#and i've seen things like interstellar

[rebornofstars]

Silly Game Time: Who are some of your favorite alien (non-human *and* extra-terrestrial) characters? And what do you like about them?

They can be from sci-fi or fantasy, from other worlds or dimensions or realms. All that matters is that they're not from Earth and that they're not human in any traditional sense (and, most of all, that you find them interesting).

MY FAVOURITE ALIENS. i've been a little bit in love with space since i was 9.

firstly for the definitely non-human:

the doctor. of course. and literally everyone from his show. the weeping angels. the sky fish. nardole. missy. romana. the ood. the list goes on

um. bumblebee. 😅

star wars creatures

estraven from le guin's the left hand of darkness.

d'lacey's erth dragons are from the planet ki:mera

those martians in the war of the worlds. i had a h.g. wells kick halfway through high school. this wasn't my favourite of his works, but it was fun.

and for the recognisably human, but still extraterrestrial, because i really wanted to include these guys:

mara of the acoma from feist & wurts' empire trilogy. she is one of my favourite fictional women ever. in the context of her own series, she's not an alien, but in the context of the riftwar saga (which was published first and contain more elements of feist's mainline plot than the empire trilogy), she is, so. i think she counts.

the mandalorian. i'm not immune to single fathers... or general badassery...

darrow from brown's red rising. born on mars.

todd from the knife of never letting go (book) / chaos walking (movie). i have fond memories of going to see this at the drive-in with a friend when it came out.

actually, this list is shorter than i thought it would be 🥺 there's a couple of other books/movies i love about space but they're all human-focused and mostly about astronauts. if anyone has any recs pretty please drop them below?

[cougheemedicine]

Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Jing Yuan x GN!Reader

Word count: 2463

Warnings: Nudity, suggestive but nothing explicit (they bathe together), drinking (drink responsively kids), no beta we just die, the impending wrath of Fu Xuan, ooc? I've never written him before, I think that's it?

Content: Fluff, some angst right at the end but all is resolved, established relationship, Reader is a long-living species, Reader is shorter than Jing Yuan, other characters mentioned, they're whipped your honor

Summary: Due to your position in the Xianzhou Luofu's sky-faring commission, you are rarely home. Often gone for months at a time. Your dear husband never copes well with your time apart. He always makes sure to make up for lost time.

˜”*°•.•°*”˜

   The ground under your feet slipped away before you knew it. So this is how it ends, this is how you die. Not the worst death one could have, you supposed.

       “General-“ A dying wheeze escapes you, “General, I can’t breathe.”

       Met only with a huff that sounded more annoyed than agreeing, the crushing weight on your ribcage lessens. If only slightly. Not enough for your feet to touch the ground, but enough for you to wiggle your arms out from where they were pinned to your sides, wrapping them around your husband’s shoulders.

       “I’ve missed you,” Low and hoarse, the deep baritone of Jing Yuan’s voice sends a shiver down your spine. You sigh, relenting to your husband’s affections. It had been months since you’d seen each other last. As the fleet-master of the Luofu’s sky-faring commission, one of your most important duties was to craft interstellar maps for all of the Luofu to use. The only way to do that was to go on the missions yourself, which could last between six to nine months.

       For the long-living Xhianzhou natives, nine months passed in the blink of an eye. For your beloved, equally as long-living husband? Nine months was torturous. The man laid his head on your shoulder, inhaling deeply. You debated on whether you should drag him back to work to avoid the wrath of Lady Fu Xuan on your doorstep in an hour’s time, or repent and simply bask in the presence of your man. Who was real and tangible, embracing you instead of hushed words through a disembodied voice on the other side of your phone, or a pixelated figure sitting bored at a meeting you had to attend via a live hologram.

       As his hand slowly rubbed up and down your back, his other hand supporting you while you still dangled in the air. You found the decision easy to make. You craned your head, pressing your lips to his hairline, right above his ear. “I’ve missed you too, my love,”

       But, there was one thing amiss. Even as you felt Jing Yuan smile against the fabric of your shirt. You could also feel the eyes on your back. Both of your crew, and of Luofu citizens. None of the gazes malicious, just a bit invasive. You could also hear the whispers. The giggling and gossiping.

‘The general’s gone soft,’

’Aw, how sweet!’

’How adorable…’

       “People are watching, general,” You spoke up, raising a hand to run through the hair that escaped his ponytail, tightening your hold on the back of his neck to keep yourself up. Jing Yuan sighed contently, pressing a kiss to your shoulder. “Let them,”

       “General, I’d like to bathe, and get out of this armor,” You tugged lightly at his hair, pulling his head from your shoulder so you could look him in the eyes. Any normal person would’ve seen no difference in Jing Yuan’s face, but you were far from normal. After centuries of marriage, you could tell. The curve of his brow, and the pull of his frown. “Stop pouting, general,”

       He rolled his eyes, but smiled nonetheless. That tired, easy smile of his. He set you back on the ground, arms wrapped loosely around your waist. “Stop calling me general, then I’ll let you go,”

       Despite his words, he still let you go. Stepping to your right and linking his arm with yours. You shared a smile as you walked, leaving the port. “Whatever you say, Jing Yuan.”

˜”*°•.•°*”˜

        The sound that leaves your mouth as you sink into the steaming bath water would make even the most stone-faced of war veterans blush. You were never more grateful for the sheer lavishness of the general's residence than when you just return from a mission. The bath of the general's home was better described as a pool. Set in the tile floor, and large enough to fit ten people. The large window on the far wall overlooked the Luofu, saying the whole experience was lavish would be an understatement.

        The feel of tar running in your veins instead of blood finally subsiding as the salts and oils in the water sunk into your skin. You rest your arms on the edge of the bath, letting your head lull onto the tile behind you. You don't focus much on anything, eyes scanning the traditional Xianzhou architecture of the bathroom, and letting your limbs, heavy with fatigue, float weightless in the water.

        "Enjoying yourself, dear?"  Jing Yuan's voice brings you back from your trance, eyes bleary as his feet come into view. You slowly lift your gaze, shamelessly eyeing your husband in a thin robe that was far from befitting a general. He's holding a small, porcelain cup in each hand, intricately decorated, with a bottle of wine under his arm. Oh, how you've missed this. "Very much. Even more so now,"

        "I heard from your co-pilot that you had trouble with some rogue asteroids on your way back to the Luofu," He hums as he sets down the cups and bottle a small ways away from your head, settling behind you with a washcloth.

        You groan "Ugh, I don't want to talk about it. If it weren't for my navigators we wouldn't of been able to come back unscathed,"

        Jing Yuan coaxes you to lean forward, and you let out a rather undignified yelp when the cold soap on the washcloth touches your back. Jing Yuan laughs. you flick water at him.

        "I commend your navigator's skills. They seem very talented," Jing Yuan lathers the soap as he speaks, taking the washcloth across your shoulders and down your back. He then gently takes your right hand, running the washcloth down the length of your arm.

        "Of course they are, I taught them." Jest laces your tone, even as you submerge yourself to the neck to rid yourself of the suds. As you finish, you lay your head on Jing Yuan's crossed legs. Jing Yuan smiles softly, emotion swirling in the single eye you could see. He leans down, pressing his lips to yours. When he pulls back, the washcloth long forgotten, he runs his thumb across your cheekbone, then down the bridge of your nose, and over the curve of your lips. You've long since closed your eyes, a smile pulling at your lips. "Join me?"

        Jing Yuan is silent for a beat, and you lift your head once more. "Your wish is my command."

        Jing Yuan stands, and you watch him walk to the stool you had set your own robe on. You watch him fiddle with the knot at his hip, then slowly shrug off one side of the robe, then the other. Making sure to stretch his arms above his head, allowing you the pleasure of seeing the entire expanse of his back and arms. You can sense the smile playing on his lips, and you know he can sense your staring. He's teasing you. You avert your eyes the moment his robe drops to the floor. 

       You feel him slip into the water beside you, letting out a groan very much like the one you had earlier. He smiles at you, his hand creeping up to the side of your head, guiding it down to rest on his shoulder. The two of you sit in silence a while, simply enjoying each other's presence. Months ago, silence meant sitting alone, in the cramped captain's quarters of your starskiff, charting maps and scribbling reports to send back home. Silence meant nights that seemed endless, hunched over your work, and being far, far away from home. Silence that was so loud you had wished so very hard for moments like this to happen more often. 

        Jing Yuan shifts under your head, offering you one of the cups he had brought in. Wordlessly, you take it, allowing him to pour the wine into your cup, then into his own. "Tell me," You pipe up, swirling the cup under your nose. The scent was light, you watch as he takes a sip "When was the last time we've shared a bottle like this?"

        "I can't say I recall. You're very cruel you know, keeping me waiting so long to repeat moments like this," Jing Yuan downs the rest of the contents of his cup, resuming his previous position at your side. "Fleet Master." 

        "Excuse you, we were right on schedule. Even after the whole event with the asteroids," You grin, playing with the fingers on Jing Yuan's free hand. "General-"

        Jing Yuan surges forward, before you even have half a mind to process, slotting his lips against yours. You hum, his lips taste of wine, and the scent of his shampoo roles off him in waves. One arm slung lazily around your back, the other keeping his cup above the water, he parts from your lips with a gasp, dipping his head to pepper kisses down your jaw and neck. You manage to suck in a breath right as he lifts his head again, mashing your lips together clumsily. Desperately. If you didn't know your husband better, you'd think him drunk. With how careless he was being. The sound of his porcelain cup clattering onto the tile beside you ringing sharp in your ear only proving your thoughts.

        His grip on you tightens, bringing his other hand up to push you even closer together, you throw your arms around his neck to stable yourself. You can feel every dip and contour of his body against yours, the callouses on his hand sliding up your back to between your shoulder blades as he brings you oh so much closer, his loose hair tickling your face when he hunches forward. Kissing you even harder.

        You're the one to pull away. Or perhaps it was him? You don't really have it in you to care.

        The both of you are panting like dogs. You let your arms around his neck go slack, and his hands drop from your back to your hips.

        It's silent again, only your breathing filling the room. Without really thinking, you raise a hand, cupping your husband's cheek. Immediately he leans into your touch, covering your hand with his own and pressing a flurry of kisses to your palm. His face is flushed, pink from his cheeks to his ears, and his lips bruised. Truly a sight for your sore eyes.

        You peck Jing Yuan's cheek, the one you aren't holding, laughing quietly against his skin. He joins you, a deep chuckle that always brought a pleasant warmth to your chest. It was rare for Jing Yuan to laugh to heartily, even rarer for you to even be present to hear it. You don't think you'll ever tire of the sound. He presses his lips to your temple. "I think we better leave before we become prunes,"

        "Always so wise, my dear,"

˜”*°•.•°*”˜

       “Jing Yuan, I can’t walk with you both leaning on me,” You whine. Jing Yuan groans, leaning more of his weight onto you. His grip on the front of your night shirt tightens, wrinkling the light fabric as Mimi curls around your legs, head butting your thigh. A chuffing sound leaves the lion, as if she were laughing at you. Jing Yuan rests his chin on your shoulder, cheeks still pink from the heat of the bath.

        “Don’t be mean, she’s missed you,” He lightens his iron grip on you, running a hand through the fur on Mimi's back. You smell opportunity. You worm your way out of your husband's arms, as warm and comfortable as they are, you still need to walk. Narrowly dodging his hand, fully intent on tugging you right back, you stride on down the corridor. You needn't look back to see Jing Yuan huff and cross his arms, dragging his feet as he follows you.

        The moment you close the sliding door to your shared chambers, you're shoved onto the unnecessarily large bed. Jing Yuan crawls over you as you shuffle up to the pillows. He straddles you, a leg on each side of your torso, keeping you down with a hand on your shoulder. As you settle your hands on his hips, you feel the bed dip once more. From around Jing Yuan, you watch as Mimi sprawls out over the entire foot of the bed. A hand on your chin guides your eyes back to your husband's face. He leans down, kissing you gently. Your hands travel, from his hips to his waist, then up his chest and over his shoulders. You settle your hands in his hair, running your nails over his scalp. Sliding a hand down his nape to his shoulders, you gently push him down, letting him put all his weight on you.

        "This isn't uncomfortable, is it?" Jing Yuan lowly asks, barely above a whisper. He's already shifting his legs, leaving only his chest resting on yours. Always attentive, your Jing Yuan.

        "No love, it's perfectly fine," You sigh, continuing to card your fingers through his hair.

        Jing Yuan hums, pecking your forehead then the tip of your nose. He lowers himself till his head is cushioned by your chest, pressing another kiss to your collar bone before settling down right above your heart, curling his arms around your ribs.

        Mimi huffs, and you hear her breathing become slow. You've certainly missed this. You can feel Mimi's tail sway against your calf in her sleep, and Jing Yuan tightens his grip around you, you can feel his every breath against the thin fabric of your shirt. You continue scratching at his scalp. "Jing Yuan?"

        You hear him mumble something, he throws a leg over yours.

        "I'm sorry I'm away so often," It stings. Whenever you leave. The silent nights holed away in your office, or piloting your vessel. The homesickness eating at you the minute you leave port. Sometimes you can't help but think that having someone so dear be so far away takes a toll that isn't worth the pay off.

        "Distance makes the heart grow fonder, my love," Jing Yuan replies, muffled by the fabric of your shirt, and slurred by exhaustion.

        On second thought. Maybe having someone tying you to your home was a good thing. Who knows if you'd ever return from the stars if someone wasn't waiting at home. Speaking of home...

        "Jing Yuan, how did you convince Qingzu and Lady Fu to leave you be for so long?"

        The man stiffens in your hold.

        "Jing Yuan!"

˜”*°•.•°*”˜

work belongs to @cougheemedicine, all forms of plagiarism, modifying, translating, reposting are not allowed.

[cryptid-catnip]

An Unnecessarily In-Depth Deconstruction of the Lore and Problematic Elements of HDG

Why did I make this fucking post. (TWs for discussions of imperialism, cultural genocide, and a mention of systematized sexual assault)

So, to preface, I am going to be pretty harsh when it comes to criticizing the setting and lore of HDG, but I do not give one iota of a shit if someone finds its more problematic elements hot. Hell, I myself have found quite a few of the more fucked stories hot.

Secondly, if you want to rebute this post, please refrain from using Thermian Arguments as much as possible. If you don't know what a Thermian Argument is, it was coined in this video by Dan Oslen. It's only a five-minute watch, but, if you can't be bothered, it details an increasingly common argument in fandom spaces which consists of rebuking problematic elements of media by using in-universe reasoning, despite the fact that everything in a story is there because the writer put it there.

With that out of the way, let's begin.

So, in a previous post of mine, I wrote that The Combine from Half-Life 2 are essentially the same archetype of sci-fi civilization as the Affini (ie, ancient, vast conquerors whose interstellar conquest is so ancient that not even they know where they're from), with the only difference that the Affini are to be seen as the heroes of the story because... well because the writers say so.

Now you may say "Callie! You stupid bitch! Life in the Compact is way better than that on Terra!" and, to that I say "That's a Thermian Argument."

GlitchyRobo (and basically all other HDG writers) made the conscious decision to have Terra be Super-Mega-Ultra-Death-Capitalism(TM) to serve as justification for the Affini's colonization of Terra.

And this opens up a massive can of worms, considering that the Affini canonically want all non-Affini to be Florets and believe that all non-Affini would be better off as Florets.

The reason I'm calling this a can of worms is because the Affini are so vast, so long-lived, both individually and societally, that there has to have been at least one society that was doing really well for themselves, and were crushed by the Compact, right?

As I've alluded to prior in this post, the Affini are a fundamentally imperialist entity and does not care what your opinion is on their interstellar conquest, now go get your mandated mindbreak implant.

I think it's fair to say that the Affini are a shining example of the Designated Hero trope, as for a civilization whose bread and butter is imperialism, cultural genocide and systematized rape, they ARE The Good Guys, because The Narrative says so. This isn't even hyperbole, nearly all of the Canon Guidelines and the Writing in HDG pages are "The Affini are the good guys and are always in the right and are 59 steps ahead of the Terrans and functionally and narratively invincible with awesome tits."

But special mention goes to this line which basically confirms the thing I said previously:

What if you feel okay on your own? What if you don't want the Affini Compact running the show? What if you're already a communist society and are doing your level best to ensure everyone gets what they need?

The Affini response will be, "That's okay, petal, you've done enough. We'll take it from here."

And this line, which is basically just there to handwave some of the grimiest elements of HDG:

(Discussions about systemic floret sterilization and comparisons to real life reproductive violence and eugenics are definitely overthinking it.)

Like, motherfucker, I'm not the one who wrote this implication into the story. It's not my fault you decided to do White Man's Burden IIIIIIIIINNNNNN SSSSSPPPPPAAAAAACCCCEEEE with the femdom plant aliens.

And this is not only wretched morally, but it's just bad fucking writing. It is the closest that comes to an actual rule in writing (unless, like other "rules" in writing, it exists in your story for the purpose of deconstruction): DO NOT HAVE IMMORTAL, ALL-POWERFUL PROTAGANISTS.

The Affini are written like the player character of "That Guy" in every RPG horror story ever, with them being essentially invincible and immortal (functionally and narratively), are portrayed as the good guys while conquering planets and brainwashing people.

Or, to put it another way, most HDG stories feel like pro-Compact propaganda written by and for the Affini.

I was going to end this post with a thing where I say, "well i don't really think any of the writers/fans think that this would be good in practice/irl, and they all know it's just wish fulfillment kinkfics", but I genuinely do not think that's true for many people.

The constant defense of the righteousness of the Affini Compact in the text itself, as well as the constant stressing in the fucking wiki, leads me to believe that many people just straight-up believe that they are in the right, and not just the purpose of being kinkfics, and that deeply fucking disturbs me.

[naamah-beherit]

Heart of Chaos

A series in 3 parts

Cosmic horror Hualian AU in which Hua Cheng is an eldritch god and Xie Lian is a human (but not for long). 16k words in total.

*****

Part 1: dreams in the dark

[ rated E • monsterfucking ]

Stuck on a planet he'd rather never have seen, Xie Lian dreams. Faced with a tsunami of cosmic proportions that will destroy everything he's built, Jun Wu makes a decision. Given an opening, Hua Cheng uses it and takes everything.

Or: the story in which the most terrifying being in all of creation loves a mortal man.

“San Lang, you…” Xie Lian’s head starts spinning. Is it because of Hua Cheng’s proximity, or from elation at the prospect of leaving this backwater planet for worlds he can’t even imagine? He seizes that feeling and basks in it. “Who are you?” Hua Cheng inhales, then grazes Xie Lian’s jaw with his teeth. “Yours.” Hua Cheng’s kiss tastes like lightning. His touch sets Xie Lian’s skin on fire and reaches his bones to take root there, spreading flame through his veins until he’s full of it to bursting. At some point, he grabs fistfuls of Hua Cheng’s clothes and clutches them like they’re his only tether to the world. There’s a lightness growing in him, a feeling foreign and terrifying in its enormity.

@auchrauch drew this gorgeous painting for this part <3

*****

Part 2: broken dreams

[ rated M • POV outsider ]

This is how Feng Xin's world ends: in the rain of fire and death, as the universe comes knocking on his village's doorstep and brings with it flames of war. It brings a priest, too, one who calls to his god on the notes of his blood. And unlike the god of Feng Xin's home, this one actually heeds the call.

Or: the story of the end of the world. And the beginning of a new one.

Warships arrive at dusk. Clouded in interstellar dust, they appear on the sky and immediately start raining fire. Forests burn, houses lie in ruin, the world itself groans and cowers under the onslaught a fortress couldn’t have withstood, let alone a settlement without defences. There are no evacuation ships. Not that it would change anything if there were—the army blankets the sky so densely not even a sliver of starlight makes it through. Feng Xin looks up and, without a shred of doubt, knows this is how they all die. “This is insane!” Mu Qing screams as they run between burning houses and craters some of the buildings have already turned into, and try to herd the survivors away from the bombardment. “What do they even want?!”

*****

Part 3: i've touched my dreams, but still i bleed

[ rated E • body horror • transformation ]

Nightmares are a persistent thing. Xie Lian's greatest one raises its head from the dead in the least expected moment.

Xie Lian aches. Down to the marrow of his long-dissolved bones; to the deepest forces linking particles of what makes him himself; to the darkest, faintest thoughts that have ever run through his mind—he aches. He aches when he moves, aches when he lies still, aches when he lets Hua Cheng pour power into him until he’s full to bursting, aches until it settles and then after it’s long gone; he aches, aches, aches. Pain courses through him, sets what may yet remain of his nerves on fire and unleashes thousands of unseen worms crawling under his skin. They aren’t there. Never. They don’t exist, and the crawling is merely sensations firing up in echoes of his nerve endings and synapses in the memory of his brain that fails to process so many impulses all at once—fails to have realised it’s all but gone. He runs a fingernail down his chest. The skin splits easily in a clean, smooth, deep cut. There’s no blood. No fat, no viscera, no bone peeks out from layers of tissue. There is no tissue. There’s only light: blinding, potent, pulsating golden light.

[leohtttbriar]

For the Reverse Unpopular Opinion meme: would love to give you the excuse to talk about voyager. (or if that's too easy, something you like about your least favorite star trek series??)

i love voyager. so so much. i tried to think if i love another star trek series i've seen any less than voyager, but i can't honestly say that i do? i love ds9, tos, discovery, and, yes, even snw. i am in the embarrassing position of admitting that i really just love star trek, in a mostly uncomplicated way.

of the things i love about voyager, the premise is probably the biggest one. i have rambled about this a lot already but: i think it confronts for the first time in star trek the inherent sadness associated with us studying the stars--and therefore the sadness that science-fiction writers mostly imagine their way out of, often as a way to speculate a time when this reality may be less real: the fact that space is big. it is too big. the fastest human beings have ever traveled, with their own bodies along for the ride, still isn't fast enough to get us to the moon in less than three days. light--the speed limit of the universe--needs a full eight minutes to get from the sun to us--a relatively close planet. space is enormous. we measure things that are "close" in light-years. everything is so spread out and that's just from the perspective of being inside a galaxy, which is actually crowded when compared to intergalactic space. everything is so far away and so long away and it feels impossible to think of getting anywhere in a time meaningful to us and our lifespans. which is in its own way heartbreaking.

and while in voyager they are clearly not alone in the way we feel we could be (and in practice are until we get the smallest sign that even non-intelligent life exists off our very own special rock) with all the aliens they meet and the fact that they are on a ship that can go faster than light, they are stranded and they are on their way back home and it will still take them a life-time. that's the reality of the story: that they will spend the rest of their lives trying to get back. and though i know they do get back much quicker than that, where i'm at in the beginning of season 3 that is still the reality of it. and this makes literally everything that happens in the show so fascinating--even if it's a plot or an idea that not only happened in another series but was done technically better in that series. every plot in voyager is colored by the tension between what the star trek ethos is as a whole--exploration and diversity and learning and humanity--all in an optimistic light--and what voyager is about--getting back home. it makes me think of the tension in the actual "voyagers," somewhere now in interstellar space, and the golden record with a map of earth's position etched onto it: spacecraft meant to never be returned but contained on them is a deep, deep hope that in some way they will be. this tension, to me, affects everything on the show.

but that's maybe too big an idea without specific examples from the series--i might ramble about that at another point lol

in the spirit of your question, i will say there is one star trek property that i don't particularly care for on the whole and that's the 2009 movie (and sequels). but i will also say what that movie did right and what i do love about it even if i don't love the movie as a whole is how it portrayed the high-tech poetics of star trek in a much more immediately understandable way than even the 90s shows could for a 21st century audience. the "apple-store" aesthetic is really an argument about how this is the future and it's sleek and stylish and humans have advanced in their engineering and scientific abilities. and among this high-tech argument is uhura front and center: she's very loudly and explicitly a linguist and she fits in this silicon-valley look despite the fact that nowadays things like linguistics are considered "soft sciences" in a general way and treated like that very specifically by the tech-industry now (the attitude being "there's an app for that"). but uhura makes a central discovery in one of her labs at the beginning of the movie which gives her and kirk a leg up on understanding the Movie Threat. the 2009 movie significantly raised her importance as a character, to the point that the "main trio" in those movies is, arguably, more kirk/spock/uhura than it is kirk/spock/mccoy---especially if you're going by the movie posters.

also they gave her this line:

UHURA: And did I not, on multiple occasions, demonstrate an exceptional aural sensitivity, and I quote, "an unparalleled ability to identify sonic anomalies in subspace transmissions tests?"

which is excellent world-building about communications-officers, if you care for that sort of thing. and it provides a starting point for an argument about how listening to a universe (famed quiet due to the lack of material through which sound can travel) is essential to understanding it---an idea that can be further extrapolated via sci-fi regarding things like: listening to gravitational waves if we record them right; or working on the idea that all matter is but a vibration in a quantum field; or, from a more cultural concern, the implication that it is absurd to think you can travel to an alien world and not bring someone with an "exceptional aural sensitivity" who can facilitate an exchange of language and, thereby, meaning.

[jamsmemes]

(     *     INTERSTELLAR PROMPTS   !    

a self indulgent meme based on interstellar (part 2). feel free to change pronouns / details as needed  !

❛ we've got each other. ❜

❛ look at that perfect planet. we're not gonna find another one like her. ❜

❛ is a tiger evil because it rips a gazelle to pieces? ❜

❛ this crew represents the best aspects of humanity. ❜

❛ don't stay up too late. ❜

❛ we can't spare the resources. ❜

❛ i've been waiting a long time to be up here. ❜

❛ you are literally wasting your breath. ❜

❛ why are you whispering? ❜

❛ everything wants us dead. we're just not supposed to be here. ❜

❛ we're explorers, on the greatest ocean of all. ❜

❛ so we've got a pretty good idea what we're gonna find on the other side? ❜

❛ say it, don't spray it. ❜

❛ who put it here? who do we thank? ❜

❛ any trick to this? ❜

❛ the others made it, right? ❜

❛ thanks for the confidence boost. ❜

❛ they won't help you in here. ❜

❛ all we can do is record and observe. ❜

❛ that's easy for you to say. ❜

❛ you don't have anyone back on earth waiting for you, do you? ❜

❛ you have no idea what's easy for me. ❜

❛ going down there is going to cost us. ❜

❛ you don't find that every day. ❜

❛ no time for monkey business down there. ❜

❛ don't worry, i wouldn't leave you behind. ❜

❛ a literal heart of darkness... ❜

❛ don't say much, do you? ❜

❛ the answer's there, just no way to see it. ❜

❛ wanna get in fast, don't we? ❜

❛ hands where i can see them! ❜

❛ what're you waiting for? go! ❜

❛ those aren't mountains... they're waves. ❜

❛ you don't have time! ❜

❛ get back here! now! ❜

❛ i told you to leave me. ❜

❛ difference is, only one of us was thinking about the mission. ❜

❛ i was trying to do the right thing! ❜

❛ whats this gonna cost us? ❜

❛ we're not prepared for this. ❜

❛ you're a bunch of eggheads with the survival skills of a boy-scout troop. ❜

❛ we're stuck here till there won't be anyone left on earth to save. ❜

❛ don't just shake your head at me! ❜

❛ time is relative — it can stretch and it can squeeze — but it can't run backwards. ❜

❛ could they be talking to us from the future? ❜

❛ i'm sorry. i screwed up. ❜

❛ i wasn't much of a parent, but i understood the most important thing — let your kids feel safe. ❜

❛ i've waited years. ❜

❛ i thought i was prepared. ❜

❛ there's nothing here for us. ❜

❛ why didn't you sleep? ❜

❛ i stopped believing you were coming back. ❜

❛ something seems wrong about dreaming your life away. ❜

❛ we've been receiving, but nothing gets out. ❜

❛ just start at the beginning. ❜

❛ i've got a surprise for you. ❜

❛ you're not listening to this. i know that. ❜

❛ you're gone. you're never coming back. and i've known that for a long time. ❜

❛ it'd be a real good time for you to come back. ❜

❛ i didn't mean to intrude. ❜

❛ i've never seen you in here before. ❜

❛ i've never been in here before. ❜

❛ i just had something i wanted to get out. ❜

❛ i know they're still out there. ❜

❛ i'm not afraid of death. i'm afraid of time. ❜

❛ are you calling my life's work nonsense? ❜

❛ love isn't something we invented — it's observable, powerful. why shouldn't it mean something? ❜

❛ love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. maybe we should trust that, even if we can’t yet understand it. ❜

❛ if you're wrong, you'll have a very personal decision to make. ❜

❛ you might have to decide between seeing your children again and the future of the human race. ❜

❛ all these years... all these people counted on me. i let you all down. ❜

❛ i'll finish what you started. ❜

❛ you left us here. to die. ❜

❛ pray you never learn just how good it can be to see another face. ❜

❛ you have literally raised me from the dead. ❜

❛ with our situation, there's not much hope of any other rescue. ❜

❛ tell us about your world. ❜

❛ some things aren't meant to be known. ❜

❛ we can care deeply, selflessly for people we know, but our empathy rarely extends beyond our line of sight. ❜

❛ we are the future. ❜

❛ i'm still trying to solve this. ❜

❛ you'd do this for us? ❜

❛ a trip into the unknown requires improvisation. ❜

❛ at the very moment of death, your mind pushes a little harder to survive. ❜

❛ none of this turned out the way it was supposed to. ❜

❛ i'm sorry — i can't let you leave. ❜

❛ you fucking coward. ❜

❛ you're gonna save the human race? really? how? ❜

❛ take your stuff and go. ❜

❛ don't — you'll kill us both. ❜

❛ please don't judge me — you were never tested like i was. ❜

❛ that survival instinct — that's what drove me. ❜

❛ you're feeling it, aren't you? ❜

❛ i'm sorry, i can't watch you go through this — i thought i could. ❜

❛ i'm still here. i'm here for you. ❜

❛ i'm sorry. we should've followed your instincts. ❜

❛ this is no time for caution. ❜

❛ there's good news and bad news. ❜

❛ the only way humans have ever figured out of getting somewhere is to leave something behind. ❜

❛ you have to leave something behind. ❜

❛ we don't have much time! ❜

❛ you goddamn fool. ❜

❛ everybody on earth is going to die! ❜

❛ take it slow. remember you're no spring chicken anymore. ❜

❛ you were extremely lucky. ❜

❛ nobody believed me, but i knew you'd come back. ❜

[goodnightmemes]

INTERSTELLAR (2014) SENTENCE STARTERS

❛ I thought you were the ghost. ❜

❛ You got to figure it out. I'm not always gonna be here to help you. ❜

❛ Well, I guess that answers the old "if I asked you to drive off a cliff" scenario. ❜

❛ It's like we've forgotten who we are. Explorers, pioneers, not caretakers. ❜

❛ You're the one who doesn't belong. Born 40 years too late, or 40 years too early. ❜

❛ We used to look up in the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt. ❜

❛ You were good at something and you never got a chance to do anything with it. I'm sorry. ❜

❛ Don't make me take you down again. Sit down! ❜

❛ It's pretty clear you don't want any visitors. So why don't you just let us back up from your fence and we'll be on our way? Huh? ❜

❛ You're sitting in the best-kept secret in the world. Nobody stumbles in here. Nobody stumbles out. ❜

❛ I hesitate to term it supernatural, but it definitely wasn't scientific. ❜

❛ We'll find a way. We always have. ❜

❛ Okay, now you need to tell me what your plan is to save the world. ❜

❛ We're not meant to save the world. We're meant to leave it. ❜

❛ You're asking me to hang everything on an almost. ❜

❛ I'm asking you to trust me. ❜

❛ This world was never enough for you, was it? ❜

❛ Don't trust the right thing done for the wrong reason. ❜

❛ Mankind was born on Earth, it was never meant to die here. ❜

❛ We're just here to be memories for our kids. ❜

❛ Once you're a parent, you're the ghost of your children's future. ❜

❛ You have no idea when you're coming back. No idea at all! ❜

❛ Don't make me leave like this. Come on! Don't make me leave like this! ❜

❛ I love you. Forever. You hear me? I love you forever, and I'm coming back. ❜

❛ We're going to be spending a lot of time together. We should learn to talk. ❜

❛ Absolute honesty isn't always the most diplomatic, nor the safest form of communication with emotional beings. ❜

❛ We'll be waiting for you when you get back. A little older, a little wiser, but happy to see you. ❜

❛ You don't think nature can be evil? ❜

❛ Why are you whispering? They can't hear you. ❜

❛ This gets to me. This. Millimeters of aluminum, that's it, and then nothing out there for millions of miles won't kill us in seconds. ❜

❛ Everybody ready to say goodbye to our solar system? ❜

❛ You can't just think about your family. Now you have to think bigger. ❜

❛ I told you to leave me! Why didn't you? ❜

❛ One of us was thinking about the mission! ❜

❛ I was trying to do the right thing! ❜

❛ Oh, we are not prepared for this. ❜

❛ You eggheads have the survival skills of a Boy Scout troop. ❜

❛ Time is relative, okay? It can stretch and it can squeeze, but it can't run backwards, it just can't. ❜

❛ When you become a parent, one thing becomes really clear. And that is that you want to make sure your children feel safe. ❜

❛ I thought I was prepared. I knew the theory. Reality's different. ❜

❛ There's nothing here for us. ❜

❛ So it would be a real good time for you to come back. ❜

❛ I didn't mean to intrude. It's just that I've never seen you in here before. ❜

❛ I'm not afraid of death. I'm afraid of time. ❜

❛ Are you calling my life's work nonsense? ❜

❛ Love isn't something we invented. It's observable, powerful. It has to mean something. ❜

❛ Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we can't understand it yet. ❜

❛ I let you all down. ❜

❛ Pray you never learn just how good it can be to see another face. ❜

❛ I hadn't a lot of hope to begin with, but after so long, I had none. ❜

❛ I just want to know if you left me here to die. I just have to know. ❜

❛ There are some things that aren't meant to be known. ❜

❛ We can care deeply, selflessly about those we know, but that empathy rarely extends beyond our line of sight. ❜

❛ Panic won't help. We just have to keep working, same as ever. ❜

❛ Before you get all teary, remember that as a robot I have to do anything you say. ❜

❛ A machine doesn't improvise well because you can't program a fear of death. Our survival instinct is our single greatest source of inspiration. ❜

❛ When I left Earth, I thought I was prepared to die. ❜

❛ Nothing worked out the way it was supposed to. ❜

❛ You fucking coward. ❜

❛ Listen, if you're not going to go, let your family go. Just save your family. ❜

❛ Dad's not coming back. He never was coming back. ❜

❛ You're gonna save everybody? ❜

❛ He left us here to die. ❜

❛ Don't judge me. You were never tested like I was. Few men have been. ❜

❛ You're feeling it, aren't you? The survival instinct. That's what drove me. it's what drives all of us. ❜

❛ I'm sorry, I can't watch you go through this. I'm sorry. I thought I could, but I can't. ❜

❛ The only way humans have ever figured out of getting somewhere is to leave something behind. ❜

❛ No, don't go. Don't go, you idiot. ❜

❛ They didn't bring us here to change the past. ❜

❛ I don't care who describes it, there is no way for it to be exaggerated. It was that bad. ❜

❛ Is this really what it was like? ❜

❛ I don't care much for this pretending we're back where we started. I want to know where we are. Where we're going. ❜

❛ Nobody believed me. But I knew you'd come back. ❜

❛ No parent should have to watch their own child die. ❜

[slightly-nerdy-rambles]

Robstar Week Day 2: Joy and Confusion (Prompt: Power Swap/Role Reversal)

For this prompt, I decided to take the role-swap AU that @burr-ell made a while back for inspiration. Some of you may remember that I've done this once before, bouncing off of one of the AU concepts to make a sort of alternate version of a scene from the "Masks" episode. I did the same basic thing here, taking inspiration from a doodle on the original post that invokes an alternate version of "Stranded" and expanding the concept into something that I could picture happening in that situation. I deviated a little more from the canon version than I did in the Masks AU, and I think this story is better for it.

As for doing the role-swap itself, that was an interesting challenge. I feel like a lot of Starfire and Robin's interactions and differences are rooted to some degree in the fact that she's a Tamaranean and he's a human, so when switching their species I had to think of how much those species and cultures would affect their respective personalities while still making the characters recognizably themselves. I ended up toning down some of Starfire's emotional energy and especially her reaction to Robin's "she's not my girlfriend" moment (since in canon her strong reaction was mostly because she was trying to keep her powers from going on the fritz), while cranking her already significant human observation skills to maximum as part of her training from Phoenix and leadership role. For Robin, I tried making him more emotionally open while still having that grimly determined streak and awkward shyness about romance, which pretty much resulted in his bout of power failure being his own darn fault lol.

Joy and Confusion

Robin was walking ahead, mouth set in a thin line as he quietly focused on the mission, and that was the first sign that something was very wrong.

It wasn’t that focusing on the job was a remotely bad or even unusual thing, Starfire thought to herself with a small frown. Their mission on the interstellar communications relay had been an unprecedented disaster, and of course their top priority now was to get themselves off of this unfamiliar planet. And besides that, Robin was a warrior prince of a planet with its own host of dangers, whose people defended themselves fiercely from threats both on their homeworld and from beyond. He knew just as well as she did how to knuckle down and get to business.

But Robin was also enthusiastic and open, always easy to read whether he was happy or angry or grimly determined. Starfire thought it might be a Tamaranean thing – cultural or psychological, she couldn’t say, but she’d seen a lot of the same emotional energy in other Tamaraneans back when they’d visited his home planet. Now he seemed… not angry or afraid, exactly, but vaguely nervous and like focusing on finding the others was just an excuse to bottle all his emotions up. And she had a bad feeling that she might know why that was.

“Robin?” she asked, sprinting up to him. “Are you… upset with me?”

Robin’s face pinched a little, and he pulled ahead of her again. “No,” he said curtly. “I do not envision any reason to be upset with you. Do you?”

That was hardly reassuring. Starfire ran to catch up with him again. “Because I overstepped my boundaries as team leader. What I said back at the station…”

Her brow furrowed as she trailed off. Why had she said that? “If I’m not your girlfriend, then what am I?” She’d just been so annoyed in the moment, watching the combat partner she obviously had some kind of chemistry with freak out and act offended at Chimera’s light teasing, that she’d just kind of blurted it out. If she’d just been a regular member of the team it might have been fine. But as the Titans’ leader, there was a sort of force behind her words that came out even when she didn’t intend it.

“I just wanted us to be on the same page, that’s all,” she finished lamely. “I was taught that clarity with your teammates is crucial, but I think I was the one being unclear. And for that I’m sorry. You were technically correct, after all,” she added with an awkward little smile.

Robin’s face seemed to twist through a series of emotions at that – nervousness, embarrassment, hope, excitement, fear – but then it settled back into that vaguely anxious look that he’d had since they first started trekking across this planet.

“You are forgiven,” he said, his voice neutral. “Please, let us focus on finding the others.”

With that, he continued across the volcanic canyon they’d been traversing, leaving Starfire to valiantly resist the urge to scream and start pulling her hair out.

Instead, she sprinted to catch up to him yet again. “Robin, will you please talk to me? I can tell that something’s still bothering you.”

Robin stopped, staring intently at the ground, and held up one hand in a halting gesture.

Starfire grit her teeth. “We can talk while we search, you know. I just don’t want –”

She was interrupted suddenly by a red-hot geyser shooting up from the ground not two feet in front of her. Robin watched the geyser run itself out and drop back down with a disgruntled twist to his mouth.

“The ground is unstable here,” he said, his voice low to keep the geysers from getting worse as he looked about. “We should find another way around.”

Starfire sighed internally, but bit her tongue until the two of them found a sturdier part of the canyon marred only by a single long fissure that seemed to relieve volcanic pressure with bursts of steam. She thought things over to herself, mentally reviewing the day they’d had so far as they walked along either side of the crack.

Then a revelation struck her, and she hopped over to his side of the gradually widening fissure in between steam eruptions.

“Robin?” she asked gently. “Does this have anything to do with your powers failing?”

Robin froze mid-stride – she could practically see his muscles tensing up. “Why do you say that?”

Starfire frowned thoughtfully as she remembered back through their encounter thus far on this planet. Things were starting to fall into place, but she knew she was still missing a piece somewhere. “When you fought off that slug monster, you were using regular weapons. I didn’t think about it at the time, because I was too busy trying not to get eaten, but you weren’t flying and I didn’t see any starbolts. And despite the treacherous ground here, I still haven’t seen you take to the air once. Is… is something on this planet blocking your powers somehow? Is that why you’re so distracted?”

Robing seemed to be shrinking in on himself as she spoke, and when she looked expectantly to him with her question he winced. Fiddling with his fingers and looking anywhere but at her, he choked out, “It… is not… the planet, precisely.”

Starfire’s brows furrowed in concern, and she placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Then what is it?”

Robin made a distressed little groan in the back of his throat. “Tamaranean powers rely on strong emotions, and mine are… that is to say, at the moment I am feeling very confused.”

Well, that certainly explained a few things. Starfire filed the revelation about Tamaranean powers away for later and asked, “About what?”

Robin looked at her with a sheepish half-smile. “You?”

Starfire raised an eyebrow, but let him continue. Robin let his smile collapse with a deep sigh and he added, “When Chimera said, ‘the girlfriend,’ I did not know how to respond. You are correct in that it was not factually true, but still I could sense that his words meant something beyond that. And now that I am thinking about it I am nervous and uncertain, and you are upset, and I… I do not know where else to go from here.”

He was blushing and averting his eyes again by this point. Starfire blinked rapidly as she tried to process his odd confession.

“So…” she started slowly. “You are upset and emotionally confused for the same reason I was earlier? Then why didn’t you want to talk it out?”

Robin made the distressed groaning noise again. “I always expected to be matched into an arranged Tamaranean marriage,” he muttered, his blush deepening. “I am not very good at understanding Earth relationships.”

Starfire thought about it for a moment, and then suddenly let out a little laugh. At Robin’s questioning look she said, “Honestly? Neither am I, at least when it comes to this.”

After another moment’s consideration, she stepped back and offered a shy hand to him. “Perhaps we can figure it out together?”

Robin looked at her proffered hand for a few seconds, his face shifting through uncertain expressions again. Finally, gingerly, he reached out and took her hand in his own.

“I think I would like that,” he replied, not seeming to notice as he hovered an inch off the ground.

[nitewrighter]

Hello! I hope your week has been kind. I would like to ask, in s2 ep9, we see Lois with amnesia interacting with Clark, or rather Kal-El, who in the simulation was raised on Krypton rather than on Earth. What do you think of an AU where in a futuristic Earth, humans attempting the first interstellar travel across space, intrepid reporter Lois Lane was chosen to represent journalism amongst the space crew, only to get separated by some accident and crash landed on Krypton, which, I think would have gone full isolationist. Where she was taken into captivity and meets Kal, and bonding ensues. What do you think of that AU? And how would you write it, if you don't mind me asking? Kara would be there.

Drink water regularly, and eat your vegetables daily.

Hi! Sorry it's taken me so long to get to this ask!

An isolationist Krypton actually isn't that far off from (at least Byrne-era) comics canon! As I've mentioned before while talking about the origins of the Eradicator, there was a significant period of Krypton's history where it was isolationist and xenophobic, and this lead to the Eradicator affecting Kryptonian genetics to prevent the majority of Kryptonians from being able to leave the planet.

I love the idea of a culturally Kryptonian Kal, because like, while obviously comics canon says that Clark got his kindness and his morals from Ma and Pa Kent, I do like speculating how he would kind of... find his way to that in AU's where they don't raise him. I think to make this AU really work, you'd need to make Jor-El and Lara kind of amalgams of their Donner Movie, House of El Graphic novel series, and Superman: TAS depictions: Noble, kind, and (by Kryptonian standards) romantic and rebellious! I've always like the idea that Kal does have inklings of their personalities, even if he's culturally earthling. I do think one of the things that really hurts about MAWS is we see Jor-El as more of a disillusioned general than a doomed scientist prophet and I loooove scientist Jor-El, I love the anguish of "We're fucked but maybe we don't have to be completely fucked." But--okay, steering back to your AU.

I mean if I was going to write an AU like that, I'd be working a lot from Byrne's Krypton with a heavy dash of Bronze Age Krypton rather than MAWS Krypton. It's not that I don't like MAWS Krypton, it's just I feel there's a lot less we know about it. What we do know about it are from heavily unreliable narrators (Jor-El, Kara, Brainiac). Meanwhile, Byrne's Krypton has that all-important moral ambiguity, while Bronze Age Krypton has a lot of fun sci-fi and linguistic tidbits, so I feel like I'd be able to put together a more immersive fic experience from that. I could still keep the MAWS characterizations, mainly by making the House of El a house that fell from grace as a result of Jor-El being mistaken in his prediction of Krypton's destruction, à la "The Man Who Has Everything." Hell, I can even keep that "Kal-El as the first natural Kryptonian birth in centuries" characterization, which I talk a lot about here, but basically I can use the cultural taboo of that as a means to give Kal that all-important loneliness that informs his kindness and deep need to prove himself. So basically in this AU, Lois is seen as essentially a HORRIBLE BIOHAZARD, and the only people who are willing to deal with her are the DISGRACED WEIRDOS of the House of El. Jor-El largely sees her as a scientific curiosity, Lara is mostly concerned about her son's fixation with this alien when he's already bullied and isolated enough for being a natural birth, and Kal has just laid eyes on THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BEING IN THE UNIVERSE.

[sicksadgames]

Into the Blind, and Wot I Like about Space Stuff

I've been working on this for a while in between breaks updating As the Sun Forever Sets. Why is my idea of a break from writing games just writing a different game? I have dumb bitch disease. I wanted to talk about some of the inspirations for it.

Welcome to The Rim

Into the Blind is a sci fi game about a group of gig economy workers living contract to contract on the roiling, wild edge of space. It's about CRT screens, mechanical keyboards, junction boxes, pipes and wires. It's about the unknown, the stresses of capital, and horror - visceral and ephemeral. It's about working hard jobs in dangerous conditions for little pay, and the chance of a better life. 

You are a Freelancer - Salvager, Shipbreaker, Courier, Bodyguard, Assassin, First Responder, Negotiator, Investigator, Debt Collector. A Freelancer is any and all of these, depending on the contract. You'll take whatever you can get to make ends meet. 

Every job you do balances your need to pay the rent on your ship against your desire to remain alive. Grab what you can, get paid, and stay alive.

If this sounds cool to you, you can grab a free preview (with the old name) below.

Let me show you my favourite space things

Ok, time for the self indulgent ramblings.

(Potential) Spoilers for: Gravity, Interstellar, Contact, Arrival, The Expanse, the Alien series, the Thing, Annihilation, Homeworld: Cataclysm and Magnetic Rose.

Physics and Feelings at 10km/s

There are a lot of sci-fi horror TTRPGS out there. Like a lot a lot. Mothership, Death in Space, the Alien RPG, You're in Space and Everything's Fucked, the list goes on and on. Not that that matters - people should make the games they wanna make and I wanted to make a scary sci-fi game with spaceships, so eh fuck it.

Something I realised while writing stuff for Into the Blind and working on the system is that the themes and feeling of a lot of the sci-fi stuff I'm into didn't revolve around a towering monster skulking around dark spaceship. Like, sure, Into the Blind will have a nasty alien somewhere, I don't need to say that I like Alien or talk about why it's good (I do, it is, and I'm going to), but there's more to write about than monsters. Space is already intrinsically stressful and horrifying:

Neil Degrasse Tyson and Chris Hadfield can shut the fuck up, Gravity has some of the scariest, tensest scenes in a movie I've ever seen in my fucking life. After watching this you could never pay me enough to go to space. The only enemy here is inertia, the only monster are the principles of physics that cause a cloud of debris to whip through orbit at 22,000 miles an hour.

Aside from the spectacle, Gravity is a film about finding the will to go on when you have nothing to live for and everything's against you. It's heavily implied that Dr Stone went to space because she's tired of existing on earth (or at least that's my read). She wants mercy and relief from the pain of her life, and watching it you want to gift it to her so badly, but the debris field crashes into her life over and over. It's a relentless, uncaring solar tide that returns like clockwork when to fuck her up any time she gets a break.

These extreme forces also generate incredible tragedy and loss. Interstellar is kind of a dumb movie but despite the memes about this scene it always gets me. You don't know what you have until it's gone, and sometimes the distance between you knowing you've lost something and it becoming lost can (thanks to black holes and weird gravity stuff) slip by you in an age that feels like an instant.

Both Gravity and Interstellar have soft, beating hearts encased behind the layers of radiation shielding, technobabble and worn metal, and when the colossal forces that make the universe turn rip it open, they're laid bare.

That's a fucking cool thing to make a game about!

Indistinguishable from Magic

I'm not a big brain science person, when it comes to wormholes, relativity, folding space time and all that, I don't really get it. I just know that it's cool as hell and opens the door to powerful character stories about finding meaning and confronting your feelings at the edge of our understanding of reality.

Contact and Arrival are two sides of the same movie to me. Both are heavily grounded in big Theory and big Science Words, both are about powerful sciencey girlbosses who've lost something dear to them (one in the future, one in the past.) Contact leans more towards the hard science approach, but both are at their best when they're balanced on the edge of the plausible and the implausible. They're both about the incredible, incomprehensible nature of the universe. They're both about people who change the world, in ways both vast impercievable to everyone else.

They're both stories of hope and benevolence, but Contact frames this through 90's optimism and the power of nations working together towards a common goal (it's so optimistic, even the villain-coded megacorporation decides to help out, which uhhhh), Arrival frames these themes through personal tragedy - Dr Banks pays a high price to save humanity from itself.

Behind the calculations and clipboards and theories, these are stories about personal discovery, love and heartache.

These are also fucking cool things to make games about!

Magnetic Rose is probably the single biggest influence on Into the Blind - there's a full adventure heavily inspired by it in the preview. It's just so good. The visual design and animation are simultaneously grounded and real yet brilliantly beautiful and surreal. It's tragic gothic horror at the dark, gritty edge of space, and it's so good at being sad. The penultimate scenes in heart of the tomb-like space station, surrounded by rank brown water and decaying metal are heartwrenching. Heintz is tormented by visions of his past and you feel it so hard. The film doesn't care to tell you how this is all happening - are his memories ghosts? holograms? hallucinations? It only cares about the why, and it's incredible.

Breathable Air Prepayment Meters

It's been ages since I watched The Expanse, so I'm not gonna dwell on it too much, but what I remember focused heavily on how capital and government care little about those they govern and sell to.

The level that our existence is monetised and used as a cudgel against us currently can surely only expand along with our expansion into the stars. You can go there right now if you have enough money to do so, and when life beyond earth becomes feasible, the companies that financed it will need someone to clean the ducts and polish the solar arrays. The amount of things that can be sold to you can only increase out in space. You think rents are high now? Wait till you see the price of a 1 bedroom apartment in orbit around Mars. Add nice breathable mix of nitrogen and oxygen to your list of monthly outgoings. You think you'll be able to repair your C02 scrubbers without voiding the warranty? Fuck no.

The Alien movies are obviously (despite what some grognards on twitter dot com will tell you) deeply about extreme capitalism. The galaxy is ruled by companies that could not care less about you, and the bottom line is all that matters. This kinda matters less and less as the films wear on, but the first 3 are all about working class people sacrificed on the altar of the interstellar dollar.

Alien 3 in particular has a lot of problems, but the edgy teen in me is still really fond of this scene. It's doing a Big Foreshadow (Do you get it? The alien is like.. the flower he's talking about right? But the flower is bad?) But it feels like an appropriate lament for prisoners on the ass end of space. Despite what the company wants you to believe, the inmates of Fury 161 don't deserve to die, aren't expendable.

We all have flowers within us waiting to grow, out from the shadow of capital.

You might've noticed mentions of a nasty guy in those last clips.

Ok fine, also Monsters

We all love a little nasty guy, I cannot resist the pull of the weird monster that does Big Themes. Like I said, there's so much TTRPG stuff focused on them for good reason And space is ripe for the nastiest of guys.

There's really nothing more to be said about The Thing, it just fucking rules. It's a movie that cares as much about what a monster can do to peoples bodies as what it can do to their minds and relationships.

What a horrible fate for Sheppard. The idea of Annihilations mutant bear is just so sinister it makes my gut drop whenever I re-watch it. Again, not much else to be said about this movie. It rips.

Homeworld: Cataclysm is a weird game. It's a survival horror.. strategy game? Set in space? Where you never see a single person?? And somehow it's voice acting and plot is incredible???

The Beast is the nickname for the microorganism that emerges from the millenia old wreckage the mining vessel Kuun-Lan happens upon whilst scouring deep space for valuable minerals. The threat it presents is so real and visceral, it's one of those "if this hits our planet, it's so over" monsters, and it's obscenely scary and gruesome. Even the Bentusi, a race of nigh-on ageless benevolent machine beings are absolutely terrified, and try to abandon the galaxy in the face of it (they fear their biological minds will be trapped in their machine bodies if they're taken over by The Beast, locked in and forced to watch what it does to the galaxy. Damn.)

The scene where you and your fleet fight the Bentusi as they try to evacuate known space to force them to help you is intense and incredible. You're fighting gods, and all you can do is crash against their incredible technology again and again like a stiff breeze, pleading for help and humanity. You shame them into taking responsibility for helping the mortals in the galaxy against this ancient threat. That's the fear inspired by The Beast.

Thank you for coming to my Space Ted Talk

I told you it was self indulgent huh. Hopefully this goes some way to explaining what I'm going for with this game. Not only monsters, but the experiences of people trapped by incredible forces of nature, corporations and circumstance. Not only horror, but exploitation, sadness, love, longing and loss. Thanks for reading.

Again, if you want to check out Into the Blind, you can get the free preview below, and follow me on Itch to get notified for when game releases (soon? idk)

[rabbithaver]

ok i know i didnt throw silver today here on tumblr but frankly i have been super busy, and now that i'm free, i'm totally exhausted. i'm gonna have to take a rain check on throwing him today, but rest assured that i DID throw him irl. and i'm holding him right now. so he's getting the love he deserves, i promise :)

i just hosted a 7 hour Bumblekast Server Movie Night since there was no recording today. it went so well!!! we watched Interstellar and The Martian, two of my all-time favorite films. i talked so much with so many people that now my throat hurts and i am absolutely exhausted... but oh my god, we had so much fun. i got to connect with a ton of friends in the server whose voices i'd never heard before. i got to infodump about my special interests to people who genuinely cared to hear what i had to say. we got to crack jokes and have fun during breaks. the very first ever Bumblekast Server Movie Night was, overall, a huge success!

in fact, it was such a successful event that i am going to have to host a second screening of Interstellar! like eight people really wanted to join us and see it, but couldn't due to their schedules. i've promised them that i'll ping them when i start planning the next screening so that way we can make sure everyone is able to participate. and Interstellar is one of those movies i will happily watch several times a week so it all works out.

everyone seemed to love the movies, and they even seemed to appreciate the fact that i had behind-the-scenes trivia and facts about the science in the movies. one of my huge worries is that people i watch movies with get annoyed when i share things like that, but if anything, folks seemed to appreciate the movies more because of it.

man, i know i keep saying it, but i really do love the Bumblekast community so much. i have never felt so at ease with so many people. i've never felt like a burden or an annoyance there... like, i truly think it's where i belong. everyone is so caring and supportive, especially the mod team and Kyle. hell, Kyle even set up an event in the server for me so that we could spread the word to people! it was such a kind gesture.

that place truly is something so special. i've been there since September 15, 2023, and i can count on one hand how many genuine fights and bigoted statements i've seen. the mod team is so exceptional at maintaining a positive and friendly atmosphere there. it helps that they nip heated conversations in the bud before they can become arguments. they're also very easy to talk to —they're all so incredibly funny and approachable. they're constantly interacting with the community, too. and they're also really willing to work with people.

for example, occasionally i've broken rules by accident or flown too close to the sun with a joke and they've had to DM me about it. and they know that i have severe anxiety, so when they broach these subjects with me, they know to say right off the bat, "hey, you're not in trouble or anything and we aren't mad, we just need to talk to you about something." it's a little thing, but it seriously means so much to me. the fact that they keep my struggles in mind when doing their jobs is proof to me that they care about the community they support.

a lot of discord servers have mods who are very... distant with their communities. like, they don't participate in conversation amongst members, or they take jokes way too seriously, or they throw their weight around just to intimidate users into submission. those discord server mods just don't bother interacting with their communities, either because they're too busy, or they're not interested in what their members are doing, or in the worst cases, they think they're better than everyone else. i've encountered a lot of these people before and they're always so unpleasant. it just highlights to me how unique the Bumbleserver is.

i'm so fucking glad i got into Sonic, man. if i hadn't watched the game grumps play Frontiers, i never would have picked up the comics. i never would have known how much fun they are. i never would have started listening to the Bumblekast. i never would have decided to create the clips blog. i never would've been reached out to by Puppy Bumblekast, who i now consider one of my closest friends. and of course, i never would have claimed Silver as my son, which lead to Seán reaching out to me. i never would have fallen so thoroughly in love with him, either. 💖

ok that was a WAY longer post than i meant it to be . im really really tired so im gonna go to bed. goodnight everybody

goodnight my friends!

[wholelottatransbians]

Interstellar Snippet?

"Ashido, did you want something?"

The pink girl had dragged the two of them out to Takoba Beach for a chat, thing was she elected not to tell them exactly what she wanted to talk about. It seems whatever she wanted required the upmost privacy.

She then began speaking. Or rather, Asumi thought that's what she was doing. Her mouth was moving, but none of the sounds made any sense, and almost felt... alien. Oh.

Uraraka spoke up before she could. "Could you repeat that? I didn't catch... any of that."

"Huh, I figured you both spoke Universal. Okay, let's try Japanese." She then cleared her throat. "I know you both aren't from Earth."

"Oh, uh, what makes you so sure?" Uraraka was definitely panicking, not that she could blame her. Asumi was too stunned to say anything herself.

"Please, like I don't know a - how do those translate again, most direct translations are "light folk" and "star form", damn autotranslator - whatever, thing is, I've seen your species around the block a few times, I know what I'm looking at."

"Wait, how exactly do you know?"

Ashido puffed out her chest before answering. "Princess M'nna, youngest daughter of Empress M'tko, heiress to the X'nm'rl Empire. Pleased to make your acquaintance and all that."

At that, her poor brain finally broke. All she could say was a weak "Wait, what?"

[cowboylikeyouu]

avengers interstellar AU

since i've seen it in theaters last night i can't stop thinking about writing an avengers/winterhawk interstellar AU and i feel like it's eating me from the inside, so i'm just gonna throw all my ideas at you. spoiler warnings for interstellar and a fanfiction i'll probably never write (having some interstellar knowledge is recommend lol i'm not explaining any of the movie aspects)

it's not gonna be as angsty as actual interstellar bc i can't do main character death for the life of me, i'm gonna ignore a lot of science bc i'm stupid and it's gonna be heavily winterhawk focused bc i'm insufferable, but here we go:

the world is ending and has been for years due to the blight and everything, yap yap yap you know the deal. the avengers basically just were a team of super talented scientists and engineers and test pilots, doing a lot of research for years and also dealing with some international shit or smth idk and it doesn't really matter. the team doesn't exist anymore bc they're not needed anymore, with food becoming the most dominant problem and everything, again, yk the deal. so most of them decide to retire from shield/nasa work and become farmers/etc.

nasa is doing the lazarus missions tho, and who volunteers? 10 people who don't really matter to the story (just like in the movie), steve (bc he's steve goddamn, ofc he's gonna volunteer to go on a suicide mission to possibly save humanity) and nat (bc she's rational, + she knows clint's probably gonna settle down with bucky somewhere (they've been in that "we fuck and spend almost every minute together, and we're so obviously in love but too scared to talk about it" stage for years), so she knows she won't be needed anymore bla bla)

clint's devastated about nat leaving, but she's like "enjoy your time as a farmer and when fury asks you to travel through spacetime to rescue us in a decade, you better be married to bucky's ass, idiot".

bucky's angry with steve for leaving but not surprised, and he's like "don't you dare die out there or i will walk through that goddamn wormhole just to kill you again"

tony's super pissy with steve for leaving, but doesn't show up to say goodbye or anything bc they're not really on speaking terms (they had an affair that was obviously much more than that during the period when tony and pepper had broken up, but then something civil war-like happened, and they're still angry at each other bc of that, and now tony's with pepper again, but there's obviously still a lot of unresolved stuff going on between them ykyk.

regarding steve & bucky: pretty sure i'll make them both the same age as everyone else, so no "frozen/held captive by hydra for 70 year" business, but i still need them to be supersoldiers. so maybe steve still volunteered for the experiment, and maybe he even became some kind of captain america (but an astronaut-version of him???), and bucky still got the not-so-good super-serum thingy and was held captive by hydra, but "only" for a couple of years, before he was rescued and joined the avengers.

again, all of that's not that important, the only relevant thing is that bucky got the serum and that it slows his aging process significantly.

whoo, lots of exposition sorry. that was basically just the prologue.

fast forward, 6-10 years, idk. pepper and tony had morgan, but pepper died of cancer (and i HATE nothing more than killing of a woman for an mlm ship, but seeing as cooper's wife in interstellar died as well, forcing him to leave behind his kids without a mom, i think it's a valid plot point for once). clint took bucky with him to his parent's old farm, they had peaceful couple of years, both recovering from trauma yap yap yap, they're happy alright (and officially together bc this is NOT a winterhawk slowburn).

then they all get a call form fury tho, being like "hey guys, sooo steve's, nat's and [random third character's] worlds look promising, wanna travel through the wormhole and check those planets out lolol???", and they obviously don't want to, but they all knew that day would come, so clint, bucky, tony and someone else (haven't decided who, bc that person's gonna be the one who dies on the water-planet thingy close to gargantua, so that's a hard decision to make) become the endurance team and set off into space.

and here's the thing: tony's on the mission bc he wants to save the life of morgan and especially her potential future kids and OFC bc he has a tiny hope of seeing steve again. clint's on the mission bc with bucky on the ship as well, there's nothing keeping him on earth, + the tiny chance of seeing nat again. bucky's on the mission for all of those reasons, but there's another factor for him, and that's time dilation.

he's a couple of years older than clint, but due to his slow aging, their body's are pretty much at the same stage already if u know what i mean, and while clint's relatively chill about it bc "hey man, you still gonna look sexy as fuck when i'm a bald old man, i'm so lucky", bucky's freaking out over it.

he's well aware of the time dilation caused by gargantua, so his plan is to be the one to stay behind on the ship while the others fly down to the planet on its horizon, and to NOT put himself into hypersleep for all these years, so that when clint and the others come back, he's gonna have a few physical years on clint again. his thought process is kinda like "i'd rather spent 20 years alone on a spaceship with the knowledge that clint is probably alive and i will see him again, than to watch him die of old age and keep living on my own for another 50 years". it's kinda stupid, but that's love for you guys.

so yeah, they travel through the wormhole, clint, tony, and [random fourth character] go down to the planet on gargantua's horizon, clint's convinced bucky's just gonna sleep for 7 years bc that's what sane people do, [random fourth character] dies, tony and clint have to stay down there an hour longer due to the water damage on the ranger, yap yap you know the deal, they go up again and BOOM: they've been gone for 23 years and bucky spent all those years alone and awake and looks 10 years older than before they left. many emotions for both of them "fuck yes clint, you're alive, i fucking missed human contact", and "jesus christ bucky you put yourself through this for me and" and "JESUS CHRIST bucky you put yourself through this FOR ME?????"

anyways, next stop is steve's planet. good news: steve's alive, bad news: the planet isn't a suitable candidate for a new world. the obvious new plan is to go check out nat's world bc it's quite literally their last chance. tony - now that they already "wasted" 25 years on this mission and found steve alive - really just wants to go back to earth tho and see morgan again. he knows that clint and bucky won't agree to that tho, so he kinda manipulates steve into getting on a ranger and flying up to the endurance again, leaving clint and bucky behind on steve's planet. don't be too angry with him, he just wants to see his daughter again, alright :,)

neither steve nor tony are exceptional pilots tho, (that's clint's fucking job), so they don't manage the docking process. bc this isn't a main character death angst fic, they don't die in an explosion like dr. mann did in interstellar, they just cause the endurance to spin rapidly, and then kinda float next to it in their ranger being like "well shit". clint and bucky come in with steve's old lander to save the day, and clint manages to dock onto the spinning spaceship (like cooper does in the movie) and stops it, and then talks tony and steve through the docking process on another point of the ship (the endurance, the rangers, and the landers all work the way i want and need them too btw, idc about accuracy when it comes to this kinda shit lol i just want them all to survive)

when they're all safe on the ship again, they talk it through. the endurance + 1 lander HAVE to go to nat's planet, it's the point of the entire mission, but clint's a self-sacrificing idiot, so obviously he wants tony and steve to have a chance of going back to earth. they load up on lander with enough fuel to take steve and tony back through the wormhole (they're not sure if the lander can withstand it, but it's the only way), from where it should be possibly to contact earth again, so that someone could get them.

clint tells bucky that they have enough resources and enough fuel to get them both to nat's planet safely, which is a lie, but bucky trusts him bc they're in love, man.

clint does the iconic slingshot-around-gargantua-or-whatever manoeuvre to give the endurance the boost it needs to reach nat's planet, and he also does the iconic "yeah, i'm just gonna load up one of the rangers with one of the robots (the robots are FRIDAY and JARVIS btw) and let it fall into black hole to hopefully gather some data, but then i also let myself fall into it without telling you beforehand" move, bc they need to lose the weight and there aren't enough resources for both of them.

he's like "this is paypack for your aging dick move, say hello to nat for me" and then he's gone. ouch.

then there's the whole black hole shit, with the 4th dimension tesseract and the data from the black hole that i don't really give a shit about rn tbh lol. the "solving the gravitation equation" problem won't be a huge part of the plot anyways, bc yes, it's an important factor to this story's universe in general, but i really just wanna focus on bucky and clint in the fic, so idc. it's all kinda happening in the background.

clint sends the data to earth in morse code like cooper does in the movie - tho idk yet if he sends it to a now much older morgan, or peter parker (who's kinda tony's mentally adopted son btw) or directly to tony, who made it back to earth safely. idk. like i said, doesn't really matter. the tesseract collapses, clint's gets picked up by stark station that they were able to build bc of the data he send them, all is well.

his slingshot manoeuvre around gargantua did cause another time dilation ofc (idk if i'd make it 60+ years like in the movie tho), so maybe tony's already dead when clint gets picked up by the station. due to slowed down super soldier aging steve's still alive and well tho, and they have a little chit chat where steve's like "go find bucky, clint, there's nothing keeping you here" and when clint tells him he should join him, steve's like "i'll follow, we all will at some point, but i promised tony to look after morgan" (who's older than steve at this point).

so clint steals a ranger (they're advanced by now, but not 100% cleared to do interstellar travel yet, but this is clint we're talking about and cooper literally did the exact same thing in the movie) and sets off to nat's planet.

it takes him a few years, but he gets there, and bc i'm a soft soft softie, OF COURSE both nat and bucky are still alive, already raising the first generation of the new colony (bc they obviously didn't know if they solved the equation after all). i'm not entirely sure how plan b in interstellar war supposed to work, like who would carry & birth the first generation?? but bc of the fact that they only put one woman on the mission, i'll just go with "they have artificial wombs" :D

and now they'll just chill there until the rest of old humanity joins them.

and idk, the thought of bucky and clint being adam and adam of a new humanity for a few years (bc nat puts herself into hypersleep on a regular basis being like "i cant deal with you two idiots for too long, i'm gonna sleep 'til these babies are grown-ups so that i can actually have some good conversations") just really does it for me lmao.

and they all lived happily ever after.

okay this was a long one, sorry, nobody's gonna read this post anyway lmao. i just needed to get it all out of my head bc i'm still not sure if i actually wanna write it or not. i feel a lot better now tho, maybe my head won't explode bc of this idea tonight.

[skylarbee]

Hi, so I'm lowkey new here, just been a few months and I really don't understand what people mean when they say something happened on the eycte tour. I see your explanations all the time so it'd be awesome if you were able to explain some of these things and other things needed for context. And I swear, I'm too deep in to turn around now so might as well dive into it properly lol.

hi there and welcome! :)

hmm, what happened on the eycte tour... we don't know really and i haven't seen too many people discussing it. as we know things changed a little between them a year or two after it, so i'm guessing (this is just what i think!) that they fooled around too much and had to deal with the consequences, which were less pleasant than they thought they'd be? as someone who had (homo)erotic relationships with two of their best friends (not at the same time 🤣), i'm telling y'all NOTHING good can come out of it and no matter how much you try to fool yourself and each other that it won't change anything - it will. it will change everything. even if we only look at the shit they got up to on stage, the closeness, the kisses, the not-so-friendly embraces and other fruity shenanigans, that must have had some effect on them and their friendship, especially because they did it routinely and got too used to it, and before they knew it, it was all over and they went on to do their own things, breaking the routine (or the bad habits, ey?) and being apart from each other. i don't know, and i can only hope that i am totally wrong, but then we have a song like 'killing the joke' from miles... "interstellar, dressed in leather, drinking bitter boy, you know the plan, but you never knew the ploy" / "since you've been gone, left the TV on, let the milk go sour, let the bills pile up" / "'cause you're my top, you're my top, you're my top one-hundred shows, why do I always have to go killing the joke?" - which is a sad break up song and which i've seen people theorise that it could be about what their closeness during the eycte tour did to them, and perhaps how one of them (miles, most likely) 'ruined' what they had by wanting something more from the other, only to be rejected/things not working out the way they thought they would (i'm not sure if i agree that this is what happened; i would think it was more a mutual realisation and agreement to stop messing about but who knows!). the 'top one hundred shows' line can only make me think of them and miles' tweet that said that the eycte tour was the best tour of their lives and we saw how incredibly happy they were. and 'killing the joke', well, as i've said, these 'harmless' games are only so harmless until one of them realises something which causes everything to change for the worst. actually, i feel like 'the element of surprise' could be tied to 'killing the joke' as it kinda discusses the same theme ("and once it’s started it’s so tricky to stop"!!!) and if you want a sloppy 'analysis' of it, here it is

[quigzahhutt]

I got the 1 note I needed so... folks, here's ur LiLo snippet, as promised :)

Logan Sargeant/Liam Lawson / (no title yet, still) (sorry)

Logan had something mindless playing on the tv in the background while he scrolled through his phone– a horrendous waste of electricity– his leg bobbing rapidly where it was planted on the bed; the motion felt like it shook the entire room. Seeing his teammate in such a domestic manner made something unnamed swirl in Liam's stomach– it was a similar feeling to the one he felt while wandering around earlier– something like nostalgia, but less handleable. Slippery and evasive, licking spikes up his gut. Before he could think too hard, one of Logan's legs had slithered it's way over, nudging Liam's ankle with his foot, “D’you wanna watch anything?” His teammates voice was hushed, like they were kids on a sleepover and not two grown adults who were here for some silly sex agreement, “Um,” Liam hummed, his eyes flicking to the tv screen, the Netflix logo flashing quickly before fading to black, and he fell silent. Something about seeing the four profiles, one for each member of Logan's family, aptly named so, made Liam feel like an intruder; it was all so personal– Logan invited him here, into his house, which looks an awful lot like it hasn't had any visitors for a while, and all Liam was thinking about was getting on his knees and sucking the guy off? It felt.. wrong. Suddenly he wanted to call the whole thing off and just hang out, be company for someone who seems like they haven't gotten it for a while. “Have you ever seen Interstellar?”

probably the last snippet until I get it posted :) I'm super excited for this; I've put a lot of effort into this fic and I hope y'all will be able to tell once it's up :3

[kerrikins]

Just gonna pop onto the main tag for a moment to say: the ending is open to interpretation and I think people should embrace that.

I've seen a few 'but wait, clearly ____ happened' on here and on Twitter (usually with different theories, lol) and I think people will enjoy themselves a lot more if they realize that that's okay!

When a canon ends, the work moves into the hands of the fans - and art interpretation is always subjective. Even things that are supposedly 'explicitly shown' are often dissected and taken to have different meanings (which we have seen over and over throughout the show) so it's not surprising that an ending that had a character questioning events and then playing a sound that made the viewers go 'what?!' will bring about a lot of theories as to what exactly happened.

Interstellar is similar - a lot of people feel one way, a lot of people feel another. There's nothing 'wrong' with either side.

So far I've seen:

they're all still stuck hallucinating at the beginning of the ep and New is alive & poisoning them

everything happened up until the point where Phee took the antidote but actually he's just hallucinating again & still stuck there

all of them are in the house in a kind of 'purgatory' forever reliving what they did to Non

Jin escaped but Phee and Tee died in the house

Jin, Phee and Tee escaped but they are paranoid/haunted by Non

And you know what? I can see merit in all of these. The theories also prove that the ending is ambiguous because there are so many different interpretations on it.

I also want to point out that with most of these, the immediate question that comes up is 'well what happens next' - which is again, why the ending is open to interpretation.

And that's okay. It's likely that unless the author comes out to make explicit statements, it's going to stay that way - and I'll tell you right now that even if he does make explicit statements, a lot of fans believe in 'death of the author' and don't care about what's outside of what was shown to them in canon.

Different interpretations are going to happen, so don't let what other fans are taking from the show spoil your take or your enjoyment of it.