#Star Trek while we worked through technical issues

[magpie-to-the-morning]

Well that was a whirlwind hour at the Ref Desk!!! I helped a series of people with mobile printing, pulled some holds, redirected calls, helped a coworker help a woman format a fundraiser flyer, got a hug, and accepted a donation of freshly baked bread from a local bakery for the whole staff! Faith in humanity restored.

[cnroth]

Fanfic Q&A

I was tagged a long time ago by @curator-on-ao3 and meant to do this later when I had time, but then I forgot. More recently, I was tagged by @strkamand, which has prompted me to actually do it this time haha. So thank you both!! 🩵 😘

1. Why do you write fanfic?

Short answer: Cuz it’s fun!

Long answer: I started writing fanfic in 2016 because I had spent the last year and a half clawing my way back to some semblance of sanity after a really shitty time in my life. We got Netflix for the first time and I found my favorite childhood show—Star Trek: Voyager. It was like a warm blanket in the cold.

I still remember playing Star Trek on the playground with school friends, inventing stories of ourselves as original characters on Voyager, and suddenly I had the thought—what if I actually did it? Made an OC that was actually complex and fleshed out and stirred her into the mix? Added more representation of mental health issues to the show? I also applied for grad school around this time with the goal of eventually working in the mental health field.

So I dusted off my old creative writing skills and began making fanfic as a way to share my ideas with other fans, explore ships and characters I thought were interesting and/or underdeveloped, or just enjoy playing with my favorite dolls while processing my own experiences, as well.

And here I am now, eight years later, still doing just that.

2. Which of your posted stories do you think about the most, even though the story is “finished”?

This is a complicated question, because the answer is and has always been the very first story I joined the fandom to share, and one that took me years to tell—the Far From Their Bones series. Technically, it is finished.

That being said, I may-or-may-not currently be working on something closely related to that… 👀

3. If you could give yourself fic advice from when you first started writing fic, what would that advice be?

I honestly can’t think of anything I’d say. I think that my fanfic journey, bumpy as it may have been, was what I needed to go through to become the writer I am today.

4. What’s your relationship to fic stats?

I rarely check them. Honestly, I post so rarely and a fair amount of my stuff is niche stories few people are interested in reading, my stats are probably shit anyway.

5. Is there a pairing or scenario or friendship you miss writing? If so, why? If not, why not?

The closest thing to an answer for this question is I suppose J/C. I used to be fairly prolific in that ship, but the community for that ship was eventually taken over by a few toxic people who manipulated other participants (especially newer ones) into a very narrow idea of what was acceptable as a J/C fan and shit-talked people who fell outside of that, and I ended up deeply burned. It took out my ability to read or write J/C for a long time. I’ve dipped my toe back in here and there since then, and I won’t say I’m done with that ship forever, but it definitely was a major pain having to grieve the loss of a ship that had brought me so much joy.

6. What motivates you to write?

Usually random story ideas that pop into my head when I’m trying to fall asleep at night.

Also, comments can sometimes prompt me to write more.

7. Why do you write for the fandom(s) that you write for?

I think that’s mostly explained above already. Someday, I might finally write the Hunger Games fic I’ve had in my head for many years, as that series of books/movies was also instrumental in my trauma recovery, but for now Star Trek: Voyager (and occasionally other Trek shows) is where I’m comfortable and inspired.

8. If you’re stuck writing a WIP, what do you do?

There are two strategies I use most often to deal with this:

One, making playlists of songs that fit the story in some way, whether through the lyrics or even just the vibe. Then I listen to that on repeat to help drive me into my other strategy, which is…

Two, I use imagery to develop compelling scenes in my head, mentally watching them and shaping them until I feel like I can write them down—even if they’re incomplete. In the end, I may end up dumping the scene, or changing it, or writing the most inspiring scenes first and filling in the gaps between them later, but ultimately the goal is just to get myself moving again.

9. What do you wish people knew about comments?

Comments prompt my brain to make more dopamine and serotonin. As a mentally ill person with a neurodivergent brain, that is HUGE.

I do my best remind myself that I’m writing fic I want to read, and that can often mean not many other people will want it like I do (or have the time to actually read it), but in the end getting comments lets me know I’m not alone and that my exhaustive efforts in creating fic are appreciated.

It’s also just like fucking Christmas morning when I see that email from AO3. Like, massive mood booster.

I also would like people to know that comments have, more than once, given me ideas and/or energy to write more.

10. Maybe there’s a question you wish had been on here. What’s that question (and answer)?

Not that I can think of 😊

I have no idea who has already done this, and most people I know who write have been tagged by the ladies who tagged me. If you have already done this, tag me in a comment on your post or something so I can read it!

And if you haven’t done this yet, consider yourself tagged!!

Let’s see ummmm @gijane-7702 @seema-unbound @cheile @caladeniablue @theredheadedcaptain @70thousandlightyearsfromhome anyone else who wants to join 🩵

[joju-but-trek]

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2, Episode 5: Observer's Paradox

This is the real quantumania.

A quarter of the way through the season, and things keep getting more interesting. I'm enjoying the ride overall. Specifically this episode, we got a lot of classic Star Trek shenanigans done in a new and interesting way, and they still add to the overall narrative even if they're tonally very different to last episode. I'm enjoying that the show is able to do so many different genres of Trek while still building out a coherent story. 9/10.

This episode was great for building out background lore. We get an episode revolving around Cetacean Ops, and some backfill on Chakotay. The Cetacean Ops move was genius because it keeps getting brought up, but finally being able to actually see a whale onscreen because animation allows for it is such a good move. They played with it in Lower Decks, but it was never the point of the episode.

We also got some answers on Chakotay's tribe. There's an offhand mention that he's from the Nicarao people, fixing an issue that Voyager had where he was Generic Native American from a fictional "Rubber Tree People". I appreciate that there's a fix, and I am going to do more research on the Nicarao. For anyone interested in a good article about the Chakotay problem from before the fix, here's the article that made me start looking.

This was also a great episode for Rok, really digging into her insecurities about being associated with the rest of the crew right now. I like this arc for Rok, and Rylee Alazraqui really sells the part. She also got to spend a ton of time talking to a whale, which seems like a perk.

The idea that the episode revolved around trying to understand Murf was a good concept also. It gave room for Gwyn and Jankom to try their respective skills before throwing it to Rok, who solved it with a combination of technical knowledge and empathy. There was also the cute moment of Dal and Gwyn watching Rok get excited and reacting to it that just solidified that these characters love each other.

Janeway's plot with trying to destroy the wormhole was very in line with classic Trek stories about Bad Admirals. I'm not sure how I feel about it being Jellico specifically who ordered it - Jellico works in a specific context in Trek stories and I'm not convinced that this is it - but it does work. I like to think that in a utopian world where we had more time in an episode we would have seen Janeway struggle with the decision more, but for what we got in a show where she isn't and shouldn't be the main character it was a great version of it.

We also got the Doctor getting excited about a bad holonovel he wrote, which was fun. I do have questions about how the Doctor de- and re-materializes with the Mobile Emitter on, but I'm willing to poke at that later in fan forums.

And at the end of the episode we get Gwyn teleporting through space to get visions in a visually fantastic sequence. My favorite part of that beat, though, is her and Dal discussing it and their reactions to each other. It's feeding the shippers, and it's working. I can get behind this.

In conclusion: Rok is amazing, Maj'el needs to ditch those jerks, and I guess we're doing Gwyn/Dal now.

[max1461]

Yeah, as @raginrayguns points out, this is wrong. Pandemics are a threat, nuclear weapons are a threat, etc. By all accounts COVID-19 emerged naturally, and would have killed many more people if not for human action (lockdowns and the development of vaccines). You can criticize that action in various ways, but I truly don't think you can say "COVID-19 was less of a threat than the human response". It wasn't! It was a naturally occurring danger which would have done more damage if humans hadn't worked to fight it, through both social means and engineering means. The human response was clearly very imperfect, what the fundamental danger was from without and not within: the deadly virus ravaging the globe!

I think that Star Trek has "taught" you that the McGuffin is always less important than the human response because Star Trek is a story, it is naturally going to be organized first and foremost around the actions of its characters. This is how stories work, but it's not always how the real world works! More generally I think this is an example of what I call "the humanistic gaze": the perspective that all problems which humans face are essentially social in nature, born of social ills and amenable principally to social solutions. You find this implicitly in many works of fiction, again because of the inherent nature of stories as organized around their characters, but you also find it expressed more or less openly fairly often within the humanities. I believe this humanistic gaze is an artifact of the methodological outlook of the humanities—they naturally approach issues from the "human angle", because this is their subject matter, but being immersed in an environment concerned more or less exclusively with the human angle can make it look to practitioners like the human angle is all there is. But not so! Just as issues involving humans have a certain human or social competent, they also have an "ahuman" or "asocial" component, because we live in a universe that is not fundamentally organized around us. You cannot ignore this component. Sometimes a problem is simply unsolvable, and sometimes it is solvable but part of the solution requires solving technical or engineering problems for which no pure social reorganization can substitute!

This is all more or less an inversion of a common humanistic critique of the sciences. I think that critique is to a certain degree valid, but it also goes the other way, as I hope I'm articulating here.

I believe that the technical arguments (which are not even really that technical) establishing that a powerful AI would be dangerous to us are sound. Progress on AI capabilities is rapidly advancing, while progress on AI safety (a joint social and technical problem) is much slower. I think this is a rather concerning state of affairs, and it should probably be improved! Those improvements I suspect will necessarily have a social component and an engineering component, as did the response to COVID-19, as has the response to nuclear weapons, and as has and will the response to climate change. We are not so lucky to live in a world where the actions of the characters are always more important than the nature of the world they find themselves in!

Ok, I'm officially worried about AI safety. I'm not sure if I'm worried about imminent apocalypse, but like

Five years ago, I genuinely did not think I would see chatbots that can converse like real humans for a long time, like decades at least. Same with AI image generation. It really felt like these tasks were far beyond our current capabilities. Finding out I was wrong about that has been genuinely unsettling to me, it means I was wrong about the nature of cognition and intelligence in a pretty fundamental way. So I'm not sure what is reasonable to expect now.

We know you can build a computer at least as smart as a human, that runs on a relatively small energy budget and fits inside a human head. So the physical space/energy floor for intelligence is at least that low. Humans aren't really that big or energy intensive! It's not ridiculous to imagine that with the kind of computational resources humanity has already built, even a relatively "small" AI could be genuinely much more capable than any human.

I really think a genuinely dangerous AI is like a credible nearterm threat. I don't buy all Yudkowsky's claims about, you know, nanobots and whatnot, but there's more than one way a really powerful being you suddenly create can be dangerous! I'm actually sort of worried about this.

[alphadaddyderek]

Dude, just get out! (we both live here dumbass!) (sterek fic, smut, college au)

Stiles was initially excited to go to college. The freedom aspect of it in particular is what Stiles was the most excited about. Don’t get him wrong, he loves his dad, of course, he does. He didn’t mind living with him, he liked seeing him on a daily basis. He’s all Stiles has. Well, Stiles has Scott, but Scott is attending university in Arizona of all places. Meanwhile, Stiles is going to NYU, so, there’s not a lot of opportunities to see Scott or his father in person.

Not to fret though! Stiles was ready like Freddy to meet new people and, hopefully, make new friends along the way. That’s what college is all about. Supposedly, Stiles wouldn’t know but if all the movies are to be believed then that’s what college is all about.

He and his dad spent days driving up to NYU and then spent hours moving Stiles’ belongings into his off-campus apartment and unpacking. Stiles got a full-ride —thank god— so there’s extra money for him to be able to live in an actual, nice apartment instead of the dorms. His roommate was nowhere to be seen at the time, but that was fine with Stiles. He’d have plenty of opportunities to get to know him. Stiles’ dad left to stay in a hotel for the night because there was no way he was starting the trek back to Beacon Hills this late in the day. So, Stiles was left to his own devices in his new apartment.

Well, he was for about twenty minutes, then his roommate came back and...he’s kind of a dick.

He has a resting bitch face and he hardly likes to talk. Stiles doesn’t know if it’s because the guy doesn’t like him or if he’s just the quiet type. He’s starting to think that the guy doesn’t like him because every time Stiles starts talking he looks annoyed. The dick’s name is Derek and coincidentally, he also goes to NYU. He did tell Stiles his major, but wouldn’t tell Stiles what his favorite color was, which is just plain rude.

Anyway, Stiles isn’t going to let this Debbie downer ruin his college experience, no way!

Stiles decides the best thing to do is to just ignore him. Which is hard to do because the guy takes up so much space, like, he’s actually huge. And he always seems to be in the apartment when Stiles comes back from classes. Which is weird because, dude, don’t you have classes to go to? Nonetheless, he’s always there which means Stiles has to see him all the time and Derek can continue being an asswipe for no reason.

For example, Stiles sometimes forgets to wash the dishes —sue him!— and Derek will chew him out for it. Stiles didn’t know Derek was such a neat freak, but now that he knows he’ll leave more things laying around because Stiles can also be a dick when he wants to be. Maybe Derek should learn to be more personable, then Stiles wouldn’t have to go out of his character by doing such petty things. They’ve only been living together for about a week and a half and there’s already a turf battle going on. Stiles isn’t sure who’s going to win this battle, however, the sight of Derek tripping over one of Stiles’ shoes and the subsequent curse that flies out of his mouth makes Stiles not even care in the end.

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

After about a month, it's way more than just a battle. The turf battle has evolved into a war and now, no one is safe.

Derek continues being yucky and Stiles continues to do things to intentionally annoy him, except, now Derek is doing things to annoy Stiles. Like, eating all of Stiles’ Pop-Tarts or, and this is a cruel one, flushing the toilet while Stiles is in the shower. Unfortunately for Stiles, Derek buys gross ass healthy food for himself, and Stiles couldn’t choke down that food to save his life. So, what can one do to even the playing field?

Derek is sitting on the couch in the living room, watching some show about underwater caves. Stiles normally wouldn’t stick around because, despite what Derek might think, Stiles really doesn’t enjoy being talked down to by an abnormally grumpy man. This time though, Stiles sits down beside him. He can see Derek watching him from the corner of his eye, probably waiting to see what Stiles is going to do. Stiles likes to instill fear in Derek. Normally he acts like Stiles is nothing more than a bug he wants to squish under his overly expensive boot, but now? He’s worried. He should be. Stiles is going to pull out his ultimate weapon.

“So, whatcha watchin’?” Stiles asks, plastering a smile onto his face.

Derek gives him a suspicious look. “Why do you want to know?”

Stiles shrugs, smile still present. “I’m curious. This show seems interesting.”

Derek gives him an incredulous eyebrow raise, which is super insulting. Derek thinks all Stiles watches is Harry Potter, Star Wars, and superhero movies. Which is just wrong. But that’s okay. Stiles thinks all Derek watches are documentaries about how to be a functioning human in society, which, newsflash Derek, still needs working on.

A few minutes go by before Stiles decides to speak again. “So, you haven’t told me about your family.”

“That’s intentional.”

Stiles laughs. Derek thinks he can scare Stiles into leaving him alone. Unfortunately for Derek, Stiles has zero self-preservation skills.

“Come on Derek. We’re roommates. Don’t you want us to get along?”

Derek didn’t dignify that with a response —rude!— so Stiles speaks again.

“My dad is the sheriff of my hometown. Been that way for as long as I can remember. My best friend, his name is Scott, wants to be a vet. He goes to The University of Arizona. After that he’s not sure where he’ll go to get his DVM but he’s open to anything.”

Derek turns the volume up on the tv and Stiles bites his lip to stifle his laughter.

Ah, Derek. That won’t help.

“At first I was kinda skeptical about Scott becoming a vet. I mean, he’s a puppy himself, and I love him to death, but sometimes he’s ditzy. He’s a ditzy brunette. But after working at Deaton’s, Deaton is the town vet, for years he’s proved me wrong,” Stiles risks a glance at Derek and he’s scowling so hard Stiles is kind of afraid it’ll get stuck that way forever. “He and his girlfriend, Allison, are kind of having issues with long-distance but they’re high school sweethearts so I’m confident that they’ll work through it. They’re so cute together that it’s actually kinda nauseating. Like, sometimes their sappiness makes me sick to my stomach. I wonder when they’ll get ma-”

Derek abruptly stands up and walks out the room, slamming and locking his bedroom door, as if Stiles is the boogeyman who he’s trying to keep out.

Stiles snickers and grabs the remote to change the channel. Derek gets annoyed when Stiles talks, well, he shouldn’t have started this war then (it doesn’t matter that technically Stiles started it). Stiles has weaponized his ability to talk people’s ears off. So, Derek better watch out.

Hopefully, Derek won’t murder Stiles in his sleep.

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

Okay, so, Stiles thinks maybe this whole turf war thing is getting out of hand.

It’s been a total of 3 and a half months since they’ve been living together and Derek and Stiles are on edge around each other 24/7. Stiles has to shower around eleven o’clock at night so that Derek won’t burn him alive by flushing the toilet. Derek doesn’t have access to Stiles’ snacks anymore because Stiles hid them in the back of his closet. Derek stays in his room all day just so that Stiles won't have any opportunities to talk to him. They’re at an impasse, but Stiles has a feeling that the worst has yet to come.

A really bad feeling.

Stiles comes back from a particularly grueling day of classes to see Derek sitting on the couch...and he’s smirking.

That doesn’t bode well for Stiles.

“Hello, Stiles.”

“Uh, hey dude. Why do you look like a supervillain?”

“‘Cause I have a surprise for you.”

Yeah, that definitely didn’t sound good.

“Actually, I am a-okay. I really don’t need the surprise. I appreciate it though,” Stiles tries to make his way towards his room but Derek keeps talking.

“I normally don’t snoop through people’s things, it’s really not in my character, but after you left to go out last night, I heard some weird noises coming from your room. I was trying to ignore it at first, but after a while I went to see what it was. I was going to mention it this morning but you woke up before I did and by the time I had woken up you were already in class.”

Stiles had stopped in his tracks but he still hasn’t turned around to face Derek, because if Derek is going where Stiles thinks he’s going, Stiles is going to need to be able to book it into his bedroom as soon as possible.

Derek didn’t seem too perturbed by Stiles’ silence since he continues with his story. “Imagine my surprise when I found out that it was your laptop making that noise. Now, I wasn’t surprised by the fact that porn was playing, but what I was surprised at-”

Oh god.

“-was that the video you were watching was titled ‘bear fucks twink with huge cock’. And now I can’t help but question your hatred towards me.”

Stiles’ face is burning. He’s never been so embarrassed in his life, which is really a great feat because Stiles doesn’t get embarrassed by much. It’s not that Stiles didn’t notice Derek was hot, like, come on now, Derek is gorgeous. He’s not that much taller than Stiles but the size of his biceps? They’re easily the size of Stiles’ thigh. Derek is bigger than Stiles in every aspect.

Well, he’s not sure about every aspect. Stiles has never seen Derek’s dick outright, but he’s seen him wear sweatpants, and ooh boy, that bulge gives Stiles the impression that Derek is hung like a horse.

Stiles still hates Derek because Derek still has his asshole-ish ways. Case in point: right the fuck now. But, you can hate someone and still want to fuck them, right? Hate sex exists.

Derek is patiently waiting for Stiles to respond, and Stiles has never been good at staying silent, so it’s only a matter of time.

Stiles finally turns around to face Derek and clears his throat. “That- that means nothing. People watch shit like that all the time. Plus, you hardly qualify as a bear.”

It’s a weak excuse but, hey, Stiles is grasping at straws here.

Derek tilts his head to the side in agreement. “True, but if that was the case, why do you seem so nervous?”

Stiles can’t think of a reasonable response in time and Derek knows it.

Derek smirks again and Stiles really wants to knee him in the dick.

“Do you wanna fuck me?”

Stiles narrows his eyes at Derek. What the fuck is his endgame here? Why is he being such a dick?

Oh yeah, because Derek is a fucking asshole.

“Fine,” Stiles says through gritted teeth. “I find you attractive. I watch porn about big, hairy men fucking twinks because I want you to fuck me. Are you happy now? Jackass.”

Stiles storms into his room and slams the door. That’s a perfect example of why people can’t be pretty and nice. It’s genetically impossible.

Stiles lets out a sigh and dumps his backpack on his bed before stripping out of his clothes and getting into the shower. He stands under the spray for ten minutes, just praying to the cosmic gods out there that a black hole will appear and suck the whole human race into nothingness. After waiting for a few more minutes, and his prayers going unanswered, he washes himself then gets out to dry off. He wraps the towel around his waist and opens the door to find Derek standing outside his bathroom door. He shrieks (a very manly shriek by the way) and covers his chest with his arms, not that that’ll hide much.

“Derek, what the fuck are you doing?”

Derek’s eyes do the slowest sweep in fucking existence down Stiles’ body and Stiles feels his cheeks flush. Ugh, why are the cutest guys always assholes?

“I came to apologize. I was being a dick-”

“What else is new?” Stiles interrupts. Stiles is rewarded with another smirk.

“-and I took it too far. I’m sorry I embarrassed you.”

Stiles looks at Derek for a second. They’ve never apologized to each other when they did shit, and even though Stiles didn’t take it as far as Derek did, Stiles can’t stand here and act like he wasn’t also an asshole.

Stiles sighs. “I’m sorry too. I was also kind of a dick. Not as much as you, but still.”

Derek laughs a little, and Jesus H. Christ, how is a laugh sexy? “Apology accepted.”

Stiles holds his hand out for a handshake. Derek puts his hand in Stiles’ and they shake on their newfound not-friendship-but-also-maybe-not-complete-dicks-to-each-other-ship.

“So,” Derek starts after they drop their hands. “wanna have sex?”

Stiles might’ve actually choked on his own fucking spit, because what?

“What?”

“I asked if you wanted to have sex.”

“Where is this even coming from? You hate my guts. Every time I talk you look like you’re going in for a root canal.”

Stiles is so confused, he’s also getting hornier by the minute, but right now, the confusion is outweighing the horniness.

“I don’t hate you. Yeah you talk a lot, and it was so annoying at first, sometimes it still is, but I got used to your incessant chatter.”

Stiles knows he looks dumb, his mouth is gaping and everything. “I think maybe there was something in the water because I must be high. We’ve lived together for over 3 months and you’re telling me that you actually want to have sex with me?”

Derek shrugs. “Yeah. Just because you can be kinda annoying that doesn’t mean you’re not cute. Plus, people have sex all the time, that doesn’t mean we have to, like, date or whatever.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. Derek’s so romantic, how has Stiles been able to resist jumping his bones for this long?

“You just embarrassed the hell out of me, why would I ever want to have sex with you?” Never mind the fact that Stiles definitely does want to have sex with him.

“Maybe you don’t. If not, then fine. We can just go back to how things were. If you do, then we’ll have a great time.”

Stiles is still struggling to wrap his mind around all of this. Derek wants to have sex with him? In what universe does that make sense?

Apparently in this one.

Stiles does this sort of shrug that basically portrays well, what the fuck? Okay then. “Okay. I guess this is happening then.”

Derek smirks for like the fiftieth time in thirty seconds and if Stiles was a stronger man he definitely would’ve kneed Derek in the dick, but clearly, Stiles is weak.

Very, very weak.

“My room or yours?” Derek asks.

“Mine. Since it’s right there,” Stiles points behind Derek and, lo and behold, there’s Stiles’ bed.

Grabbing Stiles’ hand in a surprisingly gentle gesture, Derek walks the three feet from the bathroom to the bed to lay Stiles down.

Derek gets on top of the bed and is sitting on his knees by Stiles’ feet. He pulls his shirt off like he’s in Magic Mike or something before throwing it onto the floor without a care in the world. Jesus, it’s like his muscles have muscles. Stiles starts feeling a little insecure about his body. He’s got muscles, but, he’s not, like, ripped like Derek is. Stiles likes to think he has somewhat of a swimmer’s body.

Looming over him like a fucking creeper, Derek stares down at Stiles. “You know, you’re very pretty.”

Stiles refuses to admit that he blushes at that because he’s not pretty. If anything he’s handsome, some may even say gorgeous.

“Can you just get on with it?” Stiles throwing a scowl in Derek’s direction.

“Bossy. I kinda like that,” he strips his sweatpants off and throws them down too. Now he’s only in a pair of gray boxer briefs and, god, Stiles wants to suck his dick so badly. Which is weird because he’s really not all that experienced with blowjobs, he’s given maybe two blowjobs in his life. Whatever, Derek has a great dick okay?

Derek tugs at the towel around Stiles’ waist. “Is this okay?”

Stiles nods and then the towel is gone, and Stiles is laid bare for Derek to gaze at his leisure. And boy does Derek gaze. He does another slow sweep down Stiles’ body, except this time it’s even more intense because now Stiles is naked.

“You’re not a virgin right?” Derek asks while rummaging through Stiles’ bedside drawer and pulling out the lube. First of all, it’s rude to go through people’s stuff! Second of all, how the hell did Derek know his lube was there? Although, where else would lube be?

“Nope. There will be no deflowering of the Stiles today. Sorry to disappoint.”

Derek shrugs before popping open the lube. “I’m not one of those weirdos who pops a boner at the thought of popping someone’s cherry.”

Stiles chuckles, like actually chuckles. Who knew Derek was even capable of being funny?

Stiles pulls his legs up and hooks his hands behind his knees. The position exposes Stiles’ hole to the extreme and it makes Stiles blush. Just because he’s not a virgin doesn’t mean that he doesn’t get nervous or embarrassed during sex.

Derek knee-walks closer to Stiles and squirts some lube onto his fingers. He puts one hand on Stiles’ right thigh while the other one gently and slowly breaches his entrance. Fuck, his fingers are thick. Thicker than Stiles’ that’s for sure. Stiles definitely isn’t shy about fingering. He fingers himself all the time, but it’s been a while since someone else’s fingers were up there. Stiles is nervous and excited about it all.

Derek doesn’t spend too much time with the one finger, quickly adding a second one and that’s when it starts feeling good. Derek’s fingers are about an inch away from his prostate and Stiles is about to curse him out until Derek presses both fingers against his prostate and Stiles has to bite his lip to stop the loud ass moan that almost escaped his mouth. Judging by the look on Derek’s face, he knows he touched Stiles’ prostate, and being the asshole that he is, he has a cocky smile on his face.

After scissoring those two fingers inside Stiles for a few minutes, Derek adds a third finger. The stretch is definitely there, but hey, Stiles likes a little pain with sex. He can be kinky sometimes.

“Okay. I’m ready, come on,” Stiles says. He was starting to get impatient. He just wants to get dicked down already, damn.

Derek gently removes his fingers and gets off the bed to pick up his sweatpants. He reaches into the pocket and retrieves a condom out. Stiles’ mouth drops.

“So you just knew I’d have sex with you?”

“I didn’t know. I just hoped.”

That smarmy little bastard.

Derek gets back in bed and, finally, removes his briefs and...

Holy mother of god.

Well, maybe not the mother of god. That’s blasphemous as fuck. But! The sentiment is the same because wow. Stiles is glad he didn’t knee him in the dick because that dick is too gorgeous to cause serious injury to. He’s not like porn star big, but it is big and long too. And it’s uncut, which Stiles has a weird sort of kink about. He loves uncut cocks. Yeah, that’s a good-looking cock right there.

Derek unwraps the condom and rolls it onto his cock. He then grabs the bottle of lube that he placed on the bed and squirts more out before slathering a generous amount onto said cock. He makes Stiles move his hands before replacing them with one of his own, the other is at the base of his cock, lining it up to Stiles’ hole.

“You ready baby?” Derek asks.

“Call me baby again and I’ll dropkick you in the throa- oh fuck.”

Of course, Derek chose when Stiles was mid-threat to start pushing his cock inside. Geez, that is seriously a big cock, even the fingering didn’t make it burn any less. Derek gently pushes his cock in deeper before pulling it out, then he pushes it in a little deeper than he did at first before pulling it back out again. He repeats that until his cock is seated all the way inside, his balls to Stiles’ ass. Then he stops and waits. There’s sweat gathering above Derek’s eyebrow and some is even rolling down his temple. Needless to say, Derek isn’t as unaffected as he’s trying to be. Which makes Stiles feel kind of great actually.

“Okay, you can move now,” Stiles informs Derek. And when Stiles says Derek goes to town, he really means that.

Derek puts his other hand behind Stiles’ left knee and pulls out all the way, not even the tip is inside, before thrusting back in. Hard.

Stiles’ breath gets forced out of him at the movement. This truly is hate sex, kinda. Derek said he didn’t hate Stiles, but he certainly doesn’t like him all that much. At least, not yet. Who knows what will stem from this. That’s something to think about when Derek isn’t pounding him into the mattress.

Derek delivers a thrust that nails Stiles’ prostate dead on and Stiles makes this super embarrassing sound, like a high-pitched keen. He knows he’s not going to live that down after this.

After that, Derek is consistent with the hard abuse on Stiles’ prostate, and Stiles is getting close to orgasm embarrassingly fast. He isn’t too sure he’ll be able to last much longer. Although, Derek doesn’t seem like he’s going to be able to either. If the grunts and groans he’s letting out are anything to go by.

“Unh, fuck. Derek-!”

“Yeah, you’re gonna come?”

Stiles frantically nods his head and grabs his own cock to start stroking himself. Derek thrusts harder if that’s even possible, and within a few seconds, Stiles is coming all over his stomach.

“Fuck, Stiles,” Derek groans and thrusts one, two, three more times before stopping with a deep, guttural moan. He almost sounds like an actual bear and Stiles can’t help the giggle that escapes him.

Derek gives him a weird look but his lip quirks up in a maybe sort of smile. “What’s so funny?”

“Oh nothing,” Stiles gives him a shit-eating grin.

And since it’s already been established that Derek is an asshole, he grinds and his cock brushes against Stiles’ oversensitive prostate causing Stiles’ whole body to convulse. He slaps Derek’s arm.

Derek pulls out and lets go of Stiles’ legs. They’re sore from being in the same position for so long but Stiles can’t even care. He’s sated and all he wants to do now is take a nap. Stiles stretches his whole body like a cat while Derek disposes of the condom.

“Okay, that was fun. If you want to annoy me, I’ll be in my room.” And with that, Derek walks out of Stiles’ room to go to his own.

Derek was definitely a dick, but Stiles could deal with him. Especially if they continue to fuck like that.

Holy (not) mother of god indeed.

[myenterpriseisparked]

can.... can we get a cast for your zoologist Trek show?

I don't have names for them but here we go! This is kind of long, so I'm putting the characters under a cut.

The ship is called the USS Frontiersman. It works mostly in deep space, studying new forms of life on newly discovered planets. Crew compliment of 160. 50 exozoologists, 50 exobotanists, 20 environmentalists (including geologists and atmospheric experts). The remaining 40 crew members are engineers, security officers, helmsman, and the captain and first officer. I'm not positive on the time period this is set during, but it's at least at a point where there's not much conflict between Cardassia and the Federation.

Captain: She's a 40-year-old Engineer who never expected to make captain. Finding out she was being offered a command was the best day of her life. The worst day of her life was the next day, when she stepped on board and realized it was an exobiology ship filled with eccentrics. She slept through her required exobiology course so she has no idea what any of her crew members are talking about. She's basically that babysitter who's charges are all extremely passionate about things she doesn't understand and the parents have asked her to drive them around to local museums and science learning centers while the kids yell in the backseat about who's topic of interest is better.

First Officer: She's a 30-year-old who went through the academy on the command route and was known for being an excellent pilot. Has less knowledge of exobiology than the captain. The two of them keep trying to push interpersonal conflicts to be solved off on one another because neither of them understand what anyone's talking about enough to truly help solve the issue and, frankly, they're both a little frightened of the ferocity of their crew.

Head Engineer: Bajoran who actually did pay attention in biology and, while she's a little confused, she's eager to learn about what the others are prattling on about and is an excellent listener. She tries her best to translate for the non-exobiologist crew members, especially the captain and first officer. She was married (spouse died. tragically) and has a daughter that follows her around engineering. Everyone loves the kid and tries to convince her to study whatever their area of expertise is. Later in the show, when she's a little older, she decides to go the command route at Starfleet and become a pilot, much to the crew's dismay. The First Officer is absolutely tickled.

Chief Medical Officer(s): The Frontiersman actually has 2 chief medical officers; a doctor and a veterinarian. Yes, this is terribly inefficient and yes, they constantly butt heads. The vet is a young human woman from Ohio with a dry sense of humor and a penchant for snark. The doctor is a young human male from Michigan with a dry sense of humor and a penchant for snark. They absolutely hate each other until the day they realize that they are actually in love with each other and all of their arguments have been attempts to deny their attraction. Both of them are absolutely disgusted that they could fall in love with someone so... so... infuriating gosh dang it. They try to continue denying their feelings for each other because they are from rival states and they constantly fight over jurisdiction in the medbay for new species. One day, however, one of their most heated arguments ends in a passionate kiss and they stop fighting their feelings (but not each other).

From there, the rest of the crew is divided up under chiefs of specific taxonomical divisions. Sometimes a division will only have 1 scientist, other times it has a whole crew of people. Depends on the frequency of that type of living thing appearing. Most divisions only have 3 people; a chief and two junior officers. Not every chief is featured in the show because that would be too many characters, so just the ones that are considered part of the senior staff, which were selected by Starfleet at the time of commission based on training.

Chief of Feliformia: She's a hotheaded Betazoid in her mid 30's who spends her free time boxing on the holodeck. She argues a lot with the Chief of Canidae, but they still have breakfast together every morning to trade ship gossip. She wrestles with PTSD and anxiety, which she hides under a layer of bravado. Surprisingly enough, the only person she really feels comfortable opening up to about her past is the Chief of Canidae, because, despite all of their banter about cats vs dogs, they're her closest friend and she appreciates their blunt honesty.

Chief of Canidae: They're a Trill in their mid 30's who's passionate to the point of poetry about dog-like creatures. They're host to a younger symbiont, and they're one of the shortest people on the ship. They also only really open up to the Chief of Feliformia for similar reasons; the blunt honesty. Their relationship is strictly platonic (and I mean actually platonic, not whatever the VOY writers were trying to sell to us about Janeway and Chakotay).

Chief of Rodentia: He's a 70-year-old Bajoran/Cardassian. His mother defected from the Cardassian army to be with his father and the two of them raised him on earth where he raised pet rats. He always has about 7 various rodents tucked into his lab coat. He is a neat freak about his lab space and refuses to let anyone into his area unless they have completely scrubbed up and promise not to touch his PADD stack. Part of his particularity about his lab comes from the fact that he faced a lot of public ridicule due to his mixed heritage when he was young and so he's naturally very defensive of everything he does and owns.

Chief of Chiroptera: She's a twenty-something Half Vulcan-Half Betazoid who was raised on Betazed. Her Vulcan mother was the Vulcan ambassador on Betazed, and her work made her somewhat absent so, while she has enough of a restraint on her emotions not to be violent or aggressive, she's also more Betazoid in terms of personality. The combination of telepathic and empathic abilities from her parents has made her sensitive to large crowds, which is why she LOVES working in caves with bats away from other people. The combination of the two species' abilities constantly bombarding her and the need to restrain her Vulcan emotions have also resulted in her having ADD (her attention is being pulled in every direction so focusing on other tasks that don't immediately grasp her interest is SUPER difficult for her). However, she's also incredibly kind, difficult to shock or surprise, and very passionate about her work.

Chief of Reptilia: They're a human in their early 50's, a bit reclusive, and VERY unwilling to let people in their lab. They never show up to a meeting without a snake around their neck. The snake might be venomous. No one knows for sure. Whatever the case; everyone on board is pretty sure the reptile division is actually a cult because they never see anyone from that crew outside of the lab decks.

Chief of Aves: She's human, no one knows her age, and she refuses to wear a standard-issue lab coat, opting instead to wear a tie-die coat that reaches the floor. She speaks in riddles and everyone thinks she's crazy, but she's actually incredibly wise and an excellent listener. She specializes in raptors.

Chief of Livestock: Even though it's not technically a taxonomical order, they have a guy who specializes in studying livestock of alien cultures. No one is sure how old he is, or what his species is, for that matter. He has the calm, level-headedness of a Vulcan, but he always wears a hat so no one sees his ears or eyebrows to know for sure. He might just be a Midwestern farmer, because they can be Like That too. Despite working with livestock, he also never gets injured, so not even the doctor knows. Some people speculate that he's not human OR Vulcan, but some other immortal species, like a Q. This mystery is never solved on the show, but everyone really likes this guy.

Chief Exobotanist: Despite the fact that the plants are divided up into other taxonomical species, they all report to one Chief Botanist because the plant department is a lot more efficient and interconnected than the animal departments. Despite this, she's completely overworked and undercaffeinated. However, her workload doesn't stop her from being one of the sweetest and most creative people on board. As to the rest of her character, I defer to @emilie786 , as she is the inspiration for this character!

There are other chiefs who are occasional recurring characters, like the Chief of Aquaculture and the Chief of Amphibians. There are also several junior officers who we get to know a bit that are kind of fun. I'm thinking there's some kind of star-crossed lovers arc going on between someone who works in exobotany and someone who works in exozoology. There's also an overworked head of security who is getting really sick and tired of all the escapee animals he has to track down. I think he might fall in love with the Chief Exobotanist partially because plants don't run away and get into the Jeffries tubes (until they do, of course).

Anyway, if anyone wants to add to this, go for it! I'm open to ideas!

[smaidjor]

and i pay for my place by the ring (Chapter 1)

Hey guys! Welcome to another angsty fic by yours truly, provider of flower husbands pain.

Some things you should know before you jump into this:

1. This is a companion fic to my fic "i know they're losing". You can understand it without having read the other one, since it's the same story from two different POVs but I think the overall experience is better with both!

2. The overall title of each fic is from the mitski song I bet on losing dogs. Chapter titles are from the Last Goodbye from the Hobbit films.

3. There is a lot of lord of the rings lore in both fics, and I mean a lot. You may be kinda confused if you've never read tolkien's works. It will all be explained eventually, though!

4. With the fact that it's a companion fic and a lot of people came here from Jimmy's POV in mind- this is a lot heavier of a fic. The content warnings are heavier and the angst is more intense. You have been warned.

(Obligatory disclaimer that this is about characters, not ccs, and do not ship real people, as always!)

Chapter Title: to these memories i will hold

Chapter Wordcount: 4000

Content warnings: suicidal thoughts, self-esteem issues, panic attacks, past death, very frank discussion of death. (In general, if suicide or death are triggering topics for you, this is probably not the fic for you. Stay safe and take care of yourself!)

AO3

Actual fic under the cut:

Scott didn’t expect to survive 3rd life. No one did, he thinks, but especially not him. Clever, clever Scott, who knew his fate too well for his own good. He could have chosen his allies carefully, he knows, could have played on their emotions to make them think he was loyal until the moment he turned on them to win. He knew who the strongest factions and warriors were, the most cunning and intelligent participants in this death game they were forced into. Instead, he chose Jimmy. Sweet, dopey Jimmy, who had the personality of a golden retriever and only a handful of braincells at any given time. Jimmy, who was worth more than all the stars in the sky to him. Who made him feel alive . No, Scott didn’t expect to win. Not when it was Jimmy by his side- when it was Jimmy by his side, winning didn’t matter. All that mattered was Jimmy’s blush when Scott pressed a kiss to his cheek, the way his hair looked like gold in the sunlight and his smile lit up Scott’s whole world.

After Jimmy died, Scott stopped wanting to survive 3rd life. What was the point? The stars can shine on without the sun, but all life on Earth would wither and die. The same happened to Scott’s broken, bitter heart, he found. Jimmy was the first person in years to love him truly, wholly, with no strings attached; it was terrifying how quickly Scott fell for the first person to look at him and not expect him to be anything but what he was. Scott’s world, which used to be mountain peaks and endless blue sky, narrowed to warm brown eyes and a grin like sunshine quicker than he could comprehend. Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, it all came back to him. What was Scott without Jimmy? The unwanted twin, the unloved child, the un-elven elf. Because who cared if he was a good shot with a bow or good at organizing teams or building pretty little houses? He would always be second-born, second-best.

It was fitting, really, that when Scott died, he died alone. Some might find it ironic that the man who knew enough people to fill the roster of a championship held by a god every month died without a single person to witness it save his enemies, but in the end, it was always going to be like this, Scott knew. He hadn’t been there to see Jimmy die, he hadn’t been able to hold him in his final moments and soothe the agony of death. Maybe this was his punishment. He wouldn’t be surprised; the gods of this world did not smile on him and never would. Why should they, when he had failed the only person who had ever found him good enough?

When he woke up in Rivendell, he was almost disappointed. Almost. He considered ditching the rest of the elves, up and leaving to somewhere that didn’t make it feel like the noose of immortality was slowly tightening around his neck. If nothing else, Noxite would let him crash at the MCC server for a bit until he found somewhere to go. And yet, in the end, Scott’s stubborn sense of duty won out. The elves needed a ruler. Xornoth had disappeared to god knows where, and though they had been braver, wiser, better in every way, Scott was the one who had stayed. Who was willing to take up the crown that weighed so heavily on its bearers. So Scott, who no one ever expected to rule, took up the burden of leadership.

Now, he tries and fails to get out of bed and wonders what the point of that even was. He’s fading, and worse than that, he’s fading over a human. His ancestors are probably rolling in their graves. Rivendell will be leaderless within a decade, and this time there are no heirs to take control. Not even a ‘spare’ like Scott used to be. What a mess.

There are footsteps on the stairs. They’re unfamiliar, meaning they could be a threat, but he’s too tired to bother sitting up. If he dies, well- it’s inevitable, really, in the same way watching the mortals he loves dies is.

The person comes around the corner, and Scott realizes with no joy that he won’t be dying today after all. Katherine looks both curious and concerned, but her voice tilts towards the latter when she asks “Scott?” and then, more hesitantly  “Lord Smajor?”

He blinks at her, exhausted. “Hi, Katherine.”

“I came to talk to you about some empires stuff, but, I mean, if this is a bad time, I can come back later…?” She sounds so thrown off by his state that Scott almost feels bad.

Whatever it is, it must be important if she’s come all the way here, though, so he gestures her to a chair. “No, no, stay. I can muster the energy for a meeting, just don’t ask me to get up.”

Katherine takes the seat. “I came to talk about the corruption on the server, but- are you okay? Are you sick?”

Nothing about the question is funny in any way, but Scott laughs regardless. “In a way, yes.”

“What do you mean?”

“Take my hand.” He offers it out, knowing the unnatural cold is unsettling no matter if you’re elven or not. Katherine does as he asks, the concern on her face only growing as she grips his icy hand.

“Elves don’t get sick like mortals do,” Scott explains. “Nor do we die of old age. But we get...heartsickness, you might call it. We call it fading in our tongue- the cold hands are a symptom of that. Our souls are fragile, and the grief of the mortal plane can be overwhelming. If an elf is too struck by it, they fade away and die.” The words taste bitter on his tongue, a frank reminder of the slow and painful death that awaits him.

Katherine gasps, and Scott knows he’s alarmed her.

He goes on, though. “It usually happens to old elves, world-weary.” Ironic, it’s ironic that he’s saying that as a young elf explaining his own death. “Those who are tired of existence. But any elf who has experienced enough grief is at risk.”

Her face is nothing short of horrified. “You’re- fading? But doesn’t it usually happen to old elves? Wait, are you old?”

“I’m fifty-five.”

“Is that old?”

He has to laugh. “Fifty is the elven equivalent of eighteen for humans, the age of maturity.” Though he feels so much older than that, both in elven terms and in human.

“Oh.”

There’s a moment of silence, then, “How can you be so calm if you’re dying?”

“I’m tired, Katherine. The world tore me away from the people I loved, and..I’m tired of fighting it.” He’s so, so exhausted. So sick of having to claw and scrape and struggle for the barest scraps of happiness.

“Is there a way to reverse fading- to fix it?” Katherine sounds so hopeful that the question seems almost naive even though she’s far more capable of a ruler than he is. Naive in the affairs of elves, maybe, much as she’s intelligent in so many other ways.

Scott tries not to flinch at the innocent inquiry, thinking about the deaths from fading that he’s watched. “Technically, yes. If an elf recovers enough emotionally, it’s reversible. But whatever caused them to fade the first time can- and often does- cause it again.” And again, and again, until there’s nothing to be done but let them die , he finishes in his head.

Katherine nods, a look of determination overtaking the hope. “We’ll just have to reverse it, then.”

“That’s sweet, Katherine, but I’m dying.”

“No. You’re not going to die. Now come on, you can show me your empire while I fill you in on what’s happening on the rest of the continent.” She sounds so firm that he doesn’t dare disobey, though his exhaustion makes a fair effort at convincing him to. Will this really fix anything? Unlikely. But it’s worth it to try, if only to humor Katherine. At least this way she’ll have the comfort of having tried to save him when he inevitably fades away into nothing

Scott takes her hand, though it brings him little warmth, cold from her trek here. “Alright.” He swallows the bitter grief in his throat before it can seep into his words. “We can try.”

He leads Katherine around Rivendell, taking some pride in the way she oohs over the decor. If there’s one thing he can do right, it’s building. While some elven rulers might see it as below themselves to help build houses for their citizens, Scott finds building soothing. It’s one of the few skills he picked up during his time away that people really appreciate; no one wants to live in a shitty house.

As they walk, she also tells Scott about the demon, Xornoth. “The demon’s already visited a lot of people, I think. Gem and Shubble for sure, and Fwhip and Sausage. That’s not even mentioning the corruption that’s been spreading.”

If Scott said that the name Xornoth didn’t make him flinch, he would be lying to himself. It’s not your sibling , he tells himself. It’s just a coincidence .

It’s through the virtue of years of lying that his voice comes out steady. “There’s corruption in Rivendell too. Likely Xornoth’s work. And given that Jimmy still has Vilya-” his heart doesn’t ache when he says Jimmy’s name, it doesn’t- “well, I haven’t been able to do much.”

“Vilya?” Katherine asks.

“A ring of power. My inheritance from the Noldor.”

“Why does Jimmy have it?”

He doesn’t answer. He won’t- can’t talk about Jimmy, not without remembering how he looked with an arrow through his throat, bright smile gone and face frozen in fear. How does he explain how much Jimmy meant to him? How much he’s now giving up, knowing he’ll have to lose it one way or another?

Katherine drops the topic, seemingly sensing that she’s stumbled on something sensitive. When she has to go home, she leaves with a friendly goodbye and a promise to visit, and Scott believes neither. Who would put the effort into visiting him? He’s not a good friend, he’s not a good king, and god knows he’s not a good husband. In fact, he’s actively avoiding his husband. He may have kept the pufferfish Jimmy gave him, but that doesn’t mean anything. He can’t fall in love with Jimmy again. Loving Jimmy will kill him. (Scott ignores the small voice at the back of his head that whispers that he’s still in love with Jimmy and it’s already killing him just as he always knew it would.)

To his surprise, Katherine does come back next week, and the week after that. He’s ashamed to admit it, but there’s some part of him that’s pathetically grateful when she shows up at his doorstep. It’s a chance to not be alone . Much as he dreads the day when she finally gives up on him, it’s nice that someone cares enough to try and save him from himself.

The third week, Katherine doesn’t show up. Instead, the footsteps on the stairs are familiar in a way that makes Scott’s heart twist painfully.

He takes a deep breath. “Hello, Jimmy.”

“How’d you know it was me?” Jimmy asks. Scott can tell he’s startled by the way his voice goes up, almost frightened.

Scott steels himself, taking a deep breath before rolling over to face his ex-husband. “Do you think I could ever forget the sound of your footsteps?” He forces himself to not get distracted staring at Jimmy, instead going on before Jimmy can open his mouth. “What are you doing here?”

“Katherine asked me to visit, I’m not sure why, but...here I am. Say, why is she visiting every week?” Jimmy’s so curious. So naive, as always.

Scott laughs, bitter. “Katherine thinks she can save me.”

“Save you from what?”

Scott hears the concern in Jimmy’s words, and he can’t bring himself to break the news. It’s not as if it matters. It’s not as if Jimmy would care; he came here because of Katherine. Maybe he cared at the start of Empires, but Scott’s been nothing but rude to him since. There’s no reason for him to care. (He cares. Scott’s lying, like always. Jimmy cares and Scott knows it.)

“Save you from what?” Jimmy asks again, more insistently.

He refuses to say it. He needs Jimmy out, out of his room and out of his life before he does something he’ll regret. “You should go.” To prove his point, he tries to stand, finding himself too dizzy to quite pull it off. Jimmy rushes to catch him, and Scott hates himself just a little for how that still gives him a warm feeling.

“Scott, what is going on?”

He brushes Jimmy off, letting go of his arm and hurrying for the stairs. He can’t let Jimmy work his way into his heart again; Scott won’t be strong enough to let him go this time.

“Scott, seriously! Answer me, are you okay? What’s happening?” Jimmy sounds almost angry, but Scott can hear the distress under it and that’s what breaks him.

“I’m fading, alright?” His voice nearly breaks at the concern on Jimmy’s face when he whirls to face him. “I’m dying, now leave me alone!”

Jimmy sputters, seemingly caught off guard. “You- what- but elves don’t die, right?”

“We do. From poison, from swords-” Scott thinks back to third life- “from arrows through the throat, from grief.” The words come out more raw than he intends, leaving him scrambling to recover his composure. He takes a deep breath in and out, forcing his voice to steady again. “Come on. If you’re not going to leave, I might as well show you around.”

“You can’t just drop something like that on a man, you know!” Jimmy calls after him, although Scott can hear his footsteps following as well.

“You did ask, to be fair.” Scott replies. His voice is calm. He’s fine.

“I guess so, but- but still, dude.”

Scott pushes open the side door, holding it for Jimmy. “Here.”

Jimmy nods and slips through the door.  “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Scott starts towards the bridges, intending to show Jimmy the enchanting tower and then the door. He doesn’t care about how fast he’s walking, Jimmy can keep up. He’s taller than Scott and probably has better balance at the moment too. Scott’s struggling not to fall, honestly, but his pride won’t let him go slower.

Jimmy breaks the awkward silence with the question Scott least wants to hear. “So, uh..are we going to talk about 3rd life?”

“No,” Scott says firmly.

“Why not? We need to talk about it some time-”

“I said no .” He can’t talk about it.

“It’s literally killing you to not talk about it!”

The words strike right at the raw wound of Jimmy’s death, and Scott freezes. Inhales. Exhales. Tries to keep calm.

“Tell me I’m wrong, Scott!” Jimmy cries. He sounds so upset, Scott’s heart aches. “I dare you, tell me I’m wrong! Tell me you never cared about me, tell me you didn’t bother to bury me, tell me it didn’t hurt even a little when I died! Tell me I was just stupid little Jimmy, a toy for an elf who’d live far beyond my lifespan! Tell me whatever, just tell me the truth! ”

Scott takes a deep breath. “Fine. You want to know what happened after you died?” He can’t think straight through the rage clouding his head, the desperate need to prove that Jimmy’s wrong , that Scott loved him so much it’s killing him. “You want to hear about me screaming until my throat went raw? You want to know that I kissed your face and sobbed and begged you to wake up, over and over until I couldn’t speak at all? You want to live with the knowledge that Grian had to physically pull me away from your body? Is that what you want to hear, Jimmy? ” His voice damn near breaks on his husband’s name, and Scott thanks the gods he stopped believing in a long time ago that it doesn’t.

“No,” Jimmy says. His voice is soft, gentle, almost as if Scott is a wounded animal that needs a delicate touch. “That’s not what I want to hear, not at all. I’d rather you be happy than love me.”

The words punch the air from Scott’s lungs, raw and soft and real. Scott is an excellent liar. Jimmy isn’t. Scott knows that Jimmy is telling the truth. What he doesn’t know is how to handle that level of devotion. He wonders again how Jimmy- sweet, genuine Jimmy who wears his heart on his sleeve and is hopelessly devoted to an elf who can’t be fully his- chose Scott of all people. Scott, who’s as bitter as Jimmy is sweet, who’s sarcastic and snarky and hasn’t been good enough for just about anything in his life. He certainly wasn’t good enough to save Jimmy, Scott thinks bitterly.

He shakes off the thought. “I buried you on the hill above our houses. I planted a poppy over your grave.”

“Oh.”

“Grian came over the next day. I didn’t want to see anyone who wasn’t you, but I let him in because I had to. He helped me do the straps on my armor and asked me if he could do anything else to make things easier. I told him to bury me next to you.”

“Did he?”

Scott almost laughs at the innocent question. “How would I know? Grian was honorable enough, though, loyal to his allies. I like to think he did.”

“He was a good guy,” Jimmy agrees. “A little bit bloodthirsty, I guess, but good. I don’t suppose he survived any better than the rest of us, though maybe being bloodthirsty helped.”

“Maybe.”

“Can I- can I ask you why you hate me so much now?” Jimmy’s tone is uncertain, hesitant and it hurts . “I mean, if you mourned me in third life and all.”

Scott looks away from his earnest gaze, but he can’t stop the truth slipping out. “I don’t hate you.”

“You don’t?” Jimmy asks, seemingly bewildered. “But you burned the pufferfish-”

“I didn’t. I kept it.” Scott doesn’t want to think about this, wants to say it even less. “I never hated you. I don’t think I’m capable of it.”

“Then why do you keep avoiding me?”

“I’ve been kind of busy dying,” Scott says wryly, unable to resist a bit of morbid humor at his own expense.

“Scott! That’s not funny!”

“It was a little funny.”

“No!”

Jimmy sounds genuinely distressed, and Scott drops the wry smile. “Jimmy, I’m an elf. I won’t live far beyond you, but only because I’ll fade without you.” It’s a simple statement. The truth, as much as he can give.

“So your solution is to isolate yourself and fade now?” Jimmy’s outrage is justifiable, but Scott just shrugs.

“It does sound stupid when you put it like that, doesn’t it?” It really does. “But I lost you once, and I don’t think I could bear it again.”

A hand lands on Scott’s arm, and he turns, startled. Jimmy doesn’t give him time to react, throwing his arms around Scott and pulling him close. Scott almost lets out a very undignified squeak at the sudden contact, though he slowly relaxes into Jimmy’s hold.

He should pull away. He shouldn’t give Jimmy false hope like this. But Jimmy is so warm , and Scott is so unbearably cold. Every fiber of his being is screaming that this is what’s right; screw Rivendell and obligations and too-heavy crowns, Jimmy is home to him. He’s warm for the first time in months, and the most heartbreaking part is that it can’t last. He can’t do this again.

He pulls away, ignoring the painful hope on Jimmy’s face. “I’m sorry, Jimmy.” For the first time all conversation, his voice well and truly wobbles. “I can’t. Not again.”

“But-”

Scott shakes his head. “Losing you will destroy me. We dared to love, and now all we can do now is lessen the pain when it all comes crashing down.” The words are like glass in his throat, but he forces them out anyways. They have to be said.

Jimmy’s silent, and it hurts more than if Jimmy had yelled at him.

“Goodbye, Jimmy,” Scott manages, turning away before Jimmy can see the way his face twists in pain. He makes his retreat as quickly as possible, stumbling and nearly taking a tumble just before he reaches the door. Unlike before, there’s no helpful ex-husband there to catch him, to make sure he’s alright and ask a million questions until Scott’s forced to admit that he’s not okay and hasn’t been in a long time.

He fumbles with the latch, hands shaking and vision blurring. Finally, it clicks, and Scott stumbles inside and slams the door shut before sliding to the ground. He won’t cry. He won’t . He doesn’t love Jimmy, he can’t love Jimmy anymore. Jimmy was never meant to be his. They might have carved out a few precious moments, stolen them from the universe and giggled like kids with their hands in the cookie jar as they kissed amongst the flowers, but those brief moments were all they were ever going to be allowed. It was always going to end this way, Scott tells himself. There’s no use crying over a mortal who will be dead in the blink of an eye to an elf. What would his parents say? That this was typical of him, probably. Typical Scott, always wanting what he would never be able to have. Typical, predictable Scott, loving a mortal who shouldn’t be worth anything to him.

He’s crying. There are tears spotting his cyan robes, splashing onto the wood floors he worked so hard on. Scott rubs at his eyes furiously, but that only makes it worse, sobs shuddering through him and leaving him hollow and aching. He’s so cold . The ache in his chest has returned tenfold, stealing away his breath, and he curls further into himself, struggling for air.

He’s going to die. He is going to die , alone on the floor of his house because he fell for someone he couldn’t have. For all that he’s spent every minute since Jimmy’s death in 3rd life wishing for some way out of this cruel world, he’s terrified now that it seems inevitable. He’s scared in a way he hasn’t been in forever, breath coming quick and shallow. He's scared, and he is so, so tired of this ache that haunts him, the chill that he can never get rid of.

“Jimmy,” Scott whispers. There’s no way for the human to hear him, but the name brings him some comfort. “ Jimmy .” He wants his husband. He wants someone to hug him. He doesn’t want to fade away freezing and alone, no one there to hold his hand or reassure him that the pain will be over soon. Internally, he begs for someone, anyone who cares to come looking. To find him, even if they’re too late to save him. Someone. Anyone. Please.

No one comes, and Scott lays on his floor until his breathing steadies out again. His head spins when he forces himself to his feet, and he has to lean against the wall for a few moments. There’s no time for dramatics, he tells himself sternly. He has a kingdom to rule. He cannot afford to break over a mortal he never should have fallen for in the first place. He doesn’t love Jimmy anymore, he can’t .

(He’s lying. But Scott has always been an excellent liar, even when it’s to himself.)

[amispnrewatch]

SPN 1x06 “Skin”

Okay, I’m gonna try to type while I watch this time instead of forgetting this blog exists until the episode is almost over.

You can tell the footage for the previously on segment was saved on a VHS copy instead of the original film that the show was shot with because even in the HD iTunes version I have it looks low quality as fuck. And jumpy in the way that brings me back to my teens watching the WB all the damn time.

I love this song. WTF is this song. Shazam says “Good Deal” by Mommy and Daddy. I… have no comment, except that it sounds like everything I was listening to in college at the time this shit was airing.

Aaaaand not!Dean turns around to face the SWAT team after obviously torturing some woman. THAT is a cold open.

I wanna know what that car is in the background. It’s pretty. Maybe a convertible Impala? They have similar grills. This is not at all important.

Also, I love that with these higher definition versions of the episodes you can see that Sam’s email is lawboy and whatever dot com and that people in the fandom have started calling him Law Boy. It’s hilarious.

DEAN: Well, what exactly do you tell ‘em? You know, about where you’ve been, what you’ve been doin’?

SAM: I tell ‘em I’m on a road trip with my big brother. I tell ‘em I needed some time off after Jess.

DEAN: Oh, so you lie to ‘em.

SAM: No. I just don’t tell ‘em….everything.

DEAN: Yeah, that’s called lying. I mean, hey, man, I get it, tellin’ the truth is far worse.

SAM: So, what am I supposed to do, just cut everybody out of my life? (DEAN shrugs.) You’re serious?

DEAN: Look, it sucks, but in a job like this, you can’t get close to people, period.

Aaaaand now I have Dean and Cassie feelings again and we haven’t even gotten to her episode yet.

SAM: No, man, I know Zack. He’s no killer.

DEAN: Well, maybe you know Zack as well as he knows you.

Aaaaaand now I have Dean and Lee feelings and we’re nowhere near Lee’s episode in season 15.

YOU JUST BLEW THROUGH A STOP SIGN DEAN WTF.

Little Becky. Oi with the reusing of names.

Of course Sam made friends with a bunch of rich kids while he was at college in a desperate attempt to try to be normal.

SAM: You know, maybe we could see the crime scene. Zack’s house.

DEAN: We could.

REBECCA: Why? I mean, what could you do?

SAM: Well, me, not much. But Dean’s a cop. (DEAN laughs.)

DEAN: Detective, actually.

I love that Dean was like “how dare you call me that.”

Okay, after a bit of research, I totally want to take a day trip to Bisbee, Arizona, but it’s already in the 90s here in the desert and it’s not even May so that trip is going to have to wait until… winter or something. There is no way in hell I’m going deeper into the desert when the weather gets hotter.

It’s a historic mining town tourist trap looking place now which is exactly the kind of shit I love.

SAM: Bec, look, I know Zack didn’t do this. Now, we have to find a way to prove that he’s innocent.

I mean, not technically, technically you would 1) NOT FUCK WITH A MURDER INVESTIGATION YOU’RE NOT LEGALLY INVOLVED IN BECAUSE ANYTHING YOU FIND WOULD BE INADMISSABLE IN COURT 2) find evidence to provide a reasonable doubt for the jury that he did commit the crime. You know, like a lawyer would need to do, Law Boy.

DEAN: I just don’t think this is our kind of problem.

When I made my husband watch this show with me (he’s seen it all at least once now over the years) this is the recurring thing that drove him crazy.

You guys can’t even go in through the back door? Or shut the front door behind you? Really?

REBECCA: (tearfully) Well, there’s no sign of a break-in. They say that Emily let her attacker in.

Yeah, that doesn’t even really mean that she knew her attacker. Just that it was someone she let her guard down around or got in some other way. See: The Son of Sam and Nightstalker, etc.

Love the pinup magnet on the fridge. I’d throw shade at that, but I have a pinup magnet on my fridge too so… pot kettle and all that.

Okay, both people in the next couple are gorgeous.

And oh wow those special effects changing eyes… wow.

This poor couple. I feel so bad for them in this episode.

How… how are the police gonna explain the way he was able to beat himself over the head with a bat??? I…

I love that 5:30 in the morning on TV is clearly like… 10 AM.

Okay, this is a really unrelated point, but the graffiti on the dumpster here reminds me of the Teen Wolf fandoms use of the name Void!Stiles when Stiles Stilinski was possessed by a Nogitsune… I just spent way too long digging through YouTube and my Tumblr tags from back when those episodes were airing looking for a few specific videos and couldn’t find them. The TL;DR reason I bring it up here is goofball, bi-coded main character guy getting possessed by an entity set on destroying the people he loves. SOUNDS LIKE THIS EPISODE AND A WHOLE LOT OF SPN RIGHT. I love that all these monster hunting shows call out to each other.

This scene haunts me years later and I don’t even WATCH Teen Wolf. I just watched the fandom on Tumblr collectively lose it’s shit then tripped down a Hale Pack fanfiction rabbit hole.

ANYWAY

Back to Supernatural, a show that also treated its fan base, cast, and characters like garbage! Huzzah!

DEAN: Well, there’s another way to go—down. (They look down and notice a manhole.)

I’m gonna be mature and ignore the double entendre there…

But I love that Dean thinks of the world in 3D. Which sounds like a dumb statement to make, but this is honestly a good example of that in action.

SAM: I bet this runs right by Zack’s house, too.

Really Sam, sewers run by houses? SO WEIRD. I WOULD HAVE NEVER GUESSED.

DEAN: You know, I just had a sick thought. When the shapeshifter changes shape—maybe it sheds.

SAM: That is sick. (DEAN puts the bloody pile back on the ground.)

Guys, there is a WHOLE ASS EAR in that pile of yuck you’re looking at. I think it’s pretty safe to assume the shapeshifter indeed sheds its skin like a snake. A much… gooier snake.

Sam’s friend is rightfully pissed at him for fucking with the crime scene.

This is before the pearl gripped guns?! Wow. I never noticed that before.

Also, this whole episode gives me feelings.

++++

Cool. Tumblr mobile ate a whole section of my notes on this when it crashed for NO APPARENT REASON. Love that.

It always boggles my mind that actors can trust the people they’re working with enough to let people “tie” ropes around their neck or put them in actually dangerous positions in a scene.

SHAPESHIFTER: He’s sure got issues with you. You got to go to college. He had to stay home. I mean, I had to stay home. With Dad. You don’t think I had dreams of my own? But Dad needed me. Where the hell were you?

SAM: Where is my brother? (The shapeshifter leans in close to SAM.)

SHAPESHIFTER: I am your brother. See, deep down, I’m just jealous. You got friends. You could have a life. Me? I know I’m a freak. And sooner or later, everybody’s gonna leave me. (He backs away.)

SAM: What are you talkin’ about?

SHAPESHIFTER: You left. Hell, I did everything Dad asked me to, and he ditched me, too. No explanation, nothin’, just poof. Left me with your sorry ass. But, still, this life? It’s not without its perks. (He laughs.) I meet the nicest people. Like little Becky. You know, Dean would bang her if he had the chance. Let’s see what happens. (He smiles and covers SAM with a sheet.)

This exchange is just… so much. So many feelings. And I will forever (unless we magically get a fix-it fic mini season someday…) be SO MAD that none of this got resolved in that pointless, trash heap of a finale.

REBECCA: Okay, so, this thing—it can make itself look like anybody?

SHAPESHIFTER: That’s right. (She chuckles.)

REBECCA: Well, what is it, like a genetic freak? (The shapeshifter laughs.)

SHAPESHIFTER: Maybe. Evolution is about mutation, right? So, maybe this thing was born human but was different. Hideous and hated. Until he learned to become someone else. (REBECCA looks around, uncomfortable. The shapeshifter’s eyes glint silver, and he smiles.)

It always amazes me how much of this show is a pile of accidental queer allegories parading around in an ill-fitting toxic masculinity suit.

Vulcan mind meld! I love nerd!Dean. Also, I’m rewatching Star Trek: TOS with my husband, because that is what my life amounts to these days, rewatching comfort TV and flailing over the bits I love.

This post does a better job than I can do of pairing up screen caps with the dialogue of this next scene. SIX EPISODES IN. They’re dumping all of this character depth SIX EPISODES IN. FUCK THIS SHOW FOR NOT EMBRACING ITSELF.

Okay, I love that he screams back in her face after he threw the phone. It’s not something to laugh at because the situation is horrifying, but I can’t help laughing at it every time.

AND THE WAY THEY CUT THESE SCENES. Going from him winding his hand back to backslap her directly to him dropping the chains on the table to show how hard he must have hit her without actually making the actors hit each other. Good job editing department!

I… don’t understand the shifter’s motivation for killing people. If he can take over people’s identities without killing them, why kill them? Is it just because he’s a homicidal, rapist piece of shit? Cause that’s all it seems like.

How did the SWAT team even know she was being attacked? Why can the snipers aim no better than Storm Troopers?

Ugh, these kind of transformation body horror scenes are exactly why werewolf stories have never really appealed to me much. Like, I could do without watching your ribs move and teeth fall out, dude.

BUT.

THIS FUCKING SCENE.

I looked up the song that’s playing over shapeshifter!Dean being caught by the SWAT team and then going through the grotesque transformation. (And as far as I know, the iTunes version has the original music from the episodes.)

It’s a song called “Mary” by The Death Riders

Who's your mother, who's your mother here boy // Who's your mother, whos your mommy dear // Who's your father, who's your father here boy // Who's your father, who's your daddy dear

Silently screaming // Where everyone knows // Daddy's always watchin' // Where everywhere - everywhere I go

I don't wanna be a freak show pretty boy anymore // I don't wanna be a full time slave // I don't wanna be your midnight cowboy anymore // I just want to be Mary

This is… a fascinating choice. Here are the rest of the lyrics. The song as a whole has a weird incesty kinda vibe to it? Kinda like when SPN tries to straight-wash itself and misses the mark wildly. (Like Dean’s male siren episode.)

The midnight cowboy line reminded me of 12x11 and the bull riding scene with “Broomstick Cowboy” by Bobby Goldsboro playing over it

Dream on, little Broomstick Cowboy, // Dream while you can; // Of big green frogs, // And puppy dogs, // And castles in the sand.

For, all too soon you'll awaken; // Your toys will all be gone. // Your broomstick horse will ride away, // To find another home. // And you'll have grown into a man, // With cowboys of your own. // And then you'll have to go to war, // To try and save your home.

And then you'll have to learn to hate; // You'll have to learn to kill. // It's always been that way, my son; // I guess it always will.

Because, you know, why not add tons of feelings into the lyrics, right?

Props to the people who can embrace their rewatches and reclamations of the show with ease. Because every episode seems to remind me of how hollow and tragic Dean’s ending was and I just… struggle all over again.

Anyway, back to the episode so I can move on with my day.

REPORTER: An anonymous tip led police to a home in the Central West End, where a S.W.A.T team discovered a local woman bound and gagged. Her attacker, a white male, approximately twenty-four to thirty years of age, was discovered hiding in her home. (A sketch of DEAN appears on the screen.)

DEAN: Man! That’s not even a good picture. (SAM looks around cautiously.)

SAM: It’s good enough. (He walks away.)

DEAN: Man! (He follows SAM.)

(CUT TO: Alley. DEAN and SAM are walking. DEAN steps into a puddle.)

DEAN: Ugh, come on.

I love that we get two tiny little back-to-back vanity moments for Dean here. One commenting on the sketch artist rendition of him being broadcasted on the news and the other tripping in the puddle. There is literally someone running around the city trying to kill people while wearing Dean’s face, but Dean is still concerned with how he looks appears to others. He’s still concerned with keeping up his own performance. The shifter left him with just a t-shirt, so he doesn’t even have his usual comfort layers on and at any moment someone could spot him and call the police or try to kill him for assaulting Sam’s friend. His life is wildly out of control in that moment and the only thing he can try to focus on is his appearance (something semi-controllable) and finding the shifter before any of that other shit can happen.

One day I want to put together a like top 10 episodes focusing on / explaining each TFW character from the series. Like the kind of list you could show someone who’s never seen the show, but has OPINIONS about the characters (or who hasn’t seen the whole show and seen the growth they went through… you know, like the people responsible for the travesty of 15x20). This episode would be on that list. I’m not sure how I could manage to make a list of only 10 episodes to understand Dean Winchester by, but eh.

SAM: What are you gonna do to me?

SHAPESHIFTER: Oh, I’m not gonna do anything. Dean will, though.

SAM: They’ll never catch him.

SHAPESHIFTER: Oh, doesn’t matter. Murder in the first of his own brother? He’ll be hunted the rest of his life. (He picks up a sharp knife and examines it.)

Speaking of season 15 in general, this right here. This was Chuck’s villain story arc thesis statement. AND THEY DROPPED THE GODDAMN BALL WITH IT. I think that’s the thing that honestly pisses me off the most these days (about 5 1/2 months from when the finale aired) is that they tried making the whole thing a tragedy but did such an awful job with it that it just ended up like a deflating condom balloon at a dive bar concert. Disappointing and gross. The finale for season 14 set them up SO FUCKING WELL and it just… didn’t get there.

Becky’s parents are gonna be pissed at how torn up their house is after all this shit…

And you’re not shooting him when you first see him strangling Sam because…?????

I like that he took the necklace back. Also, is this kinda Dean death number .5 of the show? Like it wasn’t him but it was also kinda him. Eh.

At least they left the windshield on Baby this time. Reflections are better than tearing her apart.

[thelaithlyworm]

Fic writer review, thank you to @animanightmate  for the tag ♥

how many works do you have on AO3?

TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY-THREE!!! (I shall have to do something special for the 300-versary.)

what’s your total AO3 word count?

595,085   Okay. So that’s, uh, a alot.

how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Uh, a little over 80? (Those fic exchanges and podfic prompts can really expand a lady’s list, yeah?) I was really big in The Musketeers for a while. The next biggest are Star Trek: Picard, and Nirvana In Fire, both of which a smaller fandoms, packed full of nice people. And I have a fair few of podfics in Good Omens.

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

“Sleep of the Just”

“Flying Monkeys”

“Things Darcy Lewis Learned About S.H.I.E.L.D”

“Yellow Ducky Pyjamas”

“Paperwork Ninja”

all of which were written after the first Avengers movie and I was... enthused. MCU fandom is large enough that it drowns out all other stats.

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Generally, yes. I like the feeling of community, it’s polite, (and I don’t nearly get so many that I have to make choices about ‘writing time’ vs. ‘responding to comments’ time).

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Now, technically that would be J’attendrai, which is original fic, written for an exchange, set in WWII France and, uh, I swear the giftee said they liked The Angst.

On the other hand, the end of The Lion and the Serpent, while more bittersweet than straight angst, spends 140,000 words dragging characters we care about through certain unavoidable moments of pain and some of those issues aren’t ever going to go away or be healed or brought to justice, so...

do you write crossovers? if so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Sometimes. None of them are crazy, they are all perfectly reasonable given the context, and so I cannot answer the second part of this question.

have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not that I recall.

do you write smut? if so what kind?

Sometimes.

*scratches head*

I tend not to go into detail unless there’s some element of plot or character being worked through. Which means... if the characters involved have an uncomplicatedly happy time then it’s likely to be a Fade to Black. If I write the whole thing out, there’s generally a note of sadness or anxiety mixed in with the fun times.

have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowedge.

have you ever had a fic translated?

Yep. Every now and then a very courteous Russian asks for permission to translate a shorter work. (It’s very flattering.)

have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not a fic, though I have co-written other things.

what’s your all time favorite ship?

I don’t really do OTPs.

what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I decline to answer on the grounds I might incriminate myself.

what are your writing strengths?

Short, vivid scenes that convey a lot of sene]se of place and emotional nuance with a few sentences. Also, I think I’m pretty funny.

what are your writing weaknesses?

Action scenes! ARGH!! Plotting long forms.

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Clarity is important. Something like, “Bonjour!” is likely to be understood by the average audience I write for, but long complicated sentences in other languages aren’t. So... how can I indicate what was just said in the surrounding text? Does it need to be in <other language> or can I paraphrase or use a translation convention? Subtitle? Foot notes? (Foot notes are clunky, and best avoided.)

Conversely, the odds of at least one native speaker (given the eclecticness of fandom) reading it are quite high - and nobody enjoys reading something clunky or ludicrous in their native tongue, which means more work for me trying to get it grammatically accurate.

In other words, I’m not going to use other languages verbatim unless they’re important to the work. I do sometimes try to write English sentences to mirror the grammar and phrasing, though, to get the feel.

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

The Hobbit, with a side of lore from The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. I wrote about Belladonna Took before she was a popular self-insert character!

what’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I Love All My Children Equally.

Thank you for the tag! ❤ I’m tagging @procrastinatorproject, @regionalpancake, @spinifex, @jazzfic and @evilasiangenius though do feel free to ignore this if you don’t want to do it, or answer it anyway, even if I haven’t tagged

[shabre-legacy]

Nyaisa’s final Coruscant Scene

I technically should have written this scene after the rest of Nya’s Ord Mantell and Coruscant story, but it was in my head and wouldn’t leave so I could write anything else. So here it is. Takes place just before she leaves Coruscant for Taris. 

Warnings for: Verbal abuse and minor violence towards a partner. Most of the language is below the cut. (doesn’t get away with the behavior)

The walkway between the senate and the nearest Coruscant spaceport was long. Had it always been this long? It hadn’t seemed so the last three times she’s made this trek, but still...Nyaisa couldn’t tell when it had gotten so kriffing long. She moved with purpose. They might not have to run this time, but that didn’t mean they had time to waste. 

Her squad followed a step behind. Jorgan on her right, sniper, experienced, good instincts, tough and uncompromising, but willing to give advice, very grumpy. Ikhirr Jhasis walked to her left. Same training as hers, a frontal assault and search and destroy specialist. also a sergeant, good friend from the academy, Cathar, efficient, good-natured, kind, tough, likes pranks, dislikes Jedi. 

Both these men answered to her; which she still found strange. Only a few days ago she’d been a sergeant and a new transfer. Now she was a lieutenant and CO of her own spec-force squad. One with a seemingly impossible reputation to uphold, as if she needed more challenges. She’d do it of course. This wasn’t a matter of can or can’t. It was a matter of duty. Even if she couldn’t, she would. 

As she crossed the interior of the hanger, she noticed a familiar face waiting for her. Nordan Allgard, an army lieutenant and her boyfriend of 3 years, currently on leave on Coruscant before shipping out to the outer rim in 4 days. 

She had prepped a message for him during her shuttle ride and sent it as soon as she set foot on the planet. Nya told him about her transfer and promotion, her new command and new CO, she’d even told him that she would be on Coruscant. Thank the stars for secure intra-military communication. She did make sure to note that while she was on planet, it was for debriefing and work and she wasn’t sure how long she’d be here or if she’d have time to see him. No point in getting either of their hopes up. 

He hadn’t responded. Days of running around Coruscant, rescuing the senator, making their way back, all the meetings she’d had to attend. Days he’d had her message and no response. He hadn’t ignored her like this in years. 

It was a bit odd and out of character for him to come to see her off on a mission at the spaceport. Nevermind how he found out she was headed here in the first place. That was secure spec-ops details. Not available to the regular army personnel

Part of the appeal for both of them was that they understood each other. They both had their own reasons for being soldiers and they both understood that for the other and for themselves, the job would always come first. It had been that way since their academy days. It made what time they were able to spend together all the more special.

Honestly Nyaisa knew how lucky she was to have found Nordan. As a soldier, she was fantastic, but as a person, well, she could acknowledge her faults, she was difficult. She was arrogant and cold and brusque. Her time in the refugee camp had given her abandonment issues, Mirial, a hero complex. Not knowing her father meant she had massive daddy issues. Add to that the fact that she was obnoxious, talked too much, had no sense of humor, an awful temper and an obsession with weapons and thus with death and frankly, she was surprised that Nordan had stayed as long as he had. She’d probably never find anyone else that would put up with her and her moods. 

He was standing in the doorway of the hanger between the lounge and her ship. Coruscant’s sunlight dripping through his auburn hair to shine like pure gold, and making his face tattoo fade. He looked every bit as handsome as he ever had. But there was something off with him. Something in the glint of his dark eyes she could barely see, something dark in the crumpled way his uniform sat, in the way he stood rock still, face hard set as they approached. She’d only seen this look on him a few times, he was furious. 

She didn’t have time for this! As much as she wanted to sit down with her lover and let him talk about what had gone wrong this time, and fix it, and comfort him. She couldn't. The mission was too urgent. 

She altered her path slightly. Moving just enough she’d be able to squeeze his shoulder as she passed. She knew Ikhirr enough to know he’d move. 

However, instead of letting her pass by when she approached without slowing. He stepped directly in front of her, stopping her in her tracks. “We need to talk now.” He said, his voice low and angry in a way that had never been directed at her before. His eyes scanned her face, pausing briefly at the new, still healing scars across her jaw and neck. Instead of concern, there seemed to be almost disgust. When had he become this angry at her? What had she done wrong this time?

“Sorry Allgard, no time, I’m on duty and shipping out.” She spoke sharply, but was careful to have no edge to her tone. No use in making this worse, but hoping to remind him she was working, and spec force, and in front of her squad and other soldiers littered around the hangar. 

“We’re talking NOW!” he growled at her. 

She narrowed her eyes. She put up with a lot from him because she knew he loved her, but this was crossing a line and delaying a General’s orders. 

She didn’t have time to waste on anything unnecessary. She barked quick orders over her shoulder. “Jhasis, get onboard, stow your gear and start running inventory in the galley and medbay. Jorgan, start those preflights. I want off the ground soon as control clears us. Start inventory on the armory soon as we lift off. I want full reports by the time we hit Carrick.” 

Her men, ever professionals, saluted quickly and stepped around heading towards the ship. As soon as they were a few steps away, Nyaisa lowered her voice and started to step away herself. “I don’t have time today, Nordan. Garza gave orders and they’re time sensitive. We can talk later, but right now I have to go.”

As she stepped past, he grabbed her arm, yanking hard. Nya was pulled to a halt and harshly spun around to face him. “You bitch.” He spat “Do you know what you’ve done? How much you’ve humiliated me?”

“The only thing I’ve done is be exceptional at my job and get a promotion. If you’ve heard otherwise, someone’s lying to you. Let go of me!” She yanked her arm away and glared at him. What had gotten into him?

“Do you even understand what kind of shit I put up with from you.” The anger, the hate in his voice, he could be nasty sometimes, but he’d never spoken quite like this. She must have really screwed up somewhere. “I mean, I let you stay with the army training, I let you join ground troops instead of taking an administerial position where you belong, because it made me look good. My family, their friends, I could introduce my army girl and we were the very picture of republic loyalty. But this shit. This is too damn much.”

Was...was he seriously angry she got promoted? And Let her? She’d joined the army herself, she went where she was ordered and fought where she was ordered, what part of that was ‘let’? 

“What the..” 

“Shut up and listen!” He roughly cut her off before she could even reach the middle of her sentence

“I let you go around like you’re so good and so tough, when you’re really just a pathetic bitch who tries too hard and everyone knows it. And this is how you repay me? By running off and getting into the most famous squad of the republic?”

He was...He was actually angry about her transfer to Havoc! And where had all this venom and cruelty come from. She knew he liked to show her off, but she’d thought it was because he was proud of her. And these nasty comments. It wasn’t the first time he’d said such things, but never with such hate in his voice. He just wanted to help her become better. This was something else and it was starting to make her angry.

“Then to top that, you just couldn’t accept that I was the better soldier. You had to try and one up me, again. You just had to get yourself a promotion and a command. Do you even comprehend how humiliating that is?”

“You’re out of line, Nordan. If you have a problem with my success that’s your problem, not mine.”

He growled again and took a step closer to her, using his height to try and intimidate her. “I told you to shut up. I’m not done. Now, on top of everything else, which I might have been able to forgive eventually, you decided to go and disfigure yourself with those hideous things” he gestured roughly at her new scars. The ones she’d gotten surviving an imperial ambush while deep inside an imperial base, alone and betrayed. While yes, they were a little ugly, new scars always were, she wasn’t ashamed of them. Soldiers got scars, that's just what happened. And while the memory of the circumstances still stung, she was proud of them. They meant she’d survived something that should have killed her, and that was something she refused to let Nordan make her feel bad about. Why did he always try and make her feel bad about everything she did?

 “HEY!” He reached out and grabbed her jaw, shaking her head roughly. She knew her squad had stopped and started watching the moment he’d raised his voice and the other soldiers were staring too. “Pay attention when I speak to you.” He forced her head to look directly at him instead of off to the side, where she had been staring so she could think. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You are going to go back to the oh so special General Garza.” The disdain that dripped from his voice on her name was unnerving. “And you are going to resign your command effective immediately, you’re going to resign from the army completely. Then you are going to go to my room at the Cantina and we’ll see if I feel like forgiving you.” 

Nyaisa was done. Somehow, his attempts at giving her orders, pulling her from the job that was her life, forcing her to abandon everything else that meant anything at all to her, the things for which she’d dedicated her entire life, it broke something. She could see him for what he was now. A bully and a weak man who’d spent the last 3 years desperate to control her. “NO!”

“Excuse me!” the look in his eyes darkened more, if such a thing were possible. 

“I said No. I will not resign. This is your problem, not mine. I have a mission I’m going back to. We will talk about this later.” She’d have some strong words for him, but he needed to cool down first. A few hours and he’d realize how foolish and inconsiderate he was being. She was sure of it. Then they could talk about his behavior and his control issues. 

Crack!

Her head snapped to the side as a stinging pain exploded across her face. He had slapped her! He had straight up backhanded her across the face! Not only did he dare to raise a hand against her, but he’d done it in public! In front of other soldiers! In front of her squad! The men who were supposed to take her orders! Fury like she’d rarely felt exploded across her chest and as he raised his hand to strike her again and likely yell at her, she acted. Grabbing his arm as he swung, she spun him around and jammed his arm into a lock with just enough force that she knew he’d feel it. He’d know he was a single movement away from broken bones. She leaned in close and spoke loudly enough for those on their feet starting to hear, for her squad that had rushed back towards her to hear. “You do not get to hit me. You do not give me orders. We are done. You come near me ever again for any reason other than a direct order from a superior and you will face a lot worse than an armlock. I am not your toy. Never have been, never will be.” She shoved him away from her, hard enough that he stumbled forward and fell as she turned and holding her head high started towards her ship. 

“You alien whore!” She could hear Nordan spit behind her. “How many people did you spread your legs for to get that promotion. Did you fuck Tavus that first night or did you at least wait a day.” 

Nyaisa could feel the tension around her as she passed Jorgan and Jhasis. She saw Jhasis’s fists clenched out of the corner of her eye. He was ready to beat the man. One more insult and the rules of military interactions, rank and his rather impressive self control would cease to matter. “Jhasis, Jorgan, fall in.” She strode to the ship and opened the door. Focusing only on getting inside and out of the gaze of these soldiers, away from Nordan. She could feel the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She thought he’d loved her. She just had to hold it together enough to get off the ground and make the jump to hyperspace. Then she could close the bridge. 

“How long did it take you to hit your knees for Garza, bitch? You…” As the door opened, Nordan cut off his sentence. She turned to see the two Cathar striding away from Nordan who was again lying on the ground, this time holding his nose and glaring as they walked up and as she stepped aside, they moved silently onto the ship. She stared for another moment as Nordan lay there on the ground holding his nose surrounded by the other soldiers staring at him in disgust. How had she ever thought of him as anything more than a pathetic worm with apparently massive issues? And as much as it hurt, she knew she’d be glad to be rid of him someday. She turned her back and left him in the hanger as she stepped inside, walking quickly past her boys. The tears pressed harder against her eyes. She moved around the corner and started to the bridge, quickly wiping at her eyes for the second she was ahead of them and out of sight. “Get to work, I want off the ground in five.” She’d handle this when she got a little privacy. How she was so stupid to fall for him, the aftermath and reports she’d have to file for what had happened, all of that could wait till they hit hyperspace and she’d left this disaster far behind. 

[discotreque]

LwD 1.10, “No Small Parts”

Well, that was the most fun I've had watching Star Trek in literally a quarter of a century.

I had high hopes for this series. I love TAS, largely because of its wacky outsized concepts that could only have worked in animation—not that they all did work, but the potential was so apparent to me, even as a kid reading the Alan Dean Foster novelizations—and as an adult, there's something about the imagination of Lower Decks's FX setpieces that transcends even the glorious CGI bonanzas of Discovery.

Pause for a confession. I've long pushed back against criticism of serialization in new Trek. That's just how TV is now, okay? Might as well complain about it being in widescreen. But I'm backing down a little, because I've realized there is something about Star Trek that's inextricable from at least a partially-episodic format. And while Picard was telling a different kind of story, I can't deny that my favourite episodes of Disco have been the ones with a mostly self-contained A-plot. After 10 delightfully episodic instalments of LwD, its focus on long-term development of characters instead of a season-spanning puzzle-plot (okay, mostly just Mariner, but we only have 10 × 22 minutes and she is the star) has been downright refreshing.

So here we are, at the end of the most consistent and well-executed Season 1 of a Star Trek series since, arguably, Those Old Scientists. And sure, if they'd had to produce another... yikes, 42 episodes? Then sure, they probably would have dropped a clunker or two—but they didn't, and winning on a technicality is still winning. I'm practically vibrating with excitement for Disco to come back next week, but damn, I'm going to miss this little show while it's on hiatus.

Spoilers below:

Something I've been keeping track of finally paid off this week! (Which never happens to me, lol.) The destruction of the USS Solvang marked the first present-day death(s) of any Starfleet officer on Lower Decks, the only other on-screen killing at all being a flashback in "Cupid's Errant Arrow". Which makes sense, being (a) a comedy, and (b) about typically "expendable" characters: it hasn't been afraid to flirt with a little darkness here and there, but killing people off at Star Trek's usual pace wouldn't just be wrong for the tone, it would be downright bizarre.

But... people die on Star Trek. That's one of the core themes of the show, really: space is full of knowledge and beauty, but also danger and terror, and believing that the former is worth the risk of the latter is (according to Trek) one of humanity's most noble traits. I'm the least bloodthirsty TV watcher I know, but the longer we went with a body count of nil—ships completely evacuated before they were destroyed, main characters hilariously maimed without permanent consequences, etc.—well, I didn't mind per se, but the absence of truly deadly stakes was definitely getting conspicuous.

Turns out they were saving it up for maximum impact. And holy fuck, I've never felt such a pit in my stomach watching a ship get destroyed that wasn't named Enterprise. It felt grim and brutal and somehow both much too quick and dreadfully inevitable—and yeah, it looked extremely fucking cool—and I'd like every other Star Trek property for the rest of time to take notes under a large bold heading labeled RESTRAINT.

Comedy doesn't need to do this, but my favourite comedy does, and in a way that few other art forms can even approach: lower my emotional defences by making me laugh, endear character(s) to me with goofy-but-relatable antics—then BAM, sucker-punch me in the motherfucking feels. M*A*S*H is probably the classic example on TV, Futurama was notorious for it, and even Archer has pulled it off a few times; it's also a staple of some of my favourite standup. I wasn't sure if Lower Decks was going to go there in Season 1—and wasn't sure if they'd earn it—but I knew if they did, that they'd nail it, and damn. Feels good to be right.

Last batch of notes for the season!!! I rambled enough already, so let's do it liveblog-style:

I fucking KNEW they were going to use "archive" visuals from TAS at some point, I KNEW IT :D

"THOSE OLD SCIENTISTS" ahahahahahahahahahahahaha

I like chill and confident Boimler a lot? You can really see—

oh bRADWARD NOOOOO

That opening shot of the Solvang tracking down to the red giant was extremely Discovery-esque... minus the motion sickness, that is

A lady captain AND a lady first officer? That's—oh hey, it's Captain Dayton's brand-new ship. Hahaha, that means they're totally fucked, right?.

Yep! They sure a—umm, wh—shit, okay, but—oh no—no, you can't—wait DON'T

...fuck

FUCK.

Narrator: "And then Amy needed a five-hour break."

[live-action Star Trek showrunner voice] "Gee, Mike! Why does CBS let you have two cold opens?"

Okay, yes, the bit with Rutherford cycling through all the different attitudes in his implant was transparently an excuse for Eugene Cardero to vamp while waiting for something to do in the story, but as far as I'm concerned they can contrive a reason for him to do a bunch of different silly Rutherfords in a row any time they damn well want, because that was classic!!!

EXOCOMP EXOCOMP EXOCOMP EXOCOMP

AND THE EXOCOMP IS PAINTED LIKE THE EXOCOMP IS WEARING A LITTLE EXOCOMP-SIZED STARFLEET UNIFORM

EXOCOMP!!!!!

The slow burn and now the payoff of the Mariner-is-Freeman's-secret-daughter plot has been executed so well. I'm beyond impressed with this writer's room, y'all—they are threading a hell of a needle here

"Wolf 359 was an inside job" would have been a spit-take if I'd had anything in my mouth

...how many memos do you think Starfleet Command has had to issue asking people to stop calling the USS Sacramento "the Sac"?

CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW THEY'VE DECORATED THE SHUTTLECRAFT SEQUOIA THOUGH

Is, uh, is it weird if I'm starting to ship Tendi and Peanut Hamper a little? It is weird, isn't it. I knew it was weird...

Coital barbs??? I take back everything I said about wanting to know more about Shaxs/T'Ana.

The "good officer" version of Mariner is... kind of hot, tbh! But Tawny Newsome has done such a great job of building this character all season that her voice getting uncharacteristically clipped and martial and "sir! yes, sir!" is also deeply, deeply weird

Ah, so this is literally exactly like when TNG (and DS9) would bring in, and then blow up, a never-before-seen Galaxy-class ship, just to underscore that we're facing a real threat this week, baby. And hey, it fucking worked—my heart was in my throat, omg, for the reveal of the—

PAKLEDS?????????

The fucking PAKLEDS have been gluing weapons to their ships for the last 15 years. GREAT.

(We interrupt the SHIP BEING SLICED INTO SCRAP for an interesting bit of world-building: on Earth, the traditional First Contact Day meal is salmon!)

"I need a dangerous, half-baked solution that breaks Starfleet codes and totally pisses me off! That's an order." I'm starting to think Captain Freeman might actually be overqualified for the Cerritos, y'all—she's REALLY awesome

OH SHIT IT'S BADGEY, this is a TERRIBLE IDEA

"How much contraband have you hidden on my ship?" "I don't know! A lot!"

Awwww, Boims!!!

AHAHAHAHAHAHA, FUCK THIS, PEANUT HAMPER OUT

BADGEY NOOOOO

AUGHHHHH WHAT THE CHRIST DID HE JUST—BUT—RUTHERFORD'S IMPLANT????

RUTHERFORD!!!!!!!!!!

SHAXS!!!!!!

F U C K ! ! ! ! !

ahaIOPugdfhagntpgjrq90e5mgu90qe5;oigoqgw4ouegrw5SP;IAEHURVa IT’S THE TITAN???????????

IT'S CAPTAIN WILLIAM T. RIKER ON THE MOTHERFUCKING TITAN??????????

i'm screaming I'M SCREAMINGGGGGG​TGGGTGQER;​LBHAOIBVNV;​OAPBIJNVagr;h;​oagruipuwtnaetbaetgq35ghqet

I'M SO GLAD THIS WASN'T SPOILED FOR ME WTF

I AM WEEPING LIKE A CHILD

...

(Just a brief 20-minute pause this time)

And oh wow, seeing Will and Deanna hits different after Picard too, in a few different ways, which I may even get into later now that my heartrate is back to normal, lmao

Oh, I am always here for some jokes at the expense of the Sovereign class. The Enterprise-E sucked. They should have built a new bigger model of the D and new Galaxy-class interiors for the TNG movies, and I will die on that hill

OKAY, FINE, YOU GOT ME, RUTHERFORD × TENDI WOULD BE ADORABLE AND THIS IS ACTUALLY A PRETTY GOOD SETUP FOR IT

Awwww, Shaxs though :( Congrats on the single most badass death in Star Trek history, dude. The Prophets would—well, the actual Prophets would probably be slightly confused about most of it, but Kira Nerys would be proud of you and I feel like that probably counts for more. RIP, Papa Bear

I am here all damn DAY for the Mariner–Riker parallels, ahahahahaha

Pausing it to record my prediction that Boimler's commitment to not caring about rank anymore is going to last 3... 2...

Yep.

Bradward, how DARE YOU.

"Those guys had a long road, getting from there to here." OH FOR THE LOVE OF—

What a brilliant way to resolve and renew the various character arcs and relationships moving into Season 2! The writers could easily have brought everything back to status quo—chaotic Mariner fighting with her mom and being a bad influence on Boimler, etc.—and done another 10 just like these, but I suspect that wouldn't have been ambitious enough for these writers. What a blast. I cannot wait for more.

Thanks for following along, friends! Stay tuned for my (similarly patchy and amateur) coverage of Discovery, starting next week!

[angsty-violet]

Date Night

Written for the Secret Santa Star Trek exchange @startreksecretsanta for the lovely @doodlingleluke. I hope you like it. If you have an AO3 account I can also gift it to you there, even if you aren’t a writer.

This is the archiveofourown link because it is quite long. Under the cut is the story if you want to read it here.

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

B’Elanna worried over the table and frowned as she once again adjusted the tablecloth. She just could seem to get it quite right, and it was driving her crazy. Finally, she gave a huff and gave up. It could just stay crooked for all she cared. It didn’t matter anyway. It wasn’t like Seven was really going to notice.

Although B’Elanna wanted it to be perfect, she knew logically that Seven wasn’t going to notice much of anything. She had little idea of how human social interactions were supposed to commence and, therefore, didn’t make a big deal when they didn’t go to plan.

Which was actually quite relieving for B’Elanna. She had never done well with the cutesy couple-y things that seemed required of human women. Nor had she managed the throwing objects that Klingon women did. She fell somewhere in the middle, most of the time. For most things, that was perfectly fine. However, for courting? It was nearly a disaster.

That was until she had begun to date Seven. Seven was intensely easy to please as she saw value in functionality over all else. Similar to a Vulcan, a gift that would help in her work never failed to hit the mark. B’Elanna often found she was happy with just an upgrade on a tool or placing her on a shift that played to her strengths.

Which made her nervousness over this date completely ridiculous. Neither of them conformed to human social standards. Even if they did, Seven didn’t know enough to know the way dates were supposed to play out anyway. Yet, B’Elanna found herself worrying over insignificant details like the tablecloth and whether or not the food would be to Seven’s liking.

B’Elanna took a deep breath and reminded herself of what Tom had told her about a successful date. As long as both parties had a good time and were willing to do it again, it was a success. The food, the lighting, the location, or any other detail could be absolutely horrid. As long as they had a good enough time to try it again.

B’Elanna placed the last of the replicated food on the table with the items she had Neelix make for her. That was everything that needed to be done, and she still had 10 minutes to spare. Seven would likely be perfectly on time. She was for everything else, and B’Elanna didn’t see why this would be any different.

Unfortunately, this allowed her plenty of time to pace nervously and try to keep from biting her nails. It was a nasty habit she had picked up during her time in the Maquis. She often bit them when she wasn’t doing something with her hands.

After several minutes of desperate pacing and endlessly changing the music, her door chimed, and she called for Seven to come in.

Immediately B’Elanna’s breath was taken away. Seven had allowed her golden blonde hair to tumble around her shoulders and had changed into a more decorative outfit than her standard jumpsuit. She was holding a bottle of wine in her hands, and this allowed B’Elanna to recover from her stupor and make conversation.

“Ah, I see you brought wine.”

“Yes, apparently, it is considered normal for the person attending the dinner to bring along something to contribute. Neelix suggested a bottle of wine would make a good addition to your meal.”

“I’m sure it will go wonderfully. I can open it while you have a seat. Dinner’s ready, so we can dive in whenever you are ready.”

Seven nodded unsurely and sat at the table. She watched as B’Elanna opened the bottle of wine and poured them each a glass. As soon as the wine was poured, likely with nothing better to do, Seven took a sip. She hummed in satisfaction at the taste and set it back down. For a few moments, there was only awkward silence. Finally, Seven gave up trying to pretend like she knew what she was doing.

“I don’t really know what we are supposed to be doing. From my reading, we are supposed to engage in discourse that allows us to learn more about each other. However, I already know a great deal about you, and you know pretty much everything about me. I don’t know what else there is to talk about beyond those.”

“Well, I think it’s partially about spending quality time together. Sure, we know a lot about each other, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have things to talk about. It’s a little odd, but we could talk about work. We could talk about your progress in the programs you and the doctor are running. There is plenty to talk about. You just need to pick a topic you would like to discuss with me. Or alternatively, allow me to pick a topic I would like to discuss with you.”

Seven looked as though she wished she could be taking notes, and B’Elanna hid a smile. She was so sweet, and she tried so hard. B’Elanna sometimes wished that she was more sentimental. If she was, she might’ve been able to say that Seven couldn’t do anything wrong during date night to drive her away. Especially not something as minor as talking about the wrong thing.

“Alright, then, I would like to discuss this nice tasting meal you prepared for me. It is enjoyable to eat. Did you make it yourself, or did you replicate it?”

“Part of it was replicated, the meat specifically. However, the vegetables are real, and I helped Neelix prepare them for tonight. They came out quite nice with me monitoring what they were putting in them.”

“Yes, they came out quite well. I imagine that many of his dishes could stand for someone to be watching what he was putting in them. Often they are so disgusting that they hardly aren’t even edible. The fact that he gets away with it is astonishing.”

“Yeah, well, he actually is good for morale. He cheers people up. More than that, we don’t have anyone else who wants to be the cook. Even if they did want to, it’s unlikely that we could spare the capacity.”

Seven looked up from her food, intrigued. She had been dying to ask this question for weeks now. “Why are you running on a skeleton crew? I looked in the database, it says that you should have at least 4 times the crew that you have on board. It seems bizarre that they would put such a small crew on such an important ship.”

“That’s sort of a long story. You see, we originally started as two separate crews. There was the Maquis and then the Voyager. However, the Voyager technically wasn’t supposed to be out of dry dock yet. It was finished and still being staffed. However, it was the only ship available to being sent out after the rebel Maquis crew. So, they sent them out with the bare minimum needed to run the ship. They believed that they would only be out there a few weeks. However, then the caretaker pulled the Maquis and the Voyager into the Delta quadrant, and we’ve been here ever since.”

Seven sipped lightly at her wine and processed what she had been just told. “So, you are telling me that this isn’t just a crew made up of individuals? But that it is also made up of two separate crews who were essentially enemies? How is it that you were able to reach an accord?”

Seven was leaning over the table in avid interest. Despite her misgivings about this so-called ‘date,’ it was turning out to be fascinating. She was learning so much and strengthening her romantic relationship at the same time. It seemed to be very efficient, and that pleased her a very great deal.

“See, Seven, that’s the mystery of humans. We were all trapped out here, and we knew that we had to work together if we wanted to get back. It was necessary for our survival. We all took our individual skills and pooled them. Then we made a plan for getting back to the Alpha Quadrant. It doesn’t always happen like this. Sometimes our issues are too much to resolve. When it matters, we can come together to do what we have to.”

“Even though I am now human or working on it. Human behavior absolutely fascinates me. Humans can overcome impossible odds. To achieve things that seem absolutely impossible.”

“Yes, I suppose we do. Well, are you finished?”

Seven glanced down and saw that she had almost finished every single bite and felt that she was pleasantly full. She nodded and handed the plate to B’Elanna to place back in the replicator.

“What are we supposed to do now? We have discussed and eaten. What other date activities would you like to engage in?”

B’Elanna tilted her head and then smiled. “I have a wonderful idea. You’ve been working on dancing, haven’t you?”

Seven nodded slowly. “The Doctor has been instructing me.”

“Well, how about we have a dance together. You can lead because you’re taller.”

“I don’t know if my skill is up to what you have in mind.” Suddenly Seven felt intensely flustered. The thought of being pressed tightly up against B’Elanna almost seemed like too much to bear. B’Elanna seemed to almost read her thoughts and smiled.

“That’s alright. Whatever you are capable of is going to be wonderful. Computer, play Waltz Composition Torres-14. May I have this dance?”

“Seven locked eyes with her and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. She sighed as B’Elanna guided a single hand to her lower back and clasped the other. B’Elanna slowly pressed her entire body up against Seven’s, and Seven began to feel a bit short of breath.

“So, I step back, and you step forward. Then we step to the side. Then I go forward, and you go back and then to the side again. That way, no ground is lost, and no ground is gained. Around in circles forever and ever.”

B’Elanna guided her through the steps several times. Making sure that Seven was well versed in each one. Then they tried it a few times with the music.

B’Elanna couldn’t help the small smile that broke across her face. Seven was so focused that her brow was furrowed, her eyes fastened on the ground. B’Elanna took her hand out of Seven’s and used it to smooth a hand over her cheek. She pressed it gently to her face. Seven looked into her eyes and blushed deeply.

“You’re lovely.”

B’Elanna’s words only made the blush worse. Seven looked away shyly. B’Elanna smiled and continued to guide her through the steps. For several minutes they practiced slowly to the music before B’Elanna decided that she had enough practice.

“Alright. Let’s do this for real. Computer, restart audio.”

The music restarted, and B’Elanna allowed Seven to lead. Seven continued to focus on her steps, but after a few minutes, she had the hang of it. She quit looking at her feet and started looking at B’Elanna. Again, her breath caught. Seven was absolutely blown away by the sight that her girlfriend made. She couldn’t believe that B’Elanna was with her.

“This was a good idea. I’ve decided I like having dates with you.”

“Oh, with me? Does that mean you wouldn’t like dates with other people?” B’Elanna teased gently.

“I’ve not dated anyone else. However, I believe that the experience is enjoyable because it is you. I don’t think I would like it with anyone else. I would see it as a waste of time that could be done doing something else.”

“So, what’s different with us?” B’Elanna’s voice was unsure. She didn’t know if she was going to like the answer that Seven had to say.

“We are different because it does have value. You and I are working to strengthen our relationship. We aren’t just trying to pass the time with idle chatter or social interaction. We do this so that we might have future success in our romantic endeavors. That to me, means that they have great value. I wish to make it so that our relationships will be successful.”

B’Elanna smiled at her and reached her arms around her neck. She kissed her firmly on the lips and Seven hesitated but then pressed forward. For a few minutes, they stood there kissing, before B’Elanna pulled back.

“We need to stop or otherwise I am going to jump all over you.”

“I agree. I don’t believe that I am ready for that level of intimacy yet. However, I also don’t want this date to end. I have had such a good time with you. Is there anything else that we can embark on and spend a few more minutes together?”

B’Elanna thought for a moment. She also didn’t want the night to end. None of their dates had been nearly this good and she wanted to make sure it lasted. She wanted it to be a standout memory. However, the mess hall was loud and not suitable for dates. The holodecks were likely booked completely up.

“What about the hydroponics lab? On Earth a visit to a garden or a museum is a classic date night activity. We likely can’t get into the holodeck right now, but I imagine that right now the hydroponics lab is empty. We could go look at the flowers and talk about their cultivation.”

Seven tilted her head and contemplated it. Then she nodded in agreement. Truthfully, she had no great wish to visit the hydroponics lab. However, the thought of the long walk to, the visit itself and the long walk back adding more time was very satisfying. She didn’t care what they were doing, as long as B’Elanna as doing it with her.

B’Elanna took Seven’s hand and led her out of her quarters. She made sure to grip it firmly, although she wasn’t certain that Seven would understand. Many of the things humans did for affection seemed to baffle her. She didn’t understand hugs. Although she had picked up the purpose of kissing quite quickly. Apparently the more sensual or sexual an action was, the easier it was for her to understand.

It was the things that you did to express your feelings that she didn’t quite understand. Although, who could blame her. Humans were intensely complicated and Seven had spent most of her life.

B’Elanna was right. Seven didn’t understand what the purpose of holding hands was. However, she was willing to go along with it. If it was part of the courting rituals that she had missed or even just a quirk, Seven didn’t mind indulging her. Although Seven was finding that having a point of consistent contact was lovely.

Seven reached for another topic to speak about and couldn’t find much. Thankfully B’Elanna was much more experienced in the art of social conversation.

“So, you’ve been studying Vulcan poetry with Tuvok. How is that going? Are you enjoying the lessons or finding it intellectually stimulating?”

Seven sighed as she was able to carry on a conversation about something she understood. “Yes, I am enjoying his teaching. Tuvok’s take on Vulcan poetry has a number of classical elements but he has a perspective I believe is partially from being around humans so often. He has such interesting viewpoint on some of their beliefs and some of the issues talked about in Vulcan poetry.”

“I’m glad to hear that. It’s very human to have hobbies and interests. It’s part of what makes you unique as a person. Although you won’t find many aficionados of Vulcan poetry outside of the Vulcans themselves.”

“Yes, we spoke about that. He mentioned that he believed that it would be sensible for more Star Fleet Captains to pursue it as a study. He seems to believe that because most of the Captains are human, that they would benefit from studying something very alien. He thinks it would help with their skills as diplomats if they had to try and understand a very different medium from a very different culture.”

B’Elanna thought about some of the botched First Contacts that Voyager had and found that she agreed with Tuvok. Humans, on the whole, were very human centric and tended to think in primarily human terms. Although that was fine, for most of Star Fleet, Captains were held to a higher standard. Many of them likely would do well undertaking a study of Vulcan poetry. Between having to deal with the boredom that came with it and the obscure references they didn’t understand, it would be good training.

“It would make sense that he’d have ideas for how Captains could improve themselves. He was an instructor at the academy for many years. Although he struggled when he was instructing the Maquis crewmembers, he eventually figured it out.”

“I didn’t realize that he was an instructor. Are all Vulcans as good at teaching?”

B’Elanna thought back to her Astrophysics professor and snorted in derision. “Not a chance. In fact, I’d say that on the whole, they are horrible teachers. They have little to no concept about what other people are thinking or feeling. They also have no consideration for the fact that you have other things in your life beyond whatever they are teaching you.”

“Aren’t there human teachers like that as well?”

B’Elanna stepped into the hydroponics lab and considered it. She shrugged lightly not being able to disagree. “Yeah, but you’re more likely to have someone who at the very least admits you might have other classes. Most Vulcans are awful to take classes and studies from. You’re just lucky that you got someone who is so logical that he has to consider the other parts of your life. Otherwise, he might be insufferable. Here, these are the new flowers that are supposed to increase oxygen output from here.”

Seven inspected them and nodded. She didn’t know why she was doing either, but it seemed the way to go. More than that everyone in her life had been encouraging her to rely more on her instincts than anything else.

They lingered there looking at the plants for a few minutes but there wasn’t much to do there. Before Seven had a chance to say anything B’Elanna was taking her hand and leading her out of the hydroponics lab. Seven struggled for a way to say what she was feeling but came up short. B’Elanna seemed to be reading her mind though.

“I know that you want this date to go on and on forever. I want that too. I want to make this night last as long as possible. Yeah, either of us might get killed tomorrow while on duty. However, most likely we won’t, then we will have another date. That one might not be as good but it will be another chance to spend time with each other. Then we’ll have another, and another. Before you know it, we’ll have gone on dozens of dates. Some of them will have been good, some will have sucked. But each of them will have been with each other. I think I can say goodbye to you tonight, if that means I get more chances in the future.”

Seven gazed at her and sighed lightly. For a moment B’Elanna was surprised. It was such a human gesture. She could see that Seven didn’t want to part company and it gave her great strength of will. If she died tomorrow, B’Elanna would be able to die happy. She would be satisfied knowing that even if they hadn’t made it that far into their relationship, Seven was dedicated and wanted to be with her.

“I find myself upset at the thought of us not having any future dates for any reason. However, especially if that reason is your death. However, I can concede that eventually this date must end. Even if we were to spend the entire night together, eventually we would have to return to our duties and real life. I can concede the same thing as you, though. Your willingness to do this again gives me the discipline I need to tell you goodnight.”

B’Elanna smiled gently at her and continued to lead her back to her quarters. “How about this, a single drink, one more dance and then we’ll say goodnight?”

Seven gave her the barest hint of a smile in return and nodded in agreement. B’Elanna led her back into her quarters and to the table. She poured out two glasses of wine, the last of the wine in fact, and handed one to Seven. Seven took it and sipped lightly while sitting back down at the table. She took the chance to commit every part of B’Elanna’s face to memory. She wanted to remember this moment for the rest of her life.

They sipped lightly in silence, just enjoying each other’s company. There weren’t any words that needed spoken. They had already said everything that needed to be said and they would be able to part company with their relationship stronger than before.

After both of them finished their wine, with neither lingering, B’Elanna offered her hand to Seven. Seven took it and allowed B’Elanna to draw her to her feet. B’Elanna smiled gently at her.

“Just one more dance. Then we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see each other again. The day might go slowly, but we can take comfort int the fact that it will happen. Now, dance with me. “Computer, restart earlier audio.”

B’Elanna once again guided her through the steps of the waltz. They waltzed together in silence enjoying their company and the time that they had together. B’Elanna laid her head on Seven’s shoulder and drew here even closer. For a time, they were a single entity split into two parts. Their hearts beat in sync, their breaths were breathed in at the exact same time and their movements were smooth and graceful.

Seven allowed the sheer contentment to fall over her. Oftentimes she had heard others speak about what it was like to be in love. The way that they felt when they were in their lovers presence. The sheer joy that it was to spend company with someone they loved, the way their hearts felt like they were full to bursting and the feeling that they could spend literal hours together and it would never be too much. She had always believed that it was sentimental, overexaggerated tripe.

Now, she knew that that wasn’t true. She could spend and eternity in B’Elanna’s arms and never tire. She could waltz with her until they both perished and it would ultimately satisfy her. She had never known a feeling this deep.

In B’Elanna’s head there were similar thoughts. About all of her failed relationships. Everything that she had lost and gained over the years. How she had never believed that she would ever find someone that could love the Klingon and Human parts of her. Yet, here that someone was. Waltzing with her and not wanting to say goodnight. It was all that she had ever wanted.

For a time, they would waltz. Eventually the audio would end and they would split. After that they would say their goodnights, Seven would return to her alcove and they would spend the time away from each other. They would spend most of the next day thinking about the other. With the exception of those times where their work would temporarily draw their attention away from their thoughts. Then they would do their best to find any excuse to go and see each other.

However, that wasn’t what was happening right then. For these few moments they were with each other and there was no one else in the world. They had no concerns beyond this dance and beyond the other. They would remain locked in that waltz until the real world called for them. After it did call for them, they would part company reluctantly. However, they would always be thinking about the other.

[bexterbex]

A Soul to Mend His Own | Ch. 60

Chapter 60 WHOOT WHOOT! 60 days ago I started this journey with only 2 followers, and now I have 337! I can’t thank you all enough 😭It means so much to me that you all like my little world. 

Warning, PLEASE CHECK TAGS IF YOU SEE SOMETHING YOU DON’T WANT TO READ THEN DON’T READ. Tag lists are closed

Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Will tag as I go along, Will update tags, Slow Burn, Influenced by Star Trek and other Sci-Fi themes, References to We Happy Few, Tons of References and quotes to George Orwells 1984 see if you can find them all, The First Order is the new Big Brother,  but who is really surprised, Blatant Nazi Symbolism, Interrogation Themes, Eventual Smut, Eventual Romance, Really just drawn out Slow Burn, Don’t repost without permission, Torture themes, Suggestive Themes, Execution themes, Disturbing Themes, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Verbal Abuse, Controlling Kylo Ren, Physical Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Possessive Kylo Ren, A character shamelessly based on Zelda

A Kylo Ren x Modern! Reader in a soulmate au with canon divergence. —————————————SLOWBURN————————————–

He is already the Supreme leader, searching the universe to find you, his Empress. Your name on his wrist has been the only constant in his life, while you have doubts about his existence and his acceptance of you. He isn’t in the database and why did the name Kylo Ren cover Ben Solo?

MASTERLIST

Chapter 60: First Lady

The general was waiting for you as you both sat down. Kylo and the general sat opposite of you. The lieutenant came up to join you. The general looked at Kylo, who nodded and began, “We are here to discuss your duties as First Lady of the First Order. An inaugural role that has not been done before in the history of the galaxy.”

He paused to make sure you were paying attention and understanding the gravity of the position. You nodded to signal him to continue.

“As the First Lady of the First Order, you have many duties, some more obvious than others. First, you act as the identity of the First Order, the face in which our people will rely upon and trust. You are the focus of unity and pride. The person who gives a sense of stability and continuity to the First Order. You are the official recognition for success and excellence. And you are to support the ideal of voluntary service.”

You were to be the complete face of the First Order. Not Kylo, who is hidden behind his mask, but you. “So you are asking me to be like the queen of England,” you asked trying to make sense of your role.

“Yes, in many ways, except you have actual power when you want it. While she is unable to make decisions for the United Kingdom in its entirety, as that power now belongs to parliament, you do. The only person who can override your decisions is the Supreme Leader himself.”

You watched as Kylo nodded along to what the general was saying.

“You shall be in charge of official First Order Social events like the formal dinner that we just had, and ceremonial events like commissioning of new destroyers and bases. You shall present titles of high honor within the First Order Military, and any civilian titles. You may also preside over military ceremonies such as remembrances of historic galactic battles, and major retirements.”

Your eyes grew wide at the list of things you would be responsible for. The general could see the look of hesitation on your face as you were processing everything.

“Of course you won’t have to do everything alone. You shall have a team of people to help you, one of which is the lieutenant,” he then gestured to Mitaka sitting next to you. “And a few others, you shall not have to handle everything yourself, but you will essentially be supervising it all. You will also be handling many correspondences which will go through your team, and you will be a patron of many charities. We will need to announce a charity today as a start. That is a decision we can make together, so you do not have to make it alone.”

You sat back in your chair as you started to process everything. Your life has shifted from working a 9-5 job, to doing very little with your time, to now being a head of state all in the matter of a month. Less than a month ago you were wondering who Kylo Ren was and now you were to be leading the largest government in the galaxy with him. Leading a group of people you had no idea existed. Being a face to the galaxy when you were perfectly content to just be friends with your match and living a life alone.

You felt his hold on your mind once more, the worry that you felt dissipated. You don’t know whether or not you should be comforted by this or horrified. He was in your mind messing with things.

‘There is nothing to be afraid of Kitten. You will do great. This is one of the big steps in becoming an empress, my empress.’

Something about the way he said that you would be his empress made your belly warm. A spark of desire to be something powerful to him.

You could feel his tendrils of hold swirling with that desire in your mind. Playing with it, caressing it. You closed your eyes at the feeling, your body welcoming the touch. The tiny rational portion of your mind was screaming, but the feeling was so nice that you ignored her.

You felt a hand touch your face, which shocked you out of your bliss. It was Kylo’s hand. His eyes told you that he was just as spellbound as you were.

Both the lieutenant and the general didn’t seem to know what to make of the moment as they both shared a confused face at both of your actions.

Kylo’s hand caressed your cheek before he withdrew it. His eyes never leaving yours. No words were spoken between you, not even in your mind, but you knew what just happened changed something.

You could almost hear the rational part of your brain whimper in pain at being ignored, whimper because of his grip on your consciousness. That rational part being afraid at what just occurred, but the rest of your existence being overjoyed at it. You could feel the tendrils recede slightly and the rational part slowly coming out of the corner that it had been backed into. Still very much afraid of the dark mass that just took over.

The general spoke first, “M’lady shall we go over what will need to be decided today?” He hesitantly looked between you and Kylo, trying to figure out your next course of action.

Without breaking eye contact with Kylo, you responded, “Yes. I think will be best.” You examined Kylo’s face as if it were a rare piece of art. Going over every last detail.

“We should decide what charity you should patron first. Is there anything, in particular, that strikes an interest in you m’lady? Any topic that you would prefer?” You could hear some unease in his voice as you failed to look at him. Your eyes still locked on Kylo.

You could feel the tendrils shift as a thought presented itself, “Something for abused or neglected children.” You watched as Kylo’s eyes phantom fluttered for a moment. His eyes then roaming your face as yours did his.

Both of your breathing is in sync. Two halves of a whole as his hold on your mind made itself at home. The tendrils tucking themselves in the corners of your skull, occasionally skimming your brain when needed, but mostly just there watching.  

“There are many orphanages throughout the galaxy shall I choose one for you,” asked Hux with his voice wavering. You could hear how uncomfortable the whole situation between you and Kylo was making him. You could not see nor hear the lieutenant, but you guessed that he was worse than the well-seasoned general.

Kylo answered for you, “Yes.”

You heard the general stand, “Well sir, m’lady we best be off to our luncheon. There is much to discuss.”

Kylo stood first, holding out his hand for you to take. Which you did. He then tucked your arm under his. Never breaking eye contact as you walked down the stairs and to the entrance of your chambers. You paused as Kylo put on his helmet, breaking your stare and trance. He then faced forward as you walked down the winding halls to the conference room.

You entered arm in arm with Kylo; he guided you to your seat, you never took your eyes off of him. Still enrapt in a trance. He walked with power around the room as he reached the head of the table where he chose to stand.

All around you were the High Command members, most of whom were holograms as they holocommuted in. Luckily for you, Pryde was also holocummuting in. You were relieved at his lack of physical presence. You also noted that there were several other officers standing along the opposite wall to you.

Kylo addressed the room, “Today is Lady Ren’s official first day as First Lady of the First Order,” he paused and you could hear a small applause coming from the High Command, both those who were physically present and those who weren’t. “She has many responsibilities in her new role, you are to do what she asks of you as if it was an order from me.”

You watched as chins raised in acknowledgment. You could see that some were not happy about having another person ruling over them. Kylo sensed this too as his head cut to an older male admiral, “I sense unease Admiral Berand.”

What shocked you was that the man wasn’t even here, he was holocommuting. Were Kylo’s Force abilities that strong?

“No, sir,” said the admiral.

You watched as Kylo marched around the room and came up next to the holo projection of the man. Even though they were technically a galaxy apart, the admiral shrank away from Kylo. “Good, keep your thoughts under control or I will do it for you.”

You could feel the tendrils in your own mind flex with excitement. They apparently wanted the admiral to mess up, so they could arrange his thoughts for him.

Kylo then spoke again addressing the room, “You have all given candidates for Lady Ren’s staff. Her chief of staff will be Dopheld Mitaka, now a captain, but there still remains her press secretary, correspondence secretary,  social secretary, her advisor, and her spokesperson. Five positions to fill. And after General Hux’s initial weeding of the candidates, there are 15 applicants. We shall now proceed with the filling of positions.” Kylo then gestured to the Allegiant General to start. Hux then waited patiently for your signal, waiting until you were ready.

You broke your gaze from staring at Kylo to look to your side. You gestured to Mitaka to come forward and join you by your side. Which he gladly did. You then nodded to the general to commence the application process.

You picked out your press secretary, social secretary, advisor, and spokesperson with ease. You took into account the opinions of Kylo, Hux and Mitaka. The final position of the correspondence secretary was being considered.

Unfortunately, Pryde’s recommendation was still in the running. The young officer that he had put forward as an applicant gave off similar vibes to the man himself. Almost a younger version of himself. You quickly denied his choice. The officer had a look of disappointment and anger on his face as he was forced to step back. You could tell your decision also displeased Pryde as you had a feeling that this officer was going to be some sort of informant to him.

Across the room, you could see Kylo’s body stiffen as he was probably monitoring both men’s thoughts. He barked at the officer to get out and to return to the Steadfast as he was no longer needed here. You watched as he left the room. He was the only rejected officer that was asked to leave before the meeting was over.

Next up was General Parnadee’s choice, a nice young lieutenant with a kind face. Parnadee introduced her, as the other generals did with their recommendations, “This is Lieutenant Amala Graven. She has an impeccable memory. The ability to recall voices and has a knack for routines. She is quiet but very decisive when it comes to printed languages. She has been my trusted personal secretary for two years and I can think of no one better for the position of correspondence secretary.”

From what you knew of Parnadee, even after entrusting your home planet to her, you knew that if she was recommending someone, especially someone, she trusts that you should highly consider the person. You then looked over her file, which was a clean record. She came highly recommended from the academy and she had been promoted quickly into Parnadee’s trusted and highly coveted secretary position.

After sharing a look with Mitaka, you made your decision. You looked at the female lieutenant in the eyes and said, “I believe you will make an excellent correspondence secretary and I would be honored if you would join my staff.”

The lieutenant thanked you and joined the group of others that had been selected. Your attention then shifted back to Kylo as he dismissed them and Mitaka while you were to have the luncheon portion of your meeting.

Everything went by rather smoothly after that, Hux telling those who holocommuted in that they were free to go as no official business was going to be discussed. You were thankful because you were sick of Pryde’s holo eyes watching your every move.

You watched as slowly every hologram was disconnected. Pryde getting in one last final creepy stare before disconnecting. You were relieved when Kylo took a seat next to you instead of his official unused one across from you.

You were in a large conference room filled with only a few generals and admirals. Lunch was served and Kylo relented in taking off his helmet so he could join you as you ate. Small pleasant discussions popped up around you. The Allegiant General giving his opinion here and there to the different conversations.

Meanwhile, you and Kylo ate in a comfortable silence between you two. There seemed no need to say anything as you could feel the tendrils exploring your mind. Seeing how far they could go before hitting a wall or turning around. You could feel them warmly caressing your happiest memories and completely covering those that caused you pain. You felt light-headed but in a way that didn’t make you sick, but as if a weight had been relieved from your consciousness.

You felt as if you could stay in this moment forever. But soon you would have your lesson with the general and soon you would have to move on with real life. But for now, you chose to be stuck in this moment. This little piece of forever.

A/N: Note that I see every comment and reblog w/ # and I love them so much! Tumblr is kinda hard to respond with just note that anything coming from @justanotherhockey-blog​ is from me!

[disappearinginq]

3. What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works? 13. First fandom you ever wrote for? 16. Any guilty pleasure trope(s)? 34. Copy and paste an excerpt you’re particularly fond of.

3. At the risk of sounding vain...I tend not to write completely self indulgent fics, like, something that would take the character completely out of their established canon-behavior. Do I want my favorite characters to be the center of a hurt/comfort recovery fic? Yes. Yes, I do. But I also really don’t like the tendency for the genre to get into “woobie-fying” (or however it’s spelled) the main characters.  In Lucifer, I still wrote Lucifer as a narcissist with daddy issues. When I wrote for the 100, I tried to pull as much as I could from canon to justify the direction the story took. When I write in Magnum, I really try to take into account the back story they’ve given the characters - that they were Taliban POW’s, they’re elite military members, etc. So while I like that fandom is freedom of expression, and AU’s and fix-its and all the other genres exist and people can use them, my most cherished feedback is from readers who say “I can see this happening” or “this makes so much more sense, I never considered this”. 

13. Uuuuuhhhhhmmmm, I think the Secret Adventures of Jules Verne, though if we want to get technical, when I was like...10 or 9, I had probably close to a thousand pages typed of what would be considered an OC spin on Sliders in an epic multi-fandom crossover fic, which included Sliders, Star Trek, Star Wars, Magnificent Seven, and Hudson Hawk amongst other things. I really wish I knew what happened to it, because I guarantee it’s terrible by my own standards today, but 10 year old me was living. 

16. The Bourne Identity Trope - amnesiac who turns out to be a lethal assassin; government experiment escaped, a la Pretender style; secretly most powerful character but they either 1) can’t control it, or 2) choose not to use it for another reason; co-dependent besties (see: “There ain’t no me, if there ain’t no you”); and I have no idea what you would call it, but when the protagonist has fought with everything they have and they face the ‘final problem’ and they just sort of...sink? Jensen Ackles did it really well.; and final one “rage solves everything” - see the entire final fight sequence of Serenity. 

34. From “Damnatio Memoriae” of the Lucifer fandom: 

“The moment you laid eyes on these wings, when you first realized that they were real and all that that knowledge entailed, you wanted some of it for yourself, didn’t you?” he whispered, soothing. “You knew there were such things in creation deserving of worship, and you wanted to be one of them.”

The woman shook, but she finally raised her head, finally meeting his gaze.

Strength of madness in the face of Death.

He almost liked her.

“Your crusade was a foolish one,” Samael said, voice just loud enough for her to hear and no one else in the congregation. “It was an act of vanity and personal pride. And worse, you thought you could lie to me about it. Perhaps you repeated it so often you actually believed it but I can see, Delilah. I know what’s in your heart. I know how you feel when you command and others obey. I know the way your heart beats at the sight of blood. How powerful you feel watching someone else’s life fade away because of you. You thought yourself a god.”

He pressed his forehead against hers, closing his eyes and cupping his hands to either side of her face.

“Allow me to show you what happens to false gods,” he whispered. He touched his lips to her forehead, his fingers sliding along her neck.

In one quick movement, he pressed his fingers down and snapped her axis vertebrae, severing her spinal cord.

Her entire body went limp, but he didn’t allow her to fall. He kept his bruising grip around her neck, holding her up like a ragdoll.

“I’m not going to kill you,” he said pleasantly. “Though perhaps I should – it would be a mercy, gratitude for all that you’ve done. But you, Delilah Rogers…are deserving of no such consideration. You can live, bound as I was, reminded of the power you once had and are now deprived of. Your lying tongue cannot poison anyone else’s mind.”

He released her, and she dropped in a boneless heap to the floor, unable to do anything more than blink and breathe.

“I’m going to give you one last gift, Delilah,” Samael said, turning his back on her and facing the congregation that stood with bated breath in the shadows.

“I’m going to give you the perspective of God,” he said as he paused at the front of the church, moonlight casting onto his beautiful wings and making them shine. “By letting you watch as I make your beloved flock destroy themselves.”

And with that, Samael allowed all of his hate, all of his anger and rage and desire to flood the congregation. The roiling black sickness seeped in through their skin, into their bones and into their hearts as their eyes flashed black as night.

“Tell me humans,” he shouted above the crowd. “What is it you most desire?”

And the sea of people turned on one another like the animals he knew they were. Nails tore through skin, teeth clamped down on muscle and sinew and bones snapped like brittle twigs as the humans literally consumed one another.

Samael smiled to himself, inhaling deeply and savoring the taste of blood in the air. He supposed he should be grateful that so few mentions of him remained. Eliciting desire was such a bland term for what he did.

He controlled hunger. The darkest part of the human soul was his domain and he knew what to pull and what to push and how to make them bend and snap and tear themselves apart. Death was a mercy he bestowed upon the masses. His ability to take a life was not what earned him a place in the Pit.

It was the ability to make them destroy themselves in their pursuit of desire. He hardly needed to lift a finger – all he had to do was whisper in their ears, and they ripped each other apart.

Desire was a fluid thing. People often confused it with lust. But it was so much more than that. Power. Love. Hate. Hurt. It was the human spirit unconstrained.

It was what he loved about them. They were so eager to destroy each other, they happily destroyed themselves.

He stepped off the crossing, uncaring of the blood that pooled beneath his feet, ignoring the bodies as the fell to the floor.

No one touched him.

No one even noticed him.

With a spin on his heel, he pushed open the doors of the church, stepping out into the cool California desert night.

The skies were clear. Stars twinkled in the velvet darkness, barely visible with the full moon out in all its glory. The entirety of his Father’s beloved creation lay before him, bathed in silvery moonlight bright as the sun. He could hear the beat of its corrupted, festering heart beneath his feet, hear the whispers of dark desire on the air.

“So much work to do,” he muttered to himself, smiling happily. He stretched his arms, his wings expanding behind him as he unfurled them in their entirety for the first time in what felt like centuries.

He spared a glance skyward. “Dearest Father, have you no words for your beloved Fallen Star? Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”

The heavens reverberated in silence. Not a sound from the Silver City.

“That’s what I thought,” he said. “You and I always did have an understanding.”

And with a flap of his magnificent wings, he vanished into the night.

[random-thoughts-collection]

Star Trek Picard: Like coming home

“If you are who I think you are you are dear to me in ways that you can't understand.”

I have been looking forward to Star Trek Picard ever since it was announced by Sir Patrick Stewart, and I was both happy about and afraid of the prospect of seeing Jean-Luc Picard on screen again.

For me the last products made bearing the name Star Trek did not really work. Not Star Trek Enterprise with its cluelessness to what to do with its characters. Not the Star Trek AU movies that drowned any possible meaningful storylines in lens flares and action sequences. Not Star Trek Discovery with its desperate attempt to be dark and edgy while jumping through space thanks to the power of spores, referencing The Original Series as much as possible while ignoring not only parts of the previous Trek shows’ plots and technologies but also their spirit.

In short: all of them felt like a letdown. The first episode of Star Trek Picard felt like the complete opposite. I really enjoyed watching this first episode.

[Spoiler warning]

Remembrance

“The dreams are lovely. It's the waking up that I'm beginning to resent.”

Of course it helps that the center of the show is the man after whom the series is named: Jean-Luc Picard. He was the soul of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Sir Patrick Stewart has the talent and skill to be the center of this new show as well. There is something very moving in watching him at the age of 79 playing Picard again. There is something very moving in watching Picard at the age of 92 struggle with his past and everything he has experienced in his long life.

There is nostalgia in this episode, and it’s well placed. It would be even wrong if it wasn’t there, because it makes sense that it is an essential part of Picard’s life.  But the episode doesn’t rely on it.

The end of a century

“I haven't been living. I've been waiting to die.”

There are plenty of new events and storylines to consider in this episode that had not been a part of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The destruction of Romulus about ten years ago marks a major change in the order of the Alpha and Beta quadrant. The attack of the Synth resulted in a ban on the creation of new synthetic beings. There are many new technological developments that finally don’t feel out of place anymore but are justified because the show is smart enough to not be set before the older shows.

“He named the painting ‘Daughter’.”

And after several years of retirement the event that brings Picard back into the action is the appearance of a young woman called Dajh, who seems to be no other than Data’s daughter. In many stories I would have probably rolled my eyes about the appearance of a “daughter” character in a sequel – for an android no less – but for Data it makes sense. Dajh is not his first daughter after all, and everyone who has seen Star Trek: The Next Generation would remember Lal, Data’s first daughter. Back then Data had painted her as well. And there is a similarity...

The 24th century is coming to an end. One of Data’s daughters has found Picard in France after being attacked by Romulan assassins while the other one, Soji, is currently at the Romulan Reclamation Site which is build out of the wreckage of a Borg cube. (Personally, I think Dajh could be good friends with Rommie from Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, but that’s just me.)

The spirit of Star Trek

“Well, it's not so easy for those who died. And it was not so easy for those who were left behind.”

Aside from memory and storyline, this episode also beautifully shows how to capture the spirit of Star Trek to incorporate essential themes and motives.

In the light of the US closing borders to its south, of the EU not being able to come to terms with their asylum policy and of the United Kingdom leaving the EU in order to avoid more immigration (and taxes), the probably most obvious theme can be found in the Federation calling off the rescue of the victims of the supernova and the attack on Mars, which led to Picard’s resignation. It is mainly focused on in the interview Picard gives at the beginning of the episode – in which these actions are set opposite to the Dunkirk evacuation – an operation in which Patrick Stewart’s father had been a part of. Sir Patrick Stewart supports the International Rescue Committee, and it’s obvious that it’s a matter close to his heart. He is also a supporter of charities for veterans like Combat Stress, and we see in Picard’s dream the of the attack on Mars – indicating that Picard most likely suffers from PTSD.  

“If you had Data's neural net, perfecting a flesh-and-blood host body would be relatively simple.”

Another more technical is the ban on creating synthetic life forms – with Data the discussion of artificially created life has always been a part of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but with our own humanoid robots becoming more and more sophisticated the issue is more relevant than ever.

I’m sure there is more, but it’s too early for me to go into a deep analysis of the show after just one episode.

I just know that Star Trek Picard is the first Star Trek in a while that feels like coming home.

[aion-rsa]

Star Trek Discovery Season 4: What to Expect

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Yes, we’re already looking forward to Star Trek: Discovery Season 4. Season 3 saw the show go where no Star Trek has gone before – literally. Flung almost a thousand years into the future after saving all sentient life as we know it, Michael Burnham and her crewmates had to navigate a new and alien reality that bore little resemblance to the one they left behind.

Yet, the decision to send Discovery to the future is possibly the best decision the series has ever made, giving the show a much-needed narrative reset that cut ties to things like Klingon wars and The Original Series legacy characters and sends it off to blaze its own path, unencumbered by the strings of existing canon. But now that Discovery is firmly established in the 32nd century, what can we expect from Star Trek: Discovery‘s upcoming Season 4? We have a few educated guesses…

Michael Burnham Finds Her Feet as Captain

Despite her colorful history as an officer – replete with mutiny, insubordination, and general recklessness – it’s been obvious for a long time that Michael Burnham was destined for the Discovery captain’s chair. The only question was a matter of when. But now that she’s there – what kind of captain will she be?

She could very easily turn out to be one of the Starfleet greats. Despite her flaws, Michael has proven time again that she is smart, capable, and brave. A risk-taker who always comes through in the clutch, she has saved her crew more times than most of us can count and she is a shining example of someone who absolutely believes in the mission of the Federation and the good it can do.

But she’s also often rash and impulsive, and just a few short episodes ago wasn’t even all that certain that she belonged in Starfleet anymore. Granted, many successful male Starfleet captains (cough cough James Kirk cough) are remembered as great precisely because they weren’t huge fans of following the rules, either, so there’s certainly precedent that generally refusing to play things safe is a workable leadership strategy.

Yet, Michael has always found her greatest success as a character when she has an authority figure or structure that is set in opposition to her, so it will be interesting to see how she evolves now that she is the authority she once pushed back against.

What’s Next for Saru?

At the conclusion of “That Hope Is You, Part 2,” Saru took a leave of absence from the Starfleet to go with the young Kelpian refugee Su’Kal back to their home planet of Kaminar. What’s next for him is unclear, but there’s no way Discovery’s planning on writing off this character completely – or losing the talents of actor Doug Jones.

So what’s next for Saru? If he does return to the Discovery, what role can he fulfill now that he’s no longer captain? Does his future lie in the Federation hierarchy somehow, possibly working for Admiral Vance or serving as some sort of ambassador to his people?

A third option could involve Saru taking on an entirely different kind of mission, one that looks a lot like fatherhood of a sort. Ever since his arrival in the 32nd century, Saru has longed to reconnect with his people. Perhaps showing young Su’Kal the stars he’s missed out on all his life is something that might allow him to do just that on a smaller, more intimate scale. (And indulge his dorky dad vibes at the same time.)

Gray Will Return Somehow

During Adira’s trip to the dilithium planet to ferry medicine to Saru and Culber, we learned that the holodeck program on the abandoned Kelpian ship could extrapolate Gray’s consciousness and give him a holographic form. This allowed him to be seen by the other Discovery crew members present, which means that the technology clearly exists which can bring Gray back to life again. Sort of, anyway.

 Because, of course, Gray is technically dead and his consciousness only exists as part of the Tal symbiont inside of Adira, which raises many questions this subplot will eventually have to answer, including how much agency and sentience post-Burn holograms even have to begin with. (Eli the Federation lie detector hologram certainly seems independent enough.)

Culber has promised both Adira and Gray that he will find a way for him to be seen again. But what that will ultimately look like, we don’t yet know. There is precedent for the idea that one part of a Trill’s symbiont memories can live outside it, but does that mean Gray will become a hologram himself permanently? Or can his consciousness be housed in something that has a more physical form?

What’s Book’s Actual Job Now Anyway?

Now that Cleveland Book – and we’re still waiting for the story behind that name, btw – is officially a part of the Discovery crew, it’s time for the series to define his role in this universe beyond his relationship with Michael. Is he technically part of Starfleet now? Is he an officer on Discovery? Does Grudge get a tiny decorated insignia collar? (Please say yes!)

Much of Book’s role in Season 3 was to support Michael in one way or another, whether that meant to literally help introduce her to the new rules of the 32nd century or to provide emotional and tactical help when needed. And don’t get me wrong, Book and Michael have somehow managed to form one of the most functional, normal relationships in Star Trek history. They’re honestly great together. But David Ajala is a tremendously appealing actor and if he’s going to stick around – which I think we’re all in agreement he should – Book needs a meaningful story of his own.

Tilly’s Promotion

Following Michael’s promotion to the Captain’s chair, it certainly looks like Tilly is getting some sort of command-level promotion in Season 4.

Technically she was still an Ensign when serving as Saru’s Acting First Officer, and while she conducted herself admirably during, well, everything, if she’s going to be Michael’s legitimate First Officer – which that last scene would definitely seem to indicate – she deserves to at least become a lieutenant.

Stamets and Michael Will Have to Work Out Their Issues

One of the lingering unresolved plotlines from Season 3 is the massive rift that formed between Paul Stamets and Michael following her decision to physically jettison him from Discovery while it was under Osyraa’s control. To be fair, her choice was completely the correct one, as he was the only one capable of operating the spore drive, and removing him from the equation meant that the Emerald Chain couldn’t just jump back to the Verubin Nebula and all its dilithium.

But, Stamets basically took that decision to mean that Michael was fine with condemning his family to horrific radiation deaths, and that’s going to be a hard thing for him to get over. If you notice, he’s the only person who doesn’t exactly look thrilled at Captain Burnham’s promotion, and we don’t see the two interact again once the ship is reclaimed.

There’s also the question of the spore drive itself. Stamets has tied his own identity – and his worth as part of the Discovery team – pretty tightly to his ability to communicate with the Mycelial network. Now that Book can do the same thing, how will this change things for him?

We’ll Probably See More Episodic Storytelling

Solving the mystery of The Burn and battling the villainous Emerald Chain were both season-long arcs that helped establish Discovery’s place in the future, and allowed Discovery the show to set up the new rules and players of its universe. But now that both those tasks have been accomplished, don’t be surprised if we see a shift toward more episodic storytelling in Season 4.

After all, with a fresh new supply of dilithium to distribute and the entire future to explore, isn’t it time we spent some time seeing what the 32nd century looks like? Some of the most entertaining moments of this season came when Michael and the rest of the Discovery crew found themselves on new planets or adjusting to changed cultures (including their own). Since Discovery purposefully removed itself from all known Star Trek canon, isn’t it time the show got about really establishing some new ones? The revelation that Vulcan and Romulan reunification has indeed happened feels like it should be just the beginning of the surprises this universe has in store for us. What has happened to other species such as Klingons or the Borg? Wouldn’t it be fun to find out?

The Grudge Content We Deserve

One of the few things Discovery fans of all stripes can agree on: Grudge is amazing. And we deserve to see more of her. Whether that means all our initial speculation turns out to be true and she’s actually the secret god of a planet full of telepathic felines we’ve yet to visit or just that she gets her own bridge-safe cat basket so she can hang out with Book and Michael next season, just give the people what they want.

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Can we at least find out how she and Book ended up together? Throw me a bone – or I guess a cat treat – here, show. (Truly, if we don’t at least get a Short Treks episode about Grudge what are we even doing here?)

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