One Thing About Jim Is He Is Gonna Have The Time Of His LIFE Doing A Little Skit During A Mission. He

Watched Star trek tos episode 25 "This side of paradise" recently, and I am still thinking about how after Kirk manages to snap Spock out of the spore's influence, Spock says: "The spores are gone... I don't belong anymore."

And I don't see anybody talk about this part because it gets overshadowed by the part at the end where Spock says the has a responsibility to the man on the bridge (Kirk). And I also loved that part, but as an autistic women that really relates to Spock, this one line hit me so hard. Spock never feels like he belongs, not with the humans, not with the vulcans, and because of the spores he finally fit in with everybody. He is not his real self here, and it's good that the influence of the spores is eventually broken, but I understand so well how sad he is at losing that feeling of belonging.

remember when Jim introduced Spock to his own parents lmao we stan a legend

I didn't want to leave, Crowley. I didn't have a choice. I'm doing this for you. For us. We're still on our side.

What if I was all wrong about the "SINNER REPENT" wall writing. What if it isn't a manifestation of the social attitudes of the 1960s (compulsory heterosexuality, gender binary, etc.). What if, like Spock's message of "LOVE MANKIND," Jim's message also speaks to a hidden fear? A fear that is not the breaking of a social taboo (be it a captain's duty and Starfleet regulations, an affair, non-heterosexual love, etc.), but a haunting thought from Jim's past: that he should not be alive, that his continued existence breaks the order of life itself by cheating a certain death. Hence, the use of the words "SINNER REPENT," a phrase that matches how Kodos moralized basic survival needs to justify his eugenics and massacre on Tarsus IV.

Hozier writing De Selby (Part 2) inspired by a character in Flann O’Brien’s novel The Third Policeman makes the music video so much more compelling and absolutely bananas to watch, not just because Domhnall Gleeson is a treasure and delivers a killer performance without even saying anything, but also like… let me get into the lore of this:

The Third Policeman is about this mad scientist/philosopher/scholar who robs and murders someone in the midst of academic pursuit and enters this literal nightmare world where he’s punished by these policemen who are monsters and is doomed to repeat his mistakes forever. And the visuals of Domhnall Gleeson’s character are so similar the drawing of the central characters of the novel as seen above. The shabby brownish clothing, the hair colour, the shovel in hand, it all matches.

The story is also a slight condemnation of science and views trying to establish ultimate truth as prideful and heresy. As an article from The Irish Times on The Third Policeman states: “As a consequence, all theories are crackpot, all knowledge is useless and the only meaning is that life is a hell of endless repetition.”

it also states, on the novel: “To illustrate the futility of scientific theorising, O’Brien uses a recurrent theme of infinite regression. One of the characters has eyes with a pinpoint behind which are eyes with another pinpoint and so on to infinity; the narrator wonders if his soul is “a body with another body inside it in turn, thousands of such bodies within each other like the skins of an onion, receding to some unimaginable ultimum”; De Selby studies in a series of parallel mirrors infinite reflections of his face going back to early youth; and Policeman MacCruiskeen has constructed a series of nested chests with the last few so small that they are no longer visible to the naked eye. So speculation and experiment are mad activities that literally disappear into nothingness.”

And then we see Dumhnall Gleeson in the music video on a cycle he doesn’t know how to break, some violent repetition where he’s burying himself and going crazy, and the imagery of several versions of one person fits this PERFECTLY.

Everyone wants to talk about how they fucked in the Honda Odyssey, but I want to talk about the sloppy makeout they had after destroying the Time Ripper.

Like, I'm sorry but Wade and Logan had a little moment where they each tried to go in to spare the other, and then Logan was yelling for Wade to come back and that he's going to die while banging on the glass desperately??

Wade doing everything he can to keep Logan out of danger, while Logan is using all his strength to get to Wade!?? And them linking hands?? Logan losing his shirt and Wade approving of his abs and v-line.

You CANNOT tell me they didn't crawl out of the rubble into each other's arms and in the heat of the moment sloppily making out because they're both still alive and they're glad the other is alive.

They were committed in that moment and I'm so proud of them.

So, i read the @gay-fae post about how sad it is that Ed doesn't know about the conversation between Stede and Chauncey, about the fact that Ed doesn't know that Stede wanted to protect him because everything he touches ends up damaged. That is so, so sad, but do you know what makes it sadder? Ed must think that the reason why Stede left him is because he is not good enough anymore.

We know Ed didn't want anything to do with being Blackbeard anymore, he just wanted to be with Stede, in the British Army or somewhere far, far away from everyone they knew, however, from his perspective, the moment he says that to Stede, he vanishes, and even though Stede said he didn't really like how cruel and indifferent Blackbeard was, Ed must think that he only wanted the status that came from being near the most feared pirate of all times.

Ed doesn't know the real reason why Stede left, he only knows that the second he stepped down from his role, he was abandoned. And maybe that is why he once more became Blackbeard, because he was finally convinced he's nothing if not a monstrous pirate. And maybe, a part of him thinks that if he comes back to the sea angrier and crueler than ever, maybe Stede will someday come back.

You know what else drives me crazy about The Naked Time? This exchange:

It isn't just because of Spock saying, "Jim, when I feel friendship for you, I am ashamed" or "Understand, Jim. I've spent a whole lifetime learning to hide my feelings." Although, that absolutely is part of it, the fact that Spock is locked into his regret over not telling his mother he loved her and his shame at realizing that, despite all his work to adhere to Vulcan principles, he still feels love. It's that gap between duty versus desire, between expectations versus wants, and what remains in spite of the pressure. (I realize his words parallel a love confession in any other context, between any heterosexual couple, and that fandom looks to his shame as a confirmation of internalized homophobia, but the biggest issue for Spock is that love, sorrow, shame--all powerful emotions--still exist for him. He is not a Vulcan if he feels these emotions and gives into them. He is only a half-Vulcan and half-Human, caught between worlds and the judgments and expectations of two very different societies.)

It's because Kirk changes his phrasing of "We've got to risk a full-power start!" to, "We've got to risk implosion!" Implosion, like many words, holds multiple meanings. The intended meaning is "a violent collapsing inwards," the opposite of explosion. But implosion can mean integration, a coming together towards a single center point. We've got to risk coming together. We've got to risk integration. And Spock responds, "It's never been done." They repeat these lines twice. Repetition is a device to call attention in writing. Why have Kirk say they have to risk a full-power start twice before only to change it to implosion and repeat it twice? The two phrases mean something different, but it's important enough to bear repeating. (One could argue it is sloppy writing, or perhaps a case of actors failing to remember their lines, but what are the odds it was either of those, especially with someone as thoughtful as Leonard Nimoy. Either a writer is a professional who understands the power of words, or everything is somehow coincidental, holds no actual meaning, and writers don't think carefully about word choice and meaning, especially in an era where nuance can make or break a story on the screen.)

In the 1960s, during the time of the Hays Code, of course, two men couldn't be together as a couple on TV or in film, not even in space, in a time set centuries beyond our present. But damn if the dialogue can not hint at it, dance around it in plain sight. Again, Kirk and Spock's relationship must exist in the margins, between the lines, encased in nuance and multiple meanings, because to use explicitly clear phrasing would mean it all gets cut.

Hence, this bit of dialogue. The slaps become Spock catching Kirk's hand and holding it steady--direct sustained contact, a coming together, implosion. Spock is torn between regret and shame and love, while Kirk shouts about the ship being destroyed and ending the lives of the crew, their shared duty to the ship. The dialogue is Spock's turmoil writ large--do what must be done, accept two separate halves becoming a whole (is it Spock's two halves or Kirk and Spock? I'll leave that up to you), or remain apart and give into despair. But Kirk tells him their only chance is to risk implosion, to come together, and they have to take that chance.

So, First Light wasn’t the first (ha) song from Unreal Unearth to grab me, but a couple days ago it hit me like a truck and I have so many thoughts?

As an album closer, First Light is the exhale, the emergence from hell, but I think it’s also sorta about Hozier, or the narrator rather, romanticizing the mundane? Like, these lines:

One bright morning changes all things Soft and easy as your breathing, you wake Your eyes open at first a thousand miles away But turning shoot a silver bullet point-blank range And I can scarce believe what I'm believing in Could this be how every day begins?

The narrator wakes up in bed with his new lover. At first they’re groggy, then they see him, and BOOM, that look, the one of recognition/love that completely pierces him to the soul, that makes him question if this is real, if this can last

The sky set to burst The gold and the rust The colour erupts You filling my cup The sun coming up

… it’s just the sunrise. Pretty colors on the horizon, and his lover pouring him a cup of coffee. Such an ordinary act, a commonplace moment, yet it means so much more.

Like I lived my whole life Before the first light Like I lived my whole life Before the first light

And yet that’s enough, to overwhelm him with this sense of change, of this new version of himself, of new joy so intense it obliterates all that came before…

One bright morning goes so easy Darkness always finds you either way It creeps into the corners as the moment fades A voice your body jumps to calling out your name But after this I'm never gonna be the same And I am never going back again

That morning, that moment, is lovely, but it’s ephemeral. Darkness can and does return, it always will. But his lover calls his name, and he can’t help but respond to it, and be changed by it, this new self he shares with a lover, the new self he will become even if it ends.

The only way is forward, and that’s the beauty and tragedy of it all. It happens to almost everyone, at some point or other, and it’s so normal but it matters so much.

The way Neil Josten switched into Nathaniel in order to process and handle the abuse and trauma of being found by his father's people and the reality of his looming death will never not fuck me up, he literally said I can't handle this but maybe the Butcher's son could. And then. And then!! The way those two versions of himself coalesce into Neil Abram Josten (legally recognised) after Nathan is dead and the truth is out? The Neil Josten we see in The Sunshine Court has all of the attachments of Neil Josten, the slow unraveling of family and care but all of the hard edges of Nathaniel, unflinching from the reality of the world he lives in and the decisions he has to make to keep his life. Nathaniel would never have stuck around long enough to care about Jean Moreau and call a hit out on his abuser. Neil would never have trusted those resources available to him (or potentially the trail it could leave) in order to deal with the problem in one brutal but efficient move. But Neil Abram Josten reforged could, would and did.