#are spacesuits itchy?

[tsarisfanfiction]

Just A Bruise: Chapter 3

It's taken us a while, but the next chapter of Just A Bruise, co-authored by the amazing @lenle-g is up!

There's some art again, although I got lazy and didn't bother with shading in the end...

The page, when it does come, is an innocuous little thing. PDR prep. Request for A.AC and D.MP to assist with transfer of diaphragmatic rupture patient from S.bay12 to ICU4 It’s not much to go on, but John just knows, on a level that he can’t even explain, that it’s his brother being moved to intensive care. John needs to be back, ready and waiting in one of those awful plastic chairs right now, so that he’s there when that nurse comes to look for him - else he’s going to have a horrific time trying to find Scott in a hospital of this size. The spaceman shoots to his feet with the speed of a water-propelled bottle rocket and slides himself neatly into position on the hatch for One to lower him back out onto the tarmac. “EOS?” John flicks on his comm as almost an afterthought. “I need you to remote pilot Thunderbird One back to Tracy Island, do you think you can do that for me?” The one thing Scott’ll like less than one of his brothers piloting his ‘bird, is to let ‘ that murderous baby codebot’ do it, but John doesn’t feel even a microcosm of guilt about clearing the helipad this way. “You should leave her on Two’s landing strip,” he adds. The sliding pool mechanism is complex and very specific and it’s perhaps best for John’s own stress level if he knows she’s not been fiddling about with them today EOS chirps something sunnily affirmative back at him that he barely hears, too busy as he slips back down the roof maintenance stairwell that he’d snuck up earlier so that no one saw him. John skids into the sickly clinical waiting room, and is abruptly struck once more by the fact he’s a weirdo in a bright blue and orange spacesuit. He stands out like an astonishingly ginger beacon amongst all these regular people and John’s pretty sure that he’s going to end up with stress hives round his collar and elbows if he has to tolerate much more of it They’ve already got that itchy telltale prickle going on - he’s had plenty enough anxiety already today, thank you, without being stared at. John hates crowds, but hates crowds looking at him even more. There’s a reason he’s considerably happier up in Thunderbird Five than doing ground rescues.

[moldy-guacamole]

I need to create a 'bonus ep are spacesuits itchy' animation

[autisticbisexualemaskye]

[cracks knuckles] analyzing fandom culture is like. My Big Years-Long Interest and. as shitty as it is, the way franmaya is treated by the fanbase is quite. expected unfortunately. not only are they a sapphic ship (which is already a category overlooked by pretty much any non-sapphic out there), but... well.

in terms of ships, fandoms like things to come in neat little pairs. every single character has their significant other, and there is a neat little pathway of ships that don't intersect each other that a majority of the fanbase adheres to. ace attorney is DEFINITELY one of these fandoms, and that means "secondary" ships are often just included as a Given in the background of works regardless of whether the author cares about them or not. and... yeah. franmaya is first to fall victim to this. the authors don't know how to write either of them, but they include them because Oh Well, Why Not. unfortunately, because franmaya is a sapphic ship, it falls as prey to this Extra Hard. I've seen it in a lot of fandoms before (BNHA is the first that comes to mind), with a variety of ships, but sapphic ships are sadly ALWAYS treated the worst of the lot.

not only does franmaya fall prey to the issues in fandom shipping as a whole, but the way the ace attorney fanbase operates exacerbates this issue. in general, the ace attorney fandom is.... VERY canon compliant. very. I've never seen a fandom so focused on emulating the source material in its fanworks before. popular fanfictions are typically expanded retellings of the story or possible events post AA6 and popular fanart is typically comics in the same vein. this means that the fandom inevitably falls prey to one of the series's worst flaws - its refusal to pay attention to its female characters and let them process any of their emotions or really have agency outside of the men they serve. a lot of authors, without malicious intent, simply mimic how they see the characters portrayed in the story -- and because of that they spend ages fawning over edgeworth's Complicated Emotions(TM) and kinda just. leave the female characters stagnant unless they further a male character.

not only that, but.... I've never seen a fandom so centered around a single ship than ace attorney is with nrmtsu... I mean. it's nice in a lot of ways but. there's SO much else to the games to explore than just those two characters. and while this single-mindedness has lead to great things (and don't get me wrong, miles edgeworth is platonically my husband and I could talk about him for ages <3). it's also a great detriment to the fanbase in a lot of ways. it's also extra frustrating to see because... well. narumitsu and franmaya are very similar in a lot of ways (oh my GOD that's a whole other essay for another day). so it's really not fair that one gets So Much More Attention than the other????

so, in conclusion, all three of these things combine to lead us to this reality. which, while rooted in misogyny, is so vastly unintentional and deeply tied to the core of how the fandom functions that the only way to really fix it is to, well. talk about it! but it's really interesting to look at and in the near future I'm demanding character essays about all the female AA cast from Every Popular AA Writer before they write another word of narumitsu /hj

(woops! I. uh. infodumped all over ya there. meta analysis of fandoms goes brrrrrrr)

HI THIS IS LITERALLY EVERYTHING. I DONT KNOW IF THERES A SINGLE THING I COULD ADD TO THIS ANALYSIS. 10/10 THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS ANON <3

[adtothebone]

I decided not to pursue a career as an astronaut because I’m much too itchy for a spacesuit.

[oneyeartowrite]

The Force of G

It’s become apparent, I’m the kind of writer, that starts one thing, but gets seduced by a devious plot bunny and starts something else. 

This is something else.

One day I’ll get myself together, and finish what I’ve started, but today is not that day, here is John, not having a good time because hurting him makes me feel good because I’m weird like that...Enjoy!

Warning for cursing...

Part 1/6

John’s spinning. 

His eyes are shut, but it’s not quite darkness, his consciousness is coming back online and he sees not outwardly, but inwardly. He sees the reddish-yellow of his eyelids. They’re still too heavy to open but the fact he can see that reddish-yellowy-orange is a good sign. Or that’s what his brain tells him. His chest is heaving, his lungs hurt, and so does his back. He sips at the air, trying desperately to draw it deeper and deeper. He has some success, and manages a to fill his lungs.

He’s still spinning though, he shouldn’t be this level of dizzy with his eyes shut, and solid ground at his back. His brain pushes the conundrum aside and settles on a different sense. He can hear voices, panicked, strained voices.  One further away from him, hissing out curse after curse, and the other directly above him, repeating a word—no. A name. His name.

“John, can you hear me? John!”

The voice comes at him muffled, at the other end of a tunnel despite John feeling the frantic pants of the voice-owner’s on his face. The last shout of his name hits him with a spray of spittle. Well, that’s disgusting, but at least sensation is coming back online. His mouth feels wet too, an itchy wet that tickles around his lips, and his nose stings.

His fingers begin tingling, so much so, that he remembers he actually has fingers and doesn’t exist purely in the red-yellow-orange swirl of his eyelids.

“Yes.” He says softly. 

He can’t manage more than a soft murmur, and hasn’t pieced together why he’s spinning on a still floor, or why his eyes are being so stubborn, or why he has no idea what the hell is going on.

“Can you open your eyes for me?”

John’s been attempting to open his eyes since he recognized the color of his eyelids, not for whoever the voice is, but for himself, but it’s hard and he’s tired. 

“Come on, John, do it for me.”

John is not doing it for him, but he’s doing it for himself. He forces them to flicker, and peel open. Light stabs him straight in the eyeball. Blinding light and he prefers the sanctuary of his eyelids. They weren’t trying to tear him in two.

“No, come on, you can do it.”

The voice isn’t going to quit. John thinks what the hell. He’ll blind himself against the white light for the benefit of whoever is above him. 

Someone has put acid in his eyes. That’s what it feels like. But the voice is insistent, and John blinks tears from his eyes to wash the acid away until he can settle his blurry gaze on the man leaning over him. 

“That’s it.”

Sam smiles down at him, relief makes him splutter in John’s face. That’s great. More spit. Real nice. It’s Sam, and his relieved brown eyes and sweaty brow hold a vital clue as to why John is spinning with his eyes open, but not moving at all. Sam’s face is flush, he’s panting, and mops his brow with the sleeve of his jacket.

Sam runs the human centrifuge. The human cement mixer as Gordon nicknamed it. If Sam is here, then it must have something to do with that. He must’ve been training, but this is a view he doesn’t recognize. Beyond Sam’s face, John sees the hanger ceiling. Which means he must be on the floor, still in his spacesuit, but with his helmet tossed aside. It reflects the light at him, stabbing in the corner of his eyes. The arm to the centrifuge is a few meters away, and the door to the pod is wide open.

“Thank God.”

The other voice lets himself be known. Zane. He kneels beside John with his phone pressed to his ear. His brow is creased, and his usually styled hair is a mess. John realizes he’s worried. Which is worse than Sam’s relief because Professor Ryan Zane doesn’t care about John, he hates John because he’s Jeff’s son, and they have some deep-rooted rivalry from back in the day. In John’s astronauts’ notes, he’d labeled John as cocky and predicted he wouldn’t respond well to failure, minor or major and that left him an unreliable candidate.

Everyone else gushed, and praised John, but not him. Professor Ryan Zane hated his guts, and he was worried, which meant John was in serious trouble. He wriggles his toes, and curls his fingers, relieved he still had a range of motion while he tries his hardest not to freak out under Zane’s gaze. A voice is escaping Zane’s phone. Something about an emergency.

Instead of replying, Zane hangs up. Sam’s panting stops abruptly, and he glares at Zane to receive a firm, and unforgiving glare back. 

“It won’t be necessary,” Zane says.

Sam opens his mouth, about to protest, but Zane’s glare leaves no prisoners, and despite obviously wanting to disagree, he doesn’t.

“What happened?” John asks.

His voice is scratchy but louder than his soft murmur. That’s a good sign. His back aching on the floor is a good sign too. His awareness is coming back to him, shifting and sorting itself into place.

Zane looks away. “You passed out.” 

John always assumed Zane would deliver the line in a gloating tone if John was ever to fail, but it doesn’t come out smug, or bitter, just a solid fact. He fell unconscious. The G-force got too much for him, and he passed out. The knowledge stings. He’d never passed out before, always maintained consciousness, and was able to verbally communicate and function for short bursts of 10 G, that was until he woke up on the floor, spinning in the testing room, but not actually seated in the arm that spins.

“What did I get up to?” John asked.

Before Sam can answer, Zane does. “10G”

“And I passed out?”

“Yes.”

John’s heart rate begins to climb. Passing out is one thing, but passing out and not regaining consciousness as the force weakens, and being manually extracted from the pod is bad. Not bad, it’s devastating. 

“How long was I out?” John throws his weight forward, sitting up, but the small motion sets off sparks in his eyes. Sam steadies him and rubs a hand down John’s back. It’s not comforting in the slightest, not when he feels like he might implode.

“Fifteen minutes.”

Fifteen—

John feels sick, but it was Zane that answered. Zane, who hates him. He looks at Sam, and his face twists in someone like sympathy, and John doesn’t want to be there anymore. He wants to be anywhere but on the floor where eyes are on him while he crushes under his failure. If he’d just passed out, he would’ve been ticked off, irritated, but he didn’t just pass out. He was absent for fifteen minutes, plenty of time to muck up a mission twenty times over.

“He doesn’t need the ambulance now,” Zane says. “He’s back with us.”

Sam shakes his head. “He should be looked over—”

“I doubt John would want any kind of blemish on his record.” He looks John in the eye. “This…this could end him.”

John goes cold all over. His dream is about to be snatched away from him, all that can save him is Zane. There’s no gloat, no smug powerplay between them. Zane wipes his hand over his mouth, contemplating John’s future. He sighs and rests a hand on John’s shoulder.

“Are you feeling all right?”

Apart from his heart battering his ribs, the headache and the red coil around his lungs, he’s okay. Or okay enough not to get his future ripped away from him. He nods, and Zane squeezes his shoulder.

“Then I’ll say nothing of this.”

A fat tear rolls down John’s cheek. No doubt, this favor will have a consequence. He’ll owe Zane somehow and need to repay this debt, but he doesn’t care, because his father's rival could have taken everything away from him but didn’t.

“Thank you.”

Zane looks at him a moment, then gets to his feet. The stare he delivers to Sam is brutal, forcing him into silence too. Sam doesn’t nod, but he doesn’t shake his head either, he looks away. Zane leaves, and Sam helps John to stand.

The room begins spinning in the opposite direction, and he clutches onto Sam for support. His lungs burn in protest, and he spends a few seconds sipping at the air again.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

John doesn’t nod, he thinks his head might drop of it he does, so he tries a smile, but he feels it's wonky on his face. The phone in the office saves him from Sam’s concern. He leads John to the wall before scarpering to answer the call.

John finds himself distracted by the machine in the corner of the room. It spews out the results of each candidate’s performance under G-force and every other time John has been in the room, he’s seen green text at the top of his page. The words are red and damning, and as he staggers closer, his breath catches in his throat.

FAIL

And there it is, in black and white, and blue and red too. Graphs, and readings. His blood pressure, his heart rate, his brain activity, his breathing, oxygen levels, but he doesn’t see any of it, all he sees is the four-letter word that does more damage than a bully ever could. He failed, and he snatches the piece of incriminating evidence, tearing the page in his haste. 

He staggers from the room, needing to digest, or more likely, choke on his failure in silence, but as he hobbles back to his room, shoulder against the wall for stability, he hears a shout of his name and looks over to the parking lot to find Virgil perched on the hood of his car.

Shit.

It’s the big meet-up. The five of them coming together for a night of food, and drink, and god-knows-what other insufferable things that’ll breach John’s comfort zone, but he was actually looking forward to seeing them. Just them. Not the bars, and restaurants and clubs, and the people, but for them, his brothers. His face had been aching all day under the weight of his smile, a good ache until he failed so spectacularly. The concept of a smile now seemed a mystery.

Virgil cups his hands over his mouth, projecting his voice. “I’ll wait for you to get changed!”

Double shit.

He’s wearing his spacesuit. He’s not supposed to walk around with the thing on but in his eagerness to escape, he forgot to take a detour into the locker room. He nods, satisfying Virgil, and makes a conscious effort to stop using the wall to aid his walk.

Virgil’s frowning, but he doesn’t come over and John considers that a win. He’s concerned, but not enough to intervene. John goes off to change his clothes, and wash his face, still clutching failure in his hand.  

  *Dramatic ooooooooooo*

Much love for reading and I hope you all have a happy new year x

[gumnut-logic]

Callisto - Part Five - Orientation

Prologue 1. Incident - Bit 1 | Bit 2 2. Fallout - Bit 1 | Bit 2 | Bit 3 3. Voyage - Bit 1 | Bit 2 | Bit 3 4. Arrival - Bit 1 | Bit 2 5. Orientation

Things actually start happening now :D

As always, many, many thanks to @tsarinatorment​ @scribbles97​ @janetm74​ and @onereyofstarlight​ for all their amazing help. We’re deep into the hard slog now, but I am still enjoying this so that is a good sign :D

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read this and cheer me on. The hard slog of the middle of a long fic can be as bad as the hard slog in the middle of a painting, so all cheering is always welcome. But ultimately, I’m hoping you are find this enjoyable and not boring :D Nutty is learning here, so big L plate on my forehead.

Let the antics continue.

-o-o-o-

Virgil stared at his father’s broad back as he walked the length of the gantry toward the elevator. Scott paused a moment and Virgil placed a hand on his back in support. Muscle beneath many micro layers of spacesuit rippled as his brother loosened his shoulders. A glance of fiery blue and Scott followed his father.

As was the way of things.

Virgil followed Scott.

As was the way of things.

The cavern was a large one. It had to be to fit Three beneath its airlock doors. His heads up display confirmed pressurisation of the bay to Earth normal and his mind did the calculations on the infrastructure required to pump that much atmosphere into such a large space so quickly. He couldn’t help but be impressed.

The gantry led to an elevator platform and they crowded onto it. Gordon brushed up against him as if to catch his attention and a worried frown was shot in Virgil’s direction.

As the gantry retracted and the platform lowered, Virgil let a hand brush against Gordon’s side. If he did the same to Alan, well, they were his brothers and he may have needed the connections a little himself.

The ride down gave them a great view of the heavy equipment available in the bay. Virgil had accessed all the information he could get his hands on during the trip out, needing to know how he was going to deploy their own equipment.

He had known this was going to be an underground job and had packed accordingly. The problem with underground was initial deployment - how to get the equipment under the ground.

The backup was always to make their own holes. But that could be unnecessarily messy and a last resort. So Virgil was quite happy to see the set up included all the heavy-duty crane and hover support he could ever want.

TI had equipped this expedition exceedingly well.

Walters met them at the bottom of the bay. The rock had been ground smooth down here, filler shone in places where ice had obviously been removed, making the floor a patchwork of white and dark grey, human ingenuity and raw moon.

The Commander nodded to Scott, but it was their father whose hand he grasped solidly before pulling him into a hug. “Space Jockey, it is so good to see you. Thank you for coming.” Walters stepped back and held Jeff at arms’ length. “You’ve gone grey.”

“And you’re bald. Your point?” But their father was grinning through the plasiglass of his helmet.

“We’re both a little crunchy around the edges.” He turned to Lee. “Hey, Scrappy.”

“Graeme, I may be old, but I can still kick your ass over that.” Despite the threat, Uncle Lee grabbed the man’s hand and shook it with enthusiasm.

“These are my boys.” Dad gestured at them in turn. “Scott, Virgil, Gordon and Alan. John is still aboard the Excel and will be liaising from there.”

Walters nodded at each of them in turn, his white-grey spacesuit wrinkling with the movement. He had his helmet on just like the IR crew did. Best chance to avoid contamination or some random bug the Tracys might had inadvertently brought with them.

Of course, Virgil and John had run the decon protocols before departure and it was obvious Callisto had its own methods, but the risk was there. Helmets on unless they had no choice.

Another thing about space that was annoying - listening to your own breathing in a confined container. Okay for short term, total annoyance long term. Especially if your nose got itchy.

It was a sign that Virgil really needed more sleep when he managed to miss a chunk of what Walters was saying simply because he was designing an in-helmet nose scratcher in his head. Well, it could be multifunctional if he gave it enough reach. Head scratcher, chin scratcher-

Gordon nudged him.

Unfortunately, right in his bruises. “Ow.” He glared at his brother only to find the fish gesturing with his eyes.

Commander Walters was looking at Virgil with a question on his face. Both Scott and Dad were frowning at him. Oh shit. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“The Commander asked if we would like to survey the entrance to the caves first or deploy our equipment.” Dad’s voice was very...patient. “Scott said it was your decision.”

Virgil didn’t hesitate, regardless of the embarrassment. “I’ve scoured your maps, Commander, but I would be happier if you could show us the entrance to the cave network. It’s not far?” maps and diagrams were one thing. Reality was another.

Walters eyed him a little curiously. “Sure. Follow me.” And he led them towards a set of massive doors.

For a moment there, Virgil expected some grinding machinery to split the doors wide like some grand movie entrance complete with cinematic music, but no, Walters led them to a small airlock embedded in the left door and ushered them through.

It was kind of disappointing actually.

“We keep the Garden isolated as a precaution and as a way to monitor the function of the ecosystem.

“Garden?” Alan had obviously not had time to fully read up on the Base like the rest of them.

Walters’ eyes lit up despite everything. “You are in for a treat. The Garden is our horticultural team’s ultimate triumph.”

The doors opened and sunlight flooded into the airlock. And it was sunlight enough for Virgil’s jaw to drop. They stepped out into an environment so familiar, they may as well have stepped out the back door of the villa.

Except it wasn’t. The plants were recognisable, yes, but their growth most definitely was not.

This was not in the briefing notes.

“This looks suspiciously familiar.” It was Gordon who stepped to the front of the group.

Walters frowned. “Excuse me.”

Gordon’s eyes narrowed in on the man. He pointed at a nearby tree. “Pokey trees don’t get that big in five years, Commander. What’s in the water?”

It was Walters’ turn to frown. “Pokey trees?” A blink. “Oh, pohutukawa. No, they do not. However, with some special treatment and the lack of strong gravity, they can.”

Virgil stared up at the giant tree. It was far too thin at the base for the spread of the massive branches and it seem wrong somehow. Everything was too long and looked as if it was going to fall. What was even more odd was the sound of a honeyeater argument in those branches. A scuffle, a ruckus of squawks and a flash of grey and yellow flew out from amongst the leaves and darted over the rocky hill in front of them.

“You have birds?!” Gordon sounded caught between amazement and outrage.

Walters stared at him a moment longer. “We have much more than that.” He turned away and led them away from the tree and up a winding path. Virgil’s boots crunched gravel that glittered as it moved. He frowned at what was probably nothing more than ground up moon. It was pale and sparkling like some set prop out of an early science fiction show John might have watched.

But he was soon distracted by much more fascinating sights.

The path led up a small hill and soon he realised that they were in a massive cavern, bigger than all the hangars beneath Tracy Island combined.

And it was full of life.

Birds of several different kinds flew about the ‘sky’. A sky dominated by a number of extremely bright lights hanging from a ceiling so high it couldn’t be seen for the brilliance. Oddly growing foliage was everywhere. The lone pokey tree by the door was scarlet in blossom, but it was not alone. Flowers sprouted from wonky stems and too tall grass. The little hill they were standing on was the highest point in the cavern, the ground sloping down into the distance. At the far edge, a lake had ducks swimming in it.

“How the hell?” It was Gordon, but Virgil’s questions were not far behind.

Several physical requirements clicked into place. The cavern was obviously heated and pressurised with an Earth level atmosphere just like the hangar, otherwise those birds wouldn’t be able to fly beyond bouncing in the gravity.

While Gordon’s head seemed ready to explode, Virgil managed one word. “How?”

Walters had a quietly confident smirk on his face. “A combination of research, applied science and a whole pile of luck.” A sigh. “This is Ju’s baby.”

Scott shifted where he stood. “Where is the access to the cave network?” Virgil glanced at his brother. There was an intensity in his eyes that spoke of both mission urgency and further questions that would need asking once that mission was complete.

Walters exhaled and nodded. “This way.” He led them down the other side of the hill to what eventually proved to be another set of massive doors. “The caverns were here when we arrived. We knew of them before we left Earth, but what we did not realise was their extent.” Walters stopped in front of the doors. He gestured at the cavern. “To create all this, we only needed to seal the cavern entrance overhead – which the Base did nicely. We installed a series of atmospheric inducers, the heating and the lighting. The rest we grew from seed or egg.” The man was obviously proud of their achievements.

“Sir, the caves?” Scott was getting rightfully impatient.

“Yes. Yes, you’re right.” He swallowed and hurried over to yet another small door within a door.

Virgil took another step forward, intending on seeing how the door was unlocked when his world suddenly doubled. His stomach rolled over with that familiar nausea ever so reminiscent of their trip out here.

He swallowed and closed his eyes a second.

“Virg? You okay?” Gordon was whispering on a closed channel.

Virgil cranked his eyes open, lack of sleep suddenly piling on top of him. His fish brother was frowning at him. Scott, their father and Uncle Lee were walking towards Walters and the door.

The sudden vertigo had him fearing an incident inside his helmet.

But then as he took a step towards Gordon, the nausea faded away, a single last cramp dissipating as his little brother approached and put a hand on his arm.

“Virg?”

“I’m okay. Just felt dizzy for a second there.”

“T-drive?”

“Probably.”

“Meds wearing off?”

“Didn’t think I would need them.”

Now Alan had stopped following Scott and was looking back. Any minute now and he would have not only Scott on his ass, but Dad as well. He straightened his spine. “I’m good.” But whatever it was had triggered the beginnings of a headache.

Damn.

Well, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d completed a rescue with a headache. He’d throw back some paracetamol when they went back to Three to source their equipment.

“You sure?”

“I said so, didn’t I?”

Gordon held up his hands. “Just checking, bro. Don’t get your pants in a twist. Hard to unknot them out here.”

But Gordon was still frowning at him.

Alan was turning back...

Move or get smothered.

He flexed his shoulders and strode off to join the rest of this family.

-o-o-o-

Gordon stared after his heavy lifting brother.

Damn that T-drive. His own stomach hadn’t fully recovered either and Virgil was obviously still feeling it.

Gordon pondered whether Virg could knock him out for the voyage home. Maybe knock both of them out.

Alan was frowning and gesturing for him to hurry up. Scott and Dad had already entered what turned out to be yet another airlock.

Space was hard work.

He kicked at the gravel as he trotted after his brother and darted into the huge airlock with his brothers.

Walters was talking again as he sealed the door behind them. “The cavern appears to have been a terminus for this branch of the cave network.” Walters should seek a job as a tour guide. “As I said earlier, we knew about some of the caves before we arrived, but it became increasingly clear that our sensors weren’t telling the full story when we discovered exactly how many tunnels are under the surface here.”

Gordon felt the room depressurise and his HUD declared the atmosphere had become almost nothing. He frowned. It was still something though and he remembered that Callisto was one of those odd places that had the bare minimum of a bunch of gases clinging to it.

He was pretty sure that if he pinged Johnny, he could give him an essay on it, Jupiter luny fan he was.

Walters opened the other side of the airlock and led them through.

Oh, wow.

They were once again in a cavern, a smaller one to the one they had just left and it was obviously more in its natural state. The big doors were sealed into one wall and a lighting system had been deployed running off into the distance.

And there was a lot of distance. The cavern was definitely a tunnel, a good twenty metres wide and high. But that wasn’t all that had his jaw dropping.

The walls were sparkling in the light.

Walters must have seen his reaction or the reaction of his family. “Pretty amazing, huh? The walls are full of a mix of ice and rock. The ice catches the light, but there is also an unusual amount of mineralised crystal as well. We’ve found several types of quartz along with precious metals.”

Gordon was only half listening to him. He wandered over to the nearest wall and examined it. Ice. Water. But in a way it was rarely seen on Earth. Kinda interesting. He ran a hand over the wall and frowned. “You say this is natural?”

“Other than stringing up the lights and installing the doors, from here on, it is pure Callisto.”

“This was made by running water.” Even Gordon knew how impossible that was in the current environment. He looked up to find everyone staring at him. “Hey, I know my element when I see it. This wall has been eroded by running water.”

Walters slumped just a little. “Thank you. Ju has been saying that since we got here. Unfortunately, we can’t work out how that can possibly be a thing, but yeah, all the tunnels, if we were on Earth? Water made. Like limestone caves apparently.” A snort. “Ju has been very adamant about it.”

“Have you reported this?” Dad’s voice startled Gordon a little.

“Reported? Sure. But all her peers are less than accepting. All signs point to Callisto as having had no crustal movement since it formed, minor atmosphere, and certainly no running water at these pressures.”

“But this is a fact.” Gordon frowned again. “What about the reports of an ocean on Callisto under the crust.” Yes, he had checked that out. This wasn’t his first Jovian moon after all. It was why he had brought Four with him.

“Too far down. We can’t reach it. And besides, it is impossible for water to exist as a liquid on the surface, there is not enough atmospheric pressure. We’re barely five hundred metres down here. We haven’t been able to explain it, and until we do, it is considered only one possible and likely doubtful explanation.”

Gordon turned back to the wall. It glittered at him as if daring him to discover its mysteries. “Virg?”

“Hmm?” His brother’s voice was distracted enough to distract Gordon. He flicked over to a private comm. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, Gordon. What did you want?”

Gordon grunted. “You got something to test the rocks?”

“If needs be. We have a rescue to complete first.” Virgil killed the private line and turned to Walters. “I’m satisfied. Scott, we need some recon. I recommend we get two dragonflies down here.”

Scott nodded. “Okay, we are go. Alan, you’re with me. Gordon, you’re Virgil’s wingman.”

As it should be.

Besides, Gordon wanted to keep an eye on their resident lumberjack. He was acting weird.

“Dad, you and Uncle Lee are our liaisons with Base.”

Gordon bit his lip.

“Scott-“

The Commander of International Rescue held up his hand, fire in his eyes. “No, arguments.”

Dad’s eyes latched onto Scott and flared, but Uncle Lee grabbed his arm. “Space Jockey...”

Grey eyes flickered to his best friend and got a dose of determined Lee Taylor for the effort.

Their father’s lips thinned as nobody moved for a whole moment, Scott emanating commander vibes all over the cavern. If Dad didn’t obey, all hell was going to let loose.

“Thunderbird Five to Callisto.” John’s voice echoed over multiple comms, a faint and unfamiliar hiss and crackle in the background.

The moment snapped and Scott tapped his comms. “We read you, Thunderbird Five.”

“There is considerable interference on comms, you should be aware. I cannot guarantee service at all times. Source is unknown.”

“Noted.”

Damn, that was going to make this even more difficult. They could get lost down here themselves.

But then this wouldn’t be the first time Gordon had worked without contact with his brothers.

First time in space, though.

“Scott, we have located two life signs.”

“What?!” Walters took a step forward and looked ready to climb into Scott’s commset to get further information.

The commander ignored him. “Details, Thunderbird Five.”

“Eos and I were able to work around the majority of the interference and we have two faint lifesigns registering to the north of Callisto Base, almost directly under Burr crater.”

���Only Two? We have five missing persons, Thunderbird Five.”

“I know, Scott.” John’s voice was calm but sad. “Eos is still working on that interference, but at this point I don’t expect to find more. We’ve been able to map the caverns and tunnels within a thousand-kilometre radius. Sending the data to your comms now. Other than those two, I’m reading nothing. I do not have enough resolution to locate anything more specific.”

Like dead bodies.

All of them shifted where they stood, caught between the positive of a location and the negative of three missing rescuees.

“Keep looking, Thunderbird Five.” Scott’s voice was empty of emotion.

They had a mission and now they had a target.

“FAB.”

The line cut out.

Virgil had already pulled up the map John supplied on his wrist ‘projector, his eyes combing the holographic maze of tunnels. Even from here Gordon could see they were massive. If these had been eroded by water, the rivers had been big.

But their history would have to wait. There were lives at stake and Scott was already moving back to the airlock, Virgil and the rest of the group hurrying to follow.

Gordon hesitated just a second, lured by the thought of water flowing through the rock in such a low-pressure environment that the liquid should be ice.

The walls sparkled at him.

But the mission...

He took a step forward and his foot kicked something tiny that bounced ahead of him. Frowning, he bent to pick it up.

The crystal was no bigger than his fingernail and sparkled pink in the lighting.

“Gordon!” Scott was glaring at him from inside the airlock.

The aquanaut shoved the stone into his kit and hurried to catch up.

Perhaps space was a little more interesting than he thought.

-o-o-o-

Next

[nellied-reviews]

Are Space Suits Itchy? Re-Listen

A wild mini-episode appeared! Quick! Catch it!

(AKA I was wondering if I should do the mini-episodes at all, then remembered that they're a lot of fun, so here's a mini-review for a mini-episode).

Are Space Suits Itchy?

In which Eiffel answers schoolkids' questions, things get decidedly non-PG, and Goddard are probably regretting allowing him to do this.

(Very) miscellaneous thoughts:

Why does this ambassador programme even exist? And why, for the sake of all that is holy, did Minkowski think Eiffel would do a good job of it?

Yup, he immediately describes the Hephaestus as a "distant hellhole". Not inaccurate, but probably not selling it either, my dude.

Oh, the immediate dismissal of the "Do you talk to your family?" question hurts now that we know Eiffel's backstory.

Answer to the title question: yes. Spacesuits are indeed itchy. Yeowch.

"It would be inappropriate for me to share with a third-grader what I would do for a slice of pineapple and ham." Same, Doug. Same.

Relatable statements about pizza aside, anyone else think "pineapple and ham" is the wrong way round? Like... is that the American way of saying "ham and pineapple" or is Eiffel just expressing his love of this most controversial of pizza toppings in a uniquely weird way?

Eiffel still thinks Hilbert's making him sick. Which is ridiculous, obviously. Crazy talk. Totally implausible.

The joke about drinking rubbing alcohol also comes off ... darker than probably intended, given Eiffel's history. Fun times.

Ooh, and along with the (excellent) gag with Eiffel's description of going to the bathroom in space getting censored, we also get a reminder that everything canonically floats on the Hephaestus, which I somehow keep forgetting. No hand-wavey artificial gravity here, folks!

"If you cry in space, what happens to the tears?" ... uh, are you quite alright up there, Brian from Alaska?!

"Consider yourself ambassadored  children of America." ^-^ 

[ariadnelives]

Chapter 26 -- The Assault

[Missed earlier chapters? Go catch up here! Otherwise, welcome back! Oh, and make sure to join our discord server! Chapter can also be found @ ao3”]

Later that day, several dozen heavily-loaded shuttles fell into orbit over Phobos. Ariadne was upset that they didn’t take more time to plan before moving on Dr. Simon himself, but as Spacebreather pointed out, they didn’t have time to stall. If they waited more than a few hours, the cult would have a chance to move him.

Most of Ariadne’s ground forces disembarked about half a kilometer from the facility’s entrance. Several dozen spacesuit-clad armed acolytes were standing outside exactly one of the caves, so the crew figured that was likely to be the door the Zealot was behind.

“Bring the noise, querida,” Ariadne said into her comm and the last remaining ship immediately did several flips in midair and fired off several plasma bolts that, despite the ship’s advanced targeting system, somehow managed to not hit any hostiles. After a beat, she scoffed, “Showoff.”

“You love it,” Spacebreather’s voice returned through the comm. “Get in there and knock these guys out so I can join you on the ground.”

“We’re on our way,” Ariadne chuckled.

“You got five minutes,” Pilar’s voice buzzed back, “and then I stop missing on purpose.”

“Won’t be a problem,” Ariadne replied. “Te amo, terminado.”

“Terminado,” Pilar agreed, and switched off her comm.

“Do you think the Triplets will be okay with Fastwing?” Sasha asked Sweettalk on a private channel.

“Yeah, I mean, you got their chips out, right?”

“That’s not what I mean,” Sasha replied, “I feel like we shouldn’t have brought them with us. We just got them away from these creeps.”

“They wanted to come,” Sweettalk said, “If we can get Dr. Simon in custody I’m sure they’ll want the chance to confront him, and if the shit hits the fan, they’re with the best pilot in the system--”

As if by magic, Pilar took this opportunity to do a showy corkscrew maneuver over the crowd of acolytes, narrowly avoiding several shots from their weapons, and releasing a cloud of multicolored smoke to disorient her attackers.

“--Okay, the second best pilot in the system. If we get hurt, Alicia will get them to safety.”

“Plus,” Sasha added, “I’m betting she does something cool with their hair.”

“She has a gift,” Sweettalk agreed. “Point is, we just convinced your sister it was bad to keep people grounded for their own protection, so we sorta screwed ourselves out of the right to object when the triplets want to come along.”

“Heh,” Sasha laughed. “You know, I only just now got why that’s funny.”

“What’s funny?”

“Just the idea of keeping someone ‘grounded’ in a spaceship.”

“Mm,” Sweettalk agreed, “and now that you’re not grounded anymore you’re actually, you know, on the ground.”

This went on in this fashion for a little while. The rest of the crew didn’t know how grateful they ought to be that Sasha and Sweettalk were speaking on a private channel. There are only so many jokes on the word “grounded” that two people can make before their friends and loved ones feel compelled to intervene, and there is little point in attempting to quantify exactly how far past this point Sasha and Sweettalk went as the crew took their positions and systematically knocked out each of the acolytes guarding the entrance. By the time they had finished, Sasha and Sweettalk were both breathless with laughter from their rapidfire, almost vaudevillian exchange of “grounded” puns.

“Everyone grab one,” Ariadne called out on the public comms.

“Why?” Lefthook replied, “I mean, there’s a limited amount of air in those suites, can’t we just… let the problem take care of itself?”

“We’re sending a message,” Ariadne replied. “Ghostrunner and Spacebreather killed hundreds of their acolytes in self-defense. These guys don’t pose a threat to us.”

“You know they’ll wake up eventually, right?” Lefthook responded, begrudgingly joining the others in hauling the unconscious cultists through the airlocks.

“Once they’re inside, we’ll cut their air lines,” Ariadne explained. “They’ll live as long as they don’t try to go back outside. Once we’ve got Dr. Simon back on Ship Trap with a gun to his head, we’ll contact the authorities and let them deal with these guys.”

Pilar came marching over the ledge with a very large assault rifle slung over her shoulder. “Don’t forget to take their guns, these things are choice.”

“Fair point. Take their guns, we don’t know how many others are in here anyway.”

“Girls!” Alicia called, coming around the corner with her styling kit, “I thought you might enjoy some new hairstyles! I mean, I like a nice bob as much as the next lady but--”

She was left speechless at the sight of the Triplets. They sat together, glowing a slightly artificial blue. Alicia could not tell which of them had been cybernetically augmented. All evidence of injuries had vanished. It was as though all three girls were simultaneously completely organic and completely synthetic. There was something about it that caused Alicia to want to look away on an instinctive level, but she couldn’t.

“What is this?” Alicia finally stammered out.

“Something new,” all three girls mused in a single voice.

“What did you do?” Alicia asked, starting to rush towards them but quickly recoiling, out of fear that they might be contagious, or even radioactive.

“We touched,” they responded, “and understood. This is what we were built for. Evolution. Adaptation. We were designed to grant our father immortality. Our bodies will incorporate anything that facilitates our continued existence, and adapt to survive anything that threatens it.”

“Whatever doesn’t kill you,” Alicia muttered and trailed off. “I’ll be damned…”

“We have to go into the cave with them,” The Triplets responded. “Their plan is going to fail.”

Several minutes and about fifty unconscious and several seriously wounded acolytes later, Ariadne and Spacebreather reached the door to the throne room with Sweettalk and Sasha in tow.

“Stand watch,” Ariadne directed Lefthook to lead the other other troops in the corridor. “Non-lethal force if you can, but if someone’s going to die, don’t let it be you. That goes for all of you.”

“Yes, cap!” The girls replied, and unholstered their weapons.

A moment later, Pilar kicked down the door to the throne room. “ON THE GROUND, ASSHOLE!”

A single acolyte manned a computer terminal that seemed to have no screen and only two silver joystick-like appendages for controls.

“I SAID GET THE FUCK ON YOUR KNEES IF YOU WANT TO KEEP THEM,” Pilar bellowed.

The Acolyte fall to his knees.

“Where is Dr. Simon?” Ariadne asked calmly, “You’re gonna want to talk fast or else my associate is going to find some creative ways to make you glad those robes are already red.”

“He is here!” He whimpered. “The Zealot is all around us.”

“Babe, do I have your permission to start cutting off fingers again if he doesn’t get serious?” Pilar asked.

“I’d listen to her,” Sweettalk chimed in, “Last guy she took a finger from ended up decapitated.”

“He is all around us!” He pleaded. “Please, look!”

He gestured at an ornate golden table near the center of the room.

“Spacebreather, keep your gun trained on his head. If he tries anything funny, see if you can take it off in one shot,” Ariadne slowly started inching toward the table.

“With pleasure,” Pilar stroked the trigger of her rifle carefully.

Ariadne looked down on the table, through the inset glass to what lay within.

Lying motionless inside the table was an unmistakable face with a neatly trimmed gray beard and a straight, pointed nose.

“This is not Dr. Simon,” Ariadne replied. “This is his body. Where is Dr. Simon?”

“Back up,” Sasha asked. “Dr. Simon’s body?”

“Prescott had to tell me something to convince me it was worth it to help him,” Ariadne replied. “This body has been dead for fifteen years. Dr. Simon, on the other hand--”

“--Viable Lazarus,” Sweettalk gasped. “Lazarus, we should’ve seen it all along. They’re trying to bring him back from the dead.”

“I’m only going to ask you one more time before I let my beautiful associate indulge her itchy trigger finger,” Ariadne replied. “Where is the server containing Dr. Simon’s consciousness?”

“I already told you,” the acolyte began crying, “He is all around us.”

“Look at the walls,” Sasha marveled, “Sis, they’re--”

“Databanks,” Ariadne replied, “We’re standing inside the most massive supercomputer in the system.”

“Do we just smash them?” Pilar asked.

“If you destroy the servers, you’ll kill more than the Zealot,” the Acolyte offered, “The databanks are full of lost souls who’ve seen the light of the Red God.”

“What is he talking about?” Pilar asked.

“He’s using a few thousand human shields,” Ariadne was disgusted. “All those people who took a Suffering Test for this wackjob were signing up to be brainwashed. He hollows out their head and fills it with their programming, and their consciousness ends up imprisoned here. If we unplug the whole system, there’ll be no way to restore the people he’s got under his little spell.”

“You, crybaby,” Pilar jabbed the Acolyte with her rifle, “dial this jerk up, how do you talk to him?”

“If he wishes to send messages, he can, but in order to speak directly with him… without ViLaz as a relay, we have to enter the system ourselves to gain an audience with him. There’s a psionic interface--”

“--And how do you go about deleting individual files from this system?”

“I don’t see a screen or a keyboard or else I might be able to hack in.”

“No synthetic computer can interface with His prison,” the Acolyte whimpered, “Only a human brain has the processing power necessary to access the system.”

Ariadne chuckled. “I’d almost admire it if it wasn’t so evil. He’s actually built a computer I can’t hack.”

“So, how do we get in?” Pilar asked.

“Stands to reason that each drive in these databanks contains one consciousness,” Ariadne said, “So, if I can access the system, I should be able to identify the drive with administrator permissions, then all we’ve got to do is yank that one out, take it home, and format it.”

“Patch in, like, connect your brain to this thing?” Spacebreather asked incredulously.

“Have you ever seen a computer more powerful than my brain?” Ariadne asked.

“Yeah, babe, this one,” Pilar snapped gesturing at the entire room made of computer that they were standing in, “it’s absolutely out of the--”

Ariadne very pointedly said nothing at her, which managed to stop Pilar cold.

“There’s no keeping you from doing this, is there?” Pilar sighed.

“I’ll be safe,” Ariadne promised. “In and out.”

“You’d better,” Pilar warned. “If you die, I’m coming after you.”

Ariadne smirked. “You’d better not.”

Ariadne planted a kiss on Pilar’s lips and then got immediately to work.

[clonerightsagenda]

hesitantpaladin said: Oh my god I forgot about that

“Are Spacesuits Itchy” is a very Funny Aneurysm episode for many reasons. “Do you ever miss your family?” “I refuse to dignify such a stupid question with a response.” #yikes

[one-of-us-blog]

Empress of Mars (Doctor Who S10E09)

Today Drew is forced to watch and recap “Empress of Mars”, the ninth episode of Doctor Who’s tenth series. After a surprising message is found under the ice of Mars, Bill and the Doctor head off to investigate. When they get there they soon find themselves stuck between a recently-awoken army of Martians and a platoon of Victorian soldiers intent on plundering the red planet for riches. Can the Doctor avoid bloodshed between these two drastically different species? 

Keep reading to find out…

Eli, your latest recap felt like a real cliffhanger! Until I read it, I’d kind of forgotten how dramatic things got there at the end... Sophia’s really digging her heels in here, and I can’t wait to see how you feel about the resolution to this story. The one thing I’ve always hated about this two-parter is the Rose/Myra thing... Rose’s line about Miles being off with students has always made it clear to me that this is set before Miles/Nick went back into witness protection, and it drives me nuts that the producers couldn’t make sure this aired before “Miles to Go”. I mean, I guess the whole European trip could be a cover to explain Miles’ absence, but why would Rose need to keep up that sort of charade to Blanche, who definitely knows the truth about Miles’ situation. Man, don’t get me started. Also, the Rose/Miles Ray/Myra thing has always annoyed me, too, for some reason. I don’t want to sound too down on this episode, though, because there are a lot of things you mentioned in your recap that I always get a kick out of, like Rose’s demand that Dorothy use proper bike safety and the part where Dorothy assumes Stan is being kinky when he tells her to stick her finger in the potato. But for right now I’ve got my own recap to bang out, so let’s get to it!

Buttocks tight!

Episode directed by Wayne Yip and written by Mark Gatiss

We start out with an establishing shot of NASA that was lifted straight from an episode of the 1994 hit ReBoot, and then head inside to see everyone busily being busy. Some scientists are getting a long-awaited transmission from a probe called Valkyrie which is headed for Mars, and they’re very excited to see some shots of our big, red neighbor. They’re surprised by the arrival of Bill (who’s sporting a very funky fresh ponytail which I highly approve of), Nardole and the Doctor, but thanks to a flash of the psychic paper any confusion is brushed aside. One of the scientists explains that Valkyrie is using a new camera to probe under the ice at Mars’ polar caps, and right on cue the transmission arrives. To the Doctor’s delight, and everyone else’s confusion, they see GOD SAVE THE QUEEN spelled out on Mars.

After the opening credits, we see that the Doctor is, of course headed for Mars. Not present day Mars, though, because according to the TARDIS the message they saw at NASA was written in 1881. Bill is surprised to learn that humans arrived on Mars during the reign of Queen Victoria, but the Doctor assures her that they did, in fact, not. The TARDIS lands under the planet’s surface, and a bespacesuited Bill, Nardy and the Doctor head out to investigate. Nardole says the TARDIS is picking up life signs around these parts, and sure enough the trio soon comes across a lit campfire. Bill assumes that since there’s fire there must be oxygen and is ready to rip off the helmet of her spacesuit, but the Doctor isn’t keen on that idea. Nardole takes his helmet off despite the Doctor’s warnings to Bill, and it turns out Bill was right all along. There’s plenty of oxygen to go around on Mars, somehow, and Bill and the Doctor ditch their helmets, too.

Bill asks one of the many important questions here: how’s there oxygen on Mars? The Doctor admits that the indigenous people of Mars were accomplished engineers, but that doesn’t explain a whole lot. Bill wanders off a ways and falls about 17 miles down a tunnel. The Doctor does his best to assure her that they’ll get her out of there and sends Nardole to the TARDIS for some rope and climbing equipment. As soon as Nardole’s inside the blue box, however, it takes off on its own, leaving Bill and the Doctor stranded. The Doctor rushes to where the TARDIS once stood, and sees an Ice Warrior of Mars coming toward him. Bill wakes up after having the wind knocked out of her, and finds herself facing a decidedly modern-looking door. The door opens, and a man in a Victorian spacesuit walks out and greets her cheerfully. The Doctor uses his knowledge of Martian culture to keep the Ice Warrior from killing him. Another Victorian human arrives and the Doctor thinks he’s going to shoot the Martian, but it turns out the Martian is his man Friday.

Nardole can’t get the TARDIS to cooperate, so he goes to the Mistress for help. Bill and the Doctor are both brought to the human’s camp. I colonel explains how he was stationed in Africa and happened across a space ship one night. Inside he found the comatose Friday, and asked for the colonel’s help to get him back home. In exchange, they got to claim Mars in the name of Queen Victoria and mine it dry for its minerals and riches. Things haven’t gone as well as they’d hoped, though; their ship crashed when they got to Mars, and their supplies are running low. Bill wonders what Friday’s getting out of all of this, and the colonel explains that while he was comatose on his ship the rest of his species went extinct. The colonel insists Mars is just a dead red rock, but the Doctor seems skeptical.

The Doctor gives Bill a lesson on Ice Warriors, only to be interrupted by Friday. The Doctor asks why the Martian really came back home, and Friday says he’s simply old and spent. His ability to quickly catch a plate that was about to fall reveals that he’s not as old and slow as he might want him to think, though. While all this is going on, the Victorian soldiers are busy mining Mars. Friday helped them make a special laser drill to dig with, but so far they haven’t found anything. One last blast of the laser reveals a hidden tomb that the soldiers stumble into. They run back and get the colonel, and Bill and the Doctor join them all as they investigate the tomb. The Doctor’s skepticism has turned into a decidedly bad feeling for him; he recognizes this as the tomb of an Ice Queen, and he knows that sometimes these tombs were part of a complicated hibernation process. The Doctor’s worried Friday has been using the Victorians to reawaken an Ice Warrior hive, but the Brits are too proud to consider the idea that they’ve been duped by their pet Friday.

The Doctor is stuck in an awkward position; in this situation the humans are invading the Martians’ home planet, but on the other hand the Ice Warriors have vastly more advanced technology and weapons and they’ll annihilate the humans if they wake up. Better hope that doesn’t happen, right! One of the soldiers plots to plunder precious stones from the Ice Queen’s tomb and escape Mars in the repaired spaceship, and this, naturally triggers the awakening of the Ice Queen, Empress Iraxxa. She kills the soldier, and Friday’s excited to meet up with Empress Iraxxa again. One of the soldiers takes a shot at the reanimated Ice Queen, and she wipes the floor with him. Friday arrives, and it turns out he’s the Empress’ sentinel. He was always supposed to return home and wake her up, but he took longer than he was supposed to. It took him 5,000 years to get Iraxxa up and running again, and she did not plan on snoozing that long.

Soldiers pour in, and the Doctor begs to be allowed the chance to mediate this situation before anyone else dies. He explains to the Ice Queen that the Mars she knew has died, and she can’t survive without help. Iraxxa prefers in put from another lady, so she asks Bill what she thinks (#LadiesDoinItForThemselves). Bill points out that the humans saved Friday’s life, but this only angers her as the Victorians made Friday their pet. The humans draw their guns at the sign of her temper, and one with an itchy trigger finger fires a completely ineffective shot at the Empress’ helmet. The Doctor begs for the Ice Queen to show mercy, and she agrees; she’ll be merciful by giving the humans a quick death (*AIRHORN* BAD BITCH ALERT *AIRHORN* *AIRHORN* *AIRHORN*). The soldiers run away and the captain, going against the colonel’s orders, prepares to use their giant mining laser as a weapon against the Martians. Bill barely manages to avoid Friday getting blasted by the laser, and in the process the tunnel between them and the Ice Queen’s tomb caves in.

The soldiers, thinking the cave in will keep them safe from Empress Iraxxa’s rage, celebrate. The captain reveals that the colonel is a failed deserter and not the hero everyone thinks, and takes control of the soldiers. The Doctor tries to convince him that the Martian hive will be active now that Iraxxa’s on her feet, but the captain’s too much of a cock to take his warnings seriously. The captain has the disgraced colonel, Bill and the Doctor thrown in the bridge. Iraxxa, meanwhile, has already awoken half a dozen hibernating Ice Warriors and is sending them off to kill some Victorians. In the brig the colonel admits that he deserted out of cowardice, and the captain has been blackmailing him to keep his secret. The Ice Warriors sneak up behind the soldiers and begin slaughtering them, while another Martian appears in the brig.

The captain sacrifices his men so he can escape on the repaired ship, Empress Iraxxa awakens more and more soldiers, and it turns out the Martian in the brig is Friday. Friday begs the Doctor to work with him to establish peace. Friday breaks them out of the brig, and the colonel, being a coward, immediately runs away to save his own skin. Bill volunteers to distract Iraxxa while the Doctor gets a plan in motion. Bill and Friday try to show that Terrans and Martians can live together, but the Ice Queen’s done with all that and prepares to blast Bill to heck and back. Luckily, though, the Doctor’s had all the time he needs to get his plot going. He points the Victorians’ mining laser towards the ceiling of the cavern and threatens to blow it up, burying the Empress, her Ice Warriors and all the humans under an avalanche of snow and ice from Mars’ surface.

Iraxxa seems like she’s on the brink of giving into the Doctor’s bid for peace, but then that cock of a captain shows up and holds a knife to her throat. He needs a Martian to get his ship off the ground, and he’s going to use the Ice Queen to escape. Luckily the not so cowardly colonel arrives and shoots the captain, saving Iraxxa in the process. Iraxxa is impressed by the colonel, but still plans on killing him. He says that’s cool, because he was supposed to be hanged for desertion a long time ago. This way, he figures, maybe his death will save his men (and Bill and the Doctor). Iraxxa decides not to kill him after all, saying that if he pledges allegiance to her she’ll make sure he gets a glorious death in battle one day.

A little while later, the Doctor sends a signal out in the universe that lets any nearby space-fairing races know the Martians and their new humans friends are stuck on a dead world and in need of a lift. The Doctor tells Bill that the Martians do indeed survive elsewhere in the universe, and sure enough a message from an alien craft from the Alpha Centauri solar system arrives and the one-eyed aliens assure Iraxxa that she and all her warriors can hitch a ride off Mars with them. Bill, the Doctor and the colonel make the GOD SAVE THE QUEEN message on Mars’ surface as a visual marker for the Alpha Centaurians, and the Doctor assures the colonel that someday, somehow, people will know about the colonel’s time on Mars.

Right about then, Nardy arrives in the TARDIS. The Doctor is decidedly less than thrilled to see the Mistress at the controls of the TARDIS, and he tells her she’s going to have to go back in the vault. It seems the Mistress is more concerned with the Doctor’s welfare, though, and the Doctor’s not sure what to make of that.

The End

~~~~~

Well, I think on the whole series ten of Doctor Who has been a real hit parade, but this one didn’t do it for me. I’m not sure what it is about the species, but if I remember correctly I wasn’t crazy about the last episode that featured an Ice Warrior, either. I think Iraxxa was a real bad bitch, and I appreciated that, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of depth to her, or any of the Martians for that matter. Not that there was a ton of depth to the Victorians, either, to be fair. The colonel got his tragic backstory, but the captain was just evil for the sake of evil and the other soldiers we got to know were just cannon fodder for dramatic tension. I never felt super invested in the story, and overall this episode ended up feeling pretty forgettable for me.

I give “Empress of Mars” QQ½ on the Five Q Scale.

I know you’re on the edge of your seat for Eli’s recap of the next episode of The Golden Girls, “There Goes the Bride, Part II”, so you can find out if Dorothy really is leaving the squad for good, but never fear! That recap will be out soon, and after that I’ll share my recap of the next episode of Doctor Who, “The Eaters of Light”.

Until then, as always, thank you for reading, thank you for hibernating and thank you for being One of Us!

[autisticbisexualemaskye]

i have a quick question about writing id's: is the small text and brackets necessary for screenreaders to recognize it or is it an aesthetic thing? is it ok to just type in normal size text? /gen

screenreaders read all text regardless of size!! the brackets are a formatting thing and most people use them so i would recommend it although u definitely dont have to, but small text is absolutely not necessary! in fact, its better if you dont!!!

artists will often put descriptions in small text to make the description smaller and less "obtrusive" for sighted people scrolling by (some people have noted that it effects notes which like... it sucks but. well get into it in a sec), and while (to my knowledge) this doesnt effect screenreader's ability to pick up the text, not everyone who needs image descriptions/is visually impaired uses a screenreader! some visually impaired people can read text just fine if they have set their phone/computer to enlarge it so they can see, but they still might have trouble making out images (especially complex/detailed images) and so they read image descriptions themselves instead of having a screenreader do it. as you might imagine, for these people or anyone else who needs to read image descriptions (especially those with disorders like dyslexia), putting them in the smallest text possible is not actually accessible at all! so yeah to answer more directly, small text is an aesthetic/formatting choice, but unlike square brackets its a very poor one imo and its absolutely okay to write your image descriptions in normal-sized text :)

[georgie-barker]

In "Are Spacesuits Itchy" when Doug gets asked a question about talking to his family and refuses to answer....

early Wolf 359 things that hit different on a relisten:

Doug being totally cool leaving Hilbert to die in a fire in episode 1 (this one is ten times funnier in hindsight)

Doug pulling chunks of ice out of his hair in episode 2 (this one is much less funny in hindsight)

the birth of the “we don’t have a brig” gag, also in episode 2

[vo-kopen]

Current first two chapters of my LoZ fan fic

[a-spectacular-pigeon]

I’m relistening to Are Spacesuits Itchy, and the first question is whether or not Eiffel speaks to his family

He responds that he wouldn’t dignify such an idiotic question with a response. 

My heart hurts

[autisticbisexualemaskye]

thank you SO much for putting into words why a lot of popular f/f pairings in media make me Uncomfortable(TM) - turns out I don't hate the pairings themselves, but the way that fandoms canNOT treat them even with a modicum of the nuance they give to Everyone's Favorite M/M Ship (even if said m/m ship is good and deserves all that nuance). not to make this large scale problem in fandom culture as a whole about ace attorney but. cough. franmaya. cough. turns out I don't mind the thought of their characters being together, but like. the fact that so few who write them pay ANY heed to their trauma??? ANY heed to the fact that given their canon selves, ESPECIALLY their 18 y/o selves, would hardly be able to stand each other in a lot of ways, much less form a healthy relationship??? the dynamic is always sidelined as "oh it just sorta. happened along the way lol" as if the both of them haven't gone through so, so much that they have a FUCK ton of issues with dealing with their own emotions that. would never in a thousand years lead to a healthy dynamic until that shit is resolved??? I love the idea of franmaya but. the fact that a LOT of popular aa fanfiction writers do worse than the games themselves in terms of developing the female characters. says a lot, especially if they have the clear ability to spend 100k+ words waxing poetic about the tension and gradual evolution and personal healing in narumitsu but give like. 3 glances to female characters and just use them to further the development of the male characters. this has happened in a lot of fandoms I'm in and it's really frustrating as a wlw to not be able to enjoy any of the sapphic ships I "should" enjoy because fanbases let their misogyny show and refuse to give the female characters of their favorite media the time of day. I hope this was comprehensible and I'm sorry if it wasn't (I'm on a Lot of cold medicine right now) but. yeah

(this was very comprehensible thank u) YEAH THIS SO MUCH... AND FEEL FREE TO MAKE IT ABOUT ACE ATTORNEY ACTUALLY CAUSE THAT POST WAS VAGUING FRANMAYA ACTUALLY </3 and yeah i like franmaya but like. do people care about their thematic parallels and character development or are they smushing them together to play therapist 4 nrmtsu.... like... and thats not even getting into like... god i hate fandoms where it feels like the entire fanbase jsut kind of. assumes that everyones in it for the One Specific Popular Ship and that ship is ALWAYS m/m and im like -_-. like maybe i like ace attorney because it has fun characters and music and good art and compelling themes like gay lawyer game jokes r funny sometimes but also sometimes im like -_- is that rlly alllllll we care about??? anwyasy yeah being sapphic in fandom is like </3 cus i DO LIKE sapphic ships and headcanons but some people Dont Do It Right and it ruins it for the rest of us </3

[autisticbisexualemaskye]

RJ MY FRIEND RJ WHO IS SAYING KRISTOPH GAVIN IS A DILF???????? HE HAS ZERO DILF QUALITIES HE COULD NEVER.

@nyaustin-powers STEVIE ANSWER FOR YOUR CRIMES