#'alien in love with earthling' trope

[marcyvamp1re-blog]

ᶻ 𝘇 𐰁  ! ⺌ . ⸺  NPE! 

PART ONE! | Volume I

Synopsis; "So, you’re an alien, huh?" Yeah, sure, maybe you’re a little... different. But honestly, who isn’t? The earthlings think you’re weird? Nope. It’s just that they’re a bunch of clueless humans, totally missing the point. You, on the other hand, have a higher calling. A mission to discover the meaning of life—you know, the whole ‘why am I here, and what am I supposed to be doing’ thing. Simple, right?

Except, uh... there’s a small hiccup. You don’t even know what species you are, because someone forgot to leave the alien instruction manual. Oops. So, while you’re out there doing some random side gig (you know, the one that might help you find out more about your roots and, oh yeah, pay the rent), you accidentally get tangled up in the lives of two earthlings.

Of course, you swear to protect them because, well, you kind of owe them. Maybe. Or maybe not. Who’s to say? Either way, your purpose might get a little... distracted. But hey, priorities, right?

Pairing ── Dan Da Dan x Alien! Fem/Neutral? Reader.

Content. MDNI ── Manga Spoilers, Violence/Death, Blood, Invasion of Privacy, Invasion of Mind, Abduction, Kidnapping, Angst, Murder, Disturbing Content, Corruption, Isolation,Paranoia, Manipulation, Unintended Time Travel Mishaps, Alien Romance Tropes, Sudden Existential Crises, Unexplained Tentacle Appearances, Turbo Granny's Sass, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Gravity-Defying Physics, Psychic Overload, Ambiguous Yōkai Allegiances, Excessive Hair-Related Powers, Sudden Dance Battles in Crisis, Outdated Alien Fashion Choices, Malfunctioning Spacecraft Humor, Intense Staring Contests, Time-Dilated Cliffhangers, Overwhelming Amounts of Sparkles, Overwhelming Amounts of Sparkles, Polyamory, LGBTQ+ Content, ¿Gender-fluid or Non-binary Character? (Not with respect to pronouns, but to their genitals xd), Unconventional Relationship Dynamics, Consent Issues in Alien Interactions, Mind-altering Love Spells, Extreme Jealousy, Existential Dilemmas on Love and Identity, Mind-Controlling Aliens.

A/N ── English is not my first language—Spanish— Oh my god, how did this happen 😱 sorry to everyone (@flwes & @redberrysstuff) who saw the incomplete story, I feel SO embarrassed. Ugh, I swear, autocorrect and my clumsiness are going to kill me one of these days. :"(( But seriously, I promise the full version is coming, just give me a second to fix it.

"Idiot! Moron! Squid! Tuna!" Momo Ayase shouted from the ground, her face flushed with rage as she watched her now ex-boyfriend walk away with that annoying mix of guilt and annoyance in his eyes. "Never call me again!"

"Momo? Are you okay? Or should I sign up for the next round of sea insults?" asked a familiar voice behind her.

Momo turned around, still frowning, but the sight disarmed her a bit. There was Y/n Seigai, with that carefree energy that always seemed straight out of a movie. She wore a short plaid skirt and a white blouse that highlighted her figure, complemented by long socks and platform shoes with a puma print that screamed confidence. Her makeup was simple yet striking, enough to make anyone turn to look at her. And, as always, she had something in her hand: this time, a frozen yogurt popsicle that she licked absently as if nothing in the world could disturb her calm.

"Late again, huh?" Momo huffed, crossing her arms and standing up, her gaze as severe as a frustrated mother.

"What? Was that a 'thank you for coming to the rescue, Y/n'? Because if so, your tone needs a little work," Y/n replied with a cheeky smile, making an exaggerated gesture to offer her a lick of her popsicle. "Want some? Frozen yogurt cures broken hearts. It's science."

"I don't want your stupid popsicle, idiot! And stop changing the subject! You're late to school again! Do you know how many times I've been asked why you can't arrive on time? I feel like your babysitter!"

Y/n theatrically sighed, placing a hand on her chest as if Momo had wounded her pride. "Oh, Momo. Always so responsible, so punctual... except when you decide to sleep in on Mondays. Remember last Monday? Because I do; you were running out with a toast in your mouth."

Momo opened her mouth to retort but quickly shut it, blushing a little. "That was different! And don’t change the subject!"

"Okay, okay, sorry, mom," Y/n said with a mischievous smile, raising her hands in a sign of surrender. "But in my defense, it's not my fault that the coffee at that corner is so good it makes me lose track of time."

"You have a watch on your wrist, Y/n! And a phone with alarms! ALARMS!"

"Well, my alarms and I have a complicated relationship..." Y/n murmured as she took another lick of the popsicle.

Momo couldn't help but let out an exasperated sigh, although her lips curled slightly into a smile. That was the dynamic with Y/n: serious and responsible when necessary but with enough chaotic moments to drive her crazy. And even though sometimes she wanted to give her a good lecture, she couldn't deny that Y/n always knew how to lift her spirits, even on days like today.

"Come on, Momo. Let's get to class. I promise we'll make it before the bell rings... probably," Y/n said, offering her the popsicle as a peace gesture.

"Probably isn’t good enough! And I don’t want your silly popsicle," Momo shot back, but she couldn’t help but chuckle a bit as they started walking together.

As they crossed the school gates, Momo and Y/n couldn’t help but draw attention. They were, without a doubt, a striking pair: Momo, with her natural charisma and perfectly polished gyaru style, walked with purpose while continuing to rant about her now ex-boyfriend; Y/n, on the other hand, exuded a magnetic nonchalance, her skirt swaying with each step and a yogurt popsicle still in her hand, as if school were just another runway in her day.

"And then he has the nerve to say I’m playing hard to get! Can you believe it?" Momo gestured dramatically, as if still arguing with her ex.

"Mm-hmm," Y/n murmured, not stopping her slow lick of the popsicle. "Sounds like someone needs a 'How Not to Be an Idiot' manual. Should I mail him one?"

"Not even that! He’d probably lose it, like he loses all common sense," Momo shot back, rolling her eyes.

As they made their way down the hallway, students stepped aside to let them pass—some admiring their style, others whispering comments among themselves. Momo was so engrossed in her complaints she barely noticed the stares. Y/n, however, threw the occasional wink or offered a carefree smile, as if she were used to being the center of attention.

"Can you stop flirting with the entire hallway? I’m having a crisis here!" Momo snapped, giving her a light nudge.

"Flirting? I’m just being friendly. But if you want all my attention, Momo, you only have to ask," Y/n replied with a mischievous grin.

"God, you’re unbearable!"

Finally, they reached their classroom, where their other two friends, Miko and Muko, were waiting.

Miko was seated by the window, her small bow perfectly in place and her uniform impeccable, though always with her personal touch. Her beige sweater and loosely tied ribbon gave her a relaxed vibe, but her bright smile showed she was ready for a day full of energy.

Muko, in contrast, was impossible to ignore. Her tan skin stood out against her blonde hair styled into pigtails, and the manba makeup she wore proudly added a bold edge to her look. Her uniform followed the same pattern as the other girls', but on her, everything seemed a bit more daring—from the slightly oversized sweater to the way her loose socks fell perfectly over her sandals.

"Wow! Took you long enough," Miko said with a smile as she saw them walk in. "I thought you’d actually be on time today."

"Tell that to Miss 'Coffee is More Important Than Punctuality,'" Momo replied, giving Y/n an accusatory look.

"Me? I arrived just in time to make this spectacular entrance," Y/n said, spinning dramatically before flopping into her seat.

"Jealous, Miko?" Muko chimed in as she adjusted one of her pigtails. "They walk in, and the whole hallway stares. People only look at us when Miko shouts something ridiculous."

"Hey! That was one time," Miko retorted, crossing her arms with feigned indignation.

Momo let out a sigh, but a smile began to form on her lips. Being with them was always like this: chaotic, fun, and somehow reassuring.

"Alright, girls, now that we’re all here, I need advice. How do you get over an idiot who just wants you to pay for everything and only cares about sleeping with you?"

"Easy," Y/n said, raising her popsicle as if it were a trophy. "You get over him by being yourself: brighter, more fabulous, and completely out of his league. Like always, Momo."

"Amen," added Muko, lifting her phone for a quick selfie with Miko, who automatically struck a pose.

Momo rolled her eyes but couldn’t help laughing. Yes, her group was a mess in its own way, but she wouldn’t trade it for anything.

"Okay, seriously, what happened? Why are you so upset? We know it’s not because of Y/n, because when you’re mad at her, you yell louder than a megaphone," Miko said, raising an eyebrow with that teasing attitude she always had when she wanted to get under Momo’s skin.

Momo let out a heavy sigh and flopped onto the desk. "Nothing... that idiot dumped me, and then I started insulting him... using fish names."

Y/n, who was lounging back in her chair with her feet on the desk as if she were at home, couldn’t hold back a laugh. "Fish names. Like ‘Tuna’ and ‘Squid’. Because I’m sure that hurt his feelings a lot. Wow, Momo, terrifying. Do you really think that’s going to change his mind?"

"Ha, I’m dying," Muko said, testing a bit of her makeup while laughing. "Fish names aren’t insults, Momo. What were you expecting, ‘Shark’ or ‘Piranha’? Now those might be scary!"

Momo frowned, looking at her friends as if they were aliens. "You’re supposed to comfort me! He was my first boyfriend! My first, girls!" Momo waved her hands dramatically, as if she had lost something truly valuable.

Muko looked at her with a mix of sympathy and exasperation. "We told you to forget about him, Momo. It was obvious he wasn’t worth it."

Y/n nodded with mock seriousness, though her eyes still sparkled with amusement. "Yeah, can you remind me what was supposed to be so great about him? Was it the guy who always wore shirts two sizes too small? Or was it his talent for making you feel bad every time you talked about your dreams?"

"It’s just... he looked like Ken Takakura," Momo replied, as if it were an irrefutable justification, throwing her hands up as if there were nothing more to say.

The three friends sighed in unison, a sound so synchronized it could have been rehearsed.

"There she goes again..." Muko muttered, shaking her head and placing a hand on her forehead in a dramatic pose.

"Ugh, here we go," Miko said, glancing at Y/n and raising an eyebrow. "The story of the guy who ‘looked like’ Ken Takakura. Momo, are you sure you don’t have a poster of him at home?"

"She doesn’t just have a poster, let me tell you," Y/n said, remembering the time she stayed over at Momo’s house while her grandmother was away for a few days.

Y/n, who had just finished her popsicle and was now grinning mockingly at the others, tossed the stick out the window with perfect precision. "Here we go with your nonsense again, Momo. First it was ‘Ken Takakura,’ then it’ll be ‘Tom Cruise,’ and next you’ll tell me you fell for some guy who looks like an anime character. Stop idealizing guys, seriously."

Momo shot her a glare. "It’s not the same, Y/n! Ken Takakura is an icon, a real man!"

"Yeah, a movie man probably under contract with boredom, because guys like him don’t exist in real life," Y/n said, striking a dramatic pose as she crossed her arms.

Momo shrugged. "I don’t know what it is about him… but there’s something, I swear."

"What he has is that he’s in movies, not real life," Miko replied with a somewhat philosophical tone, as if she’d just imparted a profound truth about reality.

"So what, huh!? I like tough guys, like Ken Takakura!" Momo shouted, raising her hand as if she’d just made a worldwide announcement about her love for cinematic men.

Miko and Muko exchanged glances and, with almost perfect synchronization, replied, "Momo, we’ve got a surprise for you… those men are extinct."

Momo immediately dropped her head, as if someone had dumped a bucket of cold water on her. Her shoulders slumped, and her smile vanished in an instant. "What? Extinct? That can’t be true!" she muttered, as if she’d just taken a direct hit to the heart.

"Sorry, Momo," Miko said with a mischievous smile. "Men like that don’t exist anymore. All we’ve got now are guys in sweatpants with cat wallpapers on their phones."

Momo let out a deep sigh, an exaggerated expression of sorrow crossing her face. "So what?! What am I supposed to do with my life? Settle for guys who don’t even know what a good hairstyle is?!"

With the theatrics worthy of a telenovela star, Momo stood from her seat, leaving the others watching as she exited the classroom as if she’d just lost the most important battle of her life.

"Did what we said hurt her feelings?" Miko asked, a faint smile on her face, though she already knew the answer.

"No," Y/n replied, standing up without looking back, her eyes sparkling with a mix of amusement and concern. "It hurt because it’s true."

Momo, on the verge of stepping into the hallway, didn’t notice Y/n following her. As Y/n caught up, she saw Momo walking with slumped shoulders, as if she were on a farewell mission for her love life.

Y/n walked up to her side and, with a playful smile, nudged her shoulder lightly. "Come on, Momo, don’t be like that. There are still guys out there who aren’t complete disasters."

Momo gave her a sad look. "I don’t know, Y/n. Maybe tough guys are just a fantasy. Like Ken Takakura. A legend of the past!"

"Well, if you ask me, the real tough guy is standing right here!" Y/n said, pointing a thumb at herself with a cheeky grin. "Forgot about us? We’re the tough ones now."

Momo glanced at her sideways, a flicker of humor returning to her eyes. "The problem is I don’t have time for girls who make bad jokes."

Y/n followed her, chuckling softly. "I’m the best company you could ask for, and I’ll prove it!"

The two walked down the hallway, leaving the classroom behind, Momo still a little down but starting to relax, with Y/n beside her as always—joking, stylish, and promising that there was always something better than a movie fantasy.

"Let’s go, Momo," Y/n said with a sly smile. "Tough guys may not exist anymore, but we’re unstoppable!"

Momo couldn’t help but smile, even if just a little. Maybe it wasn’t all that bad after all.

As Momo and Y/n passed by the nearest classroom, they couldn’t help but notice a group of boys throwing paper balls at a smaller, scrawnier boy with a hairstyle clearly modeled after Nobita from Doraemon.

Momo frowned immediately, spotting the bullying behavior. Y/n tensed beside her. Both of them hated bullies, and they weren’t about to stand by and do nothing.

One of the boys, grinning stupidly, picked up a paper ball and said loudly, "Stick a magnet in it! That’s gotta hurt!"

As he prepared to throw it, now with a magnet inside, a shadow loomed over him. Turning around, he found Momo sitting in front of him, her expression unimpressed. Behind him, Y/n stood with her arms crossed, her gaze so intense it could’ve melted anything in its path.

"Hey," Momo asked, looking at the boy with a mix of curiosity and disapproval. "What are you reading?"

"Uh… this…" the boy stammered, glancing nervously between the bullies and the girls.

The boys throwing the paper balls didn’t seem to realize what was happening. They turned back to their antics, ignoring the two girls who weren’t about to stay quiet.

Momo quickly stood up, shooting the bullies one last look. "What a bunch of idiots," she said, rolling her eyes. "It’s like this world is full of losers."

Y/n sighed, observing the chaos with a smile that hid something deeper. She was about to leave with Momo until her eyes caught the title of the magazine the boy was reading.

"The Occult," she read aloud, raising an intrigued eyebrow and smiling faintly. "Interesting…" she murmured before stepping toward Momo, leaving the minor chaos of the classroom behind.

"Come on, Momo," Y/n teased as she walked alongside her. "You look like you just had to pay taxes or something. Relax."

"You’d feel the same way if you were surrounded by idiots!" Momo snapped, crossing her arms indignantly.

Suddenly, an unfamiliar voice thundered behind them:

"MOMO AYASE! Y/N SEIGAI!"

"Huh? Now what?" Momo said, turning around with a frown.

It was the nerd from earlier. He was running toward them with all his might, gasping for breath as if he’d just escaped a marathon. When he reached them, he stopped so abruptly he almost fell over.

"I KNOW WHAT YOU LIKE!" he shouted, hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

"What?" Y/n asked, visibly confused, glancing at Momo with a raised eyebrow.

"I KNOW WHAT YOU LIKE!" he repeated, louder this time, with an oddly intense conviction. "That’s the only reason someone like you would talk to someone like me!"

Momo blinked slowly and then let out an exaggerated sigh. "You’ve already said that. Can you switch up your dialogue? You sound like a broken record."

Y/n put a hand to her face, muttering, "Have you lost your mind? Where did you even get that crazy idea?"

The boy looked at them with desperate eyes, as if he was about to reveal some cosmic secret. "I’m talking about this!" he exclaimed, pulling something out as if presenting irrefutable proof.

Both girls tilted their heads simultaneously, trying to figure out what he was holding.

"Is that... a magazine?" Momo asked, squinting.

"Yes! A limited edition of The Occult! I know you’re into this because I saw how you looked at it earlier! President Obama has already been to Mars! This is the full story of the Pegasus Project! You’re into the paranormal!"

Momo closed her eyes and ran a hand over her forehead, clearly trying to summon some patience. "Look, genius, we’re not planning to be your best friends or start a paranormal book club with you. We don’t believe in UFOs or aliens."

"They’re not UFOs, they’re UAPs! Unidentified Aerial Phenomena!" the boy yelled enthusiastically, holding up the magazine like it was some sacred manifesto.

He began talking again, with a passion that seemed endless. Y/n listened with a half-smile, entertained by the chaos he brought with him. But soon, she felt Momo’s hand squeeze hers—a clear sign: Momo was about to lose her temper.

And then, she exploded.

"WOULD YOU JUST SHUT UP ALREADY?! MY HEART’S BEEN BROKEN, AND I’M NOT IN THE MOOD! AND YOU’RE SO ANNOYING WITH YOUR NERD STORIES THAT NOBODY CARES ABOUT, OKAY?! THAT’S WHY YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS!"

The boy froze, his mouth open and his eyes wide like saucers. Even Y/n, who was used to Momo’s outbursts, raised an eyebrow. "Ouch. Low blow," she murmured, mostly to herself.

Still fuming like a volcano, Momo pointed at the boy. "Don’t even think about talking to us again! Let’s go, Y/n!"

But Y/n didn’t move. She looked at the boy with some pity, her eyes softening. She stepped toward him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey... she didn’t mean it, okay? She’s upset because she had a bad day. Don’t take it to heart," she said calmly, trying to diffuse the situation.

Momo stopped and turned around, clearly picking up on Y/n’s accusatory tone even though she hadn’t said anything else. With an exasperated sigh, she rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine! I’m sorry, dude! I went too far. Happy now?"

She picked up the magazine that had fallen to the floor and handed it back to the boy, though her lips were still pursed. "But don’t get excited. I don’t believe in aliens. I’m more into ghosts and spirits, got it?"

Out of nowhere, the boy started laughing—not a polite chuckle, but a full-on belly laugh that echoed down the hallway.

"Don’t tell me you actually believe in spirits," he said, still laughing as he wiped a tear from the corner of his eye.

Momo froze, her frown deeper than ever. "Are you making fun of me?!" she shouted, stepping toward him with clenched fists.

Before anyone could react, the two launched into a heated argument. Momo insisted that spirits were real, while the boy passionately defended his UAPs. Y/n, stuck between them like a referee in a wrestling match, glanced toward the hallway. There stood Miko and Muko, watching the scene with amused smiles as they whispered to each other.

"These two are hopeless," Y/n muttered under her breath, feeling her patience wear thin.

Finally, she snapped.

"ENOUGH! YOU’RE DRIVING ME CRAZY!" she yelled, pushing them apart with a hand on each shoulder. Her voice was so loud that even Miko and Muko stopped laughing to peek in with curiosity.

"Here’s the deal," Y/n said, crossing her arms authoritatively. "If Momo proves that spirits exist, you’ll become her personal errand boy. But if you prove that UFOs—sorry, UAPs—are real, then she’ll be your errand girl."

Both of them stared at her in disbelief.

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!" they shouted in unison, their faces a mix of shock and panic.

Y/n smirked, her tone daring as if she’d just announced the rules of a reality show. "It’s a bet. Take it or leave it."

Momo opened her mouth to protest but then glanced at the boy with a competitive glint in her eyes. "Errand boy, huh? That doesn’t sound too bad."

The boy blinked, clearly trying to process what had just happened. Finally, he raised his chin, determined. "Fine! But get ready to carry my stuff when I win."

Momo narrowed her eyes. "Me? Carry your stuff? Dream on, loser!"

From the hallway, Miko and Muko started laughing again.

"This is gonna be good," Miko said.

"I’m definitely not missing this," Muko added.

Y/n sighed, looking at the two challengers with exhaustion. "Great, now you’re both committed. But if you waste my time, I swear both of you will end up being my errand boys!"

They both nodded, though they still exchanged defiant glares. Y/n couldn’t help but smile. This was either going to be very interesting… or completely chaotic.

⊹ ・・───・・・・───・・ ⊹

"What is this place?! I’M GONNA DIE OF FEAR!" screamed Momo, clinging to you like a lifeline in the middle of the ocean. Her grip was so tight that you seriously considered whether you’d pass out from lack of air or from the creepy atmosphere of the hospital.

"Relax, Momo," you sighed, trying to wiggle free while scanning the surroundings. Nagi University Hospital didn’t disappoint: graffiti-covered walls, broken windows, dark hallways, and that classic feeling that something was watching you from the shadows. "Though… yeah, this place is pretty unsettling."

"UNSETTLING?! THIS IS STRAIGHT OUT OF A HORROR MOVIE!" Momo shrieked, practically climbing on top of you.

On the other end of the phone, the guy sounded thrilled. "Stop whining! Nagi Hospital is one of the prime spots for UFO sightings! They say if you’re on the rooftop, you get abducted!"

"What’s abduction?" Momo whispered in your ear.

"It’s when aliens kidnap you and experiment on your body," you whispered back.

"Hey, genius, why the rooftop?" you asked, frowning as you tried to keep Momo at a reasonable distance. "What does the rooftop have to do with UFOs?"

"Because UFOs can’t land in the basement, OBVIOUSLY!" he replied triumphantly, as if he’d just solved a universal mystery.

"Are you kidding me…? WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND BUILDS A HOSPITAL WHERE YOU GET ABDUCTED?!" shouted Momo, clearly on the verge of throwing the phone out the window.

"And who in their right mind goes willingly to an abandoned hospital for fun? Oh, wait... you two."

"THAT’S IT!" Momo yelled, red with indignation, and if you hadn’t stopped her, she probably would’ve smashed the phone against the nearest wall.

"Okay, okay, enough, both of you!" you interrupted, rubbing your temples. "Listen, Nobita of the UFO fandom, you focus on your tunnel and tell us if you see anything weird. We’ll try not to die or get abducted, deal?"

"Perfect! And record everything! This could change history!" he said excitedly, as if already drafting his speech for NASA.

"Sure, sure. If aliens take me, I’ll make sure to Facetime you," you muttered as Momo tugged at your arm.

"YOU GO FIRST! I’M NOT GOING ALONE!" Momo demanded, pointing at the dark hallway leading to the rusty elevator.

"Me first? I’d rather we just go home and call it a day. We’ve done enough for one evening."

Momo huffed but then crossed her arms and stared at the floor, thoughtful. "If we leave now, that idiot’s gonna laugh at us all week."

"What do you prefer? Him laughing at us, or us getting abducted? Because I know where my priorities lie, and aliens don’t make the top 10."

There was a brief silence as you both weighed your options. Finally, Momo sighed dramatically, like she’d just decided to climb a mountain. "Fine, but if anything weird happens, you handle it. I’m just gonna scream and run, deal?"

"I wouldn’t expect anything less from you," you replied with a tired smile as the two of you ventured into the dark hallway. The echo of your footsteps bounced off the empty walls, while the guy on the other end of the phone kept rambling about "electromagnetic phenomena and alien microwaves."

"By the way!" said the guy, as if he had just remembered something. "If you see strange lights, don’t get close. They’re a sign of imminent abduction."

"Great," you muttered, rolling your eyes. "Anything else we should know before we get abducted?"

"Yeah, if you get abducted, ask them how they travel faster than light. I’m really interested in that!"

"WHAT KIND OF PSYCHOPATH THINKS ABOUT THAT AT A TIME LIKE THIS?!" Momo screamed, and this time, you couldn’t help but laugh. At least the strange humor was helping to calm the terror a little.

"Hey, kid, let’s be honest... you’ve never seen a UFO in your life, have you?" Momo asked, crossing her arms and looking at him with a mix of disdain and curiosity.

The guy adjusted his glasses, clearly offended. "DO YOU KNOW WHAT REGRESSIVE HYPNOSIS IS?"

"DON’T CHANGE THE SUBJECT!" Momo snapped, pointing at him with an accusing finger. "I asked you something very simple."

He raised a finger, completely ignoring her while striking a dramatic pose. "THE QUESTION ISN’T WHETHER I’VE SEEN A UFO..."

"Uh-huh, sure," murmured Y/n, rolling their eyes.

"WHAT MATTERS ARE THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE THEORY!" he continued, in such a serious tone that it sounded like he was giving a lecture on astrophysics.

Momo sighed, clearly losing patience. "Again with your nonsense, oh my god. Don’t you ever get tired? Or do you recharge with solar batteries?"

"THIS ISN’T NONSENSE! IT'S SCIENCE! IT’S TRUE!" he protested, with an almost comical intensity.

"Yeah, sure. And how’s it going there, huh? Anything interesting besides your ‘theories’?" Momo said, looking around with feigned indifference as she tried to change the subject.

"I’VE ARRIVED... TOO SHY... SHY... TO THIS MYSTERIOUS PLACE..." the guy shouted on the phone, his voice echoing in the dark, damp tunnel. "WELL... NOW IT'S TIME TO PROVE IT!"

Momo frowned, not as convinced by his enthusiasm. "Please, do you really think this place is special? It’s all dark and super creepy!"

"YOU’RE SCARED! YOU KEEP TALKING ABOUT THE INTERNET, HAVEN’T YOU EVER SEEN A GHOST?!" the guy yelled, his voice strangely echoing in the tunnel.

"Not at all," Momo replied with a nervous laugh, though her gaze darkened a little.

"WHAT WAS THAT RANT ABOUT EARLIER?!" she shouted, pointing at the phone. "TAKE BACK EVERYTHING YOU SAID! How can you believe in spirits if you've never even seen one?"

"What's so strange about that?" Momo shot back, crossing her arms. She lowered her voice a bit before continuing: "I told you... my grandmother is a medium. She raised me because... well, because I don’t have parents."

There was a brief silence. Even the guy on the phone seemed to be lost for words. Y/n looked at Momo, noticing an expression they rarely saw on their friend: nostalgia mixed with sadness.

"I didn’t know..." murmured the guy on the other end of the line.

"Yeah," Momo continued, trying to appear indifferent. "My parents died when I was little. So my grandmother took care of me. But of course, my grandmother wasn’t a normal person. She always talked about spirits, spells, energies. Before going to school, she’d make me do a ritual to protect me from ‘bad vibes’ or something like that. And if I didn’t do it, she’d get mad at me."

"And did you do it?" Y/n asked with a small smile, trying to lighten the mood.

Momo sighed. "At first, I had no choice. But... it was horrible. The other kids would laugh at me. Even the guy I liked... one day he saw me doing one of those rituals and, well, he thought I was an idiot. From that moment on, he started avoiding me. It was the worst."

"That sounds tough," Y/n commented, with a more serious tone.

"Yeah, it was," Momo admitted, shrugging. "I got really angry with my grandmother for that. I think I even said things I shouldn’t have. I felt really alone. But... now that I think about it, it wasn’t so much the ritual that bothered me. It was seeing how they laughed at my family, how they didn’t understand what it meant to us."

"It must have been hard," Y/n said.

"It was," Momo repeated, looking down. "I didn’t regain trust in my grandmother until recently. I realized that, even though her ideas were strange, she did it because she wanted to protect me. And... well, it's all I have left of my family. So, even though it’s frustrating sometimes... I guess I understand her."

The guy on the other end of the phone cleared his throat, breaking the mood. "Well... I don’t know much about spirits, but your grandmother sounds... interesting."

Momo laughed a little. "That’s a polite way to put it. But yeah, she is."

"My grandmother..." Momo began, her gaze fixed on the darkness of the hospital, as if she were speaking more to herself than to anyone else. "Her work as a medium... I don’t know if it’s real. I’ve never seen a spirit. Never. I don’t even know if my grandmother can really perceive them. But you know something? I don’t care. Because, at the end of the day, she raised me alone. She accepted me as her family, even when I didn’t understand anything she did or said. And, in some way, I believe in her."

There was a silence in the group. Even the guy on the phone seemed to have fallen silent for a moment, as if Momo’s words had struck him.

"That’s why I believe in spirits," she continued. "Not because I’ve seen them, but because I believe in my grandmother. And that’s enough for me."

Y/n looked at her with a mixture of surprise and admiration. It was rare to hear Momo speak so sentimentally, but somehow, the sincerity of her words hit like a punch to the chest.

"And you?" Momo asked, turning back to the phone. "Why do you believe in aliens, huh?"

"That... that’s different," the guy replied, somewhat uncomfortable. "You don’t have to see something to know it exists. There’s evidence, theories, data..."

Momo let out a short, bitter laugh. "Oh, sure. Evidence and theories. But tell me something, genius: have you ever seen an alien with your own eyes?"

"Well... no," he admitted, somewhat hesitantly.

"Then what makes you different from me? Why do you assume that yours is more real than mine?"

"Because it’s science," he quickly responded, defensively.

"Science?" Momo raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms. "You call science looking at forums on the internet and reading conspiracy theories from people who’ve probably never left their basement?"

"It’s not the same!" he exclaimed, clearly frustrated.

Y/n decided to intervene before the conversation turned into an argument. "Okay, okay, both of you, calm down. Look, I think Momo has a point. But you do too, mysterious guy. At the end of the day, if you like something, you don’t need reasons to believe in it, right?"

They both fell silent, though their expressions showed they still had a lot to say.

"By the way," Momo added, slightly changing the subject, "you talk about aliens like you know everything about them, but... you have the voice of someone who doesn’t leave the house much, am I wrong?"

"What are you implying?" he asked, clearly offended.

"That you probably haven’t talked to another person in months, other than us on the phone," she replied with a teasing smile.

"That’s not true!"

"Uh-huh, sure."

Y/n chuckled softly while observing their dynamic. Even though they argued constantly, there was something strangely entertaining about their interactions.

"Anyway," Momo said, returning to the previous topic, "I don’t know if aliens exist, but one thing I’m sure of: we don’t need evidence to believe in what matters to us. That includes my grandmother... and I guess your aliens too."

"I guess you’re right," the guy admitted, in a somewhat resigned tone.

"Of course I am," she responded confidently.

"Well," Y/n interrupted, looking around, "before we continue to philosophize, can we just focus on not dying here? Because this place still gives me the creeps."

"I'll second that motion," Momo added, adjusting her hair. "Come on, Y/n. And you, kiddo, keep looking for your evidence. We'll do our thing."

"Don't forget to record something if you see a spirit!" he replied.

"Sure, and if we see an alien, we'll introduce you to it in person," Momo replied sarcastically as she walked with Y/n into the darkness of the hospital.

The boy moved slowly through the tunnel, his flashlight wobbling with each step. The place was dark, damp, and had a strange smell, as if time had stopped there. The echoes of his footsteps made him think he wasn't alone, although he tried to convince himself otherwise.

Suddenly, something stopped him.  A few feet in front of him, a figure appeared out of nowhere.

It was an old woman, hunched over, dressed in worn clothes and a hat that looked like it was from another era. Her face was covered in deep wrinkles, but what stood out the most was her twisted, almost grotesque smile.

“What the…?” he muttered, trying to back away.

The old woman looked up, and her eyes shone with an unnatural intensity.

The old woman took a step forward. “I’ll let you suck my… tits,” she said with a twisted grimace, “if you let me suck your dick.”

“WHAT?!” the boy shouted, jumping back. His flashlight shook in his hand, and, in his panic, his phone almost slipped from his grasp.

“Momo! Y/n! It’s a ghost!” he shouted into the phone, although he didn’t know if they were still on the line.

From the other side of the tunnel, Momo looked up, irritated.  “What is this idiot saying now?”

The boy ran as fast as he could, not daring to look back. Each step echoed like a drum in the tunnel, and his panting was deafening.

“This can’t be happening!” he shouted, stumbling slightly but staying on his feet. “It’s just an old exit! YES, THAT’S WHAT IT HAS TO BE!”

He reached his bike, parked at the entrance to the tunnel, and began to wobble as he tried to mount it. His hands shook so badly that he could barely grip the handlebars. “Come on, come on, come on!” he muttered frantically as he tried to pedal.

At that moment, the cell phone in his pocket rang again. It was Momo. With clumsy hands, he pulled out the phone and answered, still panting.

“AYASE! THAT THING IS FOLLOWING ME!”

“Don’t stop, you idiot!” Momo shouted from the other end of the line. “If it catches up with you, you’re done for!”  “It’s the curse of the Old Turbo! If you lose the race against her, she curses you!”

“WHAT!? WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME BEFORE!?”

“Because I didn’t think anyone would be idiotic enough to provoke her!”

The boy looked back as he pedaled, and his blood ran cold. The old woman wasn’t running… she was floating towards him, with terrifying speed.

“NOOOO!” he shouted, pedaling even harder.

“Don’t look back!” Momo exclaimed, almost hysterical. “Just keep pedaling!”

Suddenly, the tunnel was filled with a strange echo.

Momo, who was still shouting into the phone, noticed something strange. “Hey, wait a minute! Y/n?”

The silence on the other side made her stop. She turned her head and realized that Y/n was no longer there.

“Y/n!? Where are you?!”  he screamed, looking around in panic.

The boy’s cell phone began to crackle with static, and the call was abruptly cut off. He was now alone, the echo of the Turbo Old Lady’s laughter filling the tunnel as he pedaled madly towards the exit.

Momo, still holding his own cell phone, felt a chill run down his spine. “This isn’t right… Y/n? Answer!”

Momo made his way down the hallway, the light from his flashlight shaking with each step he took. The air seemed colder with each meter, and darkness enveloped everything around him. “Y/n? Are you there? Please answer…” he muttered, gripping his cell phone tightly.

Suddenly, a strange sound echoed in the distance. Footsteps.

Momo stopped dead in his tracks, his breathing quickening. “Boy? Is that you? Answer!”

But what emerged from the shadows wasn’t Y/n.  They were three tall figures, oddly proportioned. They wore human clothing: buttoned-up shirts with collars, tucked neatly into their pants. The pockets of their shirts were filled with small items, such as pens and a notebook sticking out of one of them. They wore perfectly fitted belts and shiny shoes, as if they had just left an office meeting.

Their heads, however, were anything but human.

They looked like grotesque humanoid masks: expressionless faces with motionless eyes and thin mouths that curved unnaturally. Their movements were stiff, but their eyes followed her with chilling precision.

Momo took a step back, her body trembling. “Who… what are you guys?” she stammered, trying to maintain her composure.

One of them took a step forward, his head tilting slightly, as if he were studying her. Momo didn’t wait any longer.  She turned on her heel and began running down the tunnel, quickly dialing Y/n’s number on her cell phone.

“Y/n! Please answer! There are some weird guys here and—!”

She couldn’t finish. One of the men appeared out of nowhere, blocking her way. Momo screamed and backed away, but she collided with something hard. She quickly turned around and found another one of them, who had appeared behind her without making the slightest noise.

“Leave me alone!” she screamed, throwing the flashlight at one of them in a desperate attempt to escape. The flashlight bounced harmlessly off his chest, and he showed no reaction.

Before she could do anything else, she felt an icy pressure on her arm. One of the men had grabbed her, his grip firm but inexplicably cold. “No, no, no! Let me go!”

The cell phone fell from her hands and hit the ground, illuminating for a moment the expressionless face of one of the men.  “Y/n! Help!” was the last thing she managed to scream before she was dragged into the darkness of the tunnel.

The phone was left there, illuminating an empty, cold hallway. In the distance, the echo of the men’s footsteps carrying her away could be heard, but soon, even that sound disappeared.

⊹ ・・───・・・・ ───  ⊹

Momo opened her eyes in shock and confusion. The room was cold, with metallic walls illuminated by bluish lights, and in front of her were three disturbing-looking figures. With elongated heads, greyish skin and large, dark eyes, they looked like something straight out of a science fiction movie. One of them stepped forward and spoke in a monotonous, metallic voice:

"Greetings, human. We are Serpoians. We are called that because we come from the planet Serpo."

"Aliens?" Momo frowned in disbelief. Her mind struggled to comprehend what was happening. However, the evidence was undeniable: she was facing something that surpassed any logical explanation.

"Do not be afraid," another of the Serpoians continued with inhuman calm. "We are a peaceful species."

Momo, far from calming down, gritted her teeth. Her eyes frantically scanned the room as she tugged at the restraints holding her wrists.  “Peaceful? Nice guys don’t kidnap girls! Where are my clothes?”

One of the aliens pointed to a nearby table where his clothes lay, in tatters. “Your belongings were handled with care. The damage was… accidental.”

“Accidental?! This isn’t cheap! You’re going to pay for this! And I demand that you return me to my home right now!” he shouted, his voice filling the room.

Despite his protests, the Serpoians seemed immune to his fury. “Our species is entirely male,” one explained in a mechanical tone, as if he were reciting a lesson. “For millennia, we have reproduced through cloning, but this has led to the loss of our emotions and genetic diversity. We seek to regain our biological capabilities… using your genetic code.”

“My what?” Momo looked at them with a mix of confusion and disgust. “You’re completely insane! I will not be a part of your Frankenstein experiments!”

Before she could say anything else, the sound of a sliding door interrupted the tension. A tall, sleek figure strode into the room. His futuristic suit gleamed in the light, form-fitting and full of metallic detailing. His face was hidden behind a sleek helmet that reflected his surroundings like a liquid mirror. His presence was imposing.

“Where is my payment?” he demanded in a firm, authoritative voice.

The Serpoians turned to her. One of them held up a black suitcase. “Here you go. However, it is less than agreed. You delivered late.”

The woman crossed her arms, her posture conveying palpable disdain. “My mentor accepts no excuses. Neither do I. This deal was for a larger sum.”

“The delay justifies the reduction,” one of the aliens replied coldly.

The woman clicked her tongue, visibly upset. Meanwhile, Momo, though still terrified, could not take her eyes off the newcomer.  There was something in her voice, in the way she moved… Something that felt strangely familiar.

Her eyes widened as she connected the pieces. “Y/n?” she muttered, almost breathless.

The woman stopped. Slowly, she turned her head towards Momo. Although the helmet still obscured her face, the slight shift in her posture made her discomfort clear.

The room fell into a tense silence following Y/n’s words. Momo stared at her in disbelief, her lips trembling as tears threatened to fall.

“What are you doing here, Y/n? What is this? Why are you with them?” she asked with a mix of rage and desperation.

Y/n let out an audible sigh, placing her hands on her hips. “It’s not personal, Momo. It’s just work. You… were the target. I was paid to bring them what they needed. Nothing more.”

“Nothing more?” Momo raised her voice, her tears finally overflowing. “Is that what I am to you? A job? We were supposed to be friends! I was supposed to be able to trust you!”

Y/n’s helmet reflected the cold lights of the room, hiding any emotion that might have been on her face. But the stiffness of her shoulders gave her away. She tried to stand her ground, looking at Momo from a distance. “This isn’t about you or us, Momo. It’s about… surviving. You don’t understand how my world works. No one survives without making sacrifices.”

“Sacrifices?! Is that what I am to you? One more sacrifice to keep you going?” Momo screamed, struggling against the restraints that kept her immobilized. “You were my friend, Y/n! I trusted you like no one else! I always thought you would understand me!”  But here you are, giving me away like I'm... like I'm a thing!”

Momo's words hit like a hammer. For a moment, Y/n stood still, unable to respond. Something in Momo's voice, in the broken sincerity of her words, touched her heart.

“Do you remember what you told me when you picked me up that night?” Momo continued between sobs. “You said that no matter what, you'd be there for me. That friends never betray each other. And look at you now... giving me away like I'm worthless.”

The tension in the room was almost palpable. Even the Serpoians fell silent, watching the confrontation.

Y/n lowered her head slightly, her voice sounding lower, almost unsure. “It's not that simple, Momo... I—”

“Don't give me excuses!” Momo interrupted her, her voice cracking. “Look at me! Tell me that all of this is worth it!  “Tell me you’re okay with what you’re doing!”

Y/n stood still for a few seconds that seemed like an eternity. Then, she took a step back, clenching her fists at her sides. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, barely audible. Without another word, she turned to the Serpoians. “The deal is done. I’m leaving.”

“Y/n!” Momo screamed, her voice filled with desperation. “Please! Don’t leave me here! Please don’t do this to me!”

But Y/n didn’t stop. She headed for the door without looking back, her bright figure disappearing into the dimness of the hallway. Just before the door closed, Momo, her voice cracking, let out one last scream that echoed in the silence:

“I would never have done this to you, Y/n! Never!”

The echo of her words hung in the air, and for an instant, Y/n stood on the other side of the door.  Her shoulders shook slightly, but she didn’t turn around. With a quick movement, she disappeared, leaving Momo alone, her sobs filling the room as the Serpoians turned their attention back to her.

“Why…?” Momo whispered through her tears. “Why did you do this to me?”

The Serpoians had run out of patience. One of them approached with cold, calculated movements, a strange humming sound emanating from his device.

“Let us prepare to extract the necessary organs. Your resistance is irrelevant,” one declared in a metallic voice.

Momo struggled uselessly against the restraints, her face drenched in tears. “Get away from me! You cannot do this!”

The alien lifted the probe, slowly bringing it closer to Momo. “We will begin the procedure now.”

Suddenly, the sound of a ringtone broke through the air, Momo’s mobile phone began to vibrate on the nearby table. The Serpoians paused, staring at it curiously.

“External interruptions are not acceptable,” one of them said, reaching out a hand to take the device.

Before she could touch it, the phone’s screen lit up in a deep red.  A deep vibration filled the room, and suddenly, a figure emerged from the screen: Y/n, holding a strangely designed pistol.

“Did I interrupt something again?” she asked in an icy tone, pointing directly at the Serpoians.

Beside her, staggering, appeared the boy possessed by Turbo Granny. His body was bent at impossible angles, and his eyes shone with a mix of fear and rage.

“Ayase!” Ken shouted, struggling to stay on his feet as Turbo Granny seemed to control his movements.

The aliens took a step back, observing the scene with a mix of shock and wariness.

“How did you get in here again, Agent Jean Jacket?” one of the Serpoians demanded, raising his hands in a defensive stance.

Y/n let out a dry laugh, though her gaze remained fixed on them. “Let’s just say I have my ways.”

Momo, still trapped in the chair, stared at Y/n in disbelief and rage. “Now you decide to show up?! After everything you did?!”

“This doesn’t change anything, Momo,” Y/n said without looking at her, her voice strained. “This is still not personal.”

“Please don’t give me that again!” Momo screamed, tears sliding down her cheeks.

For an instant, Y/n hesitated, but didn’t respond. Instead, she pulled the trigger on her gun, firing a beam that struck one of the Serpoians, knocking it to the ground.

Turbo Granny, controlling Ken, let out a terrifying shriek and launched herself at another alien, biting it ferociously on the torso.

“Momo, take cover!” Y/n screamed as the remaining aliens began to respond to the attack, their suits glowing as they prepared to fight back.

“I can’t! I’m tied up!” Momo screamed in desperation, pulling at the straps with all her might.

Ken screamed in desperation, his body still fighting against Turbo Granny’s possession. Tears fell from his eyes as the words filled the room, his voice cracked from years of repressed pain.

“No matter how many times I called you, you never came!” He exclaimed, fists clenched, body tense under Granny’s control.  “There I was bullied by children, ignored by aliens… children paid me to beat them up!”

Ken’s words were desperate, but the fury and pain seemed to give him the strength to keep fighting. “My life sucked! And no one cared if I was alive or dead… but (Y/n) and Miss Ayase were the only ones who stood up for me! So get your filthy hands off her!”

At that moment, a spark of control seemed to surge within him. His body trembled, but his mind struggled to take back the reins, preparing to attack. Anger fueled him, his will finally regaining some strength.

Momo, from her position, screamed in desperation, unable to do anything but watch as the fight raged. “Hidden-kun! Do it! We need you!”

But amidst the chaos, the aliens began to move, aware of the growing threat Ken posed. One of them, still reeling from Turbo Granny’s impact, gave an order. “Get those humans! They won’t let this end well!”

The tension rose, but the worst seemed yet to come. A Serpoian, with cold, calculated movements, approached Momo, holding her by the shoulders tightly. “If you don’t give us what we ask for, you’ll regret it,” he said in a monotone voice, while his companion watched Ken, who was still trying to break free from Granny’s influence.

“Gross!” one of the other aliens commented, watching the scene become more and more chaotic.

Momo looked at Ken, fighting against his own body, knowing that control was fragile. “Ken! Don’t give up! You can do it!” he shouted, his voice filled with desperation.

“Enough of all this!”  The voice, firm and full of power, boomed through the room.

It was Y/n. Her presence was imposing, the helmet reflecting the light from the screens, but behind it, her expression was determined.

“I won’t let them hurt you anymore, Momo!” she said, as she raised her gun towards the Serpoians.

One of them tried to react, but a direct shot to his torso stopped him dead in his tracks.

“Hmm?”

Momo briefly looked away at Ken, but soon returned her focus to Turbo Granny, whose teeth were still piercing her calf.

“I’ll eat your cock!”

“What?” Y/n stepped back, horrified, but still trying to understand the situation.

“I… it’s not me! It’s Turbo Granny!”

“Are you really the only ones who can save me?” Momo thought, as her eyes focused on Ken. The situation was becoming more and more chaotic.

The alien and Momo watched the conflict in silence. Finally, the alien turned his gaze to Momo, noticing the chaos between the humans. “Now I will begin with the excitement.”

He extended his hand over Momo, who closed her eyes, feeling a growing pressure. Her face twisted in disgust as, for a moment, she thought she could no longer get out of this situation. It was then that, in her mind, an image from her childhood began to emerge: an important memory of her grandmother.

“Release your chi.”

“I don’t want to...”

Momo, as a little girl, found herself at the entrance of her grandmother’s house, long before she met you or Ken.

“The other kids always make fun of me for that. I look stupid.” Momo explained to the older woman, as her grandmother knelt in front of her with a calm smile.

“No, it’s not like that… When you release your chi, you will never get hurt or sick.  It will also help you keep evil away.” Grandma placed her hands gently on Momo’s shoulders, before taking her small hands firmly.

“Now, tense your abdominal muscles and imagine your chi rising from the top of your head.”

Momo, with effort, tried to follow the directions. Immediately, a painful memory flashed through her: the children laughing at her when she tried to do that pose.

“I hate it! I won’t do it again!” Momo screamed, shaking her head as her eyes widened in fury.

Her grandmother, still patient, held out her hand, asking for calm. “Momo! Wait!”

“I hate you, Grandma! You’re an imposter!”

That moment of anger made the memory flash through her mind in a distorted way. However, deep down, Momo knew she didn’t hate her grandmother. She only felt ashamed, something she was now beginning to understand.

Then, he began to imagine his grandmother’s words, remembering the technique she had taught him. As he visualized the flow of her chi, something inside him triggered, and, in that instant, the chair containing her broke under her energy.

The fight between Ken and Momo stopped at the same time, both of them staring in amazement as Momo began to levitate.

“What?! She never said she had psychic powers!” Ken exclaimed, his eyes wide as Momo floated.

With a slight bend in her legs, Momo raised her hands, looking at the two men around her in surprise. “I… I didn’t know I had them either.”

The alien who had tried to attack extended his hands towards Momo, but she, now fully focused, stared at him. “My psychokinesis is being repelled by a higher force. What’s going on? Maybe the human’s brain waves were overloaded, allowing her to access her chakra.”

Momo, fascinated by the piece of metal floating above her hand, turned her gaze towards the alien with a determined smile. “She’s not an impostor! My grandmother is a genuine medium! Thank you, Grandma!”

Meanwhile, the boy tried to bite Y/n and in the process, ripped off her helmet, revealing Y/n’s pastel blue skin and the dark blue glowing antennae emerging from her head.

She tried to defend herself, trying not to shoot him with her gun, but he scratched her skin, making fissures that healed automatically.

Momo stood up and, with her newly acquired powers, launched a powerful kick at the alien. However, he raised his arm and stopped her with force. “Now I have the power to face these monsters! And make them fly!” Momo shouted, full of determination.

With a last effort, she kicked the alien, sending him through the walls. The explosion that followed was deafening, and the lights in the room began to flicker violently.

Momo screamed as she felt her body collapse, as she watched the destruction falling around her. “We are inside a real UFO!” she exclaimed, surprised, looking around for Y/n and Ken, and finding them on the ground fighting, she was horrified. “(Y/n)! Occult-kun!”

Swiftly, Momo approached Granny Turbo. Suddenly, her body began to glow with a clear light, while her hair flowed wildly. At that moment, the curse that weighed on Ken disappeared.

Suddenly, the room darkened, turning red. Before them, Granny Turbo appeared, her gaze fixed and malicious. “Who the hell are you two?” she said, her voice cold and challenging.

Turbo Granny curled her fingers, causing Ken to pull away from Y/n, his body arching as a painful gurgle came from his lips. Momo watched, eyes wide, recoiling slightly as she saw how Ken was still under Granny’s control. “Granny is out of her body!” she exclaimed, alarmed. “But he is still under her curse!”

“This child belongs to me,” Turbo Granny said with a mocking smile. “As long as I have him, the curse will not be lifted.  I can't stay here for long, but if you want me to free him, go to the tunnel. If you want to fight me, come to me. Damn classless bitches!”

“Who are you calling a bitch, you filthy old woman?! Give him his penis back!” Momo shouted at the ghost that was walking away.

Y/n, seeing Momo so worried and determined, quickly approached her and, with unexpected strength, lifted her into her arms. Momo blushed at feeling so close to her, her cheeks turning red as she couldn't help but look down, avoiding Y/n's eyes, which were shining with determination.

“Don't worry! We're going to get out of here,” Y/n said firmly, beginning to quickly climb the walls of the UFO with the agility of an expert. Momo clung to her, the warmth of her body comforting her, but her mind was filled with chaos. In her chest, a strange feeling was born, something she had never felt before.

Ken, still disoriented from the curse and the explosion, was on the ground, slowly recovering. Y/n, still moving, lifted him up with one hand, placing him on her back as she continued to ascend.

“Come on, Ken! You have to get up, we have to go now!” Y/n shouted, and Ken, his eyes still somewhat clouded, nodded weakly.

The room was crumbling around them, and a dark energy filled the air. The walls were beginning to shake violently, and the lights flickered desperately. Momo, her face still flushed from the closeness to Y/n, looked down as they ascended, unable to stop her heart from beating faster than normal. What was this strange feeling that was invading her?

Suddenly, a loud boom shook the UFO, and a gigantic explosion went off behind them. The walls began to give way, and the ship seemed to be on the verge of total destruction. Y/n, not losing her cool, leapt forward, bringing Momo and Ken with her in her leap, escaping just before the UFO exploded into a ball of fire.

With a deafening bang, the UFO disintegrated behind them, and in the air, Y/n, Momo, and Ken flew through space, jumping out of the ship's reach, completely safe but on the verge of despair.

Momo hugged Y/n tightly, no longer caring about the blush, as the wind whipped at them, and Ken's body rested on Y/n's back.  The scene was chaotic, but it had all happened so fast, and the only thought running through Momo's mind was how she felt so strangely calm in Y/n's arms, as the ship crumbled behind them.

"Are we safe?" Ken asked, his voice weak, as he watched the distance between them and the exploding ship.

"Yes," Y/n answered, without hesitation. "We're safe... for now."

But as they floated in the air, Momo couldn't help but wonder how they could have survived all of that. And even more so, how her feelings towards Y/n seemed to have changed in a matter of seconds, and what it all meant to her.

⊹ ・・───・・・・ ───  ⊹

Near Kamigoe Prefecture, a curious pastel-green being walked casually through the crowded streets of the city. It had the appearance of a puppy dog, though its size, its long antennae that glowed faintly in the daylight, and its tail that swung like a whip of jelly made it clear that it was no ordinary dog. In one hand it held a burrito wrapped in silver paper, and in the other, a large soda that made gurgling sounds with each step.

The little alien eagerly bit into the burrito, spilling some of the sauce on the ground. It paused for a moment, sucking its fingers before continuing to walk. Its attitude was that of someone who belonged there, though it didn’t bother to hide the strangeness of its appearance. People watched it in awe, but the alien seemed immune to the curious glances.

“Mom, look! A puppy!” exclaimed a little girl with braids, pointing at it with joy.

The being stopped dead in its tracks, its ears (or what seemed to be ears) perking up at the sound. It slowly turned its head towards the little girl, its eyes shining like a pair of tiny green suns. “Who are you calling a puppy, kid!?” it shrieked in a high-pitched voice with an accent that seemed to be from another planet… literally.

The little girl’s mother froze, tugging on her daughter’s hand as she tried to process what had just happened.

“Speak, Mom! The puppy is speaking!” the excited little girl shouted, tugging on her mother’s arm.

The alien, offended, snorted and raised his donkey towards the little girl, as if it were some sort of weapon. “Hey, on my planet, insulting someone by calling them a puppy is a declaration of war, you know? But I’m too busy today to respond to your taunts.”

The mother, now completely terrified, dragged her daughter away from the little being, muttering something about “moving to the country.”  The alien pup shook his head as he took a long sip of his soda, producing a clattering sound that drew even more stares.

“Humans…” he muttered tiredly, his antennae twitching in slight annoyance. “You can’t just walk around town without someone mistaking you for a pet.”

He continued on his way, dodging the crowd with surprising agility for someone with a burrito and a soda in his hands. Every so often, he would stop in front of a store to admire some product, though he quickly grew bored and kept moving.

A man in a suit saw him pass by and frowned. “Is that… a dog in a costume?”

“I’m not a dog!” the alien shouted without even turning around. “And stop looking at me like that or I’ll throw my burrito in your face!”

The threat seemed to have an effect, and the man walked away muttering something about “needing more coffee.”

The little creature finally reached the entrance to the town, where the lights were beginning to fade and the shops were turning into open fields. It stopped and looked out at the horizon, its antennae leaning forward as if it were sensing something. It took a last sip of its soda, letting out a loud burp that echoed through the air.

“Fine…” it said, wiping its mouth with the back of its hand. “Now I just need to find that damn ship before someone else calls me a puppy.”

He continued walking towards the end of the city, his half-eaten burrito still in his hand. Behind him lay a line of perplexed humans, and ahead of him a fate awaited him that, as always, would be anything but boring.

The little alien continued to walk with a sure step, enjoying his half-finished burrito, when suddenly, his antennae began to vibrate intensely. A slight buzzing sound went through his head, as if he had tuned into a distant frequency. His expression tensed, and his eyes, which used to shine with indifference, now narrowed with seriousness.

“What the…?” he muttered, looking around as if searching for the source of the phenomenon. His antennae continued to vibrate, and the buzzing sound grew higher. Then, looking up, he saw it.

In the distance, a thick column of black smoke rose from the old university hospital, followed by an explosion that lit up the sky as if it were a misplaced fireworks display.  The alien dropped his soda, which slowly rolled to a stop in a sewer.

“No way!” he screamed, bringing his hands to his antennae as if trying to stop the humming. He looked back at the hospital, frowning in a mix of disbelief and exasperation. “Y/n did it again?!”

The small being began to walk faster, then trotted, muttering under his breath. “I told you not to go soft on the merchandise! But no, you always have to play the heroine, dammit!”

He paused for a moment, as if he had remembered something, and shook his head in frustration. “And you sure left a mess behind, like always! By all the rings of Saturn, you’re really going to listen to me this time!”

With one last glance at the burning hospital, he let out an annoyed growl.  “I hope you at least saved something valuable, because if not…”

The little alien ran off on his short legs, leaving his donkey forgotten on the ground. His pastel green silhouette was lost in the shadows, while the smoke from the hospital covered the horizon, promising chaos and answers in the distance.

A/N ── Oh, hey, it's me again.

First off, let me tell you something: I'm in love with Dandadan. Seriously, I can't even explain how much I was hooked on this series from the moment I found out how it went. It was like a cosmic crush. Each chapter left me more hooked, more obsessed, and obviously I couldn't resist. I ended up buying the ENTIRE manga set that was available so far. I literally couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen with Momo after those last chapters that left me with my heart in my throat. This series is pure magic and chaos, and I can't get over it.

Now, let's talk about my baby, or Y/n. Let me tell you that her spacesuit is directly inspired by Smart Lady from a Japanese series (if you know which one, you're one of mine). I wanted something that screams alien but with style, and I feel like I nailed it... sort of. But, here comes the kicker: her personality is still not well defined. She's a mess, I admit. But that's the whole idea. Because she's an undercover alien, her personality changes depending on the environment she's in. It's like she's constantly adapting to fit in, but at the same time, that lack of consistency is part of her identity. Existential drama at its finest!

And here comes the tricky but interesting part: the character doesn't have a defined gender. Visually, she could pass for a woman, and she identifies as a woman because that's how she feels, but here's the plot twist: she has no defined genitals. Yes, you read that right. She's neither biologically male nor female. She's something beyond that, something that she may not even fully understand. For now, she treats herself as a woman because that's what feels most comfortable and natural to her earthly experience, but... does it really matter? I want to explore how that ambiguity affects her, how it influences the way she sees herself and her interactions with others. It's a key part of her story that I hope to develop little by little.

Oh, and regarding the technical chaos... I know this first part had its problems. It was published by itself, the dialogues were poorly arranged, it was very long, blah, blah, blah. But now, it's all well and good. I think.

[nitewrighter]

Though now I’m wondering if Blackfire would even care if Starfire had an earth alias, like how brainiac or darksied could figure out Clark is Superman, but since they’re from space, they don’t give a crap about earth culture and norms

Yeah as far as the general universe goes, I always got the vibe of, if you're an alien on earth, you really can't pull the, "A platypus? *puts on hat* PERRY THE PLATYPUS!?!" trope with other aliens. Like, given how many humanoid aliens there are in the DC universe, it always struck me as kind of funny that humans can't distinguish aliens among them, but other aliens absolutely can and it's seemingly completely arbitrary.

Primus: I... I'm an alien?? From Planet Euphorix?

Kalista: For the last time, yes, you moron. I telepathically blocked off all your memories, CONSENSUALLY, then jammed an earthling identity in your head, and stowed you here on earth for safekeeping until the heat from the Citadel died down.

Superman: For the record, I really don't appreciate you doing that.

John Stewart: Seconded.

Kalista: If you two were HALF the protectors of this solar system you're supposed to be, you would have caught him before I picked him up. Now shoosh, Space Cop and solar battery, I'm breaking my husband's brain again.

Honestly one of the things I considered while playing around with a MAWS Superman/Mister Miracle fic was this idea that Scott Free wouldn't really distinguish between Superman and Clark Kent and would have no problem bothering Clark Kent if he needs to get ahold of Superman, but eventually I scrapped that idea because I fell more in love with the idea of Scott Free falling in love with LARPing as an earthling. Like, "Alien pretends to be human but he 100% skips the existential crises Superman and Martian Manhunter go through because Earth is literally so fucking amazing and fun compared to Apokolips."

[laprimera]

you know theoretically if I came back here I’d reboot Geeta plot wise that she knowingly is a reincarnated crystal alien of the crystal life tree down in area zero rather then what I got cooked up here that she’s unknowingly a reincarnated-human reborn crystal alien that she’d eventually get privy too.

Like: hey I’m literally the life force of area zero and I’m so peeved at earthlings for their reckless greed and behavior with sacred other dimensional knowledge and power beyond their reckoning they’re mishandling that I’m turning human to shape it to the true ideal vision…

But then something something heartwarming trope about alien falling in love with humanity because of the friends and lessons she made along the way something something

I just really like sapphic sparkly aliens if you couldn’t tell

[danalockhart411]

The Un-Romancing of Modern Vampire Novels

When I wrote The Un-Life of William Moore, I wrote it with the intention of it not being just another mortal-and-vampire-falling-in-love story. With the surge of Twilight in 2008, there seemed with it an overwhelming flood of copy-cats looking to join in on the monster romance genre, and it's been here to stay. The premise was alluring: the tantalizing promise of living forever balancing with the curse of having to live a life in the shadows. What young female protagonist (or avid romance reader) can resist the call of eternity with a supernaturally hot guy? (I know I love to indulge in some paranormal romance myself).

At the end of the day, however, these stories (while fun and romantic on the surface) are really just stories of emotional abuse and toxic behaviors. Many of these paranormal "romance" novels follow the same beats as Twilight, so for ease of explaining, we'll just keep with the Twilight theme here.

Let's not beat around the bush. Pull away the rose-tinted glasses of paranormal romance and Edward is an obsessive stalker, technically a pedophile (he's over 100 years old and dating a teenager, guys), violent, and emotionally manipulative. In being with Edward, Bella chose to abandon her friends and family. Edward was her whole world. When he abruptly left her in book two, she literally had nothing (as showcased by several blank chapters representing the void in her life). By the end of the series, Edward and Bella, like so many other mortal-vampire couples in paranormal romance, ultimately failed to resist the toxic call of spending eternity as literal monsters. It's that tried and true concept of "misery loves company."

I can only think of one paranormal romance story that I have read that didn't fall into this trope. It's called Dancing with an Alien by Mary Logue. The story is about an alien man who comes from a planet where all of the women mysteriously died. Humans happen to be compatible enough with them to be able to reproduce. I'm sure you can see where this is going if you've read any sort of alien romance story: an alien man abducts himself a hot young earthling woman to have alien hybrid babies with in order to repopulate the planet. There's probably stockholm syndrome, blue and/or green abs, romanced by technology, toxic and addicting love, and maybe even a strange but pleasurable alien p*nis (or two). The abduction/alien babies thing a common trope in alien romance books.

However, Dancing with an Alien doesn't do that, even though the starting premise is the same as a lot of paranormal alien romance stories. Sure, the alien man's mission is to bring home a female to save his species from extinction. If those stakes weren't high enough, he'll also face ridicule and dishonor if he fails to bring a mate back home with him. However, he didn't expect to actually fall in love, and for the earthling to fall in love with him, too.

In the end, the earthling finds out what he is and what his mission is, and she knowingly consents to leave Earth to be with him - even though it is a one-way trip. However, the alien knows that she would end up being unhappy with her choice. So many earth women are unhappy when they come to his home world, doomed to be tired baby-makers for the rest of their days, far away from everyone they love and care about on earth. The alien man decides that he loves his earthling too much to make her unhappy, so he leaves earth and goes home without her. He is the only one who failed to bring home a bride. It's a bittersweet end to the love story. We, as ourselves, know that it was the right decision to make; but as readers, we so badly wanted it to be a happily ever after. But real life isn't quite as poetic as the romance genre makes it out to be.

I sought to break tropes as well with The Un-Life. Maybe it wouldn't sweep people off their feet like the rest of the paranormal romance genre, but it wouldn't hold back in telling truths that needed to be said:  that being a monster isn't glamorous, that feeding off people isn't intimate, that a man and woman in the same place and time don't have to engage in romance, that two people can love each other but can't be together, that sometimes life is unfair and bad things happen to good people, and that we always have a choice.

It was hard not to fall into the romance trope, however. I still wanted to have a light will-they-won't-they aspect to Billy and Kaylah's relationship. By the time I finished my first fleshed out draft, there was much more romance than I had intended. It wasn't quite the story I was trying to tell. So, I removed some of the romance, and upped some of the toxicity to compensate for it. I didn't want it to be a surprise when the characters went their separate ways at the end. Maybe the reader would hope they would be, but hopefully they'd also understand why they would go their separate ways. Billy and Kaylah were different people from different worlds who wanted different things - but that didn't mean their story was meaningless. That didn't make the relationship they had not worth sharing. Maybe they did love each other, in their own way, but not in a way that would have brought them both happiness.  

And let's not forget about the" love triangle" by throwing Adam into the mix. I didn't even want to make romance enticing in any direction. William had major issues that would have brought Kaylah down, but then there was Adam. Adam suffers from a hero complex, and his actions are also being manipulated by ignorance and fear. He's no less toxic than the monsters he's trying to fight (the irony here is intentional). But rather than to shrug her shoulders and try and pick the less or two evils, Kaylah chooses neither. She chooses her own happiness, safety, and respect over a relationship.

I'm sure someone, somewhere out there, might call Kaylah's decision selfish, or call her picky, but there's nothing wrong with a woman – or anyone – deciding that their happiness is worth more than making other people happy, especially when it comes to a relationship. Sacrificing your happiness to make others happy, or to sacrifice someone else's happiness to bring yourself happiness – that's the sort of toxic I've been talking about here. The sort of toxic where a 100-year-old stalker turns a teenager into a monster just so he isn't lonely anymore. Where a young girl gives up her life for the promise of something greater than the happiness she already had.

There's plenty to enjoy and love about romance novels, and a lot to learn as well - and that can include learning when not to choose romance.

-Dana Lockhart

[wetsocksinbed]

“Giant Alien Robot Falls In Love With Small Squishy Earthling” is my favourite trope

these new Transformers films are killing it with the interspecies romance subplots

[livmoose]

[American Journal]

Robert Hayden

here among them     the americans     this baffling multi people     extremes and variegations     their noise     restlessness     their almost frightening energy     how best describe these aliens in my reports to The Counselors

disguise myself in order to study them unobserved adapting their varied pigmentations     white black red brown yellow     the imprecise and strangering distinctions by which they live     by which they justify their cruelties to one another

charming savages     enlightened primitives     brash new comers lately sprung up in our galaxy     how describe them     do they indeed know what or who they are     do not seem to     yet no other beings in the universe make more extravagant claims for their importance and identity

like us they have created a veritable populace of machines that serve and soothe and pamper and entertain     we have seen their flags and foot prints on the moon     also the intricate rubbish left behind     a wastefully ingenious people     many it appears worship the Unknowable Essence     the same for them as for us     but are more faithful to their machine made gods technologists their shamans

oceans deserts mountains grain fields canyons forests     variousness of landscapes weathers sun light moon light as at home     much here is beautiful     dream like vistas reminding me of home     item     have seen the rock place known as garden of the gods and sacred to the first indigenes     red monoliths of home     despite the tensions i breath in i am attracted to the vigorous americans     disturbing sensuous appeal of so many     never to be admitted

something they call the american dream     sure we still believe in it i guess     an earth man in the tavern said     irregardless of the some times night mare facts we always try to double talk our way around     and its okay the dreams okay and means whats good could be a damn sight better     means every body in the good old u s a should have the chance to get ahead or at least should have three squares a day     as for myself i do okay     not crying hunger with a loaf of bread tucked under my arm you understand     i fear one does not clearly follow i replied notice you got a funny accent pal     like where you from he asked     far from here i mumbled he stared hard     i left

must be more careful     item     learn to use okay their pass word     okay

crowds gathering in the streets today for some reason obscure to me     noise and violent motion repulsive physical contact     sentinels     pigs i heard them called     with flailing clubs     rage and bleeding and frenzy and screaming     machines wailing     unbearable decibels     i fled lest vibrations of the brutal scene do further harm to my metabolism already over taxed

The Counselors would never permit such barbarous confusion     they know what is best for our sereni ty     we are an ancient race and have outgrown illusions cherished here     item     their vaunted liberty     no body pushes me around i have heard them say     land of the free they sing     what do they fear mistrust betray more than the freedom they boast of in their ignorant pride     have seen the squalid ghettoes in their violent cities paradox on paradox     how have the americans managed to survive

parades fireworks displays video spectacles much grandiloquence much buying and selling they are celebrating their history     earth men in antique uniforms play at the carnage whereby the americans achieved identity     we too recall that struggle as enterprise of suffering and faith uniquely theirs     blonde miss teen age america waving from a red white and blue flower float as the goddess of liberty     a divided people seeking reassurance from a past few under stand and many scorn     why should we sanction old hypocrisies     thus dissenters     The Counse lors would silence them a decadent people The Counselors believe     i do not find them decadent     a refutation not permitted me    but for all their knowledge power and inventiveness not yet more than raw crude neophytes like earthlings everywhere

though i have easily passed for an american     in bankers grey afro and dashiki long hair and jeans hard hat yarmulka mini skirt     describe in some detail for the amusement of The Counselors     and though my skill in mimicry is impeccable     as indeed The Counselors are aware     some thing eludes me     some constant amid the variables defies analysis and imitation     will i be judged incompetent

america     as much a problem in metaphysics as it is a nation earthly entity an iota in our galaxy     an organism that changes even as i examine it     fact and fantasy never twice the same     so many variables

exert greater caution     twice have aroused suspicion     returned to the ship until rumors of humanoids from outer space     so their scoff ing media voices termed us     had been laughed away     my crew and i laughed too of course

confess i am curiously drawn     unmentionable     to the americans     doubt i could exist among them for long however     psychic demands far too severe much violence     much that repels     i am attracted none the less     their variousness their ingenuity their elan vital     and that some thing     essence quiddity     i cannot penetrate or name

[tyrantisterror]

I did a four part series of trivia posts when ATOM Volume 1: Tyrantis Walks Among Us! came out, and that was pretty fun!  You can see that set of trivia posts here if you’d like.  I thought it’d be fun to do another now that ATOM Volume 2: Tyrantis Roams the Earth! is out - just one this time, because a lot of the trivia I talked about with Volume 1 still applies.

I’m gonna divide this into two sections: non-spoiler trivia, for things that really don’t give a lot of plot points away, and spoiler trivia, for things that DO give away major plot points.  I recommend not reading the spoiler trivia until after you’ve read Tyrantis Roams the Earth!, for obvious reasons, and will put the spoiler trivia under a cut.

Ok, let’s go!

- So if you read ATOM Volume 1, you probably noticed that the book is split not only into chapters, but “episodes,” which consist of four chapters a piece.  It’s kind of a nod to how the series owes a great deal of its DNA to various monster of the week shows, with Godzilla: the Series and The Godzilla Power Hour being obvious influences.  It also allowed me to pepper in some illustrations and cheesy b-movie style titles into each volume.

- The first “episode” of Volume 2, Tyrantis in Tokyo, pays explicit homage to the giant monster movies of Japan, perhaps even moreso than the chapters that came before it.  Given how much Japanese media influenced ATOM - from tokusatsu like the Godzilla, Gamera, and Ultraman franchises to anime like Digimon and Evangelion (hell, the title of this episode itself is a tip of the hat to Tenchi Muyo by way of one of its spinoffs) - it kind of felt obligatory that Tyrantis visit Japan and pay his respects.

- Tyrantis in Tokyo also fits in a tribute to another staple of Atomic Age pop culture: Rock and Roll.

- Kutulusca, the giant cephalopod that appears in Tyrantis in Tokyo, is one of the oldest kaiju in this series, dating back to the first iteration of Tyrantis’s story that I put to paper back in 2001 or so.  It’s changed a lot since then, but its fight with Tyrantis goes more or less the way it originally did.

- Old Meg, the giant placoderm/shark, and Nastadyne, the bipedal beetle, both owe their existence directly to Deviantart’s Godzilla fandom.  Old Meg originated as a dunkleosteus monster I submitted to a “create a Godzilla kaiju” contest held by Matt Frank, while Nastadyne is based on a Megalon redesign I made during the “redesign all the Godzilla kaiju” phase of DA’s kaiju fandom.

- The second episode, Tyrantis vs. the Red Menace, gets dark as we visit the USSR, which had enough REAL horror with atomic power in its history to make creature features seem a bit defanged by comparison.  It’s probably the episode with the strongest horror elements - ATOM’s always been influenced by Resident Evil, and this is probably where that influence shows the most strongly.

- It also features the first fully robotic mecha in the series, the mighty Herakoschei!  Its name is a combination of “Heracles” and “Koschei the Deathless,” with the former part being added by its Russian creators to make it seem a bit more international as they offer it to the U.N. in hopes of gaining aid for a very extreme kaiju problem they’ve developed.

- Most of Tyrantis vs. the Red Menace takes place in the Siberian Monster Zone.  Its name is a reference to the Lawless Monster Zone in Ultraman, which is such a cool fucking name I wish that I wish I could go back in time and steal it.

- The next episode, Tyrantis’s Revenge, is... full of spoilers, so we’ll move on for now.

- The penultimate episode, Tyrantis vs. the Martian Monsters, is a love letter to MANY different sci-fi stories that involve life on Mars, though the most prominent of them is of course The War of The Worlds (one of my top 3 favorite books) and its various adaptations.  From its tentacles sapient martians, the tripodal leader of the titular monsters whose name includes the word “ulla” which is uttered by said sapient martians, the plant monster made of red vines, the cylinder-shaped spacecraft the Martian monsters are sent to earth on, the copper-skinned stingray-esque flying martian who shoots lasers from its tail, and the fact that every chapter title in this episode is a quote from the book, the H.G. Wells influence is STRONG.

- The final episode, Invasion from Beyond!, is shamelessly inspired by Destroy All Monsters, although there’s a dash of “To Serve Men,” Godzilla vs. Monster Zero, and The Day the Earth Stood Still mixed in as well.  It’s also sort of a tribute to my first “published” bit of a kaiju fiction - a rewrite of Destroy All Monsters that included EVERY Godzilla monster that had appeared at the time, which my middle school self wrote back in 2002 or so for Kaiju Headquarters, a kaiju fansite I’m not sure exists anymore.  Invasion from Beyond! is just as ambitious (but hopefully better executed) as my DAM Remake, with dozens upon dozens of different kaiju duking it out, earthlings vs. aliens.

- There were three different documents I made to outline the final battle of Invasion from Beyond!  It’s the largest episode of the series so far and more than half of it is that fucking fight.  My inner child is pleased, though, so hopefully you will be too.

Ok, that’s all I can share without spoilers.  READER BEWARE WHAT FOLLOWS BELOW THE CUT!

JUST MAKING SURE you know that SPOILERS will follow from here on out.  Read at your own peril!  YOU WERE WARNED!

(I’m gonna start with lighter ones just in case you scrolled too far and want to turn back)

- There’s a number of explicit Spielberg homages in ATOM Volume 2, from a “we need a bigger boat” joke during a chase with a giant shark to the fact that Invasion from Beyond! opens with a group of people flying to an island of monsters to review whether or not it should get more funding.

- When Tyrantis appears in the first chapter, I snuck in modified lyrics of The Godzilla Power Hour’s theme song.  “Up from the depths”... “several stories high”... “breathing fire”... “its head in the sky”... Tyrantis!  Tyrantis!  Tyrantis!

- The two rock bands in Tyrantis in Tokyo have real life inspirations ala Gwen Valentine, albeit a bit more muddled than hers.  The Cashews are inspired by The Peanuts (see what I did there), while The Thunder Lizards are a mix of The Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Buddy Holly, and the Big Bopper.  I wanted The Thunder Lizards to be more akin to the myth of a famous rock and roll band than the reality - less the real Beatles and more the Yellow Submarine cartoon version of them.

- The song The Thunder Lizards write for Tyrantis was written to fit the tune of “The Godzilla March” from Godzilla vs. Gigan, though ideally if someone made an actual song of it it would be its own song.  I got the idea from Over the Garden Wall, which used the Christmas song “O Holy Night” as a a starting point for “Come Wayward Souls.”

- Perry Martin, UNNO reporter and peer of Henry Robertson, is a nod to Raymond Burr, with his name being a combination of two of Burr’s most famous roles: Perry Mason, and Steve Martin from Godzilla King of the Monsters (1956).

- Dr. Rinko Tsuburaya is a few homages in one.  Her name comes from Rinko Kikuchi (who played Mako Mori in Pacific Rim), while her last name is obviously in homage of Eiji Tsuburaya.  Her being the daughter of an esteemed scientist is inspired by Emiko Yamane from the original Gojira.

- Nastadyne’s Burning Justice mode is named after a similar super mode from various Transformers cartoons, though it’s more directly inspired by the Shining/Burning Finger super move from G Gundam.

- Martians sending kaiju to different planets via shooting them out of cannons (with or without cylinder spaceships around them) is another War of the Worlds shoutout.  So is martians living on Venus after their homeworld was made uninhabitable, actually.

- Kurokame’s vocalizations are described as wails in explicit homage to Gamera.  His name can be translated as either “black tortoise” (a reference to the mythical guardian beast Genbu, which can also be construed as a Gamera reference thanks to Gamera: Advent of Irys implying Gamera and Genbu are one and the same) or a portmanteau of the Japanese words for crocodile and turtle - “crocturtle.”

- Burodon’s name is just a mangling of “burrow down.”  It also sounds vaguely like Baragon, who Burodon is loosely inspired by.  AND, since Burodon is sort of a knockoff/modified Baragon, that kinda makes him a reference to various monsters in Ultraman!

- The final battle of Tyrantis in Tokyo is sort of a hybrid of the finales of Ghidorah the 3 Headed Monster and Destroy All Monsters.  

- The Japanese kaiju teaching Tyrantis the art of throwing rocks at your enemies is both a joke on the prominence of rock throwing in Japanese kaiju fights AND the tired trope of an American hero learning secret martial arts from a Japanese mentor ala Batman, Iron Fist, etc.  In this case, the secret martial art is throwing rocks at people.

- When introduced to Herakoschei and its pilot, we are told that the strain of piloting this early mecha is so intense that many pilots have died in the process, with the current one passing out on more than few occasions.  This is of course a Pacific Rim homage - sadly, no one invents drifting.

- Herakoschei’s design is a loose homage to Robby the Robot and Cherno Alpha, because big boxy robots are cool.

- The Writhing Flesh and ESPECIALLY Pathogen are both hugely influenced by Resident Evil and The Thing.  Giant body horror piles of raw flesh, tendrils, mismatched mouths and limbs may be a bit outside the main era of monster design ATOM homages, but they fit the themes and bring a nice contrast.

- I came up with Pathogen long before Corona but MAN it definitely feels different in 2021 to have a giant monster whose name is a synonym for disease driving other creatures crazy in a quarantine zone than it did when I plotted out the story in 2016.

- The chapter title “Hello, Old Foes” is a riff on “Goodbye, Old Friend”

- Minerva, the kaiju-fied clone of Dr. Lerna, is meant to be an homage to Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, which is a genuinely good giant monster flick.  I am sure many of you will also believe I included her because I’m a pervert whose into tall women, but you’d be wrong!  I included the seven foot tall Russian mecha pilot Ludmilla Portnova because I’m a pervert whose into tall women.  Minerva’s inclusion was just coincidental, I swear!

- Since Promythigor is a play on the archetypal ape kaiju to contrast Tyrantis as a play on the archetypal fire-breathing reptile kaiju, their fight has a lot of nods to King Kong movies.  Promythigor attempts the famous jaw-snap maneuver of Kong (with less success), J.C. Clark paraphrases the “brute force vs. a thinking animal” line from the King Kong vs. Godzilla American cut, and Tyrantis slides down a mountain to knock Promythigor off his feet in a reversal of Kong doing the same in King Kong vs. Godzilla.

- Tyrantis sliding down a mountain on his tail doubles as a Godzilla vs. Megalon homage.

- Though Promythigor is the archetypal Ape and Tyrantis the archetypal Fire-Breathing Reptile, I think it’s fun to note that in some ways, Promythigor is the Godzilla equivalent in their matchup, and Tyrantis the Kong.  Promythigor has a slight size advantage, was scarred by humans performing unethical weapons technology, and is associated with violent explosions.  Tyrantis is a good-at-heart prehistoric beast who humanized in part by his unlikely friendship with a human woman.

- Of course, in the context of the famous quote from the American cut of King Kong vs. Godzilla, they remain in their archetypal lanes.  Promythigor is the more intelligent of the two (though not necessarily wiser), and Tyrantis is in many ways a brute reptile.  Their battle is a rebuttal of sorts to the assertion that Kong is the “better” animal because he is closer to human.  Promythigor’s near human creativity and emotions don’t make him the kinder/more benevolent monster, but instead fuel a very self-centered and destructive attitude that makes him the far more dangerous threat.  On the other hand, Tyrantis, who is less intelligent, limited in communication with others by his reptilian mindset and instincts, and simple in his thoughts and desires, is nonetheless a sweet creature that is easily dealt with when others consider his animal needs and mindset.  There’s a quote from Hellboy I love that probably sums up all of my writing thus far: “To be other than human does not mean the same as being less,” and that’s what the matchup between these two in particular tries to illustrate: the “less” human Tyrantis is nonetheless more benign than the “more” human Promythigor.

- Kraydi the psychic lizard began life as a soft sculpture I made of the Canyon Krayt Dragon from The Wildlife of Star Wars.  The sculpture didn’t look much like the illustration, but I liked how it came out, and so I made it an original monster named Kraydi (see what I did there).  Figuring out an explanation for that name in ATOM’s world was possibly the most difficult kaiju naming task in the series, but it worked out in the end.

- Kraydi and Promythigor having psychic powers is a result of my time on Godzilla fan forums in my middle school years.  Most of the forums had OC kaiju battle tournaments, and SO many of those kaiju had a wide array of beam weapons and psychic powers just to win the tournaments by beam-spamming and mind controlling their foes into oblivion.  There’s a special kind of rage you get when your original creation is beaten by “Fire Godzilla” because he has a genius level intellect and the power of unstoppable telekinesis.  Kraydi began as (and still is I suppose) my attempt to do a psychic kaiju well, while Promythigor’s villainy being tied to psychic powers being forced on him is sort of my passive aggressive commentary on people foisting powers on a monster without any real thematic reason for them.

- Henry Robertson and Dr. Praetorius chewing out the laziness of people giving kaiju completely unaltered names of mythic beasts will probably be seen as a jab at the Monsterverse and/or the numerous writers in the kaiju OC scene who do the same, but it’s ACTUALLY a jab at my past self, who had DOZENS of kaiju whose names were just Greek mythological figures verbatim.  There are dozens of kaiju named Hydra, Scylla, Charybdis, Chimera, etc., past me, try to make the names stand out!  Oh wait you did.  I mean, don’t pat yourself on the back too much, you still went with “Mothmanud” as a canon name and never came up with something better, but, like, good on ya for trying I guess.

- Dr. Praetorius takes his name from the evil mad scientis in Bride of Frankenstein, who basically has all the wicked traits that Universal’s Frankenstein downplayed in their take on Dr. Frankenstein.  Ironically, ATOM’s Dr. Praetorius is a bit less evil than his fellow mad scientists in ATOM.  I really like how his character turned out, he surprised me.

- Isaac Rossum, the pilot of the USA mecha Atomoton, is named for Isaac Aasimov, whose robot stories are to robot fiction what Lord of the Rings is to high fantasy.  His last name is a reference to Rossum’s Universal Robots, which is where the word “robot” came from.

- The unfortunate pilots of MechaTyrantis in ATOM Volumes 1 and 2 are all nods to Jurassic Park.  John Ludlow = John Hammond and Peter Ludlow, Ian Grant = Ian Malcolm and Alan Grant, Dennis Dodgson = Dennis Nedry and Lewis Dodgson.

- A good way to pitch Invasion from Beyond! would be “what if the staff and monsters were able to fight back when the Kilaaks tried to take over Monsterland?”

- Ok, here’s a fun joke that no one will get but me because it requires a very specific chain of logic based on some obscure and loosely connected nerd bullshit.  There’s a rocker in ATOM’s universe named Sebastian Haff, right?  One of his songs, “Darling Let’s Shimmy,” is referenced right before a mothmanud larva emerges from the ground in both ATOM Vol. 1 and 2.  Ok, so, in the Bubba Hotep, an aging Elvis impersonator named Sebastian Haff claims he is actually the real Elvis Presley, having changed places with the real Sebastian Haff as a sort of Prince and the Pauper deal that went wrong.  Got that?  Ok, so, in UFO folklore, a common joke is the theory that Elvis didn’t die, but was rather abducted by aliens (or he actually WAS an alien the whole time - the whole “Elvis didn’t die, he just went home” joke in Men in Black is a good example of this).  Ok?  Ok.  So, in ATOM’s universe, we can surmise that their equivalent of Elvis, whose name is Sebastian Haff, WAS abducted by aliens, and that his song “Darling Let’s Shimmy” is subconsciously influenced by his repressed memories from his time aboard the Beyonder spaceships, which is why it accidentally awoke a Mothmanud larva in Volume 1.  There’s a lot of bullshit jokes I put into ATOM, but this is perhaps the bullshittiest of them all.

- One of the most common bits of feedback on ATOM Volume 1 I got was “I kept waiting for something to eat Brick Rockwell, he’s such an asshole.”  And I had to smile and go, “Oh, yeah, guess he never got his, huh?” the whole time without letting on that he was going to die here all along!

- Dr. Lerna and Brick Rockwell’s nature as foils to each other is probably most apparent in Invasion from Beyond!, where both are given fairly similar situations - a nonhuman approaches them with a solution to a global crisis - and react to it very differently.  I worry that some people may think they both made the same choice and got different results, and that that’s hypocrisy on my part, but I hope I wrote it so you can see how their choices and situations actually differ in key ways, and why their decisions, while similar on the surface, are ultimately very different, and thus result in almost opposite outcomes.

- So, when I planned out this book in 2016, I swear I didn’t know about the Orca from 2019′s Godzilla King of the Monsters.  Having the plot hang around Dr. Lerna deciding whether or not to use a sonic device to rouse all the kaiju to save the earth was not INTENDED to be a Monsterverse reference - it came about from me looking at Pathfinder’s take on kaiju, who are all explicitly influenceable by music, and thinking, “Oh, wow, music and songs DO have a major connection with kaiju in a lot of media, I should do something with that.”  Whem KOTM came out a few days after Volume 1 came out I realized I was kinda fucked here, because the comparison was definitely going to be made, but I’d also set this all up already and you can’t just change suddenly to avoid looking like a copy cat and make a good story, so... I dunno, I leaned into it a bit, but it is what it is.

- While most people will probably think they’re a reference to the Reptoids of UFO folklore, the Reptodites are more inspired by the Dinosapien of speculative evolution fame and, even morso, by the Reptites from Chrono Trigger.  Me wanting to avoid the “lizard people control the government” conspiracy theory trope is one of the main reasons why Reptodites have this non-interference clause with humanity.

- Lieutenant Gray is a bunch of different humanoid aliens rolled into one - a little Hopskinville goblin, a little classic gray, a little this one weird alien with five-fingered zygodactyl hands, etc.

- There’s some Beyonder Mecha in this volume that are basically kaiju-fied versions of the Flatwoods Monster.  The species that built them ALSO engineered the Mothmanuds, because connecting Mothman and the Flatwoods Monster is fun!

- Pleprah is, obviously, a one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eater.

- Tyrantis’s brush with death, in addition to being so very anime, was inspired by my dad outlining how mythic heroes often have to travel to the underworld/land of the dead before they can finish their journey.  It’s one of the plot points that I’ve had planned for this series since middle school.

- I’m sure some will view it as hackneyed and corny, but as a person who’s battled with depression for decades, having Tyrantis’s choice to live be the big heroic turn of the finale was very important to me.  Tyrantis incorporates elements of a lot of imaginary friends I made as a kid, and in many ways he’s kind of the face of my more positive side in my head.  He’s been telling me to choose to live for a while, and while maybe to an outsider it may seem hackneyed, it’s just... very Tyrantis.  He chooses life and kindness in the face of pain and struggle.  That’s Tyrantis.

- Tyrantis’s powered up form is called “Hyper Mode,” which is another Gundam reference.  Originally it was a lot gaudier and involved him turning gold like a fuckin’ Super Saiyan.  I opted for something a little more toned down here.  

- Also, speaking of KOTM references, I decided to make Hyper Mode Tyrantis’s final duel with Pathogen be a sort of foil to Burning Godzilla’s final bout with Ghidorah in KOTM.  Instead of ravaging the city, Hyper Tyrantis’s pulse of energy rejuvenates his fallen allies, and as a result he is “crowned” not out of fear for his supremacy in the wake of killing a powerful enemy, but in gratitude for his kindness.  See?  Leaning into it!

- And now I can finally reveal that Yamaneon is ATOM’s equivalent of The Monolith Monsters - that is, a kaiju that is also a mineral.  I took the “strange continuously growing rock” thing in a very different direction, though, as unlike The Monolith Monsters, Yamaneon is actually alive.

- At various points in the pre-writing process, either Promythigor, MechaTyrantis, or both were going to die fighting Pathogen.  I ultimately decided to let them both live, with MechaTyrantis even getting his flesh and blood body back, because I think it’s more interesting and thematically consistent that way.  They get a chance to heal their wounds by changing their ways.

- The Great Beyonder and Dorazor both almost didn’t make the cut, as I felt they didn’t have the same pull as villains that Pathogen, Promythigor, and MechaTyrantis did.  But then I thought that could actually be the gag - build them up as the final boss, only to have Pathogen take their crown.  I want to explore post-face turn Dorazor a bit more, though.  We’ll have to see about that in a later volume.

- Volumes 1 and 2 make up what I call “The Ballad of Tyrantis Arc” for ATOM.  I call it that because Tyrantis’s storyline in these two volumes was patterend after Chivalric ballads like Yvain the Knight of the Lion.  Tyrantis, a heroic warrior who is kind but dumb of ass, learns of strange goings on outside his home and investigates.  During his journey into the unknown he falls in love with a powerful woman, whose favor he tries to win.  Through happenstance he is separated from his love and, distraught, wanders around fighting various foes to prove his worth, before finally returning to his love a better hero.  Invasion from Beyond! could even be seen as a sort of Morte d’Artur, with Tyrantis and a bunch of other kaiju heroes (including Nastadyne and Kemlasulla, who are built up as Hero Kaiju of Another Story) take part in a huge battle that threatens their idealic kingdom (of monsters).

- Volume 2 isn’t the end of ATOM, but it’s designed to work as an ending if you want to tap out here.  As a reader I feel a definitive ending is important, but as a writer I’m always tempted to revisit my beloved characters, so I feel giving closure while leaving a few doors open for possible future adventures is a good compromise between these positions.  There will be more ATOM stories, some (but not all!) following Tyrantis and Dr. Lerna, but if you want to know that Tyrantis and Dr. Lerna get an ending and the resolution to their arcs such a thing promises, here you go.  An ending, if not THE END.

[darklingichor]

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir *SPOILERS*

I will be gushing about this book again, because I started listening to it right after I finished it so to give myself a few more days to get through this one again *and* do another one so I don't have two weeks in a row on the same book, I'm posting early!

Holy crap is this one cool! I can't think of a way to really gush about this book without getting a little bit into spoilers territory

So, I have that section marked off and I'll do my best not to give away too much.

I've talked about my love of The Martian, but you never know if the next book you read by an author will strike the same chord

I was sort of predisposed to like The Martian. I like castaway stories. Funnily enough I haven't read Robinson Crusoe, but I need too.

Anyway, I like the whole stranded on a deserted island thing. I like the way the characters get creative to figure out how to live and get home.

Project Hail Mary on the other hand had some strikes against it before I even started. First is the fact that the main character has amnisia.

I hate that plot device, usually. It's frustrating because I mostly encounter it as a way to make a predictable story *seem* unpredictable. Almost like an author or tv writer thinks that if they make all the tired tropes new to the character, they will be new to us... Never works. Plus the afflicted character always seems to just wander around not knowing anything about anything until the very last moment before something horrible happens. Then all of their memories come rushing back and they're able to save ...ZZZ ZZZ...

Sorry, I fell asleep just typing that.

But, that isn't how this one plays out. Our main character has amnisia, yes, but he uses common sense and deductive reasoning to work things out as his memories slowly come back into focus.

For example, he notices that he tends to think in both imperial measurements and metric depending on th context of his thoughts. He figures he's likely American, or Canadian. He notices that even in his thought process he doesn't swear, so he figures he might have kids. So on and so forth. We find out things as he does, but he doesn't passively wait until he has all the details. As he figures out that he is on a mission to save earth, he works out the how and why before he knows all of the details about what that lead him to be aboard the Hail Mary. So, the amnisia device is used really well in my opinion.

**SPOILER ALERT **SPOILER ALERT*

The second strike against it was the alien encounter. I know this is akin to blasphemy for a person born in the 80's, but I was never interested in ET. Most alien movies were really dull to me. The exceptions were: Flight of the Navigator and Escape to Witch Mountain. I can't say why other than those two movies seemed different. Flight has time travel, Escape  has a roadtrip... So maybe that's why?

Anyway, I'm not big on the aliens must save earth or earthlings must save an alien planet, seems like too much of an allegory for colonization.

So when I read that whole "unlikely partnership" thing in the description, I groaned. That just screamed Alien Sidekick to me.

I should have known that it wasn't going to be that way.

The relationship between Earthling Ryland Grace and the Eriden Rocky really *is* a partnership.

They combine their expertise to figure things out.  And yes, there is a point where there's an uncomfortable tip into a "savior" storyline, but it comes about from the work that Grace and Rocky did together, not from one species being superior to the other.

And on top of it, they become friends, but not in a saccrine sweet way. I like it when friendships resemble my own. If one of us doesn't say "Quiet, you." In some form or another are some point, something's wrong.

** END SPOILER ALERT** ** END SPOILER ALERT**

This one's plot is a bit darker than The Martian and Grace is a bit more complicated than Watney, but those are good things, because this isn't a sequel to The Martian, it's a stand alone book. It is just as funny and the science is explained in similar ways in that it will go "Science, science, science" then say something a kin to: "So, I threw it against the wall, it had the desired outcome."

I recommend this one highly!

[matt0044]

“I can believe in spandex-clad superheroes, aliens and mayhaps some demons but I draw the line hard at phantoms.”

Clearly these are the Flat-Earthers of the Power Rangers universe.

Dino Fury has arrived and a new showrunner in the form of Simon Bennet with Chip Lynn stepping down. So far, it’s made a good first impression with the theme song. I’m not opposed to “Go Go Power Rangers” being a consistent leitmotif of the series. I only wish the song was just longer to appreciate it more.

Buzzfe- I MEAN, Buzzblast reporter Amelia Jones reports in with her editor-in-chief to insist on a change of pace from the usual celebrity gossip and investigate Dinohenge out in the woods. Rather than a Gym or a Juice Bar, we get ourselves a Social Media outlet that’s pretty crowded with plenty of hussle. I’m actually reminded of VR Troopers with the whole newspaper angle they got.

As Woody use to say, “What an ideeeeee-ah!”

Jane allows Amelia to go off on her little ghost hunt, not being one for the paranormal. Somebody’s clearly never been to Briarwood before. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that those in the Power Rangers universe would be more open to the supernatural going down. Unless it’s a matter of what’s been scientifically proven such as new aliens regularly coming down to screw us Earthlings over.

Amelia meets Ollie by way of snagging him with her net launcher. I... guess you can just purchase them no questions asked, second amendment and whatnot. The comedic banter is pretty well grounded and less over the top compared to seasons prior. It helped that they’re among the Rangers as we get to know them and they learn of each other. Though I wouldn’t rule out comic relief yet...

Got my eye on you, Garcias. :P

Amelia leads Ollie to Dinohenge where his mother, Dr. Akana, is analyzing the circle of dinosaur statues just laying around. Her drone even picks up signs of an underground chamber only to be interrupted by Warden Buzzki- I MEAN, Warden Garcia. The copper tells them to pack it in while leading the doctor off.

Amelia and Ollie stay to clean up while having another ghost debate because again, nobody saw Mystic Force. Speaking of, a violet colored knight beams in with a scanner honing in on an energy source he seeks. The two hide while watching him blast open a way into the chamber below. As you’d expect, they decide to just walk away quick and call the ward-or they just rush ahead blindly.

Yep, they’re Power Rangers.

They follow Void Knight into the chamber where sentries are lined up one by one in a circle with a lot of advanced tech. The villain busts open a door to reveal a humanoid Solonasaurus and a Red Ranger in stasis. Our resident Alpha tries to reanimate his leader only for Void Knight to damage the controls.

Ollie rushes in with one of the Chromafury Saber along the wall before Amelia launches another net at Void Knight with maximum volts. Solon tries to toss a Power Key at them in order to command the Hengemen with their Sabers. However, Void Knight is quick to recover and seizes of the foot soldiers for him.

Amelia and Ollie are preoccupied by the enemy grunts while Void Knight localizes his exact target within a compartment nearby. Solon finally revives Zayto and brings the Red Ranger back to action. Amelia and Ollie soon even the odds by morphing with their Power Keys, psyched that they’re real superheroes. I love how Ollie claims that they’re get Zords based on the news.

I’m guessing Cassidy and Devin are the ones on the scene.

Void Knight retrieves a containing full of ooey-gooey slimeballs known as Sporixs, a no doubt topical type of villain, before Zayto engages him. The soundtrack has certainly gotten an upgrade this season with the brand new composer. The action leads to the Sporixs being unleashed from their containment unit. Void Knight cuts off the exit in order to pursue them outside.

Void Knight finds one that manages to grow into what will be first Monster of the Week and teleports off with the cretin while the other scatter. Back in the base, Amelia and Ollie demorph with their morphers camouflaging themselves as watches Beast Morphers-style. Zayto also demorphs in order to reveal himself as an alien human with antennae that can read minds. I smell a moral episode.

Zayto reads their character bio-I MEAN, their minds to assess if they’re truly trustworthy and confides his backstory in them. He lead an order of knights to defend his world from the Sporix, creatures born of pure destruction, in a neat mix of Ryusoulger footage and original footage. They drove them off Rafkon but soon learned that their next target was Earth when the dinosaurs still lived.

Zayto’s posse had the most metal idea of riding the Dinosaurs as their steeds against their foes. Now that’s one remake of Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog we need. However, they are visited by none other than the Morphin’ Masters who connect Zayto’s order to the Morphin’ Grid. Yes. They actually took a one-off lore tidbit in the Season One episode “Big Sisters” and really expanded upon it.

Zayto’s order was sadly lost in their efforts to contain the Sporix before he went into stasis for whenever a new threat arose to seize them. Now they’re loose and hibernating after being spread all across the surrounding area. This not only gives us a good reason that they’re sticking around their setting but also adds a bit more of a chaotic factor to the Monsters of the Day formula to come.

Void Knight is tough but not leading a motley crew of world conquerors. Rather he’s a lone wolf hunting for the Sporix for his own ends, making the Macguffin of this season one and the same as the Monsters of the Day. By proxy, the Sporix are individuals until themselves with an evil nature to them. Who knows when and where they’ll spring up or how they operate under their own devices?

Zayto gladly recruits Amelia and Ollie in his new order of Dino Fury Rangers, starting us off with a trio just like with Beast Morphers. I guess the tradition still carries on after the Disney Era. I love that Zayto’s the Red Ranger but also a mentor with Solon as his Alpha 5. It turns the Red Ranger rookie trope on its head and even makes everyone else on the team the Watsons to his Sherlock.

Alright, Simon. You hooked us. Now reel us all the way.

[emperorsfoot]

1-5 for that ask meme

1.) List 3 shipping tropes you love

that soft gasp when their hands accidentally touch

insisting they are “just friends” for the longest time while ignoring their feelings and the obvious mutual pining

mutual attraction, passion, and extreme hornyness, but always hesitating to act on their desires because they’re unsure of the other’s consent 

2.) List 3 shipping tropes you don’t love

the partners always tearing each other down and the narrative trying to play it off as quirky. The “boy bullies a girl because he secretly likes her” trope. I hate hate hate! it. I hated it when people said it to me when I was a kid, and I hate seeing it perpetuated in my fiction. I did not enjoy seeing it in Ben 10, and I did not enjoy seeing it in She-Ra. It’s a bad trope and it needs to stop. 

each partner being obviously gender-coded. example: even in same-sex pairs there is always a “man” and a “woman”. Bottoms being characterized as overly feminine and tops being extremely masculine. people asking “who wears the pants”, etc. 

when one or both of the partners is blond. I don't like blonds. (the only acceptation to this is Luke/Mara. I love Luke Skywalker enough that I’m willing to forgive him being blond.)

3.) One emotional aspect of a ship that always gets you

I’m attracted to different ships for different reasons, so there isn’t really ONE unifying aspect that “always gets me”. Most of my ships tent to be interspecies (Tim/Kon - earthling/half-alien, Entrapdak - human/alien clone, Golisa - human/Gargoyle, etc.) so I guess the aspect that really gets me would be interspecies love? ...either that, or I’m just a monster fucker with a little xenophilia on the side...

4.) One physical aspect of a ship that always gets you

size difference.

I’m a slut for a good size difference ship. I do confess, I have a size difference kink. (which is probably why I’m so attracted to monster ships)

5.) Multiship or Monoship?

depends on the fandom and depends on the character

I will ship Skeletor with almost anyone. Currently, I have two fics up on AO3 and I ship him with different characters in each. I also have several other ships for him in my head that have not been written. Hordak, however, I will only ship with Entrapta. No multi-ships for him. 

the deciding factor is whether or not I think the character in question will mesh well with multiple partners, or just the one. Sometimes I don’t ship a character with anyone at all jut because I don’t think they could function in a relationship at all. 

[admutual]

What do you think Roger’s childhood was like up in space?

oh god , i sdknsdkj have Some hcs for his childhood ,, but my hcs are kinda messy, so i’ll try to word this the best i can.

i’ll start with his relationship with his parents since i got a Lot to say here.

for starters,, his childhood was mostly ,, hh Not Great.

his mother was controlling, emotionally abusive, neglectful, and highly manipulative. she also kept roger a shut-in most of his childhood, so roger never really gained proper social skills and had to rely on her as his only source of interpersonal contact. she had this habit of bullying him and putting him down and just destroying his self-esteem, before softening up and drawing him back in with a faux sense of compassion and gentleness (she def tried to convince him that she was the only one who could possibly love him). she was sorta a ‘zira meets mother gothel meets rainflower from warrior cats, with a little frollo mixed in’ type. she was a mess.

his dad on the other hand was emotionally distant and absent and just utterly disinterested in roger, and the few times he was around he was loud, aggressive, and prone to fits of anger. he was also highly religious and it Showed. i don’t have the actual complete details for the religion he followed, all i really have is most of my inspiration for it stems from a lot of xenofiction i read (lapine mythology from watership down, starclan from warrior cats, the spirituality from tailchaser’s song ,, i’m like physically unable to make non-human creatures without drawing inspiration from xenofiction) and that roger definitely experiences some religious trauma from him.

his parents fought a Lot. and it did a number on roger,, kinda why i like to believe he’s so desperate for drama, it’s all he’s known and the peace of quiet living is unnerving to him.

roger was desperate to be on his parents’ good sides. his mother was unpredictable in this regard in that she bounced back and forth between being gentle and kind before switching to verbal abuse and aggression. his dad though never expressed any positive feelings for roger. rog tried really hard to earn his dad’s affection, but after he got older and started to realize that that just wasn’t gonna happen, his tone toward him shifted to disdain. it definitely helped that his mother was loud in her distaste for his father too and through her aforementioned behavior managed to keep roger on her side through it all. if his mom hated someone, roger did too.

that whole thing about roger eating his dad,, ye . gonna make that Edgier let’s go. i like to imagine it was long after roger had accepted that his dad sucked, he was alone with him, he got pushed a little too far, and he just snapped, killing him. as for the cannibalism thing, that religion i mentioned earlier? i still don’t have much details, but one thing i Do know is that one important belief in this religion is how their bodies are handled after death and it’s very important that funeral services are handled accordingly,, shit like don’t touch the body with bare skin after the passing, their grave must be lined with bark and leaves from a specific type of tree, no visiting the burial site for a set period of time after burial, etc. so roger, being the dramatic extreme petty bitch he is, decided to give one last ‘fuck you’ to his dad by eating him instead to fuck up the burial process. we love taking a generic primetime sitcom and making it edgier than it needs to be.

i kinda like to imagine roger’s relationships with his parents heavily influenced his relationship with stan and francine too:

for stan’s side, roger felt that stan reminded him a lot of his own father. like i said, roger felt a heavy resentment towards his father, and after coming to earth and finding he was going to be living with someone who all too closely resembled him, he put his foot down and refused to allow himself to keel over to what felt like mistreatment from him.

when roger first started to get to know stan, all he saw in him initially was the same anger and neglect he got from his own father, and in turn went out of his way to lash out and harass him as sort of a cathartic defense. but then time went on, the two started to see each other on their own level, and roger realized how stan below the surface was far from how his dad was, and he warmed up enough to view him as a close friend. i kinda like to think roger softened up to stan after finding out about jack too, as you know he could relate to him having a shitty neglectful dad himself.

as for francine, roger was drawn to her for the opposite reason in that she was nothing like his mom. roger was a total mama’s boy back home, like i said she kept him shut-in during his childhood to where she was the only one he could rely on. even after coming to earth, roger was still under the impression that she truly loved him and he had a habit of getting overly defensive of her (klaus makes a ‘your mom’ joke and roger’s in tears screaming at him to take it back). he started to question some of her treatment towards him the longer he stayed, especially with the more families he got close to where he got to observe other people’s parental relationships, but never enough to have an epiphany that she sucked. it wasn’t until after the events of ‘weiner of our discontent’ that he finally started to actively reflect on his past life on his home planet, now that he knew he was stuck on earth to stay, and he finally accepted that his mom wasn’t good to him.

as for how this influenced his relationship with francine, like i said francine was way different from roger’s mom. initially roger was super uncomfortable every time she treated him kindly and gently. he sorta held back from getting too close for a good month or two because he didn’t know which of her behavior was genuine and what was just a facade. but time went on, he decided to trust her by letting down his guard and allowing her to get close, and now the two are as tight-knit as can be. and roger’s still a total mama’s boy with her sometimes. also the aforementioned religious trauma roger experienced,, i like to believe that also drew him closer to francine after hearing her experiences growing up. roger’s just Shared Trauma Buddies with everyone.

anyways after years of constant abuse and neglect, he eventually finds a family that loves him unconditionally and he’s finally allowed to rest. i’m a slut for the ‘earn your happy ending’ trope and i’m pushing that onto roger.

(actually one last thing ,, this isn’t a set-in-stone hc, i’m not sure if i’m gonna keep it, but i like to bounce around the idea that maybe the reason his parents were so awful to him is because they believed he was responsible for a sibling’s death. like roger when he really little was out playing on the ice, things Went Wrong and it shattered, his older sib leaped in to rescue him, but things Went Even More Wrong, and his sibling managed to save him but not themself. and his parent’s (or at least his mom since i like to imagine his dad just from the start was pretty distant) immediately placed the blame on roger and never forgave. like i said idk if i’m gonna keep it as a hc, but whatevs thought i’d mention it anyway since the topic of roger’s childhood’s brought up)

and now that that’s done, the other stuff.

i like to believe because of roger’s kind’s practice of abduction, they have a decent enough study on various other planet’s species. and roger, from a young age, immediately built up a fascination with humans. he spent hours reading and rereading every study and book he could find on them. when he was given the choice to be The Decider, it was a complete dream come true for him, not only because he found what he felt was his life’s purpose, but also because he could finally study up close a species he’s admired all his life. (also once roger landed on earth his interest in humans quickly shifted from an ��idk i just think they’re cute and fun and interesting creatures!!’ to an ‘oh fuck . o h god … humans are Hot what the hell ….’ like i make jokes about how ‘oh haha steve’s an alien fucker lol’ but tbh ……. roger’s the alien fucker in the relationship.)

bouncing off that, they definitely don’t have english as their main language. that’s always been a trope that’s annoyed me, the whole ‘every alien just inexplicably speaks english by default and can communicate with humans fluently’ trope. because of that, i like to believe roger self-taught himself multiple languages through earthling test subjects, listening to audio recordings and such. he wasn’t completely fluent, but it was enough that he could at least communicate enough once he landed on earth. and as for the mothership featured in ‘lost in space’,, hc that it’s installed with a universal translator. still kinda a lazy cop-out i guess, but whatever.

roger’s always been ,, idk,, softer than his species. not in an ‘uwu he’s actually a total sweetheart’ kinda way, but just in that unlike most of his kind, he can experience compassion (it’s rare and his conscience is still really weak, and empathy is still completely foreign to him, but he does experience compassion for those he allows to get close to him like the smiths), he’s always been too sensitive compared to most of his kind, he’s too emotionally-driven, he latches onto others and cares to much what others think of him, just a bunch of things that to most of his peers made him come across as ‘weaker’.

roger picked his own name!! i don’t really care for the trope of aliens having generic western names, so my hc is that when roger’s kind are born they’re given a placeholder name (or a title or something) and then they’re allowed to pick whatever name they want as they get older, which often times is influenced by other species. like i said earlier, roger’s always had a fascination with humans, and i like to think he decided to name himself after an abduction victim he read up on.

once roger was able to distance himself from his mom and was allowed on his own, he was a constant traveller, both in the sense of journeying across his home planet, and in finding any way possible to travel to other planets. sitting still for too long bored him and he needed to explore every possible place he could.

liste n ,,,,, roger loved building snowmen growing up. the few times he got the chance to get out was always spent building them and creating personalities for them. and he still finds himself building them on earth sometimes.

roger’s always loved reading. he can’t count how many times he flew through all the books they had around the house. and even now he just . really loves to read and can power through massive books in a matter of hours.

he loves watching the snow fall and blizzards always brought him a lot of comfort.

that whole thing about roger’s kind being 60% electricity? roger had a lot of trouble controlling excess electricity as a kid. his parents weren’t good teachers, so he just had a habit of accidentally jolting others on accident, sometimes while reading he’d get too excited and accidentally singe the papers a little, he was always pretty shaky as a kid just from how much electricity he had coursing through his body that he had zero clue how to process safely.

roger’s tendency towards playing characters came at a young age. he was always running around the house playing pretend as multiple characters and that habit just never went away.

i like to imagine roger enjoyed building little dens in the snow to chill in. for his kind, children tend to build snow dens to function in the same way human kids build treehouses,, just to vibe with their friends. and on earth sometimes during the winter roger will decide to build a den in the backyard and spend some of his nights down there.

roger’s kind love swimming. probably one of their more popular sports, hell some of them even choose to fish for their own food in the same way seals do. roger though? terrified of the water. nowadays he’s okay with it (still prefers to avoid it for the most part though), but as a kid it was one of his worst fears.

i feel like there’s something i’m missing? idk, this is long enough though so i’ll stop jsdgndks.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

d'artagnan, treville, and koriand'r from titans? (which i've never seen but her hair is beautiful and also i appreciate the name)

d’Artagnan

How I feel about this character: i love that d’artagnan wholly, and without any evidence of an uneasy split between the two selves, occupies the role of ‘archetypal hero’ and ‘incorrigible little shit’. he is brave, and romantic, and loyal to a fault, but he also has a casual, often flexible relationship with his principles when he really, really wants something. he can be conniving, deceptive, and entirely too comfortable with scaring the living shit out of anybody enemy-adjacent as long as it gets him closer to his goal. the source material leaned into this irony more, but it’s not difficult to see that edge to him on the show. it’s not even something he’s even conscious of, which makes him very entertaining to watch, and honestly makes me long to see more of his story.i was going through some of my old meta posts about d’artagnan and here’s one from 2015 that kinda sums up all this waffle:he’s such a little shit. and he’s perfect for the inseparables because i don’t think there’s any other way to get their attention and their friendship than to stomp into their midst, threaten to kill one of them, roll your eyes at their plans, act entitled to their histories within months of knowing them, signing up for missions without a thought about what they would actually entail,  and just being stupidly brave enough through the whole thing that the resulting smugness is more endearing than irritating.this guy kills without compunction yet has legions of people calling him ‘puppy’. how is he not a little shit.I LOVE HIM.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: EVERYBODY. essentially my musketeers manifesto.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: porthos + d’artagnan makes me swoon in any iteration.

My unpopular opinion about this character: i know he got a lot of shit for some of his actions in s2 and while he deserved some of it, he did not deserve the kind of unchecked vitriol that fandom spewed about him then. the facts speak for themselves.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: there were at least a couple of interesting inflection points in his character arc that sadly went unexplored: when bonacieux died in 2.07 and ‘cursed’ him and constance with his dying breath; and when he had to kill the mentally ill veteran he’d been trying to save all episode in s3. he ends both episodes in genuine pathos, seemingly at a crossroads, but by the next he seems to have forgotten all about it. it could also explain why it felt like d’artagnan grew so little in s3.

Treville

How I feel about this character: i tend to have a vague, low-simmering affection for treville most of the time, but the times that he’s most interesting is when he’s more... well, morally suspect. like the time he essentially used his regiment as a pawn in his protracted war with the cardinal, or the whole savoy fiasco, or even his efforts to keep porthos’ past a secret. also i just like to refer back to this post i made a long time ago whenever i’m asked to articulate my thoughts on treville.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: i see the potential in richelieu/treville, but i haven’t really given a lot of thought to shipping treville

My non-romantic OTP for this character: i really like the dynamics between athos and treville. i don’t think treville was entirely accurate with his judgment of athos’ temperament as a leader, but i think he was willing to take the chance anyway because he saw, perhaps clearer than most, athos’ compassionate heart. 

My unpopular opinion about this character: i don’t honestly find him as interesting as the rest of fandom??? *shrugs*

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: it’s a great pity that richelieu had to leave at the end of the first season. i do think his dynamic with treville made treville a lot more interesting and it would’ve been cool to see that evolve.

Koriand’r

How I feel about this character: what i really love about what titans has done with kory is subvert the ‘born sexy yesterday’ trope. they could’ve so easily had her perform this naive, what-are-these-human-customs role, but kory is different. she’s alien, sure, and curious about this world that she’s landed on, but she’s also smart and adaptable, and oftentimes far more well-adjusted than the earthlings around her. and i love how the show lets her be alien twice over--in the first season she has amnesia and is alien to herself, and that’s just a really interesting layer to her characterisation.besides, she is badass, and compassionate, and funny, and all-around beautiful, inside and out. and yes, her hair is great.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: DICK GRAYSON. despite the sorry lack of together-time in s2 they still have crackling chemistry. i also like kory/donna and kory/faddei.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: kory really connected with rachel and conner wrt their feelings of ‘otherness’ and i hope both of those relationships are explored further from hereon.

My unpopular opinion about this character: i mostly agree with the show’s decision to have her separate from the rest of the titans in s2. i know it was frustrating, but oftentimes her relationships with the others devolve into her providing succour and doing most of the emotional labour, and that’s not fair on her or the others.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: that said, i wish there’d been more focus on her, or just more screen time in general. still all the signs are pointing to exactly that in s3, so i’m optimistic. :)

( give me a character to break down! )

[fyrapartnersearch]

Calling for dedicated roleplayers with a passion for writing

Hello! My name is Aaliyah or Ally for short, and I will cut right to the chase. I am looking for a mature role-player, preferably 21+ but will also accept 18+ (just to be sure that you are of legal age, otherwise it’ll be very uncomfortable).



As I am 26 years of age with 12 years of experience, I hope to meet someone who shares my passion in creative writing, as well as formulating interesting plots and characters. 

In case you are curious about me as a person, I am a full-time student and a young writer who works at the gym on the side, but also enjoys other creative outlets such as drawing. Usually my schedule is fairly full, including the attendance of friends or family. However I always have ample time for a good roleplay. :) 



I am seeking a literate writer who is committed to a long-term partnership, and by that I truly mean it. Please do not respond if you are uncertain of upholding a stable roleplay. Furthermore, I’ve noticed the “ghosting after the first few messages“ trope is a fairly widespread issue in the roleplaying scene / community. I would like to implore you from refraining it. I’ve grown quite irritated by it lately and rather like to avoid it in the near future. That way we don’t waste anyone’s time. Thank you in advance. If you are hitting a hiatus, that’s completely fine! A simple message of putting things on hold is completely sufficient, but I would like to keep in touch in case the story bears great potential. Now I have a wish, or as other say it, a certain craving for something new and fresh. And that something is quite specific, as my interests are a little unorthodox. Not the typical ‘Marvel, DC, My Hero Academia, etc’ type of stick. (Not to throw shade on them! They are great! Just not my cup of tea at the moment)


I heavily enjoy video-games, tv-shows, comics, films, books, the list goes on. Hopefully I can attract some kindred spirits. 
 I do roleplay both Canon and Original!



So if there’s no luck in finding a fitting Canon based story, we can always switch to original world building. First, I like to list all of my heavy cravings and interests. The ones marked in bold are usually the ones I am very willing to do.



Books:

Harry Potter Next Gen (original character cast)

True Blood

Vampire Hunter D (or Manga / Anime)

Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice

Game of Thrones

Videogames:

Dragon Age (from Origins to current instalment)

Castlevania

Devil May Cry

Infamous series

The Darkness

Smite

Star Wars the Old Republic


Webcomics:

Lore Olympus

Lookism

True Beauty

Comics:

Constantine

Hellboy

Witchblade

The Darkness

X-Men

Films:

Alita Battle Angel

Kingsmen

Vampire Hunter D

TV-Shows live action:

True Blood

The Boys

Vikings

Game of Thrones (Open for discussion. Still haven’t recovered from the season finale however…)

TV-Shows animated:

Hellsing

Castlevania (Netflix adaptation)

Devil May Cry (Anime adaptation)

Demon Slayer (I have only started watching this)

FMA Brotherhood

Jojo’s bizarre adventure

Black lagoon

As for original plots, I am very keen on urban and gothic fantasy, but also mythology as well as horror and crime and action. I have plenty of ideas up my sleeve, some of them quite fleshed out and some of them being concepts in the making. Either way, I would rather have these ideas introduced throughout email or whatever platform we choose to communicate on. Themes for an original story I am most inclined to do are:

Supernatural / Metaphysical (Demons, Angels, Spirits, Monsters, etc.)

Mystery

Crime

Action

Sci-Fi & fantasy (Aliens coming in contact with unsuspecting earthlings during the middle ages / ancient time-periods)

Urban fantasy mixed with high school / college themes (similar to Supernatural with local monsters, creatures, etc)

Now onto the qualities of what my roleplaying partner should have.

What it all entails: What the Partnership should be: I strongly encourage an active roleplayer who is not afraid of sharing 50% of ideas, plotting, length, detail but most important of all, passion. A bird cannot fly with only one wing. Communication: I love making new friends and brainstorming, and communication is the bedrock of it all. It strengthens our compatibility and the story. Should there be anything that might bother you, or if you think you are left out in some type of way (be it a mistake on my part or if we’re both at fault here), simply tell me. It really doesn’t bother me rewriting certain scenes to better fit the narrative. We can always exchange opinions and see what would benefit the story most. The Way of Writing: No one-liners. No text-talk. No half-assed replies. And certainly no ‘quality over quantity’ when you can have both. I don’t expect anyone to write a novel, absolutely not. I don’t either, but if I get the feeling of my partner wavering in their effort and not investing as much as I do, I have to give them the chop, unfortunately. Too often have I encountered partners who showed strong enthusiasm at first, but after a while… they slacked and eventually only put the adequate effort into their side of things whilst completely disregarding my characters. I hope to avoid this in the future. And now to myself and how I write: My writing: Third person perspective usually, although I have made some exceptions in my years of writing. My style is wide-ranging and flexible, which means that frequently, word count will go up 1000+ per reply - though it also depends on the given situation and partner. And yes, I do double, preferably even, most likely in a canon universe. However this again wholly depends on the type of story, partner and cast of characters. I am very open and willing to discuss.


Rating: So you are writing with some of mature age. I have 12 years of writing under my belt. There will be violence, there will be swearing, gore, intimacy, uncomfortable topics, drama, conflict and other dark themes included when you are writing with me. I have few limits but I will respect the boundaries of my partner. And lastly, I won’t fade to black or skip out on the nitty gritty, unless it doesn’t serve a particular purpose in forwarding the story.

Characters: I write canon as well as OC characters. Faceclaims, GIFs, drawings, mood boards or just a plain physical description is absolutely sufficient. Characters should be written as opulent, flawed, unique, talented, heroic, villainous, spiteful, angry, and everything in-between. In other words, don’t be scared of making them flawed.

Romance: Openly play and accept characters of both genders, preferable m x f pairings, but I am open to m x m and f x f relationships as well. I have more experience with m x f relationships, so I might be more adaptable with this one. If the chemistry of two characters compel me, I’m on board with it! When it comes to sexual scenarios and intimacy (intercourse, foreplay, all that funny business). I encourage eroticism, but always in a tasteful, sensual manner (that goes for romance as well), though it is never the main focus of any of my stories, rather a tool to further the plot. Erotica is welcome but never the focus of any kind of roleplay. Content: Drama, violence, sex, metamorphosis, symbolism, action, romance, pretty much everything is a-okay. I am not explicitly bothered by certain subjects that may be uncomfortable for the general public. Roleplays are fictional stories and we best keep treating them as such. If there are things you are uncomfortable with, name them and I shall respect those boundaries. But don’t be surprised when suddenly one of our characters bites the dust, or gets tortured, etc. It may be difficult to write and read, but it is all part of the story and a tool for furthering the plot. My roleplays imply and involve brutality, mayhem, psychological and physical altercations among other things. But I also endorse beauty, serenity and placid moments for our characters to grow in. I love it when it comes full circle… everyone- and everything has a beautiful and hideous side. Again, this is mature and I am not here to coddle, I am here for a challenge. Should I hit a hiatus myself, I will inform you as soon as possible. :)



Platforms I usually roleplay on are email and google-docs. I also have Discord in case for plotting and chatting outside of the RP. Though Google Hangouts has proven itself as a sufficient chat-medium for such things, so I rather stay with that one. 



When you message me, please use the given codenames so I know what you like to specify in.

Blue Rose: Canon 


Red Feather: Original 




I’d be happy to receive a small description of yourself and what your passions are! :) Message me here: EMAIL: aylosreverie@gmail.com I am very excited to hear from you! Sincerely yours -Ally

[denimsnake]

10 to 15 for the hlvrai asks......... :-)

thank u jake i love u jake

10. Do you have a favorite headcanon or trope about any of the characters?

this is such a hard question lmao. god ig bubby’s pyrokinesis?? idek if that’s even a headcanon or just canon

11. Have you watched any other series similar to HLVRAI (Gorgeous Freeman, Freeman’s mind)?

many many years ago one of my friends showed me half life: full life consequences but i didn’t know ANYTHING abt half-life at the time loll

12. Do you drink soda?

yeah occasionally! i like root beer/sarsaparilla :)

13. Do you think aliens exist?

in all likelihood extraterrestrial life does exist but i don’t think they’ve made contact with earthlings

14. What toppings do you like on your pizza?

mushrooooooms

15. What weapon would you use in a alien invasion?

why would we fight? we’re in love

hlvrai asks :)

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

Episode 117: The Zoo

“Can you blame ‘em?”

Every Western story about a return journey can be compared to The Odyssey if you squint hard enough, and while Steven’s rescue of Greg has already featured poor decisions and a cyclops, The Zoo is our most obvious reference point to a trial of Odysseus: in this case, the Lotus Eaters. 

Does it make sense that such a small population could genetically reproduce this long? Let alone that distinct races would still be a thing in this inevitably incestuous family tree spanning millennia? Does it make sense that everyone here is roughly the same age, with barely any old people or children? Or that they’re speaking English, a language thousands of years younger than the last human abducted for the Zoo before Greg? Of course not, this is a nonsensical system. But if the choice was eleven minutes going over hyper-realistic minutia of how this system works (most likely, these folks are divided into small packs and we’re just seeing one of many groups) versus an interesting fable about free will and the conflict between hedonism and responsibility, I’m good ignoring the massive leaps required for the Zoo to hold logical water.

A thorny ethical question presents itself here: if the Zoomans are eternally happy and safe, to the point where they don’t understand the concept of “hurt,” is it such a bad thing that they lack free will? To us, freedom is such an obviously good thing that its value is taken as a given, but all choice does here is make the Zoomans unhappy for the first time since an incident long ago enough to be the stuff of legend. This is a group of people whose culture predates Ancient Greece and is still going strong, outlasting any human civilization that’s ever existed on Earth by an impossibly huge degree, so what right do we have to think our moral code is superior to theirs?

The Zoo is dystopia by way of Dora the Explorer, a perfect prison that has babied its inhabitants for so many lifespans that they can’t even fathom disrupting the system. A friendly voice tells them what actions to take to have fun (Smell the flowers! Go to bed! Swiper, no swiping!) and the Zoomans obey without hesitation; they are essentially to humans what modern dogs are to wolves, a domesticated and perpetually juvenile version of the original model. But they certainly aren’t a different species in that way (dogs diverged from wolves genetically tens of thousands of years ago, rather than a paltry 5,000); we see that the Zoomans are quickly capable of making choice when the idea is planted, but they choose to listen to the little voice. Is it ethical to give them the information to make a more informed choice? My gut says yes, but that’s based on a moral code developed by a society that, like English, is much younger than Zooman society.

The second question that arises from the first is the morality of Pink Diamond’s actions. From a Gem perspective, it’s a no-brainer: free will isn’t a societal good to them, so even if Earth wasn’t destroyed as originally planned when the Zoo was built, bringing people to a paradise whose only cost is freedom is an obvious win. This matters a lot for Blue Diamond, who’s still patronizing in her “saving” of Greg but clearly means well by her own alien metrics of good and bad. And in that way, on first viewing, Pink’s behavior becomes far less ambiguous than “evil alien kidnaps humans.” If she’s anything like Blue, she considered it a favor, and that alone characterizes her more than anything else we know at this point.

In retrospect, the Zoo is more clearly a half-measure taken when Pink was trying and failing to stop the colonization she began. This conflict wasn’t short, and it’s great to see evidence of Pink trying smaller ways to help humans before realizing that more drastic actions were necessary, rather than her just jumping straight to full revolution. The fact that the Zoo is still a thing after her permanent shift to Rose Quartz, however, is one of many indicators of Pink’s childish selfishness. She didn’t release the humans she abducted, just as she didn’t think of how her faked murder might have more violent consequences than a freed Earth. I call the selfishness childish because it comes not from malice, but seemingly not knowing any better. This is the self-centeredness of somebody who’s never had any reason to not be self-centered, which doesn’t absolve the harm she causes, but makes her more interesting than a true monster.

While the Gem perspective is clear, Steven provides an ardent opposition to the concept of paradise without choice. At no point is he tempted by a life free of worries, valuing his ties to an existing life despite its many warts. And while Greg shows a few hints of falling for the Lotus Eater trap in his more relaxed attitude towards captivity, it’s crucial that his support of Steven trumps the comfort of this new reality; an entire episode about Greg measuring an easy life versus his son’s happiness, while in keeping from the weird shitty version of Greg we met in House Guest, would’ve been ruinous to his actual character. He’s still chill, and encourages Steven to chill as well for his own well-being, but never goes further in trying to stay at the Zoo; we even know that he tried to escape before Steven arrived.

While their long-awaited reunion is sweet, my favorite Steven'n’Greg moment is the realization that amethysts will likely arrive in response to pain. Steven’s insistence that Greg hit him comes from both impatience and the knowledge that he can take a punch, but Tom Scharpling perfectly captures how insane this sounds to Greg. Even though he’s physically weaker than his superhumanly powerful son, Greg’s willing to get hurt in his kid’s place. And still, Steven hesitates, because neither of these people wants to hit the other despite the circumstances. Finally, after Steven’s punch sends Greg flying, I appreciate his idea to try punching him again; to me, it’s representative of how much Steven thinks of his dad, because he just assumes this middle aged dude is tough enough to shrug off such a blow.

The two lead Zooman representatives sorta blend together, but I think that’s the point: in a society where conformity is the only option, everyone’s bound to act similarly. They’re both portrayed well enough to avoid boring tropes associated with characters like this (we don’t get airy hippies or droning disciples): Cristina Vee’s Jay-Ten and Lamar Abrams’s Wy-Six are delightfully dopey and just a little bit self-superior when things they find obvious are a mystery to our heroes. Vee doubles as the Little Voice, which is correctly played without a hint of menace, and while Abrams has already proven himself as Buck Dewey, I’m impressed by his ability to play a fully different character just as well (he’s also Garbanzo, who also sounds distinct, but he only says his own name so there’s not much room to measure differences).

While I have no idea whether the pun is intentional, I am all about these people raised beyond the stars being spacier than our more grounded Earthlings. Still, their one-note nature means that my favorite Zooman moments are actually Steven’s reactions to them. His quick decision to escape after being told to do “the bits” bit is low key hilarious, as is his bewilderment at their tiny splashes. These aren’t people that are going to make jokes or clever observations on their own, at least in a way that can match what their terrestrial counterparts can accomplish, but at least I never feel bored with the routine in a way that detracts from the episode.

In contrast to the mundane hedonism of daily life, the Choosening is just the sort of cultish jargon that one might expect from a society like this, and I love the familiarity implied in Greg’s world-weary comment that there’s always a catch with this sort of thing. We have no way of knowing how arbitrary the Choosening is, but considering Greg gets chosen Choosened right after arriving, it certainly seems random. While arranged marriage is obviously a thing on Earth as well, the power dynamics on the Zoo are more akin to forced marriage. But even this is colored by an earthly glimpse at an alien culture, because we don’t have any societies with an all-powerful overclass and a genuinely content and cared-for underclass. Is it really forced marriage if the parties involved are happy about it? Even if this is due to them being happy about everything that happens in this society? Are they really capable of true happiness when they’ve experienced no alternate emotions?

This is where the theme of choice versus happiness comes to a head, and it’s so important that we don’t get a tidy ending where free will is presented as a liberating alternative to a peaceful life of following orders. Choices allow for more meaningful happiness, but can lead to sadness as well; while this might seem obvious, I’m always down for children’s media explaining why negative emotions can be okay sometimes (see: Inside Out) and that a life free of pain isn’t necessarily good. It would be disingenuous for real choice to be presented without backlash to a society without free will, and we don’t even get to see how the situation resolves in the original series.

The amethysts march in to help, and Michaela Dietz wonderfully captures gruff warriors helping with emotional wounds. But we end the episode with the Zoomans in turmoil, abandoned by our heroes without a second thought. Based on how the system works, all it takes to reject the Little Voice is just deciding not to listen, and it hadn’t been done before because the Zoomans wanted to listen; again, it’s a tricky situation, because perhaps they do have free will and have chosen obedience. .

As in the last few episodes, we get a cliffhanger ending, but The Zoo bounces back from Gem Heist by having an actual complete story within the chapter. Steven and Greg make a meaningful impact on the Zoomans, but whether it’s for better or worse is up in the air. Our heroes gain the option to eat lotuses in peace for the rest of their days, but choose freedom instead. And they reinforce their bond by sticking together through it all. Now they just have to escape a space station crawling with Gems and find their missing friends and fly home, and that will be all!

Future Vision!

The Zoomans finally return in Steven Universe Future, where their utopia has been expanded to include the Famethyst and Holly Blue. They may be running the station, but they choose to live the way they always have. They’re also petty as hell, which is an excellent development for their passive society.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

While I appreciate the moral questions prompted by The Zoo, and enjoy the episode itself, it’s not quite something that I’d say I love. There’s nothing I find wrong with it, but it lacks a certain amount of oomph that might make it worthy to stand alongside the likes of Alone at Sea or Maximum Capacity in my rankings; this is a high concept episode that has decent character work, but ratio of focus on concept to character doesn’t align with what I love about Steven Universe.

It’s weird to put it in the same category as Gem Heist, because I like The Zoo a lot more, but this is what I get for not having way too many categories. Enh, I can live with it.

Top Twenty

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

Last One Out of Beach City

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Mindful Education

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

Steven’s Dream

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Catch and Release

When It Rains

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Kindergarten Kid

Buddy’s Book

Gem Harvest

Three Gems and a Baby

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Bubbled

Adventures in Light Distortion

Gem Heist

The Zoo

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

Know Your Fusion

Future Boy Zoltron

No Thanks!

     6. Horror Club      5. Fusion Cuisine      4. House Guest      3. Onion Gang      2. Sadie’s Song      1. Island Adventure

[blogenana]

Doctor Who - Earthshock Live Review

So I have my crisps and lemonade and im ready to continue my journey through classic who - idk why I just started live blogging it...

• People are climbing

• So they've found something- an alien I'm assuming- why do humans always tamper with things we shouldn't

• Oh they haven't found something theyre looking for people

• I hate how classic who drags on so slowly

• Sinister music

• 'probably nothing" foreshadowing...

• Okay get to the killing already

• YES FINALLY HELLO DOCTOR

• Wow I forget they must have their own rooms in the Tardis

• Lots of books in Adrics room

• "why should that interest me" ooh okay Adric getting a bit sassy

• Why's he fed up

• looool "I'm tired of being considered a joke" "why am I being constantly teased" maybe because you're annoying and you make sexist remarks?

• oh chill

• The doctor don't have time to deal with this

• aww okay Adric being jealous that Nyssa and Tegan get more attention from the doctor than him is kinda cute

• 'I give you my word' 'just as you gave your word to Tegan" okaaaaay go off (spoiler alert) ik Adric dies in this because I saw a spoiler so this is very sad foreshadowing that the doctor will break his word to Adric about making time for him- kinda sad

• I hate the celery stick

• okay Adric kick off

• Doctor can't take criticism which is interesting because the last time he was probably ever blamed for something was One with Barbara and Ian. I don't remember any companion ever criticizing him like this before

• 'Well it can wait' you'll regret that

• "I'm tired of being an outsider" this would make sense if we had seen him being an outsider before - in my opinion Tegan is the outsider as she's new and not as mathematically advanced as the others. also I would say that Adric is the closest to the doctor out of all 3 so his point isn't really valid

• I guess this is the writers way of making adrics death more tragic

• ooh Adrics theme

• I swear he was an outsider amongst his own people too

• 'the tools would go missing" why do these people never take the hint

• forgot Adric was from e space- tbh what was the doctors plan when he did demand to go home eventually- did he wanna travel with him till he died?

• "e space is another universe, there isn't a taxi service that goes back and forth"

• Romana mention!

• "im not waiting around while you plot the course to your own destruction" the doctor has never experienced a companion death before - also foreshadowing

• "you know I think since his regeneration he's become decidedly immature" this is funny also like 4 was soooo mature

• I like Adric and Five's relationship

• the actor who plays Adric has gone better

• Nyssa is the most mature out of this entire group

• "breathe deeply and relax" why is Tegan a meditation instructer out of nowhere

• the doctor didn't take much convincing

• lol the doctor bopping Tegans nose was cute

• Ooh Dinosaur bones

• let me guess - the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was an alien spaceship or aliens killed them

• Someone screamed

• Ooh yeah she be dead

• Okay the villains look like they're wearing gimp costumes

• Reminds me of American Horror Story Murder House & the leather monster

• Aah doctor who giving a lesson on how the dinosaurs were killed. We love a show that educates

• Did I mention how much I hate the celery stick because I hate it honestly whose idea was it

• Bro chill why is this man grabbing the doctor like that what he do

• Calm the fuck down mate

• Gimp people be shooting

• Okay they may be androids but they'll always be gimp people to me

• Android vision

• CYBERMEN!!!! DAMN

• Why they gotta hit us with the plot twist like that i wasn't ready

• The Cybermen looks sad

• Hehehe the face is funny

• Gimps be strong

• Why do the Cybermen sound muffled

• I find it more creepy when they have human voices than Robots because it makes It more real that these machines have humans in them

• hHaven't seen them in some time

• I love Tegans sarcasm

• I'm cracking up at the Cybermen voice

• 1 gimp down 1 to go

• tThe gimps be dead

• 'prepare to activate the devise" dun dun DUN

• Damn the Cybermen be skinny

• I'm bored i want doctor/cybeman action

• Okay it's getting intense

• Cybermen be SHOOK

• "cyber technology is too advanced for earthlings" figure it out then mate

• He's recognised the Tardis

• THE BEST DIALOGUE "TIME LORDS, BUT THEYRE FORBIDDEN TO INTERFERE"

• THIS ONE CALLS HIMSELF THE DOCTOR, AND DOES NOTHING BUT INTERFERE

• YESS PREVIOUS DOCTORS VS CYBERMEN

• I'm geeking out

• Imma watch this bit a few times hang on

• Aah I loved that it was so cool bloody hell I'm a nerd

• The 2nd Cybermen looked shocked while he was watching

• "have you no emotions sir" classic

• "Adric do you have a moment" "I'm hungry" Okay I like him in this one he's a mood. Why is he suddenly likeable the ep he dies

• "all part of the daily routine" see what I mean

• Well your daily routine Is gonna end soon

• He doesn't wanna go home!!

• Doctor is relieved it's cute

• Ah this is sad

• It would be easier if i didn't know he was gonna die

• Cos I do like their relationship

• Okay we're being introduced to new people

• "you're beginning to bore me" the writers knew

• I'm trying really hard to concentrate I've zoned out

• Ah the doctor has got my attention "I want to announce my presence, see what the reaction is" course

• aaaand the doctor is caught and he's being accused for murder again

• Don't they have cctv just check it

• "apprehended why can't he just say caught" me in English classes

• 'even under the threat of death he has the arrogance of a time lord"

• I thought Cybermen had no emotions but this Cybermen just said he wants the doctor to suffer for their past defeats - revenge is an emotion which is v ironic

• Hh SHIT the Cybermen are walking

• lol tegan " im just a mouth and legs" she's such a mood

• The Cybermen music is cool

• The doctors face when he sees them

• Aah the soldier has betrayed them

• Why is it that whenever there's a women in charge the men who is second can't handle it and goes rogue

• iIt's such a typical trope

• The dialogue for the doctor is great

• "you know them"

• "oh yes, we go back a long way"

• Haha "I'm surprised they didn't mention me" 'well perhaps you overestimate your importance" "oh I doubt it" doctor is and will always be that bitch

• The doctor is doing doctory things

• "that's very clever" "oh it is" the doctor bragging about how clever he is starts here

• Damn tegan she just shot a Cyberman

• Flashback to "the doctor makes people into weapons"

• Finally the doctor vs Cybermen showdown

• Lol I knew they would kill the betrayer

• "our records indicate that you have a fondness for earth" (especially earth girls)

• "this time we shall succeed in destroying the earth" no you won't mate

• Ah the Cybermen coming out of plastic Wrap is a throwback to the 2nd Doctor Cybermen story

• Tegan looks like a badass with the gun

• So they're destroying the leaders of various planets before they destroy the Cybermen

• Tegan has no idea what she's doing

• I love how Five says the most savage lines with the most polite tone

• He could tear you down and look like he's complimenting you

• Tegan has been caught

• Cyberman in the Tardis is weird

• 'who is this woman' - 'no-one of consequence' - 'thanks a lot - gotta love Tegan

• Okay wow that scene between the doctor and the Cyberman about emotions gave me goose bumps what a thrilling scene

• The Cybermen has a point- he can control the doctor because he has emotions

• I'll never get tired of the debate about emotions between them because it genuinely feels like the Cyberman defend the concept of having no emotions to defend their existence

• Five looks hot when he's defending emotions

• Fuck they need to leave Adric behind

• Shit I'm getting nervous

• His theme is playing!

• The Doctor looks conflicted

• Adric leaving his hand out after the doctor let go...

• "I'll see you soon" this is the actors best performance because you can see in his eyes he knows he won't

• The Doctor has never had a companion die before so he walks away without looking back

• "it will once you start getting rusty" Tegan is funny

• Adric is plotting

• The Cybermen say they have no emotions but forcing Tegan watch her own planet getting destroyed is extremely sadistic

• Clever Adric

• The Earth looks different

• Okay so Adric's cleverness is what gets him killed because he knows he can crack the code

• The Dinosaurs! I knew it!

• Oh crap Earth is safe but Adric doesn't know that

• I think this comes down to Adric wanting the doctors attention and wanting to be the best to have his attention

• The Doctor has his pin!

• Five suffocating and shooting a Cyberman is shocking to see

• Adric whyyyyyy

• This Cyberman walking towards him is bloody persistent

• "Now I'll never know if i was right" such Adric last words

• Id like to believe he was

• Damn.

• The Doctors face. The fact that it could have been avoided if he just left the ship

• Adric is the first companion that died on the Doctor's watch

• Adric died thinking the Earth was going to be destroyed and he could have stopped it

• The credits!! his gold star! the silence! this must have been a shock to the viewers. If i didn't know beforehand through spoilers I would be going crazy

• Earthshock had it's ups and downs, the downs in regards to the pace of the plot however the story was good and the Cybermen were fantastic especially their interactions against the doctor. Tegan and Adric were great. Nyssa didn't really have much to do. Davison was amazing. I liked the writing.

• Also I liked the structural shift of the story to the cave androids to the bomb to the spaceship to dealing with The Cybermen to saving Earth and then to Adrics death