oh I want that imaginary courtroom episode with every fibre of my being. measure of a man who
[For context, my tags: #ngl kirk has some very very good moments in the show but few can eclipse 'who do i have to be?' #the episode isn't even perfect (the theatre kid vibe can be. uh. a bit much even for me as an early modernist) but that moment? #just supremely good. my brain keeps circling back to it like !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #part of me wants a very slight au where the episode is exactly the same except for lenore conveniently killing off kodos #like they manage to capture and imprison him and lenore and have to actually decide what to do with these monsters #i feel like 'captain kirk as star witness in the prosecution of the eugenicist mass murderer kodos' would be... like. #character centric star trek courtroom drama of ultimate destiny]
Thank you!!! Me too ... like, I totally get why there's an easier resolution and back then ST wasn't going to risk multi-part narratives almost ever. But I think it could be really fascinating.
Something I've been thinking about is, well, there are all these early modern (specifically Shakespearean) references in the episode, and that's fine and all, but there's a line from a contemporary of Shakespeare's (John Webster) that keeps returning to me: "Who says so but yourself? if you be my accuser / Pray cease to be my Judge."
I feel like part of the question of the episode is the pressure on Kirk to be the accuser when what he longs for is judgment. But from the moment Leighton dies, he's realistically the only person alive who can be the accuser (Riley survives but was so young at the time that he'd make a much shakier accuser). And it's so obvious what judgment from other authorities would follow from him making the accusation. So ethically there isn't much distinction; beyond that, he says outright that if he could be sure about the accusation he might well deliver judgment on the spot ("If I had gotten everything I wanted, you might not walk out of this room alive"). He wants to be sure and if this guy is Kodos he wants to kill him. He'd probably resist the temptation, but he would very much want to.
But the AU scenario where he becomes sure about the accusation but resists the temptation to be "the judge" and goes through the proper channels ... whew. Star Trek courtroom trial of the century.
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Sam, you have a custom-made cat tree, right? my cat is very elderly and can no longer handle the cat tree she uses as a ladder to join us in our lofted bed; it's very difficult finding one that's even tall enough, let alone gentle to navigate. would you recommend the one you bought yours from? I seem to recall your experience was positive and I hope it's held up for your girls!
In full disclosure, I didn't pay for mine -- I was helping @figtreeandvine do a test of concept so I got it for free. (Etsy here, the custom tree option is down at the bottom.)
That said I love it and so do the cryptids, and Polk often sleeps in the top hammock, about seven feet off the ground. It was easy to assemble and it's very sturdy and smells amazing, and it's a fantastic conversation piece.
For an older cat with limited mobility I wouldn't recommend mine in specific, only because it's designed for fairly limber cats and has multiple levels but they require climbing and jumping to get to. Now that said, the tree was custom made and to my home measurements, so I would be willing to bet you could get one that's more a series of ramps for your older lady.
There's a post here about the process of building it and displaying the finished product; as you can see some bits are adjustable and some I've added padding. Overall it's been fantastic.
hey yall its been a long time! this years been really hard and i havent been able to focus much on content making at all.
these are from earlier this year, the first one being drawn to Breaking Benjamin’s “Failure” song
these others are silly ideas, making unofficial designs of Silentshadow and Cometshine based off of Shadow the Hedgehog and Amy Rose- what do you think???
Oooh, let's talk about the Steve and Peggy not-dance in Of Home Near 8, since this was a scene I rewrote a couple of times, and the final version is drastically different from the previous versions. (Which I've included here too.)
This scene is set in the Stork Club, the nightclub where Steve and Peggy were supposed to have their date in CATFA. There is a real Stork Club that was around in the 1940s, but it was in New York City, not London. There was also another Stork Club in London, but from what I could find it wasn't around until the 1950s. (It's currently called the Cuckoo Club.) I'm not sure if the one mentioned in the film is meant to be the NYC one or the London one. After angsting about it I just made it a London nightclub, but it's not meant to be based on the real Stork Club or have any real internal geography.
The back of his neck prickled as he began to make his slow meandering way through the crowd, turning his head from side to side as if he was searching for someone. Despite the music and the general festive atmosphere, Steve had the sensation that he was in enemy territory, like the occupied cities on the continent he had passed through during the war, aware that someone – maybe more than one someone – was watching him with their hand on their gun. Even before the past two years on the run he had gotten used to the feeling of looking over his shoulder and not showing off that that was what he was doing; since then it had become second nature.
The first rule of going on the run is don’t run, walk, Natasha’s voice whispered in his memory. He wasn’t on the run again, not yet, but the same principle applied.
This scene is meant to mirror Steve's Wanda-induced vision in Age of Ultron, as Steve later realizes, so this entire section is pulled straight out of AoU. Except that they're just at a regular nightclub with a regular band, not a USO band.
There was a dreamlike air to his passage through the nightclub, in the flare of the women’s skirts on the dance floor and the steady pulse of the swing music, so unlike what he had gotten used to in the twenty-first century. Someone popped the cork on a champagne bottle near him and Steve flinched, startled by the sound and the spray of the liquid that caught the edge of his left hand. Flashbulbs popped nearby, a couple of photographers taking pictures of the dancers and various couples and groups at the round tables, making Steve jerk instinctively away as if they had been muzzle flashes instead.
He turned quickly at the sound of raised voices, just in time to see two soldiers shoving at each other, a third quickly getting between them. On his other side, one soldier wiped spilled wine from another’s shirt, both men laughing, the red liquid looking horrifyingly like blood in the room’s dim light.
I’ve been here before, Steve thought suddenly. Not the Stork Club; he would have remembered that. There was an oddly hollow quality to the memory, unreal somehow, and it was that which let him place it.
Wanda.
Three years ago in South Africa on Ulysses Klaue’s ship. It wasn’t an exact replica of the induced vision – no USO banner behind the band, the music was different, no MPs – but it was close enough to raise the hair on the back of his neck. Which meant –
He turned before Peggy could speak.
He hadn’t seen her before she had left headquarters, but somehow it wasn’t a surprise to see that she was wearing exactly what she had worn in Wanda’s vision – blue dress, silver earrings, a red silk flower pinned to her right shoulder. Whatever she had been about to say died unspoken at the expression on his face; after a moment where they just stared at each other, she said, “Are you all right?”
“I –” Steve hesitated. “I owe you a dance.”
From here on I rewrote this entire section. In the first few versions of the scene, Peggy essentially came to terms with Steve not being the same guy who went into the ice, which is the exact opposite of what happens in the final version. (I'll put both alternate versions of the scene at the end.)
Her eyebrows went up. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Under the circumstances, I’m not going to insist on collecting.”
Steve swallowed. “Maybe I want you to.”
Steve really wants to actually get the dance he's been waiting for for seventy-three years, but he can't do it without Peggy.
Peggy’s eyebrows stayed up. She was quiet for a long few heartbeats, during which the song the band had been playing finished and there was a brief moment of silence before they started up again. Into it, she said finally, “Sometimes I wonder if any of this is real to you. If to you we’re all just – just playactors in some elaborate pantomime like those awful stage shows you used to put on, so you can say or do whatever you want because it doesn’t matter. Lie about her, wear that uniform, say that to me.”
Fun fact: in one of the versions of this scene I put the lyrics of the song the band is playing in, but they weren't as relevant in the angrier final version, rather than the bittersweet previous versions. It's "When the Lights Go On Again" by Vaughn Monroe, linked version is sung by Vera Lynn ("when the lights go on again all over the world / and the boys are home again all over the world / and rain or snow is all that may fall from the skies above / a kiss won't mean 'goodbye' but 'hello to love').
“I know it’s real,” Steve said, swallowing again. The words hurt, but they were meant to; she knew him well enough for that. “That you’re real – you and Howard and Phillips and the Howlies –”
“Do you?” Peggy said. “Do you really? Because sometimes you don’t act like it.”
“This would be a hell of a lot easier if I thought it wasn’t real,” Steve told her. “A hell of a lot.”
Peggy doesn't know what to think about 2018 Steve -- and she doesn't really accept that he's 2018 Steve, instead of 1945 Steve that something completely bizarre happened to.
She shook her head. “I don’t understand you anymore, Steve,” she said. “I used to, or I thought I did, and now – it’s like one man went up in the Valkyrie and someone else came back. I want to understand and I can’t and you won’t let me.”
“Have you even tried?” Steve said softly. “Every time you’ve talked to me since I got here you’ve been trying to catch me out in one lie or another.”
In Peggy's defense Steve does keep lying, it's just not the thing that she thinks he's lying about that he's lying about.
“And you keep lying,” Peggy said. “It’s like you can’t help yourself. You wouldn’t have done that six weeks ago; it’s not who you are. Only now –”
Steve shut his eyes briefly, then opened them again, because if he was going to say this, then he had to look her in the eye when he did it. “Then maybe you never really knew me, Peggy, because I was always this guy. Maybe you only ever knew the guy you wanted me to be.”
Steve swallowed hard. “Then maybe that’s the problem.”
I've put a lot of thought into both Peggy's relationship with Steve and Peggy's perceived relationship with Steve, and what it's like over the course of CATFA and afterwards, in Agent Carter. (Even though this story takes place prior to AC by more than a year, it's a good look at how Peggy's idea of Steve crystallized post-death.) I think Peggy does have a very idealized view of Steve, in the same way that Steve has a very idealized view of Peggy, and in Peggy's case that's very heavily affected by the fact that Steve (apparently) died tragically a month earlier -- well, six weeks earlier by this point in the story. Steve died and everyone treated Peggy like a widow (even though they hadn't really been anything but a 'maybe' and that was on Peggy, not Steve), and she was able to build up an ideal of Steve. I think Steve says elsewhere in this story that Peggy never looked twice at him (as a potential romantic partner) pre-serum and I do think that's true. But I think post-death PEGGY doesn't think that's true, so she has this very idealized view of pre-serum Steve as being "real" Steve -- it's why she keeps the pre-serum photo of him from the end of CATFA in AC and later in Endgame. Distance and not having the actual person there lets her believe that she always felt that way about him and even that post-serum Steve was less "real," especially since post-serum Steve was ~America's golden boy and that woman does not like sharing. And this is the scene where Steve realizes that maybe Peggy really doesn't know him as well as he thinks she does.
A muscle in her jaw worked. She looked like she was on the verge of tears – Steve felt like he was on the verge of tears, though he didn’t know how much of that showed on his face. He wanted to reach for her, to do something to take even a little of that uncomprehending misery away from her, but he had just forfeited any right he had to comfort her. He started to open his mouth, to apologize, maybe, but he couldn’t do that either. She wouldn’t believe him and it would just be empty words, meaningless except as an attempt to absolve himself.
There was something horribly final about it, as if Steve had finally severed some last remaining tie to the life he should have had, to the man he should have been – his own choice this time, and not the one that fate or God or Abraham Erskine had made for him. For a wild moment, all he wanted to do was take it back, to shout that it was a mistake and that he still wanted this, this life, this woman, this person that no one had ever really laid to rest six years or six weeks or seventy-three years ago, the man that maybe he could have been. He wanted his life back, the same way he had wanted it every day for six years.
But it wasn’t his life anymore. It hadn’t been for a long time.
Steve's known it for a while but he's admitting it now.
*
First version of the scene:
He turned before Peggy could speak.
He hadn’t seen her before she had left headquarters, but somehow it wasn’t a surprise to see that she was wearing exactly what she had worn in Wanda’s vision – blue dress, silver earrings, a red silk flower pinned to her right shoulder. Whatever she had been about to say died unspoken at the expression on his face; after a moment where they just stared at each other, she said, “Are you all right?”
“I –” Steve hesitated. “I owe you a dance.”
“I think your – wife – might protest.”
He winced at the slight but deliberate pauses she had put around the word wife. Natasha had told him about the conversation she had had with Peggy the previous day; Peggy had been avoiding him ever since Howard’s arrival, and now he knew why.
“No,” Steve said. “She knows –” He didn’t know how to end that. What this means to me would probably just make Peggy laugh in his face. He just said again, “She knows.”
Peggy looked at him for a long moment, her expression unreadable, and then she said simply, “I don’t.”
Steve shut his eyes, heavy with grief. He could have explained, maybe, or at least tried to, but he knew without even saying a word that it didn’t really matter. He could say anything he liked, but it would just be words now; the chance for anything else had already passed. He had to try anyway. “I’m sorry.”
“I am too,” Peggy said. “Sorry.” She took a deep breath, as if bracing herself, and said, “It was never going to be me, was it?”
I've put in and cut out the "it was never going to be me, was it?" line through SEVERAL different scenes now; it also appeared in a previous version of Chapter 7, when Peggy confronts Steve after she finds out from Natasha that they started sleeping together in 1945.
Steve swallowed hard. “It could have been,” he said. “I wanted it to be. For a really – for a really long time.”
“When did you stop?”
It took everything Steve had not to look away, to keep his gaze fixed on hers, because if nothing else he owed her that. He still hesitated before he admitted, “When we got here.”
This version of the scene was written before the Peggy and Natasha conversation in Chapter 7, so it had to be changed.
Peggy made a sound like she had been struck, a little hitching gasp that tore at Steve’s heart. He started to reach for her and then stopped, knowing that the only right he had to comfort her was that of a friend, and he had never been entirely certain they were even that. For an instant her gaze met his again, then she took a step backwards, out of his reach.
“It’s not because of her, is it?” she said, her voice hoarse from suppressed tears. “It’s not even because of me. You’re – you’re really not him, are you? No more than I’m the woman I was in 1939.”
I honestly don't think Peggy has the level of self-awareness to have this realization here.
Steve shook his head, a brief, compressed gesture. “No,” he said. “I’m not. I – I wish I still was. But I’m not. I’m sorry.”
Peggy’s nod was just as compressed, barely more than her chin lifting for an instant. “I’m sorry too.”
There was something horribly final about it, as if Steve had finally severed some last remaining tie to the life he should have had, to the man he should have been – his own choice this time, and not one that fate or God or Abraham Erskine had made for him. For a wild moment all he wanted to do was take it back, to shout that he had been mistaken and that he still wanted this, this life, this woman, this person that she and Howard and the Commandos had all buried six years or six weeks or seventy-three years ago. He wanted his life back, the same way he had wanted it every day for the last six years.
This paragraph remained the same in all the versions.
You could want anything. Being able to have it was something else entirely.
*
Second version of this scene (the songfic version).
He turned before Peggy could speak.
He hadn’t seen her before she had left headquarters, but somehow it wasn’t a surprise to see that she was wearing exactly what she had worn in Wanda’s vision – blue dress, silver earrings, a red silk flower pinned to her right shoulder. Whatever she had been about to say died unspoken at the expression on his face; after a moment where they just stared at each other, she said, “Are you all right?”
“I –” Steve hesitated. “I owe you a dance.”
Her eyebrows went up slightly, then her expression softened a little. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Under the circumstances, I’m not going to insist on collecting.”
Steve felt a muscle in his jaw work. “Peggy –” he said, but he didn’t know what came after that. He just let her name hang there between them until he finally added, “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t answer at first and the silence stretched out between them as the band finished its current set. There was a little shuffling as a singer came onto the stage.
“I am too,” Peggy said. “Sorry.”
For a long moment they just stared at each other. The singer began to croon “When the Lights Go On Again” and Steve shut his eyes briefly.
When the lights go on again all over the world
And the boys are home again all over the world –
“I still owe you a dance,” he said.
Peggy looked like she was going to cry. “Steve, you’re married,” she said simply. “Or close enough to make no difference.”
Again, I don't think Peggy has this level of self-awareness. It also meant the next scene didn't really work, because it completely stopped the flow of action in the chapter, and this has to be a THINGS ARE HAPPENING! chapter. (The next scene was also cut.)
It was the first time that she had actually admitted it, instead of arguing it with him or using it like a challenge.
“Yeah,” Steve said. “I am.”
And rain or snow is all that may fall from the skies above
A kiss won’t mean goodbye but hello to love.
Peggy turned her head slightly towards the stage, her mouth crooking upwards for an instant at the irony of the lyrics. Then she looked back at him and said, her voice trembling a little, “It was never going to be me, was it?”
“It could have been,” Steve said, swallowing hard. “I wanted it to be. For a long time – for a really long time.”
“When did you stop?”
It took everything Steve had not to look away from her, to keep his gaze fixed on hers. He still hesitated before he admitted, “When we got here.”
Again, written before the revised scene in 7.
Peggy made a sound like she had been struck. Steve started to reach for her and then stopped, his hand still outstretched, knowing that the only right he had to comfort her was that of a friend, and he had never been entirely certain that they were even that. She took a step back, out of his reach.
Genuinely, I'm not sure that canon Steve and Peggy were actually friends, they had too much other stuff going on with the both of them.
“It’s not because of her, is it?” she said hoarsely. “It’s not even because of me. You’re – you’re really not him, are you? No more than I’m the woman I was in 1939.”
I have some very firm ideas about what Peggy was up to before the war and in the early days of the war, pre-SSR.
Steve shook his head, a brief, compressed gesture. “I’m not him,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Peggy’s nod was just as compressed, barely more than her chin lifting for an instant. “I’m sorry too.”
There was something horribly final about it, as if Steve had finally severed some last remaining tie to the life he should have had, to the man he should have been – his own choice this time, and not one that fate or God or Abraham Erskine had made for him. For a wild moment all he wanted to do was take it back, to shout that he had been mistaken and that he still wanted this, this life, this woman, this person that she and Howard and the Commandos had all buried six years or six weeks or seventy-three years ago. He wanted his life back, the same way he had wanted it every day for the last six years.
You could want anything. Being able to have it was something else entirely.
There was a Peggy POV scene that followed this one that was cut from the final version of the chapter, of Peggy crying in the ladies room and then talking with Rose. It's a scene that has a lot of stuff I really like in it -- particularly how much Peggy just Does Not Get why Steve insisted on staying Captain America -- but it completely slowed the chapter to a crawl and it doesn't work with the angrier final version. One reason I've cut every scene that has bittersweet acceptance from Peggy (there are others!) is that they just don't work, and they don't really ring true. I also think the anger's more interesting -- I don't think any hardcore Peggy fans are actually reading this story, which is probably for the best, but going by AC I don't think Peggy would just accept it. And it adds interesting tension between Peggy and everyone else, even if it's exhausting for everyone involved, including me.
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Headcanon: Lan Qiren is, of course, everybody's teacher, but he plays a special mentorship role for Lan Jingyi.
Heartcanon: He would never admit it, but he absolutely goes to the bunny meadow once that's a thing. He always makes sure to be there when no one else is.
Gutcanon: I don't know why, when we've never seen him use one himself, but I feel certain that Lan Qiren is the one who taught Lan Xichen to play the xiao.
Junkcanon: I do not think about this man in this way. I do, however, believe that he has a wife off screen the entire time that canon is happening and is just extremely exasperated that nobody else in the jianghu seems capable of having functional relationships.
Spleencanon: I just don't believe that Lan Qiren genuinely and literally carved "do not interact with Wei Ying" on the big rules wall in Cloud Recesses. The Lan strictures are sacred! It just seems like a fucking waste. Not because he thinks particularly well of Wei Wuxian, but, like, would you want your disapproved-of in-law immortalized along with your most important tenets, even in a negative way? Would you want to guarantee that one of the highest-ranking and best-beloved of your senior disciples will forever be ambivalent about your sect because he is forever breaking a rule you set down about his husband? Also, like, carving words into rock takes time and labor, this isn't something that's done on a whim or in a fit of rage. I just don't think Lan Qiren by post-canon wants to die on this particular hill.
Hello drwcn! A question about Meng Yao's position in the Nie Sect: NMJ says in episode 41 that he's making him his "vice general"; the subtitles + google translate give me his title as "副将". Clearly something in the nature of 2IC is meant here, but is this necessarily analogous to a military rank? in which case, does MY explicitly outrank the Nie captain he kills within the hierarchy of their fighting ranks? Or can it mean something like a steward, a castellan, and be more of a civilian title?
Honestly... it’s not entirely clear. A 副将 is kind of like a right hand man. A commander can have a couple of 副将s.
CQL is very wishy washy with their ranks, so I’m not too sure.
Aziraphale is not looking at Crowley’s hands. He’s not doing a lot of things – not thinking how the slim-fitting coat makes him look even longer and leaner than usual, not taking note of the curve of his calf in his stockings, not trying to guess where he’s looking behind those dark glasses. But most of all he’s not looking at Crowley’s hands, at the long, slim fingers, at the lazy, casual grace of the gesture that frees him from his chains.
He is, in fact, so firmly Not Looking at Crowley’s hands that it takes him a moment longer than it should to realize he’s free, and to pull his gaze back to his own wrists, sore where the shackles have rubbed and pinched. He lets out an annoyed little oh and rubs at a tender spot, trying to decide whether this, too, is too frivolous to merit a miracle.
“What’s the matter?” Crowley says. When Aziraphale looks back at him, he hasn’t moved, but now he’s definitely looking at Aziraphale. At his hands.
“Oh,” Aziraphale says, feeling a little flustered. “It’s– the chain, you know. Left a bit of a mark.”
“Left a mark,” Crowley repeats, in a hiss – it shouldn’t be possible to hiss a sentence with no sibilants in it, but he manages it – and gets to his feet. Before Aziraphale can stop him he’s caught Aziraphale’s hand, pushing back the cascading lace of his cuff. Or trying to, anyway – there really is a lot of lace to contend with – and muttering, “What were you thinking, dressed up in all this nonsense–”
He ought to say something back, make some waspish remark about Crowley’s dress sense, something, anything. But Crowley’s hand slides up the underside of his wrist, and he can’t think about anything else, can only gasp and pull his hand away as if burned.
“No, it’s–” Aziraphale starts, and then realizes he has no other explanation for flinching and backtracks, “Well, a little.”
Crowley looks back down at his wrist, which after all is barely hurt, and makes a sad little moue, and a soft tch sound between his teeth. It occurs to Aziraphale that he’s being made fun of. Probably deservedly – he could have freed himself at any time, and he is inclined to fuss about little inconveniences like this all out of proportion to their severity, but…
Then Crowley touches his wrist again, runs one long finger over the worst of the scrapes, and Aziraphale feels the raw skin heal over and it dawns on him that Crowley isn’t making fun at all.
And that there is something worse than watching Crowley’s hands at a distance, wanting them to touch him and knowing it won’t happen, and it’s this: being offered that touch and turning it away. Pulling his wrist back, out of Crowley’s grip, and saying in a voice that’s barely more than a breath, “Better not.”
“Right,” Crowley says, after a long moment. “You’re right. No telling what sort of trouble I’d be in for.” He clears his throat, and then says in a more normal voice, “Lunch?”
He’s not looking at Crowley’s hands. He’s not. But as they materialize outside the little cafe he suggested, he thinks he sees Crowley reach for his hand again, and then think better of it and draw back, fingers curled.
