Rn it's mostly Star Trek, The Locked Tomb and Doctor Who. Spoilers for them are tagged #tlt spoilers , #doctor who spoilers and #*title of the episode* spoilers. Star trek spoilers may not be tagged, so better not follow if you dont want to see them
If you notice a mistake in the use of a/an/the in my posts, pls say something, im trying to figure that shit out
main blog @giraffecatfish
blog with ukrainian translations of stuff (im coming back to it, i swear) @konyaka-byeshena
Two's company, three's an ambush. How (not) to introduce your boyfriend to your friends.
A Knock on the Door
Ses’erakh, 2385, three weeks before the election
~~~
“My friends want to meet you.”
“How nice for them.”
“I mean it—”
“I’m sure you do. I don’t want to meet them.”
Understandable, perhaps, given that they had consistently lobbied against his continued presence in Parmak’s life for years now. However. “My friends also vote, you know.”
“Your dissident friends are not going to vote for the ultranationalist I’m standing against—”
“No, they’re not. They’re also not going to vote for the former Obsidian Order operative unless you give them a reason.”
There was an icy pause.
“It would be a shame,” said Parmak, “to carry every district in the capital except for Paldar.” This was playing dirty, but sometimes a direct appeal to his vanity was the quickest way to get results, and Parmak knew for a fact that he very much wanted a clean sweep in the capital.
“You know, you’re a respected man—”
“Thank you.”
“But I don’t think even you are so respected that you can swing that.”
“No? I bet if we sat down and worked it out, you’d find I’m connected to pretty much everyone who matters at the university.”
The pause continued. Parmak couldn’t quite tell if the ice was cracking or thickening, so he gave it a helpful shove.
“And, through them, their families, their friends, their friends’ friends—” In other words, exactly the kind of liberal-minded intelligentsia who lived in Paldar and were not wildly enthusiastic about him. To put it mildly.
“You’ve made your point. When and where do you want me to meet your ‘friends’?”
“You’re back in the capital tomorrow, aren’t you?”
“Tomorrow? Yes, but—”
“Arani’s here tomorrow night. Why don’t you drop by and say hello? You were coming over later anyway, weren’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“One friend.”
He sighed. “Arani. That’s the one you studied with, yes?”
“Yes, my oldest friend. She’s very nice. She’s a doctor.”
“Another doctor.”
“I’m telling you this for information. Talk to her about the plans for the clinics out in the regions. She’ll love that.”
“You want me to talk shop?”
“You can talk about whatever you want. But that seems like it might be safe territory.”
“All right, I can talk about that.”
“So you’ll meet her?”
“Yes, I’ll meet her. But…”
“But what?”
“I don’t want to be ambushed.”
Ambushed. His choice of language was often revealing, but – really? What did he think she was going to do? Put the screws on him? “You know, when you turned out not to be dead after all, Arani got in touch to ask if you were all right. Not me. You. She asked after you.”
Referring to his recent brush with death was playing very dirty. There had been good and justifiable reasons for keeping Parmak out of the loop for as long as he did, mostly to do with Parmak’s safety. But. Still.
“That was… nice of her.”
“My friends are nice people.”
“Yes, yes,” he said, crossly. “I said I’d come.”
“Good. I love you too.”
~~~
There was a knock on the door. Parmak, opening it, saw with horror that Arani had brought her husband. “Sorry,” she said. “You don’t mind do you? Only he was free this evening after all.”
Now why might Relet be suddenly and mysteriously free this evening? Peering past Parmak’s shoulder, he said, “Is he here yet?”
“No,” said Parmak. “He’s not.” He moved back to let them in. This wouldn’t be a problem, as long as he let him know before he arrived. Then he could either brace himself for the additional person, or make his excuses. As Parmak reached into his pocket for his comm, Relet shoved a bottle of kanar into his hands. “Let’s get started on this while we wait, eh? I’ve had a day.”
“Tea for me, please,” said Arani, taking the nearest chair.
Relet followed Parmak into the kitchen, pulled some glasses from the cupboard, and put the kettle on. Parmak hunted fruitlessly in the drawer for something to use to open the bottle. It wasn’t where he’d left it. How could that happen? Oh yes, because his friends treated his kitchen as if it were their own. He had to let him know…
There was a knock on the door. Parmak pushed the bottle back into Relet’s hands. It would be fine, surely? He’d talked frequently about Arani and Relet; it was perfectly clear that they came more or less as a unit. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise…
Parmak opened the door.
It wasn’t him. It was Ghrell, a historian he’d got to know years back on one of the many committees with which they were kept busy rather than doing their actual work. He was cheerful company. But he wasn’t expected. He looked over Parmak’s shoulder. “Is he here yet?”
Faintly, dimly, Parmak began to get the slightest inkling that everything was about to go terribly wrong. Ghrell, walking past him, saw the open bottle in Relet’s hand. “Very nice,” he said. “Don’t worry, Kelas, I’ll get myself a glass.”
“Arani,” said Parmak, “did you invite him too?”
From the kitchen, Ghrell called, “Kettle’s boiled.”
“No, I didn’t.” She eyed her husband. “Relet, did you tell him to come over?”
“What?” said Relet, who had settled in one of the armchairs. “He said he was free. That’s all right, isn’t it? It’s always been all right in the past.”
And it had indeed always been all right in the past. Open doors, in fact. After the war, as his friends returned steadily from exile, Parmak had been the only one in possession of what could be described as a ‘house’. Where else were they going to meet? Round a campfire in the rubble? But… Two’s company, thought Parmak. Three’s an ambush…
Ghrell came out of the kitchen, glass in hand, poured himself some kanar, and sat down. “You’re running out of chairs,” he observed. “Well, you will in a minute.”
Parmak went into the kitchen to see to the kettle. Arani, following, intercepted him before he could start on the tea and began making it herself. Nodding back to the others, she said, “Do you need to let him know?”
“Yes,” said Parmak. “I absolutely need to let him know.” He reached into his pocket for his comm. It wasn’t there. Where had he put it down? He looked round the kitchen. With immaculate timing, the lights went out. Power cut.
“This is ridiculous,” complained Relet. “That’s the third this week.”
“If only there was someone we could talk to about it,” said Ghrell. “Someone in charge.”
“Kelas,” Relet called out, “where do you keep the flashlights?”
“Ow…” hissed Arani, softly.
“Are you all right?” said Parmak.
“Splashed some hot water on my hand… It’s fine. Don’t worry. Find your comm.”
There was a knock on the door.
“Oh dear,” said Arani, sympathetically. “Too late. Never mind. You know, I might wait till the lights come back on before trying to make this tea…”
Parmak inched his way over to open the door. Elyet from the art school was standing on the step. “Hello, Elyet,” called Ghrell, who seemed to be expecting her. “He’s not here yet and there aren’t enough chairs.”
“And I can’t find the flashlights,” said Relet. “Kelas, you need to keep them somewhere obvious. You need to keep them where you can find them in the dark.”
Which Parmak usually did, only his friends came round and moved things. He reached to close the door. “Wait a second,” said Elyet. “He’s right behind me.”
Parmak heard someone moving quickly down the street. Surely not him? Surely his skimmer would bring him right up to the door? The thin beam of a flashlight wavered towards them. The bearer was Tret, Elyet’s spouse, a senior administrator at engineering.
“At least someone’s prepared,” said Relet.
Tret, coming inside, said, “Is he—”
“No,” said Parmak, and shut the door. “He’s not.”
“Oh,” said Tret. “He’s late.”
From somewhere in the apartment, Parmak’s comm chimed softly.
“I said you were going to run out of chairs,” said Ghrell. “Tret, there’s a bottle open here if you can find a glass. Also, I think Kelas has lost his comm.”
“Oh yes? Where did you last have it?”
“In the kitchen,” called Arani, from the kitchen.
“All right,” said Tret, heading that way, flashlight in hand. “I’ll find it.”
Parmak followed him into the kitchen. They looked round fruitlessly for a few minutes, getting in each other’s way. “See if there’s anything in there we can use as a chair,” Ghrell said. “You’ve definitely run out.”
“There’s the floor,” said Elyet.
“I’m not sitting on the floor,” said Ghrell.
Nobody, it was rapidly determined, was keen to sit on the floor. There was a knock on the door. Everyone went silent. Cautiously, Parmak made his way back through the quiet dark room. He took a deep breath, and opened up. The castellan-to-be was standing on the step, looking apologetic. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “The traffic stalled when the power cut.” He held up his comm. “I sent you a message but you didn’t reply.”
“Elim—”
“Is she here yet?” He came inside. With immaculate timing, the light switched back on. Parmak’s friends all cheered its coming. Parmak studied the other man’s face. To anyone less expert, he would seem perfectly composed. Genial, personable. Friendly, almost. Smiling. Parmak, however, thought he observed a complicated series of emotions shuffle through in swift succession. His eye fixed on Parmak. Was it his imagination, or was there a faint frost?
I don’t want to be ambushed.
“Let me get you a drink,” said Parmak.
“I think you’d better,” he muttered, through his smile.
When the last of them finally left, Parmak stood for a moment with his hand against the back of the door. Behind him, the other man was clearing up the mugs and bottles and glasses. One of the first things Parmak had learned about him was that he didn’t go to bed without doing the dishes. Well, everyone had a bottom line, when it came to standards.
Parmak went to join him by the sink. As was their custom, Parmak washed and the other man dried. They did this in silence for a while.
“I didn’t know that was going to happen,” said Parmak, eventually. “They ambushed me.”
The other man carried on meticulously drying one of the mugs.
“I was trying to reach you. I didn’t get a chance. They kept… arriving.”
His companion put the mug away on the shelf. He lined up the handle so that it matched the rest. He said, “I thought that was probably what had happened.”
“Did you?”
“The alternative was that you were letting me walk into a trap. And I didn’t think you’d let me walk into a trap.”
“Of course I wouldn’t let you walk into a trap!”
“There you are.”
“I was trying to reach you.”
The other man dried another mug and placed it neatly on the shelf. “You do know, don’t you, that this is currently one of the most closely monitored pieces of real estate in the entire Union?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“In three weeks, I’m going to be castellan. A couple of months ago, somebody tried to kill me. My security team’s paranoid and I’m sympathetic to their concerns. And… well, I come here pretty often. Somebody has their eye on this place all the time. They know everyone who comes near, everyone who comes in, everyone who comes out… Surely you knew this?”
Parmak had known this. But he hadn’t quite internalised all it meant. “What are you telling me?”
“Do you seriously think I walk into a room these days without knowing exactly who’s going to be in it? Do you think, given the choice, I’ve ever done that?”
“Wait, so—”
“Security was updating me as everyone arrived. You’ve talked about them enough that I recognised their names. Lucky me. Lucky them. You should see their files, by the way. Very chequered pasts… Radicals, dissidents, exiles…”
He’d known. He’d known, and he’d let him sweat the whole evening. “Do you really want to open the subject of chequered pasts?”
He waved the tea towel as if to brush off a minor detail. “Let’s not dwell on minutiae.”
“Let’s not.”
“You were right, by the way.”
“Right about what?”
“Your friends are nice people.”
“Yes, I know that,” Parmak said in exasperation. “That’s why they’re my friends.” He sighed, and put away the glasses. “I suppose the whole thing wasn’t a complete disaster.”
“A disaster?” The castellan-to-be folded the towel neatly over the rail, making sure it wasn’t creased. He looked puzzled. “Is that what you think? And there was I thinking it had been rather a success.”
Parmak reviewed the evening – everything he’d seen, everything he’d heard. Just… people, talking. And laughing. Quite a lot of laughing. “I think you’re right…” It had all been very convivial, in fact, and one of them in particular had been extremely charming. “Whoever could have predicted that?”
“I don’t see why it should come as such a surprise.” He reached out to place his hand, tenderly, on Parmak’s arm. His eyes were lit up with amusement – and mischief. “Maybe sometimes I can be a nice person too.”
what if data and weyoun met and weyoun saw data paint and watched curiously and then said: my people have no sense of aesthetics. sometimes i wish things were different.
and data said well as i am an android i posess no such sense as well. however i do have excellent ballance. and kept painting. and then data said many art theorists would argue that aesthetics as a concept are actually counterproductive to art, as the pursuit of art should include expressing emotions and evoking sensations in the viewer, and the traditional sense of beauty inhibits this.
and then he kept painting (some sort of surrealist disembodied head floating through a geometric maze of connected rooms) and the next thing he said his voice sounded a little different, quieter: as an android, i have no emotions to express. but before weyoun could reply he turned around and handed him a painbrush and said: perhaps you'd like to try, mr. weyoun?
and then there's a cut. cue A plot. next scene we see weyoun and data paint side by side quietly. close up on weyoun's canvas. it's a writhing dark mass of fuzzy shapes and distorted figures. inside of it you can make out thousand of little faces with their mouths twisted open in fear or screaming, eyes open, closed, some without arms or legs, clutching their injuries. dark fluid streaks down from them to the edge of the canvas, dripping to the floor, like tears or blood. in the background, a mountain of corpses. if you step away from it, the whole composition makes a sillhuete of a founder.
that is most illuminating, said data.
i have titled it "a very cool party together forever with rainbows", weyoun replied proudly
Wait stop so starfleet academy main characters all are different species. Why do 5/6 look human? Not even a forehead ridge? Not even spots? C'mon, star trek already has super low plank for alien designs. I already know im going to constantly be mixing up the lower 4 characters on that orange-ass poster
tbh if GtN can unintentionally contain a meme that was created six years after publication, it does make you wonder how much other stuff we've found in it is just coincidence/projection
vulcan horror movies would be an exercise in emotional regulation against fear, targeted directly at vulcans' deepest insecurities. movies titled "IT IS ILLOGICAL TO QUIVER AT THIS SEQUENCE OF EVENTS" which, if one of its hundred-and-six jumpscares gets you, you'll never live it down. humans find them annoyingly scary, like a friend who won't stop trying to "get" you.
you'd think that klingon horror movies are gorefests, but it's actually quite the opposite: gore is honorable, and nothing is scarier than dishonor. they often show a person whose life falls apart despite their own valiance and virtues: like an earth tragedy but with someone who clearly doesn't deserve it. at the end, there's often an operatic number where the protagonist exclaims that there's nothing they could have done to prevent their abysmal fate.
ferengi horror movies are documentaries about stock market crashes
i know everybody loves post canon cardassia but!! the thought of bashir and garak runnin around the station with a tiny cardassian baby glued to their leg drives me insane! (and yes, that is kukalaka!)
WE MADE IT!!! Thank you all so much for supporting me on this crazy journey to DAY 999 OF ALECTOPAUSE!!!
This was such a long, tough, journey to finish this comic. I started outlining in March of 2024. There was lots of starting and stopping as life got crazier and crazier. I currently work 5 jobs (I know, i'm not kidding.) The ONLY reason this was ever finished was because of all the amazing support I got along the way and the amazing energy that the TLT fandom has kept up. Especially @alectopause kicked my ass in gear and gave me a deadline to finish.
So, thank you all so much. I never would have considered myself a comic artist but this project has given me so much confidence.
@jakeromanoart
A FABULOUS piece I commissioned from Jake!
[Image Description: A vibrant digital illustration of the space station Deep Space Nine from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine with the wormhole behind it. The wormhole is depicted as a bright colorful swirl in many colors and bright red emitting from the center. End ID]
