#at the edge of the universe

[blossoms-and-petrichor]

I love it when you can see an author talk about an interest they have through their characters in many of their books. Like Casey McQuiston having so many tiny or not so tiny references to queer history in one last stop or red white and royal blue. Or Shaun David Hutchinson talking about space in like all of his magical realism-esque queer novels. or the literary references from Shakespeare to Salinger in the Osemanverse. There's something beautiful about the artist's passions and curiosities finding voice on the page

[silverlakes]

The Doctor fighting *something* at the Edge of the Universe with SALT

That’s it SuperWho is confirmed

And also my 16 year old is so happy

[razreads]

Anyone who says time travel is impossible has never had to relive the memories of past traumas or mistakes.

Shaun David Hutchinson, At the Edge of the Universe

[johaerys-writes]

Shiro/Keith | Voltron: Legendary Defender | E | Ch. 3/3 

Summary: During a fight with the Galra, Shiro and Keith are sucked into a wormhole and flung to the far edge of the universe. They land on an empty and unfamiliar planet, with no way of contacting the castle, but Keith isn’t too worried. Things could be worse— at least they have each other.

Until Shiro collapses.

Read on AO3 | Read from the beginning

“Blood sugar levels are normal, heart rate a bit elevated but nothing out of the ordinary, liver enzymes intact. Overall, I’d say he’s as healthy as a flimhog in its prime!” Coran says cheerfully as he reads Shiro’s vitals off the chart displayed on the pod’s monitor. “It’s like he was never sick at all.”

“But he was.” Keith frowns, arms crossed before his chest. After making it back to the castle, Coran has kept Shiro in the medbay, running every test on him that there is. Shiro’s looking better now, much better, but Keith can’t shake the worry that still lingers. Shiro was very sick. There was something seriously wrong with him, and it could still be there, ready to come back at any moment.

“What caused those symptoms in the first place?” Keith insists. “Can’t the pod just figure that out?”

Coran purses his lips in thought as he goes over the data again. “Usually, foreign bodies like viruses or bacteria leave some sort of trace after they’re gone, even if it’s just the antibodies the body produces. But there’s nothing here that I can see. Only the imbalances caused by the high fever.”

“I might be able to help,” Pidge says beside Keith. “I got some samples from the planet you were on. Perhaps if I run a quick comparison with similar strains on Earth and the places we’ve visited so far, the results could point us in the right direction. Hopefully it will tell us more about what happened to Shiro.”

Coran ticks some numbers in his data pad, then transfers the information to the main computer. Pidge cracks her knuckles and gets to work, the numbers on the screen reflecting on her glasses as her fingers swiftly tap the keyboard.

Keith waits anxiously while the computer processes the information. Shiro is still in the healing pod. The contact fluid is surrounding him, drifting through his hair like underwater currents. Coran had to give him an anaesthetic to prepare him for the examination, and his features are now soft as if with sleep. It makes Keith’s heart ache.

Just a little bit longer, he thinks. We’re getting you out of there soon.

“Right! That should tell us something.” Pidges presses a button when the computer starts beeping, and a list of numbers a mile long comes up on the screen. Keith can’t make heads or tails of it. “Hmm… that’s interesting.”

“Well?” Keith says, his foot tapping on the floor. “What does it say?”

“It looks like he had some sort of allergic reaction.” Pidge frowns at the screen, her brows pinching together in concentration. “This planet you were on: did you notice anything unusual about it?”

“No… not off the top of my head. It seemed fine to me. The suits didn’t detect anything wrong. The air was clear, just a tad too highly oxygenated.” When Pidge doesn’t respond, only continues to squint at the screen, Keith stomach tightens. “Why? Did you find something?”

“So, the planet’s atmosphere is composed of oxygen, nitrogen, argon, carbon dioxide, traces of neon and methane and—”

“Yes, just like Earth,” Keith interrupts impatiently. “What else?”

“And,” Pidge says pointedly, “an extensive web of microscopic symbiotic creatures. Now, most planets with some sort of lifeform have those, right? But these are different. They are necessary for the native life to thrive, and impossible to filter from the air. But if they are inhaled by non-native life, they can cause severe anaphylactic shock. Not only that, they seem to be highly aggressive towards alien life-forms, inhabiting the body for a while after until they are successfully dealt with by the immune system, like a bacterial infection. A few seconds of exposure is enough.” She turns back to the screen, staring down the list of strange numbers and symbols. “This is fascinating. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

Keith’s blood runs cold. He stares at Pidge as if he doesn’t understand. “So that’s what made Shiro sick? The air of this planet?”

“That’s what it looks like.”

Keith’s pulse thrums in his ears, making him dizzy. It can’t be— how can that be? It was Keith that told Shiro that the air in that place was okay. It was Keith that told him it was safe to take off their helmets. It was Keith. If he’d noticed earlier… if he’d somehow known—

“It’s all my fault,” he mutters. “I told Shiro— I just looked at the readings on my suit. Everything seemed normal. How were we supposed to know—” He snaps his mouth shut when the lump in his throat makes it difficult to speak. It was all his fault. He was the one that insisted they go after that cruiser in the first place, that dragged them into the wormhole, that put Shiro’s life in danger. He is the one that’s responsible for all this mess.

If it wasn’t for him, Shiro would have been fine. He would have been safe and sound and healthy in the castleship, and none of this would have ever happened.

Keith rakes a hand through his hair and looks away, tries to control his breathing. He can’t lose his cool, not now, not like this. Not in front of everyone. That’s a sure fire way to make everything worse, and that’s the least Keith wants.

“What about me?” he asks, jaw clenched tight.

Coran blinks. “What about you, my boy?”

“I took off my helmet too. I breathed the same air Shiro did. Why didn’t I go into anaphylactic shock too?”

Coran and Pidge exchange a curious look, then go back to staring at the numbers. “You didn’t have any symptoms?” he asks, leaning over Pidge’s shoulder.

“Nope.”

“No fever, no shortness of breath, no lesions?”

“Nothing, I was fine.” Keith shakes his head. “How is it possible that I was fine, and this happened to Shiro?”

“Now that is the million groggery question, Number Two!” Coran says, way too happily given the subject at hand. “One that we shall have to have a look into. But for the time being, let’s get you some anti-allergy medication, shall we? Just to be on the safe side. You never know when those pesky symbiotic creatures might hit!”

Though it is the last thing that Keith wants, he still endures stoically as Coran pricks his finger to take a drop of blood to examine it, then checks his pupils and his mouth with a flashlight that makes his tongue itch. After some careful deliberation and an extensive look through his manual, he hands him a pill, which Keith chases down with some water, and gives him a strict warning not to eat any zogglion fruit or Uggirlon moss juice.

“Though delicious, they are absolutely the worst when in combination with the medicine I just gave you. The reaction could be deadly! I’d stay far away from them right now, if I were you.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t planning on having any, don’t worry,” Keith replies, wrinkling his nose in disgust when he remembers the slimy quality of the zogglion fruit —or whatever it’s called— when Coran presented it to them the week before. Keith isn’t particularly picky with food, but he’d rather starve than eat another bite of that thing.

He waits outside the medbay while Coran runs some last few tests on Shiro. Allura, Hunk and Lance all arrive to keep him company, and though Keith isn’t particularly in the mood to talk, he still appreciates the distraction. He doesn’t really want to be left alone with his thoughts right now. His worry for Shiro, although duller now that he knows he’s okay and can be treated properly if something happens, still feels like a vice, gripping his stomach. He won’t relax until Shiro is there with them, until Keith can talk to him.

As soon as Coran’s tests are done, he drains the healing pod of contact fluid and they all help him carry Shiro to a medical table until the anaesthetic wears off. Keith sits by him on a stool, his knee bouncing restlessly. He wants to be there when Shiro opens his eyes.

Read the rest on AO3!

[claraoswalds]

It's funny, 'cause I wonder where the TARDIS goes at random. Maybe it lands on some outcrop by the sea. And there's a tribe and they worship it for 100 years. Then they grow up and try to burn it. Then they get wise. They preserve it. Then they build a city all around it, till the TARDIS is just a tiny little dot, surrounded by skyscrapers and monorails. Time passes and the city falls. It all gets swept away. And there's the TARDIS... still on its outcrop... by the sea.

[vitamimesea]

it was just peak.

[i-am-trans-gwender]

"The scariest part of The Killing Joke is that the Joker was right."

No you fucking idiot! Gordon stayed a good man and Barbara went on living.

The whole point is that "one bad day" does NOT drive a person over the edge. The comic makes it clear it's the Joker's own damm fault that he ended up the way he did. Not because of his "one bad day" that even he admits he can't remember correctly.

The scariest part is how many people miss the point.

[burning-polaroid]

The only curious one

the silence if deafening

[andi-o-geyser]

despite how you feel about the changes from the stream to the show, if you like or dislike them, i love how inherently hilarious the narrative path tlovm is taking regarding perc’ahlia is because a situationship would literally kill campaign percy and vex like how the internet would kill a small victorian child. they are NOT built for that

[softestrosepetal]

lovergirl femme x loverboy butch

[nitpickrider]

Ghosts are a proveable part of your cosmology. One of them runs around in a jaunty top hat. Action Comics 531

[nevermeanttoknow]

isaid i was gonna draw mind earlier and then i had to learn about fish and eat dinner and i went to a drag show.. but here's the sleepy guy he's just like me right now

[sluug-juice]

Some doodles I did the past couple of days! :)

[razreads]

My life would keep going on until the day it didn’t, and I could either make the best of it or waste it wishing for what I didn’t and might never have.

Shaun David Hutchinson, At the Edge of the Universe

[johaerys-writes]

Shiro/Keith | Voltron: Legendary Defender | E | Ch. 2/3

Summary: During a fight with the Galra, Shiro and Keith are sucked into a wormhole and flung to the far edge of the universe. They land on an empty and unfamiliar planet, with no way of contacting the castle, but Keith isn’t too worried. Things could be worse— at least they have each other.

Until Shiro collapses.

My contribution for the Sheith Secret Santa 2022 event on twitter! Some comfort and tender caretaking after the hurt <3

Read on AO3!

Keith wakes up to an empty bed.

The sheets are still warm when Keith reaches out to touch them, and so is Shiro’s pillow. The blanket that Keith had draped over himself the previous night was tucked around his shoulders while he slept, probably when Shiro got out of bed.

“Shiro?” Keith sits up and groggily rubs at his eyes, trying to orient himself in the dark room. It is empty, too, and there’s no response. He pushes himself up, stretches his arms over his head. It is still dark beyond Black's window. The stars are bright, glittering silver pins in the night sky; exactly the same as when he went to sleep, hours ago. Seven hours and some minutes, to be exact. There are planets whose days are much longer than Earth’s, and the one they’ve landed on seems to be one of them. Dawn could still be hours, perhaps even days away from breaking.

“Shiro?” Keith calls again, more loudly now, padding across the room. He pushes the door to the cockpit open, only to find Shiro crouched beneath the pilot seat. There is a screwdriver in his hand, and he’s fiddling with some wires. He is still in the sweats and tee Keith helped him change into the previous night, but he has his helmet on his head.  

He looks so big in the narrow cockpit, so imposing. His broad frame and long legs barely fit in the cramped space below the monitors, yet Keith wouldn’t know it by the way he moves in it, with practised ease, as if it were built for him. He’s mumbling something to himself,  trying the comms over and over as he works, but the words come muffled from within the helmet.

Keith clears his throat, to which Shiro finally jolts around.

“Keith,” he breathes in surprise. He seems much more lucid than the previous night, but he’s still a little pale, and there are dark circles under his eyes. He crawls a little from under the cockpit to glance up at him. “Sorry— did I wake you?”

“You didn’t. I woke up by myself.” Keith glances around, at the tools that lie scattered on the floor. “What, uh… what are you doing there?”

Shiro takes off his helmet and sets it beside him on the ground. His hair sits flat on his head, his silver forelock tucked back. He’s still a little sweaty, like last night, his forehead gleaming. Keith doesn’t like how waxy his skin looks, how dark his eyes. “The power system controls seem to have been damaged during the landing,” he says. “And I think there’s something wrong with the drive condition monitors. I was trying to fix them.”

“Oh. Um… okay.” Keith frowns. The power system? The drive condition monitors? He couldn’t care less about those right now. Shiro should still be in bed, resting. He was burning up with fever the previous night, after collapsing right before Keith’s eyes; surely he isn't ready to go straight to trying to fix Black, right?

Keith’s first instinct is to run to Shiro and take the helmet and the tools from his hands and demand he go back to bed. He resists that urge as he takes a step closer, and in the gentlest tone he can manage he asks him, "How are you feeling? You didn’t seem very well last night.” And that’s putting it mildly, he adds to himself.

"I’m feeling great," Shiro says. “Much better than last night. Sorry about all that, by the way. I must have really worried you.” He gives Keith a warm, reassuring smile.

It doesn’t reassure Keith in the slightest.  

“Your fever was really high last night, Shiro,” he says. “And you…” You almost died , Keith thinks, but doesn’t give voice to that thought. Shiro does look better. He’s up and about and can hold a conversation. Perhaps he really is better; perhaps last night was just a freak accident, some sort of weird space flu that lasts only for a day and then goes away as suddenly as it came.

Somehow, Keith can’t bring himself to believe that.

“Keith, I’m fine,” Shiro says, noticing his silence. “Really.”

“Yeah,” Keith mumbles quickly, “yeah, I know, but—”

You almost died, he thinks again, and his stomach ties up in knots. That same worry and unease grips his hard, unyielding. He wants to take the tools out of Shiro’s hands and march him back to bed, to tuck him under the blankets and not let him get up again until he’s absolutely sure, one hundred percent positive, that Shiro is okay.

There is something Shiro told him once, years before.

It was back when they were both at the Garrison, a few months before the Kerberos mission— stars, it’s like a lifetime has passed since then. They'd snuck out together after curfew to stargaze on the Garrison's roof. They’d brought drinks and snacks with them, as always, but it wasn’t quite the same as other times. Shiro had been quiet and pensive. His hand had been acting up that day, his fingers trembling and going painfully numb; Shiro often tried to brush it away with a joke to lighten the mood, but there were times when he turned glum, his eyes staring inwards. Conversation had soon drifted to Shiro's illness, his childhood that had been filled with hospital visits and endless examinations, the loneliness they brought. Shiro had told Keith of his tenth birthday, how he'd had to stay the whole day at the hospital, unable to move; his grandpa had to bring him the cup of water and hold the straw close to his mouth so Shiro could drink. He couldn't even do that by himself.

I hated feeling so helpless, Shiro had whispered. Keith knows Shiro well enough to understand that he's feeling the same.

“Right,” Keith says, and pushes his sleeves up. He crouches under the monitors and crawls next to Shiro. If he can’t march him back to bed, then he sure as hell won’t let him fiddle with faulty equipment for hours on his own. “I checked the drive condition system yesterday. There wasn’t enough power to fully charge it up, but I think this wire here must be at fault. The landing must have shaken a couple of them loose. Pass me the screwdriver?” He holds his palm out, waiting.

Shiro smiles, a little surprised, as he reaches into the toolbox behind him and hands Keith what he asked for. “I think there’s more than a couple loose wires,” he says. “Altean engineering isn’t my forte, but if we find what’s wrong with it, we might be able to get the star track sensors up and working. It’s worth a shot.”

Keith nods, squinting at the maze of white-blue wires crisscrossing beneath the sleek surface of Black’s deck. After he identifies the issue, he and Shiro deliberate for a moment on how to proceed. They agree to clean and remove the broken part of the wire and glue the remaining bits together for a quick and temporary fix until they can find a proper replacement. Keith holds the two ends while Shiro connects them with the fibre glue from the emergency kit.

“Okay. Ready to try the sensors now?”

“Aye, Captain,” Shiro says, and rises up to his knees to flip the activation switch.

The screen lights up, making a soft thrumming noise. Shiro whoops enthusiastically when readings start flashing on the screen from Black’s external sensors, but it doesn’t last very long before it all dies back down and goes dark. Keith shakes his head and sighs.

“Seems like we need to wait a little longer for the batteries to charge.” He returns the tools back inside the kit. “We’ll try it again later.”

“That sounds like a plan.” Shiro can’t quite hide the disappointment from his smile of agreement. “I tried the comms as well, while you were sleeping. There was only radio static. I tried to alter the frequencies of the infrared system Pidge installed— I played around with the base settings and rebooted the system, but nothing worked. I suppose that will have to wait, too. But,” he adds, helping Keith secure the lid of the toolkit and set it aside, “I did manage to locate Red, which means the internal radars are slowly coming back online.”

"How long will that take, do you think?"

"Impossible to tell. A day or two, if we’re lucky. If nothing else has been damaged that I haven’t been able to find. Whatever we do, we'll need to preserve power. I'm assuming your lion is the same?"

"Pretty much.”

Shiro nods. "We'll probably have to go check up on her soon, make sure everything’s where it’s supposed to be. That ion cannons really did a number on them both." He pushes himself to his feet, but then he stops, swaying. He almost loses his balance, grabbing the back of his pilot seat so he doesn't fall.

Keith is next to him in an instant, holding him upright. "Are you okay?"

"I’m fine," Shiro murmurs, blinking. "Probably just a dizzy spell."

Keith presses his knuckles to Shiro's brow. "Damn it, Shiro, you're still burning up." The worry that Keith has been trying to suppress now returns tenfold. “You should have just stayed in bed.”

“Keith, I told you I’m okay,” Shiro chuckles, more than a little breathless as he lets Keith guide him back inside the room.

“Like hell you are.” Keith helps him sit at the edge of the bed, then grabs the Altean thermometer from the bedside table. The fever isn’t as high as the night before, only a few ticks above normal, but still high enough to warrant an extended stay in bed, rather than crouching on the floor and fixing faulty wires. He urges Shiro to lie back down, to which the other man obeys, amidst laughing protests. “You should be resting, not doing chores."

“You know what they say, I’ll rest when I’m dead.”

“That joke wasn’t funny the first time you said it,” Keith grumbles. “It still isn’t.”

Shiro grins at his frustration. “I thought my sense of humour was the reason we became friends in the first place.”

“Not really, no,” Keith murmurs as he deactivates the thermometer and stands up. He can’t quite hide the smile that curls his lips at the memory of Shiro though, tall and broad and towering over Keith and his old classmates in his strapping Garrison uniform, and completely oblivious to the fact that his car was being stolen right under his nose. “But I bet your superiors at the Garrison thought you had a wicked sense of humour when you dragged me in there like a lost puppy.”

“Hey. You earned that, fair and square.”

Keith hums a quiet laugh, his cheeks feeling a little hot at the praise as he walks to the food cupboard. “We should eat something,” he says, rummaging through the packets of protein bars and the juice boxes. “Don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

“Anything but that gross Altean jelly,” Shiro says, then groans when Keith throws him not one, but two packets.

“Consider this an appetiser while I make us some actual food,” Keith calls from within a cupboard that looks rather promising. There are dehydrated deep sea vegetables from Ukkotil and some sort of dried mushroom powder, and the closest thing to rice Keith has seen since stepping foot in space. He isn’t sure how Shiro got his hands on it —probably at the outdoor market in Olkarion that they visited a while back— but he thinks he might be able to make something edible out of it.

“I could help, you know,” Shiro says behind him. “Those vegetables are a nightmare to chop.”

“Good thing I’m great with knives, then.” Keith winks at him over his shoulder as he tosses the cutting knife in the air, then catches it with a flourish before cutting the vegetables in neat and thin slices at lightning speed. Shiro clicks his tongue.

“Show off,” he says.

Keith laughs, but then he goes quiet, focusing on his task.

Read the rest on AO3!

[jade--moon]

if i pull up the the function in this