#I know there's also one where Garak Fucking Dies (??!!)

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

Things that I know about A Stitch In Time prior to listening to it:

Garak goes to spy school, which is for spies (for some reason the idea of this is amusing to me. like I get it duh of course the Order must have some sort of training system but also. fanfic ass trope. Spy School! For Spies! it's even a boarding school and everything. DARKEST ACADEMIA)

Garak performs a classic bisexual rite of passage by falling in love with both members of an older(?) married couple (or well textually probably only the wife. I feel like I'd have heard about it if he were Betacanonically Queer (TM) in this book. but here's hoping I'll be astonished while listening!)

I can't remember if I read anything specific about it or not but just based on vibes alone I do not have high hopes for this couple's like. life expectancy.

Based on vibes alone I do not have high hopes for ANY character's life expectancy in this book tbh. If it involves Cardassians in general and Garak in specific I usually just assume everyone involved is doomed. This is going to be a FUN 12 hours and 28 minutes!

There was a post somewhere that mentioned that some supernatural magical stuff happens in this book and I'm SO FUCKING STOKED. HERE'S HOW GARAK ORB EXPERIENCE CAN STILL WIN!!!!

The entire concept of this book is so funny to me. Garak goes 7 years being ohhh so mysterious to Julian about himself or his past and then just spills his whole life story to him in a letter as soon as they're separated. Babygirl is going through Bashir Withdrawal Syndrome.

Most importantly KELAS MY BEST FRIEND KELAS FROM ONE (1) LINE OF CANON!!!!! I have no actual evidence that he ever shows up in this book but like he has to right. right. he's absolutely everywhere on ao3 y'all had to have gotten him from somewhere. I assume.

#forgot to actually post this so I did technically start listening by now but shhhh #anyways it just occurred to me that there's like a trillion ST books and multiple different ones that deal with Cardassians and with Garak #and maybe some of this stuff is actually in some entirely different book for all I know :| #look it's not my FAULT there's no like fuckin CHART of which books I'm supposed to read in what order #I need like. an idiot's guide to the betacanonverse. #starky's original posts #wasn't there one book where like Julian was in a coma?? is that where he's canonically at rn in the betacanon?? in a fucking COMA??? #I know there's also one where Garak Fucking Dies (??!!) #do all these take place in the same universe??????? #WHATEVER. BABY GARAK TIME. LET'S GO. #A Stitch In Time #star trek: deep space 9

[ofhouseadama]

Not 2 be insane but I Am Looking at the idea you posted abt Garak going a bit feral over Julian being pregnant and associated scent changes…I would like to see to see it.meme. Perhaps with Julian getting it handed to him in bed while Garak refuses to let him do an ounce of the work because it’s his Right to be a spoiled pillow princess when he’s with child, “how Dare you exert yourself in this condition, Doctor?!”

I have never been mentally well literally a single day in my life. There is no litmus test on sanity to enter my askbox. Fear not, humble brethren. Anyway it's been a chill Saturday and we've run all our errands and done all our chores and I took a two hour bath in which I drank two rose ciders so like, let's hop to it.

I think there is absolutely a cultural norm on Cardassia that an expectant parent is supposed to rest and be nurtured and be taken care of and be Safe and Preparing for the Birth which is supposed to be a Grand Event unless it is an aberration and sin against society because the child was conceived and/or born outside the marriage bed. I think this is also deeply, DEEPLY tinged by class expectations and classism -- ie, ruling class and middle/professional class pregnant people are both afforded this luxury but service class pregnant people are not. Service class folk are expected to work all through their pregnancies, deliver a baby, and get right back to work. They are then called bad parents because they can't afford to take time off with the newborn baby, and the baby probably gets handed off to a grandparent or auntie or uncle or sibling to be cared for. And if that baby is a bastard, or the birthing parent dies in childbirth and no other parent can be found? Good fucking luck, kid. To the Center for Unconnected Children for you. Hope you stand out and get a nice apprenticeship after the age of emergence on your thirteenth birthday or join the military or get scouted by the Obsidian Order because they know you are powerless and easily exploited.

And so you have, in one corner, the bastard orphan Elim Garak who was raised by a housekeeper as a foundling in the basement of the household of the most notorious monster of the Alpha Quadrant, never once allowed to call his parents his parents, who has now been raised up to the uppermost echelons of the Cardassian government in a time where they desperately need to repopulate the planet. And in the other corner you have Julian Bashir, whose augmentations have concealed every single symptom of pregnancy besides some mild fatigue and bloating. He doesn't even know he's pregnant until Starfleet sends out a notice to all CMOs that there was a bad batch of birth control shots, and the vaccine that was supposed to stop his body from producing the hCG necessary to sustain a pregnancy uh... did not do that. Has not been doing that for several months now.

(In the middle of a night shift at the hodge-podge tent city and prefab complex that's serving as a hospital in the ruins of the Imperial Plaza, Julian and two other human aid workers find themselves cursing as two blue lines appear very rapidly on their pregnancy tests. The other two are quickly shuttled off world to obtain abortions to head off an international incident. Julian starts running every genetic sequencing model he can using the baby's DNA already present in his blood. He discovers three things: that he's approximately fourteen weeks along, that he's going to have to engineer this baby's entire immune system, and that the baby is a girl.

In what remains of Tain's mansion, some half mile away, Garak suddenly realizes why he's been furiously nesting for the past three months and has a panic attack about how he's going to tell Julian the news.)

As soon as the Cardassian hospital administrator find out the happy news, she asks two questions that are not actually questions: when is the wedding, and how much time off would Julian like to rest before returning on light duty for the rest of the pregnancy? Julian protests that he's the Starfleet liaison to what remains of the Cardassian Ministry of Health, and she reminds him that as soon ask Garak does the Right Thing and gets him down to Ministry of Vital Records, Julian will become a Cardassian citizen and therefore under her purview to order around as she wishes. It comes very close, but she does not actually have to call Garak to throw very gently lift Julian up over his shoulder to physically remove him from the hospital.

But it's a very close call.

Julian spends about a week in bed propped up on five different pillows because he genuinely is exhausted, while Garak has about fourteen different panic attacks about Cultural Expectations and if Julian is going to want to marry him and how they are going to provide for this child when Tain's mansion still has booby traps in every dark corner and they still can't get wheat to grow and everyone's eating rations and what if Section 31 decides it has a vested interest in the genetic heir to an illegal augment and the biological son of Enabran Tain.

Kira shows up because on a technicality, she still is Julian's CO and saw the update to his medical files and is prepared to hold either of them at gunpoint to make this wedding happen. The child may be conceived and born in the same bed, but it's a piece of paper that makes it a marriage bed! Julian, befuddled, says he didn't realize he needed asking. He just assumed it was going to happen once he could stay awake for more than four hours at a time. Garak has a fifteenth panic attack. Kira puts her gun away.

Anyway this is a very long way to say that once Julian's libido resurrects itself with a fucking vengeance after the first trimester exhaustion, he is not allowed to exert himself at all and finds out that Garak's knowledge of nerve endings and pressure points translates very well to massage. Among other things.

#ask #anonymous #otp: there's hope for you yet #the cardassian cultural breeding kink #emily watches ds9

[ocpdzim]

Actually, DS9 is pretty much the only show I have watched where I have had opinions on ships besides “I hate them” or “They seem good for each other so I GUESS it’s fine but I’d rather look at something else.” These are as follows:

Most of the canon endgame ships, including Jadzia and Worf because I think getting married and remaining married until one of you dies counts as endgame, are actually pretty cute and I did not hate watching them (this is high praise for a ship coming from me). My favorite of them from a character standpoint is Ben and Kasidy, which tbh is also the only one I wasn’t immediately irritated by when it first started. The others I was annoyed with at first but eventually came around to, and ultimately they are mostly pretty well written too.

The only major canon ship I REALLY DON’T like at all is Ezri and Julian. I feel like they will commit so many medical ethics violations because due to lack of other providers they are literally each other’s doctor and therapist and both have a HISTORY of committing medical ethics violations when treating people they are close with (Ezri just generally, Julian specifically with romantic interests). Also it was so forced and rushed. Maybe it could’ve been fine if they’d had like an entire extra season to flesh it out but I would honestly have preferred if they just didn’t do it at all. Also I feel like poor Ezri should’ve gotten like a year to just exist and figure out her issues before being shoved into any relationships AND before returning to work as a therapist because holy shit she fucked up administering therapy so bad so many times.

The one non-canon ship I most think should have been canon if the writers had dared to because it would’ve actually worked really well is the O’Brien polycule. Miles and Keiko clearly care about each other a lot yet have kind of an unstable relationship as it is, but every time they bring a third person into it, it seems to help significantly. They should stay married but Miles should also date Julian and Keiko should also date Kira who is also dating Odo. I think this would eliminate like 90% of drama in these characters’ relationships and generally improve station morale.

Julian and Garak was fun when I was watching the show and discussing it with friends, I guess I would’ve liked to see it in the show if it was handled well because they have an interesting dynamic and it would’ve presumably put an end to the parade of really insufferable “Julian has a crush... on DAX and/or a GIRL WE NEVER SAW BEFORE” events, but at this point I have seen way too many out of character incorrect quotes posts about it clogging the tag and so now I’m kind of tired of it. I get the appeal but let’s post about something else sometimes. Alternatively, let’s make posts about the ship that incorporate the characters’ actual personalities even a little bit. Either is fine.

Quark and Odo should NOT date because Odo would not treat Quark right and Quark would not treat anyone right. Quark wants a relationship so bad but I think he is just way too much of an asshole to everyone he cares about and should be banned from romance forever, sorry Quark. However, and this is crucial, the ship is such an incredible comedy setup that I am still generally happy to see posts about it anyway. “Quark and Odo try dating but they are really bad at it and have a nasty breakup” would also have been a viable episode plot and a fantastic addition to the “Quark fucks up an attempt at romance really bad” episode collection.

Sisko and Dukat is a terrible ship if it’s requited, because Sisko not only deserves better than that but also has too much of a moral backbone to ever even consider dating a person who sucks as bad as Dukat does. HOWEVER, it is funny when people write Dukat as having just an absolutely doomed and miserable one-sided crush on Sisko, who just straight up hates him and has no positive feelings towards him at all. And honestly? Considering what we know about Cardassian flirting and what we know about the horrendous way Dukat treats women he canonically has massive unrequited crushes on, you could make a good argument that "Dukat has a massive unrequited crush on Sisko and is handling it so badly and that’s at least partially why he did this” is a valid read of several of his actions in the show.

I have no real interest in a ship between Jake and Ziyal for its own sake; it’s been boring in every way I’ve seen it presented even though one could in theory do interesting things with it. HOWEVER since the writers were so determined to introduce weird fucking horrible to watch romance subplots for these characters (all of which were thankfully brief, but like, still awful), I think it would’ve improved the show if they were in a relationship simply by virtue of the fact that they were around the same age.

#even my favorites of these im not super invested in in the way people tend to get invested in ships but like. #i think they work. #you probably wont ever see any content from me about them but im happy to see other people's content. you know #i'm not tagging this and have carefully avoided using actual ship names in order to avoid bothering people who ship these. #so please keep that in mind and do not send me bitchy anons about it <3 #also this one i dont have strong enough feelings about to include in the main post but bc it's fairly popular and so people might ask? #weyoun and damar as it is shipped on tumblr is a ship between two characters who are straight up not in the show #it doesnt bother me but i dont get it #like when i see people shipping this they've pretty much always completely changed both characters' personalities #and sometimes also redesigned them???? #and like. have fun i guess. but also maybe you should try making ocs

[rotationalsymmetry]

General gripes about DS9 and gender (some spoilers) (content notes: some references to sexual abuse/trauma, and specifically spiritual abuse/sexual misconduct in religious leaders, also death/murder):

I swear to fuck these people do not know how to write female characters without shoehorning them into romance plotlines. (Or weird fucked up stuff, like when that Cardassian serial murderer kidnaps Kira.) Especially noticeable with Ziyal -- when Kira takes her to DS9, the writers apparently can't think of a single thing to do with a young woman other than ship her with a much older Cardassian. Then, she's starting to get her own life and make a name for her as an artist, and they fucking refridgerator her. The fuck. (And: the focus is on how her death affects Dukat, that fucker. Which, obviously sure it's going to affect him...but it's also going to affect Kira, who sees Ziyal as like a younger version of herself and was trying to protect her. And then Ziyal dies. That should have some sort of effect on Kira! And did no one else on the station make any sort of connection with her when she was there?) This is arguably not primarily a gender thing, but it is partly a gender thing: the show keeps demanding Kira find sympathy for her oppressors, over and over again. (This is a gripe fest: of course there's a lot of things about Kira's character that are done really well.) She keeps getting thrown in situations that show (some) Cardassians in more nuanced lights and that more or less force her into relationships with them, while meanwhile her old resistance cell friends all get killed off, her parents are dead, if she has any other family we don't hear about it, and she's basically left with no Bajoran friends even, as far as we know. She gets Bajoran lovers who... OK, about that. First, Vedek Bareil. Now, Bajorans are shown to have a pretty relaxed attitude towards their clergy (eg Kira is frequently rude to Winn even after she becomes Kai with apparently no consequences) -- but still. Vedek is roughly equivalent to, what, cardinal? He's high up in the heirarchy. And, he's put himself in a role of spiritual authority relative to Kira: she gets access to one of the Orbs through him. They've got a power imbalance and one that's connected to Kira's ability to do her religion. I don't care what the social norms are on Bajor that is 100% sexual misconduct on Bareil's part. If something went wrong in their relationship, it could fuck up Kira's connection to her faith. And in the show it's presented as no big deal.

(Star Trek seems to be aware of this when it comes to ship's captains! For all that Kirk notoriously fucks everyone, he never voluntarily (/outside of the mirror universe, outside of odd transporter malfunctions that split him into two parts, etc) came on to a crew member. But it's no less important for religious authorities.) (Also: this has nothing to do with celebacy. I'm fine with Bajoran religious figures being allowed to have sex and being allowed to have sex outside of marriage. But: a religious leader having a sexual relationship with someone who they're in a pastoral relationship to is wrong, and while Bareil isn't exactly Kira's pastor I think there is some level of, he's providing spiritual guidance to her. That means she's off limits to him, or should be. In the same way that bosses shouldn't fuck their direct reports, college professors shouldn't fuck their students, therapists definitely shouldn't fuck their patients, etc. Regardless of how they handle their sex life outside of those restrictions. And regardless of whether there's love involved or not -- romantic love absolutely does not make it better.) And then there's Shakaar, the former leader of her resistance cell. That she joined as a teenager. It's...yeah, it's been many years, yeah she's not directly under him any more, and yeah goodness knows a band of resistance fighters is probably not going to have a clearly written up sexual harassment policy so it's not necessarily unrealistic...it's not as blatantly "oh god no" as Bareil, but it's got some...is anyone thinking of potential abuse of power issues here? Anyone?

There was one episode where Jake and Nog were double-dating and it goes badly due to Ferengi, uh, gender roles not meshing well with Federation egalatarianism. And, then the rest of the episode is all about how they're going to repair their friendship. And I was thinking: we didn't see either female character either before or after, and why is a sexism issue being shown from the lens of "how can I, a nice guy, stay friends with my male friend who has sexism issues" and not "how am I, a young woman, going to deal with this affront to my basic personhood" or "how am I, a young woman, going to repair my friendship now that I talked my friend into a double date so I could date the guy I liked but his friend turned out to be garbage?" Like...out of all the potential relationships there, why is Jake's friendship with a guy with sexism issues (who's made it clear he's not going to change, at least as far as dating goes) the one presented as being in most need of preservation? I know, it's because Jake and Nog are more central characters and their friendship has been significant in the show for seasons now. But...that just brings up more questions. Like why does this show have a significant bro friendship between two teenage boys, but there's no friendship between two women (or between a woman and a man for that matter) that's given as much weight? There's some bonding between Kira and Dax, but it doesn't have the same presence and significance as Jake and Nog or, say, Miles and Julian. (I'm having first name/last name inconsistencies here. Ah well.) Keiko has no on-camera friendships. Kira has no on-camera friendships that have Jake & Nog or Julian & Miles weight. Dax maybe does with her Klingon buddies from Curzon's lifetime. (Benjamin Sisko also doesn't.) Ziyal could have, but doesn't. Molly could have, but doesn't. Miles doesn't seem to have any (on-camera or otherwise acknowledged) parent friends (like...there's one couple mentioned who can babysit Molly at times? That's it? We never even see them?), which is weird because fuck knows parenthood can make it hard to have any friends who aren't parents. Odo's got his weird frenemy thing with Quark. Garak has his standing lunch with Julian (if you read that as platonic, which ... yeah, there's not a lot of arguments for seeing it as platonic beyond "they're both men.") I am, don't get me wrong, extremely for showing male friendships. Very much for it. It's just...I want friendships that aren't between two guys also. And I want them to be shown as significant and meaningful and worth overcoming obstacles for. Friendships between women, friendships between people of the same race or culture (or alien species, since we are talking Star Trek here), friendships between men and women that aren't just a precursor to romance. And...parenting that isn't just...I want to see Keiko have problems with parenting that she overcomes with help from other people. I want to explore the emotional ramifications of Kira being a surrogate mom to Kirayoshi or being a semi adopted mom to Ziyal and then having her die. I want Kira to talk about how her own upbringing in times of famine and war and occupation affects her sense of her ability to potentially be a parent. I want a female character to calmly talk about her decision to not become a mother and have that decision be treated with the utmost respect. I want the sort of struggles that male characters have with parenting on the show, like Worf's difficulty connecting with his son or Benjamin's conflict over watching his son grow up and get less interested in spending time with his dad, be shown for female characters as well. And the joys, like when Benjamin remembers holding Jake as an infant, like when they reunite after Jake gets caught in a war zone. Rather than parenting be this thing that mom characters apparently do on autopilot without any internal conflict or feeling out of their depth or particular moments of joy and amazement. There's so many plot lines and moments and bits and pieces that could be amazing moments that give

mother characters balance and nuance and characterization, but they only ever get shown for fathers. (And this is not just Star Trek either...look at all the kids movies that are about father/son or father/daughter bonding, and somehow the moms...just aren't there. It's so good when there are single father storylines, just...where are all the mom storylines that could be like that?) And why do teenage boys get focus and their own stories (especially with Jake in DS9, but also TNG has Wesley Crusher and Alexander, and TOS had one story centering on a teenage boy) but girls either aren't there at all or don't get to have stories that are about them? Ziyal's stories aren't about her, she doesn't get to form her own friendships and only barely gets to develop an interest of her own before her life is taken away from her. Molly doesn't get stories that are about her. (And yeah, Molly's a lot younger than Jake, but those are still choices: DS9 could have been set when Molly was a teenager, or the show could have introduced a different teenage girl as a significant character, or Jake could have been a girl rather than a boy, or Benjamin could have had two children...)

#incidentally I have no complaints about how winn is written as a female anatagonist #she's a shitty person and an excellent villain #I have pretty tangled thoughts and feelings on dax #she's had a few really great episodes and it seems like her characterization is starting to make more sense since her relationship with wor #moogie is odd but satisfying as an older woman who lives life on her own terms under a highly patriarchal culture #ds9 #feminism #gender and media #women in media

[helisol]

Wait so.. link to this quodo fic you mentioned in your tags?? I’m intrigued :DD

its only an idea but i will HAPPILY ramble about it in detail under this read more because i never finish writing fics but i do love sharing my notes.

they get Pretty Extensive considering this clocked in at 2k words. so strap in.

tl;dr: karaoke night gone wild leads to garashir and quodo setting each other up for holodeck shenanigans

so basically quark has acquired a karaoke program. everyone on ds9 is going mad about it and it's keeping the holosuites booked out for weeks

the main squad decides to try it out and they just jam to a mix of human, klingon and bajoran music. but lets be real it's mostly human music because i have a mighty need to see captain benjamin sisko tear up the dancefloor to Earth Wind & Fire’s September. so sue me.

anyway everyone has to sing, even odo, even garak and they all have a blast. the only person who is notably absent is Quark because Quark has a bar to run and Quark can't indulge in mindless fun activities when he has money to make.

Unless… Odo challenges him and he has to prove that Odo is wrong.

so yeah quark checks on the gang to see how they like this “Hooman Kara-oke” and if he can sell them some drinks and everyone is like “hey you should sing. just one song. we won't even laugh about your bad ferengi singing! we promise!"

and quark is about to say "ferengi voices arent that bad. im still not gonna sing tho."

but odo is ahead of the game and insults his grating voice and how it could only be worse in song. and because this is quark he’s like “actually fuck you. now I WILL sing.”

so he snatches the mic from whoever was about to go next and fucking Crushes It. 

while odo starts Looking Respectfully everyone else is just going "woooooo! go quark!" which makes quark just get even more into it

Takes His Jacket Off, Drops It On The Floor, Dances With The Microphone Stand. The Works. and he's also enjoying himself like "haha! suck it odo! i'm a good performer, it's how I make money!"

until he actually looks at Odo and Odo is Looking Back and then he’s like “wait what the fuck why is he looking at me” and Promptly Messes Up A Step And Falls Off The Stage-

so now quark has a twisted ankle and julian has to take him to the infirmary, which bums out quite literally Everyone and the gathering disperses, leaving only Garak and Odo.

garak as we know is but a simple tailor, but he’s Observant and his little lizard eyes did spy odo looking at quark and making the soup-version of heart eyes. we also know he is the gayest bicth on this station so of course he’s going to poke and prod at odo to see how he reacts.

garak waits until everyone is out of the room and asks odo if he can walk the dear constable home to the ol’ bucket. because odo looked a little melty during quark’s performance, y’know. it’d be bad if he turned into soup on the promenade.

odo denies this, of course, so garak is like “oh great then we can have a Chat :)”

and odo goes "wait no i hate talking” but then they’re in garaks shop and drinking kanar and garak is getting drunk off his lizard ass and talking about Julian because, again, he IS THAT BITCH!

meanwhile in the infirmary, Julian is trying to take care of quark’s ankle, but since he’s nosy and kinda Knows that quark wouldn’t just mess up his steps for no reason he asks about that.

and quark loudly goes “NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS JUST FIX MY DAMN ANKLE-”

which of course turns the nosyness up to 11 and has julian going 👀

"no i mean uh- i was distracted" "distracted? by what?" "nothing" "distracted by nothing?" "FIX. MY. ANKLE."

so julian sits him down on a biobed and gets whatever medical thingie fixes ankles in the 24th century. and while he does that he offers quark some wine to loosen the tongue about what made him slip.

anyway one thing leads to another and before you know it quark and julian are wine-drunk sitting on the infirmary floor and talking about garak. which suits quark just fine because it means he doesn’t have to admit he fell because odo was looking at him like he just revealed all the secrets of the universe along with his bare arms when he took off his jacket.

so we have two sets of gay idiots getting drunk in two locations and the next morning two sets of gay idiots have hangovers. yes odo gets a hangover. being soup does not exempt him from it.

julian and odo do the right, logical thing and take some meds to go to work and be productive and garak shows up in the bar to fight fire with fire and finds quark Already Doing That. 

so they just sit next to each other, beating their hangovers with more alcohol, and they get to talking.

garak goes on about how he took odo home and pretty much only talked about julian all night and quark is like “wow what a coincidence, the doctor and i only talked about you all night.” 

and it's all downhill from there because basically quark and garak just figured out that the garashir pining is Mutual.

"wait, julian was looking at me???" "yes." "AND I WAS LOOKING AT JULIAN-" "Yes."

and then they hash out this elaborate scheme to trap julian and garak in one of the Spy holosuite programs until they make out. this is garak and quark planning. how could they NOT make an elaborate scheme involving holosuites.

anyway i promised quodo so i will keep the ‘garashir makes out in the holosuite’ section a lil more brief

so within the next two days these two gay bitches whip up a new “The Adventures Of Agent Bashir” program, but quark has ‘adjusted’ the program a little so that it only ends when the main characters kiss. fun stuff.

garak and julian go through the program, havin a blast being spies, but at the end garak’s character gets “shot”, and they are so immersed in the story that julian is Actually Concerned and garak Actually Acts like he's in pain.

they kiss, the program ends, and garak- not actually shot- goes “haha gotcha, you wanted to kiss me before i died” 

so they walk out the holosuite one hour after their time is already up with a lot of hickeys and untied bowties. hooray.

But That’s Not What We’re Here For.

after garak and julian come down from the high of getting together julian asks Just How and Why quark would agree to help with this. quark Never helps Unless he’s helping himself.

and they realised Quark Has Played Them Like Cheap Kazoos. he just wanted to take attention away from himself and the unanswered question of why he suddenly fell off the stage.

so they go "wait, if odo and quark were both lying and obscuring facts and being weird about this, doesn't that mean- ohhh"

and it boils down to them deciding to help those poor fuckers because they are apparently off even worse than they were in terms of mutual pining.

they also hash out an elaborate scheme. this time it involves odo’s never ending hard on for finding reasons to throw quark into jail.

since quark technically violated the holosuite rules by locking garak and julian in there garak goes over to odo to report the “Crime”

after some back and forth about Why In The World Garak, Friend And Tailor, would report a crime to odo that doesn’t affect anyone’s safety Odo heads to the bar to investigate the holosuites and if there really was criminal activity.

he doesn’t ask quark for permission, mostly because he’d never ask permission to snoop around in quark’s property but also because quark is actually not there at the moment. for Some Reason he’s being held up in the infirmary. Weird.

so odo is looking through the holosuite recordings of the last few days, and he runs through what garak said was the illegal activity of locking them in there and just goes "Ah, alright, i can throw him in a holding cell for that.” but then he sees a message left by garak.

it was apparently left there today so garak must have prepared this which means something is afoot. and the message just reads "the karaoke session was recorded and you might wanna check what Actually™ made quark trip :)"

to which odo reacts with "hmph. why should i care. maybe hes just messing with me and quark tripped over a cable." but Odo looks at it anyway. respectfully.

and he watches the whole performance up until the point where quark falls. Multiple Times. until he remembers that this is a criminal investigation and he finally looks at the part where he falls from quark’s perspective, which is the important one.

and he just. looks right at himself. looking at quark.

and holy shit. he looked at him like he was going to shove him against a wall, not to beat him up, but to make out with him. he straight up looked like he was going to mess him up but not with his fists.

so he stands right in front of quark and replays that moment to see quark’s reaction and analyse how he fell. and sure enough quark Saw Him and his knees gave out.

after that he really just wants to walk out and spend the next 30 hours as a houseplant to cleanse his mind of any quark-related thoughts but uh oh. when he opens the holosuite door Quark Is Right There.

and odo panics and just pulls him inside, accidentally re-initiating the spy program.

“But how did Quark happen to be there at just the right time?” i hear you ask well it was OUR MAN BASHIR

while garak was at odos place telling him to investigate quark’s wrongdoings, quark himself got called to the infirmary for a check-up on his twisted ankle.

and julian kept him there, examining his ankle over and over, until garak came in to Insinuate that Someone is snooping around in the holosuites.

so quark, yelling "NO COPS IN MY BAR", hurries over to the holosuites on his totally fine ankle and bada bing bada boom, here we are.

with two idiots stuck in a locked holosuite.

odo is like "QUARK WTF" meanwhile quark is like "ODO WTF"

"YOU LOCKED US IN A HOLOSUITE" "NO YOU LOCKED US IN A HOLOSUITE" ”well it was you who pulled me in here" "but it was you who designed it like this"

anyway to get out they have to go through the program somehow. quark and garak programmed this very carefully. unless they follow the general story, there’s no way out.

and at first quark says "listen, its okay, we just have to kiss" to which odo replies with that kinda look you’d get from someone if you told them to swallow a cactus whole, for fun.

"you heard me" "quark if this is a joke-" "its not. i made rom pull an all nighter to put in the new sensors." "you paid him for this???" "no." "right of course."

and after a very quick cheek kiss doesn’t end up doing the trick the two actually go through the program properly. except quark knows the script, cheats a little, takes shortcuts and totally doesnt impress odo by shooting a few hologram guards on the way.

so they get to the end, where they believe odo is supposed to get “shot”, but turns out they mixed up the roles and quark is the one who gets shot.

And Odo Doesn’t Know. The Safeties. Are. On.

so he tearfully goes "WAIT NO- QUARK!" and quark is like "odo...odo come closer..."

"yes, quark?"

"kiss me"

"quark please dont die i'll kiss you and we'll beam you straight to the infirmary and-" "ODO JUST KISS ME"

and then they kiss. the holosuite controls unlock and quark thinks ‘oh great, now we can leave-’ but odo doesnt stop kissing him

and he doesn’t Stop kissing him until quark actually speaks up and has to go "HEY IF THIS WERE REAL I’D BE DYING BY NOW-"

"what?" "the safeties are on. I didn’t get shot. you just had to kiss me to unlock the controls-"

and odo is like "QUARK"

and quark is like "ODO"

and then odo gets up and is very convinced that he Must Turn Into A Houseplant For A Ferengi Lifespan To Atone For His Sins.

but quark says “no, wait. can you do it again?”

"yelling at you?" "kissing me."

anyway odo finally gets to fulfill his fantasy of pushing quark against a wall and quark finally gets kissed by odo like hes dreamed of for like 15 years or however long ago it was that they were first on terok nor together during the cardassian occupation.

the end.

#quodo #ds9 #deep space nine #look if anyone reads this whole thing. please talk to me about it. this is my pepe silvia. #ALSO IF SOMEONE WANTS TO *WRITE THIS* #GO AHEAD

[hereforthelizardsex]

My friend who has never seen so much as an episode of deep space nine wrote nsfw crack fanfiction about Julian, Garak, and Dukat being captured and held in Area 51 on alternate universe (not mirror universe) Earth following a conversation where I mentioned Julian’s foot fetish and alien fucking. I am posting it here for anyone in the mood for reading something very cursed.

Ever since the universe started to collapse in on itself, our lives have been completely turned around. All of us DS9 inhabitants were shuffled into emergency escape pods that could travel much faster than your average ship. Only a third of us made it out, who knows where the rest are. We drove straight into a black hole, just hoping for the best. We ended up in a place called “The Milky Way” and eventually on Earth. Earth isn't so different from DS9, we even have some of the same evil rulers and war history, but it is weird being confined to a planet instead of living among the stars. When my ship first landed, my other ship mates had died, all six of them. I was brought to a place called area 51 and eventually given a room of my own here. All of us ‘aliens’ were given an area, which they call a cell block, to stay in with our own rooms. The biggest change, though, has been my sex life, and this is that story:

I wake up drenched in sweat and with a pounding headache, this planet is so dry that I don't know how my body has any liquids left to sweat out. I gulp down the water next to my bed, and stand to stretch my muscles, still sore from crash landing on this planet. I stiffly walk over to the mirror and stare at the bruises and cuts on my body, wishing they would heal already and that the scientists wouldn't be so eager to make new ones. I am in the middle of examining my bare abdomen when I hear my bedroom door creak open. I turn to look and see Garak staring at me from the doorway.

“It’s late.” I say, embarrassed to have been caught staring at myself in the mirror, and even more embarrassed that these thin gray cotton shorts don't hide very much, something that Garak has also noticed.

“I thought we could talk, I mean this whole thing is sort of crazy. Landing on a new planet, losing everyone we knew. I mean you watched people die in front of you, and now there's humans showing you Tik Tik dancing and something called Goggle.”

I sigh, “yeah I mean I guess so. It's not like I have anyone to miss though. I mean YOU'RE still alive and here to bother me,”

“You would've missed me if I died?” He says in a patronizing tone that I find somewhat annoying and somewhat sexy.

“ Only a little,” I responded with a smile as I woke over and sat on the edge of my bed.

“Well I was also here to ask you if you could check some of these wounds out. The people here either seem to want to make them worse or are too scared of me to help.” He walks over and sits next to, right next to me.

I lift his shirt gently and look at some of the injuries he sustained in the crash. It takes me a moment to realize that I’ve placed my hand on his abdomen while examining his side, and he hasn't moved it. I pull my hand away and feel my face turn red.

“Well they look like they're healing fine to me no sign of infection”

“Julian,” he says looking me in the eyes before reaching a hand over and placing it on the inner part of my thigh, “thank you”.

He leaves his hand there just long enough for my cock to get hard before standing up and leaving. I'm sure he noticed, but he didn't say anything and neither did I.

He comes back every night after that for the next two weeks to talk, always finding and excuse to expose some part of his body to me that shouldn't be as erotic to me as it is.

One night he was complaining about his feet hurting from being forced to run all day, to test his physical abilities, so I eagerly volunteered to rub them as we laid on my bed and talked. I stared at his scaly toes laying in my lap as my fingers expertly kneaded the soles of his feet. Of course, my body decided that now was a perfect time for an erection the size of the entire Starfleet, which was brought back up by Garak adjusting his position just as it was starting to go down, almost as if he was doing it on purpose.

Just as I was starting to suspect that he was trying to make me hard. He sat up and looked me in the eyes, “Julian how many times do I have to graze your dick with my heels, are you going to let me make you cum or not?”

I felt my face turn red yet again, and did not respond in anyway other than shock and a wide eyed stare.

“For fucks sake, you act like such a prude,” he said as he pulled down my sweatpants and let my cock spring free of its fabric cage. He leaned forward, as if to take me in his mouth, but instead spit on my cock and sat back to begin rubbing it with his feet. I tensed up in surprise but began to relax as the blood my heart was using to panic started going to my dick. Precum began to leak onto Garkas feet, coating his scaled toes and making them shine.

I noticed a very large, very long new appendage poking out under Garaks clothing and reaching over to begin rubbing it, it was warm and somewhat wet, I just had to see what it was. I pulled off his pants and was almost smacked in the face by his five foot long alien dick. Instead of a head at the end it was a fleshy hole that was oozing a clear liquid. I dipped my finger into the liquid and licked it off, moaning in ecstacy. “Fuck Garak you taste so good” i said as I felt my dick twich in the embrace of his feet, which had been massaging it back and forth. He didn't say anything but grabbed my hand and moved along his slippery penis, which was so thick I couldn't wrap my hand all the way around it. After a f few minutes he transferred some of the fluids from his penis onto his hand and began to rub my tight, somewhat throbbing, asshole, gently sliding his fingers in and out of it. It was too much for me to handle, I felt my balls tense up and my dick began squirting loads of cum all over Garaks sexy toes.

“I'm going to have to try for weeks to get all that out from under my scales you assclown” Garak said pressing his cold cardassian lips to mine. We made out passionately, his little lizard tongue darting in and out of my mouth. I was still stroking his cock when my door was flung open. i tried to jump back in surprise but was held back by Garak, whose cock seemed to get harder now that someone was watching us. I didnt see who it was, but I felt them come up behind me and saw the world go dark as I was blinded by a tie being wrapped over my eyes. I felt the strangers dick slap me in the face as it was pulled out and draped over my shoulder like a scarf. I instinctively took it in my hand and livked the side of it. This one I was able to fit my whole hand around, but it seemed to be around eight feet as opposed to Garaks measly five. I kissed along the wet shaft as my face was coated in alien precum. Garak had been fingering my ass for about ten minutes now, and he placed his hands on my hips and we moved so that he was under me. He pushed the tip of his cock into my ass and the rest that I couldn't fit quite yet sunk back into his body, in typical cardassian fashion.

I thought the mystery stranger had begun to cum, but instead the smell of dehydrated piss filled my nostrils and I felt a runny warm liquid spill down my government issued t-shirt and roll down my body onto my cock that was now hard again. Garak thrusted in and out of me as my mouth bobbed along the strangers dick, and my blind fold began to slip loose. It fell off just as both Garak and the stranger began to cum, one in me and the other all over my face, and I looked into the eyes of my worst enemy. I had just given a blow job to none other than Dukat.

A few weeks later I noticed a particular itch around my penis, but all the usual STD tests had come back negative. My doctors decided to do one last test, and allergy test, which just so happened to be on the day that they had finished processing cardassian dna, and what do you know? I'm allergic to lizard-alien semen! Life is not worth living now…

Inspired by this collaborative image:

#deep space nine #julian bashir #elim garak #skrain dukat #Star Trek

[croc-odette]

i love ds9 and here are some episode premises that i wish had happened

DND EPISODE: already talked about this but a dungeons and dragons holosuite episode. jake is the overly prepared DM obviously, nog, ziyal, and alexander are players. nog’s player is clearly his idea of sisko, a lawful good paladin; ziyal plays as a cardassian rogue (played by dukat, but clearly based in personality on kira); alexander plays a mage who is kind-of worf kind-of jadzia and keeps switching between them through the game). there’s an NPC version that’s clearly also based on sisko at one point, but from jake’s point of view knowing him as his dad to compare how differently jake and nog, a cadet, see him.

as the game progresses, it becomes clear that the Big Bad is based on a combo of dukat/winn (corrupt government/religious figure). ziyal struggles with the classic DND question of ‘just because i would do this, does that mean my character would?’ except she’s realizing that her dad wouldn’t do any of the selfless things she wants her character to do. alexander keeps trying to solve shit through weird cantrips or puzzle solving instead of fighting and jake is like ‘it’s not deep it’s just a cave bat please roll initiative’. bashir and garak show up as like, the old couple from the princess bride and everyone has to be like ‘jake they’re not dating in real life this rpf shit is kind of inappropriate’ and he’s like ‘wait what? i thought they were dating’. miles is an NPC and dies. nog thinks jake’s-sisko-npc is too silly and disrespectful and jake is like ‘he’s MY dad’ and they have to take a break to argue about it and jake is like ‘your dad is cool too’. nog’s character changes to lawful good paladin rom. actually this whole game is ‘arguing about dads’ time now that i think about it, which jake is not really equipped to jump in on since he has a normal cool dad who he basically just thinks is embarrassing because he’s the ~messiah~ or some goofy bullshit. ends with them calling it a day after the final boss battle and then jake and nog privately talking about whether or not they can trust ziyal if she has to choose between ds9 and dukat, which was an ulterior motive of the game. ziyal is clearly clearly rattled by what the game made her realize and goes to see kira, who she doesn’t tell about the game but who still gives her a hug, and ziyal realizes that kira’s her hero (and like, her mom). alexander tells worf and dax about the game and dax thinks it sounds fun as hell and asks alexander if they can come next time, and worf is like ‘....... only if i can be a blood mage’. nog and jake go home and tell their dads they love them. 

shit i blacked out

PRANK WAR EPISODE: escalating series of pranks starting with jadzia putting hair dye in bashir’s shampoo and ending with the space station accidentally going into a meltdown self destruct scenario. garak is torn between helping jadzia and quark, who are clearly the better pranksters, or helping julian and odo, who suck at pranks but are his lunch friends. everyone has to tell garak that he’s way too intense about ‘pranks’ which are actually just really dangerous booby traps he puts in people’s quarters. sisko ends the episode by grounding everyone; no holosuites for a month!! yes even dax

GREAT RACE EPISODE: there’s some kind of macguffin resource on a planet (a klingon escape pod with a survivor with crucial intelligence information?), but they can’t teleport directly to it. a vorta and jem h’dar team and a ds9 team beam down on opposite sides of its location and are both racing to get there first, having to macgyver together vehicles and tools on the way. lots of excellent outdoor on-location settings and comparison of the jem h’dar/vorta dynamic and the ds9 federation dynamic. ends with the jem h’dar almost winning but turning on the vorta at the last few yards, and sisko’s team beams out as the jem h’dar chant victory. no i refuse to think this is same plot as ‘the ship’ or whatever

KASIDY EPISODE: set earlier in kasidy/sisko’s relationship, kasidy agrees to go with jadzia as a third-party observer to negotiations with a nearby bajoran colony over a trade agreement with the federation. jadzia and kasidy bond over gossiping about sisko on the way, but once they get there kasidy disagrees with the starfleet’s contract during negotiations which causes tensions, and recommends that the bajorans reject it. she and jadzia get into an argument about starfleet and its ideals, and why kasidy chose to be an independent captain rather than a starfleet captain, and how that doesn’t make her lesser than starfleet captains. jadzia realizes that kasidy is right and petitions superiors for a new contract, which kasidy approves of. they go home tenser then when they left, but when sisko asks jadzia what she thinks of kasidy, she very seriously says that she has incredible compassion, intelligence, and integrity, and that she doesn’t need or want jadzia’s approval. but has it anyway

MUSICAL EPISODE: someone already outlined a great musical ep where lwaxana comes in with a betazoid cold and it makes everyone burst into song in another text post and like 100% cosigned

SHAKESPEARE EP: holosuite shenanigans; every character is suddenly stuck as someone from a different shakespeare play. garak is an enthusiastically combative beatrice, kira is cordelia, worf is hamlet, jadzia is a very amused katerina, julian is puck, miles is duncan (”i get MURDERED?”), odo is benvolio and kind of bummed he’s not romeo, etc. i actually don’t know any shakespeare play that well but i think it could be neat. julian is the only fucking person on ds9 who actually knows any of it well enough to figure out what’s going on, except for sisko who doesn’t really care for shakespeare but generally knows about the plays (maybe a good opportunity to talk about the racism in most ‘classic Earth’ pop culture that star trek tends to uphold without criticism). i don’t know shit about the 40 plays that shakespeare wrote about british kings but i could see sisko ending up in that kind of intense role and refusing to play into it, as do the rest of the characters who refuse to fulfill their respective roles and instead find another way to end the program.

KLINGON OPERA EPISODE: goodddddddd can we see some klingon opera, mac. i’ve been dying to see some klingon opera. premise is they believe that someone is assassinating ambassadors and so they tag along with a andorian ambassador who loves opera to see if they can figure out who the assassin is, however the andorian plays it down as over-worrying and that they should use it as an excuse to enjoy themselves. worf and jadzia go and have a lovey dovey time, sisko and kasidy go and have a lovey dovey time watching worf and jadzia get super into the opera together. julian is asked to go in case there’s poison used or first aid needed, and miles is like ‘the last time i went undercover i came home with trauma and someone’s cat so no thanks i hate klingon opera’ and after some increasingly overt passive aggressive implications that julian should take HIM, julian asks garak to go with him. bonus points if for some reason they are wearing the stupid tuxedos from doctor bashir i presume. a lot of loud arguing about the opera which almost gets them kicked out. at the end of the first act, one of the actors DOES try to kill the andorian but jadzia jumps in front of the phaser beam (cue worf being very concerned and annoyed that she could have gotten killed, jadzia being very smug and pleased with herself, her head in his lap, in a pose mirroring an earlier couple in the opera). julian feels like he would have noticed if he hadn’t been distracted by garak, and when it turns out the andorian ambassador has sensitive info about cardassia’s civilian government, julian accuses garak of intentionally trying to distract him to make sure the andorian actually died, which turns into a huge argument (ideally in a very opulent klingon opera house bathroom). during the argument, julian realizes that garak was trying to hint to him that something about the assassination attempt was off; he pieces together aloud that the andorian and the actor must have been in league together, to fake the andorian’s assassination so they could not be tried for profiteering by illegally selling weapons to the cardassian central control during bajoran occupation, which they are currently under investigation for. the other ambassador assasinations were planned by the andorian to cover their tracks. the andorian is arrested, as is the actor. at the ballroom afterparty, sisko and kasidy, in a good mood that everything worked out, agree to join in on traditional klingon dancing. worf and jadzia take a peaceful walk through the gardens and worf recites some really lovely klingon poetry about how sometimes it’s NOT a good day to die if someone loves you, that none of us fucking understand without looking it up. julian and garak talk on the balcony, and julian posits that garak is loyal to cardassia, but which part of it? garak answers, very close and meaningfully looking at julian, ‘like most things... it’s complicated.’

i was about to say ‘fake wedding episode’ but literally LITERALLY that was the shotgun wedding lwaxana/odo ep. i love star trek

KEIKO BOTANIST EPISODE: kira accompanies keiko to bajor to help find a medicinal plant that was thought to be wiped out during the occupation but might still exist in a remote mountain region based on local reports. a nice episode where we learn more about bajor and see how bajorans are coping and healing. over a campfire, kira thanks keiko for accepting her into their family. keiko tells kira that she was really intimidated by her when they first met, and then realized she’s one of the most loving people she knows. just a nice episode, maybe some mild nature survival conflict, but ends on a hopeful note of them finding the plant. miles beams down with the kids to have a picnic with keiko and kira, and kira’s happy to see children playing carelessly on bajor again.

JAKE AND ZIYAL EPISODE: everyone thinks jake and ziyal are dating because they’ve been hanging out. julian’s an idiot and mentions to sisko ‘must be hard, huh’ and sisko’s like ‘WHAT must be hard’ and julian’s like oh my god were we not supposed to talk to him about this. jake and ziyal aren’t dating but as soon as sisko tries to talk to jake about it jake is like ‘i’m not but actually maybe i SHOULD ask her out’ and sisko is like fuck. okay no that’s fine. this is more of a B-plot but basically give jake and ziyal age-appropriate love interests they’re both RIGHT there

#i'm really about to write fake screenplays for episodes for a tv show that ended 20 years ago #star trek blogging #THIS GOT OUT OF HAND.

[miss-spooky-eyes]

OC Inspirations: Devinahl & Indy

I was (delightfully) tagged by @vespertine-legacy​ a while ago and I’ve hesitated to do this because I knew I was going to talk WAY too much - but it was weighing on me, so I decided to open up about the sources from which I stole, that is, drew inspiration for Devinahl and Indirae.

What three fictional characters is your OC a combination of?  

This doesn’t apply to every OC - not even mine - but its certainly true for a few : Many of our characters are, to an extent, inspired by characters we see in movies, books, games, TV shows, etc.

Does this apply to any of your OCs? Was it a conscious decision on your part or not? Is your OC a combination of three (or more) fictional characters?

If so - post some GIFs / pics and tell us about them! What does your OC draw from other characters?

Too much Devinahl & Indy chat after the cut.

DEVINAHL

The truth is that when I came to creating my Imperial Agent Devinahl, and in particular fleshing out her backstory in far, far too much detail, there were some sources that I went to extremely explicitly and deliberately. And chief among them was ...

1. Garak, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

That’s right. Garak from Deep Space Nine. Plain, simple Garak. Outcast. Exile. Spy. Addict. Perennial liar. Patriot. Terrorist. Would-be genocider. Very good tailor.

(If you haven’t seen DS9, then you need to. It’s like Star Trek, but if it was actually good? And Garak is a big part of what elevates it.) 

Is it weird to compare my ancient video game Barbie/gorgeous sex bomb badass assassin and seductress to a cold-blooded space lizard who spends his days hemming pants? Possibly. But there are aspects of Garak’s character that, consciously and unconsciously, I made parts of Devinahl’s DNA. 

Firstly, Garak is a patriot. He loves Cardassia so much that despite seeing its flaws with absolute clarity, despite having been exiled and reviled by it, he would die without question to serve it (of course, he’d much rather make someone else die). And while seeing that as a weakness, despite knowing that the Cardassia he has committed to serving is disappearing before his eyes, there is still a part of him that believes that that commitment - that neverending sacrifice - is noble. The only noble part of him. That’s central to Devinahl’s character (which is, in turn, the way I made sense of the IA storyline). That while hating and despising the Sith, she would nevertheless believe in the Empire - not so much believe that it is good (at best, I think she sees it as order and stability where the Republic is corruption and chaos) as believe that her commitment to it is the only redeeming thing available to her.

Secondly, the way that Garak will take his needs, vulnerabilities, sincere emotions and package them in ways which gets him what he has to have to keep going, without ever giving up full control? Particularly in the extraordinary episode The Wire, in which a dying Garak tells Dr Bashir a series of lies about himself in order to elicit Bashir’s forgiveness, because he needs to be sincerely forgiven but without ever telling the truth?

Out of all the stories you told me, which ones were true and which ones weren’t? My dear doctor, they’re all true. Even the lies?

That is everything I tried to do with Dev, particularly in my fic about her and SCORPIO, particularly when it comes to her and Arcann. To know what she needs, as Garak needs absolution from Bashir, and tell just enough truth - put herself into just vulnerable enough a position - to get it, but never without reserving something, holding something back, whether it’s the knowledge that she can maneouvre herself out of SCORPIO’s clutches at any time or her real name? That’s a fucking survivor.

Thirdly, the relationship between Devinahl and Sifter (the spymaster who finds her as a traumatised child and grooms her for Intelligence) and specifically, the deathbed scene I wrote in Riddle was directly inspired by Garak’s relationship with Enabran Tain and that death scene. 

Yes, Devinahl was not Sifter’s actual daughter, but in every real sense she was formed by Sifter - and had Sifter had just one day with Dev like Tain had with Garak, Dev would have been lost. She would have turned herself into a carbon copy of Sifter, and she would have died. But the bittersweetness? The acknowledgement that the parental figure you love will never, not even now that they’re dying, love you as you want them to?

‘I should have killed your mother before you were born. You have always been a weakness I can't afford.’ ‘So you've told me. Many times. ...’ ‘Elim, remember that day…in the country. You must've been almost five.’ ‘How can I forget it? It was the only day.’

(The love and infinite sadness with which Andrew Robinson says that line, ‘It was the only day’? I’m crying just thinking about it. Anyway, it was everything I was thinking about and wanted to achieve in that scene.)

Oh ... and Devinahl’s ambiguous relationship with her implants? Well, Garak also has an implant in his head. And that’s all I’m saying about that.

2. Oryx from Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood

A novel character rather than from TV or movies, I hope that’s OK. And I know that there are ... very problematic elements to the way Atwood writes about Oryx, her family, her culture, her background. But she was one of the strongest elements that went into creating Devinahl and her backstory.

There were specific aspects of the story Oryx tells to Jimmie - particularly the parts about being told to scream and make a fuss if a man tries to take you away to a hotel room, and then being told not to make a fuss when a man tries to take you away to a hotel room - that became part of Dev’s story. But there was also a general attitude and way of looking at life I wanted to capture and incorporate. Oryx’s philosophy of value?

Of course (said Oryx), having a money value was no substitute for love. Every child should have love, every person should have it. . . . but love was undependable, it came and then it went, so it was good to have a money value, because then at least those who wanted to make a profit from you would make sure you were fed enough and not damaged too much. Also there were many who had neither love nor a money value, and having one of these things was better than having nothing.

I wanted to create a character who could look at life and suffering and abuse, even her own, and view it in that dispassionate way which horrifies someone from my middle-class Western background - and then I wanted to test that idea, to bring it up against SCORPIO and have SCORPIO try to break it down with torture, to see if it was just a cool facade/necessary illusion. I wimped out of really testing that belief, instead having Dev always know that she could get out of her situation/having her find a way to be loved without truly having to sacrifice her protective patterns ... but if I was a little braver and better, I’d have tested it to breaking point. How far can a character go who thinks like that while still remaining, on some level, compassionate/human/likeable?

3. Saffron (Firefly)

I could have gone Black Widow (definitely the inspiration for Dev’s aesthetic in terms of outfit etc). But the plain truth is that I thought more about Saffron while dreaming up Devinahl/writing her backstory than I did about Black Widow (yes, Widow turned her weakness into strength in a manipulative fashion all the time, but Garak did it better, and other than that she mainly looked after boys in a way that I did not want Dev to be limited to). 

Firefly, for a show that had - what - 13 episodes? - exercises far too much of a hold on my imagination and Saffron, especially in the first episode in which she appeared, was such a tremendous character. The way that she found exactly the triggers to turn each member of the crew inside out? (And if she’d had more time, it absolutely would have worked on Wash and Inara, too - it only didn’t because she had to hurry.) Dev has that. I can’t write it, because I suck, but she has it. 

Oh, and nobody will ever know Devinahl’s real name (apart from you, if you read my fic about her backstory) and she’d die before letting you know it. That’s straight from Saffron. As is, I suppose, the man who would accept her just as she is without needing to push to know her secrets, except it worked out a little better for Dev and Arcann than it did for Yolanda and Durran Haymer because Dev and Arcann will always have pegging.

INDIRAE

(This will be a lot shorter than the section on Devinahl, I promise.)

1. Steve Rogers, Captain America (and whatever else)

I have never been super into the MCU, but the key reference I used to find a way into Indy’s character, back when she was nothing more than a cool-looking Cathar Bounty Hunter, was Steve Rogers. (November can attest to this)

Indy’s physical size - she’s six foot if she’s an inch, and big - is key to her personality, but equally key is the idea that she would always experience that size as uncomfortable and slightly alien to her. Like Steve Rogers, she started out as the scrawny kid always getting beat up by everybody ... And when she got her strength (with a hefty assist from the toxic waste run-off into what was her family’s only source of water) and suddenly got TALL and STRONG? She did not like bullies - which was what led her to help Coda out of a jam at the spacesport and started them on their road.

(If there’s a better way to play the BH storyline than as a stone-cold mercenary with an utterly unwilling heart of gold ... then I don’t know about it.)

2. Xena, Xena Warrior Princess

I’ll be completely fucking straight with anybody about this (so to speak): I love Xena, I had an obsession with it as a teenager I’m still unpacking, and the show tends to feed into my characters in an ... odd way.

Indy is physically imposing like Xena, is the main thing; and her dynamic with Coda owes a lot to Xena’s with Gabrielle (although Coda is as big and tough as Indy, she is the fast talker/smooth operator to Indy’s laconic strongman). I wanted Indy to dominate action scenes the way that Xena does, be that kind of a force of nature; and watch her struggle to find ways to channel that charisma, to need Coda’s help to understand how to do it.

3. Dottie Henson, A League of Their Own

OK, first of all, I do not want to hear any kind of mockery. This is, unironically, one of my favourite films of all time.

Again, we come back to the core theme of a character struggling with her own greatness/potential. That’s what is the most fascinating through-line of A League of Their Own: Dottie, this unbelievable baseball player/physical presence (yes, she’s very tall, just like Indy) who is so terrified to admit that she wants anything more than her smalltown life and dreadful husband, even while the evidence of her talent and passion for the game is burning up these ... fields? Diamonds? I don’t know baseball apart from this film.

Indy certainly hides behind not wanting to be a bounty hunter. She doesn’t believe in any Mandalorian nonsense about romanticising what is an unglamorous job. She’s just doing it for credits and afterwards, once she’s secured her family’s future, she’s totally going to go home and settle down in some acceptable, domestic way. Being on the Mantis with Coda, it’s absolutely just a means to an end. She doesn’t want to be there, she doesn’t care about it, it’s not who she is, she doesn’t need it. This life, the adventure, the freedom, the fighting for survival, it’s certainly not what gets inside her and what lights her up, no, not at all. 

Oh, and Dottie is also a reluctant leader. She doesn’t see why her talent should put her in the position of telling other people what to do - but then, on the other hand, she sees so clearly what they need to be doing, and when she says to do it, they listen. She doesn’t want to carry this team, but they’re only a team so long as she carries them.

(Don’t worry, Coda’s not going to let her lie to herself for too long.)

#swtor #excessively long answers to memes #oc: devinahl #oc: indirae

[kyberled]

@cosmicnexus​ said:

// i don't even know the whole story but i know based on the red x's on the picture those kids ain't alright and i am S A D but holy fuck jay this picture is amazing!!! the shading and the rendering!!!!

// AaaaaAAAA thank you Kato ;w; You’re always far too good to me and I love you <3<3<3

The basic story is this is Braig’s little ‘inner circle’ group of best friends. He met Hano (the Cathar) when he was three, and they’ve been best friends ever since; he met Naweh (the Tarasin) not long after, and she fit in with them perfectly; He met Booda (the Gungan) when he was four, Lohata (the Rodian) when he was five, and he sort of knew the Affgor twins, Garak and Shah-Ki (the Weequay) in passing, but he didn’t actually know them until their Gathering, when the seven of them - at age seven - went to find their kyber crystals. Ever since the Gathering, they’ve sort of been their own little clique, so they refer to their collective selves as ‘the Gathering group’. Not very creative, but it suits their purposes. 

(Little fun fact: Braig’s the oldest of all of them! Technically they’re all born in the same year, but he was born first. The actual age order is Braig -> Lohata -> Hano -> Naweh -> Booda -> the Twins. The Twins don’t know which one of them was born first, and change their answer depending on their moods.) 

(more details under a cut because I rambled)

Tarasins, such as Naweh, have skin that changes colour based on their emotions. They can learn to control the changes, and even use them to communicate when they get older. Normally, Naweh keeps herself a calm, neutral blue-purple-green, but she knows her friends don’t care, so right now, she’s a happy/excited pink-yellow-orange. Anyone who knows Tarasin skin colours would take one look at her and go ‘wow, she’s stoked to be there’. 

One of Naweh’s favourite places to be was the nurseries. She always said if she hadn’t been chosen to pursue knighthood, she would’ve been happy working with the younglings (to the point where if she ever had the Group’s braincell and advised against something, they’d usually chorus a light-hearted ‘Yes, Crechemaster’). She loved kids. That’s why, aside from encouraging Hano to embrace his bastard status, she’s braiding Braig’s hair. She doesn’t have hair of her own, but some of the little ones do, and having it braided makes it easier for them to do their training. She’s practicing braids so she can help the kids better on her next shift. (That’s also why she has a bunch of hair ties around her wrist, in part. She also just wore them because most of her close friends - Braig, Hano, the twins - have long hair, so she comes prepared in case they lose one of their own ties.) 

She gets a red X because she was in her beloved nurseries when Order 66 was declared. She died shielding the younglings, helping the staff smuggle them out. One of the last things she ever did was use the Force to shove some of the smaller ones into a ventilation duct in the hopes they might escape. She knew she wouldn’t. If you were to  find her body after the Purge, you’d find her still covering some little ones who weren’t so lucky, a guardian to the last. 

Of course we all know and love Braig. I don’t have too much to say about him here, since, again, we know him already. He’s napping because he’s warm and safe, the Force in the gardens and with his friends feels amazing, and he’s been getting his hair played with for the past five minutes. He’s also, as the group’s healer, on standby in case Booda’s prosthetics hurt her, but they all trust the Twins’ work enough that he feels safe dozing.

He survives Order 66, so no X - but his connection to the Living Force, combined with so many deaths all at once, leaves him with near-permanent metaphysical chronic pain. Sometimes, the literal air around him just feels painful to him. It sucks.

Hano is the tallest and strongest of the group. He evens out at 7′5, over 300 lbs. The Force gave him a bronze crystal when he was young and he did not disappoint. The necklace he wears is actually a trophy from the first hunt he went on, a rite of passage among Cathar. The trophy just lets other Cathar know he completed the hunt and can be welcomed as an adult into their society. Given that he was training as a tracker (Braig always called him ‘the greatest/most skilled tracker I’ve ever met’), his success was inevitable. As intimidating as he can be, he’s a gentle giant and a goofball at heart. He’ll tear it up on the battlefield, sure, but he’ll also use the fact he’s strong enough to lift a clone trooper in one arm to carry wounded men back to safety, to carry his friends around for fun, or to help the men, other Jedi, and the Temple staff with more strenuous physical labor. He also enjoys play-fighting, especially with Braig and Naweh, and the control he learned through the rigorous training of a Jedi means he can easily do so without hurting them. He’s always had a penchant for mischief, which is why he’s been telling dumb jokes and awful puns for the past little while. 

(Bonus fun fact: I joked, years ago, that he’s large enough that when he goes out with his friends - especially Small Friend Braig - he gets mistaken as their master. When I posted a WIP of this in my discord server, my friend Reece assumed he was their dad, so. It looks like that’s not a joke and actually happens, and Braig was quietly sulking that he’s three months older for a while after. Hano continues to think it’s funny.) 

He survived Order 66, barely. He was blinded and lost a leg in an explosion (hence the red scribbles). His master, Yokar Eedai, hid him among rubble, commed some of his non-Jedi friends to find the location, and then lead the clones away at the cost of his own life. Hano spent many years hiding in the Outer Rim in self-imposed exile. (He does eventually reunite with Braig, though. If you swing by Braig’s weapons shop, you can usually see him there, bandages tied over his eyes and metallic claws peeking out from under his left pantleg.) 

Garak and Shah-Ki aren’t very talkative or physically affectionate. They show their love for their friends through inclusion and acts of service. When they were young, still forming their group, Braig always thought that they were ‘each others’ best friend, and could live without the rest of us’. While that may have once been true, they’ve bonded with the rest of the Group quite thoroughly. So Garak is brushing Hano’s hair for him (Hano usually wears it in braids) and Shah-Ki is fixing Booda’s prosthetics, though they’re both debating the best way to enhance the water-proofing without sacrificing mobility. The twins were training as Shadows, a rare variant of Jedi that specializes in stealth missions. They were also brilliant slicers and engineers, making them incredible secret agents. By the time they were senior padawans, they could make not only themselves invisible through the Force, but one or two others, as well. They would often use this talent to bring one of the others of their group to see what they had most recently found or made. The rest of the Group always joked that you never knew what it was going to be. It could be a store room in the Temple that had fallen out of use, it could be a Battle Droid they repurposed, or it could be the complete dossier of someone who wasn’t legally supposed to exist. Just whatever they thought was cool. 

Their penchant for going unnoticed also meant that they heard, intentionally or otherwise, all sorts of gossip throughout the Temple. They’d usually share interesting tidbits at mealtimes with their friends, a practice Naweh had affectionately dubbed ‘Holocast T’. 

While Weequay can grow hair, braids are significant to them culturally, representing how many times they’ve visited their home planet of Sriluur. Because of this, the twins opted to have silka bead padawan ‘braids’ instead. 

They were finishing up a mission when Order 66 hit. While they were never as outwardly friendly as some others, they did trust their men, and as such didn’t think to hide themselves from those that became their executioners until it was too late. They died only moments apart, still reaching out to each other, but weren’t quite able to touch. 

Lohata and Booda are dating! They like to pretend nobody knows. The entire Group knows, of course, but they pretend they don’t, for their sake. 

Lohata is as close to a ‘mom friend’ as you can get when you don’t have a mom and haven’t been raised to know what having a mom is like. She usually has the braincell, and does her best to make sure the others can get out of any trouble they get into. That’s not to say that she doesn’t get into trouble a lot, too, she’s just usually the one who can bail them out when ‘blame it on Braig’ isn’t feasible. She’s also a bookworm, and usually has a datapad in her hand (she always appreciated that her friends would just let her read when they all hang out, jumping into and out of the conversation whenever she wanted without judgement. It was nice). She and Braig often exchange ‘pads from the archives (with Mistress Jocasta’s permission) if they found one they thought the other would like. She has a fairly dry sense of humor, which is why she’s in the middle of telling Hano that if he tells the one about the Womprat and the Quacta again, she’s defecting to the Separatists so she can hit him with a tree branch without getting in trouble. (Hano, being Assigned Disaster At Birth, is now figuring out how to reroute the conversation into a good segue for the one about the Womprat and the Quacta.) 

Aside from reading, she loved flying and singing, and was quite good at both - though she wouldn’t admit to the second. When Booda was recovering from getting her prosthetics for the first time, Lohata used to sing to her to help her relax. She wasn’t quite as good at dancing ad Booda was, but, if they had a moment alone, she’d make the effort for her girlfriend. 

Booda is much sunnier and more open than Lohata, but not as outgoing as Braig (hence why he’s usually their mastermind). She has a joy and genuine love for life, and, in the moment, is just happy to be home with all her friends, all safe and together and able to relax for once. 

As a Gungan, she knows all too well how her species is regarded by the rest of the Galaxy. She’s trained herself to not speak Gungan Basic in an effort to appear more ‘civilized’ and ‘respectable’ as a Jedi, and to hopefully avoid the negative stereotypes. (She only ever speaks it to other Gungans, now, and tries to avoid doing so in public.) Like Naweh, she figured if she ever got tired of field work, she’d be happy in the Temple - though she wanted to work in the Archives, not the nursery. She was a cultures nerd, like Braig, and the two of them often edited each others’ cultural papers and assignments before handing them in. 

Booda got her prosthetics after a mission went wrong, damaging both her arms beyond repair for the current Jedi on the scene. Her master, a Nautolan named Nid Arto, blamed himself for it, and had to speak to his own (former) master at length and meditate for a while to come to terms with it. He visited her for hours on end every day in the Temple’s medbay until she was cleared. She hadn’t yet turned 16, so she was still growing - this, as well as the frequent wear and tear of missions, meant that she had to get them replaced quite often. Oddly enough, this helped her come to terms with it more. At Nid’s suggestion, she started getting coloured casings for them, and that made it a bit more fun.  The Group would often visit her after these procedures with washable markers and draw or write little notes and designs on, which made it even better. By the time of this little meeting of theirs, she’s grown used to them, and is quite pleased with these new pink casings (they’re her favourite colour). 

She’s also the best dancer of the group, and usually teaches the others different dancing styles to help with diplomatic missions. Naweh, Braig, and Lohata are her usual students, as they’re the ones who do diplomacy more often (and she likes being able to dance with her girlfriend). Hano doesn’t do high society - it’s hard enough to get him to put on a shirt, he hates how it feels with fur - and the twins are shadows, not consulars or guardians. The three of them still show up for support and shenanigans, though. The twins are quite good at a Corellian waltz. Booda and Braig had a long-running joke about how he insisted dancing was just like sparring without hitting each other, dips were take-downs you stopped half way, et cetera, and she, through increasing giggles, would try to convince him to stop trying to punch foreign dignitaries to music. 

When Order 66 happened, Booda, Nid, and Lohata had just finished up a mission to Naboo (Lohata’s master had been sick, so Nid invited her along for the ride). They’d finished up early, so Nid, who knows Lohata likes to fly and Booda likes being on Naboo, decided to let the girls get a bit of flight practice in (with Queen Jamilla’s permission) in friendly skies. The men turned on them, and Lohata’s ship crashed, knocking her out. It was the fire and injuries that eventually took her life. Booda tried to pull her out, but only succeeded in damaging her prosthetics before Nid pulled her away to get her running. The two of them hid in a lake. When the men dropped depth charges, Nid shielded Booda and died in the process. She hid under water and in under-water caverns with air pockets for days, peeking out to still see her master’s corpse floating there before someone eventually removed it. She would never really be able to leave the lakeshore again, barely being able to venture into town for food weeks later, and to get her arms fixed over a year after the Purge. She, too, eventually reconnects with Hano and Braig - while she never feels safe leaving her lake, they make sure to comm her fairly regularly, and visit in person when they can, and it’s the closest to feeling truly safe she’s been in decades. 

#cosmicnexus #&& give the sun a head start; ooc #&& temple archives; headcanons #&& from creche to grave; the gathering group #&& brave new worlds; padawan #&& end of days; order 66 #tl;dr jay loves their kids #and as such makes them suffer

[becuztaelien]

2| The Beast

Part 1/ Part 2/ Part 3/ Part 4

2.9k words, Warning: Intense shit, language

“Boss, I have visual on the boy, waiting for further instructions.”

Your body froze as thoughts of your best friend flooded back inside your head. Within seconds, you found your face being pressed into Yoongi’s chest.

“Sh… don’t worry” your boyfriend softly muttered into your ear. He always knew exactly what to do and foresaw your panic before it even had a chance to begin. “Nothing bad will happen.” He simply said and held your now trembling body tighter.

“Boss?” The familiar voice spoke again and you pulled away from Yoongi, searching his eyes, desperate to know how he would save Jimin. The truth was, Yoongi had no idea what he was going to do, his men were all in Seoul and there was no way he could rescue Jimin immediately. Zico’s gang would undoubtedly find out about his murder very soon and seen as Yoongi had ripped half the man’s neck off, it wouldn’t be much of a question as to who the dead man’s killer was.

Yoongi leaned in and placed a soft, endearing kiss on your forehead before pulling away and making his way to the man he had recently damned to the afterlife. He fumbled around Zico’s blood stained jacket and retrieved your phone along with the device making all the noise. He noticed Zico had been on a muted phone call the entire time. Fuck… the bastard was really prepared for me huh… he took a quick glance at the lifeless face beside him and somehow felt a rush of excitement, for once, someone had managed to put him in a pinch. He was momentarily impressed but upon hearing your soft whimpers, a surge of anger spread through his body. Zico may have planned well but he also made it personal. Yoongi grabbed the dead man’s face, gripping his jaw so tight it may as well have cracked.

How dare he make you cry? But more so, what could be done in a situation like this? Should he give up his codes to measly henchmen and rush to change them? No, they would realise Zico was dead and that most definitely guaranteed Jimin’s funeral. Even on the off chance they didn’t kill Jimin, there was no way of knowing whether Zico had hacked into Hoseok’s system and placed someone on standby, waiting to punch in those digits and take Yoongi down. Fuck, think, think, think. He scratched his head for a second, he could not execute a plan unless the probability of success was high and currently both your happiness and his empire were at risk. You desperately waited, knowing Yoongi would come up with the best plan but your patience was quickly wearing thin.

“Yoon-”

“Y/n, call Jimin immediately and tell him to get the fuck back in that building”, he spoke calmly and stretched out his hand- holding your cell- back, you grabbed it without a second thought. Before standing up, Yoongi gave the deformed man a deep glare followed by a psychotic grin; you died thinking you had won didn't you? Pft, don't make me laugh.

The raven haired man reached into his pocket to retrieve his own phone and brought the device up to his ear after dialling an all too familiar number. It would be a risky operation but out of all the ones he could think of, this was the only one he was the most confident in. Yoongi grabbed your hand and began making his way out of Zico’s den; in the process of calling Jimin, you could only pray whatever Yoongi had in mind would work.

“Hello?” after the third ring, your childhood friend finally picked up and you had never been so relieved yet terrified to hear his voice.

“Chim!! Oh my god, thank fuck, go back, Chim go back inside!!”

“Y/n? What? Wait slow down what are you rambling on about?”

“Chim listen, I don’t have time to explain right now, just trust me and go back inside the academy, you have to go, please hurry!!!” You voice was obviously jam-packed with panic and worry causing Jimin to stop in his tracks and turn around. He was extremely confused as to how you even knew where he was but judging from your tone he decided to do as he was told; the answers would surely follow.

“Get the Chopper to the closest rooftop you can find, now.” Yoongi instructed before the person he had dialled even had a chance to say ‘hello’. The moment both of you were outside, a professionally dressed, grey haired man, seemingly in his forties was waiting next to Yoongi’s Audi R8 V10, the black model, of course and you recognised it immediately. Your boyfriend hurriedly opened the door for you as he had been doing for the last 3 years and you slid in as he followed promptly. “Head for HQ” he ordered, “Jung should contact us with a location soon.” The driver had already stepped on the gas and gave Yoongi a quick nod through the rear view mirror. While you were busy trying to tell Jimin his life was in danger, Zico’s men spoke through the deceased man’s phone again.

“Boss, the boy is returning to the Academy, we need your instructions.”

Your face visibly went pale but before you had a chance to freak out Yoongi tightly held your hand. “Is he inside?” He asked in reference to Jimin and you quickly asked your best friend; Yoongi’s grip on you was really the only thing keeping you calm at this point.

“Yea, yea I just walked back in, y/n you need to give me an explanation rig-” you nodded to your boyfriend who had been closely observing for a response. The second you confirmed, Yoongi broke the blood stained phone with his bare hands and chucked it out the window almost too casually which resulted in a shook expression from you. He shrugged and smiled comedically in response and you were about to ask what in the hell he was doing but then Jimin’s voice went louder “-are you even listening y/n?!” your mind returned to the call and you decided there was no point in questioning Yoongi’s methods.

“Chim, listen, I really can’t explain right now, I just need you to trust me, stay in that building until I say otherwise, please just...” Your eyes started getting teary again just thinking about what could go wrong and of course Jimin recognised this immediately.

“Okay, okay I trust you, I trust you, please calm down.” You nodded into the phone trying to collect yourself and began taking deep breaths. Seconds later, there was a loud ding on the screen next to the driver with what you only assumed could be coordinates from Hoseok; Yoongi’s tech specialist and right-hand man.

“Where?” he asked but it sounded more of a statement than a question.

“Seocho Garak Tower, Sir.” Upon hearing the driver’s response Yoongi grinned, countless memories of himself and Hoseok returning.

“In this situation, he really-” he almost chuckled but brushed it off, knowing he had to be there for you, nostalgia could be delayed.

9:52pm, Busan Dance Academy

“Hello? Hello??” Renjun, Zico’s most trusted man, looked at his phone, confused as to why the call had suddenly dropped. He called his partner who had been assigned to the other exit of Busan Dance Academy. They had both been tailing and observing Jimin for months, learning his schedule, where he worked, where he liked to eat, where he bought his groceries. If there was anything to know about his habits, they knew it. Renjun didn’t suspect anything when Jimin went back into the academy since the boy was reasonably forgetful but Zico going blank was definitely suspicious.

“Yea?” his partner finally answered.

“Jae, I need you to check where the Boss is.” Jaemin was another one of Zico’s trustees; he had also been Renjun’s partner since before they joined their now dead leader’s gang. Both of them were a brilliant team; Jaemin specialised in weapons and tech while Renjun was better at close combat and guns.

“Copy that.” After a minute of silence Jaemin responded finally, “He’s offline…? I can’t track his phone, the tracking device was either disabled or destroyed. Weren’t you on a standby call with him?” Renjun cursed under his breath knowing The Beast had compromised the mission. Of course this happened, they were going up against the man who practically owned Korea, there were bound to be hurdles.

“Shit… I should have known when he didn’t respond the first time.” He explained the situation to his partner all the while trying to figure out what to do considering they had no back up. Only the people involved in the mission knew about it and if Zico wasn’t responding, it was easy to assume none of the other men would either. “We have the upper hand right now.” He finally concluded, “Min and his men are in Seoul, the boy will come out soon, we have to capture him alive. The Boss was confident that this was the Beast’s only weakness, we have no choice but to use it.” He crossed his legs and the bench beneath him made a subtle creaking sound. He was dressed casually; blending into the crowd, the only difference? No one else was carrying five guns hidden in their coat.

“Jun… do you think the boss is-” Jaemin didn't even have to finish his question, Renjun had already been thinking of it.

“If The Beast came personally then we have to assume so.”

10:07pm, Seocho Garak Tower

You stood in the 24 story building’s private elevator with your boyfriend, hands still intertwined. It was silent at first, the only sound being that of the elevator itself and Yoongi’s soft breathing.

“Yoonie…” you muttered softly “Busan is 4 hours away, how are we ever going to get there on time?” The raven haired man smirked at your concern before taking your face between his hands and gently caressing your cheek with his thumb.  

“Princess you’re underestimating how fast a helicopter can go, don’t you worry about getting there on time.” He placed a gentle kiss on your forehead and proceeded to press your head against his strong chest “we will save Jimin, okay?” You nodded through watery eyes and wrapped your arms around his frame. If you were honest with yourself, you were still worried sick and you had no clue how you were going to tell Jimin that you were literally dating the most insane criminal mastermind in Korea, if not all of Asia but you trusted Yoongi. He may have been insane and ruthless but he was never anything but kind, gentle and caring towards you; you trusted him more than anyone and anything but you weren’t sure if you trusted him with Jimin’s life.

The elevator doors opened and there were three men waiting for both of you. “It’s ready, Sir.” One of them stated as a matter of fact and Yoongi pulled away slightly to see your expression. You closed your eyes and took a deep breath before giving him a small nod.

“Let’s go save Jimin.”

10:58pm, In the Helicoptor

Your phone started buzzing and you quickly scrambled around your pockets trying to find it, knowing there was only one person who could possibly be calling.

“Chim? Are you okay?” you asked worriedly. The last hour had been full of panic and Yoongi holding you tightly but even in his warm embrace, Jimin was the only person on your mind. What if he gets hurt? What if he gets kidnapped? What if they kill him?! That’s exactly why when he called you were relieved but also anxious in case something had happened.

“Yea, I’m fine. There’s just one problem; the academy closes at 11 and I’m literally hiding in a janitors closet so you better explain whatever is going on right now.” You sighed in relief knowing he was safe but still struggled with how you would tell him about Yoongi.

“I think it would better if I explained in person, it’s a lot to take in and I’ll only be another 15 minutes-”

“YOU’RE COMING TO BUSAN? BITCH WHAT?” you had to pull the phone away from your ear because of how loud Jimin had exclaimed oh shit yea you thought upon realising you had forgotten to mention that minor detail. You couldn’t blame him though; it had been years since you both saw each other and you couldn’t help but smile at his excitement. Jimin had gone abroad after high school and by the time he came back, you were too deep in with Yoongi which made seeing your best friend risky. The last six months of your friendship was basically making excuses to avoid seeing him in case it would put him in danger and you cursed yourself for not deleting conversations and using untraceable lines of contact. It was your fault he was in danger and it was killing you inside but right now you had to make sure he didn’t get hurt.

“Yes, yes, yes, I’m coming and I’ll explain everything but Jimin you have to promise me you will not move until I get there.”

“What is upppp with all this secrecy?” he exclaimed in annoyance, “I’ve literally been freaking out for a whole ass hour like just tell me!” it was understandable; anyone in his situation would have been scared and confused.

“I know, I’m sorry I just…” you decided there was no point in delaying it, he deserved to know what was going on, “okay, you have to listen carefully.”

11:05pm, Busan Dance Academy

Everyone had left but not Jimin. Jaemin and Renjun had closely been watching and they were absolutely certain the dancer had not left the building. The lights had gone off and the last person out had locked the doors. This was a trivial issue, both gang members had picked numerous locks in their lifetime so getting in the building had been a piece of cake, the real challenge was searching for the brunette man.

“You think he knows we’re here?” Jaemin asked his partner who was looking through a classroom on the lower floor of the academy.

“Oh he definitely knows we’re here, he wouldn’t be hiding if he didn’t. The Beast’s slut probably told him” he chucked momentarily “which is funny because it really wouldn’t matter if he knew he was being hunted or not; he lost the moment Zico assigned us here.” With no sign of Jimin in the lower left wing of the academy, Renjun motioned for his partner to take the stairs up to the second floor while he searched the lower right wing.

At the same time, in the Helicopter 

“Yoongi isn’t who I told you he is…” you nervously mumbled into the phone.

“What? What does any of this have to do with your boyfriend?” Jimin sounded puzzled; of course he was, you had never lied to each other and now you were about to tell him your boyfriend of three years was the one people called ‘The Beast’.

“He’s … fuck! I’m sorry I lied to you about this, I had no other choice, I’m sorry…” you took a deep breath, but even then your body quivered “he’s the leader of a really big mafia gang.” You heard a low chuckle from the leader in question causing you to inquisitively look at him. What did he find so humorous right now? Your look was returned with a ‘that’s the way you introduce me to your best friend?’ vibe which of course resulted in you smacking his arm and rolling your eyes; Jimin could literally be killed at any moment yet somehow your boyfriend made the situation light hearted, even if for just a few seconds.

“What. The. Fuck. Y/n please don’t fuck with me right now I’m literally sitting next to a mop that smells like dancer sweat.”

“I wish I was making this up right now” and it was true, you didn’t want to admit it but deep down you were having doubts and wondering whether it was ever right for you to get involved with Min Yoongi in the first place. “A rival gang leader wanted to get to him and they found out about you, I’m so sorry for dragging you into this I-” your words got caught in your throat and suddenly the guilt of lying to Jimin along with thoughts of leaving Yoongi got a little too much.

“Okay, um… let me get this straight… I’m being hunted by the mafia right now…you have been dating a fucking criminal and lying to me for the last three years and WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK Y/N?” Jimin spat and you had never felt more ashamed. There was no other way to put it. You let your emotions get the better of you and didn’t stay loyal to the person who had your back since preschool; Jimin was the family you never had.

“I’m sorry… I jus-”

“No, don’t even apologise right now, do you realise the number of levels this is fuc-”

Silence

“…chim?” The line had suddenly gone quiet. “Jimin?” Every form of panic and fear soared through your being, tears flooding your eyes and your voice cracking each time you attempted to say his name. “J-jimin?? Please answ-”

It was as though all your worst fears came to life when you finally heard something on the other end of the line. The sound of a phone dropping from a frozen man’s hand followed by a deep, venomous voice.

Jaemin smirked, pressing his gun hard against Jimin’s temple,

“Well, well, well. Look who we have here.”

// Part 3

#bangtan #bangtanwriters #bangtan reactions #bangtan reacts #bts #bts reaction #bts scenarios #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #bts imagines #BTS suga #bts yoongi #bts min yoongi #suga #yoongi #min yoongi #suga x reader #yoongi x reader #min yoongi x reader #bts suga x reader #bts yoongi x reader #bts min yoongi x reader #reader x suga #reader x yoongi #reader x min yoongi #bts smut #bts fluff #bts angst #bts mafia au #yoongi mafia au

[armada-of-ships-against-antis]

Gush about some of your favorite ships please

Sorry for the long wait, but I think I might be ready for this now. (and before anybody wonders, of course it is in the middle of the night and I should go to bed now! Cause it’s the best time to gush over your ships!)

Okay lets begin with Spirk - man I was raised being a Trekkie and to be honest I never saw the great appeal of Kirk, cause my fucking younger than 10 year old heart already belonged to that vulcan! And I bailed my eyes out when he died! But after Kirk and the crew did everything to bring him back, I was like: Okay Kirk is a good one, okay! Nobody will ever be able to seperate them, only over my dead body. Back then it was more about the friendship but I’ll be dammned if I didn’t become a Spirk shipper some 10 years later when rewatching it. But why stop there, get Bones into the fun, too! Try to provoke that human side of Spock, trigger some unlogical feelings, try to beat him in 3d chess!

Okay bear with me there are three other Star Trek ships I wanna gush about!  I pretty much watched the series in the order they came out, so next was TNG that I saw, and although I loved data to every bit and byte of his android being, I was at a loss for a love interest for him. Okay there is always Geordie I guess or Picard, but TNG never hold a deep appeal for me in that field. So on to DS9. When I saw it as a kid, is was boring shit with all that politics and religion. I was around 18 when I rewatched and then in only the fourth episode I became suddenly aware of how motherfucking much Garak flirted with Julian Bashir! And I fell so deeply in love for their weird dynamic of a young and easily impressible human doctor with a mysterious cardassian spy tailor. I ran around showing scenes with them to people who were not shippers and they agreed, that there was tension. And right there was my first time finding background informations about my ship. It was there! I didn’t just interpret too much!  Andrew Robinson, the actor said himself he thought of Elim Garak as an omnisexual character who had a certain interest in Julian. It was absolutely mindblowing to me (also I started to google what omnisexual meant and found about pansexuality, so this is kinda part of finding my own identity, thanks to the closeted representation of a queer alien in sci-fi show from the 90s)

Okay two more and I’m done with Star Trek. But both are from Voyager. Throughout the series I loved the chemistry between Janeway and Chakotay. The slightly forbidden, the pressure, the loneliness of being captain of a ship so far away she probably would never see her husband again. Tragic shit and so perfect set up.  And then came Seven of Nine and manged to shake things up. Suddenly I was a multi shipper, because I couldn’t decide if she or Chakotay should be with Kathryn. The one was loving, supporting and the other was awkward, learning new things about finding humanity again. One was frowned upon because of their ranks and the other because Seven was still more borg than human in how she behaved. So pretty cold, while also confused a ton of times and Janeway ALWAYS had the time and nerves to explain it to her. Just like the doctor (who speaking between us is also a solid shipping option for Seven!)

Damn I tricked you by forgetting myself, that I did develop a shipping crush on Q x Picard. Damn have you ever seen those two interacting. The cockiness in the room, the mocking tone, the resistance. Have you seen those scenes you could perfectly take out of context and already have a “morning after sex” scenario?

Good now let’s take a deep breath and come to the Harry Potter fandom. Or in my case Severus Snape’s playground to be shipped to literally everybody! If it had Snape in it, I would read Everything during that time. Snarry was my most favourite, followed by Snape x Lucius, Remus, Sirius. But I also was looking into x Hermione, Draco, Lily, James, McGonagall, Dumbledore, Ron, Neville (Oh what a small and angsty ship), Bellatrix, Voldemort, Narcissa, Tonks, hell I even read one with Hagrid! (Okay I admit I didn’t enjoy that). Snape was my shipping bitch. Beside that I was of course loving Sirius x Remus.

Okay we move a tiny bit backwards in my life timeline, because before I started to excessively ship my ship bitch with everybody that was breathing, I had a rare ship in Final Fantasy (VII to be more precisely). Hojo x Vincent. You know just your ordinary crazy, mentally instable old (as in probably 60 years old) mad scientist having his way with a young agent from a special task force who canonly had a love interest in his wife… yeah. You know the totally normal stuff you ship every day!  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

I mean I also had the regular Cloud x Sephiroth, Cid x Vincent, Cloud x Tifa, Tifa x Aeris, Reno x Rude or Rufus and so on, but hell yeah I wrote one of my longest fanfictions with most of my OCs for Hojo and Vincent and someone commented on it. That person became my fucking best friend for now over 13 years who went with me through so much shit but is still my shipping partner in crime till now.

Together we discovered the movie Megamind and watched it more than 10 times in one week! We were so instantly on board with Megamind x Roxanne that it nearly hurt. And when we started an rpg, we shipped the fuck out of them, gave Minion a mermaid to love and that was the most perfect and sweet shit. They are just adorable! He’s such a goofball, sick with love only hold back because of his supervillain image.

I also met my second girlfriend via fanfiction comment. I had written a smut one shot about Tarrant Hightopp, the mad Hatter with ‘his’ Alice. That was also the first one I attempted to translate into English. When we met for the first time, we also watched Alice in Wonderland around 10 times together and we were in love with the lovely dynamic. We were frustrated when we found out, there was even a kiss in the script that never made it to the fucking screen! It was outrageous! I started to learn how to write a scottish accent and strew in some scottish words in our rpg to make it more authentic.

(And after that I managed to pull her into the pit of the Harry Potter fandom, hell I even pulled her into the pit of shipping mlm which she didn’t like until Snupin. But our main ship was suddenly Snape with her OC and we wrote a lot. Like between 2-8k word for one single post in our rpg! In the end we had enough to fill two books. We did even cosplay as them.)

Let’s get back to the Final Fantasy fandom a bit and let me gush over the other ships I had over the years. I’m still a huge Squall x Quistis shipper from part 8 and Laguna x Kiros! I also have an eye on Cifer x Fu-Jin (hah one eye, cause she has a an eyepatch, urgh I know that was a bad joke). And while I started as a big Auron x Tidus shipper, it shifted more to Auron x Rikku. I shipped them when I was about 15 (her age) and I thought I wasn’t allowed to do that, so I made a whole fucking AU where she was older and it developed into a totally original story of my own, which I have never ever written down even one page). With X-2 I satisfied myself with Paine x Rikku, they were such cute opposites of each other, I couldn’t resist! Only some years ago I played FF 15 and damn it was a shipping paradise again for me. Like all of the four protagonists are a match for each other! And then Ardyn appeared and made me weak in the knees. So Ardyn x Noctis but also just because those the truly most favorite characters: Ardyn x Ignis. Not exactly the fluffy happy stuff, I can tell you that. Manipulation, angst, abuse it had it all.

I can’t talk about Final Fantasy and leave Kingdom Hearts out, so yeah I started as a typical Sora x Riku (not Rikku from FF 10) fangirl and with part 2 I also feel for Axel x Roxas. I know, I know but at least with Organisation 13 you had a whole bunch of shippable characters. Just make one or two of them your shipping bitch, in my case Xemnas and Xigbar and ship the shit out those guys with everybody you can think of in the organisation.

And when we are already talking about Kingdom Hearts, I just jump into Disney a bit. Like every girls dream was to find their prince, ect and I was like: yeah Mulan and Shan Yu seem to fit nicely… Frollo is a fucking ass creep, but damn that scene in the cathedral when he sniffs Esmeraldas hair… Jasemine you look good in that red slave outfit for Jafar to be honest and dear Adam, you should have stayed a beast for Belle. Happy ruining your childhood. You’re welcome. :D Not that I shiped those during seeing those movies the first time, but you know I rewatch stuff!

Good okay let’s check the watch… good 1 hour later…. I’m not gonna finish this any time soon…. I’m sorry. I just tried to make a list of ships that seem important to me and I would probably write another hour or two. I just hope this satisfies you for the moment ;)

If you or anybody else wants to hear about more video game, movies or series ships and me writing an essay about that shit… feel free to ask I guess LMAO

Good Night dear people (or maybe not I see 15 messages on my dash)

#ask me #armada #too many fucking fandoms to tag!!

[kelasparmak]

Odo and Garak for the situations ask?

Fake dating/marrieds: there are two options. one is that odo is excruciatingly uncomfortable and people start taking garak aside to give him unwanted relationship advice for his fake marriage, or they slip odo cards with a divorce lawyer’s name on. garak finds this hilarious at first but, because it’s garak and he is a vain vain man, quickly becomes appalled at how everyone assumes odo has fallen out of love with him and he’ll be left heartbroken. maybe he’s moved on to greener pastures, guys, didja think of that?alternatively, and maybe less likely, garak is for once determined to properly be a good friend to odo, who in fairness has always been a good friend to him, and not do anything that might push his boundaries. odo on the other hand is a noir detective in his heart of hearts and immediately gets super into the roleplay/disguise element, and is surprisingly good at playing the part (because playing the part is what odo has been pressured to do for as long as he’s been conscious and self-aware).either way, it’s not what people expect it to be, and it’s sort of hilarious.

Bodyswap: odo uses his security codes to turn up the temperature in his room, breaks it, and causes environmental problems. o’brien gets pissed off with him, then figures out why and is sympathetic, and then goes right back to pissed off because garak has turned into goo to get into places he shouldn’t and hear things he shouldn’t, and o’brien just found him in his goddamn alamo replica.

Telepathy:  ANGST. angst happens. probably they bond over having daddy issues, but resolutely pretend not to be able to hear each other’s thoughts because they are stubborn pieces of shit who Don’t Do Sadness.

OH NO only one bed at the hotel: odo doesn’t use a bed so this is maybe not an issue. if it’s during the humanoid!odo time though, i can see a cuddling-for-warmth scenario arising. only they refuse to call it cuddling and come up with completely absurd periphrastic overcomplicated bullshit to make it sound like Serious Stuff that was unavoidable and doesn’t mean they’re friends or anything.

Accidental time-travel: oh jeez. i mean, probably the awkward bisexual disaster that is teenage garak turns up, right? that is generally the best use of time travel. no matter who he runs into he develops a crush, because it’s practically asit!canon that that is garak’s whole thing at that age. just crushing on everyone in the entire goddamn galaxy.alternatively, an au of ‘things past’, in which odo’s unresolved guilt about the things he did/allowed while an unwitting/uninformed semi-collaborator is actually addressed. if anyone’s in a position to talk to him frankly about Doing What You Gotta and not feeling worse about it than you have to, it’s sisko and garak. sisko, because he’s a good person and a bit of a martyr, might make odo feel worse, though he’s self-aware and empathetic enough not to do it as much as he could. garak, i imagine, could find the words to make odo feel more okay with what he’s done (if only because he knows that garak wouldn’t just say these things to make him feel better, though actually that’s 100% what garak is doing).

Their first kiss: hmmmmmm. can kinda see it happening near the end of ‘the die is cast’, just after they escape the trap laid by the founder, both of them very confused and not totally okay with what’s going on. but that’s not going to have been a great first kiss, so maybe… okay, a few options:a) they hang out a lot while garak’s in jail, because i don’t remember if it was ever clarified but if garak was in jail on ds9 that is potentially horrific, the holding cells we see on the show are tiny and have no privacy; hopefully a longer-term cell would be nicer but either way leaving that aside it’d mean he was spending a lot of time with odo. if he was in jail on a different station, which would prbably mke more sense, i like to think odo would still visit him pretty often, maybe even more than julian because i think odo ‘gets’ him more but relates to the lying etc less, which makes it easier for him to sympathise than julian, who empathises a lot but pretends he doesn’t and wishes that he didn’t. anyway they get really close over that time and when garak gets out they have excruciatingly awkward small talk and then a ‘uhh, hey, so… how ya feel bout… touching mouths…’ and then they smooch.b) also sad: when garak and kira realise odo’s dying just after they all leave for cardassia prime. everyone’s poly and that’s not an issue. odo is dying and that is an issue.c) they discuss odo’s awful romance/smut novels and the terrible descriptions therein, and it quicly comes up that odo’s never really kissed anyone before, so garak offers to help him get some experience, fully expecting it to be taken as a joke (as intended!), but odo’s like ‘yeah actually i do need some practice? this is one of those solid things?’ and……. the obvious fanfic ensues.d) the episodes ‘my way’ and ‘our man bashir’ mesh perfectly into one episode where they are both nerds in tuxedos who make out in an early/mid-20th century themed holosuite.

Meeting the parents: this has happened on one side already. i like to think that garak would be very very cutting to dr mora, with no reservations about how he has to be nice to odo’s ‘dad’ and not cause problems in their already fraught relationship. also probably sabotage several little things to make sure that his stay on ds9 is awful, though nothing that’d actually damage him. probably. maybe a lot of ‘accidental’ electric shocks from ‘accidental’ wiring faults, though. turnabout’s fair play.

Moving in together: odo puts his bucket in garak’s room. garak tucks several blankets and a space heater under the desk in odo’s office. DOMESTIC AS FUCK.

A crossover of my choice: oh boy. okay, let’s take some creative license here, cause this is sort of more of an au, but… white collar. odo as the dedicated  and sort of boring-seeming cop with a strong sense of justice and commitment to law & order, but who in his heart believes that people really can be redeemed, and also kind of grudgingly admires criminals like master forger & art thief garak, who is so fucking talented and creative and twisty-mindedly a genius, and who seemingly by coincidence takes care not to put anyone’s wellbeing on the line if they’re just trying to make a living and haven’t done anything to deserve it. together, they solve crimes (and drink a lot of wine).

An au of my choice: again, i have such a fondness for the white collar au i was just talking about, though i don’t think i’d really considered it in any depth before just now, other than ‘oh hey, this neal guy reminds me of garak, and if he’s garak then i guess this superficially by-the-book but secretly-a-loose-cannon cop is probably odo’. i love this au now.but because that wasn’t exactly a crossover i feel like i’ve gotta be really strict and come up with a canonverse au for this one. so, either:a) dominion!odo au, where odo rejoins the link willingly the first time he meets them back in ‘the search’, and for the rest of the series is a semi-enemy who genuinely believes the founders can impose order on chaotic and harmful forces like cardassian expansionism and prevent atrocities like those that that happened on bajor from happening again. this brings him into conflict with the regular ds9 crew, obviously, though those conflicts never come to violence because both odo and the rest of the ds9 crew realise that the other has good intentions and they don’t want to hurt each other because they’re friends. garak has no such qualms - anything that might jeopardise cardassian interests, no matter how well-intentioned (and no matter how badly-intentioned he thinks the current cardassian government might be), is fuckin’ going down. this could be a very long fic with a lot of drama where everything turns out okay, or it could be a short one where, lbr, garak fucking dies because he tried to kill an entire planet of near-invulnerable shapeshifters, again.or b) deep dish nine, the One True AU in every niner’s heart. my initial thinking is that this hypothetical fic would relate to odo being involved in an ongoing attempt to shut down a drug operation in the neighbourhood, which he did not realise that that odd but strangely easy to talk to tailor who lives in the basement was involved with. either he talks to garak (who has probs already been talking to julian about this whole Drug Problem Sitch) and convinces him to help with the sting, or he doesn’t find out until the middle of a raid or something. again, this one could end well or it could end badly. i like to think it ends well.

If you like, another trope/scenario of your choice: i mentioned it earlier but it’s canon that odo reads a lot of terrible smut (despite being probably ace, which perhaps surprisingly is not an uncommon combination, even though it’s not an intuitive one at all). and it’s semi-canon (thanks, andy) that garak is a hopeless romantic, a bisexual disaster, kind of kinky, and (full canon now) v into reading as a form of escapism. so, their breakfasts together definitely end up being a second replimat-book-club for garak, only in this one they might pretend it’s Highbrow Literature but genuinely all they discuss is like, bad housewife erotica. they know it’s garbage but they also both unironically love it. (quark overhears more than he wants to but like hell is he telling them that since breakfast time is quiet he can overhear certain frequencies if he’s near the exit of his bar - which he is, more often than he needs to be these days. he’s not suicidal enough to try blackmailing either odo or garak without a damn good reason, but having some material on them doesn’t hurt).

#ds9 #everythingandanythingisgood #long post for ts #odo #elim garak #this is such a late reply i'm so sorry #i reblogged a ton of ask games right before being busy for weeks because i'm dumb and i thought i'd think out my replies on the train or bu #i didn't i just completely forgot about them #i'm sorry! here's a reply like three weeks late i hope it helps

[chronotopes]

book log: a stitch in time by andrew robinson

you guys i’m going to go bullet point by bullet point through all of my ibooks annotations so buckle in if you dare 

first of all that first chapter owns my ass. “indulge me if you will i need you as a witness”?? that’s the most. that’s the absolute most. that said, the concept that they Grew Apart after our man bashir, while ... certainly canon compliant.... is a piece of canon i refuse to accept. i have my own canon timeline for these kinds of things

i fucking LOVE pythas lok? i lived for that relationship. in fact the fact that this book is just garak cycling through his exes and the way they were all instrumental to events unfolding on cardassia? in fact i begin now to suspect that gul dukat is the only cardassian from garak’s past whom garak hasn’t fucked AND isn’t related to 

i whooped victoriously when garak said he was attracted to pythas. small victories. and then again when garak criticized odo’s uniform. 

love that the bamarren parts of the book that don’t involve palandine read like some kind of fucking... edwardian all boys school shit. like am i reading an a.e. housman poem? am i rewatching maurice (1987) dir. james ivory? no i am reading a beta canon epistolary novel about a gay lizard 

on that note garak being genuinely into women is something ajr and i disagree on but that’s just like to each his own 

garak’s famed volcano dick made me laugh. this book is such a fanfic at times. and then palandine teaches him that IT’S ALL TRUE, ESPECIALLY THE LIES. in fact like ... i didn’t even consider this now but in the garak/palandine stuff at bamarren reads in certain cases like early seasons garashir? but we’ll get to the more concrete parts of alla that later 

anyway .... “but i’m also a doctor, garak. and i know which group of people suffers the most. i really won’t take up any more of your time.” he extended his hand, which he rarely did, and i took it. “thank you for the tea.” he turned and went out the door.  i stood there for a long moment, deeply upset. i felt trapped within myself, knowing what i had to do to get out but unable even to begin. yes, doctor, it does sound familiar.” WHAT THE FUCK WAS THIS!! (what the fuck was that whole scene!!!)

SPEAKING of doctors, dr parmak is really something. sorry i know a lot of you love him but i hope you realize he’s a rebound of a mighty order. self care is dating an older lizard flavored carbon copy of your ex bf. 

this was like finding out that in ds9 beta canon ro laren becomes SECURITY OFFICER and dates QUARK is a similar experience to this. ro laren and kelas parmak: the only thing they have in common is being quark and garak’s doctor and security officer rebounds. 

that said ro is her own person! parmak is a fig leaf. a plot device. andrew robinson winking at you from seventeen years ago. a mirror. god! 

anyway then two of garak’s three school crushes hook up, and he’s left with pythas who is the best one anyway.

and there’s the fucking insane sequence where garak goes on lots of hikes with a Privileged Federation Twink whom he’s totally dtf as his first spy mission. and at one point, even though garak does hate his guts along with being dtf he thinks he’s “so concerned, so caring. i took another long breath. [...] i looked hans in the eyes and resisted being swallowed by their immeasurable blue depths.” like i’m not saying garak has a type but garak has a type! 

i forgot about this but aside from pythas and that bitchy cousin of lukar, among garak’s classmates turn out to be the asshole from the casablanca episode and a relative of tekeny ghemor. it’s some 19th century lit bullshit and i LOVED it! as if this weren’t enough, there are four lights guy is also in this. 

we also briefly meet remara, a totally deadly ex gf of kira’s. idk what garak was trying to do with their relationship but i’m totally interested in fanfic about remara being an asshole ex gf of kira’s. 

garak’s battles of conscience are great. again very 19th c . i love how miserable he is throughout this book. 

OH AND THEN HE AND PYTHAS LIVE IN THE WOODS FOR A MONTH OR SO AND FEEL LIKE.. COMFORTABLE FOR ONCE IN THEIR LIVES... AND PROBABLY HAVE SEX! 

ooh and then we get a rlly spooky sequence where we see the wire IN ACTION

the assassin cover professions we’ve seen in this book and in this show are either Lesbian Professions (gardeners, park rangers) or Gay Professions (the fashion industry). what is it with covert operations and the lgbt community. 

i SCREAMED about chapter 19 earlier today. but just to go over it once more 

garak has a spooky dream about julian burying him alive ! so he hits him up at six in the fucking morning 

“doctor forgive me but i need to see you,” i said as calmly as i could.  “garak?”  “i do apologize but it’s important.” 

and then garak hears “another voice in the background. ezri dax. a muffled conversation. the doctor cleared his throat again. “i’ll be right over” he said.” I LOVE THAT EZRI AND JULIAN AREN’T EVEN FUCKING AT THIS POINT BUT AJR COULDN’T RESIST HIGHLIGHTING THE RIVALRY BETWEEN THEM?!

and then julian said “there are more things in heaven and earth horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy” and i died on the spot. they’re IN LOVE?! ajr i thought you wrote garashir as unrequited but what kind of man quotes hamlet talking 2 horatio at his platonic dude friend while he’s run over to his quarters in the middle of the night after said platonic dudefriend has a nightmare? 

“i was also convinced that it was all a dream, and i kept asking myself what you were doing there” like what the actual fuck? anyway they talk the wire and it’s a lot. and of course “you not only saved my life you made it possible for me to live it.” 

AND THEN OF COURSE “this is my last trip to cardassia. i’m not returning. you were in the dream for a very specific reason. once again, you helped me remember. thank you, julian.” JULIAN! JULIAN!! i’m DYING OF CARDIAC ARREST! (also this scene finally solidified my headcanons for when they break up for the second time.) 

anyway then the palandine shit goes down and garak kills his OTHER old school crush (the one that turned out to be a dick) 

one of my notes on here, verbatim: “have garak and quark had sex” i asked myself and then immediately wanted to die

the second time garak said that kelas parmak was “so much like you, doctor” i damn near screamed in frustration. don’t try me like this elim!! 

and then we get the last julian mirror who’s that sad federation woman who spills her soul to elim and the line “CAREFUL, ELIM. YOU KNOW PERFECTLY WELL THAT THE SUREST WAY TO YOUR HEART IS THROUGH CONVERSATION”

okay and THEN he meets pythas who’s been Permanently Marked By The Horrors Of War and he’s got a gf who saved his life even though he didn’t want to be saved at first.... so like pythas is special because he’s a garak mirror AND a garak boyfriend at the same time!

and pythas was in the grounds trying to warn garak before all the shit went down with palandine. i’m dying scoob

the fact that the epilogue starts with the line “it’s just garak. plain simple garak.” the flashback timeline ends at the point garak meets julian! i hate this it’s so fucking romantic

and then YOU’RE ALWAYS WELCOME DOCTOR..... like idk about the canon status of a lot of these things but i totally buy this novel as a thing that exists that garak sent. which of course is a great jumping off point for post canon cardassia fic. justice is so sweet. 

#just katia things #trek talk #and #a really ridiculous entry in #book log '17

[vortaesthetic]

The Female Changeling is an absolute piece of shit. Weyoun deserved better.

TRIGGER WARNING UP FRONT FOR ABUSE, HIDDEN UNDER THE CUT. Spoilers??? ahead that are not really spoilers, considering the age of this show.

It’s a little longish. Ye been warned. 

SO...

I snagged this little book up from the Nook Store for a quick afternoon read. At 145 pages, it is not very long. It is a novelization of the events that happen in the last episode of DS9. On the whole, Carey’s writing is a little blah, so I wasn’t expecting anything that would set my world on fire.

BOY WAS I FUCKING WRONG

Holy shit. Poor Weyoun. Poor, poor Weyoun. I’m not saying this just because I love Weyoun to bits, I’m saying this because he is so badly mistreated in this book. The Female Changeling is absolutely heartless. No shred of decency in this creature AT ALL.

At this point, the Cardassian Rebellion has started and Weyoun and the Female Changeling are on the defensive, hidden inside Central Command and pretty much waiting for the end. FC issues the genocide orders, events largely proceed in line with the story in the show.

Where this book takes a turn is how it characterizes the formerly stoic Founder. In the show, she places little importance on the value of life--but in this book she takes this to the next level. She took several levels in jerkass and became a stone-cold monster.

Loyal, blind Weyoun is trying desperately to serve her, to make himself useful to her, because that is what he is made to do. This is intrinsic; it is built into him. He MUST serve her, he has no choice. But she is not a being worth his devotion. She insults him at every turn, calls him a coward, accuses him of being inept, stupid, and childlike, and blames all failures on him. She casually ponders about the ideal time to scapegoat him. She’s even reconsidering the collective usefulness of the Jem’Hadar as a species simply because they have not been able to win the war. Considering their massive tactical disadvantage at this point, I would say that’s a pretty unfair charge, since they have no supply lines and no reinforcements at this point. Realism is not a consideration to her. There are only results and failure is tantamount to death.

But she truly takes the cake when she WRAPS HER HAND AROUND HIS THROAT AND FUCKING CHOKES HIM WHEN HE RUSHES TO KEEP HER FROM COLLAPSING. Don’t believe me? He’s trying to help her, trying to comfort her and support her, and she thanks him by wrapping her hand around his throat and choking the life out of him. He’s terrified. He cannot breathe. He’s squeaking out his promises of loyalty and devotion, that he would give his own life to save hers, all the while she’s squeezing the life out of him, just because she can. Eventually, she remembers to release him, and he doesn’t say a word about it, he just rubs at his throat. 

To top off that shit sundae, she has a little internal dialogue at the end of that scene on pg 83, just after relinquishing her death-grip:

Was he honored? She thought he should be.

She thought he’d better be.

WHAT

THE

FUCK

Throughout this scene she cavalierly refers to divine judgement a couple of times. She sees herself in a position of judgement over the Vorta-- the Founders gave life to the Vorta and may take it away at will. She chose to--and i quote--“give him back his existence” so that he can continue to serve her. I ALMOST MURDERED YOU FOR NO REASON, BUT YOU HAD BETTER BE GRATEFUL THAT I CHANGED MY MIND.

WHAT THE FUCK

Later on, when Kira and Garak storm Central Command, another thing comes up. Kira demands that the call off the Jem’Hadar and Breen forces. The Founder directly countermands that, telling Weyoun obliquely that he will not comply with that order. What choice does Weyoun have at this point? He cannot disobey her. It’s actually a really clever attempt for The Founder to try to pin the responsibility of the war and associated atrocities on Weyoun, as if she had minimal input into the choices that were made.

The Founder is the true coward here. She’s profoundly despicable.

The rest is history. Garak shoots him dead and everything continues to proceed as normal.

But what upsets me is how unaware of the balance of power everyone else is. Damar should know better, even if he doesn’t know the extent of how bad things actually are-- you know he has seen things at Domi HQ. To everyone else, Weyoun’s the Jackal, the Face of the Dominion, the Butcher. All the immorality and the brutality of the Dominion War falls on his shoulders, but the reality is that he was merely the puppet of the Founders, marching to their tune, doing as he was told because compliance is the purpose of his existence. This man was a slave. He had no agency. Consider that he was locked into place more firmly than anyone else in that conflict because whenever he died, he came right back only to be tossed right back into hell again. Am I insisting that he’s entirely innocent? No, not at all-- but he’s also in a position where there’s very few options. The Founder was really the one with the most blood on her hands but nobody really ever acknowledges how truly heinous her behavior actually was. She gets a slap on the wrist with solitary imprisonment at Ananke Alpha and Weyoun gets gunned down.

I just... I am so angry. I am so upset after reading this book. Weyoun’s life was terrible and everyone treats his life like garbage, in both life and death.

I am not easily affected by reading abuse. Shit, I both write and read the whumpiest whump to ever whump and I am fine with it. But this book was a profoundly unpleasant experience for me. 

I cannot even

#ds9 novels #weyoun #Female Changeling #ds9 #star trek ds9 #what you leave behind #abuse tw

[lobsters-on-their-heads]

What I want from (Fan)fiction

I love fanfiction, but good Lord is it hard to find good stuff in any fandom.  I haven’t counted, but my guess is that only about 10% of works in any fandom are high quality, and the rest range from “okay, I can read this” to “holy fuck, this sucks so badly I now hate this pairing.”  Of course, some of it is personal preference.  There are tropes I can’t stand that other people love, and that’s great!  Diversity is important.  This is my list of things that I want from fanfiction.  A lot of this applies to all fiction.  I start with tips that I feel many readers would agree with, and end with my personal preferences that I know people disagree with.  Specific fandoms mentioned here are DS9, Orphan Black, Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones.  

1) Use the characters’ names, and use them in the way that they’re used in the original material.  No one in Harry Potter called Minerva McGonagall “Nerva,” so you shouldn’t, either.  Besides, it sounds silly.  Call her Minerva.

Also, avoid referring to the characters by their characteristics unless absolutely necessary.  In a scene with Cosima and Delphine, avoid referring to them as “the brunette” and “the blonde.”  If I’m reading Cophine fanfic, I know damn well what color their hair is.  Besides, the names are mostly just convenient tags to let the reader know who’s doing what, to help with the movie playing along in our brains.  Adding in extra markers takes the focus away from the action.  I understand you’re trying to avoid redundancy, but it ends up a little confusing.  

“Cosima gasped as the blonde rolled on top of her.”  This makes me wonder if a third woman joined the action.  Just say Delphine rolled on top of her - it’s more clear.

2) The majority of your speech tags should be said or asked.  It’s okay to throw in an occasional “she yelled” or “he gasped,” but keep those to a minimum, and only use as appropriate.  Speech tags, like names, are mostly to tell the reader who said what.  You don’t even need them a lot of the time if there are only two people speaking.  Using creative and unnecessary speech tags, again, takes the reader away from the main action or message.  

3) Tighten your writing.  Specifically:

- Avoid excessive modifiers and prepositional phrases.  “She spat with vemon” should be shortened to “she spat” unless of course there is literal venom involved, in which case, remove the “with.”  “He frowned sadly,” is redundant.  How else would he frown?  “She thought to herself.”  Well, who else is she going to think to?

- In general, if you can take words out without changing the meaning of the passage, take those words out.  One way I’ve found to do this is by giving myself a page or word limit that’s a little bit shorter than what I already have.  If the draft is 3,000 words, I try to make it 2,500.  Going back to point #1, using the characters’ names helps with this.  “Odo” reads more quickly than “the shapeshifter.”

4) PROOFREAD YOUR SHIT!  Proofread it yourself a day or two after you finish, and then get someone else to proofread it.  None of us can catch all of our own errors by ourselves, but we need to make sure it’s as clean as possible before sending it out into the world.  Proofread especially for the following:

- Verb tense.  Past tense is the most common, but the most important thing to watch for is consistency.  I read a fic yesterday where the writer switched randomly into present tense halfway though, then went back to past.  There was no time travel or flashbacks involved, just sloppy writing, and it took me out of an otherwise interesting story.   

- Check your spelling.  We’ll forgive the stray typo here and there, and some of us won’t even notice if you misspell “achieve,” but if you spell Kira’s given name as Niris, you’re showing that you don’t care about details.  

5) Use accurate and appropriate language.  I’ve lost count of the number of DS9 fics in which Major Kira “stomps” around the station.  I can’t remember her ever stomping on the show, though.  She strode, sashayed, walked, ran, jogged, limped, and (maybe) marched.  She might have even bounced or skipped, but she never stomped.  Stomping is what children do when they’re angry.  

Similarly, don’t get too creative with names for body parts.  Don’t use “digits,” use “fingers.”  When discussing breasts, never, EVER call them orbs, globes, or mounds.

6) Be true to the characters.  I know the point of fanfiction can be to stretch the boundaries of canon fiction, but if you go too far from the canon characters, you create entirely new characters who happen to have the same names.  This doesn’t mean you can pair them up in canonically unrealistic ways.  Garak and Captain Sisko can certainly have a tumble in Garak’s dressing room without either of them leaving character.  This includes physical traits as well as personality.  Some examples of what to avoid:

- Odo fucks Kira in the middle of a staff meeting, and she is pleasantly surprised.  No one is upset about this.  None of this is in character.

- Kira has massive breasts.  In the show, Kira’s breasts are lovely (from what we can see), but they are not large.  

7) Okay, so this one relates to #6, but might apply more to me than anyone else.  I don’t like AUs.  I just saw one that had Cosima as an actress, and another with Delphine as a kindergarten teacher.  Guys.... they are both SCIENTISTS.  That is a critical piece of their characters, not only professionally, but in terms of how they see and interact with the world around them.  Similarly, Jaime Lannister is a soldier and a nobleman.  He is not a musician.  Brienne is not a fangirl.  You can be inspired by characters and put elements of them into your own original work, but if you change too much about them, they are not the characters you say they are.  

Of course, some people love AUs.  If you like AUs, great, keep writing and reading them!  They are obviously popular (about half of the Cophine fics I saw just yesterday were AUs).  For me, though, you have to really sell me on your concept before I’ll even click the link.  

Amendment to #7) This doesn’t apply to divergent plot lines within the original universe.  Some of the best stories I’ve read follow the pattern of “What if [plot point] had turned out differently?”  These keep the characters in character.  What if Kira hadn’t died in “Children of Time?”  What if Cosima had never been self-aware?  What if Hermione were killed in book seven?  What if Brienne found Sansa Stark and they went on adventures together?  All of these work because they keep the characters in character. 

What if Harry were a muggle?  That works less for me.  Being a wizard is too integral to who Harry is as a person.  Still, if you write it well, I might give it a shot, provided that most everything else stays true to the Potterverse we know and love.   

8) It’s okay to use a foreign language I don’t know, as long as it’s realistic.  I don’t speak French, but Delphine does, so having her cry out French phrases during sex totally fits, and is better than having her do it in English.  I can figure out the meaning from context.  If characters are having a conversation in a foreign language, and the exact meaning is critical to the story, there are a few ways to handle that: 

- One way is to have them speaking in, say, French, with each other, and then have a third character ask for a recap or summary.

- Have a footnote somewhere translating the lines into English (or whatever the primary language of the piece is).  

- Have everything in English (or the primary language), but somehow signal to the reader that they have switched into French.  Maybe use italics and have a third character point out that they aren’t not speaking English anymore.  

Do not assume that your readers DON’T understand the foreign language you’re using, or that we all want an immediate translation.  Repeating the same message in English immediately after giving it in French slows down the pace of the story, and is literally redundant.  

#fanfic #fanfiction #cophine #odo #minerva mcgonagall #writing #harry potter fanfiction #got fanfiction #cophine fanfiction #ds9 fanfic #kira nerys #delphine cormier #cosima x delphine

[rainbowrites]

SEASON 7 PRIMER

OH GOD @wellntruly YOU’RE AT SEASON 7 ALREADY???

WHERE DID THE TIME GO???

(into a depression hole that’s where, I have all your posts lined up ready to read and comment on I PROMISE it’s just that ye olde depresh then taps on my shoulder and says ‘what if, instead of doing this thing you love, you just dragged yourself to work, then went home and mindlessly clicked around doing nothin and hating yourself? doesn’t that sound BETTER?’ and I am like ‘wow that sounds awful!!! let’s do it!!!’ honestly car dealerships should hire my depression it is the best goddamn sales person ever)

BUT THE POINT IS

we are here, together at the end. It has been a long and winding road filled with lows (we wept with you and raged with you) and enormous highs (we laughed with you, we squealed and clapped our hands to our face in disbelieving joy with you) and some truly weird potholes (YOU FUCKING CASSANDRA YOU, SINGING THOSE JAGGED HOLES INTO BEING AND THEN SLAMMING THE SHIP WITH US ALL ON IT RIGHT INTO THEM)

it is the last season with DS9, but not our last season with you Tarra, not nearly. Legions awaits, and after that many more shows to delight in once again through you. But thank you for this amazing experience. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you

and without further ado, one last primer

7x01-7x02 A quieter opener than usual for DS9. Sisko is trying to find himself through finding the Prophets. DS9 is still deeply in grief for the ones they lost, and Worf leads a group of them on a search for blood sacrifice to honor Jadzia's death. 7x02 introduces ~THE NEW DAX~ Sisko and Dax together again as they roadtrip to find the Prophets! Things get incredibly fucking trippy as they travel through the desert in search of answers, as DS9 goes fucking ALL IN on the Jesus metaphors

7x03 Dax is back, but she's not the same Dax who died there and is struggling to find a new place in her old home. Unexpectedly, she ends up bonding with Garak as she tries to treat him for his claustrophobia

7x04 BASEBALL EPISODE!!!!! BASEBALL BASEBALL BASEBALLLLLLLLLLL

B A S E B A L L

7x05 Bashir is really really lonely. Things get a little uncomfortable as the Augments come back, and he desperately latches back onto them. It's a painful episode, in some sad ways and some cringey ways, but I appreciate how everyone involved understands how awful loneliness is and the terrible things it can drive you to do

7x06 This episode is why everyone loves Weyoun, as we finally explore what it means to be a vorta FEATURING TWO WEYOUN CLONES BITCHING AT EACH OTHER. B-plot is HILARIOUS AND AWESOME as Nog teaches O'Brien how to Ferengi his way through problems

7x07 what does it mean to be old in Klingon society?

7x08 Exactly what it sounds like, an intense episode as a bunch of the DS9 crew bunker down on an planet under attack for a siege. Pay extra attention to Nog in this episode

7x09 DUKAT THE CULT LEADER, in a super creepy episode he kidnaps Kira to try to induct her. This episode is literally just CULT CULT CULT for 40 min, as it delves into religion and also all the horrible things that can happen when your leader demands complete obedience. WARNING: suicide

7x10 a FANTASTIC episode with Nog dealing with PTSD by hiding in a holoprogram with Vic. Once again DS9 is unafraid to delve deeply into hard topics and does it beautifully

7x11 a Ezri episode that delves into her family backstory. It's a total mess of an episode that came about because they literally kept throwing out ideas until finally they had to write the whole episode in 2 days. But if you like Ezri, or you want more information about her to help you like her, then this is a good one to watch

7x12 the Ferengi go to Mirror-verse in a completely ridiculous episode that totally gives up the pretense of Mirror-verse being serious. My favorite part is Rom desperately trying to figure out what the rules of a MIRROR-verse are

7x13 This is definitely my least favorite episode of the entire DS9 run and I cannot in any way subjectively write this primer. I JUST HATE IT SO MUCH. Mostly because there is so much there that I love the idea of! Ezri hunting a serial killer by letting out her own serial killer past life - it's all very Hannibal and such a great idea. There's even a Vulcan character! But no. It's terrible and badly written and just... I hate it so much. I have very visceral memories of ending that episode feeling like betrayed by how much I hated it, from a series I love so much

7x14 I did NOT hate this episode, a beautiful Odo piece focusing on how much Odo has been suppressing himself to better fit in with the solid (non-Changeling) society he lives in as he meets a non-Dominion Changeling. It's a really fantastic episode that has lots of stuff about assimilation and the insidiousness of fear

7x15 HEIST EPISODE!! OCEAN'S 11 IN SPAAAAACE!!! This is such a fun episode, oh my god and it's your last silly romp before things get REAL as we careen towards the end of the series. GET TO WATCHING :DDD WARNING: Kira is so insanely attractive that you may have a heart attack, I know I always do

7x16 Section 31 returns! This is based on an ACTUAL John le Carre novel as Bashir the Spy tries to save the day by ousting the evil group and keeping Romulus safely in the Federation! Darker than I or Bashir expected it to be. Life isn't like the holoprograms...

7x17-7x26 the TEN PART finale!!!

7x17 Ben and Kassidy are HELLA CUTE! Worf and Dax are HELLA AWKARD!

7x18 this entire episode is a series of anguished NOOOOOOs. BEN NO. WORF NOOOO. WINN, SUPER DUPER NOOOOOOOO.

7x19 the theme of this episode is alliances, both literal (between Cardassia and the Dominion) and figurative (marriages, both past and present) and spiritual (Kai Winn struggles with her faith) and what they mean for both parties. Also, Damar's death wish becomes canon

7x20 you're going to cry in this episode. That’s it, that’s all I’m giving you

7x21 Kira is forced to help the Cardassians by teaching them the same rebellion techniques that she once used against them. Odo gets sick, and Bashir tries to figure out how and why

7x22 The Cardassian rebellion struggles, both with it's own identity and with having a Bajoran leader as Nana shows off some of her finest acting ever. Not to be outdone, Klingons are having their OWN revolution, because why not

7x23 Bashir and O'Brien infiltrate Section 31 to try to find a cure for Odo! and by infiltrate I mean they're going FULL INCEPTION

7x24 A new Grand Nagus is crowned! The rebellion gears up for its last stand in Garak's childhood home! WE BARREL FORWARD TOWARDS THE END

7x25 goodbye my darlings. you had an amazing run

#wellntruly #star trek #DS9 #primer