#Muse dying and all

[masquenoire]

YOU HAVE JUST DIED.

↳ what loot items do you drop?

Black Mask has dropped:

Twin Semi-Automatic Pistols, Sodom and Gomorrah.

Silver hip flask containing Macallan Whiskey (Gold)

Modified Swiss Army Knife.

A tube of paste from the now-defunct Janus Cosmetics.

American Express Centurion Card (Black)

Half-empty packet of luxury cigars.

Tagged by: @ratctchr Tagging: @arkhampsych​, @defectivexfragmented​, @elisethetraveller​, @nervousleaderr​, @oswald-pengu1n-cobblepot​, @riddlethat​, @sanguine-salvation​ and anybody who’d like to do this?

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

Not to be a total asshole here but if I get one more "I need more! give me more!" comment on my Platonic Sugar Baby Buddie AU, it's going away. It has literally been two weeks since my last update, during which time I've been working on another fanfic, finishing up my second part-time job, working a full-time job, and being an adult with a full life.

I have never experienced this amount of whining in my entire time in this fandom and I can only presume that it's new people to the fandom who have an appalling lack of etiquette.

It's literally people just saying "give me more! I want more! hurry up!" And while none of you are at all entitled to my personal business, it sure doesn't help the depressive episode I'm in that y'all are doing this.

I love sharing my fics with you guys, and I love the enthusiasm and joy that you have for my writing. But the sudden influx of demands for sequels, for specific scenes in fics, unprompted fic, smut, and chapter suggestions, and now just outright demanding like a toddler for an update is disheartening, annoying, and the opposite of encouraging.

Please stop. Please. Please stop.

[cahootings]

maybe unpopular opinion but I think Izzy’s death was the best scene in the episode? It was beautifully written and beautifully performed. Died doing something he loved, being a pirate. He was surrounded by family. People who helped him understand his own capacity for love. If that’s not justice for his character I don’t know what is

[walkingstackofbooks]

Today had been sponsored by Maths™️

And DS9, but that's just every day...

I sorted every episode in DS9 into whether it was:

"Julian-heavy" (main ensemble or more; approx. 40-170 lines),

"moderately-Julian" (ensemble; approx. 17-45 lines), or

"Julian-light" (barely there; usually <25 lines)

And also by how much I liked it:

Green band: 1st ("FAV FAV FAV") and 2nd ("SO GOOOOOOD")

Yellow band: 3rd ("real strong, I like it a lot") and 4th ("solid. possibly a bit weird. but good.")

Orange/red band: 5th ("a bit eh") and 6th ("Nah.")

And then stats happened on the interesections of such things! I haven't done all the maths I want to, but today I've learnt:

> My statistically favourite season is S3, with 85% of episodes in the green band (35% of them 1sts), followed by S7 with 80% of its episodes there (40% of them 1sts!). > Season 1 had the highest proportion of Julian-heavy episodes (37%), despite having 0 Julian-as-sole-protaganist eps. Season 3 was next with 31% of Julian-heavy eps. > 61% of my very favouritest episodes are Julian-heavy. If an episode is Julian-heavy, then it also got itself a 1st or 2nd rating. 110 episodes -- 64% of the series -- got a 1st or 2nd. In contrast, only 4 episodes got a 5th or 6th rating! Turns out I really fricking like DS9! 🤣

> In most seasons, 90-100% of episodes that were moderately Julian or more were rated 1st or 2nd. (S5 and S6 are the exceptions). > Season 6's "Change of Heart" is the only moderately Julian episode to be given a 4th -- every other moderately Julian or more episode got at least a 3rd. > Green-band Julian-light episodes tended to be Kira or Sisko episodes, or whole-ensemble, ends-of-season/two-parter type dealios. > Season 5 has the lowest percentage of green-band episodes (42%). It is also the series in which Julian speaks the least, at an average of 22 lines per episode. Seasons 3 and 7 by contrast have averages of 34 and 36 lines per episode!

... So I do have to conclude that, while I don't *need* Julian to be in an episode for me to love it (45% of my green-band episodes are Julian-light, after all), if an episode or season wants to be well-loved by me, it definitely helps to have a Julian around!

And, um, maybe I didn't need to spend a good 8 hours of my day doing maths to work that out? But hey, I had fun crunching numbers!

(Take a look at my fun spreadsheets!)

[happycattail]

I never get people who claim that the Jedi were “stuck in past” or “stuck in their own ways” because if this was really true, they just wouldn’t have participated in the war?

If the Jedi were really “stuck in the last”, they would’ve stuck to being peacekeepers and (if they had the option to, which they didn’t because the head of the republic was a Sith that was planning their demise), they would’ve denied becoming Generals and etc.

But they didn’t do this. They knew that if they didn’t fight, more people would’ve died.

What makes it more infuriating to me is that you know that even if canonically the Jedi chose not to fight, people will end up griping about them being high and mighty and holier than thou. You know they’ll complain that the Jedi are just sitting in their temples passively while watching the war goes down.

We’ve seen this treatment in so many different medias where a group will stay out of something like a war, and they’ll be portrayed as not wanting to actually fight for something.

Like no matter what the Jedi did, people will still find a reason to hate them because they don’t portray or value the same things as many western cultures.

[wordswhisperinthedark]

so happy to have seen the chair shenanigans in full (poor aj😭😂; also the fact tom and luke fit??)

[citruscore]

never add a theater kid to your dnd party, worst mistake of my life

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

i f. i fucking forgot a pencil so i cant scribble out this Thought i had while on a lil road trip today - basically i was thinkin about Wally, as ya do, and i asked myself why does Wally eat with his eyes? its such a Fascinating yet somewhat Out Of Place choice for him. how did Clown come up with that? its so unique. it stands tf out.

and then i remembered Frank & Poppy's convo for their 'bug' audio, and how he says "you eat with your eyes first" and like... thats a real phrase. ive heard it in my life. & it set off lil alarm bells in my head the first time i listened to the clip, i just hadnt connected the dots yet. so its feasible that thats why Wally eats the way that he does - and an in-universe explanation could be that Wally heard the phrase before he could learn how to eat 'properly', and took it literally

essentially:

Frank: you eat with your eyes!

Wally: *rdj meme format* you eat with your eyes

[kinardsevan]

wip thursday (almost friday)

I've been tagged by a handful of you this week (@perfectlysunny02 @typicalopposite @marvelousbuckley to name a few), but the evil covid got me this week and I've basically been asleep for days. The few hours I've been awake, I've tried to get more of the next chapter of Empty Bones written, so here:

-

“I try to tell myself that we should be grateful his legs weren’t as injured and that they’ve mostly managed to heal with rest. That- that, the internal injuries could mostly heal themselves. But this won’t be something that goes away. He’s going to live with it in some form or another for the rest of his life,” he replies. “And that’s before we start talking about the physical scars.” 

Maddie is quiet, and Tommy’s not sure, but knowing the petite woman and how protective she is about Evan, it wouldn’t surprise him if she was crying. 

“I worry that when he’s healed—fuck, I worry about it even now—that he’s going to see those scars and have more self-hatred,” he states quietly. “It bothers me so much to know they’re there.” 

“You have to tell yourself they’re a reminder he survived,” Maddie responds, her voice shaky, but firm in intonation. “That’s what I had to do with mine. They’re not a sign of weakness. They’re proof of life.” 

Tommy clears his throat at her words, bouncing his foot against the floor. He tries not to think about Evan’s scars in that context because it means that something happened in the first place. Something that put him in harm’s way. Something he couldn’t stop. 

“Are you doing okay with all of this,” Maddie asks after a pause. “I know it’s a lot, and I haven’t been around enough-..” 

“You have a toddler and a busy life too,” Tommy cuts her off, ignoring her question. “I might not have expected this particular line of events, but I agreed to this when I told your brother I’m in love with him, and I’m not going to walk now.” 

“It’s still a lot,” Maddie argues lightly. “And you didn’t answer me.” 

Tommy rolls the inside of his cheek between his teeth, staring down at the floor. “I’m in therapy about it. Spending far more time than I’d like to talking about what it’s like to see the person I love suffer. But no, I’m not okay about it. I’m not okay seeing him go into surgery when I feel like I should’ve been there to prevent it from happening in the first place. I'm not okay knowing someone I trusted hurt him the way he did. I'm not okay knowing how he hurt him, and that I saw it. I could’ve lived my entire life never seeing Evan like that.” He pauses for a moment, his face twitching with anger. His throat is tight with unexpressed feelings. “He’s finally starting to move forward, and I keep seeing-…” He huffs, shaking his head. “Seeing images you don’t need in your head.” 

“That’s good though,” Maddie says back to him softly. “That he’s starting to move forward.” 

Tommy nods, wiping at the angry tears falling. “You’re right. It is. But it makes me feel like an asshole for still having unresolved feelings about it.” 

[salvadorbonaparte]

Maybe some of you don't know but I already had a really difficult last 12 months that really wrecked my mental health to the worst it's been in a decade so Yeah obviously I'm super scared and depressed right now. I spent most of the year already feeling like that and now it's Worse.

[hana-bobo-finch]

leif and muse BREAK MY HEART. MAN.

[note-boom]

You know a silly thing I want?

I think that Naomi and Gin should team up and be a non-superpowered version of Soukoku. They're already enemies via being on different sides but more than that....Naomi's intelligence and quick thinking + Gin's almost supernatural skill with knives? That's more soukoku-y than the more fighting-based partnership Akutagawa and Atsushi have.

But even more than that...they are both sisters to powerful members of their organisations, they are both the only significant character-based rather than author-based characters, and they both have that whole illusion/more than they seem thing going on. Also, IRL Akutagawa and IRL Tanizaki bickered or something about literature, didn't they?

Anyway, yeah...it would be cool to me to see them team up....

[solivagantingrebel]

The Psychology of a Dead Man (Ghost x Soap)

Ghoap angst below the cut! An excerpt from my fic, wanted to post it because I could. MW3 spoilers btw.

Eternal rest was an illusion, a prayer offered to the person that didn’t exist, a hope that was extended to someone who could never enjoy it. 

There was no peace after death. 

But, what of the ones they left behind? 

What of the promises they couldn’t keep, the words they couldn’t speak, the future they didn’t have anymore?

Simon Riley was intimately familiar with Death. 

It had followed his entire life as a silent spectre. Overlooked from his shoulders, watched in anticipation as he took part in its cycles, and finally, in that desolate grave of betrayal, it crawled to his neck and constricted violently, asking him the only question that mattered,

���What are you willing to sacrifice to escape me?’

Simon Riley became ‘Ghost’ after that day.

He became the one forever marred by the reaper. After all, what can death do to the one who already belonged in its embrace? A dead man cannot die again.

But those surrounding him could, he learned this the hard way.

Again. 

Simon Riley thought he already lost everything he could that year; including himself.

He had closed himself off, nailed the coffin shut from the world. To most that were present in the world, he was dead, buried in the tomestone near his family’s graves — an empty coffin for an empty man. 

That was the end of his story. Whether he died again in a foreign land, far away from everything he had known, protecting the world from dangers it would never see, did not matter much. It would’ve been a fitting end, his presence, and absence, would’ve barely been felt. He would die doing what he knew best. That was the ‘life’ he had cultivated.

John Mactavish was a breath of fresh air.

If Simon had to describe him, it would be simple; ‘like life itself.’ Radiance, in their line of work, hardly persevered and Soap stood as the single most steadfast hope, the strongest one Ghost had ever witnessed. He was bright, warm and every bit of life to his death. Johnny had done the impossible too. He had reached into that grave, dusted off the forgotten ashes and shared his breath with a heart that had frozen over. Overtime, without notice; it had melted. 

Simon Riley didn’t realise that he was starting to feel alive again.

Didn’t realise that he was starting to let his guard down, didn’t realise he was starting to get comfortable with the feeling of having a home again. There was comfort in that certainty, a sense of peace in their close-knit taskforce. Ghost didn’t trust anyone yet he was starting to trust his new life. The one with John ‘Soap’ Mactavish in it.

Simon Riley was starting to fall in love.

Loving someone always came with a cost. Love, implied many things. For him, it implied the presence of a heart that could beat. That could feel. 

A heart that was alive.

John Mactavish had done the impossible.

With his lips alone, he resurrected a man that had died a long time ago. Dug him out of that pitiful grave, forced him to look at the burning sun and kissed him without an inch of care, ignoring the dirt and dust that had settled everywhere on man who wasn’t meant for this world.

Simon Riley finally found someone that he couldn’t bear to lose.

But life had other plans, life was cruel. 

Simon Riley was meant for Death. 

John Mactavish was Life itself.

Simon Riley lost his Life for the last time that day.

It happened when he wasn’t looking, most tragedies in his life did. Johnny, beautiful, vigorous and everything he could have asked for, was dead when he rushed to the scene. He had already bled out on the ground, shot and mangled in the pool of dark crimson. With him, he took the only strand of love that Simon Riley was ever allowed to have after Death. There would never be anyone else again, there would never be Johnny again. 

Simon Riley died for the third, and final, time that day.

In his place, Ghost stood. The grave that overlooked the Scottish cliff, the sea that was silent in his mourning, it was where he laid rest to his heart as well. 

‘Simon Riley’ didn’t exist anymore. 

There was never going to be a ‘Simon Riley’ without a ‘John Mactavish’. One could not rip a soul in half, burn it to ashes and call it whole again.

Ghost finally accepted what he was.

A mirrored spectre awaiting his judgement, a restless soul in purgatory.

John Mactavish was dead.

He took Ghost’s salvation with him, filled that coffin with both of their souls resting together, intertwined forever in death. It went beyond the vows of anything the world could have allowed them to promise.

Death was never peaceful.

His days were barely of note anymore, everything blended together without a distinction, the colour drained from life like Johnny took all of them when he left. He had dipped his eyes in a forever greyscale, one that promised to follow him till the end.

The only memory of any hues were stored in the time he had shared with him. It haunted him every waking moment, the bright blues that followed him just out of reach, flirting at the edge of remembrance, the vivid canopy of feelings that weighed heavily in its absence. It made his chest feel heavy, limbs sluggish from the weight he didn’t want to carry.

Life never felt this burdensome before.

This was his forever.

[Fic link: Beyond Life and Death]

[walkingstackofbooks]

I was thinking last night about how it would have affected Julian if he'd arrived a few seconds too late to that Cargo Bay in Hard Time and Miles had died in front of him (because that's always a fun (distressing) scene to imagine 👀) and that kind of spiralled into a whole canon-divergent 'verse...

Because then I got to The Quickening, and while I don't think Kira and Dax would have let a more emotionally-vulnerable Julian actually stay on the planet by himself for that whole time, if they did (or if he refused to beam up/ threw away his badge so they couldn't find him/ idk otherwise made it so they had to leave him) (because if anything he's going to be even MORE convinced he has to save every life he possibly can) it would obviously be even more devastating.

And I can imagine that, after all that time that Julian has spent with Ekoria and looking after her, Trevean might ask if Julian's going to take her baby or leave him to be raised on Teplan. In the canon universe Julian's obviously like *nervous laughter* "no I think he'll be better off with you... I could not raise a child" but in this 'verse he's entered his Feeling-All-The-Loneliness-Feels phase early and so is like "fuck I can't raise a kid but also I Literally Cannot Leave This Child It Would Kill Me" and so he takes Ekoria's baby back to DS9.

He takes his kid to the medical conference he goes to with Jake which, valid, but then they get the distress call from Ajilon Prime* and he's like "I can't take my baby to a warzone" and Jake's like "I'll look after him, it sounds like these people need you" and Julian's pretty torn but also he does Need To Save People so they go and, uh. Like I think reactions are pretty mixed about the baby but Julian is literally a Lifesaver so no-one's gonna complain too much and some of the patients want to hold Maris (the kid's called Maris after Ekoria's husband I decided) and it's sweet, y'know, to have a moment outside of the war and pain with this tiny lil bab.

[*Umm yeah this was just me jumping to the most fun (traumatic) events to imagine as I tried to go to sleep so forgive me but...]

Obviously Jake doesn't go off to the runabout with the kid so he still gets lost and when he returns Julian's cradling the baby and idk but my heart just imagining the scene where Julian's like "I should never have brought you here, what was I thinking?" is just MORE with him having his own son there too.

And then we skip to IPS/BIL and Julian's in the prison camp not knowing if his baby is alive and then coming back to realise the changeling has been parenting his son for a month (and having to run multiple test on Maris to check if his baby is actually his or if Maris is a changeling too) and also no-one even noticed he was missing even though apparently his kid had been crying like all the time (and fuck, how fucked up is that going to leave Maris because that sort of thing affects kids when it happens that young, right? anxietyyyy)

(also Miles would have noticed I wasn't me, Julian thinks. because he needs more reasons to feel sad.)

And then DBIP in this 'verse makes me UNHINGED because IMAGINE a Julian Bashir who hit his depression point a season earlier but has been teetering along okay since Maris came along now that he has this whole little life to look after and he will do Anything for his child. (okay apart from stay away from warzones when there are people to save but you know. basically anything)

Anyway yeah so Julian's got Maris with him in Sisko's office when Jadzia turns up with his parents and he is FAR less able to cope than canon Julian is because 1. more emotional instability, but mostly 2. he is a Dad with a Kid and NOPE he cannot have his parents anywhere near his baby that is Not Happening.

He has his oh, my god moment and then hands Maris to Sisko being like "Your grandson is lovely, Commander" and Ben and Jadzia are like ??? but play along and Julian finds some quarters for his parents and by the time they've got there with all the small talk of "hah, for a second there I thought you'd be telling us we have grandkids! when are you going to settle down with a nice girl, Jules?" he's ready to burst but his kid's still with Sisko so he just excuses himself with "I've got to work" and hurries back...

Dax and Sisko totally haven't been gossiping about him and they're all like "So what was that about? Grandson??" and he's like "You saw how they kept calling me Jules, right? I haven't gone by that name since I was 15. And my dad saying he had to convince me to do medicine?? He hated the idea of me being a doctor. I had to study for Starfleet in secret because he just couldn't let go of the idea of his son being a famous tennis player. And now he's convinced himself my career was all his idea!" and is getting angrier and sadder and Maris starts crying and so he's hushing him like "it's okay, i'm sorry, i'm not angry with you, i love you, you're safe, i'm not going to hurt you" -- just idle things he's not really thinking about

Ofc Sisko and Dax are immediately on it like, "Why are you saying that? Did your parents hurt you...?"

And Julian's like a deer in the headlights, and awkwardly replying, "Not, like... My father didn't get as angry with me once I was seven and had grown up a bit, got more capable.. and I hit my growth spurt when I was 14, I got bigger than him, he didn't really do anything after that."

"That's not really an answer," Sisko tells him.

Julian's body stills for a moment. "Isn't it?" he replies quietly, looking up at the captain.

...

And then Sisko gets Kira involved to kick his parents off the station and you think the augment reveal isn't going to happen because Julian deserves a break and his parents are gone and can't fuck it up anymore ...

BUT, nah: Zimmerman - realising he's not going to get his precious interviews after all - decides to bug Julian's parents (because what's privacy when you have a job to do?). And then Rom realises that Zimmerman is cocking up a load of things on the LMH deliberately because he doesn't want to replace the EMH* and looks into Zimmerman's files and finds the report he's going to send and blackmails the guy* (there's gotta be a rule of acquisition about that right?) into not sending the report.

[*Not my idea -- this was the original plan for the episode, though with Miles, not Rom.]

Also after all this Julian really feels like he needs to punch something he goes to Quark's to viciously hurl sharp pointy objects at a board because that's the next best thing -- but also he hasn't exactly done that since Miles, and why is the fucking dartboard still up anyway it's not like anyone else ever uses it so he has another minor breakdown over that and tries to rip it down until Leeta drags him into a storeroom.

(oh yeah I totally think Leeta would have broken up with him when he turned up with a baby -- like not in a mean way, just in a "I'm sorry Julian, I love you, but I'm not ready for a kid (and also you did just leave me for a month without sending a message and you definitely didn't think about me before agreeing to adopt the kid, did you?)" kind of way, y'know? but they're still friends and she still definitely cares for him.)

(idk when rom tells Julian what he did to zimmerman but when he does he's also awkwardly like "oh and I wish you and Leeta all the best" and Julian's like ???? and Rom's like "I saw you with her in the storeroom earlier. she called you sweetheart" or something and has assumed they're back together.)

--

And that's as far as I got but I just had to write it up so far because it has haunted me all day and I just need to get it out there.

Thanks for reading my stream of thoughts 💔

[mad-hunts]

RANDOM HEADCANON GENERATOR.

barton can hug you, but won't.

he can kill you in an instant if deserved.

barton has chronic nightmares.

barton almost drank the lethal dosage of caffeine once.

he could easily survive the hunger games.

barton is a simp.

he gets road rage.

barton knows the lyrics to every britney spears song by heart.

barton was dropped out of a window as a child.

he uses the word 'fuck' like a comma.

tagged by: stole this from my other account hehe!

tagging: @teethofthedeeps, @twcfaces, @question-marked, @vtriol, @1rstflight, and anyone else who might like to participate!

[originalribbing]

i will remake for v.ox sometime btw because running a multi is stressful idk how everyone does it