It’s Not Much But It’s Really Nothing

“This is Admiral Paris.”

“Hello, Sir.”

“How are your people holding up?”

“Very well. They’re an exemplary crew, your son included.”

“Tell him…Tell him I miss him. And I’m proud of him.”

“He heard you, Admiral.”

I really do love words. I love how we can play with them, how they can evoke emotion in the way we pair them, and how they can surprise me with their meanings. And every once in a while the universe (all of them?) is kind and presents me with a … gift.

I have a persistent fic idea that will likely never be written but every once in a while pushes its way back into my brain and stays a while. And I can’t help but bask in the glow of what-if…? Sometimes I even find myself doing a little—a wee bit ‘o—research. And as the idea orbits my brain synchronicity magically appears from the depths of the aforementioned brain (unlike words in a fic I’m writing) and I find a few lines of delight on my computer screen. This happened today when I got it in my head to look up the meaning of Owen Paris’ name.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Owen is usually an anglicised variant of the Welsh personal name Owain. Originally a patronymic, Owen became a fixed surname in Wales beginning with the reign of Henry VIII.[1] Etymologists consider it to originate from Eugene meaning 'noble-born'.[2] According to T. J. Morgan and Prys Morgan in Welsh Surnames: "the name is a derivation of the Latin Eugenis > OW Ou[u]ein, Eug[u]ein ... <snip>

Now most (some?) of us know that the show runners named Thomas Eugene Paris after Gene Roddenberry, the legendary creator of Star Trek. But how absolutely wonderful is it that Eugene = Owen, Tom’s dad’s name!?

😃

The creators of Voyager inadvertently (unless they looked it up 🤷‍♀️) gave Tom his father’s name for his middle name.

Seriously, I love words! ❤️

“There's nothing like a heart that burns…” Or a Klingon temper that’s running equally hot. B’Elanna is likely still smarting from the incident which will never be discussed a few weeks ago, and is in no mood to put up with Creepy Doc’s creepiness. Seriously, unless our girl asks to be touched, keep your hands to yourself. And your smug opinions about her lunch habits. Or she might just rearrange your (deranged) algorithms! Really, incapacitating her was likely the Deranged Doc’s smartest move.

I can’t help wondering how the rest of the season would have played out if Kes had left with her romantic (somewhat smug & superior & bullying) traveling pilot, and Tom had been made the ship’s nurse at this point in the series. Would the Doc have invited both Tom & B’Elanna to dinner with his holographic family in Real Life?

There’s not much Tom in this episode but I don’t think he was felled by a Mikhal salad. What could he have been doing while the love of his life was lying in sickbay incapacitated by the Doctor’s rogue stitched-together programme? He wasn’t sitting. 🤷‍♀️ In fact, the only time we see him - entering a turbolift inhabited by the Evil Doctor and Ensign Brooks - he’s walking! And standing! And feeling a tad snubbed by the Doc as he tries a bid for sympathy and camaraderie, only to be rebuffed by an obviously off Doctor.

Tom’s spider Captain Proton senses are tingling (and why wouldn’t they be: he’s just spotted Intergalactic Evil in its nascent form! ) when he spots the Doc looking slightly crazed, but he doesn’t really call him out on his odd behaviour. He does hint that he’s working, rather than enjoying shoreleave on the Mikhal Traveller outpost, and he’s presumably on his way to the shuttlebay on deck ten, as is Ensign Brooks. Maybe they’re going to pickup those food supplies that Kes mentions in the first scene of the episode? We’ll never know because this is a Kes & the Doctor ep, not a Tom ep. 🤷‍♀️

(Note: there’s also very little Harry, Chakotay, and Tuvok in this episode but they managed to squeeze everyone in.)

I have my own theory about what Tom was thinking about before he stepped onto that ‘lift. Namely:

B’Elanna’s not off her game exactly, but I’ll bet she’s looking for a distraction from a certain blue-eyed pilot (and a certain pointy-eared Vulcan), and an away mission to a dead Borg cube to bring back a Borg corpse fits the bill. I like creeped out B’Elanna and the Borg make a great bogeyman, imo. Or at least early-Voyager Borg make a good bogeyman. By season 7… 🤷‍♀️.

B’Elanna’s concern for the missing, then injured, Chakotay is a nice throwback to their earlier friend/mentorship (before the aforementioned blue-eyed pilot started to take up her time & mental real estate), and I loved her suggestion that Chak just needed to play a game of hoverball with her and he’d be right as rain. I read it as her not only attempting to reconnect with her safe, accepting, definitely not-romantic friend, but also as her inner Klingon demanding a physical outlet as a way to banish those leftover feelings of lust & embarrassment & self-doubt from her little escapade on Sikari. And then he phasered her because his own new romantic interest was in his head, needing his help. It didn’t even seem to occur to him to simply turn the shuttle around. He was piloting it. He is the XO!

Tom is bored. Tom wants excitement. Tom maybe wants a distraction from thoughts of a sultry, sexy, dishevelled, half-Klingon, Amazon-warrior. Tom wasn’t listening last episode when B’Elanna (the warrior woman of his dreams) told him to ‘be careful what you wish for’. Well, there’s nothing like a Sudden Borg Cube! to get your heart pumping! Riley Frazer and her group of former drones feel a little contrived to me. Are we really supposed to believe that they wouldn’t jump at Janeway’s offer to go with Voyager & try to get home? Are we supposed to believe that they actually want to stay on that rocky wasteland of a planet? Are they all so brainwashed by their cult of mutual dependency that they’d actually prefer to be relinked to staying individuals?

🤷‍♀️

I have a sneaking suspicion that I already did Blood Fever back before my TT hiatus. 🤷‍♀️ It’s such a pivotal P/T episode that I don’t mind seeing Blood Fever content over & over again.

A perusal of past Tom Tuesday & Torres Thursday posts revealed that I actually did a little write up on the episodes to go with my crappy pic collages. Well… I’ve written (a couple of) essays on Blood Fever already. On lust & longing & desire, and CONSENT. They’re easily searched if anyone wants to read them. Instead, I’m just going to repost a couple of my favourite pic collages.

🎉 It’s the return of Torres Thursday, yay!! 🎉

Is back (after, frankly, zero demand). 🤔 After a prolonged break I’ve decided to start up my Tom Tuesday & Torres Thursday crappy collages. Yay. 🎉 I left off with Alter Ego, so…

Coda: Tom sits. And stands a bit. And looks concerned. And he gets to console a sad and grieving Harry in a fake future that’s only in KJ’s head.