#I'm kind of floored

[krenenbaker]

WOAH

the solo rerecording of "Masquerade Butterfly" has SUCH a different vibe than the Ecthelion recording??

they're both so interesting, and from two totally different auditory / music theory perspectives!! the different instrumentation and layering in both recordings, the different vocal performances, the noise and distortion in each...

ahjakshgaskjfha

[canisalbus]

I kidnapped ur long-nosed cat for a sec

.

[barrenclan]

slugpelt’s writing unironically helped me mend my relationship with my mother. I can’t say stuff like that about a lot of characters

[lazylittledragon]

i'm headcanoning that gale proposes to tav so fast because he wants the reassurance of stability and also because calling them his boyfriend/girlfriend/etc would somehow be Mortifying for him

[walkingstackofbooks]

IPS/BIL AU where Tain dies before he can send the message. Garak and Worf never go to the gamma quadrant. Julian and Martok don't get rescued.

Back on DS9 the changeling is stopped pretty much just as it was in canon, with Kira and Dax managing to stop the Yukon from reaching the sun, just as it explodes. (Maybe since Garak is still on the station, he notifies Sisko that Bashir has taken the Yukon out?) This time, however, no-one knows it was a changeling, and among all the shock and grief, there's tense speculation about what the hell Julian was doing out there in a runabout with a bomb.

The changeling had planned to never be identified, believing it would sow more confusion and fear in the Federation if they believe one of their own had been secretly allied with the Dominion. And so the changeling had left behind a trail of "Julian" interacting with highly questionable locked-down message-boards such as "Would enhanced individuals be better off under the Dominion?", which would never have been tracked back to him apart from under such scrutiny he's now post-humously receiving. (The changeling knew about Julian's enhancements - to become something is to understand that thing, after all.)

Of course, it is considered whether Julian may have been impersonated by a changeling, but once the link to his enhancements has been revealed - and his parents can't hide it, they confess, and are sentenced to time in a penal colony - it seems very much decided that Doctor Bashir had become an augment extremist, biding his time on DS9 until he could play out his part in the Dominion plot. There's varying levels of acceptance of this among Julian's friends - even if it seems that they have to admit it, it's still almost impossible to believe that Julian could have tried to do that. But it doesn't really matter what they think - life has to go on, and the war's continuing whether they like it or not, and little by little they move on with their now-Julian-less lives.

Time passes. they get a new CMO. The Cardassians re-occupy the station, and Sisko leads the campaign to get it back. Worf and Jadzia get married. Garak gets a message.

A.L.I.V.E. J.S.B.

And no-one knows what to think. JSB can't be... can it? But how...

Garak argues that Doctor Bashir's death is so well-known that no-one would use his name as the basis for some sort of trap. Miles agrees. Everyone else wants to agree. (For a certain definition of 'want'. Julian being alive, not a traitor... that also means he's been doing somewhere in the past ten months, and it's difficult to think about what sort of awful place that might have been.)

Garak and Worf are sent out to chase this signal - in theory, it's recon, but naturally it quickly devolves. They get captured themsleves, finding Camp 371 and Julian, looking ten months worse for wear. Garak learns about Tain's death, and the subspace transmitter he'd began working on and that they'd only just been able to finish, having managed to recruit a recently-abducted Starfleet engineer. An engineer who's currently in solitary, leaving them with a plan to escape now there's a runabout in orbit, but no way to effect it. Unless there's something Garak can do...

And Worf, of course, meets Martok, and is impressed by the Klingon's tale of daily fights for nearly three years. "Almost every day," Martok corrects him. "There have been times when I've woken up with a sore head to find that the doctor has taken my place."

Worf looks to Julian, nodding. "So you are the man we remember," he says. "Your enhancements may have helped you fight, but it was an honourable thing to volunteer."

"My... my enhancements?" asks Julian faintly. "What- what do you mean?"

"Commander, is now really the time—" Garak tries to interrupt but Julian speaks over him.

"No, Garak, I want to know— I-I need to know. What do you mean, Worf?"

And Worf, in his short, succinct way tells Julian how they had believed he had died, and what they had discovered thereafter, and while they know now that he is not an augment extremist, his parents' confession made it clear that he is an augment.

Julian doesn't say very much after that, apart from what is needed to help with the rescue - he calms Garak down, he volunteers to try and figure out what needs doing in the crawl space ("I've learnt at least a few things from tinkering with it over those seven months...") - but otherwise, he's withdrawn and spacey. Garak perserveres - he must get Julian back to DS9, has to hope there's still time to rekindle that light in his doctor's eyes - and manages to get them out, and even locking onto the engineer's life sign in solitary. They make it to the runabout, and escape.

It's a very different sort of homecoming. This time, rather than having only a few hours to get used to the idea that Julian had been missing for a month, they've been mourning him for almost a year, angry and confused and left with so many questions. And they've had almost a week of wondering what's become of Worf and Garak, and to tie themselves in circles wondering if J.S.B really could be Julian Subatoi Bashir.

Garak gets them all beamed directly to sickbay, and it's obvious that Julian's overwhelmed enough by that without having hordes of emotional friends come to greet him. So they're allowed in, one at a time. Miles petitions to be first, and wraps Julian up in what would have been the firmest of hugs - apart from Julian's so gaunt, so... fragile, that Miles find he dare not squeeze too hard. Words gush out - ones that he'd never have thought he'd admit out loud - about how much he missed Julian and how glad he is none of what they said was true, and it takes him some time to realise that he's been blabbering on and Julian's not been saying a word.

Julian has been clinging onto him tightly, though, and that... that's got to be enough, for now.

[teaboot]

Theoretically I enjoy living with people but unfortunately when you tell people you're a neuroatypical raccoon with twelve ongoing hobbies, completely random work hours, and a series of admittedly unusual lifelong compulsions they tend to hear that and go "oh haha you're trying to be Quirky okay" and then save their ten million questions and concerns for when you can't run away

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance - The World That Never Was

[sforzesco]

I love how much Lucullus can't stand Pompey, and also this

Pompey the Great: A Political Biography, Robin Seager

with something from this thrown in for extra flavor

Crassus and Pompey, on the other hand, ridiculed Lucullus for giving himself up to pleasure and extravagance, as if a luxurious life were not even more unsuitable to men of his years than political and military activities.

Plutarch, Lucullus

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app / tip jar!

[papermonkeyism]

A while back I helped a friend of mine build a puzzle, and I thought, hey, this is kinda fun and relaxing thing to do. Maybe I should get a puzzle and do one myself too!

And, well, some sales events happened and I spotted this one for less than ten euros, and it looked nice and varied enough it should be relatively easy to figure out.

I won't admit to making any mistakes, but the end size of the finished piece is in american units and

Aaaand I maaaaay have miscalculated the size of this thing just a smidge.

I don't think my portable drawing "table" is quite enough...

[nebulainatree]

Ok in honor of this post getting pretty widely viewed I'm posting my (self proclaimed) funny tumblr text meme edit here

[copia]

i love it when ghost news is announced because i can channel my nervous autistic energy into tidying the house and doing my washing up

[gideonysis]

Dis-gus-tang!!!!!!!!

[plusultraetc]

final(s) straw

Ironically, none of Nemuri's friends sleep like normal people.

At 12:47 am, Nemuri lets her head fall to the table.

“I hate finals week.”

Across from her, Yamada makes a sympathetic noise. “Why don’t they tell you when you assign a paper that you’re going to have to grade the papers after?”

“Exactly.” She points in his general direction without lifting her head. “I’m so glad someone finally knows my pain.”

It’s not even Friday, is the thing. If it was Friday-technically-Saturday, Nemuri could hike up her big girl pants and get this done, but it’s Thursday-technically-Friday and she has to proctor two exams tomorrow and so all she has to hike up are her most luxurious pink pajama bottoms and even they aren’t really making her feel any better.

She has patrol on Friday evenings. She is going to cry. 

“I’m going to sleep all weekend,” she says, half-affirmation, half-promise.

Yamada makes another note in the margin of the paper he’s grading. It joins a sea of its crimson brethren. “I’m not.”

“Oh, shit, nooo.” She reaches across the table and makes grabby hands until he surrenders one of his own. “Quit your job.”

“Which one?”

“Not this one. You can’t leave me here.”

“You brought me here.”

Nemuri hums with her cheek pressed to the top of tonight’s lowest-scoring final. “Like a mother bringing a child into this world of suffering.”

“Kayama, what?”

She pats his hand delicately and then digs her nails in with one final squeeze. Yamada yelps and jolts away. The dishes rattle warningly in her kitchen cabinets.

“I hope that woke you up, because it did jack shit for me,” she grumbles, pushing herself upright. Yamada shoots her a petulant look, shaking his abused hand loosely.

“If you’re really that tired, take a nap. I’ll wake you in a little bit.”

“Yamada, sweetie, if I take a nap right now there won’t be a force on earth that could wake me.”

“You could sleep on the floor.”

Nemuri blinks at him as he returns his attention to his paper. “Like, on a futon?”

“No. Like on the floor. That way, you can’t get too comfortable, and it’ll be easier to wake up.”

“What?”

He glances up at her. “What do you mean, ‘what?’ I did that all the time in high school.”

He did… what? Floor naps? He did floor naps in high school? Yamada was a year behind her at UA, but she has the vague recollection that he always had really good grades. Like, really good. Like pull an all-nighter, study until your eyes are burning, and then nap on the floor instead of going to bed so you can keep studying good.

“Yamada, what?”

“Why do you keep saying that!”

Nemuri flails. “Floor naps!?”

“They’re effective!”

“They’re ridiculous! That’s something a ridiculous person does!” She would know, and so would he, because their mutual ridiculous person does pretty much exactly that thing. Nemuri reaches across the table and Yamada, beautiful fool that he is, lets her grab his hand again. “If I had known you were taking floor naps in high school, I would have intervened much sooner. I would have made it my personal mission to tank your GPA in the name of sleep.” A horrible thought occurs to her. “Wait, do you still do that now? Do you just curl up on the floor at the station next to your recording equipment and sleep for half an hour?”

Yamada rolls his eyes. “Who do I look like, Aizawa? Of course not!” He pauses. “And half an hour is too long. No matter how uncomfortable you are, you will fall totally asleep after half an hour. Fifteen to twenty minutes is ideal.”

“Oh my god.”

“And you don’t take floor naps in public. You take them in the privacy of your own home where you can lose control of your life but no one is around to see it.”

“Oh my god. I’m getting you professional help.”

“For what? I don’t even do that anymore. I don’t have time to nap.” He waves a marked-up essay at her. “I have three jobs.”

[somegrumpynerd]

CHARLIEEEEEEE YOU'RE SO COOL AND FUN AND SILLY IT'S A JOY TO HAVE YOU AROUND (figuratively) AND I HOPE YOU ALWAYS HAVE A GOOD TIME AND THAT WORK ISNT TOO STRESSFUL AND THAT YOU'RE HAPPY AND CAN DO WHAT YOU LOVE FOREVER <33333

HLSLKGLDDHSKDVFHSJDFIHJD;KB PIGEON THIS IS ILLEGAL YOU CAN'T BE NICE TO ME THIS MUCH!!!!!!

That's so sweet that's SOO nice YOU'RE so nice!!!!! You're always the coolest and you make beautiful art for anything you draw even fandoms I'm not in I'm like oooooooh~! cause you make everything so pretty. AND!!! You always have amazing ideas, every time I see you on the dash it's like OOH YESS HERE WE GO cause it's a banger every time!! I hope YOU have a really good time and college is chill and manageable and you get so many purrs and cuddles from your kitties every day and you experience joy every day!!!!

[lord-squiggletits]

Y'know another point on the "Pharma isn't a Functionist" scoreboard (not that I haven't thoroughly debunked that by now but whatever) is that a preoccupation with hands isn't something unique to him.

The entire practice of empurata involves removing a mech's face and replacing their hands with claws, so literally Cybertronian society has always had a sort of judgement/taboo around hands (skillful forged hands, dirty/criminal claws). Even if Pharma were actually obsessed with his hands which he has a right to bc they're part of his body and belong to him so it's less obsession and more a fear of his bodily autonomy being violated, you can't use that to immediately declare him a Functionist when there are other cultural reasons that having one's hands removed is considered terrifying/dehumanizing and was historically used as a method of punishment and visually distinguishing someone as a criminal who should be socially ostracized.

Plus Pharma is a doctor and has only ever been a doctor his entire life, everything he is or has ever done is tied to being a doctor and being a doctor relies on him having his hands. Of course he's going to be proud of his hands or be upset when they're taken away, because having his hands taken away is, literally and symbolically, taking away his identity and the thing he's best at/most proud of being able to do.

[unityrain24]

Not A Person

"because of this curse•body•culture•bone•blood, i am nothing but an animal•monster•savage•creature•weapon. not a person"

mixed media [ink, paper, dictionary pages, pencil, digital], collage