Tag: poplitealqueen

poplitealqueen
replied to your post “Tagged by @poplitealqueen rules: complete the fifteen questions and…”

“

and Boromir sarding Not Dying, because fuck canon, I do what I want.*” *WHOOPS* FUCK YEAH FAM!

:D:D:D

… Huh. I’m pretty sure I only have two AUs where he dies and doesn’t get better somehow. *goes to poke at their list of Tolkien AUs* Ok, three.

Let’s see. Eriador Architects is a modern AU and no one dies.

Requiem Court is a ressurection apocalyptic AU, and of course Boromir dies. They all die, and it is glorious and Melkor’s plan to destroy the world doesn’t exactly go as he planned, and somewhere he’s screaming in frustration because all these self-sacrificing sorts to make the next iteration of the world what THEY want, instead of what HE wants.

Immortals of Arda… Boromir dies, and then comes back to life halfway down the coast of Harad, and Methos gets a new student (and later, things go terribly wrong, but Boromir still is not dead, thank you).

Gate of Morning doesn’t even go that far, because it’s Sheppard and Dex and an OC accidentally visiting rather earlier in the Third Age, when the dwarrow were mostly hanging out in the Grey Mountains, before they moved back to Erebor because dragons.

Into the Fire… well, I may get that far, but right now, the furthest I’ve got is a ten year old Aragorn, and a not-much-older Denethor visiting Coruscant. Boromir is not even a thought yet.

Gray Ships involves Boromir not dying because Sirius Black or Draco Malfoy, and only not Andromeda Tonks because she spent the whole decade between accidentally landing in Middle Earth and the War of the Ring in Imladris. However, Sirius finds her mildly terrifying, and Draco would like his aunt not to have reason to come bother him where he’s finally found a home, even if he does spend quite a bit of his time arguing with Haldir.

Time and Valar. Well, time travel, and technically he died, but he got better. And yeah, technically he’ll die again at some point, but definitely not at Amon Hen, and bugger if I’ve quite figured out when yet.

Meren and Gladhant does have his canonical death, but the AU isn’t about Boromir, it’s about OCs, and doesn’t actually have a name, just a designator that tells me who I started with as an important figure.

Two more unnamed AUs going down the list, but one’s a post-BoFA AU that is unlikely to get that far, since it’s an excuse for femslash, and the other is a post-Azanulbizar AU wherein Thorin gets a warg puppy because Frerin is not very discering about puppies, and even Denethor isn’t even a thought yet.

War Consort – this is probably going to get a rewrite along with some deleted comments, because fuck damnit. I remember that I did not kill Théodred, but I don’t remember what I did with Boromir. I need to figure that out.

Road to Mundburg, Boromir doesn’t die because Boromir has very good reason to tell the Ring to fuck off. He gets his head rung but good, and then gets sent home to ready Minas Tirith for the coming seige.

Queen Under the Mountain has not even been planned that far, but probably will keep Boromir alive, because I’m changing things way back before the quest for Erebor, so. (Thorin gets kids. And they live. And stay with their parents.)

Northern Night – well, see post to which the reply was made. 😀

Flame of Durin. Erm. I dunno that I’ve planned that far yet, and don’t wanna go looking at my notes yet.

No Shield For My Soul – not only does he survive Amon Hen, he gets to cause mayhem at the Black Gate, and meets the ever-delightful Alagosiell and her family. This would be the AU that gave me an excuse to make banners, or at least stylized variations of them in Illustrator.

Gaearon Rhûnen’s entire reason for existing is that Boromir doesn’t exactly die at Amon Hen. But he does. But he doesn’t. And Randír o Annûn is what happens when head trauma plus wound feaver plus the One Ring is a little shit all conspire together to make off with a lot of memories, and Boromir doesn’t keep his name, and by the time Aragorn is crowned king back in Gondor has begun to call somewhere else home.

Dis and Smaug is not that far, and is honestly an excuse for cute awkward baby dragon who grows up with a stubborn dwarrow princess, and hordes dwarves and humans instead of gold. Fuck canon, I do what I want, seriously.

Agnu Ra Nutû. Yeah, I did kill him in this one. Not at Amon Hen, but still during the War of the Ring. Gamekhdarân. *waits patiently for people to read it*

Garashir, “It’s lonely here without you” for the prompt thingie pretty please?

53: “ It’s lonely here without you. ”

For this set of prompts. I’m still taking more.

When All Others Sleep

Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
AU: Children of the Order
Series: Tumblr Prompt Fic
Word Count: 786
Characters: Julian Bashir, Elim Garak, Enabran Tain, Kira Nerys
Ships: Elim Garak/Julian Bashir

“It’s lonely here without you, Elim.”

He whispers the words into the stillness of the night, though he knows Elim will never hear them. So far away, safe on the Bajoran space station with Nerys. On the far side of a wormhole, and without the faintest idea that Julian is still alive.

“He wouldn’t appreciate the sentiment.” Tain’s voice is quieter than Julian’s had been, and Julian lets a bitter little smile curl his lips. He should have known that Tain wouldn’t sleep. Should have known that Tain would hear him, as close as their cots are to each other in this shared cell.

“You might be surprised what sentiment Elim would appreciate.” Julian remains still on his cot, listening for the sounds of the Jem’Hadar guards patrolling. Even with a proper Cardassian face, his hearing is still human-standard, courtesy of the work of Adigeon Prime when he was a child. “And even if he did not, the statement remains true.”

Tain snorts quietly. “Perhaps.” There’s a brief pause, with only the quiet snores of Martok to break the silence. “I am surprised you would express such a sentiment yourself.”

Julian doesn’t allow himself to voice a reply to Tain’s observation immediately. Perhaps once he might not have spoken that sentiment, and even now, if he’d known Tain were awake, he might have kept the words behind his teeth. Hidden the depths of his weakness, of his affection for Elim. There are enough of his weaknesses to be seen on Bajor and their space station, after all. He doesn’t need to be seen to have yet another.

“What is spoken in the night when all others sleep, and even the Order is far away, is of no consequence.”

The silence from Tain is full of what is not said, and Julian smiles to himelf when it remains quiet.

It’s lonely without you here.

The words are a human sentiment, a single layer in a carefully coded message that carries more than one piece of information. Words that emerged from the data when he’d run it through Suroi’s favored cipher, a habit he has not lost despite the uselessness of it.

“What is it?” Kira had brought lunch to his shop, since he wasn’t going to do the favor she’d relayed from Sisko out in the open. Even if the data had been nothing but noise, the ciphers he knows are not to be shared.

“Nothing.” Garak shakes his head, allowing himself a brief smile. “I’m afraid there’s nothing more important to this than a planetary survey. Not even any planets worth taking a second look at.”

Kira narrows her eyes, fingers tightening on her fork. “And unofficially?”

“There is, as I said, nothing.” Garak erases his work with an idle swipe of a finger, leaving only the original data to be seen by anyone who looked. He isn’t certain he wants to put anyone else at risk if he’s wrong about what the message contained.

The rest of lunch passes without any comment on his evasion by Kira, and the day itself is otherwise routine. When he makes his way to a runabout as the watch changed, though, he’s unsurprised to find Kira waiting for him.

“Who was the message from?” Kira has one of the Starfleet phasers that come with the runabouts aimed at him, and Garak isn’t fool enough to think she won’t shoot him. Perhaps she might be polite enough to kill him, but even that he cannot be sure of.

“I’m afraid I can’t be sure.” That much is true, as far as it goes. Suroi – Julian, Bahri – had died with Tain, as far as Garak is aware, in Tain’s ill-fated attempt to destroy the Dominion before they could become an enemy.

“Than I can’t be sure I should let you steal a runabout.” Kira smiles, the expression almost what humans would call sweet, if they didn’t know her. Garak has to will himself not to check that he isn’t bleeding. A smile cannot kill him by itself.

He is silent a moment, watching Kira as he debates the intelligence of sharing what he suspects. “The message is three layers. Coordinates, the planetary survey, and five words in Bajora.”

“What words?”

“It’s lonely without you here.”

Kira’s fingers tighten on the phaser for a moment, and she lets out a slow, careful breath before she lowers it. “Where are the coordinates?”

“The Gamma Quadrant.” Garak keeps his hands off the controls until Kira begins to run the first pre-flight checks. Aiding him with what may be a fool’s errand, for only the hope that they might find one person.

He can only hope he doesn’t regret the entire venture.

Happy belated birthday, friendo! I’m sorry I didn’t catch you the day of *hugs* I hope you had a lovely one

Is still my birthday! You are not late. 🙂 *hugs you* I am having a pretty good birthday today. Puttering about and stuff. And chocolate cake. And nommy rice pot stuff. And many birthday wishes from people, and TWO fics I follow that are very very awesome updated today. Or near enough to today as makes no difference for my reading of the updates.

@deadcatwithaflamethrower @lacefedora @norcumi @queenkit @koiotchka @travellingwiththedead @jabberwockypie @elegantmess-southernbelle

I see your birthday wishes, and you are all awesome, and THANK YOU!

… And I did mention chocolate cake, and it is a costco chocolate cake and no I haven’t eaten the whole thing, but I may have eaten a bit more of it than I should have. Or maybe it’s just that several people have said happy birthday and it’s very awesome and I’m bouncing because look, people noticed it’s my birthday!

One more year survived. Another win. And there are people who have celebrated with me, even a little bit.

(Also, Saturday there will be noms at a restaurant I haven’t been to in a decade. I am looking forward to this. That may also be part of the being happy-excited.)

Edit: Make that three fics! *goes to read the latest chapter of Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail*

*hugs you* There is nothing wrong with being excited over working on a fancomic. You are *Making A Thing*, and that? That is one of the most fantastic and awesome things a person can do. You are CREATING. Reaching out to touch the infinite, and bending the world into a new shape that is all your own. Making a world, of which you are the supreme deity, the arbiter of life and death and everything. You are fucking fantastic, and nothing anyone else does can change that.

poplitealqueen:

*hugs back* You’re totally, 100% right, dude. Also? You put it so beautifully. I feel like I should frame this and put above my work desk.

You know me by now, right? I have a horrible habit of reacting first and actually thinking later. Sure, that can be good for spontaneous stuff. Writing something, drawing something, meeting people, booking plane rides, etc etc, but when it happens with bad feelings it becomes fucking awful. I don’t stop to think, “This isn’t the right way to think about it.” Nah, I just immediately let myself be pulled by the current of my emotions, letting them take me where they may. It’s something I really gotta work on. I hope one day it isn’t so *visceral* all the time.

What I need to do, besides what I just said above obvi, is just *things*. I need to just do thing, and not worry about them so much. I gotta stop comparing what I’ve just started to do with what people have been doing for years. I gotta stop thinking what I’m doing is wrong somehow.

It’ll get easier. I hope.

(I should have put that in question form. Does it get easier? Do you eventually move past thinking you’re wasting your life? Do you ever stop comparing yourself to others? None of the wikihows I looked at could tell me.)

The brain weasels might never shut up, but with practice, there can be more days when you can tell them to shut the fuck up. And the bad days don’t seem as bad. Yeah, there are still going to be bad days, and sometimes there are points when it looks like a barren wasteland, while everyone else is off partying, but. It gets easier, I think, to remember that no matter how awful it might be, there’s bright spots, and there will be more of them, just so long as you keep going. (There’s a post somewhere either in my queue or over on my sideblog where someone put it better.)

Surviving the day is a battle won. Having a day where nothing makes you feel like the worst kind of shit is winning a battle without spilling blood. Being able to make a thing? Is the victory parade through the streets.

Yeah, so you worry about things. So long as you do them, so what? It’s anxiety, it’s annoying, and it’s there, but it’s not stopping you (ok, sometimes it does. And you pick yourself back up, and try again later).

I could dig up something from when I was in my early 20s. It’s mostly crap compared to what I’m writing now, ten years later. And it’s leaps and bounds better than the stuff I wrote ten years before that. Sometimes I go back and read it to cringe and twitch and remind myself that, no, really, I’m not that bad.

I do the same for mental health stuff – go back and read entries and stuff from before, to remind myself how far I’ve come. (Like, say, no longer at the point where I’m writing poetry with serious amounts of suicidal ideation and angry screaming. No, it’s not online. No, I will not type it up and post it. It’s enough that it exists where I can find it.)

(Going with the upset and the hurt and the bad feelings – I get it. I’ve been there. It’s hard work getting to the point where it’s possible to go “that’s not right”, and to interrupt the thoughts more often than not. But you keep working at it, and you get there. Even if it takes years to do so, that’s not a reflection on you or your dedication or your will power or your moral fiber. Just means that the brain weasels are really loud and tenacious, and you’re even more stubborn than they are.)

First, last, and the end for an au of your choice

In the Silence and the Dark

First:

The Jedi kneels on the floor of the cargo hold of the old ship, looking for all the galaxy as if he’s meditating. Trying to, anyway.

Last:

“No.” Vinris can’t see a key on any of the small tables in the room, either, and that makes her uneasy, as if they’ve walked into a trap all too willingly. Even though she doubts they’d be truly trapped, there’s a niggle in the back of her mind that she’s overlooking something.

The End:

Leia looks over the small collection of graves that have been dug into the rocky slopes of Alderaan. The last of the graves scattered across the galaxy, of Jedi and Sith alike, the ashes of a fire that had consumed the Republic in its final and fiercest years.

The quiet satisfaction in the back of her mind from her constant companion echoes her own. Here lies the end of one long-fought and bitter war, and hopefully not the beginnings of another.

For this post.

Morning, 7 June 17

Things feel real again, yay!

Replies:

elegantmess-southernbelle relied to this post:

Hugs and love, honey!

*hugs you back*

poplitealqueen replied to this post:

I’d love to see your project!

*very big grin* It doesn’t photograph as well as I’d like as a whole thing, because it’s large enough to fall off the sides of the bed, but pictures! (Under the cut, because image-heavy long post.)

The thing as a whole (or as whole as it is at the moment):

Center square, with the pretty flower (you can also see the basketweave of the in-between stripes):

Various squares:

I still haven’t put the edge on the one set of stripes-turning-90° corners, and I haven’t even made the second set of wheel corners, which will be like the others, except with the peach color (Tea Rose) in the center instead of the tan color (Jute). And yes, there’s a severe dye-lot change in the Jute, because there was a three year break in the middle of doing this. Which you probably can’t see, because I think I managed to take the close picture on only the ones with the older dye-lot of the Jute, which I like better. The new one is more yellow.

This one I’m keeping for me, both because dye-lot change, and because I originally started it with me in mind, if mostly as a project to play with a book of patterns for squares for doing this sort of thing.

I think I may see about trying this again in two strands of 5/2 cotton, like I’ve done the 8-sided blankets, because squares can be fun, and modular blankets like this are better for working on over the summer. Squares don’t cover laps so much. 🙂

I’m sorry your brain is still playing What’s Real, dude. I hope you’re feeling better now that it’s later in the day. If there’s anything I can do, again, let me know! (If we lived closer I’d totes be your errand monkey and get you all the nice yarn)

Things are indeed better this evening, though this bout of things aren’t real is lasting longer than this stuff usually does. I’m almost tempted to go poking at my rewrite of an older set of fics from when this state of mind lasted almost all of a November, if I wake up feeling like this tomorrow.

On the other hand, if it goes like it has been, tomorrow should be better, and possibly back to things being real again. *crosses fingers*

I didn’t actually get out to get the yarn today, because the anxiety won out over the desire to get the yarn, particularly since I’m not entirely out yet, just know I don’t have enough to finish the project. There are other bits of it to work on in the meanwhile. I should take pictures of the project at some point, show it off. Tomorrow, when I have daylight, instead of mini lights, though.

I hope you’re feeling better after that bad brain day dude. (Unless it’s still going on) if there’s anything I can do to help, lemme know

I’m still feeling like nothing’s quite real, though it’s a little better now, so after I feed the cat her gooshy food, I’m going to head to bed early, and hope that tomorrow is better. And if not when I wake up, than maybe after running out the hot water downstairs (the hot water heater in the apartment being terrible and the bath tub being gross no matter how often I scrub it).

Thank you for the ask, though. That in itself does help, even if it doesn’t make the brain stop trying to tell me nothing is real. 🙂