#where is picard going with that shirt in mind?

[lady-starkiller]

#tng #riker #picard #deanna troi #think will and jean luc share wardrobe #they are besties #will @ the holodeck like: computer...load chili's program #where is picard going with that shirt in mind? #that's for you to figure out #feel like picard and bev would get up to shenanigans #straight up hijinks #tomfoolery #picard and q would cause a galactic incident #in matching shirts #star trek tng

[storiesofsvu]

Habits of the Heart Ch 5

Warnings: Language, talk of the SVU job, mental health **This case is from the show, I just altered a few things (i.e., took out Elliot) cause I already made Liv captain #whoops. A couple lines of dialogue are also straight from the episode.**

***

To say this case had been a doozy one would be an understatement. The squad had found a missing girl in the trunk of a car, raped and beaten within an inch of her life, it linked to another missing and raped girl down in Louisiana. When Olivia and Fin had gone to arrest the perp, he’d ended up bashing Fin so hard into the car that he’d gone temporarily blind. As it turned out, Saul Picard was a schizophrenic currently off his meds, completely out of it when the attacks took place. He’d thought he was watching other people rape his little sister, which he had in fact witnessed when he was seventeen.

The fed’s had been tipped off and they wanted to extradite him back to Louisiana for trial, where he would end up facing the death penalty, Casey managed to swaggle things around with his defence attorney to try him in New York. Problem being once Picard was back on his meds and lucid, he refused a 730 hearing to deem him incompetent of trial, instead wanting to go back to Louisiana to die, not being able to live with the guilt of what he’d done. You knew it had to be a tricky situation all around for Casey, careful to keep an eye on her from a distance, making sure to attend the trial. It wasn’t a complete surprise to you when she purposely threw the trial, causing Picard to have an outburst in court, the judge ruling for a 730 hearing. Returning to the precinct you ended up getting into with Olivia, standing up for Casey’s behaviour since she wasn’t there to do it herself.

“Picard doesn’t belong in a jail cell left to rot, he belongs in a hospital getting the proper care and you know it!” Tensions were rising, you knew it probably wasn’t smart to fight with your superior, yet here you were.

“Summers are you seriously saying that those two little girls don’t deserve justice for what happened to them?” 

“They deserve to know that they’re safe, which they would be if Picard was simply off the streets! He needs help! You just wanted him dead and if he want back to Louisiana he would be, and you’d be sitting up here with clean hands! Novak did what she had to do!”

“Casey just threw the trial for personal reasons ‘cause of her schizophrenic ex!” That startled you, Olivia knew about that?!

“Doesn’t mean you weren’t motivated by revenge for what he did to your sergeant!” Benson’s face hardened,

“You know what? You’re done for the day, get out of here.” Huffing you grabbed your blazer from your desk, “And take tomorrow too.”

“Fine…” You turned from the squad room right as your phone pinged with a text. Picard had made a noose out of his shirt and tried to hang himself in lock up….

***

When you reached Rikers the guard told you Picard already had a visitor and you weren’t surprised to see Casey in the meeting room with him. You held back, knowing that she had the situation handled, not to mention you didn’t want to overwhelm Picard. Casey glanced up as she exited the room, surprised to find you standing in front of her.

“Y/N…what’re you doing here?” 

“Same thing as you.” You nodded towards Picard, “He okay?” Casey sighed in response as the two of you made your way out of the building.

“Aside from still wanting to die…I guess so.”

“You look like you could use a drink…” She stalled at that, you’d warmed a little to her over the past few months, but still kept your distance, like you were keeping her an arms length at all times.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, c’mon…”

***

The two of you ended up back at a small dive bar in Manhattan, sitting in a booth in the back, thankful for the alcohol making things flow easier between you.

“Do you think Picard’ll get better?” You asked quietly over the rim of your wine,

“I don’t know…” Casey was quiet, you could tell what was on her mind, “..I thought Charlie would…”

“What happened?”

“He was living on the streets after I kicked him out…I got a call from the morgue six months ago…” She could feel the tears building up in her eyes, slightly hating that she still cared so much, “I just…can’t help but think that if I hadn’t…” Instinctively your hand reached across the table, giving hers a reassuring squeeze. Her chest tightened, feeling the flicker of a spark at the contact.

“Casey…you’re not to blame for this…you had to save yourself.”

“I know…” A wave of disappointment flowed through her when you removed your hand, she shook her head, trying to clear her brain of everything the Picard case had brought up. Deciding to change the subject completely she spoke again, “So…you and Carisi?” You laughed into your drink at that, 

“I’m still as gay as the day you met me Case.” You took a sip, “Though he did kiss me once, maybe I should be more obvious…” She laughed at that, you were more than happy to finally see a smile break across her cheeks.

Over the next couple of hours things seemed to loosen up as you continued to talk, the conversation flowed through work, a bit of gossiping about the squad, other attorneys and the like. A bit of time was spent updating each other on the last few years of your lives, Casey was glad to hear that you were thriving at SVU, you seemed genuinely happy with how things had been going. It was only when your phone pinged that you’d realized how late it had gotten, settling up your tabs before leaving the bar. Awkwardness hung in the air between you as you started to say your good nights, you made to turn back to your car when Casey’s voice broke through the air gently.

“Hey…uhm…the story you told that vic..the Zoloft one…was that true?” You sighed, deciding your keys were suddenly more interesting than looking up at her.

“Yeah…All true…” Case felt another wave of guilt flow through her as you mustered the courage to actually meet her eye.

“I’m really sorry…” Her voice was barely above a whisper, shaking slightly in the night.

“Yeah…me too..” You seemed to suddenly get a sense of bravery, stepping towards her. It had been such a torturous few weeks working this case, everyone’s emotions were heightened, you nearly craved the affection, pulling her into a hug. Casey nearly jumped at the motion, surprised at tenderness, instinctively her arms wrapped around you. “You did the right thing Case…” She barely heard the murmur of your words, muffled against her coat. You stayed embraced until you started to feel the weight of the week lifted off your shoulders, pulling away slowly, you gave her hand another squeeze. “I’ll see ya around.” Casey gave you a soft smile, making your separate ways home.

#casey novak #casey novak x reader #habits of the heart #law and order #law and order svu #svu #law and order special victims unit

[blooblooded]

Lost Colony World Building

STANFORD, MONTANA, 2022: JERRY

After a draining day in the stockyard, Jerry Botega came home to find his wife arguing with their housemate for what seemed like the hundredth time.

“Not only are you wrong, but you’re stupid,” Reuben Kowalski was saying. Jerry could hear his loud, pretentious voice before he could even see him. It grated on his nerves like the squeaky brakes of a car and brought out urges he could not speak about. “There’s no way you think that. There’s no way that you don’t think Picard is the best Captain in Star Trek. Nobody agrees with you. You’re the only person on earth who thinks that.”

“Sisko’s better at making the hard choices. He–”

“First of all, Silas, first of all– Sisko’s a Commander, he isn’t even a Captain. Second– at least Picard’s not a war criminal! He has an actual moral compass. Do you remember the one where Sisko poisons an entire planet to get one over on that terrorist group? Picard would have come to a peaceful solution instead. Also, TNG is the superior series in every way so I don’t even know why you would think that.”

Not that Jerry held much stock in liberal terminology like mansplaining, but that was the closest word he could find for the way that Kowalski spoke to his wife. Their endless dorky squabbling exhausted him. Jerry bypassed the living room to avoid them both and opened the fridge to grab a beer. One of the dogs jumped up on him when he walked in. He closed his eyes.

Bone tired. He was bone tired. Another calf had been born...wrong…that morning. Its neck had been fused back to its spine and there had been oozing, translucent skin covering its eyes and ears. The poor pitiful thing ripped its momma apart on the way out and had been born screaming. Massive internal hemorrhaging, it was a miracle from the Devil that it had not been stillborn. He’d had to put a .22 slug in the back of its head to put it out of its writhing, painful misery. That was happening more and more often lately and now he had to walk in on the two people he lived with arguing about television.

“The Federation isn’t perfect,” Silas said sullenly. “That’s why I like Sisko better. Picard’s peaceful diplomacy only exists because other people in the Federation are watching over it and doing the nasty stuff that nobody wants to think about.”

“Yeah, Section 30-whatever it is. Oh, that’s wonderful, Silas, I’d rather not watch a series that glorifies terrorism and Soviet style secret police. And Riker’s in TNG! Come on, you can’t beat Riker.”

“Worf gets more development in DS9.”

“That’s– they completely mischaracterize him!”

Jerry took a long sip of beer. Everything smelled like blood. Everything had been smelling like blood since the sky ripped itself open and turned red two weeks ago. The astronomers on the news– including one of Reuben’s prissy ex-boyfriends who lived in Quebec– all said that it was a natural phenomenon. Jerry suspected that everything was about to go to hell.

He gave the dog another pat before walking into the living room. Reuben stood in front of the TV with his hands on his sizable hips, looking pompous. Even though the college stopped its classes after the unprecedented astronomical phenomena, he still dressed up every day in his khakis and button down shirt. Not exactly common for the middle of bumfuck nowhere. His eyebrows were raised haughtily as he looked down on Silas. Jerry’s wife on the other hand, was wearing the same sweatpants and hoodie she always did when she was not at work. She sat hunched and cross legged on the couch holding a half-smoked joint, her dark hair in a loose ponytail. Every day that passed without answers for the terrible slash in the sky left her more agitated and depressed.

Jerry shrugged at them both. The TV wasn’t even on.

“Busy day?” asked Reuben Kowalski.

“Eh.” Better not to worry him by talking about the deformed calf. Silas could handle it, she was entirely cornfed and unsophisticated. But Reuben had soft hands and a softer mind. He was tender. Jerry could not help but think of him with some manner of tenderness. 

“What are your opinions on Star Trek?” Reuben was trying to score some kind of nerdy point. Trying to get one over on Silas. For some reason he liked to poke at her. “You ever watch Star Trek, Jeremiah?”

Over the 10 years he had been married to Silas, Jerry had been forced to watch hours and hours of stupid television shows. Hours he would never get back. He sipped his beer. “I ain’t taking sides in this one, sorry.”

“He’s such a Worf.”

That seemed vaguely racist. Jerry rather thought of himself as more of an O’Brien; exhausted and overworked and married to a botanist who was brighter and better than him in every way. He just shrugged at that as well, then sat down next to his wife. Silas looked at him from the corner of her dark eyes and gave his knee a quick pat.

He knew that she was scared. He knew that they were all scared. The sky was red for god’s sake! People were posting online about some kind of disease that had come from outer space, which was crazy in itself, it was like something out of one of Silas’ shows. How was he supposed to comfort her? How was he supposed to make her or anyone feel like they were safe?

Oh god. The mutated, screaming calves. His hands had started shaking when he put them down. How many had there been now? A dozen? More? Was this happening all over? He could hear them when he closed his eyes. That was what was in front of everyone, wasn’t it? Everyone was going to die screaming because of whatever sci-fi bullshit the earth had been thrown into.

He figured they were all going to die very soon. They were just sitting around waiting for it to happen. And here were Silas and Reuben, arguing about science fiction. Maybe it was better that way. It was a distraction for them. He didn’t have the luxury of distracting himself though. Jerry had to be responsible. He had to take care of his wife and his…well, his Reuben. 

The sky was red! The stars were in the wrong places! People were getting sick all over the world, every country with nuclear weapons was threatening its neighbors, and all Jerry could think about was the screaming, twisting calves. He couldn’t handle it. There was nothing to do and nowhere to run. There was nothing to understand. 

When Jerry had to slaughter an animal, whether it was a chicken or a hog, he always treated it real good before delivering the killing blow. He’d feed the chickens meal worms. Distract them a little. Their lives were so short and bad, they deserved a little distraction. Maybe that was what was happening now. Maybe he was supposed to play along with this conversation, he just didn’t have the heart to.

Silas took a hit off her joint and then passed it to him. Jerry shook his head. She shrugged. Oh, his poor Silas. She tried so hard to protect herself from the world. Ever since she had been just a little kid in foster care she had walled off her heart so nobody could hurt her, she distracted herself with stories about a far off future she could never build. He wished he could protect her.

“You want to watch the news?” she asked him quietly.

Anything but that. He was so tired. Tired of everything, achingly bone-tired, ready-to-die tired. Jerry put an arm around his wife, a woman who could never love him the way he needed but who he loved anyway. He needed a distraction too but he would never get it. “Nah,” he said. “Nah, we can watch Star Trek. But only if we watch the series with the Black Vulcan guy in it. Not the one with the wormhole and the goo aliens, that’s too– that shit’s too close to home.”

He would not realize just how too close to home it was for hundreds of years. By that time it would be too late.

“Oh god,” whined Reuben. “That’s the worst one.” But he sat down on the couch beside Jerry anyways.

A welcome distraction. 

EDEN, 200 YEARS BEFORE THE EVENTS OF BLUEBLOODS: SILAS

“I hadn’t heard from him in months,” said Silas. She tried to keep her voice from breaking. Over the last few days, she had cried more than she had in hundreds of years. She couldn’t stand crying, she couldn’t stand any weakness coming from inside of her. But how could she help it? This was her husband! “I hadn’t heard from him in months and two nights ago he calls me and something is– something is wrong! He looked sick and he was talking about– I can’t explain it, he was talking about crazy things!”

“Talking about what?” asked Reuben Kowalski from the screen in front of her. He shared the screen with Frank Toussaint and Anikah Liu; all three of them were hundreds of miles away from her, just like Jerry was. All three of them appeared unaged and unchanged. “What exactly are we talking about here?”

“Things from before!” She could barely bring herself to say it, it was all too illogical. Her mind could not grasp anything that could not be explained by science and logic but here she was. “That Book. That Book he took from Teddy Isaksen’s compound when we– when we all–”

“--When we all died.”

The hair on the back of Silas’ neck stood up. She remembered how Isaksen had put a bullet in her and each of her friends. She remembered the black nothingness. She didn’t like to think about it, but Jerry had always believed that some kind of miracle had happened that day because of Isaksen’s Book.

But it wasn’t Isaksen’s Book, was it? It was something else. It was something…something alive. She could push that uncomfortable thought away as much as she liked but it did not change the fact that something had happened that day that nobody could explain. It was completely out of her control and there was nothing Silas hated more. 

“Well, what did Jerry say, Silas?” asked Frank. His voice and his nasally Quebecois accent made her grit her teeth. He had always talked down to her, thought that he was better than her because of his education, thought that he was more cultured than her because of where he came from. He thought that she was some stupid midwestern hick. She couldn’t stand him. “He must have said something to you.”

“He said something bad is happening in Asilo. People are– are changing.”

“People are fleeing his Colony and coming to mine.” Frank’s tone was dismissive. “Some kind of religious oppression. They’ve formed religious beliefs based off that Book of his and it’s out of control. I’ve opened my borders to anyone who wants to leave since the Territories are only 200 miles from Asilo.”

On her end, Silas was doing her best to stamp out all religion from Eden and set up the peaceful atheistic utopia that she believed was best. But this wasn’t that. This was something else. Something bad, something unmentionable. Something bad that was no longer contained! She shook her head. “You shouldn’t be letting anyone from Asilo into your Colony, Frank, you shouldn’t be letting anyone in at all. They’re all sick, I think they’re all sick or something’s wrong with them, very wrong. We should all be quarantined!”

“It sounds as if Eden has been quarantined for decades. Not all of us are isolationists.”

She wished that she could reach through the screen and punch him. “You’re not listening to me. Something terrible is happening there. Jerry wasn’t himself when he called me, I think everyone in Asilo is dying! There’s some disease, some sort of infection, it’s worse than what happened to everyone when the Rift opened!”

They had to remember what had happened all those centuries ago. Almost everyone in the world became sick and transformed into weeping, howling mutants. 

“Where’s the evidence? You’re as paranoid as ever. The refugees from Asilo are like anyone else, they’ve just been persecuted for not blindly following the ridiculous religion your husband has made up.”

“Evidence?!”

Reuben laughed nervously. He pushed his blonde hair back from his boyish face. “OK you two. This isn’t the time to bicker. Silas– I speak to Jerry regularly. Last week he was his normal self, he told me that he’d like to take some time to travel to Green River to visit me. I don’t understand why you think there’s something so wrong with him? It sounds like there’s some social problems in Asilo, but which of us don't have social issues in our Colonies? A bit of unrest is natural for any human society. As for the Book… I used to be curious about it as well, but my research led me to believe it’s nothing more than an oddity of the Rift, no different than the little slimy animals that came through it. I understand why Jerry feels a connection to it.”

His love for her husband had always blinded him.

They were all in danger. Silas’ head pounded. Her glasses were fogging up. What could she do to protect herself and Eden? She could not allow anyone to leave Asilo. For all she knew, she could not allow anyone to leave the Northern Territories because Frank, that idiot, had let Jerry’s people across his borders. They were unsafe. They were all unsafe. They didn’t understand. They hadn’t seen how sick Jerry was. They hadn’t seen what was happening in his Colony.

The people there were tearing each other apart. 

She tried again to make them listen. “I’ve seen it. They’re killing each other. There’s blood in the streets, they’ve built a temple, some kind of massive black pyramid, and they’re killing people there. There’s something wrong!”

There was a beat of silence. Anikah Liu made a sound of disgust. Like the others, she was completely unchanged, so completely full of beauty and life. Her eyes were filled with black light, her posture was casual yet poised. Silas could only see her head and shoulders on the screen but imagined that she must be wearing the same stylish athleisure clothing she used to favor. She smiled but there was no joy behind it. “Do you have cameras over there in Asilo too, Sy?”

Silas winced. So she knew about that. It wasn’t her fault. Silas just…she needed to know what was going on. She needed to watch. It made her feel safer to watch.

And the cameras in Asilo…the things she had seen! It was like nothing she could imagine. They were tearing down buildings, they were creating massive structures of unspeakable geometry. They were killing women and children in the streets like it was nothing and everything was red, so red. That madness could not be permitted to leave the Colony!.

“I could show you. I could show you what’s happening there,” said Silas.

“She has cameras there then,” said Anikah. “She has cameras everywhere.”

How had they turned into this? Anikah had loved her once, a long time ago, when they were both different people. Now everything was just...cold and far away. And Silas was alone, just like she was always alone. 

Something still needed to be done. For once she wanted to take action and nobody was listening to her.

“I’ll talk to Jerry,” said Reuben. “I’m sure everything is fine, Silas. He’s been stressed lately. I remember how it is. A few hundred years ago, I was dealing with similar political unrest in Green River. It happens.”

“Listen to me! I’m telling you that something’s wrong with him, he’s not himself!” She struggled to make sense of it. There were no words, she could not come up with a description of the wrongness in her own words. “It felt wrong talking to him, do you remember the episode of TNG where the parasites–”

“For once I’d like you to stop talking about television,” said Frank. He pompously smoothed down his thin mustache. “This is real life we’re talking about. You’re blowing things out of proportion as usual.”

“Blowing things out of proportion?! Can you imagine if we lose everything we’ve built because we ignore this problem? Can you imagine if we go back to the way things were before, with everyone starving and wandering and terrified? My husband is doing the exact same thing Isaksen was doing at his compound, only on a massive scale! We need quarantine procedures. Anyone who’s left Asilo needs to be detained immediately. I have unmanned combat aerial vehicles, I have drones, and I think it would be in our best interest to bomb–”

“Oh, there it is. There’s what this is about,” interjected Anikah with greater disgust. She rubbed her eyes. 

“You’re talking about murdering half a million people,” said Reuben, suddenly cold. 

“They’re already killing each other! What if their beliefs get to Eden?! All I care about is keeping my Colony safe!”

“Je m’en fous,” Frank’s face was all twisted up, he was looking at her like she was a bug. “I’ve met the refugees who’ve fled from your husband’s incompetence. They’re not whatever you’re claiming they are. They’re people like us.”

Silas did not really believe that she was a person anymore. Not since Teddy Isaksen had shot her and she had fallen into thick darkness. Not since Jerry had used that damned Book to bring her and Anikah and Frank back from…back from wherever it was that the spark of human consciousness went when the brain and body can no longer sustain life. For that reason alone, she knew that what Jerry was doing was real and terrible and could not be permitted to continue. If the words…if the power in the Book could pull life back into a dead body, what else could it do? What other terrible things?

The people in Asilo who were being torn apart…the people in Asilo who were being eaten alive?! She had seen the frenzy of their worship. That could not happen in Eden. She would not let it.

She would do anything within her power to keep Eden safe. Anything. If that meant killing everyone in Asilo, so be it. If that meant shutting herself off from the rest of them, from Reuben and Frank and Anikah, she didn’t care. She didn’t care about any of them anymore, and they certainly did not care about her. Silas had one purpose and that was Eden, its people and its safety.

Nobody understood and that was fine. Nobody understood her and nobody ever would. That was fine too. 

Whatever was happening to Jerry, whatever was happening in his colony, had to be stopped by whatever means necessary.

Silas would be the one to stop it. 

ASILO, THE LOST COLONY, 20 YEARS BEFORE THE EVENTS OF BLUEBLOODS: YANCEY

The boy did not have a name. Nobody in the place he lived had names. There was no reason for them to have words to call each other in the stinking darkness of the Lost Colony. The only language they had was the twisted, backwards lamentations that the gods spoke in the heaven beyond the stars. If God had no name, then why should any of the crawling humans on Earth have one? None of them even knew what a name was! They did not know what they were missing. 

If you have no sense of self, then it does not matter when you offer yourself up. The 300 people who had been trapped, reproduced, and died in the ruins of the Lost Colony since its fall were little more than animals. Most of their humanity had been stripped from them by starvation and madness.

Well. The boy was different. He had never cared about God. He was interested, but he did not ever throw himself down to the ground to worship him. That was just a good way to get ripped to shreds and eaten. And the boy had no intention of having that happen to him.

He had a secret. The boy had found a secret place. Everyone else was too scared to go there, they would shiver and shake and bite at themselves if they even looked at it. The crumbling building was where God had once lived. It was huge and very old, half destroyed, with numerous twisting passages and old rooms. The boy didn’t understand why everyone was so scared of it. He had never felt scared. He had never felt much of anything, really. All he knew was that he liked his secret.

The secret was this: there were things inside the old building that still worked. The boy did not understand how. He did not know what electricity was. All he knew was that he could touch things, he could flip switches and press buttons and they would light up like magic. The first time he had done it, the shock of the light had nearly blinded him. He had thought that something bad was happening, he had thought that he was about to die. But he kept going back inside. And every day he got more and more used to it. 

There was one room that the boy liked best. It seemed like someone had once lived there, but it was nothing like the place the boy lived, the place where he huddled for warmth with dozens of other stinking, naked people. The walls had been painted a color that the boy had never seen before, and he had learned that it was the color of things that grew and lived outside. There were very old things inside. There were scraps of soft things that people were supposed to put on their bodies. There were all kinds of trinkets and knick knacks. The boy spent hours looking at them and wondering what they were.

One of the first things he found was small and flat and when he saw it for the first time, a shock had gone through him. The image of two people was on this small object. So there was a way to capture the likeness of people and trap it forever? Unthinkable. The boy had held it and stared. The image was of a man and a woman. The woman was clean and smiling, her long dark hair looked very smooth, unlike his own dirty mats. She had clear square things on her face and one of her arms was wrapped around the man beside her. And the man–

Well, the boy had seen the man before. He had seen him many times, crawling and screaming and tearing apart flesh. Because the man was God. He just did not look like God in the image on the flat object. He looked soft and clean and happy.

Had God once been a man? The boy had to wonder this.

The secret place was full of images. In one room, there was a flat and shining surface covered in dust. The boy looked into it and was confronted by a reflection of himself for the first time. It made him flinch back in fear until he realized that he was looking at himself. The boy touched his own face and watched his mirror image copy him. The image of the boy was gaunt and pale as the belly of a blind fish. His eyes were pale pink and half-blind like everyone else’s eyes, his hair was black, and every inch of him was filthy. The boy opened his mouth and looked at his own teeth which were stained red from chewing on the roots that grew in the ruins for sustenance. He frowned.

He had no concept of the grotesque. Every person in that shadowy place was grotesque from generations spent in darkness, from 200 years of gnawing on their own bones. There was no light, there was no beauty. But the boy still did not like looking at himself.

Oh, but the other images! Once the boy found the other images, he could not tear himself away. In the secret place, there was a box with buttons that could be pressed, and the buttons played sequences of images on another flat surface. The images were not real but they seemed real. They showed the boy wonderful things outside of his comprehension. They showed the boy strange people dressed in clothes, moving and talking in clean bright spaces. In these images, there was no howling and wailing and sacrifices of blood. There was no empty God waiting to drag them into the shadows to consume. Only people.

At first the boy did not understand the sounds coming from the box of images. His people did not speak like that, they spoke the twisted language of the Void. Over time, he learned. He learned fast, he picked it up naturally. Something in his mind made the sounds…right.

“Does anyone smell anything smoky?” said a man with brown hair and clear things over his eyes as gray smoke flooded the space he was in.

“Did you bring your jerky in again?” replied a small pale woman, not looking at him.

The images and sound proceed, showing the flat people on the flat screen running around and panicking. The boy would watch transfixed. He would think about how he wanted to live like the people in the moving images. They did not have to worry about starving to death. They did not have to worry about being consumed. 

The boy would return to his own reflection. He would stare at it. He would stare and stare and think about how badly he wanted to look like the people on the flat screen. There was nothing he could do to change his own perception. But the perception of others?

The boy was different. When he thought about it hard enough, he could make others see him as different than he was. If he wanted to, he could make others see him like he saw the people on the flat screen: clean and healthy and happy, not pale, not grotesque, no milky pink eyes.

The other people who lived with him in the darkness didn’t like that very much. The boy didn’t care. He started to think about how different he was. He started to think about how he wanted to go to the places he saw on the flat screen. Did a place like that even exist? Was it real or was it fake, like a dream? But it had to be real. There had to be a place where humans did not have to crawl in the darkness and get ripped apart by a hungry God.

Maybe there was a place with no God. The boy didn’t know.

This wasn’t a life. This wasn’t even survival. This was scratching and clawing and waiting to die while praying to the howling gods of the Void. The boy had stopped praying a long time ago. It didn’t make any difference because they never answered. 

The roots stopped growing and the blind fish of the cave rivers went away. To keep from starving, the people the boy lived with killed a little girl so they could sustain themselves from her flesh. It happened from time to time during the seasons where they could find no other food. They cut her throat and rubbed her blood on their bodies while wailing at the gods of the Void. The boy didn’t eat. The little girl had been born to the same woman who had given birth to him. He wasn’t sad about it, but consuming her was not the same as consuming someone who did not share his blood. When everyone was finished, God crept out of the shadows to gnaw the marrow out of the girl’s bones.

The sound of the crunching bones made the boy’s mother shiver and gnaw her own fingers until they bled in the alcove of stones that they took refuge in. The boy watched her silently tear at her dirty hair, too scared to make a sound that God could hear. He didn’t like it but he had no way to tell her to stop. All he could do was crouch there and watch the huge, twisted creature devour what was left of the girl’s body.

He was close enough to see God’s empty, slack jawed face. Close enough to see his sharp white teeth, close enough to see his long matted hair and beard. Close enough to see his gaunt and naked body. God was starving, just like the rest of them. He fed on their bodies, just like everyone else. 

The boy wondered if God had once been a man. All men died. Maybe God could die. Maybe it could be done. Maybe it could be done. Maybe. Maybe if God died, all the people would be safe again. Maybe they wouldn’t have to starve and eat eachother, maybe they could find somewhere to live that was light and happy like the people in the flat screen.

The boy liked to think about a world where that was possible.

That was the night he decided that he would kill God.

#writing

[fakeloveaskblog]

Yay Loceit! (Ignore me, I have Loceit brainrot.) Can we see the zoo date? I would love to see the zoo date! (Is there a possibility of encountering Remus and make it a conjoined date? But, like, we don't tell him that's what it is? Because we don't wanna overwhelm the guy.)

(Words: 2712)

Janus: "Don't worry dear fiend. I have Loceit brainrot as well.....ALSo yes!! I totally haven't been waiting to tell someone all about the date. Pff totally not...So basically..."

When Janus arrived by the entrance of the zoo Logan was already waiting outside. They excitedly waved at each other before running up and clashing in a loving hug.

"So how is my one and only still not poisoned boyfriend doing?" Janus asked with a slight giggle in his voice.

“Very well now when I am with you”

Logan leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. His boyfriend already had a big grin on his lips but it only grew with the kiss.

He had on a blue suspenders, jeans and a t-shirt with some dude printed on it. The snake had tried to dress extra nice for his first ever date (!!) so he had his long black skirt and his finest purple shirt.

“That is...Jean-luc Picard..right?” He pointed at Logan’s t-shirt.

He flapped his hands around “Correct! I see that the star trek watching is teaching you a lot!”

“Well I do have a good teacher so of course”

The compliment left rosy blush on Logan’s cheeks. He took his boyfriend’s hand and intertwined their fingers before walking into the zoo. It had a big outside area for different larger animals and then a bulding to the west filled with frogs, fish, snakes, etc, etc.

Neither of them were that interested in the large animals. Though Janus did snark about how he looked like a seal and Logan stopped to take photos of the bears so he could show them to Patty later.

It wasn't until they passed a sign Logan suddenly let up into happy stims. He pointed to a house with big look through windows.

"Birds!"

He dragged Janus along with him to one of the windows. kestrels, subirds and kingfishers were flying around and vibing among trees and hung out fruit treats. A small crowd around them was also looking at the different birds.

Logan pointed between his boyfriend and the birds as if Jan hadn’t already seen them. He kept stimming his arm back and forth.

"Their aerodynamics are so fascinating don’t you think. Aside from humans they are the animal that are consistently closest to space and all because of their biology. They are like natural born astronauts”

“I respect any creature who can leave any and all social situations by flying away. Big dick move as some” Remus “says” Janus replied.

“If birds had too big dicks I think it would disturb their flying but yes I get your point” He let out a dreamy sigh “Oh what I would do to be able to inspect bird teeth, not to even talk about their wings!”

Logan squeezed his hand and smiled at him before dragging him over to the next bird. It was several big secretary birds. They were walking instead of flying.

"These ones are known for eating snakes" Lo commented "Are you feeling frightened?"

"Ah yes darling, I am already close to death from fear" He replied in as much of a monotone he could muster. They both chuckled.

Logan went on a long ramble about how the different biology of the species made the flying look and work different. His voice went a bit louder than it usually was, it always got like that when he was excited. Janus wouldn’t have minded it if there weren’t other people there.

He nodded along to his boyfriend’s rant but kept glancing to the people around them. Some of them were looking at Logan. Janus gulped. Suddenly holding his boyfriends hand hurt.

Janus quietly moved his hand away. His throat tightened. The people weren’t looking anymore but it felt like they did, like ants crawling up his skin. It had probably been a stupid idea to wear the skirt.

Obviously Logan noticed but he didnt say anyrhing about it. He finished his rant and asked "Do you want to reunite with your relatives- I mean look at the snakes now?"

"I uh “ He forced a confident smirk “Of course darling. It it prime time to return to my people!!”

They walked away from the birds and went down the sunny path towards the house that stored snakes among other things. It was lined by neatly cut trees and homes for mammals. They didn’t hold hands.

Janus kept fiddling with his gloves to the point of not even looking where he was walking. He bit the inside of his cheek until it was bleeding.

“Are you feeling alright?” Logan asked.

“Never been better!”

“If it is about the hand holding feeling nervous is nothing to be embarrassed about. When I first held hands with Patty I got so flustered I proceeded to walk into a swing and break my glasses”

Janus glanced around to the people around them “Ah yes that is definitely why I’m acting this way. Spot on dear” 

His boyfriend looked in the same direction he did “Oh alright I understand now” He patted him on the shoulder “Well I will have you know I have taken part in multiple physical fights to protect Patty from harassement, I did win most of them. I will of course do the same thing for you”

He said it so casually Janus nearly lost it “Exscuse me wHAT?”

Logan leaned down so they were eye to eye and put his hands on his boyfriend’s shoulders “Sweetheart I can and will break someone’s nose for you”

“That’s the most romantic thing someone has ever said to me”

“I would go for their kneecaps as well”

Janus clasped his hand over his heart and gasped in an overly dramatic tone “Oh such erotiscism you’re showing today!”

“I am legally obliged to show it off every now and then”

He straightened his back and continued to walk down the path. Janus hesitantly reached out to take his hand. Shame tugged at his heart but he buried his face against his boyfriend’s arm to try and ignore it. Logan gently moved his thumb up and down his skin in response.

“....I do still advise that you talk to Picani about it. I am aware it’s hard but if what you’ve told me about your mental health is true I believe it would be beneficial. I could help! I know Picani! Very intimately!”

“Darling please you don’t have to keep reminding me you’ve fucked my fake therapist” Janus sighed “I don’t know if I deserve to take up his time, I’m not That bad”

“Sweetie that is first degree bullshit” Logan replied very gently “There is scientifically no way to accurately compare two people’s mental healths to conclude which is worse. Trust me I did a study on it in college! Do I need to brag about my degree more?”

Janus let out a half hearted chuckle “I’ll think about it. Let’s focus on the snakes for now”

“Thinking about it is good enough for me” He pressed a kiss to his forehead.

They entered the building. The first room was lit in a calming blue because of the giant windows showing off octopuses and rays swimming around. A sign was pointing over to the frog and snake rooms.

Janus looked around the room in awe and- HOLY HELL REMUS WAS THERE. He sat crosslegged on a bench in front of the octopuses. He had headphones on and was focusing on the sketchbook in his hands. 

In a panic Janus started to drag his boyfriend with him to the frogs. Logan saw how flustered his boyfriend had suddenly become and looked around. He saw Remus as well and stopped in his tracks which forced his boyfriend to also stop.

“Does that happen to be the other guy you have a romantic interest in?”

“We’re here to look at snakes not at men Loganson!”

"Aww" Logan flapped his free hand "There are few things i like more than getting to see my partner being loved by someone else they love! We must talk to him"

"Oh- Oh god-" Janus let out while being tugged along.

Remus flinched when Logan shoved his ready to be shaken hand almost into his face. His whole body tensed to an uncomfortable degree.

"Greetings! I have no idea who you are!" Lo exclaimed.

He took off his headphones and looked up at him with panic in his eyes "Uh yeah" He saw Jan and immediately let out a breathe of relief. His shoulders relaxed slightly. "Hiya snakey~ Is This dude your snack?"

Janus was dying. He was dead. This was hell.

"NO! He's my sworn enemy! I'm here to use one of the sharks to kill him!"

Logan gasped "You are? How rude. Such a waste of the shark’s time when a bullet would do"

"Yeah!” Remus added “Anus! If that even is your real name-”

“It’s not”

“-I thought you would be much better at murder! Shark murder is sooo the 70's. Where's the orchestrated acrobatic dance knife throwing???"

Janus let out a dramatic huff "You simply don’t understand how hard it is to be a strong independent complete idiot and a serial murderer at the same time"

Logan nodded in sumpathy "Stranger would you like to accompany us on the rest of our zoo experience?"

He closed his sketchbook. Pages had been filled with doodles of the octopuses "Sure! I'm Remus by the way"

"Ah yes" They began to walk down the hallways lined by animal habitats. He held onto Janus’ hand "You were killed by your twin according to Roman mythology"

"I know!! That's why I chose it"

"Fascinating. I'm Logan. My parents chose it because of the X-man" His parents were also huge nerds.

“Hah dorks!” Remus said while skipping alongside them “Why are you holding hands? Is that a rule at zoos? Oh shit have I been doing zoos wrong???”

“I don’t think so. We are only doing it” Lo glanced at his still flustered boyfriend “.....to aggravate homophobes....yes...”

“COol!! Can I join?”

Logan nodded. Remus proceeded to take Janus’ free hand and happily tugged at it while skipping along. Jan had been wrong. NOW he was dying. His face was so hot from blushing he swore he could melt chocolate on it. The only way this could get ‘worse’ was if he suddenly grew a third arm and Remy appeared to hold it.

“Murder frogs!!” Remus exclaimed while stopping outside a window.

Inside sat several poison dart frogs in a pond surronded by leaves. They were in pretty neon colors and small enough to fit in the palm of a hand. Remus jumped up and down from excitement before pressing his entire face up against the glass.

“They’re the most poisonous animal in the world!!! Snakey you should murder Lo with this one!! These bitches can kill like 10 people with 1 poison thingie!!! it’s so cool!!”

“I have read that they can live to up to 15 years so they have ample time to kill hundreds of people in their lifetime” Logan replied.

“!!!! You are SO right!!! That’s my life goal as well!” Remus turned to look around the room and his eyes turned as big as a cat’s “Fucking hell. Look at how THICK that lizard is!!!”

Janus kept being dragged around between the two while they explored the animals. The saw toads stacked on top of each other, insects swarming around and exactly 1 incredibly friendly chameleon who climbed across a tree to get as close to the glass as it could.

Just holding both of their hands was so much to take in but hearing them rant facts to each other while looking so so happy made his heart feel things he didn’t know it could feel. He wanted to kiss them both and beg them to please never ever shut up.

The zoo melted away as he daydreamed about living as a poly relationship. Getting to see them both be this close and happy every day. Getting to hold them both like this every day. Getting to fall asleep next to them. Oh he was so-

“Hey Snakey you’ve been pretty quiet” Remus interrupted “Whatcha think?”

“dfshkjskj” Janus very eloquently let out. He buried his flushed pink face in the fabric of Logan’s shirt.

“Huh. Exactly what I was thinking! Onwards to the snakes!!”

The snake room was oval shaped. The walls were made up of windows into different giant vivariums decorated with branches, warm rocks and food. In the biggest vivarium several big samar cobras were lazing about. They were both big enough and venomous enough to kill a man.

Janus let go of his crushes to press his palms against the glass and wave at the snakes. He looked back at his boyfriend with a big goofy grin “Look at these babies!!”

“They are indeed very pretty”

“They eat rats! Their venom is able to destroy tissue so if you get the venom in your eyes it can create total blindness!! They-” He stopped himself. Stopped his stimming as well “Sorry. I’m rambling”

Remus patted his shoulder “No. Go on. I wanna hear, about the other snakes as well. I promise” Logan nodded along.

Janus hesitated, but they both looked at him with such loving looks he quietly continued “Okay well what I was going to say was...”

They went around and looked at every snake. The other two happily listened to him infodump about every species there. Sometimes they held hands. Sometimes they all stimmed together. Janus was smiling so much his cheeks hurt.

They stayed sitting by the snakes. Janus leaned his head against the glass to bop his nose to the snakes while Remus and Logan ranted to each other about their favorite obscure sci-fi movies (they also exchanged numbers). 

The three of them had a sudden realization that they all loved murder mysteries and decided they had to have some sort of murder mustery movie night some time in the future.

(Logan also saw a poster about how around Christmas snake petting spots overseered by snake experts would be open. He didn’t tell the other two. He figured he would use it as a surprise Christmas gift)

Eventually the zoo got close to closing. It was Logan who had to drag them both away from the snakes and octopuses. The 2 drama kings acted like Lo was dragging them away from their children.

Once they stood on the street outside the zoo Remus said goodbye. For a moment it looked like he was moving in to hug Janus but he decided not to. He disappeared down the street to catch the bus.

“So” Logan turned to his boyfriend “Was it a satisfactory first date?”

Janus rolled his eyes before wrapping his arms around his boyfriend’s waist and moving up on his toes to kiss him on his nose “It was absolutely horrible darling! I hated every second of it!”

“Glad to hear it” His voice softened “I’m proud of you honey”

“It was just a date. It’s nothing. Nothing if it’s with you”

“Well I shall still be proud, because you can not stop me, and I shall still be percentage wise incredibly in love with you” He pressed a loving kiss to his forehead “I will see you at work then”

“Not if I’ve gotten my invisibility spell to work by then muhahah” Janus slowly let go of him “Love you!”

Janus stood by the entrance watching as his boyfriend (it still made him giddy to think that) went to his car. He gulped and tensed his shoulders once he was all alone. He walked over to a more desolate spot and sat down on the side of the payment.

He scrolled through the contacts on his phone while the image of Logan’s smile repeated in his brain. He let out a shaky breathe as he moved the phone up to his ear and listened to the signals.

“Hiya Janister!” The cheery voice of Dr. Picani rang out.

“Hello...I.....I would....I’m just looking to ask if there’s a chance I could book a time for solo therapy? I’m...I’m...honestly not so sure if I’m completely okay...or if my childhood was okay either, but I’m sure I want to get better”

#loceit #dukeceit #demus #thanks for the ask!! #suggesting remus would be there was a really good idea! #janus sanders #logan sanders #remus sanders #sanders sides #for yalls information in the fic universe they are somewhere in august so christmas is quite a bit away

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

Whumptober 2021

Prompt #6: Touch and go

It all happened too fast.

The discussion with the Keh-Rhans tipped into drama within seconds. One minute they were politely arguing about the delivery fee for the six containers of Vallulah seeds Rios and Agnes had just unloaded, and the next, without warning, phaser beams were lighting up the cargo dock.

Rios was caught by surprise, and Agnes? He’d just pulled his own phaser and returned fire when, to his horror, he saw her getting hit. She’d been standing by La Sirena’s loading ramp, going through a checklist on her PADD. The tablet clattered to the ground when she fell, not even making a sound.

“Agnes!”

Rios, heart lurching, laid a carpet of cover fire in the three Keh-Rhans’ direction and ran to her, already shouting into his comm.

“Activate all emergency holograms! We’re under attack! Emmett! Enoch! Close the loading ramp! Emil to the transporter pad!”

He threw himself across Agnes, still firing. A scorched, bloody gash ran across the left side of her chest where the phaser had burnt through her clothes. Rios had no idea if she was even still alive.

“Two for transport!” He yelled into his comm, a phaser beam shooting past his head. “Get us out of here! NOW!”

Agnes was in his arms when they materialized inside La Sirena. Rios’ shirt was already sticky with her blood and molten fabric.

“What is- DOCTOR JURATI!”

The EMH skipped the usual prelude and stepped onto the transporter pad to pry his patient out of Rios’ arms.

“Trauma kit!” he ordered, and a large silver case materialized beside him.

Below them, they heard a clunk and hiss as Sirena’s loading ramp closed and sealed. Behind them, the ship’s engine powered up.

Rios had stepped aside to let the hologram work. He was trembling.

“Is she…?”

“She’s alive,” the EMH answered, running his tricorder over the wound. “Barely. We need to get her to med bay.”

They both knew that the in-ship transporter was deactivated during takeoff, so Rios scooped Agnes up into his arms and carried her down the stairs and through the mess hall, his heart hammering.

She was so limp in his arms, so small.

Arriving in sickbay, he gently put her down on the biobed where Emil was already pulling up scans and initializing trauma protocols. Alarms started blaring as soon as Agnes’ body touched the biobed. The outline of her body was blinking on the monitor on the cubicle wall, her chest area filled with red, a column of numbers flashing urgently beside it.

“What’s going on?” Rios demanded. “How bad is it?”

The EMH was tapping buttons on a holographic screen and an orange matrix flickered to life over Agnes’ prone body. A ventilator unit materialized beside the bed.

“She’s not breathing. I have to intubate.”

Fast and calmly, the medical hologram maneuvered a tube down Agnes’ throat and connected her to the machine. Rios swallowed. La Sirena was a freighter, not equipped with the high-end medical equipment Starfleet ships had at their disposal. He wished Sirena’s med bay had a holographic respirator, sparing Agnes from the invasive procedure she was just going through. He vowed he’d start saving up for an upgrade as soon as this was over.

“She’s sedated, Captain”, Emil said in his direction, treating Agnes’ wound with a device he’d never seen before. “Doctor Jurati isn’t feeling any of this.”

Not long ago, Rios would have been surprised at the hologram’s empathy and wondered if the EMH could tap into his thoughts. But he’d learned that Emil was just reacting to his biosensors flagging a spike of … something in Rios’ system and combining it with logical deduction. Nevertheless, Emil’s reassurance felt good.

Rios also knew better than to distract the hologram with further questions. Emil wouldn’t have answered them anyway, all of his focus on his patient. He worked incredibly fast, administering hyposprays, starting what looked to Rios like a micro-repair sequence and cleaning Agnes’ wound with some sort of nebulizer before sealing it with something that looked like transparent tape.

At last, the alarms stopped sounding, and the EMH turned to Rios.

“Doctor Jurati has a level four phaser burn that has penetrated her chest wall and left lung,” he reported with his usual, encyclopedic detachment, but Rios felt a wave of horror: the phaser beam had practically sliced right through Agnes.

“For now, I’ve stabilized her, but her condition remains critical. We have a problem: Keh-Rhanian phasers work differently from ours. They use thermal heat as well as a chemical compound that stalls physical regenerative processes in most species by affecting cellular reproduction in the affected areas.”

Rios put up a hand and glowered at Emil: “English, please?”

The EMH switched gears. “It means these weapons are designed to stop the victim’s wounds from healing.”

Mind racing, Rios looked at Agnes’ pale face half-covered by the ventilator’s mouthpiece and tubing.

“So what do we do? There is something you can do, right?”

Hands back in his pockets, the EMH was rocking back and forth on his toes, a quirk Rios had learned to identify as piquing professional interest - on some level, the hologram was enjoying the challenge.

“I am working on it. I’ve set up an algorithm that will modify the tissue and dermal regenerator software to hopefully override the inhibiting agent introduced into Doctor Jurati’s system. In the meantime, I’ve dosed her with a hypothermic compound that will stabilize cellular deconstruction and-“

He stopped when another glare from Rios hit him.

“In simpler words: It’s touch-and-go at the moment, but I’m figuring it out,” the EMH summed up his speech.

Cris ran a hand through his hair. A knot was pulling tighter in his stomach.

“When will you know if it works?”

“In a few hours.”

Rios looked into the hologram’s- ... his own dark eyes.

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“I will do everything I can to see that it does.”

We will do everything we can.

Cris had heard that phrase before, in a hospital waiting room, many years ago, and instead of instilling hope it filled him with old, hollowing dread. He approached the bed and took Agnes’ hand. It was terribly cold.

Cariña, he told her, softly, in his head since the EMH was hovering. Don’t you dare leave me alone out here again.

Overhead, the ship’s comms system crackled.

“Captain?” That cheerful Irish brogue could only belong to the ENH.

“What?”

“I’m afraid we need you on the bridge,” the ENH said, not sounding afraid at all.

“Can’t it wait?”

Agnes’ hand refused to warm up in his.

“Uhm… we’ve been hailed by a very unfriendly sounding gentleman from Keh-Rhan port authority who claims that you were responsible for the death of two people in the loading docks.”

Rios growled.

Unbelievable! He was attacked, and now they were blaming him?!

But he would have to go and sort out this mess if he ever wanted to set foot near Keh-Rha again.

He looked at Agnes, then at the medical hologram.

“You will keep an eye on her?”

Emil straightened. “Both, Captain.”

Rios gently tucked Agnes’ hand under the medical blanket the EMH had spread over her and trudged back to La Sirena’s bridge.

(You can also read and comment on this story on AO3:)

#whumptober2021 #star trek picard #aramis in space #fanfic #day 6 #prompt 6 #touch and go #cristobal rios #agnes jurati #emil #EMH #enoch ENH #whump #angst #hurt/comfort

[set-phasers-to-whump]

impaling

prompt: impaling

whumpee: will riker

fandom: star trek tng

hi folks it’s me here with another whumpee with like three other fans! if you’re one of them hi hi hi it’s been a hot second since i’ve written riker but i will always love to hurt him :) i hope you like this fic!

Several members of the Engineering division had been working on an experiment for a few days now. Riker had figured it was about time that he checked it out, if only to have something to say to Data during their shift when he inevitably brought up Geordi’s involvement. 

It was a weird-looking thing. Various lengths of thin metal rods stuck out from a wall in one of the lab rooms. Strings of something were looped around the rods, with some kind of glowing material traveling along them. Riker stepped closer, touching one of the strings. A jolt of electricity zapped his fingers, and he pulled them away in surprise. He made up his mind to not touch anything else, and turned around to comm Geordi and ask him what all this was. 

Just then, the ship jolted sharply, like it’d been hit, and he went stumbling backwards, slamming into one of the metal rods. 

The rod caused only a minor ache in his back, so he stepped forward, intending to rush to the Bridge and see what was going on. But the second he moved his foot, something was...pulling? on his shoulder, effectively trapping him to the wall. He reached up with his left hand to hit his communicator, and suddenly his shoulder exploded into pain. 

He turned his head to look at it, then immediately wished he hadn’t. It had barely hurt before he’d looked. 

The metal rod was sticking clean through his left shoulder, its tip gleaming red with blood, which he could see steadily dripping down his shirt, darkening its red color. 

It hurt. His shoulder felt like it was burning, a white-hot pain that made him wish he’d passed out. He could feel the blood dripping down his back as well as his front, sticky and warm and altogether an extremely discomforting situation. He made a soft noise of pain that could have generously been called a wince. 

Who the hell gets impaled on a starship? he wondered briefly, and half-grinned to himself at the absurdity of the situation. It was better than crying about it, anyway.

“Commander Riker, report.”

He groaned. I want to report, he thought at Captain Picard’s voice, but certain circumstances have made that impossible. His left arm refused to move, and he worried that moving his right would only twist the metal inside of him and make everything worse. He hoped that his silence would serve as a good enough cry for help. 

“Commander Riker. Report.” The Captain’s voice was straddling the line between angry and worried. “Commander.”

The room fell silent as Picard stopped talking, leaving only the unsettling sound of his own blood steadily dripping onto the floor. Riker hoped the silence meant that someone was coming to get him. 

Moments later, the door to the lab slid open. Riker glanced to it, relieved when he saw the familiar shape of Captain Picard.

“Captain,” he said, in a voice much weaker than he’d ever admit to using. He’d never been so glad to see anyone in his life.

“Will,” said Picard, reaching for his combadge. “Picard to Crusher.”

“Dr. Crusher here.”

“I’m with Commander Riker in Lab Four. He’s been impaled on a metal rod.”

There was a brief moment of silence. “Impaled?”

“Yes. You may want to come down here, he’s lost quite a bit of blood already. I don’t know that moving him is the thing to do.”

“On my way.”

“Y’r....not gonna move me?” Riker asked. He didn’t like the sound of that. How was he supposed to get help if he couldn’t move? Was he dying?

Picard, evidently sensing his fear, quickly said, “We will move you. Dr. Crusher simply needs to figure out how.” 

“Okay.” That sounded better than dying, anyway. 

Dr, Crusher herself arrived a couple seconds later, hurrying over with a variety of medical supplies in her arms and a look of worry on her face.

“How did this happen?” she asked gently, checking his vitals.

Suddenly, he recalled the ship’s sudden movement, and a jolt of worry went through him. What had happened? Had they been hit? 

“Wh’ happened? Ship moved.”

“We brushed against the edge of a geomagnetic storm. I suppose you were unlucky enough to be standing in front of this contraption at the time,” said Picard, looking warily at said contraption.

Riker nodded slightly. “Fell back on ‘t. Didn’t even feel it at first. Then I looked.”

Dr. Crusher made a noise of sympathy from where she was inspecting the wound. She poked around it for a few seconds and pressed something to it (which hurt, despite his best efforts to appear to the other two that it hadn’t). “We need to cut this metal away from the wall,” she decided.

“Why?” Riker asked, as Picard went to get the necessary tool. 

“I don’t want to take you off of this rod, not yet. We’ll keep it in you until we get you to Sickbay, and then I’ll remove it.”

That sounded like a suitable plan, he decided. Sickbay sounded like the best place in the universe to him at the moment. 

Picard returned with some cutters just as Dr. Crusher was saying, “Will, you’re going to have to stay awake for this.”

He nodded. He didn’t particularly like that fact, but he understood well enough that if he were knocked out, he’d slump over and probably only make his injury worse. Granted, he wouldn’t be awake to feel it…

The actual cutting of the metal took only a second, but as soon the piece inside him was disconnected from the wall, he almost collapsed to the ground, crying out in pain as the movement jostled the metal rod. He would have completely collapsed, had Picard not caught him. Apparently his legs hadn’t been holding his body up so much as the metal had been forcing him to stand. 

An arm wrapped around his right shoulder, taking on his weight, and a hand grabbed his left hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“Dr. Crusher to Transporter Room Two. Three to beam directly to Sickbay.”

The second they arrived, people were rushing up to them with all manner of supplies, and they sat him down on a table, and suddenly the metal rod was being pulled out of him, excruciatingly slowly and painfully, and quite a bit of blood went along with it, and he wondered whether or not that was supposed to happen, and then finally he felt the prick of a hypo, and finally the pain stopped.

aaa thank u for reading this!!! dw he is fine i just get tired of writing hospital waking up scenes lmao. 

#febuwhump2021 #febuwhumpday4 #impaling #will riker #star trek tng #impaled #blood #cared for #my writing #i say things

[klingonn-klingoff]

First Kiss (Q x Reader)

For Anon! I hope you enjoy it. <3

Words: 985

Triggers: none

Fic type: fluff

--

You watched quietly as Data, Geordi, and Barclay talked about a mishap down in engineering earlier that day. You weren't really listening. You had a lot on your mind, but you enjoyed the company. They weren't bothered by your silence either, so you didn't feel bad.

You thought of Q, he had been on your mind quite often these last few months. You couldn't help but smile down at your glass. You had grown to love him. Him and his smile. It was something that made your heart race every time.

"Are you thinking about a certain someone?" Geordi asked. He knew as well as everyone else at the table that you were.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Geordi," You said, leaning back in your chair.

"You can't lie to us," Geordi said, chuckling.

"Fine, I was thinking about Q. I can't help it." You tossed your hands up giving into your friends.

"I remember when you use to hate him," Barclay stuttered out.

"Me too," You whispered, "He was a nuisance."

"What do you see in him anyway?" Geordi asked.

"You have to admit, he is quite the charmer," you said, trying to play down your feelings. Geordi and Reg didn't look like they believed you in the slightest. "Okay, Fine. I love his free spirit and the fact he's unpredictable. . . not to mention he's handsome."

The two men laughed as Data cocked his head to the side, "You love him."

For an android who struggles to understand people, he hit it right on the nose. You did love him, You loved everything about him. He was it for you. Your one and only, and he had no clue.

She was suddenly on the bridge and sitting in the Captain's chair. She quickly rose to apologize to Captain Picard.

She noticed that Picard didn't seem annoyed. It was very unusual. Nobody seemed annoyed. They all were pretending to not look. Something weird was going on.

You knew it wasn't the fact that he brought you to the bridge. He brought you to the bridge so many times over the past few years. You had become close to everyone who worked on the bridge. Which turned into a close relationship with all the Senior Officers.

At first, they were worried that he was playing around with you. As weeks turned into months, they realized that for the two of you, it was so much more. The two of you flirted constantly. Q played simple harmless tricks on you. The friendship you shared was nothing like Picard's.

You walked over to where Q and Captain Picard stood. Q brought you into a hug like usual. You relaxed into his arms, you hadn't seen him in three weeks. You had missed him. He seemed to sense it as he tightened his hug and rubbed your back. Picard walked away, uncomfortable with the vulnerability of the two of you.

"Mon Capitaine, I hope you won't mind me stealing her away from the ship for a while."

"Just as long as she doesn't mind."

Q smiled down at you, "Do you mind if I steal you away from this dreadful ship so we can talk?"

She wondered if something was wrong, "Sure," she said loud enough for Picard to hear.

In a flash, she was standing with Q in a field of flowers. The colors were beautiful. She turned to look in the distance, she could see a faraway City, and trees in the distance. She looked up to see two moons in the darkening sky.

"Q, This place is gorgeous!" You said, getting excited and letting go. You wondered a little bit away and crouched down to smell the flowers.

"I can assure you, you look so much better than anything in all the galaxies,"  Q said.

You blushed bright red, "I-- Thank you, Q." The compliments felt much more real when the two of you were alone. "In all my life, I have never had someone make me feel the way you do," You admitted looking up at him, still crouching near the flowers.  

Q walked closer and crouched next to you before giving up and sitting on the ground beside you. "I hope I can make you feel like this forever."

You realized why he brought you out here. He wanted to confess his feelings to you. Your heart raced, the thought that he loved you back made you smile.

"Q, I'm getting the impression you brought me out here to--"

"To tell you that I want to be the one you love." Q grabbed your hands, "Please don't tell me I've gotten the wrong impression."

You leaned forward, landing on your knees directly in front of him, "I love you, Q. I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

"I love you, [Y/N]." He took your right hand and brought it to his lips. You couldn't help the smile that spread across your face.

You stood brushing your pants off and encouraged him to stand. "I want to kiss you, It's more comfortable standing that the position we would have been in," you explained as his face scrunched up about to ask what you were doing.

He opened his mouth to say something, but you didn't want to wait. You tugged on his shirt, bringing him down to your level and kissed him. His hands went to your waist and tugging you tight against him as your mouths met. The kiss the two of you shared was the most passionate you had ever had in your life.

when she pulled back she couldn't help the wide smile as she leaned her forehead to his. "A perfect kiss." Q said, kissing her again before standing back upright. "are you hungry? I could take us somewhere to eat. I know humans go to eat on dates."

"Can we stay here?" you asked.

"of course, darling," he said, smiling down at you.

Your heart felt full. You had all you could ever want.

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The Star Trek: The Original Series Episodes That Best Define the Franchise

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By the time my generation got to watch Star Trek: The Original Series, the episodes often were being presented in top-ten marathons. When I was ten-years-old, for the 25th Anniversary of Star Trek, I tape-recorded a marathon of ten episodes that had all been voted by fans as the best-ever installments of The Original Series. Later, I got lucky and found Trek stickers at the grocery store and was able to label my VHS tapes correctly. But do I think all the episodes that were in that marathon back in 1991 were really the best episodes of all of the classic Star Trek? The short answer: no. Although I love nearly every episode of the first 79 installments of Star Trek, I do think that certain lists have been created by what we think should be on the list rather than what episodes really best represent the classic show. 

This is a long-winded way of saying, no, I didn’t include “Amok Time” or “The Menagerie” on this list because, as great as they are, I don’t think they really represent the greatest hits of the series. Also, if you’ve never watched TOS, I think those two episodes will throw you off cause you’ll assume Spock is always losing his mind or trying to steal the ship. If you’ve never watched TOS, or you feel like rewatching it with fresh eyes, I feel pretty strong that these 10 episodes are not only wonderful, but that they best represent what the entire series is really about. Given this metric, my choice for the best episode of TOS may surprise you…

10. “The Man Trap” 

The first Star Trek ever episode aired should not be the first episode you watch. And yet, you should watch it at some point. The goofy premise concerns an alien with shaggy dog fur, suckers on its hand, and a face like a terrifying deep-sea fish. This alien is also a salt vampire that uses telepathy that effectively also makes it a shapeshifter. It’s all so specifically bonkers that trying to rip-off this trope would be nuts. Written by science fiction legend George Clayton Johnson (one half of Logan’s Run authorship) “The Man Trap” still slaps, and not because Spock (Leonard Nimoy)  tries to slap the alien. Back in the early Season 1 episodes of Star Trek, the “supporting” players like Uhura and Sulu are actually doing stuff in the episode. We all talk about Kirk crying out in pain when the M-113 creature puts those suckers on his face, but the real scene to watch is when Uhura starts speaking Swahili. The casual way Uhura and Sulu are just their lovable selves in this episode is part of why we just can’t quit the classic Star Trek to this day. Plus, the fact that the story is technically centered on Bones gives the episode some gravitas and oomph. You will believe an old country doctor thinks that salt vampire is Nancy! (Spoiler alert: It’s not Nancy.)

9. “Let that Be Your Last Battlefield” 

There are two episodes everyone always likes to bring up when discussing the ways in which Star Trek changed the game for the better in pop culture’s discourse on racism: “Plato’s Stepchildren” and this episode, “Let that Be Your Last Battlefield.” The former episode is famous because Kirk and Uhura kiss, which is sometimes considered the first interracial kiss on an American TV show. (British TV shows had a few of those before Star Trek, though.) But “Plato’s Stepchildren” is not a great episode, and Kirk and Uhura were also manipulated to kiss by telepaths. So, no, I’m not crazy about “Plato’s Stepchildren.” Uhura being forced to kiss a white dude isn’t great.

But “Let that Be Your Last Battlefield,” oddly holds up. Yep. This is the one about space racism where the Riddler from the ‘60s Batman (Frank Gorshin) looks like a black-and-white cookie. Is this episode cheesy? Is it hard to take most of it seriously? Is it weird that Bele (Frank Gorshin) didn’t have a spaceship because the budget was so low at that time? Yes. Is the entire episode dated, and sometimes borderline offensive even though its heart is in the right place? Yes. Does the ending of the episode still work? You bet it does. If you’re going to watch OG Star Trek and skip this episode, you’re kind of missing out on just how charmingly heavy-handed the series could get. “Let that Be Your Last Battlefield” is like a ‘60s after-school special about racism, but they were high while they were writing it.

8. “Arena”

You’re gonna try to list the best episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series and not list the episode where Kirk fights a lizard wearing gold dress-tunic? The most amazing thing about “Arena” is that it’s a Season 1 episode of The Original Series and somehow everyone involved in making TOS had enough restraint not to ever try to use this Gorn costume again. They didn’t throw it away either! This famous rubber lizard was built by Wah Chang and is currently owned by none other than Ben Stiller.

So, here’s the thing about “Arena” that makes it a great episode of Star Trek, or any TV series with a lizard person. Kirk refuses to kill the Gorn even though he could have, and Star Trek refused to put a lizard costume in a bunch of episodes later, even though they totally could have. Gold stars all around.

7. “Balance of Terror”

The fact that Star Trek managed to introduce a race of aliens that looked exactly like Spock, and not confuse its viewership is amazing. On top of that, the fact that this detail isn’t exactly the entire focus of the episode is equally impressive. The notion that the Romulans look like Vulcans is a great twist in The Original Series, and decades upon decades of seeing Romulans has probably dulled the novelty ever so slightly. But, the idea that there was a brutally cold and efficient version of the Vulcans flying around in invisible ships blowing shit up is not only cool, but smart.

“Balance of Terror” made the Romulans the best villains of Star Trek because their villainy felt personal. Most Romulan stories in TNG, DS9, and Picard are pretty damn good and they all start right here.

6. “Space Seed”

Khaaaan!!!! Although The Wrath of Khan is infinitely more famous than the episode from which it came, “Space Seed” is one of the best episodes of The Original Series even if it hadn’t been the progenitor of that famous film. In this episode, the worst human villain the Enterprise can encounter doesn’t come from the present, but instead, the past. Even though “Space Seed” isn’t considered a very thoughtful episode and Khan is a straight-up gaslighter, the larger point here is that Khan’s evilness is connected to the fact that he lived on a version of Earth closer to our own.

The episode’s coda is also amazing and speaks of just how interesting Captain Kirk really is. After Khan beat the shit out of him and tried to suffocate the entire Enterprise crew, Kirk’s like “Yeah, this guy just needs a long camping trip.” 

5. “A Piece of the Action”

A few years back, Saturday Night Live did a Star Trek sketch in which it was revealed that Spock had a relative named “Spocko.” This sketch was tragically unfunny because TOS had already made the “Spocko” joke a million times better in “A Piece of the Action.” When you describe the premise of this episode to someone who has never seen it or even heard of it, it sounds like you’re making it up. Kirk, Spock, and Bones are tasked with cleaning-up a planet full of old-timey mobsters who use phrases like “put the bag on you.” Not only is the episode hilarious, but it also demonstrates the range of what Star Trek can do as an emerging type of pop-art. In “A Piece of the Action,” Star Trek begins asking questions about genres that nobody ever dreamed of before. Such as, “what if we did an old-timey gangster movie, but there’s a spaceship involved?”

4. “Devil in the Dark”

When I was a kid, my sister and I called this episode, “the one with giant pizza.” Today, it’s one of those episodes of Star Trek that people tell you defines the entire franchise. They’re not wrong, particularly because we’re just talking about The Original Series. The legacy of this episode is beyond brilliant and set-up a wonderful tradition within the rest of the franchise; a monster story is almost never a monster story

The ending of this episode is so good, and Leonard Nimoy and Shatner play the final scenes so well that I’m actually not sure it’s cool to reveal what the big twist is. If you somehow don’t know, I’ll just say this. You can’t imagine Chris Pratt’s friendly Velicrapotrs, or Ripper on Discovery without the Horta getting their first.

3. “The Corbomite Maneuver” 

If there’s one episode on this list that truly represents what Star Trek is usually all about on a plot level, it’s this one. After the first two pilot episodes —“Where No Man Has Gone Before” and “The Cage”—this was the first regular episode filmed. It’s the first episode with Uhura and, in almost every single way, a great way to actually explain who all these characters are and what the hell they’re doing. The episode begins with Spock saying something is “fascinating” and then, after the opening credits, calling Kirk, who is down in sickbay with his shirt off. Bones gives Kirk shit about not having done his physical in a while, and Kirk wanders through the halls of the episode without his shirt, just kind of holding his boots. 

That’s just the first like 5 minutes. It just gets better and better from there. Like a good bottle of tranya, this episode only improves with time. And if you think it’s cheesy and the big reveal bizarre, then I’m going to say, you’re not going to like the rest of Star Trek. 

2. “The City on the Edge of Forever”

No more blah blah blah! Sorry, wrong episode. Still, you’ve heard about “The City on the Edge of Forever.” You’ve heard it’s a great time travel episode. You’ve heard Harlan Ellison was pissed about how the script turned out. You heard that Ron Moore really wanted to bring back Edith Keeler for Star Trek Generations. (Okay, maybe you haven’t heard that, but he did.)

Everything you’ve heard about this episode is correct. There’s some stuff that will make any sensible person roll their eyes today, but the overall feeling of this episode is unparalleled. Time travel stories are always popular, but Star Trek has never really done a time travel story this good ever again. The edge of forever will always be just out of reach.

1. “A Taste of Armageddon”

Plot twist! This excellent episode of TOS almost never makes it on top ten lists. Until now! If you blink, “A Taste of Armageddon” could resemble at least a dozen other episodes of TOS. Kirk and Spock are trapped without their communicators. The crew has to overpower some guards to get to some central computer hub and blow it up. Scotty is in command with Kirk on the surface and is just kind of scowling the whole time. Kirk is giving big speeches about how humanity is great because it’s so deeply flawed.

What makes this episode fantastic is that all of these elements come together thanks to a simplistic science fiction premise: What if a society eliminated violence but retained murder? What if hatred was still encouraged, but war was automated? Star Trek’s best moments were often direct allegories about things that were actually happening, but what makes “A Taste of Armageddon” so great is that this metaphor reached for something that could happen. Kirk’s solution to this problem is a non-solution, which makes the episode even better. At its best classic Star Trek wasn’t just presenting a social problem and then telling us how to fix it. Sometimes it was saying something more interesting — what if the problem gets even harder? What do we do then? 

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The humor and bombast of “A Taste of Armageddon” is part of the answer to that unspoken question, but there’s also a clever lesson about making smaller philosophical decisions. In Star Wars, people are always trying to rid themselves of the dark side of the Force. In Star Trek, Kirk just teaches us to say, “Hey I won’t be a terrible person, today” and then just see how many days we can go in a row being like that.

What do you think are the most franchise-defining episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series? Let us know in the comments below.

The post The Star Trek: The Original Series Episodes That Best Define the Franchise appeared first on Den of Geek.

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Watching Star Trek TOS For the First Time! Season 1 Reaction

I’ve been a TNG, DS9 and Voyager fan for maybe 10 years but had never watched TOS until I decided that I would. And then I realised I couldn’t live with the possibility of the internet not being able to know my incoherent rambling reactions if it so desired. Most of these were written the day after I saw them but with the early ones it was later so sorry if I don’t remember your favourite.

Season 1:

The Cage: Be still my beating heart why must number 1 leave the show? Why?! Imagine a world in which Majel Barrett got to continue to be her in the Star Trek universe instead of Lwuxana (sorry I don’t love her) and Nurse Chapel. She’s so beautiful I love her. And she gets to where pants and be the second in command. While the episode for sure has sexist moments it does seem like there was more of an actual effort to present to future as having gender equality. When you compare this to the ultra mini skirted version of the actual show, it does feel like executives went through it to make it more marketable. It’s been noted by others that she is quite similar to what Spock’s character became: the cold, logical one, while Spock smiles in this episode. While I ended up loving Spock I still would’ve loved to see a woman in that kind of role, especially in the 60s. Although I’m not sure she would’ve been treated that well.

So Vina can’t like, get medical treatment from Starfleet doctors who know how to put a human body together? No? We’re just gonna leave her there? She’s too ugly? She’s better off living in a fantasy world where she’s pretty? Ok then…

The Man Trap: I don’t even really remember this one so I’d have to rewatch it.

Charlie X: Charlie sees women and becomes an incel, Kirk has to try and teach him not to be. This is a decent goal that somehow culminates in a space boxing match. Kirk loses his shirt. Sexual tension is presumably resolved. Uhura sings.

Where No Man Has Gone Before: The pants are back. Man becomes some kind of god and Kirk beats him up if I remember correctly.

The Naked Time: This is where The Naked Now comes from. This one was less sexual, which is probably a good thing, and less drunk, which is too bad cause I love drunk Crusher and Picard trying to focus on work while their brains won’t brain. Highly relatable mood. This one is where the immortal line “sorry, neither” comes from, spoken by Uhura in response to Sulu calling her a “fair maiden.” According to the internet that was an ad lib and I so hope that’s true cause it’s amazing. Also according to Spock Sulu is a “swashbuckler at heart” which is cool and all but I wish we got to find that out by him actually being a character that we know the personality of rather than a background diversity guy who gets to say a couple of lines sometimes. Also each to their own but shirtless Sulu is infinitely more attractive than shirtless Kirk.

The Enemy Within: Bad. Women at Warp podcast said it best, it’s bad because they say the evil Kirk is still Kirk and is needed for him to be a good captain/person. This could’ve been ok if he didn’t do something so irredeemable, or they could’ve not had him be defined as a true and necessary part of Kirk, but you can’t have both and sell it as an ok message. Rand not being able to look at ‘good’ Kirk after really makes it feel real, her acting in general makes it feel too real.

Mudd’s Women: Women take beauty pills that make them have makeup on and men find them too ugly to marry without them even though they are still beautiful. Also said women were kinda slaves but don’t worry about it! *hand waves*

What Are Little Girls Made Off: I don’t know what the title has to do with the episode. This is the episode where Nurse Chapel is introduced even though she was in a previous episode. And she’s taken more seriously than I thought she would be. Kirk gets an android version of himself made by a guy who he already doesn’t trust and doesn’t predict that maybe that’s not a good idea. Apparently to make an android all you need to do is put one person and one dummy on a giant plate and spin them around real fast. If only the guy who wanted to take apart Data in Measure of a Man knew.

Miri: Problematic. I think the crush angle could’ve worked if it was one sided, but Kirk played into it and it was creepy, and you know, also manipulative, assuming Kirk doesn’t actually feel the same way and is using it to get her to help them. That’s my more charitable interpretation anyway. Also McCoy doesn’t know how vaccines work. Also this episode doesn’t know what puberty is, or rather when it starts. If the virus is supposed to get to you then, that starts round the preteen age. Miri is older than that even though she’s not an adult.

Dagger of the Mind: This was the first one where I was starting to quite like it and it was feeling a little more like Star Trek to me (I know this is the first Star Trek but there’s a certain way 80s/90s era Star Trek feels to me). I really liked the beginning where it was setting up this whole maybe prisoners become violent because of how the prison treats them thing and that it was challenging the viewpoints of some of the main characters, although McCoy was already team prisons are bad and I love him for that. It then went more into the lobotomising asylum type story which was still ok. The guy turned out to be a doctor rather than a prisoner which I didn’t like cause I wanted the prisoners to be humanised. Although you could’ve done a “see anyone, even ‘innocent’ non criminals can be turned violent with this treatment” but they didn’t really emphasise that.

The Corbomite Maneuver: I don’t remember this. Kirk playing poker with some alien I think. Edit: I’m been informed this is the one where the alien turns out to be a lollypop guild kid lip-syncing to an adult’s voice, which I do remember, and probably thought it was some kind of sleep-deprived fever dream.

The Menagerie Part 1 & 2:  I laughed so much when they wheeled Pike out and I finally got the Futurama reference in Where No Fan Has Gone Before. I mean I obviously knew the whole thing was a Star Trek Reference, but I had never seen that specific imagery before and now the joke makes sense! Also Pike wanting to go back there seems kinda wrong. I mean they say he’s a vegetable mentally I think but he doesn’t seem to be? I can kinda get that he’s got more incentive to be there than Vina who could probably be helped by Federation doctors but also, he hated that place and spent the whole episode trying to get out of it and it doesn’t feel like a fitting ending for him.

The Conscious of the King: And here begins Star Trek’s love affair with Shakespeare. The only thing I have to say really is, if I didn’t mishear something… a father and daughter played Macbeth and Lady Macbeth? A married couple. And no-one thought that was weird? She was the daughter of a dictator though so there was an Ivanka Trump vibe.

Balance of Terror: Romulans. Spock wasn’t sure that they were related to Vulcans till this ep, though he suspected it. How far back did they split for it to be unknown? I like that the Romulans were sympathetic and we had scenes with them just in their ship from their perspective, and they had some conflicting views with each other. And I really like how Spock was suspected as a spy cause racism and of course he wasn’t and saved that guy cause he’s the better person. That said I found this episode pretty boring and I don’t know why. I kinda wish it turned into a witchhunt situation and was more about the racism on the Enterprise, kinda like The Drumhead from TNG.

Shore leave: Wtf was this episode?! And I don’t ask that because the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland showed up, or that it was a random holodeck planet episode, that’s fine. When the White Rabbit appeared I was just like, ok it’s going to be one of those episodes, that’s fine. Holodeck episodes are fun, I don’t even mind a random magic alien or two appearing for no reason to wreak havoc, say by making everyone larp as Robin Hood, that’s all Star Trek, that’s Star Trek doing a Star Trek, what I didn’t like is this episode goes nowhere! McCoy sees the White Rabbit, we’re off to a good start, Sulu “Swashbuckler at Heart” sees an old gun that he geeks out on, cool. Kirk sees some woman of course. Also there’s some guy fending off a tiger. Random female guest star of the week rather than letting Uhura be part of the story gets her uniform torn by some guy. Then she imagines a princess dress and if that were me as soon as I realised I could think things into existence I would just imagine all my dream clothes. Kirk imagines an old student friend who is attempting very hard to be Irish (thank you Colm Meany for saving us from this).

Anyway so the planets a holodeck cool. And I’m like, Spock should beam down, I wanna know what he’ll see, this is where the episode could get interesting. And then it happens, but nothing happens, they don’t even make much of a deal of him not seeing anything. But then I thought what if! What if Spock didn’t beam down and this was another imagination?! What if he was some alien with some ulterior motive OR better than that we get to see Spock as imagined by whoever was thinking of him. You could go down a very fanfic road if it were Kirk’s imagined or desired view of him, or maybe you could show different people’s perceptions and then they still suspect he’s not acting like himself even though it’s how they see him, but its not quite right, cause it’s not actually how he is. Or at least I thought they were going to find out what was going on. But NOPE none of that happens. Instead leprechaun guy shows up again and Kirk just wonders off to fight him for the next fucking millennium! The uniforms they wore at the academy seem like they were made out of better quality material than that of a Starfleet captain’s. Poor Kirk must be having to replicate new uniforms every other day. Then they laugh I think, and sexual tension is presumably resolved. Then the aliens show up and are like yeah this planet is a holodeck we thought you’d like it also McCoy died but he didn’t and I’m like THEY DIDN’T CONSENT TO THIS. But then they decide to party.

It reminded me of a Red Dwarf episode called Better Than Life where they knowingly go into a virtual reality game which is basically the same as this planet. But over time Rimmer keeps sabotaging what he imagines cause he hates himself so much his brain won’t let him have nice things. And it’s still a comedy, but there’s an opportunity for exploring the character’s psyche with this setup that wasn’t done here and that made it boring.

The Galileo Seven: This episode was good!! In contrast to the last one it delivered on promises it made, it had a satisfying ending, it’s probably my favourite so far. The whole time I was like this should be about how Spock can be wrong and logic isn’t everything to be a good commander. But given the quality of the previous episodes wasn’t that great and Spock was always right about everything I didn’t trust them to do that. BUT I WAS WRONG. I thought it would be about how just because you don’t have emotions doesn’t mean you can disregard those of the crew. But instead it was about how he couldn’t predict their enemy wouldn’t act based on emotion rather than logic. And then he admitted he was wrong and helped the guy bury the other guy, and then they were about to die and McCoy was like at least I’ve lived to hear Spock say he fucked up. And then Spock jettisoned the fuel so that it might act like a flare but it gave them less time and I was like no you’ve learned nothing! Don’t just do things that severe without asking your crew. But then after they were saved it was described as an act of desperation rather than anything logical and Kirk was like that’s an emotion isn’t it? You acted on emotion? And Spock was like well yes but I’m not gonna say it like that.

I like that emotion was good actually. I think it’s a fine balance between the message of its ok to be different and using Spock as an analogy for racism, and inadvertently neurodiversity, but also not buying into the idea that emotions = weakness and lack of emotion, or emotional repression = objectivity. Even if you don’t factor emotion into your decisions (which would be impossible unless you don’t experience emotions at all) it doesn’t mean that you don’t have personal biases in your perspective. So I’m glad Spock was wrong for once.

The Squire of Gothos: This is Q this is Proto-Q. He does all the same things that Q does; he shows up in clothes that are way out of date (and he thinks they’re from 900 years ago when they’re clearly early 19th century) and he flirts with the captain. Oh and he has powers, maybe they were computer powers, but not all? And he goes on about humans being brutal, warmongering people but he’s kinda into it. He fights Kirk but there was actual tension so it wasn’t annoying like the one with the Irish guy. And then it turns out he was just a kid exactly like the Futurama episode, except he is a kid not 35. I think him being a kid makes the flirting seem weird though.

Arena: Kirk and the Gorn at Tanagra. Kirk fights a lizard because aliens wanted to encourage them to not fight by telling them to fight. I thought maybe these lizards could be proto Cardassians but then I thought they can’t be they don’t talk, but then he spoke so I thought they could be, but then he was the one who was invaded and was only defending his people so I thought they couldn’t be, unless that was actually just lies and justifications in which case they definitely would be, but then that would undermine the message of the episode so I guess not. I wonder how many leaders have killed each other before these alien’s negotiation tactic actually worked.

Tomorrow is Yesterday: This was fun. There were a lot of twists and turns. I wonder if it was before or after the moonlanding. Every plan just makes it worse and more and more people keep getting exposed to the future. Kirk could’ve easily just closed the door and beamed back at the end but instead opts to punch like six people. (I think this is where “a woman?” “Crewman.” Comes from).

Court Martial: What if Kirk actually did it though? Would that be more interesting? Maybe. At least here he has an age appropriate love interest. She’s prosecuting against him which is surely a conflict of interest. AND she has a uniform with a longer skirt! And it actually looks good, like it looks like an actual dress that she can sit down in and it still looks like a dress and not a crumpled up shirt. It’s elegant but it’s still short. I could see this being an option (for any gender) as a dress uniform but it would still make no sense when they’re serving on a ship.

Return of the Archons: I am LIVING for Spock in a medieval style hood. It’s giving me Peter Cook in a Mother Superior’s wimple in Bedazzled vibe, it’s not quite on that level of beauty, but it’s close. For some reason Sulu returned from the planet in 18th century gear but then everyone else is dressed like it’s the 19th century, with some medieval robes thrown in, and this annoys me more than it should. Maybe it’s because he’s a swashbuckler at heart. Apparently they had a completely peaceful society except for the nightly purge they seemed to have going on that is never mentioned again.

Space Seed: KHHANN! I liked this a lot until the end. I want to know the lore behind Data’s Dad having his middle and last name. Edit: Actually only the middle name is the same and the last name is just similar. I still think there’s lore there (excuse the pun), probably he’s a descendent of his cult followers or something. The story seemed to be eugenics bad and also the type of guy to basically be a eugenics cult leader would be super manipulative and abusive but just charming enough in a relationship. It does a pretty good job of showing the abuse in his relationship with the historian woman, how he switches between being loving and I guess charming, and flattering to being abusive and degrading. I wish that the historian woman could find someone that she can explore domination and submission with consensually cause that seems like it would be what she really wants. Anyway but in the end they just let him go? Like he tried to take over the ship but they were like here have a colony. They compared the place to Australia when the colonists arrived at Botany Bay and that it could be... I forget what the word was but basically ‘civilised’ and No NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO STOP RIGHT THERE NO Australia was already populated and didn’t need eugenicist cult leaders who were demonstrably bad to show up make it ‘better.’ AND THEN the historian is given the choice to go with them and she does and its framed like it’s good? Or at least ok? When they just did a pretty decent job of showing how abusive and manipulative he was and she had redeemed herself by turning against him? So I get that they probably wanted to bring him back although they’re probably not gonna bring her back, but they could’ve easily had him escape instead.

A Taste of Armageddon: Suicide machines. I forget the rest.

This Side of Paradise: SEX POLLEN! Well it’s more fall in love pollen, I guess, for one character. There’s a woman and there’s the music and the soft focus and BUT WAIT then the camera cuts to Spock not Kirk! Because she has taste. It’s about this point that I think the ‘Spock’s the most popular but Shatner wants to remain the star so we’ll emphasise their character’s relationship thus inadvertently inventing slash fic’ might’ve started. It’s time for a love triangle! She makes Spock get the sex pollen, which is not getting consent, and then he falls in love with her and is climbing trees and is all happy. Kirk can’t get a text back from Spock. Then Kirk and two others get the pollen except Kirk didn’t, but he did, but anyway I thought everyone would be horny but they weren’t they were just brainwashed. Soon Kirk is all alone on the bridge, then he gets the pollen and is happy to live as a poly triad but then he gets angry and it’s gone. Then he calls Spock to the ship and approaches the situation in the only way Kirk knows how: Homoerotic punching! So they fight for not long enough and then Spock is cured but he’s a little sad, there’s sadness in his voice, it’s not quite so matter of fact. Then Spock’s gf gets sad and the sex pollen is gone too, Spock might still have feelings for her but he has responsibilities to the ship and “to that man on the bridge” which if he was saying to just mean once again the whole ship, and its mission and the captain in a professional sense, seems a little redundant, which would surely be illogical.

The colonists get sad that they haven’t done anything for years because the sex pollen made them unambitious but I would argue maybe the sex pollen was right and you were better off just vibing. This episode was more interesting and less silly than I thought the creator of sex pollen would be. At the end Spock says that for the first time in his life he was happy. While every other character could still easily become addicted to a thing like that they could at least know they would experience happiness or any feelings again in their life, for Spock it was going back to nothingness.

Devil in the Dark: Spock calls Kirk Jim which I don’t think he has before, when he’s talking over the communicator and he’s worried he’s in danger, there’s some actual fear or urgency in his voice. Also the moment that got me was when Kirk wanted to send Spock back the ship cause he didn’t trust him to kill the creature and Spock was like “but… I’m not really as useful there I am here… so…” If I was writing it I would’ve played that up more but anyway, I like that they didn’t kill the creature. I like that McCoy said the thing. And also said “I’m starting to think I can cure a rainy day.” He’s my favourite.

Errand of Mercy: It’s kinda becoming the Kirk Spock show now, I like the ship but I miss McCoy. I like that the passive pacifists who Kirk was so angry with were actually more powerful. And KLINGONS! Oh yeah the orientalism, the yellow peril, it’s… it’s there all right. They were played a lot colder here, a little Cardassian maybe, still bloodthirsty but I don’t believe this guy has to do it himself to feel honourable, he can kill for sure but he’s fine ordering someone else to do it and being a chessmaster too.

The Alternative Factor: God this one was boring. But it does have a man with the worst beard wig I’ve ever seen. Now he’s stuck fighting the bad version of himself or something to save the universe. So remember that when you’re watching later Trek series, all of this could suddenly be destroyed if one of them gets tired.

The City on the Edge of Forever: UHURA GETS TO GO ON AN AWAY MISSION! Aaaand she doesn’t get to do anything :/ The usual three go back in time! To the 60s again! Oh wait… that’s meant to be the 30s? Oh. That’s some tall hair that lady has for the 30s. But at least said lady is a character, she’s a little perfect but she does things, she has strong beliefs, she might be written a little idealised, but she is still written like a person compared to almost every other Kirk love interest. “He says it (captain) even when he doesn’t say it” is an interesting line. So she has to die, I still think they could’ve just convinced her that you don’t make friends with fascists but ok. They never say what the Clark Gable movie is.

Operation Annihilate! Kirk’s brother dies, and so does his sister in law, leaving his nephew without parents. This is never resolved and the episode ends with them laughing about how Spock got his eyesight back.

#star trek tos #star trek tos reaction #star trek reaction #star trek tos season 1 #star trek tos season 1 reaction #star trek tos first time viewing #Spock #Kirk #McCoy #Uhura #Sulu #is a swashbuckler at heart #crushing on number 1 #you don't make friends with fascists #sex pollen #spirk #is a fun ship #wtf was shore leave though #futurama #at least I've lived to hear Spock say he fucked up - Dr. McCoy

[siszx]

Picard doodle...

Where the Heart Is Part 2

It takes Agnes a couple of minutes to recognize where exactly she is. The mornings she used to wake up to in the past a couple of weeks were with bright light, sweet smell of flowers and absolute loneliness. Not today though... This is a room for solitude with a small roof window which Agnes is now staring at. The pillows are not as soft as in her memory and smell a faint of cigar? The smell of this particular man? Agnes suddenly rises and sits up...Now she recognizes it is Captain’s quarters on La Sirena and her sensation is eager to speak to her. This is hungover though not bad enough as she remembers every details from last night. A bit of embarrassed, a bit of excitement, a bit of ... Where, is, Cris? He can’t just leave me here and go away again?! I need a TALK! When Agnes is busy talking to herself in her mind, Cris steps out of the bathroom half naked with his hair wet. Eyes are met. Captain is at his usual casualness but still a bit caught off guard. He thought Agnes would still be asleep cuz of hungover plus the exhaustion after...that...yes, yes, they went all the way there again. Cris indeed plans to wake up earlier and set out for the Artifact without Agnes knowing ...Hmm...seems not a plan anymore. Agnes tries very hard to keep her eyes at Captain’s face instead of lower down to his naked chest. Well, she is still not able to stop blushing and her mind is automatically flashing what happened last night - She begging him to take her to his quarters...She requesting him to get her the cozy linen sleep shirt from her quarters (she must be very drunk)...she teasing him with kisses and touches...Oh no! Agnes seriously doubts if it is really what she wants to have Cris right here right at this moment. She would’ve buried herself in the sheets and taken at least an hour to put herself together...Cris keeps staring at Agnes but in a very soft way while using a towel to dry his hair. This blonde woman with one side of shoulder slipped outside of shirt seems very comfortable in his bed. What is she thinking now in her little head? Hmm...Cris bet she comes to remember what happened and he decided not to tell her she forced him to go get her “cozy” linen shirt and made him get caught by Seven and Raffi on his way back to his quarters. And he will definitely not to tell Agnes he just lost it the moment she closed up the distance between them to kiss him and he touched her silky blonde hair...Cris gives up and tosses the towel on the sofa. He walks over to Agnes and sit down beside her. “I guess... we need a talk.”

#star trek picard #agnes jurati #cristobal rios #cris rios #captain rios #agnebal #small fandom is the best fandom

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

A Different Medium: Characters and Stories in Movies vs. TV

There’s more to the differences between film and television besides the size of the screen.

When it comes to making a television show versus making a movie, there’s a lot that has to be done differently.  Obviously there’s a smaller budget and the possibility of being cancelled, but there’s more to it than that.  Everything from plots and characters to special effects and casting has to be done differently to be successful on a smaller screen.

Which makes sense.

Now, this can lead to the misconception that television is, in some way, inferior to film, which isn’t the case at all.  Like I said earlier, it’s just different.

So, if you haven’t guessed, today’s article is going to be discussing the dissimilarities between the mediums, both in storytelling aspects and in format.  So, without further ado, let’s take a look.

There are two main differences between film and television that affect how they are made.  The first is time.  

See, a television series has a longer overall period of time to make an impact on the audience, but only twenty to forty five minutes to do it.  On the other hand, a film has around two hours to tell its story, but it’s only done once.  While at first it might seem like television might be just ‘compressed’ movies, as it turns out, this time constraint totally changes the way either piece of media is made in the first place.

For example, when it comes to developing memorable characters or pieces of dialogue, the way to do it is totally different for each medium.

When a television character uses an iconic phrase or wears an iconic piece of clothing, they have multiple seasons to solidify that in people’s memories.  Columbo wears a trench coat, Thomas Magnum wears Hawaiian shirts, Captain Picard says ‘make it so’.  But a movie?

A movie has (usually) one chance to make it stick in people’s minds, so they use a different approach.  They make their character stand out a little more, or connect them to the story they’re in.

Indiana Jones wears a fedora and carries a bullwhip, which are both displayed prominently in scenes relevant to the plot.  The phrase ‘I feel the need, the need for speed’ is memorable for its connection to the setting in Top Gun. In short, movies tend to be more situational with their iconography.  Spock always says ‘live long and prosper’, but the Terminator only says ‘hasta la vista, baby’ a few times, on memorable occasions.  When it comes to making a movie character memorable, all it takes is keeping what makes them iconic inseparable from the story.

The problem is, that can be hard.  It does seem like writing a story for a movie is much harder than writing for a television series.  After all, what can twenty to forty-five minutes tell that a full length movie cannot?

Once again, the difference is time.  You can’t force a two hour story into a forty-five minute episode, but that doesn’t mean you can’t tell meaningful stories, it just means they have to be done differently.  Just as television is a smaller screen, so are television stories on a smaller scale.

See, in film, you have a bigger budget, more room to tell the story. You can explore more, usually with more characters.  In Return of the Jedi, you get to watch the Battle of Endor, the Battle of the Second Death Star, and the fight between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.  These are all major conflicts, determining the fate of the galaxy, and you feel that urgency for the world’s sake, not just the characters’ sakes.  The conflict feels larger than life, affecting everything.

By contrast, the conflicts in stories on television are, if not smaller, seem smaller.  They follow a specific group of people that the audience knows well, and even if the ‘problem’ is global, the action is very personal.  The Borg are going to destroy the Federation, but the audience is gripped with the crushing thought of Jean-Luc Picard, devoid of humanity.  Without more time to develop a story, the focus is on the characters and their reactions to the events, affecting the audience as much as a film would.

The thing is, television, at its heart, tends to be character driven. Not many people return to television shows again and again because they really enjoy the stories.  For many people, it’s the characters.  Buffy Summers, Data, Jessica Fletcher, Thomas Magnum, The Doctor, Mulder and Scully, The Fonz, etc.  We care about these people, and come back to see them again and again because we enjoy getting to know them.  As the seasons pass on television, we can see characters grow and change gradually in ways that most movie characters don’t. The better the connection, the more intense the emotion.

Once again, this doesn’t make one better than the other.  Without the benefit of time, movie characters usually do most of their growing and changing in the span of the two hours of film. Han Solo grows from a selfish smuggler to Rebellion hero in one film.  Ellen Ripley goes from traumatized survivor to action hero in Aliens.  Phil Connors begins Groundhog Day as a self-centered jerk and ends it as a more compassionate, empathetic person.  The only difference between these characters and characters on television are that the growth happens much faster.

The second difference between movies and television is that television tends to be more episodic.

In film, you have a consistent villain, a consistent hero, a constant conflict, a constant story.  Once the conflict is over, the story ends, it’s over.  On television, it’s a little different.

On television, your hero is consistent, facing new villains every week. Every episode, the conflict starts over; no progress is made.  Every week, Jessica Fletcher will take down another murderer.  The A-Team will build, shoot, and punch their way through this week’s villain.  The Addams Family will accidently alarm another ‘normal’ neighbor.  The characters don’t change, and, more importantly, neither does the status quo.

In a movie, a story can escalate.  Characters change and grow to fit the new circumstances, but television characters usually don’t.  They learn the same lessons over and over again, the villains rarely stick around long enough to make a lasting impression on the characters.  Until the late ‘80s, there was little continuity and characters didn’t really develop.  You got to know them better, sure, but they never grew as people.  On one hand, this prevents from alienating audiences and makes it easier on writers who don’t have to develop a character for five years or more.  On the other hand, it can become tiresome to watch characters go through the same processes repeatedly with no lasting repercussions.  True, things did change with the release of Star Trek: The Next Generation, followed by shows like The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where characters did change and were drastically affected by events within the show (a lot of that having to do with recurring villains and plotlines).

Even so, television is more self-contained, more restricted due to time constraints, without more room to grow and explore.  Film can do more on a larger scale, and do it faster.  So, which is better?

Honestly?  It’s all down to personal preference and individual cases.  Some people like Luke Skywalker better than Mr. Spock.  Others don’t.

Movies and television are very different.  They have to tell stories in separate ways, thanks to time constraints, but one is not better than the other.  Both mediums stick with people, both have characters and stories that we remember and enjoy, with different focuses.  They’re meant to tell different tales in a different way, both being equally capable of giving us memorable characters and stories that affect us and move us.  There’s no battle between them as to which is better, just as there is no decision whether comic books are better than novels.  They are two different mediums designed to give us different, but equally good, stories.

Tune in next time where we’ll begin taking a look at one of the most beloved television shows of all time: Murder, She Wrote.  Thanks so much for reading!  If you have a thought you’d like to share, please drop an ask to express it!  I hope to see you in the next article.

#Film #Movies #Television #TV

[silverbackwolf14]

Please do 27 for me when you get the chance, because when I shared this a while back, I was like "dear god I hope no one gives me Qcard for 27" 😂 Make it awkward and ask me back if you like! Lol

Sorry this took so long to do! This was an interesting one to try and pull off. I would very much enjoy reading your version of this scenario. For those who can’t remember, the prompt was “I’m Pregnant.” This is an Mpreg. Don’t like, don’t read.

Captain Jean-luc Picard walked with purpose down the long hallways of the Enterprise. It was always odd after coming back from a long temporal vacation. There was always a certain sense of disorientation. Never truly knowing what time it was, always feeling like it should be a different date. But the feeling always dissipated over time.

Jean-luc smiled, remembering his little get away with Q. They had spent the equivalent of four days in a little world Q had created just for them. Their ‘days’ had been spent making love, cuddling, and the occasional playful argument. And it had all been good. Very good. Q had decided that it was time to spice things up a little. Changing gender and form on occasion, but never too different from the form he usually wore. It had been a very pleasant vacation, but it was still good to be back.

He was absolutely delighted to walk in the door to find Q waiting for him. “Hello darling,” Picard whispered, leaning in to give his mate a kiss. “How are you?”

Q didn’t answer him, instead he busied himself by nuzzling into Picard’s chest. The Captain gave a soft chuckle at Q’s antics. “I missed you too dear.” He ran his hands through the soft curls atop of Q’s head. Gently lifting Q’s head from his chest, Picard placed gentle kisses across all of Q’s face. They soon were entwined in a soft, yet passionate kiss. Full, warm lips kept the revered Captain from thinking too hard. They did not, however, stop Picard from noticing something was off. The cozy intimacy that they had formed seemed almost nervous in nature. Perhaps it was that Q held him a bit too tightly, or maybe it was Q’s silence. Whatever the cause, it worried Picard. When the kiss broke, he was awaited by Q’s wide eyes.

“Q, is everything alright?” His hands drifted, rubbing Q’s back in a hopefully soothing motion. Q moved as if to kiss him again, but Picard put a finger to the other’s lips to stop him. “No Q. I want you to tell me what’s wrong.”

Q moved away from him just a little too quickly. Picard wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, or if Q was vibrating just slightly enough to cause a soft blur around him. The entity’s bright eyes seemed to be filled with supernovae as they twinkled, and shone in the darkened room. His full lips moved to say something, but no sound came out. Picard wanted so badly to go over and wrap him up in the most comforting forms of affection he could, but he knew if he did he would never get the truth out of Q.

“Do you love me?” The question was barely a whisper. So unlike Q’s general loud, flippant tone of voice.

“Of course I do. Have I ever given you reason to doubt it?” Q shook his head. “Exactly. So there is no reason to ever worry that I don’t love you, but this still doesn’t answer my question.” Picard stiffened, a sharp thought cut through his mind. “Q, did something happen? Is the Continuum planning something? Q, are they trying to take you away from me?” He gazed imploringly into Q’s face, searching desperately for an answer. He reached up to place a hand on his mate’s face. Picard’s heart almost seemed to split in two as he felt Q tremble.

“No, it…It’s not the Continuum. I just. I can’t believe I could be so lucky as to have you. So lucky to have you love me back.” With that he leaned down and took Picard’s face in his hands and kissed him. “Let’s not dwell on this anymore. I’ve missed you.” 

They moved to the couch and nothing was said for a very long time. The only noise that filled the room was the humming of the engines, and the occasional sigh of contentment. 

“Jean-luc, what do you think about having children?” At this Picard raised an eyebrow. Children? Why on earth would Q want to talk about having children?

“I don’t think I would make a very good father,” He responded; absentmindedly running his fingers through Q’s curly hair. Why was Q talking about having children? He had a son. “Q, is everything alright with Junior?” 

Q shifted positions and snuggled closer. “He’s fine. I think he’s somewhere in the Gamma Quadrant right now.”

So Junior was ok, but that still didn’t explain why Q was talking about having children. Maybe it was just Q trying to make conversation. “So, what do you think about having children Q?”

“I think that there’s no one in the universe I’d rather have father my children than you.” Q kissed Picard’s neck before nuzzling back into his chest.

Picard began to panic. Did Q want children? He didn’t want to disappoint his mate, but he just didn’t see children fitting in with his life. It was true he had grown very fond of Junior, but he didn’t have to worry about something to him, or about raising him incorrectly because he wasn’t around all the time. No. He had to put an end to this before Q got carried away.

“Q, I don’t think having children would be a good idea.” Q seemed to tense up in his arms.

“Ever?” Q whispered meekly from the depths of Picard’s starfleet jacket.

“Ever,” Picard confirmed. “It’s just…Well Q think about it. What do I have to offer a child? And I don’t want my child to have to go through what Amanda did, only our child wouldn’t stand a chance because they truly would be a hybrid. And -Q?” Wet spots began to form on the shirt of the Captain’s uniform. Q was shaking gently, his hands clenched; grabbing fistfuls of uniform fabric. “Love what’s wrong? Q, I didn’t mean-”

“Please.” He choked out. “Please tell me… tell me…” Q was ready to break apart holding back the sobs that threatened to break free.

Picard began to soothingly rub Q’s back in comforting circles. What was going on with him? “What is it you need me to tell you dear? Oh mon petit, don’t cry.”

Q took giant, gasping breaths. Desperately trying to calm his human form down enough that he could continue speaking. When he thought he could manage speaking again, he tried to tell his mate what he needed for reassurance. “Tell me… tell me that there is some…some scenario w-where you’d be willing to have children with me.” Picard opened his mouth to speak, but Q quickly cut him off. “Don’t be specific, j-just tell me there is at least one or two scenarios where you would be w-willing to have a child with me.”

Picard was absolutely struck dumb by Q. What the hell was going on? He couldn’t even think, but surely… “Q, I-I’m sure there is a scenario, or two where I’d be willing to have a child with you, but I fail to see-”

Q squeezed him tighter. “T-thank you. Oh, thank you Jean-luc.” His sobs began to grow quieter.

             "Q. Please. What’s going on?“ Jean-luc begged. "You’ve been acting odd this whole evening, and I’m worried about you.” Q removed himself from Picard’s embrace and headed to the window. His form once more retaking that soft blur.

             "Promise you won’t get mad?“ Q whispered, his eyes not leaving the darkness of space.

             "Q-”

             "Promise.“

            Picard let out a tired sigh, before responding. "I promise. Now what happened?”

           Q’s blur worsened and it almost seemed that he would shake apart. Anxiety and anticipation consumed Picard. What could be-

           "I’m pregnant.“

           A sensation akin to ice ran through Picard. How? Why? Hell, when had it happened? What would the crew think? What would Starfleet do? Oh, God… What would the Continuum do? His mind ran a mile a minute. What was happening? What was happening? What was-

           "Jean-luc?” Q’s timid voice rang through the confusion and chaos of the Captain’s mind. Everything came back into focus as Picard looked at Q. Tears swelled in Q’s eyes. Did Q really think that he would be angry with him? Did entity think that he wouldn’t love him any more? 

“Q, what… What are you planning to do?” Picard wasn’t sure which answer he dreaded more.

Tears came streaming down, and choked sobs resumed their place in the air. “I w-won’t t…terminate! N-not even for you Jean-luc. T-this is m-my baby and damn the C-Continuum and their j-judgment!” Q was practically screaming. His body shook dreadfully as sobs wracked his entire form.

 Picard stumbled over his own feet as he rushed to hold Q. He did everything within his power to calm down his mate. Placing kisses on his tear streaked cheeks. Whispering small words of reassurement, while rocking gently back and forth. 

 "Q, it’s going to be ok. I love you, and nothing is going to change that. You’re absolutely right. This is your baby. The Continuum, nor myself, have any say in what you do, ok? Oh love, it’s going to be ok.“ Q’s sobbing quieted down, but his body still shook horribly. “But my dear, if you do decide to keep our child, I have but one request,” He whispered to Q, lovingly nuzzling into his mate.

“And what is that?” Q hiccuped. 

"That you allow me to be a part of our child’s life,” Picard whispered as lowered a hand to Q’s midsection.

“You mean it?” Q sniffled, tension slowly beginning to melt away.

“Of course I mean it.” He kissed the entity’s cheek with a softness reserved for only the most fragile of objects. “It’s not going to be easy by any means, but we are going to raise our baby, and things are going to turn out fine, alright?”

“I love you,” Q mumbled, as he practically melted into the captain.

“I love you too.” And to the child that was yet to be born, he internally professed himself. I love you as well, mon Petit.

#Qcard #PiQard #star trek #star trek tng #tng #Q #picard #Jean-Luc Picard #captain picard #Mpreg #writing #my writing #asks #I'm so sorry this is trash #I had no idea what to do #also sorry for the weird indents #mobile sucks with formatting #q star trek #q picard

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

Birthday prompt #3

Read on Ao3 Birthday prompts masterlist

@talvenhenki

[Can I prompt you to write something about Raffi and Seven adopting Elnor and them being the disaster team we all need and deserve?]

“We need to train,” Seven declared one morning, dropping down to the empty spot next Elnor and Raffi at the mess table.

Rios exchanged a single look with Soji and Agnes and fled, dumping his half eaten bacon and eggs into the reclaimer. The girls followed suit, looking alarmed.

“Train?” Elnor asked, munching on his cereals. “I do not understand. You and I train together several times a week, and Captain Rios often joins us. Are you speaking of something different?”

“We need to train at football,” Seven said darkly.

Raffi’s eyes widened, and she tried to flee the table too, only to have Seven snatch the hem of her shirt and force her to sit back down.

“Not so fast,” she snapped. “I need you on my team. I’ll never beat Rios without the person who knows him best.”

“Why would you wish to beat Captain Rios at football?” Elnor inquired, still eating his frosted flakes.

Seven took one look at them, ready to scold him for speaking with his mouth full, when she noticed dark chips floating in the bowl. Her eyes widened.

“Elnor! Is that chocolate?”

Raffi immediately snagged the offending bowl and threw it in the reclaimer along with its content, horrified. Elnor pouted.

                                                         X

“Remind me why we’re doing this,” Raffi sighed for the twentieth time as Seven kicked ball after ball into the holodeck’s goal, trying and failing to score any points.

Mr Hospitality smiled at her from where he was standing, catching Seven’s next throw without even looking.

“I told you, Miss Seven is upset about Captain Rios teaching Elnor and Soji to play without her knowledge.”

“And I told you,” Seven gritted out, “that’s not the reason.”

Elnor was watching from the sidelines, sitting cross legged and eyeing Seven innocently.

“You are not very convincing,” he candidly informed her. “And I do not believe you could beat Captain Rios at any ball game.”

That got Seven to kick the ball twice as hard, her Borg implants sending it flying. The Hospitality Hologram, who was programmed with Rios’ skills at the game, caught it effortlessly. Raffi sighed again.

“Seven, he’s not wrong.”

“Shut up, you’re playing next.”

                                                          X

Cris found the three of them exhausted and sweaty, sprawled on the holodeck floor with no energy or dignity left.

“Did you train all morning?” He asked incredulously, glancing at the scoreboard and the various holographic screens floating around displaying reviews of their performances. “You’re crazy.”

“Get lost, Cris,” Raffi muttered, draping an arm across her eyes to cover her shame. “Those two forced me.”

“Seven insisted,” Elnor said sheepishly, staring at the ceiling. “I don’t like telling people no, and I knew you wouldn’t mind too much because Seven has no actual chance of ever beating you.”

“Wow, thanks,” Seven’s prone form grumbled, her face hidden behind a curtain of damp locks.

Cris shook his head, bewildered. As he stared at his holodeck, something in his expression shifted, and his beard did nothing to hide how badly he wanted to laugh.

“I’ll leave you to it then,” he coughed, and he left before his face could betray him more.

They all heard Soji and Agnes giggle as the door closed behind him.

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“You need to wake up,” Raffi announced a week later, striding into Seven’s quarters with Elnor in tow.

She immediately ordered coffee from the replicator, prompting a disgruntled Seven to glare at her blearily.

“It’s 3am,” Seven said flatly.

“Correct,” Raffi acknowledged, forcing her to sit up and shoving a cup of coffee into her hands. “It’s very early, which means there might still be a chance to fix things.”

“I’ll bite,” Seven sighed. “What’s going on?” And she sipped the coffee, because she had a feeling she was going to need it.

“There are tribble-rabbits hybrids on this ship.”

Seven threw the empty coffee to the floor and bolted out of her quarters.

                                                             X

“What kind of starship doesn’t have jefferies tubes?” Seven griped as she crawled through the narrow ventilation shaft.

“A small ship?” Elnor quipped, earning himself a swat on the shin.

“People who smuggle tribble-rabbits on ships don’t get to be snippy,” she growled.

Raffi sighed through their earpieces.

“Nothing in the transporter room, guys. Picard and Cris are still on the deck. It doesn’t look like they’ve heard you yet.” She paused for a few seconds, and Elnor and Seven waited. “I don’t get it though,” Raffi said thoughtfully, and they could just picture the focused expression, the need to understand stuff. “From what I’ve heard about tribbles, there should already be enough of them to smother us, let alone be seen. Why aren’t they reproducing?”

“Oh,” Elnor said cheerfully, “I know that! They’re neutered.”

There was a long, long, long moment of silence.

“What?!” Raffi choked out, sounding close to having a stroke.

Seven closed her eyes and breathed in and out.

“Is that a bad thing?” Elnor asked, puzzled.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“We need a cat,” Elnor said quietly one day, sitting on the floor of the bridge with a sleeping Soji’s head pillowed on his lap.

Rios didn’t even spare him a glance.

“No.”

“We need a cat,” Elnor repeated, still whispering. “It would be good. Soji likes cats. I like cats. Raffi likes cats. Agnes likes cats. Seven likes cats. Emil likes cats. Enoch likes cat. Ian likes—”

“I get it, I get it!” Rios interrupted vehemently – but not too loudly. “But it’s my ship, my rules, and we’re not getting a cat.”

Seated in front of the ops console with a mug of tea and one of Rios’ books, Picard chuckled soundlessly and exchanged fond looks with Agnes. She was smiling too.

“You like cats!” Elnor protested, his hushed voice suddenly higher-pitched.

“I most certainly do not,” Cris spluttered.

Seven’s arrival cut short the rant he’d planned on delivering.

“What’s going on?”

“Seven!” Elnor’s murmured exclamation turned Cris’ blood to ice. “Seven,” the kid repeated, “we need a cat.”

“Do we now?” She asked. “Then we should get one.”

Cris slumped in his chair, defeated. When Raffi arrived not ten minutes later with the address of the nearest space station with an animal shelter, he could only groan and hide his face in his hands.

#my writing #birthday prompts #save tag #star trek: picard #star trek #seven of nine #elnor #raffi musiker #space shenanigans

[kartoon12]

What Does God Need with a Space Station?

Okay guys, this is probably going to sound like the weirdest post I've ever made, as this is a subject I don't talk about too often---that being dreams. Most of the time, I don't remember having any, or I'm able to recall tiny snippets here and there, with the rest disappearing into a fog. There's really only a handful of very long, very vivid dreams I can remember having, and all of them were wacky, but mostly funny thinking back on them. And they almost always involve fandoms in some way. If anyone's interested in hearing more about those, feel free to message me. (The one where me and the bridge crew of Star Trek: TNG were trying to escape a hospital with Captain Picard yelling at everyone because we were making him late for a party is a particularly fun one.)

 However....just a few nights ago, I had a dream that....REALLY takes the cake, which is putting it mildly. This is one time I really felt the need to make this public, as I seriously, really want to try and see if anyone out there can help me analyze this, as this dream contained subject matter I've almost NEVER dreamt about before, and certainly not to an intensity and specifically detailed degree such as this. I wouldn't call it a nightmare, but neither was it fun. It was spooky...but more for the oddity and sheer level of "what the f**k?!" -ness to it.

 I also feel the need to open with a disclaimer: I was raised in a Catholic household, and though I haven't attended a mass in quite some time, I still at least say my prayers every night. But I have friends of many different sections of faith; I totally respect other people's religious beliefs, and I'm not trying to force mine on anyone here. I try to keep my mind open to other interpretations of "what lies beyond" and such. Why this disclaimer? Well, you're about to find out.  Strap in, folks. This is gonna' get lengthy....

 So the dream opened in third person view, as though I were watching a movie. Somewhere in the middle of outer space, two giant robots are just sort of hovering there, fighting with each other. (I'm talking like mecha in the style of Transformers or Gundam or the like.) It's also worth mentioning that this whole opening section of the dream was presented like a cartoon. (The art style of "My Life as a Teenage Robot" is the closest I can get to describing what it looked like.) One mecha was an orange/red color, the other was blue and white. Note that I said they were fighting WITH each other, not attacking one another. That's because the "camera" (for lack of a better word) then shifted to show this HUGE spaceship off in the distance, slowly making its way towards a space station. (But not like, a realistic NASA space station or anything---this looked all sci-fi/future-y like something out of Star Trek.) The Star Destroyer from Star Wars is the closest I can get to describing what this starship looked like in terms of size and scope. Although it wasn't outright firing lasers or anything, in dream-world, my mind already knew the backstory that that Star Destroyer thing was on its way to attack the space station.

 So naturally, red and blue robot have been sent out to stop the thing. Except the two of them were bickering amongst each other, arguing over the best course of action. Blue Robot keeps insisting they have to work together; Red Robot won't listen to reason and thinks his plans are better. Finally, Blue Robot gives up trying to argue and flies off to fight the Star Destroyer thing alone. A voice over the radio (probably someone back at the station) pleads with the two to work together and that Blue Robot doesn't stand a chance and can't do it alone. Blue Robot responds with, "Well I'm gonna' have to try." And disappears into the distance.

  Considering my love for movies and comics and stuff, so far, this is par the course for dreams I've had in the past. But THIS is where things take a turn for the truly bizarre.

 The "movie" then cut to inside the space station (very futuristic and high tech looking. All white walls, furniture and equipment. Very slick and clean looking.). Everything's now in first person view, so obviously from my viewpoint now. There's a guy frantically typing at a control panel (I'm assuming he's the one communicating with the robots.) All sorts of alarms are blaring and going off. The entire station is shaking and vibrating as it starts coming under attack. I think to myself, "I gotta' get out of here!" So I race to the nearest automatic doors and have to pry them with both my hands just to get them to slide open.

 The second I crossed the doorway, everything stopped being an animated cartoon, and from here on out, for the rest of the dream, everything is now normal/live action/real world. I started running all through the station trying to find help, until eventually, I hit upon an idea.  I kid you not, the only thought that came to me at that point was, "....I have to find God."

 Yes. You heard me. "I have to find God." Hang in there. It only gets freakier.

 So I head off, trying to find anyone who can help me look for God, as by this point, He's the only one who can get us out of this mess. Couple important things to note here:

1.) Despite being on a space station, none of the people aboard are in any sort of discernible uniform. Everyone I encounter is wearing normal clothes like jeans and T-shirts and stuff (save for one person, but we'll get to HER in a second....)

2.) The deeper I go into the station, and the farther I get away from that docking bay area I started off in, the less the station shakes, and the alarms gradually get quieter, until eventually, the attacks stop completely.

And 3.) A large portion of the crew (or passengers?) I initially come across are all Chinese (or of some Asian descent thereof). Whether this station was built or funded by China, I don't know.

 In any case, no one seems to be able to speak English, and no one seems to be scared or bothered, or even aware of what's going on outside. But they can tell I need help, so they point in the direction of this lady that I'm assuming is the leader or figurehead of some sort.  I assume so, because she's the only one dressed differently from everyone else.....and she's dressed like something out of the Feudal Era. A geisha, I think they call it. A red robe with gold flower patterns. Hair done up in a bun. Face painted white. Red lipstick. The works. Queen Amidala look, ya' know?

 Of course, dream-me doesn't question this at all, and I plead with her to take me to where God is. I then started repeating the phrase, "you know?! Heart, mind, soul?!" to her, over and over again. During which, I'd point to my heart, then my head, then trace a circle in the air with both index fingers for emphasis, hoping she'd get what I was asking her. Please note that in real life, I have NO clue what Chinese religion or mythology entails, nor have I ever studied it, and I'm 100% sure what I just described is completely wrong and total bulls**t. But apparently, this is how it worked in dream world, and apparently, I knew just the right sign language to make, because Geisha Lady finally got a look of understanding on her face, smiled and nodded, and said something in her own language that gave off the message of "oh, okay. I'll take you to Him."

 So she takes me by the arm, motions for me to follow her, and I let her lead me through the rest of the space station. All the alarms and chaos from earlier has totally stopped by this point. Her dress/kimono thing is so tightly wrapped around her that she had to take fast little baby steps, and you'd think with her penguin-walking it would've taken forever, but it actually took no time at all to get where we were going.  During which, I look around, and notice that, at that point, the hallways of the station started looking more and more like the isles of a department store. She weaves me through rows and rows of shelves stacked with all sorts of stuff. Some shelves are full, others have some stuff but were clearly picked through, and some shelves are completely empty.

 At long last, Geisha Lady shows me into a large waiting room of sorts, bowing and sweeping her arm out as if saying, "well, here we are." I look around, and there's a long line of people all waiting to get into an adjoining room where God is. Only then do I finally start seeing other races of people besides the Chinese from earlier. Black, Hispanic, Japanese, White---a mixture of all sorts from seemingly all over the world are in line. And every single person has some kind of item in hand. Books, potted plants, a wooden spoon and whisk (guess that person liked cooking?); any kind of knick-knacks you can think of. (Which I guess sort of explains the department store place from earlier and why stuff was missing.) I then walked past the line and peeked into the adjoining room to see what everyone was waiting for, and.....

 Well.....um.....I found God.

 The room was a very plain looking bedroom, with beige-colored walls, a queen-sized bed, and a single nightstand, but nothing else, not even a lamp, which would explain why the room was so dimly lit, with the only available light coming in from the doorway. I took a step closer to try and better see the....well....'being' occupying the bed. Or pair of beings I guess I should say (more on that in a second). At the foot of the bed was, what appeared to be, a Hispanic man in his 20s or 30s, with short scruffy black hair and tanned skin, and wearing nothing but a plain, white T-shirt....because he had no legs. His body ended at the torso, and he was propped up with a ton of pillows so he could see the visitors better. More pillows were situated on the floor for the people to kneel on, and at that moment, a lady and her kid were kneeling in front of Him, and everyone was speaking in super hushed tones, so I couldn't really hear what they were talking about. Though, every so often, I'd hear the amputee guy (that I'm assuming was God) speaking in a calm, reassuring tone, saying things like, "Don't worry. You're going to be okay. Everything'll be fine." And so on. No stereotypical big booming voice or anything like that.

 But I probably wasn't paying much attention to what they were saying because I was then focused more on the OTHER being occupying the rest of the bed. Lying at the top of the bed, directly behind the Hispanic guy, was another humanoid shape cut off at the torso. I say humanoid because this....thing....was more hidden in the shadows due to its position in the room. I could make out a head, neck, arms, hands, and chest....but no discernible clothes. It was more like....a dark blob that took the rough shape of a human....and it had no face. Or maybe it did, but....anytime I tried to look directly at it, its head seemed to be encased in a kind of fog, with the face area constantly shifting and blurring. If you've ever watched police or crime shows where they interview someone who wants to remain anonymous, and they blur their face out, that's basically what it looked like. And seeing this half-a-humanoid lying above the Hispanic guy, making it look like they were stacked on top of each other, almost kind of reminded me of Vishnu a bit. (The being from Hindu mythology who looks like a human with multiple arms.)

 Anyway, so I'm just standing there, taking this all in, when someone who was waiting in line (can't remember if it was a guy or lady) came up next to me, and they must've saw my confusion, because they leaned in and whispered, "Every couple of years, they pick a new person to represent Him." This is the only wording I SPECIFICALLY remember, EXACTLY. Whoever the "they" is that this person was referring to, I have no clue. The robots? The Chinese? The people waiting in line? Who knows.

 The person then explained a little more, and unfortunately, I can't remember the exact wording, but they basically said something like, "It's strongly recommended that you bring Him a present." Guess that would explain why everyone in line was holding stuff. Finally, this person whispered to me, "I hear that books are His favorite." And I remember thinking to myself, 'Considering this dude's got no legs and is probably stuck in bed all day, yeah, he probably needs something to do.'

 And though I can't remember whether I thought it, or said it out loud, my last thought was, "Damn. I should've brought my books with me." (And if you know anything about me, I was most likely thinking of my self-published comic books.)

 And that's when, quite suddenly, I woke up.

  No, I'm NOT on drugs.  I have NEVER taken any drugs; recreational or otherwise,  nor do I drink. Thanks for asking.

 So.....what in the name of all that is holy does this all mean???

 Like I said in the intro, this is something that is SO far out of my wheelhouse when it comes to what I normally dream about that I felt that I HAD to put it out there somewhere. I mean, I've gotten a bare-bones taste of other religions and cultures, mostly via movies and stuff, but it's not like I'm actively studying Feudal Era China or Hindu legends all the time, nor was I reading up on any sort of material right before bed or anything. I guess what I'm getting at is that the whole religious aspect of it is what really threw me, to the point of almost feeling prophetic in a way. I had goosebumps upon waking up, and I just couldn't stop thinking about what I experienced for the rest of the day.

 I've managed to come up with just a few theories, though this could totally be off base, so bare with me.

 The only part I'm really sure on is the beginning part with the robots, since one was red and the other blue. And that whole part was in the style of a cartoon (while the rest of the space station was in "live action/real world"). My guess is that the robots are representing the Democratic and Republican parties, and how both of them have been reduced to blathering, cartoon caricatures who can't work together at all to fight something that's threatening everyone. (With the star destroyer as a stand in for the virus, I guess?)

 Then, what's with the people lining up with gifts and the section that looks like Wal-Mart? Is this supposed to mean that society's become super greedy and materialistic, to the point of thinking we can buy favor with someone? Or bribe our way into Heaven?   Then again, at least in the dream, I had little doubt that the beings in the bedroom WAS God, since He seemed like a pretty chill dude who spoke kindly and was being comforting.  So maybe the gifts people were bringing were like....representations of their hobbies or something? Maybe the vibe was supposed to be more like, "Hey! Thanks for creating me, God! Here's something I made with the talents you gave me!" Like a kid showing off their macaroni art to their parent or something like that. OR, maybe it was supposed to mean something like, "In order to follow Him, you have to give up your love for material things?" I don't know.

 And then there's that weirdly specific line that still haunts me. "Every couple of years, they pick a new person to represent Him."   I have a feeling the humanoid blurry shape that I wasn't able to clearly see the face of was the real God, while the Hispanic guy was His avatar of sorts.  Still don't know who the "they" is, though.   Or was this meant to mean something along the lines of, "Society has become so focused and desperate for a savior that they're starting to see celebrities and politicians as false gods? Thinking that one guy can fix everything, when really we should be bettering our inner selves?"

 "Every couple of years, they pick a new person to represent Him." I mean, with phrasing like that, and with a certain presidential election coming up.....

 *sigh* I'm just going to end it here before I start opening up a whole other can of worms. Thanks to anyone and everyone who stuck with this all the way to the end.  The whole dream actually felt like it lasted all of ten minutes---it just took me a bit to explain all the details is all. I haven't had any similar dreams since. But still.....if anyone out there can help me interpret this thing, I'd love to hear from you, as I have the biggest gut feeling this all means SOMETHING important. I just don't know quite what. But if this IS a premonition of some kind, I just hope to God it's a good one.

#dreams #dream interpretation #someone please help me with this #what the hell does this mean?

[tss-grimmverse]

Chapter 2: Gloxinia

it doesn’t mean much

it doesn’t mean anything at all

the life i’ve left behind me is a cold room

Virgil stirred to wide-eyed awareness twice in the night, both times because he thought he heard doors opening. But he was too exhausted to get up and check, and reluctantly settled down after the adrenaline wore off.

The third time he opened his eyes, the sky outside his bedroom window glowed an early morning blue and he desperately needed the restroom.

Groaning, he grabbed his hoodie from where he’d slung it over the headboard the night before, pulled it securely around him, and padded across the hallway. Once finished, he tiptoed cautiously into the main room, finding it exactly as he had left it the night before.

Was he still alone? If the sounds he’d heard were Logan coming in super late, at best the dude was probably still asleep.

Hell, I should still be asleep, Virgil thought, wandering blearily into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator, more out of curiosity than actual hunger, and let out a surprised laugh.

“Holy troll shit, that is a lot of jelly,” he murmured, pulling out a jar to read the label. Crofters Organic.

Oh.

That explained the postscript.

The sound of front door opening and closing startled him to his feet. Virgil hastily replaced the jar, lining it back up next to its dozen or so neighbors.

Closing the fridge door, he looked over the counter and found himself face to face with the most gorgeous person he’d ever laid eyes on. His heart stuttered. The newcomer dumped a keyring on the counter…shit, this was Logan?…and adjusted a pair of half-moon glasses.

“You must be Virgil,” he said in a deep, tranquil voice, stepping out of a pair of worn athletic shoes.

Virgil made a croaking noise that tried to become a greeting before getting stuck halfway down his throat.

Logan swept through the apartment, disappearing into the furthest room and reemerging with a towel. Sweat glistened on his bare chest, bark dark and beech smooth, and sparkled in black hair braided into a dozen wavy rows against his scalp. The guy had one of those sculpted, solid builds, all broad, lean planes and bold, sensual lines. An artist’s dream to shade; a little awkward to hug.

Virgil swallowed hard, forcing his poor gay eyes away.

Somehow between the normalcy of the apartment and the weirdly formal note, he had forgotten that Logan was half faery; half Court Fae, in fact, if his looks were any clue. Such faeries were, as a rule, heartbreakingly beautiful.

Upon closer examination, his non-human heritage was obvious. Ears that swept up and back to points on either side of his head, clearly visible to Virgil’s changeling gaze. Frost white streaks that twined through his braids. And those fae, prismatic eyes: the irises an explosion of frost and indigo and smoke that coalesced into a deep slate gray.

Eyes that gazed a little too deep, burned a little too wild behind his glasses.

Virgil knew he ought to say something, but his addled brain had forgotten how to operate his mouth.

“Apologies for my unkempt state,” Logan said as he patted himself down. “I always do my running in the morning before it gets too hot.”

“Uh…yeah,” Virgil muttered, wrenching his gaze from smooth muscles and a graceful sweeping collarbone to Logan’s stormy eyes, so striking in that dark face. “No, I mean…that’s cool.”

Eloquent, Virgil.

Logan eyed him impassively.

Virgil became abruptly and painfully ashamed to be dressed in nothing but ratty boxers and a faded hoodie. Maybe he could just escape into my room and put pants on or would Logan hate me for being rude but maybe he already hates me for being half naked in the living room what the hell is wrong with me…

“Do you drink coffee?”

Logan hung the towel over one of the dining room chairs and swept past Virgil into the kitchen. A trace of that elusive teal scent from the night before followed in his wake, nearly making Virgil swoon. Even his voice was sexy: dark and ocean blue, pleasantly filling the room without being loud.

Kelpie’s mane, Virgil, get your shit together. It’s not like you’ve never seen a hot black dude before.

He pulled his hoodie more tightly around himself.

“Uh, yeah,” he belatedly answered Logan’s question. “Coffee’s great.”

“Personally I like tea.”

Oh. Well, Virgil did usually manage to say the wrong thing.

Logan pulled a Keurig machine from a bottom cabinet and set it up on the counter.

“Herbal, preferably,” he added, “though I have been known to enjoy a good Earl Gray from time to time.”

“Earl Gray.” Virgil forced a chuckle. “You Captain Picard or something?”

His Rennie family had all been very fond of Star Trek, which was the only reason Virgil knew anything about it.

Logan, however, frowned.

“I am Logan Ursae.” He adjusted his glasses. “I assumed the Youngstown Grimms would have at least informed you of my name before sending you here?”

Virgil wasn’t sure if he was being mocked or if the guy was just that literal.

“I meant, like, the Star Trek character, dude. Obviously I know who you are.”

Logan’s mouth twisted and he turned back to the Keurig.

“I’m afraid I am not at all knowledgable about popular human entertainment. I find most of it trite and shallow.”

Virgil scuffed his bare foot uneasily over the carpet. Usually he preferred people to speak their minds instead of fucking around…but this guy took that philosophy a bit far.

He did write that stick-up-the-ass note.

“Do you know that proper peppermint can be frustratingly difficult to procure unless one grows it themselves?” Logan said, once again ignoring the awkward silence that had fallen.

Or maybe Virgil was the only awkward one, as usual.

“And it cannot be grown from seed, only cuttings.”

Virgil made a noncommittal noise, unsure if Logan was even expecting a response at this point.

Logan held out a box of flavored coffees, packed side by side and seemingly organized by color.

“Um…hazelnut if you’ve got it,” Virgil muttered. “Should I, like, help or whatever?”

“Nonsense, you are my guest. Plus my kitchen is not large enough to accommodate two people comfortably.” Logan waved a graceful hand as he filled a copper kettle. “I will start our drinks, and then perhaps we should both get dressed for the day.”

Virgil flushed and pulled his hoodie closer, aware once again that he’d galavanted out here in his underwear and worse, Logan had noticed. Had he seen Virgil ogling his bare chest?

Was that why he kept prattling on about tea?

He’s probably already decided I’m weird and creepy, he’s just waiting for the right moment to call me out…

“Why even have a coffee maker if you don’t drink coffee?” Virgil asked, and then flinched. He had a bad habit of masking his anxiety with belligerence.

It was why people tended not to like him.

Logan’s mouth quirked as he centered a mug under the Keurig. “You are not the first changeling I’ve taken in.”

He brushed past Virgil again (that scent, gods, Virgil’s brain swooned again), heading towards the back bedroom.

“Go and change while I shower,” he threw over his shoulder. “Then we can properly acquaint ourselves with one another.”

With that, the door clicked shut, leaving Virgil alone with a gaping mouth.

“Bloody redcaps,” he muttered, yanking a handful of his faded purple hair. ‘Acquaint ourselves’, my gay ass. Said with a straight face. How the fuck is anyone that oblivious?

“Naughty, naughty thoughts, changeling.” Remy’s amused smirk and sunglasses were just visible from his cabinet’s half-open door. “You’re lucky the Bear’s not a telepath.”

Virgil, flushing, made a rude gesture in the brownie’s direction and stalked to his own room, slamming the door. He then leaned against it and exhaled, his heart still throbbing unsteadily in his chest.

Logan was…not what he had expected.

Virgil wasn’t sure what he had expected, after reading that note from last night. Certainly not some hot nerd with a gorgeous runner’s body and a quiet, self-assured aura, plus a bit bossy, and damn, why do I find that kinda hot?

Remy’s taunt came back to him and he groaned, covering his face. They were naughty thoughts; thoughts a changeling like himself had no business entertaining. A beautiful half-faery deserved far better than a former thrall who’d done the sorts of things Virgil had done…

Plus you haven’t made the best first impression, have you?

Virgil thunked his head against the door, realized he’d been wool-gathering like a moron for several minutes, and went to change clothes. He took a little time to comb his hair and rub a little patchouli oil behind his ears. He wished he owned something nicer than ripped black jeans, faded band t-shirts (mostly metal), and one bulky, black plaid hoodie.

He hated that it suddenly mattered.

When Virgil emerged, Logan had already returned to the kitchen, dressed in a pair of dark jeans, a plain black polo that clung rather unfairly to his arms and torso, and…Virgil almost chuckled at the sight…a blue striped necktie.

Somehow, he made it work.

“Sit where you’d like.” Logan poured hot water into a galaxy mug without turning around. The Keurig spat the last of its sweet smelling contents into a second mug, and Logan carried both to the table.

Virgil sat, feeling self-conscious as Logan passed him his coffee.

Because now the half faery clearly expected them to talk about things.

Virgil hated talking about things.

“I imagine you have questions,” Logan stated without preamble.

“I…guess?” Virgil took a shy sip and winced as it burned his tongue.. “I mean…they didn’t tell me much about you back in Ohio,” he admitted. “Only that you have some ability to hide changelings from other Fae, and that’s why I’d be safe here.”

Logan stirred a generous dollop of honey into his tea, tasted it, grimaced, and added another spoonful. Virgil stared, morbidly fascinated that anyone so doggedly serious would want their drink that sweet.

“My ability to hide you is actually a byproduct of what I am, rather than anything I do.” Logan explained. “Simply put, even as a half-blood, my Court magic burns strong enough to mask yours. A proper Court faery could hide you far better, but finding one who wouldn’t immediately turn you back over to your master would be…”

“Impossible?” Virgil shivered.

“Improbable.”

There were a million questions Virgil probably needed to ask, since he was stuck here. But as usual, his mouth refused to cooperate.

Logan eventually got up to fry a couple eggs and fix some toast, prompting Virgil to ask about the fridge full of jam, which sparked a passionate one-sided rant about fruit spreads, organics, ethics, and the superiority of Crofters that spared Virgil the need to do anything except nod with wide eyes until breakfast was over.

(He was permitted to taste the sacred jam, and had to admit that it was pretty good).

“We will need to pick up Nicodemus this morning,” Logan stated once they’d finished eating and carried their plates to the sink.

“We?” Virgil echoed, choosing to focus on that rather than on who or what a ‘Nicodemus’ might be. He slid his plate into the soapy water as Logan washed, almost dropping it when he accidentally brushed Logan’s forearm. The half-faery’s skin was smooth and pleasantly cool.

“I do not think it safe for you to be left here alone for long periods of time, at least not at first. Therefore you will need to accompany me on errands. I suggest we take thirty minutes to digest and then be on our way.” Logan paused, and turned to properly face Virgil. “If…that is agreeable to you?”

Virgil’s dislike of being ordered around must have been visible on his face. He schooled it to neutrality and cleared his throat.

“Yeah, whatever.”

Good impression, Virgil, come on.

“I mean, I don’t have anything going on until classes start in two weeks, so…you know, whatever you need to do is cool with me.”

Great. Now stop rambling, idiot.

Logan nodded and swept past again, down the hall, and then his bedroom door was closing firmly behind him again. Virgil huffed and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

Definitely not a man of excess words.

Or, and I’m just spitballing here, he thought wryly as he meandered back to his own room. Maybe he hates you already.

Gloxinia: love at first sight

#sanders sides fanfiction #ts fanfic #virgil sanders #ts virgil #fae #logan sanders #ts logan #sanders sides #mahoganyandteakwood

[poetictrekkie]

TNG Crew Highschool!AU

Anonymous said: Hey! I was wondering for the 500 followers list prompt, you could do Headcannons for a TNG high school au? I was thinking of it as if they were students. Thanks so much if you decide do this!

Jean-Luc Picard

He’s one of those rare types who defies stereotype. 

No one can place him in any particular group, no set table in the cafeteria.

Of course, he prefers to spend lunch in the library. For some reason, the librarian never reprimands him if he eats there.

He’s fairly popular, and certainly no outcast. Whenever he enters a room, he exudes this undeniably authoritative aura.

Always taking the lead in group projects. Always.

Enjoys athletics, especially long-distance running. He’s trained for marathons in the past, and participates in cross-country events.

Subtly nerdy. He raises his hand all the time in English class.

Whenever students are assigned memorization work of a poem or a monologue, they can’t wait to hear Jean-Luc recite it.

His recitation of Hamlet’s To Be or Not to Be soliloquy went down in the history of the school as receiving a standing ovation and actual tears streaming down the teacher’s face.

He’s been the lead in the school play since his sophomore year. He was the first sophomore to get the lead.

Very private, especially in regards to his personal life. No one ever knows what’s going on in his head – or who he’s dating.

Will Riker

That guy. Every coming-of-age movie has one of them.

The more than slightly annoying, jock, “cool” guy that everyone wants to be around.

Secretly not a complete dunce. If he put in some effort, he could be doing great things.

Comes from money. The Rikers have been pumping money into the school for generations. Probably the only way that Will hasn’t gotten expelled.

There are probably several plaques in the school with ‘Donated by the Riker Family’ on them.

Has his own car the moment he turns sixteen, making him even more of an object of envy for the next few months.

Like his infamous escapades, his string of girlfriends is legendary. There’s a new girl on Will Riker’s arm every month.

But lately, since he started dating Deanna Troi, he’s toned down his reckless behaviour.

He’s also begun to realize that underneath his act, there’s a surprising amount of vulnerability that he’s refused to acknowledge.

Data Soong

Very likely the smartest person in the school.

He can memorize dates for history and formulas for math without a single error.

He is the captain of the school robotics team, and they’ve had a winning streak in the district and state tournaments since he joined.

He is also responsible for the construction of “Broomby,” a highly modified Roomba that can go 20 km/hr and is very good at wreaking absolute havoc when a distraction is necessary.

He is also on the autism spectrum (he has Asperger’s), and he finds it difficult to interact with people and feels uncomfortable in social situations.

This sometimes makes him a target for bullying, but Data has learned to ignore the people who tease him.

Even the teachers sometimes grow annoyed when Data tries to answer every question in class.

His adoptive father, Dr. Noonien Soong, is very protective of his son. But although he often wants to intercede on his behalf when he hears about the bullying, Data always stops him.

He hasn’t told him, but Data just wants to make his father proud, and prove that he can stand up for himself.

Geordi LaForge

The kind of person everyone wants to be friends with.

Rarely has a bad word to say about anyone. Very kind, funny, and helpful.

Geordi excels in the classes which require some hands-on work.

A star in woodshop. He has a knack for carving.

But he’s also very good at automotive work and technology-related tasks.

Always helps people with their homework. Might not know the answer every time, but he’ll sit and work it through.

He’s working at all the open houses for the school, talking to prospective students and touring them around the facilities.

When Data comes to the school, they immediately become fast friends.

Geordi understands how difficult it is to be different from other people. He’s visually impaired, but he doesn’t let that stop him from doing the things he loves.

The two of them spend late nights working on robotics projects, and Data even designed a pair of visual aids for his friend.

They didn’t work as well as the ones he already had, but Geordi kept them anyways.

He’s absolutely hopeless when he works up the courage to ask his crush out.

Hopeless.

But Data doesn’t really get that sort of thing either, so it all works out.

Beverly Crusher (Howard)

The model student and president of the Student Council.

Like Will, she also comes from a family of significant repute, but she doesn’t try to use her status for bonus points.

For her entire first year of high school, she denied any relation to the Howard family, just to prove she could make it on merit alone.

Everyone knows that Beverly is definitely going to get into a very good medical program in an Ivy League university.

She has top marks in Biology and Chemistry in her grade (Data is a year younger than her), and is an Honours student.

Beverly is friendly and effusive, but still introverted. She prefers to stick to her small group of friends.

She also has very high standards about the people she dates. Not many people can say they’ve gone out with Beverly Howard.

That’s why everyone was so shocked when she started dating Jack Crusher. A nice guy by all means, but no one particularly remarkable.

The two of them loved each other with a passion that could have went far beyond “high school sweethearts.”

But just before graduation, “could have” became all it ever could have been.

He was in the car.

Distracted. Listening to music. Talking.

Not seeing the truck that ran that red light.

Then Beverly didn’t know who to think to blame, not even Jean-Luc. Who was in the car too. Who survived.

Deanna Troi

The most popular girl in the school.

On first appearances, she comes off sometimes as a bit of an airhead.

Some people say she’s concerned more with her clothes than school itself.

But they couldn’t be more wrong.

Deanna is constantly motivated, trying hard in all her courses.

She knows she’s no Beverly Crusher, and certainly not Data, but she’s determined to succeed.

She’s an empath in every sense. She’s a great conversationalist, and has high emotional intelligence.

Whoever talks to Deanna always feels better and happier by the end of the conversation.

She gets top marks in the psychology class, and she’s considering becoming a psychiatrist or a counsellor.

She likes to make people feel good, and talk them through their problems.

Some people honestly prefer talk to Deanna than the actual school counsellor.

When Will Riker asks her out, she almost says no. In fact, she only says yes on the condition that she won’t become one of his cast-offs.

And surprisingly enough, Will Riker stays true to his word.

Because to him, Deanna is worth all the things in the world.

Worf

The slightly frightening exchange student.

He came from Belarus with his adoptive brother, Nikolai.

Compared to his rather rebellious and genial sibling, Worf is very stoic and prefers to keep to himself.

Some people joke that the brothers might as well have come from different planets.

Not many people have seen past his stony exterior. There are a few exceptions, though.

Deanna Troi, who he dated briefly in his junior year. But it ended up not working out, and they parted as good friends.

Jean-Luc Picard, who he respects as an intelligent person and capable leader. 

He is brilliant at sports, if rather aggressive.

He’s the captain of the school wrestling team, probably one of the best they’d had.

The bulk of sports-related injuries at the school had some relation to were caused by Worf.

He spends quite a bit of time in the gym, where he discovered he had an aptitude for basketball.

Tasha Yar introduced the game to him, and she remains his usual partner for shooting hoops.

He always stands up for the underdog, because he knows what it’s like to be one.

So, if he sees any of the younger kids being bullied, there’ll be hell to pay.

Tasha Yar

Ever since her first day of freshman year, Tasha Yar had acquired a sort of rebel mystique.

In the first lesson, she corrected the History teacher on a particular fact about the Cold War.

Not very politely, mind you.

By the end of the first month of school, she had been sent to the principal’s office twice.

Tasha’s very much a lone wolf. Wasn’t there to make friends, no matter how many people thought her defiance was “cool.”

“Tragic backstory unlocked at level 4.” No one’s got there. 

Protest is her art form.

She’s consistently skipped Fridays to strike for climate change.

She came early to school (for once) in order to put up signs protesting the heartbeat laws in Alabama and Georgia.

Tasha is a killer debater, and Debate is the only club she participates in.

If you try and argue anything with her, you’ve just dug your own grave.

Loves heavy metal, but also classical music. She doesn’t talk about the latter one as much, though.

When she’s not protesting the dress code, her favourite t-shirt reads: “Dismantling the patriarchy, brick by brick.”

And no one dares make fun of her, because they know they’ll pay for it one day.

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