activating inversion once more, this time they're placed in the correct coordinates. But with each subsequent, longer jump, the inversion experiences are becoming weirder, and individuals start merging with other crewmembers, and seeing things from their viewpoint.

Finally, things get more sinister once Kirk reappears with real wounds, that he thought were just the product of his mind. And even worse, the Lesser Magellanic, now nearby, is showing the most disturbing anomalies. Entropy has simply ceased to exist at some points. And it seems the longer jumps with the inversion apparatus have caused this, by ripping the fabric of the universe. Thus, a new universe without entropy is sipping through the tear, and threatens to destroy everything. (It's funny how the problem in "The Entropy Effect" was that they had too much entropy, while here they have too little. If they just left it alone...).

K't'lk is sure she can close the rip between both universes, but to do so, they'll need to make a final jump right at the center of the anomaly. The climax of the story happens entirely inside the mental world of inversion. Which is highly malleable by thought, given the progressive rupture of natural laws. Also, the flux in entropy is represented by ascencing and descending slopes in the landscape. However, they can't close the rip immediately, since they discover a living, god-like being (called simply "the Others"), who would be destroyed in the process. Before that, Spock must join in a group mind-meld with other crewmembers, to give the Others self-awareness, and explain the situation. K't'lk must also stay behind with the god, to weave new natural laws for Them to live in. And she puts forth this universe by singing (echoes from Tolkien's "Silmarillion"? might be, since a forest called "Lorien" appears at one point).

Once everything's fixed, and the Enterprise is back in Federation space via smaller jumps (that won't mess up the universe too much), Starfleet decides that the inversion apparatus is way too dangerous in its present state, and must not be used. Meanwhile, everyone misses K't'lk. But when Kirk accidentally breaks the crystal sculpture that she gave to him, he discovers it was actually an egg. A new, small K't'lk emerges from it, and quickly runs to greet Scotty.

Spirk Meter (or rather McSpirk): 5/10*. During inversion, Kirk gets to see Spock and McCoy's true, deepest natures, and he's in awe with what he finds. First, he's blinded by McCoy's compassion, and the doctor's touch on his arm both reassures and bewilders him. Then Kirk is humbled by Spock's desire of knowledge and his superior mind. The three of them are relieved to find such good qualities in the others' souls. However, the scene is quite abstract, and seems to be dealing more with the characters as ideas, rather than as specific persons. So I don't find it all that slashy really.

As for Spones as such, there's the moment when Kirk finds them walking together, while inside the anomaly, and Spock looks at McCoy with "nearly unalloyed affection". Kirk also considers that McCoy is more geared towards receiving, in contrast to Spock's inclination for giving... How convenient for them!

*A 10 in this scale is the most obvious spirk moments in TOS. Think of the back massage, "You make me believe in miracles", or "Amok Time" for example.

[butterfingersgutterball]

Deep Space Nine episode idea

Something that's always fascinated me that hasn't been explored in DS9 is Jake Sisko being the one who introduces his dad to Kasidy Yates. I would love an episode similar to TNG’s Data’s Day where Jake learns about love with the DS9 crew, eventually meeting Kasidy leading up to him mentioning her in Explorers (the one where he and Sisko build the solar sailer). Much like Data’s Day, Jake’s Day would focus on an understanding of love from the POV of someone new to it. This wouldn’t be uncharted territory as a theme for Jake--in the early seasons as his relationships with women/girls are contrasted frequently by Nog’s misogyny. The difference in this episode is that Jake would be coached/advised by crew members about love who, after Jake’s questions and probing would admit they are actually failing at romance.  ___ Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. S3E21.2: Worthy Pursuits (between The Die Is Cast and Explorers)___ The teaser starts with a clamour of action in ops, as the crew tries to get a group of people transported from a shuttlecraft that’s about to explode.       Kira is shouting to O’Brien to get a lock on the signal, Dax says they are losing them and offers a technobabble thing to try. Sisko: “DO IT!”       They beam a small group to ops just as the shuttle explodes. They’re a Bajoran family, two dads and their daughter, grateful to have been saved, the camera lingers on a young Brandy Norwood playing the daughter(she’s the same age as Ciroc, hooray for age-appropriate love interests!). Sisko tells them they will have to wait for the next transport to Bajor, and that their team will investigate why the shuttle exploded. "In the meantime, why not join me and my son for dinner tonight?"       The family agrees and we fade to Jake and Bran’Nu (Brandy—I know Bajoran names don’t have apostrophes but it’s one of her pseudonyms so go with it) talking about him being a writer and what the station is like as Sisko cooks and talks to her dads.     Jake gets sombre, “It must have been scary thinking your shuttle was going to explode” he offers her condolences and space to talk about the incident. She says yea but she’s become accustomed to dangerous situations since she and her dads are smugglers. “Our shuttle may have been sabotaged by Cardassians. Ever since the occupation, my dads have been smuggling medical supplies. When the occupation ended a lot of Bajorans were still without vital supplies due to bureaucracy so some of us have taken to redistribution on our own.” She explains how they make enemies and often have to keep moving. Jake says that sounds lonely, and she says yea it is. He says if she wants to she can spend time with him while she’s on the station.      Bran’Nu “are you asking me on a date?”     Jake stumbles and stutters and she says “how about this writer-boy, you write me something to convince me to go on a date before we find transport off the station and I’ll decide based on what you write” “Deal” says Jake.      Sisko invites them to the table and the 5 of them sit when Sisko gets a communication from Odo: “I think you’d better come to my office. Your guests may not be who they say they are.” Opening titles. Jake is working on his writing for Bran’Nu with Miles in the O’Brien’s quarters. He and the chief are discussing girls and love. Keiko is playing with Molly nearby and Jake asks Miles how he knew Keiko had feelings for him. Miles proudly tells a story of a day in Ten Forward on the Enterprise when he brought Keiko a drink and there was a way she looked at him when she said thank you that made him think she wanted to pursue a relationship. Keiko laughs and says that wasn’t a look of admiration, she thought she had smelled him and wondered why he hadn’t had a sonic shower after his shift. Miles gets escalated and defensive (as he does) that his romantic memory is nothing to her. They bicker a little and Keiko redirects to Jake saying there’s no formula to it, people are all so different that we have no way of knowing if we share the same feelings, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth trying or that we should get too bogged down by rejection, we should focus on cultivating open communication, not basing love on our own assumptions (she looks at Miles who huffs but agrees) she continues:        “I was taking lunch with Garak last week—”       Miles: “Garak? You’re doing lunch with Garak now too? First Julian now you with that--”        “Miles!” Keiko stops him and looks at Jake, “Garak might be the perfect person to ask about love, Jake. He has a unique perspective.”     Jake agrees that he will talk to Garak. [B-plot here of Jadzia finding out the smugglers worked with the Cardassians. They bring this info to Sisko, Odo, Kira and the smugglers who insist they are being set up, Kira believes them but Odo doesn’t. Something is off, and Sisko is frustrated that they aren’t telling them everything]. We cut to Bashir and Garak exiting the holosuite in Quarks. They’ve just played a spy holonovel and Garak is complaining about the romantic subplot being bland “not nearly enough antagonism to keep it interesting”. Bashir counters that the evil President provided more than enough antagonism, the romance was a nice reprieve of tenderness, a reminder of why one fights for justice. Garak scoffs “if that sorry display of the women coming out of the water and falling into your lap is what you’re fighting for I can see why we so often land on opposing sides my dear Doctor”. The two take a seat next to Jake who is talking with Quark and Morn at the bar, Morn gets up to leave and Quark is wiping a tear away while talking to Jake, Bashir and Garak “leave it to Morn to have the perfect poem that expresses the depths and nuances of love.” “My my, Quark, I didn’t pin you as the sentimental type,” Bashir says as Quark gets him a drink. “Not sentimental? You cut me, doctor. I happen to regard love above all else! Jake here was asking about love and I was proud to inform the young man, just as all good Ferengi boys are told at his age, don't get too hung up on feeemales, focus on latinum. As the 72nd rule of acquisition: 'the love of profit is the root of all good.'” Sisko enters with Odo behind him, "funny, Quark, on Earth we have a similar saying with a different sentiment" They are clearly here for Quark but he plays it like they aren't. "Well that is perfect Commander, we were just discussing sentimentality, perhaps you and the constable would like to join us? I know under all that goo there's a hopeless romantic!" Odo harumphs and sarcastically mocks Quark, "Another time I'd be delighted to listen to you all prattle on about how your humanoid hearts flutter and your fleshy palms dampen but I am afraid I'm here to make you sweat for another reason." Odo explains Quark is wanted for questioning, he and Sisko take Quark away but not before he puts Rom is in charge of the bar.  [B-plot here of Odo and Sisko finding out how Quark was paid to inform someone of the smuggler's departure from the station. He swears he had no knowledge that they'd be blown up, he tells them he was paid by an old Cardassian Gul, Odo remembers the Gul's name and that there was a rumour he was a Romulan collaborator. Sisko is like “Romulans? Cardassians? Bajorans? Ferengi? Federation? It seems we are all at each other’s throats, each with a knife in one had while pointing fingers with the other! We may not all be able to get along but I’ll be damned if this station becomes a battleground!” Quark snidely, “you mean if the station becomes a battleground again. It’s always been on the brink. You two, you see the big problems, usually before it’s too late. But at the bar, I can see the small changes in the wind, a cool breeze from the smallest comment over drinks can incite chaos.” Odo “with no help from you, I’m sure!” “To the contrary!” Quark is offended “Quarks is also a place filled with love! A first date, a birthday celebration, it’s all around if you know where to look”] Back at the bar, Rom is pouring drinks for Bashir, Garak, and Jake as they are talking about love. Jake explains he is writing something for a girl to convince her to go on a date. Garak, "Human mating rituals will never make sense to me." Bashir raises an eyebrow. Jake, "Well, she's Bajoran actually. And I would say it's more dating than mating..." Rom, looking at Leeta over at the dabo tables "Do you think, or, uh, are you worried about, the uh... differences?" Bashir, "Ah, Interspecies relationships can present ... [he looks at Garak] unique challenges. Have you dated a non-human before, Jake?" “Unique challenges?” Garak asks,  “You know what I mean” Bashir turns attention back to Jake and Garak’s eyes get wide, shocked by Julian’s brazen disregard.  "I mean, this is a Bajoran station." Jake says "most girls here my age aren't human. And besides Barjoran's aren't that different--" "Ignore the Doctor" Garak waves his hand regaining composure, "he overcomplicates things. While I would never encourage a Cardassian to be wed with a non-Cardassian--such a union would be far too messy--a date or a tryst is harmless and can provide invaluable insight into the customs of those around you." "A tryst?" Bashir asks incredulously, "what are you implying?" "Oh please, Doctor," Garak responds, "A short romance can be good for a young man. He needn't get ahead of himself with ideas of love and fantasy or he may miss what is right in front of him." Bashir is straight-faced and annoyed, far to familiar with Garak’s double meanings, "And what you're saying is right in front of him is a 'tryst'?" Rom and Jake look between them awkwardly, this is clearly the bickering of a couple, something is going unsaid. Garak covers his discomfort by standing up, "I am saying, at times it is best to keep things short and sweet lest one introduce confusion. And with that, I will bid my farewell. Thank you for the holonovel [he looks at Bashir] and subsequent conversation [to the others] I found both, [back to Bashir] enlightening."  Bashir chases after him like a desperate boyfriend who said the wrong thing but knows he can patch things up. As Garak and Bashir exit a new face enters and stands next to Jake. "Excuse me," the woman asks Rom "I heard you have holosuites with baseball programs?" It's Kasidy Yates. Her transport ship the Xhosa is docked at DS9  for the next few days and she wanted to try it out. She invites Jake to join her so he can show her the program since he's familiar with it. On their way to the holosuites they see Bran'Nu sitting alone. Jake says hi, asks what she's doing alone, she says her dads are being questioned about the incident so she was just waiting around. Kasidy invites her to join her and Jake in the holosuites, Bran'Nu has never seen baseball before and says it sounds fun. Cut to the three of them in batting cages with Kasidy giving Bran'Nu pointers and Jake operating the pitching machine. Hi-jinx ensue with Bran'Nu being scared of the ball and Jake laughing saying he'll show her how it's done. Kasidy kind of side eyes him and tells Bran'Nu about how human males often take on a machismo attitude when playing sports in order to impress women. Bran'Nu says some Bajoran men are similar. Jake is still in good spirits but is dejected a little. He apologizes and talks about how his dad cautions him about toxic masculinity too. Kasidy says he sounds wise. Jake: "and he likes baseball too! I should introduce you two. He taught me my stance." He gets into his stance ready for the pitch. Bran'Nu has the ball in hand and hovers over it making eye contact with Jake but speaking to Kasidy, "Yeah, I hate to admit it, but I've met a few guys that are alright" She winks and drops the ball into the wheels. Jake is smiling at her obliviously and the ball smacks him in the face making him fall backwards. Bran'Nu rushes over to him apologizing asking if he's okay, he comes up laughing and says yea, the safety precautions are on, he's fine, but he wants to hear more about these guys she likes. She plays it off, "oh that? I was just talking about my dads, like you were." "Right! My dad!" Jake says excitedly looking at Kasidy, "You should meet him!" "I'd love to" says Kasidy, "But my transport ship is leaving to Bajor tomorrow at 0800, so it will have to be another time." Bran'Nu is like "Bajor!? Me and my dads are looking for transport to Bajor, could we come?" Kasidy says yea, they have room for three more.  [cut to her dads in the B-plot, they have no idea why a Romulan would be after them. Cardassians sure, but not Romulans. Through some investigating Jadzia and Kira find out a changeling posed as a Romulan to get the Gul to destroy the shuttle craft. The aim being to incite more fighting between Cardassians, Bajorans and Romulans. By staging the assassination at a Federation station they hoped Starfleet would have to pick sides and even more Alpha quadrant infighting would occur. They find out there are a few changelings in the Alpha quadrant doing these little attempts at destabilization. This builds up to a head in Adversary when a changeling is on the Defiant.] Jake says goodbye to Bran'Nu at the docking rings, they are waiting for her dads and Kasidy. Jake gives her a padd with his writing about why she should go on a date with him she reads it silently. He keeps interrupting her "which part are you at?" "shh" "I didn't get to do much editing" "I'm reading it" "If anything seems off I blame being hit in the head with a baseball yesterday" she laughs at this. Bran'Nu "Humans like kissing, right?" Jake: "I can't speak for the whole human race, but I've enjoyed it in my experiences." Bran'Nu leans in and he leans toward her, they give each other a light small kiss and pull back kind of awkwardly. Jake, “Is something the matter? Does my breath stink?” Bran’Nu “No, no, it’s just...I don't know if I can guarantee  that date. We're different you and I--" "Bajorans and humans aren't that different, we have a lot in common!" "No, not because of that, [she passes the padd back to him] you wrote about so many different people you're friends with, that's really beautiful.  You have a community here. I mean because I'm always moving around with my dads. You're more... [she gestures to the station] stationary." Kasidy and Bran'Nu's dads come by with Jadzia who explains Sisko is tied up in meetings with Starfleet about the whole ordeal so she is here to see them off. Jake tells Kasidy he's going to talk to his dad about her, she says she'd like that. After they leave Jake talks to Jadzia about the moral quandary of the episode: will we every be able to get along across all our differences? Jadzia says over her 300 years, she is sure there will always be conflict, learning to love each other won't ever become easy, but it will always be worth pursuit. [End]

[disasterpenguin]

Shuffle your on repeat playlist and list the first 10 songs!

Tagged By: @mmoosen

1.) Ghost Story (With All Time Low) ~Cheat Codes, All Time Low

2.) DArkSide ~Bring Me The Horizon

3.) HONEY (ARE U COMING?) ~Måneskin

4.) Over and Over ~Three Days Grace

5.) Someday ~Milo Manhiem, Meg Donnelly (ZOMBIES CAST)

6.) Hold Me Like A Grudge ~Fall Out Boy

7.) Until The Day I Die ~Story Of The Year

8.) I heard You're Worried About Me ~The Honest Heart Collective

9.) We Don't Have To Dance ~Andy Black

10.) West Coast Smoker ~Fall Out Boy

Your top 15 favourite shows can say a lot about your personality (list your top 15 shows)

In no particular order:

1.) Supernatural

2.) Star Trek: Voyager

3.) Teen Wolf

4.) Merlin

5.) Star Trek: Enterprise

6.) The 100

7.) Law & Order: SVU

8.) Hannibal

9.) Shameless

10.) Young Royals

11.) HeartStopper

12.) Star Trek: The Original Series

13.) The Magicians

14.) NCIS

15.) The Walking Dead

Tagging: @kitjosten13 @sydney-winchester @th30ra3k3n @thiamfresh @thiamblogger @thiamsxbitch @theskelemorgue @sazamz

[uselessthebroccoli]

to be or not to be, that is the question. whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. to die, to sleep. and by a sleep to say we end the heartaches and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. tis a consummation, devoutly to be wished. to die, to sleep. to sleep, perchance to dream, ay theres the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffed off this mortal coil must give us pause, theres the respect that makes calamity of so long life. for who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressors wrong, the proud mans contumely, the pangs of disprized love, the laws delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns the patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin? who would fardles bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that dread of something after death, that undiscovered country from whose borne no traveler returns, makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others we know not of? thus conscience doth make cowards of us all. and thus the native hie of resolution is sickled oer by the pale cast of thought and enterprises of great pith and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action.

good morning