#the hope that is star trek isn't in the universe or society. it's in the people who work together and move forward together

[lenievi]

TOS-tober day 3 (triumvirate prompts)

Favourite Star Trek headcanon?

Since this seems to be asking for something more general...

People go to space because they feel like they would keep stagnating on Earth. They want adventure and exploration. Not everyone joins Starfleet, though, because Starfleet and its rules and mechanization isn't for everyone, especially those who are more creatively inclined and need their freedom.

While Earth itself is considered a paradise, Earth colonies aren't. They're extremely dependent on Starfleet, and Starfleet doesn't always manage to provide help in time. Many people who live on these colonies don't see Starfleet officers favourably.

Kirk joined Starfleet because he can't stay in one place for too long. Earth isn't a place where he'd ever be happy. He needs challenges and he feels like he needs to struggle in order to move forward. He's not meant for paradise.

McCoy runs away from his past and toward a need for a challenge. At 26, he already developed a surgical procedure for the brain; he needs to be faced with the unknown and impossible to feel challenged and move forward.

Spock, as someone who doesn't feel he belongs anywhere, just tries to fit in among others who don't actually belong anywhere either. He ran from his homeworld and culture, but in truth, he ran and kept running from himself.

[prompts]

[doctorbrown]

Alright I'm doing it.

Obligatory ramble about Doc's 'character' songs in the musical because I just saw it again and I'm so deep in my feels post.

I don't know how to be clear and concise so you're just forced to take what I come up with in the thrown-together, haphazard way I know how to get the words out.

'It Works' is absolutely one of my favourite songs on the album, but I'm not diving super deep into it because while it is one of the few songs Doc 'solo' sings, it's not exactly a character song; it serves to introduce the DeLorean time machine to Marty at Twin Pines Mall and highlight how over the moon he is to have invented one of the most impressive things of all time, something that finally works.

Though I need to say I feel so validated for the line It's a car for the stars like Captain Kirk's because I imagine Doc is a huge Star Trek fan and he and Marty definitely watched it together.

Also, his I never really thought I'd get to see how well it works! also gets me because while in the film he doesn't really get to see that until after the events of the film have played out and the Lone Pine timeline is created, in the musical it is he who is the world's first time-traveller, taking the car five minutes into the past and then appearing in the parking lot of Twin Pines Mall shortly after Marty shows up, his experiment complete.

'21st Century' is such a big, flashy number and it's the very first song of Act II, right after intermission. The set looks 24th century futuristic (which I imagine the 21st century would look like to someone in 1955 at the time) and mimics the bridge of a starship; even the backup chorus/dancers are fashioned after robots/androids.

This entire song and sequence is, ultimately, revealed to be a dream that Doc has during the week of Marty's stay in 1955 and the reason this song means so much to me is because it really nails one of Doc's core traits; it's his hope and optimism he has towards the future and everything that it could hold. He wants to believe in humanity as a whole despite all the things he's been through, he believes in their success as a species and knows they could go on to create amazing things.

Imagine what we'll see in the 21st Century!

Just think of what we're gonna find! A world that's gonna blow your mind!

Everything in that song that Doc sings about is positive and hopeful; one might also say childishly naïve. A future post-capitalism, where money and greed which are two large factors responsible for so much hardship and ruin are things of the past. Flying cars, vaporising trash (hello Mr Fusion), eradicating hunger and war and suffering—

It's the kind of future Doc has always hoped to see. What he wanted to help build with his inventions. While recognition and fame is nice in theory, in practice, I think Doc would hate being constantly in the spotlight, because we've learned he's very comfortable doing his own thing and being avoided. To be thrust in the public eye would be very suffocating and invasive and uncomfortable.

But if he were ever able to properly patent and sell any of his inventions, he would've been contributing something good to society.

Doc isn't the cynical type, but he is acutely aware of all the terrible things that go on in the world around him. He wants the good to outweigh the bad, wants to see positive things in humanity's future.

Doc's entire purpose for building the time machine, beyond his deep obsession with time and the chance to say I did it, it works! and make arguably the largest scientific breakthrough of the century, is to see and catalogue the fate of humanity after he's gone. Where we've been, where we're going, the pitfalls and the promise. Maybe even an answer to that universal question: why?

'21st Century' just perfectly captures Doc's creativity, imagination, and optimism. Unfortunately, the real future doesn't quite turn out the way he'd hoped it would.

And then there's 'For the Dreamers' which, truly, is a beautiful and fitting song for Doc. In the musical, this isn't a big, flashy number. It's slow, sombre, yet hopeful all the same, and it takes place in the garage in 1955 after Doc's revealed his plan to run a cable across Courthouse Square to harness the lightning and the small model 'DeLorean' goes up in flames. Marty's less than optimistic about his prospects. There's a single spotlight on Doc as he sings to Marty and it's very obvious that he's singing about himself here.

Sometimes, failure and setbacks are an unfortunate and inevitable part of the process, no matter how hard you try. You can put your all into something and never see a return on it. Doc knows this better than anyone. Even now in 1955, he's well acquainted with the bitter taste of ridicule and failure because he's a man with big dreams who is unafraid to pursue those dreams to their end, whatever they may be.

And this plan of his to get Marty back to 1985 is an extreme long shot. Everything needs to happen precisely on-schedule, for nature waits for no man and even the slightest delay will rob the kid of his future and leave him stranded here indefinitely. Doc needs to balance learning enough about this invention he hasn't created yet in order for the lightning rod plan to work with not learning too much about the DeLorean's construction, as he still needs to allow his personal timeline to unfold as largely unaltered as possible for risk of creating a major paradox that could potentially unravel the space-time continuum.

So this one's for the dreamers who live on inspiration, go as far as they can take it even if they don't quite make it...

And I know what it's like to be misunderstood. And I know how it feels to be told you're no good. But I couldn't give up. No, I never would.

But people just took advantage of me. My distractions just consumed me.

Doc's always been a man of big dreams, ever since he was young. He was never the type to fit in, found himself on the outside, much more interested in the sciences than people. He embodies the very spirit of inventor. He's a dreamer, an idealist, a risk-taker, driven and full of ambition.

So this one's for the dreamers who have the guts to risk it. To take a chance on what they think. Can't stare them down 'cause they don't blink.

Ridicule or call them out, no one sees what they're about.

Doc's reputation is firmly established in Hill Valley; he's willing to take the risk for the things he believes in, and this has branded him a lunatic, a dangerous crackpot, a mad scientist, earned him the scorn of his neighbours—people will see what they want to in him and others like him and there's no changing their minds.

But you can't give up. It's difficult trying to make a change and if you dream about making that big breakthrough, you have to stick it out until the very end. Put your mind to it and do it for all those who have tried and couldn't.

With so many failures up until this point and with his only real success, if you'd choose to call it that, being the work he did on the Manhattan Project, it's looking grim. The brainwave analyser, something he put months' work of research and development into, turned out to be a disappointment.

Now, though, he's got proof that all his dreams aren't just nothing; that he really is something and if nothing else, he has to do it for this kid.

This one's for the dreamers like me.

At the heart of it all, this song is very much the start of Doc's you can accomplish anything if you put your mind to it. Failure, success, does it really matter if you give up in the end? And that's something Doc just can never really do.

[superwholockian93]

If I were part of Paramount or decision makers of Star Trek snw, I would foremost bring in an amnesiac Vulcan woman (preferably played by a POC actress) from a different universe where the Vulcan planet and society still exist and is thriving towards the beginning of the season at a point where Jim and Spock have just begun to get along but they still have a long way to go. Said Vulcan woman and Jim have scenes and dialogues together that vaguely and not so vaguely resemble the Jim and Spock scenes from Tos. Fans/audience cheer for them to get together. It's obvious they'll end up together except now she regains her memories (from whatever reasons) and regretfully, informs Jim that she's married and has to keep the identity of her husband a secret for security reasons. (This Vulcan isn't a part of the Federation and her husband is a Starfleet officer.)

Jim is a bit heartbroken and says he envies this mysterious man so she replies that she hopes he finds this universe's version of her but She will remain as she always has, her husband's. Jim accepts.

Sometime later, there's collision blah blah, someone knocks Jim out before he can see the Intruder's face. The audience watch the Vulcan woman be 'rescued' by a bearded man also played by Paul Wesley. She tells Spock that Jim Kirk of her universe is said mysterious husband. She tells Bearded Jim that this Spock is an alternate version of her (Spock Pikachu meme face) and Bearded Jim is excited to meet an alternate version of his wife and himself but sadly, the portal will close any minute. Then they are gone. The last image he sees of them is their fingers touching as Bearded Jim apologises for being late in finding her.

There maybe a realisation in Spock. An Epiphany.

Jim wakes up few hours later and is none the wiser.

[bi-demon-ium]

fic in review 2022

I wasn't tagged by anyone I just wanted to do this again and I don't see it making the rounds anymore :(

anyway i'm posting this a touch early as i might write more snippets when i wake up, and it'll still be december 31st, but. oh well

Total Number of Completed Stories: total (on this ao3 account): 112. total (on this ao3 account) written in 2022: 83! wow! and that's just like works (some are compilations) and on this account (there's at least five more elsewhere). oh wait i guess this isn't. completed. it's posted. hmmmmm okay but consider i am tired

sigh okay so completed on this account total: 96. completed on this account in 2022: 68. however, this is not counting that some of the works not counted here as they're "incomplete" on ao3 are actually like, multiple oneshots in one work. i'm not going to tally them though bc some of them are kinda incomplete-ish snippets while others are just straight up full oneshots and i don't want to comb through each and decide what counts 😩

Total Word Count: total on ao3 (for this account lol) is 342,779, but in 2022 that'd be 252,803.

Fandoms Written In: The Mysterious Benedict Society, The House in the Cerulean Sea, Death by Dying, and Instinct. (On the other account, also Shadowhunters and Star Trek 2009.)

Looking back did you expect to write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expect:

Hm... well, both, kind of. Less in the sense that I had hoped I would complete whumptober--both of them, rip--but more in the sense that HOLY FUCK 83 works. MBS has really reawakened me. (75 of them are MBS lol.)

What’s your own favorite story of the year?:

hmmm uh. off the top of my head, probably one of these:

cain's lament

a hope in hell

rust

shades of green

The Babygirl Incident™

pretty things

Did you take any writing risks this year?:

i let myself believe i'd actually finish whumptober 😔

also i dedicated more to nicholas/milligan which i am slowly but surely acclimating you all to, like boiling a frog. at this point i even daresay the frog is cooked

and "minotaur" is darker than i usually go, so i'm tentatively thinking about some darker aus (don't worry, still no tragedy for me lol)

Do you have any fanfic goals for the New Year?:

FINISH MY WHUMPTOBER PROMPTS :( and also all the ask prompts i have in my inbox

Best story of the year:

hmm. this is kind of subjective. "cain's lament" is a good fix-it, "shades of green" seemed to have had a strong positive impact, which i'm glad of. we'll get to stats in the next question, i guess, for that angle. uhhh "warm" has impressive length? surprised i finished that tbh

Most popular story of the year:

This year, the most kudos went to "technicolor" with 125, the most comments goes to "warm" with 25 comment threads, the most hits (987) and bookmarks (18) for "The Babygirl Incident™". Most subscriptions is "pretty things" at 18. (My THITCS works by far did the best, ironically.)

(These all hold the same for like. most [x] ever on this account, except for the most kudos, which goes to "paralleled", an old King Falls AM work of mine, at 139.)

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:

I think most of my snippets get brushed over a little since they're compiled on one work. Particularly my daemon au. Maybe also look at these: 1, 2, 3, 5, 2

Most fun story to write:

All of my crackfics probably! They're just so fun to write; very impulsive but hilarious. I'm making myself cackle, particularly with "The Gang's Past Illicit Affairs" "The Babygirl Incident™" and "kate and her bucket sitting in a tree, S-P-Y-I-N-G". Also "dear abby".

Story with the sexiest moment:

On this account? Nothing I've published. I did, however, write some very silly smut on my other account.

Sweetest story:

Okay, I've written a lot of sweet things and I don't know if I can choose one. So here's a brief list. I've taken off a few I've already mentioned to make it a little shorter.

These snippets: 9, 12, 18, 8, 9.

holy palmer's kiss

a cacophony so immense

number two; love guru

“Holy crap that’s wrong even for you!” story:

I don't know if that's the right way to put it, but. I'd say my two darkest stories were "coward" and "minotaur".

Hardest story to write:

Genuinely, I'm not sure? I'd guess either something not published or not finished, like the sequel to "petals", finishing "minotaur" and my sleep paralysis series, ch2 of "pretty things" i've really been struggling with. Of my completed works, though, I've genuinely no clue.

Biggest disappointment:

Probably still not finishing whumptober :(

Biggest surprise:

I wrote so much!!!! Oh my god!!!!! Holy fuck!!!! 88 works!!!!! and 75 of them MBS!!!!!

I Tag:

no pressure! @peachygos @mysteriouseggsbenedict @mvshortcut @sqenthusiast @ragecndybars @tothetrashwhereibelong @thehouseofgrey @finger-lickin-fuckboy and anyone else who wants to do it!!

[skimblyspones]

I still find myself feeling. Really disappointed by the TOS/POTA crossover comics that were "The Primate Directive," not because they didn't feel like Trek, but rather that they felt too much like Trek, yk? Both franchises are, imo, intertwined. Sci fi with transparent political messaging, shared film composers, at least 1 shared actor, and, if you ask me, a bit of plot lifting from Trek on POTA's part (The Mutants are at least partially the Talosians, Change My Mind). At the same time they are tonally opposite; Star Trek is utopian by design, a celebration of the best humanity can achieve, where the original POTA series was dark and foreboding, misanthropic, built around decrying the worst of mankind's brutality.

All the same, I can v easily see a proper way to perform a crossover between franchises, by excising the 2 weakest links: Don't Make The Klingons Part Of It, and Taylor Isn't In The Story At All. The point of Starfleet, of The 5 Year Mission, is to Explore Strange New Worlds. Have one of the 4 known rocket launches from POTA create an anomaly in space that The Enterprise goes to investigate. Have them beam aground and get captured; split off into Triumvirate storylines with Spock investigating the Forbidden Zone, Bones getting into it with Cornelius and especially Zira, and Kirk picking fights with Zaius and/or Ursus. Let them be what would have happened if Taylor had more hope in humanity and his teammates hadn't died. Have them discover in their own ways the self imposed downfall of humanity on this Earth; the use of Nuclear power to its most depraved end.

Or, Hell,if u want a more lighthearted idea, a one shot maybe, have them run into Zira, Cornelius, and Milo on their flight back in time! Have the chimps beamed aboard! Maybe Lucius is there and he enlists in starfleet or some shit, he'd be down for that I think!

But I think one of the worst parts of the crossover we got was the attempt to force the events as cleanly existing within the established storyline of POTA, with Taylor being there and doing shit. This is a problem bc Taylor Fucking Sucks. He is a piece of shit who hates nothing more than humanity except for the apes. And, frankly, he's a boring ass character. A lot of the humans are. The Apes and their society, their history; that's the draw of the franchise.

And the TOS Klingons. First of all just. Ick fsnjfhjefj. Second of all, they really really felt shoehorned in. Planet of the Apes does not need Klingons to offset the Enterprise. The Apes universe is dark as shit already; we don't need Klingons as external aggregators. Their presence also detracts from the themes of self destruction in pota; it's not the militarism of Ape City that led to the events of Beneath, it was the Klingons being war profiteers!

Like. The clashing tones of both franchises could make for a very interesting mix, but instead what we got was a bizarre story that didn't seem interested in exploring the most obvious, engaging avenues of storytelling.

Also the Starfleet gang didn't even get sexy loincloths 😩

[protectspock]

You know how in tng/ds9/voy they're always comically juggling different padds?

And like, okay, that's probably because writers in the 80s-90s couldn't fully accept huge amounts of information being zipped between one or two smart devices that everyone has on them at all times. Same for like, why padds, combadges, tricorders, and personal computers were all seperate instead of everyone having a space smartphone, right? Because seeing technology that looks less advances than what we're used to really makes the scifi unbelievable to the modern viewer, right?

Well, I have an alternate, in-universe explanation. Studies repeatedly show that the way we use our devices is objectively bad for us. We can't ditch the tech completely because of all its benefits, but our mental and physical health is taking a toll. It's at a point where some companies are making "minimalist" phones and tablets that are intentionally dumbed down, giving only what's nexessary to participate in society without all of the harmful side effects.

Then you have companies like freewrite making digital type writers so that people can get the pros of typing on a laptop without the everything else that a laptop comes with:

And these devices just strike me as so Star Trek? And it made me think that maybe the future of technology isn't about one super powerful device that you feel obligated or compelled to have on you at all times even if it's shit for your wellbeing, but about starting to simplify our everyday technology so it works for us.

Considering the state of technology today, I think it makes perfect sense for a socialist utopia to start cracking down on what industries are allowed to churn out and for people to start using devices similar to these new phones and personal writers described above. Someone in trek can still do and access everything that we can do and access today, but breaking down these devices by function does seem to make them more grounded in reality. Does social media exist in trek? Tbh I hope not, and if it does, it seems to have a much loser grip on everyone's time and wellbeing, presumedly because it's not being run by giant corporations desperately trying to sell and exploit all our information. I think that the way technology — personal computers, communicators, and padds — are used in Star Trek to be ultimately comforting. The idea that we can advance technology without becoming devoted to and exploited by it is so, so soothing.

Anyway, the irony doesn't escape me that I'm writing this post on a smartphone and posting it on tumblr, but oh well.

[celeste-i]

Discovery is a good show if you separate it completely from Star trek, but within the actual star trek universe it feels very out of place. Everything looks far too high tech, some of the technology isn't even invented for that timeline (the full body holograms?). The ship itself is also wayyy too high tech for the time as well. Running on a spore drive? Having the ability to teleport? Having dozens and dozens of shuttlecraft and fighters even tho NX-01 had 2 shuttles?

Technology aside, bc I don't care a huge amount about it, it also disappoints in terms of characters. It's insane how little character development there is for everyone. Also the ties to TOS are getting annoying; having Pike be captain was enough of a tie in, they didn't need to give Spock a secret sister and write a new backstory for him. Even Michael is getting a little annoying since it's turning into the Pike show. Ash's whole character was completely ruined and so was his romance with Michael (but hey, what about that super rushed, out of nowhere kiss at the end, huh?). Paul and Hugh being the only gay characters and Hugh, the brown one, dying randomly and then being saved by his white partner is shit. White savior trope and bury your gays trope. (But hey, what about their super rushed, out of nowhere break up, reconciliation, and getting back together that lasted about 5 mins in total over the course of half a season, huh?). Tilly and Phillipa are honestly getting annoying as well; I know they're the comic reliefs but you have to eventually give your comic reliefs some development or else they will get boring!

There's also no social commentary at all. Other star treks had a couple episodes or character arcs that were very hard hitting and impactful. Data's whole question of is he alive. B'Elanna hating her Klingon half so much she tries to genetically modify her child in the womb to not look Klingon. TOS and that episode with the species that was half black on one side and white on the other and oppressed the people that had the colors reversed. T'Pol struggling with drug addiction. There were so many bottle episodes and character based episodes throughout every series bc the story didn't matter that much bc the characters made it good.

Disco is plot plot plot plot plot. Too much plot. So much plot they don't have any time for characters. So much plot I get bored in action scenes now bc they happen so often. Its an action show which star trek is not at all. Star trek is a show you put on in the background while doing something else. It takes about 30% brain power to actively watch it and occasionally spikes up to 60% for certain episodes. It's funny, it's light-hearted, it's intelligent, it's hopeful. It's always been about humanitys exploration and it's been a beacon of hope for the future. Disco is a good show, not star trek tho.

Better star trek plots include: showing how humanity fell into the third world war, impacts of it, and how society advanced after warp drive and the Vulcans help. Some far future thing with the 25th century- could feature Crewman Daniels from ENT and his adventures. Life aboard a cargo ship or a colony. A shapeshifter who is just really curious abt humans and keeps sneaking into ships just to hang out. I could go on..