but there's gonna be a party when the wolf comes home!

hang on i gotta google something

I love your agreeable and amenable and flexible nature and how none of your wants and needs ever get priority and how nobody even knows what they are to begin with and how you never start or engage in conflicts and never express even mildly unsavory opinions and get along with everyone from every conceivable group, that’s so trustworthy. hey quick question. do you happen to have an enormous pressurized reservoir of rage and resentment you feel like you can’t ever analyze or express because that would break the rules for the kind of person you are and if so, do you think a lifetime of squashing it down might ever backfire?

remember to bury the dead with a phone, everyone. these days the ferry terminal at the river styx wants you to download a fucking app

#the contrapposto of 'actually our 1st priority is friendly contact w/ other people our 2nd is exploration our 3rd is researching phenomena'#more seriously: despite the naval trappings i think the narrative is positing kirk far more as philosopher-king than actual naval captain.#the bridge is a court the captain's chair is a throne etc. the omnipresent possibility of mutiny if he fails is a legitimized revolt.#the xo is a...grand vizier/prime minister sort of situation. so spock can be the best xo in starfleet even though he's not great at xo jobs#kirk does the paperwork. personnel problems skip right past spock and go to kirk bc tos fundamentally doesn't believe they ARE spock's job#& while it is his job to take over in kirk's absence—the reality that nobody's happy when spock is forced into the full leadership role#doesn't diminish his reputation as xo bc his /real/ job is being the unflinchingly stalwart right hand & scholarly advisor to the prince#ergo spock's constant supply of lore; prioritizing kirk above his principles & everyone's lives; faithful obedience. he's a great vizier!#all the heavy lies the ... err. arm that wears triple braids and vulnerabilities of captaincy is straight out of shakespeare#kirk is a soldier far more along the lines of henry v than a 20th century vet. shatner himself said playing kirk just wasn't that different#from playing hal in henry v—not just in terms of his own approach as an actor but bc he simply didn't find the roles very different.#bones' recurrent fixation on the idea that spock is kirk's starscream plotting to steal the throne i mean captaincy#is also less deranged in this context bc royal figures w/ devoted genius right hand advisors carrying out their bidding#who sometimes really are fanatically devoted beyond morals and sometimes just scheming machiavels and sometimes both#are a whole trope in this THEATRICAL context. and outwardly spock's behavior could look like either fanatical devotee or machiavel.#k/s has a lot more king/chancellor and damsel-princess/rescuing knight in its dna than equal fellow soldiers in all but name#& the enterprise functions narratively more like a fortified city people can call home & live their lives within than a 60s naval posting (X @anghraine)

#tbh mccoy deserves credit for being the sole comfortably masculine guy in kirk's personal life to stick it out#and kirk is so brutally cold to him at times—not just to people. to bones—that it's not even surprising that he's the only one#they don't share as much as bones thinks they do but they /do/ share an important quality: willingness to hold themselves accountable#and apologize—which i suspect is part of how their friendship has survived this long where every other guy's guy in kirk's life falters#bones is also the only man who pretty consistently gets undiluted jim kirk without softened personas to make himself palatable#i feel like mccoy DOES value that. but also undiluted jim kirk is a LOT. & he didn't start putting the damper pedal on until recentlyish#and i do think bones befriended him before that. probably not unlike winning the trust of a half-feral hungry stray cat#bones: *feeding a literal stray on a regular basis for the 11th day* hey. i met a lieutenant teaching at the academy who reminds me of you#cat: *hiss* (but more quietly than on the previous days)#bones: yeah he pretty much does that. i bet you'd talk like him if you could talk.#he even does the twitchy pounce/hide/freeze thing when he's surprised! haha you'd probably get along#cat: *loftily ignoring him to inhale food despite now getting it regularly*#bones: ...actually he does that too. you'd think every chicken sandwich was going to be his last (X @anghraine)