#Tain Way

[vaguely-concerned]

there are a lot of daddy issues to go around on DS9 in general, but odo, bashir and garak are really in their own special little fucked up 'what am I but wrought in my father's image' club

[fauvester]

s2 garak you could not waterboard him to say a word that starts with O. s7 garak telling everyone around him Well when /I/ was the right hand leader of the Obsidian Order tm-

[blujaymi]

trying to figure out how to draw Her <3

[lilareviewsbooks]

"You can't even tell the truth about pineapple." Tau threw up their hands. "Principles help you, you lied about pineapple. You are a hole in the heart."

The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson

[sapphosewrites]

Lots of discussion in lab meeting today about the human brain as a pattern recognition machine and how much resources it devotes to interpreting situations so that it will be better able to quickly predict their outcome in the future

And so I'm thinking about our boy Julian and his genetically enhanced pattern recognition machine, and wondering if part of the appeal of Garak is that he defies prediction

[comic-sans-chan]

Teenage Garashir is really something special. You know Julian was a crazy son of a bitch as a teen and Garak was a sarcastic stuffy little shit with his nose glued in a book. Julian obsessing over tennis and racquetball with a perpetual middle finger pointed towards his parents and Garak weeping over Cardassian Stephanie Meyer alone in his tiny bedroom while Tain throws knives at his door and Mila shouts at him to do the dishes. Julian's drooling over five different people at once and Garak's thinking hauntedly about that cute guy he had to kill last week while he mows the lawn. They both crave death, but sparks fly the second they lay eyes on each other. Garak's trying to figure out the logistics of balancing a secret agent career and an alien husband while Julian's just daydreaming about stuffing his face in his chest and suffocating. It's a shitshow and it's magnificent.

[slippinninque]

Fontaine from they cloned Tyrone seem like the type to get jealous easy. What do you think he’s like when he’s jealous

I think he'll be jealous if he REALLY likes you.

I think he responds well to reciprocation, so it would be all the worse if you're all cute and flirty with him--you're his lol.

Even if ya'll don't make it official out loud, you're still going to be his lady lol.

A quiet forcefield would put around you but you're so smitten that you don't notice the ice cold glares he gives to eyes that linger too long.

If you are particularly friendly, it might be a bit of an...adjustment for him. Ultimately he would want you to be happy and he wasn't one of them dudes that wanted to isolate you but he couldn't stand the thought of ever losing you.

But he will be right there by your side, the doting boyfriend with the eyes of a hawk. Of course it could make his 'target' a it squirmy, but you know how your 'Taine is and you know what he needs.

Reassurance.

So you dial up the affection. Playing with his fingers, putting your hands together and grinning at the difference in size. Darting in to brush your nose against his, putting his arm over your shoulder and batting your eyes up at him. Every and any thing you can do to tell him "I'm all yours, baby" until he drops his shoulders and relaxes.

Until that squint vanishes from his gaze, you're all over him.

In his mind, he thinks he's being covert but you're like 👀🤭

[sofhtie]

aminata isisegu. hello. hello. do u all even care. does anyone even care that she’s the worlds worst girl. hello. hello

[raionmimi]

I love your art of Setanta and Medb Lily, is there any evidence of them actually being childhood friends in the Ulster Cycle?

Short answer: Not exactly, it was just me piecing together timelines that are extremely vague and plot points that would make way more sense if fleshed out more. So I started making comics based on my childhood and kids I know for a surreal idealization that would be the catalyst for their problems when they fight in the war

Long Answer:

All that I know is that Fergus is 20-ish years older than Conchobar. Conchobar is older than Medb, who would have to have been in the 10~16 range and been officially married at 15-16. (I’m assuming she’d be about 17-18 when divorced because she was forced to bear an heir) Cú was 5 when he came to Ulster and about 7-10 when he left, but it’s never mentioned that the two talked to each other at that time since it’s not relevant to the story

But it would make sense that they met considering their relationship to Conchobar, who was Medb’s betrothed and Cu’s uncle. Even further, Cu’s warp spasm when he was 7 was stopped by Mugain, who was Medb’s sister. Meaning, Medb was probably there when it occurred, but there wasn’t a reason to mention her

Then in one story, Cú and his friends decide to get Medb and Ailill to be judges for their “Who’s the best warrior” competition. They figured they’d be the most fair, but this was prior to the war. How would they be familiar with the Connacht rulers since Cú doesn’t really spend much time with official political shenanigans? All three had to have known of Medb and Ailill before this event. Since Medb often hosted people from other kingdoms, namely Ulster, they probably have all visited her nation before

It all kind of leads back to Cú knowing Medb personally, which could give more emphasis and weight as to why he listened to all her demands/schemes and refused to harm/fight her in the war. It’s unknown if he knew what abuse was happening to her when she was married to his uncle or what his uncle did to her after they got divorced. BUT we do know his uncle directly confronted Cú and demanded him to kill Medb, and Cú said he refused to his face

Then you have Fate’s interpretation. Medb is treated more like a troublesome neighbor rather than a threat. Cú lets her off with a slap on the wrist more than anything. He tells you in a voiceline that Medb is one of the women he broke a promise to so he wants to be more reliable this time. Fate has never mentioned what promise he made Medb, even though you can guess what he probs promised Emer, Scathach, and maybe Morrigan. Medb says she wants to dominate Cú but she never does much to actually do that because there’s some invisible line drawn that she herself put down

In my brain, it makes sense that there is something connecting the two with an unsaid past. One that drives Medb to having mixed feelings about Cú (both hating him but not being able to leave him alone) and Cú to feeling like he has to be there for Medb. Something that neither really wants to talk too much about, and especially not with each other

The easiest connection would be them being friends at a young age when they met in the Ulster kingdom. They’re both lowkey unwelcomed as Conchobar abuses Medb for her refusal to yield to him, and he didn’t even want Setanta to join his army at first. He kind of hates and fears both of them. Makes sense for them to just be regular kids together to set up the dynamic change for later.

A shattered friendship is one of the most devastating things that could happen to a child growing up, and could easily warp to an obsessive hatred and lingering guilt. Leads to feelings like “You betrayed me,” “Why didn’t you take me with you?” or “I wasn’t there for you, I need to make up for it.”

I like tragicomedies a lot, so I think it’s the best foundation for both causing and healing the severe rift between them when they’re older

So no, there’s no actual source material that would outright say that they’re childhood friends, it’s just something that would make the most amount of sense when you go back and align the dots. At least to me in my brain

[smarti-at-smogwarts]

The thing about Jacob is that no matter how you write him you still have at the core of his story a sixteen year old kid who trusted the wrong person and got trapped for years like he’s sixteen and he’s in some magical version of solitary confimenent, He’s sixteen and he has to sit there and not see his friends and family he’s sixteen and his best friend is dead and he can talk to no one and like no matter how smart he could have been how was he supposed to see this coming he’s sixteen and does time even pass in the vault he’s sixteen and the last time he saw his loved ones he probably thought he’d see them again he’s sixteen he’s sixteen

[riseupriseupandcomealong]

is it ethical to make my housemates listen to 20 minutes of this presentation? maybe not but it’s what they’ll have to live with

[vaguely-concerned]

patented 'not that I care that much or anything so there's no need to dwell on it too too much ahaha *sweats nervously* but tain would you pls consider not murdering my mom (and the mother of your child) for absolutely no reason whatsoever? no pressure tho of course you know best! :)' smile

(it's so dark but also so funny that when tain keeps on Hinting Ominously, garak's reaction seems... slightly exasperated? more than anything, under all the tension fsdjafsl. this exact conversation has definitely happened multiple times over the last thirty years, lending horror an edge of 'oh this again huh' ennui and hilarity. 'I should have killed your mother before you were born'/'so you've told me, many times'. I think it's the turnaround time from 'I've missed you, Elim' to this that drives it from straightforward psychological horror sneaking dread to still that but also kind of hilarious. it really took tain less than five minutes to go there didn't it. wow. well, actually. I think maybe the real horror part is that garak still loves him and doesn't know how to stop. somewhere in there is a five year old whose heart is a desperate stupid little moth and his father is a ruinous forest fire in the night, brighter and closer than any star. of course it burns you to touch it that's just what love is, right. *spots a smiling julian bashir in the loading bay holding a box of chocolates out of the corner of his mind and experiences something harrowing and existential he simply cannot unpack right in this moment thank you* right???)

[trans-cuchulainn]

okay so you know how there's a scene fairly on in In Loco Parentis where they mention the idea of going to see a new film about nureyev, like as a wee ballet nerd date. well i started writing ILP at the very end of 2018 meaning that the film being referenced is the white crow, only i never actually saw it, because it only showed in really select cinemas and i missed it. and i haven't been able to find anywhere to watch it. but today i finally got my hands on a dvd of it so i actually get to see it now, 4.5 years after i put it in a fic

[natjennie]

the captain. UM.

sooo himcore for real

[soldier-poet-king]

Anyway. The traitor Baru Comorant. I will never recover from this. I need to sit and think about it for the rest of my life.

[tainebot01]

My first ever D&D character! - a human sorcerer with blue dragon ancestry, Clementine dreams of being an artificer but has terrible luck with her own inventions due to her magic interfering with the technology. She’s trying her best though!