#can you tell I am obsessed with regency? because fuck

[strawberrypinky]

A while ago I commissioned the wonderful @yoshitsuno for this regency/Bridgerton inspired piece of Sharp and MC & I received the final piece today! Safe to say this exceed all my expectations & I am so so happy with how this turned out!

Merci, Micah! Your work is absolutely stunning & I am beyond impressed with your skill, talent and dedication. I love this so much & I am so thankful you made all my wishes come true 💗💗

✨ To anyone looking for an artist to commission, I can highly recommend @yoshitsuno ! Her work is absolutely incredible and she’s a wonderful person all around 💗 This was a 10/10 experience - 100% will do it again!! ✨

[tennessoui]

just binged the entirety of your regency au tag and all the snippets and i just want to lay my heart down at your feet i am but a mere mortal to your writing ability (also LOVING the dramatics where else can you be more dramatic than in a regency novel?? it's PERFECT!)

ahh thank you!!! i am so excited to work on more for that au; no one does bitchy and dramatic like regency au obikin does bitchy and dramatic

i think my favorite part of that au is the non-written-but-absolutely-what-happened next day part, after they get together and after they spend several days just fucking like crazy

because then they gotta go into town and be like 'so guys the wildest thing just happened!! turns out!! he was just as obsessed with me as i was with him!! who knew!!!!'

and all the townspeople just scream at them for involving them in their petty dramas for months for no reason we've been telling you for ages that you needed to talk it out what the fuck

[sunshinebunnie]

F, H and I 😙

F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

*~*~*

“You’re not Lexi,” she says as her eyes look him over, her mouth pulled to the side in contemplation.

“You right there,” he drawls in agreement, not offering anything more. ( He knows crackhead energy when he sees it. Even though she might not be on the pipe now, he can tell she’s felt that fizzy buzz tingling through her veins at some point. )

Her eyes narrow. Then, as if a cloud got blown away on an otherwise sunny day, her face brightens. The switch is so instantaneous, Fez is slightly caught off guard, but his grip on Lexi’s door fails to loosen.

“You must be Lexi’s shady dick!” the brunette laugh-shouts at a volume he personally considers to be way too loud for 9:40 on a Tuesday morning.

“The fuck you talkin’ ‘bout?” he grumbles, the urge to close the door in her face getting stronger by the minute.

She gives him a grin that splits her face open (it’s the kind of smile that tells him her parents cared enough to put several grand worth of dental work in her mouth) as she sticks out her hand. “Rue Bennett,” she says, trying not very successfully to sidle closer into the apartment.

Fez casually braces himself against the door in such a way that all of his body weight is serving as a door stop to keep her from pushing past him as he extends one hand as cordially as he can saying, “Fezco O’Neill.”

Rue laughs again as she dramatically pumps his arm, trying to pull him in for some kind of chest bump in an (unsuccessful) effort to dislodge him from his sentry post. “Damn!” she laughs again. “Fezco, huh? Don’t come across that one every day. Sounds like something out of those Regency romance novels Lex was obsessed with in high school.”

“Not to be rude, but whatchu want, Rue?” Fez asks, trying not to let his exasperation bleed too much into his voice—after all, she seems to know Lexi’s schedule well enough to come by on her day off ( without warning? ), so they’re probably decent friends.

She changes tactics, standing on her tiptoes trying to peer around Fez into Lexi’s apartment. “Man, you must have some kinda Fez ho dick magic if you got her sleeping in. She never sleeps in past, like, seven a.m.”

*~*~*

I was so torn about this! I really like this first interaction between Rue & Fez in Private Dancer because Rue has this great chaotic energy to her and it’s the first time Fez is really interacting with Lexi’s world outside of the club. It puts him on his heels a little bit, but it also gives him a chance to (a) better understand some of Lexi’s insecurities and (b) show that he does care for her. 

H: How would you describe your style?

Hmmmm....great question....lol. Descriptive & smutty? I really struggle shorter pieces because I really want to draw the readers into my world. Not to mention, genuine emotional connection is a big component of sex for me, so I have to make sure I establish that between my characters before they hit it, otherwise it doesn’t feel natural & organic to me to write. 

I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?

Hahahahaha. I am a Thirst Queen for sure. Give me smut with feelings or pining high school/college AUs and I will love you forever. (I will say, the Fexi fandom is the first time I’ve gotten into ABO, and y’all have made me a believer! lol)

Thank you so much for talking to me, @dream-a-little-dreaam!!! I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week! 🥰🥰🥰🥰

[mermaidsirennikita]

bridgerton--the good, the bad, the ugly

The short of it: Bridgerton excellently captures the tone of Regency romance novels and offers a lot of escapism and great sex scenes, but could definitely use some serious work in terms of how it depicts race and it should have made some further alterations to the dated and flawed source material.  Definitely loved a lot of it and am hotly anticipating the second season, but I want to see more work done and I HOPE that this encourages the adaptation of better (and less inherently flawed) romance novels.

Now for the longer take.

The Good

Bridgerton depicted sex and romance in a way that is totally different from anything I’ve seen in period dramas, for sure, but possibly different from anything I’ve seen on TV.  The romance of it all was woven into almost every aspect of the show. There is the handsome and seemingly severe but extravagantly wealthy and sexually adept duke sweeping into town.  The (multiple) rakes who just want to have fun while also being hot messes.  The awakening of female sexuality and the copious use of the female gaze.  (Note the pretty modest and minimal focus on female nudity, while we get plenty of lingering shots on Simon.).  People want love!  There is pretty minimal violence and perhaps the most physically violent scene involves Simon beating a man up because HE IMPEACHED DAPHNE’S HONOR~.

The sex scenes themselves focused on Daphne’s pleasure for the most part, and were probably among the best I’ve seen since Outlander in terms of chemistry, in terms of the visuals, in terms of focus on sex as an act of emotional connection and FUN. Yes, there was some Unlikely Vaginal Orgasming, but we also saw Simon tell Daphne about masturbation.  On the wedding night, he was pretty clearly touching her to help her enjoy it.  He ate her out... a good bit.  

And aside from that, we got all of the grand speeches, the stolen glances and touches, an excellent buildup of sexual tension that led to some pretty hilarious moments.  

I also really enjoyed many of the performances on this show.  Rege-Jean and Phoebe had great chemistry and excellent back and forth.  Jonathan was a GREAT Anthony.  I would argue that as lackluster as I found his relationship with Siena (more on that in a minute) it largely existed as a way to set him up for his romance with Kate.  He now has even more of a reason to be down with love, as opposed to solely relying on a kind of flimsy tragic backstory.  Additionally, his overprotectiveness of Daphne added tension to the story and made him a source of comedic relief for me?  I loved it.  Give me disaster Anthony all day; can’t wait until he falls to the enemies to lovers trope just like Simon fell to his FLAW-FREE fake dating plan.

A lot of the changes I found were really good.  Obviously, it was important that the show incorporated greater diversity (though they need way more).  Benedict was INFINITELY more fun and interesting than he was in the novels, and acted as another standout for me.  As much as I hate Portia Featherington, I think that the elevation of her to a proper villainess is probably necessary and Polly Walker excels at those types of roles, though they need to maybe have her be less like, actively racist.  I adored the addition of Queen Charlotte; she was excellent comic relief.  Lady Danbury’s expanded role and relationship to Simon was one of the best moves they made.  It touched my entire soul.

Buuuut....

The Bad

The show needs to work on casting more men that are frankly on Rege-Jean’s level.  It feels a bit awkward to see a guy that is by most people’s standards kind of stunning and then.... Colin looks twelve.  Lord Philip is like... a farm guy.  Get rid of the sideburns, we’re in romance novel territory.

In the same note, the girl who played Siena wasn’t a great actress and wasn’t super stunning, so even though I’m fine with her being a placeholder....  Eh.  Go for better casting.  The woman playing Madame Delacroix would’ve played that role so much better and I really enjoyed her dynamic with Benedict because she was just fun.

Frankly, I don’t know what the fuck they’re going to do to make me want to watch Penelope and Colin fall in love.  Their book was already a bit basic--fun, but far from revolutionary.  I don’t really get why they would receive attention similar to that of Kate and Anthony, basically.  The issue is that Colin, again, looks and sound rather young and twerpy.  It obviously wasn’t great for him to be tricked into raising another man’s child, but.... For fuck’s sake, how much would that have affected his life on a practical level.  He’d never know unless he was told, thanks to the lack of DNA tests.  He was marrying far out of his league in terms of attractiveness.  He’s a rich white guy in England with a supportive family.  

I really disliked the fact that Colin told Marina in his huffy little tantrum that he would have married her anyway--because would you have, buddy?  Really?  The thing is that Marina had no way of knowing that and her entire life (and the reputations of her cousins) was on the line.  She didn’t know if she could trust Colin to keep her secret.  They barely knew each other.  He basically came off as a whiny child and I’m fine with him staying in Greece if that’s the plan.

Penelope was just... psychotic.  And that was really disappointing, because I love Nicola and would love to have loved to see the fat girl get her sexy love story.  But first off, lol, it wouldn’t have been sexy because Colin was miscast.  Second, she basically tried to destroy Marina’s life and that of her sisters?  And herself?  Because Colin?  Because Colin, a guy who hasn’t even shown any amount of attraction to her at this point?  Her tears, her whining, it was all too much.  Penelope was dealing with a crush and Marina was dealing with the real Grown Woman issues of a child out of wedlock and as it turned out a dead lover and they were not on equal footing.

I mean, Penelope could very well make a great villainess at this point, and if done well I’d embrace it.  But I do not know how the fuck they can make me interested in her love story.  And the idea of her basically being launched into villainy because she was this chubby white girl obsessively jealous of a beautiful black woman...... not a great look.

The show definitely needs to explore diversity in terms of sexuality too--I don’t think it’s correct to read Benedict as straight because he still seems to be open to exploring.  Once he has more screentime, I think he could totally end up being bisexual, and it’s possible that the writers were trying to feel the audience out in terms of their receptiveness to taking a straight character who has a big straight love story in the books and making him LGBT+.  Eloise could also easily be a lesbian, and I’d be thrilled to see that happen.  They need to do something to expand the world, and if there are 8 Bridgerton kids, all of them being straight as an arrow seems SO unlikely.

The Ugly

Obviously, the rape scene was bad and should have been written out.  Simon could have gotten caught up in the moment and blown up at Daphne after he accidentally didn’t pull out in time.  Men.... accidentally don’t pull out in time... a lot.  That’s how babies happen.  It would’ve been believable, and due to our sympathies being with Simon largely, I don’t think he would have become irredeemable if he was more at fault than Daphne.  

As it was, I will say that the scene was somewhat better than it played in the books because Simon was conscious and totally sober, and it was a bit?  Confusing?  That he didn’t just roll Daphne over and pull out?  Because she wasn’t really clearly trying as hard as she was in the book to wrap her legs around him and hold him tight.  But it remained a rape scene.  The show also did a better job, I think, of establishing how fucked up it was that Simon took advantage of Daphne’s lack of knowledge.  Whatever he said about thinking she knew what was up--he knew she didn’t even know about masturbation.  He had to know she wouldn’t understand what pulling out meant.  He did very clearly mislead her to think that he was sterile and therefore denied Daphne her ability to give informed consent.  Did that justify what Daphne did?  Nope.  Two wrongs don’t make a right.  But both of them did a fucked up thing and I think that we honestly could’ve stopped at Simon’s misleading.

The issue too is that this leads into a bigger problem the show had.  It wanted to include diversity (yay!) but did not consider the total implications of what was happening (not yay).  Daphne and Simon’s dynamic is inevitably influenced by the fact that she’s a white woman and he’s a black man, regardless of whatever handwaves happened.  This influences the sexual assault and makes it even more messy.

Speaking of mess, I’m not sure what exactly would have fixed the “we don’t want this to be a colorblind casting” issue... but the explanation they came up with wasn’t good.  Never mind that this makes everything SUPER confusing (racism is over like..... maybe 50 years MAX after Queen Charlotte’s marriage if we assume she was a teen when she married and is in her 60s now?) but Lady Danbury’s dialogue explaining this was HORRENDOUS.  “One of them fell in love with one of us”.  The implications are awful.  I don’t know if perhaps setting back the integration of society centuries earlier would have helped?  But this wasn’t it.

Additionally, the writers and casting directors didn’t seem to get that diversity is all well and good, but what about the fact that almost every black character has a light skin tone?  Why are there so few black female characters?  Why is Marina, the most prominent woc on the show, given the “pregnant and desperately trying to trick a man into marrying her until her jealous white cousin fucks her life up and she is humiliated into settling for a loveless match” plot?  I desperately hope we see her next season, falling in love with Sir Phillip or perhaps having experienced a plot twist that gives her someone else...  And she better not die. Eloise can find someone else if Marina really ends up with Sir Philip.

Ultimately, again, I really loved the show.  But it needs to work on some things.  I think that a lot of its issues can be addressed and fixed in a future season, and I HOPE they do that.

[tessatechaitea]

Cerebus #15 (1980)

If the story so far had revealed that Cerebus has a vagina, I could make a hentai joke here.

The first time I encountered hentai was at an anime convention at a Red Lion Inn in San Jose in 1994 or 1995. I went to the convention by myself because I had recently fallen in love with the cartoon Sailor Moon and wanted to get some Sailor Moon LaserDiscs unless it was actually Sailor Moon dolls I wanted. It was so long ago, how am I supposed to remember?! They had a room where they were showing movies and one of the movies I watched was Sailor Moon R: The Movie. It was subtitled which was great because then I had the story memorized for all the times I watched my non-subtitled LaserDisc. But that wasn't the pornographic anime I saw! I don't even remember what that was but I watched some tentacle fucking movie late at night in a dark room with a bunch of other sweaty nerds. I didn't know that was what was going to happen though so I didn't have my dick in my hands like the other guys probably did. I was as shocked as anybody when they first find out that cartoons where women get fucked by tentacles exist! I mean, how many penises does an alien need?! I grew up thinking the little gray aliens had zero! That Red Lion Inn was the same one where I played in a couple of Magic the Gathering tournaments. Being in a dark room with a bunch of horny anime fans was less awkward and uncomfortable than playing Magic the Gathering against Magic the Gathering fans. Most of them probably couldn't believe they were actually playing against such a cool and handsome dude. It really threw them off their game when I would say things like, "Yeah, I've touched a couple of boobs. I attack with my Serra Angel." I know what you're thinking: "Anime, comic books, and Magic the Gathering?! This awesome dude must have owned every single Stars Wars figure too!" Aw, you're too kind! I'm blushing! But obviously I never owned Yak Face. "A Note from the Publisher" is still being published so I guess Dave and Deni are still married. In his Swords of Cerebus essay, Dave Sim discusses "Why Groucho?" It seems to mostly come down to this: Dave Sim enjoyed the characters of Groucho Marx as a teenager and memorized a lot of their lines. He also mentions Kim Thompson's review of Cerebus in The Comic Journal (the first major review of the series) in which Kim praised Sim's ability to make his parody characters transcend the parody to become unique creations of their own. This review gave Sim the confidence to put Groucho in the role of Lord Julius. Which worked out so well that Sim later adds Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Margeret Thatcher, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Woody Allen, Dave Sim, and the Three Stooges into the story. I'm sure I'm missing some but I can't remember every aspect of this 6000 page story. Was The Judge also a parody of somebody? Was the Regency Elf based on Wendy Pini? I don't know! I'm sure I'm missing a lot of references in Cerebus simply because I haven't experienced all the same knowledge sources as Dave Sim. Just like I'm missing a super duper lot of references in Gravity's Rainbow because nobody in the history of ever has experienced all the same knowledge sources as Thomas Pynchon. I've been reading Gravity's Rainbow (for the first time but also the third time because I'm basically reading it three times at the same time. You'll understand when you read it) and I'm surprised by how funny it is. I don't think anybody ever described it as funny or else I'm sure I would never have stopped reading it multiple times prior to this time when I'm actually going to finish it. Although I suppose when I read Catch-22, I had done so on my own so nobody ever told me how funny that book was either. But for some reason, Catch-22 lets you know it's going to be a funny book pretty quickly. Gravity's Rainbow is all, "Here is a description of an evacuation of London which is just stage setting because, you know, the bombs have already blown up, but it makes people feel safe. And after that, how about a scene where this guy makes a bunch of banana recipes for breakfast. Is that funny enough for you?" Oh, sure, there are some funny moments like when that one guy pretends a banana is his cock and then some other guys tackle him and beat him with his own pretend cock. But there's a gravity to the scene that doesn't lend itself to the reader thinking, "Oh, this is a funny book!" But if you make it far enough, you start realizing, "Hey! I'm not understanding this!" So then you reread the section and you start realizing, "Hey! I'm laughing at this stuff! This is pretty funny!" Plus there are a lot of descriptions of sexy things that I'm assuming are really accurate because Pynchon is obsessed with details.

Anyway, I was supposed to be talking about Cerebus, wasn't I?

A Living Priest of Tarim crashes Lord Julius' bath to scold him about a party Julius is giving in a fortnight (which is the amount of time your kid has lost to a video game). I don't know why the priest has to declare he's a living priest. You can tell that by the way he's shouting and foaming at the mouth. Although this is a Swords & Sorcery book so I suppose there are many dead creatures that also shout and foam at the mouth. Sometimes I forget I'm reading a fictional book and wind up ranting and raving about stuff that I'm supposed to just assume is fine. Like when I read The Flash and nothing in it makes any sense at all because The Flash should never have any trouble stopping crime or saving people from natural disasters. The comic book should be over in two pages. Even the writers, at some point, realized how ridiculous Flash stories were and decided the only way to make them believable was to have The Flash battle other super fast people. But that just meant Flash stories basically became bar-room brawls. Two people with super speed fighting is the same as reading a story about two people without super speed fighting. Boring! Some writers even decided that maybe a telepathic monkey would make things more interesting and I suppose telepathic monkeys make everything more interesting so kudos to them. I was going to go on a long rant about telepathic monkeys but then I realized how much I love the idea of telepathic monkeys so why should I create an argument against them? More telepathic monkeys, please.

This made me laugh out loud. Not as much as the chapter in Gravity's Rainbow where the old woman forces Slothrop to eat a bunch of terrible candies. But then it isn't a competition, is it? I mean, I guess it's a competition for my time which is why I haven't written a comic book review in a week or more. Blame Thomas Pynchon for being so entertaining (and also Apex).

Baskin, the Minister for Executive Planning, has come to let Lord Julius know what the revolutionaries have revealed while being tortured. The only bit of useful information was one prisoner's last words: "Revolution...the pits." Cerebus immediately assumes "the Pits" is a location and not a summation of the prisoner's feelings about revolution which led to torture which led to his death. Cerebus, being the Kitchen Staff Supervisor, begins an investigation into The Pits. His first step: threatening the Priest of the Living Tarim. Which makes me realize I transposed the word "living" in the previous encounter with the priest and went on a digression that makes no sense to anybody who has read and somehow remembers that particular panel. I'm sure they were scoffing and snorting and exclaiming to their pet rat, "What a stupid fool loser this Grunion Guy is! Living Priest of Tarim! HA! Ridiculous! What a moronic mistake! He has made a gigantic fool of himself!" I don't know that the almost certainly imaginary people who called me on my mistake as they read this have a pet rat but I do know there almost certainly isn't another imaginary sentient being in the room with them. Cerebus learns that The Pits are Old Palnu that lies under current Palnu. It was destroyed in a massive earthquake long ago and the new city built over the top of it. It's like a Dungeons & Dragons module but with a lot less treasure.

This scene reminded me that I need to finish rereading The Boomer Bible: A Testament for Our Times (which is what it was called in the 90s but is just as accurate for today).

Cerebus and Lord Julius engage in another typical misunderstanding (it's not hard when only half of the people in the conversation care about making sense) which ends up with Lord Julius deciding that the location for the Festival of Petunias will be The Pits. This complicates Cerebus' job of not allowing Lord Julius to be assassinated because the assassins are most likely housed in The Pits (along with their giant snakes (*see cover)). Lord Julius, Baskin, and Cerebus descend into The Pits to find a suitable location for the Festival of Petunias. In doing so, they wind up in a trap and confronted by a masked revolutionary of the "Eye of the Pyramid." Which is odd because you usually have to murder at least a dozen kobolds and several goblins before you reach the room with the boss in it.

Typical unbalanced beginning level module. A giant snake as the first encounter!

Cerebus manages to defeat the giant snake by crashing it headfirst into a wall. The wall winds up being a key support structure and the roof collapses. Everybody makes it out alive but the masked revolutionary evades capture. He will be back next issue to ruin the Festival of Petunias. Aardvark Comment is still just a mostly standard comic book letters page. I'll probably stop discussing it until people start criticizing Dave. Right now it's just "This comic book is great!" and "Keep writing, Dave, and I'll never think ill of anything idea you espouse!" while Dave replies, "I owe my fans everything! I can't wait until I can stop feeling that way and start jerking off onto my art boards and selling those as pages of Cerebus!" Cerebus #15 Rating: A. Good story, good Lord Julius dialogue, good Living Priest of the Living Tarim scenes. I wholeheartedly endorse this comic book and Dave Sim. No way a guy with a sense of humor like this is going to go off the rails, right?!

[wellntruly]

This is not to say I will manage to write a presentable word of any of these, but here they are:

The Deep Space Nine Fanfics of Wellntruly’s Heart

Thus far.

- Julian has to talk Miles through treating something he can’t reach himself, Side A: what comedy! what antics! what space husbands!

- Julian has to talk Miles through treating something he can’t reach himself, Side B: who sanctioned this, jesus fuck. This one may be my dearest impossibility because I’m horribly obsessed with it and have so many beats mapped in my head, but it needs to be heavily, wonderfully in O’Brien’s voice—difficult—and also achieve that thing where even though we’re so tied in to his POV, there’s still enough there that the reader can get a more macro view on things beyond what he is aware of, and just break apart in whole additional ways. This would be like. A stretch goal.

- The One Where Tarra Writes A Bottle Episode. How did we make it through seven seasons without an episode where everyone is kept up all night long in various and sundry occupations/combinations? Let me correct this. 

- DRINK SPACE NINE. Unfortunately this is even more of an episode of television than the previous one, because each scene needs to start with some version of a cup being picked up by someone, and the through-line — the drinks — is really best done visually. [waves hand] Whatever. Starring Kira Nerys, my Lady of Space Bevs.

- The affectionate and thorough John le Carré joke: Tinker Tailor Cardassian Spy. This would just be a straight up pastiche, sliding into homage at times. I struggled to find my Smiley for far too long given that Odo exists. Quark we have discussed. Garak actually tracks onto Bill Haydon at many points down the line, but despite where that would probably take the story, I would actually like to avoid having this one tear everyone’s heart out?

- Conversely: Dramatown Elim Garak magnum opus, nearly overloaded with every tragic idea about him I’ve had so far, including #confirmed Sad Headcanons No One Asked For! Possibly a time-skipping sequence of Regency era restraint and a lot of weighted descriptions of cloth, intercut with a brutal interrogation. Actually definitely that. And this time it is exactly to tear everyone’s heart out.

- I want O’Brien and Bashir in the Battle of Britain damnit, and I want it to get weird.

- Just the concept “the last few minutes of ‘Looking For Par’mach In All the Wrong Places’” but blown out over several thousand words. In short: everyone’s gettin it on too hard and keeps having to drag their battered, sexy bodies to the infirmary to have Dr. Bashir put them back together again. The most explicit fic that contains no actual sex scenes you have ever read. Redefines medical porn. Is mostly a comedy.

- Just once in my life I want an old school haunted starship, and apparently I’m only gonna get this if I write it myself. With Captain Sisko and his right-hand Old Man. And fucking space ghosts.

- I love dreaming and dream imagery and am required to torture Miles, so O’Brien Must Suffer: Actual Nightmare Edition. During a tense week on the station, Chief O’Brien starts having other people’s stress dreams. Which are…illuminating. And just as my own personal fix-it, LAVISH descriptions for everyone’s space bedding, which they HAVE.

- The fic I will trick my old English teacher into co-writing with me that’s aaaall about nuances of naval ranks. I imagine that will be a pretty easy grift given that within a minute of talking about Star Trek with him he started telling me how he preferred TNG to TOS because it had a character who filled the Marine Detachment role, and he’d missed that presence. This one will have a…niche audience.

- When @memory-for-trifles informed me that ‘Treachery, Faith & the Great River’ was inspired by Catch-22 I nearly had a heart attack of joy, so would be HONORED to write a chapter of Nog-as-Milo-Minderbinder, Miles-as-Captain-Yossarian, fuck, would I.

- She also commented after the finale: “I love ruthless power couple Kira and Garak. Those two could take over the quadrant,” and I would sure like to think about how that would look, thank you.

- The Blindfold Fic. At the end of ‘Doctor Bashir, I Presume’, Miles suggested they even out their dart game by blindfolding Julian, and there is just nothing not perfect about that idea, I am sorry. It is exactly the right arrangement for an NCO literally leading his CO around, and also for these two in particular. Julian will get to play at being a superior officer with little sing-songy directions for Miles to hand him the darts or whatever, and Miles will get to tease Julian about how exclusively he is relying on him to keep him from bonking his head on something, etc. But Miles hadn’t allotted for just how completely Julian trusts him, and how that can knock a man off balance when seen up close like this. And there’s no way they don’t follow their usual course and suddenly find themselves well past the middle of something, the air starting to slow and then seeming to hold this one ~moment~ and ohhh no, uh, can we pause? our lives? But you cannot. Sorry Chief.

- WHAT HAPPENED IN THE MONTH JULIAN WAS IN THE DOMINION PRISON CAMP. I actually have no idea besides bro development with Martok, but I do feel strongly about that part.

- Hella grim Garak/Bashir Dominion War piece set during the Defiant miniseries period, inspired by, shockingly, canon. The only one of these to center a physically intimate relationship, with actual scenes of same, but surprise: it’s distant and strange and troubled and not what we thought we wanted at all! Spoiler alert: fucked up hopeless unsolvable scenarios—aka my jam. At one point it seems maybe we’ll be saved by another element coming into play but haha nope, that just made it ten times worse.

- Worf Completes Tasks. 10,000 words.

Anyway at press time I have actually read a sum total of none DS9 fanfic, which I feel will either explain a lot here or just open up more questions about who I am as a person.