#Kind of science fiction-ish

[hydrasheadscientistmcu]

The Lab

ask me questions! Ask about my experiments, what I work on, I would love to share.

/Artemia Stár is the head scientist of HYDRA and does highly questionable research and methods to obtain said research. She believes knowledge is above all else, including human life. She works for HYDRA because they are really the only people willing to supply her with the means she needs to do her work. She is highly intelligent and always ten steps ahead. She has ways to put anything right back on her track. Usually it’s a ‘you don’t bother me I don’t bother you’ kind of deal unless HYDRA captures you to be a Subject. She is highly organized with tons of backup plans, because as already mentioned she believes knowledge to be above all else and so will go far lengths to protect it. She is also comparable to being almost entirely emotionless, and does not give pity or remorse to her subjects. To her, failure is simply a stepping stone, and she sees information in all situations and is a master at using that information later.

appearance: Dark-ish red hair, pale skin with no freckles, and gray eyes. Wears simple black clothes and a long white lab coat that contains tons of hidden pockets. She almost always has a pen and clipboard with her./

(feel free to rp, just if it’s a detailed one take it seriously and it kind of bothers me if you like, are inconsistent and stuff. Idk. It’s a writer thing maybe. Just respect how my character (Artemia) would act etc. like no, she does not have better rooms. She has basically prison cells that are bigger and all white. Also she most likely wouldn’t interact with children and I don’t like it if someone is being overpowered or changing thing just so it ends up better for them)

has a younger sister: @notascientistfromthemcu

[thefringespod]

Happy #AudioDramaSunday wanderers! Looking for a show to fill the void now that the Fringes is over? Well, look no further as today we're shouting out some excellent shows to fall in love with now that our show has concluded! Let's get started!

Starting things off with @souloperatorpod which was created by our very own Marigold, @totcoc0a ! Soul Operator is horror and mystery and ttrpg inspire amazingness. Everything Tot has done with this show sings in the best of ways and @strautmaskreplica's editing is divine

@grottopod is liminal horror about grief and caving with original music and cover songs in each episode and it's absolutely fantastic. Our very own @taytayheyhey is one of the main characters and does amazing work! @athansmusic has ripped my heart out and honestly? Worth it.

@woebegonepod starts as a fictional game and becomes time travel, murder, and cowboys. It also has amazing original music its episodes and while most of it has been just Dylan's voice acting, the VAs he has in the later seasons are wonderful. This show defies genre and I love it

@tellnotalespod has ghosts! And grief! And convoluted science about ghosts and grief! It is the kindest show about ghosts you will ever encounter and has made me cry so much. Leon Egan poured his whole heart into this show and it shows in every facet of it

Would this really be a recommendation list from me if I didn't mention @ethicstownpod ? Imagine if moral quandries carried real world weight and then turn that guilt up to 11 and you have Ethics Town. I adore this show and everything that it has become and I cannot WAIT for S3

It also wouldn't be me without mentioning The Technomancy Project which is another genre mashup in the best of ways it's got horror it's got sci fi it's got magic it's made me cry it's great!

@thekilda is part of the reason that the Fringes happened at all. Seeing this dark fantasy cult stuff podcast from the ground up inspired me to finish writing the Fringes and I'm eternally grateful. It also introduced me to Michelle Kelly's work and then she became Alexandria!

@doyoucopypod is another show about grief (why do I love so many shows about grief?) with horror and fantasy elements and it squeezes my heart in my chest. @delaylays has created one of my favorite series of all time with this show and I know s3 will destroy me

@allatseapod is horror-ish microfiction about being stranded- you guessed it- at sea. Noah Bell's voice acting and writing are both phenomenal and i am desperate to find out how Feb got themself into this mess they're in

@audistorium is an anthology which runs all over the genre-sphere and has some of the best writing and sound design I've ever heard. It's got an episode for every kind of listener and Landon Lemon Whisnant does excellent voice work in it!

@thenightpost has cozy horror vibes and also respect the post office which is something we should all do more. The magic in this world is so intriguing and the characters are so engaging and all of the work in it is wonderful I cannot recommend it more

@hinaypod also falls into cozy horror for me but more along the lines of "Motzie Dapul has a very soothing and cozy voice and OPE NOPE THERES THE HORRORS!" Im very early on still but the weaving of magic and folklore and Filipino culture is fantastic (Also they're crowdfunding for season 3 on ko-fi and you wanna back it soooo bad https://ko-fi.com/hinaypod/goal?g=34)

And finally (for this post at least) we have @camlannpod which is the most hopeful post apocalypse show I've ever encountered. It has Arthurian legends, folklore, mythology, beautiful music, brilliant performances, excellent writing, and Paul Warren, what more could you want?

If you're looking for more from me to fill the void, then you're in luck as @forgedbondspod starts on the 18th!! If you wanna get access to that even sooner, it will be going like for crowdfunder backers and patrons over at patreon.com/pinetreepods on the 14th!

Work and working on Forged Bonds has kept me busy so I haven't had as much podcast listening time but I'm hoping to get back in the swing of listening and Audio Drama Sunday posting again soon!!

[dandelionjack]

it’s really sad for me to discover that the recent-ish mcu features so much time travel/alternate variants of characters/parallel universes/paradoxes etc because it feels like doctor who + star trek and co should have the monopoly on these kinds of stories. irrational and petty i know. But i don’t think billionaire blockbusters have the right to pretend to be cerebral and interesting. it should be about idiots in weird costumes punching each other and shooting lasers from their eyes for 12 years old boys to gawk at . you will not subsume the coolest science fiction concepts into yourself. go bankrupt

[dingodad]

i think on all practical levels yes trolls are basically a clone race and it's just that instead of cloning vats they use a big bug for it. and a lot of people assume that means using a big bug for reproduction must be some shit they made up for clout and that it's Wrong but i think this misses the point lol i don't think homestuck is trying to say any one method of reproduction is more or less acceptable than another. insectoid clone races are so often made the villains in science fiction because as humans we can have these paranoias about strange and unfamiliar forms of reproduction that make those sorts of aliens easy to hate or paint as inherently evil. but you gotta challenge those kinds of biases.

#it'sokay to be a clone race because ultimately whether or not the person who raises you is actually your biological progenitor isn't really what's important. not being raised by your genetic forebears isn't what makes alternia fucked up because beforus worked in basically the same way; they just had a system of communal parenting that complemented their cloning-ish method of reproduction. what's fucked up on alternia is that trolls are separated from their ancestors by thousands of years and then told that it's actually super important that they know about their ancestors and try to emulate them in every possible way. so these highbloods spend their whole lives screwing themselves over trying to be exactly like someone who lived in ancient times that they were never even supposed to know or care about in the first place and then lowbloods go around with this sense of inferiority hanging over them because they don't have any kind of grand fascist narrative of genetic importance to uphold. but that's just my 2 cents

[nestofstraightlines]

I saw a post noting the Hitchhiker's Guide vibes in Wild Blue Yonder, and noticed the replies were full of Doctor Who fans to whom the references were news - fair enough, obviously, Tumblr has a young and international population.

Most Who fans probably know the name Douglas Adams if only vaguely - that this independently successful author was also at once stage in the late 70s Script Editor for Doctor Who and himself wrote three very well-regarded serials for the show.

They may also be aware that he's a particular influence on New Who partly because of that direct connection, and partly because he's kind of to British and/or comedic science fiction what was Tolkein is to fantasy.

So the suggestion you try some Adams if you're a Doctor Who fan is probably not a new idea. But for many, diving into fairly tangentially related fiction from 40+ years ago might not seem very tempting on those grounds alone.

But just in case no one's told you, what Hitchhiker's Guide can offer you as a New Who fan is kind of more New Who.

As I say, though Adams was only briefly (though significantly) in charge of Who itself, his influence on modern Who writing is almost as big on its own as the rest of Classic Who combined.

And it's not just the voice and humour that will ring a bell.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is what happens when you tell the Doctor Who story but take away the Tardis from the Doctor figure. It's a twist on the Doctor Who format where an alien grabs a human away from Earth to travel through a mad galaxy with them, but this alien has no transport of his own and must thumb a ride, and instead of a Littlest Hobo urge to fix every bad situation he stumbles into wishes only to have a good time (bit of a Hartnell touch there I guess).

Crucially I'm not describing a parody of Doctor Who. I don't now that Adams was even super conscious of this read of his most famous tale. But he had certain archetypes in his brain and the comedy writer's habit of wondering 'what if X but Y' and what you get from it could absolutely be described as the Doctor Who show of a different timeline. Something which offers all the pleasures of Doctor Who approached from a different angle.

Finally, in terms of what format to seek out (because Hitchhiker's exists as a radio serial, a set of novels, a TV series and a much later film adaptation) I'd strongly recommend the radio series. In general, and specifically as having the most of offer Doctor Who fans.

The books have become often regarded as somehow the central 'canon' because people assume as books they must have come first. In fact the radio series came first.

I also think it couldn't be more perfect for Doctor Who fans because like that show it's got all the pleasures of great performances as well as the great writing (there is a Hitchhiker's TV series but trust me when I say this is tale built for audio). It's not just full of great performances delivering Adams' comedy perfectly, it also feels huge; the music and sound design evoking such an existentially big, grand, weird, thrilling universe. So especially if you already like Big Finish stories but haven't listened to Hitchhiker's Guide before, you've got such a Who-ish treat awaiting you.

(Toppodcast dot com has it all available.)

[scarefox]

fic recs because these AU's are very neat

also AUs are so damn rare in BL fandoms for some unknown reason

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Welcome to Horizon! by Janelle24601 Rating: Mature Relationships: Babe/Charlie (Pit Babe), Alan/Jeff (Pit Babe), Kenta/Kim (Pit Babe), Babe and Kim Additional Tags: None Beta read, dystopian au, Fluff and Angst, Smut, Slow Burn, Charlie and Babe become a force to be reckoned with, Personality Tests, strange traditions, indoctrination, perfect society, Tony is a bad guy (what else is new), More tags as I go, Hunter Babe, Secrets, Living Together, working together, Underground group, Covert Operations Summary: In an effort to create a better world, all humans must take a personality test. If your personality does not meet the criteria set by the government, then you are sent to work camps. Where it is public knowledge that they live a horrible life of abuse, torture, and endless hard work for 18 hours a day. Charlie is about to turn 18 and take his test……….he fails and gets sent to a camp…….where he meets Babe ……….in the meantime Charlie’s brother Jeff has passed his test and met Alan who knew Babe before he got sent to the camp…….will the two couples team up and find out exactly what is wrong with the system, saving their friends in the process?

my 5 cents: sci-fi-ish DYSTOPIAN AU with giant creatures and danger zones, messed up society, Charlie is forced to live and work with Babe, Babe & Kim are kind of frenemies working together

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Blood Oath by MoontheNyx Rating: Explicit Relationships: Babe/Charlie (Pit Babe) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Background Relationships, Vampires, Vampire Bites, Vampire/Vampire Relationship, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Arranged Marriage, Falling In Love, Angst with a Happy Ending, kinda enemies to lovers, everybody is a vampire, enemy vampire clans arranging marriage, charliebabe brainrot of mine continues nonstop, charlie doesn't have glasses this time because come on he's a vampire, Angst, Blood Oaths, Weird Plot Shit, if you like vampire fics just read it, both charlie and babe being more of assholes Summary: “I know this is hard for you, Babe. Do this for our clan. I’m sure you can handle a youth like Charlie.” Tony talked slightly softer to him this time. Tony was trying to get under his skin, telling him that he should be handling a fledgling. After all Babe was almost 400 years old, it meant he was four times older than Charlie, if he remembered Charlie’s age correct. Babe wasn’t the best listener out there even though his hearing was better than others. or Tony's favorite vampire child Babe being forced to marry vampire Charlie from the enemy clan.

my 5 cents: Vampires! who get horny over biting and blood! (this is what I miss in the vampire BLs we have atm), arranged marriage with some enemies to lovers, cool vampire lore, Way has a mystery ex husband 👀

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The Star Within by caesarcal Rating: Mature Relationships: Pooh Krittin Kitjaruwannakul/Pavel Naret Promphaopun, Babe/Charlie (Pit Babe), Alan/Jeff (Pit Babe), Kenta/Kim (Pit Babe), Pete/Way (Pit Babe), North/Sonic (Pit Babe), Dean/Winner (Pit Babe) Additional Tags: Science Fiction, Alien/Human Relationships, Alternate Universe, How Do I Tag, Adventure & Romance, Shameless Smut, The Author Regrets Nothing, No Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot Summary: A star had scattered years ago, its energy fragments falling to Earth and embedding themselves within the chests of select humans. These individuals were gifted with extraordinary powers, each one unique to the person they were bestowed upon. The Galactic Council had become increasingly concerned about the impact of these powers on Earth's fragile ecosystem and the balance of power among its inhabitants. After much deliberation, it was decided that a team of elite space force operatives would be dispatched to Earth on a mission to collect the scattered star fragments from the chosen individuals. Each member of the team was assigned to a specific person, someone who emitted a unique energy signature that could be detected by advanced space technologies. "Pavel, I'll assign this kid to you," Sailub said to Pavel. He tapped on the keyboard to send the human's profile to the space cat. The space cat nodded, he tapped his watch and a hologram of Pooh Krittin's profile came into view. Pooh Krittin. 21 years old. Height, 180cm. A university student, majoring in robotics and AI engineering.

my 5 cents: Pavel is an undercover space-cat-alien and gets bullied by cats in a cat café, what else do you need to know? 😂 Delicious conflict of forbidden love and hidden identity. Also there is some murderous creepy stalker after them.

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

Okay, time for MY headcanons about the YJs' taste in books

Shauna: Canonically likes Kurt Vonnegut. Perhaps other satirical novelists like Evelyn Waugh, Joseph Heller, and Bret Easton Ellis. Likeliest YJ character to have actually read and enjoyed Lord of the Flies, but took the wrong lessons from it. Reads lots of feminist nonfiction but little feminist fiction. Jackie: Not much of a reader. Naturally gravitates towards "airport"/"beach" novels but can be sold on somewhat meatier literature with aesthetic and genre qualities that are similar, like Daphne du Maurier's body of work and, in a pinch, Wuthering Heights. Lottie: I think she would like the kind of Asian Christian fiction that becomes popular-ish in the West. Silence, The Martyred, that sort of book. Genuinely enjoys paradigmatic "school study" novels like The Great Gatsby, East of Eden, and the like. Claims to have read more Dostoyevsky than she has, but has at least read White Nights and The Idiot. Unlike Nat, knows who Mishima Yukio is but refuses to read anything by him. Nat: Is a Hunter S. Thompson girlie. Unlike Lottie, has read at least one Mishima novel but doesn't know anything about him. Taissa: Mostly reads nonfiction related to her philosophical, political, and historical interests. Lots of Eric Foner, Lillian Faderman, W.E.B. Du Bois, law reviews, weirdo economists (affectionate) like Henry George and E.F. Schumacher, maybe some British commentators on land issues like William Cobbett, J.B. Priestley, and Oliver Rackham. Van: The only big "genre" reader. Has read a fair amount of Tolkien; was into Terry Brooks for a while; really enjoys feminist and lesbian fantasy and science fiction; felt betrayed about Marion Zimmer Bradley but, conversely, doesn't like Anne Rice nearly as much as... Misty: Likes Anne Rice more than Van does. Likes Anne Rice more than MOST people do. Canonically reads Nora Roberts. Would have a worrying amount of overlap in taste with a living, forty-three-year-old Jackie. Laura Lee: Was born to read the Locked Tomb books behind her parents' backs, heavily annotating all the Biblical quotes and paraphrases and having big feelings over Mercymorn and Cristabel. Unfortunately, was born too early for that, and did the equivalent with Brideshead Revisited instead. Was mortified when Shauna mixed up Laura Lee's copy of Brideshead with her own and almost brought it home with her one day. Enjoys Victorian poetry like Rossetti and Hopkins. Akilah: Really into the kind of older children's literature that is written in an erudite enough way that it is now read mostly by teenagers and adults, like L.M. Montgomery and Elizabeth Goudge. Mari: Born to read Otherside Picnic, forced to read the first Animorphs book over and over after stealing it from a younger relative eighteen hours before the crash.

[mdzs-fics]

ridiculous future bullshit by sami

Future Fic 19 works 61K words

While rereading through works related to Author sami's And Time Is But A Paper Moon, reviewed here and here and here, I remembered reading the ridiculous future bullshit series. Through 19 short works of fiction, Author sami creates a reasonable facsimile of what the future looks like if six Immortals survive into the 21st century, forming the Five Nations.

Note: Author sami tells us "So this is the actual first-ish entry in the ridiculous future bullshit series, which of course means it is still the purest trash, it's bullshit and any complaints will still be met with you were warned."

Let's take a quick look at a few of the tales.

Now Showing: Hanguang-Jun And The Yiling Patriarch

Wei Wuxian rubs his nose. "Look, I'm guessing you're okay with your movie being, like… complete bullshit, right?"

"They are okay with that. They are so very fucking okay with that," Steve snaps.

"Okay." Wei Wuxian grins, and Dennis suddenly absolutely believes that he is talking to a trickster god. "You don't want to put Sandu Shengshou in this movie, trust me. And if you make this about sh- Jiang Yanli's actual marriage, then she might cry, and then Sandu Shengshou and I will have to raze this place to the fucking ground and salt the earth on which it stood, nobody wants that kind of hassle. But you can have a poor girl named Mo Fan - she has a terrible family, make it a bit like Cinderella, that was an okay movie."

Wei Wuxian has seen Cinderella.

Dennis notices that a sparkly princess crown has fallen out of Wei Wuxian's shopping bags.

"Mo Fan," he croaks. "Got it. Cinderella."

Wei Wuxian nods earnestly. "And a handsome prince named Jin Guangyao meets her and falls in love with her. He's in town to… try and help the villagers rebuild after the famine that drew the monsters there," he says. "Because he's just a really good guy. You can say it sends messages about how not all heroes are stabby fighters."

In which an animated movie Hanguang-Jun and the Yiling Patriarch is discussed with its Producer while the poor, ignored Five Nations consultant recognizes the two Immortals in the Producer's office.

Let's just say the original premise featuring "the story of Hanguang-Jun, a noble prince, who defeats the monsters terrorising the city of Yiling with the help of the grizzled old Yiling Patriarch, and in the process falls in love with a local maiden, Princess Lotus Blossom." is not appreciated.

Flick of the Wrist

Dernier is famous. He's been on television in sixteen countries. She's bound to be impressed.

He skips actually attending the afternoon session in favour of writing and then recording a long YouTube video about the Symposium. He titles it Inside the Top Secret Medical Conference You've Never Heard Of, and uploads it with a smirk. That'll show them for not actually inviting him.

In which a Famous Medical Researcher attends a Symposium held by Wen Qing. Once.

Lan Zhan's University Days (JAFFY)

Ziyuan gives him a look. "Last I checked, you weren't in charge of the computer science department, shushu, and this is what I have to do if I want to pass."

Jiang Ying scowls. "We'll see about that," he says darkly. He leaves the room briefly and comes back with a laptop of his own. It looks like it was probably sleek and expensive once, but now it's covered with glitter stickers. He sets it on the table and turns it on; when he clears away the windows he did have up, Jordan thinks she sees a browser tab open to YouTube frozen on a still frame of a Hanguang-Jun and the Yiling Patriarch fanvid.

Jiang Ying really seems to like that movie. He wears Hanguang-Jun and the Yiling Patriarch t-shirts at least once a week.

"You run Suibian?" Peter, one of the other students, sounds impressed. Jordan has heard of it - it's an open-source operating system, which is apparently important. Her sister is Very Into Computers, and talks about it a lot, apparently it's way better than other operating systems. Ava keeps trying to get Jordan to let her install it on her computer.

"I wrote Suibian," Jiang Ying says absently, typing rapidly.

"Holy shit," Peter breathes. "You're Axian?" He pronounces it Axe-ian.

"A-Xian," Jiang Ying corrects, still typing. "But you can't call me that, stick to Jiang Ying. I wrote it for my brother and sister, they needed something with actual security for their… work."

"Why does the source code say my sword is always at your service?" Peter asks eagerly. "Everyone has so many theories about that. Do you play D&D?"

"I don't. It says that because for them, it is. Hush now, do your work, I'm busy," Jiang Ying says, tossing a smile over his shoulder. Text is scrolling rapidly through several terminal windows.

In which Lan Zhan goes to veterinary school and the entire class is adopted for the semester after failing their first exam because Students Were Distracted.

Characters encountered here are met again and again in other tales. Some characters become more important than others.

And there are kittens.

The stories are not canon and are definitely not to be taken too seriously. Still … they are an exceptionally enjoyable read.

And yes, I enjoy YouTube "The Untamed" themed crack videos as well.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

No hate to the other anon u just answered or you but it kinda bothers me when ppl are like "jurassic park isn't realistic that's not what dinosaurs were" WE BARELY KNEW ANYTHING ABOUT DINOSAURS AT THE TIME. We had literally just come up with the concept WHILE making the movie that they were related to birds!!!! We didn't know they had feathers!!!!! That was likely not a thought we had yet!!!!!!!!! And the cgi was incredible for the time!!!!!! "Its not realistic" IT WAS MADE 30 YEARS AGO. idk im just. Special interested in it but like. of course it wasnt realistic it was based on the best information we had at the time!!!! And it wasnt meant to be a "oh this is what dinosaurs will look like forever" it was ehat we knew!!!!!

there are some choices they made that can be criticised (dilophosaurus spit and small??? velociraptor big and boxy??? also they left out maiasaura :( )but yeah this is p much my position on the first two films, and even to an extent the third. Jurassic World just went backwards SO MUCH that it was worse than the original JP. That's ridiculous. One of the good things ABOUT Jurassic Park was how it updated people's perception of dinosaurs from sluggish lizards to active bird-ish-guys (they do say birds multiple times, but what can you do. people are bad at media literacy) and I hate that JW utterly ruined that legacy. JWD kind of fixed a little of it but not nearly enough IMO

I do appreciate JWD for the plot with the crops and the locusts, though, bc I was a geneticist and I've been to conferences and that is a very real things companies want to do to be able to control the food supply. We are careening towards a capitalistic dystopia the likes of which seem like science fiction and I'm tired. so I felt validated lmao

[post-itpenny]

Swimming

I bought Subnautica on sale a few weeks ago and the idea of this fic started rolling around in my brain almost immediately. As of now, I will probably post short(ish?) chapters every other day but that may change.

The title was taken from the song Swimming by Florence and the Machine. Science fiction isn't so much my forte, but I liked the idea of working within the game's many storylines and transcending into something somewhat fanciful while keeping true to the syfi/horror elements. A lot of this will be headcannons for the characters and a couple OC's. But these are just my interpretations, you do you Sunshine.

This world is beautiful, I'm happy that I can share it with you.

Chapter 1: Falling

The impact was so loud that the sound alone shook the walls of the Aurora.

Ryley froze, as did the dozen other people in the hallway. There was a split second of logic trying to spill into place to answer the question of what happened.

It was a meteor, debris, or some foreign object that got past the ship’s defense perimeter. It’s a long spacewalk and a few spots of welding ripped metal awaiting him.

But the ship felt different, and that split second was crushed as fast as it came. Something was wrong.

Later, he would question if the alarms really did take that long to sound off. Or if his panic had stretched the moment out. A second turned into minutes. But Ryley was already sprinting to the nearest Lifepod Bay by the time the alarms blared and flashed to life.

Ryley had completed four successful trips since starting with the Aurora Maintenance Team. Each launch was prefaced with a five minute video on evacuation safety and two hours of struggling to complete a single drill. It was like herding cats, as his uncle would have said.

It was worse than that now, he could hear the panic just behind him. The stampede of people pushing and shoving. There were no neat and orderly lines walking to the nearest pod as they practiced loading in teams of two. “Make sure you stay with your exit buddy!” Some lady from Health and Safety would be twittering through the intercoms. 

Not here, none of that was here.

Ryley once read that it was traditional on Earth that women and children would evacuate first with ship officers last. But this was space, this was an Altera craft. He was certain none of that really mattered here.

But, as Ryley rounded the last corner, he realized there was a problem. The doors to the pod bay were jammed shut. Too many people already there banging on the keypad, they needed a ship officer to authorize entry, and the poor man was stuck behind the crowd, shouting at deaf ears to be let through.

Ryley blinked once, twice. His brain fired into gear. He dropped to his knees and crawled between a few pairs of legs to reach the wall where a small panel was set. The entrance to the maintenance shaft. Once inside, it was nothing to hotwire the doors. They popped open with a metallic hiss, one brushing past, inches from his nose. By the time he crawled back out of the tunnel most of the crowd was gone. The officer was still there, however, directing people inside.

The lights were flickering now, and the floor began to take on an uncomfortable tilt. They were in some kind of decaying orbit, they weren’t floating in space, they were falling.

The officer spotted Ryley and yanked him from the tunnel, shoving him into the pod bay, shouting something Ryley couldn’t hear over the alarms still blaring, the ship’s AI calmly telling them to abandon ship.

He wasted no time. Ryley sprinted to one of the last remaining lifepods. There were two left. One for the officer- Good.

The ship was now tilting at a dangerous angle, the hull groaning in protest. Ryley knew the Aurora, he knew it was crying out, helpless, and falling. They were all falling. 

He jumped into a seat and slapped the door button. The safety restraints slammed over his shoulders as the pod was jettisoned.

For a moment there was silence. His heart was still hammering in his throat. He looked up at the small hatch window fixed into the ceiling and opened his mouth in a silent cry. 

There was a terrible gash along the Aurora’s side. Fire and metal fell away like some great beast had reached up to rip at her torso. She was dying. 

Around her, Ryley spied bright metal orbs shooting away. Other lifepods. Some whizzed past his tiny window. Two or three were hit by falling debris, and crushed in the process.

He hoped the people in there died quickly.

It was his luck to get the faulty lifepod, and as the alarms blared and a hunk of metal shook loose he managed to vocalize a single curse right as the metal flew into his face.

[joswriting]

•❅───✧❅ joswriting ❅✧

: ̗̀➛ writeblr intro

Hello there! My name is Jo (shocker!), I am in my 20s and I write stories and poems in my free time. I used to have a writing account on here many moons ago and I really miss the community, friendship and support of talking with other writers about our projects, so I am trying to rebuild what I've lost.

: ̗̀➛ about me

very interaction friendly. we're all just people on here (also please tag me in games forever)

science fiction! science fiction is my everything. it's whatever. I'm normal about it

themes I write about a lot include: death anxiety, internalized bigotry, general dissatisfaction and the complex and confusing nature of existence

scifi flavour wise i like doing weird time or multiverse stuff

I'm also queer (lesbian, aromantic, whatever), if that matters. This comes up a lot in my writing be it explicit or not.

I write in German and English

: ̗̀➛ my wips/projects

⸻ On the end of everything 🌠

An "essay" on how the multiverse died, those who noticed, and how they learned to live with their fates

[reblog tag] [posts tag] [wip intro]

⸻ Poetry 🗒️

I don't post my poetry on tumblr, instead I self host it here. I love writing poems I get such a kick out of it!

My favourite poem of mine atm is this one: Lines Out Of Context

⸻ Starship Lovelace 🚀

The Starship Lovelace is an Earth vessel far from home. The human crew mysteriously disappeared decades ago - now a small group of aliens has claimed the ship.

[posts + reblog tag]

A collection of half-assed short trips, I'm trying to build my own kind of space ship show here. It mostly serves as a way for me to keep writing and get ideas out of my head without much drafting or anything. I've got a pretty good vague plot for it in my head and I'm trying to do it justice with my newer, more thought out chapters. You can see all entries: here.

The stories are hosted on the space story collection pubnix/website Cosmic.Voyage, which i just know some of you would get a kick out of.

: ̗̀➛ inspiration

on the comedy side: the two Dirk Gently books, the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the Red Dwarf novels and Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen in particular (British people are grim, I like it)

on the more serious side: Frankenstein (my favourite book everr), many Doctor Who hiatus novels but especially Dead Romance by Lawrence Miles, the works of H.G. Wells (love that guys scifi that just completely misses the mark but was properly scientifically researched for its own time) and, to an extent, Der Tod und andere Höhepunkte meines Lebens by Sebastian Niedlich, which is a book I remember liking a lot as a young-ish teen

generally I'm a huge fan of Doctor Who and Star Trek

I sometimes reblog posts about media i really like on here too so for more check out the tag: good media

So. The first thing I’d better do is invent my audience. I'll pretend there are thousands of you out there, and I'll pretend you're all just like me; young, smart, pretty, and sarcastic (NB I’m probably being ironic here, although I’m not really sure any more). Just so we’ve got some common ground, I'll pretend you were born sometime in the late 1940s… No, sod that. I'll pretend you were born on 15 August 1948. All of you.

Well, why not? If you’re going to invent an audience, why not invent one in your own image?

-- Dead Romance, First Notebook

[jurakan]

Hello! I’ve been very stressed the past month-ish but today I’m leaving on a much-needed vacation! May I have a fun fact to celebrate?

FUN FACT, COMING RIGHT UP! [slides Fun Fact on a tray down the counter] Today You Learned about the science-fiction classic Flatland!

I remember one day in Pre-Calculus our teacher told us about this and we thought it was the weirdest thing.

Written by teacher and Anglican priest Edwin Abbott Abbott (yes, that was his name) and published in 1884, it's a satire of the strict social conventions of Victorian culture and class hierarchy. That's not what people really remember about it, though. What they remember is that it's a story about dimensions. Not, like, in an Into the Spider-Verse type way, but in a "The main character is a shape in a two-dimensional world" type of way.

Basically, all the flatlanders are two-dimensional shapes who have strict rules based on their world and their caste. The main protagonist, Square, discovers that there are other dimensions (the first inhabited by lines and points, the third inhabited by shapes like spheres), and other ways of seeing things, and when he tries to convince others of Flatland about this, they're intolerant of his discoveries. In the end, he writes the book Flatland as a memoir and record of everything he's experienced.

Again, I reiterate: the characters are all shapes. The men are polygons and the women are line segments (at least, in Flatland; in other dimensions the genders are split differently).

People have done different things with it since publication, include a sequel titled Sphereland, and more than one attempt to adapt it into a movie.

["There's a movie?!" my Pre-Calc teacher exclaimed as he scrolled through the Wikipedia page on the SMARTBoard in front of us.]

Yeah. There's a classic Victorian novella about shapes. I mean, it's about class, and discover, and knowledge, and society hampering knowledge to maintain its institutions. But also, it's about shapes.

And that's kind of weird to me. But also fun?

I don't know, I didn't have much fun in Pre-Calc other than stuff like this.

I hope your next month is much better, though!

[cipheramnesia]

Hi! How’re you? I love your blog and never know how to write asks.

Any chance you’d be willing to dish out a quick (or long) list of your favorite techno horror/techno punk movies? Don’t know if those are the right terms.

If not thank you anyway for reading and I hope you are having a good night.

Full disclosure, I wasn't familiar with these terms, beyond what I could figure out intuitively, which turned out to be correct, as far as I can tell! Which is not very far so you know, bear with me. Nervously looking over my shoulders for a bear. OK.

After a crash course, I think it's safe to call Tetsuo The Iron Man and Tetsuo The Bullet Man the quintessential technohorror technopunk type movies. They are lean and mean structured around shocking violence and jaw dropping effects on a budget. In the same vein, but which you might not have heard of, is Tokyo Gore Police. It's, y'know, not for everyone, look it up and you'll have a pretty clear idea what you're in for. If you're on the bubble, let me just say "sexy crocodile vagina legs," and leave it there.

It looks like David Cronenberg is big in the subgenre and what can I say except good call. Kind of a horror pioneer across quite a few subgenres including splatterpunk and body horror, his fascination with permutations of the flesh and technology makes him a no-brainer. Obviously you should know about Crimes of the Future and The Fly, and potentially the lesser know but exception Videodrome and Existenz. However, also consider checking out his adaptation of Crash (an essential movie for anyone intrigued by trans humanism) and his adaptation of Naked Lunch. For all purposes, virtually everything in his oeuvre prior to Naked Lunch in some way invokes body horror and some degree of technohorror, so you may as well sit down and take your time with his filmography. Then follow up with with everything Brandon Cronenberg, his son, has released because that specific apple is not far from the tree.

Also mentioned is Terminator, which I guess is sort of horror and punk(ish) and techno, which sort of throws Alien and Aliens in but honestly those feel more like science fiction horror personally, whatever you know them already. And you're not here for stuff you can pull in any online search so lets get down to the weird shit.

I've mentioned it before, but Death Machine (1994) is an absolute joy to watch. Magnificent use of practical effects, tongue in cheek but never boring, if you want to see an absolutely gorgeous murder robot, this is a must-watch. Kind of the western answer to Tetsuo Iron Man with a less manic pace and heavy handed satire. Think RoboCop on a worse budget using the plot of Aliens but inside an office building. This one and a similarly impressive work of practical effects called Hardware (1990) are both difficult to unearth. If you see them anywhere, grab a copy, drop everything and watch.

There's this whole collection of AI movies that range between hard scifi and gloppy horror, but I'd like to direct attention to somewhat over looked Automata (2014). For me it has just the right blend of real world trash and futuristic dystopia, with a plot that's part mystery and part big ideas. It rides this lovely line that drew me in by featuring robots that do not feel human at all, disappointingly blocky and clunky, and led me into feeling the necessary empathy for the story to succeed. It is by turns abstract and violent, and feels almost as if it could be a precursor to Blade Runner in its visuals and story design.

Now let's rewind back to 1977's Demon Seed. It's been quite a while since I saw the original, and it's by no means the best movie out of the 70s but it is a buckwild, extremely fucked up AI gone haywire film. Content warning for an extremely disturbing sexual assault by a robotic shape shifting dodecahedron. It belongs on a technohorror list because it's the kind of movie where you'll say "wow, it sure went there." I can't tell you if it's good, only that you'll probably wish you could forget some scenes. And if you want to keep the ball rolling with slow paced science fiction movies about killer robots obsessed with sexual assault, you can check out Saturn 3 (1980).

But enough about robots, let's talk about zombies with Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead (2014) and Wyrmwood: Apocalypse (2021). Both of these have punk vibes, very in line with most Ozsploitation movies, and the gimmick is that, as a zombie apocalypse begins, a group of survivors discover the zombies belch up methane - and they can rig up their engines to run on the stuff. The pair of movies escalate continuously in their excess and weirdness. If the first leaves you wanting more, the second will leave you absolutely demanding it. Frankly anything low budget and vaguely weird from Australia tends to be over the top of over the top. See also SheBorg (2016) about an evil alien cyborg who comes to Earth to eat puppies (very unrealistic stuffed animals) and turn people into more evil cyborgs. The only hope is punk loser teenage girls. Is it badly made? Yes. Offensive? Pretty much. But it's evil alien puppy eating cyborg versus punk rock teenagers so like you gotta see it.

Not gonna sugar coat this - quite a lot of the "best technohorror" recommendations lists I'm turning up in searches to job my memory aren't great. Seems like mostly it's more "hey here are some movies that use an technology" versus anything that gives me a real sensation of the movie being either intrinsically about the interaction of the human, the horrific, and the technological, or where the tech aspect is a kind of break-out rogue element, getting away with something daring or weird or simply grotesque through having the sort of budget and distribution (or lack thereof) that keeps sticky fingered producers from leaving notes all over the script. Anyway this is kind of a prelude to suggesting Frankenstein might be the original technohorror, and to check out Depraved (2019), a take on Frankenstein with a fascinating direction, where the titular scientist is an ex-army field medic with PTSD and his monster is made from soldier parts which, themselves, are not entirely free from the memories of their own traumatic pasts. It may only loosely follow the original story but it's a hell of a gut punch and I think exactly the sort of filmmaking that you want from any genre appended with "punk."

Lastly of course we all know the recently released M3gan, but I'm going to suggest a second Frankenstein movie, which I have not seen as yet so this is a blind recommendation, The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster, directed by Bomani J. Story. If the title alone doesn't give you a frisson of anticipation about what might be in the movie, the trailer should have you hooked. I'm dying to watch it, personally, but saving it to watch with one of my partners.

[casual-eumetazoa]

After a small uptick in followers, I am now getting close to 500 subs on YouTube:

[image description: header of a youtube channel titled Bootstrap Paradox; the icon is a photo of the Bootes void surrounded by stars; the text reads 461 subscribers, 9 videos; the channel description cuts out in the middle of the sentence, and reads "Greetings, fellow humanoid. I am a fiction writer, a PhD student of evolution..."]

On this occasion, may I interest you in some of my video essays, which have not much in common other than my utter dedication to the topic and, most of the time, questionable outfits and makeup.

Science Has An Accountability Problem

First in an anthology (that will get done, I promise, as soon as I replace all of my equipment that decided to break) exploring the problems of 21st century academia. I am a PhD student full of righteous rage and I will get to the bottom of every single thing that infuriates me about this system. This one explores scientific fraud: how often it happens, why it happens, and what we can do about it.

Pokemon Evolutions Are Real... Kind Of

Brought to you by my boyfriend's pokemon hyperfixation mixed with my master's in evolutionary biology. It's about metamorphosis, puberty, evo-devo, and, well, Pokemon. Watch it to find out why genetics is less of a computer code and more of an instruction for Ikea furniture.

Disability and Capitalism 2-parter

Two videos that took a monumental amount of research to put together, exploring the history, the reality, and the potential future of disability, as well as it's connection to our current economic systems. If you've heard of the medical model and the social model of disability but have never encountered the economic model of disability, you should probably watch this. Or don't, I'm not your boss. Anyway, there is a fun sci-fi-ish sketch at the beginning.

Representation DIY: Autistic Headcanons

My first ever video essay, so the quality is what it is, but I'm still proud of it. Explores the concept of media representation, my personal experiences as an autistic person, and why I think that autistic headcanons are often better than canon autistic characters written by allistic writers. Also, a lot of Jonathan Creek. For the fans of the incredibly niche British TV and detective magicians.

---

This isn't everything I have, so feel free to click on the channel and check stuff out. I still harbour some hope to maybe eventually some day become a full-time video essayist because with my combination of autism, chronic illness, and existing as a very queer person in a very traditional and catholic Eastern European country, working from home might be my only option of being ok after I get my PhD. So yeah, every subscription helps.

Reblogs do a lot, btw. Even if you have like 3 followers, trust me. Your one reblog just might make this my career in a couple of years. So any interaction is highly appreciated.

[padme-amitabha]

I don't like how TCW took away the classic, fairytale elements of Anakin and Padmé so they could be more "relatable" as a couple. That was neither necessary nor did it make any sense for their romance because that was never the point of them to begin with. They were the type to quite literally jump off a bridge for each other, call each other sweet names, always wanting to be close, the passion, the dreamlikeness, etc. They were more of the mythological, fairytale, classic literature type of couple. The ideal couple that, due to numerous unfortunate circumstances, it was doomed. Some people also argue that they would not have lasted, but they don't get that the rules that apply in the real world don't always have to apply in a fantasy setting. I've been seeing this kind of "remake" of fantastical, classic, fairytale(-esque) couples so they seem more realistic and modern, and it just saddens me (which is also why most Disney LA remakes also piss me off). It's because of what that series's portrayal of Anakin and Padmé that people either have this "bff" conception of their romance or that Padmé was always annoyed by him when she would have thrown away everything for him (and viceversa, ofc, I mean lol). Smh

I agree. TCW for me just goes against the original authorial intent. Although GL did make a lot of the decisions, he was not alone and ofc eventually Filoni and co took over. But when he started out he always said he didn't care about fans liking it. It was always about the story he intended to tell, whether they liked it or not. And that's so admirable to have a story be told just for itself and not for fanservice and it shows GL was passionate about it and he just had to retcon or brainstorm more because of the backlash. He always said SW is a homage to all the movies he loved. It's reminiscent of the cheesy soaps he grew up with and in the PT appreciation video I shared recently, it shows so many scenes are similar to older films. GL was even aware of the dialogue and how it wouldn't resonate with modern audiences but he needed it to fit in a specific style.

It's funny how fans appreciate how "classic" the OT is but expect the PT to be hyper modern when it should be even more rooted in mythology. The OT is fairytale-like too. I mean when you think about it the big bad is defeated by the power of love and Luke just forgives a man who killed so many people because he's his father who he doesn't even know? Vader even goes easy on him and he never actually is threatened by him. It's not very realistic either nor is it for Obi Wan to be hiding out in Tattooine and waiting to hand over a magic quest to Luke but it does work in fairytales because it is the hero's journey - like the prequels is similar to a Greek tragedy unfolding in three parts. It's supposed to be cheesy with morals and messages and recurring themes. And without any war when the galaxy is at its golden age so to speak, of course Anidala would be more of a Shakespearean romance with a dash of tragedy mixed in it. If GL can call them space Romeo and Juliet, he is acknowledging they are young and naive and impulsive and the audience isn't suppose to view them as ideals or think of RL relationships to be similar. None of the OT characters are particularly complex either and the ideologies are even more black and white. Ultimately, it's the message about family and love and yes it is very simplistic and fairytaleish because it's suppose to feel good. I don't get the point in trying to make it modern and realistic when it was never supposed to be one. It's space opera and fantasy - not science fiction. And tbh TCW makes the characters even more generic and westernized than they ever were in the prequels. Don't get me started on Chadakin and Girlboss!Padme (or discount Han and Leia) when they were much more imperfect, multifaceted characters in the movies while seamlessly fitting in with the fairytale-ish narrative.

[marta-bee]

I put together my Christmas wish list for family, which this year included a lot of history and politics books I've been wanting to read. It actually felt good, a low risk way to tell family this is what I stand for. But it's also a good round-up of vaguely liberal if not outright progressive titles that caught my interest, which is a rec list in its own way, so I thought I'd share.

Non-Fiction/RL-ish Books

Built from the Fire: The Epic story fo Tulsa's Greenwood District, America's Black Wall Street (Victor Luckerson)

Countdown 1960: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of the 312 Days That Changed America's Politics (Chris Wallace)

The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade (Ann Fessler)

The Message (Ta-Nehisi Coates)

Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson)

The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust (Francis S. Collins)

War (Bob Woodward)

White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy (William J. Barber)

And the more fannish ones:

The Fall of Numenor: And Other Tales from the Second Age of Middle-earth (J.R.R. Tolkien)

A Hobbit, a Wardrobe and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-18 (Joseph Loconte)

The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science fiction, and Fantasy (Ursula K. LeGuin)

Norse Mythology (Neil gaiman)

A Place Called District 12: Appalachian Geography and Music in the Hunger Games (Thomas W. Paradis)

The Road to Middle-Earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology (Tom Shippey)

A Secret Vice: Tolkien on Invented Languages (Ed. Dimitra Fimi)

Star Trek: Open a CHannel: A Woman's Trek by Nana Visitor

Tolkien and the Modernists: Literary Responses to the Dark New Days of the 20th Century (Theresa Freda Nicolay)

And finally, some charity groups I suggested family and friends donate to, all of which are doing work near to my heart:

Carolinas Care Partnership [an LGBT support group around here, particularly focused on housing access, health care and therapy access, especially for people affected by HIV/AIDS but not exclusively]

Life After Hate [supporting people leaving far-right and white nationalist groups]

NC Immigrant Solidarity Fund [they do financial grants for families facing deportation, also legal and social support for all kinds of recent immigrants]

Pro Publica [doing important independent investigative journalism, and boy is their work vital]

Promising Pages [you've heard of food banks? that, but for books]

Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom [doing good work to build Jewish-Muslim solidarity, The Kid and I particularly like that they're woman-centric and spotlight some lesser-known voices]

Sojourners [a good general left-leaning evangelical group, good at producing journalism and educational resources for *cough* less progressive evangelicals, they're good at speaking that community's language]