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shadowtriovibes · 11 months

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pt. iii: sweat it out

pt. i: break a sweat || pt. ii: blood, sweat and tears || pt. iv: never let 'em see you sweat

Pairing: Sebastian Sallow x f!MC

Rating: E

Word Count: 3.3K

Warnings: 18+, aged-up characters, explicit sexual content, unprotected PIV sex, fluff and smut, quidditch jersey porn, sexy massages, dirty talk, romanticizing doggy style

Summary: born of two requests: "what about sebastian fucking the reader while she's wearing his quidditch jersey. i can see him going feral when he sees his last name on her back" and "Maybe for Part 3, MC is giving Bash a much needed massage after all of his HARD quidditch practices and games… in nothing but his jersey."

Sebastian reluctantly turns over onto his stomach so that you can sit astride his hips. As soon as you rest your weight on top of him, he exhales tiredly as if he’s just set down a towering stack of books at the librarian’s desk – like he’s let go of a weight he hadn’t realized had slowly become so burdensome in his arms. "Relax," you murmur. "I've got you." Then he tilts his head to rest on his folded hands. You know he can’t quite see you at an angle this, but you still catch just a glimpse of his warm brown eyes before they flutter shut.

Climbing all the way up to the Room of Requirement after one of his weekend Quidditch practices must be excruciating for Sebastian, you think.

After practice, he’s usually sore just about everywhere – from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet he positively aches. Having seen him in action you know that he’ll often race upwards of a hundred kilometers on his broom simply doing laps around the pitch and tracking down the school’s enchanted practice Snitches.

To make matters worse, he’s forced to skip breakfast to be at the pitch by sun-up on strict orders from his captain, who goes on to keep the team well past eleven. Now he must be starving, but if you know your love, he’ll steadfastly ignore the temptation to go straight to the Great Hall for lunch and instead make the trek up to the seventh-floor corridor.

That’s precisely why you’re waiting for him there.

In the mornings when he has practice, you like to treat yourself to a bit of a lie-in and lazily wait around for his return so you can have lunch together. You would be happy to meet him downstairs when he returns to the castle, but lately, Anne and Ominis have protested whenever Sebastian joins the lunch table straight from practice still flushed, sweating, and covered in mud from the waist down.

(Those two have become exponentially more autocratic since they started courting.)

Thus, Sebastian usually decides to be a gentleman and change first.

In the months since the start of Quidditch season and Sebastian’s first overnight stay in the Room of Requirement, he’s slowly started bringing in his belongings until he’d effectively moved out of the dormitories and into a shared nest with you. Most of his clothes were there by now, along with his endless piles of library books and his cherished personal collection of secondhand novels from Tomes and Scrolls.

You assume he’ll probably want to quickly strip off his mucked-up robes and find something clean to change into so he can escort you downstairs for lunch. But despite the exhausting morning he must have already had, you don’t feel quite enough pity for your Sebastian to take it easy on him when he finally arrives.

When he enters the room, he finds you lounging on the bed reading one of his beloved Muggle novels – wearing nothing but one of his Quidditch jerseys.

“Sebastian!” you call out happily when you look up.

“Morning, love,” he answers as he shoves the heavy door closed.

“You’re finally free,” you joke, closing your book. “I thought I’d have to come down to the pitch soon and challenge Imelda to a duel to get her to set you loose.”

“I won’t mind seeing that,” he laughs. “That would have been quite chivalrous of you.”

He shrugs out of his Quidditch robes and pulls his own soaking-wet shirt up over his head. You watch longingly as his core flexes – all those hours on a broom have made him exceptionally well-defined, and you wish you could simply get on your knees right then and there to spend your morning tracing your tongue over every delineated band of muscle.

“You know,” he teases, pulling you from your reverie. “I had planned to just put on a clean shirt to go down to lunch, but it seems you’ve nicked my spare.”

“Did I?” you say, feigning innocence. “I just grabbed the first thing I could find, I swear.”

Sebastian glances at you skeptically before sitting down at what has become “his” desk to take off his boots. You frown when you catch him wincing while he bends at the waist.

“Are you hurt?” you ask him softly.

“No,” he insists. “Just sore all over.”

“Bash,” you croon. “Poor babe.”

“Come off it, I’m fine,” he laughs. “I just need some food and a nice long bath and I’ll be grand.”

You climb off the bed and saunter over to him in his chair, appreciating the way his eyes skim across the hem of his pilfered jersey. With every step, your hips sway and tease him with quick glimpses of the tops of your bare legs.

“Are you sure?” you ask sweetly. “Because if you’re feeling poorly, I can take care of you.”

Not even the promise of dry clothes and a warm meal could pull Sebastian’s attention from such a tempting offer, especially not while you’re wearing his clothes.

He sits back in his chair while you kneel in front of him to carefully unlace his Quidditch boots. After you take off his pads as well, it’s just too easy to climb onto his lap and wind your arms around his shoulders.

Sebastian’s gaze dips down to the space between your legs. He lays one palm flat against your thigh and uses his thumb to ruck up the hem of the jersey just a bit.

“You haven’t got anything on under this, do you?” he asks knowingly.

“Not a stitch,” you breathe.

Sebastian groans quietly and wraps an arm around your waist to hold you tightly against him.

“Leave it on,” he says in a low voice. “I want to see you in my jersey the entire time I’m taking you apart.”

“Not so fast, Sallow,” you counter. “Let me give you a massage first, it will help with the soreness.”

“A ‘massage?’” he asks hopefully.

When you merely raise an eyebrow at him, he looks simply crushed.

“You’re joking,” he says flatly. “You… you actually mean to ‘take care’ of me? In an actual ‘nurse-me-back-to-health’ sort of way?”

“I mean both the regular way and the devious way,” you laugh. “But if you’re aching right now, it’s not going to be much fun for you.”

“You are sincerely wrong about that,” he argues, but you’re undeterred.

“Let me do this first,” you bargain. “I promise you’ll feel better afterward.”

There’s a bit more whining and attempts to seduce you as you wriggle free of Sebastian’s lap and tug on his arm so he’ll walk over to the bed. He strips down to the garment layer he wears beneath his uniform pants and kindly allows you to shove him onto the bed.

He’s peering up at you expectantly, obviously hoping you’ll cave and climb onto his lap once again.

“Turn over, Sebastian,” you say with a fond eye roll. “On your stomach.”

“You’re malicious,” he gripes. “An evil, wicked sorceress.”

“Relax,” you murmur. “I’ve got you.”

Then he tilts his head to rest on his folded hands. You know he can’t quite see you at an angle this, but you still catch just a glimpse of his warm brown eyes before they flutter shut.

Go on, he says without words. Touch me. I trust you.

You think you could just stay here all day with your hands on his slightly-chilly skin. Warming him up to your touch, you skim your hands across his firm shoulder blades, along the tops of his sun-kissed shoulders, and then down the solid expanse of aching muscle in his back. He’s so broad beneath you, you think, even on his stomach. Without his height to add to the imposing figure he usually cuts, he nevertheless looks perfectly capable of rolling you off of him should he desire.

Knowing that there’s very little he could desire less sends an excited shiver through you. It’s a privilege, getting to be gentle with a man like Sebastian.

After all, except for when his hands are on your body, Sebastian is anything but gentle. He’s headstrong, impulsive, and obstinately ungovernable when he knows he’s in the right. Physically, he’s grown into a body that matches.

You shouldn’t be surprised that despite playing as a Seeker, Sebastian is not the kind of athlete who relies on being lithe and quick on his broom. Whenever he finds himself in a dead heat for the Snitch, he routinely throws his whole body into a maneuver and hurdles himself into his opposing Seeker to knock them off their path.

He’s brutish on the pitch and offers no apologies for it, though he will extend a gentlemanly hand whenever he bests the other Seeker to their prize.

Worst of all is that he has no fear of mutually assured destruction. He wants to win, sure; but more importantly, he wants the other team to lose. If that means both he and his opponent must crash into the ground in a pile of torn sports robes and grass stains before being hauled up to the Hospital Wing by an exasperated Nurse Blainey, so be it.

(Needless to say, you aren’t the only one who calls him “Bash” anymore.)

You consider all this while you quietly work through some of the larger knots that have built up in the muscles of his back. His body has kept hold of a momentous amount of trauma over the years, and if you can help dissolve even a fraction of it with your hands, you’ll be overjoyed.

Carefully you splay the palms of your hands against his bare skin and concentrate hard on spreading warmth and relaxation through the striations of Sebastian’s muscles. You visualize your magic wrapping through the infinitely small tears and bruises he’s endured to diffuse a relief that emanates a warm, pinkish glow you can genuinely see.

“What’s happening?” Sebastian asks, his voice slurred.

“How do you feel?” you whisper.

“Incredible,” he breathes. “Are you…? Is this magic that you’re doing? Ancient magic?”

“I’m not exactly sure,” you admit softly. “Regular magic, ancient magic… It’s probably a bit of both.”

“How did you–?” Sebastian asks before trailing off in a lazy, satisfied moan. “Merlin, it feels good.”

“Anne’s been showing me some of the healing magic she’s been studying with Nurse Blainey,” you say softly. “It’s actually quite interesting, Anne is quite talented with–”

“No more talking about Anne for a little while, love,” Sebastian grits out. “Just – just keep doing whatever it is you’re doing. Please.”

You giggle softly while you slide your hands down further to the base of his spine, where you know for a fact he carries an unjust amount of tension. It’s precisely there that he stores his worries about upcoming N.E.W.T. exams, his all-important role on the Quidditch team, and the pressure he puts on himself to succeed so he can take care of Anne once you all graduate – you too, now, even though you insist you’ll be equals in every way possible.

“Feeling a bit better?” you ask him hopefully.

“Can’t remember the last time I felt this good,” he mumbles. “You should be a Healer.”

“I don’t know about that,” you demur. “I rather like the idea of only doing this for you.”

Sebastian’s soft groan sounds like one of assent.

You channel magic through him for a few more moments until you notice that he finally feels less inflamed beneath your fingertips. Then you let the glow fade away until it’s just you and Sebastian, no more magic thrumming between where your bodies touch.

He’s quiet for several long moments and you wonder whether you might have simply magicked him to sleep.

“Bash?” you whisper. “Are you alright?”

All of a sudden, he’s remarkably alive beneath you. He cants one hip to tip you off of his back and onto the bed beside him, earning an annoyed huff out of you when you land on your rear. But before you can put the words together to protest, he’s parting your legs with his hands so he can settle between them and rucking up the jersey until he can see your bare core.

“You’re incredible,” he tells you earnestly. “I feel better than I have in months, love.”

“Th-that’s good,” you stutter, a bit bewildered.

He continues, “And I’m going to return the favor right this minute.”

You barely have time to blink before he’s kissing you breathless and rocking his hips against yours. You gasp sharply into his mouth and he swallows the sound, pressing his tongue against yours in that filthy way that he knows gets you soaking for him every single time he does it.

“Bash,” you whine. “Slow down a little.”

“Not a chance,” he says against your neck. “I want you, you made me need you.”

…Merlin, did you?

You try to focus while Sebastian stretches out the collar of his own jersey to suck claiming bruises along your collarbone. Did you overdo it on the healing spell? Possibly imbue him with a little too much “love?”

But then he confesses, “You’re irresistible in my clothes like this, d’you know that?”

You breathe a sigh of relief when you realize that that’s what’s got him so worked up. It’s you in his colors, his rumpled clothing with his damn name emblazoned on your back.

That quickly gives you an idea.

“Let me turn over,” you grunt as you try to squirm out from underneath him. “Sebastian, please.”

He looks thoroughly displeased when you sit up, so you placate him with one more filthy kiss before he won’t have access to your mouth for a while. Then you settle on your elbows and knees, jersey shoved up to the middle of your waist.

Sebastian says some foul words under his breath when he sees you arch and present yourself for him. You wish he’d just bury himself in you, patience and preparation be damned. Together the two of you have discovered that there’s a time and a place for slow, intimate lovemaking just as much as there is for desperate, urgent, feral fucking.

You know which one Sebastian is craving.

“Take me like this, Bash,” you say breathlessly. “So you can see whose name I carry.”

He leans over you and drags his hand across the “SALLOW” stitched in thick, white letters across the broadest part of the jersey’s shoulders. Then he lets out a noise that sounds suspiciously like a growl as he grinds his hips against yours.

“I need to be inside you,” he grunts. Behind you, you can hear him shoving his base layer down his thighs before he drags two fingertips along your slit and uses your wetness to stroke his cock. “I can’t be patient.”

“Don’t be,” you insist. You sway your hips invitingly and arch your back. “I’m ready.”

“You need my fingers,” he tells you. “I’ll give you enough, I won’t hurt you.”

You stun him by reaching a hand back and showing him how you can press two fingers against your entrance that easily sink inside. You moan softly at how different the angle is from how you usually touch yourself, but it works to get the point across to Sebastian.

“I’m ready,” you repeat. “I was waiting for you.”

Sebastian traces a thumb along your slit beside your fingers, pulling you open a bit to let himself look his fill as you spread your wetness around wantonly.

“Is this what you were doing while I was at practice?” he asks. “Laying in this bed in my clothes, playing with your pussy, and thinking of what I’d do to you when I got back?”

Now that’s a word he most certainly picked up from those Muggle books he likes to read, but it makes you squirm desperately nonetheless.

“Yes,” you whimper. “B-but I waited for you to finish.”

“That’s a shame,” he murmurs. “I suppose I’ll have to make sure you’re properly seen to, since you’ve been waiting so long.”

He presses his thumb against your entrance with your two fingers and when you can easily take it inside as well, he decides you’re indeed plenty ready for his cock instead. His gentle hand on your wrist coaxes you into pulling out, and then he lines himself up and starts to press inside.

You whimper his name as you collapse onto your elbows. He feels impossibly big like this, and despite your insistence that you were ready for him, it’s a toe-curling kind of stretch that has you panting and trembling beneath him while your body alternates between its animal instincts to rear back or submit.

“Good, you take me so well, love,” he groans. “How do you feel?”

In answer, you loudly groan into the pillow you’ve bunched up beneath you.

“Sounds like you’re enjoying yourself,” he says smugly. “Hold on tight for me, alright?”

After a few easy thrusts to ensure you’re properly braced for the full weight of him, Sebastian starts to relentlessly pound you down into the mattress. He supports you with his forearm wrapped beneath your hips and one broad hand pressing into your back – right below where his name is inscribed.

You’re fiercely loud in bed with him, but even when you’re whining and nearly sobbing for him, you can’t drown out the sound of his foul mouth.

“Take this cock,” he grunts. “Take it all, it’s what you wanted, right? For me to fill you up?”

“Yes!” you wail, knowing he expects an answer.

“That’s right,” he growls. “You want it all, I’ll give it all to you, always.”

He leans over your back and grinds in deep and you feel a twinge that isn’t entirely pleasure, but you wouldn’t dare ask him to stop – it’s too good, especially when it’s straddling the line of being too much.

“I’m gonna give you everything,” he confesses into your ear. “My seed, my name on your back, I’ll give you anything you want.”

“Give it to me,” you slur. “Go on, Bash.”

“I will love, I will,” he grunts. “But I’m finishing you first.”

He keeps murmuring filth into your ear while he works a hand underneath you to rub quick, firm circles against your clit the way he knows you like. He talks about how sweet you are for him, how you’re the best thing he has, how he wants to keep you right here for as long as you’ll let him, but whether he means in this bed or in his arms you can’t possibly know.

He deftly works you to a breathtaking climax – quite literally you lose your breath, and he just keeps drawing it out with his eager fingers and his cock buried deep in you for so long that you wonder when it will ever stop. When it finally relents, you rest your cheek against the pillow and lie boneless, content to let Sebastian hold your hips up so he can work himself toward his finish.

“Want you to keep it all inside,” he says mindlessly. “Keep it in, keep my jersey on too, fuck–”

When he spills in you, he grinds his sensitive cock against your hips for as long as he can take it to make sure you stay full of his spend. Then when he pulls out, he tucks that damn jersey back down over your ass as if to make the claim, Our work here is done.

You lay exhausted on your stomach while Sebastian cozies up behind you. Within minutes of catching your breaths his stomach growls, so you know you won’t be there for much longer, but neither of you seems to be in any hurry to untangle yourself from the other.

Eventually, you have to ask him, “...So, ‘my name on your back,’ hmm?”

You expect him to blush and stammer, or start talking about how maybe, someday, when he feels like he’s satisfied some sort of redemptive goal that will make him feel like he deserves it, that could be a reality.

Instead, he kisses behind the hinge of your jaw and murmurs, “I meant it. Whenever you want it, it’s yours. Just say the word.”

“Fine, but if I get the name, I get to keep the jersey,” you sigh.

He buries his nose in your hair and happily mumbles, “I think we’ll have to negotiate that one.”

#hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy fic #sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow x mc #sebastian sallow x reader #sebastian x mc #sebastian x reader #my fic #CAN WE BELIEVE I FINISHED SOMETHING #this was a bear to get done but i think i'm good with where it landed #i will never let go of sweaty seeker sebastian #and yes that's a movie screenshot bc there are no good pictures of quidditch uniforms

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armoricaroyalty · 4 months

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beautiful and horny

I recently reread one of my favorite essays, Everyone is Beautiful and No One is Horny, and posted a bit about it here. The difference between "beautiful" and "horny" (between "hot" and "sexy," as my bestie @nexility-sims puts it) is kind of difficult to explain in the abstract. So instead of just complaining, I thought it might be useful for me to try to explain how I've tried to depict sex and desire in my story.

Suggestion One: use close-ups to demonstrate desire

First off: I think the key to making something sexy isn't to show someone or something that is visually beautiful. Sexiness isn't about aesthetics, it's about desire. It's very easy to show the audience a beautiful person, harder to make clear that they are desirable. Desire isn't about seeing a beautiful person, it's about looking at them and noticing things about them, specific things. Desire often carries a little bit of objectification with it, and that's okay -- the problem is when someone is wholly objectified, made into a passive thing, a receptacle for desire rather than a person who is themselves desirable.

In this scene, I have two close-ups that emphasize Vivi's backless dress (and Julián's touch). She's wearing that backless dress the whole time, but we don't really notice it until the camera calls specific attention to it by moving in close. The zoom-in on the second shot intensifies what is already present in the first shot, creating a sense of escalation -- it's the same thing, twice in a row, but there is a sense that tension is building. Please also note that Julián is bare-handed, but all the Armoricans are all wearing gloves.

So, to show that someone is desirable, you need to show what the other character is noticing about them. This is happily pretty easy in a visual medium! The entire point of a close-up is to show the audience what they're meant to be noticing: the listening device hidden in the potted plant, the smudged handwriting in a suspect's passport, the curve of the love interest's spine in her backless dress. An effective close-up helps the reader see the character as their love interest does, helps them understand why that character is sexy.

(This doesn't need to be entirely physical! Skill and expertise are desireable traits...a close-up of a chef's hands as they lovingly prepare a meal for their beloved can express desire, as could a shot of an athlete clearing the bar in the high jump.)

Suggestion Two: sex is a thing you do with your mouth and hands

As a wise man once said in an interview about one of my favorite video games, "the thing about desire is that it’s stronger when it’s not totally satisfied."

A wide shot where you can see someone's entire naked body is like 50% sexy. A close-up where you can see part of their naked body is like 75% sexy. A close-up of someone's hands as they tug at the plunging neckline of their evening dress is all the way sexy.

Anything that makes your imagination go into overdrive to fill in the details is automatically going to be sexier than something where you see everything.

(see also: William Ware Theiss, one of the costume designers for Star Trek, who said, "the sexiness of an outfit is directly proportional to the perceived possibility that a vital piece of it might fall off.")

I make use of this a lot.

In this scene, there's a lot of chest on display, but when Vivi makes a pass at Julián, we're looking at their hands and not their bodies. This is another escalation, her touching him instead of the other way around. We're seeing her take the lead, which is sexy!!!

In this scene, we get mouths and hands in a single shot. In a wide shot, this moment of him feeding her ice cream might read as cute, but removed from context and zoomed in to just the mouth and hands, it becomes sensual.

Suggestion Three: Linger in the moment, let us see the reaction

A lot of the idioms related to sex and desire suggest a loss of control. Arousal is "getting hot and bothered," having sex is "giving in" to desire. It's not enough just to show something sexy, we also need to see the effect it's having on our characters. Don't be afraid to show your characters getting flustered, stammering, getting caught up in the moment. I think that people are sometimes a little embarrassed about including sex and want to show only the bare minimum. They want it to be sexy, but they also want it to be over and done with. These two desires are almost always at odds with one another -- if you want something to be sexy, don't be afraid to linger in the moment. Show the action, but more importantly, show the reaction.

In this scene, we don't need to see any naked bodies (or where exactly Emily's put her hands). It's enough to see Freddy getting progressively more worked up as they make out.

It's especially sexy to show a person who is ordinarily very controlled coming undone.

It's not hard to understand why this was my best-performing post of 2023. Leonor and Andre, both very buttoned-up and in-control people, can't keep their hands off of one another. The facade slips for both of them, they need one another more than they need to discuss whatever important thing they were supposed to be discussing.

Suggestion Four: If you aren't fully comfortable showing sex, you don't have to

Not a ton to say here, but I think it's an important point to end on. If you feel weird and awkward writing sex, downloading sexy poses, and taking sexy screenshots, you don't have to include those things in your story!

Sex positivity doesn't mean everyone's fucking all of the time, it means everyone is expressing the amount of sexuality they are comfortable with. I exclusively wrote erotica/smut for nearly a decade, I am very comfortable including sex in my story. But if that's not you, that's okay! You don't need to include anything you don't want to.

A Random Observation That Didn't Fit Anywhere Else

If you have a scene that features naked or nearly-naked characters that aren't meant to be sexy, you can do the opposite of these things to avoid sexualizing them. Show them in wide shots, don't zoom in close to emphasize any one part of their body, focus on things other than physical reaction -- I've got this whole scene with Leonor in a swimsuit but it's not really sexy in the context. We're not leering at her body, she just happens to be wearing a swimsuit because they're at the beach. Even the physical touch and intimacy in that scene isn't particularly sexy, the emphasis there is on the emotions.

#armorica tips #sex cw

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cornflakesdoesart · 1 year

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So like, what if B’elanna and Kes dated each other, instead of their lousy boyfriends? Like what then?

My thoughts about them is under the cut, I just wanted to say some stuff in the tags but then I had too much to say :” D

[ID: digital drawing of B’elanna Torres and Kes from Star Trek Voyager, B’elanna is wearing her uniform with added elbow and knee patches and pockets to the design, Kes is wearing a multi layered green and purple outfit, they are sitting, embracing, looking at each other and smiling. The background is a lilac square, yellow stars and pale green flowers around the characters legs. End ID]

this is basically a crack pair lmao I think they never even interact in canon, but I had this ooold drawing of them that I wanted to redraw and then I had so much fun with it

Basically my thinking behind this was that I think their personalities have a nice contrast. At first I think B'elanna would think Kes is a bit of a pushover, but with time I think Kes would be someone B'ellana could feel safe with because she is so non judgemental, and that would be a good mix with how selfconcious B'elanna is of her klingon heritage and temper, that a lot of other characters give her shit for and neg her even when she is acting perfectly normal tbh. I think they would appreciate each other's work ethics and persistence slash stubborness when it comes to things they believe in. and I think Kes is maybe not written very consistently but I remeber her being very even tempered and I think maybe she could benefit from picking up some of B'elanna expressiveness or “temper’” so to speak. And yeah I think Kes could become someone B'ellana isn't constantly self monitoring and holding back in front of when they are together in fear that she is too much, too aggressive, too klingon, and maybe it could start that it's B'elanna who is helping out in the infirmary not Tom!

Basically their canon boyfriends are often/can be jelous, possesive, negging or controlling, especially and mostly Neelix, I wouldn’t say Tom is ever controlling and he gets pretty good as a husband, but still I didn’t really finish the series being swept up in their relationship so that’s probably why I was like but what if...women loving women? And you know if I was writing fic or could bend time continuum to my will and change the show I wouldn’t want Kes/B’ellana to be pure unproblematic fluff either cuz I do love some drama, but not the realisticly lousy boyfriend kind of drama I guess :”D

thank you for coming to my ted talk, and don’t take me too seriously, this is just a bit of fun :”))

#Star Trek #star trek voyager #st voy #kes #star trek kes #b'elanna torres #kes x b'ellana #fanart #digital art #at it again with ships out of left field lol #the way composing this post took forever tho aaargghh

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nin-carab-nidh-madt · 3 days

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I have thought on Jadzia Dax from Star Trek Deep Space 9.

I'm currently rewatching the show (midway season 2), probably my 4th watch through over 8 years? My first time with slightly more youtube-essay-driven media analysis skills. I'm enjoying picking up on a lot more things than I used to but there's one thing that bugs me above all else.

Jadzia Dax doesn't really have a strongly defined character that shines through.

I've spent a while thinking about it. Obviously as a science officer its a little harder to tell stories the audience can understand and relate to compared to Odo's murder investigating or Sisko's exasperated diplomacy, but her stories have issues greater than that.

Both the stories centred on Dax, in season 1 where she stands trial for a crime supposedly committed by a former host, and in season 2 where someone tries to steal her symbiont, are about things that happen to Dax. Not the things Dax does. She is neither the perspective character through which we can see the world of Star Trek, with her own unique views and feelings, nor is she the one actively moving the plot forwards. She's either the victim who sacrifices herselr or quite literally refuses to do anything. Unfortunately this is quite a common failing of writing that's easy to fall into, writing about a character instead of the character making decisions that drive the plot. Its one that sci fi writing at the time seemed to do quite often with a lot (but not all) female characters. Ivanova and Talia from Babylon 5 fall victim to this too, especially in early seasons. In contrast, Major Kira, and even Ezri Dax later on have stronger characterisation and are the centre of their own stories.

I doubt this was intentional, its clear through the successes of writing other characters in the show that the writers, actors, and showrunners are trying to make everyone alive and meaningful, so what went wrong?

Looking at Jadzia Dax's character, I think what's clearly missing is a strong drive for her character. No real desires or vulnerabilities. No questions either. To provide constrasting examples:

Odo (who gets almost too much screen time in season 1) is clearly driven by a sense of justice no matter whatever starfleet rules say. He's in constant conflict with Quark, ever vigilant, somewhat isolated from other people. No one ever asks "Why does Odo do what he does?" His motivations are clear, and they even tie it up with an extra motive that's very plot relevant: the mystery of where he comes from. All things a single episode writer can use and explore.

Major Kira has her own conflict with starfleet, her desire to do right by her own people, to get justice for Bajor, and always stand up for the underdog which creates really good stories as she struggles with her own values and constantly has to make choices that affect the story.

Bashir wants acclaim, accomplishment, romance, and also for everyone to like him. Quark wants profit without putting himself at risk. O'Brien wants to just do his job and go home to his family. Sisko wants to hold everything together with the responsibility of peace and reason on his shoulders while singlehandedly raising his son. Jake wants community, friends, and freedom in his life. Funnily enough Ezri Dax has far better drive. Trying to figure out what she wants in life, handling this enormous change and overwhelming personality, and her own lack of confidence that she's useful to anyone sometimes. She grows and changes more over the course of a season than we ever see in early seasons Jadzia.

What does Jadzia Dax want?

I think in attempting to make a wise 300 year old person who's seen everything, they accidentally wrote themselves into a corner. Jadzia has no strong motivations to do much at all. She does fine as a secondary character, and I love how her friendship with Sisko plays out on screen, but beyond being surprisingly enlightened about a lot of things as the result of age and experience there's no drive there.

And so no drive or motivation, and no stories told from her perspective. We have ourselves a problem.

I thought for a while if I could find a solution to the issue rather than just offer criticism. I originally tried writing an outline for an episode. Jadzia would be a fantastic protagonist for any wacky sci fi short story concept that required a scientist to explore, such as time travel paradoxes, simulations, weird space anomolies that do "plot relevant thing" that she would be perfectly posed to actually explore instead of "technobabble and tap console" until the problem is solved.

Then I decided that all we really needed to have a framework any writer could use is to establish a strong character motivation for her. Here's my shot at it.

Jadzia Dax, in harmony with seven lifetimes of experience, is an extremely competent twenty seven year old woman. She can almost certainly do the job of anyone on the station better than they can. Fix a computer? Better than O'Brien can. First aid? She's there and solved the issue before Julian can get there. Solve a murder? A past host was an invesigator of course she can to Odo's chagrin. She has better ideas of what Sisko can do to bring the Bajorans towards the federation. Hell she's the best representative of federation values on that station and could constantly be presenting that of the story.

Dax struggles to hold herself back when she sees her friends failing at what she can solve the problem for them. She tries not to, that's what her training tells her to do. But out here on the edge of Federation space where there's constantly lives on the line? She finds herself interfering in other people's work more and more often. She just doesn't want it do be done wrong. She pushes herself hard to do too many jobs. She doesn't sleep or eat enough while telling everyone else to take care of themselves better. After a while people start relying on her. It turns from her helping to her having those responsibilities. Pilot. Diplomat. Linguist. Researcher. Mechanic. Leader. So much emotional support for her friends because everything they're suffering she's been through herself. It becomes too much for her and you could make the core of one story her just crashing. Learning how to balance her experience with giving room to other to shine through and solve their own problems, which they're very capable of doing. There's plenty more detail to elaborate on but I think this gives a core drive and conflict that lasts a character a couple of seasons at least to explore and grow through.

I happily invite thoughts as to whether my original observations are astute, or wether you think there aren't any problems with how Jadzia's passivity plays out in the show. If you think there are problems, do you think my perscribed solution helps fix them? How would you go about it?

#star trek #star trek ds9 #ds9 #jadzia dax #babylon 5 #writing

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canonmisogynyvictimstournament · 8 months

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PRELIMINARY ROUND - STAR TREK

PROPAGANDA

T'Pol

1.) dressed as a sex object. far more qualified & experienced than the (male) captain yet treated as less capable. had her agency removed when her past rape was revealed against her wishes & the episode treated it as a good thing. her taking command of the ship got humanity wiped out in an alternate timeline & she "redeemed herself" by becoming a housewife. there was a scene where the captain fell face first into her boobs. whatever they paid her actress, it should have been at least 3x more

2.) i think you can most clearly see the misogyny t'pol deals with in her costuming and makeup. she is given clear special treatment to make her look "more attractive": she wears catsuits throughout the show (despite neither institution she works for having any other similar uniforms, even for other women), sexy little silk pajamas, a cropped jumpsuit one time (even tho…it's a one piece?? and makes no sense to be cropped????), and SFX makeup that doesnt make her look as "alien" as other members of the literal alien species she's a part of. enterprise's main crime is sexualization, and while everyone (quite literally EVERY member of the cast) is hit with it at least once, t'pol pretty much never gets a break. there's a difference between sexy and overly sexualized, and ent is FAR into the over sexualized side of that spectrum. love you t'pol wish your canon was better xoxo

3.) The classic “Rick Berman Star Trek needs a woman who is strong and competent and part of the crew but gets skintight jumpsuits with low necklines instead of standard issue Starfleet uniforms to show cleavage and keep the male audience on board”.

Kes

1.) Poor Kes had it so bad. She's an Ocampan, which is a kind of alien with psychic powers and a 9-year long life-span. I was pretty interested in what they were going to do with her character when I started watching because in theory with the show having seven seasons, we could have seen her go through pretty much her whole life span over the course of the show. Unfortunately, most of her character is tied up in her terrible boyfriend Neelix, who is at a lower estimate in his mid 30s, and at an upper estimate his mid 50. He met her and started dating her while she was taken prisoner after being kidnapped. Neelix is mostly meant to be comic relief, he acts like an annoying, forcefully cheerful clown for the majority of his time on-screen (when he's not having war flashbacks) except for when he's interacting with Kes. With Kes he is possessive, controlling and manipulative. He's constantly accusing her of trying to cheat on him or leave him, throwing himself pity parties whenever she talks to another man and belittling her. And worst of all he's often framed as being in the right. She hardly gets any screen-time that isn't somehow actually about her boyfriend, the Doctor she's the assistant of or another male crew member who has a crush on her (also too old for her). When she does it's pretty much always focused on her psychic powers and not her as a person.

Some of the highlights of her time on the show include the time that Neelix's lungs were stolen, and after he spends the whole episode feeling sorry for himself and accusing her of being happy about it because he thinks she wants to leave him she donates him one of her lungs. Then there's the time some space anomaly makes her prematurely fertile so she has to decide if she ever wants kids right at that moment, and for some reason, almost the whole episode is focused on whether Neelix wants kids. She eventually breaks up with Neelix. Which is great! But she was possessed at the time. So she didn't even get to do that herself.

She was written off the show at the start of season 4 when another character was added and they needed to boot someone. She "ascends to a higher plane of existence". And then everyone on the crew proceeds to completely forget her about her straight afterwards. I'm not sure anyone was actually sad about her essentially dying. She comes back in a later episode called "Fury" which is about her trying to take revenge on the crew for her poor treatment. You'd think this would be good. But for some reason, she's mostly angry at the captain for allowing her to get on the ship in the first place, despite one of her few character traits being that she's adventurous and always wanting to learn things that no one else has. So the episode mostly focuses on trying to pick apart one of the only parts of her character that was well-defined and consistent. Her past self does tell her that she's forgotten what she truly wanted or something to talk her out of her revenge plan. I'm not really sure what they were going for. She tells the captain she was only an innocent child, so she shouldn't have been allowed to make the decision to get on the ship. She is never shown to be angry at Neelix. The man who started dating her when she was according to her future self a child. And a prisoner.

2.) She's kind of the sexy born yesterday character who's already taken. She's an alien whose race only lives nine years, so when i say that she got married at two that's a bit less alarming. She lived underground her "whole" life (about a year and a half) before she left her town, to find the surface, got kidnapped and then rescued by Neelix, a middle-aged scavenger/smuggler/chef who looks like a Cats character from a regular aging alien race. Neelix promises to show her new places and they apparently fall in love and get married and then Neelix takes her to the Voyager, and she leaves her home forever. At the age of 2. She lived in a cave her whole life, then found this gross little man, married him for some reason, and then was convinced to leave everything she had ever known, her entire family and life, to get on a star ship whose express mission was getting to the other side of the universe as fast as they were able.

Once on the ship she was able to find some independence and her own interests, and eventually left neelix, but god their entire relationship was really just loser old man and naive teenager and it was soooooooo uncomfortable

3.) I rewatched the Kes parts of Voyager. The "General Observations" section can be taken as a TL;DR (sorry for the essay). Here are a few not-so-fun facts about Kes:

General Observations:

Kes was kidnapped 4 times over the course of the show.

Kes often talks like a child especially early on in the show. She acts like a classic Disney Princess; sweet, but not quite understanding what's going on around her.

A lot of Kes's character revolves around the fact that she is very young, and a lot of the more uncomfortable aspects of her treatment revolve around this too. It's not like it's an impossible concept to pull off, in the same show the EMH is actually younger than Kes, and has several romantic relationships that don't feel super creepy in the same way most of Kes's do. This is because the writers don't make him act like a child and they actually give him agency in his relationships.

Kes's people, the Ocampa, live underground on a desert planet. Kes travelled to the surface when she was less than 1 year old, where she was captured by the people living there and tortured for information using "every method of persuasion" that they know. This is where she met and started dating Neelix. He explicitly says he thinks she is dating him because she owes him for getting her out of that situation, and yet it seems like the writers think this is a cute and heartwarming relationship.

Nearly all of her screen time is devoted to emotionally counseling the men around her, helping their character development, comforting and caring for them. She is hardly ever shown to have negative emotions ("Fury" aside), and then it's generally only when a man she cares about is in trouble. This includes when she is kidnapped. Even then she has to be calm, understanding and empathetic.

Kes's established character traits: curious, smart, psychic, caring, kind, young, innocent, naive. Pretty much all of these get tossed out the window in "Fury". She kills people she's known most of her life and tries to sell everyone out to organ harvesters because she gets "confused". She decides not to do this in the end because her younger self tells her she's acting out of character. This episode is one of the worst instances of character assassination I have ever seen.

In about 10 of her 70 total episodes on the show Kes makes a significant contribution to the plot that is not focused on a man. Most of those were more her acting as a psychic plot device rather than anything about her as an actual character. There was only one episode "Before and After", which I would count as truly being devoted to Kes as a character.

Practically every man Kes comes across is attracted to her. Often her attractiveness is mentioned in the same breath as the fact that she is literally a 1-3 year old.

Kes's love interests: Neelix, the EMH, Tom Paris, Tuvix, Ameron (while possessed), Nori (while possessed), Zahir. Aside from Zahir, she has pretty much no agency in any of these relationships.

Neelix calls Kes "sweetie", and talks to her like she's a child. When he's not shouting at her, anyway. Kes unconditionally loves and adores him for some reason.

Observations while watching:

When Neelix's lungs are stolen Kes refuses to leave his side and one of the first things she does is offer to donate one of her own, refuses to let the EMH perform any medical procedures until she's sure it's safe. Meanwhile, Neelix goes on a jealous rant at her because she called another man by his first name.

When Kes donates a lung Neelix refuses at first because the operation would be too dangerous, but Kes says "you've done so much for me, let me give you something once", implying that Kes owes him a lung for him helping free her from the people torturing her.

The episode "Elogium" was apparently meant to be a metaphor for teen pregnancy. With Kes as the teen and Neelix (whose actor says that he sees him as being in his 50s) as the father.

Ocampan puberty apparently happens between the ages of 4 and 5. Kes starts the series at less than 1 year old, and leaves at 3. She is apparently at an age where it would be dangerous to conceive a child in "Elogium". She is not sure she is finished growing. She has been dating Neelix for about a year (possibly more) at this point.

When the EMH hallucinates Kes as his wife, she makes him promise not to tell Neelix, because he tends to get "a little jealous"

In "Elogium", Neelix interrogates Kes over the fact that Tom Paris says "see you later" to her because he "Sees the way he looks at (her). (He) used to look at women that way (he) knows what it means." Neelix is later implied to be in the right here, Kes is being naive thinking Tom Paris could be her friend, apparently.

In "Twisted" Kes turns two years old. Tom Paris gives her a locket for her birthday. Neelix gets pissed off because he thinks he's trying to charm her. Neelix is, again framed as being in the right here.

Kes has a very good memory and is able to remember where everyone's rooms are. When she demonstrates this, Neelix implies she knows this because she's slept with every man on the ship. At the end of this episode, Kes decides to put his photo in her locket to always keep him close.

When Kes is upset that Neelix attacked Tom Paris over her, the EMH tells her she should consider herself lucky to have two men fighting over her.

Tom Paris admits to Neelix that he finds Kes attractive, but says that he won't try anything with her because he respects Neelix. He asks if Neelix would allow him to be her friend. Because who cares what Kes wants right? I guess if Neelix had said no he would have just stopped talking to her?

Tom says Kes is very devoted to Neelix, and Neelix admits he thinks she's only with him because he saved her life and she's grateful he freed her from captivity and she owes him. He is dating her despite this. This is never addressed.

Tanis, another Ocampan, calls her innocent and naive, so she seems quite young even by the standards of her own species.

Tuvix, having inherited Neelix's manipulative tendencies tries to manipulate Kes into begging the captain for his life.

Kes gets kidnapped by caveman aliens. When someone comes to rescue her, the cavemen try to trade another woman to them so they can keep Kes.

Kes goes into a coma and acts as the damsel in distress again in "Sacred Ground"

"This is typical of you Neelix… it bothers you that I'm making friends of my own, you always have to involve yourself somehow." "You can spend time with anyone you want" "As long as I spend most of it with you… I never realised a relationship could be any different. I've never been with anyone but you." Kes when she breaks up with Neelix. Except this isn't Kes because she's actually possessed at the time. She doesn't even get agency in her own breakup.

Kes is dressed in skintight leather trousers and high heels and tries to seduce everyone while possessed by a male warlord. He describes Kes as a "little girl".

In "Darkling" Kes starts wearing form fitting jumpsuits somewhat similar to the ones Seven of Nine wears (though not quite as tight). This is possibly because she's supposed to look more mature, and she starts having "young adult" storylines instead of teenager storylines.

"Everyone seems to be treating me like a child, I'm three years old now"

The EMH kidnaps Kes in "Darkling" when he turns temporarily evil. His treatment of her in this episode includes shoving her into a wall and putting his hand around her neck, repeatedly grabbing and shoving her, holding her at gunpoint and throwing her off a cliff.

The evil EMH kidnaps Kes because she wants to leave the ship to travel with her new boyfriend. This is framed as the good inside of him because he is trying to "protect" her. Kes decides to stay on the ship because of this. She never expresses any negative emotions about this incident.

In "Before and After" Kes goes through her entire life in reverse. In the future she sees, she has married Tom Paris and had a daughter with him, and her daughter has a child with Harry Kim, who was the best man at Kes and Tom's wedding. This is by far the best Kes episode, but she never really gets to react to anything that happens in it. Soon after this she ascends to a higher plane of existence in "The Gift".

In "Before and After" Kes sees threats in advance and warns the crew about them, preventing the Captain's death in the future. This isn't really acknowledged.

Half of "The Gift" is focused on Seven of Nine and the Borg. Not even Kes's send-off episode is really focused on her.

In "The Gift", Neelix and Kes have one final scene together. Neelix gets quite self-pitying again and says she broke up with him because he was holding her back. Kes says that wasn't it but doesn't say why it happened. This is the only time they directly talk about their breakup outside of when Kes was possessed.

When Kes decides to ascend, the captain begs her to reconsider. Kes insists she has not lost her judgement or come under an alien influence. Captain Janeway tells her she's family and tearfully embraces her. Tuvok puts out a candle in mourning (everyone forgets about her after this episode ends though).

In "Fury" Kes is back in physical form somehow, despite ascending into some higher plane of existence in the last episode she appeared. She is also much older in appearance.

In "Fury" Kes gets onto the ship, starts exploding everything she can with her psychic powers, kills everyone she comes across and goes back in time to the start of the show to kidnap herself.

Kes and Neelix have a scene in "Fury". It makes Neelix much nicer than he ever was in the early parts of the show (especially to Kes). He actually notices something is wrong and asks her how she is and prepares her favourite meal for her because she had a bad day. I'm not sure he ever even asked her how she was before. I guess at this point they must have wanted to pretend the relationship was a lot less creepy and unhealthy than it actually was. Especially since Kes is the villain of the episode.

Older Kes's plan in "Fury" is to travel back in time, sell out the people she spent the majority of her life with to organ harvesters so she can send her and her younger self back to her home world because the crew "abandoned her a long time ago". I think this manages to dismantle practically every established character trait she has.

Older Kes's explanation of her actions in "Fury": "You (Captain Janeway) took her (young Kes) from Ocampa. Her home. She's a prisoner on this ship. I was a child, you corrupted me. Your ideas. Exploration, discovery. I believed you. In three years I'm going to leave Voyager in search of higher things because you encouraged me to do it. You encouraged me to develop my mental abilities. What I found, I couldn't control it, it scared me… I trusted you!" Neelix was the one who took her from Ocampa. As noted before, Captain Janeway begged her not to ascend.

Old Kes is killed by the captain. They know something terrible happened to Kes when she ascended, but apparently all that they did was get Kes to record a video of herself saying that she shouldn't take revenge because it's not who she is. This worked for some reason, she says she killed everyone because she was confused.

Kes decides to go back to Ocampa. Due to the Ocampan lifespan, everyone she knew before she left is probably dead. To add insult to injury, Neelix is the last person she sees before she leaves for good.

#polls #preliminary round

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snowbellewells · 9 months

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MY CSSNS23 MC: "Carolina Moon" {prologue}

**Thank you SO MUCH to my event artist @eastwesthomeisbest for the absolutely amazing cover art she created (in much less time than I should have afforded her). I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it, and am thrilled to be able to put it with each update of my story. Also, I'm so grateful to have @xarandomdreamx as my beta for this fic as well, though I did not give her this prologue, so any mistakes here are absolutely and unfortunately mine! And thank you too to the @cssns as a whole for once again providing such a great event of which to be a part!!***

Here is my second submission to the @cssns23 event!! This one is a modern au of the Nora Roberts novel and subsequent tv movie Carolina Moon. The main female character in the movie is psychic/clairvoyant (I’ll admit, I’m not too sure about the distinction between the two) and I thought her visions and what she goes through in connection to them made a nice real-world parallel to Emma’s magic. (There’s also a scene in here where the male lead says something that I could so perfectly see Killian saying to Emma… I just cannot wait to get to that point!)

Anyway, I hope you will enjoy this romantic thriller with some murder mystery elements. There are some instances of abuse and violence in here though - which I feel like I should mention, since that’s a little darker than my typical style. Most of them are in flashbacks of Emma’s past, or in visions she has of victims, more than in the actual present day plot; still I wanted to make people aware before we got too far.

Please enjoy! (I’d love to hear what you think.)

Prologue

July 1993

The water at their hideaway always feels so good. She could sink into it until her head slips below the surface and never, ever want to come up for air. It’s cooler, more luxurious than even the rich, satiny sheets on the trundle bed those rare nights when she gets to sleep over at Rose’s. Emma Swan’s gangly, 13-year-old limbs slice through the murky water as if the constant humidity and sultry air of Storybrooke, South Carolina can’t penetrate here in their little forest haven. She knows, of course, logically, that the real world isn’t all that far away. The shaded pond she and Rose discovered two summers ago is just a short trek into the woods at the furthest edge of Rose’s family’s boundless acreage. Still, it feels removed enough to bring Emma a sense of peace and contentment she gains nowhere else.

Looking over her shoulder to the large, smooth boulder jutting out of the pond at the bank where they left their flip flops and cutoff denim shorts, she can see her best friend stretched out with her new book where they had spread their towels on the rock’s surface, just in the wash of warming sunlight that streams through the tree branches overhead. Rose’s flawlessly creamy pale skin is prone to burning, but at the moment her friend seems willing to take the risk for the benefit of lazing cozily to read as she dries in the sun after taking a quick dip. Shaking her head, Emma plunges back under, happy to stay in the chilly water a bit longer herself. She knew as soon as they’d met outside Rose’s house that afternoon, and she had seen that Rose held a new Boxcar Children book in her hand, that her friend would not be able to resist burrowing into those pages for long.

It’s funny, Emma supposes, but that’s exactly what bonded she and Rose Jones in the first place. They might seem different on the surface, but in the end, neither of them quite fit with everyone else, and so they gravitate to each other, and have ever since Emma first arrived in Storybrooke as an eight-year-old orphan. They are each willing to give the other at least one person who takes them as they are and with whom they won’t have to pretend. Emma doesn’t care if Rose wants to read quietly and tell her about the stories she’s already finished instead of picking out dresses for the next cotillion class or preening in front of the mirror, practicing batting her eyelashes to charm boys or bragging to Emma about which ones she intends to kiss. Her sister Ruby, who shares the same thickly shining, burnished mahogany hair and pretty pink lips but little of her fraternal twin’s calming, gentle personality, does enough of that for the both of them. Their mother, a former debutante and southern belle, delights in the one daughter’s traditional coquettishness, and despairs of the other’s shyness. Cora Jones is a true throwback to another time who wants nothing more than to see both her daughters marry well and retain their places atop the social ladder. Emma could not care any less about such details; she is already clinging to the very bottom rung of such a social structure - if she and the so-called guardians with whom she lives are on the ladder at all. In turn, Rose doesn’t mock Emma for her thick, dark-framed glasses or secondhand clothes, nor does she cringe away from the “fits” that sometimes take hold of her friend, making strange, disturbing scenes Emma can’t understand flash across her mind with such intensity they sometimes knock her off her feet. Emma knows Rose’s mother and sister find her an unsuitable and embarrassing companion for Rose, but she is eternally grateful her friend seems able to see the best in anyone - even a lost girl nobody else wants - and so blithely acts as though she has no idea about the rest of her family’s opinions.

Cringing even while still submerged in the pond’s depths and practically invisible, Emma tries not to think of her unwanted visions. Her strict, hypocritical, and more than a bit deranged, foster father claims she’s possessed - and more than once has taken her episodes out of her hide. The man swears he’s beating the devil out of her and putting the fear of God in Satan’s place when he takes the thick leather strap to her shoulders, back and legs until she bleeds, but Emma has already lived long enough in a cruel and unfair world to know that his violence and “discipline” have less to do with parenting and concern for her soul, and more to show for his own twisted mind and overindulgence in the bottle. She wants to hide her spells from him, but when they come on her so abruptly and with such power, they are impossible to miss. She can’t fathom how a person like him was deemed fit to take in and care for a child, but mistreatment and injustice seem to be her lot in life thus far, and so she simply grits her teeth and survives.

It’s different though when the spells happen around Rose; the slight brunette merely rests a cool, steadying hand on Emma’s forehead or her arm until they pass, then she helps Emma stand until she feels in control again, listens as she attempts to make sense of whatever she’s seen, and most importantly… believes her. If only she could stay in the huge house Rose’s family calls home. She’d cook, clean, do chores, even stay in the servant’s quarters; Emma isn’t picky. It would still be a far sight safer than the situation she has in the rundown shack with the monster who’d been deemed her caretaker. Barring that, she would honestly rather live wild in these woods and survive off the land. She knew which plants and berries were safe to eat; Graham, her first friend, once a fellow orphan now happily adopted, had shown her ages ago, as well as taught her how to fish. It wouldn’t be easy, but she’d get by, and at least no one would lay a hand on her again.

This afternoon, those eerie images she sometimes has seem far away as she splashes up out of the water, trying to arc playfully like a mermaid as she breaks the surface. Drawing in a big gulp of air after staying underwater so long, Emma startles at the sound of teasing laughter, and whirls to see three figures on the bank where she and Rose left their shoes and shorts.

“Well, look here,” calls out a taunting voice that never fails to set Emma’s nerves on edge. “It’s the baby beached librarian and her drowned rat friend!” None other than Emma’s nemesis, Killian Jones, crows from his vantage point on dry land.

Rose sits up ramrod straight, book still in hand and annoyed scowl on her face at Killian and his friends’ interruption to the quiet peace of their sanctuary. She isn’t genuinely angry, though; for all that she and her sister share little in common, she and her two-years-older brother are affectionately close. “Shut up, Killy!” she shoots back, throwing in the childhood nickname they all know he hates. “Who asked you to come looking anyway?”

The boy standing next to Killian speaks up next, making Emma scowl just as playfully as Rose had moments before. Graham Hunter might as well be her big brother; he’s the closest thing she’s had to family since her parents were lost in a car crash and she was thrown into the foster care system. Be that as it may, he and Killian Jones are thick as thieves, and he’ll give her a hard time for all he’s worth while in the presence of his buddy. “We just wanted to swim,” he calls across the water to the two girls, smirking at Emma, who now stands in the water with one hip jutting out and hands planted on her waist. “How were we supposed to know you two were infesting it?”

“Ha!” Emma jeers back, the affront plain in her voice; despite the fact that the entire routine is like a practiced girls-versus-boys exchange they’ve all engaged in countless times. There isn’t much else to do for entertainment in their sleepy little one-horse town. “You idiots know this is Rose’s and my hideaway, fair and square!”

“Well, Rose’s anyway,” a third voice cuts in snidely.

The cruel jab reminds Emma once more that to most folks she is just a charity case, quite possibly only included in anything at all because of her friend’s kind heart, and at the intentional slight, cuts her gaze to the third member of the boys’ little crew, skulking a step back in the shadows behind where Killian and Graham stand, as he always does. Her green eyes narrow to slits in genuine dislike and suspicion. Where before her animosity was largely for show, when they land on Walsh Ozman, it is all too real.

She has never understood why the other two boys - jokers and annoyances though they may be, but good guys when it comes right down to it - hang out with Walsh at all. Where Graham and Killian are much more cut from the same cloth - athletic, outgoing, well-liked and pleasant - Walsh is a splindy, sniveling character, complaining and whining whatever their little trio gets up to. He lives not far from Emma’s foster father’s cabin with his single mother - a bushy-haired redhead who seems strangely overprotective and attached to her only child. Most people give the property a wide berth, except when high schoolers teepee it the whole month of October, and the general town consensus is that Zelena Ozman might be a witch and to steer clear. Still, beyond all of that, Emma might have been able to look past the boy’s circumstances and see him for himself - she of all people knew the gift it was not to be judged by where a person came from - if Walsh hadn’t simply given her “the willies”. Even standing too close to him made the fine hairs at the nape of her neck stand on end - and not in the way that nearness to Killian sometimes did; an altogether much more pleasant tingle, even if she was just as unable to explain one as the other.

“We could take their things,” Walsh suggests, holding up the threadbare, faded jeans Emma had left on the bank. “Make them walk back in their skivvies.” The wicked smile on his face makes Emma’s stomach turn over sickly.

Something sharp flashes in Jones’ eyes, his nostrils flaring slightly and his head giving a subtle shake of dissent that Emma can see even at the distance she stands away from him. Protectiveness, chivalry, or maybe the honor of a southern gentleman passed down to him through generations of his impressive family line; whatever it is, it sparks to life in his eyes at that moment as he quashes Walsh’s mean-spirited suggestion in no uncertain terms. “That’s my little sister you’re talking about Oz,” he growls, smacking the worn material from the smaller’s boy’s hands, even if the article of clothing isn’t Rose’s at all.

Emma feels her breath rush back into her lungs, though she continues to watch the guys warily for whatever they might do or say next. Before long, they grow bored of standing around and move on, hollering out age old taunts of “Bye, losers” and “Hey, smell ya later” to Emma’s derisive snort and Rose completely ignoring them to flip open her book again.

However, even with the intruders gone, it seems as if the perfect comfort of their retreat has been shattered by the unsettling interruption. Soon, Emma wades to the shore and Rose clambers down from her perch, to dress once more and return to the world outside. For a moment, as she refastens her jeans around her skinny waist, Emma feels a strange prickling along the fine hairs on her arms… like they’re being watched. She jerks around, searching the surrounding trees and brush, but can’t see or hear a thing.

Rose’s small hand takes hers, snapping Emma out of the moment. “What is it?” she whispers, only true caring in her voice. “Did you sense something?”

Emma nods, but can’t give her suspicions voice. Usually her visions are clearer than that - this had just been heavy breathing and like looking at herself and Rose through another person’s eyes, outside her own body.

Rose stooped to grab the little canvas bag she’d bought along with water bottles, towels, and a second book in it. “Hey, don’t worry, okay?” she offers, hopeful and kind as always. “You’ll figure it out. Wanna meet back out here tonight? Secret Sister bonfire?” she winks mischeivously. “I have to get to dinner now. You know how Mama hates it if I’m not washed up and properly attired for the evening meal - or a second late. But we can talk some more then, maybe you’ll remember more and it will be clearer.”

Emma nods gamely. “The stars’ll be beautiful by midnight,” she suggests. “And we’ll definitely have the place all to ourselves.”

“Since we were so rudely interrupted,” Rose chimes in with a giggle and roll of her eyes.

“Shake on it, pinkie swear,” they say together in practiced unison, executing a complex handshake that ends with their pinkies hooked together and wide, matching grins on both their faces.

“Thanks Rose,” Emma whispers sincerely, trying to speak around the lump in her throat as if it’s no big deal. “I’ll be out here as soon as I can sneak away.”

Rose, for her part, wraps her taller, golden-haired friend into a tight, momentary hug. “Hey, we’re Secret Sisters! You can count on me. I’ll see you then!”

They part ways at the edge of the forest; Emma heading to the rundown cabin that serves as her nightmarish version of a home, and Rose to the pristine Jones family mansion standing tall over all the surrounding land. Rose looks back over her shoulder with a smile and wave that bolsters Emma, and the memory fades back into the haze of the past…

Eighteen years later….

September 2011

The blaring of the horn as a sports car whizzed by, barely missing the nose of Emma’s beat-up yellow VW where it had begun to edge out into the country intersection, jarred her back to the present with a gasp and painful jolt to her chest. Panting for a moment as she gripped the steering wheel, Emma tried to clear her head and calm the pounding of her heart at the near-miss.

‘Get it together,’ she berated herself. It might have seemed like only yesterday as she remembered that sunny afternoon at the swimming hole, but that day had been nearly two decades ago. She was a grown woman, had made a way for herself, fighting tooth and nail for every step forward, and she answered to no one. She had learned to stand up for her rights and her needs, to control her visions and use them for good, and had even served a special consultant for the Boston PD. But, more than all of that, she had come back to this place to find peace, to lay to rest the ghosts that had followed her everywhere else she’d gone in the years between, once and for all. If she expected others to leave the past in the past, she would first have to manage to do the same.

She’d had no way to know as she and Rose parted that afternoon with promises and plans for later that it would be the last time she would ever see her friend. Emma had harbored the pain and the guilt and the unanswered questions ever since. Finally, it was time to meet the gazes of all of those who had stared at her in suspicion before she’d been packed up and moved away once more, and it was time she found answers. She wasn’t the scared, whipped, mistreated adolescent she had been at 13. What she had lived through then was not her fault, nor was what had happened to Rose that muggy July midnight.

And if she had to return to Storybrooke, South Carolina to lay that burden down… well, it was long past time she did.

Tagging a few who might enjoy: @cssns @searchingwardrobes @jennjenn615 @kmomof4 @laschatzi @whimsicallyenchantedrose @teamhook @revanmeetra87 @stahlop @jrob64 @apiratewhopines @wefoundloveunderthelight @eastwesthomeisbest @xarandomdreamx @sotangledupinit @justanother-unluckysoul @booksteaandtoomuchtv @kazoosandfannypacks @anmylica @motherkatereloyshipper @jonesfandomfanatic @elizabeethan @the-darkdragonfly @donteattheappleshook @xsajx @lfh1226-linda @winterbaby89 @hollyethecurious @darkcolinodonorgasm @resident-of-storybrooke @drowned-dreamer @optomisticgirl @tiganasummertree @spartanguard @therooksshiningknight @gingerchangeling @gingerpolyglot @blackwidownat2814 @blowmiakisscolin @let-it-raines

#cs ff #cs fanart #cssns23 #carolina mooon #prologue #nora roberts au #cs modern au mc

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the-last-dillpickle · 1 year

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DS9 trivia from IMDB - Part 2

- After production ended, and the sets were dismantled, the Defiant bridge set was declared "fold and hold" and placed in storage. It was re-dressed and used as the bridge of an alien cargo ship and a Klingon battlecruiser on Star Trek: Voyager (1995) and the bridge of the ECS Fortunate on Star Trek: Enterprise

- When the Nielsen ratings started to go down during the broadcasting of the third season, the studio pressed for radical ideas for the fourth season to increase the show's popularity again. Some of their suggestions included blowing up planet Bajor, or taking the action away from the station. They finally decided that the show needed a popular character from an earlier Star Trek series. Initially, the producers weren't too pleased, because they had set up a subplot within the Dominion War storyline where the Federation would be facing off against the Klingons, and were already having difficulties making it work. However, the studio decision turned out to be a blessing in disguise when someone suggested to introduce The Next Generation's Worf (Michael Dorn) to the cast as an intermediate between the Federation and the Klingons, which conveniently solved most of the script problems.

- The name "Deep Space Nine" originated from an early working title, and pre-dated the decision to set the series on a space station. Producers intended on coming up with a new title after the show was fully developed, but stayed with the name, feeling it had an intriguing quality to it.

- Malcolm McDowell, who had been in Star Trek: Generations (1994), once said he'd like to appear on this show, but only if his nephew, Alexander Siddig (Dr. Bashir), would direct the episode. Such a chance was offered in season five, episode eighteen, "Business as Usual", but never materialized due to scheduling conflicts.

- When Nana Visitor became pregnant, her condition was explained away in the show by having Kira become an emergency surrogate for Keiko O'Brien's baby. Astonishingly, Visitor was only absent for one episode (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Let He Who Is without Sin... (1996)) due to the birth of her son. She actually cut her maternity leave short, out of fear that a prolonged absence would cause the writers to significantly reduce her role in the rest of the series.

- Marc Alaimo was nicknamed "The Neck" on-set for his naturally long neck, which inspired the look of the Cardassian neck ridges.

- Despite being credited as a regular, Cirroc Lofton appeared in only eighty-five of the show's one hundred seventy-three episodes. Morn (Mark Allen Shepherd), the most frequent recurring character, appeared in ninety-two episodes. Curiously, Sheppard isn't credited with this total on DS9's cast listing.

- Jadzia Dax was originally supposed to have a forehead appliance as the Trill were first shown in Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Host (1991), but after a test, most people thought that Terry Farrell's face was much too beautiful to be partially covered by or with prostheses. Instead, she got to have spots on the side. They were drawn on personally by Michael Westmore each day, a process which initially took over an hour, but over time, this eventually was reduced to close to forty minutes. Westmore actually "signed" his work by adding two spots in the shape of an M and a W. From then on, all Trills were shown to be like this, rather than the version shown on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987).

- Amongst the actors to read for the role of Captain Sisko were Carl Weathers and Eriq La Salle. James Earl Jones and Tony Todd were offered the role but declined. Todd (who appeared as Worf's brother Kurn on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)) made two appearances on this show; first as an elderly Jake Sisko in season four, episode three, "The Visitor", then as Kurn in season four, episode fifteen, "Sons of Mogh". He appeared in Star Trek: Voyager (1995) season four, episode sixteen, "Prey".

- Alexander Siddig originally auditioned to play the part of Sisko. Rick Berman thought that Siddig was too young for the part, and felt him to be a better fit to play Bashir instead.

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stranger-fanfiction-n-things · 6 days

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CHAPTER 5: THE FLEA AND THE ACROBAT

This is an Original Character fanfiction. All Stranger Things characters and content are owned by Netflix and The Duffer Brothers.

a/n: This is a long one and based off certain scenes in Lucas on the Line. As a black person, I never realized I was other until it was pointed out to me and once I internalized it, I had questions I couldn't ask my parent(s) because it's not something discussed at length in the black community because trying to survive is hard enough. I honestly urge y'all to read Lucas on the Line because it's such a well written story about the Black Experience and how nuanced and difficult it is to navigate especially black kids who grew up in white neighbourhoods.

I hope y'all enjoy. Let me know what you guys think and if you'd like to be added to the tag list, let me know too! 🤎

Warnings: Swearing.

Word Count: 4588

Masterlist

PART I || PART II || PART III || PART IV

THE WOODS

I squeal dropping the mallet on the ground at the sound of a gunshot. Nancy giggles waiting for me as I pick up my weapon in the shrubbery. I never thought I would be on my way to meet up with Jonathan Byers on the opposite side of town to learn how to shoot a gun. But then again, a lot more bizarre things have happened this week so I shouldn’t be surprised. Nancy and I trek up the small hill as Jonathan shoots repeatedly at the target of empty tin cans or at least attempts to.

“You’re supposed to hit the cans, right?”

Jonathan looks over his shoulder smiling sheepishly. “No, actually you see the spaces in between the cans? I’m aiming for those.”

“Sure.” Nancy answers, titling her head in amusement. She drops her backpack and baseball bat on the ground ready for practice.

I don’t take off my backpack right away, taking in my surroundings. The wide-open space of dry leaves, weeds and shrubs. The tall pine trees encircling the space. The winter chill started to come in and I wish I wore a hat today to cover my ears, maybe even a heavier coat instead of a denim jacket. Jonathan opens the revolver to check how many bullets are in the cylinder before reaching in his pockets for more.

“You ever shot a gun before?”

“Absolutely not.” I answer.

“Didn’t your dad fight in the Vietnam War?” I nod my head, shifting from side to side on my feet. My Dad would never let any of us touch a gun. There was no reason for us to. Jonathan shrugs. “I’m surprised he hasn’t taught you how to shoot a gun,” he commented, directing his gaze to Nancy. “You?”

Nancy scoffs. “Have you met my parents?”

“Yeah, I haven’t shot one since I was nine. My dad took me hunting on my birthday.” I see the spark in his eyes dwindle to a low flame. “He made me kill a rabbit.”

“A rabbit?” Nancy and I say at the same time.

“Yeah. I guess he thought it would make me into more of a man or something.”

“Yes, because the world needs more men shooting guns.” I deadpan.

Jonathan smirks, adding bullets to the cylinder. “I cried for a week.”

“Jesus.” Nancy whispers.

“I’m sorry.” I say to him.

Jonathan didn’t say anything as he tried to drag emotion back under where he didn’t need to feel it. He snaps the revolver in place, the corners of his lips rise to a smirk again. “What? I’m a fan of Thumper.”

“I meant your dad.” Nancy says.

The detachment in his tone makes me uncomfortable. In seeing Jonathan’s dad for the first time today, the way he dressed and carried himself. There was something arrogant and insincere about him. When Will first went missing, I never heard Jonathan mention his dad, when Nancy and I found Jonathan at the funeral home, he was by himself picking caskets. Ms. Byers was at home grieving, but the whole town knew how adamant she was on finding Will, but where was his dad? The audacity to show up to the funeral of his youngest son, he did nothing to plan, to shake hands with the people who did care to find Will. Now with this story, it completed the picture. He was never in Jonathan and Will’s life and didn’t care to be. Only wanted to insert his toxic male dominance and masculinity onto the boys.

“I guess he and my mother loved each other at some point...but I wasn’t around for that part.”

Nancy gestures for the gun and Jonathan hands it to her. “Just point and shoot.”

I walk behind Nancy to stand beside Jonathan, refusing to be anywhere near that sound. Nancy takes a deep breath aiming the gun at the can a few yards in front of her.

“I don’t think my parents ever loved each other.”

My eyebrows raise at the bold statement. “Nancy, you shouldn’t say that.”

“I mean it.” she answers.

“They must’ve married for some reason.” Jonathan states.

“My mom was young. My dad was older but he had a cushy job, money, came from a good family. So, they bought a nice house at the end of the cul-de-sac and started their nuclear family.”

“Screw that.” Jonathan says.

“Yeah. Screw that.”

Nancy closes one eye aiming for the beer can. I put my fingers in in ears just as Nancy pulls the trigger hitting the beer can. I chuckle in disbelief. From shot gunning to shooting them, anything involving beer cans, Nancy is a natural. I shrug off my backpack, placing the mallet on top. Despite the awe, I am uncomfortable with what Nancy said about her parents. Sure, Mr. Wheeler was a bit…impartial. I was around the family many times to know that, but to say her parents never loved each other? I don’t know.

“Are you sure you don’t want to try, Diana?” Jonathan asks, offering me the gun. I don’t move contemplating. “It’s not gonna bite.” He jokes. I make a face at Jonathan and he laughs as I cautiously take it from him with my gloved hand.

“Just point and shoot?”

“Just point and shoot.”

I standing in front of a can, widening my stance so I don’t fall over. “There’s nothing wrong with starting a nuclear family.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Nancy voices. “Your family is perfect.”

I narrow my eyes at her, shaking my head. The contempt in her tone is shocking. “That’s not true.”

“Diana,” Nancy chides, shoving her hands in her pockets. “You never argue with your parents and your parents never argue with each other. You are perfect. Your siblings are perfect. Everyone in your family is perfect.”

I don’t miss Jonathan’s eyes darting back and forth between us. Having never seen us go back and forth with each other, I can tell he is surprised by this. What he doesn’t know is this topic of conversation isn’t new. Throughout our years of friendship, Nancy and Barb always made fun of me for being “perfect”; how I never make mistakes; I am always put together. I need at least eight-hours of “beauty” sleep. From the nickname “Lady Diana”, to my mom making me lunches because I refuse to each cafeteria food. At first it used to bother me, but I moved passed it until Tommy H and Carol picked up on it and started calling me “Anal Princess”.

This may not be a new conversation, but the undertone certainly is and it’s why I am thrown off by it. It doesn’t sound like a joke anymore and there’s something deeper going on. I never thought Nancy envied me. I know I certainly envied Nancy for being strong enough to stand up for herself and say no. For being able to be defiant without feeling like its wrong. I lift my head high lifting the gun eye level.

“I’m not perfect and my parents do argue, just not in front of us and there’s nothing wrong with that.” I begin. “You want to know why my dad never taught me how to fire a gun?” I refer to Jonathan’s comment earlier. “Because he never talks about the War unless it’s to teach us a lesson. I don’t know any stories of his time there. My family is seemingly perfect because we don’t talk about things, we don’t have difficult conversations. We just keep our heads down and try to live without feeling more of an outsider than we already are.” I pull the trigger and the bullet hits the can knocking it off the tree stub.

None of us react. The heaviness of what I said laying on thick. My family isn’t perfect. We are far from it. We are compliant and conforming because it’s the only way to not be seen as more of an outsider than we already are. I understand it to a certain extent, but sometimes I wish my parents would talk more about it. About being black in an all-white religious town. About their past and how they came to Hawkins. I know nothing and it’s something I push down to be the “perfect” daughter when deep down it bothers me. This is not something I can discuss with Lucas and Erica because they are happy in their bubble and I want to keep it that way for them.

“What do you mean?” Nancy asks with a frown. “You’re not an outsider, Di.”

“Never mind.” I say, handing Jonathan the gun, feeling more uncomfortable than before.

Nancy didn’t question me again and after shooting practice we decided to head through the forest looking for the mysterious animal. Dried leaves crunch under my boots as we all walked in silence. Jonathan and Nancy walked together giving me space to be alone for a while which I am grateful for because I didn’t feel like talking. My mind feels like it’s been jostled back and forth, buzzing with many thoughts. I can’t believe I said that out loud. I’ve never talked about it because who do I talk about this with? Uncle Jack only comes to Hawkins once a year and when he does the environment is uncomfortable and stuffy because Dad doesn’t like Uncle Jack and doesn’t hide it. Long distance calls are expensive and I have no money to pay for it and if Dad finds out I’ve been talking to Uncle Jack he’d be furious. Maybe I should start journaling or writing letters I’ll never send.

“You never said what I was saying?” Nancy speaks after a long period of silence.

“What?” Jonathan says.

The conversation about the photos began in the darkroom yesterday, but I interrupted when I saw the final development of the photo of the thing that took Will and Barb. It’s definitely been the great elephant in the room between the three of us and though the conversation in the darkroom was light in nature, it is a serious situation.

“Yesterday, you said, I was saying something and that’s why you took my picture.” I glance around not focusing on anything, while keeping my ears perked.

“Oh, I don’t know. My guess…I saw this girl; you know trying to be someone else. But for that moment…it was like you were alone or you thought you were,” I cautiously peer at Nancy. She looks like she’s about to explode. “And, you know you could just be yourself.”

I ground my teeth. Jonathan just opened up a huge can of worms. A few days ago, I would’ve agreed but after talking to Nancy, I don’t think she is trying to be someone else. She’s a young woman exploring and there’s nothing wrong with that. Also, Jonathan isn’t close to Nancy to know who she is and who she isn’t. Nancy doesn’t respond right away, processing the soft insult. She stops clenching her hands into fists.

“That is such bullshit.” Nancy fumes, glaring at Jonathan. “I am not trying to be someone else. Just because I’m dating Steve and you don’t like him—”

“You know what? Forget it. I just thought it was a good picture.”

My head retracts back. “So, you were intentional in taking those photos.”

Jonathan’s head whips back. His brows shoot up in disbelief. “What?”

“You said you thought it was a good picture which means you were intentional about taking it.” My voice hardens. “Taking all of it.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth, Diana.” Jonathan mutters furiously under his breath, walking away. I march behind him trying to keep up with his long legs and quick strides.

“I’m not putting words in your mouth! Nancy asked you a question and your answer quite frankly, was bullshit. Because really? That’s what you were thinking when she was taking off her shirt?” It’s a cop out. A poor excuse to deflect from what he did. Jonathan scoffs. “Unbelievable.” I hiss, catching myself before I trip over a branch. “What about how Steve feels?”

“Oh my god!” Jonathan throws his hands up in exasperation and I am filled with so much adrenaline I’m starting to shake.

“I told you his privacy was violated too!” I snap. “As was mine, Tommy, Carol, and Barb!”

Jonathan spins around, eyes bulging out of his sockets. “And I said I was sorry for taking the photos!” He shouts. I blink repeatedly taken aback by this attitude. No one has ever yelled at me like that and Jonathan was the last person I thought would. Nancy steps in scowling at him.

“Don’t yell at her!” she shouts, pointing at him. Jonathan glares at her and keeps his mouth shut. I look down at my boots, done with the conversation. “Steve is actually a good guy. The whole camera situation. He’s not like that at all. He was just being protective.”

“Yeah.” Jonathan scoffs, walking away. “That’s one word for it.”

“And what you did was okay?” Nancy barks, following after him. I stalk behind her keeping my distance.

“I never said that.”

“He had every right to be pissed—”

“Okay, all right.” Jonathan says, rolling his eyes, coming to a halt. “Does that mean I have to like him?”

“No.”

“Listen, don’t take it so personally, okay? I don’t like most people. He’s in the vast majority.”

This is why he’s being like this. Because he doesn’t like Steve and has some sort of animosity towards him. I never thought I would stick up for Steve, but after my encounter with him in my garage, I think he’s a good person and deserves a chance to be seen and heard outside his bubble.

“You know, I was actually starting to think that you were okay.” Nancy rages.

“Yeah?” Jonathan challenges, eyes glowing with savage fire.

“Yeah, I was thinking, ‘Jonathan Byers, maybe he’s not the pretentious creep everyone says he is.’”

“Well, I was just starting to think you were okay. I was thinking, ‘Nancy Wheeler, she’s not just another suburban girl who thinks she’s rebelling by doing exactly what every other suburban girl does, until that phase passes and they marry some boring one-time jock who now works sales, and they live out a perfectly boring little life at the end of a cul-de-sac.’” His voice was stern with no vestige of sympathy in its hardness. “’Exactly like their parents, who they thought were so depressing, but now, hey, they get it.’”

Nancy and I watch Jonathan march away. We look at each other absolutely gobsmacked at what just happened. Nancy’s face is so red, the veins in her neck pulsates with pent-up fury as she clenches her fists. I wrap my arm around her shoulders guiding her along the path.

I admire the colours of the sky as we trek through the forest. Shades of pink, orange, and yellow blending and oozing together. The sun was setting and we would soon need to use our flashlights to navigate through the forest. My back aches from carrying my backpack for so long and I want to tell Jonathan to stop so we can take a break but he was far ahead keeping his distance. All of us have been quiet since the argument though Nancy walked beside me, we haven’t spoken focusing on our surroundings, deep in thought.

A lot of truth has been said today and it felt like it was shoved down all our throats. I’m not mad at Jonathan for yelling at me and I hope he’s not mad at me for calling him out. What he did was stupid and I know he knows that, but picking a fight with Nancy was something completely different. It felt more personal and I can’t quite put my finger on why it would be since Jonathan and Nancy aren’t close. If anything, they may be farther apart now after what he said to her. I doubt Jonathan wants that especially because of how far we’ve come.

“Are you okay?” Nancy asks quietly enough so Jonathan doesn’t hear.

“Yes.” I respond automatically. Nancy looks at me and I drop the act. “No.”

“Me neither.” she agrees, glaring at the back of Jonathan’s head. “I’m so sick of him and his holier than thou attitude.”

“I can’t believe he yelled at me.”

“I can’t believe that either!” she whispers hastily. “I didn’t like that.”

“I know. Thank you for sticking up for me.”

“Thank you for sticking up for me and Steve.”

“You’re welcome.”

I debate on whether I should tell her he came to my house today, but decide it doesn’t matter and she probably already knew about it since he was in his way to see her anyways.

“I can’t believe Princess Diana swore.” she teases, touching her chest in shock.

“Oh, shut up.” I giggle, pushing her away.

“Ou, again!” I roll my eyes.

“I was just trying to understand why he took the photos.”

“I honestly don’t even think he knows.” she says, looking at Jonathan again. There was no anger in her eyes, just curiosity.

“After that conversation, I think so too.”

Nancy hums in response, tucking a stray wisp of hair behind her ears. “I was going to bring it up later but, what you did earlier today about being an outsider. What did you mean?”

A ripple of anxiety went up my back while my stomach fell to my feet. I shrug my shoulders shaking me head. “I don’t know.” I deflect.

“Diana, we’ve been friends for so long, you can talk to me about anything. You know that right?”

I do know that, but this conversation was not about a boy or anything menial like that. It was much deeper and something I’ve been pushing down for years. I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but when Nancy went on about my perfect day family, I snapped. This past week I feel like I’ve gone through the most significant changes which in turn has brought up subconscious thoughts, emotions and insecurities. I feel like I’m being pulled in every direction, perfect daughter, perfect friend, Juilliard, Blackness, otherness. But who am I? Where do I want to go? Who do I want to be?

“Diana.” Worry etched Nancy’s features. My silence makes her more anxious. I sigh, stepping over a branch.

“Have you ever noticed there is no one who looks like me in our neighbourhood?” I mumble, uncomfortably.

“No? What do you mean?” An expected answer. I close my eyes counting down from five. How do I go about this?

“I mean, black.” I say, pushing down the lump forming in my throat. “My family…” I clear my throat. “My family is the only black family in the neighbourhood.” When Nancy doesn’t say anything, I continue. “I don’t remember when I noticed, but once I did, it’s hard not to. Even at school, I can count how many black people are there and majority are on the basketball team. Did you know that?” Nancy shakes her head. “I am the only black person in our classes, at dance. No matter where I go or what I do, who I am. I will always be the black one. Even in our friendship. That’s what I mean by outsider.”

“My mom and dad don’t talk about our blackness and I’m left to figure it out on my own. I don’t have anyone to talk to about it. That’s what I mean when I said we don’t have difficult conversations. We just keep our heads down and conform, but sometimes I don’t want to conform. Sometimes…” I sigh feeling exhausted. Mentally. “Sometimes, I want to ask those questions but then I’ll feel like I’m not…”

“The perfect daughter.” Nancy finishes.

“Yeah.” I twirl the mallet in my hand. There’s so much to say but this conversation is exhausting enough. Nancy looks at the ground, kicking a rock.

“I-I don’t know what to say…” she says lowly. “I’m sorry for not paying attention.”

“You know now and that’s the first step.”

“Of course, but please don’t be afraid to tell me these things. You’re my best friend and I don’t want you to feel like an outsider when you’re with me. What you said is something I need to know in order to change.”

I nod my head and Nancy visibly relaxes, reaching to squeeze my hand. I rest my head on her shoulder feeling more relaxed than I did before the beginning of the conversation. It’s a conversation that could’ve easily gone south and I wouldn’t be prepared to handle it, especially after what happened hours before. Darkness quickly engulfs the sky and I am instantly aware of all the sounds in the forest. The wind slipping through leaves, the cracking undergrowth with each step Nancy and I make, the bugs crawling on trees. We all take out our flashlights to see and I notice Jonathan slows down to remain close, though still keeping his distance. I jerk at every unfamiliar sound making Nancy laugh again.

“Do you remember Mei Wong?” I mutter, swatting away a fly.

“Yes. She auditioned for Juilliard!”

“Well on Sunday at rehearsals, she told me…” I swallow to soothe the dryness in my throat. “She told me I should think about auditioning for Juilliard.”

“Really? Wow!”

I scrunch my nose. “I know.”

“You definitely should. I meant what I said at Steve’s house. You’re such a beautiful dancer and you’re gonna go pro. I feel it.” I shake my head. Somehow Nancy sees it.

“You are. I need you to be more confident in yourself.”

“I know, I know. It’s just…what if I audition and I don’t get in—”

“We’re only in 10th grade, you have time to worry about the auditions.” Nancy assures me. “Maybe Juilliard has a summer intensive you can take beforehand to give you an extra boost.”

“My dad will never allow that.”

“Have you talked to your mom about it?”

I shake my head. “Not yet.”

“I say after all this is done and we find Barb, we will both help you research and come up with a plan for you to go to Juilliard. Because you’re going to Juilliard.”

We find Barb. That’s the most important thing. It’s why we’re here now. The sound of her laughter echoed through my mind. The last time I saw her; felt her at Steve’s house. I don’t want to believe that was the last time I saw her. I shiver, crossing my arms above my chest. It’s so cold I can barely feel my ears and nose. Jonathan keeps pace with Nancy and I. There is still tension between the three of us, but now is not the time to dwell on it, not when we were outside in the forest on our own looking for God knows what. At random, Nancy slows down looking back and forth, her expression tight with strain. I keep myself composed despite the fact my heart is racing. Did she see something? Hear anything? Was it here? I tighten my grip on the mallet, my eyes darting from tree to tree.

“What are you tired?” Jonathan asks.

“Shut up.” Nancy hisses, looking around. “I heard something.”

I follow closely beside Jonathan as we follow Nancy through the forest. I don’t know what we’re looking for or what she’s heard until I hear something faint…a whining sound. I gasp at the sight of a deer whimpering in front of underbrush. We all rush to the deer dropping to our knees. My stomach is in knots at the blood dampening its fawn-coloured coat. It looked like it’s been punctured multiple times. It’s ragged breathing and slow movements indicated it was in pain and about to die. I’ve never seen a deer this close before and I’m sad it has to be like this. Images of Bambi flash through my mind and I cover my mouth muffling my sobs.

“Oh, God. It’s been hit by a car.” Nancy whimpers, tears brimming her eyes. She looks at the gun in her hand and holds it up. “We can’t just leave it.”

“Wait!” I exclaim, grabbing her arm. “There must be something else we can do!”

“It’s in too much pain. We have to.”

“I’ll do it.” Jonathan says, taking the gun. Nancy and I look at him with wide eyes. “I’m not nine anymore.” Jonathan assures us.

I stagger up on my feet grabbing Nancy’s hand. Jonathan points the gun at the deer. Time slows down and I feel like the forest is closing in on me. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up just as Jonathan is about to pull the trigger when suddenly, the deer disappears into the underbrush. I jump back startled, mouth opening in a silent scream.

“What was that? What was that?” Nancy shouts.

I wring my hands jumping up and down. “Oh, my god. Oh my, god. I can’t. I can’t.” Panic shoots up my spine and I hold my chest struggling to catch my breath.

“There’s so much blood.”

“Where did it go?”

“I don’t know.”

I quickly pick up the flashlight and mallet I dropped in my state of panic. My skin tingles and I shake my head trying to focus, aiming the light on the ground. Blood smears all over leaves and twigs. I proceed around with caution, shining my light on anything and everything in the forest, being cautious of not stepping on any gore. From the far distance I notice something dripping from a hollow tree stump. It looked like…sap. No, it’s too thick for it to be sap. I am vigilant taking calculated steps and kneel in front of the tree inspecting the foliage. It looked like the tree was creating mucus. Thick, slimy, runny mucus. There was no smell to it, but it was weird. I paid attention in biology last semester to know that this wasn’t right.

“Nancy.” I whisper. “This tree…there’s weird stuff falling.”

Nancy joins me on my knees shining her light. She touches the tree stump, looking up. “Jonathan?” she shouts, looking around. I search as well thinking he was with us, but he’s nowhere to be seen. It would be unwise to leave Nancy here alone to look for him. We were better sticking together. When I turn back however, Nancy is taking off her backpack placing it beside her bat. My eyes widen. “You’re not seriously going in there!”

“Watch my stuff.”

“Are you crazy?” I snap.

That mucus could be toxic or worse. There was no need to go inside the clearly rotting tree. Nancy ignores me crawling inside. I am lost for words because not only can she fit inside; her body completely disappears as if there was an opening on the other side. I blink, shaking my head, feeling disembodied.

“Nancy?”

Adrenaline bursts through my veins to prepare myself to fight or flee. I feel like I am back in Steve’s backyard keeping watch while Nancy does something completely foolish like walk into the forest on her own or like now, crawling into a slime coated hollow stump. I curse colourful words under my breath that would shock my Dad. I can’t leave her alone. So, I take off my backpack and put the mallet on top; count down from five in my head and crawl through the hole holding my breath hopefully awaiting Nancy on the other side.

Taglist 🤍: @tinydramatist

#stranger things rewrite #black fem reader #stranger things fic #stranger things #dianasinclair #sinclair!reader #eddie munson x black!reader #steve harrington x black!reader #eddie munson x female reader #steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harrington x reader #eddie munson x reader

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leohtttbriar · 8 months

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I would have loved to see Jadzia central episodes after she got together with Worf, and ones that's didn't focus on their relationship only. There was so much more to her before and then it seemed like being very immersed in everything Klingon was one of her very few traits.

yes--I absolutely agree. probably not the first to say it. she becomes this quirky, hot sidekick/girlfriend in season 5. how they wrote worf and dax getting together was cute and "screwball comedy" but they sort of tried to keep up that energy but not as successfully (screwball banter is cute only when both parties are getting jabs in equally, and dax seems to just smile like worf is being cute when he accuses her being ridiculous all the time)(like i said, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't)(it's just when it doesn't, worf comes across as annoying and dax comes off as Not a person). she's around quite a bit, offering her quips and support and playing her role in other people's journey's...

but episodes that are about her and depend on some issue she has within herself are not present after the romance. not like "rejoined" or the episode where she's being accused of murder bc of curzon. of course, of the episodes that are about her in previous seasons, all of them except "rejoined," arguably, are about her struggling with some past self. while i think the character can go beyond that simple sci-fi-what-if design (like, for example, i think spock goes beyond the alien-conceit in most of the spock-centric episodes), i found myself missing even that watching everything after she and worf get together. if they had even drawn out that romance and showed her genuinely trying to get worf's attention for more than one or two episodes, that would've been more interesting then what ended up happening.

i also sort of get that ds9 isn't so much the "new world" part of star trek as the "new civilization"---that is, it's mostly focused on ongoing diplomacy and war plots with the same handful of richly made-up peoples. but they managed in previous seasons to still write episodes about discovery and scientific work. in season 5, scientific work all seems to be focused on julian, due to the exigency of his role, rather than dax, or both of them. like, within the typical star trek roles to play, the science officer drives the fun discovery and new-weird-stuff plots. instead of episodes about any of that in season 5, though, there's a lot of quark and odo and sisko and julian and worf all juggling their various definitions of identity. (miraculously, dax never seems to waver in that regard. with kira, it's debateable.) which. fine. it was all interesting.

i do think that the show still manages to show dax as someone particular and complex--the writing just doesn't genuinely explore any of it after writing the worf/dax relationship. the moments she does have in episodes not about her are for the most part very good and very interesting and she provides context and wisdom and motive in the way her role dictates. but the fact that i think her character is so fascinating and has so many rich options for sci-fi storytelling only makes the absence of stories focused or driven by her all the more frustrating to me. there's only so many episodes about odo's feelings i can retain interest in.

maybe give jadzia a planet to explore with a bunch of geode formations that emit a protein that causes mutations within biological creatures to cease which somehow causes changelings to crystallize while the protein is in their system and jadzia has to fight on behalf of the planet to just exist so it's not turned into a super-weapon against the dominion and this turns into a struggle with basically her and julian against everyone (they're the most idealistic) and causes real tension between kira and dax for the first time ever and sisko has to say something about how life is sacred and resources are sacred and one has to choose and then dax does something that can't be taken back and the creatures give her a small geode/collection-of-geode-creatures in thanks and she carries it around like she carries all her past-selves.

(which would then justify the way worf constantly seems to characterize her as impulsive and impractical or whatever. bc she did this one dramatic thing that no one can now forget about her. and she just takes it bc she would do it again. and the audience just doesn't know who to agree with.)(but that would make her person with deep conviction and interiority and some perhaps truly un-likeable traits. instead of the hot, smirky-quirky jester that gets men 18-24 to tune the fuck in once a week.)

#i did just watch children of time though and if there is a dax-centric episode this season that's it (loved it)#even if the resolution of the plot is determined by odo and not her (i still loved that episode)#ds9 #star trek #jadzia dax #obviously i'm just going to have to finish my stranded on a planet kiradax fic #be the change you want to see in the world etc.

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thegeminisage · 3 months

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oh boy IT'S tng update time. last night* we watched "imaginary friend" and "i, borg."

*tonight. it's 1am. whatever. it's posting tomorrow when i'll be awake but busy. anyway im gonna have to start splitting these up so tumblr will stop FUCKING me re my character count

imaginary friend:

what i like about this episode and indeed tng as a whole is that the little girl was fucking adorable. tng fans, your show has at least one point of validity. whenever there was a child on tos i wanted to throw them out of the airlock because they acted possessed. all the children on tng inspire within me motherly concern.

HOWEVER. THERE SHOULD NOT BE. CHILDREN ON A STARSHIP.

we've gone over this at length. we don't need to do it again. i am sick to death of hearing myself talk about it. i want to stop. and yet. every. and i mean EVERY. SINGLE. PROBLEM. in this episode. happened because there were children on a starship.

problem #1: child is making up a fake imaginary friend instead of making real ones = it's because her dad hops from starship to starship

problem #2 her imaginary friend is real now and wants to drown her in the pool like in that one episode of s*pernatural = this is because an alien, from space, read her mind, which it could not have done if she wasn't in space on a starship

problem #3: the alien HATES the grownups and thinks they should die = because she is seeing the ship from a child's pov, because there are children on this starship

and on and on and on.

aside from this huge and ongoing point of contention it was solidly watchable. i liked the little girl. i like guinan. i like worf being a big old softie when he found them out of bounds. i like people not undermining deanna's counseling work. i liked the horrifically unsettling imaginary friend with laser eyes who definitely absolutely inspired 2.11 playthings.

can anyone tell me if the other star trek shows just let them have kids on the ships? ds9 i get because that's a space station but are there kids on the ship in enterprise? voyager? discovery? genuinely please write in i can't take living like this

i, borg:

ooooooh. ooh i am twirling my hair and kicking my feet and giggling about it. OHHH finally we get a good tng episode. and not just a good episode a GREAT episode. the liz community has forgiven tng. oh baby where do i even begin

okay, firstly, beverly. she so instantly sees someone injured and HAS to help, i mean HAS to, it's so good. it's very bonescore in a way that doesn't feel like they're trying to make her a cheap bones knockoff but rather a spiritual successor. he would have also helped his enemy rather than watching him die. hell, he DID do that and got quite literally mind-raped for his trouble, and he'd probably do it again. i was really really lukewarm on poor bev at first but she's come into her own so well and i'm proud of her

the borg himself - third of five, aw, just like seven of nine - but no, hugh - the name is dumb but whatever i'm glad he has one - was well-cast. it would have been easy to make him uncanny and an unpleasant presence onscreen (this was my biggest issue with data's daughter even though the ep DID make me cry, deeply sorry to data whomst i love the most). his "you will be assimilated resistance is futile" song and dance was actually really funny when played off of geordi's wry indifference. "ok, but before we get assimilated, can we please finish x test?" so true king

geordi's a natural choice to pair with this guy because when he's not being the creepiest person on earth to holodeck girls he's sociable, outgoing, and patient. PLUS he has experience befriending machines because of data. hugh actually reminded me of data in some ways because of his general lack of understanding re: humanity but - and this is critical to me - HE IS HUMAN

like, i feel like the episode didn't quite nail the point home hard enough possibly because they were afraid of the implications but the cold hard truth of the matter is that each and every person on the borg cube IS A PERSON. they have been assimilated, but we've twice now seen that it's possible to unassimilate them with only a few days of effort. picard (and guinan!) consider the entire collective their enemy but the collective is comprised of brainwashed prisoners. those fucked up little borg babies they found in the cube were assimilated as INFANTS - i assume they weren't born on the cube bc if the borg could reproduce on its own it wouldn't need to assimilate - but even if they were born on the cube, they had no choice but to be this. you know.

which is whyyyy it's so fucked picard was like yeah give hugh some digital poison let him carry it back to his cube and we'll kill them like ants <3 like, oh my god his lingering borg trauma or whatever. MWAH. when he told deanna he didn't wanna talk. when he and guinan had to trauma-bond while fencing. when he told geordi that he needed to unattach himself because it was nothing more than animal experimentation. STONE FUCKING COLD BY THE WAY. he is fighting in the war on animal experimentation on the side of animal experimentation. he was going to let his cre heal and feed that kid and then send him back laced with poison. diabolical <3

and, of course, when he didn't want to speak or associate that borg kid at all because that's who he used to be AND WHO HE STILL IS in some corner of his brain (!!!)

LIKE. WHEN HE WAS FINALLY CONVINCED TO INTERROGATE THIS KID. and IMMEDIATELY broke out the locutus voice. he still remembered all the protocol! the way of speaking! everything! i was so shocked and thrilled.

i love also how everyone who spoke to hugh came away extremely unsettled but also totally convinced of his humanity. even guinan, which was so fun, because she was even more anti-borg than picard at first and they were bonding over trauma and fantasy racism. that bit where hugh, who had only known about the concept of loneliness for like an hour, immediately pegged her as lonely after like three lines of dialogue. oh my GOD???

i was decently satisfied with the ending - obviously they couldn't send him back with poison nor could they protect him from the borg, but i wish they had informed him of the inevitable memory wipe before he made his choice. (a selfless choice! he loves geordi!!) still i think he mostly walked into it with eyes open. very sad but very proud of him.

my one tiny nitpick with this episode is that for all beverly's genuine and justified concern about hugh, i don't think theyre ever gonna address the fact that she shot and possibly killed some of the borg in the episode where picard got assimilated. i feel like after realizing they are all people, like hugh, she should also realize she's broken the hippocratic oath, and have a little crisis about it. i have no idea why we had the DOCTOR shooting and killing anybody but let alone if we aren't gonna get into that. i don't think anyone cares/cared except me though.

but tbh, for me this is one of the main draws of the borg. they're ALL brainwashed cyber-assassins and they're ALL prisoners and in theory ALL of them could be saved if only they would stop attacking first. sure, yeah, in fights you gotta do what you gotta do because your own life has gotta come first, but the unique scifi horror aspect of all of those guys being perfectly innocent people fucks and they should utilize it a little more!!!

NEXT TIME: "the next phase" and "the inner light."

#personal #star trek blogging #tng lb

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weskerssunglasses · 2 days

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Hallo dear! Thank you for your amazing writing! I love that it is so accurate to their characters. I fell for Leon when I startet to play the game in 2007 and for the past 16 years I was all about Albert. But since I found your Tumblr here, reading all those things about Nikolai, that shook my RE world a bit up…so…can I request something about fem reader who is deeply committed to Wesker, years of work together, occasionally crossing the line of professional with sex. They are loyal to one another, maybe the closest thing to family he's able to. Now she meets Zinoviev due to some work stuff and they have their very own dynamic. Like, she's a brat - not with Albert, since he's just ignoring her, whenever she's acting up, she learned that - but the Russian mean-teasing the shit out of her, and things get heated. Somewhat.

Thanks for keeping them alive! Have a great day

AHHH im glad I got you hooked on the mean Russian!! Ngl this is kinda an idea I might write a whole fic for eventually... Anyways, went with Reader has been working with Wesker as a researcher for Umbrella and continued to work with him up until the events of RE5. Timeline is roughly somewhere around RE4 (wdym Nikolai died in RE3? :) I did change this a bit to at least the reader doesn't believe Wesker isn't loyal to her; if her thoughts are true are not can be up to you). Not proof read, forgive me for errors </3

Rating: sfw

TWs: N/A

Pairing(s): Wesker/Reader (mentioned), Wesker&Reader (mentioned), Nikolai/Reader

Albert Wesker, you are so fucking lucky I like you.

The way Wesker pitched this mission to you was simple; track down Nikolai Zinoviev, and do whatever you could to get your hands on the combat data of some new bio-engineered freak.

So far however, this mission hasn't been anything less than a massive pain in your ass.

First of all, not only did it take a week and a half alone to track down Zinoviev's contacts, you then had to trek through the middle of nowhere in some eastern european country you couldn't even pronounce the name of only to have to rigorously prove your identity and purpose for wanting to see him in more ways than you could count. It was like the international customs on steroids.

And what do you get for your troubles? A man who is ecstatic that your benefactor is willing to drop a quarter of a million dollars on a data report? Someone who is ready to drop the info and live in the lap of luxury until the money runs dry? A normal person?

Of course not; not in this industry. Instead, what you're met with is the most self-absorbed, arrogant, teeth-grinding irritating son of a bitch you'd ever had the misfortune of meeting. And that's saying something from a person who's spent the last decade working with Albert Wesker.

You're brought back from your thoughts by a calloused hand waving in front of your face. "Still with me?"

Your eyes cut away from the plush rug you're standing on to set a cold look on him. "Listen, do you want the money or not?"

"Of course! Money makes the world go 'round, but... what's in it for me?"

"Aside from $250,000?"

"How about some information on Wesker? I have some benefactors of my own who would love to know a little more about him." "Absolutely not," you bark, pathetically fast. "I understand you have no sense of loyalty, but I do."

Nikolai eyes you for a moment, his head slowly tilting. "And he would do the same for you, yes?" It catches you off guard, having the truth laid out so plainly before you. You want to say Wesker is every bit loyal to you as you are to him, but deep down? You know that isn't true. The second you weren't useful... the thought of the future keeps you up at night. Then again, what can you do? You're in too deep to back out now.

Nikolai takes your silence as a go-ahead to continue. "Loyalty is worth nothing. People put too much stock into it- it's delusional to think someone will follow you around like a puppy just because of something as weak as loyalty. No, only money can get you something like your ideal of loyalty... until a higher bidder comes along." He gives you a vaguely sleazy grin and takes a step closer to you, his eyes trailing over your body. "That being said... maybe there's another reason Wesker keeps you around." Rage flashes through your eyes, brief yet vengeful like a forest fire. "You don't know what you're fucking talking about," you snap, but the warmth in your cheeks takes away any intimidation factor you have.

"Defensive," Nikolai chides, snickering to himself, and then suddenly he's in front of you, his arms caging you in against the desk you're leaning on. His sudden proximity is doing no good for your embarrassment. You hate to admit it, but he is... more than a little attractive. He smells nice, too- gunpowder and pine trees, and good lord you want to punch him for it but that smirk-

What can you say? Your type is emotionally unavailable assholes, you suppose.

"All I meant was Wesker doesn't seem to keep his, ah, playthings, around for very long. What makes you so special?" Nikolai continues, clearly trying to goad a reaction out of you. You open your mouth to respond, but he cuts you off. "And, what I'm more curious about, is why a pretty thing like you puts up with him. Surely he doesn't really take care of you?"

"Oh, and you'd be better?" you bite, taking the bait without thinking. You've got an attitude- something which Wesker has more or less worked out of you, at least when it comes to him- but something about Nikolai brings it back full force. "You're talking an awful lot of shit for someone who'd cut his own mother for a quick buck."

"Awh, you don't trust me?" Nikolai teases, his gaze narrowing in ways that makes your stomach flip.

"No."

Nikolai grins, finally stepping away from you with his hands up. "Smart girl. No, I wouldn't be any better, but i'd be upfront with you about it.

"Shut up!" you bark, and this time it's you getting in his face. "I didn't come here to get play mind tricks with you, I'm here to cut a fucking deal. Either give me the combat data, or quit wasting my time."

"Brat," he muses under his breath, eyeing you like a hawk would a mouse. Despite that, he does look slightly impressed you have the nerve to speak to him like that. Slowly, he grins again, and his gaze turns appraising. "Hm, I do see why Wesker likes you," he huffs, and turns away from you, making a dismissive gesture. "Fine, I'll take your offer." He turns back to you, dangling a bag in his hands which you assume has the data inside.

When you reach out to take the bag, he hoists it out of your reach quickly. "Nikolai-"

"I'll take your offer on a condition."

You sigh, trying to chill the anger crawling under your skin, and put your hands on your hips. "What?"

"Give me your number."

You blink at him, your expression blank with surprise. "What?" you repeat, your tone incredulous.

"You heard me," he responds, his expression smug as he steps closer to you, holding out the bag as if it's a peace offering. "When Wesker eventually tosses you aside, you could benefit from a friend or two, no?"

God, you wanna kick his fucking teeth in. However, you're tired, you want to go home, you're tired of arguing, and now that the seed of doubt has been planted, you can't help but think he's right-

"Fine."

Finally, you're leaving, deal sealed, bag in hand, and Wesker $250,000 broker, when you hear Nikolai calling out after you.

"See you around, кукла"

#Wesker AND Nikolai lost focus and had a consensual work place relationship w/ you #For those unfamiliar he calls her 'doll' in Russian at the end. Upon some reading its considered condescending #“for someone you think is stupid but pretty”#and if thats not peak Nikolai I dont know what is #resident evil x reader #resident evil #resident evil fanfiction #resident evil ask blog #anon ask #albert wesker #wesker #wesker x reader #albert wesker x reader #nikolai resident evil #nikolai zinoviev x reader #nikolai zinoviev #nicholai ginovaef #nicholai resident evil

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tairona-is-taken · 14 days

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A review of Truce at Bakura

(Originally posted to my RL Goodreads account a few years ago.)

Unevenly written, but super fun. This book picks up 24 hours after Return of the Jedi ends, and it’s billed as the book that wraps up the loose threads from ROTJ. I would say it only 50% delivers on that. It does do a good job of portraying Imperial/Rebel relations now that the Emperor is dead and the two sides have to work together to defend Bakura (an Imperial world) from whoever the aliens are who are invading from outside the galaxy (the Ssiruuk?). There’s a great scene in particular where the Imperial governor of Bakura doesn’t believe the Emperor is dead at first, but when Leia tells him Vader killed the Emperor, the governor is like, “Oh never mind, I take it back—that jerk? I TOTALLY believe he killed the Emperor.”

But the book only does a mediocre job of wrapping up the emotional threads after ROTJ, which is what I was really looking forward to. Luke is struggling with the health effects of the Emperor’s Force lightning, which is interesting, but apparently he’s 100% over the emotional trauma of what happened on the 2nd Death Star. Han has zero thoughts on the revelation that Luke and Leia are siblings (one day was apparently all it took for that truth bomb to sink in). I will give Tyers credit that Leia does struggle a lot with the revelation that Darth Vader is her father, and there’s even a scene where she meets Anakin’s Force ghost, BUT unfortunately Tyers just isn’t great at writing emotions/interiority, and so all of Leia’s angsting over this just comes off as predictable and lacking in true depth.

With that said, the story is still a fun romp that feels reminiscent of Star Trek: The Original Series, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Things that I liked, in no particular order:

- Leia is a total boss in this story. It’s clear she’s been coaching Luke and Han on diplomatic protocol now that they’re trying to form an alliance with the Bakuran Imperials—and in one scene it’s even clear that she told the guys to let her do the talking because they don’t know what they’re doing. LOL. This was a relief after The Thrawn Trilogy, where she gets talked over by other characters a lot.

- Luke gets promoted to fleet commander in this book and he kind of sucks at first. He gets better at being a leader as the book goes on, but in the first battle, he ends up leaning heavily on his flagship captain, Tessa Manchisco. Tessa is pretty amused by his inexperience, but is chill enough that she doesn’t rub it in, while Luke recognizes that she’s more competent than him, and is fine with following her lead. I loved their dynamic.

- Han at one point tries to romance Leia aboard the Falcon and asks Chewie to set up a romantic nook on the ship for a date. Chewie instead just puts together a bed where Han and Leia can get it on. Hahaha, at least Leia takes it in stride.

- At the end of the book, Luke pulls rank so that he can fly a TIE fighter, which he’s apparently always wanted to try—it’s one of the most gleefully in-character moments he has in the book.

- The Imperial characters are pretty nuanced. Gaeriel (Luke’s love interest) in particular is super ordinary—which is refreshing in the Star Wars universe. She supports the Empire in the way that most real people support the countries we live in—because we’re stuck here, so even when our home countries do bad things, it’s instinctual to try to move past it and look for the good.

- At one point, Luke Force heals this senile old lady who Gaeriel is taking care of and who Luke suspects got her mind kriffed up by the Empire. At the end of the book, this old lady turns out to be a complete badass who helps save the day with Gaeriel as her side kick. I just loved seeing an old person use their wisdom and experience to kick ass for once, instead of it always being the youngsters!

Things to file under “so bad it’s good”:

- At one point, Luke is despairing over his love life, so he calls to the Force ghosts—all three of them; Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Anakin!—because he basically wants dating advice from them. Man, that’s some Anakin-in-the-prequels level of romance fail right there. I guess it’s genetic?

- To be fair, this scene leads to a genuinely moving one where the Force ghosts don’t show up (wisely), but Leia does, and she and Luke have a touching moment of sibling bonding. What I particularly loved is that Leia doesn’t make fun of Luke’s crush on Gaeriel, but is actually relieved because he’s acting like a human being again instead of being super detached like he was in much of ROTJ. This is really the one nod we get to the emotional trauma Luke went through after Empire Strikes Back, and it’s a good one.

Things that were just plain bad:

- Luke keeps mind tricking people left and right in this book, oftentimes for frivolous reasons, and Tyers seems to have no awareness of the ethical implications of this.

- Han gets weirdly jealous in the middle of the book of both Luke’s (totally innocent) interactions with Leia and also this one random Alderaanian officer who kisses Leia’s hand. It makes no sense and it’s like Tyers is trying to just check off the “romantic tension” box.

- In the final battle, Tessa dies—and in fact, Luke’s entire flagship gets vaporized—but neither Luke nor any of the other characters spare a second thought for these deaths. I blame this on bad writing, not on the characters themselves, but it leaves a bad taste in your mouth regardless.

#the truce at bakura #star wars legends #star wars #luke skywalker #leia organa #han solo #gaeriel captison #kathy tyers #star wars eu #book review #my book reviews #tairona talks #tairona reads star wars legends #crossposted to goodreads

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