T. Darcy/Fiction

Enthusiastic story enjoyer, Queer oddball, woodland creature. Most pronouns arguably applicable, none will give offense. Please note, the things I write under this name are generally NSFW

[ovid]

it’s psychological horror to YOU. to me it’s a romcom

[allbuthuman]

it's a romcom to YOU. to me it's psychological horror

[mylordshesacactus]

For all that the 1800s etiquette guides are--obviously--derangedly sexist from a modern perspective? They're also mindblowing in how casually they will assert things that MODERN DAY CONSERVATIVES would scream and cry and shit their pants about.

"People back then always married young it's natural!!!" Every single 1800s guide I've ever met casually mentions that, of course, you really shouldn't get married before you're at least 20, and waiting until 25 is usually better.

Or, like. Okay here's a long segment:

Just firmly going "it is crazy sexist to blame The Wife for overspending when thirty seconds of asking questions will immediately establish that her husband was outright lying to her about how much money they had. Talk to your wife like a normal person."

Or--okay, here. A section on being honest and not writing love letters in secret, because that's usually a good sign that there's something untoward going on....

....except that he then immediately acknowledges that sometimes, the reason you're hiding this from your parents is that your parents suck. That there are parents who frankly have not earned the right to approve or disapprove of your partner.

(I realize the phrasing there sounds a lot less strong than my summary, but--trust me on this. When you're familiar with the narrative voice of these kinds of books, this passage is downright radical. The mere acknowledgement that if you treat your kids badly, it's your own damn fault when they don't talk to you? I've genuinely never seen that before in this genre. Don't freak out over "properly trained", either. It's just a linguistic shift--at the time, "training" was used the way we would say "raising" a child today. )

[mylordshesacactus]

"Delete all the nudes and sexts after a breakup or you're a piece of shit" has been the standard expectation since EIGHT. TEEN. EIGHTY. FIVE.

[mylordshesacactus]

"Men and women being friends with each other is literally normal. Don't be a controlling freak."

Anyway I was wrong the publishing date is actually 1882 so like.

[mylordshesacactus]

"If you have to abuse a child to keep order in your classroom then you're a bad teacher."

So like @ the modern Republican party, are the "traditional family values" in the fucking room with us right now--

[velvetnightgallery]

Art Nouveau green book covers

[historical-fashion-polls]

which outfit would you rather wear? (1947)

left 🤎

center ❤️

right 🤍

Remaining time: 6 days 9 hours

[misscromwellsmonocle]

The Little Art Connoisseur (1863) August Friedrich Siegert

[darnitjack]

Last time this came around I showed my three year old and he said "He's little like me!" and stared for a whole minute (v. Long in toddler time).

[myrinthinks]

Just for information - and not to take from your point in any way, darnitjack, which is So Cute! - the original title is Die kleine Kunstkennerin, which means this is actually a little girl!

[leona-florianova]

Another cup? Tell me, Stephen, what did you drink on that infernal rock?' 'Boiled shit.' Stephen was chaste in his speech, rarely an oath, never an obscene word, never any bawdy: his reply astonished Jack, who looked quickly at the tablecloth. Perhaps it was a learned term he had misunderstood. 'Boiled shit,' he said again. Jack smiled in a worldly fashion, but he felt the blush rising.

'Yes. There was one single pool of rainwater left in a hollow. The birds defecated in it, copiously. Not with set intent - the whole rock is normally deep in their droppings - but enough to foul it to the pitch of nausea. The next day was hotter, if possible, and with the reverberation the liquid rose to an extraordinary temperature. I drank it, however, until it ceased to be a liquid at all; then I turned to blood. Poor unsuspecting boobies' blood, tempered with a little sea-water and the expressed juice of kelp. Blood… Jack, this Cape St Roque, of which you speak so anxiously, is in Brazil, is it not, the home of the vampire?'

--HMS Surprise

[thankeschoen]

girl realising they’re a lesbian call that 💡yurika  

[homunculus-argument]

"But won't children be confused by all the LGBT-"

Yesterday I saw a mother with a baby carriage, being followed by a girl of about 4-6 years old on a bicycle. The kid started ringing her bike bell like RING RING RING RING RING RING RING, and the mother turned to look behind them to see whether they were being followed by a cyclist who desperately needs to pass them for the sake of everyone's safety.

And the little girl - who just rang the goddamn bell herself 5 seconds ago - also turned to look.

Kids are confused by everything at all times. They don't know jack shit. About anything.

[jumpingjacktrash]

i remember being like 8 or 9 and being told that my dad’s ex-wife was no longer diane and we were to address her as daniel now. my reaction: “ok.”

me and my brother later had a small discussion about whether that could happen randomly (conclusion: no, he probably had to file papers or something) and whether daniel should now be referred to as dad’s ex-husband (conclusion: yes but only to see the face he’ll make) but at no point did we find it like... alarming? the world is big and weird. we were used to it.

finding out a sorta-relative could just change genders off camera, as it were, was a whole lot less head-splodey than finding out there were no squirrels in australia!

[scattered-to-the-winds]

There’s no what

[ashfae]

"Won't they be confused by all the--" So what if they are? Life is often confusing. That's part of how we learn. Part of the job of an adult is to help confused kids learn and understand things. There's no obligation to protect the kids from the confusing things. Quite the reverse.

In my experience anyone using this BS excuse isn't worried about a child's potential confusion, but their own, which they don't want to admit to having.

[indieninja92]

theres no squirrels in australia???

[marleythegoldfish]

Aussie here, I DIDN'T KNOW SQUIRRELS WERE ACTUALLY REAL FOR THE FIRST EIGHT YEARS OF MY LIFE NO JOKE I THOUGHT THEY WERE A MYTHICAL ANIMAL LIKE UNICORNS

[alostpan]

WHAT??

[gay-jesus-probably]

Australia is to squirrels what Alberta is to rats

[shower-thoughts-last-responder]

There's no rats in Alberta??

[parkchanwoohoo]

[misscromwellsmonocle]

Still Life with Cat (1705) by Alexandre-François Desportes

[big-ass-magnet]

Thinkin' about Mekor Dukat. Can you fucking imagine.

Dukat says "I promised him things would be different" which makes it pretty clear that Dukat is an absent father who missed a lot of important events because of his work. This is very common for people in politics! It's tough on the kids and the parents, and it's really sad!

Except it's. Y'know. Dukat.

Can you imagine finding out your dad missed three birthdays in a row because he was too busy committing war crimes? You're six years old and Daddy promised he'd be there this year, and then your mother comes and tells you that he couldn't make it, again, because his work is so important to the State and the People and he does it to make a great world for you, so you forgive him, again.

And then you grow up and find out Daddy spent your six birthday blasting Bajorans out the airlock or some shit.

You're twelve and you find out you have a half-sister. Your mom packs up and takes you and your six siblings (sidebar, six, jesus christ) and moves away, and your father loses his rank and his wife and you, and he considers that worth it.

And! Even if Mekor has consumed enough propaganda that he's space-racist and unquestioningly buys into the fascism (he's 12. he's the son of a gul. he's never seen the occupation for himself. it happens.) and makes all the excuses for his father and has convinced himself that it's a noble sacrifice...his sister is half-Bajoran.

Your dad couldn't take a break from genociding the Bajorans for ten minutes so he could be in your life, but he'll tank his entire career, possibly forever, and defy the state and everything he's supposed to hold sacrosanct, for someone else.

I'd go insane, personally.

[unamccormack]

Mekor Dukat either goes postal or joins Starfleet.

[the-very-darcy]

I can imagine him becoming an actor. The gossip rags love him. If being a disaster in public were an Inter-system Olympic sport, he'd bring home the gold for Cardassia several years running.

Garak bails him out of trouble occasionally, because having the son of Gul Dukat in his debt fills him with spiteful satisfaction.

(Not at all because the damn kid gets all pathetic and stupid whenever someone acts like they give a shit about him. This is strategic kindness, shut up.)

The kid really is good at acting, though. He's got his father's expressive charisma and his mother's political wife skills. He gets type-cast as a tragic bad boy a lot.

[big-ass-magnet]

...Stand up comedian. His most popular bit is talking about what a mediocre father Dukat was. "In order to be a bad father, you have to be a father, and not a guy who occasionally shows up at our house to knock up my mom." SIX CHILDREN. EIGHT IF YOU COUNT THE BASTARDS.

The Bajorans love it.

[crabussy]

when you get crazy enough about The Character you'd think the situations you imagine them in would get more elaborate and lore intensive. but no. imagining my wizard pacing around huffily being slightly peeved at a mild inconvenience. I don’t even know what the inconvenience IS. and it's giving me enough joy to power a city for a month

[crabussy]

you understand this post more than anyone else

[unamccormack]

There’s not a day goes by* I don’t feel vaguely cross about “Afterimage”. Like, look what’s there. It could have been such a banger. Instead it goes “parp” like a sad trombone. It’s Good Bones in DS9 episode form.

* ok maybe not every day but certainly more than the average person

[exlibra]

congrats, we’ve put you in a time machine and you’re now responsible for the episode. what do you change/add/remove?

[unamccormack]

You know, I have rolled this around in my head over the years so many times and I still haven't come to a satisfactory conclusion. I need to find a therapist friend and sit them down in front of it and say, "OK, what needs to happen here?" (I did write a follow-up fic a thousand years ago, but it's too sad.)

Maybe start by making Ezri uncertain but in fact competent at her job, and make the coming into her Daxness more about being able to tell Sisko what he's getting wrong in this situation so that their relationship (which seems to be the real heart of the story) is fully established. I'd make everyone be less awful to Garak. I really hate the bit about the closet; drives me nuts.

Maybe the episode is trying to do too much? But I fell that perhaps it's more that the emphasis is all over the place. The man's just tried to chuck himself out of an airlock. These brief moments are handled so much better earlier in the run, aren't they? Garak's claustrophobia in BIL doesn't actually have a vast amount of screen time, but it has the right beats. The beats are all wrong in "Afterimage" and I just can't quite work out how to get them right.

Maybe it's because it's trying to deal with the Worf stuff as well. Which obviously has to be dealt with, but perhaps not here? Everything feels rushed and underbaked.

[exlibra]

Fully agree about them trying to do too much. I especially feel this about Julian - they do him such a disservice in the episode!

First, he's apparently invited Garak to hang out at Quark's to plan a holosuite adventure but NOT to actually join it, just make the costumes. How rude! Then when Garak says that he can't, Julian kind of but not really invites him to join (apparently as a joke). And when Garak is visibly uncomfortable with the crowd, all he has to say is "well he's just crazy I guess."

Then Garak has his first panic attack of the ep and once again it's "sorry man I don't know he's just nuts". Instead it's Odo taking care of him, which is sweet, but... Julian is a doctor in Everything. He should know about these things! And CERTAINLY Julian already knows about the claustrophobia, and has treated it with such care and compassion in the past. So what happened?

Then of course there's a full on suicide attempt and... nothing?

And I know Julian is known for sticking his foot in his mouth etc but he's always compassionate and empathetic, and he's NOT written that way in the episode. Huffs and puffs.

[unamccormack]

Yes, I’d rather Julian wasn’t in it. Which perhaps could be why Ezri is pulled in to help. It’s the whole treatment of the breakdown, isn’t it? Nobody’s taking it remotely seriously; it’s just an inconvenience. I think I’d feel this way even if it wasn’t Garak; obviously I’m even more furious because it is. The Klingons do better in BIL. Maybe that’s what Worf should be doing in this episode. “By Kahless, your treatment of mental health brings grave dishonour upon you all! I shall assist Ezri in her noble work.” Imagine.

[katbelleinthedark]

Honestly? Having Worf be the one to take this seriously and point out how everyone else is glossing over a big real issue and just being shitty would be awesome. Worf doesn't even like Garak! But by Kahless, he will not allow a comrade (as shady as Worf personally finds him) to be treated with such dishonourable lack of care.

[unamccormack]

Comrades do not abandon comrades, even shady ones with whom one’s people have recently been at war.

[katbelleinthedark]

Exactly! Garak may be a shady Cardassian spy, but he is their shady Cardassian spy. He's proven his loyalty to their cause. The correct, good and honourable thing to do is to repay loyalty with loyalty, and Worf is an honourable warrior.

ETA. This reminds me how much I love Worf and Garak interacting btw.

[unamccormack]

Even more so that Garak’s crash is happening because of loyalty to the cause.

So we’re agreed this episode is now about Worf grieving the (recent) death of Jadzia and Garak grieving the (imminent) death of Cardassia?

Friends, we have the A-plot of an episode. The B-plot can be Ezri establishing boundaries with Sisko by howsoever we choose, whether it’s through therapist fu or beating him in a headstand competition on the Promenade. Quark makes a killing on the sweepstake. Yes, that.

[katbelleinthedark]

Oooh, this would be delicious.

I think we can keep some of the parts where others are dismissive of Garak's problem and are acting somewhat asshole-y (maybe not to the extent they are in the actual episode, but we could spin this as "everyone is overwhelmed with other things and at first they think Garak might be exaggerating") because Worf absolutely should get to very sternly and loudly tell them that they're being dishonourable and disloyal to Garak who's helping them at his own expense and has been for months and also, Jadzia would have been ashamed of them all because that's not how you treat a comrade in arms let alone a friend. (Worf knows all about being overwhelmed, he's just lost his wife, but Kahless' paSlogh, this is even more reason to make sure that they don't end up having to bury another friend.)

[unamccormack]

Yes, this is all wonderful! Far better if everyone is overwhelmed and missing the signs or think Garak’s not answering any questions about the code-breaking because he’s being slippery. When in fact he’s quietly banging his head against the wall of the shop and/or lying on the floor trying to breathe.

Any light-hearted Ezri and Sisko story then can have the gentle twist at the end that Ezri has been trying to get him to relax, both in general and around her. He thinks he’s been helping her settle in; she’s actually been quietly counselling him. Maybe at the end we should see Sisko laugh for the first time since Jadzia died. His friend has gone; his friend is back.

[katbelleinthedark]

Yesss. YESSS. GOOD.

Alright, so now the important question: we need something of an episode-closing scene between Garak and Worf. What's the setting and what do they reluctantly bond over? Their shared feeling of loss and helplessness? Does Worf come to Garak's shop for the first time ever and decides to pick up a custom-made silk shawl that Jadzia ordered and never managed to get? (Did Garak resign himself to never being able to sell it because that would be weird but throwing it out would also be weird? Do Worf and Garak share a Knowing and Understanding Look™ when Garak takes it out from under the counter and presents to Worf?)

[unamccormack]

Or Garak, previously unable to enter the bar, is standing outside the bar; he takes a deep breath, goes inside, orders kanar. Sees Worf on the other side of the bar; they lift their glasses to each other, each toasting what they’ve loved and lost.

[sleepynegress]

Okay... so this is right up my alley. More weird whimsy and quirk in the romance genre... and more jaded suffer-no-fools women, instead of the creepy age-gaps, please and thank you

[umber-cinders]

I WILL WATCH THE FUCK OUT OF THIS! Monster romance books prepared me for thiissss!

[mumblesplash]

it's such bs that the whole guilt-ridden stoic self-sacrificing martyr thing doesn't work outside of fiction. repressing all your emotions and neglecting your physical wellbeing should make you god's most tragically beautiful morally unassailable little soldier of righteousness but all it does is give you bad skin and gastrointestinal problems

[mumblesplash]

like what do you MEAN the number 1 sexiest character trait of all time is just kind of offputting and bad for you in real life. next you'll tell me smoking has consequences other than looking like a mysterious badass

[whatdoesthevixensay]

correct

[big-ass-magnet]

Thinkin' about Mekor Dukat. Can you fucking imagine.

Dukat says "I promised him things would be different" which makes it pretty clear that Dukat is an absent father who missed a lot of important events because of his work. This is very common for people in politics! It's tough on the kids and the parents, and it's really sad!

Except it's. Y'know. Dukat.

Can you imagine finding out your dad missed three birthdays in a row because he was too busy committing war crimes? You're six years old and Daddy promised he'd be there this year, and then your mother comes and tells you that he couldn't make it, again, because his work is so important to the State and the People and he does it to make a great world for you, so you forgive him, again.

And then you grow up and find out Daddy spent your six birthday blasting Bajorans out the airlock or some shit.

You're twelve and you find out you have a half-sister. Your mom packs up and takes you and your six siblings (sidebar, six, jesus christ) and moves away, and your father loses his rank and his wife and you, and he considers that worth it.

And! Even if Mekor has consumed enough propaganda that he's space-racist and unquestioningly buys into the fascism (he's 12. he's the son of a gul. he's never seen the occupation for himself. it happens.) and makes all the excuses for his father and has convinced himself that it's a noble sacrifice...his sister is half-Bajoran.

Your dad couldn't take a break from genociding the Bajorans for ten minutes so he could be in your life, but he'll tank his entire career, possibly forever, and defy the state and everything he's supposed to hold sacrosanct, for someone else.

I'd go insane, personally.

[unamccormack]

Mekor Dukat either goes postal or joins Starfleet.

[the-very-darcy]

I can imagine him becoming an actor. The gossip rags love him. If being a disaster in public were an Inter-system Olympic sport, he'd bring home the gold for Cardassia several years running.

Garak bails him out of trouble occasionally, because having the son of Gul Dukat in his debt fills him with spiteful satisfaction.

(Not at all because the damn kid gets all pathetic and stupid whenever someone acts like they give a shit about him. This is strategic kindness, shut up.)

The kid really is good at acting, though. He's got his father's expressive charisma and his mother's political wife skills. He gets type-cast as a tragic bad boy a lot.

[spockvarietyhour]

Star Trek Deep Space Nine "Cardassians"

Bonus, Perky Lizard: