#How Much For Just the Planet

[cakehorse]

There was a red flower on the desk where Kirk's dress uniform had been waiting for the laundryman, with a card reading "With the Hotel's Compliments." Kirk smiled, picked up the flower, and with an elaborate flourish of his wrist inserted it in his buttonhole. When Pete's buddy Zack, playing the cat burglar, pretended to stun Kirk, he would grasp the flower as a last, sinking gesture. Tonight's entertainment was being played for royalty, after all.

How Much for Just the Planet by John M. Ford

Many people believe the T in James T. Kirk stands for "Tiberius," but it actually stands for "Total Drama Queen."

[dduane]

In any drafts of Dark Mirror, did the Enterprise's Cetacean Ops ever appear? I know it had already been mentioned both onscreen and in the TNG Technical Manual which you seem to have researched heavily from by the time the book was in process. Not actually sure how Delphines would get on with the Cetaceans of Earth origin who would likely be aboard ship at that point, just wondering if those interactions were ever considered.

Love your work, and also seeing you and Peter (and Neil) cameo in Ford's How Much For Just the Planet? as well!

I thought about it, but (possibly due to plot-timing and -emphasis considerations) it didn't happen.

The TNG Tech Manual was written by friends of mine, and while writing Dark Mirror I was particularly thinking about Rick Sternbach, who'd been drawing and painting spacegoing dolphins for as long as anybody can remember. :) The "Delphine" concept was a present for him.

Meanwhile, thanks for the kind words about my work! ...And yeah, to have appeared in How Much... was a high point for me (and definitely for Peter). It's very difficult to express how fabulous a writer Mike Ford was, and what a delight it was that he felt we needed to be included in that wildly funny and subversive book. He was absolutely one of the most gifted writers I've ever had the pleasure to know, and he's very much missed.

[willowser]

HMMMMM bakugou being just. the absolute picture of sin.

he works overnight and comes home early in the morning, around 3 or 4 am or so, and you greet him and give him a kissy and ask how it all went. and even though it's still dark outside and he's been working for twelve hours—he's still coming off patrol, right ? so he's still got some energy left, and he eats something and takes a shower and winds down as you fall back to sleep.

and it's not until much later in the day that he wakes up, early afternoon, and you're kind of tiptoeing around so that he can get his much-needed rest. you slip into the closet of your bedroom for something and you think you're gonna get in and out without a sound, but his hearing is so attuned to just about anything and everything at this point.

so rough and raspy, he grunts out, "what're y'lookin' for?" and you whip around real fast and he's just—

half sitting up in bed, bare back leaning against the headboard. an arm behind his head, so that his bicep is tense and round and stone-solid. stretched like that, his obliques are more prominent, taut and rippling up the side of his ribcage. he must have gotten hot while passed out, as he usually does, because the comforter is all askew; one of his legs is bent, the fine hair a dark gold in the waning day; the other is hanging off the bed, lightly swinging as he watches you, and the blanket has come down enough that you can see the bulge of his thigh muscles beneath his stupid tiny black boxer briefs.

and he's just so. man. in every single way.

(his hair is flat on one side, too, and his eyes are still a little puffy from sleep—but you think that adds to it, all in all)

[vaguely-concerned]

sometimes I think of all the on-the-surface warm, well-meaning but deeply ineffectual advice and attention john gives harrow through harrow the ninth (make some soup and get some sleep! get a hobby! don't be so hard on yourself! self care harrow! as long as I need take no actual responsibility in this relationship whatsoever I would have loved to be your dad!) set up against the stark truth that with his other hand he has been staging her attempted horrific murder again and again and again like a living nightmare on the logic that it will 'put her down or fix her'. and then I find that I wish there is a hell. a special hell where twitch streamers turned necromantic death emperors go

[marlynnofmany]

Here, have an album cover. I know one of the tracks would have to be the space shanty, but what else would they sing about?

[kuragesoda]

do you see my vision . do you see it

(+ textless ver and bonus with THE song lyric of all time)

[prolibytherium]

Would kill to read animal POV fiction that has the animal POV’s interaction with humans be like, semi realistic to the level of caution most predators take with large prey and/or competitors (including humans).

Like instead of the usual - “the human is such a weak, pathetic creature... so slow, no claws, blunt teeth… completely helpless without its 'Fire Sticks'. how is it the master of the earth?” type crap it’s like, the bear protagonist or whatever approaches some dude who spreads their arms and yells and the bear is like “FUUUUUUUUCK THAT THING JUST GOT HUGE. IT'S LARGE AND MAKING NOISES. HOLY FUCK.”

[orangerosebush]

Artemis will disassemble and clean a fountain pen with the same level of intensity as Butler disassembling and cleaning one of his guns.

[cakehorse]

"I am here," Chekov said. He was carrying a worn leather bag filled with hickory-shafted clubs and wore baggy plus-four trousers bloused above the ankles and a floppy red-plaid tam o'shanter with a huge crimson pompom.

How Much For Just the Planet by John M. Ford

Chekov showing up for a golf duel against the Klingons.

[dduane]

As there's been some discussion of How Much For Just The Planet? recently: above is the link to the Gizmodo review.

In the process, Kirk ends up involved in Shakespearean nightmare involving star-crossed lovers, Uhura is chained to a Klingon while they live out a Raymond Chandler plot, and Sulu and McCoy are captured by an evil queen who wants to make them her slaves. And best of all, Scotty has a duel with a Klingon, fought the traditional Scottish way: a round of golf. Also there’s a pie fight.

[revelisms]

Lil' comic of a scene from a fic I haven't gotten around to writing.

(basically Vi and Jinx have reconciled, Silco is alive, and Vi is begrudingly finding herself beginning to look up Silco as a mentor/father figure. She accompanies him on an errand run, one of which winds them up at the old cannery, and emotions bubble up biiig time 🥲)

[dekusleftsock]

Why are you eating it like toga I know what you are.

What is this

Horikoshi why must you make me feel things

Why is ochako this meme tho

I need to redraw this but flipped from the way everyone else draws this meme with them

[spookygibberish]

Dogstock are typical of what are often deemed the ‘evil’ races in many other fantasy works. They were created by some higher force to be slaves, they are carnivorous by nature, they resemble animals other than human in dentition and build. They growl and bite and walk behind.

The Uhasr (a dogstock culture) are descendants of such slave-infantry that was abandoned when the empire that used them to capture the steppes decided the land wasn’t so profitable after all, and more pressing matters drew their attention elsewhere. Like tools left spent on the ground, the unneeded, excess dogstock were left to survive on their own in Hochkiskuph. The native peoples, of course, did not welcome them any more, or see them any less as oppressors when the hand released the lead. To the Hochkiskuph peoples, the Uhasr are a predatory ghost, an echo that consumes them even in absentia. To the Uhasr, one human is much like another, differing in number and equipment, but never in essence. Uhasr are a species of wild animal with a human face. Humans are prey on two legs. Humans smoke and poison uncovered dens on principle, Uhasr abduct and consume men and women and children all the same.

A common trend I have noticed in media which aims to humanize monsters, is that it often relies on passivity. Humanity is contingent upon kindness. The monster that is A Person only so long as they are a harmless thing at heart, something which can be understood and befriended. Their violence is reluctant, their hearts noble. Grace is a concession to the dominated. Only the toothless beast, declawed and pinioned and caged, is one which has earned its personhood. The ontological enemy supersedes the ontological man.

[lord-squiggletits]

One of my favorite parts of phase 2 (and indeed one of the few moments I resonated with IDW Prowl) was when the neutrals were coming back to Cybertron and Prowl said that he refused to let Autobots be pushed aside and overruled after they were the ones who fought for freedom for 4 million years (the exact wording escapes me atm).

And I mean, that resentment still holds true even once the colonists come on bc like. As much as it's true that Cybertron's culture is fucked up, and as funny as it can be to paint Cybertronians as a bunch of weirdos who consider trying to kill someone as a common greeting not important enough to hold a grudge over.... The colonists POV kind of pissed me off a lot of times, as did the narrative tone/implications that Cybertronians are forever warlike and doomed to die by their own hands bc it just strikes me as an extremely judgemental and unsympathetic way to deal with a huge group of people with massive war PTSD and political/social tensions that were rampant even before the war?

Like, imagine living in a society rife with bigotry and discrimination where you get locked into certain occupations and social strata based on how you were born. The political tension is so bad there's a string of assassinations of politicians and leaders. The whole planet erupts into an outright war that leads (even unintentionally) to famine and chemical/biological warfare that destroys your planet. Both sides of the war are so entrenched in their pre-war sides and resentment for each other that this war lasts 4 million years and you don't even have a home planet any more. Then your home planet gets restored and a bunch of sheltered fucks come home and go "ewww why are you so violent?? You're a bunch of freaks just go live in the wilderness so that our home can belong to The Pure People Who Weren't Stupid And Evil Enough To Be Trapped In War" and then a bunch of colonists from places that know nothing about your history go "lol you people are so weird?? 🤣🤣 I don't get why y'all are fighting can't you just like, stop??? Oh okay you people are just fucked up and evil and stupid then" ((their planets are based on colonialism where their Primes wiped out the native populations btw whereas the Autobots and OP in particular fought to save organics. But that never gets brought up as a point in their favor)) as if the damage of a lifetime of war and a society that was broken even before the war can just magically go away now that the war is over.

Prowl fucking sucks but he was basically the only person that pointed out the injustice of that.

And then from then on out most of the characters from other colonies like Caminus and wherever else are going "i fucking hate you and your conflicts" w/ people like literal-nobody Slide and various Camiens getting to just sit there lecturing Optimus about how Cybertronians are too violent for their own good and how their conflicts are stupid, with only brief sympathetic moments where the Cybertronians get to be recognized as their own ppl who deserve sympathy before going right back to being lambasted.

Like I literally struggled to enjoy the story at multiple points because there was only so much I could take of the characters I knew and loved being raked over coals constantly while barely getting to defend themselves or be defended by the narrative so like. It was just fucking depressing and a little infuriating to read exRID/OP

[cali-kabi]

~ Underwater Dive Redraw🌊💫🌟

made a redraw of a piece I done a few years ago, it’s one of my favorite levels from Kirby Planet Robobot :D I love how the whole level takes place underwater and the music is so good as well. <3 I also love playing Meta Knightmare so much it’s lots of fun <3🌟💫the original drawing is under the cut pls go easy on me I’m very nervous cuz I like not really show talk about my old arts ;w;💦(tumblr will delete/hide this again I just know it, and once people see my name cali-kabi and that I made this they will all ignore it im sorry that’s how I feel about myself maybe I should just completely delete this drawing file outta here no one cares)

Made this around September 2021 before the Kirby and forgotten land announcement hehe xD💫🌊

[antiqua-lugar]

sorry that fandom poll got to me and aside from being eternally sad that me:a will not get a sequel, i will never be over how great the reyes vidal romance is.

like he and ryder met once for a mission but that one conversation where they talk Kadara politics and flirt hard apparently was enough to go Yes, I Met The One, everyone around them is going "oh gods no" and it fucking works. they go through all the most dramatic movie plot twists - the evil ex! the date that actually was a heist! kiss as a distraction! local smuggler with a heart of gold is actually the secret leader of a whole planet - and then they settle in the most chill, comfy long distance relationship because the pathfinder and the charlatan are the only people who understand each other as being people and leaders and completely unhinged people. reyes is like "from now on I want to be honest with you" and ryder is like "when you gotta lie you gotta lie" and then they just carry on like that. reyes has known ryder for like a few months at best but love is real so he immediately writes ryder down as the charlatan's consort and everyone on kadara just has to live with it.

like it's not even a "I can fix him" kind of romance, all companions are like "Are you sure?" and Ryder is like "Yeah? He's fine". and he is