#anyway follow me on pillowfort if you want to see pictures of any of these future shirts if/when i take some

[technoxenoholic]

shirt pattern update: all the tough parts (sleeve cap, armscye, shoulder area in general) are how i want them to be! now it's just a matter of figuring out where i want to put all the various body/sleeve style lines and how much (if any) to curve them, which just requires putting the mockup back on and pinning/drawing the lines out, then transferring those all onto my pattern.

and, if i figure out a way to hack the hip section (because the pattern i started out with isn't actually long enough to fit the hip area lol oops) then i won't even need to make another mockup before i can start making fitted knit shirts and dresses with infinite variations that all actually fit me properly >:)

next steps: a slightly less fitted version for sweaters, and a slightly more fitted version for ultra-stretchy knits (like swimsuit material)

[duhragonball]

Hey, im just wondering, do you have any other socials we can follow you on? I'v heard some forboding things about Tumblr staff layoff spelling the end of this site

You can find me on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/duhragonball

That's it, other than my AO3 account, which isn't much of a social media platform, and my decades-old livejournal, which I haven't touched in years.

I misread your message and thought you were referring to something ending Twitter, and I was all set to talk about how people have been predicting the downfall of Twitter for over a year now. I believe it will probably meet a bad end, and sooner rather than later, but the way the userbase talks Twitter already shut down six or seven times already. It still basically works when I use it. It's gotten shittier, but it was pretty shitty when I joined. It amazes me that people are nostalgic for the days when Jack Dorsey was running things.

Anyway, you said Tumblr, and I don't know anything about that site's woes. I will say that I only got active on Twitter because there was a nonzero chance of Tumblr imploding after the 2018 pr0n ban. There's still a nonzero chance, but 2018 was five years ago, and we're all still here. I'm not holding my breath.

Let me ask the question, since it's been a while since I brought it up: What's the move now with social media? Is Blue Sky any good? I could probably bum an invite from someone since lots of Twitter folks are giving them away, but I don't want to fool around with setting up a new thing and then never use it.

Same thing with Pillowfort. I was curious about it when it was announced, but I'm like the opposite of an early-adopter. I like to wait a while and see if things will stick. And there doesn't seem to be much news coming out of it. I don't know if that's a good thing or not.

I have no interest in the Facebook/Meta/Instagram mess. YouTube and Tik-tok are non-starters, since I'd have to waste a bunch of time producing videos. What else is there?

I have a discord, but I really need to sort out how I use it. A few years ago I had envisioned making a server and inviting people to join it, but I'm not sure I have the motivation for something like that anymore.

These days, I've got half a mind to just run a shitty personal website, like the one I had in 1996. Back then, you only had 10 megabytes of space to work with, and it would take all damn day to put a picture of the Emperor from Star Wars on it and get it to display correctly. But at least I knew it'd be there the next day. Wait, no I didn't.

Anyway, the internet's always been an ephemeral beast. I won't say it hasn't changed, but I can't claim it was better in the Olde Days either. I saw someone complain recently that all you can do with it now is watch videos and shop, and back in the 90's you couldn't really do either of those things easily, so you'd just read text pieces with funny pictures, and maybe download a .wav file of the Incredible Hulk theme song.

But I'm getting off track. I'm on twitter. And here, and that's about it. I'm open to suggestions.

[tussive]

Some thoughts on various other social media/microblogging websites.

"Pillowfort.social is a new blogging platform where fans and creators alike can share their work, create a community of their own, and do so in a positive and safe environment. Pillowfort aims to be a sort of hybrid of your favorite blogging websites-- keeping the strengths of these platforms while compensating for their shortcomings." Dumb. Terrible name, hate it. Also it just looks like Tumblr so it seems like just another Tumblr clone, but they allow porn.

"We are a free and open-source platform to launch your digital brand, social network and mobile app. We are also a social network ourselves. It is a global social network of social networks. Available in either decentralized or centralized options."

So it's a social media network where you start your own social media network? Shut the fuck up.

"Image enthusiasts united. Discover, repost, contribute and share images stupid simple. Looking for an Tumblr & Reddit alternative, maybe for NSFW content , Thumbtable has you covered."

So like, okay I get that like if you sell NWS content, the Tumblr ban affected you financially and that's not very cool. My issue with the dozens of Tumblr-esque sites, but they allow porn, is that none of them have any users. So who are you selling your content to? Wouldn't it be better to just go on Twitter, where there are more users than Tumblr anyway?

"monocles social is based on mastodon. A privacy friendly social network."

I want every person registered for this site to die.

"Authpad is a frictionless approach to blogging."

Are people like, having issues with blogging that I'm not? Because I feel like this is pretty easy.

"The Dayum is first all in one website on the internet. See the most viral videos, read breaking news, and connect with friends and people around the world!"

So it's like Facebook but for people who are even less connected with the world? That's cool I guess. Stupid name though.

"Known is a simple platform for publishing words, pictures, podcasts and more to a site that you control. Choose to share it on social networks like Twitter and Facebook, or extend it to integrate with the software you already use."

Why does every site act like Facebook or Twitter integration is this desirable feature? If I want to post something to Facebook or Twitter, I'll just post it there. I do in fact post a lot of my text posts to Twitter and Bluesky and sometimes post images to Instagram. It's just easier to do it manually, I don't need every website to be attached to every other account I own. It's fine.

"Squabbles is a new social platform which combines elements of Reddit and Twitter. It takes the best of both worlds where you can both follow the people you love, and have great, in-depth conversations with them and others."

This one made me laugh because like, Reddit and Twitter are pretty much the two worst websites on the planet. And this one is the best of BOTH worlds? Holy shit. Even the name sounds like bickering with people you hate on the internet. "We're Squabbling!"

"a decent(ralised) secure gossip platform sea-slang for gossip - a scuttlebutt is basically a watercooler on a ship." This just makes me miss Yik Yak. I mean, I know they brought it back, but it's not fun anymore. I used to troll Yik Yak so hard. Everyone on there was just a fucking idiot, it was awesome.

Y'know, the other thing about Tumblr clones is somehow they all are worse than Tumblr. Tumblr is the most broken website I've ever used and somehow every clone of it has less features and works worse. How is that even possible? Maybe you just can't make a functional webslte like Tumblr. It's just not possible.

"A stream server that does most of what people really want from a social network."

Whoa.

"We like to think Plurk as a social network for weirdos - the cool, uncompromising and loving community for misfits we all long to have." Lamest userbase on this list, for sure.

"Social sharing blogging friends network - Whaleshares offer its users the opportunity to earn cryptocurrency rewards for posting and sharing content that interests them and that others find value in."

I'm pretty sure nothing I've ever said in my life has any monetary value. So I guess earning cryptocurrency for saying it is actually pretty fitting.

"Whispurr is a new interactive way to stay in touch with people. We all have something to say to those that matter."

Unrelated really, but this reminds me of the app Whisper. Apparently like in cities people use Whisper to meet up and have sex and buy drugs? I mean, I guess people use every app for that so it's not that odd, but Whisper? I don't know. I never got into Whisper tbh. Probably because I live in the middle of nowhere so there's no local posts.

"The new generation social networking client for people who value their time and are tired of information noise. Requires Adobe Air."

Okay I'm sorry but

This is the most cluttered UI I've ever seen on a social network website. Fuck off.

"Member.cash is a micro-blogging platform that uses the BCH blockchain for storing posts. Posts are impossible to delete and since member.cash uses an open protocol (memo), other websites can show the same posts."

Interesting. Posts you can't delete. That seems like a feature people would want.

I don't know dude. A lot of the newer social media sites seem like they're probably based on interesting technology, I just. It's all like decentralized and self-hosted and it's not actually a website it just saves your blog to your Dropbox and everyone is their own social media site and like it all just sounds fucking retarded to me.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure that this post was entertaining or funny to begin with, but it's certainly not after it's gone on for this long. My bad.

[nerdypanda3126]

congrant on 100 followers! can i have 23 + ladrien? *chanting* pillowfort ladrien pillowfort ladrien pillowfort ladr

23. “Let’s make a pillow fort. It’ll be great.” 

Ladrien! Ladrien! I’m so happy someone requested Ladrien! ^^ Hope you like it Poppy! 

Pillow Fort Comfort

Read on Ao3

Adrien sighed as he fell into his desk chair. What a day. He’d sent the video to his friends to thank them for their kind thoughts. He’d apologized to Plagg and the kwami had subsequently locked himself in his cheese cabinet. His father was in his study, as per usual. Everything was back to normal.

He laid his cheek on the desk and wiggled his mouse to dispel his screensaver so he could see the picture of his mom on his desktop. Normal. Or at least what had been normal for the past year. He sat back up to look over the picture, trying to find the similarities between him and his mom. Ladybug had told him once that he had his mom’s eyes. He touched his fingertips to the screen.

The fact that his friends had wanted to cheer him up was a small pinprick of light in the day. And the akuma battle and getting to see Ladybug was at least a distraction. Still. He wished he could’ve seen the messages they had tried sending.

He sighed and let his fingers slide down the screen. Missing. It was worse somehow than if she had died. There was always the lingering hope that maybe someday. Someday she’d miraculously return. He knew his father still held onto that hope. It was hard not to. They couldn’t even have a proper funeral; his father had put up the statue in the garden and said they mustn’t forget her. In a way, he was jealous of Félix. At least he knew for sure his father was gone.

Now that he was alone, he laid his forehead on the cool metal of his desk and let the tears he’d been holding start to seep down his cheeks.

There was a soft knock on his window. His ears perked at the sound, but he didn’t think it would be what he hoped it was. It was probably just a stray pigeon tapping against the glass. But when the knock was repeated, louder and more insistent, he raised his eyes to look.

Ladybug was hanging from her yoyo secured somewhere on the roof. She waved when she caught his eye. He scrambled off his desk chair to the window he always kept open. She swung over easily and perched on the ledge.

“Ladybug? What are you doing here? Is there an akuma?”

“Well, no…” she started cautiously, “but your friends… um, they asked me to check on you. In case.”

Her eyes scanned over his face and she reached out to touch a gloved hand to his cheek, but she pulled away at the last second, blushing shyly.

He touched his own fingers to his cheek and they came away wet. He wiped his tears away with the heel of his hand hurriedly. That seemed to settle her resolve and she stepped down from the ledge to be next to him.

“That boy today that looked like you. He was your cousin?” she asked after a pause.

“Félix. Yeah.” Adrien grimaced.

She nodded thoughtfully. “It’s awful, what he did. Your friends told me about their videos.”

He couldn’t agree with her that it was awful. Félix was grieving. It wasn’t his fault he was acting out. “I would’ve really liked to see them,” he said instead. “Especially Marinette’s.”

Her eyes went as wide as dinner plates. “M-Marinette’s? Why?”

He waved her over to sit on the couch instead of standing by the window, but she seemed embarrassed for some reason. He sat anyway. “She always seems a bit uncomfortable around me. But she’s the nicest person I know. I’m sure whatever she said would’ve been amazing.”

For some reason, Ladybug blushed a deep crimson. She stepped into his room and started looking around curiously, but it seemed like it was a distraction of some sort. A way to turn away from him to get her bearings back.

“This place is huge,” she said with a touch of wonder. “I bet you could make the best pillow forts with all this space.”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve—I mean, I’ve never really tried.”

“You’ve never…?” She turned back to look at him incredulously.

Another shrug and he looked away. He didn’t really want to explain that Chloé had been his closest childhood friend and she’d been more interested in playing house or dress up at the hotel.

A pillow hit the side of his head and slumped to his side. Ladybug was grinning by his bed, having lobbed one of his pillows at him like a softball. He hadn’t even heard her move.

“Let’s make a pillow fort! It’ll be great.”

“I don’t… I mean… don’t you have superhero things to do?” He blushed as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Ladybug was in his room offering to spend time with him and he was trying to shoo her out the window?

She waved her hand at him dismissively, but she was still smiling. “Pillow fort first, superhero things later. Now. We need materials.” She scanned his room like she would for her Lucky Charm, her eyes flicking from point to point before they settled on him again. “Couch cushions.” She pointed and he stood to follow her direction.

“Um... are those the only pillows and blankets you have? On your bed?” Underneath her authority there was a shy hesitance to her question.

“I’m sure I have some more stashed away somewhere around here.”

“Do you mind if I look?”

His eyes were on his task as he disassembled the couch, but he hummed his assent. He heard her opening cabinets and bolted upright, remembering at the last second to tell her that there was one she shouldn’t-

And that was the one she was holding open. Plagg’s cheese cabinet. He could almost picture Plagg’s sheepish grin as he was discovered. Ladybug’s bluebell eyes met Adrien’s, shocked.

He froze in place and held his breath as he waited. Maybe Plagg had had enough sense to phase into the cabinet. Maybe she just thought he was a cheese hoarder. He winced. That wasn’t much better.

Whether she had or hadn’t found a little black cat kwami gorging himself on smelly cheese, she shut the cabinet doors resolutely and sat back on her heels. She opened her mouth once, then closed it again. She bit the inside of her cheek as she thought and her nose wrinkled adorably. When her eyes met his again, they were cautious—hesitant, even.

“Adrien?”

He swallowed thickly. “Yes?”

She let her breath out as she seemed to come to a conclusion or a decision, he couldn’t tell which.

“I can’t find any other blankets.”

“That’s okay.” He let out a nervous chuckle and started putting the couch cushions back. “It’s not a big deal.”

She huffed and stood. “I said we’re making a pillow fort. We’re making a pillow fort.” She tapped her foot impatiently as she looked around again.

“Hang on. I’ve got it.” She ran over to the window and paused as she pulled her yoyo off her hip. “I’ll be back, okay?”

He couldn’t help the dreamy grin that spread across his face as he nodded. Her answering blush pinked her cheeks before she slung her yoyo out the window and was gone.

***

She came back about an hour later. He had started practicing his piano, more out of force of habit and to dispel his nervous energy than anything else. He heard her light step as she came in, but kept playing to try to focus. Did she know? Did she suspect? She’d at least seen the pile of cheese, right? Ladybug was smart; that might be enough for her to connect the dots. He missed a few notes while he was preoccupied and stopped abruptly.

Ladybug had crept up to the piano to watch. When he turned to face her, she blushed as red as her suit.

“That was really pretty, what you were playing?”

“Thanks.” His hand found the nape of his neck and he rubbed at it self-consciously. “It was my mom’s favorite.”

She didn’t answer, but she offered him her hand. “I have a surprise for you.”

He accepted her hand and stood up. She blushed before she tugged him over to the window and then he was pressed close to her side. His hand fell around her waist on instinct as she slung her yoyo and zipped away.

She dropped to what seemed like a random rooftop and led the way over to an alcove that was hidden by one blanket draped across the entrance and another over the top. She pulled the blanket aside and showed him the mound of pillows waiting to be jumped into. She had also strung colored lights inside, which cast a warm glow over everything. He ducked under her arm to sit down and she followed, dropping the blanket behind her and cutting out the world.

She was painfully close when she sat, and he couldn’t tell if it was just a really warm night or if he’d started blushing. She reached around him and pulled out a thermos she’d set aside and two mugs.

“It’s more fun to make them together,” she explained quietly, “but I had to get some of this stuff… well… you know. Secret identity and all that.” She handed him a steaming mug of what smelled like hot chocolate. He glanced around again. The lights he recognized from Marinette’s balcony, and the cat pillow they were leaning back against was hers, too.

With a sideways glance at Ladybug, he decided not to ruin her surprise. It was maybe a conversation for another time.

He sipped his hot chocolate carefully. She leaned back into the pillow and tapped at her yoyo screen until quiet music filled their little space.

“I thought to get a projector up here, and we could watch a movie, but I didn’t want to keep you waiting too long.”

He held the mug between his hands and Marinette’s warmth was emanating from it. The entire space smelled like her, like the bakery, like warm sugar. He smiled even as tears started to slip down his cheeks again. “Next time, maybe.” He sniffed and wiped his eyes with his thumbs. “Thank you, Ladybug. This is... “ he looked around, smiling like an idiot. “This is amazing.”

[mamashitty]

From the dialog prompts, number 57: “Out of all the things you could have said, and you went with that.” 😊 - Wrathofthestag

Title: Prompt Fills and Drabbles for OMGCP!Fandom: Check, Please!Chapter 3: “Out of all the things you could have said, you went with that.”Word Count: 2,378Ship: ZimbitsFind it on my AO3 & pillowfort!Blurb: Jack tells his Mom that he is dating Bittle. The only problem is—they are not dating. Luckily, Bittle decides to help his bumbling captain out.

Jack could do this. He had to do this. He had no choice in the matter. Jack hesitated a moment before bringing his hand up to knock gently on Bittle’s bedroom door. His knock sounded too loud in the strangely quiet Haus. Everyone was still out with their parents and other family members who came in for family weekend. He knew that Bittle’s parents were unable to make it up for the weekend, but that they had promised to come up later on in the year. There was some movement on the other side of the door and finally, it opened.

Standing in front of him and looking adorably sleep rumpled was Eric Bittle. Jack had to fight the sudden impulse to reach over and smooth down Bittle’s cowlick. Bittle rubbed his eyes and fought back a yawn.

Standing in front of him and looking adorably sleep rumpled was Eric Bittle. Jack had to fight the sudden impulse to reach over and smooth down Bittle’s cowlick. Bittle rubbed his eyes and fought back a yawn.

“Sorry, did I wake you?” Jack asked, suddenly feeling more guilty.

“No, no. I was studying,” Bittle replied and Jack must have looked at him with unmasked disbelief because Bittle huffed before adding, “fine, fine. I may have fallen asleep while studying. Didja need anything? Where are your parents? Oh, is everything okay?” Jack watched in mild amusement as Bittle woke up more fully before his own eyes, and his questions began to tumble out of his mouth quicker and quicker.

“Everything is fine, Bittle. Euh, Maman went back to the hotel. Euh… maybe everything is not fine? Can we talk?” Jack asked and he found himself rubbing the back of his neck as he waited for Bittle to answer.

Bittle nodded and stepped aside, leaving his door open. Jack followed him into the room. It was not the first time that he had been in Bittle’s room but it was still a little jarring to see how different it looked now that Bittle lived in this space and not Johnson. Jack preferred the way that Bittle decorated the space, it felt more lived in and homey. Comfortable and warm. Bittle was perched on the edge of his bed, looking a little apprehensive. Jack wanted to put him at ease but he could feel his own heart rate ticking up a notch.

“Jack…” Bittle prompted and Jack realized he needed to say something.

“I was talking to Maman at Annie’s and we got to talking about the team,” Jack began, and Bittle still sat on the edge of his bed, watching Jack quietly. Jack decided to start pacing around the room. “And euh, she noticed that I was talking about you a lot. She thought it was cute that I knew your coffee order because she got the same drink you always get this time of year, the overly sweet one?” Jack realized he was rambling. Usually, if he was with Bittle and someone was rambling it was the Georgian and not the Canadian. Jack stopped his pacing and huffed out a sigh.

“She kept asking questions and hinting and euh. I… euh I might have confirmed for her that you were my boyfriend?” Jack spat out the last bit in a rush, hoping that maybe Bittle would not latch onto it. Bittle stared at him with an expression that Jack could not read.

“You what?” Bittle asked and Jack could feel that his cheeks had turned red.

“She just.. she said that.. it seems you and I spend a lot of time together? And I euh just said it was because we were boyfriends.” Jack wondered if the floor could swallow him up whole. Or just drop him down into the floor below and maybe even further into the basement.

“Out of all the things you could have said, and you went with that,” Bittle stated and Jack nodded his head in misery. He was still having a difficult time reading the expression on Bittle’s face. To be fair, he was not really looking too hard at the other man. He was trying to avoid direct eye contact with those big brown eyes. The thing was that Jack had almost blurted out to his mother that he wanted Bittle to be his boyfriend but he had caught himself in time and only dropped the wanted and replaced it with an ‘is’. And his Maman, oh she had looked so happy. Too happy and Jack had not had the heart to tell her that he had not meant that, that he had said an awful joke, or confess a crush to his.

“You could have said the truth, that we are just friends and teammates. Classmates too,” Bittle said, and there was a hardness to his voice that Jack realized he had never heard before. He realized then he never wanted to hear that tone again.

“Bits—Bitty—Bittle—Eric,” Jack began and stopped and began again, not knowing exactly what to call Bittle for once. He took a steadying breath, “I am sorry. I don’t know why I said that.” A little white lie. A fib, really. He knew why but if he was not ready to admit that he knew. “I… euh I have dinner plans with her tonight after the game. Euh… I’ll tell her the truth then. She just looked so excited and happy for me,” Jack explained and he noticed Bittle seemed to have softened his expression some.

“Jack, d’ya want me to pretend to be your boyfriend until she leaves to go home? Maybe telling her the truth will be easier over the phone when she is in an entirely different country than you?”

“Bittle… you… are you serious?” Jack knew he should be saying that no Bittle absolutely did not have to pretend to be his boyfriend. He knew that was crossing some lines. He also knew that pretending would in no way help his little crush at all. “You don’t have to, you shouldn’t, I should be able to tell my Maman the truth…”

“Jack, I will do this. But you will owe me,” Bittle said and he glanced at his phone.

“You are taking your nap soon, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Jack also nodded his head, he felt something like a bobble-head.

“Okay, we should hash out some details before your nap. How long have we been dating? When did we start? Lord, we have so much to discuss. Your nap might have to be a shorter one than usual,” and Bittle gave Jack a look that meant he would not be able to argue that point. And Jack would not. He tried to ignore the way his heart thudded in his chest and that happy, warm feeling, in the pit of his stomach.

What he and Bittle were about to do would all be an act but dammit Jack was still happy. Almost as happy as if it were real.

—

So, when did you two become more than just friends?”

Jack could feel his cheeks turning red as he glanced at his mother from across the table. She had insisted that he and Bittle sit on the same side of the booth, and even encouraged them to squeeze close together so that she could send a picture to Papa. Jack had thrown his arm around Bittle’s shoulder and had tried hard not to focus too strongly on how nice Bittle’s hair smelled and how nice Bittle felt pressed close to his side. “Maman…” Jack said, not bothering to mask the exasperation in his voice that only his beloved parents could bring out in him.

“Oh, hon. Let your Mom be curious,” Bittle replied with ease. He leaned forward in the booth, pulling away the warmth of his body being so close to Jack’s. Because even if the picture had been snapped more than ten minutes ago (not that Jack was keeping track of time or anything) he had not inched any further away from Bittle and neither had Bittle.

“You have heard about the checking practices we have?” Bittle asked, with a brow of his raised quizzically. Jack wondered, briefly, if Bittle was trying to kill him. He also wondered how a raised eyebrow could be so… so attractive?

“Yes, Jack mentions those checking practices, once or twice a phone conversation,” Maman laughed, and Bittle joined in. Jack outright pouted at that.

“He neede—… “ before Jack could petulantly mutter any further, though, Bittle looked back at him with an expression of pure fondness and Jack found himself unable to say anything else. He shut right up.

“Jack has been a great help, and a great Captain even if he does wake me up at ungodly hours. Anyway,” Bitty continued, turning his gaze back towards Alicia. “Last week during a checking practice, your son had me against the glass and for one wild moment, I thought he was going to kiss me.”

Suddenly Jack found it difficult to breathe and he was certain that he had begun to blush once more. He hoped the poor lighting of the booth hid how red his face was. He remembered that checking practice last week because he had been so close to kissing Bitty then. There had been something about the way Bitty had look, face all flushed. Their practice was coming to an end and Jack had realized how happy he was and how most of that happiness came from just being around Bitty—and he had maybe only realized then just how big his crush had gotten. He remembered thinking that Btty’s pupils looked blown out and then Jack had pushed away from him, coughed, and—…

“But, he pushed away and gruffly invited me to Annie’s for a coffee instead,” Bitty said, with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. Jack looked over at his mother and realized that she was actually pouting about the story. Jack was also pretty positive that his face would never stop being so warm and red.

And everything Bittle said had been true. He had invited Eric to Annie’s after practice, something that they usually did. Bitty needed more coffee by that point in the day and Jack just wanted to extend whatever time they had together in the mornings. It was their special time when they were not surrounded by a bunch of their teammates or hausmates. Jack treasured those quiet moments together. Moments mostly filled with Bitty’s idle chatter—which was interesting to Jack—but lately, Jack had been filling in the quiet moments with his own talk. It always made him feel so warm and secure, being with Bitty.

“… And it was just as we were leaving Annie’s that Jack blurted out he liked me and wanted to know if I would go to dinner with him.” Bitty finished, and he laughed. A kind laugh that made Jack’s insides warm. His mouth felt dry, though because he really wished he had asked Bitty out. He was beginning to wonder if Bitty would have actually said yes. Jack noticed his Maman just giving him a look and Jack ducked down to look at his food, when had their food arrived?

Talk moved away from the topic of his and Bits’ fake relationship. Jack realized as he sat with his Maman and Bittle that he was really enjoying himself. That he wished all of this was real. He was still very aware of how close he and Bitty were seated on the bench, their arms constantly bumping into each other as they ate, and at some point either he or Bits had pressed their legs together underneath the table and neither one had moved away.

—

“Thank you so much for dinner, Mrs. Zimmermann,” Bitty was saying as he hugged Jack’s mother one more time.

“Oh, please call me Alicia.”

Jack heard Bitty make a noise at that and he could not help the grin that crossed his face. Soon, he was hugging his Maman tightly, and he heard her whisper just for him. “You two are so sweet together, Jack.” Then she pulled away after pressing a kiss to his cheek. “I am going to get out of your hair for the evening boys. You two have a nice night,” and then she winked at the two of them.

“Maman!” Jack groaned, then somehow all at once he startled and relaxed as Bitty looped his arm through Jack’s, and they waved goodbye to Alicia as she climbed into the car she was renting for the weekend.

The Haus was not too far of a walk and so Bitty and Jack began to walk home. He hoped that Bitty would not remove his arm as a weighted silence fell between the two of them as they walked. It was dark and no one else was around them on the street, and Jack could feel his heart thudding harder in his chest than their walking speed should warrant.

“Jack”

“Bits”

They had both spoken at the same time. Bittle stopped in his tracks and turned his body to face Jack and that forced Jack to finally let go of Bitty’s arm, and he kind of hated it. Bittle was staring at him intently in the dark.

“What is it, Jack?” Bittle asked, his voice quiet but Jack felt there was an edge to the quiet.

“That story you told my Maman about checking practice…” Jack began and then stopped himself. Bittle kept on looking at him with that intense look in his eyes. Waiting, Jack knew, on him to just say it. Jack licked his own lips before continuing after what felt like too long. “I wanted to kiss you that morning. You looked so beautiful…”

“Jack, if you don’t kiss me right now, Lord, I don’t know what I will,” Bitty said, his voice sounding strangled to Jack and Jack? He did not need to be told more than once what to do. He cupped Bitty’s face with his hand and then kissed him, soft and gentle. Bits was the one who deepened it. He did not know how long they stood there, in the dark and deserted street sharing kisses, but Jack pulled away first, reluctantly.

“We should get back to the Haus,” he said.

“You are probably right, Mister,” Bitty said, his voice breathless and Jack’s lips turned up into a smile as Bits took his hand for the walk back to the Haus.

[hermannsthumb]

75, but kinda like a secuel to your fic for 3?

halloween is over which means it’s officially that time of year where i watch a bunch of shitty hallmark movies as background noise and imagine newt and hermann in all the romantic scenarios instead........AND revisit all my leftover winter ficlet prompts from last year! the op of the original prompt list has since moved to pillowfort so i’ll link the list from there instead. this one is a sequel to one i wrote last year (one of my favorites of my own imo) w/ cool uncle hermann and hot single middleschool science teacher newt found here

75. our first date is spent walking around our small town holding hands and talking as soft snow falls around us 

from winter writing prompts here

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

It gets dark before long, and--following a quick text from Karla informing Hermann she’s finished her errands and is on her way to pick the three of them up--Hermann decides he ought to round up her kids. The string lights hung around the ice rink have flickered to life, and between them, the haze of the falling snow, and the fresh piles of it gathering atop the nearby pine trees, it makes for a strangely pretty picture.

The snow flecking Dr. Geiszler’s eyelashes makes for a pretty picture, too.

“I’ll get them,” he says, when Hermann stretches his stuff limbs with a groan and prepares to trek back across the snow. He stills Hermann with a hand to his arm. He’s still wearing the silly mittens. “No offense, dude, but they’ll definitely listen to me more than you.” He waggles his eyebrows and gestures to himself with his thumb. “Teacher.”

Hermann nods and sags back against the railing. He wasn’t fancying the idea of shaking life back into his frozen joints and shouting himself hoarse anyway. “Thank you, Dr. Geiszler.”’

“Newt,” Geiszler corrects with a wink. “You wanna hang back with me so we can get that coffee? My apartment’s only a few minutes away, I can give you a ride to your sister’s afterwards.”

“Oh,” Hermann says. “Yes, if you wouldn’t mind.” Truthfully, he hadn’t expected Geiszler to make good on his invitation. Hermann isn’t the sort who gets asked out on spur-of-the-moment dates, especially not by cute, scruffy strangers; it seemed too good to be true.

“Be a second,” Geiszler says, and then cups his hands around his mouth and bellows, “Hey, guys, over here in five minutes or you’re on lab clean-up duty for all of January!”

This gets their attention. Fast. After a minor setback involving a missing hat (found, as it were, in a snowbank on the other side of the railing), they’re ready to go with time to spare when Karla’s car pulls up at the curb. She rolls down the passenger window while her children (pushing aside shopping bags and flinging in wet coats) clamber into the backseat, and waves at Hermann. “Did you have fun?” she says.

“Oh, loads of it,” Hermann says, sarcastically. Karla grants him a small, amused smile. (You’d be hard-pressed to get much more out of a Gottlieb, really. Hermann often envies her children for how easily mirth comes to them.)

“Well, your torture is over at last,” Karla says. “Get in. I got Indian takeaway for dinner.”

Behind Hermann, Geiszler coughs, and Hermann flushes. He hadn’t forgotten Geiszler--not by any means--but he’s not quite sure how to explain I have a date to his sister in terms that don’t use the word date. Date carries an awful lot of baggage. “Ah, actually,” he says. His voice sounds falsely casual even to his own ears. “That won’t be--necessary. Dr. Geiszler has offered to take me home.”

“Hi,” Geiszler says.

Karla peers around Hermann and narrows her eyes. “You played the piano at the winter program,” she says.

“Sure did,” Geiszler says. “I organized the whole thing, too.”

“Dr. Geiszler is going on a date with Uncle Hermann,” Hermann’s niece informs her mother solemnly. 

“It’s coffee,” Hermann says quickly. “Only coffee.”

“Coffee and a ride back on my motorcycle,” Geiszler confirms.

Motorcycle? Karla nods slowly. “Of course.” The window rolls back up, but not before--like he’s still her kid brother, and she’s caught him sneaking out the back door at midnight to meet up with a boyfriend all over again--she calls out “Don’t stay out too late, Hermann!”

Her car peels away.

Geiszler sticks out his hand. Hermann takes it.

The coffee shop Geiszler takes him to is two blocks away on main street, kitschy and tacky as anything from the outside, and has, predictably, closed early by the time they get there. The sign in the window blames it on the inclement weather. Geiszler scuffs his unlaced boot against the snowy sidewalk and groans. “Well, fuck,” he says. “Sorry. I guess there’s always Starbucks. This place rocks, though, I wanted you to see it.”

Hermann gives his hand a consolatory squeeze. “Oh, I don’t need coffee, anyway,” he says. “The cup you bought me at the rink was just fine.”

“The cup I bought you at the rink tasted like shit,” Geiszler says.

“It was fine,” Hermann says.

“Dinner, then,” Geiszler says, peering up the street at whatever still has its lights on. Most of the businesses, Hermann realizes (from the Indian place Karla ordered from, the antique shop, the used bookstore) have closed early tonight. There’s a single diner, equally kitschy-looking, still lit up with neon. “Do you like…” He hums. “...Hamburgers?”

“Not particularly.”

“Neither do I,” Geiszler admits. “What about--”

“How about we just take a walk, Dr. Geiszler?” Hermann cuts across. “I’m really not that hungry, and it’s...a nice night.” It is, really: fluffy snow, and old-fashioned lamp posts, and not a car in sight. Geiszler’s rainbow flappy hat and lumpy mittens. 

“It’s Newt, dude. Newt,” Geiszler insists, but he links their arms together with a smile.

They make their way back down to the park that houses the skating rink--now also closed for the night--and start down a small, well-lit path. “So what’s the infamous Uncle Hermann doing in all the way over here?” Geiszler says. “The kids said you teach in England.” He nudges their shoulders together and grins. “You don’t exactly sound like a local, anyway.”

“Winter holiday,” Hermann says. “I’ve a month off of work, and nothing to do with myself, really, and I don’t see my sister all too often--well, she thought it’d be good for us if I came to stay. For me. What’s a scientist doing at a middleschool hosting winter programs?”

Geiszler laughs. “The arts are important, man!”

“But a middleschool--out of everything you could be doing--”

“I like it,” Geiszler says. “It’s--I don’t know. Fun. I like teaching kids. Like I’m shaping scientists of the future or whatever.” Hermann hums, skeptically, and Geiszler sticks his tongue out. “Okay, I know that was corny. Shut up.”

They loop the whole of the park, hand-in-hand, and talk about the most inconsequential things: the weather (the first snowfall Hermann’s witnessed this December), their research (Geiszler is astoundingly intelligent, with a comical amount of PhDs), Geiszler’s mittens (personally hand-knitted after all), how much longer Hermann is in town for (until mid-January), how Geiszler ended up at that middleschool in the first place (he moved to town to be near his father, and they were hiring for Earth Science and Music). Their footprints have entirely disappeared under fresh snow when they make it back to the ice rink. It’s far later than Hermann realized, too; the large clock hanging at the front booth reads a quarter past ten.

“I guess I should take you back to your sister’s,” Geiszler says. He points in the opposite direction of where they walked main street before. “I’m down that way. I--”

He doesn’t get to finish, because Hermann (feeling pleasant and bold) leans in and brushes a kiss against his cheek. It’s cold and scratchy with his stubble. “I would like to do this again,” Hermann says, while Geiszler blushes and gapes. His glasses have slid all the way down his nose. Hermann pushes them back up for him. “If you’re amenable.”

“Wow,” Geiszler says, giddily. “Sure. Okay. Hah!”

Then he steps directly onto a patch of ice and slips and falls on his face.

Luckily, he hits the snow, though he does lay there for some time and groan. It’s a bit dramatic. Hermann pokes the small of his back with his cane once he starts to get bored. “Are you alright, Newt?”

Geiszler groans again, though with a distinctly affirmative flair, and rolls over. “You called me Newt,” he says. He pushes his glasses back up again.

“I did,” Hermann says, with a very small smile. Then he shivers. The chilly air has gotten a lot more noticeable now that he’s standing still. “Now please get up and take me home before we both freeze to death.”

“Cool, okay.”

[beatrice-otter]

Fic: Anatomy of a Secret

Worldbuilding Reveals are finally here!  I had a lot of fun with this especially brainstorming with TexasDreamer01 and figuring out how Trill-and-its-secrets would be different in the AOS universe than it was in the Prime universe.  Texas was awesome and so much help, you guys. Title: Anatomy of a Secret Fandoms: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series Author: beatrice_otter Written For: shopfront  in Worldbuilding Exchange 2020 Brainstorming help and betaing: TexasDreamer01 Word Count: 11000 words Rating: Teen Summary: Old memories are stirred up when a group Trill scientists come the station, led by one Jadzia Dax. Though she claims to be the daughter of Benjamin's old friend, Curzon Dax, she is more than what she seems, and some secrets can't be kept forever.

On AO3.  On Dreamwidth.  On Pillowfort.

"You seem a bit more interested in this batch of scientists than you normally are," Nerys observed as she and Commander Sisko walked to the airlock where the Trill team's ship would be docking.

"Why do you say that?" he asked.

"Usually, you send me and Lieutenant Thothih to greet them. Or just Thothih, if it's a busy day."

"As science officer, Thothih is usually the best to get them settled, but he's on leave right now," Sisko pointed out.

"Which still doesn't mean you have to help with it, unless the research group is a bit more prestigious than you've told me."

Sisko sighed. "No. I'm just … curious. Curzon Dax was a very good friend of mine, and I miss him a great deal. He never mentioned a Jadzia Dax, and for all I know there's no relation. But, if there is, if she knew him … perhaps we can get together and reminisce about the old man."

"Was this Curzon a Starfleet officer?" she asked, as they turned the corner and arrived at the airlock the Trill team would be using.

"No, he was a diplomat," Sisko replied. "Not that he was necessarily very diplomatic, all the time. He was brash, loud, impulsive … and very charming. He was one of the Federation's main ambassadors to the Klingons, they always loved him, if that gives you a picture of him. Curzon taught me about science, about diplomacy, about how people think. He also taught me how to drink, how to handle myself in a bar fight—and how to keep things from turning into a bar fight—and how to talk to a woman I was interested in."

"Sounds like an interesting man," Nerys noted.

"That he was, Major," Sisko said.

Before they could say anything else, the airlock opened with a hiss. Three Trill stepped through, and Nerys was surprised at the order they did it in. A young woman, who was about 30 if Trill aging worked the same as Bajoran and Human, was in the lead. Behind her a middle-aged man and woman carried a crate of equipment. Obviously age did not bring seniority, for Trills, because the young woman had only a bag slung over her shoulder and a case in one hand.

"Commander Sisko!" she said brightly, stopping in front of him. "It's so good to finally meet you." She held out her hand, and Sisko shook it.

"You must be Doctor Dax," he said. "I take it you are related to Curzon, then?"

Her smile dimmed a little. "Call me Jadzia, please," Dax said. "And yes, Curzon was my father."

Sisko cocked his head in surprise. "He never mentioned he had a child. In fact, he told me once that he didn't have children."

"I know," Jadzia said. She turned to the other Trill. "These are my colleagues, Doctor Prohn and Lusin." She gestured at the man and the woman in turn.

"Hello," Nerys said. "I'm Major Kira, the station's first officer. I'll be your liaison until our science officer gets back from leave. Please let me know if you need anything—for example, if you'd like, we can beam any heavy equipment directly to the lab you'll be using."

"Thank you," said Doctor Prohn, "but this is the worst of it, and we can manage. We're not that far from the lab, if I read the station schematic correctly?"

"No, not far," Nerys said, by this time used to scientists who were more interested in seeing their lab than their quarters.

"I'd love to catch up, but we should get settled in, first," Jadzia said. "Maybe this evening?"

"Of course," Sisko said courteously. "I can make my famous jambalaya, and we can talk about your father."

"Great! Then I can meet Jake, too," Jadzia said.

"I guess Curzon told you a lot about me and my family," Sisko said, slightly taken aback.

"You could say that," Jadzia replied. She paused, then reached out and patted him on the arm. "I was so sorry to hear about Jennifer," she said. "I know Curzon would have wished he could be there for you."

"That's … kind of you to say," Sisko said awkwardly.

Nerys noted that Lusin bristled at the exchange. Nerys didn't know what her problem was, but Nerys was wondering who the hell this Jadzia was, anyway, and why she felt the need to stir up old wounds in someone she'd never even met before.

"It's the truth," Jadzia said.

"I hate to interrupt, but we should be getting settled in," Lusin said. "Major, if you could direct us to our lab?"

"Yes, of course," Nerys said, gesturing for them to follow her.

"See you tonight, Benjamin!" Jadzia said.

***

The second the door closed behind the Bajoran officer, Lusin spun to face Jadzia. "Dax, what were you thinking," she hissed. "You are straying perilously close to revealing us!"

"I did nothing that any other joined Trill in my position would not have done," Jadzia said. "And to an alien who doesn't know about symbionts, 'this person's father told her a lot about his friends' is far more believable than 'this Federation member species has been keeping a major secret from the rest of the Federation, and part of my dead friend lives on inside a new body.' Benjamin's smart, but he's not prone to wild flights of fancy or conspiracy theories … which is what Trills being symbionts would sound like to him." She helped Prohn open the case and begin taking out the equipment within it.

"You're not taking this seriously enough," Lusin said. "If the Federation finds out about symbionts—"

"What a tragedy that would be," Jadzia said flatly, not bothering to look up at her. "Despite what the Symbiosis Commission believes, the majority of aliens would not be interested in having symbionts of their own. There's no danger in telling the truth, and we've known that for a long time. Benjamin is one of my closest friends, and I'm not going to pretend he's any more of a stranger than I absolutely have to."

"You're not saying you'll reveal yourself to him!"

"No, of course not," Jadzia said.

Prohn was being conspicuously quiet, trying to blend in to the background. He was a good scientist, medically ineligible for joining, neither jealous of nor overly deferential to the Joined, and studiously apolitical. She liked him. Lusin, on the other hand, was barely qualified, and only there because the Symbiosis Commission had insisted on a watchdog if she was going to go so close to an alien who'd been a close friend in a previous life.

"Are you going to help, or are you just going to stand there watching us work?" Jadzia asked. She didn't particularly want to have anyone hovering over her, and the sooner they were done here the sooner she could go have dinner with Benjamin and Jake.

Lusin sat down at one of the computer terminals and began installing the software needed for their experiments.

***

Once the lab had been set up they found their quarters, and thank everything holy Jadzia didn't have to share with either of them. The close quarters on the ship here had been bad enough. By the time she was unpacked, it was time to head over to Benjamin's. She opened the door of her quarters to find Lusin standing in the corridor waiting for her.

"No," Jadzia said firmly. "You are not invited. Good night, Lusin." She marched off towards the turbolift, ignoring the protests behind her.

***

"Curzon had a kid," Jake marveled, not for the first time as he stirred the vegetables in the pot.

"Hardly a kid any longer—she's an accomplished scientist here to study the wormhole," Benjamin said, taking a small taste of the sauce and considering what it needed.

Jake swiped a finger through it and brought it to his mouth, dodging the swat his father gave him in return. "Needs more oregano," he said, "and maybe some red pepper?"

"You're getting good at this," Benjamin said, doing as his son suggested, "but use a spoon instead of your finger, especially when we're cooking for strangers—I don't want to think what your grandfather would say if you'd done that in the restaurant."

"I know, I know," Jake grumbled. "What's she like?"

"I only met her for a few minutes," Benjamin said, "so—"

The door chime cut him off.

"I'll get it!" Jake said.

Benjamin turned away from the stove and watched as the door slid open. She didn't look any more like Curzon now than she did at the docking ring, he noted. Besides the obvious differences in gender and age and hair, she didn't share the same body type or bone structure.

"You must be Curzon's daughter Jadzia," Jake said.

"I guess I must be," Jadzia replied. "You must be Benjamin's son Jake. It's a pleasure to meet you. I was sorry to hear about your mother—I know Curzon would have wanted to be there for you, if he could."

"Thanks," Jake said, drawing in on himself a little. "I know he would've been there if he could—it's not like he got to choose when to die, either."

"No," Jadzia said. She gave a weird, sad smile, and an awkward silence fell.

"Are you going to leave her standing in the hall?" Benjamin asked.

"Oh! No, sorry, come in," Jake said. "Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. How are you liking the station so far?"

"I've only really seen the lab and my quarters," Jadzia said. "The lab's fine, and I'm really glad to be out of the cramped quarters on the ship we took to get here. I'm fine working with my colleagues, but being crammed in together into one shared living space was a bit much." She took a seat on the couch, and Jake sat on the chair opposite her.

"Why not take a ship that had room for you all?" Jake asked, leaning forward.

Jadzia made a face. "I got ordered to bring Lusin along at the last minute. Politics. If I'd stayed to fight it, I might have gotten rid of her … but I also might have lost my funding. And the next ship coming directly to the station from our sector wasn't leaving for another month. It was easiest just to shoehorn her in and pray she didn't annoy me to death."

"What's so annoying about her?" Jake asked.

"Intra-Trill politics," Jadzia said. "Did Curzon ever complain to you about the stuck-in-the-mud paranoiacs who run things on the Trill Homeworld?"

"Yeah, but I didn't listen," Jake said.

"Well, the short version is, both the Homeworld and Aljagra—"

"That's the colony, right?" Jake asked. "Established during the post-Nero colonization period, when lots of planets were scared of being destroyed like the original Vulcan homeworld was?"

"Exactly," Jadzia said. She sank back into the couch and curled her legs up under her. "Leadership on Trill has always been a bit paranoid about non-Trill, partly because so few of them actually meet any. And then after Aljagra was established, that got worse because the people who were most adventurous were the ones who agreed to join the settlement of the new colony. So while leadership on both planets is very conservative, there's also a sort of a rift between them because most of the Aljagra Commission understands the difference between 'reasonable caution' and 'paranoia,' and that can't always be said of the Commission on Trill."

Benjamin had been listening while he stirred the pot. It was nothing he hadn't picked up from various comments Curzon had made over the years, but the old man had never put it all together like that. "You know, I looked up the Commission once, in the databanks," he said. "I didn't find much of anything."

"You wouldn't," Jadzia said, glancing over at him. "Anyway. The Commission on Trill doesn't like that I don't like them, and they don't like that my research happened to take me to a place where one of Curzon's old friends lives, because they didn't much like Curzon either. So they stuck me with Lusin as a sort of political commissar. And then we had to share quarters on the transport out here. I'm hoping she'll settle down once we actually get to work. That, or she proves so incompetent I can send her back in disgrace."

"Let's hope," Benjamin said. Curzon had often complained about intra-Trill politics. But Curzon had been an old friend, and this was only the second time Benjamin and Jadzia had even met. It was strange, that someone with a 'political commissar' watching them would be so open with a stranger, even one who was an old family friend. "But tell us about yourself, Jadzia. Curzon told you about us, but we had no idea you existed."

"There's not much to tell, actually," Jadzia said. "I grew up on the Trill homeworld, did very good in school, especially the sciences, and went off to Starfleet. Then Curzon died, and … I had familial responsibilities back on Trill that were not compatible with Starfleet service. But Trill has some very good science institutes, so I've been able to do some interesting research."

"Did you like being a Starfleet science officer more than a civilian scientist?" Jake asked.

Jadzia hesitated. "It's hard to say—they're very different. Starfleet science officers usually have to be generalists. You never know what sort of thing your ship is going to encounter, so you have to be good at everything. Civilians specialize. Instead of knowing a little bit about a lot of things, we know a lot about a few things. Are you considering a career in Starfleet, like your Dad?"

Jake shrugged. "Sure, I guess."

Now, that caught Benjamin's attention. He turned a little away from the cooktop to get a good look at his son. Jake was usually more enthusiastic than that about Starfleet.

"I loved being in Starfleet," Jadzia said with a shrug. She leaned forward and caught Jake's eye. "But I also love my job now. You've got lots of time to figure out what you want." She smiled at him, and then at Benjamin when she saw him watching them.

"And on that note," Benjamin said, "I think this is ready. Jake, help me get it over to the table." Since everything else was already there, it took little time before it was ready to go. They sat down together and he dished food onto everyone's plate.

Jadzia took her first bite. "This is so good," she said with a moan. "Curzon was right about how good it is."

"He told you about my cooking?" Benjamin asked, surprised. Of all the things Curzon might have told his secret daughter about Benjamin, he picked food? On the other hand, Curzon had always been a connoisseur, and Benjamin would rather she'd heard stories about his cooking than some of the scrapes he'd gotten into as a young officer.

"Mm-hmm," Jadzia said, through another mouthful. "We don't always share the same tastes, but this is really good. Thank you for inviting me for dinner." "You're welcome," Benjamin said.

"Are there any good restaurants on the station?" Jadzia asked.

"None where they cook the food," Benjamin said. "There are only two restaurants, and both the Replimat and Quark's Bar use replicators."

"Not surprising, given that it is a space station," Jadzia said. "Ah, well. Maybe I can go down to Bajor for a weekend or something, once we get our experiments up and running, do some sightseeing."

"I'd be happy to give you some recommendations," Benjamin said.

"I'd like that, thank you," Jadzia said. "But you've been here on Deep Space Nine for almost a year now. Between the political situation on Bajor, the proximity to the Cardassians, and the wormhole, I'd bet you have some interesting stories."

"Interesting's one way of putting it," Jake said, through a mouthful of food.

Benjamin shot his son a reproving glance for the bad manners. "There's certainly been a great variety of things happening, more than I expected when I received the assignment," he said, running through events in his mind and discarding any that were too classified or too personal to share. "Is there anything in particular you'd like to know more about?"

Jadzia shook her head. "Whatever you'd like to share is fine by me." She gave him a warm smile.

***

The rest of the evening passed in a pleasant exchange of stories. Benjamin and Jake's time on Deep Space Nine, Jadzia's time in Starfleet, and, eventually, memories of Curzon.

"So, you going to see her again?" Jake asked as they scrubbed the pots from dinner.

"I would expect so," Benjamin said, scraping at a particularly tenacious bit of stuck-on gunk. "It's a small station, and she'll be working with Lieutenant Thothih."

"No, I mean, are you going to see her again," Jake said, nudging him with an elbow. "She seemed pretty into you, she was really into some of your stories."

"I didn't see anything like that," Benjamin said, blinking. Had he missed something? She'd been warm and attentive, but he didn't think she'd been flirting with him. And she'd been just as warm with Jake. It was probably just how she was. "She was probably just missing the excitement of Starfleet."

"No, really, if you wanted something with her, I think she'd be up for it," Jake said. "Oh, really," Benjamin said, amused. "You get that from your great store of romantic experience?"

"Dad," Jake said, rolling his eyes. "I'm just saying. She's great, and she seems interested in you."

"I think she's a little too young for me," Benjamin said. "And besides, she's Curzon's daughter."

"She looks a lot prettier than he did, though," Jake said.

That was undeniable. "You know, these pots aren't going to scrub themselves," he pointed out, flicking a little bit of water at Jake.

"Hey!" Jack said, flicking some back at him.

***

Nerys walked into Quark's scanning it for signs of trouble or interest as she always did. Between Quark's own business deals and the fact that almost everyone who visited the station showed up in his bar sooner or later, it was always the best place to catch the pulse of the station.

It was a quiet day. The only thing even mildly interesting was Doctor Bashir having a drink with that new Trill scientist, Doctor Jadzia Dax. She'd have thought the woman had better taste than that. No, that was unfair, Bashir had grown up a bit since he arrived on the station.

Nerys ordered a drink and sat at the bar, three stools down from Morn. She was early for her slot in the holosuite, but it wasn't like she had anything better to do. She liked all her colleagues here on the station—even Bashir, which was surprising given how bad a first impression he'd given when he first arrived—but it wasn't like any of them were particularly close.

The other two Trill were over at the dabo tables, and Lusin kept frowning over at Jadzia. It was the most interesting thing happening—she'd heard the story Morn was telling before—and Nerys idly wondered what was going on there.

Bashir and Jadzia got up, and Bashir left. Lusin cashed out at the dabo table and intercepted Jadzia. The two exchanged tense words, and Lusin continued out while Jadzia made her way to the bar.

"What can I get for you, Doctor?" Quark asked with an unctuous smile.

"I'll have a Black Hole," Jadzia said with a smile.

"One Black Hole, coming right up," Quark said, turning away to mix her drink.

"How's the research going?" Nerys asked.

"It's going," Jadzia said. "We're at the stage where there's a lot of data, but it's not making sense, and there are more dead ends than answers. And it's not a bad thing—negative results are still results—but it is a bit frustrating."

"Is that what your assistant was glowering at you about?" Nerys asked. "Ignore the question if it's too nosy."

Jadzia snorted. "No. She doesn't like me spending time with Julian. Thinks he's too young for me."

"What business is that of hers?" Nerys asked. It was true that Julian came off as especially puppyish next to Jadzia, but if that was what Jadzia liked, it was her own choice.

"Exactly!" Jadzia said.

"Is she jealous?" Nerys asked. "Does she wish you'd pick her, instead?"

Jadzia laughed. "No, worse. It's political. And I have had enough of politics lately."

"Me, too," Nerys said. Things on Bajor had been heating up lately, with lots of anti-alien sentiment, and being the Deep Space Nine liaison officer, she bore the brunt of a lot of it. She checked the chronometer. Ten minutes until her holosuite time started. "You know, I've got a holosuite slot starting soon, you're welcome to join me in it, if you want to get away from the station for a bit."

"I'd love to," Jadzia said. "What program are you running?"

"Honestly? Haven't decided," Nerys said. "I know a holosuite can take you anywhere, but I'm usually too busy to even think about what the options are, so I end up doing boring things like watching a sunrise over Mount Kola."

"Hey, spending time in nature can be very refreshing," Jadzia said. "But if you'd like some ideas of other things to try, I can make some recommendations. Don't let my baby face fool you—I've been around, and seen a lot of different things."

By the time Quark told her their holosuite was open, Nerys had half a dozen different things she wanted to try. By the time their time slot was over, Nerys had invited Jadzia to join her next week, as well. It had been a long time since she'd had that much fun.

***

"It seems a waste, starting tests we may not get to finish," Prohn said as he tested the code they would be using for the next phase of their experiment.

"Would you rather sit here doing nothing while we wait to know if we have to leave?" Lusin said. She was preparing the latest data packet for their partners on Bajor, Trill, and Vulcan. "Besides, even if they throw the rest of the Federation out, they may allow us to stay—we are partially sponsored by the University of Navot, and they may have enough clout to get us visas so that we can continue research."

"I wouldn't count on that," Jadzia cautioned. "They're not exactly Bajor's foremost institution, and if the nationalists win, sponsoring foreigners becomes an embarrassment. Still, we have two choices: we can stop work and wait to see, in which case we'll have to start this whole sequence over again if Bajor decides to let us stay. Or we can continue on as scheduled, and if we do get kicked out we'll have as much data as we can possibly get out of it."

"Or, we could catch a ride on the next ship heading towards the Federation, and come back if things cool down," Prohn said. "I don't like the reports of violence on Bajor." "That's on the planet's surface," Lusin scoffed, "and however incompetent the Bajoran security forces may be, this station is run by Starfleet. I'm sure things will be orderly and safe here."

That was a bit naïve, as Jadzia knew from the long experiences of several of her previous hosts. Benjamin was good, but unstable situations like this could get very messy, especially when you had a population used to violence. "You're not the only one to have that thought, Prohn. There are more people wanting back into Federation space than there are ships headed that direction." She shrugged. "But we probably don't have much to worry about; if Benjamin thought the station was in danger, he'd have ordered an evacuation. I can ask him if he thinks we should get out, if you'd like." She would have asked Nerys's opinion, given that Nerys was a local and would have a better feel for the situation, but Nerys had gone on some sort of religious retreat after her position was given to someone else, and Jadzia had no idea how to contact her.

"Would you?" Prohn asked in evident relief.

Jadzia pinged Benjamin, but his commbadge was set to only accept calls from station personnel. Curzon would have been on his list of people who could interrupt even when he was set to 'do not disturb,' but Jadzia wasn't. "He's busy," Jadzia said. "I'm sure he'll get back to me when he has time. In the meantime, we might as well work."

The station intercom came to life. "This is Commander Sisko. There has been a coup on Bajor, and the Circle has sent out ships to capture the station. They will be here in approximately seven hours. To protect the civilian population, I am ordering an evacuation. There will be enough places for every civilian, and Doctor Bashir will have a schedule with what ship you are assigned to published shortly. If you do not wish to evacuate, please let him know. Space will be tight, so there will be a minimal baggage allowance. Hopefully everything will be resolved soon, and you will be able to return. Please keep calm so that we can get everyone off the station orderly and safely."

"... well, so much for that," Prohn said in disgust.

Jadzia checked her messages. "Schedule's already out," she said. "Fast work, Julian. Looks like we're scheduled for the hold of a Bandi freighter that departs in five hours."

"Five hours!" Lusin said, appalled. "That's only two hours before the invaders arrive! That's not enough margin to ensure your safety, Dax!"

Dax shrugged. "I've been in tighter situations. It will probably be fine." Which was true, but in situations like these there were a lot of room for things to go catastrophically wrong. On the other hand, Lusin working herself up or trying to 'fix' things was likely to screw everything up. And it wasn't as if there was much they could do, as civilians scientists, other than follow instructions in an orderly fashion and pray everyone else being evacuated did, too.

"You two should probably go get packed," Jadzia said. "Only a small bag, a few changes of clothing, leave anything that isn't absolutely vital."

"What about you?" Prohn asked.

"I've got a bag ready to go," Jadzia said. "Old habit, from when I was a diplomat in some pretty unstable places. We've got some time—if we get to the docking bays more than an hour before our transport is supposed to leave, we'll only slow them down getting the earlier ships away, and delay our own departure. I thought I'd take a half-hour or so and get the next batch of tests started."

"What do the tests matter?" Lusin asked. "Our lives are at stake! Your lives are at stake!"

Jadzia shrugged. "Sitting around and fretting won't make our assigned freighter depart any quicker. I'd rather keep busy. Besides, the next set of tests is crucial, and maybe the University of Navot will send us the results, when it's finished. If something comes up and it takes too long, I won't bother with it, but another half hour here isn't going to change anything."

Prohn shrugged. "See you on the transport, if nothing else, I guess," he said, and left.

Lusin turned back to her console and started tapping furiously away at it. Jadzia ignored her and got to work.

That was a mistake, because not ten minutes later, Lusin interrupted her. "Quark is selling tickets on earlier ships. I'm going to buy one for you."

Jadzia spun around to face her. "No, you absolutely will not! It's a scam, and a threat to the orderly evacuation of this station. Quark has no authority to make such deals—"

"He's just acting as a broker for people willing to take a later transport—"

"He still doesn't have the authority to make that deal," Jadzia said, "and he is undoubtedly selling more seats than he actually has people willing to stay later for. What do you think is going to happen when all those people show up at the docking ring expecting an early ticket out of here, only to find Quark lied? It'll be nasty; desperate people do desperate things. Even if nobody gets hurt, it will delay things." "You don't know he's overbooking—"

"Yes, I do, because I know Ferengi business ethics, which in this case amount to 'if they won't be around to sue you, cheat them for all they're worth.'"

"—and in any case, surely it won't be that bad," Lusin continued on, doggedly. "You are a symbiont, Dax, you carry seven lives with you, we can't risk your death. It's worth paying a little to get you out of here safely, and at worst all it will take is a little extra work for the officer coordinating things."

Jadzia folded her arms. "I will be leaving this station in four and a half hours on the Bandi freighter to which I was assigned. Whether or not you try to make a deal with Quark is irrelevant, because I will not be accepting any earlier seat he claims to have found for me."

"Dax!" Lusin cried in anguished frustration.

"I've been through evacuations before, Lusin. You are letting your fear get in the way of your sense."

Jadzia turned back to her console and typed out a message to Julian, high priority, using the personal code he'd given her.

"What are you doing?"

"Letting Julian know what Quark is doing so he can put a stop to it," Jadzia said, ignoring the noise of protest the other woman made. "You should go pack a bag."

"No, I'm staying with you," Lusin said.

"Fine," Jadzia said. She went back to setting up the last of the parameters for the next test, and set the computer to run it.

As she logged out, Julian's voice rang out from the intercom. "This is Doctor Bashir, and I am the officer coordinating the evacuation. Quark is not authorized to sell seats on outgoing vessels, nor are any captains of the ships themselves. No transport arrangements may be made through anyone except me or the Starfleet and Bajoran Militia personnel assisting me. Any arrangements Quark has made are fraudulent; you will be leaving on your originally scheduled transport. Please remain calm, bring minimal baggage, and arrive at the docking ring no more than one hour in advance of your scheduled transport. The more people try to argue, the slower the evacuation will go, and the more delays there will be. All evacuees will be off the station before the invading force arrives."

"Told you so," Jadzia said.

***

Julian was afraid. Not of the invading force; Sisko's plan would work, and they only needed a very little bit of luck to pull it off. They weren't planning any grand battles; quite the contrary, the goal was to minimize casualties. Honestly, he was a bit excited to have the opportunity to be an insurgent for a few days.

No, what scared him was the mood at the docks. Everyone was afraid. Every Bajoran had first-hand knowledge of everything that could possibly go wrong during a military occupation, and all had severe trauma about it. The non-Bajorans were less likely to have experienced an invasion or occupation, but that meant they had more room for flights of fancy. There was a lot of fear floating around, and all it would take was a match to make it flare up into violence. Sisko and Li Nalas had both come by several times to reassure the Bajorans—those who weren't comforted by the Emissary's presence were heartened by the reassurance of a legendary war hero—but the Bajorans weren't the only ones who were afraid.

Julian had studied the effects of fear and trauma on individuals and societies. He had been trained in treatment techniques and best practices for crowd management.

And if things went wrong, none of it would matter.

They were almost done with this—two thirds of the station's civilian population had already left—but all that meant was that those who remained had had more time to stew in their panic.

His combadge chimed. "Doctor, this is Deputy Yndar, we've got a situation at Upper Pylon 1 that needs your personal attention."

"I'm on my way," Julian said. He'd finished handling the last problem here at Lower Pylon 2, so he could head right over. He was tempted to run—God only knew what would happen by the time he got there—but he couldn't afford to spook people any more than they already were.

He settled for walking very briskly.

***

Jadzia and her colleagues arrived at their assigned docking port to hear raised voices. She handed he bag to Prohn and made her way through the crowd to where a Ziballian was shouting at the Bajoran deputy in charge.

"No, I will not stand aside!" she bellowed. "I am a Courier for the Terellian Tetrarchy! I have a contract to ensure the safe delivery of my cargo—" she gestured to the freight pallet next to her, positioned so that nobody could step around it and get into the docking bay "—and I am not leaving it here, I am taking it with me!" She didn't seem to notice the crowd's hostility to her.

"We don't have room for it," the deputy said. "I don't care how valuable it is, it's not worth more than somebody's life. You can put it in storage and have the new Bajoran government ship it to you, or you can stay here with it and hole up in your quarters, but it's not going with you."

"You Bajorans won't kill your own kind, so surely it wouldn't matter if one or two were left behind—"

"Excuse me," Jadzia said. "I'm a trained and experienced diplomat; perhaps I can help?" If the crowd had been less packed, she would have stood further away, out of arm's reach, but there just wasn't room. As it was, the only place she could see both the deputy and the Ziballian was to stand almost between the courier and her cargo.

The Ziballian didn't even glance at her. "Screw you, kid, I don't need a diplomat, I need someone in charge who can tell this moron to let me and my cargo on my ship."

"It's not your ship, alien," someone shouted from the crowd. "If someone's going to be left behind, it should be you."

"There's enough room for everyone," Jadzia said. "We'll all fit, as long as everyone is calm and reasonable."

"I am perfectly calm and reasonable!" the Ziballian shouted, not seeming to notice the irony. "It's everyone else who's gone mad. It's not my fault you Bajorans are too—"

"Finish that sentence and you'll regret it," the deputy said coolly. "You're holding things up. I am very close to transferring you to the last transport leaving. And you still won't be able to take your cargo. Doctor Bashir will back me up."

"Then I demand to see Commander Sisko!"

"He's busy. If I have to stun you to get you out of the way, I will."

"You wouldn't dare!"

"I assume Doctor Bashir is on his way?" Jadzia asked. "Why don't you step aside with your cargo and wait for him to settle things?"

"No!" the Ziballian said. "I will not—" she noticed one of the deputies had taken the pallet's handle and was tugging it out of the way. "Hey!" She drew a knife and took a step forward.

Jadzia grabbed her wrist and tried to use a mok'bara move to disarm her, but she hadn't practiced enough since she became Jadzia, and Curzon's body was so different—

***

Julian arrived at Upper Pylon 1 to find a bleeding Trill and a stunned Ziballian.

"The unconscious alien was making trouble," Yndar said, "that's who I called you here to deal with. The one with the knife wound tried to calm her down, got stabbed for it."

Julian listened with half an ear as he scanned Jadzia with his medical tricorder. "She needs surgery, immediately," he said. "Can you handle things from here?"

"Well, the angry one isn't shouting anymore," Yndar said. "Don't want to put her on this ship, because a lot of people are angry at her already."

"Use your best judgment," Julian said. "If you have the time, write up a brief statement of what happened so that no matter what happens, she can be prosecuted for assault."

"Will do," Yndar said.

Julian tapped his combadge. "Julian to Ops. One to beam directly to the Infirmary."

***

When he heard about the incident, Benjamin called Doctor Bashir. "Will she be stable enough to put on a transport?" he asked.

"No," Bashir replied, "she needs immediate surgery. And none of the remaining ships have good enough medical facilities to keep her alive until they reach their destination. I'm going to have to operate now and keep her here."

"How long will the surgery take?" Benjamin asked.

"Tough to say," Bashir said. "I've never operated on a Trill before, and her anatomy and neurochemistry doesn't match what we have on file for that species. But I guarantee you she won't be up to hiding before they get here—I doubt I'll be done operating by then."

"Are you alright with being captured?" Benjamin asked.

"I'll have to be," Bashir replied. "None of my nurses have enough experience with species other than Bajoran, Cardassian, and Human to treat her."

"All right, good luck," Benjamin said.

"To you as well, sir," Bashir said. "Bashir out."

Benjamin hoped that Curzon's daughter wasn't about to die on his watch. But there was nothing he could do about it, and there was too much else going on to spend any time worrying about it.

***

Bashir was in the middle of suturing a … something, it was clearly a tube carrying neurotransmitters, but it wasn't marked on the Trill anatomy diagram … when the door to the operating theater chimed.

"I'll get it," said Nurse Hortak.

Stripping off her gloves, exited the theater. It was well insulated, so Bashir couldn't hear what she was saying. He concentrated on his work.

A short time later, the door opened and Hortak re-entered, accompanied by a soldier. "He's been decontaminated, and should be fine as long as he doesn't touch anything," she said. "I couldn't get him to wait outside. Colonel Day wants to see you as soon as we're done with the surgery."

"Of course," Julian said.

***

Prohn sat on the floor of the cargo bay, bag in his lap, squeezed tightly on every side by other passengers, and watched the display projected on the wall. It had a clock, a stellar map with a dot showing their position, and a countdown to arrival. He focused on it in the vain hope that watching the countdown tick down would somehow drown out Lusin's voice.

He had long since given up on trying to get her to stop fidgeting. There was no room to pace—everyone was packed into the cargo hold like fish-in-a-can—but Lusin was giving it her best shot. By now, everyone was annoyed with her, but she didn't seem to even have noticed.

"I should have made them let me stay with her," she said, for what had to be the thousandth time at least.

Never mind that the station personnel had had phasers, and been quite willing to stun anyone who made trouble by that point. Too bad they hadn't been so trigger happy with the alien who'd stabbed Dax. He supposed Lusin could have stabbed herself and gotten to stay on the station that way, but he didn't see that it would have improved Dax's care at all.

Only another hour until they reached their destination, and he could get off this blasted ship and away from Lusin. He was worried about Dax, too, but since there wasn't anything he could do about it, the next best thing would be getting away from Lusin.

"Her wound couldn't have been that bad," Lusin continued. "I should have made them put her here, on the transport. We could have taken her to Trill for treatment. She would have had better care, and we wouldn't have had to worry about aliens poking around Dax."

Prohn had seen the wound. It had definitely looked bad enough to require immediate surgery to him; maybe if Jadzia had been unjoined, but with a symbiont? There weren't any Trill doctors in the sector, that he knew of. There was no way she'd have lasted long enough to get to a Trill doctor without some kind of treatment, and any competent doctor would immediately notice that Jadzia Dax's insides were not on the standard Trill model. Or was Lusin willing to sacrifice Jadzia, by denying her medical care from aliens, in the hope that Dax would survive and the secret would be intact?

He didn't say anything. He wasn't joined, he was never going to be joined, he didn't have anybody in his family with the genetic profile to even apply to be joined, he didn't care about larger politics as long as his research got funded, and this was the first time in his life he'd ever had to deal with the Symbiosis Commission or any of its representatives. If the Commission itself was half as controlling as Lusin was, it was no wonder a growing number of people—especially Aljagrans and the Joined—were starting to talk openly about the need for reform.

"—what that alien might be doing to her, what damage he might do without even knowing—" Her voice rose, drawing his attention back to her tirade.

If Doctor Bashir did any damage out of ignorance, well, it was the Symbiosis Commission's fault he was ignorant, wasn't it? And also, couldn't she see the irony in her xenophobia showing up when they were in this whole situation because of Bajoran xenophobia? They were the Federation! They were supposed to be better than this!

Prohn held his tongue and focused on the ETA countdown. Still almost an hour to go.

***

By the time he had her stabilized, Julian was exhausted. Trill torsos were complicated even in the best of circumstances, and he'd never operated on one before nor spent much time studying them; at least he'd looked over what material they had on the Trill when he'd learned there would be a team staying on the station for some time.

Not that it helped much, Jadzia Dax's anatomy, neurology, and neurochemistry being significantly different from the Trill norms in the files, or, indeed, from the medical records dating from her Starfleet service.

"Are you done?" the Bajoran soldier asked, interrupting Julian's reverie.

"Yes," Julian replied. "Assuming she doesn't take a turn for the worse."

"General Krim wants to see you immediately, then," the soldier said, reaching up to tap his combadge.

"Can I help Nurse Hortak get her settled in a regular bed?" Julian asked.

The soldier hesitated. "Fine," he said.

It would have been easier with more help, but fortunately he'd finally gotten the Starfleet-issue gurneys and biobeds installed, which were designed to be as easy-to-use as possible in a variety of configurations and with a variety of personnel. The Cardassian version relied mostly on the brute-force of the people using it. Hortak could have moved the patient on her own, if she'd needed to, but this gave Julian a chance to make sure the monitors were set correctly for his best guess at what her metabolism and neurotransmitter rate should be.

He wanted nothing more than to fall into bed—even just a nap on a cot in his office—but General Krim awaited.

***

For a man overthrowing his own government in xenophobic terror, General Krim was a reasonable man. He listened to the message Sisko wanted Julian to give him—that the Circle's weapons were being supplied by the Cardassians in an attempt to destabilize Bajor—and, despite his assistant Colonel Day's derision, promised to look into it. He promised that Julian wouldn't be bothered as long as he agreed to treat any of Krim's troops who needed medical care, which Julian would have done anyway.

However, he wouldn't let Julian contact Trill for more information on Trill biology, no matter how Julian asked.

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Krim asked. He didn't seem angry, just amused. "I'm not letting you contact anyone. We'll let your Federation know you're here, and they can come pick you up with the rest of your fellow officers once the station is secure."

"Jadzia Dax is still in critical condition," Julian said. "I have reference materials for Trill biology and recommended treatments for various ills and injuries, but her anatomy and neurochemistry have significant differences from the reference materials and it already caused problems in surgery. If there are complications—"

"Her anatomy isn't Trill?" Colonel Day demanded. "What is she then? Has she been altered to look Trill?"

"No," Julian said, puzzled, "she's definitely a Trill, and definitely Jadzia Dax. She used to be a Starfleet officer, and I have her records from that time. There's no question that she is the same person. But between then and now, she's had significant internal changes. I don't know why, I don't know if there will be further complications because of it, and I don't want to be flying blind if there are."

"Too bad, Doctor," General Krim said. "I'm afraid we can't take the risk."

***

"Well?" Nurse Hortak asked when he returned to the infirmary.

"We get to stay here under guard, and we can't call up Trill and ask them for help with Jadzia," Julian said bitterly.

"Not surprising," Hortak said.

"What do they expect us to do?" Julian asked. "We've both been in the infirmary since before Krim's troops arrived, and we'll be here under guard the whole time. We have no tactical or strategic information that couldn't have been sent perfectly free and clear before Krim's people arrived, and no way of getting any. The only information we have is the state of our patient's health, and that has no tactical or strategic value!"

Hortak made a face. It was the face she made when he said something stupid—especially something having to do with the Occupation and the Bajoran Resistance—but she didn't want to contradict a superior directly.

"You can think of a way we could use it," Julian realized.

"Well, yeah, several," Hortak said. "But most of them would only work if we'd had time to set things up beforehand and our patient wasn't really sick, or if we didn't care whether we had to sacrifice treatment in order to take advantage of opportunities."

"Really?" Julian asked. He was intensely curious, but … that could wait. He yawned. "Given the evacuation and the emergency surgery and everything else that's happened, we've both been up for over twenty-six hours. We need sleep, but we can't leave Jadzia unattended …"

"If she does take a turn for the worse, you'll be the one needing to figure out how to handle her biology, so you need to be freshest," Hortak pointed out. "I'll take first watch."

***

Once Krim had handed over control and was safely off the station with his troops, Benjamin left Li and Odo in Ops to handle calling everyone back and getting the station up and running again and headed to the Infirmary to see how Doctor Bashir and his patient had fared.

"Oh, no, we were fine," Bashir told him. "Under guard, of course, but he didn't interfere. It was touch and go with Jadzia, there, for a while, and Krim wouldn't let me call Trill to get more information on her anatomy and biochemistry, but she seems to be recovering now, and should be awake soon."

"What information would you need?" Benjamin asked. "The Trill are Federation members. The information in the databanks should be fairly complete."

Bashir and Nurse Hortak exchanged glances. "There are, at the very least, significant omissions," Bashir said. "Almost certainly deliberate."

"That's quite an accusation, Doctor," Benjamin said. Scientific exploration and development was one of the few principles shared more-or-less across the entire Federation; it was the unifying ideal most often leaned on. Withholding information was heavily frowned upon. But given what Curzon and, now, Jadzia, had to say about Trill paranoia …

"I know," Bashir said. "Let me show you." He led Benjamin over to a display and pulled up a diagram of Trill anatomy. "Do you see this empty space in the abdomen?"

"It's fairly large," Sisko said.

"Yes," Bashir said. "And according to the information in the databanks, it's a vestigial pouch left over from when an ancestor species of the Trill were marsupials and carried their young in it."

"But that's not the case?"

"This is Jadzia's abdomen," Bashir said, pulling up a scan.

"There's something in the pouch," Benjamin said. "It doesn't look like a baby."

"It isn't," Bashir said. "It's a slug. It's also not a temporary thing; that slug is connected to every single system Jadzia has: neurotransmitters and nerves, digestive system, circulatory system … I don't think it could survive outside of an environment such as Jadzia's pouch. Moreover, it's extremely dense in neurons. It is, basically, a secondary brain. There is quite a complex connection between it and Jadzia's own brain, and that is what caused all the trouble. She was stabbed just through some of the largest connections, and, given that this is entirely absent from the databanks, I was flying blind in surgery and the early stages of recovery."

"Did she have this slug when she was in Starfleet?" Benjamin asked.

"No," Bashir said, pulling up her medical records.

The internal scans from her last Starfleet physical looked, to Benjamin's untutored eye, fairly close to the diagram from the databanks.

"So she got it after she left Starfleet," Benjamin said.

"Any medical exam she had as an officer would have revealed it," Bashir said. "She hasn't been awake and coherent enough to ask about it, yet."

"Is it a parasite?" Benjamin asked.

Bashir shrugged. "Do you mean, is it harmful? Hard to say, without long-term study. I doubt it, though; She's had it for several years, at this point, given the level of conjoinment in her torso, and she doesn't seem to have any major physical problems. Neurologically, things are harder to judge; but if it were causing neurological problems, surely it would have interfered in her research by now."

"Doctor, she's waking up!" Nurse Hortak called.

***

Jadzia Dax woke quickly, this time around. She vaguely remembered something dreamlike and panic-filled—she had been only Jadzia, not Dax, or only Dax, not Jadzia—but she felt like herself again. Albeit, herself with a painful wound in her abdomen. Sitting up was not an option, just yet.

Julian came in and ran his tests, and Jadzia answered his questions about how she was feeling, but she could see Benjamin hovering outside the door. "I take it the station is back under Federation control?" she asked.

"Yes," Julian said. "The coup didn't last long, I'm happy to say, and the station was only under the Circle's forces for about a day and a half."

"Good," Jadzia said. "Maybe we won't have lost too much data." Julian gave her a strange look. Either the lab had been damaged, or … Julian had to have noticed, in surgery. "I'm sure you found our secret. You may as well call Benjamin in, I'm sure he's curious." Julian stepped back to call Benjamin in, which gave her a few seconds to gather her thoughts.

If Lusin or any other representative of the Symbiosis Commission were here, they'd still probably be trying to hide this—some justification to swear Julian to secrecy or wipe the records or something. But Dax knew that there was no way Benjamin would agree to knowingly letting false databank records stand.

Besides, Dax had been half-hoping for some joined Trill to have an accident requiring emergency medical care from a non-Trill doctor for the last two decades. She just hadn't wanted to be the one whose life depended on a doctor with no knowledge of her anatomy or neurochemistry.

"We don't have to do this now," Benjamin said. "You're still healing."

"Curzon taught you better than that Benjamin," Dax said. "When you're trying to get information out of someone, if you can get them off their game, take full advantage of it."

"He did," Benjamin said with a closed expression on his face. "And how do you know that?"

"Because I am Curzon," Dax said, "or at least, I used to be. I'm sure Julian has filled you in on how my anatomy differs from that of a standard Trill?"

"You have a parasitic slug in your abdomen," Benjamin said.

"Parasites drain their host for no return," Dax said. "It's a symbiont. They're native to Trill, too." She'd dreamed this conversation a thousand times, when she was Curzon, every time the secret had chafed. "Only about one Trill in a thousand is capable of hosting them, and it's a great honor to be chosen to do so. Symbionts live very long lives, much longer than Trill do. When a host dies, the symbiont is given to a new host, carrying all the memories and skills of their predecessor. I'm Jadzia … but I'm also Curzon, and Torias, and Audred, and Emony, and Tobin, and Lela. And when Jadzia dies, I'll be someone else, someone new, but Jadzia will still be a part of me just like all of Dax's past hosts."

"You're Curzon?" Benjamin said. "Now, that I find hard to believe."

"I used to be Curzon, and Curzon is a part of me," she replied. "I'm not him now, but I used to be. If you don't believe me …" she paused, considering her options. "Do you remember that time on Turkasia II? I can tell you the story if you like, though you may want to send Julian out."

"Curzon swore he'd never tell anyone that story," Benjamin said.

"He didn't," she replied. "Or maybe you'd like to quiz me, instead."

He believed her, she could tell, but he'd always been thorough, and asked her a number of questions about things they'd been through together, details she could only have known by being there.

"So why the secrecy?" he asked at last. "Why lie to the Federation?"

"Being joined is the highest honor any Trill can aspire to," Jadzia said. "The competition is cutthroat, and at times in the planet's history, that has been literal. Just a few years ago, a rejected candidate named Verad abducted a joined Trill named Birzam Degin, removed the symbiont, and had it implanted in himself. By the time Trill agents caught up with them it was too late. Birzam was dead. They removed Degin from Verad, put it in a new host, and tried to hush the whole thing up with only partial success."

"What did they do to Verad?" Julian asked.

"Once past the ninety-three hour mark, neither host nor symbiont can survive without being joined," Jadzia said. "It had been two weeks."

"So, by removing the symbiont, they effectively killed him," Julian said, judgmentally. "Capital punishment is illegal in the Federation."

"Degin was, effectively, a hostage," said Jadzia. "Once Verad had them joined, the only way to save Verad's life was to keep Degin neurologically joined to the person who had kidnapped him, assaulted him, and murdered his last host. Was saving Verad's life worth a lifetime of that for Degin? Bad enough that Degin will have to carry memories of Verad for the rest of his life." She shivered. If it had been her … she couldn't tell if the roiling in her abdomen was pain from the surgery or Dax moving in distress.

"A very sad story," Benjamin said. "What does this have to do with lying to the Federation?"

Jadzia sighed. "The Trill Symbiosis Commission is highly provincial. Most have never been off Trill, not even to Aljagra, and few of them have even met an alien, and they're proud of their insularity. As far as they believe, any person who doesn't want to be joined is mentally unstable in some way, irrational. The basic truth of their worldview is that everyone wants desperately to be joined. So if aliens knew …"

"They think we'd be pressing for symbionts of our own," Benjamin said.

"Exactly," Jadzia said. "They're terrified of it. And deeply aware that if the Federation demanded symbionts and sent Starfleet to take them, Trill would not be able to stop them.

"But that's such an irrational fear," Julian said. "They're projecting their own desires on other species."

"I know." Jadzia sighed. "So does every Trill who's had much contact with other races. Most non-Trill wouldn't want symbionts."

"Some races would be disgusted by the idea of having a slug in their body," Benjamin said, his even tone giving no hint to what he thought of it. "Others would think being fundamentally altered and sharing your consciousness for another being for the rest of your life wouldn't be enough of a tradeoff for the fact that you would live on in some way after you die. And most people of all species in the Federation are, at heart, fundamentally comfortable with how they live."

Jadzia sighed again, and winced as her gut twinged. "But the Trill Symbiosis Commission can't comprehend that. Too few of them have even met an alien. Much less gotten to know one."

"Fears can be far more powerful than reality," Julian said, pulling out his tricorder to scan her.

"There's also the matter of political control," Jadzia said. "It used to be that the Symbiosis Commission controlled everything. Then Vulcan was destroyed, and we settled Aljagra specifically so that the symbionts would be preserved even if Trill met a similar fate, and there were two Symbiosis Commissions, one per planet."

"So their power base has been divided," Benjamin said.

"Yes. And the caves where unjoined symbionts live on Aljagra are much larger than the ones on Trill; they hold far more symbionts, which means the population has increased and there have been more symbionts to be joined, which means the Commission's power is diluted even more. Plus, since they couldn't explain what their purpose was or how they were chosen without disclosing the existence of symbionts, they had to hand over most of their legal and overt political control when Trill and Aljagra joined the Federation. They have less power, so they cling to what they have. Which hasn't made them very popular in the last several decades."

"Will you get in trouble over telling us this?" Julian asked.

Jadzia made a face. "Once you're joined, if you don't have any political aspirations, there's a limit to how much the Symbiosis Commission can do to you," she said. "Especially now that we're Federation members. They could get my funding cut, but I'm sure there are many other institutions willing and able to fund wormhole research, so it's hardly a major threat."

"If nothing else," Benjamin said, "you could re-join Starfleet. Since I'm assuming you left in order to keep the secret of the symbionts."

"I hadn't thought of that," Jadzia said. Would she want to? She'd loved being a Starfleet officer, but she liked her life now, too. She shook her head. "Aside from minor inconveniences, the only thing they can really do to me is expel me from Trill and refuse to allow Dax to pass to a new host when I die. But that's such an extreme response—especially considering that I didn't voluntarily spill the secret—that I can't imagine they'd do it." The longer she talked, the more her body was reminding her that she'd just had major surgery. She tried to ignore it; this was important. "And if they did, well, the Aljagra Symbiosis Commission is more reasonable, and while they've never defied the Trill Symbiosis Commission before, this might be enough. I'm not worried about it."

"I think that's enough for the initial report, Commander," Julian said. "And if it's not, it will have to be. She's recovering from major surgery, after all."

"Benjamin," Jadzia said, "we left some simulations running, and the next phase will need to be initiated soon. Can you have Lieutenant Thothih take care of it? He knows everything he needs to."

"I'm afraid Lieutenant Thothih was killed by the Circle, while trying to help Major Kira get information to the government about the Cardassian backing of the coup," Benjamin said. "But I'll see what I can do."

"Oh," Jadzia said. "Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. I liked them." She closed her eyes and winced at a stab of pain.

"I'm afraid we can't use neural blockers to take away the pain without also disconnecting the Dax symbiont," Julian said, "and you've had a bad reaction to some of the medications we tried. It wasn't in your file."

"Nexflozine should be safe," Jadzia said.

"All right," Julian said. "By the way, who should I contact on Trill for more information about how to treat you?"

"The Symbiosis Commission," Jadzia said. "But the Aljagra Commission will be much easier to reason with."

"Thank you," Julian said. He replicated the medication and brought over a hypospray. "This should make you woozy. If you fall asleep, that's good; your body needs rest more than anything."

As always, nexflozine took a while to fully kick in, but once it did, it was very effective.

***

This time, when Prohn and Lusin arrived on the station, they were accompanied by a whole cargo ship full of former refugees, and there was nobody to greet them. They checked the infirmary first, and found Dax sitting on a biobed, reading a PADD.

"Glad to see you're back safely," she said with a smile.

"And we're very glad to see you're up and looking so well," Prohn said.

"Yes," said Lusin, "we were so worried! I hope they've taken very good care of you." She lowered her voice. "I don't suppose you were able to conceal—?"

Dax stared at her. "I was stabbed right next to my pouch. I was lucky that Dax wasn't directly hit. And Julian is a very good doctor. Of course he noticed. And of course he was able to put together what Dax is. After that, there wasn't any point in concealing anything. The Symbiosis Commission knows all about it, you can check with them."

"Now that we know you're safe, I think I'm going to go check on our experiments," Prohn said, looking for an excuse to get out of there.

"Yes, please do," Dax said. "Benjamin's had officers handling the most time-critical things, but I'm sure a great deal of work and data have been piling up, and I'm not going to be allowed out of here until tomorrow at least."

"And when you are released," said Doctor Bashir, sticking his head in, "you are going nowhere but to your quarters to rest in comfort. You can access your readings over the computer, but light work only for another week at least."

"I'll take it easy, Julian," Dax said with some amusement. "I promise you, if there is one thing I know, it's how to relax."

"I will go to my quarters and call the Symbiosis Commission, then," Lusin said with a sour expression on her face. "I am glad you're healing well, Dax."

***

"I still can't believe that Curzon is now young," Jake said as he set the table. "A young woman, at that. He's supposed to be old. How alike are Curzon and Jadzia, anyway?"

"I don't know," Benjamin said, "I haven't spent much more time with Jadzia than you have."

The door chime rang. "I'll get it," Jake said.

"Jake!" Jadzia said, stepping through. "I hope I'm not too early, but I was so looking forward to actually being able to be honest that I couldn't help it. Benjamin, that smells delicious."

"So, you're really Curzon?" Jake said, looking her up and down. "Man, if you said to me 'Curzon will come back in a new body,' this would not be the body I would have imagined."

"Well, part of the idea is to give the symbionts as many different experiences as possible," Jadzia said, "and also to make sure the new host isn't just subsumed into the memories of the old hosts. So it's customary to switch genders with each new host."

"It's not that you're a woman," Jake said. "It's that you're young. And attractive," he blurted out, shoulders hunching a little with embarrassment.

Jadzia laughed. "And Curzon was old and ugly, you mean? He was young in his day, and no matter how old he was or how he looked, he always managed to attract company for the night when he wanted it. Or for the morning, noon, and evening, too." She winked at him.

"Daaaaaaaax," Jake whined, scrunching up his face. "Gross."

"You were the one who was wondering how much Jadzia was like Curzon," Benjamin reminded him. "Don't complain when you get the answer you're looking for."

"In all seriousness, though," Jadzia said, "some things about me are different and some are the same. As for which is which," she shrugged, "guess you'll just have to get to know me and find out."

[professor-spacecakes]

I'm not trying to be rude or offensive in any way asking this, but have you thought about focusing on another platform for your art like Instagram or Twitter? I know you're already on Twitter but it seems like here people don't appreciate you for the amazing and talented artist you are and you shouldn't have to deal with this. Once again not trying to be rude just asking

Don’t worry, you’re not being rude at all! I do appreciate the suggestion, but I’m afraid that’s the first thing anyone ever says to me in these instances. Yes, I am on other platforms. I post my art on my Twitter pretty much the same time I post it here (the Cyberpunk pieces still did just as poorly over there…) and I’ve had a DeviantArt account for 12 years that I still post to.

Ah, Instagram… I have a love/hate relationship with Instagram, in that I hate it and it loves to piss me off. 

My biggest pet peeve is the aggressive cropping. I don’t do art with Instagram in mind, thus I don’t always draw my pictures within Instagram’s restrictive crop limit, leaving my pieces horribly chopped off at the top and bottom with no way to recenter it. 

Also, if I draw a panel-per-image comic with varying image sizes, it will crop all of the images down to fit the most square one, cutting off important bits (which is why I can’t post the original Cyberpunk comic I did over there, or any of my DaveMight birthday comics) 

Besides, there’s no exposure over there. If I want people to find my art, I’ve gotta, what, sit and wait for someone to dig far enough down in a certain tag to find it? That’ll almost never happen. At least here other people can reblog your stuff (rarely…) and expose it to their followers who might not have gone down the rabbithole search engine. This is probably why there’s so many goddamn art thieves over there, too.

Finally, I’ve got, like, 25 followers over there, and the ones that aren’t also over here on tumblr or twitter anyway are just those “Hey, I like your stuff! Follow for follow? =3″ people who have zero interest in my art and are just trying to get more followers for themselves. Also my account was hijacked by someone in Russia the first day I had it, so I really have no love for Instagram at this point. I still got it, I still post to it every now and then, but… It’s just not doing anything for me. 

I have a Pillowfort, but until they open it up to people without having to pay $5 for an account, I don’t see any point in posting there either. I… Really don’t know what else to do beyond that.

Edit: Oh! Also I sometimes post to Newgrounds since the Great Titty Ban of 2018, but uhh... Yeah. They are not kind to gay art over there. Big regrets, might just completely delete.

[thelowartgloominati-blog1]

Goodbye.

So it seems Tumblr has more then likely flagged me as one of those deviants who ruined a good advertising platform for Yahoo and Verizon’s shareholders with my posting of 1920′s pin up models, affinity for shiny shiny latex, and of course the forbidden “female presenting nipples,” among other such things that are now “too hot for Tumblr.” Some of the stranger things the algorithms have flagged on my blog were a photo set from a 1931 Mickey Mouse Cartoon, a GIF from a Queen music video, and some out-of-context Betty and Veronica panels.

And really, if I can’t have subtle lesbian innuendo in a 1960′s comic book, or Freddie Mercury in drag on my blog, then what is the damn point?

So I’ve made my decision. Tumblr and I have had an “on again, off again” relationship the last few years as is, this is actually blog number three for me, in total. My first one dates back to about 2011. I could handle some of the unsavory aspects of the community on here, they were never too bad. I was very skeptical about Yahoo (read: Verizon) buying up what was once a beacon for independent artists and unconventional voices, with the naked goal of “outreaching maximum engagement with millennial demographics.” That was when I left the first time (that and a falling out I had with some old acquaintances, it was time for me to disappear for a little while on the internet anyway...). I came back later,  about a year and a half later to be exact, to see how things had changed, and to give myself something to do whilst listening to podcasts again. I was largely not impressed, and other things in life came up, I needed to clear away the distractions again, so I deleted for a second time, and didn’t expect to come back. About two years later I decided to give it one more shot, and after a little adjusting to the changes, and re-learning things, I thought I’d carved a comfy little niche on here. I never really cared about having X number of followers, or getting X number of notes on any given post, I was just happy to have a little place to cultivate some of the mismatched interests I have.

Where else could a bisexual, conspiracy theorist, Disney fanatic, vinyl record collector, with an affinity for fashion, new wave music, classic rock/metal, all things neon, horror movies, and uncountable other sundry odds and ends, feel like he belongs?

Well... not here anymore.

Tumblr have made a decision too. A decision to spit in the face of people who helped make their website successful in the first place. Or rather, I should say, the website they bought. And I want to clarify something, this isn’t even JUST about the NSFW ban. I mean, that’s a big part of it, the fact that Tumblr has elected to take down the livelihood of artists, sex workers, erotica publishers, and try to ram a website that has, since it’s inception, NEVER been family friendly into a box that’s more marketable for their investors, that they can sell more adspace on, and court Apple into letting them back onto their precious app store. The App store which I remind you, they only got kicked off of because of porn BOTS, which this ban has not eliminated, and child porn, which is already against Tumblr’s terms of service as-is, and should absolutely be removed. In nuking ALL NSFW content however they have elected to punish everyone for the actions of a few. 

Worse yet, the algorithm they’re using is... a joke. A joke that flags pictures of deserts and water-skiing as inappropriate content. 

But it’s the manner in which this has been done, and the sheer corporate sleaze evident in the whole operation that makes me sick to my stomachache, and the fact that it’s being perpetrated by Verizon (Ajit Pai’s owners), whom will undoubtedly use this as a stepping stone for worse and worse things in the future.

Today it’s banning adult content, tomorrow it’s banning copy-written content, the next it’s paying for posting and buying visibility. Goodbye independent town square of ideas and artists tumblr, hello advertiser-friendly corporate controlled Tumblr. 

I’m out.

I’m not going to PERSONALLY delete this blog, I’m just going to post this on the 16th, log off, and not log on again. If the bots don’t end up getting me and this blog is still somehow here tomorrow, this post will act as a gravestone for a dead blog. If any of my mutuals do wish to follow me on any of my other social things (all three of them), I will post links below, and if I decide to go to pillowfort or something like that, I’ll log back in one more time to edit this post with that information (assuming it still exists).

UPDATE: I went to Mastodon

I’m on DeviantART where I sometimes post art but usually don’t. I’m on Steam where I sometimes play Sonic the Hedgehog. I’m on Youtube where I cultivate playlists of music, and little else.

If this sounds melodramatic that’s because this website has had an odd pull on me since I first came on about 2011, it’s been an up and down journey, but it’s the longest I’ve solidly “stuck” to a social media thing. It has just enough anonymity to keep the paranoid conspiracy theorist me happy, but just enough personalization to keep it distinctively a reflection of me. Looking back, if only thorough memory, at my older, defunct blogs I see a very young minded, perhaps more innocent and naive vision of me, who discovered new things, developed new interests, changed and grew as a person. I’m 24 now, I was 17 when I got my first Tumblr account, in a sense I... somewhat grew up on Tumblr. And even though I deleted almost EVERYTHING else I had on the internet since then... I kept coming back here for some reason, it has a homey feel to it. It’s comfy here.

So seeing it go the way of a Facebook or a Twitter, a corporate owned, content filtered, advertiser-driven, wreck is like... losing a home away from home. Plus, I’ve reached a new chapter in my own life as well; I’m changing jobs, I plan to move again next year, my best friend is getting married, I have no less then three major cross-country trips to plan in the next 11 months, something’s gotta give anyway. Perhaps now is the right time to put this blog away anyway, I just wish it were still on my terms, and not the terms of a publicly traded corporation that’s against net neutrality. I’d like to thank my mutuals, you’re fantastic, wonderful people and you know who you are, I know a few of you plan to delete too, so I wish y’all the best.

Goodbye Tumblr, it’s been a ride, but I knew it couldn’t last.

[prixmiumarchive]

It had to come to this...

Hello followers and friends.

So, back when tumblr made its very dubious policy move to become a Site For The Eyes of Children without actually addressing the problem, I figured its days were numbered. I got irritated, hadn’t been having a lot of consistent fun on the website anyway, and began to look elsewhere. So far, there really isn’t a viable tumblr alternative, though pillowfort and mastodon both seem to have their merits. I’ve been spending most of my time on twitter and a little bit on dreamwidth.

However, since tumblr’s slow demise (that I still think may happen in the future) didn’t happen quite as quickly as I thought it might, I decided to go about making a new tumblr to ride out what may come. There are a couple of reasons for this.

1) I had considered making a fresh start in the past, but this blog had become such a time capsule of my time on the internet and the Earth in general that I had a lot of emotional sunk cost in it. However, when it seemed like tumblr might take aim at random blogs from orbit for having too many pictures of sand dunes or something, I found a really nifty backup utility that allowed me to create an absolutely ginormous backup of everything I’d ever posted on this silly website to the date that I backed it up. That makes it so that I really don’t have any fear of losing anything I might later come to regret anymore, given that my backup file doesn’t go poof, and by that time, I imagine I might have bigger problems. Therefore, it seemed like as good a time as any to make a clean break while any good was left to be had out of this website, come what may.

2) On that note, giving up the followers I had here as reliable viewers of content seemed like a big ask at one point. I have over 800, but honestly? People talked to me more when I hovered beneath 200. I think that I gained most of my followers during that halcyon summer of 2014 right after Captain America; The Winter Soldier came out. We didn’t have an orange fascist as President here in the United States, people were happy, things were as decent as they’ve been in recent memory in terms of the zeitgeist, and everyone was doing happy positivity promoing contests, and I was in on a wave of happy fandom. Then... really... that follower count became a fluctuating mass that just sort of created a lot of anxiety for me. If you’re reading this and we’re not personal friends (who are in a different category obviously anyway), please don’t think I mean you, specifically. Rather, I mean the dozens upon hundreds of people who at some point clicked that follow button only to abandon their blogs later or to continue to tolerate me despite no contact and despite no interest in anything I ever posted. Despite my follower count, I generally get/got notes from the same 25~ or so people unless it was activity from something I posted in a tag as original content and got lucky. But then, anytime I posted ANYTHING I would lose followers. It was a recipe for second-guessing myself after that particular following-culture changed. I no longer covet a huge, imposing number if those people don’t really wanna engage with me or my interests.

3) Over time, my interests have expanded, contracted, morphed, and evolved, and if you’ve been here for a long time, you probably know what I return to most-frequently. However, I find that in 2011, I was an extremely western, live-action-centric fanperson. Often, people who consume only that media feel a certain kind of way about anime, and I can’t say I blame them for Anime Culture at large. However, in the time since about 2015, big parts of my fan-life have been centered around a very short list of specific anime. However, I think a lot of my casual followers sort of judged book by cover and aesthetic and jumped ship. Starting over will allow me to gain followers only on the merits of the kind of content I post now, anime, live action, text posts, and all, without worrying about upsetting expectations from over five years ago.

And I think those are the big, main ones.

So, I’ve decided to archive this blog.

Before I go, I would like to use my largest follower count on any website to ask for good vibes and prayers for one thing, though: As I write this, my dad is at the hospital. He is in stable, fairly himself-seeming condition except for an ongoing headache. However, the reason for this headache is that he suffered from a subdural hematoma, a bleed between the skull and the outermost lining of the brain. If the body heals itself, then he should return to normal. However, they are keeping him for observation to see if they need to intervene in order to get the bleed to drain. I’m very worried, and I have an excellent relationship with my father I’m very thankful for. He is one of my best friends, and I honestly don’t have local friends except my parents. So, if you pray or anything like that, I would very much appreciate your remembering him. I still need him around a lot. Finally dealing with this blog thing is basically just a way for me to do something while waiting around for it to be morning enough to hear if there’s any news even though he was fine when I left.

If you want to find me, here are some handy links. If you bothered to read this, I don’t mind you following along. However, please be mindful that I am going to try to keep my follower count reflective of people I actually might mutually interact with, so don’t feel pressured to.

New tumblr: http://shirouemiyas.tumblr.com

Carrd (a fancy static site the cool kids on twitter are using); https://prixsilentx.carrd.co/#

Twitter: https://twitter.com/prixofheroes

There are a handful of people I’m going to go ahead and follow over there because I’ve known and talked to them. If I miss you, please don’t be offended and feel free to find me there. If you choose to let this be your parting of the ways with me, I wish you all the best.

Thank you, dear March 2011 tumblr and friends, for the long haul.

[eirenical]

OK, so for the record, I’m not planning on jumping ship any time soon.  I don’t post any content that would be affected by banning adult content and for the most part I don’t really consume any that would, either.  And let’s face it... there’s always a workaround.  Just look at ff.net.

BUT, because I know that when fandom gets rumbly, people run off all over the place and it’s hard to keep track of people, so for the record, you can also find me in the following places:

Dreamwidth / Livejournal

AO3 / ff.net

goodreads

Instagram (this is for tarot & witchy things, only; completely non-fandom, but it’s probably where you can most often find me apart from tumblr)

My personal website, chibis.net

I have a Pillowfort account (it’s also eirenical), but the site is down and I can’t remember the link.

(I also have Skype and email which I’ll be happy to share on a one-on-one basis with whoever wants them.)

And that’s... really about it?  I have an account on Discord but it stresses me out like no one’s effing business, so I’m never on it.  I have FB and Twitter accounts that I only use for keeping up with Broadway actors I like and seeing pictures of my niece and nephew, so I’m never on those, either.  And that’s about it?

Anyway, like I said, I’m NOT planning on going anywhere, but if you’d like to find me in other places, that’s where I am.  ^_^

[pickyperkypenguin]

So, a little PSA from me - I will be moving on after all

I had this thought for some time already, but the recent events made it for me more clear, something almost like a sign to finally get my stuff together. When @mindblownie wrote her post (that has many very good points on the situation, that I won’t be repeating here) on how despite the initial will to stay after the 17th she is now reconsidering, I have had it also boiling on my stove, the decision to leave this place.

At first I didn’t join Pillowfort when they were still sending the keys, because I wasn’t sure if all or at least most of the people I still wanted to be following will be moving – and more importantly, being active – there. That was one of the reasons I only set up a Twitter account to keep up with a lot of people, who said they were moving there. I admit, I can’t get used to using it, so it looks like I am not keeping up that well with their content. It’s too… condensed? Fast? Too, like, chunky, if communication can be called such. The marks limit just honestly, honestly doesn’t do it to me at all, it prevents any essay-like format of a post (threads are not the same, they generate a different structure), and it is deeply dissatisfying to me. And as a cherry on top I have to click at every single picture to see it in full (or at least viewable) size, and I have to do the same if there are a couple of pics in one post. It’s the worst, sorry. I’m sure it has a wonderful uses elsewhere, but not for the purpose I liked to be on Tumblr for, not as my kind of blogging platform.

The other reason I didn’t join Pillowfort and why I was having those thoughts before is this: I got lazy with art and culture. I got used to consuming all the time, instead of creating even just a bit. The half-creating thing that reblogging content felt like was appeasing any creative hunger I might’ve had. Instead of wanting to be an active part of a fandom or creating my own original stuff (which I have ideas for! They are just not being developed! At all!!!) I was perfectly content with being a consumer, and a rather lazy one, to add to all of that – rarely left comments on the fics I read, reblogged a lot of art without stopping to give a feedback in the tags (though this I at least tried to do, as I often just had that urge coming from within, to praise the artists), didn’t contact with the other members too much. To be honest, it requires from me – I think – about the same amount of social engagement and energy from me to strike a relationship online as it does offline, so I have never been one of the most popular or sociable fandom people. But, you know, that could change, if I tried. I didn’t.

Anyway, this is first part of the second reason. This is the moment in my life where I am currently trying to somewhat decide or settle on what I want to be pursuing professionally job-wise, and so I have to find out pretty soon if I am able to be creating more, or creating sustainably over a period of time. The mindset of more grinding and improving of what there already is is not going to help me as much as the one where I create and create, and create, and only then I think of the rest. I badly need to get into the habit of that.

The second part of the second reason is that I realised that I waste so much time in here. Even when it’s in the ‘allowed’ situations, like on a bus ride where I have nothing else to do, I just eat up pleasant things, instead of being less directed with my thoughts, I fix on themes I already know instead of reaching outside of my zone.

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve talked many times about many, many good sides this platform has (well, had), when it comes to the content, culture, and so on, and how I have actually broadened my horizons, thanks to it. You can go in my ‘whatever life’ tag and see at any time or this last post I made about the current situation. But this post is about the negatives, and why it is very probable I am leaving soon.

I’m feeling somewhat like I should just do some overall Internet detox for myself, or at least drastically change how I have used it. It is not building me up, expanding me, developing me any more. It has become limiting.

Hence, the idea of perhaps changing a platform. Baby steps. I don’t want to lose the contact with the couple of people whom I daresay befriended, and I do hope we will be able to sustain it, even if we will move out to different sites and it will all come down to, I don’t know, sending e-mails, which I feel is for casual relationships on the Internet an equivalent of sending the post via pigeons. Pigeons or not, I want to stay in touch with you. But I also want to move on, I just haven’t figured out yet where exactly – I already have an AO3, maybe I will join Dreamwidth? I feel like both of those may generate more of the climate I want to immerse in the future. Maybe I will get Pillowfort after all, as it is familiar and apparently has all the good sides of Tumblr that I liked, and the blogging format, but they actually listen to the users (my whole heart is with the founders and the idea of Pillowfort). I will sure let you know if/when I will choose a new main platform.

Ah, I would forget. The third reason I don’t feel like being here. I was trying for a bit to be blogging normally, and to observe how everybody else is functioning – but it doesn’t feel right for me anymore. The feeling of being restricted with the content, the general wrongness of it all, the emptiness of my dash – there are just a few people, couple of us here, trying to get over all of what happened. But my landscape have changed, and maybe a couple of the trees have stayed exactly the same in my forest, but I can hear the harvester sound in the distance and see the sky changing the colour from the fires. It doesn’t feel right for me to pretend everything is as it was and contentedly carry on.

So, this is a sort of a prolonged goodbye from me. I am estimating I will be blogging as I am now for about till the New Year, and then. Well, then we’ll see what will I do, where will I go. I will be reblogging this post periodically in hope anyone who wants to can contact or find me on other social media that I have, and that it will all be explained when I will decide to move on.

Places where I can be found:

AO3 (@aislinngun)

Twitter (@pickyperkypeng1)

Instagram (@pleurotus.ostreatus) – though I can’t really be that free there, as people who I know offline are following me there

[toradh]

Fran spends a month on Pillowfort

Hi folks, after a month of having a Pillowfort account, let me tell you a little about it to make you join the fun:

-there’s still some known issues/bugs that need to be fixed; the good news is, the staff WANTS you to tell them so they can fix them over time.

-okay GOOD news first. There is an inbuilt (!) blacklisting feature. Yes I know tumblr has that now, too (another reason for me to never log out, lol), but Pillowfort had it from the start. You can blacklist as many tags, or even words within a post as possible. Bad news: it’s case-sensitve, so either you have to blacklist everything in different capitalization variants, or you have to pray that everyone agrees on one variant when tagging their posts (eg if you block “fandom drama lama”, a post tagged “Fandom Drama Lama” will still appear). And just as on tumblr, it doesn’t work if somebody reblogs that post but doesn’t add the tag again that you blacklisted (or is it finally fixed on tumblr now? idk). So keep an eye open for that (plan is to fix that so that all REBLOGS of the tagged post will STILL be blocked from your dashboard, though).

-there’s a feature that lets you flag your own posts as nsfw, too, no questions asked. And it lets you decide who can see, comment on, like, and reblog your posts.

-which are very nice steps in the good direction of no more annoying porn bots.

-NESTED COMMENTS

-STRANGERS ACTUALLY COMMENT NICELY ON THE STUFF YOU DO

-I am no longer used to any sort of response to original art, I cannot deal with this sudden attention

-communities to post your stuff to (to reach people more effectively than via tags)

-downside: you cannot post anything to communities without being a permanent member of it. Eg if you painted a picture with, let’s say, an elephant in it, and you want to post it to a community for elephant lovers, you have to follow that community. Even if you actually have no interest in all the other posts in that community. Means if I’m in three art communities, I always see EVERYONE’s posts in that community, even if I don’t follow the individual artists. I won’t be nice about this, just because I’m an artist doesn’t mean that I have any interest in seeing every single person who just learns how to draw on my dash. Honestly. But I also can’t post to these communites to promote my own art without joining the community. So it’s either: nobody sees your art because you’re not in the community, or you spam your own dash with bad beginner’s art, or just generally art that you have no interest in. I mean, okay. I think I see why one would do that. It gives ALL artists equal exposure. It’s fair. It’s nice. But it also means I am forced to waste time by scrolling through posts of beginner’s art that I have no interest in. Please don’t get me started on a discussion that I’m discouraging young artists now, heck no, FOR THE LOVE OF ANYTHING THAT’S HOLY, KEEP DRAWING AND PRACTICING, YOUNG FOLKS. And some day you’ll go places, and be the new Rembrandt. BUT. Just because I highly approve of you doing art doesn’t mean that I consider scrolling through all your practice a good way to spend my time. Period. I mean you can always ignore your dash, but that also means you miss your mutuals’ posts etc. The stuff you actually WANT to see. A feature that let’s you silence communities but still post to them might work; didn’t check whether anybody proposed that option yet

So anyway, make of the way communities work what you will

-definitely a perk, tho: there’s a community for cat pics and one for birds

That sounds a bit salty in places, but I actually really like what the team is doing, and I already feel very cozy on Pillowfort. I’ll definitely keep using it for posting art and blogging, so if you also crave for a blogging platform that works majorly different than Twitter or tumblr, please come join the fun! (either via donation, or wait until the beta phase ends)

Thanks for coming to my talk