Printing Press

Dinner party: Sharpe’s wife Jane on the left, dandy poseur Shellington next to her, Badass Harris next to him, and some other people including Sharpe (and the glorious Mark Strong).

Dandy poseur hits on Jane and makes botched Shakespeare reference: “Goodnight, dear prince.”

Harris, actual nerd, points this out to Sharpe: 

“His quotation from Shakespeare was incorrect. The phrase is from Hamlet, but it’s not goodnight dear prince, it’s goodnight sweet prince.”

“What’s your point, Harris?”

“My point, sir, is that Shellington does not know a lot about literature, but he knows a lot about women.”

And later, while Sharpe is gone, Harris messes with Shellington’s attempts to seduce Jane Sharpe. “Whoops, we dropped a tray QUIT OGLING EACH OTHER”

Then when Shellington is reciting a poem to Jane that he claims he wrote, Harris totally finishes the poem for him:

“No beauty she doth miss, when all her robes are on, but - ”

“ - but beauty’s self she is, when all her robes are gone. A fine poem. First published as a poetical rhapsody in 1602, originally attributed to Anonymous, of all people, but personally I think it was written by Frances Davison.”

Oh snap. Don’t mess with the bookworm.

Jane reflects: “I nearly got my wings burnt, didn’t I, Harris?”

His reply?

“I don’t think so. He’s not that hot.”

You sassy ginger you.

Headcanon: dogs are super confusing to non-humans

Nog has no idea what a dog is, really. Sure, he’s seen dogs before, but what are they?

Every time he and his squadmates venture off campus, they seem to encounter one, and they never look the same. Two days ago there was the poofy brown one that was less than half a meter tall, but last week there was the one with flat hair that was taller than him when it stood up and put its front feet on his shoulders.

He’s not sure if other offworlders feel the same way he does, but all the human cadets are extremely nonchalant about dogs. They can recognize a dog no matter how strange it looks, whether it’s small enough to fit in a shoulder bag or nearly large enough to be ridden; whether its ears are pricked, upright triangles or long, drooping flaps; whether it has a spiral-liked, curled-over tail or none at all.

They can even identify what type of dog it is, and he’s heard them use dozens of names to refer to them when he’s just struggling to realize it’s a dog at all. He tried asking why there were so many kinds, only to be inundated by explanations of what dogs could do even if they don’t actually do those things most of the time any more.

Every time Nog comes up with a new rule in his head for How To Tell If It’s A Dog, some new kind of dog comes along and breaks it. At first it had seemed easy; dogs love people and will greet any stranger, he’d concluded. But then there had been that sort of cream colored one with the pointed-up ears who had refused to dignify he and his friends with any attention despite the cajoling voice Daniels used that dogs usually responded to eagerly.

He had amended his ideas about dogs accordingly to allow for aloofness of certain individuals (or types??), and thought he was beginning to understand until he met the woman at Golden Gate Park with the tiny cha-wa-wa and the massive sane burnart, who she revealed was mistakenly pregnant by the miniature fellow at her side. Nog had been rendered speechless at the impossibility of such a vastly dissimilar pairing resulting in viable offspring, though he was somewhat heartened at seeing the little guy get the girl (until the woman mentioned that he’d shortly after been “fixed” [and what fixed meant]).

Dogs have different colors and markings and faces and bodies and ears and tails and behaviors and Nog can’t make any sense of what a dog is, but he thinks he’s gotten better at guessing. Now when he sees people with animals that appear to be dogs (the presence of a leash is often helpful), he has learned to say the same kinds of things his human friends say.

“What kind of dog is that?” is always a good bet because if there’s anything humans apparently love, it’s explaining what kind of dog theirs is, as if Nog understands the nuances of mixes and breeds. He doesn’t mind, though; he’s gotten the comm info for a number of women who were very happy to talk to a “fellow dog lover,” and it’s not like the creatures are unpleasant (except the smell sometimes). They’re a little invasive and have the tendency to stick their noses in very unwelcome places, but overall he’d rank them as being very genial creatures, and it’s not like any of the (still extant) animals on Ferenginar are particularly personable.

He’s fresh out of class when he sees a woman lounging on the quad with a blanket spread out beneath her and her dog on a leash nearby nibbling at the grass. It’s a new behavior he hasn’t seen before; but then, he’s observed them eat trash and bugs and unidentifiable things, so why not grass? The dog’s owner is not in uniform, so it must be her day off class or duty, but she appears to be about his age so he approaches her.

“I like your dog,” he says to the woman, who looks up from her padd to give him an odd look. He presses on despite that. “What kind is it?”

Now she is obviously suppressing a laugh and he wonders if his opening line is too transparent. She picks up the fuzzy little beast – one of the long-eared varieties – and he sees that it only has a tuft for a tail.

“You need to read up on native Earth species, cadet,” she says, holding her pet aloft, bright red leash dangling. “This is what we call a rabbit.”

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