#and also the first of her species to breach the surface

[siderealscribblings]

NEET Melusine touches grass for the first time in her life (she is 3 days old)

[sky-scribbles]

There are a lot of things to love about the SSV Normandy. It’s a symbol of cooperation between two species historically at odds. It’s a miracle of engineering, a technological masterpiece that could alter every pattern of space warfare. Its crew is the highest calibre that the Alliance has to offer, bolstered by multispecies allies: an emblem of flying hope.

It also has far, far too many flashing lights. Everywhere.

One hand pressed to the wall to keep himself steady, the other pressed against his forehead as if that’s going to do any good, Kaidan shuffles down the hall toward the med bay. Every light panel and display interface feels like a laser drill boring directly through his eyes, sounds reverberate against the inside of his skull, and his sense of balance is a distant, pleasant memory. Kaidan sucks in a tight breath between his teeth. It’s going to be okay. He can do this. He’s done it before.

He drags himself the last few feet, and the med bay doors slide open. Kaidan opens up his omni-tool – god, why are those so bright, too? – and does what he’s done a hundred times, scanning the medical interface so that the med system logs him. Doctor Chakwas isn’t here, which means she’s on her rest shift, but that’s fine. The med system will alert her if there’s a problem.  

Kaidan, turns, so ready to collapse into the nearest med bed – except he can’t. Because there’s someone already in it.

‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Hey, Tali.’

‘Hey, Lieutenant.’ She still seems shy about using his first name. Maybe it’s a habit from being raised on board ships, or maybe she’s just not sure if she’s allowed. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I will be once the pain meds kick in.’ Kaidan makes it to the next bed along and finally, finally lies down and shuts his eyes. ‘Doctor Chakwas is just… pretty strict about me coming here whenever a migraine kicks in. Just in case it’s a sign of something going wrong with my implant.’

Through the fog of everything hurts, it finally surfaces in his brain that Tali in the med bay is… that’s bad, right? ‘What about you? Are you, you know –?’

Okay, he’s not sure how to finish that sentence. There’s probably not a polite way to say hey, are you here because you’ve picked up a fatal illness?

He cracks one eye open, just enough to see her looking glumly at him. He’s not sure how he can tell that she’s glum when all he can see is her eyes, but yeah. She’s glum. ‘You know how I took a hit on Feros?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And how I disinfected it, and used my patch kit on the suit breach, and told Shepard I was fine?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I was not fine.’ She slumps down miserably. ‘My throat is full of painful slime, my sinuses are on fire, and my halesh –’ Okay, that’s obviously some piece of quarian anatomy – ‘is more gummed up than I can describe.’

Kaidan shuts his eyes again. ‘Well, my skull feels like it’s slowly contracting and crushing my brain, so… I sort of feel you.’

She laughs weakly. ‘I should have run an extra med scan once I got back to the Normandy. I just – I wanted to help with the engine maintenance today. And there’s this combat drone design I’m working on. And now…’ There’s a sound of movement; Kaidan gets the impression that she’s gesturing at the med bay in angry helplessness.

‘I feel that too.’ And he does. He really does. This isn’t the worst migraine he’s ever had – he can actually hold a conversation, which some days would be beyond him. But it’s… it’s not great. And he had things to do. Ash was running a drill and wanted him to look over her plans. He had a cleaning shift at fourteen hours. Shepard wanted to talk strategy for Noveria.  And yes, he knows he has a right to take time off for a medical issue. He knows he’s no use to Ash or Shepard or anyone when he can’t even walk in a straight line. But knowing that doesn’t quite get rid of the squirm in his belly, the one that feels like letting people down.

Tali’s quiet for a minute, aside from the ever-present, barely-audible hum of her suit systems, and the occasional sniff from behind her helmet. Then she says, unexpectedly, ‘I’m just… I’m so tired. You know what I mean?’

Kaidan’s head throbs. He swallows. ‘Oh, yeah.’

The constant vigilance. Always having to be careful about where he goes – is this room too bright? Is this one too loud? – in case something triggers another bad spell. Taking hits to the head in a fight that anyone else could just shrug off, but that for him mean another trip to the med bay to make sure his implant isn’t damaged. Trying to do his job and suddenly finding, no, he can’t, because his body has decided that today’s the day he just doesn’t get to function.

Tali… she must go through the same awful deal, just in a different flavour. Always being careful, so careful. Someone else’s minor injury being her okay, let’s get a med check to make sure I won’t die. It’s not the same, of course: Kaidan can eat food without filtering it, touch people without protective layers, see people’s faces without a tinted mask. Still… there’s a tone in her voice that he knows from his own.

There’s a heavy silence. Then Tali says, ‘You know what’s really stupid? I left my datapad in my cabin, so I can’t even watch vids.’

Kaidan smiles. He’s seen her down in Engineering, a few times, hands flying around over the machinery, rocking back and forth on her heels. Idleness obviously doesn’t suit her. ‘You can borrow mine, if you like.’

‘Really?’ Her voice is already brighter. ‘I mean – won’t the noise will make you feel worse?’

‘Nah, I’ll be good.’ He’s not just saying it; there’s a blissful numbness creeping through his head which means that his meds are finally getting to work. He fishes the datapad from his pocket, taps in his passcode, and hands it over. ‘What kind of vids do you like?’

Her whole being perks up – tone, body, everything. ‘Oh, all of them.Any genre, any species. I mean… asari vids can be a bit long. I mean, they’re made by people who can spend a decade making a vid and a whole day watching it. Turians… their vids can be a bit depressing. There’s a lot of ‘this war ended with almost everyone dead, but one turian is still standing, so it’s a victory!”

‘What about quarians? What kinds of stories do your people tell?’

A small laugh echoes inside the helmet. ‘Quarian vids are pretty limited by environment. We don’t have a lot of varied sets to work with. So we tell the best long-running dramas. There’s one ship in the Flotilla that’s been hosting the same series for over eighty standard years now. Following the crew as they change over time, that sort of thing.’ She taps the base of her helmet. ‘It’s pretty good, but… I think if you watched it, you’d think there were a lot more explosions, murders and shipwide romantic entanglements in the Flotilla than there actually are.’

‘Human dramas are like that too.’

Tali laughs. ‘Quarian dramas make human dramas look relaxed.’

Kaidan finds he’s actually able to grin. ‘So what do human vids tell you about us?’

Her helmet tilts as she considers. ‘That you’re very individualistic. I mean, not every human culture. But you put a lot of focus onto characters and personal journeys.’ She scrolls down the datapad screen – looking through vid lists, presumably – then stops. It’s hard to tell, but Kaidan thinks she might be frowning. ‘I did notice… in a lot of human media, the biotics are…’

Another insistent pulse of pain through his temples. Kaidan sighs. ‘Crazy extremists?’

‘Yes. Do you… do you mind if I ask why that is?’

‘No, it’s fine.’ Kaidan turns onto his back and stares up at the dim ceiling. ‘A lot of the early generation of biotics, the ones who got the same implants as me… let’s just say I got off lightly. Most ended up with much more serious medical conditions. And when people found out about the side effects of the L2 implants, the media got the bit between its teeth and –’ Yeah, no, that wasn’t going to translate. ‘Sorry. Human saying. They got a certain impression, and they ran with it.’

Tali’s quiet for several seconds. Kaidan twists his head to face her, and sees the pale eyes behind the mask giving him a long, steady look.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. And then, after a moment, ‘They tell lies about us, too.’

Kaidan holds her gaze, and feels terribly, achingly sad. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I bet they do.’

 The way people look at Tali as she walks through the Presidium… it’s familiar. Not quite the same. There’s a note of scorn in the looks they give to Tali – but there’s suspicion, too, and that’s something he knows. All the times back on Earth, after he got back from Jump Zero, when he shook someone’s hand or opened a door, and their eyes found the implants. They way they stared at him like he was a loaded gun. All the documents he had to fill out to do anything, the knowledge that any government he lived under would always be hovering a few steps away, keeping tabs, making sure.

Remembering Rahna – remembering that obvious, instinctive fear in her eyes – is an old memory now, the kind that’s a faded scar. But he remembers the shock of it, back when he was seventeen. When no one had looked at him like that before, and it was dizzying and new and felt like a hole in his gut.

He bets Tali has that hole in her gut all the time.

Kaidan pushes himself up a little – which makes his brain spin, but he manages it – and gives Tali a smile. ‘Well. Let’s look for something that gets us both right.’

‘Definitely.’ She flicks through the options for a minute more, then pauses. ‘Have you ever seen Fleet and Flotilla?’

‘I think I’ve heard of it.’ There’s a faint memory of seeing an ad for it, maybe, and thinking it was the kind of thing he’d have loved as a kid. Space exploration. Justice. Love. ‘The… war romance, right?’

‘Yes!’ Tali’s legs bounce. ‘It’s – keelah, it’s so good, it’s – it’s about this girl, Shalei, who’s on her pilgrimage. And she’s interested in the geth, because she’s got this dream of finding a way to defeat them and take back the Homeworld, right? And when she finds something, she goes to the Citadel for help, but no one will listen except this one turian called Bellicus –’

‘Hold up. Wasn’t that… exactly what you were doing when we met you? Minus the turian, I mean.’

Tali ducks her head, suddenly shy. ‘I… I really, really like the vid.’

No kidding. Kaidan smiles. ‘So let’s watch it.’

His head still feels like a bombsite, and when he thinks about all the things he wants to be doing for his crew and isn’t, the rest of him hurts too. But maybe he’s still doing something for his crew, sitting in the med bay with his sick squadmate – his sick friend – and sharing her favourite vid with her. Maybe he’s doing something for him, too. He doesn’t do that too often.

Tali props the datapad up on the table between their beds, her whole body one big smile. ‘You’re going to love this,’ she promises, and presses play.

[blacklegsanjiii]

I had an idea for Fishman!Sanji: what if the time he nearly drowned was the time with Zeff? Maybe Zeff tried to save him, but for whatever reason they got separated in the currents; Sanji was found by a fishman, Zeff ended up on the Rock. Years later, Sanji runs upon the Baratie, and Zeff instantly recognizes the boy he thought he couldn't save years ago. He's glad Sanji is still looking for the All Blue and offers him a place to learn how to cook.

Also, maybe Sanji meets the Strawhats because of Arlong. Jinbei is worried about his little brother, particularly because he remembers how much Arlong hates humans, and Sanji volunteers to go and see how he's been. After the whole arc, Sanji's found himself on a pirate crew and at first just keeps the reason he visited East Blue a secret because he doesn't want to hurt Nami with his story being the opposite of hers--someone saved by a fishman, the one who sent Arlong to the East no less--and eventually kept it a secret out of worry that if the World Government found out, they'd retaliate on Fishman Island.

Sanji must deal with racism a lot in the world too, from humans and fishman. He watches so many people shun his father and friends because of their species, and surely there's fishmen and mermaids who treat Sanji poorly as well, since he's a human. He still has his deal about not wasting food, but the second trigger button for him is any form of discrimination. He will NOT stand for anyone treating anybody poorly simply for their race. Jinbei has taught him well.

Also I really do need to see Sanji freaking out people with his swimming abilities. He's probably also a master of fishman karate, though he might hide it to keep his connection to Fishman Island a secret. But anyways, since the Grand Line is filled with so many powerful devil fruit users, someone so good with the ocean must definitely be a benefit, not to mention that Sanji must be aware of haki to some extent since he was raised by Jinbei. The crew keeps thinking Sanji has drowned when he's taking (from his perspective) a light dive. Chopper has no idea how such lung capacity is possible, considering how much he smokes.

Oh God, Jinbei being presented a ten year old fresh from a ship wreck to add to all the previous trauma? This blond little human boy blubbering about an old man who couldn't save him and the boy couldn't save back? Jinbei is trying to console this kid but for the life of him he can't touch the kid because he's flinching. And Arlong is only making it worse.

The Warlords don't care, the Marines will glare and call them names or spit at them. Jinbei doesn't care about himself but someone spit on Sanji once and they were killed immediately. Sanji doesn't really know what to do. And when Arlong is sent to the East, insults and slurs hurled at both of them as he leaves, Sanji and Jinbei are sad. The fishman and mer that shun Sanji make Jinbei angry and disappointed but no matter what Jinbei says nothing really changes, the wounds still too fresh for most.

When Sanji is older he arrives at the Baratie looking for a job, Arlong, and information on the All Blue he sees the geezer and they're staring at each other. The geezer is holding him which is surprising because Sanji is used to scales touching him and not skin but here he is, hugging the geezer back. When the Strawhats arrive and take Nami and he goes with because of fucking course Arlong pulled that shit. Of course. Sanji feels so lucky he didn't run into Arlong for anything longer than a roll of the eyes. He doesn't even run into him at Arlong Park and no one knows who he is thankfully.

He scares everyone when they're docked on a good island and he goes and dives for food and such. He's underwater for a long time and suddenly Zoro is grabbing him and having him up so when they breach the surface he's yelling at Zoro but every one on the ship is yelling they thought he drowned. The amount of tests Chopper has him do is annoying and chopper keeps looking at him like he doesn't understand.

And yeah Sabaody makes Sanji lose his fucking shit. He still keeps it all hidden for fear of retribution. Doesn't need to attract more unwanted attention. Then of course the crew is separated so on Momoiro he explains he knows observation haki, demonstrates setting his legs on fire, even the fishman karate he knows and has mastered. The Okama and Ivankov look at him like he's some sort of weird being which is rich coming from them. But then Sanji confides in Ivankov that he was raised by Jinbei and it all makes so much sense.

Also every time there's someone new on the boat and it's good waters Sanji will dive. Constantly, for too long. Chopper worries every time. Law called him a marvel and tried to amputate Sanji's lungs so he could look at them but got kicked. Brook played funeral music after twenty minutes of Sanji not resurfacing only to scream so loud when a bag of shellfish lands next to him. Jinbei looks at him and asks him to stop scaring their nakama at some point and Sanji just dives over board.

[maudiemoods]

Questions sddsdd for stardust :D

How old do they usually live to be? Do they even really measure time since space is wacky?

What do they do for fun?

Are there any animals on the planet? Ooh also what does the planet look like/how does it work?

Do sun and moon have more things to wear than just black?

So it seems like they know to avoid the earth, but why? And how did they find out in the first place?

What happens if one eats a lot of them? Like more than eclipse a lot.

....What would happen to a human if for whatever reason they did that?

What are sun and moon trying to do?

I think I found the ask!! Yay!!

1! How old do they usually live to be? I haven't put much thought into it really! I think on their home planet, they'd live to around 100-150ish? They do age I just haven't shown that in any ocs but I have this elder lady I've been thinking about and she's pretty old! I'll have to actually draw her sjndjw

2! What do they do for fun? They create! Their species is very big on arts and crafts!! But that also includes creating and improving tech, making music, designing and a lot more!! They tend to really enjoy puzzles and challenges! They also like to explore and document!

3! Are there any animals on their planet? Yes! I really need to work on what their homeworld is like! I have a basic idea for it but now I'm not sure how I like it! They definitely have pets and livestock though! Most are primarily vegetarian so there isn't much livestock though! They do harvest bugs though!! They really like eating bugs!

4! What does the planet look like? Hmm not sure! Originally their world was covered in mountains and they lived in giant cave systems! They have domes breaching the surface but they typically stay underground! Their planet is huge in intergalactic trade so there'd be big cities with giant landing docks for ships! But I'm kinda more into a solar punk vibe? Super high tech and cool machines but still super naturey and cozy! I'd like to think they have a flourishing ecosystem on their planet!

5! Do sun and moon have more things to wear other than black? Yeah! They have tons of casual wear! Moon has a lot of flashy fashion stuff while sun is a little bit more minimalistic with the exception of a few outfits! They just wear their plain clothes all the time because they're kinda sad and depressed and don't have the energy to put work into dressing y'know? But that changes eventually!

6! Why do they avoid earth? Mostly because there's nothing around earth! There's really no reason to be close other than to observe! Also, earth is monitored so no aliens intervene with earth's development. It's poorly monitored though! Observation devices are pretty outdated and the monitors are hardly ever watched!

7! How did they find the place? They were kinda just drifting aimlessly and found themselves in the area! Their ship can turn plant matter into fuel so they had planned on just taking some dead leaves and getting out of there fast. Ha didn't happen like that

8! What happens if one eats a lot of cores? They blow up!! Kinda! It varies between beings but they get more and more mentally unstable and their body starts to get deformed! Some experience voices that drive them crazy, while some experience many phantom limbs! If they consume too much, the energy of the core becomes too much for them and they implode before exploding! The energy of this death can create wrapped areas of space! And places with high energy that can damage tech and equipment! Overall, it'll usually kill them!

9! What would happen to a human that ate a core? They'd die! Pretty painfully too! Those of warmer colors have very hot cores, so the human would burn and boil from the inside out! Those with cooler colors have freezing cores! So a human would freeze from the inside out! Neutral colored beings have a core temp in-between! Their core would cause a human to have such a terrible heart attack, they would die! They'd get all jittery and basically have a huge panic attack before dropping dead!

10! What are sun and moon trying to do? Hmmmmm I have some ideas but I want to explore them a little before I talk about them :D!!! But mostly, they want normality and comfortability! They want to heal and be happy again!

[dutyworn]

She doesn’t quite know how to read him, yet; she’s getting there with connecting the dots with some of his LED indicators, but that’s obviously something that can barely touch the surface of a  whole person.  When she gets to know the people in her crew (or... got to; no going back there now), she has the continued proximity on her side: it’s a lot easier to really gauge a person when you live on board the same vessel. As a leader, she’s also had the privilege to be allowed to ask questions, in a socially acceptable way, with the purpose of building trust for the sake of the mission, for the sake of everyone’s survival. It’s surprisingly alien to her, attempting to connect with people... as a civilian. All her life, she’s been a soldier. She doesn’t quite know how to be anything but. It brings her back to her childhood.

She does wish to befriend Detective Connor, though. Because why not? Generally speaking, she’s drawn to people, and as long as he doesn’t show blatant signs of wanting her to leave him alone for good, she’s glad to engage in conversation with him, whenever they cross paths.

❝ That sounds... ❞ Wren isn’t sure what that sounds like. The AI in her world... all she has as a reference is EDI, who’s one of a kind to begin with, and the geth, who had only recently fully become individuals, rather than living as a geth consensus. The Androids here obviously have different backgrounds, different experiences. Yet somehow it seems to always come down to organic species trying to enslave synthetic ones...

❝ I don’t know how similar it feels, to you, ❞    she picks her words carefully  ⸺  you, as in the Detective himself, or you, as in Androids in general, either could apply, though it does seem quite unlikely an Android who is also a detective would never have died in duty; she doesn’t feel it’s her place to pry, though,    ❝ but if it does... it is such a breach of autonomy. I don’t think anyone should have to go through something like that, without their consent. ❞    No doubt few humans here have cared about Android autonomy until very recently, from what she’s gathered.

Wren touches her neck with light fingertips as he asks about her tattoo, and gives a small smile  ⸺  there’s complicated feelings, there, but at least the redone tattoo now feels like the original, like it never was erased at all.    ❝ No, they didn’t care about things like that. They needed me back in fighting condition, that’s all. I used to have more tattoos, scars, too. Woke up with none of them there. First chance I got, I got the bird redone. There’s no good story for the original, though. But it was my first, and I wanted it back. You got any tattoos, Detective? ❞    She doesn’t know if Androids get tattoos, it might be a dumb question... but he clearly knows she doesn’t know her shit. She’s not entirely sure where he thinks she came from, but there is no way he’s unaware of how she is oblivious to many things considered common knowledge, here. Being a detective... and just the way he talks to her, how he seeps explanations of things into casual conversation. It feels deliberate, and she appreciates that.

Hm. Connor looked up, to read her expression when she said it, curious about something that made his LED cycle, low and thoughtful. It didn't shock him the way that sort of information might have shocked someone who did not deal with death every day; he took the information and thought about it, head canting.

Not a single one of the fifty-one people who had come before him had been him, really, the 'death's they had died had been their own. He remembered the most recent one, sort of. Remembered falling, but did not remember hitting the ground.

"The organisation which initially built and enslaved Androids had a similar mechanism," he said. "We call it a 'transfer'. When someone died, Cyberlfe used to pick and choose memory and identity information and 'transfer' the data to a duplicate body. It could be done overnight." Not quite the same. "The technology still exists today, but it's unpopular."

His own ("own") deaths in this regard were not something Connor mentioned, because she hadn't asked. Instead: "Did they prioritise your bird tattoo, or did that come after?" Was it something they reassembled, preserved, duplicated? Or had she needed to get another, or had she not had it until after the revival?

[bisonofyesterday]

Attention freaks, it’s me, Bison the Great, half of you following me probably only know me from Monument Mythos fanart, the other half know me from discord, but unbeknownst to most people I'm actually pretty fascinated with the ancient and archaic history of humanity! As it happens, they made a whole show about this, Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal wrapped up its second season about 4-ish weeks ago to much deserved tumultuous fanfare and much less-deserved angst over its finale (which I won’t be getting into), but my main point is that it just won’t leave my head! Such a fantastic show both in animation and story, I've been deep-diving into surface-level videos and articles about the olden days of our species ever since the show’s ending and I thought “Say! Why not post a couple poorly done first-thought essays to Tumblr dot com about Primal Season 2 specifically!”, at the very least I hope these next couple posts provoke your thought glands the same way the show did for me!

First order of business is the show’s beginning, essentially its first three episodes, Sea of Despair, Shadow of Fate, and Dawn of Man (lot of Ofs here). Many folks, fans included, lamented the major lack of prehistoric fauna within season 2 compared to season 1, I get this sentiment entirely, but I think it’s a bit of a short-sighted critique, for I believe the lack of dinosaurs and other creatures is intentional. Primal Season 2 turns its setting of inaccurate savage creatures into one of inaccurate human history, essentially uplifting the Primal aspects of it to a new level, and this is not just thrown in overnight either, the first three episodes do a fantastic job at nudging us into a world that not even Spear and Fang are familiar with, let’s look at Sea of Despair, which I've come to think of as season 1′s last hurrah in a sense. Spear and Fang, immediately after the end of season 1, build a raft to go save the former-slave-turned-slave-again Mira from her captors.

This episode has all the Primal stops, hunting for food, unreasonably antagonistic wildlife, some funny moments, the works, which is saying something as the entire episode takes place in the middle of a goddamn ocean. Our heroes are already in a life-threatening situation before they even reach land, but more interesting is our selection of baddies.

Our first evil-doer, if you can even call them that, is the star of a moment I personally find hilarious, whales. Spear and Fang, being a caveman and a dinosaur respectively, have most likely never seen a whale before, so the sight of these titans TERRIFIES them, of course the whale does nothing to them, but it’s a nice bit of brevity and realism, as well as arguably sets up the task to come, more on that in a bit.

Now to someone that does a lot more evil (the crime of Living), we come to a giant turtle! Most likely an archelon from the size, a species from the late cretaceous and also the largest turtle to have ever lived. Our poor turt friend becomes the prey of two angry carnivores, but it also has some fight in it, as it tries to kill Spear after Spear tried killing it, eventually our duo wins however, by how else? Working together, Spear forces the thing to breach near the boat and Fang kills it instantly with a bite to the neck.

The next few creatures solidify my point here much better, as Spear and Fang (after eating THE ENTIRE TURTLE) meet some flying fish and a dunkleosteus, only to be immediately threatened by what the Primal Wikia tells me is a ornithocheirus and a MEGALODON!

Look at the picture here, notice all these little things and details, these are, in-fact, accurate reconstructions! Sure they might be exaggerated in some ways (dunkleosteus is kinda shrinkwrapped and has a weirdly long lower jaw), but notice the skin over dunkleosteus’s armored skull, the proto-feathers on ornithocheirus, megalodon! Uh, being a giant shark.

This isn’t the first time Primal’s been weirdly accurate, in season 1′s The Night Feeder, the smilodon is accurately stocky, and I'm sure there’s other moments as well. What I find fascinating here however is the fact that they chose to leave our main characters’ homeland with these creatures in this manner, this along with the next episode are going to be the last times fauna has a major antagonistic position in Primal, so why not go with all the shots? Hunting creatures, fighting creatures, and a titan the main characters seem hopeless to fight against. Side-note, it’s always annoyed me how people dismiss Primal as just dumb fun when bringing up its scientific department, while yes, stuff like Fang’s wrists and Terror Under The Blood Moon’s featherless raptors are woefully inaccurate, as are some blatantly fictional creatures before and later on (the saber-toothed wolves in A Cold Death, the man-bats and the giant spider in Terror Under The Blood Moon, the giant vultures in Vidarr, they’re NOT argentavis), but to write off the ENTIRE SHOW has having nothing of scientific substance in it it is a bit absent-minded I think, though of course I'm not saying it’s actually secretly scientific genius either.

After defeating the mega shark, Spear and Fang are washed ashore on a new land, which immediately segues us into the next episode, Shadow of Fate, ominous title! I want to clarify here that I’m NOT trying to recap episodes word-for-word here, only to point out moments that help my greater point. And with saying that, the count of prehistoric creatures is EVEN LESS in Shadow of Fate, ultimately relegated to a poor arsinoitherium and a male t-rex that the fandom has affectionately named Red.

The REAL stars of this episode are, instead, a Celtic tribe! Of humans! They speak Gallic so I guess they’re French. The tribe has recently taken in Spear, who has also just awoken deeply confused, Spear’s never dealt with another person before, he’s only dealt with things either below/the same as his own level or with Mira, and with Mira he witnessed personally the kind of things a whole group of smart-people could do to innocent smart-people, so naturally our hero is terrified of the implications of his current state in this new, weird place.

The Celts aren’t bad though, in-fact, they’re much better off than Spear, being kinda bronze-age, the technology level of Primal season 2 is something I’ll get into in another post, point is, in the times of the Roman Empire, the Celtic Tribes were spoken of as savage barbarians, here however, Spear is the barbarian, note how the Celts have buildings, agriculture, how they ornately decorate their bodies and clothing, compare this to Spear, who in this scene is depicted as a scared animal backed into a corner.

A continuation of Primal’s “unprimaling”, Spear is disconnected from his animal buddy, who’s attitude is the only attitude he’s ever truly known, individuals fighting for their survival all the time and following where the food is, he has NO idea what to do against an established tribe with an army, a doctor, and a leader, and thankfully he doesn’t get to find out right now, as the Celtic Chieftain calms down the situation and Spear.

Meanwhile with Fang, she and Red have been hanging out, being lovey dovey, doing what it is that animals do, they even go hunting! Unfortunate for everyone involved however, it’s a hunting trip into the Celtic Tribe village and a battle erupts. Note here that Red doesn’t seem to comprehend that Fang cares for a person, neither does Spear comprehend Fang’s love for Red until it’s too late. Red, a being from a different walk of life and time, much like Spear and Fang, is killed in the whole scuffle, Shadow of Fate ending with Spear solemnly leaving the Celtic Tribe to be with his grieving friend. Goodbye Red, you were truly a complicated end to the animalistic antagonist of Primal, much more thought-provoking than the megalodon anyways.

When I say “unprimaling”. I do not mean Primal has lost the focus it had in season 1, far from it, the things that happen in these episodes are in-fact an evolution or at least a spin on season 1′s formula, just now set in a place dominated by, compared to Spear, much more advanced humans, instead of very angry animals and monsters, Primal isn’t being un-Primal’d, it’s still Primal, but it’s being unprimaled, as in lifted up out of the land of beasts Spear and Fang hail from, Spear has to deal with people who bypassed where he is loooong ago, and this is nowhere better shown than in Dawn of Man, a truly fitting title.

In this episode, Spear’s hanging out with a still grieving Fang, thankfully their relationship hasn’t been strained at all despite the village fight, but that’s unimportant information at the moment. They find a cave and rest there for the time being, and Spear decides to do some exploring both inside and outside the cave, where he finds remnants of an ancient people, people like him.

Throughout the episode, Spear imagines how these people could’ve functioned, how they were so like him as they lived alongside ancient beasts of their own, bison latifrons, Irish elk, pterosaurs, theropods, hunted by and battled with prehistoric people, primal people.

Spear’s kinda lonely if you didn’t pick up on that.

At night, Spear even tries to worship the moon, the same religion he observed the much more advanced Mira practicing, but it doesn’t give him anything, he doesn’t know what to do with it, all of the things these folks do now either confuse or scare him, they’re not like those old people, who lived a much simpler, albeit a much more dangerous life, Spear’s just kind of a lost soul now even next to his best friend. And speaking of being scared of the new generation, Spear and Fang are happened upon by what they quickly realize are Mira’s captors...

The Scorpion, in reality a Viking clan, filled with Vikings! And they ride cave bears!! Another major example of just how advanced these people are in comparison to Spear, taming untamable animals to be their mounts (I mean, Fang, but Spear and Fang are equals so-). These guys are more advanced than the Celts even, having intricate weaponry and clothing, even shields! Uh, again, I’ll talk about cultures and technology in another post. For now, this is the true end of Primal’s unprimaling, as Spear and Fang defeat the Viking intruders and track their scent back to their village, to Mira’s location, which leads into the next episode and my personal favorite, The Red Mist, but that’s off-topic, just remember that after this point there's never really a major animal villain again when the Vikings introduce a whole new breed of villain to the show.

The beginning of Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal takes to a slow buildup of tuning out the animalistic side of season 1, giving creatures a final spotlight as antagonists, and into the barbarity of ancient man, mingling with both good and evil tribes. People who, while primitive compared to you or I, are basically aliens to our favorite caveman and dinosaur. Folks on the road to getting where we are today, but who’ve also left a lifestyle like Spear’s behind, Spear is now as much as a living fossil as we thought Fang was to him, and this is accentuated the more season 2 goes on and even in its ending.

Tune in next time where I hope I talk about the cultures and technology of the bronze age/ancient/medieval age world of Primal season 2!

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 141

Last week I posted a day early because vacation was doing vacation things to my sense of time.... This week I forgot to queue the chapter up because Monday was a work holiday, so I forgot today was Tuesday. *insert facepalm here please*

Thanks on this one go largely to @baelpenrose who rightfully pointed out that one part made very little sense to him and therefore was unlikely to make sense to a reader.  The clarification smoothed things out quite a bit, I think.  Just in case, whoever spots the area I’m talking about gets a cookie as soon as travel restrictions lift.

As always, thanks go also to @the-raven-fae, @charlylimph-blog, and @anotherusrname for completing the corners of my support system. And, a super-duper extra-special to @drinksteawithcake! I don’t know if I am allowed to tell everyone why, but you know why you get the extra-special, and I hope you are having fun!

BWAAAAAHP!   BWAAAAAHP!

“Uhhh?” I squinted in complaint as flailing arms clambered over me. One pair snagged me around my waist to drag me from bed before depositing me shakily on my feet. “What are you - ?”

BWAAAAAHP!  BWAAAAAHP!

Any trace of sleep was shoved out of my system, replaced by sizzling alertness when I realized I was hearing ship-wide alarms.  Shoving myself into the first clothing I grabbed, not even bothering with shoes, I was hot on Conor and Maverick’s heels as we raced out of our quarters and into the corridor. We paused only long enough for both men to kiss me and for “I love yous” to be exchanged before they turned and headed toward the areas indicated on their datascreens, while I hauled ass toward the Archives, ducking and twisting to avoid anyone in my path.

“Forty minutes,” Tyche told me crisply as I basically fell through the door, panting. “The Ark could be invaded and the battle over by the time you make it.”

“I ran….huff….the whole….ugh….way….” I managed to gasp out.  Part of me felt like puking, but I was pretty sure the muscles in my abdomen were too busy to figure out the logistics.

Clicking her tongue, she pulled me up from the floor. “Alistair, make a note to suggest to Xio that Sophia’s quarters be relocated once we have a better idea of when we are dropping into real space.”

I nodded numbly. “And probably… amp up… sensors… give… earlier… warning.”

“Nice outfit, by the way,” she laughed quietly as we finally reached the shelter point within the Archives.

Glancing down, I had to suppress a sigh. The first thing I grabbed to dress myself had apparently been a pair of Conor’s boxer shorts and a very filthy t-shirt that I assumed belonged to Maverick, since Conor’s was usually under coveralls. “At least you can’t say I took my time getting dressed.”

Her shaking head was greeted by faces in various states of wakefulness - this had been a drill, and woke nearly the entire Ark during their sleep interval on Delta shift.  But we weren’t out of the woods, yet: the drill didn’t end until all of Xiomara and Evan’s scenarios played out, including the mock combat and various tests of concealment for the other shelters.  As such, Tyche stood guard over the choke-point into this section, while Alistair had stayed behind at the entrance.

Early on, when the drills started, there had been fifty-fifty odds that the mock-invaders would make it this far, but over the past few weeks, that had narrowed to maybe twenty-percent.  It was still too high a chance in my judgement, and Xiomara clearly agreed as she stepped up training schedules and randomized the timing of the drills. 

Taking a swig of water from a stash of bottles, I queued up my datapad and stood next to Tyche, watching the ‘casualties’ from a point where no one could see over my shoulder to avoid panic, which I would have done in a real situation. “They didn’t find mess hall seven this time,” I murmured.

She glanced at my screen. “Acoustics are still too damned high. She must not be simulating for that this go around.”

One of the decoy locations lit up. “Looks like this time it’s heavy on thermal.” The location in question had been equipped with a cooking surface, triggered to activate when the klaxons that had woken me up went off.  Which Xiomara knew, but did not tell the ‘pirates’ for authenticity.

“How did they get past the combatants this time?” She asked, both curious and slightly worried.

Rolling back the sensor data, I watched it carefully. “Looks like these got in during the initial breaches, multiple points. But the line has held since, that’s good.”

Doing another check toward Alistair’s direction, she didn’t seem to see anything concerning. “How many?”

“Four,” I confirmed.  “Sam’s thermal camouflage is working beautifully, though.”  I couldn’t help but grin, and Tyche snorted at the same time. ‘Thermal camouflage’ was a bit of overkill as a name, but it was working well in every round. Potential access points were equipped with fast-acting environmental simulators - originally designed for temporary habitats on inhospitable moons - modified to release atmosphere like a Terran equatorial rainforest within one minute in an enclosed space.  It was a much more simple and elegant solution than any others we had found for giving combatants defending the Ark an advantage - instead of trying to create technology to make them look colder, make the entire area match human heat signatures.  Boom, instantly blinded enemies.

A tense half-hour later, the ‘all clear’ sounded, queueing grumbling from those who had dozed back off as everyone stood to make their ways back to their quarters. I waited with Alistair and Tyche for everyone else to be accounted for on the way out, and the three of us headed back toward our quarters together.  Alistair peeled off first, living closest to the Archives, and no sooner had my sister and I reached my door than the page sounded for the post-drill meeting.  She waved me off as she answered on her databand, and I did the same as I pushed into my quarters and flopped on the couch. “Councillor Sophia Reid, present, audio only,” I answered. “And no jokes, Pranav… I look like I smell awful.”

“Alistair Worthington, present, audio and video. I can confirm that she does, and she does.”

Laughter filled the comms and the rest of the group leaders and Councillors joined the debrief.  Finally, everyone was present and Xiomara called the meeting to order.  First, the leaders of each shelter reported in, as those usually went the fastest. There were a couple malfunctions in the deployment of the shielding to disguise the entrances and hide heat and electrical signatures, but nothing Huynh’s team couldn’t fix.  Tyche and Alistair made the recommendations around earlier detection and the need to move those sheltering in the  Archives closer as we approached time to drop out of relativistic space. 

Once that was out of the way, it was on to the combat and invasion teams. Overall consensus was that Sam’s trick with the portable environments was a rousing success and would be installed at each point determined to be most likely as a breach, with trigger conditions to be determined later. “I hate to say it,” Michael sighed, “but we also need Charly’s team to crank up the scovilles on the arrows and grenades.” His team had played the ‘invaders’ this go around, equipped with sensors and readouts to simulate the effect our defenses would have on the various species who most commonly were found on pirate vessels.  Evan had worked intensely with Pranav and Derek to ensure that the strategies provided by the readouts were modelled after similar strategies based on which ever species each team member was assigned, to ensure we weren’t accidentally drilling against human tactics.

Michael hated it, but he was strict about his team complying nonetheless.

“Seriously?” I squawked, and I wasn’t the only one. “One of those things accidentally went off in my quarters…. Can confirm, they’re pretty potent.”

“They dissipated too fast against my team, and also the contact element left a lot to be desired. Charly, you may want to consider adding a sticking element.”

“Duly noted,” she chimed in with a yawn, her normal pep doused by being woken up and then the drop in adrenaline post-combat.

“What about the sonic weapons?” Xiomara asked, moving the meeting along.

“Still less effective than Nixe is on her own,” a familiar voice I couldn’t put a name to responded with a sheepish tone.  “How hard would it be to train more people to shatter glass with their voice?”

“Incredibly,” Grey stressed. “It takes a very unique combination of training and the right vocal chords.”

“Then we may need to work on adding a projection component.  The sonic devices can match the pitch, but not the actual tone and direction. They’re very effective given time and especially contact, but we need something more immediately disabling.”

Xiomara groaned. “Are we back to Mariah Carey on this one?” Objections exploded until she muted the comms. “It’s that or opera.” Votes started scrolling up the screen, and I could see Xio nod. “Opera it is.  Let’s find a suitable piece and try using more analogue-style speakers.”

“I still say that death metal would work better,” Arthur suggested as soon as the comms were back on.

“Annnnd we already tested it, I will remind you. The volume works, but the pitches aren’t high enough to hit a broad enough population of species sensitive to sound.” After that nearly-obligatory objection, the meeting continued going through reports from each combat team until finally Xiomara announced the end results. “I have to admit, this was one of our best drills yet. Ten percent casualties of the combatants defending the breaches, only two percent among non-combatants, and the invaders were only able to traverse three decks before they were subdued.” She let the cheers go for a couple seconds before getting everyone’s attention again. “Yes, great job on the improvements, but let me remind everyone - those numbers still leave us below threshold for a healthy genetic population. Engineering teams, make the necessary adjustments with whatever resources are necessary. Shelters Three and Seven, you will start training for armed and unarmed combat with Shelter Fourteen and Combat Team Two daily.  Sophia, your team will coordinate schedules. Any questions?”

There were no arguments, not even a groan or mutter as the meeting was dismissed. Before I could even add the new task to my agenda the next day, I received the notification that Alistair had beaten me to the punch.

Glancing at the time, I wanted to hit something.  I had to be back up and at work in four hours, and the realization weighed me down with exhaustion.  The guys had come in and gone to bed while I was in the debrief, and I could already hear synchronized snoring coming from the bedroom.  Rather than risk waking them with my now-frozen feet, I pulled the quilt off the back of my couch and rolled myself into it.  Only minutes later, a heavy weight oozed across my hip and started purring furiously.

“Yeah, buddy. I agree. We need a nap.”

<< Prev  Masterlist  Next >>

[tanadrin]

Of the Moon and her myriad nations

[Earth's Moon], though naturally quite barren, was for centuries an attractive prospect for explorers, colonizers, would-be rebels, and utopians of various stripes. Unlike the other bodies of the Solar System, it can be reached with even simple rockets in just a few days, its gravity is low enough to make export-oriented industries feasible, and, perhaps most importantly, it has a psychological connection to Earth found nowhere else in outer space. The rest of the Universe is beyond that first celestial sphere, beyond the gravitation influence of our home, where the Earth is reduced to a dot in the sky, or entirely invisible. But on the near side of the Moon, the home of your species hangs in the sky, resplendent and cloud-marbled in the darkness, only a glance away--as the Moon in turn has hung, with its pale and shining face, in the skies of Earth since the beginning.

Although several scientific outposts and a handful of desultory attempts at industrial projects dotted the lunar surface at the start of the Second Space Race, settlement of the Moon did not begin in earnest until novel propulsion technologies put most of the Inner Solar System within easy reach, and asteroid-based mining and manufacturing began in high Earth orbit. For processes that required more than microgravity, the Moon was a more attractive production site than Earth, with its low escape velocity and lack of atmosphere. Helium-3 could be found there in relative abundance, along with water, and although the base materials had to be imported from Earth, hydroponically grown and synthetically manufactured foodstuffs could be more easily exported than they could from the Earth's surface. Because of its close proximity to Earth, the Moon was initially dominated by terrestrial political structures: tellurian corporations and states, and a handful of orbital and Moon-based organizations with close ties to them. The rest of the Solar System was too distant to either rely upon Earth or to be drawn into its political sphere of influence, once the colonists their achieved self-sufficiency. Should disaster befall them, Earth could be of no help, so what was the use of trying to stay forever in her good graces? Not so, on the Moon.

Nowadays, of course, things are quite different. Between Tranquility Base and Maskelyne Anchorage, one may cross through a dozen major or minor sovereign polities, free estates, or discrete political condominiums. Lunar politics, and consequently lunar law, is a tangle of overlapping jurisdictions, most with some form of sovereign right or privilege, that resembles nothing so much as the ancient Holy Roman Empire, or perhaps India in the wake of the Mughal Empire's collapse. None of these statelets are dependent on Earthbound sovereignties, and indeed they are nothing if not a little scornful of their decadent neighbors, with their wide seas and rich atmosphere. They are resentful of outside meddling, to the point that the surest way to end any dispute on the Moon is to barge in as an offworlder with your own opinion--for then every single party to the argument will turn as one against you. And this is as true in a game of cards over drinks as it is in international relations.

The transition from a shared fiefdom of Earth to world of truculent, free-spirited micronations was occasioned by early experiments in lunar law that at the time seemed quite unimportant. While for the most part, Earth law was imported whole during the initial settlement of the Moon, in keeping with the notion of that body being the common heritage of mankind and no state or corporation having truly sovereign jurisdiction over any part of it (as opposed to temporary usufruct rights), several pan-lunar and pan-orbital coordinating bodies were set up under the auspices of the United Nations. As individual factions relentlessly pursued their own interests, these bodies were mostly hobbled and reduced to symbolic status, but the coordinating body on personal and property disputes, the Private Law Board, operated primarily below the level of interest of the sovereigns, and managed to exercise a free hand rather effectively. Early on in lunar history, it gave legal protection to a new kind of domestic institution arising in the tunnels and domes, the extended polycule. Polyamorous relationships and family arrangements were not then new: they were common in several Earth cultures of the era, but they existed in parallel to, or entirely outside, the legal institution of binary marriage. Rather than try to adopt that system to a larger group of persons, where sexual, romantic, and childrearing relationships were not automatically commutative throughout the entire group (but could be), the Private Law Board created the Shared House as an adjunct to it.

If you are not familiar with it, a Shared House may be described thus: it is a formal relationship and contract, much like binary marriage, in which the members of the House are considered close kin, whatever their genetic or historic relationship. The only closer degree of relationship is created by marriage, which may occur within or outside a Shared House, but only between two individuals. If a person dies intestate, their personal property devolves, in the absence of a married partner, to the House, where it may be divided or disposed of as its members see fit. Houses may have their own rules or agreements within themselves, as in any domestic relationship, though these rules cannot overcome or extinguish legal rights and obligations. In the interest of protecting their rights, children are automatically members of the House into which they are born, and on the age of majority have equal status with their parents and the other adults of the House. Marriage between children of the same House is theoretically possible, but extremely rare, with children of a House overwhelmingly preferring partners from outside the community (the so-called 'kibbutz problem,' though on the Moon it is considered largely beneficial). Marriage with close genetic kin is still impossible.

Two or more people of no house, or of separate houses, may together establish a new Shared House. Two may marry, creating a kinship relation outside the House; in some quarters this is viewed unfavorably, undermining the interests of the House, while in others it is seen as neutral or even beneficial. A person who wishes to commit to a partner of another House may also opt to join that House, and this is the most common form of family-building on the Moon.

The fact that Shared Houses possessed legal personalities of potentially unlimited duration was initially regarded as an oversight on the part of the Private Law Board. For the first few generations of colonists who formed such Houses, they often lasted no more than ten or fifteen years, dissolving de jure or de facto into groups of binary marriages, or small triads. Over time, however, as the amount of wealth on the Moon grew, and individual property holdings with them, the economic benefit of the Shared House became obvious. Marriages had long been considered by some as a "welfare state of two," a legal institution that provided stability not only through the usual human desire to share and flourish with one's spouse, but from state sponsorship, intended to promote family life. The Shared House was a welfare state of many; and through cunning investment, political connections, and sometimes a generous portion of luck, some Houses became very well-off indeed.

It was a quirk of lunar law that, while corporations and states could not exclusively possess land or resources of the Moon permanently, persons could: the Outer Space Treaty, even as revised and expanded over the course of numerous annexes and amendments, was intended to forestall competition between states, not private persons. Political agitation by the colonists and a desire to ensure the profitability of lunar development led the states of Earth to strengthen private property rights on the Moon further, with the result that eventually the Houses had more rights to the land they controlled that any sovereign state. And they were better at it: like a tight-knit religious community, or an extended family of bankers, close ties between members of a Shared House, even if indirect, created Moon-spanning trust networks that could operate with much less overhead than any Earth firm, and the Houses displaced them in a few decades. One hundred and fifty years after Tranquility Base was re-founded, the Shared Houses reigned supreme.

I have elided many details, of course. Many Houses continued to have only loose personality; the overwhelming majority had no property to speak of, and there was (and still is) a real risk of a kind of landed aristocracy emerging on the Moon, with the richest Houses becoming feudal lords themselves. Several other private organizations given sanction by lunar law eventually came to compete with the Houses: the Cooperative Fellowships, strongest in Mare Imbrium, the Mining Unions at the poles, the Seven Sodalities, four of which were offshoots of Earth universities, and of course traditional joint-stock corporations, and several territorial states originally founded along Earthlike, constitutional lines. The extreme costliness of armed conflict in an airless environment, where one small bomb could kill hundreds or thousands of people if it breached the right wall, the pan-lunar institutions set up by the people of the Moon on their own initiative, and a shared legal framework that reached maturity in this era, have prevented large-scale violence. Which is not to say they have prevented conflict: political antagonism is, as I have noted, alive and well, and the number of breakaway factions, de facto independent provinces, unrecognized states, and squatters' militias may in fact rival the number of "legitimate" political entities.

The independent-minded nature of the lunar peoples ultimately dismantled the largest of the Shared Houses; modern individualism made a repeat of true medieval dynastic politics impossible. Of the original so-called Hotels (this name originates in a very old and very tiresome joke about monopolies and a forgotten Earth board game), which numbered between twelve and fourteen depending on the criterion used, all had split up before the Conference Muscoviensis adopted rules to prohibit such sprawling empires in the future. Now, only about sixty-four percent of land on the Moon is held by Shared Houses, often through complex schemes involving holding companies and investment vehicles. The Lunar Customs Union, the Uniform Lunar Commercial Code, and various geographically rather than politically based currency unions, together make the Moon seem, to the outside observer or the casual tourist, no more fractious than any other human world, and possibly one of the most unified of them all. This is an illusion, borne of mutual suspicion of outsiders, but it is also a gift; for I can attest that, once you have won the trust of a few lunar friends, and they have come to see you as one of their own number, suddenly all their disputes and rivalries are laid bare, all their petty squabbles and decades-old feuds, and these stories are as tiresome as they are repetitive, and you may cast your eyes about desperately, looking for an unattended airlock to throw yourself out of.

Let us move on. For we have discussed the history of four of the Inner Worlds, and we have seen that, though the result in each case was quite different, similar forces governed their development; only the different balance of those forces determined the outcome in each case. But now we must speak of Venus. Ah! Venus! The world most utterly inimical to human life, except for the gas giants themselves. Yet still peopled: for the pale Cytherian clouds hide one of perhaps the most astonishing tales of the Second Space Race era. It begins on the eve of a war....

--Tjungdiawan’s Historical Reader, 3rd edition

[dearestones]

Up Above (Hungary x M!Reader)

Warnings: Almost drowning, fluff.

Anonymous Request: Hello weird request. Can you do a Hetalia x Reader story, where Hungary is on a sinking ship, and lands in the water. But before she could drown, she finds herself in a giant air bubble, that she finds out won’t pop. It turns she was rescued by merman reader, and as a romantic gesture, pushes her bubble to an coral reef to see colorful fishes, and then her bubble floats back to the surface, before the merman and Hungary kisses each other lips on the bubble’s wall.

.

.

.

The world above was in chaos today. You weren’t sure what was happening, but due to how the water above you was dark and the currents were harsher than usual, you knew that a storm was brewing. As a creature of the deep, you only heard stories of the world above.

You heard of a world that changed colors and brightness depending on the type of day, of strange creatures that walked on two legs and looked eerily like you. They were oddities, a species that must have been like you a long time ago, but had long since shed their scales.

Lost souls, some say.

Cruel monsters with a taste for blood, others said.

Regardless, you were curious. The ocean was in turmoil now, but it must have been worse upside because you saw strange items falling adrift and down. The debris was strange, like souvenirs from a world that you had never had a hope of understanding.

You touched an object, cautious, but found that it was solid with rough and splintered edges. In the darkness, you could barely make out the color, but you supposed that once the world above glowed with golds and blues, you could probably identify what the object was. Now, however, you wanted to see what the commotion was all about.

Swiftly, you swam up the surface, your powerful tail propelling you forward and up. Like most of your fellow sea dwelling brethren, you had breached the surface when you had come of age. It was dangerous for beings like you, especially since the strange two legged creatures with faces eerily like yours had become far more volatile over time. So, it didn’t come as a surprise when your head finally left the comfort of your world and into the odd atmosphere of the above.

For a moment, you were struck with the odd sensation of something cold falling down your face in repetition. You looked around and realized that droplets of water were falling onto your face from the realm that was even higher than housed the two legged creatures.

Sky, you remembered from the elders.

Clouds, they had whispered to themselves when they thought that you and the rest of your kin weren’t listening.

Noises were also further amplified, you found as you began looking around your surroundings. It was only because of your past experiences of breaching that you weren’t in shock. The first time your head rose above the water, you were struck dumb by the sounds of creatures calling out, of the way the waves rolled around.

There was no silence or the muffled sound of swimming and the calls of your brethren.

And that’s when you heard it.

Screams.

Sharp, high pitched sounds coming from a large, hulking mass. You swiveled towards that thing. It didn’t resemble any of the sea creatures that roamed around your world, so it must have come from somewhere else. But… it wasn’t breathing. Or swimming.

Rather… it just floated. Like floating driftwood.

But larger.

Before you could try to understand what that thing was (was that a boat?), a figure dropped from the hulking mass. Without even thinking, you approached. The figure had dropped into the ocean, a silent ripple within the raging storm.

For a moment, you ducked under the water and watched in detached curiosity. The two legged creature was weighed down by strange garments, the lack of a tail hindering their ability to swim.

A thought occurred to you.

Two legged creatures couldn’t breathe under water, right?

The figure was rapidly thrashing about, as if doing so would accomplish something. You stifled a laugh. Even younglings knew how to swim!

Would they learn how to swim soon?

Or…

The thrashing began to slow, the desperate attempts to breach the surface were slowing. That’s not supposed to happen, right? Why was the figure not fighting for their life anymore? Unless…

You moved in closer and that’s when you finally locked eyes with the figure. At this point, you realized that the strange creatures resembled the females in your clan.

A woman with long beautiful hair, you realized. With eyes that were a startling green against pale features.

And that’s when you made your decision.

Summoning magic wasn’t an ability that was inherent in your clan. One had to work at it, practice and perfect their craft. For you, conjuring up a bubble filled with the atmosphere that the creatures above needed to survive took mere seconds, but this was time that took all of your concentration and will.

The bubble contained the young woman, the space adequate for her to float inside. As you watched, you saw her jerk and gasp for breath as she sputtered and coughed out water. For a moment, you watched as she collected herself until she finally relaxed and looked at the world around her in wonderment.

As her wide eyes took in the schools of fish that passed by, of the depths that stretched out in all directions, you wondered how she must have felt. What she must be thinking. Was it her first time to be so far out into the ocean? Given the fact that she didn’t appear to be a strong swimmer, you supposed it was.

When she locked eyes with you again, you swam behind the bubble and began gently pushing it in front of you.

The journey to the nearest stretch of land took no longer than what you assumed. During that time, the young woman tried to push against the bubble, as if she wanted to pop it. At first, you had thought about stopping her, but it was interesting to see her explore and come up with conclusions on her own. Besides, your magic was strong and it would take a lot more than her slender fingers to break the only thing protecting her from drowning again.

As you continued, you caught sight of coral and beautifully detailed schools of fish that inhabited the environment. While you were more than familiar with them, you could almost hear the woman gasp in delight at the scene. You thought about ignoring such childlike wonderment, but found that it would be more fulfilling to acquiesce to her unspoken request. You stayed silent but ever vigilant as you positioned her bubble amidst the colorful chaos, somewhat bemused by the way she continued to swivel this way and that to catch sight of the sights that she must not have seen up above.

How lonely it must be, you thought.

Finally, when it seemed that she had taken her fill, you pushed forward once again, but this time, you moved upwards—you were about to breach the surface. It seemed that she realized what you were about to do. When your eyes happened to catch a glimpse of her own, you saw that they were filled with joy. Wonderment. Gratefulness.

It made you feel important.

It made you feel proud that you had made her feel that way.

And so, when her head was barely above the water and the telltale mass of land stretched out right behind her, you breached the surface as well. She leaned in close to the bubble’s protective barrier, lips so tantalizingly close but far off from your own.

You leaned in, and with a pop, the bubble finally exploded into a dazzling display of reflected moonlight and water.

.

.

.

If you want to donate a Ko-Fi, feel free https://ko-fi.com/devintrinidad.

HETALIA AXIS POWERS/WORLD SERIES MASTERLIST

[fluffybluesoul]

Right Star of the Library of Babel.

Sup this is my OC/main story thing. it will be consent updating thing because I have too many OCs. help me anyways enjoy your say at the library .

⋆✫⋆✶✧⋆ Oh hello there⋆✧✶⋆✫⋆

✧

✧

I’m not sure how you got here mortal but welcome to the Right Star of the Library of Babel.

In this library, every single phrase, word, and person has been written down even before it has come to thought. Even though its bookshelves may reach beyond eternity I am one of the three librarians of this library. You may say my name is God, divine Spirit, or whatever people believe in, we are them. we are the creator of everything and nothing. I must say it’s very impressive that you got here alive. Or to be more exact the concept of your existence made it here without falling apart. More impressive is you didn’t fall anywhere in the library, but you fell into my personal domain the garden of mirrors. I would give you more of a proper greeting, but right now my gardens are underneath some maintenance work.

Most of the stories I did look after shattered. So right now, I’m rebuilding my garden, unfortunately.

As you can see there are only two mirrors intact in this section

✧

✧

Even though they’re still intact I still don’t have that much information on the full stories of them. If you would like I could show you a little bit about their worlds.

✧

well then let’s start with the red mirror

✧

✧

The holder of this story’s name is Ravenna.

In the world that they are from there are two main species humans and bloodless. There isn't that much appearance-wise difference between the two species besides bloodless have white hair. Even though the bloodless and humans are similar. The bloodless have always been discriminated against for being considered monsters because of their supernatural abilities

Their story starts out in a sterilized laboratory run by one of the most powerful countries in the world. Ravenna, not being human was chosen by the government to be a select few to be a part of the biological weapons program. Where their bodies were modified and altered to be living assassins or soldiers. Ravenna was marked as number one and was the first one out of her test group to go underneath training and experimentation. they despise the scientist and the soldiers, and she vowed that she would escape enduring her younger years trying to find an exit. the day didn't come until there was a breach where when one of the younger bloodless in her group lost complete control and destroyed a major part of the facility. Ravenna took this as a window out and used the other bloodless as distractions by making them lose control of themselves.

now they live as a runaway in the shadows.

✧

Well, that's one story mostly gathered. Now there's only one other mirror that is not broken. This is quite newer than the other ones. Normally I would tell a different story than a freshly new one, but unfortunately, they’re shattered so I don’t have as much information as I do on the other story. Also, another thing you if you are afraid of the ocean this one may not be suited to your taste but if you want to listen, I will tell it.

✧

✧

✧

✧

✧

✧

✧

✧

✧

The holder of this story's name is nori

Nori was born in the deepest parts of the sea where no light shines, and no humans have touched. She was born into a line of priests who were the guardians and caretakers of the great Lord of the sea the leviathan. The people of the great dark deep worship the leviathan and in return it protects them from the ones of above who seek to destroy their land. Even though she was born in the dark she was always curious about what people call “sunlight” when she was little. one day she sneaked up to the surface even though it was also dark, so she got confused and saw that there was a light and approached it. as she approached the fishermen’s ship she got caught in their nets. Then when they pulled her over the haul, they started freaking out at the sight of her. She tried to reason with them, but she couldn't understand what they were saying it sounded so dry and strange. Just as about when they were going to kill her, the leviathan saved her taring the ship in two and dragging it below. saving her from the fishermen. Even though the humans tried to kill her, she still wants to know more.

✧

So, those are the only mirrors I have working at the moment. I will tell you more when more mirrors are fixed.

✧

Oh hello, good morning mortal. I'm not sure where you went after I told those stories, but you disappeared for a couple of hours. Even though the garden’s ceiling may always show a starlit sky I can still tell what time it is. Wall you were gone a mirror started to being to show its colors. if you wouldn't mind, may I invite you to discover this mirror story. “Mm’ is that a, yes? It is a, yes? Well, splendid then off to the mirror we go. They both start walking down one of the gardens paths with the soft dirt underneath their feet and with the violet tinted flowers on either side of them. It came to your notice that the mirrors in the hall had different shapes and sizes. You ask the Liberian why was this? Wasn’t it that they were only meant for one person?

✧

✧

Well, no and that's a simple reason why. Not only can the holders of stories not just be humanoids but other creatures, plants, or anything with an ascension conscience. There Also can be multiple holders of one story. So, all of the mirrors that you see before you are shaped to that one story, in particular, each mirror is unique like how each story holder is unique. See the reason why the mirrors are different from one another is because they act as a window or gateway into that story. So, the mirror reflects the story and shape’s it’s being its essence around it. Ah, would you look at that we are here! You abruptly stop and look in front of you to see a mirror with a yellow tint.

✧

✧

Oh, good this mirror has already chosen its holder.

Now it is time we have to find out what the mirror chose. The librarian sticks out her hand and touches the mirror of ripple effect spreads out from the center to the corners of the mirror and then all of the sudden you were pulled in.

✧

✧

You open your eyes to find yourself in a golden field with a child standing in front of you, then the librarian speaks.

Ah, I see the holder of this story’s name is Nikki.

[im-totally-not-an-alien]

1. Cloud claws his way to the surface, breaching the soil hand first and emerging like a demon who had just been summoned from hell.

It turns out that is rather appropriate, considering he now has slit pupils.

And is wearing a modified, all black, SOLDIER uniform.

With a giant sword.

In Wutai.

During the Wutai war.

...surrounded by Wutai troops. He hears the cry of "Demon!" In Wutainese and his first thought is, 'oh no'

It turns out alright cause Godo is almost giddy for Wutai to have a demon of thier very own to combat Shinras army

2. RM Tifa dragging Cloud out on that date

3. Barret finding out that Cloud taught Marlene how to ride a motorcycle.

....which is why he's currently dodging bullets

4. Everything is the same except some part of Sephiroth is still sane and doesn't want to do this

5. Genesis, Cloud, Sephiroth, Angeal, and Zack all wake up in the woods. Everyone is rejoicing about being alive and all, but Cloud has no idea who Genesis and Angeal even are. So how do they know him?

He knows who Zack is, obviously. But why on Gaias green planet is Sephiroth apologizing so desperately? Shouldn't he hate him?

Aka AGSZC was a thing but Cloud remembers none of it and is confused.

Also the thought that Sephiroth would drop to his knees and beg for Clouds forgiveness makes me cackle with glee

6. Sephiroth dragged his puppet into a blank dimension where technically nothing exists.

Sephiroth immediately turned to taunt his favorite toy. "You can't hurt me here, Cloud."

"I can damn sure try." He responded darkly.

7. Cloud gets one wish, but before he can make the forementioned wish, Aerith butted in and made the wish for him so that he couldn't revive her.

8. Time travel au where Sephiroth captures him, and upon feeling the connection from the J and S cells, demands to know who he is.

9. Time travel / cat eye au (at this point I have to give it a name) where Cloud is almost immediately captured and saved by the silver general who believes that "Strife" is of the same "species" as him, and Cloud sticks to that story like glue.

At the very least it keeps him away from the science department...until Sephiroth himself drags him down there to "Save thier species from the brink of extinction"

His first thought is, But im not ready to be a father!

Then, Oh gods, I'm going to be cloned.

At least, he hopes it's cloning.

10. OK. So I was practically raised on kid friendly A/B/O fanfics. Hand written by kids at school where we silently swapped notebooks and did. Not. Speak.

It was awesome. Need more of that.

Kid friendly A/B/O

11. Piggybacking off of 10.

Cloud landed in another new dimention thanks to his uncooprotive wing. At this point he knew the drill, proform basic recon in the new world and lay low until rescue.

This becomes difficult when everyone can smell you. Honestly, what the hell. Why does everyone he meet tell him he shouldn't be carrying a sword but instead, act like the perfect housewife. He knows he's somewhat feminine looking, but it's not that bad!

There's too many scents, too many people either glaring at him for the heinous crime of weilding a sword, or trying to flirt with him until they notice his muscle and scoff, usually spouting some variation of, "Who would want a buff Omega?!" before walking away.

That was fine with him. If they started flirting with him, he'd just subtly show some muscle and they'd leave.

Until he wound up fighting against Sephiroth in a successful bombing mission at a reactor and was able to go toe to toe with him and escape. Sephiroth shows interest in "the strong Omega" making the fan bases and news outlets go wild.

Then Omegas with muscle weren't only ok, but highly sought after.

Oh no.

12. The remnants being betrayed by Jenova and them freaking out like, "Mother has betrayed us! Mother does not love us! Jail for mother! Jail for a thousand years!"

Alternatively, they do this to Cloud and he just pulls the covers over his head.

13. Yuffie walked in to see Cloud frazzled and wearing semi-formal Wutainese clothing, and while he did look pretty good in white, she couldn't help the loud laugh that erupted from her gut.

After taking a few moments to come back to them, she asked if Cloud even knew what was going on.

When he shook his head she clarified, "this is a marriage meeting."

Cloud, to his credit, looked shocked, "You're getting married? To who?"

Yuffie giggled, "We're the only ones wearing white!"

She almost laughed again from the look on his face. Oh this was great.

"Why?!" He suddenly blurted out, loud enough for the other occupants of the room to look at least a little ashamed of trying to trick him.

"You're the Slayer of Sephiroth "she rolled her eyes, "of course they think highly of you."

"But we all-"

Yuffie stopped him, "We talked about this. Besides, don't we have a more immediate problem at hand?"

Aka Wutai tries to trick Cloud into marrying Yuffie after she comes of age

14. Wutai refuring to Cloud as "The demon slayer"

15. Clouds friends finding him and rescuing him from a secret lab.

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Holy Obedience | Feeding Habits Update #4

Hey People of Earth! Today we’ll be chatting chapter five of Feeding Habits, aka Holy Obedience. TW: animal cruelty, blood, suicide, toxic relationships.

This chapter is the last in Lonan’s POV and a direct continuation of chapter four. I was getting a little burned out as this was toward the end of my 10k word week a few weeks ago, but overall, it definitely achieves what I was hoping for!

Scene A:

Eliza and Lonan chat about secrets which gets intense when Eliza prompts Lonan to burn Harrison’s guardian angel necklace & a few polaroids that were taken as a small easter egg from one of the mini stories!

Lonan grabs everything out in time with minimal damage

Scene B:

Lonan finally burns down his father’s darkroom.

Scene C:

Lonan emerges from the woods and approaches the cabin. Eliza sits on the veranda tending to a dead rabbit she claims she “found”. What happened in the previous memory in ch. 4 of Lonan and his father utilizing the ikijime technique to kill the fish mirrors with the rabbit, despite it actually being dead.

Lonan and Eliza take a drive and talk about the very different lessons they each learned from Lonan’s father

Eliza hits the accelerator and drives the car into the lake. Her fate is left unspecified, whereas he gets out relatively unscathed.

Excerpts:

Here’s this very tender romantical description because I indulge myself obvi:

The last time he saw Harrison, he knew they would not see each other for a very long time after. Sun haloed him. Pinged of his eyes so they shone like gemstones. The earring he’d gifted him from his mother’s collection twirled, mindless, like the surface of a mirror ball. He didn’t forget that image—his lover a painting of the sun, an offering he was lucky to have, if only temporary. As he gurgles at the face of the fire, he doesn’t forget that feeling—the warmth not against his face, but in the pith of his throat, jittering like the wings of a hummingbird. As he shifts forward, closer to the fire, a hand secures around his shirt collar. At first, he’s convinced what he’s seeing will be the last he ever sees—the magnificence of heat. But it’s when he feels its heaviness with a clank against the stone as the clasp comes undone that he understands.

When he turns around, Eliza holds Harrison’s guardian angel in her palm. The chain noosed carelessly around the angel’s throat.

This kind of epic sequence of Lonan yeeting away the darkroom ft a subtle Houses With Teeth reference??:

Lonan will burn down the darkroom one-handed. He hustles through the rain and forest brush with the gas can, the flashlight pricked between his teeth. The woodland seems so irrelevant at night; moonlight pares through clumps of deciduous trees; rain blisters from the opaque clouds; a ground animal, perhaps a raccoon, or squirrel, scampers up a redwood and into its hollow. It’s lost its energy, replaced with irrelevant, forgettable details. But still he moves with conviction, weaving between tree trunks like he’s the one who put them there.

His second reunion with the darkroom is not something of the fantastic. He’s done his time staring at it like it’s got teeth, strong incisors that will nick him if he looks at it the wrong way. When he arrives at its pathway, rain prowling down his cheeks, his left hand wrapped hastily in the eucalyptus towel, he has not come for reconciliation.

Gasoline could substitute the Pacific, he thinks as he unscrews the bottle’s cap and lugs liquid onto nearing brush, smothering the wildflowers needling through the shed’s concrete platform. It moves the same, sounds the same, does the same thing—spreads. He leaves no square foot untouched with fuel. He douses the doorway, its shattered windows, even the individual holes in its hardwood floor. He dresses the darkroom in gasoline and doesn’t blink when he pulls his lighter from his pocket and sets it on fire.

Here’s when Lonan approaches the cabin and first sees the dead rabbit:

Lonan arrives back at the cabin a half hour later, smelling like soot and wet earth. He expects to see Eliza inside, turning over the last bits of scorched wood with the fire iron. Drinking a bottle of red wine turned to vinegar by herself, the cork neatly pushed in the centre of the hearth. But when he approaches the cabin, tracking up rain and dirt, Eliza is not inside.

She sits on the veranda, stooped over the glass worktable, her hands fumbling against the head of a rabbit. There is no question the animal is dead. It’s small, just bigger than the length of her palm, its grey fur gone cobalt with rain. Its head lolls against the frost of the glass. There is no bringing it back to life.

“Where did you find that?” Lonan asks. He wrings his hair of rainwater knowing it will get soaked again before another minute passes.

“It washed up.” She strokes its ear, examines its fur with her thumb and middle finger, as if tending to cashmere.

Lonan impales the rabbit in the same way he impaled the previous chapter’s fish and this is what happens after that. We also get a hint at why the chapter is called Holy Obedience:

“Do you do everything in the name of your father?”

“Obedience is an act of love.”

“Burning down his darkroom is not what he would’ve wanted.” Eliza pulls her arms close to her chest, gnaws on a bloody hangnail.

“That’s what I wanted.”

“Then you have two conflicting agendas.”

“Isn’t killing the rabbit what you wanted? Aren’t you vegetarian, Eliza? Aren’t those two conflicting agendas?”

Eliza taps the hilt of the knife, fully upright in the rabbit’s skull. Her lips purse. Her posture straightens. She wipes her mouth with the clean plane of her forearm. When she deescalates the veranda’s steps and walks past him, he doesn’t follow her at first. He watches her back, the way her hair flutters before sinking with the rain. How blood drips off her fingertips and onto the dirt driveway, pinkish, like the colour a child might want their wall.

And the fateful drive begins, ft. a scene I repurposed from the old ch.2:

Loam gives under the car’s wheels, sputters up onto the windows as she backs the car onto a dirt path. He does not ask where she’s going. Even as they drive deeper into the thicket of trees, branches combing the windshield, paths he’s never been, he does not ask.

“What other things did your father teach you?” she asks after some time dozing through the woods.

Eliza’s hung a lucky rabbit’s foot from the rear-view mirror, tannish fur that whitens when Lonan reaches and turns it over.

“This isn’t vegetarian,” he says, scales the foot with his fingernail, bloodying it just as the rabbit on the veranda. Its ball chain clatters with every brush of his finger, the sharp jut of its cap, neatly carved into the head of a rabbit, prickling against his finger. Rain clatters against the window, each drop’s shadow inking his jeans, arms. “Genesis. How to kill a fish. The easiest places to be caught when you run.”

Me leaving the city haha:

They parse through trees, bushes, and Lonan knows each species even without looking, and the longer she doesn’t answer, the more insistent he becomes at stating them aloud. “Red alder. Pacific dogwood. Cascara. Ponderosa pine,” he says.

Here are the final two paragraphs. Fun fact, I stole “holy vengeance” from myself which appears in one of the later chapters in Rewired.

The next time Eliza presses the accelerator, it’s with a holy vengeance. As if something guides her, her heel gorging into the pedal. They move so quickly, Lonan doesn’t know when the forest ends and where the beach starts—it all melds, a mosaic of vague landscapes. He doesn’t know when he reaches for the rabbit’s foot hanging from the mirror and holds it to his chest, like he knows what she’ll do. Even before she says, “I always wanted to be buried by cattails,” even before the car’s wheels whir over sand, driftwood, strings of kelp, even before they dive head-first into the lake, he knows.

Crashing into water sounds like rising to heaven. He doesn’t know why this is the first connection he makes, or why all he visualizes as the car sinks is the wisp of white clouds, the balmy lift of air that hikes him through the sky. Even though the water is dark, all he sees is light, crisp and glittering from above. As he ascends, he turns to look for Eliza, and there she is, slumped over the wheel, a stroke of blood dripping into her mouth. He is weightless when he stabs the cap of the rabbit’s foot into the corner of the window so it splinters. Weightless when he inhales and pushes through the broken glass like it’s Peter’s gate and he’s a step away from salvation. Weightless when he paddles through the water like a sunfish, his body ready for this, good at this, as he holds his breath. Weightless when the car sinks, and his head breaches the water like an orca, weightless when he opens his mouth to the storm and exclaims his hallelujah, his new beginning, his ultimate baptism.

That’s it for this update! I will be back sooner rather than later as I recently completed chapter six, but that’s a wrap on Lonan’s POV y’all!

--Rachel

[crazycat-88]

Male Orc Raum x Female Reader Part 2 (NSFW) Complete

The continuation of my orc story that I did in part for the Ok:Cryptid Collab by @thetravelerwrites 

Part 1 - Here

I’m not particularly happy with this one, but I think it’s as good as its going to get. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

This story also introduces you to West Oaks, a small town that has been mentioned in a previous story. I will be writing more stories that feature this town. NSFW at the very end,  for those who don’t like it but still want to read the story.

Wordcount:2,257

The following Friday you find yourself on your doorstep with a packed bag, waiting on Raum to pick you up. Pulling up in his car, you get in only to be accosted by Buster, the dobermann that’s meant to be in the back seat. Laughing, you give him some attention before telling him to lie down.

‘‘Hey, got everything you need?’’ Raum asks, grinning at you.

You nod, before giving him a kiss in greeting. Pulling back, you ask, ‘‘How long will it take for us to get there?’’

‘‘About four hours.’’ he smiles. ‘‘Feel free to put the music on.’’

Fiddling with the music player, you eventually find something you like. Looking back at Buster, you see he has already settled down to sleep, and smile. ‘‘So… tell me what your hometown is like and who I’m all going to meet.’’

‘‘Well… the travel guides will tell you it’s an idyllic little coastal town, with picturesque views, sandy beaches, a forest further inland… A lake, quaint little houses and a market every Wednesday and Sunday with stalls, where the townsfolk sell a variety of things.’’

‘‘And what would you tell me?’’ you ask.

‘‘The same,’’ he laughs. ‘‘No seriously, it is all that and more. It’s the perfect location for non-humans and always has been. Three hundred years ago all that was there was an orc compound and monster folk hiding in the forest. Eventually more people came, starting with humans who had mated with monsters and it built from there. Now it’s the most monster populated town there is I believe.’’

‘‘Certainly sounds idyllic,’’ you smile.

‘‘It is for the most part. I mean it’s not perfect, no town is… it has problems like everywhere else. Old prejudices between the different species and such, but for the most part it’s good. It’s home.’’ he says, with a fond smile.

‘‘What about your family? Who am I going to meet?’’

‘‘Well there’s my mother Eivor, she’ll love you, my dad John, my older brother Dane and his wife Naria and their two children. My younger brothers, Sigmar and Halden, Halden’s the birthday boy,’’ he says, looking over to you briefly. ‘‘Then there's cousins, aunts, uncles and family friends,’’ he laughs.

‘‘That’s a lot of people,’’ you say, nervously frowning.

‘‘They’ll all love you, don’t worry so much,’’ he smiles giving your knee a squeeze.

You spend the rest of the journey, talking about his family, and he lets you know what you can expect from certain folk. You learn that his dad John, a human, is technically his step-father but he’s been a dad to Raum since he was five and he thinks of him as his real dad.

You make one stop on the journey, to grab lunch and let Buster out to run. Soon enough you're seeing the signs pointing to West Oaks, looking around you notice the surrounding area is mostly countryside and woodland. As you enter the outskirts of the town itself, you see exactly what Raum meant when he said the town was picturesque. With rolling hills, lush greenery, a few scattered white houses and the coastline in the distance with crystal clear blue water. It’s beautiful you think gazing around in awe.

‘‘It’s so beautiful here,’’ you say, turning to look at Raum, before gazing back out of the window.

‘‘Nothing like the city eh?’’ he says, chuckling.

Not at all, you think, shaking your head. Seeing you’re now entering the central part of town, you can see the townsfolk strolling the streets and loads of little shops and housing, some of which are painted in bright colours, making you smile. Along the coastline there are little cottages and you can just about spot a lighthouse in the distance. What a place to call home you think to yourself.

‘‘I booked us a beach house for our stay here, do you want to go there first or shall we go let my folks know we’re here?’’ Raum says, looking at you before looking back at the road.

‘‘We aren’t staying at your parents house?’’ you ask, slightly confused. You had just assumed you would be and are a bit surprised he’s booked a place to stay.

‘‘No, my folks house will be packed as it is and while I know my mother would fit us in, I didn’t want to overwhelm you…’’ he says. ‘‘I also thought for our first… vacation together, we might like some privacy.’’

You see him throwing you looks, looking a little nervous, waiting on your reaction. You smile and squeeze his thigh, ‘‘Thank you,’’ you say. ‘‘Let's go see them first then, so when we get to the beach house we can just relax for the evening.’’

Nodding, he gives you a smile. You continue to gaze out the car window while he drives to his folks house. As soon as you have parked, you see an orc rush out the house and throw herself into Raums’ arms. She’s clearly an older orc but still very beautiful. As she finishes fussing over Raum, she looks over at you and gathers you up in her arms in a hug.

‘‘Look at you! Aren’t you a pretty one…’’ she says looking at you.

‘‘Um… thank you…’’ you say chuckling, feeling flustered.

‘I’m Eivor, but feel free to call me Mum.’’ she says, as she leads you into the house. ‘‘Come meet my John, and the rest of my brood.’’

Looking back, you see that Raum is shaking his head in despair, obviously embarrassed but wearing a small smile. He lets Buster out the back of the car and the dog runs straight into the house, taking over all of you. As you get inside, you see the Buster has jumped up on another orc, who’s clearly one of Raum’s brothers.

Spending the afternoon with Raum’s family is a lot more fun than you ever thought it could be. All of them are so friendly and welcoming that your nerves soon settle. You end up spending the whole time laughing flustered as you watch Raum’s brothers tease and badger him over how he managed to find a catch like you. When Raum tells his folks, it's time for the two of you to leave, you actually feel reluctant to go so soon.

Knowing you’ll be returning tomorrow, you say your goodbyes and Raum drives you both to the rented beach house. The house is beautiful, you think, as you wander around exploring it. With three bedrooms, living room, kitchen and a porch out back that gives you a stunning view of the beach and water, you think you could happily stay there forever.

Deciding to take Buster for a walk along the beach, you and Raum casually stroll down the beach holding hands. He points out some of the different shops and where some of his favourite places are. At one point you think you see orca breaching the surface but soon realise it's actually a mer-orca and smile delighted.

You and Raum end up at one of the beach front restaurants, named The Shark Tank, for dinner, sitting outside as you have taken Buster along too. Your served by a pretty blonde girl who looks human at first glance but you see as she serves you that she has webbing in between her fingers and very pointy sharp teeth. Raum informs you that she is one of the rare mer-sharks that can take human form.

‘‘Does she own this place?’’ you ask Raum questionly.

‘‘Yes, her and her brother do, most of the staff that work here are mer-folk too,’’ he replies.

After your dinner your feeling very full and very tired, heading back to the beach house, Raum asks if you want to share a bedroom or use one of the others. You think about it briefly, quickly deciding to share, you tell Raum and he smiles widely and pulls you into his side with his arm around you. As both of you are really tired, you go straight to bed, and cuddling in to each other, share soft slow kisses before eventually falling asleep.

In the morning, you and Raum take Buster for a walk along the beach again. He takes you to a little cove, which is empty of other people, and you play fetch with Buster, running about and falling in the sand. Laughingly Raum takes you in arms and thoroughly kisses you, wandering hands explore each other and just before things escalate, Buster starts barking.

Looking up, you see a couple of mermaids have joined you in the cove and they’re leaning up on the rocks watching you both grinning. When they spot they’ve been seen, they slip back into the water, waving goodbye as they go. Laughing, you and Raum get up to leave the beach.

You spend the afternoon in the town, Raum takes you round all the shops, telling you the stories about some of the buildings there. You fall in love with one shop in particular, that sells little figurines of all types of creatures, all hand painted and beautiful. You wish you had the money to buy them all, but settle for one of an orc, who you tease looks just like Raum.

Wanting to get Halden a birthday present, you pick up a figurine of a small tortoiseshell cat that Raum assures you that he will love. That done, you head back to the beach house, with a few hours to spare before the party.

‘‘What do you want to now?’’ Raum asks, sitting beside you on the couch.

‘‘Take a nap?’’ you laugh, feeling tired from all the walking.

‘‘Hmm… in bed?’’ he asks.

When you nod, he picks you up and carries you into the bedroom and puts you in bed. Getting in beside you, he strokes your cheek and leans forward to kiss you. Swiping his tongue along your lips, you allow him entrance, sucking on his tongue. As his hands start exploring your breasts over your top, he bucks against you and you can feel he’s already hard.

Groaning he asks, ‘‘Do you want to…’’ before cutting off with a whimper as your hands trace his erection through his trousers.

‘‘Yes,’’ you say, moving away to remove your clothing. You watch as he rushes to get his own clothes off. Watching as he strips, you see his body as just as you expected, lean and fit, with fine hair on his chest. His cock is a good length and decent girth, with a mushroom head, not to big but bigger than you’d ever taken before.

Taking you back in your arms, he leans over you kissing you again, before moving down your body. Kissing and sucking your breasts, he fondles one with one hand, feeling it’s weight before playing with your nipple. His other hand trails down to your slit, finding you wet, he spreads your juices along your folds before entering one of his fingers inside you. Working it in and out of you, he slowly adds another. With two fingers inside of you, you beg for him asking for his cock.

‘‘You’re not ready for that yet…’’ he groans, moving his fingers faster.

Moaning and writhing on the bed, you cry out as he adds a third finger and uses his thumb to circle your clit. ‘‘Please… please,’’ you moan.

‘‘Come for me,’’ he says, before nipping at your breasts. As he crooks a finger, just in the right spot, you come hard, squealing his name. You watch moaning as he raises his hand, covered in your cum, and sucks his fingers.

‘‘God… you taste good,’’ he says. Rising up on to his knees, you see his cock is already weeping, and taking it in his hand, he spreads your cum over it with a groan. Lining himself up, he pauses to look at you, ‘‘Tell me if I hurt you,’’ he asks.

Nodding, you groan as he slowly enters you, to slowly for your liking. Grabbing at his waist, you tilt your hips up, taking him in to you completely. He groans and swears, as you wince, it’s not painful but your filled so full it’s slightly uncomfortable. Wrapping your legs around him, you hook your ankles around his waist, holding him still.

‘‘Oh god…I feel so full,’’ you say, catching your breath, ‘‘Move... please Raum,’’ you plead.

Raum slowly pulls out and pushes back in, thrusting gently. ‘‘Fuck! Your tight,’’ he gasps.

Starting to move faster, he grunts as you tighten around him, moving his hand down he starts stroking at your clit, pleading for you to come.  Inhaling sharply, clutching at his shoulders, you come with a cry, scratching your nails down his back.

He comes inside you with a grunt, back arching, and hands tightening where he holds you. Collapsing to the side of you, you both pant harshly, trying to catch your breath.

‘‘Wow,’’ he starts breathlessly. ‘‘That was… I’m not sure I’m going to be able to walk anytime soon.’’

‘‘Me either,’’ you laugh breathlessly, turning to face him, throwing an arm around him. ‘‘How long until the party starts?’’

Groaning he sits up slightly to check the clock, ‘‘We’ve got an hour and a half before we have to be there,’’ he says collapsing back onto the bed. ‘‘Time for a quick nap,’’ he laughs, pulling you to lie half on top of him.

Nuzzling into his chest, you agree and soon fall asleep with a smile on your face, listening to his heartbeat.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for reading! If you liked it, reblog it. Likes & Comments are also much appreciated.

My Masterlist

[summahsunlight]

This Way Became My Journey, CH. 15

Two weeks after Voyager is taken from the Alpha Quadrant...

Tom Paris stumbled on his way out of the holodeck thanks to a horribly placed vending cart in Rome circa 1920. Things hadn't gone according to plan, hell they never seemed to go according to plan for him. Perhaps he should have told Harry the truth from the beginning, but Harry wouldn't have ventured down to the holodeck if he had told him the truth. So he had told a little white lie, what was the harm in that?

Apparently a lot because Harry was stalking off down the corridor to the turbolift. "Harry, wait up!"

Harry Kim shook his head. "No way, Tom. "

"Aw, come on Harry, I've been smoothing out the details for this date for days now! You can't leave me in the dust like this!"

"Oh yes I can," Harry snapped, pressing the button to call for the lift.

Tom caught up with him as the lift opened and pressed the button to send it on its way before Harry could step inside. His friend turned to glare at him. "It's the Delaney sisters, Harry, they come as a package. It's a double date or no date, Harry."

"I never agreed to a date of any kind."

"Sure you did," Tom replied. "Last night."

A blank expression passed over Harry's face. He couldn't recall ever have such a conversation. Of course, he was so tired last night he probably would have agreed to jumping out of an airlock. "I never agreed to any date last night. We ate dinner with Lieutenant Barrett, who told me to enjoy some recreational time while she was away to quell my homesickness. There was never anything about a date in that conversation Tom."

Tom grinned mercelessly. "Well, dates are recreational. You're following counselor's orders."

"She didn't order me. She suggested recreational activities," Harry fumed. "Why am I arguing with you on this? I have a girlfriend back home, I don't need to go on any dates."

"Harry, Harry, Harry, you honestly think she's going to wait for you?"

"Yes!" He exclaimed quickly.

"That's rather selfish of you, don't you think?"

"Look who's telling me about being selfish," Harry hissed. "It was rather selfish of you to think I'd go on this date so you can get with Meghan Delaney."

Tom shrugged his shoulders. "Alright, it was rather selfish of me, but you are my best friend Harry, who else would I ask to go on a double date with me?" He looked innocently at his friend. Harry rolled his eyes doing his best imitation of Sarah Barrett when Tom got this way. "Can I help it if I thought I was helping my best friend out?"

Harry grunted. "Helping me out with what?"

"Moving on!"

"Tom, we've only been out here two weeks, you think Libby's moved on that quickly?"

"Well of course not," Tom retorted, "but she's going to, eventually, Harry. You know it."

He did know it but he didn't want to acknowledge it. He wasn't ready to accept that Libby was going to move on without him, that she was going to think that he was dead. It seemed rather unfair to be so far away from home and going out on a double date with Tom when Libby was probably grieving for his loss back on Earth. Why should he be happy when he knew that his loved ones were not? Tom on the other hand didn't have this dilemma. He could care less about his family and had no girlfriend back home. Girlfriends just weren't Tom Paris' style. Harry wondered how long the chase of the Delaney sister's was going to last. He opened his mouth to speak, but no word came out.

Tom grabbed him by the arm. "Now come on, they're waiting for us and I only have forty five minutes left of holodeck time saved up."

Harry allowed Tom to pull him all the way back to holodeck, the whole time awestruck that he had every intent on not going back there but Paris found some way to drag him along. Every time, he thought as they entered the holodeck, he gets me every time with the moving on and selfish of me to think she'll wait bit. But even as he was dragged towards the candlelit table, with a very smiling Jenny Delaney, he wondered just how much trouble Tom had really gotten him into. It's going to be a long night.

The constant thrumming of the engines was soothing to him as the tiny shuttlecraft cruised along to the home world of the Karvaians. Voyager had made first contact with one of their scout ships two days before and the Captain wanted to immediately send out a diplomatic party to speak with them. The first officer had been given the mission, taken a shuttle, and departed from Voyager. Chakotay had always found that piloting a ship manually was a good source of therapy and relaxation, better than sitting in a chair and talking to a psychologist for hours on end. Maybe that was why he was having trouble getting to know Sarah Barrett.

It wasn't that he didn't like her; she was a bright young woman with a strong personality. However, she was a psychologist and whenever he opened his mouth to speak he wondered if she was taking silent notes about his mental state. It was this reason, that he was uncomfortable around her, that he believed Captain Janeway had sent them on the mission together. She was hoping that the time alone would help them work up a little bit of a rapport aside from the first officer/counselor relationship. Well, it was proving to be hard to do just that since Barrett was barely speaking to him. She had helped him with preflight and everything else that Starfleet protocol demanded of her, but once they were well on their way she had barricaded her self so to speak in the aft cabin of the shuttle, reading over PADDs.

Her eyes were narrowed, reading over the material vigorously, as if she felt that she didn't have enough time to read through it all. He recalled her concern for Neelix not being allowed on this mission, but Janeway had not felt comfortable allowing the Talaxian on another away mission just yet, not after what had happened on Ocampa with Neelix deceiving them to help rescue Kes. So, instead, Sarah had been handed stacks of PADDs on the data that Neelix had on the Karvaians right before they left.

He had been trying to get her to talk about what she was working on, to break the ice, but she had responded coldly that once she had a better grasp on Karvarian culture she would let him know, and the discussion had ended there.

But despite the lack of communication on this trip, he could see why Janeway liked the young woman so much. She could switch from hard and calculating, to soft and caring when the situation presented itself. And, he admitted, she had a wry sense of humor. But other than her personality, he didn't know much about her, except what her service record had indicated, and even then that didn't go into depth. He did know that she had a dark past, one that she was trying to turn her life around from. Like so many other people on this journey, he thought with sudden realization, as he made a course correction.

He had also tried asking her about her time at the Academy, perhaps make a connection between the two of them there. She had remarked, perhaps another time.

Looking at his panel he concluded that had been over two hours ago, just after they had cleared Voyager and been on their way to Karva. They would be reaching the planet in about thirty minutes. "Captain Janeway tells me you were a part of a team that studied the Borg," he spoke up, hoping to get something from her. It seemed that if they didn't have the integration of the Maquis into Voyager's crew to talk about, then they had nothing to talk about. And he didn't know why, but that bothered him.

"I was the head psychologist on a research vessel that composed of some of Starfleet's top engineers, science officers, and doctors," came her subdued reply. "Our mission was to collect as much information about the Borg as we could, such as their psyche and their technology and bring it back to Starfleet in the hopes that a better defense against the Borg could be made and spare us from another disaster like Wolf 359."

"Really? What made you want to study the Borg?" Chakotay asked her, brown eyes peering up for only a few seconds. "They aren't exactly the warmest species in the galaxy to be hanging around with."

"My mother was killed at Wolf 359," Barrett replied, a bit of pain etched in her voice. "I guess I wanted to justify the reason they had killed her."

Her answer had deadpanned the conversation, just when he felt like he was getting somewhere with her. The console blared suddenly and the ship lurched to the left. Perplexed, Chakotay corrected their course thinking that they had run into some form of spatial distortion; another blare and an even more violent lurch.

"A ship just appeared off of our port nacelle. They're firing on us," Barrett announced. She had jumped up from her seat in the aft cabin and into the one besides Chakotay. Her fingers were running over the console. "I don't understand why sensors didn't pick them up coming in!"

"I've never seen this type of ship before, it's not Karvaian," Chakotay said. "I'm going to try out running them. Try hailing them on all frequencies."

"No response," Sarah replied as the shuttle was hit again, this time causing sparks to emit from the conduits.

The shuttle craft in reality was no match for the alien ship. The readings were showing them that they were up against a ship that had vast technological advances, superior to their own, but perhaps, if they could get in communications range of Karva, their new friends could assist them. But with the next hit, the port nacelle caught fire, sending the shuttle into a downward spiral. Chakotay tried to right the shuttle with the only engine he had, as smoke filled the cabin. Barrett was screaming that the aliens were trying to take out their engines, causing the hull to breach around the nacelle, in affect, ripping it off the tiny ship. They were hurtling towards the surface of a small planetoid.

"Can we land?" Chakotay asked her.

"Land?" Barrett repeated. "We're going to crash before we do that!"

"Is the atmosphere compatible for us?"

"It's a Class L atmosphere," Barrett replied, sapphire eyes roaming the readings the computer was giving her. "The surface consists mostly of mountains and rock, not a lot of water; high concentrations of carbon dioxide. Can we survive down there? Yes, but that's only if we survive the crash first."

Chakotay shook his head, looking at the controls determinedly. "We're not going to crash."

Sarah looked up him skeptically. "How can you say that?" Her body lurched about violently as the tiny ship entered the atmosphere. "We only have one engine and those aliens are doing everything they can to take the other one out! Commander, if we hit the rock at this speed it will tear the ship apart and us with it!"

"Not if I can help it!"

"Commander! Even if we survive the crash or landing as you put it, we don't know if those aliens will come after us," Barrett pointed out. They had only been in this part of space for a couple of weeks, but already they had learned that most of the species in this quadrant weren't friendly, the Kazon, for example, were not to be trifled with and they hadn't gotten off on the best of terms with them.

"We're going to make it look like we've been destroyed. On my command I want you to vent the plasma," Chakotay instructed her, eyes running over his console, trying to find a good place to put the shuttle down. They were coming in fast towards a very rocky region. It was not going to be a smooth landing. "Hang on!" he cried out as the aliens fired across their bow. Sparks emitted from the aft cabin and he could see Barrett gripping the console, however she held a calm expression. No doubt it was something that she had learned while studying the Borg. Who knew that experience was going to come in handy now?

"Chakotay, we're going in too fast," the Counselor rasped out, anxiously.

"Unidentified ship, surrender."

Chakotay slapped at the comline. He didn't want to hear them implore surrender. They weren't out of tricks just yet. If they were lucky the alien ship wouldn't follow them into the atmosphere. The shuttle began to quake violently as it entered the upper atmosphere. "Vent the plasma, Sarah, and target phasers on it. Fire when I tell you too."

"But that would ignite the plasma," Sarah said, even as she followed through with his orders.

"I know, I want them to believe that we've burnt up in the atmosphere."

"I hope you know what you're doing," Sarah replied.

Me too, Chakotay thought as the shuttle hurtled faster and faster towards the surface. "Fire now!"

Phasers burst forth from the shuttle craft, igniting the plasma into a fireball behind them. The alien ship backed off, whether or not they believed that the shuttle had indeed exploded and were avoiding exploding themselves, the two officers couldn't be sure. They had other problems. Chakotay noticed on his fading sensors that the alien ship was reversing course. For the time being the threat had been eliminated, but now they were spiraling out of control towards a rocky planet. "Dispatch an automated distress signal to Voyager!"

Sarah moved about so she could record a message and send it to Voyager. It was brief, seeing how they didn't have much time before the ship hit the surface, but she hoped that it was effective. Turning back towards the Commander she only had a few moments to grip the console as he cried out to brace for impact.

Despite Chakotay's best efforts, and even though he managed to slow the ship's descent, the shuttle hit the rocky soil hard and both officers felt their bodies being thrown about against the panels and controls as the shuttle tore a path through the rock. It swayed back and forth, first the port nacelle was sheared off, and then the starboard nacelle came ripping off as well, exploding in a ball of flame that sent both Chakotay and Sarah flying from their seats as the shuttle slammed into a solid rock wall. In a blinding flash of light, both officers were knocked unconscious, the shuttle coming finally to a stop, crumpled against a mountain side.

He awoke with the taste of blood in his mouth and smoke in his eyes. Chakotay blinked, trying to take in his surroundings. The lights were flickering on and off, the consoles as well, and the memories began to return to his jostled mind. Rising up on to his elbows he peered out the view port. The shuttle was in shambles, but lucky for them, the shields had held long enough to protect them from the fires and explosions of the nacelles. Now, they were rested against a solid bed of rock. It hadn't been his best landing, but at least they had managed to get down in one piece.

They. He suddenly realized that he had no idea where Sarah was. Turning about, which sent a shooting pain up his right leg, he tried to locate her. She was a few feet from him, plasma burns covering a part of her face and hands. There was a huge gash across her cheek and she did not appear to be breathing. Grabbing the emergency medical kit he pulled out the tricorder and ran the hand scanner over her body. She was breathing and alive, but she had not faired as well as he had when it came to the crash landing.

She had several broken ribs, one had punctured a lung. The burns on her face and hands were second degree plasma burns that he could easily treat with a deremial regenerator, but that was the least of his concerns, she had suffered massive internal bleeding as well. If Voyager did not find them and find them soon, the young woman was going to die. Her eyes opened then and she looked at him, confused.

"We made it?"

"We made it," Chakotay replied, helping her sit up slightly. She winced in pain. "You were injured in the crash."

"How bad?" Sarah asked, trying to grit her teeth and bear the pain.

"Nothing too serious," he lied to her, reaching in the medical kit for a hypospray.

"You're a terrible liar; didn't they teach how to lie with the Maquis?"

He laughed, giving her a warm smile. "Should have known I couldn't fool you," he whispered, pressing the hypospray to her neck. "Here this will help with the pain. I'm afraid that's all I can do for now, besides treat your burns. You need surgery."

She nodded her head as the pain began to dull. "What about Voyager?"

Chakotay shook his head. "I'm not sure our message was received and I'm not sure I can send another one. It looks like our systems took heavy damage." He wiped some sweat from his brow and glanced around the cabin. He wasn't sure how they were going to get out of this one. Pulling himself up to his feet he moved towards the communication panel and saw that it was burnt out, probably where Sarah had received the burns from. So much for trying to send another message out to Voyager; he realized that even if he were able to get another message out, the aliens that had attacked them may pick the transmission up and come back to finish them off. Then they'd be in more trouble then they were now.

It was best to try and survive on this planet and wait for Voyager to find them. Glancing at Sarah he wondered how much time she could hold out. He wasn't a doctor, knew some basic first aid, but even he knew that she didn't have time on her side. One thing was for sure, they were going to need something to keep them warm and water. They had enough emergency rations to last them a few days, but a quick glance at the systems told him that the replicator was down and so weren't environmental controls. Once they lost the sunlight, it was going to get cold in that tiny shuttle. He grabbed a tricorder and a phaser. "I'm going to go look for water and something to start a fire with."

"You really think we'll be here that long?"

"There's no telling how long we'll be here," Chakotay responded, opening the hatch. Before he left he turned about and offered her a smile. "Don't go anywhere while I'm away."

A small, pain filled smile spread across her face. "Don't worry, Commander, I won't."

[timeagainreviews]

Sifting through the Dregs

For series twelve of Doctor Who, I have opted to take a casual approach. I've avoided spoilers as much as possible. Although I caught the trailers, and the odd press photo, I've managed to stay away from things as simple as episode descriptions, writers, or even episode titles. I want to come into each story with as little expectation as possible. This is so that I might avoid hype, both of the negative and positive varieties. So when I read the words "Part One," after "Spyfall," it was genuinely a surprise. And when I read the words "Orphan 55 by Ed Hime," I was suddenly very hopeful.

If you remember from series eleven, I was a big fan of Ed Hime's episode "It Takes You Away." I praised its brazen absurdity, likening it to something Douglas Adams may have done. The episode is rather divisive in the fandom, as some might call it one of the worst episodes ever. Obviously, I disagree. Ed Hime stands out to me as exactly the kind of writer Doctor Who needs. Someone with a bit of a taste for the absurd, while still managing to capture human moments. Ironic then, that despite my best efforts to approach the episode without expectation, the hype I would most contest with would be my own. Does "Orphan 55," live up to my expectations? Let's get into it!

As I said, Ed Hime lends a sort of mad weirdness to Doctor Who that I feel a certain section of writers possess. Think your Lawrence Mileses, your James Gosses, or even the occasional Steven Moffat. These are writers, who for better or worse understand one thing about Doctor Who- it's weird. Strangely, one of the common most aspects ignored by Doctor Who writers is the absurdity. A blue police box wrapped around an impossible machine, piloted by an ancient trickster somehow becomes mundane. Doctor Who's weirdness is an integral element that has been around since its inception. That's why when the gang gets teleported by a contest cube Graham has assembled, and the first person we meet is a furry, I feel we're already onto a good start. Especially when they just finished cleaning up the biggest calamari ever from the TARDIS floor. (Anyone else think of the Nestine Consciousness?)

Characters like "Hyphen with a 3" or "Hyph3n," remind me of some of the '80s era's odder characters. I could easily see her and her tail living in "Paradise Towers," or perhaps riding a bus in "Delta and the Bannermen." But another reason I love her is that she's not just a furry, it's part of her identity. You don't get the idea that she's an outlier like real-life Trekkie, Barbara Adams, who famously wore her Star Trek uniform to jury duty and her place of work. Instead, you get the feeling that in the future, people respect identities. To use Star Trek again, I remember watching an episode of "Star Trek: Enterprise," where the character Trip has a crisis over whether or not a girl "was a man." When you compare this to the dialogue we're having about transgender rights in 2020, you're automatically reminded that Enterprise came out in 2001. By today's standards, furries are still seeking acceptance. Seeing Hyp3n in a partial fursuit may seem absurd now, but in its own way, it's futuristic. How very Doctor Who.

Things in this future, however, aren't all progressive acceptance of our fine furry friends, there seems to be trouble in paradise. As I said, the gang is greeted by Hyp3n, a sort of porter for a relaxation destination called "Tranquility Spa." The companions immediately take to the spirit of things, as they settle in for a bit of rest and relaxation. The Doctor, of course, starts snooping around. Meanwhile, a security team of two, Kane and Vorm are responding to "another security breach." Whatever it is requires machine guns, which seems like quite a lot. And if you're like me you'll spend the next half hour trying to figure out where you've seen Kane before. I'll help you out- it was Lydia from Breaking Bad. You're welcome. I just saved you a trip to IMDb.

The next scene introduces us to a concept that will run strong within this episode- Yaz as a gooseberry. We see a couple of pensioners, Benni and Vilma, enjoying their spa getaway. Just as Benni is about to ask Vilma to marry him, Yaz stands right between them. I mean, I know the pool is for everyone, but read the vibe, Yaz. Jeez. Meanwhile, Ryan is checking out the interior of Tranquility Spa. The bar looks like the kind of place art vampires go to get lemongrass enemas. It reminded me a lot of "The Leisure Hive," with a budget, or even a more modern twist on the Centre of Leisure from "Time and the Rani. So much of this episode reminded me of classic Doctor Who.

Ryan notices a vending machine, but as he's retrieving his food is infected by a hopper virus. The Doctor explains the virus is capable of jumping from computers to humans. After expelling it from his system, the Doctor bags it to take to whoever is in charge. While Ryan is sucking his thumb to reduce the hallucinogenic side effects of the virus, he sees a cutie in a similar situation, a young woman by the name of Belle. It's pretty obvious at this point that Belle is to be a sort of romantic interest for Ryan, and who can blame him? She lives up to her namesake!

Everyone is rounded up for a "tranquillity drill," to a safe location while Kane and Vorm run through the lobby with their guns in tow. As with most companions, travelling with the Doctor embeds a deeper curiosity. Much like the Doctor would, Ryan questions what type of drill requires guns. This question entices Belle to follow him as they investigate. I really liked this pairing of the two of them as their chemistry was natural, despite Ryan's repeated failures at chatting her up. It only added to their charm.

The Doctor confronts Hyp3n who seems just about as confused and nervous as many of the guests. Whatever she's hiding is only because she's been instructed to by her superiors. Considering the hopper virus and drill, the Doctor deduces that the spa is under attack, and demands to know what they're hiding. Who would want to harm a spa? The spa has been using an ionic membrane to keep out unwanted visitors, visitors which appear to have breached the membrane. Now under a full-on attack by a group of monstrous beings, guests become casualties. Not only is the base under attack, but the viruses have also handicapped the systems, disabling the emergency teleportation devices. With everyone trapped the Doctor has to work fast to stop the killing, as well as survive.

Graham finds a pair of green haired servicemen in the form of Nevi and his son Sylas. Their entire character design once again had me thinking of classic Doctor Who characters such as the Swampies from "The Power of Kroll," or the Karfelon androids from "Timelash." I liked wondering if they were a kind of species that has naturally green hair, or if they had father/son hair dying nights. In this brief interaction, you learn that Sylas is the better mechanic between the two of them, but that Nevi does a bad job of acknowledging this. Graham gathers them and others to evacuate while Ryan and Belle hideaway in a sauna of sorts. While there, they confide in each other that neither of them is nearly as impressive as they initially led on, and the truth strengthens their bond.

Sadly, as Graham is rounding people up, Benni gets separated after backtracking to pick up Vilma's hat. As life signs extinguish across a computer screen, highlighting the trail of carnage, the Doctor finds a way to push back the onslaught. By repairing the ionic membrane, the creatures, known as Dregs, are physically pushed out of the spa by a force field. The crisis averted, the survivors search for the bodies of their loved ones. Much to Graham's relief, Ryan and Belle have both narrowly avoided the claws and teeth of an angry Dreg. Benni, however, is nowhere to be found.

After discovering a hole, which looks like a tear in reality, our heroes discover that Tranquility Spa is actually an illusion. A dome separates the spa from a hostile planet far too polluted to inhabit. This abandoned, or "orphan," planet is designated "Orphan 55." This is the reason guests are teleported to the spa- to cover up its seedy location. However, it would appear that whatever the Dregs are, they seem to be apex predators, able to survive the hostile environment of Orphan 55. And they want the spa and its inhabitants gone.

The Doctor makes Kane drive them out into the wasteland to find Benni, as his oxygen tank would allow him to survive outside of the dome for some time. It was a thin chance, but it might be enough to save at least one person among the carnage. I was really hoping for some silly "Moonbase," style helmets, but instead, we got these minimalist blue breath right strips across the bridge of the nose that linked to small wrist canisters as supplied by Nevi and Sylas.

The trip out onto the surface reminded me a lot of the great Russell T Davies episode "Midnight." And much like Midnight, the confined space of a vehicle traversing harsh conditions offers plenty opportunity to explore the people within. Remember how I said Yaz is a gooseberry? She wastes no time getting right between Ryan and Belle. I honestly can't tell what's going on between Yaz and Ryan at the moment. Last season, there was a bit of a "Will they or won't they?" vibe between them. But series twelve seems less interested in coupling them off. First, we had the Master and Yaz getting weirdly touchy-feely, which surprisingly never comes up again. And now we've got Yaz teasing Ryan in front of Belle like a jealous school girl. We learn that along with sucking their thumbs, Ryan and Belle also share having a dead parent in common, so that's something.

The vehicle picks up a bit of barbed wiring leaving it, as the Doctor put it- completely knackered. Keeping with the Midnight vibe, the surface of the planet is too dangerous due to monsters and killer sunlight. Afraid for her own self-interest, Kane wants to abandon the search mission, but a pleading Vilma begs her to continue looking for Benni. After callously accepting Vilma's necklace as payment, Kane agrees to continue with the rescue mission.  The crew abandon their vehicle and run for the safety of an underground service tunnel, but Dregs attack from every direction causing them to return to the safety of the vehicle. But that safety won't last long.

It's then that they hear Benni calling for Vilma. He asks her to marry him and then asks them to shoot him as well. It's a morbid moment as you realise the only reason the Dregs have kept Benni alive is to taunt the survivors and prolong his suffering. I don't really understand what the point of having them run back into the vehicle actually was. They basically run back out a moment later with the new plan of Kane and Vorm covering with gunfire. I don't understand why it was so important that they leave one location just to return moments later.

As Kane and Vorm blast Dregs, the rest of the crew run to the safety of the service tunnel. In the scuffle, Vorm dies, but Kane catches up just in time to open the tunnel. The entrance to this tunnel had me thinking of the opening of "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers." I kept waiting for Rita Repulsa to pop out and say "Ah! After 10,000 years I'm free! It's time to conquer Earth!" They make it down into the tunnel where there is a short-range teleporter nearby. Vilma asks Kane if she saw what happened to Benni, and Kane coldly tells her not to worry, that she shot Benni as he requested. It's at this time that Belle steals Kane's gun. She reveals that Kane is her mother and that she's here for revenge for abandoning her and her father. Belle teleports back to the spa taking Ryan with her. Seeing as the teleporter only had enough juice for one go, the rest of the crew must go deeper into the tunnel to find their way back.

Back at the spa, Belle reveals a huge bomb she plans to use to blow up the spa. Poor Ryan, he just met this girl and already he's dealing with her baggage with her mum. I kid, but damn girl, take a guy to a movie first. It's lucky for the Doctor that this adventure isn't actually from the '80s. Had it been Ace in this position, she would have seen the bomb and said "Wicked!" while offering up Nitro 9 to add to the destruction. Instead, Ryan pleads with her not to blow up the spa, dooming everyone involved.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and crew discover a plaque written in Russian, cluing them in to the fact that not only is the planet abandoned, but it was also abandoned by humanity. Orphan 55 is in fact, Earth. This revelation hits Graham and Yaz hard, as they never imagined the fate of the world to be so ugly. Their grieving is cut short by the appearance of Dregs, who Vilma bravely sacrifices herself to, to save the others. The Doctor, at this time also appears to be running out of air. It appears that the ability to be the loudest talker isn't always helpful when oxygen preservation is to be considered.

The sole reason for her running out of oxygen serves only to discover the Dregs breathe out oxygen. She discovers this when she finds a Dreg conveniently hibernating within the tunnel. Why this is important is that it gives a bit of insight into the Dregs' motivation. Kane's big plan was to make a spa that slowly terraforms the planet, which would harm the Dregs. It also explains the trees seen on the surface of the planet. That or these trees are also apex predators able to adapt to anything. Using her Time Lord brain magic, the Doctor looks into the mind of the Dregs and affirms what she feared most- they evolved from humans.

Everyone has now made their way back to the spa. The Dregs are closing in and they need to fix the teleporter. We're treated to a series of people once again leaving and returning to the same location for the sake of upping the tension. Kane appears to sacrifice herself and Sylas gets in an argument with Nevi once more over being told he's not a mechanic causing him to run away. But both of them are ok, as they both return unscathed. Yaz and Ryan wheel Belle's bomb to try and take out a few of the baddies. It's kind of a clusterfuck if I am honest. Lots of characters get taken in and out of scenes merely to pad time and add to the tension. It's not egregious but could have been edited better.

Sylas appears just in time with a solution to use the hopper virus to convert fuel for the teleporter. I was happy they brought the virus back, even if they don’t make a whole lot of sense. Were the Dregs weaponising the hopper virus? Were the viruses remnants of human civilisation? Regardless, I’m glad they brought it back. Sadly, this entire end sequence acts as evidence that perhaps there are too many companions in the TARDIS at the moment. Graham's job is to stand over Nevi and Sylus saying things like "That's right lads!" Yaz and Ryan are basically running around doing busywork, while the Doctor and Belle are having a stand-off with a Dreg. The Doctor manages to equalise the air in the room so that it is mutually beneficial to keep her and Belle alive. What the Dreg breathes out, they breathe in, and vice versa. This stalemate allows them the ability to leave. With the teleports up and running, the Doctor and her crew are transported back aboard the TARDIS, but not before Belle steals a kiss from Ryan. Are she and her mother going to be okay? We're left to wonder.

The victory celebration is short-lived as the companions remember the fate of the earth. Now, I need to preface what I'm about to say with the following- I fully believe climate change is a thing. I say this because we need to talk about how Doctor Who handles the subject. I've seen a lot of people (see: morons) complain about when Doctor Who gets "too political." They seem to think anything they don't like is political. The Doctor being a woman is political to them. But as I said with episodes like "Rosa," and "Demons of the Punjab," it's not that Doctor Who shouldn't be political, it's that it's simply not very good at it.

I can appreciate that the message of climate change is a real and pressing matter, but the cautionary edutainment way in which they present the information was so cringe. It felt so unnatural and tacked on. In their desire to address the audience directly, they lose a level of reality that makes the dialogue seem fake. These scenes always feel badly acted to me, but it's the fault of the dialogue. There's no good way to break the fourth wall without also sacrificing the characters' voices. It's like one of those adverts where you have two people talking far too candidly about something like their period flow, or constipation. It's a way to disseminate information about a product or ideology, but don't mistake it for dialogue. Nobody talks like this.

All in all, this was your standard "base in peril," episode. While not as transcendent as "It Takes You Away," I believe Ed Hime has given us another solid episode of Doctor Who. It's hard for me to tell if Hime's ability to write action was wanting, or if it is simply the fault of the director, but it definitely suffers at points due to the janky pacing. Pacing has really been an odd sticking point for series 12, and I hope they work it out. Even still, I was hoping that after the two-parter of "Spyfall," we would get something a little more grounded. Having this odd little contained storyline with little homages to classic Who is actually more than I had hoped for. It also gave us a new character in Belle, whom I expect to see return eventually. And despite the heavy-handed and unnatural way in which they dealt with climate change, I understand that it's a family show. In keeping with classic Who, it aimed to be educational, and for that, I cannot fault it.

[arcticdementor]

Well, it’s about to happen all over again. I’ve been wondering how soon a certain marriage of convenience in contemporary cultural politics would come messily apart, and now we’ve seen one of the typical warning signs of that impending breach. Those of my readers who are concerned about environmental issues—actually concerned, that is, and not simply using the environment as a convenient opportunity for class-conscious virtue signaling—may want to brace themselves for a shock.

The sign I have in mind is a recent flurry of articles in the leftward end of the mainstream media decrying the dangers of ecofascism. Ecofascism? That’s the term used for, and also generally by, that tiny subset of our society’s fascist fringe which likes to combine environmental concerns with the racial bigotries and authoritarian political daydreams more standard on that end of modern extremism. If you’ve never heard of it before, there’s good reason for that, but a significant section of the mainstream media seems to have taken quite an interest in making sure that you hear about it now.

…

The first thing I’d like to point out to my readers here is that, as already noted, ecofascism is a fringe of a fringe. In terms of numbers and cultural influence, it ranks well below the Flat Earth Society or the people who believe in all sincerity that Elvis Presley is a god. It’s one of those minute and self-marginalizing sub-sub-subcultures that a certain number of people find or make in order to act out their antinomian fantasies in comfortable obscurity, and enjoy the modest joys of being the biggest paramecium in a very, very small pond. It’s fair to say, in fact, that the chance that ecofascism will become a significant political or cultural force in your lifetime, dear reader, is right up there with the chance that the United Church of Bacon will become a major world religion.

So why is this submicroscopic fringe ideology suddenly on the receiving end of so many faux-worried essays in important liberal newspapers and magazines, and in the corresponding end of social media and the public blogosphere?  The reason, I’d argue, has to do with something else that’s been finally receiving its own share of media attention.

…

That is to say, counting up all its direct and indirect energy costs, this one conference had a carbon footprint rivaling the annual output of some Third World countries—and you guessed it, the point of the conference was to talk about the menace of anthropogenic climate change.

…

At this point, in fact, one of the current heartthrobs of climate change activism, Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, refuses to fly anywhere because of commercial air travel’s gargantuan carbon footprint. Sensibly enough, she travels through Europe by train, and her rich friends have lent her a sailboat to take her across the Atlantic for her upcoming North American tour. This would be bad enough if Thunberg was an ordinary citizen trying to raise awareness of anthropogenic climate change, but she’s not—she’s the darling of the Davos set, a child of privilege who’s managed to parlay the normal adolescent craving for attention into a sizable cultural presence.  Every time she takes the train, she adds to the number of people who look at the attendees at the Sicily conference mentioned above and say, “So what about your carbon footprint?”

That, in turn, is fatal to climate change activism as currently constituted. For years now, since that brief period when I was a very minor star in the peak oil movement, I’ve noted a curious dynamic in the climate change-centered end of environmentalism. Almost always, the people I met at peak oil events who were concerned about peak oil and the fate of industrial society more generally, rather than climate change or such other mediacentric causes as the plight of large cute animals, were ready and willing to make extensive changes in their own lives, in addition to whatever political activism they might engage in. Almost always, the people I met who were exclusively concerned with anthropogenic climate change were not.

…

To some extent this is common or garden variety hypocrisy, heavily larded with the odd conviction—on loan from the less honest end of liberal Christianity—that if you feel really bad about your sins, God will ignore the fact that you keep on committing them. Still, there’s more to it than that. Some of what else is going on came to the surface a few years ago in Washington State when a group of environmental activists launched an initiative that would have slapped a fee on carbon. As such things go, it was a well-designed initiative, and one of the best things about it was that it was revenue-neutral:  that is, the money taken in by the carbon fee flowed right back out through direct payments to citizens, so that rising energy prices due to the carbon fee wouldn’t clobber the economy or hurt the poor.

That, in turn, made it unacceptable to the Democratic Party in Washington State, and they refused to back the initiative, dooming it to defeat. Shortly thereafter they floated their own carbon fee initiative, which was anything but revenue neutral.  Rather, it was set up to funnel all the money from the carbon fee into a slush fund managed by a board the public wouldn’t get to elect, which would hand out the funds to support an assortment of social justice causes that were also helpfully sheltered from public oversight. Unsurprisingly, the second initiative also lost heavily—few Washington State voters were willing to trust their breathtakingly corrupt political establishment with yet another massive source of graft at public expense.

…

If you haven’t heard of these followup studies, dear reader, there’s good reason for that. They argued unconvincingly that everything would be just fine if only the nations of the world handed over control of the global economy to an unelected cadre of experts, under whom the institutions of democratic governance would be turned into powerless debating societies while the decisions that mattered would be made by corporate-bureaucratic committees conveniently sheltered from public oversight. (If this seems familiar to those of my readers who endure EU rule just now, there’s a reason for that:  the state of affairs just described has been the wet dream of Europe’s privileged classes and their tame intellectuals for quite a few decades now.)  That’s the usually unmentioned reason why The Limits to Growth fielded the savage resistance it did:  a good many people in 1972 recognized it as a stalking horse for a political agenda.

…

In the same way, the mere fact that certain people are trying to use climate change as a stalking horse for unrelated political agendas doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea to dump trillions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, or that doing so won’t cause epic disruptions to an already unstable global climate. Mind you, anthropogenic climate change isn’t the end of the world, not by a long shot; the Earth has been through sudden temperature shifts many times before in its long history, some of them due to large-scale releases of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere—that’s one of the things really massive volcanic episodes can do, for example.

Attempts to dress up climate change in the borrowed finery of the Book of Revelations—sinners in the hands of an angry Gaia!—have more to do with our culture’s apocalyptic obsessions, and with the desires of ambitious people to scare others into signing on to their agenda, than with the realities of anthropogenic climate change. That said, we can expect a good solid helping of coastal flooding, weather-related disasters, crop failures, and other entertainments, which will take an increasingly severe economic toll as the years go on, and help drive the declines in population and economic output mentioned a few paragraphs back. Yes, this is one of the things The Limits to Growth was talking about when it predicted the long slow arc of decline ahead of us.

The problem faced by the people who have been pushing climate change activism is that their political enemies have found a very effective way to counter them:  they can point out that the people who babble by the hour about the apocalyptic future we face due to anthropogenic climate change don’t take their own claims seriously enough to walk their talk. Thus the attendees at the environmental conference on Sicily mentioned earlier can no longer count on having their planet and eating it too—or, more to the point, they can’t count on doing so while still convincing anyone that they ought to be taken seriously. This is hard on certain delicate egos, and it also makes it hard to keep pursuing the agenda mentioned above while continuing to lead absurdly extravagant lifestyles propped up by stunning levels of energy and resource waste.

There’s a simple solution to that difficulty, though:  the celebrities, their pet intellectuals, and the interests behind them can drop environmentalism like a hot rock.

That’s what happened, after all, in the early 1980s. Environmentalism up until that point had a huge cultural presence, supported by government-funded advertising campaigns—some of my readers, certainly, are old enough to recall Woodsy Owl and his iconic slogan, “Give a hoot, don’t pollute!”—and also supported by a galaxy of celebrities who mouthed pious sentiments about nature. Then, bam!  Ronald Reagan was in, Woodsy Owl was out, John-Boy Walton and John Denver gave way to Gordon “Greed is Good” Gekko and “material girl” Madonna, and the Sierra Club and the Friends of the Earth had corporate executives on their boards of directors, and did everything they could think of to deep-six the effective organizing tactics that got the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and a galaxy of other environmental reforms enacted into law.

…

I think we’re about to see the same thing happen to climate change activism, and one of the symptoms of the approaching swerve is the sudden flurry of mass media publicity being given right now to the tiny fringe phenomenon of ecofascism. Over the months ahead, I expect to see many more stories along the same lines all over the leftward end of the media and its associated blogosphere, insisting in increasingly shrill terms that anyone who pays too much attention to the environment—and in particular, anyone who expects celebrity climate change activists to modify their lifestyles to match their loudly proclaimed ideals—is probably an ecofascist. In fact, I would be very surprised if we don’t see a series of earnest articles in the media claiming that believing in ecological limits is racist; such claims are already being made in the blogosphere, and their adoption by the mainstream left is, I suspect, merely a matter of time.