#klingons LOVE music

[betashift]

STAR TREK: INSURRECTION (1998) STAR TREK: PICARD | 3.10 (2023)

+ bonus:

[firstroseofspring]

i didn't want to leave a wall of text on that muse post by @marxistgnome but i love it so much and this is going to be so rushed but i could go on and on and on about b'elanna and storytelling and narratives. this got really long and so under the cut it goes

it all really ties into that post i once saw about this consistency with b'elanna episodes where they reveal more about her as a person through her interior life- her thoughts and dreams and visions... what she does when she's alone. and muse really gives us this close up look at the way she sees things and what she cares about through kelis - the stories she tells him and the way she interacts with him- because he gives this good intimate portait of the world as b'elanna sees it- as she's described it to him (almost makes you wonder what she was considering there- whether she thought she should tell someone their stories because they're stuck in another quadrant and might not make it home, or if she thought she wasn't going to get off that planet and might not make it back to voyager)

and of course he's crafting a play so there's room for his own creativity but b'elanna tells him their story really well and she cares about it and you can tell. she cares a lot.

we get another really good look at this in barge of the dead like famously- and it's so consistent in that episode too because she's on the barge and she recognizes kortar from the stories her mom told her as a child and he directly acknowledges that. he says she believes in grethor and in him and she believes because her mother told her the story after she nearly drowned in the sea of gatan. remember prophecy? she's recounting the whole heroic battle with the borg to the klingon generation ship that think baby miral is their savior and the whole scene is framed like (at least it felt this way to me) that for all she says about not being familiar with klingon culture in any respect, the way she interacts with storytelling especially reveals the depth of her understanding of it- shes telling the story and she's telling it really well according to klingon custom and the first thing the visiting klingons do after she tells it is compliment that ability. and its sooo much.

when her and harry are going back and forth at the end of muse and she just goes harry have you ever inspired somebody? when he asks why she even cares so much about the ending of kelis' play. there's just like this klingon belief about living a life that's worthy of being shared with others- like when in day of honor the hologram is evaluating whether she's spent her year honorably and asks her what she's done with her life that's worth celebrating and she can't answer and he tells her that she's giving him excuses. and the direct parallel that could be drawn about how she feels about that with the janeway vision in barge of the dead where she's being condemned and the whole reason is that she's done nothing worthy of glory- 'nothing worthy of song and story.' my goodness

even when she convinces janeway to let her go back to the barge- janeway says it's not real, that she won't let her risk her life for something that she only thinks she experienced- but b'elanna tells her it doesn't even matter if she thinks it was real- that it was real to her and she cares about what her mother thinks of her and she doesn't want her to die thinking badly of her.

we see this with worf, of course the angle we're given is honor and truth and duty- but how you're remembered and talked about is important, even from generation to generation- disgrace in his family is disgrace for him. when they accuse his father of being a traitor at khitomer, it's important to him that his father be remembered as he was - truthfully, honorably, as someone to remember well (even the titles and names they give themselves being little retellings of their lives and the members of their family- on memory alpha worf isn't just worf, he's worf, son of mogh, of the human family rozhenko, mate to k'ehleyr, father to alexander, husband of jadzia, bane of the house of duras, slayer of gowron etc etc.)

((sidenote but b'elanna never in her life introduces herself as b'elanna daughter of miral always as b'elanna torres but on the barge of the dead kortar calls her miral's daughter immediately. and if she's partially from this culture where naming and titles are so important in that respect and b'elanna thinks her mother is. not what she wants to be known by not what she wants to be identified as it's soo relevant to what she calls herself. roxann dawson said that b'elanna wanted to be 'human and perfect' like her father and so she's not ' b'elanna daughter of miral' anymore because she doesn't want miral to be a part of her story, how she's remembered. so it's belanna torres.))

anyway this same- dedication to truth we get from worf and his father's memory we see even with b'elanna in 'remember' where she gets those telepathic dreams/visions from the alien woman about what really happened with that group of people they oppressed. the crew discover that the dreams are starting to affect her health- and so they offer to suppress them, take them away and b'elanna just refuses. because how else will she know what happens to them? who's going to tell their story? and she shares that story once she has it with anybody who will listen because its worth telling.

i'm going a little crazy but klingons and writing and literature and song and stories and living memory its all so. it's ridiculously important culturally. and how that translates back to b'elanna is so fascinating

[ichayalovesyou]

YO.

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IF NOT, YOU WILL

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[sluttyquarantinetheory]

By nobodies demand. I present to you Klingon Nightcore.

Please check out the original artist Klingon Pop Warrior

[mediumgayitalian]

The best part of being his own camp counsellor is that he can wake up whenever the fuck he likes.

Nico’s a fan.

Because, however, his dumb ass made friends with the camp’s head medic, he doesn’t get to sleep in as often as he would like. He is instead often woken up before the clock strikes nine, which is a tragedy and one of the forty thousand reasons he is going to be present on Will’s judgement day. (The scales tip any which way on a regular basis, but as of last week, Will is going to hell. Unfortunate. Nico’ll still visit him, though. Bring him one half of a twizzler or something.) So when he wakes up, one lovely morning, mouth tasting like something rotted in it and sun well past halfway across the sky, he is capital-C Concerned.

What a horrible tragedy that is. Finally, for the first time in months, he was able to sleep in. And his first thought is not gratitude. Solace may indeed have to die — Nico was not this way before he started planting his annoying ass front and centre in Nico’s life. He’s quite fairly certain he used to be frightening and badass. Now Will orders him to drink milk for the sake of his calcium and he does. Gods.

“Morning,” he hedges, approaching the archery range, feeling marginally more alive than twenty minutes prior.

Kayla raises an amused eyebrow. “Dude, it’s, like, two.”

“Well fuck you, then.”

She smirks. “Aw, did baby not get his Sunshine fix of the day? Is that why he’s so grumpy?”

It really sucks that Will is so fond of his siblings. Nico wonders if Will would still like him if he knew how many times he daydreams of transporting Kayla onto the moon per day.

“As soon as I figure out which god would appreciate you as a sacrifice, you’re gone.”

“Yeah, right,” she snorts, turning away and lining up an arrow. She lets it fly, watching as it shaves a splinter off a hunk of wood fifty feet away. “You couldn’t get close enough to kick my ass before I’d skewer you, di Angelo.”

Remembering the warning arrow Kayla had shot through his shoulder last week, he wisely chooses not to press the matter any further. The power visibly goes to her head. Fuck.

“Just — tell me where Will is.”

“Why?” She strings another arrow. The grin on her face is a level of shit-eating that Nico has only before seen on a Stoll. She should spend less time around Julia, or else the camp is in for some serious trouble. “What are your intentions with my dear brother?”

Nico, on principle, refuses to answer that question. Kayla shrugs, finishing her shot and then turning around to stick her tongue out at him.

“No answer, no location! Find him yourself, loverboy. And remember that I am always watching.”

Stomping away, and ignoring the smile twitching at his lips — she is so annoying, truly, gods above he owes Bianca a thousand apologies for ever opening his mouth — he heads towards the infirmary. There are only six locations Will is at any given time, after all, except when he disappears for several hours randomly but Nico doesn’t know how to bring that up yet. As he approaches the infirmary, though, he hears it absolutely blasting with music, like genuinely shaking the ground a little bit, and knows exactly where to find him.

As he approaches the door, wincing at the door, he finds it closed. Odd — Will likes a breeze when he works. Even odder is the hastily-written sign pasted onto it:

ANNUAL CLEAN OUT DAY. IF YOU NEED ME, TOUGH SHIT. IF YOU NEED A BANDAID, TOUGH SHIT. IF YOU’RE BLEEDING OUT, CALL AN AMBULANCE AND PRAY. I AM BUSY.

(‘Busy’ is underlined three times.)

In smaller print, under the all-caps monstrosity, is:

Unless you’re Nico, in which case disregard the previous sentiment. No, Cecil, this does NOT mean you.

The note is written again in Ancient Greek, Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Mandarin, Italian, Polish, Korean, Morse Code, and another ten languages Nico can’t even name. Actually, wait — the top left is Klingon. And middle right note does not appear to be language, showing instead a poorly drawn stick figure in armour being shoved into a cannon and shot into the sun by another poorly drawn stick figure in a lab coat. Nico loves a man who’s multi-talented, indeed.

Hesitantly, Nico cracks open the door. He is immediately assaulted by a solid wall of sound, and then nearly bowled over by the enigma himself, William ‘I Can Restructure A Human Brain But Cannot Tie My Shoelaces’ Solace. He catches himself at the last second, and then barely manages to catch Will, grabbing him around the waist just before his head hits the floor.

“Nico!” he shouts over the music, smiling brightly. “Hi! You’re here!”

“I’m here.” He can physically feel his voice cracking, but luckily the music drowns it out. Hopefully. “Uh, what’re you doing?”

“Cleaning!” Will straightens up, although he stays within the circle of Nico’s arms. Nico tries real hard to keep his gaze firmly planted on his face and not on the hands he still has in his hips. “I do it once a year, kick everybody out and deep clean the place. Helps keep it fresh and minimize the bloodstains on the floor.”

“Ah. And the music…”

“It’s fun!” Will shouts. He gasps when the CD player skips and a new song comes on, heavy base and funky synths blasting so hard the window panes shake. “Oh my gods! I love this one!” He turns his bright grin at Nico full force, absolutely no holdbacks on the dimples or freckles, gods help him, and bows cheekily. “Can I have this dance, good sir?”

“It’s Britney Spears’ Outrageous,” Nico protests weakly.

“Yeah!”

…Very, very weakly.

“…Okay.”

Will whoops, grabbing his hands and spinning him around. Nico yelps, nearly tripping over a cot, but when he looks back up Will has his eyes closed and is shimmying not unlike a worm on a fish hook, and it’s so ridiculous that he can’t help but laugh. Will pries one eye open, grinning widely, and shimmies harder.

“You’re such a dweeb!”

“Join me in the dweebiness! Free yourself!”

Nico rolls his eyes fondly, squeezing Will’s hand, and lets himself get ridiculous. He’ll deny it if anyone asks, but it’s fun.

…And not just because Will is next to him, smile brighter than any star, dancing like a massive dork, hand clasped in his.

[professional-termite]

imagine if the star trek tos gang had tumblr lol

🔄 vulcanfuckerjt reblogged 1stofficerspock

😍 vulcanfuckerjt Follow

mannnn why are vulcans so.... ahfhfjfj lik????

🖖 1stofficerspock Follow

Hello captain.

😍 vulcanfuckerjt

sPOCKWHEN DJD YOU GET TUMBLR

🖖 1stofficerspock

Dr. McCoy reccommended this app to me this morning.

😍 vulcanfuckerjt

okkkk i think me and dr mccoy need to have a TALK

#in the meantime i need to purge this blog eughhhh

12 notes

🔄 cptnjtkirk reblogged 1stofficerspock

🎶 music-by-nyota Follow

rb for reach!!

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 scottishthings-daily Follow

FLOWER OF SCOTLAND SWEEP!! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

🇷🇺 russianthings-daily Follow

RUSSIAN ANTHEM SWEEEP!!! 🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺

🟥 redshirt-ensign Follow

who tf submitted a mitski song

🦴 bonesbonesbones Follow

i did. it reminded me of how @'cptnjtkirk feels about @'1stofficerspock :]

🖖 1stofficerspock Follow

What?

🌠 cptnjtkirk Follow

IGNOREE HIM PLEEASE

#bones istg

1.2k notes

🔄 scottishthings-daily reblogged russianthings-daily

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 scottishthings-daily Follow

if the enterprise was a woman id want her to sit on my face

🇷🇺 russianthings-daily Follow

🤨

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 scottishthings-daily

wRONG BLOG

26.7k notes

🔄 redshirt-ensign reblogged redshirt-ensign

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abt to go on my first mission, wish me luck!!

🟥 redshirt-ensign

med bay

56.8k notes

🔄 cptnjtkirk reblogged klingon-commander

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this is a callout post for @'cptnjtkirk hes a vulcan fucker and a war criminal

🦴 bonesbonesbones Follow

you say that like theyre equally bad..?

🤬 klingon-commander

they are.

🌠 cptnjtkirk Follow

too bad im not actually either of those things lmao

#i wish... #not about the war criminak thing obv i mean #wait dammit spock can see this blog nvm

10 notes

🔄 klingon-soldier-6 reblogged scottishthings-daily

🇷🇺 russianthings-daily Follow

Posting Russian things every day, day 567: Nevsky potatoes!

😡 klingon-soldier-6 Follow

they look stupid

🇷🇺 russianthings-daily

i have your family name and home coordinates. you have 3 days to delete that post.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 scottishthings-daily Follow

ay, laddy...@'cptnjtkirk said to quit yer fighting!

😡 klingon-soldier-6

stfu ur in love with an ugly ass spaceship

#istg you starfleet ppl are like asking to get bullied or smthn #not my fault ur easy targets

756 notes

🔺️ engineerthrowaway74859 Follow

@'klingon-soldier-6 's full dox

130 notes

🔄 cptnjtkirk reblogged romulan-invasion

🗡 thereal-mrsulu Follow

@'cptnjtkirk Sir, there's an asteroid coming towards the ship at an alarming speed! 3 hours until impact!

🌠 cptnjtkirk Follow

cant we just move out of the way.? or blow it up

🗡 thereal-mrsulu

I can't, sir! Our controls are all jammed!

🪆 russianthings-nav Follow

can confirm, @'cptnjtkirk sir!! nothings working!!

🌠 cptnjtkirk

how?? how could this have happened???

😈 romulan-invasion Follow

:3

🌠 cptnjtkirk

shit

4.3k notes

🦴 bonesbonesbones Follow

"ooo mccoy what do i do" "oooh mccoy im in love with my first officer" "ooh mccoy--" boi stfu im a surgeon not a matchmaker

#go talk to someone else if you want help with that bucko #bones rambles

2 notes

🌠 cptnjtkirk Follow

i wish people would stop vagueposting about me :( at least @ me if ur gonna say something rude

#personal

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🔄 cptnjtkirk reblogged bonesbonesbones

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@'cptnjtkirk is a massive simp

#not what i meant but thanks i guess

36 notes

[chess-blackmyre]

So no shade to Discovery or Picard but the main reason I think I’m loving Strange New Worlds is because they seem to know that yes, Star Trek is about high minded discussions of ethics, philosophy and human nature (not to mention the Drama) but it is also about Shenanigans. Tomfoolery. The kind of hijinks you’d half expect to see out of a fan fic.

Shakespeare wouldn’t be Shakespeare without the dick jokes and Star Trek just isn’t Star Trek to me without the kind of vibe where, with a straight face, the plot involves body swapping, tribbles, weird Klingon bachelor parties, sex pollen, or saving the day with the power of rock music.

[criminalskies]

Hi Rome :)

I was wondering if you would be able to do a very fluffy fic where Reader is Hotch’s girlfriend but is also Spencer’s younger sister and they all go together to a Barnes and Noble or some kind of bookstore and Reader gets all nerdy (it runs in the family) and Hotch is just soaking up every minute of it following Reader through the isles and sneaking kisses while she and Reid also geek out together and are smelling all the new books (love that new book smell lol) and talking about their favorites and how they used to read certain books together as kids (like Harry Potter or something) etc. etc.

Hi Sweetheart! Thank you so much for your patience, sorry it took me a whole lifetime to get this done for you, but the moment has arrived!! Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x gn!reader. Spencer Reid x sibling!reader. Word Count: 2.1k Warnings: much much fluff, reader is a genius bc i can't help myself. Also apologies I know you used she/her but I figured there's no harm in keeping it more open, if this is a problem please let me know and I can find and replace all pronouns <3 Enjoy!

Aaron should have known that letting Spencer have his pick of bookstore for your rare day off would be a mistake. In classic Reid fashion, Spencer picked a spot almost two hours away, which is said to carry Star Trek comics written in authentic Klingon. Hotch figured the three of you could make quiet small talk and just bask in the calm of one of the BAU’s rare days off. He did not anticipate listening to both of the Reid siblings create their own rendition of Every. Single. Song. From high school musical. The two of you had barely made it to ‘Stick to The Status Quo’ when Aaron realized only fifteen minutes of the drive had passed. He fights the urge to throw his head back and sigh, opting to keep his eyes on the road and just picture how adorable you’re going to look with your nose in a book, sipping coffee in the quiet corner of the bookstore, and oh how Aaron misses quiet. He has fond, seemingly distant memories of quiet. Just as he’s descending into thoughts of time he could have spent alone, today, getting work done, a hand finds his larger one on the center console. 

You bring his hand to your lips to kiss the back of it, a silent thankyou for saving you and Spencer from having to take two trains and one bus to this bookstore. It is apparently a Reid tradition to refuse to drive until it becomes absolutely necessary for your own survival. Hotch feels a familiar warmth spreading through his chest as he admires how perfectly the two of your hands fit together, as you intertwine both of your fingers in your lap. 

“Spencer, how about we switch this up a little?” You can see Aaron’s brows had been drawing closer and closer each time Spencer hit an especially pitchy note, and you worried about his tinnitus making a return. 

“How so?” He asks, his tone suggesting that nothing could be quite as fulfilling as crushing the HSM soundtrack start to finish. 

“How about…” you stop, trying to think of anything that will lift your brother’s spirits without also piercing your boyfriend’s eardrums. “John Denver?”

“I’m in!” Spencer replies, his face now adorning his tightlipped smile you’ve grown to love. You scroll through your phone, seeing Aaron’s shoulders visibly relax as the much more dulcet tones fill the confined space of the car, his thumb rubs at your index finger, clearly grateful for the compromise.  

When the three of you finally arrive at the bookstore, Aaron’s barely put the car in park before two seatbelts unclick and all he can do is laugh as you and Spencer go barreling towards the front door. He rushes after the two of you, finding you in the front left corner, he sighs knowing the two of you are going to tackle this entire store one square foot at a time from front left to back right. Before he can look at his watch to assess how much time the two of you will have before the store closes, your hand wraps around his arm, tugging him into the first aisle, where the fantasy books are. Spencer is pulling down the order of the phoenix, gasping as his fingers brush over the gold leaf lettering on the cover and you turn to Aaron, beaming at him as you pull him into a hug, thanking him for bringing the two of you all the way across state lines for what will be the greatest day of literary entertainment ever - and probably a major spike in your credit card statements, but you won’t mind one bit.

Aaron tries not to think about the ring sitting in his dresser at home as he feels the air once again knocked out of his lungs when he catches sight of your bright smile. He tucks his hands in his pockets, as you keep one hand wrapped around his bicep, pulling him towards each new find. Aaron’s sure there’s a handful of books on these shelves that he would quite like to read, as well, but he’s busy watching the sparkle in your eyes as your fingers dance across the spines of the books. Spencer is equally enamored when he gets his hands on a signed copy of Lord Of The Rings, rushing over to the two of you with the same glimmer in his eye as he brings the book to your face. Aaron is confused until you bend down and sniff the pages, turning to your boyfriend, you explain. 

“It’s hardly even been read, Aar! It still has that new book smell! Here, try it.” you drop his arm in favor of bringing the book to his nose. Apprehensively, Aaron gives it a smell, his tight brow releasing when he gets a waft of fresh pine. It takes him back to his childhood at his best friend’s lake cabin on summer holidays. He can’t help but think about how much you would have loved it there, maybe that’s where he could propose. Take you on a weekend away someplace secluded, where the two of you can sit on the porch swing, your head in his lap as he reads you a book you’ve definitely read a thousand times. But, you always tell him the stories are so much more immersive in his baritone. Spencer tried explaining the connection between the human limbic system and our middle ears, how certain acoustic frequencies can actually summon more emotional and imaginative imagery. 

Aaron files that idea away along with his 20 other possible proposal ideas. He always seems to psych himself out of asking you, having only been together eight short months, he worries you’ll say no. It’s perfectly reasonable for someone of your age to not want to become a parental figure in a child’s life, although you’re great with Jack, Aaron always finds a reason not to ask you to marry him. That’s actually why he’s gotten both you and Spencer out of the house today, he wants an opportunity to talk to your brother about the possibility of asking you to be his spouse. Aaron is dragged out of his thoughts when you once again pull him down the aisle, now stopping in front of a set of Peter Rabbit books. 

“Aaron, oh wouldn’t these be such a great gift for Jack’s birthday? We could all read them together, there’s twenty three so it would take us a while but I think that would just make putting him to bed so special, what do you think?” You stand toe to toe with Aaron, awaiting his response. He’s waiting for the lump in his throat to clear as he realizes the depth of your love for his son, and how silly he’s being letting his concerns get in the way of your shared happiness. You look so excited to read Jack these books, and Aaron finally realizes you want to be there for bedtimes, not just on nights when Aaron is tied up in meetings and can’t find the time to tuck the little boy in - you want to be there for his bedtimes, forever. 

“Hello? You in there? Earth to Aaron.” You take hold of his shoulders, genuine concern clouding your features as you worry your boyfriend is having some kind of absent seizure. 

“Yes, sorry. I, I think Jack would love that and, well, I think I would love that, too.” Damn you for having such a way of reducing the usually articulate agent Hotchner into a stuttering mess. You just have a way of derailing every train of thought he’s usually able to keep in careful motion.

“O-kayyyy” you drawl, still unconvinced that Aaron has all of his senses working. You pull the box set of peter rabbit books from the shelf, going to place them with Spencer’s growing stack of purchases on the counter. Aaron watches how the employee eyes the two of you carefully, clearly thinking you must be buying this many books for charity, or for a children’s shelter or library. You’re only onto aisle two now and the two of you have amassed a stack of pages that must weigh more than the two of you combined.  Aaron spots Spencer, ever the speed-reader, flicking through a russian book in the languages section of the store. Aaron excuses himself to head to the bathroom, barely earning a nod from you as you’re completely absorbed in collection four of Shakespeare’s finest works. 

Aaron ducks into the corner, grabbing Spencer gently by the arm and whispering that he needs to talk to him about something important. Distracting Spencer from his book earns him a scowl but he changes it to a tight-lipped smile, waiting for Hotch to elaborate. 

“I want to ask your sibling to marry me, Spencer. Now, obviously, you and I work together, and- and you’re very close with them so I trust you to know how they might react to something like this, and I’d really like your blessing to go forwards with this.” Aaron finds himself rambling, wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans as his heart threatens to jump out of his throat at the thought of the boy genius saying no. 

“Oh.” That’s not good. That doesn’t help the growing lump in Aaron’s throat. 

“Oh? Reid, please, what do you mean ‘oh’?” Aaron hates how small his voice sounds trying to pass through the thick fog of panic circling his lungs.

“I just mean that I thought the two of you must have already discussed that. I went clothes shopping with Y/N last week and I couldn’t tear them away from a wedding caterer, they were pointing at the window saying how adorable ‘Aaron and I’ would look as a wedding topper. Before that, we went looking to buy me a new bookshelf and they were picking out furniture for both of your future home. I guess I just assumed that was all their way of telling me those things were on the table.” Aaron releases a breath he had been holding ever since he bought the ring, worrying it was too much too soon or that you would go running for the hills if you spotted it in his drawers. “Look, Hotch, if you want my blessing you have it, just please make it a quick engagement, I’ve seen them plan their senior prom, I can’t even imagine how frightening they’d be planning a wedding. Your wedding. You’re everything to them. And I’d really like the chance to call you my brother, Hotch. Although Strauss will probably make me answer to Rossi for all my future evaluations and such but- I’m getting off track. My point is, I already think of you both as an old married couple, both you and Y/N smile more in each other’s company than I’ve seen in all the years I’ve known you both.” Spencer’s delightfully supportive ramble is cut off as a teary-eyed Aaron pulls his future brother-in-law in for a tight hug. They stand there for a moment before Aaron pulls back, releasing his hold on the young doctor and placing a hand either side of his skull before pulling him in to kiss the top of his head in thanks. Spencer is slightly shocked having never seen Aaron Hotchner give this much affection willingly, and slightly confused by the decision to kiss his head. 

“What? People normally handshake at a time like this but you always maintained it’s actually safer to kiss.” Hotch offers a toothy smile, his mind casting back seven years to when he had first interviewed the young doctor for the job. He has continued to be perplexed by the contents of such a young mind, until he finally got to meet the other doctor Reid. Forensic Physician. Equally bright, but with an unshakeable positivity that captivated Aaron each time they consulted on a BAU case for a long 18 months before Hotch summoned the courage to ask the younger genius out on a date, this turned out to be the beginning of the rest of his life, as it happens. 

Hotch finds himself unable to stop smiling for the remaining five hours spent in the bookshop before it closes, having made enough money from the Reid family to probably take the rest of the week off. Aaron carries the mountainous stacks of books to his car, admiring the sunset as he listens to his favorite two siblings in the world bicker about which Star Wars movie is the correct starting place to watch the series. Even if the two choose to sing all of High school musical two and three on the ride home, nothing can shake the feeling that Aaron Hotchner is the luckiest man in the world.

tags: @montyfandomlove , @pastanoodles11 , @ssamorganhotchner , @hotchnerbau , @hotchs-babygirl , @ssa-tahlia-obsessions

[nepobabyjimkirk]

I will say there is nothing more Star Trek than tonal inconsistency that’s Star Trek to the fucking bones every single show from tos on and there’s no better example of it than having an episode about the horrors of war and ptsd sandwiched between a crossover episode with two time traveling idiots and a musical episode featuring singing Klingons. And I say this as a compliment, because I love this about trek, but there is nothing more trek than the ordering of snw 2.7-9

[spacefinch]

Rating TNG Characters based on how I’d handle being home alone with them

Picard: Good for a nice quiet afternoon. I imagine he’d just spend all day reading whatever book he’s currently working his way through. I would probably also be reading. And of course, it wouldn't be a proper visit without some "tea, Earl Grey, hot."

Riker: It is party time. This could mean a number of things: Watching a movie, going to a hamburger joint and then frozen yogurt “just because”, or just hanging out. When we’re not doing the aforementioned, we’re listening to jazz music.

Deanna: I try to tell her I’m not interested in a “girls’ day,” but she quickly wins me over. Not only does she make “girly” things like shopping and hair and nail painting fun, she also takes me to get ice cream (which we eat while watching a cheesy movie). By the time she has to leave, she’s ensured that my family won’t run out of dessert for the next two months.

Tasha: I would LOVE hanging out with her, no questions asked. At home, we’d probably play games or something, but it’s more likely we’d be on an outing. There’s not a lot of talking that goes on. I try not to ask about her past, since it’s clearly a sensitive subject for her. Instead, we talk about things like our favorite animals, or how the weekend went. 

Data: Another crew member I would love to hang out with. Before going home, we make a quick (translation: 2 hour) stop at the library, during which Data signs up for a library card. Most of our conversations are just back-and-forth infodumping. Further benefits: help with homework (especially math and music), and getting to pet Spot. (He definitely brings Spot over.)

Geordi: 90% of our time together is spent geeking out over various stuff. The rest of the time is spent doing stuff like building model airplanes and listening to radio dramas. However, I do not get to bed until almost 2 AM because neither one of us has a healthy sleep schedule.

Worf: Another “not a whole lot of talking” situation. He tries his best to make some sort of traditional Klingon dish, but the kitchen is a disaster afterwards. I try a tiny bit of the food just to be polite, but it’s not my favorite and I decide to just have leftover pasta. The rest of the evening is spent trying to get the kitchen back in order before my parents come home.

Beverly: Definitely the mom friend. She doesn’t let me watch TV until I get my homework done, but she does help me with said homework. Afterwards, though, we watch a recording of a Broadway musical together. Or if it works out, she takes me to see a play in person.

Wesley: In this situation, it is I who is the responsible adult. Nothing productive happens, unless you count “spent the whole day playing video games, showing each other memes, and doing questionable science experiments” as productive. We try to cook dinner, but it doesn’t go very well and we just end up ordering pizza and eating it while watching a movie.

Q: No. Absolutely not. Besides, he would rather be harassing Captain Picard and company. He does try to intrude on my read-a-thon with Picard, though. 

Guianan: She’s not the one hanging out at my house, I’m at her house. Or at her restaurant. She’s very nice to me and has plenty of advice regarding my concerns about navigating social life. I would be honored to hear what wisdom she has to offer me.

[motsimages]

I love the Klingon restaurant owning the full tourist trap. I'm surprised Quark isn't copying the strategy already. The guy is there serving food the Klingon way, not even bothering to turn on the translator so people have to listen to him speaking Klingon theatrically, and when food is served, he plays and sings Klingon music for the extra exotism.

This is a Klingon who visited some planet turned tourist amusement park and thought it was a battle worth having.

[blueberry-beanie]

The New Cue #357 February 12:

Everything Everything's Jonathan Higgs

"We were weirdos then and we’re weirdos now"

At the beginning of next month, Everything Everything release their seventh record Mountainhead. It’s another brilliant album from one of the UK’s most imaginative and forward-thinking guitar bands, a quartet who never tread water and have been consistently honing, reworking and outdoing what’s gone before for over 15 years, always coming up with a new version of themselves without ever losing what makes them special. The pillars of their music tend to be a mix of danceable synth-y grooves and inventive art-rock, intricate arrangements constructed around big pop hooks and surrealist lyrics, frontman Jonathan Higgs’ vocal delivery emotive and exuberant at the same time.

Higgs is at the centre of it all, a creative dynamo who seems to sum up their idiosyncratic approach and who has the ability to inject emotion into the bizarrest lyrics, lines such as:

“And no reptiles! Just soft boiled eggs in shirts and ties, Waiting for the flashing green man Quivering and wobbling just like all the eggs you know”

That one is taken from Get To Heaven’s epic standout No Reptiles.

Or this, which somehow sounds poignant when Higgs sings it on the electro-pop banger Arch Enemy:

“Fatberg you smile, with your grave wax eyes, will you consume me?”

Or how about this oddball corker, from the euphoric electronica of Raw Data Feel closer Software Greatman?

“Maybe I see Klingons on the starboard bow Maybe, I’m a cat inside a sacred cow

Higgs is at it again with this zinger from their excellent recent single Cold Reactor: “I sent you the image of a yellow face To tell you I’m sad about the emptiness that’s all around me”

That song, released in autumn last year as the first single from Mountainhead, has become Everything Everything’s biggest radio hit yet. It’s spent weeks on the Radio 1 B-list, a very uncommon position for an indie band whose members are all in their late 30s, but its success that sums up the vibrancy and relevance of Everything Everything in 2024. Even better, it probably meant Radio 1 have had to get their heads around this blurb from Higgs on what the new record Mountainhead is about:

“In another world, society has built an immense mountain. To make the mountain bigger, they must make the hole they live in deeper and deeper. All of society is built around the creation of the mountain, and a mountain religion dominates all thought. At the top of the mountain is rumoured to be a huge mirror that reflects endlessly recurring images of the self, and at the bottom of the pit is a giant golden snake that is the primal fear of all believers. A ‘Mountainhead’ is one who believes the mountain must grow no matter the cost, and no matter how terrible it is to dwell in the great pit. The taller the mountain, the deeper the hole.”

Well, you don’t get that with Catfish And The Bottlemen. A few weeks ago Niall – that is me, I am The New Cue’s resident Everything Everything nut in case you hadn’t guessed – spoke to Jonathan over Zoom about the mad concept around the new record, the dynamics of being in a band in 2024, his favourite Liam Gallagher tweet and more. I’ve made this playlist of my favourite Everything Everything songs to listen whilst you read,

Hello Jonathan. I love the new record, it feels different to Raw Data Feel, a bit looser… Yeah, it’s got a lot more freedom and it sounds more like a band playing a lot of the time rather than the rigid, more computerised stuff that we were doing before. We made an effort to make it feel a bit more real and laid back.

Was there much overlap? No, partly because we put everything we made for Raw Data Feel on that record, we didn’t leave anything in the banks. We did the opposite with this, we actually went back and looked at some old demos and brought them back to life because we were looking for some kind of angle that we weren’t going to stumble across, we wanted to go back to our youngest selves and go, ‘What was that thing we were doing?’.

That’s interesting, how far back did you go? I think it’s sessions for A Fever Dream, or it might be Re-Animator, so five or six years ago. Some of the songs on this are from that time, or at least elements of them are or a little demo was made and then thrown away and then we went back and said ‘Let’s explore this and breathe new life into it.’

When you’re seven records in and you start to look back like that, does it feel like different versions of the band? Yeah, definitely. There’s definitely been eras, we’ve never got stuck in one way of doing things. There’s an evolution, for good or for ill, since our first songs to now. I can find myself very quickly thinking in those terms when I hear a song from then, I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, I was trying to do this’ and that stuff changes over time and I’m glad it does because otherwise, you just make the same record again and again and no-one wants that.

Yeah. Without naming any names, for some bands it ends up becoming a process of survival and maintenance. Yeah, thankfully, we’re not in that position. I know what you mean, this idea of being a nostalgia act does not appeal very much, partly because we were at our peak three albums in so we can go back and feast on Get To Heaven-era but I have no interest in going back to Man Alive and trying to recreate that partly because we were weirdos then and we’re weirdos now, it wasn’t the glory days by any means. I’m immensely proud of what we did back then but I’m not going to try and retread it. This is an odd thing to say having just said that I went back to some old demos and put them on our new record, but those demos were rejected for reasons that I find interesting now. And I don’t feel that we need to play the games we were playing them because we’re so good at writing successfully now, I think.

Something like Cold Reactor, I didn’t labour over it and I knew as soon as it was done, it was great and I knew that would that would carry us through. It allows you to feel a bit more relaxed about creativity rather than ‘Must get that radio single or we’re doomed!’, which obviously is the burning hot coal under our butts most of the time because it’s easy to take that stuff for granted, popular songs, but you’ve got to actually write them and they’ve got to actually be popular otherwise no-one cares. Basically, every album usually comes down to one, two or three songs and if none of them have any interest, then people just go, ‘Did an album even come out?’.

Cold Reactor is a good example of the band right now, it seems to sum up all that’s great about Everything Everything and it’s become this mad radio hit. I know! We’ve watched a lot of friends’ bands struggle in this period we’ve had, 15 years now. There is a tendency to rest on your laurels or try and repeat the thing and it’s very difficult to not do that. Sometimes, I’ve done it myself when I’ve sat down and written a song and then I get to the end of it, I go, ‘Well, we did that better with X song on Arc’ and it’s like, ‘I could do this and our fans will really like it because it sounds just like us, it sounds just like Arc’ and then we’re like ‘No, into the bin with you, let’s try and take that same sensation but do something new with it’. That often comes down to the production. I think if you were to strip all of our songs of their production, then you could probably find something I’ve written now very similar to something I’ve written.

There’s a simplicity to a lot of the songs on the new album, nothing is overloaded and it makes the more outlandish stuff more potent. That’s been a big thing to learn over our careers. You’ve got the ability to do outlandish stuff, and you’ve got these players who can play really well but that isn’t enough to just present all of those things at once and expect people to go, ‘Wow!’. Some of them will, and that’s how we made our name, the prog dads, as we used to call them, that came to our shows in the very early days and just stand there and go, ‘yes, this sounds like Yes!’, and that’s fine. But that I felt like it wasn’t really a challenge. It felt like being a music student still, trying to dazzle each other with complexity and emotion slowly rose through all that and they all just fell away. I was like, ‘No, that is the hardest thing to communicate’ and that’s the challenge. That’s what the greats do is, they get your emotions and you can’t manufacture that and you certainly can’t bamboozle that into people, you have to start with a strong, simple, true, or as close to true as you can manage, emotion and then you can start having fun with it. I think that’s the thing that took us the longest to learn.

Everything Everything’s work has grown more emotional with every record. You’ve got these big concepts around them but that disguises the fact they feel a bit more personal and vulnerable each time… I think that’s what happens to humans. Twenty-three-year-olds are a strange breed to look to for sustenance when it comes to art, there’s a rawness to being that age, it’s an age of discovery. And that stuff is very exciting but there’s no real reason why someone older would create like that or go to that well, it actually gets quite sad when people try to go to that well. Now I’m older and I’m more of an emotional person and I’m less about fireworks and more about volcanoes! I don’t know how to put it, there’s something much deeper now when I create than when I was a young punk.

On that note, rather than me crowbar into an incredibly long question, why don’t you sum up the concept of Mountainhead? It’s extremely simple, a one metaphor fits all type-deal. I knew I wanted to sing about capitalism but not put too fine a point on it. I mean, it’s not a very subtle metaphor. But I knew there were certain elements of it that I wanted to get across, namely the Sisyphean sort of feeling of it being pointless and also, the fact that there’s this trade-off between building the mountain but having to live in the dark, which was a big touchstone for me when I read Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher, this sense that our lives are getting worse in some ways, that the more we progress we’re becoming more isolated and we’re shutting off large parts of our humanity in the search for this goal of ever expanding and growing our economy and trying to climb the ladder. It’s simple enough that you can’t really fault it, I’m not saying this is exactly how we live, there’s not enough to it for it to fail. It’s something everyone gets straight away.

A lot of the lyrics touch on that theme but which of the songs is the most personal to you that veer away from the concept? Probably The Witness, that’s definitely not really related to the concept. That’s pretty personal. There’s a line in there about this… I shot this bird with an air rifle when I was a kid. I walked into the shed and I saw it, this cute little chaffinch or whatever and it just sat there looking at me and then I picked up the air rifle, I knew where it was and I killed it.

You bastard! I know, I’m telling you this now cos I felt bad, I’m not saying it was a good thing! For some reason that came back to me. During the very early sessions on the album, we’d all gone away somewhere and when we got back, Alex went up to his studio at the top of his house and a pigeon had got into the room and thrashed and thrashed to get back out for four days, there’s like blood all over, feathers everywhere. I was like, ‘Guys, this is a sign… we’re gonna call it The Pigeon!’. Obviously we didn’t but birds do get into it - Canary obviously is a song there - and this thing about that bird and it flew into my head. That’s very personal. But then the rest of the song is about some fucked up stuff that happened to me in the pandemic that haven’t properly been able to talk about in these situations because it’s a bit too personal, basically. A lot of Raw Data Feel was about trying to deal with that as well. I should’ve called it Raw Data Deal. That’s the only moment I’ve given over to that thing on this newest album, the last song. I haven’t actually been able to listen back to it because it makes me too emotional when I think about what it’s really about. But that’s not for public consumption, it’s not needed.

Fair enough. Tell me about the dynamic between the four of you, because that seems like a really important point in your longevity. Apart from a very early line-up change, it’s been the four of you the whole way. Yeah, it’s great. We’ve settled into our roles over the last 15 years. Alex [Robertshaw, guitarist and keyboards] is very much the producer now and by way of that, he’s ended up writing a lot of the guitar and keyboard parts, which I would usually write more of in the past. I’ve become completely consumed by the emotion of getting the message across in the lyrics and stuff like that, as well as obviously writing songs. But in terms of how they sound, I’m less and less involved or concerned, that’s Alex’s playground more. Mike [Spearman, drummer] and Jez [Pritchard, bass] are very good at taste-making. Me and Alex do 98% of the composition and then those guys are much more like, ‘Well, I feel like this is a good way for us to go or this is better than this one,’ things you can’t really tell when you’re the creator and you think everything’s great. They’re also really good at the whole business side of the band, which is the less romantic end but incredibly important. So talking to accountants and they’re having meetings with the labels and Mike’s producing the videos, getting organised, all the stuff that me and Alex being “the creatives” are terrible at because we have the luxury of being terrible at them. Those guys fill in the gaps and they’re really, really good at that. Jez is really good at meeting people and all that kind of shit, so it works really well. You’ve got at least one person covering every possible angle. I’m doing a lot of the visual stuff now. I’m designing a lot of the visual side of the band, basically most things that we’re tweeting or videos is all being done by me. As a unit we could basically do this by ourselves... if someone gave us loads of money, which is how we operate.

My last question is a random one but it’s been on my mind. On Christmas Day, you dug up a four-year-old Liam Gallagher tweet where he called the producer Dave Sardy “Dave Sardine”, and I wanted to know how your Christmas Day mind had been drawn back to that. Haha! Well, when it happened someone tweeted it to me and I thought was funny and I retweeted then. Then recently, I remembered it and I went to see if it was still there. It was and I was like, ‘I’m gonna save that for Christmas Day’ - it wasn’t related to what I was up to. It’s just like, right, ‘Christmas Day, time to tweet my favourite tweet’. It will always be my favourite tweet because it’s how angry he is about Dave Sardine. It’s so good.

The full article is available on substack.

[youngpettyqueen]

Oh I now saw you reblogged some prompts! this one caught my eye bc I immediately heard this in jadzia's voice about garashir 67. “Oh my god! You’re in love with them!”

anon youre so right I IMMEDIATELY heard this in her voice on reading it. please enjoy Jadzia hassling Julian about his very not-subtle thing with the local lizard man

Julian is in a very good mood today.

Jadzia noticed it very quickly upon entering the infirmary. Of course, he was very concerned when she showed him her burnt hand, the result of not paying enough attention while tinkering with a panel that had been bothering her. But his concern was quickly gone once he realized the burn was only shallow, and would just need a quick pass with a dermal regenerator.

The thing is, he would usually still fuss. Or, at the very least, admonish her for being careless. But, no, he's coming back with the dermal regenerator and he's... humming, of all things. A slow song, with a gentle melody that she finds herself wanting to sway along to. She doesn't recognize it off the top of her head, but it's... nice.

"What is that?" She asks. She can't help herself- she's curious by nature.

"Hm?" Julian stops humming, looking up to meet her eyes, "What's what?"

"That song you're humming," Jadzia says, "It's nice. What is it?"

"Oh, that," Julian looks back at her hand, focusing on running the regenerator over her palm, "It's a... Cardassian piece. It's been stuck in my head since this morning." He tells her.

Jadzia narrows her eyes at him. He's... blushing. It's subtle, but it's there- he's all pink in the cheeks. "A Cardassian piece?" She echoes, a mischievous smirk curling her lips, "Where did you hear that?"

Julian is now very pointedly avoiding eye contact. "Garak showed it to me." He tells her.

Jadzia leans in, trying to catch his eye. "And why was Garak showing you Cardassian music this morning?" She asks, "Don't you two usually meet for lunch?"

His face is now going a very adorable shade of red. "We can meet more than once a week, Jadzia." He points out.

"Have you been meeting more than once a week?" She can't help but keep pressing- he's like a big red button, begging to be pushed, "Julian, you didn't tell me! When did that happen?"

"I wasn't aware I needed to keep you informed of what I do with my-" Julian cuts himself off very quickly, takes a moment, then coughs out, "Friend." In about the most unconvincing manner possible.

Oh, she has him now. "If he's your friend, then why are you blushing like a schoolgirl with a crush?" She asks.

Julian abruptly lets go of her hand. "Well, that takes care of that!" He says, his voice pitched, "If you would excuse me, I'm a very busy man, and I have... many surgeries to get to." He turns on his heel and starts making his escape.

Jadzia hops off the examination table and follows. "Oh, no. You're not getting away from me that easily," She swoops in front of him, blocking his way, "I want details." She insists.

"Details of what?" Julian asks incredulously.

"Your date." Jadzia grins.

"It wasn't a date!" Julian exclaims, "Really, I have patients to-" He tries to duck around her, but she moves to get in his way.

"No?" She presses, stepping closer. He steps back, "You two just... what, had a little get together this morning? Where he showed you Cardassian music?" She ducks down to catch his eye, "Slow Cardassian music?" She adds, pointed.

Julian's blush has started creeping across his nose. "Exactly," He squeaks out, unconvincing, "Just a friendly get together. Between friends. With... music."

Jadzia raises a brow at him. "I didn't see you on the promenade this morning." She informs him.

"That's because we weren't on the promenade." Julian replies.

"And you weren't in the holosuites," She continues, "I know, because Worf runs his exercise class every morning, and Quark was too scared to get that Klingon party from last night out of the others."

Julian backs right up into the examination table. "I don't know what you're getting at." He deflects.

Jadzia leans in. "You were in his quarters, weren't you?" She asks, grinning like a wolf.

Julian's eyes widen like moons. "I was not!" He exclaims, looking around wildly like somebody might be listening, "Honestly, Jadzia, I hardly see how this is any of your business!" He hisses.

"Then where were you?" Jadzia questions, undeterred, "C'mon, Julian, if you can't tell me, who can you tell? Where were you?" She hassles.

Julian shrinks backwards, looking like he wants to make like a turtle and hide in his uniform. And then he ducks his head, mumbling something at a volume a Ferengi wouldn't be able to pick up on.

"What was that?" Jadzia leans more into his space, putting her arms on either side of him and trapping him, "I can't hear you."

Julian looks up to meet her eyes. He's all red, all the way to his ears. He considers for a moment, before he heaves a loud sigh and, very quietly, he admits, "...My quarters."

Jadzia lights up like the Dabo wheel at Quark's. "I knew it!" She exclaims, clapping her hands against the examination table, "I knew you were seeing each other. Julian, you've been holding out on me!" She accuses, "How long has this been going on?"

Julian presses himself backwards, very nearly climbing up onto the table. "I'm not answering that."

"Did he spend the night?" Jadzia continues.

"I'm especially not answering that!" Julian squawks.

"Do you love him?" Jadzia grins, nearly nose to nose with him.

Now Julian does push himself up onto the table, and he uses the opportunity to swing himself around and jump down to the other side and try to make his escape. "This conversation is over!" He calls as he hurries away.

Jadzia follows in hot pursuit. "Oh my god, you are in love with him!"

"Jadzia!"

[stcrtrek]

since snw s2 is over, i want to recap some of my favorite moments from this season because it was so good to me:

neera ketoul being a badass lawyer who i want to be like when i graduate law school and pass the bar soon. seriously, being a law student and seeing a black female lawyer in my favorite sci-fi show where i don’t expect much law-type stuff was so exciting for me.

human!spock— literally just everything about him. he was so cute and watching him grapple with human emotions in a more intense and upfront way without being able to keep them at bay as well as normal. and him being able to tell his mother how much he loves and appreciates her, and speaking of that..

amanda grayson making an appearance in this season was such a treat. she’s so beautiful and graceful and she loves her baby boy so much. it was wonderful to see her coming to his aid and then discovering that he was temporarily human.

jim & la’an falling in love in the alternate universe. even though it broke my heart in the end, it was so beautiful to see la’an letting her guard down and being open with jim and trusting him and falling for him. it was truly a wonderful little love story.

jim and uhura becoming friends because as i stated previously, their friendship was done perfectly and it really showed how jim is just a good guy who cares about helping others, which is why he’ll make such a good captain who is worthy of following.

pike hugging una, hesitantly at first because he was so relieved that her trial went the way it did. their relationship is so good because they work so well together but also have this personal connection that is essential to things running smoothly on the enterprise.

uhura’s song + saving the crew in the musical episode. i got chills and i cried and i just loved uhura being the star for the moment, which really showed how important she is to the crew now and will continue to be in years to come.

scotty!!!! i didn’t see it coming but i was so happy that they introduced scotty in the finale. martin quinn was great casting and i feel like the essence of scotty’s character was captured well. i can’t wait to see more of him.

i grew to love dr. m’benga so much more this season and he was extra sexy, starting with he and chapel fighting klingons in the first episode which was hot let’s be honest, and then there being more focus on him and his trauma from the war, a slight thirst trap in the shower, but showing that despite the fact that he can kick ass when needed, he chooses to be a person that heals rather than hurts others. a truly great and interesting character.

[abigailnussbaum]

I put off watching it for a while because I was pretty sure I was going to have this reaction. But now that I've bitten the bullet, I'm sorry: the Strange New Worlds musical episode is bad. It's bad as a Star Trek story, it's bad as part of the Strange New Worlds story, and it's bad as a musical.

To start with, I think it's time to admit that the musical episode concept is pretty depleted. "Once More, With Feeling" was more than twenty years ago, and what was once fresh and shocking now feels almost rote. Very few shows really manage to earn it, because they don't have to - the musical episode of a non-musical show is an established trope, which means the very thing that made it so groundbreaking is now gone.

But it's specifically a bad fit for Star Trek, not because it can't justify the concept - there's honestly no daylight between Buffy's "a demon who makes people sing and dance" and SNW's "subspace anomaly pulls us into a universe where people habitually break into song" - but because that kind of fourth-wall-breaking, genre-aware storytelling doesn't belong in Star Trek (or, at the very least, it belongs in something a lot more heightened like Lower Decks).

Star Trek isn't knowing. It isn't genre-savvy. Star Trek is earnest. And it takes its world seriously and treats it like something coherent in its own right, not something you can poke holes in and peek into our own universe from. When it comes down to it, the core flaw of all NuTrek shows is that they're often less concerned with being Star Trek, the story, and more interested in being about Star Trek, the franchise.

Strange New Worlds is an odd duck in this respect, because there are parts of it that so clearly understand Star Trek, the story, and are so clearly interested in expanding it, that I can't help but fall in love. Episodes like "Spock Amok", "A Quality of Mercy", and "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" do such a great job of slotting into the existing story while making it their own (though I could wish the show was better at telling original stories). I'm especially wowed by how they're handling Kirk, who is such a smart, non-sensational take on the character while still having all the recognizable flaws and quirks of the original.

But it's also a show that thinks breaking the fourth wall is the height of sophistication, that is more than willing to comment on its storyness in a way that runs completely counter to its Star Trek-ness. You see this in episodes like "The Elysian Kingdom", "Those Old Scientists", and now "Subspace Rhapsody". And if the first two of those at least had a Star Trek link - "Elysian Kingdom" is essentially a holodeck episode (even if it isn't as good as any of them), and "Those Old Scientists" is obviously all about Star Trek (even if, like so many media franchises these days, it collapses living in the Star Trek universe into being a Star Trek fan). But "Subspace Rhapsody" is just a gimmick, fundamentally no different from similar episodes on Lucifer or Grey's Anatomy or The Flash.

And worst of all, it's a bad musical. One effect of the fact that this trope has become so familiar is that it has created an sideline for talented songwriters who can knock out an episode like this without putting much personality or style into it, just hitting the required beats. There's got to be a power ballad. There's got to be a comedy song. There's got to be a kicky saloon number and a big finale. "Subspace Rhapsody" feels like the nadir of that cottage industry's output. The songs are all generic. The lyrics are forgettable while you're listening to them. There's no unified theme or style, because the point isn't to be a musical. It's to convey a general sense of musical-ness. Beyond the novelty value of a Star Trek musical - which, as noted, is pretty degraded in 2023 - there's nothing here of artistic merit, much less something that feels uniquely like a Star Trek musical.

(Case in point: the Klingons. Having them do boy band music is a joke that's funny for the audience, probably means nothing to the characters, and most importantly, does not make sense within Star Trek. Of course Klingons would sing - they would sing opera.)

As if to add insult to injury, the biggest character development in the episode - which is also driven by the only memorable song - feels baffling, and ends up shortchanging a relationship that the show has been trying to get us to invest in for more than ten episodes. Spock and Chapel got together at the end of episode 6, had a crisis in episode 8, and are now, in episode 9, breaking up for another, unrelated reason. Seems like a better use of everyone's time might have been to let these characters and their relationship develop organically, rather than informing us, through song, that Chapel has suddenly decided to prioritize her career (by, um, leaving Enterprise for so short a period that most couples wouldn't even consider it a major relationship challenge). Are we meant to understand that something deeper was wrong, and that the internship has brought it to light? If so, why haven't we seen it? It's hard not to feel that the musical was being used as a shorthand for emotional development the show didn't feel equipped to deliver, which is only one more way in which it underserves the show.

[writergeekrhw]

Hey, hope you are well. I was wondering what you considered your finest contribution to the various shows you have worked on? The character/character moment/plot point/favourite line that, if someone invented a time machine and tried to go back and erase that specifically, you would end up fighting them on a rooftop in the rain to protect?

Oh man, that one is pretty much impossible to answer. I've written over 80 episodes of TV and worked on over 300, so it's hard for me to pick my favorite episodes let alone my favorite moments or lines, etc. I'm most proud of the body of work and how deep it is, but let's see if I can think of a few highlights:

TNG:

"A Fistful of Datas" - The title is really good! I'm happy I got Picard to play his flute. The Worf/Data kiss was me, though I wrote it on the lips.

DS9 (A lot of these are with Ira):

"Q-Less" - "You hit me. Picard never hit me." "I'm not Picard."

"The Wire" - "My dear Doctor, they're all true." "Even the lies?" "Especially the lies."

"Past Tense 1&2" - All of it really.

"To the Death" - The whole "Victory is life" bit and O'Brien's response

"In Purgatory's Shadow" - "Lying is a skill like any other. And if you want to maintain a level of excellence, you have to practice constantly." "You Cardassians are all alike. You talk too much." "How can I forget it? It was the only day."

"By Inferno's Light" - Dukat's big speech. "That space station you're so fond of was built by Cardassia." "Funny. I thought it was built by Bajoran slave labor." "I yield! I cannot defeat this Klingon. All I can do is kill him, and that no longer holds my interest." "Armageddon will have to wait for another day."

"Call to Arms" - The end with Sisko's baseball.

"Field of Fire" - Snipering the melon. Who the bad guy ends up being and what his motive is.

Also: "Hard Time" "For the Uniform" "Little Green Men"

ANDROMEDA:

Proud of creating my first show. I think the cast I had control over (everyone but Dylan) is pretty great.

"Under the Night" - "Oh, he's the guy who retired. Didn't you say he bought a farm?" "The farm. Bought the farm, Trance." "What's the difference?" "Torn pressure suit and a bad emergency seal." Tyr's entrance.

"An Affirming Flame" - "I don't care if we wake up when the suns have all burned out and the universe is winding down to die, as long as I'm there to watch."

"Angel Dark, Demon Bright" - Harper's big speech. "Those are my mathematics. I'll leave you to yours." I like the way time travel works in this one.

"Music of a Distant Drum" - Tyr correcting the kid's shooting grip

"Harper 2.0" - "My pain belongs to the Divine. It is like air. It is like water."

"It's Hour Come Round at Last" - "To hell with the odds. All that matters in life is that we try. Promise you'll try."

THE TWILIGHT ZONE:

I'm proud to have written a Twilight Zone even if it wasn't in the original run.

THE DEAD ZONE:

"Descent" - Triggering a JohnnyVision by having him brushed by a passing bat.

THE DRESDEN FILES:

Underrated show in my opinion. I'm proud of co-developing it. Production was rough so I'm proud I got the episodes done and the show on the air. I think the cast is really good. The moment when Harry has to get a wasp to sting him in the eye to use it as a spy drone is pretty memorable.

THE 4400:

Richard Tyler in the diner seeing how much the world has changed. Ali is so good in that scene. We knew we had lightning in a bottle with him.

THE GATES:

"Little Girl Lost" is pretty good.

ALPHAS:

I wrote a lot of Gary's off the wall lines. "Left!" "Are you sure? Heart left, Gary?" Gary puts his hand over his heart. "No, right!" "Respect the badge!" Also casting Tatiana Maslany before she blew up was a really good call.

STAR-CROSSED:

I came up with a lot of how the Atrians culture and biology worked and I think that was all cool stuff. I loved Teri's "hold my gold" moment in "And Left No Friendly Drop," which was something that Chelsea Gilligan came up with in blocking, but I'll take credit for it. Teri punching the drone in "What Storm is This That Blows So Contrary" was fun.

(Elementary later)