#Star Trek inspired probably

[lord-ofthe-frogs]

LOVING the idea of a sci-fi space travel story meets like ancient forest horror type trope.

Like. This is a routine scouting mission, you are flying closer into this planet because it was detected on scanners as being life supporting (obviously- you could have told that from a picture, the whole place is covered in green) but the foliage is so dense that from standard distance, the scanners couldn’t get a full read of the land (weird, that usually isn’t a problem, but some places flora do have weird ways of incorporating materials that really shouldn’t be in a plant, it isn’t entirely unprecedented). Could also be- like, lead in the atmosphere or something. Well- almost definitely not. Stuff doesn’t really grow that big in an environment that’s anything other than right in the golden zone, so it’s probably nothing like that. Still- this isn’t one you’d want to risk going no-suit for.

You’re swooping in closer for some recon- because, Dagnabit, you still aren’t getting clear readings- and- with what this place seems to be so far, the chances of intelligent life (intelligent enough to interfere with your ship, at least) are incredibly low. Only- suddenly, your scanner is detecting things. But- it’s totally on and off, like these leaves are completely blocking your signal somehow. Heat maps show nothing too special- heat seems to get trapped under the foliage somewhat, magnetism mapping seem to show signs of metals nearby, but nothing too out of place- perhaps a ridge.

But there’s some movement, which doesn’t seem to match wind direction. You’re too focused on checking your side panels to catch what happens as suddenly you’re being dragged off course- the carriage of the ship scraping against the plant matter as you careen into the undergrowth below. Which each layer of leaves and vines you clear, less and less light penetrates through. By the time your ship hits the ground, you’ve pretty much lost all trace of sunlight, despite the sun having been pretty much directly above you. Instead- the grove you’ve dropped into is lit only by bioluminescent fungi and the like- which stretch outward from what you realize are impossibly thick plant roots.

As your engine sputters and stops, you go into damage control mode. Okay- you have the materials to last you, you shouldn’t have to forage around for food or water any time soon- but you’re now underneath the foliage that had been blocking your scanner and, frankly, unless you find some way to get your communication gear back up there- or get this ship back up and running- you’re pretty much just gonna be stranded here until you die. Not great- but, you probably have the tools to get into it. I mean. How tall could these plants even be?

So, you check all your systems- try fixing up the systems and engine- and.. well, even if you did get her back up into the sky- there’s no way she’d make it through the kind of hyperdrive it would take to get you back to the nearest settlement. And, well… you’d rather die here than in the empty void of space, really.

With that set- you secure the ship, double check with all your crew-mates to make sure nobody was harmed- status reports, full medical checks- suit checks- luckily, nobody seems all to worse for wear. All that foliage must have slowed you down somewhat, thankfully. At least- in the upper levels. There are no real branches or anything down here- just.. fungi, really. From- what you can see from the ship. Not that you expect to find anything else. Smaller life forms, at the most- you don’t know of much else that could subsist on the sort of materials available down here. But- still, always to err on the side of caution. Evolution is a wild thing, after all- people were always finding new crazy things about it.

After about a day of just making sure everything inside the ship is secure, and planning out your next steps- you and a few of the crew take a venture out, to test your surroundings. It seems like your ship ended up nestled between to giant roots- and as you step off from them, you find that most of the ground underfoot is really just a mix of root, mushroom, and dirt. Rich dirt, at least.

This place could be a real fantasy looking environment if the trees (well- they seem to be trees, at least. You’d been taught not to be too quick to categorize foreign planet organisms.. but if the shoe fits,) were more.. reasonably sized. You start setting up your plans for scaling these giants- an organized system, checkpointing along the way. It’s practically like rock climbing, with the size and hardiness of these things. Eventually you climb up to a chunk where the bark has been carved through, exposing softer, young material (ignoring the question of how it had been dug through like that- might have been hit by your ship on the way down- or maybe there’s some type of creature here that eats this stuff, and had been chowing on it for a while.

The idea that some single creature had left it there in passing is quickly barred from your mind- nothing is that big). When you dig your climbing pick into this softer ‘wood’- it sort of sticks. So much so that you nearly fall off attempting to pull it back out. Sliding your gloved hand along the surface of the tool, though, it doesn’t seem to have any sort of residue or stickiness- so you brush it off as maybe just the tool sinking a little too far into wood that was clearly softer than you expected it to be. You try once more, determined to make some good progress on this task tonight- only for it to get stuck again. This time, you actually can’t manage to yank it out. You try again- and again, but it’s totally sunk in there. One climbing tool shorter, pretty exhausted by now, and starting to get very hungry- you decide it’s time to call it a day for this task. You begin the grueling task of making it back down- and join back with those still at the ship. The other two you set out with originally are still back at the ‘tree’- but the two of them happen to be a species more hardy than you, and they had been working on a system to create an accessible way up- rather than just scouting to see how high they could climb as you had been. It would certainly take longer- much longer- but it may help in the long run.

Anyway. You touch back in at the ship and take some rest, assuring yourself you’ll continue working to figure things out in the morning. Not that ‘morning’ was really a relevant term right now, considering the constant dark. The ship lights were still functional, at least- as well as those built into your suit. Things seem to be going fine. Nothing immediately dire- the only prospective issue so far seems to be how to get up high enough to deliver a signal quickly enough that you might be retrieved before supplies run out. Not that that should be an issue- after all, all fleet ships keep highly stocked at all times, and, as long as nothing changes too much- you should be set to survive for a good long while yet. At least a few hundred cycles.

Waking in the ‘morning’ to the same darkness as you’d fallen asleep to makes you a bit jealous of those few crew members which were nocturnal by nature- they must feel right at home here.

—

About a week in- crewmates are complaining of feeling like they’re ‘being watched’. A front of fog had set in around the third day, making further exploration difficult. You honestly almost write it off as the effects of stress and being in the dark and stuck in the same place when a few people start complaining about noises- that is, until you get so spooked you have to turn your team around after you all swore you heard something like a voice coming from the fog beyond (nothing you could decipher. The wind through the foliage, maybe? Is that a reasonable explanation? You can’t really think about the science of it right now.. but .. that was probably it.)

Still, you forge on, and the next day you set out again. It’s all standard, really. You haven’t even run into any fauna yet, why would you let a little whistling of the winds disuade you? (Not that you would really see anything, if there was something to be seen. This fog is too thick, now, you’ve had to set up a line from the ship to your place on this tree just to prevent you getting lost.)

You’re a traveler of space. What could one little forest planet really have against you, who’s toured tens of barely documented other planets?

You decide to start keeping a journal.

—

About two months in, things start going wrong. You’re starting out another climb, when your pick slips and you’re suddenly falling. You get tangled up in your rope- and you end up getting your suit ripped one of your pick blades- breaking the seal on your air. Thankfully- it seems… breathable. In fact, when you run another check to make sure you aren’t secretly gonna get horrible sickness after a while of breathing this stuff- you find that it’s actually pretty similar to that of your desirable conditions. In fact, it seems to actually be more suitable for you than the ‘universally breathable’ air they usually have on multi-species ships.

People continue to complain of weird feelings- like eyes on them, or this deep instinct that they ‘shouldn’t be here’ or whatever- you keep brushing it off the best you can- these sort of conditions for so long can really impact someone, especially those who are adapted for more sunny conditions. Nothings gone so wrong that you worry about losing anyone, at least. So far, everyone has been hanging on.

One day when you come back from some recon, everyone is agreeing that they heard something in the distance.

You find a couple smaller creatures, bugs, you’ve been logging them as you go along. Not too much fauna to go off, just yet.

Then- the ship starts deteriorating. The fuels somehow been sapped- you swear that root didn’t wrap so closely around the ship when you first arrived- some branch debris fell down a couple days ago, and now half the chasis has been wrecked- the backup universal air got hit, which is seriously going to impact how long you’ll last if the air doesn’t prove breathable for the others- and the lights in the operational parts of the ship have begun flickering on occasion.

Along the next few weeks, around half of the crew stops replenishing their air tanks and just resorts to braving the air around them- just hoping that no airborne contaminants come around. For a planet so dominated by flora, there’s actually a pretty reasonable balance of C02 to 02. The fungus, you reason.

After about month more in these straits- heating becomes an issue to face. You’ve run out of fuel to keep going on as you were- and some energy needs to be saved in case- so, ensured by the oxygen ratio in the air that it won’t result in anything too catastrophic- you and the crew decide that testing for flammable materials is in order. You find that the bark of the ‘trees’ works alright enough- though, you don’t have enough smaller foliage to make any sort of easy burning. Still- it works somewhat. So, you set up for wood-chopping shifts, setting out to collect bark and flammables. You’re not sure how well it’ll do if that fog rolls back in.. but it works for now.

Then, one day.. the person set out doesn’t come back.

Weeks pass. The paranoia amongst the crew worsens. Someone swears they saw something moving in the distance- one claims they heard distant footsteps, loud and booming, when they were out scouting.

You’re climbing again, when you see the faint imprint of glowing fungi parallel with you in the distance. Passing. Something this tall, moving along-

You don’t mention it to the crew.

Eventually- people start encountering things.

You lose a few more crew-mates.

Slowly but surely, you’ve begun to realize that there are things in these woods that you just don’t understand.

These things are much older than you.

This place is much older than your science.

No planet should survive long enough for this sort of evolution to come to fruition- but, for whatever reason, this one did.

And you are here, now- disturbing things which predate you by millennia, realizing-

That all you consider to be the standards of probability- these standards you’ve been so sure of- simply don’t extend to a place like this.

All this time, you’ve been operating on averages- and this place… this place is different.

[spirk-trek]

imagine amanda watching how mothers on vulcan share a telepathic bond with their children and not being able to do this for spock

imagine how it would break her heart, how she might worry they'll never connect when she sees a mother touching her daughter's face or holding her son's hand with purpose, without words

imagine spock melding with her as soon as he's able, showing her he loves her because he can't say it, he'll never be able to say it

imagine her being so proud of her little boy for researching and teaching himself to meld with a non-telepath just for her, all for her

holding him after when he's so exhausted he goes boneless in her arms and she strokes his hair and thanks him

and he mumbles something about it being illogical to thank him before falling asleep and she holds his little hand and feels the tiniest sparks of love still there, so small she might've imagined them before he's snoring softly

[aerialworms-art]

Spocktober + Trektober Day 20 - Soulmates

They love each other really! They've just had a long voyage home...

Thanks to @stellucis for giving me the idea of drawing them with the red string of fate!

(Please click for quality! ID under cut)

[Image ID: A black and white drawing of Jim Kirk, Spock, and Bones as seen in Star Trek: The Voyage Home. They are all older than in the Original Series. Spock is wearing his white Vulcan robe and no shoes. Jim is wearing his maroon suit, and Bones is wearing his beige and brown jumpsuit. His cravat is untucked from his neckline and the ends are floating. Both Jim and Bones' trousers are flared and they're wearing simple boots.

Spock and Bones are floating against a starry backdrop, connected to each other and Jim by thin threads attached to each of their wrists. Both of their threads connecting them to Jim are floating, relaxed and looping. However, Bones has grabbed the thread connecting him to Spock and is hunched over, attempting to chew through it. Spock is watching this with detached curiosity. His posture is more relaxed and his left arm is being pulled towards Bones because Bones is pulling on the thread.

Jim is standing in the middle, feet edging over the border of the drawing. His hands are on his hips, and he is looking up despairingly at his soulmates, saying "Can't you two just get along? Please?"

Above the drawing is written "Trektober" and "Day 20 - Soulmates" Below it is written "@aerialworms" and "Spocktober"./End ID]

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

[scribefindegil]

I don't have a plot yet but I think it would be very funny to write a fic where I somehow zap the Lower Decks crew to Real-Life Riverside Iowa.

[wwillywonka]

.

[characterssaythedarnestthings]

"Happy new year, may the Twenty Twenty-FOUR-ce be with you" - Someone from Star Wars, maybe Obi Wan Kenobi or Han Solo idk I've never seen it

[brookbee]

Something I love about Star Trek is how episodes will reference different genres, and sometimes I wonder what it would be like if they leaned into it even more. Going so far as to mimic filming styles, or modifying the soundtrack to sound like it belongs in a different genre for an episode.

Like hypothetically if I were to make a Star Trek show that’s reminiscent of TOS while also making it into something a bit new, I think I’d lean into the genre of the episode way more than they would have been able to in the 60s bc of cost and time constraints. Like as an example take the most Western inspired episode of TOS, “Spectre of the Gun,” and have them trapped in that Western world down to the filming, music, etc. And once they have the breakthrough of how they’ll escape slowly transform back to the typical Star Trek episode style where it’s sci-fi observing a different genre. Showing that they’re only trapped in the genre for as long as they don’t have a solution to their problem.

Idk I think that would be neat

[oliviagordonwrites]

“Twenty?” Tzara Arello laughed behind her slender, silvery fingertips. The sound was all but lost in the bustling space dock, so she threw her head back to make her point. “Twenty hardly covers your weight estimate. I don’t take cargo for less than thirty, and I certainly don’t take it through the bandit belt for less than fifty.”

Her would-be clients blinked their wide, watery eyes at her, growing more restless as the translators in their ears caught up. They buzzed and clicked for a while—their language was notoriously long-winded. 

“Please,” Tzara finally heard through her own translator. “Twenty is all we have. We’ll sell everything when we arrive to cover the rest.”

Tzara waved her hand at the gold plated lettering on the side of her once-magnificent vessel, visible through the wide viewing window. AMARYLLIS, it read in a large, swirling font. Just beneath the name of the ship and in slightly smaller, incredibly more legible characters, it said PAYMENT UPFRONT in her own language.

[myenterpriseisparked]

ENT TnT prompt!!! (no pressure)

T'Pol takes Trip to the jazz club by the Vulcan compound on Earth

DELIGHTFUL IDEA THANK YOU uh, Anon 😉

AO3 Link here

----

Trip hadn't been so sure about the whole "dressing up like it's the 1920's" thing when T'Pol first told him about the jazz club she had liked before she had been assigned to Enterprise and he had suggested it as a date night idea. She said it was something many people did when attending and, though it was not required, she felt it would "enhance the evening and the enjoyment of the musical style." It sounded incredibly illogical to him, but he was willing to don a fedora and early 20th century suit if it would cause her to loosen up a bit.

Now, standing in the hotel lobby, watching her come down the stairs in an elegant, knee-length black and silver dress with her short hair styled in finger waves that suited her so very well, Trip was sure this had been the right idea. Absolutely sure. In fact, he had never been so sure of anything else ever in his whole entire life.

"Are you ready?" She tucked her clutch between her side and one of her silk-glove-covered elbows, which caught the lights above them in a lovely way.

"Uh-huh." Trip said, smartly. He swallowed, mentally smacked himself, and held out an elbow, offering her a smile. "You look stunning."

T'Pol slipped her hand into his elbow, looking away. "Thank you," she said quietly. Was that a green tint in her cheeks? "Your attire suits you as well."

"Well, thank you kindly," he drawled, grinning even more widely.

They walked, arm-in-arm, in comfortable silence, breathing in the cool night air and relishing the closeness. This was the first time they had really been on a proper date in... well, Trip supposed this probably was their first proper date ever, which seemed a bit ridiculous since they were fully married now with a baby girl at home. Nevertheless, before Elizabeth had come into their lives they had never had a proper chance to actually go on a date aside from movie nights in the mess hall and since Elizabeth had arrived, they had been busy buying a house in Florida, figuring out how to care for a baby, and getting married in both of their cultures.

Aside from being their first date, this was the first chance they had had to really breathe in almost 6 months. Hoshi was watching Elizabeth for the next 24 hours, so they would have plenty of time to enjoy a break without getting too anxious about being away from their precious baby girl.

Trip could hear music in the distance now, something swingy and swoopy that he could just barely make out. He glanced down at T’Pol, who could likely already hear it with those superior, pointed ears of hers. Judging by the fleeting, excited glint in her eye, he would wager his earlier supposition was correct.

They rounded a corner and the lights from the club spilled out the front windows and door to bathe T’Pol in a glowy, warm light that made her cheekbones impossibly more defined and her hazel eyes lean more towards green than usual. Trip bit back a grin and opened the front door for her with a slight, dramatic bow. She shot him a look as she stepped through the door, but he could see the mischief playing across her features anyhow. 

Trip stepped in after her and immediately felt about 50lbs lighter. Every inch of this place was utterly and purely alive.

There was a stage towards the front, where a saxophone player was on her knees at the edge, playing a snazzy, upbeat tune supported by the other instrumentalists behind her. A group of people gathered right at the stage edge to hoot and holler their appreciation for the saxophone’s tune. Further away from the source of the music were people dancing, some true to the 1920′s form, others swaying with more modern moves, but no one, not even the handful of elderly couples, was still for even a half moment. At the edge of the room, tables were scattered and filled with people laughing and clapping and clinking glasses in celebration of life and love and music itself. Above the dance floor, decorative red silks and lights cast everything in a soft, rosy glow that felt more electrifying than warming. 

Trip looked around in awe. This place was wonderful, of course, but it was never a place he would have thought T’Pol would come to voluntarily. She might enjoy herself if brought here with the rest of their crew, perhaps, but to have chosen to come here on her own on more than one occasion? And to bring him here?

He glanced down at her, lit in that glow from all around them, the sparking of the crystal glasses and sequined dresses catching in her eyes like the stars they sailed when they had first met, and realized that he might just be truly seeing T’Pol for the first time.

He liked it.

With a bit of a flourish, he held out his hand, which she took without question, and lead her to the dance floor. He didn’t know any of the dances and neither did T’Pol, but they moved their feet and watched the other couples dancing around them until they were at least in-rhythm and feeling a touch breathless as the heady, floating feeling of engaging with music took them over and carried them off into the night.

As they swung and moved, her cool hands kept a steady grip on his (he wasn’t sure at what point she had abandoned her gloves and clutch), moving their bodies closer together and back apart as she picked up the dances faster than he did. A green flush rose in her cheeks and in the tips of her ears in a way that made her somehow wholly alien and completely familiar to him all at once. There was a freedom to her movements that was a bit odd to see coming from T’Pol - or, at least, it should have been, but to Trip it seemed to be the most natural thing in the world, the way she spun and dipped to the music.

The song finally came to an end, leaving them standing there, breathless, hand-in-hand, and inches apart as everyone around them clapped. Realistically, Trip knew they were clapping for the music, but he couldn’t help but feel as though the applause was for them.

The next song started, something slow and sweet, like the molasses his grandma used to put on pancakes in lieu of syrup. Now this was something Trip knew how to dance to.

He placed his hands on T’Pol’s hips, drawing her impossibly closer. Through their bond, she knew to put her arms around his neck as he led her in a gentle sway. Having caught her breath, she laid her head on his chest and sighed. He dipped his head to press his cheek to her forehead and closed his eyes. After a few moments, T’Pol looked up at him, close enough to breathe the same air, eyes like glowing embers in the dim.

For a moment, their noses seemed to dance in time with their feet, occasionally brushing as their gazes migrated between each other’s eyes and lips. In a breathless fraction of a moment, their lips met once, twice, and lingered on a third kiss, spilling over into a number of others that broke them from the rhythm of the music until, some time later, the music ended.

The crowd was applauding again as Trip rested his forehead against her own.

“I see why you like this place.” He said softly, with a slight smile.

She pulled back just enough to look up at him. “I’m pleased that you are enjoying yourself.”

“I’m enjoyin’ you enjoying yourself.” He reached up to brush a wavy strand of hair from her forehead back into her otherwise immaculate hairstyle. “I’m glad you showed me this, this thing that you love.”

She tilted her head as mid-tempo song began. “Do you wish to continue dancing?”

He grinned. “As long as you’re leading? Darlin’, I could dance all night.”

[grodyego]

HAPPY BIRTHDAYYYY!! what do you think influenced u the most (indirectly or directly) when making your specific ocs? i always like seeing people lay out their inspirations

THANK U !!!!!!!!

also i LOVE this question. im trying to be more cognizant when i feel like something inspires me because its actually really hard for me to list any specific examples !!! im under no illusion that anything i make is "100% original" or that outside observers wouldnt be able to trace it back to certain works or concepts or artists, so on and so forth, i am just VERY bad at making the connection myself, lol. i also tend to forget like every single thing ive ever watched or read the minute

UMM ill stick with dove because i CAN remember specific influences that caused me to make him. the first was samurai jack (the show and the character). im not going to derail this ask by opining how often genndy tartakovsky disappoints me with his choices across his entire body of work and how i think if i got to know him in real life i wouldnt be able to stand him, the fact of the matter is samurai jack had a huge impact on me as a kid and i got caught up in the season 5 hype so hard i just had to make a guy about it (not a fan oc, crucially). ive always loved "fish out of water" stories and to me the temporal element is an especially fun way to do it because. aough im having trouble articulating this. people have just always been people i guess, for better and for worse, and everything in between. thats just something i personally think about a lot and its a really good theme to explore in stories, to obvious bias

so anyways i loved jack so much i wanted to make my own guy who was witnessing shit his brain could just barely comprehend but he was so focused on his goal he just kind of made himself go "well, no time to focus on that" and then continue to kind of run on the narrative hamster wheel each week when the achievement of that goal is ultimately yanked from him, in one way or another

the other thing that helped me refine it a bit wassss probably cowboy bebop ? not any particular character, just the show in its entirety. this one's way harder for me to explain. i feel like if you watch the show then you should hopefully see what im saying, but maybe not. also i had dropped dove and his story pretty hard for maybe like a year or two and then i watched cowboy bebop and it somehow instantly rekindled my passion to start it up again and more heavily rework it, so. im sure if i ever put it out one day maybe people will pick up on that. who's to say !

as for why he's a knight: i like them. theyre sexy and cool

[potatoknitsmysteriouscoinkidink]

[imaginedisish]

Anything (Logan Howlett x fem!Reader)

A/N: Something is seriously wrong with me...I cannot stop writing for this man. Started this one last night after hearing him say "princess" in "The Wolverine" (2013). This is another nightmare fic, but I promise it's different! Heavily inspired by "anything" by Adrianne Lenker. Hope you guys enjoy!

Summary: Your summer affair with Logan is, in fact, not just a summer affair.

Warnings: 18+ SMUT!! MINORS DNI!!! Unprotected PIV (wrap it up!), (some?)fingering, cockwarming, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, nightmares, fem!reader/afab!reader, canon-typical violence, mutant!reader (unspecified abilities), feelings, angst, cursing, probably grammatical errors, I think that's it!

Word Count: 3,213 short for me

It started one summer night—under the stars. You had slipped out the window of your room in the mansion. You were sitting with your legs crossed, perched precariously on the old, shingled roof. You never got much sleep—you simply couldn’t—even though you knew the mansion was safe. Staying awake remained a solace, a comfort. It meant fewer nightmares; it meant you couldn’t be haunted by the hurt of your past.

Staring up at the stars beat staring up at your ceiling, and so you had made it a habit to crawl out of your window and sit on the roof. 

Until that one summer night, when Logan found you out there.

He shoved open his window and stuck his head outside. “What the fuck are you doing out here?” You smiled, turning your head to face him. You shrugged your shoulders, giggling at the concern on his face. He mocked you, shrugging his own shoulders in imitation. 

You rolled your eyes, but you couldn’t hide your smile and the way he made you laugh. You and Logan had been growing closer, spending more time together. He was looking out for you—constantly and protectively. It made you feel good knowing that someone cared so deeply. 

“Why don’t you come over here?” You called over to him, patting the spot next to you. He shook his head and ducked back inside. You quickly assumed he didn’t feel like being with you, your heart sinking down into your stomach. You wanted him to come out, to sit with you. Maybe you could’ve—

But then there he was, pushing the window as far open as it could possibly go, struggling to climb out. It wasn’t too much of a scuffle over to you, your rooms being right next to one another, but he made a big deal of the trek nonetheless. He huffed for dramatic effect as he sat down next to you. 

“This is so incredibly dangerous,” he had said, sarcasm heavy in his voice. 

You gasped. “Logan Howlett cares about safety?” You clasped your hand over your mouth for flare. “My safety?” 

He smiled, but there was something serious in his face. “I do, actually.” You tried not to notice as he inched closer to you, your shoulders brushing together. “What are you doing out here, princess?” He asked again. 

You smirked at the familiar nickname. “I don’t really like sleeping,” you muttered. 

Logan nodded. He understood better than anyone else. “I know…” He trailed off, looking up at the sky. “But why sit out here?”

“It’s quiet,” you whispered. “And it’s beautiful. Better than being in there, just sitting in bed.” 

He nodded again. “It is beautiful.” You turned your head back to Logan as he spoke. He wasn’t looking at the sky anymore. He was looking at you. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “Did you have a dream tonight?”

You shook your head from side to side. “Didn’t give myself the chance to yet, and I don’t plan on doing so.” You sighed, looking down at your legs, still crossed like a pretzel in front of you. “Wish we didn’t have to deal with this, you know?”  

Logan slowly brought his arm around your shoulder, as if he was waiting for you to shove him away. He had touched you before, but not quite like this. It was always in passing—always short and fleeting. But this? This was intentional. You leaned into his touch and let your head fall to his shoulder. “You don’t have to deal with it alone,” he offered, his lips faintly brushing at your temple. 

You tilted up to look at him, his face inches away from yours. He pulled you in closer, his breath fanning across your cheek. “You’re not alone,” he repeated. 

And then his lips were on yours. You kissed on the roof. You let him tug you into his window, into his bed. He tasted you that night. You spread your legs and let him inside. And then you slept. You slept without waking up in a cold sweat. You slept without reliving your past. And for the first time in a long time, so did he. 

And now it's become a habit. He opens his window for you, and you climb across the roof and inside. Every night. You haven’t slept alone since the beginning of the summer, and it’s August now. There’s no label on whatever it is you two are. But you know it’s serious—the way he asks every night if you can stay, even though he knows you’ve already made up your mind and that you aren’t going anywhere. 

But tonight is different. Logan was sent on a day trip with some of the students, while you were tasked with staying at the school to run through training exercises. It’s the end of the day now—10 PM. You’re exhausted as you let your back crash down on the mattress. 

Thanks to Logan, your body has become accustomed to sleeping. You can feel it calling you, feel your tiredness creeping in at the corner of your eyes. You try to fight the feeling, but it’s no use. Your eyes flutter open and closed, resisting until you can’t anymore, and you fall asleep. 

There’s a piercing ringing in your ears. Your chest is heaving violently. You’re strapped down to a chair, a needle inches away from your forearm. Maybe it’s Stryker. Maybe it’s some other mutant hunter or government agent ready to do their worst. You thrash around in the chair, yanking at the restraints to no avail.

You choke out a sob, throwing your head back in agony. Logan is all you can think about. What if he’s in danger? What if you never see him again? What if this is it?

Just as the needle breaks skin, the piercing ringing starts up again, and everything goes black. 

You force yourself to sit up, cold sweat drenching every inch and curve of your body. You look over to the clock on your nightstand: 12:37 AM. You had only been asleep for two hours. You shut your eyes, letting your head bump into the headboard behind you. You take deep, slow breaths, trying to lower your heart rate, silently reminding yourself that it was all just a dream. 

You’re not exactly sure what brought the nightmare on, but you know you aren’t going back to sleep. You crawl out of bed and into the darkness of your room, carefully walking to your window and shoving it as far open as it can possibly go. You climb out and sit on the still-hot roof to look at the stars. 

The twinkling balls of heat shine above you. It hits you then that even stars must die. They have all that energy, all that beauty, and then they burn out. You swallow at the thought, tears burning behind your sinuses. 

You don’t want to look over at Logan’s room—don’t want to see the window closed. The trip was to some aquarium down the shore in Jersey. You know he’s likely not home yet, and for the first time since all of this started, you’re worried about bothering him. You don’t want to force him to deal with your—

And then you finally see it. His window is open, the curtains billowing around inside. You let out a tight breath you didn’t know you were holding, your shoulders going slack at the thought of crawling into his bed. 

You scale the roof carefully, bending down as you climb inside his room. You get tangled up in the curtains, and you shove them aside to reveal Logan in his bed, eyes shut. You swallow harshly at the sight—his chest bare and his hair a mess. Sometimes you’ll stay up and watch him sleep, just to see this, just to know what he looks like when it's late and no one else is around. 

But then he’s twitching. He grunts, his chest heaving rapidly. You sprint across the room to his side, practically tripping over nothing in the rush of it all. He’s fisting the sheets, mumbling nonsense, violently turning left and right. You can see the pain in the tightness of his jaw, in the way his muscles flex. Your heart drops deep into the pit of your stomach. 

“Logan,” you call out, bringing a hand to his shoulder. You know he’s sensitive—know he can bring the claws out at any second—so you take care with your movements. “Logan,” you call again, louder this time. You grip his shoulder harder, shaking him, trying to force him out of the nightmare. 

You think you hear your name slip from his lips. “I’m right here,” you soothe, bringing your other hand to his abdomen, rubbing softly as you continue to shake his shoulder. He’s a sweating mess, his body cold and hot at the same time. You want to take his pain away, to make all of this better. “Come on,” you beg. “Wake up.”

And then he’s sitting up, his eyes open wide. You step back, giving him the space he needs as he comes to. His claws shoot out, ready to strike. He turns his head, his eyes frantically searching the room until he finds you. 

He quickly retracts his claws, and you watch as his shoulders relax. His chest still rises and falls rapidly with every breath he takes. 

“Logan,” you whisper, stepping closer to him again. “Are you—” 

He cuts you off, pawing at you, grabbing your sides, and pulling you into his bed. He’s on top of you in an instant, caging you in, his throat bobbing as he swallows harshly. 

“Can you stay?” It’s a ritual, the way he asks. He knows your answer—always does. But he asks anyway. You know he wants to hear it from your lips, wants to know that you want this, too. 

Your heart clenches in your chest. “Yes,” you sigh as one of his hands comes to rest underneath your shirt, climbing slowly up your stomach. “But Logan—”

He swallows your protests with a kiss, and you moan into his mouth. It’s hurried, rushed, like he’ll die if he can't have you right away. “Don’t wanna talk about it. Need you now. Talk after,” he mumbles against your lips, kissing you again before you can say a word. 

You understood—you needed him too. Needed to feel him inside you, under your skin, everywhere. 

His hand slinks up to your bare chest; you had forgotten you weren’t wearing a bra, just one of Logan’s old t-shirts and your panties. His touch is rough; needy. He squeezes your tits, his fingertips brushing your nipples, drawing tight circles. You moan his name, already squirming underneath him. 

Logan’s erection grinds against your core. He’s just wearing his boxers—nothing else—but it’s still too much. You need him bare before you, deep inside you. You lift your hips up to meet his, your arms wrapping around his back to pull him closer.

He takes the hint, his hand gliding back down your body to the hem of your panties. He reaches down farther, teasing your folds through the fabric. “Fuck, so fucking wet already,” he mumbles, slipping your panties to the side so that he can feel you. You shudder under his touch, his fingers spreading your slickness up to your clit. He strokes teasingly, the ache between your thighs growing with every flick and circle. 

It feels like heaven, but you need him closer. “Logan,” you whimper, fisting the sheets underneath you. “Want you, please.” It’s a desperate prayer and not just a request. 

Logan suddenly pulls his hand away and you whine at the loss of contact. “I know, sweetheart,” he soothes reassuringly, sitting up and pushing his boxers down. You’ll never get tired of the sight of his cock springing free against his stomach. His hands are back on your hips in an instant, squeezing lightly before hooking his fingers under the waistband of your panties and yanking them down. 

He's back on top of you, lowering down onto one forearm as his other hand pulls your shirt above your tits. “Wanna see you, pretty girl,” he groans, pressing a chaste kiss to your temple before his forehead meets yours.

His hand comes down to the base of his cock, guiding his tip to your entrance, to where you need him most. His chest heaves in time with yours, your nipples brushing against him. He stays there for a moment, not moving. His eyes search your face, as if to confirm you’re real—that you’re truly here with him. You can see the need in his eyes. It’s not lust anymore—not just about sex. It’s never been about that. 

It has always meant more. 

Logan suddenly thrusts into you, bottoming out down to the hilt, stretching you open. You can feel him throb inside you. He groans at your ear. “So goddamn tight.” He doesn’t pull back out, his hips still, his cock buried deep inside you. You need him to move, need to feel his cock rub against your walls. You try to grind down on him, but he doesn’t let you. His hand latches onto your hip, keeping you in place. 

“Lo,” you whine. 

“Love when you call me that, sweetheart,” he growls, his hips still stuck in place. “Just wanna feel you like this for a minute. Don’t move.” 

It’s all too much. You need more, need him to fuck into you. Logan frees his hold on your hip, his hand trailing down between your bodies. He finds your clit, drawing achingly slow circles there. It’s nowhere near enough, but the temporary relief feels so good. 

“Always want you this close,” he murmurs, his hips finally starting to move, slowly but surely. You arch your back at the feeling. “Feels so good, so fucking good.” 

He’s taking his time, committing how you feel around his cock to his memory. He’s filling you up, taking in every inch you have to give him. You’re still adjusting to his size, his cock working you open with every thrust. His fingertips swirl around your clit, adding more pressure to the sensitive bud. You’re already close, already putty in his hands. 

Your walls flutter around him, drawing him in, deeper and deeper. 

“Should’ve just brought you in here when I got home,” he husks between starving kisses. “Shouldn’t have waited.” 

You wrap your legs around his waist. “I’m here now,” you coo, your nails scratching at his back as he pounds into you, picking up his pace, his hips snapping into yours. 

“D-don’t know what I’d do without you,” he stutters, his voice suddenly shaky. He’s still fucking into you relentlessly, pumping in and out. “F-fucking need you all the time, princess.” His words and that nickname light a spark at the base of your spine. You can feel yourself melting, ready to come undone. 

“So close,” you choke out in between thrusts. 

You clamp down on him. “That’s it,” Logan whispers, his cock rutting into you, his fingers still circling your clit. He’s working you through it, taking care of you, making you feel good. “Come on my cock, pretty girl. Wanna feel it.” 

You can’t help but do as he says—that spark at the base of your spine spreading like wildfire. You’re moaning his name, walls squeezing around him, stars blurring your vision as your orgasm floods through you. But Logan isn’t slowing down, his cock pounding into you and his fingers stroking your clit long after you’ve finished. 

“Love feeling you come,” he mutters, biting your lip in between kisses. “Wanna feel you come again, princess.” 

You’re already beyond fucked out, overstimulated, and far too sensitive, but his words goad you along. “’S’so much, Lo,” you whimper, tripping over your sentence as he splits you apart, sinks into you, hitting your g-spot with every pump. 

“Know you can take it,” he praises, pressing a kiss just under your ear, then to your pulse point, and back up to your lips. “Know you can come again for me, can’t you?”

“Y-yes,” you stammer. “A-anything for you.” You mean it, and he knows you do.

“Fuck,” he curses, his thrusts growing sloppier as the words fall from your lips. “F-fucking beautiful, perfect.” 

You look to where you two are connected—where you become one—and watch as his cock disappears into you. It’s too much, the sight, the feeling of him fucking into you, rubbing your clit, chasing your orgasm. It’s all it takes to have you falling apart underneath him, coming on his cock again. 

After a few soothing strokes to your clit, his nails trail up your body, his fingertips exploring your bare skin. Logan curses under his breath, your name on his lips. You know he’s close behind—almost there. 

“Don’t pull out,” you whisper in his ear, his cock pulsing inside you. “Stay.” 

That’s all the permission he needs to fill you up, his hips stuttering as he comes. “F-fuck,” he groans, his hand slipping under your back to hike you up, to bury himself as deep as possible, to hold you flush against him as he finishes inside you. 

He pumps a few more times, riding out his orgasm, but he doesn’t pull out. He grabs your thigh and hoists your leg around his waist as he shifts you onto your side. You’re next to him now, your chests still pressed together.

“Lemme stay inside you,” he mumbles. 

You nod against him. “Okay.” You squeeze your leg around his waist, taking him deeper. 

The room is silent, your shared shallow breaths the only sound. The curtains dance in the breeze from the still-open window. Your eyes flutter shut, and Logan’s lips press a kiss to each of them. 

After a few moments, he breaks the silence. “Don’t ever wanna spend a night without you.”

Your eyes flutter back open, and you’re met with Logan’s soft, sleepy face. His hair is a mess. You can’t help but smile at the intimacy—the domesticity. “You don’t have to,” you say back. 

“I mean it,” his voice is steady, firm, the sleepiness replaced suddenly with something more serious. “Need you with me all the time.”

“I know,” you say. And then he’s drawing stars across your back. It makes you think of the night this all started. The night everything changed. “I’ll always stay. Always.” You blink and an unexpected tear slips down your cheek. You swallow harshly, unprepared for the vulnerability of the moment. 

Logan immediately notices and brings his thumb up to your cheek, brushing the tear away. “Just want you. Give anything to make you mine.” 

“I already am,” is all you can manage to say. “Don’t need anything.” 

“Gonna give it to you anyway.” He kisses the spot where he wiped the tear away. 

You start to drift off—his arms around you, his cock still buried inside you—the thought of a forever with Logan replaying in your mind. 

You think he’s asleep, but then you hear his soft husk at your ear. “I love you. Always will.”

“I love you, too.”

[dduane]

I just wrote a thousand words on my trek fanfic and I feel incredible. How do I maintain moment like this without burning out? any advice appreciated. Also I'm interested to hear your thoughts on how medicine is handled in the Star Trek Franchise. Part of my fan fic is an exploration on the operations of a big hospital vessel (some of my favorite background set pieces in Trek)

Let me take this in two parts.

First of all: don't worry about burning out any time soon. It sounds a bit like you're experiencing the flip side of performance anxiety—the "Having Performed" anxiety, where some nervous fragment of your writer-mind runs around tearing its hair and moaning "But what if it stops?!" ...This is way too familiar: I think we all get it from time to time.

The simplest thing to say about this is: Don't sweat it. You didn't get where you are as a writer overnight, and my guess would be that it takes at least as long to reach a genuinely non-writing state as it took to reach the writing one.

Also, and in particular, the kind of momentum most writers find themselves dealing with is not necessarily visible as words on the page. The Writer Brain has many forms of continuing creativity that don't show on the surface. Work, sometimes quite important work, is continually going on in the background without any exterior sign that even you can perceive. (Which is probably one of the things that drives a lot of writers furthest around the bend. We are all black boxes, full of processes we don't fully understand and routinely can't supervise or control. All we can do is learn to live with it, and keep on working.)

The thing to remember about your fanfic work (and indeed, of all writing work, but it's most obvious with fanfic) is that it should be for having fun. And yeah, you'll suffer and twitch and sweat your guts out over it as well! But regardless of facile simplistic bullshit "inspirational" mottoes about finding a job you love and thereby never working a day in your life, writing is usually work, and it's okay for it to be work... because some work is both worth doing, and worth doing well.

Meanwhile, especially at the fanfic end, you get to have the fun anyway! Fanfic, as we (mostly) make it and share it these days, is pure gift. It's grace made manifest. When you read it, you know that a stranger made this fabulous stuff for you, for nothing. Makers of fic inhabit a very special place. Be proud of your spot in it.

So for now just concentrate on sitting down as regularly as you can (the write-every-day thing isn't workable for some people, and maybe not for you: find your own rhythm) and let it slide out at its own speed. I'll be fine.

...Now. Re: medicine in Trek: what I do, mostly, is look at what's cutting edge right now, and then go further. Then I think a little about whatever I've created so far, and think about how to go further than that. And then write about it as if it's not merely casual, but a bit boring.

For example, as off this news story: McCoy shrugging and saying casually, “Well, we can handle this a couple of ways. We’ll either turn their pancreas back on, or print them a new one.” And then adding, “So what’ll we do after lunch?”

Just be bold in creating new approaches, because even now things are starting to look more wildly interesting than usual.

Hope this helps!

[fuzzybirdie]

This work was fully inspired by the following prompt/post and @freedomanddisorder 's amazing art, please! Check out both!

~~~

Ch.1 A Vacation To Gotham! What Could Go Wrong? (Pt1)

It had been 1 year scince Danny's accident, and 1 year since his parent's masterpiece miraculously started working. In celebration, danny's parents decided to take a holiday to gotham. Mostly to look at the bats, who were obviously ghosts. Just look at signal! Litterally creating ghost orbs. But, as the bats only come out at night (excluding signal) there nothing to do during the day. Nothing exept the mundane things like amusement parks and fast food restraunts.

Danny could tell that his parents were bored and upset that they couldn't interview any bats, (and boy, was danny glad that they'd chilled out after a year of actually interacting with ghosts) but they were still trying to make things fun for themselves too.

The Fentons had split up near the enterance, agreeing to meet up at the food stalls arround 1 for lunch. His parents went to the haunted house - ever reasearching, Jazz would wonder arround for a bit before deciding on her rides, while Danny went right for the roller coasters.

On the way, Danny had an idea; his parents were on the other side of the park, so they wouldn't question him if his hair and eyes suddenly changed colour, and he had been meaning to experiment with looking more alive in ghost form...Ducking into a bathroom, he started transforming. Slowly, Carefully, not touching the clothes, there. Finished, he looked at the miror to find- "I look like a ghost in a tee and jeans."-his skin still had the green tint from the ectoplasam in his veins, and his hair was steaming like dry ice.

The hair was more obviously inhuman, so he tackled that first. It would need to be solid, condensed, thicker and thicker, -too thick!

What once was steam now looked like a plain old block of ice. Maybe, his hair being made of ice would be fine if he seperated it a bit? If he peeled each layer into tiny little strings luke normal hair. Little by little, piece by piece, perfect. The ice string hair was curlier than he'd thought, waves of snow tickling his ears, eyebrows and the back of his neck.

The next problem was the green tint. This would take some thinking. He couldn't just pretend to be cosplaying a Vulcan from star trek. Could he turn his ectoplasam back into blood? Probably not, either he'd end up 'suffocating' (if that was even the right word) as a ghost or just turn back into a human and need to do this all over again.

Veto'd, too dangerous.

Thinking back, didn't frostbite say there was something odd with his ectoplasam and blood? Thats right! There were slight ammounts of ectoplasam in his blood and vice versa. If he could manipulate his remaining blood into the capillaries along the surface of his skin, it'd look like he still had a beating heart!...

Ok, that sounded bad even in his mind.

Shaking off that thought, he pushed his blood to his skin and checked the mirror one last time. Normal teen with white hair? Check. Now, Roller Coaster!

~~~

This is the first! || next

Thanks for reading! Unfortunately, I had to cut this in half. (Curse the word limit!) When I have time to post part 2 I'll link it down here. If the links work... Anyways! Please tell me if there's anything I can improve! Last time I posted something was back in... 2016? So i'm very out of practice

[sunderwight]

y'know what, I think it's kind of interesting to bring up Data from Star Trek in the context of the current debates about AI. like especially if you actually are familiar with the subplot about Data investigating art and creativity.

see, Data can definitely do what the AI programs going around these days can. better than, but that's beside the point, obviously. he's a sci-fi/fantasy android. but anyway, in the story, Data can perfectly replicate any painting or stitch a beautiful quilt or write a poem. he can write programs for himself that introduce variables that make things more "flawed", that imitate the particular style of an artist, he can choose to either perfectly replicate a particular sort of music or to try and create a more "human" sounding imitation that has irregular errors and mimics effort or strain. the latter is harder for him that just copying, the same way it's more complicated to have an algorithm that creates believable "original" art vs something that just duplicates whatever you give it.

but this is not the issue with Data. when Data imitates art, he himself knows that he's not really creating, he's just using his computer brain to copy things that humans have done. it's actually a source of deep personal introspection for the character, that he believes being able to create art would bring him closer to humanity, but he's not sure if he actually can.

of course, Data is a person. he's a person who is not biological, but he's still a person, and this is really obvious from go. there's no one thing that can be pointed to as the smoking gun for Data's personhood, but that's normal and also true of everyone else. Data's the culmination of a multitude of elements required to make a guy. Asking if this or that one thing is what makes Data a person is like asking if it's the flour or the eggs that make a cake.

the question of whether or not Data can create art is intrinsically tied to the question of whether or not Data can qualify as an artist. can he, like a human, take on inspiration and cultivate desirable influences in order to produce something that reflects his view on the world?

yes, he can. because he has a view on the world.

but that's the thing about the generative AI we are dealing with in the real world. that's not like Data. despite being referred to as "AI", these are algorithms that have been trained to recognize and imitate patterns. they have no perspective. the people who DO have a perspective, the humans inputting prompts, are trying to circumvent the whole part of the artistic process where they actually develop skills and create things themselves. they're not doing what Data did, in fact they're doing the opposite -- instead of exploring their own ability to create art despite their personal limitations, they are abandoning it. the data sets aren't like someone looking at a painting and taking inspiration from it, because the machine can't be inspired and the prompter isn't filtering inspiration through the necessary medium of their perspective.

Data would be very confused as to the motives and desires involved, especially since most people are not inhibited from developing at least SOME sort of artistic skill for the sake self-expression. he'd probably start researching the history of plagiarism and different cultural, historical, and legal standards for differentiating it from acceptable levels of artistic imitation, and how the use of various tools factored into it. he would cite examples of cultures where computer programming itself was considered a form of art, and court cases where rulings were made for or against examples of generative plagiarism, and cases of forgeries and imitations which required skill as good if not better than the artists who created the originals. then Geordi would suggest that maybe Data was a little bit annoyed that people who could make art in a way he can't would discount that ability. Data would be like "as a machine I do not experience annoyance" but he would allow that he was perplexed or struggling to gain internal consensus on the matter. so Geordi would sum it up with "sometimes people want to make things easy, and they aren't always good at recognizing when doing that defeats the whole idea" and Data would quirk his head thoughtfully and agree.

then they'd get back to modifying the warp core so they could escape some sentient space anomaly that had sucked the ship into intermediate space and was slowly destabilizing the hull, or whatever.

anyways, point is -- I don't think Data from Star Trek would be a big fan of AI art.